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# 1 Hadronic dynamics and large-𝑁_𝑐 counting

## 1 Hadronic dynamics and large-$`N_c`$ counting

The absence of a calculational scheme for properties and low-energy interactions of hadrons from the first principles of the underlying microscopic theory of color dynamics calls for the treatment of this domain by means of effective theories with degrees of freedom other than quarks and gluons. Traditionally nuclear physicists have envisioned nucleon-nucleon interactions as emerging from the exchange of mesons. When QCD was established as the theory of strong interactions three decades ago, the meson-exchange picture was viewed as arising from it: QCD gives rise to effective hadronic degrees of freedom and the interaction of these could then account for nuclear forces. Obviously, these effective degrees of freedom can only describe the low-lying modes of the theory where the underlying quark and gluon degrees of freedom are not easy to disentangle. Therefore, one faces the longstanding problem of correspondence between hadron and color dynamics. The problem we wish to address is the extent to which QCD justifies the traditional meson-exchange picture of nuclear forces.

The large-$`N_c`$ approximation provides a possible framework to investigate this issue since there are a number of important simplifications of QCD in this regime . Of course, it is by no means obvious that one can directly deduce specific phenomenological consequences for the real world from the large-$`N_c`$ perspective. Recall, for example, that the deuteron binding energy, $`\epsilon _B`$, is of order $`N_c`$ while the delta-nucleon mass splitting, $`\delta M`$, is of order $`1/N_c`$. Thus, if one was in the large-$`N_c`$ world one would expect a hierarchy of scales with $`\epsilon _B𝒪(N_c)\delta M𝒪(1/N_c)`$. In the real world, however, one finds these scales indeed widely separated but with the opposite order: $`\epsilon _B\delta M`$. However, the argument that a QCD description of low energy nucleon-nucleon interactions should be describable in a meson-exchange picture does not appear to depend in any explicit way on the fact that $`N_c=3`$ in the physical world. Thus, if the argument is valid it ought to apply equally well in a fictitious multicolor world and one would then expect quantities deduced from the meson-exchange picture to scale with $`N_c`$ in the same way as the same quantities deduced from an analysis conducted directly at the quark-gluon level. The use of large-$`N_c`$ scaling rules to test ideas from nuclear physics is not new. It was argued more than a decade ago that nucleon loop contributions based on point-like nucleon-meson couplings, as was conventionally calculated in various quantum hadrodynamical models , did not scale with $`N_c`$ in a manner consistent with large-$`N_c`$ QCD and hence presumably did not capture the underlying QCD dynamics .

The physical spectrum of QCD consists of colorless hadronic states — baryons and mesons. As discussed by ’t Hooft  and Witten , large-$`N_c`$ QCD gives definite predictions for the scaling of their characteristics with $`N_c`$. For example, the baryon and meson masses are of order $`N_c`$ and unity, respectively, and the single-meson-baryon coupling, $`g_{1m}`$, is of order $`\sqrt{N_c}`$ while meson-baryon scattering amplitudes are of order unity. More generally, reasoning along the lines suggested by Witten  implies that the coupling of $`N`$ mesons to a baryon scales at most as $`g_{Nm}N_c^{1N/2}`$.

Apart from these generic counting rules there are additional constraints coming from the spin-flavor structure of the interaction. This can be seen by imposing the consistency of two single meson-baryon interactions vertices $`𝑽`$ (nominally of order $`N_c`$ in total) with the meson-baryon scattering which unitarity restricts to be of order unity. The cancellations required for this to come about imply a contracted $`SU(4)`$ symmetry for two-flavor QCD , for a review, see Refs. . This implies that baryons form towers of nearly degenerate states with $`I=J`$ and with splittings of order $`1/N_c`$. The contracted $`SU(4)`$ relations hold for states in this tower. The commutation algebra of the spin $`𝑱`$, isospin $`𝑰`$ and spin-isospin $`𝑿`$ vertices is given schematically by

$$[𝑰,𝑰]𝑰,[𝑱,𝑱]𝑱,[𝑰,𝑿]𝑿,[𝑱,𝑿]𝑿,[𝑿,𝑿]1/N_c^2,$$
(1)
The last relation implies a suppression when commutators arise. This occurs in treatments of the tree-level baryon-meson scattering: for the $`N`$-meson-baryon scattering amplitude $`𝒜_N`$ the destructive interference  leads to the appearance of multiple commutators of meson vertices leading to the consistency with the large-$`N_c`$ counting rules predicting $`𝒜_NN_c^{1N/2}`$.

In the present study we address the issue of consistency of the large-$`N_c`$ QCD with the conventional meson-exchange picture used to describe nuclear potentials. If the latter adequately describes the real world it must possess the same multicolor asymptotics as deduced from QCD for loop amplitudes. We consider the potential used for the baryon-baryon scattering shown Fig. 1. The problem at the quark level was discussed by Kaplan and Savage in Ref.  and by Kaplan and Manohar in ; collectively we refer to their analysis as KSM. The basic strategy used by KSM was based on Witten’s Hartree picture where the interaction is identified as being due to the quark-line connected diagrams. KSM then equate the nucleon-nucleon potential to the sum of quark-line connected Feynman graphs which involve exchanges between two groups of $`N_c`$ quark lines which represent baryons. This is then analyzed using the contracted $`SU(4)`$ symmetry. The principal results of this analysis is that the strength of the spin-isospin structures of the nucleon-nucleon potential scale as follows:

$$𝒱_{I=J}N_c,𝒱_{IJ}N_c^1,$$
(2)
where the subscript indicates the quantum numbers of the exchange in the $`t`$-channel. It is straightforward to see from the large-$`N_c`$ scaling rules of meson-baryon couplings that a one-meson exchange potential will satisfy Eq. (2). It is not immediately obvious, however, that multi-meson exchange potentials will obey this rule since superficially they are clearly larger than allowed by Eq. (2). For example, at the two-meson exchange level, both the retardation effects from box graphs and the contributions from cross-box graphs enter $`𝒱_{I=J}`$ and $`𝒱_{IJ}`$ at order $`N_c^2`$. However, as shown in a detailed calculation in Ref.  cancellations between these two yield potentials compatible with Eq. (2). The contracted $`SU(4)`$ structure played an essential role in achieving this goal. Note that to get the consistency with $`𝒱_{IJ}`$ cancellations up to order $`N_c^3`$ are needed; in fact they occurred up to order $`N_c^4`$.

The results of Ref.  raise the hope that similar cancellations might be expected for all multi-meson exchanges. If these were true, it would show consistency at large $`N_c`$ between the scaling of the potential at the quark-gluon and hadronic level and would help to justify meson-exchange based potential models as arising from QCD. However, as will be shown in this paper, the type of cancellations seen for the two-meson exchange, do not occur for general multi-meson exchanges. Thus, potentials derived from generic hadronic theories calculated at a fixed number of meson-exchanges do not give rise to potentials that respect the KSM scaling rules of Eq. (2). This result is puzzling in view of the general expectation that the physics of QCD at low energies can be described in terms of hadronic degrees of freedom. We will refer to this as the “large-$`N_c`$ nuclear potential puzzle”. There is a second puzzling aspects of this problem. In studying exchanges of quark-antiquark pairs the role of “static” pairs, i.e., pairs whose energy transfer is small (of order $`1/N_c`$), is special: the leading order contribution of multi-pair exchanges to the potential requires all pairs to be static. If there was a one-to-one mapping between classes of quark-gluon diagrams with hadronic ones this would correspond to static meson exchanges. In fact, however we will see that the “dangerous” contributions at the hadronic level — the ones which contradict the KSM rules of Eq. (2) — all come from non-static meson exchanges.

The calculations of multi-meson exchanges can get quite complicated. Accordingly, it is useful to develop tools which greatly simplify the analysis. The non-abelian generalization of the eikonal formula  which can be used to compute the sum of certain multi-meson amplitudes will be quite handy in this context. In the following section we will review this formalism. In section 3 we show how sums of various multi-meson diagrams lead to contributions which are incompatible with the KSM rules. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of possible resolutions of this apparent paradox.

## 2 Non-abelian eikonal formula

Following Ref.  we consider a baryon which emits or absorbs a number of virtual mesons. Since the baryon is extremely heavy at $`N_c=\mathrm{}`$ it can be treated as almost static. It will be a nonrelativistic particle if its three-momentum $`𝒑`$ is of $`𝒪(N_c^0)`$; the four momentum is then $`(M+𝒑^2/\left(2M\right),𝒑)`$. In this kinematic regime the heavy baryon propagator is approximated by the product of the conventional eikonal propagator and a projection matrix (which will be omitted later) on the large components of the nucleon bispinor

$$\frac{1}{\overline{)}p+\overline{)}kM^{}+iϵ}\frac{1}{\omega +iϵ}\frac{\text{1}\text{l}+\gamma _0}{2}.$$
(3)
Taken literally, this expression which neglects the nucleon recoil is only valid for meson energies $`\omega `$, $`k=(\omega ,𝒌)`$, of order $`𝒪(N_c^0)`$. If $`\omega `$ is of order $`N_c^1`$ then the denominator of the propagator (3) is modified to include the recoil effect as follows: $`\omega \omega +\delta M+\left(𝒑^2(𝒑+𝒌)^2\right)/\left(2M\right)`$, with the mass difference of the “degenerate” states in the baryon tower $`\delta M=MM^{}`$. Note, $`\delta M`$ is $`𝒪(N_c^1)`$ . For simplicity we generally omit this modification in our expressions. This approximation has to be kept in mind since it leads to singularities in the integrand of certain loop amplitudes. However, they are easily identifiable and cured by the simple expedient of reintroducing the recoil correction.

There is an important kinematical constraint in this regime. Since the initial and final nucleons are on-shell and have three-momenta of order $`N_c^0`$, the kinetic energies of the initial and final states are thus of order $`N_c^1`$ (due to the fact that $`MN_c`$) and thus the total exchenged energy is also of order $`N_c^1`$.

The blob on the lower baryon line in Fig. 1 represents the tree amplitude for production of $`N`$ mesons $`𝒜_N`$; it includes all possible permutation of single meson emissions from the baryon line and this contribution reads

$$𝒜_N\underset{\sigma \{1\mathrm{}N\}}{}𝒜[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _N],$$
(4)
where

$$𝒜[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _N]=𝑽_{\sigma _1}𝑽_{\sigma _2}\mathrm{}𝑽_{\sigma _N}a[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _N],$$
(5)
with one of the matrices $`𝑽=\{\mathrm{𝟏},𝑰,𝑱,𝑿\}`$ associated with the meson-baryon interaction vertex, and

$$a[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _N]2\pi i\delta \left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\omega _j\right)\underset{j=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{1}{_{k=1}^j\omega _{\sigma _k}+iϵ}.$$
(6)
Obviously, for a single element $`\sigma `$ (and neglecting recoil as discussed above), $`a[\sigma ]=2\pi i\delta (\omega _\sigma )`$.

Due to the destructive Bose-Einstein interference, $`𝒜_N`$ can be expressed by a multiple commutator formula for the sum of non-abelian eikonal amplitudes discussed in Ref. ,

$`𝒜_N={\displaystyle \underset{\sigma \{1\mathrm{}N\}}{}}\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _N].`$ (7)
The constructive definition of the multi-commutator amplitude $`\stackrel{~}{𝒜}`$ goes as follows. For a given ordering of lines, if the rightmost element of the given permutation is smaller than any other element to its left, then there is only one partition and it is the whole tree. Otherwise, go to the first element whose number is smaller and draw a partition just before that element. Next, start to the left of this partition and repeat the procedure again. Through the cut separating the partitions, the amplitude factorizes:

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _2|\sigma _3\mathrm{}\sigma _4|\mathrm{}]=\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _2]\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\sigma _3\mathrm{}\sigma _4]\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\mathrm{}],$$
(8)
where $`\sigma _2<\sigma _4<\mathrm{}`$, $`\sigma _1>\mathrm{}>\sigma _2`$ and $`\sigma _3>\mathrm{}>\sigma _4`$. The amplitudes without partitions are given by the commutator formula with the innermost commutator formed by the last two elements of the tree,

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _{n1}\sigma _n]=[𝑽_{\sigma _1},\mathrm{},[𝑽_{\sigma _{n1}},𝑽_{\sigma _n}]\mathrm{}]a[\sigma _1\mathrm{}\sigma _{n1}\sigma _n].$$
(9)
The first two nontrivial examples read

$`𝒜_2`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[1|2]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[21],`$ (10)
$`𝒜_3`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[1|2|3]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[21|3]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[1|32]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[231]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[31|2]+\stackrel{~}{𝒜}[321].`$
The proof is straightforward by the Fourier transformation of both sides of the equality.

The generalizations are obvious. The constructive formula reads

$$𝒜_N=\underset{\sigma =\sigma _1+\mathrm{}+\sigma _j}{}\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{j}{}}a[\{\sigma _k\}]\right)𝑽\left[\{\sigma _1\}\right]\mathrm{}𝑽\left[\{\sigma _j\}\right],$$
(11)
with a number of partitions $`j`$ of a given permutation $`\sigma `$ into sets $`\sigma _k`$ with elements $`\{\sigma _k\}=\sigma _k^{(1)},\mathrm{},\sigma _k^{(k)}`$ constructed according to the definition given above. For a single element in the set $`𝑽\left[k\right]`$ coincides with the single vertex $`𝑽_k`$. For more than one element it is given by a multiple commutator $`𝑽\left[\{\sigma _k\}\right]=[𝑽_{\sigma _k^{(1)}},\mathrm{},[𝑽_{\sigma _k^{(k1)}},𝑽_{\sigma _k^{(k)}}]\mathrm{}]`$. For the abelian case, i.e., when $`𝑽\mathrm{𝟏}`$, all commutators vanish and one gets the well-known eikonal formula.

## 3 Baryon-baryon scattering

The baryon-baryon interaction at large $`N_c`$ comes from the exchange of pairs of quark constituents. A quark from one of the hadrons switches places with any quark in the other baryon and exchanges a gluon to neutralize the color charge. The quark exchange, in Fig. 2 (a), may naturally be reinterpreted at the hadronic level as a meson exchange,

$$𝒱(𝒒)=g_{1m}^2D(𝒒^2)\text{with}D(q^2)=\frac{1}{q^2m^2+iϵ},$$
(12)
where for simplicity we have chosen the example of the scalar-isoscalar channel. Clearly, this correspondence between the meson and quark exchanges is not valid on a diagram-by-diagram basis. Presumably the sum of all quark exchange diagrams including an arbitrary number of gluons connecting the exchanged quarks (which if planar are leading order in $`N_c`$) gets mapped onto the sum of all one meson-exchange graphs for mesons with these quantum numbers.

In analyzing the contributions to the potential one must recall that the full amplitude is obtained from the potential by an iteration. Thus, nonrelativistic amplitudes satisfy the Lippmann-Schwinger equation

$$𝒯(𝒑,𝒑+𝒒)=𝒱(𝒒)+\frac{d^3𝒌}{(2\pi )^3}𝒱(𝒌)𝒢(𝒌)𝒯(𝒑+𝒌,𝒑+𝒒),$$
(13)
with the potential $`𝒱`$ and the two-baryon propagator

$$𝒢(𝒌)\frac{1}{\frac{𝒑^2}{M}\frac{(𝒌+𝒑)^2}{M}+iϵ}=\frac{d\omega }{2\pi i}\frac{1}{\left(\omega \frac{𝒑^2}{2M}+\frac{(𝒌+𝒑)^2}{2M}iϵ\right)\left(\omega +\frac{𝒑^2}{2M}\frac{(𝒌+𝒑)^2}{2M}+iϵ\right)}.$$
(14)
Here we defined $`𝒢`$ as the conventional nonrelativistic Green function for a two-baryon system of the reduced mass $`M/2`$ and in the last form we reexpressed it in terms of the single-particle propagators neglecting $`\delta M`$. The kinematics is chosen according to Fig. 1 where $`p=(E,𝒑)`$ and $`p^{}=(E,𝒑)`$ with nonrelativistic expansion $`EM+𝒑^2/\left(2M\right)`$. The momentum transferred $`q=pp^{}=(q_0,𝒒)`$ has a small time-component $`q_0𝒪(1/N_c)`$ since it is inversely proportional to the baryon mass.

When assessing the contribution of some hadronic-level Feynman diagram to the potential, it is essential to note that the Feynman diagrams sum to give the full amplitude and not just the potential. Accordingly, to extract the contributions to the potential, one must remove all contributions which correspond to iterates of the potential. Fortunately, they are easily identifiable. From the nonrelativistic form (14) it is clear that as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$, $`𝒢`$ diverges since $`MN_c`$. Thus, in the large-$`N_c`$ limit, these potential iterates are associated with infrared singularities and these are the only infrared singularities in the problem. Thus, when one encounters them in the integrals one may make the substitution

$$𝑑\omega \frac{\delta (\omega )}{\omega +iϵ}𝒢,$$
(15)
where one inputs $`𝒢`$ with appropriate kinematics. More significantly, having identified these terms as arising from a potential iterate, one can remove them from the amplitude to extract an irreducible contribution to the potential only.

The baryon-baryon interaction at the QCD level is generated by various complicated quark-exchange processes sampled in Fig. 2. One expects that these are connected diagrams which contribute to the potential while the quark-line disconnected amplitudes, such as 2 (c), are associated with iterates of the potential which arise in the Lippmann-Schwinger equation. On the hadronic side, the sum of the quark-level diagrams can presumably be interpreted as meson exchanges. A few examples of these can be found in Fig. 3. As we will demonstrate momentarily, at multiple meson exchanges the correspondence between quark and hadron level diagrams is lost.

For the sake of concreteness, we illustrate the issues by considering bosons with scalar-isoscalar quantum numbers. For other channels, the presence of nontrivial spin-isospin indices introduces significant complications due to the noncommutativity of vertices but does not affect the main line of reasoning. We will return to the effects of noncommutativity when we consider ladder and crossed-ladder diagrams. We also will neglect all effects of momentum dependence in the meson-baryon couplings. Again it easy to see that they do not alter our conclusions.

Let us analyze what kinds of quark configurations give contributions to the potential. The one quark-pair exchange in Fig. 2 (a) is translated into the one-meson exchange of Fig. 3 (a). At the quark level, there is a $`N_c^2`$ combinatorial factor from the number of possibilities to join the quark lines in both baryons and there is a $`1/\left(\sqrt{N_c}\right)^2`$ from the two gluon couplings. This results in an overall scaling as $`N_c`$ which is compatible with Eq. (2). On the hadronic side the meson-baryon coupling behaves as $`\sqrt{N_c}`$ and the one-meson exchange diagram thus also scales as $`N_c`$. Note that the energy transfer scales as $`1/N_c`$ and vanishes for $`N_c\mathrm{}`$. Thus, both the exchanged meson and the exchanged quark pair are static with this kinematics.

The two quark-pair exchange diagram in Fig. 2 (b) is of order $`N_c`$: a combinatoric factor of $`N_c^3`$ and a factor of $`1/\left(\sqrt{N_c}\right)^4`$ from the coupling constants. Note, this diagram has both pairs of quarks coupled to the same quark line in one of the baryons and thus corresponds to the diagram with a two-meson-baryon (seagull) vertex, Fig. 3 (b). The reason for both pairs to couple to the same line in a baryon is simple. If they do not, then the graph would be quark-line disconnected and thus, by hypothesis, not associated with the irreducible part of the potential. By the $`N_c`$-counting for this disconnected quark graph to agree with the seagull diagram, it would require an extra gluon exchange to yield the same total large-$`N_c`$ behavior. On the quark level one again realizes that the leading order contribution of this type comes from the exchange of static pairs. In this case the requirement goes beyond simple kinematics. Kinematically the energies of the two exchanges must be equal and opposite (up to $`1/N_c`$-corrections) but need not be static. However, the two affected quark lines in the upper baryon in Fig. 2 (b) do not communicate by a gluon and, therefore, if each quark exchange carries an energy then the energy of the final state quarks would not correspond to the single particle energies in the Hartree ground state. On the other hand, if they do exchange a gluon there is an extra $`1/N_c`$-suppression without an off-setting combinatoric gain so the term is not of leading order in the $`1/N_c`$-expansion. On the hadronic level the static nature of the exchange can be seen to arises as follows from the Feynman diagram of Fig. 3 (b):

$`i𝒯`$ $`=`$ $`g_{1m}^2g_{2m}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(𝒌_1+𝒌_2𝒒\right)\underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{d\omega _j}{2\pi }(2\pi )\frac{\delta (\omega _1+\omega _2)}{\omega _1iϵ}D(k_1^2)D(k_2^2)}`$
$`=`$ $`i\pi g_{1m}^2g_{2m}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(𝒌_1+𝒌_2𝒒\right)\underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{d\omega _j}{2\pi }(2\pi )\delta (\omega _1)\delta (\omega _2)D(𝒌_1^2)D(𝒌_2^2)}.`$
where $`g_{1m}\sqrt{N_c}`$ is the single meson-nucleon coupling constant, $`g_{2m}N_c^0`$ is the “seagull” coupling and $`D(𝒌^2)=\left(𝒌^2m^2+iϵ\right)^1`$ is the meson propagator for a meson of mass $`m`$, three-momentum $`𝒌`$ and zero energy. The second equality follows from the fact that the meson propagators are even functions of the meson energies $`\omega _j`$ so that one immediately finds that the principal value part of the baryon propagator cancels under integration and only the $`\delta `$-function piece survives. Thus only static-exchange mesons contribute.

In addition to the seagull-type two-meson exchange there are also box and crossed-box contributions to the potential. As discussed at length in Ref. , the retardation effects in the box and crossed-box graphs separately violate the counting rules of Eq. (2). Moreover the contributions from these graphs come entirely from non-static meson exchanges. However, these terms when summed cancel one another yielding the total result consistent with Eq. (2) and without contributions from non-static mesons. At the level of the amplitude at the two-meson exchange level one also has an iterate of the static one-meson exchanges. This term presumably is associated with the non-quark-line-connected part of the two quark-pair exchange graphs at the quark-gluon level.

### 3.1 A problem at three-meson exchange level

The three quark-pair exchange of the type displayed in Fig. 2 (c) is not quark-line connected. Rather two of the exchanges are connected while the third one is disconnected. By hypothesis, then, this graph is not to be associated with the potential but presumably with a potential iterate. Using the analysis similar to what was done previously in this paper it is easy to see that all of the exchanged quark-pairs must be static at leading order in the $`1/N_c`$-expansion (which for this class of graph is formally of order $`N_c^2`$ — larger than the allowed scaling of the potential — due to the disconnected nature of the graph.)

At the hadronic level this graph should be associated with a seagull exchange as in Fig. 2 (b) dressed with an extra single-meson exchange. This generates six diagrams displayed in Fig. 4. The generalized eikonal formula of section 2 can be applied to describe the lower line in Fig. 4 in a straightforward manner (with the “seagull” vertex taking the place of a single-particle one)<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1We use the eikonal formula on the lower line since it is simpler. When applied to the upper line, the potential iterate contributions are not identifiable as easily.. Because the vertices commute, only the $`\delta `$-function contributes for the propagators in appropriate pairs of graphs. This implies a cancellation of the fully non-static parts of diagrams Fig. 4 (a) with 4 (c) and 4 (d) with 4 (f), where “fully non-static” implies that all the mesons exchanged are non-static. These cancellations are reminiscent of the ones of the retardation effects in box graphs against crossed-box graphs discussed in Ref. . The $`\delta `$-function contributions to Fig. 4 (a,c) and Fig. 4 (d,f) give combinations of propagators of the form seen in Eq. (15). Obviously, they are iterates of the lowest order Lippmann-Schwinger kernel and do not affect the potential itself. Finally, there is a $`\delta `$-function contribution to Fig. (4) (b,e). This term is not an iterate of the potential but rather an irreducible contribution to it given by

$`\delta 𝒱`$ $`=`$ $`g_{1m}^4g_{2m}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}𝒌_j𝒒\right)}`$ (17)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d\omega _j}{2\pi }(2\pi )\delta \left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\omega _j\right)\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}D(k_j^2)\right)\frac{1}{\omega _1iϵ}\frac{1}{\omega _1+\omega _2iϵ}(2\pi i)\delta (\omega _2)}.`$
Note, there are two $`\delta `$-functions in energy but three energies. Thus, they do not force all three mesons to be static. Rather, the single exchanged meson is static, while the two mesons connected to the seagull vertex have equal and opposite (but generally non-zero) energy transfer. Performing the energy integrations yields

$$\delta 𝒱=g_{1m}^4g_{2m}\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}𝒌_j𝒒\right)D(𝒌_2^2)_2(\epsilon _1,\epsilon _3)$$
(18)
For simplicity, have introduced a general function $`_n`$ which shows commonly in expressions for multi-meson contributions with two non-static mesons,

$$_n(\epsilon _j,\epsilon _k)\frac{d\omega }{2\pi i}\frac{1}{\left(\omega iϵ\right)^n}D(\omega ^2𝒌_j^2)D(\omega ^2𝒌_k^2)=\frac{1}{2\left(\epsilon _j\epsilon _k\right)^{n+1}}\frac{\epsilon _j^{n+1}\epsilon _k^{n+1}}{\epsilon _j^2\epsilon _k^2},$$
(19)
with $`\epsilon _j\sqrt{𝒌_j^2+m^2}`$.

A couple comments is in order at this point. The first is that $`\delta 𝒱`$ as given in Eq. (18) scales as $`N_c^2`$. This is easily seen since $`g_{1m}\sqrt{N_c}`$ while $`g_{2m}N_c^0`$ and both $`D(𝒌_2^2)`$ and $`_n(\epsilon _j,\epsilon _k)`$ are independent of $`N_c`$. The second is that this contribution to $`\delta 𝒱`$ does not vanish. Both $`D(𝒌_2^2)`$ and $`_n(\epsilon _j,\epsilon _k)`$ are positive definite so no cancellations are possible in the integral. This is the heart of our puzzle. The three-meson exchange contribution to the potential is of order $`N_c^2`$ this is incompatible with Eq. (2) which was derived at the quark level. Moreover, the contribution comes entirely from non-static meson contributions. At the three quark-pair exchange level the amplitude only gets contributions from non-static pairs at order $`N_c`$ (even including quark-line disconnected pieces.)

In the explicit computation done above, point-like meson-nucleon couplings were used. It is clear that had momentum dependent vertices been included the functional form of the integral used to derive the potential would be altered but the $`N_c`$-counting would not. Similarly, it is clear that this problem is not restricted to effects from seagull graphs. It is trivial to see that order $`N_c^2`$ contributions will arise in other topologies with multi-meson couplings such as exemplified in Fig. 3 (d). Note, though, that this diagram corresponds to the same quark-level topology in Fig. 2 (c) hinting on a possible conspiracy of the seagull and three-meson vertex contributions.

### 3.2 Ladders and crossed ladders

A similar problem shows up in the contributions form ladder and crossed-ladder diagrams. Here, we will consider the effect of $`N`$ identical mesons with non-derivative point-like couplings to the baryons. Derivative couplings will not alter the conclusions, but, as seen in Ref. , greatly complicate the analysis. Non-point-like couplings can also be easily included and do not alter the qualitative results either. Similarly, the restriction to identical mesons is done for simplicity; again the conclusions will not be strongly dependent on this. Since we are interested in the possibility of effects which violate the KSM rules by having a “super-leading” $`N_c`$-dependence, we will consider the exchanges of mesons which have couplings to baryons of order $`\sqrt{N_c}`$, the maximum allowable. From the analysis of the contracted $`SU(4)`$ symmetry in Ref.  these will be a scalar-isoscalar vertex or a spin one, isospin one $`𝑿_{ia}`$-type. As will be seen below, the super-leading effect depends on the non-vanishing of the commutators of the vertices. Thus, the scalar-isoscalar exchanges, which commute, will not contribute (unless other non-commuting exchanges are also present). Accordingly we will restrict our attention to mesons that couple in a non-derivative way to $`𝑿_{ia}`$. An example of such a meson is the spatial part of the $`𝖠_1`$ (recalling that for nonrelativistic baryons, the couplings to the temporal and spatial parts of vector mesons can be separated).

Note that our result will depend on the fact that our problem is $`[𝑿_{ia},𝑿_{jb}]0`$. Of course, for contracted $`SU(4)`$ this commutator is zero. However, one only has the contracted $`SU(4)`$ symmetry for infinite $`N_c`$. For finite $`N_c`$ the commutator is small, scaling as $`N_c^2`$ but not zero. If the commutator is multiplied by a function which grows with $`N_c`$ rapidly enough it will contribute and can indeed be associated with super-leading effects.

For any given number of meson exchanges one has to sum the blob in Fig. (5) representing the emission of mesons with all orderings. For this purpose the non-abelian generalization of the eikonal formula in Eq. (11) is indispensable.

The amplitude for the exchange of $`N`$ point-coupled $`𝖠_1`$ mesons is given by

$`𝒯_N`$ $`=`$ $`(i)^Ng_{1m}^{2N}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}𝒌_j𝒒\right)\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{d\omega _j}{2\pi }\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}D(k_j^2)\right)}`$ (20)
$`\times `$ $`𝑽_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _1iϵ}}𝑽_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _1+\omega _2iϵ}}𝑽_3\mathrm{}𝑽_{N1}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{_{j=1}^{N1}\omega _jiϵ}}𝑽_N𝒜_N,`$
where $`𝒜_N`$ is the sum of all permutations of the positions of the mesons coupling to the lower line, see Eq. (4). The generalization of the eikonal formula in Eq. (11) gives a straightforward way to express $`𝒜_N`$. The notation in Eq. (20) is to be understood as follows. The vertex factors, $`𝑽_N`$ represent the spin-isospin structure of the couplings. Since, in this example we are considering $`𝖠_1`$ exchange, at leading order in $`N_c`$, it is simply represented by the $`𝑿_{ia}`$ of the contracted $`SU(4)`$ symmetry. The tensor product is used to describe the spin-isospin structures which appear on each of two baryon lines. Note that $`𝒜_N`$ also contains the structures $`𝑽_1\mathrm{}𝑽_N`$. There is an implicit contraction of spin and isospin indices when we write $`𝑽_k𝑽_k`$, so that for this example

$`𝑽_k𝑽_k{\displaystyle \underset{ia}{}}𝑿_{ia}𝑿_{ia}.`$
This contraction comes about for obvious reasons: when an $`𝖠_1`$ meson is exchanged the spatial $`i`$ and isospin $`a`$ components couple to both the upper and lower baryon lines.

The generalized eikonal formula allows us to evaluate $`𝒜_N`$ is a straightforward way. There is a large number of terms contained in $`𝒜_N`$. These can be organized by the number of commutators they contain. From the form of Eq. (11) one sees that each time a commutator is added there is one fewer $`\delta `$-function in energy. The term with no commutators has a total of $`N`$ $`\delta `$-functions. Thus, these meson exchanges are static. However, it is straightforward to see that this term when combined with the meson propagators and the upper baryon line contains $`N1`$ combinations of propagators which are divergent in the infrared and have the form of Eq. (15). They obviously correspond to $`N`$ iterates of the one-meson exchange potential. (This can be checked by adding back the recoil corrections and observing that Lippmann-Schwinger propagator emerges.) Thus, this term does not contribute to the potential. Next there are terms with a single commutator in $`𝒜_N`$. The term with the commutator $`[𝑽_i,𝑽_j]`$ (where $`i`$ and $`j`$ label the position of the meson vertex in the standard ordering, $`i>j`$) contains $`N1(ij)`$ combinations of the form of Eq. (15). For $`ij<N1`$, these terms again are iterates of some lower meson-exchange potentials and do not contribute to the potential itself. However, for $`ij=N1`$, i.e., where $`i=N`$ and $`j=1`$, there are no such combinations of propagators and, thus, this does not correspond to an iterate and directly contributes to the potential. This term is unique and leads to a contribution of the form:

$`\delta 𝒱_N`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^{N+1}g_{1m}^{2N}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{d^3𝒌_j}{(2\pi )^3}(2\pi )^3\delta ^{(3)}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}𝒌_j𝒒\right)}`$ (21)
$`\times `$ $`𝑽_1\mathrm{}𝑽_N[𝑽_N,𝑽_1]𝑽_2\mathrm{}𝑽_{N1}\left({\displaystyle \underset{j=2}{\overset{N1}{}}}D(𝒌_j^2)\right)_N(\epsilon _1,\epsilon _N).`$
Note that apart from the $`𝑽`$-factors (which are multiplicative) the integrand is positive definite. Thus $`\delta 𝒱`$ cannot vanish after integration. Recall that the commutator of two $`𝑿`$’s is of order $`1/N_c^2`$. Note also that there are contractions of the spin and isospin on the lower baryon line with the upper. Thus the commutator on the lower line induces a commutator on the upper line in a fashion similar to that seen in Ref. . Thus one expects the commutators to give rise to an overall suppression factor of $`N_c^4`$. The coupling constants $`g_{1m}`$ scales as $`\sqrt{N_c}`$. Combining the suppression due to the commutator with the coupling constants produces $`\delta 𝒱_NN_c^{N4}`$ in the potential. For $`N>3`$ this is incompatible with KSM scaling rules of Eq. (2).

One could continue in the application of the non-abelian generalization of the eikonal formula in the evaluation of $`𝒜_N`$. All additional terms will have two or more commutators. Some of these terms will correspond to potential iterates, but some will be contributions to the potential. Recall, however, that commutators typically lead to suppression factors in the large-$`N_c`$ expansion. For example, two single commutators will be suppressed from the single commutator by a factor of $`N_c^2`$ (with an additional factor $`N_c^2`$ induced on the upper line. Similarly a triple commutator is suppressed by a factor of $`N_c^2`$. Such contributions are therefore subleading compared to the result in Eq. (21). However, the double commutator is not down by powers of $`N_c^1`$. It is a simple exercise to see that such term have a different dependence on the momentum transfer than the contribution in Eq. (21). Thus, such a contribution cannot generally cancel terms coming from a single commutator. Thus one concludes that the sum of ladder and crossed-ladder diagrams with $`N`$ rungs contributes to the potential with the strength $`\delta 𝒱_NN_c^{N4}`$.

## 4 Discussion

As discussed in the introduction, the principal reason for undertaking the present investigation is to try to understand whether the traditional meson-exchange picture of nucleon-nucleon forces can be understood as arising from QCD. The central idea was that the general argument that a meson exchange picture ought to work was not based on the details of QCD other than confinement and hence ought to work for all $`N_c`$. Thus, the fact that the $`N_c`$-counting of the nucleon-nucleon potential calculated at the quark-gluon level does not match the $`N_c`$-counting based on a meson-exchange picture might be taken as a strong evidence against the latter. The conclusion that QCD is not compatible with a meson-exchange dynamics of nucleon-nucleon interactions at low momenta is quite radical. In the first place it goes against the conventional wisdom of nuclear physics. Moreover, it might be troubling from the perspective of large-$`N_c`$ QCD. Here-to-fore in all known examples in the purely mesonic sector the large-$`N_c`$ QCD counting matches what would be found in a purely hadronic theory with parameters scaling in a manner consistent with large-$`N_c`$ QCD. In the baryon-number one sector problems discussed so far in the literature have a correspondence between hadronic and quark-gluon based descriptions. This was demonstrated so far for the tree-level Compton (multi-) meson-baryon scattering amplitudes  and chiral corrections to decay constants . Note, however, that on the basis of the considerations advocated presently one expects a potential inconsistency in the meson-baryon Compton amplitude from the loop diagrams of the type 3 (d) (obviously, with the bottom baryon line being removed). Before one accepts this radical conclusion, it is essential to explore other ways to resolve the puzzle of why the two descriptions have $`N_c`$-scaling behaviors which do not match. There are a number of possible explanations which are consistent with what we know about the system. However, all of them are unattractive in one way or another.

One general class of possibilities is that the way the hadronic-level calculation is organized is in some way defective and this hides cancellations which might bring consistency. Here we have seen that diagrams for generic exchanges of mesons of some fixed type do not cancel among themselves. It is certainly logically possible that they may cancel with some other class of graphs to preserve the scaling results of Eq. (2). One might hope that there is some way to reorganize the calculation so that the cancellations do occur. We see no simple way for this to come about. We do see two obvious scenarios where these cancellations could come about but have serious drawbacks as a resolution.

In the first scenario the cancellations would still occur for generic meson coupling constants with the large-$`N_c`$ rules but would require a larger class of graphs. Since additional meson exchanges lead to increasingly super-leading terms it is conceivable that they can be resummed. Such a resummation could lead to a small result. If for example, the series were essentially geometric — $`N_c+N_c^2+N_c^3+\mathrm{}`$ — one could sum it to $`1/(1N_c)1`$ which goes to (minus) one in the large-$`N_c`$ limit. Unfortunately, this scenario has a manifest drawback: we see no reason from the mathematical structures as to why we might expect this to happen.

A second scenario is that the cancellations will not occur for a generic hadronic theory with parameters consistent with general $`N_c`$-counting rules but depend rather on a conspiracy between the coupling constants, masses and so on for the various mesons to yield cancellations. As a matter of principle, of course, this cannot be ruled out. Two-flavor isospin-symmetric QCD is a theory with essentially two free parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ and $`m_q`$ (defined with some scheme) and all hadronic parameters derived from QCD depend on these two in a very complicated way. Thus, there are very complex correlations between the hadronic parameters and one could imagine that these correlations conspire to enforce massive cancellations between diagrams with different topologies on the hadronic level. Since we do not know the structure of this theory, it is very difficult to conceive of how such cancellations would come about in practice and why they would hold for arbitrary momentum transfers. We note also that if this scenario was correct, it becomes hard to justify the use of the meson exchange in practice. In any practical implementation of a potential based on a meson exchange, the number of mesons included and the forms of the particular interactions are necessarily restricted. It is very implausible that the restricted form chosen would be capable of enforcing these nongeneric cancellations.

An alternative class of explanations focuses on the validity of KSM rules. Eq. (2) is supposed to apply in the kinematic regime $`𝒑N_c^0`$. However it is conceivable that this regime is simply not suitable for a large-$`N_c`$ expansion. It was long ago noted by Witten that scattering observables cannot have a smooth large-$`N_c`$ limit in this kinematic regime , thus Refs.  focus on the potential rather than the amplitude. However, there has never been a systematic demonstration that the potential in this regime has a smooth limit. Of course, the derivation of Eq. (2) is very plausible. It is based on the Hartree picture which in turn implies that only quark-line connected graphs contribute. It is worth noting, however, that despite its plausibility, the derivation may be flawed. Witten justified the Hartree picture for $`N_c`$ quarks in their ground state where it can be shown that non-Hartree type correlations are suppressed in the $`1/N_c`$-expansion. On the other hand, the potential only has meaning as an ingredient in a Schrödinger (or Lippmann-Schwinger) equation. The Schrödinger wave function implies strong correlations between the nucleons which at the quark level does not correspond to a Hartree-type wave function. Thus, the question arises of whether the Hartree/quark-line connected approximation can be justified. Indeed at a philosophical level one might ask whether the potential, which, after all, is not experimentally accessible in any direct way, can even be assigned an $`N_c`$-scaling. At a more practical level the problem is that quark-line disconnected pieces certainly contribute to amplitudes but by hypothesis do not contribute to the potential. Thus, for the approach to be consistent, these contribution must be associated with iterates of the potential. However, there is no general argument of which we aware of which demonstrates that the quark-line disconnected contributions are in fact described by iterating the potential.

Explanations of the mismatch in $`N_c`$ counting based on the possibility that Eq. (2) is invalid face a major hurdle. The problem is that most likely that Eq. (2) could fail is that its derivation assumes that the quark-line disconnected parts are associated with potential iterates and that this assumption could be wrong. However, this mismatch between the $`N_c`$-dependence at the quark-gluon level from the hadronic one occurs even at the amplitude level where the question of determining which contribution is an iterate does not arise. Note that although the amplitude for the three quark-pair exchange is of order $`N_c^3`$, this contribution comes from purely quark-line disconnected contributions and for the reason discussed above is necessarily associated with the static quark-pair exchanges. The leading contribution arising from two pairs being non-static and one being static is of order $`N_c`$ (see Fig. 2 (c) and add a gluon connecting exchanged quarks in the top baryon line in the subgraph (b) of (c)). However at the hadronic level the term with a static and two non-static mesons, as discussed in section 3.1, contributed to the total amplitude at order $`N_c^2`$. Thus, even at the amplitude level the contribution from the exchange of one static and two non-static mesons does not match the contribution from the exchange of two non-static quark pairs and a static pair. This mismatch cannot be ascribed to the distinction in how things are apportioned between the potential and its iterates.

In summary, the mismatch between the $`N_c`$-counting of contributions to the potential between quark- and hadron-based descriptions remains puzzling. It seems likely to us that an understanding the roles played by static and non-static exchanges of mesons in the hadronic picture and quark-antiquark pairs in the quark-based formalism is essential resolving this puzzle definitively. The resolution of the problem is of real importance as it provides insights into the relationship of nuclear phenomenology to QCD.

We would like to thank X. Ji who initiated the present collaboration. We acknowledge conversations with B.A. Gelman, D.B. Kaplan, A.V. Manohar and S.J. Wallace.


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# Transport properties in the 𝑑-density wave state: Wiedemann-Franz law

## Abstract

We study the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law in the $`d`$-density wave (DDW) model. Even though the opening of the DDW gap $`(W_0)`$ profoundly modifies the electronic density of states and makes it dependent on energy, the value of the WF ratio at zero temperature $`(T=0)`$ remains unchanged. However, neither electrical nor thermal conductivity display universal behavior. For finite temperature, with $`T`$ greater than the value of the impurity scattering rate at zero frequency $`\gamma (0)`$ i.e. $`\gamma (0)<TW_0`$, the usual WF ratio is obtained only in the weak scattering limit. For strong scattering there are large violations of the WF law.

In a recent paper Hill et al. hill  have observed large violation of the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law in (Pr,Ce)2CuO2 driven into the normal state through the application of a $`13`$ Tesla magnetic field. At very low temperature $`T<0.2K`$, the thermal conductivity is found to be much less than the value estimated from the D.C. conductivity. Above $`0.3K`$ the opposite holds. This observation suggests that an exotic state of matter may exist in the normal state of (Pr,Ce)2CuO2. Hill et al. consider spin-charge separation as one possibility.

Recently $`d`$-density wave (DDW) order has received considerable attention chakravarty1 ; chakravarty2 ; dhlee ; zhu ; kim  as a possible exotic state of matter with a pseudogap which breaks time reversal symmetry because it introduces bond current with attendant small orbital magnetic moments. The pseudogap has $`d`$-wave symmetry. This is the symmetry observed in studies of the variation of the leading edge of the electron spectral density by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, arpes  as a function of angle in the Brillouin zone in the normal state of underdoped cuprates. A pseudogap with $`d`$-wave symmetry implies important energy dependence of the quasiparticles density of states (DOS) at the Fermi surface (FS). Energy dependence in the DOS leads to impurity scattering rates that also depend on energy and the applicability of the usual WF law is no longer guaranteed.

In this paper we consider the WF law within the DDW model. As yet, this model has not been shown to apply to the pseudogap regime of the cuprates. Here we take the point of view that nevertheless it can serve to understand, in this concrete case, how energy dependence in the DOS can alter the WF law.

In the DDW state, the gap with magnitude $`W_0`$ has $`d`$-wave symmetry and opens up at the antiferromagnetic Brillouin zone of the CuO2 plane. Away from half filling, in the underdoped regime, the FS falls at the chemical potential $`\mu `$ (which would be zero at half filling) and we assume that $`|\mu |W_0`$. Provided that the effective impurity scattering rate and temperature are also small as compared with $`W_0`$, a nodal approximationdurst  can be used to describe the electric as well as the thermal conductivity.

We consider a tight binding energy dispersion as a function of momentum $`𝐤`$ of the form: $`ϵ_𝐤=2t_0[\mathrm{cos}(k_x)+\mathrm{cos}(k_y)]`$, where $`t_0`$ is the in-plane hopping amplitude. At half filling the FS coincides with the antiferromagnetic boundary where the DDW gap $`W_𝐤=(W_0/2)[\mathrm{cos}(k_x)\mathrm{cos}(k_y)]`$ opens up with amplitude $`W_0`$. Most properties of the DDW state are determined by the nesting vector $`𝐐=(\pi ,\pi )`$, for example $`ϵ_{𝐤+𝐐}=ϵ_𝐤`$ and $`W_{𝐤+𝐐}=W_𝐤`$. See Ref.zhu ; kim  for detailed properties.

We begin with the Hamiltonian

$`H=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝐱)\left(\frac{^2}{2m}\right)\psi _\alpha (𝐱)}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱𝑑𝐲\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝐱)\psi _\beta ^{}(𝐲)V(𝐱𝐲)\psi _\beta (𝐲)\psi _\alpha (𝐱)},`$ (1)
where $`\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝐱)`$ creates an electron of spin $`\alpha `$ at $`𝐱`$ and $`V(𝐱𝐲)`$ is the electron-electron interaction. A spin summation is implied. Using the definition of the DDW gap in momentum space:

$$iW_𝐤=\underset{k^{}}{}V_{𝐤𝐤^{}}C_{𝐤^{}+𝐐\alpha }^{}(\omega ^{})C_{𝐤^{}\alpha }(\omega ^{})$$
(2)
one can obtain the mean field Hamiltonian of the DDW state.

Let us consider the real part of the electrical conductivity $`\sigma (\mathrm{\Omega })`$. In the long wavelength limit $`(𝐪0)`$ the current operator in momentum space $`𝐣^e(0,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is

$$𝐣^e(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=e\underset{k}{}𝐯_𝐤\widehat{C}_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{C}_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(3)
where $`𝐯_𝐤=ϵ_k/𝐤`$ and $`\widehat{C}_𝐤^{}(\omega )=(C_𝐤^{}(\omega ),C_{𝐤+𝐐}^{}(\omega ))`$. Note that we use four vector notation: $`k=(𝐤,\omega )`$ and $`_k=_𝐤_\omega `$. From the current-current correlation $`\mathrm{\Pi }(0,i\mathrm{\Omega })`$, we have $`\sigma (\mathrm{\Omega })=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\text{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{ret}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$, where

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(0,i\mathrm{\Omega })=e^2\underset{k}{}v_𝐤^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\right]$$
(4)
Here the matrix Green’s function $`\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })`$ is

$$\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })=\frac{(i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+\mu )\widehat{\tau }_0+W_𝐤\widehat{\tau }_2+ϵ_𝐤\widehat{\tau }_3}{(i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+\mu )^2E_𝐤^2}$$
(5)
with $`i\stackrel{~}{\omega }=i\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }_0(i\stackrel{~}{\omega })`$ and $`E_𝐤=\sqrt{ϵ_𝐤^2+W_𝐤^2}`$. It has been assumed that the other components of the self energy can be absorbed into $`ϵ_𝐤`$ and $`W_𝐤`$.durst  It is useful to introduce the spectral functions $`A_{ij}(𝐤,\omega )=2\text{Im}G_{ij}(𝐤,\omega +i\delta )`$, for example, $`A_{11}(𝐤,\omega )=\frac{2\gamma (\omega )|u_𝐤|^2}{\left[(\omega +\mu E_𝐤)^2+\gamma (\omega )^2\right]}+\left(u_𝐤v_𝐤,E_𝐤E_𝐤\right)`$, and $`A_{12}(𝐤,\omega )=u_𝐤v_𝐤\left\{\frac{2\gamma (\omega )}{\left[(\omega +\mu +E_𝐤)^2+\gamma (\omega )^2\right]}\left(E_𝐤E_𝐤\right)\right\}`$, where $`\gamma (\omega )=\text{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,ret}(i\stackrel{~}{\omega })`$, $`u_𝐤=\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}(1+ϵ_𝐤/E_𝐤)}`$, and $`v_𝐤=i\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}(1ϵ_𝐤/E_𝐤})`$. Now we obtain the D.C. conductivity $`\sigma (T,\mathrm{\Omega }=0)`$ as

$$\sigma (T,0)=e^2\underset{𝐤}{}v_𝐤^2\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)\left[A_{11}(𝐤,\omega )^2\left|A_{12}(𝐤,\omega )\right|^2\right]$$
(6)
where $`f(\omega )`$ is the Fermi function. In the nodal approximation $`_𝐤\frac{4}{v_fv_g}\frac{pdpd\theta }{(2\pi )^2}`$, $`ϵ_𝐤=p\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ and $`W_𝐤=p\mathrm{sin}(\theta )`$. Then at $`T=0`$ we obtain $`\sigma (0,0)=\frac{e^2}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{v_f}{v_g}\right)𝒜(0),`$ where

$$𝒜(\omega )=\left[1+\left(\frac{\omega +\mu }{\gamma (\omega )}+\frac{\gamma (\omega )}{\omega +\mu }\right)\mathrm{arctan}\frac{\omega +\mu }{\gamma (\omega )}\right].$$
(7)
$`\sigma (0,0)`$ depends only on $`\gamma (0)`$ because only the zero frequency limit of $`𝒜(\omega )`$ enters at $`T=0`$.

This result shows that $`\sigma (0,0)`$ depends not only on the chemical potential $`\mu `$ (and so on the filling) but also on the scattering rate $`\gamma (0)`$. This is to be contrasted with the well-known universal value of the DC conductivity for the DSC: $`\sigma _{sc}(0,0)=2\frac{e^2}{\pi ^2}(v_f/v_{sc,g})`$, where $`v_{sc,g}`$ is the DSC gap velocity. For the DDW case a universal value is obtained only in the case when $`\mu 0`$, which corresponds to half filling. In this limit $`\sigma (0,0)`$ reduces precisely to $`\sigma _{sc}(0,0)`$ for the DSC with $`W_0`$ playing the role of DSC gap $`(\mathrm{\Delta }_0)`$. We see that it is because the DDW gap develops at the antiferromagnetic boundary rather than at the FS which is shifted by the chemical potential, which leads to the absence of universal behavior.

It is instructive to contrast the DDW case with the DSC case in a more formal way. The charge current has the form for the DSC

$$𝐣_{sc}^e(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=e\underset{k}{}𝐯_𝐤\widehat{\psi }_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\psi }_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })$$
(8)
where $`\widehat{\psi }_𝐤^{}(\omega )=(C_𝐤^{}(\omega ),C_𝐤(\omega ))`$. This leads to the current-current correlation

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{sc}(0,i\mathrm{\Omega })=e^2\underset{k}{}v_𝐤^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\right]$$
(9)
which is to be contrast with Eq. (4). The matrix Green’s function is:

$$\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })=\frac{i\stackrel{~}{\omega }\widehat{\tau }_0+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤\widehat{\tau }_1+(ϵ_𝐤\mu )\widehat{\tau }_3}{(i\stackrel{~}{\omega })^2(ϵ_𝐤\mu )^2\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^2}$$
(10)
Note the differences between $`\widehat{G}_{sc}`$ for the DSC and $`\widehat{G}`$ for the DDW. Using the spectral function $`A(𝐤,\omega )=\text{Im}G(𝐤,\omega +i\delta )`$ and $`B(𝐤,\omega )=\text{Im}F(𝐤,\omega +i\delta )`$, where $`F(𝐤,\omega )`$ is the anomalous Green’s function, the D.C. conductivity becomes

$$\sigma _{sc}(T,0)=e^2\underset{𝐤}{}v_𝐤^2\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)\left[A(𝐤,\omega )^2+B(𝐤,\omega )^2\right]$$
(11)
At $`T=0`$, we obtain $`\sigma _{sc}(0,0)=\frac{e^2}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{v_f}{v_{sc,g}}\right)𝒜_{sc}(0),`$ where

$$𝒜_{sc}(\omega )=2\left[1+\frac{\omega }{\gamma (\omega )}\mathrm{arctan}\frac{\omega }{\gamma (\omega )}\right].$$
(12)
Next we consider the case of finite $`T`$ in the range $`\gamma (0)<TW_0`$. In this case $`i\stackrel{~}{\omega }i\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }_0(i\omega )`$, namely, $`\omega `$ can be used in the evaluation of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ to a good approximation. hirschfeld  Then $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,ret}(i\omega )=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }G_0}{c^2G_0^2}`$, where $`G_0=\frac{1}{\pi N_0}_𝐤\frac{\omega +\mu }{(\omega +\mu )^2E_𝐤^2}`$ with $`N_0`$ being the DOS at the FS, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a scattering rate proportional to the impurity concentration, and $`c`$ is the inverse of the impurity potential. For the Born limit $`c1`$ while in the unitary limit $`c0`$. Applying the nodal approximation, one obtains $`G_0=\frac{2}{\pi ^2N_0v_fv_g}\left[i\frac{\pi }{2}(\omega +\mu )+(\omega +\mu )\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{|\omega +\mu |}{W_0}\right)\right]`$. Thus for the Born limit we get $`\gamma (\omega )=\gamma _0\frac{\omega +\mu }{W_0}`$, where $`\gamma _0\mathrm{\Gamma }/c^2`$. For the unitary limit we have instead $`\gamma (\omega )=\gamma _u\left(\frac{W_0}{\omega +\mu }\right)\mathrm{ln}^2\left(\frac{W_0}{|\omega +\mu |}\right)`$ where $`\gamma _U\pi ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }/4`$. These results for $`\gamma (\omega )`$ parallel the well-known results for the DSC, which are recovered when $`\mu =0`$ with the DDW gap replaced with the DSC gap. The most important feature of impurity scattering for our consideration of transport properties is that $`\gamma (\omega )`$ acquires a frequency dependence and this leads to a violation with $`T`$ of the WF law as we will see soon. For the Born limit a remarkable simplification for $`𝒜(\omega )`$ occurs; namely, $`𝒜(\omega )`$ becomes independent of frequency and this leads directly to no violation of the WF law. With $`𝒜(\omega )=1+\left(\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}+\frac{\gamma _0}{W_0}\right)\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}\right)\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}`$ because $`\gamma _0W_0`$ and it follows immediately that

$$\sigma (0,TW_0)\frac{e^2}{2\pi }\left(\frac{v_f}{v_g}\right)\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}$$
(13)
which is temperature-independent. For the DSC in the same limit $`\sigma _{sc}(0,T\mathrm{\Delta }_0)(e^2/\pi )(v_f/v_{sc,g})(\mathrm{\Delta }_0/\gamma _0)`$. It is larger than the DDW results by a factor of two if $`W_0=\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. The difference is traced to the fact that $`𝒜_{sc}(\omega )2\left[(\pi /2)\mathrm{\Delta }_0/\gamma _0\right]`$. This serves to illustrate that DSC and DDW order do not generally give the same answers. This is expected since in one case there is Cooper pair condensation while in the other there is none.

We next consider heat transport in the DDW state since the WF law is a statement about the ratio of the thermal to electrical conductivity. The heat current $`𝐣^h(𝐱)`$ can be calculated from the continuity equation: $`\dot{}(𝐱)+𝐣^h(𝐱)=0`$, where is $``$ is the Hamiltonian density of Eq. (1). Define $`𝐣^h=𝐣_f^h+𝐣_g^h`$, one can show that

$$𝐣_f^h(𝐱)=\frac{1}{2m}\left[\dot{\psi }_\alpha ^{}(x)\psi _\alpha (x)+\psi _\alpha ^{}(x)\dot{\psi }_\alpha (x)\right]$$
(14)
and

$`𝐣_g^h(𝐱)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }d𝐲V(𝐲𝐱)[\dot{\psi }_\alpha ^{}(x)\psi _\beta ^{}(y)\psi _\beta (y)\psi _\alpha (x)`$
$``$ $`\psi _\alpha ^{}(x)\dot{\psi }_\beta ^{}(y)\psi _\beta (y)\psi _\alpha (x)+h.c.]`$ (15)
In momentum space, as $`𝐪0`$,

$$𝐣_f^h(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{k}{}\left(\omega +\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\right)𝐯_𝐤\widehat{C}_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{C}_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })$$
(16)
Applying mean field theory and keeping terms relevant only to the DDW order, we find $`i𝐪𝐣_g^h(𝐪,\mathrm{\Omega })=\frac{1}{2}(X_q+X_q^{}Y_qY_q^{})`$ where $`X_q=_k\omega W_{k+q}C_{𝐤+𝐐\alpha }^{}(\omega )C_{𝐤+𝐪\alpha }(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and $`Y_q=X_g\left(W_{k+q}W_q\right)`$ with a definition of the DDW gap Eq. (2). Now we obtain

$$𝐣_g^h(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=i\underset{k}{}\left(\omega +\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}\right)𝐯_g\widehat{C}_{𝐤+𝐐}^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{C}_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })$$
(17)
where $`𝐯_g=W_k/𝐤`$. Therefore, the heat current becomes

$`𝐣^h(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}})[𝐯_𝐤\widehat{C}_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{C}_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ (18)
$`i𝐯_g\widehat{C}_{𝐤+𝐐}^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{C}_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })]`$
Note that we assume $`𝐯_g/t=0`$ so that we neglect the extra terms which depend on the time derivative of the gap velocity.

The thermal conductivity $`\kappa (𝐪=0,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ follows from the Kubo formula for the heat current-current correlation: $`\frac{\kappa (\mathrm{\Omega })}{T}=\frac{1}{T^2\mathrm{\Omega }}\text{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }_{ret}^\kappa (\mathrm{\Omega })`$, where

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^\kappa (0,i\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}}\right)^2v_𝐤^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}}\right)^2v_g^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{G}(𝐤+𝐐,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\right]`$ (19)
Again making use of the spectral functions, we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa (0)}{T}}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\omega ^2\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)\left(v_f^2+v_g^2\right)}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left[A_{11}(𝐤,\omega )^2|A_{12}(𝐤,\omega )|^2\right]`$ (20)
Before proceeding further it is of interest to contrast our DDW derivations with the DSC case. For the DSC the heat current is

$`𝐣_{sc}^h(0,\mathrm{\Omega })=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}})[𝐯_𝐤\widehat{\psi }_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{\psi }_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ (21)
$`𝐯_{g,sc}\widehat{\psi }_𝐤^{}(\omega )\widehat{\tau }_1\widehat{\psi }_𝐤(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })]`$
Thus the heat current-current correlation is

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{sc}^\kappa (0,i\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}}\right)^2v_𝐤^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\widehat{\tau }_3\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}}\right)^2v_{sc,g}^2\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{\tau }_1\widehat{G}_{sc}(𝐤,i\stackrel{~}{\omega })\widehat{\tau }_1\right]`$ (22)
When the spectral functions are introduced, we arrive at

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{sc}(T)}{T}}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\omega ^2\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)}`$ (23)
$`\times \left(v_f^2+v_{sc,g}^2\right)\left[A(𝐤,\omega )^2B(𝐤,\omega )^2\right]`$
Applying the nodal approximation to Eq.(20), we obtain

$$\frac{\kappa (T)}{T}=\frac{1}{T^2}\underset{𝐤}{}𝑑\omega \frac{\omega ^2}{\pi ^2}\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)\left[\frac{v_f}{v_g}+\frac{v_g}{v_f}\right]𝒜(\omega )$$
(24)
and exactly the same result holds for the DSC with $`\mu 0`$ and $`v_gv_{sc,g}`$. As $`T0`$, $`\kappa /T=\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{v_f}{v_g}+\frac{v_g}{v_f}\right)𝒜(0)`$ for the DDW while $`\kappa _{sc}/T=\frac{2}{3}\left(\frac{v_f}{v_{sc,g}}+\frac{v_{sc,g}}{v_f}\right)`$ for the DSC. In this case $`\kappa _{sc}/T`$ is universal and does not depend on impurity scattering. In contrast $`\kappa /T`$ for the DDW has a dependence on $`\gamma (0)`$ as well as on doping through the chemical potential. However, for the Lorenz number $`L=\kappa (T)/[T\sigma (0,0)]`$ the scattering rate drops out and we find $`L_0=\frac{\pi ^2}{3e^2}\left[1+\left(\frac{v_g}{v_f}\right)^2\right]`$. This shows that the WF law is obeyed at $`T=0`$ in the DDW state and the DSC case $`(v_gv_{sc,g})`$ and its value differs from the conventional one only by a very small correction of order $`(v_g/v_f)^2`$ due to a $`d`$-wave symmetry of the gap.

A very similar result can be obtained in the case $`\gamma (0)<TW_0`$. In this regime we have already seen $`𝒜(\omega )\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}`$ for the Born limit so $`\frac{\kappa (T)}{T}=\frac{\pi }{6}\left(\frac{v_f}{v_g}+\frac{v_g}{v_f}\right)\frac{W_0}{\gamma _0}`$. For the DSC, $`W_0\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`v_gv_{sc,g}`$. Because of Eq.(13) for the DDW the Lorenz number reduces to the conventional value: $`L=\pi ^2/(3e^2)`$ for $`\gamma (0)<TW_0`$. But for the DSC we arrive instead at the remarkable result that $`L_{sc}=\pi ^2/(6e^2)`$, a reduction of a factor of two. While we obtain this results analytically, Graf et al. graf  have calculated $`L_{sc}`$ numerically and their work serves as a numerical verification of our result. Since the temperature scale for which this happens is $`\gamma (0)T`$, in the clean limit this switch-over from $`L_0`$ to $`L_0/2`$ can happen at extremely low $`T`$. In sharp contrast with the DSC, in the DDW case there is no change in the Lorenz number in the Born limit.

It is not possible to obtain analytic results for the unitary limit. In general the Lorenz number $`L(T)/L(0)`$ is written as

$$\frac{L(T)}{L_0}=\frac{3}{\pi ^2}\frac{𝑑\omega \left(\frac{\omega }{T}\right)^2\left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)𝒜(\omega )}{𝑑\omega \left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)𝒜(\omega )}.$$
(25)
As we mentioned earlier, in the unitary limit $`\gamma (\omega )=\gamma _U\left(\frac{W_0}{\omega +\mu }\right)\mathrm{ln}^2\left(\frac{W_0}{|\omega +\mu |}\right)`$. Numerical results are presented in Fig. 1. We show results for four different cases which serve to illustrate what is possible. The upper solid curve is for $`\gamma _U/W_0=0.001`$ and $`\mu /W_0=0.01`$ which shows a large peak around $`T/T^{}=0.05`$. We have taken $`T^{}`$ to be given by its mean field value: $`W_0/T^{}=2.14`$ as in the DSC case. A very large positive violation of the WF law is seen. We need to point out, however, that while we have not shown $`\sigma (T)`$ and $`\kappa (T)/T`$ individually, in this case they both show large variations with $`T`$ reflecting the important frequency variation of $`\gamma (\omega )`$ for the unitary limit, which is not compensated for by the explicit variation of $`𝒜(\omega )`$ in Eq.(7). For the Born limit an exact compensation takes place so that $`𝒜(\omega )`$ turns out to be a constant. This leads to the usual WF law with no $`T`$ dependence, which is shown as a dash-dotted line in Fig. 1. For the dashed curve $`\gamma _U/W_0=0.01`$ and $`\mu /W_0=0.01`$. Increasing $`\gamma _U`$ makes the deviations from the conventional Lorenz number smaller. The same effect is obtained when $`|\mu |`$ is increased, effectively pushing the FS further away from the zero in DOS. The second solid curve has $`\gamma _U/W_0=0.001`$ but now $`\mu /W_0=0.15`$, away from half filling. Now the deviation from the conventional Lorenz number can be negative as well as positive depending on $`T`$ but the amplitude of the violation is small because the DDW gap becomes less effective at changing the DOS near the FS. (Note that $`|\mu |W_0`$ for the validity of the nodal approximation.)

Our main conclusions are as follows. At $`T=0`$, only the zero frequency limit of the imaginary part of the self-energy enters into the calculation of the electrical and thermal conductivity and the conventional Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law is recovered. In contrast with what is found for a $`d`$-wave superconductor (DSC), for a $`d`$-density wave (DDW) state, neither electrical nor thermal conductivity show universal behavior. Each depends on the impurity scattering rate. But this dependence is the same and cancels from the Lorenz number as $`T0`$. We were also able to obtain analytic results for low but finite temperature. In this case we found no change in the WF law for the Born limit even though the Lorenz number is reduced by a factor of two from its conventional value for the DSC. For the unitary limit, however, the Lorenz number increases rapidly at low temperature on a scale set by the zero scattering rate $`\gamma (0)`$. In a case considered it rises above $`2.5`$ around $`T/T^{}0.05`$ and then acquires a more moderate temperature variation. This case corresponds to the chemical potential $`(\mu )`$ small compared to the DDW gap. When $`|\mu |`$ is increased sufficiently, the Lorenz number becomes approximately equal to its conventional value and its temperature dependence is small. It is important to realized that when the Lorenz number is found to vary significantly with temperature, so do both electrical and thermal conductivities. This is generic to the model in which quasiparticles are responsible for the transport. Such a model cannot explain experimentshill  in which the D.C. conductivity is almost independent of temperature while the Lorenz number is strongly dependent on it.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR).


text:
# Diffusion, peer pressure and tailed distributions

## Abstract

We present a general, physically motivated non-linear and non-local advection equation in which the diffusion of interacting random walkers competes with a local drift arising from a kind of peer pressure. We show, using a mapping to an integrable dynamical system, that on varying a parameter, the steady state behaviour undergoes a transition from the standard diffusive behavior to a localized stationary state characterized by a tailed distribution. Finally, we show that recent empirical laws on economic growth can be explained as a collective phenomenon due to peer pressure interaction.

Fluctuations – measured by deviations from the mean value of an observable – of large systems often satisfy a Gaussian distribution. A classic example is a linear diffusion process  which has numerous applications in many branches of science . However, there are many situations in Nature in which the probability of occurence of a fluctuation of size $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(|\mathrm{\Delta }|^p)`$, with $`p`$ taking on a value greater than or equal to $`1`$ (exponential tails), but smaller than $`2`$ . Examples include the temperature distribution of a Rayleigh-Benard system , disordered systems such as foams  and glasses or granular materials , with even fatter tails in financial data .

We present here a physically motivated advection equation and its exact steady state solution. The equation has a drift term, originating from a kind of a peer pressure, of the same nature as that due to mechanisms of chemotactic signalling by microorganisms  or by the onset of cooperation in social groups , or by competition between economic units . We show that, on varying a parameter, there is a transition from diffusive behavior to a localized stationary state characterized by an exponential distribution.

Consider a diffusional process in which random walkers move either to the right or to the left randomly and with no bias. In the long time limit, the distribution of walkers becomes flat and infinitely spread out. The mechanism for collective self-organization in our model is a kind of peer pressure. The non-linearity arises from an interaction (of spatial range $`\xi `$) between the walkers, which leads to a drift or a bias term which opposes the diffusional spreading and promotes aggregation. The basic idea is one in which a walker perceives the populations of other walkers over a range $`\xi `$ both right and left of her own location and has a drift in the more crowded direction. In the limit of small $`\xi `$, one obtains regular diffusive behavior, whereas a new class of steady state behavior characterized by non-Gaussian distributions is obtained when $`\xi `$ is sufficiently large.

This idea may be encapsulated in a nonlinear equation

$$\frac{P}{t}=\frac{}{x}\left(v(x,t)P\right)+D\frac{^2P}{x^2}$$
(1)
where $`P(x,t)`$ is the distribution function of the locations of the random walkers at time $`t`$ with a drift velocity $`v(x,t)`$. The nonlinearity arises because $`v`$ is itself a non-local function of $`P`$ and is given by

$$v(x,t)=\frac{\lambda }{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_+(x,t)\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(x,t)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_+(x,t)+\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(x,t)}$$
(2)
where

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_+(x,t)={\displaystyle _x^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑ye^{(xy)/\xi }P(y,t),`$ (3)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(x,t)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^x}𝑑ye^{(yx)/\xi }P(y,t),`$ (4)
and $`\lambda `$ sets the scale for the drift velocity. Physically, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+(x,t)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(x,t)`$ are measures of the population, within a range $`\xi `$, to the right and left of location $`x`$ and the drift velocity is then a normalized imbalance between these two populations.

In colonies of social individuals, each member can release chemical substances in the environment (for example, pheromones) revealing the presence of food sources in a given area. The individuals in the colony are able to detect higher concentrations of the chemical signal and are attracted toward the food and move accordingly. The plausible assumption that the concentration of the chemicals in a given region is proportional to the local density of individuals translates into an effective interaction between members of the colony, and leads to the nonlocal drift term in Eq. (1). The interaction causes the net migration of an individual in the direction of the higher local density. The length scale, $`\xi `$, is a measure of the range of the biological sensory system of individuals. Thus Eq. (1) describes Brownian motion with a bias that mimicks attractive chemotactic signalling  and promotes aggregation leading to a drift controlled by the population difference in localized regions on the right and left of $`x`$. Physically, the standard Gaussian solution is obtained when there is no drift ($`\lambda =0`$) or when the interaction length scale goes to zero ($`\xi 0`$).

The existence of a transition in the steady state behavior is revealed by a linear stability analysis of the homogeneous state. One can look for solutions of Eq. (1) in the form $`P\mathrm{exp}[ikx\gamma (k)t]`$ representing spatially periodic perturbations. A direct substitution into Eq. (1) provides the exponential growth rate

$$\gamma (k)=D(1r)k^2,$$
(5)
where

$$r=\frac{\lambda \xi }{2D}.$$
(6)
Hence the homogeneous state is stable ($`\gamma (k)>0`$) when $`r<1`$. For $`r>1`$ on the contrary, small perturbations grow with time and the homogeneous state becomes unstable. Thus $`r`$ plays the role of a control parameter of a phase transition.

A mapping to an Hamiltonian dynamical systems allows us to derive the stationary soltuion of Eq. (1). Indeed the steady state distribution ($`\dot{P_s}=0`$) satisfies the ordinary differential equation

$$P_s^{}=\frac{\lambda }{2D}\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_+\mathrm{\Phi }_{}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_++\mathrm{\Phi }_{}}P_s$$
(7)
where the prime denotes the derivative $`d/dx`$. The steady state values of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$, in turn, satisfy

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_+^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+/\xi P_s`$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}/\xi +P_s`$ (9)
obtained by taking derivatives of Eqs. (3) and (4) respectively. It is convenient to introduce the new variables $`Q=\mathrm{\Phi }_++\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_+\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$, so that Eqs. (8) and (9) may be written as

$`Q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Pi }/\xi `$ (10)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Q/\xi 2P_s.`$ (11)
Then, from Eqs. (7) we have

$$\frac{P_s^{}}{P_s}=\frac{\lambda }{2D}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }}{Q}$$
(12)
which, with the aid of Eq. (10) can be integrated with respect to $`x`$, yielding

$$\mathrm{ln}P_sr\mathrm{ln}Q=\text{const}.$$
(13)
Thus, the steady distribution is $`P_s(x)=CQ(x)^r`$, where $`C`$ is a normalization factor.

The system of ordinary differential equations (Eqns. 10 and 11) can be regarded as an integrable dynamical system (whose energy is conserved)

$`Q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Pi }/\xi `$ (14)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Q/\xi 2CQ^r`$ (15)
describing the motion of a particle in one-dimensional potential

$$V(Q)=\frac{Q^2}{2\xi }+\frac{2C}{1+r}Q^{r+1}.$$
(16)
The spatial coordinate in the original system, $`x`$, plays the role of time in the dynamical system. The equation of motion can be derived from the Hamiltonian,

$$H(\mathrm{\Pi },Q)=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }^2}{2\xi }+V(Q)$$
(17)
which is a constant of motion, $`H(\mathrm{\Pi },Q)=E`$ in the dynamical system. Its constant value $`E`$ is fixed by the boundary conditions on $`P_s(x)`$. For instance, the requirement that $`P_s`$ be normalized for infinite systems, implies that $`Q(x=\pm \mathrm{})=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }(x=\pm \mathrm{})=0`$, so that $`E`$ is automatically set to zero.

This mechanical analogy allows one to obtain a complete understanding of the model with the key factor being the shape of the potential energy (Eqn. 16). A qualitative change in the nature of $`V(Q)`$ occurs (see Fig. 1) when $`r`$ crosses the value $`1`$, i.e. for $`\lambda \xi =2D`$, signalling a transition in the system’s behaviour. When $`r<1`$ (dashed curve of Fig. 1), only the solution $`Q(x)=0`$ is physically acceptable and thence $`P_s(x)=0`$. This corresponds to a probability distribution which spreads out and vanishes as in standard diffusion. When $`r>1`$ a non-trivial trajectory of the Hamiltonian system is possible (full line of Fig. 1) with $`Q`$ vanishing when the fictitious time $`x\pm \mathrm{}`$. This trajectory corresponds to a non-trivial asymptotic distribution (see Fig. 2). The solution for $`r>1`$ is obtained by integrating the differential equation

$$Q^{}=1/\xi \sqrt{Q^2gQ^{r+1}},$$
(18)
which is obtained by solving for $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ as a function of $`Q`$ (for $`E=0`$) and substituting the result into Eq. (14), with $`g=4C\xi /(1+r)`$. This leads to

$$P_s(x)=A(r)\mathrm{cosh}\left[\frac{r1}{2\xi }(xx_0)\right]^{2r/(r1)},$$
(19)
where $`A(r)=(r1)\mathrm{\Gamma }[(3r1)/(2r2)]/\{2\xi \sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{\Gamma }[r/(2r2)]\}`$ enforces normalization and $`x_0`$ is a constant which arises from the integration of Eq. (18).

The presence of a single control parameter in the model can be deduced by a dimensional argument. Indeed, through the rescaling: $`X=x/\xi `$ and $`\tau =Dt/\xi ^2`$, the coefficient $`\lambda /2`$ in Eq. (2) becomes $`r`$ and the dependence on $`\xi `$ disappears. Indeed when expressed in terms of $`X`$, the stationary state distribution depends only on $`r`$.

The change of behavior ar $`r=1`$ is a proper phase transition. Indeed it is accompanied by spontaneous breaking of the translation symmetry $`xx+a`$ of Eq. (1) for $`r>1`$. The location, $`x_0`$, of the distribution’s center is dynamically selected and it depends, in a complex manner, on the initial conditions. Furthermore, one may define a localization length, $`\mathrm{}`$, which is the spread of the distribution $`P_s(x)`$, and which diverges as $`\mathrm{}=|1r|^\nu `$ with a critical exponent, $`\nu =1`$, signalling the transition to the delocalized, translationally invariant steady state. The dynamics of relaxation to the steady state is characterized by an exponential decay with a characteristic time diverging as one approaches the transition.

Another interesting feature of the system is the possibility of spatially periodic steady-state solutions of Eq. (1) for suitable boundary conditions, corresponding to periodic orbits of the associated Hamiltonian systems with negative energy. However, unlike Eq. (19), such solutions are expected to be unstable to perturbations.

Many examples in which aggregation processes compete with diffusional tendencies can also be found in economics. Competition between economic units may lead to effective “peer” pressure captured by the drift in our model, whereas the diffusion term accounts for individual idiosyncratic behavior. Such a situation could arise in charitable giving, when it is not anonymous. A given individual would, in an attempt to keep up with the Joneses, adjust his contribution in the direction of higher or lower giving depending on what his peers are doing. Of course, in this instance, the range of interactions, $`\xi `$, is limited because it is not feasible for an ordinary individual to mimic the behavior of a Bill Gates. In other contexts, tent-shaped distributions, which deviate sharply from a Gaussian, have been observed for the growth rates of firms, nations’ gross domestic product (GDP) and complex organizations ( and references therein). We have analyzed the time series of the growth rates of commodity prices across different Italian cities (see Fig. 3) and we find similar exponential tails.

The growth rate of an economic indicator $`b`$ – such as the turnover of an organization, a nation’s GDP, or the price of a commodity in a city – is defined as

$$R(t)=\mathrm{ln}\frac{b(t+1)}{b(t)}$$

where $`t`$ and $`t+1`$ represent two consecutive time units (days, months, years etc.). The classical theory, due to Gibrat , predicts that $`R(t)`$ has a Gaussian distribution. Empirical data, however, shows a tent-shaped distribution on a logarithmic scale. In the case of firms, Stanley et al.  have proposed an explanation in terms of the internal hierarchical organization of non-interacting firms.

Our model provides a different explaination in which it is the interaction among firms which is responsible for the deviation from a Gaussian distribution. In a way, the peer pressure mechanism can be regarded as a regression towards the mean effect . This term usually refers to an explicit “attraction” of $`R(t)`$ towards a slowly varying moving average. Such an effect, however, is unable to reproduce tent shaped distributions without ad hoc assumptions on the precise nature of the attraction potential.

Here, instead, we refer to a collective phenomenon of “regression towards the population mean”: Each unit is attracted towards the instantaneous population average. It is the effective interaction among agents that generates a sort of “feedback” that induces the regression towards the mean mechanism. From a microeconomic point of view, it is reasonable to assume that the behavior of an economic agent is influenced by other agents. For example, a firm will strive to increase its growth rate if other peer firms grow at a higher rate. This interaction introduces correlations in $`R(t)`$ that destroy the diffusive features and produces the characteristic exponential tails.

In summary, we have introduced and studied, both analytically and numerically, a one-dimensional diffusion equation with nonlinear and nonlocal features. The asymptotic evolution of the equation leads to the walkers being attracted toward a state which exhibits a well defined non-Gaussian distribution characterized by exponential tails independent of the nature of the initial condition. This mechanism of peer pressure may provide the basis for the development of more realistic models of self-aggregation and self-organization in cooperative states of populations of interacting individuals.


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# Measurement of the electron electric dipole moment using YbF molecules

## Abstract

The most sensitive measurements of the electron electric dipole moment $`d_e`$ have previously been made using heavy atoms. Heavy polar molecules offer a greater sensitivity to $`d_e`$ because the interaction energy to be measured is typically 103 times larger than in a heavy atom. We report the first measurement of this kind, for which we have used the molecule YbF. Together, the large interaction energy and the strong tensor polarizability of the molecule make our experiment essentially free of the systematic errors that currently limit $`d_e`$ measurements in atoms. Our first result $`d_e=(0.2\pm 3.2)\times 10^{26}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$ is less sensitive than the best atom measurement, but is limited only by counting statistics and demonstrates the power of the method.

The permanent electric dipole moment (edm) of an elementary particle vanishes unless the discrete symmetries parity (P) and time reversal (T) are both violated Purcell:1957 . This naturally makes the edm small in fundamental particles of ordinary matter. In the standard model of elementary particle physics, a cancellation of leading order Feynman diagrams further suppresses the expected value of the electron edm $`d_e`$ to less than $`10^{38}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$ Pospelov:1991 , but in theories going beyond the standard model, typical predictions are in the range $`10^{26}10^{28}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$ recent:1999 . The search for an electron edm is therefore a search for physics beyond the standard model, and particularly it is a search for non-standard CP violation. CP violation is intimately connected to T-violation through the CPT theorem See:1987 . This is an important and active field at present Art:2001  because the prospects for discovering new physics seem so good. Such research is complementary to experiments on K and B particles where the observed CP violation confirms the standard model CKM mechanism Wolfenstein:2001 . The most precise measurement of the electron edm is that of Regan and Commins Regan:2002 , who have achieved the result $`d_e=(7\pm 8)\times 10^{28}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$ by searching for a differential Stark shift between the two hyperfine sublevels $`\left(F=1,m_F=\pm 1\right)`$ in the ground state of atomic thallium. Their result imposes stringent constraints on possible theories of particle physics. Any improvement would make a very important contribution to the further search for new physics beyond the standard model, but their method seems to have reached its limit because of systematic errors associated with stray magnetic fields. Such errors should be greatly suppressed if $`d_e`$ could be measured using heavy polar molecules instead of atoms Sandars:1975 , but hitherto this has not been technically possible. Here we report on the first experiment to realize this idea, which demonstrates the feasibility of the method and, although not yet as accurate as the thallium experiment, nevertheless obtains the next most significant constraint unpublished:2002  on $`d_e`$ . We show that this new molecular method is potentially much more sensitive than the previous atomic experiments.

To leading order in $`d_e`$ the edm interaction of an electron in an atom or molecule can be described by an effective Hamiltonian $`d_e(1\gamma _0)\mathrm{\Sigma }𝐄_{tot}`$, where $`\gamma _0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ are standard Dirac matrices and $`𝐄_{tot}`$ is the total electric field at the position of the electron, including the field of the other electrons See:1 . The explicit form of this interaction,

$$V=\psi _0\left|\begin{array}{cccccccccccccccccccc}0& 0& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \\ 0& 2d_e\widehat{\sigma }𝐄_{tot}& & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & & \end{array}\right|\psi _0$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ is a unit vector along the electron spin, shows that the effect is relativistic: the operator connects only the small components of the Dirac wavefunction $`|\psi _0`$. The sensitivity to $`d_e`$ is therefore largest in heavy systems where the electrons are most relativistic. If there is no applied electric field, the small component of $`|\psi _0`$ has definite parity and therefore the expectation value of this odd-parity operator vanishes. However, an applied field $`E\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$ polarizes the wavefunction and yields an energy $`V`$ of the form $`d_eE_{eff}\widehat{\sigma }\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$. A strong laboratory field applied to an atom induces only a small mixing of atomic orbitals and therefore $`E_{eff}`$ is essentially proportional to $`E`$, with the ratio scaling roughly as $`8Z^3\alpha ^2`$ Hinds:1997 , $`Z`$ being the nuclear charge and $`\alpha `$ the fine structure constant. The cesium atom used by Hunter’s group to measure $`d_e`$ Murthy:1989  is a particularly favorable case with the applied field being effectively amplified by 119 recent:1999 . Thallium has an even larger amplification of –585, a key factor in the more sensitive result of ref. Regan:2002 . Diatomic polar molecules have a great advantage over atoms Sandars:1975  because the atomic orbitals are naturally strongly polarized along the internuclear axis $`\widehat{\lambda }`$. This gives rise to an internal effective electric field $`E_{int}\widehat{\lambda }`$ that can be very large when one of the atoms is heavy and has strong s-p hybridization of its orbitals. The molecular rotation averages this strong field to zero unless an external field $`E\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$ is applied. However, only a modest field is needed to polarize $`\widehat{\lambda }`$ along $`\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$ because this involves mixing rotational states, which are much closer together than the electronic states of an atom. The edm interaction energy $`V`$ once again takes the form $`d_eE_{eff}\widehat{\sigma }\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$, but $`E_{eff}`$ is now given by $`E_{int}\widehat{\lambda }\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$. Figure 1 shows $`E_{eff}`$ of the YbF molecule, rising towards its asymptotic value $`E_{int}`$ of 26 GV/cm Kozlov:1998  as the applied field is increased. In our experiment the applied field is 8.3 kV/cm, for which $`E_{eff}`$ is 13 GV/cm. Such a large effective field is not particular to YbF but can be found in a variety of other heavy polar diatomic molecules, some of which are listed in Table 1. In short, the edm interaction in heavy polar molecules can be thousands of times larger than in heavy atoms.

Our experiment uses 174YbF in the electronic, vibrational and rotational ground state $`X^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^+(v=0,N=0)`$. The electron spin (1/2) and the fluorine nuclear spin (1/2) combine to produce a hyperfine singlet $`F=0`$ and triplet $`F=1`$, separated by 170 MHz Sauer:1995  as shown inset in fig. 2. The applied electric field lowers the energy of the $`|F,m_F=|1,0`$ state relative to $`|1,\pm 1`$ by an amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }/h=6.7`$ MHz for the 8.3 kV/cm used in our experiment) Sauer:1996 . This strong tensor splitting reflects the non-spherical symmetry of the molecule’s internal structure. The two states $`|1,+1`$ and $`|1,1`$ remain degenerate as a consequence of time-reversal symmetry. Their degeneracy is lifted by the edm interaction, which causes a splitting of $`2d_eE_{eff}`$ that we seek to measure in the experiment. A magnetic field small compared with $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu _B`$ causes an additional splitting Hudson:2001  of $`2\mu _BB_z(1\frac{1}{2}(\mu _BB_{}/\mathrm{\Delta })^2)`$ plus higher order corrections (here the g-factor, both expected and measured, is 1). This formula shows that the field parallel to E induces a Zeeman splitting $`2\mu _BB_z`$ between the $`m_F=\pm 1`$ sublevels, whereas the splitting due to the perpendicular field $`B_{}`$ is suppressed relative to $`\mu _BB_{}`$ by a factor $`\mu _B^2B_zB_{}/\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, which is $`3\times 10^{10}`$ in our experiment ($`B_z10\mathrm{nT}`$, $`B_{}6\mathrm{nT})`$. We separate the splitting due to the edm interaction from that of the magnetic interaction by reversing the directions of the applied electric and magnetic fields, E and B. The edm part of interest has the symmetry of $`𝐄𝐁`$, as one might expect for a P-odd, T-odd effect. The suppression of the splitting induced by $`B_{}`$ is a critical aspect of the experiment because the motion of the molecules through the electric field generates a 6 nT contribution to $`B_{}`$, $`B_y^{mot}=Ev/c^2`$, which reverses with E and therefore has the potential to masquerade as an edm Sometimes:1995 . If $`B_{}`$ is entirely motional it does not generate a false edm because the splitting depends on $`B_{}^2`$, remaining unchanged when $`B_{}`$ reverses. However, if there is also a small $`y`$-component $`B_y`$ of the applied magnetic field, the magnitude of $`B_{}`$ will change when either E or B is reversed, leading to an apparent edm given by $`\mu _B^3B_zB_y^{mot}B_y/\mathrm{\Delta }^2E_{eff}`$. In our experiment $`B_y`$ is less than 1 nT and therefore this false $`d_e`$ is less than $`10^{33}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$. The advantage of a strong tensor polarizability for edm measurements was first demonstrated by Player and Sandars using the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$ metastable state of Xe Player:1970 . These two features of heavy polar molecules — large $`E_{eff}`$ and strong tensor polarizability — give them such excellent suppression of all the known systematic errors that a major improvement in $`d_e`$ now seems accessible.

Our YbF molecular beam, illustrated in fig. 3, effuses out of a molybdenum oven containing a mixture of Yb metal and powdered AlF3 (mass ratio 4:1) heated to $``$1500K. The molecules are detected by dye-laser-induced fluorescence 1 m away from the source, using collection optics with 22% efficiency and a photomultiplier (PMT) of 10% quantum efficiency. The detection laser is tuned to the $`F=0`$ component in the Q(0) line of the A$`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{1/2}^{}`$-X$`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{+}`$ electronic transition (fig. 2) at 553 nm. This induces a count rate of 2.5 kHz due to the 174YbF ground state $`F=0`$ molecules and 20 kHz from nearby transitions involving higher rotational states and other isotopes of Yb Sauer:1996 . There are also backgrounds of $``$60 kHz from oven light and $``$30 kHz from scattered laser light. The pump beam of fig. 3 consists of two dye laser beams. One is a 170 MHz red sideband of the probe laser. This removes molecules from all the sublevels of the $`F=1`$ ground state by exciting them to A$`{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{1/2}^{}`$, which has negligible hyperfine structure Sauer:1999 . A second dye laser 40 GHz to the red, tuned to the OP12(2) transition (fig. 2), excites molecules out of the highest hyperfine level of the $`N=2`$ rotational manifold. Together these two beams pump molecules into the $`F=0`$ ground state, increasing the probe signal to 8 kHz, while emptying out $`F=1`$. After pumping, the beam enters an electric field of 3.3 kV/cm, where a 170 MHz rf magnetic field along the $`x`$-direction excites the molecules to a coherent superposition $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|1,+1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|1,1`$ of the $`|F,m_F`$ states. In essence this step is the beam splitter of a molecular interferometer. Next the molecules enter the center of the interferometer, where they evolve for a time $`T`$ ($``$1 ms) in combined electric and magnetic fields $`(\pm E,\pm B)\widehat{\mathrm{z}}`$, and the two parts of the wavefunction develop a relative phase shift of $`2\phi =2\left(\pm d_eE_{eff}\mu _BB\right)T/\mathrm{}`$. To measure this phase, a second rf loop drives a transition back to the $`F=0`$ state. This is the recombiner in fig. 3. The state amplitude $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(e^{i\phi }+e^{i\phi })`$ gives a final $`F=0`$ population proportional to $`\mathrm{cos}^2\phi `$. Our detector, measuring fluorescence from molecules excited on the Q(0), $`F=0`$ transition, probes this population. Fig. 4 shows the central interferometer fringe, measured by scanning the applied magnetic field. To obtain this fringe pattern it is necessary to suppress stray magnetic fields, which we do by means of two 1 mm-thick layers of high-permeability (Ad-MU 80) magnetic shielding. We note that coherences at the 170 MHz rf frequency play no role in this experiment; indeed the two rf loops are driven by 2 different oscillators to avoid any such Ramsey interferences.

The interferometer is most sensitive to small changes in phase when $`\phi =\pm \pi /4`$, i.e. when the magnetic field $`\pm B_0`$ is set near the points of steepest slope at $`\pm `$6 nT on either side of the central fringe. We record the fluorescence in the detector under the 8 conditions $`\pm E,\pm (B_0\pm \delta B)`$, where $`\delta B`$ is a carefully calibrated change of 1.6 nT in the magnitude of the applied field. Over a period of 82 seconds these 8 measurements are repeated 128 times, ordered in such a way as to minimise drifts Harrison:1971 . The duty factor is 60%. This constitutes a “block” of data. In order to maintain operation near the most sensitive points (the residual field drifts by a few nT over a period of hours), we compare the PMT count rates for $`+B_0`$ and $`B_0`$ (averaged over the other reversals) at the end of each block. Any difference indicates a nonzero residual field, which we null by adding a small proportional bias.

The dye in both lasers has a short lifetime ($``$20 hours) as does the molecular beam source ($``$10 hours). Frequent maintenance and the small signal and large background in our detector make the experiment difficult to operate at present. Nevertheless, we have succeeded in taking 24 hours of data over a period of 4 months, a total of 1758 data blocks containing $`1.1\times 10^{10}`$ counts. In our analysis of the data we extract the change in PMT count rate correlated with every combination of $`E`$, $`B`$ and $`\delta B`$ reversals within every block. Two of these combinations give the phase shift due to the edm interaction and the phase shift due to $`\delta B`$. Their ratio, $`d_eE_{eff}/\mu _B\delta B`$, yields the edm result $`d_e=\left(0.2\pm 3.2\right)\times 10^{26}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$, where the uncertainty (1$`\sigma `$) is due entirely to random pulse counting statistics.

All other combinations of all the switched parameters are consistent with zero, suggesting that systematic errors are well under control. As a further check, we took the data in 4 sets with the connections to the electric plates and/or magnetic field wires reversed, and this too revealed no systematic errors. We monitored the leakage current of the plates, which was always below 10 nA on both plates during data taking. At worst, this current (implausibly looping around the edge of each plate) would cause a false edm of $`4\times 10^{28}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$. This is small compared with the result of ref Regan:2002  and is insignificant in the present experiment. With a view to future improvements in sensitivity, we checked the effect of a change in field magnitude when the electric field was reversed. This changed the resonance strength and therefore the slope of the fringe. When combined with an asymmetry of the magnetic field it led to a false edm, but one that we were fully able to understand and correct on the basis of the separate E-reversal and B-reversal signals. We also ran the experiment with $`B_{}`$ intentionally amplified by a factor of 50 and saw that this did not induce any false edm at the level of $`5\times 10^{26}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$. All these effects were negligible in the present experiment and seem to be well under control for a future measurement below $`1\times 10^{27}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$. Some details of the systematic checks are available in reference Hudson:2001 .

This experiment has demonstrated that a molecular measurement of $`d_e`$ is less sensitive to stray magnetic fields than any previous experiment by several orders of magnitude. This is due to the high value of $`E_{eff}`$. The cylindrical symmetry of the electronic state also makes the molecule immune to the motional magnetic field effect. The present result could improve considerably with higher beam intensity. To this end, we have developed a new pulsed source in which YbF molecules are produced by laser ablation and cooled below 20 K by supersonic expansion in a jet of carrier gas. This produces 100 times more population in the $`N=0`$ rotational state. On the basis of its current performance, we expect that incorporating the supersonic source into our experiment will reduce the statistical uncertainty in $`d_e`$ to below $`1\times 10^{27}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{cm}`$ in 24 hours. A competing experiment is in preparation at Yale University by the group of D. DeMille using a cell of PbO vapor excited to the paramagnetic metastable a(1) state DeMille:2000 . Trapped cold atoms offer a possible alternative to using polar molecules for measuring $`d_e`$ Chin:2001 . They can have transverse spin relaxation times of seconds instead of milliseconds and the atoms move slowly making the $`𝐄\times 𝐯`$ effect much less than in an atomic beam. Even so, the sensitivity to stray magnetic fields and to the trapping fields is a very severe problem for paramagnetic atoms and the experiment would have to use two trapped species, a heavy one for measuring $`d_e`$ and one for monitoring the magnetic field. Trapped cold molecules offer the best prospect of all, but at present the required techniques are only in a very early stage of development Levi:2000 .

We are indebted to Alan Butler for his expert technical assistance. This work was supported by the EPSRC and PPARC research councils of the UK.