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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Liouville field theory (LFT) has been studied actively for its relevance with non-critical string theories and two-dimensional quantum gravity. This theory is also interesting on its own as an example of irrational conformal field theory (CFT). Most CFT formalism developed for rational CFTs do not apply to this class of theories mainly because they have continuously infinite number of primary fields. Various methods have been proposed to derive structure constants and reflection amplitudes, which are basic building blocks to complete the conformal bootstrap .

Another example of the irrational CFT is the $`N=1`$ supersymmetric LFT (SLFT). This model has some motivations. It is applicable to the superstring theories and the two-dimensional supergravity with fermionic matter fields. One can also understand the role of the extended conformal symmetry in the irrational CFTs by studing this model. The methods introduced for the bulk LFT have been applied successfully to the bulk SLFT although the latter becomes algebraically more complicated .

It is interesting to extend these formalisms to the CFTs defined in the two-dimensional space-time geometry with a boundary condition (BC) which preserves the conformal symmetry. Cardy showed that the conformally invariant BCs can be associated with the primary fields in terms of modular $`S`$-matrix elements for the case of rational CFTs . It has been an issue whether the Cardy formalism can be extended to the irrational CFTs. Another motiviation is to understand open string theories in various nontrivial background space-time geometries .

Recently it has been shown that functional relation method developed in  can be used in the boundary LFT with conformal boundary action to derive one-point function of a bulk operator and correlation functions of two boundary operators for a given conformal BC . Here the conformal BC is denoted by a continuous parameter related to the coupling constant in the boundary action. Another development made in  is to generalize this method to the boundary LFT defined in the classical Lobachevskiy plane, namely the pseudosphere. These works showed that the one-point functions of primary fields can be related to the inner products of the conformal BCs and different Ishibashi states in the same way as the rational CFTs .

It has been noticed that generalizing the Cardy formalism to the supersymmetric CFTs is nontrivial even for rational theories mainly because the Ramond (R) sector transforms not to Neveu-Schwarz (NS) sector but so-called ($`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{NS}}`$) sector under the modular transformation . In this paper we show that it is possible to derive exact one-point functions from the functional relations and relate these to the Cardy formalism for the BCs introduced in the pseudosphere and ordinary half plane with conformally invariant boundary action. This shows that the Cardy formalism can be generalized to the irrational super-CFTs. We also show that the boundary two-point functions of the (NS) boundary operators satisfy the same relation as those of the LFT. This paper is organized as follows. In sect.2 we compute the one-point functions of the SLFT primary fields on the pseudosphere. In sect.3 we propose the boundary action which preserves the superconformal symmetry and compute the corresponding one-point functions. These results are used in sect.4 to be related to the conformal BCs and are shown to be consistent with the Cardy formalism. We conclude the paper with some comments in sect.5.

## 2 One-Point Functions of SLFT on a Pseudosphere

The $`N=1`$ SLFT describes a supermultiplet consisting of a bosonic field and its fermionic partner interacting with exponential potential. In terms of the component fields, the Lagrangian can be expressed by

$$_{\mathrm{SL}}=\frac{1}{8\pi }(_a\varphi )^2\frac{1}{2\pi }(\overline{\psi }\overline{\psi }+\psi \overline{}\psi )+i\mu b^2\psi \overline{\psi }e^{b\varphi }+\frac{\pi \mu ^2b^2}{2}(:e^{b\varphi }:)^2.$$
(1)
The first interaction term in Eq.(1) containing $`\mathrm{exp}(b\varphi )`$ has (holomorphic) conformal dimension $`1/2`$. This is correct since the Majorana fermion field has dimension $`1/2`$. The SLFT is a superconformal field theory. With the background charge $`Q`$

$$Q=b+\frac{1}{b},$$
(2)
the SLFT has the central charge

$$c_{SL}=\frac{3}{2}(1+2Q^2).$$
(3)
The bulk (NS) and (R) primary fields of the SLFT are given by

$$N_\alpha (z,\overline{z})=e^{\alpha \varphi },R_\alpha (z,\overline{z})=\sigma ^{(ϵ)}(z,\overline{z})e^{\alpha \varphi },$$
(4)
where $`\sigma ^{(\pm )}`$ is the ‘spin field’ with dimension $`1/16`$ with even Fermi number for $`(+)`$ and odd for $`()`$ and satisfying an operator product expansion (OPE) $`\sigma ^{(+)}\sigma ^{()}=\psi `$. 444We will suppress the superindex $`(ϵ)`$ as much as we can since the correlation functions of our interest do not depend on it explicitly as we will show later. The conformal dimensions become, respectively,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N=\frac{1}{2}\alpha (Q\alpha ),\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^R=\frac{1}{16}+\frac{1}{2}\alpha (Q\alpha ).$$
(5)
From these, one can see that physical states can be denoted by a real parameter $`P`$ defined by

$$\alpha =\frac{Q}{2}+iP.$$
(6)
In this section we are interested in the SLFT on a pseudosphere. This is a generalization of  where the LFT is studied in the geometry of the infinite constant negative curvature surface, the so-called Lobachevskiy plane, i.e. the pseudosphere. The equations of motion for the SLFT are given by

$`\overline{}\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`4\pi ^2\mu b^2\left(\mu e^{b\varphi }i\overline{\psi }\psi \right)e^{b\varphi }`$ (7)
$`\overline{\psi }`$ $`=`$ $`i\mu e^{b\varphi }\psi ,\overline{}\psi =i\mu e^{b\varphi }\overline{\psi }.`$ (8)
We will assume that the fermion vanishes in the classical limit so that the background metric is determined by the bosonic field satisfying

$$e^{\phi (z)}=\frac{4R^2}{(1|z|^2)^2},$$
(9)
where $`\phi =2b\varphi `$ and $`R^2=4\pi ^2\mu ^2b^3`$. The parameter $`R`$ is interpreted as the radius of the pseudosphere in which the points at the circle $`|z|=1`$ are infinitely far away from any internal point. This circle can be interpreted as the “boundary” of the pseudosphere. In the same way as the LFT, we can now use the Poincaré model of the Lobachevskiy plane with complex coordinate $`\xi `$ in the upper half plane.

We want to compute exact one-point functions of the (NS) and (R) bulk operators $`N_\alpha `$ and $`R_\alpha `$. Due to the superconformal invariance, these one-point functions are given by

$`N_\alpha (\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{U^N(\alpha )}{|\xi \overline{\xi }|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N}}}`$ (10)
$`R_\alpha (\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{U^R(\alpha )}{|\xi \overline{\xi }|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^R}}}.`$ (11)
We will simply refer to the coefficients $`U^N(\alpha )`$ and $`U^R(\alpha )`$ as bulk one-point functions. To derive the functional relations satisfied by these one-point functions, we should consider the bulk degenerate fields which are defined by some differential equations with certain orders .

The degenerate fields in the (NS) sector are given by

$$N_{\alpha _{m,n}}=e^{\alpha _{m,n}\varphi },\alpha _{m,n}=\frac{1}{2b}(1m)+\frac{b}{2}(1n),\mathrm{with}mn=\mathrm{even}$$
(12)
and those in the (R) sector by

$$R_{\alpha _{m,n}}=\sigma ^{(ϵ)}e^{\alpha _{m,n}\varphi },\mathrm{with}mn=\mathrm{odd}.$$
(13)
One of the essential features of these fields is that the operator product expansion (OPE) of a degenerate field with any primary field is given by a linear combination of only finite number of primary fields and their decendents. The simplest degenerate fields are $`N_b`$ for the (NS) sector and $`R_{b/2}`$ for the (R) sector. In particular, $`R_{b/2}`$ satisfies

$$\left[\frac{1}{b^2}+G_1G_0\right]R_{b/2}=0$$
(14)
where $`G`$ is the fermionic part of the supercurrent. Similar equation holds for the anti-holomorphic part.

The OPE of $`R_{b/2}`$ with a (NS) primary field is given by

$$N_\alpha R_{b/2}=C_+^{(N)}(\alpha )\left[R_{\alpha b/2}\right]+C_{}^{(N)}(\alpha )\left[R_{\alpha +b/2}\right],$$
(15)
where $`[\mathrm{}]`$ stands for entire family of conformal decendents corresponding to a primary field. The structure constants can be computed using Coulomb gas integrals. One can set $`C_+^{(N)}=1`$ since no screening insertion is needed. The other structure constant $`C_{}^{(N)}`$ needs just one insertion of the SLFT interaction and can be obtained by

$`C_{}^{(N)}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`i\mu b^2{\displaystyle d^2\xi N_\alpha (0)R_{b/2}(1)\psi (\xi )\overline{\psi }(\overline{\xi })e^{b\varphi (\xi ,\overline{\xi })}R_{Q\alpha b/2}(\mathrm{})}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu b^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\xi |\xi |^{2\alpha b}|1\xi |^{b^21}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mu b^2\gamma \left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\frac{1}{2}\right)}{2\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\gamma (\alpha b)}}`$
with $`\gamma (x)=\mathrm{\Gamma }(x)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(1x)`$. Here, we used the following correlation functions of the spin fields

$`\sigma (\xi _1,\overline{\xi }_1)\sigma (\xi _2,\overline{\xi }_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|\xi _{12}|^{1/4}}}`$ (17)
$`\sigma (\xi _1,\overline{\xi }_1)\sigma (\xi _2,\overline{\xi }_2)\psi (\xi _3)\overline{\psi }(\overline{\xi }_3)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i/2}{|\xi _{12}|^{3/4}|\xi _{13}||\xi _{23}|}}.`$ (18)
Similarly, the OPE with the (R) primary field is

$$R_\alpha R_{b/2}=C_+^{(R)}(\alpha )\left[N_{\alpha b/2}\right]+C_{}^{(R)}(\alpha )\left[N_{\alpha +b/2}\right]$$
(19)
where $`C_+^{(R)}=1`$ as before and $`C_{}^{(R)}`$ is given by a screening integral

$`C_{}^{(R)}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`i\mu b^2{\displaystyle d^2\xi R_\alpha (0)R_{b/2}(1)\psi (\xi )\overline{\psi }(\overline{\xi })e^{b\varphi (\xi ,\overline{\xi })}N_{Q\alpha b/2}(\mathrm{})}`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{2}}b^2{\displaystyle d^2\xi |\xi |^{2\alpha b1}|1\xi |^{b^21}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{2}}b^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \gamma \left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}{\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\gamma \left(\alpha b+\frac{1}{2}\right)}}.`$
Now we consider the bulk two-point functions of the degenerate field $`R_{b/2}`$ and a (NS) field $`N_\alpha `$,

$$G_{\alpha ,b/2}^N(\xi ,\xi ^{})=N_\alpha (\xi ^{})R_{b/2}(\xi ).$$
(21)
It is straightforward from Eq.(15) to show that the two-point function satisfy

$$G_{\alpha ,b/2}^N(\xi ,\xi ^{})=C_+^{(N)}(\alpha )U^R\left(\alpha \frac{b}{2}\right)𝒢_+(\xi ,\xi ^{})+C_{}^{(N)}(\alpha )U^R\left(\alpha +\frac{b}{2}\right)𝒢_{}(\xi ,\xi ^{})$$
(22)
where $`𝒢_\pm (\xi ,\xi ^{})`$ are expressed in terms of the special conformal blocks

$$𝒢_\pm (\xi ,\xi ^{})=\frac{|\xi ^{}\overline{\xi }^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N2\mathrm{\Delta }_{b/2}^R}}{|\xi \overline{\xi }^{}|^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N}}_\pm (\eta )$$
(23)
with

$$\eta =\frac{(\xi \xi ^{})(\overline{\xi }\overline{\xi }^{})}{(\xi \overline{\xi }^{})(\overline{\xi }\xi ^{})}.$$
(24)
Here, the conformal blocks are given by the hypergeometric functions

$`_+(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{\alpha b}{2}}(1\eta )^{\frac{b^2}{4}+\frac{3}{8}}F(\alpha bb^2,{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}};\alpha b{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}};\eta ),`$ (25)
$`_{}(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{1}{2}+\frac{b^2}{2}\frac{\alpha b}{2}}(1\eta )^{\frac{b^2}{4}+\frac{3}{8}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}},1\alpha b;\alpha b+{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};\eta ).`$ (26)
In the cross channel, an equivalent expression for the two-point function can be obtained as follows:

$$G_{\alpha ,b/2}^N=\frac{|\xi ^{}\overline{\xi }^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N2\mathrm{\Delta }_{b/2}^R}}{|\xi \overline{\xi }^{}|^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^N}}\left[B_+^{(N)}(\alpha )\stackrel{~}{}_+(\eta )+B_{}^{(N)}(\alpha )\stackrel{~}{}_{}(\eta )\right]$$
(27)
with

$`\stackrel{~}{}_+(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{\alpha b}{2}}(1\eta )^{\frac{b^2}{4}+\frac{3}{8}}F(\alpha bb^2,{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}};1b^2;1\eta ),`$ (28)
$`\stackrel{~}{}_{}(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{\alpha b}{2}}(1\eta )^{\frac{3b^2}{4}+\frac{3}{8}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}},\alpha b;1+b^2;1\eta ).`$ (29)
The boundary structure constants $`B_\pm ^{(N)}`$ can be determined from the monodromy relations

$`_+(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha b)}}\stackrel{~}{_+}(\eta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha bb^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}}\stackrel{~}{_{}}(\eta ),`$ (30)
$`_{}(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+b^2\alpha b)}}\stackrel{~}{_+}(\eta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{3}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\alpha b)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}}\stackrel{~}{_{}}(\eta ).`$ (31)
The conformal block $`\stackrel{~}{_{}}`$ corresponds to the identity boundary operator with dimension $`0`$ appearing in the boundary as the bulk operator $`R_{b/2}`$ approaches the boundary with $`\eta 1`$. Another boundary operator $`n_b`$ appearing as $`R_{b/2}`$ approaches the boundary generates the $`\stackrel{~}{_+}`$ block. As mentioned above, the geodesic distance to the boundary on the pseudosphere is infinite. Therefore, the two-point function in the LHS of (15) can be factorized into a product of two one-point functions and satisfies

$$B_{}^{(N)}(\alpha )=U^N(\alpha )U^R(b/2).$$
(32)
Combining all these and using (27), we obtain the following nonlinear functional equation in the $`\eta 1`$ limit:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)U^N(\alpha )U^R\left(\frac{b}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)}=\frac{U^R\left(\alpha \frac{b}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha bb^2\right)}+\frac{\pi \mu b^2U^R\left(\alpha +\frac{b}{2}\right)}{\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha b)\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\frac{1}{2}\right)}.$$
(33)
Analysis of the other two-point function

$$G_{\alpha ,b/2}^R(\xi ,\xi ^{})=R_\alpha (\xi )R_{b/2}(\xi ^{})$$
(34)
goes along the same line and leads to the second functional equation

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)U^R(\alpha )U^R\left(\frac{b}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}=\frac{U^N\left(\alpha \frac{b}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha bb^2\frac{1}{2}\right)}+\frac{\pi \mu b^2U^N\left(\alpha +\frac{b}{2}\right)}{\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{1}{2}\right)}.$$
(35)
Here, we used the following (R)-sector conformal blocks

$`_+^R(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{\alpha b}{2}+\frac{1}{8}}(1\eta )^{\frac{b^2}{4}+\frac{3}{8}}\left(1+\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\eta }}}\right)^{1/2}F(\alpha bb^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{1b^2}{2}};\alpha b{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}};\eta )`$
$`_{}^R(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^{\frac{b^2}{2}\frac{\alpha b}{2}\frac{5}{8}}(1\eta )^{\frac{b^2}{4}\frac{1}{8}}\left(1\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\eta }}}\right)^{1/2}F({\displaystyle \frac{1b^2}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha b;\alpha b+{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{2}}+1;\eta ).`$
It is worth mentioning on the superindices $`(ϵ)`$ we have omitted in the correlation function (34). When one (R) field has $`ϵ=+`$ and the other $`ϵ=`$, the two-point function becomes proportional to $`\sigma ^{(+)}\sigma ^{()}`$ or $`\psi `$. And the fermion one-point function should vanish due to the Lorenz invariance. If both (R) fields have the same index, either $`ϵ=+`$ or $``$, the previous derivation holds as it is and the same functional relations are obtained.

The SLFT satisfies the duality $`b1/b`$. This property requires considering another degenerate (R) operator $`R_{1/2b}`$ which generates two more functional equations in addition to Eqs.(33) and (35). These additional equations can be obtained by just replacing the coupling constant $`b`$ with $`1/b`$ and the paramter $`\mu `$ by the “dual” $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ satisfying

$$\pi \stackrel{~}{\mu }\gamma \left(\frac{Q}{2b}\right)=\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left(\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\right]^{1/b^2}.$$
(36)
Therefore, the one-point functions $`U^N(\alpha )`$ and $`U^R(\alpha )`$ should satisfy four nonlinear functional equations.

We have found the solutions to these overdetermined nonlinear equations as follows:

$`U_{mn}^N(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left[m\pi \left(\frac{Q}{2b}\frac{\alpha }{b}\right)\right]\mathrm{sin}\left[n\pi \left(\frac{bQ}{2}b\alpha \right)\right]}{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{m\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{n\pi bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left[\pi \left(\frac{Q}{2b}\frac{\alpha }{b}\right)\right]\mathrm{sin}\left[\pi \left(\frac{bQ}{2}b\alpha \right)\right]}}U_{11}^N(\alpha )`$ (37)
$`U_{mn}^R(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left[m\pi \left(\frac{Q}{2b}\frac{\alpha }{b}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\right]\mathrm{sin}\left[n\pi \left(\frac{bQ}{2}b\alpha +\frac{1}{2}\right)\right]}{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{m\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{n\pi bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left[\pi \left(\frac{Q}{2b}\frac{\alpha }{b}\right)\right]\mathrm{cos}\left[\pi \left(\frac{bQ}{2}b\alpha \right)\right]}}U_{11}^R(\alpha )`$ (38)
where the ‘basic’ solutions are given by

$`U_{11}^N(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}}\right)\right]^{\alpha /b}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{Q}{2b}\right)\frac{Q}{2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\alpha }{b}+\frac{Q}{2b}\right)\left(\frac{Q}{2}\alpha \right)}}`$ (39)
$`U_{11}^R(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}}\right)\right]^{\alpha /b}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{Q}{2b}\right)\frac{Q}{2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{bQ}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\alpha }{b}+\frac{Q}{2b}+\frac{1}{2}\right)}}.`$ (40)
This is our main result in this section. There are infinite number of possible solutions which are parametrized by two integers $`(m,n)`$. For these to be solutions, we find that the two integers should satisfy $`mn=`$ even. The basic solutions, Eqs.(39) and (40), can be interpreted as the one-point functions of the bulk operators $`N_\alpha `$ and $`R_\alpha `$ corresponding to the vacuum BC, the BC corresponding to the bulk vacuum operator $`N_0`$. Then, the general solutions, Eqs.(37) and (38), can be identified with the one-point functions with the conformal BC $`(m,n)`$ classified by Cardy . We will discuss more about this issue in sect.4. Since $`mn=`$ even, the one-point functions we obtained correspond to the (NS)-type BCs only. This seems consistent with the fact that only the (NS) boundary operators arise when the (NS) or (R) bulk degenerate operators approach the boundary corresponding to the vacuum BC.

We also note that Eqs.(37) and (38) satisfy so-called bulk “reflection relations”:

$$U_{m,n}^N(\alpha )=D^{(N)}(\alpha )U_{m,n}^N(Q\alpha ),U_{m,n}^R(\alpha )=D^{(R)}(\alpha )U_{m,n}^R(Q\alpha )$$
(41)
where $`D^{(N)}(\alpha )`$ and $`D^{(R)}(\alpha )`$ are the (NS) and the (R) reflection amplitudes derived in . One can also notice that new functions defined by

$$\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}^N=U_{m,n}^N,\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}^R=U_{m,n}^R$$
(42)
become again solutions to the above nonlinear equations. We will discuss the meaning of the solutions from the viewpoint of the generalized Cardy formalism later.

Finally, we consider a special case where $`\alpha =0`$. From Eq.(37), one can notice that one-point function of the identity operator is normalized in such a way that $`U^N(0)=1`$. Then, one-point function of the spin field with $`(m,n)`$ BC is given by Eq.(38)

$$\sigma ^{(\pm )}_{(m,n)}=U_{mn}^R(0).$$
(43)
## 3 Bulk One-Point Function with Boundary

In this section, we define the SLFT on half plane where superconformally invariant boundary action is imposed. We choose the following boundary action at $`y=0`$

$$_B=\frac{\mu _B}{2}e^{b\varphi /2}a(\psi i\gamma \overline{\psi })(x)$$
(44)
with $`\gamma =\pm 1`$ and the fermionic zero-mode $`a`$ satisfying

$$\sigma ^{(\pm )}=a\sigma ^{()}\mathrm{and}a^2=1.$$
(45)
This action includes additional boundary parameter $`\mu _B`$ which generates continuous family of the BCs. The boundary equations of motion are given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}_y\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b\mu _Ba(\psi i\gamma \overline{\psi })e^{b\varphi /2}`$ (46)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\pi }}\psi `$ $`=`$ $`\mu _Be^{b\varphi /2}a,{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\pi }}\overline{\psi }=i\gamma \mu _Be^{b\varphi /2}a`$ (47)
which lead to

$$(\psi +i\gamma \overline{\psi })=0.$$
(48)
Notice that Eq.(48) is the well-known fermion BC imposed by Cardy. Plugging these constraints back into the action, one can simplify the boundary action

$$_B=\mu _Be^{b\varphi /2}a\psi .$$
(49)
This term is different from that preserving boundary integrability such as considered in . Main difference is that our action is preserving not only integrability but also superconformal symmetry. Indeed, the boundary action is nothing but the screening operator which guarantees the symmetry.

One can see that physical quantities should contain only even powers of $`\mu _B`$ because of the fermionic zero-mode. While the bulk properties of the boundary SLFT should be identical, we should define the boundary operators. As in the bulk, there are two sectors, the (NS) and (R) boundary operators

$$n_\beta =e^{\beta \varphi /2}(x),r_\beta =\sigma ^{(ϵ)}e^{\beta \varphi /2}(x).$$
(50)
The procedure to derive the functional equations satisfied by the bulk one-point functions are identical to that in sect.2. Major difference arises when the bulk degenerate operator $`R_{b/2}`$ approaches the boundary as $`z\overline{z}`$. The LHS of Eq.(22) can be evaluated by the boundary OPE which generates the boundary operator $`n_0`$ and $`n_b`$. We choose the identity operator $`n_0`$, or the boundary vacuum state, since we are interested in the bulk one-point function. The fusion of the degenerate field $`R_{b/2}`$ can be computed by a first order perturbation from the boundary action:

$`^{(ϵ)}(b/2,Q)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _B{\displaystyle 𝑑xR_{b/2}^{(ϵ)}\left(\frac{i}{2}\right)a\psi (x)e^{b\varphi _B/2}(x)e^{Q\varphi _B/2}(\mathrm{})}`$ (51)
$`=`$ $`\mu _B{\displaystyle 𝑑x|xi/2|^{b^21}}=2\pi \mu _B{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)^2}}.`$
Here, we used the formula

$$\sigma (\xi ,\overline{\xi })a\psi (x)=\frac{1}{|x\xi |^{1/2}|\xi \overline{\xi }|^{3/8}}.$$
(52)
Again, the dependence on the superindex $`ϵ`$ disappears so that we can suppress it. With the vacuum state on the boundary, the two-point function becomes the bulk one-point function of the operator $`N_\alpha `$. Equating this with the RHS of Eq.(22) gives the functional equation

$$\frac{2\pi \mu _B}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)}U^N(\alpha )=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}+\frac{1}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha bb^2\right)}U^R\left(\alpha \frac{b}{2}\right)+\frac{\pi \mu b^2\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\frac{1}{2}\right)}{\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha b)}U^R\left(\alpha +\frac{b}{2}\right).$$
(53)
Similar consideration for the $`G_{\alpha ,b/2}^R`$ leads to

$$\frac{2\pi \mu _B}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)}U^R(\alpha )=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha bb^2\frac{1}{2}\right)}U^N\left(\alpha \frac{b}{2}\right)+\frac{\pi \mu b^2\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b\frac{b^2}{2}\right)}{\gamma \left(\frac{1b^2}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha b+\frac{1}{2}\right)}U^N\left(\alpha +\frac{b}{2}\right).$$
(54)
As before, one should consider the dual equations coming from the dual degenerate operator $`R_{1/2b}`$.

The solutions of Eqs.(53) and (54) can be found as

$`U^N(\alpha )=𝒩b\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}}\right)\right]^{\frac{Q2\alpha }{2b}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2}}\right)b\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}\right)\mathrm{cosh}\left[\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2}}\right)\pi s\right]`$ (55)
$`U^R(\alpha )=𝒩\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}}\right)\right]^{\frac{Q2\alpha }{2b}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)b\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2b}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}\right)\mathrm{cosh}\left[\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2}}\right)\pi s\right],`$ (56)
where the normalization factor $`𝒩`$ is given by

$$𝒩=\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left(\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\right]^{Q/2b}\left[b\mathrm{\Gamma }(Qb/2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1Q/2b)\mathrm{cosh}(Q\pi s/2)\right]^1$$
(57)
so that $`U^N(0)=1`$. Here, the boundary parameter $`s`$ is related to $`\mu _B`$ by

$$\frac{\mu _B^2}{\mu b^2}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi bQ}{2}\right)=\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\frac{\pi bs}{2}\right).$$
(58)
It is possible to find another conformal BC by changing $`aa`$. This introduces extra ‘–’ sign in the LHS of the functional equations, Eqs.(53) and (54), so that the solutions are found to be

$$\stackrel{~}{U}^{(N)}=U^{(N)},\stackrel{~}{U}^{(R)}=U^{(R)}.$$
(59)
The solutions Eqs.(55) and (56) are our main result in this section. Notice that these are self-dual if the parameter $`s`$ is invariant and $`\mu \stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ as Eq.(36). The continuous parameter $`s`$ coming from $`\mu _B`$ generates a continuous family of conformally invariant BCs. We will discuss how these BCs can be consistent with the generalized Cardy formalism in the next section. One can also check that these satisfy the bulk reflection relations Eq.(41).

The one-point function can be checked by a perturbative analysis. Defining the third and fourth terms in Eq.(1) as $`V_b`$ and the boundary action in Eq.(44) as $`B_b`$, one can express an one-point function as an infinite sum of these perturbation terms,

$$O_\alpha (\xi ,\overline{\xi })=\underset{p,q}{}\frac{1}{p!q!}O_\alpha (\xi ,\overline{\xi })V_b^pB_b^q_0$$
(60)
where the evaluation is made with $`\mu =\mu _B=0`$. It is well known that the perturbative results are non-vanishing only at the on-shell condition $`\alpha =Q/2(p+q/2)b`$ and correspond to the residue of the one-point function as follows:

$`\mathrm{residue}U^N(\alpha )|_{\alpha =Q/2(p+q/2)b}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒩e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2)`$
$`\mathrm{residue}U^R(\alpha )|_{\alpha =Q/2(p+q/2)b}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒩\sigma e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2),`$ (61)
where $`p`$ is a non-negative integer and $`q`$ is a non-negative even integer for the (NS)-sector and odd for the (R)-sector. From Eqs.(55) and (56), one can find nontrivial pole structure of $`U^N`$ at $`p+q/2=0`$,

$$U^N(\alpha )\frac{𝒩}{\alpha \frac{Q}{2}},$$
(62)
and at $`p+q/2=1`$,

$$U^N(\alpha )\pi \mu b^2\gamma (\frac{bQ}{2})\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi bs)\frac{𝒩}{\alpha \frac{Q}{2}+b}.$$
(63)
On the other hand, the perturbative calculation for $`p+q/2=0`$ gives

$$e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2,i/2)_0=1.$$
(64)
and for $`p+q/2=1`$

$`e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2,i/2)V_b_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mu b^2{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{Im}z>0}}d^2\xi |\xi i/2|^{2\alpha b}|\xi +i/2|^{2\alpha b}|\xi \overline{\xi }|^{bQ}`$ (65)
$`=`$ $`(\pi bQ)\mu b^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(bQ)\gamma ({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}})`$
$`e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2,i/2)B_b^2_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _B^2{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x_1𝑑x_2|x_1i/2|^{2\alpha b}|x_2i/2|^{2\alpha b}|x_1x_2|^{bQ}`$ (66)
$`=`$ $`\mu _B^2(4\pi bQ)\mathrm{\Gamma }(bQ)\gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi bQ}{2}}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{bQ}{2}}\right).`$
Combining the two contributions gives the correct residue of the one-point function.

The first non-trivial check for the (R)-sector arises at $`p+q/2=1/2`$

$$U^R(\alpha )\frac{\mu _B\pi }{\alpha \frac{1}{2b}}.$$
(67)
This is consistent with the perturbative result

$$\sigma e^{\alpha \varphi }(i/2,i/2)B_b_0=\mu _B\pi .$$
(68)
## 4 Boundary states for the super-LFT

For the super-CFTs, Virasoro characters are defined for the (NS) sector, the (R)-sector, and the $`\stackrel{~}{(\mathrm{NS})}`$-sector. The characters of the primary states for the generic value of $`P`$, which have no null-states, are given by :

$`\chi _P^{NS}(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _3(q)}{\eta (q)}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{P^2/2}}{\eta (q)}}`$ (69)
$`\chi _P^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _4(q)}{\eta (q)}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{P^2/2}}{\eta (q)}}`$ (70)
$`\chi _P^R(q)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _2(q)}{2\eta (q)}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{P^2/2}}{\eta (q)}}`$ (71)
where $`q=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i\tau )`$. Under the modular transformation $`\tau \tau ^{}=1/\tau `$, the characters transform

$`\chi _P^{NS}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P^{}e^{2\pi iPP^{}}\chi _P^{}^{NS}(\tau ^{})`$ (72)
$`\chi _P^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P^{}e^{2\pi iPP^{}}\chi _P^{}^R(\tau ^{})`$ (73)
$`\chi _P^R(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P^{}e^{2\pi iPP^{}}\chi _P^{}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau ^{}).`$ (74)
On the other hand, the modular transformations of the characters for the (NS) degenerate fields in Eq.(12) are given by

$`\chi _{m,n}^{NS}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(q^{})2\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mPb)`$ (75)
$`\chi _{m,n}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^R(q^{})\{\begin{array}{c}2\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mPb)m,n=\mathrm{even}\hfill \\ 2\mathrm{cosh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi mPb)m,n=\mathrm{odd}.\hfill \end{array}`$ (78)
According to Cardy’s formalism, one can associate a conformal BC with each primary state . Since the SLFT is an irrational CFT with infinite number of primary states, there will be infinite number of conformal BCs. One can classify these into ‘discrete BCs’ and ‘continuous BCs’ for the degenerate and non-degenerate primary states, respectively. It is natural to start with the discrete BCs $`(m,n)`$. With $`mn=`$even, there are the (NS)-type BCs corresponding to the (NS) degenerate fields $`N_{\alpha _{m,n}}`$. We will denote the corresponding boundary states by $`|(m,n)`$. Due to the super conformal symmetry, one needs to introduce additional BCs $`(\stackrel{~}{m,n})`$ and corresponding boundary states $`|(\stackrel{~}{m,n})`$ . Let us consider $`(m,n)`$ BCs first. Through the modular transformation, one can obtain

$$\chi _{m,n}^{NS}(\tau )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑P\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)^{}\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{}),$$
(79)
where the amplitude is defined by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)=(m,n)|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS},$$

where $`|\alpha ,NS`$ is the (NS) Ishibashi state with $`\alpha =Q/2+iP`$.

Using Eq.(75) into Eq.(79), one can obtain a relation

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)=2\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mPb).$$
(80)
We can set the basic amplitude for $`m=n=1`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)=\frac{\pi \sqrt{2}}{P\mathrm{\Gamma }(iPb)\mathrm{\Gamma }(iP/b)}\left[\pi \mu \gamma \left(\frac{bQ}{2}\right)\right]^{iP/b}.$$
(81)
Then, one can obtain the relation

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)=\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{m\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(n\pi Pb\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\pi Pb\right)}$$
(82)
by the Cardy formula.

It has been shown in  that the amplitudes are related to the one-point functions by

$$U_{\stackrel{~}{k}}(\varphi )=\frac{\stackrel{~}{k}|\varphi }{\stackrel{~}{k}|\mathrm{𝟏}}.$$
(83)
For the SLFT, this formula becomes

$$U_{m,n}^N(\alpha )=\frac{(m,n)|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS}}{(m,n)|0,\mathrm{NS}}.$$
(84)
From this and Eq.(82), one can obtain

$$\frac{U_{m,n}^N(\alpha )}{U_{1,1}^N(\alpha )}=\frac{(m,n)|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS}}{(m,n)|0,\mathrm{NS}}\frac{(1,1)|0,\mathrm{NS}}{(1,1)|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS}}=\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{m\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(n\pi Pb\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\pi Pb\right)}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi Qb}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{m\pi Q}{2b}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{n\pi Qb}{2}\right)}.$$
(85)
This result is identical to Eq.(37), which shows that the one-point functions obtained from the functional relations are consistent with the modular transformation properties.

Now let us consider the partition function on a strip with $`(m,n)`$ and $`(m^{},n^{})`$ BCs on both boundaries. Using the fusion procedure, one can obtain

$`Z_{(m,n),(m^{},n^{})}^{NS}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{m^{},n^{}}^{NS}(P)^{}.`$ (86)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{}){\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sinh}(m\pi P/b)\mathrm{sinh}(n\pi Pb)\mathrm{sinh}(m^{}\pi P/b)\mathrm{sinh}(n^{}\pi Pb)}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi P/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi Pb)}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(m,m^{})1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(n,n^{})1}{}}}\chi _{(m+m^{}12k),(n+n^{}12l)}^{NS}(\tau )`$
in accordance with the fusion algebra. The character for the non-degenerate case with $`P=s/2`$ satisfies

$$\chi _s^{NS}(\tau )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{cos}(\pi sP)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)^{},$$
(87)
with $`\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P)=\stackrel{~}{s}|P,NS`$.

From this, one can find the amplitudes for a general non-degenerate (NS) boundary state satisfy

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P)=\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^{NS}(P)\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\pi sP)}{2\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\pi Pb\right)}.$$
(88)
Again, from Eq.(83), the amplitudes are related to the one-point functions by

$$\frac{U^N(\alpha )}{U_{1,1}^N(\alpha )}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{s}|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS}}{\stackrel{~}{s}|0,\mathrm{NS}}\frac{(1,1)|0,\mathrm{NS}}{(1,1)|\alpha ,\mathrm{NS}}=\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\pi Ps)}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{Q\pi s}{2}\right)}\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\pi Q/2b)\mathrm{sin}(\pi Qb/2)}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi Pb)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi P/b)}.$$
(89)
This can be checked to be correct by Eqs.(39) and (55).

The partition function with a discrete BC on one side and a continuous BC on the other is given as follows:

$`Z_{(m,n),s}^{NS}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P)^{}`$ (90)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}(m\pi P/b)\mathrm{sinh}(n\pi Pb)}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi P/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi Pb)}}\mathrm{cos}(\pi sP)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{m1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}\chi _{s+i(m12k)/b+i(n12l)b}^{NS}(\tau ),`$
which goes with the fusion algebra.

The partition function $`Z_{s,s^{}}^{NS}(\tau )`$ with contiuous BCs on both boundaries, $`s`$ and $`s^{}`$, is given as

$$Z_{s,s^{}}^{NS}(\tau )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{}^{NS}(P)^{}.$$
(91)
This can be rewritten as

$`Z_{s,s^{}}^{NS}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P^{}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑Pe^{2i\pi PP^{}}\chi _P^{NS}(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{NS}(P^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_s^{}^{NS}(P^{})^{}.`$ (92)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^{NS}(\tau )\rho _{ss^{}}^{NS}(P),`$
where $`\rho _{ss^{}}^{NS}(P)`$ is the density of states,

$$\rho _{ss^{}}^{NS}(P)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{\pi }e^{2iPt}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(st)\mathrm{cos}(s^{}t)}{\mathrm{sinh}(t/b)\mathrm{sinh}(tb)}.$$
(93)
This quantity is not well-defined at $`P=0`$ and is to be properly regularized. This density of states is, on the other hand, conjectured to be related with the boundary two-point function of $`n_\beta ^{ss^{}}`$ with $`\beta =Q/2+iP`$, $`d_B^{NS}(P|s,s^{})`$, by

$$\rho _{s,s^{}}^{NS}(P)=\frac{i}{2\pi }\frac{d}{dP}\mathrm{log}d_B^{NS}(P|s,s^{}).$$
(94)
It is remarkable that this relation is identical to that of the LFT. This means that the boundary (NS) two-point functions have the same dependence on the boundary parameters as the LFT which is obtained in .

Now we consider the (R) operator propagating in the strip. From the relation

$$\chi _{m,n}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑P\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^R(P)^{}\chi _P^R(\tau ^{}),$$
(95)
one can obtain

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^R(P)^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R(P)=\{\begin{array}{c}2\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{sinh}(\pi mPb)m,n=\mathrm{even}\hfill \\ 2\mathrm{cosh}(\pi mP/b)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi mPb)m,n=\mathrm{odd}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(96)
Here, we define the amplitude $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R(P)=(m,n)|\alpha ,R`$ as before.

These amplitudes are related to the one-point fuctions by

$$U_{m,n}^R(\alpha )=\frac{(m,n)|\alpha ,R}{(m,n)|0,R},$$
(97)
and satisfy

$$\frac{U_{m,n}^R(\alpha )}{U_{1,1}^R(\alpha )}=\frac{(m,n)|\alpha ,R}{(m,n)|0,R}\frac{(1,1)|0,R}{(1,1)|\alpha ,R}.$$
(98)
One can check that this relation is consistent with Eqs.(96) and (38). This shows again that the functional relations are consistent with the modular transformation.

The partition function with $`(m,n)`$ and $`(m^{},n^{})`$ BCs is written as

$`Z_{(m,n),(m^{},n^{})}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\sqrt{2}\chi _P^R(\tau ^{}).\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{m^{},n^{}}^R(P)^{}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(m,m^{})1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(n,n^{})1}{}}}\chi _{(m+m^{}12k),(n+n^{}12l)}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )`$ (99)
and is consistent with fusion algebra.

The character for the continuous boundary parameter $`s`$ satisfies

$`\chi _s^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^R(\tau ^{})\mathrm{cos}(\pi sP)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^R(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_s^R(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^R(P)^{}.`$ (100)
The (R) amplitude for a general boundary parameter $`s`$ is given as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_s^R(P)=\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}^R(P)\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\pi sP)}{2\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{cosh}\left(\pi Pb\right)}.$$
(101)
Again, from Eq.(83), the amplitudes are related to the one-point functions by

$$\frac{U^R(\alpha )}{U_{1,1}^R(\alpha )}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{s}|\alpha ,R}{\stackrel{~}{s}|0,R}\frac{(1,1)|0,R}{(1,1)|\alpha ,R}=\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\pi Ps)}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{Q\pi s}{2}\right)}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(\pi Q/2b)\mathrm{cos}(\pi Qb/2)}{\mathrm{cosh}(\pi Pb)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi P/b)}.$$
(102)
This can be checked to be correct by Eqs.(40) and (56).

The partition function with mixed BCs is given as follows:

$`Z_{(m,n),s}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑P\chi _P^R(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_s^R(P)^{}`$ (103)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{m1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}\chi _{s+i(m12k)/b+i(n12l)b}^{\stackrel{~}{NS}}(\tau ).`$
One can consider $`(\stackrel{~}{m,n})`$ BCs in the same way and can associate the amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\stackrel{~}{m,n}}^{NS}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\stackrel{~}{m,n}}^R`$ with $`\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}^N`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{U}_{m,n}^R`$, respectively. From Eq.(42), one can see that

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^{NS}=\mathrm{\Psi }_{\stackrel{~}{m,n}}^{NS},\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}^R=\mathrm{\Psi }_{\stackrel{~}{m,n}}^R.$$
(104)
Similar result holds for the continuous BCs and can be compared with Eq.(59). These results are consistent with those of the rational super-CFTs considered in .

## 5 Conclusions

In this paper, we have studied the SLFT in two-dimensional space-time with boundary applying the same method used for the LFT. However, the one-point functions of the SLFT satisfy more complicated functional relations due to the existence of two sectors, the (NS) and (R). By solving the functional relations, we find not only the one-point functions but also the relation between the parameter $`\mu _B`$ in the boundary action and that for the boundary condition.

We have also related the one-point functions in the pseudosphere to the conformal BCs and showed that they are consistent with the Cardy formalism if one takes care of the peculiar aspects of the super-CFTs in the same way as the rational cases . Then, this result has been used to understand boundary two-point functions for the SLFT with the boundary action. We conclude that the boundary (NS) two-point functions have the same dependence on the boundary parameters as the LFT while explicit expression of this quantity needs more work. We hope to present it in another publication.

There are still other problems which should be further explored. The solutions of Eqs.(37) and (38) are possible only for $`mn`$=even. The functional equations for the other case may also exist. This becomes necessary when one relates to the conformal BCs. In this paper, we considered only the (NS)-type BCs since the (R)-type BCs should be associated with $`mn`$=odd.

Based on the successful results of the LFT and the SLFT, it seems the approach based on the functional relation associated with some degenerate fields are quite efficient way of dealing with irrational CFTs. In this respect, it would be interesting to apply this method to such irrational CFTs as finite Toda field theories and the LFT with $`N=2`$ and fractional supersymmetries. Another interesting problem is to derive the boundary reflection amplitude from the boundary two-point functions of the $`N=1`$ SLFT and to obtain off-critical scaling function developed in .

## Acknowledgement

We thank V. Fateev, R. Nepomechie and Al. Zamolodchikov for valuable discussions. We thank Univ. Montpellier II, APCTP and YVRC for hospitality. This work is supported in part by KOSEF 1999-2-112-001-5, MOST-99-N6-01-01-A-5 (CA), and Eastern Europe exchange program 12-69-002 sponsored by KISTEP (MS).


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# MULTI-JET PRODUCTION IN HADRON COLLISIONS

## 1 Introduction

With the recommissioning of the Tevatron, and the forseeable commencement of physics at the LHC, the need for fast and accurate QCD calculations is now larger than ever. In this paper, we describe our efforts to arrive at such calculations. To set the stage: we have in mind the computation of QCD cross sections with many observed jets that, as usual, are modelled by assuming that each jet comes from a single fragmenting parton. With the large amount of energy available, the number $`n`$ of jets can easily be as large as 8, thus requiring the computation of amplitudes with 10 or even more external legs.

Although in principle straightforward enough, the usual techniques of evaluating Feynman diagrams and integrating the resulting cross section by Monte Carlo are in practice hampered by the computational complexity of the problem. The following obstacles can be recognized:

1. The flavours of the initial partons are never detected, and in most cases (barring, say, $`b`$ tagging) neither are the flavours of the final-state partons. In what follows we take all quarks ($`u`$, $`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, and $`b`$) to be essentially massless, although a version of the code with massive fermions exists. In the case of flavour integration, to be discussed later on, we always treat quarks as massless. This means that in any given jet configuration there are usually very many contributing processes. Even enumerating these is a nontrivial task, and calculating each individual process cross section is even more so .
2. In addition to flavour, neither the colour nor the spin of any parton is observed. For an amplitude with $`p`$ quark partons and $`q`$ gluons this implies that in principle $`(6)^p(16)^q`$ contributions have to be added. It is true that, in particular, many colour configurations lead to zero amplitudes, but figuring out precisely which these are is very hard.
3. Each individual amplitude, with specified flavours, colours and spins, contains very many Feynman diagrams. In Appendix B we give a recipe for determining the precise number of graphs, at the tree level . Typical results are that the process $`gg8g`$ is described by 10,525,900 diagrams, and the process $`gg2g3u3\overline{u}`$ by 946,050 diagrams. Inclusion of loop corrections worsens this dramatically, of course.
4. Each amplitude peaks in complicated ways inside the momentum phase space. Straightforward integration is therefore impractical, and one has to search for efficient mappings to do importance sampling in a multi-particle phase space.

All these difficulties are addressed in this paper, and here we describe our solutions, in reverse order.

1. The peaking structure of the amplitude is dealt with by our phase-space generating algorithm SARGE . This algorithm is tailored to the generation of so-called antenna structures. Let $`p_1,\mathrm{},p_n`$ be the momenta of the $`n`$ partons involved. The peaking behaviour of the cross section for the purely gluonic process involving $`n`$ gluons, $`gg(n2)g`$ is then dominated by the following antenna structure:

$$\left[(p_1p_2)(p_2p_3)(p_3p_4)\mathrm{}(p_{n1}p_n)(p_np_1)\right]^1$$

and any permutation of labels. Since processes involving quarks do not show other dominant peaking behaviour than the above ones, we can cover the $`n`$-particle momentum phase space with good efficiency. More details about SARGE can be found in
2. Over the last years new algorithms, along with their implementations, for computing the tree-order scattering amplitude have been proposed . These do not involve calculation of individual diagrams, but rather reorganize, in a systematic way, the various off-shell subamplitudes in such a way that as little of the computation as possible is repeated. The improvement in computational efficiency of these algorithms is nevertheless dramatic, down from about $`n!`$ to something like $`3^n`$. In the algorithm suggested originally in reference  the scattering amplitude was computed through a set of recursive equations derived from the effective action as a function of the classical fields. These classical equations represent nothing but the tree-order Schwinger-Dyson equations, a fact that was already emphasized in subsequent approaches  and will be illustrated below for the special case of QCD. In fact, recursive techniques have already been used in the past to compute multi-gluon amplitudes.
3. The usual spin and colour summation is replaced by a Monte Carlo integration. In the purely gluonic case  this has been shown to work rather well. It must be realized that since we replace the more usual sum over discrete colour and spin states by a continuous (Monte Carlo) integration, the variance of the cross section can indeed be expected to be smaller.
4. We tackle the flavour combinatorics in the same spirit: we assign to each quark and antiquark a flavour quantum number, that is, we extend the definition of the external legs by a direct product with a flavour vector in the space of the 5 available flavours. By taking these vectors randomly we can perform a sum over flavours by Monte Carlo as well, and the only computational difference between the case of one single flavour and that of $`f`$ flavours is simply a factor $`f`$, whereas the discrete-flavour-sum combinatorics would lead to a much bigger loss in speed. The possibility of coherent superpositions of different flavours might seem awkward but is in fact quite natural since all quarks are treated as massless and therefore the distinction between flavours is to a large extent arbitrary. The only place where flavours are not treated on an equal footing is in the structure functions that describe the difference in probability of picking out different flavours: by a judicious weighting of the flavour vectors for incoming quarks and antiquarks we can handle this as well.

Considering the Monte Carlo treatment of spin, colour and flavour, the essential point is to realize that we are entitled to use any representation for the corresponding information, as long as we end up with the correct sums on the average.

Before finishing this introduction we want to mention that, so far, we can calculate partonic cross sections. These are typically good for global quantities like total cross sections, $`p_T`$ distributions and the like. A fuller treatment involves coupling the generated events to fragmentation programs like HERWIG . These programs typically require additional information on the ‘spanning of the colour string’. In  a way to do this for processes with zero or one quark lines is described; in  we shall indicate how the present program can be adapted in a similar manner.

## 2 The algorithm for jet production

### 2.1 The scattering amplitude

Our starting point are the Dyson-Schwinger (DS) equations, which give recursively the $`n`$-point Green’s functions. These equations hold all the information for the fields and their interactions for any number of external legs and to all orders in perturbation theory. We restrict ourselves to tree level calculations, so we discard ghost fields. Also we consider all quarks as massless. The couplings between fields, relevant for QCD, are shown below.

Coupling of the fields in QCD

The recursive content of the DS equation, for the gluon field for example, can be understood diagrammatically as follows:

Recursion equation for gluons

The figure shows that a subamplitude with an off-shell gluon of momentum $`P`$, has contributions from three- and four-vertices plus a fermion-antifermion vertex. The shaded blobs denote subamplitudes with the same structure. So, in effect, this is a recursive equation which we can write down immediately as (suppressing the colour):

$`A^\mu (P)={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\delta _{P=p_i}A^\mu (p_i)`$ $`+`$ $`(ig_s){\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}\mathrm{\Pi }_\nu ^\mu \overline{\psi }(p_1)\gamma ^\nu \psi (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(ig_s)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}V^{\mu \nu \lambda }(P,p_1,p_2)A_\nu (p_1)A_\lambda (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(g_s^2)}{6}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2+p_3}{}}G^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }A_\nu (p_1)A_\lambda (p_2)A_\rho (p_3)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
where $`V^{\mu \nu \lambda }(P,p_1,p_2)`$ and $`G^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }`$ are the 3 and 4-point vertices and

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_\nu ^\mu =\frac{ig_\nu ^\mu }{P^2}$$

is the gluon propagator. The symbol $`\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$ \- we will call it the sign function - takes into account the Fermi sign and has the values $`\pm 1`$. More on the sign function will be presented later on. For a quark of momentum $`P`$ (suppressing the colour again)

$$\psi (P)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\delta _{P=p_i}\psi (p_i)+(ig_s)\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}SA\text{}(p_1)\psi (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$
(2)
Recursion equation for quarks

where $`S`$ is the propagator

$$S=\frac{iP\text{}}{P^2}$$

and for an antiquark

$$\overline{\psi }(P)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\delta _{P=p_i}\overline{\psi }(p_i)+(ig_s)\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}\overline{\psi }(p_2)A\text{}(p_1)\stackrel{~}{S}\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$
(3)
Recursion equation for antiquarks

where

$$\stackrel{~}{S}=\frac{iP\text{}}{P^2}$$

In order to reduce computational complexity, as we will discuss later on, we replace the four gluon vertex with a three-vertex by introducing an auxiliary field $`H_{\mu \nu }`$. We rewrite the part of the QCD Lagrangian that describes the four-vertex in terms of the auxiliary field as follows:

$$_H=gf^{abc}A_\mu ^aA_\nu ^bH^{\mu \nu c}H_{\mu \nu }^aH^{\mu \nu a}$$
(4)
The recursion for the gluons changes slightly, namely only the part with the four-vertex. Additionally, we also have an equation for the auxiliary field:

Elimination of the four-vertex and the new H-gluon-gluon vertex.

$`A^\mu (P)={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\delta _{P=p_i}A^\mu (p_i)`$ $`+`$ $`(ig_s){\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}\mathrm{\Pi }_\nu ^\mu \overline{\psi }(p_1)\gamma ^\nu \psi (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(ig_s)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}V^{\mu \nu \lambda }(P,p_1,p_2)A_\nu (p_1)A_\lambda (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$``$ $`(g_s){\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}X^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }A_\nu (p_1)H_{\lambda \rho }(p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$$H_{\mu \nu }(P)=\frac{(g_s)}{4}\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}X^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }A_\lambda (p_1)A_\rho (p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$
(6)
where $`X^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }`$ is the new H-gluon-gluon vertex:

$$X^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }=g^{\mu \lambda }g^{\nu \rho }g^{\nu \lambda }g^{\mu \rho }$$

These four equations, namely (LABEL:Eq-glu1),(6),(2),(3), represent off-shell subamplitudes that are the building blocks of any process. They are used iteratively, combining two (or three) momenta, at each step, to build a subamplitude. The iteration begins with the initial conditions for the external particles. In particular for a gluon we have:

$$A_a^\mu (p_i)=ϵ_\lambda ^\mu (p_i)\delta _{aa_i},i=1,..n$$
(7)
where $`a`$ is the colour, $`a=1,\mathrm{},8`$, $`ϵ_\lambda ^\mu (p)`$ denotes the polarization vector and $`i`$ denotes one the external gluons. For the quarks and antiquarks the iteration starts with

$`\psi _k(p_i)=\{\begin{array}{cc}u(p_i)\delta _{kk_i}\hfill & \text{if}i\text{incoming}\hfill \\ \overline{u}(p_i)\delta _{kk_i}\hfill & \text{if}i\text{outgoing}\hfill \end{array}`$ (10)
$`\overline{\psi }_k(p_i)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\overline{u}(p_i)\delta _{kk_i}\hfill & \text{if}i\text{incoming}\hfill \\ u(p_i)\delta _{kk_i}\hfill & \text{if}i\text{outgoing}\hfill \end{array}`$ (13)
where $`k`$ is the colour, $`k=1,2,3`$. The next step is combining two of the external momenta, in all possible ways, in accordance to the Feynman rules, to compute the next subamplitude. The iteration goes through in the same manner, using the equations (LABEL:Eq-glu1), (6),(2),(3) repeatedly, each time combining the new momenta obtained, with the remaining of the external ones. After $`n1`$ steps there is only one momentum left to be combined, so the last step gives us the amplitude $`𝒜(p_1,p_2,\mathrm{},p_n)`$. We refer to reference  for all further details of the algorithm.

### 2.2 Colour and helicity

In order to have an estimate of the production probability, one has to sum over all colour and helicity configurations. Summation over colours is a delicate subject. If one performs the summation in a straightforward way then one has to consider something like $`8^{n_g}\times 3^{n_q}\times 3^{n_{\overline{q}}}`$ configurations for the $`n`$-parton scattering, where $`n_g,n_q,n_{\overline{q}}`$ is the number of gluons, quarks and antiquarks respectively. In this section we show how this summation can be replaced by integration, which is then suitable for Monte Carlo computation. As a first step a simplification of the colour structure is possible by defining the following object

$$G_{AB}\underset{a=1}{\overset{8}{}}t_{AB}^aG^a,A,B=1,2,3$$
(14)
where $`G^a`$ is the gluon field and all other indices have been temporarily suppressed. The new objects are of course traceless, $`3\times 3`$ matrices in colour space. The interesting property of this colour representation is that it leads to a “diagonalization” of the colour structure of the three-gluon vertex. More specifically the colour part of the three-gluon vertex is now given by

$$f^{abc}t_{AB}^at_{CD}^bt_{EF}^c=\frac{i}{4}(\delta _{AD}\delta _{CF}\delta _{EB}\delta _{AF}\delta _{CB}\delta _{ED})$$
(15)
Colour flow in the gluon 3-vertex, as represented in Eq.(15).

This colour structure shows the colour flow in the real physical process, where gluons can be represented by quark-antiquark states in colour space and their self-interaction, as given by Eq.(15), reflects the fact that colour remains unchanged on an uninterrupted colour line. The recursion equations that include the gluon, like Eq.(LABEL:Eq-glu1), now are modified according to Eq.(14), to reflect the new colour structure. The full content of the recursion equations, including the colour structure as just described, is listed in the Appendix A.

This new, simplified colour structure of the vertices, allows us now to take the next step in making the computation of the colour part of an amplitude more efficient, by ridding ourselves of the summations, mentioned in the beginning of this section, and replacing them by integration. To this end, we assign to a fermion a complex vector $`z_A`$, where the index runs from 1 to 3, representing its colour content. These vectors parametrize the 5-dimensional representation of $`SU(3)`$ on the sphere and are subjected to the constraint:

$$z_1^2+z_2^2+z_3^2=1$$

In this space, integration is defined through the proper definition for the invariant group measure, $`[dz]`$:

$$[dz]\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}dz_idz_i^{}\right)\delta (\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}z_iz_i^{}1)$$

We can use a simple polar coordinates parametrization to represent these complex vectors:

$`z_1=e^{i\varphi _1}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$
$`z_2=e^{i\varphi _2}\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\xi `$
$`z_3=e^{i\varphi _3}\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\xi `$
$`0\varphi _i2\pi ;\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}};\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}\xi {\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}`$ (16)
and in terms of these variables, the invariant measure becomes:

$$\frac{1}{\pi ^3}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _i\right)_0^{\frac{\pi }{2}}𝑑\theta _0^{\frac{\pi }{2}}𝑑\xi \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}^3\theta \mathrm{cos}\xi \mathrm{sin}\xi $$

The colour structure as described by (15), shows that gluons can be interpreted as quark-antiquark pairs. So we construct the following vector, appropriate for describing the colour part of a gluon, which has this colour structure:

$$\eta ^a(z)=\sqrt{24}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{3}{}}z_i^{}(t^a)_{ij}z_ja=1,\mathrm{},8$$
(17)
where $`t^a`$ are the Gell-Mann matrices. This vector is real, because $`(\eta ^a)^{}=\eta ^a`$ due to the hermiticity of the Gell-Mann matrices, and is normalized as follows:

$$[dz]\eta ^a(z)\eta ^b(z)=\delta ^{ab}$$

As far as our recursive equations are concerned their structure remains unaffected and the only thing to be changed are the initial conditions :

$`G_{AB}^\mu (P_i)={\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{8}{}}}G^a(P_i)\eta ^a(z)=\sqrt{6}\left(z_{iA}z_{iB}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\delta _{AB}\right)ϵ_\lambda ^\mu (P_i)`$
$`\psi _A(P_i)=\sqrt{3}u(P_i)z_{iA}`$
$`\overline{\psi }_A(P_i)=\sqrt{3}\overline{u}(P_i)z_{iA}^{}`$ (18)
where as usual $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$, $`\lambda `$ is the helicity and $`\stackrel{}{z}_i`$ are the new continuous colour coordinates of the $`i`$-th parton. The constants in the front are normalizations.

In the same spirit summation over helicity configurations of the external partons can be replaced by an integration over a phase variable. For example, for a gluon this is achieved by introducing the polarization vector

$$ϵ_\varphi ^\mu (p)=e^{i\varphi }ϵ^\mu (p,+)+e^{i\varphi }ϵ^\mu (p,)$$

where $`\varphi `$ is a random number. Then by integrating over $`\varphi `$ we obtain the sum over helicities,

$$\frac{1}{\pi }_0^\pi 𝑑\varphi ϵ_\varphi ^\mu (p)(ϵ_\varphi ^\nu (p))^{}=\underset{\lambda =\pm }{}ϵ^\mu (p,\lambda )(ϵ^\nu (p,\lambda ))^{}$$

The same thing can be used for the helicity of quark or an anti-quark. For example, for the quark we have

$$u_\varphi (p)=e^{i\varphi }u_+(p)+e^{i\varphi }u_{}(p)$$

and when integrated over $`\varphi `$ it gives the sum over polarizations

$$\underset{\lambda =\pm }{}u_\lambda (p)\overline{u}_\lambda (p)=p\text{}$$

and the same for an antiquark.

### 2.3 The Fermi sign function

Since we are dealing with fermions, we must find a way to incorporate a sign change when we interchange two identical fermions in a process. To this end we use the binary representation of the momentum labels of the external particles (e.g. $`P_1(0001),P_2(0010),P_3=P_1+P_2(0011)`$, etc.) So the sign relative to the permutation of two momenta, $`\sigma (P_i,P_j)`$ is computed as an operation on the two binary strings representing those momenta, $`\sigma (m_i,m_j)`$. The function that performs that operation is defined as:

$$\sigma (m_1,m_2)=(1)^{\chi (m_1,m_2)}$$
(19)
with

$$\chi (m_1,m_2)=\underset{i=n}{\overset{2}{}}\widehat{m}_{1i}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{i1}{}}\widehat{m}_{2j}\right)$$
(20)
A hat over the binary string means that this particular bit is set to $`0`$ if the corresponding external particle is a boson.

### 2.4 Flavor treatment

The classification of processes contributing to the production of $`n`$ jets is simplified when certain symmetries are taken into account. For instance processes like $`ggu\overline{u}u\overline{u}`$ and $`ggd\overline{d}d\overline{d}`$ can be grouped together in the general class with representative $`ggq\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$; obviously an extra factor $`f`$, representing the number of light flavours, has to be taken into account. We may call the representative ‘a distinct processes’ and attempt a complete classification of such processes. Is clear that the number of distinct processes for a given number $`n`$ of jets will be a small fraction of the total number of processes; this has a major implication on the computational complexity of the problem, since we may have the total contribution by just computing the contribution of a relatively small number of distinct processes. In the following table we give the number of distinct processes, as defined in Appendix C, for $`f=5`$ final state flavours, and $`f=4`$ initial state flavours, where we used these numbers in order to be able to compare with ref. .

| \# of jets | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| \# of dist.processes | 10 | 14 | 28 | 36 | 64 | 78 | 130 | 154 | 241 |
| total # of processes | 126 | 206 | 621 | 861 | 1862 | 2326 | 4342 | 5142 | 8641 |

Another way to tackle all these different processes is to introduce quarks (antiquarks) that are a mixture of different flavours. Thus, keeping with the spirit of colour and helicity treatment, we integrate over flavours instead of summing over them. This is done by attaching a vector $`\stackrel{}{f}`$ to each spinor describing a fermion, the components of which are random numbers between 0 and 1:

$$\psi _p=u(p)\times \stackrel{}{f}$$

with

$$\stackrel{}{f}=\sqrt{N_f}\left(\begin{array}{c}f_1\\ f_2\\ f_3\\ \mathrm{}\\ f_{N_f}\end{array}\right)$$

where $`f_1,f_2,\mathrm{},f_{N_f}`$ are random numbers and $`N_f`$ is the number of flavours. We choose the vectors $`\stackrel{}{f}`$ in such a way so that they are normalized as follows:

$$f_if_j=\delta _{ij}$$

where $`i,j=1,\mathrm{},N_f`$. As far as the final state is concerned, all flavours are equally treated (massless quarks). In the initial state however, due to different structure functions, special care should be taken of different flavours by a suitable weighting of the initial conditions with the structure function appropriate for each flavour.

In treating flavour as described so far a new ‘definition’ of the concept of distinct process emerges. Any process is now composed by three primary objects, namely $`g`$, $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}`$, where $`q`$($`\overline{q}`$) represents a coherent superposition of all flavour states. The possible initial states are nine, namely $`gg,gq,g\overline{q},qg,\overline{q}g,q\overline{q},\overline{q}q,qq,\overline{q}\overline{q}`$ and a final state will be determined by fixing the number $`m`$ of $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs. Obviously $`m`$ should satisfy, $`2mnc_i`$, with $`c_i`$ counts the net quark (antiquark) content of the initial state, namely

$$c_{gg}=c_{q\overline{q}}=c_{\overline{q}q}=0c_{gq}=c_{qg}=c_{\overline{q}g}=c_{g\overline{q}}=1c_{qq}=c_{\overline{q}\overline{q}}=2$$

So the number of ’distinct processes’ is now given by

$$9k+3\text{if}n=2k\text{and}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}9}k+7\text{if}n=2k+1$$

which represents a further reduction compared with the number of distinct processes indicated in the previous table.

## 3 Jet production rates

The features discussed in the previous sections have been implemented in a FORTRAN code with which we are able to perform perturbative calculations in QCD. We can divide the structure of the calculation leading to jet production rates in four parts: event generation, phase-space generation, squared amplitude computation and sum over processes calculation. In somewhat more detail these parts consist of:

#### Amplitude computation

The basic structure of the algorithm for the amplitude was discussed in section 2. In order to obtain squared amplitudes we use projection to a continuous colour space and colour MC integration and integration over helicity states. What remains to be done is the ability to extract information about the colour string of the final states so that it can be used in codes like HERWIG . Work is being done towards this end .

#### Phase space generation

In the current status of the code we have implemented two ways of phase-space generation. First of all we have RAMBO , a flat phase space generator which has been around for many years and has proved reliable for the relevant calculations. Recently though, a new generator has been developed, SARGE , which take into account the so called antenna structure of QCD amplitudes. So far it has been proved very efficient for the generation of this type of phase-space .

#### Event generation

Let us consider the scattering of two hadrons. The content of a hadron is characterized by the parton structure function $`f(x,Q^2)`$ where $`x`$ is the fraction of the momentum $`P`$ of the hadron, carried by the parton, $`p=xP`$, and $`Q^2`$ is the QCD scale. The cross section for the scattering of two hadrons is given by the sum of all subprocesses between the parton constituents of the hadrons, weighted with the corresponding structure functions of the incoming partons:

$$\sigma (s)=\underset{ijP}{}_0^1𝑑x_1𝑑x_2𝑑\mathrm{\Phi }F_i(x_1)F_j(x_2)\left(\frac{d\widehat{\sigma }}{d\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)_{ij}$$
(21)
where $`s`$ is the centre of mass(CM) energy squared at the hadron level. As usual the functions $`F_m(x)`$ are defined as $`F_m(x)=f_m(x)/x`$, where $`f_m(x)`$ are the various parton structure functions. The $`\left(\frac{d\widehat{\sigma }}{d\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)_{ij}`$ is the matrix element squared, summed (i.e. integrated) over helicity and colour degrees of freedom, and $`d\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the element of the phase space. The sum (i.e. integral) is over all partonic processes. We use Eq.(21) to estimate jet production rates.

#### Sum over processes

Finally, once given the number of jets, we are able to compute all the relevant subprocesses that contribute at one go. This is done by randomly choosing a subprocess and then using Monte-Carlo to obtain the total cross section from all contributions. The random choice of a subprocess is based on the choice of a pair of integers $`(i,m)`$, $`i`$ selecting one out of the nine possible initial states, and $`m`$ being the number of $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs in the final state, see Eq.(2.4).

There is also the option to use an optimization based on the fact that some processes overwhelm the total cross section over others (for example the purely gluonic process, $`ggng`$ has the largest cross section by an order of magnitude, compared to processes with different initial or final states).

The algorithm has been used firstly to compute cross sections for 4 and 5 jet production. We have chosen a CM energy of $`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV and we apply the following cuts:

$$p_{Ti}>60GeV,\theta _{ij}>30^o|\eta _i|<3$$

where $`p_T=\sqrt{p_x^2+p_y^2}`$ is the transverse momentum of a jet, $`\theta _{ij}=\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{p}_i,\stackrel{}{p}_j)`$, is the angle between jets and $`\eta =\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{tan}\left(\frac{\theta }{2}\right)`$, is the pseudo-rapidity.

For convenience all results are obtained with a non-running strong coupling constant put equal to unity. There are several parametrizations for the parton structure functions in the literature. The one that we will use is the MRST parametrization , and the number of light flavours is taken to be $`f=5`$.

In Table 1 we have listed several subprocesses and their cross sections, relative for $`pp`$ scattering at LHC. The table is organized as follows: we are not referring to a particular quark flavour, so we use the letters $`q,r,s`$ to denote quarks or antiquarks. Since we consider all quarks and antiquarks massless it makes no difference which particular flavour appears in the final state. We compare our results with those from a well established code, NJETS. We also show distributions of the maximum $`p_T`$ for two processes, namely $`gggggg`$ and $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}s\overline{s}`$.

To show the potential of the flavour integration method we calculate the total cross section for a set of possible final states and compare with NJETS where as usual a sum over different flavour states has been used. The results are presented in Table 2. We have used the letter $`q`$ to denote any flavour and all combinations have been taken into account in the calculation of the cross section. We have used the same cuts and CM energy as before.

We have also obtained the total cross sections for the production of 3,4,5,6,7 and 8 jets. These are listed in Table 3. Also shown there is the contribution of the purely gluonic process to the total cross section. We see the fraction of this process compared to the total is diminishing with increasing number of jets, as was already commented in .

Finally we have plotted distributions of the total cross section for the production of 5,6 and 7 jets. The quantities shown are:

* Transverse momenta $`p_T`$ of the products
* Invariant masses $`M_{ij}=\sqrt{2(p_ip_j)}`$

## 4 Summary

We have presented a procedure to calculate matrix elements and cross sections in QCD using an iterative algorithm based on the Schwinger-Dyson equation. Thus we free ourselves from the task of computing all Feynman graphs for a process, a task which can become impossible even for a moderate number of particles involved. We have also managed to bypass the computationally expensive procedure of summing over all possible colour and helicity configurations, by introducing continuous vectors to represent these otherwise discrete quantities and using Monte-Carlo integration instead of summation. At this stage our code can reliably compute scattering amplitudes and cross sections

* for individual, single-flavour processes
* for processes where a sum over all contributing flavours is needed both in the initial or the final states
* for total jet cross sections, where we are interested in production rates with contribution from all possible subprocesses and all flavours.

Our future interests involve a convolution of this code with fragmentation codes like HERWIG, so that one can perform realistic simulations of multi-jet processes.

| $`\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$ | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\mathrm{Process}`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙾𝚄𝚁}\mathrm{𝙲𝙾𝙳𝙴}(\mathrm{nb})`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙽𝙹𝙴𝚃𝚂}(\mathrm{nb})`$ |
| $`gggggg`$ | $`2.681`$ | $`2.533`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}gggg`$ | $`0.0020`$ | $`0.0021`$ |
| $`qgqggg`$ | $`1.131`$ | $`1.159`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}gg`$ | $`0.106`$ | $`0.104`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}gg`$ | $`0.062`$ | $`0.059`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}gg`$ | $`0.586\times 10^3`$ | $`0.558\times 10^3`$ |
| $`qqqqgg`$ | $`0.134`$ | $`0.126`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}gg`$ | $`0.171`$ | $`0.161`$ |
| $`qrqrgg`$ | $`0.210`$ | $`0.197`$ |
| $`qgq\overline{q}qg`$ | $`0.035`$ | $`0.033`$ |
| $`qgr\overline{r}qg`$ | $`0.032`$ | $`0.035`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ | $`0.524\times 10^3`$ | $`0.526\times 10^3`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}r\overline{r}`$ | $`1.059\times 10^3`$ | $`1.074\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ | $`0.807\times 10^3`$ | $`0.851\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}r\overline{r}`$ | $`0.866\times 10^3`$ | $`0.786\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}r\overline{r}`$ | $`7.94\times 10^6`$ | $`7.93\times 10^6`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}s\overline{s}`$ | $`1.54\times 10^5`$ | $`1.49\times 10^5`$ |
| $`qqqqq\overline{q}`$ | $`1.64\times 10^3`$ | $`1.60\times 10^3`$ |
| $`qqqqr\overline{r}`$ | $`1.67\times 10^3`$ | $`1.60\times 10^3`$ |
| $`qrqrq\overline{q}`$ | $`2.78\times 10^3`$ | $`2.91\times 10^3`$ |
| $`qrqrs\overline{s}`$ | $`2.63\times 10^3`$ | $`2.57\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}q\overline{q}`$ | $`2.28\times 10^3`$ | $`2.41\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}r\overline{r}`$ | $`2.20\times 10^3`$ | $`2.07\times 10^3`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}s\overline{s}`$ | $`2.39\times 10^3`$ | $`2.12\times 10^3`$ |

| $`\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$ | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\mathrm{Process}`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙾𝚄𝚁}\mathrm{𝙲𝙾𝙳𝙴}(\mathrm{pb})`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙽𝙹𝙴𝚃𝚂}(\mathrm{pb})`$ |
| $`ggggggg`$ | $`159.49`$ | $`160.40`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}ggggg`$ | $`0.141`$ | $`0.136`$ |
| $`qgqgggg`$ | $`87.94`$ | $`84.37`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}ggg`$ | $`9.193`$ | $`9.218`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}ggg`$ | $`4.37`$ | $`4.561`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}ggg`$ | $`0.034`$ | $`0.0348`$ |
| $`qqqqggg`$ | $`11.47`$ | $`12.35`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}ggg`$ | $`11.39`$ | $`11.98`$ |
| $`qrqrggg`$ | $`16.51`$ | $`17.29`$ |
| $`qgq\overline{q}qgg`$ | $`3.858`$ | $`3.799`$ |
| $`qgr\overline{r}qgg`$ | $`3.738`$ | $`3.887`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}q\overline{q}g`$ | $`0.104`$ | $`0.101`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}r\overline{r}g`$ | $`0.207`$ | $`0.206`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}q\overline{q}g`$ | $`0.252`$ | $`0.259`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}r\overline{r}g`$ | $`0.230`$ | $`0.254`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}r\overline{r}g`$ | $`0.0020`$ | $`0.0020`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}r\overline{r}s\overline{s}g`$ | $`0.0038`$ | $`0.0038`$ |
| $`qqqqq\overline{q}g`$ | $`0.684`$ | $`0.691`$ |
| $`qqqqr\overline{r}g`$ | $`0.698`$ | $`0.659`$ |
| $`qrqrq\overline{q}g`$ | $`0.998`$ | $`0.922`$ |
| $`qrqrs\overline{s}g`$ | $`0.862`$ | $`0.941`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}q\overline{q}g`$ | $`0.684`$ | $`0.658`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}r\overline{r}g`$ | $`0.650`$ | $`0.678`$ |
| $`q\overline{r}q\overline{r}s\overline{s}g`$ | $`0.634`$ | $`0.665`$ |
| $`qgq\overline{q}q\overline{q}q`$ | $`0.0352`$ | $`0.0334`$ |
| $`qgq\overline{q}r\overline{r}q`$ | $`0.0646`$ | $`0.0682`$ |
| $`qgr\overline{r}r\overline{r}q`$ | $`0.0328`$ | $`0.0328`$ |
| $`qgr\overline{r}s\overline{s}q`$ | $`0.0650`$ | $`0.0668`$ |

Table 1 Production rates for 4 and 5 jet production. All results have
an estimated error of $`4\%`$ .

| $`\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$ | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\mathrm{Process}`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙾𝚄𝚁}\mathrm{𝙲𝙾𝙳𝙴}(\mathrm{nb})`$ | $`\mathrm{𝙽𝙹𝙴𝚃𝚂}(\mathrm{nb})`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}gg`$ | $`0.242`$ | $`0.232`$ |
| $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ | $`0.015`$ | $`0.014`$ |
| $`qqqqgg`$ | $`0.311`$ | $`0.322`$ |
| $`ggq\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ | $`0.013`$ | $`0.014`$ |
| $`qgq\overline{q}qg`$ | $`0.167`$ | $`0.174`$ |

Table 2 Flavour integration with an estimated error of $`2\%`$.

| $`\mathrm{\#}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{jets}`$ | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`\sigma (nb)`$ | 91.41 | 6.54 | 0.458 | 2.97 $`\times 10^2`$ | 2.21 $`\times 10^3`$ | 2.12 $`\times 10^4`$ |
| $`\%\mathrm{Gluonic}`$ | 45.7 | 39.2 | 35.7 | 35.1 | 33.8 | 26.6 |

Table 3 Total cross sections for the production of up to $`8`$ jets.
The last row shows the percentage contribution of the purely
gluonic process ( $`ggng`$ ). The estimated error is $`3\%`$ for $`3`$
and $`4`$ jets, $`4\%`$ for $`5`$ and $`6`$ jets and $`6\%`$ for $`7`$ and $`8`$ jets.

## Appendix A: The complete recursion relations

Below we give the full recursion equations including the colour.

* Gluon field $`A^\mu (p)`$

$`A_{AB}^\mu (P)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_s}{2P^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}\{\overline{\psi }_B(p_1)\gamma ^\mu \psi _A(p_2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{C}{}}\overline{\psi }_C(p_1)\gamma ^\mu \psi _C(p_2)\right)\delta _{AB}\}\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_s}{2P^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}V_\lambda ^{\mu \nu }(P,p_1,p_2)\{A_{AC}^\nu (p_1)A_{CB}^\lambda (p_2)A_{AC}^\lambda (p_2)A_{CB}^\nu (p_1)\}\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ig_s}{2P^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}}X_{\lambda \rho }^{\mu \nu }\{A_{AC}^\nu (p_1)H_{CB}^{\lambda \rho }(p_2)H_{AC}^{\lambda \rho }(p_2)A_{CB}^\nu (p_1)\}\sigma (p_1,p_2)`$
* Auxiliary field $`H_{\mu \nu }(p)`$

$$H_{AB}^{\mu \nu }(P)=\frac{(ig_s)}{4}\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}X_{\lambda \rho }^{\mu \nu }\{A_{AC}^\lambda (p_1)A_{CB}^\rho (p_2)A_{AC}^\rho (p_2)A_{CB}^\lambda (p_1)\}\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$
* Fermion field $`\psi _A(p)`$

$$\psi _A(P)=\frac{g_s}{P^2}\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}P\text{}A\text{}_{AB}(p_1)\psi _B(p_2)\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$
* Anti-fermion field $`\overline{\psi }_A(p)`$

$$\overline{\psi }_A(P)=\frac{g_s}{P^2}\underset{P=p_1+p_2}{}\overline{\psi }_B(p_2)A\text{}_{BA}(p_1)P\text{}\sigma (p_1,p_2)$$

## Appendix B: Counting diagrams

In this appendix we show how the number of tree-level graphs for a general QCD process can be determined. This is done in the same recursive manner as that in which the amplitudes are computed. Let there be $`k`$ quark flavours. We shall compute the number of graphs that take a single specified parton into a number of specified partons, as follows. Let us denote by $`a_i(n_0,n1,\overline{n}_1,n_2,\overline{n}_2,\mathrm{},n_k,\overline{n}_k)`$ the number of graphs with a quark of type $`i`$ coming in and ending up in $`n_0`$ gluons, $`n_1`$ quarks of type 1, $`\overline{n}_1`$ antiquarks of type 1, and so on. We define the following generating function:

$`\psi (z,x_1,\overline{x}_1,x_2,\overline{x}_2,\mathrm{},x_k,\overline{x}_k)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},\overline{n}_k0}{}}a_i(n_0,n_1,\overline{n}_1,n_2,\overline{n}_2,\mathrm{},n_k,\overline{n}_k){\displaystyle \frac{z^{n_0}x_1^{n_1}\overline{x}_1^{\overline{n}_1}x_2^{n_2}\mathrm{}\overline{x}_k^{\overline{n}_k}}{n_0!n_1!\overline{n}_1!n2!\mathrm{}\overline{n}_k!}}.`$
The generating functions $`\overline{\psi }`$ for incoming antiquarks, and $`\varphi `$ for incoming gluons, are defined in an analogous manner. The Feynman rules of QCD then tell us that the various generating functions are related in the following manner:

$`\psi _i`$ $`=`$ $`x_i+\psi _i\varphi ,`$
$`\overline{\psi }_i`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{x}_i+\overline{\psi }_i\varphi ,`$
$`\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`z+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\varphi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\varphi ^3+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}}\psi _i\overline{\psi }_i.`$
These can trivially be solved in such a way that everything is expressed in terms of $`\varphi `$:

$$\psi _i=x_i/(1\varphi ),\overline{\psi }_i=\overline{x}_i/(1\varphi ),$$

and

$$\varphi =z+\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^2+\frac{1}{6}\varphi ^3+\frac{\xi }{(1\varphi )^2},\xi =\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}x_i\overline{x}_i.$$

The number of different quark flavours is seen not to be a complication here. By computer algebra, the function $`\varphi `$ can easily be obtained to quite high order in $`z`$ and the $`x`$’s, and the number of diagrams read off from the corresponding coefficient. A similar discussion can be found in , but we feel that the above procedure is simpler and moreover leads itself to estimates of the asymptotic number of graphs for very large multiplicities .

## Appendix C: Counting distinct processes

We start by tabulating the five types of initial states (not counting trivial charge conjugation), with the corresponding number of distinct processes, and the functions needed to compute their multiplicity factors. We denote by $`n`$ the number of final state partons:

| initial-state type | | distinct processes | multiplicity factor |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A | ($`gg`$) | $`C_1(n)`$ | $`\chi (n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_f;f)`$ |
| B | ($`q\overline{q}`$) | $`C_2(n)`$ | $`\chi (n_0,n_2,\mathrm{},n_f;f1)`$ |
| C | ($`gq`$ and $`qg`$) | $`C_2(n1)`$ | $`\chi (n_0,n_2,\mathrm{},n_f;f1)`$ |
| D | ($`qq`$) | $`C_2(n2)`$ | $`\chi (n_0,n_2,\mathrm{},n_f;f1)`$ |
| E | ($`qq^{}`$ and $`q\overline{q}^{}`$) | $`C_3(n2)`$ | $`\chi (n_0,n_3,\mathrm{},n_f;f2)`$ |

In order to clarify what we mean we consider the example of the type A initial state. Each distinct process is defined by an array $`(n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_f)`$. For instance, in the case of four-jet production we have

| (4,0,0,0,0,0) | $`gggggg`$ |
| --- | --- |
| (2,1,0,0,0,0) | $`ggggq\overline{q}`$ |
| (0,2,0,0,0,0) | $`ggq\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ |
| (0,1,1,0,0,0) | $`ggq\overline{q}r\overline{r}`$ |

Therefore, in order to count the distinct processes we need the following three functions:

$$C_1(n)=\underset{n_0+2n_1+\mathrm{}+2n_f=n}{}\mathrm{\Theta }(n_1n_2\mathrm{}n_f)$$

$$C_2(n)=\underset{n_0+2n_1+\mathrm{}+2n_f=n}{}\mathrm{\Theta }(n_2n_3\mathrm{}n_f)$$

and

$$C_3(n)=\underset{n_0+2n_1+\mathrm{}+2n_f=n}{}\mathrm{\Theta }(n_3n_4\mathrm{}n_f)$$

Of course each distinct process, given by the array $`(n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_f)`$ has a multiplicity factor that is easily computed:

$$\chi (n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_f;f)=n_f(n_f1)\mathrm{}(n_fj+1)/j!$$

where $`j`$ is defined as

$`j=f`$ if $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{f}{}}}n_i0`$
$`j=f1`$ if $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{f1}{}}}n_i0`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
$`j=1`$ if $`n_10`$
$`j=0`$ otherwise
Results for $`f=5`$ final state flavours, and $`f=4`$ initial state flavours, are shown in the table of section 2, in the discussion of flavour treatment, just to compare with ref. .

Moreover it is very easy to produce the list of the distinct processes to be computed for each case as well as the multiplicity factors $`\chi `$. A code doing this is available.

To study high-$`n`$ behaviour we may use the generating function technique. Then we get

$`F_1(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}C_1(n)x^n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x)}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{f}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x^{2j})}}`$
$`F_2(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}C_2(n)x^n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x)(1x^2)}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{f1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x^{2j})}}`$
$`F_3(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}C_3(n)x^n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x)(1x^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{f2}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1x^{2j})}}`$
As one can easily see, that the order of the pole at $`x=1`$ is always given by $`f+1`$.

Our results may be compared directly to those obtained in ref. . In fact, using our method, we were able to detect several errors in Table 9.3 page 125, among which the fact that a processes is missing for the cases $`m=6`$ and $`m=7`$, namely $`qrqrr\overline{r}(g)`$. Correcting for this error we get full agreement.