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# A comparison between the max and min norms on 𝐶^∗(𝐹_𝑛)⊗𝐶^∗(𝐹_𝑛)

## Definitions

Let $`k`$ be a natural number and let $`\left(e_{a,b}\right)_{a,b=1}^k`$ be a matrix unit in $`M_k`$ $`\left(\right)`$. Let $`W_1,W_2,\mathrm{},W_{2n}`$ be the generators of $`F_{2n}`$ and let $`W_0=Id`$. Let $`𝒳`$ be the subspace of $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$ spanned by $`W_0,W_1,\mathrm{},W_{2n}`$. Let $`X`$ be an arbitrary element of $`𝒳`$. Then $`X^{}X`$ has the form

$$\underset{a,b=1}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\underset{ij}{}A_{ia,jb}W_i^{}W_j+B_{a,b}Id\right)e_{a,b}.$$

The norm $`X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}`$ for $`X`$ in $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$ is computed (\[Wa\], \[BP\]) as the supremum over all Hilbert spaces $`H`$ and all unitaries $`U_1,U_2,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$ acting on $`H`$, and all $`\xi =_{a=1}^k\xi _a`$, $`\xi _a^2=1`$, in $`H\mathrm{}H`$ ($`k`$ times), of the quantity

(0)
$$X^{}X\xi ,\xi =\underset{a,b=1}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\underset{ij}{}A_{ia,jb}W_i^{}W_j\xi _a,\xi _b+B_{a,b}\xi _a,\xi _b\right).$$

Since $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$ is residually finite \[Cho\] (see also \[Wa\], \[BL\]), it follows that the norm of $`X^{}X`$ might be computed using only finite-dimensional unitaries.

Let $`\stackrel{~}{V}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{V}_n`$ be the generators of a different copy of the free group $`F_n`$. We identify $`𝒳`$ with a subspace of the algebraic tensor product $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ by mapping $`1`$ into $`11`$, and $`W_i`$ into $`\stackrel{~}{V}_i1`$ for $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},n`$, $`W_{i+n}`$ into $`1\stackrel{~}{V}_i`$ for $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},n`$. With this identification, and by using again the fact that $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ is residually finite, it follows that the norm $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$ viewed as an element of $`\left(C^{}\left(F_n\right)_{\mathrm{max}}C^{}\left(F_n\right)\right)M_k\left(\right)`$ is computed by the same supremum as the one used for $`X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}`$, with the additional restriction, on the unitaries $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$, that for $`1in<j2n`$, we have $`[U_i,U_j]=0`$.

Clearly this gives (as in \[BP\]) that $`X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}X_{C^{}\left(F_n\right)_{\mathrm{max}}C^{}\left(F_n\right)}`$. The norm $`X_{\mathrm{min}}`$ for $`X`$ in $`𝒳M_k\left(\right)`$, viewed as an element in $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)_{\mathrm{min}}C^{}\left(F_n\right)M_k\left(\right)`$, is then computed by the same supremum formulas as for $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$, by imposing the additional condition that the Hilbert space $`H`$ splits as $`K_1K_2`$ and there exist unitaries $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$ acting on $`K_1`$, and $`\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _n`$ unitaries on $`K_2`$, such that $`U_i=\alpha _i1`$ and $`U_{i+n}=1\beta _i`$ for $`1in`$ (see also \[Vo\]). Motivated by this we introduce the following definition:

###### Definition 1.

A triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ consisting of a Hilbert space $`H`$, unitaries $`\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n}`$ acting on $`H`$ and vectors $`\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k`$ is called *in tensor position* if there exist a Hilbert space $`K`$, unitaries $`\stackrel{~}{U}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{U}_n`$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}_1,\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{V}_n`$ on $`K`$, vectors $`\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\right)_{a=1}^k`$ in $`KK`$ with the following properties. Denote $`\stackrel{~}{W}_i=\stackrel{~}{U}_i\underset{K}{Id}`$ for $`1in`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{W}_{i+n}=\underset{K}{Id}\stackrel{~}{V}_i`$, $`1in`$. Also denote $`U_0=\underset{H}{Id}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_0=\underset{KK}{Id}`$. With these notations the following should hold true for $`0i,jn`$, $`1a,bk`$:

$$U_i\eta _a,U_j\eta _b=\stackrel{~}{W}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{W}_j\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b.$$

## Main Result

Our main result gives a comparison between the norms $`_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{min}}`$ on the space $`𝒳`$ (and its tensor products $`𝒳M_k\left(\right)`$). To do this we use the fact that, for any triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\xi _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$, $`U_0=Id`$, the information contained in the matrix $`U_i\xi _a,U_j\xi _b`$, $`0i,j2n`$, is unchanged (except for the Gram–Schmidt matrix of $`\xi _a`$) if we replace $`H`$, $`U_i`$ and $`\xi _a`$ by a direct sum and linear combinations of elementary triplets $`(H^\alpha ,\left(U_i^\alpha \right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\xi _a^\alpha \right)_{a=1}^k)`$ having the property that the vectors $`\left\{U_i^\alpha \xi _a^\alpha \right\}_{i,a}`$ are an orthonormal system (with the exception of some repetitions). The following lemma is an obvious property for triplets as in Definition 1:

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ be a countable index set. Assume the triplets $`(H^\alpha ,\left(U_i^\alpha \right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a^\alpha \right)_{a=1}^k)_{\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ are in tensor position. Let $`\left(\mu _a^\alpha \right)_{a=1,\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }}^k`$ be arbitrary complex numbers such that $`_\alpha \left|\mu _a^\alpha \right|^2\eta _a^\alpha ^2<\mathrm{}`$ for all $`a`$. Let $`H=_{\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }}H^\alpha `$, let $`U_i=U_i^\alpha `$ and $`\eta _a=\mu _a^\alpha \eta _a^\alpha `$.

Then the triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ is in tensor position.

###### Proof.

For each $`\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }`$, use the definition of tensor position to find a Hilbert space $`K^\alpha `$ and unitaries $`\stackrel{~}{W}_i^\alpha =\stackrel{~}{U}_i^\alpha \underset{K^\alpha }{Id}`$, $`1in`$, $`W_{i+n}^\alpha =\underset{K^\alpha }{Id}\stackrel{~}{V}_i^\alpha `$ as in Definition 1. Let $`\stackrel{~}{K}=K^\alpha `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{H}=\stackrel{~}{K}\stackrel{~}{K}_\alpha K^\alpha K^\alpha `$. Let $`\stackrel{~}{U}_i=_\alpha \stackrel{~}{U}_i^\alpha `$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}_i=_\alpha \stackrel{~}{V}_i^\alpha `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{W}_i=\stackrel{~}{U}_i\underset{\stackrel{~}{K}}{Id}`$, $`1in`$, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_{i+n}=\underset{\stackrel{~}{K}}{Id}\stackrel{~}{V}_i`$, $`1in`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a=\mu _a^\alpha \stackrel{~}{\eta }_a^\alpha `$. Then the triplet $`(\stackrel{~}{H},\left(\stackrel{~}{W}_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ has the property that

$$U_i\eta _a,U_j\eta _b=\stackrel{~}{W}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{W}_j\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b$$

for all $`0i,j2n`$, $`a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$, and hence it is in tensor position. ∎

###### Definition 2.

For a triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ (with $`U_0=Id`$), the *associated matrix* will be $`X_{ia,jb}^U=X_{ia,jb}=U_i\eta _a,U_j\eta _b`$ for $`0i,j2n`$, $`a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$.

Clearly $`X_{ia,ib}=\eta _a,\eta _b`$ for all $`i`$ and all $`a,b`$. Also $`X_{ia,jb}=\overline{X_{jb,ia}}`$ by definition.

###### Remark.

The property in the definition of a triplet in tensor position is completely contained in the information in the matrix $`X`$.

Moreover, with the notations in Lemma 1, if $`X`$ is the matrix for the triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ and $`X^\alpha `$ is the matrix for the triplets $`(H^\alpha ,\left(U_i^\alpha \right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a^\alpha \right)_{a=1}^k)`$, then we have

$$X_{ia,jb}=\underset{\alpha }{}\mu _a^\alpha \overline{\mu _b^\alpha }X_{ia,jb}^\alpha .$$

It is easy to construct elementary triplets in tensor position.

###### Lemma 2.

Let $`H`$ be a separable Hilbert space. Let $`\epsilon `$ be a complex number of absolute value $`1`$. Let $`n`$, $`k`$ be strictly positive integers. Fix a vector $`\eta `$ in $`H`$ of length $`1`$. Let $`\eta _a=\eta `$ for $`a=1,\mathrm{},k`$. Let $`\alpha =(i_0,j_0)`$, with $`i_0,j_0\{0,1,\mathrm{},2n\}`$, $`i_0j_0`$. Assume $`\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n}`$ are unitaries such that

$$\overline{\epsilon }U_{i_0}\eta _a=\overline{\epsilon }U_{i_0}\eta =U_{j_0}\eta _a=U_{j_0}\eta $$

and such that the vectors

$$\overline{\epsilon }U_{i_0}\eta =U_{j_0}\eta ,\{U_k\eta ki_0,j_0\}$$

are pairwise orthogonal.

Then $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ is in tensor position, and the associated matrix is, for $`0i,j2n`$, $`1a,bk`$,

$`X_{ia,jb}^{\alpha ,\epsilon }`$ $`=1\text{ if }i=j,`$
$`X_{i_0a,j_0b}^{\alpha ,\epsilon }`$ $`=\epsilon ,X_{j_0a,i_0b}^{\alpha ,\epsilon }=\overline{\epsilon },`$
$`X_{ia,jb}^{\alpha ,\epsilon }`$ $`=0\text{ if }i\text{ or }j\text{ are not in }\{i_0,j_0\}\text{ and }ij.`$
###### Proof.

It is obvious that this should be the formula for the matrix $`X^{\alpha ,\epsilon }`$ associated to the triplet.

We need to construct a specific triplet in tensor position, which gives the matrix $`X^{\alpha ,\epsilon }`$. To do this we split into two cases.

First we analyze the case where $`0i_0n`$ and $`n<j_02n`$. In this case consider a Hilbert space $`K`$ of sufficiently large dimension. Let $`e_0,e_1,\mathrm{}`$ be a basis for this Hilbert space and let $`\eta `$ be the vector $`e_0e_0`$. With the notations from Definition 1, let $`\stackrel{~}{W}_{i_0}=IdId`$, $`\stackrel{~}{W}_{j_0}=\overline{\epsilon }IdId`$ (which corresponds to the choice $`\stackrel{~}{U}_{i_0}=Id`$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}_{j_0n}=\overline{\epsilon }Id`$).

For $`ii_0`$, $`i=0,1,\mathrm{},n`$, let $`\stackrel{~}{U}_i`$ be a unitary on $`K`$, such that $`\left\{\stackrel{~}{U}_ie_0\right\}_{ii_0}`$ and $`e_0`$ is an orthonormal system in $`K`$. (For example we can send $`\stackrel{~}{U}_ie_0`$ to other elements in the basis.) Likewise we choose $`\stackrel{~}{V}_je_0`$ such that $`\left\{\stackrel{~}{V}_je_0\right\}_{jj_0n}`$ and $`e_0`$ is an orthonormal system. It is obvious now that the unitaries $`\left(\stackrel{~}{U}_i\right)_{i=1}^n`$, $`\left(\stackrel{~}{V}_j\right)_{j=1}^n`$ realize a triplet in tensor position as in the statement of Lemma 2.

The case $`0i_0<j_0n`$ is easier and may be treated similarly. ∎

In the next lemma we provide a decomposition of an arbitrary triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$, with $`H`$ finite-dimensional, into elementary triplets as in Lemma 2. The drawback ot this construction is that in the decomposition of $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$, the vectors in the triplet have greater length (by a factor of $`\left(N^2N\right)^{1/2}`$, with $`N=2n+1`$).

###### Lemma 3.

Let $`H`$ be a finite-dimensional vector space. Let $`n`$, $`k`$ be strictly positive integer numbers. Let $`U_0=Id`$, $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$ be unitaries on $`H`$, and let $`\left(\xi _a\right)_{a=1}^k`$ be vectors in $`H`$.

Then there exists a triplet $`(\stackrel{~}{K},\left(\stackrel{~}{U}_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ in tensor position, such that (with $`N=2n+1`$) we have:

1. $`U_i\xi _a,U_j\xi _b=\stackrel{~}{U}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{U}_j\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b`$, $`ij`$,
2. $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b=\left(N^2N\right)\xi _a,\xi _b`$

for all $`a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ and for all $`i,j=0,1,\mathrm{},2n`$ (and $`ij`$).

###### Proof.

Let $`\left(e_t\right)_{tT}`$ be an orthonormal basis for $`H`$ and let $`\lambda _{i,a}^t`$ be the components of the vector $`U_i\xi _a`$ in this basis for $`i=0,1,\mathrm{},2n`$, $`a=1,\mathrm{},k`$, $`tT`$. Then we have that

(1)
$$U_i\xi _a,U_j\xi _b=\underset{t}{}\lambda _{i,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{j,b}^t},i,j=0,1,\mathrm{},2n,a,b=1,\mathrm{},k.$$

The usual factorization formula \[Pe\] gives, with $`\epsilon =\sqrt{1}`$, that for all $`i,j=0,1,\mathrm{},2n`$ and for all $`a,b=1,\mathrm{},k`$ we have that

(2)
$$\lambda _{i,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{j,b}^t}=\frac{1}{4}\underset{s=0}{\overset{3}{}}\epsilon ^s\left(\lambda _{i,a}^t+\epsilon ^s\lambda _{j,a}^t\right)\overline{\left(\lambda _{i,b}^t+\epsilon ^s\lambda _{j,b}^t\right)}.$$

Note also that the following holds:

(3)
$$\frac{1}{4}\underset{s=0}{\overset{3}{}}\left(\lambda _{i,a}^t+\epsilon ^s\lambda _{j,a}^t\right)\overline{\left(\lambda _{i,b}^t+\epsilon ^s\lambda _{j,b}^t\right)}=\lambda _{i,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{i,b}^t}+\lambda _{j,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{j,b}^t}.$$

For a given pair $`\alpha =(i,j)`$, $`0i<jn`$, $`a,b=1,\mathrm{},k`$, $`tT`$, and $`s=0,1,2,3`$, we let

$$\theta _{\alpha ,a}^{t,s}=\lambda _{i,a}^t+\epsilon ^s\lambda _{j,a}^t.$$

With these notations the relations (2) and (3) become respectively

(4) $`U_i\xi _a,U_j\xi _b`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{t}{}}\lambda _{i,a}^t\lambda _{j,b}^t`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{t,s}{}}\epsilon ^s\theta _{\alpha ,a}^{t,s}\overline{\theta _{\alpha ,b}^{t,s}},`$
(5) $`{\displaystyle \underset{t,s}{}}\theta _{\alpha ,a}^{t,s}\overline{\theta _{\alpha ,b}^{t,s}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{t}{}}\lambda _{i,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{i,b}^t}+{\displaystyle \underset{t}{}}\lambda _{j,a}^t\overline{\lambda _{j,b}^t}`$
$`=U_i\xi _a,U_i\xi _b+U_j\xi _a,U_j\xi _b=2\xi _a,\xi _b.`$
The relations (4) and (5) hold for all $`0i<j2n`$, and all $`a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$.

For each fixed $`tT`$, $`\alpha =(i_0,j_0)`$, $`0i_0<j_02n`$, and each $`s=0,1,2,3`$, let $`(H^{\alpha ,s,t},\left(U_i^{\alpha ,s,t}\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a^{\alpha ,s,t}\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ be the triplet constructed in Lemma 2 for $`\epsilon =\epsilon ^s`$. (This triplet does not depend on $`t`$, but for each $`t`$ we consider one copy.) The matrix associated to this triplet is defined by

(6) $`X_{ia,jb}^{\alpha ,s,t}`$ $`=0\text{ if }\{i,j\}\{i_0,j_0\}\text{ and }ij,`$
$`X_{ia,ib}^{\alpha ,s,t}`$ $`=1,`$
$`X_{i_0a,j_0b}^{\alpha ,s,t}`$ $`=\epsilon ^s,X_{j_0a,i_0b}^{\alpha ,s,t}=\overline{\epsilon ^s}`$
$`\text{ for all }a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k.`$
Let $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ be the set of pairs

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\{(i,j)0i<j2n\}.$$

Let $`\mu _a^{\alpha ,s,t}=\theta _{\alpha ,a}^{s,t}`$ for all $`\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`s=0,1,2,3`$, $`tT`$. We apply Lemma 1 (and the following remark) to the direct sum of the triplets $`(H^{\alpha ,s,t},\left(U_i^{\alpha ,s,t}\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\eta _a^{\alpha ,s,t}\right)_{a=1}^k)`$. In the direct sum $`\stackrel{~}{H}=_{\alpha ,s,t}H^{\alpha ,s,t}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{U}_i=_{\alpha ,s,t}U_i^{\alpha ,s,t}`$, $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},2n`$, we consider the vectors $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a=_{\alpha ,s,t}\mu _a^{\alpha ,s,t}\eta _a^{\alpha ,s,t}`$.

By Lemma 1, for fixed $`i_0<j_0`$, $`a,b=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$, we have

$$\stackrel{~}{U}_{i_0}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,U_{j_0}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b=\underset{\alpha ,s,t}{}\mu _a^{\alpha ,s,t}\mu _b^{\alpha ,s,t}X_{i_0a,j_0b}^{\alpha ,s,t}.$$

By the relation (6), and since $`i_0<j_0`$, an entry in the matrix $`X_{i_0a,j_0b}^{\alpha ,s,t}`$ is nonzero only when $`\alpha `$ is equal to $`(i_0,j_0)`$, and is equal in this case to $`\epsilon ^s`$. Thus, with $`\alpha _0=(i_0,j_0)`$ and using the relation (4), we obtain

(7) $`\stackrel{~}{U}_{i_0}\eta _a,\stackrel{~}{U}_{j_0}\eta _b`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{s,t}{}}\epsilon ^s\mu _a^{\alpha _0,s,t}\mu _b^{\alpha _0,s,t}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{s,t}{}}\epsilon ^s\theta _{\alpha _0,a}^{t,s}\overline{\theta _{\alpha _0,b}^{t,s}}`$
$`=U_{i_0}\xi _a,U_{j_0}\xi _b\text{ for all }a,b=1,\mathrm{},k.`$
Since also $`U_{j_0}\xi _b,U_{i_0}\xi _a=\overline{U_{i_0}\xi _a,U_{j_0}\xi _b}`$ and similarly for $`\stackrel{~}{U}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a`$, it follows that relation (7) holds for all $`i_0j_0`$, $`0i_0,j_02n`$.

Similar computations yield the value of $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b`$. Indeed, by the relation (5) we have

$`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,s,t}{}}\mu _a^{\alpha ,s,t}\overline{\mu _b^{\alpha ,s,t}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{s,t}{}}\theta _{\alpha ,a}^{t,s}\overline{\theta _{\alpha ,b}^{t,s}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}2\xi _a,\xi _b={\displaystyle \frac{N^2N}{2}}2\xi _a,\xi _b=\left(N^2N\right)\xi _a,\xi _b.`$
By Lemmas 1 and 2, the triplet $`(\stackrel{~}{H},\left(\stackrel{~}{U}_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ is in tensor position. This completes the proof of Lemma 3. ∎

We now can prove the main result. We will show that on $`𝒳=Sp\{11,U_11,\mathrm{},U_n1,1U_1,\mathrm{},1U_n\}`$, the matrix norm structures induced by the norms $`_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{min}}`$ on $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ are comparable by a factor $`\left(N^2N\right)^{1/2}`$.

In particular this shows (in the terminology introduced in \[Pi1\]) that the $`\delta _{cb}`$ multiplicative distance between the two operator spaces is less than $`\left(N^2N\right)^{1/2}`$. (By \[Pi1\], this distance is at most $`N`$.)

###### Theorem.

Let $`n`$, $`k`$ be integers, $`n2`$, $`k1`$. Let $`F_n`$ be the free group on $`n`$ generators $`V_1,V_2,\mathrm{},V_n`$. Consider the vector subspace $`𝒳`$ of $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ spanned by $`\{11,V_11,\mathrm{},V_n1,1V_1,\mathrm{},1V_n\}`$. Clearly $`𝒳`$ has dimension $`N=2n+1`$.

By embedding $`𝒳`$ into $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)_{\mathrm{min}}C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ or $`C^{}\left(F_n\right)_{\mathrm{max}}C^{}\left(F_n\right)`$ respectively, we get two corresponding norms on $`𝒳M_k\left(\right)`$, denoted by $`_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{min}}`$.

Let $`F_{2n}`$ be the free group with $`2n`$ generators $`W_1,\mathrm{},W_{2n}`$. We also identify $`𝒳`$ with a subspace of the full $`C^{}`$-algebra $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$ by mapping $`11`$ into $`1`$ and $`V_11,\mathrm{},V_n1`$ into $`W_1,\mathrm{},W_n`$ and $`1V_1,\mathrm{},1V_n`$ into $`W_{n+1},\mathrm{},W_{2n}`$ respectively. For $`X`$ in $`𝒳M_k\left(\right)`$ we denote the corresponding norm coming from this embedding by $`X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}`$.

Then for all $`X`$ in $`𝒳M_k\left(\right)`$ we have

$$X_{\mathrm{min}}X_{\mathrm{max}}X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}\left(N^2N\right)^{1/2}X_{\mathrm{min}}.$$

###### Proof.

Let $`\left(e_{a,b}\right)_{a,b=1}^k`$ be a matrix unit in $`M_k\left(\right)`$ and let

(8)
$$X=\underset{r,s=1}{\overset{k}{}}\underset{i=0}{\overset{2n}{}}\lambda _{r,s}^iW_ie_{r,s},\lambda _{r,s}^i\text{,}$$

be an arbitrary element in $`M_k\left(\right)`$. (We denote by $`W_0`$ the identity.)

Then obviously

(9)
$$X^{}X=\underset{a,b=1}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j=0\\ ij\end{array}}{\overset{2n}{}}A_{ia,jb}W_i^{}W_j+B_{a,b}Id\right)e_{a,b},$$

where for $`ij`$, $`i,j=0,\mathrm{},2n`$, $`1a,bk`$, we have

(10) $`A_{ia,jb}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{k}{}}}\lambda _{r,a}^i\overline{\lambda _{r,b}^i},`$
(11) $`B_{a,b}`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{k}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{2n}{}}}\lambda _{r,a}^i\overline{\lambda _{r,b}^i}.`$
Clearly the matrix $`_{a,b}B_{a,b}e_{a,b}`$ is positive. By definition, the $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$-norm of a noncommutative polynomial $`P`$ in $`Id,W_1,\mathrm{},W_{2n}`$ is computed by taking the supremum, over all unitaries $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$, of the norms of the operators obtained by replacing in $`P`$ the unitaries $`W_i`$ by $`U_i`$, $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},2n`$.

By \[Cho\], $`C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)`$ is residually finite (\[Wa\], \[Vo\], \[BL\]), and hence we can restrict to a supremum over unitaries acting on finite-dimensional vector spaces.

As a consequence, the square of the $`_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}`$ norm of the element $`X`$ is computed as the supremum, over all finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces $`H`$, all $`2n`$-tuples of unitaries $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$ acting on $`H`$ and all vectors $`\xi =\left(\xi _a\right)_{a=1}^k`$ in $`HH\mathrm{}H`$, $`_{a=1}^k\xi _a^2=1`$, of the quantities

$`X\xi ^2`$ $`=X^{}X\xi ,\xi `$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{a,b}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j=0\\ ij\end{array}}{\overset{2n}{}}}A_{ia,jb}U_j\xi _a,U_i\xi _b+B_{a,b}\xi _a,\xi _b\right).`$
Similarly the norm $`X_{\mathrm{min}}`$ will be computed as the supremum of the same quantities, with the additional condition that the unitaries $`U_1,\mathrm{},U_{2n}`$ are represented on a Hilbert space $`H=K_1K_2`$, and there are unitaries $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$, respectively $`\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _n`$, on $`K_1`$, respectively $`K_2`$, such that $`U_i=\alpha _i1`$, $`U_{i+n}=1\beta _i`$, $`1in`$.

Hence for every $`\epsilon >0`$, there exists a triplet $`(H,\left(U_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\xi _a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$ consisting of a finite-dimensional vector space, $`2n`$ unitaries on $`H`$ and $`k`$ vectors in $`H`$, such that (with $`U_0=Id`$)

(12)
$$\begin{array}{c}X^{}X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}\epsilon \hfill \\ \hfill \underset{a,b=1}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j=0\\ ij\end{array}}{\overset{2n}{}}A_{ia,jb}U_j\xi _a,U_i\xi _b+B_{a,b}\xi _a,\xi _b\right).\end{array}$$

By Lemma 3 we can find a triplet in tensor position, $`(\stackrel{~}{H},\left(\stackrel{~}{U}_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n},\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\right)_{a=1}^k)`$, consisting of unitaries $`\stackrel{~}{U}_i`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ (with $`\stackrel{~}{U}_0=Id`$) and vectors $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a\stackrel{~}{H}`$ such that for all $`a`$, $`b`$,

(13) $`U_j\xi _a,U_i\xi _b`$ $`=\stackrel{~}{U}_j\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{U}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b,ij,i,j=0,\mathrm{},2n,`$
(14) $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b`$ $`=\left(N^2N\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\xi _a,\xi _b.`$
The relation (14) implies that

$$\underset{a}{}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a^2=\underset{a}{}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a=\left(N^2N\right)\underset{a}{}\xi _a^2=\left(N^2N\right).$$

Thus, by the definition of the norm $`X_{\mathrm{min}}`$, and since $`\left(\stackrel{~}{U}_i\right)_{i=1}^{2n}`$ are in tensor position, it follows that

(15)
$$\begin{array}{c}\underset{a,b}{\overset{k}{}}\left(\underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j=0\\ ij\end{array}}{\overset{2n}{}}A_{ia,jb}\stackrel{~}{U}_j\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{U}_i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b+B_{a,b}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_a,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_b\right)\hfill \\ \hfill \left(N^2N\right)X_{\mathrm{min}}^2.\end{array}$$

Moreover, the relation (14) and the fact that the matrix $`_{a,b}B_{a,b}e_{a,b}`$ is positive imply that the right-hand side in the inequality (12) is less than the left-hand side in the inequality in (15). Hence

$$X^{}X_{C^{}\left(F_{2n}\right)}\epsilon \left(N^2N\right)X_{\mathrm{min}}^2.$$

Since $`\epsilon `$ is arbitrary, the result follows. ∎


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# Electrostatic Fluctuations in Soap Films

## I Introduction

Soap films are naturally occurring examples of diffuse double layers is ; rusasc . They consist of two surfaces formed by hydrophobic surfactants which accumulate at the air water interface due to the hydrophobic nature of the hydrocarbon chains of the surfactant molecule. In the classic experimental set up to measure the disjoining pressure in soap films, the film is placed in a cell in contact with a bulk solution, usually in a porous frit my ; exkokh ; dese ; caetal . A capillary connecting the bulk solution to the outside of the cell allows the pressure in the cell to be varied and a direct measurement of the disjoining pressure $`P_d`$, generated by interactions within the film, is thus possible. The thickness of the film as a function of $`P_d`$, along with certain aspects of its structure such as the electronic density, can then be measured via X-ray or optical methods. The interface formed by the surfactant can lead to the formation of a surface charge and, in addition to the surfactant, the bulk can contain an electrolyte such as salt.

The simplest model of a soap film is of two charged surfaces separated by an electrolytic solution. Electrostatic interactions therefore play an fundamental role and can be taken into account at the simplest level of approximation by the mean field Poisson Boltzmann equation is ; rusasc . In the simplest models, the surface charge or surface potential is taken to be fixed and is hence a fitting parameter of the theory. More elaborate theories take into account the mechanism of surface charging nipa1 ; dese ; pisa . Steric effects between the counter-ions in the vicinity of the surface, known as the Stern layer, may also be incorporated orsteric . In general the disjoining pressure predicted by such theories is repulsive. In a detailed experimental study of soap films formed by ionic surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) dese , it was shown that a modified Poisson Boltzmann theory incorporating an energetic surface-charging mechanism, via an attractive free energy potential at the film surface, can predict the surface tension of the bulk solution. Then, with no free fitting parameters remaining, the theory predicts the disjoining pressure of the films made from this bulk, just up to a pressure where the Common Black Film (CBF) collapses and forms a Newton Black Film (NBF). The NBF is an extremely thin film where experiments bebe  show that there is an extremely small separation between the two surfactant surfaces (about one layer of water molecules across). The transition between the CBF-NBF is experimentally interpreted as a first order phase transition caetal , and the body of theoretical work supports this interpretation. The rough picture, coming from the approximate theories that exist, is that at large distances the disjoining pressure is repulsive and stabilizes the CBF. At closer inter-surface distances attractive van der Waals forces some into play which are responsible for the eventual collapse to the NBF.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of electrostatic fluctuations in the presence of generic surface-charging mechanisms and spatially varying dielectric constants in diffuse layer systems. Previous studies incorporating the fluctuations about the mean field Poisson Boltzmann theory in simpler models have revealed that these fluctuations lead to attractive interactions po ; codu ; btco . The analysis here is adapted to the limit of weak electrostatic interactions. We use a field theoretic formulation of the problem, which in addition to producing new results for fluctuating surface charges, allows one to recover, in a powerful and universal way, many results already established in the literature. In addition our formulation is well adapted to develop a perturbative expansion which allows one to incorporate higher order interactions.

The Poisson Boltzmann theory may be supplemented by including the contribution of dispersion forces or van der Waals forces calculated from the Hamaker theory based on pairwise dipole interactions and, at a more sophisticated level, via the continuum Lifshitz theory lif . The resulting DLVO is ; rusasc  theory has been very successful in describing the physics of electric double layers. However, the splitting of the overall interaction into a Poisson Boltzmann static interaction and the van der Waals forces as two distinct and independent interactions is artificial from a global view point. The fluctuations of the full theory of the electrostatic interactions generate the zero frequency van der Waals interaction. However since the ion distributions do not respond to high frequency fields, the non zero frequency contributions to the van der Waals forces can be taken to be effectively independent of the ionic distribution. The zero frequency contributions between neutral surfaces or surfaces with absorbed mobile ions or dipoles can be treated and one finds that the zero frequency van der Waals forces become screened by the presence of an electrolyte mani . In the context of the Debye-Hückel approximation these van der Waals forces have a formally identical origin to the Casimir effect, where the suppression of fluctuations of the electromagnetic field due to the presence of two surfaces leads to a net attractive force. The appearance of such generalized Casimir forces in soft condensed matter systems and many other contexts is now well established podo ; kago ; motr .

The theory proposed for electrolytic soap films in dese  can in fact be solved exactly in one dimension dehose , via path integral techniques originally developed in edle . In this exact theory one finds that the disjoining pressure is repulsive at large distances but attractive contributions come into play at smaller inter-surface separations and can lead to a disjoining pressure isotherm predicting a collapse to a thinner film state at a certain thickness, as is seen in experiments. Attractive forces in the two dimensional form of this model have also been found teme  at a particular critical temperature where the model is exactly soluble. In this paper we revisit the theory of dese  but in three dimensions. We use a field theory representation of the system in the weak coupling limit, equivalent to the region where the Debye-Hückel approximation is valid, where the field theory is free and one may decouple the Fourier components of the field and apply standard path integral results. This allows one to incorporate a thermodynamic or energetic surface-charging mechanism in a straightforward way and also allows one to take into account spatially varying dielectric constants. In principle the solution of the free field theory can be written down in terms of a functional determinant which may be evaluated via functional techniques van ; mani ; atmini1 ; atmini2 ; atkjmi ; these functional techniques could also be applied here, however the path integral method gives a very compact and rapid solution to the problem.

Recent experimental studies of the CBF-NBF transition have been carried out on nonionic soap films made with the surfactant $`C_{12}E_6`$ caetal . These films can be stabilized in the presence of small concentrations of electrolyte and are thus in a region where the linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation can be used for the mean field treatment and also where the free or Gaussian field theory we examine should be valid.

## II The Model and Surface-Charging Mechanisms

Here we explain the derivation of the type of model proposed in dese ; dehose  but with a generic surface-charging mechanism. We consider the case of a monovalent electrolyte for simplicity. In the presence of the surface, a surface charge may be generated by two basic mechanisms. Firstly, as was taken to be the case in dese ; dehose , there may be an affinity for one of the species to be on the surface. In the case of SDS, or other ionic films, this species is the soap tail as, due to the hydrophobic effect, the hydrocarbon tail lowers the free energy of the system by leaving the aqueous core and entering the air environment at the exterior of the film. The head of the surfactant, $`SO_4^{}`$ for SDS, is however negatively charged, thus leading to a surface charge. In the case of nonionic soap films the surface-charging mechanism is due to a difference in mobility of the ions. Hydration effects can make one species effectively larger than another thus leading to a steric repulsion at the surface and hence an effective charge is induced by the unneutralized presence of the other species. The enhancement of the repulsion between the surfaces of ionic Aerosol-OT films due to more hydrated counter-ions, e.g. LiCl instead of CsCl, has been experimentally demonstrated in sebe . Let us consider a model with one salt species (water is also partially dissociated and indeed plays an important role in the absence of salt), the generalization to several species is straightforward.

Let us denote by $`V_1(x)`$ and $`V_1(x)`$ the effective potential for the cations and anions respectively due to the surfaces of the film. The Hamiltonian for the electrolyte system is thus

$$H=\frac{1}{2}e\underset{i}{}\psi (𝐱_i)q_i+\underset{i}{}V_{q_i}(𝐱_i)$$
(1)
where the first term is the electrostatic energy with potential $`\psi `$, $`q_i=\pm 1`$ if particle $`i`$ is a cation/anion respectively and $`𝐱_i`$ its position. The second term is the boundary interaction. We denote by $`L`$ the perpendicular distance between the two surfaces (in the direction $`z`$) and by $`A`$ the surface area of the film (in the plane $`(x,y)`$). We denote by $`A\times L`$ the region inside the film and by $`A\times T`$ the region outside the film. The total length of the system in the $`z`$ direction is denoted by $`U`$ and therefore $`T=UL`$. To start with, we ignore the fact that just outside the surface one has a density of hydrocarbon tails (this will be taken into account very simply later on). The calculation for a triple layer in the absence of surface charging and electrolyte can be found in nipa2 ; dorivr . In this two layer picture therefore, the dielectric constant has the form $`ϵ(𝐱)=ϵ`$ for $`𝐱A\times L`$ where $`ϵ`$ is the dielectric constant of the electrolyte solution, which in the dilute limit we shall take to be the dielectric concentration of water. Outside the film we have $`ϵ(𝐱)=ϵ_0`$ ($`𝐱A\times T`$), where $`ϵ_0`$ is the dielectric constant of air. The difference between the internal and external dielectric constants means that one needs to take into account image charges and the zero frequency terms of the Lifshitz theory, however this is automatically incorporated in the field theoretic formulation of the theory.

The electrostatic potential $`\psi `$ satisfies the Poisson equation

$$ϵ(𝐱)\psi (𝐱)=e\underset{i}{}q_i\delta (𝐱𝐱_i)$$
(2)
We follow the standard method for converting a Coulomb system to a Sine-Gordon like field theory by performing a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation with an auxiliary field $`\varphi `$ to obtain the grand canonical partition function

$$\mathrm{\Xi }=d[\varphi ]\mathrm{exp}\left(S[\varphi ]\right)$$
(3)
where

$`S[\varphi ]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{(T+L)\times A}}\beta ϵ(𝐱)(\varphi )^2𝑑𝐱`$ $`+`$ $`\mu {\displaystyle _{L\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \beta V_1(𝐱)\right)𝑑𝐱`$
$`\mu {\displaystyle _{L\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(ie\beta \varphi \beta V_1(𝐱)\right)𝑑𝐱`$ (4)
and where $`\mu `$ is the fugacity of the cations and anions. It should be noticed that the Hubbard Stratonovich-transformation is over all space and hence the first, kinetic, term of the action is an integral over all space denoted $`(T+L)\times A`$ and the second two terms are the interaction terms restricted to the film region $`L\times A`$. We notice that the functional integral gives the ion/ion interaction upon performing the integral, but in addition there is a term

$$d[\varphi ]\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\beta }{2}\varphi ϵ(𝐱)\varphi d𝐱\right)=\left(det(ϵ(𝐱))\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(5)
This term is however the zero frequency contribution coming from the Lifshitz theory and in fact should be there. This term naturally arises when one considers the full Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) of the system. If one fixes the positions of the ions and ignores the magnetic part of the Lagrangian, the time independent (zero Matsubara frequency) purely electrostatic part of the Lagrangian is fehi

$$[\psi ]=\frac{1}{2}ϵ(𝐱)(\psi )^2𝑑𝐱e\underset{i}{}q_i\psi (𝐱_i)$$
(6)
hence the thermal field theory for the field $`\psi `$ has a partition function balo

$$Z=d[\psi ]\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta [\psi ]\right)$$
(7)
If one now takes a classical trace over the ion positions and passes to the grand canonical ensemble, one finds the expression for the grand potential above after changing the axis of the functional integration via $`\psi i\varphi `$. If one wishes to take into account the non zero frequency Lifshitz terms one proceeds as above but keeping the full QED action and introducing the bosonic Matsubura frequencies $`\omega _n=2\pi n/\beta \mathrm{}`$ balo . Hence the grand partition function $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ contains the ionic interactions and zero frequency van der Waals contributions in the system. We define a Stern layer to be the region where either or both of the potentials $`V_{\pm 1}`$ are non zero and take the width of this region to be $`\delta `$. The action then has the form

$`S[\varphi ]=`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{(T+L)\times A}}\beta ϵ(𝐱)(\varphi )^2𝑑𝐱+2\mu {\displaystyle _{L\times A}}\text{cos}\left(\beta e\varphi \right)𝑑𝐱`$ (8)
$`+`$ $`\mu {\displaystyle _{[0,\delta ]\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta V_1(𝐱)\right)1\right)𝑑𝐱+\mu {\displaystyle _{[L\delta ,L]\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta V_1(𝐱)\right)1\right)𝑑𝐱`$
$`+`$ $`\mu {\displaystyle _{[0,\delta ]\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta V_1(𝐱)\right)1\right)𝑑𝐱+\mu {\displaystyle _{[L\delta ,L]\times A}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta V_1(𝐱)\right)1\right)𝑑𝐱`$
We now take $`\delta `$ to be small and take the limit $`\delta 0`$ choosing

$$\left(\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta V_{\pm 1}(𝐱)\right)1\right)\mu _\pm ^{}(\delta (z)+\delta (Lz))$$
(9)
where $`\delta (z)`$ is the one dimensional Dirac delta function. Clearly $`\mu _\pm ^{}`$ is positive/negative for $`V_{\pm 1}`$ negative (attraction of the species towards the surface)/ positive (repulsion of the species from the surface). Note that dimensionally $`[\mu _\pm ^{}]=[\mu ][\delta ]`$. In this simplified limit, the action is now

$`S[\varphi ]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{(T+L)\times A}}\beta ϵ(𝐱)(\varphi )^2𝑑𝐱`$ $`+`$ $`2\mu {\displaystyle _{L\times A}}\text{cos}\left(\beta e\varphi \right)𝑑𝐱`$
$`+`$ $`\mu _+^{}{\displaystyle _{L\times A}}(\delta (z)+\delta (Lz))\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)𝑑𝐱`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`\mu _{}^{}{\displaystyle _{L\times A}}(\delta (z)+\delta (Lz))\mathrm{exp}\left(i\beta e\varphi \right)𝑑𝐱`$
In the weak coupling limit we proceed by expanding the action to quadratic order in all terms, yielding the Gaussian action

$`S_G`$ $`[\varphi ]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{(T+L)\times A}}\beta ϵ(z)(\varphi )^2𝑑𝐱{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{L\times A}}\beta ϵm^2\varphi ^2𝑑𝐱`$
$`+i\lambda `$ $`\left({\displaystyle _{z=0}}\varphi 𝑑x𝑑y+{\displaystyle _{z=L}}\varphi 𝑑x𝑑y\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma \left({\displaystyle _{z=0}}\varphi ^2𝑑x𝑑y+{\displaystyle _{z=L}}\varphi ^2𝑑x𝑑y\right)+2\mu AL+2(\mu _+^{}+\mu _{}^{})A`$ (11)
Here $`m=\sqrt{2\mu e^2\beta /ϵ}`$ corresponds to the Debye mass (the inverse Debye length) in the dilute, weak coupling limit, as in this limit $`\mu \rho `$, where $`\rho `$ is the bulk electrolyte concentration. In addition we have

$$\lambda =e\beta (\mu _+^{}\mu _{}^{})m^2\overline{\gamma },\overline{\gamma }=\frac{\mu _+^{}\mu _{}^{}}{2\mu }\gamma =\frac{\mu _+^{}+\mu _{}^{}}{2\mu }$$
(12)
and we recall $`ϵ(z)=ϵ`$ for $`z[0,L]`$ and is equal to $`ϵ_0`$ elsewhere. We now express $`\varphi `$ in terms of its Fourier decomposition in the $`𝐫=(x,y)`$ plane.

$$\varphi (𝐫,z)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{A}}\underset{𝐩}{}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)$$
(13)
where if $`A=l\times l`$ imposing periodic boundary conditions yields $`𝐩\frac{2\pi }{l}(n_x,n_y)`$ with $`(n_x,n_y)Z^2`$. In terms of the fields $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$, the action decouples and one obtains

$$S_G=S_0[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]+\underset{𝐩0}{}S_𝐩[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]+2\mu AL+2(\mu _+^{}+\mu _{}^{})A$$
(14)
where

$`S_0[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{T+L}}\beta ϵ(z)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0,z)}{z}}\right)^2𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2{\displaystyle _L}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2(0,z)𝑑z`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`i\lambda \sqrt{A}\left(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0,0)+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0,L)\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵ\gamma m^2\left(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2(0,0)+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2(0,L)\right)`$
and

$`S_𝐩[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{T+L}}\beta ϵ(z)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)}{z}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)}{z}}+𝐩^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)\right)𝑑z`$ (16)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma {\displaystyle _L}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩,z)𝑑z`$
The system therefore decomposes into a system of simple harmonic oscillators and

$$\mathrm{\Xi }=𝒩\mathrm{exp}\left(2\mu AL+2A(\mu _+^{}+\mu _{}^{})\right)d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]\mathrm{exp}[S_0]\underset{𝐩0}{}d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]\mathrm{exp}[S_𝐩]$$
(17)
where in the following $`𝒩`$ will be used to note $`L`$ independent normalization factors. Each oscillator (labeled by p) has a time dependent Hamiltonian

$$H_𝐩=\frac{1}{2M(z)}\frac{d^2}{dX^2}+\frac{1}{2}M(z)\omega ^2(𝐩,z)X^2$$
(18)
where $`M(z)=\beta ϵ(z)`$ and $`\omega (𝐩,z)=\sqrt{𝐩^\mathrm{𝟐}+m^2}`$ for $`z[0,L]`$ and $`\omega (𝐩,z)=|𝐩|=p`$ for $`z[0,L]`$. Here $`X`$ represents the field $`\varphi (𝐩)`$ and $`z`$ corresponds to the temporal coordinate. The mode $`𝐩=0`$ is slightly more complicated due to the presence of a linear source term. One may write

$`{\displaystyle d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]}`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[S_0]=`$ (19)
$`𝒩_0\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{exp}\left((UL)H_E\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\lambda \sqrt{A}X{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma X^2\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(LH_F\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\lambda \sqrt{A}X{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma X^2\right)`$
where $`H_E`$ is the Hamiltonian outside the film with mass $`M_E=\beta ϵ_0`$ and $`\omega _E=0`$ and $`H_F`$ is the Hamiltonian in the film with $`M_F=\beta ϵ`$ and $`\omega _F=m`$ (subscripts $`E`$ and $`F`$ will be used to denote the masses and frequencies external and internal to the film respectively). In the limit where $`U\mathrm{}`$ only the eigenstate of $`H_E`$ of lowest energy survives the thermodynamic limit (we shall see later that this is compatible with the constraint of electro-neutrality within the film at mean field level). We recall that the ground-state wave function of the simple harmonic oscillator is given up to a normalization by

$$\psi _0(X,M,\omega )=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{M\omega X^2}{2})$$
(20)
and the corresponding ground-state energy is $`\frac{1}{2}\omega `$. In the case where $`𝐩=0`$ one has the ground-state wave function $`\psi _0(X,M_E,0)=1`$. Using this in Eq. (19) thus yields

$`{\displaystyle d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]}`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[S_0]=`$ (21)
$`𝒩_0{\displaystyle \mathrm{exp}\left(i\lambda \sqrt{A}X\frac{1}{2}M_Fm^2\gamma X^2\right)K(X,Y,L,\omega _F,M_F)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\lambda \sqrt{A}Y\frac{1}{2}Mm^2\gamma Y^2\right)𝑑X𝑑Y}`$
where $`K(X,Y,L,\omega ,M)`$ is the Feynman kernel for the simple Harmonic oscillator fehi  and is given by

$$K(X,Y,L,\omega ,M)=\left(\frac{M\omega }{2\pi \mathrm{sinh}(\omega L)}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}M\omega \mathrm{coth}(\omega L)(X^2+Y^22XY\mathrm{sech}(\omega L))\right)$$
(22)
Performing the above integral yields a term extensive in $`A`$ coming from the linear source term and a non extensive fluctuation term, which we shall absorb into the normalization term, yielding

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}\left(d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)]\mathrm{exp}[S_0]\right)}{A}=\frac{\lambda ^2(m\gamma \mathrm{sinh}(mL)+\text{cosh}(mL)+1)}{\beta ϵm((m^2\gamma ^2+1)\mathrm{sinh}(mL)+2m\gamma \text{cosh}(mL))}$$
(23)
This term can be simplified slightly giving the zero momentum contribution to the grand potential per area of film. Writing $`J=\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Xi })/(\beta A)=J_c+_𝐩J_𝐩`$, where

$$J_c=\frac{2}{\beta }\left(\mu L+\mu _+^{}+\mu _+^{}\right)$$
(24)
is ideal part of the grand potential, we find

$$\beta J_0=2m\mu \overline{\gamma }^2\frac{\text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)+m\gamma \text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}$$
(25)
In fact we shall see later, as should be expected, that this term is the mean field contribution to the theory.

The non zero momentum modes only contribute to the fluctuations but summed together give an extensive contribution. The contribution to the grand partition function of one of these modes is

$`{\displaystyle d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]}`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[S_𝐩]=`$ (26)
$`𝒩_p\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{M_E\omega _EX^2}{2}})\mathrm{exp}((UL)H_E)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma X^2)`$
$`\mathrm{exp}(LH_F)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ϵm^2\gamma X^2)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{M_E\omega _EX^2}{2}})]`$
Note that there is no under-counting in this contribution as the field $`\varphi `$ was real and hence $`\overline{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }}(p)=\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(p)`$. One thus obtains

$`{\displaystyle }d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]\mathrm{exp}[S_𝐩]=𝒩_𝐩\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{UL}{2}}\omega _E)\times `$ (27)
$`{\displaystyle \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{M_E\omega _EX^2}{2}\frac{1}{2}M_Fm^2\gamma X^2\right)K(X,Y,L,\omega _F,M_F)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{M_E\omega _EY^2}{2}\frac{1}{2}M_Fm^2\gamma Y^2\right)𝑑X𝑑Y}`$
This yields an $`L`$ dependent contribution to the grand potential per unit area of

$$J_𝐩=\frac{1}{A\beta }\left[\frac{1}{2}L(p\sqrt{p^2+m^2})\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left(\frac{ϵ_0p+ϵm^2\gamma ϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}{ϵ_0p+ϵm^2\gamma +ϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2L\sqrt{p^2+m^2})\right)\right]$$
(28)
The total contribution from the modes $`𝐩0`$ is the grand potential associated with the static electrostatic fluctuations, or the zero frequency van der Waals force, hence we write $`J_{vdW}=_{𝐩0}J_𝐩`$. We should remark however, given the unifield treatment used here, this notation is slightly arbitary as with the definition used here $`J_{vdW}`$ contains terms coming from the ionic fluctuations. The first term in the expression (28) will clearly lead to an ultraviolet divergence in the grand potential, however the disjoining pressure $`P_d(L)`$ is given by the difference between the film and bulk pressures

$$P_d(L)=P(L)P_{\mathrm{bulk}}=\frac{J(L)}{L}+\underset{L\mathrm{}}{lim}J(L)/L=\frac{J^{}(L)}{L}$$
(29)
After summing over all values of $`𝐩`$, by passing to the continuum for large $`A`$, we obtain the divergence free result

$`\beta J^{}(L)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑pp\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0p+ϵm^2\gamma ϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}{ϵ_0p+ϵm^2\gamma +ϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2L\sqrt{p^2+m^2})\right)`$ (30)
$`+`$ $`2m\mu \overline{\gamma }^2{\displaystyle \frac{\text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)+m\gamma \text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}}`$
$`=`$ $`\beta J_{vdW}^{}(L)+\beta J_0(L)`$
From Eq. (29) it is clear that $`J^{}(L)`$ is the effective interaction potential between the two surfaces.

The bulk grand potential contains the extensive contribution which itself contains the divergence. By taking the difference we have concentrated on the part relevant to the calculation of the disjoining pressure. However, it is instructive to remark that the extensive term in Eq. (28) is the term in the bracket that is explicitly proportional to $`L`$. It can be shown that on integration this term does indeed give the standard Debye-Hückel expression for the pressure. It is, in fact, the one-loop contribution similar to that explicitly discussed in the 1D model in dehose . The difference in the 3D case is that the integral is divergent and so must be renormalized. The divergence for this integral is due to the self-energy of the charge distribution included in the original definition of the partition function. It can be removed by imposing the renormalization condition the the fugacity $`\mu `$ be chosen so that the density is given by

$$\rho =\frac{\mu }{\beta }\frac{\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Xi }}{\mu }.$$

$`\mu `$ is then a bare quantity which is a function of the Ultra-Violet cutoff. It can be shown that when the appropriate one-loop calculations are performed the bulk pressure is finite and is given by

$$\beta P_{\mathrm{bulk}}=\rho \frac{m^3}{24\pi }.$$

Where they are important the UV divergences will ultimately be regulated by the finite size of the ions. However, these contributions will be corrections and it will be possible to estimate their importance using perturbative methods. The details will be postponed to a further paper which will report on the perturbative approach in general. The renormalization of $`\mu `$ is not of relevance to what follows but is central to higher-order corrections.

## III Various Limits

To demonstrate the generality of the formalism here and its compatibility with well established results in the literature derived by other means, we shall consider various limits of the formulas derived above.

### III.1 Mean Field Limit

The mean field theory for the action (11) is obtained from the equation

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi (𝐱)}S_G[\varphi ]=0$$
(31)
This yields the equation

$$\beta ϵ\varphi m^2\beta ϵ\varphi +i\lambda (\delta (z)+\delta (zL))\beta ϵm^2\gamma \varphi (\delta (z)+\delta (zL))=0$$
(32)
within the film. Outside the film one has

$$\beta ϵ_0\varphi =0$$
(33)
As is usual for Euclidean Sine-Gordon field theories, the physical saddle point is imaginary, one writes $`\varphi =i\psi `$ and it turns out that $`\psi `$ is the mean field electrostatic potential, this is also clear from the static QED formulation (7). In addition the mean field solution depends only on the coordinate $`z`$. From Eq. (33) one finds that outside the film $`d\psi /dz=0`$ which is simply the condition of electro-neutrality in the film. Inside the film (strictly away from $`z=0`$ and $`z=L`$) one has therefore

$$\beta ϵ\left(\frac{d^2}{dz^2}\psi m^2\psi \right)=0$$
(34)
which is simply the linearized Poisson Boltzmann equation. The solution to this equation which gives a potential symmetric about the films midpoint $`L/2`$ is

$$\psi =C\text{cosh}\left(m(x\frac{L}{2})\right)$$
(35)
Integrating the mean field equation between $`z=0^{}`$ and $`z=0^+`$, and using the condition of electro-neutrality, one finds

$$\beta ϵ\frac{d\psi }{dz}|_{z=0^+}\beta ϵm^2\gamma \psi (0)+\lambda =0$$
(36)
This allows one to solve for $`C`$ giving

$$C=\frac{\lambda }{\beta ϵm\left(\mathrm{sinh}(\frac{mL}{2})+m\gamma \text{cosh}(\frac{mL}{2})\right)}$$
(37)
Substituting this mean field solution into the expression (11) for $`S_G`$, yields the mean field action which is exactly the expression (25) obtained from the zero momentum contribution in the previous analysis.

### III.2 No electrolyte no surface-charging

This amounts to calculating the zero van der Waals forces across a slab of dielectric constant $`ϵ`$ while the dielectric constant of the external media is given by $`ϵ_0`$. Here one has

$$J^{}(L)=\frac{k_BT}{4\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑pp\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left(\frac{ϵ_0ϵ}{ϵ_0+ϵ}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2Lp)\right)$$
(38)
The integral above is easily evaluated by expanding the logarithm leading to

$$J^{}(L)=\frac{k_BT}{16\pi L^2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n^3}\left(\frac{ϵϵ_0}{ϵ+ϵ_0}\right)^{2n}$$
(39)
This yields the attractive, Casimir like, disjoining pressure mani ; atkjmi

$$P_d(L)=\frac{k_BT}{8\pi L^3}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n^3}\left(\frac{ϵϵ_0}{ϵ+ϵ_0}\right)^{2n}$$
(40)
### III.3 No surface-charging

If one considers the limit where there is no interaction between the ions and the surface one has $`\mu _+^{}=\mu _{}^{}=0`$ and hence $`\gamma =0`$. This is the case of an electrolyte confined by two neutral surfaces (in both the electrostatic and chemical sense) but with a medium of dielectric constant $`ϵ_0`$ out side the film and dielectric constant $`ϵ`$ inside the film. One thus obtains

$$J^{}(L)=\frac{k_BT}{4\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑pp\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left(\frac{ϵ_0pϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}{ϵ_0p+ϵ\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2L\sqrt{p^2+m^2})\right)$$
(41)
This thus recovers the result of mani  demonstrating the screening of the zero frequency van der Waals interaction in the presence of an electrolyte.

### III.4 Localized Surface Charge Fluctuations

It is easy to see that the term proportional to $`\gamma `$ in the action (11) is a term proportional to the surface charge fluctuation about its mean value. The effect of surface charge fluctuations in the limit where the counterions are highly localized about the surface was considered in atkjmi  and pisa . In atkjmi  the problem was considered in the strong and weak coupling Debye-Hückel regime, in this regime the electrostatic fluctuations lead to the computation of a mathematically identical determinant in both atkjmi  and pisa  and the electrostatic fluctuations in our model also have the same mathematical structure. The differences between atkjmi ; pisa  and our model are in terms of the physical interpretation at this level. In the case of non varying dielectric constant (for instance the case of two membranes interacting in water) the contribution to the disjoining pressure coming from the electrostatic fluctuations or the zero frequency van der Waals term $`P_d^{(vdW)}(L)`$ is given by taking $`m=0`$ within the film. Immediately one obtains

$$P_d^{(vdW)}(L)=\frac{k_BT}{2\pi }𝑑p\frac{p^2}{\left[\mathrm{exp}(2pL)(1+p\overline{\lambda })^21\right]}$$
(42)
where $`\overline{\lambda }=2/m^2\gamma `$. The expression (42) is up to the definition of $`\overline{\lambda }`$ the same as obtained in and atkjmi  and pisa .

In atkjmi  the problem of localized surface-charging but with varying dielectric constant, that outside the film being different to that within the film, was also considered. In mepist  the model of pisa  was studied incorporating the same dielectric constant variation. However at a mathematical level the calculation of the electrostatic fluctuations in atkjmi ,mepist  and here is again identical. Here we find that the contribution from the electrostatic fluctuations is

$$P_d^{(vdW)}(L)=\frac{k_BT}{2\pi }𝑑p\frac{p^2}{\left[\mathrm{exp}(2pL)\left(\frac{(ϵ+ϵ_0)p+ϵm^2\gamma }{(ϵϵ_0)p+ϵm^2\gamma }\right)^21\right]}$$
(43)
This equation agrees with the result of atkjmi  (in the Debye Hückle regime) which is obtained there by calculating the contribution of the ionic fluctuations and then adding the contribution coming from the zero frequency Lifshitz terms. In mepist  only the ionic fluctuations were included and hence the result differs from ours and that of atkjmi  by the zero frequency Lifshitz term.

### III.5 Including the Non-zero Frequency van der Waals Contribution

Let us mention that if one wanted to now take into account non-zero frequency contributions from the Lifshitz theory, which are in principle uncoupled or very weakly coupled to the static ionic fluctuations one should use a total potential

$$J_T(L)=J^{}(L)+\underset{\omega 0}{}J_{\mathrm{Lif}}(w,L)$$
(44)
where $`J_{\mathrm{Lif}}(\omega ,L)`$ is the contribution to the dispersion potential coming from the Matsubara frequency $`\omega `$ in the absence of electrolyte. As mentioned previously, in the formulation here, the zero frequency Lifshitz and ionic components are treated together in the grand partition function $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$.

## IV The Triple Layer

As mentioned earlier, the change in the dielectric constant due the the presence of the hydrocarbon layer formed just outside the surface of the soap film by the surfactant should also be taken into account. If one considers this to be a region of size $`h`$ at either interface, but inaccessible to the aqueous solution one now has an different Hamiltonian $`H_H`$ (where the subscript $`H`$ denotes the hydrocarbon region) in these regions characterized, for a mode $`𝐩`$, by $`\omega _H=p`$ and $`M_H=\beta ϵ_1`$, where $`ϵ_1`$ is the dielectric constant of this hydrocarbon region (strictly this is a mixture of air/hydrocarbon chains). Using the formalism developed here one finds that the mode $`𝐩`$ yields a contribution

$`{\displaystyle }d[\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝐩)]\mathrm{exp}[S_𝐩]=𝒩_𝐩\mathrm{exp}(({\displaystyle \frac{UL2h}{2}})\omega _E)\times `$ (45)
$`{\displaystyle }\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{M_E\omega _EX^2}{2}})K(X,Y,h,\omega _H,M_H)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M_Fm^2\gamma Y^2)\times `$
$`K(Y,Z,L,\omega _F,M_F)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M_Fm^2\gamma Z^2\right)K(Z,W,h,\omega _H,M_H)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_E\omega _EW^2}{2}}\right)dXdYdZdW`$
to the grand partition function.

The $`𝐩=0`$ mode or mean field contribution is unchanged by the addition of the hydrocarbon layer and after some algebra on finds that

$`\beta J^{}(L)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑pp\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1B(p)p+ϵ(m^2\gamma \sqrt{p^2+m^2})}{ϵ_1B(p)p+ϵ(m^2\gamma +\sqrt{p^2+m^2})}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2L\sqrt{p^2+m^2})\right)`$ (46)
$`+`$ $`2m\mu \overline{\gamma }^2{\displaystyle \frac{\text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)+m\gamma \text{cosh}\left(\frac{mL}{2}\right)}}`$
where

$$B(p)=\frac{1+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}(2ph)}{1\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}(2ph)}$$
(47)
with

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{ϵ_0ϵ_1}{ϵ_0+ϵ_1}$$
(48)
Note that if $`ϵ_0=ϵ_1`$ we recover the double layer result obtained earlier. In the limit $`h0`$ we obtain $`ϵ_1B(p)ϵ_0`$ and when $`h\mathrm{}`$ one has $`ϵ_1B(p)ϵ_1`$ as it should. A key, physically illuminating step, in the algebra mentioned above is the evaluation of the term

$$\psi ^{}(Y)=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}M_E\omega _EX^2)K(X,Y,h,M_H,\omega _H)𝑑X$$
(49)
One finds that

$`\psi ^{}(Y)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_H\omega _H}{M_E\omega _E\mathrm{sinh}(\omega _Hh)+M_H\omega _H\text{cosh}(\omega _Hh)}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ (50)
$`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Y^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_E\omega _EM_H\omega _H\mathrm{coth}(\omega _Hh)+M_H^2\omega _H^2}{M_E\omega _E+M_H\omega _H\mathrm{coth}(\omega _Hh)}}\right)\right)`$
The normalization here is unimportant for the calculation of the disjoining pressure (as $`h`$ is taken to be fixed). We can now interpret $`\psi ^{}`$ as the new effective ground-state wave function associated to the mode $`𝐩`$ entering the film. As there is no electrolyte in the hydrocarbon region one has that $`\omega _H=\omega _E=p`$ (the case where electrolyte was present could be easily handled by the same formalism) and hence one finds that the effective or renormalized ground-state wave function entering the film is

$$\psi _0(X)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}X^2\omega _HM_H\left(\frac{M_E\mathrm{coth}(ph)+M_H}{M_E+M_H\mathrm{coth}(ph)}\right)\right)$$
(51)
Clearly this leads to a renormalization of $`M_H`$ with respect to what it would be if the region of hydrocarbons was in fact of infinite size, and consequently one finds a $`p`$ dependent renormalization of the dielectric constant $`ϵ_1`$ as

$$ϵ_1^R(p)=ϵ_1B(p)=ϵ_1\left(\frac{ϵ_0\mathrm{coth}(ph)+ϵ_1}{ϵ_0+ϵ_1\mathrm{coth}(ph)}\right)$$
(52)
which is easily seen to be in agreement with the definition of $`B(p)`$ above. This calculation can easily be generalized to an arbitrary number of electrolyte free layers simply by calculating recursively the value of $`B(p)`$ generated by the composition of all the layers before arriving at the penultimate layer before the film. In the case of no surface interaction and no electrolyte this result agrees with the calculation of the zero frequency contribution to the van der Waals force in nipa1 ; dorivr .

In what concerns the the momentum dependence of $`ϵ^R(p)`$ one finds that

$`ϵ^R(p)`$ $``$ $`ϵ_0\mathrm{for}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}h`$ (53)
$`ϵ^R(p)`$ $``$ $`ϵ_1\mathrm{for}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}h`$ (54)
Hence the long wave length modes entering the film behave as if the hydrocarbon layer was not there and the short wave length modes behave as if there was only the hydrocarbon layer present.

## V Behavior of the Disjoining Pressure

In this section we shall examine how the disjoining pressure is effected by changing the various physical parameters of the theory. We write

$$P_d=P_d^{(0)}+P_d^{(vdW)}$$
(55)
where the first term is the mean field or zero mode contribution $`P_d^{(0)}=J_0/L`$ and $`P_d^{(vdW)}=J_{vdW}^{}/L`$ is the zero frequency van der Waals contribution coming from the modes $`𝐩`$ such that $`|𝐩|0`$.

### V.1 The Mean Field Contribution

The mean field contribution to the disjoining pressure is

$$P_d^{(0)}(L)=\frac{\mu m^2\overline{\gamma }^2}{\beta (\mathrm{sinh}(\frac{mL}{2})+m\gamma \text{cosh}(\frac{mL}{2}))^2}$$
(56)
which is clearly always positive. This repulsive component is generated by an effective surface charge which is present when $`\mu _+^{}\mu _{}^{}0`$, that is to say there is an asymmetry between the cation/anion affinities or repulsions at the surface. At large inter-surface separations one finds

$$P_d^{(0)}(L)\frac{4\mu m^2\overline{\gamma }^2}{\beta \mu (1+m\gamma )^2}\mathrm{exp}(mL)$$
(57)
which has the standard Poisson-Boltzmann exponential decay with the characteristic length scale of the Debye length $`l_D=1/m`$. If $`\gamma `$ is negative $`\gamma =\gamma ^{}`$ (with $`\gamma ^{}>0`$) the magnitude of the repulsion is enhanced. Here there is a critical value $`L_c`$ where the mean field component to the disjoining pressure diverges. One finds that

$$L_c=\frac{1}{m}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1+m\gamma ^{}}{1m\gamma ^{}}\right)$$
(58)
The divergence here is not physical as it can be avoided by keeping higher order terms in the expansion of the surface terms in the full action (10). However it does indicate an enhancement of the repulsion due to the presence of a Stern layer of effective length $`\delta ^{}=\gamma ^{}`$ from the considerations in section (II.). If the theory were applicable for large $`L`$ and $`L_c`$ were small, then one finds

$$L_c2\delta ^{}$$
(59)
that is to say that the pressure should rise rapidly when the two effective Stern layers come into contact, thus giving a large repulsive term in the disjoining pressure before the surfactant surfaces actually come into contact. This image is valid in the range where $`m\delta ^{}1`$, that is to say the width of the Stern layer is much smaller that the Debye length. It is clear that the limit taken in Eq. (9) is only valid in this case. In the case where $`m\delta ^{}1`$ one must treat the Stern layer as a continuum and introduce two new layers of finite thickness.

In the case $`\gamma >0`$ the magnitude of the repulsive part of the disjoining pressure is decreased as $`\gamma `$ increases. At $`L=0`$ one finds the disjoining pressure

$$P_d^{(0)}(0)=\mu k_BT\left(\frac{\overline{\gamma }}{\gamma }\right)^2$$
(60)
Therefore at small interface separations one needs to incorporate steric repulsion between the surfactants in the two surfaces to prevent a collapse to a zero film thickness.

### V.2 The Zero Frequency Van der Waals Contribution

As mentioned previously, the presence of an electrolyte in the film leads to a screening of the zero frequency van der Waals interaction and simple expressions for $`P_d^{(vdW)}`$ as a function of $`L`$ do not exist due to the presence of a second length scale the Debye length ($`=1/m`$). For simplicity we consider just the bilayer model. In the case $`L1/m`$, the disjoining pressure is dominated by modes such that $`p1`$ and one obtains to leading order

$$P_d^{(vdW)}\frac{k_BTm^3}{4\pi mL}\left(\frac{m\gamma 1}{m\gamma +1}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2mL).$$
(61)
We see that the prefactor controlling the strength of the long-distance attraction depends crucially on the value of $`\gamma `$ and hence the surface-charging mechanism. The exponential decay is however twice as rapid as that of the mean field contribution, meaning that in the thick film regime the zero frequency van der Waals attraction is dominated by the mean field repulsion term.

In the limit $`L1/m`$ one finds

$$P_d^{(vdW)}\frac{k_BT}{L^3}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n^3}\left(\frac{ϵϵ_0}{ϵ+ϵ_0}\right)^{2n}L1/m.$$
(62)
This expression is independent of $`\gamma `$ and consequently coincides with that given by in mani . Hence we see that it is only in the regime of very thin films that the zero frequency van der Waals force takes the Hamaker form $`P_d^{(vdW)}1/L^3`$.

## VI Orders of Magnitude and Comparison with Experimental Data

The theory presented so far is the linearized version which is equivalent to the Gaussian approximation and corresponds to the free field formulation. We should expect that a detailed comparison with experiment will not be wholly successful since we have yet to include non-linear effects. However, it is instructive to show qualitatively how well the model performs and to this end we study one case for which the parameters are typical of experiments. We consider a soap film in air consisting of ionic liquid bounded by two thin hydrocarbon layers of hydrophobic surfactant. We idealize the model to be a bilayer system where we do not account for the non-zero thickness of the hydrocarbon layers. The liquid is composed of water with a dissolved salt, such as NaCl. The hydrophobic surfactant is of one charge only and so we set $`\mu _+^{}\mu ^{},\mu _{}^{}=0`$. The fugacity $`\mu `$ of the cations and anions is chosen by the experimenter and determines the Debye mass $`m`$ through $`m^2=2\mu e^2/kT`$. For the free energy we use Eq. (28) which we recast in terms of dimensionless variables as

$`F_0(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\text{cosh}(l/2)}{\mathrm{sinh}(l/2)+\alpha \text{cosh}(l/2)}}`$
$`F_{(vdW)}(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑kk\mathrm{ln}\left(1\left(\frac{kϵ_0/ϵ+\alpha \sqrt{k^2+1}}{kϵ_0/ϵ+\alpha +\sqrt{k^2+1}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}(2l\sqrt{k^2+1})\right)}`$
$`P_d`$ $`=`$ $`2kT\mu \overline{\alpha }^2{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dl}}F_0(l)+kTm^3{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dl}}F_{(vdW)}(l),`$ (63)
where $`l=Lm,\alpha =m\gamma ,\overline{\alpha }=m\overline{\gamma }`$ with $`\gamma =\overline{\gamma }=\mu ^{}/2\mu `$. Typical values for these parameters are

$$kT=4.10^{21}J,\mu 0.2mMm0.05nm^1,\alpha =\overline{\alpha }=2.0.$$

The coefficients in Eq. (63) are then

$$c_0=2k_BT\mu \overline{\alpha }^2=4000Pa,c_1=k_BTm^3=500Pa,ϵ/ϵ_0=80,$$

where the ratio $`ϵ/ϵ_0`$ is for water to air. The disjoining pressure $`P_d`$ is given in Pascals. For these values a plot of $`P_d`$ is shown in Fig. 1. The solid curve is the total value of $`P_d`$ while the dashed curve gives the repulsive contribution from $`F_0`$ and the attractive contribution from $`F_{(vdW)}`$ is shown as the dotted curve. The theory predicts a collapse certainly by $`L=8nm`$ and since the collapse corresponds to a first order phase transition the Maxwell construction will predict that collapse will be observed at larger $`L`$. Since we do not have a theory for the short-range repulsive force that eventually stabilizes the NBF we cannot use the Maxwell construction to give an accurate value for where the film becomes metastable but $`8nm<L<20nm`$ would be a reasonable range.

The attractive van der Waals contribution $`P_d^{(vdW)}`$ above can be compared with the Hamaker form at short distances predicted by Eq. (62). However, numerical study of the case of interest here shows that the values of $`L`$ for which this behavior holds are too small to be relevant to the collapse described above.

For $`L1/m`$ the leading term is given by Eq. (61) and the value of $`\alpha `$ is crucial in determining the overall coefficient. Indeed, for $`\alpha 1`$ the behavior will given by non-leading terms not shown here. In Fig. 2 we plot $`P_d^{(vdW)}`$ versus $`L`$. It is seen that while the large $`L`$ asymptotic form (61) is a good approximation for $`L>1/m=20nm`$, in the the region important to the collapse, $`5nm<L<20nm`$, the full result deviates strongly from this form. Thus we find that the full expression for $`P_d^{(vdW)}`$ must be used in the region of interest.

The surface-charging mechanism is very important to the prediction of the collapse transition. If a fixed surface charge is used we should omit the quadratic term in $`\varphi `$ in the expansion of the source in Eqs. (9,65). This corresponds to setting $`\alpha =0`$ where is occurs explicitly in the expressions for $`F_0`$ and $`F_{(vdW)}`$ in Eq. (63) while not changing the values of the coefficients $`c_0,c_1`$. In this case for the parameters above there is no collapse.

In a more general case with both $`\mu _+^{},\mu _{}^{}`$ non-zero the same expressions as in Eq. (63) apply but with the generalization $`\alpha \overline{\alpha }`$. The effect of choosing fixed $`\overline{\alpha }=2.0`$ but varying $`\alpha `$ can be seen in Fig. 3 where the values used above of $`c_0=4000Pa,c_1=500Pa`$ are adopted but different values of $`\alpha =1.0,1.5,2.0,3.0`$ are used. The term most affected is the repulsive mean-field term and even in the linearized theory this is very sensitive, as we should expect, to the charging mechanism for the surfaces. We see that the predicted properties of the collapse transition are strongly dependent on the choice of $`\overline{\alpha }`$ and $`\alpha `$ and therefore on the details of the film being studied.

## VII Behavior of the Surface Charge

In the limit $`\delta 0`$ the surface charge (on one surface) per unit area, $`\sigma `$, can be seen to be

$$\sigma =\frac{e}{2}\left(\mu _+^{}\frac{}{\mu _+^{}}\mu _{}^{}\frac{}{\mu _{}^{}}\right)\beta J=\frac{e}{2}\left(\gamma \frac{}{\overline{\gamma }}+\overline{\gamma }\frac{}{\gamma }\right)\beta J,$$
(64)
where $`\gamma ,\overline{\gamma }`$ are defined in Eq. (12).

Even in the Gaussian approach the source terms encode the non-trivial charging properties of the surfaces bounding the ionic liquid. From Eq. (9) we have used the approximation for the source

$$\mu _+^{}\mathrm{exp}(i\beta e\varphi )+\mu _{}^{}\mathrm{exp}(i\beta e\varphi )=i\lambda \varphi \frac{1}{2}\beta ϵm^2\gamma \varphi ^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(65)
The term linear in $`\varphi `$ represents a fixed surface charge but the term in $`\varphi ^2`$ corresponds to surface charge fluctuations.

We decompose $`\sigma `$ in terms of the mean field contribution and the van der Waals contribution $`\sigma =\sigma _0+\sigma _{vdW}`$. The term coming from the mean field (and constant or ideal) contributions to the grand potential is

$$\sigma _0(L)=\frac{e\mu }{m}\frac{\overline{\alpha }}{(\alpha +\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{mL}{2}))}\left[2\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{mL}{2})+\frac{\overline{\alpha }^2}{(\alpha +\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{mL}{2}))}\right].$$
(66)
The contribution from the van der Waals term is independent of $`\overline{\gamma }`$ and can be written as

$$\sigma _{vdW}=\frac{e}{2}\overline{\alpha }\frac{}{\alpha }\beta J_{vdW}.$$
(67)
We find

$$\sigma _{vdW}=\frac{\overline{\alpha }em^2}{2\pi }𝑑kk\frac{f(k)}{1f^2(k)}\frac{\sqrt{k^2+1}}{(kϵ_0/ϵ+\alpha +\sqrt{k^2+1})^2}\mathrm{exp}(l\sqrt{k^2+1}),$$
(68)
where $`f`$ is given by

$$f(k)=\left(\frac{kϵ_0/ϵ+\alpha \sqrt{k^2+1}}{kϵ_0/ϵ+\alpha +\sqrt{k^2+1}}\right)\mathrm{exp}(l\sqrt{k^2+1}).$$
(69)
For the parameters given in the previous section: $`\mu =0.2mM,m=0.05nm^1,\alpha =\overline{\alpha }=2.0`$ the behavior of $`\sigma `$ is shown versus $`L`$ in Fig. 4. One notices that the surface charge is regularized on varying $`L`$, though not drastically (about $`10\%`$ over $`40nm`$) just up to the film thickness $`L10\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m}`$. One sees that in this case the effect of the van der Waals term is to decrease the value of $`\sigma `$ from its mean field value.

## VIII Conclusions and Outlook

In this paper we have presented a field theoretic formulation of the electrostatic interactions in soap film like systems, which treats on the same footing the zero frequency van der Waals or Lifshitz terms and the contributions coming from ionic fluctuations. The basic idea is to use the static part of the QED Lagrangian coupled to the charge density coming from the ions in the system and then integrating over the electrostatic potential $`\psi `$ and the positions of the ions (which are treated classically). The time dependent and magnetic field terms in the full QED Lagrangian are thus neglected, this is equivalent to the non retarded limit where the velocity of light $`c\mathrm{}`$. Retardation effects can be taken into account by summing over the non zero Matsubara frequencies, however the coupling of these terms with the ionic distribution is weak. The incorporation of retardation effects requires in addition the frequency dependence of the electric permittivies.

This treatment is easily applicable to systems with spatially varying dielectric constants and elegantly avoids calculations of the arising image effects. The formalism also allows the incorporation of surface charges induced by equilibrium processes. In the grand canonical ensemble one obtains a Sine-Gordon field theory. Linearizing this theory leads to a soluble Gaussian field theory and is equivalent to the Debye-Hückel approximation, which should be valid for weak ionic concentrations. In this form the evaluation of the grand potential is carried out by using the Feynman kernel for simple harmonic oscillators. The use of the Feynman kernel in the field theoretic formalism allows us reproduce a wide range of results established in the literature via other methods. The effect of surface charge fluctuations are can also be taken into account and it was also shown how many different layers of varying dielectric constant simply lead to a renormalization of the simple bilayer result.

Preliminary investigation of the relevant experimental soap film parameters shows that the van der Waals contributions lead to a weak (screened) attraction at large intersurface separations. For thinner films there is an increased attraction, which can overcome the mean field repulsion present in the models considered here. However in the region where the film collapses, the attraction does not have the simple Hamaker $`1/L^3`$ form and is strongly dependent on the Debye mass $`m`$ and the surface surface-charging parameters. Indeed an essential ingredient is the inclusion of the surface-charging mechanism which, although treated here in the Gaussian approximation, nevertheless predicts an $`L`$-dependent surface charge density which is important to the details of the collapse. A linear approximation to the surface charge source is inadequate since it leads to a fixed surface charge and hence a diverging mean-field repulsive pressure $`P_0`$ as $`L`$ decreases. By including the term in $`\varphi ^2`$ in the expansion of the sources, the surface charge is shown to decrease as $`L`$ decreases and so the divergence in the mean-field repulsion $`P_0`$ is regulated.

Although not necessary for the theory presented here it is interesting to compare the outcome with our work on the 1D coulomb gas model for a soap film dehose . The mechanism in 1D for the collapse was the changing balance of contributions to $`P_d`$ between the even and odd eigenfunctions of the Mathieu equation as the film thickness $`L`$ varied. The important states were the lowest lying ones including the ground-state. In the Gaussian approximation used in the present work we can ask which are the important eigenfunctionals of the theory in 3D which play a similar role. In this model the eigenfunctionals are products of harmonic oscillator eigenfunctions for each of the transverse momentum modes separately for which the coordinate is $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(𝒑)`$. The source term is, however, only a function of the zero mode $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)`$ and the important corresponding term in the wavefunctional from Eq. (18) is ($`𝒑=0,X\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(0)`$)

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_n(X)=h_n(X)\mathrm{exp}(mX^2/2),$$

where $`n`$ is the oscillator excitation number. For large $`n`$ the Hermite polynomial has an oscillatory factor

$$h_n(X)\text{cos}(\sqrt{n}mX(n1)\pi /2).$$

The relevant coefficient is the overlap of this wavefunction with the source term in Eq. (21) $`\mathrm{exp}(i\sqrt{A}\mu ^{}\beta eX)`$ and it is clear that this will not be large unless the oscillatory factors match. This will be the case when

$$\sqrt{n}m\sqrt{A}\mu ^{}\beta e,$$

and the corresponding energy values are of order $`E(n+1/2)mA\mu _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(\beta e)^2/m`$ giving an extensive contribution to the free energy as we must expect. Hence the important states are not the ground-state and those nearby but highly excited states which carry the extensive nature of the system.

By taking experimentally reasonable values for the parameters in our formulae we obtain acceptable predictions for the collapse phenomenon and surface-charging for simple description of the film. However, to make accurate predictions will require the film to be modeled as a multiple layer with the correct permittivities for each layer and possible charging potentials included. We must also include the contributions of non-linear and non-Gaussian operators and to do this involves three ingredients. The first is to solve the non-linear mean-field equations, the second is to develop the perturbation theory for the non-Gaussian source operators within the Gaussian field theory and the third to use perturbation theory for the non-Gaussian interactions given by the Sine-Gordon theory in the film interior. Because the system is not translation invariant these perturbation theories is not standard but it has been developed and will be presented in a succeeding paper together with the non-linear mean-field formulae.

Acknowledgment: We would like to thank D. Bonn and I.T. Drummond for interesting discussions.


text:
# A study of nuclear effects in 𝜈 interactions with the NOMAD detector

## 1 Introduction

Since a long time  it has been observed that in the high energy interactions off nuclei there are particles emitted backwards, with respect to the beam direction, which have energies not allowed by the kinematics of collisions on a free and stationary nucleon. Backward going protons are commonly observed while, in absence of nuclear effects, their production is forbidden. High energy mesons, whose production in the backward direction is only allowed up to a given momentum, are detected also, at momenta above such a limit. Essentially two types of models have been proposed to explain the origin of these particles. The first is based on the intranuclear cascade (INC) mechanism. The production of particles in the kinematically forbidden region is seen as the result of multiple scattering and of interactions of secondary hadrons, produced in the primary $`\nu `$-nucleon collision, with the other nucleons while they propagate through the nucleus . The second approach explains the production of backward particles as the result of collisions off structures with mass larger than the nucleon one. These structures are formed, at small interparticle distance, under the action of the short range part of the nuclear force. They may be described as clusters of a few correlated nucleons  or multiquarks clusters . The nucleons in these structures can acquire high momenta and the fast backward going particles can be seen as a direct manifestation of the high momentum tail of the Fermi distribution.
These two classes of models are not mutually exclusive and the production in the backward hemisphere can have contributions from both mechanisms.

## 2 The NOMAD detector and event selection

The NOMAD detector  consisted of an active target of 44 drift chambers, $`3\times 3m^2`$ each, of low average density ($`0.1g/cm^3`$) and overall mass of 2.7 tons. The drift chamber composition was made by over 90% of the total weight by carbon and elements with nearby atomic number. Downstream the beam the target was followed by a transition radiation detector which provided electron identification, a preshower and an electromagnetic calorimeter. All these systems were located inside a dipole magnet which created a magnetic field of $`0.4T`$. A hadron calorimeter and two muon stations were located just behind the magnet coil. NOMAD collected data from 1995 to 1998. During the run a total of $`5.1\times 10^{19}`$ protons on target, corresponding to about $`1.3\times 10^6\nu _\mu CC`$ interactions, were recored on tape. The events are selected by requiring one primary vertex with at least two tracks,

one of which has to be a negative muon of momentum greater than 3 GeV/c. The sample selected for this study amounts to 944019 events.

## 3 Backward particle identification

### 3.1 Backward proton identification

The separation of the backward going protons ($`Bp`$) from the other backward going positive tracks (essentially $`\pi ^+`$) is done by exploiting the range–momentum relation. For this reason the candidate tracks are required to range out in the drift chamber volume. Fig. 1 shows the experimental distributions of length vs. momentum for positive (left) and negative (right) tracks, going backward with respect to the beam direction, and satisfying our selection criteria. Two distinct populations are clearly visible on the positive sample plot. Protons, having a shorter range than $`\pi ^+`$, tend to accumulate in the lower right part of the plot while the $`\pi ^+`$’s tend to populate the left–hand side. Comparing the two plots we see that the lower right part of the negative sample is much less populated than the corresponding region of the positive one, these tracks being mainly $`\pi ^{}`$. Any positive backward going track with length smaller than the cut (the line on Fig. 1) is identified as a $`Bp`$. The identified sample is then corrected for reconstruction efficiencies and for $`\pi ^+`$ contamination ($`8\%`$ for $`P_{REC}>250MeV/c`$). For further details on the identification and correction procedure refer to .

### 3.2 Backward $`\pi ^{}`$ identification

In the case of backward going $`\pi ^{}`$ ($`B\pi ^{}`$) it is not necessary to look for tracks ranging out in the target. The choice of the negative charge allows for a sample of high purity; it is shown by MC studies that the $`e^{}`$ contamination is at the level of few percent above a momentum of $`200MeV/c`$. We therefore assume that any negatively, backward going, charged track with $`P_{REC}>0.2GeV/c`$ is a $`\pi ^{}`$. The identified sample is then corrected for reconstruction efficiency.

## 4 Backward $`p`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ invariant momentum distributions

The inclusive spectrum of backward particles is typically represented using the normalized invariant cross section

$`(1/\sigma _{TOT})Ed^3\sigma /dP^3`$, where $`E`$ is the energy of the backward going particle. The invariant cross section is usually parametrized by an exponential form as:

$$\frac{1}{N_{ev}}\frac{E}{P}\frac{dN}{dP^2}=Ce^{BP^2}$$
(1)
where $`N_{ev}`$ is the total number of events, $`C`$ is a constant and $`B`$ is the slope parameter. Early hadronic experiments had found that $`B`$ is almost independent of the projectile type and momentum, and of the atomic number of the target. This behaviour has been termed “nuclear scaling”. Neutrino experiments - have confirmed these properties.
The inclusive spectrum of $`Bp`$ and $`B\pi ^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 2a and 2b respectively, together with the exponential fit. In the $`B\pi ^{}`$ case we have not included the first two points in the fit. These points are in a momentum region where, backward production being kinematically allowed, there are additional contributions not coming from nuclear effects. The values of the measured slope parameter $`B`$ are reported in Table 1. The first and the second errors are statistical and systematical, respectively. The systematic uncertainty was estimated by slightly changing the values of all the cuts used, by varying by a small amount the correction functions and also by changing the size of the fiducial volume. The values of the slope parameters measured in this experiment are found to be compatible with the results obtained in other neutrino and hadronic experiments. The invariant cross section for $`Bp`$ is larger than the one for $`B\pi ^{}`$ by about one order of magnitude but the values of the slopes are similar. The kinematic ranges of the two invariant distributions are also different. To be identified $`Bp`$ have to stop inside the target volume; the rather low density of the NOMAD target restricts to $`0.7GeV/c`$ the maximum useful momentum value.
The invariant cross section and slope parameter for $`Bp`$ in $`\overline{\nu }_\mu CC`$ events are given in Fig. 2c and Table 1 respectively.

During normal operations $`\overline{\nu }_\mu CC`$ events were also collected due to the small $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ component of the dominantly $`\nu _\mu `$ beam. A dedicated $`\overline{\nu }`$ run yielded an additional sample of $`\overline{\nu }_\mu CC`$ events included for this analysis.
Antineutrino events are selected under the assumptions that the efficiencies and pion contamination are the same as those used for the neutrino events, but requiring a positively charged muon instead of a negative one. The final $`\overline{\nu }_\mu CC`$ sample consists of $`61134`$ events.

## 5 Energy dependence of the slope parameter

In Fig. 3 we show the slope parameter $`B`$ for protons as a function of the visible hadronic energy $`E_{HAD}`$ and the $`Q^2`$ of the event. The visible hadronic energy is defined as:

$$E_{HAD}=E_c+E_n$$

where $`E_c`$ is the sum of the energies of reconstructed charged tracks (assuming the mass of the pion if the particle is not otherwise identified) and $`E_n`$ includes tracks associated to secondary vertices corresponding to interactions of neutral particles and the energy of neutral particles reconstructed in the ECAL. $`Q^2`$ is the square of the four–momentum transfer, $`Q^2=4E_{vis}E_\mu sin^2\theta /2`$, where $`\theta `$ is the muon angle with respect to the neutrino direction.

No significant dependence of the slope $`B`$ on either quantity is observed, in agreement with the expectations of “nuclear scaling” as observed in hadronic beam experiments. The range covered by NOMAD is similar to the one covered by different experiments with hadronic beams.

## 6 Backward particle rates

In order to study a possible atomic number dependence the $`Bp`$ rate has been compared with the results of the other $`\nu `$–nucleus experiments. The measured yields have all been normalized to the same momentum interval (350 to 800 MeV/c) assuming the dependence given in Eq. 1 with the measured slopes.
The extrapolation for NOMAD gives:

$$<N_{Bp}>_{350÷800MeV/c}=$$

$$[\text{}52.8\pm 0.6(stat.)\pm 7(syst.)]\times 10^3$$

The $`A`$ dependence for experiments most directly comparable to NOMAD is shown in Fig. 4a. In the range $`A=20÷80`$

it has been parametrized as $`<N_{BP}>A^\alpha `$, where $`\alpha =0.68\pm 0.12`$ . The same parametrization with a similar power law was found to describe $`Bp`$ production in $`\pi ^+`$ and $`K^+`$ collisions with $`Al`$ and $`Au`$ nuclei at 250 GeV/c . It is evident from Fig. 4a that this simple power law does not describe the NOMAD data taken at a lower $`<A>`$. The $`B\pi ^{}`$ rate was directly measured in the same momentum range. Its average value is found to be:

$$<N_{B\pi ^{}}>_{350÷800MeV/c}=$$

$$[\text{}4.8\pm 0.1(stat.)\pm 0.3(syst.)]\times 10^3$$

In this case a good fit to the two BEBC points and to the NOMAD value can be obtained using the form $`A^\alpha `$ giving $`\alpha =0.83\pm 0.25`$, as shown in Fig. 4b.

## 7 Comparison of data with models

### 7.1 $`E_{HAD}`$ and $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`Bp`$ and $`B\pi ^{}`$ rates

The $`Bp`$ and the $`B\pi ^{}`$ rates have been studied as a function of the hadronic energy $`E_{HAD}`$ and of $`Q^2`$. In both cases, shown in Fig. 5,

a decrease of the yield with increasing $`E_{HAD}`$ and $`Q^2`$ is observed. This can be interpreted in terms of the “formation zone” concept. This is the distance (or the time) from the production point which is required for the secondary hadrons to be “formed”, i.e. to be able to interact as physical hadronic states. Since the distance/time required, due to the Lorentz time–dilation factor, is proportional to the energy of the secondary, the INC process is restricted to slow hadrons which have formation lengths smaller than the nuclear radius. The larger $`E_{HAD}`$ and $`Q^2`$, the larger is the average energy of the outgoing partons therefore resulting in hadrons which have higher probability to be formed outside the nucleus. As a consequence, reinteractions will decrease and so will the slow proton rates. In the $`B\pi ^{}`$ case the dependence of the yield on $`Q^2`$ and on $`E_{HAD}`$ is less pronounced. This can be understood since the $`B\pi ^{}`$ rates are a less sensitive probe of nuclear effects because $`B\pi ^{}`$ production on a stationary nucleon is kinematically allowed for momenta up to about half the nucleon mass. Furthermore $`B\pi ^{}`$ can be produced in the decay of forward going resonances or unstable particles.

### 7.2 Effects of short range correlations in $`Bp`$ production

According to the picture proposed by the correlated nucleon/quark models the $`Bp`$ production is explained as the result of a neutrino interaction within a correlated cluster of nucleons/quarks. This cluster is formed, for a short time, when two nucleons in their motion inside the nucleus approach each other so closely as to come under the effect of the short range component of the nuclear force ($`r_c=0.5÷0.7fm`$). The repulsive character of this interaction is responsible of the high relative momenta of the cluster members. The simplest, and the most probable case when considering the overlapping probabilities of nucleons in the nucleus, is the two–nucleon case. According to this model the $`Bp`$ is released when the correlated pair is broken in the $`\nu `$–cluster interaction. If the effects of reinteractions are neglected, the released $`Bp`$ can leave the nucleus keeping its original momentum. To study these correlations it is customary to use the variable $`\alpha `$ defined as:

$$\alpha =(EP_l)/M$$
(2)
where $`E`$ and $`P_l`$ are respectively the energy and longitudinal momentum of the $`Bp`$ and $`M`$ is the nucleon mass. For $`Bp`$, $`\alpha >1`$ since $`P_l`$ is negative. In this model, due to the target motion a correlation between $`\alpha `$ and the variable $`v=xy`$, where $`x`$ is the Bjorken scaling variable $`x=Q^2/2ME_{HAD}`$ and $`y=E_{HAD}/(E_{HAD}+E_\mu )`$ is expected. The variable $`v`$ is related to the muon kinematics and can be written as:

$$v=(E_\mu P_\mu ^l)/M$$
(3)
where $`E_\mu `$ and $`P_\mu ^l`$ are the muon energy and longitudinal momentum. The $`(v,\alpha )`$ correlations were searched for in the data by calculating for each event $`\alpha `$ and $`v`$ as defined in Eq. 2 and 3. For each $`\alpha `$ bin we plot the variable $`<v_N>`$ defined as:

$$<v_N>=\frac{<v>_{Bp}}{<v>_{noBp}}$$
(4)
where $`<v>_{noBp}`$ is obtained from the full sample of events without a $`Bp`$. According to Ref.  the average values of $`v`$ in events with a $`Bp`$, $`<v>_{Bp}`$, is related to the average value of $`v`$ in events where no $`Bp`$ is present, $`<v>_{noBp}`$, by:

$$<v>_{Bp}=<v>_{noBp}(2\alpha )$$
(5)
More generally for a cluster composed of $`\xi `$ nucleons the relation is :

$$<v>_{Bp}=<v>_{noBp}\left(1\frac{\alpha }{\xi }\right)\frac{\xi }{\xi 1}$$
(6)
Fig. 6a shows $`<v_N>`$ as a function of $`\alpha `$. The data indicate a slope of $`0.22\pm 0.06`$ with a $`\chi ^2/ndf=5.3/6`$ (the $`\chi ^2/ndf`$ in the hypothesis of no dependence on $`\alpha `$ is 19.1/7). The two–nucleon correlation mechanism fails to describe our data. Either higher order structures are playing a leading role  or the observed low level of correlation is due to the presence of reinteraction processes.

In this case part of the $`Bp`$ are emitted as a result of reinteractions in the nucleus and are not related to the target nucleon. The presence of intranuclear cascade processes could therefore dilute the existing correlation to the observed level. To test this hypothesis we tried to reduce the component due to rescattering in the selected $`Bp`$ sample. Having observed the correlation existing between the multiplicities of slow tracks and rescattered protons we applied increasingly tighter cuts on the number of slow tracks ($`P<700MeV/c`$). As a consequence of these cuts the degree of correlation between $`\alpha `$ and $`v`$ increases. The fit values of the slopes are reported in Table 2 together with the definitions of the cuts applied. We have also observed a strong correlation between the presence of protons travelling backward in the lab but forward with respect to the hadronic jet direction, and the concentration of events at small $`Q^2`$ values and large angles with respect to the beam. Since also a small $`Q^2`$ indicates the presence of rescattering, the exclusion of these events should highlight the expected correlation. The resulting slope is $`0.39\pm 0.07`$ with a $`\chi ^2/ndf=4.9/6`$ (see Fig. 6b). The observed behaviour is consistent with the hypothesis of the correlations effects being to some degree hidden by the presence of rescattering. Reducing the rescattering component these correlations seem to become stronger.

## 8 Comparison with the NOMAD Monte Carlo

The NOMAD event generator NEG–N is based on a modified version of LEPTO 6.1  and JETSET 7.4  (with fragmentation parameters tuned on the NOMAD data) for the deep inelastic simulation and on dedicated generators for quasielastic events and events in the resonance region. Nuclear effects are taken into account by incorporating the

formation zone intranuclear cascade (FZIC) code of DPMJET–II.4 . For the hadrons produced inside the nucleus the code performs a complete simulation of tracking and of interactions in nuclear matter developing the cascade through several generations. The Fermi momentum is simulated according to . The event generator used for the oscillation search did not take into account the INC. In that case a discrepancy of $`200MeV/c`$ on the average transverse missing momentum, $`p_T^m`$ (the difference between the reconstructed hadron jet and muon transverse momenta), was found between the data and the MC prediction. In view of its importance in the $`\tau `$ search, based on the exploitation of the different kinematics of the $`\nu _\tau `$ interactions with respect to the $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$ ones in the transverse plane, the MC sample could not be directly used to calculate background and signal efficiencies. However, a method  was succesfully developed in order to correct the MC predictions using the data themselves. The results of this upgraded generator show how the INC degradates the hadronic energy by producing $`n`$ and slow $`p`$ (emitted at large angles and difficult to detect). The simulation of nuclear effects reduces by a factor of two the $`p_T^m`$ discrepancy between data and MC; the remaining effect is probably due to a too optimistic detector simulation. In the code the hadron formation length is left as a free parameter to be supplied by the user. It has been tuned on the NOMAD data in order to achieve the best agreement between the simulated and the experimental hadronic distributions of multiplicities, momentum spectra and angular distributions. The best agreement is found for a formation time of 2 fm/c. For this value the MC predicts a rate of $`<N_{Bp}>_{350÷800MeV/c}=53.0\times 10^3`$ with a slope of 10 in excellent agreement with the experimental results. It was found also (see Fig. 7) that the rate is strongly dependent on the formation time while the slope is not.