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# Plasmon-assisted quantum entanglement

((March 8, 2002))

The state of a two-particle system is called entangled when its quantum mechanical wave function cannot be factorized in two single-particle wave functions. Entanglement leads to the strongest counter-intuitive feature of quantum mechanics, namely nonlocality. Experimental realization of quantum entanglement is relatively easy for the case of photons; a pump photon can spontaneously split into a pair of entangled photons inside a nonlinear crystal. In this paper we combine quantum entanglement with nanostructured metal optics in the form of optically thick metal films perforated with a periodic array of subwavelength holes. These arrays act as photonic crystals that may convert entangled photons into surface-plasmon waves, i.e., compressive charge density waves. We address the question whether the entanglement survives such a conversion. We find that, in principle, optical excitation of the surface plasmon modes of a metal is a coherent process at the single-particle level. However, the quality of the plasmon-assisted entanglement is limited by spatial dispersion of the hole arrays. This spatial dispersion is due to the nonlocal dielectric response of a metal, which is particularly large in the plasmonic regime; it introduces “which way” labels, that may kill entanglement.

The samples that we have studied are two 1 mm $`\times `$ 1 mm “metal hole arrays”, each comprising a 200 nm thick gold layer perforated with a square grid of 200 nm diameter holes spaced with a 700 nm lattice constant; a typical SEM picture is shown in the insert of Fig. 1. They were produced at DIMES (see acknowledgements) by first defining, with electron beam lithography, arrays of dielectric pillars on a 0.5 mm thick glass substrate, subsequently evaporating the gold layer onto a 2 nm thin titanium bonding layer, and finally etching away the pillars to leave the array of air holes.

Transmission spectra of two hole arrays, measured with a spectrometer using normally incident white light, are shown in Fig. 1. One can clearly see the resonances due to excitation of Surface Plasmons (SP) on either of the metal-dielectric boundaries. At these resonances the measured transmission can be orders of magnitude larger than the value obtained from classical diffraction theory for subwavelength holes . In a simple picture, the surprisingly large transmission is due to the coupling of photon to SP on one side of the metal, subsequent tunnelling of the SP through the holes to establish a SP at the other side, and final re-radiation into a photon. Other prominent features in the spectra are the transmission minima associated with Wood anomalies . At this moment the theoretical description of the full transmission spectrum is incomplete, but the role of the SP herein is well established. The resonance used in our experiment extends from 800-830 nm and is associated with the ($`\pm `$1,$`\pm `$1) SP mode on the glass-metal interface. Peak transmissions of the two arrays are typically 3% (dashed curve) and 5% (solid curve) at a wavelength of 813 nm; these values are much larger than the value of 0.55% obtained from classical theory . The difference in transmission between the two nominally identical hole arrays is ascribed to production imperfections.

As a mainly longitudinal, compressive electron density wave, a SP propagates along the polarization direction of the incident light, following a certain dispersion relation. In order to confirm this for our samples we have measured polarization-resolved transmission spectra of one of the hole arrays for various angles of incidence $`\theta _{inc}`$ of plane-wave radiation (see Fig. 2). Angle tuning is expected to shift the various resonances in the transmission spectrum in different ways. As our interest is in a SP that propagates along the ($`\pm `$1,$`\pm `$1) direction, we have varied the angle of incidence by tilting the samples along the diagonal ($`\varphi =45^{}`$) axis of the square hole array. For a polarization orthogonal to this tilting axis (Fig. 2a) the main peak at 810 nm splits and shifts for increasing $`\theta _{inc}`$; for a polarization along the tilting axis (Fig. 2b) the main peak remains at the same spectral position. These results confirm the relation between polarization and propagation and thus the 2D photonic band structure of the SPs.

We generate polarization-entangled photons with the standard method of type II Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC)  depicted in Fig. 3. A 240 mW CW Krypton-ion laser beam at a wavelength of 406.7 nm is directed onto a 1 mm thick BBO nonlinear crystal, where the beam diameter is $``$ 0.50 mm (full width at 1/e2 points). Inside the nonlinear crystal a small fraction of the pump photons is down-converted into twin photons at the double wavelength; these are emitted along two intersecting cones. Polarization-entangled photon pairs are selected with pinholes at the crossings of these cones; the size of the pinholes (far-field diameter 5 mrad) was chosen as a compromise between high yield and good quantum entanglement. Lenses L of 40 cm focal length produce a one-to-one intermediate image of the pumped area, which will be used (see below) to accommodate the hole arrays A1 and A2. After passing through polarizers P1 and P2 the entangled twin photons are focused through interference filters (10 nm bandwidth centered at 813 nm) onto single-photon counting modules (Perkin Elmer SPCM-AQR-14). The photodetectors act as bucket detectors, i.e., they impose no further transverse mode selection (this is only done by the pinholes). The signals from the two detectors are combined electronically in a coincidence circuit with a time window of 2 ns, to provide the two-photon coincidence rate.

In a simplified picture, the generated polarization-entangled state is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|H_1V_2+e^{i\theta }|V_1H_2\right),$$
(1)
where the state $`|H_1V_2`$ represents the simultaneous emission and propagation of a $`H`$-polarized photon in beam 1 and a $`V`$-polarized photon in beam 2. The $`H`$\- and $`V`$-directions are defined by the orthogonal birefringent axes of the generating BBO crystal and all spatial information is implicitly contained in the beam labelling. By tilting one of the compensating crystals (C in Fig. 3) the quantum phase $`\theta `$ can be set.

In a more accurate description, where the spatial information within the beams is properly accounted for, the two-photon state in a given transverse plane is

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }{\displaystyle }\mathrm{d}\stackrel{}{q}_1{\displaystyle }\mathrm{d}\stackrel{}{q}_2\{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{HV}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1,\stackrel{}{q}_2)|H\stackrel{}{q}_1;V\stackrel{}{q}_2`$
$`+e^{i\theta }\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{VH}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1,\stackrel{}{q}_2)|V\stackrel{}{q}_1;H\stackrel{}{q}_2\},`$ (2)
where the integration is over the transverse modes present in beam 1 and 2, labelled by wavevectors $`\stackrel{}{q}_i`$ ($`i`$=1,2). $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{HV}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1,\stackrel{}{q}_2)`$ is the two-photon probability amplitude for finding a H-polarized photon with wavevector $`q_1`$ in combination with a V-polarized photon with wavevector $`q_2`$, and vice versa for $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{VH}}(\stackrel{}{q}_1,\stackrel{}{q}_2)`$. These functions are similar to the one normally used, but now with polarization labelling and taken specifically at frequency degeneracy. If the functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{HV}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{VH}}`$ are identical, i.e., in the absence of polarization-dependent components, they can be factorized out and Eq. (2) reduces to the simple form of Eq. (1). If the functions are different, polarization and spatial information are intertwined and the degree of polarization entanglement is reduced. Mathematically, it is the overlap integral between the two $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-functions in Eq. (2) that determines the degree of entanglement, as it measures the spatial indistinguishability of the polarization-entangled photons.

In the absence of the hole arrays our setup produces typically $`3.2\times 10^4`$ coincidence counts per second, being $``$ 25% of the single count rate. A measure for the purity of the quantum entangled state is the so-called visibility of the biphoton fringe. This visibility was typically $`V_0^{}=99.3\%`$ and $`V_{45^{}}=97.0\%`$ at polarization angles of 0 and 45, respectively (see Table). The high value at 45 shows that the natural preference of the generating BBO crystal for its birefringent axes (0 and 90) was almost completely removed in our setup by the compensating crystals, which act as quantum erasers.

Placement of the two hole arrays in the two “beam lines” of course leads to a dramatic reduction of single and coincidence counts. Coincidence count rates are typically 55 s-1 at the optimum setting of the detecting polarizers, which is consistent with the transmissions of the arrays given above. We again performed a measurement of the purity of the entangled state and found that the visibilities were now $`V_0^{}=97.1\%`$ and $`V_{45^{}}=97.2\%`$, respectively. In Fig. 4 the corresponding fourth-order quantum interference fringes are shown for polarizer P2 fixed at 0 and 45, respectively, and P1 varying in steps of 10. These measurements show that the quantum entanglement survives the transition from photon to SP and back.

As a further demonstration of the SP-assisted quantum entanglement we performed a standard measurement of the so-called S-parameter, as described in ref. , on a singlet Bell state ($`\theta =\pi `$ in Eq. 1). This experiment, which took 16 runs of 100 seconds each, gave a value of $`|S|=2.71\pm 0.02`$, which is a violation of the inequality of Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt , by 35 standard deviations.

Further experiments were performed on a setup with only a single array in one of the beams. The results for this case look very similar to those for the experiment with two arrays; again the entanglement was practically unaffected (see Table). This is to be expected as the two-photon wavefunction of Eq. (1) is perturbed by changes in either of its single-photon components; in principle a single array can kill all of the entanglement. The difference between the two single-array experiments, as reported in the table, is due to imperfections in array 2, which are also observable in its (single-photon) polarization-dependent transmission. As the measurements using only array 2 gave results very similar to the situation with both arrays in place, these imperfections must be the key culprit for the somewhat limited visibilities in the two-array experiment.

The most intriguing results of our single-array experiment are obtained when we focus the SPDC beam onto its hole array, using a confocal telescope (close to lens L) of two f = 15 mm lenses symmetrically positioned around the array, as shown inside the dashed square in Fig. 3. Under these conditions we observe a drastic reduction of the degree of quantum entanglement: when the intra-telescope focus has a numerical aperture of 0.13 rad we observe visibilities of $`V_0^{}=73\%`$ and $`V_{45^{}}=87\%`$ (see table).

The observed reduction in visibility upon focusing can be naturally explained as a consequence of spatial dispersion in the hole arrays. Spatial dispersion is a little-known phenomenon that refers to the fact that the optical constants of a medium depend on the wavevector of the incident light as a consequence of the non-local relation between the optical excitation in a medium and the incident optical field. It can lead, surprisingly, to polarization anisotropy of a cubic crystal, since the cubic symmetry is broken due to the finite size of the optical wavevector (As an aside, we note that this effect has recently been demonstrated to have serious consequences for the use of high-precision crystalline optics for lithographic wafer production in the far ultraviolet). Spatial dispersion is usually negligible as compared to frequency dispersion, i.e., the fact that optical constants depend on the frequency of the incident light. However, spatial dispersion can become significant in conducting media, where the motion of free charge carriers causes non-locality over distances much greater than atomic dimensions . SPs are an extreme case thereof as these entities are not at all local but instead propagate along the dielectric-metal interface at nearly the speed of light over distances of many optical wavelengths .

As a result of this spatial dispersion, the near-field distribution of the photons that are reradiated at the backside of the hole array differs from the spatial profile of the “polarization-isotropic” incident photons. From symmetry arguments we expect a four-lobed profile that is oriented either along the array axes or along the diagonals, where the latter applies to the ($`\pm `$1,$`\pm `$1) SP that we probe, as sketched in Fig. 5. The unpolarized overlap region of these profiles corresponds to the focused incident light, whereas the polarized elongations are a result of SP propagation. The presence of these polarized lobes introduces the possibility to distinguish the polarization of the photons on the basis of their spatial near-field coordinates. This will then automatically kill part of the polarization entanglement, just as any “which way” information will do. A similar argument applies to the far-field, where the SP propagation creates a difference between the two $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-functions in Eq. (2) after passage through the hole array. Note that the observed reduction in visibility is much stronger for $`V_0^{}`$ than for $`V_{45^{}}`$, contrary to what one generally finds without using hole arrays. This observation is consistent with the fact that we excite SPs propagating in the “diagonal” ($`45^{}`$) directions.

The reduction of the visibility due to this effect is expected to be significant when the propagation length $`l`$ of the SP is comparable to the spot size of the focused incident beam, or rather its transverse coherence length. This is indeed the case for our experiment: based on the spectral width of the transmission peak at 810 nm, we estimate $`l4\mu `$m; the number of holes ”covered” by the propagating SPs is thus about 10. In comparison, the spot size is $``$ 8 $`\mu `$m ( = 0.5 mm $`\times `$ 15/800) and the transverse coherence length (set by the 5 mrad far-field selection) is $``$ 4 $`\mu `$m. We note that the propagation length differs by an order of magnitude from the value $`l40\mu `$m predicted for a smooth pure gold film; we ascribe this difference to extra damping by the titanium bonding layer and the hole patterning.

From a general perspective, the observed conservation of quantum entanglement for the conversion from photon $``$ surface plasmon $``$ photon is a first demonstration of the true quantum nature of SPs. All experiments on SPs so far do not probe their quantum nature, but only their semiclassical dispersion relation c.q. wave nature. In this perspective, it is interesting to note that the true quantum nature of the photon was only established in 1977, in anti-bunching experiments . Furthermore, a simple estimate shows that SPs are very macroscopic, in the sense that they involve some $`10^{10}`$ electrons. Our experiment proves that this macroscopic nature does not impede the quantum behaviour of SPs, as they can be entangled with photons to yield the expected fourth-order interference.

Based on the existing theory of spatial dispersion  the observed reduction in visibility in the focused setup is strongly linked to the square symmetry of the lattice and the ($`\pm 1,\pm 1`$) character of the SP that we have used. In the near future we plan to study hole arrays based on other Bravais lattices and space groups, of which there are 5, respectively 17 different types in 2 dimensions . A very interesting case will be the hexagonal lattice, where the spatial dispersion is expected to be independent of the orientation of the lattice.

In conclusion, by addressing the topic of plasmon-assisted quantum entanglement we have combined two intriguing fields of research, being (i) quantum information, and (ii) nanostructured metal optics. We hope that our work will stimulate studies of entanglement transfer to other condensed-matter degrees of freedom.

Acknowledgements This work forms part of the program of FOM. We thank A. van Zuuk and E. van der Drift at the Delft Institute of Micro-Electronics and Sub-micron Technology (DIMES) in Delft, the Netherlands, for the production of the hole arrays. We thank G. Nienhuis for theoretical discussions.

Correspondence and requests for material should be addressed to E.A. (e-mail: erwin@molphys.leidenuniv.nl).


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# Impurity and band effects competition on the appearence of Inverse Giant Magnetoresistance in Cu/Fe multilayers with Cr

## I Introduction

The fast development of new materials and their applications to nanodevices have made of transport properties a hot area of research in the last years. Many of these nanodevices are based on magnetic multilayers (MMLs), which show the Giant Magnetoresistance effect (GMR) discovered in 1988 baibich , that has produced a big impact because of the novel physics responsible of the mechanisms involved in this phenomenon.

Due to the nanolength scales that are reached by new devices, transport may show up in two possible regimes: diffusive for length scales larger than the mean free path, or ballistic if they are shorter. Actually, in a real MML there could certainly exist an interplay between both regimes.

The spin-dependent potential seen by the electrons in these nanosystems is responsible for GMR and this potential can be classified as being of two types. One of them is the so-called extrinsic potential given by scattering with defects in the bulk and at interfaces and it is usually assumed to be the main source of GMR in the diffusive regime. The other type of spin-dependent potential, the intrinsic one, is determined by potential steps at the ideal interfaces of the MMLs. If the system is considered periodic, all information about the intrinsic potential is given by the energy bands. Schep et al. in Ref. schep,  show that GMR in the ballistic regime is produced by the intrinsic potential. However, calculations done within the semiclassical approach, using the Boltzmann equation in the relaxation time approximation, have accounted for several experimental results in the diffusive regimeana ; ricky ; mertigPRL95 .

The experiments on magnetotransport in MMLs are mostly performed with the electric current flowing parallel to the interfaces (CIP geometry) because the experimental setup in this geometry is easier to achieve than the one corresponding to the current flowing perpendicular to the interfaces (CPP). But the CPP transport configuration is theoretically easier to understand and to modelise gijs . In CIP geometry the electric transport is always diffusive because in this geometry the lenghts travelled by the electrons are much larger than the mean free path. In CPP it is possible to obtain length scales larger, of the same order, or shorter than the mean free path. Thereafter in this last geometry, diffusive, ballistic or an interplay between these regimes can be present or achievable. But, questions concerning the relative importance of different factors on GMR such as (a) interfacial roughness and/or interdiffusion schullerbilayer ,(b) competition among the different length scales bozec  and of (c) bulk vs. interfacial scatteringschullerinterfacially ; vouille  are still open and are being actively investigated.

One of the most successful and frequently used transport models for MMLs is the Valet-Fert’s valetfert  one (V-F). This simple model is specially well suited for diffusive transport in CPP configuration. The main idea behind this description is that electric transport in a MML can be modelised assuming that there are two currents, a minority and a majority one contributing both independently to the total current, and also that each layer of a MML is thick enough to be considered as a resistor. The MMLs can be regarded as being built by resistors arranged in series, each resistor being a source of scattering (in the bulk or at interfaces). For this assumption to be valid there should be no quantum interference among sources of scattering. If the distance between interfaces is shorter than the mean free path there will be quantum coherence and this model breaks down (Bozec et al.bozec ). Actually the V-F model has been successfully applied even on systems that are far beyond the formal validity limits. But, nowadays it is possible to grow MMLs composed of very thin layers and due to this fact the different components of these MMLs cannot be treated as independent resistors and should be treated as a whole ana ; ricky ; mertigPRL95 .

In CPP the characteristic length for transport is the spin diffusion one. In general, the spin diffusion length is larger than the mean free path or coherence length. Coherence lengths in MMLs are of the order of layers’ thicknesses due to roughness and spin accumulation at interfaces. In CIP there is no spin accumulation and the electrons traverse a fewer number of interfaces than in CPP, this means that if the thickness of the layers in the multilayers is less than the mean free path (the coherence limit) a transport model based on band structure calculations becomes realistic in the dilute impurity limit.

Experimentally two kinds of GMR can be observed: direct and inverse. In the first case the resistance decreases and in the second one it increases with the applied magnetic field. Direct GMR (DGMR) is more commonly observed than the inverse one (IGMR), which has only been measured in a few systemslaura ; renard ; rahmouni . In particular, George et al.laura  found a small IGMR ratio for transport in the CIP configuration for a Cu/Fe multilayer system when a thin Cr layer is intercalated in half of the Fe layers. This inverse effect has been attributed to the existence of alternating spin asymmetries in the samples, due to different coefficients of the spin-dependent scattering of electrons at the different interfaces of the superlatticefert1976  (this explanation is actually better suited for measurements done in CPP geometry). In this experiment, a mixing of low field IGMR, which adds to the high field normal DGMR to be attributed to Cr/Fe, is observed. At low field ($`<`$150 G) the IGMR is due to the alternating spin asymmetries of the two different kinds of magnetic layers present in the sample. For larger fields, the normal and large DGMR usually observed in Cr/Fe multilayers overweights the low field effect until for very large fields the Fe spins within the Fe/Cr/Fe trilayers finally align.

In this contribution we want to investigate the differences between the two kinds of transport geometries and also to get insight into the relative importance of band and impurity effects in the determination of the GMR ratio, in particular for multilayer systems of the type (Fe/Cu/Fe/Cr/Fe/Cu)N, which we consider are ideal for this study. We mainly calculate low field GMR ratios, that is the GMR ratios which correspond to saturation fields for the relatively weak AF coupling in Cu/Fe multilayers petroff .

The questions we want to address are: (a) the relative importance of intrinsic (bands) vs. extrinsic potential (impurities) effects on the observed IGMR in Cu/Fe MMLs containing Cr, (b) the dependence of the GMR ratio on the number of Cr/Fe interfaces and/or on the roughness of the interfaces, and (c) the possible coexistance of IGMR in one geometry and DGMR in the other. To carry out this study we consider Cu/Fe multilayers in which one or more layers of Cr atoms are intercalated in the middle of alternating Fe layers. As Fe and Cr have nearly the same atomic volume one expects Cr to partially interdiffuse. We also think that depending on growth conditions interdiffusion is not necessarily complete; it should, thus, be possible to consider that, in the average, a continuous Cr layer survives leading the Cr band effects and that interdiffused atoms can be regarded as impurities. We compare, then, results of GMR calculations for different interfacial arrangements of Fe and Cr atoms in the above mentioned MMLs and analyse the different contributions leading to IGMR in these MMLs.

The band contribution on transport is explicitly taken into account through the Boltzmann semiclassical approach within the relaxation time approximation. The relaxation time value is considered to be due to impurity scattering at interfaces and in the bulk. The goal is to “measure”the relative importance of having ordered Cr/Fe interfaces vs. Cr impurities on the sign of the GMR of these systems. The influence of the number of Cr/Fe interfaces is investigated as well as the effect of having an ordered alloy (roughness) at the interfaces. The GMR is calculated as a function of the relative concentration of Cu and Cr scatterers which constitute the impurity effect. This paper is organized as follows: After this introduction the method of calculation is outlined in Sec. II, while the results are provided in Sec. III. and concluding in Sec. IV.

## II method of calculation

The electronic structure of the considered superlattices is obtained using an all-electron ab initio method. The calculations are performed using the WIEN97 code blaha , which is an implementation of the linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW), based on Density Functional Theory. The local spin density approximation (LSDA) for the exchange and correlation energy as given by Perdew and Wang is usedperdew .

The conductivities are calculated within the Boltzmann approach in the relaxation time approximation and no spin-flip scattering is considered. The semiclassical Boltzmann equation is valid only in the low impurity limit. The conductivity tensor is given, then, byziman

$$\sigma _{ij}=\frac{e^2}{8\pi ^2}\underset{\nu s}{}\tau ^sv_{i\nu }^s(𝐤)v_{j\nu }^s(𝐤)\delta [\epsilon _\nu ^s(𝐤)\epsilon _F]d^3𝐤,$$
(1)
$`s`$ denotes spin index, $`\nu `$ the band index, $`\epsilon _F`$ is the Fermi energy. The semiclassical velocities $`v_{j\nu }^s(𝐤)`$ are obtained from the band calculations. The relaxation time, $`\tau ^s`$, is k state independent but spin dependent within our model. Following Ref. mertigPRL95, , for the determination of $`\tau ^s`$ we assume that the local spin densities of state at the Fermi level in the magnetic layers of the superlattice have all the same value. We also assume that there are interdiffused Cu impurities in the Cu/Fe interfaces and Cr impurities in the Cr/Fe ones as well. It was shown, in Ref. mertigPRL98, , that magnetic impurities in Cu make a small contribution to the local density of states at the Fermi level, and should be, thereafter, ineffective for GMR. As the Boltzmann approximation is valid only in the low impurity limit, we assume that the concentration of both types of scatterers ($`c_{\text{Cr}}`$ and $`c_{\text{Cu}}`$) is very small.

We are interested in the evolution of GMR as a function of the relative importance of both types of scatterers through their modification of $`\tau ^s`$. Thus, we assume that for each of the studied superlattices, the total number of scatterers per unit cell is fixed and it is equal to a certain constant, $`K`$, that is

$$c_{\text{Cr}}N_{\text{Cr/Fe}}+c_{\text{Cu}}N_{\text{Cu/Fe}}=Kc_{\text{Cu}},c_{\text{Cr}}1,$$
(2)
$`N_{\text{A/Fe}}`$ is the number of A/Fe interfaces per unit cell (A = Cr or Cu) and $`c_\text{A}`$ the atomic concentration of atoms of type A at the corresponding interfaces. We propose the following expression for the relaxation time averaged over the Fermi surface,

$$\frac{1}{\tau ^s}=\frac{K}{N}\left(\frac{1\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}}{\tau _{\text{Cu/Fe}}^s}+\frac{\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}}{\tau _{\text{Cr/Fe}}^s}\right),$$
(3)
where

$$\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}=\frac{N_{\text{Cr/Fe}}c_{\text{Cr}}}{N_{\text{Cu/Fe}}c_{\text{Cu}}+N_{\text{Cr/Fe}}c_{\text{Cr}}}$$

and

$$N=N_{\text{Cr/Fe}}+N_{\text{Cu/Fe}}.$$

$`\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}`$ is then the Cr relative scatterer concentration. $`\tau _{\text{A/Fe}}`$ denotes the relaxation time of Fe in the presence of A type impurities (A=Cr, Cu). When calculating the GMR ratios the factor $`K/N`$ in Eq. (3) cancels out.

For the antiparallel configuration the corresponding expression for $`\tau ^s`$, which mixes local majority and minority relaxation times in subsequent Fe layers has to be considered.

In our calculations we obtain the values of $`\tau _{\mathrm{A}/\mathrm{Fe}}^s`$ appearing in expression (3) from the spin asymmetries, $`\beta _{\text{A/Fe}}=\tau _{\text{A/Fe}}^{}/\tau _{\text{A/Fe}}^{}`$, as given in Ref. mertigPRL95, , and from

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{A}/\mathrm{Fe}}=\tau _{\text{A/Fe}}^{}\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{\text{Fe}}^{}+\tau _{\text{A/Fe}}^{}\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{\text{Fe}}^{},$$
(4)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{\mathrm{Fe}}^s`$ are the isotropic band contributions to Fe bulk conduction for the corresponding spin channel divided by its relaxation time. $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{\mathrm{Fe}}^s`$ are obtained from our electronic bands calculations. $`\sigma _{\text{A/Fe}}`$ is the inverse of the total residual resistivity of bulk Fe in the presence of 1% A type impurities, the corresponding values are taken from Ref. mertigJMMM, . See Table I.

We define the GMR coefficient as

$$\mathrm{GMR}=\frac{\sigma _{ii}(AP)}{\sigma _{ii}(P)}11<\mathrm{GMR}<+\mathrm{}$$
(5)
where P (AP) stands for parallel (antiparallel) configuration. If this coefficient is positive (negative) we are in the presence of IGMR (DGMR). The P configuration meant in Eq. (5) is the one corresponding to the Fe layers aligned across Cu (low field saturation). AP indicates the initial configuration when the Fe magnetic layers separated by Cu are antiferromagnetically aligned.

## III results

The calculations have been done for superlattices grown along the (001) direction and following the BCC structure of Fe. As the layers are thin we assume that Cu grows epitaxially on Fe and within the same structure; this is actually being revealed by x-ray spectroscopypizzini . The calculations are done for superlattices of the type Fe/Cu/(Fe,Cr)/Cu, using a varying number of Cu planes and several combinations of planes and atoms in the (Fe,Cr) region. The in-plane lattice parameter considered is the one corresponding to the LDA optimised Fe buffer, the interface distances Cu/Fe and Cr/Fe are also optimized. The considered muffin tin radius Rmt are equal to 2.0 atomic units for the three kinds of atoms involved in the studied systems. The cutoff parameter, that gives the number of plane waves in the interstitial region, is taken as RmtKmax=8, where Kmax is the maximum value of the reciprocal lattice vector used in the expansion of plane waves in that zone. We find that the optimized interlayer distance between Fe and Cu layers increases by 5% with respect to LDA bulk Fe while the Fe/Cr interfaces relax by about 4%.

The band structure is calculated using a mesh of 167 k points in the full Brillouin zone (FBZ) and the band contribution to $`\sigma _{ij}`$ in Eq. (1), is obtained using a mesh of 20000 k points in FBZ. In order to obtain the relative importance of band and impurity effects and the dependence of IGMR on the number of Cr/Fe interfaces on roughness and on geometry (CIP/CPP), we analyse the following situations: 1. Cr band effects on GMR, 2. Cr and Cu impurity effects on the GMR of FeN/CuM superlattices, 3. Cr and Cu impurities together with Cr band effects.

1. Cr band effects on GMR.

In order to obtain the band contribution of Cr on the GMR ratio we do calculations for a Fe$`_\text{3}`$/Cu$`_\text{4}`$/Fe/Cr/Fe/Cu$`_\text{4}`$ superlattice as a function of Cr/Fe interface distance. We certainly know that the ground state for the number of Cu layers considered here is not AP, and that in fact the maximum AP exchange coupling appears for 8 or 9 layers of Cu. In spite of this, the tendencies we are looking for can be drawn from these calculations which are less demanding in CPU time.

In Fig. 1 we give the results obtained for CPP and CIP-GMR coefficients. The results given in this figure do not take into account the variation of $`\tau ^s`$ with impurity concentration, only the band effects on the GMR of this system are considered by taking $`\tau ^s`$ to be the same for both spin channels. For comparison we also give the GMR values for the superlattice Fe3/Cu4 in Fig. 1(a). Comparing Fig. 1(a) and Fig. 1(b) it can be seen that the modification of the superlattice bands through the introduction of a Cr monolayer gives rise to a large variation of the GMR values, specially in CPP geometry. In Fig. 1(b) the interfacial Cr/Fe distance is equal to the one corresponding to bulk Fe. Fig. 1(c) corresponds to a decrease of 6% in the Cr/Fe interfacial distance, and Fig. 1(d) to a reduction of 10% with respect to Fig. 1(b). It can be seen that increasing the hybridization between Fe and Cr atoms, the tendency towards IGMR also increases. The largest tendencies towards IGMR when introducing a Cr monolayer and when increasing the hybridization are clearly observed in CPP geometry.

2. Cr and Cu impurity effects on FeN/CuM superlattices.

In this case Cu and Cr scatterers in the dilute impurity limit are introduced in MMLs FeN/CuM (N=3, 5 and M=4, 8) through the values of $`\tau ^s`$. No Cr band effects are present, that is no continuous or discontinuous Cr layer is considered, and only the contribution of varying the relative Cr scatterer concentration, $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$, in the low impurity limit on GMR is analysed for several examples. In Fig. 2 we show the result of changing the number of Cu or Fe layers as a function of relative Cr vs. Cu impurity concentration for superlattices which do not contain complete or quasicomplete layers of Cr. Only the tendencies are relevant for this discussion. It is useful to remember that negative values mean direct GMR. Changing the number of Fe layers does not modify either the tendencies nor the absolute values of the coefficients. This can be seen by comparing Fig. 2(a) and 2(b) where we increase the number of Fe monolayers from three to five in the superlattices. A tendency towards inverse GMR when increasing $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$ can be observed. CPP-GMR is more direct than CIP-GMR for almost all values of $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$, but within this approximation both of them remain direct. Increasing the number of Cu layers increases the tendency of CIP-GMR towards IGMR and it even goes positive within a small range of $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$ values (see Fig. 2(c)), which is what is experimentally observed for the Cu width considered. The general tendencies remain the same as in the previous cases. The CPP-GMR ratio remains direct and almost constant with $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$ in all the cases studied in Fig. 2.

In the transport calculations performed for this item the Fermi level, $`\epsilon _F`$ has been kept fixed and equal to its self-consistent value in the corresponding impurity free multilayer. We have made an estimation of the error done when calculating the GMR ratio while keeping $`\epsilon _F`$ fixed for the Fe3/Cu4 superlattice. In this estimation, we consider that the concentration of Cu and Cr impurities in Fe lies around 5%, which is a large value for the low impurity limit assumed here. For $`\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}`$=0.5 the variation in the CPP-GMR ratio due to the Fermi level shift is of 4% and of 2% in CIP, this does not change the observed tendencies. We consider that for the other cases here treated the situation is similar to the present one.

3. Cr and Cu impurity effects and Cr band effects.

We analyse in the following examples Cr band effects and, simultaneously, Cr and Cu impurity effects on the GMR ratios of the studied superlattices. Cr band effects are taken into account by introducing continuous and discontinuous Cr layers, and the impurity effects through the variation of $`\tau ^s`$ as a function of relative impurity concentration in the low impurity limit as in the previous examples. It is well known that Cr mixes with Fe, but a certain averaged ordered Cr configuration should survive after deposition.

In Fig. 3 we show the effect on the GMR of introducing a varying number of Cr/Fe interfaces, and also that of including more Cu layers as a function of $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$. We also give the values of GMR when no impurity effects are taken into account (horizontal lines). We see in Fig. 3(a) that the inclusion of Cr band effects through the presence of one Cr layer in the unit cell, drastically modifies CPP-GMR as compared to the results for Fig. 2(a). In the new situation, CPP-GMR goes positive for almost all values of $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$. It should be noticed that Cu impurities lower the GMR coefficient if one compares with the results of calculations that only include band effects (straight lines in Fig. 3). An increase in $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$ drives both GMR coefficients positive.

If one changes the number of Cu layers, CPP-GMR goes down even if it is mostly positive, but CIP-GMR remains nearly unaffected; see Fig. 3(b). We expect that in the real situation, with the number of Cu layers lying around 8-9 for the maximum antiferromagnetic coupling, CPP-GMR should be inverse and larger than CIP-GMR. On the other hand, CIP-GMR is nearly not modified when the number of Cu layers is changed within the widths we are treating in these calculations.

Duplicating the number of Cr/Fe interfaces does not give rise to a significant change in CIP-GMR while CPP-GMR nearly doubles its value, as it is shown in Fig. 3(c).

We simulate a particular case of roughness by adding an ordered 50% Cr and 50% Fe ML on each side of the Cr layer (see Fig. 3(d)), and we obtain a larger $`\overline{x}_{\mathrm{Cr}}`$ range for which CIP-GMR is inverse, while CPP-GMR does not change with respect to the example of Fig 3(a). This can be easily understood as the introduction of roughness generates Cr/Fe interfaces perpendicular to the superlattice growth direction, and we have already seen that the presence of these interfaces is a source of inverse GMR due to Cr/Fe hybridization. The effect is nevertheless not large enough as to qualitatively modify the maximum value reached by the GMR ratio. CPP-GMR does not change in this particular example as the number of Cr/Fe interfaces along $`z`$ is the same as in the example of Fig. 3(a). It is interesting to notice that GMR has a maximum as a function of concentration in each one of the studied cases.

We also simulate the effect of applying large magnetic fields to the samples, that is, the process of aligning not only the magnetic moments of Fe across Cu, but also those of Cr with respect to the adjacent Fe atoms. In our calculations we observe that Cr has a tendency to antiferromagnetically align with respect to the surrounding Fe layers both in the AP configuration as in the P configuration. To simulate the presence of the external magnetic field, we do fixed spin moment calculations by constraining the total cell magnetic moment and increasing it progressively towards its high field saturation value. In Table II we show the results obtained for the example Fe3/Cu4/Fe/Cr/Fe/Cu4 and $`\overline{x}_{\text{Cr}}`$=0.5. We give the obtained GMR ratios for different values of the total magnetic moment, together with the local magnetic moments on Cr and on the neighboring Fe atoms for each constrained total magnetic moment. The experimental behavior for the evolution of GMR in the presence of growing magnetic fields is obtained. That is, an initial increase in the values of the GMR ratios until the low saturation limit is reached and beyond this, a slow decrease in the GMR ratios as a function of growing applied magnetic fieldlaura . This shows again the importance of band effects on the GMR of the system under study, as this evolution of GMR would not have been observed if only impurity effects had been taken into account.

## IV Conclusions

Based on ab initio band structure calculations, we try to determine the competition between Cr band and impurity effects on the type of GMR (direct or inverse) for superlattices of the type (Fe/Cu/Fe/Cr/Fe/Cu)N. The conductivities used to obtain the GMR ratios are calculated semiclassically by using the linearized Boltzmann approach. The impurity effects are taken into account through an averaged relaxation time per spin channel. We make calculations for, both, CIP and CPP geometries and work in the low impurity limit. The conclusions drawn can be summarized as follows:

The value and sign of GMR depends strongly on the hybridization strength between Fe and Cr layers, specially in CPP geometry.

In the absence of Cr band effects and when only isolated Cr and Cu impurities in Fe are considered, FeN/CuM superlattices show a clear tendency towards IGMR in CIP configuration. This tendency depends on the relative concentration of Cr vs. Cu impurities. For some Cu widths and within a certain concentration range it even goes positive. In CPP the situation is different, the GMR ratio is far from being inverse over the whole range of relative impurity concentrations. These results had already been observed by P. Zahn et al.mertigPRL95 . A change in the number of Fe layers does not modify these tendencies.

When complete or incomplete Cr layers are introduced in alternating Fe layers and, thereafter, Cr band effects are switched on, quantitative as qualitative changes take place specially in CPP. Both, in CIP as CPP the GMR ratios acquire a larger tendency towards IGMR, but in this case it is the CPP geometry the one with the largest IGMR ratios. In the two geometries the GMR is inverse within a broad range of the Cr and Cu relative impurity concentration. In CPP, Cr/Fe interface effects are more important than impurity ones to determine the type of GMR, while the opposite is true in CIP. This is being confirmed by the fact that doubling the number of Fe/Cr interfaces (see Fig 3) gives rise to a large increase in CPP-IGMR, while the increment in CIP-GMR is not as important.

The introduction of roughness (in our case an ordered roughness) at the interfaces, gives rise to an increasing tendency towards CIP-IGMR. Electrons flowing in CIP geometry face the appearance of effective Cr/Fe interfaces in the presence of roughness and Cr band effects become more relevant in this geometry.

We have shown that the experimentally observed evolution of GMR for FeN/CuM MMLs with Cr, as a function of an increasing external magnetic field, can be explained if the presence of Cr bands is assumed.

In general, both transport geometries share the same tendencies for the sign of the GMR ratio, even if the presence of Cr band effects makes CPP more liable to IGMR than CIP, contrary to what happens when only Cr impurities are considered.

Summarizing, both disorder as band effects are necessary to explain the appearance and evolution of IGMR in the studied superlattices.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Dr. M. Alouani for helpful and fruitful discussions. Two of us (A.M.L. and L.B.S.) acknowledge Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas for support of this work. We acknowledge Fundación Sauberan, Fundación Antorchas and Fundación Balseiro also for support. This work was partially funded by project UBACyT X115.


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# Perturbative evolution at small 𝑥

## 1 Introduction

A striking discovery at HERA has been the rapid rise of $`\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}p}`$ with $`W^2`$ at even quite small fixed values of $`Q^2`$: see figure 1. If one parametrises the rise as an effective power

$$\sigma (\gamma ^{}p)F(Q^2)(W^2)^{\lambda (Q^2)}$$
(1)
then the power $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ is found to be significantly greater than the value 0.08 that is familiar in purely hadronic collisions. The value of $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ has been extracted by the H1 collaboration from their data and is shown in figure 3, from which it can be seen to increase with $`Q^2`$ and reach about 0.4 at the highest values that have been measured.

When $`W^2Q^2`$, $`x`$ is small and $`W^2Q^2/x`$. Then the effective-power behaviour (1) corresponds to

$$F_2(x,Q^2)f(Q^2)x^{\lambda (Q^2)}$$
(2)
When they extracted $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ from their data, to make the plot of figure 3, H1 assumed that the value of $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ at small $`x`$ is independent of $`x`$ at each $`Q^2`$. While the data are compatible with this assumption, they do not require it and it does not have theoretical justification. Rather, one should parametrise the data with a sum of fixed powers of $`x`$, whose relative weight varies with $`Q^2`$. In the two-pomeron model I will describe, the resulting $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ has significant variation with $`x`$, as is seen in figure 3.

Even before the HERA measurements, there were predictions that $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ would be large at high values of $`Q^2`$. Such predictions arose from two different equations of perturbative QCD: the DGLAP equation and the BFKL equation. However, it has since been realised that the predictions are not as clean as initially had been hoped.

The BFKL equation is applicable when $`x`$ is small, and $`Q^2`$ large but not too large. It can be made to give values of $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ close to $`\frac{1}{2}`$, which is approximately what experiment finds at high $`Q^2`$. This led to talk of a second pomeron, the hard pomeron, with a $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ that might be calculated from perturbative QCD. However, it has been realised that this calculation is almost certainly invalid. Apart from concerns that the approximations used to derive the BFKL equation do not take sufficient account of energy conservation, it is not correct to suppose that the equation enables $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ to be calculated from perturbative QCD alone. While it is conceivable that there is no such problem with purely-hard processes such as $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ collisions at very high $`Q^2`$, for semihard collisions such as $`\gamma ^{}p`$ the BFKL equation inevitably receives important contributions from uncalculable nonperturbative effects.

The DGLAP equation is derived from perturbative QCD and therefore is valid at sufficiently large $`Q^2`$. It couples the $`Q^2`$ variation of the quark distributions in the proton to the gluon distribution. When $`Q^2`$ is much larger than all the relevant quark masses, the gluon distribution affects the $`Q^2`$ variation of all the quark and antiquark distributions equally, and the $`Q^2`$ variation of the gluon distribution itself receives equal contributions from all the quark and antiquark distributions. That is, the gluon distribution’s evolution is coupled to the singlet quark distribution, which is the sum of the quark and antiquark distributions:

$$q(x,Q^2)=u+\overline{u}+d+\overline{d}+c+\overline{c}+s+\overline{s}+\mathrm{}.$$
(3)
The number of heavy-quark terms that should be included depends on the value of $`W`$. So the relevant form of the DGLAP equation introduces the two-component quantity

$$𝐮(x,Q^2)=\left(\begin{array}{c}q(x,Q^2)\\ g(x,Q^2)\end{array}\right).$$
(4)
It reads

$$Q^2\frac{}{Q^2}𝐮(x,Q^2)=_x^1𝑑z𝐏(z,\alpha _s(Q^2))𝐮(x/z,Q^2).$$
(5)
Here, $`𝐏(z,\alpha _s(Q^2))`$ is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix, called the splitting matrix. The DGLAP equation becomes very simple if we introduce the Mellin transforms of $`𝐮(x,Q^2)`$ and $`𝐏(z,\alpha _s(Q^2))`$

$$𝐮(N,Q^2)=_0^1𝑑xx^{N1}𝐮(x,Q^2)$$
(6)
and

$$𝐏(N,\alpha _s(Q^2))=_0𝑑zz^N𝐏(z,\alpha _s(Q^2)).$$
(7)
Then

$$\frac{}{t}𝐮(N,Q^2)=𝐏(N,\alpha _s(Q^2))𝐮(N,Q^2).$$
(8)
In order to apply the DGLAP equation, one should first choose some starting value $`Q_0^2`$ of $`Q^2`$ and fit the parton distributions there to experimental data, as functions of $`x`$. These functions cannot be calculated from perturbative QCD, but the DGLAP equation, together with assumptions about the form of the gluon distribution, determines how they change as $`Q^2`$ increases. If one starts at some fairly small value $`Q_0^2`$ of $`Q^2`$ with parton distributions that are rather flat in $`x`$ at small $`x`$, then an application of the DGLAP equation results in distributions that rapidly become steeper as $`Q^2`$ increases, in good agreement with experiment. However, this application is controversial. It is not safe to apply a perturbative equation for choices of $`Q_0^2`$ as small as $`1\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ or less, as is sometimes done. Indeed, it is necessary at present to expand the splitting matrix $`𝐏(z,\alpha _s(Q^2))`$ in powers of $`\alpha _s`$ and this is unsafe when $`x`$ is small, as I explain below.

## 2 Regge approach

A powerful approach to the small-$`x`$ data for $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ is to extend the Regge phenomenology that is so successful for soft hadronic processes. Regge theory is not supposed to be a competitor with perturbative QCD, but to coexist with it, and to be applicable when $`W^2`$ is much greater than all the other variables, in particular when it is much greater than $`Q^2`$. When $`x`$ is small $`W^2Q^2/x`$, so the condition that $`W^2Q^2`$ is just that $`x1`$, however large $`Q^2`$ may be.

Regge theory relates high-energy behaviour to singularities in the complex angular momentum plane. For deep inelastic scattering, the complex angular momentum $`l`$ is essentially the Mellin-transform $`N`$ of (6). The correspondence is

$$Nl1$$
(9)
so that this assumption is equivalent to assuming that the relevant singularities in the complex $`N`$-plane are simple poles. The assumption may be not literally correct, but it turns out to give an excellent description of the small-$`x`$ data. A pole at $`N=ϵ`$ contributes a power $`x^ϵ`$ to the small-$`x`$ behaviour of $`F_2`$. So the soft pomeron contributes $`x^{ϵ_1}`$ with $`ϵ_1=0.08`$. But this is not sufficient to describe the rapid rise with $`1/x`$ seen in the data at small $`x`$ and large $`Q^2`$. Another term $`x^{ϵ_0}`$ is needed, with $`ϵ_00.4`$. We call this $`N`$-plane or $`l`$-plane singularity the hard pomeron. This does not explain what is its dynamical origin: maybe it is perturbative QCD though, as I have explained, initial hopes that it might be derived from the BFKL equation now seem unlikely to be realised.

So the simplest fit to the small-$`x`$ data corresponds to

$$F_2(x,Q^2)\underset{i=0,1}{}f_i(Q^2)x^{ϵ_i}.$$
(10)
where the $`i=0`$ term is hard-pomeron exchange and $`i=1`$ is soft-pomeron exchange. Regge theory gives no information about the form of the coefficient functions $`f_i(Q^2)`$, beyond that they are analytic functions. Also, because the real-photon cross section is

$$\sigma ^{\gamma p}=\frac{4\pi ^2\alpha }{Q^2}F_2|_{Q^2=0},$$
(11)
at fixed $`W`$ the function $`F_2`$ vanishes linearly with $`Q^2`$ at $`Q^2=0`$. If we assume that each term in (10) has this property, then

$$f_i(Q^2)(Q^2)^{1+ϵ_i}i=0,1$$
(12)
near $`Q^2=0`$. One might hope that perturbative QCD will determine how the two coefficient functions behave at high $`Q^2`$, but as I will explain so far the theoretical difficulties allow this only for the hard-pomeron coefficient function $`f_0(Q^2)`$. Figure 4 shows how $`f_0`$ and $`f_1`$ vary with $`Q^2`$ if we fit (10) to the data at each $`Q^2`$, including values of $`x`$ up to 0.02. This provides a guide on the likely functional forms of the coefficient functions. The $`f_i(Q^2)`$ can then be parametrised with suitable functions, whose shapes resemble the data points in the plots and which include a number of parameters. These parameters, and the power $`ϵ_0`$, may then be varied so as to give the best fit to all the small-$`x`$ data for $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ together with the data for $`\sigma ^{\gamma p}`$. This results in the value

$$ϵ_0=0.437.$$
(13)
with

$`f_0(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`0.0015{\displaystyle \frac{(Q^2)^{1+ϵ_0}}{(1+Q^2/9.11)^{1+\frac{1}{2}ϵ_0}}}`$ (14)
and

$`f_1(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`0.60\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{1+Q^2/0.59}}\right)^{1+ϵ_1}.`$ (15)
The fit was made imposing $`ϵ_1=0.08`$ and using only data with $`x<0.001`$ and therefore $`Q^235`$ GeV2; see figure 5. With the addition of a term from $`(f_2,a_2)`$ exchange, and including also powers of $`(1x)`$ in each term to make the structure function vanish suitably as $`x1`$, the fit agrees remarkably well with data at larger $`x`$, up to $`Q^2=5000`$ GeV2.

Having concluded that the data for $`F_2`$ require a hard-pomeron component, it is necessary to test this with other data. The hard pomeron is seen clearly in the charm component of $`F_2`$. This describes events in which a $`D^{}`$ particle is produced, which are used to extract the contribution $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$ to the complete $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ from events where the $`\gamma ^{}`$ is absorbed by a charmed quark. The data for $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$ must be treated with some caution because the experimentalists have to make a very large extrapolation to compensate for limited acceptance. Nevertheless the data have the striking property that, over a wide range of $`Q^2`$, they behave as a fixed power of $`x`$:

$$F_2^c(x,Q^2)=f_c(Q^2)x^{ϵ_0}$$
(16)
with $`ϵ_00.4`$: see figure 7. It seems, therefore, that $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$ at small $`x`$ receives a contribution from the hard pomeron and that the soft-pomeron contribution to it is negligibly small. To a very good approximation the hard pomeron seems to be flavour-blind: $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$ is close to $`\frac{2}{5}`$ the hard-pomeron part of $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$.

For the ranges of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ where they overlap, the two-pomeron fit and conventional fits based on two-loop unresummed perturbative QCD agree with the data equally well. However, they no longer agree when they are extrapolated to smaller values of $`x`$, as is seen in figure 7.

## 3 Real photons: a crucial question

Because the data of figure 5 include a point at extremely low $`Q^2`$, it should be reliable to extrapolate these data to $`Q^2=0`$. This extrapolation is the upper curve shown in figure 8 and, at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$ GeV, the hard-pomeron component contributes about 20 $`\mu `$b. That is, at this energy, the fits with and without a hard-pomeron component differ by about 10%. The errors shown on the data in figure 5 are purely statistical; there is an additional systematic error of about 10% at the lowest $`Q^2`$. So at present it is not possible to decide whether the hard pomeron is present in the $`\sigma ^{\gamma p}`$ data, though it seems likely.

There is also uncertainty with the data for $`\sigma ^{\gamma \gamma }`$ from LEP. The cross sections are rather sensitive to the Monte Carlo model used for the unfolding of detector effects, different Monte Carlos producing different results. In figure 9 the resulting uncertainty is contained in the errors on the OPAL data. The L3 data are shown with the use of two Monte Carlos, the errors corresponding to the statistical and systematic errors combined in quadrature. The figure shows the prediction obtained by applying factorisation to $`\sigma ^{\gamma p}`$ and $`\sigma ^{pp}`$ data, with no hard-pomeron component. The data from L3, particularly the upper set, may require such a component. and the figure also shows how adding it in might change the fit.

This is an important question. Is the hard pomeron already present at $`Q^2=0`$, or is it rather generated by perturbative evolution? If it is there already at $`Q^2=0`$ it presumably arises because the photon has a pointlike component, as if it is present in the $`\overline{p}p`$ total cross section it is very small. Maybe it will be significant at LHC energies.

## 4 Perturbative evolution

I now show that perturbative evolution governs how the hard pomeron’s contribution to the structure function increases with $`Q^2`$. It is found that the parametrisation of the hard-pomeron coefficient function $`f_0(Q^2)`$ of (10) agrees very well with what is obtained from DGLAP evolution, over a large range of $`Q^2`$. As yet, we are not able to apply perturbative evolution to the soft pomeron.

A power contribution $`f(Q^2)x^{ϵ_0}`$ to $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ corresponds to a pole

$$\frac{𝐟(Q^2)}{Nϵ_0}𝐟(Q^2)=\left(\begin{array}{c}f_q(Q^2)\\ f_g(Q^2)\end{array}\right)$$
(17)
in $`𝐮(N,Q^2)`$. With four active quark flavours and a flavour-blind hard pomeron, $`f_q(Q^2)=\frac{18}{5}f_0(Q^2)`$. We find, on taking the residue of the pole at $`N=ϵ_0`$ on each side of the Mellin transform (8) of the DGLAP equation,

$$\frac{}{t}𝐟(Q^2)=𝐏(N=ϵ_0,\alpha _s(Q^2))𝐟(Q^2)$$
(18)
If we include four flavours of quark and antiquark in the sum in (3), then at $`Q^2=20`$ GeV2 the singlet quark distribution $`x_f(q_f+\overline{q}_f)0.095x^{ϵ_0}`$ at sufficiently small $`x`$. According to figure 7, the charmed-quark component $`F_2^c`$ of $`F_2`$ is governed almost entirely by hard-pomeron exchange at small $`x`$, even at small values of $`Q^2`$, and, within the experimental errors, its magnitude is consistent with the hard pomeron being flavour-blind. According to perturbative QCD, the charmed quark originates from a gluon in the proton, and the two distributions are proportional to each other to a good approximation over a wide range of $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$. This implies that the gluon distribution also is hard-pomeron dominated. At $`Q^2`$=20 GeV2 and $`x=0.01`$, a next-to-leading-order fit to the combined ZEUS and H1 data gives $`xg(x,Q^2)=5.7\pm 0.7`$. Other authors find much the same value. This is $`8\pm 1`$ times the hard-pomeron component of the singlet quark distribution.

An unresummed perturbation expansion of the splitting matrix $`𝐏(N,\alpha _s)`$ is not valid for small values of $`N`$, but we need $`𝐏(N,\alpha _s)`$ at $`N=0.437`$, that is far from 0, and so it is reasonable to hope that resummation is not needed. The numerical values of the elements of the splitting matrix $`𝐏(N,\alpha _s)`$ are known in one and two-loop order, so it is straightforward to integrate (18). At the energies being considered it is necessary to use four flavours throughout as the charm contribution is active. The beauty contribution is so small that its omission has a negligible effect.

The result of integrating the differential equation (18) for the singlet quark distribution is shown in figure 10, where the solid curve is the result of the two-loop-order perturbative QCD evolution according to (18), and the broken curve is the Regge fit to the data I have described. The ratio of the gluon distribution to the hard-pomeron component of the singlet quark distribution is taken to be 8.0 at $`Q^2=20`$ GeV2. Figure 10 also shows how the gluon distribution

$$xg(x,Q^2)=f_g(Q^2)x^{ϵ_0}$$
(19)
evolves. Provided one chooses $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ such that $`\alpha _s(M_z^2)=0.116`$, which is the HERA value, there is little difference between the leading-order and next-to-leading-order results.

The conventional approach to evolution expands the splitting matrix $`𝐏(N,\alpha _s)`$ in powers of $`\alpha _s`$. Because an unresummed expansion that needs the splitting matrix at small $`N`$ makes the splitting function larger than it really is, a gluon distribution of a given magnitude apparently gives stronger evolution than it really should. That is, the conventional approach will tend to under-estimate the magnitude of $`xg(x,Q^2)`$ in certain regions of $`(x,Q^2)`$ space. This is verified by the results for the evolution of $`xg(x,Q^2)`$ obtained from integrating (18). Figure 11 shows the proton’s gluon structure function at two values of $`Q^2`$, according to the solution of (18), which does not use the splitting matrix at small $`N`$, and compares it with what is extracted from the data by conventional means.

The agreement between the extraction of the hard-pomeron component of $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ from experiment, and its calculated evolution, is a striking success both of the hard-pomeron concept and of perturbative QCD. We cannot apply a similar analysis to the soft pomeron, because this would need the splitting matrix $`𝐏(N,\alpha _s)`$ at $`N=0.08`$, which is too small for an expansion in powers of $`\alpha _s`$ to be meaningful. We do not yet know how to perform the necessary resummation.

A fuller account of pomeron physics and QCD may be found in a book to be published later this year by Cambridge University Press.

This research is supported in part by the EU Programme ‘‘Training and Mobility of Researchers", Network ‘‘Quantum Chromodynamics and the Deep Structure of Elementary Particles’’ (contract FMRX-CT98-0194), and by PPARC


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# References

1. Introduction There has appeared recently an interesting extension of the quantum Hall effect (QHE) to (4+1) dimensions. Hu and Zhang analyzed the Landau problem of charged particles moving on $`S^4`$ in the background of an $`SU(2)`$ instanton field . The particles are in some definite representation of this $`SU(2)`$ gauge group. In considering the many-body problem of $`N`$ fermionic such particles, it was found in  that in order to obtain a reasonable thermodynamic limit with a finite spatial density of particles, one has to consider very large $`SU(2)`$ representations. Each particle is then endowed with an infinite number of $`SU(2)`$ internal degrees of freedom. This feature becomes problematic when one analyzes the edge excitations. It is well known that the edge excitations of a quantum Hall droplet in (2+1) dimensions are described by a massless scalar field. In analogy with this, one expects the edge excitations of the (4+1)-dimensional droplet to give higher spin massless fields, in particular the graviton, and may provide an approach to the quantum description of a graviton. The anlysis in  though shows that the spectrum of edge excitations contains massless particles of all values of spin, rather than just up to spin $`2`$. This is related to the infinite $`SU(2)`$ degrees of freedom.

In this paper, we present another higher dimensional generalization of the QHE, which avoids this feature of infinite number of internal degrees of freedom. We consider charged particles moving on $`𝐂P^2`$, a topologically nontrivial, compact four-dimensional space, in the background of $`U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ gauge fields. We show that in the thermodynamic limit, it is possible to obtain droplet configurations of finite density and finite $`SU(2)`$ degrees of freedom. The latter would avoid the problem of arbitrarily high spin edge excitations. Similar results are derived for higher even dimensional manifolds $`𝐂P^k`$.

2. QHE on the two-dimensional sphere or $`𝐂P^1`$ We first review the well known case of the QHE on $`𝐂P^1`$ or $`S^2`$ with a constant background magnetic field , which can be thought of as due to a magnetic monopole at the origin if the sphere is embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space in the usual way. Our emphasis is on a group theoretic analysis which can be easily generalized to higher dimensional cases.

$`𝐂P^1`$ can be parametrized by two complex coordinates $`u_\alpha `$, such that

$$u_\alpha ^{}u_\alpha =1$$
(1)
with the identification $`u_\alpha e^{i\theta }u_\alpha `$. A point $`x^i`$ on $`S^2`$ with radius $`r`$ is written in terms of $`u_\alpha `$’s as

$$x^i=ru^{}\sigma ^iu$$
(2)
where $`\sigma ^i`$ are the Pauli matrices.

$`𝐂P^1`$ can be mapped to the two-dimensional flat Euclidean space by the standard stereographical mapping

$$u=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+z\overline{z}}}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ z\end{array}\right)$$
(3)
where $`z=(x+iy)/r`$.

The vector potential on the sphere is

$$A=inu_\alpha ^{}du_\alpha $$
(4)
where $`n`$ is an integer due to the Dirac quantization rule. Since

$$F=2\pi n$$
(5)
where $`F=dA`$, $`n`$ is related to the magnetic field $`B`$ as

$$n=2Br^2$$
(6)
Wavefunctions restricted to $`𝐂P^1`$ with this magnetic field, are such that $`D\mathrm{\Psi }=(iA)\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is gauge covariant under $`ue^{i\theta }u`$. This implies that the wavefunctions have the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(u,u^{})u_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}u_{\alpha _p}u_{\beta _1}^{}\mathrm{}u_{\beta _q}^{}$$
(7)
where $`pq=n`$.

$`SU(2)`$ rotations of $`u,u^{}`$ are of the form $`uhu,u^{}u^{}h^1`$, where $`hSU(2)`$. The generator of this transformation is

$$L^i=\frac{1}{2}\left[u_\beta \sigma _{\alpha \beta }^i\frac{}{u_\alpha }u_\alpha ^{}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^i\frac{}{u_\beta ^{}}\right]$$
(8)
$`x^i`$ in (2) transforms as a vector under this transformation, so $`L^i`$ are the angular momentum operators and satisfy the $`SU(2)`$ algebra

$$[L_i,L_j]=iϵ_{ijk}L_k$$
(9)
(The extra minus sign on the r.h.s of (9) is consistent with the usual angular momentum algebra; in making comparisons we identify $`u_\alpha =\alpha |u`$.)

In writing down the Hamiltonian, we have to identify the covariant derivatives on $`S^2`$. In order to do this, it is useful to work with the coset representation

$$𝐂P^1=S^2=\frac{SU(2)}{U(1)}$$
(10)
This relation shows that functions on $`S^2`$ can be thought of as functions of $`SU(2)`$ which are invariant under the $`U(1)`$ subgroup. Since a basis of functions for $`SU(2)`$ is given by the Wigner $`𝒟`$-functions, a basis for functions on $`S^2`$ is given by the $`SU(2)`$ Wigner functions $`𝒟_{L_3R_3}^{(j)}(g)`$, with trivial right action of $`U(1)`$, in other words, the $`U(1)_R`$-charge $`R_3=0`$. In this language, derivatives on $`S^2`$ can be identified as $`SU(2)`$ right rotations on $`g`$ (denoted by $`SU(2)_R`$) satisfying an $`SU(2)`$ algebra

$$[R_+,R_{}]=2R_3$$
(11)
where $`R_\pm =R_1\pm R_2`$. $`R_i`$’s are dimensionless quantities. The dimensional covariant derivatives are

$$D_\pm =i\frac{R_\pm }{r}$$
(12)
In the presence of the magnetic monopole, the commutator of the covariant derivatives is related to the magnetic field, in other words, we need $`[D_+,D_{}]=2B`$. From (6) and (11), we see that this fixes $`R_3`$ to be half the monopole number $`n`$. Therefore the wavefunctions on $`S^2`$ with the magnetic field background are of the form $`𝒟_{L_3\frac{n}{2}}^{(j)}(g)`$. (The Dirac quantization rule is seen from this point of view as related to the quantization of angular momentum, as first noted by Saha .)

The angular momentum operators $`L_i`$ generate left rotations on $`g`$. Since the left and right $`SU(2)`$-actions on $`g`$ are independent, the operators $`D_i`$ and $`L_i`$ are mutually commuting

$$[D_i,L_j]=0$$
(13)
The $`L_i`$ are the magnetic translations on the sphere, commuting with the covariant derivatives and leading to the degeneracy of the Landau levels. Since the wavefunctions are of the form $`𝒟_{L_3\frac{n}{2}}^{(j)}(g)`$, with the same $`j`$-value for left and right actions, we see that $`_{i=1}^3R_i^2=_{i=1}^3L_i^2=j(j+1)`$.

We can now write down the Hamiltonian

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4M}}\left(D_+D_{}+D_{}D_+\right)`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}R_i^2R_3^2\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}L_i^2{\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{4}}\right)`$
where $`M`$ is the particle mass. For the eigenvalue $`\frac{1}{2}n`$ to occur as one of the possible values for $`R_3`$, so that we can form $`𝒟_{L_3\frac{n}{2}}^{(j)}(g)`$, we need $`j=\frac{1}{2}n+q`$, $`q=0,1,..`$. Since $`L^2=j(j+1)`$, the energy eigenvalues are

$`E_q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left[(\frac{1}{2}n+q)(\frac{1}{2}n+q+1){\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{4}}\right]`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{B}{2M}}(2q+1)+{\displaystyle \frac{q(q+1)}{2Mr^2}}`$
The integer $`q`$ plays the role of the Landau level index. The lowest Landau level (LLL) or the ground state has energy $`B/2M`$ and the states $`q>0`$ are separated by a finite energy gap. The degeneracy of the $`q`$-th Landau level is $`2j+1=n+1+2q`$. In the limit $`r\mathrm{}`$, the planar image of the sphere under the stereographic map becomes flat and so this corresponds to the standard planar Landau problem. We see that as $`r\mathrm{}`$, (15) reproduces the known planar result for the energy eigenvalues and the degeneracy.

In order to derive the wavefunctions, we need the explicit representation of $`R_+,R_{}`$ as differential operators. For this, one can use the following parametrization of $`g`$ in terms of the complex coordinates $`u`$.

$$g=\left(\begin{array}{cc}u_2^{}& u_1\\ u_1^{}& u_2\end{array}\right)$$
(16)
A $`U(1)_R`$-rotation leaves the point corresponding to $`g`$ on $`𝐂P^1`$ invariant, because of the identification $`u_\alpha e^{i\theta }u_\alpha `$. The remaining generators of the $`SU(2)`$ right rotations are easily identified as

$`R_{}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{u_\beta }}`$
$`R_+`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{}{u_\beta ^{}}}`$ (17)
Here we are differentiating as if all components of $`u_\alpha `$, $`u_\alpha ^{}`$ are independent; the fact that they are not is immaterial since $`R_i`$ preserve the constraint $`u_\alpha ^{}u_\alpha =1`$. With the operators given above, one can easily check that on the wavefunctions (7)

$$[R_+,R_{}]\mathrm{\Psi }=\left(u_\alpha \frac{}{u_\alpha }u_\alpha ^{}\frac{}{u_\alpha ^{}}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }=n\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(18)
We now consider the many-body fermion problem by restricting the fermions to the LLL level. In this case, $`j=\frac{1}{2}n`$, $`R_3=\frac{1}{2}n`$, so that we have the highest weight state for the right action of $`SU(2)`$. The LLL condition is thus $`R_+\mathrm{\Psi }=0`$, with the solution

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_A=\mathrm{\Psi }_{\alpha _1\alpha _2\mathrm{}\alpha _n}=u_{\alpha _1}u_{\alpha _2}\mathrm{}u_{\alpha _n}$$
(19)
This has degeneracy $`n+1`$, so that when the filling fraction is $`1`$ with all states occupied, we have $`N=n+1`$ fermions. In (19), $`A`$ is a composite index taking $`n+1`$ values. The many-fermion wavefunction is the Slater determinant given as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_N=ϵ^{A_1A_2\mathrm{}A_N}\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_1}(u^{(1)})\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_2}(u^{(2)})\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{A_N}(u^{(N)})$$
(20)
We write $`u_\alpha ^{(i)}`$ for the positions of the particles, $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$. The product $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha ^{(i)}u_\beta ^{(j)}`$ is $`SU(2)`$ invariant and antisymmetric under $`ij`$. The Slater determinant will involve $`N=n+1`$ particle labels, the $`u^{(i)}`$ corresponding to each particle (for each $`i`$) should occur $`n`$ times. Combined with antisymmetry, this gives

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_N(u_\alpha ^{(i)})\underset{i<j}{}ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha ^{(i)}u_\beta ^{(j)}$$
(21)
In the thermodynamic limit, $`N\mathrm{},n\mathrm{}`$, this corresponds to a configuration of constant density, $`\rho =N/4\pi r^2`$ which tends to $`B/2\pi `$ in the planar limit $`r\mathrm{}`$.

The two-point function for the density is also of some interest and can be easily calculated. If we take $`\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_N`$ and integrate over all particle positions except two, we find

$$𝑑\mu (3,4,\mathrm{},N)\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_N|\mathrm{\Psi }^{(1)}|^2|\mathrm{\Psi }^{(2)}|^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_A^{(1)}\mathrm{\Psi }_A^{(2)}|^2$$
(22)
where $`d\mu (3,4,\mathrm{},N)`$ is the measure of integration for the positions of particles $`3,4,\mathrm{},N`$. $`d\mu `$ goes like $`dzd\overline{z}/(1+\overline{z}z)^2`$ for each particle, but the precise nature of this is irrelevant for this calculation. With $`z=(x+iy)/r`$ and $`n=2Br^2`$, we get, as $`r\mathrm{}`$,

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (3,4,\mathrm{},N)\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_N}`$ $``$ $`1\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\overline{z}_1z_2)(1+\overline{z}_2z_1)}{(1+\overline{z}_1z_1)(1+\overline{z}_2z_2)}}\right]^n`$ (23)
$``$ $`1\mathrm{exp}\left[2B|\stackrel{}{x}_1\stackrel{}{x}_2|^2\right]`$
This shows that the two-point function for the density approaches the constant value $`1`$ at separations large compared to the magnetic length. The probability of finding two particles at the same point is zero, as expected.

Result (23) is an expression of incompressibility . One can also define Laughlin wavefunctions  of fractional filling $`\nu =1/(2l+1)`$. They are of the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{(2l+1)}=\left(\underset{i<j}{}ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha ^{(i)}u_\beta ^{(j)}\right)^{2l+1}$$
(24)
where $`(N1)(2l+1)=n`$. Since $`\stackrel{}{L}_{tot}=_{k=1}^N\stackrel{}{L}^{(k)}`$ commutes with the factor $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }u_\alpha ^{(i)}u_\beta ^{(j)}`$, $`\stackrel{}{L}_{tot}\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{(2l+1)}=0`$, which implies that the wavefunction is translationally and rotationally invariant  and therefore it corresponds to a configuration of constant density $`\rho =N/4\pi r^2B/[2\pi (2l+1)]`$.

3. QHE on $`𝐂P^2`$

In this section we shall extend the previous analysis to $`𝐂P^2`$. This space can be parametrized by three complex coordinates $`u_\alpha `$, such that $`u_\alpha ^{}u_\alpha =1`$ with the identification $`ue^{i\theta }u`$.

In analyzing the Landau problem on $`𝐂P^2`$ we use the fact that $`𝐂P^2`$ can be written as a group coset space

$$𝐂P^2=\frac{SU(3)}{U(2)}\frac{SU(3)}{U(1)\times SU(2)}$$
(25)
In this case, we can choose background magnetic fields which are $`U(1)`$ and/or $`SU(2)`$ gauge fields. We shall first consider the case of a background $`U(1)`$ field. Functions on $`𝐂P^2`$ can be obtained from the Wigner functions for $`SU(3)`$, namely,

$$f(g)𝒟_{L,L_3,Y_L;R,R_3,Y_R}^{(p,q)}(g)$$
(26)
where $`g`$ is an $`SU(3)`$ group element. The irreducible representations of $`SU(3)`$ can be labelled by two integers $`(p,q)`$, corresponding to a tensor of the form $`T_{\beta _1\beta _2\mathrm{}\beta _p}^{\alpha _1\alpha _2\mathrm{}\alpha _q}`$ which is symmetric in all upper indices, symmetric in all lower indices and traceless for any contraction between upper and lower indices. (Each index takes values $`1,2,3`$.) $`L_i,R_i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$ are the left, right $`SU(2)`$ generators, with $`L_iL_i=L(L+1)`$, $`R_iR_i=R(R+1)`$, and $`Y`$ is the hypercharge operator. As before, derivatives on $`𝐂P^2`$ can be identified as the $`SU(3)_R`$-rotations $`R_i,i=4,5,6,7`$. For ordinary functions on $`𝐂P^2`$ we must have singlets under the $`R_i`$ of $`SU(2)_R`$ and also zero charge for the $`U(1)_R`$. In other words, $`R=0`$ and $`Y_R=0`$. With a background field along the $`U(1)`$ direction, the wavefunctions are singlets under the subgroup $`SU(2)_R`$ and carry nontrivial $`U(1)_R`$ charge. This can be expressed as

$`R_i`$ $`=`$ $`0i=1,2,3`$
$`R_8`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}}Y_R={\displaystyle \frac{(pq)}{\sqrt{3}}}={\displaystyle \frac{n}{\sqrt{3}}}`$ (27)
The normalization used for $`R_8`$ corresponds to

$$t^8=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 2\end{array}\right)$$
(28)
We have chosen the normalization of the generators as $`\mathrm{Tr}(t^at^b)=\frac{1}{2}\delta ^{ab}`$ for the fundamental representation.

The analogue of the angular momentum operators $`L_i,i=1,..,8`$ generate left rotations, as a result they commute with the derivative operators on $`𝐂P^2`$.

Following the steps that led to (14, 15), we find that the energy eigenvalues of a charged particle on $`𝐂P^2`$ in the presence of this background field are

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=4}{\overset{7}{}}}R_i^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{8}{}}}R_i^2R_8^2\right]`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left[C_2(p,q)R_8^2\right]`$
where $`r`$ is a dimensional scale parameter related to the volume of $`𝐂P^2`$ which is $`8\pi ^2r^4`$. $`C_2(p,q)`$ is the quadratic Casimir of the $`(p,q)`$ representation. It is easily calculated as

$$C_2(p,q)=\frac{1}{3}\left[p(p+3)+q(q+3)+pq\right]$$
(30)
The energy eigenvalues can be written in terms of $`n,q`$ as

$$E=\frac{1}{2Mr^2}\left[q(q+n+2)+n\right]$$
(31)
The index $`q`$ plays the role of the Landau level index. The LLL has energy $`n/(2Mr^2)`$. States with $`q>0`$ are separated from the ground state by a finite energy gap if $`n`$ scales like $`r^2`$ as $`r\mathrm{}`$.

The $`U(1)`$ gauge field can be written as

$$A=i\frac{2n}{\sqrt{3}}\mathrm{Tr}\left(t^8g^1dg\right)$$
(32)
Here $`g`$ is an element of $`SU(3)`$. Evidently, under $`ggh`$, $`hU(2)`$, we have $`AAd(n\theta ^8/\sqrt{3})`$. Thus $`dA`$ is well defined as a covariant vector or one-form on $`𝐂P^2`$ eventhough $`A`$ itself is defined only on $`SU(3)`$. Since $`\mathrm{Tr}(g^1dg)=0`$, we can evaluate the trace and write

$$A=inu_\alpha ^{}du_\alpha $$
(33)
where we define $`u_\alpha `$ as the element $`g_{\alpha 3}`$. It is easily seen that $`u_\alpha ^{}u_\alpha =1`$ and we can parametrize it as

$$u_\alpha =\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+\overline{z}z}}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ z_1\\ z_2\end{array}\right)$$
(34)
The field strength corresponding to this potential is

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`indu_\alpha ^{}du_\alpha `$ (35)
$`=`$ $`in\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{z}_idz_i}{(1+\overline{z}z)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{z}z\overline{z}dz}{(1+\overline{z}z)^2}}\right]`$
The field strength is proportional to the Kähler two-form on $`𝐂P^2`$; it corresponds to a uniform magnetic field. $`𝐂P^2`$ has a noncontractible two-surface and the integral of $`F`$ over this surface must be quantized following arguments similar to the Dirac quantization requirement for uniform magnetic field on a two-dimensional sphere. This requires that $`n`$ in (35) be an integer, which we have already assumed in calculating the energies. The large $`r`$ limit can be obtained by writing $`z_i=(x_i+ix_{i+2})/r`$, $`i=1,2`$. The magnetic field $`B`$ may be defined as $`n=2Br^2`$ as in the two-sphere case. The scaling of $`n`$ as $`r^2`$ is thus natural from this point of view as well.

The dimension of the $`(p,q)`$-representation expresses the degeneracy at each Landau level $`q`$ and this is given by

$$dim(p,q)=\frac{(p+1)(q+1)(p+q+2)}{2}$$
(36)
We now consider the many-body fermion problem, where all the states of the LLL level are filled and the filling fraction is $`\nu =1`$. In this case $`p=n,q=0,N=(n+1)(n+2)/2`$. In the thermodynamic limit where $`r\mathrm{},N\mathrm{}`$, the density of particles is

$$\rho =\frac{N}{8\pi ^2r^4}\frac{n^2}{16\pi ^2r^4}=\left(\frac{B}{2\pi }\right)^2=\mathrm{finite}$$
(37)
where we have used the fact that $`vol(𝐂P^2)=8\pi ^2r^4`$. Unlike the case of the many-body problem on $`S^4`$ discussed by Hu and Zhang, this result shows that on $`𝐂P^2`$ with a $`U(1)`$ background field the particle density is finite in the thermodynamic limit without the need of introducing infinite internal degrees of freedom.

We have seen that the potential $`A`$ has the property

$$A(ge^{it^8\theta })=Ad\left(\frac{n\theta }{\sqrt{3}}\right)$$
(38)
The wavefunctions must therefore obey the requirement

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(ge^{it^8\theta })=\mathrm{\Psi }(g)\mathrm{exp}\left(in\theta /\sqrt{3}\right)$$
(39)
For the lowest Landau level the wavefunction is therefore given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_A`$ $``$ $`g_{i_13}g_{i_23}\mathrm{}g_{i_n3}`$ (40)
$``$ $`u_{i_1}u_{i_2}\mathrm{}u_{i_n}`$
Using these one-particle wavefunctions, one can construct the Slater determinant for the fully occupied ($`\nu =1`$) state with $`N=\frac{1}{2}(n+1)(n+2)`$ particles. Equations (20) and (22) hold for this case as well, with the one-particle wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_A`$ as given above in equation (40). The analogue of the two-point density correlation in (23) is also easily calculated.

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (3,4,\mathrm{},N)\mathrm{\Psi }_N^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_N}`$ $``$ $`1\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\overline{z}^{(1)}z^{(2)})(1+\overline{z}^{(2)}z^{(1)})}{(1+\overline{z}^{(1)}z^{(1)})(1+\overline{z}^{(2)}z^{(2)})}}\right]^n`$ (41)
$``$ $`1\mathrm{exp}\left[2B|\stackrel{}{x}^{(1)}\stackrel{}{x}^{(2)}|^2\right]`$
This may again be taken as the expression of incompressibility. Further, in the Slater determinant, the $`SU(3)`$ indices of the $`u_\alpha `$ are all contracted and hence it is invariant under the left action of $`SU(3)`$ which are the magnetic translations. This leads to uniform density for states of the form $`[\mathrm{\Psi }_N]^{(2l+1)}`$.

In the case of $`𝐂P^2`$ one can also have a background $`SU(2)`$ gauge field. In the presence of both $`U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ background gauge fields, the group theoretical analysis of the single particle eigenstates and the corresponding energies is somewhat modified. We now label the irreducible representations of $`SU(3)_R`$ by $`(p+k,q+k^{})`$, corresponding to the tensor

$$T_{\beta _1\mathrm{}\beta _p\delta _1\mathrm{}\delta _k}^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _q\gamma _1\mathrm{}\gamma _k^{}}T_{p,k}^{q,k^{}}$$
(42)
where $`p,q`$ indicate $`U(1)`$ indices and $`k,k^{}`$ indicate $`SU(2)`$ indices.

The wavefunctions are of the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(g)𝒟_{L,L_3,Y_L;R,R_3,Y_R}^{(p+k,q+k^{})}(g)$$
(43)
They carry nontrivial $`U(1)_R`$ charge and isospin $`SU(2)_R`$ as specified by (42). This can be expressed as (we have assumed that $`k>k^{}`$)

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{kk^{}}{2}},\mathrm{},{\displaystyle \frac{k+k^{}}{2}}`$ (44)
$`R_8`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}}Y_R={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}}\left[2(pq)+(kk^{})\right]={\displaystyle \frac{n}{\sqrt{3}}}`$ (45)
where $`n`$ is the $`U(1)`$ charge. According to our previous discussion $`n`$ has to be an integer, which implies that the isospin $`R`$ takes integer values.

The energy eigenvalues of a charged particle on $`𝐂P^2`$, in the presence of both $`U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ background fields are

$`2Mr^2E`$ $`=`$ $`C_2(p+k,q+k^{})R_8^2R(R+1)`$ (46)
$`=`$ $`q^2+q(2km+n+2)+n(k+1)+k^2+2k+m^2`$
$`m(k+1)R(R+1)`$
where $`k^{}=k2m`$ and $`n`$ is the $`U(1)`$ charge given by (45).

For a fixed isospin $`R`$, there correspond several $`SU(3)`$ representations with $`SU(2)`$ indices $`k,k^{}`$ such that

$$\frac{kk^{}}{2}R\frac{k+k^{}}{2}$$
(47)
We notice that if $`l`$ of the upper $`k^{}`$ indices are contracted with $`l`$ of the lower $`k`$ indices in (42), this corresponds to an $`SU(3)`$ representation with increased $`U(1)`$ indices $`p,q`$ in the following way

$$T_{p,k}^{q,k^{}}T_{p+l,kl}^{q+l,k^{}l}$$
(48)
This is because of the tracelessness of $`T_{p,k}^{q,k^{}}`$. A state with increased $`q`$ indicates a higher Landau level state with increased energy. Thus if we can form the same value of $`R`$ from $`(k,k^{})`$ and $`(kl,k^{}l)`$, the latter will have higher energy. The nonmaximal values of $`R`$ which one can form for a given choice of $`(k,k^{})`$, namely the values $`\frac{1}{2}(kk^{}),\frac{1}{2}(kk^{})+1,\mathrm{},\frac{1}{2}(k+k^{})1`$, correspond to the higher Landau levels of a background with lower $`(k,k^{})`$-values. The lowest energy occurs when $`R`$ corresponds to the maximal value we can get for a given $`(k,k^{})`$. For this case, we can write

$$R=\frac{k+k^{}}{2}=kmm=0,1,\mathrm{},\frac{k}{2}$$
(49)
Substituting this in (46) we can express the energy eigenvalues in terms of $`q,n,R`$ and $`m`$.

$$2Mr^2E=q^2+q(2R+n+m+2)+n(R+m+1)+(R+m)(m+1)$$
(50)
The lowest energy eigenstates for fixed $`n,R`$ (fixed background fields) correspond to $`q=0,m=0`$. This is the analogue of the LLL condition. In general, we have two quantum numbers $`q`$ and $`m`$ which specify the Landau level.

In order to determine how $`n,R`$ should scale in the thermodynamic limit $`r\mathrm{}`$ so that all the eigenvalues have finite energies and the energy gap between different Landau levels remains finite, we study two cases.

A) Pure $`SU(2)`$ background: $`n=0,R0`$

In order to have finite energy eigenvalues, $`R`$ should scale in the thermodynamic limit as $`Rr^2`$, upto a dimensional parameter. The number of states for the LLL is $`\mathrm{dim}(k,k)=\mathrm{dim}(R,R)=\frac{1}{2}(R+1)(R+1)(2R+2)`$. The corresponding spatial density is

$$\rho \frac{\mathrm{dim}(R,R)}{(2R+1)r^4}\frac{R^3}{2Rr^4}\mathrm{finite}$$
(51)
This case is very similar to the case analyzed by Hu and Zhang. Finite density is achieved by attaching infinite $`SU(2)`$ degrees of freedom to each particle.

B) Combined $`U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ backgrounds: $`n0,R0`$

In this case we can choose either $`n`$ or $`R`$ to scale like $`r^2`$. In particular we can choose $`nr^2`$ while $`R`$ remains finite as $`r\mathrm{}`$. The number of states for the LLL is $`\mathrm{dim}(R+n,R)=\frac{1}{2}(n+R+1)(R+1)(n+2R+1)`$. The corresponding spatial density is

$$\rho \frac{\mathrm{dim}(R+n,R)}{(2R+1)r^4}\frac{n^2}{4r^4}\mathrm{finite}$$
(52)
The density is finite while each particle has only finite degrees of freedom. $`R=0`$ corresponds to a purely $`U(1)`$ background.

We close this section by giving the explicit formula for the $`SU(2)`$ background field. The generators of $`SU(3)`$, namely $`t^a`$, $`a=1,2,\mathrm{},8`$, can be grouped into the generators of $`SU(2)`$ given by $`t^1,t^2,t^3`$, the $`U(1)`$ generator $`t^8`$ and the coset directions $`t^\alpha `$, $`\alpha =4,5,6,7`$. These matrices obey the commutation rules $`[t^a,t^b]=if^{abc}t^c`$, with structure constants $`f^{abc}`$. As we have mentioned before, $`𝐂P^2`$ is a curved manifold of nontrivial topology, and the metric tensor on $`𝐂P^2`$ can be written as $`g_{ij}=e_i^\alpha e_j^\alpha `$, where the tangent frame fields $`e_i^\alpha `$ are given by

$$e_i^\alpha =2i\mathrm{Tr}(t^\alpha g^1_ig)$$
(53)
We choose the background $`SU(2)`$ gauge field as

$`A^i`$ $`=`$ $`2i\mathrm{Tr}(t^ig^1dg)`$
$`F_{kl}^i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}f^{i\alpha \beta }\left(e_k^\alpha e_l^\beta e_l^\alpha e_k^\beta \right)`$ (54)
In terms of the frame fields $`e_i^\alpha `$, the field strength tensor has constant components, given by $`f^{i\alpha \beta }`$; so (54) is what qualifies as a constant field for $`𝐂P^2`$. In coupling this to particles, we use the $`SU(2)`$ matrices in the representation corresponding to the Casimir $`R(R+1)`$. $`R`$ plays the role of the combination $`eB`$. In this language the $`U(1)`$ field strength tensor (35) is given, upto the overall factor of $`n`$, as

$$F_{kl}^8=\frac{1}{2}f^{8\alpha \beta }\left(e_k^\alpha e_l^\beta e_l^\alpha e_k^\beta \right)$$
(55)
The Riemann curvature tensor of $`𝐂P^2`$ can be calculated as

$$R_{kl}^{\alpha \beta }=F_{kl}^if^{i\alpha \beta }F_{kl}^8f^{8\alpha \beta }$$
(56)
The chosen values of the background field are proportional to the components of the curvature tensor as well.

4. Generalization to $`𝐂P^k`$

We now consider the question of generalizing the QHE to higher even dimensions $`2k`$, by considering charged particles moving on $`𝐂P^k`$ in the presence of a background $`U(1)`$ gauge field. Since

$$𝐂P^k=\frac{SU(k+1)}{U(k)}\frac{SU(k+1)}{U(1)\times SU(k)}$$
(57)
the wavefunctions in the presence of a background $`U(1)`$ magnetic field can be constructed using the $`SU(k+1)`$ Wigner functions $`𝒟_{L,R}^{(p,q)}(g)`$ where $`g`$ is an $`SU(k+1)`$ group element. Here $`L,R`$ stand for two sets of quantum numbers specifying the eigenvalues of the diagonal generators for left and right $`SU(k)`$ actions on $`g`$ respectively. The wavefunctions should be singlets under the subgroup $`SU(k)`$ and carry $`U(1)`$ charges as specified by the background field. Because of this, we must consider irreducible representations of $`SU(k+1)`$ which contain $`SU(k)`$ singlets. Such representations can be labelled by two integers $`(p,q)`$, corresponding to a tensor of the form $`T_{\beta _1\beta _2\mathrm{}\beta _p}^{\alpha _1\alpha _2\mathrm{}\alpha _q}`$ which is symmetric in all upper indices, symmetric in all lower indices and traceless for any contraction between upper and lower indices as before, where now $`\alpha ,\beta =1,..,k+1`$. $`L_i,R_i`$, $`i=1,..,k^21`$ are the left, right $`SU(k)`$ generators. The fact that the wavefunctions are singlets under $`SU(k)_R`$ and carry a nontrivial $`U(1)_R`$ charge is expressed as

$`R_i`$ $`=`$ $`0,i=1,..,k^21`$
$`R_{k^2+2k}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2(k+1)}}}(pq)`$ (58)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2(k+1)}}}n`$
In other words, we may write the wavefunctions as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }𝒟_{L,R}^{(p,q)}(g)$$
(59)
where indices $`R`$ are given by (58).

The remaining $`2k`$ generators $`R^A`$, $`A=k^2,k^2+1,\mathrm{},(k^2+2k1)`$, play the role of derivative operators. The Hamiltonian is written in terms of them as

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{A=k^2}{\overset{k^2+2k1}{}}}R_A^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{k^2+2k}{}}}R_i^2R_{k^2+2k}^2\right]`$ (60)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2Mr^2}}\left[C_2(p,q){\displaystyle \frac{k}{2(k+1)}}n^2\right]`$
The quadratic Casimir of the $`(p,q)`$ representation is

$$C_2(p,q)=\frac{k}{2(k+1)}\left[p(p+k+1)+q(q+k+1)\right]+\frac{pq}{k+1}$$
(61)
The wavefunctions (59) are eigenfunctions of this Hamiltonian with the energy eigenvalues

$$E=\frac{1}{2Mr^2}\left[q(q+n+k)+\frac{1}{2}nk\right]$$
(62)
The index $`q`$ labels the Landau levels. The LLL has energy

$$E=\frac{n}{2Mr^2}\frac{k}{2}\frac{k}{2}B$$
(63)
The left action of the generators commute with the right action and the Hamiltonian. The left generators are, once again, the magnetic translations and lead to the degeneracy of the Landau levels. The degeneracy for the $`q`$-th Landau level is given by the dimension of the $`(p,q)`$-representation as

$$dim(p,q)=\frac{k(p+q+k)(k+p1)!(k+q1)!}{(k!)^2p!q!}$$
(64)
For the LLL we find

$$dim(n,0)=\frac{(n+k)!}{k!n!}$$
(65)
The completely filled LLL, $`\nu =1`$, contains $`N`$ fermions where $`N=dim(n,0)`$. In the thermodynamic limit $`r\mathrm{},n\mathrm{}`$, this corresponds to a configuration of constant density

$$\rho \frac{N}{r^{2k}}\frac{n^k}{k!r^{2k}}B^k$$
(66)
The particular case of $`𝐂P^3`$ is worth commenting on. $`𝐂P^3`$ can be viewed as $`SU(4)/U(3)`$ or as $`SO(5)/U(2)`$, as noted recently in . (Gauge potentials on this coset space and related properties have also been analyzed recently in .) It is also well known that $`𝐂P^3`$ is locally of the form $`S^4\times S^2`$. It is in fact a nontrivial bundle over $`S^4`$ with $`S^2`$ as the fiber. This is the projective twistor space of Penrose . Therefore we can expect that the Hu and Zhang results for $`S^4`$ can be obtained from our discussion by considering $`𝐂P^3`$ and interpreting a part of it, namely $`S^2`$, as an internal symmetry. The $`U(1)`$ background, combined with this $`S^2`$ will give the $`SU(2)`$ background used in . In comparing our formulae for $`𝐂P^3`$ with , we must recall that an $`S^2`$ has to be factored out to get to $`S^4`$. From our discussion in section 2, we notice that the zero-point energy corresponding to $`S^2`$ is $`(1/2Mr^2)n/2`$. Removing this, equation (62) becomes, for the case of $`𝐂P^3`$,

$$E=\frac{1}{2Mr^2}\left[q(q+n+3)+n\right]$$
(67)
This agrees with .

It is also possible to choose background fields which are in the Lie algebra of $`SU(k)`$ (or subalgebras thereof). In this case, we do not expect any qualitative changes in the main results compared to the analysis of $`𝐂P^2`$.

5. Summary and comments We studied the Landau problem of nonrelativistic charged particles moving on even dimensional spaces $`𝐂P^k`$ in the presence of a $`U(1)`$ background gauge field and the corresponding lowest Landau level QHE states. The number of states per unit volume of $`𝐂P^k`$, in other words the spatial density of states, is finite as the volume of $`𝐂P^k`$ is scaled to infinity. In the case of $`𝐂P^2`$ we have also considered $`SU(2)`$ background gauge fields. With combined $`U(1)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ backgrounds, it is possible to choose the particles to be in a fixed finite dimensional representation of $`SU(2)`$ and obtain finite spatial density of states as the volume is scaled to infinity. Thus it is possible to construct quantum Hall states of fixed uniform density. For a quantum Hall droplet on a space of the form $`G/H`$, the edge states must transform as a representation of the isotropy group $`H`$. Our analysis for $`𝐂P^2`$ thus shows that it is possible to obtain edge states of finite dimension (or finite number of polarization states), transforming as any chosen representation of $`H=U(2)`$, in the large volume limit. A more detailed study of these edge states is definitely of interest.

Finally we note that it is possible and interesting to extend this kind of analysis to the noncommutative versions of these spaces utilising the framework of .

Acknowledgements We thank A.P. Polychronakos for discussions. This work was supported in part by NSF grants PHY-9970724, PHY-0070883 and a PSC-32 CUNY award.