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# Liquid crystal director fluctuations and surface anchoring by molecular simulation

## I Introduction

Liquid crystal anchoring effects have been intensively studied both experimentally and theoretically during the past decades jerome.b:1991.a ; poniewierski.a:1996.a . Such an interest is well understood since most liquid crystal devices are cells comprising orienting surfaces with a liquid crystal in between. Typically, aligning surfaces provide a uniform orientation of the liquid crystal director in the cell interior.

On the phenomenological level, liquid crystal anchoring can be described by two basic parameters: the easy axis direction, $`𝐞`$, and the anchoring coefficient $`W`$. These two parameters are critical design parameters for every liquid crystal device andrienko.d:2000.a . A variety of experimental methods have been proposed to measure anchoring parameters, in particular the anchoring coefficient $`W`$ gu.df:1995.a ; andrienko.d:1998.a . Most of them measure surface director deviations in an external field and involve rather complicated optical setups.

In spite of the practical importance, the mechanism of the director alignment is still not well understood. Experimental techniques always involve optical measurements. They test the entire liquid crystal cell and therefore cannot provide a satisfactory description of the thin interface region. Theoretical investigations of anchoring are also quite controversial. For example, the usual continuous phenomenological theory has divergent surface terms in the elastic free energy expansion pergamenshchik.vm:1993.a ; pergamenshchik.vm:1999.a .

One of the approaches for the systematic investigation of anchoring phenomena is computer simulation of liquid crystals in confined geometries. Indeed, computer simulation is a well established method to treat bulk elastic coefficients 1988.a ; 1990.a , the surface anchoring strength 1999.b , and structures of disclination cores hudson.sd:1993.a ; 2000.c . This means that computer simulation allows investigation of details of the liquid crystalline structure which cannot be resolved experimentally.

Several papers have already been published trying to search for reasonable surface potentials to use in simulations zhang.z:1996.a ; stelzer.j:1997.c ; stelzer.j:1997.b ; gruhn.t:1997.a ; gruhn.t:1998.a ; wall.gd:1997.a . However, most of them do not characterize aligning surfaces using well established parameters. Questions about the formation of a solid interface layer, values of the easy axis angle and anchoring coefficient are still open. The reason for this is probably a lack of reliable methods to measure these parameters by computer simulation.

In this paper, we propose a technique to measure the surface anchoring strength $`W`$ by computer simulation. The method itself is based on the study of the director fluctuations in the liquid crystal cell. A similar approach has already been used for the experimental characterization of the interface marusii.ty:1986.a  and is based on measuring the light scattering caused by the director fluctuations. In computer simulation, the director fluctuations can be studied directly, using ensemble averages of functions of the second-rank order tensor components. A fit to the fluctuation amplitudes with equations predicted by elastic theory then allows determination of the surface anchoring strength.

## II Theory

Large length- and time-scale fluctuations of the director $`𝐧(𝐫)`$ can be described in the continuum model of liquid crystals, based on the phenomenological elastic constants. In this approach, the hydrodynamic equations for the director and the boundary conditions can be obtained by minimization of the cell free energy degennes.pg:1995.a :

$$F=F_\mathrm{h}+F_\mathrm{b}+F_\mathrm{s},$$
(1)
where $`F_\mathrm{h}=\frac{1}{2}\gamma (𝐧/t)^2`$ is a hydrodynamic term with an effective viscosity coefficient $`\gamma `$, $`F_\mathrm{b}`$ is the Frank elastic free energy, and $`F_\mathrm{s}`$ is the surface anchoring energy.

In what follows we use the one-elastic-constant approximation, i.e. $`K_{11}=K_{22}=K_{33}=K`$. Then the Frank free energy can be brought into the form:

$$F_\mathrm{b}=\frac{1}{2}K_V\left[\left(𝐧\right)^2+\left(\times 𝐧\right)^2\right]𝑑𝐫.$$

The liquid crystal cell is bounded by surfaces $`z=0,L`$ which provide some kind of anchoring condition jerome.b:1991.a . Below we consider homeotropic anchoring, that is, normal to the surface. Planar anchoring can be treated in the same way. We assume that the interaction of the director with the cell surfaces has the Rapini-Papoular form rapini.a:1969.a :

$$F_\mathrm{s}=\frac{1}{2}W_{S_0,S_L}\left(𝐧𝐞_{0,L}\right)^2𝑑𝐫_{},$$

where unit vectors $`𝐞_{0,L}`$ define directions of the easy axes at $`z=0,L`$: $`𝐞_0=𝐞_z`$, $`𝐞_L=𝐞_z`$; $`W`$ is the anchoring energy, and $`𝐫_{}=(x,y)`$.

Equations for the director and boundary conditions can be obtained by minimization of the cell free energy eqn (1). In the case of homeotropic anchoring on both surfaces the stationary director distribution in the cell is homeotropic, i.e. $`𝐧_0=𝐞_z`$. Therefore, we have to investigate small perturbations of the director around the distribution:

$$𝐧(𝐫)=𝐧_0+\delta 𝐧(𝐫).$$
(2)
Minimizing the total free energy (1) and linearizing the equations for the director and boundary conditions with respect to $`\delta 𝐧`$, we obtain equations

$$\gamma \frac{}{t}\delta 𝐧=K^2\delta 𝐧,$$
(3)
and boundary conditions

$$W\delta 𝐧\pm K\frac{}{z}\delta 𝐧|_{z=L,0}=\mathrm{𝟎}.$$
(4)
for the fluctuations. Taking into account eqn. (2), the expression for the free energy fluctuations can be rewritten in the form of the average of the self-conjugate (Hermitian) operator $`\frac{1}{2}K^2`$:

$$\delta F_\mathrm{b}=\frac{1}{2}K_V\delta 𝐧(𝐫)^2\delta 𝐧(𝐫)𝑑𝐫.$$
(5)
The eigenfunctions of the operator $`\frac{1}{2}K^2`$, which satisfy boundary conditions (4), form a complete set of orthogonal functions characterized by wave vector $`𝐪`$. Therefore, $`\delta 𝐧(𝐫)`$ can be expanded in a series of these orthogonal functions:

$`\delta 𝐧(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪_{},q_z}{}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}𝐪_{}𝐫_{}}\times `$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\left[\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}q_zr_z}+\delta 𝐧^{()}(𝐪_{},q_z)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}q_zr_z}\right],`$
where $`𝐪_{}=(q_x,q_y)`$, and

$$\delta 𝐧^{()}=\frac{\mathrm{i}\chi \xi }{\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi }\delta 𝐧^{(+)}.$$
(7)
Here we have introduced the dimensionless wave vector $`\chi =q_zL`$ and anchoring parameter

$$\xi =\frac{WL}{K}=\frac{L}{\lambda },$$
(8)
where $`\lambda `$ is the extrapolation length degennes.pg:1995.a . The wave vectors $`q_z`$ form a discrete spectrum because of confinement in the $`z`$ direction which depends on the anchoring energy $`W`$ (see Appendix for details). The explicit form of the $`q_z`$ spectrum is given by the secular equation:

$$\left(\xi ^2\chi ^2\right)\mathrm{sin}\chi +2\xi \chi \mathrm{cos}\chi =0.$$
(9)
Each individual mode can now be seen from eqn (3) to relax exponentially with a relaxation time given by

$$\tau =\gamma /K\left(𝐪_{}^2+q_z^2\right).$$
(10)
Substituting expansion (6) into the free energy (5), and performing the integration over the cell volume we obtain:

$`\delta F_\mathrm{b}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{K}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪_{},q_z}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2\left(2\xi +\chi ^2+\xi ^2\right)}{(\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi )^2}}\times `$ (11)
$`\times `$ $`\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z).`$
Integrating, we took into account the orthogonality of the eigenfunctions in the expansion (6) with different eigenvectors $`𝐪`$, which allowed us to reduce the summations over $`𝐪`$, $`𝐪^{}`$ to a single sum over $`𝐪`$.

Application of the equipartition theorem of classical statistical mechanics, just as for elastic fluctuations in bulk liquid crystals forster.d:1975.a , gives the fluctuation amplitudes:

$`\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{B}TV(\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi )^2}{2Kq^2\left(2\xi +\chi ^2+\xi ^2\right)}},`$ (12)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes an ensemble average.

In molecular simulations, rather than measuring director fluctuations, it is more convenient to measure fluctuations of the second-rank order tensor components (following Forster forster.d:1975.a ). We define the real-space order tensor density

$`Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i)Q_{\alpha \beta }^i,`$
$`Q_{\alpha \beta }^i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left(u_{i\alpha }u_{i\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\delta _{\alpha \beta }\right),`$
where $`\alpha ,\beta =x,y,z`$, in terms of the orientation vectors $`𝐮_i`$ of each molecule $`i`$ (we consider only uniaxial molecules). If we assume that there is no variation in the degree of ordering, we may write

$$Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫)=\frac{3}{2}Qn_\alpha (𝐫)n_\beta (𝐫)\frac{1}{2}Q\delta _{\alpha \beta }$$

where $`Q`$ is the order parameter, i.e. the largest eigenvalue of $`Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫)`$. If the director $`𝐧_0`$ is taken to lie along the $`z`$ axis throughout the sample, the off-diagonal components $`Q_{\alpha z}(𝐫)`$, $`\alpha =x,y`$, are proportional to the fluctuations of the corresponding director components

$$Q_{\alpha z}(𝐫)=\frac{3}{2}Q\delta n_\alpha (𝐫).$$

This is the situation for homeotropic anchoring at both surfaces. For planar anchoring, with the director along $`x`$ and the surface normal along $`z`$, the components $`Q_{xy}`$, $`Q_{xz}`$ are important (and non-equivalent).

Measurements are performed directly in reciprocal space. The Fourier transform of the real-space order tensor is

$$Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐤)=_VQ_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}𝐤𝐫}𝑑𝐫=\frac{V}{N}\underset{i}{}Q_{\alpha \beta }^i\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}𝐤𝐫_i}.$$

Then the fluctuations $`\left|Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐤)\right|^2`$ can be easily measured from simulations:

$$\left|Q_{\alpha \beta }(𝐤)\right|^2=\frac{V^2}{N^2}\left[\left(\underset{i}{}Q_{\alpha \beta }^i\mathrm{cos}(𝐤𝐫_i)\right)^2+\left(\underset{i}{}Q_{\alpha \beta }^i\mathrm{sin}(𝐤𝐫_i)\right)^2\right].$$
(13)
We explicitly relate simulation-measured fluctuation modes with theoretically predicted amplitudes of the director fluctuations for $`𝐪_{}=0`$

$$Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)=\frac{3}{2\mathrm{i}}Q\underset{q_z}{}\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(\mathrm{𝟎},q_z)\left[\frac{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\kappa +\chi )}1}{\kappa +\chi }+\left(\frac{\mathrm{i}\chi \xi }{\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi }\right)\frac{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\kappa \chi )}1}{\kappa \chi }\right]$$

where $`\kappa =k_zL`$. Note that the $`q_z`$ take discrete (but not equally spaced) values as discussed earlier, while the $`k_z`$ values are unrestricted.

Since $`\delta 𝐧(𝐫)`$ is real, using eqn (6) we have

$$\left[\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\right]^{}=\frac{\xi ^2+\chi ^2}{\left(\xi +\mathrm{i}\chi \right)^2}\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z).$$

Taking this equation into account, and the fact that fluctuations with different wavevectors are independent, i.e. $`\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z^{})=0`$ if $`q_zq_z^{}`$, the corresponding ensemble average of the squared order parameter can be rewritten as

$$\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2=\frac{9}{8}k_\mathrm{B}T\frac{Q^2V}{K}\underset{q_z}{}\frac{\chi ^2+\xi ^2}{q_z^2\left(2\xi +\chi ^2+\xi ^2\right)}\left|\frac{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\kappa +\chi )}1}{\kappa +\chi }+\left(\frac{\mathrm{i}\chi \xi }{\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi }\right)\frac{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\kappa \chi )}1}{\kappa \chi }\right|^2.$$
(14)
We measure $`Q`$ and $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2`$ from simulations, eqn (13), and then compare with the theoretical prediction, eqn (14), which is parametrized by $`L`$, $`\lambda `$ and $`K`$. Both the permitted $`q_z`$ spectrum, and the variation of $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2`$ with $`k_z`$ are sensitive to the anchoring strength parameter $`\xi =L/\lambda `$ .

Fluctuation amplitudes given by eq. (14) have features that simplify the fitting procedure. First, terms with small $`q_z`$ values dominate because of the $`q_z^2`$ in the denominator of eq (14). Therefore, it is always possible to truncate this sum and use only the first values of the $`q_z`$ spectrum. Then, for large $`k_z`$ or for $`\kappa >>\chi `$, eq. (14) can be simplified so that the dependence on $`k_z`$ is explicit:

$$\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2=\frac{9}{2}k_\mathrm{B}T\frac{Q^2V}{K}\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\kappa /2\right)}{\kappa /2}\right]^2\underset{q_z}{}\frac{\chi ^2}{q_z^2\left(2\xi +\chi ^2+\xi ^2\right)}.$$
(15)
Therefore, for large $`k_z`$, the fluctuation amplitude $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2`$ has a characteristic oscillation with the period given by $`\kappa =k_zL=2\pi `$. This means that we can adjust the cell thickness $`L`$ independently of parameters $`\lambda `$ and $`K`$ by examining characteristic wavelength of the fluctuation amplitude $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z)\right|^2`$.

## III Molecular model and simulation methods

To test the technique proposed, we simulated a liquid crystal confined between parallel walls (slab geometry), with finite homeotropic anchoring at the walls. The director fluctuations occur around the preferred, uniform, alignment perpendicular to the walls.

We performed Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the liquid crystal system. We used a molecular model which has been studied earlier in this geometry 1999.b . The molecules in this study were modelled as hard ellipsoids of revolution of elongation $`e=a/b=15`$, where $`a`$ is the length of the semi-major axis and $`b`$ the length of the two equal semi-minor axes. The phase diagram and properties of this family of models are well studied frenkel.d:1984.a ; frenkel.d:1985.a ; 1992.a ; 1993.g ; 1993.j . It is useful to express the density as a fraction of the close-packed density $`\rho _{cp}`$ of perfectly aligned hard ellipsoids, assuming an affinely-transformed face-centred cubic or hexagonal close packed lattice. In this case, the isotropic-nematic phase transition occurs at quite a low density, $`\rho /\rho _{\mathrm{cp}}0.2`$, and the simulations are performed at a state point corresponding to $`\rho /\rho _{\mathrm{cp}}0.28`$, for which the nematic order parameter is $`Q0.85`$. For this model, temperature is not a significant thermodynamic quantity, so it is possible to choose $`k_\mathrm{B}T=1`$ throughout.

The slab geometry is defined by two hard parallel confining walls, which cannot be penetrated by the centres of the ellipsoidal molecules. Packing considerations generate homeotropic ordering at the surface. Surface anchoring in this system has been studied recently 1999.b  for a system with wall separation $`L_z=125b=8.33a`$, by applying an orienting perturbation at one of the walls and observing the response at the other. This yielded an estimate of the extrapolation length $`\lambda 35b2.33a`$. In the current work, simulations were carried out for systems of $`N=2000`$ particles with wall separations $`L_z=6.58a,8.22a,9.86a`$, which (from the above estimate of $`\lambda `$) would correspond to surface anchoring parameters in the range $`2.8\xi 4.2`$.

To be sure that we have the same state point for each simulation, we adjusted the density to have the same $`P_{zz}`$ component of the pressure tensor for all systems. Then a sequence of runs was carried out using the constant-$`NVT`$ ensemble, allowing typically $`10^5`$ MC sweeps for equilibration and $`10^7`$ sweeps for accumulation of averages (one sweep is one attempted move per particle).

## IV Simulation results and discussion

The simulation results were analysed to give a density profile, and an order tensor profile, which are shown in Figs 1, 2. From these profiles we can see that the walls are sufficiently well separated, and the variation of the order parameter across the slab is small, even in spite of the large change in local density near the walls.

The order tensor fluctuations in reciprocal space were calculated using expression (13). To fit the simulation results with the elastic theory we have to remember that the size of the simulation box $`L_z`$ is not necessarily equal to the liquid crystal cell thickness $`L`$ appearing in the elastic theory. The former is a physical quantity, which, in statistical mechanics, is determined by the positions at which the liquid number density becomes identically zero. The latter appears in the elastic theory: it is determined by the positions at which the orientational elastic boundary conditions are applied. Physically, the difference may be ascribed to partial penetration of the walls by the liquid crystal molecules, formation of an ordered (or solid) layer near the walls, or other molecular-scale features. We assume that we may write $`L=L_z+2L_\mathrm{w}`$, where the value $`L_\mathrm{w}`$ (which may be positive or negative) is characteristic of the wall, independent of $`L_z`$, and may be determined in our fitting process.

The best estimate of the wall-induced separation distance $`L_\mathrm{w}`$ was obtained examining the ratios $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z,L_1)\right|^2/\left|Q_{\alpha z}(k_z,L_2)\right|^2`$ for different $`L_{1,2}`$ since they reveal more structure for large $`k_z`$. Plotting the results in this way removes the overall scaling of the amplitudes of fluctuations, which are sensitive to changes in $`\lambda `$, while the shapes of the curves, and the characteristic oscillation wavelengths, are sensitive to the choice of $`L_\mathrm{w}`$. These ratios with $`L_1=6.58a,8.22a`$, $`L_2=9.86a`$ and corresponding fitting curves are plotted in Fig. 3. The best fits were obtained with $`L_\mathrm{w}/a=0.59`$. In this figure we also plot theoretical curves with $`L_\mathrm{w}=0`$: the clear discrepancy with the simulation results indicates that the simulation box size $`L_z`$ is indeed significantly different from the actual cell thickness.

Following the determination of $`L_\mathrm{w}`$, we adjusted the extrapolation length $`\lambda `$ to obtain the best fit to the fluctuation data: the fluctuation amplitudes with small $`k_z`$ are most sensitive to this quantity. Together with the corresponding fitting curves for the different slab thicknesses, our results are plotted in Fig. 4. The best fits were obtained with a bulk elastic constant $`Ka/k_\mathrm{B}T66`$ and an extrapolation length $`\lambda /a2.3`$. The theoretical fitting curves agree well with the simulation results, for small values of $`k_z`$, as one would expect for a theory valid for long wavelength fluctuations. At higher $`k_z`$, the structure (emphasized in the inset of Fig. 4 by a multiplying factor $`k_z^2`$) is not perfectly reproduced, but the agreement is satisfactory. This is not surprising, since we expect the elastic theory to become less accurate at higher $`k_z`$. Finally, we note that the extrapolation distance relative to the simulation wall position is $`L_\mathrm{w}+\lambda 2.89a`$, which compares moderately well with the value $`\lambda 2.33a`$ obtained in the previous study of this system 2000.d . It should be noted that the director configuration of that work does not allow one to determine, separately, $`L_\mathrm{w}`$ and $`\lambda `$, so the quoted value of $`\lambda `$ really represents $`\lambda +L_\mathrm{w}`$.

We have to point out some possible limitations of the method. The first one is computational time. The effect of the surfaces is to dampen the amplitude of long-wavelength modes; these have the longest relaxation times, according to eqn (10), and so it is essential to carry out very long runs to adequately sample them. We have paid some attention to estimating the error bars on the measured values of $`\left|Q_{\alpha z}\left(k_z\right)\right|^2`$, as indicated in Fig 4: the larger values at low $`k_z`$ follow directly from this effect. We shall return to examine the time-dependence of fluctuations in a future publication. The second limitation is the actual sensitivity of the measured averages to the variation in the anchoring strength and cell thickness. One might expect that in practice it is not possible to measure large values of the anchoring parameter $`\xi =L_z/\lambda `$, so we need reasonably thin cells. As the cell thickness $`L_z`$ becomes large, the fluctuation spectrum becomes insensitive to $`L_\mathrm{w}`$. However, it is important that the walls do not become too close: the bulk region should be sufficiently large compared to the interfacial region. Only in this case can we assume that the scalar order parameter $`Q`$ in the liquid crystal bulk is constant for large scale fluctuation modes.

To summarize, analysis of the director fluctuations in nematic liquid crystal slabs allowed us to measure the surface anchoring strength parameter. The method has been tested for a system of hard ellipsoids of revolution of elongation $`e=15`$ confined between hard walls with homeotropic anchoring. Careful analysis of fluctuations in slabs of different thickness has allowed us to resolve, for the first time, the position of the elastic boundary condition relative to the simulation wall, as well as measuring the extrapolation length. The elastic theory gives a good description at low wavenumbers, but is less accurate at higher wavenumbers.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research was supported by EPSRC. D.A. acknowledges support through grant ORS/99007015 of the Overseas Research Students Award; G.G. acknowledges the support of a British Council Grant; M.P.A. is grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. Some of this work was carried out while visiting the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, and the Institute of Physics, University of Mainz; the authors are grateful to Kurt Kremer and Kurt Binder for their hospitality, and conversations with F. Schmid and H. Lange are gratefully acknowledged.

## Fluctuation spectrum

To obtain the spectrum of the $`q_z`$ modes of the fluctuations we need to select from the eigenfunctions of the operator $`\frac{1}{2}K^2`$ those which satisfy the boundary conditions (4). Substituting eqn (6) into the boundary conditions (4), we obtain a set of linear equations

$`(\xi +\mathrm{i}\chi )\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\chi }\delta 𝐧^{(+)}+(\xi \mathrm{i}\chi )\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\chi }\delta 𝐧^{()}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`(\xi \mathrm{i}\chi )\delta 𝐧^{(+)}+(\xi +\mathrm{i}\chi )\delta 𝐧^{()}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$
This set of linear homogeneous equations for $`\delta 𝐧^{(\pm )}`$ has a nontrivial solution if its determinant equals zero. This condition leads to the secular equation for the $`q_z`$ vector (9) and relation (7).

In the case of strong anchoring, $`\xi \mathrm{}`$, the $`q_z`$ spectrum is equidistant: $`q_zL=\pi n`$, where $`n`$ is a positive integer. For finite anchoring coefficient $`\xi `$, we have a shift in this spectrum. The magnitude of the shift depends on the anchoring parameter $`\xi `$. Indeed, for sufficiently strong anchoring parameters, $`\xi >>1`$, asymptotically:

$$q_zL=\pi n\frac{2\pi n}{\xi },n=1,2,\mathrm{},n/\xi <<1,$$

which is equivalent to replacing $`L`$ by $`\left(L+2\lambda \right)`$, $`\lambda `$ being the extrapolation length.

For weak anchoring, $`\xi <<1`$:

$`q_zL`$ $`=`$ $`\pi n+{\displaystyle \frac{2\xi }{\pi n}},n=1,2,\mathrm{},`$
$`q_zL`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{1/2},n=0.`$
The spectrum of the $`q_x`$,$`q_y`$ wavevectors depends on the system geometry. Again, if we have periodic boundary conditions in $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions, the $`q_x`$ and $`q_y`$ have a discrete spectrum, on a fine grid $`q_\alpha L_\alpha =2\pi n_\alpha `$, $`(n_\alpha =0,1,2,\mathrm{},)`$, otherwise $`𝐪_{}=(q_x,q_y)`$ are unrestricted.

It is also easy to show that the eigenfunctions which correspond to different eigenvalues $`q_z`$ and $`q_z^{}`$ are orthogonal. Indeed, using eqn.(7) we can rewrite

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐪_{},q_z)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}q_zr_z}+\delta 𝐧^{()}(𝐪_{},q_z)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}q_zr_z}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{i}}{\mathrm{i}\chi +\xi }}\left[\chi \mathrm{cos}(q_zz)+\xi \mathrm{sin}(q_zz)\right]\delta 𝐧^{(+)}(𝐪_{},q_z).`$
It is easy to check using the secular equation (9) that functions $`\varphi (q_z)=\chi \mathrm{cos}(q_zz)+\xi \mathrm{sin}(q_zz)`$ are orthogonal, i.e.

$$_0^L\varphi (q_z)\varphi (q_z^{})𝑑z=\frac{1}{2}L\left(2\xi +\chi ^2+\xi ^2\right)\delta _{q_z,q_z^{}},$$
(16)
where $`\delta _{q_z,q_z^{}}`$ is the Kronecker delta. Therefore, the eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐪_{},q_z)`$ are orthogonal and can be normalized using eqn (16).


text:
# Quantum Geometry as a Relational Construct

## I Introduction.

The search for a theory of quantum gravity has been one of the most excruciating tasks of modern theoretical physics. The reasons for this are multiple: To begin with, we have excellent theories to describe all other interactions in the standard model of particle physics, gravity being the missing item in this approach. However, and perhaps even more important is the fact that the realm of quantum gravity seems to confront us with deep conceptual problems. Among many such problems we have diffeomorphism invariance and its connection with observables, the issue of initial conditions for the wave function of the universe, and the problem of time in a quantum theory of the space-time, etc.. Another example is the so called information loss paradox associated with the quantum evaporation of a black hole.

The problem of finding a quantum theory of gravity has been attacked from several perspectives, the most notable being the canonical quantization approach, a la Wheeler-DeWitt ; Loop Quantum Gravity , in which there is a natural place for the notion of a “wave function of the universe;” and the String/M Theory program. The last two have recently enjoyed a certain degree of success, in particular by their achievements on one front that has been long considered as a “first test” that must be passed by a candidate theory of Quantum Gravity: The identification of the fundamental degrees of freedom and the evaluation through statistical mechanical methods of the entropy associated with a Black Hole .

However, despite these recent achievements there is a lingering sense of frustration in some parts of the gravitational physics community related to the fact that not much progress seems to have emerged from these theories in addressing many of the outstanding conceptual problems mentioned above.

We usually feel that there will be a need for a quantum description of gravity only when the energy scales of the interactions reaches the Planck scale. This seems to be a very simplistic view, first because the technology available is reaching the point where certain type of experiments once thought to belong only in the Gedanken  realm of Einstein, are now becoming possible: Can we test the equivalence principle with an object in a state of quantum superposition of different energy eigenstates? Yes . Can we hope to see quantum fluctuations in the space-time metric? Yes . The list of such experiments is increasing and it seems reasonable to expect that in the near future we might be able to perform experiments with quantum mechanical sources of the gravitational field (such as a SQUID carrying a superposition of currents in opposite directions ). Moreover, we would like to have, at least in principle, a way to envision a a manner to describe space-time at, say, the atomic scale, whose curvature is associated with a nucleus which is in a state for which the position is not well defined. There is certainly no Planck scale involved here! Note that this last issue could be accessible to experiment in setups analogous to those considered in .

The purpose of this article is to suggest a new approach to this issue that centers on the conceptual problems underlying our notions of space-time in view of the quantum nature of the matter that inhabits it. The hope is that by doing so we might be guided towards a description of gravity at the quantum level that will be able from the outset to deal with the conceptual problems on which little light seems to be being shed by the most popular approaches to the subject.

In this paper we will take the view that gravity is NOT LIKE the other forces in nature, basically because gravity describes the stage where the rest of the physics take place while the other forces are just actors on this stage. The previous statement is meant to appeal to our intuition, and should not be taken in the literal sense, among other reasons because, as we will later argue on this paper, the stage is in a sense just a set of relations between the actors. A more precise way to argue that gravitation is not just another force is to note that gravity alone is responsible for determining the causal structure and thus the commutation properties of other fields.

The motivation of this work is the following question: How would we have arrived at a description of gravitation if our normal physical experiences came from the quantum world, and the classical limit had not been discovered. More precisely, what is the analogue of the conceptual path that took us from special to general relativity, if the starting point was a quantum rather than a classical theory? Much has been said about the possibility that both quantum theory and general relativity might need modifications when we want to bring them together into a quantum theory of space-time. ***ideas in this direction have been explored within the string theory perspective in . The ideas that will be presented here constitute an example of one such approach, one which falls in the category of those based on relational ideas, several of which have been considered previously  but as far as the authors know, none of them considered the issue in the light we suggest in this work. We will elaborate on this view in the rest of the paper. In Section II we will describe the general considerations that we take as guiding our search for a framework with which to start the construction of a theory of Quantum Gravity. This is the core of this paper and the remainder is presented to help to envision the type of construct we expect to be appropriate . In Section III we will sketch a proposal based on the generalization of the algebraic approach to quantum field theory. In Section IV we will suggest a line based on the relativization of the notion of quantum state as proposed by C. Rovelli  and others. We will end in Section V with a brief discussion centered on the main objections that could be raised to such a program.

## II Geometry and Physics

Here we want to analyze the notion of Physical Geometry, that is the geometry that we associate to the physical world in a way that implicitly shows the contrast with idealized mathematical geometry.

Let us start by considering what is the role of geometry in classical (as opposed to quantum) physics. More precisely we want to analyze the meaning of such assignment of geometry to our physical world. We have learned from Einstein that we measure intervals between events. In order to do this we must first identify these events, by for example singling out one point on the world line of a point-like object, which can be done for example by considering the intersection of two such world lines (We can be thinking of the “passing of an object in front of a particular observer”, or the emission of a light pulse from a certain source), and second we must use a physical device to actually measure the interval. We would use a “clock” if the interval is time-like, a ruler if the interval is space-like, or define it as null if the two events can be connected by a light signal (to be precise we must ensure that the measurement is done along the prescribed interval). In all these cases we need physical objects, clocks, rulers, or light pulses, in order to be able to define what the geometry is. This is not just saying the obvious, that we need such objects to measure the geometry. What we want to stress is that we need to specify these physical objects in order to define what we mean by “the geometry of our physical world”. We note for example that in principle it is not a priori certain that the geometry could not depend on the objects we choose to employ to define it. For instance we could choose to measure spatial intervals with a ceramic rods or with metallic rods, and imagine a situation in which the temperature trough the region being examined is not uniform. Under such circumstances the straightforward determination of the geometry of the region would give different results. For instance, the geometry determined with the ceramic rods could be flat while the one determined with the metallic rods could have nonzero curvature. This is all obvious, and everybody would tell us that the use of the ceramic rods is the correct choice in this case because of the large thermal dilation coefficient of the metal . Actually we would be told that even if we use ceramic rods we need to correct for such thermal effects, and only then we would obtain a determination of the “true geometry” which would be equivalent to that which is determined by means of ideal “length preserving” rods. One would normally expect to see the quotation marks of the previous phrase on the word ideal, however, what we want to point out is that, there is in principle a problem of establishing what is a “length preserving” object. How would we know, even in principle when an object does not change its length?. By measuring its length in different circumstances? Yes! However, in order to measure its length we need to use a length preserving object! We must emphasize that the issue is not entirely technical. We could consider —and in practice we do— replacing standard physical objects by generalized objects: actual physical objects complemented by well defined prescriptions of how to correct for the changes in their assigned lengths under specific circumstances (such as taking into account the corresponding thermal expansion coefficients and accompanying every length determination with a simultaneous temperature determination). We would still be faced with the issue of having to define the operational procedure to determine the length preserving assignment to a physical object or a generalized object. We could envision the consideration of more modern methods, as for example, choosing to measure an object’s length with light signals and clocks, while taking the speed of light as 1 by definition. This only converts our problem into that of choosing clocks that run at a “constant” rate. It is evident that this faces us with complete analogous conundrums. How would we measure the rate of ticking of a clock to determine whether it is constant without the use of another clock?

In classical physics we are in effect “solving” these dilemmas by the use of judicious definitions which make use of the following empirical fact, F1: There exist objects and clocks (usually generalized objects and clocks) that when used to define the lengths of intervals, result in empirical laws of physics that are particularly simple (as for example, the law of inertia) . In this way we select the objects that give an empirical content to our assignment of geometry to the classical level of description of our world. What are the objects, actually the class of objects $`𝒪`$, that give a meaning to the geometry at the quantum level? Does such class of objects exist at all? Are there different classes of objects, say $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_2`$, each leading to equally simple laws of nature, which however are different for different selections of the class of objects? In this case we would confront head on the problem of having two different geometries for the same physical situation, one associated with the class $`𝒪_1`$ and the other with the class $`𝒪_2`$! We will not attempt to give definite answers to these questions here, but will finish this illustrative sequence by a question for which we expect the answer to be negative: If a class of objects can be so chosen, would we expect it to contain enough objects to give meaning to geometry at all scales? Note that the limiting scale could be coming from the physics of the objects and not necessarily from the gravity sector alone, that is, the limiting scale need not be the Planck scale (See, for instance, the discussion in  and references therein).

Recognizing and keeping in mind these points could turn out to be important (and we will argue that they are indeed essential) for considerations about the nature of a Quantum Theory of Gravitation. In this paper we will take the stand that the standard views on these issues rely on idealizations that are not unlike the idealizations of pre-relativistic physics about the existence of absolute space and absolute time, or those in pre-quantum mechanics about the existence of well defined particle trajectories or the existence of a fully deterministic physical world. That is , we will take the view that, in the same way that those idealizations turned out to be impediments for the advancements towards Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, the notion of a physical geometry existing independently of the physical objects with which to determine it (in the sense of defining it), is an impediment towards the construction of a quantum theory of gravitation.

There are several issues associated with the previous considerations. First, we note that, while at the classical level we must consider the objects which are used to define the geometry (i.e the objects satisfying F1) as classical objects, at the quantum level the natural objects that should be considered as defining the geometry should be themselves “quantum objects”. Thus, given that the meaning of the physical geometry arises solely from statements which must be expressible in terms of the objects selected to define it, such meaning should be taken to be a certain codification of correlations between physical “events” (this word is used here in an imprecise sense because at this point the discussion refers to both the classical and the quantum cases) associated with such objects. At the classical level we could be talking about the number of ticks of a clock along the world line segment joining two events with which the clock eventually coincides. At the quantum level we need to consider very different sorts of things. One must then expect such correlations and their codification to depend on the type of objects one is considering, and therefore the kind of objects representing this information (the kind of objects that represent geometry) should be expected to be very different in the classical and the quantum cases. In particular, we don’t expect the quantum objects to be described by the same constructs as ordinary quantum matter. These differences should be as significant, say, as a space-time vector (considered here as describing the state of a classical particle) is from a wave function (considered here as describing a quantum state of a particle). Note that up to this point we have not specified what we mean by “quantum objects”. Our considerations have so far been very general. In Sections IV and V descriptions of a more specific character will be given in the context of the corresponding approaches. In considering these issues we must keep in mind that there are in principle two roles played by the physical geometry in a geometric theory of gravitation: 1) It is an entity codifying relationships between “events” defined in terms of the “matter” content of the theory, and 2) it is a dynamical entity whose behavior is part of the subject of the theory.

Let us try to be a bit more specific at this point by saying not what should be done, but what should not be done and why. The (most widely accepted) classical description of gravitation involves a space-time (i.e. a manifold with a pseudo-Riemannian metric) $`(M,g_{ab})`$, which carries information about the behavior of geodesics, their points of intersection, which would define events, the length of the interval between two such events along a given geodesic, etc. It is natural that such an object (i.e. a tensor field) should be used to describe the geometry which is defined in terms of point particles whose state can be described in terms of a four vector $`u^a`$ and a point $`x`$ in space-time. On the other hand, when the geometry is defined in terms of quantum fields \[at this point the use of these words should not be taken to indicate the standard mathematical description of such objects, but the underlying physical entities they are thought to represent\], the physical counterpart of a geodesic (viewed as the world line of a classical test particle) or the physical counterpart of a four vector tangent to a space-time point (viewed as a perfectly localized particle with a well defined four momentum), cease to exist! That is, the objects that would give meaning to $`g_{ab}`$ are not part of the realm of physics we are attempting to describe. Therefore we should not try to construct a quantum counterpart of $`g_{ab}`$, i.e. a quantized gravitational field $`\widehat{g}_{ab}`$ or any equivalent object, because such a construct would be a quantum object carrying information about classical correlations! An unholy mixture indeed. In fact, doing this, would have meant that we changed aspect 2) of the geometry from classical to quantum, but did not change aspect 1) A remark is in order. The previous discussion suggests that even if one already has been successful in constructing a quantum theory of gravity, and one tries to define the equivalent of $`\widehat{g}_{ab}`$, the task will be non-trivial or even impossible..

What is needed is to construct an object $`\widehat{\widehat{G}}`$ (the double hat is meant to indicate that this is a quantum object but not necessarily of the same sort as a quantum field $`\widehat{\varphi }(x)`$) which carries information about correlations of quantum objects. The analogy we should use as a guide should be of the following type: The metric is an object that encompasses information about the way we transport (specifically, parallel transport) the description of the state of say a classical particle (four vector) from one point to another, and thus the quantum geometry should be described by an object that itself encompasses information about how to (in some yet undefined sense) “parallel transport” the description of a quantum state of an object from one region to another (or from one “observer” to another). Needless to say, the previous statement should be taken merely as a philosophical guiding principle, and any attempt at a specific realization should start by stating exactly what the objects are that will be used in defining the quantum geometry, what exactly is a quantum state of such an object is, and exactly what these correlations that the geometry is meant to codify. Given that an ordinary quantum mechanical state of a system has a much richer structure than its classical counterpart (The Hilbert space of a one particle system is infinite dimensional while the classical phase space is six-dimensional) there is a much larger set of possible aspects the correlations describing the geometry could refer to. Note also that we are envisioning the existence of some notion of localization which is in principle absent in the notion of a state in quantum field theory, either in flat or curved space-time.

An alternative way of indicating the type of object that we expect would describe the quantum geometry (i.e. the kind of object that $`\widehat{\widehat{G}}`$ should be), is the following: We can think of the metric in general relativity as a codification of how to join local inertial frames to cover extended regions of space-time. Actually, we know that given the metric and a space-time point there is a well defined procedure to construct locally inertial coordinates (Riemann normal coordinates), and thus by carrying out such constructions at several points we can end up with an approximate description of the global space-time which would be covered by local inertial frames, whose global properties would be encoded in the rules that allow us to translate from one frame to another, and the description of vectors in the intersections of the regions covered by two such frames. By analogy we expect that the quantum geometry would codify the way to translate the description of the states of a quantum systems from one “local frame” to another.

The next issue we are immediately confronted with is that of the notion of physical geometry in the COMPLETE absence of objects. That is, we imagine having selected the type of objects that, in principle, give meaning to the physical geometry but would want to consider the possibility of associating a geometry to a physical situation in which these objects are absent . In the classical realm what we mean in these cases is the following: We consider the empirical content of the description of, say, an empty space-time by a certain metric to be associated to the way that “test” objects (particles, light pulses, clocks etc) “would behave if placed” in that space-time. This presents no particular problem in this case because of two very special features of classical physics: First, there is no limit to how closely we can approximate, say, an ideal test particle (which would not have an effect on the geometry) by a real physical particle. We can make its four momentum as small as we wish without any effect on our ability to localize it as much as we want. Second, in classical physics the object is unaffected by its observation. It is clear that these two nice features do not survive the passage from classical to quantum physics: The first feature is denied to us by the Uncertainty Principle, and the second feature, which had allowed us to identify (in the classical realm) the observed and unobserved object, must be removed from consideration in the quantum realm, because failure to do so often results in internal contradictions. That is, we cannot identify, say, a double slit experiment in which one of the holes is being monitored for the passage of a particle, with a double slit experiment in which this monitoring in not being done. We know that at the quantum-mechanical level the description of a joint state of two systems is not the same as the sum of the descriptions of the two systems. Thus we do not expect a viable identification of “a geometry with” and “a geometry without” the objects that serve to define it. For an earlier discussion of this point see .

The previous discussion very strongly suggests that we must abandon the notion of assigning a geometry to a physical situation in the COMPLETE absence of objects. Moreover, we believe that the fundamental objects describing the matter in our world are not particles, but rather fields, and that therefore vacuum is not in any sense “the absence of everything”, but rather merely a state of the matter in the universe, and that, moreover, there is in general (in particular in non-stationary space-times) no state that can be uniquely described by the word “vacuum”.

Finally we point out a conclusion that seems to emerge from the points we made above: There should be no place for a counterpart of Minkowski space-time, and moreover there should be a fundamental limit to the degree to which such space-time can be approached. Suppose we want to have a region with a geometry as close to Minkowski as possible, that is a geometry that is as well defined as possible and as flat as possible at any scale. In order for it to be as well defined as possible it should be probed with quantum objects in as much detail as possible, but in order for it to be as flat as possible we must, among other things (here we are guiding ourselves by the correspondence principle which in this case indicates that matter will be associated with curvature), place as little matter as possible in that region, The two requirements are certainly incompatible. Thus there should be bounds on the flatness of the physical geometry.

Several remarks are in order: 1) It might seem that the discussion above leads to a theory in which Lorentz invariance is violated. Certainly this is a possible implication of our arguments. This is particularly intriguing, since (local) Lorentz invariance is at the heart of our present formulation of physics, needed implicitly in the mere definition of spinor fields on space-time. One possibility is that Poincare invariance is fundamental at the level of defining unitary representations (and thus having the different types of possible ”particles”), but that this symmetry is not explicitly present in the formulation of quantum geometry (just as Poincare invariance is meaningless in general relativity). One would expect to recover approximate Poincare invariance at some scale. 2) We have not touched upon the validity of the equivalence principle. It is our understanding that, as presently formulated, the equivalence principle refers to classical objects, and thus possible violations can be expected when quantum objects come into play. On the other hand, we expect that there should be some local validity of the equivalence principle, which in ordinary terms is achieved when the quantum system is localized enough as to be in an idealized (local) inertial frame. Finally, let us remark that it would be desirable to have a quantum replacement for the equivalence principle that would serve us as a guiding principle in the search for a quantum theory of gravity, just as the classical equivalence principle led Einstein to general relativity.

## III An Approach Based on the Algebraic Formulation of Q.F.T.

The proposal we are going to present here is very sketchy and should only been seen as a possible starting point to develop a framework with the characteristics discussed above. Its main virtue is that allows us to present in a relatively concrete way the type of construct we have in mind. The motivation of this particular proposal is to remove from the start one of the conceptual problems alluded to at the beginning of this paper: That of the meaning of the wave function for the universe, for which there is by definition nobody that can make the measurements that normally give it content One view on this issue that has gained popularity is associated with the decoherence functional etc., but lingering problems exist associated with the need to divide the universe into systems playing different roles, one that remains the object of the description and a second that plays the role of an external medium that induces the decoherence. For more detailed criticisms see .. The present proposal will consider the usual type of quantum states to have in general only local validity and can, but need not, lead to global states. Thus, at least the need for an object like the wave function of the universe disappears from the start. A further motivation for introducing this feature is the analysis by Sorkin  of the applicability of the standard Q.M. interpretation of the measurement problem to quantum field theory, which indicates, that if it is taken literally, leads to unacceptable violations of causality (it allows EPR-type experiments to actually transmit information). One basic feature of this analysis is the assumption that we can associate a quantum state with arbitrarily large regions in all circumstances, and thus it seems appropriate to call this assumption into question.

Let us start by reminding the reader that in the algebraic approach to quantum field theory, which seems to be the appropriate setting to consider quantum fields in arbitrary space-times , one forgoes the notion of a Hilbert space of states, and takes as starting point an algebra $`𝒜`$ (more precisely a $`C^{}`$ algebra) of abstract operators (usually thought of as corresponding to the smearing of polynomials in the field operators by suitable smooth functions) which are identified with the observables of the theory, and the states are then defined to be linear mappings $`\omega :𝒜C`$ satisfying a positivity condition $`\omega (A^{}A)0,A𝒜`$ ( and a normalization condition $`\omega (I)=1`$ ), and where the meaning of $`\omega (A)`$ is that of the expectation value of the observable $`A`$ in the state $`\omega `$.

The idea of the approach is to consider localized states in such a way as to reproduce locally the setup of quantum field theory, but deny in general the existence of global states, and instead introduce rules to perform “parallel transportation” of these states. The complete collection of such rules being identified as the quantum geometry.

Let us now present the sketch: Let $`M`$ be a manifold, and let $`𝒜`$ be a $`C^{}`$ algebra of abstract operators, each associated with a particular open set $`U`$ of $`M`$. For every open set $`U`$ we define the subalgebra define $`𝒜_U`$ of local operators associated with $`U`$ to be the collection of all elements of $`𝒜`$ associated with open sets contained in $`U`$. A local state at $`U`$ is a mapping $`\omega _U:𝒜_U:C`$ with similar properties as before.

Two comments are in order: 1) Normally we would have expected that once the state at $`U`$ is specified it would determine the state for all of the domain of dependence $`D(U)`$ of $`U`$. However stating something like this would presuppose that the causal structure is determined. Instead, we would hope to define the domain of dependence, and thus the causal structure, in terms of the “correlations” of the states associated with the different regions. We would not expect, for example, that the causal structure would be always well defined! 2) Note that even though we might have the local states defined everywhere in the sense that we might have an open covering $`\{U_\alpha \},\alpha J`$ of $`M`$ and an assignment of a local state $`\omega _{U_\alpha }`$ for every element of the covering, we might still not have a well defined global state! We might lack information about correlations.

Next we would need an axiom assuring that the local laws of physics are “everywhere” the same . We can try something like this: For all $`p,qM`$ there exist neighborhoods $`U_p`$, of $`p`$ and $`U_q`$ of $`q`$ and a mapping $`\varphi :𝒜_{U_p}𝒜_{U_q}`$ which is an algebra isomorphism. This mapping need not be unique.

Next we would describe the geometry. The idea is to generalize the notion of connection. We do not want however to consider parallel transport along a line, nor do we have objects associated to points that we might wish to transport along such a line. The natural generalization seems to be the assignment of the notion of parallel transport to every one-parameter family of diffeomorphisms that takes an open set into another continuously. A quantum geometry for the manifold $`M`$ will be an assignment of a mapping $`\mathrm{\Psi }_f:𝒜_𝒰𝒜_𝒰`$, to every one-parameter family of diffeomorphisms $`f(\lambda )`$ taking an open set $`U`$ to an open set $`V`$. This assignment would then be a realization of $`\widehat{\widehat{G}}`$

This setup has touched so far only kinematical aspects. We would next need to introduce dynamical aspects as well as self consistency restrictions. The fact that we must at some point be able to recover GR, and the appropriate quantum field theory in flat space-time in the corresponding limits, indicate that the dynamics of $`\widehat{\widehat{G}}`$, must be associated with the generalized state of the matter fields, and the dynamics of the matter fields must be compatible with the causal structure that in the appropriate circumstances emerges from $`\widehat{\widehat{G}}`$. Note that some steps in the direction of defining an algebraic QFT in a diffeomorphism invariant context were given in .

## IV Approach based on the program of Relative States.

In a recent article C. Rovelli , in considering anew the measurement problem in Quantum Mechanics, in particular the collapse of the wave function in situations of the Wigner’s Friend type, comes to the conclusion that the wave function of a system should not be considered as an attribute of the system in the sense of describing the absolute physical state of the system, but rather as an attribute of the relation of one system (the described system) to another (the describing system), in the sense of encoding the information that the second system has about the first. In this way the problem of collapse of the wave function which is instantaneous in a given reference frame, can in principle be disassociated from the collapse of the wave function in other frames. The scheme has been considered as dealing with interpretational issues and was in no way intended to change the standard predictions of Quantum Mechanics. We will nevertheless adopt this idea and consider it as possible starting point for a relational scheme of the sort we have been advocating . Again, the following description is merely schematic.

Let S be the collection of all subsystems in the universe and consider assigning to every ordered pair of them $`(A,B)`$ a density matrix in an appropriate Hilbert space, representing the information that $`A`$ has about $`B`$. When the corresponding information is non-existent the assignment will be a multiple of the identity matrix. In general we would expect that such a scheme would leave open the possibility of neglecting certain important correlations, for instance $`A`$ might assign a density matrix to $`B`$ and a density matrix to $`C`$, but be unable to assign more than the identity to $`A`$ and $`C`$ together because of lack of information about the correlations. We will not presuppose that it is always meaningful to talk about a system preserving its identity trough “time” and thus our systems should be considered in general as localized in space and in time. We would of course need to make the previous statement meaningful in a way that is internal to the theory (i.e., in terms of considerations about correlations, etc.) as we would want space-time to be an emergent property of such a setup. Now we can imagine another set of objects, assigned say to every pair of pairs of the form $`((A,B),(A,C))`$ the correlations needed for $`A`$ to construct a density matrix associated to $`B`$ and $`C`$ together. Let us call these object “Quantum Correlators”. According to our discussions it should be possible to consider a (large enough ) set of Quantum Correlators as describing the structure of space-time. It seems that this is indeed the case, for if we are given a “complete” collection of wave-functions and quantum correlators we should be able to construct the global (space-time) states of all the quantum fields and from these, at least in favorable circumstances, one should be able to deduce the Space-time geometry.

Again, we have touched only on kinematical aspects, while clearly a dynamical content that ensures self consistency in the assignment of states to systems and subsystems, and that allows us to recover General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics in the appropriate limits needs to be considered.

## V Discussion.

In this note, we have argued that the physical significance of the geometry of space-time can not be separated from the description of the matter fields that probe such geometry, and that it is therefore natural that a quantum theory of gravity should reflect this fact. We are well aware of possible dangers of adopting a purely operational approach to the construction of physical theories, where one might encounter technical difficulties and make little concrete progress. Furthermore, our position should not be seen as the same position adopted, for instance, by Rovelli and Smolin who have argued that loop quantum gravity (or its close relative, the Spin-Foam Models ) are already examples of relational quantum theories of gravity , in the vacuum sector.

We should also point out that we have left an important issue almost untouched. Namely, one expects that there is a scale in which the quantum description of the geometry becomes necessary. So far, we have not made a concrete proposal about where this scale can be found. In the standard approaches, one assumes that this scale will be the Planck scale (in the canonical approach) or the stringy scale (lately, theories formulated with “large extra dimensions” put this scales at lower energies). From the dimensional point of view, these seem to be the most natural choices. A new proposal for a relevant scale should, in our view, arise from the dynamics of the quantum objects involved in the formulation (See  and references therein).

Our point here is that the development of the physics of the last century presented us with several instances in which our attachment to certain idealizations based in our previous physical experience turned out to be an impediment to progress. We have made the case that the notion of a geometry that exists independently of the objects used to define it might be one such impediment. We have also pointed out that there are several outstanding problems associated with the standard interpretation of quantum theories that are particularly exacerbated when considered in a general relativistic setting, and have thus tried to formulate approaches that give some hope of helping in the resolution of those issues. After all, if quantum gravity is finally conquered and it does not help us with these interpretational problems of Quantum Mechanics, then it is very difficult to envision from whence clues for their resolution might come. We have thus advocated a relational point of view and have suggested a few directions that could be tried for the implementation of these ideas.

## Acknowledgments

AC would like to thank Luca Bombelli for a careful reading of the manuscript. We would like to thank the referees for helpful comments. We would like to acknowledge partial support from DGAPA–UNAM Project No. IN121298 and CONACYT grants 32272-E and J32754-E. This work was also partially supported by NSF grant No. PHY-0010061.


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# Neutrino Rates in Color Flavor Locked Quark Matter

## I Introduction

QCD at high baryon density is expected to be a color superconductor. For three massless flavors, a symmetric ground state called the Color Flavor Locked (CFL) phase, in which BCS like pairing involves all nine quarks, is favored . This, color superconducting, phase is characterized by a gap in the quark excitation spectrum. Model calculations indicate that the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }100`$ MeV for a quark chemical potential $`\mu 500`$ MeV . In this phase the $`SU(3)_{\mathrm{color}}\times SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R\times U(1)_B`$ symmetry of QCD is broken down to the global diagonal $`SU(3)`$ symmetry due to pairing between quarks at the Fermi surface. Gluons become massive by the Higgs mechanism. The lightest excitations in this phase are the nonet of pseudo-Goldstone bosons transforming under the unbroken, global diagonal $`SU(3)`$ as an octet plus a singlet and a massless mode associated with the breaking of the global $`U(1)_B`$ symmetry (For a recent review see ).

The lack of quark particle-hole excitations in dense quark matter at temperatures less than the critical temperature for color superconductivity ($`T_c0.6\mathrm{\Delta }`$) will affect thermodynamic and transport properties of this phase. This can have important astrophysical implications if quark matter were to exist in the core of a neutron star. Several authors have recently explored some aspects of how color superconductivity might impact neutron star observables. These works have provided insight on: role of color superconductivity on the phase transition density; the nature of the interface between nuclear matter and CFL matter ; its response to magnetic fields ; and the thermal evolution of both young and old neutron stars. In this article we calculate weak interaction rates for neutrino production and scattering in the CFL phase and contrast it with earlier estimates of similar rates in normal(unpaired) quark matter.

Neutrinos play a central role in the early and late time thermal evolution of neutron stars. Weak interaction rates in the superconducting phase are therefore essential to make connections between color superconductivity and observable aspects associated with neutron star thermal evolution. Neutron stars are born in the aftermath of a core collapse supernova explosion. The inner core of a newly born neutron star is characterized by a temperature $`\mathrm{T}30`$ MeV and a lepton fraction (lepton number/baryon number) $`\mathrm{Y}_\mathrm{L}0.3`$ implying $`\mu _e\mu _{\nu _e}\mu _Q\mu _{\nu _e}200`$ MeV. The high temperature and finite lepton chemical potentials are a consequence of neutrino trapping during gravitational collapse. The ensuing thermal evolution of the newly born neutron star, during which it emits neutrinos copiously, has generated much recent interest . Several aspects of this early evolution can be probed directly since neutrinos emitted during the first several tens of seconds can be detected in terrestrial detectors such as Super-Kamiokande and SNO. This study is motivated by the prospect that were Color-Flavor-Locked quark matter to exist in neutron stars at early times it would result in observable and discernible effects on the supernova neutrino emission.

We can expect significant differences in the weak interaction rates between the normal and the CFL phases of quark matter since the latter is characterized by a large gap in the quark excitation spectrum. Thus, unlike in the normal phase where quark excitations near the Fermi surface provide the dominant contribution to the weak interaction rates, in the CFL phase, it is the dynamics of the low energy collective states— the flavor pseudo-Goldstone bosons that are relevant. As a first step towards understanding the thermal and transport properties of this phase which are of relevance to core collapse supernova studies, we identify and calculate the weak interaction rates for neutrino production and scattering. The article is organized as follows: In §2 we briefly describe the effective theory describing Goldstone bosons in the CFL phase; In §3 we calculate the rate of neutrino reactions of interest; and in §4 we discuss how our findings might affect the early evolution of a newly born neutron star.

## II Effective Theory For Goldstone Bosons

There are several articles that describe in detail the effective theory for the Goldstone bosons in Color-Flavor-Locked quark matter . We briefly review some aspects of the effective theory in this section. It is possible to parameterize low energy excitations about the $`SU(3)`$ symmetric CFL ground state in terms of the two fields $`B=H/(\sqrt{24}f_H)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=e^{2i(\pi /f_\pi +\eta ^{}/f_A)}`$, representing the Goldstone bosons of broken baryon number $`H`$, and of broken chiral symmetry, the pseudo-scalar octet $`\pi `$, and the pseudo-Goldstone boson $`\eta ^{}`$, arising from broken approximate $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry. Turning on nonzero quark masses, explicitly breaks chiral symmetry and induces a gap in the spectrum as the Goldstone bosons acquire a mass due to this explicit breaking of chiral symmetry. In addition, dissimilar quark masses induce new stresses on the system, acting in a manner analogous to an applied flavor chemical potential and favoring meson condensation. This was recently pointed out by Bedaque and Schafer . In this work we include the stress induced by the strange quark mass, but we will assume that it is not strong enough to result in the meson condensation ***If $`K^0`$ condensation occurs, as discussed in Ref. the ground state is reorganized and the excitation spectrum is modified. The weak interaction rates in this phase is currently under investigation and will be reported elsewhere..

The leading terms of the effective Lagrangian describing the octet Goldstone boson field $`\pi `$ is given by

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}f_\pi ^2\left[\mathrm{Tr}_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}v^2\mathrm{Tr}\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right]`$ (3)
$`+f_\pi ^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\stackrel{~}{M}\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2}}\mathrm{Tr}M\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right)\right]`$
$`_0\mathrm{\Sigma }=_0\mathrm{\Sigma }i\left[X_L\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Sigma }X_R\right].`$
The decay constant $`f_\pi `$ has been computed previously  and is proportional to the quark chemical potential. $`X_{L,R}`$ are the Bedaque-Schafer terms: $`X_L=\frac{MM^{}}{2\mu },X_R=\frac{M^{}M}{2\mu },`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{M}=|M|M^1`$. A finite baryon chemical potential breaks Lorentz invariance of the effective theory. The temporal and spatial decay constants can thereby differ. This difference is encoded in the velocity factor $`v`$ being different from unity. An explicit calculation shows that $`v=1/\sqrt{3}`$ and is common to all Goldstone bosons, including the massless $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone boson.

At asymptotic densities, where the instanton induced interactions are highly suppressed and the $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry is restored, the leading contributions to meson masses arise from the Tr$`\stackrel{~}{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ operator whose coefficient $`a`$ has been computed and is given by $`a=3\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}`$ . At densities of relevance to neutron stars the instanton interaction may become relevant. In this case a $`<\overline{q}q>`$ condensate is induced  and consequently the meson mass term can receive a contribution from the operator Tr$`M\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Its coefficient $`\chi `$ at low density is sensitive to the instanton size distribution and form factors. Current estimates indicate that the instanton contribution to the $`K^0`$ mass lies in the range $`5120`$ MeV . The meson masses are explicitly given by

$`m_{\pi ^\pm }^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_u+m_d)m_s+\chi (m_u+m_d)`$ (4)
$`m_{K^\pm }^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_u+m_s)m_d+\chi (m_u+m_s)`$ (5)
$`m_{K^0}^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_d+m_s)m_u+\chi (m_d+m_s).`$ (6)
In this article we will assume the instanton contribution to the $`K^0`$ mass is $`50`$ MeV (corresponding to $`\chi 15`$ MeV) at $`\mu =400`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV. With this choice, the kaon mass is too large to allow for $`K^0`$ condensation.

To incorporate weak interactions, we gauge the Chiral Lagrangian in the usual way by replacing the covariant derivative by

$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }=`$ $`_\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}}(W_\mu ^+\tau ^++W_\mu ^{}\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{ig}{\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}}Z_\mu (\tau _3\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W[Q,\mathrm{\Sigma }])i\stackrel{~}{e}\stackrel{~}{A}[Q,\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$
The time component of $`_\mu `$ includes the Bedaque-Schafer term as described above. The fields $`W_\mu ^\pm ,Z_\mu `$ describe weak gauge bosons. The charge matrix is diagonal $`Q=\text{diag}(\frac{2}{3},\frac{1}{3},\frac{1}{3})`$ as well as weak-isospin matrix $`\tau _3=\frac{1}{2}\text{diag}(1,1,1)`$ whereas $`\tau ^+`$ and $`\tau ^{}`$ are the isospin raising and lowering operators which incorporate Cabbibo mixing. The weak coupling constant is related to Fermi coupling constant via the standard relation $`\sqrt{2}g^2=8G_FM_W^2`$ where $`M_W`$ is a mass of the $`W`$ gauge boson and the mass of $`Z`$ boson $`M_Z\mathrm{cos}\theta _W=M_W`$ where $`\theta _W`$ is Weinberg angle. The last term is the modified electromagnetic coupling of mesons to the massless $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ photon in the CFL phase, where the charge $`\stackrel{~}{e}=e\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ and $`\theta `$ is the mixing angle between the original photon and the eighth gluon .

For momenta small compared to $`f_\pi `$ we can expand the nonlinear chiral Lagrangian to classify diagrams as the first order (proportional to $`f_\pi `$) and the second order (independent of $`f_\pi `$). The first order diagrams, involving two leptons and a meson are shown in the Fig. 1. In Fig. 1(a) the charged current decay of charged pions and kaons is shown. Fig. 1(b) shows the neutral current decay of $`\pi ^0\nu \overline{\nu }`$. In vacuum, the latter process is forbidden by angular momentum conservation. However, as we will show later, it is allowed for finite momentum pions in the CFL medium. Diagrams in the Fig. 1(c) and 1(d) show processes involving two mesons. The process in Fig. 1(c) is the two body correction to the charged current decay of the decay of charged kaons and pions interacting with the neutral mesons. And Fig. 1(d) depicts neutrino pair emission from the annihilation of charged Goldstone bosons $`K^\pm `$ and $`\pi ^\pm `$ and neutrino-meson scattering.

The amplitudes for the leading order processes are given by

$`A_{\pi ^0\nu \overline{\nu }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}f_\pi \stackrel{~}{p}_\mu j_Z^\mu `$ (9)
$`A_{\pi ^\pm e\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`G_Ff_\pi \mathrm{cos}\theta _C\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu j_W^\mu `$ (10)
$`A_{K^\pm e\nu }`$ $`=`$ $`G_Ff_\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta _Cp_\mu j_W^\mu `$ (11)
where $`\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu =(E,v^2\stackrel{}{p})`$ is the modified four-momentum of Goldstone boson and $`j_W^\mu `$ and $`j_Z^\mu `$ describe the charged leptonic current and neutral leptonic currents. $`\theta _C`$ is the Cabbibo mixing angle. Note that the meson ”four momenta” that appear in the matrix element do not correspond to the on shell four momenta of the mesons. This is because the covariant derivatives contains the in medium velocity and for the case of kaons, the energy shift arising from the Bedaque-Schafer term.

At next to leading order, the amplitude is independent of $`f_\pi `$. The amplitude for the charged current process is given by

$$A_{\mathrm{\Phi }^\pm \mathrm{\Phi }^0e\nu }=iC\frac{G_F}{2}(\stackrel{~}{p}_1\stackrel{~}{p}_2)_\mu j_W^\mu $$
(12)
where the coupling coefficient $`C=\mathrm{sin}\theta _C`$ for $`\pi ^0K^{},\pi ^0K^+`$; $`C=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}\theta _C`$ for $`\pi ^{}\overline{K}^0,\pi ^+K^0`$; $`C=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{cos}\theta _C`$ for $`K^{}K^0,K^+\overline{K}^0`$ and $`C=2\mathrm{cos}\theta _C`$ for $`\pi ^{}\pi ^0,\pi ^+\pi ^0`$. Neutrinos couple to the charged mesons via the neutral current. This leads to process such as the annihilation of $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$ and $`K^+K^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$, whose amplitude is given by

$$A_{\mathrm{\Phi }^+\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\nu \overline{\nu }}=i\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}(12\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W)(\stackrel{~}{p}_1\stackrel{~}{p}_2)_\mu j_Z^\mu $$
(13)
where $`p_1,p_2`$ are momenta of Goldstone bosons. It also gives rise to neutral current neutrino-meson scattering given by the amplitude

$$A_{\nu \mathrm{\Phi }^\pm \nu \mathrm{\Phi }^\pm }=i\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}(12\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W)(\stackrel{~}{p}_1+\stackrel{~}{p}_2)_\mu j_Z^\mu .$$
(14)
In addition to the flavor octet of Goldstone bosons, the massless Goldstone boson associated with spontaneous breaking of $`U(1)_B`$ couples to the weak neutral current. This is because the weak isospin current contains a flavor singlet component. Amplitude for processes involving the $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone boson $`H`$ and the neutrino neutral current is given by

$$A_{H\nu \overline{\nu }}=\frac{4}{\sqrt{3}}G_Ff_H\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu j_Z^\mu ,$$
(15)
where $`\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu =(E,v^2\stackrel{}{p})`$ is the modified four momentum of the Goldstone boson. The decay constant for the $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone boson has also been computed in earlier work and is given by $`f_H^2=3\mu ^2/(8\pi ^2)`$. Further, we note that a $`HHZ^0`$ vertex is absent in the lowest order Lagrangian ($`H`$ boson does not carry baryon number, isospin or hypercharge).

## III Thermodynamics and Neutrino Rates

The dispersion relations for Goldstone modes in the CFL phase are unusual. They are easily computed by expanding the Lagrangian to second order in meson fields and are given by

$`E_{K^\pm }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_s^2}{2\mu }}+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{K^\pm }^2},E_{\pi ^\pm }=\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{\pi ^\pm }^2},`$ (16)
$`E_{K^0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_s^2}{2\mu }}+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{K^0}^2},E_{\overline{K^0}}={\displaystyle \frac{m_s^2}{2\mu }}+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{K^0}^2}.`$ (17)
They violate Lorentz invariance and the induced effective chemical potential arising from the analysis of Bedaque and Schafer  breaks the energy degeneracy of the positive and negative charged kaons. This making the $`K^+`$ lighter than the $`K^{}`$ and naturally results in an excess positive charge in the meson sector at finite temperature. Electric charge neutrality of this phase demands electrons and consequently an electric charge chemical potential is induced. This novel phenomena, akin to the thermoelectric effect, modifies the number densities of the individual mesons in the plasma.

Kaon, pion and the total electric charge density of the meson gas, normalized to the photon number are shown in Fig. 2. The results are shown as a function of temperature for a quark chemical potential of 400 MeV (corresponding to $`f_\pi =83`$ MeV) at which we have chosen the pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV. The quark masses are set at $`m_u=3.75`$ MeV $`m_d=7.5`$ MeV and $`m_s=150`$ MeV and instanton induced coefficient of the Tr$`M\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ operator $`\chi =16`$ MeV as mentioned earlier. With these assumptions, at zero temperature the rest energy of mesons are given by:$`E_{\pi ^\pm }30`$ MeV; $`E_{K^+}26`$ MeV; $`E_K^{}82`$ MeV ; $`E_{K^0}24`$ MeV and $`E_{\overline{K^0}}80`$ MeV. Consequently, the kaon number is dominated by the $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ mesons and a finite electron chemical potential favors $`\pi ^{}`$ mesons over the $`\pi ^+`$. It is surprising that, with increasing temperature, the plasma has more mesons than photons. Despite being massive, the meson number is enhanced for two reasons. First, the velocity factor $`v=1/\sqrt{3}`$ results in a soft dispersion relation resulting in reduced Boltzmann suppression of the high momentum modes. The number density is enhanced by a factor $`1/v^3`$. For the same reason, the density of massless $`H`$ bosons (not shown in the figure) is also larger than the photon density by the factor $`1/(2v^3)`$. Secondly, the Bedaque-Schafer term which acts like an effective chemical potential favoring strange quarks, and the induced negative electric charge chemical potential required to maintain charge neutrality enhances the number of mesons with strange quarks and negative charge.

Prior to discussing neutrino rates in the finite temperature plasma we briefly comment on the temperature range over which our analysis is expected to be valid. The effective theory description of the finite temperature phase is valid only if the typical meson energy is small compared to $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. For larger energies, meson propagation is strongly attenuated since they can decay into quark quasi-particle excitations. Further, with increasing temperature, we should expect coefficients of the effective theory such as $`f_\pi ,v`$ and the meson masses to change. On general grounds, we expect these changes to become relevant as $`T`$ approaches $`T_c`$. In our analysis, we ignore these changes and restrict ourselves to temperatures $`T`$ small compared to $`T_c`$. At $`\mu =400`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV corresponding to $`T_c60`$ MeV we expect our analysis to provide a fair description of the plasma for $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }30`$ MeV Assuming $`\mathrm{\Delta }(T)=\mathrm{\Delta }_0\sqrt{1(T/T_c)^2}`$, at $`T=30`$ MeV the gap is reduced by only 15 percent..

### A Neutrino Opacity

Novel processes such as the $`\nu H\nu `$, $`\nu \pi ^0\nu `$ and $`\nu _e\pi ^+e^{}`$ are allowed in this phase owing to the fact that mesons can have a space like dispersion relation. These processes can be thought of as arising due to Cherenkov radiation of mesons. Dispersion relations for the pions and kaons indicate that they are space like four momenta when their 3-momentum satisfy:

$`p_\pi >{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi }{\sqrt{1v^2}}};p_K>{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{m_K^2(1v^2)+X^2}X}{1v^2}},`$ (18)
where $`X=m_s^2/(2\mu )`$ for ($`K^+,K^0`$) and $`X=m_s^2/(2\mu )`$ for ($`K^{},\overline{K}^0`$). Consequently, only high energy neutrinos, with energy greater than $`E_{TH}=m_\pi /\sqrt{1v^2}`$, can emit pions as Cherenkov radiation. In contrast, the massless $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone boson has a space like dispersion relation for all momenta. Thus, neutrinos of all energies can Cherenkov radiate $`H`$ bosons as they traverse the dense CFL medium.

We can define the neutrino mean free path for these processes as the neutrino velocity times the rate of emission of Cherenkov mesons. This is given by

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu \varphi l}(E_\nu )}=\frac{1}{2E_\nu }\frac{d^3p_\varphi }{(2\pi )^32E_\varphi }\frac{d^3p_l}{(2\pi )^32E_l}(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(P_\nu P_\varphi P_l)|A_{\nu \varphi l}|^2$$
(19)
where $`E_\nu `$ is the initial neutrino energy, $`P_\varphi `$ is the meson four momentum and $`P_l`$ is the final state lepton four momentum. We label the final state lepton as $`l`$ to account for the fact that it could be either a neutrino or an electron. The amplitude for this process was calculated earlier and is proportional to $`\mu `$. Since these processes do not have mesons in the initial state they can occur at zero temperature. The rate for the process depends on the neutrino energy and is independent of the temperature in so far as the meson masses and $`f_\pi `$ is independent of temperature. Kinematics and 1 relatively strong $`H\nu \overline{\nu }`$ coupling (approximately thrice as a large as the $`\pi ^0\nu \overline{\nu }`$ coupling) makes Cherenkov radiation of the massless $`H`$ bosons the dominant reaction of this type. Neutrino mean free path due to the reaction $`\nu H\nu `$ can be calculated analytically using Eq. (19) and is given by

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}=\frac{256}{45\pi }\left[\frac{v(1v)^2(1+\frac{v}{4})}{(1+v)^2}\right]G_F^2f_H^2E_\nu ^3$$
(20)
Neutrinos of all energies can absorb a thermal meson and scatter into either a final state neutrino by neutral current processes like $`\nu +H\nu `$ and $`\nu +\pi ^0\nu `$ or via the charged current reaction into a final state electron by the process $`\nu _e+\pi ^{}e^{}`$. These processes are temperature dependent as they are proportional to the density of mesons in the initial state. Mean free path due to these processes, which we collectively refer to as Cherenkov absorption, can be computed using

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu \varphi l}(E_\nu )}=\frac{1}{2E_\nu }\frac{d^3p_\varphi }{(2\pi )^32E_\varphi }f(E_\varphi )\frac{d^3p_l}{(2\pi )^32E_l}(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(P_\nu +P_\varphi P_l)|A_{\nu \varphi l}|^2$$
(21)
where $`f(E_\varphi )`$ is the Bose distribution function for the initial state mesons. Reactions involving the $`H`$ boson dominate over other Cherenkov absorption processes due to their larger population and stronger coupling to the neutral current. For this case, we find the neutrino mean free paths is given by

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}=\frac{128}{3\pi }\left[\frac{v(1+v)^2}{(1v)}\right]\left[g_2(\gamma )+\frac{2v}{(1v)}g_3(\gamma )\frac{(1+v)}{(1v)}g_4(\gamma )\right]G_F^2f_H^2E_\nu ^3,$$
(22)
where $`\gamma =2vE_\nu /(1v)T`$ and the integrals $`g_n(\gamma )`$ are defined by the relation

$$g_n(\gamma )=_0^1𝑑x\frac{x^n}{\mathrm{exp}(\gamma x)1}.$$
(23)
In the limiting cases of high ($`E_\nu T`$) and low ($`E_\nu T`$) neutrino energy the above integral can be performed analytically. For $`E_\nu T`$ we find that

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}=\frac{32\zeta (3)}{3\pi }\left[\frac{(1v^2)^2}{v^2}\right]\left[1+\frac{\pi ^4}{30\zeta (3)}\frac{T}{E_\nu }\frac{3\zeta (5)}{\zeta (3)}\frac{(1v^2)}{v^2}\frac{T^2}{E_\nu ^2}\right]G_F^2f_H^2T^3,$$
(24)
and for the case when $`E_\nu T`$ we find

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}=\frac{16}{3\pi }\frac{(1+v)^2(1\frac{v}{3})}{(1v)}G_F^2f_H^2TE_\nu ^2.$$
(25)
In contrast to processes involving the emission or absorption of mesons by neutrinos, the usual scattering process involves the coupling of the neutrino current to two mesons. As noted earlier, the amplitude for these processes vanishes for the $`H`$ meson and is suppressed by the factor $`p/f_\pi `$ where $`p`$ is the meson momentum for the flavor octet mesons. In the later case, despite the suppression, the reaction could be important because the kinematics is not restricted to space like mesons. Neutrino mean free path for the scattering process is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu \varphi ^\pm \nu \varphi ^\pm }(E_\nu )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2E_\nu }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p_\varphi }{(2\pi )^32E_\varphi }f(E_\varphi )\frac{d^3p_\nu ^{}}{(2\pi )^32E_\nu ^{}}\frac{d^3p_\varphi ^{}}{(2\pi )^32E_\varphi ^{}}}`$ (26)
$`\times `$ $`(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(P_\nu +P_\varphi P_\varphi ^{}P_\nu )|A_{\nu \varphi ^\pm \nu \varphi ^\pm }|^2`$ (27)
The resulting neutrino mean free path for all three classes of processes discussed above is shown in Fig. 3. The results are presented as a function of the ambient temperature. We assume that the typical neutrino energy is determined by the local temperature and set $`E_\nu =\pi T`$ since this corresponds to mean energy of neutrinos in thermal equilibrium. Note, the mean free path due to Cherenkov radiation of mesons has no intrinsic temperature dependence. Temperature dependence of the result shown in Fig. 3 arises because we have set $`E_\nu =\pi T`$. At low temperature, we expect Cherenkov reactions involving the massless Goldstone boson to dominate. Interestingly, however, we find that this is the case even for $`T30`$ MeV. The total contribution to opacity from novel Cherenkov processes is also shown in the figure as a solid curve labeled $`\lambda _{3B}`$. The Cherenkov absorption reaction, $`\nu H\nu `$, makes the largest contribution to the neutrino opacity over the temperature range $`T=130`$ MeV. Reactions involving kaons and pions become comparable only for $`T\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }15`$ MeV. Further, charged current reactions involving the absorption or emission of kaons are Cabbibo suppressed and contribute to less than a few percent of the total rate. Scattering reactions are found to be negligible for $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }10`$ MeV and make a 20% contribution to the total opacity at $`T30`$ MeV.

### B Neutrino Emissivity

Charged current decays of pions and kaons, and the novel neutral current decay of $`\pi ^0`$ are the leading one body process contributing to neutrino emission. In vacuum, the amplitude for similar processes are proportional to the lepton mass due to angular momentum conservation. However, as discussed earlier, the dispersion relations for Goldstone modes violate Lorentz invariance. Consequently we find that the decay of finite momentum pions and kaons is not suppressed by the electron mass (note that decay into muons is highly suppressed because the meson mass and the temperature are less than the mass of the muon). This can be understood by noting that Goldstone modes at finite density are collective excitations associated with deformations of the Fermi surface. In the rest frame of a meson that has finite momentum relative to the medium the Fermi Surface is not spherically symmetric. This breaks rotational invariance and angular momentum is no longer a good quantum number to describe the meson state. As a result, decay of pions and kaons into massless lepton pairs is allowed.

The rate of energy loss due to one body decays is computed using the standard formula

$$\dot{ϵ}_{1\mathrm{B}}=\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^32E}\frac{d^3k_1}{(2\pi )^32E_1}E_1\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^32E_2}|A|^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(Pk_1k_2)$$
(28)
where $`P`$, $`k_1`$ and $`k_2`$ are the four momenta of the meson, the neutrino and the charged lepton respectively. We neglect the electron mass in the describing the kinematics of these reaction because the typical electron momentum is large. Further, since the electron chemical potential we find is also small (compared to $`T`$) we are justified in neglecting the final state electron Pauli-blocking. This allows us to perform the integration over the final state lepton momenta using the identity

$$\frac{d^3k_1}{2E_1}\frac{d^3k_2}{2E_2}\delta ^4(Pk_1k_2)k_1^\mu k_2^\nu =\frac{\pi }{24}(P^\mu P^\nu +g^{\mu \nu }P^2)$$
(29)
to obtain

$$\dot{ϵ}_{1\mathrm{B}}=\frac{G_F^2f_\pi ^2C^2}{12\pi }\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}f(E_p)((\stackrel{~}{P}P)^2\stackrel{~}{P}^2P^2).$$
(30)
where $`P=(E_p,\stackrel{}{p})`$ is the four momentum of the Goldstone boson and $`C=\mathrm{sin}\theta _C`$ for kaon decays. $`C=\mathrm{cos}\theta _C`$ for charged pion decays and $`C=1`$ for the neutral current decay of the $`\pi ^0`$. Decay processes can occur only when the meson four momentum is time like. Thus, the 1-body decay of $`H`$ boson is forbidden and only low momentum pions and kaons (See Eq. (18)) can participate in the decay process. This accounts for the saturation of the one body decay contribution to the emissivity with increasing temperature seen in Fig. 4.

Higher momentum, space like, states can participate in processes such as $`e^\pm \varphi ^{}\nu `$. We find that these lepton absorption processes dominate the emissivity for $`T\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }10MeV`$. Processes involving two mesons in the initial state such as $`\varphi ^\pm \varphi ^0e^\pm \nu `$ and $`\varphi ^+\varphi ^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$ can be expected to become important only at high temperature. This is because Goldstone bosons are weakly interacting, the two particle amplitude is reduced by the factor $`p/f_\pi `$ compared to the one body amplitude, where $`p`$ is the relative momenta of the Goldstone bosons. Despite this suppression we consider the two meson annihilation process because the pion and kaon densities exceeds the lepton density at high temperature It is interesting to note that in vacuum, with normal dispersion relations, the two body processes would dominate over one body decay at modest temperatures due to angular momentum restrictions on decay process..

In Fig. 4, the rate of energy loss due to meson decay, lepton assisted decays ($`e\varphi \nu `$) and two meson reactions are shown. For reasons discussed earlier, meson decay is the dominant reaction for $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }10`$ MeV. Reactions involving two particles in the initial state are also shown and become important at higher temperature. Charged current absorption of electrons and positrons on charged mesons producing neutrinos dominates the emissivity for $`T\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }10`$ MeV. The two meson annihilation reactions contribute to only 10% of the total rate even at $`T30`$ MeV. The purely leptonic process $`e^+e^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$ is also shown in the figure. Its contribution is always smaller than the contribution arising from the mesons.

Other processes involving electrons in the initial state, such as $`e^{}\varphi ^+\nu \varphi ^0`$ could become important at low temperature where the electron density exceeds the meson density. We have ignored their contribution since this corresponds to $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }5`$ MeV where the one-body decay dominates. We also note when the temperature becomes comparable to the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ neutrino emission reactions involving quark quasi-particles can become important. In particular, quark Cooper pair breaking has been shown to be relevant when $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$ . We expect the rate of this process to small at $`T30`$ MeV since it is suppressed by the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(2\mathrm{\Delta }/T)`$.

## IV Conclusions

We have shown that novel processes in which mesons are either emitted or absorbed from neutrinos occur in the CFL plasma and contribute to neutrino opacity. Absorption of, thermal, massless $`H`$ bosons is the dominant reaction contributing to the neutrino opacity in the CFL phase for temperatures in the range $`T=130`$ MeV. Cherenkov radiation of these mesons is the second most import process and is likely to be the dominant process for $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }1`$ MeV. With increasing temperature and the exponential growth of pion and kaon number densities in the CFL plasma additional reactions such as $`\nu +\pi ^0\nu `$ and $`\nu _e+\pi ^{}e^{}`$ contribute to the neutrino opacity. We find that the mean free path for thermal neutrinos at $`T=10`$ MeV is of the order of $`10`$ meters and at $`T=5`$ MeV it is similar to $`100`$ meters. In the table below we compare the neutrino mean free path in CFL matter with those in nuclear matter and unpaired quark matter under similar conditions. To make these comparisons we employ earlier estimates of neutrino mean free path in nuclear matter obtained by Reddy, Prakash and Lattimer  and in unpaired quark matter obtained by Iwamoto . The quark chemical potential $`\mu =400`$ MeV corresponds to a baryon density $`n_B5n_0`$ in quark matter, where $`n_0=0.16`$ fm-3 is the nuclear saturation density. In the table below, we compare mean free path of thermal neutrinos ($`E_\nu =\pi T`$) in these different phases at $`n_B=5n_0`$.

| phase | process | $`\lambda `$(T=5 MeV) | $`\lambda `$(T=30 MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Nuclear | $`\nu n\nu n`$ | 200 m | 1 cm |
| Matter | $`\nu _ene^{}p`$ | 2 m | 4 cm |
| Unpaired | $`\nu q\nu q`$ | 350 m | 1.6 m |
| Quarks | $`\nu de^{}u`$ | 120 m | 4 m |
| CFL | $`\lambda _{3B}`$ | 100 m | 70 cm |
|  | $`\nu \varphi \nu \varphi `$ | $`>`$10 km | 4 m |

The findings presented in the table above indicate that neutrino mean free path in CFL matter is similar to or shorter than that in unpaired quark matter in the temperature range $`T=130`$ MeV. This, surprising, result arises solely due to the novel processes involving Cherenkov absorption and radiation of CFL Goldstone bosons.

Novel neutrino emitting processes such as $`\pi ^0`$ decay to neutrino-anti neutrino pairs occur in the CFL phase. Charged current leptonic decay of mesons is also enhanced in the medium. They occur because, in the rest frame of the meson moving relative to the medium, the ground state breaks rotational invariance. With increasing temperature, this enhancement saturates since only low momentum mesons have a time like dispersion relation. At higher temperatures, reactions involving two particles overcome this kinematic constraint and dominate the emissivity. In the neutron star context, the high temperature emissivity is unlikely to play an important role in neutron star dynamics because neutrinos are effectively trapped and are described by local thermal distributions. We will restrict ourselves to $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }10`$ MeV to make the comparisons between the emissivity of the CFL phase with that of unpaired quark matter. In unpaired quark matter, Iwamoto finds that the emissivity due $`\beta `$eta decay of light quarks at $`n_B=5n_0`$ to be $`\dot{ϵ}_{q\beta }2\times 10^{36}`$ erg cm-3 s-1 at $`T=5`$ MeV and $`\dot{ϵ}_{q\beta }2\times 10^{38}`$ erg cm-3 s-1 at $`T=10`$ MeV . This is to be compared with our finding that $`\dot{ϵ}_{CFL}5\times 10^{33}`$ erg cm-3 s-1 at $`T=5`$ MeV and $`\dot{ϵ}_{CFL}2\times 10^{35}`$ erg cm-3 s-1 at $`T=10`$ MeV. The emissivity is roughly reduced by three orders of magnitude. At lower temperature, emissivity in the CFL phase is exponentially suppressed, due to the paucity of thermal mesons, by the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(m/T)`$, where $`m`$ is the mass of the lightest octet meson. For a detailed discussion of neutrino emission in the CFL phase at sub MeV temperature, we refer the reader to an article by Jaikumar, Prakash and Schafer which was posted on the archive concurrently with this work .

The significant new finding of this work is that the neutrino opacity of the CFL phase is similar or greater than that of unpaired quark matter. Relative to nuclear matter the CFL phase is only marginally less opaque. At lower temperature, it is roughly comparable to the opacity nuclear matter given that the latter is known only to within factor of a few at the densities or relevance to neutron stars. Despite the energy gap in the quark quasi-particle excitations spectrum the opacity remains large and there is no exponential suppression of neutrino cross sections even when $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This is in sharp contrast to earlier findings of exponentially suppressed neutrino cross sections in the two flavor superconducting phase of quark matter which is devoid of Goldstone bosons in its excitation spectrum . The astrophysical implication of this finding is that temporal aspects of neutrino diffusion inside the newly born neutron star could be similar to that found in earlier studies of neutrino transport in unpaired quark matter. However, since we expect the specific heat of the CFL phase $`C_VT^3`$ to be small compared to that of unpaired quark matter where $`C_V\mu ^2T`$ the cooling rates could still differ and needs to be investigated. If the rate of energy loss via neutrino diffusion depends solely on neutrino mean free path, we can expect the smaller heat capacity to result in accelerated cooling due to a relatively more rapid rate of change of the ambient temperature. Nonetheless, we emphasize that the early evolution of a newly born neutron star is a complex process which depends on several microscopic ingredients and macroscopic conditions. In order to gauge how color superconductivity in the neutron star core will impact observable aspects of early neutron star evolution the rates computed in this work, and in addition, the thermodynamic properties of the CFL phase need to be included in detailed numerical simulations of core collapse supernova. This is the only reliable means to bridge the gap between the exciting theoretical expectation of color superconductivity at high density and observable aspects of core collapse supernova – the neutrino count rate, the neutrino spectrum and the explosion itself.

Acknowledgments

We thank David Kaplan, Krishna Rajagopal, Misha Stephanov and Frank Wilczek for several useful discussions. We thank Thomas Schafer for spotting an error in an early version of our manuscript and for discussions relating to the coupling of $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone boson to the weak neutral current. This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative research agreement DF-FC02-94ER40818. M. S. was supported by a fellowship from the Foundation for Polish Science. M. S. was also supported in part by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research, (KBN) grant no. 2P 03B 094 19. M. T. was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan (No. 3666).