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# References

hep-th/0203024

String and Brane Models
with Spontaneously/Dynamically Induced Tension

E.I. Guendelman and A. Kaganovich

Department of Physics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

P.O.Box 653, IL-84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel

E-mail: guendel@bgumail.bgu.ac.il , alexk@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

E. Nissimov and S. Pacheva

Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Boul. Tsarigradsko Chausee 72, BG-1784 Sofia, Bulgaria

E-mail: nissimov@inrne.bas.bg , svetlana@inrne.bas.bg

## Abstract

We study in some detail the properties of a previously proposed new class of string and brane models whose world-sheet (world-volume) actions are built with a modified reparametrization-invariant measure of integration and which do not contain any ad hoc dimensionfull parameters. The ratio of the new and the standard Riemannian integration measure densities plays the role of a dynamically generated string/brane tension. The latter is identified as (the magnitude of) an effective (non-Abelian) electric field-strength on the world-sheet/world-volume obeying the standard Gauss-law constraint. As a result a simple classical mechanism for confinement via modified-measure “color” strings is proposed where the colorlessness of the “hadrons” is an automatic consequence of the new string dynamics.

1. Introduction: Main Ideas and Features of the Theory

One of the characteristic features of string and brane theories  is the introduction ad hoc from the very beginning of a dimensionfull scale – the so called string (brane) tension. On the other hand, a lot of attention has been given to the idea that any fundamental theory of Nature should not contain any ad hoc fundamental scales and that these scales should rather appear as a result of dynamical generation, e.g., through boundary conditions on the classical level, spontaneous symmetry breaking and/or dimensional transmutation on the quantum level (see, for instance, ref. about spontaneous generation of Newton’s gravitational constant).

In the context of string and brane theories, the above idea has been first explored in refs.. In this Section we will briefly review, with some additional new accents, the main properties of the modified string and brane theories of  in order to prepare the ground for revealing of new interesting structures inherent of these theories. To this end let us first recall the standard Polyakov-type action for the bosonic string which reads :

$$S_{\mathrm{Pol}}=Td^2\sigma \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)$$
(1)
Here $`(\sigma ^0,\sigma ^1)(\tau ,\sigma )`$; $`a,b=0,1`$; $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,\mathrm{},D1`$; $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ denotes the external space-time metric; $`\gamma _{ab}`$ is the metric defined on the $`1+1`$-dimensional world-sheet of the string and $`\gamma =det\gamma _{ab}`$. $`T`$ indicates the string tension – a dimensionfull quantity introduced ad hoc into the theory which defines a scale.

Now following refs., instead of the standard measure of integration $`d^2\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }`$, we want to consider a new reparametrization invariant measure on the string world-sheet whose density $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is independent of the Riemannian metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$. This approach of considering an alternative integration measure has been studied in the context of $`D=4`$ gravitational theory, in particular, in relation with the cosmological constant problem  (and references therein), as well as the fermion families and long-range force problems .

Indeed, if we introduce two auxiliary scalar fields (scalars both from the point of view of the $`1+1`$-dimensional world-sheet of the string, as well as from the point of view of the embedding $`D`$-dimensional universe) $`\phi ^i`$ ($`i=1,2`$), we can construct the following world-sheet measure density:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\frac{1}{2}\epsilon _{ij}\epsilon ^{ab}_a\phi ^i_b\phi ^j=\epsilon _{ij}\dot{\phi }^i_\sigma \phi ^j$$
(2)
It is interesting to notice that $`d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )=d\phi ^1d\phi ^2`$, that is the measure of integration $`d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }`$ corresponds to integrating in the target space of the auxiliary scalar fields $`\phi ^i`$ ($`i=1,2`$).

We proceed now with the construction of a new string action that employs the integration measure $`d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }`$ (2) instead of the usual $`d^2\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }`$. When considering the types of actions we can have under these circumstances, the first one that comes to mind is the straightforward generalization of the Polyakov-type action (1) :

$$S_1=\frac{1}{2}d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)$$
(3)
Notice that multiplying $`S_1`$ by a constant, before boundary or initial conditions are specified, is a meaningless operation since such a constant can be absorbed in a redefinition of the measure fields $`\phi ^i`$ ($`i=1,2`$) that appear in $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )`$ (2).

The form (3) is, however, not a satisfactory choice for a string action because the variation of $`S_1`$ with respect to $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ leads to the rather strong condition:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)=0$$
(4)
If $`\mathrm{\Phi }0`$, it means that $`_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)=0`$, i.e., it means that the metric induced on the string world-sheet vanishes which is clearly not an acceptable dynamics. Alternatively, if $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$, no further information is available – also an undesirable situation.

The situation may be improved by introducing external antisymmetric tensor gauge field $`B_{\mu \nu }(X)`$. Then, instead of (3), we have to consider the action:

$$S_2=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)+\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu B_{\mu \nu }(X)\right]$$
(5)
where $`\epsilon ^{01}=\epsilon ^{10}=1`$ and $`\epsilon ^{00}=\epsilon ^{11}=0`$. Varying (5) with respect to $`\gamma ^{ab}`$, we get (if $`\mathrm{\Phi }0`$) :

$$_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }+\gamma _{ab}\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{4\sqrt{\gamma }}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu B_{\mu \nu }=0$$
(6)
Contracting the latter equation with $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ we see that:

$$\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu B_{\mu \nu }=\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }$$
(7)
Inserting relation (7) into Eq.(6) we obtain:

$$_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}\gamma _{ab}\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }=0$$
(8)
which coincides with the form of the string equations of motion corresponding to the Polyakov-type action (1) when the external antisymmetric tensor gauge field $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ is absent.

To make further progress and at the same time to show that one can avoid the need of incorporation of an external field, it is important to notice that terms in the action of the form:

$$S=d^2\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }L$$
(9)
which do not contribute to the equations of motion of the standard closed string, i.e., such that $`\sqrt{\gamma }L`$ is a total derivative, may yield non-trivial contributions when we consider the counter-parts of (9) of the form:

$$S=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L$$
(10)
This is so because if $`\sqrt{\gamma }L`$ is a total divergence, $`\mathrm{\Phi }L`$ in general is not.

The above fact is indeed crucial. For example, let us consider the modified-measure string theory with an additional intrinsic $`1+1`$-dimensional scalar curvature term:

$$S_{curv}=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )R$$
(11)
which now is not a topological term in contrast to $`d^2\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }R`$ in the ordinary string theory with the regular world-sheet integration measure. According to refs., where modified-measure gravity theories in higher dimensions $`D>2`$ have been explored, we know that in order to achieve physically interesting results one has to proceed in the first order formalism – employing either the affine connection or the spin connection. In the present paper we will restrict ourselves by exploring the spin connection formalism only. This means that the independent dynamical degrees of freedom are: zweibein $`e_a^{\overline{a}}`$, spin connection $`\omega _a^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}`$, ($`\overline{a}=0,1`$ are tangent “Lorentz” indexes) and the auxiliary scalar fields $`\phi ^i`$ entering the new integration measure density $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )`$ (2).

We will use the following notations: $`\gamma ^{ab}=e_{\overline{a}}^ae_{\overline{b}}^b\eta ^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}`$; the scalar curvature of the spin conection is $`R(\omega ,e)=e^{a\overline{a}}e^{b\overline{b}}R_{\overline{a}\overline{b}ab}(\omega )`$ where:

$$R_{ab}^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}(\omega )=_a\omega _b^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}+\omega _a^{\overline{a}\overline{c}}\omega _{b\overline{c}}^{\overline{b}}(ab)$$
(12)
Notice now that in $`D=2`$ :

$$\omega _a^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}=\omega _a\epsilon ^{\overline{a}\overline{b}}$$
(13)
where $`\omega _a`$ is a vector field. Therefore, we get for scalar curvature:

$$R(\omega )=\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(_a\omega _b_b\omega _a\right)$$
(14)
We conclude that the vector field $`\omega _a`$, as a geometrical object associated with the spin-connection, can be treated as an abelian gauge field $`A_a`$ living on the world-sheet.

Thus, let us consider an abelian gauge field $`A_a`$ defined on the world-sheet of the string, in addition to the measure-density fields $`\phi ^i`$ that appear in $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )`$ (2), the usual Riemannian metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$ and the string coordinates $`X^\mu `$. We can then construct the following non-trivial contribution to the action of the form:

$$S_{gauge}=\frac{1}{2}d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{ab}(A),F_{ab}=_aA_b_bA_a$$
(15)
Therefore, the total action to be considered now is $`S_{\text{string}}=S_2+S_{gauge}`$ reading explicitly:

$$S_{\text{string}}=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }+\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(_aX^\mu _bX^\nu B_{\mu \nu }F_{ab}(A)\right)\right]d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L$$
(16)
The properties of this model and some of its generalizations will be studied in the following sections.

The action (16) is invariant under a set of diffeomorphisms in the target space of the measure-density fields $`\phi ^i`$ combined with a conformal (Weyl) transformation of the metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$, namely :

$$\phi ^i\phi ^i=\phi ^i(\phi )\text{so  that}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }^{}=J\mathrm{\Phi }$$
(17)
where $`J=det\frac{\phi ^i}{\phi ^j}`$ is the Jacobian of the transformation (17), and:

$$\gamma _{ab}\gamma _{ab}^{}=J\gamma _{ab}$$
(18)
In what follows we will refer to the set of transformations (17)–(18) as $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended two-dimensional Weyl transformations and, accordingly, to the action (16) as being $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl-invariant. Notice also that the spin-curvature term (Eq.(11) with $`R`$ as in (14)) is also $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl-invariant ($`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl transformations do not affect the spin connection).

The combination $`\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{ab}`$ is a genuine scalar. In two dimensions it is proportional to $`\sqrt{F_{ab}F^{ab}}`$. In the non-Abelian case one can consider terms in the action of the form $`\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{ab}F^{ab})}`$, the latter being $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl-invariant object ($`\sqrt{Tr(F_{ab}F^{ab})}`$ is also a genuine scalar). This model will be studied in Sec.5 below.

To demonstrate some general features of the theory, we will first follow the Lagrangian formalism for solution of the modified-measure string model (16) explored in refs.. Variation of the action (16) with respect to $`\phi ^i`$ yields the equations (here we set $`B_{\mu \nu }=0`$ for simplicity) :

$$\epsilon ^{ab}_b\phi _i_a\left(\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{cd}\right)=0$$
(19)
If $`det\epsilon ^{ab}_b\phi _i0`$ meaning $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )0`$, then we conclude that all the derivatives of the quantity inside the parenthesis in Eq.(19) must vanish, i.e., such quantity must equal certain constant $`M`$ which will be determined later on:

$$\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{cd}=M$$
(20)
The equations of motion of the gauge field $`A_a`$ tell us about how the string tension appears as an integration constant. Indeed, these equations are:

$$\epsilon ^{ab}_b\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\right)=0$$
(21)
which can be integrated to yield a spontaneously induced string tension:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}=\text{const}T$$
(22)
Notice that Eq.(22) is perfectly consistent with the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$\- extended Weyl symmetry (17)–(18). Eq.(20) on the other hand is consistent with the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl symmetry only if $`M=0`$. We will see in the next paragraph that the equations of motion indeed imply that $`M=0`$. In the case of higher-dimensional $`p`$-branes, unlike the string case, the corresponding equations of motion will require a non-vanishing constant value of $`M`$ (cf. Eq.(48) below).

Let us turn our attention to the equations of motion derived from the variation of (16) with respect to $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left(_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)\frac{1}{2}\gamma _{ab}\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{cd}\right)=0$$
(23)
Solving the constraint Eq.(20) for $`\frac{\epsilon ^{cd}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{cd}`$ and inserting the result back into (23) we obtain (provided $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )0`$) :

$$\left(_aX^\mu _bX^\nu \frac{1}{2}\gamma _{ab}\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _dX^\nu \right)G_{\mu \nu }(X)+\frac{1}{2}\gamma _{ab}M=0$$
(24)
Multiplying the above equation by $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ and summing over $`a,b`$, we find that $`M=0`$, i.e., Eqs.(24) with $`M=0`$ are exactly of the form of Eqs.(8) coming from the standard Polyakov-type action (1) (recall also that it is only $`M=0`$ which is consistent with the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl invariance). After Eq.(22) is used, the equations obtained from the variation of the action (16) with respect to $`X^\mu `$ are seen to be exactly the same as those obtained from the usual Polyakov-type action as well.

2. Bosonic Strings with a Modified Measure: Canonical Approach

It is instructive to study the modified-measure string model (16) also within the framework of the canonical Hamiltonian formalism.

Before proceeding let us note that we can extend the model (16) by putting point-like charges on the string world-sheet which interact with the world-sheet gauge field $`A_a`$ :

$$S=S_{\mathrm{string}}\underset{i}{}e_i𝑑\tau A_0(\tau ,\sigma _i)$$
(25)
For the canonical momenta of $`\phi ^i,A_1,X^\mu `$ we obtain (using the short-hand notation $`L`$ from (16)) :

$$\pi _i^\phi =\epsilon _{ij}_\sigma \phi ^jL,\pi _{A_1}E=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}$$
(26)
$$𝒫_\mu =\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\left(\gamma ^{00}\dot{X}^\nu +\gamma ^{01}_\sigma X^\nu \right)G_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}_\sigma X^\nu B_{\mu \nu }\right]$$
(27)
Note particularly the second Eq.(26) showing that the ratio of the modified and the usual Riemannian integration-measure densities has the physical meaning of an electric field-strength on the world-sheet111In analogy with ordinary electrodynamics/Yang-Mills theory the canonically conjugated momentum $`\pi _{A_1}E`$ of the space-like gauge-field component $`A_1`$ is by definition the electric field- strength. However, unlike the ordinary case $`E`$ is now not proportional to $`F_{01}(A)`$; see also Sect.5 for the non-Abelian case..

We have also the following primary constraints:

$$\pi _{A_0}=0,\pi _{\gamma ^{ab}}=0,_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi =0$$
(28)
where the last constraint follows directly from the first Eq.(26). From (26)–(27) we can express the velocities in terms of the canonical coordinates and momenta as follows:

$$\dot{X}^\mu \dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})=\frac{G^{\mu \nu }}{\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{00}}\left(\frac{𝒫_\nu }{E}+_\sigma X^\lambda B_{\nu \lambda }\right)\frac{\gamma ^{01}}{\gamma ^{00}}_\sigma X^\mu $$
(29)
$`\dot{A}_1\dot{A}_1(\mathrm{})=_\sigma A_0\sqrt{\gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}}+\dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})_\sigma X^\nu B_{\mu \nu }`$
$`+\sqrt{\gamma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{00}\dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})\dot{X}^\nu (\mathrm{})+\gamma ^{01}\dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})_\sigma X^\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{11}_\sigma X^\mu _\sigma X^\nu \right)G_{\mu \nu }`$ (30)
In Eq.(30) we used the short-hand notation $`\dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})`$ defined in (29). Since the original Lagrangian $``$ in (16) is homogeneous of first order with respect to $`\dot{\phi }^i`$ we have $`\pi _i^\phi \dot{\phi }^i=0`$ and, therefore, the canonical Hamiltonian reads:

$`=𝒫_\mu \dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})+E\dot{A}_1(\mathrm{})`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{00}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{G^{\mu \nu }}{E}}\left(𝒫_\mu +E_\sigma X^\mu ^{}B_{\mu \mu ^{}}\right)\left(𝒫_\nu +E_\sigma X^\nu ^{}B_{\nu \nu ^{}}\right)+EG_{\mu \nu }_\sigma X^\mu _\sigma X^\nu \right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^{01}}{\gamma ^{00}}}𝒫_\mu _\sigma X^\mu +E_\sigma A_0E\sqrt{\gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}}+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}e_i\delta (\sigma \sigma _i)A_0`$ (31)
where we used the expressions for the velocities as functions of the canonical coordinates and momenta (29)–(30) and we also included the point-like charge interaction terms from (25). Commuting of the canonical Hamiltonian (31) with the primary constraints (28) leads to the following secondary constraints:

$$\frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}=0,_\sigma E\underset{i}{}e_i\delta (\sigma \sigma _i)=0$$
(32)
$$\frac{G^{\mu \nu }}{E}\left(𝒫_\mu +E_\sigma X^\mu ^{}B_{\mu \mu ^{}}\right)\left(𝒫_\nu +E_\sigma X^\nu ^{}B_{\nu \nu ^{}}\right)+EG_{\mu \nu }_\sigma X^\mu _\sigma X^\nu =0$$
(33)
$$𝒫_\mu _\sigma X^\mu \left(𝒫_\mu +E_\sigma X^\nu B_{\mu \nu }\right)_\sigma X^\mu =0$$
(34)
In particular, we obtain that the canonical Hamiltonian is a linear combination of constraints only.

The Poisson algebra of the constraints can straightforwardly be computed. First, we observe that the last constraint in (28) span (centerless) Virasoro algebra:

$$\{_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi (\sigma ),_\sigma ^{}\phi ^i\pi _i^\phi (\sigma ^{})\}=2_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi (\sigma )_\sigma \delta (\sigma \sigma ^{})+_\sigma \left(_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi \right)\delta (\sigma \sigma ^{})$$
(35)
The only nontrivial commutator of the latter with the rest of the constraints is:

$$\{_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi (\sigma ),\frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}(\sigma ^{})\}=_\sigma \left(\frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}\right)\delta (\sigma \sigma ^{})$$
(36)
Therefore, both constraints $`_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi `$ and $`\frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}`$ span a closed algebra of first-class constraints, which implies that all auxiliary scalars $`\phi ^i`$ entering the modified measure (2) are pure-gauge degrees of freedom.

Next, we observe that the second constraint in (32) is nothing but Gauss-law first-class constraint for the world-sheet Abelian gauge field, with $`E`$ being the corresponding electric field-strength. Obviously, $`E`$ is piece-wise constant (with respect to $`\sigma `$) on the world-sheet with jumps at the locations of the point-like charges:

$$E=E_0+\underset{i}{}e_i\theta (\sigma \sigma _i)$$
(37)
Moreover, since the canonical Hamiltonian (31) does not depend explicitly on $`A_1`$, $`E`$ is conserved (world-sheet time-independent).

Finally, the constraints (33)–(34), or more properly, the linear combinations thereof:

$$𝒯_\pm \frac{1}{4}G^{\mu \nu }\left(\frac{𝒫_\mu }{E}\pm (G_{\mu \kappa }\pm B_{\mu \kappa })_\sigma X^\kappa \right)\left(\frac{𝒫_\nu }{E}\pm (G_{\nu \lambda }\pm B_{\nu \lambda })_\sigma X^\lambda \right)$$
(38)
span the same first-class constraint algebra of two mutually commuting centerless Virasoro algebras as in the case of ordinary Polyakov-type string (in the standard case $`H_{\mu \nu \lambda }(B)3_{[\mu }B_{\nu \lambda ]}=0`$) provided we identify the constant world-sheet electric field $`E`$ with the ordinary string tension $`T`$.

To summarize so far, we find that the modified-measure string model (16) (or (25)), containing no ad hoc dimensionfull parameters, produces a dynamically generated effective string tension, which is equal to the ratio of the modified and usual Riemannian integration-measure densities, and which has the physical meaning of a world-sheet electric field strength. As a result the dynamical string tension is (piece-wise) constant along the string with possible jumps at the locations of attached point-like charges (see Sect.5.3 for explicit examples).

3. Bosonic Branes with a Modified Measure

The action of bosonic $`p`$-branes with a modified world-volume integration measure reads (cf. ):

$`S_{p\mathrm{brane}}={\displaystyle }d^{p+1}\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}}{(p+1)\sqrt{\gamma }}}(_{a_1}X^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{a_{p+1}}X^{\mu _{p+1}}B_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{p+1}}F_{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}(A))]{\displaystyle }d^{p+1}\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L`$ (39)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\frac{1}{(p+1)!}\epsilon _{i_1\mathrm{}i_{p+1}}\epsilon ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}_{a_1}\phi ^{i_1}\mathrm{}_{a_{p+1}}\phi ^{i_{p+1}}=\frac{1}{p!}\epsilon _{ij_1\mathrm{}j_p}\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}\dot{\phi }^i_{\alpha _1}\phi ^{j_1}\mathrm{}_{\alpha _p}\phi ^{j_p}$$
(40)
Here the following notations are used:

$$\underset{¯}{\sigma }\left(\sigma ^a\right)(\sigma ^0\tau ,\sigma ^\alpha )(\tau ,\stackrel{}{\sigma });F_{a_1\mathrm{}\alpha _{p+1}}(A)=(p+1)_{[a_1}A_{a_2\mathrm{}a_{p+1}]}$$
(41)
where $`a,b=0,1,\mathrm{},p`$; $`\alpha ,\beta =1,\mathrm{},p`$; $`i,j=1,\mathrm{},p+1`$; $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,\mathrm{},D1`$; $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`B_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{p+1}}`$ denote space-time metric and antisymmetric $`p+1`$-rank tensor external fields, respectively. Also, it is convenient within the Hamiltonian formalism to introduce the following notations:

$$\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}F_{0\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}(A)=\dot{𝒜}_\alpha 𝒜_0^\alpha $$
(42)
with:

$$𝒜\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}A_{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p},𝒜_0^\alpha \epsilon ^{\alpha \beta _1\mathrm{}\beta _{p1}}A_{0\beta _1\mathrm{}\beta _{p1}}$$
(43)
In analogy with the string case we can put (closed) $`(p1)`$-branes on the world-volume of the modified-measure $`p`$-brane (39) coupled to the latter via the auxiliary world-volume $`p`$-form gauge field $`A_{a_1\mathrm{}a_p}`$ giving rise to the following additional term in the action (39) :

$`S=S_{p\mathrm{brane}}+S_{(p1)\mathrm{brane}}`$
$`S_{(p1)\mathrm{brane}}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}e_i{\displaystyle d^{p+1}\sigma A_{a_1\mathrm{}a_p}(\underset{¯}{\sigma })d^pu\frac{1}{p!}\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}\frac{\sigma _i^{a_1}}{u^{\alpha _1}}\mathrm{}\frac{\sigma _i^{a_p}}{u^{\alpha _p}}\delta ^{(p+1)}\left(\underset{¯}{\sigma }\underset{¯}{\sigma }_i(\underset{¯}{u})\right)}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}e_i{\displaystyle d^{p+1}\sigma 𝒜_0^\alpha (\underset{¯}{\sigma })d^{p1}u\frac{1}{(p1)!}\epsilon _{\alpha \alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _{p1}}\frac{1}{(p1)!}\epsilon ^{m_1\mathrm{}m_{p1}}\frac{\sigma _i^{\alpha _1}}{u^{m_1}}\mathrm{}\frac{\sigma _i^{\alpha _{p1}}}{u^{m_{p1}}}\delta ^{(p)}\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i(\stackrel{}{u})\right)}`$ (44)
Here $`\underset{¯}{u}\left(u^0=\tau ,u^m\right)(\tau ,\stackrel{}{u})`$ with $`m=1,\mathrm{},p1`$ are the world-volume parameters of the pertinent $`(p1)`$-branes embedded in the world-volume of the original $`p`$-brane via the parameter equations $`\underset{¯}{\sigma }=\underset{¯}{\sigma }_i(\underset{¯}{u})`$ (and we have chosen the static gauge $`\sigma ^0\tau =u^0`$ for all of them)222In what follows we assume that the $`(p1)`$-branes do not intersect each other on the original $`p`$-brane world-volume.. Also, in the second equality (44) we have used the notations from (43).

The Lagrangian formalism analysis of the modified-measure $`p`$-brane model (without attached lower-dimensional branes) (39) has been performed in . It parallels the analysis of the modified-measure string model (cf. Sect.1) where the analogues of Eqs.(20)–(23) now read (taking for simplicity $`B_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{p+1}}=0`$) :

$$\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }\frac{\epsilon ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}}{(p+1)\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}(A)=M$$
(45)
$$\epsilon ^{aa_1\mathrm{}a_p}_a\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\right)=0\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}=\mathrm{const}T$$
(46)
$$_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }\frac{\gamma _{ab}}{(p+1)\sqrt{\gamma }}\epsilon ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}F_{a_1\mathrm{}a_{p+1}}(A)=0$$
(47)
In Eq.(45) $`M`$ denotes arbitrary integration constant which enters the relation between the intrinsic and the induced metrics on the $`p`$-brane world-volume which follows from (45) and (47):

$$\gamma _{ab}=\frac{p1}{2M}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }$$
(48)
Also we have:

$$_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }\frac{\gamma _{ab}}{p+1}\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _cX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }=0$$
(49)
The arbitrariness of $`M`$ is due to the manifest invariance of the modified-measure $`p`$-brane action (39) under the following global scale symmetry  :

$$\phi ^i\lambda _i\phi ^i,\gamma _{ab}\left(\underset{i}{}\lambda _i\right)\gamma _{ab},A_{a_1\mathrm{}a_p}\left(\underset{i}{}\lambda _i\right)^{\frac{p1}{2}}A_{a_1\mathrm{}a_p}$$
(50)
which can be used to fix the value of $`M`$, e.g., $`M=\frac{1}{2}(p1)`$. Note that the “boundary” term (44) is not invariant under the scale symmetry (50), unless we simultaneously rescale the “charge” coupling constants $`e_i`$. Moreover, unlike the string case there is no analogue of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl symmetry (17)–(18) for the modified-measure $`p`$-brane model (39). The reason is due to the fact that for $`p2`$ the standard measure density $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$ transforms differently $`\sqrt{\gamma }\left(J(\phi )\right)^{\frac{p+1}{2}}\sqrt{\gamma }`$ than the modified measure density $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )`$ (17) (cf. refs.).

The canonical Hamiltonian treatment of the $`p`$-brane model (39) with attached $`(p1)`$-branes on its world-volume similarly follows the same steps as the canonical treament of the modified-measure string model in the previous Section. For the canonical momenta of $`\phi ^i,𝒜,X^\mu `$ we have (using the short-hand notation $`L`$ from (39)) :

$$\pi _i^\phi =\epsilon _{ij_1\mathrm{}j_p}\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}_{\alpha _1}\phi ^{j_1}\mathrm{}_{\alpha _p}\phi ^{j_p}L,\pi _𝒜=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}$$
(51)
$$𝒫_\mu =\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\left(\gamma ^{00}\dot{X}^\nu +\gamma ^{0\alpha }_\alpha X^\nu \right)G_{\mu \nu }\frac{\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}_{\alpha _1}X^{\nu _1}\mathrm{}_{\alpha _p}X^{\nu _p}B_{\mu \nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _p}\right]$$
(52)
Also, similarly to (28) we have the following primary constraints:

$$\pi _{𝒜_0^\alpha }=0,\pi _{\gamma ^{ab}}=0,_\alpha \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi =0$$
(53)
where the last Virasoro-like constraints follow directly from the first Eq.(51).

At this point it is convenient to reexpress the world-volume Riemannian metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$ in terms of its purely space-like part $`\gamma _{\alpha \beta }`$ and the associated shift vector $`N^\alpha `$ and lapse function $`N`$ (see e.g. ) :

$$\gamma _{00}=N^2\overline{\gamma }+\overline{\gamma }_{\alpha \beta }N^\alpha N^\beta ,\gamma _{0\alpha }=\overline{\gamma }_{\alpha \beta }N^\beta ,\overline{\gamma }_{\alpha \beta }=\gamma _{\alpha \beta }$$
(54)
where $`\overline{\gamma }=det\gamma _{\alpha \beta }`$. In particular, $`\sqrt{\gamma }=N\overline{\gamma }`$.

Using Eqs.(51)–(52) and the notations (54) we find the following canonical Hamiltonian (cf. Eq.(31)) :

$`={\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{G^{\mu \nu }}{}}\stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\mu \stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\nu +\overline{\gamma }\gamma ^{\alpha \beta }G_{\mu \nu }_\alpha X^\mu _\beta X^\nu \right)+NF(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )`$
$`N^\alpha \stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\mu _\alpha X^\mu +_\alpha 𝒜_0^\alpha +\left((p1)\mathrm{brane}\mathrm{terms}\right)`$ (55)
with the short-hand notations:

$`\stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\mu 𝒫_\mu +\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}_{\alpha _1}X^{\mu _1}\mathrm{}_{\alpha _p}X^{\mu _p}B_{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}`$
$$F(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )(p1)!\underset{i=2}{\overset{p+1}{}}\frac{\pi _i^\phi }{\epsilon _{ij_1\mathrm{}j_p}\epsilon ^{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _p}_{\alpha _1}\phi ^{j_1}\mathrm{}_{\alpha _p}\phi ^{j_p}}$$
(56)
and where the last terms in (55) come from (44).

Commuting the canonical Hamiltonian (55) with the primary constraints (53) (where upon using the notations (54) we have $`\pi _N=0,\pi _{N^\alpha }=0,\pi _{\overline{\gamma }^{\alpha \beta }}=0`$ instead of $`\pi _{\gamma ^{ab}}=0`$) we obtain a set of secondary constraints. Using the Poisson-bracket relation:

$$\{_\alpha \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi (\stackrel{}{\sigma }),F(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )(\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{})\}=\delta (\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\sigma }^{})_aF(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )(\stackrel{}{\sigma })$$
(57)
we get the following secondary constraint:

$$_\alpha F(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )=0F(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )=2M\mathrm{const}$$
(58)
where $`M`$ is arbitrary constant (it is the Hamiltonian counterpart of the arbitrary integration constant $`M`$ appearing within the Lagrangian treatment, cf. Eq.(45)). Once again, as in the string case, we find that the Virasoro-like constraints $`_\alpha \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi `$ together with $`F(\pi ^\phi ,\phi )+2M=0`$ (the latter being defined in (56)) form a closed algebra of first class constraints implying that the auxiliary scalar fields $`\phi ^i`$ are pure-gauge degrees of freedom.

Next, commuting (55) with $`\pi _{𝒜_0^\alpha }`$ yields:

$$_\alpha (\underset{¯}{\sigma })+\underset{i}{}e_id^{p1}u\frac{1}{(p1)!}\epsilon _{\alpha \alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _{p1}}\frac{1}{(p1)!}\epsilon ^{m_1\mathrm{}m_{p1}}\frac{\sigma _i^{\alpha _1}}{u^{m_1}}\mathrm{}\frac{\sigma _i^{\alpha _{p1}}}{u^{m_{p1}}}\delta ^{(p)}\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i(\stackrel{}{u})\right)=0$$
(59)
which is the $`p`$-brane analog of the “Gauss” law constraint in the string case (second Eq.(32)). Further, since the canonical Hamiltonian (55) does not depend explicitly on $`𝒜`$ (43) (canonically conjugate to $``$), the $`p`$-brane “electric” field strength $``$ is conserved (world-volume time-independent) and as long as it obeys the generalized “Gauss law” on the world-volume Eq.(59), $``$ is also world-volume piece-wise constant field with jumps along the normals equal to the “charge” $`e_i`$ when crossing the world-hypersurface of the $`i`$-th $`(p1)`$-brane.

The rest of the secondary constraints reads:

$$\frac{G^{\mu \nu }}{}\stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\mu \stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\nu +\overline{\gamma }\gamma ^{\alpha \beta }G_{\mu \nu }_\alpha X^\mu _\beta X^\nu 4M\overline{\gamma }=0$$
(60)
$$\stackrel{~}{𝒫}_\mu _\alpha X^\mu =0,_\alpha X^\mu _\beta X^\nu G_{\mu \nu }\frac{2M}{p1}\overline{\gamma }_{\alpha \beta }=0$$
(61)
We now observe that for the special choice $`M=\frac{1}{2}(p1)`$, and provided we identify the “electric” field strength $``$ as a dynamical brane tension $`T`$, the constraints (60)–(61) coincide with the secondary constraints within the Hamiltonian treatment of the usual Polyakov-like $`p`$-brane (the latter together with the primary constraints form a mixture of first-class and second-class constraints).

Thus, we conclude that the modified-measure $`p`$-brane model (39) possesses, apart from the same brane degrees of freedom as the standard Polyakov-like $`p`$-brane, an additional brane degree of freedom $``$ – an world-volume “electric” field strength, which can be identified as a dynamical brane tension and which, according to Eq.(59), may be variable in general.

4. Superstrings with a Modified Measure

We consider the following Green-Schwarz-type of superstring action with a modified world-sheet integration measure:

$$S_{\mathrm{superstring}}=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}\mathrm{\Pi }_a^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{b\mu }+\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_a^\mu \left(\theta \sigma _\mu _b\theta \right)+\frac{1}{2}F_{ab}(A)\right)\right]d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L$$
(62)
with the same notations as in (16) and (2) (for simplicity we take now $`G_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu },B_{\mu \nu }=0`$) and where:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_a^\mu _aX^\mu +i\theta \sigma ^\mu _a\theta $$
(63)
Here $`\theta (\theta ^\alpha )`$ ($`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},16`$) denotes 16-dimensional Majorana-Weyl spinor in the embedding $`D=10`$ space-time, whereas $`\sigma ^\mu \left((\sigma ^\mu )_{\alpha \beta }\right)`$ indicate the upper diagonal $`16\times 16`$ blocks of the $`32\times 32`$ matrices $`𝒞^1\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ and $`𝒞`$ beying the $`D=10`$ Dirac and charge-conjugation matrices, respectively.

The Lagrangian in (62) is explicitly invariant under space-time supersymmetry transformations:

$$\delta _ϵ\theta =ϵ,\delta _ϵX^\mu =i\left(ϵ\sigma ^\mu \theta \right),\delta _ϵA_a=i\left(ϵ\sigma _\mu \theta \right)(_aX^\mu +\frac{i}{3}\theta \sigma ^\mu _a\theta )$$
(64)
In particular, the algebra of supersymmetry transformations (64) closes on $`A_a`$ up to a gauge transformation:

$$\{\delta _{ϵ_1},\delta _{ϵ_2}\}A_a=_a\left(\frac{2}{3}\left(ϵ_1\sigma ^\mu \theta \right)\left(ϵ_2\sigma _\mu \theta \right)\right)$$
(65)
Let us note that the action (62) bears resemblance to the modified Green-Schwarz superstring action proposed by Siegel  provided we replace the modified integration measure density $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )`$ with the ordinary one $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$ and provided we redefine the auxiliary gauge field $`A_a`$ as fermionic bilinear composite $`A_a=i\theta _\alpha _a\varphi ^\alpha `$ (cf. second ref.) with $`\varphi `$ indicating Siegel’s auxiliary fermionic world-sheet field which is a space-time spinor similar to $`\theta `$. However, let us emphasize that our present approach to the modified-measure superstring model (62) is consistently based on a fundamental (non-composite) gauge field $`A_a`$.

For the canonical momenta of $`\phi ^i,A_1,X^\mu ,\theta `$ we have (using the short-hand notation $`L`$ from (62) and (63)) :

$$\pi _i^\phi =\epsilon _{ij}_\sigma \phi ^jL,\pi _{A_1}E=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}$$
(66)
$$𝒫_\mu =\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\left(\gamma ^{00}\mathrm{\Pi }_{0\mu }\gamma ^{01}\mathrm{\Pi }_{1\mu }\right)+\frac{i}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\left(\theta \sigma _\mu \theta ^{}\right)\right]$$
(67)
$$𝒫_\theta =\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\left(\gamma ^{00}\mathrm{\Pi }_{0\mu }\gamma ^{01}\mathrm{\Pi }_{1\mu }\right)\frac{i}{\sqrt{\gamma }}X_\mu ^{}\right]i\theta \sigma ^\mu $$
(68)
where the prime now indicates the derivative $`_\sigma `$. From (67)–(68) and taking into account the second Eq.(66) we obtain the fermionic primary constraint:

$$i𝒟𝒫_\theta (𝒫_\mu E\mathrm{\Pi }_{1,\mu })i\theta \sigma ^\mu =0$$
(69)
Therefore, we have the following set of primary constraints:

$$\pi _{A_0}=0,\pi _{\gamma ^{ab}}=0,_\sigma \phi ^i\pi _i^\phi =0,𝒟=0$$
(70)
Now, for the velocities as functions of the canonical coordinate and momenta we get:

$$\dot{X}^\mu +i\theta \sigma ^\mu \dot{\theta }\mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{00}}\left(\frac{𝒫^\mu }{E}+i\theta \sigma ^\mu \theta ^{}\right)\frac{\gamma ^{01}}{\gamma ^{00}}\mathrm{\Pi }_1^\mu $$
(71)
$`\dot{A}_1i\mathrm{\Pi }_1^\mu \left(\theta \sigma _\mu \dot{\theta }\right)\dot{𝒜}_1(\mathrm{})=_\sigma A_0\sqrt{\gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}}+`$
$`\sqrt{\gamma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{00}\mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})\mathrm{\Pi }_{0\mu }(\mathrm{})+\gamma ^{01}\mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})\mathrm{\Pi }_{1m}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma ^{11}\mathrm{\Pi }_1^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{1m}\right)i\left(\theta \sigma _\mu \theta ^{}\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})`$ (72)
In Eq.(72) we used the short-hand notation $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})`$ defined in (71). The canonical Hamiltonian reads:

$$=𝒫_\mu \dot{X}^\mu (\mathrm{})+𝒫_\theta \dot{\theta }(\mathrm{})+E\dot{A}_1(\mathrm{})+i\mathrm{\Lambda }_\alpha 𝒟^\alpha =𝒫_\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_0^\mu (\mathrm{})+E\dot{𝒜}_1(\mathrm{})+i𝒟\left(\dot{\theta }(\mathrm{})\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)$$
(73)
Here $`(\mathrm{})`$ indicate that all velocities as considered as functions of the canonical coordinate and momenta according to (71)–(72); $`𝒟`$ is the fermionic primary constraint (69) and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the corresponding fermionic Lagrange multiplier which is determined from the requirement of the preservation of the constraint $`𝒟`$ under the Hamiltonian dynamics by (73). Inserting in (73) the expressions (71)–(72) we obtain:

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{00}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E}}\left(𝒫^\mu iE\left(\theta \sigma ^\mu \theta ^{}\right)\right)\left(𝒫_\mu iE\left(\theta \sigma _\mu \theta ^{}\right)\right)+E\mathrm{\Pi }_1^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{1\mu }\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^{01}}{\gamma ^{00}}}\left(𝒫_\mu iE\left(\theta \sigma _\mu \theta ^{}\right)\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_1^\mu +i\mathrm{\Lambda }𝒟+E_\sigma A_0E\sqrt{\gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}}`$ (74)
Commuting of the canonical Hamiltonian (74) with the primary constraints (70) leads to the following secondary constraints:

$$\frac{\pi _2^\phi }{_\sigma \phi _1}=0,_\sigma E=0\left(\text{“Gauss  law”}\right)$$
(75)
$$𝒯_+\frac{1}{4}[\frac{𝒫}{E}+E(X^{}2i\theta \sigma \theta ^{})]^2i\theta ^{}𝒟=0,𝒯_+\frac{1}{4}(\frac{𝒫}{E}EX^{})^2$$
(76)
Therefore, as in the purely bosonic case we conclude that the canonical Hamiltonian is a linear combination of constraints only.

As in the bosonic case, the constraints involving the auxiliary scalar fields $`\phi ^i`$ span the same Poisson-bracket algebra (35)–(36) and, therefore, the auxiliary scalars are again pure-gauge degrees of freedom. The rest of the constraint algebra is the same as in the case of the standard Green-Schwarz formulation333Let us recall that the fermionic spinor constraint $`𝒟`$ (69) contains a Lorentz non-covariant mixture of first-class (“kappa”-symmetry) and second-class constraints. To solve the problem of super-Poincare covariant quantization of the standard Green-Schwarz superstring a new reformulation of the latter has been proposed in refs. involving a special set of auxiliary bosonic pure-gauge world-sheet scalar fields (“harmonic” variables). For recent developments on this subject, see  and references therein. provided (in full analogy with the purely bosonic case) we identify the world-sheet “electric” field strength $`E`$ as dynamically generated string tension $`T`$.

5. Strings with “$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-Extended Weyl Invariant” Action for Non-Abelian World-Sheet Gauge Field

5.1 The Regular-Measure Version of the Theory

As it is well known, in four space-time dimensions the standard gauge field action $`\sqrt{g}d^4xTr(F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu })`$ is invariant under transformations $`g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x)g_{\mu \nu }`$, i.e., it is conformally invariant. In $`D=2`$, the appropriate conformally invariant action, provided we use the standard measure $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$, would be:

$$d^2\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{T}r(F_{ab}(A)F_{cd}(A))\gamma ^{ac}\gamma ^{bd}}=d^2\sigma \sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}(A)F_{01}(A))}$$
(77)
where:

$$F_{ab}(A)=_aA_b_bA_c+i[A_a,A_b]$$
(78)
is a non-Abelian world-sheet gauge field-strength and we have used $`F_{ab}(A)=\epsilon _{ab}F_{01}(A)`$. As we see, the action (77) is not only independent of the conformal factor in the metric, but also it is totally metric independent, i.e., the $`D=2`$ “square-root Yang-Mills” model (77) is topological in the same sense as, e.g., the $`D=3`$ Chern-Simmons model. Due to this fact the string and gauge degrees of freedom turn out to be decoupled.

To see that such theory does not lead to a well defined dynamics and instead a modified-measure version of (77) is necessary, we consider first the equations of motion that result from (77). Variation with respect to gauge fields $`A_a`$ yields:

$$_a\left(\frac{F_{01}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}}\right)=0$$
(79)
or, equivalently:

$$_aF_{01}F_{01}\frac{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}_aF_{01})}{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01}}=0$$
(80)
which in turn are equivalent to the equations:

$$_aF_{01}=_afF_{01}$$
(81)
with $`ff(\tau ,\sigma )`$ being an arbitrary colorless world-sheet scalar field. The general solution of (81) reads:

$$F_{01}=G^1e^{f(\tau ,\sigma )}_0G$$
(82)
$$A_0=G^1(_0^\sigma d\sigma ^{}e^{f(\tau ,\sigma ^{})})GiG^1_\tau G,A_1=iG^1_\sigma G$$
(83)
where $`G`$ is arbitrary $`(\tau ,\sigma )`$-dependent element of the gauge group (reflecting the gauge freedom) whereas $`_0`$ is arbitrary constant element of the corresponding Lie algebra.

Thus, we see that in the $`D=2`$ “square-root Yang-Mills” action (77) there is an additional freedom in equations of motion (beyond the usual non-Abelian gauge symmetry) which is manifested in the appearance of the arbitrary (not determined by the dynamics) world-sheet scalar field $`f(\tau ,\sigma )`$ in (81)–(83).

This can be equivalently understood from the canonical Hamiltonian point of view. Namely, one can show that the canonical Hamiltonian of the $`D=2`$ “square-root Yang-Mills” model (77) is a linear combination of first-class constraints only in contrast to the ordinary Yang-Mills case:

$$=\mathrm{T}r\left(\left(_\sigma A_0+i[A_1,A_0]\right)\right)+\mathrm{\Lambda }_0\pi _{A_0}+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2}\left(\mathrm{T}r^21\right)$$
(84)
where $`\pi _{A_0}`$ and $`=\frac{F_{01}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}}`$ are the canonical momenta of $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$, respectively, and where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0,\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are the corresponding Lagrange multipliers. Notice the appearance of the third first-class constraint term in (84) instead of the standard non-constraint term $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{T}r^2`$. Moreover, the total number of first-class constraints in (84) exceeds the number of the underlying degrees of freedom.

5.2 Modified-Measure Version – The Case of Closed Strings without Charges

We will now see that the modified-measure version of Non-Abelian world-sheet gauge fields has a well defined dynamics (in contrast to the regular measure case of the previous subsection) provided that the theory possesses the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl symmetry. We consider the following non-Abelian generalization of the original bosonic string action with a modified measure (16) (now we take for simplicity $`G_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ and $`B_{\mu \nu }=0`$) :

$`S={\displaystyle d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu \sqrt{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{T}r(F_{ab}(A)F_{cd}(A))\gamma ^{ac}\gamma ^{bd}}\right]}`$
$$=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu \frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}(A)F_{01}(A))}\right]d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L$$
(85)
where $`F_{ab}(A)`$ is the non-Abelian world-sheet gauge field-strength as in (78).

Similar to what we have seen in Sec.1, the variation with respect to the measure $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ degrees of freedom $`\phi ^i`$ leads to the equation (provided that $`\mathrm{\Phi }0`$):

$$\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu \frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}=M$$
(86)
Varying the action (85) with respect to $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ we get:

$$_aX^\mu _bX_\mu \frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\gamma _{ab}\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}=0$$
(87)
Contracting this equation with $`\gamma ^{ab}`$ and comparing with (86) we conclude that again, similar to what has been shown in the simpler model of Section 1, $`M=0`$ and we obtain finally:

$$\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu =\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}$$
(88)
$$_aX^\mu _bX_\mu \gamma _{ab}\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{cd}_cX^\mu _cX_\mu =0$$
(89)
Varying the action (85) with respect to $`A_a`$ we obtain:

$$_a_a+i[A_a,]=0,\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\frac{F_{01}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}}$$
(90)
with $``$ being the non-Abelian electric field-strength – the canonically conjugated momentum of $`A_1`$. Accordingly, Eq.(90) for $`a=1`$ represents the non-Abelian Gauss law on the world-sheet. Using Eqs.(90) one can easily show:

$$0=\mathrm{T}r\left(_a\right)=\frac{1}{2}_a\left(\mathrm{T}r^2\right)=\frac{1}{2}_a\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\right)^2$$
(91)
i.e., the ratio of the measure densities (the magnitude of the non-Abelian electric field-strength), which plays the role of a dynamically generated string tension, is again constant: $`|||\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}|=\mathrm{const}`$. The equations of motion (90) , upon using this fact, coincide with the equations (80) (Eqs.(81)–(83) similarly hold). However, in contrast to the regular measure version of the theory, now in the context of the modified-measure model (85) we have the equation (88) which upon substituting the solution (82) in $`\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r(F_{01}F_{01})}=e^{f(\tau ,\sigma )}\sqrt{\mathrm{T}r_0^2}`$ determines completely the function $`f(\tau ,\sigma )`$ in terms of the string solution.

5.3 Charges, Strings and Classical Mechanism for Confinement

Classical treatment of strings in the context of the Polyakov approach (with the regular measure density $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$) allows two possibilities for the string topology: the first one is a closed string where the string tension is a constant all over the string; the second possibility is an open string with end-points (and/or ad hoc with point-like charges at the end-points).

In the modified-measure string theory there are more possibilities due to the dynamical mechanism of tension generation. In fact, for both cases, i.e., for closed and open strings, one can study models where one or more point-like charges $`C_i`$, in general non-Abelian “color” ones, are located inside the string444Generically one can consider smooth charge or current distributions along the string. Such more general cases we will study elsewhere; see also Apendix.. A simple model describing this situation consists of adding to the action (85) the following interaction term:

$$S_{int}=\underset{i}{}\frac{d\sigma ^a}{d\tau _i}\mathrm{T}r(C_iA_a)d\tau _i$$
(92)
where $`\tau _i`$ indicate the corresponding proper times. In the simplest case of static “color” charges $`C_i`$ localized at the points $`\sigma _i,(i=1,2,\mathrm{})`$, Eq.(92) reads:

$$S_{int,static}=\underset{i}{}\mathrm{T}rC_i𝑑\tau A_0(\tau ,\sigma _i)$$
(93)
The only changes in the equations of motion, comparing to the equations of the previous subsection, occur in Eq.(90) which in the axial gauge ($`A_1=0`$) take the form:

$$_\sigma \underset{i}{}C_i\delta (\sigma \sigma _i)=0$$
(94)
with $``$ as defined in the second Eq.(90).

Let us first consider the solution of the “Gauss law” Eq.(94) in the case with two static point-like (color) charges $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ localized at the points $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$ with $`\sigma _1<\sigma _2`$. To get this solution we perform integration in (94) over $`\sigma `$ from some $`\sigma <\sigma _1`$ up to some $`\sigma >\sigma _2`$. Then we obtain:

$$(\sigma )=\{\begin{array}{ccc}_1\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma <\sigma _1\hfill & \\ _2\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma _1<\sigma <\sigma _2\hfill & \\ _3\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma >\sigma _2\hfill & \end{array}\mathrm{and}_2_1=C_1,_3_2=C_2$$
(95)
To realize the physical case of such an open string (no periodic boundary conditions in $`\sigma `$ are assumed) with finite energy we have to consider a finite string which is possible only if $`_1_30`$. Then the charges $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ appears to be the end-points and it follows from (95) that:

$$C_1+C_2=0\mathrm{and}_2=C_1$$
(96)
Therefore, Eq.(96) becomes the statement for color confinement of the two point-like charges $`C_i`$ (“quarks”) in a colorless “meson-like state” as a result of the variable dynamical tension of the string connecting them.

In a similar way one can construct a classical string model for baryons. Let us consider a closed string parametrized by $`\sigma (0\sigma 2\pi )`$ with three static point-like color charges $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$, $`C_3`$ localized at the points $`\sigma _1`$, $`\sigma _2`$, $`\sigma _3`$, respectively. Then solving Eq.(94) we obtain for the “chromoelectric” field, i.e., the dynamical string tension (90) :

$$(\sigma )=\{\begin{array}{ccc}_{12}\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma _1=0<\sigma <\sigma _2\hfill & \\ _{23}\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma _2<\sigma <\sigma _3\hfill & \\ _{31}\hfill & \text{ for }\sigma _3<\sigma <2\pi \hfill & \end{array}$$
(97)
where $`_{12}`$, $`_{23}`$, $`_{31}`$ are constants, which implies:

$$_{12}_{31}=C_1,_{23}_{12}=C_2,_{31}_{23}=C_3$$
(98)
Summing Eqs.(98) we get:

$$C_1+C_2+C_3=0$$
(99)
which means that color confinement appears again, now in the case of a “baryon-like” configuration.

Notice that not only the orientations of $`_{12}`$, $`_{23}`$, $`_{31}`$ in color space, but also their magnitude are different in general. The last statement follows from the fact that Eq.(91) does not hold in the points where the charges are located. This means that the charges can be sources of discontinuities of the tension (notice that the second equation in (90) still holds). This is possible here precisely due to the identification of the string tension with the ratio of the measure densities $`\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}`$ (second Eq.(90)) being also the magnitude of the pertinent world-sheet “chromoelectric” field strength. Due to these properties we may call the above modified-measure string model with a $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-extended Weyl-invariant non-Abelian world-sheet gauge field action (85) a “color” string model.

The above simple picture of point-like charge confinement via “color” strings can be straightforwardly generalized to the case of higher-dimensional branes. Namely, let us consider $`N`$ non-intersecting “charged” closed $`(p1)`$-branes living on a closed $`p`$-brane whose dynamics is governed by the modified-measure brane action (39) and (44). Let us also recall that the dynamically generated brane tension $``$ (cf. second Eq.(51)) obeys the brane “Gauss law” constraint Eq.(59). Denoting by $`_i`$ the constant value of $``$ in the strip on the fixed-time world-hypersurface of the $`p`$-brane situated between the $`(i1)`$-th and the $`i`$-th “charged” $`(p1)`$-branes we find from (59) :

$$_{i+1}=_i+e_i,i=0,1,\mathrm{},N\mathrm{with}_0_N,e_0e_N$$
(100)
Summing up Eqs.(100) we find similarly to the string case that the only possible configuration of static “charged” closed $`(p1)`$-branes coupled pair-wise via modified-measure $`p`$-branes (39) is the zero-charge one.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

We have seen above how modifying the world-sheet (world-volume) measure of integration can significantly affect the implications of string and brane dynamics. First of all, it turns out that to get an acceptable dynamics, the corresponding string and brane theories need the introduction of auxiliary world-sheet gauge field (world-volume $`p`$-form tensor gauge field). Furthermore, the tension of the string or brane is not any more a fundamental parameter (i.e., a given ad hoc scale): it is dynamically determined as the magnitude of the pertinent gauge field strength and it is proportional to the ratio of the measure densities $`\mathrm{\Phi }/\sqrt{\gamma }`$. If no charges exist on the world-sheet (world-volume) then for closed strings (branes) the standard Polyakov type equations are obtained and the Poisson-bracket algebra of the relevant Hailtonian constraints is the same as that of the standard string (brane) theory. The same result holds also for the modified-measure superstring model.

The string tension is identified as the canonically conjugate momentum of the spatial component of the auxiliary world-sheet gauge potential, therefore, it assumes the role of an “electric” field strength. The latter is shown to obey the “Gauss law” equation. Thus, in the presence of world-sheet charges, the string tension can change dynamically. The latter becomes possible since the tension,i.e., the “electric” field strength is proportional to the ratio of the measure densities $`\mathrm{\Phi }/\sqrt{\gamma }`$. In particular, point-like charges living on the string can be responsible for discontinuous changes of the string tension. The special case, when the string tension changes from a finite value to zero, can be regarded as the formation of an “edge” on the string or, equivalently, as a new way of formulating open strings. We have shown that similar results hold also for modified-measure theories of $`p`$-branes. Namely, $`p`$-form (tensor gauge) charges living on the $`p`$-brane, in particular, lower-dimensional “charged” $`(p1)`$-branes lead to a dynamically changing brane tension.

Finally, we studied a conformally (Weyl-) invariant modified-measure string theory with non-Abelian gauge (“square-root Yang-Mills”) field living on the string world-sheet called “color” string. As a result, a simple classical mechanism for “color” confinement of point-like “color” charges via “color” strings is proposed with the colorlessness of the corresponding composite “hadrons” automatically emerging due to the new dynamics inherent in the modified-measure string model. Similar picture of confinement and colorlessness arises also for systems of “charged” $`(p1)`$-branes coupled via modified-measure $`p`$-branes.

As a byproduct, it is found that a nice geometrical meaning can be given for the auxiliary string world-sheet gauge fields: if these are of the abelian type, they can represent the world-sheet spin-connection associated with the (Abelian in $`1+1`$ dimensions) Lorentz group (see Eq.(14) above).

Notice that world-sheet gauge fields have also been considered in the very interesting work . In the latter case, however, a Nambu-Goto approach is employed so that the issue of conformal invariance peculiar to the Polyakov formulation is lost.

Acknowledgements. We want to thank Zvi Bern for useful discussions and encouragement. E.I.G. wants to thank the Physics Department at UCLA for its hospitality during the last stages of the research presented here. E.N. and S.P. are partially supported by Bulgarian NSF grant F-904/99 and by a travel grant from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Appendix. Strings with a Modified Measure Coupled to World-Sheet Currents

Let us briefly discuss the case of bosonic strings with a modified world-sheet integration measure coupled to an external space-time dilaton field. The pertinent action reads:

$$S=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu G_{\mu \nu }(X)R(\omega )𝒰(X)\right]d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L$$
(101)
with $`R(\omega )`$ being the scalar curvature of the $`D=2`$ spin connection $`\omega _a`$ defined in Eq.(14). Varying (101) with respect to $`\omega _a`$ we obtain once again dynamically generated string tension as:

$$E\pi _{\omega _1}=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}𝒰(X)=\mathrm{const}T$$
(102)
with $`\pi _{\omega _1}`$ being the canonically conjugated momentum of $`\omega _1`$, which brings the action (101) to the form:

$$S=Td^2\sigma \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu \frac{G_{\mu \nu }(X)}{𝒰(X)}$$
(103)
i.e., an action describing string motion in a conformally modified extenal space-time background with $`G_{\mu \nu }^{}(X)=G_{\mu \nu }(X)/𝒰(X)`$. Thus, the model (101) differs significantly from the ordinary Polyakov-type string coupled to a dilaton:

$$S=Td^2\sigma \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\gamma }\left[\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu +R(\gamma )𝒰(X)\right]$$
(104)
Now, let us consider a generalization of the string model (16) describing the coupling of the bosonic modified-measure string through the auxiliary gauge field $`A_a`$ to a conserved world-sheet current $`\epsilon ^{ab}_bv`$ where $`v`$ is a world-sheet scalar field:

$$S=d^2\sigma \mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )\left[\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX_\mu +\frac{1}{2}\gamma ^{ab}_av_bv\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{2\sqrt{\gamma }}F_{ab}(A)\right]+ϵd^2\sigma A_a\epsilon ^{ab}_bv$$
(105)
Notice that the last term in Eq.(105) can be rewritten in the form:

$$ϵ\sqrt{\gamma }d^2\sigma A_a\frac{\epsilon ^{ab}}{\sqrt{\gamma }}_bv$$
(106)
which means that by including this term we study a model which belongs to the class of Two Measures Theories  (TMT)555In $`D`$-dimensional space-time the action has generically the form:
$$S=d^Dx\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )L_1+d^Dx\sqrt{\gamma }L_2$$
(107) where the Lagrangian densities $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ are independent of the degrees of freedom $`\phi ^i`$ building up $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$..

The equations of motion with respect to $`A_a`$ read:

$$\epsilon ^{ab}_b(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}+ϵv)=0,i.e.\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}=Cϵv$$
(108)
where $`C`$ is a dynamically generated constant scale. The canonical Hamiltonian treatment of (105) is completely analogous to the simpler case of (16) in Sect.2. In particular, for the auxiliary “electric” field strength we obtain:

$$\pi _{A_1}E=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi )}{\sqrt{\gamma }}E+ϵv=C$$
(109)
(cf. Eq.(108)) and the canonical Hamiltonian becomes:

$$=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{00}}\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{1}{E}𝒫^2+E\left(_\sigma X\right)^2+\frac{1}{E}\left(\pi _v+ϵA_1\right)^2+E\left(_\sigma v\right)^2\right]+\frac{\gamma ^{01}}{\gamma ^{00}}\left[𝒫_\mu _\sigma X^\mu +\left(\pi _v+ϵA_1\right)_\sigma v\right]$$
(110)
We have skipped in (110) the linear combination of the rest of the primary (28) and secondary (32) constraints which remain unaltered by the presence of the new field $`v`$ except for the “Gauss law” constraint which now reads (cf. (109)) :

$$_\sigma \left(E+ϵv\right)=0$$
(111)
One can check that the basic constraints entering (110) span again a closed Poisson-bracket algebra which this time involves also the “Gauss law” constraint (111) and the following variable string tension equal to the world-sheet “electric” field (109) :

$$TE=Cϵv$$
(112)


text:
# On the spherical two-dimensional electron gas

## I Introduction

When a film of electrons on a flat helium surface reaches a critical density, the helium surface becomes unstable  and multielectron bubbles form . These multielectron bubbles are spherical cavities in the helium liquid, containing from a few to several tens of millions of electrons. The bubble radius $`R`$ is determined by balancing the Coulomb repulsion of the electrons in the bubble with the surface tension of the helium : for $`N=10000`$ electrons, the typical bubble radius is one micron, and scales as $`N^{2/3}`$ . Density functional calculations  indicate that the electrons inside the bubble are not spread out homogeneously, but instead form a thin spherical layer with thickness $`\delta R`$ and radius $`R\delta ,`$ anchored to the surface of the helium, with a binding energy of the order of several kelvin . The electrons are free to move in the directions tangential to the spherical helium surface, so that in effect they form a spherical two-dimensional electron gas (S2DEG).

Our present analysis of the spherical two-dimensional electron gas, albeit motivated by the study of multielectron bubbles, is equally relevant from a fundamental point of view: it is the logical next step to take after the analysis of the flat two-dimensional electron gas, a topic that keeps drawing renewed attention. Furthermore, S2DEGs also appear in doped semiconductor particles if carriers accumulate in a surface layer , in charged droplets , and in fullerenes, where the multipole excitation modes with angular momentum $`l=1,2,3,4`$ of the S2DEG have recently been investigated .

In this paper, we introduce a second-quantization formalism suited for the description of the S2DEG (in Sec. II). On the basis of this formalism, the angular-momentum dependent dielectric function of the S2DEG is derived within the RPA framework in Sec. III. Results are given for the single-particle and collective excitations of the S2DEG and the static structure factor dependence on the angular momentum quantum number in Sec. IV.

## II Hamiltonian of the S2DEG

Decompositions in plane waves $`\phi _𝐤(𝐫)e^{i𝐤.𝐫}`$ are well suited to handle the many-body problem in flat space, but are not appropriate to describe the many-body problem on a spherical surface. The non-interacting single-particle wave functions suitable for the description of the S2DEG are spherical harmonics, $`\phi _{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })=Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ represents the spherical angles $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\{\theta ,\varphi \}`$, and $`l,m`$ represent the angular momentum quantum numbers. We introduce the creation operator $`\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+`$ which creates an electron in the state $`\phi _{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ on the sphere if no electron is present in that state, and the annihilation operator $`\widehat{c}_{l,m}`$ which destroys an electron in the single-particle state $`\phi _{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$.

### A Kinetic energy

Within second quantization theory (see e.g. ), the kinetic energy operator can be written as a function of $`\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+`$ and $`\widehat{c}_{l,m}`$ as follows

$`\widehat{T}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=l^{}}{\overset{l^{}}{}}}\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+\left[{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\text{ }Y_{l,m}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega })\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_\text{e}R^2}\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{\Omega }Y_{l^{},m^{}}(\mathrm{\Omega })}\right]\widehat{c}_{l^{},m^{}}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2l(l+1)}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+\widehat{c}_{l,m}.`$ (2)
In this expression, $`m_\text{e}`$ is the electron mass, $`R`$ is the radius of the spherical electron gas, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angle-dependent part of the Lagrangian in spherical coordinates, and $`𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }=_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^\pi 𝑑\theta `$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$. Expression (2) shows that the energy of a free electron in an angular momentum state $`\{l,m\}`$ is

$$E_{l,m}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2l(l+1)}{2m_\text{e}R^2}.$$
(3)
If more than one electron is present, they will occupy the lowest-energy states up to the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ characterized by a Fermi angular momentum $`L_F`$, so that $`N=2(L_F+1)^2`$ and $`E_F=\mathrm{}^2L_F(L_F+1)/(2m_\text{e}R^2)`$. Since in multielectron bubbles, the bubble radius $`RN^{2/3}`$ , the Fermi energy scales as $`E_FN^{1/3}`$ so that adding electrons to the multielectron bubbles lowers the Fermi energy.

### B Density

The surface density on the sphere, defined as the expectation value of the number of electrons in an infinitesimal spherical angle around $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is

$$\widehat{n}_\text{e}(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}\underset{l^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m^{}=l^{}}{\overset{l^{}}{}}Y_{l,m}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega })Y_{l^{},m^{}}(\mathrm{\Omega })\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+\widehat{c}_{l^{},m^{}}.$$
(4)
The decomposition in spherical harmonics of this density operator is given by

$`\widehat{n}_\text{e}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)Y_{l,m}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (5)
$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\text{ }\widehat{n}_\text{e}(\mathrm{\Omega })Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })}.`$ (6)
Using the parity property of spherical harmonics, $`Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })=(1)^mY_{l,m}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$, it is easily shown that $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)=(1)^m\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)`$. Substituting (4) in (5), we find for the spherical components of the density operator:

$$\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)=\underset{l_1=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m_1=l_1}{\overset{l_1}{}}\underset{l_2=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m_2=l_2}{\overset{l_2}{}}\left[𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\text{ }Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })Y_{l_2,m_2}^{}(\mathrm{\Omega })Y_{l_1,m_1}(\mathrm{\Omega })\right]\widehat{c}_{l_2,m_2}^+\widehat{c}_{l_1,m_1}.$$
(7)
The addition rules for spherical harmonics allow to perform the integral of the product of spherical harmonics in (7):

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=l^{}}{\overset{l^{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{L=|ll^{}|}{\overset{l+l^{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{M=L}{\overset{L}{}}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(2l+1)(2l^{}+1)}{(2L+1)}}}`$ (9)
$`\times l,0;l^{},0|L,0l,m;l^{},m^{}|L,M\widehat{c}_{L,M}^+\widehat{c}_{l^{},m^{}}.`$
In this expression, $`l,m;l^{},m^{}|L,M`$ is the Clebsch-Gordan coefficient for combining the angular momenta $`\{l,m\}`$ and $`\{l^{},m^{}\}`$ into $`\{L,M\}`$. To simplify this expression, we introduce the following notation:

$$\widehat{c}_{(l,m)(l^{},m^{})}^+=\underset{L=|ll^{}|}{\overset{l+l^{}}{}}\underset{M=L}{\overset{L}{}}\sqrt{\frac{(2l+1)(2l^{}+1)}{(2L+1)}}l,0;l^{},0|L,0l,m;l^{},m^{}|L,M\widehat{c}_{L,M}^+.$$
(10)
The operator $`\widehat{c}_{(l,m)(l^{},m^{})}^+`$ creates an electron in a state which results from the combination of two angular momentum states characterized by the quantum numbers $`\{l,m\}`$ and $`\{l^{},m^{}\}`$, respectively. With this notation, the spherical components of the density operator can be written as

$$\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,m)=\underset{l^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m^{}=l^{}}{\overset{l^{}}{}}\widehat{c}_{(l,m)(l^{},m^{})}^+\widehat{c}_{l^{},m^{}},$$
(11)
which highlights the analogy with the definition of the Fourier transformed density operator of the flat two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG).

### C Coulomb interaction on the sphere

The Coulomb potential energy term for $`N`$ electrons, in the Hamiltonian is,

$$\widehat{H}_{\text{coulomb}}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{j^{}j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{e^2}{4\pi \epsilon _0}\frac{1}{|\widehat{𝐫}_j\widehat{𝐫}_j^{}|},$$
(12)
where $`\widehat{𝐫}_j`$ represents the position operator of electron $`j`$ and $`\epsilon _0`$ is the vacuum permittivity. The Coulomb potential on a sphere with radius $`R`$ can be straightforwardly expanded in spherical harmonics:

$$\widehat{H}_{\text{coulomb}}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{j^{}j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{e^2}{4\pi \epsilon R}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}\frac{4\pi }{2l+1}Y_{l,m}(\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_j)Y_{l,m}^{}(\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_j^{}),$$
(13)
with $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_j`$ the (spherical angle) position operator of electron $`j`$ on the sphere. In second quantization this becomes

$$\widehat{H}_{\text{coulomb}}=\underset{l_1,m_1}{}\underset{l_2,m_2}{}_{l,m}(1)^m\text{ }v(l)\text{ }\widehat{c}_{(l_1,m_1)(l,m)}^+\widehat{c}_{(l_2,m_2)(l,m)}^+\widehat{c}_{l_2,m_2}\widehat{c}_{l_1,m_1},$$
(14)
with $`_{l,m}=_{l=0}^{\mathrm{}}_{m=l}^l`$ and

$$v(l)=\frac{e^2}{2\epsilon R}\frac{1}{2l+1}.$$
(15)
This term in the Hamiltonian describes the interaction process, shown in Fig. 1. The initial state consists of two electrons in angular momentum states $`\{l_1,m_1\}`$ and $`\{l_2,m_2\}`$. In the final state one electron is in an angular momentum state resulting from adding $`\{l,m\}`$ to its original angular momentum, and the other electron is in a state resulting from subtracting $`\{l,m\}`$ from its original angular momentum. Hence, the Coulomb interaction on a spherical surface can be described as the exchange of a virtual photon with a given angular momentum $`\{l,m\}`$, with an amplitude for this process of $`v(l)`$. The total Hamiltonian for the S2DEG is

$`\widehat{H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2l(l+1)}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+\widehat{c}_{l,m}`$ (17)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{l_1,m_1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l_2,m_2}{}}_{l,m}(1)^m\text{ }v(l)\text{ }\widehat{c}_{(l_1,m_1)(l,m)}^+\widehat{c}_{(l_2,m_2)(l,m)}^+\widehat{c}_{l_2,m_2}\widehat{c}_{l_1,m_1}`$
## III Response properties of the S2DEG

When an external field $`V_{\text{ext}}(\mathrm{\Omega };\omega )=_{\mathrm{},m}V_{\text{ext}}(l,m;\omega )Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ that couples to the electron density is applied, an induced density $`\rho _{\text{ind}}(\mathrm{\Omega },\omega )=_{l,m}\rho _{\text{ind}}`$($`l,m;\omega )Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is generated. Within linear response theory, the spherical components of this induced density can be written as

$$\rho _{\text{ind}}(l,m;\omega )=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}V_{\text{ext}}(l,m;\omega )𝒟_R(l,m;\omega ),$$
(18)
where $`𝒟_R(l,m;\omega )`$ is the retarded density-density Green’s function . If the external potential $`V_{\text{ext}}(l,m;\omega )`$ is a Coulomb potential created by an external charge $`\rho _{\text{ext}}`$, a dielectric function depending on the angular momentum can be introduced to describe the screening of this external Coulomb potential:

$`\epsilon (l,m;\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{\text{ind}}(l,m;\omega )}{\rho _{\text{ext}}(l,m;\omega )}}`$ (19)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon (l,m;\omega )}}=1+{\displaystyle \frac{v(l)}{\mathrm{}}}𝒟_R(l,m;\omega ).`$ (20)
The retarded Green’s function $`𝒟_R(l,m;\omega )`$ is derived from the density-density Green’s function

$$𝒟(l,m;t)=i\mathrm{\Psi }_0\left|𝒯\left\{\underset{l_1,m_1}{}\widehat{c}_{(l,m)(l_1,m_1)}^+(t)\widehat{c}_{l_1,m_1}(t)\underset{l_2,m_2}{}(1)\widehat{c}_{(l,m)(l_2,m_2)}^+\widehat{c}_{l_2,m_2}\right\}\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_0,$$
(21)
where the expectation value is taken with respect to the many-body ground state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$, $`𝒯`$ is the time-ordering operator, and

$$\widehat{c}_{l,m}(t)=e^{i\widehat{H}t/\mathrm{}}\widehat{c}_{l,m}e^{i\widehat{H}t/\mathrm{}}.$$
(22)
Within the second quantization formalism for the S2DEG, $`𝒟_R(l,m;\omega )`$ is evaluated with standard Green’s function techniques. In the resulting Feynman graphs (the ‘polarization bubble’ graphs, ), the wave numbers are replaced by angular momenta as illustrated in Fig 1. To lowest order in the interaction amplitude $`v(l)`$, we find

$`𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}(l,m;\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l^{},m^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{L=|ll^{}|}{\overset{l+l^{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2l+1)(2l^{}+1)}{4\pi (2L+1)}}n(l^{},m^{})[1n(L,m+m^{})]`$ (25)
$`\times \left|l,0;l^{},0|L,0\right|^2\left|l,m;l^{},m^{}|L,m+m^{}\right|^2`$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega +(E_{l^{},m^{}}E_{L,m+m^{}})/\mathrm{}+i\eta }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega +(E_{L,m+m^{}}E_{l^{},m^{}})/\mathrm{}+i\eta }}\right),`$
with $`\eta `$ an infinitesimal number, and $`E_{l,m}`$ the energy of a free electron in angular momentum state $`\{l,m\}`$ on the sphere and

$$n(l,m)=\mathrm{\Psi }_0\left|\widehat{c}_{l,m}^+\widehat{c}_{l,m}\right|\mathrm{\Psi }_0,$$
(26)
the occupation number of state $`\{l,m\}`$. This result, derived with the formalism described in Sec. II, is in agreement with the result of Inaoka  for the susceptibility of the S2DEG, which was used to investigate the $`l=1,2,3,4`$ multipole modes of the S2DEG . In Sec. IV we extend this investigation to include excitations with large angular momentum $`l`$ (so that $`l/L_F>1`$), keeping the regime studied by Inaoka as a limiting case. By investigating a much broader portion of the excitation spectrum, we identify the nature of the excitations and expose novel properties of those excitations.

The contribution of lowest-order in $`v(l)`$ to the retarded density-density Green’s function determines the Hartree-Fock approximation (HF) to the dielectric function (20), given here for reference:

$$\epsilon _{\text{HF}}(l,m;\omega )=\left[1+\frac{v(l)}{\mathrm{}}𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}(l,m;\omega )\right]^1.$$
(27)
It also permits the calculation of the random-phase approximation (RPA) to the dielectric function, through a Dyson series for $`𝒟_R^{\text{RPA}}:`$

$$𝒟_R^{\text{RPA}}=\frac{𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}}{1[v(l)/\mathrm{}]𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}},$$
(28)
so that

$$\epsilon _{\text{RPA}}(l,m;\omega )=1\frac{v(l)}{\mathrm{}}𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}(l,m;\omega ).$$
(29)
Note that the spin degree of freedom is not explicitly taken into account in the expressions above. The interparticle potential and the kinetic energy are considered to be spin-independent in the present treatment. The central quantity, from which properties of the S2DEG are derived in the current treatment, is the ‘polarization bubble’ diagram leading to $`𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}.`$ For spin-independent interaction potentials, the spin degree of freedom only leads to a degeneracy prefactor $`𝒟_R^{\text{(0)}}`$: the degeneracy of the unperturbed levels is doubled from $`2l+1`$ to $`2(2l+1)`$.

## IV Results and discussion

### A Single-particle excitations

In this section we will use units such that $`m_\text{e}=\mathrm{}=R=1`$. The dielectric function can be clarified by considering Plemelj’s rule. The imaginary part of the RPA dielectric function becomes

$`Im\epsilon _{\text{RPA}}(l,m;\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\pi v(l){\displaystyle \underset{l^{}m^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{L=|ll^{}|}{\overset{l+l^{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2l+1)(2l^{}+1)}{4\pi (2L+1)}}n(l^{}m^{})[1n(L,m+m^{})]`$ (31)
$`\times \left|l,0;l^{},0|L,0\right|^2\left|l,m;l^{},m^{}|L,m+m^{}\right|^2\delta [\omega (E_{L,m+m^{}}E_{l^{},m^{}})].`$
The dynamic structure factor of the S2DEG is related to the dielectric function by

$`S(l,m;\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi v(l)}}Im\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon (l,m;w)}}\right]`$ (32)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi v(l)}}{\displaystyle \frac{Im[\epsilon (l,m;\omega )]}{\left\{Re[\epsilon (l,m;\omega )]\right\}^2+\left\{Im[\epsilon (l,m;\omega )]\right\}^2}},`$ (33)
and can be interpreted as the probability that an excitation with given angular momentum quantum number $`\{l,m\}`$ and energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ can be created. $`S(l,m;\omega )`$ is a quantity accessible to experiment, in particular scattering experiments. From expression (31) we conclude that $`Im\epsilon _{\text{RPA}}(l,m;\omega )`$ is zero unless adding the angular momentum $`\{l,m\}`$ and the energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ to the ground state of the S2DEG can excite a single electron from an occupied state \[$`n(l^{},m^{})=1`$\] into an unoccupied state \[$`n(L,m+m^{})=0`$\]. These are the single-particle excitations (called the “Landau continuum” in the case of the flat 2DEG). Fig. 2 illustrates this concept in relation to the S2DEG. Three regimes can be distinguished:

* Case 1: $`l<L_F`$. In the left panel of Fig. 2, we show the case of angular momentum $`\{l,m\}=\{2,1\}`$ imparted on the system. The filled disks represent the occupied states, the open squares are allowed final states which can be reached by adding the angular momentum $`\{l,m\}`$ to the angular momentum of an electron in the Fermi sphere, and the open circles are forbidden final states as they are occupied and excluded by Fermi statistics. In this example the Fermi sea is filled up to $`L_F=3`$. Not all final states are accessible, since to excite an electron it has to go into a final state which is unoccupied (the open squares). This means in practice that the electrons which can participate in creating an excitation of angular momentum $`\{l,m\}`$ are the ones close to the Fermi level (in fact, those from level $`L_Fl`$ up to $`L_F`$).
* Case 2: $`2L_F>l>L_F`$. This is shown in the middle panel of Fig. 2 depicting single-particle excitations which have angular momentum $`\{4,3\}`$. Now all the electrons in the Fermi sea can participate, but not all resulting final states are unoccupied.
* Case 3: $`l>2L_F`$. An example is shown in the right graph of Fig. 2, for single-particle excitations of angular momentum $`\{8,1\}`$. Now not only can all electrons participate in the process, but also all possible final states are unoccupied and thus accessible.

The maximum energy difference between initial and final single-particle states in Fig. 2 is

$`\omega _{\text{max}}(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\left[(L_F+l)(L_F+l+1)(L_F)(L_F+1)\right]`$ (34)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\left[l^2+l(2L_F+1)\right].`$ (35)
The smallest energy difference in case 3 ($`l>2L_F)`$ is:

$`\omega _{\text{min}}(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\left[(lL_F)(lL_F+1)(L_F)(L_F+1)\right]`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_\text{e}R^2}}\left[l^2l(2L_F1)2L_F\right].`$ (37)
The two frequencies $`\omega _{\text{min}}(l)`$ and $`\omega _{\text{max}}(l)`$ demarcate a region in the frequency versus angular momentum plane in which the single-particle excitations lie. Fig. 3 shows the location of the excitations of the spherical two-dimensional electron gas in the angular momentum $`l`$ vs. frequency $`\omega `$ plane. The $`\{l,\omega \}`$ values corresponding to a single-particle excitation for an S2DEG with $`L_F=10`$ are shown in Fig. 3 as a markers within the limiting frequencies $`\omega _{\text{min}}`$ and $`\omega _{\text{max}}`$ of the Landau continuum region shown by full curves.

### B Plasmons in a spherical 2D electron gas

In addition to the single-particle excitations in the S2DEG, collective excitations are also possible. “Collective excitations” are defined as poles of the density-density Green’s function $`𝒟`$, whereas single-particle excitations are defined as poles of the single-particle Green’s function . This means that collective excitations appear when $`\epsilon (l,m;\omega )=0`$. In the flat 2DEG, these collective excitations are called plasmon modes. We will use the same terminology for the S2DEG (occasionally using ‘spherical plasmons’ when a distinction is needed).

For the collective mode, the imparted angular momentum is shared between all the particles. This means that in a collective mode with angular momentum $`\{l,m\}`$ the entire spherical shell of electrons will oscillate with an amplitude proportional to $`Y_{l,m}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$. The frequency of the collective modes (the plasma frequency $`\omega _{\text{pl}}`$) will depend on the angular momentum of the mode $`\{l,m\}.`$ The plasma frequency $`\omega _{\text{pl}}(l,m)`$ of the S2DEG can be found by solving

$$\{\begin{array}{c}1\frac{e^2}{2\epsilon \mathrm{}R}\frac{1}{2l+1}Re\left[𝒟_{R,0}(l,m;\omega _{\text{pl}})\right]=0\hfill \\ Im\left[𝒟_{R,0}(l,m;\omega _{\text{pl}})\right]=0\hfill \end{array}.$$
(38)
For the flat electron gas the last condition means that the plasma branch lies outside the region of single-particle excitations discussed in the previous subsection. In Fig. 3, the spherical plasmon excitations are shown as full diamonds. Fig. 4 illustrates how the plasmon branch depends on the number of electrons in the S2DEG. The radius of the S2DEG has been chosen equal to the equilibrium radius of a multielectron bubble with a given number of electrons . The bubble radius is found by balancing the helium surface tension and the Coulomb repulsion as discussed in the introduction. Fig 5. illustrates how the plasmon branch depends on the radius of the S2DEG, for a fixed number of electrons. We find that as the radius is decreased (i.e. the multielectron bubble is compressed), the plasmon branch lies relatively closer to the upper frequency of the single-particle excitation region (as shown in the inset of Fig. 5). However, the energy scale, set by $`\mathrm{}^2/(m_\text{e}R^2)`$, increases with decreasing radius so that the absolute value of the plasmon frequencies increases with decreasing radius. The plasmon frequency is independent of the projection of the angular momentum $`m`$. The plasmon branch of the S2DEG strongly differs from the plasmon branch of 2DEGs in two important aspects: it is discrete and the lowest accessible plasmon frequency is larger than zero despite the acoustic nature of the plasmon branch.

### C Sum rule and spectral weights

Sum rules prove to be a remarkably useful tool in the analysis of spectra, both experimentally and theoretically. The zeroth moment sum rule for the dynamic structure factor defines the static structure factor: $`S(l,m):`$

$$S(l,m)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}S(l,m;\omega )𝑑\omega =\frac{1}{\pi v(l)}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}Im\left[\frac{1}{\epsilon (l,m;\omega )}\right]d\omega .$$
(39)
Since the dynamic structure factor only depends on the magnitude of the angular momentum $`l`$ and not on $`m`$, this will also be true for the static structure factor. Fig. 6 shows the static structure factor as a function of angular momentum $`l`$. The open squares are the result in the Hartree-Fock approximation \[using $`\epsilon _{\text{HF}}`$, expression (27)\], and the full circles are the result in the RPA approximation \[using $`\epsilon _{\text{RPA}}`$, expression (29)\]. As in the case of the flat 2DEG, the HF structure factor $`S_{\text{HF}}(l)`$ is linear for small $`l/L_F`$, whereas the RPA structure factor approaches zero more rapidly with decreasing $`l`$. In the inset of Fig. 6, the first frequency moment of the dynamic structure factor,

$$\omega (l)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega S(l,m;\omega )𝑑\omega ,$$
(40)
is shown, again for both HF and RPA approximations. Inaoka  derived a sum rule for the first frequency moment of the angular momentum dependent dynamic structure factor. In units $`\mathrm{}=m_\text{e}=R`$, this is

$$\omega (l)=\frac{l(l+1)}{2}.$$
(41)
From Fig. 6 it is clear that the HF dynamic structure factor obeys this sum rule. The RPA dynamic structure factor can be written as a sum of a contribution from the plasmon mode and the contribution $`S_{\text{cont}}`$ from single-particle excitations:

$$S_{\text{RPA}}(l;\omega )=A(l)\delta [\omega \omega _{\text{pl}}(l)]+S_{\text{cont}}(l;\omega ),$$
(42)
with $`A(l)`$ the spectral weight of the plasmon branch. The inset of Fig 6. shows $`\omega S_{\text{cont}}(l,\omega )𝑑\omega `$. From the deficit of the RPA dynamic structure factor without the plasmon mode, shown in the inset of Fig. 6, the spectral weight of the plasmon mode can be derived:

$$A(l)\omega _{\text{pl}}(l)=\frac{l(l+1)}{2}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega S_{\text{cont}}(l,\omega )𝑑\omega .$$
(43)
The spectral weight of the plasmon mode, along with the RPA dynamic structure factor in the region of single-particle excitations, is shown in Fig. 7 for $`L_F=20`$. The RPA dynamic structure factor of the S2DEG is shown color-coded and as a function of the angular momentum $`l`$ and the energy $`\mathrm{}w`$. In white regions the RPA dynamic structure factor is zero. In colored regions, the RPA dynamic structure factor differs from zero. This figure is the complement of Fig. 4: whereas Fig. 4 shows the location and type of the possible excitations of the S2DEG as a function of angular momentum and energy, this figure shows their corresponding spectral weight as expressed by the dynamic structure factor. At small angular momentum ($`l/L_F<0.5`$), the plasmon branch carries the most spectral weight, and the region of single-particle excitations only has a small fraction of the total spectral weight. Within the region of single-particle excitations, there is a local maximum in the dynamic structure factor around $`l=L_\text{F}`$.

### D Discussion

The dynamic structure factor $`S(l,m;\omega )`$ is the spectral function of the density-density Green’s function and as such can be interpreted as a probability function (see e.g. , p. 153). $`S(l,m;\omega )d\omega `$ is the probability that an excitation of the S2DEG has angular momentum quantum numbers $`\{l,m\}`$ and energy between $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{}(\omega +d\omega )`$. This is analogous to the interpretation of the more familiar dynamic structure factor \[$`S(𝐤,\omega )`$\] expressed as a function of wave number, which is the probability that an excitation has momentum $`\mathrm{}𝐤`$ and energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$.

A ‘natural’ experiment to determine the dynamic structure factor directly is an inelastic scattering experiment. In particular the differential cross section for a probe particle of mass $`M`$ (such as an incident ion) and initial momentum $`𝐩_\text{i}`$ to be scattered to a final state $`𝐩_\text{f}`$ with energy transfer between $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`\mathrm{}(\omega +d\omega )`$ to the scattering system is :

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\theta d\omega }=\frac{M^2}{8\pi ^3}\frac{p_f}{p_i}|V_k|^2S(k,\omega ).$$
(44)
In this expression, $`\theta `$ is the scattering angle between $`𝐩_\text{f}`$ and $`𝐩_\text{i}`$, $`|V_𝐤|`$ is the Fourier transform of the interaction potential between the probe particle, and the energy transfer $`\omega `$ is related to the momentum transfer $`𝐤`$ by $`\mathrm{}\omega =\mathrm{}^2𝐤.𝐩_\text{i}/m+(\mathrm{}k)^2/(2m)`$. The relation between the Fourier decomposition and the spherical decomposition of the density is

$`\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}e^{i𝐤.\widehat{𝐫}_j}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}\sqrt{4\pi (2l+1)}i^lj_l(kR)Y_{l,0}(\widehat{\theta }_j)`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}\sqrt{4\pi (2l+1)}i^lj_l(kR)\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(l,0)`$ (46)
where the $`z`$-axis has been taken along the direction of the wave vector $`𝐤`$, and $`j_l(x)`$ is the spherical Bessel function of the first kind, and $`\theta _j`$ is the angle between $`𝐤`$ and the position operator of electron $`j`$, $`𝐫_j`$. The dynamic structure factors are related by

$$S(k,\omega )=\underset{l}{}\left|\sqrt{4\pi (2l+1)}j_l(kR)\right|^2S(l,0;\omega )$$
(47)
which can be derived by writing the dynamic structure factor as a density-density correlation function in the Lehmann representation and substituting expression (46) for $`\widehat{\rho }_\text{e}(𝐤)`$.

Note that the dependence of the angular wave functions on the polar angle $`\theta `$ becomes semiclassical when the quantum number $`l`$ is large. In particular, the WKB expression for the angular function becomes

$$Y_{l0}(\theta )\frac{i^l}{\pi }\frac{\mathrm{sin}[(l+1/2)\theta +\pi /4]}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}$$
(48)
This semiclassical approximation will be valid in the region where $`\theta l1`$ and $`(\pi \theta )l1`$, which holds at large $`l`$ for almost all values of $`\theta `$ except those close to the ‘poles’ $`\theta =0`$ and $`\theta =\pi .`$ The semiclassical approximation (48) corresponds to the limit of a plane wave, where the wave length is given by $`R(2\pi /l)`$. As such, this approximation leads primarily to the results of a flat 2D electron gas where $`\mathrm{}l/R`$ plays the role of the electron momentum. This is valid in the limit that $`R`$ is large and the ratio $`l/R`$ remains finite, although even for small $`R`$, this approximation will still hold at large $`l`$. However, it does not reproduce some of the interesting low angular momentum results such as a lower boundary to the plasmon frequencies.

## V Conclusions

In this paper, we have studied the properties of the two-dimensional electron gas in a distinct geometry which is recently gaining interest in connection to multielectron bubbles, namely electrons confined to a spherical surface. For this purpose, we set up a second-quantization formulation based on the spherical harmonics as single-electron building blocks for the many-electron theory, introduced in Sec. II. Within this formalism, the dynamic structure factor is derived in the RPA framework and both the single-particle excitations and collective excitations are analyzed for S2DEGs with $`L_F`$ up to $`40`$ and for angular momenta $`l`$ up to $`3L_F.`$

The dynamic structure factor in the RPA approximation reveals collective excitations (‘spherical plasmon modes’), which differ from the collective modes of the flat 2DEG in that the spherical plasmon modes of the S2DEG are discrete in frequency, and the smallest spherical plasmon frequency is larger than zero. For $`l/L_F<0.5`$, we find that the spherical plasmon mode carries the main fraction of the spectral weight. The single-particle excitations are confined to a region determined by $`\omega _{\text{min}}(l)`$ and $`\omega _{\text{max}}(l)`$ given by expressions (37) and (35). In the semiclassical approximation, the role of the electron momentum $`\mathrm{}k`$ in the flat 2DEG is played by $`\mathrm{}l/R`$ in the spherical electron gas, and the energy scale is set by $`\mathrm{}^2/(m_\text{e}R^2)`$, which opens interesting prospects for multielectron bubbles since the radius can be varied by either changing the number of electrons or -independently- the pressure. For typical multielectron bubbles with $`N10^4`$, the plasmon modes of the S2DEG lie in the far-infrared, and their frequency increases with decreasing number of electrons in the multielectron bubble or with decreasing radius of the bubble, such that these novel collective modes may be detectable in forthcoming experiments on stabilized multielectron bubbles .

## Acknowledgments

Discussions with V. Fomin, S. Klimin and J. Huang are gratefully acknowledged. J. Tempere is supported financially by the FWO-Flanders with a mandate ‘Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders’ (Postdoctoraal Onderzoeker van het Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen). This research has been supported by the Department of Energy, grant DE-FG002-85ER45190, and by the GOA BOF UA 2000, IUAP, the FWO-V projects Nos. G.0071.98, G.0306.00, G.0274.01, WOG WO.025.99N (Belgium).

FIGURE CAPTIONS

FIG. 1. This figure shows two Feynman diagrams for equivalent processes, namely the exchange of a virtual photon between two electrons. The panel at the left shows the diagram for the case of a flat 2DEG and the one to the right is for the case of a S2DEG. In the flat 2DEG, wave numbers are good quantum numbers, in the S2DEG they have to be replaced by angular momentum quantum numbers. Vector addition of momenta has to be replaced by addition of angular momenta.

FIG 2. This figure shows diagrams representing the angular momentum states of an electron on a spherical surface. In the three panels, electrons are occupying the single-particle states up to a Fermi-level angular momentum $`L_F=3`$. This Fermi sea of occupied states is shown as filled circles. The diagrams also show the final states which can occur from combining the angular momentum of any of the electrons in the Fermi sea with the angular momentum of an excitation (with $`\{l,m\}=\{2,1\},\{4,3\},\{8,1\}`$ for the left, middle and right panels, respectively). The final states which are unoccupied, and thus allowed, are indicated by hollow squares. The final states which cannot be achieved because there is already an electron present are indicated by hollow circles.

FIG. 3. In the many-body S2DEG, two types of excitations can be distinguished: single particle excitations (which appear for $`Im[\epsilon ]0`$) and collective excitations (which appear when $`Re[\epsilon ]=Im[\epsilon ]=0`$). The excitations of the S2DEG can be characterized by their angular momentum $`l`$ and energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$. This figure shows the location of the excitations in the frequency (energy) vs. angular momentum plane. The single particle excitations are discrete, and all lie in a region demarcated by the black curves, representing $`\omega _{\text{min}}(l)`$ and $`\omega _{\text{max}}(l)`$ given by expressions (37),(35). The collective excitations are shown as filled diamonds, lying above the $`\omega _{\text{max}}(l)`$ curve.

FIG. 4. The collective excitations of the S2DEG are the analogue of plasmons in the flat 2DEG and appear at frequencies $`\omega `$ and angular momenta $`l`$ such that $`Re[\epsilon (l,\omega )]=Im[\epsilon (l,\omega )]=0`$. For S2DEGs with $`L_F=10,20,40`$, these collective excitations are shown as filled squares, circles and triangles, respectively. The dashed curves denote the upper frequency of the region of single-particle excitations (given by expression (35)). As more electrons are put into the multielectron bubble, the frequency of the collective excitations decrease. As the Fermi level is increased, $`L_F\mathrm{}`$, the spherical plasmon excitations form a continuous curve and the lowest spherical plasmon frequency $`\omega _{\text{pl}}(l=1)`$ approaches zero.

FIG. 5. In a multielectron bubble (MEB), the radius of the spherical electron gas can be varied independently of the number of electrons by applying pressure. This figure, which complements Fig. 4, shows the effect of changing the MEB radius on the frequencies of the collective excitations (the ’spherical plasmons’) as a function of the angular momentum. The inset shows the same results, with the frequency rescaled to the natural bubble frequency $`\mathrm{}/(m_\text{e}R^2)`$.

FIG. 6. The static structure factor $`S(l)`$ for a spherical two-dimensional electron gas (S2DEG) with $`L_F=20`$ is shown as a function of $`l`$, both in the RPA and in the Hartree-Fock approximations. Note that in the Hartree-Fock approximation, $`S(l)`$ is linear in $`l`$ at small $`l`$, whereas in the RPA approximation it goes to zero faster than linearly. In the inset, the sum rule (41) for the first frequency moment of the dynamic structure factor of the S2DEG  is checked. The Hartree-Fock result complies perfectly to the sum rule. The RPA result without the plasmon branch does not have enough spectral weight to satisfy the sum rule for $`l/L_F<2`$, which indicates that in this region a substantial part of the spectral weight lies with the plasmon mode – the strength of the plasmon branch is derived from this result.

FIG. 7. The RPA dynamic structure factor $`S(l,\omega )`$ for a spherical two-dimensional electron gas (S2DEG) with $`L_F=20`$ is shown here in units $`\mathrm{}=m_\text{e}=R=1`$ as a function of the angular momentum quantum number $`l`$ and their energy $`\omega .`$ At zero temperature, the RPA dynamic structure factor of the S2DEG consists of a region of single-particle excitations and a set of collective modes (colored disks). This figure complements Fig. 3, which shows only the locations of the excitations, whereas this figure shows their spectral weights.