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# String-inspired cosmology

## 1 Motivation

It is not hard to think of questions in cosmology that go beyond the framework of classical general relativity. In an expanding universe as one traces back our past worldline to ever higher energies and densities one reaches an initial ‘big bang’ singularity where the classical theory breaks down. The hope is that a finite quantum theory of gravity exists which remains well-defined. If string theory is the leading candidate for that fundamental quantum theory of gravity then it should provide some insight on the peculiar initial conditions required by the standard big bang. If inflation is to provide a dynamical explanation of those initial conditions , then string theory should provide the answer to the question of what the inflaton field is that drives it. As a higher dimensional theory, string theory should also be able to answer why we only observe three large spatial dimensions, and one of time. Even at low energies there are puzzles such as the unresolved embarrassment of the small, but apparently finite, cosmological constant (or dark energy).

But if cosmology needs string theory, then string theory itself needs cosmology. For a start, it has an embarrassment of riches in that string theory (or M-theory) has a large number of possible low-energy vacuum states. To answer the question of why we live in the particular physical state we observe requires a dynamical model of how we got here. The number of large extra dimensions is just one example of the many moduli that parameterise different vacuum states that have to be fixed. A more prosaic reason why I believe string theory needs cosmology is that string theory is a grand theoretical edifice that needs some experimental support. It may be that cosmology is the only arena in which string theorists can make predictions that are observable and could promote it to the status of an empirical science.

The subject of string cosmology is far from being a mature field of research where one could expect some consensus about what might be considered a standard model. There are many different approaches reflecting the many different perspectives on both string theory and cosmology. This article inevitably reflects my own personal interests and prejudices.

## 2 What is string theory?

At its most fundamental level, string theory is a theory for calculating scattering amplitudes between asymptotic states where the fundamental objects are one-dimensional strings. The spectrum of states includes a massless spin-2 graviton and as a result string theory has been said to ‘predict gravity’ - though only after apples had already been observed falling to the ground. Nonetheless gravity is an essential component for a would-be theory of cosmology. But a model of asymptotic states seems rather unpromising for a framework in which to study cosmology where we, as observers, are embedded within the model and asymptotic states may be of limited relevance.

In practice, most calculations are done in the low-energy limit where string theory can be described by an effective field theory. In the mid-1980s it was shown that low-energy effective actions can be derived for fields that are consistent low-energy background solutions . All the low-energy effective actions of string theories include a gravitational part in the action :

$$S=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}_s^8}d^{10}x\sqrt{g}e^\varphi [R+(\varphi )^2\mathrm{},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}_s`$ is the fundamental string length scale, $`R`$ is the Ricci curvature scalar, and $`\varphi `$ the dilaton. The low-energy effective theory of gravity is familiar to relativists as a Jordan-Brans-Dicke type theory of gravity where the Brans-Dicke parameter takes the value $`\omega =1`$. If the dilaton were left free then this would be experimentally unacceptable as a theory of gravity so the dilaton is one of the massless fields in the low-energy effective action that must become fixed by the present.

By the end of the 1980’s string theorists had more string theories than they knew what to do with: five low-energy effective 10-dimensional supergravity theories, to which has now been added 11-dimensional supergravity. However the string theory revolution of the 1990s showed that by including higher-dimensional extended objects (two-dimensional membranes or, more generally, branes) these six-theories can be related by duality symmetries and are now seen to be part of some more fundamental M-theory. These dualities include T-duality which relates solutions on a large toroidal geometry to those on a small one, and S-duality which relates strong and weak coupling limits. While there may be no understanding of what M-theory is (in the way that string theory was understood as a theory of strings) it too can be studied through its different low-energy effective descriptions. In 11-D supergravity there is no dilaton, but there are of course additional geometrical moduli, and a Kaluza-Klein dimensional reduction will still give rise to a dilaton-type field describing the size of the compact dimension.

Branes are not part of the perturbative formulation of string theory and duality symmetries have played a key role in mapping out non-perturbative structure of M-theory. One would certainly hope that they could provide a valuable insight into non-perturbative cosmology where the low-energy descriptions breakdown.

For a more substantive review of the state of the subject see, for example, the review by Duff .

## 3 Dilaton-gravity

The basic building block for many string-inspired cosmologies is the rolling radii solution of Mueller for the 10-dimensional dilaton-gravity action (1) in a spatially-flat and homogeneous spacetime

$$ds^2=dt^2+\underset{i=1}{\overset{10}{}}a_i^2(t)dx_i^2$$

where

$$a_it^{p_i}\varphi K\mathrm{ln}t$$
(2)
and the indices obey the generalised Kasner constraints

$$\underset{i}{}p_i=1+K,\underset{i}{}p_i^2=1.$$

I refer to these as dilaton-vacuum solutions in the sense that only the gravitational fields (in which I include the dilaton) are excited and no matter fields are included. These solution are in general singular as, for example, the Ricci curvature diverges for $`K0`$ . Higher-order curvature corrections are expected to become important when the curvature approaches the string scale, $`R\mathrm{}^2`$, and loop corrections as the dilaton approaches the strong coupling regime $`g_s^2=e^\varphi 1`$.

The original 10-D dilaton-gravity action (1) can be reduced down to 4-D if the fields (and metric) are assumed to be independent of the six internal dimensions. Compactifying on an internal space of volume $`e^{6\beta }`$ would yield the four-dimensional action

$$S_4=\frac{1}{2\kappa ^2}d^4x\sqrt{g}e^\phi \left[R+(^2\phi )6(\beta )^2\mathrm{}\right]$$

where my ellipsis represent all the moduli associated with the internal geometry other than the token modulus $`\beta `$ that I have arbitrarily kept. The symmetries of the internal space determines the physics of what can be re-interpreted as matter fields in a four-dimensional world.

The 4D effective dilaton is given by

$$\phi =\varphi 6\beta $$

and the effective gravitational coupling $`\kappa ^2`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{}_s^8`$ divided by the volume of the internal space. Thus a hierarchy may be introduced between the higher-dimensional string scale and that apparent in the 4D theory if the internal space is much larger than the fundamental string scale .

Neglecting all dependence of the fields and the geometry upon the internal space is of course a huge simplification, but it can be done in a self-consistent manner. Arbitrary perturbations about this background which allow inhomogeneity on the internal space can be decomposed in eigenvalues of the Laplacian on the internal space which then can again be treated as effective fields in the 4D world. If the compactification scale is of order the string scale, then these are very massive excitations that are not part of the low-energy effective theory. In theories where the scale of compactification is much larger than the string scale it may be necessary to include inhomogeneous bulk configurations at intermediate energy scales.

## 4 Form fields

Much of my own work on string-inspired cosmology has investigated the dynamical role of antisymmetric form fields that appear alongside the dilaton and moduli in the bosonic sector of the low-energy superstring effective actions. These have often been ignored in previous discussions because their effective density is typically localised in space or time and may be negligible in the asymptotic regime. Nonetheless they can play a crucial role interpolating between dilaton-vacuum solutions and dynamically determining the allowed asymptotic states .

As an example consider a spatially flat FRW metric,

$$ds^2=a^2(\eta )\left[d\eta ^2+dx^2+dy^2+dz^2\right]$$

The model-independent axion in four-dimensions is a pseudo-scalar $`\sigma `$ Poincare-dual to the anti-symmetric three-form field strength $`H=\sigma `$. The general axion-dilaton solutions (neglecting now for simplicity the modulus field, $`\dot{\beta }=0`$) can be given in simple closed form:

$`e^\phi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^\phi _{}}{2}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\eta _{}}}\right)^\sqrt{3}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\eta _{}}}\right)^\sqrt{3}\right]`$
$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a_{}}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\eta _{}}}\right)^{1\sqrt{3}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\eta _{}}}\right)^{1+\sqrt{3}}\right]^{1/2}`$ (3)
$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _{}\pm e^\varphi _{}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(\eta /\eta _{})^\sqrt{3}(\eta /\eta _{})^\sqrt{3}}{(\eta /\eta _{})^\sqrt{3}+(\eta /\eta _{})^\sqrt{3}}}\right]`$
These solutions provide a nice example of how the symmetries of the string effective actions (in this case an SL(2,R) symmetry which is related to the modular invariance of the string compactified on a two-torus ) can be used to generate the general axion-dilaton solutions starting from the dilaton-vacuum solutions .

The axion remains almost constant except when $`\eta \eta _{}`$ where its value undergoes a step up or down. The asymptotic solution returns to the dilaton-vacuum solution, but the presence of the axion nonetheless selects the allowed asymptotic solutions, in particular placing a lower bound on the dilaton field. Note that because the dilaton and axion are massless fields the Einstein frame scale factor is simply $`\stackrel{~}{a}=\stackrel{~}{a}_{}(\stackrel{~}{t}/\stackrel{~}{t}_{})^{1/3}`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ is the proper cosmic time in the Einstein conformal frame .

Reintroducing the modulus $`\beta `$, we see that the dilaton-moduli-vacuum solutions (2) correspond to free particle moving in a straight line in $`(\varphi ,\beta )`$ field space (see figure 2):

$`\phi =\phi _{}+\sqrt{3}(\mathrm{cos}\xi )\mathrm{ln}(\eta /\eta _{})`$
$`\beta =\beta _{}+\sqrt{3}(\mathrm{sin}\xi )\mathrm{ln}(\eta /\eta _{}).`$
The axion-dilaton-moduli solutions (figure 3) correspond to a particle moving in $`(\phi ,\beta )`$ field space which bounces off a potential $`V(\phi )e^{2\phi }`$:

$`\phi `$ $`=`$ $`\phi _{}\mathrm{ln}2+\mathrm{ln}\left((\eta /\eta _{})^{\sqrt{3}(\mathrm{cos}\xi )}+(\eta /\eta _{})^{\sqrt{3}(\mathrm{cos}\xi )}\right)`$
$`\beta `$ $`=`$ $`\beta _{}+\sqrt{3}(\mathrm{sin}\xi )\mathrm{ln}(\eta /\eta _{})`$
Recently  it has been shown that this can lead to a BKL-like chaos approaching the singularity in homogeneous superstring cosmologies. In higher dimensional cosmologies the antisymmetric field strength(s) of the superstring effective actions have many more degrees of freedom each of which can act as a wall in the dilaton-moduli phase-space. Damour and Henneaux  have shown that in a generic solution, i.e., where all the axion-type degrees of freedom are non-vanishing then the solutions are trapped in a compact region of phase-space, bouncing off the walls infinitely many times in the approach to the singularity. Of course, just as in the analogous case of Bianchi IX cosmologies in general relativity, the low-energy effective description itself breaks down before one reaches the singularity, but this behaviour must be an important consideration for any discussion of the nature, or avoidance, of cosmological singularities in string theory.

## 5 The pre big bang

The most concerted campaign to address the practical implications for cosmology of string theory has been the work of Gasperini and Veneziano and their collaborators  in developing the pre big bang scenario.

There are three basic ingredients/assumptions:

1. The universe begins in the asymptotic past in a low-energy, weakly-coupled, vacuum state well-described by a low-energy effective supergravity theory.
2. Small fluctuations about this vacuum state lead to gravitational instability  and run-away evolution (collapse in the conformally related Einstein frame ) towards a high-curvature, strongly-coupled regime.
3. This run-away instability must be tamed by stringy effects and transformed into a conventional expanding cosmology, possibly by T-duality which could map a high-curvature regime to a low-curvature one.

The pre big bang is an honest attempt to use the tools available to us from string theory to make cosmological predictions. It has incurred the wrath of those who seek a dynamical explanation of the peculiar spatial homogeneity and flatness of the standard hot big bang model (such as that offered by inflation ) because the initial state must be at least close to the homogeneity and flatness sought . But if a model such as the pre big bang could been shown to be in better agreement with observational data than, say, inflation, then we would have to learn to live with the initial conditions that required. A more pragmatic objection is that the well-understood low-energy effective solutions still contain a singularity at the end of the pre big bang phase and this can only be avoided by introducing much less-well understood loop- or string-corrections as the strong-coupling or high-curvature regime is reached .

The pre big bang does offer possible observational tests. The pre big bang phase has a causal structure similar to that of conventional inflation and can lead to the generation of effectively classical fluctuations on super-Hubble scales from an initial vacuum state. In the pre big bang the spectrum of metric perturbations is sharply peaked towards the smallest scales (those leaving the horizon close to the singularity). This could give a stochastic background of gravitational waves with a steep blue spectrum  (quite different to the almost scale-invariant spectra from inflation). But it would leave effectively no density perturbations on large scales at the start of the hot big bang .

Axion-type fields would have to play a crucial role if the pre big bang (rather than inflation) is to provide a mechanism to seed the large-scale structure in the universe. This is because the kinetic coupling of the axion field can produce an almost scale-invariant spectrum of fluctuations . However because the background axion density vanishes asymptotically, these are isocurvature fluctuations. Durrer and collaborators have estimated the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies that might result from this novel isocurvature source if the axion remained decoupled . While another distinctive prediction, the latest observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies may be hard to reconcile with this model .

Instead one may be forced to consider a pre big bang model that mimics the adiabatic primordial perturbation spectra produced by inflation . It is not widely recognised that in the presence of non-adiabatic perturbations, the large-scale curvature perturbation produced, say, during a pre big bang phase provides only a lower limit on the large-scale curvature perturbation at later times. Isocurvature modes provide an additional source for curvature at later times on arbitrarily large scales if they are coupled to the dominant energy density, as has recently been explicitly demonstrated in the case of two-field inflation . It is quite possible that isocurvature axion fluctuations could be converted into adiabatic curvature perturbations either at, or after, the transition to the post-big bang evolution.222Since this talk was given two papers  have given explicit demonstration of this effect due to late-decay of a massive ‘curvaton’ field. A distinctive observational signature in such a model would be a direct correlation between the curvature perturbation and any residual isocurvature perturbation as they would both be derived from the same curvaton field fluctuations.

## 6 Brane-worlds

All the string-inspired cosmological solutions I have discussed thus far are based upon a traditional Kaluza-Klein treatment of the extra-dimensions where the role of the higher-dimensional geometry can be reduced to a collection of effective fields in a more or less conventional four-dimensional theory. In the last couple of years a new approach to dimensional reduction has attracted much attention where matter fields may be constrained to a lower-dimensional surface. This may be valid as a low-energy description of some string theory solutions including branes, where the end-points of strings describe gauge fields on the lower-dimensional surface , or the Horava-Witten model where gauge fields live on orbifold fixed planes .

If only gravitational fields are able to explore the higher-dimensional model then this raises the possibility that the extra dimensions may be much larger than previously assumed, as the four-dimensional nature of gravity is only tested on scales above about a millimetre . As discussed earlier, the higher dimensional (fundamental) Planck scale may be much smaller than that which is apparent in four-dimensions if the volume of the extra dimensions is large compared with the fundamental Planck scale. This offers a novel geometrical perspective on the hierarchy between different energy scales (such as the disparity between the Planck and suspersymmetry scales) found in particle physics, and intriguingly suggests that the regime of quantum gravity may be closer than we thought.

There have been many different approaches to studying the possible cosmological consequences of the brane-world proposal. I will follow my personal bias and restrict my discussion to just one arising from a paper by Randall and Sundrum in 1999 which allows us to study the role of the higher dimensional geometry at the expense of the possible effects of additional bulk fields such as the dilaton and form fields.

### 6.1 Brane-world cosmology

It was noted by Binetruy, Deffayet and Langlois  that cosmological solutions based on a naive application of the conventional 4D form of Einstein’s equations could be incorrect even at low energies in the brane-world scenario in 5D Einstein gravity. They showed that an observer on a 3-brane with surface density $`\sigma `$ embedded in five-dimensional Minkowski spacetime sees a Hubble expansion rate $`H`$ given by the very unconventional Friedmann expansion

$$3H^2=\left(\kappa _5^2\sigma \right)^2$$
(4)
At around the same time Randall and Sundrum  proposed a brane-world based upon a flat (Minkowski) 3-brane embedded in curved five-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. This is a consistent solution in five-dimensional general relativity if the brane surface density $`\sigma `$ has a critical value, $`\lambda _{RS}`$ (see below), which exactly cancels the gravitational effect on the brane of the (negative) cosmological constant in the bulk. More remarkably Randall and Sundrum showed, by considering bulk metric perturbations, the existence of a zero-mode solution in the bulk which yields a massless 4D-graviton on the brane. The correct Newtonian limit can then be recovered on length-scales greater than either the size of the extra dimension, or the anti-de Sitter curvature scale, whichever was the smaller. Thus the four-dimensional Newtonian limit is recovered even when the extra dimension is non-compact. The magnitude of the apparent 4D Planck scale is again a derived quantity, in this case proportional to the brane tension. Thus in this model the brane tension must be positive (in contrast to another proposal of Randall and Sundrum’s where the visible brane tension was taken to be negative .)

It should be emphasised that the Randall-Sundrum model falls into the class of string-inspired rather than string-derived solutions. It draws on the notion of localised matter fields on a brane, but then invokes Einstein gravity in a 5D vacuum. This might be contrasted, for instance, with the earlier work of Lukas, Ovrut and Waldram  who went to considerable lengths to derive a 5D model from Horava-Witten theory which inevitably includes scalar fields and form fields in the bulk. They found an analogous solution for Minkowski 3-branes embedded in a curved (but conformally flat) 5D spacetime. However the simplicity of Randall and Sundrum’s model has attracted considerable attention.

In many ways studying the Randall-Sundrum model of brane-world gravity is analogous to using Brans-Dicke gravity to model conventional string theory solutions. The full theory is expected to have many more light degrees of freedom in the perturbative limit whose couplings and interactions could play an important role, but it is useful to have a simplified but self-consistent model in which one can study the non-linear gravitational dynamics. It is in this spirit that I will discuss brane-world cosmologies based on the Randall-Sundrum model.

A negative bulk cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_5<0`$ plus a positive brane tension $`\lambda >0`$ is just what is required to recover a viable Friedmann equation at low energies ($`\rho \lambda `$) on the brane with total surface density $`\sigma =\lambda +\rho `$ . The modified Friedmann equation (4) becomes

$$3H^2=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_5+\kappa _5^4\left(\lambda +\rho \right)^2$$

For a suitably chosen value of brane tension $`\lambda _{RS}^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }_5/2\kappa _5^4`$ we have

$$3H^2=\kappa _4^2\rho +\kappa _5^4\rho ^2$$
(5)
where the four-dimensional Newton’s constant is $`\kappa _4^2/8\pi =\kappa _5^4\lambda _{RS}/4\pi `$ and we recover the standard Hubble expansion rate for $`\rho \lambda _{RS}`$. Note that once again there may be a hierarchy between the four dimensional Planck scale and the fundamental higher-dimensional Planck scale if the brane tension $`\sigma `$ is significantly below the Planck scale.

The brane-world thus offers a novel perspective on the cosmological constant problem . Instead of asking why the vacuum energy density of our world is so small, the question becomes one of why the brane surface density is so close to the critical Randall-Sundrum value.

The modified Friedmann equation admits a non-standard high-energy regime for $`\lambda _{RS}<\rho M_5`$ where one expects the equation (5) still to apply while matter fields remain confined to the brane. In particular it would lead to a modified evolution during inflation. The additional quadratic term in the Friedmann equation leads to additional Hubble damping which assists coventional slow-roll inflation driven by an inflaton which is one of the matter fields on the brane  and can even yield inflation for potentials that would otherwise be too steep .

Randall-Sundrum cosmology offers not just a modified system of effective 4D dynamics but also a genuinely five-dimensional perspective on our cosmological models. The maximal symmetry of the 3D spatial slices of an FRW brane imposes a strong constraint on the allowed 5D geometry. This enables one to find the explicit form of the bulk solution for any non-static333The only exception I know of to this generalised Birkhoff theorem is the static FRW solution of Gergely and Maartens . FRW brane-world  and this bulk solution turns out to be Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter spacetime . After years of explaining to your mother (or your undergraduate students) that it is not necessary to imagine that our universe is expanding ‘into anything’, it is now perfectly acceptable for you to tell them that our universe could be expanding ‘into’ a five-dimensional Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter bulk.

The Schwarzschild mass of the bulk spacetime turns up as an additional constant of integration in the most general 4D modified Friedmann equation, controlling the energy density of a dark radiation term . 444One of the many intriguing aspects of the brane-world scenario is the holographic principle which asserts that a bulk gravitational field can be described by a non-gravitational field theory on the boundary of spacetime. The most famous example is the entropy of a black hole which is proportional to the area of its event horizon rather than its volume. Similarly the gravitational field of the bulk black hole turns up as an effective radiation density on the brane . This is an example of a five-dimensional effect that (unlike the quadratic density term) is not automatically suppressed at low energies. However if this dark radiation is not to disrupt the standard successful model of primordial nucleosynthesis its dynamical effect is constrained to always be small.

### 6.2 Covariant brane-world gravity

The modified Friedmann equation is an example of non-linear gravitational solutions that are possible in the Randall-Sundrum model. An elegant way to describe the effective gravity seen by an observer on the brane was presented by Shiromizu, Maeda and Sasaki  who derived the effective Einstein equations for an observer on a 3-brane embedded at a $`Z_2`$-symmetric fixed point in a five-dimensional Einstein gravity.

Gauss’s equation relates the intrinsic curvature of the five-dimensional spacetime to the intrinsic curvature of the brane and the extrinsic curvature of its embedding, $`K_{\mu \nu }`$. For a brane located at a fixed point in a $`Z_2`$-symmetric bulk the extrinsic curvature is completely determined by the tension $`\lambda `$ and energy-momentum tensor, $`T_{\mu \nu }`$, on the brane

$$K_{\mu \nu }=\kappa _5^2\left(T_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{3}(T\lambda )g_{\mu \nu }\right)$$
(6)
The case of an asymmetric bulk is considered in Ref.. The observer sees only the matter fields, with energy-momentum tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$, the induced metric on the brane, $`g_{\mu \nu }`$, and the projected five-dimensional Weyl tensor $`E_{\mu \nu }`$ which appear in the equations for the 4D Einstein tensor on the brane

$$G_{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Lambda }_4g_{\mu \nu }=\kappa _4^2T_{\mu \nu }+\kappa _5^4\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }E_{\mu \nu },$$
(7)
where the effective cosmological constant on the brane is

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_4=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_5+\frac{\kappa _5^4}{12}\lambda ^2,$$

and the quadratic energy-momentum tensor

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}T_{\mu \lambda }T_\nu ^\lambda +\frac{1}{12}TT_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{8}g_{\mu \nu }\left(T_{\lambda \kappa }T^{\lambda \kappa }\frac{1}{3}T^2\right).$$

represents the effect of high-energy corrections to the local gravitational field, such as the $`\rho ^2`$ term in the modified Friedmann equation.

The effect of the non-local 5D gravitational field on the brane is described by the projected Weyl tensor which appears as an effective energy-momentum tensor

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mu \nu }\kappa _4^2E_{\mu \nu }=\left(\frac{4}{3}\stackrel{~}{u}_\mu \stackrel{~}{u}_\nu +\frac{1}{3}g_{\mu \nu }\right)\stackrel{~}{\rho }+\stackrel{~}{\pi }_{\mu \nu },$$

with energy density $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }`$, momentum $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }\stackrel{~}{u}^\mu `$ and anisotropic pressure $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }_{\mu \nu }`$. The evolution of the Weyl energy and momentum on the brane follows from energy-momentum conservation equations, driven by the Weyl pressure and coupled to the quadratic tensor $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }`$ .

The isotropic Weyl-pressure is $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }/3`$ due to the tracefree property of the Weyl tensor, but the anisotropic pressure is in general undetermined by the 4D equations and hence this system of 4D equations in not closed. Hence it may be of limited use in actually deriving brane-world solutions unless the anistropic stress from the bulk is known or can be prescribed for some reason, as in the case of FRW cosmologies where all anisotropies are required to vanish simply by the symmetry of the spacetime. When other fields are included in the bulk (as for instance in the heterotic M-theory solutions of Lukas, Ovrut and Waldram ) there are further undetermined terms in the projected 4D equations on the brane representing energy transfer to or from the bulk fields and this need not be vanishing even for FRW cosmologies on the brane . Nonetheless the 4D effective equations are required for the correct 4D interpretation of the 5D solutions.

For example, it is often supposed that moving matter on the brane must ‘lose energy’ to the gravitational field in the bulk , whereas in five-dimensional vacuum Einstein gravity, the local energy-momentum conservation, $`^\mu T_{\mu \nu }=0`$, is guaranteed by the Gauss-Codazzi equation . The answer is that moving matter on the brane can generate bulk gravitational waves but that this is due to energy-momentum transfer between the quadratic tensor, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }`$, and the effective Weyl-fluid. The covariant derivative of Eq. (7), plus the Bianchi identity $`^\mu G_{\mu \nu }=0`$, yields

$$^\mu E_{\mu \nu }=\kappa _5^4^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu },$$

without affecting the local conservation of the conventional four-dimensional energy-momentum tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$.

### 6.3 Cosmological perturbations

Although quadratic terms in the modified Friedmann equation may be significant in the high-energy regime ($`\rho >\lambda _{RS}`$) the effect at low-energies (say, after nucleosynthesis) becomes negligibly small. Any evidence of an unconventional past could show up in any primordial perturbations generated at early times.

If we wish to consider arbitrary linear perturbations about an FRW brane in a (Schwarzschild-)anti-de Sitter bulk, then the projected field equations do not form a closed system due to the possibility of anisotropic stresses. The standard approach to studying linear perturbations in a higher dimensional theory is to decompose arbitrary perturbations into harmonics on the spatial sections. If the wave equation is separable then one can follow the time-dependence of each spatial mode separately. This is always possible, for instance, for perturbations about an FRW background where 3D spatial eigenmodes are Fourier modes (in flat space) or (hyper-)spherical harmonics in curved space . However, for an FRW brane it is not in general possible to separate the time-dependence of each 3D mode from the bulk-dependence in a brane-based coordinate system. One is then left with a partial differential equation to solve for which it has proved difficult to come up with analytic results except in special cases.

If the bulk is 5D anti-de Sitter it is always possible to write down the general separable solution in a static coordinate system . This indeed was the approach used to study the Newtonian limit by Randall and Sundrum in their original paper. But although a Minkowski brane remains at fixed location, an FRW brane will be moving with respect to the static bulk coordinates and applying the correct boundary conditions at the brane couples together different bulk modes. So although the general solution is known, the particular solution that obeys the correct boundary conditions is not.

As a consequence there is no zero-mode solution for the bulk gravitational field in a simple FRW cosmology such as a radiation- or matter-dominated universe. Although this mode mixing will be suppressed on scales where the cosmological expansion/brane motion can be neglected, the lack of quantitative results means that the magnitude of any deviations from the standard evolution of cosmological perturbations remains uncertain. On small (sub-Hubble) scales we expect the Minkowski results to remain valid. And on large scales there is a solution where the metric perturbations remain constant when all gradient terms can be neglected . But around horizon-crossing, where the cosmological expansion cannot be neglected, there could be some mode-mixing .

There have been many attempts to extend to the brane-world either metric-based or covariant approaches to cosmological perturbation theory, reviewed in Ref. . These have, however, largely been restricted to developing the required formalism and have stopped short of providing quantitative results.

The only cases in which the 5D perturbations are properly understood are those special cases in which the bulk equations are separable in a brane-based coordinate system. For 5D vacuum Einstein gravity this restricts the brane to only de Sitter (or anti-de Sitter or Minkowski) cosmologies in 5D anti-de Sitter. Although a mathematically special case, de Sitter provides an idealised model for conventional slow-roll inflation. Thus one can calculate the spectrum of large-scale metric perturbations generated from initial vacuum fluctuations that cross outside the cosmological horizon during the de Sitter phase . What one finds is that large-scale perturbation spectra are only generated in the zero-mode, i.e., the massless 4D graviton, and the massive bulk modes are never excited. There is an enhancement to the amplitude of gravitational waves (tensor modes) generated at a given energy scale if that energy is greater than $`\lambda _{RS}`$. But if inflation is driven by a scalar field on the brane then the scalar curvature perturbations are also enhanced and enhanced more than the gravitational waves . However, surprisingly, the consistency relation found betweeen the ratio of tensor to scalar amplitudes and the tilt of the gravitational wave spectrum in conventional single-field inflation still holds , and the Randall-Sundrum gravity misses another opportunity to distinguish itself observationally from a purely four-dimensional theory .

## 7 Conclusions

String cosmology is far from being a mature subject in which there is any great consensus about how to tackle cosmological questions or even which cosmological questions should be tackled. In this review I have naturally focussed on those questions that interest me and the solutions I have sought. My own hope is that it is through the nature of primordial perturbation spectra being measured with ever-increasing precision by observational cosmologists that we may learn about high-energy phenomena in our Universe.

String theory requires us to contemplate cosmological solutions in a higher-dimensional spacetime. In traditional Kaluza-Klein compactifications this yields a lower-dimensional spacetime described by dilaton-gravity theory with additional low-energy matter fields arising from the ‘internal’ geometry of the extra dimensions. Higher-dimensional effects, corresponding to excitations of the higher harmonics on the internal space, are then supressed at energy scales below that set by the compactification scale.

String theory is best understood in terms of effective field theories in the low-energy limit. The pre big bang scenario is an honest attempt to use the low energy effective actions to describe a cosmological prehistory of our Universe. To date it has failed to provide observational predictions that are in any better agreement with the cosmological observations than those of conventional inflation models. At the same time questions remain about the nature of the transition from pre- to post-big bang phase where a deeper understanding of string (or M-) theory may be required.

A different model for our place in the higher-dimensional spacetime has been provided by the brane-world scenario in which matter fields are restricted to lower-dimensional surfaces, or branes. In order to study the consequences of this novel geometrical setting I have focussed on the simple model proposed by Randall and Sundrum of a single brane embedded in 5D vacuum spacetime described by Einstein gravity. This is simple enough for the homogeneous and isotropic cosmological solutions to have been well-understood, but the understanding of cosmological perturbations is still largely restricted to de Sitter inflation and the large-scale limit. There is some hope that novel 5D effects may survive even at low energies due to the non-local gravitational field but these remain the hardest to calculate and their effect remains uncertain.

If string theory is to be vindicated experimentally then it seems likely that cosmology will provide the key. But the challenge remains to provide observational predictions that, without violating existing experimental bounds, go beyond those effects already known to the four-dimensional cosmologist.

I am grateful to the meeting organisers for their kind hospitality during my stay in Cape Town. My work is supported by the Royal Society.

## References


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# Evolution of cosmological dark matter perturbations

## I Introduction

Current observational evidence suggests that a significant fraction of the matter density of the universe is in the form of dark matter. Most of this must have low velocity dispersion to be consistent with large scale structure, and the cold dark matter (CDM) model has so far proved to be a good model. However it is quite possible that the dark matter has non-zero velocity dispersion, in the form of warm dark matter. There is also good evidence that the neutrinos have non-zero mass, so there will be a small component of hot dark matter in the form of massive neutrinos. In this paper we study the evolution of dark matter perturbations with a non-zero velocity dispersion, focusing especially on the massive neutrinos and their effect on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy.

One of the useful products of forthcoming high-resolution CMB observations should be good limits on the massive neutrino masses. Atmospheric neutrino oscillation observations currently provide three-sigma evidence for a mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2(3\pm 2)\times 10^3\text{eV}^2`$ T. Toshito et al. (2001) (Super-Kamiokande collaboration). This is consistent with a predominantly $`\nu _\mu `$-$`\nu _\tau `$ oscillation though more complicated interpretations are possible. Solar neutrino data show a much smaller mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2(3\pm 1)\times 10^4\text{eV}^2`$ Barger et al. (2002), suggesting that two of the neutrino mass eigenstates are likely to be nearly degenerate or very small. The neutrino mass is related to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$, the ratio of the density of massive neutrinos to the critical density required for a flat universe, by (see e.g. Ref. Peacock (1999))

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu h^2=\frac{m_\nu }{93.8\text{eV}}.$$
(1)
For $`h0.7`$ the neutrino oscillations therefore provide the bound that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 10^3`$. Recently there has also been controversial evidence for double beta decay Klapdor-Kleingrothaus et al. (2002); Barger et al. (2002), which could place interesting lower limits on the neutrino mass eigenstates if confirmed. Current cosmological evidence is not very constraining, suggesting only that $`m_\nu 4.2\text{eV}`$ and hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.1`$ Wang et al. (2002).

If $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 10^3`$ the observable effect on the cosmology is limited, with the CMB temperature and polarization power spectra changing by less than a percent relative to the corresponding pure CDM model. However at slightly larger values the effects can become important. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 3\times 10^3`$ there are changes in the electric polarization power spectrum at the few percent level. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 5\times 10^3`$ the effect on the temperature power spectrum becomes significant at the percent level. Though it might be more natural for all the neutrino masses to be very small, three neutrinos of approximately degenerate mass ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m<0.07\text{eV}`$) would be consistent with current data and could easily be cosmologically interesting.

Even if the contribution is small, it is essential to be able to include the effect of massive neutrinos in the theoretical calculations, both to constrain the neutrino masses themselves, and for accurate recovery of the other cosmological parameters. Even if neutrino experiments suggest that the masses are very small we would also like to check independently that this is consistent with cosmology.

In this paper we analyse the propagation of dark matter perturbations, presenting evolution equations that can be used for fast numerical implementations. We shall focus on linearized massive neutrino perturbations, though our results could be applied equally well to other forms of dark or interacting non-massless matter. In particular the low-energy equations could be used for the efficient propagation of warm dark matter perturbations. We also provide exact equations that may be a useful starting point for studying non-linear evolution.

We use a covariant expansion of the dark matter distribution function following Ref. Ellis et al. (1983), giving a set of exact multipole equations for the propagation of collisionless matter. To compute the matter power spectrum and CMB anisotropies in models with hot or warm dark matter we linearize the multipole equations about an exact Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) model. The covariant analysis yields sets of physically transparent equations that can be split into scalar, vector and tensor parts as required for numerical implementation (for previous applications of this approach see Refs. Ellis et al. (1983); Challinor and Lasenby (1999); Gebbie and Ellis (2000); Gebbie et al. (2000)). We derive useful limiting cases when the matter is highly relativistic and non-relativistic, and also discuss an accurate approximate scheme that interpolates between the two regimes. Though we present a covariant analysis here, our approximation techniques could be applied equally well using metric variables, for example the synchronous or Newtonian gauge formalism of Ref. Ma and Bertschinger (1995), or the ‘gauge-ready’ formalism of Ref. Hwang and Noh (2002).

For parameter estimation and hypothesis testing with forthcoming CMB data a large number of accurate theoretical power spectra will need to be generated, even if fast Monte Carlo sampling techniques are employed. This can be very time consuming even using efficient codes such as CMBFAST Seljak and Zaldarriaga (1996) or parallelized derivatives such as CAMB Lewis et al. (2000). Using current methods the massive neutrino evolution dominates the computation time, so our methods for speeding up the neutrino evolution should be useful. Our numerical code can generate CMB power spectra (including polarization) two or three times faster than CMBFAST on one processor, and in under a second on a modern 16 processor machine (non-flat models take about twice as long).

We employ general relativity with signature $`(+)`$ and use natural units where $`c=1`$.

## II Covariant multipole equations

We analyse the propagation of the dark matter with respect to a reference 4-velocity $`u^a`$. The variables we use are then physically meaningful and can in principle be measured directly by an observer moving with this velocity. We decompose the 4-momentum of a particle of mass $`m`$ with respect to $`u^a`$ as

$$p^a=Eu^a+\lambda e^a,$$
(2)
where $`E`$ is the energy, $`\lambda =\sqrt{E^2m^2}`$ is the 3-momentum and $`e^ae_a=1`$. We shall assume that the dark matter is collisionless so that the distribution function $`f=f(x^a,p^a)`$ obeys the Liouville equation

$$_\tau f=0$$
(3)
along a path described by an affine parameter $`\tau `$ (defined so that $`_\tau x^a=p^a`$).

The $`e^a`$ dependence of the distribution function $`f=f(x,E,e^a)`$ can be expanded in terms of irreducible multipoles as

$$f=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_{A_l}e^{A_l}=F+F_ae^a+F_{ab}e^ae^b+\mathrm{},$$
(4)
where the tensors $`F_{A_l}=F_{a_1\mathrm{}a_l}`$ are projected (orthogonal to $`u^a`$) symmetric and trace-free. The angle brackets denote the projected symmetric trace free (PSTF) part of the enclosed indices. This multipole expansion is the covariant equivalent of the usual spherical harmonic expansion. Substituting into the Liouville equation we have

$$\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left(_EF_{A_l}_\tau Ee^{A_l}+p^a_aF_{A_l}e^{A_l}+lF_{A_l}p^a_ae^{a_l}e^{A_{l1}}\right)=0.$$
(5)
The propagation is governed by the geodesic equation $`p^a_ap^b=0`$, and the component in the $`u^a`$ direction gives

$$(E/\lambda )_\tau E=_\tau \lambda =E^2A_ae^a+E\lambda (\sigma _{ab}e^ae^bH).$$
(6)
This then implies that

$$h^a{}_{b}{}^{}p_{}^{c}_ce^b=\frac{E^2}{\lambda }(A^a+e^aA^ce^a)E(e^b\omega _b{}_{}{}^{a}+\sigma _{bc}e^be^ce^a+\sigma ^a{}_{b}{}^{}e_{}^{b}),$$
(7)
where $`h_{ab}`$ is the projection tensor into the space orthogonal to $`u^a`$. Here, the local Hubble parameter, acceleration, shear and vorticity are given by

$$H=\frac{1}{3}^au_a,A_a=\dot{u}_au^b_bu_a,\sigma _{ab}=\mathrm{D}_au_b,\omega _{ab}=\mathrm{D}_{[a}u_{b]},$$
(8)
and $`\mathrm{D}_aX_{a_1\mathrm{}a_l}=h_a{}_{}{}^{b}h_{a_1}^{}{}_{}{}^{b_1}\mathrm{}h_{a_l}{}_{}{}^{b_l}_{b}^{}X_{b_1\mathrm{}b_l}`$ is the spatial covariant derivative. Using these relations in the Liouville equation and equating irreducible PSTF terms one obtains a set of equations for the evolution of the distribution function multipoles:

$$\begin{array}{c}E{}_{}{}^{}\dot{F}_{A_l}^{}\lambda ^2H_EF_{A_l}\frac{l+1}{2l+3}\lambda \mathrm{D}^aF_{aA_l}+\lambda \mathrm{D}_{a_l}F_{A_{l1}}lEF_{aA_{l1}}\omega _{a_l}^a\hfill \\ \hfill +\left[\lambda E_EF_{A_{l1}}(l1)\frac{E^2}{\lambda }F_{A_{l1}}\right]A_{a_l}\frac{l+1}{2l+3}\left[(l+2)\frac{E^2}{\lambda }F_{aA_l}+\lambda E_EF_{aA_l}\right]A^a\\ \hfill \frac{l}{2l+3}[3EF_{aA_{l1}}+2\lambda ^2_EF_{aA_{l1}}]\sigma _{a_l}{}_{}{}^{a}+\frac{(l+1)(l+2)}{(2l+3)(2l+5)}[(l+3)EF_{abA_l}+\lambda ^2_EF_{abA_l}]\sigma ^{ab}\\ \hfill +\left[\lambda ^2_EF_{A_{l2}}(l2)EF_{A_{l2}}\right]\sigma _{a_{l1}a_l}=0,\end{array}$$
(9)
where $`{}_{}{}^{}\dot{F}_{A_l}^{}=h^{B_l}{}_{A_l}{}^{}u_{}^{a}_aF_{B_l}`$ is the projected time derivative.

The dark matter couples to other matter via gravity according to general relativity. The relevant quantities for the gravitational interaction are not the distribution function multipoles but rather the integrated quantities that make up the stress-energy tensor. Following Ref. Ellis et al. (1983) we therefore integrate over momentum defining the momentum-integrated multipoles

$$J_{A_l}^{(i)}\frac{4\pi (2)^l(l!)^2}{(2l+1)!}_0^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}\lambda \lambda ^2EF_{A_l}\left(\frac{\lambda }{E}\right)^n,$$
(10)
where $`nl+2i`$ is the velocity weight. The numerical factor is introduced so that the energy density, momentum density, anisotropic stress, and isotropic pressure that make up the stress-energy tensor are simply

$$\rho =J^{(0)},q_a=J_a^{(0)},\pi _{ab}=J_{ab}^{(0)},p=\frac{1}{3}J^{(1)}.$$
(11)
Integrating Eq. (9) over momentum we obtain the set of exact multipole equations

$$\begin{array}{c}{}_{}{}^{}\dot{J}_{A_l}^{(i)}+H[(3+n)J_{A_l}^{(i)}+(1n)J_{A_l}^{(i+1)}]+\mathrm{D}^aJ_{aA_l}^{(i)}\frac{l}{2l+1}\mathrm{D}_{a_l}J_{A_{l1}}^{(i+1)}lJ_{aA_{l1}}^{(i)}\omega _{a_l}^a\hfill \\ \hfill +\frac{l}{2l+1}\left[(l+n+1)J_{A_{l1}}^{(i)}+(2n)J_{A_{l1}}^{(i+1)}\right]A_{a_l}+\left[(ln)J_{aA_l}^{(i1)}+(n2)J_{aA_l}^{(i)}\right]A^a\\ \hfill +\frac{l}{2l+3}[(2n+3)J_{aA_{l1}}^{(i)}+(22n)J_{aA_{l1}}^{(i+1)}]\sigma _{a_l}{}_{}{}^{a}+[(ln)J_{abA_l}^{(i1)}+(n1)J_{abA_l}^{(i)}]\sigma ^{ab}\\ \hfill +\frac{l(l1)}{4l^21}\left[(n1)J_{A_{l2}}^{(i+2)}(l+n+1)J_{A_{l2}}^{(i+1)}\right]\sigma _{a_{l1}a_l}=0.\end{array}$$
(12)
This exact two-dimensional infinite hierarchy of covariant equations can be used as a starting point for analysing the propagation of dark matter with arbitrary velocity dispersion. In the case of collisional matter the right hand side would contain a collision term. The $`(l,i)`$ element of the hierarchy involves moments with $`l`$ in the range $`(l2,l+2)`$ and $`i`$ in the range $`(i1,i+2)`$. The coefficients in front of the $`i1`$ moments vanish for $`i=0`$, so the subset of equations with $`i0`$ form a closed system for the $`i0`$ moments.

## III Cosmological dark matter

The application of the two-dimensional multipole hierarchy we consider here is to dark matter perturbations in cosmology. The universe is assumed to be nearly FRW and we linearize by dropping products of any quantities that vanish in an exact FRW universe. All the $`l>0`$ multipoles vanish by isotropy in an exact FRW model and are therefore first order. The only zero-order quantities are the scale factor, Hubble parameter and the $`l=0`$ multipoles. To first order about a FRW universe the momentum-integrated multipole equations (12) become

$`\dot{J}_{A_l}^{(i)}+H\left[(1n)J_{A_l}^{(i+1)}+(3+n)J_{A_l}^{(i)}\right]\frac{l}{2l+1}\mathrm{D}_{a_l}J_{A_{l1}}^{(i+1)}+\mathrm{D}^aJ_{aA_l}^{(i)}`$
$`+\left[(1+l+n)J^{(i+l1)}+(3ln)J^{(i+l)}\right](\delta _{1l}\frac{1}{3}A_{a_1}\delta _{2l}\frac{2}{15}\sigma _{a_1a_2})=0.`$ (13)
We characterize perturbations to the $`J^{(i)}`$ (which do not vanish in the FRW limit) by their first-order co-moving spatial gradients

$$\chi _a^{(i)}S\mathrm{D}_aJ^{(i)}.$$
(14)
Here, $`S`$ is the scale factor defined generally in a perturbed universe by integrating $`\dot{S}=HS`$ with initial conditions chosen to ensure that $`\mathrm{D}_aS`$ is first order. Taking the spatial gradient of the $`l=0`$ equations and commuting derivatives gives the propagation equation

$`\dot{\chi }_a^{(i)}+\left[(12i)J^{(i+1)}+(3+2i)J^{(i)}\right]\dot{h}_a+S\mathrm{D}_a\mathrm{D}^bJ_b^{(i)}+H\left[(12i)\chi _a^{(i+1)}+(3+2i)\chi _a^{(i)}\right]=0,`$ (15)
where $`h_a\mathrm{D}_aS`$ is the projected gradient of the scale factor. Note that

$$\dot{h}_a=S(\mathrm{D}_aHHA_a)$$
(16)
is defined uniquely at linear order once a choice is made for $`u^a`$, unlike $`h_a`$ itself which also depends on the choice of surface on which we impose $`S=\text{constant}`$ as an initial condition.

The covariant equations (13) and (15) constitute an infinite two-dimensional hierarchy for analysing the propagation of linear dark matter perturbations. For massless particles $`E=\lambda `$ and the velocity-weighted moments are identical, $`J_{A_l}^{(i)}=J_{A_l}^{(i^{})}`$. The momentum-integrated equations then reduce to the usual one-dimensional Boltzmann hierarchy used to propagate massless neutrino perturbations Challinor and Lasenby (1999).

For non-relativistic matter the velocity weight $`l+2i`$ controls the magnitude of the momentum-integrated moments. If we neglect terms with $`l+2i>n_{}`$ the order $`n_{}`$ equations become (for $`02i<n_{}2`$)

$$\dot{J}_{A_{n_{}2i}}^{(i)}+(3+n_{})HJ_{A_{n_{}2i}}^{(i)}=0.$$
(17)
Using $`H=\dot{S}/S`$ this solves to give

$$J_{A_{n_{}2i}}^{(i)}S^3S^n_{}.$$
(18)
As expected the truncated equations will be accurate to within terms that decay as an $`n_{}`$th-order velocity density. In addition to demanding that $`v_{}1`$, where $`v_{}`$ is the typical particle velocity, an accurate truncation also requires that the perturbations do not vary too rapidly in space. The spatial derivative terms in the $`n_{}`$th-order equations can only be neglected if $`kv_{}SH`$, i.e. the free-streaming scale in an expansion time is much less than the proper wavelength $`S/k`$ of the fluctuations.

A hierarchy truncated at $`n_{}=2`$ was used in Ref. Maartens et al. (1999) to study stress effects in dark matter structure formation. For warm or hot dark matter one can choose $`n_{}`$ as large as required to obtain accurate results.

There is a subtlety associated with this low-velocity-weight truncation scheme that arises because the $`l=1`$ momentum-integrated moments are not frame-invariant in linear theory. Under linear changes in the fiducial velocity, $`u^a\stackrel{~}{u}^a=u^a+v^a`$, one can show that the moments transform as

$$J_{A_l}^{(i)}\stackrel{~}{J}_{A_l}^{(i)}=J_{A_l}^{(i)}\frac{1}{3}\delta _{l1}v_{a_1}[(3+2i)J^{(i)}+(12i)J^{(i+1)}].$$
(19)
For $`l=1`$ and $`i=0`$ this reduces to the well-known result $`\stackrel{~}{q}^a=q^a(\rho +p)v^a`$. We see that at $`l=1`$ the transformation is not homogeneous in the velocity weight. The form of Eq. (19) implies that the truncation condition $`J_{A_l}^{(i)}=0`$ for $`l+2i>n_{}`$ is only frame-invariant at linear order for $`n_{}`$ odd.

## IV Massive neutrino perturbations

We now discuss how to propagate massive neutrino perturbations from the early universe until the present day, with the aim of implementing the equations numerically in an efficient way.

Assuming instantaneous neutrino decoupling in the early universe the zero-order distribution function for massive neutrinos is given by the Fermi-Dirac distribution

$$f(q)\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\sqrt{q^2+m_\nu ^2S_d^2}}{k_BT_dS_d}\right)+1\right]^1,$$
(20)
where $`T_d`$ and $`S_d`$ are the temperature and scale factor at neutrino decoupling and $`qS\lambda `$ is the co-moving momentum. We assume the particles will be highly relativistic at decoupling so the mass term can be dropped. As the universe expands the momenta redshift and the neutrinos evolve to become non-relativistic.

At hydrogen recombination light neutrinos will still be quite relativistic, and the higher multipoles in the distribution can be significant. Usually it is assumed that the neutrinos become non-relativistic well before recombination, and hence the high multipoles have little effect. For light species it is necessary to evolve the higher multipoles to get accurate results, and approximate schemes like that in Ref. Hu (1998), based on a low-$`l`$ truncation, do not give accurate results. For such relatively light species it is nonetheless still important to take account of the non-zero mass, as this can effect the matter power spectrum and CMB anisotropy power spectrum at the level of several percent (though some of this is trivially accounted for by the change in the background equation of state).

It is usual to assume that if the neutrino mass eigenstates are significant they will be approximately degenerate. This is reasonable as the observed mass squared differences are sufficiently small that taking them into account would make no observable difference to the cosmology for the foreseeable future. However it is possible that at some point in the future observations will be sufficiently accurate that even small mass splittings may have an observable effect, in which case the neutrino mass eigenstates may need to be propagated separately.

### The general regime

When the most of the neutrinos are either highly relativistic or highly non-relativistic one can use a small mass or small velocity expansion, as discussed below. However in general a significant fraction of the neutrinos have intermediate velocities and one needs to propagate the distribution function directly to get accurate results. As the neutrinos are locally in equilibrium prior to decoupling, the distribution function evolves from the isotropic form in Eq. (20), but with a spatial variation in the temperature. The efficiency with which free-streaming converts this spatial variation into an angular variation depends on the particle velocity (and the wavelength of the fluctuation). For this reason the anisotropies in the distribution function do not simply inherit the momentum dependence of the spatial variation of the initial (isotropic) distribution, unlike the case for massless particles.

In terms of the co-moving momentum $`qS\lambda `$ and energy $`ϵSE`$ the multipole equations (9) for the propagation of the distribution function linearize to give

$$\dot{F}_{A_l}\frac{q}{ϵ}\frac{l+1}{2l+3}\mathrm{D}^cF_{cA_l}+\frac{q}{ϵ}\mathrm{D}_aF_{A_{l1}}+\delta _{l1}\left(\frac{ϵ}{q}A_{a_1}+\frac{1}{S}\frac{q}{ϵ}h_{a_1}\right)q_qF+\delta _{l2}\sigma _{a_1a_2}q_qF=0,$$
(21)
where the spacetime derivatives are taken at constant $`q`$. Note that

$$_aF_{A_l}|_\lambda =_aF_{A_l}|_q+(_aS/S)q_qF_{A_l}.$$
(22)
The $`l=1`$ equation contains the first order variable combination

$$𝒱_aS\mathrm{D}_aF+h_aq_qF=S\mathrm{D}_aF|_\lambda $$
(23)
that covariantly characterizes perturbations to the isotropic part of the distribution function. It integrates to give the co-moving gradient of the energy density:

$$\chi _a=\chi _a^{(0)}S\mathrm{D}_a\rho =\frac{4\pi }{S^4}_0^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}qq^2ϵ𝒱_a.$$
(24)
Differentiating Eq. (21) for $`l=0`$ with respect to time and commuting derivatives we find the propagation equation

$$\dot{𝒱}_a=\frac{1}{3}\frac{q}{ϵ}S\mathrm{D}_a\mathrm{D}^bF_b+\dot{h}_aq_qF.$$
(25)
This equation, together with the $`l>0`$ multipole equations, allows one to propagate the distribution function perturbations directly. The synchronous gauge and Newtonian gauge equivalent of these equations are well known Ma and Bertschinger (1995) and are what is usually used to propagate numerically massive neutrino perturbations Ma and Bertschinger (1995); Seljak and Zaldarriaga (1996); Dodelson et al. (1996). This is slow computationally as one has to propagate a hierarchy of multipoles for each co-moving momentum, and perform numerical integrations to compute the stress-energy tensor that is relevant for coupling to the other perturbations. Even for one massive species the numerical evolution of its distribution function dominates the computation time, and it becomes proportionately worse if one has to evolve several massive species.

Note that when a given co-moving momentum becomes sufficiently non-relativistic ($`kq/ϵSH`$ with $`k`$ co-moving wavenumber) free-streaming becomes ineffective at converting spatial structure into angular structure, and the spatial-derivative terms in Eq. (21) become negligible. In this limit, $`F_{A_l}(q)`$ for $`l>2`$ is approximately constant. When nearly all the particles are non-relativistic, constancy of $`F_{A_l}(q)`$ leads directly to the scaling of the momentum-integrated moments given in Eq. (18).

### The relativistic regime

In the relativistic regime the bulk of the distribution have momenta large compared to the rest mass $`qm_\nu S`$. Defining the dimensionless mass parameter $`\overline{m}m_\nu /k_BT_dS_d`$ one can expand Eq. (10) in terms of the small quantity $`\overline{m}S`$ (which is the ratio of mass to the typical proper momentum) giving, in the FRW limit,

$$\rho \rho _0\left(1+\frac{5}{7\pi ^2}\overline{m}^2S^2\right),p\frac{\rho _0}{3}\left(1\frac{5}{7\pi ^2}\overline{m}^2S^2\right),J^{(2)}\rho _0\left(1\frac{15}{7\pi ^2}\overline{m}^2S^2\right),$$
(26)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the density the neutrino would have if it were massless. These expressions are correct to order $`(\overline{m}S)^2`$, though the expansion does not generalize straightforwardly to higher order. More generally one can find a relation between the multipoles of different velocity weight in the perturbed universe; using the definition given in Eq. (10) and expanding in $`\overline{m}S`$ we have

$$J_{A_l}^{(i+1)}J_{A_l}^{(i)}m^2S^2\frac{4\pi (2)^l(l!)^2}{S^4(2l+1)!}_0^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}qϵF_{A_l}.$$
(27)
To this order we can evaluate the last integral assuming the neutrinos are massless. Starting from a locally isotropic distribution, the momentum dependence of the $`F_{A_l}`$ follows that of the $`l=1`$ and $`2`$ source terms in Eq. (21), so that

$$F_{A_l}q_qF$$
(28)
for $`l>0`$. Using this and integrating by parts we have

$$J_{A_l}^{(i+1)}J_{A_l}^{(i)}\left(1\frac{5}{7\pi ^2}\overline{m}^2S^2\right)J_{A_l}^{(i)}\sqrt{\frac{3p}{\rho }}$$
(29)
for $`l>0`$. In a similar manner, using $`𝒱_aq_qF`$ in the massless limit, we find

$$\chi _a^{(i+1)}\chi _a^{(i)}\left(1\frac{5}{7\pi ^2}\overline{m}^2S^2\right)\chi _a^{(i)}\sqrt{\frac{3p}{\rho }}.$$
(30)
To this order in $`\overline{m}S`$, Eqs. (29) and (30) provide closure conditions that allows reduction of the two dimensional momentum-integrated hierarchy, Eqs. (13) and (15), to a one-dimensional hierarchy for propagating the $`J_{A_l}^{(0)}`$ and $`\chi _a`$ that are required for coupling to other perturbations. The approximation is good for $`(l+2i)\overline{m}^2S^21`$.

### The non-relativistic regime

When the bulk of the neutrinos have $`qm_\nu S`$ the energy density and pressure evolve in the FRW limit as

$`\rho `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{180\rho _0}{7\pi ^4}}\left(\zeta _3\overline{m}S+{\displaystyle \frac{15\zeta _5}{2\overline{m}S}}{\displaystyle \frac{945\zeta _7}{16(\overline{m}S)^3}}+\mathrm{}\right),`$
$`p`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{900\rho _0}{7\pi ^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\zeta _5}{\overline{m}S}}{\displaystyle \frac{63}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta _7}{(\overline{m}S)^3}}+\mathrm{}\right).`$ (31)
The value of $`\overline{m}`$ today ($`S=1`$) is related to the neutrino mass by

$$m_\nu 1.68\times 10^4\overline{m}\text{eV}.$$
(32)
For masses of order $`0.2\text{eV}`$ or larger $`\overline{m}10^3`$, and the mean speed today is less than about $`10^3c`$. Even in the low mass case the neutrinos will therefore have been non-relativistic for a significant fraction of the universe’s evolution.

Since the velocities are becoming small one can accurately truncate the momentum-integrated hierarchy, Eq. (13), at some fairly low velocity weight. However in order to do this one does need to know initial values in the non-relativistic era for those momentum-integrated multipoles that are retained after truncation. Generally, these cannot be obtained from the one-dimensional hierarchy that is integrated in the relativistic regime since the eras of applicability of the relativistic and non-relativistic approximations do not overlap. (However, a way of interpolating between these two regimes with sufficient accuracy for CMB computations is discussed below.) One must therefore integrate the distribution function directly, using equations (21) and (25), until one enters the non-relativistic regime, at which point one can switch over to a truncated momentum-integrated hierarchy.

The evolution of small-scale perturbations depends more critically on the higher velocity weight multipoles due to the derivative coupling in Eq. (13). Performing a mode expansion in wavenumber as in the appendix, the truncated hierarchy only becomes accurate at rather later times for small wavenumbers, as discussed in Sec. III.

### An approximate scheme

The relic neutrinos themselves have very low energy and will remain unobservable for the foreseeable future. We are therefore not interested in the neutrino perturbations per se, just in their effect on the matter and photon perturbations. In this subsection we suggest an efficient approximate scheme, based on results obtained above, for propagating the massive neutrino perturbations into the non-relativistic regime which we have found to be sufficiently accurate for the computation of the CMB power spectra at the one percent level. This approximate scheme is inadequate for the matter power spectrum, which is most efficiently calculated using a momentum grid in the relativistic era matched onto the truncated momentum-integrated hierarchy when the neutrinos are non-relativistic.

If we use Eqs. (26) and (29), we can write the momentum-integrated hierarchy, Eqs. (13) and (15), for $`i=0`$ during the relativistic era in the form

$`\dot{J}_{A_l}^{(0)}+H\left[(3+l)r(l1)\right]J_{A_l}^{(0)}r\frac{l}{2l+1}\mathrm{D}_{a_l}J_{A_{l1}}^{(0)}+\mathrm{D}^aJ_{aA_l}^{(0)}+\delta _{1l}\rho A_{a_1}(1+w)\delta _{2l}{\displaystyle \frac{2w\rho }{5}}(53w)\sigma _{a_1a_2}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (33)
$`\dot{\chi }_a+H(r+3)\chi _a+\mathrm{D}_a\mathrm{D}^bJ_b^{(0)}+3\rho (1+w)\dot{h}_a`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (34)
where $`wp/\rho `$ and $`r=(3w)^{1/2}`$. These equations can be used to evolve the perturbations accurately while the majority of the particles are relativistic.

To motivate the approximate scheme, we note that massive neutrinos *perturbations* affect the CMB power spectra in the acoustic region mainly by the damping effect on the gravitational potential of their free-streaming on these scales Dodelson et al. (1996). (Other effects, including changes in the position of the acoustic peaks, arise mainly from the variation in the background equation of state.) The effect on the potential is insensitive to the late time evolution of small-scale neutrino perturbations, so these can be computed in a rather coarse manner at later times.

At late times the higher velocity weight multipoles fall off rapidly. Truncating the full momentum-integrated hierarchy at $`n_{}=3`$, one can show that $`J_a^{(1)}rJ_a^{(0)}`$ and $`\chi _a^{(1)}r\chi _a^{(0)}`$ are solutions on large scales if $`r5w`$. Note that these conditions are frame-invariant to the order of our velocity-weight truncation, and that they give the expected scaling as the momenta are redshifted since $`r1/S^2`$. If we use $`r=5w`$ in Eqs. (33) and (34), and drop terms with velocity weight $`n>3`$, we obtain a one-dimensional hierarchy for $`\chi _a`$ and the $`J_{A_l}^{(0)}`$ with $`l3`$ that is consistent on large scales with the full two-dimensional hierarchy truncated at velocity weight 3. This suggests that if we evolve Eqs. (33) and (34) with $`r`$ interpolating between $`(3w)^{1/2}`$ and $`5w`$, we obtain an approximate scheme that is accurate at early times and gives the correct late time behaviour for large-scale low-$`l`$ multipoles. We found that using

$$r=\left(\frac{5}{3}\right)^{\overline{m}S/(\overline{m}S+200)}(3w)^{[\overline{m}S+2]/[\overline{m}S+4]}$$
(35)
works well and gives CMB power spectra accurate at the one percent level, as shown in Fig. 1. The evolution of the neutrino modes is accurate until $`3w`$ becomes significantly less than one, as shown in Fig. 2, and is also approximately correct at late times on large scales. Small scales evolve incorrectly at late times, but this has no observable consequence for the CMB.

The matter power spectrum is more sensitive to the late-time massive neutrino evolution than the CMB power spectra. On scales below the horizon size when the neutrinos become relativistic, free-streaming prevents them from clustering in the relativistic era and thus suppresses the growth of CDM perturbations. Once the neutrinos become non-relativistic they infall and cluster with the dominant CDM Hu and Eisenstein (1998). The approximate scheme described above is not sufficiently accurate at late times for computing the matter power spectrum, and the truncated momentum-integrated hierarchy should be propagated instead. However the late time matter power spectrum only affects the CMB via second order effects such as lensing, and the CMB temperature anisotropy therefore does not depend sensitively on its accuracy.

### Numerical implementation

The covariant equations can be split into scalar, vector and tensor parts and then expanded in terms of the appropriate eigenfunctions of the co-moving Laplacian. This gives sets of equations for the harmonic coefficients that can be propagated numerically. For details of the scalar and tensor cases see the appendices.

The background evolution is affected by the neutrino density and pressure, which is a function only of $`\overline{m}S`$. The numerical integrations over the distribution function required to compute background quantities therefore only need be performed once for each value of $`\overline{m}S`$, and the values can be stored and re-used with different neutrino masses. Equations (26) and (31) can be used to calculate quickly the values at low and high values of $`\overline{m}S`$ respectively.

For the computation of CMB anisotropies we require approximately one percent accuracy in the power spectrum for comparison with forthcoming accurate data. We implement the approximate scheme which is accurate at the one percent level in general, and much more so if the neutrinos are light. For one massive species this is about three times faster than propagating the distribution function directly, and the massive neutrino evolution no longer dominates the computation time.

For comparison, and for computing the matter power spectrum, we also propagate the multipoles of the distribution function directly. When the momentum has redshifted sufficiently that the neutrinos are non-relativistic we switch to propagating the truncated momentum-integrated hierarchy. We keep terms up to $`n_{}=3`$, giving four equations to propagate (the two highest order equations have analytic solutions $`S^3`$). The starting values for the momentum-integrated variables can be computed by integrating numerically over momentum at the switch-over point. Since the higher order variables are most important on small scales the switch-over point needs to be rather later for modes with large wavenumbers. This is a little slower than the approximate scheme, but can be made arbitrarily accurate by delaying the switch-over until the neutrinos have lower velocities.

Hot dark matter affects the large-scale tensor power spectrum predominantly through the change in the background equation of state. Tensor modes interact with the neutrinos only on sub-horizon scales on which they are decaying away, rapidly becoming negligible compared to the scalar perturbations.

## V Conclusion

We have derived momentum-integrated multipole equations describing the propagation of dark matter with non-zero velocity dispersion. In the relativistic and non-relativistic regimes there are accurate approximations that can be used to evolve perturbations efficiently. We focussed on massive neutrino perturbations, though the same techniques could be used for matter with a different distribution function. For distributions with intermediate velocities one has to evolve the distribution function directly to get accurate results, though we found that for computing the CMB power spectrum a fast approximate scheme was sufficient to take account of the effect of massive neutrinos. We have implemented the scalar equations numerically and our fast parallelized CMB anisotropy code is publicly available at http://camb.info.

## Acknowledgements

AL thanks PPARC and the Leverhulme Trust for support. AC is supported by a PPARC Postdoctoral Fellowship.

## Appendix A The scalar equations

It is convenient to perform a harmonic expansion in terms of eigenfunctions $`Q^k`$ of the co-moving Laplacian $`S^2\mathrm{D}^a\mathrm{D}_a`$,

$$S^2\mathrm{D}^a\mathrm{D}_aQ^k=k^2Q^k.$$
(36)
We define scalar coefficients for the harmonic expansion of PSTF tensors in terms of

$$Q_{A_l}^k(S/k)^l\mathrm{D}_{a_1}\mathrm{}\mathrm{D}_{a_l}Q^k$$
(37)
as follows:

$$J_{A_l}^{(i)}=\rho \underset{k}{}I_l^{(i)}Q_{A_l}^k,\chi _a^{(i)}=\rho \underset{k}{}kI_0^{(i)}Q_a^k.$$
(38)
We leave the $`k`$-dependence of the expansion coefficients implicit. The acceleration, shear and gradient of the scale factor can be expanded similarly as

$$A_a=\underset{k}{}\frac{k}{S}AQ_a^k,\sigma _{ab}=\underset{k}{}\frac{k}{S}\sigma Q_{ab}^k,h_a=\underset{k}{}khQ_a^k.$$
(39)
Inserting the harmonic expansion into the multipole equations gives the propagation equations

$`I_l^{(i)}^{}`$ $`+`$ $`\left[(1n)I_l^{(i+1)}+(n3w^{(1)})I_l^{(i)}\right]+k\left[\frac{l+1}{2l+1}\beta _{l+1}I_{l+1}^{(i)}\frac{l}{2l+1}I_{l1}^{(i+1)}\right]`$ (40)
$``$ $`\delta _{l2}\frac{2}{5}k\sigma \left[(3+n)w^{(i+1)}+(1n)w^{(i+2)}\right]+\delta _{l1}kA\left[(2+n)w^{(i)}+(2n)w^{(i+1)}\right]`$
$`+`$ $`\delta _{l0}3h^{}\left[(1n)w^{(i+1)}+(3+n)w^{(i)}\right]=0,`$
where $`3w^{(i)}J^{(i)}/\rho `$, the dash denotes the derivate with respect to conformal time, $`=S^{}/S`$ is the conformal Hubble parameter, and $`\beta _l1(l^21)K/k^2`$ where $`K`$ is the curvature constant.

The scalar equations for the distribution function are obtained by expanding the multipoles in terms of scalar harmonics as

$$𝒱_a=F\underset{k}{}kF_0Q_a^k,F_{A_l}=F\frac{(2l+1)!}{(2)^l(l!)^2}\underset{k}{}F_lQ_{A_l}^k,$$
(41)
giving the multipole equations

$$F_l^{}+k\frac{q}{ϵ}\left(\frac{l+1}{2l+1}\beta _{l+1}F_{l+1}\frac{l}{2l+1}F_{l1}\right)+\left[\delta _{2l}\frac{2}{15}k\sigma \delta _{1l}\frac{1}{3}k\left(\frac{ϵ}{q}A+\frac{q}{ϵ}h\right)\delta _{0l}h^{}\right]\frac{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}F}{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}q}=0.$$
(42)
Choosing the frame $`u^a`$ such that $`A_a=0`$ these equations are equivalent to the synchronous gauge equations used by other codes Ma and Bertschinger (1995); Seljak and Zaldarriaga (1996). Assuming the neutrinos are initially highly relativistic the initial conditions for $`F_l(q)`$ are the same as for massless neutrinos:

$$F_l(q)=\frac{I_l^{(0)}}{4}\frac{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}F}{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}q}.$$
(43)
Later, when the particles are no longer highly relativistic, we can calculate the momentum-integrated multipoles by integrating over $`q`$

$$I_l^{(i)}=\frac{4\pi }{\rho S^4}_0^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}qq^2ϵ\left(\frac{q}{ϵ}\right)^{l+2i}FF_l.$$
(44)
We choose to use the gauge in which $`A_a=0`$, and keep terms up to $`l+2i=n_{}=3`$. This gives the four energy-integrated scalar equations

$`I_0^{(0)}{}_{}{}^{}+(I_0^{(1)}3w^{(1)}I_0^{(0)})+kI_1^{(0)}+3(1+w^{(1)})h^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (45)
$`I_0^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}+(23w^{(1)})I_0^{(1)}+kI_1^{(1)}+15w^{(1)}h^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (46)
$`I_1^{(0)}{}_{}{}^{}+(13w^{(1)})I_1^{(0)}+\frac{1}{3}k(2\beta _2I_2^{(0)}I_0^{(1)})`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (47)
$`I_2^{(0)}{}_{}{}^{}+(23w^{(1)})I_2^{(0)}+\frac{1}{5}k(3\beta _3I_3^{(0)}2I_1^{(1)})2kw^{(1)}\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (48)
where

$$I_3^{(0)}\rho ^1S^6,I_1^{(1)}\rho ^1S^6.$$
(49)
The density perturbation and momentum density plotted in Fig. 2 correspond to the values of $`I_0^{(0)}`$ and $`I_1^{(0)}`$ in the $`A_a=0`$ frame. In the non-covariant approach $`I_0^{(0)}`$ would just be the synchronous gauge $`\delta \rho /\rho `$.

## Appendix B The Tensor Equations

We follow the procedure in Ref. Challinor (2000) and expand in terms of transverse tensor eigenfunctions $`Q_{ab}^k`$ of the co-moving Laplacian,

$$S^2\mathrm{D}^a\mathrm{D}_aQ_{ab}^k=k^2Q_{ab}^k.$$
(50)
We define scalar coefficients for the harmonic expansion of PSTF tensors with $`l2`$ in terms of

$$Q_{A_l}^k(S/k)^{(l2)}\mathrm{D}_{a_1}\mathrm{}\mathrm{D}_{a_{l2}}Q_{a_{l1}a_l}^k$$
(51)
as follows:

$$J_{A_l}^{(i)}=\rho \underset{k}{}I_l^{(i)}Q_{A_l}^k,\sigma _{ab}=\underset{k}{}\frac{k}{S}\sigma Q_{ab}^k.$$
(52)
We leave the $`k`$-dependence of the expansion coefficients implicit.

Inserting the harmonic expansion into the multipole equations gives the $`l2`$ propagation equations

$`I_l^{(i)}{}_{}{}^{}+[(1n)I_l^{(i+1)}+(n3w^{(1)})I_l^{(i)}]+k[\frac{(l+3)(l1)}{(2l+1)(l+1)}\beta _{l+1}I_{l+1}^{(i)}\frac{l}{2l+1}I_{l1}^{(i+1)}]`$
$`\frac{2}{5}k\sigma \left[(3+n)w^{(i+1)}+(1n)w^{(i+2)}\right]=0,`$ (53)
where $`I_1^{(i)}=0`$ and $`\beta _l1(l^23)K/k^2`$. The tensor equations for the propagation of the distribution function follow by expanding

$`F_{A_l}=F{\displaystyle \frac{(2l+1)!}{(2)^l(l!)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}F_lQ_{A_l}^k,`$ (54)
giving the multipole equations

$$F_l^{}+k\frac{q}{ϵ}\left[\frac{(l+3)(l1)}{(2l+1)(l+1)}\beta _{l+1}F_{l+1}\frac{l}{2l+1}F_{l1}\right]+\frac{2}{15}k\sigma \frac{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}F}{\text{d}\mathrm{ln}q}=0,$$
(55)
where $`F_1=0`$.


text:
# References

Extent of the Immirzi Ambiguity in Quantum General Relativity

Guillermo A Mena Marugán

Centro de Física Miguel A. Catalán, IMAFF, CSIC,
Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain

## Abstract

The Ashtekar-Barbero formulation of general relativity admits a one-parameter family of canonical transformations that preserves the expressions of the Gauss and diffeomorphism constraints. The loop quantization of the connection formalism based on each of these canonical sets leads to different predictions. This phenomenon is called the Immirzi ambiguity. It has been recently argued that this ambiguity could be generalized to the extent of a spatially dependent function, instead of a parameter. This would ruin the predictability of loop quantum gravity. We prove that such expectations are not realized, so that the Immirzi ambiguity introduces exclusively a freedom in the choice of a real number. PACS numbers: 04.60.Ds, 04.20.Fy

Nearly fifteen years ago Ashtekar introduced a description of the gravitational field in terms of a complex SO(3) connection and a canonically conjugated densitized triad . This connection formalism provides one of the most promising approaches to quantize general relativity. The use of Ashtekar variables drastically simplifies the expression of the gravitational constraints. In addition, the shift from geometrodynamics to connection dynamics allows the interchange and unification of the mathematical techniques employed in the quantization of gauge matter field theories and in quantum gravity.

The main problem of the original formalism proposed by Ashtekar is that the connection variable is complex. This introduces severe obstacles for the success of the quantization program. On the one hand, the real part of the Ashtekar connection coincides with the SO(3) connection compatible with the densitized triad. In the quantum theory, this relation between gravitational variables is encoded in the so-called “reality conditions”, which are extremely hard to implement . On the other hand, no suitable mathematical tools have been developed to deal with the complexified SO(3) gauge group, which can be considered non-compact.

A way to circumvent this problem was suggested by Barbero, who realized that, by means of a slight modification of the generalized canonical transformation introduced by Ashtekar on the gravitational phase space, one reaches in fact a real SO(3) connection while respecting the canonical symplectic structure . The new canonical variables for gravity are usually called the Ashtekar-Barbero variables, and have been extensively employed in the non-perturbative quantization of general relativity, specially in loop quantum gravity . The main drawback of this approach with respect to the original Ashtekar formulation is that the Hamiltonian constraint loses its extremely simple form. But this is a minor problem compared with the operational advantages of dealing with the real SO(3) group (or, equivalently, the real SU(2) group ) as the relevant gauge group.

The canonical transformation discussed by Barbero can be extended to a one-parameter family of transformations, all of them preserving the kinematical structure and leading to a real connection as the configuration variable . By preserving the kinematical structure we understand that the transformation does not affect the form of the Poisson brackets nor the expression of the non-dynamical constraints, namely, the Gauss and diffeomorphism constraints. The parameter of these canonical transformations is commonly denoted by $`\beta `$ and called the Immirzi parameter. The remarkable point noted by Immirzi is that, whereas in the classical theory his parameter labels only different equivalent descriptions of the gravitational phase space, in the quantum theory there exists an ambiguity, so that the geometrical predictions depend on the value of $`\beta `$ . This is the case, e.g., of the spectrum of the area operator .

Obviously, the existence of the Immirzi ambiguity implies that the canonical transformations relating the formulations with different values of $`\beta `$ cannot be implemented unitarily in the quantum theory . Trying to understand the origins of this ambiguity, it has been compared with the $`\theta `$ ambiguity that arises in Yang-Mill theories , although (unlike the situation found in those theories) it does not appear as a consequence of a multiply connected configuration space . A key point about the Immirzi ambiguity is that it affects the physical predictions only to the extent of a constant parameter. Even in the worst of the theoretical scenarios, namely if the Immirzi parameter cannot be fixed by any fundamental principle, a single physical measurement would suffice to determine which is the actual value of $`\beta `$ realized in nature.

This is the viewpoint which is more strongly advocated in loop quantum gravity. In more detail, the standard proposal consists in removing the Immirzi ambiguity by studying the entropy $`\mathrm{S}`$ of a quantum black hole. Ashtekar and his collaborators  have shown that $`\mathrm{S}=2\pi \beta _0\mathrm{A}/(\beta l^2)`$ for large horizon areas $`\mathrm{A}`$, where $`\beta _0=\mathrm{ln}2/(\pi \sqrt{3})`$ and the canonical Ashtekar-Barbero variables have an identity Poisson bracket multiplied by $`l^2`$ . Then, if the Bekenstein-Hawking formula $`\mathrm{S}=\mathrm{A}/(4l_p^2)`$ is verified in nature, we must have $`\beta l^2=8\pi \beta _0l_p^2`$. Here $`l_p`$ denotes the Planck length in low-energy physics. Since it is generally assumed that $`l^2=8\pi l_p^2`$, one gets $`\beta =\beta _0`$. Let us comment, nevertheless, that the length scales $`l`$ and $`\sqrt{8\pi }l_p`$ might be different, as has been remarked by Rainer .

It has been recently argued that the extent of the Immirzi ambiguity may in fact be generalized from a parameter to a function of the spatial position . If this were possible, any prediction in loop quantum gravity, including the expression of the black hole entropy, would contain a free function of the spatial coordinates. For the particular case of the black hole entropy, it would be difficult to regain the Bekenstein-Hawking formula unless $`\beta `$ is a constant, because so are all the quantities involved in this formula. But much more importantly, in order to check the validity of the quantum predictions and remove the ambiguity, one would have to perform an infinite number of measurements. This would ruin the predictability of loop quantum gravity. The aim of the present work is to prove that such expectations are not fulfilled, and that the freedom introduced by the Immirzi ambiguity consists only in a constant parameter.

Let us start by considering vacuum general relativity in the Ashtekar-Barbero formulation. The gravitational variables can be chosen as a SO(3) connection $`A_a^i`$ and a densitized triad $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$. Lowercase Latin letters from the beginning and middle of the alphabet denote spatial and SO(3) indices (running from 1 to 3), respectively, the latter being lowered and raised with the identity metric. The inverse metric on the spatial sections is $`h^{ab}(\stackrel{~}{E})=\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a\stackrel{~}{E}^{bi}/\stackrel{~}{E}^2`$, with $`\stackrel{~}{E}=\sqrt{\mathrm{det}\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a}`$. The connection $`A_a^i`$ can be expressed in terms of the SO(3) connection compatible with the triad $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$ and the extrinsic curvature in triadic form $`K_a^i`$:

$$A_a^i=\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})\beta K_a^i,$$
(1)
where $`\beta `$ is a constant. Remember that, given a densitized triad and its inverse $`E_{}_{_{}}{}^{}a^i`$,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})=ϵ^{ijk}\stackrel{~}{E}_j^b\left(_{[b}E_{{}_{_{}}{}^{}a]k}+E_{{}_{_{}}{}^{}a[l}\stackrel{~}{E}_{k]}^c_bE_{}_{_{}}{}^{}c^l\right).$$
(2)
The indices in square brackets are anti-symmetrized. When $`\beta =1`$, $`A_a^i`$ reproduces the real connection introduced by Barbero , that we will distinguish with the notation $`\underset{¯}{A}_a^i`$. The original, complex connection of the Ashtekar formalism is obtained with $`\beta =i`$ . In general, $`A_a^i`$ is a real connection for any real number $`\beta `$ because, in Lorentzian gravity, one can always choose $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i`$ to be a real SO(3) connection and $`K_a^i`$ a real vector .

The non-vanishing Poisson brackets between the gravitational variables are :

$$\{A_a^i(x),\stackrel{~}{E}_j^b(y)\}=\beta l^2\delta _j^i\delta _a^b\delta ^{(3)}(xy),$$
(3)
where $`\delta ^{(3)}(x)`$ is the Dirac delta on the spatial three-manifold. We have adopted the convention that the coordinates are dimensionless parameters . The densitized triad must then have the dimensions of the line element, i.e. length squared. In addition, since $`A_a^i`$ is a connection, its dimensionality must coincide with that of the derivative operator and hence vanish.

Obviously (taking units in which $`l=1`$), a canonical set of variables is given by $`A_a^i`$ and the scaled densitized triad

$$E_i^a=\frac{\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a}{\beta }.$$
(4)
The system has three types of constraints: the Gauss, vector (or diffeomorphism) and Hamiltonian (or scalar) ones . The kinematical constraints adopt exactly the same expression in terms of any of the pairs $`(A_a^i,E_i^a)`$:

$`𝒢_i`$ $``$ $`𝒟_aE_i^a=_aE_i^a+ϵ_{ij}^kA_a^jE_k^a=0,`$ (5)
$`𝒱_a`$ $``$ $`E_i^b_{ba}^i=0.`$ (6)
Here, $`_{ab}^i=2_{[a}A_{b]}^i+ϵ_{jk}^iA_a^jA_b^k`$ is the curvature of the connection $`A_a^i`$. As a result of the invariance of the kinematical structure under changes of the value of $`\beta `$, the predictions of quantum geometry (like, e.g., the spectrum of the area operator, which can be constructed exclusively from the densitized triad $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$) turn out to depend on the Immirzi parameter . The quantum physics displays therefore an ambiguity.

In order to show that the freedom in the choice of the Immirzi parameter cannot be extended to a function on the spatial manifold, let us first consider the possibility that, in expression (1), $`\beta `$ becomes a function of the spatial point, $`\beta =\beta (x)`$. Since $`(\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a,K_a^i)`$ is a canonical set of variables, it is obvious that the same applies to $`(E_i^a,\beta K_a^i)`$. The problem, however, is that the transformation from the latter of these sets to the pair $`(A_a^i,E_i^a)`$ is not canonical anymore when $`\beta `$ is not constant.

Let us prove this statement. Since $`A_a^i+\beta K_a^i=\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$ is just a function of the densitized triad, the above transformation is canonical if and only if the connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$ is the gradient of a generating function $`G`$ of $`E_i^a`$, namely $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})=\delta G/\delta E_i^a`$ . This would be the case if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$ coincided with the connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)`$ compatible with the scaled triad $`E_i^a`$, because then $`G=d^3x\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)E_i^a`$ (see page 81 of ). In fact, it is not difficult to check that a variation $`\delta E_i^a`$ of the analyzed triad leads to a change in its connection such that

$$2E_i^a\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)=_a\left[\eta ^{abc}h_{cd}(E)E_b^i\delta E_i^d\right],$$
(7)
where $`\eta ^{abc}`$ is the Levi-Cività tensor density on the spatial manifold and $`h_{ab}(E)`$ is the three-metric constructed with the densitized triad $`E_i^a`$, i.e. $`h_{ab}(\stackrel{~}{E})=\beta h_{ab}(E)`$. Since $`E_i^a\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)`$ is a total derivative, it follows that $`G`$ is an acceptable generating function.

However, the connections $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)`$ differ when $`\beta `$ has a spatial dependence. In other words, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i`$ is invariant only under constant scale transformations of the triad. From expression (2), it is easy to obtain that

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})\frac{1}{2}ϵ_k^{ij}E_a^kE_j^b_b\mathrm{ln}\beta .$$
(8)
The last factor is not the gradient of a function of $`E_i^a`$ and, as a consequence, neither is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$. This can also be seen by realizing that, from equation (7) evaluated at $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$,

$$E_i^a\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})=\frac{\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})}{\beta }=\frac{1}{2\beta }_a\left[\beta \eta ^{abc}h_{cd}(E)E_b^i\delta E_i^d\right],$$
(9)
which is not a total derivative unless $`\beta `$ is constant.

In conclusion, when $`\beta `$ is spatially dependent, the set $`(A_a^i,E_i^a)`$ is not canonical. Then, since the components of the densitized triad commute between themselves and, therefore, also with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$, the Poisson brackets of the components of $`A_a^i`$ cannot identically vanish.

Clearly, the only way to arrive at a SO(3) connection canonically conjugate to $`E_i^a`$ is to replace $`A_a^i`$ with

$$\overline{A}_a^i=\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)\beta K_a^i.$$
(10)
Let us now analyze whether the canonical transformation from the Ashtekar-Barbero variables $`(\underset{¯}{A}_a^i,\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a)`$ to the set $`(\overline{A}_a^i,E_i^a)`$ preserves the kinematical structure. We will denote by $`\overline{𝒟}_a`$ and $`\underset{¯}{𝒟}_a`$ the derivative operators defined by the connections $`\overline{A}_a^i`$ and $`\underset{¯}{A}_a^i`$, and their respective curvatures by $`\overline{}_{ab}^i`$ and $`\underset{¯}{}_{ab}^i`$. Besides, $`\overline{D}_a`$ and $`\underset{¯}{D}_a`$ will denote the derivative operators compatible with the triads $`E_i^a`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$. For instance,

$$\overline{D}_aE_i^b=\overline{}_aE_i^b+ϵ_{ij}^k\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^j(E)E_k^a=0,$$
(11)
where $`\overline{}_a`$ is the covariant derivative of the metric $`h_{ab}(E)`$, with no action on internal indices. We then have

$$𝒢_i\underset{¯}{𝒟}_a\stackrel{~}{E}_i^aϵ_{ij}^kK_a^j\stackrel{~}{E}_k^a=\beta ϵ_{ij}^kK_a^jE_k^a\overline{𝒟}_aE_i^a.$$
(12)
The symbol $``$ stands for equalities where we have employed the compatibility equation (11) or its analogue $`\underset{¯}{D}_a\stackrel{~}{E}_i^b=0`$. So, the Gauss constraint remains invariant under our canonical transformation: it has the same expression for every possible function $`\beta (x)`$, including the case $`\beta =1`$. In fact, this is consistent with the expectation that $`\overline{A}_a^i`$ and $`E_i^a`$ should vary as a connection and an internal vector, respectively, under SO(3) transformations.

We now consider the effect of our change of variables in the diffeomorphism constraint. It is known that this constraint can be written as :

$$𝒱_a\stackrel{~}{E}_i^b\underset{¯}{}_{ba}^i𝒢_iK_a^i+\underset{¯}{D}_b\left(\stackrel{~}{E}_i^cK_c^i\delta _a^b\stackrel{~}{E}_i^bK_a^i\right).$$
(13)
In the above equality, in addition to the compatibility of the connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i`$ with the triad, we have taken into account the Bianchi identities, which imply $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^b\underset{¯}{F}_{ba}^i=0`$. Here, $`\underset{¯}{F}_{ab}^i`$ is the curvature of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(\stackrel{~}{E})`$. Using the analogue identity $`E_i^b\overline{F}_{ba}^i=0`$ for the curvature of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i(E)`$ and the compatibility equation (11), one similarly obtains

$$\overline{𝒱}_aE_i^b\overline{}_{ba}^i\beta 𝒢_iK_a^i+\overline{D}_b\left(\beta E_i^cK_c^i\delta _a^b\beta E_i^bK_a^i\right).$$
(14)
Note that the expression of the diffeomorphism constraint would remain invariant only if $`𝒱_a`$ coincided with $`\overline{𝒱}_a`$. The discrepancy between the action of the derivative operators $`\overline{D}_a`$ and $`\underset{¯}{D}_a`$ comes from the difference between the Christoffel symbols $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ac}^b`$ associated with the three-metrics $`h_{ab}`$. Using the definition of these symbols  and $`h_{ab}(\stackrel{~}{E})=\beta h_{ab}(E)`$, it is a simple exercise to check that

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ac}^b(E)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ac}^b(\stackrel{~}{E})+\frac{1}{2}\left[h_{ac}(\stackrel{~}{E})h^{bd}(\stackrel{~}{E})\delta _a^b\delta _c^d\delta _a^d\delta _c^b\right]_d\mathrm{ln}\beta .$$
(15)
A straightforward calculation leads then to the result

$$𝒱_a\overline{𝒱}_a+𝒢_i\left[(1\beta )K_a^i\frac{1}{2}ϵ_k^{ij}E_{}_{_{}}{}^{}a^k\stackrel{~}{E}_j^b_b\mathrm{ln}\beta \right]\stackrel{~}{E}_i^bK_b^i_a\mathrm{ln}\beta ,$$
(16)
where we have employed

$$𝒢_iϵ_k^{ij}E_{}_{_{}}{}^{}a^k\stackrel{~}{E}_j^b\stackrel{~}{E}_i^cK_d^i\left[h_{ac}(\stackrel{~}{E})h^{bd}(\stackrel{~}{E})\delta _a^d\delta _c^b\right].$$
(17)
Therefore, when $`\beta `$ has a spatial dependence, $`𝒱_a`$ and $`\overline{𝒱}_a`$ differ even modulo the Gauss constraint.

The reason of this discrepancy can be traced back to the fact that the conformal transformation that relates the frames defined by the densitized triads $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$ and $`E_i^a`$ is inhomogeneous unless $`\beta `$ is constant. The vector constraint $`𝒱_a`$ generates diffeomorphisms on the spatial sections with line element $`h_{ab}(\stackrel{~}{E})dx^adx^b`$, i.e. in the frame defined by $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$. This frame is related to that associated with $`E_i^a`$ by the (squared) conformal factor $`\beta `$. When $`\beta `$ is spatially dependent, it is affected by changes of coordinates. This is reflected by the last factor appearing in equation (16). As a result of this term, the generators of diffeomorphisms in the two analyzed frames are different \[even modulo SO(3) gauge\]. It is worth noting that the extra term is proportional to the densitized trace of the extrinsic curvature, $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^aK_a^i`$. Such a trace generates scale transformations of the densitized triad accompanied by an inverse scaling of $`K_a^i`$ .

Accepting that the physically relevant frame is that of the Ashtekar-Barbero formulation, we have thus seen that the kinematical structure does not remain invariant under the analyzed canonical transformations unless the Immirzi parameter is constant. This precludes the possibility of generalizing the Immirzi ambiguity to the extent of a spatial function, instead of a real number.

That the extension of the Immirzi ambiguity finds an obstruction in the vector constraint may be realized by considering the area operator. If we insist that all geometrical quantities be measured in the Ashtekar-Barbero frame, the area of a spatial surface $`S`$ (with unit normal $`n_a`$) in terms of the triad $`E_i^a`$ will be given by $`_Sd^2x\beta (x)\sqrt{n_an_bE_i^aE^{bi}}`$. Since the change from the Ashtekar-Barbero to the set of variables $`(\overline{A}_a^i,E_i^a)`$ is canonical and preserves the expression of the Gauss constraint, one can parallel the construction of the area operator presented in reference , but adopting an $`\overline{A}_a^i`$-connection representation (or its corresponding loop representation) instead of the conventional representation of the Ashtekar-Barbero formulation. The result would be an operator $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ of the following form, compared with the standard area operator $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ of the $`\underset{¯}{A}_a^i`$ representation:

$$\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S=\frac{l^2}{2}\underset{vS}{}\beta (v)\sqrt{\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{S,v}},\underset{¯}{\mathrm{A}}_S=\frac{l^2}{2}\underset{vS}{}\sqrt{\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{S,v}}.$$
(18)
Here, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{S,v}`$ are the direct counterpart of the vertex operators $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{S,v}`$ discussed by Ashtekar and Lewandowski , but now defined in the $`\overline{A}_a^i`$ representation. The sum, which in principle is over all the points $`v`$ of $`S`$, becomes finite when the operator acts on cylindrical functions, because the non-vanishing contributions come from the isolated intersections of $`S`$ with the vertices of the graph associated with the cylindrical state .

However, note that, on cylindrical functions, the operator $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ depends on the spatial position of the vertices $`v`$ through the function $`\beta `$. This dependence is incompatible with diffeomorphism invariance.

An alternative manner to prove the incompatibility of $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ with the vector constraint is to show that they do not commute. It is clear that $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ commutes at least with the Gauss constraint, because the vertex operators are gauge invariant. In the $`\underset{¯}{A}_a^i`$-connection representation, on the other hand, the vertex operators must commute with the quantum version of the constraint $`𝒱_a`$ inasmuch as $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ has a well-defined action on the space of diffeomorphism-invariant states. Choosing the same operator representation for $`\overline{𝒱}_a`$ in the $`\overline{A}_a^i`$ formalism as for $`𝒱_a`$ in the Ashtekar-Barbero representation, and employing that the area operator is a linear combination of vertex operators, it follows that the commutator of $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ and $`\overline{𝒱}_a`$ vanishes. Taking then into account expression (16), we conclude that, when $`\beta `$ is spatially dependent, $`\overline{\mathrm{A}}_S`$ would have to commute with $`E_i^aK_a^i`$ in order to be a meaningful operator on diffeomorphism-invariant states. Nonetheless, the considered commutator must in fact differ from zero on the grounds that the area is a functional of $`E_i^a`$ that scales like this triad and that the densitized trace of the extrinsic curvature actually generates scale transformations of $`E_i^a`$.

Summarizing, we have shown that the Immirzi ambiguity, that arises in the loop quantization of general relativity, cannot be generalized from a freedom in a constant parameter to the extent of a function that depends on the spatial position. If we simply allow the coefficient of the extrinsic curvature in the Ashtekar-Barbero connection to be a spatially dependent function, no scaling of the triad can be found that provides a canonically conjugated variable. To attain a transformation that preserves the canonical Poisson brackets one must, in addition, change the SO(3) connection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_a^i`$ contained in the Ashtekar-Barbero connection so that it becomes compatible with the scaled densitized triad. The new set of canonical gravitational variables leads to a connection formalism in which the expression of the Gauss constraint remains unaffected, but the form of the vector constraint is altered. This change in the kinematical structure of the formulation of general relativity in terms of connections spoils the compatibility of the geometrical operators, such as the area operator, with the diffeomorphism invariance of the theory and, in general, precludes the appearance of an extended Immirzi ambiguity reflecting a spatial dependence.

The author is greatly thankful to J F Barbero G for enlightening conversations and to L J Garay and T Thiemann for helpful comments and discussions. This work was supported by the Spanish MCYT under the research project no. BFM2001-0213.