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# Several Small Josephson Junctions in a Resonant Cavity: Deviation from the Dicke Model

## I Introduction

In a previous paper, alsaidi  we numerically studied a small Josephson junction capacitively coupled to the single mode of a resonant cavity. We found that the quantum states of the combined system are strongly entangled only at certain special values of the gate voltage across the junction, corresponding to a one- or two-photon absorption or emission process by the junction Cooper pairs. We also showed that at a gate voltage corresponding to the one-photon process, our results, obtained from exact diagonalization, agree well with those obtained from a reduced Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonianjaynes  which includes only two junction states and two photon states.

In the present paper, we extend this work to several similar junctions placed in a resonant cavity within a radiation wavelength. Each junction is assumed to be voltage biased by an independent voltage source, but all bias voltages are assumed to be equal. As in the single-junction case, we solve for the eigenstates of this coupled system by direct diagonalization, and compare the results to those obtained from a reduced Hamiltonian which includes only two energy levels per junction. We also compare the interaction to that in a system first discussed by Dicke, Dicke  consisting of an assembly of identical two-level atoms in a single-mode cavity.

Before proceeding further, we note some distinctions between the system considered here and another system which has recently been studied experimentally. barbara  These experiments involve a two dimensional array of junctions, such that each junction is coupled to a single-mode resonant cavity. For suitable junction and cavity parameters, the cavity interaction causes the array to phase-lock and to radiate coherently into the cavity. The models used to describe such arraysfilatrella ; cawthorne ; almaas ; harbaugh  typically involve a semiclassical approximation, appropriate for large numbers of photons in the cavity. By contrast, our system involves only a few photons, and needs to be studied quantum mechanically. Another distinction is that, in Ref. barbara, , the junctions are biased onto either the resistive or the superconducting branch of the I-V characteristic, whereas in the present model, only the latter branch is considered.

The present work may also be relevant to quantum computation. MSS  Josephson devices have been proposed as possible quantum bits (qubits) in computing systems, in which quantum logic operations could be performed by controlling gate voltages or magnetic fields. MSS ; nakamura1 ; nakamura2 ; shnirman ; mooij ; feigelman  Thus far, two alternative realizations of qubits have been proposed for Josephson junctions: a charge qubit and a flux qubit. In the first case, the charging energy of the junction is much larger than the Josephson energy, so that the charge on one of the superconducting islands is nearly a good quantum number. Qubits of this type have been studied experimentally by Nakamura etal. . nakamura1 ; nakamura2  In the second case, studied experimentally by Mooij etal. mooij  and Feigel’man etal. , feigelman  the Josephson energy predominates, and the phase difference across the junction is well defined. In the present paper, the system is constructed from junctions in which the charging and Josephson energies are comparable in magnitude; in other respects, it somewhat resembles that studied in Ref. shnirman, .

The findings of this paper may also be relevant for studying “quantum leakage”fazio  in Josephson-junction-based multi-qubits. Quantum leakage occurs when the computational space of the physical system is a subspace of a larger Hilbert space. Such leaking is an intrinsic source of decoherence, even in the absence of dissipation, and imposes a time limit beyond which the system can no longer perform quantum computations. Thus, comparing the results of numerically diagonalizing the full Hamiltonian and the reduced Hamiltonian provides a means of studying this decoherence. Such a comparison was done in Ref. fazio, , and is also done here for a different Hamiltonian and a different parameter region.

Finally, because of the analogy between our system and a group of two-level atoms in a single-mode cavity, the present work may be relevant to the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics. raimond  Specifically, using the system considered here, it may be possible to “engineer” a so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen or Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state comprised of Josephson junctions. It may also be feasible to perform a “quantum nondemolition” measurement on a one-photon resonator much as is done using a two-level atom in a cavity. scully  We hope to develop these ideas in a future publication.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we introduce our model Hamiltonian and its physical realization; we also outline the method used to solve for its eigenstates. Section III contains our principal results. We describe the reduced Hamiltonian, and we compare the time evolution of the system as predicted by the full Hamiltonian and by the two-level approximation. In the final section, the main points of the paper are summarized, and some of the physical parameters entering the calculations are estimated.

## II Model Hamiltonian and its Diagonalization

### II.1 Hamiltonian

We consider a group of underdamped Josephson junctions in a lossless electromagnetic cavity which can support a single photon mode of angular frequency $`\omega `$. The system is assumed to be described by the following model Hamiltonian:

$$=_{\mathrm{photon}}+\underset{j}{}_\mathrm{J}(j).$$
(1)
Here $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$ is the Hamiltonian of the cavity mode, which we express in the form $`_{\mathrm{photon}}=\mathrm{}\omega \left(a^{}a+1/2\right),`$ where $`a^{}`$ and $`a`$ are the photon creation and annihilation operators with commutation relation $`[a,a^{}]=1`$. $`_\mathrm{J}(j)`$ is the Hamiltonian of the $`j`$th junction, which implicitly contains the coupling to the cavity; it can be written as

$$_\mathrm{J}(j)=\frac{1}{2}U(n_j\overline{n}_j)^2J\mathrm{cos}\gamma _j,$$
(2)
where the first and second terms represent the charging and Josephson energies of a junction. $`U=4e^2/C`$ is the junction charging energy, $`E_J=\mathrm{}I_c/(2e)`$ is the Josephson coupling energy, $`C`$ is the effective junction capacitance, and $`I_c`$ the junction critical current. $`n_j`$ is an operator which represents the difference between the number of Cooper pairs on the two grains comprising the junction, and $`\overline{n}_j`$ is related to the gate voltage applied across the junction. Although $`\overline{n}_j`$ could, in principle, be controlled separately for each junction, we assume that all the $`\overline{n}_j`$’s are equal. The last parameter, $`\gamma _j`$, is the gauge invariant phase of the junction, as defined below. We assume that all the junctions have the same $`J`$ and $`U`$, and also that $`J`$ and $`U`$ are comparable in magnitude. Furthermore, we neglect the current through the shunt resistance. Finally, we consider only junctions such that both $`J`$ and $`U`$ are small compared to the superconducting gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which is thus the largest energy scale in the system.

The interaction between the junctions and the electromagnetic field is contained in the gauge-invariant phase difference

$$\gamma _j=\varphi _j(2\pi /\mathrm{\Phi }_0)_j𝐀(𝐱,t)𝑑\mathrm{}.$$
(3)
Here $`\varphi _j`$ is the phase difference across the junction in a particular gauge; it satisfies the commutation relation $`[n_k,\varphi _j]=i\delta _{jk}`$. $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=hc/(2e)`$ is the flux quantum, $`𝐀(𝐱,t)`$ is the vector potential, and the line integral is taken across the j$`th`$ junction. We consider only a vector potential arising from the electromagnetic field of the cavity normal mode. We also assume that the junctions are all located within a distance small compared to the radiation wavelength, so that $`𝐀(𝐱)`$ is approximately uniform throughout the region of the junctions. If the junctions all have the same orientation, this condition implies that each junction has the same coupling to the cavity electromagnetic field. The generalization to nonuniform fields is straightforward, however.

In Gaussian units, and in the Coulomb gauge ($`𝐀=0`$), the vector potential takes the form $`𝐀=\sqrt{hc^2/\omega V}\left(a+a^{}\right)\widehat{ϵ},`$ where $`\widehat{ϵ}`$ is the unit polarization vector of the cavity mode, and $`V`$ is the volume of the cavity. Thus we can define the coupling $`g`$ such that $`(2\pi /\mathrm{\Phi }_0)𝐀𝑑\mathrm{}=(g/\sqrt{2})(a+a^{}),`$ or

$$g=4e\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{\mathrm{}\omega V}}\widehat{ϵ}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the thickness of the insulating layer in a junction. With the change of variables $`p=i\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega /2}\left(a^{}a\right);q=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/(2\omega )}\left(a^{}+a\right),`$ $`\gamma _j`$ can be rewritten

$$\gamma _j=\varphi _jg\sqrt{\omega /\mathrm{}}q,$$
(5)
where $`p`$ and $`q`$ satisfy the canonical commutation relation $`[p,q]=i\mathrm{}`$.

Finally, we decompose the Hamiltonian (1) as follows:

$$=_{\mathrm{photon}}+\underset{j}{}_J^0(j)+_{\mathrm{int}},$$
(6)
where

$$_J^0(j)=\frac{1}{2}U(n_j\overline{n}_j)^2J\mathrm{cos}\varphi _j,$$
(7)
and

$$_{\mathrm{int}}=J\underset{j}{}(\mathrm{cos}\gamma _j\mathrm{cos}\varphi _j).$$
(8)
In this form, the photon-junction interaction is entirely contained in the last term.

### II.2 Method of solution

As in Ref. alsaidi, , we diagonalize $``$ in a complete basis formed from the direct product of the eigenfunctions of $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$ and $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$. The eigenfunctions of $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$ are, of course, harmonic oscillator eigenstates; the normalized $`n`$th eigenstate has wave function $`h_n(q)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}^nn!}}\mathrm{exp}(y^2/2)H_n(y)`$, where $`H_n(y)`$ is a Hermite polynomial of order $`n`$, and $`y=(\omega /\mathrm{})^{1/2}q`$. An eigenfunction $`\psi (\varphi _j)`$ of $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$ with eigenvalue $`E^{(j)}(\overline{n}_j)`$ can be written as $`\psi (\varphi _j)=\mathrm{exp}(i\overline{n}_j\varphi _j)\eta (\varphi _j)`$, and satisfies the Schrödinger equation, $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)\psi (\varphi _j)=E^{(j)}\psi (\varphi _j)`$. Using the representation $`n_j=i/\varphi _j`$, which follows from the commutation relation $`[n_j,\varphi _j]=i`$, we write the Schrödinger equation as

$$\frac{d^2Y(x)}{dx^2}+\left(\frac{8E^{(j)}}{U}+2Q\mathrm{cos}2x\right)Y(x)=0,$$
(9)
where $`x=\varphi _j/2`$, $`Y(x)=\eta (\varphi _j/2)`$, and $`Q=4J/U`$. This is a Mathieu equation with characteristic value $`a^{(j)}=8E^{(j)}/U`$, and potential of strength $`Q`$. The eigenvalues $`E^{(j)}`$ are determined by the requirement that $`\psi (\varphi _j)=\psi (\varphi _j+2\pi )`$, or equivalently $`Y(x+\pi )=\mathrm{exp}(2i\overline{n}_j\pi )Y(x).`$ Thus we are interested only in the Floquet solutions $`Y_{k_j}(x)`$ of the Mathieu equation (9), with Floquet exponent $`\nu _j=2k_j2\overline{n}_j`$, where $`k_j=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$. We denote the corresponding eigenvalue of $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$ by $`E_{k_j}^{(j)}(\overline{n}_j)`$. It is sufficient to consider only $`0\overline{n}_j0.5`$, because the eigenvalues of $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$ are periodic in $`\overline{n}_j`$ with period unity, and are symmetric about $`\overline{n}_j=1/2`$.

Now, any eigenstate $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\varphi _1,\mathrm{}\varphi _N,q)`$, of the Hamiltonian $``$ can be expressed as a linear combination of product wave functions consisting of eigenfunctions of $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$ and the $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$’s, i. e. ,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\varphi _1,\mathrm{}\varphi _N,q)=\underset{k_1\mathrm{}k_N,n}{}A_{k_1\mathrm{}k_N,n}h_n(q)\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\psi _{k_j}(\varphi _j),$$
(10)
where $`\psi _{k_j}(\varphi _j)=\mathrm{exp}(i\overline{n}_j\varphi _j)Y_{k_j}(\varphi _j/2)`$, and $`N`$ is the number of junctions in the resonator. The only term in $``$ which is not diagonal in this product basis is the interaction term $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$. We can obtain the product coefficients and eigenvalues by directly diagonalizing the Hamiltonian of Eq. (1) in this product basis, i. e., by solving the Schrödinger equation, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\varphi ,q)=E\mathrm{\Psi }(\varphi ,q),`$ where we use the shorthand notation $`\varphi (\varphi _1,\mathrm{}\varphi _N)`$. Once the eigenvalues $`E`$ and expansion coefficients $`A_{k_1\mathrm{}k_N,n}`$ are known, we can study the time evolution of the system given its state at time $`t=0`$, and hence obtain the time-dependent expectation value of any operator $`𝒪`$ at time $`t`$ using

$$𝒪(t)=\mathrm{Tr}\left[\rho (t)𝒪\right].$$
(11)
Here $`\rho (t)`$ is the density matrix of the system at time $`t`$, defined by $`\rho (t)=U(t)\rho (0)U^{}(t)`$, where $`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(it/\mathrm{})`$ is the evolution operator, and $`\rho (0)`$ is determined by the initial state of the system.

We have carried out extensive calculations for the Hamiltonian (1), using the product basis described above. In our calculations we have arbitrarily used $`Q=0.7`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega /U=0.3`$, representing a case where the charging energy, Josephson coupling, and photon energy are all comparable. The attainability of these parameters in realistic systems is discussed further below. Most of our calculations have also been carried out near the value $`\overline{n}=0.258`$, corresponding to the case where the energy difference between the two lowest junction levels equals a single quantum of photon energy. In our single-junction calculations, alsaidi  this choice leads to resonant absorption of a single photon and to maximum entanglement between the junction and the photon states. For larger number of junctions ( $`N4`$) we found that we have to tune $`\overline{n}`$ slightly away from the resonance condition of the single junction to get the system on resonance again.

In all of our calculations, we use a truncated basis of the eigenstates of $`_\mathrm{J}^0(j)`$, and of $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$. For $`N=1,2,3`$ junctions, we include the first nine photon eigenstates and the first five levels of each junction, i. e., a total of $`9\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}^N`$ states. For $`N=4`$, we use fewer eigenstates: the lowest eight photon states and the first four junction levels. In all cases, we confirmed the numerical stability of our results by increasing the dimensionality of the basis and finding that there is almost no change in our results. As another check, we have calculated $`\mathrm{Tr}(\rho )`$, which should be time-independent and equal to unity for our normalization. We find that this trace does remain equal to unity to high accuracy for all times considered, thus providing evidence that we have correctly diagonalized the Hamiltonian.

## III Results and Discussion

### III.1 Reduced Hamiltonian

The main goal of this paper is to study how well the results of this exact diagonalization procedure can be matched by a reduced Hamiltonian which includes only the lowest two energy levels from each junction. For the one-junction case, the two-level approximation was already tested in Ref. alsaidi,  at $`\overline{n}=0.258`$. At this value of $`\overline{n}`$, the splitting between the two lowest levels equals the single-photon energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$. The reduced Hamiltonian then takes the Jaynes-Cummings form: jaynes

$$_{JC}=\mathrm{}\omega \left(a^{}a+S_z\right)+\xi a^{}S_{}+\xi ^{}aS_+.$$
(12)
Here the junction is represented as a quantum spin-$`1/2`$, with $`[S_+,S_{}]=2S_z`$, and the junction energy zero is shifted so that the lowest two levels are $`\pm \mathrm{}\omega /2`$. The matrix element coupling the junction and the field is given by $`\xi =f|\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{int}}|i`$, where $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$ is the one-junction version of expression (8); the ket $`|i|n=1;k=0`$ is a wave function containing one photon and the junction in the ground state ($`k=0`$), while $`|f|n=0;k=1`$ is a state with zero photons and the junction in its first excited state ($`k=1`$). To first order in $`g`$, $`_{\mathrm{int}}Jg\sqrt{\omega /\mathrm{}}q\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$, and hence, to the same order in $`g`$,

$$\xi (Jg/\sqrt{8})k=0|\mathrm{sin}\varphi |k=1.$$
(13)
This completes the definition of the reduced Hamiltonian for one junction, and establishes its relation to the full Hamiltonian of Eq. (1).

A naive extension of the reduced Hamiltonian (12) to $`N`$ junctions would be

$$_D=_D^0+_D^I,$$
(14)
where

$`_D^0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega a^{}a+\mathrm{}\omega {\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}S_z^{(j)};`$
$`_D^I`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(\xi a^{}S_{}^{(j)}+\xi ^{}aS_+^{(j)}).`$
Here $`S_{}^{(j)}`$, $`S_+^{(j)}`$, and $`S_z^{(j)}`$ are the lowering, raising, and inversion operators of the $`j`$th junction, which satisfy the commutation relations

$`[S_z^{(j)},S_\pm ^{(k)}]`$ $`=`$ $`\pm S_\pm ^{(j)}\delta _{jk},`$
$`[S_+^{(j)},S_{}^{(k)}]`$ $`=`$ $`2S_z^{(j)}\delta _{jk}.`$
The Hamiltonian (14) resembles the one-mode Dicke model, Dicke ; Tav\_Cum  which describes $`N`$ identical two-level atoms within a radiation wavelength of each other, all interacting with a single mode resonator. The initial state problem considered later in this section has been solved exactly for this Hamiltonian in a cavity containing one or more accessible electromagnetic modes. dorri ; cummings

For the present system, when the resonator contains more than one photon, the Hamiltonian (14) does not reproduce the full time-dependent solution to the Schrödinger equation for $`N2`$, at least for our numerical parameters. Nevertheless, as shown below, the full numerical solution is still well approximated by another reduced Hamiltonian in which each junction is represented by a basis of two levels only, namely

$$_D^{}=_D^{}^0+_D^{}^I,$$
(15)
where the zeroth order Hamiltonian $`_D^{}^0`$ is the same as the Dicke $`_D^0`$ appearing in Eq. (14), but the interaction part of the Hamiltonian $`_D^{}^I`$ is now

$`_D^{}^I={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}(`$ $`\xi `$ $`a^{}S_{}^{(j)}+\xi ^{}aS_+^{(j)})`$ (16)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }{\displaystyle \underset{_{(jk)}^{j,k=1}}{\overset{N}{}}}\left(S_+^{(j)}S_{}^{(k)}+S_{}^{(j)}S_+^{(k)}\right).`$
The physics behind this reduced Hamiltonian comment  is discussed further below, in Sec. III. D. 2.

### III.2 Review of single junction

We first review the time-dependent solution to the Schrödinger equation for a single junction in a resonator. alsaidi  If the initial junction-cavity state is $`|n=1;k=0`$, then the system evolves in time according to the evolution operator $`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(it/\mathrm{})`$. Fig. 1 shows the resulting time-dependent expectation values $`_\mathrm{J}^0`$ and $`_{\mathrm{photon}}`$, as calculated using Eq. (11) and the full Hamiltonian $``$. Fig. 1 also shows the time-dependent probabilities for finding the junction and the resonator in their first excited states, given this initial state. The system wave function is evidently an entangled state oscillating between $`|n=1;k=0`$ and $`|n=0;k=1`$, with a period $`T675\mathrm{}/U`$ for our particular choice of $`g`$, $`Q/U`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega /U`$. When the Rabi period for oscillations between the Josephson-photon entangled states is calculated using the two-level approximation, it is found to be $`\pi \mathrm{}/|\xi |=667\mathrm{}/U`$, in almost perfect agreement with the result obtained from the full Hamiltonian.

### III.3 Several junctions, asymmetric initial state

Next, we consider $`N`$ junctions such that initially (at time $`t=0`$) one junction is in the first excited state, while the remaining $`(N1)`$ junctions are in the ground state, and the cavity initially contains zero photons. Thus all the junctions interact with the vacuum fluctuations of the cavity mode via the Hamiltonian $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$.

Our primary interest is to compare the time evolution calculated from the exact Hamiltonian with that obtained from the two reduced Hamiltonians discussed above. We will focus our attention on the “inversion” $`𝒮(t)`$ of the system, defined as

$$𝒮(t)=S_z(t)+\frac{1}{2},$$
(17)
where the average is taken with respect to the quantum state of the system. $`𝒮(t)`$ is the sum of the probabilities that the junctions are in their first excited states, and satisfies $`0𝒮(t)N`$. This quantity is of interest because $`\mathrm{}\omega \frac{d𝒮}{dt}=I`$, is the rate at which energy is transferred from the junctions to the cavity or vice versa.

For the initial state considered in this section, it has been provendorri  for the Dicke model \[Eq. (14)\] that

$$𝒮(t)=1\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{sin}^2(|\xi |\sqrt{N}t/\mathrm{}).$$
(18)
Thus, the frequency of energy transfer between the photon field and the junctions is proportional to $`\sqrt{N}`$. The group of $`N`$ junctions behaves somewhat like a single junction with a coupling to the cavity mode of $`\sqrt{N}\xi `$ instead of $`\xi `$. It also follows from Eq. (18) that the photon field never gains more than $`1/N`$ of the energy initially stored in the excited junction. Thus, as $`N`$ increases, it becomes progressively less likely that a photon will be emitted into the cavity, the energy remaining largely trapped within the junctions ( actually, within the initially excited junction). The existence of $`N1`$ unexcited junctions (or “atoms”) has the effect of preventing the emission of a photon from the initially excited junction, dorri  a phenomenon known as “radiation suppression.”cummings

When we calculate $`𝒮(t)`$ using our direct diagonalization scheme, we find that the numerical results are in excellent agreement with the predictions of the two-level approximation (18) for $`N=1,2,3`$ and $`4`$ junctions in the resonator, at least for several Rabi periods of oscillation. In Fig. 2, we show the inversion as calculated using the full basis for $`N=2`$ and $`N=4`$.

### III.4 Dicke symmetric states

Next, we consider an initial state in which all the junctions are in the ground state and there are $`n`$ photons in the system ($`n=1`$, $`2`$, $`3`$). This is a simple case in which the initial state of the system is symmetric under the interchange of any two junctions. We have solved for the time-dependent state of the system using the full Hamiltonian, and compared the results to the approximate Hamiltonians (14) and (15). Results of our calculations are shown in Figs. 3-5.

As can be seen from these figures, the one-mode Dicke model defined in Eq. (14) does not reproduce the full numerical solution for $`n2`$. But the numerical solution is well approximated by the reduced model Hamiltonian (15), in which each junction is still represented by only two levels. This Hamiltonian differs from the Dicke model only in the last term, which is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and which represents an effective direct interaction between the junctions. This term is needed in order to obtain a good fit between the predictions of the reduced model and the exact Hamiltonian, even though the junctions in the original model Hamiltonian \[Eq. (1)\] have only an indirect coupling with each other through the electromagnetic field.

A similar model Hamiltonian to Eq. (15) has been studied in Ref. Joshi,  for two atoms in a cavity. This model differs from the present one, however, in that the direct coupling in Ref. Joshi,  represents a specific term in the Hamiltonian, namely, an effective dipole-dipole interaction between the atoms. In the calculations to be presented below, the coupling strength $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in the Hamiltonian of Eq. (15) is treated simply as a parameter determined by best fitting to the numerical data. However, it can also be derived explicitly from the full Hamiltonian, as we show below.

There is one further point to be made about these numerical results. Namely, so long as $`nN`$, we find that the interaction term $`\xi `$ which best fits the computed time evolution is numerically equal to that which enters the single-junction reduced Hamiltonian \[Eq. (13)\] when there is no more than one photon present. This result is intuitively reasonable, because in this symmetric case all the junctions in the resonator share equally in the photons, and thus, for $`nN`$, none will absorb more than one photon.

Now we will discuss the basis used to study the Hamiltonian (15). The Hilbert space of $`N`$ two-level junctions is $`2^N`$ dimensional. Thus the system is analytically intractable even for a small value of $`N`$ unless there is some symmetry of the Hamiltonian which confines the evolution of the system to some lower invariant subspace. The Hamiltonian (15) has two useful symmetries of this kind. First, a symmetric initial state is an eigenstate of the permutation operator $`𝒫_{jk}`$, which exchanges the $`j`$th and $`k`$th junctions. Since $`𝒫_{jk}`$ commutes with the Hamiltonian of Eq. (15), a symmetric initial state evolving under $`_D^{}`$ will remain symmetric at later times. The second symmetry involves the excitation number operator

$$=a^{}a+\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(S_z^{(j)}+\frac{1}{2}\right),$$
(19)
which also commutes with $`_D^{}`$, and thus is also a constant of the motion. In this case it is convenient to study the Hamiltonian $`_D^{}`$ using the basis vectors formed from the direct product of the eigenstates of $``$ and $`a^{}a`$. We denote these states as $`|m;n`$, where

$`|m;n`$ $`=`$ $`m|m;n,`$
$`a^{}a|m;n`$ $`=`$ $`n|m;n,`$ (20)
and $`0nm`$. Note that the time evolution of the system is restricted to a $`(m+1)`$-dimensional subspace spanned by the basis vectors $`|m;0,\mathrm{},|m;m`$. koz

It is convenient to write out the state $`|m;n`$ explicitly. There are $`n`$ photon excitations in the cavity, and $`mn`$ excitations distributed symmetrically among the $`N`$ junctions. Thus we may write $`|m;n=|n|mn_J`$, where $`|n`$ is a Fock state and $`|mn_J`$ is a normalized symmetric Dicke state of the junctions, described by

$$|k_J=\left[\frac{N!}{k!(Nk)!}\right]^{1/2}\underset{𝒫}{}\underset{l=1}{\overset{k}{}}|+_{j_l}\underset{m1\mathrm{}k}{}|_{j_m},$$
(21)
where $`|+_{j_l}|k_l=1`$ ($`|_{j_l}|k_l=0`$ ) is the spin up (down) state of the $`l`$th junction, and the summation is over permutations $`𝒫`$ among the $`N`$ junctions.

We now discuss the cases of $`m=1,2,3`$ excitations, and compare the time-dependent states obtained from the full numerical solution to the predictions of the two level approximation, using the basis $`|m;n`$.

#### III.4.1 One excitation ($`m=1`$)

In this case, our numerical results are well described by the Dicke Hamiltonian \[Eq. (14)\], at least for $`N4`$. This behavior is expected, since the junctions cannot interact directly with each other in the presence of only one photon. For one excitation in the system, an exact solution for a two-level system can be found even in a damped cavity. seke  In the absence of damping, the wave function of the system in the interaction picture can be written in the two-level approximation as:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }^\mathrm{I}(t)=C_1(t)|1;1+C_0(t)|1;0.$$
(22)
From the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (taking $`\mathrm{}=1`$ henceforth),

$$_\mathrm{D}^\mathrm{I}|\mathrm{\Psi }^\mathrm{I}(t)=i\frac{d}{dt}|\mathrm{\Psi }^I(t),$$
(23)
we obtain

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_1(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi \sqrt{N}C_0(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_0(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\sqrt{N}C_1(t).`$
Taking the junctions initially to be in their ground states and assuming $`n=1`$ photons in the system (i. e. $`C_1(t)|_{t=0}=1`$), we find after some algebra that

$`C_1(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(|\xi |\sqrt{N}t),`$
$`C_0(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}(|\xi |\sqrt{N}t).`$
Thus the system oscillates between the states $`|m=1;n=1`$ and $`|m=1;n=0`$– that is the junctions alternately absorb the photon of the field, then re-emit it, in a reversible evolution, as expected in a lossless cavity. The oscillation period $`TN^{1/2}`$. From this solution, the inversion of the system \[Eq. (17)\] is

$$𝒮(t)=\mathrm{sin}^2(|\xi |\sqrt{N}t),$$
(24)
and hence the rate of radiation into the cavity is

$$I(t)=\omega \frac{d𝒮(t)}{dt}=\omega |\xi |\sqrt{N}\mathrm{sin}(2|\xi |\sqrt{N}t).$$
(25)
Both the oscillation frequency and the amplitude of the rate of radiation are proportional to $`\sqrt{N}`$, a signature of a cooperative phenomenon. For very short times, the rate of radiation into the cavity is

$$I(t)2\omega |\xi |^2Nt$$
(26)
– that is, $`N`$ times the rate of a single junction. Thus the presence of $`N`$-junctions in the cavity gives rise to a collective behavior.

Fig. 3(a) shows the time-dependent probability that the Josephson junctions (full curve) and the photonic resonator (dashed curve) are in their first excited states for $`N=2`$ and $`N=4`$. The system is prepared at time $`t=0`$ with all the junctions in the ground state, and the resonator in the number state $`|n=1`$. The system develops into an entangled state such that the photon is shared equally among all the junctions. This behavior can be seen both in the two-level approximation and in the results of an exact calculation. In Fig. 3(b) we show the inversion, $`𝒮(t)`$, calculated using the full Hamiltonian for $`N=2`$ and $`N=4`$ junctions and one excitation ($`m=1`$). The numerical results are clearly in excellent agreement with the predictions of the two-level approximation \[Eq. (24)\].

#### III.4.2 Two excitations ($`m=2`$)

For $`m=2`$ we need consider only three eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. In the interaction picture the system wave function is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }^\mathrm{I}(t)=C_2(t)|2;2+C_1(t)|2;1+C_0(t)|2;0,$$
(27)
where the coefficients satisfy

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_2(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi \sqrt{2N}C_1(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_1(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\sqrt{2N}C_2(t)+\mathrm{\Omega }C_1(t)+\xi \sqrt{2(N1)}C_0(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_0(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\sqrt{2(N1)}C_1(t).`$
Assuming an initial state $`|2;2`$, i. e. a state containing two photons, with all the junctions in their ground states, we find that the solution of these coupled equations is

$`C_2(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\zeta (2N1)}}\left\{\zeta (N1)+Ne^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t/2}\left[\zeta \mathrm{cos}(\zeta t)+i\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}(\zeta t)\right]\right\},`$
$`C_1(t)`$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{2N}\left(\xi /\zeta \right)e^{\frac{1}{2}i\mathrm{\Omega }t}\mathrm{sin}(\zeta t),`$ (28)
$`C_0(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{N(N1)}}{2(2N1)\zeta }}\left\{e^{\frac{1}{2}i\mathrm{\Omega }t}\left[2\zeta \mathrm{cos}(\zeta t)+i\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}(\zeta t)\right]2\zeta \right\},`$
where $`\zeta =\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }^2+8|\xi |^2(2N1)}`$. The probability of a two-junction excitation of the system is $`P_2(t)=|C_0(t)|^2`$, which can be reduced to

$`P_2(t)={\displaystyle \frac{N(N1)}{(2N1)^2\zeta ^2}}[2\zeta ^2`$ $``$ $`2(2N1)|\xi |^2\mathrm{sin}^2(\zeta t)`$ (29)
$``$ $`2\zeta ^2\mathrm{cos}(\zeta t)\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Omega }t/2)\mathrm{\Omega }\zeta \mathrm{sin}(\zeta t)\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Omega }t/2)].`$
For $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$, this becomes

$$P_2(t)=\frac{N(N1)}{(2N1)^2}\left[\mathrm{cos}(\omega _2t)1\right]^2,$$
(30)
so that the Rabi period of oscillation is now $`\omega _2=[2(2N1)]^{1/2}|\xi |`$. Since $`|P_2(t)|N(N1)/(2N1)^21/4`$, the system is unlikely to contain two excitations simultaneously. Even if $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$, the same statement is still valid, but the time evolution is no longer perfectly sinusoidal, but instead is characterized by beats with a period inversely proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

The inversion of the system is given by

$$𝒮(t)=|C_1(t)|^2+2|C_0(t)|^2.$$
(31)
A full expression for the inversion readily calculated from Eqs. (28) is quite complicated, but is not given here. Fig. 4 shows the results obtained numerically for $`N=2,3`$, and $`4`$, using the full basis (solid line), as well as the inversion calculated from Eq. (31) using the modified Dicke model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$ (dashed line).

We now discuss the origin of the extra direct interaction in the effective Hamiltonian (15), in light of these numerical results. Eq. (27) expresses the wave function for two excitations as a linear combination of three states, which we will denote compactly as $`|a`$, $`|b`$, and $`|c`$ respectively. In the absence of $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$, these states are degenerate. According to the Dicke model, $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$ breaks this degeneracy because some of the matrix elements of $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$ between these states are nonzero. This is the first-order effect of $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$ (or, equivalently, in $`g`$).

However, there is also a second-order effect. Namely, as is well known from degenerate second-order Löwdin perturbation theory, lowdin  the effective Hamiltonian matrix elements between, for example, states $`a|`$ and $`|b`$ should be written

$$a|_{\mathrm{eff}}|b=a|_{\mathrm{int}}|b+\underset{r}{\overset{}{}}\frac{a|_{\mathrm{int}}|rr|_{\mathrm{int}}|b}{E_aE_r}.$$
(32)
Here the sum runs over all states $`|r`$ other than $`|a`$, $`|b`$, and $`|c`$. These are the terms which give rise to the extra interaction proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in Eq. (15).

To confirm this hypothesis, we have calculated these matrix elements, including the terms second order in $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$, through order $`g^2`$. We do find that these terms produce a direct interaction between the junctions of the form (15), as found numerically. Specifically, the matrix element $`b|_{\mathrm{eff}}|b`$ becomes nonzero when these second-order terms are included. Furthermore, we find that the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ found from this direct calculation is comparable to that found numerically. Specifically, for the the cases mentioned above, we find $`\mathrm{\Omega }/(|\xi |^2/\omega )=4.89`$, $`9.65`$, $`14.42`$ for $`N=2`$, $`3`$, and $`4`$. For comparison, the best fit values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to the numerical results of Fig. 4 are $`\mathrm{\Omega }/(|\xi |^2/\omega )5.74,4.46,13.40`$ for $`N=2,3`$ and $`4`$ respectively.

#### III.4.3 Three excitations ($`m=3`$)

In this case the wave function at any time $`t`$ in the interaction picture is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }^\mathrm{I}(t)=\underset{i=0}{\overset{3}{}}C_i(t)|3;i,$$
(33)
where the expansion coefficients satisfy

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_3(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi \sqrt{3N}C_2(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_2(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\sqrt{3N}C_3(t)+\mathrm{\Omega }C_2(t)+2\xi \sqrt{N1}C_1(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_1(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\xi ^{}\sqrt{N1}C_2(t)+\mathrm{\Omega }C_1(t)+\xi \sqrt{3(N2)}C_0(t),`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{dC_0(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\sqrt{3(N2)}C_1(t).`$
The inversion of the system in this case is

$$𝒮(t)=|C_2(t)|^2+2|C_1(t)|^2+3|C_0(t)|^2.$$
(34)
In Fig. 5 we show the results obtained from the full numerical solution (full line) and from Eq. (34) (dashed line) for $`N=3,`$ and $`N=4`$ junctions. Here the best fit values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are given such that $`\mathrm{\Omega }/(|\xi |^2/\omega )7`$ and $`13.4`$ respectively. For comparison, the second-order degenerate perturbation calculation mentioned above gives $`\mathrm{\Omega }/(|\xi |^2/\omega )=10`$ and $`15.5`$.

### III.5 Coherent state

As a last non-trivial case we consider the system such the resonator is initially in a coherent state. This case is of special interest because the number eigenstates of the electromagnetic field are generally difficult to generate. Nevertheless, as we will see below, our main conclusion, namely the enhancement of the junction-resonator interaction with increasing $`N`$ still holds in this case.

A coherent state $`|\beta `$ with an average number of photons $`n=|\beta |^2`$ can be written as a linear superposition of number states $`|s`$ with a Poisson distribution:

$$|\beta =\underset{s}{}e^{|\beta |^2/2}\frac{\beta ^s}{\sqrt{s!}}|s.$$
(35)
For $`N=1`$, it is easily proved that the inversion of the system is given by:

$$𝒮(t)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{2}e^{|\beta |^2}\underset{s=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{|\beta |^{2s}}{s!}\mathrm{cos}(2\xi \sqrt{s}t),$$
(36)
which shows the phenomenon of “ collapse and revival” i. e. the envelope of the Rabi oscillations periodically “collapses” to a half with a subsequent “revival” at later times. alsaidi ; eberly  For $`N>1`$, the analysis of the previous subsection can be readily generalized to treat a coherent initial state.

As an example, we show in Fig. 6 the inversion $`𝒮(t)`$ for $`N=1`$ and $`N=2`$ assuming $`\beta =\sqrt{2}`$. The solid lines follow from the full Hamiltonian while the dashed lines are from the reduced Hamiltonians of Eqs. (12) and (15). The best fit value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in this case is $`\mathrm{\Omega }5.74|\xi |^2/\omega `$. This value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the same as for the number state considered before with $`m=2`$ excitations. The enhancement of the junction-cavity interaction can be seen from the decrease of the period of oscillation in Fig. 6(b) compared to Fig. 6(a).

## IV Summary and Conclusions

The present paper extends our previous publicationalsaidi  to the case of $`N>1`$ identical junctions interacting with a single lossless cavity mode. Although oversimplified, this model has the advantage that we can obtain detailed, numerically exact dynamical solutions with a range of initial conditions. Our treatment of the Hamiltonian is entirely quantum-mechanical.

We have diagonalized the Hamiltonian exactly, using a basis large enough to insure accuracy, and compared our results to those of a reduced Hamiltonian \[Eqs. (14) or (15) \], in which each junction is represented by two levels only. The reduced Hamiltonian resembles the one-mode Dicke Hamiltonian but contains a direct interaction term between the junctions. For short times (of the order of several Rabi periods) the agreement between results obtained from the two-level Hamiltonian of Eqs. (14) or (15) and those found from the full Hamiltonian \[Eq. (1)\] is excellent, but decreases somewhat for longer times. Also, as expected for a Dicke-like model, the system of several identical junctions behaves just like a single junction for short times, but with an enhanced junction-cavity coupling strength $`\xi \sqrt{N}`$, and a correspondingly decreased Rabi period. This reduced Rabi period might be smaller than the coherence time, making these oscillations experimentally observable.

The most striking feature of our numerical results is the presence of an effective direct interaction between the junctions resulting from the cavity. This interaction has the form of a dipole-dipole interaction between the “spins” representing the two lowest levels of each junction. This extra interaction must be included in the effective two-level Hamiltonian in order for it to reproduce the numerical results obtained from the full Hamiltonian at long times. While the analogous term in atomic physics is a true dipole-dipole interaction, in our model it arises through the effects of the higher energy levels on the degenerates states, as calculated through second order Löwdin degenerate perturbation theory.

Before concluding, we briefly discuss the case of non-identical junctions. Obviously, this is an important consideration for Josephson junctions since, in contrast to atoms, it is impossible to fabricate perfectly identical Josephson junctions. To test whether the coherence survives when the junctions are non-identical, we have repeated the two-junction calculations shown in Figs. 2-4 using junctions which differ slightly from one another. For convenience, we considered two junctions with slightly different values of $`J`$, but the same values of $`U`$. With these parameters, the resonant values of $`\overline{n}`$ are slightly different for the two junctions in the same cavity. We find that, if the two $`J`$’s differ only slightly (by only 1-3% for our choice of $`J/U`$), the coherent behavior, as signaled by the $`\sqrt{2}`$ enhancement of the Rabi oscillation frequency, survives. For greater differences between the $`J`$’s, the coherence disappears and one finds instead two distinct resonances, each with an unenhanced Rabi oscillation frequency.

We have also carried out similar calculations in other parameter regimes - specifically, for $`Q`$ varying between $`0.01`$ and about $`3`$ (with $`g`$ remaining unchanged). The qualitative results - that is, the presence of Rabi oscillations and the characteristic frequency changes associated with coherence - are unchanged.

Finally, we briefly discuss whether the present system could be constructed in the laboratory. The values of the parameters entering the model have been estimated previously. alsaidi  For a cylindrical cavity of length $`d`$ and radius $`r`$, a typical $`g`$ \[ Eq. (4)\] was found to be $`g3\mathrm{}\sqrt{\alpha /(rd)}`$, where $`\alpha =e^2/(\mathrm{}c)1/137`$ is the fine structure constant, and $`\mathrm{}_{}`$ is the junction thickness. Achievable values of the other parameters were estimated as $`U10^{15}`$ erg $`8K`$, and $`\omega 2c/r`$. In order to attain $`Q0.7`$, as used in our calculations, we need $`J/k_B3`$ K, or a critical current $`I_c0.1\mu `$A. To obtain $`\mathrm{}\omega /U0.3`$, these estimates give $`x10^3`$ cm and $`r0.11`$ cm, where $`x`$ is a typical junction dimension (e. g., island size, junction radius). These values, which would give $`\omega 100`$ GHz, are achievable in present technology. The corresponding maximum power radiated into the cavity \[Eq. 25\] will be of the order of $`10^{11}\sqrt{N}`$ W.

However, the value $`g=0.15`$, used in our calculations, is much larger than the value $`g10^5`$ which was previously estimatedalsaidi  to result from the parameters just described. Such a small $`g`$ would certainly cause the two-level approximation to be even better than found in our calculations here. But it would have the disadvantage of producing longer Rabi oscillation time, and hence, of making coherence over a Rabi period more difficult to achieve; it would also lead to a much lower power radiated. Thus, the largest possible $`g`$ is clearly desirable in order to detect this effect. The Rabi period could also be decreased by junctions with larger critical currents than those considered here. However, the critical current is limited by the requirement $`\mathrm{}\omega \mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the superconducting gap. Thus, the best hope for observing these oscillations may be to reduce the decoherence effects.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank professors G. P. Lafyatis and D. W. Schumacher for useful conversations. This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, through Grants DMR97-31511 and DMR01-04987. Computational support was provided, in part, by the Ohio Supercomputer Center.


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# Noncommutative Spacetime, Stringy Spacetime Uncertainty Principle, and Density Fluctuations

## I Introduction

As a candidate for the theory of everything, string theory should tell us everything about the universe. One of the most important questions is how a successful theory of cosmology can be derived from it. Cosmology is becoming the major testing ground for string theory, since it tests the physics at energies much higher than can be reached in any collider on earth. On the other hand, cosmology also appears to require the input from string theory, since cosmological theories based on classical gravity and the standard model of particle physics are expected to break down at very high energies (see e.g.  for a discussion of some of the conceptual problems of inflationary cosmology). There is a growing symbiotic relationship between string theory and cosmology (see e.g. ).

In this paper we are concerned with what string theory can say about cosmology. Obviously, we are very far from being able to derive cosmology directly from string theory. Instead of proposing a new scenario starting from a very special string theory configuration, we would like to focus on a universal property of string theory, and study its implication for cosmology. The universal property which we wish to focus on is the stringy spacetime uncertainty relation (SSUR), which states that the uncertainties in the physical time and space coordinates $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_p=\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_p`$ satisfy

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_p\mathrm{\Delta }x_pl_s^2,$$
(1)
where $`l_s`$ is the string length scale. Yoneya suggested  that the SSUR is a universal property for strings as well as D-branes. This is in contrast with the other stringy uncertainty relation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_p\mathrm{\Delta }p1+l_s^2\mathrm{\Delta }p^2,$$
(2)
which implies a minimal length scale

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_pl_s$$
(3)
but does not hold for D-branes. In an earlier paper , it was argued that the SSUR can be used to solve the flatness and the horizon problems in cosmology without the need to invoke cosmic inflation.

In this paper, we study the effect of the SSUR on metric perturbations in the early universe, which are the origin of the observed large-scale structure and of cosmic microwave background anisotropies. The reason one expects signatures of Planck (string) scale physics in the spectrum of density fluctuations on cosmological scales today is the following : since the fluctuations on large scales are small today, and since gravity is a purely attractive force, the fluctuations had to be extremely small in the early Universe, thus justifying a linearized analysis. According to such an analysis, the individual Fourier modes of the fluctuation field evolve independently. In the context of an expanding background cosmology, there was thus a time when the physical wavelengths of modes which are probed in current cosmological experiments was smaller than the Planck (or string) scale, and hence one cannot neglect the effects of Planck (string) scale physics ***In this context of inflationary cosmology, this non-robustness of the predictions of inflation to possible effects of Planck (string) scale physics is known as the trans-Planckian problem..

As a first step, we consider a simple model in which matter is dominated by a single scalar field. As is done in inflationary cosmology, we quantize the joint linear metric and matter fluctuations about a classical homogeneous and isotropic background cosmology. With these assumptions the cosmological perturbations are automatically Gaussian.

In order to carry out the calculation explicitly, we need a specific model to realize the SSUR. Motivated by the recent developments on noncommtuative geometry in string theory, we generalize the field theory on 1+1 dimensional noncommutative space, where the uncertainty relation is a direct result of the spacetime noncommutativity, to (3+1) dimensions.

We identify two crucial effects which lead to a difference between the evolution of fluctuations in commutative and noncommutative spacetimes. The first is a coupling between the fluctuation mode and the background which is nonlocal in time, and the second is the appearance of a critical time for each mode at which the SSUR is saturated, and which is taken to be the time when the mode is generated. Note that this implies that the Hilbert space of the perturbative quantum theory of gravity becomes time-dependent. This appears to be a natural consequence of any attempt to quantize gravity in the context of cosmology, as discussed in  and in references therein.

These two effects lead to a change in the spectral index of the fluctuations in the infrared region for all accelerating background cosmologies except for the exponentially expanding case. Instead of a red spectrum (as is obtained in commutative spacetime) we obtain a blue spectrum. In the case of an exponentially expanding background, a scale-invariant spectrum results.

## II Preliminaries

In string theory, the best known example of noncommutative field theory is the low energy effective theory of D-branes in the background of a $`B`$ field . It has also been proposed that R-R background fields may lead to a low energy effective theory of gravity best described as Einstein gravity living on a certain noncommutative spacetime . Motivated by recent developments of noncommutative geometry in string theory, models for cosmological fluctuations on noncommutative spacetime have been proposed by several groups .  Models based on (2) are also studied .  However, in these proposals, some isometries of the FRW metric are broken by the noncommutativity. In this paper, we will not give a specific commutation relation for spacetime. Rather, we will imagine that the SSUR  is realized by a deformation of the commutative field theory in a way which preserves all of the global symmetries of the classical background. One can imagine that, although their background expectation values vanish and thus there is no well-defined spacetime noncommutativity, quantum fluctuations of the $`B`$ field (for D-branes) or certain R-R fields (for spacetime) would still result in spacetime uncertainty . Keeping this in mind, we will first consider field theories on noncommutative space, which may give us a hint about the result of “averaging over” (in a path integral) the effective action for different background fields.

The formulation of general relativity on noncommutative spacetime has been extensively studied . The notions of metric, distance, etc. can all be defined. It is therefore natural for us to assume that the notion of metric still makes sense as long as it is consistent with SSUR. Assuming a homogeneous isotropic background, we take the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) metric

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left({\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{1Kr^2}}r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right).`$ (4)
For simplicity, we will focus on the case of a spatially flat universe ($`K=0`$). For later use, we introduce another time coordinate $`\tau `$ (not the usual conformal time) such that the metric is

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)dx^2=a^2(\tau )d\tau ^2a^2(\tau )dx^2.$$
(5)
Since the scale factor has no spatial dependence, the SSUR imposes no restriction on the Hubble constant $`H\dot{a}/a`$, or any other scale associated with the scale factor, such as $`\dot{H}^{1/2}`$. On the other hand, the constraint (3) implies that $`H<M_s`$, and $`\dot{H}<M_s^2`$, etc., where $`M_s=l_s^1`$ is the string energy scale. As we will see below, this difference is crucial for us.

In view of the connection between noncommutative field theory and SSUR described above, the fact that SSUR does not impose a restriction on quantities with only time dependence can be understood via noncommutative field theory. Obviously, if we only look for solutions with a single variable, noncommutative field theories are equivalent to commutative field theories.

In the case of a classical spacetime, for a given equation of state of matter $`p=w\rho `$ with constant $`w`$, the solution of the (classical) Einstein equations for the scale factor is

$$a(t)=a_0t^n=\alpha _0\tau ^{\frac{n}{n+1}},$$
(6)
where

$$n=\frac{2}{3(1+w)}$$
(7)
and $`\alpha _0=\left((n+1)^na_0\right)^{\frac{1}{n+1}}`$. For an expanding universe, $`n>0`$. For a matter dominated universe, $`w=0`$ and $`n=2/3`$; for a radiation dominated universe, $`w=1/3`$ and $`n=1/2`$. The universe accelerates if $`n>1`$. If the cosmological constant dominates, then $`w=1`$, $`a(t)=a_0\mathrm{exp}(Ht)`$ ($`n=\mathrm{}`$) and we have exponential inflation .

Since we do not have the exact gravitational theory with all the stringy corrections to Einstein gravity, we will consider a generic expanding scale factor $`a`$. As we review in the Appendix, for a given scale factor $`a`$, the metric perturbations for gravity coupled to a single scalar field obey an equation of motion of the form

$$\mu _k^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(k^2\frac{z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z_k}\right)\mu _k=0,$$
(8)
where the primes mean derivatives with respect to a certain time coordinate $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ to be defined below. (In the commutative case, $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }=\eta `$ is the conformal time defined by $`dt=ad\eta `$.) This equation applies both to gravitational waves (in which case $`\mu =ah`$, $`h`$ being the amplitude of the gravitational wave, and - for commutative spacetime - $`z_k=a`$) and to scalar metric fluctuations, the fluctuations which couple to matter (in which case $`a^1\mu `$ is the scalar field fluctuation in the uniform spatial curvature gauge and \- in commutative spacetime - $`z_k=z`$ is a function describing the background model and is given explicitly by (59)). For backgrounds in which the equation of state does not change in time (the ones considered here), the function $`z`$ for scalar metric fluctuations is proportional to $`a`$, and hence the equations for scalar metric fluctuations and gravitational waves coincide.

A quantity used frequently to compare theory with observations is the power spectrum, which measures the strength of the fluctuations on the scale $`k`$. The power spectrum of metric perturbations is given by

$$P_k=\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2}\frac{|\mu _k|^2}{z_k^2}.$$
(9)
(To allow comparison with what is done for a non-commutative spacetime, we have allowed $`z`$ to depend on $`k`$) If the background is expanding, then as explained in the Appendix (with the normalization factor chosen to apply to gravitational waves),

$$P(k)k^2z_k^2(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k)M_P^2$$
(10)
where $`M_P`$ denotes the Planck mass, and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k`$ is the earliest time when

$$\frac{z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z_k}>k^2.$$
(11)
In the usual expanding cosmological models described by the ansatz (6), then for a commutative spacetime, we have $`z_k=a`$. Hence, for $`n>1`$, the time $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k`$ is the time when the scale $`k`$ exits the Hubble radius, and we have $`\eta _kk^1`$, and thus $`z_k(\eta _k)k^{\frac{n}{1n}}`$. Therefore, the spectrum of gravitational waves and of scalar metric fluctuations obeys

$$P_kck^{\frac{2}{1n}},$$
(12)
where $`c=\left((2n^2n)^na_0^2\right)^{\frac{1}{n1}}`$. For the spectrum to be exactly scale invariant, we need $`n=\mathrm{}`$, that is, exponential inflation, for which the spectrum is

$$P_k\frac{H^2}{M_P^2}.$$
(13)
## III Toy Model on Noncommutative Spacetime

First we consider the case of 1+1 dimensions where the SSUR can be easily realized by the $``$-product, so that we can get some hint about how the SSUR affects the action of a scalar field.

The SSUR

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{\Delta }x_p=\mathrm{\Delta }\tau \mathrm{\Delta }xl_s^2.$$
(14)
can be realized by the algebra of noncommutative spacetime

$$[\tau ,x]_{}=il_s^2.$$
(15)
This $``$-product can be explicitly defined as

$`(fg)(x,\eta )=`$ (16)
$`e^{\frac{i}{2}l_s^2(_x_\tau ^{}_\tau _y)}f(x,\tau )g(y,\tau ^{})|_{y=x,\tau ^{}=\tau }.`$ (17)
The fact that the algebra (15) is time-independent makes $`\tau `$ a better coordinate than the conformal time $`\eta `$ defined by $`dt=ad\eta `$, which is frequently used when calculating metric perturbations. Naively, the SSUR can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\eta \mathrm{\Delta }x\frac{l_s^2}{a^2(\eta )}$$
(18)
in terms of $`\eta `$. However, this relation is not well defined when $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$ is large, because the argument $`\eta `$ for the scale factor on the right hand side changes over the time interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$, and it is thus not clear what to use for $`a(\eta )`$ in (18).

A comment on unitarity is in need at this point. Since spacetime noncommutativity introduces higher derivatives of time in the Lagrangian of a field theory, a naive treatment will often result in loss of unitarity. (But there are also examples  for which the unitarity is not broken by spacetime noncommutativity.) However, in our case, the fundamental theory is string theory, and we are looking at its effective field theory (with focus on the stringy effect described by the SSUR). It is very common for effective theories to have higher derivatives terms, and a proper treatment  should preserve unitarity order by order perturbatively. Furthermore, the field theory we will consider below is essentially a free field theory, and so we will not have to worry about unitarity in this paper.

As discussed in the Appendix, both scalar metric fluctuations and gravitational waves are described by free scalar field actions on the classical expanding background (in two spacetime dimensions there are obviously no gravitational waves). We will now propose a noncommutative field theory which generalizes the action for cosmological perturbations to the case of noncommutative space-time. We will start from the actions expressed in terms of the observable fields $`h`$ and $``$ in the case of gravitational waves and scalar metric fluctuations, respectively (see Appendix). In the case of scalar metric fluctuations the variable $``$ is the fluctuation of the spatial curvature in the comoving gauge in which $`\delta \phi =0`$. As can be deduced from (51) and (60), respectively, these are free field actions except that the expansion of the background cosmology has not been factored out (i.e. the equations of motion for these variables contain the Hubble damping terms). These actions thus contain a nontrivial measure factor $`a^{d1}`$ or $`z^{d1}`$, in the cases of gravitational waves and scalar metric fluctuations, respectively, where $`d`$ is the number of spatial dimensions. We will extract a factor of $`a^2`$ from the measure and insert it into the operator appearing in the Lagrangian to account for the fact that the spatial gradient appearing in the operator should reduce to the usual operator in Minkowski space-time when expressed in terms of physical distances. We propose to make the transition to noncommutative spacetime obeying the SSUR by taking the operator appearing in the action and replacing all multiplications by $``$-products.

Based on the above considerations, we take the free field action for a real scalar field in 1+1 dimensions

$$\stackrel{~}{S}=𝑑\tau 𝑑x\frac{1}{2}\left(_\tau \varphi ^{}a^2_\tau \varphi (_x\varphi )^{}a^2(_x\varphi )\right).$$
(19)
In terms of the Fourier transform of $`\varphi `$,

$$\varphi (\tau ,x)=V^{1/2}_{k<k_0(\tau )}\frac{dk}{2\pi }\varphi _k(\tau )e^{ikx},$$
(20)
(where $`V`$ is the total spatial coordinate volume) the action is

$$\stackrel{~}{S}V_{k<k_0}𝑑\tau 𝑑k\frac{1}{2}\left(\beta _k^+_\tau \varphi _k_\tau \varphi _kk^2\beta _k^{}\varphi _k\varphi _k\right),$$
(21)
where

$$\beta _k^\pm (\tau )=\frac{1}{2}\left(a^{\pm 2}(\tau l_s^2k)+a^{\pm 2}(\tau +l_s^2k)\right).$$
(22)
The $``$-product in the action takes care of the SSUR for the interaction between the background metric and the scalar field. In order to realize the SSUR for the scalar field by itself, we have imposed an upper bound on the comoving momentum $`k`$ at $`k_0`$ in (20). The reason is as follows. In order for a fluctuation mode with wave number $`k`$ to exist, the SSUR must be satisfied. According to (21), the energy defined with respect to $`\tau `$ for a mode $`k`$ is

$$E_k=ka_{eff}^2,$$
(23)
where

$$a_{eff}^2=\left(\frac{\beta _k^+}{\beta _k^{}}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(24)
Using $`\mathrm{\Delta }x1/k`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau 1/E_k`$ together with the SSUR, we find

$$\left(\frac{a_{eff}(\tau )}{k}\right)^2\mathrm{\Delta }x_p\mathrm{\Delta }tl_s^2$$
(25)
and thus we have an upper bound on the wave number

$$kk_0(\tau )\frac{a_{eff}(\tau )}{l_s}.$$
(26)
One should also check whether the background metric satisfies the SSUR by itself. Yet as we mentioned above, the SSUR imposes no contraint on the background since it is homogeneous.

Due to the SSUR, the mode $`\varphi _k`$ interacts with the background with an uncertainty of $`l_s^2k`$ in $`\tau `$. In general, if the uncertainty relation is not realized exactly by the commutation relation (15), we expect that $`\beta _k^\pm `$ will be replaced by functions of the form

$$\beta _k^\pm (\tau )=𝑑\xi f(\xi )a^2(\tau \xi k),$$
(27)
for some even function $`f(\xi )`$ peaked at the origin with a characteristic width $`l_s^2`$. By Taylor expansion, we have

$$\beta _k^\pm (\tau )=\left(1+C_1^\pm \frac{Hp}{M_s^2}+C_2^\pm \frac{(\dot{H}+H^2)p^2}{M_s^4}+\mathrm{}\right)a^{\pm 2}(\tau ),$$
(28)
where $`C^\pm `$ are constants of order $`1`$, and $`p=k/a`$ is the physical momentum. This is a special case of the most general correction due to new physics at an energy scale $`M_s`$, which can be expanded in powers of $`(H/M_s)^2`$ and $`(p/M_s)^2`$ independently .

The action (21) reduces to the action for metric fluctuations (51) on classical spacetime when $`l_s0`$.

To calculate the power spectrum, it is convenient to rewrite the action in the form

$$\stackrel{~}{S}V_{k<k_0}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\eta }𝑑k\frac{1}{2}y_k^2(\stackrel{~}{\eta })\left(\varphi _k^{^{}}\varphi _k^{^{}}k^2\varphi _k\varphi _k\right),$$
(29)
where the new time coordinate $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ is defined by

$$\frac{d\stackrel{~}{\eta }}{d\tau }=\left(\frac{\beta _k^{}}{\beta _k^+}\right)^{1/2}=a_{eff}^2,$$
(30)
and

$$y_k=(\beta _k^{}\beta _k^+)^{1/4}.$$
(31)
The primes mean derivatives with respect to $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$.

## IV The Model

The previous section motivates a model to incorporate the SSUR for any spacetime dimension:

$$S=V_{k<k_0}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\eta }d^dk\frac{1}{2}z_k^{d1}(\stackrel{~}{\eta })\left(\varphi _k^{^{}}\varphi _k^{^{}}k^2\varphi _k\varphi _k\right),$$
(32)
where $`z_k`$ is some smeared version of $`z`$ or $`a`$ over a range of time of characteristic scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =l_s^2k`$. As $`\tau `$ increases, the effect of the shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ for a given mode becomes less important. The time coordiante $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ is related to $`\tau `$ by $`d\stackrel{~}{\eta }=\stackrel{~}{z}_k^2d\tau `$, where $`\stackrel{~}{z}_k`$ is another smeared version of $`a`$, As an example, suppose that the only difference between the $`d+1`$ dimensional action and the $`1+1`$ dimensional one (29) is the measure $`z^{d1}`$ for the additional $`(d1)`$ dimensions, then we have

$$z_k^{d1}(\stackrel{~}{\eta })=z^{d1}y_k^2(\stackrel{~}{\eta }),\stackrel{~}{z}_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta })=a_{eff}(\stackrel{~}{\eta })$$
(33)
with $`y_k`$ given by (31), and $`a_{eff}`$ by (24). In the case of gravitational waves, the function $`z_k`$ is denoted $`a_k`$, with $`a_k`$ constructed from the scale factor $`a`$ in the same way as $`z_k`$ is obtained from $`z`$, say, in (33).

This deformation has the advantage of preserving both spatial translational and rotational symmetry of the (flat) FRW metric, in constrast with constructions based on the commutation relations

$$[x^\mu ,x^\nu ]=i\theta ^{\mu \nu }.$$
(34)
We can now turn to the calculation of the spectrum of cosmological fluctuations in various expanding background cosmologies, including inflationary backgrounds. We emphasize here that except the flat FRW metric, so far we have not assumed anything about the stringy correction to the Einstein gravity. A key role in which the SSUR enters in the analysis of fluctuations is the existence of a characteristic time $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$ for each mode $`k`$ which is the time when the SSUR is saturated

$$k=k_0(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0).$$
(35)
According to (26), the mode k can not exist before $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$.

A major issue is in which state the fluctuations are generated. On scales which are smaller than the Hubble radius at the time of formation, the distinguished choice is the local vacuum state (the state which appears empty of particles in the comoving frame at the time of formation). But it is unclear when should be the time to impose this initial condition. For modes which are generated when the wavelength is greater than the Hubble length, the choice is usually even less clear. However, in our case, the choice is obvious for all modes. At $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }<\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$, the fluctuation mode $`k`$ does not exist. By continuity of $`N_k`$, the operator representing the number of quanta of the k’th mode measured with respect to the adiabatic vacuum (see e.g.  for a textbook discussion of these concepts), then when the mode first becomes physical at $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }=\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$, it must be in the vacuum state. Our choice is thus to consider the amplitude of the growing mode at the time of formation to be the same as the function would have in the vacuum state in the absence of cosmological expansion.

As will be derived below, the fluctuations have a different spectral index in two wavelength regions which we call UV and IR, respectively. The UV modes are generated within the Hubble radius, and it turns out that for these modes the approximation (36) holds, The IR modes are generated outside the Hubble radius, where the effect of the SSUR is important, and the approximation (36) breaks down.

We first consider the UV region, namely values of $`k`$ for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ is small in the sense that all smeared versions of $`a`$ can be approximated by $`a`$. As in (28), the smeared scale factors $`z_k`$, $`\stackrel{~}{z}_k`$ are expansions of $`(Hp/M_s^2)^2`$ (and $`\dot{H}p^2/M_s^4)`$ etc.) The approximation

$$z_k\stackrel{~}{z}_ka$$
(36)
is valid when

$$HpM_s^2.$$
(37)
As $`a`$ increases with time, this approximation gets better and better.

For this bound to be true at all times for a mode $`k`$, we only need to make sure that it is satisfied when the mode first appeared at $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_p=\mathrm{\Delta }t_p1/p`$, the saturation of the SSUR at $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$ implies that

$$p=M_s$$
(38)
at $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$. Hence, (37) is equivalent to

$$H(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)M_s.$$
(39)
For the ansatz (6), as an example, the approximation (36) is good if

$$kA\alpha _0^{n+1}l_s^{n1}$$
(40)
From (10), the perturbation spectrum is determined by the earliest time when (11) is satisfied. In the absence of the cutoff (26), this is the time when

$$\frac{z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z_k}k^2.$$
(41)
Assuming (36), this condition can be rewritten as

$$\dot{H}+2H^2p^2.$$
(42)
For $`n>1`$ (the accelerating case), this occurs roughly when the size of the fluctuation crosses the Hubble radius, i.e.,

$$H(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k)p.$$
(43)
From (39), we see that $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k`$. This means that the fluctuations are generated inside of the Hubble radius, and this was the initial definition of the UV region. Thus, it is presicely in the UV region that the approximation (36) is valid.

Since the UR modes are generated on scales inside the Hubble radius in their local vacuum state, and since the evolution of the modes after that is no different than in the case of a commutative spacetime, it follows immediately that the spectrum for the UV modes (40) is the same as the classical case (12). The uncertainty relation has no significant effect for these modes, in agreement with the general consideration of .

Now we would like to study the IR modes $`kA`$ which are generated outside the Hubble radius, and for which the effects of the SSUR are important. Although our discussion about the IR modes will be more speculative because the Hubble expansion rate is above the string scale at the time of IR mode formation, the following provides an interesting example showing how new physics at the string scale can have significant effect on the spectrum of perturbations, evading the pessimistic conclusion of . §§§ After completion of this manuscript two papers appeared which reach similar conlusions concerning the potential observability of trans-Planckian physics in the spectrum of fluctuations .  As we will see, our description of the SSUR results in a spectrum which except in the case of exponential inflation has a different spectral index than what would be obtained in commutative space-time.

As an example, we take $`z_k`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}_k`$ given by (33) for $`z=a`$. The first step in the analysis is to obtain the expression for $`\tau _k^0`$. Starting point is (26) which defines the initial time. Inserting the expression (24) for $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}^2`$ and the formulas (22) for $`\beta _k^\pm `$, and then using the equation (6) for the scale factor, we obtain

$$\tau _k^0=\left(\left(\frac{kl_s}{\alpha _0}\right)^{2(n+1)/n}+k^2l_s^4\right)^{1/2}.$$
(44)
For the IR modes $`k`$ which we are focusing on, i.e. $`kA`$, the second term dominates over the first term. Thus, we have $`\beta _k^+\frac{1}{2}a^2(\tau +l_s^2k)`$ and $`\beta _k^{}\frac{1}{2}a^2(\tau l_s^2k)`$ (in the case of an expanding universe).

To find the power spectrum for these modes, we start from (10) with the time $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k`$ replaced by the time $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$ when the modes are generated. We then use (33) to replace $`z_k^2`$ by the product of $`z^2`$ and $`y_k`$, and then insert the expression for $`y_k`$ from (31). After inserting the above approximate expressions for $`\beta _k^\pm `$ we obtain

$$P_kk^2a^2(\tau _k^0)a^{1/2}(\tau _k^0+l_s^2k)a^{1/2}(\tau _k^0l_s^2k).$$
(45)
It is apparent that the nonlocal coupling between background and fluctuation mode has a large effect. Making use of (44) (and keeping in mind that the second term in (44) dominates over the first one, the final result becomes

$$P_k=c^{}k^{\frac{3}{n+1}},$$
(46)
where

$$c^{}=\frac{M_s^{\frac{5n1}{n+1}}}{2^{\frac{n1}{2(n+1)}}\alpha _0^3M_P^2}.$$
(47)
This is obviously very different from the old result (12). Instead of a red spectrum we now obtain a blue spectrum.

To summarize, for an accelerating universe ($`n>1`$), the spectrum has a negative spectral index in the UV region, but a positive one in the IR region. A smooth interpolation between the two regions would yield a nearly flat spectrum in the transition region. Note that as $`n`$ increases, the slope of the power spectrum decreases. Thus, the more rapidly the Universe is accelerating, the closer the spectrum is to being scale-invariant. This is similar to what occurs in ordinary power law inflation, except that the sign of the spectral index is opposite. In the limit towards exponential inflation, the results for commutative and non-commutative space-times converge.

The case of exponential inflation is very special in that we do not need to specify $`z_k`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{z}_k`$ to determine the index of the power spectrum. Despite the fact that $`z_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta })`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta })`$ are different from $`a`$, their dependence on $`k`$ happens to be the same as $`a(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)`$: $`z_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)\stackrel{~}{z}_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)a(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)k`$. Therefore the spectrum is scale invariant, like in the commutative case. For $`HM_s`$, the approximation (36) is valid, and the spectrum is roughly the same as (13). But for $`HM_s`$, the magnitude can be different. For instance, if we take (33), it is

$$P_k\frac{M_s^5}{\sqrt{2}H^3M_P^2}.$$
(48)
If we assume that (13) is correct for the tensor metric perturbations, the observational bound for gravitational waves $`P_k<10^{10}`$ leads to the usual hierarchy problem  $`H<10^5M_P`$ of inflationary cosmology. But if (48) is correct, the problem is alleviated. For $`HM_P`$, we only need $`M_S<10^2M_P`$.

## V Discussion

We have studied the consequences of the SSUR on the evolution of cosmological fluctuations in expanding cosmological backgrounds. Given a noncommutative spacetime obeying the SSUR, the cosmological background will still be described by the Einstein equations since the background fields only depend on one spacetime variable. The equations for the linear fluctuations, however, are modified. We have argued that the modifications take the form of an interaction of the fluctuating field with the background which is nonlocal in time.

An important consequence of the SSUR is that for each comoving wavenumber $`k`$, there is an earliest time $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$ at which the fluctuating mode exists. We assume that the fluctuation starts out with its vacuum amplitude at this time. Since the dependence of $`\eta _k^0`$ on $`k`$ is nontrivial, we expect that the index of the power spectrum of cosmological fluctuations will be different than for commutative spacetime. We find that this is indeed the case for a range of wavelengths, except in the special case of exponential inflation in which we also obtain a scale-invariant spectrum. Note that for power law inflation ($`n>1`$) the spectrum of fluctuations is “blue” when the SSUR is effective (for the infra-red region $`k<A`$) in contrast to the case of a commutative spacetime in which the spectrum is “red”. The reason for this difference is that in our case, modes with smaller values of $`k`$ are generated later than those with a larger value, and thus experience growth due to squeezing for less time, whereas for commutative spacetime the larger the value of $`k`$, the later the mode leaves the Hubble radius and the less squeezing it will experience.

Let us now conclude with a few remarks.

1. Although we find the same requirement $`m=1`$ as in the undeformed scalar field theory for a scale-invariant spectrum, it represents a special case because the spectrum is different for other values of $`m`$ in the IR.
2. In the case of exponential inflation, although the spectrum is always roughly scale-invariant, the amplitudes are different for large $`H`$ and small $`H`$,
3. It may appear a little counter-intuitive that it is the IR fluctuation modes that are severly modified by the stringy spacetime uncertainty relation. This may be interpreted as a manifestation of the UV/IR connection.
4. A realization of inflation in the context of noncommutative spacetime obeying the SSUR would not be subject to the trans-Planckian problem of general inflationary models . The case of exponential inflation in our model can also be viewed as a test of the robustness of inflation, but with a different kind of deformation of the dispersion relation than those considered in .
5. In the case of scalar metric fluctuations, we had to make a choice of which variable to consider as the one whose action is subject to the transformation from commutative spacetime to noncommutative spacetime outlined in Section III. It would be interesting to study the results for other choices.
6. An intriguing possibility is that there is only one effective scale factor, i.e., $`z_k=\stackrel{~}{z}_k`$. With this assumption, we do not need the approximation (36) to calculate the spectrum. The spectrum (10) can be interpreted as the physical energy $`E_k`$ squared at $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0`$ for all modes with $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0>\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^1`$. The SSUR implies that $`E_k(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^0)=M_s`$, and so we obtain

$$P_k\frac{M_s^2}{M_P^2}.$$
(49)
for all UV modes (40).

## Acknowledgments

RB thanks Karim Benakli and Yaron Oz for useful discussions, and is grateful to Prof. P. Hwang for the invitation to deliver a series of lectures in Taiwan. PMH thanks Tzihong Chiueh, Je-An Gu, Hsien-chung Kao, Feng-Li Lin, Sanjaye Ramgoolam, Hyun-Seok Yang for helpful discussions. The work of RB is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-FG02-91ER40688, TASK A, and by the CERN Theory Division. RB thanks the CERN Theory Division for hospitality during the course of this work. The work of PMH is supported in part by the National Science Council, the CosPA project of the Ministry of Education, the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Taiwan, R.O.C. and the Center for Theoretical Physics at National Taiwan University.

## Appendix: Essentials of the Theory of Cosmological Perturbations

For a detailed review of the calculation of metric perturbations, the reader is directed to other references  (see also  for a recent short review). Here we outline the basic steps with modifications due to noncommutative spacetime or SSUR effects.

There are two kinds of metric perturbations of interest in early Universe cosmology: the scalar and tensor fluctuations. Tensor fluctuations correspond to gravitational waves. The perturbed metric only has nonvanishing space-space components $`h_{ij}`$ which can be expanded in terms of the two basic traceless and symmetric polarization tensors $`e_{ij}^+`$ and $`e_{ij}^x`$ as

$$h_{ij}=h_+e_{ij}^++h_xe_{ij}^x$$
(50)
where the space and time dependence is in the coefficient functions $`h_+`$ and $`h_x`$.

The Einstein action can be expanded to second order in the metric fluctuations about a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) background (4), and the action for $`h_+`$ and $`h_x`$ reduces to that of a free, massless, minimally coupled scalar field in the FRW background. To obtain the correct normalization, the metric must be multiplied by the normalization factor $`M_{pl}/\sqrt{2}`$. In Fourier space, the action is

$$S=𝑑\eta \frac{1}{2}a^{d1}\left(\phi _k^{^{}}\phi _k^{^{}}k^2\phi _k\phi _k\right),$$
(51)
where $`\phi `$ stands for the coefficient functions $`h_+`$ and $`h_x`$, and $`d`$ denotes the number of spatial dimensions (set to $`3`$ in the following in most of this Appendix). This leads to the equation of motion

$$\phi _k^{^{\prime \prime }}+2\frac{a^{^{}}}{a}\phi _k^{^{}}+k^2\phi _k=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(52)
The Hubble friction term can be eliminated via a change of variables

$$\mu =a\phi ,$$
(53)
yielding the equation of motion

$$\mu _k^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(k^2\frac{a^{^{\prime \prime }}}{a}\right)\mu _k=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(54)
The power spectrum of gravitational waves in a particular state $`|0>`$ of the gravitational radiation field can be written in terms of the new field $`\mu `$ as

$$𝒫_g(k)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2}\frac{<0|\mu _k^{}\mu _k|0>}{a^2}.$$
(55)
The two point function appearing in (55) is that of a free canonically normalized massless scalar field multiplied by $`2/M_{pl}^2`$.

Scalar metric fluctuations couple to matter, and give rise to the large-scale structure of the Universe. The description of scalar metric perturbations is more complicated than the analysis of gravitational waves both because of the coupling to matter and also because some perturbation modes correspond to space-time reparametrizations of a homogeneous and isotropic cosmology. This is the issue of gauge fixing. A simple way to address this issue is to work in a system of coordinates which completely fixes the gauge. A simple choice is the longitudinal gauge, in which the metric takes the form

$$ds^2=a^2(\eta )\left[(1+2\mathrm{\Phi })d\eta ^2(12\mathrm{\Psi })\gamma ^{ij}dx_idx_j\right],$$
(56)
where the space and time dependent functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are the two physical metric degrees of freedom which describe scalar metric fluctuations ($`\gamma ^{ij}`$ is the metric of the unperturbed spatial hypersurfaces). The fluctuations of matter fields give additional degrees of freedom for scalar metric fluctuations. In the simple case of a single scalar matter field, the matter field fluctuation can be denoted by $`\delta \phi `$. In the absence of anisotropic stress, it follows from the Einstein equations that the two metric fluctuation variables $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ coincide. Due to the Einstein constraint equation, the remaining metric fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is determined by the matter fluctuation $`\delta \phi `$.

It is clear from this analysis of the physical degrees of freedom that the action for scalar metric fluctuations must be expressible in terms of the action of a single free scalar field $`v`$ with a time dependent mass (determined by the background cosmology). As shown in  (see also , this field is

$`v`$ $`=`$ $`a\left(\delta \phi +{\displaystyle \frac{\phi _0^{^{}}}{}}\mathrm{\Psi }\right)`$ (57)
$`=`$ $`z,`$ (58)
where $`\phi _0`$ denotes the background value of the scalar matter field, $`=a^{^{}}/a`$,

$$z=a\frac{\phi _0^{^{}}}{},$$
(59)
and $``$ denotes the curvature perturbation in comoving gauge . The action for scalar metric fluctuations is

$$S=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\left(v^{}_{}{}^{}2\gamma ^{ij}v_{,i}v_{,j}+\frac{z^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z}v^2\right),$$
(60)
(where $`\gamma `$ is the determinant of the metric $`\gamma ^{ij}`$) which leads to the equation of motion

$$v_k^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(k^2\frac{z^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z}\right)v_k=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(61)
which under the change $`az`$ is identical to the equation (54) for gravitational waves. Note that if $`a(\eta )`$ is a power of $`\eta `$, then $`\phi _0^{^{}}`$ and $``$ scale with the same power of $`\eta `$ so that $`z`$ is proportional to $`a`$, in which case the evolution of gravitational waves and scalar metric fluctuations is identical.

In analogy to (55), the power spectrum of the curvature fluctuation $``$ is

$$𝒫_{}(k)=\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2}\frac{<0|v_k^{}v_k|0>}{z^2}.$$
(62)
So far, the theory was developed for commuting space-time variables. To make the transition to non-commutative space-time, and to take into account the space-time uncertainty relation, we replace, as discussed in the main part of the text, the $`k`$independent function $`z(\eta )`$ by a $`k`$dependent function $`z_k(\eta )`$. In addition, we allow the initial time $`\eta ^0`$ to depend on $`k`$.

In order to show how the growth of the classical mode function $`v_k`$ translates into the growth of the expectation value which determines the power spectrum we will make use of the Hamiltonian formalism. From the action (60) it follows that the momentum canonically conjugate to the field $`v`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_k=v_k^{^{}}\frac{z_k^{^{}}}{z_k}v_k,$$
(63)
and this leads to the Hamiltonian (see e.g.)

$$H=d^dk\left[ka_k^{}a_k+\frac{i}{2}\frac{z_k^{^{}}}{z_k}(a_k^{}a_k^{}a_ka_k)\right],$$
(64)
where $`a_k^{}(\eta )`$ and $`a_k(\eta )`$ are the creation and annihilation operators at time $`\eta `$ related to $`v_k`$ and its conjugate momentum by

$`v_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2k}}}(a_k+a_k^{}),`$ (65)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_k`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2k}}}(a_ka_k^{}).`$ (66)
In the Heisenberg picture, the creation and annihilation operators evolve with time, while the state does not. Assume that the Universe is in the state $`|0>`$ defined by

$$a_k(\eta _k^0)|0>=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(67)
which is the vacuum for mode $`k`$ at some intial time $`\eta _k^0`$. It is in general not the vacuum at later times.

The Bogoliubov transformation relates the creation and annihilation operators at $`\eta ^0`$ with the corresponding operators at the time $`\eta `$:

$`a_k(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _k(\eta )a_k(\eta _0)+\beta _k(\eta )a_k^{}(\eta _0),`$ (68)
$`a_k^{}(\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\beta }_k(\eta )a_k(\eta _0)+\overline{\alpha }_k(\eta )a_k^{}(\eta _0),`$ (69)
where $`\alpha _k`$ and $`\beta _k`$ satisfy

$$\alpha _k\overline{\alpha }_k\beta _k\overline{\beta }_k=1,k.$$
(70)
The Hamilton equations $`[H,a_k]=i\dot{a}_k`$ and its Hermitian conjugate take on a simpler form when written in terms of the new variables

$$\zeta _k=\alpha _k\overline{\beta }_k,\xi _k=\alpha _k+\overline{\beta }_k.$$
(71)
In terms of them they read

$`\zeta _k^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(k^2{\displaystyle \frac{z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z_k}}\right)\zeta _k=0,`$ (72)
$`\xi _k^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(k^2{\displaystyle \frac{(z_k^1)^{^{\prime \prime }}}{(z_k^1)}}\right)\xi _k=0,`$ (73)
The larger the value of $`|\beta _k|^2(\eta )`$, the larger the number of particles at time $`\eta `$ created out of the initial vacuum state $`|0>`$.

Let us denote the factors in (72), (73) by

$$M=k^2\frac{z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}}{z_k},N=k^2\frac{(z_k^1)^{^{\prime \prime }}}{(z_k^1)}.$$
(74)
For small $`\eta `$ ($`\eta <1/k`$) (scales smaller than the Hubble radius), both $`M`$ and $`N`$ are positive and approximately equal to $`k^2`$. Thus, $`\zeta _k`$ and $`\xi _k`$ oscillate. If the initial state is taken to be the local vacuum state,

$$\alpha _k(\eta _0)=1,\beta _k(\eta _0)=0,$$
(75)
then the magnitudes of $`\zeta `$ and $`\xi `$ are of order $`1`$ until $`\eta =1/k`$. This represents the oscillation of quantum vacuum fluctuations. We will refer to this regime as phase $`I`$. On scales larger than the Hubble radius (at later times), $`M`$ and $`N`$ are dominated by the second (negative) term. In this period, $`\zeta `$ and $`\xi `$ correspond to frozen fluctuations which are undergoing quantum squeezing and which scale like $`z_ka`$ and $`z_k^1a^1`$, respectively. Since $`a`$ is increasing with time, by (71) we can approximate $`v_k`$ by $`\zeta _k/\sqrt{2k}`$ for sufficiently late times. This is phase $`II`$ When $`k^2`$ is much smaller than both $`z_k^{^{\prime \prime }}/z_k`$ and $`(z_k^1)^{^{\prime \prime }}/(z_k^1)`$, and assuming that $`z`$ is an increasing function, the dominant solutions are simply

$$\zeta _k=C_kz_k,\xi _k=\frac{1}{C_kz_k}$$
(76)
for real $`u_k`$, $`v_k`$. Note that the condition (70) is satisfied for this solution, but not for other solutions of the second order differential equations. Suppose that for sufficiently late times, $`z_k1`$ ($`z_k1`$) then $`v_k\frac{1}{2}\zeta _k/\sqrt{2k}`$ ($`v_k\frac{1}{2}\xi _k/\sqrt{2k}`$). Since the initial condition is $`\zeta _k(\eta _0)=\xi _k(\eta _0)=1`$, it is equivalent to say that for $`z_k1`$, for sufficiently large $`\eta `$, $`v_k(\eta )`$ is given by the solution to the differential equation (72) with the initial condition $`v(\eta _0)=1/\sqrt{2k}`$. For $`z_k1`$, we replace $`z_k`$ by $`z_k^1`$. In general we want to find the larger of the two functions $`\zeta _k`$ and $`\xi _k`$. This then determines via the relations(71) the Bogoliubov coefficient $`\beta _k`$, in terms of which the power spectrum of metric fluctuations becomes

$$𝒫_{}(k)=\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2}\frac{1}{2k}\frac{|\beta _k|^2}{z_k^2}.$$
(77)
Note that the factor $`1/(2k)`$ represents the vacuum normalization of the states, seen in (65).

In summary, for expanding $`z_k`$, the spectrum is

$$𝒫_{}(k)=\frac{k^2}{4\pi ^2}\frac{1}{z_k^2(\eta _k)},$$
(78)
where $`\eta _k`$ is the time when the fluctuation mode $`k`$ crosses the Hubble radius ($`M=0`$). In this paper we also consider the case of fluctuations outside the Hubble radius starting in the vacuum. For them $`\eta _k`$ should be taken to be the time when they start in the vacuum.