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# Untitled Document

DISSIPATION AND DECOHERENCE

IN PHOTON INTERFEROMETRY

F. Benatti

Dipartimento di Fisica Teorica, Università di Trieste

Strada Costiera 11, 34014 Trieste, Italy

and

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste

R. Floreanini

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste

Dipartimento di Fisica Teorica, Università di Trieste

Strada Costiera 11, 34014 Trieste, Italy

Abstract

The propagation of polarized photons in optical media can be effectively modeled by means of quantum dynamical semigroups. These generalized time evolutions consistently describe phenomena leading to loss of phase coherence and dissipation originating from the interaction with a large, external environment. High sensitive experiments in the laboratory can provide stringent bounds on the fundamental energy scale that characterizes these non-standard effects.

1. INTRODUCTION

Quantum systems are usually treated as isolated: their time evolution is unitary, driven by the appropriate hamiltonian operator. In general however, this should be regarded as an approximation: any external environment $``$ unavoidably interacts with the system $`𝒮`$ under study, making the resulting dynamics rather involved.\[1-3\]

The global system $`𝒮+`$ is closed, and its time evolution is determined by the operator $`e^{iH_{\mathrm{tot}}t}`$, involving the total hamiltonian, that can be always decomposed as:

$$H_{\mathrm{tot}}=H+H_{}+H^{},$$
$`(1.1)`$
where $`H`$ drives the system $`𝒮`$ in absence of $``$, $`H_{}`$ describes the internal environment dynamics, while $`H^{}`$ takes into account the interaction between $`𝒮`$ and $``$. Nevertheless, being interested only in the evolution of the subsystem $`𝒮`$ and not in the details of the dynamics of $``$, one finally integrates over the environment degrees of freedom. Describing the states of subsystem and environment by appropriate density matrices, the evolution in time of $`𝒮`$ will then be given by the transformation:

$$\rho (0)\rho (t)=\mathrm{Tr}_{}\left[e^{iH_{\mathrm{tot}}t}\rho (0)\rho _{}e^{iH_{\mathrm{tot}}t}\right],$$
$`(1.2)`$
where $`\rho _{}`$ describes the state of the environment at $`t=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ (for simplicity, we assume $`𝒮`$ and $``$ to be initially uncorrelated; see  for a generalization).

The resulting map $`\rho (0)\rho (t)`$ is rather complex, involving in general non-linear and memory effects; it consistently describes decoherence effects, leading to irreversibility and dissipation. An explicit and mathematically precise description in terms of quantum dynamical semigroups is however possible when the interaction between the subsystem $`𝒮`$ and the environment is weak. These generalized time evolutions are represented by linear transformations, mapping density matrices into density matrices, while preserving very basic physical properties, like forward in time composition law (semigroup property), entropy increase (irreversibility) and complete positivity (that guarantees the correct physical interpretation of the dynamics in all situations).\[1-3\]

Thanks to its generality and physical self-consistency, the description of open systems in terms of quantum dynamical semigroups can be applied to model the dynamics of any system in weak interaction with a large environment.\[1-7\] In particular, it has recently been applied to describe possible effects of irreversibility and dissipation induced by the evolution of strings and branes. Indeed, quite in general the fundamental dynamics of these extended objects gives rise at low energies to a weakly coupled environment, and as a consequence to decoherence phenomena.

From a more phenomenological point of view, similar effects have also been described in the framework of quantum gravity: the quantum fluctuation of the gravitational field and the appearance of virtual black holes make space-time look “foamy” at distances comparable to Planck’s length, inducing non-standard phenomena leading to possible loss of quantum coherence.\[10-16\] Dissipation and decoherence are also the general result of the dynamics in theories with large extra dimensions; indeed, the possible energy leakage into the bulk of space-time due to gravity effects would inevitably inject noise into the boundary, thus inducing irreversibility and dissipation at low energy in our brane-world.

Our present knowledge of string theory does not allow precise estimates of the magnitude of these non-standard effects. Using a rough dimensional analysis, one can nevertheless conclude that they should be rather small, being suppressed by at least one inverse power of a large, fundamental mass scale (most likely the Planck mass). Despite of this, they can be studied using interferometric phenomena. Indeed, detailed investigations involving various elementary particle systems (neutral mesons \[18-22\], neutrons , neutrinos ) have shown that present and future experiments might soon reach the required sensitivity in order to detect the new, non-standard phenomena.

This possibility looks particularly promising for photon interferometry and more in general optical physics.\[5-7\] The sophistication of present laboratory experiments in quantum optics is so high that decoherence effects induced by a fundamental, “stringy” dynamics might be studied using available setups.

In the present work, we shall discuss in detail how these non-standard, dissipative phenomena can affect the propagation of polarized photons immersed in optically active media. A preliminary discussion has been presented in . There, it has been shown that the dissipative phenomena manifest themselves via depolarizing effects, that accumulate with time. Limits on the magnitude of the parameters describing the new phenomena can therefore be obtained from astrophysical and cosmological observations.

In the following, different aspects of the quantum dynamical semigroup description of photon propagation will be analyzed, focusing on the discussion of possible laboratory tests. As we shall see, the possibility of actually detecting the new, dissipative effects are greatly enhanced by making them interfere with those induced by time-dependent optical media. For slowly varying media, the use of the adiabatic approximation is justified. In this case, explicit expressions for relevant physical observables will be given and discussed; the formulas can be used to fit actual experimental data. The outcome of our investigation is that, at least in principle, bounds on some of the parameters describing dissipation and decoherence can be obtained using existing laboratory setups.

2. QUANTUM DYNAMICAL SEMIGROUPS

In describing the evolution of polarized photons we shall adopt the standard effective description in terms of a two-dimensional Hilbert space, the space of helicity states.\[28-31\] A convenient basis in this space is given by the circularly polarized states $`|R`$, $`|L`$. With respect to this basis, any partially polarized photon state can be represented by a $`2\times 2`$ density matrix $`\rho `$, i.e. by an hermitian operator, with positive eigenvalues and constant trace:

$$\rho =\left[\begin{array}{cc}\rho _1& \rho _3\\ \rho _4& \rho _2\end{array}\right],\rho _4=\rho _3^{}.$$
$`(2.1)`$
As explained in the Introduction, the evolution in time of $`\rho `$ will be described by mean of a quantum dynamical semigroup, i.e. by a linear transformation generated by an equation of the following form:\[1-3, 32-34\]

$$\frac{\rho (t)}{t}=i[H(t),\rho (t)]+L[\rho (t)].$$
$`(2.2)`$
The first term in the r.h.s. is of hamiltonian form, while the piece $`L[\rho ]`$ takes into account the interaction with the external environment and leads to irreversibility and dissipation. It should be noticed that in general the interaction with the environment can also produce hamiltonian pieces in (2.2);\[1-3, 9, 25\] however, in the present case these contributions can not be distinguished from those originating from other birefringence phenomena.

As mentioned in the introductory remarks, it is convenient to make the photons cross an additional, non-dissipative, time-dependent optical medium, whose properties can be suitably controlled. This will in general induce extra birefringence effects on the polarized photons, and these can be conveniently described in terms of a time-dependent, effective hamiltonian $`H(t)`$. We shall assume a simple harmonic dependence on time:

$$H(t)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\omega _0+\mu & \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \omega _0\mu \end{array}\right];$$
$`(2.3)`$
this form is of sufficient generality for the considerations that follow. In (2.3), the parameter $`\omega _0`$ represents the average photon energy, while the real constants $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$ induce the level-splitting $`\omega =(\mu ^2+\nu ^2)^{1/2}`$ among the two instantaneous eigenstates. As compared with the effects of this splitting, the dependence on time of $`H(t)`$, characterized by the real frequency $`\lambda `$, will be assumed to be slow: $`\lambda \omega `$; this is the situation that is most likely to be reproduced by actual laboratory setups.

The additional piece $`L[\rho ]`$ in the evolution equation (2.2) is not of hamiltonian form, and induces a mixing-enhancing mechanism leading in general to irreversibility and loss of quantum coherence. In order to write it down explicitly, it is useful to adopt a vector-like notation and collect the entries $`\rho _1`$, $`\rho _2`$, $`\rho _3`$, $`\rho _4`$ of the density matrix (2.1) as the components of the four-dimensional abstract vector $`|\rho `$. The evolution equation (2.2) can then be rewritten as a Schrödinger (or diffusion) equation:

$$\frac{}{t}|\rho (t)=\left[(t)+\right]|\rho (t),$$
$`(2.4)`$
where the $`4\times 4`$ matrix $``$ takes into account the hamiltonian contributions,

$$(t)=i\left[\begin{array}{cccc}0& 0& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ 0& 0& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& 2\mu & 0\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& 0& 2\mu \end{array}\right],$$
$`(2.5)`$
while the dissipative part $``$ can be fully parametrized in terms of six real constants $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$, as follows:

$$=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}D& D& C& C^{}\\ D& D& C& C^{}\\ C^{}& C^{}& A& B\\ C& C& B^{}& A\end{array}\right],$$
$`(2.6)`$
where for later convenience the combinations:

$$A=\alpha +a,B=\alpha a+2ib,C=c+i\beta ,D=\gamma ,$$
$`(2.7)`$
have been introduced. The six parameters are not all independent: they need to satisfy the following inequalities:\[1-3, 18, 35\]

$$\begin{array}{cc}& 2R\alpha +\gamma a0,\hfill \\ & 2Sa+\gamma \alpha 0,\hfill \\ & 2Ta+\alpha \gamma 0,\hfill \\ & RST2bc\beta R\beta ^2Sc^2Tb^20.\hfill \end{array}\begin{array}{cc}& RSb^20,\hfill \\ & RTc^20,\hfill \\ & ST\beta ^20,\hfill \end{array}\begin{array}{cc}& a0,\hfill \\ & \alpha 0,\hfill \\ & \gamma 0,\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(2.8)`$
These relations are the consequence of the property of complete positivity that assures the correct physical interpretation of the time evolution $`|\rho (0)|\rho (t)`$ generated by (2.4) in all situations; without this condition, serious inconsistencies in general arise (for more details, see ).

The effective environment generated by the fundamental “stringy” dynamics can be considered to be in thermal equilibrium; the decoherence effects induced on the photons are therefore stationary, so that the six parameters $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, $`\gamma `$ in (2.6), (2.7) can be taken to be time-independent. Nevertheless, let us mention that the evolution equation (2.2) can be generalized to take into account non-stationary dissipative contributions: these would typically arise for environments that are out of equilibrium, giving rise in general to time-dependent intractions with the photons.\[32-34\] On the other hand, a physically consistent, general formulation of non-linear dissipative dynamics is not yet available.

Once the evolution equation (2.4) is solved, one can easily compute any physical property involving polarized photons. Indeed, in the formalism of density matrices, any observable $`𝒪`$ is represented by an hermitian matrix, that can be decomposed as in (2.1). The evolution in time of its mean value is then obtained by taking its trace with the density operator $`\rho (t)`$:

$$𝒪(t)\mathrm{Tr}\left[𝒪\rho (t)\right]=𝒪_1\rho _1(t)+𝒪_2\rho _2(t)+𝒪_3\rho _4(t)+𝒪_4\rho _3(t)𝒪|\rho (t).$$
$`(2.9)`$
In the case of photons, of particular interest is the observable that correspond to a fully polarized state, identified by the two angles $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$; it is explicitly given by the following projector operator

$$𝒪_{\theta ,\phi }=\frac{1}{2}\left[\begin{array}{cc}1+\mathrm{sin}\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta & \mathrm{cos}2\theta i\mathrm{cos}\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta \\ \mathrm{cos}2\theta +i\mathrm{cos}\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta & 1\mathrm{sin}\phi \mathrm{sin}2\theta \end{array}\right].$$
$`(2.10)`$
Its mean value gives the probability $`𝒫_{\theta ,\phi }(t)`$ that the evolved state $`|\rho (t)`$ be found at time $`t`$ in the polarization state determined by $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$; it is proportional to the intensity curve that can be detected at an appropriate interferometric apparatus.

3. TRANSITION PROBABILITIES

In order to find explicit solutions of the evolution equation (2.4), it is convenient to perform a time-dependent unitary transformation and study it in the basis of instantaneous eigenvectors $`|v^{(\pm )}(t)`$ of the hamiltonian (2.3), $`H(t)|v^{(\pm )}(t)=(\omega _0\pm \omega )|v^{(\pm )}(t)`$; using the four-vector notation, one then writes

$$|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t)=𝒰(t)|\rho (t),$$
$`(3.1)`$
where

$$𝒰(t)=\frac{1}{2\omega }\left[\begin{array}{cccc}\omega +\mu & \omega \mu & \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ \omega \mu & \omega +\mu & \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \omega +\mu & (\omega \mu )e^{2i\lambda t}\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \nu e^{i\lambda t}& (\omega \mu )e^{2i\lambda t}& \omega +\mu \end{array}\right].$$
$`(3.2)`$
In the new basis, the hamiltonian contribution in (2.4) becomes diagonal:

$$\stackrel{~}{}=𝒰(t)(t)𝒰^{}(t)=\mathrm{diag}[0,0,2i\omega ,2i\omega ];$$
$`(3.3)`$
the four entries coincide with the eigenvalues of the operator $`i[H(t),]`$, and therefore are given by the differences of the eigenvalues $`\omega _0\pm \omega `$ of $`H(t)`$. However, since $`𝒰(t)`$ is time dependent, the evolution equation for the transformed vector $`|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t)`$ involves an effective hamiltonian:

$$\frac{}{t}|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t)=\left[_{\mathrm{eff}}(t)+\stackrel{~}{}(t)\right]|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t),$$
$`(3.4)`$
with

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}(t)=\stackrel{~}{}+\dot{𝒰}(t)𝒰^{}(t);$$
$`(3.5)`$
further, the dissipative contribution becomes time-dependent:

$$\stackrel{~}{}(t)=𝒰(t)𝒰^{}(t).$$
$`(3.6)`$
One can check that its explicit form is as in (2.6), with the new parameters $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{D}`$ linear combinations of the old ones $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$, $`D`$: This is a general property of any quantum dynamical semigroup, whose explicit form is in fact basis-independent.\[1-3\]

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& \stackrel{~}{A}=A+\frac{\nu ^2}{2\omega ^2}\left[2DA+e\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)\right]\frac{2\mu \nu }{\omega ^2}e\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right),\hfill & (3.7a)\hfill \\ & \stackrel{~}{B}=e^{2i\lambda t}\{(1\frac{\nu ^2}{2\omega ^2})e\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)+\frac{i\mu }{\omega }m\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)+\frac{2\mu \nu }{\omega ^2}e\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right)\hfill & \\ & \frac{2i\nu }{\omega }m\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right)\frac{\nu ^2}{2\omega ^2}(2DA)\},\hfill & (3.7b)\hfill \\ & \stackrel{~}{C}=e^{i\lambda t}\{(1\frac{2\nu ^2}{\omega ^2})e\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right)+\frac{i\mu }{\omega }m\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right)\frac{\mu \nu }{2\omega ^2}[2DA+e\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)]\hfill & \\ & +\frac{i\nu }{2\omega }m\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)\},\hfill & (3.7c)\hfill \\ & \stackrel{~}{D}=D\frac{\nu ^2}{2\omega ^2}\left[2DA+e\left(Be^{2i\lambda t}\right)\right]+\frac{2\mu \nu }{\omega ^2}e\left(Ce^{i\lambda t}\right).\hfill & (3.7d)\hfill \end{array}$$

When the system hamiltonian $`H(t)`$ is slowly varying, the explicit dependence on time of $`_{\mathrm{eff}}(t)`$ is very mild, so that the adiabatic approximation can be used in studying (3.4). In general, this is justified when the transitions induced by the explicit time dependence of the hamiltonian are suppressed with respect to its natural level splitting. In the present case, this condition is guaranteed by the starting assumption: $`\lambda \omega `$. Within this approximation, one can neglect the off-diagonal terms in the contribution $`\dot{𝒰}(t)𝒰^{}(t)`$, so that $`_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ becomes diagonal:

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{diag}[0,0,2i(\omega +\lambda _B),2i(\omega +\lambda _B)].$$
$`(3.8)`$
(As explained in the Appendix, in the case of the hamiltonian (2.3) this result can be directly checked. Indeed, the evolution generated by the hamiltonian $`H(t)`$ in (2.3) can be written in closed form. In general however, this is no longer possible when the dissipative contribution in (2.2) is non-vanishing. ) The additional phase contribution $`\lambda _B`$ to the finite-time evolution operator $`e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t}`$ has a precise physical meaning: it gives the Berry phase that in general accumulates with time; indeed, one easily checks that:

$$\lambda _B=\frac{\lambda }{2}\left(1\frac{\mu }{\omega }\right)iv^{(\pm )}(t)|\frac{}{t}|v^{(\pm )}(t).$$
$`(3.9)`$
Being encoded in the diagonal part of $`\dot{𝒰}(t)𝒰^{}(t)`$, Berry’s contribution is directly connected to the characteristic properties of the starting hamiltonian $`H(t)`$, and not to the use of the adiabatic approximation.

In absence of the dissipative piece, $`\stackrel{~}{}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, the evolution in time of any given initial state $`|\rho (0)`$ can then be written as:

$$|\rho (t)=𝒰^{}(t)_0(t)𝒰(0)|\rho (0),_0(t)=e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t}.$$
$`(3.10)`$
Using this expression, one can compute the evolution of physically relevant observables, and in particular transition probabilities. An experimentally relevant example is given by the probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ of finding an initially left-polarized photon in a state with linear polarization along the direction $`\theta `$ at time $`t`$. Using the general definition (2.9) and the expression in (2.10) with $`\phi =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, from the evolution map (3.10) one explicitly finds:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝒫_\theta (t)=\frac{1}{2}\{1+\frac{\mu \nu }{\omega ^2}\mathrm{cos}(2\theta \lambda t)[\mathrm{cos}& [2(\omega +\lambda _B)t\lambda t]1]\hfill \\ & +\frac{\nu }{\omega }\mathrm{sin}(2\theta \lambda t)\mathrm{sin}[2(\omega +\lambda _B)t\lambda t]\}.\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(3.11)`$
This expression further simplifies for a vanishingly small $`\mu `$; in this case, it can be conveniently rewritten as:

$$𝒫_\theta (t)=\frac{1}{2}\left\{1+\frac{1}{2}\left[\mathrm{cos}(2\omega t+\lambda t2\theta )+\mathrm{cos}(2\omega t\lambda t+2\theta +\pi )\right]\right\}.$$
$`(3.12)`$
This intensity pattern can be studied by means of an interferometric setup: one can then extract amplitudes and phases of the various Fourier components that characterize the probability (3.12). In particular, the presence of the modulation $`e^{i\lambda t}`$ in the hamiltonian (2.3) describing in the optical medium crossed by the photon beam leads to a symmetric shift of the fundamental birefringence frequency $`2\omega `$ by the small amount $`\lambda `$. Notice that this result is a consequence of the presence of Berry’s phase contribution, that now takes the simplified expression $`\lambda _B=\lambda /2`$; indeed, neglecting this contribution would have produced an asymmetric split of the fundamental frequency. An experimental analysis of the intensity pattern (3.12) can then allow a direct identification of Berry’s phase.

To see how this description is modified by the presence of dissipative phenomena, one needs to study the evolution equation (3.4) with a non-vanishing $`\stackrel{~}{}`$. Although in general the effects induced by the interaction with the environment are parametrized by the six real constants $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$, there are physically motivated instances for which only one of them is actually non-zero. For example, this happens when $`\gamma `$ is vanishingly small; in this case, the inequalities (2.8) further imply $`a=\alpha `$ and $`b=c=\beta =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. There are essentially two known ways of implementing the condition of weak interaction between subsystem and environment:\[1-3\] the singular coupling limit (in which the time-correlations in the environment are assumed to be much smaller than the typical time scale of the subsystem) and the weak coupling limit (in which it is the subsystem characteristic time scale that becomes large). One can check that the second situation leads precisely to the condition $`\gamma =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$. In this case, the entries of the matrix $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ are all proportional to $`\alpha `$, and assuming as before $`\mu =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$, from (3.7) one explicitly obtains:

$$\stackrel{~}{A}=\stackrel{~}{D}=\alpha ,\stackrel{~}{B}=\alpha e^{2i\lambda t},\stackrel{~}{C}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
$`(3.13)`$
Although the resulting expression for $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ is still explicitly time-dependent, the evolution equation (3.4) can be exactly integrated; one finds:

$$|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t)=(t)|\stackrel{~}{\rho }(0),(t)=e^{\alpha t}\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Theta }(t)& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{\Xi }(t)\end{array}\right],$$
$`(3.14)`$
where the $`2\times 2`$ matrices $`\mathrm{\Theta }(t)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }(t)`$ can be expressed in terms of the Pauli matrices $`\sigma _1`$, $`\sigma _3`$ and the identity $`\sigma _0`$:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(t)=e^{\alpha t\sigma _1},\mathrm{\Xi }(t)=e^{i\lambda t\sigma _3}\left[\mathrm{cos}2\mathrm{\Omega }t\sigma _0\frac{i\omega }{\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{sin}2\mathrm{\Omega }t\sigma _3+\frac{\alpha }{2\mathrm{\Omega }}\mathrm{sin}2\mathrm{\Omega }t\sigma _1\right],$$
$`(3.15)`$
and

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\sqrt{\omega ^2\alpha ^2/4}.$$
$`(3.16)`$
Using the expression of the evolution matrix $`(t)`$ above in place of $`_0(t)`$ in (3.10), one finally obtains the dynamical map $`|\rho (0)|\rho (t)`$ in presence of dissipative effects. Accordingly, the expressions of physically interesting observables change. In particular, the transition probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ of finding an initial circularly polarized photon in a linearly polarized state at time $`t`$ becomes:

$$𝒫_\theta (t)=\frac{1}{2}\left\{1+\frac{\omega }{2\mathrm{\Omega }}e^{\alpha t}\left[\mathrm{cos}\left(2\mathrm{\Omega }t+\lambda t2\theta \right)+\mathrm{cos}\left(2\mathrm{\Omega }t\lambda t+2\theta +\pi \right)\right]\right\}.$$
$`(3.17)`$
The presence of dissipation affects the expression of $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ through the introduction of the exponential damping term together with the amplitude rescaling by the factor $`\omega /\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and the change in the birefringence frequency from $`\omega `$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. On the other hand, note that the symmetric shift in frequency by the amount $`\lambda `$ induced by Berry’s phase contribution remains unchanged. This is not surprising: the geometrical mechanism leading to the presence of Berry’s phase is completely different from the physical phenomena leading to irreversibility and dissipation, and this fact is clearly reflected in the expression of the transition probability (3.17). As a result, the dissipative contributions and those originating from Berry’s phase can be independently probed.

Similarly to the expression in (3.12), also the intensity pattern described by (3.17) can be, at least in principle, experimentally studied using Fourier analysis. Notice however that the oscillatory behaviour in (3.17) critically depends on the magnitude of the non-standard effects induced by the presence of the environment; indeed, for sufficiently large $`\alpha `$, the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ becomes purely imaginary, so that the only remaining harmonic dependence in $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ is driven by the small frequency $`\lambda `$:

$$𝒫_\theta (t)=\frac{1}{2}\left\{1+\frac{\omega }{\mathrm{\Omega }}e^{\alpha t}\mathrm{sinh}(\mathrm{\Omega }t)\mathrm{sin}(2\theta \lambda t)\right\}.$$
$`(3.18)`$
In any case, independently from the relative magnitude of $`\alpha `$ and $`\omega `$, the damping effects always prevail for large times: in this limit, the transition probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ takes the constant value $`1/2`$. One can show that this result is independent from the approximation used to derive (3.17). Actually, in presence of dissipative phenomena all transition probabilities asymptotically tend to constant values, corresponding to the transition to a totally depolarized state.

A different treatment is possible when the non-standard parameters $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ can be considered to be small in comparison with the characteristic system energy $`\omega `$. This is likely to be the case in most standard laboratory situations: indeed, the main source of birefringence effects is usually the propagation in laboratory controlled optical media, and not the weak interaction with an external environment. In this case, the additional piece $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ in (3.4) can be treated as a perturbation, and the evolution matrix $`(t)`$ in (3.14) can thus be expressed as the following series expansion:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (t)=& e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t}\{1+_0^tdt_1e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t_1}\stackrel{~}{}(t_1)e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t_1}\hfill \\ & +_0^tdt_1_0^{t_1}dt_2e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t_1}\stackrel{~}{}(t_1)e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}(t_1t_2)}\stackrel{~}{}(t_2)e^{_{\mathrm{eff}}t_2}+\mathrm{}\}.\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(3.19)`$
Useful information on the presence of dissipative effects can already be obtained by considering only first order terms in the small parameters. Within this approximation, the transition probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ takes the following explicit form:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝒫_\theta (t)=\frac{1}{2}& +\frac{e^{(D+A/2)t}}{2}\{\mathrm{\Delta }(t)\mathrm{cos}(2\theta \lambda t)\hfill \\ & +[(1+\frac{|B|}{2\lambda }\mathrm{sin}\lambda t\mathrm{sin}(\lambda t+\varphi _B))\mathrm{sin}2\omega t\mathrm{\Phi }(t)]\mathrm{sin}(2\theta \lambda t)\},\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(3.20)`$
where

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& \mathrm{\Delta }(t)=\frac{|C|}{2}\left[\frac{2\lambda }{4\omega ^2\lambda ^2}\mathrm{sin}\varphi _C\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega t+\lambda t\varphi _C)}{2\omega +\lambda }\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega t\lambda t+\varphi _C)}{2\omega \lambda }\right]\hfill & \\ & +\frac{|B|}{8}\left[\frac{2\omega }{\omega ^2\lambda ^2}\mathrm{sin}\varphi _B+\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega t2\lambda t\varphi _B)}{\omega \lambda }\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega t+2\lambda t+\varphi _B)}{\omega +\lambda }\right],\hfill & (3.21a)\hfill \\ & & \\ & \mathrm{\Phi }(t)=\frac{|B|}{4}\mathrm{sin}(\lambda t+\varphi _B)\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega +\lambda )t}{2\omega +\lambda }\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega \lambda )t}{2\omega \lambda }\right]\hfill & \\ & +2|C|\mathrm{sin}(\lambda t/2\varphi _C)\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega \lambda /2)t}{4\omega \lambda }+\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\omega +\lambda /2)t}{4\omega +\lambda }\right],\hfill & (3.21b)\hfill \end{array}$$

while $`\varphi _B`$ and $`\varphi _C`$ are the phases of $`B`$ and $`C`$, the combination of dissipative parameters introduced in (2.7). In writing (3.20) we have reconstructed the exponential damping factor by putting together terms linear in $`t`$: this is consistent at the used level of approximation; the large time asymptotic behaviour of $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ mentioned before is thus reproduced. The expression in (3.20) is clearly much more involved than the ones presented before: it represents the most general form that the transition probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$ can take in presence of small dissipative effects.

4. DISCUSSION

The propagation of polarized photons in optical media can be consistently discussed within the formalism of open quantum systems, i.e. as a system in interaction with a large environment. This treatment can be physically justified in the framework of string and brane theory, whose dynamics can be effectively described at low energies as a weakly coupled environment, inducing non-standard phenomena leading in general to decoherence and dissipation. Quantum dynamical semigroups give a physically consistent and mathematically precise description of these non-standard effects; it turns out that they can be fully parametrized in terms of the phenomenological constants $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ introduced in (2.6), (2.7).

As discussed in the previous section, the presence of these constants modify in a distinctive way the time evolution of physically interesting observables, that can be experimentally studied using interferometric setups. In particular, the new, dissipative phenomena manifest themselves through depolarizing effects, via the presence of exponential damping factors, and suitable shifts in the frequencies describing birefringence effects.

Although a detailed discussion on possible devices that can be used to measure such effects is surely beyond the scope of the present investigation, some general considerations can nevertheless be given. An additional discussion, although referred to the analysis of a specific experimental apparatus, can be found in Ref.. Recalling for instance the expression (3.17) for the transition probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$, one immediately realizes that the possibility of detecting the depolarizing effects induced by the non-standard, dissipative phenomena is connected with the ability of isolating and extracting the exponential factor $`e^{\alpha t}`$ from the experimental data. The sensitivity of this measure clearly increases with $`t`$, so that large optical paths are in general required. This can be achieved by using high quality optical cavities. By adjusting in a controlled way the “finesse” and the optical properties of the cavity, one should be able to reconstruct from the measured signal the time (or path-length) dependence of the probability $`𝒫_\theta (t)`$, and therefore extract information on the dissipative parameters both from the damping factors and the oscillating terms.

The actual visibility of these parameters clearly depends on their magnitude. A precise a priori evaluation would require a detailed knowledge of string theory; nevertheless, an order of magnitude estimate can be obtained using the general theory of open systems. Indeed, quite in general the dissipative effects induced by the weak interaction with an external environment can be roughly evaluated to be at most proportional to the square of the typical energy scale of the system, while suppressed by an inverse power of the characteristic energy scale of the environment.

In the case of polarized photons, the system energy coincides with the average photon energy $`\omega _0`$, while the typical energy scale of the environment coincides with the mass $`M_F`$ that characterizes the fundamental, underlying dynamics. As a consequence, the values of the parameters $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ can be predicted to be roughly of order $`\omega _0^2/M_F`$.

In the case of laboratory experiments using ordinary laser beams, the photon energy $`\omega _0`$ is fixed; therefore the expected magnitude of the new, non-standard effects is determined by the value of $`M_F`$. This fundamental scale can be as large as the Planck mass, but can also be considerably smaller in models of large extra dimensions. Fortunately, as stressed before, the description of decoherence phenomena by means of quantum dynamical semigroups is very general, and quite independent from the actual microscopic mechanism responsible for the appearance of the new effects. As a result, an experimental study of the transition probabilities discussed in the previous section can give model-independent indications of the presence of the non-standard, dissipative phenomena. In turn, this would allow the derivation of interesting bounds on the magnitude of the fundamental scale $`M_F`$, thus providing useful information on the underlying “stringy” dynamics.

The analysis of the previous sections have been limited to the study of dissipative evolutions for polarization states of a single photon. The whole treatment can be naively extended by linearity to include also the case of multi-photon states. Generalizing the one-photon dissipative dynamics generated by (2.2) to the case of multi-photon states is however not completely straightforward. Indeed, the photons obey the Bose statistics, and this property should be preserved by the time-evolution. It turns out that physically

acceptable multi-photon dissipative dynamics can not be simply expressed as the product of single-photon time-evolutions: a more refined treatment is necessary (see  for details). This fact might have interesting consequences in various aspects of quantum optics.

APPENDIX

As mentioned in the text, the evolution flow generated by the hamiltonian $`H(t)`$ in (2.3) can be exactly integrated. The explicit expression for the corresponding unitary evolution operator $`U(t)`$ is given by:

$$U(t)=e^{i\lambda t\sigma _3/2}\left[\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }_0t\sigma _0i\left(\frac{2\mu \lambda }{2\mathrm{\Omega }_0}\right)\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }_0t\sigma _3\frac{i\nu }{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }_0t\sigma _1\right],$$
$`(A.1)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\left[(\mu \lambda /2)^2+\nu ^2\right]^{1/2}`$, while $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _3`$ are Pauli matrices and $`\sigma _0`$ the identity. Indeed, one easily verifies that:

$$\dot{U}(t)=iH(t)U(t),U(0)=\sigma _0.$$
$`(A.2)`$
Having the explicit solution of $`(A.2)`$, one can now check directly the correctness of the adiabatic approximation used in Section 3. To this purpose, one needs to consider the appropriate evolution operator $`\stackrel{~}{U}(t)`$ in the basis of the instantaneous eigenvalues of the hamiltonian $`H(t)`$. The change of basis is provided by the transformation matrix

$$T(t)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\omega (\mu +\omega )}}\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mu +\omega & \nu e^{i\lambda t}\\ \nu e^{i\lambda t}& \mu +\omega \end{array}\right].$$
$`(A.3)`$
In the limit of small $`\lambda `$, one then easily verifies that the new evolution operator:

$$\stackrel{~}{U}(t)=T^{}(t)U(t)T(0),$$
$`(A.4)`$
indeed becomes diagonal:

$$\stackrel{~}{U}(t)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}e^{i(\omega +\lambda _B)t}& 0\\ 0& e^{i(\omega +\lambda _B)t}\end{array}\right],$$
$`(A.5)`$
where $`\lambda _B=\frac{\lambda }{2}\left(1\frac{\mu }{\omega }\right)`$ is precisely the Berry phase contribution.

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# Instantons and the Large 𝑁_𝑐 Limit of QCD

## 1 Historical Overview

Both instantons and the large $`N_c`$ expansion are important corner stones in our attempts to understand non-perturbative aspects of QCD. Instantons are related to topological aspects of QCD and play and important role in understanding the $`U(1)_A`$ anomaly. There is also a growing body of evidence that the mechanism for chiral symmetry breaking in QCD is intimately connected with instantons. The large $`N_c`$ expansion is based on the idea that $`1/N_c`$ can be used as expansion parameter in QCD. The main assumption is that QCD with many colors is a theory that exhibits confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, and that this theory is smoothly connected to the real world, in which $`N_c`$ is equal to three. There is an impressive amount of evidence, mainly of phenomenological nature, but also from the lattice, that this assumption is indeed correct.

It is commonly believed, however, that instantons and the large $`N_c`$ expansion are fundamentally incompatible with each other. This view is maybe best explained by providing a short review of the literature on the subject. The instanton solution was discovered $`^\mathrm{?}`$ in 1975. In the following year ’t Hooft found the fermion zero mode in the background field of an instanton and explained the connection between instantons and the $`U(1)_A`$ anomaly $`^\mathrm{?}`$. In 1978 Witten wrote a very influential paper $`^\mathrm{?}`$ entitled “Instantons, the Quark Model, and the $`1/N`$ expansion”. He noted that straightforward $`N_c`$ counting suggests that the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass squared scales as $`1/N_c`$, whereas classical effects, such as instantons, scale as $`\mathrm{exp}(1/g^2)\mathrm{exp}(N_c)`$. He explicitly stated that in trying to understand the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass and other non-perturbative phenomena in QCD “it is necessary to choose between the large $`N`$ expansion and instantons”. In 1979 Witten $`^\mathrm{?}`$ and Veneziano $`^\mathrm{?}`$ derived a relation between the mass of the $`\eta ^{}`$ and the topological susceptibility in pure gauge theory,

$$\frac{f_\pi ^2}{2N_f}(m_\eta ^2+m_\eta ^{}^22m_K^2)=\chi _{top}.$$
(1)
Witten suggested that for all $`N_c`$ instantons “melt” and cannot be distinguished from perturbative fluctuations. He also proposed that the topological susceptibility is of order $`O(1)`$ in the large $`N_c`$ limit, and that it is dominated by non-perturbative fluctuations other than instantons, presumably related to confinement. Indeed, Veneziano’s paper is entitled “$`U(1)`$ without Instantons”.

Simple $`N_c`$ counting implies that both the $`\eta ^{}\pi `$ splitting and the $`\rho \omega `$ splitting are of order $`1/N_c`$. In the real world, of course, these two phenomena are very different in magnitude. This suggests that there is some physical effect in the $`\eta ^{}`$ channel that leads to unusually large $`1/N_c`$ corrections. This observation was discussed in more detail by Novikov $`^\mathrm{?}`$ et al. in a paper entitled “Are all hadrons alike?”. Novikov et al. observed that large corrections to the OZI rule appear many channels, not just pseudoscalar mesons, but also scalar mesons and glueballs. They also noticed that these are precisely the same channels in which direct instanton effects appear.

This observation led to the formulation of the instanton liquid model of the QCD vacuum $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. The instanton liquid model postulates that the $`N_c=3`$ QCD vacuum is populated by localized, approximately dual or anti-self dual lumps, instantons. The density of instantons is approximately $`(N/V)1\mathrm{fm}^4`$ while the size is $`\rho 1/3\mathrm{fm}`$. These numbers reproduce the topological susceptibility in the pure gauge theory $`\chi _{top}(200\mathrm{MeV})^4`$ and the chiral condensate $`\overline{\psi }\psi (230\mathrm{MeV})^3`$. More detailed calculations show that the instanton liquid model successfully describes an impressive amount of date on hadronic correlation functions $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$.

In the 1980’s researchers also began to study the topological structure of QCD on the lattice. It was found that the topological susceptibility in pure gauge QCD is $`^\mathrm{?}`$ $`\chi _{top}(200\mathrm{MeV})^4`$, as predicted by the Witten-Veneziano relation equ. (1). However, it was also observed that the topological susceptibility is very stable under cooling, and appears to be dominated by semi-classical configurations. Lattice simulations also appear to confirm the values of the key parameters of the instanton liquid $`^\mathrm{?}`$, $`(N/V)1\mathrm{fm}^4`$ and $`\rho 1/3\mathrm{fm}`$.

More recently lattice simulations have started to focus on the structure of low-lying eigenvectors of the Dirac operator and the mechanism of chiral symmetry breaking. The instanton model predicts that the lowest eigenstates of the Dirac operator, which dominate chiral symmetry breaking, are linear combinations of localized, approximately chiral states associated with the fermionic zero modes of individual instantons and anti-instantons $`^\mathrm{?}`$. This picture has been confirmed by lattice calculations $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$, although there is some controversy concerning the question whether the size of the chiral lumps is in agreement with the instanton prediction $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$.

## 2 Instantons and the OZI rule

In this section we would like to remind the reader how instantons lead to large violations of the OZI rule. ’t Hooft$`^\mathrm{?}`$ explained that the effect of an instanton on fermionic correlation functions can be summarized in terms of an effective interaction

$$L=G\left[(\overline{\psi }\tau _a\psi )^2(\overline{\psi }\psi )^2(\overline{\psi }i\gamma _5\tau _a\psi )^2+(\overline{\psi }i\gamma _5\psi )^2\right],$$
(2)
where $`G`$ is related to the tunneling amplitude and $`\tau `$ is an isospin matrix. On the single instanton level we can directly read off the interaction in the channel characterized by the current $`\overline{\psi }\mathrm{\Gamma }\psi `$. The interaction is attractive in the pion $`(\overline{\psi }i\gamma _5\stackrel{}{\tau }\psi )`$ and sigma $`(\overline{\psi }\psi )`$ channels, and repulsive in the eta prime $`(\overline{\psi }i\gamma _5\psi )`$ and $`a_0`$ $`(\overline{\psi }\stackrel{}{\tau }\psi )`$ channels. We note that the OZI violating interaction the $`\eta ^{}`$ and $`\sigma `$ channel is not suppressed with respect to the OZI allowed contribution in the $`\pi `$ and $`a_0`$ sector.

It is worth repeating why this is so. The instanton interaction corresponds to the contribution of fermionic zero modes to the quark propagator. Since there is exactly one zero mode for every flavor, there are no diagonal $`(\overline{u}u)(\overline{u}u)`$ or $`(\overline{d}d)(\overline{d}d)`$ interactions. Second, since the fermion zero modes for quarks and anti-quarks have opposite chirality, the interaction is also off-diagonal in the basis spanned by right and left-handed fermions $`q_R,q_L`$. As a consequence the sign of the interaction flips in going from the scalar to the pseudoscalar channel, and in going from $`I=0`$ to $`I=1`$ states. Also, to leading order there is no instanton contribution to the interaction in vector channels.

In order to be more quantitative we consider correlation functions involving the scalar and pseudoscalar currents introduced above. The correlators are defined by

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\pi (x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(x,y)i\gamma _5S(y,x)i\gamma _5\right),`$ (3)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\delta (x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(x,y)S(y,x)\right),`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\eta ^{}(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(x,y)i\gamma _5S(y,x)i\gamma _5\right)2\mathrm{Tr}\left(i\gamma _5S(x,x)\right)\mathrm{Tr}\left(i\gamma _5S(y,y)\right),`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma (x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(x,y)S(y,x)\right)2\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(x,x)\right)\mathrm{Tr}\left(S(y,y)\right),`$ (6)
where $`S(x,y)`$ is the fermion propagator and $`.`$ denotes the average over all gauge configurations. The OZI-violating difference between the $`\pi ,\eta ^{}`$ and $`\sigma ,a_0`$ channels is determined by “disconnected” (or double hairpin) contributions to the correlation functions.

In Figs. 1 and 2 we show results for the correlation functions obtained in unquenched instanton simulations of the instanton liquid $`^\mathrm{?}`$. We observe that the correlation function in the OZI violating $`\eta ^{}\pi `$ and $`\sigma a_0`$ channels is as large as the correlation function in the OZI allowed $`\pi `$ channel whereas the OZI violating $`\omega \rho `$ channel is much smaller. This pattern was also found in a lattice calculation by Isgur and Thacker $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$. It would be interesting to perform similar calculations in other channels in which large violations of the OZI rule might be present. Examples are the mixing of scalar glueballs with scalar mesons or multi-pion states, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule, and OZI suppressed decays of heavy quark bound states.

## 3 Instantons at Large $`N_c`$

In the previous section we argued that the OZI violating direct instanton contribution in the $`\eta ^{}`$ channel is not suppressed compared to the instanton contribution in the $`\pi `$ channel. But what is the $`N_c`$ dependence of these effects? Witten argued that instanton effects are proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(8\pi ^2/g^2)`$ and therefore scale as $`\mathrm{exp}(N_c)`$. But this is only true for instantons at the cutoff scale. In perturbation theory, the tunneling rate is of the form

$$dn(\rho )\rho ^5(\rho \mathrm{\Lambda })^bd\rho ,$$
(7)
where $`b=11N_c/32N_f/3`$ is the first coefficient of the beta function. This implies that small instantons $`\rho <\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ are suppressed as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$, but large instantons are not.

This is observation is not very useful, because instantons of size $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ have action $`S1`$ and are clearly not semi-classical objects. We can be somewhat more quantitative, however. The one-loop result contains additional $`N_c`$ dependent factors that are related to the collective coordinate measure. Exponentiating everything we can write $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$

$$\frac{dN}{d\rho }\mathrm{exp}[N_cF(\rho )],$$
(8)
with $`F(\rho )=2s(\rho )+2\mathrm{log}(s(\rho ))+\mathrm{}`$ and $`s(\rho )S(\rho )/N_c=(8\pi ^2)/(N_cg^2(\rho ))`$. The function $`F(\rho )`$ has a non-trivial zero for $`s^{}5`$ so the density of instantons of size $`\rho =\rho ^{}0.2\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ fm is fixed as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$. This is a much more optimistic conclusions, because it implies that instantons with action $`S=N_cs^{}5N_c1`$ can survive in the large $`N_c`$ limit. The precise value of $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ depends on the renormalization scheme and higher order corrections. A fixed point in the instanton size distribution was indeed observed in the lattice calculation of Lucini and Teper $`^\mathrm{?}`$, see also Fig. 3. However, these authors also find that the density of instantons of size $`\rho >\rho ^{}`$ keeps growing as $`N_c\mathrm{}`$, and that as a result there is no well defined average instanton size.

## 4 Supersymmetric Theories

While the fate of instantons in the large $`N_c`$ limit of QCD is still mysterious some progress has been made in understanding instantons in the large $`N_c`$ limit of supersymmetric gauge theories. The most impressive accomplishment is Maldacena’s discovery of an explicit master field in the case of $`N=4`$ supersymmetric QCD at large $`N_c`$ in the limit of large ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda =g^2N_c`$. The master field is given by supergravity in an $`AdS_5\times S_5`$ background together with a set of rules that relate gauge theory to supergravity observables. It is very interesting to study how instantons appear in this correspondence $`^\mathrm{?}`$. On the supergravity side gauge theory instantons appear as D-instantons and are characterized by a point on $`AdS_5\times S_5`$. This integration over this point corresponds to the collective coordinate integration on the gauge theory side. The $`AdS_5`$ part is related to the integration over $`d^4xd\rho /\rho ^5`$ while the $`S_5`$ arises from the fermion zero modes $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

The case of multi-instanton configurations is even more interesting. Naively one would think that a $`k`$-instanton contribution involves an integration over $`(AdS_5\times S_5)^k`$. In the large $`N_c`$ limit one finds, however, that the saddle point configuration is given by $`k`$ instantons in commuting $`SU(2)`$ subgroups of $`SU(N_c)`$ all with the same size and located at the same point $`^\mathrm{?}`$. As a result, the collective coordinate measure contains only one copy of $`AdS_5\times S_5`$. The multi-instanton configuration is bound by fermion exchanges.

Progress was also made in understanding $`N=2`$ SUSY QCD. Seiberg and Witten determined the low energy effective action of this theory $`^\mathrm{?}`$. In the semi-classical limit, the result can be expressed as the perturbative one-loop contribution plus an infinite series on $`k`$-instanton corrections, and, remarkably, nothing else. This would seem to imply that the large $`N_c`$ limit of this theory is rather boring. Instantons are suppressed as $`\mathrm{exp}(N_c)`$, monopoles have masses $`O(N_c)`$, and one is left with only the perturbative part.

This is not correct, however. The methods of Seiberg and Witten were generalized to arbitrary $`N_c`$ by Klemm et al. $`^\mathrm{?}`$. This result was analyzed in more detail by Douglas and Shenker $`^\mathrm{?}`$. The moduli space of the theory is characterized by $`N_c1`$ Higgs expectation values. At most points on the moduli space the large $`N_c`$ limit is indeed trivial but Douglas and Shenker identified a special form of the large $`N_c`$ limit in which instantons and monopoles survive.

## 5 The Instanton Liquid at Large $`N_c`$

In this section we wish to study the question whether it is possible to construct a large $`N_c`$ instanton ensemble in QCD that is consistent with standard large $`N_c`$ counting. Equ. (8) shows that instantons of action $`SN_c1`$ and size $`\rho N_c^0`$ can survive in the large $`N_c`$ limit. It is quite natural to assume that the total density of these objects would scale as $`(N/V)N_c`$ because instantons are essentially $`SU(2)`$ configurations and the number of mutually commuting $`SU(2)`$ subgroups of $`SU(N_c)`$ grows as $`N_c`$. This means that we can have $`O(N_c)`$ instantons and the instanton liquid remains dilute. Using the trace anomaly relation

$$T_{\mu \mu }=\frac{b}{32\pi ^2}g^2G_{\mu \nu }^aG_{\mu \nu }^a$$
(9)
with $`b=11N_c/22N_f/2`$ we also see that the instanton contribution to the vacuum energy scales as $`ϵN_c^2`$. This is identical to the scaling behavior of the perturbative part.

In order to construct a consistent ensemble of instantons we have to make an assumption concerning the fate of large instantons. In the following we shall assume that there is a classical $`O(S_0)=O(N_c)`$ core in the instanton interaction for instantons that overlap in group space. This core excludes configurations with large or strongly overlapping instantons that are not semi-classical. The parameters of the core were fitted to reproduce the phenomenological values of the instanton size and density for $`^\mathrm{?}`$ $`N_c=3`$. Instanton size distributions obtained from numerical simulations of the instanton liquid for $`N_c=3,\mathrm{},6`$ are shown in Fig. 3. In these simulations we have assumed that $`(N/V)N_c`$, but this assumption can be verified by computing the free energy of the instanton liquid as a function of $`^\mathrm{?}`$ $`(N/V)`$. We note that the distributions show the fixed point discussed above and observed in the lattice simulations of Lucini and Teper.

We have also computed the quark condensate and the topological susceptibility in pure gauge theory, see Fig. 4. We observe that the quark condensate scales as $`\overline{q}qN_c`$. This scaling can be understood using random matrix arguments. The quark condensate is approximately given by

$$\overline{q}q=\frac{1}{\pi \rho }\left(\frac{3N_c}{2}\frac{N}{V}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(10)
The total number of states in the zero-mode zone scales as $`N_{zmz}(N/V)N_c`$. This contributes a factor $`N_c^{1/2}`$ to the scaling behavior of $`\overline{q}q`$. The second factor of $`N_c^{1/2}`$ arises from the fact that the quark condensate is inversely proportional to the average matrix element $`|T_{IA}|`$ of the Dirac operator between fermion zero modes. Since instanton zero modes live in $`SU(2)`$ subgroups $`|T_{IA}|^2`$ scales as $`1/N_c`$. Similar arguments can be used to show that the pion decay constant scales as $`f_\pi ^2N_c`$.

For a dilute gas of instantons we would expect that the topological susceptibility in pure gauge theory scales as $`\chi _{top}=Q_{top}^2/V(N/V)N_c`$, contrary to the standard large $`N_c`$ assumption $`\chi _{top}N_c^0`$. Further support for this assumption was recently provided by Witten $`^\mathrm{?}`$. We have to keep in mind, however, that the result $`\chi _{top}(N/V)`$ is based on the idea that topological charge fluctuations are Poissonian. Since the classical interaction between instantons also grows with $`N_c`$, this is not necessarily the case $`^\mathrm{?}`$. Indeed, simulations carried out for $`N_c=3,\mathrm{},7`$ seem to indicate that the topological susceptibility remains finite in the large $`N_c`$ limit, see Fig. 4.

## 6 Instead of Conclusions

We have argued that instantons provide a very successful explanation of the pattern of OZI violation observed in QCD for $`N_c=3`$ colors. The fate of instantons in the large $`N_c`$ limit remains unclear. It may well be that instantons become large and overlap strongly, and the semi-classical description breaks down completely. However, it is also possible that the semi-classical picture survives. This would seem to require large cancellations and fine tuning, but for reasons that we do not understand the parameters of the instanton liquid in QCD with $`N_c=3`$ colors are already remarkably close to the critical point where a smooth large $`N_c`$ limit is possible.

## References


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been much interest in a holographic description of braneworld cosmology. Such work was inspired by Savonije and Verlinde  who considered a braneworld in a Schwarzschild Anti-de Sitter (AdS) background. They demonstrated that the standard cosmology driven by the energy density/pressure of an $`(n1)`$ dimensional conformal field theory (CFT), has a dual description – it can be regarded as being a braneworld cosmology driven by the bulk black hole, when the brane is near the AdS boundary. All of the details of the cosmology can be captured by the parameters defining the background black hole spacetime. Furthermore, from the field theory point of view, one can derive equations which relate the thermodynamic variables of the CFT. As the brane evolves in the black hole background it was noticed that these equations coincide with the cosmological evolution equations of the braneworld at the point at which the brane crosses the black hole horizon .

The notion of holography – that all of the physics of a bulk spacetime is encoded in a lower dimensional field theory – is realised in a very concise manner by the AdS/CFT correspondence . In this, the gravitational physics in an $`n`$ dimensional Anti-de Sitter bulk spacetime is captured by an $`(n1)`$ dimensional field theory which lives on the boundary of AdS. Witten later introduced finite temperature into the bulk and boundary theories , which initiated the study of the dual field theory for the Schwarzschild-AdS spacetime. The study of bulk black holes and their dual theories continued to be developed for a wide class of spacetimes. What will interest us here is a brane embedded in a background of bulk Reissner-Nordström AdS black holes (It was demonstrated in , that in this case the dual field theory is coupled to a background global current). We choose to study the RNAdS background as it exhibits the full generality of many of the results discussed in earlier studies of braneworld holography . RNAdS has also been used to exhibit other interesting features of the AdS/CFT correspondence which cannot be observed in the case of non-zero temperature alone. Firstly, because the dual field theory has a much richer structure , and secondly, because we have more control on interpreting the field theory effects caused by the different parameters of the black hole spacetime .

In braneworld holography, we normally think of the bulk gravity theory as being dual to a CFT on the brane itself. Paradoxically, the CFT has an ultra violet cut off, so it is actually a broken CFT . In most studies of dual theories on the brane, the precise nature of the dual theory is unknown. We regard it as an abstract field theory, some of whose properties we can derive. We should also note that early studies of branes  had fine tuned tensions that ensured the cosmological constant on the brane vanished (critical branes). If we avoid this fine tuning we are able to induce a non-zero cosmological constant on the brane  (non-critical branes). In particular, recent observations indicating that our universe has a small positive cosmological constant  suggest it is important to consider de Sitter braneworlds. These inflationary braneworlds are naturally induced by quantum effects of a field theory on the brane .

When the bulk spacetime has a non-vanishing Weyl tensor111This can occur naturally for a hot critical braneworld due to the emission of radiation into the bulk ., Shiromizu et al  pointed out that the “electric” part of this tensor appears in the Einstein’s equations on the brane. This contribution is thought of as being “holographic” in that it can also be interpreted as coming from a dual theory on the brane. By considering a braneworld observer, we can derive properties of the dual theory and get a better understanding of the Weyl tensor contribution. However, in all the previous literature, it has been assumed that the brane is at large radial distance from the centre of AdS space, i.e. near the boundary. This allows us to assume that the energy density of the braneworld universe is small, and the true holographic description of an $`(n1)`$ dimensional braneworld in an $`n`$ dimensional bulk can be understood. However, these results are all approximations in the sense that for a general brane evolution it is not necessary for the brane to remain close to the boundary. In this paper, it is our objective to undertake a new study of the braneworld in which we calculate the energy of the braneworld field theory exactly, regardless of the brane’s position in the bulk. We also allow the brane tension to be arbitrary, thereby including both critical and non-critical branes.

We find that this exact approach introduces quadratic terms in the Friedmann Robertson Walker (FRW) equations of the braneworld universe. Remarkably these turn out to have exactly the same form as the quadratic terms found in the cosmology of branes embedded in a pure AdS background, when extra matter is placed on the brane . This suggests a new, enlarged relationship between the two descriptions of braneworld cosmology, that includes even the “unconventional” quadratic terms in the FRW equation. In the linear approximation we recover the standard dual descriptions observed by Savonije and Verlinde . Furthermore, unlike in  there is no ambiguity in splitting the braneworld energy momentum tensor into tension and additional matter. This is because we do not have any additional matter, only tension and a bulk Weyl tensor contribution that we have interpreted on the brane.

The rest of the paper is organised as follows: in section 2 we derive the equations of motion for the brane embedded in RNAdS and interpret them as FRW equations for the brane universe. In section 3 we derive the energy density measured by a braneworld observer exactly. We see how the FRW equations contain the same quadratic terms found in “unconventional’ brane cosmology and suggest a new enlarged duality. In section 4 we examine the thermodynamics of the field theory on the brane and present a generalised (local) Cardy-Verlinde formula that includes the exact non-linear terms. We then demonstrate how the correspondences between the braneworld field theory and the brane’s evolution in the bulk continue to hold in this case. Finally, section 5 contains some concluding remarks.

## 2 Equations of Motion

We will consider an $`(n1)`$ dimensional brane of tension $`\sigma `$ sandwiched in between two $`n`$ dimensional black holes. In order to show the generality of our work we are allowing the black holes to be charged 222We note that for branes moving in a Schwarzschild AdS bulk, there is evidence that gravity is localised on the brane . We suspect that this still holds for a Reissner-Nordström AdS bulk., although our brane will be uncharged. Since this means that lines of flux must not converge to or diverge from the brane, we must have black holes of equal but opposite charge. In this case, the flux lines will pass through the brane since one black hole will act as a source for the charge whilst the other acts as a sink. It should be noted that although we do not have $`_2`$ symmetry across the brane for the electromagnetic field, the geometry is $`_2`$ symmetric.

We denote our two spacetimes by $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$ for the positively and negatively charged black holes respectively. Their boundaries, $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$, both coincide with the brane. Our braneworld scenario is then described by the following action:

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi G_n}}{\displaystyle _{^++^{}}}d^nx\sqrt{g}\left(R2\mathrm{\Lambda }_nF^2\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_n}}{\displaystyle _{^++^{}}}d^{n1}x\sqrt{h}K`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G_n}}{\displaystyle _{^++^{}}}d^{n1}x\sqrt{h}F^{ab}n_aA_b+\sigma {\displaystyle _{brane}}d^{n1}x\sqrt{h},`$
where $`g_{ab}`$ is the bulk metric and $`h_{ab}`$ is the induced metric on the brane. $`K`$ is the trace of the extrinsic curvature of the brane, and $`n_a`$ is the unit normal to the brane pointing from $`^+`$ to $`^{}`$. Notice the presence of the Hawking-Ross term in the action (1) which is necessary for black holes with a fixed charge .

The bulk equations of motion which result from this action are given by

$`R_{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Rg_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_ng_{ab}+2F_{ac}F_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{c}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{ab}F^2`$ (2)
$`_a\left(\sqrt{g}F^{ab}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (3)
These admit the following 2 parameter family of electrically charged black hole solutions for the bulk metric

$$ds_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=h(Z)dt^2+\frac{dZ^2}{h(Z)}+Z^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2},$$
(4)
in which

$$h(Z)=k_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}Z^2+1\frac{c}{Z^{n3}}+\frac{q^2}{Z^{2n6}},$$
(5)
and the electromagnetic field strength

$$F=dA\text{where}A=\left(\frac{1}{\kappa }\frac{q}{Z^{n3}}+\mathrm{\Phi }\right)dt\text{and}\kappa =\sqrt{\frac{2(n3)}{n2}}.$$
(6)
Note that $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}`$ is the metric on a unit $`(n2)`$ sphere. $`k_n`$ is related to the bulk cosmological constant by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_n=\frac{1}{2}(n1)(n2)k_n^2`$, whereas $`c`$ and $`q`$ are constants of integration. If $`q`$ is set to zero in this solution, we regain the AdS-Schwarzschild solution in which $`c`$ introduces a black hole mass. The presence of $`q`$ introduces black hole charge for which $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is an electrostatic potential difference. In this general metric, $`h(Z)`$ has two zeros, the larger of which, $`Z_H`$, represents the event horizon of the black hole.

Here, charge is a localised quantity. It can be evaluated from a surface integral on any closed shell wrapping the black hole (Gauss’ Law). In $`^\pm `$ the total charge is

$$Q=\pm \frac{(n2)\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}}{8\pi G_n}q,$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}`$ is the volume of a unit $`(n2)`$ sphere. Note also that the ADM mass  of each black hole is given by

$$M=\frac{(n2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}c}{16\pi G_n}.$$
(8)
Let us now consider the dynamics of our brane embedded in this background of charged black holes. We use $`\tau `$ to parametrise the brane so that it is given by the section $`(𝐱^\mu ,t(\tau ),Z(\tau ))`$ of the bulk metric. The Israel equations for the jump in extrinsic curvature across the brane give the brane’s equations of motion. One might suspect that the presence of the Hawking-Ross term in the action will affect the form of these equations. However, since the charge on the black holes is fixed, the flux across the brane does not vary and the Israel equations take their usual form

$$2K_{ab}2Kh_{ab}=8\pi G_n\sigma h_{ab},$$
(9)
where

$$K_{ab}=h_a^ch_b^d_{(c}n_{d)}\text{and}n_a=(\mathrm{𝟎},\dot{Z},\dot{t}).$$
(10)
Here we use an overdot to denote differentiation with respect to $`\tau `$. Note that $`n_a`$ is the unit normal, so we have the condition

$$h(Z)\dot{t}^2+\frac{\dot{Z}^2}{h(Z)}=1$$
(11)
The resulting equations of motion for the brane are:

$`\dot{Z}^2`$ $`=`$ $`aZ^21+{\displaystyle \frac{c}{Z^{n3}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{Z^{2n6}}}`$ (12a)
$`\ddot{Z}`$ $`=`$ $`aZ\left({\displaystyle \frac{n3}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{c}{Z^{n2}}}+(n3){\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{Z^{2n5}}}`$ (12b)
$`\dot{t}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _nZ}{h(Z)}}`$ (12c)
where $`a=\sigma _n^2k_n^2`$ and $`\sigma _n=\frac{4\pi G_n\sigma }{n2}`$. This analysis has been presented in more detail, at least for uncharged black holes, in .

We shall now examine the cosmology of our braneworld in this background. The induced metric is given by the following

$$ds_{n1}^2=d\tau ^2+Z(\tau )^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}.$$
(13)
We see that we may interpret $`Z(\tau )`$ as corresponding to the scale factor in an expanding/contracting universe and that equations (12a) and (12b) should be regarded as giving rise to the Friedmann equations of our braneworld. Indeed, if we define the Hubble parameter as $`H=\frac{\dot{Z}}{Z}`$, we arrive at the following equations for the cosmological evolution of the brane

$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{c}{Z^{n1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{Z^{2n4}}}`$ (14a)
$`\dot{H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n1}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{c}{Z^{n1}}}+(n2){\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{Z^{2n4}}}.`$ (14b)
Let us examine these equations in more detail. Equation (14a) contains the cosmological constant term $`a`$. For $`a=0`$ we have a critical wall with vanishing cosmological constant. For $`a>0/a<0`$ we have super/subcritical walls that correspond to asymptotically de Sitter/anti-de Sitter spacetimes. Note that for subcritical and critical walls, $`Z`$ has a maximum and minimum value. For supercritical walls, we have two possibilities: either $`Z`$ is bounded above and below or it is only bounded below and may stretch out to infinity.

However, our real interest in equations (14a) and (14b), lies in understanding the $`c`$ and $`q^2`$ terms. As discussed in , we can interpret the contribution of the $`c`$ term to the cosmological evolution in two different ways. On the one hand, the evolution is driven, in part, by the masses of the bulk black holes, as is evident in equations (14a) and (14b). On the other hand, we can ignore the bulk and describe the evolution as being driven by the energy density and pressure of radiation in a dual field theory living on the brane. At least for critical walls, it was showed by Biswas and Mukherji  that we could interpret the $`q^2`$ terms as corresponding to stiff matter in the dual theory. These discussions were motivated by “holography” in the sense that the duality related an $`n`$ dimensional bulk theory to an $`(n1)`$ dimensional field theory on the brane. In the spirit of AdS/CFT, the brane was close to the AdS boundary. In the next section we will not make that assumption. We will nevertheless discover an interesting alternative picture, although it will be “unconventional”, at least in terms of cosmology!

## 3 Energy on the brane

Consider an observer living on the brane. He measures time using the braneworld coordinate, $`\tau `$, rather than the bulk time coordinate, $`t`$. This of course affects his measurement of the energy density. In previous literature, the energy on the brane has been obtained by scaling the energy of the bulk accordingly. For example, in , a detailed calculation using Euclidean gravity techniques yielded a bulk energy, $`E_{bulk}2M\left(\frac{k_n^2}{\sigma _n^2}\right)`$, where $`M`$ is the ADM mass of the black holes. This was then scaled using $`\dot{t}`$ to give the energy on the brane. In the limit of large $`Z(\tau )`$, $`\dot{t}\frac{\sigma _n}{k_n^2Z}`$ so that a braneworld observer measures the energy to be $`E\frac{2M}{\sigma _nZ}`$. This analysis enabled us to have the dual picture described in the previous section, even for non-critical branes.

While the results obtained from these methods are interesting, they are approximations. Indeed, the Euclidean analysis of  is only valid in certain limits, imposed because we require time translational symmetry to Wick rotate to Euclidean signature. We should note that the deviation from the expected bulk energy, $`2M`$, is not so startling as we might originally think. The limits of the analysis impose that as the brane approaches the AdS boundary, $`\sigma _nk_n`$. Therefore, if the brane actually strikes the AdS boundary, it has to be critical and we recover what we might have naïvely expected: the bulk energy is given by the sum of the ADM masses.

In this paper, we will bypass all of these approximations and limitations by ignoring the bulk energy and calculating the energy on the brane directly. We will use the techniques of  to evaluate the gravitational energy using $`\tau `$ as our chosen time coordinate. Happily we will not need to Wick rotate to Euclidean signature, enabling us to exactly calculate the energy density on the brane, even at smaller values of $`Z(\tau )`$.

We begin by focusing on the contribution from the positively charged black hole spacetime, $`^+`$ and its boundary, $`^+`$. This boundary of course coincides with the brane. Consider the timelike vector field defined on $`^+`$

$$\tau ^a=(\mathrm{𝟎},\dot{t},\dot{Z}).$$
(15)
This maps the boundary/brane onto itself, and satisfies $`\tau ^a_a\tau =1`$. In principle we can extend the definition of $`\tau ^a`$ into the bulk, stating only that it approaches the form given by equation (15) as it nears the brane. We now introduce a family of spacelike surfaces, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$, labelled by $`\tau `$ that are always normal to $`\tau ^a`$. This family provide a slicing of the spacetime, $`^+`$ and each slice meets the brane orthogonally. As usual we decompose $`\tau ^a`$ into the lapse function and shift vector, $`\tau ^a=Nr^a+N^a`$, where $`r^a`$ is the unit normal to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$. However, when we lie on the brane, $`\tau ^a`$ is the unit normal to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$, because there we have the condition (11). Therefore, on $`^+`$, the lapse function, $`N=1`$ and the shift vector, $`N^a=0`$. Before we consider whether or not we need to subtract off a background energy, let us first state that the relevant part of the action at this stage of our analysis is the following:

$$I^+=\frac{1}{16\pi G_n}_^+R2\mathrm{\Lambda }_nF^2+\frac{1}{8\pi G_n}_^+K+\frac{1}{4\pi G_n}_^+F_{ab}n^aA^b.$$
(16)
As stated earlier, we do not include any contribution from $`^{}`$ or $`^{}`$, nor do we include the term involving the brane tension. This is because we want to calculate the gravitational Hamiltonian, without the extra contribution of a source. The brane tension has already been included in the analysis as a cosmological constant term, and it would be wrong to double count.

Given the slicing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$, the Hamiltonian that we derive from $`I^+`$ is given by

$`H^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_n}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau }}N+N^a_a2NA_\tau _aE^a`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_n}}{\displaystyle _{S_\tau }}N\mathrm{\Theta }+N^ap_{ab}n^b2NA_\tau n_aE^a+2NF^{ab}n_aA_b`$
where $``$ and $`_a`$ are the Hamiltonian and the momentum constraints respectively. $`p^{ab}`$ is the canonical momentum conjugate to the induced metric on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$ and $`E^a`$ is the momentum conjugate to $`A_a`$. The surface $`S_\tau `$ is the intersection of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$ and the brane, while $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the trace of the extrinsic curvature of $`S_\tau `$ in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\tau `$.

Note that the momentum $`E^a=F^{a\tau }`$. In particular, $`E^\tau =0`$ and we regard $`A_\tau `$ as an ignorable coordinate. We will now evaluate this Hamiltonian for the RNAdS spacetime described by equations (4), (5) and (6). Each of the constraints vanish because this is a solution to the equations of motion.

$$=_a=_aE^a=0.$$
(18)
The last constraint is of course Gauss’ Law. When evaluated on the surface $`S_\tau `$, the potential, $`A=\left(\frac{1}{\kappa }\frac{q}{Z(\tau )^{n3}}+\mathrm{\Phi }\right)\dot{t}d\tau `$. The important thing here is that it only has components in the $`\tau `$ direction. This ensures that the last two terms in the Hamiltonian cancel one another. Since $`N=1`$ and $`N^a=0`$ on $`S_\tau `$, it only remains to evaluate the extrinsic curvature $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. If $`\gamma _{ab}`$ is the induced metric on $`S_\tau `$, it is easy to show that

$$\mathrm{\Theta }=\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}\gamma ^{ab}=K_{ab}\gamma ^{ab}=(n2)\frac{h(Z)\dot{t}}{Z}.$$
(19)
The energy is then evaluated as

$$=\frac{1}{8\pi G_n}_{S_\tau }(n2)\frac{h(Z)\dot{t}}{Z}.$$
(20)
We will now address the issue of background energy. This is usually necessary to cancel divergences in the Hamiltonian. In our case, the brane cuts off the spacetime. If the brane does not stretch to the AdS boundary there will not be any divergences that need to be cancelled. However it is important to define a zero energy solution. In this work we will choose pure AdS space. This is because the FRW equations for a brane embedded in pure AdS space would include all but the holographic terms that appear in equations (14a) and (14b). These are the terms we are trying to interpret with this analysis.

We will denote the background spacetime by $`_0`$. We have chosen this to be pure AdS space cut off at a surface $`_0`$ whose geometry is the same as our brane. As is described in  this means we have the bulk metric given by

$$ds_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=h_{AdS}(Z)dT^2+\frac{dZ^2}{h_{AdS}(Z)}+Z^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2},$$
(21)
in which

$$h_{AdS}(Z)=k_{n}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}Z^2+1.$$
(22)
There is of course no electromagnetic field. The surface $`_0`$ is described by the section $`(𝐱^\mu ,T(\tau ),Z(\tau ))`$ of the bulk spacetime. In order that this surface has the same geometry as our brane we impose the condition

$$h_{AdS}(Z)\dot{T}^2+\frac{\dot{Z}^2}{h_{AdS}(Z)}=1$$
(23)
which is analogous to the condition given in equation (11).

We now repeat the above evaluation of the Hamiltonian for the background spacetime. This gives the following value for the background energy

$$_0=\frac{1}{8\pi G_n}_{S_\tau }(n2)\frac{h_{AdS}(Z)\dot{T}}{Z}.$$
(24)
Making use of equations (12a), (12c) and (23) we find that the energy of $`^+`$ above the background $`_0`$ is given by

$$E_+=_0=\frac{(n2)}{8\pi G_n}_{S_\tau }\sqrt{\sigma _n^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }h}{Z^2}}\sigma _n$$
(25)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }h=h(Z)h_{AdS}(Z)=\frac{c}{Z^{n3}}+\frac{q^2}{Z^{2n6}}.$$
(26)
In this relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$ is negative everywhere outside of the black hole horizon and so it is clear that $`E_+`$ is positive. We now turn our attention to the contribution to the energy from $`^{}`$. Since the derivation of $`E_+`$ saw the cancellation of the last two terms in the Hamiltonian (17) we note that the result is purely geometrical. Even though $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$ have opposite charge, they have the same geometry and so $`E_+=E_{}`$. We deduce then that the total energy

$$E=E_++E_{}=\frac{(n2)}{4\pi G_n}_{S_\tau }\sqrt{\sigma _n^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }h}{Z^2}}\sigma _n$$
(27)
Since the spatial volume of the braneworld $`V=_{S_\tau }=\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}Z^{n2}`$, we arrive at the following expression for the energy density measured by an observer living on the brane

$$\rho =\frac{(n2)\sigma _n}{4\pi G_n}\left(\sqrt{1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }h}{\sigma _n^2Z^2}}1\right)$$
(28)
where we have pulled out a factor of $`\sigma _n`$. If we insert this expression back into the first Friedmann equation (14a) we find that

$$H^2=a\frac{1}{Z^2}+\frac{8\pi G_n\sigma _n}{n2}\rho +\left(\frac{4\pi G_n}{n2}\right)^2\rho ^2$$
(29)
Although we will leave a more detailed analysis of the pressure, $`p`$, until section 4, we can make use of the Conservation of Energy equation

$$\dot{\rho }=(n2)H(\rho +p)$$
(30)
to derive the second Friedmann equation

$$\dot{H}=\frac{1}{Z^2}4\pi G_n\sigma _n(\rho +p)(n2)\left(\frac{4\pi G_n}{n2}\right)^2\rho (\rho +p)$$
(31)
These are clearly not the standard Friedmann equations for an $`(n1)`$ dimensional universe with energy density $`\rho `$ and pressure $`p`$. However, we should not expect them to be. We have not made any approximations in arriving at these results so it is possible that we would see non-linear terms. What is exciting is that the quadratic terms we see here have exactly the same form as the unconventional terms that were originally noticed by  in the study of brane cosmologies. In that case, one places extra matter on the brane to discover this unconventional cosmology. We have no extra matter on the brane but by including a bulk black hole, we get exactly the same type of cosmology. Clearly there is an alternative description.

We also note that in , the energy momentum tensor on the brane is split between tension and additional matter in an arbitrary way. In our analysis the tension is the only explicit source of energy momentum on the brane so there is no split required. With this in mind we are able to interpret each term in the FRW equations more confidently, in particular, the cosmological constant term. Furthermore, we have not yet made any assumptions on the form of the braneworld Newton’s constant.

Finally, we see that for small $`\rho `$ and $`p`$, we can neglect the $`\rho ^2`$ and $`\rho p`$ terms and recover the standard Friedmann equations for an $`(n1)`$ dimensional universe

$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{16\pi G_{n1}}{(n2)(n3)}}\rho `$ (32)
$`\dot{H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G_{n1}}{(n3)}}(\rho +p)`$ (33)
Here we have taken the $`(n1)`$ dimensional Newton’s Constant to be

$$G_{n1}=\frac{(n3)}{2}G_n\sigma _n$$
(34)
as is suggested by . We see, then, how the relationships noticed in previous studies of braneworld holography are just an approximation of the relationship described here.

## 4 Thermodynamics on the brane

In  it was noticed that there was a remarkable relationship between the thermodynamics of a field theory on the brane and its gravitational dynamics in the AdS bulk. That work was of course based on the assumption that the brane reached close to the AdS boundary. Our work is not limited by these approximations and we shall henceforth attempt to generalise those results to this exact setting.

We shall assume that our field theory on the brane is in thermodynamic equilibrium. We would therefore expect it to satisfy the first law of thermodynamics

$$T\mathrm{d}S=\mathrm{d}E\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{d}Q+p\mathrm{d}V.$$
(35)
Notice the presence of the chemical potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, which is conjugate to the R charge, $`Q`$ of the field theory. This is typical of theories that are dual to RNAdS in the bulk .

In reality, this first law arises from the contributions of both of our black holes, $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$. Written in terms of the field theory quantities which are derived from each of these black holes, the first law should actually take the extended form

$$T_+\mathrm{d}S_++T_{}\mathrm{d}S_{}=\mathrm{d}E_++\mathrm{d}E_{}\mathrm{\Phi }_+\mathrm{d}Q_+\mathrm{\Phi }_{}\mathrm{d}Q_{}+(p_++p_{})\mathrm{d}V.$$
(36)
We noted in section 2 that $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$ have the same geometry. Field theory quantities that only see this geometry, as opposed to the difference in charge, will therefore be the same whether they are derived from $`^+`$ or $`^{}`$. We deduce then that we should derive a single temperature, $`T`$, entropy, $`S`$, energy, $`E`$ and pressure, $`p`$ where

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`T_+=T_{}`$
$`S`$ $`=`$ $`2S_+=2S_{}`$
$`E`$ $`=`$ $`2E_+=2E_{}`$
$`p`$ $`=`$ $`2p_+=2p_{}.`$
However we need to be more careful in discussing the chemical potential and the charge because these are aware of the different sign in the charges in $`^+`$ and $`^{}`$. Since the charges are equal and opposite we define

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+=\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$
$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`2Q_+=2Q_{}`$
Given these relations, we do indeed recover a simplified first law of the form (35).

To proceed further we will have to assume that the entropy and charge of our field theory is given exactly by the entropy and charge of the black holes. Taking into account the doubling up from the two black holes we find that

$$S=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}Z_H^{n2}}{2G_n}\text{and}Q=\frac{(n2)\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}}{4\pi G_n}q.$$
(37)
Recall that the energy $`E`$ is given by

$$E=\frac{(n2)\sigma _n\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}Z^{n2}}{4\pi G_n}\left(\xi (Z)1\right).$$
(38)
where we have taken out a factor of $`\sigma _n`$ in equation (27) and used the simplifying notation

$$\xi (Z)=\sqrt{1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }h}{\sigma _n^2Z^2}}.$$
(39)
The remaining thermodynamic variables, $`p`$, $`T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, can now be obtained by making use of the first law (35).

$`p=\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{V}}\right)_{S,Q}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_n\sigma _n\xi (Z)}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(n1)c}{Z^{n1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2(n2)q^2}{Z^{2n4}}}\right],`$ (40)
$`T=\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{S}}\right)_{Q,V}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi (Z)}}{\displaystyle \frac{T_{BH}}{\sigma _nZ}},`$ (41)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }=\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{Q}}\right)_{S,V}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa \sigma _n\xi (Z)Z}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q}{Z_H^{n3}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q}{Z^{n3}}}\right),`$ (42)
where $`T_{BH}=\frac{h^{}(Z_H)}{4\pi }`$ is the temperature of the black holes. Given the value of $`p`$ that we have derived above, it is a useful check of the consistency of these results, to observe that equations (31) and (14b) are indeed the same. Notice also that the chemical potential, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, vanishes at the horizon.

In earlier studies of such braneworlds, the nonlinear terms in $`\rho `$ were not taken into account due to various approximations which were made during the calculations. It is therefore far from trivial to state that any further results connecting the bulk spacetime physics and the field theory thermodynamics should continue to hold in our scenario. We therefore proceed to consider these connections between the FRW equations and the field theory variables, including all such non-linear terms, to observe how the connection is affected in their presence.

Our first task is to rewrite the first law of thermodynamics in terms of densities and we find that

$$T\mathrm{d}s=\mathrm{d}\rho \mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{d}\rho _Q\gamma \mathrm{d}\left(\frac{1}{Z^2}\right),$$
(43)
where

$$\gamma =\frac{(n2)Z^2}{2}(\rho +p\mathrm{\Phi }\rho _QTs).$$
(44)
and the densities $`s=\frac{S}{V}`$ and $`\rho _Q=\frac{Q}{V}`$. This equation defines $`\gamma `$ which is the variation of $`\rho `$ with respect to the spatial curvature $`1/Z^2`$. It therefore represents the geometrical Casimir part of the energy density. Using the values we have derived for our field theory thermodynamic variables, we find that

$$\gamma =\frac{n2}{8\pi G_n\sigma _n\xi (Z)}\frac{Z_H^{n3}}{Z^{n3}}.$$
(45)
We are now ready to present a generalised (local) Cardy-Verlinde formula for the entropy density, $`s`$, in terms of $`\gamma `$ and the thermodynamic variables

$`s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \sigma _n}{(n2)k_n}}[(1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi G_n\rho }{(n2)\sigma _n}})^2\gamma (\rho {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\rho _Q{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{Z^2}}).`$
$`.{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi G_n}{(n2)\sigma _n}}\rho ^2\gamma (1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi G_n\rho }{(n2)\sigma _n}})]^{1/2}.`$
In the limit of small $`\rho `$, we can ignore the quadratic terms and this reduces to the formula found in

$$s=\frac{4\pi \sigma _n}{(n2)k_n}\sqrt{\gamma \left(\rho \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }\rho _Q\frac{\gamma }{Z^2}\right)}$$
(47)
In , it was noticed that, when a critical brane $`(\sigma _n=k_n)`$ crosses the black hole horizon, the Hubble Parameter is given by $`H^2=k_n^2`$. At this instance, the entropy density can be written as

$$s=\frac{H}{2G_nk_n}=\frac{(n3)H}{4G_{n1}}$$
(48)
where we have made use of equation (34) when $`\sigma _n=k_n`$. Notice that this corresponds to the Hubble entropy described in . The key observation is that, at the horizon, equation (47) then reduces to the linear form of the first Friedmann equation (32). Confining ourselves to the case of critical branes, this result generalises to the non-linear case when we evaluate equation (4) at the horizon, since we then recover the exact form of the Friedmann equation (29).

For non-critical branes $`(\sigma _nk_n)`$ at the horizon, the connection between entropy density and the Hubble parameter is not a linear one. We instead find that $`H^2=\sigma _n^2=k_n^2+a`$, therefore using equation (37), the entropy density on non-critical branes should be rewritten as

$$s=\frac{\sqrt{H^2a}}{2G_nk_n}=\left(\frac{\sigma _n}{k_n}\right)\frac{(n3)\sqrt{H^2a}}{4G_{n1}}$$
(49)
where we have once again made use of equation (34). Unlike in the critical case, it is not clear how we should interpret this entropy formula. Nevertheless we note that when equations (47) and (4) are evaluated at the horizon they reproduce the linear (32) and non-linear (29) Friedmann equations respectively.

We also present the generalised form of the temperature at the horizon crossing

$$T=\frac{k_n\dot{H}}{2\pi \sigma _n\sqrt{H^2a}}\left(1+\frac{4\pi G_n\rho }{(n2)\sigma _n}\right)^1.$$
(50)
Notice that this reduces to the formula quoted in  when we ignore quadratic terms and set $`\sigma _n=k_n`$ for the critical brane. Using this generalised form, we see that if we evaluate equation (44) at the horizon, we reproduce the second Friedmann equation (31), even in the exact, non-linear case.

## 5 Discussion

We have noticed a remarkable new relationship for braneworld cosmology that includes the unconventional terms first spotted in . Consider the approach of  and embed a brane in pure AdS space with additional matter placed on the brane. The braneworld observer sees a different cosmology to what we might expect. The Friedmann equations include quadratic terms in the energy density and pressure of the additional matter. In our work, we see that we obtain exactly the same unconventional terms when one considers a brane embedded in between two black holes, with no extra matter being placed on the brane. In previous studies of branes in black hole backgrounds, the cosmological evolution has been described in two different ways. As above, it may be regarded as being driven by the bulk black hole or by a field theory living on the brane. However, these results assume that the brane is close to the AdS boundary. We have used techniques that do not require us to make such approximations in our calculations. It seems that the “holographic” relationships of  are just an approximation of the “unconventional” relationship we have noticed.

Another appealing feature of our analysis is that it is free of ambiguities. In  it is not clear why we should split the brane energy momentum tensor into tension and additional matter in the way that we do. In our approach there is no additional matter, only tension, so there is no ambiguous split. We find that our exact interpretation of the bulk Weyl tensor suggests that the FRW equations should indeed take the form given in . However, by comparing our values for $`\rho `$ and $`p`$ we also see that we have a highly non-trivial equation of state. It only takes a recognisable form as the brane approaches the AdS boundary. This is expected because by allowing the brane to probe deep into the bulk we are inserting a significant cut-off in the braneworld field theory. The approach of  has the benefit that it allows for an arbitrary linear equation of state.

Given our exact work, we have also been able to present a generalised Cardy-Verlinde formula for the field theory on the brane. We should note that we made various assumptions (e.g. entropy on brane is entropy of bulk) that perhaps require further justification – Our results are as given but it would be worth taking a closer look at how a braneworld observer should really see entropy in this exact setting. Nevertheless, we find that just as in , the Friedmann equations are reproduced when we evaluate the relevant thermodynamic formulas at the horizon, including all non-linear terms. We should note that we do not know how we should interpret the expression for the entropy (49) when there is a cosmological constant induced on the brane.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Breacher, Taff, Lord Lovis, Saffers, and the Page Boy for lively discussions. In particular, we would like to thank Ruth Gregory, Clifford Johnson, and Simon Ross for their useful comments. JPG is supported in part by EPSRC studentship 9980045X. AP was funded by PPARC.