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# On the weak Deligne-Simpson problem for index of rigidity 2 11footnote 1Research partially supported by INTAS grant 97-1644

## 1 Introduction

### 1.1 Regular and Fuchsian linear systems

Consider the linear system of ordinary differential equations defined on Riemann’s sphere:

$$\mathrm{d}X/\mathrm{d}t=A(t)X$$
(1)
where the $`n\times n`$-matrix $`A`$ is meromorphic on $`𝐂P^1`$, with poles at $`a_1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`a_{p+1}`$; the dependent variables $`X`$ form an $`n\times n`$-matrix. Without loss of generality we assume that $`\mathrm{}`$ is not among the poles $`a_j`$ and not a pole of the $`1`$-form $`A(t)`$d$`t`$.

###### Definition 1

System (1) is called regular at the pole $`a_j`$ if its solutions have a moderate growth rate there, i.e. for every sector $`S`$ centered at $`a_j`$ and of sufficiently small radius and for every solution $`X`$ restricted to the sector there exists $`N_j𝐑`$ such that $`X(ta_j)=O(|ta_j|^{N_j})`$ for all $`tS`$. System (1) is regular if it is regular at all poles $`a_j`$.

System (1) is Fuchsian if its poles are logarithmic. Every Fuchsian system is regular.

A Fuchsian system admits the presentation

$$\mathrm{d}X/\mathrm{d}t=(\underset{j=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}A_j/(ta_j))X,A_jgl(n,𝐂)$$
(2)
The sum of its matrices-residua $`A_j`$ equals 0, i.e.

$$A_1+\mathrm{}+A_{p+1}=0$$
(3)
When one performs a linear change of the dependent variables

$$XW(t)X$$
(4)
$`W`$ being meromorphic on $`𝐂P^1`$, then system (1) changes as follows:

$$AW^1(\mathrm{d}W/\mathrm{d}t)+W^1AW$$
(5)
(i.e. the system undergoes the gauge transformation). This transformation preserves regularity but, in general, it does not preserve being Fuchsian. The only invariant under the group of linear transformations (5) is the monodromy group of the system.

Set $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=𝐂P^1\backslash \{a_1,\mathrm{},a_{p+1}\}`$. Fix a base point $`a_0\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and a matrix $`BGL(n,𝐂)`$.

###### Definition 2

A monodromy operator of system (1) defined by the class of homotopy equivalence in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of a closed contour $`\gamma `$ with base point $`a_0`$ and bypassing the poles of the system is a linear operator $`M`$ acting on the solution space of the system which maps the solution $`X`$ with $`X|_{t=a_0}=B`$ into the value of its analytic continuation along $`\gamma `$. Notation: $`X\stackrel{\gamma }{}XM`$.

The monodromy group is the subgroup of $`GL(n,𝐂)`$ generated by all monodromy operators.

###### Remark 3

The monodromy group is an antirepresentation $`\pi _1(\mathrm{\Sigma })GL(n,𝐂)`$ because one has

$$X\stackrel{\gamma _1}{}XM_1\stackrel{\gamma _2}{}XM_2M_1(),$$

i.e. the concatenation $`\gamma _1\gamma _2`$ of the two contours defines the monodromy operator $`M_2M_1`$.

One usually chooses a standard set of contours $`\gamma _j`$, $`j=1,\mathrm{},p+1`$ defining the generators $`M_j`$ of the monodromy group as follows. One connects $`a_0`$ with the points $`a_j^{}`$ (where $`a_j^{}`$ is close to $`a_j`$) by simple Jordan curves $`\delta _j`$ which intersect two by two only at $`a_0`$. The contour $`\gamma _j`$ consists of $`\delta _j`$, of a small circumference centered at $`a_j`$ and passing through $`a_j^{}`$ (run counterclockwise) and of $`\delta _j`$ run from $`a_j^{}`$ to $`a_0`$. Thus $`\gamma _j`$ is freely homotopic to a small loop circumventing counterclockwise $`a_j`$ (and no other pole $`a_i`$). The indices of the poles are chosen such that the indices of the contours increase from 1 to $`p+1`$ when one turns around $`a_0`$ clockwise.

For the standard choice of the contours the generators $`M_j`$ satisfy the relation

$$M_1\mathrm{}M_{p+1}=I$$
(6)
which can be thought of as a multiplicative analog of (3) if the system is Fuchsian. Equality (6) results from $`()`$ (see Remark 3) – the concatenation of contours $`\gamma _{p+1}\mathrm{}\gamma _1`$ is homotopy equivalent to 0.

###### Remarks 4

1) The monodromy group is correctly defined only up to conjugacy due to the freedom to choose $`a_0`$ and $`B`$.

2) For a Fuchsian system the generator $`M_j`$ defined as above is conjugate to $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi iA_j)`$ if $`A_j`$ has no eigenvalues differing by a non-zero integer.

3) The generators $`M_j`$ of the monodromy group when defined after a standard set of contours $`\gamma _j`$, are conjugate to the corresponding operators $`L_j`$ of local monodromy, i.e. when the poles $`a_j`$ are circumvented counterclockwise along small loops. The operators $`L_j`$ of a regular system can be computed (up to conjugacy) algorithmically – one first makes the system Fuchsian at $`a_j`$ by means of a change (4) as explained in \[Mo\] and then carries out the computation as explained in \[Wa\].

### 1.2 The Deligne-Simpson problem and its weak version

A natural question to ask is whether for given local monodromies (around the poles $`a_j`$) defined up to conjugacy there exists a Fuchsian system with such local monodromies; this is a realization problem. The difficulty is that one must have (6). A similar question can be asked for matrices $`A_j`$ whose sum is 0 (see (3)). The question can be made more precise:

Give necessary and sufficient conditions on the choice of the conjugacy classes $`C_jGL(n,𝐂)`$ or $`c_jgl(n,𝐂)`$ so that there exist irreducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`M_jC_j`$ or $`A_jc_j`$ satisfying respectively (6) or (3).

This is the Deligne-Simpson problem (DSP). “Irreducible” means “with no common proper invariant subspace”. In technical terms, impossible to bring the $`(p+1)`$-tuple to a block upper-triangular form with the same sizes of the diagonal blocks for all matrices $`M_j`$ or $`A_j`$ by simultaneous conjugation.

###### Remarks 5

1) A priori one does not expect the problem to include the requirement of irreducibility. However, for almost all possible eigenvalues of the conjugacy classes the monodromy group is indeed irreducible and for such eigenvalues (called generic, see the next definition) the answer to the problem depends actually not on the conjugacy classes but only on the Jordan normal forms which they define, see Theorem 15.

2) In the multiplicative version (i.e. for matrices $`M_j`$) the DSP was stated by P.Deligne (in the additive, i.e. for matrices $`A_j`$, presumably by the author) and C.Simpson was the first to obtain important results towards its resolution, see \[Si\]. The multiplicative version is more important because the monodromy group is invariant under the action of the group of linear changes (4) while the matrices-residua of a Fuchsian system are not, see rule (5) and the lines following it. The additive version is technically easier to deal with and one can deduce corollaries about the multiplicative one due to 2) of Remarks 4.

We consider only such conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ (resp. $`c_j`$) for which the necessary condition $`det(C_j)=1`$ (resp. $``$Tr$`(c_j)=0`$) holds. (These conditions result from (6) and (3) respectively.) In terms of the eigenvalues $`\sigma _{k,j}`$ (resp. $`\lambda _{k,j}`$) of the matrices from $`C_j`$ (resp. $`c_j`$) repeated with their multiplicities, these conditions read

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}\sigma _{k,j}=1,\mathrm{resp}.\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}\lambda _{k,j}=0$$
(7)
###### Definition 6

An equality of the form

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}\underset{k\mathrm{\Phi }_j}{}\sigma _{k,j}=1,\mathrm{resp}.\underset{j=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}\underset{k\mathrm{\Phi }_j}{}\lambda _{k,j}=0$$
(8)
is called a non-genericity relation; the non-empty sets $`\mathrm{\Phi }_j`$ contain one and the same number $`<n`$ of indices for all $`j`$. Eigenvalues satisfying none of these relations are called generic. Reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples exist only for non-generic eigenvalues (the eigenvalues of each diagonal block of a block upper-triangular $`(p+1)`$-tuple satisfy some non-genericity relation).

###### Remark 7

In the case of matrices $`A_j`$, if the greatest common divisor $`d`$ of the multiplicities of all eigenvalues of all $`p+1`$ matrices is $`>1`$, then a non-genericity relation results automatically from $``$Tr$`(c_j)=0`$. In the case of matrices $`M_j`$ the equality $`\sigma _{k,j}=1`$ implies that if one divides by $`d`$ the multiplicities of all eigenvalues, then their product would equal $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ik/d)`$, $`0kd1`$, not necessarily 1, and a non-genericity relation might or might not hold (see Example 9).

###### Definition 8

Call Jordan normal form (JNF) of size $`n`$ a family $`J^n=\{b_{i,l}\}`$ ($`iI_l`$, $`I_l=\{1,\mathrm{},s_l\}`$, $`lL`$) of positive integers $`b_{i,l}`$ whose sum is $`n`$. Here $`L`$ is the set of indices of eigenvalues (all distinct) and $`I_l`$ is the set of Jordan blocks with the $`l`$-th eigenvalue, $`b_{i,l}`$ is the size of the $`i`$-th block with this eigenvalue. E.g. the JNF $`\{\{2,1\}\{4,3,1\}\}`$ is of size $`11`$ and with two eigenvalues to the first (resp. second) of which there correspond two (resp. three) Jordan blocks, of sizes $`2`$ and $`1`$ (resp. $`4`$, $`3`$ and $`1`$). An $`n\times n`$-matrix $`Y`$ has the JNF $`J^n`$ (notation: $`J(Y)=J^n`$) if to its distinct eigenvalues $`\lambda _l`$, $`lL`$, there belong Jordan blocks of sizes $`b_{i,l}`$. We denote by $`J(C)`$ the JNF defined by the conjugacy class $`C`$.

###### Example 9

Let $`p+1=n=4`$, let for each $`j`$ the JNF $`J_j^4`$ consist of two Jordan blocks $`2\times 2`$, with equal eigenvalues. If the eigenvalues of $`M_1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`M_4`$ equal $`i`$, $`1`$, $`1`$ and $`1`$ (resp. $`1`$, $`1`$, $`1`$, $`1`$), then they are generic (resp. they are non-generic) – when their multiplicities are reduced twice, then their product equals $`1`$, a primitive root of $`1`$ of order $`2`$ (resp. their product equals $`1`$).

When the eigenvalues are not generic, then the $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`M_jC_j`$ or $`A_jc_j`$ (if it exists) is not automatically irreducible. Therefore we give the following

###### Definition 10

The formulation of the weak Deligne-Simpson problem is obtained when in the one of the DSP one replaces the requirement of irreducibility by the weaker requirement the centralizer of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ to be trivial, i.e. reduced to scalars.

###### Remark 11

If one states the problem asking only the matrices $`M_jC_j`$ or $`A_jc_j`$ to satisfy respectively condition (6) or (3) and with no requirement of irreducibility or triviality of the centralizer, then solving the problem becomes much harder and the answer to it depends essentially on the eigenvalues (not only on the JNFs). E.g., suppose that $`p=n=2`$ and that two of the matrices $`M_j`$ (resp. $`A_j`$) have distinct eigenvalues $`\sigma _{1,j}\sigma _{2,j}`$, $`j=1,2`$ (resp. $`\lambda _{1,j}\lambda _{2,j}`$) while the third must be scalar (i.e. $`\sigma _{1,3}=\sigma _{2,3}`$, resp. $`\lambda _{1,3}=\lambda _{2,3}`$). Then such triples exist exactly if $`\sigma _{1,1}\sigma _{1,2}\sigma _{1,3}=1`$ or $`\sigma _{1,1}\sigma _{2,2}\sigma _{1,3}=1`$ (resp. $`\lambda _{1,1}+\lambda _{1,2}+\lambda _{1,3}=0`$ or $`\lambda _{1,1}+\lambda _{2,2}+\lambda _{1,3}=0`$). Hence, such triples exist exactly if the eigenvalues are not generic.

###### Definition 12

Denote by $`\{J_j^n\}`$ a $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs, $`j=1`$,$`\mathrm{}`$, $`p+1`$. We say that the DSP (resp. the weak DSP) is solvable for a given $`\{J_j^n\}`$ and given eigenvalues if there exists an irreducible $`(p+1)`$-tuple (resp. a $`(p+1)`$-tuple with trivial centralizer) of matrices $`M_j`$ satisfying (6) or of matrices $`A_j`$ satisfying (3), with $`J(M_j)=J_j^n`$ or $`J(A_j)=J_j^n`$ and with the given eigenvalues. By definition, the DSP is solvable for $`n=1`$. Solvability of the DSP implies the one of the weak DSP.

For generic eigenvalues the DSP is solved – the result is formulated in \[Ko3\] and proved in \[Ko4\] and \[Ko2\]. In the next subsection we recall this result (Theorem 15). The result is a necessary and sufficient condition on the JNFs $`J(C_j)`$ or $`J(c_j)`$.

The aim of the present paper is to show an example of a large class of $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ or $`c_j`$ (such that the conditions of Theorem 15 hold for the JNFs $`J(C_j)`$ or $`J(c_j)`$), with non-generic eigenvalues, for which the weak DSP is not solvable.

### 1.3 The results known up to now

###### Notation 1

For a conjugacy class $`C`$ in $`GL(n,𝐂)`$ or $`gl(n,𝐂)`$ denote by $`d(C)`$ its dimension and for a matrix $`Y`$ from $`C`$ set $`r(C):=\mathrm{min}_{\lambda 𝐂}\mathrm{rank}(Y\lambda I)`$. The integer $`nr(C)`$ is the maximal number of Jordan blocks of $`J(Y)`$ with one and the same eigenvalue. Set $`d_j:=d(C_j)`$ (resp. $`d(c_j)`$), $`r_j:=r(C_j)`$ (resp. $`r(c_j)`$). The quantities $`r(C)`$ and $`d(C)`$ depend only on the JNF $`J(Y)=J^n`$, not on the eigenvalues, so we write sometimes $`r(J^n)`$ and $`d(J^n)`$.

###### Proposition 13

(C. Simpson, see \[Si\].) The following two inequalities are necessary conditions for the solvability of the DSP:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}d_1+\mathrm{}+d_{p+1}2n^22\hfill & & (\alpha _n)\hfill \\ \mathrm{for}\mathrm{all}j,r_1+\mathrm{}+\widehat{r}_j+\mathrm{}+r_{p+1}n\hfill & & (\beta _n)\hfill \end{array}$$

The following condition is not necessary and in most cases it is sufficient for the solvability of the DSP, see \[Ko3\] and \[Ko1\]:

$$(r_1+\mathrm{}+r_{p+1})2n(\omega _n).$$

For a given $`\{J_j^n\}`$ with $`n>1`$, which satisfies conditions $`(\alpha _n)`$ and $`(\beta _n)`$ and doesn’t satisfy condition $`(\omega _n)`$ set $`n_1=r_1+\mathrm{}+r_{p+1}n`$. Hence, $`n_1<n`$ and $`nn_1nr_j`$. Define the $`(p+1)`$-tuple $`\{J_j^{n_1}\}`$ as follows: to obtain the JNF $`J_j^{n_1}`$ from $`J_j^n`$ one chooses one of the eigenvalues of $`J_j^n`$ with greatest number $`nr_j`$ of Jordan blocks, then decreases by 1 the sizes of the $`nn_1`$ smallest Jordan blocks with this eigenvalue and deletes the Jordan blocks of size 0. For the above construction we use the notation $`\mathrm{\Psi }:\{J_j^n\}\{J_j^{n_1}\}`$.

###### Definition 14

A $`(p+1)`$-tuple $`\{J_j^n\}`$ with $`n>1`$ is good if

1) it satisfies conditions $`(\alpha _n)`$ and $`(\beta _n)`$ and

2) either $`\{J_j^n\}`$ satisfies condition $`(\omega _n)`$ or the construction $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ iterated as long as it is defined stops at a $`(p+1)`$-tuple $`\{J_j^n^{}\}`$ either with $`n^{}=1`$ or satisfying condition $`(\omega _n^{})`$.

By definition, a $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs with $`n=1`$ is good.

###### Theorem 15

(see \[Ko3\], Theorem 8.) Let $`n>1`$. The DSP is solvable for the conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ or $`c_j`$ (with generic eigenvalues, defining the JNFs $`J_j^n`$) if and only if the $`(p+1)`$-tuple $`\{J_j^n\}`$ is good.

###### Remark 16

The quantity $`\kappa =2n^2_{j=1}^{p+1}d_j`$ (called index of rigidity, see \[Ka\]) is invariant for the construction $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, see \[Ko3\]. Therefore one can drop condition $`(\alpha _n)`$ in the definition of a good $`(p+1)`$-tuple – condition $`(\alpha _n^{})`$ always holds for the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs $`\{J_j^n^{}\}`$, see \[Ko3\] and \[Ko1\]; if $`n^{}=1`$, then $`(\alpha _n^{})`$ is an equality, if there holds $`(\omega _n^{})`$, then $`(\alpha _n^{})`$ holds and is a strict inequality.

### 1.4 The basic result

In the present paper we consider the case when the index of rigidity equals 2.

###### Remark 17

In this case if there exist irreducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples, then they are unique up to conjugacy and the coexistence of irreducible and reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples is impossible, see \[Ka\] and \[Si\] for the multiplicative version.

In the additive version this is also true – if there exist an irreducible and a reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`A_jc_j`$, then one can multiply them by a non-zero scalar $`h`$ so that there should be no non-zero integer differences between any two eigenvalues of a given matrix $`hA_j`$ and any integer sum of eigenvalues of the matrices should be $`0`$. The monodromy operators of a Fuchsian system with matrices-residua $`hA_j`$ are conjugate to $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ihA_j)`$. The monodromy group of the system with (ir)reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices-residua $`hA_j`$ is (ir)reducible as well; in the reducible case this is evident, in the irreducible one this follows from Theorem 5.1.2 from \[Bo\] (the latter states that if the monodromy group is reducible and if the sum of the exponents relative to an invariant subspace is $`0`$, then the matrices-residua can be simultaneously conjugated to a block upper-triangular form; the sum of the exponents for the system with residua $`hA_j`$ is a sum of eigenvalues of these matrices; thus the irreducibility of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices-residua implies the one of the monodromy group). This is a contradiction with the non-coexistence of irreducible and reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples in the multiplicative case.

###### Definition 18

We say that the conjugacy class $`c^{}`$ (in $`gl(n,𝐂)`$ or in $`GL(n,𝐂)`$) is subordinate to the conjugacy class $`c`$ if $`c^{}`$ belongs to the closure of $`c`$. This means that the eigenvalues of $`c`$ and $`c^{}`$ are the same and of the same multiplicities and for each eigenvalue $`\lambda _i`$ and for each $`j𝐍`$ one has rk$`(A\lambda _iI)^j`$rk$`(A^{}\lambda _iI)^j`$ for $`Ac`$, $`A^{}c^{}`$. If $`c^{}c`$, then at least one inequality is strict.

###### Definition 19

Let $`n=ln_1`$, $`l,n_1𝐍^{}`$, $`n_1>1`$. The $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ or $`c_j`$ with $`\kappa =2`$ is called $`l`$-special if for each class $`C_j`$ (or $`c_j`$) there exists a class $`C_j^{}`$ (or $`c_j^{}`$) subordinate to it which is a direct sum of $`n_1`$ copies of a conjugacy class $`C_j^{\prime \prime }GL(l,𝐂)`$ (or $`c_j^{\prime \prime }gl(l,𝐂)`$) where the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs $`J(C_j^{\prime \prime })`$ (or $`J(c_j^{\prime \prime })`$) is good and the product of the eigenvalues of the classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ equals 1 (see Remark 7 and Example 9; for the classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ the sum of their eigenvalues is automatically $`0`$).

###### Remarks 20

1) The index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ equals 2. Indeed, one has $`d(c_j)d(c_j^{})=(n_1)^2d(c_j^{\prime \prime })`$ and if $`_{j=1}^{p+1}d(c_j^{\prime \prime })2l^2`$, then $`_{j=1}^{p+1}d(c_j)2n^2`$, i.e. the index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j`$ must be non-positive – a contradiction. The reasoning holds in the case of classes $`C_j`$ as well.

2) It follows from the above definition that in the case of matrices $`A_j`$ the eigenvalues of an $`l`$-special $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs cannot be generic – their multiplicities are divisible by $`n_1`$ and, hence, they satisfy a non-genericity relation, see Remark 7. Notice that in the case of matrices $`M_j`$ the divisibility by $`n_1`$ alone of the multiplicities does not imply that the eigenvalues are not generic, see Remark 7 and Example 9. Therefore the requirement the product of the eigenvalues of the classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ to equal $`1`$ (see the definition) is essential.

###### Definition 21

A $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes in $`gl(n,𝐂)`$ or $`GL(n,𝐂)`$ is called special if it is $`l`$-special for some $`l`$. If in addition for this $`l`$ the classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ are diagonalizable, then the $`(p+1)`$-tuple is called special-diagonal.

###### Example 22

The triple of conjugacy classes $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$, $`C_3GL(4,𝐂)`$ (or $`c_1,c_2,c_3gl(4,𝐂)`$) defining the JNFs $`J_1^4=\{\{4\}\}`$, $`J_2^4=\{\{1,1\},\{2\}\}`$, $`J_3^4=\{\{1,1\},\{1,1\}\}`$, is good (to be checked directly).

This triple is also $`2`$-special – one can choose as subordinate classes ones in which $`C_1^{}`$ (resp. $`c_1^{}`$) has two Jordan blocks of size 2 while $`C_2^{}`$ and $`C_3^{}`$ (resp. $`c_2^{}`$ and $`c_3^{}`$) define the JNF $`J_3^4`$. For such a choice the triple $`(C_1,C_2,C_3)`$ (resp. $`(c_1,c_2,c_3)`$) will be 2-special and the conjugacy classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }GL(2,𝐂)`$ (resp. $`c_j^{\prime \prime }gl(2,𝐂)`$ have two distinct eigenvalues for $`j=2,3`$ and one Jordan block of size 2 for $`j=1`$.

###### Example 23

For $`n>1`$ a good $`(p+1)`$-tuple of unipotent conjugacy classes in $`GL(n,𝐂)`$ or of nilpotent conjugacy classes in $`gl(n,𝐂)`$ is 1-special, hence, it is special.

###### Example 24

For $`n=9`$ the triple of conjugacy classes $`c_j`$ defining the JNFs $`\{\{2,2,1,1\},\{1,1,1\}\}`$ for $`j=1,2`$ and $`\{\{2,2,1,1\},\{2,1\}\}`$ for $`j=3`$ is good. Although the multiplicities of all eigenvalues are divisible by 3, the triple is not special (a priori if it is special, then it is 3-special). Indeed, the JNFs are such that the conjugacy classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ from the definition of a special $`(p+1)`$-tuple must be diagonalizable (for each eigenvalue of $`c_j`$ there are at most two Jordan blocks of size $`>1`$ and this size is actually 2). But then $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ must have each two eigenvalues, of multiplicities 1 and 2, which means that the triple $`J(c_1^{\prime \prime })`$, $`J(c_2^{\prime \prime })`$, $`J(c_3^{\prime \prime })`$ is not good.

The basic result of the paper is the following

###### Theorem 25

The weak DSP is not solvable for special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes.

###### Remark 26

The $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes to be good is a necessary condition for the solvability of the weak DSP for index of rigidity 2, see the proof of this in Remark 37. (In fact, it is necessary for any index of rigidity $`2`$ but we do not need the proof of this statement in the present paper.)

###### Remark 27

The theorem raises the following two natural questions:

1) whether it remains true for special (not necessarily special-diagonal) $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes;

2) whether for index of rigidity $`2`$ and for $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes defining good $`(p+1)`$-tuples of JNFs the weak DSP is unsolvable only when the $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes are special.

It seems that the answer to the first of them is positive although the author was unable to find a complete proof of it. The answer to the second question is not known to the author.

The next subsection contains the plan of the proof of the theorem. The rest of the proof is given in Section 3.

### 1.5 Plan of the proof of Theorem 25

We consider first the particular case when the conjugacy classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$, resp. $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$, are diagonalizable and with generic eigenvalues; we assume also that all non-genericity relations for the classes $`c_j`$ or $`C_j`$ are obvious ones, i.e. multiples of the fact that the sum of the eigenvalues of the classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ is $`0`$ or that the product of the eigenvalues of the classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ is $`1`$. Call this case and such special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes quasi-generic. The proof in the general case is deduced from the quasi-generic one using a method for deforming analytically $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ (the method is called the basic technical tool, it is developed in Section 2). Namely, if there exists a $`(p+1)`$-tuple with trivial centralizer of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ from a special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes, then it can be analytically deformed into one defining the same JNFs, for which the classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ have generic eigenvalues and which is with trivial centralizer. The deformation changes the eigenvalues but not their multiplicities. The possibility to deform the eigenvalues into ones from the quasi-generic case follows from the fact that the classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ are semisimple and the index of rigidity of their $`(p+1)`$-tuple is $`2`$; hence, the multiplicities of their eigenvalues are not divisible by an integer $`>1`$. Non-solvability of the weak DSP for quasi-generic special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples implies its non-solvability for any special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples.

The following proposition was suggested by the author and proved by Ofer Gabber (see the proof in the Appendix).

###### Proposition 28

Suppose that the index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`C_jGL(n,𝐂)`$ or $`c_jgl(n,𝐂)`$ equals 2. Suppose that the conjugacy classes $`C_j^{}`$ (or $`c_j^{}`$) are subordinate to the respective classes $`C_j`$ (or $`c_j`$), with $`C_j^{}C_j`$ (or $`c_j^{}c_j`$) for at least one value of $`j`$. Then the existence of matrices $`M_jC_j^{}`$ satisfying condition (6) (resp. of matrices $`A_jc_j^{}`$ satisfying condition (3)) implies that the DSP is not solvable for the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ (resp. $`c_j`$).

As it was mentioned in Remark 17, coexistence of irreducible and reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ with index of rigidity 2 is impossible. Therefore the above proposition implies

###### Corollary 29

The DSP is not solvable for special $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes $`C_j`$ or $`c_j`$.

Indeed, for such $`(p+1)`$-tuples one can construct block-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`M_jC_j^{}`$ or $`A_jc_j^{}`$ satisfying respectively (6) or (3); this follows from the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of JNFs $`J(C_j^{\prime \prime })`$ or $`J(c_j^{\prime \prime })`$ being good. $`\mathrm{}`$

Further we need the following

###### Proposition 30

For index of rigidity $`\kappa `$ the dimension of the variety $`𝒱`$ (when it is not empty) of $`(p+1)`$-tuples with trivial centralizers of matrices $`A_jc_j`$ or $`M_jC_j`$ equals $`n^2+1\kappa `$.

The proposition is proved in Subsection 3.1.

###### Proposition 31

A reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuple with trivial centralizer of matrices $`A_jc_j`$ or $`M_jC_j`$, where the index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j`$ or $`C_j`$ equals 2, is up to conjugacy block upper-triangular with diagonal blocks defining irreducible representations each with index of rigidity 2.

The proposition was suggested by the author and proved by O. Gabber, see the proof in the Appendix. Note that the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes is not supposed to be special. The proposition implies

###### Corollary 32

All (if any) quasi-generic special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices $`A_jc_j`$ or $`M_jC_j`$ which solve the weak DSP are (up to conjugacy) block upper-triangular and their diagonal blocks define irreducible representations $`P_i`$ each with index of rigidity 2.

###### Lemma 33

If a quasi-generic special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`A_jc_j`$ or $`M_jC_j`$ is (up to conjugacy) block upper-triangular with diagonal blocks defining irreducible representations each with index of rigidity 2, then these representations are equivalent and of rank $`l`$.

The lemma is proved in Subsection 3.2. It implies

###### Corollary 34

A $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`A_jc_j`$ or $`M_jC_j`$ satisfying the conditions of Lemma 33 is with non-trivial centralizer.

Indeed, block-decompose the matrices from $`gl(n,𝐂)`$ or $`GL(n,𝐂)`$ into blocks $`l\times l`$. Hence, the centralizer contains the matrix having a block equal to $`I`$ in position $`(1,n/l)`$ and zeros elsewhere. $`\mathrm{}`$

Hence, the weak DSP is not solvable for quasi-generic special-diagonal $`(p+1)`$-tuples of conjugacy classes. Indeed, if it were solvable, then it would be solved only by reducible $`(p+1)`$-tuples of matrices which up to conjugacy are block upper-triangular, with diagonal blocks defining equivalent representations of rank $`l`$ and of index of rigidity $`2`$, see Corollary 32 and Lemma 33. By Corollary 34, these $`(p+1)`$-tuples have non-trivial centralizers.

This proves Theorem 25 in the quasi-generic case.

## 2 The basic technical tool

###### Definition 35

Call basic technical tool the procedure described below whose aim is to deform analytically a given $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ with trivial centralizer by changing their conjugacy classes in a desired way.

Set $`A_j=Q_j^1G_jQ_j`$, $`G_j`$ being Jordan matrices. Look for a $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`\stackrel{~}{A}_j`$ (whose sum is $`0`$) of the form

$$\stackrel{~}{A}_j=(I+\epsilon X_j(\epsilon ))^1Q_j^1(G_j+\epsilon V_j(\epsilon ))Q_j(I+\epsilon X_j(\epsilon ))$$

where $`\epsilon (𝐂,0)`$ and $`V_j(\epsilon )`$ are given matrices analytic in $`\epsilon `$; they must satisfy the condition tr$`(_{j=1}^{p+1}\epsilon V_j(\epsilon ))0`$; set $`N_j=Q_j^1V_jQ_j`$. The existence of matrices $`X_j(\epsilon )`$ is deduced from the triviality of the centralizer, using the following proposition (see its proof and the details in \[Ko4\]):

###### Proposition 36

The centralizer of the $`p`$-tuple of matrices $`A_j`$ ($`j=1,\mathrm{},p`$) is trivial if and only if the mapping $`(sl(n,𝐂))^psl(n,𝐂)`$, $`(X_1,\mathrm{},X_p)_{j=1}^p[A_j,X_j]`$ is surjective.

Notice that one has $`\stackrel{~}{A}_j=A_j+\epsilon [A_j,X_j(0)]+\epsilon N_j+o(\epsilon )`$. The proposition assures the existence in first approximation w.r.t. $`\epsilon `$ of the matrices $`X_j`$, the existence of true matrices $`X_j`$ analytic in $`\epsilon `$ follows from the implicit function theorem.

If for $`\epsilon 0`$ small enough the eigenvalues of the matrices $`\stackrel{~}{A}_j`$ are generic, then their $`(p+1)`$-tuple is irreducible. In a similar way one can deform analytically $`(p+1)`$-tuples depending on a multi-dimensional parameter.

Given a $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`M_j^1`$ with trivial centralizer and satisfying condition (6), look for matrices $`M_j`$ (whose product is $`I`$) of the form

$$M_j=(I+\epsilon X_j(\epsilon ))^1(M_j^1+\epsilon N_j(\epsilon ))(I+\epsilon X_j(\epsilon ))$$

where the given matrices $`N_j`$ depend analytically on $`\epsilon (𝐂,0)`$ and the product of the determinants of the matrices $`M_j`$ is $`1`$; one looks for $`X_j`$ analytic in $`\epsilon `$. (Like in the additive version one can set $`M_j^1=Q_j^1G_jQ_j`$, $`N_j=Q_j^1V_jQ_j`$.) The existence of such matrices $`X_j`$ follows again from the triviality of the centralizer, see \[Ko4\].

###### Remark 37

As it was mentioned in Remark 26, for index of rigidity $`2`$ the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes to be good is a necessary condition for the solvability of the weak DSP. Indeed, using the basic technical tool one can deform a $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`A_j`$ or $`M_j`$ with trivial centralizer into a nearby one (say, of matrices $`A_j^{}`$ or $`M_j^{}`$) defining the so-called corresponding diagonal JNFs (see the definition in \[Ko3\] or in \[Ko4\]); both $`(p+1)`$-tuples are simultaneously good or not and the latter $`(p+1)`$-tuple is also of index of rigidity $`2`$. Hence, the multiplicities of the eigenvalues of the matrices $`A_j^{}`$ or $`M_j^{}`$ are not divisible by an integer $`>1`$ and one can choose the eigenvalues to be generic. But then one applies Theorem 15 and finds out that the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of initial conjugacy classes must be good.

## 3 Proof of Theorem 25

### 3.1 Proof of Proposition 30

$`1^0`$. Consider first the case of matrices $`A_j`$. Without restriction one can assume that $`c_jsl(n,𝐂)`$. To find the dimension of the variety $`𝒱`$ one has first to consider the cartesian product $`(c_1\times \mathrm{}\times c_p)(sl(n,𝐂))^p`$. Define the mapping $`\tau :(c_1\times \mathrm{}\times c_p)sl(n,𝐂)`$ by the rule $`\tau :(A_1,\mathrm{},A_p)A_{p+1}=A_1\mathrm{}A_p`$ (recall that there holds (3)).

$`2^0`$. The algebraic variety $`𝒱`$ is the intersection of the two varieties in $`c_1\times \mathrm{}\times c_p\times sl(n,𝐂)`$: the graph of the mapping $`\tau `$ and $`c_1\times \mathrm{}\times c_p\times c_{p+1}`$. This intersection is transversal which implies the smoothness of the variety $`𝒱`$. Transversality follows from Proposition 36 – the tangent space to the conjugacy class $`c_j`$ at $`A_j`$ equals $`\{[A_j,X]|Xgl(n,𝐂)\}`$.

$`3^0`$. Recall that $`d_j`$ denotes dim$`c_j`$. Hence,

$$\mathrm{dim}𝒱=(\underset{j=1}{\overset{p}{}}d_j)\mathrm{codim}_{sl(n,𝐂)}c_{p+1}=(\underset{j=1}{\overset{p}{}}d_j)[(n^21)d_{p+1}].$$

Hence, dim$`𝒱=_{j=1}^{p+1}d_jn^2+1=2n^2\kappa n^2+1=n^2+1\kappa `$.

$`4^0`$. The only difference in the proof in the case of matrices $`M_j`$ is that the mapping $`(A_1,\mathrm{},A_p)`$ $`A_{p+1}=A_1\mathrm{}A_p`$ from $`\mathrm{𝟐}^\mathrm{𝟎}`$ has to be replaced by the mapping

$$(M_1,\mathrm{},M_p)M_{p+1}=(M_1\mathrm{}M_p)^1.$$

The reader will be able to restitute the missing technical details after examining the more detailed description of the basic technical tool given in \[Ko4\]. The proposition is proved. $`\mathrm{}`$

### 3.2 Proof of Lemma 33

$`1^0`$. Recall that in the quasi-generic case the conjugacy classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ are diagonalizable, the DSP is solvable for them, and the irreducible representation $`Q`$ they define is with index of rigidity 2; recall that $`Q`$ is unique up to conjugacy, see Remark 17. We denote by $`P_i`$ also the diagonal block defining the representation $`P_i`$.

A priori in the quasi-generic case every representation $`P_i`$ is of rank $`lq_i`$, $`q_i𝐍^{}`$, and the multiplicity of every eigenvalue of the matrix $`A_j`$ (or $`M_j`$) restricted to the block $`P_i`$ equals $`q_i`$ times its multiplicity as eigenvalue of $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (or of $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$). This follows from the fact that the eigenvalues of the conjugacy classes $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ or $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ are generic.

$`2^0`$. Denote by $`c_j^{}`$ (resp. by $`C_j^{}`$) the conjugacy class of the restriction of the matrix $`A_j`$ (resp. $`M_j`$) to the block $`P_i`$. For every $`i`$ the index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j^{}`$ or $`C_j^{}`$ equals 2 (Corollary 32). Suppose that a given block $`P_i`$ is of size $`q_il`$ with $`q_i>1`$. Hence, the conjugacy class which is $`q_i`$ times the conjugacy class $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`q_i`$ times $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$) is subordinate to $`c_j^{}`$ (resp. to $`C_j^{}`$) for $`j=1,\mathrm{},p+1`$. Indeed, the classes $`q_ic_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`q_iC_j^{\prime \prime }`$) and $`c_j^{}`$ (resp. $`C_j^{}`$) have the same eigenvalues, of the same multiplicities and $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$) is diagonalizable.

This means that the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j^{}`$ or $`C_j^{}`$ is quasi-generic $`l`$-special and of size $`q_il`$.

$`3^0`$. The DSP is not solvable for the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`c_j^{}`$ or $`C_j^{}`$ if $`q_i>1`$, see Corollary 29. Hence, one must have $`q_i=1`$, i.e. all diagonal blocks are of equal size. Hence, the conjugacy classes of the restrictions of the matrices $`M_j`$ (resp. $`A_j`$) to them equal $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$). Indeed, the eigenvalues and the multiplicities are the ones of the classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$) – recall that we are in the quasi-generic case. The presence of Jordan blocks of size $`>1`$ would mean that the sum of the dimensions $`d(C(M_j|_{P_i}))`$ (resp. $`d(C(A_j|_{P_i}))`$) is $`>2n^22`$, i.e. the index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of matrices $`M_j|_{P_i}`$ (resp. $`A_j|_{P_i}`$) is non-positive – a contradiction with Proposition 31.

$`4^0`$. The index of rigidity of the $`(p+1)`$-tuple of conjugacy classes $`C_j^{\prime \prime }`$ (resp. $`c_j^{\prime \prime }`$) being 2, the diagonal blocks define equivalent representations (see Remark 17). $`\mathrm{}`$

Appendix (Ofer Gabber)

Proof of Proposition 28.

We prove the proposition in the multiplicative version. The proof for the additive one can be deduced by means of a reasoning completely analogous to the one from Remark 17 and we leave it for the reader.

Consider distinct points $`a_0`$, $`a_1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`a_{p+1}`$ in $`𝐏_𝐂^1`$. Set $`U=𝐏_𝐂^1\backslash \{a_1,\mathrm{},a_{p+1}\}`$ and fix usual generators $`\gamma _i`$ of $`\pi _1(U,a_0)`$. Set $`j:U𝐏_𝐂^1`$. If $`L`$ is a local system (of finite dimensional $`𝐂`$ vector spaces) on $`U`$ we have

$$\chi (𝐏_𝐂^1,j_{}L)=2\mathrm{r}\mathrm{k}L\underset{i=1}{\overset{p+1}{}}\mathrm{drop}_{a_i}(j_{}L)$$

with $`\mathrm{drop}_{a_i}(j_{}L)=\mathrm{rk}L\mathrm{dim}(j_{}L)_{a_i}`$. The drop depends only on the conjugacy class of the local monodromy at $`a_i`$ and decreases under specialization.

We have a map

$$\mathrm{hom}:\mathrm{conjugacy}\mathrm{classes}\mathrm{in}GL(n)\times \mathrm{conjugacy}\mathrm{classes}\mathrm{in}GL(m)\mathrm{conjugacy}\mathrm{classes}\mathrm{in}GL(nm)$$

$$([A],[B])\mathrm{conjugacy}\mathrm{class}\mathrm{of}(TBTA^1)$$

where $`T\mathrm{Hom}(𝐂^n,𝐂^m)`$. If $`[A^{}]\mathrm{closure}\mathrm{of}[A]`$, $`[B^{}]\mathrm{closure}\mathrm{of}[B]`$, then hom$`([A^{}],[B^{}])`$ $`\mathrm{closure}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{hom}([A],[B])`$.

Let $`L`$ be a local system with local monodromies in $`C_j`$, $`L^{}`$ a local system with local monodromies in $`C_j^{}`$, $`L`$ being irreducible. By assumption $`\chi (𝐏_𝐂^1,j_{}\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L))=2`$. Now the local monodromies of $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{})`$ have conjugacy classes in the closures of the conjugacy classes of the corresponding local monodromies of $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L)`$, so

$$i\mathrm{drop}_{a_i}\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{})\mathrm{drop}_{a_i}\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L),$$

so $`\chi (𝐏_𝐂^1,j_{}\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{}))2`$, so $`H^0(\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{}))0`$ or $`H^2(𝐏_𝐂^1,j_{}\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{}))`$ (which is the dual of $`H^0(\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L,L^{})^{})=H^0(\underset{¯}{\mathrm{Hom}}(L^{},L))`$) is non-zero. Since $`L`$ is irreducible it would follow that $`LL^{}`$ but this contradicts the assumption on $`C_j^{}`$.

Proof of Proposition 31:

Consider the multiplicative version (the proof in the additive one is performed by analogy). Suppose we are given the conjugacy classes $`C_iGL(n,𝐂)`$, $`1ip+1`$, and we are interested in solutions of

$$M_1\mathrm{}M_{p+1}=\mathrm{id},M_iC_i$$
(9)
We say that a solution $`M=(M_1,\mathrm{},M_{p+1})`$ is rigid if every solution $`M^{}`$ in some neighbourhood of $`M`$ is $`GL(n,𝐂)`$-conjugate to $`M`$. Here “neighbourhood” can be taken in the classical or in the Zariski topology. Excluding the case $`n=0`$, for a rigid $`(p+1)`$-tuple the index of rigidity is $`1+\mathrm{dim}(\mathrm{centralizer})2`$ and when the centralizer is reduced to scalars “rigid”$``$”index of rigidity $`=2`$”. We deduce the proposition from the more general one:

###### Proposition 38

For a rigid $`(p+1)`$-tuple, all irreducible subquotients of the representation are rigid.

We say that a finite dimensional representation of $`\pi _1`$ is isotypical if all its irreducible subquotients are isomorphic. To prove Proposition 38 we consider first the case of an isotypical representation $`\rho :\pi _1GL(V)`$ of dimension $`n=n_1l`$ where $`n_1,l>0`$, $`\tau :\pi _1GL(W)`$ is an $`l`$-dimensional irreducible representation and the semi-simplification of $`\rho `$ is $`\tau \mathrm{}\tau `$ ($`n_1`$ times). Since the index of rigidity increases under specialization we have

$$(n_1)^2\mathrm{index}\mathrm{rig}(\tau )=\mathrm{index}\mathrm{rig}(\tau \mathrm{}\tau )\mathrm{index}\mathrm{rig}(\rho )2.$$

Since $`\tau `$ is irreducible, it must have $`\mathrm{index}\mathrm{rig}=2`$.

To do the general case of Proposition 38 we suppose that $`\rho `$ is not isotypical. Then one can find an exact sequence of non-zero representations

$$0V_1VV_20$$

where $`V_1`$ is isotypical and Hom$`{}_{\pi _1}{}^{}(V_1,V_2)=0`$. $`V_1`$ is the sum of all $`\tau `$-isotypical subrepresentations of $`V`$ where $`\tau `$ is an irreducible representation of $`V`$.

Claim. For such an exact sequence if $`V`$ is rigid, then $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ are rigid. (This will complete the proof by induction.)

###### Lemma 39

If $`\rho ^{}:\pi _1P`$ is a representation sufficiently close to $`\rho `$, $`GL(V)`$-conjugate to $`\rho `$, then $`\rho ^{}`$ is $`P`$-conjugate to $`\rho `$. Here $`P=\{gGL(V)|gV_1V_1\}`$.

Proof:

By general facts on algebraic group actions the conjugacy class of $`\rho `$ is a locally closed subvariety (of the variety of solutions of (9)) isomorphic to $`GL(V)/\mathrm{stabilizer}(\rho )`$. Hence, $`\rho ^{}`$ is conjugate to $`\rho `$ by $`gGL(V)`$ sufficiently close to $`1`$$`\rho ^{}=g\rho g^1`$, so $`g^1(V_1)`$ is $`\rho `$-invariant.

If $`g^1(V_1)V_1`$ we get Hom$`{}_{\pi _1}{}^{}(g^1(V_1),V_2)0`$ since the projection $`VV_2`$ defines a non-zero $`\pi _1`$ map. In other words Hom$`{}_{\pi _1}{}^{}(\rho ^{}|_{V_1},V_2)0`$. If this holds for a sequence of $`\rho ^{}`$’s converging to $`\rho `$, then since the above is a question of solving a homogeneous system of linear equations, i.e. of vanishing of certain minors, we get that there is also a non-zero solution in the limit case, i.e. Hom$`{}_{\pi _1}{}^{}(V_1,V_2)0`$ which contradicts the assumption. $`\mathrm{}`$

Proof of the claim: Suppose that $`\rho _1:\pi _1GL(V)`$ is not rigid. Then one has a one-parameter analytic deformation $`\rho _{1,\varphi }`$, $`\varphi (𝐂,0)`$, s.t. $`\rho _{1,0}=\rho _1`$, $`\rho _{1,\varphi }`$ is not conjugate to $`\rho _{1,0}`$ for $`\varphi 0`$. (In general one cannot say that the $`\rho _{1,\varphi }`$ for $`\varphi 0`$ are non-equivalent.) Thus given analytic deformations of $`\rho _1`$, $`\rho _2`$ (within given conjugacy classes of local monodromies) it suffices in view of the lemma to extend them to a deformation of $`\rho `$ (within the conjugacy classes).

One can find suitable deformations of $`\rho `$ of the generators that do not necessarily satisfy (6) and then one tries to correct them by conjugation by maps from the parameter space to the unipotent subgroup

$$U=\{\gamma GL(V)|(\gamma 1)VV_1,\gamma |_{V_1}=1\}=\left\{\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& \\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)\right\}$$

in terms of block matrices. The correction is possible by the following analogue of Proposition 36:

The map

$$U^{p+1}U,(u_1,\mathrm{},u_{p+1})(u_1M_1u_1^1)\mathrm{}(u_{p+1}M_{p+1}u_{p+1}^1)$$

has surjective differential.

We note that $`U`$ can be identified with Lie$`(U)=`$Hom$`{}_{𝐂}{}^{}(V_2,V_1)`$ and the map above is linear, namely (in additive notation for $`U`$, viewed as representation of $`P`$)

$$(u_1,\mathrm{},u_{p+1})u_1M_1(u_1)+M_1(u_2M_2(u_2))+\mathrm{}+M_1\mathrm{}M_p(u_{p+1}M_{p+1}(u_{p+1})).$$

Thus surjectivity of this map means that the coinvariant space $`U_{\pi _1}`$ is $`0`$, but its dual is Hom$`{}_{\pi _1}{}^{}(V_1,V_2)`$ whose vanishing is exactly the assumption.


text:
# 1 Crisis and Paradigm Shift

## 1 Crisis and Paradigm Shift

Stephen, as we all know, is by far the most stubborn and infuriating person in the universe. My own scientific relation with him I think can be called adversarial. We have disagreed profoundly about deep issues concerning black holes, information and all that kind of thing. At times he has caused me to pull my hair out in frustration – and you can plainly see the result. I can assure you that when we began to argue more than two decades ago, I had a full head of hair.

I can also say that of all the physicists I have known he has had the strongest influence on me and on my thinking. Just about everything I have thought about since 1980 has in one way or another been a response to his profoundly insightful question about the fate of information that falls into a black hole . While I firmly believe his answer was wrong, the question and his insistence on a convincing answer has forced us to rethink the foundations of physics. The result is a wholly new paradigm that is now taking shape. I am deeply honored to be here to celebrate Stephen’s monumental contributions and especially his magnificent stubbornness.

The new paradigm whose broad outlines are already clear involves four closely related ideas which I will call Horizon Complementarity (also known as Black Hole Complementarity )  , the Holographic Principle , the Ultraviolet/Infrared connection  and the counting of black hole microstates . Each has had strong support from the mathematics of string theory. We have also learned that certain lessons derived from quantum field theory in a fixed background can lead to totally wrong conclusions. For example quantum field theory gives rise to an ultraviolet divergent result for the entropy in the vicinity of a horizon  and a volume’s worth of degrees of freedom in a region of space. Another misleading result of quantum field theory is that increasingly large energy and momentum scales are equivalent to progressively smaller distance scales. Finally quantum field theory in a black hole background inevitably leads to the loss of quantum coherence from the vantage point of a distant observer .

## 2 Stephen’s Argument for Coherence Loss

Let’s begin with the issue of coherence loss. Begin by drawing the Penrose diagram for black hole formation. Let us think of it as a background on which we can study conventional quantum field theory. Now let’s add some additional particles which for simplicity are assumed massless. Incoming particles enter the geometry on past light-like infinity, $`^{}`$. The initial Hilbert space of such particles is labeled $`_{}`$. The particles interact through Feynman diagrams and some go out to $`^+`$ where they are seen by a distant observer. But some particles end up at the space-like singularity. A conventional local description would have the final states live in a Hilbert space which is a product $`_+_{sing}`$.

Applying ordinary rules to this system we expect the final state to be given in terms of the initial state by an $`S`$ matrix,

$$|f=S|i$$
(2.1)
but to an observer outside the black hole the final state consists only of the particles on $`^+`$. It is therefore described by a density matrix

$$\rho =Tr_{sing}|ff|.$$
(2.2)
Since black holes eventually evaporate we are left with a mixed state and a loss of quantum coherence. I have simplified some of the important parts of Stephen’s argument but in the original paper he makes a very convincing case that quantum field theory in a black hole environment leads to a loss of coherence after the evaporation has occurred. The problem with this is that loss of quantum coherence violates the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics. That of course was Stephen’s point.

Historically, for a long time high energy physicists, who had other fish to fry, ignored the problem. By and large, with one or two exceptions , the relativity community accepted the loss of coherence without question. However, ’t Hooft and I were both deeply disturbed by Stephen’s conclusion. In my case I felt that loss of coherence, if it were to occur, could not quarantined or isolated to phenomena which involved massive black holes. It would infect the rest of physics and cause dramatic disasters in ordinary situations . ’t Hooft also expressed similar concerns .

There was of course an alternative that I have not mentioned. We might suppose that instead of falling through the horizon, particles (and falling observers) encounter an obstruction, a “brick wall” instead of the horizon. Again the trouble is that an observer, now the freely falling one, would experience a violation of a sacred law of nature, this time the equivalence principle. The horizon according to general relativity is an almost flat region which should behave like empty space, not like a brick wall. It seems that there is no way out; at least one or another observer must witness violations of the usual laws of nature.

At this point one could ask why not just assume neither observer sees a violation of sacred principles. Just assume that the infalling information is “xeroxed” or “cloned” at the horizon. One copy would fall through with the infalling observer and the other copy would get scrambled and radiated with the evaporation products. Each observer would see the usual laws of nature respected. The problem is that it potentially violates another law of quantum mechanics. I call it the “Quantum Xerox” principle. It says that quantum information stored in a single system can not be duplicated. To illustrate the principle consider a single spin whose $`z`$ component can take two values. $`\sigma _z=\pm 1.`$ We call the two states $`|+`$ and $`|`$. Suppose we had a quantum xerox machine which could produce a clone of the spin in exactly the original state. Its action is defined by

$`|+`$ $``$ $`|++`$ (2.3)
$`|`$ $``$ $`|.`$ (2.4)
But now consider the action of the quantum xerox machine on the superposition of states $`|++|`$ which represents a spin oriented along the $`x`$ axis. According to the principles of quantum mechanics the result must be the superposition $`|+++|`$. This is because quantum evolution is a linear process. On the other hand the QXM must clone the original state

$$\left(|++|\right)\left(|++|\right)\left(|++|\right)$$
(2.5)
or

$$(|+++|)|+++|++|++|.$$
(2.6)
Evidently the quantum Xerox machine is not consistent with the principle of linear quantum evolution.

The Quantum Xerox Principle was probably an implicit part of Stephen’s thinking. I remember that in Aspen sometime around 1992 I gave a seminar explaining why I thought loss of coherence was a big problem and as part of the talk I introduced the $`QX`$ principle. A number of people in the audience didn’t believe it at first but Stephen’s reaction was instantaneous: “So now you agree with me”. I said no, that I didn’t but that I was trying to explain to the high energy people why it was such a serious problem. However, it was also true that I could’t see my way out of the paradox.

## 3 Horizon Complementarity

“When you have eliminated all that is impossible, whatever remains must be the truth, no matter how improbable it is.”

Sherlock Holmes

The principle of Horizon Complementarity I interpret to mean that no observer ever witnesses a violation of the laws of nature. It is obvious that no observer external to the black hole is in danger of seeing the forbidden duplication of infalling information since one copy is behind the horizon. The danger, pointed out by John Preskill , is that the observer outside the horizon, call him $`B`$, can jump into the horizon having previously collected the relevant information in the Hawking radiation. We must now worry whether the original infalling observer (call her $`A`$) can send a signal to $`B`$ so that $`B`$ has witnessed information duplication albeit behind the horizon. The answer is no, it is not possible . The reason is interesting and involves a fact first explained by Don Page  who realized that to get a single bit of information out of the evaporation products you must wait until about half the entropy of the black hole has been evaporated. This takes a time, in Planck units of order $`M^3`$ where M is the black hole mass. It is then easy to see from the black hole metric that if $`B`$ waits a time of that order of magnitude before jumping behind the horizon, then $`A`$ must send her signal extremely quickly after passing the Horizon. Otherwise the message will not arrive at $`B`$ before hitting the singularity. Quantitatively the time that $`B`$ has after passing the horizon is of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{exp}M^2`$ where all things are given in Planck units.

Now in classical physics an arbitrary amount of information can be sent in an arbitrarily small time using an arbitrarily small energy. But in quantum theory if we want to send a single bit we must use at least one quantum. Obviously that quantum must have an energy satisfying $`\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{exp}M^2`$. In other words $`A`$ had to be carrying an energy vastly larger than the black hole in order that $`B`$ ever witness the forbidden information cloning. This makes no sense since if A had that much energy it couldn’t possibly fit inside the black hole. We see that a consistent use of quantum mechanics simultaneously allows external observations to be consistent with quantum coherence; the infalling observations to be consistent with the equivalence principle; and finally, prevents the observer who chooses to jump in after accumulating some information from ever seeing information duplication.

I can now state the principle of Horizon Complementarity. All it says is that no observer ever sees a violation of the laws of nature. More specifically it says that to an observer who never crosses the horizon, the horizon behaves like a conventional complex system which can absorb thermalize and re-emit all information that falls on it. No information is ever lost. In essence, the world on the outside of a horizon is a closed system.

On the other hand a freely falling observer encounters nothing out of the ordinary, no large tidal force, high temperature or brick wall at the horizon. The paradox of information being at two places at the same time are apparent and a careful analysis shows that no real contradictions arise.

But there is a weirdness to it. Just to make the point let’s imagine a whole galaxy falling into a huge black hole with a Schwarzschild radius equal to a billion light years. From the outside, the galaxy and all its unfortunate inhabitants appear to be heated to Planckian temperature, thermalized and eventually emitted as evaporation products and all this takes place at the horizon! On the other hand, the infalling galactic inhabitants glide through perfectly happily. To them the trauma only happens at the singularity a billion years later. But as in the case of certain life-after-death theories, the folks on the other side can never communicate with us.

It is clear from Horizon Complementarity that a revision is needed in the way we think about information being localized in space-time. In both classical relativity and in quantum field theory the space–time location of an event is invariant, that is, independent of the observer. Nothing in either theory prepares us for the kind of weirdness I described above.

## 4 The Holographic Principle

The idea that information is in some sense stored at the boundary of a system instead of the bulk was called Dimensional Reduction by ’t Hooft and the Holographic Principle by me . The simple argument for the Holographic Principle goes as follows. Imagine a ball of space $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ bounded by a spherical area $`A=4\pi R^2`$. Ordinarily we would assume that the entropy in that region can be arbitrarily large. However if we introduce a cutoff in space, say at the Planck scale and assume that within each Planckian volume only a small number of states are possible then it is natural to assume that the maximum entropy is finite and proportional to the volume of the region. However it is easy to see that this can not be so. Imagine an imploding spherical light-like shell with just enough energy so that the boundary of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ gets turned into a black hole horizon. The final entropy of the system is the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the black hole $`S_{BH}=A/4G`$. By the Second Law the entropy within $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ could not have been larger than this. But by causality this bound can’t depend on the existence of the infalling light like shell. Thus it follows that the largest entropy a region of space can have is given by

$$S_{max}=A/4G.$$
(4.1)
A further implication is that the number of degrees of freedom (binary bits) needed to describe a region is also proportional to the area. It is as though the information in the bulk of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ can be mapped to a set of “Holographic” degrees of freedom on the boundary. The idea that the quantum mechanics of a region can be described in terms of a theory of no more than $`A/4G`$ degrees of freedom is the content of the Holographic Principle. It is also very weird but it is forced on us by Bekenstein’s observation about black hole entropy , the usual interpretation of entropy as counting states and Holmes’ dictum.

## 5 The Ultraviolet/Infrared Connection

The dominant paradigm of 20th century physics has been that small distance means high energy or more precisely high momentum. Thus to probe increasingly small (and presumably increasingly fundamental) objects, higher and higher energy accelerators have been built. Again this is a lesson learned from conventional quantum field theory. But the more we learn about the combination of gravity and quantum mechanics the clearer it becomes that this trend will eventually reverse itself. Imagine trying to probe distance scales very much smaller than the Planck scale by building the $`Gedankatron`$, a collider of colossal proportions, which can accelerate electrons to momenta way above the Planck scale. Well, there is no need to build it. We already know what will happen. In a head–on collision a black hole will form and the black hole will have a Schwarzschild radius of order the center of mass energy $`M`$ in Planck units. The black hole will evaporate with a temperature of order $`1/M`$. Thus the collision will result in the emission of longer and longer wave length quanta and will probe distance scales of order $`MG`$ and not $`1/M`$. This is the simplest example of the UV/IR connection. Similar things happen in perturbative string theory where increasing energy again results in decreasing spatial resolution.

In order to clarify the mechanisms behind the UV/IR connection and show its connection with the Holographic Principle I will use the famous example of the AdS/CFT duality of Maldacena . Let me quickly remind you of this duality. We begin with a stack of $`N`$ D3-branes in ten dimensional string theory. The branes fill the directions $`(1,2,3)`$. They are all placed at the origin in the $`(4,5,6,7,8,9)`$ directions. We also define $`r^2=(x^4)^2+\mathrm{}+(x^9)^2`$. The geometry of the resulting stack has a horizon at $`r=0`$ where the stack is located.

I will not explain in detail the so called decoupling or near-horizon limit. The literature on the subject is enormous. Suffice it to say that the D-brane stack is exactly described in two ways which are dual to one another. The first is by gravity in an AdS space with horizon at $`r=0`$. The AdS also has a time-like causal boundary at $`r=\mathrm{}`$. Although the boundary is an infinite proper distance from any finite $`r`$, the geometry is such that light takes a finite time to travel to the boundary and back.

The dual “Holographic” description is in terms of a 3+1 dimensional conformal gauge theory whose precise details are unimportant for our purposes. The quantum field theory is usually interpreted as residing of the boundary of the AdS, infinitely far from the horizon. On the other hand the branes that support the open string field quanta are supposedly located at $`r=0`$. There seems to be some serious confusion about the location of the branes. Are they at $`r=0`$ or $`r=\mathrm{}`$? The answer to this question is closely related to the paradox of where the information in a black hole resides.

In the field theory dual the location of the branes in the $`(x^4..x^9)`$ space is described by a set of six $`N\times N`$ matrix valued fields $`\varphi `$. The connection between the location of a brane and the corresponding field is

$$r^2=\frac{1}{N^2}Tr\varphi ^2.$$
(5.1)
Now we can see the problem in localizing the branes. The field $`\varphi `$ is a canonically normalized scalar field with mass dimension $`1`$. As such, it has zero point fluctuations which render the value of $`r^2`$ divergent. If taken at face value, this would say that the branes are located at the boundary at $`r=\mathrm{}`$. But this is not the most useful way to think about the problem. A better way to think about it is to introduce an ultraviolet cutoff in the gauge theory. Let the regulator frequency be called $`\nu `$. Then (5.1) is replaced by

$$r^2=\frac{1}{N^2}Tr\varphi ^2=\nu ^2.$$
(5.2)
Once again we see something weird. The location of the branes is not an invariantly defined quantity. It depends on the frequency resolution that the observer uses. If the branes are observed in a way that averages over high frequency oscillations then their location is near $`r=0`$. On the other hand if all the ultraviolet fluctuations are included then the branes are located out near the causal boundary of AdS and the entire theory in the bulk of AdS is described by a holographic description in terms of boundary degrees of freedom. This interplay between short time cutoffs in the quantum field theory and the location of the brane degrees of freedom is called the UV/IR connection .

The UV/IR connection is closely related to the weirdness of Complementarity. Imagine an observer falling toward a black hole horizon while blowing a dog whistle. A dog whistle is just a whistle whose frequency is beyond the range of human hearing. The freely falling observer never hears the whistle. But to someone outside the black hole the frequency is red shifted so that after a while the whistle becomes audible. In the same way, the ultra-high frequency fluctuations of an object are invisible under ordinary circumstances. But as the object approaches the horizon the external observer becomes sensitive to them. In the example I just showed you the observed location and spread of an object depends on the visibility of the high frequency fluctuations. Thus the UV/IR connection provides a mechanism for understanding Horizon Complementarity . Horizon Complementarity the Holographic Principle and the UV/IR connection are different facets of the same weirdness that characterizes the new paradigm.

## 6 Counting Black Hole Microstates

Ultimately the question of black hole coherence boils down to whether or not the formation and evaporation of a black hole can be described from the outside by an S–matrix. Stephen said no. ’t Hooft and I said yes. Although, for years, many string theorists sat on the fence about the issue, they really had no choice. The only mathematically well defined objects in string theory, at least in a flat background, are S–matrix data. This includes the complete list of stable objects in the theory and the transition amplitudes for their scattering. Unstable objects also have meaning as resonances which can be defined as poles of the S–matrix in the complex energy plane. If the laws of quantum mechanics are not violated for a distant observer, black holes are simply such resonances. It sometimes happens that resonances become extremely densely spaced. This occurs in nuclear collisions and also in string theory. In these cases the practical tools are those of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics.

Complementarity implies that the thermodynamics of a black hole should arise from a quantum statistical mechanical origin. Consider the thermodynamic description of a bathtub of hot water. We specify a few macroscopic variables such as the volume, energy temperature etc. Of special significance is the entropy. Entropy, as we know, is a measure of our ignorance of the precise microscopic details of the tub of water. It measures the logarithm of the number of quantum states consistent with the macroscopic description. The existence of an entropy tells us that there is a hidden set of microscopic degrees of freedom. It doesn’t tell us what those degrees of freedom are but it tells us they are there and that they can store detailed information that our thermodynamic description is too coarse grained to see. The principle of Black Hole Complementarity requires the thermodynamics of black holes to originate from the coarse graining of hidden microscopic degrees of freedom and that the entropy is counting the number of microstates of the black hole.

General relativity does not tell us what those micro-states are. But a theory like string theory which is supposed to be a consistent quantum theory of gravity should tell us and it does . Let us begin with a single string in very weakly coupled string theory. If the string is excited to a high state of excitation it typically forms a random walking tangle. It is natural to describe it statistically.

Let $`L`$ be the total length of string and $`T=\frac{1}{\alpha ^{}}`$ be the tension. The mass of the string is then

$$m=TL.$$
(6.1)
A good model of the string is to think of it as a series of links on a lattice. The link size is the string length $`\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$. Lets suppose that the when we follow the string and it arrives at a lattice site it can continue in $`n`$ distinct directions. We can then count the number of configurations of the string. The number of links is $`L/\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$ and the number of states is

$$N_{states}=n^{L/\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}.$$
(6.2)
Thus the entropy is

$$S=\frac{L}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}\mathrm{log}n$$
(6.3)
or using (6.1) $`S=m\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}\mathrm{log}n.`$ The thing to abstract from this formula is that the entropy is proportional to the mass in string units. The precise coefficient is determined by the details of string theory.

$$S=cm\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}.$$
(6.4)
Now imagine turning up the string coupling constant. The large ball of random walking string will begin to experience the effects of gravity. It will shrink and will gain some negative gravitational binding energy. Eventually it will turn into a black hole. This much is obvious. What is less obvious is what happens if we begin with a neutral black hole and turn off the coupling. It is clear that it must evolve into a system of free strings in this limit but how many such strings will be left at the end of the process? Surprisingly the answer is that the overwhelmingly most likely final state is a single string! The number of configurations of one long string vastly outweighs all other configurations. Thus we can go back and forth from single string states to black holes.

This suggests the following strategy . Start with a black hole of a given mass $`M`$. Let us follow it while we adiabatically turn down the string coupling. The entropy will be conserved by such an adiabatic process. At the end we will get a single string of some other mass $`m`$. If we can follow the process and determine $`m`$ we can use (6.4) to estimate the entropy of the original black hole.

This strategy has been used to study a large variety of black holes that occur in string theory  including Schwarzschild black holes in all dimensions, and special supersymmetric black holes where the precise coefficients can be obtained. Up to numerical coefficients of order unity, the results always agree with the universal formula

$$S=\frac{area}{4G}.$$
(6.5)
By now string theory has given us great confidence in the counting of black hole microstates and that there is no need to look for a new basis for gravitational entropy outside the framework of conventional quantum statistical mechanics.

## 7  de Sitter Space

Let me turn now to Stephen’s favorite subject, cosmology. According to the inflationary theory the universe may have started as a long lived approximation to de Sitter Space with a very small radius of curvature, perhaps a couple of orders of magnitude larger than the Planck radius. Right now observations indicate that it may end as a de Sitter Space of radius $`10^{60}l_p`$. Whether or not this will ultimately prove to be the case it clearly behooves us to study and understand the quantum nature of de Sitter Space. Once again, Stephen, together with Gary Gibbons, led the way .

de Sitter Space is another example of a space-time that has an event horizon and therefore an entropy and temperature. Accordingly, we should expect paradoxical issues of black hole quantum mechanics to confuse and harass us in this context. The rest of my discussion will concentrate on the quantum mechanics of pure de Sitter Space. However before doing so I will remind you of some facts about Schwarzschild black holes in AdS . You will see why shortly. The Penrose diagram for an AdS-Schwarzschild black hole is a square bounded on top and bottom by singularities and on the sides by causal boundaries which are at an infinite proper distance. The diagonals of the square are the horizons. Note that the boundary is doubled. As usual, the diagram is divided into 4 regions. Region I is the exterior of the black hole. The Penrose diagram has a boost symmetry which in regions I and III it acts as time translation invariance but with the convention that in III it translates in the negative time–like direction. In regions II and IV it translates in space-like directions.

The AdS black hole has a description in the dual CFT language. It is simply the state of thermal equilibrium for the CFT above the temperature corresponding to the Hawking Page transition . Since the CFT is a conventional quantum system we can be sure that the boundary observers see nothing inconsistent with quantum theory in all possible experiments that they can perform on the black hole. In particular the region I which is in causal contact with the boundary and which is described by the CFT can not experience anything that violates the standard quantum principles. No information can be lost across the horizon. In this respect region I is a closed quantum system.

How does black hole complementarity manifest itself in this system? To see the full implications of exact information conservation in terms of correlation functions is extremely complicated. But Maldacena has given a very useful implication . Consider the correlation function of two local boundary operators at widely separated times $`t`$ and $`t^{}`$. For example the operators could be the gravitational field evaluated at the boundary and described by the energy-momentum tensor of the QFT. The correlation function can be computed by doing a bulk calculation of the graviton propagator in the AdS-Schwarzschild background. The answer is that it exponentially tends to zero as the time separation grows. From the CFT point of view the exponential decrease has a simple explanation. The thermal environment leads to dissipation which generally causes correlations to disappear exponentially. The coefficient in the exponential is a dissipation coefficient. However, Maldacena argues that there is something wrong with this conclusion. His claim is that the correct answer on general grounds is that the correlation decreases exponentially until it is of order $`\mathrm{exp}S`$ where $`S`$ is the finite black hole entropy. Thereafter it stops decreasing. If Maldacena is correct it means that ordinary QFT in the bulk is missing something important and that something is closely connected to conservation of information outside the black hole. The argument that the correlation has a nonvanishing limit was not spelled out in Maldacena’s paper but I will derive it shortly.

Now what does all this have to do with de Sitter Space? To answer this we only need to draw the Penrose diagram for de Sitter Space. In fact it is identical to the AdS-Schwarzschild case! There are very big geometrical differences but the causal structure is the same. In the de Sitter case the vertical boundaries of the Penrose diagram are not spatial infinity but the “north and south poles” of the spherical spatial sections. One of these poles we can identify as “the observer”. The horizontal boundaries are not high-curvature singularities but are instead the infinitely inflated past $`I^{}`$ and the infinitely inflated future $`I^+`$.

The metric for de Sitter Space is

$$ds^2=R^2\left(dt^2\mathrm{cosh}^2(t)d\mathrm{\Omega }_d^2\right)$$
(7.1)
where $`R`$ is the radius of the de Sitter Space and $`d`$ is the dimension of space.

If de Sitter Space exists in a quantum theory of gravity, perhaps the most urgent question is what are the mathematical objects that the theory defines. This is particularly important for string theory. In flat space the answer is S-matrix data. In AdS it is boundary correlators of the gravitational and other bulk fields. In both cases we go to the boundary of the world and define vertex operators whose correlators are the “definables”. The obvious suggestion for de Sitter Space is that we do the same thing. The boundary of de Sitter Space is the union of $`I^{}`$ and $`I^+`$. This suggests that the definables consist of S–matrix–like elements which relate initial states on $`I^{}`$ to final states on $`I^+`$ . I have used the term definables <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Witten has used the terms computables and meta-observable for the same objects. and not observables for the reason that no one can ever observe them. The argument is closely connected to that of Section 3 about why information duplication can’t be detected behind a black hole horizon. In that case there was just not enough time for any observer to collect information from the observers $`A`$ and $`B`$ before reaching the singularity. The similarity of $`I^+`$ to the singularity of a black hole means that two observers at fixed spatial coordinates can not transmit the results of measurements to one another once global time gets too late. Accordingly correlators of fields at the future boundary are unobservable.

In the black hole case it is not just that quantum correlators on the singularity are un-measurable. Just their mere $`mathematical`$ existence would require us to trace over them in defining final states. It is of obvious importance to know if the same is true in de Sitter Space. In other words can similar arguments show that the existence of de Sitter Space boundary correlators will lead some observer to see a violation of the laws of nature? I will argue that the answer is yes. But first we need to formulate an appropriate Complementarity principle.

In the black hole case, a convenient starting point for discussing observations outside the hole is the presentation of the geometry in Schwarzschild coordinates. The distinguishing features of these coordinates are that they are static and that they only cover the region on the observer’s side of the horizon. In de Sitter Space an observer means a time-like trajectory that begins on $`I^{}`$ and ends on $`I^+`$. All such pairs of points are related by symmetry and it is always possible to choose them at the same spatial location. Thus we can always choose the observer to be the $`r=0`$ edge of the Penrose diagram. By analogy with the AdS/Schwarzschild case the diagonals of the square Penrose diagram are horizons and the region on the observers side of the horizon is a triangle. On this region it is possible to choose static coordinates so that the metric takes the form

$$ds^2=R^2\left((1r^2)dt^2(1r^2)^1dr^2r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{d1}^2\right).$$
(7.2)
This geometry has a horizon at $`r=1`$ which now surrounds the observer. As usual, the horizon has an entropy

$$S=area/4G=\pi R^2/G$$
(7.3)
and a temperature. The proper temperature at a point $`r`$ is given by

$$T(r)=\frac{1}{2\pi R\sqrt{1r^2}}$$
(7.4)
As for Rindler or Schwarzschild space, the temperature diverges near the horizon. The observer at $`r=0`$ experiences a more modest temperature.

The statement of Horizon Complementarity is fairly obvious. An observer at $`r=0`$ sees the world as a closed finite system at a non–zero temperature. Once again, closed means that no information is lost and the system obeys the rules of quantum mechanics for such closed systems . What are the implications of the complementarity principle and especially the conservation of information? As in the similar AdS/Schwarzschild case there are implications for the long time behavior of correlators. However before discussing them I want to consider the behavior of field correlators in ordinary quantum field theory in the fixed de Sitter Space background. For this purpose I return to global coordinates.

For simplicity I will use the example of a massive scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with mass $`\mu /R`$. The field equation is easily worked out and the asymptotic behavior of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is seen to be

$$\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{exp}\gamma |t|$$
(7.5)
as $`t\pm \mathrm{}`$. The “diffusion constant” $`\gamma `$ is given by

$$\gamma =d\pm i\sqrt{\mu ^2\frac{d^2}{4}}.$$
(7.6)
The complex value of $`\gamma `$ has a simple meaning in terms of damped oscillations. Depending of the value of $`\mu `$ the oscillations of the field are either under-damped or over-damped. The real part of $`\gamma `$ is always positive.

Now let us return to static coordinates and consider the correlator at $`r=0`$ and large time separation. Time translation invariance in the static patch together with (7.5) requires the correlator to behave like

$$F(t)=\varphi (t)\varphi (t^{})\mathrm{exp}\gamma |tt^{}|.$$
(7.7)
Thus, as in the AdS/Schwarzschild black hole the correlator evaluated by naive quantum field theory tends to zero exponentially with time. As we will see, this is inconsistent with the finite entropy of the static patch.

## 8  Correlations in Finite Entropy Systems

Let us consider an arbitrary system described by Hamiltonian $`H`$ at temperature $`1/\beta `$. I will not assume anything about the total number of states of the system but only that the thermal entropy is finite, $`S=finite`$. An immediate implication is that the spectrum is discrete and that the level spacing is of order

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{exp}S.$$
(8.1)
Let’s label the energy levels $`E_m`$.

Now consider a correlator of the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(0)\mathrm{\Phi }(t)F(t).$$
(8.2)
It is defined by

$`F(t)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z}}`$ $`Tre^{\beta H}\mathrm{\Phi }(0)\mathrm{\Phi }(t)`$ (8.3)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{mn}{}}e^{\beta E_n}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{nm}|^2e^{it(E_mE_n)}.`$ (8.4)
For simplicity I will assume that the diagonal matrix elements of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ vanish. This implies that the time average of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ also vanishes.

I want to determine if $`F`$ tends to zero as $`t\mathrm{}`$. A simple way to do this is to compute the long–time average of $`F^{}F`$.

$$L=\underset{T\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2T}_T^TF^{}(t)F(t).$$
(8.5)
If $`F0`$ then $`L=0`$.

Using (8.4) it is straightforward to compute L;

$$L=\frac{1}{Z^2}\underset{mnrs}{}e^{\beta (E_m+E_r)}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{mn}|^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_{rs}|^2.$$
(8.6)
This is a positive definite quantity. We have therefore proved that the correlation function does not go to zero.

It is not hard to estimate $`L`$ . We use the fact that the level spacing is of order $`\mathrm{exp}S`$ which implies that the matrix elements of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ are of the same order of magnitude. The result is

$$L\mathrm{exp}2S$$
(8.7)
indicating that at asymptotic times the average magnitude of the correlator is of order

$$|F|\mathrm{exp}S$$
(8.8)
which agrees with Maldacena’s guess.

However, this does not mean that the correlator tends smoothly to an exponentially small constant. In fact it does something quite different. It becomes “noisy”. Typically the fluctuations are small, of order $`\mathrm{exp}S`$. But if you wait long enough large fluctuations occur. On sufficiently long time scales the correlation function return to close to its original value. In  the reader can find plots of the results of some numerical studies done by Lisa Dyson and James Lindesay  which show the typical behavior. The large scale fluctuations are the quantum version of Poincare recurrences in classical mechanics. They are just an indication that in a closed finite system, if you wait long enough everything will eventually happen and not just once but in eternal repetition.

What is the significance of this fact and why is it missed by quantum field theory in the de Sitter Space background? First of all it means that any formulation of quantum gravity in de Sitter Space that relies on the existence of well defined asymptotic fields must fail. Among these I include the possibility that string theory might provide a set of scattering amplitudes relating asymptotic states on $`I^\pm `$. Another version of de Sitter Space quantum gravity is the so called dS/CFT correspondence inspired by the AdS/CFT duality. This theory attempts to organize boundary correlators into an Euclidean quantum field theory.

A question which often comes up in any discussion of de Sitter Space is how the static patch observer should think about objects (conventionally called elephants) which enter and and leave the static patch through the diagonal past and future horizons. Such events are described by very rare fluctuations which materialize among the large number of low frequency degrees of freedom very near the horizon. In other words they are the very intermittent large fluctuations that can be see in the numerical simulations of . Such elephants can not be tossed in from $`I^{}`$. To understand why, let’s think about the elephant in its own frame. Because of the thermal fluctuations in de Sitter Space an elephant will eventually be thermalized and turned into black body radiation. Since $`I^{}`$ is an infinite proper time in the past any elephants that were present in the initial conditions have long been thermalized by any finite time. Elephants in de Sitter Space are thermal fluctuations which form by chance and then evaporate.

Finally, why does quantum field theory in the de Sitter Space background miss these fluctuations? The answer is simply that in quantum field theory the entropy of a horizon has an ultraviolet divergence due to modes arbitrarily close to the horizon. These modes provide an infinite number of low frequency oscillators which effectively make the system open. But we know that most of these modes must be eliminated in a proper theory of quantum gravity since the entropy of horizons is finite.

If boundary correlators and S-matrix elements can not exist in de Sitter Space what then are we to base a quantum theory on? Here things are much more obscure than in AdS. A possible answer is to define a theory in the closed static patch. But, as emphasized by Bohr, the clearest use of quantum mechanics is when we can separate the world into a system and a large or classical apparatus (observer). That is just what we can not do in a closed finite thermal system like de Sitter Space. In fact the whole discussion of static patches being defined by infinitely long lived observers in de Sitter Space is internally inconsistent. Like elephants, any real observer is subject to bombardment by the thermal radiation and will become degraded. Exactly how to think about quantum mechanics is far from clear. Perhaps eternal de Sitter Space is just a bad idea and will go away. Perhaps not.

So you can see that Stephen and I have had much to disagree about. These disagreements have been incredibly exciting and certainly provided the high point of my own career. There is no doubt that Stephen’s remarkable question about black holes has left an indelible mark on me but more importantly, on the future of physics.

Happy birthday, Stephen and best wishes for many more.