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# Superconducting 𝐾 strings in high density QCD

## I Introduction

It is generally believed that there are no topological defects within the Standard Model in vacuum. However, it has been realized quite recently ssz ; sonKaon ; fzstrings ; krstrings ; kirk  that some topological defects such as domain walls and strings or vortices may exist within the Standard Model in an unusual environment such as at large baryon density.

In the last few years there has been a renewed interest in high density QCD. Similar to the BCS pairing in conventional superconductivity, the ground state of QCD at high density is unstable due to the formation of a diquark condensate baillov ; colorsc ; colorsc2  (see cscqcdrev  for a review). In this new ground state various symmetries, which were present at zero baryon density, are spontaneously broken. Specifically, we discuss in this paper the three flavor $`N_f=3`$ color flavor locking (CFL) phase. In this case both the exact $`U(1)_B`$and the approximate axial $`U(1)_A`$symmetries of QCD are spontaneously broken, leading to the formation of $`U(1)_A`$and $`U(1)_B`$global strings described in fzstrings . The main global property of the strings, the string tension $`\alpha `$, has been calculated in fzstrings  with the result $`\alpha 2\pi v_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2\mathrm{ln}R`$, where $`f_\pi \mu `$ is the corresponding decay constant in dense QCD set by the chemical potential $`\mu `$; $`v_\pi ^21/3`$ is the velocity of Goldstone modes in this media, and $`R`$ is an upper cutoff determined by the environment of the string (for example the presence of other strings).

If, in addition to the CFL phase, kaon condensation also occurs as argued in schafer ; bedascha ; kaplredd ; bedaque  then the hypercharge symmetry $`U(1)_Y`$is also spontaneously broken. If this is indeed the case, one more type of strings related to the spontaneously broken $`U(1)_Y`$global symmetry is possible as was discussed in fzstrings . The string tension $`\alpha `$ in this case behaves similarly to $`U(1)_A`$and $`U(1)_B`$global strings, and it is determined by the corresponding decay constant $`f_\pi \mu `$. The next step in studying of $`U(1)_Y`$strings was undertaken in krstrings  where it was demonstrated that the internal core structure of the $`U(1)_Y`$string could be very different from the $`U(1)_A`$and $`U(1)_B`$global strings described earlier fzstrings . Namely, it was argued that the relevant symmetry may not be restored in the core: in most known cases, in particular in magnetic vortices in a conventional superconductor, the $`U(1)`$ symmetry is restored inside the core. If this is the case, the $`U(1)_Y`$string becomes superconducting with the core having a $`K^+`$ condensate. The fact that such unusual behavior, in principle, may occur in the theory of superconducting cosmic strings and in quantum field theory in general, has been known for quite a while witten , turner , core . Even more than that, such a behavior has been observed experimentally when the laboratory experiments on $`{}_{}{}^{3}He`$ provided us with strong evidence for defect core transition in the interior of vortices which appear in the superfluid $`{}_{}{}^{3}HeB`$ phase (see He  for a review). Still, such a behavior of the vortex core is considered as an exception rather than a common phenomenon in physics.

Due to the fact that the $`U(1)_Y`$strings might be phenomenologically relevant objects realized in nature (presumably in neutron stars), and due to the property of superconductivity of these strings which might be relevant for the dynamics, we analyze the core structure of $`U(1)_Y`$strings in detail in this letter. More specifically, the goal of this letter is twofold: 1) understand the phenomenon of core transition in the interior of vortices qualitatively, using some analytical methods; 2) make quantitative estimates for phenomenologically relevant parameters in the CFL phase when the transition does occur.

The fact that there should be some kind of phase transition in the string core as a function of the external parameters can be understood from the following simple arguments. If the quark mass difference $`m_dm_u`$ is relatively large, than there would be only a $`U(1)`$ (rather than $`SU(2)_I`$) symmetry broken. The standard topological arguments suggest that in this case, the $`K^0`$ string would be a topologically stable configuration with the restoration of the corresponding $`U(1)`$ symmetry inside the core (which is a typical situation). If $`m_dm_u`$ is exactly zero, such that the isotopical $`SU(2)_I`$ symmetry is exact, then symmetry arguments suggest that both $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ fields condense, and no global stable strings are possible. From these two limiting cases, it is clear that there should be some intermediate region that somehow interpolates (as a function of $`m_dm_u`$) between these two cases. Indeed, as we discuss below in detail, the way how this interpolation works is the following. For relatively large $`m_dm_u`$ nothing unusual happens: the $`K^0`$ string has a typical behavior with $`K^0`$ condensation outside the core, and with restoration of the symmetry inside the core. At some finite magnitude of $`m_dm_u`$, an instability arises through the condensation of $`K^+`$-field inside of the core of the string. As the magnitude of $`m_dm_u`$ decreases, the size of the core becomes larger and larger with nonzero values of both $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ condensates inside the core. Finally, at $`m_d=m_u`$ the core of the string (with nonzero condensates $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$) fills the entire space, in which case the meaning of the string is completely lost, and we are left with the situation when $`SU(2)_I`$ symmetry is exact: no stable strings are possible.

Given this argument, we would expect that there must be some transition region where the $`SU(2)_I`$ symmetry is broken to some degree below which $`K^+`$-condensation will occur inside the core. The point at which this occurs will be estimated in this letter. We will show that $`K^+`$-condensation only occurs above a certain point $`\theta _{K^0}>\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$, where parametrically $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is given by $`\mathrm{sin}(\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}/2)\mathrm{constant}(\mathrm{\Delta }/m_s)\sqrt{(m_dm_u)/m_s}`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }100`$ MeV being the superconducting gap and $`m_s`$ is the strange quark mass.

This paper is organized as follows. In section II we will give a brief overview of the properties of the mixed CFL-$`K^0`$ phase of high density QCD. Section III will discuss the issue of the stability of global $`K^0`$ strings as a function of the parameter $`(m_dm_u)`$. In this section we will calculate $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ where $`K^+`$ condensation occurs inside of the global strings. We end with concluding remarks.

## II The CFL+$`K^0`$ phase of high density QCD

It is well known that the ground state of $`N_f=3`$, $`N_c=3`$ QCD exhibits the Cooper pairing phenomenon as in conventional superconductivity colorsc ; colorsc2 ; CFL ; rapp . The corresponding condensates in the CFL phase take the approximate form:

$`q_{L\alpha }^{ia}q_{L\beta }^{jb}^{}`$ $``$ $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta \gamma }ϵ^{ij}ϵ^{abc}X_c^\gamma ,`$
$`q_{R\alpha }^{ia}q_{R\beta }^{jb}^{}`$ $``$ $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta \gamma }ϵ^{ij}ϵ^{abc}Y_c^\gamma ,`$ (1)
where $`L`$ and $`R`$ represent left and right handed quarks, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ are the flavor indices, i and j are spinor indices, a, b, and c are color indices, and $`X_c^\gamma `$ and $`Y_c^\gamma `$ are complex color-flavor matrices describing the Goldstone bosons. In order to describe the light degrees of freedom in a gauge invariant way, one introduces the color singlet field $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_\gamma ^\beta =XY^{}=\underset{c}{}X_c^\beta Y_\gamma ^c,$$
(2)
such that the leading terms of the effective Lagrangian in terms of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ take the form bedascha

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}={\displaystyle \frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}[_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}v_\pi ^2_i\mathrm{\Sigma }_i\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}]+2A[det(M)\mathrm{Tr}(M^1\mathrm{\Sigma }+h.c.],`$ (3)
$`_0\mathrm{\Sigma }=_0\mathrm{\Sigma }+i\left({\displaystyle \frac{MM^{}}{2p_f}}\right)\mathrm{\Sigma }i\mathrm{\Sigma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{M^{}M}{2p_f}}\right),`$
where the matrix $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{exp}(i\pi ^a\lambda ^a/f_\pi )`$ describes the octet of Goldstone bosons with the $`SU(3)`$ generators $`\lambda ^a`$ normalized as $`\mathrm{Tr}(\lambda ^a\lambda ^b)=2\delta ^{ab}`$. The quark mass matrix in Eq.(3) is given by $`M=\mathrm{diag}(m_u,m_d,m_s)`$. Finally, we neglect the electromagnetic interactions in the expression (3) but keep the isospin violation $`(m_dm_u)`$, which is an appropriate approximation for the physically relevant case when the baryon density is not very high bedaque . The constants $`f_\pi ,v_\pi `$ and $`A`$ have been calculated in the leading perturbative approximation and are given by ss ; bbs :

$$f_\pi ^2=\frac{218\mathrm{ln}2}{18}\frac{\mu ^2}{2\pi ^2},v_\pi ^2=\frac{1}{3},A=\frac{3\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{4\pi ^2}.$$
(4)
Recently, it was realized in bedascha ; bedaque ; schafer ; kaplredd  that the ground state of the theory may be different from the pure CFL phase for a physical value of the strange quark $`(m_sm_u,m_d)`$: condensation of the $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ mesons would lower the free energy of the system by reducing the strange quark content. Specifically, it has been argued that kaon condensation would occur in the CFL phase if $`m_s60`$ MeV. This means that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{𝟏}`$ is no longer the global minimum of the free energy; instead, some rotated value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ describes the ground state in this case. In what follows we consider the realistic case when the isospin symmetry is not exact, $`m_d>m_u`$, such that $`K^0`$ condensation occurs. The appropriate expression for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ describing the $`K^0`$ condensed ground state in this case can be parameterized as:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}& \mathrm{sin}\theta _{K^0}e^{i\varphi }\\ 0& \mathrm{sin}\theta _{K^0}e^{i\varphi }& \mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}\end{array}\right),$$
(5)
where $`\varphi `$ describes the corresponding Goldstone mode and $`\theta _{K^0}`$ describes the strength of the kaon condensation with bedascha :

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}=\frac{m_0^2}{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2},\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}\frac{m_s^2}{2p_F},m_0^2am_u(m_d+m_s),a=\frac{4A}{f_\pi ^2}=\frac{3\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}.$$
(6)
In order for this to be satisfied, we must have $`m_0<\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}`$. If kaon condensation occurs and $`\theta _{K^0}0`$, an additional $`U(1)`$ symmetry is broken. This brings us to the next section where will discuss the consequences of this symmetry breaking.

## III Global $`K`$ strings

We follow our logic outlined in the Introduction and first consider global $`K^0`$ strings when they are topologically stable. This corresponds to the approximation when the splitting between $`K^0`$ and all other degrees of freedom is relatively large such that we can neglect in our effective description all fields except $`K^0`$. After that we analyze situation when the $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ masses are degenerate such that the $`K`$ strings become unstable. Finally we introduce a small explicit isospin violation into our description $`(m_dm_u)`$ in order to analyze the stability/instability issue for this physically relevant case. The important global characteristic of the $`K^0`$ string, the string tension $`\alpha `$, with logarithmic accuracy is determined by the pion decay constant $`\alpha f_\pi ^2`$ as discussed in fzstrings , and it is not sensitive to the internal structure of the core. The subject of this paper is the analysis of the core structure of the $`K^0`$ strings.

### III.1 Topologically stable $`U(1)`$ strings in $`CFL+K^0`$ phase

We start by considering the following effective field theory which describes a single complex $`K^0`$ field. This corresponds to the case of spontaneously broken $`U(1)`$ symmetry

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}(K^0)=|(_0+i\mu _{\mathrm{eff}})K^0|^2v_\pi ^2|_iK^0|^2m_0^2|K^0|^2\lambda |K^0|^4.$$
(7)
We fix all parameters of this effective theory by comparing the amplitude of the $`K^0`$ field to the result obtained from the theory described in the previous section. We neglect all other degrees of freedom at this point (see the discussion at the end of this section). If $`\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}>m_0`$ the kaon field acquires a nonzero vacuum expectation value $`K^0=\eta /\sqrt{2}`$ where

$$\eta ^2=\frac{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2m_0^2}{\lambda }=\frac{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{\lambda }(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}).$$
(8)
For $`\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}>m_{K^0}`$ it is more convenient to represent the effective Lagrangian in the familiar form of a Mexican hat type potential:

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=|_0K^0|^2v_\pi ^2|_iK^0|^2\lambda \left(|K^0|^2\frac{\eta ^2}{2}\right)^2.$$
(9)
This is a text-book Lagrangian with spontaneously broken global $`U(1)`$ symmetry which admits topologically stable global string solutions. As is well-known, global strings are solutions of the time independent equation of motion. The time independent equation of motion for $`K^0`$ is given by:

$`v_\pi ^2^2K^0`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda \left(|K^0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{2}}\right)K^0.`$ (10)
For the $`K^0`$ string solution we will make the following ansatz:

$`K_{\mathrm{string}}^0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\sqrt{2}}}f(r)e^{in\varphi },`$ (11)
where $`n`$ is the winding number of the string (we will take $`n=1`$ in what follows), $`\varphi `$ is the azimuthal angle in cylindrical coordinates, and $`f(r)`$ is a yet to be determined solution of Eq. (10) which obeys the boundary conditions $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(\mathrm{})=1`$. Substituting this ansatz into Eq. (10), we arrive at the following ordinary differential equation:

$$\frac{1}{r}\frac{d}{dr}\left(r\frac{df(r)}{dr}\right)\frac{f(r)}{r^2}=\frac{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})}{v_\pi ^2}(f(r)^21)f(r),$$
(12)
where we replace $`\lambda \eta ^2\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})`$ according to Eq. (8). Although a numerical solution of this equation is possible, the most important part of this section is an analytical analysis and, therefore, we prefer to take a variational approach. We follow turner ; brandpistring  and assume a solution of the form:

$$f(r)=1e^{\beta r},$$
(13)
with the variational parameter $`\beta `$. Minimizing the energy with respect to $`\beta `$, the result is brandpistring :

$$\beta _{\mathrm{min}}^2=\frac{89}{144}\frac{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{v_\pi ^2}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}).$$
(14)
This result was compared with the exact numerical solution of (12) and is a reasonable approximation. From this equation we see that a typical string core radius is parametrically given by $`r_{\mathrm{core}}1/\beta _{\mathrm{min}}v_\pi /\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta _{K^0}/2)`$,and it becomes smaller when $`\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}`$ gets larger. The first important lesson of this simple exercise is the observation that the global string is stable and the $`U(1)`$ symmetry is restored inside of the core, $`f(r=0)=0`$, as expected. The second important lesson is the observation that the core size becomes large when $`\theta _{K^0}0`$.

### III.2 Unstable $`SU(2)_I\times U(1)_YU(1)`$ strings in $`CFL/K^0`$ phase

Our next task is an analysis of the $`K`$ string when isospin is an exact symmetry ( i.e. $`m_u=m_d`$), such that the symmetry pattern breaking is $`SU(2)_I\times U(1)_YU(1)`$. In this case, based on topological arguments, we know that the $`K`$ string is unstable. We want to analyze the stability issue in detail to understand this phenomenon on the quantitative level.

To simplify things we start with the effective Lagrangian which only includes a single complex kaon doublet $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(K^+,K^0)`$. As discussed in bedascha , this is an appropriate approach to discuss kaon condensation in the CFL phase if all other degrees of freedom are much heavier. As before (see Eqs. (7,9)) we can represent the effective Lagrangian in the form of a Mexican hat type potential,

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}(\mathrm{\Phi })=|_o\mathrm{\Phi }|^2v_\pi ^2|_i\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\lambda \left(|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\frac{\eta ^2}{2}\right)^2.$$
(15)
All parameters here are defined in the same way as in (6,8,9) and the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ field acquires a non-zero vacuum expectation value which we assume takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=(0,\frac{\eta }{\sqrt{2}}).$$
(16)
The time independent equations of motion for $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ are given by:

$`v_\pi ^2^2K^+`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda (|K^+|^2+|K^0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{2}})K^+,`$ (17)
$`v_\pi ^2^2K^0`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda (|K^+|^2+|K^0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{2}})K^0.`$ (18)
For the $`K^0`$ string solution we will make the following ansatz:

$`K_{\mathrm{string}}^0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\sqrt{2}}}f(r)e^{in\varphi },K^+=0,`$ (19)
such that $`f(r)`$ is the solution of Eq. (12) with the boundary conditions $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(\mathrm{})=1`$. Without calculations, from topological arguments we know that although the solution (19) satisfies the equation of motion (17, 18), it is an unstable solution. The source of instability can be seen as follows. We follow the standard procedure and expand the energy in the $`K^0`$ string background to quadratic order in $`K^+`$ and $`K^0`$ modes:

$$E(K^0=K_{\mathrm{string}}^0+\delta K^0,K^+)E_{\mathrm{string}}+\delta E.$$
(20)
We know that the $`K^0`$ string itself is a stable configuration, therefore, the $`\delta K^0`$ modes cannot have negative eigenvalues which would correspond to the instability. Therefore, we concentrate only on the “dangerous” modes related to $`K^+`$ fluctuations, in which case $`\delta E`$ is given by:

$$\delta E=d^2r\left(v_\pi ^2|K^+|^2+\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(f(r)^21)|K^+|^2\right),$$
(21)
where $`f(r)`$ is the solution of Eq. (12) with the boundary conditions $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(\mathrm{})=1`$. If $`\delta E`$ is a positive quantity, then the $`K^0`$ string is absolutely stable and $`K^+`$ modes do not destroy the string configuration. If $`\delta E`$ is negative, this means that this is a direction in configurational space where the $`K^0`$ string decays. Following vachaspati , the $`K^+`$ field can be expanded in Fourier modes:

$$K^+=\frac{\eta }{\sqrt{2}}\underset{m}{}g_m(r)e^{im\varphi }.$$
(22)
Now we have the $`K^+`$ field in terms of the dimensionless Fourier components $`g_m(r)`$. Setting $`m=0`$ in the above expansion in order to analyze the lowest energy $`\delta E_0`$ contribution in (21), we arrive at:

$$\delta E_0=\frac{\eta ^2}{2}d^2r\left(v_\pi ^2(\frac{g_0(r)}{r})^2+\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(f^2(r)1)g_0^2(r)\right).$$
(23)
In order to have dimensionless coordinates and fields, we will perform the following change of variables, $`\stackrel{~}{r}=\gamma r`$, where $`\gamma \mu _{\mathrm{eff}}/v_\pi `$. This change of variables sets the string width in $`f(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ to be $`\stackrel{~}{r}_{\mathrm{core}}1`$. Equation (23) now reads:

$`\delta E={\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2v_\pi ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{~}{r}g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})\widehat{O}g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})},\widehat{O}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{r}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\stackrel{~}{r}}}(\stackrel{~}{r}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\stackrel{~}{r}}})+\lambda ^{}(f^2(\stackrel{~}{r})1),\lambda ^{}=(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0}).`$ (24)
The problem is reduced to the analysis of the two-dimensional Schrodinger equation for a particle in an attractive potential $`V(r)=(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(1f^2(\stackrel{~}{r}))`$ with $`f(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ being the solution of Eq. (12) with the boundary conditions $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(\mathrm{})=1`$. Such a potential is negative everywhere and approaches zero at infinity. As is known from standard quantum mechanics Landau , for an arbitrarily weak potential well there is always a negative energy bound state in one and two spatial dimensions; in three dimensions a negative energy bound state may not exist. For the two dimensional case (the relevant problem in our case) the lowest energy level of the bound state is always negative and exponentially small for small $`\lambda ^{}`$. One should note that our specific potential $`V(r)=(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(1f^2(\stackrel{~}{r}))`$ which enters (24) is not literally the potential well, however one can always construct the potential well $`V^{}`$ such that its absolute value is smaller than $`|V(r)|`$ everywhere, i.e. $`|V^{}|<|V(r)|`$ for all $`r`$. For the potential well $`V^{}`$ we know that the negative energy bound state always exists; when $`V^{}`$ is replaced by $`V`$ it makes the energy eigenvalue even lower. Therefore, the operator (24) has always a negative mode irrespective of the local properties of function $`f(r)`$. As a consequence, the string (11) is an unstable solution of the classical equation of motion, the result we expected from the beginning from topological arguments. The instability manifests itself in the form of a negative energy bound state solution of the corresponding two-dimensional Schrodinger equation (24) irrespective of the magnitudes of the parameters.

### III.3 $`K^+`$-condensation in the core of $`K^0`$ strings in $`CFL+K^0`$ phase

The issue of the stability or instability of $`K^0`$ strings reviewed in the previous section is highly sensitive to the degree of symmetry present in the Lagrangian describing the $`K^0/K^+`$ system. If the $`SU(2)_I`$ symmetry is strongly broken, the $`K^0`$ strings will be absolutely (topologically) stable as discussed in subsection A. If the $`SU(2)_I`$ symmetry remains unbroken, the $`K^0`$ strings will always be unstable as discussed in subsection B. Now we introduce an explicit symmetry breaking parameter $`\delta m^2`$ into (15) fixed by the original Lagrangian (3) such that our simplified version of the system (only $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(K^+,K^0)`$ fields are taken into account) has the form <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1In addition to the mass splitting proportional to the difference $`m_dm_u`$, there is also a splitting due to electromagnetic effects, $`\delta m_{EM}^2\alpha _{EM}\mathrm{\Delta }^2/(8\pi )`$. As mentioned in section 2, the electromagnetic contribution becomes important at very large chemical potential bedaque . However, this correction can be neglected for the present work since we are not considering large chemical potentials and it only amounts to a 10% correction, $`\delta m_{EM}/\delta m0.1`$. In order to remain self-consistent, we neglect all electromagnetic contributions throughout this paper.

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}(\mathrm{\Phi })=|_0\mathrm{\Phi }|^2v_\pi ^2|_i\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\lambda \left(|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\frac{\eta ^2}{2}\right)^2\delta m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\tau _3\mathrm{\Phi },\delta m^2\frac{a}{2}m_s(m_dm_u).$$
(25)
We anticipate that, as the symmetry breaking parameter $`\delta m^2`$ in Eq. (25) becomes sufficiently large, a stable $`K^0`$ string with restored $`U(1)`$ symmetry in the core, $`f(r=0)=0`$, must be reproduced, as discussed in subsection A. When the symmetry breaking parameter $`\delta m^2`$ in becomes sufficiently small, one should eventually reach a point where $`K^+`$ instability occurs, and it is energetically favorable for a $`K^+`$ condensate to be formed inside the core of the string.

In this subsection we calculate the critical value of $`\theta _{K^0}`$ when the $`K^+`$ instability occurs, and a $`K^+`$ condensate does form in the string core. In addition to this, we will obtain an estimate of the absolute value of the $`K^+`$-condensate at the center of the core of the string $`(r=0)`$. In order to determine if $`K^+`$-condensation occurs within the core of $`K^0`$-strings, we would like (ideally) to solve the set of coupled differential equations

$`v_\pi ^2^2K^+`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda (|K^+|^2+|K^0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{2}})K^++\delta m^2K^+,`$ (26)
$`v_\pi ^2^2K^0`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda (|K^+|^2+|K^0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{2}})K^0\delta m^2K^0.`$ (27)
with the appropriate boundary conditions. This is not a trivial task, and we will follow a different approach. The main point is: we are mainly interested in the critical values of the parameters when $`K^+`$-condensation starts to occur inside the core. In this case we can treat $`K^+`$ field as a small perturbation in the $`K^0`$ background field. Such an approach is not appropriate when $`K^+`$-condensation is already well-developed in which case both fields $`K^0`$ and $`K^+`$ must be treated on the same footing. However, this approach is quite appropriate when one studies the transition from the phase where $`K^+`$ background field is zero to the region where it becomes nonzero.

To begin, we will expand the energy in the constant $`K^0`$ string background to quadratic order in $`K^+`$:

$$EE_{\mathrm{string}}+\delta E,$$
(28)
where $`\delta E`$ is given by:

$$\delta E=d^2r\left(v_\pi ^2|K^+|^2+\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(f^2(r)1)|K^+|^2+\frac{a}{2}m_s(m_dm_u)|K^+|^2\right).$$
(29)
If $`\delta E`$ is a positive quantity, then the $`K^0`$ string is stable and $`K^+`$ condensation does not occur inside the core of the string. If $`\delta E`$ is negative, this means that it is energetically favorable for $`K^+`$ condensation to occur inside the core of the string. We follow the same procedure as before keeping the most “dangerous” mode to arrive at:

$$\delta E=\frac{\eta ^2}{2}d^2r\left(v_\pi ^2(\frac{g_0(r)}{r})^2+\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(f^2(r)1)g_0^2(r)+\frac{a}{2}m_s(m_dm_u)g_0^2(r)\right).$$
(30)
In dimensionless variables this expression can be represented as follows

$`\delta E={\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2v_\pi ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^2\stackrel{~}{r}g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})[\widehat{O}+ϵ]g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})},\widehat{O}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{r}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\stackrel{~}{r}}}(\stackrel{~}{r}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\stackrel{~}{r}}})+(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})(f^2(\stackrel{~}{r})1),ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_s(m_dm_u)}{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2}}.`$ (31)
The only difference between this expression and Eq. (24) describing the instability of the string in case of exact isospin symmetry, is the presence of the term $`ϵ`$ in Eq. (31). The problem of determining when $`K^+`$-condensation occurs is now reduced to solving the Schrodinger type equation $`\widehat{O}g_0=\widehat{E}g_0`$. From the previous discussions we know that $`\widehat{E}`$ for the ground state is always negative. However, to insure the instability with respect to $`K^+`$-condensation one should require a relatively large negative value i.e. $`\widehat{E}+ϵ<0`$. It can not happen for arbitrary weak coupling constant $`(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})`$ when $`\theta _{K^0}`$ is small. However, it does happen for relatively large $`\theta _{K^0}`$. To calculate the minimal critical value $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ when $`K^+`$-condensation develops, one should calculate the eigenvalue $`\widehat{E}`$ as a function of parameter $`\theta _{K^0}`$ and solve the equation $`\widehat{E}(\theta _{\mathrm{crit}})+ϵ=0`$. As we mentioned earlier, for very small coupling constant $`\lambda ^{}=(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{K^0})0`$ the bound state energy is negative and exponentially small, $`\widehat{E}e^{\frac{1}{\lambda ^{}}}`$. However, for realistic parameters of $`\mu ,\mathrm{\Delta },m_s,m_u,m_d`$ the parameter $`ϵ`$ is not very small and we expect that in the region relevant for us the bound state energy $`\widehat{E}`$ is the same order of magnitude as the potential energy $`\lambda ^{}`$. In this case we estimate $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ from the following conditions $`\widehat{E}(\theta _{\mathrm{crit}})\lambda ^{}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{crit}})ϵ`$ with the result which can be parametrically represented as

$$\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}}{2}\mathrm{const}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\pi f_\pi }\sqrt{\frac{m_s(m_dm_u)}{\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2}}\mathrm{const}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{m_s}\sqrt{\frac{(m_dm_u)}{m_s}},$$
(32)
where we have neglected all numerical factors in order to explicitly demonstrate the dependence of $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ on the external parameters. The limit of exact isospin symmetry, which corresponds to $`m_dm_u`$ when the string becomes unstable, can be easily understood from the expression (32). Indeed, in the case that the critical parameter $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}0`$ becomes an arbitrarily small number the $`K^+`$ instability would develop for arbitrarily small $`\theta _{K^0}>0`$. The region occupied by the $`K^+`$ condensate at this point is determined by the behavior of lowest energy mode $`g_0`$ at large distances, $`g_0(\stackrel{~}{r}\mathrm{})\mathrm{exp}(\widehat{E}\stackrel{~}{r})`$ such that a typical $`\stackrel{~}{r}(m_dm_u)^1\mathrm{}`$ as expected.

In order to make a quantitative, rather than qualitative estimation of the critical value $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ when $`\widehat{E}(\theta _{\mathrm{crit}})+ϵ=0`$, we discretize the operator $`\widehat{O}`$ and solve the problem numerically, with the boundary conditions $`g_0(\mathrm{})=0`$ and $`g_0(0)=\mathrm{constant}`$. Varying the condensation angle $`\theta _{K^0}`$, we see that a negative eigenvalue $`\widehat{E}+ϵ<0`$ appears when $`\theta _{K^0}>\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}53^o`$. For our parameters we use $`m_u=5`$ MeV, $`m_d=8`$ MeV, $`m_s=150`$ MeV, $`\mu =500`$ MeV, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV which gives $`ϵam_s(m_dm_u)/(2\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}^2)0.1`$. In Fig. 1 we show a plot of $`g_0(\stackrel{~}{r}=0)`$ as a function of $`\theta _{K^0}`$. One can see that the transition from no $`K^+`$-condensation is reached at about $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}53^o`$. In Fig. 2 we plot the functions $`f(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ (related to the $`K^0`$ string by (11)) and $`g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ (related to the $`K^+`$ condensate by (22)) as a function of the rescaled coordinate $`\stackrel{~}{r}`$. One can see that the $`K^+`$ condensate falls off over the same distance as the $`K^0`$ string reaches its vacuum expectation value. We should note that the solution to the above Schrodinger equation does not give us the overall normalization of the function $`g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})`$. We have estimated the overall normalization of $`g_0(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ by minimizing the total energy of the system using a variational approach.

To conclude the section, we want to make the following comment. We have demonstrated above that $`K^+`$ condensation might occur in the core of $`K^0`$ strings if some conditions are met. We also explained how this phenomenon depends on the external parameters. We also derived the equation $`\widehat{E}(\theta _{\mathrm{crit}})+ϵ=0`$, the solution of which allows us to calculate the critical parameters when $`K^+`$ condensation starts to occur. All these discussions were quite general because they were based on the symmetry and topological properties of the system rather than on a specific form of the interaction. However, the numerical estimates presented above was derived by using a concrete form of the effective Lagrangian (25) describing the lightest $`K^+,K^0`$ degrees of freedom. The question arises how sensitive our numerical results are when the form of the potential changes. To formulate the question in a more specific way, let us remind the reader that, in general, the effective Lagrangian describing the Goldstone modes can be represented in many different forms as long as symmetry properties are satisfied. The results for the amplitudes describing the interaction of the Goldstone particles do not depend on a specific representation used. A well-known example of this fact is the possibility of describing the $`\pi `$ meson properties by using a linear $`\sigma `$ model as well as a non-linear $`\sigma `$ model (and many other models which satisfy the relevant symmetry breaking pattern ). The results remain the same if one discusses the local properties of the theory (such as $`\pi \pi `$ scattering length) when the $`\pi `$ meson is considered as a small quantum fluctuation rather than a large background field . It may not be the case when $`\pi `$ represents a large background field in which case some numerical difference between different representations of the effective Lagrangian may occur. Roughly speaking, the source of the difference is an inequality $`\pi (x)\mathrm{sin}\pi (x)`$ for large global background fields such as a string solution which is the subject of this letter.

Having this in mind, we repeated similar numerical estimates discussed above for the original effective Lagrangian (3) where Goldstone fields represented in the exponential form rather than in form determined by the effective Lagrangian (25). As before, in these estimates we considered exclusively $`K^+`$ modes which are the energetically lowest modes and which can potentially destabilize the system presented by the background field of the $`K^0`$ string. This approximation is justified as long as the $`K^+`$ field is the lowest massive excitation in the system when a $`K^0`$ condensate develops. Also, the typical size of the core must be larger than the inverse gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }^1`$, i.e. $`r_{\mathrm{core}}v_\pi /\mu _{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{\Delta }^1`$ in order to maintain color superconductivity inside the core. We assume this is the case. Our numerical results suggest, that the critical parameters are not very sensitive to the specifics of the Lagrangian such that $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is close to our previous numerical estimates. Therefore, most likely, the real world (with our parameters $`\theta _{K^0}70^o`$ ) case corresponds to $`\theta _{K^0}>\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ and thus, a $`K^+`$ condensate does develop inside the core of the $`K^0`$ strings.

## Conclusion

We have demonstrated that, within the CFL+$`K^0`$ phase of QCD, $`K^+`$ condensation does occur within the core of global $`K^0`$ strings if some conditions are met: $`\theta _{K^0}>\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$. We presented two estimates for $`\theta _{\mathrm{crit}}`$: an analytical one which gives a qualitative explanation of the phenomenon, as well as numerical one for the physically relevant parameters realized in nature. Our results suggest that if a CFL+$`K^0`$ phase is realized in nature, it is likely that $`K^0`$ strings form together with $`K^+`$ condensation inside the core, in which case the strings become superconducting strings (see witten  for a more complete description of superconducting strings and their properties).

It is known that the CFL+$`K^0`$ phase may be realized in nature in neutron stars interiors and in the violent events associated with collapse of massive stars or collisions of neutron stars, so $`K^0`$ superconducting strings with $`K^+`$ condensation inside the core could be very important for such astrophysical phenomena. It has been recently argued arz  that such conditions may also occur in early universe during the QCD phase transition. In this case it might be important for cosmological problems, such as the dark matter problem, as well.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Michael Forbes for help with some of the preliminary numerical work and for useful comments on this paper. We would also like to thank Sanjay Reddy for useful communications. This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.


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# The residue formula and the Tolman-Weitsman theorem

## 1 Introduction

Let $`M`$ be a symplectic manifold of dimension $`2n`$ equipped with the Hamiltonian action of a torus $`T`$. The $`T`$-equivariant cohomology of $`M`$ is $`H_T^{}(M)`$. This is a module over $`H_T^{}(\mathrm{pt}).`$ The moment map for the torus action is denoted by $`\mu :M𝐭^{}`$. We denote by $`M_c`$ the reduced space at a value $`c`$ of the moment map:

$$M_c\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\mu ^1(c)/T.$$

The Kirwan map is the map

$$\kappa :H_T^{}(M)H^{}(M_c)$$

induced by the restriction map

$$H_T^{}(M)H_T^{}\left(\mu ^1(c)\right).$$

Provided $`c`$ is a regular value of $`\mu `$ (which we shall assume) we have that $`H_T^{}\left(\mu ^1(c)\right)H^{}(M_c)`$.111In this paper all cohomology groups are with complex coefficients.

Kirwan proved in  that the Kirwan map is surjective. Thus to find the cohomology ring of $`M_c`$ it suffices to find the kernel $`K`$ of $`\kappa `$:

$$H^{}(M_c)H_T^{}(M)/K.$$

We denote by $``$ the set of components of the fixed point set of $`T`$. We define a distinguished subset $`_+`$ of $``$: in the case when $`T=S^1`$ it is simply

$$_+=\{F|\mu (F)>c\}.$$

In the case $`T=S^1`$ we also introduce

$$_{}=\{F|\mu (F)<c\}.$$

Because $`c`$ is a regular value of $`\mu `$, there are no $`F`$ with $`\mu (F)=0`$.

In  the following is proved:

###### Theorem 1.1

Let $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$. Then

$$\kappa (\eta )[M_c]=\underset{F_+}{}\mathrm{Res}\left(\frac{\eta }{e_F}\right)[F].$$

Here $`e_F`$ is the equivariant Euler class of the normal bundle to $`F`$, and $`\mathrm{Res}`$ is an iterated residue.222For more details see Section 8 of : see also  and . In the case when $`T`$ has rank one it is simply $`\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}`$ where the variable $`X`$ is the generator of $`H_T^{}(\mathrm{pt})`$.

Since $`\kappa `$ is a ring homomorphism, we have from Theorem 1.1

###### Corollary 1.2

$$\kappa (\eta )\kappa (\zeta )[M_c]=\underset{F_+}{}\mathrm{Res}\left(\frac{\eta \zeta }{e_F}\right)[F].$$
(1.1)
Assuming $`c`$ is a regular value of $`\mu `$, $`M_c`$ has at worst orbifold singularities and so satisfies Poincaré duality. Thus according to Theorem 1.1, an element $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$ is in $`K`$ if and only if

$$\underset{F_+}{}\mathrm{Res}\left(\frac{\eta \zeta }{e_F}\right)[F]=0$$

for all $`\zeta H_T^{}(M)`$.

In  Tolman and Weitsman give an alternative characterization of the kernel $`K`$:

###### Theorem 1.3

The kernel $`K`$ of the Kirwan map is the sum

$$K=\underset{\xi 𝐭}{}K_\xi $$

where $`K_\xi `$ is the set of cohomology classes vanishing on all components $`F`$ of the fixed point set for which $`(\mu (F)c,\xi )>0`$.

In the special case $`T=S^1`$ the Tolman-Weitsman theorem reads as follows:

###### Corollary 1.4

Let $`T=S^1`$. Then the kernel $`K`$ of the Kirwan map is the sum

$$K=K_+K_{}$$

where

$$K_\pm =\{\eta H_T^{}(M)|\eta [F]=0\text{ for all}F\text{for which}\pm \mu (F)>c\}.$$

Tolman and Weitsman prove their theorem by establishing directly that $`_\xi K_\xi `$ is the kernel of the Kirwan map $`\kappa `$, and that all elements of this kernel take this form.

In this paper we give a direct proof in the case $`T=S^1`$ that the classes satisfying the condition that the residue on the right hand side of (1.1) is zero are contained in the Tolman-Weitsman kernel $`_\xi K_\xi `$. The reverse inclusion is clear from the definition of the residue: if a class $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$ satisfies $`\eta |_F=0`$ for $`F_+`$, then clearly

$$\underset{F_+}{}\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\left(\frac{\eta \zeta }{e_F}\right)[F]=0$$
(1.2)
for all $`\zeta H_T^{}(M)`$. Similarly if $`\eta `$ satisfies $`\eta |_F=0`$ for all $`F_{}`$ then the residue in (1.2) is equal to zero. Thus we have shown that the description of the kernel of the Kirwan map given by the residue theorem is equivalent to the description given by Tolman and Weitsman. We expect that our methods could be enlarged to treat the case of general torus actions.

## 2 Results from Morse theory

We begin by stating a number of fundamental results related to equivariant Morse theory and the Thom-Gysin map. These results are found in the work of Atiyah and Bott  and Kirwan : the formulation we present appears in the work of Goldin . We introduce a partial ordering $`<`$ on the components of the critical set of a Morse function $`f`$: denote these components by $`F_i`$. The ordering is given by the value of the Morse function $`f`$: in other words $`i>j`$ if and only if $`f(F_i)>f(F_j)`$.

In our situation the most important Morse function $`f`$ is $`\mu _\xi `$, where $`\mu `$ is the moment map and $`\mu _\xi =(\mu ,\xi )`$ is the component of the moment map in the direction $`\xi `$ for nonzero values $`\xi 𝐭`$. This is an equivariantly perfect Morse function (as proved by Atiyah-Bott and Kirwan ).

We denote by $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)`$ the Morse index, in other words the number of negative eigenvalues of the Hessian of $`f`$ on the critical set $`F`$.

In this paper we assume for simplicity that all components $`F`$ of the critical set of $`f`$ are isolated (so $`f`$ is a Morse function rather than a Morse-Bott function).

###### Theorem 2.1

Suppose $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$ restricts to $`0`$ on all $`F_i`$ for which $`i<j`$. Then $`\eta |_{F_j}`$ is some multiple of $`e\left(\nu _f^{}F_j\right)`$, the equivariant Euler class of the negative normal bundle of $`F_j`$.

###### Remark 2.2

An important consequence of Theorem 2.1 is that if $`\eta `$ restricts to $`0`$ on all $`F_i`$ with $`i<j`$ then either $`\eta |_{F_j}=0`$ or the degree of $`\eta `$ is greater than or equal to the degree of $`e(\nu ^{}(F_j))`$.

###### Definition 2.3

We say that an equivariant cohomology class $`\zeta H_{S^1}^{}(M)`$ is supported on a subset $`𝒮`$ of the critical set of $`f`$ if $`\zeta |_G=0`$ for all $`G`$ in the critical set for which $`G𝒮`$.

###### Definition 2.4

Let $`F`$ be a component of the critical set of $`f`$. The equivariant stable manifold of $`F`$ under $`f`$ is the set of points $`xM`$ for which there is a trajectory which converges to $`F`$ under the flow of $`\mathrm{grad}(f)`$.

###### Definition 2.5

Let $`F`$ be as in Definition 2.4. The equivariant extended stable manifold of $`F`$ under $`f`$ is the set of points $`xM`$ which have a sequence of trajectories of the flow of $`\mathrm{grad}(f)`$ (passing through a number of components $`F_1,\mathrm{},F_l`$ of the critical set of $`f`$) starting at $`x`$ and converging finally to $`F`$.

###### Definition 2.6

Let $`F`$ be as in Definition 2.4. The unstable manifold and equivariant extended unstable manifold of $`F`$ are specified as in Definitions 2.4 and 2.5 but using the gradient flow of $`\mathrm{grad}(f)`$ rather than that of $`\mathrm{grad}(f)`$.

###### Theorem 2.7

Suppose $`F`$ is a connected component of the critical set of a Morse function $`f`$. Then there is a class $`\alpha ^{}(F)`$ with the following properties:

1. $`\alpha ^{}(F)|_G=0`$ if $`G`$ is a component of the critical set of $`f`$ which is not in the equivariant extended stable manifold of $`F`$
2. $`\alpha ^{}(F)|_F=e(\nu _f^{}F)`$ where $`e(\nu _f^{}F)`$ is the equivariant Euler class of the negative normal bundle (defined by $`f`$) of $`F`$. Thus the degree of $`\alpha ^{}(F)`$ is Ind(F).

In the same way there is a class $`\alpha ^+(F)`$ such that

1. $`\alpha ^+(F)|_G=0`$ if $`G`$ is a component of the critical set of $`f`$ which is not in the equivariant extended unstable manifold of $`F`$
2. $`\alpha ^+(F)|_F=e(\nu _f^+F)`$ where $`e(\nu _f^+F)`$ is the equivariant Euler class of the positive normal bundle (defined by $`f`$) of $`F`$

The degree of $`\alpha ^+(F)`$ is $`2n\mathrm{Ind}(F).`$

## 3 The $`S^1`$ case

We now assume that the torus $`T`$ is the circle group $`S^1`$, and also that the fixed points of the action of $`T`$ are isolated. Suppose we are forming the reduced space at a regular value $`c`$ of the moment map. The purpose of this paper is to give a direct proof of the following result.

###### Theorem 3.1

Let $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$ satisfy the hypothesis that

$$\underset{F_+}{}\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\left(\frac{\eta \zeta }{e_F}\right)[F]=0$$

for all $`\zeta H_T^{}(M)`$. Then $`\eta K_+K_{}`$.

Proof of Theorem 3.1: Let $`\eta H_{S^1}^d(M)`$, in other words $`d`$ is the degree of $`\eta `$.

###### Lemma 3.2

We can write

$$\eta =\eta _++\eta _{}$$
(3.3)
where

$$\eta _{}=\underset{F_{},\mathrm{Ind}(F)d}{}c_FX^{n_F}\alpha ^{}(F)$$
(3.4)
while

$$\eta _+=\underset{F_+,\mathrm{Ind}(F)d}{}c_FX^{n_F}\alpha ^{}(F)$$
(3.5)
and

$$2n_F=d\mathrm{Ind}(F).$$
(3.6)
Here, the $`c_F𝐂`$ are constants.

Proof: This is straightforward. We simply have to identify the coefficients of the restrictions to components $`F`$ of the fixed point set. We find that we can adjust the coefficients in such a way that both sides have the same restriction to all components of the fixed point set, which by Kirwan’s injectivity theorem  (as well as Remark 2.2) guarantees that the two are equal in equivariant cohomology.

We define the constants $`c_F`$ by induction using $`\alpha ^{}(F)|_F=e(\nu _f^{}F)`$. Adding $`c_FX^{n_F}\alpha ^{}(F)`$ will alter only the values of the restrictions to those elements $`G`$ for which $`\mu (G)\mu (F)`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 3.3

We have that

$$\eta _+K_{}.$$

Proof: For $`F_+`$, $`\alpha ^{}(F)`$ is supported on $`_+`$ (since if $`G`$ is a component of $``$ for which $`\alpha (F)|_G0`$, $`G`$ is in the equivariant extended stable manifold of $`F`$ so $`\mu (G)\mu (F)`$). $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Lemma 3.4

We may add terms

$$b_FX^{n_F}\alpha ^{}(F)$$

for $`F_+`$, in such a way that

$$\eta _{}\underset{F_+}{}b_FX^{n_F}\alpha ^{}(F)$$

restricts to zero on $`G`$ for all $`G_+`$ for which $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)d`$. Here, $`n_F`$ is as in (3.6).

Proof: We choose the coefficients $`b_F`$ by induction on the value of $`\mu (F)`$), first choosing $`b_F`$ for the lowest value of $`\mu (F)`$ for $`F_+`$. This will alter only the value of the restrictions to those $`G`$ for which $`\mu (G)\mu (F)`$. This process can be used to make the values of $`\eta _{}(G)=0`$ for all $`G`$ for which $`\mu (G)>c`$ and $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)d`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

As described in the proof of Lemma 3.3, for $`G_+`$, $`\alpha ^{}(G)`$ is supported on $`_+`$. So we have the following corollary:

###### Corollary 3.5

Suppose $`G_+`$. Then we see that $`\alpha _{}(G)K_{}`$ and thus

$$\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\underset{G_{}}{}\frac{\alpha _{}(G)|_G\zeta |_G}{e_G}=0$$
(3.7)
for any class $`\zeta H_T^{}(M)`$. Therefore also

$$\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\underset{G_+}{}\frac{\alpha _{}(G)|_G\zeta |_G}{e_G}=0,$$
(3.8)
since the sum of residues for $`F_{}`$ is equal to minus the sum of residues for $`F_+`$ for any element of $`H_T^{}(M)`$. Because

$$\underset{G_+_{}}{}\frac{\alpha _{}(G)|_G\zeta |_G}{e_G}$$

is a smooth function of $`X`$ (by the localization theorem in equivariant cohomology ,), it does not have any residue at $`X=0`$, so (3.7) implies (3.8).

###### Lemma 3.6

Write

$$\eta _{}|_F=a_FX^{d/2}$$

for some $`a_F𝐂`$. If $`\eta _{}|_F=0`$ for all $`F_+`$ for which $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d`$, then also $`\eta _{}|_F=0`$ for all $`F_+`$. In other words $`\eta _{}K_+.`$

###### Remark 3.7

The hypothesis of Lemma 3.6 can be achieved because of Lemma 3.4.

Proof of Lemma 3.6:

By Corollary 3.5, we may assume

$$\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\underset{G_+}{}\frac{\eta _{}|_G\zeta |_G}{e_G}=0$$

for all classes $`\zeta `$. We put a partial order on the elements $`F_+`$ according to the values of $`\mu (F)`$, as described above. We choose

$$\zeta =X^{m_F}\alpha _+(F)$$
(3.9)
for

$$2n\mathrm{Ind}(F)+d2n2$$
(3.10)
and an appropriate nonnegative integer $`m_F`$ (in other words

$$\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2:$$
(3.11)
this hypothesis is needed in order to obtain terms with nonzero residue in the sum). We choose $`m_F`$ so that $`\mathrm{deg}(\zeta \eta )=2n2,`$ in other words

$$2m_F+2+d=\mathrm{Ind}(F).$$
(3.12)
We allow $`\zeta `$ to be determined by (3.9) and (3.12) for all $`F`$ for which $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2.`$ Notice that because the fixed point set consists of isolated points, Kirwan’s injectivity theorem implies that all $`\eta H_T^{}(M)`$ have even degree. Hence there are no components $`F`$ for which $`\eta |_F0`$ and $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)=d+1`$ (using (3.12)).

For all $`G_+`$ we define $`b_G(F)𝐂`$ by

$$\alpha _+(F)|_G=b_G(F)X^{n(\mathrm{Ind}(F)/2)}.$$
(3.13)
Note that $`b_G(G)0`$ since $`\alpha _+(G)|_G=e_G^+(G)0`$. We also write

$$e_F|_F=ϵ_FX^n$$
(3.14)
for some nonzero $`ϵ_F𝐂`$. We define $`a_G𝐂`$ by

$$\eta _{}|_G=a_GX^{d/2}.$$
(3.15)
The equation

$$\mathrm{Res}_{X=0}\underset{G_+}{}\frac{\eta _{}|_G\zeta |_G}{e_G}=0$$

then becomes (combining (3.9), (3.13), (3.14) and (3.15))

$$\underset{G_+}{}\frac{a_Gb_G(F)}{ϵ_G}=0.$$
(3.16)
For the value of $`F`$ for which $`\mu (F)`$ is maximal, the equation (3.16) is simply

$$\underset{G_+}{}\frac{a_G}{ϵ_G}=0,$$
(3.17)
since in this case the class $`\alpha _+(F)`$ has degree zero and is represented in the Cartan model by a constant in $`𝐂`$, so the $`b_G(F)`$ all take the same value.

Notice that $`b_G(F)=0`$ if $`G`$ is not in the equivariant extended unstable manifold of $`\mu `$ for $`F`$ (for example, if $`\mu (G)>\mu (F)`$ then $`b_G(F)=0`$). Thus $`b_G(F)0`$ only for $`G`$ in the equivariant extended unstable manifold of $`F`$. By Lemma 3.4, we can also assume that $`a_G=0`$ whenever $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)d`$. Also if $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)=d+1`$ then $`a_G=0`$ since $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)`$ must be odd so $`\eta |_G=0`$ (by 3.12). Thus the residue formula implies that (3.16) holds for all $`F`$ for which $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2`$. By (3.10) and (3.11), we see that (3.16) becomes the equation

$$\underset{G_+,\mathrm{Ind}(G)d+2}{}\frac{a_Gb_G(F)}{ϵ_G}=0$$
(3.18)
which is valid whenever $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2`$.

To deduce from this that $`a_G=0`$ for all $`G_+`$, we think of (3.16) as a matrix equation involving an $`N\times N`$ matrix $`B`$ (where $`N`$ is the number of elements $`F_+`$ with $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2`$): the matrix is

$$B_{FG}=b_G(F)$$

for all $`F`$ and $`G`$ with $`\mathrm{Ind}(F)d+2`$ and $`\mathrm{Ind}(G)d+2`$. (Here the $`F`$ index the rows and $`G`$ index the columns of the matrix.) We wish to solve (3.16) for the vector $`(a_1,\mathrm{},a_N)`$. We note that $`b_G(F)=0`$ if $`\mu (G)>\mu (F)`$ or $`\mu (G)=\mu (F)`$ and $`G`$ is not in the equivariant extended unstable manifold of $`F`$. Thus the matrix $`B`$ is upper triangular; furthermore its entries on the diagonal are nonzero. Thus the matrix is invertible, so the only solution to the equations (3.16) is $`a_G=0`$ for all $`G`$. This completes the proof of Lemma 3.6. $`\mathrm{}`$

Proof of Theorem 3.1: We now have completed the proof of the Theorem, since we have shown that $`\eta `$ can be written

$$\eta =\eta _++\eta _{}$$

where it is possible to find $`\eta _{}K_+`$ and $`\eta _+K_{}`$. $`\mathrm{}`$


text:
# Projected wave functions for fractionalized phases of quantum spin systems

## I Introduction

In the last several years, considerable theoretical progress has been made in understanding the possibility of fractional quantum numbers for the excitations of strongly interacting systems. A particular focus of attention has been on realizing such phases in quantum spin systems in two spatial dimensions. In conventional quantum phases of spin-$`1/2`$ magnets, such as an antiferromagnet or a spin-Peierls phase, the spin excitations carry quantum numbers $`S=1`$ or higher multiples. In contrast, in a fractionalized phase, there are excitations (dubbed spinons) that carry spin $`S=1/2`$. Various kinds of evidence for the presence of such fractionalized phases in spin models on a number of diverse lattices have been presented in Ref. . A detailed theoretical study of fractionalization in two dimensions has revealed that in the simplest cases such spinon excitations are necessarily accompanied by gapped “vortex”-like excitations: visons. The visons carry no spin but have a long-range statistical interaction with the spinon: When a spinon is taken all the way around a vison, the wave function of the system changes sign. Thus the visons have an Ising-like character: two visons can annihilate each other and are equivalent to no vison at all. A concise mathematical description of this long ranged statistical interaction is given by assigning a $`Z_2`$ gauge charge to the spinons and a corresponding $`Z_2`$ gauge flux to the visons.

A precise theoretical characterization of fractionalized phases serving to distinguish them from more conventional phases is provided by the notion of topological order — a concept elucidated by Wen in his work on the quantum Hall effect. When placed on a manifold with a non-trivial topology, a fractionalized phase has a number of locally similar but globally distinct states that differ by whether or not a vison threads each hole of the manifold.

If a spin model possesses a fractionalized phase, what does its wave function look like in terms of the original spins? In this paper, we argue that the wave functions describing a fractionalized state may be obtained from the original RVB construction of Anderson. We consider states obtained by projecting the wave function of a BCS superconductor (on a lattice) to the Hilbert space of exactly one electron per site (this procedure is also known as Gutzwiller projection). Different topological sectors are obtained by projecting states with/without superconducting vortices (or, equivalently, with different boundary conditions). We motivate this construction from the field-theoretic description of fractionalized phases.

Projected wave functions have long been studied to gain insight into the properties of the cuprate materials. However, as we show below, it is not guaranteed that the resulting wave function describes any fractionalized phase. The state that has been the subject of most attention is the “$`d`$-wave RVB state” obtained by projecting a BCS $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ superconductor with nearest neighbor hopping and nearest neighbor pairing interactions. We argue below that such a superconducting state has some special symmetry properties due to which it is not expected to lead to a fractionalized state after projection (at half-filling). We confirm this by a direct numerical calculation on this state. It is not clear whether the nearest neighbor $`d`$-wave RVB state represents a good trial wave function for any stable phase of a spin system. Addition of a number of perturbations, such as for instance next-nearest-neighbor hopping, to the nearest-neighbor $`d`$-wave superconductor removes the special symmetry properties — the resulting state is then expected to lead, after projection, to a fractionalized state. We demonstrate explicitly the topological order in such projected states. A closely related state was recently considered in Ref.  at finite doping and was argued to provide a good description of cuprate phenomenology. We note that recent experiments place constraints on the applicability of fractionalization ideas to the cuprates. Theoretical description of the cuprates with wave functions corresponding to fractionalized states must hence be performed with caution and examined for consistency with experiments.

Recently, a particular projected state has been argued to represent the ground state of the $`J_1J_2`$ Heisenberg model on the square lattice. We argue that such a state is also expected to have topological order, and hence be fractionalized. We explicitly construct four globally distinct states on the torus to demonstrate the topological order.

If the projection does indeed lead to a fractionalized state, then we may construct wave functions for its excitations as follows. The distinct excitations of a superconductor are the BCS quasiparticles and the vortices. As originally suggested by Anderson, projection of the BCS quasiparticles directly leads to the spinons. We argue that the visons may be obtained by projecting the wave function of the BCS $`hc/2e`$ vortex. This observation may be directly exploited to check for topological order in the projected wave functions. Consider putting the system on a torus. We may project the four superconducting states obtained by threading or not threading a $`hc/2e`$ vortex through each hole of the torus. If the projected state is fractionalized, and hence topologically ordered, these four states must be (after projection) orthogonal to each other in the thermodynamic limit though they are locally similar.

## II Generalities on Gutzwiller projection

The original point of view on the Gutzwiller projected wave function is that it describes a state obtained by quantum disordering a Heisenberg Neel antiferromagnet. However, as Gutzwiller projection (at half filling) freezes out the charge fluctuations inherent in the unprojected superconducting state, it may equally well be viewed as describing a state obtained by quantum disordering a superconductor. Recent theoretical work has sought to understand the properties of Mott insulators by viewing them as quantum disordered superconductors. In this approach, insulating phases are regarded as condensates of the vortices of the superconductor. A fractionalized Mott insulator is obtained by pairing and condensing the BCS vortices while the unpaired $`hc/2e`$ vortex remains gapped. At energy scales well below the charge gap, the excitations in such a Mott insulator are the spinon and the vison. The spinons are precisely what become of the fermionic BCS quasiparticles once the $`hc/e`$ vortices condense. The vison on the other hand is the remnant of the unpaired $`hc/2e`$ vortex \- due to the $`hc/e`$ condensate, this survives with only a $`Z_2`$ character.

It is clear that this point of view fits in nicely with the idea of Gutzwiller projecting superconducting states to obtain wave functions for Mott insulators. However not all choices of the unprojected superconducting state are guaranteed to lead to fractionalized states on projection (see Sections below). In this section, we discuss the nature of projected vortex states and their use in constructing the wave function of the vison.

### A RVB wave functions

We begin by quickly reviewing the interpretation of the Gutzwiller-projected superconducting state as a resonating valence bond wave function. Consider the ground state of a BCS Hamiltonian on a $`L\times L`$ square lattice ($`L`$ even):

$$H=\underset{ij}{}\underset{\alpha }{}t_{ij}c_{i\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.+\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}c_i^{}c_j^{}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.$$
(1)
Its wave function has the form

$$|BCS=\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}\left(u_\stackrel{}{k}+v_\stackrel{}{k}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}\right)|0$$
(2)
in standard notation. We restrict attention to spin-singlet, time-reversal-invariant ground states that also preserve all the symmetries of the lattice. The vectors $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ take values in the first Brillouin zone. We assume periodic boundary conditions in both spatial directions so that $`\stackrel{}{k}=\frac{2\pi }{L}(m_x,m_y)`$ with $`m_x,m_y`$ integers (the system may be thought of as residing on a torus). We may rewrite this wave function as

$$|BCS\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{k}{}g(\stackrel{}{k})c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}\right)|0$$
(3)
with $`g(\stackrel{}{k})=v_\stackrel{}{k}/u_\stackrel{}{k}`$. So long as $`g(\stackrel{}{k})=g(\stackrel{}{k})`$, this state is guaranteed to be a spin singlet.

It will be useful to consider a first quantized version $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\{\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i\})`$ obtained by fixing the total number of particles to be $`L^2`$. The $`(\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i)`$ are the position and spin state of the $`i`$’th electron. We have

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\{\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i\})\{\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i\}\left|\left(\underset{k}{}g_\stackrel{}{k}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}\right)^{L^2/2}\right|0$$
(4)
The wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\{\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i\})`$ is single-valued on the torus.

The Gutzwiller-projected state $`|RVB`$ is obtained by projecting $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ further onto a subspace where there is exactly one particle per lattice site. The resulting wave function may be written as a sum over various valence-bond configurations on the lattice:

$$|RVB=P_G|BCS\underset{vbc}{}𝒜_{vbc}|vbc$$
(5)
where $`|vbc`$ denotes any particular valence bond covering. $`𝒜_{vbc}`$ is the corresponding amplitude and is given by the product of $`g(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_j)`$ over all valence bonds connecting sites $`(ij)`$ appearing in the state $`|vbc`$. Here $`g(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_j)`$ is the Fourier transform of the function $`g(\stackrel{}{k})`$ introduced above.

### B BCS vortices and their projections

If the ground state of a spin system is correctly described by Gutzwiller projecting a BCS state, it is natural to construct excitations of the spin system by similarly projecting the excitations of the BCS superconductor. As argued by Anderson, projecting the BCS quasiparticle state leads to a wave function for neutral spin-$`1/2`$ spinons. The other distinct excitations of the superconductor are the vortices. What happens to these under the Gutzwiller projection? To answer this question, consider a wave function of a superconductor describing a state where a $`nhc/2e`$ vortex threads the torus along the $`x`$-direction. If $`n`$ is even, the (first-quantized) wave function may be taken simply as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{n_x}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{i}{}\frac{in\theta _i}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(6)
where $`\theta _i=\frac{2\pi y_i}{L}`$ is the angular coordinate of the $`i`$’th particle. Thus, the vortex wave function for even $`n`$ may be simply obtained by multiplying the ground state wave function by a phase factor (which depends on the configuration of the particles). Upon Gutzwiller projection, there is one particle at every site; consequently the projected vortex state (for $`n`$ even) is trivially related to the projected ground state by an overall phase factor. Thus the projected even vortex state does not lead to a distinct state of the spin system.

For $`n`$ odd, the vortex wave function in the superconductor is not obtained by simply multiplying the ground state by a phase factor. Consider $`n=1`$. The naive guess

$$\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{i}{}\frac{i\theta _i}{2}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(7)
violates the physical requirement that all legitimate electron wave functions must be single-valued on the torus. The correct wave function is constructed by multiplying by the phase factor above, and replacing $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ by a wave function that satisfies antiperiodic boundary conditions along the $`y`$-direction (and periodic along the $`x`$-direction). Such a replacement may be obtained by considering the ground state of $`H`$ with antiperiodic boundary conditions along the $`y`$-direction:

$$|BCS^+=\underset{k}{}\left(u_\stackrel{}{k}^{}+v_\stackrel{}{k}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}^{}\right)|0$$
(8)
with $`\stackrel{}{k}^{}=\stackrel{}{k}+\frac{\pi }{L}\widehat{y}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}=\frac{2\pi }{L}(m_x,m_y)`$ as before. Multiplying by the phase factor above has the effect of shifting all the momenta by $`\frac{\pi }{L}`$ along the $`y`$-direction. A legitimate $`hc/2e`$ vortex state may therefore be constructed as

$$|BCS^{}=\underset{k}{}\left(u_\stackrel{}{k}^{}+v_\stackrel{}{k}^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\frac{2\pi \widehat{y}}{L}}^{}c_\stackrel{}{k}^{}\right)|0$$
(9)
It is readily verified that this is a spin-singlet wave function. The first quantized $`hc/2e`$ vortex wave function (with $`L^2`$ particles) may now be obtained straightforwardly as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\{\stackrel{}{x}_i,\chi _i\}\left|\left(\underset{\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{}}{}g^{}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{})c_{}^{}(\stackrel{}{x})c_{}^{}(\stackrel{}{x}^{})\right)^{L^2/2}\right|0$$
(10)
with

$`g^{}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{x}^{})`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\frac{\pi }{L}(y+y^{})}g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}),`$ (11)
$`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}g(\stackrel{}{k}^{})e^{i\stackrel{}{k}^{}.(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})}`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{}}g(\stackrel{}{k}^{})\mathrm{cos}(\stackrel{}{k}^{}.(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}))`$ (13)
Here, as before, $`g(\stackrel{}{k}^{})=\frac{u_\stackrel{}{k}^{}}{v_\stackrel{}{k}^{}}`$. The function $`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})`$ satisfies antiperiodic boundary conditions along the $`y`$ direction, and periodic along the $`x`$ direction:

$`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{r}+L\widehat{y})`$ $`=`$ $`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (14)
$`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{r}+L\widehat{x})`$ $`=`$ $`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (15)
This vortex state may now be projected to obtain the new RVB wave function given by

$$|RVB^{}=P_G|BCS^{}\underset{vbc}{}𝒜_{vbc}^{}|vbc$$
(16)
The amplitude $`𝒜_{vbc}^{}`$ is given by the product of $`g^{}(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_j)`$ over all valence bonds connecting sites $`i`$ and $`j`$ appearing in the state $`|vbc`$. This wave function can be further simplified by noting that the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{\pi }{L}_iy_i)`$ arises in every term on the right-hand side and is just a trivial multiplication by an overall phase factor, and hence may be dropped. (For an $`L\times L`$ square lattice with $`L`$ even, this phase factor is simply equal to one). This then amounts to Gutzwiller projecting the state $`|BCS^+`$ obtained by changing the boundary conditions on the unprojected state. The resulting amplitude for a valence bond $`(ij)`$ is given by $`g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_j)`$.

Thus the projection of a $`hc/2e`$ vortex potentially survives as a non-trivial state in the spin system. In view of the discussion at the beginning of this section, it is clear that if the ground state described by $`|RVB`$ is indeed fractionalized, then $`|RVB^{}`$ describes a state with a vison threaded through along the $`x`$-direction. We will exploit this observation below to check for topological order in the projected wave functions.

### C Short ranged RVB states and dimer models

It is instructive to make a short digression, and specialize to superconducting states which are fully gapped, and where the function $`g(\stackrel{}{r})`$ has a very short range of order a few lattice spacings. In that case, the resulting RVB wave function describes a state with only short ranged valence bonds (and presumably a full spin gap). For such a state, it is expected that the function $`g(\stackrel{}{k})`$ is smooth in $`\stackrel{}{k}`$-space so that we may approximate $`g(\stackrel{}{k}^{})g(\stackrel{}{k})`$. In real space, this amounts to

$$g_{a.p}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})g(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi }{L}(yy^{})\right)$$
(17)
In the limit of large $`L`$, the cosine factor is one everywhere except for valence bonds that connect sites to the left of $`y=L`$ to sites to the right of $`y=L`$ for which it is $`1`$. Thus the difference between the projected ground state and the projected $`hc/2e`$ state may be summarized as follows: Consider drawing a vertical line parallel to the $`x`$-direction that cuts all the links of the lattice between $`y=L`$ and $`y=1`$. In the projected vortex state, the amplitude for any valence bond that cuts this line acquires a factor $`(1)`$ relative to the ground state. In other words, the amplitude for any valence bond configuration where an odd number of valence bonds intersect this line is $`(1)`$ relative to the ground state. We note that this construction of the projected vortex wave function reduces to the state considered by Read and Chakraborty in their pioneering early work on topological order in RVB wave functions. Unfortunately, as already recognized in that paper it is not clear that the particular RVB state discussed there describes any stable phase of a spin system.

An approximate description of a short ranged RVB state is through a quantum dimer model. It is well-known that the quantum dimer model on a torus has four distinct topological sectors classified by whether the number of dimers intersecting particular lines similar to the one introduced above is even or odd. Fractionalization in the original spin model is signalled by topological order in the quantum dimer model when the four topological sectors become degenerate in energy. In this case, these even/odd sectors clearly correspond to the symmetric/antisymmetric combination of the state with no vison and a threaded vison. This is completely consistent with our construction of the vison wave function by projecting the $`hc/2e`$ vortex.

Our primary interest in this paper will be long-ranged RVB states where the spinons are gapless. We will explore the properties of wave functions for such states by numerical calculations using the construction above.

## III Topological order: general considerations

Though the projected $`hc/2e`$ vortex survives as a non-trivial state of the spin system, it is still not necessary that the state $`|RVB`$ has topological order. The presence or lack thereof of topological order may be established by examining the following two conditions:

(i) $`RVB^{}|RVB=0`$ as the system size goes to infinity, and

(ii) The expectation values of all local physical operators be the same in both states $`|RVB`$ and $`|RVB^{}`$ again in the thermodynamic limit.

The first condition is closely related to the presence of a vison gap in the bulk. Indeed, the states $`|RVB`$ and $`|RVB^{}`$ differ by one vison tunneled across the cylinder (or torus), and therefore $`RVB|RVB^{}`$ may be interpreted as the amplitude of such a tunneling event. The second condition guarantees that the distinction between the states is not in any local properties but rather in global ones. In this section, we will examine some simple arguments that motivate the choice of particular superconducting wave functions which will lead to fractionalized states on projection.

Consider the first condition. It is easy to check that the overlap $`BCS^{}|BCS`$ goes to zero very rapidly as $`L`$ becomes large. This is expected physically as the vorticity is a good quantum number for the unprojected BCS state. However, this does not guarantee $`RVB^{}|RVB=0`$ due to the projection. To get better insight into what is needed for condition (i) to be satisfied, we will employ the following useful characterization of the Gutzwiller projection. In the unprojected Hilbert space, the states at each site are $`|0,|,|,|`$ in obvious notation. Projection keeps only the states $`|,|`$ at each site. At each site $`i`$, introduce the physical spin operator $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ and the pseudo-spin operator $`\stackrel{}{T}_i`$:

$`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}c_i^{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }c_i`$ (18)
$`T_i^z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{c_i^{}c_i1}{2}}`$ (19)
$`T_i^+`$ $`=`$ $`c_i^{}c_i^{}`$ (20)
$`T_i^{}`$ $`=`$ $`c_ic_i`$ (21)
Here $`T_i^\pm =T_i^x\pm T_i^y`$. The $`\stackrel{}{T}_i`$ satisfy $`SU(2)`$ commutation relations just like the physical spin operators $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$. Furthermore, all components of $`\stackrel{}{T}_i`$ commute with all components of $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$. Clearly the states $`|,|`$ are singlets under the pseudo-spin rotation generated by the $`\stackrel{}{T}_i`$, while the states $`|0,|`$ form a doublet under the pseudospin rotation. Thus the Gutzwiller projection is equivalent to projection onto the singlet sector (at each site) of the pseudospin $`SU(2)`$ rotation. This has the general implication

$$P_G|\psi _{\mathrm{unproj}}=P_GU|\psi _{\mathrm{unproj}}$$
(22)
for an arbitrary $`SU(2)`$ rotation

$$U=e^{i_i\stackrel{}{\theta }_i.\stackrel{}{T}_i}$$
(23)
where the parameters $`\stackrel{}{\theta }_i`$ may be chosen independently on each site. Thus a local pseudospin $`SU(2)`$ rotation of the unprojected state does not change the state after projection. We will therefore call this a gauge rotation.

In view of the above, a sufficient condition for the orthogonality of $`|RVB`$ and $`|RVB^{}`$ is simply

$$BCS|U|BCS^{}=0$$
(24)
for any arbitrary pseudospin $`SU(2)`$ rotation (23). (We note that this is not in general a necessary condition for the orthogonality).

The discussion has so far been general. Eqn. (24) imposes some conditions on the nature of the BCS state which could lead to a wave function for a fractionalized state after projection. However Eqn. (24) is still not in a form which is directly useful in providing guidance in writing down such states. To get a more useful form, we specialize to a particular class of unprojected states. In general, the state $`|BCS`$ will be a linear superposition of states with different total particle number. On the other hand, the projected state $`|RVB`$ has exactly one particle per site, and hence an exact total of $`L^2`$ particles on a lattice with $`L^2`$ sites. Now, for a general BCS state, if we plot the probability distribution of having a total of $`n`$ particles, it will have a sharp peak at some average value $`n_0`$ and will die rapidly for $`|nn_0|`$ large. If $`n_0`$ is different from $`L^2`$, then the Gutzwiller projection picks out the tails of the original BCS wave function. In this case, the projected wave function may have very little to do with the unprojected one. For the projected state to retain the significant features of the spin physics of the unprojected state, it is clearly advantageous to require that the mean number of particles (before projection) is $`L^2`$. If this is satisfied, the projection will have a gentler effect than if the mean number is different from one per site. To further soften the effect of the projection, it is clearly advantageous to require that the mean number be one for every unprojected state obtained from $`|BCS`$ by a pseudospin $`SU(2)`$ gauge rotation. This ensures that the projection does not pick up the tails of the wave function in any gauge.

The requirement that the average electron number on each site is one may be simply written as

$$T_i^z=0$$
(25)
on all sites $`i`$. Further the requirement that this be true for every gauge-rotated ground state is equivalent to requiring that

$$\stackrel{}{T}_i=0,$$
(26)
i.e. the average values of the generators of the gauge rotations vanish.

From now on, we will specialize to unprojected states where the requirement Eqn. (26) is satisfied. In this case, we may hope that we can use our intuition about the unprojected state to infer the properties of the projected state. When do we expect that Eqn. (24) will be satisfied for such a BCS state? Note that $`|BCS^{}`$ differs from $`|BCS`$ in having a $`hc/2e`$ vortex threaded through the hole of the cylinder. If the ground state of a physical system is given by the superconducting state $`|BCS`$, we can label it’s excitations by their total vorticity quantum number. The state $`|BCS^{}`$ has total vorticity $`\pm 1`$ compared to $`|BCS`$, and hence is orthogonal. However, so long as $`U|BCS`$ is also a superconducting state, it will also have a fixed vorticity which differs from that of $`|BCS^{}`$ by an odd number. Consequently, in this case Eqn. (24) will be satisfied. If however for some $`U`$, the gauge rotated state $`U|BCS`$ is not a superconducting state, then it may be regarded as a coherent superposition of electron wave functions each of which carry a definite vorticity. (The vorticity is not a good quantum number in a non-superconducting state). It is then possible that $`|BCS^{}`$ is not orthogonal to that particular gauge rotated state, so that Eqn. (24) is not satisfied. At the very least, we lose the general reason requiring orthogonality.

Based on the reasoning above, we make the following conjecture:

An unprojected state where the constraint (26) is satisfied, and which cannot be rotated to a non-superconducting state by an $`SU(2)`$ gauge rotation, will lead to a topologically ordered state after projection.

This conjecture provides strong motivation for choosing particular superconducting states that we may project to obtain topologically ordered states. On the other hand, we do not provide any formal proof of this conjecture in this paper. It is supported by the reasoning in this section, and by our numerical results.

Here we need to make a clear distinction between “superconducting” and “non-superconducting” states. Formally, we call a state “gauge-equivalent to non-superconducting” if it is invariant under a global $`U(1)`$ subgroup of the full group of gauge rotations (23). Indeed, a non-superconducting state is characterized by a fixed number of electrons. Then the $`U(1)`$ group of global rotations by $`T^z`$ (i.e., the subgroup generated by the sets $`\stackrel{}{\theta }_i=\theta \widehat{z}`$) produces only trivial multiplications by phase factors leaving the state invariant. We call such a state a “$`U(1)`$ state” \[or even a “$`SU(2)`$ state” in the case when the maximal subgroup leaving the unprojected state invariant is $`SU(2)`$\]. In this terminology, a state that is superconducting in any gauge is called a “$`Z_2`$ state”. This classification is a sub-classification of a more detailed one introduced by Wen.

A set of conditions for the $`U(1)`$ invariance (being gauge-equivalent to non-superconducting) of a given state may be formally written in terms of projector operators onto occupied quasiparticle states. Consider the set of Bogoliubov–deGennes doublets $`(u_\stackrel{}{k},v_\stackrel{}{k})`$ participating in the ground state (2). We can define a projector onto the linear subspace spanned by those doublets. In real space, this projector may be thought of as a set of $`2\times 2`$ matrices $`P_{ij}`$ labeled by the site indices $`i`$ and $`j`$ and defined as

$$P_{ij}=\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}\left(\begin{array}{c}u_\stackrel{}{k}(i)\\ v_\stackrel{}{k}(i)\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}u_\stackrel{}{k}^{}(j)& v_\stackrel{}{k}^{}(j)\end{array}\right)$$
(27)
Under the $`SU(2)`$ gauge transformation, these matrices transform as

$$P_{ij}U_iP_{ij}U_j^{}$$
(28)
For a non-superconducting state, all matrices $`P_{ij}`$ are simultaneously diagonal. To see when a given state can be gauge rotated to such a non-superconducting state, it is useful to consider the chain products of such matrices starting and ending at the same point $`i`$:

$$A_i[C]=\mathrm{\Pi }_C\left(P_{ij}P_{jk}\mathrm{}P_{li}\right)$$
(29)
where $`(i,j,k,\mathrm{},l,i)`$ define a closed curve on the lattice. $`A_i[C]`$ is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix for each lattice site $`i`$ and for each closed curve $`C`$ starting and ending at that site. Now one easily verifies that all matrices $`P_{ij}`$ may be simultaneously diagonalized if and only if for any $`i`$ and for any pair of closed contours $`C`$ and $`C^{}`$ both starting and ending at $`i`$,

$$[A_i[C],A_i[C^{}]]=0$$
(30)
Thus to check that a given wave function describes a $`Z_2`$ state (i.e. cannot be gauge rotated to a non-superconducting form), it is sufficient to verify that $`A_i[C]`$ and $`A_i[C^{}]`$ do not commute for at least one choice of $`i`$, $`C`$, and $`C^{}`$.

Instead of checking whether the wave function may be rotated to a non-superconducting form, one may perform a similar test for the Hamiltonian (1). The Hamiltonian can be rotated to a non-superconducting one (i.e containing no pairing terms) if and only if

$$[B_i[C],B_i[C^{}]]=0,$$
(31)
for all $`i`$ and $`C`$, where

$$B_i[C]=\mathrm{\Pi }_C\left(H_{ij}H_{jk}\mathrm{}H_{li}\right),H_{ij}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}t_{ij}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^{}& t_{ij}^{}\end{array}\right)$$
(32)
This is a convenient sufficient condition for being a $`U(1)`$ wave function, but not a necessary one: in certain cases, a superconducting Hamiltonian may have a non-superconducting ground state (with a definite particle number).

It is instructive to consider some specific examples of superconducting states to see how these conditions work in practice. Consider for instance a nearest neighbor $`d`$-wave superconductor where $`t_{ij},\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$ are non-zero only on nearest-neighbor bonds, and take the values

$`t_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`t`$ (33)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }.`$ (34)
The plus sign in the second equation is for horizontal bonds, and the minus sign for vertical bonds. It is readily seen that the condition in Eqn. (26) is satisfied by this state. However, as is also easily seen, all the $`B_i[C]`$ commute for this state. This is of course consistent with the well-known fact that this state can be gauge rotated to a pure hopping state (known as the staggered flux state). We therefore expect that this state will not lead to a fractionalized state after projection. This is confirmed by our numerical calculations below.

Now consider adding the next-near-neighbor diagonal hopping $`t^{}`$ to this state. The resulting Hamiltonian still describes a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ superconductor. However, a simple calculation shows that there are two non-commuting $`B_i[C]`$ matrices so that this can no longer be rotated to pure hopping. Addition of $`t^{}`$ changes the mean density away from one particle per site. This can however be compensated by adding an on-site chemical potential term to the unprojected Hamiltonian. The state thus constructed is therefore a good candidate for projecting to get a wave function for a fractionalized state. Below, in Section IV we demonstrate this by a numerical calculation.

Surprisingly, the criteria obtained above for the superconducting state to describe a topologically ordered state after projection may also be motivated from a completely different point of view. Consider any spin $`S=1/2`$ model in two dimensions. As is well-known, it is possible to use a representation of the spins in terms of fermionic spin-$`1/2`$ operators. This representation is exact so long as the constraint that the fermion occupation is one at each site is imposed on the Hilbert space. A popular approach is to treat the resulting fermion Hamiltonian in mean field theory. At the mean-field level, the excitations are neutral spin-$`1/2`$ fermions described by a Hamiltonian of the general form Eqn. (1). The exact constraint inherent in the fermionic representation is replaced precisely by Eqn. (26). This mean field state is capable of correctly describing a possible physical phase of the spin model as long as it is stable to fluctuations. As discussed by Wen, the criteria for the stability of the mean field state to fluctuations are precisely that expressed in Eqn. (31). If the mean field state is indeed stable to fluctuations, then we expect that the candidate wave function for the physical state described by it is given by the Gutzwiller projection of the mean field wave function to the physical Hilbert space.

## IV Numerical results

We further verify our conjecture numerically by testing the conditions (i) and (ii) of Section III on the square lattice in the toroidal geometry for several examples of the projected BCS wave functions. We label the ground states in the four topological sectors as $`|++`$, $`|+`$, $`|+`$, and $`|`$, according to the boundary conditions imposed in $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions. We employ the variational Monte Carlo method described in detail in Ref.  applied to the square $`L\times L`$ tori.

We consider four different types of projected wave functions: the nearest-neighbor $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ state and its three modifications by including hopping or pairing along the plaquette diagonals (Fig. 1). All these wave functions may be parameterized by translationally invariant Hamiltonians (1), and we can conveniently describe them in terms of the Fourier transform of $`H_{ij}`$ (defined above in Eq. (32)):

$$H(𝐤)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\xi (𝐤)& \mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)\\ \mathrm{\Delta }^{}(𝐤)& \xi (𝐤)\end{array}\right).$$
(35)
The nearest-neighbor $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave BCS state (further denoted as NND) is defined by its kinetic and pairing amplitudes:

$`\xi (𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`2(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y),`$ (36)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y).`$ (37)
In the projected NND wave function, the nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations are maximized at the intermediate value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_00.55`$  (the optimal values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ reported in these two references differ by several percent; the precise value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is not important for our qualitative results concerning topological order). We find that the NND state after projection has no topological order. This agrees with our conjecture, since the NND state can be rotated to the pure-hopping staggered-flux state by a SU(2) gauge rotation .

In addition to the NND state, we consider its three modifications which are $`Z_2`$ states (cannot be gauge rotated to a non-superconducting form). In the first modification (we denote it by D1), we add hopping along one of the plaquette diagonals which amounts to replacing (36) by

$$\xi (𝐤)=2[\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y+t^{}\mathrm{cos}(k_x+k_y)]\mu .$$
(38)
The chemical potential $`\mu `$ is added for adjusting the average particle density in the unprojected wave function in order to satisfy the mean-field constraint (26).

The second wave function (dubbed D2) is analogous to the previous one, but with hopping along both plaquette diagonals:

$`\xi (𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`2[\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y`$ (40)
$`+t^{}(\mathrm{cos}(k_x+k_y)+\mathrm{cos}(k_xk_y))]\mu .`$
The third wave function is $`d_{x^2y^2}+d_{xy}`$ wave function proposed by Capriotti et al  as a variational ansatz for the $`J_1`$$`J_2`$ Heisenberg model. This wave function (denoted further as DD) has the nearest-neighbor form (36) of $`\xi (𝐤)`$, together with $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)`$ involving both nearest-neighbor pairing and pairing along the plaquette diagonals:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)=\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y+2D_{xy}\mathrm{sin}k_x\mathrm{sin}k_y).$$
(41)
One easily verifies that the projected DD wave function has all the symmetries of the square lattice, even though the unprojected wave function does not. This wave function obeys the mean-field constraint (26) without a chemical potential term.

The first test for the topological order is the overlap of the two wave functions on a torus projected from the mean-field states with different boundary conditions. Note that when nodes in the mean-field excitation spectrum fall on points of the momentum lattice, the wave function becomes ill-defined. For our choice of lattice on the tori, this happens for the NND state where the nodes are fixed at ($`\pm \frac{\pi }{2}`$,$`\pm \frac{\pi }{2}`$) points. Therefore, not all four topological sectors are realized for the NND state (for our choice of the lattice placement). However, the sectors $`+`$ and $`+`$ are well-defined for any $`L\times L`$ torus, and we take the overlap between these two wave functions as the first check of the topological order. Alternatively, this overlap may be viewed as the overlap of the wave function with its reflection with respect to the $`x`$$`y`$ diagonal.

We have calculated this overlap with the use of the variational Monte Carlo procedure. The results for the NND wave function and for its three modifications D1, D2, and DD, are presented in Fig. 2a. In all cases, we take $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.55`$; for D1 wave functions we take $`t^{}=0.5`$ ($`\mu =0.417`$) and $`t^{}=1.0`$ ($`\mu =0.696`$); for D2 wave functions we take $`t^{}=0.3`$ ($`\mu =0.509`$) and $`t^{}=0.5`$ ($`\mu =0.794`$); for DD wave functions we take $`D_{xy}=0.4`$ and $`D_{xy}=1.0`$. We see that the overlap for the NND wave function saturates at large system size (which implies the absence of topological order), while for the three other wave functions it decreases to zero with increasing system size. This is the first signature of the topological order in those wave functions. As a side remark, we mention that if we force $`\mu =0`$ in the D2 wave function, the projected wave function has no topological order (the overlap saturates at large $`L`$), but such a wave function violates the mean-field-density constraint (26), and we do not discuss it here.

For the wave functions deep in the “topologically ordered” phase, we can also verify the orthogonality of all the four topological sectors $`++`$, $`+`$, $`+`$, and $``$. The four corresponding overlaps are plotted for each of the wave functions D1, D2, and DD in Fig. 2b–d. All the overlaps for these wave functions decrease to zero with increasing system size, which indicates orthogonality of the four sectors.

The second test for the topologically ordered state is the equality of local expectation values between different topological sectors (condition (ii) of Section III). We verify this condition for the nearest-neighbor spin-spin correlations. In the four topological sectors on the torus, there are four different nearest-neighbor correlators:

$`S_+`$ $``$ $`+|\sigma _i^z\sigma _{i+\widehat{𝐱}}^z|+,`$ (42)
$`S_+`$ $``$ $`+|\sigma _i^z\sigma _{i+\widehat{𝐲}}^z|+,`$ (43)
$`S_{++}`$ $``$ $`++|\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z|++,`$ (44)
$`S_{}`$ $``$ $`|\sigma _i^z\sigma _j^z|.`$ (45)
In a topologically ordered state, the difference between these four quantities must rapidly decay with increasing system size. We compute these correlators numerically for the same three wave functions used before in the overlap computations. The results are presented in Fig. 3a–c demonstrating that the four correlations indeed converge to a single value in large systems. This supports the contention that the distinction between the states is in global properties and not in local ones.

To quantify the rate of this convergence, we consider the mean square deviation of the four quantities $`S_+`$, $`S_+`$, $`S_{++}`$, and $`S_{}`$. In Fig. 3d, we plot this mean square deviation multiplied by the number of lattice sites

$$\mathrm{\Delta }SL^2\left[\frac{\underset{\alpha \beta }{}S_{\alpha \beta }^2}{4}\left(\frac{\underset{\alpha \beta }{}S_{\alpha \beta }}{4}\right)^2\right]^{1/2}$$
(46)
as a function of system size. The finite-size effects are very strong because of the nodes in the spectrum. To clarify the size dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, we take one more wave function in each of the three classes D1, D2, DD, with slightly different variational parameters (in addition to the wave functions considered previously). The data in Fig. 3d indicate that $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ remains approximately independent of system size. This corresponds to the difference in local correlations $`S_{\alpha \beta }`$ decaying as $`L^2`$ with system size.

This slow convergence of correlations among different topological sectors can be explained already at the mean-field level from the nodal singularities in the spectrum. At the nodal points, the vector $`(u_\stackrel{}{k},v_\stackrel{}{k})`$ has a strong singularity: as the wave vector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ goes around the nodal point, the vector $`(u,v)`$ rotates by half turn in the plane. This singularity translates into the $`L^2`$ dependence of local correlations on the boundary conditions (changing the boundary conditions amounts to shifting the lattice of vectors $`\stackrel{}{k}`$). From our numerical results we see that this rate of convergence is preserved by the projection. This may serve as an indication that in the $`Z_2`$ states the projection preserves the nodal spinons, as suggested by Wen. This $`L^2`$ law applies to the general case of local correlations. The energy expectation value is a very special local correlation which has a weaker singularity at the nodal point. At the mean-field level, the energy splitting between different topological sectors can be found to be $`L^3`$ (per site). This translates into the splitting in total energy decaying as $`L^1`$. We expect that this asymptotic law also holds after the projection. To verify this numerically, one needs to compute the expectation values of the actual “energy”, which is a correlation function optimized for a particular Hamiltonian by adjusting the variational parameters. In this paper we do not identify spin Hamiltonians for which our wave functions are optimal, and thus are not able to verify our expectation for the energy splitting. Note that the $`L^1`$ convergence in energy also means convergence of the energy of an individual vison, i.e., deconfinement of visons which is necessary for the topological order.

We have also tested all the above classes of wave functions for the valence-bond crystal (“spin-Peierls”) ordering. We have computed the correlations of the $`z`$-component of the singlet order parameter $`S_z(i)S_z(i+𝐱)S_z(j)S_z(j+𝐱)`$ in systems as large as 18$`\times `$18. We find this correlation function rapidly decaying with increasing the distance $`|ij|`$. The decay is slowest for the D2 wave function for which it appears to be close to $`R^2`$ (for the $`t^{}=0.5`$, $`\mu =0.794`$ wave function) or faster (for the $`t^{}=0.6`$, $`\mu =0.909`$ wave function). For D1 and DD wave functions the decay of such correlations is much stronger than in the D2 wave function, which indicates the absence of the valence-bond ordering. Note that the D2 wave functions for the values of parameters considered in this paper exhibit a relatively large correlation length for the overlaps between topological sectors (see Fig. 2c for the data on the $`t^{}=0.5`$, $`\mu =0.794`$ wave function). Therefore one may expect that correlation functions have different behavior at larger and smaller length scale, and that our computations in relatively small systems are therefore not completely reliable for determining the correct long-distance behavior of the correlations. A more detailed analysis of the valence-bond crystal ordering and of its interplay with the topological order is left for future study.

## V Conclusion

In this paper, we have formulated conditions for the presence of topological order in RVB systems and have verified them for several specific examples of Gutzwiller-projected wave functions. Our results suggest that appropriate Gutzwiller-projected wave functions may represent ground states of fractionalized phases of spin systems.

This work is only the first step towards describing the topologically ordered RVB states. For a better understanding of the properties of the topological order, a more extensive quantitative study is needed. It should include an analysis of correlation lengths involved in the conditions (i) and (ii) for the topological order (in particular, on cylinders/tori with different aspect ratios). Variational wave functions may provide a useful tool for studying quantum phase transitions between states with and without topological order. An extremely interesting question in this respect is the possibility of the coexistence of the topological order simultaneously with the antiferromagnetic Neel order or with the valence-bond crystal order. Such a coexistence of a topological and a conventional ordering may be tested by projecting appropriate superconducting states with the spin or translational symmetry broken before projection.

Of course, the study of the variational wave functions have physical implications only when the Hamiltonians are identified for which those wave functions are good trial states. Our test for the topological order may provide a guidance in the search for microscopic spin Hamiltonians that exhibit fractionalized ground states.

We thank P. A. Lee, X.-G. Wen, A. Ioselevich, M. Feigelman, L. Ioffe, G. Blatter, M. P. A. Fisher, and O. Motrunich for useful discussions. We are grateful to A. Paramekanti, M. Randeria, and N. Trivedi for sharing their unpublished results and for several useful conversations. This work was supported by MRSEC program of the National Science Foundation under grant DMR-9808941 and by the Swiss National Foundation.