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# Casimir Effect in Four Simple Situations - Including a Noncommutative Two-Sphere

## 1 Introduction

The energy of the vacuum - zero-point energy - is a direct consequence of the quantum mechanics. Since the birth of quantum mechanics a central question has been whether this vacuum state energy could have physical (measurable) consequences. Casimir effect is one of the well-known dynamical effects of the quantum vacuum state. Its importance follows from the fact that this effect was not only theoretically predicted but it was experimentally verified. First time the attraction of two parallel neutral conducting plates due to electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations was measured and then the large set of different experiments about the Casimir’s idea  was done by many cooperating experimentators and theoreticians, for more information see for example , . The vacuum state energy should be of interest from the point of view of modern cosmology due to production of nonzero cosmological constant , which can drive the inflation process.
In this paper we are interested in the vacuum state energy of a real scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in four situations which differ in a way in which the nonzero vacuum energy is caused. In the second section the scalar field on an interval (finite segment of a line) is discussed. The nonzero vacuum-state energy appears as the consequence of the boundaries. This example is most similar to the original Casimir’s idea  confirmed by the measurments of attraction of uncharged conducting plates. In the third and fourth sections the Casimir’s energy of the scalar field on a circle (one dimensional sphere) and a two dimensional sphere is discussed. In these cases the nontrivial properties of vacuum state follow from the nontrivial (different from the Minkowski space) topology. In the fifth section the new ideas of noncommutative geometry are implemented: Casimir’s energy is computed on a two dimensional fuzzy-sphere. In this case "the problems" with renormalization and regularization disappear. Noncommutativity yields a natural cutoff by introducing a new fundamental constant, fundamental in the sence of being similar to the Planck constant.

## 2 Scalar field on an interval

We start with a real scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x)`$ defined on a space interval of length $`a`$: $`x0,a`$. It means that our spacetime is a strip of two dimensional Minkowski space222We are using the notation that space-time interval $`ds`$ is given by $`ds^2=c^2dt^2dx^2=dx_\mu dx^\mu `$ and $`x^0=ct`$, $`x^1=x`$ and greek indices $`\{0,1\}`$. with a space size equal to $`a`$. The dynamics of the classical field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with the mass $`m`$ is given by the Lagrangian density

$$=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }\frac{1}{2}\frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\mathrm{\Phi }^2,$$
(1)
from which the well-known equation of motion (Klein-Gordon) follows

$$\frac{1}{c^2}\frac{^2\mathrm{\Phi }}{t^2}\frac{^2\mathrm{\Phi }}{x^2}+\frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\mathrm{\Phi }=0.$$
(2)
Now we are to impose some boundary conditions on the (classical) field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. We have to be aware of importance of boundary conditions which play an important role because they define the situation and should be imposed in a physical way in a realistic situation333For example in the case of an electromagnetic field we have the well-known boundary conditions on the surface of an ideal conductor.. We have chosen the Dirichlet conditions

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x=0)=\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x=a)=0.$$
(3)
The complete orthonormal set of functions obeying the boundary problem (2),(3) with respect to the scalar product related to the eq. (2)

$$(\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\mathrm{\Phi }_2):=\frac{i}{c}_0^adx\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{}_t\mathrm{\Phi }_2\mathrm{\Phi }_2_t\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{}\right),$$
(4)
is as follows

$$u_n^{(\pm )}(t,x)=\left(\frac{c}{a\omega _n}\right)^{1/2}e^{\pm i\omega _nt}\mathrm{sin}(k_nx),$$
(5)
where

$$\omega _n=[\frac{m^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}+c^2k_n^2]^{1/2},k_n=\frac{\pi n}{a},n\{1,2,3,\mathrm{}\}.$$

Any solution to our boundary problem can be expanded into the series of functions (5). The canonical quantization of the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is performed by means of such an expansion:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[u_n^{(+)}(t,x)a_n^++u_n^{()}(t,x)a_n\right],$$
(6)
where $`a,a^+`$ are the annihilation and creation operators obeying the canonical commutation relations

$$[a_n,a_m^+]=\delta _{nm},[a_n,a_m]=[a_n^+,a_m^+]=0.$$
(7)
The vacuum state $`|0`$ is specified as usual by the conditions

$$a_n|0=0n.$$
(8)
We are interested in the energy of this state, it means we would like to compute the vacuum expectation value of the Hamiltonian density $`H`$

$$H=\frac{}{(_t\mathrm{\Phi })}_t\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{\mathrm{}c}{2}\left[\frac{1}{c^2}(_t\mathrm{\Phi })^2+(_x\mathrm{\Phi })^2\right]+\frac{1}{2}\frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\mathrm{\Phi }^2.$$
(9)
Inserting eq. (6) into (9) with respect to eqs. (7) and eq. (5) we easily get the energy density in the form

$$0|H|0=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2a}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _n\frac{m^2c^4}{2a\mathrm{}}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\mathrm{cos}(2k_nx)}{\omega _n},$$

so, the total energy of the vacuum state $`E(a,m)`$ is the integral over $`x0,a`$ of the energy density given by the previous formula

$$E(a,m)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _n.$$
(10)
The quantity $`E(a,m)`$ is evidently divergent but there is a standard possibility to give a meaning to it using a regularization. One of the simplest methods used in the authentic work  is to introduce a dumping function (something like Boltzman factor) $`\mathrm{exp}(ϵ\omega )`$ with $`ϵ>0`$ behind the summation sign in the eq. (10). We shall start disscusion about the regularization with the case of massless field ($`m=0`$) - it simplifies the situation. The regularized energy is

$$E_ϵ(a,0)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{c\pi n}{a}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{c\pi n}{a}ϵ\right)=\frac{c\pi }{a}\frac{\mathrm{}}{8}\frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2\left(\frac{c\pi ϵ}{2a}\right)}.$$
(11)
Now we can expand the quantity $`E_ϵ(a,0)`$ into the power series in the regularization parameter $`ϵ`$ and separate $`E_ϵ(a,0)`$ into a sum of two parts: the first - singular in regularization removing ($`ϵ0`$) and the second - finit contribution to the energy in the same regularization removing. The expansion we are talking about looks like

$$E_ϵ(a,0)=\frac{c\pi }{a}\frac{\mathrm{}}{8}\left[\frac{a^2}{c^2\mathrm{}^2}\frac{4}{ϵ^2}\frac{1}{3}+O(ϵ^2)\right].$$
(12)
Let us denote by $`E^{phys}(a,0)`$ the physical (relevant) energy of our vacuum state. Now we would like to identify this quantity with the nonsingular term in the eq. (12), i.e. to write

$$E^{phys}(a,0)=\frac{\pi \mathrm{}c}{24a},$$
(13)
but how to argue that this is the case? One kind of argument could be grounded on the following. We are not interested in the energy but in the energy differences444It is always so if the gravitation does not play any role., i.e. $`\text{Force}=(E(a+\mathrm{d}a,0)E(a,0))/\mathrm{d}a`$ is significant rather than energy. It means that if we perform several regularizations and renormalizations we have to get the same result for the force. We can choose the energy of Minkowski vacuum per length $`a`$: ($`E^M(a,m)`$) to be zero and define the physical value of vacuum energy by

$$E^{phys}(a,m):=\underset{ϵ0^+}{lim}\left[E_ϵ(a,m)E_ϵ^M(a,m)\right].$$
(14)
Let us compute $`E^M(a,m)`$ in the canonical way presented above. The result is

$$E^M(a,m)=\frac{\mathrm{}a}{2\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\omega \mathrm{d}k,\text{where}\omega =(\frac{m^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}+c^2k^2)^{1/2}.$$
(15)
It is easy to compute the regularized value $`E_ϵ^M(a,m)`$ for the massless field. One gets

$$E_ϵ^M(a,0)=\frac{\mathrm{}a}{2\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\omega e^{ϵ\omega }dk=\frac{\mathrm{}a}{2\pi c}_0^{\mathrm{}}\omega e^{ϵ\omega }d\omega =\frac{\mathrm{}a}{2\pi c}\frac{1}{ϵ^2}.$$
(16)
Using the definition formula (14) for the physical value of vacuum state energy we instantly get above expectated result (13).
Macroscopic effect of the vacuum energy is the force (attractive) between the end points of the interval given in account to the eq. (13) by

$$F=\frac{\mathrm{d}E^{phys}(a,0)}{\mathrm{d}a}=\frac{\pi \mathrm{}c}{24a^2}.$$

Now we shall rewrite the above described alghoritm into more convenient and usuable form. The renormalized vacuum energy (14) is of the form

$$\underset{ϵ0^+}{lim}\left[\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_ϵ(n)_0^{\mathrm{}}F_ϵ(x)dx\right],$$

where $`F_ϵ(n)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{c\pi n}{a}f(ϵ\omega )`$, with $`f(ϵ\omega )`$ \- (smooth) dumping function, and $`F`$ is an analytic function in the complex $`z`$ half-plane $`Re(z)>0`$ and the sum and integral exist. Than we can use the so-called Abel-Plana formula (see eg. )

$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F_ϵ(n)_0^{\mathrm{}}F_ϵ(x)dx=\frac{1}{2}F_ϵ(0)+i_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{F_ϵ(it)F_ϵ(it)}{e^{2\pi t}1}dt.$$
(17)
The integral on the right-hand side of the eq. (17) converges uniformly for all $`ϵ>0`$, so we are allowed to perform the limit before the integration. We easily get

$`E^{phys}(a,0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}0+i{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{c\pi }{a}(it)\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{c\pi }{a}(it)}{e^{2\pi t}1}}dt={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c\pi }{a}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{t\mathrm{d}t}{e^{2\pi t}1}}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c\pi }{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}ue^{ku}du={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c\pi }{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c\pi }{24a}},`$
that is in acoord with (13).
Another way how to obtain the result (13) is to use the renormalization that uses the so-called zeta function regularization (see eg. ). The idea is to take the formula (10) and to see that it can be formally understood as follows

$$E(a,0)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{c\pi }{a}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}n=:\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\frac{c\pi }{a}\zeta (1)=E^{phys}(a,0),$$
(19)
where $`\zeta `$ is the Riemann zeta function defined for complex $`z`$ with $`Re(z)>1`$ by the sum

$$\zeta (z)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}n^z.$$

The expression $`\zeta (1)`$ has to be understood as the value of analytic continuation (see eg. ) of the Riemann zeta function into a whole complex plane. Such a continuation is given by the functional formula555$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)`$ is the Euler’s gamma function. ( or )

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{z}{2}\right)\pi ^{z/2}\zeta (z)=\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1z}{2}\right)\pi ^{(1z)/2}\zeta (1z).$$

Using previous formula we get $`\zeta (1)=1/12`$, so substituiting this value into the eq. (19) we get instantly the result (13).
Now we are going to use the procedure of renormalization grounded on the Abel-Plana formula (17) for the massive scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. We have (10) and (5)

$$E_ϵ(a,m)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _ne^{ϵ\omega _n}=\frac{mc^2}{4}+\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _ne^{ϵ\omega _n}.$$

The above calculations with $`F_ϵ(x)=\mathrm{}/2\sqrt{m^2c^4/\mathrm{}^2+\pi ^2c^2/a^2x^2}`$ lead to the result

$`E^{phys}(a,m)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{mc^2}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c}{4\pi a}}{\displaystyle _\lambda ^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{t^2\lambda ^2}}{e^t1}}dt={\displaystyle \frac{mc^2}{4}}`$ (20)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c}{4\pi a}}\lambda ^2{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{t^21}}{e^{\lambda t}1}}dt`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{mc^2}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c}{4\pi a}}\lambda ^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2(u)}{e^{\lambda \mathrm{cosh}(u)}1}}du,`$
where

$$\lambda =2\frac{mca}{\mathrm{}}.$$

We mention that the additive constant term $`mc^2/4`$ does not contribute to the force and that putting $`m=0`$ we obtain the eq. (12). One can investigate the behaviour of $`E^{phys}(a,m)`$ in the limit of very massive field ($`\lambda \mathrm{}`$). It is easy to see that the Casimir’s energy and corresponding Casimir’s force are exponentially ($`e^\lambda `$) suppressed in this case. Let us notice that $`\lambda `$ is nothing else as double length of our interval measured in the unit of the Compton wave-length of matching particle $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

## 3 Scalar field on a circle

Let us consider now the scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ on a circle with radius equal to $`a>0`$. It means that our spacetime is a cylinder of radius $`a`$ ($`x`$ \- space coordinate: $`x(0,2\pi a)`$ ) with time belonging to $`(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$. Equation of motion for such a field is Klein-Gordon equation (2). The case now differs from the previous one by the boundary conditions imposed on the field. Topology of the circle defines the periodic boundary conditions

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{\Phi }(t,0)& =& \mathrm{\Phi }(t,2\pi a),\\ _x\mathrm{\Phi }(t,0)& =& _x\mathrm{\Phi }(t,2\pi a).\end{array}$$
(21)
Canonical quantization leads to the expansion of the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ given by the eq. (6) with the operators $`a_n`$ and $`a_n^+`$ obeying canonical commutation relations (7). Normalized mode functions $`u_n^{(\pm )}`$ are given by the formulae

$`u_n^{(\pm )}(t,x)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{c}{2a\omega _n}}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(\pm i(\omega _ntk_nx)),`$
$`\omega _n=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{m^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}}+c^2k_n^2\right]^{1/2}\text{and}k_n={\displaystyle \frac{n}{a}}\text{with}n.`$ (22)
Using the expansion (6) with respect to the formulae (3) we can get the unrenormalized energy of the vacuum (once again specified by (8)) in the form

$$E(a,m)=_0^{2\pi a}0|H(t,x)|0dx=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _n=\frac{mc^2}{2}+\mathrm{}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\omega _n.$$
(23)
The sum expressing $`E(a,m)`$ is again divergent and should be renormalized. We are going to renormalize666The meaning of the definition formula (14) in this case is the same as in the section 2 because the Minkowskian vacuum now corresponds to the same one - vacuum of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in the two dimensional Minkowski spacetime. it using the Abel-Plana formula (17) with

$$F(z)=\frac{\mathrm{}c}{a}\sqrt{\lambda ^2+z^2}\text{where}\lambda =\frac{mca}{\mathrm{}}.$$
(24)
The result is

$$E^{phys}(a,m)=\frac{2\mathrm{}c}{a}_\lambda ^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{t^2\lambda ^2}}{e^{2\pi t}1}dt=\frac{2\mathrm{}c}{a}\lambda ^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2(u)}{e^{2\pi \lambda \mathrm{cosh}(u)}1}du.$$
(25)
The special case is the massless field, which correspond to the situation $`\lambda `$ being zero. In this case we are able to express $`E^{phys}`$ in an algebraical form

$$E^{phys}(a,0)=\frac{\mathrm{}c}{12a}.$$
(26)
We note that at $`\lambda 1`$ both Casimir’s energy and force are again exponentially suppressed by the factor $`e^\lambda `$. This follows from the eq. (25).

## 4 Scalar field on a two dimensional sphere

In this section we shall consider a real scalar field on a two dimensional sphere ($`S^2`$) of the radius $`a`$. It means that our spacetime is $`S^2\times ^1`$. Now it is a little bit more difficult to give the dynamics of the field as in the previous two sections. It is so due to the fact that our current spacetime is curved (its Riemann curvature tensor is not zero). In general a lot of uglinesses follow from this fact at quantum level (see eg. ). Our point of view will be canonical. We define the dynamics of the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ giving the Lagrangian density

$$=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{|g|}\left[g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }[m^2\mathrm{\Xi }R]\mathrm{\Phi }^2\right],$$
(27)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ with are the components of the metric, in the standard spherical coordinates $`(\theta ,\varphi )`$ one has

$$g=c^2dtdta^2\left[d\theta d\theta +\mathrm{sin}^2(\theta )d\varphi d\varphi \right]g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu ,$$

where $`|g|`$ is the absolute value of the determinant of metric, $`m`$ is the mass of the field, $`R`$ is the scalar curvature (computed with respect to the Levi-Civita conection - ) and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ is a coupling constant to the scalar curvature - at the moment $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ is not specified.
We shall use the coordinates $`(t,\theta ,\varphi )`$ in what follows, so we put down: $`g=ca^2\mathrm{sin}(\theta )`$. The scalar curvarure is given by

$$R=\frac{2}{a^2}.$$

Equation of motion which follows from the Lagrangian density (27) is the covariant wave equation

$$|g|^{1/2}_\mu \left(|g|^{1/2}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }\right)+(m^2\mathrm{\Xi }R)\mathrm{\Phi }=0,$$
(28)
or in the coordinates one obtains

$$\frac{^2\mathrm{\Phi }}{t^2}\frac{c^2}{a^2}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\theta \varphi }\mathrm{\Phi }+c^2\left(\frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{2\mathrm{\Xi }}{a^2}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }=0,$$
(29)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\theta \varphi }`$ is the standard Laplace operator on $`S^2`$.
We see that nonzero value of $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ corresponds only to the redefinition of the mass. It is so due to the independence of the metric on the time. In the general case the coupling to the curvature is very important and leads to many effects - see . We shall use the so-called conformal coupling $`\mathrm{\Xi }=1/8`$. We can introduce the new (effective) mass $`M`$ as follows

$$\frac{M^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}:=\frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{2\mathrm{\Xi }}{a^2}.$$
(30)
Now we have to find a complet orthonormal set of solutions to the eq. (29) - say $`u^{(\pm )}(t,\theta ,\varphi )`$. One can separate variables in the eq. (29) putting

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\theta ,\varphi )=\mathrm{exp}(i\omega t)Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi ),$$

where $`Y_{lm}`$ are the spherical harmonics - they are eigenfunctions of the Laplace operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\theta \varphi }`$ on the sphere with eigenvalues $`l(l+1)`$ where $`l\{0,1,2,\mathrm{}\}`$ and $`m\{l,l+1,\mathrm{},l\}`$. Substituiting this ansatz to the eq. (29) we get the following set $`u^{(\pm )}`$ of solutions to our equation

$$\begin{array}{ccc}u_{lm}^{(+)}(t,\theta ,\varphi )& =& \frac{1}{a}\sqrt{\frac{c}{2\omega _l}}\mathrm{exp}(i\omega _lt)Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi ),\\ u_{lm}^{()}(t,\theta ,\varphi )& =& (u_{lm}^{(+)}(t,\theta ,\varphi ))^{},\end{array}$$
(31)
which is orthonormal (with respect to the scalar product (4)) and complete (this follows from the properties of spherical harmonics). The frequency $`\omega _l`$ (as well as energy) depends only on the quantum number $`l`$ and is given by

$$\omega _l=\left[\frac{m^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{c^2}{a^2}(2\mathrm{\Xi }+l(l+1))\right]^{1/2}=\left[\frac{M^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{c^2}{a^2}l(l+1)\right]^{1/2}.$$
(32)
Field operator $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ can be expanded into the modes $`u_{lm}^{(\pm )}`$ as follows

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}\left[u_{lm}^{(+)}a_{lm}^++u_{lm}^{()}a_{lm}\right],$$
(33)
where $`a^+`$ and $`a`$ are creation and annihilation operators obeying the commutation relations

$$[a_{lm}^+,a_{l^{}m^{}}]=\delta _{ll^{}}\delta _{mm^{}}[a_{lm},a_{l^{}m^{}}]=[a_{lm}^+,a_{l^{}m^{}}^+]=0.$$

Now we can insert this expansion into the Hamiltonian density, constructed from the Lagrangian density (27) in a canonical way, integrate over all sphere with the result - unrenormalized energy of the vacuum state is777In this formula this property of spherical harmonics has been used:
$$\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi )Y_{lm}^{}(\theta ,\varphi )=\frac{2l+1}{4\pi }$$

$`E(a,m)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2l+1)\omega _l=\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(l+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\omega _l=`$ (34)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(l+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M^2c^4}{\mathrm{}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{c^2}{a^2}}l(l+1)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c}{a}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(l+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}}+\left(l+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)^2}.`$
Since $`E(a,m)`$ is divergent it should be renormalized. We are going to use the Abel-Plana formula (its light modification) to do it. But before do this we would like to mention that the fact $`M^20`$ follows from the formulae (31) and (32) and its physical interpretation. If it is not the case we will get at least one exponentially (in time) expanding and decreasing mode that does not play with the probability preservation. One can understant to this fact as a constraint to the value of $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ at the given values of $`m`$ and $`a`$.
The possibility to use something like Abel-Plana formula (17) is grounded on the fact (we are using the same logic as in the second section now) that the energy of Minkowski vacuum (2+1 Minkowski space) per area of the sphere of radius $`a`$ ($`4\pi a^2`$) is given by

$`E^M(a,m)`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi a^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}k_1\mathrm{d}k_2}{(2\pi )^2}}c\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}}}=`$ (35)
$`a^2\mathrm{}c{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dkk\sqrt{k^2+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2c^2}{\mathrm{}^2}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c}{a}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dzz\sqrt{z^2+{\displaystyle \frac{M^2c^2a^2}{\mathrm{}^2}}}.`$
Now, combining the last two formulae, we are able to use the half-integer Abel-Plana formula (see ):

$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}F(n+1/2)_0^{\mathrm{}}dzF(z)=i_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{F(iz)Fiz)}{e^{2\pi z}+1},$$

with $`F(z)=\mathrm{}c/az\sqrt{z^2+\lambda ^2}`$ where

$$\lambda =\frac{mca}{\mathrm{}},$$

to get the final result for the Casimir’s energy. Computations lead to

$$E^{phys}(a,m)=2mc^2\lambda ^2_0^1\frac{z\sqrt{1z^2}}{\mathrm{exp}(2\pi \lambda z)+1}dz.$$
(36)
The Casimir’s energy on a sphere is not exponentially suppressed at large value of the field mass $`m`$, but the force is. So we have got the similar result for the behaviour of the Casimir effect at the very large value of the field mass as in the two previous sections. The energy $`E^{phys}(a,m)`$ increases as the radius increases, so the Casimir’s force makes the sphere be small - it is attractive.

## 5 Scalar field on non-commutative two dimensional sphere

Since the works of Alan Connes  the ideas of the non-commutative (NC) geometry have been applied to physics many times. In the case of two dimensional models (two space dimensions + external commutative time or one space dimension and one noncommuting time) there is a lot of papers in which the quantum mechanics and the field theory have been formulated. For the review see  and the references therein. Special effects have been investigated in . The physical idea to replace our standard point of view on the spacetime by the NC geometry is based on the statement that at very short distances the standard concept of a smooth manifold would change into somewhat else. "The short distances" are usually accepted to be of the Planck length $`l_P`$:

$$l_P=\left(\frac{\kappa \mathrm{}}{c}\right)^{1/2}10^{35}m,$$

where $`\kappa 6.67\times 10^{11}Nm^2kg^2`$ is the Newton gravitational constant. One of the main goals of the field theories formulated on noncommutative versions of the standard spaces is that the UV-regularization appears automatically in such theories if the space under consideration is compact (like $`S^2`$). This is caused by the fact that all operators have finite dimensional representations (they can be written as the matrices of finite rank) and therefore there is no place for UV-divergences. But in the case of non-compact spaces the situation quite differs and UV-divergences persist in the theory .
As we have seen in the section four, the scalar field on the standard - commutative - sphere can be expanded into the series (33), where the space-dependence of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is encoded in the spherical harmonics $`Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi )`$. So, at the fixed moment of time it holds

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{lm}{}\alpha _{lm}Y_{lm}(\stackrel{}{x}),$$

where $`\alpha _{lm}`$ are the complex constants obeying: $`\alpha _{lm}=\alpha _{lm}^{}`$ due to the fact the field is real. It means that the scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a function $`S^2`$ at the fixed moment of time. In  the idea is used that the property $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is defined on $`S^2`$ is encoded in the properties of spherical harmonics $`Y_{lm}`$ that are a functional representation of the rotation group $`SO(3)`$. The function $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ can be also treated as the function of three real parameters $`(x_1,x_2,x_3)^3`$ with the constraint $`x_1^2+x_2^2+x_3^2=a^2>0`$. The set of all those functions forms the commutative algebra $`𝒜_{\mathrm{}}`$888Algebra is a linear space where a product ”.”: $`𝒜_{\mathrm{}}\times 𝒜_{\mathrm{}}𝒜_{\mathrm{}}`$ is defined and some standard axioms hold. In our case, the algebra’s product is nothing else as the pointwise product of real-valued functions: ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_1.\mathrm{\Phi }_2)(x):=\mathrm{\Phi }_1(x)\mathrm{\Phi }_2(x)`$, which is, of course, commutative: $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1.\mathrm{\Phi }_2=\mathrm{\Phi }_2.\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ for each pair of functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$..
The noncommutativity of the sphere is introduced putting down the nontrivial commutation relations

$$[\widehat{x}_i,\widehat{x}_j]=i\gamma ϵ_{ijk}\widehat{x}_ki,j,k\{1,2,3\},$$
(37)
where $`\gamma `$ is a real fundamental constant characterizing the space non-commutativity and operators $`\widehat{x}_i`$ supply the standard cartesian coordinates $`x_i`$. The constraint defining the sphere radius

$$\widehat{x}_1^2+\widehat{x}_2^2+\widehat{x}_3^2=a^2Id,$$
(38)
is considered, too999We mention if we considered the relations (37) we would not straighforward get the NC version of three dimensional space (the standard configuration space for a free particle). It is so due to the fact that the relations (37) are not invariant under space translations which are usually considered to be the fundamental symmetries of the space.. It is easy to verify that these two relations are not in contradiction. Now we loose the interpretation of $`\widehat{x}_i`$ as the points due to nontrivial commutation relations (37). This situation is well-known from the phase-space picture of quantum mechanics where the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as a consequence of commutation relation $`[x,p_x]=i\mathrm{}`$, removes the idea of pointwise phase space of the classical mechanics. There are no points but only the cells of area $`2\pi \mathrm{}`$ in which a particle can be localized. By the scalar field $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ on the NC sphere we shall consider any (operator-valued) function of $`(\widehat{x}_1,\widehat{x}_2,\widehat{x}_3)`$ like in commutative case. The set of all those functions forms again an algebra but now the algebra is non-commutative due to the eq. (37). We denote it by $`𝒜_N`$, where a number $`N`$ should be specified by construction of a representation of our commutation relation.
In  the representation of the commutation relations (37) with the constraint (38) has been done using Wigner-Jordan realization of the generators $`\widehat{x}_i`$ of our NC algebra. The result is that such a representation is finite dimensional with dimension of $`N`$ that depends on the values of $`a`$ and $`\gamma `$ by

$$\frac{a}{\gamma }=\sqrt{\frac{N}{2}\left(\frac{N}{2}+1\right)}.$$
(39)
Some differential operators like Laplacian play an important role in the field theory, especially on the sphere. In our case we should be interested in Laplacian (squared angular momentum). On the standard sphere $`\mathrm{\Delta }=_{i=1}^3J_i^2`$, where $`J_i`$ are the anglular momentum operator which may be treated as the Killing’s vector fields on sphere. They act on a function $`\mathrm{\Phi }𝒜_{\mathrm{}}`$ as follows

$$(J_i\mathrm{\Phi })(\stackrel{}{x})=iϵ_{ijk}x_j\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{x_k}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$

There are natural analogues $`\widehat{J}_i`$ of the operators $`J_i`$ in the case of NC algebra $`𝒜_N`$:

$$\widehat{J}_j\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}:=[\widehat{X}_i,\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}],\text{where}\widehat{X}_i=\widehat{x}_i/\gamma \text{and}\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}𝒜_N.$$
(40)
Operators $`\widehat{J}_i`$ satisfy the same commutation relations as $`J_i`$ ($`su(2)`$ \- commutation relation): $`[\widehat{J}_i,\widehat{J}_j]=iϵ_{ijk}\widehat{J}_k`$. In  the eigenfuctions $`\widehat{Y}_{lm}`$ of $`_i\widehat{J}_i^2=:\widehat{J}^2`$ are constructed. They are similar to the spherical harmonics, it holds

$$\widehat{J}^2\widehat{Y}_{lm}=l(l+1)\widehat{Y}_{lm}\text{with}l\{0,1,2,\mathrm{},N(a,\gamma )\}m\{l,\mathrm{},l\}.$$

The number $`N(a,\gamma )`$ is a natural cutoff. Now we could add to our algebra $`𝒜_N`$ one external commutative parameter - time - in accord with the expansion (33). Then the field expansion on the NC sphere with added commutative time is of the form

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{N(a,\gamma )}{}}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}\left[e^{i\omega _lt}\widehat{Y}_{lm}a_{lm}^++e^{i\omega _lt}\widehat{Y}_{lm}^{}a_{lm}\right],$$
(41)
where $`N(a,\gamma )`$ is given by (39). So, if we omit all no-interesting parameters now (like mass, speed of light), we can write for the energy of ground state - vacuum $`E^{NC}(a,\gamma )`$

$$E^{NC}(a,\gamma )a^2\underset{l=0}{\overset{N(a,\gamma )}{}}(2l+1)\sqrt{1+\frac{1}{a^2}l(l+1)}.$$
(42)
We see that $`E^{NC}(a,\gamma )`$ is finite, so no regularization is needed. There is shown a dependence of the Casimir’s energy (42) on the spere radius $`a`$ on the two figures bellow. For large value of $`N`$, i.e. large value of the fraction $`a/\gamma `$ it is almost proportional to $`a^4`$, so the Casimir’s force, which is also attractive, is proportional to $`a^3`$. At the small values of the fraction $`a/\gamma `$ this dependence is stair-step but always Casimir energy increases with the sphere radius. So we see that the result is not in accord with the commutative one where the Casimir’s force might achieve a maximum at the suitable combination of parameters $`a`$ and $`m`$.

## 6 Discussion

In this paper, we have investigated the Casimir effect in various situations. In the sections 2-4 the computations of Casimir’s energy of a scalar field on the standard smooth spaces have been done. Two different ways of appearing of Casimir effect have been presented: in the first section the Casimir’s energy is caused by the boundaries and in the sections two and three by the topologies of spaces under consideration. These results are known and may be found in large literature, for example see the references ,  and the references therein. The new result is presented in the fifth section where the Casimir’s energy on non-commutative two sphere has been computed. This case differs from the others because of the finite number of field modes caused by the noncommutativity. So, the Casimir’s energy (42) is finite without any renormalization and depends on the radius of the sphere and the noncommutative parameter $`\gamma `$. One could expect that an interesting thing is to investigate what happens as $`\gamma `$ tends zero. It is very often (see for example ) mentioned that one is able to get the standard (commutative) results from the noncommutative ones in the limit $`\gamma =0`$. We see that it is not the case when interested in Casimir effect because if we do the limit $`\gamma 0`$ in (42) we will not obtain the result (36). We would get only the infinite expression which could be understood as the starting point for the renormalization procedure. This difference between the features of the Casimir effects on a commutative space and its noncommutative version is known in the case of a noncommutative cylinder - the first reference of . In this case the spacetime is a cylinder times the real time. Noncommutativity appears only on the cylinder (the time is commutative). The noncommutativity does not lead to a natural cutoff of the field modes because the cylinder is not a compact space. So, the computation of Casimir’s energy involves a renormalization and regularization. The result is essentially different from the commutative one. In the case of noncommutative cylinder the Casimir’s energy per unit length does not depend on the cylinder radius $`r`$ but in the commutative case this quantity depends on $`r`$ as $`r^2`$. Such discrepances might be caused by the fact that our (or ) field theories are not built on the space-times with usual symmetries - the time is always added to the noncommutative space as an external commuting parameter which cannot be mixed with others coordinates. In this way, the situation is rather similar to the nonrelativistic quantum mechanics than to a relativistic theory. Maybe, it should be found another way to construct a field theory on a noncommutative space as presented above or in .


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# Spectral functions in itinerant electron systems with geometrical frustration

( Submitted, Dec. 22, 2001 )

## Abstract

The Hubbard model with geometrical frustration is investigated in a metallic phase close to half-filling. We calculate the single particle spectral function for the triangular lattice within dynamical cluster approximation, which is further combined with non-crossing approximation and fluctuation exchange approximation to treat the resulting cluster Anderson model. It is shown that frustration due to non-local correlations suppresses short-range antiferromagnetic fluctuations and thereby assists the formation of heavy quasi-particles near half-filling.

Recently, geometrically frustrated metallic systems have attracted much attention, for which a wide variety of interesting phenomena have been discovered. For instance, the compound $`\mathrm{LiV}_2\mathrm{O}_4`$ with pyrochlore structure, which is given by a corner-sharing network of tetrhedra of V ions, exhibits a heavy fermion behavior Kon97 . Also, another pyrochlore compound $`\mathrm{Y}(\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{Mn}_2`$ Bal96  shows a quantum spin-liquid behavior down to low temperatures. These interesting phenomena are considered to be closely related to geometrical frustration Kap00 ; Iso00 ; Cap01 ; Lac01 ; Fuj01 ; Kas01  induced by the strong Coulomb interaction with specific geometry of the lattice.

Among theoretical approaches to strongly correlated electron systems, dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) Geo96  is one of the most successful methods to describe various physical properties. In DMFT the self energy is given as a local quantity, which is justified in the limit of large dimensions Met89 ; Mul89 . This method has been known as a good approximation even in three dimensions. However, since the self energy becomes local in DMFT, non-local charge and spin correlations, which are essential for treating geometrical frustration, cannot be properly described in this framework. In order to deal with such non-local correlations, various approaches beyond DMFT have been proposed Don94 ; Sch95 ; Tra98 ; Lic00 ; Kot01 . Among others, dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) Het98 ; Het00 ; Mai00 ; Mou01 ; Jar01  may provide a systematic way to incorporate non-local correlations. In DCA, the lattice problem is replaced by the corresponding cluster one embedded in an effective medium determined self-consistently. This method has the following nice features: the algorithm is fully causal and the approximation can be improved systematically if the cluster size is increased.

In this paper, we investigate the effects of geometrical frustration on the Hubbard model. In particular, we focus on the triangular lattice, which is known as a prototypical system having strong geometrical frustration. Since it is important to incorporate short-range correlations systematically, we employ DCA, which is further combined with non-crossing approximation (NCA) Bic87 ; Pru89  to solve the local problem. We also use a weak-coupling approach by means of fluctuation exchange approximation (FLEX) Bic89  for the local problem, which should be complementary to the treatment of NCA. By calculating the one-particle spectral function as well as the total density of states in these approximations, we discuss how geometrical frustration affects the formation of heavy quasi-particles in a metallic phase close to half-filling.

We start with the single-band Hubbard model,

$`H=t{\displaystyle \underset{i,j\sigma }{}}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }t^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i,j^{}\sigma }{}}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j^{}\sigma }+U{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}n_in_i,`$ (1)
where $`c_{i\sigma }(c_{i\sigma }^{})`$ is the annihilation (creation) operator of an electron with spin $`\sigma `$ at the $`i`$-th site, and $`U`$ represents the Coulomb repulsion. We introduce two kinds of hopping parameters $`t`$ and $`t^{}(t)`$ to study the effects of geometrical frustration systematically Kas01  (FIG. 1 (a)).

In order to apply DCA to the frustrated lattice system, we first introduce the $`N_c`$ discrete cluster-momenta $`𝐊`$ Het98 ; Het00 ; Mai00 ; Mou01 ; Jar01 , which are defined as,

$`𝐊`$ $`=`$ $`n𝐚_1+m𝐚_2`$ (2)
$`𝐚_1`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\sqrt{N_c}}},{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\sqrt{3N_c}}}),𝐚_2=(0,{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{\sqrt{3N_c}}}),`$ (3)
where $`n`$ and $`m`$ denote the integral number and $`𝐊`$ should be within the first Brillouin zone (BZ). Next, we divide the original BZ into the subregions specified by the cluster momenta (coarse-graining cells); an example of $`N_c=4`$ is shown schematically in Fig. 1 (b). Therefore, in our treatment the coarse-grained Green function Het98 ; Het00 ; Mai00 ; Mou01 ; Jar01 ,

$`\overline{G}_\sigma (𝐊,z)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N^{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{~}{𝐤}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{zϵ_{𝐊+\stackrel{~}{𝐤}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\sigma (𝐊,z)}},`$ (4)
is specified by the cluster momentum $`𝐊`$. Here, $`N^{}=N/N_c`$ where $`N`$ is the number of total lattice sites. The summation over $`\stackrel{~}{𝐤}`$ is taken within the coarse-graining cell.

In order to obtain the coarse-grained Green function, we now map the Hubbard lattice model to the cluster Anderson model Mai00 . By solving this effective cluster problem, we can obtain the cluster self energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐊,z)`$, so that the coarse-grained Green function is determined self-consistently. Then the one-particle spectral function and the total DOS are given by the standard formula,

$`A_\sigma (𝐊,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\overline{G}_\sigma (𝐊,\omega )`$ (5)
$`\rho _\sigma (\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐊}{}}A_\sigma (𝐊,\omega ).`$ (6)
We numerically iterate the above procedure until the calculated quantities converge within desired accuracy. In the following discussions, we shall deal with a paramagnetic metallic phase. We set $`t=1`$ as the unit of the energy for simplicity.

In order to solve the cluster problem mentioned above, we make use of NCA Mai00 , which is expected to provide reliable results in the temperature range we are now interested in. Since the dimension of the cluster Hamiltonian is $`4^{N_c}`$, so that the numerical calculation becomes much more difficult with the increase of the number of cluster momenta. We practically take the cluster size, $`N_c=4`$ within NCA in this paper. Note that we have neglected off-diagonal terms in the cluster resolvents, since those are known to be less important for discussing the one-particle spectra Mai00 . We show our results calculated for $`T=0.6`$ below, since this temperature is reasonably low for our system to exhibit essential properties due to the electron correlations.

Let us first discuss the total DOS in the system with strong frustration. In FIG. 2, we show the DOS for the triangular lattice at half-filling with isotropic hopping, $`t^{}=t`$. For the triangular lattice, DOS calculated by DMFT has a many-body peak around the Fermi level ($`\omega 0`$), which implies the formation of heavy quasi-particles due to the Hubbard interaction. We note here that the DCA recovers the DMFT for $`N_c=1`$. Even if short-range non-local correlations are taken into account by DCA, the many-body peak still persists although it becomes slightly smaller than that of DMFT.

This Fermi-liquid like behavior is contrasted to the case of the square lattice with nearest neighbor hopping. In the latter case, it is known that a pseudo-gap structure in DOS, which is developed by the Hubbard interaction, prevents the formation of quasi-particles Mai00  when the system is at half-filling where short-range antiferromagnetic fluctuations are most relevant (see also FIG. 3). Our results in the triangular lattice shows that antiferromagnetic correlations are strongly suppressed in the frustrated lattices, resulting in the formation of heavy quasi-particles even at half filling. Note that in both of these two lattices, the Mott insulator is stabilized as $`U`$ becomes large.

To investigate how antiferromagnetic fluctuations are suppressed by geometrical frustration, we change $`t^{}`$ continuously, and observe what happens for DOS and the one-particle spectral functions on the triangular lattice. The results are shown in FIG. 3. Note that the effect of frustration becomes less important with the decrease of $`t^{}`$.

As $`t^{}`$ decreases from $`t`$, the heavy quasi-particle band around the Fermi level is obscured, and then the pseudo-gap is developed after frustration is suppressed. From the one-particle spectral function for each momentum, shown in FIG. 3 (b)-(d), we can figure out which contribution is most relevant to the quasi-particle formation (or suppression) under strong frustration. Since the state with $`𝐊=(0,0)`$ is away from the Fermi level, the overall structure is not changed by $`t^{}`$. However the spectrum for $`𝐊=(\pi ,\pi /\sqrt{3})`$, which is energetically degenerate with that for $`𝐊=(\pi ,\pi /\sqrt{3})`$, crosses the Fermi surface, being easily affected by frustration. When $`t^{}`$ is equal to $`t`$, where frustration is very strong, heavy quasi-particles are formed around the Fermi level. With decreasing frustration, the heavy quasi-particle band splits, and the pseudo-gap begins to develop explicitly around the Fermi level. Therefore, the low energy physics in this system is mainly controlled by the state with $`𝐊=(\pi ,\pi /\sqrt{3})`$ (or $`𝐊=(\pi ,\pi /\sqrt{3})`$).

In order to further confirm the above statements, we have numerically estimated the renormalization factor, which is defined as,

$`Z_𝐊=\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐊,\omega )}{\omega }}|_{\omega =0}\right)^1.`$ (7)
In FIG. 4 we show the results obtained for the momentum $`𝐊=(\pi ,\pi /\sqrt{3})`$ close to the Fermi level. It is seen from FIG. 4(a) that the renormalization factor for the triangular lattice is reduced with the increase of $`U`$ for the fully frustrated case ($`t^{}=t`$). As mentioned above, this indicates that the effective mass near the Fermi level is enhanced by $`U`$, forming well-defined heavy quasi-particles. When $`t^{}/t`$ is decreased from unity with $`U`$ being fixed, the effect of frustration becomes less important, so that the system has a tendency to be an insulator with strong antiferromagnetic fluctuations. In this case, we encounter an anomalous behavior in the renormalization factor calculated numerically for the triangular lattice, as seen from FIG.4. Namely, the renormalization factor increases as $`t^{}`$ decreases, and diverges around $`t^{}/t0.4`$, below which it takes negative values. This anomalous behavior in $`Z_𝐊`$ is closely related to the formation of a dip-structure in the spectrum, which reflects the enhancement of antiferromagnetic fluctuations. The negative values of $`Z_𝐊`$ should be considered as an artifact of fitting the numerical data with the formula (7) even for the case with a dip structure.

So far, we have treated the effective cluster model by NCA, which may be an efficient approximation in the intermediate coupling regime. Here, we take a weak-coupling approach using FLEX to solve the effective cluster problem. Since FLEX is a perturbative method with respect to the Coulomb interaction $`U`$, it may give results complimentary to those of NCA. We here confirm the conclusion of the NCA approach by investigating effects of frustration on the triangular lattice in Fig.1(a). Shown in Fig.5 are the total DOS, the one-particle spectral function and the corresponding self-energy calculated for the triangular lattice at half-filling.

In the case of $`t^{}=0`$, a pseudo-gap develops around the Fermi level in the total DOS as well as in the one-particle spectral function as $`U`$ increases, which is consistent with the QMC results Mou01 ; Jar01  and also with those obtained by NCA. It is seen that the pseudo-gap disappears with the increase of $`t^{}`$, similarly to the results of NCA. However, it is not clearly seen from this figure whether a heavy quasi-particle band is indeed formed, since the bump structure in the DOS above the Fermi level ($`t^{}=0.5t`$ and $`1.0t`$) is much affected by the van-Hove singularity. Nevertheless, we can see a tendency to the formation of Fermi quasi-particles by observing the imaginary part of the self-energy in the large $`t^{}`$ regime. (Fig.5(c)) Namely, when $`t^{}`$ is absent, the imaginary part of the self-energy has a sharp peak structure around $`\omega 0`$, which is quite different from the Fermi-liquid behavior. However, with increasing $`t^{}`$, its shape changes from the peak to a concave structure, which is similar to a conventional Fermi liquid-like behavior. We have also checked that qualitatively analogous behaviors can be found in the system of different cluster size, $`N_c=16`$ and 64. Therefore, we confirm the conclusion of the NCA approach that frustration assists the formation of Fermi quasi-particles by effectively suppressing the antiferromagnetic fluctuations.

We wish to mention here that our results are consistent with some experimental findings, e.g. the large specific-heat coefficient found in the pyrochlore compound, $`\mathrm{Y}(\mathrm{Sc})\mathrm{Mn}_2`$ Bal96 , which is a typical example of geometrically frustrated metallic systems.

In summary, we have investigated the Hubbard model with geometrical frustration by employing the triangular lattice as a typical example. Applying DCA combined with NCA and FLEX to the Hubbard model in a paramagnetic metallic phase close to the Mott insulator, we have calculated the one-particle spectral function. Based on the results obtained by both approaches, we have demonstrated how geometrical frustration suppresses antiferromagnetic correlations, and then assists the formation of a heavy quasi-particle band near the Mott insulating phase.

We acknowledge valuable discussions with A. Koga and A. Kawaguchi. The work is partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture. Parts of the numerical computations were done by the supercomputer center at Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A striking prediction of string theory is that its “gravitational sector” is richer than that of General Relativity: it contains several a priori massless fields in addition to the Einstein graviton (see  for reviews). We consider that these fields (notably the dilaton $`\varphi `$, as well as possibly some of the other stringy partners of the graviton) represent an interesting prediction whose possible existence should be taken seriously, and whose observable consequences should be carefully studied. Of course, tests of General Relativity put severe constraints on such fields, and notably on the dilaton. The simplest way to recover General Relativity at late times is to assume  that $`\varphi `$ gets a mass from supersymmetry-breaking non-perturbative effects. Another possibility might be to use the string-loop modifications of the dilaton couplings for driving $`\varphi `$ toward a special value where it decouples from matter . \[Recently Ref. has explored the phenomenological consequences of a version of this cosmological decoupling scenario where the special value of the dilaton corresponds to infinite bare string coupling.\] These alternatives do not rule out the possibility that the dilaton may have had an important rôle in the previous history of the universe. Early cosmology stands out as a particularly interesting arena where to study the dynamical effects of the dilaton and of the other stringy partners of the graviton. In this contribution, we wish to discuss two separate attempts at exploring the cosmological consequences of the richer stringy gravitational sector.

In a first part, we shall briefly review one facet of the pre-big bang (PBB) model  of early string cosmology: the “stochastic” approach to the problem of initial conditions . Then we shall summarize some recent work, done in collaboration with Marc Henneaux , which discovered the generic presence of a chaotic behaviour in string cosmology, and the link of this chaos with the Weyl groups of remarkable hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebras ($`E_{10}`$, $`BE_{10}`$, …).

## 2 Stochastic pre-big bang

A series of papers  has developed the so-called pre-big bang (PBB) model, in which the dilaton plays a key dynamical rôle. One of the key ideas of this scenario is to use the kinetic energy of the dilaton to drive a period of inflation of the universe. The motivation is that the presence of a (tree-level coupled) dilaton essentially destroys  the usual inflationary mechanism: instead of driving an exponential inflationary expansion, a (nearly) constant vacuum energy drives the string coupling $`g=e^{\varphi /2}`$ towards small values, thereby causing the universe to expand only as a small power of time. If one takes seriously the existence of the dilaton, the PBB idea of a dilaton-driven inflation offers itself as one of the very few natural ways of reconciling string theory and inflation.

Let us first recall that, within the PBB scenario, the inflation driven by the kinetic energy of $`\varphi `$ forces both the coupling and the curvature to grow during inflation . This suggests that the initial state must be very perturbative in two respects: i) it must have very small initial curvatures (derivatives) in string units and, ii) it must exhibit a tiny initial coupling $`g_i=e^{\varphi _i/2}1`$. In conclusion, dilaton-driven inflation must start from a regime in which the tree-level low-energy approximation to string theory is extremely accurate, something we may call an asymptotically trivial “vacuum” state.

The first papers on the PBB scenario were assuming that this initial “trivial” vacuum state was, in addition, very symmetric (spatially homogeneous). Several authors ,  criticized this “fine tuning” of the initial conditions. This led  to develop a “stochastic” version of the PBB scenario that we wish to explain. We shall first follow  in assuming that the set of considered string vacua are already compactified to four dimensions and are truncated to the gravi-dilaton sector (antisymmetric tensors and moduli being set to zero). As we shall see in the next section, this assumption, mostly chosen “for simplicity’s sake”, turns out to modify in a drastic way the qualitative behaviour of the general (tree-level) stringy cosmological solution near the big-crunch/big-bang singularity. This lesson should be kept in mind when exploring other simplified models of a possible big-crunch/big-bang transition .

Within this simplified framework, the set of all perturbative string vacua coincides with the generic solutions of the tree-level low-energy effective action

$$S_s=\frac{1}{\alpha ^{}}d^4x\sqrt{G}e^\varphi [R(G)+G^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi ],$$
(2.1)
where we have denoted by $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ the string-frame ($`\sigma `$-model) metric. The generic solution is parametrized by 6 functions of three variables. These functions can be thought of classically as describing the two helicity$`2`$ modes of gravitational waves, plus the helicity$`0`$ mode of dilatonic waves. The idea is then to envisage, as initial state, the most general past-trivial classical solution of (2.1), i.e. an arbitrary ensemble of incoming gravitational and dilatonic waves.

The main point of  was to show how such a stochastic bath of classical incoming waves (devoid of any ordinary matter) can evolve into our rich, complex, expanding universe. The basic mechanism for turning such a trivial, inhomogeneous and anisotropic, initial state into a Friedmann-like cosmological universe is gravitational instability (and quantum particle production as far as heating up the universe is concerned ). When the initial waves satisfy a certain (dimensionless) strength criterion, they collapse (when viewed in the Einstein conformal frame) under their own weight. As discussed below, when viewed in the (physically most appropriate) string conformal frame, a fraction of these collapses (the ones where $`_a\alpha _a<0`$) leads to the local birth of baby inflationary universes blistering off the initial vacuum. Assuming that the dilaton-driven (power-law) inflation is somehow converted into a hot big bang, one then expects each of these ballooning patches of space to evolve into a quasi-closed Friedmann universe 111This picture of baby universes created by gravitational collapse is reminiscent of earlier proposals , , ..

Though the physical interpretation of such a model is best made in terms of the original string (or $`\sigma `$-model) metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ appearing in Eq. (2.1), it is technically convenient to work with the conformally related Einstein metric

$$g_{\mu \nu }=e^{(\varphi \varphi _{\mathrm{now}})}G_{\mu \nu },16\pi G=\alpha ^{}e^{\varphi _{\mathrm{now}}}.$$
(2.2)
In terms of the Einstein metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$, the low-energy tree-level string effective action (2.1) reads (we set, here, $`16\pi G=1`$)

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left[R\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi \right].$$
(2.3)
The corresponding classical field equations are

$$R_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi ,$$
(2.4)
$$^\mu _\mu \varphi =0.$$
(2.5)
As explained in  a generic solution of these classical field equations admitting an asymptotically trivial past, i.e. a generic stringy “in state”, can be described as a superposition of incoming wave packets of gravitational and dilatonic fields. This “in state” can be nicely parametrized by three asymptotic ingoing, dimensionless “news” functions $`N(v,\theta ,\phi )`$, $`N_+(v,\theta ,\phi )`$, $`N_\times (v,\theta ,\phi )`$. When all the news stay always significantly below 1, this “in state” will evolve into a similar trivial “out state” made of outgoing wave packets. On the other hand, when the news functions reach values of order 1, and more precisely when some global measure (discussed in detail in ) of the variation of the news functions exceeds some critical value of order unity, the “in state” will become gravitationally unstable during its evolution and will give birth to one or several black holes, i.e. one or several singularities hidden behind outgoing null surfaces (event horizons). Seen from the outside of these black holes, the “out” string vacuum will finally look, like the “in” one, as a superposition of outgoing waves. However, the story is very different if we look inside these black holes and shift back to the physically more appropriate string conformal frame.

It is at this point that the “simplification” of considering only the Einstein-dilaton system (2.3) plays a particularly crucial role. Indeed, the work of Belinsky, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz  has shown that the qualitative behaviour of the fields near a generic cosmological singularity depended very much on the “menu” of fields present in the theory. In particular, Belinsky and Khalatnikov  found that (in any dimension) the Einstein-dilaton system admitted a simple “Kasner-like” monotonic behaviour near a space-like singularity. \[See ,  for mathematical proofs of this result.\] This contrasts with, for instance, the generic behaviour of the pure Einstein system (in dimension $`D<11`$), which exhibits a very complicated behaviour comprising an infinite number of shorter and shorter “oscillations” near a singularity (see below).

In the Einstein frame, one then finds that the the Einstein-dilaton system leads to a monotonic, power-law-type, “collapse” near the big-crunch singularity. This monotonic behaviour is technically described (in any dimension, and in suitable, Gaussian coordinates) by a spatially inhomogeneous version of the Kasner solution. We shall give in Eq.(3.2) below the Einstein-frame expression of this Kasner-like solution. Let us indicate here its string-frame version:

$$ds_S^2dt_S^2+\underset{a=1}{\overset{D1}{}}(t_S)^{2\alpha _a(x)}(E_i^a(x)dx^i)^2,$$
(2.6)
$$\varphi (x,t)=\varphi (x,0)+\sigma (x)\mathrm{log}(t_S),$$
(2.7)
where the spatial string-frame $`(D1)`$-bein $`E_i^a(x)`$ is proportional to the Einstein-frame $`(D1)`$-bein $`e_i^a(x)`$ of Eq.(3.2). The constraints that must be satisfied by the “string-frame Kasner exponents” read ($`1aD1`$)

$$\underset{a=1}{\overset{D1}{}}\alpha _a^2=1,\sigma =\left(\underset{a=1}{\overset{D1}{}}\alpha _a\right)1.$$
(2.8)
The link between the (spatially varying) string-frame exponents $`\alpha _a(x)`$, and the Einstein-frame ones $`p_a(x),p_\phi (x)`$ (introduced below) reads

$$p_a=\frac{\alpha _a(D2)\sigma }{D2\sigma },p_\phi =\frac{\sqrt{(D2)}\sigma }{D2\sigma },$$
(2.9)
where $`\sigma (_a\alpha _a)1`$.

When described in the string frame, the Einstein-frame collapse towards a space-like singularity will represent, if $`\varphi `$ grows fast enough toward the singularity (more precisely if $`_a\alpha _a<0`$, so that the volume in string units grows) a “super-inflationary” expansion of space (i.e. such that the volume grows like a negative power of $`t_S`$, as $`t_S0^{}`$). The picture is therefore that inside each black hole, the regions near the singularity where $`\varphi `$ grows sufficiently fast will blister off the initial trivial vacuum as many separate pre-Big Bangs. The PBB scenario assumes that these inflating pre-big bang patches (which head toward a singularity at $`t_S=0`$, where $`\varphi `$ and the curvature blow up) make a “graceful” transition toward a (decelerated) Friedmann-Lemaître hot big bang state. These inflating patches are surrounded by non-inflating, or deflating patches, and therefore globally look approximately like closed Friedmann-Lemaître hot universes. \[See Figures 1 and 2 of  for sketches of this picture.\] One expects such quasi-closed universes to recollapse in a finite, though very long, time (which is consistent with the fact that, seen from the outside, the black holes therein contained must evaporate in a finite time).

This picture has been firmed up by the detailed analysis of the spherically symmetric Einstein-scalar system in . However, the weakest part of the entire PBB scenario is the conjectural assumption that the above power-law big-crunch behaviour, with a locally growing string coupling, can be “halted” by various non-perturbative effects (particle creation, string loops, …) and “reversed” into a decelerated Friedman-like hot big-bang. For references on this “bounce” problem within the PBB scenario see , and for recent work within some string-theory toy models see . We shall, however, see in the following section that taking into account all the (massless) fields entering the low-energy action (and notably the Ramond-Ramond fields) drastically alters the simple behaviour of the fields near a big-crunch singularity.

## 3 Chaos in Superstring Cosmology

A crucial problem in string theory is the problem of vacuum selection. It is reasonable to believe that this problem can be solved only in the context of cosmology, by studying the time evolution of generic, inhomogeneous (non-SUSY) string vacua. We have seen in the previous section that the generic (inhomogeneous) solution of the simple Einstein-dilaton system (2.1) displayed (especially when viewed in the string frame) a rather rich structure. Let us recall that Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz (BKL) have discovered  that the generic solution of the four-dimensional Einstein’s vacuum equations had a much richer, and much more complex structure, characterized by a non-monotonic, never ending oscillatory behaviour near a cosmological singularity. The oscillatory approach toward the singularity has the character of a random process, whose chaotic nature has been intensively studied . \[See  for a summary of the evidence supporting the BKL conjectural picture.\] The qualitative behaviour of the generic solution near a cosmological singularity depends very much: (i) on the field content of the system being considered, and (ii) on the spacetime dimension $`D`$. For instance, it was surprisingly found that the chaotic BKL oscillatory behaviour disappears from the generic solution of the vacuum Einstein equations in spacetime dimension $`D11`$ and is replaced by a monotonic Kasner-like power-law behaviour . Second, as we said above, the generic solution of the Einstein-scalar equations also exhibits a non-oscillatory, power-law behaviour ,  (in any dimension ).

In superstring theory  there are many massless (bosonic) degrees of freedom which can be generically excited near a cosmological singularity. They correspond to a high-dimension ($`D=10`$ or $`11`$) Kaluza-Klein-type model containing, in addition to Einstein’s $`D`$-dimensional gravity, several other fields (scalars, vectors and/or forms). In view of the results quoted above, it is a priori unclear whether the full field content of superstring theory will imply, as generic cosmological solution, a chaotic BKL-like behaviour, or a monotonic Kasner-like one. It was found in  that the massless bosonic content of all superstring models ($`D=10`$ IIA, IIB, I, $`\mathrm{het}_\mathrm{E}`$, $`\mathrm{het}_{\mathrm{SO}}`$), as well as of $`M`$-theory ($`D=11`$ supergravity), generically implies a chaotic BKL-like oscillatory behaviour near a cosmological singularity. \[The analysis of  applies at scales large enough to excite all Kaluza-Klein-type modes, but small enough to be able to neglect the stringy and non-perturbative massive states.\] It is the presence of various form fields (e.g. the three form in $`\mathrm{SUGRA}_{11}`$) which provides the crucial source of this generic oscillatory behaviour.

Let us consider a model of the general form

$$S=d^Dx\sqrt{g}\left[R(g)_\mu \phi ^\mu \phi \underset{p}{}\frac{1}{(p+1)!}e^{\lambda _p\phi }(dA_p)^2\right].$$
(3.1)
Here, the spacetime dimension $`D`$ is left unspecified. We work (as a convenient common formulation) in the Einstein conformal frame, and we normalize the kinetic term of the “dilaton” $`\phi `$ with a weight 1 with respect to the Ricci scalar. \[Note that this differs of the convention of Eq.(2.3) where there was a factor $`1/2`$.\] The integer $`p0`$ labels the various $`p`$-forms $`A_pA_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}`$ present in the theory, with field strengths $`F_{p+1}dA_p`$, i.e. $`F_{\mu _0\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}=_{\mu _0}A_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}\pm p`$ permutations. The real parameter $`\lambda _p`$ plays the crucial role of measuring the strength of the coupling of the dilaton to the $`p`$-form $`A_p`$ (in the Einstein frame). When $`p=0`$, we assume that $`\lambda _00`$ (this is the case in type IIB where there is a second scalar). The Einstein metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is used to lower or raise all indices in Eq. (3.1) ($`gdetg_{\mu \nu }`$). The model (3.1) is, as it reads, not quite general enough to represent in detail all the superstring actions. Indeed, it lacks additional terms involving possible couplings between the form fields (e.g. Yang-Mills couplings for $`p=1`$ multiplets, Chern-Simons terms, $`(dC_2C_0dB_2)^2`$-type terms in type IIB). However, it has been verified in all relevant cases that these additional terms do not qualitatively modify the BKL behaviour to be discussed below. On the other hand, in the case of $`M`$-theory (i.e. $`D=11`$ SUGRA) the dilaton $`\phi `$ is absent, and one must cancell its contributions to the dynamics.

The leading Kasner-like approximation to the solution of the field equations for $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\phi `$ derived from (3.1) is, as usual , in the Einstein-frame (see above for its string-frame counterpart)

$$g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu dt^2+\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}t^{2p_i(x)}(\omega ^i)^2,\phi p_\phi (x)\mathrm{ln}t+\psi (x),$$
(3.2)
where $`dD1`$ denotes the spatial dimension and where $`\omega ^i(x)=e_j^i(x)dx^j`$ is a time-independent $`d`$-bein. The spatially dependent Kasner exponents $`p_i(x)`$, $`p_\phi (x)`$ must satisfy the famous Kasner constraints (modified by the presence of the dilaton):

$$p_\phi ^2+\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}p_i^2\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}p_i\right)^2=0,\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}p_i=1.$$
(3.3)
The set of parameters satisfying Eqs. (3.3) is topologically a $`(d1)`$-dimensional sphere: the “Kasner sphere”. When the dilaton is absent, one must set $`p_\phi `$ to zero in Eqs.(3.3). In that case the dimension of the Kasner sphere is $`d2=D3`$.

The approximate solution Eqs. (3.2) is obtained by neglecting in the field equations for $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\phi `$: (i) the effect of the spatial derivatives of $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\phi `$, and (ii) the contributions of the various $`p`$-form fields $`A_p`$. The condition for the “stability” of the solution (3.2), i.e. for the absence of BKL oscillations at $`t0`$, would be that the inclusion in the field equations of the discarded contributions (i) and (ii) (computed within the assumption (3.2)) be fractionally negligible as $`t0`$. As usual, the fractional effect of the spatial derivatives of $`\phi `$ is found to be negligible, while the fractional effect (with respect to the leading terms, which are $`t^2`$) of the spatial derivatives of the metric, i.e. the quantities $`t^2\overline{R}_j^i`$ (where $`\overline{R}_j^i`$ denotes the $`d`$-dimensional Ricci tensor) contains, as only “dangerous terms” when $`t0`$ a sum of terms $`t^{2g_{ijk}}`$, where the gravitational exponents $`g_{ijk}`$ ($`ij`$, $`ik`$, $`jk`$) are the following combinations of the Kasner exponents

$$g_{ijk}(p)=2p_i+\underset{\mathrm{}i,j,k}{}p_{\mathrm{}}=1+p_ip_jp_k.$$
(3.4)
The “gravitational” stability condition is that all the exponents $`g_{ijk}(p)`$ be positive. In the presence of form fields $`A_p`$ there are additional stability conditions related to the contributions of the form fields to the Einstein-dilaton equations. They are obtained by solving, à la BKL, the $`p`$-form field equations in the background (3.2) and then estimating the corresponding “dangerous” terms in the Einstein field equations. When neglecting the spatial derivatives in the Maxwell equations in first-order form $`dF=0`$ and $`\delta (e^{\lambda _p\phi }F)=0`$, where $`\delta d`$ is the (Hodge) dual of the Cartan differential $`d`$ and $`F_{p+1}=dA_p`$, one finds that both the “electric” components $`\sqrt{g}e^{\lambda _p\phi }F^{0i_1\mathrm{}i_p}`$, and the “magnetic” components $`F_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{p+1}}`$, are constant in time. Combining this information with the approximate results (3.2) one can estimate the fractional effect of the $`p`$-form contributions in the right-hand-side of the $`g_{\mu \nu }`$\- and $`\phi `$-field equations, i.e. the quantities $`t^2T_{(A)0}^0`$ and $`t^2T_{(A)j}^i`$ where $`T_{(A)\nu }^\mu `$ denotes the stress-energy tensor of the $`p`$-form. \[As usual  the mixed terms $`T_{(A)i}^0`$, which enter the momentum constraints play a rather different role and do not need to be explicitly considered.\] Finally, one gets as “dangerous” terms when $`t0`$ a sum of “electric” contributions $`t^{2e_{i_1\mathrm{}i_p}^{(p)}}`$ and of “magnetic” ones $`t^{2b_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{dp1}}^{(p)}}`$. Here, the electric exponents $`e_{i_1\mathrm{}i_p}^{(p)}`$ (where all the indices $`i_n`$ are different) are defined as

$$e_{i_1\mathrm{}i_p}^{(p)}(p)=p_{i_1}+p_{i_2}+\mathrm{}+p_{i_p}\frac{1}{2}\lambda _pp_\phi ,$$
(3.5)
while the magnetic exponents $`b_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{dp1}}^{(p)}`$ (where all the indices $`j_n`$ are different) are

$$b_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{dp1}}^{(p)}(p)=p_{j_1}+p_{j_2}+\mathrm{}+p_{j_{dp1}}+\frac{1}{2}\lambda _pp_\phi .$$
(3.6)
To each $`p`$-form is associated a (duality-invariant) double family of “stability” exponents $`e^{(p)}`$, $`b^{(p)}`$. The “electric” (respectively “magnetic”) stability condition is that all the exponents $`e^{(p)}`$ (respectively, $`b^{(p)}`$) be positive.

In , it was found that there exists no open region of the Kasner sphere where all the stability exponents can be simultaneously positive. This showed that the generic cosmological solution in string theory was of the never-ending oscillatory BKL type. A deeper understanding of the structure of this generic solution was then obtained by mapping the dynamics of the scale factors, and of the dilaton, onto a billiard motion. Let us recall that the central idea of the BKL approach is that the various points in space approximately decouple as one approaches a spacelike singularity $`(t0)`$. More precisely, the partial differential equations that control the time evolution of the fields can be replaced by ordinary differential equations with respect to time, with coefficients that are (relatively) slowly varying in space and time. The details of how this is done are explained in . Let us review the main result of , namely the fact that the evolution of the scale factors and the dilaton at each spatial point can be be viewed as a billiard motion in some simplices in hyperbolic space $`H^9`$, which have remarkable connections with hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebras of rank $`10`$.

To see this we generalize the previous Kasner-like solution by expressing it in terms of some local scale factors, $`a_i`$, without assuming that these scale factors behave as powers of the proper time (as was done in (3.2) which had assumed $`a_it^{p_i}`$). In other words, we now write the metric (in either the Einstein frame or the string frame) as $`g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =N^2(dx^0)^2+_{i=1}^da_i^2(\omega ^i)^2`$, where $`dD1`$ denotes the spatial dimension, and where, as above, $`\omega ^i(x)=e_j^i(x)dx^j`$ is a $`d`$-bein whose time-dependence is neglected compared to that of the local scale factors $`a_i`$. Instead of working with the 9 variables $`a_i`$ , and the dilaton $`\phi `$, it is convenient to introduce the following set of 10 field variables: $`\beta ^\mu ,\mu =1,\mathrm{},10`$, with, in the superstring (Einstein-frame) case, $`\beta ^i\mathrm{ln}a_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},9`$), and $`\beta ^{10}\phi `$ where $`\phi `$ is the Einstein-frame dilaton. \[In $`M`$-theory there is no dilaton but $`\mu i=1,\mathrm{},10`$. In the string frame, we define $`\beta _S^0\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{g_S}e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }})`$ and label $`\mu =0,\mathrm{},9`$.\]

We consider the evolution near a past (big-bang) or future (big-crunch) spacelike singularity located at $`t=0`$, where $`t`$ is the proper time from the singularity. In the gauge $`N=\sqrt{g}`$ (where $`g`$ is the determinant of the Einstein-frame spatial metric), i.e. in terms of the new time variable $`d\tau =dt/\sqrt{g}`$, the action (per unit comoving volume) describing the asymptotic dynamics of $`\beta ^\mu `$ as $`t0^+`$ or $`\tau +\mathrm{}`$ has the form

$$S=𝑑\tau \left[G_{\mu \nu }\frac{d\beta ^\mu }{d\tau }\frac{d\beta ^\nu }{d\tau }V(\beta ^\mu )\right],$$
(3.7)
$$V(\beta )\underset{A}{}C_Ae^{2w_A(\beta )}.$$
(3.8)
In addition, the time reparametrization invariance (i.e. the equation of motion of $`N`$ in a general gauge) imposes the usual “zero-energy” constraint $`E=G_{\mu \nu }(d\beta ^\mu /d\tau )(d\beta ^\nu /d\tau )+V(\beta ^\mu )=0`$. The metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ in field-space is a 10-dimensional metric of Lorentzian signature $`++\mathrm{}+`$. Its explicit expression depends on the model and the choice of variables. In $`M`$-theory, $`G_{\mu \nu }^Md\beta _M^\mu d\beta _M^\nu =_{\mu =1}^{10}(d\beta _M^\mu )^2\left(_{\mu =1}^{10}d\beta _M^\mu \right)^2`$, while in the string models, $`G_{\mu \nu }^Sd\beta _S^\mu d\beta _S^\nu =_{i=1}^9(d\beta _S^i)^2(d\beta _S^0)^2`$ in the string frame. Each exponential term, labelled by $`A`$, in the potential $`V(\beta ^\mu ),`$ Eq. (3.8), represents the effect, on the evolution of $`(g_{\mu \nu },\phi )`$, of either (i) the spatial curvature of $`g_{ij}`$ (“gravitational walls”), (ii) the energy density of some electric-type components of some $`p`$-form $`A_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}`$ (“electric $`p`$-form wall”), or (iii) the energy density of some magnetic-type components of $`A_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _p}`$ (“magnetic $`p`$-form wall”). The coefficients $`C_A`$ are all found to be positive, so that all the exponential walls in Eq. (3.8) are repulsive. The $`C_A`$’s vary in space and time, but we neglect their variation compared to the asymptotic effect of $`w_A(\beta )`$ discussed below. Each exponent $`2w_A(\beta )`$ appearing in Eq. (3.8) is a linear form in the $`\beta ^\mu :w_A(\beta )=w_{A\mu }\beta ^\mu `$. The wall forms $`w_A(\beta )`$ are exactly the same linear forms as the “stability exponents” which appeared above; one just need to replace the variables $`p_i`$ by $`\beta ^\mu `$. For instance, one of the “electric” wall forms for a $`3`$-form coupled with $`\lambda =0`$ is $`w_{123}(\beta )=e_{123}^{(3)}(\beta )=\beta ^1+\beta ^2+\beta ^3`$. The complete list of “wall forms” $`w_A(\beta )`$, was given in  for each string model. The number of walls is enormous, typically of the order of $`700`$.

At this stage, one sees that the $`\tau `$-time dynamics of the variables $`\beta ^\mu `$ is described by a Toda-like system in a Lorentzian space, with a zero-energy constraint. But it seems daunting to have to deal with $`700`$ exponential walls! However, the problem can be greatly simplified because many of the walls turn out to be asymptotically irrelevant. To see this, it is useful to project the motion of the variables $`\beta ^\mu `$ onto the 9-dimensional hyperbolic space $`H^9`$ (with curvature $`1`$). This can be done because the motion of $`\beta ^\mu `$ is always time-like, so that, starting (in our units) from the origin, it will remain within the 10-dimensional Lorentzian light cone of $`G_{\mu \nu }`$. This follows from the energy constraint and the positivity of $`V`$ . With our definitions, the evolution occurs in the future light-cone. The projection to $`H^9`$ is performed by decomposing the motion of $`\beta ^\mu `$ into its radial and angular parts (see  and the generalization ). One writes $`\beta ^\mu =+\rho \gamma ^\mu `$ with $`\rho ^2G_{\mu \nu }\beta ^\mu \beta ^\nu `$, $`\rho >0`$ and $`G_{\mu \nu }\gamma ^\mu \gamma ^\nu =1`$ (so that $`\gamma ^\mu `$ runs over $`H^9`$, realized as the future, unit hyperboloid) and one introduces a new evolution parameter: $`dT=kd\tau /\rho ^2`$. The action (3.7) becomes

$$S=k𝑑T\left[\left(\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\rho }{dT}\right)^2+\left(\frac{d𝜸}{dT}\right)^2V_T(\rho ,𝜸)\right]$$
(3.9)
where $`d𝜸^2=G_{\mu \nu }d\gamma ^\mu d\gamma ^\nu `$ is the metric on $`H^9`$, and where $`V_T=k^2\rho ^2V=_Ak^2C_A\rho ^2\mathrm{exp}(2\rho w_A(𝜸))`$. When $`t0^+`$, i.e. $`\rho +\mathrm{}`$, the transformed potential $`V_T(\rho ,𝜸)`$ becomes sharper and sharper and reduces in the limit to a set of $`\rho `$-independent impenetrable walls located at $`w_A(𝜸)=0`$ on the unit hyperboloid (i.e. $`V_T=0`$ when $`w_A(𝜸)>0`$, and $`V_T=+\mathrm{}`$ when $`w_A(𝜸)<0`$). In this limit, $`d\mathrm{ln}\rho /dT`$ becomes constant, and one can choose the constant $`k`$ so that $`d\mathrm{ln}\rho /dT=1`$. The (approximately) linear motion of $`\beta ^\mu (\tau )`$ between two “collisions” with the original multi-exponential potential $`V(\beta ^\mu )`$ is thereby mapped onto a geodesic motion of $`𝜸(T)`$ on $`H^9`$, interrupted by specular collisions on sharp hyperplanar walls. This motion has unit velocity $`(d𝜸/dT)^2=1`$ because of the energy constraint. In terms of the original variables $`\beta ^\mu `$, the motion is confined to the convex domain (a cone in a 10-dimensional Minkowski space) defined by the intersection of the positive sides of all the wall hyperplanes $`w_A(\beta )=0`$ and of the interior of the future light-cone $`G_{\mu \nu }\beta ^\mu \beta ^\nu =0`$.

A further, useful simplification is obtained by quotienting the dynamics of $`\beta ^\mu `$ by the natural permutation symmetries inherent in the problem, which correspond to “large diffeomorphisms” exchanging the various proper directions of expansion and the corresponding scale factors. The natural configuration space is therefore $`R^d/\mathrm{S}_d`$, which can be parametrized by the ordered multiplets $`\beta ^1\beta ^2\mathrm{}\beta ^d`$. This kinematical quotienting is standard in most investigations of the BKL oscillations  and can be implemented in $`R^d`$ by introducing further sharp walls located at $`\beta ^i=\beta ^{i+1}`$. These “permutation walls” have been recently derived from a direct dynamical analysis based on the Iwasawa decomposition of the metric . Finally the dynamics of the models is equivalent, at each spatial point, to a hyperbolic billiard problem. The specific shape of this model-dependent billiard is determined by the original walls and the permutation walls. Only the “innermost” walls (those which are not “hidden” behind others) are relevant.

The final results of the analysis of the innermost walls are remarkably simple. Instead of the $`𝒪(700)`$ original walls it was found, in all cases, that there are only 10 relevant walls. In fact, the seven string theories M, IIA, IIB, I, HO, HE and the closed bosonic string in $`D=10`$ , split into three separate blocks of theories, corresponding to three distinct billiards. The first block (with 2 SUSY’s in $`D=10`$) is $`_2=\{`$M, IIA, IIB$`\}`$ and its ten walls are (in the natural variables of $`M`$-theory $`\beta ^\mu =\beta _M^\mu `$),

$`_2:w_i^{[2]}(\beta )`$ $`=`$ $`\beta ^i+\beta ^{i+1}(i=1,\mathrm{},9),`$
$`w_{10}^{[2]}(\beta )`$ $`=`$ $`\beta ^1+\beta ^2+\beta ^3.`$ (3.10)
The second block is $`_1=\{`$I, HO, HE$`\}`$ and its ten walls read (when written in terms of the string-frame variables of the heterotic theory $`\alpha ^i=\beta _S^i`$, $`\alpha ^0=\beta _S^0`$; see Eqs.(2.9))

$`_1:w_1^{[1]}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^1,w_i^{[1]}(\alpha )=\alpha ^{i1}+\alpha ^i(i=2,\mathrm{},9),`$
$`w_{10}^{[1]}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^0\alpha ^7\alpha ^8\alpha ^9.`$ (3.11)
The third block is simply $`_0=\{D=10`$ closed bosonic$`\}`$ and its ten walls read (in string variables)

$`_0:w_1^{[0]}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^1+\alpha ^2,w_i^{[0]}(\alpha )=\alpha ^{i1}+\alpha ^i(i=2,\mathrm{},9),`$
$`w_{10}^{[0]}(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^0\alpha ^7\alpha ^8\alpha ^9.`$ (3.12)
In all cases, these walls define a simplex of $`H^9`$ which is non-compact but of finite volume, and which has remarkable symmetry properties.

The most economical way to describe the geometry of the simplices is through their Coxeter diagrams. This diagram encodes the angles between the faces and is obtained by computing the Gram matrix of the scalar products between the unit normals to the faces, say $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^{[n]}\widehat{w}_i^{[n]}\widehat{w}_j^{[n]}`$ where $`\widehat{w}_iw_i/\sqrt{w_iw_i}`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},10`$ labels the forms defining the (hyperplanar) faces of a simplex, and the dot denotes the scalar product (between co-vectors) induced by the metric $`G_{\mu \nu }:w_iw_jG^{\mu \nu }w_{i\mu }w_{j\nu }`$ for $`w_i(\beta )=w_{i\mu }\beta ^\mu `$. This Gram matrix does not depend on the normalization of the forms $`w_i`$ but actually, all the wall forms $`w_i`$ listed above are normalized in a natural way, i.e. have a natural length. This is clear for the forms which are directly associated with dynamical walls in $`D=10`$ or 11, but this can also be extended to all the permutation-symmetry walls because they appear as dynamical walls after dimensional reduction . When the wall forms are normalized accordingly (i.e. such that $`V_i^{\mathrm{dynamical}}\mathrm{exp}(2w_i(\beta )`$), they all have a squared length $`w_i^{[n]}w_i^{[n]}=2`$, except for $`w_1^{[1]}w_1^{[1]}=1`$ in the $`_1`$ block. We can then compute the “Cartan matrix”, $`a_{ij}^{[n]}2w_i^{[n]}w_j^{[n]}/w_i^{[n]}w_i^{[n]}`$, and the corresponding Dynkin diagram. One finds the diagrams given in Fig. 1.

The corresponding Coxeter diagrams are obtained from the Dynkin diagrams by forgetting about the norms of the wall forms, i.e., by deleting the arrow in $`BE_{10}`$. As can be seen from the figure, the Dynkin diagrams associated with the billiards turn out to be the Dynkin diagrams of the following rank-$`10`$ hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebras (see ): E10, BE10 and DE10 (for $`_2`$, $`_1`$ and $`_0`$, respectively). It is remarkable that the three billiards exhaust the only three possible simplex Coxeter diagrams on $`H^9`$ with discrete associated Coxeter group (and this is the highest dimension where such simplices exist) . This analysis suggests to identify the 10 wall forms $`w_i^{[n]}(\beta )`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},10`$ of the billiards $`_2`$, $`_1`$ and $`_0`$ with a basis of simple roots of the hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebras E10, BE10 and DE10, so that the cosmological billiard can be identified with a fundamental Weyl chamber of these algebras. Note also that the 10 dynamical variables $`\beta ^\mu `$, $`\mu =1,\mathrm{},10`$, can be considered as parametrizing a generic vector in the Cartan subalgebra of these algebras.

It was conjectured some time ago  that E10 should be, in some sense, the symmetry group of SUGRA11 reduced to one dimension (and that DE10 be that of type I SUGRA10, which has the same bosonic spectrum as the bosonic string). Our results, which indeed concern the one-dimensional “reduction”222Note again that the analysis above concerns generic inhomogeneous solutions depending upon $`D`$ variables. The strict one-dimensional reduction (one variable only) of M-theory has also been considered, and has been shown to still contain the Weyl group of E10 ., à la BKL, of $`M`$/string theories exhibit a clear sense in which E10 lies behind the one-dimensional evolution of the block $`_2`$ of theories: their asymptotic cosmological evolution as $`t0`$ is a billiard motion, and the group of reflections in the walls of this billiard is nothing else than the Weyl group of E10 (i.e. the group of reflections in the hyperplanes corresponding to the roots of E10, which can be generated by the 10 simple roots of its Dynkin diagram). It is intriguing – and, to our knowledge, unanticipated (see, however, )– that the cosmological evolution of the second block of theories, $`_1=\{`$I, HO, HE$`\}`$, be described by another remarkable billiard, whose group of reflections is the Weyl group of BE10. The root lattices of E10 and BE10 exhaust the only two possible unimodular even and odd Lorentzian 10-dimensional lattices .

A first consequence of the exceptional properties of the billiards concerns the nature of the cosmological oscillatory behaviour. They lead to a direct technical proof that these oscillations, for all three blocks, are chaotic in a mathematically well-defined sense. This is done by reformulating, in a standard manner, the billiard dynamics as an equivalent collision-free geodesic motion on a hyperbolic, finite-volume manifold (without boundary) $``$ obtained by quotienting $`H^9`$ by an appropriate torsion-free discrete group. These geodesic motions define the “most chaotic” type of dynamical systems. They are Anosov flows , which imply, in particular, that they are “mixing”. In principle, one could (at least numerically) compute their largest, positive Lyapunov exponent, say $`\lambda ^{[n]}`$, and their (positive) Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, say $`h^{[n]}`$. As we work on a manifold with curvature normalized to $`1`$, and walls given in terms of equations containing only numbers of order unity, these quantities will also be of order unity. Furthermore, the two Coxeter groups of E10 and BE10 are the only reflective arithmetic groups in $`H^9`$  so that the chaotic motion in the fundamental simplices of E10 and BE10 will be of the exceptional “arithmetical” type . We therefore expect that the quantum motion on these two billiards, and in particular the spectrum of the Laplacian operator, exhibits exceptional features (Poisson statistics of level-spacing,$`\mathrm{}`$), linked to the existence of a Hecke algebra of mutually commuting, conserved operators. Another (related) remarkable feature of the billiard motions for all these blocks is their link, pointed out above, with Toda systems. This fact is probably quite significant, both classically and quantum mechanically, because Toda systems whose walls are given in terms of the simple roots of a Lie algebra enjoy remarkable properties. We leave to future work a study of our Toda systems which involve infinite-dimensional hyperbolic Lie algebras.

The discovery that the chaotic behaviour of the generic cosmological solution of superstring effective Lagrangians was rooted in the fundamental Weyl chamber of some underlying hyperbolic Kac-Moody algebra prompted us to reexamine the case of pure gravity . It was found that the same remarquable connection applies to pure gravity in any dimension $`Dd+14`$. The relevant Kac-Moody algebra in this case is $`AE_d`$. It was also found that the disappearance of chaos in pure gravity models when $`D11`$ dimensions  becomes linked to the fact that the Kac-Moody algebra $`AE_d`$ is no longer “hyperbolic” for $`d10`$ .

The present investigation a priori concerned only the “low-energy” $`(E(\alpha ^{})^{1/2})`$, classical cosmological behaviour of string theories. In fact, if (when going toward the singularity) one starts at some “initial” time $`t_0(d\beta /dt)_0^1`$ and insists on limiting the application of our results to time scales $`|t|\stackrel{>}{}(\alpha ^{})^{1/2}t_s`$, the total number of “oscillations”, i.e. the number of collisions on the walls of our billiard will be finite, and will not be very large. The results above show that the number of collisions between $`t_0`$ and $`t0`$ is of order $`N_{\mathrm{coll}}\mathrm{ln}\tau \mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{ln}(t_0/t))`$. This is only $`N_{\mathrm{coll}}5`$ if $`t_0`$ corresponds to the present Hubble scale and $`t`$ to the string scale $`t_s`$. However, the strongly mixing properties of geodesic motion on hyperbolic spaces make it large enough for churning up the fabric of spacetime and transforming any, non particularly homogeneous at time $`t_0`$, patch of space into a turbulent foam at $`t=t_s`$. Indeed, the mere fact that the walls associated with the spatial curvature and the form fields repeatedly rise up (during the collisions) to the same level as the “time” curvature terms $`t^2`$, means that the spatial inhomogeneities at $`tt_s`$ will also be of order $`t_s^2`$, corresponding to a string scale foam.

Our results on the $`_2`$ theories probably involve a deep (and not a priori evident) connection with those of Ref.  on the structure of the moduli space of $`M`$-theory compactified on the ten torus $`T^{10}`$, with vanishing 3-form potential (see also ). In both cases the Weyl group of E10 appears. In our case it is (partly) dynamically realized as reflections in the walls of a billiard, while in Ref.  it is kinematically realized as a symmetry group of the moduli space of compactifications preserving the maximal number of supersymmetries. In particular, the crucial E-type node of the Dynkin diagram of E10 (Fig. 1) comes, in our study and in the case of $`M`$-theory, from the wall form $`w_{10}^{[2]}(\beta )=\beta _M^1+\beta _M^2+\beta _M^3`$ associated with the electric energy of the 3-form. By contrast, in  the 3-form is set to zero, and the reflection in $`w_{10}^{[2]}`$ comes from the 2/5 duality transformation (which is a double $`T`$ duality in type II theories), which exchanges (in $`M`$-theory) the 2-brane and the 5-brane. As we emphasized above, dimensional reduction transforms kinematical (permutation) walls into dynamical ones. This suggests that there is no difference of nature between our walls, and that, viewed from a higher standpoint (12-dimension ?), they would all look kinematical, as they are in . By analogy, our findings for the $`_1`$ theories suggest that the Weyl group of BE10 is a symmetry group of the moduli space of $`T^9`$ compactifications of $`\{`$I, HO, HE$`\}`$.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the above “billiard” analysis is to provide hints for a scenario of vacuum selection in string cosmology. If we heuristically extend our (classical, low-energy, tree-level) results to the quantum, stringy $`(tt_s)`$ and/or strongly coupled $`(g_s1)`$ regime, we are led to conjecture that the initial state of the universe is equivalent to the quantum motion in a certain finite volume chaotic billiard. This billiard is (as in a hall of mirrors game) the fundamental polytope of a discrete symmetry group which contains, as subgroups, the Weyl groups of both E10 and BE10 . We are here assuming that there is (for finite spatial volume universes) a non-zero transition amplitude between the moduli spaces of the two blocks of superstring “theories” (viewed as “states” of an underlying theory). If we had a description of the resulting combined moduli space (orbifolded by its discrete symmetry group) we might even consider as most probable initial state of the universe the fundamental mode of the combined billiard, though this does not seem crucial for vacuum selection purposes. This picture is a generalization of the picture of Ref.  (as well as, in some sense, of the “stochastic” PBB picture reviewed above) and, like the latter, might solve the problem of cosmological vacuum selection in allowing the initial state to have a finite probability of exploring the subregions of moduli space which have a chance of inflating and evolving into our present universe.

Acknowledgments: I would like to congratulate Marc Henneaux (Francqui Prize, 2000) for a well deserved recognition, and to thank him for a most pleasant, enriching and fruitful collaboration. I wish also to thank Marc Henneaux and Alexander Sevrin for organizing an extremely stimulating meeting, and the Francqui Foundation for sponsoring in such an elegant and generous manner this very timely colloquium.