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# Quantum Secure Communication via W States

## I Introduction

Quantum entanglement is at the heart of quantum information processes. In particular bipartite entanglement has been extensively studied for quantum key distribution Ekert91 , teleportation Bennett93 , entanglement swapping Zukowski93 , entanglement teleportation Lee00 , conclusive teleportation MMM99 , and quantum computation Neilsen00 . On the other hand multipartite entanglement has been relatively less studied in terms of information-theoretic aspects.

Recently the classification on the states of three qubits has been proposed Dur99 ; Acin00 ; Acin01 . A typical class includes Greenberger- Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states which exhibit nonlocality among distant local observables GHZ90  and have nonvanishing tangle Coffman00 . W states are pair-wisely entangled with no tangle and they belong to the different class from GHZ states in the sense that they can not be transformed to any GHZ states under the local operation and classical communication (LOCC) Dur00 . These facts suggest that W states have the physical properties considerably different from GHZ states. W states have been rarely considered for quantum information protocols, whereas GHZ states have been employed for quantum cryptography among several distant parts Hillery99 ; Kempe99 ; Scarani01 .

The nonlocality of W states were studied by explicitly considering non-commuting observables Cabello01 . The generation of W states has been investigated with the physical models based on linear optical elements Zeilinger97 , cavity QED Guo02 , and Heisenberg $`XY`$ model Wang01 .

In this paper we propose three variant protocols by using W states of three qubits which enable the quantum secure communication among three distant persons. The protocols include quantum key distribution (QKD) in the pair-wise way and partial quantum secret sharing (PQSS) among the three persons. In addition we propose a synthesis protocol by which both pair-wise QKD and PQSS are executed simultaneously when it is necessary. It is discussed how authorized communicators detect individual attacks by an eavesdropper.

## II Characteristics of W states

We consider briefly the known characteristics on W states of three qubits and compare them with those of GHZ states. W states can not be transformed to the GHZ state under LOCC, implying they belong to a different class from the GHZ states Dur00 .

A pure triseparable state of three qubits is defined by Schmidt-like decomposition as Thapliyal99

$`|\varphi _3={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}}\lambda _i|\alpha _i,\beta _i,\gamma _i`$ (1)
where $`\{|\alpha _i\}`$, $`\{|\beta _i\}`$ and $`\{|\gamma _i\}`$ are orthonormal basis sets on the Hilbert spaces for the three qubits, respectively, and $`\lambda _i`$ are positive. The triseparability is closely related to the tangle $`\tau =2\lambda _1\lambda _2`$ Coffman00 . When $`\lambda _i=1/\sqrt{2}`$, the triseparable state (1) becomes a maximal GHZ state with $`\tau =1`$. When the partial trace is performed over one qubit, the reduced density operator of the other qubits can be represented by a convex sum of product states. It implies that the reduced density operator is separable. On the other hand, it can be shown by generalized Schmidt decomposition scheme Acin00  that W states are not triseparable since they can not be represented in the form of Eq. (1). Thus W states have no tangle, $`\tau =0`$. But the reduced density operator for each pair among the three qubits is inseparable because its partial transposition has at least one negative eigenvalue. Thus, the W state is pair-wisely entangled with no tangle.

The nonlocality of W states can be revealed by three local observers. Let $`z^q`$ and $`x^q`$ be the outcomes ($`+`$ or $``$) in measuring $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$ on qubit $`q`$ ($`q=A,B,C`$). For the W state the local observables $`z^q`$ and $`x^q`$ satisfy Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) criterion of elements of reality and should be predetermined before any measurement Einstein35 . However, such a predetermination is impossible according to quantum mechanics. Recently, Cabello Cabello01  has shown that quantum mechanics refutes EPR’s elements of reality by the proof similar to the GHZ’s. It is notable that the refutation results from the inferences by only two of three qubits while the inferences by all three qubits are necessary for GHZ’s.

Bell’s theorem for W states of three qubits can be investigated also by considering Clauser-Horne-Bell (CH-Bell) inequality Cabello01 ,

$`1A_{11}A_{12}A_{21}A_{22}0,`$ (2)
where $`A_{11}=P(z^i=z_+,z^j=z_+)`$ is the probability that two qubits $`i`$ and $`j`$ among the three raise the outcomes of $`z_+`$ as they are measured by $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$, and $`A_{12}=P(z^i=z_+,x^jx^k)`$ is the probability that one qubit $`i`$ measured by $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ raises the outcome of $`z_+`$ and the others $`j`$ and $`k`$ measured in $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$ raise the outcomes opposite to each other. Similarly, $`A_{21}=P(x^ix^k,z^j=z_+)`$, and $`A_{22}=P(x^i=x^j=x^k)`$.

In particular consider a symmetric W state Coffman00 ,

$`|W={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}\left(|z_{}z_+z_++|z_+z_{}z_++|z_+z_+z_{}\right),`$ (3)
where $`\{|z_+,|z_{}\}`$ is the set of the eigen states for $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ and the symbol “$``$” for the direct product is omitted unless any confusions arise. For this symmetric W state (3),

$`P(z^i=z_+,z^j=z_+)`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (4)
$`P(z^i=z_+,x^jx^k)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (5)
$`P(x^ix^k,z^j=z_+)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (6)
$`P(x^i=x^j=x^k)`$ $`=`$ $`3/4.`$ (7)
The middle term in Eq. (2) is 1/4, implying the violation of the CH-Bell inequality (2).

## III Quantum secure communication via W states

### III.1 Pair-wise quantum key distribution

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a secure communication scheme by which two distant persons have in common a secret key message via quantum channels and classical communication. A QKD protocol includes three basic steps: a) Encoding a key message on a quantum state, b) transmitting the quantum system in the encoded state, and c) decoding the key message from the state. Protocols for QKD may be divided into two sets: protocols assisted by an entangled quantum channel and the rest of protocols. The protocol suggested by Ekert (E91) Ekert91  and that by Bennett and Brassard (BB84) Bennett84  are representative of the two sets respectively.

In BB84, a sender encodes a key message on non-orthogonal states of a quantum system (e.g., photon polarization) which is directly transferred to an authorized person, a receiver. The receiver can retrieve the key message by a measurement on the state if the measurement is approved through classical communication with the sender. Security of BB84 has been investigated based on no cloning theorem Bennett84 ; Shor00 . Modified protocols have been proposed Bennett92a .

On the other hand, E91 utilizes an entangled EPR pair as a quantum channel. Two distant persons share an EPR pair. Each person measures an observable randomly chosen among three non-commuting observables. By doing so, the two persons can have in common a key message if both measurements are approved through classical communication. The procedures for encoding and decoding are executed at the same time, contrary to BB84. Security of E91 is based on Bell’s theorem Bell65 . As the quantum channel is in an EPR state, the authorized persons can see a violation of Bell’s inequality from measurement outcomes. Provided an eavesdropper enforces an intercept-resend strategy to extract the key message Gisin02 , the attempt breaks the entanglement of the quantum channel and thus the Bell’s inequality is not violated. The link between security of QKD and Bell’s inequality has been intensively discussed against individual attacks by an eavesdropper Scarani01 .

Bennett et al. Bennett92b  suggested a slightly variant protocol (BBM92) from E91 with a simplified set of observables and showed that BBM92 is actually equivalent to BB84 although they have different characteristics on quantum channels. They investigated the security by comparing a priori probabilities with posteriori ones of outcomes instead of Bell’s inequality.

We propose a pair-wise QKD protocol via W states of three qubits, which is similar to BBM92 using EPR state of two qubits. Suppose that three authorized persons, Alice, Bob, and Charlie, would like to perform a secure communication in the pair-wise way such that every pair among the three persons tries to have a key message and in particular the members in the pair have in common the key message.

Consider a composite system of three qubits which is in a symmetric W state in Eq. (3). The three authorized persons share the three qubits, one qubit for each person. As in E91 or BBM92 they acquire key messages by performing local measurements. Each person randomly chooses an observable out of $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$. After his measurement, he announces the axis but not the outcome. When Alice measures along $`d_1`$ axis, Bob along $`d_2`$, and Charlie along $`d_3`$, the set of the axes is denoted by $`d_1`$-$`d_2`$-$`d_3`$. We employ particular sets of axes, i.e., $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$, and $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$ for the present pair-wise QKD. The probability to choose one of the sets is 3/8.

In Table 1, we present mutual relations among outcomes when the authorized persons perform local measurements along a particular set of axes. One who measured along $`z`$-axis decides whether it is possible for the others to have in common a key message. We call him a decider. For example, consider the case of $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$. If Charlie obtains an outcome $`z_{}`$ in his local measurement along the $`z`$-axis, then Alice and Bob have their pair in the product state $`|z_+z_+`$ and futher they obtain outcomes randomly out of $`x_+`$ and $`x_{}`$ in their local measurements along the $`x`$-axis. The outcomes are useless for the present protocol and discarded as they exhibit no correlation. However, if Charlie obtains $`z_+`$, the pair that Alice and Bob share comes to be in the maximally entangled state $`(|z_{}z_++|z_+z_{})/\sqrt{2}`$. In the measurements along $`x`$-axis, Alice and Bob obtain the same outcome of $`x_+`$ or $`x_{}`$. They may now regard the outcome as a key bit. Similar procedures are applied to the rest of $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$ and $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$. The success probability in distributing a key bit is 2/3 once a particular set of measurement axes is chosen among $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$, and $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$.

The present pair-wise QKD protocol via W states is summarized as following

1. Each of Alice, Bob, and Charlie chooses, at random, the axis of measuring instrument out of $`x`$\- and $`z`$-axes.
2. Each person announces a bit information on the axis of his local measurement but not the outcome.
3. For the purpose of security one requests to announce their outcomes at random in the trials of distributing key messages.
4. All keep their outcomes if the set of the measurement axes is $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$, or $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$. Otherwise restart the protocol.
5. A decider who measured along $`z`$-axis tells the rest to regard their outcomes as a key bit if his outcome is $`z_+`$. Otherwise restart the protocol.
6. Repeat the protocol until they have key bits as many as they want.
7. By obtaining frequencies of security-check events over the outcomes which were announced at the step K.3, verify the security of quantum channel against attacks by an eavesdropper (See Sec. IV for details). If the errors are larger than permitted, throw away the key bits which have been obtained so far.

Overall success probability $`P_s`$ in obtaining a key bit is given by multiplying together the probability of choosing a particular set of measurement axes and the success probability of distributing a key bit for a given particular set of axes. The number of distributed key bits $`K_t`$ is given as

$`K_t=P_sN_e`$ (8)
where $`P_s`$ is an overall success probability and $`N_e`$ an effective number of trials. In the pair-wise QKD $`P_s=1/4`$ and $`N_e=NM`$ where $`N`$ is a number of total trials in the protocol and $`M`$ a number of trials for the purpose of security. For a given $`K_t`$, the protocol requires $`n_q`$ qubits such that

$`n_q={\displaystyle \frac{3K_t}{P_s(1+M/N)}}.`$ (9)
In the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$, $`M/N0`$ and $`n_q3K_t/P_s`$. Thus the protocol requires $`12`$ qubits per a key bit at average. On the other hand, the protocol of E91 has the overall success probability $`P_s=2/9`$ and it requires $`9`$ qubits per a key bit.

### III.2 Partial quantum secret sharing

Quantum secret sharing is a key distribution protocol among $`N`$ persons in such a way that one’s key message can be retrieved by the others only if they cooperate all together. Variant protocols have been proposed by using multipartite GHZ states Hillery99 ; Scarani01  and bipartite EPR states Karlsson99 ; Tittel01 .

Here we consider a partial quantum secret sharing protocol (PQSS) using W states of three qubits. The procedure for PQSS among three persons is similar to the pair-wise QKD. The difference is the set of measurement axes, i.e., $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$ is employed.

Suppose Alice, Bob, and Charlie would like to perform QSS by sharing three qubits in a symmetric W state (3). Each person randomly chooses an observable out of $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$ as done in the pair-wise QKD. After his measurement, he announces the axis but not the outcome. In the case of $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$, he may regard the outcome as a key bit. More explicitly, consider a case that Bob and Charlie are expected to retrieve Alice’s key message in their cooperation. If Alice has the outcome $`z_+`$, then Bob and Charlie have opposite outcomes out of $`z_+`$ and $`z_{}`$. Otherwise Both have the same outcome $`z_+`$. When Bob and Charlie cooperate so as to collect their outcomes, they can correctly deduct Alice’s key bit. We note that, if Bob or Charlie obtains $`z_{}`$, he will realize that the other and Alice have the same outcome $`z_+`$. In the case he can deduct Alice’s key bit without help of the other. It will be done in the probability of 1/3. The fact implies that Bob and Charlie may have partial information on Alice’s key bit. However, Bob and Charlie must still cooperate to retrieve completely Alice’s key bits. In the sense we call the present protocol a PQSS.

Although the actual key sharing is performed in the case of $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$, the authorized persons must choose $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$ for their observables as well for the purpose of security. If they chose only $`z`$-axis for PQSS, an eavesdropper could extract all information by measuring along $`z`$-axis.

The protocol of PQSS has steps in common with the pair-wise QKD protocol: Most steps in the pair-wise QKD protocol are applicable to PQSS but the step K.4 is modified as

1. All keep their outcomes if the set of the measurement axes is $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$. Otherwise restart the protocol.

In PQSS we have the overall success probability $`P_s=1/8`$ which is determined by the probability of choosing $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$. Due to the arguments below Eq. (8), $`24`$ qubits are necessary to share a key bit at average in the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$. On the other hand, HBB99 with $`P_s=1/2`$ needs $`6`$ qubits per a key bit.

### III.3 Synthesis of QKD and PQSS

The proposed protocols for QKD and PQSS via W states overlap the following procedures, a) performing local measurements for an observable out of $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_x`$ at random and b) checking security by obtaining frequencies in security-check events. They differ in choosing a set of measurement axes and their sets of axes are mutually exclusive. This observation enables a synthesis protocol by which both QKD and PQSS are performed simultaneously. That is, if authorized persons choose a set of axes out of $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$, and $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$, their outcomes are used for QKD and, if they choose $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$, their outcomes are used for PQSS. We construct the synthesis protocol by inserting a new step B.3 between K.3 and K.4 in the protocol of pair-wise QKD as

1. If the set of the measurement axes is $`z`$-$`z`$-$`z`$, go to the step S.4 and otherwise go to K.4.

In the synthesis protocol, the probability to perform QKD is not equal to that for PQSS. Of successful trials for QKD or PQSS, 2/3 and 1/3 are involved in QKD and PQSS respectively. The overall success probability for the synthesis protocol is obtained by summing those for QKD and PQSS so that $`P_s=3/8`$. Due to the arguments below Eq. (8), in the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$, the necessary number of qubits is $`n_q^{syn}=8`$ per a key bit at average. In order to compare the synthesis protocol, let us consider a separate protocol performed by E91 for QKD and HBB99 for QSS in probabilities 2/3 and 1/3 respectively. The necessary number of qubits is $`n_q^{sep}=8`$, which is equal to $`n_q^{syn}`$.

## IV Security in the proposed protocols

How is it guaranteed that the distributed key messages are secure against attacks by an eavesdropper? An eavesdropper, Eve, may have several kinds of strategies to attack Gisin02 . A systematic method for security is not known against all possible strategies. We shall consider simple individual attacks such that Eve performs a unitary operation on a composite system of her auxiliary qubit and one of three qubits, which are involved in a secure communciation, and she tries to extract some information by measuring her auxiliary qubit Bennett92b ; Scarani01 ; Gisin02 . We show that authorized persons can detect these attacks as they examine frequencies of their outcomes.

Suppose Eve tries to extract some information from a qubit for Charlie. Preparing her qubit in the state $`|z_+`$ for a simplicity and intercepting the qubit on the way for Charlie, Eve applies to the composite system of her and Charlie’s qubit a unitary operation of

$`\widehat{U}_{CE}|z_+z_+_{CE}`$ $`=`$ $`|z_+z_+_{CE}`$
$`\widehat{U}_{CE}|z_{}z_+_{CE}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi |z_{}z_+_{CE}+\mathrm{sin}\varphi |z_+z_{}_{CE}`$ (10)
where $`\varphi [0,\pi /2]`$ characterizes the strength of Eve’s attack. This unitary operation was considered to study the optimal individual attack by Eve Niu99 . Due to eavesdropping, the four-qubit state of $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$, and $`E`$ reads

$`|W^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(|z_{}z_+z_+z_++|z_+z_{}z_+z_+`$ (11)
$`+\mathrm{cos}\varphi |z_+z_+z_{}z_++\mathrm{sin}\varphi |z_+z_+z_+z_{}).`$
This state is no longer symmetric. The probabilities given in Eqs. (4) to (7) come to vary with respect to the observing persons. In particular $`P(z^C=z_+,x^Ax^B)P(z^A=z_+,x^Bx^C)`$ in Eq. (5).

It is clear that the trial of Eve’s eavesdropping changes not only the state of quantum channel but also its probabilities in Eqs. (4) to (7). For example, consider the event that one person has the outcome $`z_i=z_+`$ and the others have the opposite outcomes $`x_jx_k`$ once the authorized persons choose one of $`x`$-$`x`$-$`z`$, $`x`$-$`z`$-$`x`$, and $`z`$-$`x`$-$`x`$ for their measurement axes. The probability of such an event to occur vanishes as given in Eq. (5) if there is no eavesdropping. However, as Eve tries the individual attack, the probabilty of such an event becomes $`(1\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi )/6`$ if Charlie chooses $`z`$-axis and $`(1\mathrm{cos}\varphi )/3`$ if he does $`x`$-axis. This implies that such an event is expected to occur in the probability

$`\overline{P}={\displaystyle \frac{(1\mathrm{cos}\varphi )(5+\mathrm{cos}\varphi )}{18}}`$ (12)
which is obtained by averaging the probabilities over Charlie’s two cases. Keeping it in mind that such an event never happens if there is no attack by Eve, the authorized persons can detect Eve’s eavesdropping by checking whether such an event occurs. We call, by a security-check event, an event which can be used to detect Eve’s eavesdropping. For the security of QKD, PQSS, and the synthesis, we employ the event that one person has the outcome $`z_i=z_+`$ and the others have the opposite outcomes $`x_jx_k`$. This security event has an advantage over others such that they never occur if no attack by Eve and their occurrence indicates directly Eve’s attack.

Subensemble of local-measurement outcomes suffices to examine the security of the proposed protocols. One of three persons may request at random to announce their outcomes by $`M`$ times among $`N`$ trials for distributing key messages. We call $`M`$ a number of security trials. Based on $`M`$ sets of outcomes, they obtain the frequency of the security-check event and verify whether there is an attack by Eve. This procedure is appended to the protocols as steps K.3 and K.6.

## V Remarks

We have proposed three variant protocols of quantum key distribution, partial quantum secret sharing, and their synthesis based on W states, which have the different nonlocal characteristics from GHZ states. We have shown that these protocols are secure against the simple individual attacks by an eavesdropper.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work has been supported by the BK21 Project No. D-1099 of the Korea Ministry of Education. J. L. has been supported in part by the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology through the Creative Research Initiatives Program under Contract No. 00-C-CF01-C-35 and by the Post-doctoral Fellowship Program of Korea Science & Engineering Foundation (KOSEF)


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# Renormalization group approach to an Abelian sandpile model on planar lattices

## I Introduction

In 1987, Bak, Tang and Wiesenfeld (BTW)  proposed the concept of self-organized criticality (SOC) in order to understand the automatic (i.e. without a tuning parameter, such as temperature) appearance of abundant self-similar structures and scaling quantities in nature. BTW also proposed a lattice sandpile model and used Monte Carlo simulations to simulate this model on square and simple cubic lattices. They did observe self-similar structures and scaling quantities in the simulation data without tuning any parameter. Since 1987, many natural phenomena have been related to SOC, such as earthquakes , forest fires , biological evolution , rice pile dynamics , turbulence , etc. Many lattice models have also been proposed to illustrate the behavior of SOC or avalanche processes . It has been found that the BTW’s sandpile model is Abelian  and some quantities for this model could be calculated exactly . The BTW’s Abelian sandpile model (ASM)  has been considered to be a prototypical model for SOC. Many ideas about behavior of SOC models, such as universality and scaling , or new methods for studying SOC models, such as renormalization group theory , are often first tested in the BTW’s ASM. In the present paper, we propose a computer algorithm which is useful for carrying out renormalization group transformations for the BTW’s ASM.

The BTW’s ASM on a lattice $`\mathrm{}`$ of $`N`$ sites is defined as follows. Each site of $`\mathrm{}`$ is assigned a height integer; the $`i`$-th site is assigned $`z_i`$ for $`1iN`$. In the beginning of the simulation, the height integer at each site is randomly chosen to be 0, 1,…, or $`z_c1`$, where the critical height is $`z_c1`$ and $`z_c`$ is the coordination number of the lattice. For each time interval $`T_a`$, one particle falls on a randomly chosen lattice site, say the $`i`$-th site; the height $`z_i`$ then becomes $`z_i+1`$. If the new $`z_i<z_c`$, then randomly choose a site again, say the $`k`$-th site, to add a particle; if $`z_iz_c`$, then the $`i`$-th site topples and its height $`z_i`$ becomes $`z_iz_c`$. At the same time, each of the nearest neighbor (nn) sites of the $`i`$-th site receives one particle, i.e., $`z_{\omega (i,j)}z_{\omega (i,j)}+1`$, $`j`$ where $`\omega (i,j)`$ is the label of the $`j`$th nn site of the $`i`$-th site. This relaxation procedure takes time $`t_w`$ and we assume $`t_w/T_a0`$. If some of the new $`z_{\omega (i,j)}`$, $``$ $`j`$, are equal or larger than $`z_c`$ again, these sites are denoted by $`\omega (i,j^{})`$. Then, the toppling process continues in parallel for each $`j^{}`$ with $`z_{\omega (i,j^{})}z_{\omega (i,j^{})}z_c`$ and $`z_{\omega (\omega (i,j^{}),k)}z_{\omega (\omega (i,j^{}),k)}+1`$ where $`\omega (\omega (i,j^{}),k)`$ is the $`k`$-th nn site of the $`j^{}`$-th nn site of the $`i`$-th site. The relaxation time for these parallel toppling and receiving processes between $`\omega (i,j^{})`$ and $`\omega (\omega (i,j^{}),k)`$ takes another time $`t_w`$. Usually, the open boundary conditions are used so that when a boundary site topples, the particle can leave the system. The dynamical process continues until the heights of all sites are less than $`z_c`$. In general, if the last toppling site is $`\omega (\omega (\mathrm{}(\omega (\omega (i,i_1),i_2),i_3)\mathrm{}),i_n)`$, the total toppling process takes time $`n\times t_w`$. In this way, a series of toppling processes with toppling area $`s`$ (i.e., the total number of toppled sites) and relaxation time $`nt_wt`$ appears and forms an avalanche which has no characteristic size.

After repeating many times the process of adding one particle on a randomly chosen site with subsequent relaxation when the height of the site is equal or larger then $`z_c`$, we can obtain a distribution of toppling area $`P(s)`$ and calculate the average relaxation time $`<t>`$ for avalanches with toppling area $`s`$. It has been found that $`P(s)s^\tau `$ with the avalanche exponent $`\tau `$ and $`<t>s^{z/2}`$ with the dynamical exponent $`z`$. Manna  used Monte Carlo simulations to calculate $`\tau =1.22`$ and $`z=1.21`$ for the BTW model on the square (sq) lattice. Majumdar and Dhar conjectured that $`z=5/4`$ which is consistent with their own numerical simulations , and Priezzhev et al.  proposed that $`\tau =5/4`$. By scaling argument, Tebaldi et al.  suggested $`\tau =6/5`$. Many investigations have been just focused on numerical simulations or exact results for height probabilities and exponents for the sq lattice and there is little attention to other kinds of lattices. It is not clear whether the sandpile model on two dimensional lattices have the same set of critical exponents.

The renormalization group (RG) theory has been used successfully to calculate critical exponents, order parameters, etc, of ordinary phase transition models, e.g. the Ising model , the Potts model  and the percolation model ; it has also been used to understand universality and scaling in ordinary phase transition models. It is of interest to know whether one can also use RG theory to calculate critical exponents for lattice SOC models, e.g. the BTW sandpile model. In 1994, Pietronero, Vespignani, and Zapperi (PVZ)  first proposed a RG theory to calculate critical exponents of the BTW sandpile model on the sq lattice. They used a stationary condition to provide a feedback mechanism that drives the system to its critical state. In fact, in their approach, the height of a site $`z_i`$ is reduced to only three cases corresponding to three classes: stable for $`z_i<z_c1`$, critical for $`z_i=z_c1`$, and unstable for $`z_iz_c`$. The obtained renormalization group equations allow them to get an attractive fixed point. At this fixed point, they obtained avalanche exponent $`\tau `$ =1.253 and dynamical exponent $`z`$ =1.168. In 1995, PVZ  described in more details their RG approach to the BTW sandpile model. In 1996, Ivashkevich  generalized PVZ’s RG scheme with real height parameters $`z_i`$ by kinetic equations and used the technique of generating function to construct RG equations to obtain the exponent $`\tau `$ =1.248 and height probabilities. In addition, Ivashkevich found that for the sq lattice critical particle transfer probabilities are close to branching probabilities for spanning tree. However, Papoyan and Povolotsky  pointed out that such connections could be wrong and used the example of the plane triangular (pt) lattice to illustrate their ideas. In 1996, Vespignani, Zapperi, and Loreto  proposed a real space dynamical driven renormalization group to provide a theoretical basis for previous RG studies of the ASM. In 1997, Lubek and Usadel used extensive Monte Carlo simulations to find that $`\tau 1.33`$ .

One important step in the RG approach to a lattice sandpile model is the exact enumeration of all possible toppling processes of sandpile dynamics inside a cell for RG transformation. PVZ and Ivashkevich divided the height configurations inside a RG cell into subsets with the same number of critical height by hand. After this procedure, for each height configuration, PVZ counted the possible toppling events by hand and Ivashkevich did this by the technique of generating function. Based on Refs. , in the present paper we formulate a computer algorithm for RG studies of the BTW sandpile model on the sq, pt, and honeycomb (hc) lattices. The advantage of our method is that we don’t need to classify all height configurations inside a RG cell into different subsets by hand which is different for different kinds of lattices and RG cell sizes. Therefore, it is easier for us to extend the same algorithm to different cell sizes and different kinds of lattices. Another advantage of our method is that we can study larger RG cells. For example, in  and , they have only carried out $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site and 5-site cell to one site RG transformations for the sq lattice, and we can carry out $`3\times 3`$ cell to one site RG transformation (RGT) for the sq lattice.

In the present paper, we consider both PVZ and Ivashkevich RGTs. Using the PVZ reduced height RG equations, we calculate the density of critical sites $`\rho `$, the probability for one site to transfer sands to $`i`$ different nearest neighbors $`p_i`$, the avalanche exponent $`\tau `$ and the dynamical exponent $`z`$ by $`2\times 2`$ and $`3\times 3`$ cells to one site RGTs for the sq lattice, and 3 sites cell to one site RGT for the pt lattice. Using the Ivashkevich’s real height RG equations, we calculate the critical height probabilities, the critical sand transfer probabilities, the avalanche exponent $`\tau `$, and the dynamical exponent $`z`$ by $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site RGT for the sq lattice and 3 sites cell to one site RGT for the pt lattice. We find that our calculated height probabilities are consistent with the exact and numerical simulations.

The outline of this paper is as follows. In Sec. II, we introduce the reduced height RG equations. Here, we extend PVZ’s formulation for the sq lattice to a general lattice. In Sec. III, we present a systematic computer algorithm for the exact enumeration of all possible toppling processes of sandpile dynamics inside a cell for RGT. By using this algorithm, we present the obtained fixed points of reduced height RG equations and the critical exponents in Sec. IV. In Sec. V, we apply real height RG equations to the BTW model on sq and pt lattices. For a different definition of RG cell for the hc lattice, in Sec. VI we calculate the critical sand transfer probabilities and find that they are different from branching probabilities of spanning trees on the same (hc) lattice. This result confirms Papoyan and Povolotsky’s result  for the pt lattice. Finally, we summarize our results and discuss problems for further studies in Sec. VII.

## II reduced height renormalization group equations

In this section we extend PVZ’s formulation of RG transformation  for the sq lattice to a general lattice $`\mathrm{}`$ and present a simplified version which is useful for realization by a computer program. Then, we propose an algorithm for counting events of RG procedure. In the next section, we will show that this calculation is basically consistent with that of Ref.  for a $`2\times 2`$ cell of the square lattice. However, there are some mistakes in Ref. .

As in ordinary real space RG transformations for the spin and percolation models , in the RG transformation for the BTW sandpile model on the lattice $`\mathrm{}`$ with lattice constant $`a`$, we first divide $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{(0)}`$ into $`g\times g`$ cells, then consider the transformation from each $`g\times g`$ cell into a cell with a smaller number of sites or a supersite. In the present paper, we consider only the later case. From the relationship between the cell and the supersite, the properties of the specified cell can be approximately represented by the supersite. After the first step of RG transformation, we have a lattice, call $`\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}^{(1)}`$, of supersites with lattice constant $`ag`$. We can carry out the second step RG transformation on $`\mathrm{}^{}`$ to obtain a new lattice $`\mathrm{}^{\prime \prime }\mathrm{}^{(2)}`$ with lattice constant $`ag^2`$ and we can continue such RG transformation to obtain a series of lattices $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ with lattice constant $`ag^k`$. Examples of RG cells for sq and pt lattices are shown in Fig. 1(a) and 1(b), respectively, whose linear dimensions (i.e. $`g`$ values) are 2 and $`\sqrt{3}`$, respectively.

Here we briefly review PVZ’s RG approach to the BTW’s ASM . If we consider a sandpile RG cell with $`m=g^2`$ sites, the initial height $`z_i`$ of each site $`i`$ inside a RG cell can take integer values $`0,1,\mathrm{},`$ or $`q1`$, where $`q`$ is the coordination number of lattice $`\mathrm{}`$; for example Figs 1(a) and 1(b) correspond to the sq and the pt lattices, with $`q=`$ 4 and 6, respectively. After adding one particle to one lattice site, say site $`i`$, if the site $`i`$ is unstable (i.e., $`z_iz_c`$), the site $`i`$ will topple and transfer particles to $`e_i`$ different nearest neighbors. In general, $`e_i`$ can take values $`1,2,\mathrm{},`$ or $`q`$ after RG transformation which is different from $`e_i=q`$ for the original sandpile evolution on $`\mathrm{}^{(0)}`$. As an illustration, the pictures of $`e_i`$ for the sq lattice are shown in Fig. 2. The toppling rule $`e_i`$ can be described by the transferring probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}=(p_1,p_2,\mathrm{},p_q)`$ where $`p_{e_i}`$ is the probability that the unstable site $`i`$ transfers particles to $`e_i`$ different nearest neighbors; if $`e_i`$ is smaller than $`q`$, one should also specify which directions the particles go into, which will be explained in more details in the next section. In general, the evolution of the ASM at the initial stage $`\mathrm{}^{(0)}`$, is characterized by the initial height configuration set $`Z`$ = $`\{\stackrel{}{z}\}`$ =$`\{(z_1,z_2,\mathrm{},z_m)|`$ $`z_i=0,1,\mathrm{},`$ or $`q1,i\}`$ and the toppling rule $`\stackrel{}{e}=(e_1,e_2,\mathrm{},e_m)`$ =($`q`$, $`q`$, …, $`q`$). That is $`p_1=p_2=\mathrm{}`$ $`=p_{q1}=0`$ and $`p_q=1`$ for $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$ at this stage. For example, for the ASM model on the original square lattice, the height and transferring probability can take value $`z_i=0`$, 1, 2 or 3 and $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}=`$ (0, 0, 0, 1), respectively. On the other hand, after the RG transformation, the height configuration set and toppling rule configuration set are $`Z`$ and $`E`$, respectively, where $`E`$ = $`\{\stackrel{}{e}\}`$ = $`\{(e_1,e_2,\mathrm{},e_m)|`$ $`e_i=1,2,\mathrm{},`$ or $`q,i\}`$.

In this way, the transferring probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$ and the initial height probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$=$`(n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_{q1})`$, where $`n_i`$ is the probability that the height of the supersite is $`i`$, are useful to characterize the properties of the coarse grained sandpile dynamics. We use $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)}`$ = $`(p_1^{(k)},p_2^{(k)},\mathrm{},p_q^{(k)})`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}^{(k)}`$ = $`(n_0^{(k)},n_1^{(k)},\mathrm{},n_{q1}^{(k)})`$ to denote the transferring probability and initial height probability on lattice $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$. $`(\stackrel{}{𝐧}^{(k)},\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)})`$ and $`(\stackrel{}{𝐧}^{(k1)},\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k1)})`$ are linked by the $`k`$-th RG transformation. Instead of $`p_i^{(0)}`$ = 0 for $`i<q`$ and $`p_q^{(0)}`$=1 and $`_{i=0}^{q1}n_i^{(0)}=1`$ in the original level, the normalized condition $`_{i=1}^qp_i^{(k)}=1`$ and $`_{i=0}^{q1}n_i^{(k)}=1`$ are used in the coarse grained level.

In order to simplify the RG transformation, PVZ reduced the height of a site $`z_i`$ to only three cases corresponding to three classes: $`h_i=0`$ which is stable for $`z_i<z_c1`$, $`h_i=1`$ which is critical for $`z_i=z_c1`$, and $`h_i=2`$ which is unstable for $`z_iz_c`$. Therefore, $`Z`$ will be replaced by $`H`$ = $`\{\stackrel{}{h}\}`$ = $`\{(h_1,h_2,\mathrm{},h_m)|`$ $`h_i=0`$ or 1, $`i\}`$, The evolution rule is as follows: If a critical site $`i`$ with height $`h_i=1`$ receives one particle, its height is now $`h_i=2`$ and site $`i`$ becomes unstable. Then, this unstable site will transfer particles to neighboring sites with the transferring probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$. After this action, this toppled site becomes stable with $`h_i=0`$. In this approach, the stable site is still stable even if this site receives more than one particle. It means that the multi-toppling process of one site is omitted in PVZ’s RG approaches. Since PVZ used height configuration $`H`$ and toppling rules configuration $`E`$ to describe the RG sandpile evolution, the height probability vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ can be simplified to one parameter $`\rho `$, which is the probability of critical sites, and $`(\stackrel{}{𝐧}^{(k)},\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)})`$ becomes $`(\rho ^{(k)},\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)})`$.

An avalanche event specifies how a toppling process goes on. Figure 3 shows a typical avalanche event of a sandpile evolution on a three-site cell of the pt lattice. The labels of sites and toppling directions are shown in Fig. 3(a). Figure 3(b) shows a starting height configuration with site 1 being critical, site 2 being critical and site 3 being stable, i.e., $`\stackrel{}{h}=(h_1,h_2,h_3)`$=(1, 1, 0). This starting height configuration appears with a probability $`\rho ^2(1\rho )`$. When we add one particle to site 1, site 1 becomes unstable and transfers one particle to site 2 via directions 2 and out of cell via direction 6. Note that the probability of adding one particle to site 1 is 1/3 since there are 3 sites inside the RG cell and the probability of transferring particles to directions 2 and 6 from site 1 is $`p_2/C_2^6`$ since there are $`C_2^6`$ possible toppling rules for transferring two particles to six directions. After site 2 receives one particle from site 1 it becomes unstable and transfers one particle to site 1 via direction 5, one particle to site 3 via direction 6, and two particles out of cell via directions 1 and 2; the probability of transferring particles to four nn sites from site 2 via directions 1, 2, 5, and 6 is $`p_4/C_4^6`$. Since site 1 will not topple again and site 3 is a stable site, the toppling process stops. In summary, the probability of the avalanche event and the relaxation time ($`t`$) of Fig. 3(b) are $`(1/3)\rho ^2(1\rho )(1/15)p_2(1/15)p_4`$ and 2 (we set $`t_w=1`$), respectively.

Under RG transformation, each three-site cell of $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ transfers into one supersite of $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ as shown in Fig. 1(b) and Fig. 3(c); a site of $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ can transfer particles to six directions shown in the right-hand side of Fig. 3(a) and a supersite of $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ can transfer particles to six directions shown in the right-hand side of Fig. 3(c), which correspond to six outgoing directions of Fig. 1(d). In the avalanche event of Fig. 3(b), the particles which leave the cell in directions 6, 1, and 2 contribute to outgoing particles in directions 5, 1, and 2, respectively, in the figure at the right-hand side of Fig. 3(c) (see also Fig. 1(d)). Thus the avalanche event of Fig. 3(b) in $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ contributes to $`p_3^{(k)}`$ for the supersite of $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$.

In general, the probability of one avalanche event is determined by the initial height configuration, the starting site of the avalanche, and the detail of the toppling process. If the initial height configuration is the $`j`$-th element of $`H`$ and contains $`m^{}`$ critical sites, the starting site is site $`\alpha `$, the toppling process consists of $`a_k`$ unstable sites which transfer $`k`$ particles to $`k`$ different directions for $`1kq`$, the probability of this avalanche event is

$$P_E(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q)=W_jW_{<\alpha >}(\frac{1}{C_1^q}p_1)^{a_1}(\frac{1}{C_2^q}p_2)^{a_2}\mathrm{}(\frac{1}{C_q^q}p_q)^{a_q},$$
(1)
where $`W_j=\rho ^m^{}(1\rho )^{mm^{}}`$ and $`W_{<\alpha >}=1/m`$, $`a_1,a_2,`$ …, and $`a_q`$ are zero or positive integer and $`_{i=1}^qa_i=m^{\prime \prime }`$ which is the total number of toppled sites. Since we don’t consider multiple toppling events (i.e., one site can topple at most once), $`m^{\prime \prime }`$ should be equal to or smaller than $`m`$.

To construct RGT, we should first collect all possible events on a RG cell of $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$. Consider the set of events $`C_j(\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t)`$ which are initiated by the $`j`$-th initial height configuration of $`H`$ and starting site $`\alpha `$, have relaxation time $`t`$, topple $`a_k`$ times by toppling rule with $`k`$ directions. For the set $`C_j(\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t),`$ we count the number of events on $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ which topple $`i`$ directions in point of view of site on $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$. This number is denoted by $`B_i(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t)`$. Therefore, for $`1iq`$

$`f_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{t}{}}B_i(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t)W_{<\alpha >}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_1^q}}p_1^{(k1)})^{a_1}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_2^q}}p_2^{(k1)})^{a_2}\mathrm{}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_q^q}}p_q^{(k1)})^{a_q}`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \underset{a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{t}{}}B_i(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t)P_E(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q)/W_j`$ (3)
is the summation of probability of toppling events on $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ which evolve under the $`j`$-th initial configuration on $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ and contribute to the $`p_i^{(k)}`$ on $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$. Note that it is possible to have toppling processes inside a cell but transfer nothing outside a cell. PVZ omits all of these events and Ivashkevich et. al.  simply assumed these events appear with probability $`p_0`$. Now the properties of the system are fully characterized by the distribution $`(\rho ^{(k)},\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)})`$ at this scale. Then, the RG equation can be written as

(

p(k)1
p(k)2

p(k)q
)=W1/Nw(

/f11F1
/f21F1

/fq1F1
)+W2/Nw(

/f12F2
/f22F2

/fq2F2
)++Wn/Nw(

/f1nFn
/f2nFn

/fqnFn
)

p(k)1
p(k)2

p(k)q
subscript𝑊1subscript𝑁𝑤

/f11F1
/f21F1

/fq1F1
subscript𝑊2subscript𝑁𝑤

/f12F2
/f22F2

/fq2F2
subscript𝑊𝑛subscript𝑁𝑤

/f1nFn
/f2nFn

/fqnFn
\left(\begin{minipage}{25.6073pt}
$p^{(k)}_{1}$ \\
$p^{(k)}_{2}$ \\
$\vdots$ \\
$p^{(k)}_{q}$
\end{minipage}\right)=W_{1}/N_{w}\left(\begin{minipage}{31.2982pt}
$f_{11}/F_{1}$ \\
$f_{21}/F_{1}$ \\
~{}~{}~{}~{}$\vdots$ \\
$f_{q1}/F_{1}$
\end{minipage}\right)+W_{2}/N_{w}\left(\begin{minipage}{31.2982pt}
$f_{12}/F_{2}$ \\
$f_{22}/F_{2}$ \\
$\vdots$ \\
$f_{q2}/F_{2}$
\end{minipage}\right)+......+W_{n}/N_{w}\left(\begin{minipage}{31.2982pt}
$f_{1n}/F_{n}$ \\
$f_{2n}/F_{n}$ \\
$\vdots$ \\
$f_{qn}/F_{n}$
\end{minipage}\right) (4)
where $`n`$ is the total number of configurations in $`H`$ which could contribute to the right-hand side of Eq. (4), $`W_j`$, the weight of the $`j`$-th element of $`H`$, is a function of $`\rho ^{(k1)}`$, $`N_w`$ and $`F_j`$ are the normalized constants of $`W_j`$ and $`f_{ij}`$ with $`N_w=_jW_j`$ and $`F_j=_if_{ij}`$ , respectively. This RG equation can be well understood by the transition rate and master equation of sandpile evolution .

Another important assumption is the inflow of particles equals the flow of particles out of the system, i.e., in the stationary state, $`\frac{}{t}<\rho >=0`$ . This implies $`\rho ^{(k1)}`$ is a function of $`p_j^{(k1)}`$ for $`j`$ from 1 to $`q`$ and can be written as

$$\rho ^{(k1)}=\frac{1}{_ii\times p_i^{(k1)}}.$$
(5)
Replacing $`\rho ^{(k1)}`$ in $`W_j`$ and $`N_w`$ of Eq. (4) by Eq. (5), $`p_i^{(k)}`$ is a pure function of $`p_j^{(k1)}`$ for $`j`$ from 1 to $`q`$. From RG assumption, at $`k\mathrm{}`$, the critical transferring probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{}`$ = $`(p_1^{},p_2^{},\mathrm{},p_q^{})`$ and the critical density $`\rho ^{}`$ can be obtained.

## III a simple algorithm for counting events

In lattices $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ for $`k1`$ obtained after RG transformations, one site can transfer particles to one, two, …, or $`q`$ different directions with probabilities $`p_1`$, $`p_2`$, …, and $`p_q`$, respectively. There are totally $`q`$ different directions which can be labeled by $`d_1`$, $`d_2`$, …, and $`d_q`$. In a more precise description, a site can transfer one particle or nothing to a specified direction $`d_i`$ which is denoted by the variable $`r_{d_i}`$ with values $`r_{d_i}=1`$ or 0, respectively. Therefore, the toppling rules of sites are exactly determined by the vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}=(r_{d_1},r_{d_2},\mathrm{},r_{d_q})`$. Since one unstable site sends nothing to its neighbors is omitted in PVZ RG transformation, $`(r_{d_1},r_{d_2},\mathrm{},r_{d_q})`$ = $`(0,0,\mathrm{},0)=\stackrel{}{0}`$ is forbidden. For a given $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$, the site will send $`j=_{i=1}^qr_{d_i}`$ particles to $`j`$ different directions. If we divide the toppling rule configuration set $`\mathrm{}`$ = $`\{(r_{d_1},r_{d_2},\mathrm{},r_{d_q})|r_{d_i}=0`$ or 1 , $`i`$ and $`_{i=1}^qr_{d_i}0\}`$ into subsets $`\mathrm{}_j`$ = $`\{(r_{d_1},r_{d_2},\mathrm{},r_{d_q})|r_{d_i}=0`$ or 1 , $`i`$ and $`_{i=1}^qr_{d_i}=j\}`$ according to the value $`j`$, $`q`$ subsets can be obtained. And it is straightforward to show that the number of elements of the $`j`$-th subset $`\mathrm{}_j`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ are $`C_j^q`$ and $`_{j=1}^qC_j^q=2^q1`$, respectively.

Now we define $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ as the probability that an unstable site transfers particles with a given toppling rule $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$. The relation $`p_j=_{\stackrel{}{𝐫}\mathrm{}_j}Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ can be obtained. On the other hand, we assume that the probability $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫})`$ is the same for all $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$ $`\mathrm{}_j`$ because of the isotropy of lattice $`\mathrm{}`$. Therefore, we conclude that $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫})=p_i/C_i^q`$ for $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$ $`\mathrm{}_i`$. For example, $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}=(1,0,\mathrm{},0))`$ = $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}=(0,1,\mathrm{},0))`$ =…= $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}=(0,0,\mathrm{},1))`$ = $`p_1/q`$ and $`Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}=(1,1,\mathrm{},0))`$ = $`p_2/C_2^q`$. In this way $`𝐑`$=$`\{(\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1,\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{𝐫}_m)|\stackrel{}{𝐫}_i\mathrm{},i\}`$ can be used to represent the toppling rule configuration of an RG cell; $`𝐑`$ contains more information than $`E=\{\stackrel{}{e}\}`$ introduced in Sec. II.

In Sec. II, we presented PVZ approach to construct RG transformation of Eq. (4) by using avalanche events and we used Fig. 3 as an illustrative example. In this section, we will use the idea of toppling rule configuration $`𝐑`$ and a computer algorithm to calculate all terms which contribute to the right-hand side of Eq. (4). Consider a RG cell of $`m`$ sites, whose initial high configuration is $`(h_1,h_2,\mathrm{},h_m)`$ and the toppling rule configuration is $`(\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1,\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{𝐫}_m)`$. If we add one particle to site $`\alpha `$, the sandpile evolution starts and finally evolves into one state where all new $`h_i`$ are stable. In order to count all possible avalanche events, we prepare a Fortran computer program SOCRG to generate such events. In SOCRG, we consider three sub-configurations sets and use $`(m+2)`$ do-loops to generate such sub-configurations:

1. The initial height configuration $`H`$: There are two possible states for each site i.e., $`h_i=0`$ or 1. Therefore, totally, $`2^m`$ possible configurations are considered. However, some of these $`2^m`$ configurations will not induce sandpile evolution, for example, $`h_i=0`$ for all $`i`$. In SOCRG, we use the first do-loop to generate all possible configurations in $`H`$.
2. The starting point set of sandpile dynamics $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\{\alpha |\alpha =1,2,\mathrm{},`$ or m $`\}`$, where $`\alpha `$ denotes the site on which we add one particle: There are $`m`$ possible positions to add one particle to a RG cell with $`m`$ sites. In SOCRG, we use the second do-loop to generate all possible site $`\alpha `$ in $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$. If the chosen site $`\alpha `$ is not a critical site, SOCRG goes to the next site.
3. The toppling rule configuration $`𝐑`$: There are $`2^q1`$ possible toppling rules for each site. Therefore, there are $`(2^q1)^m`$ possible toppling configurations for an $`m`$-site cell. In SOCRG, we use the third to the $`(m+2)`$-th do-loops to generate such toppling configurations.

For a specified configuration with $`\stackrel{}{h}^s`$, $`\alpha ^s`$, $`(\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1^s,\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2^s,\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{𝐫}_m^s)`$ generated by these $`(m+2)`$ do-loops, we can calculate the toppled vector $`\stackrel{}{O}=(O_1,O_2,\mathrm{},O_m)`$ where $`O_i`$=1 or 0 depending on whether site $`i`$ topples or it doesn’t during the sandpile evolution. For example, Fig. 3 shows an event on a three-sites RG cell of the triangle lattice. In this example, $`(h_1^s,h_2^s,h_3^s)`$ obtained from the first do-loop, $`\alpha ^s`$ obtained from the second do-loop, $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1^s`$ obtained from the third do-loop, and $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2^s`$ obtained from the 4-th do-loop, are (1, 1, 0), 1, (0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1), and (1, 1 ,0, 0, 1, 1), respectively. Then, $`\stackrel{}{O}=(1,1,0)`$ is obtained. The weight of this height configuration is $`\rho ^2(1\rho )`$. The probability of this event is $`1/3\rho ^2(1\rho )Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1^s=(0,1,0,0,0,1))Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2^s=(1,1,0,0,1,1))`$ and the relaxation time $`t`$ = 2. Finally, this event is classified as $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$ = $`(1,1,0,0,1,0)`$ for the supersite of Fig. 3(c). In this case, since site 3 does not topple ($`O_3=0`$). the probability of the toppling process depends only on $`\stackrel{}{h}^s`$, $`\alpha ^s`$, $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}_1^s`$, and $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}_2^s`$. The do-loop used to generate $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}_3^s`$ can be skipped quickly (see below).

In general, consider the $`i_1`$-th element of the first do-loop $`\stackrel{}{h}^{i_1}`$, the $`i_2`$-th element of the second do-loop $`\alpha ^{i_2}`$, and the $`j_k`$-th element of the $`(k+2)`$-th do-loop $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}^{j_k}`$ for $`1km`$; the combination of such elements is denoted by the $`D(i_1,i_2,j_1,\mathrm{},j_k,\mathrm{},j_m)`$, which is a configuration of the set consists of $`H`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, and $`𝐑`$. This configuration will generate a toppling event with probability

$$P_P(\stackrel{}{h}^{i_1},\alpha ^{i_2},\{\stackrel{}{𝐫}^{j_k}\})=W_{\stackrel{}{h}^{i_1}}W_{<\alpha ^{i_2}>}\underset{k=1}{\overset{m}{}}(Pro.(\stackrel{}{𝐫}^{j_k}))^{O_k}.$$
(6)
Since $`O_k=0`$ means that site $`k`$ is not involved in the toppling process, any choice of $`\stackrel{}{𝐫}`$ in the $`(k+2)`$-th loop will correspond the same event represented by the configuration $`D(i_1,i_2,j_1,\mathrm{},j_k,\mathrm{},j_m)`$. Define a set $`\mathrm{}`$ which consists of the configurations: $`D(i_1,i_2,J_1,\mathrm{},J_k,\mathrm{},J_m)`$ with $`J_k=j_k`$ for $`O_k=1`$ or $`J`$ for $`O_k=0`$, where $`J`$ is an integer and $`1J2^{q1}`$. From $`\stackrel{}{O}`$, we can calculate the total number of toppled sites: $`m^{\prime \prime }=O_1+O_2+\mathrm{}+O_m`$. There are $`(2^q1)^{mm^{\prime \prime }}`$ elements in $`\mathrm{}`$ and every such element of $`\mathrm{}`$ corresponds to the same event which is generated by the configuration $`D(i_1,i_2,j_1,\mathrm{},j_k,\mathrm{},j_m)`$. In SOCRG, the do-loops corresponding to sites with $`O_k=0`$ are passed through quickly to save the computing time and the following technique is used.

Define an $`m`$-dimensional array: $`V(j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_m)`$, where $`1j_k2^{q1}`$ for $`1km`$. Immediately after a new height configuration is chosen by the first do-loop (say the $`i_1`$-th step) and a new starting point is chosen by the second do-loop (say the $`i_2`$-th step), all elements of the array $`V`$ are set to 1. For each $`D(i_1,i_2,j_1,\mathrm{},j_k,\mathrm{},j_m)`$ configuration generated in the third to the $`(m+2)`$-th do-loop, we first check the value of $`V(j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_m)`$. If $`V(j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_m)`$=1, we record this event and obtain a set $`\mathrm{}`$. Then, we set $`V(J_1,J_2,\mathrm{},J_m)=0`$ for $`D(i_1,i_2,J_1,J_2,\mathrm{},J_m)`$ in $`\mathrm{}`$. If $`V(j_1,j_2,\mathrm{},j_m)`$=0, we skip this step to the next step under the third do-loop to the $`(m+2)`$-th do-loop. In this way, the do-loops corresponding to sites with $`O_k=0`$ can be passed through quickly. Repeat above procedure for different combinations of height configuration and starting point and we finish the calculation of all do-loops.

Basically, the form of Eq. (6) can be transferred to the form of Eq. (1). Therefore, we can construct the RG Eqs. (4) and (5). In order to test this algorithm, we calculate RGT for a $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site on square lattice, which is shown in Figs. 1(a) and (c) and has been done in details by Vespignani, Zapperi, and Pietronero (VZP) . Define $`A_i(k,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4)`$ = $`_j_\alpha _tB_i(j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4,t)(\frac{1}{C_1^4})^{a_1}(\frac{1}{C_2^4})^{a_2}(\frac{1}{C_3^4})^{a_3}(\frac{1}{C_4^4})^{a_4}\times \delta (k,\varphi (j))`$ where $`\varphi (j)`$ is the number of critical sites of the $`j`$-th configuration of heights. We find that almost all of our calculated values of $`A_i(k,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4)`$ are the same as those which appear in the appendix of , except $`A_3(3,0,1,1,1)=0.749997`$, $`A_2(4,0,4,0,0)=0.1772839`$, and $`A_4(4,2,0,1,1)=1.460250`$ in . Our values of $`A_3(3,0,1,1,1)`$ , $`A_2(4,0,4,0,0)`$, and $`A_4(4,2,0,1,1)`$ are 1.750000, 0.1172839, and 1.406250, respectively. We find that $`A_2(4,0,4,0,0)`$ and $`A_4(4,2,0,1,1)`$ in Ref.  are only slightly different from our values. They might be typos in . However, there is an obvious difference between our value and VZP’s value for $`A_3(3,0,1,1,1)`$ We believe that VZP’s value is wrong since all other 240 terms of VZP are exactly the same as ours and VZP calculated $`A_k(i,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4)`$ by hand and we calculate $`A_k(i,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4)`$ by a systematic algorithm.

## IV Calculations of critical exponents

In the following calculations we use the RG approach in the form of Eqs. (4) and (5). First, we consider the RG calculation from the small scale transformation for square and triangle lattices which are shown in Fig. 1. All bonds outgoing from a given cell into another are included into one renormalized bond of the supersite, as is shown in Figs. 1(c) and 1(d). It is one of the simplest choices where supersites of Figs 1(c) and 1(d) contain just a few sites of Fig 1(a) and Fig. 1(b), respectively. A block of sites in $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ (i.e. an RG cell) is replaced by a site of $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$. Here g is equal to 2 and $`\sqrt{3}`$ for square and triangle lattices, respectively. A more complex choice for the square lattice can be found in  where one supersite contains five sites. In the present paper, for the square lattice we will extend this study to the case where one RG cell contains nine sites. This is the largest RG cell which has been considered for the RG approach to the BTW sandpile model.

By using the algorithm of section III, we enumerate all possible toppling events for two kinds of cells shown in Fig. 1. However, as in  we drop those events in which the number of toppled sites are smaller than $`g_t=`$2; here it is assumed that such events contribute to $`p_0`$ which has been discussed in Sec. II. In other words, these events are assumed to transfer no particle to nearest neighbor cells. Of course, this is an approximation. From the procedures stated above, we can express $`W_j`$ and $`f_{ij}`$ of Eq. (4) in term of $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k1)}`$ and $`\rho ^{(k1)}`$. The normalized factors $`W_n`$ and $`F_i`$ can also be calculated. By using initial values of $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(0)}`$ and $`\rho ^{(0)}`$ to iterate Eqs. (4) and (5) until $`k\mathrm{}`$, we can obtain the fixed point of $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$ and $`\rho `$ shown in Table I. Note that our results for $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site RG transformation for the square lattice are slightly different from those of Refs. . This is due to the difference in values of $`A_j(i,a_1,a_2,a_3,a_4)`$ discussed in the Sec. III. For each lattice, we choose some different starting points of $`\rho ^{(0)}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(0)}`$. We find that all starting points evolve into the same fixed point which is shown in Fig. 4. This shows that there is only one attractive fixed point of RG equation for square and triangle lattices in this RG transformation.

In , the critical exponent of the avalanche distribution $`\tau `$ in $`P(s)s^\tau `$ is calculated at the fixed point of the RG transformation through the fixed point parameters $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{}`$. First, the probability that one avalanche occurs on $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ but doesn’t occur on $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ can be written as

$$K=\underset{i=1}{\overset{q}{}}p_i^{}(1\rho ^{})^i.$$
(7)
In addition, the probability $`K`$ can also be understood as the probability that the linear dimension of the avalanche, $`l`$, is larger than $`ag^{k1}`$ ( the lattice constant of $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ ) and smaller than $`ag^k`$ (the lattice constant of $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$). Thus $`P(s)ds=P(l)dl`$ $`s^\tau ds`$ =$`l^{12\tau }dl`$, where the toppling area $`sl^2`$, and we have

$$K=\frac{_{ag^{k1}}^{ag^k}P(l)𝑑l}{_{ag^{k1}}^{\mathrm{}}P(l)𝑑l}=1g^{2(1\tau )}.$$
(8)
also holds. Using Eqs. (7) and (8), we obtain $`\tau `$ which is listed in the part (A) of Table II. We find that our $`\tau `$ for square and triangle lattices are close to the numerical simulations  for the square lattice.

Another independent critical exponent is the dynamical exponent $`z`$. From the scaling laws at the fixed point we know that the average time of a dynamical process scales with the linear length as $`<t>l^z.`$ Therefore, the time scale $`t_k`$ of a relaxation event on lattice $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$ and $`t_{k1}`$ on the lattice $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ are related by the relation $`t_k/t_{k1}=(ag^{(k)}/ag^{(k1)})^z=g^z.`$ On the other hand, the time scale $`t_k`$ can be obtained as a function of the time scale $`t_{k1}`$ from the RG equations. The relation is given by $`t_k=<t^{(k1)}>t_{k1}`$, and

$`<t^{(k1)}>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t_{k1}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{W_i}{N_w}}{\displaystyle \frac{W_\alpha B_j(i,\alpha ,a_1,a_2,\mathrm{},a_q,t_{k1})}{F_i}}`$ (10)
$`\times ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_1^q}}p_1^{(k1)})^{a_1}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_2^q}}p_2^{(k1)})^{a_2}\mathrm{}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_q^q}}p_q^{(k1)})^{a_q}(t_{k1})`$
where $`<t^{(k1)}>`$ is the average number of subprocesses on $`\mathrm{}^{(k1)}`$ needed to have a relaxation process on $`\mathrm{}^{(k)}`$. By inserting the fixed point parameters into the calculation of $`<t>=lim_k\mathrm{}<t^{(k)}>`$, we obtain the following result for the dynamical exponent

$$z=\frac{\mathrm{ln}<t>}{\mathrm{ln}(g)}.$$
(11)
Using Eqs. (10) and (11), we obtain $`z`$ which is listed in the part (A) of Table II. We find that our result $`z=1.284`$ for the triangle lattice is not far from the theoretical prediction value $`z=1.25`$ . If the universality is valid for square and triangle lattices, the obtained $`z`$ must be the same both lattices. In our RG calculations, we find $`z`$ for the square lattice has a larger deviation from the theoretical predicted value: $`z=1.25`$.

We also consider $`3\times 3`$ cell for the square lattice, which is shown in Fig. 5. Here $`g_t`$ = 3. The critical density of sites and transferring probabilities are shown in Table I. We find that there are some difference between the $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`p_i^{}`$ in $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site and $`3\times 3`$ cell to one site RG transformations. The exponents of $`\tau `$ and $`z`$ shown in Table II have larger deviations from the simulation and theoretical prediction results than the results obtained from $`2\times 2`$ cell.

## V real height Renormalization group equations

In the above study, the height configuration $`Z`$ is simply characterized by $`H`$. In this section, the real height configuration $`Z`$ is used to build the RG equation. Instead of ($`\rho `$, $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$) in above calculations, ($`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$, $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}`$) is used in this section, where $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}=(n_0,n_1,\mathrm{},n_{q1})`$ with $`n_0+n_1+\mathrm{}+n_{q1}=1`$ and $`n_i`$ is the probability that the height is $`i`$. Therefore the $`W_i`$ of Eq. (1) is replaced by $`W_i=\mathrm{\Pi }_{j=1}^mn_{z_j}`$. And the steady state equation of Eq. (5) is now characterized by the following conditions: $`\dot{n}_0=\dot{n}_1=\mathrm{}=\dot{n}_{q1}=0`$ . Therefore, the relationships between concentration of height $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}^{(k)}`$ and transferring probability $`\stackrel{}{𝐩}^{(k)}`$ at the stationary state is:

$$n_{i1}^{(k)}=(\underset{j=1}{\overset{i}{}}p_{qj}^{(k)})/\overline{p^{(k)}}$$
(12)
where $`\overline{p^{(k)}}=\mathrm{\Pi }_{i=1}^qi\times p_i^{(k)}`$ is the average number of particles sent from one site to other sites.

By using the computer algorithm in section III, we count all events over $`Z\mathrm{\Psi }R`$. Here, for height configuration $`(z_1,z_2,\mathrm{},z_m)`$, there are $`q`$ possible states for each site, i.e., $`z_i`$ = 0, 1,…, or $`q1`$. Totally, $`q^m`$ possible configurations are considered. Therefore, the number of events with real height $`Z`$ is much larger than that with $`H`$. According to Eqs. (4) and (12), the $`p_i^{}`$ and $`n_i^{}`$ can be obtained after repeated iterations. In Table III, we compare the critical height probabilities with the exact  and numerical results. The numerical results are obtained from simulations on $`1000\times 1000`$ sq and pt lattices and in each case $`10^6`$ configurations are generated to obtain the data. We also list the results of RG calculations reported in Refs. . We find that our RG fixed point is very close to previous RG calculations . It means that our RG calculation is reliable. We also find that the RG results of the critical height probabilities $`n_i^{}`$ have the same behavior as the numerical or exact results.

For critical exponent $`\tau `$, Eq. (8) is still useful but Eq. (7) should be revised to satisfy the definition of $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$. The new equation is

$$K=\underset{i=1}{\overset{q}{}}p_i^{}(1n_q^{})^i$$
(13)
where $`\rho ^{}`$ in Eq. (7) has to be replaced by $`n_q^{}`$. By Eqs. (8) and (13), the critical exponent $`\tau `$ is obtained for sq and triangle lattice which are shown in the part (B) of Tab. II. We find that the value of $`\tau `$ is very close to previous calculation for sq and triangle lattice. It shows again that our computer algorithm and calculation are equivalent to Ivashkevich’s algorithm. In Refs. , they didn’t calculate the dynamical exponent $`z`$. Here, by Eqs. (10) and (11), we calculate this quality which is shown in part (B) of Tab. II. We find that the obtained $`z`$ on triangle lattice is far from the value of exact and numerical results for the square lattice.

## VI Calculations for the honeycomb lattice

There is no overlap of sites between RG cells in the Figs.1 and 5. In other words, from these two figures, if one site belongs to one specified cell, this site does not belong to other cells. Due to this property of cells, Eqs. (7)-(13) can be used to calculate critical exponents. Consider the RG transformation cell for the honeycomb (hc) lattice shown in Fig. 6. This kind of RG cell allows one site to belong to two different RG cells. If we use the cell transformation in Fig. 6(a) and 6(b), we can still obtain the fixed point of $`\rho `$ and $`p_i`$. However, it seems that it is inappropriate to get the critical exponents $`\tau `$ and $`z`$ for the hc lattic by Eqs. (7)-(13).

The algorithm in Sec. III is still useful for the calculation of transferring probabilities for the honeycomb lattice. First, for the reduced height RG equation, we count all possible toppling events and drop those events with $`g_t=3`$. Then, using Eqs. (4) and (5) to obtain $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`p_i^{}`$ which are shown in Table I. For real height RG equation, the obtained $`n_i^{}`$ and $`p_i^{}`$ are shown in Table III and IV, respectively. We find that the height probabilities $`n_i`$ are quite consistent with the numerical simulations on $`1000\times 1000`$ honeycomb lattice, where $`10^6`$ configurations are generated to obtain numerical data.

The branching probability of a spanning tree  $`\widehat{p}_k`$ is the probability for any site of a random spanning tree to have a coordination number $`k`$. The Green functions of the Laplace equation for the square, triangle, and honeycomb lattices are well known . For an infinite lattice, $`G`$ depends only on the difference of site coordinates rather than their values. Here we show the Green function for the honeycomb lattice as an example:

$$G(r_1r_2)=_0^{2\pi }_0^{2\pi }\frac{1}{2}\frac{f(x_1,x_2,y_1,y_2,\alpha ,\beta )}{1\frac{4}{9}(4cos^2\alpha 4cos\alpha cos\beta )}\frac{d\alpha }{2\pi }\frac{d\beta }{2\pi },$$
(14)
where

$`f(x_1,x_2,y_1,y_2,\alpha ,\beta )`$ $`=`$ $`cos(\alpha (x_1x_2)\beta (y_1y_2)){\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}cos(\alpha )cos(\alpha (x_1x_2)`$ (16)
$`\beta (y_1y_2)){\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}cos(\alpha (x_1x_2)\beta (y_1y_2)\beta )1.`$
Following the same procedure as Ref. , we obtain the branching probability of a spanning tree $`\widehat{p}_k`$ for the honeycomb lattice. The values of $`\widehat{p}_k`$ for sq and pt lattices  are also listed in Table IV. In Table IV, we compare the RG transferring probabilities $`p_i^{}`$ with the branching probabilities of spanning tree $`\widehat{p}_i`$. We find that they have the same behavior on the square lattice. However, they are not on the triangle and honeycomb lattices. Thus, we can conclude that the hypothesis about the coincidence of $`p_i`$ and $`\widehat{p}_i`$ proposed in  is not valid.

## VII summary and discussion

In this paper we use a computer algorithm to calculate the effective toppling events for two kinds of RG equations. We find that the values of critical exponents $`\tau `$ and $`z`$ for $`2\times 2`$ cell to one site RG transformation for the sq lattice are closer to conjectured exact values and simulation values than those for $`3\times 3`$ cell to one site RG transformation. There are two possible reasons. The first reason is that we don’t consider the multiple toppling events in the RG calculations. The errors arising from the multiple toppling events are larger for $`3\times 3`$ cell. Therefore, when the cell size increases, we should consider the multiple toppling events in order to get accurate values of $`\tau `$ and $`z`$. This can not be done easily in exact enumeration approach to RG transformations, but can be done by Monte Carlo RG calculations. Another possible reason is that the critical exponent $`\tau `$ is not well defined for the BTW sandpile model and therefore RGT can not be used to obtain the critical exponent.

For the PVZ approach, the critical density of sites, $`\rho ^{}`$, is equivalent to height probabilities, $`n_q^{}`$, in the Ivashkevich approach. If we compare the value of $`\rho ^{}`$ with the numerical or exact $`n_q^{}`$, we find that $`\rho ^{}`$ is larger than $`n_q^{}`$. This is related to the rule that in PVZ approach the stable site will not topple even the stable site receive more than one particles. Therefore, the obtained $`\rho ^{}`$ must be larger to compensate the loss of stable sites which have the potential of toppling. Again, when the cell size is larger, the compensation effect is also larger. For example, $`\rho ^{}`$ obtained from $`3\times 3`$ cell of the square lattice is larger than that obtained from the $`2\times 2`$. There is no such kind of problem in Ivashkevich’s approach. We find the $`n_i^{}`$ is consistent with the numerical simulations and exact results.

In summary, it is worthwhile to consider the multiple toppling events in the real height RG treatment in order to answer the question discussed above. However, it is hard to carry out exact enumerations for larger cell sizes. In the next step, we plan to use Monte Carlo simulations to construct RG transformations with large cells and include multiple toppling events.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank D. Dhar and V. B. Priezzhev for useful discussion and A. M. Povolotsky for a critical reading of the paper. This work was supported by the National Science Council of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under Grant No. NSC 90-2112-M-001-074.


text:
# Chern-Simons Term for BF Theory and Gravity as a Generalized Topological Field Theory in Four Dimensions

## I Introduction

In the last few years one of the most important progress in quantum gravity is that deep relations between gravity and the gauge fields have been further disclosed. In string theory one seminal work is the proposed $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondenceAharony:1999ti , which implies there might exist a general duality between gravity theory and Yang-Mills theory. On the side of loop quantum gravity, the replacing of geometrodynamics by connection dynamics has also shed light on the analogy of gravitational fields and gauge fieldsAshtekar:hf . In particular, there has been recently much interest in the relations between topological field theory and gravityCraneYetter ; linking . Besides the well known fact that three dimensional gravity is simply a topological field theory without local degrees of freedomWitten , recent progress shows that even in higher dimensions Einstein’s general relativity and supergravity in Ashtekar formalism may also be written as topological field theories with extra constraintsCDJM ; CDJ ; super-ezawa ; Smolin ; LingSmolin 111This idea is similar to that of MacDowell-Mansouri MM ; Mansouri  in which general relativity is obtained by breaking the $`SO(3,2)`$ symmetry of a topological field theory down to $`SO(3,1)`$. The earlier work to present general relativity as a constrained topological field theory can also be seen inPlebanski . Since no pre-exiting metric or other geometric structure of spacetime is needed in the context of topological field theory, the advantages of taking this framework as a starting point to explore the background-independent quantum theory of gravity have been revealed in the context of loop quantum gravity from many aspects. Two remarkable programmes are “state sum model” advocated by Crane and YetterCraneYetter  and “spin foam model” by Rovelli and Reisenbergerfoam . In both programmes such connections between gravity and topological field theories allow one to apply the elegant quantization methods in topological quantum field theory to quantum gravity. Furthermore, this formulation provides several features to realize the holographic principle proposed by ’tHooft and Susskind at quantum mechanical levelSmolin ; LingSmolin .

Two typical sorts of topological field theories are Chern-Simons theory and $`BF`$ theoryHorowitz ; BBRT . Both of them are of the Schwarz type topological field theories and have important applications in quantum gravity. In particular one finds once Einstein-Hilbert action is written as a $`BF`$ theory with extra constraints, the behavior of gravitational field on the boundary of spacetime can be described by Chern-Simons theories after imposing appropriate boundary conditions. This interesting intersection raises the question of whether these two kinds of topological field theories have closer geometric relations.

In this paper, we propose an answer to this question by using a “Generalized Differential Calculus” (see Appendix)Sparling ; NR2001 . The main assumption is to generalize the ordinary differential $`p`$form to an ordered pair of $`p`$ and $`(p+1)`$form, and then treat the gauge fields and their topological properties in the framework of Generalized Differential Calculus. Using this Generalized Differential Calculus, we first establish the generalized Chern-Weil homomormism for generalized curvature invariant polynomials in general even dimensional manifolds (Section 2). Then we obtain the generalized Chern-Simons term for BF theory in four dimensions. This leads to a close relation between these two topological field theories of the Schwarz type. We also re-derive the geometric properties for both $`P(M^4,G)`$ and pseudo-Riemannian spacetime manifolds from the generalized topological field theory of BF type (Sections 3 and 4). In other words, we obtain both BF gauge theories or BF gravity without matter from the action as the generalized second Chern class with gauge group $`G`$ or $`SL(2,C)`$ respectively. As a consequence, we find that GR with cosmological constant in the absence of matter can be derived by a constrained topological field theory (Section 5) related to holographic formulation Smolin .

## II Chern-Weil Homomormism in Generalized Differential Calculus

Let us consider a principle bundle $`P(M,G)`$ and introduce the generalized gauge fields in Generalized Differential Calculus on it. For the semisimple gauge group $`G`$ with Lie algebra $`g`$, a generalized $`g`$-valued connection 1-form field $`𝒜`$ is defined as a $`g`$-valued pairing of a 1-form and a 2-form

$$𝒜=(A^p,B^p)T_p=(A,B),T_pg,$$
(1)
where $`A`$ is the ordinary $`g`$-valued connection 1-form and $`B`$ the $`g`$-valued 2-form which is assumed as gauge covariant under the gauge transformations in order to introduce a generalized gauge covariant curvature $``$

$``$ $`=`$ $`𝐝𝒜+𝒜𝒜`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`(dA+AA+kB,dB+ABBA)`$
$`=`$ $`(F+kB,DB).`$
It satisfies the generalized Bianchi identity:

$`𝒟`$ $`=`$ $`𝐝+𝒜𝒜`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`(DF,D^2B)0.`$
In order to consider the topological invariants in the framework of this Generalized Differential Calculus, let us first briefly remind the properties of the curvature invariant symmetric polynomials on $`P(M,G)`$.

Taking a connection 1-form $`A`$ on the bundle, the curvature 2-form is $`F=dA+AA`$. The curvature invariant symmetric polynomial, say, for simplicity, $`P(F^m)`$ is a $`2m`$-form on $`M`$

$$P(F^m)=P(\underset{m}{\underset{}{F,\mathrm{},F}})$$
(4)
satisfying (a) $`P(F)`$ is closed, i.e.,

$`dP(F^m)=0,`$ (5)
(b) $`P(F^m)`$ has topologically invariant integrals. Namely, it satisfies the Chern-Weil homomormism formula:

$`P(F_1^m)P(F_0^m)=dQ(A_0,A_1),`$ (6)
where

$$Q(A_0,A_1)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}P(A_1A_0,F_t^{m1})𝑑t,$$
(7)
where $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$ are two connection 1-forms, $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ the corresponding curvature 2-forms,

$$A_t=A_0+t\eta ,\eta =A_1A_0,(0t1),$$
(8)
the interpolation between $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$,

$`F_t=dA_t+A_tA_t.`$ (9)
Since $`P(F_1^m)`$ and $`P(F_0^m)`$ differ by an exact form, their integrals over manifolds without boundary give the same results and $`Q(A_0,A_1)`$ is called the secondary topological class.

For the generalized connection $`𝒜`$ and curvature $``$ in Generalized Differential Calculus, it can be proved that the generalized curvature invariant symmetric polynomial, say, for simplicity, $`𝒫(^m)`$ also satisfies the similar closed condition and the generalized Chern-Weil homomormism formula:

$`(i)`$ $`𝐝𝒫(^m)=0,`$ (10)
$`(ii)`$ $`𝒫(_1^m)𝒫(_0^m)=𝐝𝒬(𝒜_0,𝒜_1).`$ (11)
Let us now sketch the proof. For proving (i), it is a straightforward consequence by using the generalized Bianchi identity (3).

To prove (ii), let us take two distinct generalized connections $`𝒜_0`$, $`𝒜_1`$ and the corresponding curvatures $`_0`$, $`_1`$ on the bundle. Let

$`𝒜_t=𝒜_0+t𝜼,𝜼=𝒜_1𝒜_0,(0t1),`$ (12)
and the corresponding curvature is

$`_t`$ $`=`$ $`𝐝𝒜_t+𝒜_t𝒜_t.`$ (13)
It is easy to see that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}_t=𝐝𝜼+𝒜_t𝜼+𝜼𝒜_t𝒟_t𝜼.`$ (14)
Hence

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝒫(_t^m)`$ $`=`$ $`m𝒫(𝒟_t𝜼,_t^{m1})`$
$`=m𝒟_t𝒫(𝜼,_t^{m1})`$ $`=`$ $`m𝐝𝒫(𝜼,_t^{m1}),`$ (15)
Thus

$`𝒫(_1^m)𝒫(_0^m)`$ $`=`$ $`𝐝{\displaystyle _0^1}𝒫(𝒜_1𝒜_0,_t^{m1})𝑑t`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`𝐝𝒬(𝒜_0,𝒜_1).`$
This shows that the generalized characteristic polynomials with respect to different connections only differ by an exact form in Generalized Differential Calculus. Namely, they are also homomormism. $`𝒬(𝒜_1,𝒜_0)`$ is called the generalized Chern-Simons secondary class.

Thus, we have established the generalized Chern-Weil homomormism for generalized curvature invariant polynomials in any even dimensional manifolds. But, their topological meaning should be as same as before.

## III generalized Chern-Simons Term for BF theory

Consider an action on the base manifold of $`P(M^4,G)`$ of the form :

$`𝒮_T={\displaystyle _{M^4}}_T={\displaystyle _{M^4}}Tr().`$ (17)
The Lagrangian 4-form $`_T`$ can be given by taking $`𝒜_1=𝒜`$ and $`𝒜_0=0`$ in (11), then

$`Tr()=𝐝𝒬_{CS},`$ (18)
$`𝒬_{CS}`$ is the generalized local Chern-Simons 3-form, i.e., the pairing of a 3-form and a 4-form

$`𝒬_{CS}`$ $`=`$ $`Tr(𝒜\frac{1}{3}𝒜𝒜𝒜)`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`(Tr(AF\frac{1}{3}AAA+kAB),`$
$`Tr(ADB+BF+kBB)).`$
In the pairing, the 3-form is the usual Chern-Simons term up to a $`kTr(AB)`$ term.

On the other hand, the generalized Lagrangian 4-form in (17) is a pairing of a 4-form and a 5-form:

$`_T`$ $`=`$ $`Tr((FF+2kBF+k^2BB),`$ (20)
$`2(FDB+kBDB)).`$
Using the Bianchi identity, we can rearrange the 5-form so that

$`_T`$ $`=`$ $`Tr((FF+2kBF+k^2BB),`$ (21)
$`d(BF+kBB)).`$
The first term is just the BF Lagrangian up to an $`FF`$ term, the second term is a total derivative of the BF Lagrangian.

Thus the pairing of the action (17) shows a relation between two types of topological field theories, the Chern-Simons type and the BF type in four dimensions :

$`𝒮_T[𝒜]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{M^4}}_T={\displaystyle _{M^4}}𝐝𝒬_{CS}`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{M^4}}Tr\left(FF+2kBF+k^2BB\right).`$
We can obtain the field equations by varying the Lagrangian with respect to the generalized gauge potentials, i.e., the $`g`$-valued generalized connection 1-form. With these generalized gauge potentials fixed at the boundary, the field equations are

$`D(F+2kB)=0,`$ (23)
$`k(F+kB)=0.`$ (24)
The second equation gives $`F=kB`$ which can be substituted into the first equation and leads to the Bianchi identity. Note that we start up with any 2-form $`B`$ in the generalized connection. Then with the action given by the generalized second Chern class, it gives $`B=(1/k)F`$. Therefore, the action (17) does not give any dynamics.

However, it should be noted that with $`k=1`$ all geometrical properties of the bundle $`P(M^4,G)`$ are re-derived from a generalized topological field theory of the BF type with a generalized Chern-Simons term associated in Generalized Differential Calculus.

## IV Generalized Connection with $`SL(2,C)`$ Gauge Group on Pseudo-Riemannian Manifold $`M^4`$

Let us consider the tangent bundle $`T(M^4)`$ $`P(M^4,SL(2,C))`$ on the base manifold $`(M^4,g)`$ as the pseudo-Riemannian spacetime manifold with signature $`sign(g)=2`$. The $`sl(2,C)`$ algebraic relation reads 222The upper-case Latin letters $`A,B,\mathrm{}=0,1`$ denote two component spinor indices, which are raised and lowered with the constant symplectic spinors $`ϵ_{AB}=ϵ_{BA}`$ together with its inverse and their conjugates according to the conventions $`ϵ_{01}=ϵ^{01}=+1`$, $`\lambda ^A:=ϵ^{AB}\lambda _B`$, $`\mu _B:=\mu ^Aϵ_{AB}`$ PR .:

$`[M_{AB},M_{CD}]`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{C(A}M_{B)D}+ϵ_{D(A}M_{B)C},`$ (25)
where $`ϵ_{C(A}M_{B)D}=\frac{1}{2}(ϵ_{CA}M_{BD}+ϵ_{CB}M_{AD})`$. The Cartan-Killing metric $`\eta _{pq}=\mathrm{diag}(\eta _{(AB)(MN)})`$ is given by

$`\eta _{(AB)(MN)}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}(ϵ_{AM}ϵ_{BN}+ϵ_{AN}ϵ_{BM}).`$ (26)
Since $`SL(2,C)`$, the covering of the Lorentz group $`SO(3,1)`$, is the gauge group of the bundle, we may introduce an $`sl(2,C)`$-valued generalized connection 1-form in the framework of Generalized Differential Calculus

$$𝒜=(\omega ^{AB},B^{AB})M_{AB},$$
(27)
where $`\omega ^{AB}`$ is an ordinary $`sl(2,C)`$-valued connection 1-form on the bundle and $`B^{AB}`$ is an $`SL(2,C)`$-gauge covariant 2-form. Given the connection $`𝒜`$, the generalized curvature ($`=^pT_p=^{AB}M_{AB}`$) is given by

$$^{AB}=(R^{AB}+kB^{AB},DB^{AB}).$$
(28)
where $`R^{AB}=d\omega ^{AB}+\omega ^A{}_{C}{}^{}\omega ^{CB}`$ is the $`SL(2,C)`$ curvature 2-form. The generalized Bianchi identity is given by

$$𝒟^{AB}=(DR^{AB},D^2B^{AB})0.$$
(29)
A simple generalized Lagrangian 4-form in (17) using this connection $`𝒜`$ is

$`𝒮_{SL(2,C)}[𝒜]={\displaystyle _{M^4}}_{SL(2,C)}={\displaystyle _{M^4}}^{AB}_{AB}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{M^4}}R^{AB}R_{AB}+2kR^{AB}B_{AB}+k^2B^{AB}B_{AB}.`$
The field equations are obtained by varying the Lagrangian with respect to the $`sl(2,C)`$-valued generalized connection 1-form with fixed value at the boundary. This leads to the field equations

$`D(R^{AB}+2kB^{AB})=0,`$ (31)
$`k(R^{AB}+kB^{AB})=0.`$ (32)
The second equation gives $`R^{AB}=kB^{AB}`$, which can be substituted into the first and leads to the Bianchi identity. Therefore, as expected, the action $`𝒮_{SL(2,C)}`$ does not give any dynamics. Moreover, when $`k=1`$, all properties in the pseudo-Riemannian geometry on $`(M^4,g)`$ are recovered by the generalized topological field theories of BF type in four dimensions.

## V Gravity as a generalized Topological Field Theory

Let us now consider pure gravity in four dimensions. As in the previous section, the spacetime manifold $`(M^4,g)`$ is pseudo-Riemannian with signature $`sign(g)=2`$ and the gauge group now is $`SL(2,C)`$.

Note that the 4-form Bianchi identity (29), $`D^2B^{AB}=0`$, looks similar to the identity $`D^2(e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{})=0`$, where $`e^{AA^{}}`$ is the frame 1-form. Thus we may introduce an ansatz $`B^{AB}=l^2e^{AA^{}}e^B_A^{}`$, where $`l`$ is a dimensional constant. The $`sl(2,C)`$-valued generalized connection 1-form (27) now becomes333The formulation can be written with purely unprimed spinors by defining spinor 1-forms $`\phi ^A=e^{A0^{}}`$ and $`\chi ^A=e^{A1^{}}`$ TJ . In terms of these spinor 1-forms, the purely unprimed $`sl(2,C)`$-valued generalized connection 1-form is $`𝒜^+=(\omega ^{AB},(2/l^2)\chi ^{(A}\phi ^{B)})M_{AB}`$ .

$$𝒜=(\omega ^{AB},\frac{1}{l^2}e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{})M_{AB}+c.c.$$
(33)
We shall show that given the above generalized connection 1-form (33), the action of generalized topological field theory type (LABEL:SL2C-action) becomes the Hilbert action with cosmological constant plus an ordinary topological term. If we vary this generalized topological field theory action with respect to the introduced new variable $`e^{AA^{}}`$, it yields the Einstein equation with a cosmological constant term.

Using the generalized connection 1-form (33), the generalized curvature is given by

$$=(R^{AB}+\frac{k}{l^2}e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{},\frac{1}{l^2}D(e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{}))M_{AB}+c.c.$$
(34)
In terms of this generalized curvature, the action (LABEL:SL2C-action), with a change of variational variables from $`B^{AB}`$ to $`e^{AA^{}}`$,

$`𝒮[\omega ^{AB},\omega ^{A^{}B^{}},e^{AA^{}}]={\displaystyle _{M^4}}Tr()+c.c.`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{M^4}}(R^{AB}R_{AB}+{\displaystyle \frac{2k}{l^2}}R^{AB}e^{AA^{}}e^B_A^{}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{l^4}}e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{}e_A{}_{}{}^{C^{}}e_{BC^{}})+c.c.,`$
gives the Einstein-Hilbert action with the cosmological constant plus a topological term. Namely, General Relativity in the absence of matter is formulated as a generalized topological field theory.

By varying with respect to $`\omega ^{AB}`$, we obtain

$$D(e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{})=0,$$
(36)
which gives the equation for torsion-free. While by varying with respect to $`e^{AA^{}}`$, we obtain

$$R^{AB}e_B{}_{}{}^{A^{}}+\frac{k}{l^2}e^{AB^{}}e^B{}_{B^{}}{}^{}e_B{}_{}{}^{A^{}}+c.c.=0,$$
(37)
which is the Einstein equation with a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ if we set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{k}{l^2}`$.

Alternatively, we can consider adding a constraint on $`B^{AB}`$ as in Smolin

$`𝒮[𝒜^p,\lambda _{AB},e^{AA^{}}]={\displaystyle _{M^4}}^{AB}_{AB}`$ (38)
$`+\lambda _{AB}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{l^2}}e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{}B^{AB})+c.c.`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{M^4}}R^{AB}R_{AB}+2kR^{AB}B_{AB}+k^2B^{AB}B_{AB}`$
$`+\lambda _{AB}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{l^2}}e^{AA^{}}e^B{}_{A^{}}{}^{}B^{AB})+c.c.,`$
where $`\lambda _{AB}`$ is the Lagrangian multiplier. The variational principle leads to the same equation as (37).

In the last part of this section we note that as the cosmological constant, namely the constant $`k`$ goes to zero, the equation (37) does not necessarily hold any more. It implies our generalization perhaps is only valid for the cases with non-zero cosmological constant.

## VI Discussion

In this paper, we have generalized the Chern-Weil homomormism in Generalized Differential Calculus, associated the generalized Chern-Simons Lagrangian to BF theories and re-derived geometrical properties of $`P(M^4,G)`$ from a generalized topological field theory of the BF type on four dimensions. We have also recovered the properties of the pseudo-Riemannian manifold $`M^4`$ from a generalized topological field theory of the BF type and reformulated GR in the absence of matter as either a generalized topological field theory or a constrained one.

For General Relativity, our approach starts with an $`sl(2,C)`$\- valued generalized connection which includes the 2-form $`B`$ fields. In a sense, this approach is similar to that of MacDowell-Mansouri MM , in which General Relativity is found as a consequence of breaking the $`Sp(4)`$ symmetry of a topological field theory down to Lorentz group’s covering group $`SL(2,C)`$ and introduce the tetrad 1-form fields $`e^{AA^{}}`$ to parameterize the coset $`Sp(4)/SL(2,C)`$. However, our approach differs from theirs. Instead of breaking the symmetry of a topological field theory, we start with the Lorentz group and redefined a new generalized $`sl(2,C)`$-valued connection in Generalized Differential Calculus. This directly leads to a BF theory.

In order to include the matter, there might be at least two possibilities. The first may link with the Kaluza-Klein formalism, since the gauge theories can be formulated as Kaluza-Klein theories on Minkowski spacetime. Therefore, it might be possible to deal with gauge theories as generalized topological field theories in our approach. Of course, there should be certain restriction to the dimensions of the gauge groups. Furthermore, this approach might be generalized to fermions and Higgs liu . On the other hand, to generalize it to supergravity might be another possibility. For instance, the Generalized Differential Calculus may be generalized to supersymmetric cases. Then, supergravity can be obtained by gauging the $`OSp(1,4)`$ group with the generalized connection.

It is interesting to see that the present formulation only works for 4-dimensional BF theories with $`B`$ a 2-form field. On one hand, it is reasonable to establish the relation between the Donaldson-Witten invariants in four dimensions and the topological field theory such as the BF type. On the other hand, however, especially for the GR with cosmological constant, it seems amazing that the dimensions of our nature is also four. If this formulation could not be generalized to arbitrary higher dimensions, whether this dimension four has more profound meaning rather than just a coincidence. This question has to be left for further study and inspiration.

## Appendix: Generalized Differential Calculus

A generalized $`p`$-form Sparling NR2001 , $`\stackrel{p}{𝐚}`$, is defined to be an ordered pair of an ordinary $`p`$-form $`\stackrel{p}{\alpha }`$ and an ordinary $`(p+1)`$-form $`\stackrel{p+1}{\alpha }`$ on an n-dimensional manifold $`M`$, that is

$$\stackrel{p}{𝐚}(\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha },\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha })𝚲^𝐩\times 𝚲^{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}},$$
(39)
where $`1pn`$. The minus one-form is defined to be an ordered pair

$$\stackrel{1}{𝐚}(\mathrm{𝟎},\stackrel{\mathrm{𝟎}}{\alpha }),$$
(40)
where $`\stackrel{0}{\alpha }`$ is a function on $`M`$. The product and derivatives are defined by

$$\stackrel{p}{𝐚}\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛}(\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha }\stackrel{𝐪}{\beta },\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha }\stackrel{𝐪+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\beta }+(\mathrm{𝟏})^𝐪\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha }\stackrel{𝐪}{\beta }),$$
(41)
$$𝐝\stackrel{p}{𝐚}(𝐝\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha }+(\mathrm{𝟏})^{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}𝐤\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha },𝐝\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha }),$$
(42)
where $`k`$ is a constant. These exterior products and derivatives of generalized forms satisfy the standard rules of exterior algebra

$$\stackrel{p}{𝐚}\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛}=(\mathrm{𝟏})^{\mathrm{𝐩𝐪}}\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛}\stackrel{𝐩}{𝐚},$$
(43)
$$𝐝(\stackrel{p}{𝐚}\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛})=𝐝\stackrel{𝐩}{𝐚}\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛}+(\mathrm{𝟏})^𝐩\stackrel{𝐩}{𝐚}𝐝\stackrel{𝐪}{𝐛},$$
(44)
and $`𝐝^2=0`$.

For a generalized p-form $`\stackrel{p}{𝐚}=(\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha },\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha })`$, the integration on $`M^p`$ can be defined as usual by

$$_{M^p}\stackrel{p}{𝐚}=_{𝐌^𝐩}(\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha },\stackrel{𝐩+\mathrm{𝟏}}{\alpha })=_{𝐌^𝐩}\stackrel{𝐩}{\alpha }.$$
(45)
###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Professors Y.F. Liu, Q.K. Lu, K. Wu, Z. Xu and M. Yu for valuable discussions. RST thanks Prof S. Carlip for helpful discussions. This project is in part supported by NNSFC under Grants Nos. 90103004, 10175070, 10047004, 19835040 and also by NKBRSF G19990754.