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# MgCNi3 : Complex behavior in a strongly coupled superconductor

## I Introduction

The recent discovery of superconductivity in the intermetallic antiperovskite compound MgCNi3He et al. (2001) with a superconducting transition temperature of $`T_\text{c}8\text{ K}`$ is rather surprising considering its high Ni content. Therefore, it is not unexpected that this compound is near a ferromagnetic instability which might be reached by hole doping at the Mg sites.Rosner et al. (2002) The possibility of unconventional superconductivity due to the proximity of these two types of collective order has attracted great interest in the electronic structure and the physics of the pairing mechanism. Band structure calculationsRosner et al. (2002); Singh and Mazin ; Dugdale and Jarlborg (2001) for MgCNi3 reveal a domination of the electronic states at the Fermi surface by the 3d orbitals of Ni.

MgCNi3 can be considered as the 3-dimensional analogue of the layered transition metal borocarbides which have superconducting transition temperatures up to $`T_\text{c}23\text{ K}`$. In spite of the much lower $`T_\text{c}`$ of MgCNi3, its upper critical fields $`H_{\text{c}2}`$ at low temperatures is, with $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)=10\mathrm{}15\text{ T}`$Li et al. ; Li et al. (2001); Mao et al. ; Lin et al.  comparable with that of the borocarbides or even higher. This is connected with the completely different temperature dependence of $`H_{\text{c}2}`$ for these compounds. The $`H_{\text{c}2}(T)`$ dependence of MgCNi3 is similar to that of dirty-limit intermetallic superconductors with a steep slope of $`H_{\text{c}2}(T)`$ at $`T_\text{c}`$.

Through analysis of specific heat data, MgCNi3 was characterized in the framework of a conventional, phonon-mediated pairing both as a moderate He et al. (2001); Lin et al.  and as a strongMao et al.  coupling superconductor. Strong coupling is also suggested by the large energy gap determined from tunneling experiments.Mao et al.  The question of the pairing symmetry is controversially discussed in the literature.13C NMR experimentsSinger et al. (2001) support s–wave pairing in MgCNi3, whereas tunneling spectra indicate an unconventional pairing state.Mao et al.

In the present investigation, upper critical field and specific heat data of MgCNi3 were analyzed with the aid of theoretical results for Fermi velocities and partial densities of states in order to find out a consistent physical picture explaining the experimental results.

## II Experimental

Polycrystalline samples of MgCNi3 have been prepared by solid state reaction. In order to obtain samples with high $`T_\text{c}`$, one has to use an excess of carbon as stated in Ref. He et al., 2001. To cover the high volatility of Mg during the sintering of the samples an excess of Mg is needed, too.He et al. (2001) In this study, a sample with the nominal formula Mg1.2C1.6Ni3 has been investigated which is denoted as MgC1.6Ni3. To prepare the sample, a mixture of Mg, C and Ni powders was pressed into a pellet. The pellet was wrapped in a Ta foil and sealed in a quartz ampoule containing an Ar atmosphere at 180 mbar. The sample was sintered for half an hour at $`600^{}\text{C}`$ followed by one hour at $`900^{}\text{C}`$. After a cooling process the sample was regrounded. This procedure was repeated two times in order to lower a possible impurity phase content. The obtained sample was investigated by x-ray diffractometry to estimate its quality. The diffractometer pattern (Fig. 1) showed small impurity concentrations mainly resulting from MgO and unreacted carbon crystallized in form of graphite. The lattice constant of the prepared sample was determined to be $`\text{a}=0.38107(1)\text{ nm}`$ using the Rietveld computer program FULLPROF.ful  According to Ref. Ren et al., 2002 this indicates that the nearly single phase sample corresponds to the superconducting modification of $`\text{MgC}_\text{x}\text{Ni}_3`$.

The superconducting transition of the sample was investigated by measurements of the electrical resistance, the ac susceptibility and the specific heat. For the electrical resistance measurement a piece cut from the initially prepared pellet with 5mm in length and a cross section of approximately 1mm2 was measured in magnetic fields up to 16 T using the standard four probe method with current densities between 0.2 and 1 A/cm2. The ac susceptibility and the specific heat measurements were performed on other pieces from the same pellet in magnetic fields up to 9 T.

## III Results

### III.1 Superconducting transition and upper critical field

In Fig. 2, the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance of the investigated sample is shown. A superconducting transition with an onset (midpoint) value of $`T_\text{c}=7.0\text{ K}`$ (6.9 K) is observed (see inset of Fig. 2) which is consistent with the onset of the superconducting transition at $`T_\text{c}=7.0\text{ K}`$ determined from ac susceptibility. It should be noted that the sample shown in Fig. 2 has a resistivity of $`\rho _{300\text{K}}=2.1\text{ m}\mathrm{\Omega }\text{cm}`$ at 300 K which is much too large in order to be intrinsic. On the other hand, its residual resistance ratio $`RRR=R(300\text{K})/R(8\text{K})=1.85`$ and the shape of the $`R(T)`$ curve are typical for MgCNi3 samples.He et al. (2001) A possible explanation for the high resistivity of the investigated sample which was not subjected to high pressure sintering is a relatively large resistance of the grain boundaries.

The field dependence of the electrical resistance of the same sample is shown in Fig. 3 for several temperatures between $`6.0`$ and $`1.9\text{K}`$. A sharp transition is observed which remains almost unchanged down to low temperatures. In Fig. 4, the fields $`H_{10}`$, $`H_{50}`$ and $`H_{90}`$ defined at 10%, 50% and 90% of the normal-state resistance are plotted as function of temperature. Identical results have been found from resistance–vs.–temperature transition curves measured at different magnetic fields. Additionally, Fig. 4 shows upper critical field data determined from ac susceptibility measurements. The onset of superconductivity was used to define $`H_{\text{c}2}`$ from ac susceptibility.

It is clearly seen that for the investigated sample $`H_{\text{c}2}^{\text{sus}}`$ ($`H_{\text{c}2}`$ obtained from susceptibility) agrees approximately with $`H_{10}`$. A similar behavior was already observed for MgB2, whereas in the case of rare–earth nickel borocarbides the onset of superconductivity determined from ac susceptibility was typically found to agree well with the midpoint value ($`H_{50}`$) of the normal state resistivity. The width $`\mathrm{\Delta }H=H_{90}H_{10}`$ of the superconducting transition curves in Fig. 3 (and Fig. 4) remains, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }H0.6\text{ T}`$, almost unchanged down to low temperatures. A polycrystalline sample of a strongly anisotropic superconductor shows a gradual broadening of the superconducting transition with decreasing temperature as was observed, for example, for MgB2.Fuchs et al. (2001) Therefore, the nearly constant transition width $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ observed for the investigated sample can be considered as an indication of a rather small anisotropy of $`H_{c2}(T)`$ in MgCNi3.

The extrapolation of $`H_{90}(T)`$ to $`T=0`$ yields an upper critical field of $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)11.3\text{ T}`$. The observed temperature dependence of the upper critical field is typical for $`H_{\text{c}2}(T)`$ data reported for MgCNi3 and was describedLi et al. (2001); Lin et al. ; Mao et al.  within the standard WHH modelWerthammer et al. (1966) by conventional superconductivity in the dirty limit. The WHH model predicts a relation $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)\left(dH_{\text{c}2}/dT\right)_{T=T_\text{c}}T_\text{c}`$. Available data for MgCNi3, including those presented in this paper show a strong variation of $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)`$ with $`T_\text{c}`$ (see Fig. 5), whereas $`\left(dH_{\text{c}2}/dT\right)_{\text{T}_\text{c}}(2.65\pm 0.2)\text{ T}/\text{K}`$ remains almost unchanged. Considering the data in Fig. 5, the linear dependence of $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)`$ on $`T_\text{c}`$ predicted for constant $`\left(dH_{\text{c}2}/dT\right)_{T_\text{c}}`$ by the WHH model can be ruled out.

The solid line in Fig. 5 corresponds to a quadratic law $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)T_\text{c}^2`$ which is the benchmark for the clean limit. Indeed in the isotropic single band s–wave clean limit one hasShulga and Drechsler

$$H_{\text{c}2}(0)\left[\text{Tesla}\right]=0.0237\frac{\left(1+\lambda \right)^{2.2}T_\text{c}^2\left[\text{K}\right]}{v_\text{F}^2\left[10^5\frac{\text{m}}{\text{s}}\right]}$$
(1)
Compared with WHH the effect of strong coupling (measured by the dimensionless electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda `$) is an enhancement of $`H_{\text{c}2}`$ primarily through the renormalization of the bare Fermi velocity $`v_\text{F}v_\text{F}/(1+\lambda )`$ and a weak enhancement factor coming from the energy dependence of the gap function. The strong coupling ($`\lambda 3.4`$ near the Brillouin zone boundary and zero at the zone center) to the rotational mode near 13 meV proposed in Ref. Singh and Mazin,  gives an upper limit for a strong coupling required to reproduce upper critical fields as high as $`12\mathrm{}15\text{ T}`$. Using the averaged Fermi velocities of $`1.4510^5\text{ m}/\text{s}`$ for the rounded cube–like Fermi surface shown in Fig. 11 we arrive at $`\lambda 2.5\mathrm{}3`$.

### III.2 Specific heat

Specific heat measurements were performed in order to get additional information about $`H_{\text{c}2}(T)`$, the superconducting pairing symmetry and the strength of the electron–phonon coupling from thermodynamic data. In Fig. 6 specific heat data, $`\text{c}_\text{p}/T`$ vs. $`T^2`$, are shown for applied magnetic fields up to $`8\text{T}`$. The upper critical fields, $`\text{H}_{\text{c}2}(T)`$, determined from the specific heat data, are shown in Fig. 7. It is clearly seen that the $`H_{c2}(T)`$ data obtained from the specific heat are located in the small field range between the $`H_{90}(T)`$ and $`H_{10}(T)`$ curves.

In order to describe the experimental data of the normal state specific heat in zero field between $`T_\text{c}`$ and $`30K`$ (see Fig. 8) the expression

$$\text{c}_\text{n}(T)=\gamma _\text{N}T+\text{c}_{\text{lattice}}+\text{c}_{\text{Einstein}}+n\text{c}_{\text{Schottky}}$$
(2)
was used. The linear–in–T term is due to the electronic contribution with $`\gamma _\text{N}`$ as the Sommerfeld parameter. The second term, $`\text{c}_{\text{lattice}}=\beta T^3+\delta T^5`$ represents the phonon contribution. This extension of the usual Debye approximation $`\text{c}_{\text{lattice}}T^3`$ includes deviations from the linear dispersion of the acoustic modes and is required in order to describe the phonon contribution to the specific heat in an extended temperature range. The same procedure has already been used to describe the specific heat of MgB2.Wälti et al. (2001) An additional single Einstein mode, $`\text{c}_{\text{Einstein}}`$, was used to take into account the contribution of the previously mentioned lowest energy optical mode near $`13\text{meV}`$.Singh and Mazin  The last part, $`n\text{c}_{\text{Schottky}}`$, represents the contribution of a conventional two-level Schottky model which was used to describe the slight upturn of the specific heat just above the superconducting transition temperature $`T_\text{c}`$ (see Fig. 8). This feature possibly results from contributions of paramagnetic impurities like unreacted Ni (the prefactor $`n`$ gives the concentration of these impurities).

The fitting procedure returned a Sommerfeld parameter $`\gamma _\text{N}=35\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2`$ which is close to the reported values of $`\gamma _\text{N}=27.6`$ Mao et al.  and $`33\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2`$.Lin et al.  The Debye temperature was found to be $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\text{D}=289\text{K}`$ and the energy of the optical phonon mode resulting from the fit is $`9.5\text{meV}`$ which slightly deviates from the theoretically proposed value ($`13\text{meV})`$.Singh and Mazin  The paramagnetic impurity concentration derived from the fit is $`n4.5\%`$ and the energy gap of the Schottky anomaly is $`5.3\text{meV}`$. As shown in Fig. 8, the experimental data are very well described by Eq. (2) in the investigated temperature range $`T_\text{c}<T<30\text{K}`$. The jump $`\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}`$ of the specific heat at $`T_\text{c}`$ (see inset of Fig. 8) is given by the difference between the experimental data, $`\text{c}_\text{p}`$ and the normal specific heat contribution, $`\text{c}_\text{n}`$.

The transition temperature $`T_\text{c}=6.83\text{K}`$ obtained from the inset of Fig. 8 agrees approximately with the transition temperatures $`T_\text{c}=7.0\text{K}`$ and $`T_\text{c}=6.9\text{K}`$ derived from ac susceptibility and from resistance data, respectively. In the low temperature region the experimental data for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}/T`$ versus $`T`$ can be described by the BCS–like expression

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}=7.95\gamma _\text{N}T_\text{c}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(0)}{k_\text{B}T}\right)\gamma _\text{N}T$$
(3)
using $`2\mathrm{\Delta }(0)/k_\text{B}T_\text{c}=2.96`$ instead of $`2\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{BCS}}(0)/k_\text{B}T_\text{c}=3.52`$ predicted by the BCS model. Above $`T=4\text{K}`$ the fit of Eq. (3) starts to deviate from the experimental curve resulting in a much lower value for the jump at $`T=T_\text{c}`$ than observed experimentally. Notice that the experimental value of the jump, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}/\gamma _\text{N}T_\text{c}=1.6`$, nearly corresponds to the BCS value $`\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}/\gamma _\text{N}T_\text{c}=1.43`$ indicating weak electron–phonon coupling. This contrasts to the strong coupling derived from Eq. (1) and $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)`$ data. A natural explanation for this discrepancy is the two–band character of MgCNi3 which will be discussed in the next section.

To examine the temperature dependence of the electronic specific heat

$$\text{c}_{\text{el}}(T)=\mathrm{\Delta }\text{c}+\gamma _\text{N}T$$
(4)
at $`H=0`$ in detail, $`\text{c}_{\text{el}}(T)/\gamma _\text{N}T_\text{c}`$ is plotted logarithmically vs. $`T_\text{c}/T`$ in Fig. 9. It is clearly seen, that the experimental data at low temperatures ($`T_\text{c}/T>2`$) follow the modified BCS expression (Eq. (3), solid line). We found that this exponential law is not affected by the low temperature branch of the Schottky term in Eq. (2) which has an exponential temperature dependence, too. The exponential temperature behavior of the electronic specific heat at low temperatures found for MgCNi3 is a strong indication for s–wave superconductivity in this compound.

In the superconducting state, a linear–in–T electronic specific heat contribution $`\gamma (H)T`$ arises from the normal conducting cores of the flux lines for applied magnetic fields $`H>H_{\text{c}1}`$. This contribution can be expressed as $`\gamma (H)T=\text{c}_\text{p}(T,H)\text{c}_\text{p}(T,0)`$,Sonier et al. (1998) where $`\text{c}_\text{p}(T,0)`$ is the specific heat in the Meissner state. Specific heat data for MgC1.6Ni3 at $`T=2\text{K}`$ (see inset of Fig. 10) were analyzed in order to derive the field dependence of $`\gamma (H)`$. In Fig. 10, the obtained $`\gamma (H)/\gamma _\text{N}`$ is plotted against $`H/H_{\text{c}2}(0)`$ using the Sommerfeld parameter $`\gamma _\text{N}=35\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2`$ and $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)=11.3\text{T}`$. Not shown in this plot are high-field data which are influenced by an additional contribution to the specific heat in the normal state arising in magnetic fields. This contribution which is clearly seen in Fig. 6 as deviation of the $`\text{c}_\text{p}/T`$ data from the solid line causes a shift of the high-field $`\text{c}_\text{p}/T`$ data in the superconducting state to higher values. The origin of this effect is not yet understood. Its influence on the field dependence of $`\text{c}_\text{p}/T`$ at $`T=2\text{K}`$ is illustrated in the inset of Fig. 10. At low magnetic fields, a negative curvature is observed which starts to change its sign at fields above $`4\text{T}`$.

The low-field data of $`\text{c}_\text{p}/T`$ shown in Fig. 10 can be described by the expression $`\gamma /\gamma _\text{N}=\left(H/H_{\text{c}2}(0)\right)^{0.6}`$ which differs from the linear $`\gamma (H)`$ law expected for isotropic s-wave superconductors in the dirty limit. A non-linear field dependence close to $`\gamma (H)H^{0.5}`$ has been reported for some unconventional superconductors with gap nodes in the quasiparticle spectrum of the vortex state as in $`\text{YBa}_2\text{Cu}_3\text{O}_7`$,Wright et al. (1999) and in the heavy fermion superconductor $`\text{UPt}_3`$,Ramirez et al. (1995) but also in some clean s-wave superconductors such as $`\text{CeRu}_2`$,Hedo (1998) $`\text{NbSe}_2`$ Sonier et al. (1998); Nohara et al. (1999) and the borocarbides $`\text{RNi}_2\text{B}_2\text{}`$ $`(\text{R}=\text{Y},\text{ Lu})`$.Nohara et al. (1997); Lipp et al. (2002) Delocalized quasiparticle states around the vortex cores, similar to these in d-wave superconductors, seem to be responsible for the non–linear $`\gamma (H)`$ dependence in the borocarbides.Izawa et al. (2001); Boaknin et al. (2001)

## IV Discussion

In principle, the upper critical field data found for MgCNi3 could be understood both in the s- and p-wave scenario. The high magnitude of the upper critical fields might be achieved in s-wave superconductors, but also in a clean limit weak coupling p-wave case employing the “slow” holes on the “four-leafed clover”–like Fermi surface sheets with $`0.510^5\text{m}/\text{s}`$ (see Fig. 11). Following Maki et al. Maki et al. (2001) an additional numerical factor $`1.3`$ should be introduced in this case in Eq. (1). The different temperature dependence of the electronic specific heat at low temperatures in $`s`$\- and $`p`$-wave superconductors allows the discrimination between predominant s- and p-wave scenarios. As mentioned above, the exponential temperature behavior of the electronic specific heat found for MgCNi3 is a strong indication for $`s`$-wave superconductivity in this compound.

It is convenient to rewrite Eq. (1) using experimentally accessible quantities as the plasma energy $`\omega _{\text{pl}}`$, the volume of the unit cell $`V`$, and the Sommerfeld constant $`\gamma _N`$. Then, Eq. (5) provides a criterion for a superconductor which can be described in the clean limit within the isotropic single band model:

$$Q=\frac{3.6\omega _{\text{pl}}^2\left[\text{eV}^2\right]H_{\text{c}2}(0)\left[\text{T}^2\right]V\left[\left(10^{10}m\right)^3\right]}{\gamma _\text{N}\left[\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2\right]T_\text{c}^2\left[\text{K}\right]\left(1+\lambda \right)^{1.4}}$$
(5)
If $`Q`$ differs significantly from 1, a more complex model should be considered.

Some values for $`Q`$ are summarized in Tab. 1.

The crystal structure of MgCNi3 can be seen as a three dimensional analogue of the layered borocarbides. Thus it is instructive to compare the results with the electronic specific heat dependence of the borocarbides and the boronitrides which were found to be isostructural to the borocarbides. The electronic specific heat of La3Ni2B2N3-δ exhibits an exponential temperature dependenceMichor et al. (1996) as does MgCNi3, while that of YNi2B2C or LuNi2B2C follows a power law of the type $`\text{c}_{\text{el}}=3\gamma _\text{N}\left(\frac{\text{T}}{\text{T}_\text{c}}\right)^\text{a}`$ with an exponent $`\text{a}3`$.Michor et al. (1995); Hong et al. (1994)

The electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda `$ in MgCNi3 averaged over all Fermi surface sheets can be estimated from the relation

$$\gamma _\text{N}=\frac{\pi ^2}{3}k_\text{B}^2\left(1+\lambda \right)N(E_\text{F})=\gamma _0\left(1+\lambda \right)$$
(6)
using the experimental value of the Sommerfeld constant $`\gamma _\text{N}=35\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2`$ and the density of states (DOS) at the Fermi level $`N(E_\text{F})`$ calculated within the local density approximation. From the calculated density of states and the corresponding bare specific heat coefficient, $`\gamma _0=11\text{mJ}/\text{molK}^2`$ one obtains a large electron-phonon coupling constant $`\lambda =2.2`$.

According to band structure calculations using the full-potential nonorthogonal local-orbital minimum-basis schemeKoepernik and H. Eschrig (1999) within the local density approximation, the total DOS can be decomposed into a roughly $`15\%`$ and a $`85\%`$ contribution stemming from the fast and the slow sheets of the Fermi surface, respectively. Then, the total coupling constant averaged over all Fermi surface sheets reads

$$\lambda _{\text{tot}}=\lambda _1\frac{\text{N}_1(0)}{\text{N}(0)}+\lambda _2\frac{\text{N}_2(0)}{\text{N}(0)}$$
(7)
and with the aid of $`\lambda _{\text{tot}}=2.2`$ and $`\lambda _12.5\mathrm{}3`$ estimated from the upper critical field $`H_{\text{c}2}(0)12\mathrm{}15\text{T}`$, respectively (Eq. (1)) one arrives at $`\lambda _22.0\mathrm{}2.1`$. The question then arises about the origin of these strong mass enhancements in both bands. Obviously $`\lambda _2`$ cannot be of electron-phonon nature alone, since otherwise one should ask, why are $`T_c`$, the above mentioned gap, and $`H_{c2}(0)`$ so low? So we are forced to assume that $`\lambda _2`$ should be decomposed into an electron-phonon contribution and a pair-breaking electron-paramagnon $`\lambda _{sf}`$ (electron-spin fluctuation) one. We adopt for the electron-phonon part a typical transition metal value, say $`\lambda _{2ph}`$ 1. From Fig. 11, a band width of about 0.6 eV can be estimated for band 2. Taking the average of the electron and the hole Fermi energies as a representative effective Fermi energy of band 2 $`\mathrm{}\omega _{2F}`$ 0.3 eV can be estimated. Then, according to the Berk-Schrieffer theory the paramagnon spectral density should exhibit a maximum near $`\mathrm{}\omega _{sf}\mathrm{}\omega _{2F}/S`$ 80 meV, where $`S`$ 4 is the Stoner factor. Since this frequency exceeds considerably the typical phonon frequencies, the effect of the paramagnon pair breaking is somewhat reduced due to the pseudopotential effectZhernov and Drechsler (1985), well-known for the large bare Coulomb repulsion $`\mu `$ where it produces the smaller pseudopotential $`\mu ^{}`$-value due to the large logarithmic factor of about 5 entering its denominator. In the present case, this factor is reduced to 1.4, only. Then the “bare” paramagnon coupling constant $`\lambda _{sf}1`$ is reduced to about $`\lambda _{sf}^{}`$ 0.4. Together with standard Coulomb pseudopotential, e.g. 0.13, one nevertheless arrives at a sizable suppressed pairing in band 2 which is responsible for the observed small gap seen in the low $`T`$ specific heat data. The missing od only very weakly pronounced curvature in $`H_{c2}(T)`$ near $`T_c`$ points to weak interband coupling, a posteriori justifying our one band estimate for $`H_{c2}(0)`$ given above. A more quantitative study must await more detailed knowledge on the phonon and paramagnon spectra.

## V Conclusion

The electronic specific heat shows an exponential temperature dependence at low temperatures which is a strong indication for s-wave pairing symmetry in this compound. Strong electron-phonon coupling has been derived from specific heat data and the calculated densitiy of states averaged over all Fermi surface sheets. Comparing MgCNi3 with other multi-band superconductors such as MgB2 or transition metal borocarbides, one concludes that the disjoint Fermi surface sheets differ from each other not only in the strength of the electron-phonon interaction or the Fermi velocities but to the best of our knowledge also in strength of the depairing interaction. Approaching the remarkable peak in the DOS slightly below the Fermi energy, an interesting enhancement of the paramagnon contribution followed by a gapless Fermi surface sheet and a possible $`p`$-wave superconductivity mediated by ferromagnetic spin fluctuations might be expected. In any case, the competing interplay of strong electron-phonon and electron-paramagnon interactions together with a strongly energy dependent DOS on disjoint, almost decoupled Fermi surface sheets is a great challenge for future theoretical and experimental work.

###### Acknowledgements.

The Sonderforschungsbereich 463 at the TU Dresden, the DAAD (H.R.), the NSF (DMR-0114818) and the DFG are gratefully acknowledged for financial support. We thank T. Mishonov for discussions.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The study of the color superconducting phases of QCD   has recently received much attention and is at the moment one of the most studied frontier problem of QCD . Cold QCD with three degenerate flavors, for very large values of the quark number chemical potential $`\mu `$, is in the so-called color-flavor locked (CFL) phase . In this phase, pairs of quarks of opposite momenta, each of them lying near the Fermi surface, condense according to the BCS pairing scheme known from ordinary superconductivity.

The CFL phase is expected to persist also below asymptotic values of $`\mu `$, when the flavor degeneracy is broken, with the strange quark having a larger mass than the lighter quarks. In absence of electrons, the CFL phase is electrically neutral. It has the same number of $`u`$, $`d`$, and $`s`$ quarks, which corresponds to the lowest energy for the Cooper pairs.

When the value of $`\mu `$ is further decreased, one expects that pairing between quarks of non vanishing total momentum becomes possible. Each quark momentum will lie near its Fermi surface (Fermi spheres will now be of different radii) . Closeness to their Fermi surfaces for both quarks in the pair will correspond to a lower free energy. Such a possibility for the quark pairing leads to the suggestion of a crystalline color superconductivity . We assume the existence of this phase and we will limit our analysis, as in the existing literature, to two flavors, with $`\delta \mu 0`$ ($`\delta \mu `$ the difference in the quark chemical potentials).

In certain condensed matter systems (ferromagnetic systems with paramagnetic impurities)  the possibility of fermion pairing of non vanishing total momentum had already been discussed. The name LOFF phase is therefore commonly used, formed from the initials of the authors of ref. .

Translational and rotational invariance are spontaneously broken within a LOFF phase. The gaps are expected to vary according to some crystalline structure. The determination of such a structure is obviously of the uppermost importance and this problem is discussed and approximately solved by Bowers and Rajagopal  in a recent paper. To understand the crystalline superconductivity one has indeed to know the space dependence of the Cooper pair condensate. A simple plane wave ansatz had been used for a preliminary understanding of the possible dynamics. The plane wave has the finite momentum of the Cooper pairs, on the assumption that all the possible Cooper pair momenta choose a unique direction. These studies (see  and ) already lead to the conclusion that LOFF pairing is favored, over BCS pairing or absence of pairing, within a certain window in $`\delta \mu `$. The window starts with a first order phase transition to the crystalline phase. It ends with a second order transition where translation invariance is restored. The window for QCD with two flavors had been found in ref.  by modeling quark interactions via four-linear Fermi couplings among quarks and for the case of a plane-wave condensate structure. A much wider window is found however in a model based on gluon exchange . This follows essentially from the fact that gluon exchange favors forward scattering, rather than the s-wave scattering typical of the Fermi couplings. The effective low energy phonon lagrangian for the case of the single plane wave structure has been discussed in . Since translation invariance is only partially broken one phonon is present.

A comprehensive study of the different possible crystal structures for the crystalline color superconducting phase of QCD is presented in  where the authors perform a Ginzburg-Landau expansion in the vicinity of the phase transition. Instead of the single plane wave ansatz they now introduce a multiple plane-wave ansatz and find that a face-centered cubic crystal is favored. This structure is built up by eight plane waves directed to the corners of a cube. At least qualitatively it seems true that the cubic crystal remains the favored structure also in complete QCD (although not perhaps at very asymptotic densities). It is important to note that for the cubic crystal structure three phonons should be present since translational invariance is completely broken.

The crystalline color superconductivity has a relevant place in the QCD phase diagram and as such it deserves to be studied and to be known in its main features. Moreover it can play a role in the physics of compact stellar systems where, within the core, a crystalline phase might be reached. The authors of ref.  had already pointed out that, if the compact star is rotating, the ensuing rotational vortices may become pinned and as such play a role in the formation of glitches. This subject is certainly interesting, but we shall not discuss it here (for a review see ref. ).

We have already mentioned that crystalline superconductivity had initially been proposed in condensed matter physics. The QCD studies, in particular also the present one, may be translated into corresponding properties for condensed systems, at least for the phonon properties. We mention in particular the field of atomic systems, gases of fermionic atoms below their Fermi temperature , . An advantage of testing the ideas of crystalline superconductivity on these systems is that their parameter space is less rigid than for QCD. For example see ref. .

The plan of the present work is as follows. In section 2 we first briefly review the formalism we will use in this paper, i.e. the High Density Effective Theory (HDET). This effective theory is based on the limit $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ and uses velocity dependent fields in the same spirit of the Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET)  where the limit $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ is taken. It is discussed in  and more extensively in ref. , where the method and the notations are explained in more detail. In section 3 we discuss the low energy dynamics of the phonons. In section 4 we calculate the parameters of the effective phonon lagrangian. In section 5 we study the properties of the gluons of the unbroken $`SU(2)_c`$ for the case of the plane wave structure and in section 6 we perform the same calculation for the LOFF condensate with the cubic symmetry. The application to the cubic crystal structure requires some group theoretical definitions which are summarized in Appendix 1. In Appendix 2 and 3 we report some details of the calculations.

## 2 Heavy Density Effective Theory in the LOFF phase

We begin with the effective lagrangian of HDET for gluons and ungapped massless quarks. If $`_0`$ is the free quark lagrangian and $`_1`$ represents the coupling of quarks to one gluon, the high density effective lagrangian can be written as

$$_D=_0+_1+_2+(LR).$$
(1)
Let us begin with the first two terms, i.e.

$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}\left[\psi _+^{}iV\psi _++\psi _{}^{}i\stackrel{~}{V}\psi _{}\right],`$ (2)
$`_1`$ $`=`$ $`ig{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}\left[\psi _+^{}iVA\psi _++\psi _{}^{}i\stackrel{~}{V}A\psi _{}\right].`$ (3)
The velocity dependent left-handed field $`\psi _+\psi _\stackrel{}{v}`$ is the positive energy part in the decomposition

$$\psi (x)=\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{4\pi }e^{i\mu vx}\left[\psi _\stackrel{}{v}(x)+\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{v}(x)\right]$$
(4)
while $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{v}`$ is the negative energy part which has been integrated out. Here

$$\psi _\stackrel{}{v}(x)=e^{i\mu vx}P_+\psi (x)=_{|\mathrm{}|<\delta }\frac{d^4\mathrm{}}{(2\pi )^4}e^{i\mathrm{}x}P_+\psi (\mathrm{})$$
(5)
and

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{v}(x)=e^{i\mu vx}P_{}\psi (x)=_{|\mathrm{}|<\delta }\frac{d^4\mathrm{}}{(2\pi )^4}e^{i\mathrm{}x}P_{}\psi (\mathrm{}).$$
(6)
$`P_\pm `$ are projectors defined by

$$P_\pm =\frac{1}{2}\left(1\pm \stackrel{}{\alpha }\stackrel{}{v}\right).$$
(7)
The cut-off $`\delta `$ satisfies $`\delta \mu `$ while being much larger that the energy gap. These equations correspond to the following decomposition of the quark momentum:

$$p^\mu =\mu v^\mu +\mathrm{}^\mu $$
(8)
where

$$v^\mu =(0,\stackrel{}{v})$$
(9)
and $`|\stackrel{}{v}|=1`$. We also use $`V^\mu =(1,\stackrel{}{v})`$ ,$`\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu =(1,\stackrel{}{v})`$.

The other velocity-dependent field $`\psi _{}\psi _\stackrel{}{v}`$ is obtained from $`\psi _+`$ by the change $`\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{v}`$. Therefore the average over the Fermi velocities is defined as follows:

$$\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}=\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{8\pi }.$$
(10)
The extra factor $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ is introduced because, after the introduction of the field with opposite velocity $`\psi _{}`$, one doubles the degrees of freedom, which implies that the integration is only over half solid angle.

The effective lagrangian (1) is obtained in the limit $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ . Therefore $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ do not contain the chemical potential because the dependence on $`\mu `$ has been extracted from the quark field operators. We also note that one has a single sum over the velocities, because the quark fields are evaluated at the same Fermi velocity; as a matter of fact the off-diagonal terms are cancelled by the rapid oscillations of the exponential factor in the $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ limit. This point will be discussed in a more detailed way in the sequel.

Besides $`_0`$ and $`_1`$ eq.(1) contains the term

$$_2=\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}P^{\mu \nu }\left[\psi _+^{}\frac{1}{2\mu +i\stackrel{~}{V}D}D_\mu D_\nu \psi _++\psi _{}^{}\frac{1}{2\mu +iVD}D_\mu D_\nu \psi _{}\right].$$
(11)
$`_2`$ is a non local lagrangian arising when one integrates over the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\stackrel{}{v}`$ degrees of freedom in the functional integration. It contains couplings of two quarks to any number of gluons and gives contribution to the gluon Meissner mass (see below). We have put

$$P^{\mu \nu }=g^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}\left[V^\mu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu +V^\nu \stackrel{~}{V}^\mu \right].$$
(12)
This construction is valid for any theory describing massless fermions at high density provided one excludes degrees of freedom far from the Fermi surface. Let us now examine the modification in the formalism in the presence of a LOFF condensate; to begin with we consider the approximation of one plane wave. The space dependence of the crystalline condensate in this case is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}\{2i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{x}\}.$$
(13)
The effect of the non vanishing vacuum expectation value can be taken into account by adding to the lagrangian the term:

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\mathrm{exp}\{2i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{x}\}ϵ_{\alpha \beta 3}ϵ_{ij}\psi _{i\alpha }^T(x)C\psi _{j\beta }(x)(LR)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}..$$
(14)
In order to introduce velocity dependent positive energy fields $`\psi _{\stackrel{}{v}_i;i\alpha }`$ with flavor $`i`$ we decompose both fermion momenta as in (8) and we have:

$`_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}_i,\stackrel{}{v}_j}{}}\mathrm{exp}\{i\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{\alpha }(\stackrel{}{v}_i,\stackrel{}{v}_j,\stackrel{}{q})\}ϵ_{ij}ϵ_{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{\stackrel{}{v}_i;i\alpha }^T(x)C\psi _{\stackrel{}{v}_j;j\beta }(x)`$ (16)
$`(LR)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
where

$$\stackrel{}{\alpha }(\stackrel{}{v}_i,\stackrel{}{v}_j,\stackrel{}{q})=2\stackrel{}{q}\mu _i\stackrel{}{v}_i\mu _j\stackrel{}{v}_j.$$
(17)
Let us define

$$\mu =\frac{\mu _1+\mu _2}{2},\delta \mu =\frac{\mu _1\mu _2}{2}.$$
(18)
We will consider large values of $`\mu `$ (with $`\delta \mu /\mu 0,q/\delta \mu 0`$ and $`\delta \mu /q`$ fixed), but below the value where the CFL phase sets in. To give our procedure a mathematical meaning, we consider a smeared amplitude as follows:

$$\underset{\mu \mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{exp}\{i\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{\alpha }(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\stackrel{}{v}_2,\stackrel{}{q})\}\underset{\mu \mathrm{}}{lim}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}\mathrm{exp}\{i\stackrel{}{r}^{}\stackrel{}{\alpha }(\stackrel{}{v}_1,\stackrel{}{v}_2,\stackrel{}{q})\}g(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{}).$$
(19)
In  we assumed the following smearing function:

$$g(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{})=g_I(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})=\underset{k=1}{\overset{3}{}}\theta _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}(r_kr_k^{})$$
(20)
where

$`\theta _\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}(rr^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}}\left[\theta \left(r^{}r+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}{2}}\right)\theta \left(r^{}r{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}{2}}\right)\right]=`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}& \text{ for }|r^{}r|<\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}{2}\\ & \\ 0& \text{elsewhere}\end{array}`$ (27)
($`\theta `$ the Heaviside function). In the present paper, for reasons to be discussed below, we will choose

$$g(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{})=g_{II}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})=\underset{k=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi q(r_kr_k^{})}{R}}\right]}{\pi (r_kr_k^{})}.$$
(28)
We evaluate (19) in the $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ limit by taking $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ along the $`z`$axis, and using the following identity:

$$d^3\stackrel{}{r}^{}\mathrm{exp}\{i\stackrel{}{r}^{}\stackrel{}{\alpha }\}g_{II}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})=\mathrm{exp}\{i\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{\alpha }\}\left(\frac{\pi }{R}\right)^3\delta _R^3\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{\alpha }}{2q}\right)$$
(29)
where

$$\delta _R(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{R}{\pi }& \text{ for }|x|<\frac{\pi }{2R}\\ & \\ 0& \text{elsewhere}\end{array}$$
(30)
For the components $`x`$ and $`y`$ of $`\stackrel{}{\alpha }`$ we get

$$|(\mu _1v_1+\mu _2v_2)_{x,y}|<\frac{\pi q}{R},$$
(31)
i.e. approximately (for $`\delta \mu \mu `$)

$$|(v_1+v_2)_{x,y}|<\frac{\pi q}{R\mu }.$$
(32)
From this in the high density limit it follows

$$\stackrel{}{v}_1=\stackrel{}{v}_2+𝒪(1/\mu ).$$
(33)
More precisely, if $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ are the angles of $`\stackrel{}{v}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}_2`$ with respect to the $`z`$-axis one gets

$$\theta _1=\theta _2+\pi +2\frac{\delta \mu }{\mu }\mathrm{tan}\theta _2.$$
(34)
For the $`z`$ component we get

$$\alpha _z=2qh(\mathrm{cos}\theta _2).$$
(35)
The expression for $`h(x)`$ is :

$$h(x)=1+\frac{x\mu _2}{2q}\left(1+\sqrt{1\frac{4\mu \delta \mu }{\mu _2^2x^2}}\right).$$
(36)
Neglecting corrections of order $`\delta \mu /\mu `$ one finds

$$h(x)=1\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _q}{x},\mathrm{cos}\theta _q=\frac{\delta \mu }{q}.$$
(37)
The two factors $`\pi /R`$ arising from the $`x`$ and $`y`$ components are absorbed into a wave function renormalization of the quark fields, both in the kinetic and in the gap terms. As for the $`z`$ component one remains with the factor

$$\frac{\pi }{R}e^{i2qhz}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n})]\frac{\pi }{R}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n})]$$
(38)
where

$$\stackrel{}{n}=\stackrel{}{q}/q$$
(39)
in the gap term, whereas for the kinetic term we get a factor of 1.

As we noted already, in ref.  we used as a smearing function $`g_I`$ (see eq. (20)) and $`\delta _R`$ turned out to be given by

$$\delta _{\widehat{R}}(x)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\widehat{R}x)}{\pi x},\widehat{R}=q|\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}|.$$
(40)
Both eqns. (40) and (30) define regions where $`\delta _R0`$, i.e. define domains where pairing between the two quarks can occur; they correspond to the pairing region (in contrast with the blocking region, where $`\delta _R=0`$), using the terminology of . However, given the results of , which show that the different sections of the pairing domain for the LOFF cubic structure are non-overlapping, we prefer to choose the prescription (28) and, consequently, eq. (30) for $`\delta _R`$. We explicitly observe that, owing to (37), with $`x=\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}=\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, eq. (30) defines a ’ring’ on the Fermi sphere. Our approximation consists in putting $`\mathrm{exp}[i2qhz]=1`$ in eq. (38), owing to the presence of $`\delta _R`$ that enhances the domain of integration where $`h=0`$, for $`R`$ sufficiently large.

Let us discuss the range of values of $`R`$111Notice that the quantity $`R`$ used in the present work is not the same used in . for the plane wave ansatz in more detail. We notice that $`R=\mathrm{}`$ implies the vanishing of the pairing region. The precise value of $`R`$ could be fixed by the gap equation. For instance, by using the fact that near the second order phase transition the pairing region has an angular width of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\delta \mu `$ (see for a discussion ), from the definition of $`\delta _R`$ we find (for $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$)

$$\frac{\pi }{R}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\delta \mu }\sqrt{\left(\frac{q}{\delta \mu }\right)^21}.$$
(41)
This shows that $`R\mathrm{}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$. In any case for the purpose of this paper we leave $`R`$ as a parameter.

In conclusion

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\frac{\pi }{R}\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n})]ϵ_{ij}ϵ_{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};i\alpha }^T(x)C\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};j\beta }(x)(LR)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.$$
(42)
We now change the basis for the fermion fields by writing

$`\psi _{+,\alpha i}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{A=0}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\sigma _A)_{\alpha i}}{\sqrt{2}}}\psi _+^A(i,\alpha =1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2})`$ (43)
$`\psi _{+,31}`$ $`=`$ $`\psi _+^4`$ (44)
$`\psi _{+,32}`$ $`=`$ $`\psi _+^5,`$ (45)
where $`\sigma _A`$ are the Pauli matrices for $`A=1,2,3`$ and $`\sigma _0=1`$; similar expressions hold for $`\psi _{}^A`$.

A different, but also useful notation for the fields $`\psi _{+,\alpha i}`$ uses a combination of $`\lambda `$ matrices, as follows

$$\psi _{+,\alpha i}=\underset{A=0}{\overset{5}{}}\frac{(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_A)_{\alpha i}}{\sqrt{2}}\psi _+^A.$$
(46)
The $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_A`$ matrices are defined in terms of the usual $`\lambda `$ matrices as follows: $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}\lambda _8+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}\lambda _0`$; $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_A=\lambda _A(A=1,2,3)`$; $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_4={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{4i5}}{\sqrt{2}}}`$; $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_5={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _{6i7}}{\sqrt{2}}}`$. In this basis one gets

$`_0+_1+_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{A,B=0}{\overset{5}{}}}\chi ^A\left(\begin{array}{cc}iTr[\stackrel{~}{T}_A^{}VD\stackrel{~}{T}_B]& \mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}& iTr[\stackrel{~}{T}_A^{}\stackrel{~}{V}D^{}\stackrel{~}{T}_B]\end{array}\right)\chi ^B`$ (47)
$`+`$ $`(LR).`$ (49)
Here

$$\chi ^A=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _+^A\\ C\psi _{}^A\end{array}\right)$$
(50)
and

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_A=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_A}{\sqrt{2}}(A=0,\mathrm{},5).$$
(51)
where the matrix $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}`$ is as follows: $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}=0`$ $`(A\mathrm{or}B=4\mathrm{or}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5})`$, and, for $`A,B=0,\mathrm{},3`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)_{AB},$$
(52)
having put

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\pi }{R}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n})].$$
(53)
From these equations one can derive the propagator for gapped quarks:

$$D_{AB}(\mathrm{})=\frac{1}{V\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}\delta _{AB}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_{AB}& V\mathrm{}\delta _{AB}\end{array}\right).$$
(54)
On the other hand the propagator for the fields $`\chi ^{4,5}`$ does not contain gap mass terms and is given by

$$D(\mathrm{})=\left(\begin{array}{cc}(V\mathrm{})^1& 0\\ 0& (\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{})^1\end{array}\right).$$
(55)
These formulae can be easily generalized to the case of the face centered cube . This is characterized by eight $`\stackrel{}{q}_j`$ vectors with equal length $`q=\pi /a`$ and directions corresponding to the eight vertices of a cube.

In Fig. 1 some of the symmetry axes of this cube are shown: they are denoted as $`C_4`$ (the three 4-fold axes), $`C_3`$ (the four 3-fold axes) and $`C_2`$ (the six 2-fold axes). For more details on the symmetry group of the cube see Appendix 1 and . The space dependence of the condensate corresponding to this lattice is as follows

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}\mathrm{exp}\{2i\stackrel{}{q}_k\stackrel{}{x}\}=\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{ϵ_i=\pm }{}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{2\pi i}{a}(ϵ_1x_1+ϵ_2x_2+ϵ_3x_3)\right\},$$
(56)
where the eight $`\stackrel{}{q}_j`$ vectors with equal length

$$q=\pi /a$$
(57)
have directions corresponding to the eight vertices of a cube.

Fig. 1 - The figure shows some of the symmetry axes of the cube, denoted as $`C_2`$, $`C_3`$ and $`C_4`$ (see the appendix for details). We show also the parameterization used for the coordinates of the vertices.

To describe the quark condensate we add the term:

$$_\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}\mathrm{exp}\{2i\stackrel{}{q}_k\stackrel{}{x}\}ϵ_{\alpha \beta 3}ϵ_{ij}\psi _{i\alpha }^T(x)C\psi _{j\beta }(x)(LR)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(58)
completely analogous to (14).

Let us put

$$\stackrel{}{n}_k=\stackrel{}{q}_k/|\stackrel{}{q}_k|.$$
(59)
By the same procedure used for the plane wave condensate one has

$`_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)]ϵ_{ij}ϵ_{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};i\alpha }^T(x)C\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};j\beta }(x)`$ (61)
$`(LR)+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.`$
In (59) the eight unit vectors defining the vertices of the cube are

$`\stackrel{}{n}_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(+1,+1,+1),\stackrel{}{n}_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(+1,1,+1),`$ (62)
$`\stackrel{}{n}_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,1,+1),\stackrel{}{n}_4={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,+1,+1),`$ (63)
$`\stackrel{}{n}_5={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(+1+,1,1),\stackrel{}{n}_6={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(+1,1,1),`$ (64)
$`\stackrel{}{n}_7={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,1,1),\stackrel{}{n}_8={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,+1,1).`$ (65)
$`_0+_1+_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is still given by eqns. (49)-(52) but now

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\pi }{R}\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)];$$
(66)
the quark propagator is given by (54) with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}`$ given by (66).

An interesting point can be noted in connection with eq. (66). This equation shows that the pairing region for the cubic LOFF condensate is formed by eight distinct rings; each ring is associated to one vertex of the cube and has as its symmetry axis one of the $`C_3`$ axes of fig. 1. According to the analysis of  the LOFF vacuum state corresponds to a situation where these domains have at most one common point. Given the symmetry of the cubic structure we can limit the analysis to one pair of rings, for example those associated to the vertices $`\stackrel{}{n}_1,\stackrel{}{n}_5`$ in fig. 1. The common point between these two rings lies on the axis $`C_2`$ of fig. 1 and has $`\stackrel{}{v}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}).`$ Since it must also belong to the boundary of the two pairing regions we have the condition (30):

$$|h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_1)|=\frac{\pi }{2R},$$
(67)
which implies

$$R=\frac{\pi }{2h\left(\sqrt{2/3}\right)}.$$
(68)
In this particular case the approximate form for $`h(x)`$ (see eq. (37)) is not appropriate owing a numerical cancellation. In fact for $`q/|\delta \mu |1.2`$, $`\mu =400MeV`$, $`\delta \mu =40MeV`$, one would get $`R76`$, whereas the use of the complete equation (36) gives

$$R18.$$
(69)
## 3 Phonons in a cubic LOFF crystal

The condensate (56) breaks both translations and rotations. It is however invariant under the discrete group $`O_h`$, the symmetry group of the cube. This can be seen by noticing that the condensate is invariant under the following coordinate transformations

$`R_1:x_1x_1,x_2x_3,x_3x_2,`$
$`R_2:x_1x_3,x_2x_2,x_3x_1,`$
$`R_3:x_1x_2,x_2x_1,x_3x_3,`$
$`I:x_1x_1,x_2x_2,x_3x_3,`$ (70)
that is rotations of $`\pi /2`$ around the coordinate axes, and the inversion with respect to the origin. Since the group $`O_h`$ is generated by the previous 4 elements (see Appendix 1) the invariance follows at once.

The crystal defined by the condensate (56) can fluctuate and its local deformations define three phonon fields $`\varphi ^{(i)}`$ that are the Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated to the breaking of the translational symmetry. They can be formally introduced by the substitution in (56)

$$2qx^i\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}(x)=\frac{2\pi }{a}x^i+\varphi ^{(i)}(x)/f,$$
(71)
where the three scalar fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$ satisfy

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}_0=\frac{2\pi }{a}x_i$$
(72)
whereas for the phonon fields one has

$$\varphi ^{(i)}(x)_0=0.$$
(73)
In (71) $`f`$ is the decay constant of the phonon with dimension of an energy. We have therefore three fluctuating fields $`\varphi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(i)}`$ for any elementary cube defined by discrete coordinates

$$x_{k_1}=\frac{k_1\pi }{q},y_{k_2}=\frac{k_2\pi }{q},z_{k_3}=\frac{k_3\pi }{q},$$
(74)
i.e.

$$\varphi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(i)}\varphi ^{(i)}(t,x_{k_1},y_{k_2},z_{k_3}).$$
(75)
The interaction term with the NGB fields will be therefore given by

$`S_{int}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t\left(\frac{\pi }{q}\right)^3\underset{k_1=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{k_2=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{k_3=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}\underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}\{i\phi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(m)}/f\}}`$ (76)
$`\times `$ $`ϵ_{ij}ϵ^{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{i,\alpha ,\stackrel{}{v}}^TC\psi _{j,\beta ,\stackrel{}{v}}(LR)+h.c.`$ (78)
where

$$\phi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(m)}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}ϵ_i^{(m)}\varphi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(i)}$$
(79)
and the eight vectors $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}^{(m)}`$ are given by

$$(ϵ_i^{(m)})\stackrel{}{ϵ}^{(m)}\sqrt{3}\stackrel{}{n}_m.$$
(80)
Notice that translating the fields in momentum space one would have to consider Fourier series with respect to the discrete coordinates. This introduces in the theory a quasi-momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ through the combination $`\mathrm{exp}(i(p_xx_{k_1}+p_yy_{k_2}+p_zz_{k_3})`$. Therefore one has to restrict $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ to the first Brillouin zone $`qp_xq`$, $`qp_yq`$, $`qp_zq`$.

The complete effective action for the NGB fields $`\varphi ^{(i)}`$ will be of the form

$$S=𝑑t\left(\frac{\pi }{q}\right)^3\underset{k_1=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{k_2=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{k_3=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}(\varphi ^{(i)}(t,k_1\pi /q,k_2\pi /q,k_3\pi /q)).$$
(81)
In the action bilinear terms of the type $`\varphi _{k_1k_2k_3}^{(i)}\varphi _{k_1^{}k_2^{}k_3^{}}^{(i^{})}`$ with $`\{k_1k_2k_3\}k_1^{}k_2^{}k_3^{}`$ may arise. In the continuum limit this terms would correspond to partial derivatives with respect to the three space directions.

All these considerations become superfluous when one realizes that we are actually interested in an effective description of the fields $`\varphi _{k_1,k_2,k_3}^{(i)}`$ in the low energy limit, i.e. for wavelengths much longer than the lattice spacing $`1/q`$. In this limit the fields $`\varphi _{k_1,k_2,k_3}^{(i)}`$ vary almost continuously and can be imagined as continuous functions of three space variables $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`z`$. Therefore we shall use in the sequel the continuous notation $`\varphi ^{(i)}(t,\stackrel{}{r})`$.

The coupling of the quark fields to the NGB fields generated by the condensate will be written as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi ^TC\psi \underset{ϵ_i=\pm }{}\mathrm{exp}\left\{i(ϵ_1\mathrm{\Phi }^{(1)}+ϵ_2\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}+ϵ_3\mathrm{\Phi }^{(3)})\right\}$$
(82)
making the theory invariant under translations and rotations. These invariances are broken spontaneously in the vacuum defined by eq. (72).

Integrating out the Fermi degrees of freedom one gets an effective lagrangian containing only the light degrees of freedom, i.e. the gluons of the unbroken subgroup $`SU(2)_c`$ and the phonons. We will discuss gluons in Section 6 and we consider here only the phonon effective lagrangian.

The effective lagrangian for the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$ has to enjoy the following symmetries: rotational and translational invariance; $`O_h`$ symmetry on the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$. The latter requirement follows from the invariance of the coupling (82) under the group $`O_h`$ acting upon $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$. The phonon fields $`\varphi ^{(i)}(x)`$ and the coordinates $`x^i`$ must transform under the diagonal discrete group obtained from the direct product of the rotation group acting over the coordinates and the $`O_h`$ group acting over $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}(x)`$. This is indeed the symmetry left after the breaking of translational and rotational invariance.

In order to build up the effective lagrangian, we start noticing that if $`X_i`$ are quantities transforming as the same representation of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$’s under $`O_h`$ (a 3-dimensional representation), then all the invariant expressions can be obtained by the following three basic invariant expressions

$$I_2(X_i)=X_1^2+X_2^2+X_3^2,I_4(X_i)=X_1^2X_2^2+X_2^2X_3^2+X_3^2X_1^2,I_6(X_i)=X_1^2X_2^2X_3^2,$$
(83)
which is a general property of the symmetric functions of three variables. The invariance is easily checked by noticing that these expressions are invariant under the three elementary rotations $`R_i`$ and the inversion $`I`$ (see eq. (70)). Quantities transforming as $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$ are

$$\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}^{(i)}\frac{d\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}}{dt},\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}.$$
(84)
We proceed now as in ref. , by noticing that the most general low-energy effective lagrangian, invariant under rotations, translations and $`O_h`$ is given by

$$=\frac{f^2}{2}\underset{i=1,2,3}{}(\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}^{(i)})^2+_\mathrm{s}(I_2(\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}),I_4(\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}),I_6(\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)})).$$
(85)
The reason for allowing all the possible spatial gradients in this expansion is that the vacuum expectation value of $`\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(i)}`$ is proportional to $`q`$ and it is not in general small. By following ref.  one gets the effective lagrangian for the fields $`\varphi ^{(i)}`$ at the second order in the derivatives as follows

$$=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1,2,3}{}(\dot{\varphi }^{(i)})^2\frac{a}{2}\underset{i=1,2,3}{}|\stackrel{}{}\varphi ^{(i)}|^2\frac{b}{2}\underset{i=1,2,3}{}(_i\varphi ^{(i)})^2c\underset{i<j=1,2,3}{}_i\varphi ^{(i)}_j\varphi ^{(j)}.$$
(86)
The effective theory depends on three arbitrary parameters, a result that follows also from the general theory of the propagation of elastic waves in crystals .

## 4 Parameters of the effective lagrangian for the phonon fields

In this Section we will compute the parameters $`a,b,c`$ appearing in (86). We use the gradient expansion. First we introduce external fields with the same quantum numbers of the NGB’s and then we perform a derivative expansion of the generating functional. This gives rise to the effective action for the NGB. At the lowest order one has to consider the diagrams in Fig. 2, i.e. the self-energy, Fig. 2a, and the tadpole, Fig. 2b.

The diagrams can be computed observing that, by expanding (82) in the phonon fields, one has couplings of two quarks with one and two phonons. Let us put

$$\phi ^{(m)}(t,\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}ϵ_i^{(m)}\varphi ^{(i)}(t,\stackrel{}{r}).$$
(87)
At the first order in the fields one gets the coupling with one NGB

$`_{\varphi \psi \psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)]{\displaystyle \frac{(i\phi ^{(m)})}{f}}ϵ_{ij}ϵ^{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};i\alpha }C\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};j\beta }`$ (88)
$``$ $`(LR)+h.c.`$ (89)
and the coupling of two quarks and two NGB’s

$`_{\varphi \varphi \psi \psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)]{\displaystyle \frac{(\phi ^{(m)})^2}{2f^2}}ϵ_{ij}ϵ^{\alpha \beta 3}\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};i\alpha }C\psi _{\stackrel{}{v};j\beta }`$ (90)
$``$ $`(LR)+h.c.`$ (91)
In the basis of the $`\chi `$ fields:

$$_3+_4=\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}\underset{A=0}{\overset{3}{}}\stackrel{~}{\chi }^A\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& g_3^{}+g_4^{}\\ g_3+g_4& 0\end{array}\right)\stackrel{~}{\chi }^B,$$
(92)
Here

$`g_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)]{\displaystyle \frac{i\phi ^{(m)}}{f}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)_{AB},`$ (97)
$`g_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)]{\displaystyle \frac{(\phi ^{(m)})^2}{2f^2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)_{AB}`$ (103)
To perform the calculation one employs the propagator given in Eq. (54) with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}`$ given in (66) and the interaction vertices in (92). The result of the calculation of the two diagrams at the second order in the momentum expansion is as follows:

$`_{eff}(p)_{s.e.}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{4\times 4\mu ^2}{16\pi ^3f^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m,k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\right)^2\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)](i\phi ^{(m)})`$ (104)
$`\times `$ $`\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)](i\phi ^{(k)}){\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{}}{D(\mathrm{})D(\mathrm{}+p)}}`$ (106)
$`\times `$ $`\left[2\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2+V\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{V}(\mathrm{}+p)+\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}V(\mathrm{}+p)\right],`$ (108)
$`_{eff}(p)_{tad}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{4\times 4\mu ^2}{16\pi ^3f^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{}}{D(\mathrm{})}\frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}}{R}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)](\phi ^{(m)})^2}`$
where

$$D(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}_0^2\mathrm{}_{}^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2+iϵ,$$
(111)
One can easily control that the Goldstone theorem is satisfied and the phonons are massless. As a matter of fact one has

$`_{mass}`$ $`=`$ $`_{eff}(0)_{s.e.}+_{eff}(0)_{tad}=i{\displaystyle \frac{4\times 4\mu ^2}{16\pi ^3f^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\times `$ (112)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\mathrm{}}{D(\mathrm{})}}[{\displaystyle \underset{m,k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)]\phi ^{(m)}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)]\phi ^{(k)}`$ (114)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)](\phi ^{(m)})^2].`$ (115)
Both terms in the r.h.s. of eq. (115) present a double sum: $`m,k=1,\mathrm{},8`$ (see eq. (66) for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}`$); we have seen at the end of section 2 that the eight rings that define the pairing region are non overlapping. Therefore only the terms with $`m=k`$ survive and one immediately verifies the validity of the Goldstone’s theorem. i.e. the vanishing of (115). Notice that in our approximation the masses of the Goldstone bosons vanish only if the pairing regions are not overlapping, signaling that when the regions overlap we are not at the minimum of the free-energy (see ).

At the second order in the momentum expansion one has

$`_{eff}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{4\times 4\mu ^2}{16\pi ^3f^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{m,k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\right)^2\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_m)](i\phi ^{(m)})`$ (116)
$`\times `$ $`\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)](i\phi ^{(k)}){\displaystyle d^2\mathrm{}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2Vp\stackrel{~}{V}p}{[D(\mathrm{})]^3}}.`$ (118)
Using the result

$$\frac{d^2\mathrm{}}{[D(\mathrm{})]^3}=\frac{i\pi }{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^4},$$
(119)
and the absence of off-diagonal terms in the double sum, we get the effective lagrangian in the form

$`_{eff}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{2\pi ^2f^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }}{R}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)])^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}}`$ (120)
$`\times `$ $`\left(Vp\right)\phi ^{(k)}\left(\stackrel{~}{V}p\right)\phi ^{(k)}.`$ (121)
To perform the calculation one can exploit the large value found per $`R`$ , i.e. eq. (69). Since for $`R\mathrm{}`$ the $`\delta _R`$ function becomes the Dirac delta, we take the $`R\mathrm{}`$ limit and we handle the $`\delta _R`$ function according to the Fermi trick in the Golden Rule; in the numerator we substitute one $`\delta _R`$ function with the Dirac delta while for the other one we take

$$\frac{\pi \delta _R[h(x)]}{R}\frac{\pi \delta _R(0)}{R}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$
(122)
We observe that this limit is justified by the large value found for $`R`$, see eq. (69). The sum over $`k`$ in (121) gives

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)]\phi ^{(k)}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)]\phi ^{(k)}{\displaystyle \frac{R}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\delta [h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k)]\left(\phi ^{(k)}\right)^2=`$ (123)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{R}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\delta \left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu }{q\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k}}\right]\left(\phi ^{(k)}\right)^2={\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{\pi ^2}}k_R{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\delta \left[\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu }{q}}\right]\left(\phi ^{(k)}\right)^2`$ (124)
with

$$k_R=\frac{\pi |\delta \mu |}{qR}.$$
(125)
On the other hand $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2`$ in the denominator of (121) gives

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2.$$
(126)
Therefore one gets

$$_{eff}(p)=\frac{\mu ^2k_R}{2\pi ^2f^2}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}\delta \left\{\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k\frac{\delta \mu }{q}\right\}V_\mu \stackrel{~}{V}_\nu ϵ_i^{(k)}ϵ_j^{(k)}p_\mu \varphi ^{(i)}p_\nu \varphi ^{(j)}.$$
(127)
The integration over the Fermi velocities require special attention. We use the result

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}ϵ_i^{(k)}ϵ_j^{(k)}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}\delta _{ij};$$
(128)
this fixes the constant multiplying the time derivative term in the effective lagrangian at the value (taking into account (10))

$$\frac{8\mu ^2k_R}{4\pi ^2f^2}.$$
(129)
Therefore one obtains canonical normalization for the kinetic term provided

$$f^2=\frac{8\mu ^2k_R}{2\pi ^2}.$$
(130)
To compute the parameters $`a,b,c`$ of the effective lagrangian (86) we need to evaluate

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}ϵ_i^{(k)}ϵ_j^{(k)}\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{8\pi }v_{\mathrm{}}v_m\delta \left\{\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k\frac{\delta \mu }{q}\right\}.$$
(131)
We find the result (see Appendix 2)

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\frac{2}{3}\delta _{lm}\delta _{ij}+\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{3}\underset{r=1}{\overset{3}{}}\rho _{lm}^r\rho _{ij}^r$$
(132)
where

$$\rho _{ij}^r=\delta _{is}\delta _{jt}+\delta _{it}\delta _{js},r,s,t\mathrm{in}\mathrm{cyclic}\mathrm{order}.$$
(133)
From this equation we get

$`_{eff}(p)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(p_{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\varphi _{}^{(i)}{}_{}{}^{2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\beta _{lm}^{ij}p^lp^m\varphi ^{(i)}\varphi ^{(j)}\right)=`$ (134)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(p_{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{2}\varphi _{}^{(i)}{}_{}{}^{2}{\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{p}|^2}{12}}\varphi _{}^{(i)}{}_{}{}^{2}{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{6}}{\displaystyle \underset{i<j=1,2,3}{}}p^i\varphi ^{(i)}p^j\varphi ^{(j)}\right).`$
Comparing with eq. (86) we finally obtain

$$a=\frac{1}{12},b=0,c=\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{12}.$$
(135)
One can note that these values for the parameters of the phonon effective lagrangian satisfy the positivity constraints found in .

In  one can find the general discussion of the dispersion relation for arbitrary values of the parameters $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$. In the present paper we give the expression for the eigenvalues of $`E^2`$, according to the direction of propagation of the momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$, in table 1.

| Momentum | Eigenvalues | Eigenvectors |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`C_4`$ | $`1/12`$ | $`\varphi ^{(i)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p\stackrel{}{e}^{(i)}`$ | $`1/12`$ | $`\varphi ^{(j)}`$, $`\varphi ^{(k)}`$ ($`ijk`$) |
| $`C_3`$ | $`(1+3\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q)/6`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+x\varphi ^{(2)}+(1x)\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(1)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(2)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(3)})`$ | $`(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/36`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+\varphi ^{(2)}+\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
|  | $`(1+3\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q)/6`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+x\varphi ^{(2)}+(1x)\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(1)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(2)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(3)})`$ | $`(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/36`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+\varphi ^{(2)}+\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
|  | $`(1+3\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q)/6`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+x\varphi ^{(2)}(1x)\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(1)}\stackrel{}{e}^{(2)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(3)})`$ | $`(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/36`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}\varphi ^{(2)}+\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
|  | $`(1+3\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q)/6`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+x\varphi ^{(2)}+(1+x)\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(1)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(2)}\stackrel{}{e}^{(3)})`$ | $`(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/36`$ | $`\varphi ^{(1)}+\varphi ^{(2)}\varphi ^{(3)}`$ |
| $`C_2`$ | $`1/12`$ | $`\varphi ^{(k)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(i)}+\stackrel{}{e}^{(j)})`$ | $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q/8`$ | $`\varphi ^{(i)}+\varphi ^{(j)}`$ |
| $`i<j`$ | $`(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/24`$ | $`\varphi ^{(i)}+\varphi ^{(j)}`$ |
|  | $`1/12`$ | $`\varphi ^{(k)}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{}{p}=p(\stackrel{}{e}^{(i)}\stackrel{}{e}^{(j)})`$ | $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q/8`$ | $`\varphi ^{(i)}+\varphi ^{(j)}`$ |
| $`i<j`$ | $`(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q)/24`$ | $`\varphi ^{(i)}+\varphi ^{(j)}`$ |

Table 1 \- Eigenvalues and eigenvectors of $`\frac{E^2}{|\stackrel{}{p}|^2}`$; $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ along the symmetry axes.

## 5 Gluon dynamics in the the LOFF phase: single plane wave structure

In this Section and in the subsequent one we wish to derive the effective lagragian for the gluons of the unbroken $`SU(2)_c`$ subgroup of the two-flavor LOFF phase. To start with we review the results obtained for the gluon effective lagrangian at one-loop in the $`2SC`$ isotropic phase . They were obtained in ; in  the results of  were obtained by the method of the High Density Effective Theory and extended to the three-gluon and four-gluon vertices. In the $`2SC`$ phase one considers massless quarks of two different flavors at the same chemical potential $`\mu `$ and at low temperature. Color superconductivity breaks the color group $`SU(3)_c`$ down to a $`SU(2)_c`$ subgroup and the quarks with nontrivial $`SU(2)_c`$ charges acquire a gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. Therefore only the three gluons relative to the generators of the unbroken subgroup remain massless.

The lagrangian including one loop corrections for the $`SU(2)_c`$ gluons can be written as ,

$$=\frac{1}{2}(E_i^aE_i^aB_i^aB_i^a)+\frac{k}{2}E_i^aE_i^a,$$
(136)
with $`a=1,2,3`$ color indices and

$$k=\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{18\pi ^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}.$$
(137)
Eqns. (136) and (137) mean that, at one loop, the medium has a dielectric constant

$$ϵ=k+1$$
(138)
and a magnetic permeability $`\lambda =1`$, while the gluon speed in the medium is

$$v=\frac{1}{\sqrt{ϵ\lambda }}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{g\mu }.$$
(139)
As noted in , it is possible to put (136) in a gauge invariant form

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_a^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }^a(a=1,2,3),$$
(140)
provided the following rescaling is used

$$A_0^aA_0^a=k^{3/4}A_0^a,$$
(141)
$$A_i^aA_i^a=k^{1/4}A_i^a,$$
(142)
$$x_0x_0^{}=k^{1/2}x_0,$$
(143)
$$gg^{}=k^{1/4}g.$$
(144)
Let us now consider the LOFF non-isotropic phase. To begin with we assume the crystal structure given by a plane wave i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ given by (53). The difference with the isotropic case consists, in the present case, in the substitution

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\pi }{R}\delta _R[h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n})],$$
(145)
where $`\stackrel{}{n}=\stackrel{}{q}/q`$ and $`h(x)`$ given by (37).

The effective action allows the evaluation of the one loop diagrams with two external gluon lines and internal quark lines similar to those in fig. 2. Their contribution to the polarization tensor is written down in Appendix 3.

Let us now write

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(0)+\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p).$$
(146)
As discussed in Appendix 3 we find a vanishing Meissner mass

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{ij}(0)=0$$
(147)
and a non-vanishing Debye screening mass

$$m_D=\frac{g\mu }{\pi }\sqrt{1+\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _a\mathrm{cos}\theta _b}{2}},$$
(148)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _a`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _b`$ ($`1\mathrm{cos}\theta _a\mathrm{cos}\theta _b1`$) are the solutions of the equation

$$|h(\mathrm{cos}\theta )|=\frac{\pi }{2R}.$$
(149)
where $`h(\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ is defined in eq. (36).

It is interesting to note that, in absence of LOFF pairing, i.e. if the pairing region vanishes and $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _a=\mathrm{cos}\theta _b`$, one gets for the Meissner and Debye mass the same results obtained in the hard dense loop approximation for the model with two flavors in the normal (not superconducting) state, see e.g. . On the other hand if the blocking region vanishes ($`\mathrm{cos}\theta _a=1`$, $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _b=+1`$) one is in the 2SC phase and eq. (148) gives $`m_D=0`$ as expected.

Next consider $`\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p)`$. The contribution of the blocking region vanishes as discussed in Appendix 3. Therefore the only non vanishing contribution to $`\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p)`$ comes from the pairing region. It could be computed exactly, but the corresponding expressions are cumbersome and shed little light on the underlying physics. Therefore we prefer to work in the approximation of small momenta ($`|p|\mathrm{\Delta }`$). We find

$$\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p)=\delta _{ab}\frac{\mu ^2g^2}{12\pi ^2}\underset{\stackrel{}{v};pairing}{}\frac{V^\mu V^\nu (\stackrel{~}{V}p)^2\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu V^\nu (Vp\stackrel{~}{V}p)+V\stackrel{~}{V}}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}.$$
(150)
That is

$`\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{00}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mu ^2}{3\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v};pairing}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{v_iv_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}}p_ip_j=`$ (151)
$`=`$ $`\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mu ^2R^2}{3\mathrm{\Delta }^2\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle _{pairing}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi }{8\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{v_iv_j}{\left(\delta _R[h(\mathrm{cos}\theta )]\right)^2}}p_ip_j`$ (152)
where $`\stackrel{}{v}=(\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ and $`\stackrel{}{n}=\stackrel{}{q}/q`$ along the $`z`$axis. The integration domain is defined by $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _a<\mathrm{cos}\theta <\mathrm{cos}\theta _b`$. We get therefore

$$\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{00}(p)=\delta _{ab}k\left(f(R)p_{}^2+g(R)p_{}^2\right),$$
(153)
where $`k`$ is given by (137) and

$$f(R)=\frac{3}{4}_{pairing}d\mathrm{cos}\theta \left(1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta \right),$$
(154)
$$g(R)=\frac{3}{2}_{pairing}d\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}^2\theta $$
(155)
are functions of the parameter $`R`$ and are reported in fig. 3 ($`q1.2|\delta \mu |`$).

It is interesting to note the anisotropy of the polarization tensor exhibited by these results. One has always $`g>f`$; for large $`R`$, and neglecting $`\delta \mu /\mu `$ corrections, one finds approximately

$$\frac{g(R)}{f(R)}\frac{2}{\left({\displaystyle \frac{q}{\delta \mu }}\right)^21}.$$
(156)
Let us finally write down the remaining components of the polarization tensor. From (150) we get

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{ij}(p)=\delta _{ab}\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{3\pi ^2}\underset{\stackrel{}{v};pairing}{}\frac{v_iv_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}p_0^2=kp_0^2\left(f(R)(\delta _{i1}\delta _{j1}+\delta _{i2}\delta _{j2})+g(R)\delta _{i3}\delta _{j3}\right)$$
(157)
and

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{0i}(p)=kp_0p^j\left(f(R)(\delta _{i1}\delta _{j1}+\delta _{i2}\delta _{j2})+g(R)\delta _{i3}\delta _{j3}\right).$$
(158)
These results complete the analysis of the LOFF model in the one plane wave approximation. From $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }`$ we get the dispersion law for the gluons at small momenta. The lagrangian at one loop is222We do not include here the 3 and 4-gluon vertices that however can be handled as in , with the result that the local gauge invariance of the one-loop lagrangian is satisfied.

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_a^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }^a\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }A_\mu ^aA_\nu ^b$$
(159)
(sum over the repeated color indices $`a,b=1,2,3`$). Introducing the fields $`E_i^aF_{0i}^a`$ and $`B_i^ai\epsilon _{ijk}F_{jk}^a`$, and using (153), (157) and (158) we can rewrite the lagrangian (159) as follows

$$=\frac{1}{2}\left(ϵ_{ij}E_i^aE_j^aB_i^aB_i^a\right)+\frac{1}{2}m_D^2A_a^0A_a^0,$$
(160)
where

$$ϵ_{ij}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1+kf(R)& 0& 0\\ 0& 1+kf(R)& 0\\ 0& 0& 1+kg(R)\end{array}\right).$$
(161)
This means that the medium has a non-isotropic dielectric tensor $`ϵ`$ and a magnetic permeability $`\lambda =1`$. These results have been obtained taking the total momentum of the Cooper pairs along the $`z`$ direction. Therefore we distinguish the dielectric constant along the $`z`$ axis, which is

$$ϵ_{}=1+kg(R),$$
(162)
and the dielectric constant in the plane perpendicular to the $`z`$ axis

$$ϵ_{}=1+kf(R).$$
(163)
This means that the gluon speed in the medium depends on the direction of propagation of the gluon; along the $`z`$ axis the gluon velocity is

$$v_{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{kg(R)}},$$
(164)
while for gluons which propagate in the $`xy`$ plane we have

$$v_{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{kf(R)}}$$
(165)
and in the limit of large $`R`$, and neglecting $`\delta \mu /\mu `$ corrections,

$$v_{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{tan}\theta _qv_{}.$$
(166)
with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _q`$ defined in eq. (37). The anisotropy in the gluon velocities has its pendant in the anisotropy of the phonon velocity .

## 6 Gluon dynamics in the LOFF phase: cubic structure

The condensate in this case is given by eq. (56), so that we will use the results of sec. 2 with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}`$ given by (66). The calculations are similar to the previous case and, similarly, the $`SU(2)_c`$ gluons have vanishing Meissner mass and exhibit partial Debye screening. However the dispersion law of the gluons is different.

As a matter of fact we write the one loop lagrangian for the $`SU(2)_c`$ gluons as

$$=\frac{1}{2}(E_i^aE_i^aB_i^aB_i^a)+\delta ,$$
(167)
with

$$\delta =\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }A_\mu ^aA_\nu ^b.$$
(168)
In the approximation $`|p|\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\delta \mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }`$ is again given by eq. (150), but now $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}`$ is given by (66). One gets

$$\delta E_i^aE_j^b\delta _{ab}\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{6\pi ^2}_{pairing}\frac{d\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi }{8\pi }\frac{v_iv_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}+A_0^aA_0^b\delta _{ab}\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{4\pi ^2}_{blocking}d\mathrm{cos}\theta .$$
(169)
Evaluating the integrals one finds

$$=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_{ij}E_i^aE_j^aB_i^aB_i^a)+\frac{1}{2}M_{D}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}A_0^aA_0^a,$$
(170)
with the tensor $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^{ij}`$ given by

$$\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_{ij}=\delta _{ij}\left[1+kt(R)\right].$$
(171)
and

$$M_D=\frac{g\mu }{\pi }\sqrt{1+8\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _a\mathrm{cos}\theta _b}{2}}.$$
(172)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{a,b}`$ are solutions of eq. (149). It should also be noted that the values of the parameter $`R`$ for the cube and the plane wave can be different.

The isotropy of these results can be easily understood noticing that $`\delta `$ is a symmetric function of its arguments. As a matter of fact it must be symmetric under the residual symmetry $`O_h`$ and therefore it must be built up from the three elementary symmetric functions $`I_2(X_i)`$, $`I_4(X_i)`$ and $`I_6(X_i)`$, defined in eq. (83), with $`X_i=E_i^a`$. The invariance of $`\delta `$ follows from the invariance of these functions under the three elementary rotations $`R_i`$ and the inversion $`I`$. However it is clear from (169) that $`\delta `$ is second-order in $`E_a^i`$ and therefore the only function that can be involved is $`I_2`$. In conclusion in the cubic lattice one necessarily gets

$$\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_{ij}\delta _{ij}=A\delta _{ij}.$$
(173)
From eqs. (169) and (66) one has that the function $`t(R)`$ is given by the formula

$$t(R)\delta _{ij}=\frac{3R^2}{4\pi ^3}_{pairing}d\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi \frac{v_iv_j}{\left[_{k=1}^8\delta _R(h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k))\right]^2}.$$
(174)
$`t(R)`$ can be computed by observing that, using the properties of the $`\delta _R`$ function

$`t(R)\delta _{ij}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3R^2}{4\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}{\displaystyle _{pairing}}d\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{v_iv_j}{\left[\delta _R(h(\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k))\right]^2}}=`$ (175)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}}\left(f(R)\delta _{ij}+[g(R)f(R)]n_i^{(k)}n_j^{(k)}\right).`$ (176)
Using (128) we finally get

$$t(R)=\frac{8}{3}[2f(R)+g(R)].$$
(177)
A plot of the function $`t(R)`$ is in Fig. 4.

We finally note that, even if the crystalline structure is not isotropic, in eq. (170) the $`O(3)`$ invariance is restored. This happens because the tensor $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_{ij}`$ is proportional to the identity. Therefore the dielectric properties of the medium will be isotropic and the velocity of propagation of the gluons will be the same in all the directions. We stress that these results are valid in the approximation of soft gluon momenta.

## 7 Conclusions

We have used the High Density Effective Theory (HDET) formalism to calculate the low energy properties of phonons and gluons in the LOFF phase of QCD.The HDET formalism is very useful to simplify the dynamics as it allows direct elimination of the degrees of freedom which are far from the Fermi surface. It bears useful resemblances with the Heavy Quark Effective Theory of general use when dealing with heavy hadrons. We have first made the modification for the case of a single plane wave condensate and we have derived the quark propagators. After that we have gone to the relevant case of the cubic strucure of ref.  corresponding to the sum of eight plane waves. We have added the suitable term in the Lagrangian bearing the sum over the eight plane waves of the cubic structure and derived for this more complex case the quark propagators to be used in the calculations.

The three phonons correspond to the local deformations from the fluctuations of the crystal as defined by the cubic condensate. They are the Nambu-Goldstone bosons from the breaking of translational symmetry. We have studied the low energy limit, where wavelengths are much longer than lattice spacing, and built up an effective lagrangian for the phonons, which, at the second order in the derivatives, depends on three parameters, in agreement with the general theory of the elastic waves in crystals .

The parameters of the effective phonon lagrangian are calculated by introducing external fields with the phonon quantum numbers and performing the derivative expansion of the generating functional. The phonons remain massless, as expected. The final results for the parameters are remarkably simple, the only quantity appearing in the result being the ratio of $`\delta \mu `$ to the common length of the eight wave vectors appearing in the condensate.

We have also derived the effective lagrangian of the gluons of the unbroken $`SU(2)_c`$ subgroup. The gluon self energy diagrams at one loop can be evaluated from the derived effective action. The Meissner mass vanishes as in the case of complete isotropy; on the other hand there is a partial Debye screening originating from the existence of blocking regions on the Fermi spheres. For soft gluon momenta, in the case of a single plane wave, the dielectric constant of the medium is non isotropic and it takes on different values according to its direction; also the gluon velocity is anisotropic. In the case of the cubic crystal the gluon dispersion law for small momenta is however isotropic. It is interesting to remark that at least for gluon long wavelengths, the essential anisotropy of the cubic structure is washed out, while it remains visible for the plane wave crystal structure.

Acknowledgements

Two of us, R.C. and G. N., wish to thank the DESY theory group, where this work was completed, for the very kind hospitality.

## Appendix 1: The cube symmetry group $`O_h`$

The cube symmetry group $`O_h`$ is the finite group containing the transformations that leave the cube (see Fig. 1) invariant. It is defined as follows:

$$O_h=O\times C_i$$
(178)
where $`O`$ is the octahedron group (see below) and $`C_i=\{E,I\}`$ is the center of symmetry of the group, containing the neutral element $`E`$ and the inversion $`I`$:

$$E=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right),I=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right),$$
(179)
i.e.

$`E`$ $`:`$ $`x_1x_1,x_2x_2,x_3x_3`$ (180)
$`I`$ $`:`$ $`x_1x_1,x_2x_2,x_3x_3.`$ (181)
The group $`O_h`$ contains 48 elements, comprising the 24 elements of the octahedron group $`O`$ and other 24 given by $`gI`$ ($`gO`$). The octahedron group is defined by the following system of axes of symmetry:

* Three 4-fold axes333For any crystal a n-fold axis is such that the crystal assumes the same position after a rotation of an angle $`2\pi /n`$ around it. Such a rotation is denoted as $`C_n`$; for extension we denote by $`C_n`$ not only the rotations but also the corresponding symmetry axes., denoted as $`C_4`$ in Fig. 1;
* four 3-fold axes, denoted as $`C_3`$ in Fig. 1;
* six 2-fold axes, denoted as $`C_2`$ in Fig. 1.

Its 24 elements are divided into five classes:

* Class I, containing only $`E`$;
* class II, containing three rotations $`C_4`$ and three rotations $`C_4^3`$ around the three 4-fold axes444In general $`C_n^m`$ denotes a rotation of an angle $`m\times 2\pi /n`$ around a n-fold axis; clearly $`C_n^n=1`$.;
* class III containing three rotations $`C_4^2`$ three rotations of $`2\times 2\pi /4=\pi `$ around the three 4-fold axes;
* class IV, containing four rotations $`C_3`$ and four rotations $`C_3^2`$ around the four 3-fold axes;
* class V, containing six rotations $`C_2`$ around the six 2-fold axes;

It is easy to construct all the 24 group elements. Class II comprises the three $`C_4`$ rotations, i.e. rotations of $`\pi /2`$ around the three 4-fold axis:

$$𝐂_\mathrm{𝟒}:R_1=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\\ 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right),R_2=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 1\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\end{array}\right),R_3=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 1& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right)$$
(182)
and the three $`C_4^3`$ rotations:

$$𝐂_\mathrm{𝟒}^\mathrm{𝟑}:R_1^3,R_2^3,R_3^3$$
(183)
Class III comprises the three $`C_4^2`$ rotations:

$$𝐂_\mathrm{𝟒}^\mathrm{𝟐}:R_1^2,R_2^2,R_3^2$$
(184)
Class IV comprises four $`C_3`$ rotations:

$$𝐂_\mathrm{𝟑}:A_1=R_1R_2,A_2=R_1A_1R_1^1,A_3=R_2A_1R_2^1,A_4=A_3A_1A_3^1$$
(185)
and four $`C_3^2`$ rotations:

$$𝐂_\mathrm{𝟑}^\mathrm{𝟐}:A_1^2,A_2^2,A_3^2,A_4^2;$$
(186)
finally class V comprises six $`C_2`$ rotations:

$`𝐂_\mathrm{𝟐}:B_1`$ $`=`$ $`A_1R_2,B_2=A_1B_1A_1^1,B_3=A_2B_1A_2^1,`$ (187)
$`B_4`$ $`=`$ $`A_3B_1A_3^1,B_5=A_4B_1A_4^1,B_6=R_1B_1R_1^1.`$ (188)
We finally observe that from the general theorem for finite groups asserting that the sum of the squares of the dimension of the representations, $`n_i`$, must be equal to the order of the group (in this case 24):

$$\underset{i}{}n_i^2=24$$
(189)
the only possible solution for $`O`$ is

$$n_1=n_2=1,n_3=2,n_4=n_5=3.$$
(190)
## Appendix 2

In this Appendix we evaluate the coefficients appearing in eq. (131):

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}ϵ_i^{(k)}ϵ_j^{(k)}\frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{8\pi }v_{\mathrm{}}v_m\delta \left\{\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{n}_k\frac{\delta \mu }{q}\right\}.$$
(191)
To this end we make use of the result

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}v_iv_j\delta \left\{\mathrm{cos}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mu }{q}}\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{}{v}}{8\pi }v_iv_j\delta \left\{\mathrm{cos}\theta \frac{\delta \mu }{q}\right\}}=`$ (192)
$`=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q}{8}}\left(\delta _{i1}\delta _{j1}+\delta _{i2}\delta _{j2}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q}{4}}\delta _{i3}\delta _{j3}\right)`$ (193)
with

$$\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q=\left(\frac{\delta \mu }{q}\right)^2.$$
(194)
We therefore obtain

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}R_p\mathrm{}^{(k)}R_{qm}^{(k)}C_{ij}^{(k)}\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q}{8}\delta _{pq}+\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{8}\delta _{p3}\delta _{q3}\right),$$
(195)
where the eight matrices $`R^{(k)}`$ are rotation matrices that transform the eight vectors $`\stackrel{}{n}_k`$ into the unit vector $`(0,0,1)`$. They are given by

$$R^{(1)}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0& \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}& \sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}& \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}& \end{array}\right)$$
(196)
and, in the notations of the Appendix 1

$`R^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`R^{(1)}R_3^1,R^{(3)}=R^{(1)}R_3^2,R^{(4)}=R^{(1)}R_3,`$ (197)
$`R^{(5)}`$ $`=`$ $`R^{(1)}B_3,R^{(6)}=R^{(2)}B_4,R^{(7)}=R^{(3)}B_3,R^{(8)}=R^{(4)}B_4.`$ (198)
On the other hand the eight matrices $`C_{ij}^{(k)}`$ are

$$C_{ij}^{(k)}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& \eta _3^{(k)}& \eta _2^{(k)}& \\ \eta _3^{(k)}& 1& \eta _1^{(k)}& \\ \eta _2^{(k)}& \eta _1^{(k)}& 1& \end{array}\right)_{ij}$$
(199)
with

$`\eta _1^{(k)}`$ $`=`$ $`(+1,1,1,+1,1,+1,+1,1)`$ (200)
$`\eta _2^{(k)}`$ $`=`$ $`(+1,+1,1,1,1,1,+1,+1)`$ (201)
$`\eta _3^{(k)}`$ $`=`$ $`(+1,1,+1,1,+1,1,+1,1).`$ (202)
Let us evaluate $`\beta _{lm}^{ij}`$. We notice that

$$C_{ij}^{(k)}=\delta _{ij}+\underset{r=1,2,3}{}\eta _r^{(k)}\rho _{ij}^r$$
(203)
where

$$\rho _{ij}^r=\delta _{is}\delta _{jt}+\delta _{it}\delta _{js},r,s,t\mathrm{in}\mathrm{cyclic}\mathrm{order}$$
(204)
and

$$\underset{k=1,\mathrm{},8}{}\eta _r^{(k)}=0,\underset{k=1,\mathrm{},8}{}\eta _r^{(k)}\eta _s^{(k)}=8\delta _{rs}.$$
(205)
Using the orthogonality of the $`R^{(k)}`$ matrices we can evaluate the first term of the r.h.s. of (195) immediately

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q\delta _{lm}\delta _{ij}+\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{8}\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}R_3\mathrm{}^{(k)}R_{3m}^{(k)}C_{ij}^{(k)}.$$
(206)
From the very definition of the matrices $`R^{(k)}`$ we get

$$R_{ij}^{(k)}n_j^{(k)}=\delta _{i3}R_{3j}^{(k)}=n_j^{(k)}=\frac{ϵ_j^{(k)}}{\sqrt{3}}.$$
(207)
Therefore

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _q\delta _{lm}\delta _{ij}+\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{24}\underset{k=1}{\overset{8}{}}C_{lm}^{(k)}C_{ij}^{(k)}.$$
(208)
Using the expression (203) for $`C_{ij}^{(k)}`$ we find

$$\beta _\mathrm{}m^{ij}=\frac{2}{3}\delta _{lm}\delta _{ij}+\frac{3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _q1}{3}\underset{r=1}{\overset{3}{}}\rho _{lm}^r\rho _{ij}^r.$$
(209)
## Appendix 3

For the case of a single plane wave we get the following expression for the polarization tensor:

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(p)`$ $`=`$ $`i\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mu ^2}{2\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}\left[V^\mu V^\nu \stackrel{~}{I}_1(p)+\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu I_1(p)+\left(V^\mu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu +V^\nu \stackrel{~}{V}^\mu \right)I_2(p)\right]`$ (210)
$``$ $`i\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}}J\left(2g^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu V^\nu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu V^\mu \right),`$ (211)
where

$$I_1(p)=d^2\mathrm{}\frac{V\mathrm{}V(\mathrm{}+p)}{D(\mathrm{}+p)D(\mathrm{})},$$
(212)
$$\stackrel{~}{I}_1(p)=d^2\mathrm{}\frac{\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{V}(\mathrm{}+p)}{D(\mathrm{}+p)D(\mathrm{})},$$
(213)
$$I_2(p)=d^2\mathrm{}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2}{D(\mathrm{}+p)D(\mathrm{})},$$
(214)
$$J=_\mu ^{+\mu }𝑑\mathrm{}_{}(\mu +\mathrm{}_{})^2_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑\mathrm{}_0\frac{\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}}{(2\mu +\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}+iϵ)D(\mathrm{})},$$
(215)
and $`D(\mathrm{})=V\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{V}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}^2+iϵ`$. We note that the contribution proportional to $`J`$ in (211) arises from the diagram of fig 2 b and corresponds to the lagrangian $`_2`$ in (1).

The integrals $`I_1(p)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{I}_1(p)`$ are infrared divergent in the blocking region where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{eff}=0`$. One has to regularize them going to finite temperature and imaginary frequencies ($`\mathrm{}_02\pi iT(n+1/2)`$) (for a similar case see , eqns. (2.193) and (2.194)). The results that we get for the blocking and the pairing region are respectively:

$$I_1(0)=I_1(p)=\stackrel{~}{I}_1(0)=\stackrel{~}{I}_1(p)=2\pi i,I_2(0)=I_2(p)=0,J=\frac{\pi i}{2}\mu ^2$$
(216)
and

$$I_1(0)=I_1(p)=\stackrel{~}{I}_1(0)=\stackrel{~}{I}_1(p)=\pi i,I_2(0)=\pi i,J=\frac{\pi i}{2}\mu ^2.$$
(217)
From these we can easily compute the Debye and Meissner masses using

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(0)|_{blocking}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mu ^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v};blocking}{}}[2(V^\mu V^\nu +\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu )`$ (218)
$`+`$ $`2g^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu V^\nu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu V^\mu ]`$ (219)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{\mu \nu }(0)|_{pairing}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mu ^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{v};pairing}{}}[V^\mu V^\nu +\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu \stackrel{~}{V}^\nu `$ (220)
$`+`$ $`2g^{\mu \nu }2(\stackrel{~}{V}^\mu V^\nu +\stackrel{~}{V}^\nu V^\mu )].`$ (221)
We get therefore the vanishing of the Meissner mass

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{ij}(0)=0.$$
(222)
On the other hand we get a non-vanishing Debye screening mass from the blocking region:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{ab}^{00}(0)=2\delta _{ab}\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{\pi ^2}\underset{\stackrel{}{v};blocking}{}=\delta _{ab}\frac{g^2\mu ^2}{2\pi ^2}_{blocking}d\mathrm{cos}\theta ,$$
(223)
where

$$_{blocking}d\mathrm{cos}\theta =_1^{\mathrm{cos}\theta _a}d\mathrm{cos}\theta +_{\mathrm{cos}\theta _b}^1d\mathrm{cos}\theta .$$
(224)
The domain of integration of the blocking region has been obtained by the condition

$$R|h(\mathrm{cos}\theta )|>\frac{\pi }{2},$$
(225)
which gives, using the approximate expression for $`h(\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$ (37), and for $`R>\pi /2`$:

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta _a=\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _q}{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2R}}},\mathrm{cos}\theta _b=min\{1,\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _q}{1{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2R}}}\},$$
(226)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _q=\delta \mu /q`$. From the equations (223) and (225) one gets the Debye mass:

$$m_D=\frac{g\mu }{\pi }\sqrt{1+\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _a\mathrm{cos}\theta _b}{2}}.$$
(227)
These results can be easily generalized to the case of the cube.