format: text

text:
# Scaling of the conductance distribution near the Anderson transition

## I Introduction

The single parameter scaling hypothesis of Abrahams et al. is the basis of our understanding of the Anderson metal-insulator transition in disordered systems.Abrahams et al. (1979) In Ref. Abrahams et al., 1979 it was proposed that the zero temperature conductance $`G=(e^2/h)g`$, as measured by the “Thouless number”, obeys a single parameter scaling law. However, the large sample to sample fluctuations in the conductance of disordered systems were not explicitly considered. In the critical and localised regimes the fluctuations are of the same order as the mean conductance. (The relation of the mean conductance to the Thouless number is discussed in Ref. Braun et al., 1997.) This led to suggestions that the scaling hypothesis should be reformulated in terms of the typical conductance,Anderson et al. (1980) or perhaps the distribution of conductance.Shapiro (1986, 1987)

For a disordered system of size $`L`$ in $`d=2+ϵ`$ dimensions, Altshuler et al. estimated the cumulants $`c_n`$ of the conductance distribution using a field theoretic method.Altshuler et al. (1989) At the mobility edge they found that

$$c_n\left(L\right)=\{\begin{array}{c}ϵ^{n2},nn_01/ϵ\hfill \\ \left(L/\mathrm{}\right)^{ϵn^22n},n>n_0\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
If single parameter scaling holds, the only relevant length should be the correlation length $`\xi `$, and the appearance of the mean free path $`\mathrm{}`$ in the expression for the higher cumulants is unexpected. (In the insulating regime $`\xi `$ is the localisation length, while in the metallic regime it is the correlation length.) Shapiro reconstructed the critical conductance distribution from (1) and showed that, appearances to the contrary, these cumulants are consistent with a single parameter scaling of the distribution.Shapiro (1990)

To apply results for $`d=2+ϵ`$ to three dimensions we must make a questionable extrapolation to $`ϵ=1`$. While the Anderson transition occurs at weak disorder $`k_F\mathrm{}1`$ when $`ϵ1`$, it occurs at strong disorder $`k_F\mathrm{}1`$ in three dimensions. (Here $`k_F`$ is the Fermi wave number.) Comparison of the distribution obtained by Shapiro with numerical results shows that the behaviour of the conductance distribution at large $`g`$, and also the non-universal behaviour of the higher cumulants in (1), is qualitatively incorrect.Slevin and Ohtsuki (1997); Markoš (1999)

To try to overcome the limitation to weak disorder Cohen et al. used a Migdal-Kadanoff type real space renormalization scheme.Cohen et al. (1988) They found that the scaling of the conductance distribution is described by two parameters; only in the limit of weak disorder is single parameter scaling recovered. However, and as pointed out by Cohen et al., the Migdal-Kadanoff scheme involves an uncontrolled approximation and some of the results obtained with it are known not to be correct. For example, in the metallic regime the predicted conductance fluctuations are too large and in disagreement with the theoretically well established and experimentally verified phenomena of universal conductance fluctuations.Altshuler (1985); Lee and Stone (1985) They concluded that while the Migdal-Kadanoff scheme may be exact for hierarchical lattices, in three dimensions it is primarily of pedagogical value.Cohen (1995)

Recent work on Anderson localisation in one dimension has highlighted the importance of a second length scale $`l_s`$.Deych et al. (2000) Deych et al. demonstrated the existence of a crossover between single parameter and two parameter scaling regimes dependent on the ratio of $`l_s`$ to the localisation length $`\xi `$. Single parameter scaling is observed when $`\xi >l_s`$, and two parameter scaling when $`\xi <l_s`$. The implications of this result for Anderson localisation in higher dimensions are not yet clear.

Numerical studies of the Anderson model have demonstrated single parameter scaling of the localisation length of electrons in quasi-one dimensional systems, Slevin and Ohtsuki (1999) and also of the mean resistance, mean conductance and typical conductance near the Anderson transition in three dimensions.Slevin et al. (2001) Of themselves these studies do not rule out a two parameter scaling of the conductance distribution. For example, in the Migdal-Kadanoff scheme the mean of the logarithm of resistance obeys a single parameter scaling law while at the same time the distribution obeys a two parameter scaling law. However, numerical studies have also demonstrated the existence of a universal size independent critical distribution that is accessible by varying only a single parameter.Slevin and Ohtsuki (1997) This observation makes a two parameter scaling unlikely; two parameter scaling should require that both parameters be varied simultaneously to access the critical point. Nevertheless, given that the scaling hypothesis is the foundation upon which our understanding of transport in disordered systems rests, we feel that a clear cut demonstration of the scaling of the distribution of conductance, free of questionable extrapolations or uncontrolled approximations, is called for.

## II Method

Following Ref. Shapiro, 1987 a single parameter scaling law for the conductance distribution $`p_L(g)`$ of a three dimensional system of linear dimension $`L`$ can be mathematically formulated as follows

$$p_L(g)F(g;X),$$
(2)
where $`X`$ is a parameter which must obey a single parameter scaling law

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}X}{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{ln}L}=\beta (X).$$
(3)
A limiting process is implicit in (2); we refer the reader to Ref. Shapiro, 1987 for a detailed discussion. The parameter $`X`$ need not be one of the moments of the distribution.

At first sight it appears that we must know the functional form of the function $`F`$ in (2) in order to verify single parameter scaling of the distribution numerically. In fact, this is not so. The procedure which we have adopted is to analyse the scaling of the percentiles of the distribution. The precise definition of the percentile $`g_q`$ is

$$q=_0^{g_q}p_L(g)dg$$
(4)
where $`0q1`$. By establishing single parameter scaling for a representative set of percentiles we indirectly establish (2) and (3), provided that the scaling of different percentiles are consistent. When considering the percentiles it is not necessary to distinguish $`g`$, $`\mathrm{ln}g`$ or $`1/g`$ as it is when considering average quantities.

We have analysed the conductance distribution of the Anderson model numerically. The motion of the electrons is described by

$$H=V\underset{<i,j>}{}C_i^{}C_j+\underset{i}{}W_iC_i^{}C_i,$$
(5)
where $`C_i^{}(C_i)`$ is the creation (annihilation) operator of an electron at the site $`i`$ of a three dimensional cubic lattice. The amplitude of the random potential at site $`i`$ is $`W_i`$. Hopping is restricted to nearest neighbours and its amplitude was taken as the unit of energy, $`V=1`$. We assumed a box distribution with each $`W_i`$ uniformly distributed on the interval $`[W/2,W/2]`$. In what follows we refer to the strength of the potential fluctuations $`W`$ as the disorder. The numerical method used is described in Ref. Pendry et al., 1992. The two terminal zero temperature conductance was evaluated using the Landauer formula

$$g=2\mathrm{t}\mathrm{r}t^{}t$$
(6)
where $`t`$ is the transmission matrix describing the propagation of electrons from one contact to the other.Economou and Soukoulis (1981); Fisher and Lee (1981)

The conductance distribution depends on the system size $`L`$, the disorder $`W`$, the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ and the boundary conditions. We set $`E_F=0.5`$ and imposed fixed boundary conditions in the transverse directions. We accumulated data for the disorder range $`15W18`$ and system sizes $`6L18`$. At the extremes of the disorder range the localisation (correlation) length is of the same order as the system size,MacKinnon and Kramer (1983) so that our data covers the critical regime.

To estimate $`g_q`$ we simulated 1,000,000 realisations of the random potential and calculated the conductance for each realisation. (For $`L=18`$ the number of realisations was approximately 500,000.) We sorted the data into ascending order and our estimate of $`g_q`$ is then the $`n=\left[qN_d\right]`$th datum in this list where $`\left[x\right]`$ is the integer part of $`x`$. When fitting the numerical data it is also necessary to have an estimate of the accuracy of the percentiles. Following the standard method we used the binomial distribution to estimate the likely accuracy of the percentile. We define

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n=\sqrt{N_dq\left(1q\right)},$$
(7)
and look up the $`\left(n+\mathrm{\Delta }n\right)`$th and $`\left(n\mathrm{\Delta }n+1\right)`$th data in the list and calculate the differences with $`g_q`$. Our estimate of the accuracy is then the largest of these two differences. In practice, we found that the accuracy of all the percentiles were comparable, being of the order of $`0.2\%`$. The data were then fitted with the finite size scaling forms below by minimizing the $`\chi ^2`$ statistic in the usual way.

To fit the system size and disorder dependence of the percentile we supposed a single parameter scaling law but allowed for deviations from scaling due to an irrelevant scaling variable and non-linearity of the scaling variables.Slevin and Ohtsuki (1999) We fitted the data to

$$\mathrm{ln}g_q=F(\psi ,\varphi ),$$
(8)
where $`\psi `$ is the relevant scaling variable and $`\varphi `$ is the irrelevant scaling variable. We approximated this scaling function by its first order expansion in the irrelevant scaling variable

$$\mathrm{ln}g_q=F_0\left(\psi \right)+\varphi F_1\left(\psi \right).$$
(9)
We expanded each scaling function as a power series

$$F_0\left(x\right)=\mathrm{ln}\left(g_q\right)_c+x+a_2x^2+\mathrm{}+a_{n_0}x^{n_0}$$
(10)
$$F_1\left(x\right)=1+b_1x+b_2x^2+\mathrm{}+b_{n_1}x^{n_1}$$
(11)
Here $`\left(g_q\right)_c`$ is the critical value of the percentile. The scaling variables were approximated by expansions in terms of the dimensionless disorder

$$w=(W_cW)/W_c,$$
(12)
where $`W_c`$ is the critical disorder separating the insulating and metallic phases,

$$\psi =L^{1/\nu }\left(\psi _1w+\psi _2w^2+\mathrm{}+\psi _{n_\psi }w^{n_\psi }\right)$$
(13)
and

$$\varphi =L^y\left(\varphi _0+\varphi _1w+\varphi _2w^2+\mathrm{}+\varphi _{n_\varphi }w^{n_\varphi }\right).$$
(14)
The critical exponent $`\nu `$ describes the divergence of the localisation (correlation) length as the transition is approached.

$$\xi =\xi _\pm \left|\psi _1w+\psi _2w^2+\mathrm{}+\psi _{n_\psi }w^{n_\psi }\right|^\nu $$
(15)
The constants $`\xi _\pm `$, and hence the absolute scale of the localisation (correlation) length $`\xi `$, cannot be determined from the fit. The decay of the irrelevant scaling variable with system size is described by the exponent $`y<0`$. Redundancy in the definition of the fitting parameters between the coefficients in the expansions of $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ and the expansions of $`\psi `$ and $`\varphi `$ are eliminated by setting some of the expansion coefficients of $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ to unity as shown. This choice is also necessary if $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ are to be universal. The total number of parameters is $`N_p=n_0+n_1+n_\psi +n_\varphi +4`$.

The minimum of $`\chi ^2`$ was found using the DRNLIN routine of the IMSL numerical library. The starting values of the fitting parameters supplied to DRNLIN are in the region $`\nu 1.6`$, $`W_c16.5`$, $`y3`$, $`\psi _11`$. We set the initial value of $`\mathrm{ln}\left(g_q\right)_c`$ to a value close to its best fit value by visual inspection of the raw data and all other parameters were initially zero. The results of the fitting procedure are not especially sensitive to the choice of the starting values. A number of fits corresponding to different choices of $`n_0`$, $`n_1`$, $`n_\psi `$ and $`n_\varphi `$ are possible and a selection criterion is necessary. We set a cut off for the goodness of fit probability $`Q`$ at $`Q=0.1`$ and searched for the fit which requires the fewest parameters which satisfies this. Broadly speaking all sensible choices of $`n_0`$, $`n_1`$, $`n_\psi `$ and $`n_\varphi `$ lead to consistent estimates of the critical parameters. The goodness of fit and the accuracy of the fitted parameters were estimated using Monte Carlo simulations of synthetic data sets.Press et al. (1992)

## III Results

Results for the $`q=0.025`$, $`0.17`$, $`0.5`$ and $`0.83`$ percentiles are shown in Table 1. (For a normal distribution with mean $`\mu `$ and variance $`\sigma ^2`$, these choices would correspond to the points $`\mu 2\sigma ,\mu \sigma ,\mu ,\mu +\sigma `$ in the distribution.) Precise details of the fits are given in Table 2. The estimates of the irrelevant exponent are consistent with those obtained in Ref. Slevin et al., 2001 and are not shown again here.

Data for the $`q=0.17`$ percentile are plotted in Figure 1. In Figure 2 the same data, after subtraction of corrections to scaling, are re-plotted to demonstrate single parameter scaling. This is done by plotting the corrected data as a function of the ratio of the systems size $`L`$ to the localisation (correlation) length $`\xi `$. When displayed in this way the data fall on two different curves corresponding to the localised (lower curve) and the delocalised (upper curve) regimes. The two curves are described by two scaling functions $`F_+`$ and $`F_{}`$ which are derived from $`F_0`$,

$$F_+\left(x\right)=\mathrm{ln}\left(g_q\right)_c+x^{1/\nu }+\mathrm{}+a_{n_0}x^{n_0/\nu },$$
(16)
$$F_{}\left(x\right)=\mathrm{ln}\left(g_q\right)_cx^{1/\nu }+\mathrm{}+(1)^{n_0}a_{n_0}x^{n_0/\nu }.$$
(17)
Data on the metallic branch follow

$$\mathrm{ln}g_q=F_+\left(\frac{L}{\xi _+}\right)$$
(18)
while data on the the insulating branch follow

$$\mathrm{ln}g_q=F_{}\left(\frac{L}{\xi _{}}\right)$$
(19)
For completeness some representative data for the median $`(q=0.5)`$ and $`q=0.87`$ percentiles appear in Figures 3 and 4 respectively.

We also analysed the $`q=0.975`$ percentile of the distribution but were unable to convincingly fit its systems size and disorder dependence. The origin of the difficulties may be the large corrections to scaling encountered for this percentile. Larger systems sizes will probably be needed for a definitive analysis of the high conductance tail of the distribution.

For the percentiles analysed the estimates of the critical disorder and the critical exponent obtained from the scaling of different percentiles are consistent as required. The estimates of the critical exponent in Table 1 are consistent with our previous estimates based on the scaling of the localisation length in quasi-$`1d`$ systems,Slevin and Ohtsuki (1999) scaling of higher Lyapunov exponents,Slevin and Ohtsuki (2001); Markoš (2000) and scaling of the mean conductance, mean resistance and typical conductance.Slevin et al. (2001) The estimates are also consistent with numerical estimates reported by other authors.MacKinnon (1994); Milde et al. (2000); de Queiroz (2001)

## IV Conclusion

Our numerical results demonstrate single parameter scaling of the zero temperature conductance distribution in the critical regime of the Anderson transition in three dimensions. This result complements a previous demonstration of the scaling of the mean conductance, typical conductance and mean resistance.Slevin et al. (2001)

A two parameter scaling of the conductance distribution, similar to that found by by Deych et al. for one dimensional systems might be recovered in the strongly localised regime. The localisation length diverges at the critical point while $`l_s`$, which is related to the integrated density of states, is always finite. Thus on approaching the critical point we should always find $`\xi >l_s`$ and single parameter scaling should be observed. Far from the critical point, if $`\xi `$ becomes less than $`l_s`$, a two parameter scaling might appear. It remains to be seen, however, if the results of Deych et al. carry over to higher dimensions.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank the Institute for Solid State Physics of the University of Tokyo for the use of their computer facilities. PM would like to thank the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Sophia University for their hospitality and financial support, and is also grateful for support under APVT Grant No. 51-021602.


text:
# KL-01/03 Superconformal and super B.R.S. invariance of the N=1 supersymmetric W. Z. W. model based on Lie superalgebraSupported by DAAD

## 1 Introduction

The Wess Zumino Witten model  in two dimensions plays a central role in many current investigations. A tremendous amount of literature has been devoted to this model . In this paper, we study the superconformal and super B.R.S. invariance of the supersymmetric extension of this model based on Lie superalgebra using the Fujikawa regularization . The regularization allows us to evaluate the anomalous superconformal and super B.R.S. currents extending the results of Ref  to N=1 supersymmetric case. The expression of the super Jacobian exhibits forms of anomalies which are in agreement with several results based essentially on the computation of the supersymmetric function at one loop level . We recover the well known result which fixes the relative coupling constant $`\alpha ^2=1`$ in a rigorous way.

This paper is organized as follows: In Sec 2, we present the Wess Zumino Witten action. In Sec 3, we study its invariance under the superconformal transformations and their corresponding super B.R.S transformations. In Sec 4, we compute the super Jacobian of the holomorphic super B.R.S transformations of the path integral measure and we derive the super B.R.S identity using the Fujikawa regularization.

## 2 The Wess Zumino Witten action

Let us first consider the action describing this model . In the covariant superconformal gauge , this action is given by:

$`A_U`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{8\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{2}}Tr\left(\overline{D}UDU^1\right)`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{N_G}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Sigma }_3}}𝑑td^2\xi d^2\theta TrU^1\stackrel{.}{U}\left(U^1D^\alpha U\right)\left(i\gamma _5\right)_\beta ^\alpha \left(U^1D_\beta U\right),`$
where U is an element of a generic compact Lie supergroup G associated to a Lie superalgebra g, D and $`\overline{D}`$ are complex super derivatives, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_3`$ is a three super Riemann surface and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ its boundary $`\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }_3=\mathrm{\Sigma }_2\right)`$ and $`N_G`$ is a normalization factor. $`\alpha ^{}`$ is the Regge slope which is related to the string tension by: $`T=\frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}`$ and R is the radius of the compact group supermanifold. It measures the size of the supermanifold. Low energy states are associated with the propagation of the particles on the Minkowski space time $`M^4`$ . Any propagation on G will require energies $`hc/R.`$ Such states would be unexcited by probes of energy $`hc/R`$ and the internal space would therefore be invisible. Then if one assumes the motion space to be a direct product of Minkowski space with an internal group space G, we may tentatively choose the dimension of Minkowski space to $`d=4`$ by a suitable choice of the internal group G. If this is done, the model turn out to be a superstring field theory in four dimensional space-time. This little digression has a great significance in the mechanism of compactification of string theory  and Kaluza-Klein theories . A proper job would require us to go into details that are not crucial to the present discussion.

Although the action specified in Eq (1) is multivalued, the factor $`\mathrm{exp}\left(A_U\right)`$ is unique, provided the coupling constant k in front of the Wess Zumino term is an integer. The action (1) can be seen as the action of a closed type II supersymmetric string (two-dimensional supergravity) or supersymmetric non linear defined on a compact group supermanifold built on Lie superalgebra in the presence of the Wess Zumino term. This latter term was originally introduced by Witten  to restore the conformal invariance at the quantum level. In the context of non-abelian bosonization, Witten has shown that if the relation: $`\frac{\alpha ^{}}{R^2}=\frac{N_G}{24\left|k\right|}`$ ,i.e. $`\alpha ^2=1`$ is satisfied, conformal invariance and hence reparametrization invariance is restored. This relation means that the radius of the compactified dimensions gets quantized in units of the string tension. Furthermore, when k approaches infinity one recovers the flat space limit. The Wess Zumino term is topological and can be also interpreted as a torsion which parallelizes the curvative at the point which the $`\beta `$-function vanishes .

## 3 Gauge fixing

The covariant superconformal gauge choice yields to the action of the Fadeev-Popov ghost superfield system (B,C ) of superconformal spin $`(3/2,1)`$

$$A_{gh}=\frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha ^{}}\left(B\overline{D}C+\overline{B}D\overline{C}\right).$$
(2)
Under the superconformal transformations parametrized by infinitesimal super vector fields V and $`\overline{V}`$ satisfying the conditions:

$$\overline{}V=\overline{D}V=D\overline{V}=0$$
(3)
the superfields variables of matter, the ghost and the superconformal factor transform as :

$$\delta U=VU+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)DU+\overline{V}\overline{}U+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}U,$$
(4)
$$\delta C=VC+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)DC\left(V\right)C+\overline{V}\overline{}C+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}C,$$
(5)
$$\delta \overline{C}=V\overline{C}+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)D\overline{C}\left(V\right)\overline{C}+\overline{V}\overline{}\overline{C}+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}\overline{C},$$
(6)
$$\delta B=VB+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)DB+\frac{3}{2}\left(V\right)B+\overline{V}\overline{}B+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}B,$$
(7)
$$\delta \overline{B}=V\overline{B}+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)D\overline{B}+\frac{3}{2}\left(\overline{}\overline{V}\right)\overline{B}+\overline{V}\overline{}\overline{B}+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}\overline{B},$$
(8)
$$\delta \mathrm{\Psi }=V\mathrm{\Psi }+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)D\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{4}\left(V\right)+\overline{V}\overline{}\mathrm{\Psi }+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{4}\overline{}\overline{V}.$$
(9)
Under these transformations, the action changes as:

$$\delta A_{U+gh}=\frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha ^{}}[V\overline{D}\left(V\overline{D}(T^U+T^{gh})_{z\theta }\right)+h.c.],$$
(10)
where $`T_{z\theta }^U+T_{z\theta }^{gh}`$ is the super stress-energy tensor given by:

$$T_{z\theta }^U=\frac{R^2}{2}Tr\left(UDU^1\right),$$
(11)
$$T_{z\theta }^{gh}=CB+\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)DB\frac{3}{2}\left(C\right)B.$$
(12)
These currents are separately conserved:

$$\overline{D}T_{z\theta }^U=\overline{D}T_{z\theta }^{gh}=D\overline{T}_{z\theta }^U=D\overline{T}_{z\theta }^{gh}=0.$$
(13)
The action $`A_{U+gh}`$ is also invariant under the super-BRS transformations obtained by the replacement, in the superconformal transformations of U and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, of V and $`\overline{V}`$ by respectively $`ϵC`$ and $`\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}`$ :

$$\delta U=ϵCU\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)DU+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}U\frac{1}{2}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\overline{D}U,$$
(14)
$$\delta \mathrm{\Psi }=ϵC\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{2}ϵ\left(DC\right)D\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{4}ϵC+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{2}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\overline{D}\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{4}\overline{ϵ}\overline{}C,$$
(15)
where $`ϵ`$ is a Grassmann parameter. For the ghost superfield system, the super-BRS transformations are defined as:

$$\delta C=ϵCC\frac{1}{4}ϵ\left(DC\right)\left(DC\right)+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}C\frac{1}{4}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\left(\overline{D}C\right),$$
(16)
$$\delta \overline{C}=ϵC\overline{C}\frac{1}{4}ϵ\left(DC\right)\left(D\overline{C}\right)+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}\overline{C}\frac{1}{4}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right),$$
(17)
$$\delta B=ϵ\left(T^U+T^{gh}\right)+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}B\frac{1}{2}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\overline{D}B,$$
(18)
$$\delta \overline{B}=\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{T}^U+\overline{T}^{gh}\right)+ϵC\overline{B}\frac{1}{2}ϵ\left(DC\right)D\overline{B}.$$
(19)
All these invariances are verified in the holomorphic sector where we consider the variations, with $`\overline{V}=\overline{ϵ}=0`$, of the spinning string variable and its ghost only with the superconformal factor $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and the anti-ghost superfield system kept fixed.

Under the localised holomorphic super B.R.S transformations which we will consider in the next section,

$$\delta U=ϵ\left(x\right)CU\frac{1}{2}ϵ\left(x\right)\left(DC\right)\left(DU\right),$$
(20)
$$\delta C=ϵ\left(x\right)CC\frac{1}{4}ϵ\left(x\right)\left(DC\right)\left(DC\right),$$
(21)
$$\delta B=ϵ\left(x\right)\left(T^U+T^{gh}\right),$$
(22)
$$\delta \overline{B}=\delta \overline{C}=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }=0,$$
(23)
the action changes as

$`\delta A_{U+gh}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha ^{}}\left[\left(\overline{D}ϵ\right)J_\theta +\frac{1}{4}\left(\overline{D}ϵ\right)D\left(BCDC\right)\right]}+{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha ^{}}\left(Dϵ\right)}`$ (24)
$`\times \left[C\left[\overline{D}DUDU^1\right]D\left(CB\overline{D}C\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}BDCD\overline{C}\right],`$
with the canonical super B.R.S current

$$J_\theta =C\left(T_{z\theta }^U+\frac{1}{2}T_{z\theta }^{gh}\right)=\frac{R^2}{2}CUDU^1C\left[\frac{3}{4}BDC\frac{1}{4}\left(DB\right)DC\right].$$
(25)
This current is conserved when we use the classical equations of motion for the superfields U, B and C.

Before we close this section, we make one remark concerning the superfield U. In the quantum theory, the superfield fluctuates around the classical solution, and to analyse these fluctuations, we set:

$$U(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })=U_{cl}(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })U_q(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })$$
(26)
so that $`U_q(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })`$ fluctuates around $`U_q(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })=1.`$ We treat the amplitude of the space-independent fluctuations as a collective variable, setting $`U_q(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })=u_0\mathrm{exp}\left(X(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })+Y(z,\overline{z},\theta ,\overline{\theta })\right).`$ Here is $`u_0`$ the collective variable associated with zero modes, while $`X+Y`$ describes the fluctuations in the nonzero modes. The superfied U is then given by :

$$U=U_{cl}u_0\mathrm{exp}\left(X+Y\right)=U_0\mathrm{exp}\left(X+Y\right)=U_0\mathrm{exp}\left(X^AT_A+Y^aS_a\right),$$
(27)
where the bosonic generators,

$$T_A,A=1,\mathrm{},D_G$$
(28)
and the fermionic generators

$$S_a,a=1\mathrm{}.,d_G$$
(29)
span the superalgebra g associated to a generic Lie supergroup G. The Lie product

$$[T_A,T_B]=f_{AB}^CT_C,$$
(30)
$$[S_a,S_b]_+=g_{ab}^AT_A,$$
(31)
$$[S_a,T_A]=[T_A,S_a]=h_{aA}^bS_b$$
(32)
fulfills the Jacobi identities

$$f_{AB}^Df_{CD}^E+f_{BC}^Df_{AD}^E+f_{CA}^Df_{BD}^E=0,$$
(33)
$$h_{aC}^bf_{AB}^C+h_{aB}^ch_{cA}^bh_{aA}^ch_{cB}^b=0,$$
(34)
$$h_{bA}^cg_{ac}^B+h_{aA}^cg_{bc}^B+g_{ab}^Cf_{AC}^B=0,$$
(35)
$$g_{bc}^Ah_{aA}^d+g_{ca}^Ah_{bA}^d+g_{ab}^Ah_{cA}^d=0.$$
(36)
The generators $`T_A`$ and $`S_a`$ are normalized as:

$$Tr\left(T_AT_B\right)=2\delta _{AB},$$
(37)
$$Tr\left(S_aS_b\right)=2\epsilon _{ab},$$
(38)
$$Tr\left(T_AS_a\right)=Tr\left(S_aT_A\right)=0.$$
(39)
Notice that $`X^AT_A=T_AX^A`$ since they are bosons and $`Y^aS_a=S_aY^a`$ since they are fermions. The superfields and transform under the superconformal transformations as:

$$\delta X^A=VX^A+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)DX^A+\overline{V}\overline{}X^A+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}X^A,$$
(40)
$$\delta Y^a=VY^a+\frac{1}{2}\left(DV\right)DY^a+\overline{V}\overline{}Y^a+\frac{1}{2}\left(\overline{D}\overline{V}\right)\overline{D}Y^a$$
(41)
and transform under the super B.R.S transformations as:

$$\delta X^A=ϵCX^A\frac{1}{2}ϵ\left(DC\right)DX^A+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}X^A\frac{1}{2}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\overline{D}X^A,$$
(42)
$$\delta Y^a=ϵCY^a\frac{1}{2}ϵ\left(DC\right)DY^a+\overline{ϵ}\overline{C}\overline{}Y^a\frac{1}{2}\overline{ϵ}\left(\overline{D}\overline{C}\right)\overline{D}Y^a.$$
(43)
In terms of the $`X^A`$ and $`Y^a`$, the action becomes:

$`A_U(U_0,X^A,Y^a)`$ $`=`$ $`A\left(U_0\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha \stackrel{´}{}}R^2\left[\overline{D}X^ADX^B\delta _{AB}+\overline{D}Y^aDY^bϵ_{ab}\right]}`$ (44)
$`+{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{8\pi \alpha \stackrel{´}{}}}R^2[{\displaystyle \frac{f_{AB}^C}{2}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0T_C\right)X^ADX^B(1\alpha )`$
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0T_C\right)X^A\overline{D}X^B(1+\alpha )]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{ab}^A}{2}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0T_A\right)Y^aDY^b(1\alpha )`$
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0T_A\right)Y^a\overline{D}Y^b(1+\alpha )]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{h_{aA}^b}{2}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0S_b\right)X^ADY^a(1\alpha )`$
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0S_b\right)X^A\overline{D}Y^a(1+\alpha )]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{h_{aA}^b}{2}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0S_b\right)Y^aDX^A(1\alpha )`$
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0S_b\right)Y^a\overline{D}X^A(1+\alpha )]],`$
where

$`A\left(U_0\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{8\pi \alpha \stackrel{´}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{2}}\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{N_G}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Sigma }_3}}𝑑td^2\xi d^2\theta TrU_0^1\dot{U}_0\left(U_0^1D^\alpha U_0\right)\left(i\gamma _5\right)_\alpha ^\beta \left(U_0^1D_\beta U_0\right),`$
which gives:

$$A_U(U_0,X^A,Y^a)=\frac{d^2zd^2\theta }{4\pi \alpha \stackrel{´}{}}L(U_0,X^A,Y^a)$$
(46)
up to terms cubic or higher order in $`X^A`$ and $`Y^a`$. We restricted our selves to the quadratic order and used the classical equations of motion to eliminate the first-order terms.

## 4 Generating functional and super B.R.S identity

Following, Polyakov  the partition function of the model at hand is given in the superconformal gauge by:

$$Z=D_\mu e^{A(\stackrel{~}{X}^A,\stackrel{~}{Y}^a,\stackrel{~}{B},\stackrel{~}{C})},$$
(47)
where $`D_\mu `$ is the reparametrization invariant measure and we have defined the new superfields as:

$$\stackrel{~}{X}^A=e^\mathrm{\Psi }X^A,$$
(48)
$$\stackrel{~}{Y}^a=e^\mathrm{\Psi }Y^a,$$
(49)
$$\stackrel{~}{C}=e^{3\mathrm{\Psi }}C,$$
(50)
$$\overline{\stackrel{~}{C}}=e^{3\mathrm{\Psi }}\overline{C},$$
(51)
$$\stackrel{~}{B}=e^{2\mathrm{\Psi }}B,$$
(52)
$$\overline{\stackrel{~}{B}}=e^{2\mathrm{\Psi }}\overline{B}.$$
(53)
This method is completely analogous to that followed by Fujikawa . One may start with variables with suitable weight factors so the resulting path integral measure is formally invariant under diffeomorphisms.

The way to derive super B.R.S identity, which is insensitive to the definition of the path integral variable is to start with the localized variations:

$$\delta \stackrel{~}{X}^A=ϵ\left(x\right)\left[C\stackrel{~}{X}^A\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)D\stackrel{~}{X}^A+C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{X}^A\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{X}^A\right],$$
(54)
$$\delta \stackrel{~}{Y}^a=ϵ\left(x\right)\left[C\stackrel{~}{Y}^a\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)D\stackrel{~}{Y}^a+C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{Y}^a\frac{1}{2}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{Y}^a\right],$$
(55)
$`\delta \stackrel{~}{B}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ\left(x\right)[C\stackrel{~}{B}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D\stackrel{~}{B}2C(\mathrm{\Psi })\stackrel{~}{B}+\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{B}`$ (56)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}(C)\stackrel{~}{B}e^{2\mathrm{\Psi }}T_{z\theta }^{X+Y}],`$
$$\delta \stackrel{~}{C}=ϵ\left(x\right)\left[C\stackrel{~}{C}\frac{3}{4}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\stackrel{~}{C}\frac{1}{4}\left(DC\right)D\stackrel{~}{C}\right],$$
(57)
$$\delta \overline{\stackrel{~}{B}}=\delta \overline{\stackrel{~}{C}}=\delta \mathrm{\Psi }=0$$
(58)
To evaluate the super Jacobian factor resulting from these transformations we use the differential of

$`d\delta \stackrel{~}{C}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ\left(x\right)[C\stackrel{~}{C}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D\left(d\stackrel{~}{C}\right)+3C(\mathrm{\Psi })d\stackrel{~}{C}`$ (59)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)d\stackrel{~}{C}(C)D\stackrel{~}{C}]`$
to obtain:

$`\mathrm{ln}J`$ $`=`$ $`Strϵ\left(x\right)\left[C{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D+C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\right]_{X^A}`$ (60)
$`+Strϵ\left(x\right)\left[C{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D+C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\right]_{Y^a}`$
$`+Strϵ\left(x\right)\left[C{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D+2C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right)+\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left(C\right)\right]_B`$
$`Strϵ\left(x\right)\left[C{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D+3C\left(\mathrm{\Psi }\right){\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left(DC\right)\left(D\mathrm{\Psi }\right)\left(C\right)\right]_C.`$
The super-Jacobian factor of the ghost superfields, which are free, have been evaluated in Ref. 3. For the Jacobian of the superfields $`X^A`$ and $`Y^a`$ we must regularize the ill-defined supertrace of the unity, $`Str\left(1\right)=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}_{A=1}^{D_G}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^A\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^A`$ and $`Str\left(1\right)=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}_{a=1}^{d_G}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^a\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^a.`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^A`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^a`$ belongs to a closed set of eigenfunctions of the Hermitian regulators:

$$H_{AB}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^B=\lambda _n^2.\delta _{AB}.\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^B,$$
(61)
$$H_{ab}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^b=\lambda _n^2.\delta _{ab}.\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^b,$$
(62)
where

$$H_{AB}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^B=\frac{\delta L}{\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^A},$$
(63)
$$H_{ab}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^b=\frac{\delta L}{\delta \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n^a},$$
(64)
L is defined in (46). The regulators $`H_{AB}`$ and $`H_{ab}`$ are given by:

$`H_{AB}`$ $`=`$ $`e^\psi \overline{D}D\delta _{AB}e^\psi {\displaystyle \frac{f_{ABC}}{4}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0T^C\right)e^\psi De^\psi (1\alpha )`$ (65)
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0T^C\right)e^\psi \overline{D}e^\psi (1+\alpha )],`$
$`H_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`e^\psi \overline{D}D\delta _{ab}e^\psi {\displaystyle \frac{g_{abc}}{4}}[Tr\left(U_0^1\overline{D}U_0T^C\right)e^\psi De^\psi (1\alpha )`$ (66)
$`+Tr\left(U_0^1DU_0T^C\right)e^\psi \overline{D}e^\psi (1+\alpha )].`$
There is no conceptual difficulty in the formulation of the regularization since the regulators do not depend on the quantum fluctuations $`X^A`$ and $`Y^a`$. This is a result of the expansion in (44) which gives us a quadratic action.

The evaluation of the ill defined supertrace in (60) is standard. One may uses the basis of the super plane waves $`e^{\left(ik\overline{z}+i\overline{k}z\right)\chi \overline{\theta }\overline{\chi }\theta }`$ , introduces a cut-off M, rescales the variables $`kMk`$ ,$`\overline{k}`$ $`M\overline{k}`$ , $`\chi M\chi `$ , $`\overline{\chi }M\overline{\chi }`$ and the fact that the integration measure is invariant under this simultaneous rescaling of bosonic and fermionic variables . This straightforward but tedious calculation leads to:

$`\mathrm{ln}J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle }d^2zd^2\theta ϵ\left(x\right)[5(D_Gd_G)[C(D\overline{D}\psi )+2C(\psi )\left(D\overline{D}\psi \right)]`$ (67)
$`+10C\left(D\psi \right)\left(\overline{D}\psi \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(D_Gd_G\right)\left(DC\right)\left(\overline{D}\psi \right)`$
$`+(D_Gd_G)\left(DC\right)\left(D\psi \right)\left(D\overline{D}\psi \right)]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{C_V.D_G}{16\pi }}(1\alpha ^2){\displaystyle }d^2zd^2\theta ϵ\left(x\right)[C[Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)\psi Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)[DTr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)D\psi Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)]],`$
where the constant $`C_V`$ is related to the dual Coxeter number of the superalgebra and is given by:

$$f_{AB}^Cf_{AB}^D\delta _{CD}+g_{ab}^Ag_{ab}^B\delta _{AB}=C_V.D_G.$$
(68)
As usual, the Ward-Takahachi identity is obtained by equating the variation of the action with the variation of the measure. If we dodge the intricate details of the well known identities  which are pertinent to our cumbersome calculation, we obtain, finally, the basic super B.R.S identity:

$`\overline{D}J_\theta `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{D}\left(D_Gd_G10\right)\left[C\left(\psi \right)D\psi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}C\left(D\psi \right)\right]4D\left[C\psi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)D\psi \right]`$ (69)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{C_V.D_G}{8}}(1\alpha ^2)[C[Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)\psi Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(DC\right)[DTr\left(\overline{D}U_0DU_0^1\right)D\psi Tr\left(\overline{D}U_0U_0^1\right)]].`$
This super B.R.S identity exhibits three kinds of anomalies:

(a) It is proportional to $`\left(D_Gd_G10\right)`$ which determines the well-known critical dimension for the consistency of the quantum model based on a super-Lie algebra in a flat space. The dimension $`D_Gd_G`$ is the same as the dimension found by Fujikawa et al.  and the value $`d_G`$ is in agreement with the result found by Henningson  who studied this model using the covariant quantization method.

(b) It is a total divergence. It is related to the ghost number anomaly, and exist also in the free case.

© It can be eliminated only if $`\alpha ^2=1`$ for supergroups with $`C_V0.`$ The addition of a Wess Zumino term to a non linear sigma model defined on a supergroup manifold leads to a free theory for a certain value of the relative coupling constant of the two terms in the action $`\left(\alpha ^2=1\right)`$. In that case the full action is super conformally invariant.

## 5 Conclusion

The principles of conformal and B.R.S invariance have deep consequences for string theory and in quantization of gauge theories. In the present paper, we have presented the detailed B.R.S analyses of a closed type II supersymmetric string ( two-dimensional supergravity ) or supersymmetric non linear sigma-model defined on a group supermanifold built on Lie superalgebra in the presence of the Wess Zumino term. By a direct evaluation of the regularization of the super Jacobian corresponding to localised holomorphic super-BRS transformations of the superstring and its ghosts, we found that this model is quantum mechanically consistent only in the case where the relative coupling constant satisfies the well-known relation $`\alpha ^2=1`$ for supergroups with $`C_V0`$. We are not surprised to find that this value is the same as the infrared fixed point of the bosonic sector of the theory , the critical point where the chiral Bose theory with Wess-Zumino term is equivalent to free Fermi theory . Finally, let us emphasise once more that our results are in perfect agreement with several results based essentially on the computation of the supersymmetric beta function at one-loop level .

Acknowledgments

The author is very grateful to W. Rühl and S.V. Ketov for the usual discussions.


text:
# Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson at LEP

## 1 Introduction

The Standard Model (SM) of electroweak interactions is one of the most successful theories: It describes the physics at the highest energy scales known today with unprecedented precision. However, the SU(2) local gauge symmetry breaking (or equivalently, the existence of massive fermions and gauge bosons) is still not understood. The Higgs mechanism  is the most widely accepted mechanism allowing for massive fundamental particles while preserving the local gauge invariance of the theory. It predicts a new scalar particle, the Higgs boson. Its mass is essentially unknown, theoretical considerations give an upper limit of about 800 GeV . Recent fits of electroweak parameters to the data favor a light Higgs ($`m_\mathrm{H}<193\mathrm{GeV}`$ at 95% confidence level) .

## 2 Experimental Signatures and Event Selection

The dominant production mechanisms at LEP are the Higgs strahlung $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{HZ}`$ and the weak boson fusion (Fig. 1). The Higgs strahlung diagram is the dominant one up to Higgs masses of about $`\sqrt{s}m_\mathrm{Z}`$ where the fusion diagram becomes important. The cross section as function of the Higgs mass for a center-of-mass energy of 207 GeV is shown in Fig. 2 (left).

The Higgs boson decays mainly into a pair of the heaviest particle allowed by kinematics. This is due to the fact that the couplings of particles to the Higgs are the stronger the higher their mass. Fig. 2 (right) shows the branching ratios as function of the Higgs mass. In the mass range accessible at LEP, the Higgs decays mainly into a pair of b-quarks, e.g. 74% at $`m_\mathrm{H}=115\mathrm{GeV}`$.

The search analyses are inspired by the $`\mathrm{H}`$$`\mathrm{Z}`$$``$$`\mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}\mathrm{Z}`$ final state, although the fusion diagram and the interference with the Higgs strahlung diagram and non-b decay modes are included in the efficiency calculation. The experimental signatures are determined by the Higgs and $`\mathrm{Z}`$ decay modes. In the following paragraphs, the main search channels are summarized.

### 2.1 Four-jet channel

The high branching ratio $`\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}`$ of about 70% makes this channel the most abundant one. The most important backgrounds are W pair production ($`\sigma 17\mathrm{p}\mathrm{b}`$) where one di-jet pair happens to have a mass close to the $`\mathrm{Z}`$ mass and $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}`$ ($`\sigma 81\mathrm{p}\mathrm{b}`$) with hard gluon radiation.

### 2.2 Jets + missing energy channel

Events in this channel are characterized by a missing mass close to the $`\mathrm{Z}`$ mass and two acoplanar b-jets. The major backgrounds are $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}\mathrm{e}\nu `$ ($`\sigma 3.2\mathrm{pb}`$) where one electron escapes detection along the beam pipe and $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{W}^+\mathrm{W}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}\mu \nu `$ or $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{W}^+\mathrm{W}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}\tau \nu `$ events where the lepton is not identified. Pair production of Z bosons ($`\sigma 1.3\mathrm{pb}`$) and the process $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}(\gamma )`$ with undetected initial state radiation of photons constitute further important backgrounds.

### 2.3 Jets + leptons channel

Events in this channel have two leptons with a dilepton invariant mass close to the $`\mathrm{Z}`$ mass and two b-jets. The relatively low branching ratio of $`\mathrm{Z}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, 3.4% per lepton flavor, makes this a small statistics channel. However, the most important background is $`\mathrm{Z}`$ pair production (where one $`\mathrm{Z}`$ decays into quarks and the other decays into leptons) which also has a small cross section, thus making this signature extremely clean. All four experiments also include the case where the Higgs decays into a pair of $`\tau `$ leptons and the $`\mathrm{Z}`$ decays hadronically.

Fig. 3 shows the reconstructed Higgs mass of all LEP experiments and all search channels combined at a level of the selection where the number of expected signal events above 109 GeV is about twice the number of expected background events in the same region. Note that these mass distributions are not used directly to draw quantitative conclusions about the presence or absence of a signal. This is done by combining the reconstructed mass with other event properties.

## 3 Statistical Method and Quantitative Results

After a more or less tight event selection, usually a final discriminant is constructed from several variables of which each shows some separation power between signal and background. The distribution of this final discriminant is used to calculate the following likelihood ratio $`Q`$:

$$Q(x)=\frac{(x|s+b)}{(x|b)}$$
(1)
where $`(x|s+b)`$ is the likelihood of $`x`$ under the signal+background hypothesis (similarly for $`(x|b)`$). If the final variable distribution is binned into a histogram, $``$ is the product of the corresponding Poisson probabilities over all histogram bins. The variable $`x`$ usually represents the observed data but $`Q`$ can also be calculated for the expected background. Fig. 4 shows the evolution of $`2\mathrm{ln}Q`$ as function of the Higgs mass hypothesis for the individual LEP experiments. The ALEPH result shows some excess, mainly from the four-jet channel, in the mass region around 115 GeV, which is however not observed by the other experiments. Fig. 5 shows the combination of all LEP experiments and search channels. The data are on the signal-like side of the background but are never more than $`2\sigma `$ away from it.

Confidence levels are calculated by comparing the data to a large number of Gedanken experiments, obtained from the expected signal and background final discriminant distributions: $`\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{b}`$ is the fraction of background experiments being more background like ($`Q<Q_{\mathrm{data}}`$) while $`\mathrm{CL}_{\mathrm{s}+\mathrm{b}}`$ is the fraction of signal+background experiments being more background like than the data. Values of $`1\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{b}<5.710^7(2.710^3)`$ are interpreted as $`5\sigma `$ discovery ($`3\sigma `$ evidence). Higgs masses for which $`\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{s}=\mathrm{CL}_{\mathrm{s}+\mathrm{b}}/\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{b}<0.05`$ are excluded at 95% confidence level.

The evolution of $`1\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{b}`$ as function of the Higgs mass hypothesis is shown in Fig. 6. The values of $`1\mathrm{CL}_\mathrm{b}`$ at $`m_\mathrm{H}`$= 116 GeV for the combination and the individual experiments are given in Table 1.

## 4 Summary

A search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson at LEP using 2461 pb<sup>-1</sup> of data (at center-of-mass energies of 189 GeV and higher) was performed. In the highest energy data sample, the ALEPH collaboration observed some highly significant candidates around a Higgs mass of 115 GeV in the four-jet channel. The probability for the background to generate such a fluctuation is 0.24%. However, the other LEP experiments do not observe any candidates with a local signal over background ratio greater than one. A lower bound on the Higgs mass is set at 114.4 GeV at 95% confidence level .

All the results quoted here are preliminary, however since two of the four experiments published their final analyses , one has submitted its final publication  and one submitted its final results to conferences , the final combined LEP result is expected to be similar.


text:
# A Topological String: The Rasetti-Regge Lagrangian, Topological Quantum Field Theory, and Vortices in Quantum Fluids

## I Introduction

That vortex lines play an important role in many physical systems is well-known Donnelly (1991); Nielsen and Olesen (1973). Following the original ideas of Onsager Onsager (1949) and Feynman Feynman (1955), researchers have even used vortex rings in an attempt to explain the underlying cause of the the lambda transition for superfluid He4 Williams (1987); Lund et al. (1990). More recently, the discovery of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) Anderson et al. (1995); Ketterle and van Druten (1996) has renewed interest in the study of vortex lines, and within the last year vortex excitations have been seen experimentally in BEC Matthews et al. (1999); Madison et al. (2000); Chevy et al. (2000); Anderson et al. (2000). There has been a corresponding theoretical interest in the formation and stability of vortex lines in BEC (see, for example, Rokshar (1997) and García-Ripoll et al. (2001)).

While experimental studies of vortex lines in quantum fluids have been remarkable, theoretical understanding of the dynamics and interactions of vortex lines on a quantum level has proceeded at a much slower pace. Recent theoretical work on vortices in BEC has mostly been focused only on the formation and stability of vortices in the condensate and not on the properties and dynamics of the vortices once they are formed.

Much of the efforts in developing a deeper understanding of the dynamics of vortex lines on a quantum level have been based on the work of M. Rasetti and T. Regge. Using arguments from classical fluid dynamics of ideal fluids, they Rasetti and Regge (1975) proposed a lagrangian for studying the quantum theory of vortex lines in quantum fluids in three dimensions. Vortex lines are treated as extended objects and like a string in string theory, a vortex line sweeps out a two-dimensional worldsheet $`M`$ as it propagates in time. Current algebra methods leading to the study of $`Sdiff(^3)`$, the diffeomorphic group in $`^3`$, were then used by them and subsequent researchers Rasetti and Regge (1984); Goldin et al. (1987); Penna and Spera (1989); Albertin and Morrison (1989, 1990); Goldin et al. (1991); Goldin and Moschella (1995); Penna and Spera (2000) in an effort to quantize the field.

In this paper we propose a different approach to understanding the dynamics of vortex lines. Focusing on a single vortex, we start with the field $`X^\mu `$ and make use of the $`so(3)`$ Lie algebra to rewrite the kinetic part of the full Rasetti-Regge action $`I_{RR}`$ in terms of differential forms, and demonstrate how $`I_{RR}`$ is related to the Polyakov form M.Polyakov (1981) of the Nambu-Goto action $`I_{Pol}`$ Nambu (1970); Goto (1971) (see also Lund and Regge (1976) for a different approach). It is then straightforward to see that while $`I_{Pol}`$ defines a propagating string, $`I_{RR}`$ defines, when quantized, a Schwarz-type topological quantum field theory (TQFT) Witten (1988, 1989); Schwarz (1978). Indeed, $`I_{RR}`$ is very similar in form to the Chern-Simons lagrangian. Making use of other classical Lie algebras, we then extend this construction to higher dimensions; the linkage between $`I_{Pol}`$ and $`I_{RR}`$ still hold (see also Ricca (1991)). However, unlike $`I_{Pol}`$, which can be constructed in any dimension, $`I_{RR}`$ exists only in a discrete number of dimension corresponding to the dimensions of the Lie algebra used in its construction.

Using this approach, it becomes clear that the understanding of the quantum-and thus statistical behavior-of vortex lines will be the first real world application of TQFT. Conversely, the vortex system provides a means of studying experimentally a TQFT for the first time. The purpose of this paper is thus to make the connection between $`I_{RR}`$ and TQFT, and our approach is strictly classical, and our analysis formal. Nonetheless, a great deal can immediately be discerned about the properties of vortex lines from the fact that it is a TQFT and this classical analysis.

As is well known, a TQFT does not define a dynamical system in a traditional sense; a single vortex line does not, strictly speaking, have dynamical variables that evolve with time. TQFT’s are interesting nonetheless, Witten (1988, 1989). While our approach is strictly classical, even at this level we find deep connections between topology and the dynamics of vortices. Indeed, we show that the momentum 1-form $`𝐏`$ constructed from the canonical momentum of the vortex line belongs to the first cohomology class of $`M`$; the dynamics of vortices depend directly on the topology of $`M`$. Going further, we show formally that the solution to the equations of motion in three-dimensions reduces to the Serret-Frenet equations for arbitrary curves in $`^3`$. These equations are themselves equivalent to the equation of motion of a charged particle constrained to move on a unit sphere in the the presence of a dyon located at the center. In higher dimensions the equations of motion reduce to the Maurer-Cartan equations for $`so(m)`$. The Maurer-Cartan 1-forms can be interpreted as a “pure gauge” non-abelian vector potential, and as is the case for TQFT, we are working with flat vector bundles. With this analogy, explicit solutions of the equations of motion can be found using Wilson path ordering.

Connections between $`I_{RR}`$ and string theory goes beyond the construction of $`I_{Pol}`$, however. A term of the form $`B_{\mu \nu }𝑑X^\mu dX^\nu `$, where $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ is a antisymmetric tensor functional of the string field, was added to $`I_{pol}`$ by Callan, Friedan, Martinec, and Perry G.Callan et al. (1985) in their background field treatment of string. $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ generates an all-pervasive magnetic field in spacetime. While similar in form to $`I_{RR}`$, in their treatment the specific functional dependence of $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ on $`X^\mu `$ was determined by requiring that the trace anomally of the total string action vanish. This resulted in a $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ that is dramatically different from what is considered here. Along similar lines, Giveon, Rabinovici, and Veneziano Giveon et al. (1989) also considered a $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ term in the string lagrangian, but relaxed the trace anomally condition and considered the effect of constant $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ on the string.

## II General Construction of $`I_{RR}`$

We begin with a classical, real Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ with generators $`𝐓_a`$ such that $`[𝐓_a,𝐓_b]=f_{ab}^c𝐓_c`$, where $`f_{ab}^c`$ are the structure constants for $`𝔤`$, and indices run from $`1`$ to $`m`$, the dimension of the $`𝔤`$. $`𝐓^a`$ is represented by matrices and following the convention in Jurgen and Schweigert (1997), the Killing form $`h_{ab}\text{T}r\{𝐓_a𝐓_b\}=\delta _{ab}`$ is used to raise and lower indices: $`A_a=h_{ab}A^b=A^b`$. With this orthonormality condition, we can use the set $`\{𝐓_a\}`$ as a natural basis for $`^m`$, with $`𝐕^m`$ given by $`𝐕=V^a𝐓_a`$. The inner product on $`^m`$ is then $`𝐕,𝐔\text{T}r\{\mathrm{𝐕𝐔}\}`$ for $`𝐕,𝐔^m`$. Furthermore, using the identity matrix $`𝐈`$ of $`𝔤`$ we can extend this construction to the $`m+1`$-dimensional Minkowski space $`Min`$ by taking $`V=V_0𝐈/\sqrt{m}+𝐕`$ for $`VMin`$. When $`𝔤=su(2)`$, this is just a representation of Minkowski space by the quarternions.

We next consider an extended object $`X^\mu (x^0,x^1)`$ sweeping-out a 2-d surface $`M`$ in $`Min`$ where $`x^0`$ and $`x^1`$ are the spatial and time coordinates on $`M`$. Taking $`X=X_0𝐈/\sqrt{m}+X_a𝐓^a`$, the usual Nambu-Goto string action is obtained through

$`I_{Pol}`$ $``$ $`\text{Tr}{\displaystyle }dXdX`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \sqrt{g}g^{AB}\eta _{\mu \nu }_AX^\mu _BX^\nu dx^0dx^1},`$
where capital roman indices run from $`0`$ to $`1`$, $`d=dx^A_A`$ is the exterior derivative on $`M`$, $``$ is the Hodge $``$-operator, and $`g_{AB}`$ is the worldsheet metric. In this case $`X^\mu `$ describes a string.

The kinetic part of the Rasetti-Regge action is also constructed from $`X`$, but now

$`I_{RR}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\text{Tr}{\displaystyle X𝑑X}dX={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝐗𝑑𝐗}d𝐗`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle f_{abc}X^a_0X^b_1X^cdx^0dx^1}.`$
$`X^\mu `$ in this case describes a vortex line. Note, however, that $`g_{AB}`$ does not explicitly appear; $`I_{RR}`$ is a topological invariant and describes a Schwarz-type TQFT similar to Chern-Simons theory. (This corresponds to an antisymmetric-field langrangian in background-field string theory with $`B_{ab}ϵ_{abc}X^c`$ in three dimensions.) Note also that $`I_{RR}`$ is translationally invariant; the lagrangian changes by a total derivative, $`XdXdXXdXdX+\mathrm{\Xi }d(XdX)`$ under the uniform translation $`XX+\mathrm{\Xi }`$. Indeed, $`I_{RR}`$ is the only translationally invariant topological action that can be constructed directly from $`X^\mu `$. In the special case of $`𝔤=so(3)`$, $`I_{RR}`$ is proportional to the lagrangian in Rasetti and Regge (1975), but without the coupling due to self-interaction.

Notice that $`I_{RR}`$ does not depend on $`X^0`$, the time component of $`X^\mu `$. This is expected: topological lagrangians describe systems with no dynamical degrees of freedom. We will thus work solely with $`𝐗`$ from this point on. This $`𝐗`$ is a section of a the vector bundle $`^m`$ over $`M`$, and is at the same time an element of $`𝔤`$, a vector on $`^m`$, and a 0-form (and thus a function) on $`M`$. Seen thusly, the structure constants $`f_{abc}`$ form a rank-3, totally antisymmetric tensor on $`^m`$. The 1-form $`𝐅=𝐅_Adx^A=F_A^adx^A𝐓_a`$ is then a vector valued or, equivalently, a Lie algebra valued 1-form on $`M`$, meaning that each of its two components $`𝐅_A`$ are both vectors in $`\text{R}^m`$ and members of $`𝔤`$.

The equations of motion, $`d𝐗d𝐗=0`$, from eq. $`(\text{2})`$ can be integrated once to give

$$𝐏[𝐗,d𝐗],$$
(3)
where $`𝐏`$ is a closed Lie algebra valued 1-form on the worldsheet: $`d𝐏=0`$. The two components of $`𝐏`$ are $`𝐏_0P_0^c𝐓_c=f_{ab}^cX^a_0X^b𝐓_c`$ and $`𝐏_1P_1^c𝐓_c=f_{ab}^cX^a_1X^b𝐓_c`$. $`𝐏`$ is related to the canonical momentum for $`𝐗`$ through the dual form $`𝚷𝐏`$:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_a^A=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta I_{RR}}{\delta _AX^a},$$
(4)
where $`𝚷=\mathrm{\Pi }_A^adx^A𝐓_a`$. The components of $`𝐏`$ then determine the momentum of the vortex, and we call $`𝐏`$ the momentum 1-form.

This choice for $`𝐏`$ is only unique up to a total derivative. Although we could have just as well chosen $`𝐏^{}=2𝐗d𝐗`$, $`𝐏𝐏^{}=d𝐗^2`$, and the two choices differ by an exact form. Indeed, under uniform translations, $`𝐗𝐗+𝐊`$, $`𝐏𝐏+d[𝐊,𝐗]`$, and $`𝐏`$ changes by an exact 1-form. Conversely, suppose we have $`𝐏_1[𝐗_1,d𝐗_1]`$ and $`𝐏_2[𝐗_2,d𝐗_2]`$ that differ by a close form $`d𝐅`$. Then $`d𝐅=d[𝐗_2𝐗_1,𝐗_2+𝐗_1]/2[𝐗_2+𝐗_1,d(𝐗_2𝐗_1)]`$ so that either $`𝐗_2𝐗_1=𝐊`$, or $`𝐗_2+𝐗_1=𝐊`$, where $`𝐊`$ is a constant. Thus, $`𝐗_2`$ is related to $`𝐗_1`$ by either a uniform translation or a reflection plus a translation. Therefore, what is physically relevant are the equivalence classes of $`𝐏`$, where $`𝐏_1𝐏_2`$ if they differ by an exact form, and not any one specific choice of $`𝐏`$. Consequently, $`𝐏H^1(M,^m)`$, the first cohomology class of $`M`$, and we are interested in $`𝐏`$ that are closed but not exact.

The cohomology classes for 2-d surfaces are well known Bott and Tu (1982). In particular, $`H^1(M,)^m=0`$ if $`M`$ is not a closed surface. This result has definite implications for the dynamics of vortex lines: The dynamics of an open vortex line, which sweeps-out a 2-d open sheet in $`^m`$, differ dramatically from that of a closed vortex line (vortex ring), which sweeps out a closed surface.

For the open vortex line, $`H^1(M,^m)=0`$ and we can always make a translation to a frame in which the momentum vanishes, $`𝐏=0`$ so that $`0=[𝐗,d𝐗]`$. The solution for $`𝐗`$ in this case is particularly simple. For $`𝔤=so(3),su(2),sp(2)`$, $`𝐗=a(x^0,x^1)𝐇`$, where $`a`$ is an arbitrary function and $`𝐇`$ is a constant vector. The vortex line is constrained to move along one direction: $`𝐇`$. For other Lie algebras, $`𝐗𝔠`$, the Cartan subalgebra for $`𝔤`$, so that $`𝐗=X^i𝐇^i`$ where $`\{𝐇^i\}`$ form the bases for $`𝔠`$ Jurgen and Schweigert (1997), and $`𝐗`$ propagates within a linear subspace of $`^m`$.

For the vortex ring, on the other hand, $`H^1(M,^m)=^m`$, the integers, and $`𝐏`$ need not vanish. The dynamics of vortex rings are thus much more interesting, and we shall focus on them for the rest of the paper. We begin with $`𝔤=so(3)`$, $`su(2)`$ or $`sp(2)`$. The vortex is propagating in $`^3`$ and it’s dynamics are especially contrained.

## III Vortex Rings in $`^3`$

When $`𝔤=so(3)`$, $`f_{abc}=ϵ_{abc}`$, and we are dealing with a vortex line propagating in $`^3`$. Although we can revert to the usual vector notation in this case, doing so will add notational complexity. Instead, we introduce a slight abuse of notation and write the cross product of two vectors $`𝐕,𝐔^3`$ as $`𝐕\text{x}𝐔[𝐕,𝐔]`$.

It is straightforward to show that $`[𝐏_0,𝐏_1]=0`$; the two vectors are proportional to one another. Consequently, we can write $`𝐏=\widehat{𝐛}p`$ where $`p`$ is a scalar 1-form on $`M`$ and $`\widehat{𝐛}^3`$. (The hat denotes a unit vector: $`|\widehat{𝐛}|^2=\widehat{𝐛},\widehat{𝐛}=1`$.) Because $`d𝐏=0`$, $`d\widehat{𝐛}p+\widehat{𝐛}dp=0`$; each term must vanish separately. Consequently, $`dp=0`$, and $`p`$ is a closed 1-form. For the other term, $`d\widehat{𝐛}p=0`$, and from Cartan’s lemma Spivak (1970), $`d\widehat{𝐛}`$ must be proportional to $`p`$: $`d\widehat{𝐛}=\tau \widehat{𝐧}p`$, where $`\tau `$ is an arbitrary function and $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ is a unit vector in $`^3`$ orthogonal to $`\widehat{𝐛}`$. Doing this trick once again and noting that $`dd\widehat{𝐛}=0`$, $`d\widehat{𝐧}=(\kappa \widehat{𝐭}+\tau \widehat{𝐛})p`$ where $`\kappa `$ is another arbitrary function on $`M`$ and $`\widehat{𝐭}=\widehat{𝐧}\text{x}\widehat{𝐛}`$. Once again $`\widehat{𝐧},\widehat{𝐭}=0`$. It is then straightforward to show that $`d\widehat{𝐭}=\kappa \widehat{𝐧}`$, and no more terms need to be introduced.

To complete the solution for $`𝐗`$, we note that $`\widehat{𝐭}`$, $`\widehat{𝐧}`$, $`\widehat{𝐛}`$ form a moving orthogonal coordinate system on $`^3`$. Taking $`𝐗=|𝐗|(\alpha \widehat{𝐭}+\beta \widehat{𝐧}+\gamma \widehat{𝐛})`$ for constants $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$, we require that this $`𝐗`$ solves eq. $`(\text{3})`$. Then $`\alpha =1`$ and $`𝐗`$ lies along $`\widehat{𝐭}`$, while $`|𝐗|^2=1/\kappa `$. Solution of equations of motion therefore reduces to finding solutions for $`\widehat{𝐭}`$, $`\widehat{𝐧}`$, and $`\widehat{𝐛}`$ for given $`\kappa `$, $`\tau `$ and $`p`$.

From $`\widehat{𝐛},\widehat{𝐧}=0`$ and $`d\widehat{𝐭}=\kappa \widehat{𝐧}`$, we see that $`d\tau `$ and $`d\kappa `$ are both proportional to the 1-form $`p`$; the functions $`\kappa `$, $`\tau `$ that determine $`\widehat{𝐭}`$, $`\widehat{𝐧}`$, $`\widehat{𝐛}`$ all depend upon $`p`$. Consequently, there is a function $`s(x^0,x^1)`$ such that locally $`ds=p`$ and

$`\widehat{𝐭}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa (s)\widehat{𝐧},`$
$`\widehat{𝐧}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa (s)\widehat{𝐭}+\tau (s)\widehat{𝐛},`$
$`\widehat{𝐛}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\tau (s)\widehat{𝐧},`$ (5)
where the prime denotes derivative wrt to $`s`$. These are the Serret-Frenet equations Spivak (1970) for a curve $`𝐜:[a,b]^3`$ parameterized by its arclength $`s`$. $`\kappa =1/|𝐗|^2`$ is the local curvature of $`𝐜`$ and is positive definite, as required, while $`\tau `$ is the local torsion. Because $`𝐏`$ is a closed 1-form that is not exact, $`𝐜`$ is a closed loop in $`^3`$ Spivak (1970).

The existence of solutions to the Serret-Frenet equations is guaranteed Spivak (1970). It is nevertheless instructive to look further into their explicit form for two special cases. Let $`\kappa =\varpi \mathrm{cos}u`$, $`\tau =\varpi \mathrm{sin}u`$ where $`u=u(s)`$ and $`\pi /2u\pi /2`$ because $`\kappa 0`$. Working with the coordinates $`dt=\varpi ds`$, eqs. $`(\text{5})`$ can be combined into $`\ddot{\widehat{𝐧}}=\widehat{𝐧}+\dot{u}\widehat{𝐧}𝐱\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}`$, where the dot denotes derivative wrt $`t`$. This is similar to the equation of motion for a particle constrained to move on a sphere in the presence of a electric and magnetic dipole (a dyon) at the center of it, but in this case the ratio of the magnetic to electric “charge” of the dyon is $`\dot{u}`$ and can depend on time. Taking $`\widehat{𝐥}=\widehat{𝐧}𝐱\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}`$, the torque $`\dot{\widehat{𝐥}}=\dot{u}\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}`$ is opposite of the velocity of the particle $`\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}`$ and has strength $`\dot{u}`$. Consequently the total volume $`\widehat{𝐧}\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}𝐱\ddot{\widehat{𝐧}}`$ swept out by $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ is just $`\dot{u}`$. If this volume is a constant, then taking $`\omega =\sqrt{1+\dot{u}^2}`$,

$`\widehat{𝐭}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\mathrm{cos}u\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega t\right){\displaystyle \frac{\dot{u}}{\omega }}\mathrm{sin}u\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right)\right\}𝐓_1`$
$`\left\{\mathrm{cos}u\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{u}}{\omega }}\mathrm{sin}u\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega t\right)\right\}𝐓_2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}u}{\omega }}𝐓_3`$
$`\widehat{𝐛}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\mathrm{sin}u\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega t\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{u}}{\omega }}\mathrm{cos}u\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right)\right\}𝐓_1`$
$`\left\{\mathrm{sin}u\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right){\displaystyle \frac{\dot{u}}{\omega }}\mathrm{cos}u\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega t\right)\right\}𝐓_2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}u}{\omega }}𝐓_3`$
$`\widehat{𝐧}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\left\{\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega t\right)𝐓_1+\mathrm{sin}\left(\omega t\right)𝐓_2+\dot{u}𝐓_3\right\}.`$ (6)
Furthermore, if $`\dot{u}=0`$, then $`\widehat{𝐛}=𝐓^3`$ and $`𝐜`$ is confined to the $`12`$ plane. Periodicity of $`\widehat{𝐭}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐧}`$ for a closed curve $`𝐜`$ gives $`2\pi n=_a^b\varpi 𝑑s=_a^b\varpi p`$. This is a well-known result Spivak (1970) for closed curves and is the fundamental reason why $`p`$ (and consequently $`𝐏`$) is a close but not exact 1-form. For general $`u`$, $`0=\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{\widehat{𝐧}}\ddot{u}\ddot{\widehat{𝐧}}/\dot{u}+(1+\dot{u}^2)\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}\ddot{u}\widehat{𝐧}/\dot{u}`$ with the boundary conditions $`|\widehat{𝐧}|=1`$, $`|\dot{\widehat{𝐧}}|=1`$, and $`\widehat{𝐧}(0)=𝐓^1`$.

## IV Vortex Rings in $`^m`$

To solve eq. $`(\text{3})`$ for general $`𝔤`$ we follow an approach similar to that in the previous section and introduce a set of linearly independent vectors $`\{\widehat{𝐭}_r\}^m`$ on $`M`$ where $`\widehat{𝐭}_r=R_r^a𝐓_a`$ such that $`\widehat{𝐭}_r,\widehat{𝐭}_s=\delta _{r,s}`$. The set $`\{\widehat{𝐭}_r\}`$ forms a moving frame on $`^m`$ for points on $`M`$ (letters in the second have of the alphabet denote coordinates in the moving frame). Then $`R_{ra}R_{sa}=\delta _{rs}`$ and $`Rso(m)`$; similarly, $`R_{ra}R_{rb}=\delta _{ab}`$. In addition, $`[\widehat{𝐭}_r,\widehat{𝐭}_s]=f_{rs}^t\widehat{𝐭}_t`$, but now $`f_{rs}^t=R_r^aR_s^bR_c^tf_{ab}^c`$ are the “structure constants” in the moving frame. Because they depend on $`R_r^a`$, in this frame $`f_{rs}^t`$ need not be constant.

Since $`\{\widehat{𝐭}_r\}`$ are orthonormal and span $`^m`$, $`d\widehat{𝐭}_r=\kappa _{rs}\widehat{𝐭}_s`$, where $`\kappa _{rs}=\kappa _{sr}`$ are 1-forms on $`M`$. Moreover, from $`dd\widehat{𝐭}_r=0`$,

$$0=d\kappa _{rs}+\kappa _{rt}\kappa _{ts}.$$
(7)
These are the Maurer-Cartan equations Spivak (1970) and $`\kappa _{rs}`$ are the Maurer-Cartan 1-forms for $`so(m)`$. Indeed, let $`S^{\stackrel{~}{a}}`$ be the generators of $`so(m)`$, the symmetry group of $`^m`$, such that $`[S^{\stackrel{~}{a}},S^{\stackrel{~}{b}}]=k_{\stackrel{~}{c}}^{\stackrel{~}{a}\stackrel{~}{b}}S^{\stackrel{~}{c}}`$, $`\mathrm{Tr}\{S^{\stackrel{~}{a}}S^{\stackrel{~}{b}}\}=\delta ^{\stackrel{~}{a}\stackrel{~}{b}}`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{a}`$ runs from $`1`$ to $`m(m1)/2`$. For a fixed $`\stackrel{~}{a}`$, $`S^{\stackrel{~}{a}}`$ are $`m\times m`$ antisymmetric matrices with elements $`(S^{\stackrel{~}{a}})_{rs}`$ (we are not working in the adjoint representation for $`so(m)`$). We then introduce the 1-forms $`A=A^{\stackrel{~}{a}}S^{\stackrel{~}{a}}`$ with values in the Lie algebra $`so(m)`$ such that $`\kappa _{rs}(A^{\stackrel{~}{a}}S^{\stackrel{~}{a}})_{rs}`$. Then $`dA+AA=0`$; $`A`$ can be seen as a non-abelian“vector potential” for the group $`so(m)`$. The field strength for $`A`$ vanishes, however, and $`A`$ is a “pure gauge” vector potential. As expected, $`A`$ does not contain any physical degrees of freedom. Indeed, written in terms of matrices of $`\mathrm{𝑠𝑜}(m)`$, $`R^tdR=A`$.

With this interpretation of the Maurier-Cartan equations it is straightforward to see that

$$\widehat{𝐭}_r=\text{P}\left(\mathrm{exp}_0^sA\right)_r^a𝐓_a,$$
(8)
where P denote Wilson path ordering.

Solution to eq. $`(\text{3})`$ now follows straightforwardly. Given a set of $`\kappa _{rs}`$, we construct $`\widehat{𝐭}_r`$ using eq. $`(\text{8})`$. We then choose $`𝐗=|𝐗|\widehat{𝐭}_1`$ so that $`𝐏=|𝐗|^2f_{1rs}\kappa _{1r}\widehat{𝐭}_s`$. Because $`d𝐏=0`$,

$$0=\{d\mathrm{log}|𝐗|^2f_{1r^{}s^{}}\kappa _{1t^{}}f_{tr^{}s^{}}\}\kappa _{1r^{}},$$
(9)
where $`r^{},s^{},t^{}>1`$ and we have used $`df_{rst}=\kappa _{rn}f_{nst}\kappa _{sn}f_{rnt}\kappa _{tn}f_{rsn}`$. In addition, the choice of $`\kappa _{rs}`$ must satisfy the constraint $`0=f_{1r^{}s^{}}\kappa _{1r^{}}\kappa _{1s^{}}`$; $`\{\kappa _{1r^{}}\}`$ therefore can not linearly independent. One solution of this constraint equation is $`\kappa _{1r^{}}=\kappa _r^{}\pi `$, where $`\kappa _a`$ are functions on $`M`$ and $`\pi `$ is a 1-form on $`M`$. This choice of $`\kappa _{1r^{}}`$ does not restrict $`\kappa _{r^{}s^{}}`$ and $`0=d\kappa _{r^{}s^{}}+\kappa _{r^{}t^{}}\kappa _{t^{}s^{}}`$ still. Integration of eq. $`(\text{9})`$ then gives $`|𝐗|^2=\mathrm{exp}\{\alpha \pi \}`$ for any function $`\alpha `$ on $`M`$, and we are done. $`𝐗`$ is determined by the arbitrary function $`\alpha `$, and Maurer-Cartan 1-forms $`\kappa _r^{}\pi `$, and $`\kappa _{r^{}s^{}}`$.

Except for $`so(3)`$, $`su(2)`$, and $`sp(2)`$, this choice of $`\kappa _{1r^{}}`$ is not the most general one that satisfies the constraint equation. Indeed, with this choice, $`𝐏_0𝐏_1`$ and like the $`^3`$ case, the two components of $`𝐏`$ are proportional to one another. It is expected that when the general solution to the constraint equation is used, this relationship between the components of $`𝐏`$ will no longer hold.

## V Concluding Remarks

We have shown in this paper the deep connection between $`I_{RR}`$, on the one hand, and string theory and TQFT on the other. Indeed, the topological nature of the theory, and the fundamental role it plays in determining vortex dynamics, is manifest in our approach in analyzing the system. Moreover, with this approach generalization of vortex dynamics to higher dimensions becomes straightforward.

With the goal being to establish the links between TQFT, string theory, and the study of vortex lines, the approach we have taken in this paper has been purposefully formal. We have focused on establishing mathematical structures, and using these structures in understanding the general physical properties of vortices propagating in superfluids that is due solely to the kinetic part of the full Rasette-Regge lagrangian.

We have focused on only the kinetic part of the lagrangian for two reasons. First, the traditional interaction term between vortex lines found in Rasetti and Regge (1975) is extremely nonlinear. Some degree of perturbative analysis, based on the kinetic term, would most likely be needed. To this end, a thorough understanding of the “free” kinetic term is needed. Second, the interaction term has a $`1/r`$ type of divergence singularity at the classical level, which has traditionally been regulated by introducing a finite vortex core. However, it is expected that the degree of divergence will be weakened in the full quantum field theoretic treatment of the system, and a complete treatment of this divergence will most fruitfully be delayed until then. The first step in the quantum field theoretic approach is to the quantization of the “free” (kinetic) part of the Rasette-Regge lagrangian $`I_{RR}`$.

How to treat the many-vortex system is still an open question. Once more than one vortex line is introduced, a whole host of questions come to the fore. One particular issue is the question of how interactions between them should be incorporated into the approach outlined here. One can certainly choose to use the classical interaction term found in Rasetti and Regge (1975). Another approach could be to follow the approach of string theory where the interaction of strings are represented by the merging and breaking of strings (which for closed strings fundamentally changes the genus, and thus topology, of the surface it sweeps-out). Much of the techniques developed for string theory could then conceivably be applied to the analysis of interacting vortex lines. Which of these two approaches will be more fruitful is unclear, especially in light of the two points listed above.

The question of how to include interactions between vortices goes beyond a discussion of field-theoretic techniques and methodology, however. As we have mentioned in the introduction, a TQFT has no dynamics in the traditional sense; since the lagrangian does not depend on the metric, there is no notion of time. Will the inclusion of the interaction terms necessitate the introduction of the metric? While it is possible to use de Rham’s method of generalized forms de Rham (1984) to rewrite and generalize the interaction term found in Rasetti and Regge (1975) in terms of differential forms (which will thus automatically be independent of the metric), it is unclear if such an approach is physically meaningful. Moreover, making sense of this interaction term will require the introduction of a high energy cut-off (the vortex core size), which may bring along its own particular set of problems.


text:
# Sound Propagation in Nematic Fermi Liquid

## Introduction

There are compelling experimental evidences that inhomogeneous or anisotropic collective phases exist in strongly correlated electron systems. The charge ordered phase - called stripes - was directly observed via the electron diffraction images in transition metal oxides such as manganite, La1-xCaxMnO3.cheong  The neutron scattering experimenttranquada  supports the existence of the stripe phase in high temperature superconductors.carlson  The transport measurements on the ultra-clean two dimensional electron systems with high magnetic field reveals the anisotropic metallic state, which suggests the existence of a novel anisotropic collective phase.lilly  The theoretical studies have focused on a unidirectional charge or spin density waves with broken translational symmetry - called smectic phase - which can be viewed as the coupled one-dimensional Luttinger liquid.fradkin  A nematic state with broken rotational symmetry has been considered as the melted smectic phase due to the topological defects such as dislocations. While this is a natural route to achieve the nematic stateemery , we are still lack of the mathematical formalism to describe the quantum phase transition from the electronic smectic to nematic state.

Recently, a different route to the nematic state was proposed in vadim . A microscopic theory of the electronic nematic phase proximate to an isotropic Fermi liquid was discussed from the weakly correlated side. It was shown that the quadrupolar density-density interaction with a negative coefficient leads to the nematic Fermi liquid which breaks the rotational symmetry. As a consequence of the broken rotational symmetry, the Fermi surface is elongated like an ellipse. We call the major axis of the elliptical Fermi surface the principal axis. The fluctuation of the principal axis of the Fermi surface is associated with the collective mode. The Goldstone mode which is the transverse fluctuation of the principal axis is overdamped in the ordered phase due to the Landau damping. It was shown that the coupling of quasiparticles to the Goldstone mode leads to the breakdown of Fermi liquid theory.vadim  The pairing instability in the nematic Fermi liquid was also studied in kim . It was shown that the Goldstone mode mediates the pairing between electrons with different spins(or pseudospins), despite the repulsive quadrupolar density-density interaction between electrons with different spins. The structure of the gap in the paired nematic state was identified with four nodes on the Fermi surface. The gap vanishes exponentially near the nodes which suggests the nontrivial effect on the thermodynamic quantities in a nematic superconductor.kim

In this paper, we study the longitudinal sound propagation in the nematic Fermi liquid where the Fermi surface is distorted due to the spontaneously broken rotational symmetry. In the absence of the coupling to the collective modes, the sound velocity shift is reduced in the ordered state compared to that in the isotropic Fermi liquid. Its reduction is anisotropic, and it is maximum along the symmetric directions, the major and minor axes of the elliptical Fermi surface. The collective modes couple to the stress tensor, which affects the dynamics of the sound propagation. Since the Goldstone mode is overdamped in the nematic state, its coupling to the sound wave results in the strong damping of the sound except along the symmetric directions. The coupling to the amplitude mode leads to the additional sound attenuation.

The paper is organized as follows. We review the general formula of the auto-correlation functions to compute the sound velocity shift and the sound attenuation in section 2. We show how sound propagates in the nematic state without taking into account the coupling to the collective modes in section 3, which is presented to compare with the main results shown in section 4. In section 4, the coupling between the sound wave and the collective modes is considered, which leads to the strong damping of the sound wave. We summarize the results and discuss the relevance of the nematic state to a doped Mott insulator in the context of change of sound attenuation in section 5.

## Auto-correlation function in collisionless regime

In the collisionless regime, the sound can propagate due to the molecular field caused by the surrounding medium which produces the stabilizing force. In solid, the lattice vibration due to externally applied sound waves induces a scalar potential, which acts as an external perturbation to the electron system. The relation between the stress tensor and the dynamics of the sound waves is extensively discussed in the work of Kadanoff and Falko.kadanoff  Thus we present a brief summary of the auto-correlation function.

For the longitudinal sound wave, the sound velocity shift, $`\delta C_l`$, and the attenuation, $`\alpha _l`$, at low frequencies can be computed from the auto-correlation function, $`[h_l,h_l]`$ as follows.

$$\frac{\delta C_l}{C_l}=\frac{\omega }{m_{\mathrm{ion}}C_l|𝐪|}\mathrm{Re}[h_l,h_l](𝐪,\omega )|_{\omega =C_l|𝐪|},$$
(1)
$$\alpha _l=\frac{\omega }{m_{\mathrm{ion}}C_l|𝐪|}\mathrm{Im}[h_l,h_l](𝐪,\omega )|_{\omega =C_l|𝐪|},$$
(2)
where

$$h_l(𝐫,t)=\frac{q}{\omega }\tau _{xx}(𝐫,t)\frac{\omega m}{q}n(𝐫,t).$$
(3)
$`C_l`$ is the sound velocity, and $`m_{\mathrm{ion}}`$ and $`m`$ are the mass of ions and the mass of electron, respectively. $`n(𝐫,t)`$ is the density operator, and $`\tau _{ij}`$ is the stress tensor operator. The auto-correlation function, $`[\tau _{ij},\tau _{ij}]`$, of the stress tensor $`\tau _{ij}`$ is defined as

$$[\tau _{ij},\tau _{ij}](𝐫𝐫^{},tt^{})i\theta (tt^{})[\tau _{ij}(𝐫,t),\tau _{ij}(𝐫^{},t^{})].$$
(4)
Here the stress tensor, $`\tau _{ij}`$ is written as

$$\tau _{ij}(𝐫,t)=\underset{\sigma }{}\left[\frac{(^{^{}})_i}{2i}\frac{(^{^{}})_j}{2im}\psi _\sigma ^{}(𝐫,t)\psi _\sigma (𝐫^{},t)\right]_{𝐫^{}=𝐫},$$
(5)
where $`\psi _\sigma ^{}`$ is the electron creation operator with spin $`\sigma `$.

## Sound propagation in a nematic Fermi liquid

We consider the following Hamiltonian for a two dimensional fermion system.

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2r\psi _\sigma ^{}(𝐫)ϵ()\psi _\sigma (𝐫)}`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2rd^2r^{}F_2(𝐫𝐫^{})\mathrm{Tr}[\widehat{Q}_\sigma (𝐫)\widehat{Q}_\sigma (𝐫^{})]}`$ (7)
where $`ϵ()`$ is the kinetic energy operator. The matrix quadrupolar density of the fermions is defined as

$$\widehat{Q}_\sigma (𝐫)=\frac{1}{k_F^2}\psi _\sigma ^{}(𝐫)\left(\begin{array}{cc}_x^2_y^2& 2_x_y\\ 2_x_y& _y^2_x^2\end{array}\right)\psi _\sigma (𝐫).$$
(8)
The interactions, $`F_2(𝐪)`$ between the fermions, is given by

$$F_2(𝐪)=\frac{F_2}{1+\kappa q^2}.$$
(9)
The details of the form of the interaction do not matter in describing the occurrence of the nematic Fermi liquid, as far as the short range interaction is concerned.

Under the condition $`F_2^1+N(0)/2<0`$, the nematic order occurs. Using the mean-field approximation, the band dispersion in the nematic state is given by

$$\xi _𝐤=𝐯_𝐅𝐤(1+a(k/k_F)^2)+𝒩\mathrm{cos}(2\theta _k),$$
(10)
where $`𝐤`$ is measured from the Fermi surface, and $`𝒩`$ is is determined from the expectation value of the order parameter $`Q_{xx}`$ at the saddle point as follows.vadim2

$`Q_{xx}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}\mathrm{cos}(2\theta _k)f(\xi _𝐤)=𝒩N(0)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}}\right),`$
$`Q_{xy}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (11)
where $`ϵ_F=v_Fk_F`$, and $`N(0)`$ is the density of state. Note that the principal axis of the distorted Fermi surface is set as $`\widehat{x}`$.

Using the single particle Green function in the nematic state given by,

$$G^1(\omega ,𝐤)=i\omega _n\xi _𝐤,$$
(12)
the auto-correlation function of the stress tensor can be obtained as follows.

$`[\tau _{ll},\tau _{ll}](\omega ,𝐪)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{i\nu _n}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_F^4}{m^2}}\mathrm{cos}^4(\theta \varphi )`$ (13)
$`\times G(i\nu _n,𝐤)G(i\omega _n+i\nu _n,𝐤+𝐪)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{N(0)p_F^4}{4m^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{15a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3a𝒩^2}{4ϵ_F^2}}\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi )2is\right),`$
where $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$ are the angles of $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐪`$ from the $`\widehat{x}`$-axis, respectively, and $`s=\omega /(v_F|𝐪|)`$. The density-density correlation function, $`[n,n]`$ and the cross term $`[\tau _{ll},n]`$, are smaller than the correlation function of stress tensor by $`(C_l/v_F)^2`$ and $`(C_l/v_F)^4`$, respectively. Notice that the ratio of the sound velocity ($`C_l`$) and the Fermi velocity ($`v_F`$), $`C_l/v_F<<1`$ in a metal. Therefore, the sound velocity change is given by

$$\frac{\delta C}{C_l}=\lambda _l\left(\frac{3}{2}\frac{15a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}\frac{3a𝒩^2}{4ϵ_F^2}\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi )\right),$$
(14)
where $`\lambda _l=N(0)p_F^4/(4m^2m_{ion})`$. The above result in the limit, $`𝒩0`$, recovers the sound velocity shift in the isotropic Fermi liquid when the long-range Coulomb interaction is not taken into account.note

We find that without taking into account the coupling to the collective modes, the sound wave is weakly damped just like the situation in the isotropic Fermi liquid state which is order of $`\lambda _l(C_l/v_F)`$. However, the anisotropic reduction of the sound velocity shift occurs in the nematic ordered state. The reduction of the sound velocity shift is maximum when the wave vector $`𝐪`$ is along the major and minor axes of the Fermi surface — the angle, $`\varphi `$ between the wave vector $`𝐪`$ and the principal axis of the distorted Fermi surface, $`\widehat{x}`$, is $`0`$ along the major axis, and $`\pi /2`$ along the minor axis.

## Coupling to the collective modes

In the nematic ordered state, there are two collective modes associated with the fluctuations of the distorted Fermi surface. Since the collective modes couple to the sound wave through the stress tensor, the auto-correlation function is renormalized due to the coupling to the collective modes, which can be written as

$$[h_l,h_l]=[h_l,h_l]_0+\underset{i=,}{}\frac{F_2[h_l,\delta 𝒩_i][\delta 𝒩_i,h_l]}{1F_2[\delta 𝒩_i,\delta 𝒩_i]},$$
(15)
where $`\delta 𝒩_{}`$ and $`\delta 𝒩_{}`$ are the transverse and longitudinal fluctuations of the distorted Fermi surface, which corresponds to the Goldstone and amplitude modes, respectively.

### coupling to the Goldstone mode

The stress tensor directly couples to the Goldstone mode which is the transverse fluctuation of the principal axis of the Fermi surface in the nematic ordered state. The Goldstone mode does not couple to the uniform density in the static regime, because the nematic order preserves the local volume. — there is no change of the volume of the Fermi surface in the nematic ordered state.

The correlation function of the stress tensor and the Goldstone mode, $`\delta 𝒩_{}`$, is given by

$`[\tau _{ll},\delta 𝒩_{}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N(0)p_F^2}{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\theta }{2\pi }\mathrm{cos}^2(\theta \varphi )\mathrm{sin}(2\theta )}`$ (16)
$`\times \left[1{\displaystyle \frac{3a𝒩^2}{ϵ_F^2}}\mathrm{cos}^2(2\theta ){\displaystyle \frac{s}{s\mathrm{cos}(\theta \varphi )}}\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\varphi )N(0)p_F^2}{2m}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}}2is+O(s^2)\right].`$
On the other hand, the Goldstone mode propagator is obtained asvadim

$$[\delta 𝒩_{},\delta 𝒩_{}]=F_2^1isN(0)\mathrm{sin}^2(2\varphi )+O(s^2).$$
(17)
It is important to notice that the Goldstone mode is overdamped due to the anisotropic Landau damping. Therefore, the coupling to the Goldstone mode can be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2(q)[h_l,\delta 𝒩_{}][\delta 𝒩_{},h_l]}{1F_2(q)[\delta 𝒩_{},\delta 𝒩_{}]}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2N(0)^2\mathrm{sin}^2(2\varphi )p_F^4}{4m^2}}`$ (18)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{3a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}\right)^24is\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{3a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}\right)}{\kappa q^2+isF_2N(0)\mathrm{sin}^2(2\varphi )}},`$
where we use the mean field equation, $`F_2^1\frac{N(0)}{2}+N(0)\frac{3a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}=F_2^1Q_{xx}/𝒩=0`$.

The sound attenuation is strongly enhanced via its coupling to the Goldstone mode, and it is given by

$$\alpha _l^G\lambda _l\mathrm{sin}^2(2\varphi )\frac{4\kappa q^2+\mathrm{sin}^2(2\varphi )}{(\kappa q^2v_F/C_l)^2+F_2^2N(0)^2\mathrm{sin}^4(2\varphi )}\left(\frac{v_F}{C_l}\right).$$
(19)
The longitudinal sound wave attenuation is anisotropic, because the Goldstone mode is the transverse fluctuation of the orientational order. The sound wave does not couple to the Goldstone mode when the wave vector of the sound wave is parallel to the symmetric directions of the Fermi surface, i.e., when $`\varphi =0`$ and $`\pi /2`$. The other angle of $`\varphi `$ the sound wave is heavily damped due to the coupling to the overdamped Goldstone mode.

The presence of the lattice induces a finite gap in the Goldstone mode, and the size of the gap depends on the details of the structure of the lattice. We do not consider a finite gap in the Goldstone mode, which quantitatively reduces its effect on the damping of the sound attenuation. However, the main conclusion of the strong and anisotropic damping of the sound wave does not change, because the effect of Goldstone mode in the presence of lattice is similar to that of amplitude mode which also leads to a large damping of the sound wave compared to that of the isotropic Fermi liquid. This is presented in the following subsection.

### coupling to the amplitude mode

The sound wave couples to the amplitude mode which is the fluctuation of the magnitude of the overall Fermi surface distortion. The amplitude mode also couples to the density, but this coupling is smaller than the stress tensor, $`\tau `$ by order of $`s^2=(C_l/v_F^2)<<1`$. The stress tensor and the amplitude mode correlation function is given by

$$[\tau _{ll},\delta 𝒩_{}]=\frac{\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi )N(0)p_F^2}{2m}\left[\frac{1}{2}\frac{9a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}2is+O(s^2)\right],$$
(20)
and the propagator of the amplitude mode is obtained asvadim ; kim

$$[\delta 𝒩_{},\delta 𝒩_{}]=F_2^12\mathrm{\Delta }F_2^1isN(0)\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi ),+O(s^2),$$
(21)
where $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the gap of the amplitude mode and it is given by $`F_2N(0)\frac{3a𝒩^2}{4ϵ_F^2}`$. The coupling to the amplitude mode is written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2(q)[h_l,\delta 𝒩_{}][\delta 𝒩_{},h_l]}{1F_2(q)[\delta 𝒩_{},\delta 𝒩_{}]}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2N(0)^2\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi )p_F^4}{4m^2}}`$ (22)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{9a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}\right)^24is\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{9a𝒩^2}{8ϵ_F^2}\right)}{2\mathrm{\Delta }+\kappa q^2+isF_2N(0)\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi )}}.`$
The additional and anisotropic sound attenuation, $`\alpha _l^a`$, occurs due to the coupling to the amplitude mode, which is given by

$$\alpha _l^a4\lambda _l\mathrm{cos}^2(2\varphi )\frac{\left(12\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{2\mathrm{\Delta }+\kappa q^2}\left(\frac{C_l}{v_F}\right).$$
(23)
The extra sound attenuation due to amplitude mode, $`\alpha _l^a`$ depends on the microscopic interaction as well as the presence of the lattice, but it is clear that it can be large compared to that of the isotropic Fermi liquid which is order of $`\lambda _l(C_l/v_F)`$. The coupling of the sound wave to the amplitude mode is maximum, when the wave vector $`𝐪`$ is along the symmetric directions, while the coupling of the sound wave to the Goldstone mode is absent for these directions. This is expected because the amplitude mode is the longitudinal fluctuation of the magnitude of the Fermi surface distortion, so its effect on the sound wave is maximum when the sound wave propagates along the major and minor axes of the elongated Fermi surface.

## Discussion and summary

The sound wave has been studied to probe a broken symmetry, because of its possible coupling to an order parameter in an ordered state. In superfluid $`{}_{}{}^{3}He`$, the extensive theoretical and experimental studies of the sound wave were carried out especially because of its applicability of probing the complex order parameters.vollhardt  The coupling to Anderson-Bogoliubov mode, so-called phason mode, was studied, and it was found that its effect on the zero sound velocity shift is order of $`(1/s)^2=(v_F/C_l)^2<<1`$ in $`{}_{}{}^{3}He`$.maki  On the other hand, the phason mode in s-wave BCS superconductors is pushed up to the plasma frequency due to the presence of a long range Coulomb interaction.anderson  The coupling to the clapping mode in a p-wave superconductors with broken time reversal symmetry state was studied, and it was found that its effect on the sound wave velocity shift is order of $`s^2=(C_l/v_F)^2<<1`$.kee

Here we studied the sound wave in the nematic Fermi liquid, where the rotational symmetry is spontaneously broken due to the quadrupolar density-density interaction between electrons. Without taking into account the coupling to the collective modes, the sound wave velocity shift is reduced in the nematic ordered state. Its reduction is anisotropic, and it is maximum when the sound propagates along the major and the minor axes of the elliptical Fermi surface. The sound attenuation is weakly damped which is the same as that in the isotropic Fermi liquid. The dramatic change in the sound wave was found via its coupling to the Goldstone mode in the nematic Fermi liquid. The anisotropic and strong damping of the sound wave occurs in the nematic ordered state because of the following reasons. 1. The transverse fluctuation of the distorted Fermi surface in the nematic Fermi liquid couples to the sound wave. 2. The Goldstone mode is overdamped in the nematic ordered state due to the anisotropic Landau damping. Therefore, the sound wave becomes heavily damped via its coupling to the overdamped Goldstone mode, except when sound propagates along the major and minor axes of the elongated Fermi surface. While the presence of the lattice leads to a finite gap of the Goldstone mode, the effect of the Goldstone mode on the sound attenuation is qualitatively the same — anisotropic and strong damping of the sound. The amplitude mode gives the additional and anisotropic damping of the sound wave.

A possible relevance of our finding can be found in the thermal conductivity measurement reported in buchner . The dramatic suppression of the phononic thermal conductivity was observed in rare earth and Sr doped La2CuO4, which correlates with the occurrence of superconductivity.buchner  The conventional models based on enhanced phonon-defect scattering on alloying or conventional electron-phonon scattering fail to explain these observations. The interpretation of the pronounced damping of the phonons in the superconducting state was that the stripe correlations are dynamic which can be viewed as a nearly nematic order in the superconducting state, while it is either static or absent in nonsuperconducting state. The formation of the dynamic stripe correlation was suggested based the inelastic neutron scattering measurement on superconducting La2-xSrxCuO4mason .

In summary, we find that the behavior of the sound wave is dramatically different in the nematic Fermi liquid from that in the isotropic Fermi liquid. If the nematic Fermi liquid exists as a part of the rich phase diagram of a doped Mott insulator proposed in emery , the behavior of the sound wave propagation should reflect the existence of the nematic order — the strong damping of the sound wave is accompanied.

Acknowledgments I deeply appreciate Kazumi Maki, Yong Baek Kim, Steven A. Kivelson, and V. Oganesyan for useful discussions. This work was supported by Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Canada Research Chair, and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.