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# Hemispheric Sunspot Numbers 𝑅_𝑛 and 𝑅_𝑠: CatalogueThe catalogue is available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/390/707 and N-S asymmetry analysis

## 1 Introduction

The relative sunspot numbers $`R`$ are a measure of solar activity on the entire disk of the Sun. The relevance of the relative sunspot numbers lies in particular in the fact that they represent one of the longest time series of solar activity indices available. Thus, relative sunspot numbers provide the foundation of a continuous data set for research on the solar cycle and its long-term variations. $`R`$ is defined by

$$R=k(10g+f),$$
(1)
where $`g`$ is the number of observed sunspot groups, $`f`$ the number of spots and $`k`$ is an observatory-related correction factor (the details depending on the actual seeing conditions and the instrument used).

Historically it can be noted that $`R`$ is the modified form of the so-called Wolf index or Wolf number, which was defined without the correction factor $`k`$. The Wolf number was introduced in 1848 by Rudolph Wolf, who was the first to compile daily Sunspot Numbers. The original intention of introducing the correction factor $`k`$ in about 1882 by Wolf’s successors at the Zürich Observatory was to convert the actual daily measurements to the scale originated by Wolf (cf. Waldmeier Wald2 (1961)). Waldmeier (Wald2 (1961)) compiled actual records from the Zürich Observatory in coordination with various additional observing stations as well as data collected by Wolf (Wolf (1858)). Beginning from 1700, yearly means of relative sunspot numbers are listed; starting with 1749 monthly mean Sunspot Numbers also are given. This compilation of the so-called Zürich relative sunspot numbers is one of the most commonly used databases of solar activity (see also Hoyt & Schatten Hoyt1 (1998)a, b). Beginning with 1981, the Zürich relative sunspot program was replaced by the Sunspot Index Data Center (SIDC) in Brussels, which is the World Data Center for Sunspot Indices (see also Rishbeth Rishbeth (1991); Ruttenberg & Rishbeth Ruttenberg (1994)).

In contrast to the relative sunspot numbers, the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers $`R_n`$ and $`R_s`$ were not compiled on a regular basis and are not available before 1992. From January 1992, the daily $`R_n`$ and $`R_s`$ as well as monthly means have been compiled by the SIDC (Cugnon Cugnon (1997)). However, for several research purposes, in particular the study of North-South (N-S) asymmetries of solar activity, as it is presented in this paper (see Sect. 4), hemispheric Sunspot Numbers are needed for longer periods. With the present catalogue we aim to provide hemispheric Sunspot Numbers for at least two full solar cycles (21 and 22). In general, we derived the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers for the period 1975–2000. The data beginning from January 1992 are used for an estimation of the consistency of the derived $`R_n`$ and $`R_s`$ with respect to the International $`R_n`$ and $`R_s`$ compiled by the SIDC.

At the Kanzelhöhe Solar Observatory (KSO), Austria, daily sunspot drawings have been provided since 1947 within the framework of solar surveillance programs. The daily provisional relative sunspot numbers that are derived from the drawings are compiled and reported to the SIDC in Brussels. The KSO is part of collaborating observatories all over the world from which provisional Sunspot Numbers are collected and averaged in an advanced form. The finally derived numbers are published as the definitive International Sunspot Numbers $`R_i`$ by the SIDC. A detailed description of the calculation of the definitive International Sunspot Numbers, which in particular has to ensure that the scaling with respect to the Zürich Sunspot Numbers is maintained, is given in Cugnon (Cugnon (1997)) as well as online at http://sidc.oma.be/index.php3. Details concerning the KSO and its observing capabilities can be found in Steinegger et al. (Steinegger (2001)). Furthermore, the sunspot drawings and other observational data are online available at the KSO web page at http://www.kso.ac.at/.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In Sect. 2 the gathering and validation of the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers is described. Section 3 gives a description of the online catalogue. In Sect. 4 , an analysis of the N-S asymmetry based on the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers is presented. In Sect. 5 we discuss our results and in Sect. 6 the conclusions are drawn.

## 2 Data gathering and data validation

We evaluated the sunspot drawings of the KSO from January 1975 to December 2000. Within this period, 6900 observation days were available, which represents a data coverage of $``$73%. (Missing sunspot drawings are due to bad seeing conditions at the location of the KSO.) From this data set we derived daily, monthly mean and smoothed monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers.

For each observation day, the Sunspot Number was counted separately for the northern and the southern hemisphere, respectively. From this “raw” hemispheric Sunspot Numbers we determined the relative fraction of the northern and southern component, $`n`$ and $`s`$. The final hemispheric Sunspot Number, $`R_{n,\mathrm{KSO}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{KSO}}`$, was obtained by multiplying the northern and southern fractions with the definitive International Sunspot Number, $`R_i`$, of the day. With this procedure we ensure that the derived hemispheric Sunspot Numbers are normalized with respect to the International Sunspot Numbers, fulfilling the relation

$$n\times R_i+s\times R_i=R_{n,\mathrm{KSO}}+R_{s,\mathrm{KSO}}=R_i.$$
(2)
To validate this procedure, we compared the derived hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, $`R_{n,\mathrm{KSO}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{KSO}}`$, with the International hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, $`R_{n,\mathrm{SIDC}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{SIDC}}`$, for the overlapping period 1992–2000. For comparison, we utilized the daily, the monthly mean and the smoothed monthly mean values of the International hemispheric Sunspot Numbers provided by the SIDC, online available at http://sidc.oma.be/. A detailed description of the SIDC data sets and the methods that are used for its determination is given in Cugnon (Cugnon (1997)).

The top panels in Fig. 1 show the scatter plots of the derived daily Sunspot Numbers, $`R_{n,\mathrm{KSO}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{KSO}}`$, versus the corresponding International Sunspot Numbers provided by the SIDC, $`R_{n,\mathrm{SIDC}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{SIDC}}`$, for the period 1992–2000. The scatter plots clearly reveal that no systematic difference exists between the derived and the International daily hemispheric Sunspot Numbers. Moreover, the scatter turns out to be rather small. In Table 1 the results of the regression analysis are summarized. The slope derived from a linear least-squares fit to the data as well as the cross-correlation coefficients are very close to 1. For the standard error between the fitted and the original data we obtain $``$3.7, given in units of the SIDC Sunspot Numbers. Thus, it can be inferred that the derived daily hemispheric Sunspot Numbers very well render the International ones.

On the basis of the daily $`R_{n,\mathrm{KSO}}`$ and $`R_{s,\mathrm{KSO}}`$ we derived also the monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers for the period 1975–2000. In this regard, it has to be stressed that the KSO data set does not steadily cover the overall period; rather, 27% of the daily values are missing. Thus, to reconstruct those missing data we performed a linear interpolation on the daily values, separately for the northern and southern hemisphere, respectively. The middle panels in Fig. 1 show the scatter plots of the derived monthly mean northern (southern) Sunspot Numbers against the corresponding International northern (southern) Sunspot Numbers provided by the SIDC for the overlapping period 1992–2000. In general, the derived monthly data clearly follow the SIDC data, which is also reflected in the high cross-correlation coefficients and the parameters of the regression line (cf. Table 1). However, for the northern Sunspot Numbers one outlier shows up (May 2000), in which the observed daily data are obviously non-representative of the monthly mean. This case can easily be explained by the exceptional low number of observation days (5). It has to be noted that during the considered period of 26 years only for three months was the data coverage less than 11 days.

To circumvent the problem that possible outliers of the monthly mean data also influence the preceding and succeeding months when calculating the smoothed monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, we reversed the sequence of averaging and smoothing the data. First we smoothed the daily (interpolated values included) hemispheric Sunspot Numbers with a 365 days running average. Subsequently we calculated the monthly means of this annually-smoothed daily data. The bottom panels in Fig. 1 show the scatter plots of the derived smoothed monthly Sunspot Numbers for the northern and southern hemisphere versus the smoothed monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers from the SIDC. Both panels clearly reveal that the derived smoothed data closely match the SIDC data (see also the outcome of the regression analysis summarized in Table 1). In particular, the influence of the outlier of the northern monthly mean Sunspot Numbers is almost eliminated. In Figure 2 we plot the time evolution of the derived smoothed monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers (solid line) for the period 1992–2000, which closely resemble the corresponding data from the SIDC (dashed line).

## 3 The catalogue

The monthly mean and the smoothed monthly mean hemispheric Sunspot Numbers for the period 1975–2000 are compiled into a catalogue111More information concerning the catalogue as well as access to the daily hemispheric sunspot data can be requested by contacting: M. Temmer.. The catalogue is available online at cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/390/707. The organization of the catalogue is described in the following (for details see the ReadMe file).

* 1st column: Year and month (Months with less than 11 observation days are marked with an asterisk ($``$) to note that the statistical significance of the derived monthly data is low.)
* 2nd column: Monthly mean northern Sunspot Numbers
* 3rd column: Monthly mean southern Sunspot Numbers
* 4th column: Smoothed monthly mean northern Sunspot Numbers (365 days running average followed by monthly mean calculations)
* 5th column: Smoothed monthly mean southern Sunspot Numbers (365 days running average followed by monthly mean calculations)

## 4 North-South asymmetry

In Figure 3 the derived smoothed monthly mean northern and southern Sunspot Numbers for the period 1975–2000 are shown. From the figure it is obvious that the activity during the solar cycle is not symmetric for both hemispheres. For instance, cycle 21 shows a clear phase shift between the northern and the southern hemispheric activity. The existence of a N-S asymmetry has been established and analyzed in several studies for a variety of solar activity phenomena (e.g., flares, prominences, bursts, coronal mass ejections, long-lived filaments, etc.). However, the physical causes are still not satisfactorily interpreted. The analyses of N-S asymmetries in the appearance of sunspots have mostly been made on the basis of sunspot areas and sunspot group numbers (Newton & Milsom Newton (1955); Waldmeier Wald1 (1957)Wald3 (1971); White & Trotter White (1977); Yallop & Hohenkerk Yallop (1980); Vizoso & Ballester Vizoso (1990); Carbonell et al. Carbonell (1993); Oliver & Ballester Oliver (1994); Li et al. Li1 (2000)Li2 (2001)Li3 (2002)). Studies based on relative sunspot numbers have been carried out by Swinson et al. (Swinson (1986)) who used data provided by Koyama (Koyama (1985)) for the period 1947–1983.

In the following, we study the relation between Sunspot Numbers and areas, the significance of the N-S asymmetry excesses as a function of the solar cycle, and dominant rotational periods for the northern and southern hemisphere.

### 4.1 Sunspot Numbers – Sunspot areas

In Figure 4, we plot the smoothed monthly mean sunspot areas (data are taken from the Royal Greenwich Observatory) together with the derived Sunspot Numbers, for the whole Sun as well as separately for the northern and southern hemisphere. The figure clearly reveals that considering the activity of the northern and southern hemisphere separately (areas as well as Sunspot Numbers), different information is provided than when considering the whole disk. For instance, in the hemispheric indices, the activity gaps during the maximum phase, the so-called Gnevyshev gaps (Gnevyshev Gnevyshev (1963)), are clearly visible, whereas they are often smeared out when considering the total activity. Furthermore, it can be clearly seen that the northern and southern hemisphere do not reach their maximum simultaneously but there may be a shift of up to several years (see in particular cycle 22). Thus, the time as well as the height of the maximum and the Gnevyshev gap in the total activity can be understood as a superposition of both hemispheres, which provide the primary physical information on solar activity.

For the cross-correlation coefficients between the monthly mean sunspot areas and sunspot numbers, we obtain 0.90, 0.91 and 0.94 for the northern, the southern and the total component, respectively, indicating a good correspondence between both activity indices. However, the relationship is far from being one-to-one. Especially during the maximum phase, significant differences between sunspot numbers and areas appear (see Fig. 4). In principle, sunspot areas are a more direct physical parameter, being closely related to the magnetic field. However, the reliable measurement of sunspot areas is not an easy task, and the results derived by different techniques and different observatories may differ by an order of magnitude (Pettauer & Brandt, Pettauer (1997)). This poses in particular problems for mid- and long-term investigations of solar activity. Furthermore, from an ongoing study we obtained that, for instance, the hemispheric occurrence of H$`\alpha `$ flares is more closely related to the Sunspot Numbers than to the sunspot areas, which emphasizes the high physical relevance of Sunspot Numbers (Temmer et al., in preparation).

### 4.2 N-S Asymmetry: Excess

Figure 5 shows the cumulative monthly mean northern and southern Sunspot Numbers, separately plotted for solar cycles 21, 22 and the rising phase of the current cycle 23. In order to assess the significance of the activity excess of the northern or southern hemisphere, respectively, we applied the paired Student’s t-test. The test statistics $`\widehat{t}`$ is defined by

$$\widehat{t}=\frac{\overline{D}}{s_{\overline{D}}}=\frac{(\mathrm{\Sigma }D_i)/n}{\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }D_i^2(\mathrm{\Sigma }D_i)^2/n}{n(n1)}}},$$
(3)
where $`D_i`$ is the difference of paired values (here, daily $`R_n`$,$`R_s`$), $`\overline{D}`$ the mean of a number of $`n`$ differences and $`s_{\overline{D}}`$ the respective standard deviation with $`n1`$ degrees of freedom. Since we want to test the significance of the monthly value, $`n`$ is given by the number of days of the considered month. The calculated test value, $`\widehat{t}`$, based on the degrees of freedom is compared to the corresponding $`\widehat{t}_{n1,\alpha }`$ given in statistical tables on a preselected error probability $`\alpha `$. We have chosen $`\alpha =0.05`$, i.e. if $`\widehat{t}>\widehat{t}_{n1,\alpha }`$, the difference between the paired values is statistically significant at a 95% level. Thus for each month, the paired Student’s t-test is utilized to determine the significance of the difference between the northern and southern Sunspot Numbers. The results of this test are indicated in the graph of the cumulative Sunspot Numbers (Fig. 5). The calculated $`\widehat{t}`$ values with 95% significance are overplotted at each specific month signed as crosses (circles) for the northern (southern) hemisphere to represent that the excess of the flagged hemisphere is highly significant. This representation shows that during solar cycle 21 the excess of the southern hemisphere has significant excesses predominantly at the end of the cycle, whereas the northern hemisphere is more active at the beginning and the maximum phase. For solar cycle 22, both hemispheres show a similar amount of activity excesses during the ascending phase, and almost no predominance of one hemisphere over the other during the maximum phase. The distinct excess of the southern activity is exclusively built up during the declining phase. The current solar cycle 23 is only covered by its rising phase with a slight excess of northern activity. Similar results for solar cycle 21 based on cumulative counts of soft X-ray flares are reported by Garcia (Garcia (1990)), and for solar cycle 21 and 22 on the basis of H$`\alpha `$ flares by Temmer et al. (Temmer (2001)).

In Table 2 the outcome of the Student’s t-test is summarized, listing the percentages of significant months in relation to the total number of months during the specific solar cycles. In each cycle, about 60% of all months reveal a highly significant N-S asymmetry. For solar cycle 21, the percentage of months with significant activity excess is slightly higher for the northern than for the southern hemisphere. For solar cycle 22, the southern hemisphere covers almost twice as much significant months than the northern (cf. Table 2). Regarding the total activity during the cycle, we obtain a slight excess of the southern hemisphere over the northern hemisphere with about 50.9% during solar cycle 21 and a distinct excess of 53.6% during solar cycle 22 (cf. Fig. 5).

Swinson et al. (Swinson (1986)) who analyzed Sunspot Numbers for the period 1947 until 1983 almost completely including solar cycles 19, 20 and 21, show good agreement with our results, concluding that the northern hemisphere peaks in its activity excess about two years after solar minimum. These authors report that this peak is greater during even cycles which points out a relation to the 22 year solar magnetic cycle. Balthasar & Schüssler (Balthasar1 (1983)Balthasar2 (1984)) interpreted the distribution of daily relative sunspot numbers as a kind of solar memory with preferred hemispheres that alternate with the 22 year magnetic cycle. Contrary to that, Newton & Milsom (Newton (1955)) and White & Trotter (White (1977)), by analyzing sunspot areas, did not find a systematic change in activity between both hemispheres, i.e. no evidence for a dependence on the 22 year solar magnetic cycle.

### 4.3 Rotational periods

Various periodicities have been detected in solar activity time series. The most prominent are the 11 year solar cycle and the 27 day Bartels rotation (Bartels Bartels (1934)). In the present study, we are interested in periods related to the solar rotation and in their behavior with regard to the N-S occurrence.222Note: All periods quoted in this paper are synodic. For this purpose, we analyze power spectra and autocorrelation functions from daily Sunspot Numbers of the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere and the total solar disk.

For the power spectrum analysis, we have adopted the Lomb-Scargle periodogram technique (Lomb, Lomb (1976); Scargle, Scargle (1982)) modified by Horne & Baliunas (Horne (1986)). By this method, the power spectral density (PSD) is calculated normalized by the total variance of the data. This periodogram technique is particularly useful in order to assess the statistical confidence of a frequency identified in the periodogram by computing the false alarm probability ($`FAP`$). In our case, the relevant time series are prepared from the daily Sunspot Numbers, which are not independent of each other but correlated with a typical correlation time of about 7 days (Oliver & Ballester Oliver2 (1995)). Thus, the statistical significance of a peak of height $`z`$ in the periodogram has to be tested for the case that the data are statistically correlated. Therefore, the PSD has to be normalized by a correction factor $`k`$, which should be determined empirically (described below). Then the $`FAP`$ can be derived by the following equation

$$FAP=1[1\mathrm{exp}(z_m)]^N,$$
(4)
where $`N`$ denotes the number of independent frequencies in the time series, $`z_m=z/k`$ is the derived normalized power, $`z`$ is the Scargle power and $`k`$ the normalization factor due to event correlation (Scargle Scargle (1982); Horne & Baliunas Horne (1986); Bai & Cliver Bai2 (1990); Bai Bai3 (1992)).

The number of independent frequencies is given by the spectral window investigated and the value of the independent Fourier spacing, $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{ifs}}=1/\tau `$, where $`\tau `$ is the time span of the data (Scargle Scargle (1982)). Here, we are interested in periods related to the Sun’s rotation, for which we have chosen the spectral window  nHz, i.e.  days. Considering a time span from January 1975 to December 2000 we have $`\tau =9497`$ days, hence $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{ifs}}=1.22`$ nHz. However, de Jager (Jager (1987)) has shown by Monte-Carlo simulations that the Fourier powers taken at intervals of one-third of the independent Fourier spacing are still statistically independent, i.e $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{ifs}}}{3}=0.41`$ nHz. Thus we accepted the number $`N=190`$ as the number of independent frequencies in the chosen spectral window.

We briefly describe the method used to calculate the normalization factor $`k`$. The normalization factor $`k`$ is derived from the cumulative distribution function of the Scargle power values $`z`$ for the 190 independent frequencies (shown for the Sunspot Numbers of the total solar disk in Fig. 6). The distribution can be well fitted to the equation $`y=190\mathrm{exp}(z/k)`$ for power values $`z<7`$, which gives the normalization factor $`k`$ (indicated in Fig. 6 as solid line). For the time series of the total solar disk we obtain $`k=3.85`$, thus the power spectrum is normalized once more by dividing the Scargle power by 3.85. For the northern hemisphere we obtain $`k=6.63`$ and for the southern hemisphere $`k=5.18`$. Further detailed descriptions of this procedure can be found in Bai & Cliver (Bai2 (1990)), Oliver & Ballester (Oliver2 (1995)) and Ziȩba et al. (Zieba (2001)).

The normalized PSD for the total and the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers are represented in Fig. 7. The $`FAP`$ levels calculated by Eq. 4 are indicated as dashed lines for the probabilities of 50%, 40%, 20% and 10%. As can be seen, the total Sunspot Numbers show only one peak above the 50% significance level, namely at 27.0 days with a $`FAP`$ value of 38%. The northern Sunspot Numbers show also one peak above the 50% significance level at 27.0 days with a $`FAP`$ value of 19%. For the southern Sunspot Numbers we get one peak at 28.2 days which lies above the 50% significance level with a $`FAP`$ value of 12%. Thus, for the northern hemisphere the power is mainly concentrated at $``$27 days, whereas for the southern hemisphere it is mainly concentrated at $``$28 days. These rotational properties manifest a strong asymmetry with respect to the solar equator. It is worth noting that the spectral power of the peaks is lower for the total Sunspot Numbers than for the hemispheric ones. This phenomenon probably arises from the fact that in the case of the total Sunspot Numbers, the components of both hemispheres, which are obviously not in phase, overlap and result in a lower PSD than for the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers.

Since there is no enhanced PSD at 27 days for the time series of the southern Sunspot Numbers, the signal of the 27 days Bartels rotation found for the total Sunspot Numbers is a consequence of the northern component, in which the 27 days peak is very strong. On the other hand, the enhanced PSD at $``$28 days, found for the southern Sunspot Numbers, is not powerful enough to be reflected as a significant period in the PSD of the total Sunspot Numbers (see Fig. 7, top panel).

In Fig. 8, we show the autocorrelation function derived from the northern, the southern and the total daily Sunspot Numbers, up to a time lag of 500 days. Distinct differences appear for the behavior of the northern and the southern hemisphere. The northern Sunspot Numbers reveal a stable periodicity of about 27 days, which can be followed for up to 15 periods. Contrary to that, the signal from the southern hemisphere is strongly attenuated after 3 periods, and shows a distinctly less regular periodicity. The autocorrelation function of the total Sunspot Numbers reveals an intermediate behavior, resulting from the superposition of the northern and southern components.

## 5 Discussion

Bogart (Bogart (1982)) investigated autcorrelation functions of daily Sunspot Numbers for the period 1850–1977, obtaining a distinct period at 27 days. Since the persistence of this periodicity lasted for about 8–12 solar rotations, which is distinctly longer than the lifetimes of sunspots, Bogart (Bogart (1982)) concluded that this outcome provides evidence for the existence of “active longitudes” on the Sun. The idea that solar activity phenomena (sunspots, flares, etc.) are not uniformly distributed in longitude but preferentially occur at certain longitude intervals was already suspected by Carrington (Carrington (1863)), and has been systematically studied since the 1960s (e.g., Trotter & Billings Trotter (1962), Warwick Warwick (1965), Bumba & Howard Bumba (1965)). In later studies it became clear that these “active longitudes” usually do not extend over both hemispheres, and the terms “active zones” and “complexes of activity” are often used instead.

In the present analysis, studying the period 1975–2000, we obtained a similar outcome for the autocorrelation function of the daily Sunspot Numbers as Bogart (Bogart (1982)). On the other hand, the supplementary analysis of the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers reveals that the persistent 27 day period occurs only for the northern hemisphere. The autocorrelation function of the southern Sunspot Numbers is strongly attenuated after 3 periods, which matches with the lifetimes of long-lived sunspot groups. The autocorrelation function derived from the northern Sunspot Numbers shows a stable periodicity up to 15 periods. This outcome provides strong evidence that during the considered period a preferred zone of activity was present at the northern hemisphere rigidly rotating with 27 days, whereas the behavior of the southern hemisphere is mainly dominated by individual long-lived sunspot groups, which are not (or only weakly) grouped at preferred longitude intervals.

Bai (Bai1 (1987)) studied the occurrence of major solar flares during 1980–1985, and found evidence for a very prominent active zone in the northern hemisphere, in which almost half of the flares of the northern hemisphere took place (see his Fig. 3), and a second (but weaker) one separated by $``$180. In the periodograms, we find a highly significant peak at $``$13.3 days, which gives indication for a second active zone $`180^{}`$ apart. Such a peak was noticed too, e.g., by Bogart (Bogart (1982)). Bai (Bai1 (1987)) reports also evidence for two active zones in the southern hemisphere, but with a distinctly less pronounced activity than the major northern active zone. In the present study we do not find evidence for an active zone in the southern hemisphere. A possible explanation is that the hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, which represent a quantity averaged over a whole hemisphere, are less sensitive to the detection of active zones than the binning of solar activity phenomena in longitude intervals, as done by Bai (Bai1 (1987)).

The 27 day Bartels rotation is a very prominent period with respect to the occurrence of geomagnetic disturbances, and it is supposed to be relevant for the large scale solar magnetic fields (e.g. Balthasar & Schüssler Balthasar2 (1984)). From the distribution of daily Sunspot Numbers and sunspot groups in the Bartels rotation of 27 days, Balthasar & Schüssler (Balthasar1 (1983)Balthasar2 (1984)) inferred evidence for preferred Bartels longitudes of activity, which may even cover a whole hemisphere. These preferred hemispheres were found to alternate with the 22 year magnetic cycle. The present data set (1975–2000) is too short to draw any conclusion with respect to the 22 year magnetic cycle. However, it is worth noting that during the considered period the total activity is higher in the southern hemisphere (see Fig. 5), but the northern hemisphere shows a distinctly more systematic behavior in the rotational recurrence of activity (see Fig. 8), very probably dominated by one or two preferred active zones. For solar cycle 21, a cyclic behavior of the N-S asymmetry with a phase shift between both hemispheres can be inferred from the cumulative Sunspot Numbers (Fig. 5) as well as directly from Fig. 3, whereas no cyclic behavior is indicated for solar cycle 22. Nevertheless, a cyclic behavior in the N-S asymmetry of solar activity for the last 8 solar cycles was recently reported by Vernova et al. (Vernova (2002)), using the so-called “vectorial sunspot area”, which more strongly emphasizes the systematic, longitudinally asymmetric sunspot activity compared to the stochastic, longitudinally evenly distributed component than the normal sunspot areas and Sunspot Numbers.

The study of N-S asymmetries of solar activity and the analysis of the rotational behavior separately for the northern and southern hemisphere is particularly relevant, as it is related to the solar dynamo and the generation of magnetic fields. Antonucci et al. (Antonucci (1990)) investigated the rotation of photospheric magnetic fields during solar cycle 21, and obtained a dominant period of 26.9 days for the northern and 28.1 days for the southern hemisphere. The spectral power was concentrated in a few well-defined regions with a rather wide extent in latitude. On average, these regions were found to lie near the sunspot differential curve, but the latitudinal extent was not consistent with the standard differential curve. From these findings, Antonucci et al. (Antonucci (1990)) concluded that the emergence of photospheric magnetic field tracers is organized in a large-scale pattern with different rotation periods in both hemispheres.

The rotation rates for the magnetic fields of the northern and southern hemisphere reported by Antonucci et al. (Antonucci (1990)) coincide well with the present study of hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, in which we found an enhanced PSD at $``$27 days with a rigid rotation for the northern hemisphere, and $``$28 days for the southern hemisphere. Thus, a strong correlation of the underlying large-scale magnetic fields and the rotation of sunspots is suggested. It has to be noted that Nesme-Ribes et al. (Nesme (1993)), who analyzed sunspots observed on spectroheliograms during solar cycle 21, came to an opposite conclusion, since the 28 days period in the southern hemisphere could not be reproduced. In this regard, it has to be stressed that the rotational behavior of the solar surface is sensitive to various factors, such as, for instance the used tracers (e.g., old versus young sunspots) as well as the phase of the solar cycle (e.g., Balthasar et al. Balthasar3 (1986), Nesme-Ribes et al. Nesme (1993), Pulkkinen & Tuominen Pulkkinen (1998), and references therein).

The existence of significant N-S asymmetries in the occurrence of solar activity and in the rotational behavior provides strong evidence that the magnetic field systems originating in the two hemispheres are only weakly coupled (see also Antonucci et al. Antonucci (1990)). Another feature that gives indications for a weak coupling of the hemispheric activities and the related magnetic field evolution within the course of a solar cycle is the double-peaked cycle maximum known since Gnevyshev (Gnevyshev (1963)), which is supposed to be related to the solar magnetic field reversal (e.g., Feminella & Storini Feminella (1997), Bazilevskaya et al. Bazil (2000), and references therein). From Fig. 4 it can be seen that the Gnevyshev gap is more pronounced by considering the northern and southern Sunspot Numbers (or sunspot areas) separately and it does not necessarily take place at the same time and with the same strength in both hemispheres.

In principle, studies of the N-S asymmetry of solar activity provide constraints on solar dynamo theories. In addition to the 11 year sunspot cycle, the 22 year magnetic cycle, the presence of grand sunspot minima, the butterfly diagram and phase-amplitude correlations, a reliable dynamo theory should be able to explain the weak coupling between the hemispheres and the existence of significant N-S asymmetries in the occurrence of solar activity as well as in the rotational behavior. Ossendrijver et al. (Ossen (1996)) have shown that a mean field dynamo model with stochastic fluctuations of $`\alpha `$ can reproduce observed N-S asymmetries in solar activity. A probable candidate for the origin of these stochastic fluctuations are giant convective cells that extend sufficiently deep into the convection zone (Ossendrijver et al. Ossen (1996)). The existence of giant cells was first suggested by Bumba & Howard (Bumba (1965)), but their subsequent history was quite controversial (see Hathaway et al. Hathaway (2000)). Recently, Beck et al. (Beck (1998)) reported evidence for long-lived giant velocity cells on the solar surface that extend $`4050^{}`$ in longitude but less than $`10^{}`$ in latitude. The magnetic fields of solar activity are generated at the bottom of the convection zone, and long-lived cells connected to this layer could explain the persistence of solar activity at the same location (Beck et al. Beck (1998)). Thus, giant convective cells possibly provide the physical link between the solar interior and active zones at the solar surface, whose existence has been established for various solar activity phenomena and for various solar cycles. To account for the observational effects, these active zones must not be significantly disrupted by differential rotation up to several years. On the other hand, as suggested by Balthasar & Schüssler (Balthasar1 (1983)), the rigid 27 days rotation does not necessarily represent any material motion but may result from the phase velocity of a dynamo-produced large-scale solar magnetic structure.

## 6 Conclusions

Hemispheric Sunspot Numbers, in addition to the historical Sunspot Numbers that describe the activity of the whole Sun, provide important information on solar activity. Distinct asymmetries between the northern and the southern hemisphere appear concerning various aspects of solar activity: the location and height of the cycle maximum and the Gnevyshev gap, the alternating predominance of one hemisphere over the other, and the different rotational behavior of activity tracers in both hemispheres. These findings suggest that the magnetic field systems originating in the two hemispheres and their evolution in the course of the solar cycle are only weakly coupled. Finally, we stress that the various phenomena of N-S asymmetry in solar activity provide valuable constraints for solar dynamo theories.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank the former and present staff of the KSO for performing and making available the sunspot drawings, and also for helpful comments. We are grateful for the thoughtful comments of the referee, H. Balthasar. M.T., A.V. and A.H. gratefully acknowledge the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF grants P13653-PHY and P15344-PHY) for supporting this project.


text:
# Floquet scattering in parametric electron pumps

## I introduction

A parametric electron pump is a device that generates a dc current at zero bias potential through cyclic change of system parameters. The most direct way to create a dc current was originally proposed by Thouless , who considered a system subjected to a traveling wave potential. This can be realized for example with the help of surface acoustic waves . Another possibility is to utilize quantum dots. In closed systems operating in the Coulomb blockade regime, integer number of electric charge can be transferred by sequential changes of barriers like a turnstile , whereas in open systems the electron pumping can be driven by adiabatic shape change in the confining potential or other parameters which affect the interference pattern of the coherent electrons in the device. After a cycle of the adiabatic shape change we return to the initial configuration, but the wavefunction may have its phase changed from the initial wavefunction. This is the so-called geometric or Berry’s phase . This additional phase is equivalent to some charges that pass through the quantum dot, namely, pumped charge . Recently, adiabatic charge pumping in open quantum dots has attracted considerable attention .

Switkes et al. report an experimental investigation of electron pumping through an open quantum dot under the shape deformation controlled by two ac gate voltages . For weak pumping the dc voltage induced by the pumped dc current not only have a sinusoidal dependence on phase difference $`\varphi `$ of the two ac voltages applied to the gates, but is also proportional to the square of the pumping strength $`\lambda `$. Many aspects of the experimental results can be understood in terms of Brouwer’s scattering approach . The change in the charge of the dot in response to a small variation of external parameter $`\delta X`$ is given by $`\delta Q=e\delta X_idn/X_i`$, where $`dn/dX`$ is the emissivity . The pumped charge during each cycle can be determined by integrating $`\delta Q`$ along the closed path in the parameter space $`\{X_i\}`$ defined by one pumping cycle. Then, the pumped charge $`Q`$ is rewritten as an integral over the surface enclosed by the path by using Green’s theorem, e.g. in two parameter case $`Q=e_A𝑑X_1𝑑X_2\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2)`$. Assuming $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is constant over small area of $`(X_1,X_2)`$, for weak pumping one can show the pumping current $`I_p\omega \lambda ^2\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$, which exactly corresponds to what was observed in the experiment. For strong pumping, however, the dc voltage generated by the pumped current deviates from the sinusoidal dependence on $`\varphi `$, and also departs from the $`\lambda ^2`$ dependence. The non-sinusoidal dependence can be understood by taking into account that $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is no longer constant over the integration area when $`\lambda `$ is considerably large. In Ref.  the anomalous $`\lambda `$ dependence was ascribed to the occurrence of significant heating and dephasing as a result of strong pumping.

The parametric electron pump is a time dependent system driven by (at least) two different time periodic perturbations with the same angular frequency and phase difference $`\varphi `$. One can deal with this problem using not only adiabatic approximation exploited by Brouwer but also Floquet approach . An oscillating potential can transfer an incoming electron of energy $`E`$ to Floquet side bands at $`E\pm n\mathrm{}\omega `$, where $`n`$ is an integer and $`\omega `$ is the angular frequency of the oscillation. A scattering matrix for a time dependent system can be constructed from the interplay of these sidebands . So far there have been relatively few works on non-adiabatic parametric electron pumps , and the comparison between the adiabatic and the Floquet approach is still missing. We show, using a simple scattering model with two harmonically oscillating $`\delta `$-function barriers, that for small $`\lambda `$ these two approaches give exactly equivalent results for the pumped charge while for large $`\lambda `$ they are different. Even though the pumped current as a function of $`\lambda `$ obtained from these two approaches shows qualitatively similar behavior, the physical interpretation is completely different. This discrepancy in large $`\lambda `$ is not fully ascribed to the breakdown of adiabatic conditions since the Wigner delay times calculated by using Floquet scattering matrix are still much smaller than an oscillation period of external pumping potentials.

In Sec. II, we introduce our model system and investigate the characteristics of the pumped current using Brouwer’s scattering approach. In Sec. III, we study the Floquet approach for parametric electron pumps and compare with those of Sec. II. We also discuss the validity of adiabatic theory by using the Wigner delay time. Finally, we conclude our paper in Sec. IV.

## II Brouwer’s scattering matrix approach

As a model system we consider 1D two harmonically oscillating $`\delta `$-function barriers with the strengthes $`X_1=V_1+\lambda _1\mathrm{cos}\omega \tau `$ and $`X_2=V_2+\lambda _2\mathrm{cos}(\omega \tau +\varphi )`$ respectively, separated by a distance $`d`$. This is a simplified model of the experiment by Switkes et al., but possesses many important characteristics and can be easily handled. Wei et al. studied parametric charge pumping aided by quantum resonance using this model and found that the pumped current has large values near a resonance level . Due to the double barrier geometry, resonant tunneling also plays an important role in charge pumping.

The $`2\times 2`$ scattering matrix of the double barriers with the strengthes $`X_1`$ and $`X_2`$ is given by

$$S=\left(\begin{array}{cc}r& t^{}\\ t& r^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`r`$ and $`t`$ are the reflection and the transmission amplitudes respectively, for modes incident from the left; $`r^{}`$ and $`t^{}`$ are similar quantities for modes incident from the right. The charge emitted per cycle to the right is obtained from

$$Q_1=e_0^{T_p}𝑑\tau \left(\frac{dn_1}{dX_1}\frac{dX_1}{d\tau }+\frac{dn_1}{dX_2}\frac{dX_2}{d\tau }\right),$$
(2)
where

$$\frac{dn_1}{dX_m}=\mathrm{Im}\left(\frac{t}{X_m}t^{}+\frac{r^{}}{X_m}r^{}\right)$$
(3)
($`m=1,2`$), and $`T_p(=2\pi /\omega )`$ is the period of the pumping. One can show that the emitted charge to the left $`Q_2`$ is equal to $`Q_1`$. Equation (2) can be rewritten in the following form by using Green’s theorem

$$Q_1=e_A𝑑X_1𝑑X_2\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2),$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2)=(dn_1/dX_2)/X_1(dn_1/dX_1)/X_2`$. The pumped current is easily obtained from $`I_1=Q_1/T_p`$.

We use the parameters $`d=50`$ nm for the distance between the two barriers, the effective mass $`\mu =0.067m_e`$ of an electron in GaAs, and $`T_p=9.09`$ ps for the period of pumping, which corresponds to $`\mathrm{}\omega =0.45`$ meV. Figure 1 shows the pumped current as a function of the energy of an incident electron with $`V_1=V_2=V`$, $`\lambda _1=\lambda _2=\lambda `$, and $`\varphi =\pi /2`$. We present two examples; the first is a nearly open case ($`V`$=0) in Figs. 1a and 1b, and the second is a closed case ($`V`$=225 meV$``$nm) in Figs. 1c and 1d. All of them show interesting resonance-like structures. In the closed case one can directly see the relation between the pumped currents and transmission resonances in Figs. 1c and 1d, where the transmission poles are denoted by the filled circles ($``$). To find these poles we considered a scattering problem with static double barriers of strength $`V`$. The imaginary part of the pole (denoted by the length of error bars attached to the filled circles) is related to the lifetime of a resonant (or quasibound) state, and determines the width of the transmission peaks. Peaks of the pumped current and their width are also described by the real and imaginary part of the resonance poles respectively, as shown in Fig. 1c. In Fig. 1d, however, the width of the pumped current is larger than the imaginary part of the resonance energy due to the effect of strong oscillation. Moreover, in the open case (Figs. 1a and 1b), this analysis is no more relevant since there is no resonance in the static double barrier model.

Figure 2 shows the pumped current as a function of the pumping strength $`\lambda `$ for $`V=0`$ (the open case) with $`\varphi =\pi /2`$. Here for small $`\lambda `$ the pumped current depends on $`\lambda ^2`$ and has an exact sinusoidal dependence on $`\varphi `$, while for larger $`\lambda `$ the pumped current saturates and even decreases as $`\lambda `$ increases, and also deviates from the sinusoidal dependence on $`\varphi `$. The decrease of the pumped current can be understood by considering the charge flux $`\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2)`$ in Fig. 3. For small $`\lambda `$, the integration area only contains the positive $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$’s (the solid circle). Hence, as $`\lambda `$ increases $`_A\mathrm{\Pi }`$ also becomes larger, which is roughly proportional to the area enclosed by the circle, i.e. $`_A\mathrm{\Pi }\lambda ^2`$. Around $`\lambda =225`$ meV$``$nm (the dashed circle in Fig. 3) the integration area begins to include the region with both the positive and the negative $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$’s, which means $`_A\mathrm{\Pi }`$ no longer increases as $`\lambda `$ increases. This explains why the pumped current saturates and even decreases above $`\lambda =225`$ meV$``$nm as shown in Fig. 2. From this we expect that the behavior of the saturation of the pumped current would depend on $`\varphi `$ since the shape of the integration area is determined by $`\varphi `$. For example, with $`\varphi =1.1\pi `$ the integration area denoted by the dashed dotted curve in Fig. 3 is distorted from the original circular shape, so that even for $`\lambda =675`$ meV$``$nm the integration area contains only positive $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$’s. Figure 2 clearly shows the pumped current with $`\varphi =1.1\pi `$ saturates much more slowly in comparison with the pumped current with $`\varphi =\pi /2`$. The non-sinusoidal dependence of the pumped current on $`\varphi `$ for large $`\lambda `$ is also ascribed to the loss of circular symmetry of $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ in $`(X_1,X_2)`$.

## III Floquet approach

Now we study the Floquet approach of the problem investigated in Sec. II. Using the scattering matrix of a single $`\delta `$-function with sinusoidal time dependence (see Appendix for details), we can obtain the total scattering matrix of the oscillating double $`\delta `$-functions in the following form

$$S_{Fl}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝐫& 𝐭^{}\\ 𝐭& 𝐫^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(5)
where $`𝐫=𝐫_L+𝐭_L(𝐈\mathrm{𝐐𝐫}_R\mathrm{𝐐𝐫}_L)^1\mathrm{𝐐𝐫}_R\mathrm{𝐐𝐭}_L`$, and $`𝐭=𝐭_R(𝐈\mathrm{𝐐𝐫}_L\mathrm{𝐐𝐫}_R)^1\mathrm{𝐐𝐭}_L`$; $`𝐫^{}`$ and $`𝐭^{}`$ can also be obtained by replacing $`L`$ by $`R`$ in $`𝐫`$ and $`𝐭`$ respectively. Here $`𝐫_{R(L)}`$ and $`𝐭_{R(L)}`$ are the reflection and the transmission matrices respectively, for the right (left) delta function with time dependence for modes from the left, and $`𝐈`$ is an identity matrix. Due to the reflection symmetry of each delta function $`𝐫_{R(L)}^{}=𝐫_{R(L)}`$, and $`𝐭_{R(L)}^{}=𝐭_{R(L)}`$. During each one-way trip an electron at energy $`E_n=E+n\mathrm{}\omega `$ picks up a phase factor $`\mathrm{exp}(ik_nd)`$, which is represented by the diagonal matrix $`𝐐_{mn}=\mathrm{exp}(ik_md)\delta _{mn}`$. From $`S_{Fl}`$ we can obtain the total transmission coefficients for the propagating mode entering in the $`m`$th channel

$$T_m(E_{Fl})=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left|𝐭_{nm}\right|^2,$$
(6)
where $`E_{Fl}`$ is the Floquet energy. The total transmission coefficient from the left to the right as a function of an energy of an incident electron is given by $`T_{}(E)=T_m(E_{Fl})`$ where $`E=E_{Fl}+m\mathrm{}\omega `$. The total transmission from the right to the left $`T_{}(E)`$ can also be determined in a similar way.

The pumped current to the right is given by

$$I_1=\frac{2e}{h}𝑑E𝑑E^{}[t(E^{},E)f_L(E)t^{}(E,E^{})f_R(E^{})],$$
(7)
where $`t(E^{},E)`$ represents the transmission probability for scattering states incident from the left at energy $`E`$ and emerging to the right at $`E^{}`$, and $`t^{}(E,E^{})`$ is defined in a similar manner for the reverse direction. $`f_L`$ ($`f_R`$) is the Fermi-Dirac distribution in the left (right) reservoir. Since the Floquet energy must be conserved during the scattering process, $`E^{}`$ and $`E`$ are given by $`E_{Fl}+n\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`E_{Fl}+m\mathrm{}\omega `$ respectively ($`n`$ and $`m`$ are integers). Using Eq. (6), we can derive the relation $`𝑑E^{}t(E^{},E)=_n𝐭_{nm}(E_{Fl})=T_{}(E)`$. Without external bias ($`f_L=f_R=f`$) Eq. (7) can be rewritten as

$$I_1=\frac{2e}{h}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑Ef(E)[T_{}(E)T_{}(E)].$$
(8)
At zero temperature it becomes

$$I_1=\frac{2e}{h}_0^{E_F}𝑑E[T_{}(E)T_{}(E)],$$
(9)
where $`E_F`$ is the Fermi energy. Equation (9) can also be expressed as $`I_1=I_{}I_{}`$. This is quite interesting because from this point of view the pumped current merely corresponds to the difference of two currents having the opposite directions through a scatterer.

Figure 1 shows that in the open case ($`V=0`$) for small $`\lambda `$ (Fig. 1a) the pumped current obtained from the Floquet approach is equivalent to that of Brouwer’s while for rather larger $`\lambda `$ (Fig. 1b) they deviate from each other. When $`V0`$ (the closed case), even for small $`\lambda `$ (Fig. 1c) they are quantitatively different near the resonances. Figure 4 shows $`T_{}`$ and $`T_{}`$ in comparison with the pumped current $`I_1`$. In the closed case (Figs. 4c and 4d) it is shown that $`T_{}T_{}`$, and the transmission resonances are directly related to the maxima of the pumped currents. In the open case (Figs. 4a and 4b), however, $`T_{}`$ and $`T_{}`$ considerably differ from each other, and it is hard to determine the relation between the resonances and the pumped currents. In fact, $`T_{}`$ looks out of phase with $`T_{}`$, and their resonance structures are quite complicated. In the open case the resonance-assisted electron pumping  seems unclear even though the oscillatory behavior of transmission looks similar to that of the pumped current.

As $`\lambda `$ increases with $`V=0`$, in Fig. 2, the pumped current obtained from the Floquet approach also saturates and even decreases although their exact values are different from those of Brouwer’s. We also plot $`I_{}`$ and $`I_{}`$ in Fig. 2, where it is clear that in the Floquet approach the decrease of $`I_1`$ for large $`\lambda `$ is ascribed to the decrease of both $`I_{}`$ and $`I_{}`$. Usually the stronger the barrier strength, the smaller the transmission. This interpretation differs from that of Brouwer’s, in which the decrease of the pumped current is explained by considering the structure of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2)`$ (Sec. II). Since we cannot define $`\mathrm{\Pi }(X_1,X_2)`$ explicitly in the Floquet formalism, we plot $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ integrated over small circular area with a radius $`\lambda `$ centered at $`(V_1,V_2)`$. We consider only the case that $`V_1=V_2=V`$. Figure 5 shows that the integrated $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$’s obtained from the two different approaches for $`\lambda =22.5`$ meV$``$nm look very similar to each other, and their overall structure are governed by the static double barrier resonances denoted by the circles ($``$).

Brouwer’s approach is based upon the adiabatic approximation, which implies that any time scale of the problem considered, especially the electron dwell time in a quantum dot (or inside double barriers in our case), must be much smaller than the period of the oscillation of a external pumping $`T_p`$ . Using the Floquet formalism we can calculate the Wigner delay time $`\tau _W`$, which is the interaction time of the incident electron with the scattering potential  (see also ). In this sense $`\tau _W`$ corresponds to the electron dwell time in the quantum pump. To obtain the Wigner delay time we use the eigenvalues of the scattering matrix $`S_{Fl}`$. Due to the unitarity of $`S_{Fl}`$ all the eigenvalues lie on the unit circle and can be written in the form $`\mathrm{exp}(i\theta _\alpha )`$. The Wigner delay time is defined by

$$\tau _W=\mathrm{}\underset{\alpha }{}\frac{d\theta _\alpha }{dE}\left|k_n|\theta _\alpha \right|^2,$$
(10)
where the eigenstate corresponding to the eigenvalue $`\theta _\alpha `$ and an input propagating state (or channel) with momentum $`k_n`$ are denoted by $`|\theta _\alpha `$ and $`|k_n`$ respectively . It is worth noting that the Wigner delay time is a function of the energy of the incident particle $`E`$ ($`=E_{Fl}+n\mathrm{}\omega `$), and $`|k_n`$ and $`|\theta _\alpha `$ are determined by $`n`$ and $`E_{Fl}`$ respectively. If $`k_n|\theta _\alpha `$ is ignored in Eq. (10) the Wigner delay time $`\tau _W`$ becomes trivial, i.e. $`\tau _W(E+n\mathrm{}\omega )=\tau _W(E)`$. Thus, we cannot observe any signature of the double barrier resonances.

Figure 6 shows the Wigner delay time using the same parameters exploited in Fig. 5. The Wigner delay times become smaller for both larger $`E`$ and lower $`V`$, which can be understood when we take into account that usually the electron dwell time is short if the energy of an incident electron is large or the scattering barrier is weak. The Wigner delay times have larger values near the resonances, which is ascribed to the fact that at the resonances an electron can stay in the quantum dot for a long time. Near the resonances the adiabatic condition can break down. This explains the deviation between the pumped currents observed in Figs. 1c. In the open case ($`V=0`$) we also check the Wigner delay time for rather larger $`\lambda `$ (up to 675 meV$``$nm), and observe they are smaller than $`T_p`$ by two orders of magnitude except for small incident energy $`E`$ (not shown), which means Brouwer’s approach should be still applicable even for large $`\lambda `$. This leads us to conclude that the deviations of the pumped current observed in Figs. 1a, 1b and 2 for large $`\lambda `$ are not simply ascribed to the breakdown of adiabatic condition. It is worth noting that recently it is shown that Brouwer’s formula is valid for arbitrary amplitudes of the modulating potential, as long as the lowest-order adiabatic approximation can be employed . Let us just note that in Fig. 2 the discrepancy for large $`\lambda `$ appears when $`|I_1|/|I_{}|`$ (or $`|I_1|/|I_{}|`$) is not so small.

One of the interesting consequences from Eq. (9) is that the pumped current still exists even in the cases $`\varphi =0`$ or $`\pi `$ when $`\lambda _1\lambda _2`$ . Since the integration area in parameter space is zero when $`\varphi =0`$ or $`\pi `$, in Brouwer’s approach the pumped current definitely vanishes. In contrast, even when $`\varphi =0`$ or $`\pi `$, an asymmetry of the potential can lead to the asymmetry of the currents , which is nothing but the pumped current in Eq. (9). Figure 7 shows the pumed current as a function of ratio of the strength of two barriers $`\lambda _2/\lambda _1`$ with $`\varphi =0`$ or $`\pi `$, and $`E=6.005\mathrm{}\omega `$. Note that the pumped current is zero when $`\lambda _1=\lambda _2`$. The oscillatory behavior is also related to the double barrier resonances.

## IV Summary

We investigate the Floquet scattering in parametric electron pumps in comparison with Brouwer’s adiabatic scattering approach exploiting two harmonically oscillating $`\delta `$-function barriers. In the Floquet approach the pumped current simply corresponds to the difference of two currents having the opposite direction through a scatterer. For small strength of the oscillating potentials, these two kinds of approach give exactly equivalent results while for large strength these show deviation. Even though for large strength we obtain qualitatively similar results for the pumped currents using both approaches, the physical interpretation is completely different. The validity of the adiabatic approximation is also discussed by calculating Wigner delay time. For large $`\lambda `$ although the adiabatic condition is well satisfied, a quantitative discrepancy between both approaches is still observed. In the Floquet approach, a non-zero pumped current can be obtained even when $`\varphi =0`$ or $`\pi `$ (no current at all in Brouwer’s approach), if the spatial symmetry of the potential is broken ($`\lambda _1\lambda _2`$).

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Henning Schomerus and Hwa-Kyun Park for helpful discussion.

##

The scattering problem of a single $`\delta `$-function impurity with sinusoidal time dependence has been investigated by several authors . We would like to summarize how to construct its Floquet scattering matrix in this Appendix. The system is described by the Hamiltonian

$$H(x,t)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2\mu }\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+[V_s+V_d\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi )]\delta (x),$$
(11)
where $`\mu `$ is the mass of the incident particle, while $`V_s`$ and $`V_d`$ represent the strength of the static and the oscillating potential respectively. Using the Floquet formalism the solution of this Hamiltonian can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{E_{Fl}}(x,t)=e^{iE_{Fl}t/\mathrm{}}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\psi _n(x)e^{in\omega t},$$
(12)
where $`E_{Fl}`$ is the Floquet energy which take continuous values in the interval $`0<E_{Fl}\mathrm{}\omega `$.

Since the potential is zero everywhere except at $`x=0`$, $`\psi _n(x)`$ is given by the following form

$$\psi _n(x)=\{\begin{array}{c}A_ne^{ik_nx}+B_ne^{ik_nx},x<0\\ C_ne^{ik_nx}+D_ne^{ik_nx},x>0,\end{array}$$
(13)
where $`k_n=\sqrt{2\mu (E_{Fl}+n\mathrm{}\omega )}/\mathrm{}`$. The wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{E_{Fl}}(x,t)`$ is continuous at $`x=0`$,

$$A_n+B_n=C_n+D_n,$$
(14)
and the derivative jumps by

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_{E_{Fl}}}{dx}|_{x=0^+}\frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_{E_{Fl}}}{dx}|_{x=0^{}}=\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}[V_s+V_d\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\varphi )]\mathrm{\Psi }_{E_{Fl}}(0,t).$$
(15)
Using Eq. (12) this leads to the condition

$`ik_n(C_nD_nA_n+B_n)`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`\gamma _s(A_n+B_n)+\gamma _d(e^{i\varphi }A_{n+1}+e^{i\varphi }A_{n1}+e^{i\varphi }B_{n+1}+e^{i\varphi }B_{n1})`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`\gamma _s(C_n+D_n)+\gamma _d(e^{i\varphi }C_{n+1}+e^{i\varphi }C_{n1}+e^{i\varphi }D_{n+1}+e^{i\varphi }D_{n1}),`$ (18)
where $`\gamma _s=2\mu V_s/\mathrm{}^2`$ and $`\gamma _d=\mu V_d/\mathrm{}^2`$. After some algebra we have the following equation from Eqs. (14) and (17)

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{}{B}\\ \stackrel{}{C}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}(I+\mathrm{\Gamma })^1\mathrm{\Gamma }& (I+\mathrm{\Gamma })^1\\ (I+\mathrm{\Gamma })^1& (I+\mathrm{\Gamma })^1\mathrm{\Gamma }\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{}{A}\\ \stackrel{}{D}\end{array}\right),$$
(19)
where

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}\mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& 0& 0& 0\\ \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_1& \gamma _s/ik_1& \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_1& 0& 0\\ 0& \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_0& \gamma _s/ik_0& \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_0& 0\\ 0& 0& \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_1& \gamma _s/ik_1& \gamma _de^{i\varphi }/ik_1\\ 0& 0& 0& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\end{array}\right),$$
(20)
and $`I`$ is an infinite-dimensional square identity matrix. Eq. (19) can also be expressed in the form $`|\mathrm{out}=M|\mathrm{in}`$, where $`M`$ connects the input coefficients to the output coefficients including the associated evanescent Floquet sidebands. In order to construct the scattering matrix we multiply an identity to both sides, $`K^1K|\mathrm{out}=MK^1K|\mathrm{in}`$, where $`K_{nm}=\sqrt{k_n}\delta _{nm}`$. Then we have $`\stackrel{}{J}_{out}=\overline{M}\stackrel{}{J}_{in}`$, where $`\stackrel{}{J}`$ represents the amplitude of probability flux and $`\overline{M}KMK^1`$. It should be mentioned that $`\overline{M}`$ is not unitary due to the evanescent modes included.

If we keep only the propagating modes, we obtain the unitary scattering matrix $`S`$ , which can be expressed in the following form

$$S=\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}r_{00}& r_{01}& \mathrm{}& t_{00}^{}& t_{01}^{}& \mathrm{}\\ r_{10}& r_{11}& \mathrm{}& t_{10}^{}& t_{11}^{}& \mathrm{}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ t_{00}& t_{01}& \mathrm{}& r_{00}^{}& r_{01}^{}& \mathrm{}\\ t_{10}& t_{11}& \mathrm{}& r_{10}^{}& r_{11}^{}& \mathrm{}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\end{array}\right),$$
(21)
where $`r_{nm}`$ and $`t_{nm}`$ are the reflection and the transmission amplitudes respectively, for modes incident from the left; $`r_{nm}^{}`$ and $`t_{nm}^{}`$ are similar quantities for modes incident from the right.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Initiated by a series of papers  by A. Sen, the dynamics of a time-dependent tachyon background has been intensely studied recently. In , he has presented an iterative scheme to construct a solution in Witten’s Open String Field Theory that describes the tachyon rolling up and down its potential in unstable D-brane systems (see also ). In , he has also constructed a boundary state corresponding to the solution. The boundary state representing the rolling tachyon is constructed by deforming the boundary state of an unstable D-brane by an exactly marginal operator. Therefore, it is expected to define an open string background which is an exact solution in the weak coupling limit, where the back reaction of the closed string is ignored. The boundary state is also a source for closed strings. Once the boundary state is obtained, one can extract the time evolution of the source for each closed string mode. In particular, the energy momentum tensor can be obtained from the coefficients of the level $`(1,1)`$ states in the boundary state and it has been argued that the system will evolve to a pressureless gas with non-zero energy density called tachyon matter . A similar behavior has been found in the context of Boundary String Field Theory .

Tachyon matter appears to be a mysterious object in string theory. It is supposedly the decay product of the unstable D-brane. While the energy remains preserved and localized in the world-volume, there are no physical open string excitations . Furthermore, since the energy momentum tensor does not oscillate, tachyon matter does not seem to turn into the radiation of massless closed string modes. These features are crucial in the investigation of cosmology based on rolling tachyon . For example, from the observation that tachyon matter does not decay into light particles, tachyon matter has been regarded as a candidate of dark matter in several works . It also implies the reheating problem in tachyon inflation scenarios  as pointed out in . However, these analyses have only taken into account the behavior of the source for massless closed string modes in the rolling tachyon boundary state and have not seriously considered the effect of infinitely many massive closed string modes.

In this paper, we examine the rolling tachyon boundary state further to higher levels and compute the coefficients of these terms, which give the couplings between rolling tachyon and closed string massive modes. One might expect that the couplings would converge to zero or some finite values in the far future. We will see, however, that they become exponentially strong as the system evolves. In contrast to the ordinary case where massive modes decouple from the low energy physics, massive modes could play a significant role in our case, as the couplings soon become very large. Therefore, the analysis of the rolling tachyon using low energy effective theory such as supergravity 333See  for the study of the tachyon matter in the supergravity approach. is not good enough to obtain a correct physical picture. This result also suggests that the tachyon matter could decay through the massive closed string states. So, it may affect the cosmological scenarios that involve the rolling tachyon.

This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we review the rolling tachyon boundary state constructed in . In section 3, we explicitly compute the couplings to some of the closed string massive modes and show that they become large exponentially at late times. We also make an argument that the couplings to the massive closed string states blow up quite generally. In section 4, we consider the effect of the back reaction of the closed string fields and an estimate is given on the time scale in which the boundary state description is valid. Section 5 is devoted to exploring the exceptional cases in which all the couplings remain finite. We argue that the S-brane (spacelike D-brane) boundary state constructed in  can be obtained as a limit of the rolling tachyon boundary state. In section 6, we summarize our results and conclude with discussions.

## 2 Review of the Rolling Tachyon Boundary State

In this section, we review the boundary state description of the rolling tachyon constructed in . Throughout the paper, we use the convention $`\alpha ^{}=1`$.

Let us first consider a D25-brane in bosonic string theory. The configuration of the open string tachyon field on the D25-brane is described in the boundary CFT by turning on a boundary interaction. In , Sen has considered the tachyon field rolling up and down the potential as

$`T(x^0)\mathrm{cosh}(x^0),`$ (2.1)
for which the boundary interaction is of the form

$$\stackrel{~}{\lambda }𝑑t\mathrm{cosh}X^0(t),$$
(2.2)
where $`t`$ is the parameter which parameterizes the boundary of the world-sheet. The advantage of considering this configuration is that the Wick rotated theory, which is described by the world-sheet action

$$S=\frac{1}{2\pi }d^2zX\overline{}X+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }𝑑t\mathrm{cos}X(t),$$
(2.3)
is a solvable boundary conformal field theory . Therefore, we can use some of the exact results obtained in the Wick rotated theory in the analysis of the rolling tachyon by performing inverse Wick rotation.

The boundary state for the D25-brane with the boundary interaction (2.2) takes the form

$$|B=|B_{X^0}|B_\stackrel{}{X}|B_{bc},$$
(2.4)
where $`|B_\stackrel{}{X}`$ and $`|B_{bc}`$ are the usual boundary states for flat D25-branes:

$`|B_\stackrel{}{X}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\alpha _n^i\overline{\alpha }_n^i\right)|0,(i=1,\mathrm{},25)`$ (2.5)
$`|B_{bc}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(\overline{b}_nc_n+b_n\overline{c}_n)\right)(c_0+\overline{c_0})c_1\overline{c}_1|0.`$ (2.6)
$`|B_{X^0}`$ is the part of the boundary state that describes the dynamics of the rolling tachyon. The corresponding boundary state in the Wick rotated theory (2.3) has been constructed in . Since the boundary interaction in (2.3) introduces integer momenta, one can restrict oneself to the subspace spanned by the states carrying integer momenta. This allows one to work at the self-dual radius $`R=1`$. The boundary state in the compactified theory is given by acting an $`SU(2)`$ rotation on the unperturbed boundary state. The boundary state in the uncompactified theory is then obtained by projecting onto the unwinding states . The result is

$$|B_X=\underset{j=0,\frac{1}{2},1,\mathrm{}}{}\underset{m=j}{\overset{j}{}}D_{m,m}^j(R)|j;m,m.$$
(2.7)
Here $`R`$ is the $`SU(2)`$ rotation matrix

$$R=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\hfill & i\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\hfill \\ i\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\hfill & \mathrm{cos}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(2.8)
and $`D_{m,m}^j(R)`$ is a corresponding spin $`j`$ representation matrix element. $`|j;m,m`$ is the Virasoro Ishibashi state built over the primary state $`|j;m,m`$ (see section 3.1 for more details).

In , the oscillator-free part and the part proportional to $`\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1|0`$ have been explicitly computed:

$`|B_X`$ $`=`$ $`\left[1+2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi ))^n\mathrm{cos}(nX(0))\right]|0`$ (2.9)
$`\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1\left[\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi ))^n\mathrm{cos}(nX(0))\right]|0+\mathrm{}.`$
Performing the inverse Wick rotation $`XiX^0`$, we obtain

$`|B_{X^0}`$ $`=`$ $`f(X^0(0))|0+\alpha _1^0\overline{\alpha }_1^0g(X^0(0))|0+\mathrm{},`$ (2.10)
where

$`f(x^0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+e^{x^0}\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+e^{x^0}\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi )}}1,`$ (2.11)
$`g(x^0)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi )+1f(x^0).`$ (2.12)
The boundary state describing the rolling of the tachyon on unstable D-brane systems in superstring theory can also be obtained similarly. We consider a pair of D9 and $`\overline{\mathrm{D}}9`$ branes in type IIB theory or a single non-BPS D9-brane in type IIA theory. The D9-$`\overline{\mathrm{D}}9`$ brane pair is described by the boundary CFT with $`2\times 2`$ Chan-Paton factors and with an appropriate GSO projection ($`(1)^F=1`$ for DD and $`\overline{\mathrm{D}}\overline{\mathrm{D}}`$ strings, $`(1)^F=1`$ for $`\mathrm{D}\overline{\mathrm{D}}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{D}}\mathrm{D}`$ strings). A single non-BPS D9-brane is described as the orbifold of the D9-$`\overline{\mathrm{D}}9`$ system by $`(1)^{F_L}`$, where $`F_L`$ is the space-time fermion number from left-movers (see  for a review).

Following , we turn on a tachyon field of the form

$`T(x^0)\mathrm{cosh}(x^0/\sqrt{2}),`$ (2.13)
for which we should assign a Chan-Paton factor $`\sigma _1`$ . This is represented as the perturbation of the world-sheet action by the boundary interaction

$$\stackrel{~}{\lambda }𝑑t\psi ^0(t)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{X^0(t)}{\sqrt{2}}\right)\sigma _1,$$
(2.14)
i.e., the integral of the corresponding zero-picture vertex operator in the $`\sigma _1`$ sector.

The boundary state takes the form

$$|B=|B,+|B,,$$
(2.15)
where

$$|B,ϵ|B,ϵ_{X^0,\psi ^0}|B,ϵ_{\stackrel{}{X},\stackrel{}{\psi }}|B,ϵ_{ghost},(ϵ=\pm ).$$
(2.16)
Again, the spatial and the ghost parts take the usual expressions:

$`|B,ϵ_{\stackrel{}{X},\stackrel{}{\psi }}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\alpha _n^j\overline{\alpha }_n^j\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(iϵ{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\psi _{n1/2}^j\overline{\psi }_{n1/2}^j\right)|0,`$ (2.17)
$`|B,ϵ_{ghost}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(\overline{b}_nc_n+b_n\overline{c}_n)\right)`$ (2.18)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left(iϵ{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(\overline{\beta }_{n1/2}\gamma _{n1/2}\beta _{n1/2}\overline{\gamma }_{n1/2})\right)`$
$`\times (c_0+\overline{c_0})c_1\overline{c}_1e^{\varphi (0)}e^{\overline{\varphi }(0)}|0.`$
We are interested in the temporal part $`|B_{X^0,\psi ^0}`$. This part of the boundary state is obtained in a similar way to the bosonic case above. Namely, we first construct the boundary state in the Wick rotated theory, which is obtained by the analytic continuation $`X^0iX`$, $`\psi ^0i\psi `$ and $`\overline{\psi }^0i\overline{\psi }`$, and inverse Wick rotate the result.

In the Wick rotated theory, the boundary interaction is

$$\stackrel{~}{\lambda }𝑑t\psi (t)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{X(t)}{\sqrt{2}}\right)\sigma _1.$$
(2.19)
Since this boundary interaction is invariant under

$$XX+2\pi /\sqrt{2},\psi \psi ,$$
(2.20)
and $`\psi `$ appears only as byliners in the boundary state, the boundary state is a sum of states with momenta $`p=\sqrt{2}n`$ with integer $`n`$. Thus we can restrict ourselves to the space spanned by such states. This space is a subspace of the theory compactified at the free fermion radius $`R=1/\sqrt{2}`$. Thus we can fermionize $`X`$ through

$`XX_R(z)+X_L(\overline{z}),`$ (2.21)
$`e^{i\sqrt{2}X_R(z)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\xi +i\eta ),e^{i\sqrt{2}X_L(\overline{z})}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(\overline{\xi }+i\overline{\eta })`$ (2.22)
This shows that the compactified theory admits the $`SO(3)`$ (or $`SU(2)`$) current algebra. The super-Virasoro primaries can be classified according to the $`SU(2)`$ quantum numbers.

Such a boundary state takes the form

$$|B,ϵ_{X,\psi }=\underset{j=0,1,\mathrm{}}{}\underset{n=j}{\overset{j}{}}D_{n,n}^j(R)|j;n,n;ϵ,$$
(2.23)
where $`R`$ is the same matrix as above, but $`n`$ takes integer values here and $`|j;n,n;ϵ`$ is the super-Virasoro Ishibashi state built over the super-Virasoro primary $`|j,n,n`$. Explicit examples will be given in section 3.2. In , Sen has computed the parts of the boundary state relevant to the coupling to massless modes of closed string:

$`|B,ϵ_{X,\psi }`$ (2.24)
$`=`$ $`\left(1+2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^n\mathrm{sin}^{2n}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}(\sqrt{2}nX(0))\right)|0iϵ\psi _{1/2}\overline{\psi }_{1/2}`$
$`\times \left(\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^n\mathrm{sin}^{2n}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}(\sqrt{2}nX(0))\right)|0+\mathrm{}.`$
The inverse Wick rotation leads to

$$|B,ϵ_{X^0,\psi ^0}=\left(\widehat{f}(X^0(0))+iϵ\psi _{1/2}^0\overline{\psi }_{1/2}^0\widehat{g}(X^0(0))\right)|0,$$
(2.25)
where

$`\widehat{f}(x^0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })e^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })e^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}}1,`$ (2.26)
$`\widehat{g}(x^0)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })+1\widehat{f}(x^0).`$ (2.27)
## 3 Computation of the Massive Mode Coupling

In this section, we compute several higher level states in the rolling tachyon boundary state constructed in . We will find that the couplings of the tachyon to the massive modes exponentially diverge as $`x^0\mathrm{}`$.

### 3.1 Bosonic String

We write down the Virasoro Ishibashi states which are relevant in the calculation of the boundary state up to level (2,2) (see appendix A for details).

$`|0;0,0`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _1^2\overline{\alpha }_1^2+\mathrm{}\right)|0,`$ (3.28)
$`|{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}};\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(\alpha _1^2\pm \sqrt{2}\alpha _2)(\overline{\alpha }_1^2\pm \sqrt{2}\overline{\alpha }_2)+\mathrm{}\right)`$ (3.29)
$`\times e^{\pm iX(0)}|0,`$
$`|1;0,0`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _2\overline{\alpha }_2+\mathrm{}\right)|0,`$ (3.30)
$`|j;\pm j,\pm j`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _1^2\overline{\alpha }_1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _2\overline{\alpha }_2+\mathrm{}\right)`$ (3.31)
$`\times e^{\pm 2ijX(0)}|0(j1),`$
$`|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(\alpha _2\sqrt{2}\alpha _1^2)(\overline{\alpha }_2\sqrt{2}\overline{\alpha }_1^2)+\mathrm{}\right)e^{\pm iX(0)}|0.`$ (3.32)
Now, we are ready to compute the boundary state (2.7). Relevant matrix elements $`D_{m,m}^j(R)`$ of the $`SU(2)`$ rotation $`R`$ are given in Appendix B. Note that we have not determined possible phase factors which could appear in the above expressions (3.28)$``$(3.32). In , the phase factors for the Ishibashi states (3.28)$``$(3.31) have been determined by demanding that the boundary state $`|B_X`$ represents an array of D-branes localized at $`X=(2n+1)\pi `$ when $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1/2`$ . They can be read off from (2.9). The phase factor for (3.32) can be obtained similarly and it turns out to be $`i`$.

Collecting these together, we obtain

$`|B_X`$ (3.33)
$`=`$ $`|0;0,0+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^n\mathrm{sin}^n(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\left(\right|{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}};{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+|{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}};{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})`$
$`\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1};0,0`$
$`+\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(3\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })1)\left(\right|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})+\mathrm{}.`$
After the inverse Wick rotation, we find

$`|B_{X^0}`$ $`=`$ $`|B_0+|B_{1;1}`$ (3.34)
$`+|B_{2;2}+|B_{(1)^2;(1)^2}+|B_{(1)^2;2}+|B_{2;(1)^2}+\mathrm{}.`$
Here $`|B_0`$ and $`|B_{1,1}`$ are level $`(0,0)`$ and $`(1,1)`$ states given in (2.10).

We further find

$`|B_{2;2}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _2^0\overline{\alpha }_2^0{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0\left[(1+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }))+2\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cosh}(x^0)+f(x^0)\right]|x^0},`$
$`|B_{(1)^2;(1)^2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\alpha _1^0)^2(\overline{\alpha }_1^0)^2{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0\left[4\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cosh}(x^0)+f(x^0)\right]|x^0},`$
and

$`|B_{(1)^2;2}+|B_{2;(1)^2}`$ (3.37)
$`=`$ $`i\sqrt{2}((\alpha _1^0)^2\overline{\alpha }_2^0+\alpha _2^0(\overline{\alpha }_1^0)^2)\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }){\displaystyle 𝑑x^0\mathrm{sinh}(x^0)|x^0}.`$
All these states contain terms proportional to either $`\mathrm{cosh}(x^0)`$ or $`\mathrm{sinh}(x^0)`$ which exponentially blow up when $`|x^0|`$ becomes large. This result shows that the coupling between tachyon matter and massive closed string modes will become strong at late times.

We will not explicitly compute the states of level higher than 2, but we generally expect this kind of behavior in the higher level states. Note that the primary state $`|j;m,m`$ is of the form

$`|j;m,m=𝒪_{j,m}e^{2imX(0)}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$ (3.38)
where $`𝒪_{j,m}`$ is an operator of level $`(j^2m^2,j^2m^2)`$. When we are interested in a level $`(k,k)`$ state in the boundary state, we should take into account the Ishibashi states $`|j;m,m`$ with $`j^2m^2k`$. Then, apart from the case $`m=\pm j`$, there are only a finite number of choices for $`j`$ and $`m`$ satisfying $`j^2m^2k`$. The contribution from the infinite sum $`_jD_{\pm j,j}^j|j;\pm j,\pm j`$ managed to sum up to a harmless function like $`f(x^0)`$ in (2.11). But, unless there is an accidental cancellation among the other terms, the inverse Wick rotation of the contribution from momentum $`2m`$ states will blow up as $`e^{2mx^0}`$.

### 3.2 Superstring

We again begin by listing the super-Virasoro Ishibashi states for low-level primaries:

$`|0;0,0;ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`(1+iϵ\alpha _1\psi _{1/2}\overline{\alpha }_1\overline{\psi }_{1/2}+\mathrm{})|0,`$ (3.39)
$`|1;\pm 1,\pm 1;ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`[1+iϵ\psi _{1/2}\overline{\psi }_{1/2}+\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1`$ (3.40)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}iϵ(\psi _{3/2}\pm \alpha _1\psi _{1/2})(\overline{\psi }_{3/2}\pm \overline{\alpha }_1\overline{\psi }_{1/2})+\mathrm{}]`$
$`\times e^{\pm i\sqrt{2}X(0)}|0,`$
$`|1;0,0;ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`(iϵ\psi _{1/2}\overline{\psi }_{1/2}+\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1+iϵ\psi _{3/2}\overline{\psi }_{3/2}+\mathrm{})|0,`$ (3.41)
$`|j;\pm j,\pm j;ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`(1+iϵ\psi _{1/2}\overline{\psi }_{1/2}+\alpha _1\overline{\alpha }_1`$ (3.42)
$`+iϵ\psi _{3/2}\overline{\psi }_{3/2}+iϵ\psi _{1/2}\alpha _1\overline{\psi }_{1/2}\overline{\alpha }_1+\mathrm{})e^{\pm \sqrt{2}ijX(0)}|0,`$
$`(j=2,3,4,\mathrm{}),`$
$`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2};\pm 1,\pm 1;ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\psi _{3/2}\alpha _1\psi _{1/2})(\overline{\psi }_{3/2}\overline{\alpha }_1\overline{\psi }_{1/2})e^{\pm i\sqrt{2}X(0)}|0+\mathrm{}.`$
The coefficient of $`|2;\pm 1,\pm 1;ϵ`$ is $`D_{\pm 1,1}^2(R)`$ times a phase factor which is determined to be $`iϵ`$ as in the bosonic case. Other coefficients can be read off from (2.24). Therefore the boundary state is

$`|B,ϵ_{X,\psi }`$ (3.44)
$`=`$ $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0};0,0;ϵ+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^n\mathrm{sin}^{2n}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\left(\right|n;n,n;ϵ+|n;n,n;ϵ)`$
$`\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1};0,0;ϵ`$
$`+iϵ\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2};1,1;ϵ+|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2};1,1;ϵ)+\mathrm{}.`$
After analytic continuation, we get

$`|B_{X^0,\psi ^0}`$ $`=`$ $`|B_{0;0}+|B_{1/2;1/2}+|B_{1;1}+|B_{3/2;3/2}`$
$`+|B_{1,1/2;1,1/2}+|B_{3/2;1,1/2}+|B_{1,1/2;3/2}+\mathrm{},`$
where the first two terms are given in (2.25) and

$`|B_{1;1}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _1^0\overline{\alpha _1^0}(\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })1+\widehat{f}(X^0(0)))|0,`$ (3.45)
$`|B_{3/2;3/2}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ\psi _{3/2}^0\overline{\psi }_{3/2}^0[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\widehat{f}(X^0(0))`$ (3.46)
$`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })+1)\mathrm{cosh}(\sqrt{2}X^0(0))]|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$
$`|B_{1,1/2;1,1/2}`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ\alpha _1^0\psi _{1/2}^0\overline{\alpha }_1^0\overline{\psi }_{1/2}^0[\widehat{f}(X^0(0))`$ (3.47)
$`+\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(1+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }))\mathrm{cosh}(\sqrt{2}X^0(0))]|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$
and

$`|B_{3/2;1/2,1}+|B_{1/2,1;3/2}`$ (3.48)
$`=`$ $`ϵ\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(1+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }))`$
$`\times \left(\psi _{3/2}^0\overline{\alpha }_1^0\overline{\psi }_{1/2}^0+\alpha _1^0\psi _{1/2}^0\overline{\psi }_{3/2}^0\right)\mathrm{sinh}(\sqrt{2}X^0(0))|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$
We see that as in the bosonic case, the boundary state contains exponentially divergent couplings to massive modes.

## 4 On the Back Reaction of Closed Strings

So far, we have ignored the dynamics of the closed string and focused on the classical equation of motion for the open string. This analysis is only justified in the weak coupling limit. What happens when we slightly turn on the string coupling $`g_s`$? As we have shown in the previous section, even if the string coupling is small, the system with rolling tachyon will become strongly coupled to closed string massive modes at late times and we expect a large back reaction of the closed string fields. Let us make this point more explicit in this section.

In string field theory, the tree-level action in terms of the canonically normalized string fields looks like

$$S\stackrel{~}{\psi }Q_o\stackrel{~}{\psi }+g_s^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{\psi }^3+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }Q_c\stackrel{~}{\varphi }+g_s\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^3+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }B(g_s^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{\psi })+\mathrm{}.$$
(4.49)
Here $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ is an open string field and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ is a closed string field. $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }B(g_s^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{\psi })`$ symbolically denotes the coupling among one closed string field and open string fields. The power of $`g_s`$ in each term is determined from the Euler characteristic of the disk or sphere, and the powers of open and closed string fields.

The boundary state considered in the previous sections corresponds to $`B(g_s^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0)`$ and plays a role of a source for the closed string. Here, $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0`$ denotes a solution of the equations of motion for the open string obtained by turning off the closed strings. To see this structure more clearly, it is convenient to change the normalization for the open string and absorb the coupling constant as

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }=g_s^{1/2}\psi ,$$
(4.50)
Then, the action becomes

$$S=g_s^1(\psi Q_o\psi +\psi ^3)+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }Q_c\stackrel{~}{\varphi }+g_s\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^3+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }B(\psi )+\mathrm{}.$$
(4.51)
The equation of motion for the closed string field is

$$Q_c\stackrel{~}{\varphi }+g_s\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^2+B(\psi )+\mathrm{}=0,$$
(4.52)
which imply the BRST invariance of the boundary state $`Q_cB=0`$ in the weak coupling limit. On the other hand, the equation of motion for the open string field is

$$Q_o\psi +\psi ^2+g_s\stackrel{~}{\varphi }B^{}(\psi )+\mathrm{}=0,$$
(4.53)
which shows that the closed strings are decoupled from the open strings in the weak coupling limit.

However, once we turn on the non-zero string coupling $`g_s`$, the coupling of the rolling tachyon boundary state to the closed string massive modes exponentially grows when $`x^0\mathrm{}`$, as we have shown in the previous section, and hence it is not consistent to ignore the dynamics of closed string at late times, even if $`g_s`$ is small. In fact, since there are exponentially growing source terms for the massive closed string modes in the equations of motion (4.52), the fluctuation will also blow up exponentially. Then, according to (4.53), this back reaction will alter the equations of motion for the open string. Therefore, even if the effect of merely the lowest diverging modes are included, the boundary state description of the rolling tachyon given in the previous sections is only reliable when

$$g_se^{|t|/l_s}1.$$
(4.54)
Since higher levels have couplings which grow as $`e^{m|t|}`$ with arbitrary $`m`$, the boundary state description is expected to be valid in the time-scale shorter than that given by this inequality.

When the time $`t`$ is large enough, we need to take the closed strings into consideration, and the whole picture will drastically change. For example, from the fact that the energy momentum tensor does not oscillate, people anticipated that the tachyon matter will not decay into closed string modes. However, since the coupling to the massive modes will exponentially grow, we can expect that the tachyon matter will start to emit massive closed string modes and eventually decay into massless particles. Moreover, there is a large back reaction of closed strings, especially from the massive fields. This is in contrast to the usual static D-brane cases, in which supergravity analysis essentially gives the precise low energy description. It would be interesting to analyze the system further using the equations of motion (4.52) and (4.53).

## 5 Relation to the S-brane Boundary States

In section 3, we explicitly computed the coefficients of some higher level states in the rolling tachyon boundary state and found that they become large at late times. However, there are special values of $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ at which the couplings remain finite. In the bosonic string case, since $`D_{m,m}^j(R)`$ is invariant under $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{\lambda }+2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$, the whole system has the same symmetries. Thus we can restrict $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ to $`1/2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$. If we take $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ to be $`\pm 1/2`$ or $`0`$, the coefficients of $`\mathrm{cosh}(x^0)`$ and $`\mathrm{sinh}(x^0)`$ in (LABEL:22)$``$(3.37) vanish. This fact can be easily understood from the known behavior of the boundary state (2.7) in the Wick rotated theory at those values of $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$. When $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ is zero, the boundary state becomes a static boundary state with the Neumann boundary condition, which represents a static D25-brane with a tachyon sitting on top of the maximum of its potential. For $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1/2`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1/2`$, the boundary state (2.7) represents an array of D-branes localized at $`X=(2n+1)\pi `$ or $`X=2n\pi `$ with $`n𝐙`$, respectively, in the Wick rotated theory . Therefore, we obtain

$`|B_{X;\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=\pm 1/2}=\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\alpha _n\overline{\alpha }_n\right){\displaystyle \underset{n𝐙}{}}()^ne^{inX(0)}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$ (5.55)
The zero mode part can be formally written as

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n𝐙}{}}()^ne^{inX(0)}|0`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\pm e^{iX(0)}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\pm e^{iX(0)}}}1\right)|0,`$ (5.56)
whose inverse Wick rotation is given as

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\pm e^{X(0)}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\pm e^{X(0)}}}1\right)|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}=\underset{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pm 1/2}{lim}f(X^0(0))|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$ (5.57)
where $`f(x^0)`$ is given in (2.11). In fact, we can show that the boundary state is of the form 444 At each level, an infinite number of terms from $`|j;\pm j,\pm j`$ sum up to $`f(x^0)`$, leaving a finite number of terms that vanish in the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pm 1/2`$.

$`|B_{X^0;\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pm 1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\alpha _n\overline{\alpha }_n\right)f(X(0))|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$ (5.58)
up to the terms which are cancelled at $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=\pm 1/2`$. As a check, we can see in (2.10) and (LABEL:22)$``$(3.37) that every term which does not include $`f(x^0)`$ vanishes in the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pm 1/2`$.

In the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$, the function $`f(x^0)`$ also vanishes and the whole boundary state becomes zero. This implies that the system is at the closed string vacuum, which corresponds to placing the tachyon at the minimum of its potential . We should be more careful in taking the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$, since the function $`f(x^0)`$ is singular at $`x^0=\pm \mathrm{log}(\mathrm{sin}(\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\pi ))`$ for $`1/2<\stackrel{~}{\lambda }<0`$. This behavior of $`f(x^0)`$ with negative $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ has been interpreted in  that the tachyon is rolling on the wrong side of the hill where the potential is unbounded from below. Though it is not quite clear whether it is physically meaningful to take the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$, here we would like to point out a suggestive relation between the rolling tachyon boundary state in this limit and the S-brane boundary state constructed in .

Because of the limit $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$, the summation in (5.56) should be understood as being regularized as

$$\underset{n𝐙}{}e^{inx}=\underset{ϵ+0}{lim}\underset{n𝐙}{}e^{ϵ|n|}e^{inx}=\underset{ϵ+0}{lim}\left(\frac{1}{1e^{ϵ+ix}}+\frac{1}{1e^{ϵix}}1\right).$$
(5.59)
After the inverse Wick rotation $`x`$ is replaced by $`ie^{i\delta }x^0`$:

$$\underset{ϵ,\delta +0}{lim}\left(\frac{1}{1e^{ϵ+e^{i\delta }x^0}}+\frac{1}{1e^{ϵe^{i\delta }x^0}}1\right).$$
(5.60)
The limit vanishes except at $`x^0=0`$. Integrating this function with the use of residue theorem, one finds that this function equals $`2\pi i\delta (x^0)`$. The boundary state now becomes

$`|B_{X^0;\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2}=2\pi i\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\alpha _n^0\overline{\alpha }_n^0\right)\delta (X^0(0))|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$ (5.61)
This is nothing but the S-brane boundary state, which represents the Dirichlet boundary condition in the time direction.

Similarly, in the superstring case, the system is invariant under $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{\lambda }+1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$, so we can restrict $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ to $`0\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1/2`$. The system does not evolve at $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=0,1/2`$. When $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ is zero, the system is the original D9-brane system. When $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1/2`$, the Wick rotated NS-NS boundary state considered here represents an array of D-branes placed at $`x=\frac{2\pi }{\sqrt{2}}(n+\frac{1}{2})`$:

$$|B_{X,\psi ;\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=1/2}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n}\alpha _n\overline{\alpha }_n+iϵ\underset{r=1/2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\psi _r\overline{\psi }_r\right)\underset{n𝐙}{}(1)^ne^{i\sqrt{2}nX(0)}|0.$$
(5.62)
Now if we shift $`XX+\pi /\sqrt{2}`$ and then inverse Wick rotate, one obtains as in the bosonic case

$$\sqrt{2}\pi i|x^0=0$$
(5.63)
for the zero mode part. This gives the boundary state for a spacelike brane. This suggests that the spacelike brane corresponds to the boundary interaction

$$S=\frac{i}{2}𝑑t\psi ^0(t)\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{X^0(t)}{\sqrt{2}}\right)\sigma _1.$$
(5.64)
Unfortunately, comparing this with the boundary interaction before the shift in $`X`$, one sees that this corresponds to an imaginary value of the tachyon field, which should be real to be physical. Thus, we conclude that the S-brane boundary state in superstring can be formally thought of as a rolling of imaginary tachyon, though its physical relevance is unclear.

## 6 Conclusions and Discussions

In this paper, we analyzed the higher level states in the rolling tachyon boundary state for bosonic string as well as superstring theory. We explicitly calculated some of the coefficients of the higher level states which correspond to the coupling between the tachyon matter and the massive closed string modes and found that they include terms that blow up like $`\mathrm{cosh}(x^0)`$ or $`\mathrm{sinh}(x^0)`$. We also argued that the S-brane boundary state given in  can be obtained as a special limit of the rolling tachyon boundary state.

These results suggest that the massive closed string modes play an important role in string theory, when we take into account the interaction between closed strings and open strings. The tachyon matter may decay through the massive closed string modes and this effect may become important in the cosmological scenarios using the rolling tachyon. Note that this is truly a stringy effect which cannot be seen using the low energy effective theory. It would be interesting to make a systematic analysis of the open-closed mixed system to obtain a better picture about the fate of the unstable D-brane.

It is well-known that in the presence of the space-time filling D-branes, the closed string background should be shifted in order to cancel the divergence due to the massless tadpole. This argument is usually given in the static configuration, in which the tachyon is not rolling. In the static case, the boundary state represents a constant source for the closed strings. This constant source is important for the massless fields, but not for the massive fields, since it only causes a small constant shift for the massive fields. On the other hand, in the case with time evolution, the massive fields could also receive a large back reaction. Moreover, since the boundary state carries non-zero energy, it will become possible to create some particles and transfer the energy to closed string modes. In our rolling tachyon case, since the coupling between the closed string and the open string will become large and we should take into account the huge back reaction of the closed string fields beyond the time range given in (4.54), the perturbative analysis of the string theory may not be practical. We hope we can make these issues clear in the near future.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Sanefumi Moriyama, Paul Mukhopadhyay, Yuji Okawa, Ashoke Sen, and Barton Zwiebach for useful discussions. T. O. thanks Hiroshi Ooguri for helpful conversations. S. S. is also grateful to Shinji Mukohyama, Kazumi Okuyama, Soo-Jong Rey, and Seiji Terashima for useful discussions.

Note added: While preparing the paper, we received a related paper  in which some of the higher level states in the rolling tachyon boundary state in bosonic string theory are also calculated.

## Appendix A Discrete Primaries and Ishibashi States

### A.1 Bosonic String

Let us consider the theory of a single free boson $`X`$. The state $`|j;m,m`$ used in section 2 is a primary state of momentum $`2m`$ and conformal weight $`(j^2,j^2)`$, where $`j=0,1/2,1,\mathrm{}`$ and $`m=j,j+1,\mathrm{},j`$. It can be factorized into right and left moving parts as $`|j;m,m=|j,m\overline{|j,m}`$. The state $`|j,m`$ belongs to the spin $`j`$ representation of the $`SU(2)`$ current algebra defined by

$`J^\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{dz}{2\pi i}e^{\pm 2iX_R(z)}},J^3={\displaystyle \frac{dz}{2\pi i}iX_R(z)},`$ (A.1)
and it can be explicitly given as

$`|j,j`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2ijX(0)}|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$ (A.2)
$`|j,m`$ $`=`$ $`N_{j,m}(J^{})^{jm}|j,j,`$ (A.3)
where $`N_{j,m}`$ is the normalization constant. In practice, primaries are computed as the lowest null state in the Verma module of lower-weight primaries. Examples of the discrete primary states can be found in (3.28)-(3.32) as the first terms.

Given a primary state $`|h`$, the Virasoro Ishibashi state $`|h`$ is defined as

$$|h|n\overline{U|n},$$
(A.4)
where $`\{|n\}`$ is an arbitrary orthonormal basis of the space spanned by Virasoro descendant states of $`|h`$ and $`U`$ is an antiunitary operator such that

$$UL_nU^1=L_n,U|h=|h.$$
(A.5)
Such a state preserves half the conformal symmetries:

$$(L_n\overline{L}_n)|h=0.$$
(A.6)
### A.2 Superstring

Let us next consider the superconformal theory of $`(X,\psi )`$ in the NS-NS sector. This theory has the symmetry of the NS-algebra with $`\widehat{c}=1`$ and its antiholomorphic copy. The super-Virasoro primaries $`|j;m,m`$ in section 2 are given in a similar way to the bosonic case. This time, $`j`$ takes only integer values and the $`SO(3)`$ generators are

$$J^\pm =\frac{dz}{2\pi i}\sqrt{2}\psi (z)e^{\pm i\sqrt{2}X_R(z)},J^3=\frac{dz}{2\pi i}\sqrt{2}X_R(z),$$
(A.7)
which commute with super-Virasoro generators. Given a super-Virasoro primary $`|h`$, the super-Virasoro Ishibashi state $`|h`$ is defined as (A.4), where $`\{|n\}`$ is any orthonormal basis of the space spanned by the descendants $`L_{n_1}\mathrm{}L_{n_p}G_{r_1}\mathrm{}G_{r_q}|h`$. $`U`$ is an antiunitary operator satisfying (A.5) as well as

$$UG_rU^1=iϵG_r(1)^F,$$
(A.8)
where $`F`$ counts the number of $`G_r`$ acting on $`|h`$ . The super-Virasoro Ishibashi state preserves half the superconformal symmetries:

$$(G_riϵ\overline{G}_r)|h=(L_n\overline{L}_n)|h=0.$$
(A.9)
## Appendix B Matrix Elements for rotation $`R`$

Here, we list the relevant matrix elements of the $`SU(2)`$ rotation $`R`$ in (2.8). See for example  for general matrix elements.

$`D_{\pm j,j}^j(R)`$ $`=`$ $`(i\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }))^{2j}(j=0,1/2,1,\mathrm{}),`$ (B.10)
$`D_{0,0}^1(R)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }),`$ (B.11)
$`D_{\pm 1/2,1/2}^{3/2}`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{sin}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })(3\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })1),`$ (B.12)
$`D_{\pm 1,1}^2(R)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda }).`$ (B.13)