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# Anderson-type model for a molecule adsorbed on a metal surface

## 1 Introduction

In the last decade, a lot of progress has been made in the theoretical and experimental investigation of nanostructures like quantum dots and quantum wires . These structures are produced by lithography. Using this very flexible technology, a large variety of different structures with different geometries has been made. Simple dots, multiple dots, dot arrays and the corresponding leads have been realized both using metals and semiconductors. A disadvantage of lithographic methods is the presence of fluctuations in shape and size of these structures; they are unavoidable because of errors in writing the mask and because of the stochastic nature of the etching process.

The idea to use molecules or supramolecular structures as quantum wires and quantum dots has been around for quite a while, see Ref.  for an early suggestion of a molecular rectifier and Refs.  for recent reviews. Powerful chemical synthesis methods are available that allow the production of atomic and molecular clusters with linear dimensions of up to 5 nm, i.e., they are approaching the lowest linear dimensions of nanostructures produced by lithography. It is a fascinating idea that such clusters which would have custom-made electronic properties could be included in nanostructures and replace, say, a quantum dot. Different copies of these systems would be identical in structure and properties (e.g., there is no difference in the composition of different C60 molecules). First steps in the direction of this ‘bottom-up approach’ are under way in a number of labs around the world. Scanning probe techniques have been used to arrange atoms on a substrate in arbitrary ways . A particularly impressive example is the ‘quantum corral’ , a circularly shaped structure of Fe atoms on a Cu(111) surface that may be considered a precursor of a device. Carbon nanotubes have been contacted and proven to exhibit Coulomb-blockade behavior . A new kind of transistor whose central element is a C60 molecule has been proposed . The theory of conduction through molecular wires has been studied by a number of groups (see, e.g., Refs. ). Also, the thermal conduction through molecular wires has been investigated . Recently, the coupling of a molecule to a metal has been studied both experimentally and theoretically .

A central problem facing the use of molecules as electronic devices is the question of how to contact them in a reproducible way. An interesting answer to this question was given in a recent experiment  in which a custom-designed “lander” molecule  was adsorbed on a $`(111)`$ copper surface. The molecules can be thought of as consisting of an aromatic platform and four spacer “legs”. The spacer legs keep the main board at such a distance from the metal surface that the aromatic part is electronically decoupled from the surface.

The molecules self-assembled perpendicularly to a step on the surface, thereby forming a contact between the metal and the aromatic board (the length of the legs was chosen to be comparable to the step height). A scanning-tunneling microscope (STM) was used to scan along the surface and the molecule, and it was found that the tunneling conductance decayed in an exponential way along the molecule.

In this paper, we would like to study a (relatively) simple model for the molecule at the metal step. In contrast to the quantum-chemical calculations provided in  that take into account the precise structure of the lander molecule, we propose to use a modified Anderson model to describe this situation. The ‘impurity’ of the new model is spatially extended, i.e., contains internal degrees of freedom not present in the standard Anderson model. The aim will be to calculate the local density of states of an extended structure (the molecule) using a Green’s function method. The molecule will be approximated by a (finite) one- or two-dimensional tight-binding lattice with a Hubbard-like interaction. Our goal is to gain a qualitative understanding of the physical problem and its phenomenology (as opposed to quantum-chemical calculations for specific molecules) to be able to propose and analyze more complicated (e.g., multiply-connected) structures in the future.

## 2 Model

The system we have in mind is shown in Fig. 1. Our model is defined by a Hamiltonian that consists of three parts, $`H=H_c+H_d+H_T`$. The metal to which the molecular wire is attached is described by non-interacting electrons in a conduction band

$$H_c=\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}ϵ_𝐤c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma },$$
(1)
where $`𝐤`$ and $`\sigma =,`$ denote electron wave vectors and spins, respectively. The single-electron energy $`ϵ_𝐤`$ is measured with respect to the Fermi energy ($`ϵ_F=0`$). The molecular wire is assumed to be a one-dimensional lattice of $`L`$ atomic sites and is described within the Hubbard model

$$H_d=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{L}{}}t_{ij}d_{i\sigma }^{}d_{j\sigma }+U\underset{j=1}{\overset{L}{}}n_jn_j.$$
(2)
The parameters that enter here are the on-site electron-electron interaction $`U`$ and the matrix elements $`t_{ij}=ϵ_d\delta _{ij}t\delta _{i,j\pm 1}`$, where $`ϵ_d`$ is the on-site energy of the single-particle level at each site and $`t`$ is the hopping element between nearest neighbors. The coupling of the wire to the metal is assumed to be small so that we can describe it by the tunneling amplitude $`V_𝐤`$ of the electron in the state $`(𝐤,\sigma )`$ to the first site $`j=1`$:

$$H_T=\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}(V_𝐤c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}d_{1\sigma }+h.c.).$$
(3)
The model defined by $`H`$ is a generalization of the Anderson impurity model: for $`L=1`$, the molecule reduces to a localized level, and (3) is the hybridization term of the Anderson impurity model.

The qualitative nature of the spectrum of the system is shown in the right part of Fig. 1. We characterize the metal by a model density of states $`N_c(E)`$ to be discussed below and shown schematically in (a). If the molecule is not coupled to the metal, $`V=0`$, its spectrum consists of discrete levels as shown in (b). Coupling the molecule to the metal broadens the spectral lines as shown in (c). If we assume a filling of one electron per site, the presence of strong on-site interactions leads to the formation of a Mott-Hubbard gap as shown in (d).

We will use the imaginary-time path-integral formalism at finite temperature $`k_BT1/\beta `$ (see, e.g., Ref. ). In this formalism, the Euclidean action is given by

$$S^E=_0^\beta 𝑑\tau \left(\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}_\tau c_{𝐤\sigma }+\underset{j\sigma }{}d_{j\sigma }^{}_\tau d_{j\sigma }+H\right),$$
(4)
and we want to calculate the thermal Green’s function

$$𝒢(j\sigma ,k\sigma ^{};\tau )=T_\tau d_{j\sigma }^{}(0)d_{k\sigma ^{}}(\tau )$$
(5)
and its Fourier transform defined by $`𝒢(j\sigma ,k\sigma ^{};i\omega _n)=_0^\beta 𝑑\tau e^{i\omega _n\tau }𝒢(j\sigma ,k\sigma ^{};\tau )`$, where $`\omega _n(2n+1)\pi /\beta `$ with $`n`$ integer are the Matsubara frequencies.

First, we consider the non-interacting case, $`U=0`$. In this case, the Euclidean action (4) is quadratic both in $`c_{𝐤\sigma }(c_{𝐤\sigma }^{})`$ and $`d_{j\sigma }(d_{j\sigma }^{})`$, and it follows that $`𝒢(j\sigma ,k\sigma ^{};i\omega _n)=\delta _{\sigma \sigma ^{}}𝒢(j,k;i\omega _n)`$,

$$𝒢^1(j,k;i\omega _n)=𝒢_0^1(j,k;i\omega _n)\mathrm{\Sigma }_c(j,k;i\omega _n),$$
(6)
or more explicitly

$$𝒢(i,j)=𝒢_0(i,j)+\frac{𝒢_0(i,0)\mathrm{\Sigma }_c(0,0)𝒢_0(0,j)}{1𝒢_0(0,0)\mathrm{\Sigma }_c(0,0)}.$$
(7)
The unperturbed (non-interacting, isolated) Green’s function is given by

$$𝒢_0^1(j,k;i\omega _n)=i\omega _nt_{jk}.$$
(8)
In Eqs. (6) and (7), the coupling to the metal manifests its effect on the wire through the self-energy

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_c(j,k;i\omega _n)=\delta _{j1}\delta _{k1}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dϵ}{2\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(ϵ)}{i\omega _nϵ}.$$
(9)
The effect of the metal on the molecular wire is given by the function

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)2\underset{𝐤}{}|V_𝐤|^2\mathrm{Im}G_c^R(𝐤,E),$$
(10)
where $`G_c^R(𝐤,E)`$ is the retarded Green’s function for the (unperturbed) metal. In the simplest case in which the energy-dependence of the tunneling amplitude $`V_𝐤`$ is not too large, $`V_𝐤V`$, (10) can be further reduced to an expression directly proportional to the density of states in the metal $`N_c(E)`$: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(E)=2\pi V^2N_c(E)`$.

The local density of states (LDOS) at the $`j`$th site is then given by the analytic continuation of the thermal Green’s function.

$$\rho (j,E)=\frac{2}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}𝒢(j,j;i\omega _nE+i0^+).$$
(11)
The factor 2 accounts for the contributions from the two spin components.

We now turn to the opposite limit in which the electron-electron interaction on the molecule is very strong; $`Ut`$ . In this case, exact solutions are only available in special cases; the isolated molecule ($`V_𝐤=0`$), i.e, the usual Hubbard model  and the single-site molecule ($`L=1`$), i.e., the usual Anderson impurity model . There are many approximation methods for the Hubbard model or the Anderson model (see Ref.  for a recent review), and we will adopt a self-consistent mean-field approximation .

We start with the strong-$`U`$ limit of $`H_d`$ in (2), i.e., the $`tJ`$ Hamiltonian

$$H_d\underset{ij}{}t_{ij}d_{i\sigma }^{}d_{j\sigma }\frac{1}{U}\underset{ijk}{}t_{ij}(d_i^{}d_j^{}d_i^{}d_j^{})t_{jk}(d_jd_kd_jd_k)$$

within the reduced Hilbert space without doubly occupied sites. The second term in (2) can be made quadratic in $`d_{j\sigma }(d_{j\sigma }^{})`$ by means of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation introducing the auxiliary field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ to get the molecular part (corresponding to $`H_d`$) in the Euclidean action (4)

$$S_d^E=S_\mathrm{\Delta }^E+_0^\beta 𝑑\tau \underset{ij}{}\widehat{d}_i^{}\left[\delta _{ij}_\tau +t_{ij}\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{ij}\right]\widehat{d}_j,$$
(12)
where $`\tau _3`$ is the Pauli matrix and $`S_\mathrm{\Delta }^E=_0^\beta 𝑑\tau U_j|\mathrm{\Delta }_j|^2`$. In Eq. (12), we have introduced a two-component spinor representation

$$\widehat{d}_j\left[\begin{array}{c}d_j\\ d_j^{}\end{array}\right],\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{ij}t_{ij}\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& \mathrm{\Delta }_i+\mathrm{\Delta }_j\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_i^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}& 0\end{array}\right].$$
(13)
In this representation, the Green’s function in Eq. (5) also has a matrix form $`\widehat{𝒢}(i,j;\tau )=T_\tau \widehat{d}_i(0)\widehat{d}_j^{}(\tau )`$. After integrating out the fields $`c_{𝐤\sigma }`$ and $`c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}`$, the Euclidean action can be written as

$$S^E=S_\mathrm{\Delta }^E_0^\beta 𝑑\tau 𝑑\tau ^{}\widehat{d}_i^{}(\tau )\widehat{𝒢}^1(i,j;\tau \tau ^{})\widehat{d}_j(\tau ^{})$$
(14)
where the Green’s function $`𝒢`$ is given by the Dyson equation

$$\widehat{𝒢}^1(j,k;i\omega _n)=\widehat{𝒢}_0^1(j,k;i\omega _n)\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c(j,k;i\omega _n)\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(j,k;i\omega _n),$$
(15)
with the new self-energy term $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}(i,j;\tau )=\delta (\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{ij}(\tau )`$. Here $`𝒢_0`$ in (8) and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_c`$ in Eq. (9) have been extended to matrix form in a trivial way: $`\widehat{𝒢}_0=𝒢_0\widehat{\tau }_0`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c=\mathrm{\Sigma }_c\widehat{\tau }_0`$, where $`\tau _0`$ is the identity matrix.

So far no approximation has been made and the formal expression for the Euclidean action in Eq. (14) is exact. The interaction effect is correctly incorporated through the self-energy term $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ (whereas the effect of the metal is again manifested by $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c`$) as long as the integration over the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ is performed properly. At this point, we make our main approximation and neglect the fluctuations in the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$. We first assume a particular realization of the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ in the Dyson equation (15) and then determine $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ within the stationary-phase approximation. Iterating this procedure allows us to determine $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ and the Green’s function self-consistently. Moreover, the self-consistency equation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_i=\frac{1}{U}\underset{j}{}t_{ij}d_id_jd_id_j$$
(16)
corresponding to this procedure, gives us a physical interpretation of the field $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$: $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j`$ measures the spin-singlet correlation between the $`j`$th site and its neighboring sites. It is clear that in the limit $`U\mathrm{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j2t/U`$ unless $`j`$ is too close to the boundaries. Finally, the LDOS can be obtained from the diagonal components of the retarded Green’s function $`\widehat{G}^R(j,k;E)=\widehat{𝒢}(j,k;i\omega _nE+i0^+)`$:

$$\rho (j,E)=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\left[\widehat{G}_{11}^R(j,j;E)+\widehat{G}_{22}^R(j,j;E)\right].$$
(17)
## 3 Results

We will now report specific results on the LDOS of the molecular wire and discuss their physical implications. For the density of states (DOS) in the metal, we adopt the model functional form $`N_c(E)=N_c(0)(1E^2/W_c^2)`$. The parameters $`N_c(0)`$ and $`W_c`$ specify the DOS at the Fermi energy and the width of the conduction band, respectively. The self-energy contribution (9) from the coupling to the metal is then given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_c(j,k;E)=\delta _{j1}\delta _{k1}V^2\left[\alpha _c(E)i\pi N_c(E)\right]$$
(18)
with $`\alpha _c(E)`$ defined by

$$\alpha _c(E)=N_c(0)\left[\frac{2E}{W_c}+\left(1\frac{E^2}{W_c^2}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left|\frac{E/W_c+1}{E/W_c1}\right|\right].$$
(19)
All results shown in this work will be generated using the values $`ϵ_d=4t`$, $`V=0.1t`$, $`W_c=40t`$, and $`N_c(0)=10/t`$. The other parameters will be specified as needed. We also remark that we only investigate the lower band, i.e., the band below the Mott-Hubbard gap, in the interacting case.

In Fig. 2 we plot typical LDOS curves at three different sites ($`j=1`$, $`3`$, and $`5`$) on a molecule with size $`L=10`$ and on-site interaction $`U=10t`$. The structures get sharper as $`U`$ increases  because tunneling is blocked, see the discussion below. At a given site, the LDOS decays rapidly outside the band.

Figure 3 shows the spatial dependence of the LDOS along molecules with sizes $`L=10`$ and $`20`$, respectively, both for the non-interacting (open circle) and interacting (solid circle) case. The LDOS has been calculated at the fixed energy $`E=2t`$, slightly above the upper edge of the band (remember that at the parameter values chosen below Eq. (19), $`E=2t`$ is the upper edge of the band for an infinite tight-binding chain, i.e., $`H_d`$ with $`L=\mathrm{}`$ and $`U=0`$ in Eq. (2)). The LDOS decays exponentially with distance from the metal-molecule contact, except for the region close to the boundaries. This reproduces the exponential decay of the STM tunneling conductance in Ref. . It also agrees with the expectation that the electron wave function induced by the metal to the molecule should decay in an exponential way. Another interesting conclusion that can be drawn from Fig. 3 is the influence of the interaction on the suppression of the LDOS. The characteristic decay length decreases with the interaction $`U`$. This can be interpreted by saying that the strong repulsion by the electrons sitting on (singly-occupied) sites tends to block tunneling events from the metal to the molecule. This effectively leads to the suppression of the “hybridization” term $`H_T`$, Eq. (3). The suppression of the LDOS by interaction effects does not depend on the choice $`E=2t`$, however, the spatial scale would be different for different positions of the molecular level. The influence of repulsive interactions was also studied in , where it is shown that the suppression is lower for repulsive interactions than for a dimerization leading to the same value of the gap.

In conclusion, we have calculated the local density of states of a molecule adsorbed to a metal surface using a new Anderson-type model. The LDOS decays along the molecule in an exponential way (like in the experiment ) and is suppressed by a local interaction on the molecule. Our formalism provides a qualitative understanding of this and similar experiments. It is able to include local interaction effects and can be used to treat more complicated geometries that will be investigated in future experiments.

\***

We would like to acknowledge discussions with T. Jung and A. Baratoff and thank J. Gimzewski for providing a preprint of Ref. .


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# Quintessence-like Dark Matter in Spiral Galaxies

## Abstract

Through the geodesic analysis of a static and axially symmetric space time, we present conditions on the state equation of an isotropic perfect fluid $`p=\omega d`$, when it is considered as dark matter in spiral galaxies. The main conclusion is that it can be an exotic fluid ($`1<\omega <1/3`$) as it is found for Quintessence at cosmological scale.

There is no doubt about the importance of the mystery concerning the nature of dark matter in the Universe and in particular in galaxies. The consequences of observations made on SNIa supernovae  have posed challenges to the available theoretical machinery, and certain models explaining such phenomena have arised which propose exotic types of matter and therefore unusual equations of state, such as a Cosmological Constant, Cold Dark Matter models, Dilaton Fields  and Quintessence . However, at the galactic level there are no models consistent with the cosmological ones, and which give some light in the understanding of the nature of dark matter.

In order to be precise about the problem let us recall the situation of the galactic dark matter, for which we confine ourselves to the observations made by Rubin et al.  who found that for a few sample of spiral galaxies the interstellar gas and stars lying far away from the center (in the equatorial plane) of the corresponding galaxy behaves in a non Kepplerian way, but their circular velocity seems to be independent of the radius starting from a certain distance to the galactic center, i.e. the rotation curve profile of a spiral galaxy is flat outside a central galactic region. It was then inferred a distribution $`1/r^2`$ of non luminous matter (dark matter) which should contribute to the flatness of the rotation curves. There exists certain controversy about the flatness of such curves , but in general it is accepted that rotation curves are flat up to the precision of the meassurementes made by the astronomers and that this behavior is reproduced even for large samples of spiral galaxies .

The most accepted scenario for a spiral galaxy reads as follows: it is an object composed by a luminous disc whose density distributed in an exponentially decay which conspires with a dark halo whose density is distributed as $`1/r^2`$ . In this way it is found an explanation for the kinetic behavior of gas and stars composing a spiral galaxy, but how was this mixture formed and what inspired nature to conspire in this way and not another one? If the dark matter is baryonic such as MACHOS for instance, why does its density have a non exponential distribution as luminous matter density does? If it is non baryonic, what is it made of, or at least which is its equation of state? This last question is the one that occupies ourselves in the present work.

In this letter we proceed in the following way: Assume that a spiral galaxy lies on a background axysimmetric static space time, which is characterized by the presence of a perfect fluid with an arbitrary equation of state, i.e. $`p=\omega d`$ being $`\omega `$ a free function, and then we find conditions over $`\omega `$ that permit flat rotation curves of test particles. Other types of candidates to dark matter are discused in .

First of all it must be clear that our treatment is valid only in the dark matter dominated region, i.e. where the rotation curves are flat, and we do not consider the galactic core region. Observational data show that the galaxies must be composed by almost 90% of dark matter, distributed at the halo, in order to explain the observed dynamics of particles in the luminous sector of the galaxy. We can thus assume that luminous matter does not contribute in a very important way to the total energy density of the halo of the galaxy in the mentioned region. On the other hand, the exact symmetry of the halo is still unknown, but it is reasonable to suppose that the halo is symmetric with respect to the rotation axis of the galaxy, so we choose the space time to be axial symmetric. Furthermore, the rotation of the galaxy does not have a large effect on the motion of test particles around it; dragging effects in the halo of the galaxy can be considered too small to seriously affect the motion of tests particles (stars) traveling around the galaxy. The circular velocity of stars (like the Sun) is of the order of 230 Km/s, much less than the speed of light. Hence, in the region of interest we can suppose the space-time to be static as well.

Therefore, we start by considering the background described by the following line element:

$$ds^2=e^{2\psi }dt^2+e^{2\psi }[e^{2\gamma }(d\rho ^2+dz^2)+\mu ^2d\phi ^2],$$
(1)
which corresponds to an static axially symmetric space-time; the coordinates are the usual cylindrical ones.

We recall the reader that observations are made upon objects lying in the galactic equatorial plane, thus the Lagrangian for a test particle travelling on such slide of the space time described by (1) is

$$2=e^{2\psi }\dot{t}^2+e^{2\psi }[e^{2\gamma }\dot{\rho }^2+\mu ^2\dot{\phi }^2],$$
(2)
where dot means derivative with respect to the proper time $`\tau `$ of the test particle. The radial geodesic motion equation is then

$$\dot{\rho }^2e^{2(\psi \gamma )}\left[E^2e^{2\psi }L^2\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\mu ^2}1\right]=0.$$
(3)
where $`E`$, and $`L`$, are constants associated with this geodesic motion along the equatorial plane.

We are interested in circular and stable motion of test particles, therefore the following conditions must be satisfied

i) $`\dot{\rho }=0`$, circular trajectories

ii)$`\frac{V(\rho )}{\rho }=0`$, extreme ones

iii)$`\frac{^2V(\rho )}{\rho ^2}|_{extr}>0`$, and stable.

being $`V(\rho )=e^{2(\psi \gamma )}\left[E^2e^{2\psi }L^2e^{2\psi }/\mu ^21\right]`$.

Recalling that $`E`$ and $`L`$ are constants of motion for each circular orbit, it is straightforward to obtain expressions for the energy $`E`$, angular momentum $`L`$, angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }=d\phi /dt`$ and the tangential velocity $`v^{(\phi )}=e^{2\psi }\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ , corresponding to a circular, stable equatorial motion:

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`e^\psi \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho }}{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }2\psi _{,\rho }}}},`$ (4)
$`L`$ $`=`$ $`\mu e^\psi \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\psi _{,\rho }}{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }2\psi _{,\rho }}}},`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\psi }}{\mu }}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\psi _{,\rho }}{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho }}}},`$ (6)
$`v^{(\phi )}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\psi _{,\rho }}{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho }}}},`$ (7)
and for the stability condition:

$$V_{,\rho \rho }|_{extr}=\frac{2e^{2(\psi \gamma )}}{\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }2\psi _{,\rho }}\left(\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho \rho }\frac{\mu _{,\rho \rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho }+4\psi _{,\rho }^{}{}_{}{}^{3}6\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\psi _{,\rho }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3\left(\frac{\mu _{,\rho }}{\mu }\right)^2\psi _{,\rho }\right)>0$$
(8)
where a coma stands for partial derivative.

Now, observe that if the functions $`\psi `$ and $`\mu `$ are related by

$$e^\psi =(\frac{\mu }{\mu _0})^l.$$
(9)
being $`l=const,`$ we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the velocity $`v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )}`$ to be the same for two orbits at different radii, given $`l=(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2/\left(1+(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2\right),`$ and equation (8) tells us that this motion is stable. We call equation (9) together with such value of $`l`$ the flat curve condition.

We now write the Einstein’s equations $`G_{\alpha \beta }=8\pi T_{\alpha \beta }`$ for an arbitrary energy momentum tensor for the line element (1):

$`\mu D^2\psi +D\mu D\psi `$ $`=`$ $`4\pi \mu [e^{2(\psi \gamma )}(e^{2\psi }T_{tt}+{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\psi }}{\mu ^2}}T_{\phi \phi })+T_{\rho \rho }+T_{zz}],`$ (10)
$`D^2\mu `$ $`=`$ $`8\pi \mu [T_{\rho \rho }+T_{zz}]`$ (11)
$`\gamma _\rho \mu _\rho \gamma _z\mu _z\mu (\psi _{\rho }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\psi _{z}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})+\mu _{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`8\pi \mu T_{\rho \rho },`$ (12)
$`\gamma _\rho \mu _z+\gamma _z\mu _\rho 2\mu \psi _\rho \psi _z\mu _{\rho z}`$ $`=`$ $`8\pi \mu T_{\rho z}.`$ (13)
where we have introduced the operator $`D=(_\rho ,_z)`$, see reference . In order to have flat tangential curve velocities, it is introduced the flat curve condition (9). This condition is valid on the equatorial plane. Nevertheless, the halo is expected to be almost spherically symmetric, that means that if we know the functional dependence of the gravitational potential on the equatorial plane, this dependence should be the same one in almost the rest of the halo. In that case it is reasonable to suppose that the flat curve condition (9) is valid in a region around the equatorial plane. Thus, in this region we substitute the relations (9) into the left hand side of equation (10) obtaining $`\mu D^2\psi +D\mu D\psi =lD^2\mu `$ and with (11) we get a constrain equation amount the components of the stress energy tensor:

$$\left(\frac{1(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}{1+(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}\right)(T_{\rho \rho }+T_{zz})=e^{2(\psi \gamma )}\left(e^{2\psi }T_{tt}+\frac{e^{2\psi }}{\mu ^2}T_{\phi \phi }\right)$$
(14)
Notice that this relation must be satisfied by any stress energy tensor which, within the approximation made in the analysis, curves the space time in such a way that the motion of test particles corresponds to the observed one.

Let us consider the case of a stress energy tensor corresponding to a perfect fluid, $`T_{\mu \nu }=(d+p)u_\mu u_\nu +g_{\mu \nu }p`$, with $`d`$ the density of the fluid and $`p`$ its pressure. In this case we are thinking on a “dark fluid”, which is not seen but it is thought that it could be there affecting the geometry in the way needed in order to have the observed behavior in the tangential velocities of the luminous matter, as just mentioned. Considering the dark fluid as static, the four velocity of such dark fluid is given by $`u^\alpha =(u^0,0,0,0)`$ which, for the line element (1) reads: $`u^0=Ee^{2\psi }`$, thus $`u_0=E`$ and from $`u^\mu u_\mu =1`$, we obtain that $`E=e^{2\psi }`$. Therefore, the stress energy tensor has the form:

$`T_{tt}=e^{2\psi }d,`$ (15)
$`T_{\rho \rho }=T_{zz}=e^{2(\psi \gamma )}p,`$ (16)
$`T_{\phi \phi }=\mu ^2e^{2\psi }p.`$ (17)
Substituting these expressions into (14), we obtain that in the equatorial plane, in order to satisfy the observed behavior on the tangential velocities, the “dark fluid” has to fulfill the relation:

$$2\left(\frac{1(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}{1+(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}\right)p=(d+p)$$
(18)
Let us see which are the permitted relations between pressure and density of the perfect fluid providing flat rotation curves, we thus obtain:

$$p=\frac{1+(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}{3(v_{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\phi )})^2}d$$
(19)
relation from which the $`d`$ coefficient is identified with the square velocity dispersion of the dark particles, that appears to be negative. We are now in a convenient position to strict the state equation. As the velocities of the gas and stars rotating in the flat region must be within $`0<v_c^{(\phi )2}<1`$, (the observed ones are of the order of $`v_c^{(\phi )}10^3`$ ), relation (19) implies $`1<\omega <1/3`$, being $`p=\omega d`$. This result coincides with the one obtained at cosmological scale for the respective equation of state in the Quintessence model .

Therefore the analysis presented in this letter, gives support to the hypothesis that a Quintessence-like equation of state could be the solution for the dark matter problem at galactic scale. In both cases it turns out the need of an exotic equation of state, with $`\omega =0.33`$ at a galactic scale and $`\omega =0.64`$ for the cosmos .

In any case, we have shown that galactic dark matter satisfying an exotic equation of state certainly can be used to explain the observed behavior on the rotational curves of spiral galaxies.

We want to thank Daniel Sudarsky, and Alejandro Corichi for many helpful discussions. We also want to express our acknowledgment to the relativity group in Jena for its kind hospitality and partial support. This work is also partly supported by CONACyT México, 94890 (Guzmán) and by the DGAPA-UNAM IN121298 (Núñez, Ramírez).


text:
# Nonlinear gauge interactions - A solution to the “measurement problem” in quantum mechanics?

## Abstract

We propose that the mechanism responsible for the “collapse of the wave function” (or “decoherence” in its broadest meaning) in quantum mechanics is the nonlinearities already present in the theory via nonabelian gauge interactions. Unlike all other models of spontaneous collapse, our proposal is, to the best of our knowledge, the only one which does not introduce any new elements into the theory. Indeed, unless the gauge interaction nonlinearities are not used for exactly this purpose, one must then explain why the violation of the superposition principle which they introduce does not destroy quantum mechanics. A possible experimental test of the model would be to compare the coherence lengths for, e.g., electrons and photons in a double-slit experiment. The electrons should have a finite coherence length, while photons should have a much longer (in principle infinite) coherence length.
PACS numbers: 03.65.-w, 03.65.Bz, 11.15.-q

We start by noting an apparent paradox in the presently most fundamental description of (experimentally tested) physical reality.

* 1) The absolute backbone of quantum mechanics is the superposition principle  (e.g., interfering amplitudes, summation of Feynman diagrams, etc). It is also well known that superposition requires linear equations (i.e., the sum of two different solutions to a nonlinear equation is generally not a solution, ruining superposition). The Hilbert space of quantum mechanics and the Fock space of quantum field theory are linear spaces (based on the superposition requirement), suitable for linear mappings or operators.
* 2) Nonabelian gauge field theories describing the fundamental interactions obey nonlinear evolution equations in the gauge fields. This is in apparent contradiction to point 1). For convenience, we write down the evolution equations for pure Yang-Mills fields below. Although the fermion evolution obeys linear equations, they become “contaminated” by nonlinearities through the interaction.

The nonabelian vector gauge fields are governed by a set of coupled, second order, nonlinear PDEs on Minkowski spacetime. (The general argument for gravity is the same, but involve tensor fields on a dynamical spacetime. We do not explicitly write down those equations.) For pure Yang-Mills the evolution equations are given by the following formula,

$$(^\mu g[A^\mu ,])_a^b(_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu g[A_\mu ,A_\nu ])_b=0,$$
(1)
where $`g`$ is the coupling constant and $`a`$, $`b`$ are indices of the gauge group (i.e., $`a,b1,2,3`$ for $`SU(2)`$ and $`a,b1,\mathrm{},8`$ for $`SU(3)`$). Summation over repeated indices is implied. The operator (“covariant derivative”) at the left works according to $`(^\mu g[A^\mu ,])(anything)=^\mu (anything)g[A^\mu ,anything]`$. We see that we get highly nonlinear (quadratic and cubic) terms in the gauge fields, especially when the coupling constant, $`g`$, is large. The commutator terms (square brackets) vanish identically for abelian fields (e.g. photons) because the gauge fields then commute, leaving only the ordinary, linear Maxwell equations.

In the Feynman path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics  the nonlinearities can be “hidden” in the action functional, but as the Schrödinger, Heisenberg and path-integral formulations are equivalent, a problem in one of them must translate into a problem in all formulations.

Instead of trying to reconcile the two apparently contradictory statements above (by, for instance, modifying the rules of quantum mechanics), introduced by nonabelian gauge fields, we instead propose to turn a vice into a virtue by postulating that it is the dynamical nonlinear interaction terms which break the superposition of different quantum states of a system, i.e. acting as the physical mechanism which reduces the state vector, or “collapses the wave function” in the less general Schrödinger setting. We thus get a self-induced collapse - “SIC”, into the ordinary world of chairs, tables, people and indeed also recorded elementary particle tracks in a photographic emulsion, a bubble chamber, or a modern multi-purpose computer-aided detector.

That a quantum mechanical state must be able to “self-decohere” is imperative in quantum cosmology, the quantum mechanical treatment of the whole universe, where no “outside” observer exists. The self-induced collapse puts an end to the infinite regress of quantum superposition, where first the measuring apparatus obtains a quantum mechanical nature, then the observer, and so on, ad infinitum, until the whole universe consists of infinitely many superimposed quantum states, without any one of them actually being “realized”. The “many worlds” interpretation of Everett  purports to solve this problem by assuming that we only see events which take place in one of these branching universes, but it seems that the fundamental question of when, and how, the universe actually branches is unanswered by that model (this being the equivalent of the “measurement problem” in the orthodox interpretation).

We now turn to the actual implementation of our idea of self-induced collapse. For simplicity, we choose the following (non-covariant) expression for the (average) self-decoherence time.

$$\tau =\frac{\mathrm{}}{E_{N.L.}},$$
(2)
where $`E_{N.L.}`$ is the energy stored in the nonlinear field configuration of the nonabelian interaction (which in turn depends on the strength of the coupling). Observe that the relation is not an uncertainty relation, despite its identical form, as $`\tau `$ and $`E_{N.L.}`$ are not uncertainties. As we want the energy of the full nonlinear theory, and we cannot today explicitly calculate this inherently non-perturbative quantity, we take the energy to be a characteristic energy for the interaction. If, for instance, for QCD, we as a rough approximation take the energy to be $`E_{N.L.}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}0.2`$ GeV, we get as a rough “ballpark” figure $`\tau _{QCD}10^{23}`$s for the decoherence time for strong QCD (e.g., inside a non-disturbed hadron). Although the exact result probably will differ by many orders of magnitude, this may explain why (semi-)classical models work so well for strong QCD, as the stronger the interaction is, the more “classical” it behaves according to our mechanism. In QCD the energy stored in gauge fields decreases as the absolute energy of the interaction increases, due to asymptotic freedom.

In our model, the fields are the fundamental entities which obey quantum mechanics, the particle aspect appearing each time a self-collapse takes place. That is, the quantum mechanical (linear, unitary) evolution is constantly punctuated by (possibly random) “hits” of self-collapse at an average frequency of $`\tau ^1`$. This is similar to the case in orthodox quantum mechanics where an observation (or the initial preparation of a state) suddenly “realizes” one of the potential outcomes, after which the unitary (linear) evolution of the state takes over until the next observation. A “macroscopic” piece of matter has such a high energy stored in nonlinear field configurations that $`\tau =\frac{\mathrm{}}{E_{N.L.}}0`$, approximating a continuously collapsing state, i.e., a classical state. The model thus forbids quantum mechanical effects to “invade” the macroscopic world, and hence resolves the “Schrödinger’s cat” paradox  and related questions such as “Wigner’s friend” , etc.

Note that any significant nonlinear interaction, whether as part of a “measurement” carried out by conscious beings  or not, bring about the decoherence of interfering amplitudes into (semi-)classical states. Conscious observation is therefore only a special case of the more general nonlinearity, as all “measuring apparatuses” (including human beings!) consist of both weakly (all particles) and strongly (quarks) nonlinearly interacting constituents. Hence, there should be no need to introduce the mind into the interpretation of quantum mechanics at a fundamental level.

For pure QED the nonlinear terms are absent, hence a hypothetical world built by QED alone would never be classical. It also explains why, e.g., atomic physics works so closely to orthodox quantum mechanics, as it is being “classicalized” only by (very) weak interaction effects. Were it not for the existence of the other interactions besides QED, we would indeed have quantum mechanical superpositions of whole universes, i.e., the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics by Everett .

The difference between our proposal for self-induced collapse, and other models aiming at the same goal, is that, as far as we know, all other models postulate additional equations and/or variables,

* Decohering histories : new fundamental principle of irreversible coarse graining + additional constraints to remove “too many” decoherent histories
* Altered Schrödinger equation: obvious extra (non-unitary or nonlinear) term in Schrödinger equation
* Bohm QM : additional (nonlinear) evolution equation for objective positions

whereas we use only nonlinearities which are already present in the dynamics of the accepted standard model of particle physics. Another difference is that, to our knowledge, all other models for spontaneous collapse are non-relativistic, whereas our scheme is based on covariant theories. Also, it must be stressed that if the nonlinearities introduced by the nonabelian gauge fields are not used to explain the decoherence to (quasi)classical behaviour, it must instead be explained how they can be reconciled with the superposition principle of quantum mechanics.

It is well known that a nonlinear mapping is non-reversible, as there in that case does not exist a unique inverse mapping (i.e., the mapping is not one-to-one). We therefore propose that the nonlinear gauge interaction is the physical “mechanism” of the “irreversible amplification” emphasized by Bohr as being necessary to produce classical, observable results from the quantum mechanical formalism. Even though Bohr himself denounced the need, or even the possibility, to give a physical description of this “mechanism” , we believe that the central problem for truly understanding quantum mechanics lies in the quantum measurement problem. For instance, it is only there, in the collapse of the wave function, that the undeterminacy of quantum mechanics enters. It may even be possible, if not entirely likely, that deterministic chaos in the nonlinear self-interaction can be responsible for the seemingly statistical character of quantum mechanics.

Our model can be experimentally tested, at least in principle, as differently charged (electric, weak isospin, color,…) particles should have different coherence lengths. In a double-slit experiment, for instance, the photon should have a much longer (in principle infinite) coherence length than, e.g., electrons which ought to have a finite coherence length due to nonlinear weak interactions. As the full nonlinear calculations are very complicated, it is not possible to quantitatively predict the coherence lengths at the present time, but if it turns out that electrons experimentally have shorter coherence lengths than photons it would strengthen our hypothesis.

Our model could also have importance for (the not yet existing theory of) quantum gravity. Weak gravity would have extremely long decoherence times, completely swamped by the other interactions. However, exactly where quantum gravity is expected to become important (i.e., at the Planck mass/energy scale), we see that it spontaneously decoheres. Hence a strong quantum gravity might not exist in this scheme.

The collapse postulated in orthodox quantum mechanics is not relativistically covariant, as it is instantaneous (over all space), which is not a covariant concept. Only the (deterministic) unitary development of the state is taken into account by the relativistic Dirac equation and, more generally, by quantum field theory. As our scheme for collapse is based on covariant gauge-field theories, it might be possible to describe the collapse of the state in a covariant way, although our present attempt, which for simplicity singles out the energy accumulated in the nonlinear field configurations, is not covariant. On the other hand, it might be that the collapse should be described by an inherently non-local mechanism, as it seems that quantum mechanics at its very foundation is non-local, as given by the results of Aspect et al. , and more recent experiments on quantum non-separability. As a nonlinear theory also in some cases can be non-local, it would be interesting to investigate if this model of spontaneous collapse can account for such non-local effects. Work in this direction is in progress , together with a detailed investigation of the nonlinear terms in the nonabelian evolution equations, as a means to better understand the quantitative details of the proposed mechanism for self-collapse.

In conclusion, we have emphasized that automatic dynamical collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics may already be implicit in the existing dynamical theory of nonabelian (i.e., nonlinear) gauge fields. These include the weak interaction, QCD, gravity, and any other nonabelian fields which eventually may be found in the future. The nonlinear self-interaction terms break the fundamental superposition principle of quantum mechanics, hence making it plausible that they can be just the right physical mechanism for the purpose of collapse.


text:
# A quasilocal calculation of tidal heating

## I Introduction

In many physical problems in gravitation, one is interested in the interaction of a nearly isolated gravitating system with an external universe. The interaction effects are computed in a “buffer zone” (see Sec. 20.6 of Ref.  and Sec. IB of Ref. ) surrounding the gravitating system, in which the radius of curvature, scale of inhomogeneity, and rate of change of curvature are much smaller than the size of the body. The formalism of Thorne and Hartle  and Zhang  has been used recently by Purdue  and Favata  to compute the gauge-invariant heating of a body interacting with an external tidal field.

Until now, calculations of the sort described in these references have made use of pseudotensors to compute energy and momentum fluxes. However, quasilocal methods should be equally applicable in situations with a reasonably well defined buffer zone—in this case, the quasilocal surface can be conveniently located in the buffer zone. While quasilocal methods are not fundamentally different than pseudotensor methods , an advantage of quasilocal method is that all quantities (e.g., energy fluxes) can be computed in terms of real tensors on the quasilocal surface. Gauge ambiguities in the total amount of energy and energy flux such as those reported in Ref.  and discussed in Ref.  still exist for the quasilocal methods, but now the ambiguities can be understood in terms of distortions of the quasilocal surface and so their geometric origin is identified.

In this paper we present a quasilocal formalism for computing the work done on a gravitating system by an external universe. Our formalism is based on the quasilocal mass of Brown and York —the on-shell value of the gravitational Hamiltonian—which coincides with the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner energy at spatial infinity and the Trautman-Bondi-Sachs energy at null infinity . It is complementary to but independent of  which studied how motion of the observers affects the Brown-York energy. We use our expression for energy flux to compute (i) the energy lost in gravitational radiation from a gravitational system and (ii) the heating of a body through interactions with an external tidal field. Problem (i) demonstrates that the formula for the work reproduces the known gravitational radiation flux formula when the quasilocal surface is located in the wave-zone. Problem (ii) reproduces the calculation of Purdue  using quasilocal methods and shows how these methods are applicable for problems in which the quasilocal surface is located in a buffer zone.

## II Quasilocal energy flux

In this section, we derive an expression for the energy flux through a closed two-surface surrounding a gravitating system. Our analysis closely follows Sec. V of Ref. , which derives a conserved measure of mass for stationary systems. We relax the requirement that the quasilocal two-surface time evolution vector be a Killing vector of the spacetime and thereby obtain an expression for the rate of change in the mass of the system.

Consider a gravitating system separated from the external universe by a ($`2+1`$)-dimensional timelike boundary $`B`$. This boundary has an outward “radial” normal vector $`n^a`$, a metric $`\gamma _{ab}=g_{ab}n_an_b`$ induced by its embedding in the spacetime with metric $`g_{ab}`$, and an extrinsic curvature $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}=\frac{1}{2}\text{£}_n\gamma _{ab}`$ (with trace $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\gamma ^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}`$). Let $`\mathrm{}_a`$ be the derivative operator compatible with the metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$. Foliate the boundary $`B`$ into closed two-surfaces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ of constant time $`t`$; then the time evolution vector $`t^a`$ on $`B`$ satisfies $`t^a\mathrm{}_at=1`$ and can be decomposed into a lapse function $`N`$ and a shift vector $`V^a`$ on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ via $`t^a=Nu^a+V^a`$, where $`u^a`$ is the timelike normal to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ embedded in $`B`$. The closed, spacelike, two-surface $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ has an induced metric $`\sigma _{ab}=\gamma _{ab}+u_au_b`$ and, viewed as a two-surface embedded in a three-dimensional spacelike hypersurface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ locally defined such that $`n^aT\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, the extrinsic curvature of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ is $`k_{ab}=\frac{1}{2}\text{£}_n\sigma _{ab}`$. A full discussion of the geometry of the boundary $`B`$ and its foliation (including a diagram) may be found in . The notation there is substantially the same as here though $`u^a`$ is written as $`\stackrel{~}{u}^a`$.

The Codazzi identity,

$$\mathrm{}_a\tau ^{ab}=\gamma ^{bc}n^dR_{cd}/8\pi ,$$
(1)
where $`\tau ^{ab}=(\mathrm{\Theta }\gamma ^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab})/8\pi `$, relates the extrinsic curvature of $`B`$ to the spacetime Ricci curvature $`R_{ab}`$. It then follows from the Einstein field equations that

$$\mathrm{}_a(t_b\tau ^{ab})=t^an^bT_{ab}+\frac{1}{2}\tau ^{ab}\text{£}_t\gamma _{ab}.$$
(2)
We restrict our attention to a vacuum spacetime in which the stress-energy tensor $`T_{ab}`$ vanishes. Then, if $`t^a`$ is a Killing vector field of the boundary metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$, Eq. (2) is a conservation equation and the quantity

$$M=_{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}d^2x\sqrt{\sigma }u_at_b\tau ^{ab}$$
(3)
is a conserved measure of the total mass contained within the boundary $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$. It is the “non-orthogonal” Brown-York mass , up to a subtraction term that is required for it to be bounded for large surfaces in asymptotically flat spacetimes (see, e.g., Lau or Mann ).

When $`t^a`$ is *not* a Killing vector of the boundary, then Eq. (2) represents an energy flow from the system. Between two times $`t_1`$ and $`t_2`$ one can integrate to find that $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=\frac{1}{2}_Bd^3x\sqrt{\gamma }\tau ^{ab}\text{£}_t\gamma _{ab}`$ is the change in the mass contained by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$. Subtraction terms from a reference spacetime do not need to be included here as it expresses the *change* in the mass of the system. The rate at which this work is done is

$$\frac{dW}{dt}=\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}d^2x\sqrt{\gamma }\tau ^{ab}\text{£}_t\gamma _{ab}$$
(4)
which describes the rate of change of the system’s mass due to the purely gravitational interaction between it and the surrounding environment.

It is illustrative to decompose the expression for the work into terms involving projections of $`\text{£}_t\gamma _{ab}`$ normal to and into the spatial two-surfaces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$. We find

$$\frac{dW}{dt}=_{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}d^2x\sqrt{\sigma }\{\frac{1}{2}s^{ab}\text{£}_t\sigma _{ab}\epsilon \text{£}_tN+j_a\text{£}_tV^a\}$$
(5)
where $`\epsilon =\sigma ^{ab}k_{ab}/8\pi `$, $`j_a=\sigma _{ab}u_c\mathrm{\Theta }^{bc}/8\pi `$, and $`s^{ab}=[k^{ab}+\sigma ^{ab}(n^cu^d\mathrm{}_du_c\sigma ^{cd}k_{cd})]/8\pi `$ are the quasilocal surface energy, momentum, and stress densities. The first two are potentials conjugate to changes in the lapse function and shift vector respectively while the surface stress density is a work potential conjugate to changes in the size and shape of the surface $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$.

The stress density can be further decomposed as follows. A change in the two-metric, $`\delta \sigma _{ab}=\varsigma _{ab}\delta \sqrt{\sigma }+\sqrt{\sigma }\delta \varsigma _{ab}`$, is written as a change in the “size” $`\sqrt{\sigma }`$ of the surface plus a change in the conformally-invariant part of the metric (the “shape” of the surface) $`\varsigma _{ab}=\sigma _{ab}/\sqrt{\sigma }`$. Correspondingly, the surface stress density is decomposed into a surface tension $`s=s^{ab}\varsigma _{ab}`$ and a shear $`\eta ^{ab}=s^{ab}/\sqrt{\sigma }`$. Then we rewrite the work term as $`\frac{1}{2}s^{ab}\text{£}_t\sigma _{ab}=\frac{1}{2}(s\text{£}_t\sqrt{\sigma }+\eta ^{ab}\text{£}_t\varsigma _{ab})`$.

The above has a particularly nice application in the physics of thin shells. Israel  first showed that a thin shell of matter can be described in general relativity by matching two spacetimes along a timelike boundary $`B`$ such that even though they induce the same surface metric on $`B`$, the extrinsic curvature in each spacetime is different. If $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}^{}`$ are those curvatures this (mild) singularity can be accounted for if there is a (distributional) stress energy tensor $`S_{ab}=\tau _{ab}^+\tau _{ab}^{}`$ over $`B`$. A set of observers dwelling on the surfaces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ (which foliate $`B`$) measures the shell to have matter-energy $`M^+M^{}`$ \[Eq. (3)\]. A more detailed discussion of this may be found in  but here we note that the above analysis for the quasilocal energy also shows that the set of observers dwelling on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ measures the matter-energy to change with rate $`dW/dt`$ (Eq. 5). Then the quasilocal densities defined above are the energy, angular momentum, and stress tensor of the *matter shell*. A set of observers being evolved by $`t^a=u^a`$ see work being done on the shell at a rate equal to the integral of the stress tensor contracted with the time rate of change of the area—exactly as one would expect from classical physics.

## III Gravitational radiation

Equation (4) purportedly measures the change in the mass of a system. In this section we apply our work formula to obtain the correct mass loss for a system radiating gravitational waves. For this we suppose that the quasilocal surface is in the wave-zone, far away from the radiating system. Although this is not a very interesting application of a quasilocal method (since an asymptotic method, such as the Bondi-Sachs mass loss formula could as well be used), it is useful to confirm that Eq. (4) does recover the correct result.

Gravitational radiation far from the generating source can be described as a transverse-traceless perturbation to the flat-space metric. In spherical-polar coordinates, the metric is given by $`ds^2=dt^2+dr^2+(rd\theta )^2+(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )^2+h_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$ where $`h_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =h_+[(rd\theta )^2(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )^2]+2h_\times (rd\theta )(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )`$ is the transverse, trace free perturbation. The “plus,” $`h_+`$, and “cross,” $`h_\times `$, polarizations represent outgoing, spherical waves, and have the form $`h_+(t,r,\theta ,\varphi )=s_+(tr,\theta ,\varphi )/r`$ and $`h_\times (t,r,\theta ,\varphi )=s_\times (tr,\theta ,\varphi )/r`$. We then find the energy lost by the radiating system by inserting this metric into Eq. (4) while taking the boundary to be a sphere of constant $`r`$ in the wave-zone (very large $`r`$). The integrand of Eq. (4) is

$$\frac{dE}{dtd\mathrm{\Omega }_t}=\frac{r^2}{16\pi }[(h_+/t)^2+(h_\times /t)^2]$$
(6)
to leading order in the perturbation and in $`r`$. This is the standard expression for the flux of gravitational radiation—see, e.g., Eq. (10) of Ref. .

By inspection of the form of the perturbation, it is clear that the energy loss arises due to the shearing of the bounding two-surface $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ since, to leading order, the perturbation does not affect the volume element on that two-surface. Thus the entire energy loss (in the transverse, trace-free gauge) arises from the “$`\eta ^{ab}\text{£}_t\varsigma _{ab}`$” work term.

As a simple example, consider two point-particles, each of mass $`m=M/2`$, orbiting each other in the $`xy`$-plane with angular frequency $`\omega `$ and constant separation $`a`$. The quadrupole moment tensor $`_{jk}`$ in Cartesian coordinates is $`_{xx}=_{yy}=\frac{1}{8}Ma^3\mathrm{cos}2\omega t`$ and $`_{xy}=\frac{1}{8}Ma^2\mathrm{sin}2\omega t`$ (constant terms omitted). The far-field metric perturbation is $`h_{jk}=2(^2_{jk}/t^2)/r`$, so $`h_{yy}=h_{xx}=(Ma^2\omega ^2/r)\mathrm{cos}2\omega (tr)`$ and $`h_{xy}=(Ma^2\omega ^2/r)\mathrm{sin}2\omega (tr)`$.

Using Eqs. (4.3) and (4.4) of Ref. , we find

$`h_+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}Ma^2\omega ^2r^1(1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )\mathrm{cos}2[\omega (tr)\varphi ]`$ (8)
$`h_\times `$ $`=`$ $`Ma^2\omega ^2r^1\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}2[\omega (tr)\varphi ].`$ (9)
We then integrate Eq. (6) over the sphere at large $`r`$ to obtain the loss of energy from the system:

$$dE/dt=\frac{2}{5}M^2a^4\omega ^6=\frac{2}{5}(M/a)^5$$
(10)
where we have used Kepler’s law $`a^3\omega ^2=M`$ for particles in a circular orbit.

## IV Tidal heating

We now calculate the work done by an external gravitational field to deform a self-gravitating body. The canonical example of this effect in the solar system is the tidal heating of Io by Jupiter. In this instance, the gradient of Jupiter’s gravitational field distorts Io from being a perfect sphere and then tidally locks it in its orbit so that it always presents the same face to Jupiter. That orbit is strongly perturbed by the other Gallilean moons and so its radial distance from Jupiter varies with time. With this variation comes a corresponding one in the gradient of the field and so Io is gradually stretched and then allowed to relax. The energy transferred by this pumping is largely dispersed as heat and it is this heat that produces the volcanic activity on Io. The same type of process occurs for any two bodies in non-circular orbits about each other.

First from a Newtonian perspective, we may mathematically describe the gravitational fields in this situation as follows. We assume that the self-gravitating body is far enough away from the source of the external field that that field is nearly uniform close to the body. Then in a rectangular coordinate system that orbits with the body with its origin at the center of mass, the Newtonian potential of the external field may be written as $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\text{ext}}=\frac{1}{2}_{ij}x^ix^j`$ where $`_{ij}`$ is the (time-dependent but symmetric and trace-free) quadrupole moment of the field and $`x^i`$ is the position vector based at the body’s centre of mass. At the same time, to quadrupolar order the Newtonian potential of the body is $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{o}=M/r\frac{3}{2}r^3_{ij}n^in^j`$, where $`M`$ is the mass of the body, $`r`$ is the radial distance from the centre of mass, $`_{ij}`$ is its (time-dependent but symmetric and trace-free) quadrupole moment, and $`n^i`$ is the unit normal radial vector.

With this in mind the techniques of Thorne and Hartle  can be used to construct a metric that describes these situations in the slow moving, nearly Newtonian limit. First, define an annulus surrounding the body whose inner boundary is chosen so that the gravitational field of the body is weak throughout and whose outer boundary is chosen so that the external field is nearly uniform. This region is termed the buffer zone. The rectangular coordinate system is replaced with one that is chosen so that the metric is as close to Minkowskian as possible over the buffer zone . Then to first order in perturbations from Minkowski and first order in time derivatives the metric can be written as

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`(1+2\mathrm{\Phi })dt^2+2(A_j+_t\xi _j)dx^jdt`$ (12)
$`+[(12\mathrm{\Phi })\delta _{ij}+_i\xi _j+_j\xi _i]dx^idx^j`$
where the indices run from one to three and $`\delta _{ij}`$ is the Cartesian metric $`\mathrm{diag}[1,1,1]`$ on a spacelike slice. The Newtonian potential is $`\mathrm{\Phi }=M/r\frac{1}{2}(3r^3_{ij}r^2_{ij})n^in^j`$ and $`A_j=2r^2n^kd_{jk}/dt\frac{2}{21}r^3(5n_jn^k2\delta _j^k)n^ld_{kl}/dt`$ is a vector potential that must be added so that the metric is a solution to the first order Einstein equations. Here, $`n^i`$ is the radial normal with respect to the flat spatial metric $`\delta _{ij}`$ and $`r^2=x^2+y^2+z^2`$. The diffeomorphism generating vector field $`\xi _j`$ represents the gauge ambiguity in setting up a nearly Minkowski coordinate system. In order that the metric be slowly evolving and nearly Minkowski, $`\xi _j`$ must be of the form $`\xi _j=\alpha r^2_{jk}n^k+\beta r^3_{jk}n^k+\gamma r^3_{kl}n^kn^ln_j`$, where $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ are free constants of order one.

We set up a constant $`r`$ timelike quasilocal surface $`B`$ in the buffer zone and foliate with constant $`t`$ spacelike two-surfaces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$. Then the time vector $`t^a`$ is $`/t`$. In calculating the rate of change of the mass contained within $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ it is most convenient to switch to spherical coordinates. We make the standard transformation to spherical coordinates $`x^i=r[\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta ]`$; in these coordinates, the metric is

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`(1+2\mathrm{\Phi })dt^2+(12\mathrm{\Phi })[dr^2+(rd\theta )^2`$ (17)
$`+(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )^2]+2\overline{A}_rdrdt+2\overline{A}_\theta (rd\theta )dt`$
$`+2\overline{A}_\varphi (r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )dt+H_{rr}dr^2+H_{\theta \theta }(rd\theta )^2`$
$`+H_{\varphi \varphi }(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )^2+2H_{r\theta }dr(rd\theta )`$
$`+2H_{r\varphi }dr(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )+2H_{\theta \varphi }(rd\theta )(r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi )^2`$
where $`H_{rr}=4\alpha r^3_{rr}+6(\beta +\gamma )r^2_{rr}`$, $`H_{\theta \theta }=2\alpha r^3_{\theta \theta }+2\beta r^2_{\theta \theta }+2\gamma r^2_{rr}`$, $`H_{\varphi \varphi }=2\alpha r^3_{\varphi \varphi }+2\beta r^2_{\varphi \varphi }+2\gamma r^2_{rr}`$, $`H_{r\theta }=\alpha r^3_{r\theta }+(4\beta +2\gamma )r^2_{r\theta }`$, $`H_{r\varphi }=\alpha r^3_{r\varphi }+(4\beta +2\gamma )r^2_{r\varphi }`$, and $`H_{\theta \varphi }=2\alpha r^3_{\theta \varphi }+2\beta r^2_{\theta \varphi }`$. In these expressions $`_{rr}=_{ij}e_r^ie_r^j`$, $`_{r\theta }=_{ij}e_r^ie_\theta ^j`$, etc., with $`e_r^i=n^i`$, $`e_\theta ^i=_\theta e_r^i`$ and $`e_\varphi ^i=(1/\mathrm{sin}\theta )_\varphi e_r^i`$. Also, $`\overline{A}_r=(A_j+_t\xi _j)e_r^j`$, etc., but we don’t need their expanded forms since only time derivatives of them show up in later calculations and we are ignoring second order time derivatives.

As might be expected, the subsequent calculations are quite involved and we did them partially with GRTensor . To lowest order

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}}d^2x\sqrt{\gamma }\tau ^{ab}\text{£}_t\gamma _{ab}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{60}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}[2(32\beta 2\beta ^2+4\gamma `$ (22)
$`+4\gamma ^2+8\beta \gamma )r^5_{ij}_{ij}`$
$`+2(32\alpha +6\beta 12\gamma +8\alpha \gamma )_{ij}_{ij}`$
$`(9+12\alpha +4\alpha ^2)r^5_{ij}_{ij}].`$
The calculations used the identities $`_{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta A_{rr}B_{rr}=(8\pi /15)A_{ij}B_{ij}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{\Omega }_t}𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta (2A_{\theta \varphi }B_{\theta \varphi }A_{\theta \theta }B_{\varphi \varphi }A_{\varphi \varphi }B_{\theta \theta })=(4\pi /3)A_{ij}B_{ij}`$ where the integrations are over the unit sphere.

This result requires some interpretation. As the external field changes with time and thereby forces the self-gravitating body to change configuration, the work done by the external field can be split into time reversible and irreversible parts \[as seen in Eq. (18)\]. The reversible work represents work being done to increase the potential energy of the system and is recoverable. On the other hand the irreversible part represents work done to deform and/or heat up the system. This is the tidal heating that we are interested in. Further, from the quasilocal perspective, we expect to see an energy flow arising from fluctuations of the quasilocal surface within otherwise static fields. Of course this work would also be reversible. Thus, it is only the irreversible part that we are interested in and we have calculated that to be $`\frac{1}{2}_{ij}d_{ij}/dt`$ above. This is the same leading term obtained when one does the corresponding calculation in Newtonian gravity or with pseudotensors  and it is independent of diffeomorphisms generated by $`\xi _j`$ which correspond to fluctuations of the quasilocal surface. Note however, that the time reversible and gauge dependent terms of equation (18) are dependent on those fluctuations and furthermore that dependence is different from that found in ref.  using pseudo-tensor methods. Similarly other pseudo-tensor or quasilocal methods would obtain a different gauge dependence for these terms. What is important is that the physically relevant time irreversible term does not depend on the $`\xi _j`$-generated diffeomorphisms.

Finally for completeness let us consider how this energy flow splits up into its components parts as considered in Eq. (5). Then to the order that we are interested the angular momentum term is zero and we are left with two terms $`dW_N/dt=𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\sigma }\epsilon \text{£}_tN`$ and $`dW_\sigma /dt=\frac{1}{2}𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\sigma }Ns^{ab}\text{£}_t\sigma _{ab}`$. We find

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW_N}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{15}}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{5}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\gamma }{5}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}`$ (25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{60}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}[2(4\gamma +\beta 2)r^5_{ij}_{ij}6_{ij}_{ij}`$
$`3(2\alpha 3)r^5_{ij}_{ij}].`$
The second term is a bit more complicated. It is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW_\sigma }{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{15}}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}_{ij}+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{5}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\gamma }{5}}_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{d_{ij}}{dt}}`$ (29)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{30}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}[(13\beta 2\beta ^2+4\gamma ^2+8\beta \gamma )r^5_{ij}_{ij}`$
$`+2(3\alpha +3\beta 6\gamma +4\alpha \gamma )_{ij}_{ij}`$
$`(2\alpha ^29\alpha +9)r^5_{ij}_{ij}].`$
Thus part of the work done is measured by deformations of the surface and part is measured by changes in how observers choose to measure the rate of passage of time. Note that individually the time irreversible sections of the two parts are gauge dependent, but when we combine them we reobtain Eq. (18) and the gauge dependence vanishes back into the reversible part where we would expect it.

## V Conclusions

We have modified the quasilocal energy formalism of Brown and York so that it may be used to study non-stationary spacetimes where energy flows in and out through the quasilocal surface. As applications of this extension we have examined implications for the physics of relativistic thin shells of matter, the energy carried from a source to infinity by gravitational waves, and the transfer of energy to a body during gravitational tidal heating. The success of the formalism in all three applications provides further evidence that the Brown-York energy has physical content. Furthermore, in the tidal heating application we have seen how the quasilocal formalism provides a geometrical explanation of the gauge ambiguities that are also found in the Newtonian and pseudotensor approaches.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to thank Robert Mann, Patricia Purdue, Alan Wiseman, and Kip Thorne for their useful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and NSF grants PHY-9728704 and AST-9731698.