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# Partially Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory and the Replica Method

## 1 Introduction

The question of non-perturbative analytical predictions for quenched or partially quenched lattice gauge theory computations has been thoroughly studied in the context of effective chiral Lagrangians . So far the most systematic framework has been the supersymmetric formulation of Bernard and Golterman , which builds on an idea first introduced in the context of staggered lattice fermions . Here one introduces $`k`$ additional quark species (of conventional statistics) on top of the $`N_f`$ physical “sea” quarks, and $`k`$ “ghost” quarks of opposite statistics to cancel the effects of the additional quarks. When $`N_f`$ is taken to vanish this gives the fully quenched theory, while for $`N_f`$ non-zero it gives the partially quenched theory. Both are accessible to a study by Monte Carlo techniques in lattice gauge theory. The chiral flavor symmetry group is in that formulation extended to a super Lie group which in perturbation theory can be taken as SU($`N_f+k|k`$). (For this reason it is commonly known as the supersymmetric method although it, as applied, has nothing to do with space-time supersymmetry, but rather is a graded symmetry.) Based on the usual assumption of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking (here extended to the super group case) the effective low-energy theory of the lowest-lying hadronic excitations is that of a chiral Lagrangian, now with fields living on the coset of super Lie groups. This effective Lagrangian can be studied by the conventional methods of chiral perturbation theory. In what follows we denote fully and partially quenched chiral perturbation theory by QChPT and PQChPT, respectively.

The supersymmetric framework has also proven to be an efficient means of deriving analytical results for the soft part of the Dirac operator spectrum in finite volume, by taking an appropriate discontinuity of the partially quenched chiral condensate . This has brought earlier results derived entirely from universal Random Matrix Theory  (for a very recent comprehensive review, see ref. ) in direct contact with the effective Lagrangian of QCD. In particular, a series of very compact relations that described general $`k`$-point spectral correlation functions of low-lying Dirac operator eigenvalues in terms of effective partition functions with additional quark species  can now be understood as due to the cancelling pairs of fermionic and bosonic valence quarks. When taking the same discontinuity near the origin in PQChPT it has also been shown that one recovers among other terms the analytical prediction for the slope of the spectral density of the Dirac operator at the origin , a formula first derived in the QCD case by Smilga and Stern . The same analysis has recently been extended to the two other major chiral symmetry breaking classes by Toublan and Verbaarschot . There are thus also plenty of physical applications of PQChPT that have nothing to do with the artifacts of the quenched approximation at all.

While the supersymmetric approach to QChPT and PQChPT has been well tested, and is by now quite well understood, it is still of interest to find alternative means of formulating the same problem. In particular, the supersymmetry itself is not fundamental and not an inherent property of QChPT and PQChPT. Indeed, it has recently been shown in the context of the finite-volume effective chiral Lagrangian related to the soft part of the Dirac operator spectrum  that the so-called replica method can provide a useful alternative technique . Here full or partial quenching is instead achieved by adding $`N_v`$ valence quarks (of usual statistics), and then taking the limit $`N_v0`$ at the end of the calculation. In ordinary QCD perturbation theory this procedure trivially kills all valence quark loops. In the framework of the effective Lagrangian of Goldstone bosons it is far from obvious that such a procedure can be carried out explicitly. It entails an extension of the chiral symmetry group U($`N`$) to non-integer $`N`$, and integrals over such a group are not known in closed form. Nevertheless, it turns out that in series expansions the required analytical continuation can be carried out explicitly , and results agree with what was earlier established by the supersymmetric method . This suggests that also conventional QChPT and PQChPT can be performed by simply taking the limit $`N_v0`$. In this paper we shall show that this is indeed the case. We shall give the very simple Feynman rules, and explain the intimate relationship to QChPT and PQChPT in the supersymmetric formulation. As a simple illustration we show how to derive the partially quenched chiral condensate to one-loop order using this replica method. This fully or partially quenched chiral condensate is a particularly convenient observable on which to test the non-perturbative finite-volume scaling results discussed above . The way partially quenched chiral perturbation theory smoothly matches on to this regime has been explained in ref. .

After providing the Feynman rules, it becomes quite obvious how the replica method in perturbation theory is equivalent to the supersymmetric method. We illustrate a few of the counting rules by considering a chiral $`k`$-point function below. Mainly out of curiosity, we also show how a variant of the replica method that is supersymmetric can be used to provide identical results. This supersymmetric variant is however slightly more cumbersome than the conventional $`N_v0`$ replica method, and we do not propose to use that particular variant for practical calculations.

## 2 The replica method

As explained above, with the replica method one adds $`N_v`$ valence quarks to the QCD Lagrangian, which here can be taken as any SU($`N_c3`$) gauge theory with $`N_f`$ physical (sea) quark flavors. Depending on the applications, it can be convenient to introduce $`k`$ sets of such valence quarks with $`k`$ different masses $`m_{v_j}`$, each set containing $`N_v`$ new quark flavors. The physical quark masses are denoted by $`m_f`$. The QCD partition function with these $`kN_v`$ additional quark species reads

$$𝒵^{(N_f+kN_v)}=[dA]\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}det(i\text{/}Dm_{v_j})^{N_v}\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}det(i\text{/}Dm_f)e^{S_{\mathrm{YM}}[A]}.$$
(1)
This partition function can be viewed as an unnormalized average of $`k`$ sets of $`N_v`$ identical replicas of the following partition functions of quarks in a fixed gauge field background $`A_\mu `$:

$$𝒵_{v_j}[d\overline{\psi }_jd\psi _j]\mathrm{exp}\left[d^4x\overline{\psi }_j(i\text{/}Dm_{v_j})\psi _j\right]$$
(2)
in the sense that

$$𝒵^{(N_f+kN_v)}=[dA]\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}\left[𝒵_{v_j}\right]^{N_v}\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}det(i\text{/}Dm_f)e^{S_{\mathrm{YM}}}.$$
(3)
Clearly, if we set $`N_v=0`$ this just reproduces the original QCD partition function. But the theory extended with $`kN_v`$ additional quark species in this way is a generating functional for partially quenched averages of $`\overline{\psi }_j\psi _j`$ and mixed averages also involving physical quark fields. One simply sets $`N_v`$ to zero after having performed the functional differentiations

$$\chi (m_{v_1},\mathrm{},m_{v_k},m_{f_1},\mathrm{},m_{f_l},\{m_f\})\underset{N_v0}{lim}\frac{1}{N_v^k}\frac{1}{N_f^l}\frac{}{m_{v_1}}\mathrm{}\frac{}{m_{v_k}}\frac{}{m_{f_1}}\mathrm{}\frac{}{m_{f_l}}\mathrm{ln}𝒵^{(N_f+N_v)}.$$
(4)
Technically, it can be convenient to add local sources for both scalar and pseudoscalar quark bilinears $`\overline{\psi }_j(x)\psi _j(x)`$ and $`\overline{\psi }_j(x)\gamma _5\psi _j(x)`$ and similarly for the vector and axial vector currents (for simplicity taken flavor diagonal). If needed, one can of course introduce corresponding sources in the physical quark sector. Because such terms have no bearing on our arguments presented below, we shall for simplicity omit them here.

### 2.1 Adapting the replica method to the chiral Lagrangian

For $`N_v`$ integer, and $`N_f+kN_v`$ small enough, chiral symmetry is assumed to be spontaneously broken according to the standard pattern of SU$`{}_{L}{}^{}(N_f+kN_v)\times `$SU$`{}_{R}{}^{}(N_f+kN_v)`$ SU($`N_f+kN_v`$). The effective low-energy theory can therefore be described in the entirely conventional framework of a chiral Lagrangian based on SU($`N_f+kN_v`$), with no new assumptions about the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking.111The reader might worry about the assumption that $`N_f+kN_v`$ should be taken small enough for the theory to support spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. Actually, there will be no new constraint from this. We simply analyze the chiral Lagrangian for arbitrary $`N_f+kN_v`$ even though this Lagrangian is only the low-energy theory of QCD for $`N_f+kN_v`$ sufficiently small. However, we take the limit $`N_v0`$ in the end. Then we must meet only the usual constraint that the number of physical light quarks $`N_f`$ should be small enough to lead to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking. The cases $`N_f=0`$ and $`N_f=1`$ are obviously very special here. For $`N_f=1`$ there is not any spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the theory after taking $`N_v`$ to zero, and the case $`N_f=0`$ (which would correspond to full quenching) is so unusual that we shall discuss it separately.

Having in mind a possibly non-trivial rôle played by the flavor singlet meson, the lowest-order effective chiral Lagrangian is taken to be the usual $`𝒪(p^2)`$ expression

$$=\frac{F^2}{4}\text{Tr}(_\mu U^\mu U^{})\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{2}\text{Tr}(U+U^{})+\frac{\mu ^2}{2N_c}\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2+\frac{\alpha }{2N_c}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }_0^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }_0.$$
(5)
Here the field $`U\mathrm{exp}[i\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Phi }/F]`$ is an element of SU($`N_f+kN_v`$), and we have kept the flavor-singlet field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0\text{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }`$. As in the supersymmetric method , it proves convenient to work in a “quark basis” where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}`$ corresponds to $`\overline{\psi }_i\psi _j`$. With all external sources set to zero, this gives a simple propagator for the “off-diagonal” mesons corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}\overline{\psi }_i\psi _j,ij`$:

$$D_{ij}(p^2)=\frac{1}{p^2+M_{ij}^2},$$
(6)
while for the “diagonal” mesons $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ii}\overline{\psi }_i\psi _i`$ the propagator can be written in the form

$$G_{ij}(p^2)=\frac{\delta _{ij}}{(p^2+M_{ii}^2)}\frac{(\mu ^2+\alpha p^2)/N_c}{(p^2+M_{ii}^2)(p^2+M_{jj}^2)(p^2)}.$$
(7)
Here $`M_{ij}^2(m_i+m_j)\mathrm{\Sigma }/F^2`$ and

$$(p^2)1+\frac{\mu ^2+\alpha p^2}{N_c}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{}}\frac{N_v}{p^2+M_{v_jv_j}^2}+\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}\frac{1}{p^2+M_{ff}^2}\right).$$
(8)
Note that $`N_v`$ enters as a parameter due to the mass degeneracy of the valence quarks in each of the $`k`$ sets. This is exactly what is required in order to apply the replica method. We remark that the unusual form of the propagator (7) just stems from using the quark basis and including the flavor singlet field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=\text{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }`$, and not from any peculiarities of partial quenching. Although we borrow the result (7) from ref. , it is also unrelated to the supersymmetry of the method discussed there.

By including the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ field in the Lagrangian we have kept open the possibility of studing various expansion schemes (see $`e.g.`$ the second reference of ). The $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ terms affect only $`G_{ij}`$. For $`G_{ii}`$ the flavor-singlet $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ can give rise to double poles in the partially quenched limit, but the appearance of such double poles is not special to the replica method. Indeed such double poles are also present in the supersymmetric formulation where a thorough study has been done . As we prove in the next section the two formulations have equivalent perturbative expansions. The appearance of the double pole in the replica method is therefore completely analogous to the case of the supersymmetric formulation. In particular, we note that also in the replica formalism the case $`N_f=0`$ is quite special since in that case $`(p^2)`$ simply becomes unity, and the double pole in $`G_{ii}`$ is unavoidable. Moreover, in just that case there is no decoupling as the scale $`\mu `$ is sent to infinity.

In Table 1 we give the explicit relation between the Feynman rules based on the replica method, and those based on the supersymmetric formulation. The supersymmetry Feynman rules are supplemented by the standard relative minus sign between boson and fermion loops. Despite the additional minus signs in the Feynmann rules of the supersymmetric formulation, the Green functions are identical in the two formulations. As we show below, the signs due to combinatorics in the replica method match those arising from statistics and the supertrace in the supersymmetric formulation.

## 3 The equivalence between replica and supersymmetric PQChPT

In this section we formulate the equivalence between the generating functional of PQChPT in the replica and supersymmetric formulations. The equivalence proof is by default restricted to perturbation theory (expressed in terms of the Feynman rules), and we can in principle not make any statements at the non-perturbative level. But this is as it should be, as our whole framework in any case is restricted to chiral perturbation theory. The Lagrangian itself contains an infinitely long string of interactions that become relevant with increasing loop order, and we shall only demonstrate the equivalence at the one-loop level. However, seeing how the equivalence proof proceeds, it is pretty obvious how to generalize this to arbitrarily high order.

Our claim is: The generating functional of replica PQChPT for $`N_f+kN_v`$ flavors with $`k`$ sets of $`N_v`$ mass-degenerate quarks is in perturbation theory equivalent to the generating functional of supersymmetric PQChPT for $`N_f+k`$ fermionic and $`k`$ bosonic quarks.

By equivalence between the SU$`(N_f+kN_v)`$ and the SU$`(N_f+k|k)`$ generating functionals is meant that the chiral expansions are equivalent order by order. Of course, the respective limits, $`N_v0`$ and mass degeneracy between the $`k`$ bosons and $`k`$ of the fermions, are to be introduced at the end of the calculations. While we believe that this statement is true we will as mentioned above only address the equivalence at the one-loop level. At this one-loop level the contributions from the $`𝒪(p^4)`$ chiral Lagrangian act as counter terms and we can base the discussion on the Lagrangian of (5).

Let us first consider the sea sector. (The term sea sector is used when only sea quark masses are involved in differentiations of the generating functional.) For this sector both methods are equivalent to SU$`(N_f)`$ ChPT. In the replica formulation the contributions from the valence quarks at one-loop to any of the correlators

$$\chi (m_{f_1},\mathrm{},m_{f_l},\{m_f\})\frac{1}{N_f^k}\frac{}{m_{f_1}}\mathrm{}\frac{}{m_{f_k}}\mathrm{ln}𝒵^{(N_f+N_v)},$$
(9)
are necessarily proportional to positive powers of $`N_v`$. Hence the dependence on the valence quarks vanishes as $`N_v0`$, leaving the sea sector equivalent to SU$`(N_f)`$ ChPT. The analogous statement in supersymmetric PQChPT was proven in ref. . This equivalence was formulated as three theorems in that reference. At the risk of making some oversimplifications we state them compactly as follows:

I) The sea sector of SU$`(N_f+k|k)`$ PQChPT is equivalent to SU$`(N_f)`$ ChPT.

II) The super-$`\eta ^{}`$ is equivalent to the conventional $`\eta ^{}`$ of SU$`(N_f)`$ ChPT.

III) The double pole of $`G_{ii}`$ arise at a given fermionic quark mass if and only if all fermionic quarks with this mass are paired up by bosonic quarks.

In the supersymmetric formalism theorem I is established by noting that $`k`$ of the fermionic quarks and the $`k`$ bosonic quarks only appear as virtual loops in the sea sector. Since these 2$`k`$ quarks are paired up in masses the virtual loops cancel explicitly. This cancellation is also responsible for establishing theorem II in the supersymmetric formalism, only now it takes place in the quark loop corrections to the $`\eta ^{}`$-propagator. Finally theorem III follows directly from the structure of the last term in $`G_{ii}`$. We emphasize here that the obvious analogs of both theorems I and II are completely trivial in the present replica formalism. Theorem III, when re-stated in the language of the replica formalism, stipulate under what circumstances the potential double pole of $`G_{ii}`$ is cancelled: By inspection this occurs when $`M_{ii}=M_{ff}`$ for at at least one physical meson labelled by $`ff`$. The proof of theorem III is then almost identical in the replica and supersymmetric formulations. In the phrasing of refs.  the double poles can only occur at mass scales that are completely quenched.

In the remaining quark sectors the equivalence is far less trivial. However, the supersymmetric bosonic Green functions equal the fermionic ones up to a well defined sign. So we can focus on the sectors involving fermionic valence quarks.

The equivalence in these sectors is not just of academic interest. As mentioned in the introduction, differentiations with respect to valence quark masses may be related to physical quantities. For instance the partially quenched chiral condensate for the valence quarks,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})\underset{N_v0}{lim}\frac{1}{N_v}\frac{}{m_v}\mathrm{ln}𝒵^{(N_f+N_v)},$$
(10)
can be used to determine the Dirac spectral density. This density is given by the discontinuity of the partially quenched chiral condensate across a cut on the imaginary axis :

$$\rho (\lambda ;\{m_f\})=\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{Disc}|_{m_v=i\lambda }\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{ϵ0}{lim}[\mathrm{\Sigma }(i\lambda +ϵ,\{m_f\})\mathrm{\Sigma }(i\lambda ϵ,\{m_f\})].$$
(11)
(This identification holds when one considers $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})`$ as a function of a real mass $`m_v`$, and then replaces $`m_vi\lambda \pm ϵ`$.)

In the valence sector and the mixed sector the equivalence is established in two steps. First, notice that the propagator (7) of replica PQChPT for $`N_v=0`$ is identical to the one for the fermionic sector of the corresponding supersymmetric PQChPT in the limit where each of the boson masses is paired up with a fermion mass, see Table 1. (This equivalence holds trivially for the off-diagonal quark anti-quark propagators.) Second, the signs arising from combinatorics in the replica method is exactly matched by the opposite signs of boson and fermion loops occurring in the supersymmetric formulation.

In order to see exactly how the signs come to match in the two approaches, we explicitly give the derivation of the $`k`$-point function in the valence sector. The generalization to the mixed sector follows in complete analogy.

### 3.1  The one-point function in the valence sector

In this first example we give the contributions to the valence quark mass dependent chiral condensate defined in (10). We show how the cancellations that occur exactly match those of the supersymmetric formulation. It turns out that this simple 1-point function actually is ideally suited for illustrating the equivalence between the replica method and the supersymmetric method, as all essential properties of the propagators and of the combinatorics come into play.

To evaluate the one-point function we need to introduce just one set of replica fermions. Explicitly performing the differentiation of the generating functional, see Eq. (10), or alternatively counting the number of realizations of quark flow diagrams we have to one-loop

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\underset{N_v0}{lim}\frac{1}{N_v}(N_v\frac{1}{F^2}\left(N_v\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vf}^2)+N_v(N_v1)\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vv}^2)+N_v\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}G_{vv}(p^2)\right))$$
(12)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{ij}^2)\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}\frac{1}{p^2+M_{ij}^2}\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}D_{ij}(p^2)$$
(13)
is a one-loop integral of the standard diagonal propagator for the off-diagonal mesons, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}\overline{\psi }_i\psi _j`$, $`ij`$. (We write everything in finite-volume notation, having also in mind applications of the kind discussed in refs. .) The first term in $`\frac{1}{V}_pG_{vv}(p^2)`$ is simply $`\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vv}^2)`$. For arbitrary $`N_v`$ this term is seen to cancel against the term just before $`G_{vv}`$. In the $`N_v0`$ limit we also get rid of the term proportional to $`N_v`$, leaving simply

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=1\frac{1}{F^2}\left(\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vf}^2)\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}\frac{(\mu ^2+\alpha p^2)/N_c}{(p^2+M_{vv}^2)(p^2+M_{vv}^2)(p^2)}\right).$$
(14)
This is completely analogous to the result obtained in the supersymmetric formulation. In that case a similar cancellation takes place between the first term in $`\frac{1}{V}_pG_{vv}(p)`$ and the loop of the meson built up by the fermionic and bosonic valance quark. It is also instructive to trace the cancellation of valence quark loops. In the supersymmetric formulation this cancellation occurs because of a matching boson loop, while in the present formulation it is due to the lack of a replica fermion. Pictorially speaking, this lack of a replica fermion acts like a boson.

### 3.2  The $`k`$-point function in the valence sector

As for the condensate, the $`k`$-fold derivative, $`k2`$, of $`\mathrm{ln}𝒵^{(N_f+kN_v)}`$ with respect to each of the valence quark masses is related to the spectral $`k`$-point function. The evaluation of the $`k`$-fold derivative is quite simple but we need to treat the case $`k=2`$ separately. The reason is simple: The product

$$\underset{j,k=1}{\overset{N_f+2N_v}{}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}(x_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{ji}(x_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{lk}(x_2)\mathrm{\Phi }_{kl}(x_2),il$$
(15)
occurring in the two point function includes two connected terms, namely

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_1v_1}(x_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_2v_2}(x_2)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_2v_2}(x_2)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_1v_1}(x_1)$$

and

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_1v_2}(x_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_2v_1}(x_2)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_1v_2}(x_2)\mathrm{\Phi }_{v_2v_1}(x_1).$$

For $`k>2`$ there is no connected analogue of the latter “crossed diagram”, since $`k`$ of the indices must be different (we differentiate with respect to different masses). The 2-point function is thus different from higher $`k`$-point functions because meson loops correspond to just quark-antiquark lines. In terms of the propagators the two-point function is222This chiral 2-point function has been analyzed in the supersymmetric formulation by Osborn, Toublan, and Verbaarschot (private communication).

$$\frac{\chi (m_{v_1},m_{v_2},\{m_f\})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }^2}=\underset{N_v0}{lim}\frac{1}{N_v^2}\frac{1}{F^4}\left(N_v^2\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}D_{v_1v_2}(p^2)D_{v_2v_1}(p^2)+N_v^2\frac{1}{V}\underset{p}{}G_{v_1v_2}(p^2)G_{v_2v_1}(p^2)\right).$$
(16)
Whereas for $`k>2`$ there is no crossed diagram, and we are left with

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\chi (m_{v_1},\mathrm{},m_{v_k},\{m_f\})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }^k}}`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{N_v0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_v^k}}(1)^k{\displaystyle \frac{1}{F^{2k}}}N_v^k{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}G_{v_1v_2}(p^2)\mathrm{}G_{v_kv_1}(p^2).`$ (17)
We observe that in both cases the $`N_v`$-dependence is such that the limit $`N_v0`$ becomes trivial. The corresponding expressions in the supersymmetric formalism are identical. Note that sea fermion and “ghost”-loops only appear in the one-point function.

## 4 From replicas to supersymmetry

Interestingly, in perturbation theory it is possible to use a peculiar variant of the replica method that is supersymmetric. This is because all $`N_v`$-dependence in the propagators and vertices is entirely parametric. We can thus make replicas of an arbitrary real number of valence quarks. Moreover, partial quenching can be achieved not only by taking $`N_v0`$, but also by taking $`N_v`$ to any fixed number of quarks $`N_v^{}`$, and re-interpreting the remaining $`N_f+N_v^{}`$ as physical quarks (of which it just happens that at least $`N_v^{}`$ are degenerate in mass). Because the $`N_v`$-dependence is parametric in perturbation theory, we can trivially go one step further and consider a partially quenched theory of $`N_f`$ physical fermions as the limit $`N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v`$ of a theory based on $`N_f+\stackrel{~}{N}_v+N_v`$ quarks, out of which the $`\stackrel{~}{N}_v+N_v`$ quarks are degenerate in mass $`\stackrel{~}{m}_v=m_v`$. This corresponds to considering the effective theory of a fundamental partition function that is partially supersymmetric (for simplicity considering only one such set of replica quarks):

$`𝒵^{(N_f+\stackrel{~}{N}_v+N_v)}|_{N_v=\stackrel{~}{N}_v}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [dA]det(i\text{/}Dm_v)^{N_v}\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f+\stackrel{~}{N}_v}{}}det(i\text{/}Dm_f)e^{S_{\mathrm{YM}}[A]}}|_{N_v=\stackrel{~}{N}_v}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [dA]\frac{det(i\text{/}D\stackrel{~}{m}_v)^{\stackrel{~}{N}_v}}{det(i\text{/}Dm_v)^{\stackrel{~}{N}_v}}\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}det(i\text{/}Dm_f)e^{S_{\mathrm{YM}}[A]}}.`$ (19)
At this level the partition function is exactly as the starting point of the supersymmetric method. However, when we consider the effective partition function in terms of the Goldstone bosons, the working rules are entirely different. We keep our Feynman rules of Table 1, and just remember to take the limit $`N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v`$ in the end. The fact that this procedure works is of course a direct consequence of the fact that in perturbation theory we can get bosons from fermions by letting the number of (degenerate) species go from positive to negative (also the “statistics” sign of closed fermion loops relative to closed boson loops comes out right in this way).

It is instructive to see how this supersymmetric variant of the replica method works in detail. Consider again our prototype of a Green function, that of the partially quenched chiral condensate. Using the notation of above, we find

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(m_v,\{m_f\})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}`$ $``$ $`\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v}{m_v\stackrel{~}{m}_v}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{}{m_v}}\mathrm{ln}𝒵^{(N_f+\stackrel{~}{N}_v+N_v)}`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v}{m_v\stackrel{~}{m}_v}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_v}}(N_v{\displaystyle \frac{1}{F^2}}(N_v[{\displaystyle \underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vf}^2)+\stackrel{~}{N}_v\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{v\stackrel{~}{v}}^2)]+N_v(N_v1)\mathrm{\Delta }(M_{vv}^2)`$
$`+N_v{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}G_{vv}(p^2)))`$
where $`M_{v\stackrel{~}{v}}^2(m_v+\stackrel{~}{m}_v)\mathrm{\Sigma }/F^2`$, and $`G_{vv}(p^2)`$ is as in Table 1, except for the obvious change that now

$$(p^2)1+\frac{\mu ^2+\alpha p^2}{N_c}\left(\frac{N_v}{p^2+M_{vv}^2}+\frac{\stackrel{~}{N}_v}{p^2+M_{\stackrel{~}{v}\stackrel{~}{v}}^2}+\underset{f=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}\frac{1}{p^2+M_{ff}^2}\right).$$
(22)
Taking the degenerate mass limit $`\stackrel{~}{m}_v=m_v`$ and letting $`N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v`$ we note that terms cancel out exactly as in the previous $`N_v0`$ replica method. For instance, in $`(p^2)`$ the terms linear in $`N_v`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{N}_v`$ just cancel each other. In eq. (21) the term proportional to $`N_v^2`$, which previously dropped out trivially in the $`N_v0`$ limit, is now precisely cancelled by a similar term proportional to $`N_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v\stackrel{~}{N}_v^2`$. All “unwanted” terms thus exactly cancel as they should, and we are left with the correct one-loop result (14). As we mentioned earlier, this example of the one-point function is actually the most instructive for illustrating the cancellations. The other $`k`$-point functions clearly proceed analogously.

Although it is thus possible to make a supersymmetric variant of the replica method, it is obviously rather pointless to do so. The simplest Feynman rules come from using just the conventional $`N_v0`$ limit. We also note that although the starting partition function (19) is identical to that forming the basis for the supersymmetric chiral Lagrangian , the effective theory one works with in the analogous supersymmetric replica scheme is of a very different nature, and has in fact here only been defined by means of the perturbative expansion.

## 5 Conclusions

We have shown how the replica method can been adapted to chiral perturbation theory. This provides a new and systematic realization of quenched and partially quenched chiral perturbation theory. We have demonstrated how the replica method is equivalent to the supersymmetric formulation in perturbation theory. This equivalence is quite trivial in the sector of physical quarks, and has allowed us to extend the three theorems of  to the present replica formulation of PQChPT. The equivalence between the replica and the supersymmetric formalisms also extends outside the sea sector. The complete agreement (at least to one-loop order) of the two approaches offers a non-trivial consistency check. In particular, the assumed extension of the standard symmetry breaking pattern to the supergroup case is avoided in the present context. The fact that results agree can be taken as independent confirmation of the validity of both approaches.

As an equivalent but nevertheless independent formulation of PQChPT the replica method illustrates the fact that supersymmetry is a technical tool for quenching rather than of fundamental nature. For practical purposes the usefulness of the replica method as compared to the supersymmetric formulation is perhaps a matter of taste. The advantage of having fewer sign-rules using the replica method is to some extent traded for the marginally simpler combinatorics in the supersymmetric formulation.

Finally, the replica method presented here gives the background and the justification for the rules observed by Colangelo and Pallante in . Within the supersymmetric formulation they studied fully quenched chiral perturbation theory to one loop. Based on an explicit calculation of the divergent parts of the generating functional for both SU$`(k|k)`$ (and the additional U(1) of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$) and standard SU$`(N_f)`$ chiral perturbation theory (without the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$), they proposed a set of rules for writing down large parts of the SU$`(k|k)`$ generating functional from that of SU$`(N_v)`$. The equivalence between the SU$`(k|k)`$ and SU$`(N_v0)`$ theories (when the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is included in both), is a special case of the general equivalence established here. This formally establishes the rules suggested in  and furthermore shows that the terms missing in SU$`(N_f0)`$ chiral perturbation are just those produced by including the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$. The procedure to compute in partially quenched chiral perturbation theory to any order is now extremely simple. One must take a usual chiral SU($`N_f+N_v`$) chiral Lagrangian and add the contributions from $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$. For example, to order $`p^6`$ the whole list of divergent contributions in the case of a degenerate SU($`N_v`$) theory is provided in ref. . This can form the basis for a fully quenched calculation once the contributions from the flavor singlet have been included (for a discussion of the large-$`N_c`$ limit, see $`e.g.`$ ref. ).

Acknowledgement:
This work was supported in part by EU TMR grant no. ERBFMRXCT97-0122.


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# Inhomogeneity-Induced Superconductivity?

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## Abstract

A $`t`$-$`J`$-like model for inhomogeneous superconductivity of cuprate oxides is presented, in which local anisotropic magnetic terms are essential. We show that this model predicts pairing, consistent with experiments, and argue how the macroscopic phase-coherent state gradually grows upon lowering of the temperature. We show that appropriate inhomogeneities are essential in order to have significant pair binding in the thermodynamic limit. Particularly, local breaking of $`SU(2)`$ spin symmetry is an efficient mechanism for inducing pairing of two holes, as well as explaining the magnetic scattering properties. We also discuss the connection of the resulting inhomogeneity-induced superconductivity to recent experimental evidence for a linear relation between magnetic incommensurability and the superconducting transition temperature, as a function of doping.

There is a growing body of experimental evidence suggesting that the superconducting state in cuprate oxides is “inhomogeneous,” such that the locally defined charge density varies across the sample in the ground state. Spatially inhomogeneous features in the spin and charge channels have been indicated in a number of experiments on high-$`T_c`$ materials . The simplest realization of this state is the so-called “stripe” phase where charges cluster in nanoscale linear patterns and the remainder of the sample is essentially an antiferromagnetically correlated insulator. This represents a nanoscale distribution of charge and spin, rather than a global phase separation. These experiments lead us to a central question: Is the superconducting state found in high-$`T_c`$ cuprates inhomogeneous as a result of spin/charge inhomogeneities? We believe that the answer to this question is yes. Moreover, we argue that spatial spin/charge inhomogeneities are in fact necessary for pairing and subsequent formation of the superconducting state in these compounds. This situation should be contrasted with the case of conventional superconductors, resolved by the BCS (Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer) theory, that starts with a homogeneous metallic state and describes the formation of a homogeneous superconducting state. It is commonly believed that magnetic correlations, characterized by the spin exchange energy $`J1500K`$ are responsible for the pairing interactions in the cuprates and are, therefore, crucial for our inhomogeneous exchange approach. Moreover, the existence of a spin gap has been experimentally proven . A model that naturally incorporates these features (inhomogeneities, magnetism and spin gap) is a $`t`$-$`J`$-like model with explicitly broken spatial and magnetic symmetries.

Of central importance for the present work is a microscopic model which captures the main low energy physics of doped antiferromagnetic (AF) Mott insulators. In particular, we show that our minimal model properly describes the magnetic properties observed in a wide variety of doped cuprate oxide materials. The key ingredient is the existence of magnetic perturbations which explicitly break local spin-rotational invariance (e.g., due to local spin-orbit coupling ) and thereby induce substantial hole pair binding. We then develop a mean-field theory of superconductivity based upon a phenomenology from our microscopic model. We emphasize that in our approach there are two, in principle different, energy scales; one associated to the pairing of holes and another related to the phase coherence of the pairs (that establishes $`T_c`$). Basically the inhomogeneities induce a strong hole pairing, which in turn Josephson-tunnel coherently between stripes, separated by insulating AF regions, phase-locking into a macroscopic supercurrent superfluid stiffness. Recently, a simple linear relation between the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$ and the AF incommensuration $`\delta `$ has been observed for the LSCO  and YBCO  high-$`T_c`$ compounds: $`k_BT_c\delta `$, where $`k_B`$ is the Boltzman constant. We find that for this relation to hold we need a power law Josephson tunneling.

Microscopic Model. Our model Hamiltonian describing the low energy dynamics of CuO2 planes is $`H=H_{tJ}+H_{\mathrm{inh}}`$, where the background Hamiltonian $`H_{tJ}`$ is the standard $`t`$-$`J`$ model

$$H_{tJ}=t\underset{i,j,\sigma }{}c_{i\sigma }^{}c_{j\sigma }^{}+J\underset{i,j}{}(𝐒_i𝐒_j\frac{1}{4}\overline{n}_i\overline{n}_j).$$
(1)
For the inhomogeneous component, we take

$$H_{\mathrm{inh}}=\underset{\alpha ,\beta }{}\delta J_zS_\alpha ^zS_\beta ^z+\frac{\delta J_{}}{2}\left(S_\alpha ^+S_\beta ^{}+S_\alpha ^{}S_\beta ^+\right),$$
(2)
with $`\delta J_{}\delta J_z`$, representing the magnetic perturbation of a static local Ising anisotropy, locally lowering spin symmetry. Here $`i,j`$ are near-neighbor sites, while $`\alpha ,\beta `$ are two near-neighbor sites characterizing the bonds that are perturbed and where $`SU(2)`$ spin-rotational invariance is explicitly broken. The network of perturbed bonds form mesoscopic patterns determined by the distribution of stripe segments. The spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ operator $`𝐒_i=\frac{1}{2}c_{i\sigma }^{}𝝉_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}^{}c_{i\sigma ^{}}^{}`$, the electron occupation number $`\overline{n}_i=c_i^{}c_i^{}+c_i^{}c_i^{}`$, and $`c_{i\sigma }^{}(c_{i\sigma }^{})`$ creates(annihilates) an electron of spin $`\sigma `$ in a Wannier orbital centered at site $`i`$; $`𝝉`$ are the 3 Pauli matrices. This is a three-state model with the hopping constrained to the subspace with no doubly occupied sites. In the following, all energies will be measured in units of $`J`$.

Our modeling strategy consists in assuming the existence of an inhomogeneous mesoscopic skeleton of stripe segments, and then exploring its consequences, mainly the competition between magnetism and superconductivity. We do not address here the important problem of the formation and stability of this skeleton morphology. The origin(s) of “stripe segment” formation in high temperature superconductors is as yet unclear and several physical mechanisms could act cooperatively and be responsible for the generation of multiple length scales, among them: spin-orbit coupling, local Jahn-Teller distortions induced by the hole, effective interactions coming from a multi-band Hubbard Model (HM) (including explicitly the oxygen and copper bands), oxygen buckling at the stripe, and other local magnetoelastic effects . Competitions between attractive short range forces and repulsive long range ones can certainly spontaneously break translational and/or rotational invariance in the CuO2 planes , but this is not necessarily the only mechanism. However, we show below that the mere existence of appropriate local magnetic anisotropies is crucial for pair-formation.

We start by showing that, as far as we could numerically determine, only by including a local Ising perturbation such as $`H_{\mathrm{inh}}`$ in Eq. 1 can a strong pairing of holes be obtained (see Fig. 1). All the calculations were made using exact diagonalization in small clusters with periodic boundary conditions in all spatial directions. We studied one-dimensional (1D) chains up to 16 sites and $`8\times 2`$ clusters. Hereafter, we will view our clusters as simulating systems where the longer direction is perpendicular to the stripes. We investigated the system size scaling for the binding energy of two holes defined as $`E_b=(E_{2\mathrm{holes}}E_{0\mathrm{hole}})2(E_{1\mathrm{hole}}E_{0\mathrm{hole}})`$ for several models in 1D and 2D. Although for small enough systems the binding energies could be very large, they all seem to extrapolate towards no (or extremely small) binding in the thermodynamic limit, with the clear exception of the inhomogeneous $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ case. We have also studied several one-band HMs, but we could again not find definite binding. The $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ model, the only one unambiguously giving binding in the thermodynamic limit, is obtained by breaking spin-rotation symmetry in $`d`$ near-neighbor bonds $`\alpha ,\beta `$, repeated with period $`P`$, by an amount $`\delta J_z=0`$, $`\delta J_{}<0`$ in Eq. 1. This $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ model is a most natural way to induce a spin-gap. We have checked that the spin-gap is present for our $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ model. The inhomogeneities forming the superstructure, which we impose by hand in the Hamiltonian, we term stripes. In Fig. 2 we show the hole correlation function $`g|n_0.n_i|g`$, where $`|g`$ is the ground state of the system ($`g|g=1`$). This correlation function gives information about the structure of the pair. It can be seen that as the hopping strength $`t`$ is increased beyond a characteristic value the second hole jumps from one stripe to the neighboring one, starting from an initial configuration where both holes are in the same stripe for small $`t`$. This can be understood as a result of a length(time)-scale competition: the pair size exceeds the stripe width.

To explore the nature of the binding, we have examined the canonical transformation of a $`t`$-$`J`$ model from a one-band HM and traced what kind of perturbations would produce a $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ term. This corresponds to a term like $`V_\sigma \overline{n}_{i,\sigma }\overline{n}_{j,\overline{\sigma }}`$ ($`i,j`$ first neighbors) in an extended HM, which may in turn arise, for example, from local magnetoelastic (e.g. oxygen (un)buckling)  or spin-orbit couplings. Note, again, that here this is a perturbation only at the stripes. This kind of anisotropy manifests itself in two different ways in the $`t`$-$`J`$$`J_z`$ model, enhancing both the $`\frac{1}{4}\overline{n}_i\overline{n}_j`$ and the easy axis (Ising) terms of the Hamiltonian. The first one is an explicit pairing term for electrons. To see the relative importance of each term we have calculated the binding energy of a Hamiltonian like (1) but excluding the $`\frac{1}{4}\overline{n}_i\overline{n}_j`$ term and including bonds with broken spin-rotational symmetry. This model corresponds to holes (with no spin) propagating in an antiferromagnet, but not derived from a canonical transformation of a one-band HM. We find that it still has binding, as should be expected. Thus, the easy axis exchange term is partially responsible for the binding energy.

In order to understand this exchanged-based pairing mechanism, it is useful to explore some limiting cases. When the magnetic energy scales are the most relevant ones: $`(J_z=J+\delta J_z,J_{}=J+\delta J_{})t`$, it is easy to realize that, depending upon $`J_z,J_{}`$ being smaller or larger than $`J`$, the holes will prefer to be in the stripes or between stripes (with no binding), respectively. The opposite limit, i.e. purely kinetic energy, leads to delocalized holes and no binding. The situation where $`J_z<J`$ and $`t`$ is relevant corresponds to the intermediate regime where pairing is observed. Notice that pairing of holes does not necessarily imply that holes should share the same stripe, they can occupy neighboring ones (see Fig. 2, upper panel), thus avoiding phase separation. Details of the charge confinement and pairing potentials from the (dynamic) spin-field profiles in the superlattice skeletons will be given elsewhere.

Having demonstrated a minimal model for hole binding, we have computed spin correlation functions in clusters of size $`N_x\times N_y=N`$ ($`N_x=8,N_y=2`$). Here, we simulate the stripes by including an anisotropic $`\delta J_{}<0`$ in one $`y`$-bond with $`P=4`$; the rest of the bonds, including all the $`x`$-bonds, were not changed from the background $`t`$-$`J`$ model (see inset, Fig. 3). We cannot perform scaling on this size of inhomogeneous system, but the binding energy is still considerable. We have included up to 6 holes. In the case of four holes (the one more relevant to the stripes in the underdoped regime for cuprate oxides) and small $`t(J)`$ the holes bind in pairs on each site of the inhomogeneous bond (see Fig. 2, lower panel).

In Fig. 3 we show the spin-structure factor function $`S(𝕜=(k_x,k_y))`$ defined as: $`S_𝕜S_𝕜=(1/N)_{𝕚,𝕛}\mathrm{exp}(i𝕜.𝕣_𝕚)g|𝕊_𝕛.𝕊_{𝕛+𝕚}|g`$. This function corresponds to the observable in the elastic neutron scattering experiments. For $`t`$ small, only one peak occurs with $`k_y=\pi `$, corresponding to two essentially uncorrelated AF domains, isolated from each other by the pinned hole wall. As $`t`$ increases ($`t/J2`$, near the accepted set of values of the 2D $`t`$-$`J`$ model for cuprates ), the holes gain kinetic energy by visiting the first neighbor sites around the anisotropy region, but still bind together. The effective width of the pair thus increases to two sites. Magnetic energy is then gained if the two domains shift their staggered magnetization by $`\pi `$. We suggest that these $`𝒪(t^2)`$ processes are responsible for the incommensuration ($`\delta `$) in $`S(𝕜)`$ observed in the experiments. This $`\delta `$ is the inverse of twice the period $`P`$ of the stripes. In this picture the incommensuration is a consequence of the holes and their kinetic energy, and is a property of the ground state. Basically, it results from the competition between hole delocalization and magnetic fluctuations. This contrasts with some other proposed explanations, where $`\delta `$ is a magnetic thermodynamic property . It is interesting to note that this incommensuration arises even in the homogeneous $`t`$-$`J`$ model although for different values of $`t`$. This suggests that the experimentally observed magnetic properties are already present in a homogeneous $`t`$-$`J`$ model, but in order to obtain binding of holes appropiate inhomogeneous terms must be included.

When more than four holes are added to the system, but only two bonds are perturbed, $`S(𝕜)`$ changes qualitatively. Instead of showing an incommensurability around $`𝕜=𝐐=(\pi ,\pi )`$, it has a broad peak at $`𝕜=(0,\pi )`$. In this case the extra holes are delocalized in the middle of the AF space between stripes. This suggests that when the stripes reach their minimum separation, extra holes are responsible for the experimental increase and ultimate disappearance of the incommensurability.

Model of Josephson Spaghetti. It is important to relate the above discussion to the experimental evidence for the incommensurate neutron scattering peak, seen in LSCO (e.g., ) and YBCO compounds . In both of these cases a simple linear relation between $`T_c`$ and the peak incommensuration $`\delta `$ near $`𝐐`$ (or peak width in YBCO) is obeyed . Namely,

$`k_BT_c=\mathrm{}v^{}\delta .`$ (3)
The anomalously low velocity values for $`v^{}`$ depend on the compound . These velocities are independent of the carrier concentration and the only doping ($`x`$) dependence entering Eq. 3 is through $`\delta (x)`$.

An interpretation of this relation is to connect possible superconductivity mechanisms to the existence of the fluctuating stripes. Here we focus on the simple proportionality between $`T_c(x)`$ and a doping dependent length $`\mathrm{}(x)`$, determined from the neutron scattering: $`T_c(x)1/\mathrm{}(x),\mathrm{}(x)=1/\delta (x)`$. We consider how the Josephson tunneling of pairs between stripe segments can produce the relation between the phase ordering transition temperature $`T_c`$ and the typical length $`\mathrm{}(x)`$. The stripe-stripe distance $`r`$ is a random quantity due to intrinsic mechanisms as well as disorder and/or crystal imperfections . Therefore, we will assume that the mean-field transition temperature depends upon the Josephson coupling $`J(r)`$, averaged with some probability distribution of stripe separations.

Our model Hamiltonian of random stripe separation and associated inter- and intra-stripe random Josephson coupling (see Fig. 4) is

$`={\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}J_{ij}\mathrm{exp}[i(\varphi _i\varphi _j)],`$ (4)
$`J_{ij}=J(r_{ij})=t_0/r_{ij}^\alpha ,`$ (5)
where the summation is taken over the coarse-grained regions $`i=1,\mathrm{},𝒩`$ with well-defined phases, labeled $`\varphi _i=\varphi (r_i)`$ and $`J_{ij}`$ becomes zero eventually at large distances. Next, we will assume some probability distribution $`P(r)`$ for the stripe-stripe distance. For simplicity we will take the “box” distribution $`P(r)`$ centered around $`\mathrm{}=1/\delta `$ and with finite width $`a=\nu \mathrm{}`$, where $`\nu =𝒪(1)`$ is a parameter. $`P(r)=C`$, for $`\mathrm{}ar\mathrm{}+a`$, and zero otherwise. Here we have simplified to one length scale for both $`a`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$. The normalization constant in 2D is $`C=[4\pi \mathrm{}a]^1`$. In this model one easily finds

$`J(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2rP(r)J(r)}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi t_0C}{2\alpha }}a_1\mathrm{}^{2\alpha },`$ (6)
$`r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi C}{3}}a_2\mathrm{}^3,`$ (7)
where the constants $`a_1,a_2`$ are $`𝒪(1)`$. Thus, for $`\alpha =1`$, we obtain the experimentally observed relation

$`T_c(x)J(r)[r]^1=\delta (x).`$ (8)
We have examined a variety of distributions $`P(r)`$ and functional dependences for $`J_{ij}`$; Eq. 5 with $`\alpha =1`$ is the only one reproducing the experimental data (at our mean-field random Josephson coupling level. Implicit in $`J(r)`$ is the exponential cutoff at lengths much larger than the stripe-stripe distance. This cutoff is necessary to have a well defined thermodynamic limit but is not important for short length scales). The screening mechanism (magnetic, elastic fluctuations, etc.) responsible for this form requires detailed microscopic modeling . The present model does not allow us to determine the magnitude of $`v^{}`$ without making specific assumptions about parameters such as $`t_0`$.

In conclusion, we have presented a microscopic model that captures the essential magnetic and pairing properties of high-temperature cuprate superconductors. Pairing of holes is a consequence of the existence of an AF background. (Analogous scenarios in other broken symmetry backgrounds, e.g. doped charge-density-wave bismuthates, are likely.) Crucially, however, the glue is provided by magnetic inhomogeneities whose precise origin remains to be unraveled, although it seems fundamental that these perturbations should locally break spin-rotational invariance. This pairing mechanism is kinetic exchange-interaction based and involves a competition between Ising and $`XY`$ symmetries. We emphasize that the pair-binding occurs only for intermediate strengths of $`t`$ and (local) $`J_z`$. We also introduced a phenomenological model and scenario for the macroscopic superconductivity based upon coherent Josephson-tunneling of pairs of holes between these magnetic inhomogeneities in a mesoscopic liquid-crystal-like  skeleton. We have shown that this approach is able to recover the magnetic incommensuration $`\delta `$ and its experimentally observed relation to $`T_c(x)`$. Finally, we note that we have assumed static magnetic inhomogeneities. The case where the broken spin-symmetry follows the hole is also interesting. Elsewhere, we will discuss this generalization of coupling the inhomogeneity selfconsistently to dynamic holes.

Work at Los Alamos is sponsored by the US DOE under contract W-7405-ENG-36.


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# 1 Predicted ratios 𝑅=Γ(𝑋^∗→𝑋𝑒⁺𝑒⁻)/Γ(𝑋^∗→𝑋𝛾), for some mesonic systems 𝑋. The branching ratios ℬ(𝑋^∗→𝑋𝛾) and mass differences 𝑚_𝑋^∗-𝑚_𝑋 are from []. We have assumed 𝑚_𝐵_𝑠^∗-𝑚_𝐵_𝑠=𝑚_𝐵_𝑑^∗-𝑚_𝐵_𝑑. The number for the 𝐾^∗(892) decay is included for completeness only, since here form factors might become important, and of course, the 𝐾^∗(892) is a 1⁻–particle. Note however that 𝐾^∗(892)→𝐾𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ has not been observed. The only ratio for a heavy system 𝑋 observed so far is 𝐵^∗ [], where 𝑅=(4.7±1.1±0.9)×10⁻³.

Determining the quantum numbers of excited heavy mesons
G. Eilam and F. Krauss

Technion–Israel Institute of Technology

32000 Haifa, Israel

Abstract

We discuss the decays $`X^{}Xe^+e^{}`$ (“Dalitz decays”) of excited heavy mesons into their ground states and an electron–positron pair. We argue that the measurement of the invariant mass spectrum of the lepton pair gives clear indication on the quantum numbers of the excited meson and thus provides an experimental test of the quark model predictions.

PACS numbers: 14.40.Lb, 14.40.Nd, 12.39.Jh, 13.40Hq, 13.20Fc, 13.20.He, 13.25.Ft, 13.25.Hw

We investigate radiative decays of excited heavy mesons with charm and beauty, i.e. $`D^0`$, $`D_s^+`$, $`B^0`$ and $`B_s^0`$, into their ground state plus an electron–positron pair. There are several reasons that led us to investigate these decays:

1. The quantum numbers $`J`$ and $`P`$ of the excited mesons given in the Review of Particle Physics  are either merely predictions of the quark model, which gives for the particles discussed here $`J^P=1^{}`$, or at best the quantum numbers need confirmation 111We would like to mention here, that for the $`B`$–meson even the quantum numbers of the ground state are not known experimentally; nevertheless we assume $`J^P(B)=0^{}`$..
2. The quantum numbers of some even higher heavy meson states, depend on the correct assignments for the $`X^{}`$’s which are the focus of the present work.
3. The central values of the branching ratios for $`D^0D^0\gamma `$ and $`D^0D^0\pi `$ sum up to exactly 100 $`\%`$ . Only closer inspection of both relevant experimental papers  reveals that this was one of the assumptions underlying the analyses. A similar assumption was made for $`D_s^\pm `$, where again it was assumed that branching ratios for $`D_s^+D_s^+\gamma `$ and $`D_s^+D_s^+\pi ^0`$ sum to 100 $`\%`$ . Although the current errors on the individual branching ratios are clearly higher than the branching ratios for the decay into a Dalitz pair which, as we will see below, are of the order of $`0.5\%`$ of their real photon emission counterparts, in the long term this channel cannot be neglected. Especially in light of future precision measurements in the $`B`$–sector, a precise tracking of all outgoing $`D`$’s is required. In other words, it is important to know which decay of $`X^{}`$ has the closest branching ratio to the decays that have been already measured. Let us remark, that for the $`B^{}`$ decay, for which the dominant mode is $`B^{}B\gamma `$, its decay into $`Be^+e^{}`$ presented here has a much larger rate (about $`0.5\%`$, see below) than the decay $`B^{}B\gamma \gamma `$, recently discussed in .
4. The only recent theoretical analysis of an $`X^{}Xe^+e^{}`$ decay was performed for $`D^{}De^+e^{}`$  and yielded $`R0.001`$, where the ratio $`R`$ is defined as

$`R={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(X^{}Xe^+e^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(X^{}X\gamma )}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ee}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma }}`$ (1)
with $`X=D`$. As found below, we predict $`R`$ to be about 5 times larger than the result of . Let us note here that the suggestion to use the ratio between the Dalitz decay and the real photon emission–and in particular its $`q^2m_{12}^2`$ dependence–to determine the quantum numbers of the decaying particle, was made many years ago . Our results are consistent with theirs.

Since we will be mainly concerned with ratios $`R`$, where $`X=D,B`$, it is sufficient to parametrize the $`X^{}X\gamma `$ transition with some effective coupling constant $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }`$ and a suitable form factor $``$. We replace the various form factors possible for off–shell photons by a single one, and furthermore assume that it is independent of $`q^2`$. This is justified by the observation that for all the $`X^{}`$$`X`$ combinations we consider, the mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{X^{}X}m_X^{}m_X`$ is of the order of up to $`150`$ MeV and thus much smaller than the $`\rho `$–mass which is the most relevant one in the vector dominance model for the form factors. Therefore the influence of the form factors on the results is indeed very small. We have confirmed that our numerical results are practically unaffected by the assumption $`(q^2)(0)`$.

The matrix elements we consider read

$`_{1^{}0^{}\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }(q^2)ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }ϵ_\alpha (\gamma )ϵ_\beta ^{}(X^{})P_\mu (X^{})q_\nu (\gamma )`$
$`_{2^+0^{}\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }(q^2)ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }ϵ_\alpha (\gamma )P_\beta (X^{})ϵ_{\mu \rho }^{}(X^{})q_\nu (\gamma )q^\rho (\gamma ).`$ (2)
We have concentrated here on the $`1^{}`$ and $`2^+`$ quantum numbers for the excited and $`0^{}`$ for the ground state, since in the $`D`$–system the quantum numbers of the ground states are known to be $`0^{}`$ and because the $`D^{}`$ decays into a $`D`$ and both a pion or a photon. Therefore, the $`1^{}`$ and $`2^+`$ are the lowest lying quantum numbers allowed for the $`D^{}`$. In fact, for the $`B`$–system the situation is slightly different. Here the small mass difference of the $`B^{}`$ and the $`B`$ of roughly 45 MeV does not provide enough phase space for the $`B^{}`$ to decay into a $`B`$ and a $`\pi `$, hence the $`B^{}`$ could in principle be a $`1^+`$. This would cause the relevant strong coupling constant $`g_{B^{}B\pi }`$ to vanish. However, we consider this idea to be too far–out and will not discuss it here.

We use the completeness relations (for the $`2^+`$ see e.g: )

$`{\displaystyle ϵ^\mu (p)ϵ^\nu (p)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(g^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\mu p^\nu }{p^2}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle ϵ^{\mu \nu }(p)ϵ^{\rho \sigma }(p)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[(g^{\mu \rho }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\mu p^\rho }{p^2}})(g^{\sigma \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\sigma p^\nu }{p^2}})`$ (3)
$`+\left(g^{\sigma \mu }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\sigma p^\mu }{p^2}}\right)\left(g^{\nu \rho }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\nu p^\rho }{p^2}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}(g^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\mu p^\nu }{p^2}})(g^{\rho \sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{p^\rho p^\sigma }{p^2}})].`$
After squaring, summing and averaging we obtain for the the decay into a real photon

$`3{\displaystyle \overline{\left|_{1^{}0^{}\gamma }\right|^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`2g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2^2(0)(Pq)^2`$
$`5{\displaystyle \overline{\left|_{2^+0^{}\gamma }\right|^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2^2(0){\displaystyle \frac{(Pq)^4}{P^2}},`$ (4)
where $`P`$ and $`q`$ are the momenta of the excited meson and the photon, respectively. The resulting branching ratios are given by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{1^{}0^{}\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2^2(0){\displaystyle \frac{(m_X^{}^2m_X^2)^3}{96\pi m_X^{}^3}}`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2^+0^{}\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2^2(0){\displaystyle \frac{(m_X^{}^2m_X^2)^5}{1280\pi m_X^{}^5}}.`$ (5)
With suitable replacements we recover the known result for the width of the decay $`a_2\pi \gamma `$ .

For the decay into $`e^+e^{}`$ the polarization vector $`ϵ_\mu `$ of the photon has to be replaced by the lepton–current $`e\overline{u}(e^{})\gamma _\mu u(e^+)`$. Squaring the matrix elements and summing and averaging over polarizations yields

$`3{\displaystyle }\overline{\left|_{1^{}0^{}ee}\right|^2}=2g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2(q^2)}{q^4}}`$ (6)
$`\left[4m_e^2\left((Pq)^2P^2q^2\right)+q^2\left(2(Pp_e)^2+2(Pp_{\overline{e}})^2P^2q^2\right)\right]`$
$`5{\displaystyle }\overline{\left|_{2^+0^{}ee}\right|^2}=g_{X^{}X\gamma }^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2(q^2)}{q^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{(Pq)^2P^2q^2}{P^2}}`$ (7)
$`\left[4m_e^2\left((Pq)^2P^2q^2\right)+q^2\left(2(Pp_e)^2+2(Pp_{\overline{e}})^2P^2q^2\right)\right].`$
The resulting widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(X^{}Xe^+e^{})`$ and their respective ratios to the real photon widths agree with the results given in . Our results for the ratio $`R`$, defined in Eq. 1, in some meson systems are displayed in Table 1. All of them are of the order of $`510^3`$.

As can be observed from the table, the ratio $`R`$ may serve as an indicator for the $`J^P`$ quantum numbers of $`X^{}`$ mesons, which are believed to have $`J^P=1^{}`$. At present, the only ratio for which an experimental number exists is $`R=(4.7\pm 1.1\pm 0.9)\times 10^3`$, for $`B^{}`$ decay . Although the central value agrees well with the quark model quantum numbers $`J^P(B^{})=1^{}`$, it is premature to claim, in view of the large error, a clear–cut rejection of the $`2^+`$ possibility.

A better indicator for the quantum numbers of $`X^{}`$ is the distribution of the invariant mass squared ($`q^2=m_{12}^2`$) of the $`e^+e^{}`$ pair. To illustrate the effect of different quantum numbers on $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }(X^0X^0e^+e^{})/dq^2`$, scaled by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(B^0B^0\gamma )`$, we display in Fig. 1 the results for the $`B`$–system. Similar results are obtained for $`X=D`$. Clearly, the change in the quantum numbers affects the tail of the $`q^2`$–distribution of the electron–positron pairs by factors about 2 and larger. Modifications of $`q^2`$ distribution depicted in Fig. 1 by Vector Meson Dominance form factors would be practically invisible. This provides an excellent tool to determine the quantum numbers of $`X`$.

To summarize, we have presented results for the decay widths of $`D^{}De^+e^{}`$, $`D_s^\pm D_s^\pm e^+e^{}`$ and $`B^0B^0e^+e^{}`$. All of them are of the order of roughly $`0.5\%`$ of the corresponding decays into real photons, as expected from a QED–like calculation. The difference between the two $`J^P`$ assignments $`1^{}`$ and $`2^+`$ for the the decaying particle, is about $`5\%`$. A significant difference arises for the $`q^2`$–distribution, especially at high $`q^2`$. In the light of the recent experimental results by  on the invariant mass spectrum in the Dalitz decay of $`B^{}`$’s we are very optimistic that the ambitious measurements we advertise are feasible.

Acknowledgments

We thank H. Landsman, Y. Rozen and P. Singer for helpful discussions. The research of G.E. was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and by the Harry Werksman Research Fund. F.K. would like to acknowledge financial support by the Minerva–foundation.


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# Untitled Document

Eclatement de réseaux de quadriques

et bord des instantons de degré $`3`$

Blowing-up of nets of quadrics and boundary

of mathematical instantons of degree $`3`$

Nicolas PERRIN

Ecole Normale Supérieure

6 rue Einstein

92 160 Antony

e-mail : nperrin@clipper.ens.fr

Résumé:

Dans leur article , L. Gruson et M. Skiti ont décrit une application birationnelle de la variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ des instantons de degré $`3`$ vers les réseaux de quadriques de $`\stackrel{ˇ}{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}`$. Ils font ainsi apparaitre deux composantes du bord de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ associées l’une au diviseur des réseaux contenant une quadrique de $`\stackrel{ˇ}{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}`$ dégénérée en deux plans et l’autre au diviseur des réseaux de Lüroth. Dans cet article, on décrit une composante irréductible du bord de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ comme le diviseur exceptionnel de l’éclatement du fermé des réseaux de quadriques formé par les quadriques de rang $`3`$.

Abstract :

In their article , L. Gruson and M. Skiti have constructed a birationnal map from the variety $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ of mathematical instantons of degree $`3`$ to the variety of nets of quadrics in $`\stackrel{ˇ}{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}`$. They describe by this way two irreducible componants of the boundary of $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ associated to the divisor of nets which contain a two-plane degenerated quadric and the divisor of Lüroth nets. In this article we describe an irreducible componante of the boundary of $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ as the exceptionnal divisor of the blowing-up of the closed set of nets of quadrics of rank $`3`$.

Remerciements :

Je tiens à remercier ici mon directeur de thèse Laurent Gruson pour toute l’aide qu’il m’a apportée durant la préparation de ce travail.

Introduction :

Soit $`V`$ un espace vectoriel de dimension $`4`$ sur $`𝐂`$, on note $`𝐏^3`$ l’espace projectif $`𝐏(V)`$. Un instanton de degré $`n`$, est un élément de $`𝐌_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}(0,n,0)`$ (l’espace des modules des faisceaux semi-stables sans torsion de classes de chern $`(0,n,0)`$) qui est localement libre, stable et qui vérifie la propriété cohomologique $`h^1E(2)=0`$. On connait toutes les composantes irréductibles du bord des instantons de degré $`1`$ et $`2`$ (voir par exemple  pour le degré $`1`$ et  pour le degré $`2`$). On se propose ici d’étudier une composante irréductible du bord de la variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ des instantons de degré $`3`$.

L. Gruson et M. Skiti ont montré dans  que la variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ des instantons de degré $`3`$ est birationnelle à la variété $`𝐑=\mathrm{G}(3,S^2\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$ (qui paramétrise les sous espace vectoriels de dimension $`3`$ de $`S^2\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$) des réseaux de quadriques de $`\stackrel{ˇ}{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}`$. L’ouvert de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ formé par les instantons sans droite trisauteuse s’envoie birationnellement sur un ouvert $`𝐑_4`$ de $`𝐑`$ formé par les réseaux $`R`$ de quadriques tels que l’application $`RV\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ soit de rang $`4`$.

Cette description leur a permis d’identifier deux composantes irréductibles du bord de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ données par les hypersurfaces $`𝐑^{}`$ (respectivement $`𝐑^{\prime \prime }`$) des réseaux contenant une quadrique décomposée en deux plans (respectivement des réseaux de Lüroth). On va ici décrire une troisième composante du bord. L’idée consiste à éclater certaines sous variétés de $`𝐑`$ afin de pouvoir prolonger le morphisme des réseaux vers les faisceaux. On considère ainsi la sous variété $`𝐅`$ de la Grassmannienne $`\mathrm{Grass}(4,V)`$ des quotients de rang $`4`$ de $`V`$ au dessus de $`𝐑`$ (où $``$ est le sous fibré tautologique de $`𝐑`$) qui vérifie le fait que $`V𝒲`$ factorise l’application $`V𝒪\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ (on a ici noté $`𝒲`$ le quotient tautologique de $`\mathrm{Grass}(4,V))`$. Remarquons que $`\pi :𝐅𝐑`$ est un isomorphisme au dessus de $`𝐑_4`$. Notons $`𝐑_i`$ le localement fermé des réseaux tels que la flèche $`V\stackrel{\psi }{}\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est de rang $`i`$ et posons $`𝐅_i=\pi ^1(𝐑_i)`$.

Remarque : Le schéma $`𝐅_3`$ est irréductible et réduit. En effet, on a un morphisme de $`𝐅_3`$ vers $`\mathrm{G}(3,\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$ qui a un quotient $`W`$ de rang $`4`$ de $`V`$ associe l’image de la composée $`VW\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ qui est de dimension $`3`$ car on est dans $`𝐅_3`$. Mais alors la fibre de ce morphisme au dessus d’un sous espace $`K`$ de dimension $`3`$ de $`\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est donnée par $`\mathrm{G}(3,S^2K\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$ donc on voit que $`𝐅_3`$ est donné par $`\mathrm{G}(3,S^2𝒦\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$$`𝒦`$ est le sous fibré tautologique de $`\mathrm{G}(3,\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$. Grace à cette description, on sait que $`𝐅_3`$ est irréductible et réduit.

Proposition: Au voisinage de $`𝐅_3`$, le morphisme $`\pi :𝐅𝐑`$ est l’éclatement de $`𝐑_3`$.

Démonstration: Prenons un réseau $`R`$ de $`𝐑_3`$ et plaçons nous sur un ouvert affine de $`𝐑`$ contenant ce point. On sait alors qu’il existe un mineur $`3\times 3`$ de $`RV\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ qui est inversible. Ceci signifie que l’on a un sous fibré $`Q`$ de rang $`3`$ de $`V`$ et un sous fibré $`K`$ de $`\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ tels que la restriction de $`\psi `$ à $`Q`$ est un isomorphisme sur $`K`$. On peut alors se placer sur un ouvert affine de $`𝐑`$ d’anneau $`A`$ tel que l’application $`QA\stackrel{\psi }{}KA`$ est inversible en tout point de $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$. On a alors le diagramme suivant de $`A`$-modules :

$$\begin{array}{ccc}Q& \stackrel{}{}& K\\ & & \\ V& \stackrel{\psi }{}& 𝒪\stackrel{ˇ}{V}\\ & & \\ A^9& \stackrel{\phi }{}& A\end{array}$$

Le fermé $`𝐑_3`$ dans l’ouvert affine $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ est donné par le $`0^{ieme}`$ idéal de Fitting de $`\phi `$ c’est à dire l’annulation de $`\phi `$. L’éclatement de ce lieu singulier est alors un schéma $`X`$ au dessus de $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ solution du problème universel suivant : si $`X^{}`$ est un schéma muni d’un morphisme $`f`$ vers $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ tel que l’image de $`f^{}\phi :f^{}(A^9)f^{}(A)`$ est un idéal inversible alors le morphisme de $`X`$ vers $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ se factorise par $`f`$.

Il reste à montrer que $`𝐅`$ au dessus de cet ouvert est également solution de ce problème universel. Or au dessus de $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$, le schéma $`𝐅`$ vérifie la propriété universelle suivante : Si $`X^{}`$ est un schéma muni d’un morphisme $`f`$ vers $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ et muni d’un module $`W`$ localement libre de rang $`4`$ tel que $`f^{}\psi :f^{}(V)f^{}(𝒪\stackrel{ˇ}{V})`$ se factorise par $`W`$, le morphisme de $`𝐅`$ vers $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ se factorise par $`f`$. Soit un schéma $`X^{}`$ muni d’un morphisme $`f`$ vers $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ et tel que l’image de $`f^{}\phi :f^{}(A^9)f^{}(A)`$ est un idéal inversible $`I`$, on construit alors un module localement libre de rang quatre $`W`$ tel que $`f^{}\psi `$ se factorise par $`W`$. En effet, il suffit de poser $`W=f^{}QI`$ qui est localement libre de rang $`4`$ et on a une application $`f^{}(V)W`$ qui factorise le morphisme $`f^{}\psi `$. La propriété universelle de $`𝐅`$ au dessus de $`\mathrm{Spec}(A)`$ nous permet alors de dire que l’on a une application de $`𝐅`$ vers $`X^{}`$ ce qui nous donne le résultat.

Remarque : M. Skiti, dans un travail en préparation montre qu’au voisinage de $`𝐅_2`$, le morphisme $`\pi `$ est l’éclatement de $`𝐑_2`$. Il en déduit une description de la sous variété (notée $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}^\mathrm{𝟏}`$) de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ des instantons ayant une droite trisauteuse. L’application birationnelle de $`𝐑`$ dans $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ s’étend à $`𝐅`$ de telle sorte qu’elle devienne un isomorphisme sur un voisinage de $`𝐅_2`$ dans $`𝐅`$. Elle identifie $`𝐅_2`$ et $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}^\mathrm{𝟏}`$. Ceci permet de décrire $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}^\mathrm{𝟏}`$ comme l’éclatement de $`𝐑_2`$ dans $`𝐑`$. On va faire la même construction avec $`𝐅_3`$.

On étudie la sous variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ de $`𝐌_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}(0,3,0)`$ formée par les faisceaux sans torsion non localement libres dont le bidual est un instanton de degré $`1`$ et tels que le conoyau de l’injection canonique dans ce bidual est une théta-caractéristique (décalée de $`2`$) sur une conique lisse. Les faisceaux $`E`$ de cette famille sont donc donnés par les noyaux de surjections $`E^{\prime \prime }\theta (2)`$$`E^{\prime \prime }`$ est un instanton de degré $`1`$ et $`\theta `$ est une théta-caractéristique sur une conique lisse. Cette famille est irréductible de dimension $`20`$. Sur un ouvert de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$, les faisceaux $`E`$ ont une cohomologie naturelle.

Sur l’ouvert $`𝐔`$ de $`𝐌_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}(0,3,0)`$ formé par les faisceaux à cohomologie naturelle (donc minimale), on sait définir un morphisme vers $`𝐅`$. Si $`E`$ est un tel faisceau, alors on a les égalités $`h^1E(1)=3`$, $`h^1E=4`$ et $`h^1E(1)=1`$. Ainsi, on définit un premier morphisme $`f_0`$ vers $`𝐑`$ qui prolonge celui de  en associant à $`E`$ le réseau $`H^1E(1)H^1E(1)S^2\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$. Au dessus de ce réseau, on associe à $`E`$ un quotient de rang $`4`$ de $`RV`$ donné par $`H^1E(1)VH^1E`$ qui nous donne le morphisme $`f`$ souhaité. Ce morphisme est ainsi défini sur l’ouvert $`𝐔`$ de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ formé par les faisceaux à cohomologie naturelle.

Il existe sur un ouvert de $`𝐑`$ (et donc sur un ouvert de $`𝐅`$) un morphisme $`g`$ réciproque (voir ). On va le prolonger à un ouvert de $`𝐅_3`$.

Proposition: Le morphisme $`f`$ restreint à $`𝐔`$ est à valeurs dans $`𝐅_3`$ et est dominant sur $`𝐅_3`$. De plus sur son image, on définit une réciproque $`g`$ à $`f`$.

Démonstration: On commence par montrer que sur l’image de $`𝐔`$ on sait définir une réciproque à $`f`$. En effet, la réciproque est donnée de la façon suivante : soit $`R`$ le réseau et $`W`$ le quotient de $`RV`$. Les applications linéaires $`RVW`$ et $`W\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ nous donnent un complexe :

$$R\mathrm{\Omega }^2(2)W\mathrm{\Omega }^1(1)𝒪_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}$$

et la cohomologie au centre (décalée de $`1`$) de ce complexe nous donne le faisceau recherché. En effet, si le réseau $`R`$ et le quotient $`W`$ sont assez généraux, le faisceau ainsi obtenu est dans $`𝐌_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}(0,3,0)`$. Soit $`E`$ dans $`𝐔`$, la suite spectrale de Beilinson nous dit que le faisceau $`E(1)`$ est la cohomologie du complexe précédent si on prend $`R=H^1E(1)`$, $`W=H^1E`$ et que l’on identifie $`H^1E(1)`$ à $`𝐂`$. Les applications linéaires sont les multiplications du module de Rao de $`E`$. Ainsi, sur l’image de $`𝐔`$ par $`f`$ on a une réciproque $`g`$ qui prolonge le morphisme défini sur $`𝐑`$.

Montrons maintenant que cette image est contenue dans $`𝐅_3`$. Pour ceci, il suffit de voir que le réseau associé, qui est $`H^1E(1)H^1E(1)S^2\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est tel que l’application $`H^1E(1)VH^1E(1)\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est de rang trois. Cette application se décompose en deux applications : $`H^1E(1)VH^1E`$ qui est génériquement surjective et $`H^1EH^1E(1)\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$. Mais si notre faisceau est donné par la suite exacte

$$0EE^{\prime \prime }\theta (2)0$$

alors $`H^1E`$ s’identifie à $`H^0\theta (2)`$ et $`H^1E(1)`$ est un quotient de rang $`1`$ de $`H^0\theta (3)`$. La multiplication du module de Rao est donc nulle pour l’élément $`H`$ de $`V`$ qui définit le plan de la conique. Ainsi l’application $`H^1EH^1E(1)\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est de rang trois et a pour image $`(V/H\stackrel{ˇ}{)}`$. Par conséquent l’application $`H^1E(1)VH^1E(1)\stackrel{ˇ}{V}`$ est aussi de rang trois car $`H^1E(1)VH^1E`$ est surjective.

On sait maintenant que $`f`$ a un morphisme réciproque sur $`f(𝐔)`$ qui est contenu dans $`𝐅_3`$. On sait donc déjà que l’image de $`𝐔`$ est de dimension $`20`$. Mais alors, comme $`𝐅_3`$ est réduit irréductible et que sa dimension est aussi $`20`$, on sait que $`f(𝐔)`$ contient un ouvert de $`𝐅_3`$ et $`f|_𝐔`$ est donc dominant sur $`𝐅_3`$.

Corollaire : Le prolongement de $`g`$ est birationnel au voisinage de $`𝐅_3`$. Dans la description de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ avec les réseaux, la variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ est donc le diviseur exceptionnel de l’éclatement de $`𝐑_3`$ dans $`𝐑`$. La famille $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ forme une composante irréductible du bord de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$.

Démonstration: On a vu que $`g`$ est défini sur $`f(𝐔)`$ qui contient un ouvert de $`𝐅_3`$. Ainsi, sur un voisinage (dans $`𝐅`$) de cet ouvert, le morphisme $`g`$ est bien un morphisme réciproque à $`f`$. Le morphisme $`g`$ est bien birationnel au voisinage de $`𝐅_3`$.

De plus, on a vu que $`𝐅𝐑`$ est l’éclatement de $`𝐑_3`$ au voisinage de $`𝐅_3`$ donc $`g`$ identifie cette situation à celle de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ et $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$. On voit donc que $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ est adhérente à $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ et que dans la description de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ avec les réseaux, la variété $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ est le diviseur exceptionnel de l’éclatement de $`𝐑_3`$ dans $`𝐑`$ et forme donc une composante irréductible du bord de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$.

Remarque : On sait décrire les éléments de saut d’un faisceau $`E`$ de $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟑}`$.

Les plans instables forment une courbe dans $`\stackrel{ˇ}{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}`$ de degré $`6`$ et de genre $`3`$ ayant un point triple au point correspondant au plan de la conique et dont la courbe des trisécantes est tracées sur le complexe de droites associé au bidual.

Les droites bisauteuses forment une courbe de degré $`8`$ et de genre $`3`$ de la Grassmannienne qui est réunion d’une quintique rationnelle tracée sur le complexe de droites défini par le bidual et d’une cubique tracée dans le $`(\beta )`$-plan des droites du plan de la conique.

Il y a un lien entre ces deux courbes de saut. Les droites bisauteuses sont les trisécantes à la courbe des plans instables. Réciproquement, la courbe des plans instables forme le lieu triple de la surface réglée décrite par les droites bisauteuses.

Références :

 L. Gruson et M. Skiti : $`3`$-instantons et réseaux de quadriques. Math. Ann. 298 (1994).

 M.S. Narashiman et G. Trautmann : Compactification of $`M_{𝐏^\mathrm{𝟑}}(0,2)`$ and Poncelet pairs of conics. Pacific Journal of Mathematics 145 (1990).

 C. Okonek, M. Schneider et H. Spindler : Vector bunbles on complex projective spaces. Basel, Boston, Stuttgart : Birkhäuser 1980.