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# A new twist to preheating

## I Introduction

Gravity has persistently proven the most difficult of the forces of Nature to bring under theoretical control, both at the classical and quantum levels. This is due, in part, to the extreme non-linear and mixed hyperbolic-elliptic nature of the field equations. Further, the dimensionful gravitational coupling constant, $`G=m_{\mathrm{pl}}^2`$, leads to strong non-renormalizability of even the linearized, quantum, theory in four dimensions.

The semi-classical approximation was developed in partial response to these obstacles. While there are strong indications that large regions of the semi-classical solution space may be spurious , a consistent cosmology of inflation in the post-Planckian universe has emerged. This appears to lie in the semi-classical domain with gravity playing a gentle, domesticated, rôle of quiet order within a highly symmetric universe.

Preheating, in contrast, is a violent, non-equilibrium and anarchic epoch  which may have linked this Utopian regime to the older, radiation-dominated, universe. The rapid transfer of energy between fields during preheating can excite the tiny metric perturbations produced during inflation, even on cosmological scales and may lead to unbridled growth and non-linearity . This threatens to take the system away from the safety of the semi-classical approximation .

In these multi-field cases, neglecting metric perturbations can be a grave mistake. Nevertheless, a belief has developed that metric perturbations are unimportant for understanding the super-Hubble evolution of a single scalar field . This is true in the minimally coupled case , but certainly not true in the non-minimally coupled case we discuss below.

Since the non-minimal case was the only single field model in which super-Hubble resonances might plausibly have existed, we are lead to conjecture that there exist no single-field models with super-Hubble metric resonances.

It was pointed out by Fakir and Unruh that the fine-tuning of $`\lambda `$, which plagues the minimal $`V(\varphi )=\lambda \varphi ^4/4`$ chaotic inflation model, is absent when $`\xi `$ is very large and negative (see also ). Recently Tsujikawa et al. showed that long-wave modes of the inflaton in this model are resonantly enhanced during preheating for $`\xi 1`$, when metric perturbations are neglected, due to the oscillations of the Ricci scalar . Naively one might expect this geometric preheating to cause super-Hubble modes of the gauge-invariant metric perturbations to grow too . In fact, we will show that including metric perturbations has a more surprising effect, namely to completely remove the super-Hubble resonances.

## II The model and analytical estimates

Consider the inflaton, $`\varphi `$, coupled non-minimally to the spacetime curvature $`R`$ with Lagrangian density:

$`=\sqrt{g}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa ^2}}R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\varphi )^2V(\varphi ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\xi R\varphi ^2\right],`$ (1)
with $`G\kappa ^2/8\pi =m_{\mathrm{pl}}^2`$ the gravitational coupling constant, and $`\xi `$ the non-minimal coupling. For a massive inflaton, $`|\xi |\stackrel{<}{}10^3`$ is required for sufficient inflation. On the other hand, in the massless case with self-interaction

$`V(\varphi )=\lambda \varphi ^4/4,`$ (2)
such a constraint is absent for negative $`\xi `$. In this paper, we consider the Fakir-Unruh scenario where the potential is described by $`(\text{2})`$ with negative $`\xi `$.***We consider nagative $`\xi `$ since large positive $`\xi `$ leads to a repulsive effective gravitational coupling.

We choose a flat FLRW background and consider the perturbed metric in the longitudinal gauge:

$`ds^2=(1+2\mathrm{\Phi })dt^2+a^2(12\mathrm{\Psi })\delta _{ij}dx^idx^j,`$ (3)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are gauge-invariant potentials. We decompose the inflaton field as $`\varphi (t,𝐱)=\varphi _0(t)+\delta \varphi (t,𝐱)`$, where $`\varphi _0`$ is the homogeneous condensate and $`\delta \varphi `$ is the gauge-invariant fluctuation. The Fourier modes of the first order perturbed Einstein equations are then as

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_k=\mathrm{\Psi }_k\delta F_k/F`$ (4)
$`\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k+\left(H+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{F}}{F}}\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_k={\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2}{2F}}\left(\dot{\varphi }_0\delta \varphi _k+\delta \dot{F}_kH\delta F_k\right),`$ (5)
$`\ddot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k+H\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k+\left(H+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{F}}{2F}}\right)\left(2\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k+\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2\lambda \varphi _0^4}{4F}}\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2F}}[\delta \ddot{F}_k+2H\delta \dot{F}_k({\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2\lambda \varphi _0^4}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\ddot{F}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}H\dot{F}_k){\displaystyle \frac{\delta F_k}{F}}`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`\kappa ^2\{\dot{\varphi }_0\delta \dot{\varphi }_k(\xi R+\lambda \varphi _0^2)\varphi _0\delta \varphi _k\}],`$ (8)
$`\delta \ddot{\varphi }_k`$ $`+`$ $`3H\delta \dot{\varphi }_k+\left(k^2/a^2+3\lambda \varphi _0^2+\xi R\right)\delta \varphi _k`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi }_0(\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k+6H\mathrm{\Phi }_k+3\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k)+2\ddot{\varphi }_0\mathrm{\Phi }_k+2\xi \varphi _0`$ (10)
$`\times `$ $`[3(2\dot{H}\mathrm{\Phi }_k+H\dot{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k+\ddot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k+4H^2\mathrm{\Phi }_k+4H\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k)`$ (11)
$``$ $`k^2/a^2(\mathrm{\Phi }_k2\mathrm{\Psi }_k)],`$ (12)
where $`F=1\xi \kappa ^2\varphi _0^2`$, $`\delta F_k=2\xi \kappa ^2\varphi _0\delta \varphi _k`$, and $`H\dot{a}/a`$ is the Hubble expansion rate. From Eq. $`(\text{4})`$ it is clear that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$ do not coincide in the non-minimally coupled case, due to the non-vanishing anisotropic stress in this case. We include the backreaction of inflaton fluctuations on the background equations for the scale factor and the condensate $`\varphi _0`$, via the Hartree approximation , yielding

$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2}{3(1\xi \kappa ^2\varphi ^2)}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\dot{\varphi }_0^2+\delta \dot{\varphi }^2)+({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}2\xi )\delta \varphi ^2`$ (15)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\lambda (\varphi _0^4+6\varphi _0^2\delta \varphi ^2+3\delta \varphi ^2^2)`$
$`+2\xi \{3H(\varphi _0\dot{\varphi }_0+\delta \varphi \delta \dot{\varphi })\delta \varphi \delta \varphi ^{\prime \prime }\}],`$
$`\ddot{\varphi }_0+3H\dot{\varphi }_0+\lambda \varphi _0(\varphi _0^2+3\delta \varphi ^2)+\xi R\varphi _0=0,`$ (16)
where $`R`$ is the scalar curvature, given by

$`R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2}{1\xi \kappa ^2\varphi ^2}}[(16\xi )(\dot{\varphi }_0^2\delta \dot{\varphi }^2+\delta \varphi ^2)`$ (19)
$`+\lambda (\varphi _0^4+6\varphi _0^2\delta \varphi ^2+3\delta \varphi ^2^2)+6\xi \{\varphi _0\ddot{\varphi }_0`$
$`+\delta \varphi \delta \ddot{\varphi }+3H(\varphi _0\dot{\varphi }_0+\delta \varphi \delta \dot{\varphi })\delta \varphi \delta \varphi ^{\prime \prime }\}].`$
The expectation values of $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ and $`\varphi ^2`$ are defined as

$`\delta \varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle k^2|\delta \varphi _k|^2𝑑k},`$ (20)
$`\varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _0^2+\delta \varphi ^2.`$ (21)
Since the growth of the variance $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ affects the evolution of the fluctuations, we change $`\varphi _0^2`$ in Eqs. $`(\text{4})`$-$`(\text{12})`$ to $`\varphi ^2`$. In principle we should also consider the backreaction due to growth of metric perturbations. However, we shall see that this is unnecessary here since long-wavelength modes do not grow resonantly. Further, the Hartree approximation misses rescattering effects , which may be important at the final stage of preheating. We leave both of these issues for future work.

In the minimally coupled multi-field case, large resonance parameters may lead to suppression of the long-wavelength modes of the preheating fields during inflation . Through the constraint equation \[c.f. Eq. (5)\], this removes the resonance in the long-wavelength modes of the metric perturbations, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$.

For large $`|\xi |`$ the same effect might be expected. In fact, for large negative $`\xi `$, the opposite occurs, and it is the short-wavelength modes which are suppressed relative to the $`k0`$ modes, leading to a red spectrum at the start of preheating . The modes in de Sitter space evolve as Hankel functions with order $`\nu =(9/4m^2/H^212\xi )^{1/2}`$, which is positive when $`\xi 1`$. For suppression to exist, complex $`\nu `$ is required.

Intuitively one sees that since the scalar curvature during inflation is $`R\lambda \varphi _0^2/\xi `$ for $`|\xi |1`$ by Eqs. $`(\text{19})`$ and $`(\text{16})`$, the frequency $`\omega _k^2k^2/a^2+3\lambda \varphi _0^2+\xi R`$ on the l.h.s. of Eq. $`(\text{12})`$ is $`\omega _k^2k^2/a^2+2\lambda \varphi _0^2`$. This indicates that the suppression mechanism is absent during inflation and cannot be responsible for removing the resonances of preheating.

Before analyzing the evolution of the fluctuations during preheating numerically, we analytically estimates these quantities. Introducing new variables $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k=\mathrm{\Phi }_k+\delta F_k/2F,\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k=\mathrm{\Psi }_k\delta F_k/2F`$, Eqs. $`(\text{4})`$-$`(\text{8})`$ yield

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k=\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k,\delta \varphi _k={\displaystyle \frac{2F^{3/2}}{\kappa ^2a\dot{\varphi }_0E}}(a\sqrt{F}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k)^{},`$ (22)
$`\ddot{\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}}_k+\left(4H+{\displaystyle \frac{3\dot{F}}{2F}}\right)\dot{\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}}_k`$ (23)
$`+`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2\dot{\varphi }_0^2}{2F}}{\displaystyle \frac{3\dot{F}^2}{4F^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2\lambda \varphi _0^4}{4F}}\right)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\ddot{F}}{F}}+3H{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{F}}{F}}{\displaystyle \frac{3\dot{F}^2}{2F^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\kappa ^2\dot{\varphi }_0^2}{3F}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\delta F_k}{F}}`$ (25)
$``$ $`\kappa ^2\left[\xi R\varphi _0+\lambda \varphi _0^3+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\dot{\varphi }_0\left(H+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{F}}{2F}}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \varphi _k}{F}},`$ (26)
where $`E=1(16\xi )\xi \kappa ^2\varphi _0^2`$. Note that $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}_k`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k`$ are conformally transformed potentials which are derived in the Einstein frame. The relation $`(\text{22})`$ clearly shows the link between inflaton fluctuations and metric perturbations. Eliminating $`\delta F_k/F`$ and $`\delta \varphi _k/F`$ terms in Eq. $`(\text{26})`$ by using the relation $`(\text{22})`$, we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2u_k}{d\eta ^2}}+\left(k^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2z}{d\eta ^2}}\right)u_k=0,`$ (27)
where $`\eta a^1𝑑t`$ is conformal time, and

$`u_k{\displaystyle \frac{F^{3/2}}{\dot{\varphi }_0\sqrt{E}}}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k,z{\displaystyle \frac{(a\sqrt{F})^{}}{a^2\dot{\varphi }_0\sqrt{E}}}.`$ (28)
In the long-wave limit, $`k0`$, Eq. $`(\text{27})`$ is easily integrated to give

$`u_k=z\left(c_1+c_2{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{z^2}}\right),`$ (29)
where $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are constants. Making use of Eqs. $`(\text{22})`$, $`(\text{28})`$, and $`(\text{29})`$, the long-wavelength solutions are

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{aF}}\right)^{}\left(c_12c_2{\displaystyle aF𝑑t}\right)+2c_2,`$ (30)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a^2F}}\left(c_12c_2{\displaystyle aF𝑑t}\right)+2c_2,`$ (31)
$`\delta \varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\varphi }_0}{aF}}\left(c_12c_2{\displaystyle aF𝑑t}\right).`$ (32)
In the present model, the inflationary period ends when the value of $`|\xi |\kappa ^2\varphi _0^2`$ decreases to of order unity. This means that $`F=1\xi \kappa ^2\varphi _0^2`$ is of order unity during preheating, and does not change significantly. Since numerical calculations indicate that the scale factor roughly evolves as a power-law in the oscillating stage of inflaton, we can expect from Eqs. (2.18) and $`(\text{31})`$ that super-Hubble metric perturbations do not grow significantly during preheating, which restricts the enhancement of the inflaton fluctuations for small-$`k`$ modes by Eq. $`(\text{22})`$. In fact, Eq. $`(\text{32})`$ implies that the difference between the minimally coupled case only appears in the $`F`$ term, which approaches unity with the decrease of $`\varphi _0`$.

This contradicts the earlier work neglecting metric perturbations, which pointed out that the $`\xi R`$ term in the l.h.s. of Eq. $`(\text{12})`$ leads to the growth of low momentum modes for the strong coupling case. In the perturbed metric case, this term is counteracted by the last term in Eq. $`(\text{12})`$. Actually, eliminating the $`\ddot{\mathrm{\Psi }}_k`$ term in the r.h.s. of Eq. $`(\text{12})`$ by using Eq. $`(\text{8})`$ gives rise to the $`\xi R\delta \varphi _k`$ term in the r.h.s. of $`(\text{12})`$, which suppresses the resonance due to the curvature term.

In the next section, we numerically confirm this lack of resonance.

## III Removal of the super-Hubble resonance

We numerically solved the perturbation equations $`(\text{4})`$-$`(\text{12})`$ which are coupled to the background equations $`(\text{15})`$-$`(\text{19})`$ through the fluctuation integrals (2.11) which mediate backreaction effects. We started integrating at the onset of preheating, with initial values of the inflaton oscillations given by

$`\varphi _0(0)=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(124\xi )(18\xi )}1}{16\pi (16\xi )|\xi |}}\right]^{1/2}m_{\mathrm{pl}},`$ (33)
which is determined by the end of slow-roll inflation . We choose the conformal vacuum state for the initial field fluctuations: $`\delta \varphi _k=1/\sqrt{2\omega _k(0)}`$ and $`\delta \dot{\varphi }_k=[i\omega _k(0)H(0)]\delta \varphi _k`$. The gauge-invariant potentials $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$ are then determined when the evolution of the scalar field is known (see Eq. (34) in ref. ).

In the minimally coupled case, $`\xi =0`$, and neglecting metric perturbations, there is a resonance band in the narrow, sub-Hubble, range:

$`3/2<\overline{k}^2<\sqrt{3},`$ (34)
with $`\overline{k}^2k^2/(\lambda \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0^2(0))`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(0)`$ is the initial amplitude of inflaton. In that case, the growth of field fluctuations finally stops due to the backreaction of created particles, and the final variance is $`\delta \varphi ^210^7m_{\mathrm{pl}}^2`$ .

In the perturbed spacetime with $`\xi =0`$, although metric perturbations assist the enhancement of field fluctuations, only sub-Hubble modes of field and metric perturbations are amplified unless mode-mode coupling is taken into account as in ref. . We find numerically that the final variance is almost the same both in the perturbed and unperturbed metric. We warn that this is not a generic feature of preheating since in the multi-field case, alternative channels exist for resonant decay .

In the non-minimally coupled case with metric perturbations neglected (the rigid case), low momentum $`(k0`$) field modes undergo resonant amplification during preheating for $`\xi \stackrel{<}{}10`$. With increasing $`|\xi |`$, the duration during which these low momentum modes are amplified becomes gradually longer, and they dominate the final variance.

When the spacetime metric is perturbed, as it must be for consistency, these metric fluctuations on the r.h.s of Eq. $`(\text{12})`$ lead to a very different picture. In Fig. (1) we show the evolution of the variance $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ for $`\xi =70`$, both in the unperturbed and perturbed spacetimes. With metric perturbations ignored, small-$`k`$ field fluctuations exhibit strong growth and the variance grows for $`x\stackrel{<}{}6000`$, where $`x\sqrt{\lambda }\eta m_{\mathrm{pl}}`$ is the natural dimensionless conformal time of the system. For $`x\stackrel{>}{}6000`$ the effect of the non-minimal coupling becomes insignificant due to the decrease in the scalar curvature. Sub-Hubble modes then dominate the variance, as in the minimally coupled case, which continues to grow until $`x2.5\times 10^4`$.

When metric perturbations are included, the variance $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ does not grow initially, but oscillates with much higher frequency. This implies that the small-$`k`$ modes are not amplified, as expected from our earlier, analytical, discussion.

The absence of the super-Hubble resonance can be seen in Fig. (2) where we show the spectrum of $`\delta \varphi _k`$ at constant time. In the perturbed metric, there is only a small resonance band around $`k/(\sqrt{\lambda }\varphi _0(0))2.2`$, while in the unperturbed metric, the negative coupling instability creates a resonant band that contains all modes with $`k/(\sqrt{\lambda }\varphi _0(0))\stackrel{<}{}2`$.

The effect of this change to the resonance structure is clearly visible in Fig. (3) where we plot a cosmological mode $`(k/(\sqrt{\lambda }\varphi _0(0))=10^{25})`$ of the metric perturbation $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$, which shows no growth, and a sub-Hubble mode, which grows resonantly until backreaction ends its amplification.

We found numerically that the final variances of field fluctuations when $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$ is included are typically smaller, by one or two magnitudes, than in the rigid spacetime for $`|\xi |\stackrel{>}{}100`$, although they are almost the same for $`|\xi |\stackrel{<}{}100`$. This is understandable, since field fluctuations without $`\mathrm{\Phi }_k`$ for $`|\xi |\stackrel{>}{}100`$ are dominated by low momentum modes and $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ grows to of order $`\varphi _0^2`$, while in the perturbed spacetime, resonance stops before $`\delta \varphi ^2`$ reaches $`\varphi _0^2`$, as in the case of $`\xi =0`$.

The lack of strong metric preheating on cosmological scales persists in the strong coupling regime $`|\xi |\stackrel{>}{}10^3`$ considered by Fakir and Unruh. The predictions of large scale metric perturbations produced in the inflationary epoch are therefore not modified in the present model, as long as another scalar field coupled non-gravitationally to the inflaton is not introduced.

## IV Discussion and conclusions

We have studied preheating in a non-minimal, chaotic, inflation scenario. Our main result is that consistent inclusion of metric perturbations is crucial and has a powerful and unexpected impact on the evolution of long-wavelength fluctuations during preheating, removing the exponential growth of these modes that one finds in the absence of metric perturbations.

This is in strong contrast to the multi-field case where the negative specific heat of gravity tends to enhance any resonances that exist in their absence . In addition, large negative $`\xi `$ causes anti-suppression of long-wavelength modes, relative to short wavelength modes during inflation, providing an alternative way of avoiding the suppression mechanisms proposed in .

The removal of the resonances is intimately related to the existence of gauge-invariant conserved quantities in the long-wavelength limit:

$`\zeta \mathrm{\Psi }{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}^2}{a^2F[\dot{a}/(aF)]^{}}}\left(\mathrm{\Psi }+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{\dot{a}}}\dot{\mathrm{\Psi }}\right)=2c_2,`$ (35)
which is obtained from Eq. $`(\text{31})`$.

A simple way to appreciate the lack of super-Hubble resonances is to recognize that the present system is conformally equivalent to a minimally coupled, single scalar field, model with potential $`\widehat{V}(\varphi )V(\varphi )/(1\xi \kappa ^2\varphi ^2)^2`$ and $`|\xi |\kappa ^2\varphi ^21`$ at the end of inflation. Hence it is not surprising that the resonance structure is similar to that of the minimally coupled case . However, this equivalence is missing if metric perturbations are not included.

On the other hand, on sub-Hubble scales, we find that both field and metric fluctuations are excited during preheating as in the minimally coupled case. This may result in an important cosmological consequences such as the production of primordial black holes . There may also be interesting implications for non-thermal symmetry restoration due to the change in the time evolution of the variance.

Although we have restricted ourselves to a non-minimally coupled scalar field in Einstein gravity, the evolution of metric perturbations can be analyzed in a unified manner in generalized Einstein theories, which include the higher-curvature, Brans-Dicke, and induced gravity theories. As long as the system we consider is a single-field model, and stress-energy is conserved, super-Hubble metric perturbations will not be enhanced during preheating, because conserved quantities, which generalize $`\zeta `$ in Eq. $`(\text{35})`$, exist.

However, introducing a coupling such as the standard $`g^2\varphi ^2\chi ^2/2`$, will violate the conservation of the quantity $`\zeta `$ for certain values of $`g`$ and $`\xi `$, as occurs in the minimally coupled multi-field case .

Finally it is of great interest to examine the realistic multi-field case in known classes of inflationary models, because we can constrain the inflaton potential in terms of the distortion of the CMB spectrum due to parametric resonance in preheating. This requires a complete study of backreaction including metric perturbations, which we leave to future work.

## ACKOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Roy Maartens, Kei-ichi Maeda, Takashi Torii and David Wands for useful discussions.


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# Measurability of the non-minimal scalar coupling constant

## Abstract

The ”measurability” of the non-minimal coupling is discussed in the context of the effective field theory of gravity. Although there is no obvious motive for excluding a non-minimal scalar coupling from the theory, we conclude that for reasonable values of the coupling constant it makes only a very small correction.

Recently the study of perturbative quantum gravity - i.e. gravity treated as a theory of small quantum fluctuations around a flat Minkowski background spacetime - has found a novel rejuvenation , , . According to this view, gravity is an effective field theory (for a discussion of the effective field theory approach to quantum gravity see ) which can be quantized in a standard way if we restrict its region of applicability to low enough energies and small curvatures. (Of course this approach fails when the energy reaches the Planck scale where new degrees of freedom become important.) The interesting thing raised in  is that this framework provides a basis to make quantum predictions , .

On the other hand, it has been suggested that the action for gravity should contain, in addition to the Einstein-Hilbert term, certain non-minimal functionals of the scalar field. The only possible local term involving a dimensionless coupling between the curvature and the scalar field is of the form $`\xi R\varphi ^2`$, with $`\xi `$ a constant . Such a term was used in  to soften the divergences of the stress tensor. Other reasons to justify the presence of this term are the inclusion of a symmetry breaking mechanism into gravity , the construction of non-singular models for the universe , the investigation of inflationary models with a non-minimally coupled scalar field , the inclusion of Mach theory in Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory of gravitation , the analysis of oscillating universes , the reconciliation of cosmic strings with inflation , the low energy limit of superstring theories , the Kaluza-Klein compactification scheme , and others , .

Usually the value of the coupling $`\xi `$ is chosen to be zero (minimal coupling) or for massless scalars $`\xi =\frac{n2}{4(n1)}`$ (conformal coupling in $`n`$-dimensional spacetime). Even though these values are widely used in the literature it is not possible to fix a priori the value of $`\xi `$. The only way to gain a feel for $`\xi `$ is to compare some experimental result with a theoretical prediction, but presently no experiment can reveal such coupling. In all the studies of effective quantum gravity the non-minimal coupling between the scalar curvature and the matter fields has been neglected. Despite this view, there is no first principle we are aware of that can be invoked to get rid of this term from the beginning.

Even though the region of applicability of the effective approach is restricted and therefore does not constitute a definite answer to the quantum gravity problem, it is interesting to clarify this issue within this context. As we shall see in what follows the main problem is that the effect of the non-minimal coupling is tiny, but the smallness of this term is spoiled by its presence in the scattering amplitudes. So the question that naturally arises is whether or not we are allowed to discard the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term from our initial theory.

To answer this question several authors focused their attention on $`22`$ scattering processes with external or exchanged gravitons. In general, only a few scattering processes can reveal such a coupling, namely

$$gsgs,$$
(1)
$$ssss,$$
(2)
$$sfsf,$$
(3)
$$s\gamma s\gamma ,$$
(4)
$$gs\gamma s,$$
(5)
(Here $`g`$ denotes a graviton, $`s`$ a scalar, $`f`$ a fermion and $`\gamma `$ a photon.) Therefore using the following Lagrangian density

$$=_E+_{KG}+_D+_{EM},$$
(6)
$$_E=\frac{2}{\kappa ^2}\sqrt{g}R,$$

$$_{KG}=\frac{\sqrt{g}}{2}\left(g^{\mu \nu }D_\mu \varphi D_\nu \varphi m^2\varphi ^2+\xi R\varphi ^2\right),$$

$$_{EM}=\frac{1}{4}\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }g^{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \alpha }F_{\nu \beta },$$

$$_D=\sqrt{g}(\frac{i}{2}(\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu (\stackrel{}{}_\mu +ieA_\mu )\psi $$

$$\overline{\psi }(\stackrel{}{}_\mu +ieA_\mu )\gamma ^\mu \psi )m\overline{\psi }\psi ),$$

as a starting point the processes (1)-(5)*** The fact that the $`\xi `$-dependence of any scattering amplitude which stems from $`_E+_{KG}`$ is related to the presence of a massive particle can easily be explained. Using
$$R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}Rg^{\mu \nu }=8\pi GT^{\mu \nu },$$
we obtain
$$\xi R\varphi ^2=8\pi G\xi \varphi ^2T_\mu ^\mu ,$$
so the non-minimally coupled term is proportional to the trace of the stress-energy tensor. Now by using the expression given in  for $`T^{\mu \nu }`$ it is straightforward to see that in the massless case:
$$T_\mu ^\mu =𝒪(fields^5),$$
whereas
$$T_\mu ^\mu =𝒪(fields^4),$$
in the massive case. This tells us that in the massless case we should expect no dependence of the scattering amplitude on $`\xi `$. This fact can be shown directly from the Lagrangian density reparametrising the graviton field by means of $`h_{\mu \nu }(1+\mathrm{\Omega }(\varphi ^2,\xi ))h_{\mu \nu }`$. It is possible to prove that the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is of the form $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\varphi ^2,\xi )=\frac{\xi \kappa ^2}{4}\varphi ^2`$ and is unique , . have been computed , , , . Instead of reporting in any detail the computation of the scattering amplitudes we have performed as a check of previous results, we prefer to analyze another phenomenon, which provides an alternative way of measuring the non-minmal coupling: the helicity flip of a fermion in a gravitational field generated by a scalar mass.

The behavior of a spinning particle in a gravitational field has been studied semiclassically  and in the linearized approach for $`\xi =0`$ , in which the helicity flip appears as a dynamical effect, coming from the local coupling of spin to gravity. In  it is shown that only massive spin $`1/2`$ particles can have their helicity flipped, whereas no change in the polarization is expected for massless fermions. (Of course in non-minimally coupled theories this result is still valid since for massless fermions the non-minimally coupled part of the scattering amplitude is zero.) In the context of linearized quantum gravity with a non-minimal coupling it is interesting to re-examine this problem. The interest lies in the possibility that this method offers to measure $`\xi `$, apart from the fact that it generalizes the results of .

The helicity flip rate of a fermion interacting with a scalar via graviton exchange is

$$𝒫=\frac{M_{LL}^2M_{LR}^2}{M_{LL}^2+M_{LR}^2}$$
(7)
where $`M`$ is the fermion-scalar elastic scattering amplitude given by:

$$M_{sfsf}^{^{}}=\frac{i\kappa ^2}{t}\overline{u}(\lambda ^{^{}},p_2)\times $$

$$\times \left((m^2+\xi t)(\widehat{p}_1+\widehat{p}_2)+\frac{us}{2}(\widehat{p}_1\widehat{p}_2+2\widehat{q})\right)u(\lambda ,p_1),$$

where $`p_1`$ ($`p_2`$) is the initial (final) fermion momentum and $`u(\lambda ,p_1)`$ ($`\overline{u}(\lambda ^{^{}},p_2)`$) is, respectively, the spinor and $`\widehat{a}=a_\mu \gamma ^\mu `$ and $`\lambda `$ ($`\lambda ^{^{}}`$) is the helicity of the initial (final) fermion of mass $`m_f`$.

For our purposes is sufficient to plot $`𝒫`$ as a function of $`\xi ,m_f`$. We used Mathematica to perform the calculation of $`𝒫`$ and the dependence of $`𝒫`$ on $`m_f`$ is plotted for several values of $`\theta `$ and $`\xi `$, fixing the values of $`E`$, of the scalar mass $`m_s`$ as indicated in the figures’ footnotes. The results are shown in Fig 1 \- Fig 2. The result of Fig 1 shows the agreement with  (the larger the scattering amplitude, the larger the helicity flip). From Fig 2 one can argue that no drastic changes, with respect to the minimally coupled case, arise for $`\xi `$ non-zero (Our numerical study is restricted to values, $`100\xi 100`$)There is no particular reason to restrict $`\xi `$ to the range $`[100,+100]`$, but, as follows from cosmological applications, we expect the value to be small.. Even though the non minimal coupling appears explicity in the scattering amplitudes its effect seems to be irrelevant at ordinary energies.

We note, in passing, that a massive spinor field is not a representative of all non-conformal matter in the effective theory, i.e. other matter could be capable of producing observable interactions with these scalars. In any case as far as the Lagrangian (6) is concerned the effect of the non-minimally coupled term at leading orders in scattering amplitudes gives raise to a tiny effect , , . A problem which is important to mention is related to the quantum conformal anomalies, which make scalar couplings to Yang-Mills fields and spinor fields incapable of being eliminated, even in classically conformally coupled theories. This last problem requires a more careful investigation within the effective field theory framework and we hope to address this in a future work.

At this point we might ask what kind of principle we can invoke to get rid of the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term in the starting lagrangian. We can gain some feel by looking at the contribution of this term to the static gravitational potential. For clarity, let us first consider the contribution to the static potential due to $`R^2`$ terms.

In ,  the rationale for choosing the gravitational action proportional to $`R`$ is explained. The starting point is the following action, ordered in a derivative expansion ,

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}(\mathrm{\Lambda }+\frac{2}{\kappa ^2}R+c_1R^2+c_2R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }+$$

$$+\mathrm{}+_{matter}),$$

in which all infinitely many terms allowed by general coordinate invariance are included. Cosmological bounds ($`|\mathrm{\Lambda }|<10^{46}Gev^4`$) allow us to neglect, at ordinary energies, the cosmological constant term. Higher derivative terms are negligible as shown in , . The main argument given is that the potential which stems from the Lagrangian density

$$=\frac{2}{\kappa ^2}R+cR^2,$$

is

$$V(r)=\frac{Gm^2}{r}(1e^{\frac{r}{\sqrt{\kappa ^2c}}}).$$
(8)
Experimental bounds on $`c_i`$’s, given in , are

$$c_1,c_2<10^{74}.$$

This means that higher derivative terms are irrelevant at ordinary scales ($`c=1`$ implies $`\sqrt{\kappa ^2c}10^{35}m`$). In  it is stressed that in an effective field theory the $`R^2`$ terms need not be treated to all orders, but must only include the first corrections in $`\kappa ^2c`$. This is because at higher orders we should include other terms in the action ($`R^3,R^4,\mathrm{}`$) - note that this argument cannot be extended to the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term. At first order, the potential (8) becomes a representation of the delta function, i.e. the low energy potential has the form

$$V(r)=Gm^2(\frac{1}{r}+128\pi ^2G(c_1c_2)\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{r})).$$
(9)
As seen from (9) $`R^2`$ terms lead to a very weak and short-ranged modification of the gravitational interaction.

Similar arguments can be easily extended to the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term. Notice that this result is not obvious since we could not exclude the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term on the basis of an energy expansion or any symmetry consideration or on the basis of renormalizability. The interaction potential between two massive spinless bosons is defined via the relation

$$V(r)=\frac{1}{4m^2}(M_{ssss}),$$
(10)
where $`(M_{ssss})`$ is the Fourier transform of the elastic scattering amplitude $`M_{ssss}`$ of two scalar particles of mass $`m`$. This leads to $`V^{}(r)`$ as non-minimal correction to the Newtonian potential, where

$$V^{}(r)=\frac{\kappa ^2}{4}\xi m^2(6\xi 5)\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{r}).$$
(11)
Therefore, the correction induced on the Newton potential due to the presence of the non-minimal coupling is similar in form to the one which stems from higher derivative terms, thus leading to a weak and short-ranged effect. The previous formula tells us that it is not possible to measure $`\xi `$ at tree level in the region of energy/curvature where the effective approach is valid.

At this point we might ask whether this is true at one-loop. The calculation is in this case more involved and the use of a symbolic manipulation program is unavoidable . Here we simply mention that the one-loop correction to the static gravitational potential is proportional to $`\frac{\stackrel{}{q}^2}{m^2}\mathrm{log}(\stackrel{}{q}^2)`$, thus giving a contribution which is seen to be subleading with respect to the leading power correction computed in , .

Therefore we come to the conclusion that it is possible to exclude naturally the $`R\varphi ^2`$ term in the starting action, or, in other words, that we can start with the more general Lagrangian density, thus including the non-minimal coupling, finding that the effect of the latter is not visible. Therefore, the effective field theory of gravity is not disturbed by the presence of this term.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the referee for raising the issue of the anomalies and suggesting a number of clarifications. A.F. acknowledges the Ridley Foundation for financial support.


text:
# Frequency dependence of the photonic noise spectrum in an absorbing or amplifying diffusive medium

## I Introduction

The noise power spectrum of a black body is frequency independent for frequencies below the absorption band width. The inverse of the band width is the coherence time $`\tau _{\mathrm{coh}}`$ of the radiation , which for a black body is the longest relevant time scale — hence the white noise spectrum $`P(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }1/\tau _{\mathrm{coh}}`$. In a weakly absorbing, strongly scattering medium there appear two longer time scales: The absorption time $`\tau _a`$ and the time $`L^2/D`$ it takes to diffuse (with diffusion constant $`D`$) through the medium (of length $`L`$). As a consequence, $`P(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ for such a weakly-absorbing medium (sometimes called a “grey body”) starts to decay at much lower frequencies than for a black body having the same coherence time.

Although there is by now a substantial literature on the theory of grey-body radiation , the results have been limited to either the zero or high-frequency limits of the noise spectrum (or, equivalently, to short or long photodetection times). In the present work we remove this limitation, by computing $`P(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ for a diffusive medium for arbitrary ratios of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`1/\tau _a`$, and $`D/L^2`$. We compare two different approaches in a waveguide geometry: One which is fully quantum mechanical (based on random-matrix theory ) and another which is semiclassical (based on a Boltzmann-Langevin equation ). Each method has its advantages and disadvantages: The quantum theory includes interference effects, which are ignored in the semiclassical theory, but it is mathematically more involved. Complete agreement between the two approaches is obtained in the limit that the waveguide length $`L`$ is much smaller than the localization length (equal to the mean free path times the number of propagating modes).

The results for absorbing media can be applied directly to linear amplifiers, by formally changing the sign of the temperature and the absorption time. Loudon and coworkers  used this relationship to calculate the noise power spectrum of a waveguide without disorder. The generalization to a diffusive medium presented here describes a random laser  below threshold.

The outline of this paper is as follows. We start with the semiclassical approach, presenting a general solution of the Boltzmann-Langevin equation in Sec. II and applying it to a waveguide geometry in Sec. III. The quantum mechanical approach is developed in Sec. IV. For the quantum theory we need the correlator of reflection and transmission matrices at different frequencies. These are calculated in the appendix, using the random-matrix method of Ref. . We discuss our findings in Sec. V.

## II Semiclassical theory

Starting point of the semiclassical theory is the Boltzmann-Langevin equation for photons of Ref. . We first consider an absorbing medium (in equilibrium at temperature $`T`$), leaving the amplifying case for the end of this section. We make the diffusion approximation, valid if the mean free path $`l`$ is the shortest length scale in the system (but still large compared to the wavelength). The fluctuating number density $`n(\omega ,𝐫,t)`$ and current density $`𝐣(\omega ,𝐫,t)`$ of photons at frequency $`\omega `$, position $`𝐫`$, and time $`t`$ are related by

$`𝐣=D{\displaystyle \frac{n}{𝐫}}+𝓛_1,`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{n}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{𝐫}}𝐣=D\xi _a^2(\rho fn)+_0.`$ (2)
Here $`D=\frac{1}{3}cl`$ is the diffusion constant, $`\xi _a=\sqrt{D\tau _a}`$ is the absorption length (with $`\tau _a`$ the absorption time), $`\rho =4\pi \omega ^2(2\pi c)^3`$ is the density of states (not counting polarizations), and $`f=[\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{}\omega /kT)1]^1`$ is the Bose-Einstein function. We assume $`\xi _al`$. The fluctuating source terms $`_0`$ and $`𝓛_1`$ have zero mean and correlators

$`\overline{_0(\omega ,𝐫,t)_0(\omega ^{},𝐫^{},t^{})}=\delta (\omega \omega ^{})\delta (tt^{})\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})D\xi _a^2(2f\overline{n}+\rho f+\overline{n}),`$ (4)
$`\overline{_{1\alpha }(\omega ,𝐫,t)_{1\beta }(\omega ^{},𝐫^{},t^{})}=2\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta (\omega \omega ^{})\delta (tt^{})\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})D\overline{n}(1+\overline{n}/\rho ).`$ (5)
The cross-correlator of $`_0`$ and $`𝓛_1`$ is given in Ref. , but will not be needed. Combining Eqs. (1) and (2) we find equations for the mean $`\overline{n}`$ and the fluctuations $`\delta n`$ of the photon number density $`n=\overline{n}+\delta n`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{n}}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2\overline{n}}{𝐫^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{n}}{\xi _a^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho f}{\xi _a^2}},`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta n}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2\delta n}{𝐫^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta n}{\xi _a^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{D}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{𝐫}}𝓛_1{\displaystyle \frac{_0}{D}}.`$ (7)
We present a general solution for the multiport geometry of Fig. 1. Thermal radiation is incident through the port $`S_0`$ and can leave the system via ports $`S_0`$, $`S_1`$, $`S_2`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, where it is absorbed by photodetectors. The corresponding boundary conditions are $`n(\omega ,𝐫,t)|_{𝐫S_p}=n_{\mathrm{in}}(\omega ,t)\delta _{p0}`$. We assume that the closed boundaries $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of the system (with volume $`V`$) are perfectly reflecting. The separation of the ports is of order $`Ll`$. In what follows we assume detection of outgoing radiation in a narrow frequency interval $`\delta \omega `$ around $`\omega `$. We require that $`\delta \omega `$ is small both compared to $`\omega `$ and to $`1/\tau _{\mathrm{coh}}`$. To minimize the notations in this section we omit the frequency argument $`\omega `$ and use units in which $`\delta \omega 1`$. (We will reinsert $`\delta \omega `$ in the next section.)

The Green function of the differential equations (6) and (7) in the Fourier representation with respect to the time argument satisfies

$$\left(\frac{^2}{𝐫^2}\xi _a^2+\frac{i\mathrm{\Omega }}{D}\right)G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })=\delta (𝐫𝐫^{}).$$
(8)
\[Fourier transforms are defined as $`f(\mathrm{\Omega })=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t}f(t)`$.\] For frequency resolved detection we require $`\mathrm{\Omega }\delta \omega `$. We impose the boundary conditions

$`G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })|_{𝐫S_p}=0,p=0,1,2,\mathrm{},`$ (10)
$`𝚺{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{𝐫}}|_{𝐫\mathrm{\Sigma }}=0,`$ (11)
where $`𝚺`$ denotes the outward normal direction to the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We consider separately the mean and the fluctuations of the photon number and current densities.

### A Mean solution

The average photon density satisfying Eq. (6) can be expressed in Fourier representation in terms of the Green function (8),

$$\overline{n}(𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega })=2\pi \rho f\xi _a^2\delta (\mathrm{\Omega })\underset{V}{}𝑑𝐫^{}G(𝐫,𝐫^{},0)+\overline{n}_{\mathrm{in}}(\mathrm{\Omega })\underset{S_0}{}𝑑𝐒^{}\frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{𝐫^{}}.$$
(12)
Substituting this formula into the expression for the current (1) and integrating over the area $`S_p`$ one obtains the mean outgoing current $`\overline{I}_p`$ through port $`p0`$,

$`\overline{I}_p(\mathrm{\Omega })=2\pi \rho Df\xi _a^2\delta (\mathrm{\Omega }){\displaystyle \underset{S_p}{}}𝑑𝐒{\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}𝑑𝐫^{}{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{},0)}{𝐫}}`$ (13)
$`D\overline{n}_{\mathrm{in}}(\mathrm{\Omega }){\displaystyle \underset{S_p}{}}𝑑S_\alpha {\displaystyle \underset{S_0}{}}𝑑S_\beta ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{^2G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{r_\alpha r_\beta ^{}}}.`$ (14)
(Summation over the repeating Greek indices is implied.) The first term $`\delta (\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the time-independent mean thermal radiation from the medium. The second term is that part of the mean radiation entering through port $`0`$ that leaves the medium through one of the other ports. (The restriction to $`p0`$ is not essential but simplifies the general formulas considerably, so we will make this restriction in what follows.)

### B Fluctuations

The fluctuations in the number density follow in a similar way from the Green function and Eq. (7),

$$\delta n(𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega })=\frac{1}{D}\underset{V}{}𝑑𝐫^{}G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })\left(\frac{}{𝐫^{}}𝓛_1(𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })_0(𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })\right)+\delta n_{\mathrm{in}}(\mathrm{\Omega })\underset{S_0}{}𝑑𝐒^{}\frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{𝐫^{}}.$$
(15)
The fluctuation of the current density is then given by Eq. (1),

$`\delta j_\alpha (𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}𝑑𝐫^{}\left(G_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })_{1\beta }(𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })+{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{r_\alpha }}_0(𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })\right)`$ (16)
$`D\delta n_{\mathrm{in}}(\mathrm{\Omega }){\displaystyle \underset{S_0}{}}𝑑S_\beta ^{}G_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega }).`$ (17)
We have defined

$$G_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })=\frac{^2G(𝐫,𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}{r_\alpha r_\beta ^{}}+\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta (𝐫𝐫^{}).$$
(18)
We seek the correlator of the current fluctuations

$$C_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega };𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=\overline{\delta j_\alpha (𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega })\delta j_\beta (𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega })}$$
(19)
for $`𝐫S_p`$, $`𝐫^{}S_q`$ with $`p,q0`$. With the help of Eqs. (II) and (16) it can be expressed as

$`C_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega };𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega }^{})={\displaystyle \frac{D}{\xi _a^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}𝑑𝐫^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega })}{r_\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫^{},𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})}{r_\beta ^{}}}[(2f+1)\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{})+\rho f]`$ (21)
$`\text{+}2D{\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}𝑑𝐫^{\prime \prime }G_{\alpha \gamma }(𝐫,𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega })G_{\beta \gamma }(𝐫^{},𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})\left[\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi }\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })}\right].`$
(22)
Following Ref. , we have neglected the term $`\delta n_{\mathrm{in}}`$ in Eq. (16) (smaller by a factor $`l/L`$) and the cross-correlator $`\overline{_0𝓛_1}`$ (smaller by a factor $`l/\xi _a`$).

We now integrate $`𝐫`$ and $`𝐫^{}`$ over $`S_p`$ and $`S_q`$ to obtain the correlator of the total currents through ports $`p`$ and $`q`$,

$$C_{pq}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=\underset{S_p}{}𝑑S_\alpha \underset{S_q}{}𝑑S_\beta ^{}C_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫,\mathrm{\Omega };𝐫^{},\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=C_{pq}^{(1)}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})+C_{pq}^{(2)}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{}).$$
(23)
The first term $`C_{pq}^{(1)}`$ contains the contribution from the terms linear in the number density $`\overline{n}`$ in Eq. (21). Performing integration by parts and using Eqs. (8)–(12) we find that this term vanishes for $`pq`$. For $`p=q`$ it contains the mean current,

$$C_{pq}^{(1)}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=\delta _{pq}\overline{I}_p(\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}).$$
(24)
For a time-independent mean current $`\overline{I}_p`$ one has a white-noise spectrum $`C_{pq}^{(1)}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=2\pi \delta _{pq}\delta (\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{})\overline{I}_p.`$ This is the usual shot noise, corresponding to Poissonian statistics of the current fluctuations. The second term $`C_{pq}^{(2)}`$ describes the deviations from Poissonian statistics. It arises from terms in Eq. (21) that are quadratic in $`\overline{n}`$. Performing again an integration by parts, one finds

$`C_{pq}^{(2)}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})={\displaystyle \frac{2D}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \underset{S_p}{}}𝑑S_\alpha {\displaystyle \underset{S_q}{}}𝑑S_\beta ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{V}{}}𝑑𝐫^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi }\frac{\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })}{r_\gamma ^{\prime \prime }}\frac{\overline{n}(𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }^{\prime \prime })}{r_\gamma ^{\prime \prime }}}`$ (25)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫,𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega })}{r_\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{G(𝐫^{},𝐫^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})}{r_\beta ^{}}}.`$ (26)
Equation (25) together with Eq. (12) is the result that we need for our analysis of the frequency dependence of the noise spectrum.

### C Amplifying medium

The extension of our general formulas to an amplifying medium (in the linear regime below the laser threshold) is straightforward : We assume that the frequency $`\omega `$ at which we are detecting the radiation is close to the frequency of an atomic transition with (on average) $`N_{\mathrm{upper}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{lower}}`$ atoms in the upper and lower state. Then the Bose-Einstein function can be replaced by the population inversion factor $`f=N_{\mathrm{upper}}(N_{\mathrm{lower}}N_{\mathrm{upper}})^1`$. This factor is negative in the amplifying case (when $`N_{\mathrm{upper}}>N_{\mathrm{lower}}`$), with $`f=1`$ for a complete population inversion. (Equivalently, one can evaluate $`f`$ at a negative temperature , with $`T0^{}`$ for complete inversion.) An amplifying medium has a negative absorption time $`\tau _a=\xi _a^2/D`$. We can account for this by taking $`\xi _a`$ imaginary. With these two substitutions for $`f`$ and $`\xi _a`$ our formulas for an absorbing medium carry over to the amplifying case.

## III Waveguide geometry

For the application of our general formulas we consider a waveguide geometry (see Fig. 2). The waveguide has length $`L`$ and cross-sectional area $`A`$, corresponding to $`N=\omega ^2A/4\pi c^2`$ propagating modes (not counting polarizations) at frequency $`\omega `$. We abbreviate $`s=L/\xi _a`$. We consider a stationary incident current $`I_0=\frac{1}{4}cA\delta \omega \overline{n}_{\mathrm{in}}=(N\delta \omega /2\pi \rho )\overline{n}_{\mathrm{in}}`$, and calculate the noise power spectrum of the transmitted current,

$$P(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑te^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t}\overline{\delta I(t)\delta I(0)}.$$
(27)
In terms of the correlator of the previous section, one has $`C_{11}(\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=2\pi P(\mathrm{\Omega })\delta (\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Omega }^{})`$.

### A Absorbing medium

We calculate the noise power from Eqs. (12) and (25), using the Green function

$$G(x,x^{},\mathrm{\Omega })=\xi _a\frac{\mathrm{sinh}[(x_</\xi _a)\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]\mathrm{sinh}[(sx_>/\xi _a)\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]}{\mathrm{sinh}[s\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]},$$
(28)
where $`x_<`$ and $`x_>`$ are the smallest and largest of $`x,x^{},`$ respectively. The mean photon density is time independent. In Fourier representation one has, from Eq. (12),

$`\overline{n}(x,\mathrm{\Omega })=2\pi \delta (\mathrm{\Omega }){\displaystyle \frac{\rho f}{\mathrm{sinh}s}}\left(\mathrm{sinh}s\mathrm{sinh}(x/\xi _a)\mathrm{sinh}(sx/\xi _a)\right)`$ (29)
$`+2\pi \delta (\mathrm{\Omega })\overline{n}_{\mathrm{in}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}(sx/\xi _a)}{\mathrm{sinh}s}}.`$ (30)
The mean current $`\overline{I}=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}+\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}`$ is the sum of the thermal radiation from the medium

$$\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{4Df}{c\xi _a}(N\delta \omega /2\pi )\mathrm{tanh}(s/2)$$
(31)
and the transmitted incident current

$$\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}=\frac{4DI_0}{c\xi _a\mathrm{sinh}s}.$$
(32)
Substitution of Eqs. (28) and (29) into Eq. (25) yields the super-Poissonian noise $`P\overline{I}`$ as a sum of three terms, $`P\overline{I}=P_{\mathrm{th}}+P_{\mathrm{trans}}+P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, with

$`P_{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8Df^2}{c\xi _a}}(N\delta \omega /2\pi ){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})\mathrm{cosh}s^{}}{\mathrm{sinh}s}}\right)^2K(s^{},s),`$ (33)
$`P_{\mathrm{trans}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8DI_0^2}{c\xi _a}}(2\pi /N\delta \omega ){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}^2(ss^{})}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}}K(s^{},s),`$ (34)
$`P_{\mathrm{ex}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16DfI_0}{c\xi _a}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}{\displaystyle \frac{[\mathrm{cosh}s^{}\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})]\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}}K(s^{},s).`$ (35)
We have defined

$$K(s^{},s)=\left|\frac{\mathrm{sinh}(s^{}\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a})}{\mathrm{sinh}(s\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a})}\right|^2.$$
(36)
The two terms $`P_{\mathrm{trans}}`$ and $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ describe separately the noise power of the transmitted incident current and of the thermal current from the medium. The term $`P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ is the excess noise due to the beating of the incident radiation with the thermal fluctuations from the medium.

The three contributions are plotted separately in Fig. 3. For $`L\xi _a`$ the frequency dependence simplifies to

$`P_{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \frac{f\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}}{1+x}},`$ (37)
$`P_{\mathrm{trans}}(\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \frac{c\xi _a\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}^2}{16D}}(2\pi /N\delta \omega )\left({\displaystyle \frac{1e^{2s(x1)}}{x1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3x+2}{x^2+x}}\right),`$ (38)
$`P_{\mathrm{ex}}(\mathrm{\Omega })=f\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+2x}{x+x^2}},`$ (39)
where we have defined

$$x=\text{Re}\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}=[\frac{1}{2}(1+\mathrm{\Omega }^2\tau _a^2)^{1/2}+\frac{1}{2}]^{1/2}.$$
(40)
As discussed in Ref.  (for the zero-frequency case) the result for $`P_{\mathrm{trans}}`$ requires that the incident radiation is in a thermal state, at some temperature $`T_0`$. (The quantity $`f(\omega ,T_0)=I_0(2\pi /N\delta \omega )`$ is the corresponding value of the Bose-Einstein function.) There is no such requirement for $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ and $`P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, which are independent of the incident state. For $`T_0T`$ we may generally neglect $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ and $`P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ relative to $`P_{\mathrm{trans}}`$, so that $`P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}+P_{\mathrm{trans}}`$. However, if the incident radiation is in a coherent state, then $`P_{\mathrm{trans}}0`$ and since for sufficiently large $`I_0`$ we may neglect $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$, we have in this case $`P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}+P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$. The contribution $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ is important mainly in the absence of external illumination, when $`P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}+P_{\mathrm{th}}`$.

### B Amplifying medium

The results for an amplifying medium are obtained by the substitution $`\xi _ai\xi _a`$, $`fN_{\mathrm{upper}}(N_{\mathrm{lower}}N_{\mathrm{upper}})^1`$, cf. Sec. IIC. The frequency dependence of $`P_{\mathrm{th}},P_{\mathrm{trans}},`$ and $`P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ following from Eqs. (33)–(35) is plotted in Fig. 4 for lengths $`L`$ below the laser threshold at $`L=\pi \xi _a`$.

### C Cross-correlator

In the absence of any incident radiation, the noise $`P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}+P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ is due entirely to the thermal fluctuations in the medium. The current fluctuations at the two ends of the waveguide are correlated, as measured by the cross-correlator

$$P_{12}(\mathrm{\Omega })=\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑te^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t}\overline{\delta I_1(t)\delta I_2(0)}.$$
(41)
From Eqs. (25), (28), and (29) we obtain

$`P_{12}(\mathrm{\Omega })={\displaystyle \frac{8Df^2}{c\xi _a}}(N\delta \omega /2\pi ){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})\mathrm{cosh}s^{}}{\mathrm{sinh}s}}\right)^2`$ (42)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}[s^{}\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]\mathrm{sinh}[(ss^{})\sqrt{1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]}{|\mathrm{sinh}[s\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}]|^2}}.`$ (43)
The cross-correlator is plotted in Fig. 5 for both the absorbing and amplifying cases. The outgoing currents at the two ends of the waveguide are anti-correlated for $`\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a1`$.

## IV Comparison with quantum theory

A fully quantum mechanical theory for the photocount distribution of a disordered medium was developed in Refs. . In this section we verify that it agrees with the semiclassical results of the previous section. We consider the same system of Fig. 2, a disordered waveguide with a photodetector at one end and a stationary current incident at the other end. We assume that the incident current originates from a thermal source at temperature $`T_0`$. The photocount distribution is the distribution of the number of photons $`n(t)`$ counted (with unit quantum efficiency) in the time interval $`(0,t)`$. Substitution of $`I=dn/dt`$ in the definition (27) of the noise power $`P(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ leads to a relation with the variance $`\mathrm{Var}n(t)`$ of the photocount,

$`P(\mathrm{\Omega })=\mathrm{\Omega }^2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑t\mathrm{Var}n(t)\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t,`$ (45)
$`\text{Var}n(t)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^2P(\mathrm{\Omega })\left(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t1\right).`$ (46)
The variance can be separated into two terms, $`\mathrm{Var}n(t)=\overline{n}(t)+\kappa (t)=t\overline{I}+\kappa (t)`$, with $`\kappa (t)`$ the second factorial cumulant. The term $`t\overline{I}`$, substituted into Eq. (45), gives the frequency-independent shot noise contribution $`\overline{I}`$ to the power spectrum,

$`P(\mathrm{\Omega })=\overline{I}\mathrm{\Omega }^2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑t\kappa (t)\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t.`$ (47)
The cumulant $`\kappa =\kappa _{\mathrm{trans}}+\kappa _{\mathrm{th}}+\kappa _{\mathrm{ex}}`$ contains separate contributions from the transmitted incident radiation and thermal fluctuations in the medium, plus an excess contribution from the beating of the two. These contributions have an exact representation in terms of the $`N\times N`$ reflection and transmission matrices $`r(\omega )`$, $`t(\omega )`$ of the waveguide ,

$`\kappa _{\mathrm{trans}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega ^{}}{2\pi }}L(\omega \omega ^{},t)f(\omega ,T_0)f(\omega ^{},T_0)\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )T(\omega ^{}),`$ (48)
$`\kappa _{\mathrm{th}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega ^{}}{2\pi }}L(\omega \omega ^{},t)f(\omega ,T)f(\omega ^{},T)\mathrm{Tr}Q(\omega )Q(\omega ^{}),`$ (49)
$`\kappa _{\mathrm{ex}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega ^{}}{2\pi }}L(\omega \omega ^{},t)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}f(\omega ,T_0)f(\omega ^{},T)\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )Q(\omega ^{}),`$ (50)
where we have defined

$`L(\omega ,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{t}{}}}𝑑t^{}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{t}{}}}𝑑t^{\prime \prime }\mathrm{exp}[i\omega (t^{}t^{\prime \prime })]=2\omega ^2(1\mathrm{cos}\omega t),`$ (51)
$`Q(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`𝟙𝕣(\omega )𝕣^{}(\omega )𝕥(\omega )𝕥^{}(\omega ),`$ (52)
$`T(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`t(\omega )t^{}(\omega ).`$ (53)
Substitution into Eq. (47) gives the corresponding contributions to the noise power $`P=\overline{I}+P_{\mathrm{trans}}+P_{\mathrm{th}}+P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$,

$`P_{\mathrm{trans}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}f(\omega ,T_0)f(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega },T_0)\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )T(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })+\{\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }\},`$ (54)
$`P_{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}f(\omega ,T)f(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega },T)\mathrm{Tr}Q(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })+\{\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }\},`$ (55)
$`P_{\mathrm{ex}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}2f(\omega ,T_0)f(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega },T)\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })+\{\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }\}.`$ (56)
As in the previous section, we assume a frequency-resolved measurement in an interval $`\delta \omega \omega ,1/\tau _{\mathrm{coh}}`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }\delta \omega `$. We may then omit the integral over $`\omega `$ and approximate the argument $`\omega \pm \mathrm{\Omega }`$ in the functions $`f`$ by $`\omega `$. We take the ensemble average $`\mathrm{}`$ of the noise power, in which case the contributions from $`\pm \mathrm{\Omega }`$ are the same. Finally, we insert the incident current $`I_0=f(\omega ,T_0)N\delta \omega /2\pi `$, to arrive at

$`P_{\mathrm{trans}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi /N\delta \omega )I_0^2N^1\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )T(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (57)
$`P_{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`(N\delta \omega /2\pi )f^2(\omega ,T)N^1\mathrm{Tr}Q(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (58)
$`P_{\mathrm{ex}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`2I_0f(\omega ,T)N^1\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }).`$ (59)
It remains to evaluate the ensemble averages. This is done in the appendix, by extending the approach of Ref.  to correlators of reflection and transmission matrices at different frequencies. The calculation applies to the diffusive regime that the length $`L`$ of the waveguide is large compared to the mean free path $`l`$, but still small compared to the localization length $`Nl`$. (The absorption length $`\xi _a`$ is also assumed to be $`l`$.) The results are

$`N^1\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )T(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8D}{c\xi _a}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}^2(ss^{})}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}},`$ (60)
$`N^1\mathrm{Tr}Q(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8D}{c\xi _a}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s){\displaystyle \frac{[\mathrm{cosh}s^{}\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})]^2}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}},`$ (61)
$`N^1\mathrm{Tr}T(\omega )Q(\omega +\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8D}{c\xi _a}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})\mathrm{cosh}s^{}\mathrm{cosh}^2(ss^{})}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}},`$ (62)
where $`s=L/\xi _a`$ and the kernel $`K(s^{},s)`$ is defined in Eq. (A35). The combination of Eqs. (57)–(62) agrees precisely with the results (33)–(35) of the semiclassical theory. The quantum theory is more general than the semiclassical theory, because it can describe the effects of wave localization. The method of Ref.  gives corrections to the above results in a power series in $`L/Nl`$. We will not pursue this investigation here.

## V Discussion

We have presented a theory for the frequency dependence of the noise power spectrum $`P(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ in an absorbing or amplifying disordered waveguide. The frequency dependence is governed by two time scales, the absorption or amplification time $`\tau _a`$ and the diffusion time $`L^2/D`$, both of which are assumed to be much greater than the coherence time $`\tau _{\mathrm{coh}}`$. A simplified description is obtained, in the absorbing case, for lengths $`L`$ much greater than the absorption length $`\xi _a=\sqrt{D\tau _a}`$, and, in the amplifying case, close to the laser threshold at $`L=\pi \xi _a`$. We will discuss these two cases separately.

### A Absorbing medium

The general formulas (33)–(35) for $`P=\overline{I}+P_{\mathrm{th}}+P_{\mathrm{trans}}+P_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ simplify for $`L\xi _a`$ to Eqs. (37)–(39). To characterize the frequency dependence we define the characteristic frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ as the frequency at which the super-Poissonian noise has dropped by a factor of two:

$$P(\mathrm{\Omega }_c)\overline{I}=\frac{1}{2}\left(P(0)\overline{I}\right).$$
(63)
In the absence of any external illumination ($`I_0=0`$) we have, from Eq. (37),

$$P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}\left(1+\frac{f}{1+x}\right),\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{4Df}{c\xi _a}(N\delta \omega /2\pi ),$$
(64)
with $`x=\text{Re}\sqrt{1i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}`$, hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=17/\tau _a`$. If the illumination is in the coherent state from a laser, then we have, from Eq. (39),

$$P=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}\left(1+f\frac{1+2x}{x+x^2}\right),\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}=\frac{8DI_0}{c\xi _a}e^s,$$
(65)
here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=9/\tau _a`$. In both these cases the diffusion time does not enter in the frequency dependence. This is different for illumination by a thermal source at temperature $`T_0`$ much greater than the temperature of the medium. From Eq. (38), with $`f_0=f(\omega ,T_0)`$, we then have

$$P_{\mathrm{trans}}(\mathrm{\Omega })=\overline{I}_{\mathrm{trans}}\left(1+\frac{f_0}{2}e^s\left[\frac{1e^{2s(x1)}}{x1}+\frac{3x+2}{x^2+x}\right]\right).$$
(66)
The characteristic frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=(64D/L^2\tau _a^3)^{1/4}`$ now contains both the diffusion time and the absorption time.

### B Amplifying medium

In the amplifying case the noise power becomes more and more strongly peaked near zero frequency with increasing amplification.

Close to the laser threshold at $`s=\pi `$ the frequency dependence of $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ for small frequencies $`\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a1`$ has the form

$$P_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{Z\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}^2}{2\pi [\mathrm{\Omega }^2\tau _a^2+4(1s/\pi )^2]},\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{4f}{Z(\pi s)}.$$
(67)
Here again $`Z=(c\xi _a/2D)(2\pi /N\delta \omega )`$. Close to threshold the peak in the noise power spectrum has a Lorentzian lineshape with half-width $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=(2/\tau _a)(1L/\pi \xi _a)`$. At the laser threshold both $`P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ and $`\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}`$ diverge, but the ratio $`\overline{I}_{\mathrm{th}}^2/P_{\mathrm{th}}`$ remains finite (see Fig. 6).

Finally, we note the fundamental difference between the time scales appearing in the noise spectrum for photons, on the one hand, and electrons, on the other hand. The absorption or amplification time $`\tau _a`$ obviously has no electronic analogue. The diffusion time $`L^2/D`$ appears in both contexts, however, the electronic noise spectrum remains frequency independent for $`\mathrm{\Omega }>D/L^2`$ . The reason for the difference is screening of electronic charge. As a result the characteristic frequency scale for electronic current fluctuations is the inverse scattering time $`D/l^2`$, which is much greater than the inverse diffusion time $`D/L^2`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank P. W. Brouwer for advice concerning the calculation in the appendix and Yu. V. Nazarov and M. P. van Exter for useful discussions. This research was supported by the “Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek” (NWO) and by the “Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie” (FOM). E. G. M. also thanks the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.

## A Correlators of reflection and transmission matrices

To compute the noise power spectrum in the quantum mechanical approach of Sec. V, we need the correlators of reflection and transmission matrices $`t(\omega _\pm )`$ and $`r(\omega _\pm )`$ at two different frequencies $`\omega _\pm =\omega \pm \mathrm{\Omega }/2`$. (For $`\mathrm{\Omega }\omega `$ this is the same as the correlator at frequencies $`\omega `$ and $`\omega +\mathrm{\Omega }`$.) We calculate these correlators for a waveguide geometry in the diffusive regime, by extending the equal-frequency ($`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$) theory of Brouwer .

Upon attachment of a short segment of length $`\delta L`$ to one end of the waveguide of length $`L`$, the transmission and reflection matrices change according to

$`t`$ $``$ $`t_{\delta L}(1+rr_{\delta L})t,`$ (A2)
$`r`$ $``$ $`r_{\delta L}^{}+t_{\delta L}(1+rr_{\delta L})rt_{\delta L}^\mathrm{T},`$ (A3)
where the superscript $`\mathrm{T}`$ indicates the transpose of a matrix. (Because of reciprocity the transmission matrix from left to right equals the transpose of the transmission matrix from right to left.) The transmission matrix $`t_{\delta L}`$ of the short segment at frequency $`\omega _\pm `$ may be chosen proportional to the unit matrix,

$$t_{\delta L}=\left(1\frac{\delta L}{2l^{}}\frac{\delta L}{2c^{}\tau _a}\pm \frac{i\mathrm{\Omega }\delta L}{2c^{}}\right)𝟙.$$
(A4)
The mean free path $`l^{}=4l/3`$ and the velocity $`c^{}=c/2`$ represent a weighted average over the $`N`$ transverse modes in the waveguide.

Unitarity of the scattering matrix dictates that the reflection matrix from the left of the short segment is related to the reflection matrix from the right by $`r_{\delta L}^{}=r_{\delta L}^{}`$. We abbreviate $`r_{\delta L}\delta r`$. The matrix $`\delta r`$ is symmetric (because of reciprocity), with zero mean and variance

$$\delta r_{kl}^{}\delta r_{mn}^{}=(N+1)^1(\delta _{km}\delta _{ln}+\delta _{kn}\delta _{lm})\delta L/l^{}.$$
(A5)
The resulting change in the matrix products $`tt^{}`$ and $`rr^{}`$ is

$`tt^{}`$ $``$ $`(1\delta L/l^{}\delta L/c^{}\tau _a)tt^{}+(r\delta rt)(r\delta rt)^{}`$ (A8)
$`+r\delta rtt^{}+(r\delta rtt^{})^{},`$
$`rr^{}`$ $``$ $`(12\delta L/l^{}2\delta L/c^{}\tau _a)rr^{}+(r\delta rr)(r\delta rr)^{}+\delta r^{}\delta r`$ (A10)
$`+r\delta rrr^{}+(r\delta rrr^{})^{}r\delta r(r\delta r)^{}.`$
The frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ does not appear explicitly in these increments.

We define the following ensemble averages

$``$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}(𝟙𝕣𝕣^{}),`$ (A11)
$`𝒞`$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}(𝟙𝕣_{}^{}𝕣_+^{}),`$ (A12)
$`𝒯`$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}tt^{},`$ (A13)
where $`r,t`$ are evaluated at frequency $`\omega `$ and $`r_\pm ,t_\pm `$ at frequency $`\omega \pm \mathrm{\Omega }/2`$. Similarly, we define the correlators

$`C_{rr}`$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}(𝟙𝕣_{}^{}𝕣_{}^{})(𝟙𝕣_+^{}𝕣_+^{}),`$ (A14)
$`C_{rt}`$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}(𝟙𝕣_{}^{}𝕣_{}^{})𝕥_+^{}𝕥_+^{},`$ (A15)
$`C_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}t_{}^{}t_{}^{}t_+^{}t_+^{}.`$ (A16)
We will see that, in the diffusive regime, these 6 quantities satisfy a coupled set of ordinary differential equations in $`L`$.

The diffusive regime corresponds to the large-$`N`$ limit, in which the length $`L`$ of the waveguide is much less than the localization length $`Nl`$. In this limit we may replace Eq. (A5) by $`\delta r_{kl}^{}\delta r_{mn}^{}=(\delta L/Nl^{})\delta _{km}\delta _{ln}`$. In the large-$`N`$ limit we may also replace averages of products of traces by products of averages of traces. From Eq. (A5) we thus obtain the diffential equations

$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\gamma (1)^2,`$ (A17)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝒞}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\gamma (1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a)(1𝒞)𝒞^2,`$ (A18)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝒯}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma 𝒯𝒯,`$ (A19)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{rr}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(4\gamma +𝒞+𝒞^{}+2)C_{rr}+2(+2\gamma ),`$ (A20)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{rt}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(3\gamma +𝒞+𝒞^{}+)C_{rt}𝒯C_{rr}+2(+\gamma )𝒯,`$ (A21)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{tt}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(2\gamma +𝒞+𝒞^{})C_{tt}2𝒯C_{rt}+2𝒯^2,`$ (A22)
with the definition $`\gamma =l^{}/c^{}\tau _a`$. The initial conditions are that each of these 6 quantities $`1`$ for $`L0`$.

This set of differential equations may be simplified further if we assume, as we did in the semiclassical theory, that the mean free path is small compared to both the absorption length and the length of the waveguide. All 6 quantities (A11)–(A16) are of order $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$, which is $`1`$ if $`l^{}c^{}\tau _a`$, so that we obtain in leading order

$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\gamma ^2,`$ (A23)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝒞}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\gamma (1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a)𝒞^2,`$ (A24)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝒯}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒯,`$ (A25)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{rr}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(𝒞+𝒞^{}+2)C_{rr}+2^2,`$ (A26)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{rt}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(𝒞+𝒞^{}+)C_{rt}𝒯C_{rr}+2𝒯,`$ (A27)
$`l^{}{\displaystyle \frac{dC_{tt}}{dL}}`$ $`=`$ $`(𝒞+𝒞^{})C_{tt}2𝒯C_{rt}+2𝒯^2.`$ (A28)
As initial condition we should now take that the product of each quantity with $`L`$ remains finite when $`L0`$.

Although the differential equations are coupled, they may be solved separately for $``$, $`𝒞`$, $`𝒯`$, $`C_{rr}`$, $`C_{rt}`$, $`C_{tt}`$, in that order. In terms of the rescaled length $`s=(2\gamma )^{1/2}L/l^{}=L/\xi _a`$, the results are

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2\gamma )^{1/2}}{\mathrm{tanh}s}},`$ (A29)
$`𝒞`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2\gamma )^{1/2}\sqrt{1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}}{\mathrm{tanh}s\sqrt{1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}}},`$ (A30)
$`𝒯`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2\gamma )^{1/2}}{\mathrm{sinh}s}},`$ (A31)
$`C_{rr}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(8\gamma )^{1/2}}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s)\mathrm{cosh}^2s^{},`$ (A32)
$`C_{rt}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(8\gamma )^{1/2}}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s)\mathrm{cosh}(ss^{})\mathrm{cosh}s^{},`$ (A33)
$`C_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(8\gamma )^{1/2}}{\mathrm{sinh}^2s}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}K(s^{},s)\mathrm{cosh}^2(ss^{}),`$ (A34)
where the kernel $`K`$ is defined by

$$K(s^{},s)=\left|\mathrm{sinh}s^{}\sqrt{1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}\right|^2\left|\mathrm{sinh}s\sqrt{1+i\mathrm{\Omega }\tau _a}\right|^2.$$
(A35)
These are the expressions used in Sec. 4 (where we have also substituted $`\sqrt{2\gamma }=4D/c\xi _a`$). The remaining integrals over $`s^{}`$ may be done analytically, but the resulting expressions are rather lengthy so we do not record them here. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$ our results reduce to those of Brouwer  (up to a misprint in Eq. (13c) of that paper, where the plus and minus signs in the expression between brackets should be interchanged).


text:
# The mass surface density in the local disk and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy

## 1. INTRODUCTION

Despite a number of estimates, obtained by means of several different methods, the value of the local column density of the Galactic disk in stars and gas, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b(R_{}`$ 8 kpc) = $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{stars}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{gas}`$, has been until recently very uncertain. Direct HST star counts imply a stellar column density of $`27`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Flynn, Gould, & Bahcall 1999), while the (H I \+ H2) column density amounts to 7 – 13 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Dickey 1993; Flynn et al. 1999). Therefore, the surface density of the directly seen baryonic matter amounts to 35 – 40 $`M_{}`$ pc-2. However, the actual column density of the “luminous” disk could be higher because the above detection does not account for dead stars and brown dwarfs.

The total disk surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_z(R_{})`$, including also any eventual disk dark matter component, can be determined from the motion of stars in the solar neighborhood perpendicular to the Galactic plane (e.g. Binney & Tremaine 1987; Gilmore, Wyse, & Kuijken 1989). From the kinematics of a sample of K-giants Bahcall, Flynn, & Gould (1992) derived $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_z(R_{})=84_{25}^{+30}`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (at 1 $`\sigma `$ level). Notice that such a measure is a complex one and it is strongly dependent on the underlying assumptions. By employing different samples and/or analysis, lower values for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_z(R_{})`$ have been claimed: $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_z(R_{})=46\pm 9`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Kuijken & Gilmore 1989) — revised to $`48\pm 9`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Kuijken & Gilmore 1991), $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_z(R_{})=52\pm 13`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Flynn & Fuchs 1994). The local column density of stars and gas could be smaller, because these dynamical estimates may include some non-baryonic matter. Notice however that it is quite unlikely that there is non-baryonic matter in the disk, because non-baryonic dark matter is probably non dissipational. Any non-baryonic matter present in the disk is likely to be part of the dark halo, and this component is always subtracted from the dynamical estimates of the local column density.

Fitting the Galaxy rotation curve (RC) with a mass model provides a further way of estimating the local column density of disk matter $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_V`$. In fact, such a fit indicates what is the fraction $`\beta `$111It should be noted that the value for $`\beta `$ depends on the assumed profiles for the disk and the halo. of the circular velocity due to the disk component (at the Sun’s position). Then, $`\beta V_{}^2`$ is compared with the circular velocity of an exponential thin disk, $`V_{disk}^2=G^1\mathrm{\Sigma }_VR_Df(R_{}/R_D)`$, with $`f`$ a known function of the Galactocentric distance of the Sun expressed in terms of disk length scales (see Freeman 1970), to yield $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_V`$, providing that $`R_{}`$ and $`R_D`$ are known. The results are far from unique, and reflect the presence of uncertainties in the mass modelling, in the actual shape of the Galactic RC, and in the basic structural parameters. The values found range between $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_V50`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 and $`100`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Olling & Merrifield 1998; Dehnen & Binney 1998), and moreover include any dark matter distributed like the stellar disk. In external galaxies of luminosity similar to the Galaxy $`(L_B10^{11}`$ $`L_{})`$, values of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_V`$ as high as $`90`$ $`M_{}`$ pc-2 at $`R`$ = 8 kpc cannot be ruled out (Persic, Salucci, & Stel 1996).

Finally, let us note that if the dark matter halo in the Galaxy follows the standard cold dark matter (CDM) universal density profile (Navarro, Frenk, & White 1997), and therefore at the Sun position $`\rho _{SCDM}R^2`$, then the local disk column density is required to be towards the low end of the above-cited values (e.g. Courteau & Rix 1999). On the other hand, low-$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ CDM density profiles are not inconsistent with a baryon dominated region inside $`R_{}`$, and then with much higher values for the local disk column density (Navarro 1998).

Summarizing: all the above observations, often entangled with heavy theoretical assumptions, poorly constrain the value of the column density of the baryonic matter in the local disk, that may lie between 35 and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2.

However, very recently the results of the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos mission have allowed a drastical reduction of this permitted range, by making available direct distances for the tracer stars. In particular, Crézé et al. (1998) and Holmberg & Flynn (1998) have analyzed the A and F stars in the Hipparcos data set (some 10,000 stars) and derived greatly improved estimates of the total gravitating mass: the gravitating disk mass seems to be now firmly established at 50 to 60 $`M_{}`$ pc-2.

In this paper we investigate how the gravitating mass of the disk influences the Galactic chemical evolution. Successful models for the chemical evolution of the Galaxy, in fact, require a star formation law depending on the total mass surface density (Tosi 1988; Matteucci & François 1989; Chiappini, Matteucci, & Gratton 1997), and the star formation rate (SFR) is a fundamental parameter in the evolution of galaxies.

## 2. THE CHEMICAL EVOLUTION MODEL

We adopt the two-infall chemical evolution model of Chiappini et al. (1997), to which we refer for an exhaustive explanation of the main assumptions and basic equations. Here we just review the features of the model most directly related to the aspects discussed in the present study.

Briefly, the overall evolutionary scenario is the following: it is assumed that the Galaxy formed out of two main infall episodes; during the first episode, the primordial gas collapsed very quickly and formed the spheroidal components (halo and bulge); during the second episode, the thin disk formed almost independently of the previous infall episode, mainly out of material of primordial chemical composition. The disk formation process is assumed to be slower with increasing Galactocentric distance (Larson 1976; Matteucci & François 1989); this “inside-out” formation of the Galactic disk is required to reproduce the abundance gradients and the gas distribution along the disk. A hiatus in the star formation between thick disk and thin disk phases, as suggested by recent observations (Gratton et al. 1996; Bernkopf & Fuhrmann 1998; Fuhrmann 1998; Carraro 2000), is naturally produced by the model under the assumption that the star formation stops when the gas surface density drops below a threshold of 7 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (Kennicutt 1989). Moreover, the presence of such a threshold predicts a roughly constant gas density profile at the outer radii (between 8 and 14 kpc) in agreement with observations (Dame 1993). We will focus on the thin disk formation process.

The most relevant quantities in the present discussion are the infall rate and the SFR, since they involve the total mass surface density profile. The rate at which the thin disk is formed out of external matter (although it has also some initial contribution from the halo gas) is:

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Sigma }_I(R,t)}{dt}=B(R)e^{(tt_{max})/\tau _D},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_I(R,t)`$ is the gas surface density of the infalling material, which has a primordial chemical composition; $`t_{max}`$ is the time of maximum gas accretion onto the disk, coincident with the end of the halo-thick disk phase which is set equal to 1 Gyr; $`\tau _D`$ is the timescale for mass accretion onto the thin disk component. We assume that $`\tau _D`$ increases with increasing the Galactic radius:

$$\tau _D(R)=1.033\times R1.267.$$
(2)
This relation derives from the fact that in order to fit the G-dwarf metallicity distribution in the solar neighborhood it is necessary to assume $`\tau _D`$ = 7 Gyr, whereas to reproduce the metallicity distribution of the stars in the Galactic bulge ($`R`$ = 2 kpc) a timescale $`\tau _D`$ = 0.8 Gyr is required (Matteucci, Romano, & Molaro 1999). It should be emphasized that this choice also guarantees a good fit to the gas density profile and to the Galactic abundance gradients. The quantity $`B(R)`$ is derived from the condition of reproducing the current total mass surface density distribution along the disk:

$$B(R)=\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t_{Gal})}{\tau _D(R)\left(1e^{(t_{Gal}t_{max})/\tau _D(R)}\right)}.$$
(3)
$`t_{Gal}`$ = 15 Gyr is the age of the Galaxy starting with the formation of the halo. From equation (3) it is clear the strong dependence of the infall rate from the total mass density profile.

Observations in our own and in other disk galaxies allow us to relate the SFR to intrinsic parameters of galaxies, in particular to the average surface gas density: SFR $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{gas}^k`$ (Schmidt 1959), where the exponent is reasonably well known (e.g. $`k`$ = 1.4 $`\pm `$ 0.15 — Kennicutt 1998). Moreover, the correlation between metallicity and surface brightness noted for late type spirals (McCall 1982; Edmunds & Pagel 1984; Dopita & Ryder 1994) is consistent with theories of self-regulated star formation, in which the energy produced by young stars and SNe feeds back into the ISM and inhibits further star formation by producing an expansion of the region surrounding the new stars or the SN remnants, thus relating the SFR to the gravitational potential and therefore to the total mass surface density. In addition, according to the most popular prescriptions, one of the key conditions for star formation to occur is

$$t_{cooling}<<t_{ff},$$
(4)
where $`t_{cooling}`$ is the cooling timescale and $`t_{ff}`$ is the free-fall timescale (Katz 1992; Navarro & White 1993; Carraro, Lia, & Chiosi 1998); $`t_{ff}\rho ^{1/2}`$, where $`\rho `$ is the total mass density (Buonomo et al. 1999). Again, in some way the SFR is related to the potential well and therefore to the total mass surface density. The SFR adopted here is the same as in Chiappini et al. (1997) and it was chosen in order to give the best agreement with the observed constraints:

$$\psi (R,t)=\nu (t)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t)}{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t)}\right)^{2(k1)}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t_{Gal})}{\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t)}\right)^{k1}$$

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{gas}^k(R,t).$$
(5)
$`\nu (t)`$ is the efficiency of the star formation process, which is set to 1 Gyr-1, except when the gas surface density drops below 7 $`M_{}`$ pc-2. In fact in this case $`\nu (t)`$ = 0, because below this critical density the gas is gravitationally stable against density condensations into stars. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t)`$ is the total disk mass surface density at a given radius $`R`$ and a given time $`t`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t)`$ is the total disk mass surface density at the Solar position and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{gas}(R,t)`$ is the gas surface density. Note that the gas surface density exponent, $`k`$, equal to 1.5, was obtained from the best model of Chiappini et al. (1997) in order to ensure a good fit to the observational constraints at the solar vicinity. This value is in good agreement with the recent observational results of Kennicutt (1998) and with N-body simulation results by Gerritsen & Icke (1997).

As far as our present model is concerned, we stress that the SFR *along the Galactic disk*, and hence the evolutionary history of the Galactic disk itself, is fixed by the *specific value of the local column density* of disk matter that we adopt. In fact, the total disk mass surface density profile, an exponential with scale length $`R_D`$, can be expressed as:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(R,t_{Gal})=\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t_{Gal})e^{(RR_{})/R_D},$$
(6)
which relates the column density at a radius $`R`$ to the column density at the Solar position. For the purpose of this paper, we let the local mass surface density value to vary from 35 to 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 and we set $`R_{}`$ = 8 kpc.

Finally, the stellar nucleosynthesis prescriptions we adopt are from:

* van den Hoek & Groenewegen (1997) for low-intermediate mass stars (0.8 – 8 $`M_{}`$) (their case with variable $`\eta _{AGB}`$);
* Charbonnel & do Nascimento (1998) for 3He production/destruction in low-mass stars ($`M`$ $`<`$ 2 $`M_{}`$);
* Woosley & Weaver (1995) for Type II SNe ($`M`$ $`>`$ 10 $`M_{}`$);
* Thielemann, Nomoto, & Hashimoto (1993) for Type Ia SNe (exploding white dwarfs in binary systems as described in Matteucci & Greggio 1986);
* José & Hernanz (1998) for classical novae.

Our prescriptions differ from those of Chiappini et al. (1997) in: i) the range of low-intermediate masses (0.8 – 8 $`M_{}`$), where they adopted the Renzini & Voli (1981) yields; ii) the fact that we are including the explosive nucleosynthesis from nova outbursts (Romano et al. 1999; Romano & Matteucci 2000); iii) using extra-mixing prescriptions for the 3He nucleosynthesis (Chiappini & Matteucci 2000) and iv) the Sun position, now taken as 8 kpc instead of 10 kpc.

As far as the composition of the infalling material is concerned, we set YP = 0.245 rather than 0.23 (where YP is the primordial mass fraction in form of 4He), according to a recent estimate of the pristine 4He abundance obtained as a weighted mean of the 4He mass fractions from the two most metal-deficient blue compact galaxies, corrected for the stellar contribution (YP = 0.245 $`\pm `$ 0.002 — Izotov et al. 1999222Ionization corrections for low-metallicity H II regions suggest that this estimate should be reduced to YP = 0.241 $`\pm `$ 0.002 (Viegas, Gruenwald, & Steigman 1999).). The primordial abundances by mass of deuterium and helium-3 are DP = 4.5 $`\times `$ 10-5 and 3HeP = 4.0 $`\times `$ 10-5, respectively. The adopted IMF is that of Scalo (1986).

## 3. MODEL PREDICTIONS

### 3.1. The Solar Circle

In Tables 1 and 2 the model predictions together with the corresponding observed quantities are shown. Different models have identical parameters apart from the value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{})`$.

From an inspection of Table 1, we see that there are not big differences among the quantities predicted by the different models, with the exception of the surface densities of live stars and stellar remnants, which seem to exclude the models with the highest total disk mass surface densities (80 – 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2). The lowest density value (35 $`M_{}`$ pc-2) predicts a stellar density which is only in marginal agreement with the observed one.

The predictions on the abundances of the interstellar medium at the time of the Sun’s formation are independent of the chosen total disk mass surface density but depend on all other model assumptions, in particular on the assumed stellar yields. Therefore, since we adopted a set of new yields relative to Chiappini et al. (1997), a comparison between our results for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 54 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 and those of Chiappini et al. (1997) is required. Table 2 shows that the largest differences in the predicted solar abundances arise for D, 3He, 12C, and 13C. The improvement in the predicted solar abundance for 12C and 13C is due to the fact that we adopt the new nucleosynthetic yields from van den Hoek & Groenewegen (1997) for low and intermediate mass stars, whereas the improvement in the predicted solar abundances for D and 3He is due to the fact that we take into account that 93% of evolved stars undergo the extra-mixing on the RGB and thus destroy, at least partly, their 3He (Charbonnel & do Nascimento 1998).

One of the most severe observational constraints to chemical evolution models is the relative number of stars formed at a given time, i.e. at a given metallicity. In Fig.1 we compare the predicted and observed G-dwarf metallicity distributions; in particular, we show the results of models in which $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t_{Gal})`$ is taken to be 20, 54 and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2, respectively. Models with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 35 and 80 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 have also been computed. They produce theoretical G-dwarf distributions very similar to those obtained with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 54 or 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2, so we do not show them here. From an inspection of Fig.1 we see that the case $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 20 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 is in trouble in reproducing the high metallicity tail of the distribution while overestimating the number of low metallicity stars, whereas all the cases with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ lying between 35 and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 lead to a better agreement with the observations. We performed a $`\chi ^2`$ test and obtained the following results: $`\chi ^2`$ = 0.11 for the case $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 20 $`M_{}`$ pc-2, $`\chi ^2`$ = 0.04 for the cases $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 54 and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2. We conclude that the observed differential metallicity distribution is not a useful tool to distinguish among realistic values for the total baryonic mass density in the local disk. This is not surprising since the G-dwarf metallicity distribution depends mostly on the assumed law for the disk formation (i.e. on the assumed infall timescale).

Fig.2 illustrates the different temporal behaviour of the SFR under different choices of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. In the low density case a stochastic SFR (between 0 and 3 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 Gyr-1 at the present time) is expected during most of the evolution, due to the fact that the threshold in the gas density, below which the star formation stops, is easily attained in this case. On the other hand, in the case of a very high $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ the star formation process is not able to consume enough gas to go below the threshold. This explains why the highest $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ values produce the high stellar and remnant densities listed in Table 1. In a recent paper Rocha-Pinto et al. (2000) suggest that
Theoretical G-dwarf distributions obtained by choosing different values of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t_{Gal}`$) as input parameters in the chemical evolution model compared to the observed one (Rocha-Pinto & Maciel 1996). The \[Fe/H\] ratios are normalised to the theoretical solar one for each model.       Temporal evolution of the star formation rate in the solar vicinity as predicted by models adopting $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t_{Gal})`$ = 35, 54, and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2.
the SFR in the disk should have proceeded in three distinct bursts at 0 – 1, 2 – 5, and 7 – 9 Gyr ago. The earliest episode of enhanced star formation should reflect the beginning of the solar vicinity formation (and probably corresponds to our maximum infall time). The other two episodes could be related to cyclical mechanisms (for instance, tidal interactions between the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, or even induced star formation by spiral arms). As already explained, the theoretical G-dwarf metallicity distribution is mainly dependent on the assumed timescale for the formation of the solar vicinity, hence it would not be too much affected by recent bursts of star formation.

The elemental abundance ratios as a function of metallicity are nearly independent of the adopted $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ value, depending mostly on the nucleosynthetic yields and the initial mass function. Therefore we do not discuss them here.

### 3.2. Radial Profiles

Here we discuss the predicted radial properties, in order to investigate the model behaviour along the overall Galactic disk under different prescriptions on the value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{})`$.

We assume that the radial surface density distribution of the disk is exponential (see Sect.2, equation (6)), and run models assuming different values for the exponential scale length, $`R_D`$. Fig.3 shows the radial distribution of the present day surface gas density as predicted by models adopting $`R_D`$ = 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 kpc (dashed, solid, and dotted lines, respectively), for different $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ values. The model predictions are compared with the observed gas distribution derived by Dame (1993).      Radial distribution of the present day surface gas density as predicted by models with RD = 2.5 (*upper panel*), RD = 3.5 (*middle panel*), and RD = 4.5 (*lower panel*). From bottom to top, for each of these panels: lines referring to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{},t_{Gal})`$ = 35, 54, 80, and 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 (dotted, continuous, long-dashed, and short-dashed lines, respectively). The observed (H I \+ H2) distribution is taken from Dame (1993). The surface density distribution of the total gas $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{gas}`$ is obtained from the sum of the H I and H2 distributions, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{HI}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{H_2}`$, accounting for the helium and heavy elements fractions (thick line).

All our models predict a flattening of the distribution at radii larger than 10 kpc, due to the presence of the threshold star formation density. Models with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 35 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 give a flat gas distribution already at the smallest radii; on the contrary, models with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ = 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 produce very steep distributions, hardly compatible with observations. All models predict that the gas content increases toward the Galactic center, whereas the observations clearly show a decreasing trend below 5 kpc. This problem could be solved by including the Galactic bar (e.g. Portinari & Chiosi 2000), not present in the model. Taking into account these uncertainties we can conclude that the best gas distribution is obtained for local values of the total mass surface density in the range 50 – 75 $`M_{}`$ pc-2.

We also notice how increasing the disk scale length from 2.5 to 4.5 leads to a flattening in the predicted distribution. This behaviour is also observed in the case of the predicted radial density distributions of stars333 A scale length value of 3.5 kpc is the preferred one, being able to produce a final stellar density scale length in agreement with the observed one (2.5 – 3.0 kpc — Sackett 1997; Freudenreich 1998)., stellar remnants, and in the case of the predicted abundance gradients. In particular, higher total mass densities and larger scale lengths tend to flatten the gradients in the external regions of the disk. The actual situation is still controversial, with observations partly supporting this flattening (Vílchez & Esteban 1996; Maciel & Quireza 1999) and partly not (Afflerbach, Churchwell, & Werner 1997; Smartt & Rolleston 1997; Rudolph et al. 1997). Therefore we can not draw any firm conclusion on this point.

## 4. CONCLUSIONS

We used a detailed model of galactic chemical evolution applied to our own galaxy in order to put constraints on the total amount of disk baryonic matter. Observational estimates of this quantity in the local disk span a wide range of values (from 35 to 100 $`M_{}`$ pc-2), depending on the underlying theoretical assumptions and on the adopted methods. We show that by means of chemical evolution models it is possible to substantially restrict the observed range of the total mass surface density.

We show that the value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(R_{})`$ should be restricted to the range 50 – 75 $`M_{}`$ pc-2, in order to guarantee the best fit to all the observational constraints available for the solar neighborhood and the overall Galactic disk. This is well consistent with the mass range which Crézé et al. (1998) and Holmberg & Flynn (1998) advocate from their analysis of A and F stars with parallaxes and proper motions from the Hipparcos satellite.

We would like to thank Dennis W. Sciama for enlightening comments and Cedric G. Lacey for careful reading of the manuscript. We would like also to thank the referee, Dr. Chris Flynn, for many comments that improved the presentation of the paper. D.R. wish to thank Cesario Lia for discussing the feed-back mechanism. F.M. and P.S. acknowledge financial support from the Italian Ministry for University and for Scientific and Technological Research (MURST). C.C. wish to thank Thomas M. Dame for having kindly sent his data on the gas density ditribution along the disk and to acknowledge financial support from CNPq/Brazil.