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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

By now a considerable amount of evidence has been accumulated for the Matrix theory for M-theory, originally proposed by Banks, Fischler, Shenker and Susskind and later re-interpreted by Susskind in the framework of discrete light-cone quantization. In particular, just to mention only the direct comparison with eleven dimensional supergravity, complete agreement for the multi-graviton scattering (including the recoil effects) at 2-loop and that for the two-body potential between arbitrary fermionic as well as bosonic objects at 1-loop  can be cited as highly non-trivial and remarkable.

Despite such impressive pieces of evidence as well as general supportive arguments , the deep reason and the mechanism of the agreement are yet to be fully understood. Evidently, one of the keys should be the understanding of the structure and the role of the symmetries. The well-known symmetries present both in the Matrix theory and in the supergravity theory are the global $`Spin(9)`$ invariance, the CPT invariance and the invariance under 16 supersymmetries. Perhaps less familiar is the generalized conformal invariance, the generalization of the conformal symmetry that plays the major role in the AdS/CFT correspondence of Maldacena. Besides these symmetries, the supergravity possesses the general coordinate invariance while the Matrix theory has the Yang-Mills type gauge symmetry, which must be deeply connected. Finally, although not yet clearly identified, the agreement of the multi-body scattering amplitudes strongly suggests that the eleven dimensional Lorentz invariance is present in a highly non-trivial manner in the Matrix theory.

Except for the eleven dimensional Lorentz invariance, the above-mentioned symmetries of the Matrix theory are easily recognized in the original action. However, since the supergravity interactions between various objects arise only after introducing the corresponding backgrounds and integrating out the quantum fluctuations around them, the realizations of these symmetries are in general modified for the effective action of interest. Besides, being an off-shell quantity, the form of the effective action depends on the choice of the gauge as well as on the definition of the fields. Further, there is always a vast degree of ambiguities as one can add total derivatives. For these reasons, the study of how the symmetries govern the structure of the effective action becomes quite non-trivial.

In this article, we shall focus on the supersymmetry (SUSY), considered to be the most powerful among the ones listed above. In fact it has been claimed that a large degree of SUSY, $`𝒩=16`$, present in the theory imposes strong restrictions on the form of the effective action and leads to a number of “non-renormalization theorems”. However, upon close examinations one finds that such assertions in the existing literature can still be challenged. This is essentially due to the lack of completely off-shell consideration. As we shall elaborate in some detail in Sec. 3, to understand precisely to what extent SUSY is responsible in determining the effective action, one must allow the background fields to have arbitrary time-dependence. This in turn inevitably leads to the necessity of examining the gauge (BRST) symmetry, another important ingredient of Matrix theory, as SUSY and gauge symmetry are known to be intimately intertwined off-shell. Such an analysis has not been performed in the past.

What makes the off-shell analysis difficult is that we do not as yet have the off-shell unconstrained superfield formulation in the case of $`𝒩=16`$ supersymmetry. This prompts us to resort to the conventional means, namely the Ward identity for the symmetries in question. In order to be able to check against the available explicit result for the effective action, one would like to obtain the Ward identity in so-called the “background gauge”, in which all the calculations have been performed. Although the derivation of such a Ward identity is expected to be a text-book matter, this was not to be: One must carefully disentangle the dependence on the background field of the effective action by making use of BRST Ward identities. The result is a somewhat complicated Ward identity, in which the supersymmetry and the BRST symmetry are intertwined. A notable feature of our Ward identity is that one can read off the effective quantum-corrected SUSY transformations in closed form and this should serve as a starting point of various truly off-shell investigations. As a simple application, we compute the transformation laws to the lowest order in the derivative expansion at 1-loop and analyze the restriction imposed by SUSY on the effective action for a background with arbitrary time-dependence, to the corresponding order. We find that at this order the effective action is indeed fully determined by the requirement of supersymmetry, which agrees with the explicit calculation including the normalization.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In Sec. 2, we recall the symmetries of the original action of Matrix theory and the BRST symmetry associated with the background gauge fixing. Then in Sec. 3 we make some important remarks on the determination of the effective action and its symmetries, to emphasize the necessity of completely off-shell analysis. Having clarified the issue, we proceed in Sec. 4 to the derivation of the SUSY Ward identity for the effective action in the background gauge. By carefully separating the different origins of the dependence on the background field, we obtain the desired Ward identity together with the closed expressions for the effective SUSY transformation laws. This constitutes the main result of this work. As an application, we explicitly work out in Sec. 5 the SUSY transformation laws to the lowest order in the derivative expansion at 1-loop and show that the effective action to the corresponding order is completely determined by the Ward identity. Sec. 6 is devoted to a short summary and discussions of future problems.

## 2 Action and its Symmetries

Let us begin by recalling the action of the Matrix theory and its symmetries, which at the same time serves to set our notations.

The basic action of the Matrix theory can be written as

$`S_0`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}{\displaystyle }dt\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[D_t,X_m]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{4}}[X_m,X_n]^2`$ (2.1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\mathrm{\Theta }^T[D_t,\mathrm{\Theta }]+{\displaystyle \frac{g}{2}}\mathrm{\Theta }^T\gamma ^m[X_m,\mathrm{\Theta }]\},`$
$`D_t`$ $`=`$ $`_tigA,`$ (2.2)
where $`N\times N`$ hermitian matrices $`X_{ij}^m(t),A_{ij}(t),\mathrm{\Theta }_{\alpha ,ij}(t)`$ stand for the bosonic, the gauge, and the fermionic fields respectively. The middle Latin indices $`m,n,\mathrm{}`$, running from $`1`$ to $`9`$, denote the spatial directions, while the Greek letters such as $`\alpha ,\beta =116`$ are used for the $`SO(9)`$ spinor indices. The $`16\times 16`$ $`\gamma `$-matrices $`\gamma ^m`$ are real symmetric and satisfy $`\{\gamma ^m,\gamma ^n\}=\delta ^{mn}`$.

To facilitate the quantum computations, it is convenient to define the theory by going to the “Euclidean formulation”. Introduce the Euclidean time $`\tau `$, the gauge field $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$, and the action $`\stackrel{~}{S}_0`$ by111Fermions are not transformed.

$`\tau `$ $``$ $`it,\stackrel{~}{A}iA,\stackrel{~}{S}_0iS_0.`$ (2.3)
Then the action and the covariant derivative become

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_0`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}{\displaystyle }d\tau \{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[D_\tau ,X_m]^2{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{4}}[X_m,X_n]^2`$ (2.4)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Theta }^T[D_\tau ,\mathrm{\Theta }]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g\mathrm{\Theta }^T\gamma ^m[X_m,\mathrm{\Theta }]\},`$
$`D_\tau `$ $`=`$ $`_\tau ig\stackrel{~}{A}.`$ (2.5)
Besides the obvious $`Spin(9)`$ symmetry, this action is invariant under the following transformations:

1. Gauge transformations with a gauge parameter matrix $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$:

$`\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }\stackrel{~}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`[D_\tau ,\mathrm{\Lambda }],\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }X_m=ig[\mathrm{\Lambda },X_m],\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Theta }=ig[\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Theta }].`$ (2.6)
2. Supersymmetry transformations with a spinor parameter $`ϵ_\alpha `$:

$`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^T\mathrm{\Theta },\delta _ϵX^m=iϵ^T\gamma ^m\mathrm{\Theta },`$ (2.7)
$`\delta _ϵ\mathrm{\Theta }`$ $`=`$ $`i\left([D_\tau ,X_m]\gamma ^m+{\displaystyle \frac{g}{2}}[X_m,X_n]\gamma ^{mn}\right)ϵ`$ (2.8)
where $`\gamma ^{mn}\frac{1}{2}[\gamma ^m,\gamma ^n]`$ is real anti-symmetric. When the system possesses symmetries other than the supersymmetry, the supersymmetry algebra may close not only on the space-time translation but also on the generators of such additional symmetries. In fact in the present case it is well-known that it involves the gauge symmetry with a field-dependent gauge function. For example on $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$,

$`[\delta _ϵ,\delta _\lambda ]\stackrel{~}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`2iϵ^T\lambda _\tau \stackrel{~}{A}+\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }\stackrel{~}{A},`$ (2.9)
$`\text{where}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`2i(ϵ^T\gamma ^m\lambda X_mϵ^T\lambda \stackrel{~}{A}),`$ (2.10)
and similarly for the other fields. Moreover, for a system with $`𝒩=16`$ supersymmetry, such as the Matrix theory, formulation in terms of unconstrained superfields is not known and hence the algebra closes only up to the equations of motion in general. Thus it is expected that the proper understanding of the supersymmetry of the Matrix theory must include the analysis of these non-trivial features.
3. Generalized conformal transformations: If we rescale the fields $`X_m`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ by a factor of $`g`$, such as $`X_mX_m/g`$, and allow $`g`$ to depend on $`\tau `$ to a linear order, $`\stackrel{~}{S}_0`$ is invariant under a generalization of the conformal transformations . In particular, the invariance under the special conformal transformation defined by

$`\delta _K\stackrel{~}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`2ϵ\tau \stackrel{~}{A},\delta _KX_m=2ϵ\tau X_m,\delta _K\mathrm{\Theta }_\alpha =0`$
$`\delta _K\tau `$ $`=`$ $`ϵ\tau ^2,\delta _Kg=3ϵ\tau g,`$ (2.11)
$`ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`\text{an infinitesimal bosonic parameter},`$
imposes a useful restriction on the form of the effective action.

Besides these well-established symmetries, the remarkable agreement between the 11-dimensional supergravity calculations and the 2-loop Matrix theory calculations for multi-body scattering processes strongly suggests that the Matrix theory actually possesses 11-dimensional Lorentz symmetry in a highly non-trivial manner.

In this article, we shall focus on how the first two of these symmetries, which are intimately intertwined, are implemented in the quantum effective action of the supergravitons. In the M-theory interpretation of the Matrix theory, the coordinates and the spin degrees of freedom of these supergravitons are represented by the diagonal backgrounds for $`X^m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\alpha `$ respectively. We shall denote them by $`B_m`$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$ respectively and separate them from the quantum parts $`Y_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ as

$`X_m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}B_m+Y_m,`$ (2.12)
$`\mathrm{\Theta }_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}\theta _\alpha +\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha .`$ (2.13)
As was already emphasized in the introduction and will be further elaborated in the next section, it is important to take $`B_m(\tau )`$ and $`\theta _\alpha (\tau )`$ as arbitrary backgrounds, not satisfying any equations of motion. Only in this way we can unambiguously determine how much restrictions are imposed by the supersymmetry on the effective action for these background fields.

To quantize the theory, we need to fix the gauge. Although our derivation of the Ward identity, to be presented in Sec. 4, can be readily adapted to any choice of gauge, the actual computations are extremely cumbersome except in the standard background gauge. It is specified by the gauge-fixing function of the form

$`G`$ $`=`$ $`_\tau \stackrel{~}{A}+i[B^m,X_m].`$ (2.14)
In fact essentially all the existing explicit calculations have been performed in this gauge. However, as it will become clear, the naive use of this gauge leads to a subtle but important complication in deriving the correct Ward identity. To avoid this problem, we will tentatively use a different function $`\stackrel{~}{B}_m`$ in place of $`B_m`$ and write the gauge-fixing function as

$`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ $`=`$ $`_\tau \stackrel{~}{A}+i[\stackrel{~}{B}^m,X_m].`$ (2.15)
Later at an appropriate stage, we will set $`\stackrel{~}{B}_m=B_m`$.

The corresponding ghost action can be readily obtained by the standard BRST method. The BRST transformations for the quantum part of the fields are given by

$`\delta _B\stackrel{~}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`[D_\tau ,C],\delta _BY_m=ig[X_m,C],`$
$`\delta _B\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`ig\{C,\mathrm{\Theta }\},`$ (2.16)
$`\delta _BC`$ $`=`$ $`igC^2,\delta _B\overline{C}=ib,\delta _Bb=0.`$
$`C`$, $`\overline{C}`$ and $`b`$ are, respectively, the ghost, the anti-ghost and the Nakanishi-Lautrup auxiliary fields. The background fields are not transformed. Then the combined gauge-ghost action $`\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ is generated by

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _B\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left[\frac{1}{i}\overline{C}\left(\stackrel{~}{G}\frac{\alpha }{2}b\right)\right]}.`$ (2.17)
We will henceforth set the gauge parameter $`\alpha `$ to be 1. This leads, after integrating over the $`b`$ field, to the familiar gauge-ghost action

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \frac{1}{2}\left(_\tau \stackrel{~}{A}+i[\stackrel{~}{B}^m,X_m]\right)^2}`$ (2.18)
$`i\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\overline{C}_\tau [D_\tau ,C]g\overline{C}[\stackrel{~}{B}^m,[X_m,C]]\right)}.`$
## 3 Remarks on the Determination of Effective Action and its Symmetries

Before starting the derivation of the off-shell supersymmetry Ward identity, we wish to make some important remarks on the determination of the effective action and its symmetries, which point to the necessity of off-shell analysis. Although many of the remarks will apply for general backgrounds, for clarity of discussions we shall consider the so-called “source-probe configuration”. In the case of $`U(N+1)`$ gauge group, it is defined as the situation where a probe supergraviton interacts with $`N`$ supergravitons situated at the origin that act as a heavy source. The background fields representing this situation are

$`B_m`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{diag}(r_m,0,0,\mathrm{},0),\theta _\alpha =\mathrm{diag}(\theta _\alpha ,0,0,\mathrm{},0).`$ (3.19)
Here, $`r_m`$ represents the coordinate of the probe and $`\theta _\alpha `$ its spin content. As usual, the spin of the source is neglected.

As already emphasized in the introduction, the primary feature of Matrix theory is that it generates the supergravity interactions among various objects only after (i) introducing the corresponding backgrounds and (ii) integrating over the quantum fluctuations around them. Because of this, realizations of the symmetries of the effective theory are in general modified non-trivially. Besides, being an off-shell quantity, the form of the effective action is affected by (A) the gauge choice, (B) the (re)definition of the fields, and (C) the freedom of adding total derivatives. Of course the on-shell S-matrix elements do not depend on these factors. However, the determination of the full ( i.e. quantum-corrected) on-shell condition itself requires the knowledge of the off-shell effective action222This was clearly demonstrated in , where the agreement between the supergravity and the Matrix theory calculation was achieved with the recoil corrections. Thus, in order to understand the symmetry structure of the effective theory fully, it is necessary to perform an off-shell analysis with (A) $``$ (C) properly taken into account.

Now since an exact analysis is practically impossible, one often needs to make some approximations. In doing so, one must make sure that they are logically consistent for one’s aim. For the present purpose, some of the often used approximations are not appropriate. For example, the eikonal approximation, where one tries to reconstruct the effective action from the eikonal phase shift, can be dangerous and misleading. In fact the answer depends on the form of the effective Lagrangian assumed. As a simple illustration, consider the 1-loop eikonal phase shift  for $`v1`$ given by

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1^e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v^3}{b^6}}+0\times {\displaystyle \frac{v^5}{b^{10}}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{v^7}{b^{14}}}+𝒪(v^9)`$
$`r_m`$ $`=`$ $`v_m\tau +b_m,vb=0,b_m=\text{impact parameter}.`$
If one assumes the effective Lagrangian to be of the form $`=(v,r)`$, then the effective action that reproduces this phase shift is uniquely determined to be

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\frac{15}{16}\frac{v^4}{r^7}+0\times \frac{v^6}{r^{11}}\frac{9009}{4096}\frac{v^8}{r^{15}}+𝒪(v^{10})\right)}.`$
However, even restricting to $`𝒪(v^4)`$, the most general form allowed for the effective action contains 6 independent structures, after eliminating total-derivative ambiguities:

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d\tau (A{\displaystyle \frac{v^4}{r^7}}+B{\displaystyle \frac{v^2(vr)^2}{r^9}}+C{\displaystyle \frac{(vr)^4}{r^{11}}}`$
$`+D{\displaystyle \frac{v^2(ar)}{r^7}}+E{\displaystyle \frac{(ar)^2}{r^7}}+F{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{r^5}}).`$
On the other hand, there is only one condition, $`(15/16)=A+(1/7)B+(1/21)C`$, required for the correct phase shift, and hence 5 parameters remain undetermined. The situation at $`𝒪(v^6)`$ is even more striking. Although the eikonal phase shift vanishes, the explicit computation reveals that there are 5 non-vanishing independent structures present in the effective action.

It should be clear from these illustrations that the only logically consistent procedure, not affected by the total-derivative ambiguities, is to use off-shell backgrounds with arbitrary $`\tau `$-dependence333This was emphasized in the context of generalized conformal symmetry in . Related discussion can also be found in . and to classify terms by derivative expansion according to the “order” defined by

order $`=`$ $`\text{\# of }_\tau +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{\# of fermions}.`$ (3.20)
If necessary, one may combine this with the usual loop expansion.

Having emphasized the importance of off-shell considerations, we now make some related comments on the general arguments on the restrictions imposed by supersymmetry, often referred to as SUSY non-renormalization theorems. They can be roughly classified into two categories.

The first type of argument, devised by Paban et al , relies on the closure property of SUSY transformations. For example, at $`𝒪(v^2)`$ they first make a choice of the definition of the fields so that the action takes the form $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau f(r)v^2}`$ and take the $`𝒪(v^0)`$ SUSY transformation laws in that basis to be the standard ones without any correction, $`\delta _ϵr^m=iϵ\gamma ^m\theta ,\delta _ϵ\theta _\alpha =i(v/ϵ)_\alpha `$. Then demanding that the closure is canonical, namely $`[\delta _ϵ,\delta _\lambda ]=2\lambda ^Tϵ_\tau `$, they show that there cannot be a correction to the transformation laws at $`𝒪(v^2)`$ and hence the $`𝒪(v^2)`$ effective action is tree-exact. Although the argument is quite simple and plausible, it is unclear why the closure should be canonical off-shell and further it is not obvious if the $`𝒪(v^0)`$ transformation laws must be of the standard form in a particular basis adopted. In general, field redefinitions affect the form of the SUSY transformations and hence they must be considered as a pair.

The other type of argument is known as the SUSY completion method, which makes use of the chain of relations produced among terms with different number of $`\theta `$’s by SUSY transformations. For example, at $`𝒪(v^4)`$ one expects relations of the form

$`v^4v^3\theta ^2v^2\theta ^4v\theta ^6\theta ^8.`$ (3.21)
By showing that the top form, $`\theta ^8`$ term in this case, is not renormalized beyond 1-loop, one wishes to infer the non-renormalization of all the other terms in the chain, in particular the $`v^4`$ term. This method appears efficient, but some care is needed in drawing firm conclusions. One problem is that sometimes the chain starting from the top form stops at an intermediate stage. Put differently, one may form a super-invariant not containing the top form. An example already occurs at $`𝒪(v^2)`$, where the tree-level expression $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left((v^2/2g^2)+(\theta \dot{\theta }/2g^2)\right)}`$ is SUSY-complete without a $`\theta ^4`$ term. More non-trivial example is seen at $`𝒪(v^6)`$: Although $`\theta ^{12}`$ term was shown to vanish at 1-loop, the bosonic contribution at $`𝒪(v^6)`$ nonetheless exists.

An attempt at filling this gap was made in . In this work all the connections in the chain (3.21) were examined and it was concluded that SUSY is indeed powerful enough to fix the effective action at this order up to an overall constant. Again one must be cautious in accepting this conclusion: In this analysis $`v`$ and $`\theta `$ were taken to be $`\tau `$-independent and hence the assumed form of the effective Lagrangian was not the most general one allowed in the proper derivative expansion with arbitrary backgrounds. Later it was recognized, however, that the higher derivative terms neglected in this analysis can actually be absorbed into the tree-level Lagrangian by a suitable field re-definition, which appeared to resurrect the validity of the analysis made in . Unfortunately, the problem still persists: By such a field re-definition the higher derivatives are simply shifted into the SUSY transformation laws and one must reanalyze the issue with such modifications.

Thus one sees that although the existing analyses are highly plausible they are not air-tight. In view of the importance of precise understanding of the role of supersymmetry and its connection with gauge symmetry, it is desirable to perform an unambiguous off-shell analysis with arbitrary backgrounds. This motivates us to the study of the Ward identity, to be described in the next two sections.

## 4 SUSY Ward Identity for the Effective Action in the Background Gauge

Having argued the importance of off-shell analysis for arbitrary trajectories, we shall now derive the SUSY Ward identity for the effective action $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ in the standard background gauge, (2.14), used exclusively in the actual computations.

To make use of the well-established method, let us further split the quantum fluctuations $`Y_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ into two parts, the diagonal and the off-diagonal, in the manner

$`Y_{m,ij}={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{y}_{m,i}}{g}}\delta _{ij}+\widehat{Y}_{m,ij},\mathrm{\Psi }_{\alpha ,ij}={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}}{g}}\delta _{ij}+\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\alpha ,ij},`$ (4.22)
and introduce the sources only for the diagonal fields:

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_s={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(J_{m,i}\widehat{y}_{m,i}+\eta _{\alpha ,i}\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}\right)}.`$ (4.23)
The Euclidean generating functionals are defined by

$`\stackrel{~}{Z}[J,\eta ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\mu \mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{~}{S}_{tot}\right)}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{~}{W}[J,\eta ]\right),`$ (4.24)
$`\stackrel{~}{S}_{tot}`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{S}_0+\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}+\stackrel{~}{S}_s,𝒟\mu 𝒟\stackrel{~}{A}𝒟Y𝒟\mathrm{\Psi }𝒟C𝒟\overline{C},`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{W}[J,\eta ]`$ is the one for the connected functions. By making the change of integration variables corresponding to the supersymmetry transformations, one obtains the primitive form of the Ward identity

$`0=\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}+\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_s.`$ (4.25)
Here and in what follows, $`𝒪`$ for an operator $`𝒪`$ means

$`𝒪={\displaystyle \frac{{\displaystyle 𝒟\mu 𝒪e^{\stackrel{~}{S}_{tot}}}}{{\displaystyle 𝒟\mu e^{\stackrel{~}{S}_{tot}}}}}.`$ (4.26)
We now rewrite this identity (4.25) in terms of the generating functional $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$, which is 1PI (1-particle-irreducible) with respect to the diagonal fields. Define as usual the classical fields and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ by

$`y_{m,i(\tau )}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{W}}{\delta J_{m,i}(\tau )}},\psi _{\alpha ,i}(\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{W}}{\delta \eta _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}},`$ (4.27)
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}[y,\psi ]`$ $``$ $`W[J,\eta ]{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau (J_{m,i}y_{m,i}+\eta _{\alpha ,i}\psi _{\alpha ,i})}.`$ (4.28)
Then the sources are expressed in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ as

$`J_{m,i}(\tau )={\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta y_{m,i}(\tau )}},\eta _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )={\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \psi _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}}.`$ (4.29)
Therefore, the contribution to the Ward identity from the variation of the source action can be written as

$`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_s={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta y_{m,i}(\tau )}\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_{m,i}(\tau )+\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \psi _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )\right)}.`$ (4.30)
As for the contribution $`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ from the gauge-ghost part, a direct calculation yields a rather complicated expression, which constitutes an inhomogeneous term in the Ward identity regarded as a functional integro-differential equation for $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. This is undesirable since what we wish to understand is how the supersymmetry acts on the effective action $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. Fortunately, it was noted long ago  in the context of four-dimensional super Yang-Mills theory that one can reexpress such a term in a form similar to (4.30). The first step is to note that the supersymmetry transformations (2.7) and (2.8) commute with the BRST transformation (2.16) on all the fields, as can be checked straightforwardly. Therefore, starting from (2.17), $`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ can be written as

$`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _ϵ\delta _B\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left[\frac{1}{i}\overline{C}\left(\stackrel{~}{G}\frac{1}{2}b\right)\right]}`$ (4.31)
$`=`$ $`\delta _B\delta _ϵ\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left[\frac{1}{i}\overline{C}\left(\stackrel{~}{G}\frac{1}{2}b\right)\right]}=\delta _B𝒪_ϵ,`$
where

$`𝒪_ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}\text{Tr}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \overline{C}\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{G}}`$ (4.32)
is a fermionic composite operator. This expression, being an expectation value of a BRST-exact form, vanishes in the ordinary vacuum. However, in the presence of external sources, it becomes proportional to the sources, and hence to the functional derivatives of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. Let us collectively denote by $`\varphi `$ and $`J`$ the basic fields and the corresponding sources respectively and consider the generating functional with a source $`j`$ for the operator $`𝒪_ϵ`$:

$`Z[J,j]={\displaystyle 𝒟\varphi e^{(S_{tot}+J\varphi +j𝒪_ϵ)}}.`$ (4.33)
Now make a change of variables corresponding to the BRST transformation. We get

$`0={\displaystyle 𝒟\varphi ((1)^{|\varphi |}J\delta _B\varphi j\delta _B𝒪_ϵ)e^{(S_{tot}+J\varphi +j𝒪_ϵ)}},`$ (4.34)
where $`|\varphi |`$ is 0 (1) if $`\varphi `$ is bosonic (fermionic). By differentiating with respect to $`j`$ once, setting $`j=0`$, and then expressing the source $`J`$ in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$, one easily obtains the following BRST Ward identity:

$`\delta _B𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \varphi (\tau )}\delta _B\varphi (\tau )𝒪_ϵ}.`$ (4.35)
In this way, we get

$`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta y_{m,i}(\tau )}\delta _B\widehat{y}_{m,i}(\tau )𝒪_ϵ+\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \psi _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )𝒪_ϵ\right)}.`$ (4.36)
Putting all together, we arrive at the following SUSY Ward identity expressed solely in terms of the derivatives of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$:

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d\tau ({\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta y_{m,i}(\tau )}}(\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_{m,i}(\tau )+\delta _B\widehat{y}_{m,i}(\tau )𝒪_ϵ)`$ (4.37)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \psi _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}}(\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )𝒪_ϵ)).`$
Normally it is now a simple matter to convert this into the desired Ward identity for the effective action as a functional of the backgrounds $`B^m`$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$: One would rewrite the derivatives with respect to $`y_m`$ and $`\psi _\alpha `$ into those with respect to $`B^m`$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$ and then set $`y_m=\psi _\alpha =0`$. This procedure is indeed valid for the fermions since $`\widehat{\psi }_\alpha `$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$ always appear in the combination $`\widehat{\psi }_\alpha +\theta _\alpha `$ in the original action and it is a simple matter to prove that this gets converted to $`\psi _\alpha +\theta _\alpha `$ in $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$.

This is not so for the bosonic field. While most of the $`B^m`$ dependence comes from the splitting $`X_m=(1/g)(B_m+\widehat{y}_m)+\widehat{Y}_m`$, where $`B_m`$ and $`\widehat{y}_m`$ appear together, $`B^m`$ in the gauge-ghost sector (in the standard background gauge) is not accompanied with $`\widehat{y}_m`$. From the point of view of the Ward identity above, it is an independent extra parameter field which should be distinguished from the bona fide background field. This is why we chose to start out with a different symbol $`\stackrel{~}{B}^m`$ for this field.

Now the problem we face is the following. In order to be able to apply the Ward identity to the case of the standard background gauge, we need to express the dependence on $`\stackrel{~}{B}^m`$ again in the form of the functional derivative of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ with respect to $`B^m`$. In other words, we must disentangle the two different types of $`B^m`$ dependence buried in the standard background gauge formulation and construct the Ward identity which takes both types of dependence into account. Although this is a technical rather than a conceptual problem, it is again a manifestation of the gauge theory nature of the Matrix theory, which has often been neglected.

The problem can be solved as follows. Since $`\stackrel{~}{B}^m`$ appears only in the gauge-ghost action and the variation with respect to it commutes with the BRST transformation, we get from (2.17)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}}{\delta \stackrel{~}{B}^{m,i}(\tau )}}=\delta _B𝒪_{m,i}(\tau ),`$ (4.38)
where

$`𝒪_{m,i}={\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\left(\overline{C}_{ji}Y_{m,ij}\overline{C}_{ij}Y_{m,ji}\right),`$ (4.39)
and $`\stackrel{~}{B}^{m,i}`$ stands for the diagonal elements $`\stackrel{~}{B}_{ii}^m`$. The expectation value of the left-hand side can be expressed in terms of the generating functional $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ as $`\delta \stackrel{~}{W}/\delta \stackrel{~}{B}_{m,i}`$, which is equal to $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\delta \stackrel{~}{B}_{m,i}`$ since it is a parameter field. On the other hand the expectation value of the right-hand side can be treated in exactly the same way as we treated $`\delta _B𝒪_ϵ`$. In this way we get the identity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \stackrel{~}{B}_{m,i}(\tau )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}({\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta y_{n,j}(\tau ^{})}}\delta _B\widehat{y}_{n,j}(\tau ^{})𝒪_{m,i}(\tau )`$ (4.40)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \psi _{\alpha ,j}(\tau ^{})}}\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,j}(\tau ^{})𝒪_{m,i}(\tau )).`$
Now let us replace $`y_m`$ and $`\psi _\alpha `$ with $`B_m`$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$ respectively and then set $`y_m=\psi _\alpha =0`$ in the previous Ward identity (4.37) and in the relation (4.40) above. In the limit $`\stackrel{~}{B}_mB_m`$, the total variation of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ with respect to $`B_m`$, which we denote by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\mathrm{\Delta }B_m`$ to avoid confusion, is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\mathrm{\Delta }B_{m,i}(\tau )}}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta B_{m,i}(\tau )}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \stackrel{~}{B}_{m,i}(\tau )}}\right)_{\stackrel{~}{B}=B}.`$ (4.41)
Substituting (4.40) we then get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\mathrm{\Delta }B_{m,i}(\tau )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta B_{n,j}(\tau ^{})}T_{nj;mi}(\tau ,\tau ^{})}`$ (4.42)
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \theta _{\alpha ,j}(\tau ^{})}\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,j}(\tau ^{})𝒪_{m,i}(\tau )},`$
with

$`T_{nj;mi}(\tau ,\tau ^{})`$ $``$ $`\delta _{mn}\delta _{ij}\delta (\tau \tau ^{})\delta _B\widehat{y}_{n,j}(\tau ^{})𝒪_{m,i}(\tau ).`$ (4.43)
By inverting this relation, we can express the partial variation $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\delta B_m`$ in terms of the total variation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\mathrm{\Delta }B_m`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta B_{m,i}(\tau )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}T_{mi,nj}^1(\tau ,\tau ^{})\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\mathrm{\Delta }B_{n,j}(\tau ^{})}}`$ (4.44)
$`+{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}T_{mi,nj}^1(\tau ,\tau ^{})𝑑\tau ^{\prime \prime }\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \theta _{\alpha ,k}(\tau ^{\prime \prime })}\delta _B\psi _{\alpha ,k}(\tau ^{\prime \prime })𝒪_{n,j}(\tau ^{})},`$
where $`T^1`$ is the inverse of $`T`$.

Finally, the correct Ward identity in the standard background gauge is obtained by substituting this expression into (4.37). Once the limit $`\stackrel{~}{B}_mB_m`$ is taken, the total variation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\mathrm{\Delta }B_m`$ can be identified with $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}/\delta B_m`$, which denotes the usual functional derivative of the effective action computed in the standard background gauge ( i.e. with $`B_m`$ in the gauge-fixing term.) With this understood, the result can be put in the desired form

$`0={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵB_{m,i}(\tau )\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta B_{n,j}(\tau )}+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\delta \theta _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )}\right)},`$ (4.45)
where the effective SUSY transformation laws are given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵB_{m,i}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}T_{mi,nj}^1(\tau ^{},\tau )(\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_{n,j}(\tau ^{})+\delta _B\widehat{y}_{n,j}(\tau ^{})𝒪_ϵ)},`$ (4.46)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _{\alpha ,i}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}𝑑\tau ^{\prime \prime }T_{mk,nj}^1(\tau ^{\prime \prime },\tau ^{})\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}(\tau )𝒪_{n,j}(\tau ^{})\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_{m,k}(\tau ^{\prime \prime })+\delta _B\widehat{y}_{m,k}(\tau ^{\prime \prime })𝒪_ϵ}.`$
(As said before $`y=\psi =0`$ is understood.) This is the main result of this section.

Note the following features:

* We have succeeded in putting the Ward identity in the form where the supersymmetry transformation laws for the effective action are cleanly identified in closed forms.
* As expected, the supersymmetry and the gauge (BRST) symmetry are non-trivially intertwined. Naively, one might expect that the effective transformation laws are obtained as the expectation values of the original transformation laws (2.7) and (2.8). In our notation, they are represented by $`\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_{n,j}`$ and $`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_{\alpha ,i}`$ in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵB_{m,i}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _{\alpha ,i}`$ respectively. The actual transformation laws, (4.46) and (LABEL:delth), are much more complicated. One can see, however, that the corrections to the naive laws all involve $`\delta _B`$, i.e. the BRST transformation. Since the quantization of the system inevitably requires a gauge fixing, this is a universal feature, not special to the standard background gauge adopted here.
* As has already been remarked, the transformation laws derived above are exact, albeit somewhat formal at this stage. In particular, there is no inherent distinction between the tree level contribution and the quantum corrections. Thus it is far from obvious that the anti-commutator of the effective transformations would close solely on the translation generator, as it does at the tree level: We have so far not been able to produce a proof.

In the next section, we will carefully examine the structure of this Ward identity at the 1-loop level and draw implications.

## 5 Explicit Calculations and Implications

We now compute the effective SUSY transformation laws explicitly and study the implications of the Ward identity.

### 5.1 Source-Probe Situation

Although the Ward identity derived in the previous section is valid for any background, we shall restrict ourselves to the source-probe situation, since the existing calculations of the effective action itself, to be compared later, are more complete for this configuration. The background fields representing this situation for the gauge group $`U(N+1)`$ were already described in (3.19), which we display again for convenience:

$`B_m=\mathrm{diag}(r_m,0,0,\mathrm{},0),\theta _\alpha =\mathrm{diag}(\theta _\alpha ,0,0,\mathrm{},0).`$ (5.48)
$`r_m`$ represents the coordinate of the probe and $`\theta _\alpha `$ its spin content. We shall denote the time derivative of the coordinate by $`v_m_\tau r_m`$.

To facilitate the computations, it is convenient to introduce the following notations: For any matrix $`U`$ we define $`U_IU_{1I},U_I^{}U_{I1}`$, where $`I=2N+1`$. (The symbol  here does not stand for complex conjugation.) We shall call such index $`I`$ the off-diagonal matrix vector index. Then the “11” component of a product of two matrices becomes $`(UV)_{11}=_{I=2}^{N+1}U_IV_I^{}`$, which we abbreviate as $`UV^{}`$.

With this convention, the basic quantities appearing in the Ward identity take the following forms:

$`\delta _ϵ\widehat{y}_m`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ^T\gamma _m\theta ,`$ (5.49)
$`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`i(v/_{\alpha \beta }ig^2\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mAY_m^{}A^{}Y_m+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{2}}\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^{mn}Y_mY_n^{}Y_m^{}Y_n)ϵ_\beta ,`$ (5.50)
$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_m`$ $`=`$ $`ig^2(Y_mC^{}Y_m^{}C),`$ (5.51)
$`\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`ig^2(C\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}C^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ),`$ (5.52)
$`𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ_\alpha {\displaystyle }d\tau ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{g}}\overline{C}_{11}(\dot{\theta }_\alpha +\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\alpha )+\overline{C}(_\tau +r/)_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}+\overline{C}^{}(_\tau r/)_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta `$ (5.53)
$`+\overline{C}_{IJ}\dot{\mathrm{\Theta }}_{JI}),`$
$`𝒪_m`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{C}^{}Y_m\overline{C}Y_m^{}.`$ (5.54)
### 5.2 One-Loop at Order Two

In this article, we shall perform the calculation of the simplest non-trivial contributions to the effective transformation laws, namely those which govern the order 2 part of the 1-loop effective action. Here the order is defined as in (3.20), i.e. the number of derivatives plus twice the number of fermions. Since the tree action is already of order 2, this means that we need to compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ to order 0 at 1-loop, where the transformation parameters $`ϵ_\alpha `$ are considered to be of order $`1/2`$.

Such contributions are further classified according to the number of $`\theta `$’s involved. Because $`r_m`$ and $`\theta _\alpha `$ are of order 0 and $`1/2`$ respectively, we need to consider $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$ to linear order in $`\theta `$, while for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ we need $`\theta ^2`$ contributions as well. In what follows, it is more convenient to refer only to the number of additional $`\theta `$’s relative to the tree level contribution. For instance, “a correction to $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$” for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$ refers to a term of the form $`ϵ\theta f(r)`$.

At 1-loop order, since the terms involving the BRST variation $`\delta _B`$ start only at 1-loop, the expressions (4.46) and (LABEL:delth) for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta `$ simplify to

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\tau )+{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}\delta _B\widehat{y}_m(\tau )𝒪_n(\tau ^{})\frac{1}{i}(ϵ\gamma ^n\theta )(\tau ^{})}+\delta _B\widehat{y}_m(\tau )𝒪_ϵ,`$ (5.55)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha (\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )𝒪_ϵ{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )𝒪_m(\tau ^{})\frac{1}{i}(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\tau ^{})}.`$ (5.56)
The expectation values of the composite operators themselves simplify considerably at this order. It is easy to check that at 1-loop only the 2-point functions contribute. Moreover, since there are no mixing between the fields with different off-diagonal matrix vector indices in such propagators, we always have the structure $`U_I(\tau )V_J^{}(\tau ^{})=\delta _{IJ}U(\tau )V^{}(\tau ^{})`$, where $`U`$ and $`V^{}`$ can be regarded as single-component fields. $`\delta _{IJ}`$’s then contract to produce a factor of $`N`$, which goes with the coupling $`g^2`$. With these remarks, the relevant multi-body expectation values become

$`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`i(v/ϵ)_\alpha (\tau )+g^2N(\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^mA(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau )A^{}(\tau )Y_m(\tau )`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\gamma _{\alpha \beta }^{mn}Y_m(\tau )Y_n^{}(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau )Y_n(\tau ))ϵ_\beta (\tau ),`$
$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_n(\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_\alpha g^2N{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}(C^{}(\tau )\overline{C}(\tau ^{})(+r/)_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}(\tau ^{})Y_m(\tau )`$ (5.58)
$`C(\tau )\overline{C}^{}(\tau ^{})(r/)_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta (\tau ^{})Y_m^{}(\tau )),`$
$`\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\beta (\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_\alpha g^2N{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}(C^{}(\tau )\overline{C}(\tau ^{})(+r/)_{\alpha \gamma }\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta (\tau )`$
$`C(\tau )\overline{C}^{}(\tau ^{})(r/)_{\alpha \gamma }\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma (\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}(\tau ))`$
$`gϵ_\beta {\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}C\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\tau )\overline{C}_{11}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\beta (\tau ^{})}+gϵ_\beta {\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}C^{}\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau )\overline{C}_{11}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\beta (\tau ^{})},`$
$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_n(\tau ^{})𝒪_m(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`ig^2N(Y_m(\tau ^{})Y_n^{}(\tau )(C^{}(\tau ^{})\overline{C}(\tau )`$ (5.60)
$`+Y_m^{}(\tau ^{})Y_n(\tau )(C(\tau ^{})\overline{C}^{}(\tau )),`$
where $``$ stands for the derivative with respect to $`\tau `$. We will now evaluate these expressions to the relevant order by perturbation theory.

#### 5.2.1 Corrections at $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$

Let us begin with the corrections at $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$. First we need to compute the tree-level propagators. The part of the Lagrangian quadratic in the fields without $`\theta `$ is of the form

$``$ $`=`$ $`Y_m(^2+r^2)Y_m^{}+\stackrel{~}{A}(^2+r^2)\stackrel{~}{A}^{}2iv_m(\stackrel{~}{A}Y_m^{}\stackrel{~}{A}^{}Y_m)`$ (5.61)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g^2}}\widehat{\psi }\widehat{\psi }+\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (+r/)_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}`$
$`+i\overline{C}(^2+r^2)C^{}+i\overline{C}^{}(^2+r^2)C+i\overline{C}_{11}(^2)C_{11}.`$
Following the remark already made on the trivial dependence on the off-diagonal matrix vector indices, we may treat the fields $`Y_m,\stackrel{~}{A},\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ and $`C,\overline{C}`$ in $``$ as if they were single-component. The propagators for the massless fields $`\widehat{\psi }_\alpha `$ and $`C_{11},\overline{C}_{11}`$ turn out to be needed only at $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$, to be discussed in the next subsection.

The simplest is the ghost propagator, which can be directly read off as

$`\overline{C}(\tau )C^{}(\tau ^{})=\overline{C}^{}(\tau )C(\tau ^{})`$
$`=C^{}(\tau )\overline{C}(\tau ^{})=C(\tau )\overline{C}^{}(\tau ^{})=i\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{},`$ (5.62)
where

$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $``$ $`(^2+r^2)^1.`$ (5.63)
The propagators for the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ system are given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\tau |D_{\alpha \beta }^{}|\tau ^{},`$ (5.64)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta (\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\tau |D_{\alpha \beta }^+|\tau ^{},`$ (5.65)
where

$`D^\pm `$ $``$ $`(\pm r/)^1.`$ (5.66)
¿From the relation $`(\pm r/)(r/)=(^2+r^2)(1\pm \mathrm{\Delta }v/)`$, we can expand $`D^\pm `$ in powers of the velocity $`v(\tau )`$ as

$`D^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`(r/)(1\mathrm{\Delta }v/)^1\mathrm{\Delta }=(r/)(\mathrm{\Delta }\pm \mathrm{\Delta }v/\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{}).`$ (5.67)
To the order of interest, we will only need the $`v`$-independent part.

Now as for the $`Y_m`$-$`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ system, we have a mixing term with an arbitrary coefficient function $`v_m(\tau )`$ and it can only be resolved in the derivative expansion. Expanding in powers of the mixing term, we readily obtain

$`Y^m(\tau )^{}Y^n(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{mn}\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{}+𝒪(v^2),`$
$`\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )\stackrel{~}{A}^{}(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{}+𝒪(v^2),`$ (5.68)
$`Y_m(\tau )\stackrel{~}{A}^{}(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau ^{})=\tau |2i\mathrm{\Delta }v_m\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{}+𝒪(v^3).`$
The only other 2-point functions appearing at this order are $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau ^{})`$ and
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(\tau )Y_m(\tau ^{})`$, which can be readily computed by inserting the vertices of the form

$`\theta _\alpha \gamma _{\alpha \beta }^m(Y_m\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}Y_m^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ).`$ (5.69)
The results are

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\tau |D_{\alpha \beta }^{}(\gamma ^m\theta )_\beta \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{},`$ (5.70)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(\tau )Y_m(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\tau |D_{\alpha \beta }^+(\gamma ^m\theta )_\beta \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{}.`$ (5.71)
With this preparation, the calculations of the various expectation values in the Ward identity can be performed efficiently to the desired order with the use of the so-called “normal ordering method” developed in . The essence of this method is to first rearrange the order of a product of various operators and functions into the standard form $`f(\tau )^m\mathrm{\Delta }^n`$, using the commutation relations such as $`[\mathrm{\Delta },]=2\mathrm{\Delta }(rv)\mathrm{\Delta }`$ etc., and then use Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff and the Gaussian integration formulas to evaluate it. A useful list of formulas so obtained are collected in the appendix of . Below, we shall give a sample calculation of this sort and then simply list the results for the needed expectation values.

As an example, let us consider $`\delta _B\widehat{y}_n(\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ given in (5.58). Substituting the expressions for the various propagators already computed, it becomes

$`\delta _B\widehat{y}^n(\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ^Tg^2N\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }[(+r/)D^++(r/)D^{}]\gamma ^n\theta \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau `$ (5.72)
$`=`$ $`2iϵ^Tg^2N\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }(^2+r^2)\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma ^n\theta \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau .`$
To the order of interest, the normal-ordering is trivial and we get

$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_n(\tau )𝒪_ϵ=2iϵ^Tg^2N\gamma _n\theta \tau |\mathrm{\Delta }^2|\tau =iϵ^T\gamma _n\theta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}}.`$ (5.73)
In a similar manner, we obtain the following results:

$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_n(\tau ^{})𝒪_m(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`2g^2N\delta _{nm}\tau ^{}|\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^2,`$ (5.74)
$`{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}\delta _B\widehat{y}_m(\tau )𝒪_n(\tau ^{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}(ϵ\gamma ^n\theta )(\tau ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ\gamma _m\theta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}},`$ (5.75)
$`\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\beta (\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (5.76)
$`\delta _B\widehat{y}_m(\tau )𝒪_ϵ`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ\gamma _m\theta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}},`$ (5.77)
$`AY_m^{}A^{}Y_m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{i}}{\displaystyle \frac{v_m}{r^3}},`$ (5.78)
$`Y_mY_n^{}Y_m^{}Y_n`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (5.79)
Making use of these formulas, we find the effective SUSY transformation laws at $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$ to be

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ^T\gamma ^m\theta \left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}}\right),`$ (5.80)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta `$ $`=`$ $`iv/ϵ\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}}\right).`$ (5.81)
Already at this order, there are non-trivial corrections to the tree level laws. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta `$ the entire correction came from the expectation value of the non-linear part of the original SUSY transformation law, namely from $`ig[\stackrel{~}{A},Y_m]\gamma ^m`$ contained in $`[D_\tau ,X_m]\gamma ^m`$. On the other hand, the same procedure is not applicable for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$: If one naively took the expectation value of the basic transformation law $`\delta _ϵX^m=iϵ\gamma ^m\mathrm{\Theta }`$, one would not get any corrections to all orders. What we want is the effective SUSY transformation operating on the effective action $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ and this can only be obtained through the analysis of the Ward identity, as we have done. One can see from the calculations outlined above that exactly half of the quantum correction for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ came from $`\delta _ϵ\stackrel{~}{S}_{gg}`$ and the other half was produced from the procedure of taking into account the dependence on the extra parameter field we originally called $`\stackrel{~}{B}_m`$.

### 5.3 Corrections at $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$

Now we move on to the corrections at $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$. Since $`\theta ^2`$ is of order 1, we need to compute such contributions only for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$. The procedure is entirely similar to the $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$ case but the calculations are more involved and we relegate the details to the Appendix A. As shown there, 7 types of diagrams contribute. Two of them, diagrams (B2-a,b), involve genuine 3 point vertices as well as massless propagators given by

$`\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )\widehat{\psi }_\beta (\tau ^{})=g^2\tau |{\displaystyle \frac{1}{}}|\tau ^{},C_{11}(\tau )\overline{C}_{11}(\tau ^{})=i\tau |{\displaystyle \frac{1}{^2}}|\tau ^{}.`$ (5.82)
They are singular in the infrared, but such singularities cancel in the end result. After some calculations, we find the $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ corrections to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ to be

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{\theta ^2}\theta _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2N}{16r^5}}(r_l(\theta \gamma ^{mnl}\theta )(\gamma ^{nm}ϵ)_\alpha +2r_l(\theta \gamma ^{ml}\theta )(\gamma ^mϵ)_\alpha 4r_l(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{ml})_\alpha `$ (5.83)
$`+4(ϵ\theta )(r/\theta )_\alpha 4(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha ).`$
Although it appears quite complicated, it can be drastically simplified with the use of the $`SO(9)`$ Fierz identities described in the Appendix B. The relevant identity is

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`r_l(\theta \gamma ^{mnl}\theta )(\gamma ^{nm}ϵ)_\alpha +2r_l(\theta \gamma ^{nl}\theta )(\gamma ^nϵ)_\alpha +4r_l(ϵ\gamma ^n\theta )(\gamma ^{nl}\theta )_\alpha `$ (5.84)
$`+4r_l(ϵ\theta )(\gamma ^l\theta )_\alpha +12r_l(ϵ\gamma ^l\theta )\theta _\alpha .`$
Applying this to (5.83), we get

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ^{\theta ^2}\theta _\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2N}{r^5}}(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha .`$ (5.85)
Let us summarize the results. To order 2 at 1-loop, the effective supersymmetry transformations laws are found to be

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ $`=`$ $`iϵ^T\gamma ^m\theta \left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}}\right),`$ (5.86)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`i(v/ϵ)_\alpha \left(1{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{r^3}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2N}{r^5}}(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha .`$ (5.87)
#### 5.3.1 Closure of the Effective Algebra and Field Redefinition

It is of interest to examine the closure property of the transformation laws obtained above. By a simple calculation, one immediately finds

$`[\mathrm{\Delta }_{ϵ_1},\mathrm{\Delta }_{ϵ_2}]r_m`$ $`=`$ $`2\dot{r}_m(ϵ_2ϵ_1)+𝒪(g^4),`$ (5.88)
$`[\mathrm{\Delta }_{ϵ_1},\mathrm{\Delta }_{ϵ_2}]\theta _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`2\dot{\theta }_\alpha (ϵ_2ϵ_1)+𝒪(g^4).`$ (5.89)
Thus to the 1-loop order, the closure turned out to be precisely canonical.

As we remarked at the end of Sec.4, this is not a feature guaranteed by the general analysis. One way to appreciate this is to consider a field redefinition which makes the form of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ to be the same as the one at the tree level. On general grounds, the most general form of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$, to the order we are considering, are

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr^m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )\left(1+g^2F(r)\right),`$ (5.90)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`i(v/ϵ)_\alpha +g^2G_{\alpha \beta }(r,\theta )ϵ_\beta .`$ (5.91)
¿From (5.90), the desired field redefinition can be read off as

$`\stackrel{~}{\theta }_\alpha \left(1+g^2F(r)\right)\theta _\alpha .`$ (5.92)
The transformation law for this new field is then

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\stackrel{~}{\theta }_\alpha =i(v/ϵ)_\alpha +g^2\left(i(v/ϵ)_\alpha F(r)+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵF(r)\stackrel{~}{\theta }_\alpha +G_{\alpha \beta }(r,\stackrel{~}{\theta })ϵ_\beta \right)+𝒪(g^4).`$ (5.93)
It is quite non-trivial that the $`𝒪(g^2)`$ part of this expression vanishes exactly.

### 5.4 Implication of the Ward Identity

Having found the transformation laws, we are now ready to analyze the consequence of the Ward identity on the structure of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$.

Let us write the effective action up to 1-loop as $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1`$, the subscript denoting the number of loops. The tree-level action is given by

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(\frac{v^2}{2g^2}+\frac{\theta \dot{\theta }}{2g^2}\right)}.`$ (5.94)
As for $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1`$, it is easy to convince oneself that the most general structure at order 2, up to total derivatives, is

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d\tau (A{\displaystyle \frac{v^2}{r^3}}+B{\displaystyle \frac{(vr)^2}{r^5}}+C{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^T\dot{\theta }}{r^3}}+D{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^Tr/\dot{\theta }}{r^4}}`$ (5.95)
$`+E{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^T\gamma ^{mn}r_mv_n\theta }{r^5}}+F{\displaystyle \frac{r^lr^k(\theta \gamma ^{lm}\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{mk}\theta )}{r^7}}),`$
where $`AF`$ are numerical constants444The structure of the form $`r^lr^k(\theta \gamma ^{lmn}\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{mkn}\theta )`$ can be expressed in terms of the last term in (5.95) via a Fierz identity and hence can be omitted..

Now we demand that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ vanish to the order of interest. The simplest way to proceed is as follows. First, look at the $`𝒪(\theta ^5)`$ terms, which can only be produced from the last term of (5.95) by the tree-level part of the transformation $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵr_m`$. They read

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau F\frac{i}{r^9}r^k\left(2r^2(ϵ\gamma ^l\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{lm}\theta )+7r^lr^j(ϵ\gamma ^j\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{lm}\theta )\right)(\theta \gamma ^{mk}\theta )}.`$ (5.96)
It can be checked that the integrand does not vanish by any of the Fierz identities555We have also checked this numerically.. Thus we find $`F=0`$. Next, demand that the $`𝒪(\theta )`$ part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ vanish. It is straightforward to show that this reduces the allowed form of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1`$ to be

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(A\frac{v^2}{r^3}+(A+N)\frac{\theta \dot{\theta }}{r^3}+\frac{3A}{2}\frac{\theta \gamma ^{mn}r_mv_n\theta }{r^5}\right)},`$ (5.97)
where $`A`$ remains undetermined. Finally, look at the $`𝒪(\theta ^3)`$ part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. The contributions arising from the tree level transformation of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1`$ are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{3iN}{r^5}}r_m(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \dot{\theta })`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3iA}{2r^5}}\left(2r_m(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \dot{\theta })v_n(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{mn}\theta )r_m(ϵ\gamma ^n\dot{\theta })(\theta \gamma ^{mn}\theta )\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{15iA}{4r^7}}r_mr_nv_l\left((ϵ\gamma ^n\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{ml}\theta )+(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{nl}\theta )\right).`$ (5.98)
On the other hand, the 1-loop level transformation applied to $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0`$ produces

$`{\displaystyle \frac{3iN}{r^5}}r_m(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \dot{\theta }),`$ (5.99)
which cancels the first term of (5.98). The remaining terms in (5.98) are all proportional to $`A`$. Now note that while the four-fermion structures in the second line of (5.98) have only one “free index”, contracted with an arbitrary vector $`r_m(\tau )`$ or $`v_m(\tau )`$, the ones in the last line carry three free indices. Since the Fierz identities can only relate structures with the same number of free indices, expressions in these two lines cannot cancel each other. Moreover, it is easy to check, using the Fierz identities given in the Appendix A, that the second line does not vanish by itself. This then proves $`A=0`$.

In summary, we have found that the order 2 contribution at 1-loop for the effective action in the background gauge is completely determined by the requirement of supersymmetry and takes the form

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_1={\displaystyle 𝑑\tau N\frac{\theta \dot{\theta }}{r^3}}.`$ (5.100)
This indeed agrees, including the overall normalization, with the direct calculation performed in . It can be easily checked that the normalization is directly linked to the magnitude of the $`𝒪(\theta ^0)`$ quantum corrections in (5.86) and (5.87), which cannot be determined by the closure property alone.

As we shall discuss in the concluding section, the power of our off-shell Ward identity can only be fully utilized at the next order in the derivative expansion, where the most general form of the action unavoidably contains many terms with higher derivatives, such as $`\ddot{r}_m`$ and $`\ddot{\theta }_\alpha `$. Nevertheless, it is gratifying that already at order 2 it has enabled us to see explicitly how the supersymmetry and the gauge symmetry intimately work together to dictate the form of the effective action.

## 6 Summary and Discussions

In this paper, we have derived the exact supersymmetric off-shell Ward identity for Matrix theory as a step toward answering the “old” yet important unsettled problem: “To what extent do the symmetries, in particular the supersymmetry, determine the low-energy effective action of Matrix theory?” Our work was motivated by the observation that the existing analyses are incomplete in that off-shell trajectories with arbitrary time-dependence have not been fully considered. An important aspect of our Ward identity is that it allows the quantum-corrected effective supersymmetry transformation laws to be directly identified in closed form. They exhibit an intricate interplay with the gauge (BRST) symmetry of the theory, a feature not properly appreciated previously.

As an application, we computed the explicit form of these transformation laws at 1-loop to the lowest order in the derivative expansion, and examined if the invariance under them determines the form of the effective action to the corresponding order. We found that the answer is affirmative, confirming the earlier result. This is as expected since at this order the higher derivatives, such as the acceleration etc., can be eliminated from the effective action by partial integration and the analysis is essentially the same as in the existing literature.

The full significance of our off-shell Ward identity should become apparent starting from the next order, i.e. from order 4, where complete elimination of higher derivatives will no longer be possible. There will be a considerable number of independent structures allowed in the most general effective action. Even the proper listing of them requires careful analysis due to the total derivative ambiguities and the existence of non-trivial Fierz identities. Nonetheless, a preliminary investigation indicates that, with an aid of computerized calculation, it appears feasible to determine whether SUSY alone is enough to fix the form of the effective action at order 4 for arbitrary trajectories.

Another important direction into which to extend our present work is to apply our Ward identity to genuinely multi-body configurations. To find out whether the remarkable agreement with supergravity in such a situation  is due to supersymmetry alone would certainly deepen our understanding of the Matrix theory further.

At the more formal and structural level, we should mention that a further study should be made on the issue of the closure property of the effective SUSY transformations. As we have shown, at the lowest order the closure turned out to be canonical. So far, however, we have not been able to answer whether this persists at higher orders and loops. An analysis based on the general closed form expressions for the transformation laws should shed light on this intriguing question.

We hope to be able to report on these and other related issues in the near future.

Acknowledgment

We would like to express our special gratitude to Y. Okawa for a number of clarifying discussions and his interest in our work. Y. K acknowledges the warm hospitality extended to him by the organizers at the third international symposium on Frontiers of Fundamental Physics (Hyderabad, India), where a preliminary version of this work was presented. This work is supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Area #707 “Supersymmetry and Unified Theory of Elementary Particles”, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research No. 09640337, and Grant-in-Aid for International Scientific Research (Joint Research) No. 10044061, from Japan Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.

Appendix A:  Calculations of $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ terms in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$

In this appendix, we exhibit some details of the calculations of $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ terms in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ at 1-loop order.

At this order, what we need to evaluate is (see (5.56))

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha (\tau )=\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^A(\tau )+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^B(\tau )+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^C(\tau ),`$ (A.1)
where

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^A(\tau )`$ $``$ $`\delta _ϵ\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau ),`$ (A.2)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^B(\tau )`$ $``$ $`\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )𝒪_ϵ,`$ (A.3)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^C(\tau )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}\delta _B\widehat{\psi }_\alpha (\tau )𝒪_m(\tau ^{})\frac{1}{i}(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\tau ^{})}.`$ (A.4)
Hereafter in this appendix, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ will refer only to the $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ part. Also, we shall omit the overall factor of $`N`$, except in the final expression. The relevant Feynman diagrams are shown in Fig.1.

Calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^A(\tau )`$: The explicit expression is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _\alpha ^A=g^2\stackrel{~}{A}Y_m^{}Y_m\stackrel{~}{A}^{}(\gamma ^mϵ)_\alpha +i{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{2}}Y_mY_n^{}Y_nY_m^{}(\gamma ^{mn}ϵ)_\alpha .`$ (A.5)
To compute the expectation values above to $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$, we need to perform the second order perturbation using the $`𝒪(\theta )`$ vertices

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_{\stackrel{~}{A}\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \theta _\alpha (\stackrel{~}{A}\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha \stackrel{~}{A}^{})},`$ (A.6)
$`\stackrel{~}{S}_{Y\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau (\gamma ^m\theta )_\alpha (Y_m\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}Y_m^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha )}.`$ (A.7)
This generates the diagrams (A1) and (A2) in Fig. 1, for the first and the second term in (A.5) respectively. Consider for example the term $`\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau )`$. Using the tree-level propagators given in (5.64) and (5.68), this can be computed as

$`\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}𝑑\tau ^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )\stackrel{~}{A}^{}(\tau ^{})\theta _\alpha (\tau ^{})(\gamma ^n\theta (\tau ^{\prime \prime }))_\beta \mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\beta ^{}(\tau ^{\prime \prime })}`$ (A.8)
$`\times Y_n(\tau ^{\prime \prime })Y_m^{}(\tau )`$
$`=`$ $`i\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _\alpha (+r/)_{\alpha \beta }(\gamma ^m\theta )_\beta \mathrm{\Delta }^2|\tau .`$
Performing the normal-ordering, neglecting the terms which generate derivatives, this becomes

$`\stackrel{~}{A}(\tau )Y_m^{}(\tau )=i(\theta r/\gamma ^m\theta )\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }^3|\tau ={\displaystyle \frac{3i}{16r^5}}(\theta r/\gamma ^m\theta )={\displaystyle \frac{3i}{16r^5}}r_l(\theta \gamma ^{ml}\theta ).`$ (A.9)
Likewise, one easily finds that $`\stackrel{~}{A}^{}(\tau )Y_m(\tau )`$ gives exactly the same contribution. The evaluation of the diagram (A2) proceeds in an entirely similar manner. In this way one finds

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _\alpha ^A={\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2}{16r^5}}\left(2r_l(\theta \gamma ^{ml}\theta )(\gamma ^mϵ)_\alpha r_l(\theta \gamma ^{mnl}\theta )(\gamma ^{nm}ϵ)_\alpha \right).`$ (A.10)
Calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^B(\tau )`$: This receives contributions from two classes of diagrams, (B1) and (B2) in Fig.1.

For (B1), we have

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B1}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_\beta g^2{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}(C^{}(\tau )\overline{C}(\tau ^{})(+r/)_{\beta \gamma }\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau )`$ (A.11)
$`C(\tau )\overline{C}^{}(\tau ^{})(r/)_{\beta \gamma }\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma (\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(\tau )).`$
Insertions of the vertices $`\stackrel{~}{S}_{\stackrel{~}{A}\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ (A.6) and $`\stackrel{~}{S}_{Y\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ (A.7) twice generate the diagrams (B1-a) and (B1-b). Again neglecting the derivatives produced in the process of normal ordering we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _\alpha ^{B1}={\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2}{16r^5}}\left(2(ϵ\theta )(r/\theta )_\alpha 2(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha 2r_l(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{ml})_\alpha \right).`$ (A.12)
Now, in distinction to all the other contributions, the one from (B2) involves propagation of massless fields $`\widehat{\psi }_\alpha `$, $`C_{11}`$ and $`\overline{C}_{11}`$ in the intermediate steps. The original expression is, to the order of interest,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2}=gϵ_\beta {\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}C\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\tau )\overline{C}_{11}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\beta (\tau ^{})}+gϵ_\beta {\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}C^{}\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau )\overline{C}_{11}\dot{\widehat{\psi }}_\beta (\tau ^{})}.`$ (A.13)
To extract $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ contributions, we need to use the following five types of vertices:

$`V_1`$ $``$ $`ig{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \left(r^m\overline{C}^{}C_{11}Y^m+r^m\overline{C}Y^mC_{11}\right)},`$ (A.14)
$`V_2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \theta \gamma ^n(\mathrm{\Psi }Y^mY^m\mathrm{\Psi }^{})},`$ (A.15)
$`V_3`$ $``$ $`g{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau (\overline{C}^{}\dot{C}_{11}\stackrel{~}{A}+\overline{C}^{}C_{11}\dot{\stackrel{~}{A}}\overline{C}\dot{\stackrel{~}{A}^{}}C_{11}\overline{C}\stackrel{~}{A}^{}\dot{C}_{11})},`$ (A.16)
$`V_4`$ $``$ $`i{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \theta (\mathrm{\Psi }\stackrel{~}{A}^{}\stackrel{~}{A}\mathrm{\Psi }^{})},`$ (A.17)
$`V_5`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau \dot{\widehat{\psi }}\theta }.`$ (A.18)
First, inserting $`V_1,V_2`$ and $`V_5`$, we get the diagrams of the type (B2-a). This gives the contribution

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2a}=2ig^2{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau ^{}𝑑\tau ^{\prime \prime }\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }|\tau ^{\prime \prime }\tau ^{\prime \prime }|\frac{1}{}|\tau ^{}r^n(\tau ^{\prime \prime })\tau ^{\prime \prime }|\mathrm{\Delta }(\gamma ^n\theta )_\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau (ϵ\theta )(\tau ^{})}.`$
Similarly, use of $`V_3,V_4`$ and $`V_5`$ generates the diagrams of the type (B2-b), the contribution of which is worked out to be

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2b}=2ig^2\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }(ϵ\theta )\mathrm{\Delta }r^m(\gamma ^m\theta )_\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }|\tau \mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2a}.`$ (A.20)
Therefore,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2}=\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2a}+\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^{B2b}=2ig^2(ϵ\theta )\tau |\mathrm{\Delta }^3|\tau (r/\theta )_\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2}{16r^5}}2(ϵ\theta )(r/\theta )_\alpha .`$ (A.21)
Calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^C(\tau )`$: Finally, consider $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^C`$. It takes the form

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha ^C(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`g^2{\displaystyle }d\tau ^{}(C(\tau )\overline{C}^{}(\tau ^{})Y_m(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}(\tau )`$ (A.22)
$`+C^{}(\tau )\overline{C}(\tau ^{})Y_m^{}(\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha (\tau ))ϵ^T\gamma ^m\theta (\tau ^{}),`$
which is represented by the diagram $`(C)`$. Using the vertex (A.7) and proceeding similarly to the previous calculations, we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\theta _\alpha ^C={\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2}{16r^5}}\left(2(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha 2r_l(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{ml})_\alpha \right).`$ (A.23)
Summary: Adding up all the contributions and reinstating the factor of $`N`$, the final result is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3ig^2N}{16r^5}}(r_l(\theta \gamma ^{mnl}\theta )(\gamma ^{nm}ϵ)_\alpha +2r_l(\theta \gamma ^{ml}\theta )(\gamma ^mϵ)_\alpha 4r_l(ϵ\gamma ^m\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{ml})_\alpha `$ (A.24)
$`+4(ϵ\theta )(r/\theta )_\alpha 4(ϵr/\theta )\theta _\alpha ).`$
Appendix B: $`SO(9)`$ Fierz Identities

In this appendix, we record the $`SO(9)`$ Fierz identities which are crucial in simplifying the $`𝒪(\theta ^2)`$ part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_ϵ\theta _\alpha `$ at 1-loop.

Adapting the notations of Taylor and Raamsdonk, let us introduce the following quantities for $`n=0,1,2,3`$ (repeated indices are summed):

$`E_n`$ $`=`$ $`r_m(ϵ\gamma ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_nm}\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{a_n\mathrm{}a_1}\lambda ),`$ (B.1)
$`\overline{E}_n`$ $`=`$ $`r_m(ϵ\gamma ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{a_n\mathrm{}a_1m}\lambda ),`$ (B.2)
$`F_n`$ $`=`$ $`r_m(\theta \gamma ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_nm}\theta )(\lambda \gamma ^{a_n\mathrm{}a_1}ϵ),`$ (B.3)
$`\overline{F}_n`$ $`=`$ $`r_m(\theta \gamma ^{a_1\mathrm{}a_n}\theta )(\lambda \gamma ^{a_n\mathrm{}a_1m}ϵ),`$ (B.4)
$`P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4!}}r_mϵ^{a_1a_2a_3a_4b_1b_2b_3b_4m}(ϵ\gamma ^{a_1a_2a_3a_4}\theta )(\theta \gamma ^{b_1b_2b_3b_4m}\lambda ),`$ (B.5)
$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4!}}r_mϵ^{a_1a_2a_3a_4b_1b_2b_3b_4m}(\theta \gamma ^{a_1a_2a_3a_4}\theta )(\lambda \gamma ^{b_1b_2b_3b_4m}ϵ),`$ (B.6)
where $`\lambda `$ is an arbitrary spinor. Because $`\theta \mathrm{\Gamma }\theta =0`$ for any symmetric matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, five of them actually vanish, namely

$`F_0=\overline{F}_0=\overline{F}_1=F_3=Q=0.`$ (B.7)
Since there are nine independent Fierz identities, only four structures are independent, which we take to be $`F_1,F_2,\overline{F}_2`$ and $`\overline{F}_3`$. Then the remaining quantities can be expressed in terms of them as666The sign in front of $`48E_0^{}`$ in Eq. (B.20) of  should be $`+`$.

$`E_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32}}(F_2+\overline{F}_2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{96}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.8)
$`\overline{E}_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32}}(F_2+\overline{F}_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{96}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.9)
$`E_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}(F_2\overline{F}_2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{48}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.10)
$`\overline{E}_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}F_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}(F_2\overline{F}_2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{48}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.11)
$`E_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{4}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(F_2+\overline{F}_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.12)
$`\overline{E}_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{4}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(F_2+\overline{F}_2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.13)
$`E_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{21}{4}}F_1+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}(F_2\overline{F}_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.14)
$`\overline{E}_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{21}{4}}F_1{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}(F_2\overline{F}_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}\overline{F}_3,`$ (B.15)
$`P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{15}{2}}(F_2+\overline{F}_2).`$ (B.16)
¿From these relations, one easily finds the identity

$`0=F_22F_14\overline{E}_1+4\overline{E}_0+12E_0.`$
Removing $`\lambda `$, we get

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`r_l(\theta \gamma ^{mnl}\theta )(\gamma ^{nm}ϵ)_\alpha +2r_l(\theta \gamma ^{nl}\theta )(\gamma ^nϵ)_\alpha +4r_l(ϵ\gamma ^n\theta )(\gamma ^{nl}\theta )_\alpha `$ (B.17)
$`+4r_l(ϵ\theta )(\gamma ^l\theta )_\alpha +12r_l(ϵ\gamma ^l\theta )\theta _\alpha ,`$
which was used in Sec. 5.


format: text

text:
# Automatic Classification of Text Databases Through Query Probing

## 1 Introduction

Text databases abound on the Internet. Sometimes users can browse through their documents by following hyperlinks. In many other cases, text databases are “hidden” behind search interfaces, and their documents are only available through querying. For those databases, web search engines cannot crawl inside, and they just index the “front pages”, ignoring the contents of possibly rich sources of information. One example of such a search-only text database is the archive of a newspaper. Many newspapers do not offer a browsing interface for past issues, but they do offer search capabilities to retrieve old articles. This is the case, for example, for the New York Times newspaper.

One way of facilitating the access to such searchable databases is to build metasearchers. A metasearcher sends user queries to many search engines, retrieves and merges the results and then returns the combined results back to the user (e.g., \[GGMT99, MLY+98, XC98, SE95, GCGMP97, LG98\]). Alternatively, users can browse Yahoo-like directories to locate databases of interest and then submit queries to these databases. Some sites have started in the last two years to provide such services. For example, InvisibleWeb111http://www.invisibleweb.com/ and SearchEngine Guide222http://www.searchengineguide.com/ classify various search engines into a hierarchical classification scheme. The archive of the New York Times is classified as: News $``$ Regional $``$ National (USA) $``$ New York $``$ News. A user can then locate relevant text databases and submit queries only to them to obtain more accurate and focused results than when searching a more general text database. Other services (e.g., Copernic333http://www.copernic.com/) combine the metasearching approach with “browsing”. Users can select a specific category (e.g., Recipes, Newspapers, etc.) and the metasearcher then sends the user queries to the searchable databases previously classified in the given category.

Unfortunately, existing approaches for text database classification involve manual intervention of a human expert and do not scale. In this paper we will describe a way of automating this classification process by issuing query probes to the text databases. More specifically, in Section 2 we define what it means to classify a text database. Then, in Section 3 we focus on the design of our query probing classification strategy. Finally, in Section 4 we present some initial experiments over web databases.

#### Related Work

Query probing has been used recently for characterizing different properties of text databases. Manually constructed query probes have been used in \[GWG96\] for the classification of text databases. \[CCD99\] probe text databases with queries to determine an approximation of their vocabulary and associated statistics. This technique requires retrieving the documents in the query results for further analysis. Finally, guided query probing has been used in \[MYL99\] to determine sources of heterogeneity in the algorithms used to index and search locally at each text database.

## 2 Classification of Text Databases

In this section we will describe two basic approaches for classifying text databases. One approach classifies a database into one category when the database contains a substantial number of documents in this category. The other approach classifies a database into one category when the majority of its documents are in this category.

###### Example 1

: Consider two databases $`D_1,D_2`$ with 1,000 and 10,000,000 documents, respectively, and a topic category “Health.” Suppose that $`D_1`$ contains 900 documents about health while $`D_2`$ contains 200,000 such documents. Our decision whether to classify $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ in the “Health” category will ultimately depend on how users will take advantage of our classification and the databases. Some users might prefer a “focus-oriented” classification (i.e., might be looking for text databases having mostly documents about health and little else). Such users might not want to process documents outside of their topic of interest, and might then prefer that database $`D_1`$ be classified in the “Health” category (90% of its documents are on health). In contrast, $`D_2`$ should not be classified in that category. Although $`D_2`$ has a large number of document on health, these documents represent only a small fraction of the database (i.e., 2%). Hence, it is likely that our “focus-oriented” users would be exposed to non-health documents while exploring $`D_2`$. Alternatively, other users might be looking for text databases having a sufficiently large number of documents on health. It might be unimportant for such users what else is at each database. These users might then prefer $`D_2`$ to be classified in the “Health” category because of its large number of documents on health (i.e., 200,000). $`D_1`$ (with 900 documents on health) might or might not be classified in that category, depending on what we consider a “sufficient large” number of documents.

Consider a set of categories $`C_1,\mathrm{},C_k`$ and a text database $`D`$ that we want to classify in one or more of these categories. Each of $`D`$’s documents has been classified in one of the categories $`C_1,\mathrm{},C_k`$ that we use to classify $`D`$. Given this classification of the documents in $`D`$ we can compute a vector $`C=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$, which indicates the number of documents $`n_i`$ in category $`C_i`$, for $`i=1,\mathrm{},k`$. Vector $`C`$ is a good summary of the contents of database $`D`$ and we will use it to classify the database, as we describe next. As illustrated in Example 1 above, to categorize databases we need to capture how “focused” $`D`$ is and how many documents it contains for a given category. For this we define the following two metrics.

###### Definition 1

: Consider a text database $`D`$ and a category $`C_i`$. Then the coverage of $`D`$ for $`C_i`$ is the number of documents in $`D`$ in category $`C_i`$, $`n_i`$. The specificity of $`D`$ on $`C_i`$ is the fraction of documents in $`D`$ in category $`C_i`$:

$`\text{Coverage}(D,C_i)`$ $`=`$ $`n_i`$
$`\text{Specificity}(D,C_i)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n_i}{|D|}}`$
*Specificity* defines how “focused” a database is on a given category. One problem with the definition above is that we do not always know the number of documents in a database. We will discuss how we can approximate this value in Section 3. *Coverage* defines the “absolute” amount of information that a database contains about a specific category. An alternative definition for coverage could divide $`n_i`$ by the total number of documents in all databases. This would capture what fraction of the existing documents in category $`C_i`$ are present in a given database. Although this definition is interesting, it has the undesirable property of depending on a universe of known databases. On the Internet, databases come and go constantly so this definition would make the resulting classification scheme that we describe quite unstable. Moreover, since the *Coverage* value would have the same normalizing constant for all databases, excluding this factor will have no bearing on the relative ranking of databases by their coverage of a certain topic.

Using the definitions above, each database $`D`$ has a specificity and a coverage value for each category. We can use these values to decide how to classify $`D`$ into one or more of the categories. As described above, we could classify a database into one category when the majority of the documents it contains are of a specific category. Our classification could alternatively be based on the number of documents of a specific category that a database contains.

###### Definition 2

: Consider a database $`D`$ and a category $`C_i`$ and let $`\tau _s,\tau _c0`$ to be two pre-specified thresholds. Then $`D`$ is in category $`C_i`$ according to a “coverage-oriented” classification if Coverage$`(D,C_i)\tau _c`$. Similarly, $`D`$ is in category $`C_i`$ according to a “specificity-oriented” classification if Specificity$`(D,C_i)\tau _s`$.

###### Example 1

: (cont.) Consider the two databases $`D_1,D_2`$ described above, and the category “Health.” Using Definition 2, Coverage$`(D_1,`$“Health”$`)=900`$, since $`D_1`$ has 900 documents on health. Similarly, Coverage$`(D_2,`$“Health”$`)=200,000`$. If threshold $`\tau _c`$ for our “coverage-oriented” classification is set to, say, 10,000, then $`D_2`$ will be classified in category “Health” while $`D_1`$ will not, since it does not have a sufficient large number of documents in this category. Analogously, Specificity$`(D_1,`$“Health”$`)=\frac{900}{1000}=0.9`$ while Specificity$`(D_2,`$“Health”$`)=\frac{200,000}{10,000,000}=0.02`$. If threshold $`\tau _s`$ for our “specificity-oriented” classification is set to, say, 0.3 then $`D_1`$ will be classified in category “Health” while $`D_2`$ will not, since it is not sufficiently focused on health and holds too many documents in other categories.

The two alternative database classification schemes above assume that we somehow know the number of documents that each database has in each category, which is clearly unrealistic in most Internet settings. In effect, as discussed in the Introduction, many times we do not have access to a database’s contents other than through a query interface. In the next section we introduce techniques for approximating the classification of text databases in this limited-access scenario.

## 3 Classifying Databases through Probing

The previous section described how to classify a database given the number of documents it contains in each of our categories. Unfortunately, text databases do not export such metadata. In this section we introduce a technique to classify text databases in the absence of any information about their contents. Our technique starts by training a rule-based document classifier over our categories (Section 3.1) and then uses the classifier’s rules to design a set of probing queries (Section 3.2). The database will be classified based on the number of matches returned for each of these queries, without accessing the documents per se (Section 3.3).

### 3.1 Training a Document Classifier

Our technique for classifying databases over a set of categories $`C_1,\mathrm{},C_k`$ starts by training a rule-based document classifier over those categories. We use RIPPER, an off-the-shelf tool developed at AT&T Research Laboratories\[Coh95, Coh96\]. Given a set of training, pre-classified documents, this tool returns a classifier that might consist of rules like the following:

| Computers | IF mac |
| --- | --- |
| Computers | IF graphics windows |
| Religion | IF god christian |
| Hobbies | IF baseball |

The first rule indicates that if a document contains the term mac it should be classified in the *“Computers”* category. A document should also be classified into that category if it has the words graphics and windows. Similarly, if a document has the words god and christian, it is a *“Religion”* document, whereas if it has the word baseball, it is a *“Hobbies”* document.

Once we have trained a document classifier using a tool like RIPPER, we could apply it to every document in a database $`D`$ that we want to classify. This procedure would produce a close approximation to the $`C=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_k)`$ vector of category frequencies for $`D`$ (Section 2), which we could use to classify $`D`$ according to Definition 2. Unfortunately, we often do not have access to all the documents in a database, other than indirectly through a query interface, as discussed above. Next, we define a query probing strategy to deal with such databases.

### 3.2 Probing a Database

Our goal is to create a set of queries for each category that will retrieve exactly the documents for that category from the database we are classifying. We will construct these queries based on the document classifier discussed above. To create our queries, we turn each rule into a query. The number of matches for each query will be the number of documents in the database that satisfy the corresponding rule. These numbers will then be used to approximate the distribution of documents in categories within a text database, as the following example illustrates.

###### Example 2

: Consider a database $`D`$ with 500 documents, all about *“Computers,”* and suppose that our categories of interest are *“Computers,” “Hobbies,”* and *“Religion.”* Then $`D`$ has associated with it a vector $`C=(500,0,0)`$ (Section 2), showing the distribution of documents over these three categories. Suppose also that we have trained a rule-based document classifier and obtained the four rules shown above for the three categories. If we do not have access to all the documents of $`D`$, we can still characterize its contents by issuing probing queries constructed from the document classifier as discussed above. Our first probe will be the query mac. The database will return a result of the form “92 documents found.” We send a second query graphics AND windows. Again, we get a result like “288 documents found.” Queries god AND christian and baseball return 0 and 2 matches respectively. From these results we conclude that $`D`$ has 288+92=380 “Computers” documents, 0 “Religion” documents, and 2 “Hobbies” documents. Thus we approximate the ideal vector $`C`$, with $`C^{}=(380,0,2)`$.

RIPPER can produce either an ordered set of rules or an unordered set of rules. When the rules are ordered, the first rule that is satisfied by a document fires and gives a classification for that document. No subsequent rules are matched against that document. We should formulate our queries properly in order to simulate the actions of the classifier as much as possible. For example, if the rules above were ordered rules, our second probing query would have been graphics AND windows AND NOT mac, to avoid retrieving any documents that would match the first, earlier rule.

If the query interface of a database does not support the kind of queries described above, we break these queries into smaller pieces that we can send separately. A detailed description of this technique is beyond the scope of this paper. For completeness, we mention that we submit the probing queries in such a way that we can use the inclusion-exclusion principle to calculate the number of results that would have been returned for the original queries.

A significant advantage of our probing approach is that we do not need to retrieve documents to analyze the contents of a database \[CCD99\]. Instead, we count only the number of matches for these queries. Thus, in our approach we only require a database to report the number of matches for a given query. It is common for a database to return something like “$`X`$ documents found” before returning the actual results.

### 3.3 Using the Probing Results for Classification

After the probing phase, we have calculated an approximation of the coverage of a database for our categories. To calculate the specificity values, we would need the size of the database $`|D|`$, and we approximate it by $`|D|_{i=1}^kn_i`$. This means that we will use only the documents that are classified into the given categories to calculate the size of the database. This approach can give poor results when there are many documents that do not belong to any of the given categories. In such a case, it is also difficult to categorize this text database into the given classification scheme, since no category will accurately reflect its contents.

An extra step that we applied to our method to improve the results is the following. For each of the rules, we know the accuracy from the training phase of the classifier. For example, the rule  Computers IF mac may have correctly classified 90 documents and incorrectly classified 10 other documents during the training phase, resulting in an accuracy of 0.9. We adjust our results from the probing phase by multiplying the number of documents matched by each rule by the accuracy of that rule. Also, for the set of rules that classified documents into one category, we know their “recall”, i.e., how many documents they recalled over all the documents in this category. For example if category Computers in the training phase had 150 documents and the rules retrieved 100, then the recall is 0.67. This means that only this portion of all the documents of this category were retrieved. To adjust our results further, we divide each element of the $`C^{}`$ approximation vector with the recall for this category. This regularization of the values $`n_i`$ helps account for the fact that rules generally do not (and need not) have perfect recall on real document databases.

## 4 Initial Experiments

Using RIPPER, we created a classifier using a collection of 20,000 newsgroup articles from the UCI KDD archive444http://kdd.ics.uci.edu/. This collection has been used in previous text categorization experiments \[Joa96, Mit97\], and is composed of 1,000 newsgroup articles from each of 20 newsgroups. We further grouped the articles into five large groups according to their originating newsgroups: Computers (comp.\*), Science (sci.\*), Hobbies (rec.\*), Society (alt.atheism, talk.\*, soc.\*) and Misc (misc.sale). We have removed all the headers (except for the “Subject:” line), the e-mail addresses from the body of the articles and all punctuation. Subsequently, we eliminated all words that appeared in fewer than 3 documents in the collection and the 100 most frequent words. Such feature reduction is in accordance with Zipf’s Law \[Zip49\], which shows that there are many infrequently used words in document collections. For purposes of classification, however, such infrequent terms generally provide little discriminating power between classes (due to their rarity), and can thus be safely eliminated with little, if any, reduction in subsequent classification accuracy. Similarly, very frequent words, that often tend to appear in virtually all articles, will also provide little ability to make classification distinctions, and can likewise be eliminated. After this step we applied an information theoretic feature selection algorithm \[KS96, KS97\] to reduce the terms from about 40,000 to 5,000. This algorithm eliminates features that have the least impact on the class distribution of documents (as measured by the relative entropy of the distribution of the document class labels conditioned on the appearance of a given feature). Features that have little impact on the class distribution are likely to also have little discriminating power between classes, and can thus be eliminated without much adverse impact on the final classification accuracy. For training set we used a random sample of 10,000 documents and the remaining 10,000 documents were used for testing.

The initial document classifier generated by RIPPER consisted of 534 ordered rules. Many of the rules were covering very few (one or two) examples from the training set. These rules did not contribute much to the overall accuracy of the document classifier, and would result in too many probing queries during the classification stage. Thus, we decided to restrict the classifier to produce only rules that covered at least 50 examples from the training set. This resulted in a classifier with 29 ordered rules that included a total of 32 words. We also tried to produce a rule set that would include rules with negations (NOT clauses). The resulting classifier had 31 rules with much better accuracy, but, in this case, a total of 92 words were used to form the rules. The queries for this classifier were much longer and we opted to use the simpler classifier (that had only 29 rules and 32 words) for the sake of query efficiency. The rules given in Section 3.1 are, in fact, examples of rules used by this classifier.

After constructing the classifier, we have selected four sites from InvisibleWeb555http://www.invisibleweb.com/ to test our method. These four sites are topically cohesive, and should be classified in the same category by both the specificity- and the coverage- oriented classification alternatives of Definition 2:

* Cora666http://www.cora.jprc.com/: A repository of technical papers about Computer Science. This database should be classified under the category “Computers.”
* American Scientist777http://www.amsci.org/: An on-line version of a magazine on science and technology. This repository should be classified under category “Science.”
* AllOutdoors888http://www.alloutdoors.com/: A site with articles about fishing, hunting, and other outdoor activities. This site should be classified under category “Hobbies.”
* ReligionToday999http://www.religiontoday.com/: A site with news and discussions about religion. This site should be classified under category “Society.”

We probed these sites using the techniques described in Section 3.2. One problem that arose during the probing phase was a limitation on the length of the queries that we could submit to the “American Scientist” site. We truncated the long queries by eliminating terms that did not cover any documents (e.g., instead of issuing a query baseball AND NOT god, if the query god returned 0 results, we issue only the query baseball).

The results of our probing phase can be seen in Figure 1. Consider, for example, the results for Cora. After submitting the queries for the class Computer, the database reported 1450 matches for all the queries. For classes Science, Hobbies, Society, and Misc, it reported 151, 95, 215, and 45 respectively. Using these coverage values we estimated specificity as in Section 2. The specificity values are depicted using the bars, and it can be clearly seen that the results indicate that Cora is a site that is “focused” on Computers. Similarly for the other sites, we probed them using the same rules. The results clearly indicate the focus of each site. For example, if we had a threshold value for specificity of $`\tau _s=0.6`$, then each site would be classified correctly. Moreover, to measure the significance of our results, we performed a Chi-squared test comparing the distribution of the classes for each database given by the probes to the uniform distribution. This test gives us a measure for how likely the skew in the class distribution (toward the correct class) is likely to have been gotten by chance. The Chi-square test reveals that the skews in the class distributions for each database are significant at the 99.9% level. Thus, it appears that, in every case, the probes generated by the RIPPER rules have accurately captured the concept represented by each class of documents.

## 5 Conclusions and Future Work

In this paper, we have described a method that uses probing queries produced by a classifier to classify a text database. We have also shown some promising initial experiments. The method managed to identify the right category for each database, using only the number of matches for a small set of queries and without retrieving any documents. Our technique could also be used to characterize web sites that offer a browsable interface as well. The only requirement is the existence of a search interface for the local contents, which many sites offer. By using only a small set of probe queries, we can get a coarse idea about the contents of a web site.

Our future work includes the expansion of our strategy into a hierarchical classification scheme. We will also explore the efficiency of our algorithm for various indexing environments and for search interfaces that support different sets of boolean operators. We also plan to compare our approach against an adaptation, for the database classification problem, of the technique in \[CCD99\]. Finally, we will expand our adjustment technique (that currently uses only the precision of each rule and the recall of each category) to use the full set of statistics (i.e., confusion matrices) from the document classifier. This could produce better approximations of the contents of the search-only text databases.