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# Magnetic Field Dependence of Ultracold Inelastic Collisions near a Feshbach Resonance

## Abstract

Inelastic collision rates for ultracold 85Rb atoms in the F=2, mf=–2 state have been measured as a function of magnetic field. At 250 Gauss (G), the two- and three-body loss rates were measured to be K2=1.87$`\pm `$0.95$`\pm `$0.19 x 10-14 cm3/s and K3=4.24$`{}_{0.29}{}^{+0.70}\pm `$0.85 x 10-25 cm6/s respectively. As the magnetic field is decreased from 250 G towards a Feshbach resonance at 155 G, the inelastic rates decrease to a minimum and then increase dramatically, peaking at the Feshbach resonance. Both two- and three-body losses are important, and individual contributions have been compared with theory.

Feshbach resonances have recently been observed in a variety of cold atom interactions, including elastic scattering , radiative collisions and enhanced inelastic loss , photoassociation , and the loss of atoms from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) . By changing the magnetic field through the resonance, elastic collision rates can be changed by orders of magnitude and even the sign of the atom-atom interaction can be reversed . The work in Ref.  has received particular attention because the BEC loss rates were extraordinarily high and several proposals for exotic coherent loss processes have been put forward . However, even ordinary dipole relaxation and three-body recombination are expected to show dramatic enhancements by the Feshbach resonance , and the calculations of these ordinary enhancements have never been tested. This has left many outstanding questions as to the nature of inelastic losses near a Feshbach resonance. How large are the dipole relaxation and three-body recombination near the Feshbach resonance and how accurate are the calculations of these quantities? How much of the observed condensate losses in Ref.  are due to these more traditional mechanisms and how much arise from processes unique to condensates? How severe are the“severe limitations”  that inelastic loss puts on the use of Feshbach resonances to change the s-wave scattering length in a BEC? The nature of the inelastic losses near Feshbach resonances also has important implications for efforts to create BEC in 85Rb, because these losses play a critical role in determining the success or failure of evaporative cooling. Thus it is imperative to better understand the nature of inelastic collisions between ground state atoms near a Feshbach resonance.

In this paper we present the study of the losses of very cold 85Rb atoms from a magnetic trap as a function of density and magnetic field. There are two types of inelastic collisions that induce loss from a magnetic trap. The first is dipolar relaxation where two atoms collide and change spin states. The second process is three-body recombination, where three atoms collide and two of those atoms form a molecule. Measuring the losses as a function of density has allowed us to determine the two-body and three-body inelastic collision rates, while measuring the variation of these losses as a function of magnetic field has allowed us to find out how the Feshbach resonance affects them. In contrast to the work of Ref.  we observe a pronounced dip in the inelastic losses near the Feshbach resonance. This will make it possible to create 85Rb BECs with a positive scattering length.

To study these losses we needed a cold, dense 85Rb sample. This was obtained through evaporative cooling with a double magneto-optic trap (MOT) system as described in Ref. . The first MOT repeatedly collected atoms from a background vapor and those atoms were transferred to another MOT in a low-pressure chamber. Once the desired load size was achieved, the MOTs were turned off and a baseball-type Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap was turned on, resulting in a trapped atom sample of about 3x108 F=2, mf=–2 85Rb atoms at 45 $`\mu K`$. Forced radio-frequency (rf) evaporation was used to increase the density of the atoms while decreasing the temperature. Because of the high ratio of inelastic/elastic collision rates in 85Rb and the dependence of the ratio on magnetic field ($`B`$) and temperature ($`T`$), trap conditions must be carefully chosen to achieve efficient cooling. We evaporated to the desired temperature and density (typically 3x1011 cm-3 and 500-700 $`nK`$) at a final field of $`B`$=162 Gauss (G) .

We then adiabatically changed the DC magnetic field to various values and measured the density of the trapped atom cloud as a function of time. We observed the clouds with both nondestructive polarization-rotation imaging  and destructive absorption imaging. In both cases, the cloud was imaged onto a CCD array to determine the spatial size and number. The nondestructive method allowed us to observe the time evolution of the number and spatial size of a single sample. The destructive method required us to prepare many samples and observe them after different delay times, but had the advantages of better signal to noise for a single image and larger dynamic range. A set of nondestructive imaging data is shown in Fig. 1. In addition to these techniques, we made a redundant check of the number by recapturing the atoms in the MOT and measuring their fluorescence .

We measured the time-dependence of the number of atoms and the spatial size, and from these measurements determined the density. We assigned a 10% systematic error to our density determination, based primarily on the error in our measurement of number. The value of $`B`$ was measured in the same way as in Ref. : the rf frequency at which the atoms in the center of the trap were resonantly spin-flipped was measured and the Breit-Rabi equation was then used to determine the magnitude of $`B`$. The magnetic field width of the clouds scaled as $`T^{1/2}`$ and was 0.39 G FWHM at 500 $`nK`$.

In each data set we observed the evolution of the sample while a significant fraction (20–35%) of the atoms was lost. The temperature of the sample also increased as a function of time. This heating rate scaled with the inelastic rates and therefore varied with $`B`$. Since the volume and temperature in a magnetic trap are directly related, the change in the volume (typically 50%) with time was fit to a polynomial—usually a straight line was sufficient within our precision. The number (N) as a function of time was then fit to the sum of three-body and two-body loss contributions given by

$$\dot{N}=K_2nNK_3n^2N\frac{N}{\tau }.$$
(1)
Here $`n=\frac{1}{N}n^2(𝐱)d^3x`$ is the density-weighted density and $`n^2=\frac{1}{N}n^3(𝐱)d^3x`$. The time evolution of the volume is contained in the computation of the density as a function of time. The background loss rate is given by $`\tau `$. It was independently determined by looking at low-density clouds for very long times. Typically, it was 450 seconds, with some slight dependence on $`B`$ ($`<`$20%), particularly near the Feshbach resonance.

The change in the combined inelastic rates as a function of $`B`$ around the Feshbach resonance is shown in Fig. 2(a). All of the inelastic data shown in Fig. 2(a) were taken with initial temperatures near 600 $`nK`$. The points less than 157 G were taken with initial densities within 10% of 1x1011cm-3, while the points higher than 157 G were taken with initial densities that were 2.7x1011cm-3. The decrease in initial density below 157 G was due to ramping through the high inelastic loss region after forming the sample at 162 G. Because of this density variation, we have used a different weighting, parameter $`\beta `$, in the sum of the two- and three-body rate constants for the two regions in Fig. 2(a).

Also shown in Fig. 2(a) is the elastic rate determined previously . This elastic rate was measured by forming atom samples similar to the ones in this work (but at much lower density), forcing them out of thermal equilibrium, and then observing their reequilibration time. The shape of the inelastic rate vs. $`B`$ roughly follows that of the elastic rate vs. $`B`$. In particular, the peak of the inelastic rate occurs at 155.4$`\pm `$0.5 G, identical to the position of the elastic peak at 155.2$`\pm `$0.4 G within the error. Also, just as is the case for the elastic rates, the inelastic loss rates around the Feshbach resonance vary by orders of magnitude. The peak in the inelastic rate is much less symmetric, however. Another interesting feature is that the loss rates not only increase near the elastic rate peak but decrease near its minimum. The field where the loss is minimum, 173.8$`\pm `$2.5 G, is higher than the minimum of the elastic rate at 166.8$`\pm `$0.3 G.

Even though the two- and three-body inelastic rates have different density dependencies, it is difficult to separate them. Figure 1 shows how a purely two-body or purely three-body loss curve fits equally well to a typical data set. An excellent signal-to-noise ratio or, equivalently, data from a large range of density are required to determine whether the loss is three-body, two-body, or a mixture of the two. To better determine density dependence, we decreased the initial density by up to a factor of 10 for several $`B`$ values. For fields with relatively high loss rates, the signal-to-noise ratio was adequate to distinguish between two- and three-body loss. However, where the rates were lower this was not the case.

Figure 2(b) shows the two-body inelastic rate determined from the density-varied data and Fig. 2(c) shows the same for the three-body rate. The character of the inelastic loss clearly changes as one goes from higher to lower field (right to left in Fig. 2). On the far right of the graph, at $`B`$ = 250 G, the inelastic rate is dominated by a three-body process. From $`B`$ = 250 G down to $`B`$ = 174 G the inelastic rate decreases to a minimum and then begins to increase again. Near the minimum, we could not determine the loss character, but at 162 G the losses are dominated by a two-body process at this density. At 158 G the two-body process is still dominant and rising rapidly as one goes toward lower field. However, by $``$157 G it has been overtaken by the three-body recombination that is the dominant process at 157-145 G. At lower fields, both two-body and three-body rates contribute significantly to the total loss at these densities.

Along with varying the density, the initial temperature was varied at $`B`$ = 145,156,160, and 250 G. There was no significant rate change in the loss rate for temperatures between 400 and 1000 $`nK`$ for the 160 and 250 G points. The combined loss rate increased by a factor of 8 at 156 G from 1 $`\mu K`$ to 400 $`nK`$, and by a factor of 2 at 145 G. This temperature dependence near the peak is expected in analogy to the temperature dependence of the elastic rates . The fact that the loss rates near the peak exhibit both a two- and three-body character plus a temperature dependence and considerable heating make interpreting the data challenging. This introduces additional uncertainty that is included in the error bars in Fig. 2(a-c).

A calculated dipolar loss rate is compared with the data in Fig. 2(b). This was calculated by finding the S-matrix between the trapped and untrapped states using carefully determined Rb-Rb molecular potentials . Keeping in mind the significance of error bars on a log plot, the agreement is reasonably good. In the region between $`B`$ = 160 and 167 G where the determination of K2 is not complicated by three-body loss and temperature dependence, the agreement is particularly good.

Likewise, we show a prediction of the three-body recombination rate in Fig. 2(c) . It is predicted that the recombination rate scales as the s-wave scattering length to the fourth power (a$`{}_{}{}^{4}{}_{s}{}^{}`$) for both positive and negative as, although with a smaller coefficient for the positive case . Since as varies across the Feshbach resonance (see Fig. 2(a), upper plot), the recombination rate is expected to change . Temperature dependence has not been included in the prediction. Qualitatively, the main features of the predicted three-body recombination match the data. The three-body rate decreases as as decreases, and it increases rapidly where as diverges at $`B`$ = 155 G. From 155 G to 167 G, as is positive and the three-body loss is much smaller than it is at $`B`$ fields with a comparable negative as, as expected from theory. This overall level of agreement is reasonable given the difficulties and approximations in calculating three-body rates.

The marked dependence on $`B`$ of both the elastic and inelastic rates has important implications for the optimization of evaporative cooling to achieve BEC in 85Rb. As the density increases with evaporative cooling, the absolute loss rate, which is already much greater than in 87Rb and Na, becomes larger. However, the important ratio of elastic rate to inelastic rate is both temperature and density dependent and magnetic field dependent. The fact that the losses are dramatically lower at fields above the Feshbach resonance suggests that it should be possible to devise an evaporation path that will lead to the creation of an 85Rb BEC .

The 85Rb Feshbach resonance has a profound effect on the two- and three-body inelastic rates, changing them by orders of magnitude. Far from the resonance at 250 G, the two-body and three-body loss rates are measured to be K2 = 1.87$`\pm `$0.95$`\pm `$0.19 x 10-14 cm3/s and K3=4.24$`{}_{0.29}{}^{+0.70}\pm `$0.85 x 10-25 cm6/s respectively. Here the first error is the statistical error and the second in the systematic uncertainty due to the number determination. Near the resonance, the two- and three-body rates change by orders of magnitude. The dependence of the inelastic rates on magnetic field is similar in structure to the dependence of the elastic rate: the maxima in both rates occur at the same field, while the minima are close but do not coincide. The total loss is a complicated mixture of both two- and three-body loss processes. They have different dependencies on field so both have field regions in which they dominate.

We are pleased to acknowledge useful discussions and with Eric Cornell, Jim Burke, Jr., Chris H. Greene, and Carl Williams. We also thank the latter three and their colleagues for providing us with loss predictions. This research has been supported by the NSF and ONR. One of us (S. L. Cornish) acknowledges the support of a Lindemann fellowship.


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# Cosmology of Brane-Bulk Models in Five Dimensions

## I Introduction

Over the last two years there has been a lot of interest in models where our universe is a 3-brane (a hyper-surface) embedded in a higher dimensional bulk. The standard model particles are confined to the brane whereas gravity propagates in the bulk. Such models were conjectured early on  as interesting possibilities and have recently been argued as plausible solutions of type I string theories . One of the attractive features of these models is the intriguing possibility that the fundamental scale, $`M`$, identified as the string scale, could be lower than the Planck scale, $`M_P\mathrm{}=(8\pi G_N)^{1/2}`$, by several orders of magnitude , perhaps even of TeV range . This last possibility may provide a new way to solve the hierarchy problem between the electroweak scale and the scale of gravity i.e. both scales being of same order, there is no hierarchy to worry about. The large value of the Planck scale in this picture owes its origin to the existence of very large hidden extra dimensions in nature. The price one has to pay is of course that now one has to understand why the extra dimension(s) is(are) so large. The relation between the fundamental scale, the $`M_P\mathrm{}`$ and the volume of the external space, $`V_n`$, is given by

$$M^{2+n}V_n=M_P\mathrm{}^2.$$
(1.1)
This picture leads to a modification of the inverse square law of gravity at small distances, $`rV_n^{1/n}`$ and can therefore be probed experimentally. If $`M`$ is in the TeV range, string theories become accessible to collider tests. All these make the idea phenomenologically quite attractive. It is therefore interesting to study the cosmology of these models.

One of the first things that one needs to know in order to study the cosmology of these models is the time dependence of the metric. In addition, the metric will also have a dependence on the bulk coordinate $`y`$, even when the bulk is totally empty, simply because the presence of a brane induces a nonzero curvature. It turns out that this fact leads to a variety of interesting consequences for the cosmology of such models . In particular, the new bulk-brane picture seems to drastically modify the standard time evolution law in the brane-confined universe. The five dimensional Einstein equations first studied in  implies that the Hubble parameter $`H`$ is proportional to the density on the brane, $`\rho `$, instead of the usual $`H\sqrt{\rho }`$ of the standard big bang cosmology. Since the successes of the standard cosmology such as nucleosynthesis and the common understanding of subsequent evolution rely crucially on the assumption of $`H\sqrt{\rho }`$, a great deal of work has been devoted to understand how this standard behaviour of $`H`$ can be recovered. Some ideas proposed to solve this problem include cancellation of bulk and brane cosmological constants , consideration of a non zero thickness of the brane  etc. It has also been noted that Friedmann equation could be recovered on the basis of fine tuning of cosmological constants even when the extra dimension is not stable  and no matter in the bulk. However, in the process it has been found that a free parameter $`𝒞`$, a constant of integration, appears in this equation. It contributes to the evolution of the Hubble parameter in the form of an effective radiation term, jeopardizing the cosmic scale parameters. The same arbitrary parameter has been used to study cosmological evolution even when the bulk radius is stable . We reexamine this in this paper. Writing the equations governing the evolution in time, $`t`$ and the fifth coordinate, $`y`$ of the various parameters defining the metric (the analogs of the Friedman-Robertson-Walker (FRW) scale factor), we show that it is possible to get a solution for the metric as a function of the bulk coordinate without any arbitrary constant, if the bulk radius is stable. This is the main result of this brief note. We then point out some of the implications of this result.

This paper is arranged as follows: in section 2, we review Einstein equations in a diagonal metric, commonly used in the literature; in section 3, we look for solutions of Einstein equation keeping the bulk radius stable and obtain an explicit form for the metric which involves only the known FRW scale factor and no extra parameters. We recover the known behaviour for the Hubble parameter, i.e. $`H`$ depends linearly on the brane energy density. We also show that the equation involving the brane-space like components can be derived from the other equations; they reduce to the acceleration equation for the FRW scale factor. Finally, we reconsider some examples already studied in  and rederive the exact solutions for the metric in the prescence of a cosmological constant in the bulk. In section 5, we make some remarks on the general nonfactorizable nature of this solutions.

## II Basic framework

The basic framework for our discussion is a five dimensional space-time where a flat (zero thickness) brane is localized at the position identified as $`y=0`$ along the fifth dimension. Although in this paper, we assume that the extra dimension is compact, this is not crucial for our conclusions and our results also apply when the extra dimension is noncompact.

Since we are interested in the brane cosmology, we start by adopting the cosmological principle of isotropy and homogeneity in the three space dimensions of the brane. The presence of the brane clearly breaks the isotropy along the fifth dimension and this is reflected in the explicit $`y`$ dependence of the metric tensor which we choose to have the following form:

$$ds^2=n^2(y,t)dt^2+a^2(y,t)\gamma _{ij}dx^idx^j+b^2(y,t)dy^2.$$
(2.1)
Here $`\gamma _{ij}=f(r)\delta _{ij}`$, with $`f^1(r)=1kr^2`$ being the usual Robertson-Walker curvature term, where $`k=1,0,1`$; $`t`$ and $`x^i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$ are the time and space-like coordinates along the brane respectively.

The five dimensional Einstein equations take the form

$$G_{AB}=R_{AB}\frac{1}{2}g_{AB}R=\kappa _5^2\left[\widehat{T}_{AB}+T_{\mu \nu }\delta _A^\mu \delta _B^\nu \delta (by)\right],$$
(2.2)
where $`\kappa _5^2=8\pi G_{(5)}=M^3`$ is the five dimensional coupling constant of gravity, $`R_{AB}`$ is the five dimensional Ricci tensor and $`R`$ the scalar curvature, $`A,B=0,1,2,3,4`$ and $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,2,3`$. In conformity with the usual practice, we identify the mass parameter $`M`$ with the string scale. In the last expression the various source terms have been explicitly separated. $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\widehat{T}_{AB}`$ represent the stress-energy-momentum tensors of the brane and bulk respectively. For the scenarios we are going to discuss from now on, it is sufficient to work in the perfect fluid approximation to those tensors

$`\widehat{T}^A_B`$ $`=`$ $`diag(\rho _B,P_B,P_B,P_B,P_T),`$ (2.3)
$`T_{}^{\mu }{}_{\nu }{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`diag(\rho _b,p_b,p_b,p_b).`$ (2.4)
where $`\rho _B`$, $`P_B`$ and $`P_T`$ represent the densities and pressure on the bulk and, respectively, $`\rho _b`$ and $`p_b`$ are those on the brane. Notice that assuming $`\widehat{T}_{04}=0`$ avoids the complication of a matter flux along the fifth dimension.

So far, most of the attention paid to this model in literature appears to have focussed on the case where vacuum energy (a cosmological constant) is the only component of the bulk stress tensor. In general however, all the components of $`T_B^A`$ could be functions of time, if they are in the brane and could depend on both $`t`$ and $`y`$ if they describe the bulk . Therefore, in our analysis, we will keep the energy-momentum tensor dependent on $`t`$ (and $`y`$ for the bulk terms). It is of course straightforward to see that more branes could be considered by including their corresponding stress tensors in Eq. (2.2) and our discussion below easily generalises to this case.

In order to solve the Einstein equations on the presence of the delta-function type densities, we proceed as follows. First we observe that the brane divides the bulk into two different domains, where the only source is $`\widehat{T}_{AB}`$. We then solve the equations in each domain separately, and impose the boundary conditions at the brane to get the global solution. This also helps to define the metric on the brane itself. First, the metric tensor, $`g`$, clearly should be continuous, i.e. the solutions must satisfy

$$g_{AB}(y=0^{})=g_{AB}(y=0^+).$$
(2.5)
Next, as has already been noted, since $`G_{AB}`$ involves up to second derivatives on the metric tensor with respect of $`y`$, we must use them to match the delta function distributions . Technically speaking this means that the extrinsic curvature $`K_{AB}`$ in the Gauss-Codacci formulation  should be discontinuous at the position of the branes. Then, by integrating Eq. (2.2) at both sides of the brane, we will get matching conditions for the first derivatives. This leads to the constraint

$$_0^{}^{0+}𝑑ybG_{\mu \nu }=\kappa _5^2T_{\mu \nu }.$$
(2.6)
To evaluate this integral we should assume that all other terms not involving second derivatives on $`y`$ are finite.

Typically, a parity symmetry $`P:yy`$ is assumed as in the Horava-Witten model . Physically, this symmetry could be seen as a residual effect of the broken isotropy along the fifth dimension, as in the $`S^1/Z_2`$ orbifold construction of ref.. We will assume this hereafter. In the presence of other branes that explicitly break this symmetry, our discussions have to be reconsidered depending on the number of branes.

Let us now proceed to the details. Using the above form of the bulk stress tensor, the non trivial components of the Einstein equations (away from the brane) are given as

$`G_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`3\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{b^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{b^{}}{b}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}}\right]+k{\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{a^2}}\right\}=\kappa _5^2n^2\rho _B,`$ (2.7)
$`G_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{b^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\left(2{\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{n}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{b^{}}{b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{n}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\right)+2{\displaystyle \frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n^{\prime \prime }}{n}}\right\}\gamma _{ij}+`$ (2.9)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{n^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\left(2{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{n}}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{n}}{n}}2{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)2{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}\right\}\gamma _{ij}k\gamma _{ij}=\kappa _5^2a^2P_B\gamma _{ij},`$
$`G_{04}`$ $`=`$ $`3\left({\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}^{}}{a}}\right)=0,`$ (2.10)
$`G_{44}`$ $`=`$ $`3\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{n}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{n^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{n}}{n}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}\right]k{\displaystyle \frac{b^2}{a^2}}\right\}=\kappa _5^2b^2P_T;`$ (2.11)
where primes (dots) are used to denote derivatives with respect to $`y`$ ($`t`$). This system of equations is supplemented by the Bianchi identity $`\widehat{T}_{B;A}^A=0`$, which translates into the conservation laws

$`\dot{\rho }_B+3{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\left(\rho _B+P_B\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\left(\rho _B+P_T\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (2.12)
$`P_T^{}+3{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}\left(P_TP_B\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{n^{}}{n}}\left(P_T+\rho _B\right)=0`$ (2.13)
Next, by using Eq. (2.6), the following boundary conditions are easily obtained

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }a^{}}{ab}}|_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}}\rho _b,`$ (2.14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }n^{}}{nb}}|_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}}(3p_b+2\rho _b);`$ (2.15)
where the left hand side of the above equations has to be evaluated at the position of the brane, and the function $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^{}(0):=a^{}(0^+)a^{}(0^{})`$ give the size of the jump of the derivative of $`a(y)`$. The same applies for $`\mathrm{\Delta }n^{}`$. Since we are assuming $`P`$ parity, the jump on the above equations could be expressed in terms of the limiting value on one side of the brane, for instance by $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^{}(0)=2a^{}(0^+)`$, and a similar relation for $`\mathrm{\Delta }n^{}(0)`$.

Let us notice that if we use the above boundary conditions, we may evaluate equation (2.10) on the brane to get the conservation equation

$$\dot{\rho }_b+3\frac{\dot{a}}{a}(p_b+\rho _b)=0.$$
(2.16)
This is a general result that is independent of the bulk content. In the subsequent discussion, we will assume that the bulk is stable and use the freedom of coordinate redefinition to set $`b=1`$. This condition will simplify the Einstein equations making it easier to extract its physical meaning, as we will see later.

## III Master equations of brane cosmology

Once we assume that the fifth dimension is stable, we can follow standard procedure as in four dimensional cosmology to reduce the equations given in the last section to a minimal set. First, notice that the conservation laws (2.12), (2.13) and (2.16), will have $`\dot{b}=0`$. Taking $`b=1`$, we notice that the $`G_{00}`$ component (Eq. 2.7) of the Einstein equations is already the equivalent of the Friedmann equation, with the Hubble parameter defined as a function of $`y`$. However, the presence of the brane will require that the term with second derivative be regularized by extracting the divergent part. The Friedmann equation then has the form

$$H^2(y):=\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}n^2\rho _B+n^2\left[\left(\frac{a^{}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{a_R^{\prime \prime }}{a}\right]k\frac{n^2}{a^2};$$
(3.1)
where $`a_R^{\prime \prime }`$ stands for the regular part of the function. Clearly, we recognize an expression similar to that given early . However, let us stress that there is no unknown constant of integration as in . Also, we may identify the regular term as the contribution of the Weyl tensor of the bulk . Since this expression is continuous, thanks to parity symmetry, we may evaluate it on the brane to get the effective Friedmann equation of our universe, where the time component of the metric tensor is chosen to be $`n_0=1`$:

$$H_0^2=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}\rho _{B0}+\left(\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\rho _b\right)^2+\left(\frac{a_R^{\prime \prime }}{a}\right)_0\frac{k}{a_0^2},$$
(3.2)
where the subindex $`0`$ stand for the evaluation at $`y=0`$. As already known, this expression has the squared dependence on the brane density. On the other hand, it also has a dependence on the metric outside (i.e. in the bulk), through $`a_R^{\prime \prime }`$, which however could be evaluated, once we solve for $`a`$ as a function of $`y`$. Particularly, for simple cases as an empty bulk, the $`y`$ dependence can be explicitly extracted and this term evaluated.

Next, let us consider the equation involving $`G_{ij}`$, (2.9). Again, we separate the singular and the regular parts of the second derivative term and by introducing (3.1) we reduce this equation to a form equivalent to the acceleration equation given by

$$\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\left(3P_B+\rho _B\right)n^2+n^2\left(\frac{a^{}}{a}\frac{n^{}}{n}\right)+H\frac{\dot{n}}{n}+\frac{n^2}{2}\left[\frac{a_R^{\prime \prime }}{a}+\frac{n_R^{\prime \prime }}{n}\right].$$
(3.3)
Note that, as in the standard FRW cosmology, this is not an independent equation. Indeed, it can be derived by taking the time derivative of (3.1) and combining that expression with the energy conservation law (2.12) and $`G_{04}`$ equation (2.10). This derivation holds regardless of whether the bulk radius is constant or changing with time. As a result, this equation does not provide any extra information, but it will be useful in what follows.

We now turn to the equation involving $`G_{44}`$, (2.11). In conjunction with the equation involving $`G_{04}`$, this represents the new ingredient of the brane cosmology and can be a window to understand the $`y`$ dependence of the cosmological parameters. Notice that our procedure is in contrast to that used in previous works where the Friedmann equation has been obtained from $`G_{44}`$ component. If we substitute Eqs. (3.1) and (3.3) in the equation for the $`G_{44}`$ component (Eq. (2.9)), we find a simple equation that governs the behaviour of $`a(y,t)`$ and $`n(y,t)`$ on the bulk (into each one of the domains). It is given by

$$3\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}+\frac{n^{\prime \prime }}{n}=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}\left(3P_B2P_T\rho _B\right).$$
(3.4)
This expression is supplemented by $`G_{04}`$ which trivialy reduces to

$$n(y,t)=\lambda (t)\dot{a}(y,t),$$
(3.5)
where $`\lambda (t)`$ is an arbitrary function of time. Using the freedom of fixing the gauge on the coordinate system, we can set $`n_0=1`$ in which case we get $`\lambda =\dot{a}_0^1`$. However in most of the results this choice is not necessary at all.

Let us emphasize that Eqs. (3.1), (3.4) and (3.5) form the set of master equations, in the sense that they determine the $`t`$ and $`y`$ dependence of the metric. We study the solutions of these equations in the next section.

## IV Exact solutions on the bulk

As a simple application of our master equations let us reconsider the cases already studied in the literature. Let us assume that the stress tensor of the bulk gets contribution only from a cosmological constant, $`\widehat{T}^A{}_{B}{}^{}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_B\delta _B^A`$. Then, Eq. (3.4) reduces into

$$3\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}+\frac{n^{\prime \prime }}{n}=\frac{2}{3}\kappa _5^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_B.$$
(4.1)
This equation, together with the scaling equation (3.5), can be solved in a straightforward manner. For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B=0`$ we get a linear solution just as in

$$a(y,t)=A|y|+B;n=\lambda \left(\dot{A}|y|+\dot{B}\right).$$
(4.2)
Here we have already imposed $`P`$ (parity) symmetry on the solution. Next, by using the boundary conditions (2.14) and (2.15) we get the final result

$$a(y,t)=a_0\left(1\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\rho _b|y|\right);\text{and}n(y,t)=n_0\left(1+\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}(3p_b+2\rho _b)|y|\right).$$
(4.3)
Notice that in the expression for $`n`$ requiring consistency with the scaling (3.5) leads to the conservation law

$$\dot{\rho }_b+3H_0(p_b+\rho _b)=0.$$
(4.4)
Note that $`a_R^{\prime \prime }=0`$ in this case, and there is no obvious way to get the correct Friedmann equation (3.2) (i.e. linear rather than squared dependence of $`H^2`$ on $`\rho _b`$).

Next, we assume that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B`$ is non zero. Again (4.1) is easy to solve, and after using the boundary conditions, we get for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B<0`$

$`a(y,t)`$ $`=`$ $`a_0\left(\mathrm{cosh}(\mu |y|){\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _5^2}{6\mu }}\rho _b\mathrm{sinh}(\mu |y|)\right),`$ (4.5)
$`n(y,t)`$ $`=`$ $`n_0\left(\mathrm{cosh}(\mu |y|)+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _5^2}{6\mu }}(3p_b+2\rho _b)\mathrm{sinh}(\mu |y|)\right);`$ (4.6)
where $`\mu ^2=\kappa _5^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_B/6`$. We recognize those solution presented by Binetruy et al. in  when they take their integration constant as zero. Our finding is that this is the only allowed solution with a stable extra dimension. In this case, the condition (3.5) reduces to (4.4). For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B>0`$ the solutions have a similar form, with the hyperbolic functions replaced by $`\mathrm{cos}`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}`$ respectively.

If we also assume a brane tension, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$, the Friedmann equation on the brane becomes

$$H_0^2=\frac{\kappa _5^4}{18}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\rho _b+\frac{\kappa _5^4}{36}\rho _b^2\frac{k}{a_0^2}+\frac{\kappa _5^4}{36}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2+\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\mathrm{\Lambda }_B.$$
(4.7)
We emphasize that this result shows that $`𝒞`$, the unknown constant found in  is actually zero. A fine tunning among the cosmological constants

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_B=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^2$$
(4.8)
may linearize the Friedmann equation in the limit where $`\rho _b\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$. As it is clear, this will work only if the vacuum energy of the bulk is negative. Moreover, to get the right expression of the Friedmann equation as in standard cosmology, an extra fine tunning

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_b=6\frac{\kappa _4^2}{\kappa _5^4}$$
(4.9)
is required, where $`\kappa _4^2=M_P\mathrm{}^2`$. With those new assumptions the solution (4.6) reduces into

$`a=a_0\left(e^{\mu |y|}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _b}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}}\mathrm{sinh}(\mu |y|)\right)`$ (4.10)
$`n=n_0\left(e^{\mu |y|}+{\displaystyle \frac{3p_b+2\rho _b}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}}\mathrm{sinh}(\mu |y|)\right)`$ (4.11)
Clearly, if we neglect the contribution of the brane densities, we identify the Randall-Sundrum static solutions

$$a=a_0e^{\mu |y|}\text{and}n=n_0e^{\mu |y|}.$$
(4.12)
So far we have only been concerned with finding solutions of the five dimensional cosmological equations with an empty bulk. If we wanted to include a bulk field, e.g. to provide a new picture of inflation, one would have a modified form of the Equation 3.4:

$$3\frac{a^{\prime \prime }}{a}+\frac{n^{\prime \prime }}{n}=2\frac{\kappa _5^2}{3}\left(V(\varphi )+\mathrm{\Lambda }_B\right).$$
(4.13)
Clearly, if the scalar field evolves very slowly, e.g in the inflation epoch, the solution will be approximately of the form (4.6), but now with

$$\mu ^2=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\left(V(\varphi )+\mathrm{\Lambda }_B\right).$$
(4.14)
By setting the fine tunning (4.8) on (3.2) we get

$$H_0^2=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}V(\varphi (0))\frac{k}{a_0^2}+\frac{\kappa _5^4}{18}\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\rho _b+\frac{\kappa _5^4}{36}\rho _b^2.$$
(4.15)
As expected, the inflaton potential contributes linearly to last equation, and the effective potential is just the value of the bulk potential on the brane.

## V Non factorization of the metric parameters

Before closing the present discussion, let us comment briefly on the nature of the exact solutions. First we point out that all the solutions presented on the previous section are not factorizable. This is in fact a general property of this class of models as we will show now. For this purpose, let us start with case when the bulk radius $`b`$ is time dependent and we will see that factorization of the metric parameters $`n(y,t)`$ and $`a(y,t)`$ will not be consistent with a stable $`b`$. For this purpose, we start with the identity

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{a^{}}{a}\right)=\frac{\dot{a}^{}}{a}\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\frac{a^{}}{a};$$
(5.1)
which, together with the $`G_{04}`$ equation leads to

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{a^{}}{a}\right)=H\left(\frac{n^{}}{n}\frac{a^{}}{a}\right)+\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\frac{a^{}}{a}.$$
(5.2)
Note that this expression reduces to Eq. (2.16) on the brane.

Now, let us assume that $`a`$ and $`n`$ are factorizable i.e.

$$a=a_0(t)\beta _1(y)n=n_0(t)\beta _2(y).$$
(5.3)
One can then easily see that

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{a^{}}{a}\right)=0.$$
(5.4)
This can be used to rewrite Eq. (5.2) as

$$\frac{\dot{b}}{b}+H_0\left(\frac{\beta _1\beta _2^{}}{\beta _1^{}\beta _2}1\right)=0.$$
(5.5)
This equation can be integrated in a straightforward manner and leads to

$$b=a_0^{\beta _3(y)};$$
(5.6)
where $`\beta _3`$ is given in terms of $`\beta _{1,2}`$ by the expression between parenthesis in (5.5). From this, we conclude that the factorization ansatz works when the bulk radius, $`b`$ is time dependent since clearly $`a_0`$ grows with time. A stable $`b`$ would then mean that $`\beta _3`$ must equal zero, which is possible only if $`\beta _1=\beta _2`$. Furthermore, since Eq. (5.4) holds everywhere, we may evaluate it on the brane and then conclude using Eq. (2.12) that $`\dot{\rho }_b=0`$. From this, it follows that factorizability of $`n(y,t)`$ and $`a(y,t)`$ proposed above implies that only a cosmological constant may be present in the brane. Since we require a true time dependent density in the brane to describe realistic cosmology e.g. the transition from a radiation to matter dominated universe, the exact solution to the metric can not be factorizable.

Parenthetically, let us note that if we had chosen a more general form for the exact solutions

$$a=a_0(t)\beta _1(y,t)n=n_0(t)\beta _2(y,t);$$
(5.7)
where the functions $`\beta _{1,2}`$ satisfy the boundary condition $`\beta _1(0,t)=\beta _2(0,t)=1`$, no such restriction on brane energy density would emerge. This is indeed the form of the solutions discussed above. For this case, the five dimensional scalar curvature can be written as

$$R=\beta _2^2R_{(4)}+\mathrm{};$$
(5.8)
where $`R_{(4)}`$ is the four dimensional scalar curvature formed by $`a_0`$ and $`n_0`$, the dots represent extra terms.

At this point, we note a puzzling feature with regard to the true definition of the Newton’s constant. One can define the Newton’s constant in two ways: one by identifying the coefficient in front of the energy density in Friedmann equation and another way is by integrating over the fifth dimension in the action integral. We call the first definition a “local” one whereas the second one we call “global”. Clearly in the presence of matter, the first one gives a constant $`G_N`$ whereas the second gives a time-dependent $`G_N`$. We can check this easily as follows. Consider the gravity action in five dimensions

$$S=d^4x𝑑y\sqrt{g}\frac{1}{2\kappa _5^2}R,$$
(5.9)
Using the relation

$$\sqrt{g}=\sqrt{g_4}\beta _1^3\beta _2$$
(5.10)
(with $`g_4`$ the determinant of the corresponding four dimensional metric) and Eq. (5.8), we obtain

$$\frac{1}{\kappa _4^2}=\frac{1}{\kappa _5^2}𝑑y\beta _1^3\beta _2^1$$
(5.11)
adopting the “global” definition of Newton’s constant. The integral in the last equation is taken over the whole fifth dimension. It is clear from the above expression, that this leads, in general to a time dependent Newton’s constant whereas if we used Friedmann equation, we would get it to be time independent. We wish to note that when one uses the static solution, a lá Randall and Sundrum, there is no time dependence due to the absence of matter and hence no puzzle.

## VI conclusions

In summary, we have analyzed Einstein equations for cosmology in five dimensions within a brane-bulk picture. Restricting to the case of a stable bulk radius, we extract the generalized Friedmann equation which does not contain any integration constant, but a term that involves a regular part of the second derivative over the spatial component of the metric along the brane coordinates. We then evaluate this second derivative using the complete set of the master equations for five dimensional cosmology and find that for the case of a stable bulk radius, there is no arbitrary constant in the Friedmann equation in the brane. This makes it easier to interpret the brane cosmology as the standard big bang picture. An advantage of our analysis is that we do not need to make any explicit assumptions regarding the bulk content. In this sense it generalizes the results presented before in the literature where only a cosmological constant was assumed to be present in the bulk to obtain the Friedmann equation. Finally we make some remarks on the general nonfactorizable nature of the exact solutions.

Acknowledgements. The work of RNM is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation under grant number PHY-9802551. The work of APL is supported in part by CONACyT (México). The work of CP is supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). We wish to thank C. Van de Bruck and S. Pastor for discussions.