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# Comparative Studies of Lensing Methods

## I Introduction

In this paper, three different approaches to gravitational lensing are compared in test cases with one or two lenses. The three approaches include a recently introduced exact approach , which we will take as representing correct values in our comparisons, the thin lens approximation commonly used in lensing, and a new iterative technique whose zeroth iterate is given by the thin lens approximation . An outline of these three methods will be given in Section II.

A recent paper by Frittelli, Kling, and Newman  discusses lensing in a Schwarzschild geometry and compares the exact approach with the standard thin lens approximation, a second order thin lens approximation, and a strong-field version of the thin lens approximation introduced by Virbhadra and Ellis . In Schwarzschild spacetimes, it was found that the first and second order thin lens approximations fail dramatically when the light rays encounter strong gravitational fields. However, the strong-field version of Virbhadra and Ellis, which is a hybrid lensing approach using some exact and some thin lens ideas, performed remarkably well in predicting the observation angle of a given source for a given observer and lens, even when the light ray circles the lens many times. In addition, it was found that the errors in the time delays predicted by the thin lens approximation compared with the values predicted by the exact method were small for cases resembling current observational scenarios, but, as the impact parameter was reduced, the error introduced by using the thin lens approximation became appreciable.

Here we are interested in studying the accuracy of the thin lens and iterative approaches to gravitational lensing in more detail. Specifically, we wish to address two questions:

1. Are the intrinsic errors introduced by using the thin lens approximation of comparable size to the observational errors present today or in the near future?
2. Are the corrections for lens structure, given in terms of higher multipole moments or some mass distribution function, utilized by the thin lens method, comparable to the inherent errors in the thin lens approximation?

With each of these questions, we are also interested in seeing if the iterative approach provides a significant improvement in accuracy. We will not examine the accuracy of other approximate techniques in the literature .

At this point, we do not wish to imply that the work presented here should be taken as a serious attempt at modeling real lens systems. Our intention is to study the accuracy of the thin lens and iterative methods in simple test cases and to determine whether more detailed studies should be undertaken.

To address these issues, several test cases involving one or two lenses will be examined. Three different lens configurations will be compared:

a single spherically symmetric lens,

two identical lenses spatially collinear with the observer in two different lens planes,

two identical lenses located in a single lens plane.

For each of these scenarios, we will consider several comparisons:

the source location predicted by each method given the same lens configuration, observer, and observation angle,

the time delays between two rays predicted by each method given the same lens configuration, observer, and (two) observation angles.

the magnification (relative to an unlensed ray) predicted by each method given the same lens configuration, observer, and observation angle.

Section III will be devoted to these comparisons. The issue of the accuracy of the thin lens approximation was raised in Chapter 9 of , where a footnote reference is given to the work of P. Haines. One motivation of this paper is to extend the studies cited there.

In general, we find that, in the observational regime, the thin lens and iterative approaches are very accurate when applied to lensing by a single monopole lens and combination of two monopole lenses. In most cases studied, the iterative method provided only a minimal improvement over the thin lens method. However, when two lenses in separate, but closely spaced, lens planes are modeled in the thin lens approximation by a mass distribution compressed into one lens plane, observationally significant errors were found.

## II Lensing Approaches

In this section, we give brief outlines of the thin lens, exact and iterative approaches to lensing. For convenience, we will set $`G=c=1`$ in our equations, although, in our final comparisons we will return to physical units (meters, days). Our convention for the signature of the metric is $`(+,,,)`$.

### A The thin lens approximation

The thin lens approximation is the standard approach to gravitational lensing used by astrophysicists. In this subsection, we will only outline its basic premises and indicate several particular assumptions which we will use in our comparisons in Section III. Very thorough and pedagogical presentations of the thin lens methodology and its applications can be found in the excellent book by Falco, Schneider and Ehlers  and a paper by Blandford and Narayan .

In the standard approach, the lens is treated as a weak perturbation of a background spacetime. For convenience, two kinds of spatial planes are introduced: a source plane, where potential sources lie, and lens planes containing lensing bodies.

Kinematically possible paths from an observer at the point O to a source at a point S in the source plane will be connected, piecewise smooth segments of geodesics in the background space. For example, if there is one lens plane, the trajectories from S to O will pass through the lens plane at the image point I, as shown in Fig. 1. The paths from S to I and from I to O are geodesics in the background metric with no influence from the lens. The only influence of the lens on the trajectory occurs at I, where the direction of the geodesic is instantaneously changed by an amount determined by a bending angle. The thin lens bending angle is a function of a mass distribution in the lens plane and the point I.

For a single, spherically symmetric lens with mass $`m`$, the bending angle, $`\alpha `$, is given by

$$\alpha =\frac{4m}{|\stackrel{}{\xi }_o|},$$
(1)
where $`|\stackrel{}{\xi }_o|`$ is the magnitude of the two dimensional vector in the lens plane locating the point I relative to the lens. This bending angle is the first order bending angle obtained in a Schwarzschild spacetime between the future and past asymptotes of a null ray connecting points at future and past null infinity. If there are many monopole lenses in the plane located at $`\stackrel{}{\xi }_i`$ with masses $`m_i`$, the bending angle is given by adding the first order contributions of the individual bending angles

$$\stackrel{}{\alpha }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{4m_i}{|\stackrel{}{\xi }_i\stackrel{}{\xi }_o|^2}(\stackrel{}{\xi }_i\stackrel{}{\xi }_o).$$
(2)
The vectorial bending angle, $`\stackrel{}{\alpha }`$, gives the two dimensional bending angle in the lens plane. Note that if there is more that one lens plane, the bending angle in each plane will be influenced only by the lenses in that plane. Continuous mass distributions are obtained by replacing the summation in Eq. (2) by an integral and integrating a mass distribution over the entire lens plane.

If the mass distribution is known, the entire thin lens trajectory can be codified into a lens equation. If $`\stackrel{}{\theta }`$ is an angle locating the image of a lensed source and $`\stackrel{}{\beta }`$ is the “observation angle in the absence of the lens” given in Fig. 1, the lens equation for one lens plane is

$$\stackrel{}{\beta }=\stackrel{}{\theta }\frac{D_{ls}}{D_s}\stackrel{}{\alpha }.$$
(3)
An important quantity in lensing is the time which elapses between the emission of the light ray and its interception by the observer, or the time of arrival. Although we will not use the ideas here, the time of arrival serves as a Fermat potential from which one can derive the lens equation, Eq. (3). Individual arrival times are not an observable, but the time delay between two images of the same source is an important quantity which has been measured in several lens systems . (The time delay can be used, with other observations, to determine the Hubble constant.)

Returning to the general case with many lenses in many lens planes, the time of arrival in the thin lens approximation is given by

$$t=_{SIO}(1+2U(l))𝑑l,$$
(4)
where $`U(l)`$ is the Newtonian potential of the mass distribution, and the integral is taken along the thin lens trajectory parameterized by an Euclidean length $`l`$ from the source at $`S`$ to through the image point at $`I`$ to the observer at $`O`$. For a collection of masses, the Newtonian potential is

$$U(l)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{m_i}{|\stackrel{}{r}(l)\stackrel{}{r}_i|}.$$
(5)
In Eq. (5), $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ is a three dimensional vector locating lenses relative to some origin while $`\stackrel{}{r}(l)`$ is the vector locating points along the thin lens path parameterized by a Euclidean length along the trajectory. Time delays are given by the difference in two such times.

In this paper, we will choose Minkowski spacetime as our background. We do not anticipate that there would be significant differences in our results using Robertson-Walker or on-average Robertson-Walker metrics as the background spacetime, although we have not examined this question.

### B Exact lensing

The key difference between the exact approach to gravitational lensing and the thin lens approximation is that, in the exact approach, the lens is fully incorporated into a metric satisfying Einstein’s equations. In this way, no background / lens splitting is introduced and no quantities defined in the thin lens method as “in the absence of a lens” have meaning.

Lensing information in the exact approach is obtained by integrating the null geodesic equations of the metric . A particular parametric form of the null geodesic equations are defined to be the lens and time of arrival equations. It can be shown that in a Schwarzschild spacetime, the lens and time of arrival equations can be expressed parametrically in local, timelike coordinates as

$`t`$ $`=`$ $`T(R,\theta _o,\varphi _o,x_o^a)`$ (6)
$`x^i`$ $`=`$ $`X^i(R,\theta _o,\varphi _o,x_o^a)`$ (7)
where $`(t,x^i)`$ label points on the past light cone of an observer located at $`x_o^a`$ . The two “angular parameters,” $`(\theta _o,\varphi _o)`$, represent the direction on an observer’s celestial sphere where the image is observed, and $`R`$ can be taken as a physical distance to the source such as the angular-diameter distance. Equation (6) is defined to be the exact time of arrival equation while Eqs. (7) are the exact lens equations.

The first comparison which we will consider in this paper is lensing in Schwarzschild spacetimes. The time of arrival and lens equations for a Schwarzschild spacetime can be found in closed form by integrating the null geodesics of the Schwarzschild metric using its symmetries ; however, in the current work, we will not use these closed form expressions for the lens and time of arrival equations. Instead, we will solve the null geodesic equations by forming a Hamiltonian,

$$H(x^c,p_c)=g^{ab}(x^c)p_ap_b,$$
(8)
and numerically solving Hamilton’s equations of motion. Null geodesics are obtained when the initial conditions, $`(x_o^a,p_a^o)`$, satisfy

$$H(x_o^c,p_c^o)=0.$$
(9)
We will refer to the numerical integrations of the geodesic equations as the “exact” approach or method.

By performing a coordinate transformation,

$`t`$ $`=`$ $`t`$ (10)
$`r`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{x^2+y^2+z^2}`$ (11)
$`\theta `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}{z}}`$ (12)
$`\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}{\displaystyle \frac{y}{x}},`$ (13)
we can write the Schwarzschild metric as

$$g^{ab}(x^a)=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1/(1\frac{2m}{r})& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 1+\frac{2mx^2}{r^3}& \frac{2mxy}{r^3}& \frac{2mxz}{r^3}\\ 0& \frac{2mxy}{r^3}& 1+\frac{2my^2}{r^3}& \frac{2myz}{r^3}\\ 0& \frac{2mxz}{r^3}& \frac{2myz}{r^3}& 1+\frac{2mz^2}{r^3}\end{array}\right).$$
(14)
These coordinates are useful for comparing the “exact” method to the thin lens and iterative methods. Hence, we solve Hamilton’s equations of motion in a $`(t,x,y,z)`$ coordinate system which is adapted to comparisons with the thin lens and iterative approaches.

We are also interested in comparing the three lensing methodologies in situations with more than one lens. Since there are no exact solutions to Einstein’s equations to meet these lensing configurations, one can not apply the exact methodology. For these cases, we will consider approximate metrics whose null geodesics are solved using Hamilton’s equations of motion. In these cases, we will call the numerical solution to Hamilton’s equations for null geodesics of the approximate metric the “exact” time of arrival and lens equations.

### C Iterative approach

The iterative approach seeks to improve upon the thin lens approximation and can be applied to any approximate solution to Einstein’s equations which is close to a spacetime in which the exact method can be employed. In this paper, we will focus on the first iterate only, although higher iterates can be obtained. Details on the iterative approach, including equations for the first iterate method applied to a Schwarzschild spacetime, can be found in .

The general method is to assume that the spacetime of interest, $`(M,g^{ab})`$, is close to some spacetime, $`(M,g_o^{ab})`$, where the geodesic equations can be solved exactly. This means that we can write the metric $`g^{ab}`$ as

$`g^{ab}(x^c)=g_o^{ab}(x^c)+h^{ab}(x^c)`$

where the components of $`h^{ab}(x^c)`$ are small.

One begins the iterative method by forming the Hamiltonians in both spacetimes,

$$H(x^c,p_c)=g^{ab}(x^c)p_ap_b=g_o^{ab}(x^c)p_ap_b+h^{ab}(x^c)p_ap_b$$
(15)
$$H_o(x^c,p_c)=g_o^{ab}(x^c)p_ap_b,$$
(16)
and solving the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in $`(M,g_o^{ab})`$:

$$g_o^{ab}(x^c)\frac{F}{x^a}\frac{F}{x^b}+\frac{F}{\lambda }=0.$$
(17)
In spacetimes in which the geodesic equations can be solved, one can always find a solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation of the form

$$F=F_o(x^c,P_c,\lambda )$$
(18)
in which $`\lambda `$ is a parameter and $`P_c`$ are four constants. This function can be taken as the generating function for a parameter dependent, canonical transformation,

$$(x^c,p_c)(X^c,P_c).$$
(19)
If $`(M,g_o^{ab})`$ is taken to be Minkowski spacetime, $`(M,\eta ^{ab})`$, the solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, Eq. (17) is

$$F_o(x^c,P_c,\lambda )=x^aP_a\eta ^{ab}P_aP_b\lambda ,$$
(20)
and the canonical transformation to the coordinates $`(X^c,P_c)`$ is given by

$`x^a`$ $`=`$ $`X^a2\eta ^{ab}P_b\lambda `$ (21)
$`p_a`$ $`=`$ $`P_a.`$ (22)
When this canonical transformation is applied to the Hamiltonian in $`(M,g^{ab})`$, the transformed Hamiltonian takes a particularly simple form

$$H(x^c,p_c)H^{}(X^cP_c,\lambda )=h^{ab}(X^c,P_c,\lambda )P_aP_b.$$
(23)
Hamilton’s equations for geodesics in the $`(X^a,P_a)`$ coordinates are

$`\dot{X}^a`$ $`=`$ $`2h^{ab}(X^c,P_c,\lambda )P_b+\left({\displaystyle \frac{h^{bc}}{P_a}}(X^c,P_c,\lambda )\right)P_bP_c\mathrm{\Xi }^a(X^a,P_a,\lambda )`$ (24)
$`\dot{P}_a`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{h^{bc}}{X^a}}(X^c,P_c,\lambda )\right)P_bP_c\mathrm{\Pi }_a(X^a,P_a,\lambda ).`$ (25)
No approximations have been made to obtain these equations.

We wish to solve Hamilton’s equations, Eqs. (25), by iteration. For the zeroth iterate, we must specify eight functions

$`X_0^a`$ $`=`$ $`X_0^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )`$ (26)
$`P_a^0`$ $`=`$ $`P_a^0(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ),`$ (27)
and substitute these functions of $`\lambda `$ and initial conditions, $`x_o^a=X_o^a`$ and $`p_a^o=P_a^o`$, into the right hand side of Hamilton’s equations, Eqs. (25). (Care should be taken to choose the eight functions serving as the zeroth iterate close to the true description of the path of the null geodesic.) The first iterate is obtained by direct integration on $`\lambda `$:

$`X_1^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`X_o^a+{\displaystyle _0^\lambda }𝑑\lambda ^{}\mathrm{\Xi }^a(X_0^a,P_a^0,\lambda ^{})`$ (28)
$`P_a^1(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`P_a^o+{\displaystyle _0^\lambda }𝑑\lambda ^{}\mathrm{\Pi }_a(X_0^a,P_a^0,\lambda ^{}).`$ (29)
Likewise, the $`n`$th iterate is obtained by placing $`(X_{n1}^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ),P_a^{n1}(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ))`$ into the right hand side of Eqs. (25) and integrating up.

The $`n`$th iterate solution to Hamilton’s equations in the original spacetime coordinates, $`(x^a,p_a)`$, is obtained by placing $`(X_n^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ),P_a^n(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ))`$ into the canonical transformation, Eq. (21) and (22):

$`x_n^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`X_n^a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )2\eta ^{ab}P_b^n(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )\lambda `$ (30)
$`p_a(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`P_a^n(X_o^a,P_a^o,\lambda ).`$ (31)
In these equations, $`(X_o^a=x_o^a,P_a^o=p_a^o)`$ are the initial values for the approximate geodesic. When these initial conditions satisfy the null condition on the Hamiltonian in Eq. (15),

$$H(X_o^a=x_o^a,P_a^o=p_a^o,\lambda =0)=g^{00}(x_o^a)(p_0^o)^2+g^{ij}(x_o^a)p_i^op_j^o=0,$$
(32)
the geodesics are approximately null. Solving Eq. (32) for $`p_0^o`$ yields

$$p_0^o=\sqrt{\frac{g^{ij}(x_o^i)p_i^op_j^o}{g^{00}(x_o^a)}}.$$
(33)
We will make use of this expression below.

To make a deeper connection with lensing, we will take the thin lens path as the zeroth iterate. As an example, we show the explicit zeroth iterate for the case of one spherical lens in one lens plane.

For one spherically symmetric lens, the thin lens path would be given by

$`x_{(1)}^i`$ $`=`$ $`x_o^i2\delta ^{ij}p_j^o\lambda 0<\lambda <\lambda _1`$ (34)
$`x_{(2)}^i`$ $`=`$ $`x_{(1max)}^i2\delta ^{ij}\stackrel{~}{p}_j^o\lambda 0<\lambda ,`$ (35)
where $`x_{(1)}^i`$ describes the first leg (to the lens plane), $`x_{(2)}^i`$ describes the second leg away from the lens plane and $`(x_o^i,p_i^o)`$ are constant initial conditions. If we locate the observer at $`|z_o|`$ on the $`\widehat{z}`$ axis, we can use spherical symmetry to consider geodesics in the $`\widehat{x}`$-$`\widehat{z}`$ plane. Then the $`z=0`$ plane is the lens plane, and the value of $`\lambda _1`$ is

$$\lambda _1=\frac{|z_o|}{2p_z^o}.$$
(36)
We also have that

$$x_{(1max)}^i=x_o^i\frac{\delta ^{ij}p_j^o|z_o|}{p_z^o}.$$
(37)
Using the bending angle, $`\alpha =2m/|x_{(1max)}^i|`$, the $`\stackrel{~}{p}_j^o`$ will be determined up to scaling through the Minkowski spatial inner product between $`p_j^o`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{p}_j^o`$:

$$\mathrm{cos}\alpha =\frac{(p_x^o)(\stackrel{~}{p}_x^o)+(p_z^o)(\stackrel{~}{p}_z^o)}{|p_i^o||\stackrel{~}{p}_i^o|}.$$
(38)
If we multiply and divide the right hand side in Eq. (38) by $`1/(p_z^o\stackrel{~}{p}_z^o)`$ and define

$`p={\displaystyle \frac{p_x^o}{p_z^o}}\mathrm{and}\stackrel{~}{p}={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{p}_x^o}{\stackrel{~}{p}_z^o}},`$

Eq. (38) is equivalent to a quadratic equation for $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$ in terms of $`p`$ and $`\alpha `$. Solving this equation gives

$$\stackrel{~}{p}=\frac{p\pm \mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{sin}\alpha \sqrt{(1+p^2)^2}}{\mathrm{cos}^2\alpha p^2\mathrm{sin}^2\alpha }.$$
(39)
We now return to the issue of the value of $`p_0^o=P_0^o`$. In this paper, the iterative method will only be applied to stationary spacetimes. Hence, the timelike coordinate, $`t`$, will not appear in the original Hamiltonian, Eq. (15), and $`T`$, the canonically transformed variable, will not appear in the transformed Hamiltonian, Eq. (23). As $`T`$ is cyclic, the time equation, $`(\dot{T})`$, will separate from the spatial equations. Moreover, because $`T`$ does not appear in the Hamiltonian,

$`\dot{P}_0={\displaystyle \frac{H^{}}{T}}`$

will be identically zero so that $`P_0=p_0`$ is constant. The value of this constant must be chosen to make the trajectory null, as in Eq. (33). However, there is an inherent scaling freedom of the null vector which permits us to define new four-momenta, $`p_a^{}_{}{}^{}o`$ which are a constant multiple of the old one.

It is customary to fix the freedom in the scaling of the null vector by defining $`p_0^o^{}=1`$. Then in the case of a single monopole lens, the equation

$$p_0^o1=\sqrt{\frac{g^{ij}(x_o^a)p_i^op_i^o}{g^{00}(x_o^a)}},$$
(40)
gives an equation for the initial $`p_z^o`$ in terms of the $`p_x^o`$ and the initial point.

As we take the thin lens trajectory as the zeroth iterate, we will choose to set the value of $`p_0^o`$ to one at the initial point (the observer, $`O`$) and again in each lens plane. In this way, $`p_0^o=\stackrel{~}{p}_0^o=1`$, and the relative scaling of $`(p_x^o,p_z^o)`$ and $`(\stackrel{~}{p}_x^o,\stackrel{~}{p}_z^o)`$ is uniquely determined using Eq. (40).

Summarizing, the spatial part of the zeroth iterate for a one lens system is given by the thin lens path, Eq. (35). The observer is located at the initial point $`x_o^a`$. For a given value of $`p_x^o`$, $`p_z^o`$ is uniquely determined by the condition $`p_0^o=1`$, from Eq. (40). The new $`(\stackrel{~}{p}_x^o,\stackrel{~}{p}_z^o)`$ are determined using the bending angle as in Eq. (39) and the condition $`\stackrel{~}{p}_0^o=1`$.

So far, our discussion has only considered cases with axial symmetry and one lens plane. If there is more than one lens plane, the procedure we have described above is extended to each lens plane. If there is no axial symmetry, there will be a complementary equation to the bending angle relation, Eq. (38), which can be used to fix the three spatial components of the momenta in an analogous way to what we have presented here.

In the cases we will study, the time coordinate is cyclic and the time equation in the original phase space variables is simply the integral equation

$$t=t_o+2p_0^o(1+2U(x^a(\lambda )))𝑑\lambda ,$$
(41)
where $`U(r)`$ is the Newtonian potential of the mass distribution. The integral is taken over the path as a function of the parameter $`\lambda `$. The first iterate time is obtained when the path inserted into Eq. (41) is the zeroth order, thin lens path, $`x^a(\lambda )=x_0^a(\lambda )`$. Hence the first iterate time is precisely the value obtained in the standard thin lens approximation. However, as we will find the first iterate trajectories, we can also find the second iterate time values by evaluating the integrand in Eq. (41) along the first iterate, $`x^a(\lambda )=x_1^a(\lambda )`$.

A conceptual problem arises in computing the iterative time of arrival if one uses the formula

$$t_n=t_o+2p_0𝑑\lambda (\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+U(x_{n1}^a(\lambda )))$$
(42)
for the $`n`$th iterate time. In general, the parameter $`\lambda `$ should be an affine parameter along a null geodesic. We note that if Hamilton’s equations are solved exactly, fixing $`p_0^o`$ as in Eq. (33) ensures that the value of the Hamiltonian will be zero at all points along the path and $`\lambda `$ will be an affine parameter. However, in the iterative method, the geodesic equations are not solved exactly, and the value of the Hamiltonian will slowly drift away from zero. Hence, as $`\lambda `$ grows, it fails to be an affine parameter along a null geodesic.

A way to force the Hamiltonian to be zero, and hence $`\lambda `$ to be null affine parameter, is to allow $`p_0`$ to be a function along the trajectory given by

$$p_0=p_0^n(\lambda )=\sqrt{\frac{g^{ij}(x_n^a)p_i^np_j^n}{g^{00}(x_n^a)}},$$
(43)
where $`(x_n^a,p_a^n)`$ are the $`n`$th iterate values. This proposal leads to a conflict between maintaining the null value of the Hamiltonian along the $`n`$th iterate trajectory

$$H(x_n^a,p_a^n,\lambda )=0$$
(44)
and Hamilton’s equation,

$$\dot{p}_0=0.$$
(45)
Since we are dealing with static cases, a consistent proposed solution is to take $`p_0`$ as constant in the spatial Hamilton’s equations, but allow $`p_0`$ to vary as in Eq. (43) when computing times. This solution disentangles the two competing problems given in Eq. (44) and Eq. (45) by obeying Hamilton’s equations when integrating the spatial part of the geodesic and also obeying the null condition in computing the times (which is very sensitive to integrating over an affine parameter).

Hence, when comparing the iterative time delays to the “exact” and thin lens delays, we will consider the time of arrivals given by

$$t_2=t_o+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}p_0^1(\lambda )(1+2U(r_1))𝑑\lambda .$$
(46)
We will show that this formula gives very accurate predictions for time delays in our comparisons.

## III Comparison of Lensing Approaches

In this section we present the results obtained in the comparison of time delays, source locations and image magnifications predicted by the thin lens approximation and the iterative method for several different lens models. The comparisons are made with respect to the numerical integration of the exact geodesic equations of the spacetime metric defined by the given model. For the iterative method, we will be interested in the first iterate only.

There are four subsections in this section. In the first, we give details regarding the comparisons we will be discussing. We then group our comparisons in three sets. First, we consider lensing by a single spherical lens, or the Schwarzschild geometry. Next, we consider multiple lensing by single monopole lenses collinear with the observer in different lens planes. Finally, we consider lensing by two lenses in the same lens plane. In our plots, all angles are given in arc seconds and all times are given in days.

### A Notes about comparisons

We will be comparing the predictions of the thin lens, iterative and “exact” approaches to lensing for time delays, source locations and image magnification. In this subsection, we give some details about how these comparisons are performed. We will refer to the spatial axis connecting the lens and observer as the optical axis.

First, we note that the exact solution to the geodesic equation produces an infinite number of images , but that the thin lens approximation predicts only two of these images for the case of a single lens (referred to as primary images). This feature is shared by the first iterate method, since it corresponds to the next step in the perturbative series whose zeroth order is given by thin lens approximation (the first iterate method should give sensible predictions as long as its trajectory remains close to the thin lens trajectory). However, it is not difficult to choose the two primary exact images corresponding to the thin lens and first iterate images because these primary images are widely separated (in angular location) from the secondary images which circle the lens one time.

Throughout our comparisons, we will refer to an observation angle, $`\theta `$. This angle is computed by taking the inner product between the spatial part of the initial momentum vector, $`p_i^o`$, at the observer and the spatial vector pointing to the lens from the observer’s location, $`x_o^a`$. Formally, this must be done using the spatial metric describing the model. However, as we will always be taking this inner product at a large distance from the lens, it is appropriate to take the observation angle, $`\theta `$, as the ratio of the $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{z}`$ components of the initial momentum:

$`\theta ={\displaystyle \frac{p_x^o}{p_z^o}}.`$

To compare the time delays predicted by the three methods, we must compute the two trajectories from each method, integrate the arrival time function along each trajectory, and subtract the two values we obtain. We begin by choosing two initial angles, $`(\theta _1,\theta _2)`$, one on each side of the lens. These angles are chosen such that trajectories with these initial conditions intersect at a reasonable distance beyond the last lens; usually, this distance is chosen as approximately the same as the distance between the observer and the first lens. For each path, we compute the time of arrival and subtract the two times to get a time delay. We will then hold one angle, $`\theta _2`$, fixed while varying $`\theta _1`$. This allows us to consider the time delay as a function of $`\theta _1`$ for a fixed $`\theta _2`$.

In practice, finding the time delays is a very difficult calculation, as the arrival times for each trajectory will agree in roughly their first 12 digits (at our scales). The comparison between the methods is even more difficult, as the time delays from the three methods tend to agree to about four digits. Hence, to resolve a difference between the thin lens, iterative, and “exact” predictions for the time delays, we must know the arrival time to approximately 16 digits of accuracy.

To compute the source location, $`\beta `$, for a given observation angle, $`\theta `$, we choose a value of $`\theta `$ and a final distance along the optical axis from the observer, $`D_s`$. If the optical axis is the $`\widehat{z}`$ axis and the observer is located at $`z=|z_0|`$, we then place a plane at $`z=D_s|z_0|`$ which will be the “source plane.” We then compute, for a given initial condition, $`\theta `$, the interception point in the source plane, $`\stackrel{}{\eta }`$. The value of $`\beta `$ is defined to be

$$\beta =\frac{|\stackrel{}{\eta }|}{D_s}.$$
(47)
We will use this definition for the source location in all three models. As $`\theta `$ is varied, we will obtain $`\beta (\theta )`$.

Magnifications are defined as $`\frac{\theta }{\beta }`$, or the inverse slope of the $`\beta `$ versus $`\theta `$ graph. We will compute the magnifications from the data we obtain in our $`\beta `$-$`\theta `$ comparisons. Note that this magnification is not directly observable; we discuss it only because it plays a role in the literature. With some additional work, we could compute, for two given images, $`(\theta _1,\theta _2)`$, the relative magnification,

$`\mu _{12}={\displaystyle \frac{\left(\frac{\theta }{\beta }\right)_{\theta _2}}{\left(\frac{\theta }{\beta }\right)_{\theta _1}}},`$

which is observable. We plan to return to this possible comparison in future work.

In the two lens models, the thin lens approximation predicts four images. Therefore, in the calculation of the time delays we can distinguish three qualitatively different situations. As it is illustrated in Fig. 2, there is a range for $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ for which the two rays do not cross the optical axis between the two lenses before converging at the observer’s position (range A), a range for which only one of the rays crosses the axis between the lenses (range B), and, finally, a range in which both of the rays cross the axis before they meet at the observer’s position (range C). When looking at magnifications and image positions, we can compare the three methods in two cases: 1) rays which do not cross between the two lenses and 2) rays which do cross the optical axis between the lenses.

### B One spherical lens

Here we discuss the comparisons between the first iterate, thin lens and “exact” predictions for various observables when there is one spherically symmetric lens. For the “exact” predictions, we consider the numerical integration of the geodesic equations of the exact Schwarzschild metric, as specified in Section II.B. As mentioned, Minkowski spacetime will be considered the background spacetime for the iterative and thin lens approaches.

For our comparisons, we will take a lens $`4`$ billion light years (ly) away from the observer with a mass of approximately $`2.5\times 10^{12}M_{}`$. While we are not concerned with cosmological models here, this distance scale is reasonable for current lensing studies.

In Fig. 3a we show the position of the source, $`\beta `$, as a function of the image position, $`\theta `$, (see Fig. 1) calculated using the exact numerical integration of the geodesics equations. The range in $`\theta `$ has been chosen in agreement with observed image angles in systems with similar characteristics as the one represented by our model, and the value of $`D_s`$ has been set equal to the observer-lens spacing. The absolute error in $`\beta `$ between the exact numerical integration and the thin lens approximation and the first iterate method are shown in Fig. 3b. The discrepancies between the two methods are of about $`10^5`$ arc sec. In Fig 4a, we show the “exact” magnification $`\mu =\frac{\theta }{\beta }`$ as a function of the image position $`\theta `$. The relative error,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _{tl,it}={\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{ex}\mu _{tl,it}}{\mu _{ex}}},`$

in the predicted magnification by the two approximate methods is shown in Fig 4b. The errors here are very small.

In the case of a single spherically symmetric lens, we were not able to resolve the difference in the time delay error between the thin lens and first iterate trajectories. Our calculations showed that this error was indeed quite small, and that for a lens with mass $`2.5\times 10^{12}M_{}`$ at $`4`$ billion ly from the observer, the error in the thin lens and iterative methods was less than $`0.2`$ days when the “exact” time delay was $`400`$ days.

### C Two lenses in different lens planes

In this subsection, we will consider lensing by two identical lenses. We choose to study two different cases: when the distance between the two lenses is on the same order of magnitude as the distance between the observer and the first lens and when the distance between the two lenses is small compared to the distance between the observer and the first lens. We will examine the case where the lenses are far apart first.

$`1)`$ Large separation

In our first comparisons, we consider an observer $`3`$ billion ly away from the first lens and set the distance between the two lenses equal to the distance between the observer and the first lens. The mass of the two lenses is approximately $`1.9\times 10^{12}M_{}`$. Figure 5a shows the “exact” image location, $`\beta `$, as a function of observation angle, $`\theta `$, when the light ray does not cross between two lenses and $`D_s=9`$ billion ly, or three times the spacing between the first lens and observer. As before, the error in the thin lens and first iterate methods, shown in Fig. 5b, are small. At a fairly large observation angle, $`4.3^{\prime \prime }`$ from the optical axis, the error in the thin lens method is about $`3\times 10^5`$ arc sec. The “exact” magnification and errors in the thin lens and iterative methods for this lens configuration are shown in Fig. 6.

For the same lensing configuration, the “exact” source location and the error in the thin lens and iterative methods when the light ray crosses the optical axis is shown in Fig. 7. In this case, the light ray passes much closer to the lens, and we see that the first iterate is slightly better than the thin lens in predicting the source location. The corresponding magnifications are plotted in Fig. 8.

With the lens separation equal to the distance between the observer and the first lens, the time delays predicted by the thin lens and iterative method are very accurate. As in the one lens case, we were unable to resolve a difference in the time delays due to the high precision required in any of the three possible ray combinations from Fig. 2. Our calculations show that the error in the thin lens and first iterate methods was less than $`0.1`$ days for a time delay around $`500`$ days.

$`2)`$ Small separation

Similar results were obtained when the distance between the two lenses was small. As an example, we will examine the case where the observer and two lenses lie along the same optical axis, the mass of each lens is $`2.5\times 10^{12}M_{}`$, the distance to the first lens from the observer is $`4`$ billion ly and the distance between the two lenses is $`4`$ million ly. This second distance is about twice the distance between our galaxy and Andromeda, so that our lensing configuration represents a pair of lenses at roughly the same distance from the observer. Thus, we may think of this example as corresponding to direct lensing by two members of the same group. In this case, it makes sense to choose $`D_s`$ as twice the distance to the first lens, $`D_s=8`$ billion ly.

When the lenses are so close together, it does not make sense to consider rays crossing between the two lenses; to pass between the lenses, the observation angle must be less than $`0.125^{\prime \prime }`$. Because this observation angle does not look reasonable, we will not compare the thin lens, iterative and exact methods in this paper in this range of $`\theta `$, although we note that in an analogous case of microlensing such comparisons may be important.

As in our previous comparisons, we show the “exact” source angle as a function of the observation angle and the error in the thin lens and first iterate approaches in Fig. 9 for the case where the two lenses are close together. We note that the error in the thin lens method is approximately $`\beta _{ex}\beta _{tl}5.5\times 10^5`$ arc sec, while the error in the iterative method is approximately $`\beta _{ex}\beta _{it}5.0\times 10^5`$ arc sec. These errors are somewhat larger than the errors when the lens planes are widely separated.

A similar result is found in the magnifications, shown in Fig. 10. Here, we note that the inaccuracy in both methods is about twice the inaccuracy in the case where the lenses are widely separated.

We did not detect an observable error in the time delays for the thin lens or iterative methods for this scenario. For a “exact” time delay of $`400`$ days, the thin lens and iterative methods were accurate to less than $`0.1`$ days for observation angles around $`2.475^{\prime \prime }`$.

Because the lenses are so close together, one may think that it is appropriate to treat them as a single lens located in the middle of the two with a total mass equal to the sum of the values of the two masses. We will refer to this model as the “2 lens, single lens plane model.” When the thin lens approximation is applied to the “2 lens, single lens plane model,” the error in the time delay is significant at this separation. The curve in Fig. 11b represents the error in the time delay predicted by the thin lens approximation when the lensing configuration is treated as one lens with the total mass located directly between the two lenses. Here, one observation angle was fixed at $`2.475^{\prime \prime }`$ and the second angle varies as shown. The exact time delay is plotted in Fig. 11a.

The errors present in the “2 lens, single lens plane model” are significant and are of the same order of magnitude as current observational abilities. Hence, it appears that lens structure extending along the optical axis connecting the observer and first lens can adversely affect the accuracy of the thin lens methodology at today’s observational level when the structure is collapsed into a single lens plane. We will discuss this issue further in Sec. IV.

### D Two lenses in the same lens plane

As a final comparison, we consider two lenses in the same lens plane. Here we will take each lens to have a mass of $`1.25\times 10^{12}M_{}`$ and will set the lens plane $`4`$ billion ly away from the observer. This case resembles the one lens system in that the distances are the same but the mass has been split. We choose a separation of $`4000`$ ly between the lenses. For our comparisons of $`\beta `$ and magnification, we will take $`D_s`$ to be twice the spacing between the lens and observer.

Figure 12 shows the “exact” plot of source angle, $`\beta `$, versus observation angle, $`\theta `$, and the error in $`\beta `$ for the thin lens and iterative method. The “exact” magnifications and relative errors are shown in Fig. 13. As in the case of the two lenses close together, there is a slight difference in the accuracy of the thin lens and iterative methods. Again, no measurable error was found in the time delays predicted by the thin lens and iterative methods.

## IV Discussion

We have performed a careful examination of the accuracy of two lensing approximations, the thin lens and iterative methods, in scenarios with one and two monopole lenses. In general, we find that source locations, time delays and magnifications computed using the first iterate are more accurate than those computed with the thin lens.

Both methods are accurate beyond the current level of observational error when the deflector was a single spherical lens or two lenses in all cases tested. The cases we studied in this paper tended to involve rather massive lenses. Since the thin lens and iterative methods generally become more accurate as the mass is decreased holding the distances the same, we feel that it is likely that lensing by objects with smaller masses than those considered here will be well described by both the thin lens and iterative methods.

It was found that when two closely separated lenses on the optical axis were modeled in the thin lens approximation by a mass distribution in one lens plane (the “2 lens, single lens plane model”), observationally significant errors arise. Because these errors approach zero in the limit that the distance between the two lens planes goes to zero, the important observational question is whether there are observational scenarios where the depth of the mass distribution along the line of sight is too large to be modeled by one lens plane.

The failure of the “2 lens, single lens plane model” to accurately predict observable quantities for some separations raises two interesting questions for lensing. First, are there lensing scenarios where multiple members of a group lens a source? In this case, careful observational work needs to be done to determine the relative spacing of the members of the group, for if the spacing is too large, significant errors may be introduced.

It seems that when there is a three dimensional mass distribution (a lens with structure), collapsing the distribution into a single lens plane may lead to an approximation which fails at today’s level of observational accuracy. Further studies are needed to determine if two dimensional continuous mass distributions of the type used in lens modeling are affected at the same level as the collection of monopole lenses studied here. This issue is important because two dimensional continuous mass distributions are used to predict various cosmological parameters, and the inability to correctly model time delays, source positions and image magnifications will lead to inaccuracy in the prediction of fundamental constants from lensing.

As a second question, we are interested in how our results apply to microlensing by binary systems. It is estimated that nearly ten percent of microlensing events will be microlensing by binary systems. At various points in time, the rotating bodies will resemble either two lenses in different lens planes or two lenses in the same lens plane, which are similar to our case studies. One key difference is that, in general, the mass to distance ratio in microlensing will be smaller than the ratios we have studied. This will tend to reduce the error we detected in the thin lens method. On the other hand, as the source moves across the sky, the light rays from the source come very close to the binary lens. We found a rather large error in the thin lens method when the distance of closest approach was on the same order of magnitude as the separation between the lenses. Hence, we do not know what the accuracy of the thin lens method will be when applied to microlensing by binaries. We will study this issue in future work.

In summary, we have shown that the intrinsic errors of the thin lens approximation fail to approach today’s level of observational error (approximately one milli arc sec for angles in the visible band and one day for time delays) by approximately two orders of magnitude for one or two monopole lenses. The inherent errors in the iterative method were consistently smaller than the errors of the thin lens method, although these errors were of the same order of magnitude in almost all cases.

On the other hand, when a single lens plane is used to model two closely separated lenses in different lens planes, significant errors did arise in time delays. This suggests that the “2 lens, single lens plane model” should be applied very carefully in observational cases; one should be careful to check that lens structure does not extend a significant fraction of the distance along the line of sight between the lens and observer.

Even though the inherent errors in the thin lens approximation are not a significant fraction of the observational errors in the cases we studied, it is not inconceivable that the observational accuracy will improve over time to a point where more sophisticated approaches are required for modeling lens trajectories. The iterative method provides one such improvement over the thin lens and seems to be accurate in all the cases we have studied.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank David Turnshek, Al Janis, Simonetta Frittelli and Jurgen Ehlers for their helpful advice and suggestions. Alejandro Perez would like to thank FUNDACION YPF. This work was supported under grants Phy 97-22049 and Phy 92-05109.


text:
# Loop observables for 𝐵𝐹 theories in any dimension and the cohomology of knots

## 1. Introduction

Knot invariants can be obtained as expectation values of Wilson loops (i.e., traces of holonomies) in Chern–Simons theory .

The same result can be obtained in the $`3`$-dimensional $`BF`$ theory “with a cosmological term” .

The nice feature of $`BF`$ theory , as opposed to Chern–Simons theory, is that it can be defined in any dimension and always has a quadratic term around which one can start a perturbative expansion.

On the other hand, apart from the $`3`$-dimensional case , it is rather difficult to find nontrivial observables for $`BF`$ theories (see  for the search of surface observables in the $`4`$-dimensional case).

However, the formulae for the perturbative expansion of the expectation value of a Wilson loop in the $`3`$-dimensional Chern–Simons theory (e.g., in the approach of ) allow for a natural generalization in any dimension . The invariants defined in this way are cohomology classes of Vassiliev finite type  on the space of imbeddings of $`S^1`$ into $`^n`$. As in the $`3`$-dimensional case, they are moreover related to certain “graph cohomologies,” as originally suggested by Kontsevich .

This led us to look for loop observables for $`BF`$ theories in any dimension whose expectation values should yield the above invariants.

In this paper we introduce these observables “on shell” (i.e., upon using the equation of motions) and describe some results about their off-shell extension (which relies on the use of the Batalin–Vilkovisky  formalism). For all technical details, as well as for the complete proofs of the four Theorems contained in this paper, we refer to .

A very interesting feature of the simplest of these observables (as well as of the cohomology classes described in ) is that, despite of the dimension, they are always as if we were dealing with the $`3`$-dimensional $`BF`$ theory with a cosmological term, which is tantamount to considering the Chern–Simons theory. This is our interpretation of Witten’s ideas about a Chern–Simons theory for strings .

###### Acknowledgment.

We thank R. Longoni for carefully reading the manuscript and for many useful discussions.

## 2. $`BF`$ theories

The $`n`$-dimensional $`BF`$ theory is a topological quantum field theory defined in terms of a connection $`1`$-form $`A`$ over a principal $`G`$-bundle $`PM`$, with $`dimM=n`$, and a tensorial $`(n2)`$-form $`B`$ of the $`\mathrm{ad}`$ type.

Following the ideas of , we begin with a geometrical description of gauge invariant functionals of $`A`$ and $`B`$ taking values in the free loop space $`\mathrm{L}M`$.

The basic functional is of course the Wilson loop $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}`$. Here we follow the following nonstandard

###### Convention.

$`\mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A)`$ denotes the group element associated to the $`A`$-parallel transport along the loop $`\gamma :[0,1]M`$ from $`\gamma (1)`$ to $`\gamma (0)`$. (The usual holonomy is the inverse of our $`\mathrm{Hol}`$.)

We then associate to each smooth loop $`\gamma `$ in $`M`$ and to any connection $`A`$ the $`A`$-horizontal lift of $`\gamma `$: $`[0,1]t\gamma _A(t)`$.

If we saturate the $`(n2)`$-form $`B`$ with the tangent vector $`\dot{\gamma }_A(t)`$, we obtain an $`(n3)`$-form $`B(\dot{\gamma }_A(t))`$ defined along the horizontal path $`\gamma _A`$ and hence an $`(n3)`$-form on $`LM`$, depending on the connection $`A`$.

Then, for any representation $`\rho `$ of $`G`$, the following object is well-defined and gauge invariant in any dimension:

(2.1)
$$h_{k,\rho }(\gamma ;A,B)=\underset{0<t_1<\mathrm{}<t_k<1}{}\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \left[B(\dot{\gamma }_A(t_1))\mathrm{}B(\dot{\gamma }_A(t_k))\mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A)\right].$$

If $`n=3`$, then $`A+\kappa B`$ is also a connection and (2.1) is equal to the $`k`$-th Taylor coefficient in the $`\kappa `$-expansion of $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ,A+\kappa B)`$. When $`n>3`$, then (2.1) is a differential form over $`LM`$ of degree $`k(n3)`$.

Unfortunately, however, (2.1) is not a good observable for the $`BF`$ theory since it is not invariant under the full set of its symmetries, see below (2.3).

If we modify (2.1) so as to get a “good observable,” then the relevant vacuum expectation values will produce elements of the $`k(n3)`$-rd cohomology of knots (imbedded loops) as explained in the following. Observe that in the case $`n=3`$ we recover the usual Vassiliev knot invariants.

### 2.1. Action functional and symmetries of $`BF`$ theory

We write the action functional of the $`BF`$ theory under the following

###### Assumption 1.

We assume that the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ of $`G`$ possesses a nondegenerate $`\mathrm{Ad}`$-invariant bilinear form $`,`$. (For example, if $`𝔤`$ is semisimple, we may take the Killing form.)

We extend this form to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ in the usual way. Then we define

(2.2)
$$S:=_MB,F_A,$$

where $`F_A`$ is the curvature $`2`$-form of $`A`$.

The Euler–Lagrange equations of motion read

$$F_A=0,\mathrm{d}_AB=0;$$

thus, classically, $`BF`$ theory in $`n`$ dimensions describes flat connections together with covariantly closed $`(n2)`$-forms. Observe that “on shell” (i.e., on the subspace of solutions) the covariant derivative is a coboundary operator.

###### Assumption 2.

We will assume in the following that $`M`$ is a compact manifold, that $`P`$ is a trivial bundle and that there is a flat connection $`A_0`$ on $`P`$ such that all cohomology groups $`H_{\mathrm{d}_{A_0}}^{}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ are trivial.

Moreover, by “on shell” we will always mean “on the subspace of those $`(A_0,B_0)`$ which satisfy the equations of motion with $`A_0`$ of this kind.”

The symmetries under which the action is invariant correspond to an action of the group $`𝒢_{\mathrm{Ad}}\mathrm{\Omega }^{n3}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$, where $`𝒢`$ is the group of automorphisms of $`P`$ (i.e., ordinary gauge transformations). Infinitesimally we have

(2.3)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta A& =\mathrm{d}_A\xi ,\hfill \\ \hfill \delta B& =[B,\xi ]+\mathrm{d}_A\chi ,\hfill \end{array}$$

with $`(\xi ,\chi )\mathrm{\Omega }^0(M,\mathrm{ad}P)_{\mathrm{ad}}\mathrm{\Omega }^{n3}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$.

Observe that on shell this symmetries are “reducible;” i.e., a covariantly closed $`\chi `$ (which under our triviality assumption is of the form $`\chi =\mathrm{d}_{A_0}\sigma `$) acts trivially.

More precisely, each point $`(A_0,B_0)`$ in the subspace of solutions has an isotropy group consisting of all covariantly closed $`(n3)`$-forms of the $`\mathrm{ad}`$ type.

With our triviality assumption, the isotropy group at each point is then isomorphic to the group $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{n4}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)/\mathrm{d}_{A_0}\mathrm{\Omega }^{n5}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$.

Of course, if $`n>5`$, also in this quotient there are nontrivial isotropy groups which are all isomorphic to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{n5}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)/\mathrm{d}_{A_0}\mathrm{\Omega }^{n6}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$, and so on until we arrive at $`\mathrm{\Omega }^0(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ which acts freely on $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$.

In order to consistently gauge-fix all the symmetries, one has then to resort to the extended BRST formalism (i.e., introduce a hierarchy of ghosts for ghosts).

An additional problem is due to the fact that the isotropy groups are different off shell. So, in order to work in the Lagrangian formalism which is better suited for the perturbative expansions, one has to rely on the whole Batalin–Vilkovisky (BV) machinery as explained in Section 3.

It is known that the partition function of $`BF`$ theory is related to the analytic torsion of $`M`$ (see  for the abelian case and  for the non-abelian one).

In order to get other topological invariants, one has to find interesting BV closed observables. In the rest of this paper we will discuss some of them, leaving most of the technical details to .

Before starting with the general discussion we recall the $`3`$-dimensional case as studied in .

### 2.2. The $`3`$-dimensional $`BF`$ theory

Since $`B`$ is a $`1`$-form now, one can add to the pure $`BF`$ action the so-called cosmological term,

$$S_3:=\frac{1}{6}_MB,[B,B],$$

and define

$$S_\kappa :=S+\kappa ^2S_3,\kappa .$$

This action is actually equal to the difference of two Chern–Simons actions evaluated at the connections $`A+\kappa B`$ and $`A\kappa B`$. From this observation one immediately gets the infinitesimal symmetries for this theory as

(2.4)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta _\kappa A& =\mathrm{d}_A\xi +\kappa ^2[B,\chi ],\hfill \\ \hfill \delta _\kappa B& =[B,\xi ]+\mathrm{d}_A\chi .\hfill \end{array}$$

Another consequence is that, for any loop $`\gamma `$ and any representation $`\rho `$ of the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ of $`G`$, the Wilson loops $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A\pm \kappa B)`$ are observables. We then have

(2.5)
$$\begin{array}{c}_\rho (\kappa ;\gamma ;A,B)=\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A+\kappa B)=\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A)+\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\kappa ^kh_{k,\rho }(\gamma ;A,B),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`h_{k,\rho }(\gamma ;A,B)`$ is the $`k`$-th Taylor coefficient in the $`\kappa `$-expansion of $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(\gamma ;A+\kappa B)`$ introduced in (2.1).

By the previous discussion it follows clearly that both the even and the odd part of $``$ are observables.

In order to give an explicit description of $`h_{k,\rho }`$, it is better to view $`\gamma `$ as a periodic mapping from $`[0,1]`$ to $`M`$. We denote by $`H(\gamma ;A)|_s^t`$ the group element determined, in a given trivialization, by the $`A`$-parallel transport along $`\gamma `$ from the point $`\gamma (t)`$ to the point $`\gamma (s)`$. Then we can rewrite (2.1) in the form

$$\begin{array}{c}h_{k,\rho }(\gamma ;A,B)=_\mathrm{}_k\mathrm{Tr}_\rho [H(\gamma ;A)|_0^{t_1}B_1H(\gamma ;A)|_{t_1}^{t_2}B_2\mathrm{}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{}B_{k1}H(\gamma ;A)|_{t_{k1}}^{t_k}B_kH(\gamma ;A)|_{t_k}^1],\end{array}$$

where $`\mathrm{}_k`$ is the $`k`$-simplex $`\{0<t_1<t_2<\mathrm{}<t_k<1\}`$ and $`B_i`$ is a shorthand notation for the pullback of $`B`$ via the map $`\gamma _i:\mathrm{}_kM`$, $`\gamma _i(t_1,\mathrm{},t_k)=\gamma (t_i)`$.

Observe that each $`h_{k,\rho }(;A,B)`$ defines a function on the loop space $`\mathrm{L}M`$ of $`M`$. It is not difficult to check that—modulo the equations of motion

$$F_A+\frac{\kappa ^2}{2}[B,B]=0,\mathrm{d}_AB=0,$$

of $`S_\kappa `$—the functions $`(;A,B)`$ are locally constant on $`\mathrm{L}M`$.

Quantization then requires a regularization, viz., point splitting or, in a more precise formulation, the blowing up of the diagonals of configuration spaces. So one has to consider imbeddings, instead of generic loops, and to introduce a framing. The expectation values of the $``$s then define locally closed functions on the space $`\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M)`$ of framed imbeddings, i.e., framed knot invariants.

### 2.3. A first glimpse to higher dimensions

A straightforward generalization of (2.5) to higher dimensions exists as discussed at the beginning of this section. It yields forms on $`\mathrm{L}M`$ instead of functions since only one form degree for each field $`B`$ is saturated by the integration. So now

$$h_{k,\rho }(;A,B)\mathrm{\Omega }^{(n3)k}(\mathrm{L}M).$$

Assume now that $`A`$ is a flat connection and that $`B`$ is covariantly closed, as classical solutions of the pure $`BF`$ theory are. Then it is not difficult to check that, for any odd $`n>3`$, $`h_{k,\rho }`$ is closed. This follows from the generalized Stokes theorem.

More precisely, $`h_{k,\rho }`$ is a form on $`\widehat{M}=\mathrm{L}M\times 𝒜\times \mathrm{\Omega }^{n2}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$, where $`𝒜`$ is the space of connections on $`M`$, and we restrict it to the subspace where $`F_A=\mathrm{d}_AB=0`$.

Let $`\widehat{\mathrm{d}}`$ be the differential on $`\widehat{M}`$. In the computation of $`\widehat{\mathrm{d}}h_{k,\rho }`$ we can switch the integral with the differential. We then get $`\widehat{\mathrm{d}}`$ acting on a function $`\eta _{k,\rho }`$ on $`\widehat{M}\times \mathrm{}_k`$:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{d}}h_{k,\rho }=_\mathrm{}_k\widehat{\mathrm{d}}\eta _{k,\rho }.$$

Let $`\mathrm{d}_k`$ be the differential on $`\mathrm{}_k`$ and $`\mathrm{d}:=\widehat{\mathrm{d}}\pm \mathrm{d}_k`$ the differential on $`\widehat{M}\times \mathrm{}_k`$. By adding and subtracting $`\mathrm{d}_k`$ we get then

$$\widehat{\mathrm{d}}h_{k,\rho }=_\mathrm{}_kd\eta _{k,\rho }_\mathrm{}_k\mathrm{d}_k\eta _{k,\rho }.$$

The first term on the r.h.s. is then easily seen to vanish in our hypotheses $`F_A=\mathrm{d}_AB=0`$ since

$$\mathrm{d}H(\gamma ;A)|_s^t=A(s)H(\gamma ;A)|_s^t+H(\gamma ;A)|_s^tA(t)$$

when $`A`$ is flat.

The second term can then be computed using the Stokes theorem. The codimension-one boundaries of the simplex corresponding to the collapse of consecutive points yield terms containing $`B^2`$ which vanishes for dimensional reasons ($`n>4`$). The remaining codimension-one boundaries correspond to $`t_0=0`$ or $`t_k=1`$. It is not difficult to check, using the cyclic property of the trace, that these terms cancel each other.

If the dimension $`n`$ is even, $`n>4`$, the only problem in the above discussion arises at the last step since, for $`k`$ even, the two terms coming from $`t_0=0`$ and $`t_k=1`$ sum up instead of canceling each other. For $`k`$ odd however everything works as before.

Similar computations allow to show that the $`h_{k,\rho }`$ are invariant (modulo exact forms on $`\mathrm{L}M`$) under the symmetries (2.3) either if $`n`$ is odd and greater then 5 or if $`n`$ is even and greater than 4 and $`k`$ is odd.

In sections 4 and 5 we will describe how this discussion can be extended “off shell” and how the cases $`n=4`$ and $`n=5`$ will be included.

## 3. The BV quantization of $`BF`$ theories

### 3.1. The BRST operator

In order to deal with the symmetries (2.3) of (2.2) in the functional integral, one has to introduce the BRST operator

(3.1)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}A& =\mathrm{d}_Ac,\hfill \\ \hfill \delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}B& =[B,c]+\mathrm{d}_A\tau _1,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`c`$ and $`\tau _1`$ are ghosts, i.e., forms on the space of fields with values in $`\mathrm{\Omega }^0(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{n3}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ respectively. As usual in gauge theories one also defines

$$\delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}c=\frac{1}{2}[c,c].$$

Because of the on-shell reducibility, one has then to introduce ghosts for ghosts $`\tau _k`$ with values in $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{n2k}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$, $`k=1,\mathrm{},n2`$, with ghost number equal to $`kmod2`$ and extended BRST operator

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}\tau _k& =(1)^k[\tau _k,c]+\mathrm{d}_A\tau _{k+1},k=1,\mathrm{},n3,\hfill \\ \hfill \delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}\tau _{n2}& =(1)^n[\tau _{n2},c].\hfill \end{array}$$

### 3.2. The BV formalism

It is not difficult to check that $`\delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}^2=0modF_A`$.

The Batalin–Vilkovisky method allows then for the construction of a nilpotent operator $`\delta _{\mathrm{BV}}`$ that extends $`\delta _{\mathrm{BRST}}`$ off shell.

To do so, one first introduces a partner $`\varphi _\alpha ^+`$ with values in $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(M,\mathrm{ad}P)`$ for any field or ghost $`\varphi ^\alpha =A,B,c,\tau _1,\mathrm{},\tau _{n2}`$ with the following rules:

* The ghost number of $`\varphi _\alpha ^+`$ is minus the ghost number of $`\varphi ^\alpha `$, minus one.
* The form degree of $`\varphi _\alpha ^+`$ is $`n`$ minus the form degree of $`\varphi ^\alpha `$.

###### Remark 3.1.

In general, the antifields are dual to the corresponding fields. Of course some isomorphisms may be used to identify certain spaces. For example here we have preferred to identify the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ with its dual (using the bilinear from $`,`$) so that also the antifields take values in the space of tensorial forms of the $`\mathrm{ad}`$ type. This will be particularly useful, e.g., in equations (3.5) and (3.6).

In the original formulation of Batalin and Vilkovisky  one also identifies forms of complementary degree using a Hodge operator. Since we do not want to introduce a metric here, we prefer to avoid this identification. As a consequence, our BV antibracket (3.2) will be of the form described in  instead of the original one.

###### Remark 3.2 (Sign convention).

We follow here the usual convention for the sign rules related to the double grading given by the form degree $`\mathrm{deg}`$ and the ghost number $`\mathrm{gh}`$.

Namely, in the case of homogenous forms $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ of the $`\mathrm{ad}`$-type we have

$$[\alpha ,\beta ]=(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\alpha \mathrm{deg}\beta +\mathrm{gh}\alpha \mathrm{gh}\beta }[\beta ,\alpha ].$$

Moreover, in the case of homogenous forms $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ taking values in a commutative algebra (e.g., $``$) we have

$$\alpha \beta =(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\alpha \mathrm{deg}\beta +\mathrm{gh}\alpha \mathrm{gh}\beta }\beta \alpha .$$

Next we define the BV bracket of two functionals $`F`$ and $`G`$. We use throughout Einstein’s convention over repeated indices and set

(3.2)
$$(F,G):=_MF\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi ^\alpha },\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi _\alpha ^+}G(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\varphi ^\alpha (n+1)}F\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi _\alpha ^+},\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi ^\alpha }G,$$

where the left and right functional derivatives are given by the following formula:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t}|_{t=0}F(\varphi ^\alpha +t\rho ^\alpha )=_M\rho ^\alpha ,\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi ^\alpha }F=_MF\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{\varphi ^\alpha },\rho ^\alpha ;$$

we proceed similarly for the antifields.

As usual, the space of functionals with BV bracket is a Gerstenhaber algebra .

Finally the BV operator is defined by

(3.3)
$$\delta _{\mathrm{BV}}:=(S_{\mathrm{BV}},)$$

where $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ is a solution of the master equation

$$(S_{\mathrm{BV}},S_{\mathrm{BV}})=0$$

such that $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}^{}{}_{|_{\varphi _{}^+=0}}{}^{}=S`$.

### 3.3. The BV action for $`BF`$ theories

The BV action $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ corresponding to the $`BF`$ action (2.2) can be written as

(3.4)
$$S_{\mathrm{BV}}=_M𝖡;𝖥_𝖠$$

where the notations are as follows:

* The dot product is just the wedge product between forms taking values in an associative algebra—e.g., $``$ or $`𝔤`$ itself if it associative as in Section 5—but with a shifted degree; viz., for two homogenous forms $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ we set

$$\alpha \beta :=(1)^{\mathrm{gh}\alpha \mathrm{deg}\beta }\alpha \beta ,$$

where $`\mathrm{gh}`$ denotes the ghost number.

We extend then the bilinear form $`,`$ to forms with shifted degree by setting

$$\alpha ;\beta :=(1)^{\mathrm{gh}\alpha \mathrm{deg}\beta }\alpha ,\beta .$$

Similarly we define the dot Lie bracket for two homogeneous forms of the $`\mathrm{ad}`$ type by

$$[[\alpha ;\beta ]]:=(1)^{\mathrm{gh}\alpha \mathrm{deg}\beta }[\alpha ,\beta ].$$

These definitions are then extended by linearity.

An easy check shows that the dot product in the case of a commutative algebra and the dot Lie bracket are, respectively, a graded commutative product and a graded Lie bracket with respect to a new grading called the total degree that is defined as the form degree plus the ghost number. Moreover, $`\mathrm{d}_{A_0}`$ is still a differential for the dot algebras.
* The “super $`B`$-field” $`𝖡`$ is defined by

(3.5)
$$𝖡=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n2}{}}(1)^{\frac{k(k1)}{2}}\tau _k+B+(1)^nA^++c^+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(M,\mathrm{ad}P),$$

and has total degree equal to $`n2`$.
* The “supercurvature” $`𝖥_𝖠`$ of the “superconnection”

(3.6)
$$𝖠=(1)^{n+1}c+A+(1)^nB^++\underset{k=1}{\overset{n2}{}}(1)^{n(k+1)+\frac{k(k1)}{2}}\tau _k^+$$

is given by the usual formula. In order to write it down, it is better to choose a background connection $`A_0`$ and to define the tensorial form $`𝖺=𝖠A_0`$ of total degree one. Then

$$𝖥_𝖠=F_{A_0}+\mathrm{d}_{A_0}𝖺+\frac{1}{2}[[𝖺;𝖺]].$$

In general we will choose $`A_0`$ to be a flat connection as in Assumption 2.
* By $`_M`$ we then mean the integral of all the terms of form degree equal to $`n`$. Observe that as a consequence $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ has then ghost number zero.

###### Remark 3.3.

We may observe that there is a superspace formulation of (3.4) obtained by introducing superpartners to the coordinates of $`M`$ and redefining $`𝖠`$ and $`𝖡`$ accordingly. In this way we would follow the pattern described in .

Special cases were already discussed in  (two dimensions) and  (four dimensions). See also  for the case of the $`3`$-dimensional Chern–Simons theory.

For later purposes—viz., in order to define loop observables as in the following sections—it is however better to work in our setting.

We have the following general result :

###### Theorem 1.

The action $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ satisfies the master equation in any dimension.

We conclude this section by giving the explicit action of the BV operator (3.3) on the “superfields” $`𝖠`$ and $`𝖡`$. In order to give neater formulae, it is better to define a new BV operator with shifted degree; viz., for a homogeneous form $`\alpha `$, we set

$$𝜹\alpha :=(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\alpha }\delta _{\mathrm{BV}}\alpha .$$

One can show that $`𝜹`$ is a differential for the dot algebras and that it anticommutes with $`\mathrm{d}_{A_0}`$.

Then we obtain

(3.7)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝜹𝖠& =(1)^n𝖥_𝖠,\hfill \\ \hfill 𝜹𝖡& =(1)^n\mathrm{d}_𝖠𝖡,\hfill \end{array}$$

with

$$\mathrm{d}_𝖠𝖡=\mathrm{d}_{A_0}𝖡+[[𝖺;𝖡]].$$

Upon using the above equations, we can then prove Thm. 1 by simply checking that $`𝜹S_{\mathrm{BV}}=0`$, as follows from the the $`\mathrm{ad}`$-invariance of $`,`$ and from the Stokes theorem.

### 3.4. The BV Laplace operator and the BV observables

In the quantum version of the BV formalism—i.e., when dealing with functional integrals with weight $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})S`$—one has then to introduce the so-called BV Laplace operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ and to verify that the quantum master equation

$$(S_{\mathrm{BV}},S_{\mathrm{BV}})2\mathrm{i}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}S_{\mathrm{BV}}=0$$

is satisfied.

The very definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ relies on a regularization of the theory, which we do not discuss here. We only recall the formal properties of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$; viz.:

1. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ is a coboundary operator on the space of functionals;
2. for any two functionals $`F`$ and $`G`$,

(3.8)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}(FG)=(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}F)G+(1)^{\mathrm{gh}F}F\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}G+(1)^{\mathrm{gh}F}(F,G).$$

The space of functionals with the BV bracket and the BV Laplacian is a so-called BV algebra.

To give an explicit definition of the BV Laplacian one has to introduce some extra structures (e.g., a Riemannian metric on $`M`$) and a regularization. The main property however is that the BV Laplace operator contracts each field with the Hodge dual of the corresponding antifield at the same point in $`M`$.

Under our assumptions, one can then prove  that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}S_{\mathrm{BV}}=0`$ for $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ in (3.4).

So $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ is also a solution of the quantum master equation. This implies that its partition function is independent of the choice of gauge fixing.

A consequence of the properties of the BV operators is that the operator

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}:=\delta _{\mathrm{BV}}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}$$

is a coboundary operator iff $`S_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ satisfies the quantum master equation.

The main statement in the BV formalism is that the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$-cohomology of ghost number zero yields all the meaningful observables. More precisely, this means that the expectation value of an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$-closed functional is independent of the gauge fixing and that the expectation value of an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$-exact functional (or of a functional of ghost number different from zero) vanishes.

In the next sections we will discuss some BV observables of $`BF`$ theories associated to $`\mathrm{L}M`$ (or better to $`\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M)`$). To do so, it is however better to use shifted versions of the operators $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$ as well, viz.:

$`𝛀\alpha `$ $`:=(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\alpha }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}\alpha ,`$
$`𝚫\alpha `$ $`:=(1)^{\mathrm{deg}\alpha }\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}\alpha .`$
## 4. Generalized Wilson loops in odd dimensions

At this point we are ready to define the correct generalization of the observables $``$ defined in (2.5).

Formally the new observable is still the trace of the “holonomy of $`𝖠+\kappa 𝖡`$

(4.1)
$$𝓗_\rho (\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡):=\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{𝖧𝗈𝗅}(𝖠+\kappa 𝖡)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(\mathrm{L}M),$$

where the “holonomy” $`\mathrm{𝖧𝗈𝗅}`$ is now defined in terms of iterated integrals as follows: First we write $`𝖠=A_0+𝖺`$. Then we set

$$\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{𝖧𝗈𝗅}(𝖠+\kappa B):=\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(A_0)+\underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}h_{l,\rho }(A_0,𝖺+\kappa 𝖡),$$

where

$$\begin{array}{c}h_{l,\rho }(A_0,𝖺+\kappa 𝖡)=_\mathrm{}_l\mathrm{Tr}_\rho [H(A_0)|_0^{t_1}(𝖺_1+\kappa 𝖡_1)H(A_0)|_{t_1}^{t_2}\hfill \\ \hfill (𝖺_2+\kappa 𝖡_2)\mathrm{}H(A_0)|_{t_{l1}}^{t_l}(𝖺_l+\kappa 𝖡_l)H(A_0)|_{t_l}^1].\end{array}$$

Here $`𝖺_i`$ and $`𝖡_i`$ are shorthand notations for the pullbacks of $`𝖺`$ and $`𝖡`$ via $`\mathrm{ev}_i:\mathrm{L}M\times \mathrm{}_lM`$, $`(\gamma ;t_1,\mathrm{},t_l)\gamma (t_i)`$. Moreover, the $`H(A_0)|_s^t`$’s denote the group elements associated to parallel transports as functions on $`\mathrm{L}M`$.

###### Remark 4.1.

The above integrals should be better viewed as integrations along the fiber of the trivial bundles $`\mathrm{}_l\times \mathrm{L}M\mathrm{L}M`$. That is, the integrals are zero whenever the form degree is less than the dimension of the simplex and yield a form on $`\mathrm{L}M`$ whenever the form degree exceeds the dimension of the simplex.

Also observe that $`𝓗`$ is a sum of terms with different ghost number and different form degree on $`\mathrm{L}M`$.

Of course, we cannot expect $`𝓗`$ to be an observable for the pure $`BF`$ theory. We can however consider a fake “higher dimensional $`BF`$ theory with cosmological term” as follows: We first define

(4.2)
$$𝖲_3(𝖡):=\frac{1}{6}_M𝖡;[[𝖡;𝖡]],$$

where again we consider only the terms of form degree equal to $`n`$, so $`𝖲_3`$ has ghost number $`2(n3)`$. Then we consider the functional

(4.3)
$$\widehat{𝓗}_\rho (\mathrm{},\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡):=\left\{\mathrm{exp}[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\kappa ^2𝖲_3(𝖡)]𝓗_\rho (\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)\right\}_0,$$

where $`\{\}_0`$ means taking the terms with ghost number zero.

The functional $`\widehat{𝓗}_\rho `$ is well-defined for any loop in $`M`$. However, in order to avoid problems with the BV Laplace operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$, we must restrict ourselves to the space of framed imbeddings $`\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M)`$.

###### Theorem 2.

For any $`\kappa `$ and $`\rho `$ and any odd dimension $`n`$, $`\widehat{𝓗}`$, as a functional taking values in the forms on $`\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M)`$, is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$-closed modulo $`\mathrm{d}`$-exact forms and $`\mathrm{d}`$-closed modulo $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$-exact terms. In other words, $`[\widehat{𝓗}]`$ is an $`H^{}(\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M))`$-valued observable.

###### Proof (Sketch).

The main idea of the proof relies on the identity

(4.4)
$$\begin{array}{c}𝛀\left\{\mathrm{exp}[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\kappa ^2𝖲_3(𝖡)]𝓗_\rho (\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)\right\}=\mathrm{exp}[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\kappa ^2𝖲_3(𝖡)]𝜹_\kappa 𝓗_\rho (\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`𝜹_\kappa `$ is the following coboundary operator:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝜹_\kappa 𝖠& =𝖥_𝖠\frac{\kappa ^2}{2}[[𝖡;𝖡]],\hfill \\ \hfill 𝜹_\kappa 𝖡& =\mathrm{d}_𝖠𝖡.\hfill \end{array}$$

Observe that for $`n3`$, $`𝜹_\kappa `$ is a differential only for the $`_2`$-reduction of the graded algebra of functionals.

Using $`𝜹_\kappa `$ is like working with a cosmological term, and, upon using the generalized Stokes theorem, one gets

$$(\mathrm{d}+𝜹_\kappa )𝓗_\rho (\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)=0,$$

which proves the theorem.

Equation (4.4) is a consequence of (3.8) and of the following identities:

$$𝜹𝖲_3=0,𝚫\mathrm{exp}[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\kappa ^2𝖲_3(𝖡)]=0,𝚫𝓗_\rho =0.$$

The first identity follows from (3.7), from the fact that $`,`$ is $`\mathrm{ad}`$-invariant and from Stokes theorem.

The second identity holds since $`𝖲_3`$ depends only on $`𝖡`$ and as a consequence of the already discussed property according to which the BV Laplace operator contracts each field with the Hodge dual (for some Riemannian metric on $`M`$) of the corresponding antifield at the same point in $`M`$.

The last identity is “formally” (i.e., modulo regularization problems for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{BV}}`$) true if $`\gamma `$ does not have transversal self-intersections, for the same reason as above. However, in order to rely upon this last identity confidently, we must then restrict ourselves to framed imbeddings and put each component of $`𝖠`$ on the imbedding and each component of $`𝖡`$ on its companion (as done in ). ∎

As a consequence, the expectation value of $`\widehat{𝓗}`$ is (up to anomalies) a cohomology class on the space of (framed) imbeddings of $`S^1`$ into $`M`$.

###### Remark 4.2.

If we set all the antifields to zero, $`\widehat{𝓗}`$ reduces to a sum of $`h_{k,\rho }(A,B)`$’s; so it is the off-shell generalization we were looking for in subsection 2.3.

Moreover, the expectation value of $`\widehat{𝓗}`$ w.r.t. the pure $`BF`$ theory is in three dimensions the same as the expectation value of $``$ in the $`BF`$ theory with cosmological term.

###### Remark 4.3.

$`\widehat{𝓗}`$ is a genuine quantum observable since its limit for $`\mathrm{}0`$ is not defined.

However, one might replace $`\kappa `$ with $`\mathrm{}\kappa `$. In this way, $`\widehat{𝓗}`$ becomes a formal power series in $`\mathrm{}`$. The zeroth order term is just $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}(A)`$.

Since $`\widehat{𝓗}`$ is an observable for any $`\kappa `$, so is its odd part (in $`\kappa `$) $`\widehat{𝓗}^o`$. It is not difficult to see that $`\widehat{𝓗}_\rho ^o(\mathrm{},\mathrm{}\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)/\mathrm{}`$ is as well a formal power series in $`\mathrm{}`$ and that its zeroth-order term is the observable

$$𝗁_{1,\rho }(𝖠,𝖡):=\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}\kappa }|_{\kappa =0}h_{1,\rho }(A_0,𝖺+\kappa B),$$

which is the off-shell extension of $`h_{1,\rho }(A,B)`$.

Therefore, the observables $`\widehat{𝓗}_\rho (\mathrm{},\mathrm{}\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)`$ and $`\widehat{𝓗}_\rho ^o(\mathrm{},\mathrm{}\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)/\mathrm{}`$ are nontrivial quantum deformations of, respectively, the ordinary Wilson loop and $`𝗁_{1,\rho }`$.

## 5. Other loop observables

In order to generalize some of the results of the previous section and in order to define more general observables we make the following

###### Assumption 3.

We assume that the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$ is obtained from an associative algebra with trace $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ (e.g., we may take $`𝔤=𝔤𝔩(N)`$ with the usual trace of matrices). In this case, we assume that our $`\mathrm{ad}`$-invariant bilinear form $`\xi ,\eta `$ is given by $`\mathrm{Tr}(\xi \eta )`$ and, according to Assumption 1, we further assume that it is nondegenerate. Moreover, we consider only representations $`\rho `$ of $`𝔤`$ as an associative algebra.

### 5.1. Generalized Wilson loops in even dimensions

The observable defined in the previous section does not work in even dimensions essentially because the “cosmological term” $`𝖲_3`$ vanishes when $`𝖡`$ has even total degree.

We can cure this problem thanks to Assumption 3 by defining instead

$$𝖮_3(𝖡):=\frac{1}{3}_M\mathrm{Tr}(𝖡𝖡𝖡).$$

We have already seen in subsection 2.3 that the even part of $``$ does not work. So we consider only

(5.1)
$$\widehat{𝓗}_\rho ^o(\mathrm{},\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡):=\left\{\mathrm{exp}[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\kappa ^2𝖮_3(𝖡)]𝓗_\rho ^o(\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)\right\}_0,$$

where $`𝓗^o`$ is the odd part of $`𝓗`$, which is defined exactly as in the odd-dimensional case—see equations (4.1) and following.

We have then the following analogue (with analogous proof) of Thm. 2:

###### Theorem 3.

For any $`\kappa `$ and $`\rho `$ and any even dimension $`n`$, $`[\widehat{𝓗}^o]`$ is an $`H^{}(\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M))`$-valued observable.

###### Remark 5.1.

Similarly to what happens in the odd-dimensional case, $`\widehat{𝓗}^o`$ reduces to a sum of $`h_{2k+1,\rho }`$ as the antifields are set to zero.

Moreover, $`\widehat{𝓗}_\rho ^o(\mathrm{},\mathrm{}\kappa ;𝖠,𝖡)/\mathrm{}`$ is still a nontrivial quantum deformation of $`𝗁_{1,\rho }`$.

However, we do not find in even dimensions a nontrivial quantum deformation of the ordinary Wilson loop $`\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{Hol}`$.

### 5.2. Loop observables with more then cubic interactions

The “cosmological terms” $`𝖲_3`$ and $`𝖮_3`$ give rise, in the perturbative expansion, to trivalent vertices.

If we work with Assumption 3, we can define more general interaction terms:

$$𝖮_r(𝖡):=\frac{1}{r}_M\mathrm{Tr}𝖡^r.$$

Observe that in odd dimensions $`𝖮_r`$ vanishes if $`r`$ is even.

Next, for any two given sequences $`𝝁=\{\mu _1,\mu _2,\mathrm{}\}`$ and $`𝝀=\{\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\mathrm{}\}`$, we define

(5.2)
$$\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{𝓗}_\rho (\mathrm{},𝝁,𝝀;𝖠,𝖡):=\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[(\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{})\underset{r=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mu _r𝖮_{r+1}(𝖡)\right]\mathrm{Tr}_\rho \mathrm{𝖧𝗈𝗅}\left(𝖠+\underset{s=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\lambda _s𝖡^s\right)\right\}_0.\hfill \end{array}$$

We then denote by $`\stackrel{~}{𝓗}_\rho ^o`$ the odd part of $`\stackrel{~}{𝓗}_\rho `$ under $`𝝀𝝀`$.

We have then

###### Theorem 4.

In odd dimensions, $`[\stackrel{~}{𝓗}_\rho ]`$ is an $`H^{}(\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M))`$-valued observable whenever the following conditions are satisfied

$$\mu _{2l1}=\lambda _{2l}=0,l,$$

$$\mu _{2l}=\underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j0\\ i+j=l1\end{array}}{}\lambda _{2i+1}\lambda _{2j+1},l.$$

In even dimensions, $`[\stackrel{~}{𝓗}_\rho ^o]`$ is an $`H^{}(\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M))`$-valued observable whenever the following conditions are satisfied

$$\mu _l=\underset{\begin{array}{c}i,j1\\ i+j=l\end{array}}{}\lambda _i\lambda _j,l.$$

The proof is a direct generalization of the proof of Thm. 2.

## 6. Conclusions

In this paper we have defined some $`H^{}(\mathrm{Imb}_f(S^1,M))`$-valued observables for $`BF`$ theories on a trivial principal $`G`$-bundle $`PM`$ associated to any representation of the Lie algebra $`𝔤`$.

Our ideas extend naturally to nontrivial bundles as well, though we did not consider this extension here for the sake of simplicity.

The expectation values of these observables define then classes in the cohomology of the space of framed imbeddings of $`S^1`$ into $`M`$, which we have assumed to be compact in order to simplify the discussion.

Of course a very interesting case is $`M=^n`$, which is not compact. The only extra technical point here is that one has to specify the correct behavior at infinity of all the fields and antifields. This done, the trivial connection satisfies the hypotheses of Assumption 2.

The perturbative expansion of the expectation values in the case $`M=^n`$ around the trivial connection is then obtained in terms of the configuration space integrals discussed in , where however only the framing-independent coholomogy classes were considered explicitly.

Notice that in this paper we have not defined observables with trivalent interactions and an even number of $`B`$-fields placed on the imbedding in the even-dimensional case. Thus, we cannot obtain the nontrivial class of imbeddings represented by the diagram cocycle of Figure 4 in . This suggests that there might exist other observables than those we have considered here.

On the other hand, one may use the combinatorics of this quantum field theory to obtain new nontrivial diagram cocycles.


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# Unusual magnetic relaxation behavior in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3

## Abstract

We present an extensive study of the time dependence of the magnetization in a polycrystalline and low temperature charge ordered La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 sample. After application and removal of a 5 T magnetic field, a systematic variation of the magnetic relaxation rate from 10 K to 245 K was found. At 195 K, the magnetization decreases in a very short time and after that it increases slowly as a function of time. Moreover, between 200 and 245 K, an increase in magnetization, above the corresponding value just after removing the 5 T magnetic field, was measured. This unusual behavior was tested in several other relaxation procedures.

PACS: 70, 74.25 Ha, 75.60.-d, 76.60.Es

The low temperature charge ordered compound La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 has been intensively studied in the last years due to its very large variations in resistivity, magnetization, and lattice parameters as a function of temperature, magnetic field and isotope mass,,. Besides, this compound is particularly interesting due to the coexistence and microscopic separation of two phases at low temperatures: one ferromagnetic and one antiferromagnetic. Recently, Huang et. al., measured neutron powder diffraction and magnetization in La1-xCaxMnO3 samples, with x=0.47, 0.50 and 0.53. They argued the existence in all samples of a paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition, for a phase called F-I, at 265 K and the formation of a second crystallographic phase, named A-II, below 230 K. They also pointed out that phase A-II ordered antiferromagnetically with a CE-type magnetic structure below 160 K. Moreover, Radaelli et. al. measured a rapid change of the lattice parameters between 130 K and 225 K in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3. This was associated with the development of a Jahn-Teller distortion of the Mn-O octahedra, as well as partial orbital ordering.

Relaxation experiments are a useful tool to study the dynamics of the charge ordering phase due to the frustration in the spin equilibrium configuration. Until now, attention has been focused in the relaxation of electrical resistivity after a large change of an applied magnetic field, which induces a transition from a ferromagnetic metallic state to a charge ordered insulator phase or conversely,. However, systematic reports of magnetic relaxation curves (M(t)) in charge ordered compounds are rare, possible because the abrupt jump seen in resistivity is absent in magnetic measurements. Here, we present an extensive study M(t) curves measured in a polycrystalline sample of La0.5Ca0.5MnO3. We also performed similar measurements in a polycrystalline La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 sample for comparison.

Polycrystalline samples of La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 and La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 were prepared by the standard procedures described elsewhere ,. X-ray diffraction measurements pointed out high quality samples. Magnetization measurements were done with a standard MPMS-5S SQUID magnetometer. The relaxation measuring procedure was the following: first, the sample was heated to 400 K in zero magnetic field; second, the remanent magnetic field in the solenoid of the SQUID magnetometer was seted to zero; third, the sample was cooled down to the working temperature in zero magnetic field; fourth, an applied magnetic field (H) was increased from 0 to 5 T at a rate of 0.83 T/minute and remained applied for a waiting time tw=50 s; fifth, H was decreased to zero at the same rate; finally, when H was zero (we defined this moment as t=0) the M(t) curve was recorded for more than 210 minutes. We have measured the profile of the remanent magnetic field trapped in the superconducting solenoid after increasing H to 5 T and the subsequent removal. Within the experimental region the trapped magnetic field was lower than 1.1 mT.

Figure 1 shows the temperature dependence of the magnetization measured with H=5 T for one of the La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 samples studied. The inset shows the same type of measurement with H=1.2 mT. In the first case the measurement started at 2 K after a zero field cooling procedure, while in the second (inset) started at 400 K. The large hysteresis, at magnetic field as high as 5 T, is a clear evidence of the intrinsic frustration in the equilibrium configuration of the spin system. The paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition around 225 K (minimum slope) is independent of the applied field and the followed path. However, the transition to the antiferromagnetic phase is path dependent and the Neel temperature (TN) decreases with the increase of H. Values of TN, calculated from the maximum slope in the curves, changed between 100 and 195 K. The shape of these curves is in agreement with previous reports in the literature ,.

Figure 2 shows magnetic relaxation measurements from 145 K to 195 K. To facilitate the comparison between curves at different temperatures, the magnetization in each case has been normalized to the corresponding value just after removing the H=5 T. We will denote these curves as m(t)=M(t)/M(0). As could be seen, the relaxation rate (mean slope of the curves or $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$m/$`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$) increases systematically with increasing temperatures from 150 K to 195 K. It is important to note that slopes here are negatives. The ratio of magnetization change between t=$`\mathrm{}`$ (the last measurement made) and t=0, m($`\mathrm{}`$), at 150 K is about 20 %, while at 195 K is only 0.9 %. The increase in the relaxation rate between 150 and 195 K is in clear contrast with the behavior between 10 K and 150 K, where the relaxation rate decreases. Included in figure 2 is the curve corresponding to 145 K which illustrates this behavior. Measurements of M versus H for this system , revealed the complete destruction of the antiferromagnetic phase above 150 K with H=5 T. This fact could be influencing the change of behavior of the relaxation rate around 150 K.

The inset in figure 2 reproduces the relaxation curve before normalization for 195 K. This curve is noticeable different from those at lower temperatures. Here, the magnetization first decreases and, after approximately 4 minutes, starts increasing with time. The inset in figure 3 also shows the M(t) curves at 200 K. In this case, no decrease in magnetization was measured, but a monotonous increase with time (approximately 62$``$10$`{}_{}{}^{5}\mu _{B}^{}`$ in 218 minutes) is observed. The experiment at 200 K was repeated with a sample of the same compound having only 9 % of the original mass. A similar increase of magnetization with time (88$``$10$`{}_{}{}^{5}\mu _{B}^{}`$ in 218 minutes) was found. These values are about 10 times smaller than the magnetization measured with H=1.2 mT at the same temperature (see inset in figure 1).

The main frame of figure 3 shows m(t) curves from 195 K to 245 K. Notice that, differently from the previous figure, all curves, except the one at 195 K, show values above one. In other words, the magnetization increases with time (curves have positive slopes) above the M(0) value in each case. Furthermore, m($`\mathrm{}`$) values are systematically higher with higher temperatures: from 0.9 % at 195 K to 75 % at 240 K. However, M(0) decreases with higher temperatures, as shown in figure 1. The curve at 245 K is also shown and presents a smaller m($`\mathrm{}`$) value with respect to the one at 240 K, probably associated with the transition of the system to the paramagnetic phase. Magnetic relaxation measurements were also done between 245 K and 350 K. In this temperature interval we did not find a systematic variation of the relaxation rate. Nonetheless, above 260 K, the M(t) curves always show the usual decreasing behavior with time.

As a small magnetic field is trapped (typically about 1 mT) in the superconducting solenoid of the SQUID magnetometer, resulting after successive applications and removals of H=5 T, we decided to check its role in the unusual increase in magnetization. The temperature of 210 K was chosen since the absolute value of magnetization is not too small and the increase in normalized magnetization is higher than at 200 K. We repeated the standard relaxation procedure, but instead of changing the applied magnetic field from 5 T to H=0 mT (squares), we reduced it from 5 T to H=-1.2 mT (circles) and H=-10 mT (triangles in the inset). In each case, this last field remained applied during the whole relaxation measurement. For H=-1.2 mT the actual field applied to the sample is almost zero. The initial magnetization of the sample here is lower than in the H=0 mT case, but it is still positive. However, the H=-10 mT is about 10 times higher than the trapped flux in the SQUID solenoid and the actual applied field to the sample is negative. The initial magnetization of the sample is lower with H=-10 mT than in the previous cases and has a negative value (see inset). Note that, contrary to what it is usually expected, the magnetization increases with time even with applied negative magnetic fields. The last measurements strongly support the point that is not the small trapped magnetic field in the solenoid of the magnetometer which is causing the unusual relaxation in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3.

Next, we repeated the standard relaxation procedure changing tw. Figure 5 shows three m(t) curves with tw equal to 50 s (squares), 500 s (circles) and 5000 s (up triangles). Clearly, the normalized increase in magnetization is higher the longer the 5 T magnetic field remains applied. Values of M(0) also increase for longer tw. A plausible explanation could be that the remanent trapped field in the sample after removing the H=5 T, which is higher for longer tw, is causing the self-alignment of the spins and the increase in magnetization. Therefore, these curves would be reflecting information about the interactions in the La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 sample.

Finally, we repeated the standard relaxation procedure for a La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 polycrystalline sample. The ground state of this composition is a single ferromagnetic phase with the paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition around 250 K. The magnetization, in relaxation measurements both above and below the Curie temperature, always decreased with time. These results for La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 are in agreement with a similar study reported for La0.7Sr0.3MnO3.

We conclude that is not only the ferromagnetic interaction that is causing the increase in magnetization in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3. In order to understand this behavior we have to include other specific details of the crystalline and magnetic structure of the charge ordered material. These intriguing results could be a consequence of the competition between ferromagnetic double exchange and antiferromagnetic superexchange coupling. However, further studies in other charge ordering compounds, as well as simultaneous measurements of magnetization, resistivity, etc. are desirable to elucidate this unusual behavior.

We thank FAPESP, CAPES, CNPq and PRONEX for financial support. We also thank professor P. Nozar for a helpful discussion.

Figure 1. Magnetization per Mn ion versus temperature measured with an applied magnetic field of 5 T (1.2 mT in the inset) for a La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 sample. Magnetization is given in Bohr magnetons per manganese ion. Arrows and numbers show the direction of temperature sweep.

Figure 2. Normalized magnetic relaxation measurements after applying and removing an applied magnetic field of 5 T. Time is shown in logarithmic scale. The large arrow indicates the direction of increasing temperatures and relaxation rates (slope less negative) between 150 K and 195 K. Also shown is the curve for 145 K that presents a higher relaxation rate in comparison with 150 K. The inset reproduces details of the curve at 195 K with the corresponding error bars.

Figure 3. Normalized magnetic relaxation measurements after applying and removing a magnetic field of 5 T. Time is shown in logarithmic scale. The large arrow indicates the direction of increasing temperatures between 195 K and 240 K. Also shown is the curve for 245 K that presents a smaller increase of the normalized magnetization. The inset reproduces details of the curve at 200 K with the corresponding error bars (same dimension of circles), showing an unusual increase in the magnetization.

Figure 4. Magnetic relaxation curves at 210 K after repeating the standard procedure but reducing the field from 5 T to H=0 mT (squares), H=-1.2 mT (circles) and H=-10 mT (triangles in the inset). The initial magnetization of the sample decreases with increasing negative magnetic field and all curves show an increase in magnetization with time. Error bars are of the same dimension of symbols for all curves.

Figure 5. Normalized magnetic relaxation measurements at 210 K after applying a 5 T magnetic field, keeping it for a waiting time tw= 50, 500 and 5000 s, and removing it. The increase in normalized magnetization is higher the longer the magnetic field remains applied.