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# Conditional indifference and conditional preservation

## Introduction

Within the last years, the propositional limitations of classical belief revision have been overcome piece by piece. For instance, Boutilier (?) investigated belief revision within a modal framework, and Williams (?) proposed *transmutation schemas for knowledge systems*. In general, *epistemic states* have moved into the center of interest as representations of belief states of some individual or intelligent agent at a given time. Besides propositional or first-order facts, reflecting certain knowledge, they may contain assumptions, preferences among beliefs, and, as a crucial ingredient, conditional knowledge. They may be represented in different ways, e.g. by gradings of plausibility or disbelief, by making use of epistemic entrenchment, or as a probability distribution.

Epistemic states provide an excellent framework to study *iterative revisions* which are important to build fully dynamic systems111An interesting approach to iterated revisions of *belief sets* was proposed quite recently by Lehmann, Magidor and Schlechta in (?).. While propositional AGM theory only observes the results of revisions, considering epistemic states under change allows one to focus on the mechanisms underlying that change, taking conditional beliefs as *revision policies* explicitly into account (cf. (???)). The connection between epistemic states, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, (iterative) revision operators, $``$, and conditionals, $`(B|A)`$, is established by the *Ramsey test*

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(B|A)\text{iff}\mathrm{\Psi }AB.$$
(1)
Hence revising epistemic states does not only mean to deal with propositional beliefs – it also requires studying how conditional beliefs are changed.

Darwiche and Pearl (?) rephrased the AGM postulates for epistemic states. Applying the *minimal change paradigm* of propositional belief revision in that extended framework, as Goldszmidt and Boutilier did in (?), however, may produce unintuitive results (?). So, Darwiche and Pearl (?) advanced four postulates as a cautious approach to describe *principles of conditional preservation* when revising epistemic states by *propositional* beliefs. In (??), we extended their approach in considering revisions of epistemic states by *conditionals*. We proposed a set of axioms outlining conditional revisions which are in accordance with some fundamental postulates of revisions (like, for instance, *success*) and with propositional AGM theory, and which preserve conditional beliefs in observing conditional interactions. These interactions were specified by two newly introduced relations between conditionals, that of *subconditionality* and that of *perpendicularity* (see (?)).

Earlier, in (?), we defined a *principle of conditional preservation* in quite a different, namely probabilistic, framework. This principle there was based on the algebraic notion of conditional structures, made use of group theoretical means and postulated the numerical values of the given probability distribution to follow the *conditional structures* of worlds.

In this paper, we will bring together both approaches to conditional preservation, the qualitative one and the quantitative one, in the semi-quantitative framework of ordinal conditional functions. We will rephrase the probabilistic principle of conditional preservation of (?) for ordinal conditional functions, and we will show, that this quantitative principle of conditional preservation implies the corresponding qualitative postulates of (?). Actually, the quantitative version is much stronger than the qualitative one, dealing with *sets of conditionals* instead of only one revising conditional, and handling interactions of conditionals of arbitrary complexity. Although numerical in nature, the principle is based on a symbolic representation of conditional influences on worlds, called *conditional structures*. Numbers (rankings or probabilities) are only considered as manifestations of complex conditional interactions. The representation of conditional structures by the aid of group theory provides a rich methodological framework to study conditionals in belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning.

In the following section, we fix some notations and describe the relationship between conditionals and epistemic states. Then we introduce the crucial notion of conditional structures which the property of conditional indifference is based upon. By applying the concept of indifference to revision functions, we obtain a precise formalization of the principle of conditional preservation, and we characterize ordinal conditional functions observing this principle. Further on, we compare our approach to Goldszmidt, Morris & Pearl’s system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$ in several examples. Finally, we bring together qualitative and quantitative approaches to the principle of conditional preservation, proving the formalization given here to be a most fundamental one. A summary and an outlook conclude this paper.

## Conditionals and epistemic states

We consider a propositional language $``$ over a finite alphabet $`a,b,c\mathrm{}`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ denote the set of possible worlds for $``$, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a complete set of interpretations of $``$. Throughout this paper, we will write $`\overline{A}`$ instead of $`\neg A`$, and $`AB`$ instead of $`AB`$, for formulas $`A,B`$.

Conditionals $`(B|A)`$ represent statements of the form “*If A then B*”, expressing a relationship between two (propositional) formulas $`A`$, the *antecedent* or *premise*, and $`B`$, the *consequent*. $`()`$ denotes the set of all conditionals $`(B|A)`$ with $`A,B`$. A conditional $`(B|)`$ with a tautological antecedent is taken to correspond to its (propositional) consequent, $`B`$. $`(D|C)`$ is called a *subconditional* of $`(B|A)`$, written as

$$(D|C)(B|A),$$
(2)
iff $`CDAB`$ and $`C\overline{D}A\overline{B}`$. Typically, subconditionals arise by strengthening the antecedent of a conditional, e.g. $`(b|ac)`$ is a subconditional of $`(b|a)`$, $`(b|ac)(b|a)`$.

Each possible world $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ either confirms $`(B|A)`$, in case that $`\omega AB`$, or refutes it, if $`\omega A\overline{B}`$, or does not even satisfy its premise, $`\omega \vDash ̸A`$, and so is of no relevance for it. Although conditionals are evaluated with respect to worlds, they cannot really be accepted (as entities) in single, isolated worlds. To validate conditionals, we need richer epistemic structures than plain propositional interpretations, at least to compare different worlds with regard to their relevance for a conditional (see, for example, (???)). Epistemic states as representations of cognitive states of intelligent agents provide an adequate framework for conditionals.

An epistemic notion that turned out to be of great importance both for conditionals and epistemic states, in particular in the context of belief revision, is that of *plausibility*: conditionals are supposed to represent plausible conclusions, and plausibility relations on formulas or worlds, respectively, guide AGM-revisions of belief sets and of epistemic states (???).

As Spohn (?) emphasized, however, it is not enough to consider the qualitative ordering of propositions according to their plausibility – also relative distances between degrees of plausibility should be taken into account. So he introduced ordinal conditional functions $`\kappa `$ (*OCF’s, ranking functions*) (?) from worlds to ordinals such that some worlds are mapped to the minimal element $`0`$. Here, we will simply assume that OCF’s are functions $`\kappa :\mathrm{\Omega }\{0,\mathrm{}\}`$ from the set of worlds to the natural numbers, extended by $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$. They specify non-negative integers as degrees of plausibility – or, more precisely, as degrees of *disbelief* – for worlds. The smaller $`\kappa (\omega )`$ is, the more plausible the world $`\omega `$ appears, and what is believed (for certain) in the epistemic state represented by $`\kappa `$ is described precisely by the set $`\text{Mod}(\kappa ):=\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }\kappa (\omega )=0\}`$. For propositional formulas $`A,B`$, we set $`\kappa (A)=\mathrm{min}\{\kappa (\omega )\omega A\}`$, so that $`\kappa (AB)=\mathrm{min}\{\kappa (A),\kappa (B)\}`$. In particular, $`0=\mathrm{min}\{\kappa (A),\kappa (\overline{A})\}`$, so that at least one of $`A`$ or $`\overline{A}`$ is considered mostly plausible. A proposition $`A`$ is believed iff $`\kappa (\overline{A})>0`$, which is denoted by $`\kappa A`$. A conditional $`(B|A)()`$ may be assigned a degree of plausibility via $`\kappa (B|A)=\kappa (AB)\kappa (A)`$. Each OCF $`\kappa `$ induces a (propositional) AGM-revision operator $``$ by setting $`\text{Mod}(\kappa A)=\mathrm{min}_\kappa (\text{Mod}(A))`$ (see (?)). The Ramsey test (1) then reads $`\kappa (B|A)`$ iff $`\kappa AB`$. This is in accordance with the plausibility relation imposed by $`\kappa `$, as the following lemma shows:

###### Lemma 1

Let $`(B|A)`$ be a conditional in $`()`$, let $`\kappa `$ be an ordinal conditional function. Then $`\kappa (B|A)`$ (by applying the Ramsey test) iff $`\kappa (AB)<\kappa (A\overline{B})`$.

So $`\kappa `$ accepts a conditional (via the Ramsey test) iff $`AB`$ is more plausible than $`A\overline{B}`$. The proof of this lemma is immediate.

## Conditional structures

By observing the behavior of worlds with respect to it, each conditional $`(B|A)`$ can be considered as a generalized (namely three-valued) indicator function on worlds:

$$(B|A)(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 1:& \omega AB\hfill \\ \hfill 0:& \omega A\overline{B}\hfill \\ \hfill u:& \omega \overline{A}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
where $`u`$ stands for undefined (??)). Intuitively, incorporating a conditional as a plausible conclusion in an epistemic state means to make – at least some – worlds confirming the conditional more plausible than the worlds refuting it. In this sense, conditionals to be learned have effects on possible worlds (more exactly, on their degrees of plausibility), shifting them appropriately to establish the intended plausible relationship. (3) then provides a classification of worlds for achieving this: On confirming worlds $`\omega AB`$, i.e. $`(B|A)(\omega )=1`$, $`(B|A)`$ possibly has a positive effect, while on refuting worlds $`\omega A\overline{B}`$, $`(B|A)`$ possibly has a negative effect; the effects on worlds $`\omega `$ with $`(B|A)(\omega )=u`$ is unclear. Which worlds will actually be shifted depends on the chosen revision procedure – for the conditional, all worlds in either of the partitioning sets are indistinguishable.

When we consider (finite) sets of conditionals $`=\{(B_1|A_1),\mathrm{},(B_n|A_n)\}()`$, we have to modify the representation (3) appropriately to identify the effect of each conditional in $``$ on worlds in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. This leads to introducing the functions $`\sigma _i=\sigma _{(B_i|A_i)}`$ below (see (4)) which generalize (3) by replacing the numbers $`0`$ and $`1`$ by abstract symbols. Moreover, we will make use of a group structure to represent the joint impact of conditionals on worlds.

To each conditional $`(B_i|A_i)`$ in $``$ we associate two symbols $`𝐚_i^+,𝐚_i^{}`$. Let

$$_{}=𝐚_1^+,𝐚_1^{},\mathrm{},𝐚_n^+,𝐚_n^{}$$

be the free abelian group with generators $`𝐚_1^+,𝐚_1^{},\mathrm{},𝐚_n^+,𝐚_n^{}`$, i.e. $`_{}`$ consists of all elements of the form $`(𝐚_1^+)^{r_1}(𝐚_1^{})^{s_1}\mathrm{}(𝐚_n^+)^{r_n}(𝐚_n^{})^{s_n}`$ with integers $`r_i,s_i`$ (the ring of integers). Each element of $`_{}`$ can be identified by its exponents, so that $`_{}`$ is isomorphic to $`^{2n}`$ (?). The commutativity of $`_{}`$ corresponds to the fact that the conditionals in $``$ shall be effective simultaneously, without assuming any order of application. So our way of dealing with conditionals is a symmetric, homogeneous one – we do not need (user-defined) priorities among conditionals. Note that, although we will speak of *multiplication* and *products* in $`_{}`$, the generators of $`_{}`$ are merely juxtaposed, like words.

For each $`i,1in`$, we define a function $`\sigma _i:\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ by setting

$$\sigma _i(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝐚_i^+\text{if}& (B_i|A_i)(\omega )=1\hfill \\ \hfill 𝐚_i^{}\text{if}& (B_i|A_i)(\omega )=0\hfill \\ \hfill 1\text{if}& (B_i|A_i)(\omega )=u\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
$`\sigma _i(\omega )`$ represents the manner in which the conditional $`(B_i|A_i)`$ applies to the possible world $`\omega `$. The neutral element $`1`$ of $`_{}`$ corresponds to the non-applicability of $`(B_i|A_i)`$ in case that the antecedent $`A_i`$ is not satisfied. The function $`\sigma _{}:\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$,

$$\sigma _{}(\omega )=\underset{1in}{}\sigma _i(\omega )=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_iB_i}}{}𝐚_i^+\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}}{}𝐚_i^{}$$

describes the all-over effect of $``$ on $`\omega `$. $`\sigma _{}(\omega )`$ is called *(a representation of) the conditional structure of $`\omega `$ with respect to $``$*. For each world $`\omega `$, $`\sigma _{}(\omega )`$ contains at most one of each $`𝐚_i^+`$ or $`𝐚_i^{}`$, but never both of them because each conditional applies to $`\omega `$ in a well-defined way. The next lemma (which is easy to prove) shows that this property characterizes conditional structure functions:

###### Lemma 2

Let $`\sigma :\mathrm{\Omega }`$ be a map from the set of worlds $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to the free abelian group $`=𝐚_1^+,𝐚_1^{},\mathrm{},𝐚_n^+,𝐚_n^{}`$ generated by $`𝐚_1^+,𝐚_1^{},\mathrm{},𝐚_n^+,𝐚_n^{}`$, such that $`\sigma (\omega )`$ contains at most one of each $`𝐚_i^+`$ or $`𝐚_i^{}`$, for each world $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$. Then there is a set of conditionals $``$ with $`\text{card}()n`$ such that $`\sigma =\sigma _{}`$.

Example 3 Let $`=\{(c|a),(c|b)\}`$, where $`a,b,c`$ are atoms, and let $`_{}=𝐚_1^+,𝐚_1^{},𝐚_2^{},𝐚_2^{}`$. We associate $`𝐚_1^\pm `$ with the first conditional, $`(c|a)`$, and $`𝐚_2^\pm `$ with the second one, $`(c|b)`$. The following table shows the values of the function $`\sigma _{}`$ on worlds $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$:

$$\begin{array}{cccc}& & & \\ \omega \hfill & \sigma _{}(\omega )\hfill & \omega \hfill & \sigma _{}(\omega )\hfill \\ & & & \\ abc\text{}\hfill & 𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+\hfill & \overline{a}bc\hfill & 𝐚_2^+\hfill \\ ab\overline{c}\hfill & 𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2^{}\hfill & \overline{a}b\overline{c}\hfill & 𝐚_2^{}\hfill \\ a\overline{b}c\hfill & 𝐚_1^+\hfill & \overline{a}\overline{b}c\hfill & 1\hfill \\ a\overline{b}\overline{c}\hfill & 𝐚_1^{}\hfill & \overline{a}\overline{b}\overline{c}\hfill & 1\hfill \end{array}$$

$`abc`$ confirms both conditionals, so its conditional structure is represented by $`𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+`$. This corresponds to the product (in $`_{}`$) of the conditional structures of the worlds $`\overline{a}bc`$ and $`a\overline{b}c`$. Two worlds, namely $`\overline{a}\overline{b}c`$ and $`\overline{a}\overline{b}\overline{c}`$, are not affected at all by the conditionals in $``$.

The logical structure of antecedents and consequents of the conditionals in $``$ does not really matter, nor do logical relationships between the conditionals. All that we need is a conditional’s partitioning property on the set of worlds (cf. (3) and (4)). $`\sigma _{}`$ labels each world appropriately and allows us to compare different worlds with respect to the impact the conditionals in $``$ exert on them. The following example illustrates that also multiple copies of worlds may be necessary to relate conditional structures:

Example 4 Consider the set $`=\{(d|a),(d|b),(d|c)\}`$ of conditionals using the atoms $`a,b,c,d`$. Let $`𝐚_1^\pm ,𝐚_2^\pm ,𝐚_3^\pm `$ be the group generators associated with $`(d|a),(d|b)`$, $`(d|c)`$, respectively. Then we have

$`\sigma _{}(ab\overline{c}d)\sigma _{}(a\overline{b}cd)\sigma _{}(\overline{a}bcd)`$ $`=`$ $`(𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+)(𝐚_1^+𝐚_3^+)(𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^+)`$
$`=(𝐚_1^+)^2(𝐚_2^+)^2(𝐚_3^+)^2`$ $`=`$ $`(𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^+)^2`$
$`=`$ $`\sigma _{}(abcd)^2.`$
Here two copies of $`abcd`$, or of its structure, respectively, are necessary to match the product of the conditional structures of $`ab\overline{c}d,a\overline{b}cd`$ and $`\overline{a}bcd`$.

To compare worlds adequately with respect to their conditional structures, we take the worlds $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ as formal generators of the free abelian group

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}:=\omega \omega \mathrm{\Omega }$$

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ consists of all products $`\widehat{\omega }=\omega _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_1}\mathrm{}\omega _{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_m}`$, with $`\omega _1,\mathrm{},\omega _m\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and $`r_1,\mathrm{}r_m`$ integers. Introducing such a “multiplication between worlds” is nothing but a technical means to comply with the multiplicative structure the effects of conditionals impose on worlds. As in $`_{}`$, multiplication in $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ actually means juxtaposition. In (?), where we first developed these ideas, we considered multi-sets of worlds (corresponding to elements in $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ with only positive exponents) and calculated the conditional structure of such a multi-set as the *conditional weight* it is carrying. Making use of arbitrary elements of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ as group elements, however, provides a much more convenient and elegant framework to deal with conditional structures. We will usually write $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _1}{\omega _2}}`$ instead of $`\omega _1\omega _2^1`$.

Now $`\sigma _{}`$ may be extended to $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ in a straightforward manner by setting

$$\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega })=\sigma _{}(\omega _1)^{r_1}\mathrm{}\sigma _{}(\omega _m)^{r_m},$$

yielding a *homomorphism of groups* $`\sigma _{}:\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{}`$. For $`\widehat{\omega }=\omega _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_1}\mathrm{}\omega _{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_m}\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, we obtain

$`\sigma _{}(\omega _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_1}\mathrm{}\omega _{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_m})=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{1in}{}}(𝐚_i^+)^{_{k:\sigma _i(\omega _k)=𝐚_i^+}r_k}{\displaystyle \underset{1in}{}}(𝐚_i^{})^{_{k:\sigma _i(\omega _k)=𝐚_i^{}}r_k},`$
as a representation of its conditional structure. The exponent of $`𝐚_i^+`$ in $`\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega })`$ indicates the number of worlds in $`\widehat{\omega }`$ which confirm the conditional $`(B_i|A_i)`$, each world being counted with its multiplicity, and in the same way, the exponent of $`𝐚_i^{}`$ indicates the number of worlds that are in conflict with $`(B_i|A_i)`$.

By investigating suitable elements of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, it is possible to isolate the (positive or negative) net impacts of conditionals in $``$ , as the following example illustrates:

Example 5 (continued) In Example 2 above, we have

$$\sigma _{}(\frac{abc}{\overline{a}bc})=\frac{𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+}{𝐚_2^+}=𝐚_1^+$$

So $`{\displaystyle \frac{abc}{\overline{a}bc}}`$ reveals the positive net impact of the conditional $`(c|a)`$ within $``$, symbolized by $`𝐚_1^+`$.

Similarly, in Example 2, the element $`{\displaystyle \frac{ab\overline{c}\overline{d}\overline{a}\overline{b}c\overline{d}}{a\overline{b}c\overline{d}}}`$ isolates the negative net impact of the second conditional, $`(d|b)`$:
$`\sigma _{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{ab\overline{c}\overline{d}\overline{a}\overline{b}c\overline{d}}{a\overline{b}c\overline{d}}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2^{}𝐚_3^{}}{𝐚_1^{}𝐚_3^{}}}=𝐚_2^{}`$.

The following example is taken from (?, p. 68f):

Example 6 Consider the set $``$ consisting of the following conditionals:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}r_1:\hfill & (f|b)\hfill & \text{Birds fly.}\hfill \\ r_2:\hfill & (b|p)\hfill & \text{Penguins are birds.}\hfill \\ r_3:\hfill & (\overline{f}|p)\hfill & \text{Penguins do not fly.}\hfill \\ r_4:\hfill & (w|b)\hfill & \text{Birds have wings.}\hfill \\ r_5:\hfill & (a|f)\hfill & \text{Animals that fly are airborne.}\hfill \end{array}$$

In Table 1, we list the conditional structures of all possible worlds; this table will be helpful in the sequel.

Having the same conditional structure defines an equivalence relation $`_{}`$ on $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$:

$$\widehat{\omega }_1_{}\widehat{\omega }_2\text{iff}\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_1)=\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_2).$$
(5)
Those elements of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ that are balanced with respect to the effects of conditionals in $``$ are contained in the *kernel of $`\sigma _{}`$*, $`\text{ker}\sigma _{}=\{\widehat{\omega }\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega })=1\}`$. $`\text{ker}\sigma _{}`$ does not depend on the chosen representation of conditional structures by symbols in $`_{}`$ and thus, it is an invariant of $``$ (?).

Often, besides the conditionals explicitly given in $``$, implicit normalizing constraints have to be taken into account, like, e.g. $`\kappa ()=0`$ for ordinal conditional functions. This can be achieved by focusing on equivalence with repect to $`\sigma _{}`$. Since $`\sigma _{}`$ simply counts the generators occurring in $`\widehat{\omega }`$, two elements $`\widehat{\omega }_1=\omega _1^{r_1}\mathrm{}\omega _m^{r_m},\widehat{\omega }_2=\nu _1^{s_1}\mathrm{}\nu _p^{s_p}\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ are $`\sigma _{}`$-equivalent, $`\widehat{\omega }_1_{}\widehat{\omega }_2`$, iff $`_{1jm}r_j=_{1kp}s_k`$. This means, $`\widehat{\omega }_1_{}\widehat{\omega }_2`$ iff they both are a (cancelled) product of the same number of generators, each generator being counted with its corresponding exponent.

## Conditional indifference

To study conditional interactions, we now focus on the behavior of OCF’s $`\kappa :\mathrm{\Omega }\{0,\mathrm{}\}`$ with respect to the multiplication in $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. Each such function may be extended to a homomorphism, $`\kappa :\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_+(,+)`$, by setting

$$\kappa (\omega _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_1}\mathrm{}\omega _{m}^{}{}_{}{}^{r_m})=r_1\kappa (\omega _1)+\mathrm{}+r_m\kappa (\omega _m),$$

where $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_+`$ is the subgroup of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ generated by the set $`\mathrm{\Omega }_+:=\{\omega \mathrm{\Omega }\kappa (\omega )\mathrm{}\}`$. This allows us to analyze numerical relationships holding between different $`\kappa (\omega )`$. Thereby, it will be possible to elaborate the conditionals whose structures $`\kappa `$ follows, that means, to determine sets of conditionals $`()`$ with respect to which $`\kappa `$ is indifferent:

Definition 7 Suppose $`\kappa :\mathrm{\Omega }\{0,\mathrm{}\}`$ is an OCF, and $`()`$ is a set of conditionals such that $`\kappa (A)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`(B|A)`$. $`\kappa `$ is *indifferent with respect to*  $``$ iff the following two conditions hold:

1. If $`\kappa (\omega )=\mathrm{}`$ then there is $`(B|A)`$ such that $`\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega )1`$ and $`\kappa (\omega ^{})=\mathrm{}`$ for all $`\omega ^{}`$ with $`\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega ^{})=\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega )`$.
2. $`\kappa (\widehat{\omega }_1)=\kappa (\widehat{\omega }_2)\text{whenever }\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_1)=\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_2)`$ for $`\widehat{\omega }_1_{}\widehat{\omega }_2\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_+`$.

If $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to $`()`$, then it does not distinguish between different elements $`\widehat{\omega }_1,\widehat{\omega }_2`$ with the same conditional structure with respect to $``$. Normalizing constraints are taken into account by observing $`_{}`$-equivalence. Conversely, any deviation $`\kappa (\widehat{\omega })0`$ can be explained by the conditionals in $``$ acting on $`\widehat{\omega }`$ in a non-balanced way. Condition (i) in Definition Conditional indifference is necessary to deal with worlds $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }_+`$. Conditional indifference, as defined in Definition Conditional indifference, captures interactions of conditionals of arbitrary depth by making use of the homomorphism induced by $`\kappa `$. It also respects, however, indifference on the superficial level of the function $`\kappa `$ itself:

###### Lemma 8

If the ordinal conditional function $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to $``$, then $`\sigma _{}(\omega _1)=\sigma _{}(\omega _2)`$ implies $`\kappa (\omega _1)=\kappa (\omega _2)`$ for all worlds $`\omega _1,\omega _2\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

The next theorem gives a simple criteria to check conditional indifference with ordinal conditional functions. Moreover, it provides an intelligible schema to construct conditional indifferent functions.

###### Theorem 9

An OCF $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to a set $`=\{(B_1|A_1),\mathrm{},(B_n|A_n)\}`$ of conditionals iff $`\kappa (A_i)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`i,1in`$, and there are rational numbers $`\kappa _0,\kappa _i^+,\kappa _i^{}`$, $`1in`$, such that for all $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$,

$$\kappa (\omega )=\kappa _0+\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_iB_i}}{}\kappa _i^++\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B_i}}}{}\kappa _i^{}$$
(6)
*Sketch of proof.* According to Lemma 8, the equivalence relation (5) provides a rough classification of the worlds in $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with respect to the conditionals in $``$. Obtaining a representation of the form (6) then amounts to checking the solvability of a linear equational system. The proof of this theorem is very similar to the proof of the analogous theorem for probabilistic representation of knowledge given in (?). $`\mathrm{}`$

## The principle of conditional preservation

Minimality of change is a crucial paradigm for belief revision, and a “principle of conditional preservation” is to realize this idea of minimality when conditionals are involved in change. Minimizing absolutely the changes in conditional beliefs, as in (?), is an important proposal to this aim, but it does not always lead to intuitive results (?). The idea we will develop here rather aims at *preserving the conditional structure of knowledge* within an epistemic state which we assume to be represented by an OCF $`\kappa `$.

We just explained what it means for an OCF $`\kappa `$ to follow the structure imposed by $``$ on the set of worlds by introducing the notion of conditional indifference (cf. Definition Conditional indifference). Pursuing this approach further in the framework of belief revision, a revision of $`\kappa `$ by simultaneously incorporating the conditionals in $``$, $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$, can be said to preserve the conditional structure of $`\kappa `$ with respect to $``$ if the *relative change function* $`\kappa ^{}\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to $``$222Why just $`\kappa ^{}\kappa `$? First, it is more accurate than, e.g., $`\mathrm{max}\{0,\kappa ^{}\kappa \}`$, in the sense of taking differences in degrees of plausibility seriously. Second, it makes use of the conditional “$``$”, considering revision as a generalized conditional operation; for more details, see (?).. Taking into regard the worlds $`\omega `$ with $`\kappa (\omega )=\mathrm{}`$ appropriately, this gives rise to the following definitions:

Definition 10 Let $`\kappa `$ be an OCF, and let $``$ be a finite set of conditionals. Let $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$ denote the result of revising $`\kappa `$ by $``$. Presuppose further333Note that success $`\kappa ^{}`$ is not compulsory for conditional indifference and conditional preservation. We only presuppose $`\kappa ^{}(A)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`(B|A)`$ in order to exclude pathological cases. that $`\kappa ^{}(A)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`(B|A)`$.

1. $`\kappa ^{}`$ is called *$`\kappa `$-consistent* iff $`\kappa (\omega )=\mathrm{}`$ implies $`\kappa ^{}(\omega )=\mathrm{}`$.
2. $`\kappa ^{}`$ is *indifferent with respect to $``$ and $`\kappa `$* iff $`\kappa ^{}`$ is $`\kappa `$-consistent and the following two conditions hold:

1. If $`\kappa ^{}(\omega )=\mathrm{}`$ then $`\kappa (\omega )=\mathrm{}`$, or there is $`(B|A)`$ such that $`\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega )1`$ and $`\kappa ^{}(\omega ^{})=\mathrm{}`$ for all $`\omega ^{}`$ with $`\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega ^{})=\sigma _{(B|A)}(\omega )`$.
    2. $`(\kappa ^{}\kappa )(\widehat{\omega }_1)=(\kappa ^{}\kappa )(\widehat{\omega }_2)\text{whenever }\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_1)=\sigma _{}(\widehat{\omega }_2)`$ and $`\widehat{\omega }_1_{}\widehat{\omega }_2`$ for $`\widehat{\omega }_1,\widehat{\omega }_2\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_+^{}`$, where $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}_+^{}=\omega \mathrm{\Omega }\kappa ^{}(\omega )\mathrm{}`$.

The principle of conditional preservation is now realized as an indifference property:

Definition 11 Let $`\kappa `$ be an OCF, and let $``$ be a finite set of conditionals. A revision $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$ satisfies the *principle of conditional preservation* iff $`\kappa ^{}`$ is indifferent with respect to $``$ and $`\kappa `$.

So $`\kappa `$ satisfies the principle of conditional preservation if any change in plausibility is clearly and unambigously induced by $``$. The next theorem characterizes revisions of ordinal conditional functions that satisfy the principle of conditional preservation. The theorem is obvious by observing Theorem 9.

###### Theorem 12

Let $`\kappa ,\kappa ^{}`$ be OCF’s, and let $`=\{(B_1|A_1),`$ $`\mathrm{},(B_n|A_n)\}`$ be a (finite) set of conditionals in $`()`$. A revision $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$ satisfies the principle of conditional preservation iff $`\kappa ^{}(A_i)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`i,1in`$, and there are numbers $`\kappa _0,\kappa _i^+,\kappa _i^{},1in`$, such that for all $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$,

$$\kappa ^{}(\omega )=\kappa (\omega )+\kappa _0+\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_iB_i}}{}\kappa _i^++\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B_i}}}{}\kappa _i^{}$$
(7)
Comparing Theorems 9 and 12 with one another, we see that an OCF $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to a finite set of conditionals $``$ iff it can be taken as a revision $`\kappa _0`$ satisfying the principle of conditional preservation, where $`\kappa _0(\omega )=0`$ for all $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the *uniform ordinal conditional function*.

Up to now, we have not yet taken the *success condition* $`\kappa ^{}`$ into regard, postulating that the revised OCF in fact represents the conditionals in $``$.

Definition 13 Let $`\kappa ,\kappa ^{}`$ be OCF’s, and let $``$ be a set of conditionals. $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$ is called a *c-revision* iff $`\kappa ^{}`$ and $`\kappa ^{}`$ satisfies the principle of conditional preservation. $`\kappa `$ is called a *c-representation* of $``$, iff $`\kappa `$ and $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to $``$.

Theorems 9 and 12 provide simple schemes to construct c-revisions and c-representations. The numbers $`\kappa _0,\kappa _i^+,\kappa _i^{},1in`$, then have to be chosen appropriately to ensure that $`\kappa ^{()}`$ is an ordinal conditional function, and such that $`\kappa ^{()}(AB)<\kappa ^{()}(A\overline{B})`$ for all conditionals $`(B|A)`$ (cf. Lemma 1). In the special case that $`\kappa `$ is a representation of $``$, we obtain the following corollary by some easy calculations:

###### Corollary 14

Let $`=\{(B_1|A_1),\mathrm{},(B_n|A_n)\}`$ be a (finite) set of conditionals in $`()`$, and let $`\kappa `$ be an OCF.

$`\kappa `$ is a c-representation of $``$ iff $`\kappa (A_i)\mathrm{}`$ for all $`i,1in`$, and there are numbers $`\kappa _0,\kappa _i^+,\kappa _i^{},1in`$, such that for all $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$,

$$\kappa (\omega )=\kappa _0+\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_iB_i}}{}\kappa _i^++\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B_i}}}{}\kappa _i^{},$$
(8)
and

$`\kappa _i^{}\kappa _i^+`$ $`>`$ $`\underset{\omega A_iB_i}{\mathrm{min}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{}\right)`$
$``$ $`\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{\mathrm{min}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{}\right)`$
*Proof.* $`\kappa `$ is a c-representation of $`R`$ iff $`\kappa `$ and $`\kappa `$ is indifferent with respect to $``$. From Theorem 9, we obtain representation (8). Due to Lemma 1, $`\kappa `$ iff $`\kappa (A_iB_i)<\kappa (A_i\overline{B}_i)`$, i.e. iff

$`\underset{\omega A_iB_i}{\mathrm{min}}\kappa _0+{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1jn}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1jn}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{}`$
$`<\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{\mathrm{min}}\kappa _0+{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1jn}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1jn}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{},`$
which is equivalent to

$`\underset{\omega A_iB_i}{\mathrm{min}}\kappa _i^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{}`$
$`<\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{\mathrm{min}}\kappa _i^{}+{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_jB_j}}{}}\kappa _j^++{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}\kappa _j^{}.`$
This shows (14). $`\mathrm{}`$

The difference $`\kappa _i^{}\kappa _i^+`$, or the right hand side of (14), respectively, measures the effort needed to establish the i-th conditional. To calculate suitable constants $`\kappa _i^+,\kappa _i^{}`$, we apply the following heuristics: To establish conditional beliefs, one can make confirming worlds more plausible (if required, which amounts to choose $`\kappa _i^+0`$), or refuting worlds less plausible (if required, which means $`\kappa _i^{}0`$). The normalizing constant $`\kappa _0`$ then has to be chosen appropriately to ensure that actually an OCF is obtained.

We prefer the second alternative, presupposing

$$\kappa _i^{}0,\text{ and }\kappa _i^+=0\text{for}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}in$$
(10)
Then (14) reduces to

$$\kappa _i^{}>\underset{\omega A_iB_i}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}\kappa _j^{}\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}\kappa _j^{}$$
(11)
for $`1in`$. If there are worlds $`\omega `$ with neutral conditional structure, $`\sigma _{}(\omega )=1`$, we may set $`\kappa _0=0`$. So, we obtain a c-representation of $``$ via

$$\kappa (\omega )=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}}{}\kappa _i^{},$$
(12)
where the $`\kappa _i^{}`$ have to satisfy (11).

Example 15 We will use Corollary 14 and the heuristics (10) to obtain a c-representation (12) of the conditionals $`=\{r_1,\mathrm{},r_5\}`$ of Example 2. To calculate constants $`\kappa _i^{}`$ according to (11), Table 1 proves to be helpful. We only have to focus on the $`𝐚^{}`$-labels of worlds, and we obtain

$`\kappa _5^{},\kappa _4^{},\kappa _1^{}>0,`$
$`\kappa _3^{}>\mathrm{min}\{\kappa _1^{},\kappa _2^{}\},\kappa _2^{}>\mathrm{min}\{\kappa _1^{},\kappa _3^{}\}`$
So we set

$$\kappa _5^{}=\kappa _4^{}=\kappa _1^{}=1,\kappa _2^{}=\kappa _3^{}=2.$$
(13)
Since there are also worlds $`\omega `$ with $`\sigma _{}(\omega )=1`$ (cf. Table 1), we set $`\kappa _0=0`$. So we obtain a c-representation of $`r_1,\mathrm{},r_5`$ by

$$\kappa (\omega )=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1i5}{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}}{}\kappa _i^{},$$
(14)
where the $`A_i,B_i`$’s are the antecedents and consequents of the rules $`r_i`$ and the $`\kappa _i^{}`$ are defined as in (13) for $`1i5`$ (see also Table 2 in Example A comparison with system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$ below).

## A comparison with system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$

A well-known method to represent a (finite) set $`=\{r_i=(B_i|A_i)1in\}`$ of conditionals by an OCF is to apply the *system-Z* of Goldszmidt and Pearl (??). The corresponding ranking function $`\kappa ^z`$ is given by

$$\kappa ^z(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{c}0,\text{if }\omega \text{ does not falsify any }r_i,\hfill \\ 1+\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}}{\mathrm{max}}Z(r_i),\text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
where $`Z`$ is an ordering on $``$ observing the (logical) interactions of the conditionals (for a detailed description of $`Z`$, see, for instance, (?)). $`\kappa ^z`$ assigns to each world $`\omega `$ the lowest possible rank admissible with respect to the constraints in $``$. Comparing (15) with (6), we see that in general, $`\kappa ^z`$ is *not* a c-representation of $``$, since in its definition (15), *maximum* is used instead of *summation* (see Example A comparison with system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$ below). The numbers $`Z(r_i)`$, however, may well serve to define appropriate constants $`\kappa _i^{}`$ in (6). Setting $`\kappa _0=\kappa _i^+=0`$, and $`\kappa _i^{}=Z(r_i)+1`$ for $`1in`$, we obtain from $`Z`$ a c-representation $`\kappa _c^z`$ of $``$ via

$$\kappa _c^z(\omega )=\{\begin{array}{c}0,\text{if }\omega \text{ does not falsify any }r_i,\hfill \\ \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1in}{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}}{}(Z(r_i)+1),\text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
An even more sophisticated representation is obtained by combining the system-Z approach with the principle of maximum entropy (*ME-principle*), yielding system-$`Z^{}`$ (?). The corresponding $`Z^{}`$-rankings of the conditionals in $``$ have to satisfy the following equation (see equation (16) in (?, p. 225))

$`Z^{}(r_i)+\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{\mathrm{min}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}Z^{}(r_j)`$ (17)
$`=1+\underset{\omega A_iB_i}{\mathrm{min}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ji}{\omega A_j\overline{B}_j}}{}}Z^{}(r_j),`$
and $`\kappa ^{}`$ is then calculated by

$$\kappa ^{}(\omega )=\underset{\omega A_i\overline{B}_i}{}Z^{}(r_i)$$
(18)
(see equation (18) in (?, p. 225)). For so-called *minimal-core sets* – these are sets $``$ allowing each conditional to be separable from the other rules by restricting conditional interactions –, a procedure is given to calculate $`Z^{}`$-rankings in (?).

Like our method, system-$`Z^{}`$ makes use of summation instead of maximization, as in system-Z. And equations (17) determining the $`Z^{}`$-rankings look similar to our inequality constraints (14). More exactly, if we follow the heuristics (10) and set $`Z^{}(r_i)=\kappa _i^{}`$, then system-$`Z^{}`$ turns out to be a special instance of our more general scheme in Corollary 14. In particular, system-$`Z^{}`$ yields a c-representation.

This similarity is not accidental – the ME-principle not only provides a powerful base for system-$`Z^{}`$, but also influenced the idea of conditional indifference presented in this paper. In (?), we characterized the ME-principle by four axioms, one of which was the *postulate of conditional preservation*. Conditional preservation for probability functions there was realized in full analogy to that for OCF’s defined here. So both c-representations and ME-distributions comply with a fundamental principle for representing conditionals, and it is this principle of conditional preservation (or principle of conditional indifference, respectively) that is responsible for a peculiar thoroughness and accuracy when incorporating conditionals. Since we realized this principle completely in a semi-quantitative setting, we did not have to refer to probabilities and to ME-distributions, and we were able to formalize the acceptance conditions, (14), in a purely qualitative manner.

We will illustrate our method by various examples which are taken from (?) and (?) to allow a direct comparison with system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$.

Example 16 Consider once again the conditionals $`r_1,\mathrm{},r_5`$ from Example 2. Here we have $`Z(r_1)=Z(r_4)=Z(r_5)=0`$ and $`Z(r_2)=Z(r_3)=1`$ (for the details, see (?, p. 69)). By setting $`\kappa _i^{}=Z(r_i)+1`$ for $`1i5`$, we obtain the same constants, (13), as in Example 14. Furthermore, by applying the procedure *Z-rank* in (?), we calculate $`Z^{}(r_1)=Z^{}(r_4)=Z^{}(r_5)=1`$ and $`Z^{}(r_2)=Z^{}(r_3)=2`$, therefore also $`Z^{}(r_i)=\kappa _i^{}`$, $`1i5`$. So, in this example, $`\kappa _c^z`$ from (16) actually is the OCF from (14) and coincides with $`\kappa ^{}`$. For instance,

$`\kappa _c^z(\overline{p}\overline{b}\overline{f}wa)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\kappa _c^z(pb\overline{f}wa)`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa _1^{}=1,`$
$`\kappa _c^z(p\overline{b}fw\overline{a})`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa _2^{}+\kappa _3^{}+\kappa _5^{}=5.`$
In Table 2, we list the ranks of all possible worlds, first computed by system-Z, according to (15), and then computed as a c-representation, $`\kappa _c^z`$, of $``$, according to (16).

This table reveals clearly that $`\kappa ^z`$ is not a c-representation of $``$: Associating symbols $`𝐚_i^+,𝐚_i^{}`$ with the conditionals $`r_i`$ in $``$, $`1i5`$, respectively, we obtain

$$\sigma _{}\left(\frac{pbfwa\overline{p}bfw\overline{a}}{pbfw\overline{a}\overline{p}bfwa}\right)=\frac{𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^{}𝐚_4^+𝐚_5^+𝐚_1^+𝐚_4^+𝐚_5^{}}{𝐚_1^+𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^{}𝐚_4^+𝐚_5^{}𝐚_1^+𝐚_4^+𝐚_5^+}=1,$$

but $`\kappa ^z\left({\displaystyle \frac{pbfwa\overline{p}bfw\overline{a}}{pbfw\overline{a}\overline{p}bfwa}}\right)`$ $`=\kappa ^z(pbfwa)+\kappa ^z(\overline{p}bfw\overline{a})\kappa ^z(pbfw\overline{a})\kappa ^z(\overline{p}bfwa)=2+12=10`$.

What is the actual benefit of this formal principle of conditional preservation? Comparing $`\kappa ^z(\omega )`$ to $`\kappa _c^z(\omega )`$, we see that $`\kappa _c^z`$ is more fine-grained. Therefore, it represents more conditionals. Consider, e.g., the conditional $`(w|pb\overline{f}a)`$ – does a non-flying, but airborne penguin possess wings or not? $`\kappa ^z`$ does not know, we have $`\kappa ^z(pb\overline{f}aw)=\kappa ^z(pb\overline{f}a\overline{w})=1`$. On the other hand, $`\kappa _c^z`$ accepts this conditional: $`\kappa _c^z(pb\overline{f}aw)=1<2=\kappa _c^z(pb\overline{f}a\overline{w})`$. To show that this is more than pure speculation, consider the conditional structures of $`pb\overline{f}aw`$ and $`pb\overline{f}a\overline{w}`$: $`\sigma _{}(pb\overline{f}aw)=𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^+𝐚_4^+`$, $`\sigma _{}(pb\overline{f}a\overline{w})=𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2^+𝐚_3^+𝐚_4^{}`$. Thus, except for $`r_4`$, both worlds behave exactly the same with respect to the conditionals in $``$, but, due to $`r_4`$, our penguin is supposed to have wings since it is a bird.

Similar arguments apply when considering the conditionals $`(a|pbf),(a|pbfw),(w|pbf),(w|pbfa)`$: $`\kappa ^z`$ is totally indifferent when confronted with flying super-penguins - it assigns the same degree of plausibility, 2, to any of the involved worlds. So, it accepts neither of these conditionals, whereas $`\kappa _c^z`$ accepts all of them.

Finally, let us consider the conditional $`(a|bfw)`$. It is accepted by $`\kappa ^z`$, as well as by $`\kappa _c^z`$, as may easily be checked. But what happens when the variable $`p`$ is taken into account? $`\kappa ^z`$ establishes $`(a|\overline{p}bfw)`$, but is undecided with respect to $`(a|pbfw)`$. By contrast, $`\kappa _c^z`$ not only accepts both of these conditionals, but also establishes them with equal strength:

$$\kappa _c^z\left(\frac{pbfwa}{pbfw\overline{a}}\right)=\kappa _c^z\left(\frac{\overline{p}bfwa}{\overline{p}bfw\overline{a}}\right)=1.$$
(19)
This is a simple consequence of the principle of conditional preservation in this case, since $`\sigma _{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{pbfwa\overline{p}bfw\overline{a}}{pbfw\overline{a}\overline{p}bfwa}}\right)=1`$ (see above). (19) is justified because each of the involved quotients has the same conditional structure, i.e. shows the same behavior, with respect to $``$. By considering arbitrary group elements in $`\text{ker}\sigma _{}`$, even very complicated interrelationships between degrees of strength associated with conditionals can be observed.

Therefore, using System-Z and the $`\mathrm{max}`$-operator means to establish conditionals only on a superficial level, whereas obeying the principle of conditional preservation ensures that conditional knowledge is propagated thoroughly and deeply in plausibility structures of epistemic states. This well-behavedness with respect to subconditionals is also observed in (?). It is illustrated by the next example, too:

Example 17 Consider the conditionals

$$\begin{array}{ccc}r_1:\hfill & (f|s)\hfill & \text{Swedes are fair-haired.}\hfill \\ r_2:\hfill & (t|s)\hfill & \text{Swedes are tall.}\hfill \end{array}$$

We apply Corollary 14 and heuristics (10) and calculate $`\kappa _1^{},\kappa _2^{}0`$. So we set $`\kappa _1^{}=\kappa _2^{}=1`$, and we obtain a c-representation, $`\kappa `$, of the form (12). Then not only the subconditional $`(f|st)`$ of $`(f|s)`$ is accepted, but also the subconditional $`(f|s\overline{t})`$, because $`\kappa (sf\overline{t})=1<2=\kappa (s\overline{f}\overline{t})`$.

Goldszmidt, Morris and Pearl (?) compared this situation to the one where instead of $`r_1,r_2`$, merely the conditional $`(ft|s)`$ is learned. Here, only the first subconditional, $`(f|st)`$, is accepted, but not the second one, $`(f|s\overline{t})`$. This becomes intelligible by considering conditional structures: $`sf\overline{t}`$ and $`s\overline{f}\overline{t}`$ both show the same behavior with respect to $`(ft|s)`$ (namely, they refute it), while $`sft`$ and $`s\overline{f}t`$ show different behaviors.

Observing conditional structures emphasizes once again that in general, the joint integration of conditionals cannot be achieved by learning only one conditional – conditionals resist to propositional treatment. In our framework, each conditional constitutes an independent piece of knowledge.

Finally, let us consider an example that cannot be dealt with by system-$`Z^{}`$ in a straightforward manner because the involved set of conditionals is not a minimal-core set:

Example 18 Let $``$ consist of the rules

$$r_1:(b|a),r_2:(c|b),r_3:(c|a).$$

We list the conditional structures in Table 3 to make argumentation easier.

$``$ is not a minimal-core set in the sense of (?) because $`r_3`$ is only refuted by worlds that also refute either $`r_1`$ or $`r_2`$. So equation (17) is not solvable to yield $`Z^{}`$-rankings.

For our approach, however, dealing with $``$ is no problem: Using (10) and (11), we obtain

$$\kappa _1^{},\kappa _2^{}>0,\kappa _3^{}>0\mathrm{min}\{\kappa _1^{},\kappa _2^{}\}$$

We set $`\kappa _1^{}=\kappa _2^{}=1`$ and $`\kappa _3^{}=0`$, and we obtain by (12) an appropriate ranking function, $`\kappa `$ (see Table 4).

Actually, $`r_3`$ seems to be redundant since $`\kappa _3^+=\kappa _3^{}=0`$, and it is in fact already established by $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$. But what about the subconditionals $`(c|ab)`$ and $`(c|a\overline{b})`$ of $`r_3`$? While the first one is accepted, due to the impact of $`r_2`$, the second subconditional is not, since $`r_3`$ is taken to be redundant (see the conditional structures in Table 3).

To ensure the thorough propagation of conditional knowledge to subconditionals, we have to postulate $`\kappa _i^{}>0`$ in (10), in order to protect the influence of each conditional against numerical cancellations. With $`\kappa _1^{}=\kappa _2^{}=\kappa _3^{}=1`$, we obtain the OCF $`\kappa _1`$ in Table 4, which accepts both subconditionals of $`r_3`$, as desired.

## Unifying qualitative and quantitative approaches

We defined the principle of conditional preservation as an indifference property of the revised ranking function (cf. Definition The principle of conditional preservation) – conditional preservation means to maintain numerical relationships. Therefore, it appears here as an essentially quantitative notion. Nevertheless, it is applied to ranking functions which are used in a qualitative, or at least, semi-quantitative setting. Moreover, note that conditional indifference is based on the notion of conditional structures which are represented in a completely symbolic way. So, what is the connection between the principle of conditional preservation introduced here, and the approaches to conditional preservation in a purely qualitative framework, as were proposed in (?) and in (?)?

In (?), we advanced a set of postulates apt to guide the revisions of epistemic states, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, by conditional beliefs, $`(B|A)`$. There, the idea of conditional preservation was put in formal terms by making use of two relations, *subconditionality*, $``$ (see (2)), and *perpendicularity*, $`\underset{¯}{}`$, on the set of conditionals:

$$(D|C)\underset{¯}{}(B|A)\text{iff either }CAB,\text{ or }A\overline{B},\text{ or }\overline{A}.$$

If $`(D|C)\underset{¯}{}(B|A)`$, then for all worlds which $`(D|C)`$ may be applied to, $`(B|A)`$ has the same effect and thus, it yields no further partitioning – $`(B|A)`$ is *irrelevant* for $`(D|C)`$.

Conditional preservation then was described in (?) by the following three postulates:

If $`(D|C)\underset{¯}{}(B|A)`$ then $`\mathrm{\Psi }(D|C)`$ iff
$`\mathrm{\Psi }(B|A)(D|C)`$.

If $`(D|C)(B|A)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }(D|C)`$ then
$`\mathrm{\Psi }(B|A)(D|C)`$.

If $`(D|C)(\overline{B}|A)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }(B|A)(D|C)`$ then $`\mathrm{\Psi }(D|C)`$.

These axioms cover the postulates of Darwiche and Pearl in (?) (see (??)) and support their intuitive ideas with more formal arguments. Applying Definition The principle of conditional preservation to the case $`=\{(B|A)\}`$, the principle of conditional preservation reduces to postulate

$$(\kappa ^{}\kappa )(\omega _1)=(\kappa ^{}\kappa )(\omega _2)\text{if}(B|A)(\omega _1)=(B|A)(\omega _2)$$

for the revised function $`\kappa ^{}=\kappa `$ (cf. also (?)). It can then be shown that such a revision also satisfies the postulates (CR5)-(CR7) stated above (?).

This means that the principle of conditional preservation, phrased in its full (numerical) complexity in this paper, also covers the approaches to conditional preservation proposed in a qualitative framework.

To guarantee the thorough propagation of conditional knowledge to subconditionals, we may supplement (CR5)-(CR7) with another postulate:

If $`(D|C)(B|A)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }\vDash ̸(\overline{D}|C)`$, then
$`\mathrm{\Psi }(B|A)(D|C)`$.

(CR8) clearly exceeds the paradigm of conditional preservation, in favor of imposing conditional structure as long as there are no conflicts.

Axioms (CR5)-(CR8) only deal, however, with revising an epistemic state by one single conditional. A topic of our ongoing research is to generalize them so as to apply for incorporating sets of conditionals, too.

## Summary and outlook

In this paper, we presented an approach to realize the idea of conditional preservation in knowledge representation and belief revision in a very comprehensive way. We introduced a formal notion of conditional structure of worlds, and then we phrased a *principle of conditional preservation* for (revisions of) ordinal conditional functions as indifference with respect to these structures. We presented simple schemes to construct ordinal conditional functions observing this principle, and we compared our approach to system-Z and system-$`Z^{}`$. Finally, we showed that the principle formalized here also covers other, qualitative approaches to conditional preservation.

In (?), we developed these ideas in an even more general setting, with so-called *conditional valuation functions* representing epistemic states. Ordinal conditional functions are special instances of these functions, as well as probability distributions and possibility distributions. So the principle of conditional preservation, as was presented here, can be applied to nearly all major (semi-)quantitative representation forms for epistemic states. Actually, this paper continues and extends work begun in (?).

The algebraic notion of *conditional structures* of worlds played a crucial part for conditional preservation here. Its representation via group theory does not only provide an elegant methodological framework for handling conditionals. In (?), we present an approach to solve the “inverse representation problem” – which conditionals are most appropriate to represent an epistemic state? – by making extensive use of group theoretical means to elaborate conditional structures.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to three anonymous referees whose comments helped me to improve the presentation of my results.


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# Fate of Kaluza-Klein Bubble *footnote **footnote *Preprint numbers: CGPG-99/12-8, RESCEU-6/00, DAMTP-2000-30, hep-th/0003066. This article will appear in Phys. Rev. D.

## I Introduction

It is likely that superstring or M-theory governs the physics of gravity or space-time in higher energy stages. Such theories are naturally formulated in the higher dimensions than four. We expect a plausible scenario that such a higher dimensional space-time somehow evolves to the stable four dimensional space-time according to the history of the Universe . The so-called brane world scenario is the most actively being investigated along to this line. This scenario is motivated by Horava and Witten’s theory  which shows that an eleven dimensional supergravity theory on the orbihold $`𝐑^{10}\times S^1/Z_2`$ is related to the ten-dimensional $`E_8\times E_8`$ heterotic string theory. Therein the matters are confined to the ten-dimensional space-time (three-brane) and gravitons are propagating in the full eleven dimensions. The brane world space-time should be stable.

Although the brane world scenario may be plausible at the reduction from eleven to ten dimensions, the space-time will be still compactified to four dimensions in the normal Calabi-Yau’s way. Regarding to these full scenario of the compactification, the stability of the space-time becomes the important issue to be investigated. The positive energy theorem guarantees the stability of the four dimensional asymptotically flat space-time in the framework of general relativity . Surprisingly, the existence of the extra dimensions can drastically change the situation. Witten showed that the five dimensional Minkowski space-time decays into the so-called Kaluza-Klein (KK) bubble space-time unless we assume the existence of the elementary fermion related to supersymmetry , of which existence we can not expect generally. This also may indicate that the ‘bubble’ appears somewhere at the bulk or on the brane in the brane world scenario and disturbed the three-brane where we are living.

The metric of the KK bubble space-time given by Witten is written as

$`ds_5^2`$ $`=`$ $`r^2dt^2+\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{r_0^2}{r^2}}\right)d\chi ^2+\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{r_0^2}{r^2}}\right)^1dr^2+r^2\mathrm{cosh}^2td\mathrm{\Omega }^2,`$ (1)
where the $`\chi `$-direction will be compactified and $`rr_0`$, and $`d\mathrm{\Omega }^2=d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi ^2`$. In general case, the metric has a conical singularity at $`r_0`$. However, if we carefully take a periodicity along the $`\chi `$-direction, the metric can be regularized. More precisely to see this, we write the metric near $`r=r_0`$ as

$`ds_5^2`$ $``$ $`r_0^2dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2(rr_0)}{r_0}}d\chi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{r_0}{2(rr_0)}}dr^2+r_0^2\mathrm{cosh}^2td\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`r_0^2dt^2+2r_0\left[R^2d\left({\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{r_0}}\right)^2+dR^2\right]+r_0^2\mathrm{cosh}^2td\mathrm{\Omega }^2,`$ (3)
where $`R=\sqrt{rr_0}`$. Then we realize that the period should be set to be $`\chi _p=2\pi r_0`$. As one can see, the ‘boundary of bubble’ located at $`r=r_0`$ expands rapidly like $`\mathrm{cosh}t`$ and the space-time does not have naked singularities. Here, we remind you that the total energy is zero. We are imaging the boundary of the space-time, $`r=r_0`$, as the surface of the ‘bubble’.

Interestingly Brill and Pfister  gave an initial data which has the negative total energy related to the size of the compactified dimension. The space-time with the negative energy may be favor in the aspect of energetics. One year later, Brill and Horowitz gave an initial data in a simple way. (We will briefly review their construction in Sec. II.) Contrasted to the ‘Witten bubble’, their solution has arbitrary negative energy regardless of the size of the compactified space. This is too far from our intuition that the negative energy is proportional to the Casimir energy due to the boundary effect of the compactified space. Therefore it is difficult to imagine the classical evolution after the vacuum decay.

Corley and Jacobson  discussed the subsequent evolution of Brill-Horowitz’s initial data. They found that the positive acceleration of the bubble’s surface area for the negative mass bubbles, and they conjectured that KK bubble with negative energy cannot collapse. However, their study is not sufficient to conclude the final fate of the bubble, as they already mentioned, because they considered only the initial behavior of the time-symmetric data and they did not do any dynamical studies.

In this paper, we report our numerical analysis on this final fate problem of KK bubble, especially of the negative mass bubble. We start our numerical simulation from the Brill-Horowitz’s initial data, and evolve the space-time using the standard Arnowitt-Deser-Misner formulation (but 4+1 dimensional decomposition). We will show that the space-time initially behaves as Corley-Jacobson’s analysis, and expands forever, although the acceleration will be negative. Despite of the expanding, we will observe the irregular behavior of the curvature invariant.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we give a brief review of Brill-Horowitz’s construction of their initial data. In Sec. III, we describe numerical method and equations. The results of our simulations are shown in in Sec. IV. Finally, we summarize our results in Sec. V.

## II Brill-Horowitz’s Initial Data

In this section we briefly review Brill and Horowitz’s argument . Let us consider an initial slice with $`K_{ij}=0`$ in five dimensional vacuum space-times, where $`K_{ij}`$ is the extrinsic curvature of a four dimensional spacelike hypersurface. In this slice the Hamiltonian constraint equation becomes $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R=0`$, where $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R`$ is the four dimensional Ricci scalar. Here one can easily see that the Euclidean Reissner-Nordstrom metric with imaginary ‘charge’ $`iq`$ satisfies the Hamiltonian constraint equation, because the ‘energy-momentum’ tensor of the four dimensional Maxwell field is traceless. The metric of the hypersurface is given by

$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}g=U(r)d\chi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{U(r)}}+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,`$ (4)
where $`U(r)=12m/rq^2/r^2`$ and $`rr_+:=m+\sqrt{m^2+q^2}`$. In the same way as the previous Witten’s example, the metric is approximately written as

$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}g{\displaystyle \frac{4}{U^{}(r_+)}}\left[R^2d\left({\displaystyle \frac{U^{}(r_+)\chi }{2}}\right)^2+dR^2\right]+r_+^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,`$ (5)
near $`r=r_+`$, where $`R=\sqrt{rr_+}`$. To avoid a conical singularity at $`r=r_+`$, we assume the period $`\chi _p=4\pi /U^{}(r_+)=2\pi r_+^2/(r_+m)`$ along the $`\chi `$-direction.

The total energy is evaluated as $`E=m/2`$. The $`m`$ is arbitrary parameter and $`q`$ determines the size of the compactified space. So the total energy can be arbitrary negative.

## III Field equations and our numerical method

To know the final fate of the KK bubbles with the negative energy, we study the subsequent time evolution for a long time numerically. We apply 4+1 decomposition of space-time along to the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner formulation for the actual time integrations. We describe equations and basic numerical techniques in this section.

The metric of the full space-time is assumed to be

$`ds_5^2`$ $`=`$ $`N(r,t)^2dt^2+e^{2a(r,t)}U(r)d\chi ^2+e^{2b(r,t)}U(r)^1dr^2+r^2e^{2c(r,t)}d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,`$ (6)
where $`U(r)=12m/rq^2/r^2`$, $`N`$ is the lapse function, and the metric components $`a,b`$ and $`c`$ are now time dependent. The evolution equations of the four-metric $`\gamma _{ij}`$ and the extrinsic curvature $`K_{ij}`$ become Here, for simplicity, we tacitly supposed the boundary condition so that the location of the bubble is ‘fixed’ under the variation of the action. As a result we obtain the 5-dimensional vacuum Einstein equation and can show the consistent result given in Appendix A. Since the Cauchy development of the initial data cannot cover all region outside the bubble, one may be able to consider another boundary conditions, which might be artificial.

$`\dot{K}_j^i`$ $`=`$ $`N({}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{j}^{i}+KK_j^i){}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{i}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{j}^{}N,`$ (7)
$`\dot{\gamma }_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`2NK_{ij},`$ (8)
a dot denotes the time derivative, and $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{j}^{i}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{i}`$ denote four dimensional Ricci curvature and the covariant derivative, respectively. For the reader’s convenience, we write down several terms in (7) for the metric (6) as:

$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{\chi }^{\chi }`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2b}\left[\left(a^2a^{\prime \prime }2a^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2a^{}}{r}}+a^{}b^{}\right)U+\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U^{\prime \prime }\right],`$ (9)
$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{r}^{r}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2b}\left[\left(a^2a^{\prime \prime }2c^22c^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{4c^{}}{r}}+a^{}b^{}+2b^{}c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{2b^{}}{r}}\right)U+\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U^{\prime \prime }\right],`$ (10)
$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{\theta }^{\theta }`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}R_{\phi }^{\phi }=e^{2b}\left[\left(2c^2c^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{4c^{}}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}+c^{}b^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{b^{}}{r}}a^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{r}}\right)U+\left(c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2b2c}}{r^2}}\right],`$ (11)
and

$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{\chi }^{}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{\chi }N`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2b}\left(a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{U^{}}{U}}\right)UN^{},`$ (12)
$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{r}^{}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{r}N`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2b}\left[\left(N^{\prime \prime }b^{}N^{}\right)U+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}N^{}U^{}\right],`$ (13)
$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{\theta }^{}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{\theta }N`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2b}\left(c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)N^{}U,`$ (14)
where a dash denotes the derivative on $`r`$.

We start our simulation from the initial data of Brill-Horowitz’s momentarily static solution, such as

$`a(r,0)=b(r,0)=c(r,0)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (15)
$`K_\chi ^\chi (r,0)=K_r^r(r,0)=K_\theta ^\theta (r,0)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (16)
The numerical region is taken as $`r_+rr_e`$, where $`r_+:=m+\sqrt{m^2+q^2}`$ is the location of the bubble at the initial data and $`r_e`$ is the numerical outer boundary. We stress from the construction that the Kaluza-Klein bubble space-time is restricted in $`r_+r\mathrm{}`$. We apply the Robin boundary condition at $`r=r_e`$ such as all the components fall off as they form an asymptotically flat spacetime. At the inner boundary $`r=r_+`$, we use the fact that both $`a`$ and $`b`$ evolve synchronously as we describe in the Appendix, and use both the evolution equation for tr$`K`$,

$$\dot{K}=NK_{ij}K^{ij}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{}^{i}{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{i}^{}N,$$
(17)
where we used the Hamiltonian constraint equation, and the momentum constraint equation,

$${}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{j}^{}K_r^j{}_{}{}^{(4)}D_{r}^{}K=0,$$
(18)
so as the system evolves properly.

In order to specify the lapse function, $`N`$, we apply both the geodesic slicing condition, $`N=1`$, and the maximal slicing condition, $`K=0`$, which equation becomes \[directly from Eq. (17)\]

$${}_{}{}^{(4)}\mathrm{\Delta }N=NK_{ij}K^{ij}.$$
(19)
This elliptic equation is solved using the incomplete Cholsky conjugate gradient method. The outer boundary for $`N`$ is set again as asymptotically flat, and the inner boundary at $`r_+`$ for solving (19) we lineally extrapolate 4-metric components.

We apply Brailovskaya integration scheme (a second order predictor-corrector method)  for the time evolution. The accuracy of the calculation is checked by monitoring the violation of the Hamiltonian constraint equation. The numerical code passed convergence tests, and the results shown in this paper are all obtained with acceptable accuracy.

## IV Results

### A Acceleration of the bubble surface

We first check whether our code reveals the initial behavior discussed by Corley and Jacobson . We calculate the area of the bubble,

$$A(t)=4\pi g_{\theta \theta }(r_+,t),$$
(20)
together with its time derivative $`\dot{A}`$, and its acceleration,

$$\ddot{A}=4\pi \ddot{g}_{\theta \theta }=4\pi r^2[2N\dot{K}_\theta ^\theta 2\dot{N}K_\theta ^\theta +4N^2(K_\theta ^\theta )^2]e^{2c}.$$
(21)
We first show this acceleration in Fig.1(a)(b), since this was the quantity discussed by Corley and Jacobson. The Figs. 1(a) and (b) are of the geodesic slicing condition and of the maximal slicing condition, respectively. We fix the charge $`q`$ and varied $`m`$ from negative to positive values. Except for the transition at $`m=0`$, as one can see later, our result is not qualitatively sensitive under changes of $`m/q`$. Under both slicing conditions, we see that the negative mass bubble start expanding (positive $`\ddot{A}`$) initially, yet will soon be in de-accelerating phase (negative $`\ddot{A}`$), while the positive mass bubble keep accelerating all the way in Figs. 1(a), and in the region in Figs. 1(b). More precisely, for the positive mass cases in Figs. 1(b), we observe from the numerical results that the acceleration will reach and stay at a positive value in the final stage, even if it goes negative for a short time, which is happen to quite small positive mass cases.

Such an initial behavior (for both positive and negative mass bubbles) does agree with Corley and Jacobson’s analysis (we remark that their analysis was under the geodesic slicing condition). However, the turning behavior into de-accelarating phase could not find in their analysis. The de-accelarating does not mean collapsing feature directly. Actually, upto we stop our time evolution, the numerical data of the area, (20), monotonically increases \[Figs. 1(c)\], while its velocity goes down for negative mass bubbles \[Figs. 1(d)\]. However, from this facts, we can not say that negative mass bubbles will expand forever, because we can see the blow-ups of the Riemann invariant and collapsing lapse behavior as we show next. (We had to stop time evolution for negative mass bubble case when we face the blow-ups of the Riemann invariant.)

### B Collapse of lapse

Since we found that the time integration using the maximal slicing condition survives long term time evolution than that of the geodesic slicing condition, we will show only the results of the maximal slicing condition hereafter.

The maximal slicing condition is known as a robust gauge condition for singularity avoidance (or, exactly speaking, avoiding the vanishing of the volume elements of the associated Eulerian observers) . This is because the lapse will go quite small value in the strong gravitational field. Contrary, we may guess whether the space-time will collapse or not by monitoring the lapse function.

We plot the lapse function, $`N`$, in Fig.2. Fig.2(a) is the lapse function at the bubble surface, $`r=r_+`$, versus time. We see the lapse evolves small value for the case of negative mass bubble space-time. The lines end at the time when the violation of the constraint equation begin growing. From above standard behavior of the maximal sliced lapse functions, we may say that the negative mass bubble space-time is ‘collapsing’ in some senses. Fig. 2(b) is snapshots of $`N`$ at several time for the case of negative mass bubble space-time.

### C Riemann invariant

In order to confirm our guess of the ‘collapsing’ behavior of the negative mass bubble, we calculated the Kretchman invariant (Riemann invariant) $`R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl}`$ of both 4 and 5-dimensional Riemann tensor. We see both blow up in the cases of negative mass bubbles. We plotted a typical behavior of the invariant as a function of $`r`$ and $`t`$, in Fig.3. These lines suggest that the possibility of the formation of singularity in the final phase of evolution.

### D Apparent horizons

In order to confirm whether a black hole is formed or not in such a case, we check the appearance of the apparent horizon. The location of the apparent horizon is given by the position that the expansion rate, of the outgoing null geodesic congruence turns into the negative. The appearance of the apparent horizon indicates the existence of the event horizon.

The definition of the apparent horizon might not be unique in our five-dimensional space-time because it depends on the dimension of the space-time which the null geodesic congruence runsIn usual Kaluza-Klein picture, it is natural that the null geodesic congruence runs in four dimensional part.. If the null congruence propagating in full five dimensional space-time, the expansion rate, $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}\theta _{+}^{}`$, is given by

$`{}_{}{}^{(4)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}_{a}^{}s^a{}_{}{}^{(4)}K+s^as_{}^{b}{}_{}{}^{(4)}K_{ab}`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`(a^{}+2c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r}}+{\displaystyle \frac{U^{}}{2U}})\sqrt{U}e^b(K_\chi ^\chi +K_\theta ^\theta +K_\phi ^\phi )`$ (23)
where $`s^a=(0,1/\sqrt{g_{rr}},0,0)`$ is a outer pointing vector in our spatial four metric. On the other hand, if the null is confined to non-compactified four dimensions, the expansion rate, $`{}_{}{}^{(3)}\theta _{+}^{}`$, is given similarly by

$`{}_{}{}^{(3)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{}_{}{}^{(3)}_{a}^{}s^a{}_{}{}^{(3)}K+s^as_{}^{b}{}_{}{}^{(3)}K_{ab}`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`2(c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}})\sqrt{U}e^b(K_\theta ^\theta +K_\phi ^\phi ).`$ (25)
We analyzed both $`{}_{}{}^{(3)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ in our evolving space-time. Surprisingly, in all cases (positive and negative mass bubbles), both expansions remain positive definite everywhere as we show an example in Fig.4. These suggest us no-appearance of apparent horizons.

## V Discussion

We numerically studied the dynamical evolution of the Brill and Horowitz’s initial data which can have the negative energy. As the zero energy Witten’s bubble space-time, we show that the ‘bubbles’ with negative energy will expand by mean of area upto the time we stop the simulations. At first glance this result supports Corley and Jacobson’s conjecture. However, from the facts that the curvature invariant blows up, and no appearance of the apparent horizon, we suspect that a formation of a naked singularity as the final fate of Kaluza-Klein negative energy bubble §§§ An anonymous referee of this article pointed out the similarity of the positive and negative mass bubble results. However, from the results we obtained, we believe that there are qualitative differences between positive and negative mass cases in their dynamical behaviors. (We remark that our simulations are only up to a finite time in order to keep the resolution against the expansion of the spacetime.) . Hence, we may have to consider seriously the decay problem from the Kaluza-Klein vacuum to the Witten-type ‘bubble’ space-time. Possible resolution to this may be given by assuming the supersymmetry which may forbid the decay , or by constructing quantum gravity theory which may smooth out singularities as normally been expected.

Although the negative mass bubbles are expanding, we obtained the result that the bubble spacetime terminates at the singularity. At first glance, they are incompatible, because the naive picture, which the expanding keeps regularity. However, the picture may be based on the Raychaudhri-type equation and the equation does not hold in the present case. Moreover, the area cannot properly describes whether the system will collapse or not. Properly speaking, we need the proper radius from the center which is absent in the present case.

Finally, we would like to comment on the so-called brane world scenario . The brane world is motivated by the reduction from the M-theory to the $`E_8\times E_8`$ heterotic superstring theory. This reduction drastically changes the picture of the reduction  because ‘matters’ are confined to the ten dimensions and gravitons are propagating in the eleven-dimensions. Here we call the timelike hypersurface, where matters are confined, by ‘brane’. A plausible history of the compactification are still quite actively discussed recently and we do not reach the consensus at this moment. Apart from this compactification scenario, the reduction from ten to four-dimensions follows the well-known Kaluza-Klein type or Calabi-Yau compactification. Thus, our present analysis is basically applicable to the space-time on the brane, because we supposed the well-known Kaluza-Klein compactification. More precisely, we may say that the Witten-type Kaluza-Klein ‘bubble’ space-time on the 4-brane will be reduced from at least 6 dimensional space-time. As was recently reported , the effective Einstein equations on the brane are different from the normal Einstein equations. Therefore, it might be worth re-asking what is the final fate of Kaluza-Klein bubble if we describe the space-time by such a modified Einstein equation when we take a brane world scenario.

## Acknowledgements

TS is grateful to Gary Gibbons and DAMTP relativity group for their hospitality. HS appreciates Abhay Ashtekar and Pablo Laguna for helpful comments, and CGPG group for their hospitality. HS also thank Ethan Honda for describing his numerical method. Numerical computations were performed using machines at CGPG. Both authors are supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as research fellows abroad.

## A The dynamical equations at the surface of the bubble

In this appendix, we show that $`\dot{a}=\dot{b}`$ at the location of the bubble, $`r=r_+`$, during the time evolution.

The explicit expression of Eqs (7) and (8) are given by

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{N}}\right)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Ne^{2b}\left[\left(a^2a^{\prime \prime }2a^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2a^{}}{r}}+a^{}b^{}\right)U+\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U^{\prime \prime }\right]`$ (A2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(\dot{a}+\dot{b}+2\dot{c})\dot{a}+e^{2b}\left(a^{}U+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U^{}\right)N^{},`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{N}}\right)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Ne^{2b}\left[\left(a^2a^{\prime \prime }2c^22c^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{4c^{}}{r}}+a^{}b^{}+2b^{}c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{2b^{}}{r}}\right)U+\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U^{\prime \prime }\right]`$ (A4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(\dot{a}+\dot{b}+2\dot{c})\dot{b}+e^{2b}\left[(N^{\prime \prime }b^{}N^{})U+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}N^{}U^{}\right],`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{c}}{N}}\right)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Ne^{2b}\left[\left(2c^2c^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{4c^{}}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}+c^{}b^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{b^{}}{r}}a^{}c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{r}}\right)U+\left(c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)U^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2b2c}}{r^2}}\right]`$ (A6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}(\dot{a}+\dot{b}+2\dot{c})\dot{c}+e^{2b}\left(c^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}\right)N^{}U.`$
At $`r=r_+`$, we can truncate $`U`$, since $`U=0`$. By adding a suffix $`+`$ for the variables which is evaluated at $`r=r_+`$, the above equations become

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}_+}{N_+}}\right)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`N_+e^{2b_+}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a_+^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b_+^{}c_+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_+}}\right)U_+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U_+^{\prime \prime }\right]`$ (A8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_+}}(\dot{a}_++\dot{b}_++2\dot{c}_+)\dot{a}_++{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2b_+}U_+^{}N_+^{},`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}_+}{N_+}}\right)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`N_+e^{2b_+}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}a_+^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b_+^{}c_+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_+}}\right)U_+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U_+^{\prime \prime }\right]`$ (A10)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_+}}(\dot{a}_++\dot{b}_++2\dot{c}_+)\dot{b}_++{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^{2b_+}U_+^{}N_+^{}.`$
Subtracting Eq. (A10) from Eq. (A8), we obtain

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}_+\dot{b}_+}{N_+}}\right)^{}=(\dot{a}_++\dot{b}_++2\dot{c}_+){\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}_+\dot{b}_+}{N_+}}.`$ (A11)
Therefore we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}_+\dot{b}_+}{N_+}}=Ae^{(a_++b_++2c_+)},`$ (A12)
where $`A`$ is a constant. Since the initial conditions, (15) and (16), imply $`a_+=b_+`$, which implies $`A=0`$. Therefore at the boundary, $`r=r_+`$, we can set $`a_+=b_+`$ even after the long time integration.

Figure Captions

Fig.1
Acceleration of the bubble surface, (21), versus time. The figures (a) and (b) are of the geodesic slicing condition and of the maximal slicing condition, respectively. In both figures, we see that the negative mass bubble will soon be in collapse phase, although they start expanding initially. We set $`q=1`$ (hereafter for all figures).
For the case of evolutions with the maximum slicing condition, we plot (c) area of the bubble surface $`A`$, (20), versus time, and (d) the velocity of the bubble surface, $`dA/dt`$.

Fig.2
The lapse function, $`N`$, are plotted (the solutions of maximal slicing condition). The figure (a) is $`N`$ at $`r=r_+`$ versus time. We see the lapse evolves small value for the case of negative mass bubble space-time. The figure (b) is snapshots of $`N`$ at several times for a case of negative mass bubble ($`m=0.4`$) space-time.

Fig.3
(a) Typical snapshots of the Riemann invariant $`R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl}`$ of 4-dimensional Riemann curvature for the case of negative mass bubble ($`m=0.4`$) are plotted. Only the region near the bubble surface is drawn. (b) The Riemann invariant $`R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl}`$ of 5-dimensional Riemann curvature are plotted as a function of time. We see blow-ups in the cases of negative mass bubbles (we cut the display range at $`10^5`$). The values are evaluated at a point right from the bubble surface (that is, at $`r_++\mathrm{\Delta }r`$).

Fig.4
A typical sample of the outgoing null expansion rate $`{}_{}{}^{(3)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}\theta _{+}^{}`$ are plotted for the case of negative mass ($`m=0.4`$) bubbles.


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# References

Fermi Gas in Harmonic oscillator potentials

X.X. Yi1,3 J.C.Su2

1Institute of Theoretical Physics, Northeast Normal University,
Changchun 130024, China
2Department of Physics, Jilin University,
Changchun 130023, China
3Institute of Theoretical Physics, Academia Sinica, Peking 100080, China
Abstract

Assuming the validity of grand canonical statistics, we study the properties of a spin-polarized Fermi gas in harmonic traps. Universal forms of Fermi temperature $`T_F`$, internal energy $`U`$ and the specific heat per particle of the trapped Fermi gas are calculated as a function of particle number, and the results compared with those of infinite number particles.
PACS numbers:03.75.Fi,05.30.Fk

The ideal Fermi gas is an old and well-understood problem since the non-interaction Fermi gas is a good zeroth-order approximation for many familiar systems. Like the trapped degenerate atomic gases \[1-3\] that provide exciting opportunities for the manipulation and quantitative study of quantum statistical effects, the behavior of trapped Fermi gas also merits attention, both as a degenerate quantum system in its own right and as a possible precursor to a paired Fermi condensate at low temperature though it perhaps is not as dramatic as the phase transition associated with bosons.

The trapped atomic gases reported in Ref.\[1-3\] are dilute. The effects of predominantly short-range atom-atom interactions are therefore week. For dilute spin-polarized Fermi gases, the s-wave scattering amplitude vanishes due to the antisymmetry of the many-Fermi wave function, and the p-wave scattering is small at low energy. Therefore the dilute Fermi gas is usually treated as an ideal Fermi gas.

Unlike the usual system in most textbooks of statistical mechanics, e.g., however, the number of trapped atoms in Ref.\[1-3\] is finite (about $`10^9`$). For finite number of trapped fermions, the applicability of the usual thermodynamical calculations and the neglect of the ground energy are no longer available. For these relatively low numbers (compared to $`10^{23}`$), the effects caused by the above approximation are nonvanishing.

Harmonic traps provide a particularly simple realization of the confined Fermi system. In this trap, Butts and Rokhsar calculated the spatial and momentum distributions for trapped fermions using Thomas-Fermi approximation. The spatial distribution of the trapped cloud provides an explicit visualization of a real-space ”Fermi sea” and the momentum distribution, unlike the spatial one, is isotropic.

In this paper, we calculate the Fermi temperature, internal energy and the specific heat per particle of the finite number trapped Fermi gas. We indeed find marked differences from the usual treatments: a correction to the Fermi temperature, internal energy and the specific heat per particle of the finite number trapped fermions, a constraint to the number of trapped fermions for given trap frequencies.

Consider $`N`$ spin-polarized fermions of mass $`m`$ moving in anisotropic oscillator potentials. The single-particle levels are familiar

$$E_N=E(n_x,n_y,n_z)=\underset{i=x,y,z}{}\mathrm{}\omega _i(n_i+\frac{1}{2}),$$
(1)
where $`\omega _i(i=x,y,z)`$is the trap frequencies in the $`i`$ direction, $`n_i`$ is non-negative integer. Note that each oscillator state is assumed to be filled with a single fermion, since only one spin orientation is confined by the magnetic trap. Under real experimental conditions of trapped atomic gases, the temperature is high on the scale of the trap level spacing, namely, $`k_BT>>\mathrm{}\omega _i(i=x,y,z).`$ Therefore, within the canonical ensemble, the partition function

$$Q(\beta )=\underset{N}{}e^{\beta E_N}=\underset{n_x,n_y,n_z=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\beta (n_x\omega _x+n_y\omega _y+n_z\omega _z)}=\underset{i=x,y,z}{}\frac{1}{1e^{\beta \omega _i}}$$
(2)
of such a system without interactions can be expanded as follows:

$$Q(\beta )a_2\beta ^3+a_1\beta ^2+a_0\beta ^1+a_1+O(\beta )$$
(3)
with

$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _x\omega _y\omega _z}}`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a_2(\omega _x+\omega _y+\omega _z)`$ (4)
$`a_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}a_2(\omega _x^2+\omega _y^2+\omega _z^2+3\omega _x\omega _y+3\omega _y\omega _z+3\omega _z\omega _z)`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}(\omega _x/\omega _y+\omega _x/\omega _z+\omega _y/\omega _z+\omega _y/\omega _x+\omega _z/\omega _x+\omega _z/\omega _y),`$ (5)
where, $`\beta =k_BT`$, $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant, and the contribution of the ground state was singled away for special treatment. On the other hand, by making use of

$$Q(\beta )=\underset{N}{}e^{\beta E_N}=_{\epsilon _0}^{\mathrm{}}e^{\beta E}\rho (E)𝑑E$$
(6)
the partition function can be calculated equivalently, where $`\rho (E)`$ is the density of states, $`\epsilon _0`$ stands for the energy of the ground state. Comparing with eq.(3), it is proved that the density of states $`\rho (E)`$ takes a form:

$$\rho (E)=b_0+b_1E+b_2E^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(7)
This expansion can’t contain the terms $`E^r`$ with $`r`$ being negative or non-integer, since they become zero after comparison with the direct calculation given by eq.(3). Substitution eq.(7) into eq.(6), one can easily find:

$$Q(\beta )=(b_0+b_1\epsilon _0+b_2\epsilon _0^2)\beta ^1+(b_12b_2\epsilon _0)\beta ^2+2b_2\beta ^3+\mathrm{}$$
(8)
comparison of eq.(8) with the direct calculation(3) shows that

$$b_0=a_0\epsilon _0a_1\epsilon _0^2a_2,b_1=a_1+\epsilon _0a_2,b_2=0.5a_2$$
(9)
There are two additional terms $`b_0`$ and $`b_1E`$ in the density of states in comparison with the result of Butts, as we see in following, these additional terms will result in the shift of the thermodynamic quantities.

Now, let us consider a system of $`N`$ noninteracting fermions that the population $`N(E_i)`$ of a state with energy $`E_i`$ is given by the Fermi-Dirac distribution

$$N(E_i)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_i\mu )}+1}$$
(10)
Here, we set the statistical weights corresponding the state $`E_i`$, $`g_i=1`$. $`\mu `$ stands for the chemical potential, which is determined by the constraint that the total number of the particles in the system is $`N`$:

$$N=\underset{i}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}N(E_i).$$
(11)
At zero temperature the Fermi-Dirac distribution factor is unity for energies less than the Fermi energy $`E_F=\mu (T=0,N)`$, and zero otherwise. A straightforward integration of Eq.(11) gives:

$$E_F^3+\frac{3b_1}{2b_2}E_F^2+3\frac{b_0}{b_2}E_F\frac{3}{b_2}N^{^{}}=0$$
(12)
with $`N^{^{}}=N+\frac{1}{3}b_2\epsilon _0^2+\frac{1}{2}b_1\epsilon _0^2+b_0\epsilon _0`$. The terms with $`b_0`$ and $`b_1`$ are corrections from finite number effects to Fermi energy. In the large number particle limit, $`E_F=(\frac{3}{b_2}N^{^{}})^{1/3}`$. This just is the result of Ref.. Some words of caution are now in order. Fermi energy $`E_F`$ is determined by eq.(12), i.e. $`E_F`$ is a solution of eq.(12). From the mathematical point of view, the eq.(12) has a only real solution

$$E_F(\frac{3}{b_2}N^{^{}})^{1/3}=\frac{1}{4}\frac{b_1}{b_2}\frac{1}{2}\frac{b_0}{b_2}$$
(13)
in the situation of the number of trapped fermior satisfying

$$N^{^{}}<N_{max},N_{max}=[(\frac{p}{3})^{3/2}+q_0]b_0/3,$$
(14)
where

$$p=\frac{3b_1^2}{4b_2^2}+3\frac{b_0}{b_2},q_0=\frac{b_1^3}{4b_2^3}\frac{3b_0b_1}{2b_2^2}.$$
(15)
Otherwise, the eq.(12) have three real solution, but only the positive smallest one meets the requirements for Fermi energy from the physical point of view. We would like to point out that the results presented here are valid for $`k_BT>>\mathrm{}\omega _i(i=x,y,z).`$ If this condition is broken, we should make use of a numerical method to study the effects of finite particles.

For finite temperature, neglecting the effect of zero-point energy, the eq.(11) gives:

$$N=b_2k_B^3T^3f_3(z)+b_1k_B^2T^2f_2(z)+b_0k_BTf_1(z)$$
(16)
where $`f_n(z)`$ stands for the Fermi integral, which is given that

$$f_n(z)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n)}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{x^{n1}}{z^1x^n+1}𝑑x,\mathrm{\Gamma }(n)=_0^{\mathrm{}}e^xx^{n1}𝑑x.$$

$`z`$ is a fugacity. The last two terms in eq.(16) are due to the effects of finite particles. If one introduces a temperature

$$T_F^0=\frac{1}{k_B}(\frac{N}{b_2f_3(z_F)})^{1/3},$$
(17)
which denotes the Fermi temperature of infinite number fermions trapped in anisotropic oscillator potentials, i.e. $`k_BT_F^0=\mu `$. Then the Fermi temperature $`T_F`$ defined as the same as in most textbooks for finite number fermions in the case of $`\epsilon _0=0`$ takes a form

$$T_F=T_F^0[1\frac{1}{3}\frac{b_1}{b_2}\frac{1}{k_BT_F^0}\frac{f_2(z_F)}{f_3(z_F)}\frac{2}{3}\frac{b_0}{b_2}\frac{1}{(k_B^2T_F^0)^2}\frac{f_1(z_F)}{f_3(z_F)}],$$
(18)
where $`z_F=z|_{T=T_F^0}`$. The last two terms in eq.(18) are correction to Fermi energy from the finite number effect, it shows that the Fermi temperature for finite trapped fermions is lower than that in the case  of infinite trapped fermions.

Generally speaking, the specific heat is more interest from the experimental point of view, since the low-temperature behavior of specific heat $`c`$ is generally treated as the hallmark of onset of phase transition . It is well known that the specific heat can be derived from the internal energy, which is expressed by

$$\beta U=\beta _0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{E\rho (E)}{exp[\beta (E\epsilon _0)]+1}𝑑E$$
(19)
Here we dropped the ground state energy, which is less than $`2\epsilon _0`$ and remains constant. Substituting eq.(7) into eq.(19), one easily finds

$$U=\frac{b_2}{\beta ^4}f_4(z)+\frac{b_1}{\beta ^3}f_3(z)+\frac{b_0}{\beta ^2}f_2(z),$$
(20)
the first term remains unchanged in the limit of very large number particles, while the last two terms close to zero. The specific heat per particle of the trapped fermions is given that

$$c=[\frac{1}{N}\frac{U}{T}]_N,$$
(21)
straightforward calculation gives

$`c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\{4b_2k_B^4T^3f_4(z)+3b_1k_B^3T^2f_3(z)+2b_0k_B^2Tf_2(z)`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}b_2k_B^4T^3{\displaystyle \frac{f_{3/2}(z)f_3(z)}{f_{1/2}(z)}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}b_1k_B^3T^2{\displaystyle \frac{f_{3/2}(z)f_2(z)}{f_{1/2}(z)}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}b_0k_B^2T{\displaystyle \frac{f_{3/2}(z)f_1(z)}{f_{1/2}(z)}}\}`$
It is evident that the specific heat per particle has increased due to the finite particle effects. The results are illustrated in Fig.1. As state in most textbooks of statistical mechanics, for ideal Fermi gas in a 3D box, the specific heat increases proportionally with temperature $`T`$ for $`T<<T_F`$, whereas it closes to a constant $`1.5k_B`$ for $`T\mathrm{}`$. For trapped fermions, however, the specific heat increases predominantly with $`T`$ for $`T<<T_F`$, and close to $`3k_B`$ with $`T\mathrm{}`$. Physically, the difference between the case of 3D box and that of trapped fermions is the confinment.This leads to the difference in their energy levels. Consequently, different energy levels would result in different dependence of specific heat on temperature.

In conclusion, we have discussed the behaviors of fermions trapped in an anisotropic oscillator potentials, it was shown that corrections due to the effect of finite fermions and the ground state energy are small, whether they are observable depends on the experimental parameters. We believe the results will be useful to them who is working experimentally in this area.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
One of us(X.X.Yi) would like to thank prof. C.P.Sun for his helpful discussions.

Fig.1 The specific heat per particle vs. temperature. The dots show the situation for a very large number of particles($`N=10^{23}`$), and the dashed line that for a smaller number($`10^8`$). The trap frequencies are $`\omega _x=500Hz,\omega _y=600Hz,\omega _z=800Hz.`$