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# Hamilton-Jacobi equations and Brane associated Lagrangians

## 1 Introduction

Towards the end of the last century, we proposed the association of a field theory with string theory and generalised this to branes . This is not an entirely new idea, as something similar has been suggested by Hosotani  and Morris , but their motivation was rather different. Our starting point was that of wave-particle duality in Quantum Theory, namely that a particle, described by the Lagrangian

$$_1=\sqrt{\left(\frac{X^\mu }{\tau }\right)^2}$$
(1)
may also be described in terms of a Klein Gordon field;

$$L_2=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_\mu }\right)^2$$
(2)
(for a massless particle). Is there a similar alternative description of strings and branes? We proposed that a $`D`$-brane with Lagrangian

$$\sqrt{det\left|\frac{X^\mu }{\tau _i}\frac{X^\mu }{\tau _j}\right|}$$
(3)
where where $`\mu =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{}d`$ and $`i,j`$ run over $`D+1`$ values should also be related to a Lagrangian for $`D+1`$ fields $`\varphi `$ with Lagrangian

$$=\sqrt{det\left|\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }\frac{\varphi ^j}{x_\mu }\right|}.$$
(4)
We shall refer to this as the companion Lagrangian, and the associated equations as companion equations. Our proposal, like , involves $`D+1`$ fields in $`d`$ dimensions. One unresolved issue in our earlier article was that we had no cogent argument for taking the square root in the companion Lagrangian rather than the Lagrangian without the square root, as the analogy with the Klein Gordon equation might suggest, apart from the additional bonus of the general covariance of the equations arising from the square root form and the idea that these Lagrangians form a natural continuation of the Dirac-Born-Infeld concept into the region where $`d>D+1`$. Indeed, as we may illustrate for the cases $`d=3,D=1`$ and $`d=2,D=2`$ both Lagrangians may be expressed in the same form;

$$=\sqrt{\underset{p}{}ϵ_{abijp}ϵ_{cdklp}\frac{X_a}{x_i}\frac{X_b}{x_j}\frac{X_c}{x_k}\frac{X_d}{x_l}},$$

where the number of derivatives of fields/co-ordinates is twice the lesser of $`D+1`$ and $`d`$ and the number of indices in the $`ϵ`$ tensors is $`D+1+d`$, $`|dD1|`$ of which are contracted, in the general case.

The original proposal of Hosotani and, independently, Morris was to associate with the string, or more generally $`D`$-brane, a Lagrangian of the same form as (4) but now with the complementary number of fields, $`dD1`$. In their case the Lagrangian, up to a Jacobian factor is obtained from (4) but now with the complementary number of fields, $`dD1`$. In their case the Lagrangian, up to a Jacobian factor is obtained from (3) by exchanging the rôles of dependent and independent variables, and the resulting equations of motion are classically equivalent to those of the original Lagrangian. This is the reason for taking the complementary number of fields. As we shall see, the number of independent equations arising from (3) is, as a result of re-parametrisation invariance not $`d`$, but $`dD1`$, which precisely matches up with those from the Hosotani/Morris procedure and furthermore the equations themselves transform into each other under the exchange of dependent and independent variables, so that there is a complete mathematical equivalence at the classical level between the two formalisms. In a later paper, Hosotani and Nakayama  have advocated instead a Hamilton-Jacobi formulation for classical strings and branes, developing some ideas in  which rely upon formulations of Hamilton-Jacobi theory for many fields developed by Rund, Nambu and Kastrup  , based upon pioneering work by Carathédory  and Velte . Nambu’s approach differs from the others in an important regard. Essentially, his Hamilton-Jacobi function for strings is the square of that for Kastrup and Rinke. We want to take this function as equivalent to a Lagrangian, since in this particular case there is no explicit dependence upon the fields,but only their derivatives. We shall show, using the quadratic form of the H-J function as Lagrangian, subject to the constraint that it is constant gives the same equations of motion as that for a Lagrangian which is the square root of the H-J function, now unconstrained. Furthermore if this constant is zero then together with additional constraints permit the elimination of the dependence upon a designated co-ordinate the theory is equivalent to that from a Lagrangian equivalent to the square root of this H-J function in one dimension less, but where it is now unconstrained. In either case the new Lagrangian has a similar form to a continuation of the Dirac-Born-Infeld Lagrangian to the case where the dimensions of the base space exceed those of the target space.

Note that this association of a field theory with a string is contrary to the standard received wisdom that such a field should be a functional of the arc length parameter. However the idea seems such a natural extension of the notion of the Dirac-Born-Infeld Lagrangians that it seems to us worth pursuing.

## 2  Hamilton-Jacobi and the Companion Lagrangian

This section begins with a paraphrase of Nambu’s work , He bases this upon the idea of extending the one-form relation

$$dS=\underset{i}{}p_idx_iHdt,H=H(p_i,x_i),S=S(x_i,t).$$
(5)
He replaces this with a two-form relation

$$dS_0dT_0+dSdT=\underset{i>j}{}p_{ij}dx_idx_jHd\sigma d\tau .$$
(6)
Here $`H`$ is a function $`H(p_{ij},x_k)`$, and, in virtue of the fact that there are no cross terms between $`dx_j`$ and $`d\sigma ,d\tau `$, $`S_0,T_0`$ may be taken as functions only of $`\sigma ,\tau `$, while $`S,T`$ depend only upon the co-ordinates $`x_j`$. Then

$`p_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(S,T)}{(x_i,x_j)}}`$ (7)
$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(S_0,T_0)}{(\sigma ,\tau )}}`$ (8)
The analogues of the usual Hamiltonian equations become

$$\frac{(x_i,x_j)}{(\sigma ,\tau )}=\frac{H}{p_{ij}},\underset{j}{}\frac{(p_{ij},x_j)}{(\sigma ,\tau )}=\frac{H}{x_i}$$
(9)
These equations imply

$$\frac{H}{\sigma }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\mathrm{and}\frac{H}{\tau }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$

This means that $`H`$ is a constant of the motion, and does not depend explicitly upon the evolution parameters. In the case of the Schild action , the Hamiltonian is equivalent to the Lagrangian as there is no dependence upon the fields, but only upon their derivatives and may be written as

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mu >\nu }{}p_{\mu \nu }^2==\mathrm{constant}$$
(10)
and the equations of motion are the same as for the Nambu-Goto action;

$$\underset{j}{}\frac{(p_{ij},x_j)}{(\sigma ,\tau )}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(11)
The other equations of motion are

$$p_{ij}=\frac{(x_i,x_j)}{(\sigma ,\tau )}$$
(12)
Hosotani and Nakayama  observed that equations (11) when the momentum tensors $`p_{ij}`$ are regarded as functions of the $`x_k`$ may be written as

$$p^{ij}\frac{p_{jk}}{x_i}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(13)
and these equation, with the help of (7) may be used to show that $`p^{ij}p_{ij}`$ is constant, which is consistent with (10).

We now make the following observation; the usual Hamilton-Jacobi relation for a massless point particle,

$$\left(\frac{S}{x_\mu }\right)^2=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}$$

takes the same form as the Klein Gordon Lagrangian for a massless particle subject to a constraint. What happens when we subject the equation of motion for the Lagrangian to the constraint that the Lagrangian is zero? Consider the Lagrangian for the Klein-Gordon equation in $`d`$ space-time dimensions.

$$=\left(\frac{\varphi }{x^\mu }\right)^2\text{where}\mu =1,\mathrm{},d$$
(14)
By imposing the condition $`=M^2`$ where $`M`$ is constant the equations of motion for the above Lagrangian are now the same as the equations of motion obtained from the square root of the unconstrained Lagrangian since they may be written as

$$\frac{^2\varphi }{x_\mu ^2}\frac{\varphi }{x_\mu }\frac{\sqrt{}}{x_\mu }=\frac{\varphi }{x_\mu }\frac{\sqrt{}}{x_\mu }$$
(15)
where the same (zero) quantity has been subtracted from both sides. The vanishing of the left hand side is just the equation of motion for the square root of $``$. If the constant $`M`$ is zero then we can go further and assert that the equations of motion are the same as those obtained fom the square root of the unconstrained Lagrangian in one dimension less,i.e.

$$=\sqrt{\left(\frac{\varphi }{x^\mu }\right)^2}\text{where}\mu =1,\mathrm{},d1.$$
(16)
Remarkably, this procedure generalizes. In the case of the string, the Hamilton Jacobi equation is equivalent to the Lagrangian

$$\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mu >\nu }{}p_{\mu \nu }^2==\left(\frac{S}{x_\mu }\right)^2\left(\frac{T}{x_\nu }\right)^2\left(\frac{S}{x_\mu }\frac{T}{x_\mu }\right)^2.$$
(17)
Here $`\mu ,\nu =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{}d`$. It is necessary to impose something more stringent than $`=`$ constant, which is the Hamilton Jacobi equation. We want to have

$$\delta =\frac{}{S_\nu }\delta S_\nu +\frac{}{T_\nu }\delta T_\nu =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(18)
The usual assumption is to treat the variation in the derivative $`\frac{S}{x_\nu }`$ and that in $`\frac{T}{x_\nu }`$ as connected, but, suppose we treat these variations as independent;

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{S_\nu }}S_{\nu \mu }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{T_\nu }}T_{\nu \mu }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (20)
In fact these constraints are not fully independent, as the sum of each pair is equivalent to the equations (13) or $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_\mu }}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ . Together, they permit the elimination of all second order derivatives $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2S}{x_dx_\mu }},{\displaystyle \frac{^2T}{x_dx_\mu }}`$ where one or more of the derivatives is with respect to $`x_d`$ from the equations of motion for (17). The constraints are obtained by differentiating $``$ with respect to $`x_\mu `$ first regarding $`T_\mu `$ as constant, then repeating the procedure, now regarding $`S_\mu `$ as constant, etc and take the generic form

$$\frac{}{\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }}\frac{^2\varphi ^i}{x_\mu x_\nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},i\mathrm{not}\mathrm{summed}.$$

The resulting equations are precisely the equations of motion coming from the Lagrangian $`\sqrt{}`$, but in one dimension less, i.e. $`d1`$ dimensions. It is also necessary to take the constant to be zero. Notice also that if the $`d=D+2`$ then the equations of motion for the reduced Lagrangian vanish identically, as the square root Lagrangian is now proportional to the Jacobian of the fields, and is thus a divergence. In contrast to the particle case, where these assertions are readily verified, the proof is rather tricky. Computer calculations have verified this conjecture for the cases $`D=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$, $`d=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3},4,5`$ and $`D=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3},d=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4},5`$. This encouraged us to seek an analytic proof, given first for the case of two fields, and established in general by one of us, Linda Baker, while this paper has been under revision. Both these proofs are contained in appendices. Thus the procedure with which we proposed to associate a field theory with a string or Brane Lagrangian gains some justification from the Hamilton-Jacobi approach, with the added refinement that if the Hamilton-Jacobi function is zero, the Lagrangian is defined in a space of one dimension less than that of the target space of the string. This property calls to mind the Holographic Principle of ’t Hooft , developed by Susskind , where the theory in the bulk is determined by the theory on the boundary, i.e in one dimension less. There is a second issue which suggests that there exists a more general class of constraints than those proposed above which also result in the equivalence of the equations of motion to those from a square root Lagrangian in one lower dimension. The Lagrangian (17) is invariant under canonical transformations of $`S,T`$, and in particular is invariant under rotations of these fields, whereas the constraints (19,20) are not. While these constraints fulfil the purpose for which they were contrived, this observation suggests that they are sufficient, but not necessary.

## 3 Properties of square-root Lagrangians.

It turns out that actions constructed from Lagrangians of the form (4) possess remarkable properties, just as do those of Dirac-Born-Infeld type (3). The latter are invariant under re-parametrisation (diffeomorphism and dilation) invariance, whereas the field theory Lagrangians (4) are generally covariant. This property is reminiscent of the construction of what we have called ‘Universal Field Equations’ . One purpose of this paper is to show that indeed there is a connection, and that the equations which arise are universal in the sense that they are the Euler-Lagrange equations for a whole class of inequivalent Lagrangians. Furthermore, there is evidence for universality associated with a second variation, using an iterated form of Lagrangian. To explain in detail what we mean, we consider first of all the case of a single field, associated with the point particle. Consider the square root of the Klein Gordon Lagrangian;

$$=\sqrt{\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_\mu }\right)^2},$$
(21)
As remarked in , in the minimal case of two base co-ordinates the equation of motion is the well known Bateman equation

$$\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_1}\right)^2\frac{^2\varphi }{x_2^2}+\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_2}\right)^2\frac{^2\varphi }{x_1^2}2\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_1}\right)\left(\frac{\varphi }{x_2}\right)\frac{^2\varphi }{x_1x_2}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(22)
This is the simplest example of a Universal Field Equation, since it arises as the variation of any Lagrangian $`(\varphi ,{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi }{x_1}},{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi }{x_2}})`$, which is homogeneous of weight one in the first derivatives; i.e.

$$\frac{\varphi }{x_1}\left(\frac{}{\frac{\varphi }{x_1}}\right)+\frac{\varphi }{x_2}\left(\frac{}{\frac{\varphi }{x_2}}\right)=$$
(23)
All such Lagrangians which are independent of $`\varphi `$ are clearly independent under field redefinitions, since any such transformation from a $`\varphi `$-independent Lagrangian will inevitably introduce a field. If we now consider the base space in general dimension, with such a Lagrangian of weight one, the equations of motion are sums of Bateman equations for all pairs of independent variables. This follows simply from the fact that the equation of motion is simply (denoting derivatives by subscripts);

$$\frac{^2}{\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu }\varphi _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(24)
and the homogeneity condition implies that

$$\underset{\mu }{}\varphi _\mu \frac{^2}{\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(25)
These equations can be solved for the double derivatives $`\frac{^2}{\varphi _\mu ^2}`$ in favour of the mixed derivatives, and the equation of motion with $`d`$ independent variables becomes a sum of Bateman equations;

$$\underset{\mu }{}\underset{\nu <\nu }{}\frac{1}{\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu }\frac{^2}{\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu }\left(\left(\varphi _\mu \right)^2\varphi _{\nu \nu }+\left(\varphi _\nu \right)^2\varphi _{\mu \mu }2\left(\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu \right)\varphi _{\mu \nu }\right)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(26)
Now, as is well known, the solution of any individual Bateman equation (22) is given implicitly by solving for $`\varphi `$ the equation

$$x_\mu F(\varphi (x_1,x_2\mathrm{}x_d))+x_\nu G(\varphi (x_1,x_2\mathrm{}x_d))=c,$$
(27)
where $`F,G`$ are arbitrary functions and $`c`$ is a constant. A simple analysis shows that a large class of universal solutions (in the sense that they are independent of details of the Lagrangian) of (26) will be given by solving the implicit equation

$$\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{\mu =d}{}}x_\mu F_\mu (\varphi (x_1,x_2\mathrm{}x_d))=c,$$
(28)
where $`F_\mu `$ are arbitrary functions of $`\varphi `$. In particular, it provides a solution to the equations of motion arising from (21).

This class of solutions is also a solution of the Universal Field Equation, obtained by iterating the Euler operator $``$ acting on the Lagrangian

$$=\frac{}{\varphi }+_i\frac{}{\varphi _i}_i_j\frac{}{\varphi _{ij}}\mathrm{}$$
(29)
(In principle the expansion continues indefinitely but it is sufficient for our purposes to terminate at the stage of second derivatives $`\varphi _{ij}`$, since it turns out that the iterations do not introduce any derivatives higher than the second).

Then the $`d1`$ fold iteration

$$,\mathrm{},$$
(30)
where each Euler operator acts on everything to the right yields the Universal Field Equation

$$det\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}0& \varphi _1& \varphi _2& \mathrm{}& \varphi _d\\ \varphi _1& \varphi _{11}& \varphi _{12}& \mathrm{}& \varphi _{1d}\\ \varphi _2& \varphi _{12}& \varphi _{22}& \mathrm{}& \varphi _{2d}\\ .& .& .& \mathrm{}& .\\ \varphi _d& \varphi _{1d}& \varphi _{2d}& \mathrm{}& \varphi _{dd}\end{array}\right)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(31)
This is proved in . This equation, as has been remarked above, admits a class of solutions of the form (28). Now let us turn to the properties of the particle Lagrangian, (3). Here there are $`d1`$ independent equations of motion which take the form

$$\frac{^2X^\mu }{\tau ^2}\frac{X^\nu }{\tau }\frac{^2X^\nu }{\tau ^2}\frac{X^\mu }{\tau }=0.$$
(32)
The reason that there are not $`d`$ independent equations is due to
re-parametrisation invariance. Furthermore, exchanging the roles of dependent and independent variables each such equation reproduces the Bateman equation, with independent variables $`x_\mu ,x_\nu `$. Thus there is a direct connection between solutions of (3) and a large class of solutions to the companion equation(4). In what follows we elaborate upon this situation for the case of more fields, and find that the appropriate variables are Jacobians of the fields.

## 4 Companion equations for the string

For the Nambu-Goto Lagrangian,

$$_{d=2}=\sqrt{\left[\left(\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma }\frac{X^\mu }{\tau }\right)^2\left(\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma }\right)^2\left(\frac{X^\mu }{\tau }\right)^2\right]}$$
(33)
describing strings in $`d`$ dimensions there are $`d2`$ independent equations of motion. For example, for the string case in d=3 dimensions, the Nambu-Goto Lagrangian $`_3`$ gives the single equation of motion

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\widehat{J}_1& \widehat{J}_2& \widehat{J}_3\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}X_{\sigma \sigma }^1& X_{\sigma \tau }^1& X_{\tau \tau }^1\\ X_{\sigma \sigma }^2& X_{\sigma \tau }^2& X_{\tau \tau }^2\\ X_{\sigma \sigma }^3& X_{\sigma \tau }^3& X_{\tau \tau }^3\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}(X_\tau ^1)^2+(X_\tau ^2)^2+(X_\tau ^3)^2\\ 2(X_\sigma ^1X_\tau ^1+X_\sigma ^2X_\tau ^2+X_\sigma ^3X_\tau ^3)\\ (X_\sigma ^1)^2+(X_\sigma ^2)^2+(X_\sigma ^3)^2\end{array}\right)=0$$
(34)
where

$$X_{ij}^\mu =\frac{^2X^\mu }{\sigma ^i\sigma ^j},X_i^\mu =\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma ^i},\text{and}\sigma ^i=(\sigma ,\tau ),$$
(35)
and

$$\widehat{J}_\rho =ϵ_{\rho \mu \nu }X_\sigma ^\mu X_\tau ^\nu =\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{\rho \mu \nu }\left|\begin{array}{cc}X_\sigma ^\mu & X_\sigma ^\nu \\ X_\tau ^\mu & X_\tau ^\nu \end{array}\right|.$$
(36)
In general, a typical equation of motion, of which only $`d2`$ are independent can be written in the following form:

$$\widehat{J}_\nu X_{ij}^\nu (L^1)_{ij}=0,$$
(37)
where L is the matrix with components $`[L]_{ij}=\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma ^i}\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma ^j}`$ and $`\nu `$ is chosen from three of the values $`\nu _1,\nu _2,\nu _3`$ of the index $`\mu `$ which runs over $`1\mathrm{}d`$. $`\widehat{J}_{\nu _1}`$ denotes the Jacobian $`{\displaystyle \frac{(X^{\nu _2},X^{\nu _3})}{(\sigma _1,\sigma _2)}}`$, omitting $`X^{\nu _1}`$ etc. This can be extended to strings in $`d`$ dimensions and to branes. The only essential difference is that in the typical equation of motion, $`\nu `$ is now an arbitrary choice of $`D`$ values and $`\widehat{J}_\nu `$ is now a Jacobian of a subset of those variables $`x^\nu `$, with respect to the $`d`$ world sheet co-ordinates $`\sigma _j`$.

In general, an object (particle/string/brane) which sweeps out an $`N`$-dimensional world volume in $`d`$-dimensional space-time has only $`dN`$ independent equations of motion. The basic reason for this is that in the case $`N=d`$ the Lagrangian is a divergence, so all the equations of motion vanish. The companion Lagrangian, suggested in  is

$$_{N=2}\sqrt{\left[\left(\varphi _\mu \psi _\mu \right)^2\left(\varphi _\mu \right)^2\left(\psi _\nu \right)^2\right]}=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\underset{\mu ,\nu }{}\left(\varphi _\mu \psi _\nu \varphi _\nu \psi _\mu \right)^2}$$
(38)
Note that this Lagrangian depends upon the derivatives of $`\varphi ,\psi `$ only through the Jacobians $`J^{\mu \nu }=\varphi _\mu \psi _\nu \varphi _\nu \psi _\mu `$, as it may be written in the second alternative form. This is a clue as to the universal properties of such Lagrangians. In the case where $`\mu =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{}3`$, using the notation $`j^\mu =\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho }J^{\nu \rho }`$, an easy calculation shows that any Lagrangian homogeneous of degree one in the variables $`j^\mu `$ will give the same equations of motion

$$det\left|\begin{array}{ccccc}0& 0& \varphi _{x_1}& \varphi _{x_2}& \varphi _{x_3}\\ 0& 0& \psi _{x_1}& \psi _{x_2}& \psi _{x_3}\\ \varphi _{x_1}& \psi _{x_1}& \varphi _{x_1x_1}& \varphi _{x_1x_2}& \varphi _{x_1x_3}\\ \varphi _{x_2}& \psi _{x_2}& \varphi _{x_1x_2}& \varphi _{x_2x_2}& \varphi _{x_2x_3}\\ \varphi _{x_3}& \psi _{x_3}& \varphi _{x_1x_3}& \varphi _{x_2x_3}& \varphi _{x_3x_3}\end{array}\right|=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(39)
Furthermore, just as in the case of one field, the companion Lagrangian to the Brane, (4) in any number of dimensions, is expressible as the square root of a sum of squares, now of Jacobians,

$$=\sqrt{det\left|\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }\frac{\varphi ^j}{x_\mu }\right|}=\left(\frac{N!(dN)!}{d!}\right)\sqrt{\left(\frac{\{\varphi ^1,\varphi ^2,\mathrm{},\varphi ^n\}}{\{x_{\mu _1},x_{\mu _2}\mathrm{}x_{\mu _d}\}}\right)^2}.$$
(40)
(Here the sum is over all permutations of the squares of Jacobians of the $`N`$ fields with respect to selections of $`N`$ (the dimension of the world volume) out of the $`d`$ co-ordinates $`x_\mu `$ of space-time). If it is substituted by any homogeneous function of these Jacobians of weight one, the Lagrangian will give give equations of motion which take the form of a weighted sum of Universal Field Equations of the form of (39), suitably generalised to $`N`$ fields. As is the case with a single field, a class of solutions may be founfd by taking the equations

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{\mu =d}{}}}x_\mu F_\mu (\varphi (x_1,x_2\mathrm{}x_d))`$ $`=`$ $`c_1,`$ (41)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{\mu =d}{}}}x_\mu G_\mu (\psi (x_1,x_2\mathrm{}x_d))`$ $`=`$ $`c_2,`$ (42)
where $`F_\mu (\varphi ),G_\mu (\psi )`$ are arbitrary functions, subject to the above constraints. This class of solutions is more genenral than might be at first supposed, thanks to general covariance which asserts that any function of these implicit solutions for $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ is also a solution. There will be only one contribution in the case $`d=D+1`$, the multi-field Universal Equation of  and . The equation of motion in this case is completely classically equivalent to the single string equation, as may be seen by inverting the rôles of dependent and independent variables. This observation suggests that the received wisdom, that string Field theory should depend upon a field which is a functional of the string, may be unnecessary and a quantised version of the companion Lagrangian sufficient. Of course this is a highly non-linear theory whose quantisation is problematic.

### 4.1 Inclusion of a Background Metric

The property of the companion Lagrangian, and also of Lagrangians of the Born-Infeld type that they may be expressed in terms a quadratic form in Jacobians persists even when a background metric $`g_{\mu ,\nu }`$ is included. For example in the case of the string companion field, with

$$=\sqrt{det\left|g_{\mu \nu }\frac{\varphi _i}{x_\mu }\frac{\varphi _j}{x_\nu }\right|}$$
(44)
the Lagrangian may be expressed as

$$=\sqrt{\underset{\mu >\nu }{}(g_{\mu \nu }g_{\rho \sigma }g_{\mu \sigma }g_{\rho \nu })\left(\frac{(\varphi _1,\varphi _2)}{(x_\mu x_\nu )}\right)\left(\frac{(\varphi _1,\varphi _2)}{(x_\rho x_\sigma )}\right)}.$$

The pattern for more fields is similar involving the minors of $`g`$ of rank $`D+1`$.

## 5 Iterated Variations

In this section, which is by way of a speculative generalisation of the iterative construction  outlined at the end of section 5, we shall discuss the extension of the scheme for the construction of a sequence of iterated Lagrangians to ones which depend on more than one field. In the introduction the iterative procedure for Lagrangians for one field $`\varphi `$ just involved multiplying by the Lagrangian before re-applying the Euler operator. It is not quite so simple for Lagrangians of two fields such as (38). Consider Lagrangians which are homogeneous of weight one in the Jacobians. From now on $`_\varphi `$ denotes the Euler operator with respect to field $`\varphi `$. Carrying out the iteration (30) now results in derivatives of orders higher than two (unlike the one field case where all higher order derivatives vanished). However, this problem is removed if we multiply by a function $`f`$ which is related to the Lagrangian and which is homogeneous of weight one in $`\varphi _\mu `$ and weight zero in $`\psi _\mu `$ so that overall $`f_\varphi `$ is weight one in both $`\varphi _\mu `$ and $`\psi _\mu `$, like the Lagrangian. In order to keep derivatives of order no higher than two, the function $`f`$ must satisfy the conditions

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{f}{\varphi _1}}{\frac{f}{\psi _1}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{f}{\varphi _2}}{\frac{f}{\psi _2}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{f}{\varphi _3}}{\frac{f}{\psi _3}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{^2}{\varphi _1\varphi _1}}{\frac{^2}{\psi _1\varphi _1}}}`$ (45)
Consider the case where $`d=3`$ and the Lagrangian is (38). The required function $`f`$ was found to be

$$f=\frac{}{\sqrt{\psi _1^2+\psi _2^2+\psi _3^2}}$$
(46)
The iterative sequence is then

$$_\varphi f_\varphi =\frac{1}{(\psi _1^2+\psi _2^2+\psi _3^2)^{3/2}}det\left|\begin{array}{cccc}0& \psi _1& \psi _2& \psi _3\\ \psi _1& \psi _{11}& \psi _{12}& \psi _{13}\\ \psi _2& \psi _{12}& \psi _{22}& \psi _{23}\\ \psi _3& \psi _{13}& \psi _{23}& \psi _{33}\end{array}\right|$$
(47)
The following list of Lagrangians all behave similarly and suitable $`f`$’s have been found for them all.

$`=\sqrt{a_{ij}J_iJ_j},f={\displaystyle \frac{}{\sqrt{2ϵ_{i_1i_2i_3}ϵ_{j_1j_2j_3}a_{i_2j_2}a_{i_3j_3}\psi _{i_1}\psi _{j_1}}}}`$ (48)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{a_{ij}J_iJ_j}{c_kJ_k}},f={\displaystyle \frac{c_kJ_k}{\sqrt{ϵ_{i_1i_2i_3}ϵ_{j_1j_2j_3}a_{i_2j_2}c_{i_3}c_{j_3}\psi _{i_1}\psi _{j_1}}}}`$ (49)
$`=(b_kJ_k,c_kJ_k),f={\displaystyle \frac{}{ϵ_{ijk}c_ib_j\psi _k}}`$ (50)
The $`a_{ij},b_k,c_k`$ are all constants and summation over indices is assumed. The first of these examples is just the case of (38) in a background metric. In all the above cases the iterated sequence always results in the same form as in (47). The determinant part always appears and is multiplied by some factor. The determinant is a generalised Bateman equation. It is not particularly surprising that the second iteration of these Lagrangians is the same, but what is important is that it only depends on the first and second derivatives of $`\psi `$ and has no dependence on $`\varphi `$ at all. This is analogous to all $`\varphi `$ dependence disappearing in the one field case after two iterations.

Similar functions $`f`$ can be found for other cases where the number of fields is one less than the number of dimensions . It is hoped to extend the results to Lagrangians with $`D`$ fields in $`d`$ dimensions.

## 6 Conclusions

The main result of this paper is that there is a natural continuation of the Dirac-Born-Infeld Lagrangian to the case where the number of base space co-ordinates exceeds the number of target space ones, and that this Lagrangian follows from the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for Strings and Branes. Two arguments have been advanced that these Lagrangians should be considered as the square of a quadratic in Jacobians, rather than the quadratic form itself; firstly on the grounds of covariance and secondly as an interpretation of the Hamilton-Jacobi function for Strings and Branes as a Lagranian constrained to be constant. When the Lagrangian is subject to a number of vanishing constraints, it gives rise to equations of motion identical with those from an unconstrained Lagrangian in one dimension less. This may be interpreted as a simple example of the Holographic principle, as the evolution of the system is determined by equations on the boundary. Obviously this notion gives rise to many questions for further development, such as the extension to include an Abelian field, and the further understanding of the additional constraints besides the vanishing of the Lagrangian on the space of solutions of the equations of motion, a property we have referred to as pseudo-topological . There are also questions of universality which arise, such as the determination of the class of Lagrangians for which our result holds.

## Acknowledgement

Linda Baker is grateful to EPSRC for a postgraduate research award.

## APPENDIX

For ease of understanding, we present the proof, first for two fields, then for an arbitrary number of fields.

### Part 1

This contains a proof of the theorem that equations of motion arising from the quadratic Lagrangian

$$=S_\mu ^2T_\nu ^2(S_\mu T_\mu )^2=(SS)(TT)(ST)^2$$
(51)
subject to the constraints

$$=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\frac{}{S_\nu }S_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\frac{}{T_\nu }T_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},$$
(52)
are exactly equivalent to the equations arising from the Lagrangian of similar form, but with the square root taken, viz;

$$=\sqrt{S_i^2T_j^2(S_jT_j)^2},$$
(53)
in one dimension less. (Greek indices run from 1 to $`d`$, Roman from 1 to $`d1`$). The equation for the field $`S`$ arising from the two equations of motion for (51) is , after elimination of second derivatives $`S_{d\mu }`$ takes the form

$$\left(\left(\frac{}{S_d}\right)^2\frac{^2}{S_iS_j}\frac{}{S_d}\frac{}{S_i}\frac{^2}{S_dS_j}\frac{}{S_d}\frac{}{S_j}\frac{^2}{S_dS_i}+\frac{}{S_i}\frac{}{S_j}\frac{^2}{S_d^2}\right)S_{ij}=0$$

The coefficient of $`S_{ij}`$ may be expressed in the form of a determinant;

$$det\left|\begin{array}{ccc}0& S_d(TT)T_d(ST)& S_i(TT)T_i(ST)\\ S_d(TT)T_d(ST)& TTT_d^2& T_iT_d\\ S_j(TT)T_j(ST)& T_jT_d& \delta _{ij}(TT)T_iT_j\end{array}\right|$$

Using elementary row and column operations, this is equal to

$$\frac{TT}{T_iT_j}det\left|\begin{array}{ccc}0& J_{di}& S_i(TT)T_i(ST)\\ (TT)J_{dj}& T_iT_j+\delta _{ij}T_d^2& \delta _{ij}(TT)T_d\\ S_j(TT)T_j(ST)& \delta _{ij}T_d& \delta _{ij}(TT)T_iT_j.\end{array}\right|$$

Here $`J_{di}`$ denotes the Jacobian $`J_{di}=S_dT_iS_iT_d`$. Next we note that the product $`(S_i(TT)T_i(ST))(S_j(TT)T_j(ST)`$ can be written using $`=0`$ in the form $`_\mu J_{i\mu }J_{j\mu }(TT)`$. Expanding the determinants, it is easy to obtain the coefficient of $`\delta _{ij}`$ from the first form, and of $`T_iT_j`$ from the second giving the expression

$$\left(TT\right)^2\left(\underset{k}{}J_{ik}J_{jk}\delta _{ij}J_{d\mu }^2\right)$$

for the equation of motion. For $`ij`$ this is readily seen as the correct coefficient of $`S_{ij}`$ in the equation of motion for (53). For $`i=j`$ it is also seen to be the correct coefficient, with the factor $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{k,lj}{k>l}}{}}J_{kl}^2`$ using

$$=\underset{k}{}J_{jk}^2+\underset{\mu }{}J_{d\mu }^2+\underset{\stackrel{k,lj}{k>l}}{}J_{kl}^2=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$

### Part2. General Proof<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3by Linda Baker

Here we give an analytic proof of this observation for any number of fields $`n`$ in any number of dimensions $`d`$ where $`d>n`$.

### Conventions and Notation

Partial derivatives are denoted by

$$\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }=\varphi _\mu ^i,\frac{^2\varphi ^i}{x_\mu x_\nu }=\varphi _{\mu \nu }^i$$
(54)
Totally antisymmetric tensors $`ϵ_{\nu _1\nu _2\mathrm{}\nu _d}`$ are used throughout the proof with the convention that $`ϵ_{12\mathrm{}d}=+1`$. When indices have an arrow above them then they represent several indices. They can be thought of as vectors with several components.
$`\stackrel{}{\mu },\stackrel{}{\nu },\stackrel{}{\rho }`$ each have $`(n1)`$ components. For example $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ denotes $`\{\mu _2,\mu _3,\mathrm{},\mu _n\}`$.
$`\stackrel{}{\tau },\stackrel{}{\kappa }`$ each have $`(dn)`$ components. For example $`\stackrel{}{\kappa }`$ denotes $`\{\kappa _1,\kappa _2,\mathrm{},\kappa _{dn}\}`$.
$`\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}`$ denotes $`\{\kappa _2,\kappa _3,\mathrm{},\kappa _{dn}\}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }`$ denotes $`\{\kappa _3,\mathrm{},\kappa _{dn}\}`$.
For the product of $`(n1)`$ fields we use the notation $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }=\varphi _{\nu _2}^2\varphi _{\nu _3}^3\mathrm{}\varphi _{\nu _n}^n`$.
A useful identity which will be used later on is

$`ϵ_{\mu \nu _2\nu _3\mathrm{}\nu _d}ϵ_{\rho _1\rho _2\mathrm{}\rho _d}=ϵ_{\rho _1\nu _2\nu _3\mathrm{}\nu _d}ϵ_{\mu \rho _2\mathrm{}\rho _d}+ϵ_{\rho _2\nu _2\nu _3\mathrm{}\nu _d}ϵ_{\rho _1\mu \rho _3\mathrm{}\rho _d}+\mathrm{}`$
$`\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\rho _d\nu _2\nu _3\mathrm{}\nu _d}ϵ_{\rho _1\rho _2\mathrm{}\rho _{d1}\mu }`$ (55)
It amounts to swapping the index $`\mu `$ from the first epsilon with each index from the second epsilon.

### Lagrangians and Equations of Motion

Consider the Lagrangian for $`n`$ fields $`\varphi ^i`$ in $`d`$ space-time dimensions $`x^\mu `$ which does not involve a square root.

$$=\mathrm{d}et\left|\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }\frac{\varphi ^j}{x_\mu }\right|$$
(56)
The equations of motion for this Lagrangian are

$$\frac{^2}{\varphi _\mu ^i\varphi _\nu ^j}\varphi _{\mu \nu }^j=0$$
(57)
These determinantal Lagrangians can be written as the sum of squares of Jacobians. The Jacobians will be denoted as

$$J_\stackrel{}{\kappa }=J_{\kappa _1\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _{dn}}=ϵ_{\kappa _1\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _{dn}\nu _1\nu _2\mathrm{}\nu _n}\varphi _{\nu _1}^1\varphi _{\nu _2}^2\mathrm{}\varphi _{\nu _n}^n$$
(58)
For the square root case the Lagrangian is

$$=\sqrt{\mathrm{d}et\left|\frac{\varphi ^i}{x_\mu }\frac{\varphi ^j}{x_\mu }\right|}=\sqrt{\frac{1}{(dn)!}J_\stackrel{}{\kappa }J_\stackrel{}{\kappa }}$$
(59)
The equations of motion for this can be written as

$$J_{\mu \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}J_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}\varphi _{\mu \nu }^i=0$$
(60)
### The Constraints

The equations of motion for the non-square root case will be subject to the following constraints.

$$\frac{}{\varphi _\mu ^i}\varphi _{\mu \nu }^i=0.$$
(61)
There is no summation over the index $`i`$. The Lagrangian must also vanish.

The idea is to reduce the number of dimensions from $`d`$ to $`d1`$. The constraints (61) can be used to eliminate all second derivatives of the fields which involve a partial derivative with respect to $`x_d`$, the $`d`$th dimension. i.e From the constraints

$`\varphi _{d\beta }^i={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{}{\varphi _\alpha ^i}}{\frac{}{\varphi _d^i}}}\varphi _{\alpha \beta }^i,\varphi _{dd}^i={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{}{\varphi _\alpha ^i}\frac{}{\varphi _\beta ^i}}{\left(\frac{}{\varphi _d^i}\right)^2}}\varphi _{\alpha \beta }^i`$ (62)
Putting these into the equations of motion (57) we have:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left(\frac{}{\varphi _d^j}\right)^2}}[\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _d^j}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\varphi _\alpha ^i\varphi _\beta ^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _d^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _\beta ^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\varphi _\alpha ^i\varphi _d^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _d^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _\alpha ^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\varphi _\beta ^i\varphi _d^j}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _\alpha ^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi _\beta ^j}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\varphi _d^i\varphi _d^j}}]\varphi ^j_{\alpha \beta }=0`$ (63)
The indices $`\alpha ,\beta =1,2,\mathrm{},(d1)`$ throughout the paper.

### The Proof

For the moment we shall consider the equation of motion with respect to field $`\varphi =\varphi ^1`$ and are only looking at the component which involves the terms $`\varphi _{\alpha \beta }`$. The other components will work in the same way. Using the definition of the Lagrangian which involves the Jacobians then we can write

$$=\frac{1}{(dn)!}\varphi _\nu \varphi _\rho B_{\nu \rho }\mathrm{w}hereB_{\nu \rho }=ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\rho \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\rho }}\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }$$
(64)
so the numerator of the coefficient of $`\varphi _{\alpha \beta }`$ in (63) becomes

$$[B_{\mu d}(B_{\nu d}B_{\alpha \beta }B_{\nu \beta }B_{\alpha d})+B_{\nu \alpha }(B_{\mu \beta }B_{dd}B_{\mu d}B_{\beta d})]\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu $$
(65)
Now,

$`B_{\nu d}B_{\alpha \beta }B_{\nu \beta }B_{\alpha d}`$ $`=`$ $`[ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ (66)
$`=`$ $`ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}[ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$
Using the epsilon identity (55) to move the index $`\beta `$ around

$`ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}=ϵ_{\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}+ϵ_{d\beta \kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}+\mathrm{}+ϵ_{d\kappa _1\mathrm{}\kappa _{r1}\beta \stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}+`$
$`ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }\beta \nu _3\mathrm{}\nu _n}ϵ_{\nu _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}+\mathrm{}+ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }\nu _2\mathrm{}\nu _{n1}\beta }ϵ_{\nu _n\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}`$ (67)
The first term on the right hand side is just the other term in expression (66). The last $`(n1)`$ terms will all vanish due to symmetry conditions. This only leaves the middle terms. But by relabelling

$`ϵ_{\nu \kappa _1\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\kappa _1\mathrm{}\beta \mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\nu \kappa _i\mathrm{}\kappa _1\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\kappa _i\mathrm{}\beta \mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}`$ (68)
$`=`$ $`ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}`$
There are $`r=dn`$ of these terms. Therefore,

$$B_{\nu d}B_{\alpha \beta }B_{\nu \beta }B_{\alpha d}=rϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }$$
(69)
Now as in (67), using identity (55) to swap subscript $`\kappa _1`$

$`ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\nu \alpha \kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}+ϵ_{\nu \tau _1\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \kappa _1\tau _2\mathrm{}\tau _r\stackrel{}{\rho }}\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\nu \tau _r\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \tau _1\mathrm{}\tau _{r1}\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\rho }}`$ (70)
$`+ϵ_{\nu \rho _2\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\kappa _1\rho _3\mathrm{}\rho _n}\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\nu \rho _n\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\rho _2\mathrm{}\rho _{n1}\kappa _1}`$
And by relabelling indices and using the antisymmetric property of the epsilons

$$ϵ_{\nu \tau _i\kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _n\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \tau _1\mathrm{}\kappa _1\mathrm{}\tau _r\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}=ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}$$
(71)
so,

$$(1+r)ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\kappa }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}=ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _1\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}$$
(72)
which gives

$$B_{\nu d}B_{\alpha \beta }B_{\nu \beta }B_{\alpha d}=\frac{r}{r+1}B_{\kappa \kappa }[ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }]$$
(73)
Substituting this into the expression (65) we find

$`B_{\tau \tau }[B_{\mu d}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}+B_{\nu \alpha }ϵ_{\mu d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\beta d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu `$ (74)
$`=`$ $`B_{\tau \tau }[ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu `$
Now, using (55) to move the subscript $`d`$,

$`ϵ_{d\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{\alpha \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}+ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha d\kappa _3\mathrm{}\kappa _n\stackrel{}{\mu }}+\mathrm{}`$
$`+`$ $`ϵ_{\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _{r1}d\stackrel{}{\mu }}+ϵ_{\mu _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }d\mu _3\mathrm{}\mu _n}`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\mu _n\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\mu _2\mathrm{}\mu _{n1}d}`$
As before the last terms will vanish due to symmetry considerations. For the middle terms, by relabelling and using antisymmetry

$$ϵ_{\kappa _i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha \kappa _2\mathrm{}d\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \kappa _2\mathrm{}\kappa _i\mathrm{}\kappa _r\stackrel{}{\nu }}=ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}$$
(76)
There are $`(r1)=(dn1)`$ of these terms. We now have

$$\frac{r}{r+1}B_{\tau \tau }[ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}+(r1)ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu $$

Again, rewriting the epsilons, this time moving the subscript $`\kappa _2`$,

$`ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \mu \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}+ϵ_{\mu \kappa _2\tau _2\mathrm{}\tau _r\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \tau _1\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}+\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\mu \tau _1\mathrm{}\tau _{r1}\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \tau _r\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}`$ (77)
$`+\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\kappa _2\rho _3\mathrm{}\rho _n}ϵ_{d\beta \rho _2\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}+\mathrm{}+ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\rho _2\mathrm{}\rho _{n1}\kappa _2}ϵ_{d\beta \rho _n\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}`$
And again, by relabelling

$$ϵ_{\mu \tau _1\mathrm{}\kappa _2\mathrm{}\tau _r\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \tau _i\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}=ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}$$
(78)
There are $`r=dn`$ of these terms. So our expression is now

$`{\displaystyle \frac{r}{r+1}}B_{\tau \tau }[ϵ_{\mu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\nu \stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}+{\displaystyle \frac{r1}{r+1}}ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\rho }}ϵ_{\kappa _2\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\sigma }}ϵ_{\nu \alpha d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{}{\nu }}]\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\rho }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\sigma }\varphi _\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi _{\alpha \beta }`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{r}{r+1}}B_{\tau \tau }[ϵ_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\mu }}ϵ_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}\stackrel{}{\nu }}\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\stackrel{}{\nu }r!{\displaystyle \frac{r1}{r+1}}B_{\kappa \kappa }J_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}J_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}]\varphi _{\alpha \beta }`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{rr!}{r+1}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{J_\stackrel{}{\mu }}{\varphi _\tau }}{\displaystyle \frac{J_\stackrel{}{\mu }}{\varphi _\tau }}\right)\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{J_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}}{\varphi _\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{J_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}}{\varphi _\beta }}\right){\displaystyle \frac{r1}{(r+1)!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{J_\stackrel{}{\nu }}{\varphi _\kappa }}{\displaystyle \frac{J_\stackrel{}{\nu }}{\varphi _\kappa }}\right)J_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}J_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}\right]\varphi _{\alpha \beta }`$
A very similar calculation can be carried out to rewrite the coefficients of $`\varphi _{\alpha \beta }^j`$ $`(j1)`$ from (63). These become, for $`\varphi ^j=\psi `$, say.

$$\frac{rr!}{r+1}\left(\frac{J_\stackrel{}{\mu }}{\varphi _\tau }\frac{J_\stackrel{}{\mu }}{\psi _\tau }\right)\left[\left(\frac{J_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}}{\psi _\alpha }\frac{J_{d\stackrel{}{\kappa }^{}}}{\psi _\beta }\right)\frac{r1}{(r+1)!}\left(\frac{J_\stackrel{}{\nu }}{\psi _\kappa }\frac{J_\stackrel{}{\nu }}{\psi _\kappa }\right)J_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}J_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}\right]\psi _{\alpha \beta }$$
(79)
When the condition that the Lagrangian vanishes is put into the equations of motion, they can just be written as

$$J_{d\alpha \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}J_{d\beta \stackrel{}{\kappa }^{\prime \prime }}\varphi _{\alpha \beta }^i=0$$
(80)
as required. Comparing (80) with (60), these are the equations of motion for the Lagrangian involving a square root (59) in $`(d1)`$ dimensions.


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# Pion propagation in the linear sigma model at finite temperature

## I Introduction

A basic ingredient for the understanding of several physical processes taking place in hadronic plasmas are the propagation properties of pions. The relevant scenarios include dense astrophysical objects such as the cores of neutron stars and the evolution of the highly interacting region formed in the midsts of high-energy heavy-ion collisions. In the latter context, pions are the most copiously produced particles and their (mainly attractive) interactions within a dense nuclear environment have been speculated to give rise to interesting collective surface phenomena . Moreover, it is well known that the pion group velocity is an important piece of information necessary to properly account for the component of the dilepton spectrum originated in the hadronic phase, below the critical temperatures and densities for the formation of a quark-gluon plasma .

The hadronic degrees of freedom are usually accounted for by means of effective chiral theories whose basic ingredient is the fact that pions are Goldston bosons coming from the spontaneous breakdown of chiral symmetry. Chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) is one of such effective theories that has been employed to show the well known result that at leading perturbative order and at low momentum, the modification of the pion dispersion curve in a pion medium is just a constant, temperature dependent, increase of the pion mass . In spite of the mounting complexity introduced by the number of couplings required at next to leading order, ChPT has also been used in a two-loop computation of the pion self-energy  and decay constant . A striking result obtained from such computations is that at second order, the shift in the temperature dependence of the pion mass is opposite in sign and about three times larger in magnitude than the first order shift, already at temperatures on the order of $`150`$ MeV. This result might signal either the breakdown of the perturbative scheme at such temperatures or the need to compute beyond next to leading order in ChPT, given the large relative corrections found.

Nevertheless, the simplest realization of chiral symmetry is still provided by the much studied linear sigma model which possesses the convenient feature of being a renormalizable field theory, both at zero  and (consequently) at finite temperature . A further motivation to study this model stems from recent theoretical results  and analyses of data  that seem to confirm, though not without controversy , that a broad scalar resonance, with a mass in the vicinity of 600 MeV –that can be identified with the $`\sigma `$-meson– indeed exists.

In addition to the above mentioned characteristics, the linear sigma model also reproduces  the leading order modification to the pion mass in a thermal pion medium, when use is made of a systematic expansion in the ratio $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$ at zeroth order, where $`m_\sigma `$, $`m_\pi `$ are the vacuum sigma and pion masses, respectively, and when treating the momentum and temperature as small quantities of order $`m_\pi `$. In this regime, the effective expansion parameter becomes $`m_\pi ^2/4\pi ^2f_\pi ^2`$, where $`f_\pi `$ is the pion decay constant. The existence of such parameter allows for a controlled loop expansion of the pion self-energy from where we can extract, for example, the modification to the pion mass at next to leading order.

In this work, we use the linear sigma model to compute the two-loop order modification to the pion propagator in a pion medium. To this end, we construct one-loop effective vertices and propagators satisfying the chiral Ward identities. The net result is a next to leading order calculation in the parameter $`m_\pi ^2/4\pi ^2f_\pi ^2`$, and to zeroth order in the parameter $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$. From the effective pion propagator, we explore the behavior of the pion dispersion curve at small momentum and for temperatures on the order of the pion mass. We also study pion damping, both in the inelastic and elastic channels.

The work is organized as follows: In section II, we construct an effective one-loop sigma propagator and one-sigma two-pion and four-pion vertices, working at zeroth order in the parameter $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$ and satisfying the chiral Ward identities. In section III, we use these effective vertices and propagator to compute the pion self-energy at two-loop order where the effective expansion parameter turns out to be $`m_\pi ^2/4\pi ^2f_\pi ^2`$. We find the pion dispersion curve and compute also the thermal modification of the pion mass at this order. In section IV, we look at the damping of pions traveling in the pion medium. The main contribution to the damping mechanism comes from the formation of sigma resonances. We compute the mean free path and mean collision time for a medium pion. We also look at the damping mechanism originated in the pion elastic scattering processes. We finally summarize our results and conclude in section V. A short appendix deals with the renormalization of the sigma model at finite temperature at two-loop order.

## II Effective one-loop vertices and chiral Ward identities

The Lagrangian for the linear sigma model, including only the meson degrees of freedom and after the explicit inclusion of the chiral symmetry breaking term, can be written as

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[(\pi )^2+(\sigma )^2m_\pi ^2\pi ^2m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2\right]\lambda ^2f_\pi \sigma (\sigma ^2+\pi ^2){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{4}}(\sigma ^2+\pi ^2)^2,`$ (1)
where $`\pi `$ and $`\sigma `$ are the pion and sigma fields, respectively, and the coupling $`\lambda ^2`$ is given by

$`\lambda ^2={\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}.`$ (2)
From the above Lagrangian one obtains the Green’s functions and the Feynman rules to be used in perturbative calculations, in the usual manner. In particular, the bare pion and sigma propagators $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi (P)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (Q)`$ and the bare one-sigma two-pion and four-pion vertices $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}`$ are given by (hereafter, capital Roman letters are used to denote four momenta)

$`i\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi (P)\delta ^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{P^2m_\pi ^2}}\delta ^{ij}`$ (3)
$`i\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{Q^2m_\sigma ^2}}`$ (4)
$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`2i\lambda ^2f_\pi \delta ^{ij}`$ (5)
$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}`$ $`=`$ $`2i\lambda ^2(\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}+\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}+\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}).`$ (6)
These Green’s functions are sufficient to obtain the modification to the pion propagator, both at zero and finite temperature, at any given perturbative order.

Alternatively, it is also possible to exploit the relations that chiral symmetry imposes among different n-point Green’s functions. These relations, better known as chiral Ward identities (ChWI), are a direct consequence of the fact that the divergence of the axial current may be used as an interpolating field for the pion . Thus, one could construct the modification to one of the above Green’s functions at a given perturbative order and from there, build up the induced modification to other Green’s functions related to the former by a ChWI. For example, two of the ChWI satisfied –order by order in perturbation theory– by the functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi (P)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (Q)`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}`$ are

$`f_\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}(;0,P_1,P_2,P_3)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{kl}(P_1;P_2,P_3)\delta ^{ij}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{lj}(P_2;P_3,P_1)\delta ^{ik}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{jk}(P_3;P_1,P_2)\delta ^{il}`$ (7)
$`f_\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q;0,P)`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma ^1(Q)\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi ^1(P)\right]\delta ^{ij},`$ (8)
where momentum conservation at the vertices is implied, that is $`P_1+P_2+P_3=0`$ and $`Q+P=0`$. The functional dependence of the vertices in Eqs. (8) is such that the variables before and after the semicolon refer to the four-momenta of the sigma and pion fields, respectively .

At one loop and after renormalization, we recall that the sigma propagator is modified by finite terms. At zero temperature this modification is purely imaginary and its physical origin is that a sigma particle, with a mass larger than twice the mass of the pion, is unstable and has a (large) non-vanishing width coming from its decay channel into two pions. At finite temperature the modification results in real and imaginary parts. The real part modifies the sigma dispersion curve whereas the imaginary part represents a temperature dependent contribution to the sigma width.

The one-loop diagrams contributing to the sigma self-energy are depicted in Fig. 1. Their explicit expressions are

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^a(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi ),`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^b(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`18\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2(Q;m_\sigma ,m_\sigma ),`$ (10)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^c`$ $`=`$ $`3\lambda ^2𝒥(;m_\pi ),`$ (11)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^d`$ $`=`$ $`3\lambda ^2𝒥(;m_\sigma ),`$ (12)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^e`$ $`=`$ $`18{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^4}{m_\sigma ^2}}f_\pi ^2𝒥(;m_\pi ),`$ (13)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^f`$ $`=`$ $`18{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^4}{m_\sigma ^2}}f_\pi ^2𝒥(;m_\sigma ),`$ (14)
where in the imaginary-time formalism of thermal field theory (TFT), the functions $``$ and $`𝒥`$ are defined by

$`(Q;m_i,m_j)`$ $``$ $`T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_i^2}\frac{1}{(KQ)^2+m_j^2}},`$ (15)
$`𝒥(;m_i)`$ $``$ $`T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_i^2}}`$ (16)
and depend parametrically on the mass $`m_i=m_\pi ,m_\sigma `$. Here $`Q=(\omega ,𝐪),K=(\omega _n,𝐤)`$ with $`\omega =2m\pi T`$ and $`\omega _n=2n\pi T`$ ($`m`$, $`n`$ integers) being discrete boson frequencies, T is the temperature and $`q=|𝐪|,k=|𝐤|`$.

Notice that the functions $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^b`$ to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^f`$ do not develop imaginary parts. For $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^b`$ the several processes described by a possible imaginary part are kinematically forbidden whereas for $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^c`$ to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^f`$ the absence of imaginary parts can be seen by invoking Cutkosky’s rules. Moreover, as it will shortly become clear in Section III, for the real part of $``$ we require only to consider its value for $`Q=0`$ after the analytical continuation

$`i\omega q_0+i\epsilon (q_0)q_0,`$ (17)
which yields the time-ordered version $`^t`$ of the function $``$ and where $`\epsilon (q_0)`$ is the sign function. In this limit we have

$`\text{R}\text{e}^t(0;m_i,m_i)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}}\left[1+2f\left(m_i\sqrt{1+x^2}\right)\right],`$ (18)
whereas $`𝒥`$ is given by

$`𝒥(;m_i)={\displaystyle \frac{m_i^2}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dxx^2}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}}[1+2f\left(m_i\sqrt{1+x^2}\right)]`$ (19)
where the function $`f`$ is the Bose-Einstein distribution

$`f(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{x/T}1}}.`$ (20)
The integrals in Eqs. (18) and (19) contain the usual $`T=0`$ infinities which are taken care of by the introduction of suitable counterterms through the renormalization procedure. The temperature-dependent terms are expressed as dimensionless functions of the ratio $`m_i/T`$. These are explicitly

$`\text{R}\text{e}^t(0;m_i,m_i)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}}f\left(m_i\sqrt{1+x^2}\right)`$ (21)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}h(m_i/T),`$ (22)
$`𝒥(;m_i)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_i^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dxx^2}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}}f\left(m_i\sqrt{1+x^2}\right)`$ (23)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_i^2}{2\pi ^2}}g(m_i/T),`$ (24)
where the arrows indicate only the temperature dependence of the expressions. Notice that for $`Tm_\pi `$, $`g(m_\pi /T),h(m_\pi /T)1`$. However, for $`m_i=m_\sigma 600`$ MeV, $`g`$ and $`h`$ are exponentially small and thus, in the kinematical regime of interest, we neglect these contributions. The remaining terms in Eq. (14) are just $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^a`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma ^c`$. Adding these up, the real part of the sigma self-energy at $`Q=(q_0,𝐪)=0`$ becomes

$`\text{R}\text{e}\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma (0)={\displaystyle \frac{6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2}{4\pi ^2}}\left\{h(m_\pi /T){\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}}g(m_\pi /T)\right\}.`$ (25)
At this point, we make a further simplification. We notice that the ratio $`m_\pi ^2/\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2`$ can be expanded as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}}2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}+\mathrm{}\right),`$ (26)
and that the leading term in the above expansion is of order $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$. We will ignore corrections of this order, considering the sigma particle as very heavy compared to the pion. In this approximation, Eq. (25) becomes

$`\text{R}\text{e}\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma (0)`$ $``$ $`6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2\text{R}\text{e}^t(0;m_\pi ,m_\pi )`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2}{4\pi ^2}}h(m_\pi /T).`$ (28)
On the other hand, the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\sigma `$ is expressed in terms of the imaginary part of the function $`^t`$, where this is given by

$`\text{I}\text{m}^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon (q_o)}{2i}}\left[(i\omega q_o+iϵ,q)(i\omega q_oiϵ,q)\right]`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi }}\left\{a(Q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{2T}{q}}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1e^{\omega _+(q_0,q)/T}}{1e^{\omega _{}(q_0,q)/T}}}\right)\right\}\mathrm{\Theta }(Q^24m_\pi ^2),`$ (30)
where $`Q^2=q_0^2q^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the step function and the functions $`a`$ and $`\omega _\pm `$ are

$`a(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_\pi ^2}{Q^2}}}`$ (31)
$`\omega _\pm (q_0,q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|q_0|\pm a(Q^2)q}{2}}.`$ (32)
Therefore, the one-loop effective sigma propagator becomes

$`i\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma ^{}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{Q^2m_\sigma ^2+6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi )}}.`$ (33)
We now turn to the effective one-sigma two-pion vertex. The diagrams contributing at one loop order are shown in Fig. 2, their explicit expressions are

$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{aij}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`10\lambda ^4f_\pi \delta ^{ij}(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi ),`$ (34)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{bij}(Q,P)`$ $`=`$ $`8\lambda ^6f_\pi ^3\delta ^{ij}𝒦(Q,P;m_\pi ,m_\sigma ),`$ (35)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{cij}(Q,P)`$ $`=`$ $`24\lambda ^6f_\pi ^3\delta ^{ij}𝒦(Q,P;m_\sigma ,m_\pi ),`$ (36)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{dij}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`4\lambda ^4f_\pi \delta ^{ij}(Q;m_\pi ,m_\sigma ),`$ (37)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{eij}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`6\lambda ^4f_\pi \delta ^{ij}(Q;m_\sigma ,m_\sigma ),`$ (38)
where the function $``$ is defined in the first of Eqs. (16) and the function $`𝒦`$ is defined by

$`𝒦(Q,P;m_i,m_j)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K+m_i^2}\frac{1}{(KQ)^2+m_i^2}\frac{1}{(KQP)^2+m_j^2}}.`$ (39)
The expression for $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{eij}`$, where the internal lines are sigma propagators, is exponentially suppressed in the kinematical regime considered and thus we drop it from the beginning. For the functions $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{bij}`$ to $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{dij}`$, notice also that in the kinematical regime where $`m_\sigma m_\pi ,T`$, we can pinch the internal sigma lines when considering the temperature dependent terms, given that the internal momentum is cut off by the temperature. In this approximation and after a suitable shift of the variable of integration and the analytical continuation in Eq. (17), it is easy to see that

$`𝒦(Q,P;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_\sigma ^2}}^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi ),`$ (40)
$`𝒦(Q,P;m_\sigma ,m_\pi )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_\sigma ^4}}𝒥(;m_\pi ),`$ (41)
$`(Q;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_\sigma ^2}}𝒥(;m_\pi ).`$ (42)
Therefore, adding up the expressions in Eq. (38) after the above approximation, we have

$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q)=2\lambda ^4f_\pi \delta ^{ij}\{(54{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}})^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi ){\displaystyle \frac{2}{m_\sigma ^2}}(1+6{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}})𝒥(;m_\pi )\}.`$ (43)
As before, for the expression inside the curly brackets in Eq. (43), we work to zeroth order in $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$, thus, the effective one-sigma two-pion vertex to one-loop order can be written as

$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q;P_1,P_2)`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}+i\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q)`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`2i\lambda ^2f_\pi \delta ^{ij}\left[13\lambda ^2^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi )\right],`$ (45)
using $`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}`$ as given in Eq. (6). We observe that pinching the internal sigma lines and working at zeroth order in $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$ is effectively equivalent to consider that the contributing diagrams are just those which can be made topologically equivalent to the diagram represented by the function $`^t(Q;m_\pi ,m_\pi )`$.

Finally, we consider the effective four-pion vertex. The diagrams contributing at one loop are depicted in Fig. 3. Pinching the internal sigma lines and working at zeroth order in $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$, as before, one can check that the contributing diagrams are those coming from Figs. 3a to 3c, explicitly (hereafter, we omit the parametric dependence of the function $`^t`$ on the mass $`m_i`$ for the sake of a clearer notation, except when needed)

$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{aijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ $`=`$ $`2\lambda ^4\{[7^t(P_1+P_2)+2^t(P_1+P_3)+2^t(P_1+P_4)]\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}`$ (46)
$`+`$ $`\left[7^t(P_1+P_3)+2^t(P_1+P_4)+2^t(P_1+P_2)\right]\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}`$ (47)
$`+`$ $`[7^t(P_1+P_4)+2^t(P_1+P_2)+2^t(P_1+P_3)]\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\},`$ (48)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{bijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ $`=`$ $`4\lambda ^4\{[^t(P_1+P_3)+^t(P_1+P_4)]\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl},`$ (49)
$`+`$ $`\left[^t(P_1+P_2)+^t(P_1+P_4)\right]\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}`$ (50)
$`+`$ $`[^t(P_1+P_2)+^t(P_1+P_3)]\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\}`$ (51)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{cijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ $`=`$ $`8\lambda ^4\left[^t(P_1+P_2)+^t(P_1+P_3)+^t(P_1+P_4)\right]`$ (53)
$`\left\{\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}+\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}+\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}\right\}.`$
Adding up the expressions in Eq. (53) and using Eq. (6), the effective four-pion vertex up to one loop can be written as

$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}+i\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ (54)
$``$ $`2i\lambda ^2\{[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_2)]\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}`$ (55)
$`+`$ $`\left[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_3)\right]\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}`$ (56)
$`+`$ $`[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_4)]\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\}.`$ (57)
It is easy to check that Eqs. (33), (45) and (57) satisfy the Ward identities in Eq. (8), this ensures that the approximation scheme adopted respects chiral symmetry.

## III Two-loop pion dispersion relation

We now use the above effective vertices and propagator to construct the two-loop modification to the pion self-energy. The corresponding diagrams are shown in Fig. 4. Notice that diagrams 4$`d`$ and 4$`e`$ require knowledge of the effective, one-loop, two-sigma two-pion and three-sigma vertices, which we have not computed in this work. However, we can check that the leading contributions arise from diagrams 4$`a`$ to 4$`c`$. To see this, notice that the explicit expressions for diagrams 4$`d`$ and 4$`e`$ are equivalent to the expressions for diagrams 4$`a`$ and 4$`b`$, respectively, upon the replacement of the pion loop by a sigma loop. This results in expressions exponentially suppressed and thus, in our approximation, we should ignore them. The contributing terms are

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2^a(P)\delta ^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\delta ^{ij}{\displaystyle _\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4K}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K^2m_\pi ^2}}\left\{59^t(0)6\lambda ^2^t(P+K)\right\}`$ (58)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2^b(P)\delta ^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\delta ^{ij}\left({\displaystyle \frac{6\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right){\displaystyle _\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4K}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K^2m_\pi ^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{[13\lambda ^2^t(0)]^2}{[1\frac{6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}^t(0)]}}\right\}`$ (59)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2^c(P)\delta ^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\delta ^{ij}\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right){\displaystyle _\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4K}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K^2m_\pi ^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{[13\lambda ^2^t(P+K)]^2}{[1\frac{6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}^t(P+K)\frac{(P+K)^2}{m_\sigma ^2}]}}\right\},`$ (60)
where the subindex $`\beta `$ means that the integrals are to be computed at finite temperature. We now expand the denominators in the second and third of Eqs. (60), keeping only the leading order contribution when considering $`m_\pi `$, $`T`$ and $`P`$ as small compared to $`m_\sigma `$. Adding up the above three terms and to zeroth order in $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$ where

$`\lambda ^2\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}},`$ (61)
the pion self-energy can be written, in the imaginary-time formalism of TFT, as

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2(P)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}}\{5+2\left({\displaystyle \frac{P^2+K^2}{m_\pi ^2}}\right)`$ (62)
$``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)[9^t(0)+6^t(P+K)]\},`$ (63)
with $`K=(\omega _n,𝐤)`$ and $`P=(\omega ,𝐩)`$. The pion dispersion relation is thus obtained from the solution to

$`P^2+m_\pi ^2+\text{R}\text{e}\mathrm{\Pi }_2(P)=0,`$ (64)
after renormalization and the analytical continuation $`i\omega p_o+iϵ`$. As anticipated, to compute $`\text{R}\text{e}\mathrm{\Pi }_2(P)`$ we require knowledge of the real part of $`^t`$ only at $`Q=0`$ together with the full momentum dependence of the imaginary part of $`^t`$ (see Eq. (74) below).

Notice that Eq. (63) contains temperature-dependent infinities coming from the terms involving the function $`^t`$, as well as vacuum infinities. This is an usual feature of two-loop calculations at finite temperature where one always encounters temperature-dependent infinities in integrals involving only the bare terms of the original Lagrangian. However, as it turns out, these infinities are exactly canceled by the contribution from the integrals computed by using the counterterms that are necessary to introduce at one loop to carry the (vacuum) renormalization. The above was explicitly shown for the case of the self-energy in the $`\varphi ^4`$ theory by Kislinger and Morley  and for the sigma vacuum expectation value in the linear sigma model by Mohan . We make a brief sketch of the renormalization procedure for the pion self-energy at two loops in the appendix to show how this cancellation occurs and refer the reader to the cited works for details. From now on, we concentrate on the temperature-dependent terms.

Let us first look at the dispersion relation at leading order. After analytical continuation all the terms are real. The integrals involved are

$`T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dkk^2}{E_k}}f(E_k)`$ (65)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2\pi ^2}}g(m_\pi /T)`$ (66)
$`T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{K^2}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}}`$ $``$ $`m_\pi ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2\pi ^2}}\right)g(m_\pi /T),`$ (67)
where $`g`$ is the dimensionless function defined in the second of Eqs. (24) and the arrows indicate only the temperature dependence of the expressions. Thus, the dispersion relation results from

$`\left[1+2\xi g(m_\pi /T)\right](p_0^2p^2)\left[1+3\xi g(m_\pi /T)\right]m_\pi ^2=0,`$ (68)
with $`\xi =m_\pi ^2/4\pi ^2f_\pi ^21`$. For $`Tm_\pi `$, $`g(m_\pi /T)1`$, therefore, at leading order and in the kinematical regime that we are considering, Eq. (68) can be written as

$`p_0^2=p^2+m_\pi ^2\left[1+\xi g(m_\pi /T)\right],`$ (69)
which coincides with the result obtained from ChPT .

We now look at the next to leading order terms in Eq. (63). The first of these is purely real and represents a constant, second order shift to the pion mass squared

$`9\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{^t(0)}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}\xi ^2g(m_\pi /T)h(m_\pi /T)m_\pi ^2,`$ (70)
where $`h`$ is the dimensionless function defined in the first of Eqs. (24). The remaining term in Eq. (63) shows a non-trivial dependence on $`P`$. It involves the function $`𝒮`$ defined by

$`𝒮(P)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{^t(P+K)}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}}.`$ (71)
The sum is performed by resorting to the spectral representation of $`^t`$ and $`(K^2+m_\pi ^2)^1`$. Thus, the real part of the retarded version of $`𝒮`$, after analytical continuation is

$`\text{R}\text{e}𝒮^r(p_0,p)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[𝒮(i\omega p_0+iϵ,p)+𝒮(i\omega p_0iϵ,p)\right]`$ (72)
$`=`$ $`𝒫{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk_0}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk_0^{}}{2\pi }\left[1+f(k_0)+f(k_0^{})\right]}`$ (74)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \epsilon (k_0^{})\delta [k_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(𝐤𝐩)^2m_\pi ^2]2\text{I}\text{m}^t(k_0,k)}{p_0k_0k_0^{}}},`$
where $`𝒫`$ stands for the principal part of the integral.

Including all the terms, the dispersion relation up to next to leading order in the parameter $`\xi `$, for $`Tm_\pi `$ and in the small momentum region is obtained as the solution to

$`p_0^2=p^2+\left\{1+\xi g(m_\pi /T)+{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^2}{2}}g(m_\pi /T)\left[9h(m_\pi /T)4g(m_\pi /T)\right]\right\}m_\pi ^2+\xi ^2\stackrel{~}{𝒮}(p_0,p),`$ (75)
where $`\stackrel{~}{𝒮}`$ is defined by

$`\stackrel{~}{𝒮}(p_0,p)=(24\pi ^4)\text{R}\text{e}𝒮^r(p_0,p).`$ (76)
Figure 5 shows the dispersion relation obtained from Eq. (75) for $`T=m_\pi `$ where we also display the solution without the term $`\xi ^2\stackrel{~}{𝒮}(p_0,p)`$. Inclusion of this last term does not alter the shape of the curve in this kinematical regime. Since $`\stackrel{~}{𝒮}(p_0,p)`$ is non-vanishing for $`p=0`$, it also contributes to the perturbative increase of the pion mass. Figure 6 shows the temperature dependence of $`m_\pi `$ obtained as the solution to Eq. (75) in the limit when $`p`$ goes to zero. Notice that the second order correction in the parameter $`\xi `$ has the same sign as the first order correction. This result is opposite to the temperature behavior of the pion mass found in Refs. .

## IV Pion damping

Damping of pions traveling in the pion medium is due to two possible kinds of processes: formation of resonances and pion elastic scattering. At temperatures on the order of the pion mass, pion elastic scattering is subdominant since, given their Goldston-boson nature, scattering among pions nearly disappears as the relative momentum approaches zero. In the linear sigma model, this feature is explicitly realized, for the kinematical regime discussed in this work, by the description of pion elastic scattering as a second order process in the small parameter $`\xi `$. Scattering of a pion off a given phase space element as a consequence of an elastic process is described by means of the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$ given in Eq. (63). This can be understood by observing that working in the approximation where $`m_\sigma m_\pi ,T`$ the contributing diagrams to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$ can be thought of as made exclusively of pion lines, with effective one-loop vertices that involve also only pion lines. Thus, the rate obtained by cutting such diagrams describes a processes in which pions scatter from each other and keep being pions. We will discuss elastic pion scattering later on in this section. First, we look at resonance formation.

In the linear sigma model with only meson degrees of freedom, pions can disappear from the medium by forming a sigma resonance. This process is the inverse of the one describing sigma decay (except that the former does not happen at T=0) and thus both rates are intimately connected. The relevant diagram to compute resonance formation is depicted in Fig. 7 and its explicit expression is

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_1(P)=4\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2(P;m_\pi ,m_\sigma ),`$ (77)
where $``$ is the function defined in Eq. (16) that we rewrite here in terms of the quantities $`E_\pi =\sqrt{k^2+m_\pi ^2}`$ and $`E_\sigma =\sqrt{(𝐤𝐩)^2+m_\sigma ^2}`$ as

$`(P;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )=T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\omega _n^2+E_\pi ^2}\frac{1}{(\omega _n\omega )^2+E_\sigma ^2}}.`$ (78)
The damping rate is obtained in terms of the imaginary part of retarded version, $`^r`$ of $`(P;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )`$, given by

$`\text{I}\text{m}^r(p_0,p;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`\pi {\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{4E_\pi E_\sigma }}`$ (80)
$`\{[1+f(|E_\pi |)+f(|E_\sigma |)][\delta (p_0E_\pi E_\sigma )\delta (p_0+E_\pi +E_\sigma )]`$
$``$ $`[f(|E_\pi |)f(|E_\sigma |)][\delta (p_0E_\pi +E_\sigma )\delta (p_0+E_\pi E_\sigma )]\},`$ (81)
after the analytical continuation $`i\omega p_o+iϵ`$. The function $`f`$ above is the Bose-Einstein distribution and its arguments here are the absolute values of the corresponding particle energies. The integration in Eq. (81) can be performed analytically and the result is

$`\text{I}\text{m}^r(p_0,p;m_\pi ,m_\sigma )={\displaystyle \frac{T}{16\pi p}}\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1e^{E_+(p_0,p)/T}}{1e^{E_{}(p_0,p)/T}}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1e^{(E_+(p_0,p)+p_0)/T}}{1e^{(E_{}(p_0,p)+p_0)/T}}}\right)\right\},`$ (82)
where the functions $`E_\pm `$ are defined by

$`E_\pm (p_0,p)=b\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_0\pm a^{}(P^2)p}{2}}\right),`$ (83)
with

$`a^{}(P^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_\pi ^2}{b^2P^2}}},`$ (84)
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2m_\pi ^2}{m_\pi ^2}}1.`$ (85)
The decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>`$ is given in terms of $`\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_1`$ by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>(p)={\displaystyle \frac{e^{p_0/T}}{(e^{p_0/T}1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_1(p_0,p)}{p_0}}|{}_{p_0=\sqrt{p^2+m_\pi ^2}}{}^{}.`$ (86)
$`\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_1`$ contains both creation and decay rates and the factor $`e^{p_0/T}/(e^{p_0/T}1)`$ in Eq. (86) eliminates the piece describing pion creation.

We can now compute the mean free path $`\lambda `$ for a pion traveling in the medium before forming a sigma resonance. This is given in terms of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>`$ by

$`\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>(p)}}`$ (87)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(e^{p_0/T}1)}{e^{p_0/T}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p}{\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_1(p_0,p)}}|{}_{p_0=\sqrt{p^2+m_\pi ^2}}{}^{},`$ (88)
where $`v=p/p_0`$ is the magnitude of the pion’s velocity. Figure 8 shows plots of $`\lambda `$ for three different temperatures and a value of $`m_\sigma =600`$ MeV as a function of the pion momentum. $`\lambda `$ reaches a maximum for $`p0.4m_\pi `$. Notice that the position of the maximum is approximately independent of $`T`$. Except for the location of the maximum, the behavior of the curves is both in qualitative and quantitative agreement with the corresponding result obtained in ChPT (see Fig. 2 Ref. ).

We can also compute the mean collision time $`\tau `$ between pions before forming a sigma resonance. This quantity is defined as the inverse of the average decay rate

$`\tau ^1`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>`$ (89)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}f\left(\sqrt{p^2+m_\pi ^2}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^>/\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}f\left(\sqrt{p^2+m_\pi ^2}\right)},`$ (90)
where $`f`$ is the Bose-Einstein distribution. Figure 9 shows the behavior of $`\tau `$ as a function of the temperature for $`m_\sigma =600`$ MeV. Shown is also the quantity $`15f_\pi ^4/T^5`$. We see that $`\tau `$ does not behave exactly as the inverse fifth power of the temperature , though the curves are pretty close to each other in the temperature range considered. The pion thermal width has also been studied in Refs.  .

Finally, let us discuss pion elastic scattering. The total rate, from where the cross section for elastic pion scattering can be obtained, is found in terms of the imaginary part of the two-loop pion self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2`$ given in Eq. (63)

$`\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_2(p_0,p)=24\pi ^4\xi ^2\text{I}\text{m}𝒮^r(p_o,p),`$ (91)
where $`\text{I}\text{m}𝒮^r`$ is the imaginary part of the retarded version of the function $`𝒮`$ defined in Eq. (71), explicity

$`\text{I}\text{m}𝒮^r(p_0,p)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i}}\left[𝒮(i\omega p_0+iϵ,p)𝒮(i\omega p_0iϵ,p)\right]`$ (92)
$`=`$ $`\pi \left(e^{p_0/T}1\right){\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk_0}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk_0^{}}{2\pi }f(k_0)f(k_0^{})\delta (p_0k_0k_0^{})}`$ (94)
$`2\pi \epsilon (k_0^{})\delta [k_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(𝐤𝐩)^2m_\pi ^2]2\text{I}\text{m}^t(k_0,k).`$
The total reaction rate is given by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2(p_o,p)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_0}}\text{I}\text{m}\mathrm{\Pi }_2(p_0,p),`$ (95)
where $`p_0`$ should be taken as the solution to Eq. (69). The integration in Eq. (94) can only be performed numerically. Figure 10 shows a plot of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ as a function of $`p`$ for $`T=m_\pi `$. As anticipated, this rate is about two orders of magnitude smaller than $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$, given that it is proportional to $`\xi ^2`$.

## V Summary and conclusions

In conclusion, working in the linear sigma model at finite temperature, we have found effective one-loop sigma propagator and one-sigma two-pion and four-pion vertices satisfying the ChWI and therefore respecting chiral symmetry, when maintaining only the zeroth order terms in an expansion in the parameter $`m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2`$. We have used these objects to compute the two-loop order correction to the pion propagator in a pion medium for small momentum and for $`Tm_\pi `$ and showed that the linear sigma model yields the same result as ChPT at leading order in the parameter $`\xi =m_\pi ^2/4\pi ^2f_\pi ^2`$. This result was to be expected since the kinematical regime we consider is that where the temperature, the pion momentum and the pion mass are treated as small quantities, such as in the case of ChPT. The existence of the parameter $`\xi `$ allows for a controlled perturbative calculation of physical quantities in the above mentioned kinematical regime, such as the thermal modification of the pion mass. We have shown that, contrary to the result in Refs. , the two-loop order correction to the pion mass is proportional to $`\xi ^2`$ and that this correction is of the same sign as the one-loop correction. The shape of the dispersion curve is not significantly altered in the kinematical regime considered. We should also note that our result is more general than the one obtained in Ref. , where the computation of the two-loop pion dispersion relation is carried from the onset in the weak coupling limit, that is to say, for $`\lambda ^21`$. In our approach, the first step can be thought of as valid for arbitrary values of $`\lambda ^2`$, this is why the effective one-loop vertices and propagator found depend explicitly on $`\lambda ^2`$. However, when it comes to the computation of a physical quantity such as the pion dispersion relation, we have shown (see Eq. (61)) that the contribution from $`\lambda ^2`$ enters the result always in the combination

$`\lambda ^2\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda ^2f_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left(11+{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}\right)`$ (96)
$`=`$ $`\lambda ^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}`$ (97)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}+𝒪(m_\pi ^2/m_\sigma ^2)`$ (98)
showing that for $`m_\sigma >m_\pi `$, the leading contribution is independent of $`m_\sigma `$.

We have also studied pion damping both in the elastic and inelastic channels. We have computed the momentum dependence of the mean free path for a pion before forming a sigma resonance and found that the shape of the curves coincide both quantitatively and qualitatively with the result obtained from ChPT when using a value of $`m_\sigma =600`$ MeV. The mean collision time of a pion before forming a sigma resonance as a function of $`T`$ is however close but not quite proportional to the inverse fifth power of the temperature. It remains to include the effects of a possible high nucleonic density in the same kinematical regime.

Regarding the applicability of the linear sigma model as a tool to study low temperature QCD, let us stress that at such energies, any theory whose aim is to describe such degrees of freedom is an effective one. The essential ingredient, common to all of them is chiral symmetry, that is to say, the consequences arising from the smallness of the pion mass. Therefore, as long as chiral symmetry is respected and the temperature is small enough (on the order of the pion mass) so as to not excite higher resonances, all such theories will yield equivalent results. We have shown explicitly that this is the case since, contrary to common belief, the one-loop computation of the pion dispersion curve yields the same result as the one obtained by using ChPT, provided we work in the same kinematical regime.

We should also mention that for temperatures on the order of 150 MeV, it might be important to include the effects introduced by other degrees of freedom, such as the $`\rho `$ meson. In this sense, the quantities computed in this work at such temperatures must be regarded as examples of the results obtained by considering only the lowest lying meson degrees of freedom and by no means as the final answer to the pion propagation properties.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the formalism thus developed could be employed to explore the behavior of the pion dispersion curve in the large momentum region where, in principle, the lowest order ChPT Lagrangian cannot be used. These issues will be treated in a follow up work .

## Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge useful conversations with M. Napsuciale. Support for this work has been received in part by CONACyT México under grant number 32279-E.

## Appendix: Two-loop renormalization at finite temperature

The purpose of this appendix is to show how the cancellation of the temperature-dependent infinities appearing in two loop computations is achieved. For this matter, we concentrate on the two-loop pion self-energy given in Eq. (63). Notice that the first and third terms can be nicely combined to give a numerical factor of $`3`$. Moreover, we carry the renormalization procedure at $`P=0`$ where the approximation used renders the result exact. Thus, Eq. (63) can be written as

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2(P)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}\left\{3\left(\frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}\right)\left[9^t(0)+6^t(P+K)\right]\right\}}.`$ (99)
The two-loop self-energy expressed in Eq. (99) can be formally obtained by means of the effective Lagrangian

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_\mu \varphi \right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\pi ^2\varphi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{4}}\left(\varphi ^2\right)^2,`$ (100)
where $`\alpha =6(m_\pi ^2/2f_\pi ^2)`$. $`m_\pi `$ and $`f_\pi `$ are taken as the renormalized values of the pion mass and decay constant, respectively. The factor $`6`$ comes from considering the interaction of like-isospin pions in the vertex

$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_4^{ijkl}=2i\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)\left(\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}+\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}+\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\right).`$ (101)
At one-loop, there are two (temperature-independent) infinities coming from diagrams $`a`$ and $`b`$ in Fig. 11. Using the effective Lagrangian in Eq. (100) and dimensional regularization, the counterterms needed to cancel these infinities, represented by diagrams $`c`$ and $`d`$ in Fig. 11, are given explicitly by

$`\delta m_\pi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`3\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{16\pi ^2ϵ}},`$ (102)
$`\delta \alpha `$ $`=`$ $`3\times 36\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^ϵ}{16\pi ^2ϵ}},`$ (103)
where $`ϵ=d4`$, $`d`$ being the number of dimensions, and the factor $`3`$ in the second of Eqs. (103) takes care of the three crossed channels represented by Fig. 11$`b`$, since the infinity in each of these is the same. $`\mu `$ is the usual mass parameter introduced in dimensional regularization.

Going to two loops, temperature-dependent infinities appear. Diagram $`e`$ in Fig. 11, which explicit expression is given by the second term in Eq. (99) gives rise to two infinite, temperature-dependent terms, coming from the product of the vacuum infinity in $`^t(0)`$ times the temperature-dependent term in the integration and the vacuum infinity in the integration times the temperature-dependent piece in $`^t(0)`$. These are explicitly

$`𝒴_1`$ $`=`$ $`9\times 2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\mu ^ϵ}{16\pi ^2ϵ}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2\pi ^2}}\right)g(m_\pi /T),`$ (104)
$`𝒴_2`$ $`=`$ $`9\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{im_\pi ^2}{16\pi ^2ϵ}}_T^t(0),`$ (105)
where $`g(m_\pi /T)`$ is the dimensionless function defined in the second of Eqs. (24) and $`_T^t(0)`$ represents the temperature-dependent part of the function $`^t(0)`$.

Diagram $`f`$ in Fig. 11, which explicit expression corresponds to the third term in Eq. (99), gives rise to the temperature-dependent infinity

$`𝒴_3=36\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\mu ^ϵ}{16\pi ^2ϵ}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2\pi ^2}}\right)g(m_\pi /T).`$ (106)
To complete the calculation, we need to compute the integrals involving the one-loop counterterms. Diagram $`g`$ in Fig. 11 gives the explicit temperature-dependent infinity

$`𝒴_4={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\times 36\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\mu ^ϵ}{16\pi ^2ϵ}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2\pi ^2}}\right)g(m_\pi /T),`$ (107)
whereas diagram $`h`$ in Fig. 11 gives

$`𝒴_5=9\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{im_\pi ^2}{16\pi ^2ϵ}}_T^t(0).`$ (108)
We can now see that $`𝒴_5`$ in Eq. (108) cancels $`𝒴_2`$ in the second of Eqs. (105) and that $`𝒴_1,𝒴_3`$ and $`𝒴_4`$ in Eqs. (105), (106) and (107), cancel among themselves. Therefore, the result at two loops is free form temperature-dependent infinities. Similar arguments apply to other Green’s functions, see Refs. for additional details.