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# Massive Gravitino Propagator in Maximally Symmetric Spaces and Fermions in dS/CFT

## 1 Introduction

The recent observational data in favor of the presence of a positive cosmological constant in the universe make it especially important to understand how to formulate consistent theory of all interactions in de Sitter (dS) space. This is highly nontrivial: Quantum field theory in dS presents us with a lot of puzzles , and whether and how they could be resolved in the underlying fundamental theory is not at all clear, as it is still not known how to obtain a stable de Sitter solution in the best-so-far candidate for such a unifying theory – string theory.111Recently there has been a progress in that direction: Fré, Trigiante and Van Proeyen  found stable de Sitter vacua in $`N=2`$ supergravity in $`4`$ dimesnions. However, their embedding in string theory is still an open problem. Another exciting recent development is , where metastable dS vacua were found in type IIB string theory. A key ingredient in the final picture may be holography, which is believed to be an essential feature for any consistent theory of quantum gravity . One realization of this idea is the AdS/CFT correspondence , which has been studied in a huge number of cases during the last few years (for a review see ). Another is the recently proposed dS/CFT correspondence . Although it is hoped that it may shed light on quantum gravity in de Sitter space, the lack of a clear relation to string theory is hindering an explicit realization of this proposal, and it is largely modeled on analogy with AdS/CFT (see, for example, the prescription for computation of scalar field correlation functions in the boundary theory ). There have even been papers arguing that dS/CFT is merely an analytic continuation of AdS/CFT . One should not forget, however, the fundamental differences between physics in dS and AdS. For example, the analytic continuation of the vacuum state in AdS space does not coincide with any of the vacua of de Sitter space222As known since , there is an infinite one parameter family of de Sitter invariant vacua in dS. Their possible role in the cosmology of the early universe has been explored in  and references therein. In addition the question which one is the most reasonable (physical) vacuum state in dS is still unsettled .. Also, unlike AdS, dS has two boundaries, posing the (as yet unsettled) question whether the dual theory should be thought of as a single CFT  or two entangled CFT’s .

Field theory in de Sitter space was studied extensively in the ’80s due to interest sparked by inflationary cosmology. A technique of calculation of propagators in maximally symmetric spaces was developed in a series of papers . The main idea is the following: One chooses a basis of bitensors which are invariant under the symmetry group of the space under consideration, and makes an Ansatz for the propagator in terms of these bitensors multiplied by coefficients that are functions only of the geodesic distance. The coefficient functions are then determined so that the propagator satisfies the appropriate field equations and constraints. The original papers considered spins $`0`$ and $`1`$ in arbitrary dimension and also spins $`1/2`$ and $`2`$ in four dimensions. Subsequently these methods were used to find the antisymmetric tensor propagator in dS  and also the propagators of various $`p`$forms of interest in supergravity/string theory in AdS .333The basis of bitensor structures used in the AdS/CFT literature differs from the original basis of . We comment more on that in a subsequent footnote. However, only quite recently was this method extended to spin $`1/2`$ field in arbitrary dimension , and the spin $`3/2`$ field has not been treated so far. 444Aspects of spin-3/2 propagation were studied already by Lichnerowicz ; more recent interesting studies on higher spin fields in constant curvature spaces (e.g., the discovery of partial masslessness and new local gauge invariances) can be found in  and references therein.

Since dS is not a supersymmetric background, it may seem uninteresting to consider the superpartner of the graviton in it. However, if dS is to be reconciled with the current lore of a fundamental theory, i.e. string theory, then the lack of supersymmetry in de Sitter space should be understood as a symmetry which is present in the theory but broken in the specific vacuum state. Given that superymmetry breaking in supergravity leads to massive gravitinos, massive spin $`3/2`$ fields are essential for understanding the effective description of quantum gravity processes in de Sitter space. Motivated by this, we find in this paper the propagator of massive spin $`3/2`$ in an arbitrary dimension. We use this result to test the dS/CFT correspondence.

Much of the literature on dS/CFT is concerned with scalar fields in dS and the prescription for correlators of their dual operators . Only very recently the conformal dimensions of the dual operators for massive spin $`1`$ and spin $`2`$ fields were found . We use the previously known spin $`1/2`$ propagator and the newly found spin $`3/2`$ propagator to calculate the conformal dimensions of the dual operators. In both cases we find, in agreement with analytic continuation, that it is always complex. Namely we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{n1}{2}+im`$, where $`n`$ is the dimension of space-time and $`m`$ is the mass parameter. This, of course, implies that the conjectured dual description would always be nonunitary, unlike in the bosonic case, where there is some limited range of real conformal dimensions for every spin in every dimension of space time.555It should be noted that the work  gives a proof that the SO$`(d,1)`$ isometry group of dS cannot have unitary representations living on dS, while our results indicate that the dual CFT should be non-unitary. There has already been an indication that the current formulation of the dS/CFT correspondence may be problematic , although several works  have proposed ways out of this difficulty. In our opinion the lack of unitary dual for fermions is a strong evidence that the correspondence should be reformulated.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we review the invariant bitensors in maximally symmetric spaces and their properties. In Section 3 we derive the massive spin $`3/2`$ propagator in arbitrary dimension in a maximally symmetric space. In Section 4 we find the conformal dimensions of the dual operators for massive spin $`1/2`$ and spin $`3/2`$ in dS/CFT.

## 2 Background Material

In this section we review the necessary background, first given in , that we will use in the next section to find the spin $`3/2`$ propagator in terms of intrinsic geometric objects.666While our treatment is based on Refs. , the idea of constructing propagators from intrinsic bitensors dates at least back to Lichnerowicz .

We will consider a maximally symmetric space of dimension $`n`$. The geometric objects of interest are the geodesic distance $`\mu (x,x^{})`$ between two points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$, the unit tangent vectors $`n_\sigma (x,x^{})`$ and $`n_\sigma ^{}(x,x^{})`$ to the geodesic at $`x`$ and at $`x^{}`$, respectively, the parallel propagator of vector indices $`g^\mu {}_{\nu ^{}}{}^{}(x,x^{})`$, and the parallel propagator of spinor indices $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}(x,x^{})`$.777Primed indices will always refer to the point $`x^{}`$ and unprimed ones to $`x`$. Let us recall the definition of all these maximally symmetric bitensors. The vectors $`n_\sigma ,n_\sigma ^{}`$ are defined by

$$n_\sigma =_\sigma \mu (x,x^{})\mathrm{and}n_\sigma ^{}=_\sigma ^{}\mu (x,x^{}),$$
(1)
where $`_\sigma `$ is the covariant derivative. It is important to note that

$$n_\sigma =g_\sigma {}_{}{}^{\rho ^{}}n_{\rho ^{}}^{}.$$
(2)
The parallel propagators of vector and spinor indices satisfy by definition

$$V^\mu (x)=g^\mu {}_{\nu ^{}}{}^{}(x,x^{})V^\nu ^{}(x^{}),\mathrm{\Psi }^\alpha (x)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}(x,x^{})\mathrm{\Psi }^\beta ^{}(x^{})$$
(3)
for every parallel-transported vector $`V^\mu (x)`$ and spinor $`\mathrm{\Psi }^\alpha (x)`$, respectively.

The covariant derivatives of the above bitensors, essential for our calculations, are given by

$`_\mu n_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`A(g_{\mu \nu }n_\mu n_\nu ),`$
$`_\mu ^{}n_\nu `$ $`=`$ $`C(g_{\mu ^{}\nu }+n_\mu ^{}n_\nu ),`$
$`_\mu g_{\nu \rho ^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`(A+C)(g_{\mu \nu }n_\rho ^{}+g_{\mu \rho ^{}}n_\nu ),`$
$`_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)[(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu n_\nu n_\mu )\mathrm{\Lambda }]^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{},`$
$`_\mu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)[(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu ^{}n_\nu ^{}n_\mu ^{})\mathrm{\Lambda }]^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{},`$ (4)
where $`A`$ and $`C`$ are the following functions of the geodesic distance:

$`\mathrm{for}𝐑^\mathrm{n}:A(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu }},C(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu }},`$
$`\mathrm{for}\mathrm{dS}:A(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}\mathrm{cot}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{R}},C(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R\mathrm{sin}(\frac{\mu }{R})}},`$
$`\mathrm{for}\mathrm{AdS}:A(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}\mathrm{coth}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{R}},C(\mu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R\mathrm{sinh}(\frac{\mu }{R})}},`$ (5)
$`R`$ being the radius of (A)dS space. The covariant gamma matrices in (4) satisfy the usual relation $`\{\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu ,\mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu \}=2g^{\mu \nu }`$.

In $`𝐑^n,\text{𝕊}^n,𝐇^n`$ every two points are connected by a geodesic, but in pseudo-Riemannian spaces this is not the case: a notable counter example is, for instance, the pair $`x,x^{}`$ in de Sitter space such that the geodesic between $`x`$ and the antipodal point of $`x^{}`$ is timelike . Thus the geodesic distance is not a globally defined quantity in the cases of physical interest. This problem can be circumvented in the following way. Let the $`n`$-dimensional maximally symmetric space be defined as the set of points in $`𝐑^{n+1}`$ satisfying:

$$X^aX^b\eta _{ab}=R^2,$$
(6)
where $`\eta `$ is a flat metric with the appropriate signature. Then for two points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ connected by a geodesic:

$$\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\mu (x,x^{})}{R}\right)=\frac{X^a(x)X^b(x^{})\eta _{ab}}{R^2}.$$
(7)
Now, introducing the variable $`z=\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\mu }{2R}`$, one obtains:

$$z=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+\frac{X^a(x)X^b(x^{})\eta _{ab}}{R^2}\right).$$
(8)
Clearly (8) gives a globaly defined quantity that can be viewed as a ”generalization” of $`\mu `$.

## 3 Massive spin 3/2 propagator

Now we turn to the propagator of the massive spin 3/2 field. Let us denote the gravitino field by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\lambda ^\alpha (x)`$. In a maximally symmetric state $`|s>`$ the propagator is $`S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}^{\alpha \beta ^{}}(x,x^{})=<s|\mathrm{\Psi }_\lambda ^\alpha (x)\mathrm{\Psi }_\nu ^{}^\beta ^{}(x^{})|s>`$. The field equations imply that $`S`$ satisfies

$$(\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \rho \lambda }D_\rho m\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \lambda })^\alpha {}_{\gamma }{}^{}S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{\gamma }{}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}=\frac{\delta (xx^{})}{\sqrt{g}}g^\mu {}_{\nu ^{}}{}^{}\delta _{}^{\alpha }_\beta ^{}$$
(9)
For a massive spin $`3/2`$ and a vanishing source the above field equation implies two constraints (for a very clear recent explanation of this point, see ):

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^\lambda S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}=0,D_\lambda S^\lambda {}_{\nu ^{}}{}^{}=0,$$
(10)
where we have suppressed the spinor indices for brevity. Using (10) and the fact that

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu \lambda }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\lambda g^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\lambda g^{\nu \lambda }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu +g^{\mu \lambda }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu ,$$
(11)
(9) becomes

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^\rho D_\rho S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}+mS_{\lambda \nu ^{}}=0.$$
(12)
For the time being we have set the source to zero, as it complicates the field equations due to its appearance in the constraints (10). Hence we will be solving the homogeneous system of equations and the role of the $`\delta `$-function source term will be in imposing the appropriate boundary conditions at the very end of the computation. Namely we will impose that the solution is singular at $`\mu =0`$ and that the strength of the singularity is the same as the one in flat space.888Solutions we find are automatically convergent at $`\mathrm{}`$. This is essentially the strategy followed in all original literature on obtaining of propagators in maximally symmetric spaces in terms of intrinsic geometric objects .
The most general Ansatz for the spin 3/2 propagator has 10 tensor structures and we write it in the following form:

$`S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }_\beta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha (\mu )g_{\lambda \nu ^{}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\beta (\mu )n_\lambda n_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\gamma (\mu )g_{\lambda \nu ^{}}(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$ (13)
$`+\delta (\mu )n_\lambda n_\nu ^{}(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\epsilon (\mu )n_\lambda (\mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\theta (\mu )n_\nu ^{}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$
$`+\tau (\mu )n_\lambda (n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\omega (\mu )n_\nu ^{}(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$
$`+\pi (\mu )(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\kappa (\mu )(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$
Substituting it in (12) and using (4), a rather tedious but straightforward calculation gives a system of $`10`$ equations for the $`10`$ coefficient functions $`\alpha ,\mathrm{},\kappa `$ in (13). It may seem that it does not matter what basis of tensors one would choose for the Ansatz. Namely one could take the term $`(n\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ to be on the right of every term containing other gamma matrices instead of on the left as in (13). Or one could take every term in the Ansatz to be symmetric or antisymmetric in the $`(\lambda ,\nu ^{})`$ indices, i.e. for example instead of the $`\epsilon ,\theta `$ terms in (13) one could write $`\epsilon (\mu )n_{(\lambda }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu ^{})}+\theta (\mu )n_{[\lambda }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu ^{}]}`$. Of course, all these different choices amount to merely rearranging of the terms in the propagator. However, our experience showed that (13) gives the simplest equations. All other Ansätze result in equations which are significantly more complicated and more difficult to deal with.999In the literature on AdS/CFT correspondence the widely used basis is a different one, based on derivatives of the chordal distance variable $`u`$ in AdS . Although it is useful, for example, for decoupling of physical and gauge parts of gauge boson propagators in AdS, for our purposes the original basis of  is the more convenient one. The two bases are related by a linear transformation given in , whose coefficients are scalar functions of $`u`$. Denoting $`\frac{d}{d\mu }^{}`$, we write out the system of equations that (12) gives for the coefficient functions in (13):

$$\gamma ^{}+\frac{1}{2}(AC)(n1)\gamma +2C\theta +m\alpha =0$$
(14)
$$\delta ^{}+\frac{1}{2}(AC)(n+1)\delta (A+C)(n2)\theta +m\beta =0$$
(15)
$$\alpha ^{}+\frac{1}{2}(A+C)(n1)\alpha 2C\omega +m\gamma =0$$
(16)
$$\beta ^{}(AC)\beta +\frac{1}{2}(A+C)(n1)\beta +(A+C)(n2)\omega +m\delta =0$$
(17)
$$(A+C)\alpha +C\beta +\tau ^{}+[\frac{1}{2}(AC)(n1)+A]\tau (A+C)(n2)\pi +m\epsilon =0$$
(18)
$$(A+C)\alpha +A\beta +\omega ^{}+[\frac{1}{2}(AC)(n1)+A]\omega +m\theta =0$$
(19)
$$(A+C)\gamma C\delta +\epsilon ^{}+[\frac{1}{2}(A+C)(n1)A]\epsilon +(A+C)(n2)\kappa +m\tau =0$$
(20)
$$(A+C)\gamma A\delta +\theta ^{}+[\frac{1}{2}(A+C)(n1)A]\theta +m\omega =0$$
(21)
$$A\epsilon C\theta +\kappa ^{}+[2A+\frac{1}{2}(AC)(n3)]\kappa +m\pi =0$$
(22)
$$A\tau +C\omega +\pi ^{}+\frac{1}{2}(A+C)(n3)\pi +m\kappa =0.$$
(23)
The constraint $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }S)_\nu ^{}=0`$ in (10) gives the following equations:

$`\alpha +\tau +n\pi `$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`\beta (n2)\omega `$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`2\gamma +\delta +n\theta `$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`\gamma +\epsilon (n2)\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (24)
Finally, the constraint $`(DS)_\nu ^{}=0`$ in (10) implies

$`\alpha ^{}(A+C)\left(n{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\alpha +\beta ^{}+A(n1)\beta +\omega ^{}+\left[C+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(3A+C)(n1)\right]\omega =0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(AC)\gamma +\kappa ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(3A+C)(n1)\kappa +\epsilon ^{}+A(n1)\epsilon +C\theta =0`$
$`\gamma ^{}+\left[A(A+C)\left(n{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\right]\gamma +\delta ^{}+A(n1)\delta +\theta ^{}+\left[C+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)(n1)\right]\theta =0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)\alpha +\pi ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)(n1)\pi +\tau ^{}+A(n1)\tau +C\omega =0`$ (25)
Although it would have been a rather daunting task to solve the coupled equations resulting from (9), the equivalent system of field equations (12) and constraints (10), giving (14-25), can be easily reduced to a single second order ordinary differential equation in the following way. We view the functions $`\alpha ,\mathrm{},\kappa `$ and their derivatives $`\alpha ^{},\mathrm{},\kappa ^{}`$ as independent variables. Setting aside 2 field equations, for example (14) and (16), and treating the functions $`\alpha ,\alpha ^{},\gamma ,\gamma ^{}`$ as known parameters, we are left with an algebraic system of $`16`$ equations ($`8`$ field equation and $`8`$ constraints) for $`16`$ “variables” $`\beta ,\beta ^{},\delta ,\delta ^{},\mathrm{},\kappa ,\kappa ^{}`$. This system has a unique solution (we verified the uniqueness by confirming that the determinant of the system of linear equations is nonzero). By substituting this solution, namely the expressions of the rest of the variables in terms of $`\alpha ,\alpha ^{},\gamma ,\gamma ^{}`$, in (14) and (16) we obtain two first order ODEs, which are easily reduced to a single second order ODE, as we will see later.

However, once the coefficient functions and their derivatives are viewed as independent variables, $`4`$ additional constraints appear, namely the equations obtained by taking $`\frac{d}{d\mu }`$ of (24). One can check that these $`4`$ equations are linear combinations of the $`10`$ field equations (14-23) and $`8`$ constraints (24-25), so we learn nothing new from them. However, they are much simpler than the $`4`$ constraints (25), making it calculationaly preferable to keep the former four equations and drop instead (25), which are also linear combinations of (14-23), (24) and $`\frac{d}{d\mu }`$(24). Of course, dropping (25) as opposed to dropping $`\frac{d}{d\mu }`$(24) produces different algebraic answers, because after setting aside $`2`$ field equations the linear dependency of $`4`$ constraints on the remaining $`8`$ field equations and $`8`$ constraints is lost; the answers coincide for solutions of the two field equations that we have set aside to solve as differential equations. In other words, the different algebaric answers differ from each other only by terms proportional to the two field equations set aside. Whichever algebraic answer one takes may look (and in fact it does look) horrible, because of many terms vanishing for the solutions of the two differential equations that are set aside. Hence the algebraic outcome of the procedure outlined in the previous paragraph should be simplified by imposing on it the two remaining differential equations as algebraic constraints. This is a key observation which makes the calculation feasible; without it the algebraic answers look utterly intractable.

Before giving the algebraic answer for eight of the coefficient functions in terms of the remaining two101010Due to the simplification procedure explained in the previous paragraph these expressions do not contain derivatives of the two functions., let us make one more observation. The field equations (14-23) obviously split into five ’conjugate’ couples of the form:

$$x^{}+\mathrm{}+my=0,y^{}+\mathrm{}+mx=0,$$
(26)
where $`(x,y)`$ is $`(\alpha ,\gamma )`$, $`(\beta ,\delta )`$, $`(\omega ,\theta )`$, $`(\epsilon ,\tau )`$ or $`(\pi ,\kappa )`$. Hence there are five natural options for the choice of the couple of equations to be solved as differential at the end of the algebraic procedure. It may seem that it is equally easy (or equally difficult) to choose any couple, but we have found that the simplest second order differential equation is obtained for the $`(\pi ,\kappa )`$ pair111111This is actually not true for flat space where the simplest differential equations are obtained for the $`(\beta ,\delta )`$ pair. We will come back to this in Subsection 3.1.. Hence we write down the algebraic solutions for $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta ,\epsilon ,\theta ,\tau ,\omega `$ in terms of $`\kappa `$ and $`\pi `$:

$`\omega `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4mC(n2)\kappa +((A+C)^2(n2)^24m^2)\pi }{(n2)^2/R^2+4m^2}},`$
$`\theta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{((AC)^2(n2)^24m^2)\kappa 4mC(n2)\pi }{(n2)^2/R^2+4m^2}},`$ (27)
$`\tau `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4mC(n2)\kappa +((A+C)^2(n2)^24m^2)\pi }{(n2)^2/R^2+4m^2}},`$
$`\epsilon `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{([(AC)^22/R^2](n2)^24m^2)\kappa +4mC(n2)\pi }{(n2)^2/R^2+4m^2}},`$
$`\alpha =\tau n\pi ,`$ $`\beta `$ $`=(n2)\omega ,\gamma =\epsilon (n2)\kappa ,\delta =2\epsilon +2(n2)\kappa n\theta ,`$
where we have used the relation $`C^2A^2=1/R^2`$. Further, from (3) we can immediately see that

$$\tau =\omega \mathrm{and}\epsilon +\theta =2\kappa .$$
(28)
In view of (28) the Ansatz (13) becomes:

$`S_{\lambda \nu ^{}}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }_\beta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha (\mu )g_{\lambda \nu ^{}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\beta (\mu )n_\lambda n_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\gamma (\mu )g_{\lambda \nu ^{}}(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$ (29)
$`+`$ $`\delta (\mu )n_\lambda n_\nu ^{}(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma \mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+2\theta (\mu )(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{[\lambda }n_{\nu ^{}]}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$
$`+`$ $`2\omega (\mu )(n_\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^\sigma n_{(\lambda }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu ^{})}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha _\beta ^{}`$
$`+`$ $`\pi (\mu )(\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}+\kappa (\mu )(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{[\lambda }(n\mathrm{\Gamma })\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu ^{}]}\mathrm{\Lambda })^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}.`$
This may seem to suggest that the natural Ansatz to start with is the one in which every term is symmetric or antisymmetric in $`(\lambda ,\nu ^{})`$. But we want to stress again that, although counter intuitive, such a starting point produces much more complicated equations and constraints than (14-25).

Using (28) the differential equations for $`\kappa `$ and $`\pi `$, (22) and (23), acquire the form:

$`(A+C)\theta +\kappa ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(AC)(n3)\kappa +m\pi `$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`(CA)\omega +\pi ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A+C)(n3)\pi +m\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (30)
where $`\theta `$ and $`\omega `$ are given in (3). Clearly one can solve algebraically the second equation for $`\kappa `$. Differentiating the result one obtains also $`\kappa ^{}`$ in terms of $`\pi `$, $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^{\prime \prime }`$. Substituting these in the first equation gives a second order ODE for $`\pi (\mu )`$. We will consider it both for the cases of dS and AdS spaces in turn. To start with, however, we will consider the flat space case, which can be used to fix the normalization.

### 3.1 Minkowski space

The system of equations (14-23) simplifies significantly for flat space due to $`A+C=0`$ (see (5)). One can immediately see that the most convenient pair of differential equations to solve is the pair (15) and (17) for $`\beta `$ and $`\delta `$, unlike in the curved space case where (as we already mentioned) the natural pair is $`\kappa ,\pi `$.

The equations of motion are

$`\delta ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu }}(n+1)\delta +m\beta =0`$
$`\beta ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mu }}\beta +m\delta =0.`$ (31)
Using the second equation to express $`\delta ,\delta ^{}`$ in terms of $`\beta `$, $`\beta ^{}`$ and $`\beta ^{\prime \prime }`$ and substituting these in the first we obtain:

$$\beta ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{n1}{\mu }\beta ^{}\left(\frac{2n}{\mu ^2}+m^2\right)\beta =0.$$
(32)
The solution is

$$\beta (\mu )=B(m\mu )^{1n/2}K_{n/2+1}(m\mu ),$$
(33)
where $`B`$ is a constant and we have retained only the solution of the Bessel equation which diverges for $`\mu 0`$.

To fix $`B`$ we have to reinsert the source in (9) and see what does it give rise to in the constraints and field equations (14-25). Doing so carefully,121212The calculation essentially amounts to repeating the one done e.g. in , but in arbitrary dimension and with a non-conserved source: in flat space $`_\rho J^\rho {}_{\nu ^{}}{}^{}=n_\nu ^{}\delta ^{}(xx^{})`$. one finds that the zero on the righthand side of the first equation in (3.1) changes to

$$\frac{5(n2)}{m^2(n1)}\left(\frac{\delta ^{}(xx^{})}{\mu }\delta ^{\prime \prime }(xx^{})\right).$$
(34)
Denoting the numerical factor $`\frac{5(n2)}{m^2(n1)}`$ as $`a`$, Eq. (32) becomes

$$\beta ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{n1}{\mu }\beta ^{}\left(\frac{2n}{\mu ^2}+m^2\right)\beta =a\left(\frac{\delta ^{}(xx^{})}{\mu }\delta ^{\prime \prime }(xx^{})\right).$$
(35)
This equation is understood in the sense of distributions. To fix the normalization constant, we multiply (35) by $`\mu ^2`$ and use $`\beta ^{\prime \prime }+\frac{(n1)}{\mu }\beta ^{}=\mathrm{}\beta (\mu )`$, giving

$`\mu ^2\mathrm{}\beta \left(2n+m^2\mu ^2\right)\beta `$ $`=`$ $`a\left(\mu \delta ^{}(xx^{})\mu ^2\delta ^{\prime \prime }(xx^{})\right)`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`n(n+2)a\delta (xx^{}).`$
We now multiply (36) by a test function $`f(\mu )`$ that is regular and non-zero at $`\mu =0`$, and integrate the resulting equation over a ball of radius $`ϵ0`$ centered at $`\mu =0`$. Using the following normalization of the Neumann function,

$$K_{\frac{n}{2}+1}(x)2^{\frac{n}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{n}{2}+1\right)x^{\frac{n}{2}1}\text{for}x0,$$
(37)
we obtain

$$B=m^{n+1}\frac{na}{(2\pi )^{\frac{n}{2}}n}=m^{n1}\frac{5(n2)}{(2\pi )^{\frac{n}{2}}(n1)}.$$
(38)
Having found $`\beta `$, one can find $`\delta `$ from the second equation in (3.1) and the rest of the coefficient functions are expressed in terms of $`\beta `$ and $`\delta `$ in the following way:

$`\tau =\omega ={\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{n2}},\pi =\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n+2}{m^2\mu ^2}}\right)\beta +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m\mu }}\delta ,`$
$`\epsilon ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{4}{m\mu }}\beta +\delta \right),\theta ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2n}{m\mu }}\beta +\delta \right),`$
$`\kappa ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\epsilon +\theta ),\alpha =\tau n\pi ,\gamma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\delta +n\theta ).`$ (39)
Thus, as in the case of other spins, the flat space result is expressed in terms of Bessel functions. We would also like to mention that as the flat space solution suggests, our considerations here (and below for curved space) are strictly valid for the massive case. The massless limit requires a special treatment, as done for spin $`1`$ back in , and we will not do that in this paper.131313We remind the reader that the constraints we used to reduce the problem of solving ten coupled first order differential equations to solving only two are not present for $`m=0`$.

### 3.2 dS space

Now we are going back to the system (3). Substituting $`A`$ and $`C`$ from (5) and changing to the globally defined variable $`z=\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\mu }{2R}`$ (see Section 2), we obtain the following equation for $`\pi `$:

$`\left\{\left[(n2)^2+4m^2R^2\right]z^4+(6n2n^248m^2R^2)z^3+(n^22n+4m^2R^2)z^2\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dz^2}}\pi +`$
$`\{[(n2)^2+4m^2R^2]nz^3+[6m^2R^2n+4(n1)^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}n^3]z^2+`$
$`({\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{2}}n+2m^2R^2)nz\}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}\pi +`$
$`\{(5m^2+{\displaystyle \frac{n^4}{4}}+4m^46m^2n+1+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{4}}n^23n{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}n^3+2n^2m^2R^2)z^2+`$
$`\left(4m^46m^2+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{2}}n+5m^2n3+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{4}}n^3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}n^4{\displaystyle \frac{7}{2}}n^22n^2m^2R^2\right)z`$
$`m^2R^2(n1)+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{4}}(3nn^22)\}\pi =0`$ (40)
Making the substitution $`\pi (z)=\sqrt{z}\stackrel{~}{\pi }(z)`$, (3.2) becomes:

$`\left\{\left[(n2)^2+4m^2R^2\right]z^2(z1)\left[n(n2)+4m^2R^2\right]z(z1)\right\}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dz^2}}\stackrel{~}{\pi }+`$
$`\{[n^2(n3)+4+4m^2R^2(n+1)]z^2+[{\displaystyle \frac{3n^3}{2}}2m^2R^2(4+3n)+2n(n+1)]z+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{n^3}{2}}2n+2m^2R^2(n+2)\}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}\stackrel{~}{\pi }+`$
$`\{[4m^4R^4+{\displaystyle \frac{n^4}{4}}n^3+4m^2R^2+n^24m^2R^2n+2n^2m^2R^2]z`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{n^4}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n^3}{2}}n^24m^4R^42n^2m^2R^24m^2R^2+2m^2R^2n+2n\}\stackrel{~}{\pi }=0.`$
This equation is of the type:

$`z(z1)(za)y^{\prime \prime }(z)+\left\{(b+c+1)z^2\left[b+c+1+a(d+e)e\right]z+ad\right\}y^{}(z)`$
$`+(bczq)y(z)=0,`$ (42)
which is known as Heun’s equation . Its solutions, denoted by $`F(a,q;b,c,d,e;z)`$, have in general 4 singular points $`z_0=0,1,a,\mathrm{}`$. Near each singularity the function behaves as a combination of two terms that are powers of $`(zz_0)`$ with the following exponents: $`\{0,1d\}`$ for $`z_0=0`$, $`\{0,1e\}`$ for $`z_0=1`$, $`\{0,d+ebc\}`$ for $`z_0=a`$, and $`\{b,c\}`$ (that is, $`z^b`$ or $`z^c`$) for $`z\mathrm{}`$.

Comparing (3.2) and (3.2), we can read off the parameters for our case:

$`a={\displaystyle \frac{n(n2)+4m^2R^2}{(n2)^2+4m^2R^2}},b={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+imR,c={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}imR,d=e={\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+1`$
$`q={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{n^4}{4}+\frac{n^3}{2}n^24m^4R^42n^2m^2R^24m^2R^2+2m^2R^2n+2n}{(n2)^2+4m^2R^2}}.`$ (43)
The propagator is the particular Heun’s function whose singularity at $`z=1`$ (which corresponds to $`\mu =0`$) is of the same type as that in flat space, namely $`z^{\frac{n}{2}}\mu ^n`$, which singles out the exponent $`1e=\frac{n}{2}`$. This same argument can also be used to fix the normalization of the propagator, by comparing it with (38) via (3.1).

An important property of the propagator for our purposes is its behaviour for $`z\mathrm{}`$ ($`z\mathrm{}`$ corresponds to going to the boundary of dS). As already mentioned, for $`z\mathrm{}`$ Heun’s functions behave as a combination of $`z^b`$ and $`z^c`$, which in view of (3.2) becomes $`z^{\frac{n}{2}+imR}`$ and $`z^{\frac{n}{2}imR}`$.

The singularity at $`z=a`$ turns out to be harmless: the exponents at $`z=a`$ are (using (3.2) again) $`\{0,2\}`$; namely, the propagator is actually regular at $`z=a`$. Also, there is a singularity of the type $`z^{\frac{n}{2}}`$ for $`z0`$. This is not surprising as $`z=0`$ corresponds to $`x,x^{}`$ being antipodal points of each other. Such “extra” antipodal singularities have also been found in bosonic propagators .141414While the authors of  avoid this singularity by choosing a particular (namely the Euclidean) vacuum, according to  in the case of the Heun’s function this is possible only for certain values of $`q`$.

### 3.3 AdS space

The second order ODE to be solved is the same as (3.2), with $`RiR`$. But the boundary conditions change slightly: One still requires the strength of the singularity at $`\mu 0`$ to be as the one in flat space, but now the propagator is required to fall off as fast as possible at spatial infinity .

## 4 Fermions in dS/CFT

In this section we use the previously known result for the propagator of massive spin $`1/2`$ and the massive spin $`3/2`$ propagator that we found in the previous section in order to test dS/CFT correspondence. Namely we will find the conformal dimension of the dual operators for both cases. The advocates of dS/CFT being merely an analytic continuation from AdS/CFT may view this as a check on our result for the spin $`3/2`$ propagator. We start with the simpler case of spin $`1/2`$ and treat it in detail; it turns out that the spin $`3/2`$ case is analogous because the important assymptotic properties of Heun’s functions are very similar to those of the hypergeometric functions.

In the following we will use planar coordinates, in which the metric of de Sitter space reads

$$ds^2=dt^2+e^{2t}dx_idx^i,$$
(44)
where $`i=1,\mathrm{},n1`$. These coordinates cover only the half of de Sitter space which includes the past null infinity $`^{}`$, where $`t=\mathrm{}`$. This is the causal past of an observer at the south pole. Following , to calculate the conformal dimension of the dual operator we need to find two things: the asymptotics for $`t\mathrm{}`$ of the field equation, which gives the asymptotic behavior of the spinor field, and the asymptotics of the spinor propagator in dS. As the field equation for a fermion is $`/D\mathrm{\Psi }=m\mathrm{\Psi }`$ , we need the spin connection for the metric (44). Introducing the vielbeins

$$e^0=dte^i=e^tdx^i,$$
(45)
we find:

$$\omega _i{}_{}{}^{j\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}}=e^t\delta _i^j,$$
(46)
with all other components vanishing, except the ones determined by antisymmetry in the upper indices. Hence

$$/D=e_a^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^a(_\mu +\frac{1}{8}\omega _\mu ^{bc}[\mathrm{\Gamma }_b,\mathrm{\Gamma }_c])=\mathrm{\Gamma }^0_0+e^t\mathrm{\Gamma }^i_i\frac{n}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }^0.$$
(47)
In the limit $`t\mathrm{}`$ we obtain the field equation:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^0_t\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{n}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Psi }=m\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(48)
Similarly to 151515Note that in , unlike here, the signature is Euclidean. we may set $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=i`$, working on the space of definite eigenvalues of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0`$. Then the asymptotic behavior of the spinor field is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(t,\stackrel{}{x})e^{(\frac{n}{2}im)t}\psi (\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(49)
The propagator for spin $`1/2`$ in $`dS^n`$ is 161616This is the solution of the equation $`[(/Dm)S(x,x^{})]^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}=\delta ^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}\delta (xx^{})/\sqrt{g}`$. As explained in  the Feynman propagator is $`lim_{\epsilon 0}S(z+i\epsilon )`$. For us time ordering is not essential as we only need the limit $`t,t^{}\mathrm{}`$.:

$$S(x,x^{})=[\alpha (z)+\beta (z)n_\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu ]\mathrm{\Lambda }(x,x^{}),$$
(50)
where we have suppressed spinor indices for convenience. The functions $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ in (50) are given by:

$`\alpha (z)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda \sqrt{z}F({\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}imR,{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+imR;{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+1;z),`$
$`\beta (z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{mR}}\sqrt{1z}(zF({\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+1imR,{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+1+imR;{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+2;z)+`$ (51)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}F({\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}imR,{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+imR;{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}+1;z)).`$
In (51) $`F`$ is the hypergeometric function and $`\lambda `$ is a constant given in Eq. (28) of Ref. , which we will not write down as its explicit form is not necessary for our purposes. For simplicity we will set $`R=1`$, which is already assumed in (44). It can be restored easily on dimensional grounds.

Now let us calculate the asymptotics of $`S^\alpha {}_{\beta ^{}}{}^{}(x,x^{})`$ for $`t\mathrm{}`$. Using (8) and the relation between the embedding coordinates $`X^a`$ (see (6)) and the planar coordinates171717For an excellent summary of coordinate systems and other useful properties of de Sitter space see .:

$`X^0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sinh}t{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^tx_ix^i,`$
$`X^i`$ $`=`$ $`e^tx^i,i=1,\mathrm{},n1,`$
$`X^n`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cosh}t{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^tx_ix^i,`$ (52)
one finds

$$z\frac{e^{(t+t^{})}}{4}|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^2.$$
(53)
Since (see for ex. )

$$F(a,b;c;z^1)1+O(z^1)\text{for}z\mathrm{},$$
(54)
and

$`F(a,b;c;z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ba)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(b)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ca)}}(z)^aF(a,1c+a;1b+a;z^1)`$ (55)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(ab)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(cb)}}(z)^bF(b,1c+b;1a+b;z^1),`$
we obtain

$$S(x,x^{})\left(e^{(t+t^{})\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\frac{C_1}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^{2\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}}}+e^{(t+t^{})\mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{C_2}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|},$$
(56)
where $`C_1,C_2`$ are constant coefficients, whose precise form we don’t need, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(n1)/2+im`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}=(n1)/2im`$. We have also used the fact that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^\alpha ^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}=\delta ^\alpha ^{}_\beta `$ on the boundary $`^{}`$ as this boundary is a flat $`(n1)`$-dimensional space.

Now that we have all the ingredients we are ready to compute the boundary two-point correlator. Adapting the equivalent of the usual AdS/CFT prescription , as proposed in  and used in , we have to find the coefficient of $`\psi \psi `$ (see (49)) in the amplitude:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Psi })=\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}_{^{}}d^{n1}xd^{n1}x^{}[e^{(n1)t}\mathrm{\Psi }(t,\stackrel{}{x})\underset{t}{\overset{}{}}S(t,\stackrel{}{x};t^{},\stackrel{}{x}^{})\underset{t^{}}{\overset{}{}}\mathrm{\Psi }(t^{},\stackrel{}{x}^{})]|_{t=t^{}},$$
(57)
where $`e^{(n1)t}`$ is the measure factor $`\sqrt{g}`$. Using (49) and (56) we obtain:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Psi })=_{^{}}d^{n1}xd^{n1}x^{}\frac{\stackrel{~}{C}\psi (\stackrel{}{x})\psi (\stackrel{}{x}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|},$$
(58)
where $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$ is an irrelevant constant. Hence we conclude that the two-point correlator of the dual operator $`𝒪_\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is:

$$<𝒪_\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x})𝒪_\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{x}^{})>=\frac{const}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|}$$
(59)
as appropriate for conformal invariance of operators in the spinor representation of $`O(n1)`$  with conformal dimension:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{n1}{2}+im.$$
(60)
As expected, the boundary correlator is consistent with conformal invariance. However, its conformal dimension is complex for every value of $`n`$ and $`m`$, in agreement with the naive analytic continuation obtained by $`mim`$181818Recall that on dimensional grounds the mass is always multiplied by the radius $`R`$ and to go from AdS to dS one changes $`RiR`$.. This is not completely surprising: even for the bosons in dS there is a range for the mass in which the conformal dimension is complex191919For integral spins $`s=0,1,2`$, the following conformal dimensions were found in previous works: $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{s=0}=\frac{1}{2}(n1\pm \sqrt{(n1)^24m^2})`$ ; $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{s=1}=\frac{1}{2}(n1\pm \sqrt{(n3)^24m^2})`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{s=2}=\frac{1}{2}(n1\pm \sqrt{(n1)^24m^2})`$ .. In the case of bosons, as suggested in , one could still avoid nonunitary dual description by assuming that in the full quantum theory of de Sitter space only particles, for which the dual theory is unitary, are stable. Clearly, for fermions there is no such option. Hence one has to either learn how to make sense of a nonunitary dual, or possibly try to modify the current formulation of the correspondence.

The calculation of the conformal dimension of the dual operator for spin $`3/2`$ goes exactly the same way since, similarly to the hypergeometric function, the Heun’s function has a behavior at infinity completely determined by the two exponents $`b,c`$:

$$F(a,q;b,c,d,e;z)Const_1z^b+Const_2z^c\mathrm{for}z\mathrm{}.$$
(61)
Since these exponents are the same (see (3.2)) as the ones that determined the behavior of the spin $`1/2`$ propagator (see (4) and (55)) we obtain the boundary correlator202020As in , one also has to use the asymptotic form of $`g_{\mu \nu ^{}}`$ for $`z\mathrm{}`$.

$$\frac{const}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|}\left(\delta _{ij}\frac{2(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})_i(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{})_j}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}^{}|^2}\right)$$
(62)
with the same conformal dimension as before:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{s=3/2}=\frac{n1}{2}+im.$$
(63)
The form (62) agrees with the two-point correlator for spin $`3/2`$ primary field . The same comment as in the spin $`1/2`$ case applies again: there is no meaningful (unitary) dual description for the gravitino either.

###### Acknowledgments.

We thank C. Berger, P. de Smet and M. Roček for conversations. We are especially grateful to P. Grassi and C. Zoubos for valuable discussions. The present work was supported by the Research Foundation under NSF grant PHY-0098527.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The quantization of constraint systems has been extensively discussed in the literature . In particular, the embedding of a second-class system into a first-class one , where constraints are in strong involution, has been of much interest, and has found a large number of applications . However, the usefulness of having the constraints in strong involution has, in our view, not been sufficiently emphasized. To illustrate this is the main objective of the present paper. Recently we have obtained in compact form the first-class Hamiltonian for the O(3) nonlinear sigma model (NLSM) . On the one hand, this model is of interest, since it leads to novel phenomenological aspects . On the other hand, it has also served to investigate the Lagrangian, symplectic, and Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin (BFT) embedding procedure to its quantization . In this paper we wish to illustrate in terms of this model the central role which the BFT embedding plays for obtaining a Schrödinger representation and Hamilton-Jacobi formulation. In order to clarify the relation between the first-class formulation and the Schrödinger representation of a constrained quantum mechanical system, we shall first consider the quantum mechanical analog of a modified NLSM, i.e. the free particle motion on an $`(n1)`$-sphere in an extended phase space. We then apply the Schrödinger representation approach, developed for the $`(n1)`$-sphere, to a slightly modified version of the gauged, field theoretical O(3) nonlinear sigma model, within the framwork of the BFT formalism.

## 2 Schrödinger representation for a free particle on an $`(n1)`$-sphere

Consider the motion of a particle on a hypersphere $`S^{n1}`$, as described by the Lagrangian,

$$L_0=\frac{1}{2}\dot{q}_a\dot{q}_a+\lambda q_a\dot{q}_a,$$
(2.1)
where $`q_a`$ $`(a=1,2,\mathrm{},n)`$ are the coordinates parameterizing the $`S^{n1}`$ manifold, and $`\lambda `$ is the Lagrange multiplier implementing the second-class constraint $`q_a\dot{q}_a0`$ associated with the geometrical constraint $`q_aq_a=\mathrm{constant}`$.111It turns out to be convenient not to impose the constraint in the form $`\lambda (q_aq_a1)`$. From the Lagrangian (2.1) we obtain for the canonical momenta conjugate to the multiplier $`\lambda `$ and the coordinates $`q_a`$

$$p_\lambda =0,p_a=\dot{q}_a+\lambda q_a,$$
(2.2)
and the corresponding canonical Hamiltonian reads

$$H_0=\frac{1}{2}(p_a\lambda q_a)(p_a\lambda q_a).$$
(2.3)
The usual Dirac algorithm is readily shown to lead to the pair of second-class constraints $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ $`(i=1,2)`$:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1=p_\lambda 0,\mathrm{\Omega }_2=q_ap_a\lambda q_aq_a0,$$
(2.4)
satisfying the constraint algebra

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{kk^{}}\{\mathrm{\Omega }_k,\mathrm{\Omega }_k^{}\}=ϵ_{kk^{}}q_aq_a,$$
(2.5)
with $`ϵ_{12}=ϵ_{21}=1`$. For the discussion to follow it will be of central importance to convert this second-class constraint algebra into a strongly involutive one, by suitably embedding the model into a larger dimensional phase space. Following the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin scheme , we achieve this by introducing a pair of canonically conjugate auxiliary coordinates $`(\theta ,p_\theta )`$ with Poisson brackets

$$\{\theta ,p_\theta \}=1.$$
(2.6)
In this enlarged phase space one systematically constructs the first-class constraints $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i`$ as a power series in these auxiliary coordinates, by requiring that they be in strong involution $`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_j\}=0`$. For the case in question

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1=\mathrm{\Omega }_1+\theta ,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2=\mathrm{\Omega }_2q_aq_ap_\theta .$$
(2.7)
Note that from here on all Poisson brackets are understood to be taken with respect to the variables $`(q_a,p_a,\lambda ,p_\lambda ,\theta ,p_\theta )`$ of the extended phase space. We next construct in the extended space the first-class coordinates $`\stackrel{~}{}=(\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_a)`$, corresponding to the original coordinates $`=(q_a,p_a)`$ of the second class theory. They are again obtained as a power series in the auxiliary fields $`(\theta ,p_\theta )`$ by demanding that they be in strong involution with the first-class constraints (2.7), that is $`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{}\}=0`$. After some tedious algebra, we obtain for the first-class coordinates

$`\stackrel{~}{q}_a`$ $`=`$ $`q_a\left({\displaystyle \frac{q_cq_c+2\theta }{q_cq_c}}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{p}_a`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p_a+2q_a\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{q_cq_c}}+2q_ap_\theta {\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{q_cq_c}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{q_cq_c}{q_cq_c+2\theta }}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda +p_\theta ,\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda =p_\lambda +\theta .`$ (2.8)
In terms of these coordinates the first-class Hamiltonian in strong involution with the first class constraints, can be written in the compact form

$$H_0(\stackrel{~}{q},\stackrel{~}{\lambda },\stackrel{~}{p})=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{~}{p}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{\lambda })(\stackrel{~}{p}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{\lambda }).$$
(2.9)
Notice that this is just a short hand for a Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}_0`$ which now depends on the variables ($`q_a,p_a,\lambda ,\theta ,p_\theta `$):

$$\stackrel{~}{H}_0(q_a,\lambda ,\theta ,p_a,p_\theta )=\frac{1}{2}\eta ^2(p_a\lambda q_aq_ap_\theta )^2,$$
(2.10)
where

$$\eta =\left(\frac{q_aq_a}{q_aq_a+2\theta }\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(2.11)
In terms of the first-class coordinates (2.8), the strongly involutive constraints (2.7) take the natural form

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1:=\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda =0,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2:=\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{p}_a\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a=0,$$
(2.12)
which thus display manifest form invariance with respect to the second-class constraints (2.4). One readily checks that one has the following Poisson brackets taken with respect to the variables ($`q_a,p_a,\theta ,p_\theta ,\lambda ,p_\lambda )`$:

$$\{\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_b\}=\delta _{ab},\{\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{q}_b\}=0,\{\stackrel{~}{p}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_b\}=0,$$
(2.13)
as well as

$`\{\stackrel{~}{\lambda },\stackrel{~}{q}_a\}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a}},\{\stackrel{~}{\lambda },\stackrel{~}{p}_a\}={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{p}_a}{\stackrel{~}{q}_b\stackrel{~}{q}_b}}2{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{\lambda }}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a}},`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda ,\stackrel{~}{p}_a\}`$ $`=`$ $`0,\{\stackrel{~}{\lambda },\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda \}=0,\{\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda ,\stackrel{~}{q}_a\}=0.`$ (2.14)
From the Hamilton equations of motion we have, using (2.13) and (2),

$`\dot{q}_a`$ $`=`$ $`\{q_a,\stackrel{~}{H}_0\}=\eta ^2(p_a\lambda q_ap_\theta q_a)`$
$`\dot{\theta }`$ $`=`$ $`\{\theta ,\stackrel{~}{H}_0\}=\eta ^2(p_a\lambda q_ap_\theta q_a).`$ (2.15)
Hence the secondary constraint $`q_cq_c=const`$ of the second class formulation is replaced by $`\stackrel{~}{q}_c\stackrel{~}{q}_c=q_aq_a+2\theta =const`$ in the first class formulation. This was to be expected since the above Poisson brackets coincide with the Dirac brackets in the original variables . Indeed, the “gauge invariant” variables ($`\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_a,\stackrel{~}{\lambda },\stackrel{~}{p}_\lambda `$) of the first-class formulation are just the ($`q_a,p_a,\lambda ,p_\lambda `$) of the second class formulation, and the corresponding Poisson brackets correspond to the Dirac brackets, respectively. It follows from the Poisson brackets (2.13) and (2) that the constraints (2.7) and the first-class Hamiltonian (2.10) are all in strong involution:

$$\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_j\}=0,\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{H}_0\}=0.$$
(2.16)
This will simplify the discussion to follow. Indeed, since $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{H}_0`$ are now in strong involution, we can impose them strongly. Solving $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2=0`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$, we may reduce the Hamiltonian (3.10) to the form

$$\stackrel{~}{H}_0=\frac{1}{2}\left(\stackrel{~}{p}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a\frac{(\stackrel{~}{q}\stackrel{~}{p})}{\stackrel{~}{q}^2}\right)\left(\stackrel{~}{p}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a\frac{(\stackrel{~}{q}\stackrel{~}{p})}{\stackrel{~}{q}^2}\right).$$
(2.17)
where $`\stackrel{~}{q}\stackrel{~}{p}=\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{p}_a`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{q}^2=\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a`$. Effectively we have thus again only $`2n`$ independent degrees of freedom in the extended phase space to describe the free particle motion on the $`(n1)`$-sphere. On the other hand, these $`2n`$ independent degrees of freedom satisfy the canonical Poisson algebra (2.13). Hence in the formulation of the Hamiltonian (2.17) we can treat the particle motion on $`S^{n1}`$ as that of an unconstrained system. This will prove very useful in subsection 2.2.

### 2.1 Hamilton-Jacobi formulation

If our Lagrangian were to describe an unconstrained system, one would have only one Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) equation for the Hamilton principal function $`S`$, as given by a partial differential equation (PDE) of the form

$$H_0^{}:=p_0+H_0(t,q_a,\lambda ,p_a,p_\lambda )=0.$$
(2.18)
where the substitutions

$$p_0=\frac{S}{t},p_a=\frac{S}{q_a},p_\lambda =\frac{S}{\lambda }$$
(2.19)
are understood. If $`H_0`$ does not depend explicitly on $`t`$ (as in the model in question), we may then seek a solution of the form $`S=constt+W`$. In the case of our model, the primary constraint $`p_\lambda =0`$ and the secondary constraint $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2=q_ap_a\lambda q_aq_a=0`$ motivate one to consider the additional PDE

$`H_1^{}:`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\lambda }}=0`$ (2.20)
$`H_2^{}:`$ $`=`$ $`q_a{\displaystyle \frac{S}{q_a}}\lambda q_aq_a=0.`$ (2.21)
It is easy to check that equations (2.18) and (2.20) are inconsistent. Thus, in the second class formulation, the above set of coupled Hamilton-Jacobi equations admits no solution. In different terms, they violate the integrability condition of . Although one can nevertheless arrive at an HJ formulation of the second class system by making an appropriate choice of canonical variables , we circumvent the problem in the present case by enlarging the phase space in the way described above. In the extended phase space (2.18), (2.20) and (2.21) are replaced by

$`\stackrel{~}{H}_0^{}:`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{q_a}}q_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{\theta }}\lambda q_a\right)^2.`$ (2.22)
$`\stackrel{~}{H}_1^{}:`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{\lambda }}+\theta =0`$ (2.23)
$`\stackrel{~}{H}_2^{}:`$ $`=`$ $`q_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{q_a}}q_aq_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{S}}{\theta }}\lambda q_aq_a=0.`$ (2.24)
Consider the constraint equation $`H_1^{}=0`$. It has the solution

$$\stackrel{~}{S}(t,q_a,\lambda ,\theta )=\frac{\alpha ^2}{2}t+\stackrel{~}{W}(q_a,\theta )\lambda \theta $$
(2.25)
Hence (2.22) and (2.24) become respectively

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{W}}{q_a}}q_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{W}}{\theta }}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (2.26)
$`q_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{W}}{q_a}}q_aq_a{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{W}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (2.27)
One possible solution of the second equation above is

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(q_a,\theta )=g(q_aq_a+2\theta )=g(\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a)$$

with $`g(x)`$ so far an arbitrary function. Thus

$`\stackrel{~}{S}(t,q_a,\lambda ,\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}t+g(q_aq_a+2\theta )\lambda \theta `$ (2.28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{2}}t+g(\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a)\lambda \theta `$
With this solution equation (2.26) reduces to $`\alpha =0`$. We now look for non-trivial solutions. Consider first equation (2.27). The relation between the variables in the first and second class formulation motivates us to make the following Ansatz:

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(q,\theta )=f(n\stackrel{~}{q})$$
(2.29)
with $`n_a`$ the components of a $`n`$-dimensional unit vector parametrized by $`n1`$ constants. Using

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{q}_c}{q_a}=\eta ^1\delta _{ca}\eta \frac{2\theta }{q^2}\frac{q_aq_c}{q^2},\frac{\stackrel{~}{q}_c}{\theta }=\eta \frac{q_c}{q^2},$$
(2.30)
one readily checks that equation (2.27) is satisfied for any $`f(x)`$. This function is now determined by eq. (2.26) which now reads,

$$\left(1\frac{(n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a)^2}{\stackrel{~}{q}_c\stackrel{~}{q}_c}\right)f^2(n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a)=\alpha ^2.$$

where the prime denotes the derivative with respect to the argument of $`f`$. The solution to this equation has been given in . Setting $`x=n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a`$ and $`r^2=\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a`$, we thus have

$$f^{}(x)=\pm \frac{\alpha }{\sqrt{1\frac{x^2}{r^2}}}$$

so that upon integration in $`x`$ the Hamilton principal function $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ takes the form

$$\stackrel{~}{W}(q,\theta )=\alpha r\mathrm{tan}^1\frac{n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a}{\sqrt{r^2(n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a)^2}}+const.$$
(2.31)
The Hamilton principal function contains $`n`$ independent constants, which we take to be $`\alpha `$ and $`n_1,n_2,\mathrm{},n_{n1}`$, while the normalization of $`n^a`$ implies for the $`n`$’th component, $`n_n=\sqrt{1_{a=1}^{n1}n_an_a}`$. Differentiating the Hamilton principal function with respect to these constants (new momenta in the corresponding generating functional) yields in the usual way  the $`n`$ time-independent new coordinates:

$$\beta =\frac{W}{\alpha },\beta _a=\frac{W}{n_a},a=1,2,\mathrm{}n1.$$
(2.32)
From the first equation and (2.31) we easily obtain

$$n_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a=r\mathrm{cos}\frac{\beta +\alpha t}{r}r\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }(t).$$
(2.33)
As shown in , the solution for the “observable” $`\stackrel{~}{q}_a`$ then takes the following form in terms of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(t)`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{q}_a=\frac{1}{\alpha }\left(\beta _a(n_c\beta _c)n_a\right)\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Omega }(t)+rn_a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }(t),$$
(2.34)
where $`\beta _a`$ is the $`n`$-dimensional vector $`\beta _a=(\beta _1,\beta _2,\mathrm{},\beta _{n1},0)`$. Substituting the above result into our original condition, $`r^2=\stackrel{~}{q}^2`$, leads to

$$r=\sqrt{\frac{\beta _a\beta _a(n_a\beta _a)^2}{\alpha ^2}}$$
(2.35)
Thus the radius of motion is fixed if the new time independent coordinates are specified.

### 2.2 Schrödinger representation

In the first-class formulation the canonical commutation relations between the phase space variables $`(q,p),(\lambda ,p_\lambda ),(\theta ,p_\theta )`$ allows us to replace the first class Hamiltonian (2.10) by the differential operator

$$\stackrel{~}{H}_0=\frac{1}{2}\eta (q,\theta )^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{q_a}\lambda q_aq_a\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{\theta }\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{q_a}\lambda q_aq_a\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{\theta }\right)$$
(2.36)
Instead of solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem in this formulation, one may simplify this problem by noting from (2.13) that the variables $`(\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_a)`$ form canonical pairs, so that we may make the replacement $`\stackrel{~}{p}_a\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}`$ in (2.17). In the Schrödinger representation, we thus have for the quantum commutators,

$$[\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{q}_b]=0,[\stackrel{~}{p}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_b]=0,[\stackrel{~}{q}_a,\stackrel{~}{p}_b]=i\mathrm{}\delta _{ab}.$$
(2.37)
Following the symmetrization procedure of  we obtain for the Hamilton quantum operator of a free particle on the $`(n1)`$-sphere (we now set $`\stackrel{~}{q}^2=r^2=1`$)

$`\stackrel{~}{H}_0`$ $`=`$ $`:{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}}+i\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_c{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_c}})(i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}}+i\mathrm{}\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_c{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_c}}):`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{}^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a}}+(n1)\stackrel{~}{q}_a{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}}+\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_b{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_b}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(n+1)(n3)}{4}}\right].`$
Note that the quantum Hamiltonian (2.2) has only terms of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$, so that one has rotational energy contributions of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$, without any vibrational modes of order $`\mathrm{}`$. In fact, the starting Lagrangian (2.1) does not possess any vibrational degrees of freedom, since it involves only the kinetic term describing the motions of the particle residing on the $`S^{n1}`$ manifold. We now define the Casimir operator $`\stackrel{~}{J}^2`$ in terms of the $`(n1)`$-sphere Laplacian

$$\stackrel{~}{J}^2=\mathrm{}^2\left[\frac{^2}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_a}+(n1)\stackrel{~}{q}_a\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}+\stackrel{~}{q}_a\stackrel{~}{q}_b\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_a}\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{q}_b}\right],$$
(2.39)
whose eigenvalue spectrum is given in terms of the corresponding angular quantum number $`j`$ $`(j=\mathrm{integers})`$ and the dimension of the sphere as follows

$$\stackrel{~}{J}^2|j=\mathrm{}^2j(j+n2)|j.$$
(2.40)
We thus have for the Hamiltonian operator of a free particle on the $`(n1)`$-sphere

$$\stackrel{~}{H}_0=\frac{1}{2}\left[\stackrel{~}{J}^2+\frac{\mathrm{}^2(n+1)(n3)}{4}\right],$$
(2.41)
to yield the eigenvalue equation $`\stackrel{~}{H}_0|j=E_j|j`$ with the spectrum given by

$$E_j=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2}\left[j(j+n2)+\frac{(n+1)(n3)}{4}\right].$$
(2.42)
Note that the Hamiltonian operator (2.41) is that of a rigid rotator, and the energy eigenvalues (2.42) involve global shifts depending on the dimension of the sphere, which has not been included in .

## 3 Gauged $`O(3)`$ nonlinear sigma model

In this section, we will generalize the approach developed in the previous sections to the field theoretical $`O(3)`$ nonlinear sigma model, whose Lagrangian is of the form

$$_0=\frac{1}{2f}(_\mu n^a)(^\mu n^a)+n^0n^a_0n^a$$
(3.1)
where $`n^a`$ ($`a`$=1,2,3) is a multiplet of three real scalar fields which parameterize an internal space $`S^2`$, and $`n^0`$ is the Lagrange multiplier field implementing the second-class constraint $`n^a_0n^a0`$ associated with the geometrical constraint $`n^an^a10`$. From the Lagrangian (3.1) the canonical momenta conjugate to the field $`n^0`$ and the real scalar fields $`n^a`$ are given by

$`\pi ^0`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\pi ^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f}}_0n^a+n^an^0.`$ (3.2)
Here one notes that $`n^0`$, $`n^a`$ and $`_0n^a`$ are entangled to define $`\pi ^a`$. In terms of the canonical momenta (3.2), we then obtain the canonical Hamiltonian

$$=\frac{f}{2}(\pi ^an^an^0)(\pi ^an^an^0)+\frac{1}{2f}(_in^a)(_in^a)$$
(3.3)
The usual Dirac algorithm is readily shown to lead to the pair of second-class constraints $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ $`(i=1,2)`$ as follows

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\pi ^00`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ $`=`$ $`n^a\pi ^an^an^an^00.`$ (3.4)
to yield the corresponding constraint algebra with $`ϵ^{12}=ϵ^{21}=1`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{kk^{}}(x,y)=\{\mathrm{\Omega }_k(x),\mathrm{\Omega }_k^{}(y)\}=ϵ^{kk^{}}n^an^a\delta ^2(xy).$$
(3.5)
Following the BFT scheme , we systematically convert the second-class constraints $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i=0`$ $`(i=1,2)`$ into first-class ones by introducing two canonically conjugate auxiliary fields $`(\theta ,\pi _\theta )`$ with Poisson brackets

$$\{\theta (x),\pi _\theta (y)\}=\delta ^2(xy).$$
(3.6)
The strongly involutive first-class constraints $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i`$ are then constructed as a power series of the auxiliary fields ,

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1+\theta ,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2n^an^a\pi _\theta .`$ (3.7)
Note that the first class constraints (3.7) can be rewritten as

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^0,`$ (3.8)
which are form-invariant with respect to the second-class constraints (3.4). We next construct the first-class fields $`\stackrel{~}{}=(\stackrel{~}{n}^a,\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a)`$, corresponding to the original fields defined by $`=(n^a,\pi ^a)`$ in the extended phase space. They are obtained as a power series in the auxiliary fields $`(\theta ,\pi _\theta )`$ by demanding that they be in strong involution with the first-class constraints (3.7), that is $`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{}\}=0`$. After some tedious algebra, we obtain for the first-class physical fields

$`\stackrel{~}{n}^a`$ $`=`$ $`n^a\left({\displaystyle \frac{n^cn^c+2\theta }{n^cn^c}}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\pi ^a+2n^an^0{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{n^cn^c}}+2n^a\pi _\theta {\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{n^cn^c}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{n^cn^c}{n^cn^c+2\theta }}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{n}^0`$ $`=`$ $`n^0+\pi _\theta ,\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0=\pi ^0+\theta ,`$ (3.9)
and the first-class Hamiltonian (we now set right away $`\stackrel{~}{n}^2=r^2=1`$)

$$\stackrel{~}{}=\frac{f}{2}(\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^0)(\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^0)+\frac{1}{2f}(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a)(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a).$$
(3.10)
Inserting the first-class constraint $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2=0`$ together with $`\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a=1`$, which are strongly zero, into the first-class Hamiltonian (3.10), we can obtain $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ only in terms of $`(\stackrel{~}{n}^a,\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a)`$ as follows

$`\widehat{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{2}}(\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^c\stackrel{~}{\pi }^c)(\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^d\stackrel{~}{\pi }^d)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f}}(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a)(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a).`$ (3.11)
Moreover, the first-class physical fields (3.9) are found to satisfy the Poisson algebra

$`\{\stackrel{~}{n}^a(x),\stackrel{~}{n}^b(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{n}^a(x),\stackrel{~}{\pi }^b(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta ^{ab}\delta ^2(xy),`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a(x),\stackrel{~}{\pi }^b(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (3.12)
which, in the extended phase space, yield the canonical quantum commutators

$`[\widehat{n}^a(x),\widehat{n}^b(y)]`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`[\widehat{n}^a(x),\widehat{\pi }^b(y)]`$ $`=`$ $`i\mathrm{}\delta ^{ab}\delta ^2(xy),`$
$`[\widehat{\pi }^a(x),\widehat{\pi }^b(y)]`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.13)
Note that the first-class Hamiltonian (3.11) does not have extra degrees of freedom of $`(\stackrel{~}{n}^0,\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0)`$ any more so that we can have only $`(\stackrel{~}{n}^a,\stackrel{~}{\pi }^a)`$ independent degrees of freedom with the canonical quantum commutators (3.13) in the extended phase space as in the unconstrained systems.

### 3.1 Schrödinger representation

The quantum commutators corresponding to the Poisson brackets (3.13) show that we can realize the quantum operators $`\widehat{\pi }^a`$ of the O(3) nonlinear sigma model as follows:

$$\widehat{\pi }^a=i\mathrm{}\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a}.$$
(3.14)
Following the symmetrization procedure of ref. , together with (3.11) and (3.14), we arrive at the Hamiltonian density quantum operator for the O(3) nonlinear sigma model

$`\widehat{}`$ $`=`$ $`:{\displaystyle \frac{f}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{i}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{i}}\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^c{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^c}})({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{i}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{i}}\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^d{\displaystyle \frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^d}}):+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f}}(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a)(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a)`$ (3.15)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{2}}\mathrm{}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a}}+2\widehat{n}^a{\displaystyle \frac{}{\widehat{n}^a}}+\widehat{n}^a\widehat{n}^b{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\widehat{n}^a\widehat{n}^b}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f}}(_i\widehat{n}^a)(_i\widehat{n}^a).`$
Note that the Hamiltonian operator (3.15) has terms of orders $`\mathrm{}^0`$ and $`\mathrm{}^2`$ only, so that one has static mass (of order $`\mathrm{}^0`$) and rotational energy contributions (of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$) without any vibrational modes (of order $`\mathrm{}^1`$). Indeed, the starting Lagrangian (3.1) does not allow for any vibrational degrees of freedom since it describes the motion of the soliton on the $`S^2`$ manifold. Integrating the terms of order $`\mathrm{}^2`$ in the Hamiltonian operator (3.15) over the two-dimensional target manifold, one can construct the Casimir operator $`\widehat{J}^2`$ as follows

$$\widehat{J}^2=\mathrm{}^2\mathrm{d}^2xf\left(\frac{^2}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^a}+2\stackrel{~}{n}^a\frac{}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a}+\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^b\frac{^2}{\stackrel{~}{n}^a\stackrel{~}{n}^b}\right),$$
(3.16)
with $``$ the moment of inertia of the soliton (see below). Note that the above operator $`\widehat{J}^2`$ is the Laplacian on the two-sphere  in the field representation. Similarly, one can integrate the term of order $`\mathrm{}^0`$ over the two-dimensional space to define the soliton static mass $`M_0`$ as

$$M_0=\mathrm{d}^2x\frac{1}{2f}(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a)(_i\stackrel{~}{n}^a).$$
(3.17)
In terms of $`M_0`$ and $`\widehat{J}^2`$, the Hamiltonian operator $`\widehat{H}`$ for the O(3) nonlinear sigma model thus takes the form:

$$\widehat{H}=M_0+\frac{\widehat{J}^2}{2}.$$
(3.18)
The associated eigenvalue problem

$$\widehat{H}|j=E_j|j$$
(3.19)
leads to the energy eigenvalues $`E_j`$ ($`j=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$),

$$E_j=M_0+\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2}j(j+1),$$
(3.20)
which exhibit the contribution from the static soliton mass and the rotational excitations discussed above. $``$ can thus be interpreted as the moment of inertia of the soliton rigid rotator and $`j`$ is the U(1) isospin quantum number associated with the angular momentum operator $`\widehat{J}^2`$ satisfying the following eigenvalue equation in the two-dimensional space

$$\widehat{J}^2|j=\mathrm{}^2j(j+1)|j.$$
(3.21)
Note that this is the special case $`n=3`$ of the formula (2.40) in the previous section. In the O(3) nonlinear sigma model we thus do not have a global energy shift, consistent with the previous semiclassical result . On the other hand, in the SU(2) Skyrmion model one obtains a positive Weyl ordering correction . In the semiclassical quantization with the ansatz

$`\stackrel{~}{n}^1`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}[\alpha (t)+\varphi ]\mathrm{sin}F(r)`$
$`\stackrel{~}{n}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}[\alpha (t)+\varphi ]\mathrm{sin}F(r)`$
$`\stackrel{~}{n}^3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}F(r)`$ (3.22)
for $`\stackrel{~}{n}^a`$ in the topological charge $`Q=1`$ sector, where $`(r,\varphi )`$ are the polar coordinates and $`\alpha `$ is the collective coordinate, one can explicitly obtain the soliton mass $`M_0`$ and the moment of inertia $``$ as follows

$`M_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{f}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}drr\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{dF}{dr}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2F}{r^2}}\right],`$
$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{f}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}drr\mathrm{sin}^2F.`$ (3.23)
Note that the above angular momentum operator $`\widehat{J}^2`$ can be also constructed in the standard way from

$$\widehat{J}=\mathrm{d}^2xϵ_{ij}x^iT^{0j},$$
(3.24)
where the symmetric energy-momentum tensor is given by $`T^{\mu \nu }=\frac{\stackrel{~}{}_0}{(_\mu \stackrel{~}{n}^a)}^\nu \stackrel{~}{n}^ag^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{}_0`$, with $`\stackrel{~}{}_0`$ the first-class Lagrangian constructed via the replacement of $`(n^0,n^a)(\stackrel{~}{n}^0,\stackrel{~}{n}^a)`$ in the Lagrangian (3.1). We next discuss the corresponding BRST Lagrangean.

### 3.2 BRST symmetries and effective Lagrangian

In order to investigate the Becci-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) symmetries  associated with the Lagrangian (3.1) of the O(3) nonlinear sigma model, we rewrite the first-class Hamiltonian (3.10) in terms of original fields and auxiliary ones

$$\stackrel{~}{}=\frac{f}{2}(\pi ^an^an^0n^a\pi _\theta )(\pi ^an^an^0n^a\pi _\theta )\frac{n^cn^c}{n^cn^c+2\theta }+\frac{1}{2f}(_in^a)(_in^a)\frac{n^cn^c+2\theta }{n^cn^c},$$
(3.25)
which is strongly involutive with the first class constraints $`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\stackrel{~}{}\}=0`$. Note that with this Hamiltonian (3.25), one cannot generate the first-class Gauss’ law constraint from the time evolution of the constraint $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1`$. By introducing an additional term proportional to the first-class constraints $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2`$ into $`\stackrel{~}{}`$, we obtain an equivalent first-class Hamiltonian

$$\stackrel{~}{}^{}=\stackrel{~}{}+f\pi _\theta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2$$
(3.26)
to generate the Gauss’ law constraint

$`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_1(x),\stackrel{~}{}^{}(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`f\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2\delta ^2(xy),`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2(x),\stackrel{~}{}^{}(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.27)
Note that these Hamiltonians $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{}^{}`$ effectively act on physical states in the same way since such states are annihilated by the first class constraints. In the framework of the Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) formalism , we now construct the nilpotent BRST charge $`Q`$, the fermionic gauge fixing function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and the BRST invariant minimal Hamiltonian $`H_m`$ by introducing two canonical sets of ghost and anti-ghost fields, together with auxiliary fields $`(𝒞^i,\overline{𝒫}_i)`$, $`(𝒫^i,\overline{𝒞}_i)`$, $`(N^i,B_i)`$ $`(i=1,2)`$ and the unitary gauge choice $`\chi ^1=\mathrm{\Omega }_1,\chi ^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$,

$`Q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^2x(𝒞^i\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i+𝒫^iB_i)},`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^2x(\overline{𝒞}_i\chi ^i+\overline{𝒫}_iN^i)},`$
$`H_m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^2x\left(\stackrel{~}{}+f\pi _\theta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_2f𝒞^1\overline{𝒫}_2\right)},`$ (3.28)
with the properties $`Q^2=\{Q,Q\}=0`$ and $`\{\{\mathrm{\Psi },Q\},Q\}=0`$. The nilpotent charge $`Q`$ is the generator of the following infinitesimal transformations,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\delta _Qn^0=𝒞^1,\hfill & \delta _Qn^a=𝒞^2n^a,\hfill & \delta _Q\theta =𝒞^2n^an^a,\hfill \\ \delta _Q\pi ^0=𝒞^2n^an^a,\hfill & \delta _Q\pi ^a=𝒞^2(\pi ^a2n^an^02n^a\pi _\theta ),\hfill & \delta _Q\pi _\theta =𝒞^1,\hfill \\ \delta _Q\overline{𝒞}_i=B_i,\hfill & \delta _Q𝒞^i=0,\hfill & \delta _QB_i=0,\hfill \\ \delta _Q𝒫^i=0,\hfill & \delta _Q\overline{𝒫}_i=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_i,\hfill & \delta _QN^i=𝒫^i,\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.29)
which in turn imply $`\{Q,H_m\}=0`$, that is, $`H_m`$ in (3.28) is the BRST invariant minimal Hamiltonian. After some algebra, we arrive at the effective quantum Lagrangian of the manifestly covariant form

$$_{eff}=_0+_{WZ}+_{ghost}$$
(3.30)
where $`_0`$ is given by (3.1) and

$`_{WZ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{fn^cn^c}}(_\mu n^a)(^\mu n^a)\theta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f(n^cn^c)^2}}_\mu \theta ^\mu \theta ,`$ (3.31)
$`_{ghost}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(n^an^a)^2n^0(B+2\overline{𝒞}𝒞){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f}}(n^an^a)^2(B+2\overline{𝒞}𝒞)^2`$ (3.32)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^cn^c}}_\mu \theta ^\mu B+_\mu \overline{𝒞}^\mu 𝒞.`$
This Lagrangian is invariant under the BRST transformation

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\delta _ϵn^0=2ϵn^0𝒞,\hfill & \delta _ϵn^a=ϵn^a𝒞,\hfill & \delta _ϵ\theta =ϵn^an^a𝒞,\hfill \\ \delta _ϵ\overline{𝒞}=ϵB,\hfill & \delta _ϵ𝒞=0,\hfill & \delta _ϵB=0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.33)
where $`ϵ`$ is an infinitesimal Grassmann valued parameter.

## 4 Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin embedding of the second-class constrained system into a first-class one has played a important role for obtaining the energy spectrum, as well as a Hamilton-Jacobi formulation of the multidimensional rigid rotator on the $`S^{n1}`$ manifold. In order to obtain its energy spectrum we made use of the Schrödinger representation for this system. We have also constructed the corresponding Hamilton principal function to obtain the nontrivial solutions of the Euler-Lagrange equations.. We have extended these results to a modified version of the field theoretical O(3) nonlinear sigma model with geometric constraints, in the Batalin-Fradkin-Tyutin scheme. Since it was possible to obtain a Schrödinger realization for the quantum commutators of the canonical fields and their conjugate momenta, we could straightforwardly obtain the energy spectrum of the topoligical soliton including the rotational modes, which turned out to be the same as that of the rigid rotator on the two-dimensional target manifold $`S^2`$. We have further constructed the BRST invariant Lagrangian of this O(3) nonlinear sigma model.

STH would like to thank the warm hospitality of the Institut für Theoretische Physik at the Universität Heidelberg during his stay, and to acknowledge financial support in part from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation Grant R01-2000-00015. We also would like to thank Heinz Rothe for a helpful discussion.


text:
# References

MCTP-03-05

Minimal Length Uncertainty Relation and the Hydrogen Spectrum
R. Akhoury and Y.- P. Yao

Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics
Randall Laboratory of Physics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1120

## Abstract

Modifications of Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation have been proposed in the literature which imply a minimum position uncertainty. We study the low energy effects of the new physics responsible for this by examining the consequent change in the quantum mechanical commutation relations involving position and momenta. In particular, the modifications to the spectrum of the hydrogen atom can be naturally interpreted as a varying (with energy) fine structure constant. From the data on the energy levels we attempt to constrain the scale of the new physics and find that it must be close to or larger than the weak scale. Experiments in the near future are expected to change this bound by at least an additional order of magnitude.

e-mail: akhoury, yyao@umich.edu

1. Several independant lines of investigations appear to suggest a modification of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation to the form:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }p}+\beta \mathrm{\Delta }p\right),$$
(1)
which implies a minimum position uncertainty of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{min}=\mathrm{}\sqrt{\beta }`$. In perturbative string theory , such a consequence arises due to the fact that strings cannot probe distances smaller than the string scale. We should caution however, that this particular form of the generalized uncertainty relation is neither a unique nor a conclusive prediction of string theory. Indeed as shown in ref.(), D-branes can probe distances smaller than the string scale and other generalizations of the uncertainty relations have been proposed, for a good review see . Attempting to find a general deformed Heisenberg algebra, a generalized commutation relation (in three dimensions) has been proposed in  which implies the above uncertainty relation under certain assumptions. Finally, in ref.(), the modified uncertainty relation has been argued to arise by taking into account the gravitational interactions of highly energetic photons with the other elementary particles and $`\beta `$ in this case is of the order of the (square of the) Planck length. In one dimension, a possible way to realize eq.(1)  is through the following commutation relation,

$$[X,P]=i\mathrm{}(1+\beta P^2)$$
(2)
and in higher dimensions this is generalized to the following tensorial form,

$$[X_i,P_j]=i\mathrm{}((1+\beta \stackrel{}{P}^2)\delta _{ij}+\beta ^{}P_iP_j).$$
(3)
As emphasized in  Eq.(1) has the interesting feature that it exhibits the so called UV/IR correspondence first noticed  in the context of the ADS/CFT correspondence. In our case this is just the statement that, as is evident from eq.(1), at large $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ is also large. Such a correspondence is hard to visualize in the context of local quantum field theories but it seems to be an essential feature of certain types of new physics  being considered recently.

In this paper we will take the viewpoint that eq.(1) and the commutation relation provide an effective description by means of which new physics effects may be manifested at low energies. The fact that these satisfy the UV/IR relation only makes this more likely and our purpose is to investigate how these kinds of novel ideas may be manifested in particular in the well known hydrogen atom problem. A calculation of the hydrogen spectrum indicates that in the generalized framework one is led naturally to a varying (with energy) fine structure constant. Precision data available on the energy levels can be used to constrain the scale of the new physics. Writing,

$$\beta =\frac{\overline{\beta }}{(\mathrm{\Lambda }c)^2}$$
(4)
and a similar equation for $`\beta ^{}`$, with dimensionless $`\overline{\beta }`$ and $`\overline{\beta ^{}}`$ of order one , we find that the present data implies that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ must be close to or greater than the weak scale. Within the next few years, proposed experiments will improve this bound by two orders of magnitude. In the rest of this paper, the details leading to the above conclusions will be elucidated.

2. In addition to the commutation relation (3), assuming that the momenta commute with each other, the modified commutation relations for the coordinates are

$$[X_i.X_j]=i\mathrm{}\frac{(2\beta \beta ^{})+(2\beta +\beta ^{})\beta \stackrel{}{P}^2}{1+\beta \stackrel{}{P}^2}(P_iX_jP_jX_i).$$
(5)
Because the coordinates do not commute, it is more convenient to work in momentum space and define coordinate dependent operators through their momentum representations. For the hydrogen atom, we have the Schrodinger equation

$$(\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{2m}\frac{Ze^2}{r})|\psi >=E|\psi >,$$

or equivalently,

$$(r\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{2m}Ze^2)|\psi >=Er|\psi >,$$
$`(6)`$
which calls for a definition of r, which will be expressed as functions of $`\stackrel{}{P}`$, its derivatives, and the angular momentum operators

$$L_{ij}=\frac{X_iP_jX_jP_i}{1+\beta \stackrel{}{P}^2}.$$

With this definition, one can check that the commutation relations of $`L_{ij}`$, being generators of rotations are the usual ones, i.e.,

$$[X_k,L_{ij}]=i\mathrm{}(X_i\delta _{kj}X_j\delta _{ki}),$$

$$[P_k,L_{ij}]=i\mathrm{}(P_i\delta _{kj}P_j\delta _{ki}),$$

and

$$[L_{kl},L_{ij}]=i\mathrm{}(L_{il}\delta _{kj}+L_{ki}\delta _{lj}L_{jl}\delta _{ki}L_{kj}\delta _{li}).$$

After some rather tedious algebra, one can also show that if one defines

$$\rho _i=P_if(\stackrel{}{P}^2),$$

where

$$f(\stackrel{}{P}^2)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{(\beta +\beta ^{})\stackrel{}{P}^2}}tan^1\sqrt{(\beta +\beta ^{})\stackrel{}{P}^2},$$
$`(7)`$
then

$$X_i=i\mathrm{}[(1+\beta p^2)\frac{}{p_i}+\beta ^{}p_ip_j\frac{}{p_j}+\gamma p_i]=i\mathrm{}\frac{}{\rho _i}+a(\stackrel{}{p}^2)p_kL_{ik}+i\mathrm{}\gamma p_i,$$
$`(8)`$
is the representation that satisfies the relevant commutation relations written in eqs.(3) and (5) where,

$$a(\stackrel{}{p}^2)\stackrel{}{p}^2=1+\beta \stackrel{}{p}^2\frac{1}{f(\stackrel{}{p}^2)}.$$

The constant $`\gamma `$ here is arbirary, which affects the definition of the scalar product, particularly in rendering a hermitian $`X_i`$. For a similar discussion in the context of the harmonic oscillator see . Thus,

$$<f|g>=\frac{d^D\stackrel{}{p}}{[1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p^2]^{1\alpha }}f^{}(\stackrel{}{p})g(\stackrel{}{p}),\alpha =\frac{\gamma \beta ^{}(\frac{D1}{2})}{(\beta +\beta ^{})},$$

where, D is the spatial dimensionality and then,

$$<f|X_i|g>^{}=<g|X_i|f>.$$

In the following, where we treat the hydrogen atom problem, we shall limit ourselves to D=3 and for simplicity to zero angular momentum states, which implies

$$L_i|\psi >=0,(g_{ij}\frac{p_ip_j}{p^2})\frac{}{p_j}|\psi >=0$$

By using eq.(8), a simple calculation leads to

$$\stackrel{}{X}^2|\psi >=(i\mathrm{})^2[\frac{d^2}{d\rho ^2}+\frac{2}{p}(1+(\beta +\gamma )p^2)\frac{d}{d\rho }+\gamma (3+(3\beta +\beta ^{}+\gamma )p^2]|\psi >,$$
$`(9)`$
where

$$p^2\stackrel{}{P}^2,\rho ^2=\rho _i\rho _i.$$

Our next task is to give meaning to $`r\sqrt{\stackrel{}{X}^2}.`$

We are interested in obtaining the energy eigenvalues, which should be independent of $`\gamma `$. Therefore, to simplify the calculations we transform it away. This is done by noting that

$$X_i\frac{1}{(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p^2)^{\frac{\gamma }{2(\beta +\beta ^{})}}}F=\frac{1}{(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p^2)^{\frac{\gamma }{2(\beta +\beta ^{})}}}X_i(\gamma =0)F.$$

We then have for eq.(9)

$$\stackrel{}{X}^2|\psi >=(i\mathrm{})^2(\frac{d^2}{d\rho ^2}+\varphi \frac{d}{d\rho })|\psi >,$$
$`(10)`$
where

$$\varphi =\frac{2}{p}(1+\beta p^2).$$

A change of variable is now made

$$\rho g\rho ^{},$$

which entails

$$\frac{d}{d\rho }=\frac{1}{(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})}\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}},$$
$`(11)`$
$$\frac{d^2}{d\rho ^2}=\frac{1}{(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})^2}\frac{d^2}{d\rho ^2}+\frac{1}{(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})}(\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}\frac{1}{(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})})\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}.$$

We fix g by demanding that it satisfy the equation

$$\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}\frac{1}{(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})}+\varphi =0,$$

Through this, eq.(10) becomes

$$\stackrel{}{X}^2|\psi >=r^2|\psi >=(i\mathrm{})^2(T^1\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}T)(T^1\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}T)T^1|\psi >,$$

where

$$T=(\frac{d\rho }{d\rho ^{}})^2,$$
$`(12)`$
The radial distance is then given by

$$r|\psi >=(i\mathrm{})(T^1\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}T)T^1|\psi >.$$
$`(13)`$
Note that because of the change of differential element implied by eq.(7), we must likewise change the term without r in eq.(6) by

$$|\psi >\frac{d\rho ^{}}{d\rho }|\psi >$$

which now becomes

$$[i\mathrm{}T^1\frac{d}{d\rho ^{}}(\frac{p^2}{2m}E)Ze^2(\frac{d\rho ^{}}{d\rho })]|\psi >=0,$$

or

$$[i\mathrm{}\frac{d}{d\rho }(\frac{p^2}{2m}E)Ze^2]|\psi >=0.$$
$`(14)`$
For the case when we have just the conventional commutation relation, (i. e. $`\beta =\beta ^{}=0`$, which gives $`\rho =p`$ in eq.(7)) the solutions to eq.(14) will immediately give the hydrogen-like spectrum, if we demand single-valueness of the wave functions. In fact, a more cogent argument is to demand that $`|\psi >`$ should be an entire function in the lower half of the complex p-plane, which will guarantee outgoing scattered waves and also exponentially decreasing bound state wave functions for large r. The derivation to obtain eq.(14) in that case can be made much simpler, because when coordinates commute, we can use them as a representation basis. The representation of r in momentum space is then readily obtained through the Fourier representation

$$<r|p>exp(ipr/\mathrm{}),$$

which gives $`ri\mathrm{}\frac{}{p}`$ through integration by parts to impart its action on the momentum wave function. For the extended commutation relations as we have, there is no $`<r|`$ basis, and we circumvent the problem through the procedure just proposed above.

When $`\beta `$ and $`\beta ^{}`$ are non-vanishing, we have

$$\frac{d}{d\rho }=\frac{dp}{d\rho }\frac{d}{dp}=(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p^2)\frac{d}{dp},$$

then eq.(14) beccomes

$$\frac{d}{dp}|\psi >+\frac{1}{p^2p_0^2}[2p+i\frac{Ze^22m}{\mathrm{}(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p^2)}]|\psi >=0,$$

where

$$E=\frac{p_0^2}{2m}.$$

Performing parital fractions, this becomes

$$\frac{d}{dp}|\psi >+[\frac{1+i\eta }{pp_0}+\frac{1i\eta }{p+p_0}\frac{\xi }{pi/\sqrt{\beta +\beta ^{}}}+\frac{\xi }{p+i/\sqrt{\beta +\beta ^{}}}]|\psi >=0,$$
$`(15)`$
in which,

$$\eta =\frac{Ze^2m}{\mathrm{}p_0(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p_0^2)},$$
$`(16)`$
and,

$$\xi =\frac{Ze^2m\sqrt{\beta +\beta ^{}}}{\mathrm{}(1+(\beta +\beta ^{})p_0^2)}.$$

The solution to eq.(15) is

$$|\psi >=A(pp_0)^{(1+i\eta )}(p+p_0)^{(1i\eta )}(p\frac{i}{\sqrt{\beta +\beta ^{}}})^\xi (p+\frac{i}{\sqrt{\beta +\beta ^{}}})^\xi ,$$

in which A is a constant of integration. Note that for bound states, the energies are negative and therefore,

$$p_0=i\kappa .$$
$`(17)`$
The wave function will not have a pole in the lower p-plane if

$$\eta =in,$$
$`(18)`$
where n is a positve integer. This is the condition to solve for the bound state energies. We should remark however, that in the present situation with $`\xi 0`$, we have a cut in the lower half plane for the wave function. Its effects on the outgoing scattered wave require further investigation, as the meaning of the radial coordinate r is not that intuitive.

From eqs.(16),(17) and (18) we obtain for the energy levels:

$$n=\frac{Z\alpha mc}{\kappa (1(\beta +\beta ^{})\kappa ^2)}.$$

To leading order in the small parameters using eq.(4) we obtain, for the S-wave energy levels of the hydrogen atom

$$E=\frac{Z^2\alpha ^2mc^2}{2n^2}\left(1+2(\overline{\beta }+\overline{\beta ^{}})(\frac{m}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^2\frac{Z^2\alpha ^2}{n^2}\right).$$
$`(19)`$
This may be used to define an energy dependant effective fine structure constant,

$$\alpha _{eff}(E)=\alpha (12(\overline{\beta }+\overline{\beta ^{}})(\frac{m}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^2(\frac{E}{mc^2})),$$
$`(20)`$
to leading order in the small parameters. Eqs(19) and (20) are the main results of this paper. We will next explore thier consequences.

3. The 1S-2S energy shift in hydrogen has been measured to an accuracy of $`1.8`$ parts in $`10^{14}`$ . We may therefore use this to bound the scale of new physics, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. From eq.(19) we get,

$$\frac{E_{2S}E_{1S}}{E_{1S}}=\frac{3}{4}\left(1+\frac{1}{2}(\overline{\beta }+\overline{\beta ^{}})(\frac{m}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^2Z^2\alpha ^2\right).$$

Using the above mentioned experimental result , and taking $`\overline{\beta }`$ and $`\overline{\beta ^{}}`$ to be of order unity, we obtain the bound,

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }50GeV.$$

In the near future the 2S-1S energy shift measurement is expected to be improved by two orders of magnitude  and that will bound $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to be greater than about a TeV if no new effects are observed.

Since the non-standard contribution to the 2S-1S energy shift is such a small number, it would be interesting to study its effects on the the fine and hyperfine structure. For this one will have to solve the Dirac equation for the hydrogen atom and include the higher angular momentum states. The bound on the scale of the new physics coming from this measurement is expected to be a whole lot stronger. Data from higher $`Z`$ hydrogen like ions could also potentially provide a better bound.

In conclusion, we would like to make a few comments on some related work. Proposing a careful measurement of an electron in a highly excited energy level in a Penning trap, the authors of ref.() gave a potential lower limit of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }1Gev/c.`$ This is an exceedingly difficult endeavour. Also, by taking some classical limit, the same group of authors  and others used the precision limit of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury to yield a bound of $`\mathrm{}\sqrt{\beta }2.3\times 10^{68}m`$, a number way below the Planck length, which a fortiori  renders the argument for a minimal length postulate suspect. As initially raised by the authors themselves, we may therefore question whether their approach to the classical limit is unique in a non-commutative space. It may be safer to adhere to a pure quantum mechanical system for an analysis, as we have done here for the hydrogen-like atom.

In a different setting, where the space-time non-commutativity is characterized by $`[x_\mu ,x_\nu ]=i\theta _{\mu \nu }`$, where $`\theta `$ is a set of external parameters, effects on the fine structures of the hydrogen atom were estimated to yield $`|\theta _{\mu \nu }|100Gev/c`$,  which is comparable to ours. However, it should be pointed out that rotational invariance is violated in their considerations. In our analysis, space is still isotropic and the hydrogen system is a closed one.

After we finished this work, we were made aware that the effects of a minimal length on the hydrogen atom had been considered by other authors . Their results differ from ours. Brau assumed that $`\beta ^{}=2\beta `$ and as one can see immediately the coordinates commute to first order in $`\beta `$. Therefore, a coordinate representation can be defined. He took the hydrogen atom Hamiltonian in the coordinate representation as the fundamental one. For us, the Hamiltonian in the momentum representation is basic and no relationship is assumed between $`\beta `$ and $`\beta ^{}`$. There is no unitary transformation which connects these two representations, if one just focuses on our momentum representation (eq. (8)) for $`X_i`$ and his for momentum operator in x-space

$$P_i\mathrm{\Psi }(x)_{Brau}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{x_i}(1+\beta (\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{x})^2)\mathrm{\Psi }(x)_{Brau},$$

except when $`\beta ^{}=2\beta `$ also, or when $`\beta =0`$. In ref. shifts in energy levels are due to change in the kinectic energy term, whereas ours are due to a change in the effective charge, as stated earlier. The two effects are opposite in sign.

The choice of the momentum representation made in this paper is more appropriate for this problem since there is a minimum position uncertainity involved. Moreover both this paper and ref. have as a basis that the momenta are commuting and then obtain eq.(5) from eq.(3) and the Jacobi identity. Furthur, our results are not restricted in parameter space.

We are grateful to Paul Berman and Haibin Wang for a discussion. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy.