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# The iron 𝐾_𝛼-line diagnostics of a rotational black hole metric

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Organizers of the Xth ICRA Workshop and especially prof. V. Gurzadyan for the kind and warm hospitality in Rome and Pescara. AFZ would like to thank Dipartimento di Fisica Universita di Lecce and INFN, Sezione di Lecce where the final version of the paper was prepared. This work was supported in part by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project N 00-02-16108).


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# References

Controlled switching of discrete solitons in waveguide arrays

Rodrigo A. Vicencio and Mario I. Molina

Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile

Yuri S. Kivshar

Nonlinear Physics Group, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia

## Abstract

We suggest an effective method for controlling nonlinear switching in arrays of weakly coupled optical waveguides. We demonstrate the digitized switching of a narrow input beam for up to eleven waveguides in the engineered waveguide arrays.

OCIS codes: 190.0190, 190.4370, 190.5530

Discrete optical solitons were first suggested theoretically as stationary nonlinear localized modes of a periodic array of weakly coupled optical waveguides .$`^\text{?}`$ Because the use of discrete solitons promises an efficient way to control multi-port nonlinear switching in a system of many coupled waveguides, this field has been extensively explored theoretically .$`^{\text{?}\text{}\text{?}\text{}\text{?}\text{}\text{?}}`$ More importantly, the discrete solitons have also been generated experimentally in fabricated periodic waveguide structures .$`^{\text{?}\text{}\text{?}}`$

The most common theoretical approach to study discrete optical solitons in waveguide arrays is based on the decomposition of the electric field in the periodic structure into a sum of weakly coupled fundamental modes excited in each waveguide of the array. According to this approach, the wave dynamics can be described by an effective discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (DNLS) equation, that possesses spatially localized stationary solutions in the form of localized modes of a lattice model. Many properties of the discrete optical solitons can be analyzed in the framework of the DNLS equation .$`^{\text{?, ?, ?, ?}}`$

One of the major problems for achieving the controllable multi-port steering of discrete optical solitons in waveguide arrays is the existence of an effective periodic potential which appears due to the lattice discreteness, known as the Peierls-Nabarro (PN) potential. It represents the energy cost associated with a shift of a nonlinear localized mode by a half of the waveguide spacing .$`^\text{?}`$ Its magnitude can be roughly estimated as $`|A|^4`$, where $`A`$ is the soliton amplitude. As a consequence of this potential, a narrow large-amplitude discrete soliton does not propagate in the lattice and it becomes trapped by the array. Several ideas to exploit the discreteness properties of the array for the optical switching were suggested ,$`^{\text{?}\text{}\text{?}}`$ including the demonstration of the output channel selection for the multi-port devices. However, the soliton steering and switching is well controlled only in the limit of broad beams whereas the soliton dynamics in highly discrete arrays has been shown to be more complicated .$`^\text{?}`$ In this Letter, we suggest a “discreteness engineering” approach and demonstrate how to achieve highly controllable multi-port soliton switching in the arrays by a desired integer number of waveguides, the so-called “digital soliton switching”.

We consider a standard model of the waveguide arrays with a modulated coupling described by the normalized DNLS equation of the form,

$$i\frac{du_n}{dz}+V_{n+1}u_{n+1}+V_{n1}u_{n1}+\gamma |u_n|^2u_n=0,$$
(1)
where $`u_n`$ is the effective envelope of the electric field in the $`n`$-th waveguide and $`z`$ is the propagation distance. Unlike the standard models ,$`^{\text{?, ?, ?, ?}}`$ the coupling $`V_n`$ between two neighboring guides is assumed to vary, either through the effective propagation constant or by changing the spacing between neighboring guides. The parameter $`\gamma =\omega _0n_2/(cA_{\mathrm{eff}})`$ is the effective waveguide nonlinearity associated with the Kerr nonlinearity of the core material.

The steering and trapping of discrete solitons in the framework of the model (1) have been analyzed in many studies. Being kicked by an external force, the discrete soliton can propagate through the lattice for some distance, but then it gets trapped due to the effect of discreteness. For a larger force, the output soliton position fluctuates between two (or more) neighboring waveguides making the switching uncontrollable .$`^\text{?}`$ Here, we suggest to modulate the waveguide coupling in order to achieve a controllable output and to engineer the switching results. The key idea is to break a symmetry between the beam motion to the right and left at the moment of trapping; this allows the elimination of chaotic trapping observed in homogeneous arrays .$`^\text{?}`$ In this way, we achieve a controllable digitized switching where the continuous change of the input beam amplitude results in a quantized displacement of the output beam by an integer number of waveguides.

We have tested different types of modulation in the array parameters and the corresponding structures of array super-lattices. An example of one of the optimized structures is shown in Fig. 1, where we modulate the coupling parameter $`V_n`$ in a step-like manner. We also notice that the use of a linear ramp potential (e.g. of the form $`V_n=an`$) for this purpose does not lead to an effective switching but, instead, makes the soliton switching even more chaotic due to the phenomenon of Bloch oscillations which become randomized in the nonlinear regime .$`^\text{?}`$

We select the input profile in the form of a narrow sech-like beam localized only on a few waveguides,

$$u_n(0)=A\mathrm{sech}[A(nn_c)/\sqrt{2}]e^{ik(nn_c)},$$
(2)
for $`nn_c=0,\pm 1`$, and $`u_n=0`$, otherwise. For the particular results presented below, we select the array of $`101`$ waveguides and place the beam at the middle position, $`n_c=50`$. The maximum normalized propagation distance used in our simulations is $`z_{\mathrm{max}}=45`$ (in units of the coupling length).

Parameter $`k`$ in the ansatz (2) has the meaning of the transverse steering velocity of the beam, in analogy with the continuous approximation. It describes the value of an effective kick of the beam in the transverse direction at the input, in order to achieve the beam motion and shift into one of the neighboring (or other desired) waveguide outputs.

In our simulations, we control the numerical accuracy by monitoring two conserved quantities of the model (2), the soliton power $`P=_n|u_n(z)|^2`$, and the system Hamiltonian, $`H=_n\left\{V_n(u_nu_{n+1}^{}+u_n^{}u_{n+1})+(\gamma /2)|u_n|^4\right\}`$.

The input condition (2) is not an exact stationary solution of the discrete equation (1) even for $`k=0`$, and as the input kick ($`k0`$) forces the soliton to move to the right ($`k<0`$) or left ($`k>0`$), the motion is accompanied by some radiation. The effective lattice discreteness can be attributed to an effective periodic PN potential. Due to both the strong radiation emission and the PN barrier which should be overtaken in order to move the beam, the discrete soliton gets trapped at one of the waveguides in the array, as shown in Fig. 2. In most cases, the shift of the beam position to the neighboring waveguide is easy to achieve, as shown in many studies .$`^\text{?}`$ However, the soliton switching becomes rather complicated and even chaotic when the kicking force becomes stronger.

We have studied many different regimes of the soliton multi-port switching in the array and revealed that the most effective switching in a desired waveguide position (i.e. desired output) can be achieved by varying the coupling between waveguides, either through the effective propagation constant or by changing the spacing between neighboring guides, as shown in Fig. 1. This $`V_n`$ profile was obtained after performing a numerical sweep in $`V_n`$ and $`A`$ for fixed momentum $`k`$. In this case, the selection of a finite value of the steering parameter $`k`$ allows to switch the whole beam into a neighboring waveguide, as shown in Fig. 2, with only a small amount of radiation. By decreasing the amplitude of the input pulse at a fixed value of the steering parameter, fixed to be say $`k=\pm 0.9`$, it is possible to achieve self-trapping of the soliton beam at some (short) distance from the initial center at different waveguide position. Due to the step-like modulated coupling, we create a selection between the beam motion to the right and left at the moment of trapping thus suppressing or eliminating the chaotic trapping observed in homogeneous waveguide arrays. In this way, we achieve a controllable digitized nonlinear switching where the continuous change of the amplitude of the input beam results in a quantized displacement of the output beam by an integer number of waveguides. Consequently, for the parameters discussed above we observe almost undistorted switching up to eleven waveguides, and Fig. 3 shows an example of the digital soliton switching to the eleventh waveguide .$`^\text{?}`$

Figure 4 gives a summary of the results for the parameters discussed above; it shows the discrete position of the soliton at the output as a function of the input beam amplitude, for two fixed values of the steering parameter $`k=\pm 0.9`$. In a remarkable contrast with other studies, the coupling modulation allows a controllable digitized switching in the array with very little or no distortion. The figure also shows a slight asymmetry in the final displacement, depending on whether the beam is kicked uphill or downhill.

If we were to use five guides instead of three for the input beam, one could expect a smaller amount of radiation emitted. However, this would imply a longer distance before the beam gets trapped by one of the waveguides in the array due to the effective Peierls-Nabarro potential. Also, this means that one could in principle switch the soliton beam to any desired waveguide in the waveguide array, no matter how far; it would be just a matter of choosing an initial beam wide enough, i.e., closer to the continuum limit (in addition to the optimization of the coupling in a step-wise manner) by removing the random selection between the directions and suppressing the beam random switching.

Another observation is that the sech-like initial profile is not really fundamental. A (kicked) nonlinear impurity-like profile of the form $`u_n(0)=A[(1A^2)/(1+A^2)]^{|nn_c|/2}\mathrm{exp}[ik(nn_c)]`$ will also show similar behavior, as our additional computations show. The reason for this behavior seems to rest on the observation that, for any system with local nonlinearity, a narrow initial profile will effectively render the system into a linear one containing a small nonlinear cluster (or even a single site); the bound state will therefore strongly resemble the one corresponding to a nonlinear impurity.$`^\text{?}`$

In conclusion, we have suggested a novel approach to achieve a digitized switching in waveguide arrays by using the concept of discrete optical solitons. Our approach involves a weak step-like modulation of the coupling strength (or, equivalently, distance between the waveguides) in the arrays with the period larger than the waveguide spacing. Such a super-lattice structure allows the modification of trapping properties of the waveguide array due to discreteness which in turn permits engineering of the strength of the effective trapping potential. We have demonstrated numerically the controlled switching up to eleven waveguides in the arrays by using very narrow input beams localized on three waveguides only.

R. A. Vicencio acknowledges support from a Conicyt doctoral fellowship. M.I. Molina and Yu. S. Kivshar acknowledge support from Fondecyt grants 1020139 and 7020139. In addition, Yu.S. Kivshar acknowledges the warm hospitality of the Department of Physics of the University of Chile.

Figure Captions

Fig. 1. Example of the optimized modulation of the propagation constant $`V_n`$ in the waveguide array.

Fig. 2. One-site switching of a discrete soliton in the waveguide array with the modulated coupling shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 3. Discrete switching by eleven sites in the waveguide array modulated according to Fig. 1.

Fig. 4. Soliton switching in a waveguide array with an optimized coupling. Shown is the soliton output displacement as a function of the input beam amplitude (A). A step size of 0.0005 separates consecutive points.


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# The pair production of charmed mesons in the photon-photon interaction.

## Introduction

Recent years the big volume of work devoted to the experimental study of the photon-photon interactions, in particular, to the study of the photonic production of the charmed particles was carried out at the accelerator LEP. In this connection, and also in connection with prospects for construction of the largest $`e^+e^{}`$-collider TESLA (DESY) there is a necessity of the detailed discussion of the photon-photon interaction mechanisms at large energies. In the given work we shall consider some questions concerning the photonic production of heavy quarks, namely, we shall discuss features of the exclusive and the inclusive charmed meson pair production and estimate its contribution into the total cross section of the charm production. In the frame work of the constituent quark model (CQM) we shall show, that the light valence quark inside D-meson plays the essential role not only in the hardonization process, but also in the hard production of the heavy quark. Because of strong interaction of the photonic field with the light quark charge the similar situation is kept even in a limit $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$.

It is worth to notice, that for the exclusive pair production of the charmed meson in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation CQM and the heavy quark effective theory (HQET) give the same prediction for $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$. Nevertheless at the conventional values of masses of the light and heavy quarks the results of CQM for the $`e^+e^{}`$-interactions strongly differ from the results of the HQET.

## 1 The pair production of the charmed mesons in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation.

We begin our article with the discussion of the heavy meson production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation, because it is the most simple process, and because it is considered in detail in the literature.

The work presents one of the first attempts to formulate the HQET for the case of the $`D`$-meson production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation. The neglect of spin-spin interaction between the heavy and light quarks, which is suppressed as $`1/m_Q`$, has allowed to obtain the interesting ratio for the pair production of $`D`$ and $`D^{}`$-meson near the threshold (see the Appendix):

$$\sigma _{D\overline{D}}:\sigma _{D\overline{D}^{}+D^{}\overline{D}}:\sigma _{D^{}\overline{D}^{}}=1:4:7$$
(1)
More detailed analysis of the exclusive $`D\overline{D}`$-pair production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-interaction on the basis of the CQM, was carried out in work . It is worth to remind, that CQM is based on the assumptions, that in the partonic distributions of the final meson there are the valence quark contributions, and that both valence quarks are produced in the hard process followed by the fusion of these quarks into the meson.

The analytical expressions for the exclusive meson pair production look as follows :

$$\sigma (e^+e^{}(Q\overline{q})_P(\overline{Q}q)_P)=\frac{\pi ^3\alpha _s^2(4m_q^2)\alpha _{em}^2}{3^74m_q^6}\frac{m_Q^2}{M^2}f_P^4(1v^2)v^3\times $$

$$\times \left\{3e_Q\left(\frac{2m_q}{m_Q}1+v^2\right)3e_q\left[2(1v^2)\frac{m_q}{m_Q}\right]\frac{m_q^3\alpha _s(m_Q^2)}{m_Q^3\alpha _s(4m_q^2)}\right\}^2,$$
(2)
$$\sigma (e^+e^{}(Q\overline{q})_P(\overline{Q}q)_V)=\frac{\pi ^3\alpha _s^2(4m_q^2)\alpha _{em}^2}{3^74m_q^6}\frac{m_Q^2}{M^2}f_P^2f_V^2(1v^2)v^3\left[3e_Q+3e_q\frac{m_q^3\alpha _s(m_Q^2)}{m_Q^3\alpha _s(4m_q^2)}\right]^2,$$
(3)
$$\sigma (e^+e^{}(Q\overline{q})_V(\overline{Q}q)_V)=\frac{\pi ^3\alpha _s^2(4m_q^2)\alpha _{em}^2}{3^74m_q^6}f_V^4(1v^2)v^3[3e_Q3e_q\frac{m_q^3\alpha _s(m_Q^2)}{m_Q^3\alpha _s(4m_q^2)}]^2\times $$

$$\times \left[3(1v^2)+(1+v^2)(1a)^2+\frac{a^2}{2}(1v^2)(13v^2)\right],$$
(4)
where $`m_q`$ and $`m_Q`$ are masses of the light and heavy quarks correspondingly; $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$ are leptonic coupling constants for the pseudoscalar and vector meson states correspondingly; $`M=m_q+m_Q`$; $`v=\sqrt{14M^2/s}`$; and the parameter $`a`$ is expressed by the formula:

$$a=\frac{m_Q}{M}\frac{1\frac{e_q}{e_Q}\frac{m_q^4}{m_Q^4}\frac{\alpha _s(4m_Q^2)}{\alpha _s(4m_q^2)}}{1\frac{e_q}{e_Q}\frac{m_q^3}{m_Q^3}\frac{\alpha _s(4m_Q^2)}{\alpha _s(4m_q^2)}}.$$

At $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ the ratio of the cross sections on the threshold looks like:

$$\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}=1:4\frac{f_V^2}{f_P^2}:7\frac{f_V^4}{f_P^4}.$$
(5)
Thus if one neglects the difference between the values of $`f_V`$ and $`f_P`$, then(5) coincides with(1).

The heavy quark effective theory predicts the ratio which at a threshold also coincides with (1):

$$(1+h):\frac{s}{M^2}:3\left(1+\frac{s}{3M}+h\right),$$

where the $`\alpha _s`$ -correction has the following form:

$$h=\frac{2\alpha _s}{3\pi }\sqrt{1\frac{4M^2}{s}}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{s}{2M^2}1+\frac{s}{2M^2}\sqrt{1\frac{4M^2}{s}}\right).$$

The four Feynmann diagrams of $`O(\alpha _s^2\alpha _{em}^2)`$ order contribute to the cross sections (2), (3), (4) (see Fig.1) . These diagrams can be separated into two gauge invariant pairs. The first pair (two top diagrams of Fig.1) corresponds to the interaction of the virtual photon with the heavy quark and is proportional to the heavy quark charge squared. The value of $`\alpha _s`$ for this diagram pair is calculated at the scale of $`4m_q^2`$, because the gluonic propagator couples with the two light quarks. The second diagram pair (the two bottom diagrams of the Fig. 1) corresponds to the interaction of virtual photon with the light quark and is proportional to the light quark charge. For these diagrams $`\alpha _s`$ is calculated at the scale $`4m_Q^2`$. It is clear, that this contribution is suppressed by the factor $`m_q^2/m_Q^2`$ due to the gluonic propagator coupled with the pair of heavy quarks.

One can see from (2), (3), (4) , that at $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ it is possible to neglect the interaction of the light quark with the initial virtual photon. It is necessary to note, that the contribution of that interaction is small already for the masses of constituents of the $`D`$-meson (for present calculations the following values of masses were chosen: $`m_c=1.8`$ GeV and $`m_q=0.2`$ GeV). However, the spin-spin interaction at these values of masses plays the essential role and brakes the ratio (1):

$$\sigma _{D\overline{D}}:\sigma _{D\overline{D}^{}+D^{}\overline{D}}:\sigma _{D^{}\overline{D}^{}}1:8:14.$$

So, the $`D\overline{D}`$-pair production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation occurs as follows: a pair of heavy quarks is produced in a hard process, and then these quarks are hadronized by means of interaction with the light quark sea. It is worth to remind, that in the inclusive production of $`D`$-mesons in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation, where the fragmentation mechanism can be applied , the $`c`$-quarks are hadronized by the same manner. Thus, the role of light quark in the hard process of the $`c`$-quark production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation is insignificant. On the contrary, in the photon-photon production the light quark role is essential as will be shown bellow.

## 2 The exclusive $`D\overline{D}`$-pair production in the photon-photon interaction

In the framework of the CQM the photonic exclusive production of two charmed mesons is described by twenty Feynmann tree level diagrams (see the Fig. 2), which can be separated into three gauge invariant groups. The first of them corresponds to a case when the heavy quark radiate the gluon which splits into a pair of light quarks (diagrams 1-6 of the Fig. 2). The contribution of this group is proportional to the square of the heavy quark charge. In the second group of diagrams (the diagram 7-12), on the contrary, the heavy quark production occurs by means of the splitting of the gluon which is radiated by the light quark. These diagrams are proportional to the square of the light quark charge and suppressed by the factor $`m_q^2/m_Q^2`$ due to the gluonic propagator which is proportional to $`1/m_Q^2`$.

In the third group of diagrams (the diagram of 13-20 Fig. 2) each pair of quarks is connected to its “own“ $`\gamma `$-quantum. Our calculations show, that the interaction of the light quark with the initial photon field described by these diagrams is not suppressed and plays the essential role in the exclusive pair production of the charmed meson in the photon-photon interaction. This interaction leads to the discrepancy between the predictions of HQET and CQM, which is not negligible even at $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$. Moreover, the interaction of the light constituent quark with the initial photon is so large, that HQET can not be applied in this case.

Nevertheless, if one puts the light quark charge equal to zero in our calculations (this case corresponds to the rejection of the diagrams of the second and third groups, i.e. 7-20 of Fig. 2) then the conformity between CQM and HQET is restored. Thus, at zero charge of the light quark and $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ we have received on the threshold the following ratio:

$$\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}=1:0:3,$$
(6)
predicted in the work, where the approach  is applied to the case of photonic production (see Appendix). If the light quark charge is differ from zero then its interaction with the photonic field becomes essential for the $`D\overline{D}`$-pair production. Moreover, our calculation show, that $`m_Q\mathrm{}`$ and $`2m_Q/s1`$ lead to $`\sigma _{VV}/\sigma _{PP}\mathrm{}.`$ It means that the mechanism of the exclusive production based on the production of the heavy quark pair followed by their hadronization appears not valid. As it is shown in the work , such approach is not valid in the case of the inclusive production too.

In the Fig. 3 we present the exclusive cross sections of the photonic pair production of the charmed mesons $`\sigma _{PP}`$ (open circles), $`\sigma _{PV}`$ (open triangles), $`\sigma _{VV}`$ (open squares) calculated by us in the framework of the CQM as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{s}\sqrt{s_{th}}`$ with the following values of parameters:

$$m_c=1.5\mathrm{GeV};$$

$$m_q=0.3\mathrm{GeV};$$

$$\alpha _s=0.3.$$

As well as in the case of production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation, the cross sections $`\sigma _{PP}`$, $`\sigma _{PV}`$ and $`\sigma _{VV}`$ are proportional to $`f_P^4`$, $`f_P^2f_V^2`$ and $`f_V^4`$, accordingly.

The values of $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$ estimated in the frame work of the sum rules, as well as in the frame work of the lattice calculations are about $`f_Pf_V200300\mathrm{MeV}`$. However, the absolute normalization of the cross sections in our model depends not only on these constants, but also on the light quark mass. The variation of the light quark mass can result in the change of the cross section normalization.

On the other hand, we can normalize the values of $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$ on the base of the fragmentation probability $`cD^{}`$ in the $`e^+e^{}`$-interaction at large energies ($`W(cD^{})=0.22`$). Thus the values of $`m_q`$ and $`f_{P,V}`$ appear correlated to each other, that allows to minimize the cross section uncertainty within 2-2.5. However, with such normalization the constant $`f_{P,V}`$ appears overestimated at all reasonable values of the light quark mass. We believe, that this overestimate of the constant $`f_{P,V}`$ is due to the account for the contribution of the excited state decays, for example, of $`D^{}D^{}+X`$. In the exclusive production such situation should not be observed. Thus, the question of the absolute normalization for the exclusive channels remains open and the values in Fig.3 should be considered as the top limit of the cross section. For all conclusions connected to the relative yield of $`D`$-mesons the discussed circumstances are not essential.

Let us notice, that near the threshold $`\mathrm{\Delta }|k|^2/M`$, where $`|k|`$ is the module of three-momentum of the final meson in the center-of-mass frame of the charmed meson pair. The twice logarithmic scale of the picture reveals, that the cross section depends on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ near the threshold as:

$$\sigma _{VV},\sigma _{PP}\mathrm{\Delta }^{1/2}|k|,$$

$$\sigma _{PV}\mathrm{\Delta }^{3/2}|k|^3.$$

The point is that in the $`\gamma \gamma `$-interaction the $`D\overline{D}`$\- and $`D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$-pairs are produced in S-wave state (L=0), and $`D\overline{D}^{}`$-pairs are produced in P-wave state (L=1). It is known, that near the threshold the behavior of reactions with two particles in the final state submits to the law:

$$\sigma |k|^{2L+1}.$$
(7)
The diagrams of Fig.2 which describes the processes $`\gamma \gamma D\overline{D}`$, $`\gamma \gamma D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$, $`\gamma \gamma D\overline{D}^{}`$ are written at the quark level and the "twisting" of the final mesons into the necessary wave occurs automatically. Hence, the observable behavior of the cross sections near threshold is the additional confirmation of the calculation correctness.

It is apparent from Fig. 3, that the HQET ratio (6) is broken. Our calculations show, that near the threshold

$$\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}1:0:13.4.$$

It is interesting to consider the case when the interaction of the light quark with the initial photon can be neglected i.e. when the electric charge of the light quark is put equal to zero. The black markers in Fig. 3 show the results of the calculations of the charmed meson pair production cross sections at a zero light quark charge. One can see, that near the threshold the ratio $`\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}`$ is practically the same as predicted by (6). It is interesting to mention, that the contribution from the interaction between the photon and the light quark can be positive (the case of $`D^{}\overline{D}^{}`$-pair production), as well as negative (the case of $`D\overline{D}`$ or $`D^{}\overline{D}`$ -pair production). Let us note also, that contribution of this interaction has the minimal absolute value for the $`D^{}\overline{D}`$ -pair production, i.e. when the mesons are formed in the $`P`$-wave state.

The extremely essential role of the light quark in the charmed meson production can be understood from the difference between the production of neutral mesons and the charged ones. This difference can be clearly seen in Fig. 4, where the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-dependence of the neutral meson cross section (the black markers) is shown in comparison with the same dependence for charged mesons (the open ones). For example, near the threshold for the charged mesons $`\sigma _{D^+D^{}}:\sigma _{D^+D^{}}1:13.4`$ in the contrary to $`\sigma _{D^0\overline{D}^0}:\sigma _{D^0\overline{D}^0}1:2.7`$ for the neutral ones.

It is necessary to note, that the least difference between the charged and neutral meson production is observed for the production of $`D\overline{D}^{}`$-pairs i.e. when the mesons are produced in the P-wave state.

The more striking differences can be observed between the neutral and charged B-meson production. In Fig. 5 the production cross section of the neutral B-meson is given as a function of $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{s}\sqrt{s_{th}}`$ for $`m_b=5`$ Gev and $`m_q=0.2`$. In the case of D-meson production the cross section dependences on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ have the qualitatively identical form both for the charged particles and for the neutral ones (see Fig. 4). For the B-meson production it is not so. One can see in Fig. 5, that at $`\mathrm{\Delta }0.12`$ GeV ($`|k|0.8`$ GeV) the interferential minimum is observed for the production of two charged pseudo-scalar mesons $`B^+`$ and $`B^{}`$ and not observed for the pair production of the neutral pseudo-scalar mesons $`B^0`$ and $`\overline{B}^0`$.

So, for all interaction energies it is necessary to take into account the light quark contribution into the photonic production of heavy mesons. The models which are not taking into account this contribution can not be applied even for the qualitative description of the considered process. It is clear from the analysis of the photonic pair production of the heavy mesons, that the naive ideas which transferred from the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation appear not valid. For the processes $`\gamma \gamma D\overline{D}`$ and $`\gamma \gamma B\overline{B}`$ the role of light quarks appears essential both in the soft process of the hadronization and in the hard pair production of the heavy quarks. Unfortunately, the experimental data on the heavy meson pair production near threshold do not exist yet. Such data could throw light on the dynamics of production of mesons with the heavy quarks.

## 3 The inclusive heavy meson production in the photon-photon interaction

As it was already mentioned, the exclusive heavy meson production data would allow to compare the predictions of various models, however the opportunities of experiment in this direction of researches are strongly limited. For today the majority of measurements are made for the inclusive $`D`$-meson production. To describe this process a number of the calculations is carried out in the framework of NLO QCD for the massive c-quarks , as well as for c-quarks . These calculations result in the satisfactory description of the data, however, the use of the fragmentation mechanism result in specific predictions for the relative yield of charged and neutral mesons. In these models the $`D^{}`$-yield does not depend on the meson type: $`\sigma _{D^0}=\sigma _{D^+}`$.

Let us consider now the prediction of our model for the inclusive heavy meson production cross section. The diagrams we need are analogous to the ones of Fig. 2. The only difference is that the second pair of heavy and light quarks is not fused in the meson. Thus we take into account the resonant part of the spectrum for one quark pair and the continuum for another. To calculate the inclusive production cross section we use the values of parameters which describes the photoproduction of the $`D^{}`$-mesons on the accelerator HERA , as well as in our calculation of the exclusive charmed meson production. To estimate the inclusive production cross section we shall take into account the octet contribution which is absent in the exclusive production. In the case of the photonic inclusive production of $`D`$-mesons the octet contribution differs from the singlet one only in the general coefficient. If one use the parameters, from , then the octet contribution amounts 16% of the total cross section of the $`D`$-meson production.

One can see from Fig. 6 that our predictions for the inclusive production describe L3 experiment data in the order of magnitude (open circles). As our calculations show, the nonzero light quark charge results in the value of ratio $`\sigma _{D^+}/\sigma _{D^0}`$ differ from unit. This is valid for the inclusive production too: our calculations show, that the inclusive $`D^0`$-meson yield approximately twice surpasses the yield of the $`D^+`$-meson, while the fragmentation model predicts $`\sigma _{D^+}/\sigma _{D^0}=1`$.

At energies larger than 15 GeV (the range where $`c\overline{q}`$-pair produced mainly at large invariant masses) the total cross section calculated in our model begins to decrease and underestimate the experimental data. In this energy range it is not enough to consider the resonant contribution (open triangles), and it is necessary to take into account the contribution of continuum (open squares). To calculate the contribution of the continuum we do not fuse now the light quarks with the $`c`$-quarks: $`\gamma \gamma c\overline{c}q\overline{q}`$. In the conception of structure functions the considered mechanism means the account of the hadronic structures of the photon. Our approach allow to take into account only a part of the photon structure. That is why we underestimate the production cross section, and the additional part of the photon structure function is necessary to total value of the cross section. We expect for the contribution of continuum, that the yields of the charged mesons and neutral ones should be identical. Thus the ratio $`\sigma _{D^+}/\sigma _{D^0}`$ could serve as a good indication of the production mechanism. The calculations which have been carried out in the works  show that the use of the total structure function allows to describe experimental data well.

## Conclusion

In the framework of CQM we have analysed the exclusive production of the heavy mesons in the $`\gamma \gamma `$-collisions near the threshold, as well as the inclusive heavy meson production at high energies. Near the threshold we have calculated the relative contribution of the different meson pairs and have found out that the calculation results essentially depends on the electric charge of the light constituent quark. For zero electric charge of the light quark we obtain, that the production process looks like the heavy quark production followed hadronization according to HQET. At the real values of charges the strong deviation from the predictions of the HQET takes place. Thus, our analysis of the photon-photon production of the heavy meson pairs shows, that the naive conception which is transferred from the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation appear not valid. In the processes $`\gamma \gamma D\overline{D}`$ and $`\gamma \gamma B\overline{B}`$ the role of the light quarks is essential both in the soft hadronization process and in the hard process of the heavy quark pair production. Unfortunately, in the framework of our model it is impossible to use the same values of constants $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$ to calculate both the exclusive channel and the inclusive one. The use of the values of $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$, which describes process $`\gamma pD^{}+X`$, leads to the large overestimate of the production cross section near the threshold. We suppose, that such overestimation takes place because the values $`f_P`$ and $`f_V`$ effectively account for the contributions from the decays of the excited states, for example, from the decay $`D^{}D^{}+X`$. So, these values can not be applied to the case of the exclusive meson production. Nevertheless, our model gives reasonable estimation of the relative contributions into the cross section of the different heavy meson pairs ($`D^0\overline{D}^0`$, $`D^0\overline{D}^0`$, $`\overline{D}^0D^0`$, $`D^0\overline{D}^0`$, $`D^+D^{}`$, $`D^+\overline{D}^{}`$, $`D^{}D^+`$, $`D^+D^{}`$), as well as reasonable predictions of the dependence of the cross section on the interaction energy and the shape of the differential distributions.

Also in the framework of the CQM we calculated the cross section of the inclusive charmed meson production in the photon-photon interaction. The cross section prediction of the inclusive production calculated in the frame work of CQM is in accordance with the experiment data at low energies of the $`\gamma \gamma `$-interactions if one choose the parameter values which describes the process $`\gamma pD^{}+X`$ at HERA . It is not unexpected for us because the contribution of the low $`\gamma g`$-interaction energies is the most essential for the $`D^{}`$-meson photoproduction at the accelerator HERA . The continuum contribution should increase as a function of the interaction energy. Thus at large energies the character of the calculations should be the same, as in the works , which explain the cross section increasing for the process $`\gamma \gamma c\overline{c}`$ with the help of the account for the contribution of the light constituents in the initial photon structure.

The work is supported in part by the grants of RFBR 99-02-6558 and 00-15-96645, the grant of the Education Ministry of Russian Federation E00-33-062 and the grant CRDF MO-001-0.

## Appendix

In the given appendix we show how to derive the ratio $`\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}`$ near the threshold for the heavy meson production in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation, as well as in the $`\gamma \gamma `$ \- interaction in the approach of the heavy quark effective theory.

Let us accept the following designations:

$`Q_{+()}`$ ($`\overline{Q}_{+()}`$) is the wave function of the heavy quark (antiquark) with the spin projection $`+1/2(1/2)`$ on the chosen axis;

$`q_{+()}`$ ( $`\overline{q}_{+()}`$) is the wave functions of the light quark (antiquark).

In the framework of HQET the heavy quarks are produced in the $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation the by means of the virtual photon decay, so, these quarks are in $`J^P=1^{}`$ state. The spin part of the wave function of such state can be expressed through the spinor wave functions of the quarks as follows:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{Q\overline{Q}}=(\mathrm{\Psi }_{Q\overline{Q}}^{+1},\mathrm{\Psi }_{Q\overline{Q}}^0,\mathrm{\Psi }_{Q\overline{Q}}^1)=(Q_+\overline{Q}_+,\frac{Q_+\overline{Q}_{}+Q_{}\overline{Q}_+}{\sqrt{2}},Q_{}\overline{Q}_{}).$$

Thus the light quarks should be in the $`0^+`$-state. This state can be obtained in the P-wave as follows:

$$\psi _{q\overline{q}}=(n_1\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^{+1}+n_0\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^0+n_{+1}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^1)/\sqrt{3},$$

where $`\widehat{n}`$ is the orbital part of the wave function of the light quark pair, and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{q\overline{q}}`$ is the spin part of the one:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{q\overline{q}}=(\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^{+1},\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^0,\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^1)=(q_+\overline{q}_+,\frac{q_+\overline{q}_{}+q_{}\overline{q}_+}{\sqrt{2}},q_{}\overline{q}_{}).$$

So, the total wave function looks like follows:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}=\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{Q\overline{Q}}(n_1\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^{+1}+n_0\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^0+n_{+1}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}^1)/\sqrt{3}.$$
(8)
The right part of equation (8) includes the products of the spinor wave functions of the quarks $`Q_{+()}\overline{q}_{+()}`$ and $`\overline{Q}_{+()}q_{+()}`$, which can be expressed through the spin functions of the final mesons:

$$P=\frac{Q_+\overline{q}_{}Q_{}\overline{q}_+}{\sqrt{2}},$$
(9)
where $`P`$ is the wave function of the pseudoscalar meson;

$$V_{+1}=Q_+\overline{q}_{+,}$$
(10)
$$V_0=\frac{Q_+\overline{q}_{}+Q_{}\overline{q}_+}{\sqrt{2}},$$
(11)
$$V_1=Q_{}\overline{q},$$
(12)
where $`P`$ and $`V`$ are the wave functions of the pseudoscalar and vector mesons, correspondingly.

One can conclude from (9) and (11) that

$$Q_+\overline{q}_{}=\frac{V_0+P}{\sqrt{2}},$$
(13)
$$Q_{}\overline{q}_+=\frac{V_0P}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(14)
From the equations (10,12,13,14) the following expressions for the components of the total wave function (8) can be derived :

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{+1}=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}(n_{+1}P\overline{P}+\{n_{+1}P\overline{V}_0+n_{+1}V_0\overline{P}+n_0P\overline{V}_{+1}+n_0V_{+1}\overline{P}\}+$$

$$+[n_{+1}V_0\overline{V}_0+n_0V_0\overline{V}_{+1}+n_0V_{+1}\overline{V}_0+2n_1V_{+1}\overline{V}_{+1}]),$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }^0=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}(n_0P\overline{P}+\{n_{+1}P\overline{V}_1+n_{+1}V_1\overline{P}n_1P\overline{V}_{+1}n_1V_{+1}\overline{P}\}+$$

$$+[n_{+1}V_0\overline{V}_1+n_{+1}V_1\overline{V}_0+n_0V_0\overline{V}_0+n_0V_{+1}\overline{V}_1+n_0V_1\overline{V}_{+1}+n_1V_{+1}\overline{V}_0+n_1V_0\overline{V}_{+1}]),$$
(16)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }^1=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}(n_1P\overline{P}\{n_1P\overline{V}_0+n_1V_0\overline{P}+n_0P\overline{V}_1+n_0V_1\overline{P}\}+$$

$$+[n_1V_0\overline{V}_0+n_0V_0\overline{V}_1+n_0V_1\overline{V}_0+2n_{+1}V_1\overline{V}_1]).$$
(17)
As we believe, that the spins of the heavy quark and the light quark do not interact with each other and with the orbital moment, the all term in the right part of the equations (15,16,17) give the identical contributions to the square of the total wave function $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ . The result (5) becomes obvious, because all these terms are orthogonal to each other.

In the case of $`\gamma \gamma `$-interactions two initial photons can be in the following states: $`0^+,`$ $`0^{},`$ $`2^+`$. And the $`0^+`$-state can be produced in the $`S`$-wave only. Since at the threshold survive contributions of the state with a minimal wave number (see (7)), we shall consider $`0^+`$. Such state can be made of two pseudo-scalar functions:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{Q\overline{Q}}=\frac{Q_+\overline{Q}_{}Q_{}\overline{Q}_+}{\sqrt{2}}$$

and

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}=\frac{q_+\overline{q}_{}q_{}\overline{q}_+}{\sqrt{2}}$$

by the following manner:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }_{Q\overline{Q}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}.$$
(18)
Using (10,12,13,14) to transform the equation (18), we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{2}(P\overline{P}+V_0\overline{V}_0V_1\overline{V}_{+1}V_{+1}\overline{V}_1),$$

whence the ratio for the photonic production near the threshold follows:

$$\sigma _{PP}:\sigma _{PV}:\sigma _{VV}=1:0:3$$


text:
# Four-manifold systoles and surjectivity of period map

## 1. Schottky problem, surjectivity conjecture, and main theorem

The work of P. Buser and P. Sarnak \[BS94\] on Riemann surfaces in connection with the Schottky problem shows that the maximum, over the moduli space, of the least conformal length of a nonseparating loop behaves logarithmically in the genus, cf. (6.1) and also M. Gromov’s result \[Gro83, Theorem $`5.5.C^{}`$\].

We provide a lower bound which is polynomial in the second Betti number, for the analogous 2-dimensional conformal systolic invariant for a 4-manifold $`X`$ with indefinite intersection form, modulo the conjectured surjectivity of the period map, targeted in the current work \[ADK\]. Our bound currently depends on such surjectivity, but see 1.3. In the case $`b^+(X)=1`$ targeted in \[ADK\], such surjectivity is expressed in Hypothesis 1.1.

Let $`(X,g)`$ be a Riemannian 4-manifold. Let $`:H_{dR}^2(X)H_{dR}^2(X)`$ be the Hodge star operator in de Rham cohomology identified with the space $``$ of harmonic 2-forms on $`X`$. Assume that $`b^+(X)=1`$, so that the selfdual subspace (i.e. the $`(+1)`$-eigenspace of the Hodge star operator) is 1-dimensional. Recall that the cup-product form in $`H^2(X)`$ is dual to the intersection form in $`H_2(X)`$.

###### Hypothesis 1.1.

For every line $`V`$ in the positive cone in $`H_{dR}^2(X)`$ defined by the cup product form, there is a metric $`g`$ on $`X`$ whose selfdual subspace is exactly $`V`$.

Given a lattice $`L`$ equipped with a norm $``$, we denote by

$$\lambda _1(L)=\lambda _1(L,)$$
(1.1)
the least norm of a nonzero lattice vector. The $`\lambda _1`$ notation fits in with the successive minima $`\lambda _i`$ of a lattice, studied in lattice theory, cf. \[GruL87, p. 58\], \[BanK03, Section 4\], and Definition 3.2.

###### Theorem 1.2.

Let $`n`$ and consider the complex projective plane blown up at $`n`$ points, $`P_n=P^2\mathrm{\#}n\overline{P}^2,`$ where bar denotes reversal of orientation, while $`\mathrm{\#}`$ is connected sum. Assume that Hypothesis 1.1 is satisfied for such manifolds. Then

$$C^1\sqrt{n}<\underset{g}{sup}\left\{\lambda _1(H^2(P_n,),||_{L^2}^{})\right\}^2<Cn,n>0,$$
(1.2)
where $`C>0`$ is a numerical constant, the supremum is over all smooth metrics $`g`$ on $`P^2\mathrm{\#}n\overline{P}^2`$, and $`||_{L^2}^{}`$ is the norm (3.1) defined by $`g`$.

Here the upper bound may be replaced by $`\frac{2}{3}(n+1)`$ by the estimate (4.3), while the lower bound, by $`\sqrt{k(n)}`$, where $`k(n)`$ is asymptotic to $`\frac{n}{2\pi e}`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, cf. Theorem 2.2. The theorem is proved in Section 11. The desired metric is specified in formula (11.1) in terms of inversion of the period map.

A number of systolic inequalities are now available in the literature. Nontrivial cup product relations lead to stable systolic inequalities \[BanK03\] (cf. inequality (4.3) below), some of them sharp \[BanK2, NV03\]. Meanwhile, nontrivial Massey products also admit systolic repercussions, cf. \[KKS\]. For ordinary (rather than stable) systoles, systolic freedom prevails as soon as we go beyond loops. Here “systolic freedom” refers to the absence of systolic inequalities, i.e. the existence of sequences of metrics violating such potential inequalities. Such a phenomenon for the middle dimensional systole was first described in detail by the author in \[Ka95B\]. M. Gromov’s original seminal example is described in \[Ber93\] and \[Gro99, p. 268\], as well as \[CrK03, section 4.2\]. Further generalisations of systolic freedom were obtained in \[BabK98\], \[Fr99\], \[KS99, KS01\], \[Bab02\], \[Ka02\]. See the recent survey \[CrK03, Figure 4.1\] for a 2-D map of systolic geometry, which places such results in mutual relation.

###### Question 1.3.

Can one eliminate the dependence of our Theorem 1.2 on the surjectivity conjecture? Recent discussions with C. LeBrun and P. Biran suggest that one may be able to remove the dependence on the conjectured surjectivity of the period map, at least in the case of the blow-ups of the projective plane, by exploiting the action of the automorphism group of the intersection form, cf. Lemma 7.1 and Remark 7.2. This would work if one can show the existence of metrics adapted to symplectic forms which represent classes from a suitable fundamental domain for the action, cf. \[Bi01, Theorem 3.2\] and Remark 9.1.

###### Question 1.4.

Can one improve the lower bound in (1.2) to linear dependence on $`n`$? Here one could envision an averaging argument, using Siegel’s formula as in \[MH73, Theorem 9.5\], over integral vectors satisfying $`q_{n,1}(v)=p`$. Here one seeks a vector $`v^{n,1}`$ such that the integer lattice $`^{n,1}^{n,1}`$ has the Conway-Thompson behavior (2.1) with respect to the positive definite form $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)`$.

###### Question 1.5.

Is there an asymptotically infinite lower bound similar to Theorem 1.2 for the stable 2-systole in place of the conformal 2-systole? This is related to understanding the discrepancy between the comass norm and the $`L^2`$ norm in 2-dimensional cohomology. Note that Remark 4.1, concerning the 1-systoles of surfaces, suggests that a priori there may exist, instead, an asymptotically vanishing upper bound for the stable 2-systole, cf. (5.2) in the definite case.

The present work is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the Conway-Thompson lattices and describes the idea of the proof. Section 3 defines the $`L^2`$-norm in cohomology, describes its relation to the intersection form, and discusses the successive minima of a lattice. Section 4 defines the conformal and stable systoles. Section 5 discusses the definite case. Note that our main Theorem 1.2 can be thought of as a higher-dimensional analogue of the Buser-Sarnak theorem, presented in Section 6. Section 7 explains a useful sign reversal relation between definite and indefinite forms. Section 8 describes a Lorentzian construction of lattices inspired by a result of J. Conway and N. Sloane, and presents a lower bound for the second successive minimum. Section 9 presents the necessary linear algebraic ingredient. Section 10 deforms a lower bound for the second successive minimum, into a lower bound for the first successive minimum. The proof is completed by a successive minimum calculation in Section 11.

## 2. Conway-Thompson lattices $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$ and idea of proof

The surjectivity of the period map (see Hypothesis 1.1) furnishes a lot of latitude in prescribing the position of the integer lattice in middle-dimensional de Rham cohomology, with respect to the $`L^2`$-norm. In particular, we show that the least norm, $`\lambda _1(H^p(X,)_{},||_{L^2}^{})`$, of a nonzero lattice element, can be made arbitrarily large as the Betti number grows. Here one relies on the existence of Euclidean unimodular lattices $`L`$ with arbitrarily high $`\lambda _1(L)`$, as well as on the (elementary) classification of indefinite odd unimodular forms, cf. (8.1). We acknowledge the influence on our approach of the Lorentzian construction (i.e. using indefinite forms) of the Leech lattice of J. Conway and N. Sloane \[CoS99, Chapter 26\], namely the following result.

###### Theorem 2.1.

(J. H. Conway, N. J. A. Sloane). If

$$t=(3,5,7,\mathrm{},45,47,51|145)$$

is a vector with $`q_{24,1}(t)=1`$ in $`I_{24,1}`$, then $`t^{}I_{24,1}`$ is a copy of the Leech lattice.

The first step of our approach can be described as adapting the Lorentzian construction by replacing the Leech lattice by the Conway-Thompson lattices. The latter are unimodular lattices which define packings of high asymptotic density. More precisely, we have the following result \[MH73, Theorem 9.5\].

###### Theorem 2.2 (Conway, Thompson).

For any dimension $`n`$, there exists a positive definite inner product space, denoted $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$, over $``$ of odd type and rank $`n`$ with

$$\underset{x0}{\mathrm{min}}x.xk(n),$$
(2.1)
where $`k(n)`$ is asymptotic to $`n/2\pi e`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

The second step of our approach is explained in Section 9.

## 3. Norms in cohomology and successive minima $`\lambda _i`$ of lattices

Let $`(X,g)`$ be a closed orientable Riemannian $`(2p)`$-dimensional manifold. Let $`H^p(X,)_{}=H_{dR}^p(X)`$ be the lattice defined as the image of $`H^p(X,)`$ in $`H^p(X,)`$ under the inclusion $``$ of coefficients, i.e. quotient by its torsion subgroup. We will sometimes delete the subscript R, by abuse of notation, when the torsion subgroup is trivial. Consider the $`L^2`$-norm $`||_{L^2}^{}`$ in $``$, defined by

$$|f|_{L^2}^2=_Xff$$
(3.1)
for each harmonic $`p`$-form $`f`$, where $``$ is the Hodge operator for the metric $`g`$. The following lemma is obvious, cf. \[FU84, Lemma 2.21\].

###### Lemma 3.1.

Let $`p`$ be even. Then the $`L^2`$-norm is related to the cup product form $`\omega (f,g)=_Xfg`$ by means of the “sign reversal” formula

$$|f|_{L^2}^2=f,f=\omega (f^+,f^+)\omega (f^{},f^{})$$
(3.2)
where $`f=f^++f^{}`$ is the decomposition given by the splitting $`=V^++V^{}`$ into the $`(\pm 1)`$-eigenspaces of the involution $``$.

Similarly to the notation of formula (7.1) below, we can restate Lemma 3.1 as follows:

$$,=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(\omega ,V^{}).$$
(3.3)
The lattice $`H^p(X,)_{}`$ is equipped with the $`L^2`$-norm defined by formula (3.1). The dual norm in the similarly defined lattice $`H_p(X,)_{}H_p(X,)`$ will also be denoted $`||_{L^2}`$.

The successive minima are defined as follows. Note that the second successive minimum is exploited in Corollary 8.1 below.

###### Definition 3.2.

Let $`i`$ be an integer satisfying $`1irk(L)`$. The $`i`$-th successive minimum $`\lambda _i(L,)`$ is the least $`\lambda >0`$ such that there exist $`i`$ linearly independent vectors in $`L`$ of norm at most $`\lambda `$:

$$\lambda _i(L,)=\underset{\lambda }{inf}\{\lambda |v_1^{},\mathrm{},v_i(l.i.):v_1\lambda ,\mathrm{},v_i\lambda \}.$$

## 4. Conformal length and systolic flavors

In this section, we define several flavors of systolic invariants of a $`(2p)`$-dimensional Riemannian manifold manifold $`(X,g)`$. The (middle dimensional) conformal $`p`$-systole, denoted $`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_p(g)`$, of the metric $`g`$, is the least norm of a nonzero element in the integer lattice in $`p`$-dimensional cohomology (or, equivalently, homology; see Remark 4.2), with respect to the $`L^2`$-norm (3.1) defined by $`g`$:

$`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_p(g)`$ $`=\lambda _1(H^p(X^{2p},)_{},||_{L^2}^{})`$
$`=\mathrm{min}\left\{|v|_{L^2}^{}|vH^p(X,)_{}\{0\}\right\}.`$
Meanwhile, the stable $`p`$-systole is the quantity

$$\mathrm{𝑠𝑡𝑠𝑦𝑠}_p(g)=\lambda _1(H_p(X^{2p},)_{},),$$

where $``$ is the stable norm in homology, dual to the comass norm in cohomology, cf. \[Fe74, 4.10\], \[BanK03\]. The conformal systole is related to the stable systole as follows:

$$\mathrm{𝑠𝑡𝑠𝑦𝑠}_p(g)\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_{2p}(g)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2p}{p}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_p(g).$$
(4.1)
Here the binomial coefficient appears due to the discrepancy between the linear comass norm and the natural Euclidean norm on the space of $`p`$-forms, cf. \[BanK03, section 7\]. In the case $`p=1`$, the binomial coefficient may be replaced by 1.

###### Remark 4.1 (1-systole asymptotics).

It should be kept in mind that the asymptotic behavior of the (stable) 1-systole as a function of the genus is completely different from the conformal systole. Thus, M. Gromov \[Gro96, 2.C\] reveals the existence of a universal constant $`C`$ such that we have an asymptotically vanishing upper bound

$$\frac{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_1(\mathrm{\Sigma }_s)^2}{\mathrm{𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎}(\mathrm{\Sigma }_s)}C\frac{(\mathrm{log}s)^2}{s},$$

for every orientable surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$ of genus $`s2`$, with a Riemannian metric, see \[CrK03, (2.9) and (2.10)\] for related bounds. In contrast, P. Buser and P. Sarnak \[BS94\] provide an asymptotically infinite lower bound for the maximum of the conformal systole over the moduli space, cf. inequality (6.1).

###### Remark 4.2 (Conformal length).

The Poincare duality map induces an isometry

$$\mathrm{𝑃𝐷}:(H^p(X,)_{},||_{L^2})(H_p(X,)_{},||_{L^2}),$$
(4.2)
proving that the integer lattice in middle dimension is isodual in the sense of \[CoS94, BeM95\]. Thus for $`p=1`$, the invariant $`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_1`$ is the conformal length of the surface.

We have the following upper bound on conformal systole:

$$\lambda _1(H^p(X^{2p},)_{},||_{L^2})^2\gamma _b<\frac{2}{3}b_p(X^{2p})\text{ for }b_p(X)2,$$
(4.3)
see \[BanK03\] for stable systolic generalisations based on multiplicative relations in cohomology, and \[CrK03\] for an overview.

## 5. Systoles of definite intersection forms

Our main result is Theorem 1.2, which may be viewed as a higher dimensional generalisation of the Buser-Sarnak theorem (6.1). We briefly discuss the definite case. Consider the family of manifolds $`nP^2`$, defined as the connected sum of $`n`$ copies of the complex projective plane with the standard orientation. Recall that these exhaust the smooth positive definite case by Donaldson’s theorem, cf. \[Ka95A\]. In contrast to Theorem 1.2, the maximal conformal systole in the definite case is bounded as the second Betti number grows:

$$\lambda _1(H^2(nP^2,),||_{L^2})=\lambda _1(H^2(nP^2,),\sqrt{\omega })=\lambda _1(^n)=1,$$
(5.1)
for every Riemannian $`nP^2`$, $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$. This is immediate from formula (3.2) which identifies the $`L^2`$-norm and the intersection form $`\omega `$ if the latter is positive definite. By inequality (4.1), we obtain the following result, pointed out by C. Lebrun: every Riemannian $`nP^2`$ satisfies the inequality

$$\mathrm{𝑠𝑡𝑠𝑦𝑠}_2\left(nP^2\right)^26\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_4\left(nP^2\right).$$
(5.2)
## 6. Buser-Sarnak theorem

Our Theorem 1.2 may be viewed as a higher dimensional analogue of the theorem of P. Buser and P. Sarnak \[BS94, formula (1.13)\]. Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$ be a closed orientable surface of genus $`s`$. Then the conformal 1-systole satisfies the bounds

$$C^1\mathrm{log}s<\underset{g}{sup}\left\{\lambda _1(H^1(\mathrm{\Sigma }_s,),||_{L^2}^{})\right\}^2<C\mathrm{log}s,s2$$
(6.1)
where $`C>0`$ is a numerical constant, the supremum is over all metrics $`g`$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$, and $`||_{L^2}^{}`$ is the norm (3.1) associated with $`g`$. An explicit upper bound of $`\frac{3}{\pi }\mathrm{log}(4s+3)`$ is provided in \[BS94, formula (1.13)\].

Note that a (weaker) upper bound of $`C\sqrt{s}`$ ( in place of $`C\mathrm{log}s`$) results from R. Lazarsfeld’s work \[La96, p. 441, Proposition, part (i)\]. The systolic quantity $`\lambda _1(H^1(\mathrm{\Sigma }_s,),||_{L^2}^{})`$ may be viewed as the conformal length of the surface, in view of the isomorphism of formula (4.2). By conformal invariance, the supremum in (6.1) may be restricted to the moduli space of hyperbolic metrics on the surface.

## 7. Sign reversal procedure $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}`$ and $`Aut(I_{n,1})`$-invariance

Let $`q`$ be an indefinite quadratic form of index $`+1`$ (i.e. with a single negative direction) on a vector space $`E`$ over $``$, and let $`vE`$ be a vector satisfying $`q(v)<0`$. Denote by $`v^{}E`$ the $`q`$-orthogonal complement of $`vE`$, or, more precisely, the $`Q`$-orthogonal complement, where $`Q(u,w)=\frac{1}{4}(q(u+w)q(uw))`$ is the polarisation of $`q`$. Thus, we have a decomposition $`E=v^{}v`$. The sign reversal, $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q,v)`$, is the positive definite form on $`E`$ obtained by reversing the sign of $`q`$ in direction $`v`$, while keeping it fixed on $`v^{}E`$:

$$\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q,v)(x)=q(x^+)q(x^{}),$$
(7.1)
where $`x=x^++x^{}`$ is the decomposition of $`xE`$ following the splitting $`E=v^{}v`$, cf. formula (3.3). Let $`^{p,q}`$ denote the standard real vector space with quadratic form

$$q_{p,q}(x)=x_1^2+\mathrm{}+x_p^2x_{p+1}^2\mathrm{}x_{p+q}^2,$$
(7.2)
and let $`I_{p,q}^{p,q}`$ denote its integer lattice. For the purposes of the proof of Theorem 1.2, it is convenient to reverse the orientation and work instead on the manifold $`nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2`$, while hoping that such a step may not prove baffling to an algebraic geometer.

Recall that the intersection form on $`nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2`$ is $`q_{n,1}`$, and the integer lattice in two-dimensional homology becomes a copy of $`I_{n,1}`$.

###### Lemma 7.1.

The invariant $`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2,g)`$ only depends on the orbit of the antiselfdual line of $`g`$ in $`H_{dR}^2\left(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2\right)`$ under the action of the automorphism group of $`I_{n,1}`$.

###### Proof.

An endomorphism $`f`$ of $`H_{dR}^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2)`$ which is an automorphism of the indefinite lattice $`I_{n,1}`$, induces an isometry of the definite form $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)`$, since $`f`$ maps the subspace $`v^_q`$ to the subspace $`f(v)^_q`$, and hence

$$\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)(x)=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},f(v))(f(x)).$$

Here if $`xI_{n,1}`$, then $`f(x)I_{n,1}`$ by the hypothesis that $`f`$ preserves the integer lattice. Now the lemma follows from the formula

$$\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_2(g)=\lambda _1(H^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2,),\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},V^{})^{\frac{1}{2}}),$$

where $`V^{}`$ is the antiselfdual direction of $`g`$. ∎

###### Remark 7.2.

Note that not all automorphisms of the intersection form can be realized by a diffeomorphism of the manifold, cf. \[Ko91\].

## 8. Lorentz construction of Leech lattice and line $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}`$

Let $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{n,0}`$ be a Conway-Thompson lattice as in Theorem 2.2, i.e. a unimodular lattice satisfying $`\lambda _1(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n)^2k(n)`$. Then the lattice $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{0,1}`$ is odd, indefinite, and unimodular, cf. (7.2) and notation there. The classification of odd indefinite unimodular forms \[MH73, p. 22\] implies that the lattice $`I_{n,1}`$ contains an isometric copy of $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$ such that the $`q_{n,1}`$-orthogonal complement of $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$ in $`I_{n,1}`$, is a copy of the line $`I_{0,1}`$. In formulas, there exists an isomorphism

$$\varphi _n:\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{0,1}I_{n,1}$$
(8.1)
preserving the bilinear forms. We will use the following suggestive notation for the line identified by isomorphism (8.1): let

$$\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}I_{n,1}$$
(8.2)
be the $`q_{n,1}`$-orthogonal complement of $`\varphi _n(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n\{0\})I_{n,1}`$.

###### Corollary 8.1.

Let $`I_{n,1}^{n,1}`$ be the integer lattice. Let $`vI_{n,1}`$ be a generator of $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}I_{n,1}`$ as in (8.2), i.e. $`v=\varphi _n(0,e)`$, where $`eI_{0,1}`$ is a generator, as in isomorphism (8.1). Consider the norm $`x_v=\sqrt{\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)(x)},`$ in the notation of formula (7.1). Then the integer lattice has successive minima $`\lambda _1(I_{n,1},_v)=+1`$, and

$$\lambda _2(I_{n,1},_v)^2k(n),$$

cf. Definition 3.2, where $`k(n)`$ is as in Theorem 2.2. In other words, all vectors of square-norm smaller than $`k(n)`$ are proportional to each other.

###### Proof.

For any lattice $`L`$ with a positive definite form, we have the identity $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(LI_{0,1},\iota (e))=LI_{1,0}`$, where $`\iota `$ is the inclusion of the second factor. In particular,

$$\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(I_{n,1},\varphi _n(\iota (e)))=\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{1,0},$$
(8.3)
proving the corollary. ∎

As an indication of how nontrivial the isomorphism $`\varphi `$ as in formula (8.1) could be, consider Theorem 2.1, which exhibits an isomorphism $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{24}I_{0,1}I_{24,1}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{24}`$ is the Leech lattice.

With an eye on the lower bound of our main Theorem 1.2, we first prove Proposition 8.2 below. Recall that the intersection form on $`nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2`$ is the diagonal form $`q_{n,1}`$, cf.  formula (7.2). Let $`\varphi _n`$ be the isomorphism (8.1).

###### Proposition 8.2.

If $`g`$ is a metric on $`nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2`$ whose antiselfdual direction is the vector $`\varphi _n(0,e)I_{n,1}`$, then all surfaces of “conformal area” smaller than $`\sqrt{k(n)}`$ with respect to $`g`$ are homologous to multiples of one another.

###### Proof.

The integer lattice in the selfdual subspace $`V^+`$ is isometric to the Conway-Thompson lattice:

$$V^+H^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2,)\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n.$$

Moreover, this copy of the Conway-Thompson lattice is a direct summand, where the second summand is isometric to $`I_{0,1}`$. The sign reversal formula (3.2) shows that the integer lattice

$$(H^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2,),SR(\omega ,\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{})^{\frac{1}{2}}),$$

is isometric to the positive definite lattice $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{1,0}`$, where $`I_{0,1}`$ has been replaced by $`I_{1,0}`$ as in formula (8.3). Thus the proposition is a restatement of Corollary 8.1. ∎

## 9. Three quadratic forms in the plane

The main result of this section is Lemma 9.3 below on the interplay of three quadratic forms in the plane, an indefinite one, $`q`$, and and a pair of definite ones, $`q_1`$ and $`q_s`$, where the parameter value $`s`$ will be judiciously chosen in (10.7).

To go beyond Proposition 8.2 and prove our theorem, the lattice $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{1,0}`$ is not sufficient, as it contains vectors of unit norm in the second summand $`I_{1,0}`$, so that the quantity $`\lambda _1(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_nI_{1,0})=1`$ is too small. In other words, we need to replace a lower bound for the successive minimum $`\lambda _2`$ of the integer lattice, by a lower bound for the successive minimum $`\lambda _1`$ for the same lattice, but with respect to a new norm. The idea is to deform appropriately the choice of the negative definite direction $`v=\varphi _n(0,e)`$, responsible for the Conway-Thompson behavior of its complement.

Thus, to prove Theorem 1.2, we will apply the surjectivity of the period map, not to the line $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}H_{dR}^2\left(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P}^2\right)`$, but rather to the image of $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}`$ under a suitable “Lorentz deformation”, cf. Figure 9.1 and formula (11.1).

###### Remark 9.1.

Since the quantity $`\lambda _1`$ (as in Definition 3.2) is continuous as a function on the space of positive definite lattices, while the form $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(\omega ,V)`$ is continuous in both parameters, and $`V^{}`$ depends continuously on the metric, it follows that Hypothesis 1.1 can be relaxed to assume the density of the image in place of surjectivity.

The argument relies on a rather crude bound on the operator norm of the deformation. The deformation needs to be sufficient to eliminate short vectors, but with operator norm controlled so as not to negate entirely the Conway-Thompson effect.

Sign reversal on the line $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}I_{n,1}`$ produces a quadratic form with respect to which most vectors are suitably long, except for a single direction. To weed out the remaining short vector, we apply a sutiable deformation, whose linear algebraic content is presented in Lemma 9.3 below.

Let $`\pi `$ be the $`xy`$-plane. Let $`e_1,e_2`$ be the standard basis and $`x,y`$ the standard coordinates. Consider the indefinite form $`q=dxdy`$, and let $`s>0`$ be a real parameter.

###### Definition 9.2.

Our “Lorentz transformation” $`A_s:\pi \pi `$ is defined by the matrix $`A_s=\left(\begin{array}{cc}s& 0\\ 0& \frac{1}{s}\end{array}\right)`$ with respect to the standard basis, and we set $`u_s=A_s(e_1+e_2)=se_1+\frac{1}{s}e_2`$ and $`v_s=A_s(e_1e_2)=se_1\frac{1}{s}e_2`$, as illustrated in Figure 9.1.

###### Lemma 9.3.

Consider the positive definite quadratic form $`q_s=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q,v_s)`$ on $`\pi `$, obtained from $`q`$ by reversing the sign in the direction $`v_s`$, as in formula (7.1). Then the map $`A_s:(\pi ,q_1)(\pi ,q_s)`$ is an isometry.

###### Proof.

Since the “Lorentz transformation” $`A_s`$ preserves $`q`$ and sends $`v_1`$ to $`v_s`$, it is clear that it also sends $`q_1`$ to $`q_s`$, but we will give a short explicit calculation. We have $`q(u_s,v_s)=0`$. Let $`(x^{},y^{})`$ be the coordinates with respect to the basis $`\{u_s,v_s\}`$ of the plane $`\pi `$. Then the two pairs of coordinates are related by $`x=s(x^{}+y^{}),y=\frac{1}{s}(x^{}y^{}).`$ Now $`q=dxdy=s(dx^{}+dy^{})\frac{1}{s}(dx^{}dy^{})=dx_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}dy_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}.`$ Therefore by definition, $`q_s=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q,v_s)=dx_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+dy_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$. Thus $`q_s(u_s,v_s)=0`$ and $`q_s(u_s)=q_s(v_s)=1`$. Similarly, the vectors $`u=e_1+e_2`$ and $`v=e_1e_2`$ form an orthonormal basis for $`q_1`$, proving the Lemma. ∎

## 10. Replacing $`\lambda _1`$ by the geometric mean $`(\lambda _1\lambda _2)^{1/2}`$

Let $`L=I_{n,1}(^{n,1},q_{n,1})`$ be the integer lattice. Let $`vL`$ be a vector satisfying $`q_{n,1}(v)=1`$ and

$$L=vv^{}I_{0,1}v^{},$$
(10.1)
where the sublattice $`(v^{},\left(q_{n,1}|_v^{}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}})`$ is positive definite. Let $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)`$ be the positive definite form obtained by sign reversal. Let $`\lambda _i=\lambda _i(L,\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v)^{\frac{1}{2}})`$ be the successive minima with respect to the new form. We have $`\lambda _1=1`$ but we will ignore this in the statement of the proposition below, so as to emphasize the geometric mean inherent in the proof. Note that

$$\lambda _2=\lambda _1(v^{},\left(q_{n,1}\right|{}_{v^{}}{}^{})^{\frac{1}{2}}).$$
(10.2)
###### Proposition 10.1.

There is a $`q_{n,1}`$-preserving transformation $`A`$ of $`^{n,1}`$ such that $`\lambda _1(L,\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},Av)^{\frac{1}{2}})\sqrt{\lambda _1\lambda _2}.`$

###### Proof.

Let $`\pi ^{n,1}`$ be any 2-plane containing the vector $`v`$ as in (10.1). We choose coordinates $`(x,y)`$ in $`\pi `$ with the following three properties:

1. the union of the $`x`$-axis and the $`y`$-axis in $`\pi `$ is the intersection of the isotropic cone of $`q_{n,1}`$ with $`\pi `$;
2. the restriction of $`q_{n,1}`$ to $`\pi `$ is the form $`q`$ of Lemma 9.3;
3. with respect to the standard basis $`e_1,e_2`$ in $`\pi `$, we have $`v=e_1e_2`$.

Now let $`s`$, and set $`v_s=se_1\frac{1}{s}e_2`$. Let $`q_s`$ be the positive definite quadratic form obtained by sign reversal $`q_s=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},v_s)`$. Thus, for $`s=1`$, replacing $`q`$ by $`q_1`$ has the effect of replacing $`I_{0,1}`$ by $`I_{1,0}`$ in the decomposition (10.1). Hence we have the following isometry of lattices:

$$(L,q_1)I_{1,0}v^{}.$$
(10.3)
We wish to understand the position of the integer lattice $`L`$ with respect to the definite form $`q_s`$ “deforming” $`q_1`$. By Lemma 9.3, the map

$$A_s\mathrm{𝐼𝑑}_\pi ^{},$$
(10.4)
also denoted $`A_s`$, is an isometry from $`q_1`$ to $`q_s`$. Thus the pullback lattice $`(A_s^1(L),q_1)`$ is isometric to $`(L,q_s)`$. We have $`A_s^1(v)=\frac{1}{s}e_1se_2`$, and hence

$$q_s(v)=q_1\left(A_s^1v\right)=q_1\left(\frac{1}{s}e_1se_2\right)=\frac{1}{s^2}+s^2s^2.$$
(10.5)
Now consider an element $`xL=vv^{}`$ which is not proportional to the generator $`v`$ of the first summand. By the Pythagorean theorem applied to formula (10.3), the element $`x`$ satisfies $`q_1(x)^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}}\lambda _1\left(v^{}\right)=\lambda _2(L,\sqrt{q_1}),`$ by formula (10.2). Meanwhile, we have the following bound on the operator norm with respect to the form $`q_1`$: $`A_s=A_s^1s,`$ and therefore

$$q_s(x)=q_1(A_s^1x)\frac{\lambda _2^2}{s^2}.$$
(10.6)
Combining (10.5) and (10.6), we obtain the lower bound $`\lambda _1(L,\sqrt{q_s})\mathrm{min}\{s,\frac{\lambda _2}{s}\}`$. Choosing the parameter value

$$s=\sqrt{\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}}=\sqrt{\lambda _2},$$
(10.7)
we complete the proof of the proposition. ∎

###### Corollary 10.2.

Let $`v=\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}L=^{n,1}`$, as in Theorem 2.2 and isomorphism (8.1). Then there is a transformation $`A=A_{k(n)^{\frac{1}{4}}}`$ of $`^{n,1}`$ such that $`\lambda _1(L,\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1},Av)^{\frac{1}{2}})k(n)^{\frac{1}{4}}.`$

## 11. Period map and proof of main theorem

We are now in a position to prove Theorem 1.2. The inequality (4.3) proves the upper bound of estimate (1.2), insofar as $`b_2(nP\mathrm{\#}\overline{P})=n+1`$. Let us write down a formula, (11.1), for a metric $`g_n`$ satisfying the lower bound. Let $`X=nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2}`$, so that $`H^2(X,)=I_{n,1}`$, with cup-form $`\omega =q_{n,1}`$. Recall that the $`L^2`$-norm in $`H^2(X,)`$ is related to the cup product form $`\omega (f,g)=_Xfg`$ by means of the “sign reversal” formula $`|f|_{L^2}^2=f,f=\omega (f^+,f^+)\omega (f^{},f^{})`$, where $`f=f^++f^{}`$ is the decomposition given by the splitting $`H^2(X,)=V^++V^{}`$ into the $`(\pm 1)`$-eigenspaces of the Hodge involution $``$. It is convenient to introduce the notation SR, for the “sign reversal” procedure, whose effect is to replace an indefinite $`(n,1)`$ form by a positive definite form: $`,=\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(\omega ,V^{}),`$ cf. formula (3.3).

By the Conway-Thompson theorem \[MH73, Theorem 9.5\], there exist positive definite unimodular lattices $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$ of rank $`n`$ satisfying $`\lambda _1(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n)^2k(n)`$, where $`k(n)`$ is asymptotic to $`\frac{n}{2\pi e}`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, while $`\lambda _1`$ is the least length of a nonzero lattice element, cf. (1.1). Furthermore, by the classification of odd indefinite unimodular forms \[MH73, p. 22\], there exists a vector $`vI_{n,1}`$ with $`q_{n,1}(v)=1`$, whose orthogonal complement with respect to the polarisation of $`q_{n,1}`$ is the lattice $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n`$. Denote by $`\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}H^2(X,)`$ the negative definite line $`v`$. Proposition 10.1 yields a Lorentzian endomorphism $`A_s`$ of $`^{n,1}`$ which replaces the first two successive minima, $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ (cf. Definition 3.2), of the lattice with respect to the definite quadratic form $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(\omega ,v)`$, by their geometric mean, when one passes to the new definite form $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(\omega ,A_sv)`$.

Let $`(X)`$ be the space of all Riemannian metrics on $`X`$, and let $`𝒢`$ be the projectivisation of the negative cone of the form $`\omega `$. Let $`𝒫:𝒢`$ be the map assigning to each metric, its antiselfdual direction. Exploiting the surjectivity of $`𝒫`$, we set

$$g_n=𝒫^1A_{k(n)^{\frac{1}{4}}}\left(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}\right),$$
(11.1)
where $`𝒫^1`$ denotes a choice of an inverse image. Finally, the lower bound results from the following calculation:

$`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑠𝑦𝑠}_2(g_n)`$ $`=\lambda _1(H^2(X),||_{L^2}^{})`$
$`=\lambda _1(H^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2},),\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1}^{},A_{k(n)^{\frac{1}{4}}}\left(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{}\right))^{\frac{1}{2}})`$
$`\sqrt{\lambda _2(H^2(nP^2\mathrm{\#}\overline{P^2},),\mathrm{𝑆𝑅}(q_{n,1}^{},\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n^{})^{\frac{1}{2}})}`$
$`=\sqrt{\lambda _1(\mathrm{𝐶𝑇}_n)}`$
$`k(n)^{\frac{1}{4}}.`$
## Acknowledgments

The author expresses appreciation to P. Biran, C. LeBrun, and S. Donaldson for insightful comments, and to the referee for a criticism of an earlier draft that was simultaneously constructive and exhaustive.