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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of the interesting possibilities concerning the origin of gravitational coupling is that it may be the result of an invariance breaking of some fundamental symmetry of nature. In recognition of such a symmetry, the first possibility may be that like other fundamental interactions, the coupling constant of gravitational interaction has its origin in a spontaneous symmetry breaking at some appropriately energy scales. In fact Zee  has employed a scalar tensor theory to show that a spontaneous symmetry breakdown at Planck scale would lead to a gravitational coupling as suggested by general relativity. In this approach one recognizes two problems: firstly, the model seems not to be consistent with Mach’s principle in the sense that after the symmetry breaking the model reduces to general relativity and specifically the gravitational coupling is given by the gravitational constantIt should be remarked that Mach’s idea on the nature of inertia has found a limited expression in general relativity. For a detailed discussion see, for example, .. The implication is that scalar tensor theories motivated by Mach’s principle  have no relevance at energy scales lower than the Planck scale. Secondly, it is well known that the proposed symmetry breaking leads to the appearance of a vacuum energy density which is enormously larger than the experimental upper limit .
There is another possibility about the kind of symmetry which may be of significance. Since gravitational coupling is a dimensional coupling, its strength can be changed by a unit transformation. Thus the corresponding symmetry which is expected to have important role is conformal symmetry. One may study an invariance breaking effect in a conformally invariant gravitational model by introducing a constant mass scale. It has been shown   that such an invariance breaking also leads to a gravitational coupling with the same strength as used in general relativity.
Our main purpose in the present work is to keep the idea that the gravitational coupling arises from an invariance breaking effect with special concern for addressing the two aforementioned problems. We shall study spontaneous symmetry breaking in a conformally invariant scalar tensor theory in which the scalar field has a quartic self-interaction term. The basic ingredient in the theory is that we take the two metric tensors describing the gravitational and the matter parts to belong to different conformal frames. We then consider the conformal factor relating the two metric tensors as a dynamical field. Such a dynamical field is basically imposed in our model to make a dynamical distinction between the two unit systems usually used in cosmology and elementary particle physics. We have already emphasized the significant role of this dynamical distinction in construction of a mechanism to reduce a large cosmological constant during evolution of the universe . In the present work we intend to investigate the role of conformal symmetry in a scalar tensor theory that undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking. We argue that if the theory is taken to be conformally invariant, after the spontaneous symmetry breaking it remains consistent with the spirit of Mach’s principle. We also show that the resulting vacuum energy density appears as a decaying cosmological constant.
We organize this paper as follows: In section 2, we first offer a brief review of the model proposed by Zee . In section 3, we use a gravitational model which is conformally invariant. We argue that there is an ambiguity concerning the coupling of matter systems to such a model. In general matter systems should be coupled to the metric which is conformally related to that describing the vacuum sector. In section 4, we consider spontaneous symmetry breaking in this gravitational model. We discuss the problem of the emergence of a large vacuum energy density and consistency of the model with Mach’s principle. In section 5, we outline our results.
Throughout the following we shall use units in which $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$ and the signature is (-+++).

## 2 A brief review of Zee’s model

Spontaneous symmetry breaking is one of the key ideas in elementary particle physics which is expected to lead to unification of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions. In order to incorporate this mechanism into gravity, Zee proposed  a modification of the Einstein-Hilbert action used in general relativity. The proposed model is

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\{\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^2R+\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi V(\varphi )\}+S_m(g_{\mu \nu },\varphi ),$$
(1)
where $`\varphi `$ is a scalar field with a potential $`V(\varphi )`$, $`R`$ is the curvature scalar, $`_\mu `$ denotes covariant differentiation and $`S_m(g_{\mu \nu },\varphi )`$ is the matter field action. In this gravitational system $`\varphi ^2`$ characterizes the gravitational coupling. Moreover, the scalar field $`\varphi `$ plays the role of the Higgs field and should therefore have interaction with the matter part of the model so that in the above action $`S_m(g_{\mu \nu },\varphi )`$ includes $`\varphi `$.
variation of the action (1) with respect to $`g^{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\varphi `$ gives, respectively,

$$\varphi ^2G_{\mu \nu }=T_{[m]\mu \nu }+T_{[\varphi ]\mu \nu },$$
(2)
$$\mathrm{}\varphi \varphi R+\frac{V}{\varphi }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta S_m(g_{\mu \nu },\varphi )}{\delta \varphi },$$
(3)
where

$$T_{[m]\mu \nu }=\frac{2}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta S_m(g_{\mu \nu },\varphi )}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }},$$
(4)
and

$$T_{[\varphi ]\mu \nu }=(_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi \frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }_\gamma \varphi ^\gamma \varphi )\frac{1}{2}(g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{}\varphi ^2_\mu _\nu \varphi ^2)g_{\mu \nu }V(\varphi ).$$
(5)
Here $`\mathrm{}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu `$ and $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ is the Einstein tensor. The potential $`V(\varphi )`$ usually contains a quartic self-interaction and an imaginary mass term. This suffices to give minima to the potential for some nonvanishing values of $`\varphi `$. If the degenerate vacuum is $`\varphi =v`$ with $`v`$ being a constant, the spontaneous symmetry breaking then results in a gravitational coupling with the same strength as $`v^2`$. This gives the gravitational constant if one takes the mass scale $`v`$ to be of the same order of the Planck mass. This means that the spontaneous symmetry breaking should take place at Planck scale. In lower energy scales, however, there is no difference between this model and general relativity since with $`\varphi =v`$ the field equations (2) and (3) reduce to the Einstein field equation, namely,

$$G_{\mu \nu }+v^2V(v)g_{\mu \nu }=v^2T_{[m]\mu \nu }.$$
(6)
It is well known that such a symmetry breaking induces a large vacuum energy density in the gravitational equations. This problem is not, however, addressed in the Zee’s model since it is assumed that $`V(v)=0`$. In the following, we shall recognize this vacuum energy problem as one of the two main problems affecting the model described by the action (1). The other problem is that this model is not consistent with Mach’s principle since it proposed that gravity is described by general relativity in all energy scales lower than the Planck scale .

## 3 The model

We consider a scalar tensor theory consisting of a real scalar field $`\varphi `$, described by the action functionalThis action is identical to the gravitational part of (1), if $`\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^2R`$ is replaced by $`\frac{1}{12}\varphi ^2R`$ and $`V(\varphi )`$ is taken to be $`\frac{1}{2}\lambda \varphi ^4`$.

$$S=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{g}\{g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi +\frac{1}{6}\varphi ^2R+\lambda \varphi ^4\},$$
(7)
where $`\lambda `$ is a dimensionless coupling constant. This action is invariant under conformal transformations

$$\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }=e^{2\sigma }g_{\mu \nu },$$
(8)
$$\overline{\varphi }=e^\sigma \varphi ,$$
(9)
where $`\sigma `$ is a dimensionless spacetime function. When this action is taken as the vacuum sector of a gravitational model, one encounters an inherent ambiguity concerning the incorporation of matter systems. In fact since the vacuum sector is conformally invariant, it is not possible to make any distinction between two different conformal frames and all the frames must be considered as dynamically equivalent. In this situation it is not clear to which of these conformal frames, or the corresponding metric tensors, the matter systems should be coupled. To consider the most general case, we take the matter systems to be coupled with the metric $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ rather than $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ which are conformally related due to (8). In this way, we take into account all the dynamical implications of different conformal frames. We therefore write the action (7) in the form

$$S=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{g}\{g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi +\lambda \varphi ^4+\varphi ^2(g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma +\frac{1}{6}R)\}+S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu },\varphi ),$$
(10)
where $`S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu },\varphi )`$ is the matter action containing some matter field variables, including the gauge fields of the standard model, coupled to the metric $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$. We shall consider the case that the matter action interacts with the scalar field $`\varphi `$. This is necessary for interpretation of the scalar field as a Higgs field. We have also taken the above action to involve a kinetic term for $`\sigma `$ to account for its dynamical contributions. In this case the vacuum sector of the action (10) is still conformally invariant since $`\sigma `$ as a dimensionless function does not change under conformal transformations.
Variation of the action (10) with respect to $`g^{\mu \nu }`$, $`\varphi `$ and $`\sigma `$, yields,

$$G_{\mu \nu }3\lambda \varphi ^2g_{\mu \nu }=6\varphi ^2(T_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu })+\tau _{\mu \nu })+6t_{\mu \nu },$$
(11)
$$\mathrm{}\varphi \frac{1}{6}R\varphi 2\lambda \varphi ^3\varphi _\gamma \sigma ^\gamma \sigma =\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi }S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu },\varphi ),$$
(12)
$$_\mu (\sqrt{g}\varphi ^2g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \sigma )=\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }),$$
(13)
where

$$T_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu })=\frac{2}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta }{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu },\varphi ),$$
(14)
and

$$\tau _{\mu \nu }=(_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi \frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }_\gamma \varphi ^\gamma \varphi )\frac{1}{6}(g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{}_\mu _\nu )\varphi ^2,$$
(15)
$$t_{\mu \nu }=(_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma \frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }_\gamma \sigma ^\gamma \sigma ).$$
(16)
We would like to consider breakdown of the conformal invariance in the action (10). Therefore we add a term such as

$$\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{g}m^2\varphi ^2,$$
(17)
to this action with $`m`$ being a constant mass scale. In this case equations (11) and (12) change to

$$G_{\mu \nu }3(m^2+\lambda \varphi ^2)g_{\mu \nu }=6\varphi ^2(T_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu })+\tau _{\mu \nu })+6t_{\mu \nu },$$
(18)
$$\mathrm{}\varphi \frac{1}{6}R\varphi m^2\varphi 2\lambda \varphi ^3\varphi _\gamma \sigma ^\gamma \sigma =\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi }S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu },\varphi ),$$
(19)
Looking at the gravitational equation (18) one infers from the sign of the mass term that it has a negative contribution to vacuum energy density. This feature seems to be generic to all scalar tensor theories (namely theories that consider a scalar field with nonminimal coupling to gravity) which entail a massive scalar field. The sign of this mass term can however be changed by introducing a constant mass scale such as $`\mu `$ with $`\mu ^2=m^2`$. It is important that this induces spontaneous symmetry breaking in the action (10)§§§Note that $`\mu `$ appears as a tachyonic mass in the field equation (19).. In this case the potential of the scalar field can be written as $`U(\varphi )=\mu ^2\varphi ^2+\lambda \varphi ^4`$. The minimum of this potential is determined by the conditions

$$\frac{dU}{d\varphi }=2\mu ^2\varphi +4\lambda \varphi ^3=0,$$
(20)
and

$$\frac{d^2U}{d\varphi ^2}=2\mu ^2+12\lambda \varphi ^2>0,$$
(21)
where $`\lambda >0`$. The relation (20) has nonzero solutions $`\varphi _0^2=\frac{\mu ^2}{2\lambda }`$ minimizing the potential at $`U(\varphi _0)=\frac{\mu ^4}{4\lambda }`$. The gravitational coupling is then given by $`\varphi _0^2\lambda \mu ^2`$. This is the gravitational constant if $`\mu \lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}}m_p`$ with $`m_pG^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ being the Planck mass. Note that the energy scale at which the spontaneous symmetry breaking takes place is not necessarily the Planck scale. It is given by $`\mu `$ which depends on the precise value of the coupling constant $`\lambda `$.
For $`\varphi =\varphi _0`$, the action (10), together with (17) and $`\mu ^2=m^2`$, reduces to

$$S=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4x\sqrt{g}\{R2\mathrm{\Lambda }+6g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma \}+S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }),$$
(22)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{3}{2}\mu ^2`$. It is clear that the result of the spontaneous symmetry breaking in (10), namely the action (22), is very different from that obtained by the action (1). In the action (22), the metric tensors in the gravitational and the matter parts belong to different conformal frames and the conformal factor itself appears as a dynamical field. The consequences of such a coupling are discussed in the next section.

## 4 Mach’s principle and the cosmological constant

When a constant mass scale such as $`m^2`$ (or $`\mu ^2`$) is introduced into the gravitational part of the action (10), the conformal invariance is broken and a particular conformal frame (or unit system) is singled out in terms of the values attributed to the dimensional quantities. In general, the use of two different unit systems are conventional. In one hand, the gravitational constant as a dimensional coupling characterizes a unit system usually used in cosmology which is referred to as the cosmological frame . On the other hand, there is a particle unit system used in elementary particle physics and is defined in terms of compton wavelenght of a typical elementary particle. It is important to note that one usually assumes that these two unit systems are related by a global unit transformation. This means that they are taken to be indistinguishable up to a constant conversion factor in all spacetime points. Such a unit transformation is obviously devoid of any dynamical implication. Here we consider a local unit transformation  which requires that the two different unit systems be interrelated by a spacetime dependent conversion (or conformal) factor. This gives a dynamical meaning to changes of unit systems and seems to be more consistent with Mach’s principle. The reason for this is discussed in the following.
According to Mach’s principle, one may attribute inertial forces experienced in a given point of spacetime to the gravitational forces due to distant accelerated matter systems. By implication, the inertial mass of a particle should depend on the distribution of matter around that particle. As a consequence one expects that inertial masses have different values in different spacetime points.
On the other hand, there is an inherent ambiguity concerning measurement of changes of a dimensional quantity. In general, the value of a dimensional quantity not only may change in a given unit system but it may also change due to changes of the unit system by which the quantity is measured. There is not however any direct way to distinguish between these two types of changes. Thus, it is only meaningful to compare mass ratios, as dimensionless quantities, rather than mass itself at different spacetime points. For construction of such a dimensionless quantity one may take proportion of the inertial mass of a typical elementary particle, $`M`$, and the Planck mass, namely,

$$M(G)^{\frac{1}{2}}=n,$$
(23)
where $`n`$ is a dimensionless number. If one takes $`n`$ to vary, as suggested by Mach’s principle, one may consider two possibilities depending on attribution of these variations to either $`M`$ or $`G`$. In the particle frame one takes $`M`$ as a constant and $`G`$ as varying while in the cosmological frame inertial masses of elementary particles are taken to be varying and $`G`$ is regarded as a constant. It is now clear from the discussion that these two unit systems should be taken to be related by a spacetime dependent conversion factor in order to respect the precise statement of Mach’s principle. It should be remarked that from a physical point of view there seems to be no fundamental difference between the two possibilities although their precise formulations may need theories which have quite different mathematical structures. In the present work, we shall not concern with this issue and only the physical content of the dynamical distinction of the two unit systems is brought into focus.
Now we turn to interpret the action (22). For doing this, we recall that when the action (1) undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking both the gravitational coupling and the inertial masses have constant configurations contrary to the statement of Mach’s principle. On the other hand, the appearance of $`\sigma `$ as a dynamical field in the action (22) implies that inertial masses of elementary particles have variable configurations even though the gravitational coupling takes a constant valueIt is important to note that when the conformal invariance of the gravitational part of (10) is broken the resulting theory automatically chooses the cosmological frame. This is a direct consequence of the spontaneous symmetry breaking in the action (10) that gives a constant configuration to the scalar field.. This is due to the fact that matter is coupled to gravity through the metric $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ which is conformally related to $`g_{\mu \nu }`$. We emphasize that this feature is a direct consequence of the conformal invariance of the vacuum sector of the action (10) which gives plausibility to consider such a coupling.
As the last point, we investigate the appearance of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in (22) as a large effective vacuum energy density. We remark that this does not lead to the cosmological constant problem in the context of our model which assumes that the cosmological and the particle unit systems are dynamically distinct. To clarify this point we first take the two metric tensors $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ to describe the cosmological and the particle frames, respectively. They are related by $`g_{\mu \nu }=e^{2\sigma }\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$. Such a distinction should also be imposed on the dimensional quantities $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, namely the value of vacuum energy density in the cosmological and the particle unit systems. According to the dimension of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (the squared mass) this two quantities are related by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=e^{2\sigma }\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$. Thus $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is not actually a constant in the cosmological frame and the action (22) should be written as

$$S=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4x\sqrt{g}\{R2\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }+6g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \sigma _\nu \sigma \}+S_m(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }),$$
(24)
which leads to the field equations

$$G_{\mu \nu }+\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }g_{\mu \nu }=8\pi GT_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu })+6t_{\mu \nu },$$
(25)
$$\mathrm{}\sigma +\frac{1}{3}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }=\frac{4\pi }{3}Gg^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }(\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }).$$
(26)
In these equations the exponential coefficient for $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ emphasizes the dynamical distinction between the cosmological and the particle unit systems. One intuitively expects that this distinction be indistinguishable immediately after the spontaneous symmetry breaking. This means that $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ coincide with their corresponding quantities in the particle unit system, namely $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, at sufficiently early times. When the universe expands, cosmological scales enlarge and this distinction increases so that $`e^{2\sigma }`$ must be an increasing function of time in an expanding universe. It follows that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ characterizing the effective cosmological constant in the cosmological frame damps due to the cosmic expansion .
As an illustration, we first combine (26) with the trace of (25) that gives

$$\mathrm{}\sigma +_\gamma \sigma ^\gamma \sigma +\frac{1}{6}R\frac{1}{3}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }=0.$$
(27)
If we write this equation in a spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime, we obtainDue to homogeneity and isotropy of the universe $`\sigma `$ is taken to be only a function of time.

$$\ddot{\sigma }+3\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\dot{\sigma }+\dot{\sigma }^2\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}\frac{\dot{a}^2}{a^2}+\frac{1}{3}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }=0,$$
(28)
where $`a(t)`$ is the scale factor and the overdot denotes differentiation with respect to time.
Now assuming that the universe follows a power-law expansion, namely that $`\frac{\dot{a}}{a}t^1`$, we use the ansatz

$$e^\sigma =\sigma _0t,$$
(29)
which satisfies equation (28) with $`\sigma _0\sqrt{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}`$. The vacuum energy density in the cosmological frame is then $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}e^{2\sigma }t^2`$, consistent with the observational upper limit.

## 5 Concluding remarks

We have investigated the idea that gravitational coupling may be the result of a mechanism involving the breakdown of some fundamental symmetry of nature. Two kinds of symmetry breaking seem to be relevant on the subject: firstly, it is natural to think about spontaneous symmetry breaking analogous to the origin of coupling constants corresponding to other fundamental interactions and secondly, a conformal symmetry breaking motivated by the fact that the gravitational coupling is a dimensional coupling.
We discussed spontaneous symmetry breaking in a conformally invariant scalar tensor theory, in which the scalar field has a quartic self-interaction, by introducing a constant tachyonic mass scale. We have shown that a spontaneous symmetry breaking in the model would lead to a gravitational coupling as suggested by general relativity. It should be remarked that this symmetry breaking may take place in energy scales much lower than the Planck scale when $`\lambda <<1`$.
We emphasize that our analysis allows to avoid the two problems afflict the model proposed by Zee, the action (1), namely inconsistency with Mach’s principle and the cosmological constant problem. This is basically due to the fact that in the action \[b7\] we couple the matter to a metric which is conformally related to that describing the gravitational part. In our approach such a coupling is motivated by the fact that the gravitational part is conformally invariant and does not dynamically distinguish between different metric tensors related by the conformal transformation (8). The important feature of this coupling is that it gives variable configurations to all the mass scales introduced by elementary particle physics in the cosmological frame. In particular, contributions of these mass scales in vacuum energy density are so that they decrease during evolution of the universe.
We point out that the nontrivial behaviour of the conformal factor in our model may have important role in cosmology. For instance, it may act as a quintessence describing the acceleration of the universe in the present epoch .


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# Search for a Point-Source Counterpart of the Unidentified Gamma-Ray Source TeV J2032+4130 in Cygnus

## 1 Introduction

The serendipitous detection of emission coming from the direction of the Cygnus OB2 stellar association by the HEGRA CT-System at La Palma (Daum et al. 1997) represents the first discovery of an unidentified TeV source, extending the mystery of the elusive $`\gamma `$-ray sources to the TeV regime. TeV J2032+4130 was discovered (Aharonian et al. 2002a) in observations originally devoted to Cygnus X–3 and the unidentified EGRET (Energetic Gamma-ray Experiment Telescope) source GeV J2035+4214 (Lamb & Macomb 1997). An analysis of these combined fields led to the detection of a source at (J2000) $`20^\mathrm{h}32^\mathrm{m}07^\mathrm{s}\pm 9.^\mathrm{s}2_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm 2.^\mathrm{s}2_{\mathrm{sys}},+41^{}30^{}30^{\prime \prime }\pm 2.^{}0_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm 0.^{}4_{\mathrm{sys}}`$. Its error circle overlaps the edge of the 95% confidence error ellipse of another EGRET source, 3EG J2033+4118, and is $`0.^{}5`$ north of Cyg X–3. It is not clear if TeV J2032+4130 is associated with 3EG J2033+4118, which is itself of uncertain origin. There is some evidence that the TeV emission is extended, with a Gaussian $`1\sigma `$ radius of $`5.^{}6\pm 1.^{}7`$. Unlike the flaring blazars that have been detected so far, TeV J2032+4130 was found to be steady in repeated HEGRA observations from 1999 to 2001. The integrated flux measured above 1 TeV was found to be $`(4.5\pm 1.3_{\mathrm{stat}})\times 10^{13}`$ photons cm-2 s-1, which is $`2.6\%`$ of the flux of the Crab Nebula (Aharonian et al. 2002a).

The majority of the $`\gamma `$-ray sources detected above 100 MeV by the EGRET instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) are unidentified, some remaining so since the first surveys of the $`\gamma `$-ray sky with the COS–B satellite. Resolving the nature of these mysterious $`\gamma `$-ray sources is a challenge across all wavelengths. Their relatively large error boxes make counterpart searches difficult. Unidentified EGRET sources typically have positional uncertainties of $`0.^{}51^{}`$, making identification on the basis of position alone nearly impossible, especially in the Galactic plane. We have found that multiwavelength studies of EGRET fields on a case-by-case basis are often useful in finding a likely identification. Such an approach has been used to suggest counterparts for the EGRET unidentified sources 2EG J0635+0521 (Kaaret et al. 1999), 3EG J2227+6122 (Halpern et al. 2001a), 3EG J1835+5918 (Halpern et al. 2002; Mirabal et al. 2000,2001), 3EG J2006–2321 (Wallace et al. 2002), 3EG J2016+3657 (Mukherjee et al. 2000; Halpern et al. 2001b), 3EG J1621+8203 (Mukherjee et al. 2002), and 3EG 2021+3716 (Roberts et al. 2002), to name a few examples (see the review by Caraveo 2002).

Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) like HEGRA have the advantage of much better angular resolution, and therefore smaller error boxes for $`\gamma `$-ray source positions in comparison to EGRET. In this paper, we adopt for the moment the hypothesis that TeV J2032+4130 is not significantly extended, in which case one should search for and evaluate candidate point-source counterparts at other wavelengths. Accordingly, we studied the EGRET source 3EG J2033+4118, archival radio data from the NRAO-VLA Sky Survey (NVSS: Condon et al. 1998), and pointed ROSAT X-ray observations of the field of 3EG J2033+4118 and TeV J2032+4130. We also examined a recent Chandra observation that was centered on the TeV source, and obtained optical identifications of the brightest X-ray sources in this region using the MDM Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET).

## 2 Gamma-ray Observations of 3EG J2033+4118

The EGRET source 3EG J2033+4118 is located at $`l=80.^{}27`$, $`b=+0.^{}73`$ (Hartman et al. 1999), with a 95% error ellipse defined by semi-major and semi-minor axes of $`0^{}.31`$ and $`0^{}.25`$, respectively (Mattox, Hartman, & Reimer 2001). Figure 1 shows the 95% confidence EGRET ellipse superimposed on a ROSAT X-ray image that is described further in §3. 3EG J2033+4118 was detected by EGRET in several viewing periods, with the most significant detection in 1993 March (VP 212). Figure 2 shows the light curve measured by EGRET during 1991–1997. The points before 1996 come from the Third EGRET Catalog (3EG, Hartman et al. 1999), in which the summed exposure has a flux above 100 MeV of $`(73.0\pm 6.7)\times 10^8`$ photons cm-2 s-1. The corresponding background-subtracted spectrum of 3EG J2033+4118 is hard, with a photon spectral index of $`1.96\pm 0.10`$ (Hartman et al. 1999).

This location was also in the EGRET field of view four times after the 3EG catalog. For two of these the source was almost $`30^{}`$ from the axis, so we exclude them. The remaining two detections are $`2.4\sigma `$ and $`4.2\sigma `$. Their fluxes are shown as the last two points in Figure 2. A chi-square analysis was used to calculate the “variability index” defined by McLaughlin et al. (1996). This index is sometimes used to judge variability in EGRET sources, although it is somewhat arbitrary. The variability index of 3EG J2033+4118 was found to be $`V=1.4`$. For comparison, McLaughlin et al. (1996) interpret $`V<0.5`$ as non-variable and $`V1.0`$ as variable.

## 3 X-ray and Radio Observations

Figure 1 shows an X-ray image taken with the ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) in the energy range 0.2–2.0 keV, covering the field of 3EG J2033+4118/TeV J2032+4130. This image was created by co-adding exposure-corrected skymaps of 23.5 ks of data taken during 1991 and 1993. These fields were targeted originally to include the Cyg OB2 association and also Cyg X-3. The EGRET 95% error ellipse for 3EG J2033+4118 is superposed on the image, as is the $`1\sigma `$ error contour of the TeV J2032+4130 centroid position. The larger circle around the TeV position indicates the possible Gaussian $`1\sigma `$ extent of the TeV source (Aharonian et al. 2002a). Figure 3 shows a ROSAT HRI image, covering roughly the same field as that shown in Figure 1. The image was created by co-adding exposure corrected skymaps of $`155`$ ks of data taken during observations of Cyg OB2 and Cygnus X-3 in 1993–1995. The sources numbered in Figure 3 correspond to those in Figure 1 and Table 1.

A detailed description of ROSAT results on the sources in the Cyg OB2 association is given by Waldron et al. (1998). Several of the stars in the Cyg OB2 association are among the strongest stellar X-ray sources in the Galaxy. In Table 1 we list the coordinates of the brightest ROSAT sources as marked in Figures 1 and 3, along with optical identifications and positions. We have concentrated on obtaining optical identifications of several X-ray sources that are within the region of maximum likelihood for a point source of TeV emission. We find that all of these have ordinary stellar counterparts. Further details on their optical properties are presented in §4.2.

On 2002 August 11, Chandra made a 5 ks director’s discretionary observation (Butt et al. 2003) of the field of TeV J2032+4130 with the front-illuminated, imaging CCD array of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS-I). Several X-ray sources near the centroid of the TeV source were detected. Figure 4 shows the Chandra image with the brightest point sources marked, which are those having at least 10 photons. Their positions and count rates are listed in Table 2. Cross-references to sources detected by both ROSAT and Chandra are indicated in Tables 1 and 2. The brightest Chandra source #2 is notable in that it was not detected in any of the ROSAT or Einstein observations of this field. More details about this source are given in §5.1.

Table 3 is a list of eight 1.4 GHz sources from the NVSS within $`10^{}`$ of the TeV centroid. The brightest is an extended source with flux density of only 18 mJy, which is at least an order of magnitude fainter than the weakest candidate radio sources for EGRET blazars considered by Mattox et al. (1999). Furthermore, none of the radio sources is coincident with an X-ray source. Thus, it is unlikely that TeV J2032+4130 has an ordinary blazar counterpart, although new types of blazars can be hypothesized (see §5.3).

## 4 Optical Observations

### 4.1 Optical Imaging

In preparation for the identification of X-ray sources in the Chandra observation, on 2002 July 7 we obtained a deep $`R`$-band image of the field of TeV J2032+4130 using the MDM 1.3m telescope and a thinned, back-illuminated $`2048\times 2048`$ pixel SITe CCD. This $`17^{}\times 17^{}`$ image covers all of the Chandra source positions marked in Figure 4. An astrometric grid was established for the image using 51 stars from the USNO–A2.0 catalog (Monet et al. 1996), with a resulting rms dispersion of $`0.^{\prime \prime }49`$. Differences between optical and X-ray positions for the most precisely located X-ray sources indicate that the X-ray aspect solution agrees with the USNO–A2.0 reference frame to within $`0.^{\prime \prime }5`$. Additional images in $`B,V,R,`$ and $`I`$ were obtained of the central $`9^{}\times 9^{}`$ of the same field using the MDM 2.4m telescope on 2002 August 23–28.

Likely optical identifications of Chandra sources are listed in Table 2, together with approximate $`R`$ magnitudes from our images or from the USNO–A2.0 where available. Only four of the Chandra sources have no optical counterpart to a limiting magnitude $`>23`$. These happen to be the hardest sources in the image, with $`>75\%`$ of their photons above 2 keV. Thus they are likely to be AGNs that are highly absorbed by the Galactic ISM, and not, for example, nearby, old neutron stars. A higher-resolution image of the crowded region around Chandra source #2 was obtained on the MDM 2.4m telescope on 2002 November 24. Figure 5 shows the possible identification of that source on the 2.4m image.

### 4.2 Optical Spectroscopy

We obtained complete spectroscopic identifications for all ROSAT sources within $`10^{}`$ of the centroid of TeV J2032+4130, using the Goldcam spectrograph on the KPNO 2.1m telescope on two runs, in 2002 June and October. The resulting spectra are shown in Figure 6. These are sources $`a`$, $`b`$, $`c`$, $`e`$, and $`f`$ in Table 1, and all are bright stars. They include one emission-line O star, one dMe star, and three foreground G stars, two of which are also listed in the Massey & Thompson (1991, hereafter MT91) compilation of stars in Cyg OB2. Magnitudes listed in Table 1 are from MT91, or from the USNO–A2.0 catalog (Monet et al. 1996).

A spectrum of the $`R20.4`$ counterpart of Chandra source #2, also shown in Figure 6, was obtained with the HET and Marcario Low Resolution Spectrograph on 2002 December 8. However, its classification remains uncertain as it is of relatively poor signal-to-noise, having been observed through thin clouds. All of the apparent features in this spectrum can be attributed to imperfectly subtracted night-sky emission lines, leaving no definite intrinsic features in the 4600–9200 Å range.

## 5 A Transient X-ray Source in the Field of TeV J2032+4130

### 5.1 X-ray Properties

None of the X-ray sources in the immediate vicinity of TeV J2032+4130 are unusual in any way, except for Chandra source #2, which lies $`7^{}`$ from the TeV centroid. Although this is the brightest of the Chandra sources, with 195 photons detected, it is noticeably absent from any of the ROSAT or Einstein images. Thus, it may be described as a transient source. A light curve constructed from the 5 ks Chandra observation shows that the source was highly variable even during this brief period (Figure 7). After remaining faint for the first 3.5 ks, its count rate rose by about a factor of 10 for the final 1.5 ks.

Spectral analysis of source #2, summarized in Table 4, is consistent with a power law of photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.0`$, or with a hot plasma of $`kT6`$ keV. In addition to spectral fits for the summed observation, Table 4 presents fits for two intervals, corresponding to the first 3438 s (low state) and the final 1478 s (high state). Figure 8 shows the spectrum and best fitted power law for the summed observation. For either spectral model, a significant absorbing column of $`N_\mathrm{H}(12)\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2 is required, which is comparable to the largest X-ray and optical extinction values measured for stars in the Cyg OB2 association (MT91; Waldron et al. 1998). Thus, source #2 is likely to be either embedded in the Cyg OB2 association at $`d=1740`$ pc (MT91), or behind it. Its peak 1–10 keV flux of $`2\times 10^{12}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 would correspond to a luminosity of $`7\times 10^{32}`$ ergs s-1 at $`d=1740`$ pc. This value is somewhat larger than even the most luminous cataclysmic variables (Eracleous, Halpern, & Patterson 1991), and hints at a more compact source such as a neutron star or black hole in a quiescent low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB), or a very distant Be transient. If so, its location could be considerably beyond Cyg OB2.

The transition in the light curve of #2 may be an egress from an eclipse, or, more likely for an LMXB, a “dip”. If so, the orbital period is probably longer than a few hours since the eclipse or dip is at least 1 hr long. A possible analog would be 4U 1624–49, the “big dipper,” which has period of 21 hr (Watson et al. 1985; Smale, Church, & Balucińska-Church 2001). However, assuming a distance of 8 kpc, the X-ray luminosity of #2 would be only $`1.5\times 10^{34}`$ ergs s-1, much less than the $`10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 luminosity of 4U 1624–49.

### 5.2 Optical and Infrared Properties

As mentioned previously, the signal-to-noise ratio of the HET optical spectrum of the counterpart to source #2 is too poor to classify it. However, it is likely to be the correct identification because the X-ray and optical positions differ by only $`0.^{\prime \prime }37`$. The absence of strong TiO absorption bands rules out a late K or M dwarf, which would otherwise be the expected spectral type for a star of its magnitude and color located between us and the Cyg OB2 association. Additional evidence that it is a more distant and luminous object comes from its detection in the 2MASS survey, with $`J=15.41\pm 0.07,H=14.17\pm 0.06`$, and $`K=13.45\pm 0.06`$. The absence of H$`\alpha `$ emission argues against a cataclysmic variable, as does the high-state X-ray luminosity of $`7\times 10^{32}(d/1.7\mathrm{kpc})^2`$ ergs s-1, although it cannot be ruled out that the optical spectrum is highly reddened emission from an accretion disk in a quiescent LMXB.

If we hypothesize a very large visual extinction of $`A_V=10`$, which is compatible with the value of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ fitted to the X-ray spectrum, then the dereddened magnitudes become $`R=12.9,J=12.6,H=12.3`$, and $`K=12.3`$ using the extinction curve of Cardelli, Clayton, & Mathis (1989). Such a flat color distribution would be compatible with accretion disk emission in an LMXB. Assuming a distance of 8 kpc, the corresponding absolute magnitude $`M_R=1.6`$ is also in the range of LMXBs (van Paradijs & McClintock 1994). However, even at that large distance, the X-ray luminosity would be only $`1.5\times 10^{34}`$ ergs s-1, and then it is not clear that the accretion luminosity would dominate over the secondary star in the optical. Also, such a source would fall far from the relation between absolute magnitude, X-ray luminosity, and orbital period in LMXBs delineated by van Paradijs & McClintock (1994), having too small an X-ray luminosity.

Alternatively, if the distance and extinction are even larger, then it could be an early type star such as a B star in a transient high-mass X-ray binary system. However, the absence of H$`\alpha `$ emission argues against a Be star. Thus, there are no entirely satisfactory explanations of source #2 in terms of any type of X-ray binary.

### 5.3 A Proton Blazar?

While an AGN classification for the optical spectrum of source #2 cannot be immediately dismissed, the absence of any emission lines would favor a BL Lac identification, for which the lack of radio emission is highly unusual. Also, the known TeV blazars are highly episodic emitters, which is contrary to the steady nature of TeV J2032+4130. Thus, it would not be a simplification to hypothesize that #2 is an AGN. Nevertheless, it has long been hypothesized that a class of radio-quiet blazars could exist (Mannheim 1993; Schlickeiser 1984) that are dominated by accelerated hadrons. In this “proton blazar” model, $`\gamma `$-ray emission arises from proton-induced cascades, and radio emission can be reduced if the ratio of accelerated electrons to protons is small. Alternatively, an extreme blazar whose synchrotron emission peaks at MeV energies, and inverse Compton at TeV energies, could be relevant (Ghisellini 1999). Because HEGRA performed a sensitive survey of the Galactic plane (Aharonian et al. 2002b), it may not be so surprising if it turns out that the first TeV selected blazar is discovered there.

## 6 Discussion and Conclusions

Spectroscopic optical identifications of most of the brighter X-ray sources in $`\gamma `$-ray error boxes of TeV J2032+4130 and 3EG J2033+4118 are O stars in the Cyg OB2 association at $`d=1.7`$ kpc, or foreground late-type stars. Those Chandra sources that are identified with faint optical counterparts in the range $`R1720`$, are probably M dwarfs, while the optically undetected sources with $`R>23`$ are the most X-ray absorbed, thus are likely background AGNs. The only unusual X-ray source in this field is a transient one that is the brightest source in the recent Chandra observation. It has a peak 1–10 keV luminosity of $`7\times 10^{32}(d/1.7\mathrm{kpc})^2`$ ergs s-1. An optical spectrum of its $`R=20.4`$ possible counterpart has, albeit with modest signal-to-noise, no strong emission or absorption features. The hard X-ray spectrum, rapid variability, and red optical/IR colors of this object suggest that it is a distant, quiescent X-ray binary system. On the other hand, it may also be the prototype of a new kind of AGN previously hypothesized to exist, the “proton blazar.” If so, its X-ray flaring behavior is a significant property, and related optical variability might be expected.

If we hypothesize that either TeV J2032+4130 or 3EG J2033+4118 is a point source, then we have a limited number of plausible point-source candidates at other wavelengths, perhaps only one. Without knowing the exact nature of Chandra source #2, it is not a compelling identification for either TeV J2032+4130 or 3EG J2033+4118, especially since it lies outside both of their $`2\sigma `$ localization regions. It is $`7^{}`$ from the centroid of the TeV source, while the $`2\sigma `$ position uncertainty of TeV J2032+4130 is given as $`4.^{}8`$. However, since we are faced with the first unidentified TeV source, it is worthwhile to pursue whatever additional observations are needed to determine the nature of this variable X-ray candidate and to assess the possibility of its connection with TeV J2032+4130, no matter how remote.

If TeV J2032+4130 is truly an extended source, then it need not be centered on a point source counterpart at other wavelengths. Benaglia et al. (2001) suggested that colliding winds from the Cyg OB2 #5 system and from other O stars in this association could be responsible for the EGRET source 3EG J2033+4118. Aharonian et al. (2002a) summarized those arguments, and hypothesized two possible origins for extended TeV emission that may be displaced from its originating source of energy. One is that TeV emission could arise from $`\pi ^0`$ decay resulting from hadrons accelerated in shocked OB star winds and interacting with a local, dense gas cloud. The other is inverse Compton TeV emission in a jet-driven termination shock, either from an as-yet undetected microquasar, or from Cyg X-3. Another reason to investigate the nature of Chandra #2 would be to find out if it could be such a jet source. We plan to pursue more detailed X-ray and optical studies of this source.

This publication makes use of data obtained from HEASARC at Goddard Space Flight Center and the SIMBAD astronomical database. It also makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This work was based in part on observations obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is a joint project of the University of Texas at Austin, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität München, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. The Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph is a joint project of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Partnership and the Instituto de Astronomia de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. R. M. acknowledges support from NSF grant PHY-9983836. E.V.G. is supported by NASA LTSA grant NAG 5-7935. Chandra studies of unidentified $`\gamma `$-ray sources is supported by SAO grants GO2-3071X and GO2-3082X to J.P.H.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Understanding the properties of hadrons in a dense nuclear medium is currently an important issue in nuclear physics. The dynamically generated masses of the light hadrons reflect the symmetry breaking pattern of QCD. The quark condensate $`\overline{q}q`$ which represents the order parameter drops as the density of the nuclear medium increases. Consequently all light-quark hadron masses (except that of the pions) are expected to follow the behavior of the condensate, a basis of the scaling proposed in  and predicted in an effective field theory with the vector manifestation fixed point . The pion however is very special, because it is the Goldstone boson associated with the spontaneous symmetry breakdown of the chiral symmetry. The Hellmann-Feynman theorem , a mean field approximation in chiral perturbation theory , and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model  lead to the same linear dependence in the baryon number density $`\rho `$ namely,

$$\frac{\overline{q}q_\rho }{\overline{q}q_{\rho =0}}=1\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}}{m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}\rho +\mathrm{},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}`$ is the pion-nucleon sigma term. If we assume that the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner (GMOR) relation holds for finite density, we have 111For the moment, we are not distinguishing the time and space components of the pion decay constant. Which one we are dealing with will be specified later.

$$f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2m_q\overline{q}q_\rho ,$$
(2)
where $`f_\pi ^{}`$ is the in-medium pion decay constant and $`m_\pi ^{}`$ the effective pion mass in the medium. There has been a lot of discussions on the physical consequence of eq. (2) with a decreasing quark condensate. The decrease in the pion decay constant is interpreted as a symptom of partial chiral restoration in the nuclear medium . On the other hand, in refs. , the possibility of S-wave pion condensation resulting from the decrease of the pion effective mass as a consequence of the decrease of $`\overline{q}q`$ in eq. (2) has been discussed. However, if one lets the pion decay constant change, then the effective pion mass can even increase with increasing nuclear density as discussed in ref.  and a completely different scenario can then arise.

The deeply bound pionic states observed in heavy nuclei (Pb, Sn etc.) at GSI  have renewed interest in these issues . The well defined 1s and 2p states with narrow width provide a new standard for the S-wave pion-nucleus optical potential $`U_s(r)`$, whose real part may be identified as the effective mass of the pions

$$m_\pi ^2(r)=m_\pi ^2+2\omega \text{Re}U_s(r).$$
(3)
This formula would seem to imply that the pion mass increases a 7% at the center of the Pb nucleus and a 3% in symmetric nuclear matter. But other possibilities exist. For instance, if one assumes the pion mass to be unmodified for low density which is not unplausible 222The pion mass of course remains strictly unmodified in the chiral limit but it is possible that even in the presence of small quark masses, the approximate chiral invariance protects the pion mass so that it is left more or less unaffected by density, at least at low density. An $`SU(2)_c`$ (2 color) QCD lattice calculation indicates that this is what happens ., then the measurements provide information on the scaling of the pion decay constant instead of that of the mass. See .

Theoretical studies on the effective mass of the pion in a nuclear medium follow two different schemes. One traditional approach relies on optical potentials. However, it is difficult to relate the phenomenological $`\pi `$-nucleus potential to the microscopic $`\pi `$-$`N`$ interactions in a systematic way. The other more modern approach proceeds via chiral perturbation theory  with explicit baryon fields. By integrating out the baryon fields, using the mean field approximation, one obtains an effective theory whose parameters become dependent on the nuclear density $`\rho `$. These calculations consist of computing single-nucleon loops leading to a linear dependence on the density of the parameters. Higher orders in the nucleon loop expansion would provide us with higher powers of $`\rho `$, however, due to the strong couplings associated with the nuclear forces, it is not clear that the results will converge although chiral perturbation power counting is used. Perhaps more importantly an effective field theory Lagrangian properly matched to QCD at an appropriate scale as discussed by Harada and Yamawaki  $`must`$ have a highly nontrivial “intrinsic” dependence on density (or temperature if in heat bath) in the parameters but this dependence is generally missing in the chiral Lagrangian so far used .

We study the pion properties in dense baryonic matter in an approach based on Skyrme’s Lagrangian, which we use to describe, in a unified manner, the dynamics of baryons, pions and the interactions between them. We proceed by calculating initially the ground state of infinite skyrmion matter. At high density it is described by a skyrmion crystal. At lower density the crystal suffers a phase transition and becomes unstable. The system chooses then as its ground state an inhomogeneous phase where skyrmions condense to form lumps of matter of higher density. We adopt a naive Maxwell construction to describe such state. We incorporate the pion in this medium by performing quantum fluctuations in the pion field of the Lagrangian describing this state. We obtain in this way the effective dynamics of the pion in dense skyrmion matter. The parameters of this Lagrangian are dependent on matter density and contain all higher orders in density as dictated by Skyrme’s Lagrangian.

Before proceeding we must clearly lay down the scope of this work here. We do not claim that the result we obtain – which is quite striking and intriguing – is in any way reflecting Nature. In fact it is perhaps likely that the “ground state” we obtain is not close to what it should be. More work is needed to obtain from what we have a true ground state and we have some ideas as to how to proceed. What we do here is that we will simply assume that we have certain states given by exact classical solutions of the field equations of a theory that is considered to be valid at large $`N_c`$, namely, the crystal structure of different symmetries, and study what they imply for the excitations thereon. This work should be taken as representing the first exploratory step towards a more realistic treatment – that is in accordance with QCD – of highly dense matter, the objective of our effort.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, after a brief description of the model Lagrangian, we construct the classical skyrmion crystal solution using Fourier expansions. In sec. 3, we incorporate the pion fluctuations in the ground state and obtain the effective pion Lagrangian in the skyrmion medium. We discuss how the pion decay constant and the effective pion mass change in matter. Section 4 summarizes the most important results and contains our conclusions.

## 2 The Model Lagrangian and the FCC Skyrmion Crystal

The description of baryonic matter we are going to investigate is based on the Skyrme model Lagrangian  for the massive pion fields, which reads

$$=\frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}\text{Tr}(U^{}_\mu UU^{}^\mu U)+\frac{1}{32e^2}\text{Tr}[U^{}_\mu U,U^{}_\nu U]^2+\frac{f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2}{4}\text{Tr}(U+U^{}2),$$
(4)
where $`USU(2)`$ is a nonlinear realization of the pion fields. $`f_\pi `$, $`e`$ and $`m_\pi `$ are the pion decay constant, Skyrme’s parameter and the pion mass, respectively. Note that this Lagrangian (4) is described in terms of $`U`$, which contains only pionic degrees of freedom. We will not consider the isospin symmetry breaking due to the u- and d-quark mass difference, since it is of no relevance for the present study. Our aim is to study the properties of the pion in a dense baryonic medium. Since this is an effective Lagrangian, if matched to QCD , its parameters should depend on the properties of the medium , i.e. matter density in our case as discussed in . However we follow a rather different philosophy, namely we shall assume that the above Lagrangian embodies a complete description of $`all`$ physical processes of interest, i.e., free pions, free baryons, many baryon states, dense baryonic matter and moreover, it also describes the pions interacting with any of these baryonic systems. We fix therefore the parameters of the Lagrangians in one of these processes, for example by describing the free pion and nucleon systems, and calculate how these values change as the density of the baryonic matter increases. From the recent understanding  of effective theories that purport to match to QCD, we know that this is not totally consistent since EFTs can make sense only for given scales and the parameters of the theory necessarily flow. This issue which is quite intricate will be dealt with in a forthcoming publication.

For completeness we should also mention that (4) is the most economical effective Lagrangian that one can take. To be truly realistic, massive fields – such as the light-quark vector mesons, scalar mesons or “dilatons” 333Implementing dilatons as was done in  will play the role of incorporating the “intrinsic density dependence” inherent in Harada-Yamawaki theory of hidden local symmetry with the vector manifestation fixed point . This point is being pursued and will be discussed in a forthcoming publication. associated with trace anomaly etc – and/higher derivative terms need be incorporated but for our purpose it suffices to take the simplest yet sufficiently realistic form given by (4).

A similar procedure has been followed for example in chiral perturbation theory with explicit nucleon fields . They start with a Lagrangian containing all the degrees of freedom and free parameters, they integrate out the nucleons in and out of an à priori assumed Fermi sea and in the process they get a Lagrangian density describing the pion in the medium which corresponds to the above Skyrme Lagrangian except that the quadratic (current algebra) and the mass terms pick up a density dependence of the form

$$\frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}\left(g^{\mu \nu }+\frac{D^{\mu \nu }\rho }{f_\pi ^2}\right)\text{Tr}(U^{}_\mu UU^{}^\nu U)+\frac{f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2}{4}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}}{f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2}\rho \right)\text{Tr}(U+U^{}2),$$
(5)
where $`\rho `$ is the density of the nuclear matter and $`D^{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\sigma `$ are physical quantities obtained from the pion-nucleon interactions. Note that in this scheme, nuclear matter is assumed ab initio to be a Fermi sea devoid of the intrinsic dependence mentioned above. We shall discover in the next section that our free pion Lagrangian will be also modified in a similar manner but in the crudest approximation. At a more advanced level, there will be an intricate nontrivial density dependence missing in the chiral perturbative calculations.

Having stated our scheme we proceed to describe dense baryonic matter in the Skyrme model. Consider a static field configuration $`U_0(\stackrel{}{x})=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }`$ with $`\sigma ^2+\stackrel{}{\pi }^2=1`$. It is a nonlinear realization of the pion fields and a mapping, $`S^3`$, from real space $`R^3`$ to the internal $`SU(2)`$ space. If we take for $`U_0`$ at infinity a constant SU(2) matrix, the configurations can be classified according to their winding number

$$B=d^3x\rho _B(\stackrel{}{x}),$$
(6)
with

$$\rho _B(\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{24\pi ^2}ϵ_{ijk}\mathrm{Tr}(U_0^{}_iU_0U_0^{}_jU_0U_0^{}_kU_0).$$
(7)
Skyrme  used this winding number to describe the baryon number. It is therefore through topology that this Lagrangian, written in terms of pion fields, describes baryonic systems.

Various solutions of static field configurations which describe infinite matter can be obtained from skyrmions by assigning specific symmetries . We proceed to describe in detail one of these solutions as a first step to study the behavior of the elementary pion in skyrmion matter. We adopt the method developed by Kugler and Shtrikman . They construct as an Ansatz for skyrmion matter a crystal whose configurations are such that each neighboring pair is rotated in isospin space, relative to the other with respect to the line joining them, by $`\pi `$. Our starting crystal is FCC (face centered cubic) and the local baryon number takes its maximum at the FCC lattice cites. At high density, this configuration makes a phase transition to a CC (cubic centered) crystal, so called “half-skyrmion”  crystal, because only half of the baryon number carried by the single skyrmion is concentrated at the original FCC cites, while the other half is concentrated at the center of the links connecting those points, where the baryon number density was negligible initially. Thus the phase transition leads to a CC crystal made up of half-skyrmions.

Let us construct the initial skyrmion matter solution. Consider a point in space $`\stackrel{}{x}=(x,y,z)`$ at which the field is given by $`(\sigma ,\pi _1,\pi _2,\pi _3)`$. Then, the FCC configuration is defined by the following symmetries:

1. under reflection in space $`\stackrel{}{x}(x,y,z)`$, the field is also reflected in isospin space according to $`(\sigma ,\pi _1,\pi _2,\pi _3)`$,
2. under a rotation around the threefold axis in space $`\stackrel{}{x}(y,z,x)`$, the field is simultaneously rotated in isospin space about the corresponding axis in isospin space according to $`(\sigma ,\pi _2,\pi _3,\pi _1)`$,
3. under a rotation around the fourfold axis in space $`\stackrel{}{x}(x,z,y)`$, the field is rotated around the corresponding fourfold axis in isospin space according to $`(\sigma ,\pi _1,\pi _3,\pi _2)`$,
4. under a translation from a corner of a cube to the center of a face $`\stackrel{}{x}(x+L,y+L,z)`$, the field becomes rotated by $`\pi `$ about the axis perpendicular to the face according to $`(\sigma ,\pi _1,\pi _2,\pi _3)`$.

Here, $`2L`$ is the size of the single FCC unit cell which contains 4 skyrmions. Thus, the baryon number density is $`\rho =1/2L^3`$. The normal nuclear matter density $`\rho _0=0.17/`$fm3 corresponds to $`L1.43`$ fm.

We initially introduce “unnormalized” fields $`(\overline{\sigma },\overline{\pi }_1,\overline{\pi }_2,\overline{\pi }_3)`$, which are then “normalized” to define properly $`U_0=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }`$ by

$$\sigma =\frac{\overline{\sigma }}{\sqrt{\overline{\sigma }^2+\overline{\pi }_1^2+\overline{\pi }_2^2+\overline{\pi }_3^2}},$$
(8)
with similar equations being satisfied by $`\pi _i(i=1,2,3)`$. The field configurations obeying the above symmetries can be easily found by expanding the unnormalized fields as Fourier series, i.e.

$$\overline{\sigma }=\underset{a,b,c}{}\overline{\beta }_{abc}\mathrm{cos}(a\pi x/L)\mathrm{cos}(b\pi y/L)\mathrm{cos}(c\pi z/L),$$
(9)
and

$`\overline{\pi }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{h,k,l}{}}\overline{\alpha }_{hkl}\mathrm{sin}(h\pi x/L)\mathrm{cos}(k\pi y/L)\mathrm{cos}(l\pi z/L),`$ (10)
$`\overline{\pi }_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{h,k,l}{}}\overline{\alpha }_{hkl}\mathrm{cos}(l\pi x/L)\mathrm{sin}(h\pi y/L)\mathrm{cos}(k\pi z/L),`$ (11)
$`\overline{\pi }_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{h,k,l}{}}\overline{\alpha }_{hkl}\mathrm{cos}(k\pi x/L)\mathrm{cos}(l\pi y/L)\mathrm{sin}(h\pi z/L).`$ (12)
The symmetry relations (S1)-(S4) restrict the modes appearing in eqs. (9-12) as follows;

1. if $`h`$ is even, then $`k,l`$ are restricted to odd numbers and $`a,b,c`$ are to even numbers,
2. if $`h`$ is odd, then $`k,l`$ are restricted to even numbers and $`a,b,c`$ are to odd numbers.

Furthermore, the coefficients of the expansion satisfy $`\overline{\alpha }_{hkl}=\overline{\alpha }_{hlk}`$ and $`\overline{\beta }_{abc}=\overline{\beta }_{bca}=\overline{\beta }_{cab}=\overline{\beta }_{acb}=\overline{\beta }_{cba}=\overline{\beta }_{bac}`$. Note that the normalization process (8) does not spoil any symmetries that the unnormalized fields have, while the expansion coefficients $`\alpha _{hkl}`$ and $`\beta _{abc}`$ lose their meaning as Fourier coefficients in the normalized fields.

Without loss of generality, we can locate the centers of the skyrmions at the corners of the cube and at the centers of the faces by letting $`\sigma =1`$ and $`\pi _i(i=1,2,3)=0`$ at those points. For the skyrmion field to have definite integer baryon number per cite, we should have $`\sigma =+1`$ and $`\pi _i(i=1,2,3)=0`$ at the points such as $`(L,0,0)`$. It gives the constraint

$$\underset{a,b,c=\text{even}}{}\overline{\beta }_{abc}=0.$$
(13)
If only the modes (M2) appear in the expansion, the configuration has an additional symmetry, namely that under the translation $`\stackrel{}{x}(x+L,y,z)`$, the field rotates under $`O(4)`$ by $`\pi `$ in the $`\sigma ,\pi _1`$ plane. This configuration corresponds to the half-skyrmion CC discussed above. Because of this additional symmetry, the physical quantities such as the local baryon number density and the local energy density become completely identical around the points with $`\sigma =1`$ and the points with $`\sigma =+1`$. Thus, one half of the baryon number carried by a single skyrmion is concentrated at the cites where the centers of the single skyrmion is in the FCC crystal. The other half of the baryon number is now concentrated on the links connecting those points, where $`\sigma `$ takes the value $`+1`$, while in this location in the FCC configuration the baryon number density is low. As a consequence the average value $`\sigma `$ vanishes and we will see that this phenomenon signals that, in the dense medium, chiral symmetry restoration for the pion dynamics takes place. It is important to stress that it is the precise structure of the ground state which is responsible for the restoration. Both modes (M1) and (M2) are included in the calculation. The half-skyrmion crystal arises as the stable ground state at high density, because the expansion coefficients associated with the modes (M1) become suppressed.

The Fourier series expansion method works well for the unnormalized fields and only a few modes are necessary.444Of course, through the normalization process (8), infinitely many modes appear in the normalized fields. However, the expansions converge rapidly. The expansion coefficients are used as variational parameters and determined by minimizing the energy of the configuration. The coefficients depend on the box size $`L`$. In Table 1, we list a few modes below $`E=16(\pi /L)^2`$ and we use only the modes with $`E10(\pi /L)^2`$ in our calculation.

In Fig. 1 we show the energy per baryon $`E/B`$ as a function of the FCC box size parameter $`L`$. Each point denotes the minimum energy of the crystal configuration with a given value of $`L`$, which we find by using a proper minimization program such as “the down-hill simplex method” . The solid circles correspond to the zero pion mass calculation and reproduce those of Kugler and Shtrikman . In order for an easier comparison we present the results with $`L`$ given in units of $`(ef_\pi )^1`$ $`(0.45`$fm) and $`E/B`$ in units of $`(6\pi ^2f_\pi )/e`$ $`(1160`$ MeV), respectively. The latter enable us to compare the numerical results on $`E/B`$ easily with its Bogolmoln’y bound for the skyrmion in the chiral limit, which can be expressed as $`E/B=1`$ in this convention.

By looking at the figure one sees that as we squeeze the system from $`L=6`$ to around $`L=3.8`$, the skyrmion system undergoes a phase transition from the FCC single skyrmion configuration to the CC half-skyrmion configuration. The system has a minimum energy at $`L2.4`$ with the energy per baryon $`E/B1.038`$, which is very close to the Bogolmoln’y bound. One can note in Fig. 1 that in the region $`L>3.8`$, two different phases coexist. This coexistence leads to an interesting hysteresis phenomenon in the numerical process for finding the solutions, where one uses the found solution set for an L as the initial trial functions for the next L. If one starts from a small $`L`$, the numerical program might stay in a quasi-stable half-skyrmion CC configuration up to quite large values of $`L>6`$, then suddenly it changes to the single skyrmion FCC configuration. This phase transition – and hysterisis – occurs in the unstable region where the system has negative pressure, so does not have any physical consequence.

The phase to the left of the minimum is referred to in this work as “homogeneous” and there the background fields are described by a crystal configuration. The phase to the right of the minimum is “inhomogeneous” since the pressure $`PE/V`$ is negative, the skyrmion matter is unstable, and to make it stable we will assume a realization in terms of an “inhomogeneous phase” where the skyrmions condense to form dense lumps with large empty spaces.

The open circles are the solutions found with a nonvanishing pion mass, $`m_\pi =140`$ MeV.555Incorporating the pion mass into the problem introduces a new scale in the analysis and therefore we are forced to give specific values to the parameters of the chiral effective Lagrangian, the pion decay constant and the Skyrme parameter, a feature which we have avoided in the chiral limit. In order to proceed, we simply take their empirical values, that is, $`f_\pi =93`$ MeV and $`e=4.75`$. Although the numerical results depend on these values, their qualitative behavior will not. Comparing to the skyrmion system for massless pions, the energy per baryon is somewhat higher. Furthermore, there is no first order phase transition at low densities.

In Fig. 2, we present $`\sigma `$, i.e. the average value of $`\sigma `$ over space as a function of $`L`$. In the chiral limit, $`\sigma `$ rapidly drops as the system shrinks. It reaches zero at $`L3.8`$. where the system goes to the half-skyrmion phase. This phase transition can be interpreted, once the pion fluctuations are incorporated, as a signal for chiral symmetry restoration. In the case of massive pions, the transition in $`\sigma `$ is soft. Its value monotonically decreases and reaches zero asymptotically, as the density increases. Furthermore, as we can see in Fig. 3, where the local baryon number density is shown, for $`L=2`$ (left) and $`L=3.5`$ (right) in the $`z=0`$ plane, the system is (almost) a half-skyrmion crystal at high density.

## 3 Pions in Skyrmion Matter

Let $`U_0(\stackrel{}{x})=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }`$ be the static skyrmion crystal configuration obtained so far. Then, we incorporate on it fluctuating time-dependent pion fields through the ansatz

$$U(\stackrel{}{x},t)=\sqrt{U_\pi }U_0(\stackrel{}{x})\sqrt{U_\pi },$$
(14)
where

$$U_\pi =\mathrm{exp}\left(i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\varphi }(x)/f_\pi \right),$$
(15)
with $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }`$ describing the fluctuating pions. Substituting this ansatz into the Skyrme Lagrangian (4) and expanding the Lagrangian in terms of pions up to second order, we obtain the Lagrangian for the pion in the skyrmion matter which is given by

$$=_B(U_0)+_M(U_\pi )+_I,$$
(16)
where $`_B(U_0)`$ is the Lagrangian density for the skyrmion matter described by the static configuration $`U_0`$, $`_M`$ is for the Lagrangian density for the pions, and finally $`_I`$ describes the interaction between the fluctuating pions and the skyrmion matter. Up to second order in the pion fields, $`_M`$ is simply the free pion Lagrangian to

$$_M=\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi _a^\mu \varphi _a\frac{1}{2}m_\pi ^2\varphi _a^2.$$
(17)
$`_I`$ is quite complicated and is given by

$`_I`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }_aG^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})\dot{\varphi }_b\frac{1}{2}(_i\varphi _a)H_{ij}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})(_j\varphi _b)`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f_\pi }}(_i\varphi _a)A_i^a(\stackrel{}{x}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f_\pi ^2}}ϵ_{abc}(_i\varphi _a)\varphi _bV_i^c(\stackrel{}{x})`$
$`+\frac{1}{4}m_\pi ^2\varphi _a^2\mathrm{Tr}(1U_0)+\frac{1}{2}m_\pi ^2f_\pi \varphi _a\mathrm{Tr}(i\tau _aU_0)`$
where

$`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}\left(\tau ^aU_0\tau ^bU_0^{}\tau ^a\tau ^b\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32e^2f_\pi ^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left([R_i,\stackrel{~}{\tau }^a][R_i,\stackrel{~}{\tau }^b]\right),`$ (19)
$`H_{ij}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`G^{ab}\delta _{ij}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32e^2f_\pi ^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left([R_i,R_j][\stackrel{~}{\tau }^a,\stackrel{~}{\tau }^b][R_i,\stackrel{~}{\tau }^b][R_j,\stackrel{~}{\tau }^a]\right),`$ (20)
$`V_i^a(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}f_\pi ^2\mathrm{Tr}[(L_i+R_i)\tau _a]+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{16e^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left([L_j,\tau _a][L_i,L_j]+[R_j,\tau _a][R_i,R_j]\right),`$ (21)
$`A_i^a(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}f_\pi ^2\mathrm{Tr}[(L_iR_i)\tau _a]+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{16e^2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left([L_j,\tau _a][L_i,L_j][R_j,\tau _a][R_i,R_j]\right)`$ (22)
with $`L_i=(_iU_0^{})U_0`$ and $`R_i=(_iU_0)U_0^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }^a=\tau ^a+U_0\tau ^aU_0^{}`$. The currents $`V_i^a`$ and $`A_i^a`$ produced by the static background field satisfy the following conservation equations:

$`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{V}^a`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (23)
$`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{A}^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2\mathrm{Tr}(i\tau _aU_0).`$ (24)
The structure of our Lagrangian comes out to be very similar to that of chiral perturbation theory, eq. (5), and refs. . Let us use this fact to make some crude estimates.

The interactions of pions and skyrmions as given by eq. (18) modifies the mass term in eq. (17) as

$$\frac{1}{2}m_\pi ^2\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _a^2.$$
(25)
This implies that the local effective pion mass can be even imaginary in the central part of the skyrmions where $`\sigma `$ is negative. By taking the average over space of $`\sigma `$, we obtain an effective mass of the pion in the baryonic medium as

$$m_\pi ^{}m_\pi \sigma ^{1/2}.$$
(26)
The kinetic term is also modified by the background, with respect to the free case, with an additional factor $`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ given by

$`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`(\pi ^2\delta _{ab}\pi _a\pi _b)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^2f_\pi ^2}}\{((_i\sigma )^2+(_i\stackrel{}{\pi })^2)(\sigma ^2\delta _{ab}+\pi _a\pi _b)`$ (28)
$`(_i\sigma \pi _a\sigma _i\pi _a)(_i\sigma \pi _b\sigma _i\pi _b)\}.`$
The first term in $`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$, $`\pi ^2\delta _{ab}+\pi _a\pi _b`$, arises from the quadratic term of the Skyrme model Lagrangian, eq. (4), and corresponds to the term containing $`D^{00}`$ in eq. (5). Let us denote it by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$. It changes the kinetic term in eq. (17) to

$$\frac{1}{2}f_\pi ^2(1+\mathrm{\Gamma }^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x}))\dot{\varphi }_a\dot{\varphi }_b.$$
(29)
Ignoring that the inverse of this matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{ab}`$ becomes singular at the points where $`\pi ^2=1`$ and taking the diagonal element, for example, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{11}`$, eq. (29) implies that the pion decay constant behaves locally as

$$f_\pi ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})f_\pi (1+\mathrm{\Gamma }^{11}(\stackrel{}{x}))^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(30)
The average over the space leads to an effective pion decay constant in the medium $`f_\pi ^{}`$ given by 666Comparing eqs. (18), (19) and (20) with eq. (5) it is apparent that to second order $`_I`$ leads to different time and space components for $`f_\pi ^{}`$. We keep the present discussion to leading order where they are equal.

$$f_\pi ^{}f_\pi (1\frac{2}{3}\pi ^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(31)
If we absorb this change of $`f_\pi `$ in the fields to keep the functional form of the theory as in the free case, eq. (26) is modified to

$$m_\pi ^{}m_\pi \left(\frac{\sigma }{1\frac{2}{3}\pi ^2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(32)
This equation shows the direct relation between the pion mass in the medium, $`m^{}`$, and the parameter $`\sigma `$ which signalled the phase transition in the case of skyrmion matter. We next show that chiral symmetry is restored in dense matter.

In Fig. 4 we show the estimates of $`f_\pi ^{}/f_\pi `$ and $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi `$ as a function of the density. As the density increases, $`f_\pi ^{}`$ decreases to $`0.65f_\pi `$ and then it remains constant at that value 777These estimates are based on the lowest order approximation and should be valid only for low densities.. Note that $`\sigma ^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ has the same slope at low densities, which leads to $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi 1`$ at low densities. Since at higher densities $`\pi ^2`$ becomes a constant, $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi `$ decreases like $`\sigma ^{1/2}`$ with a factor which is greater than 1. As the density increases, higher order terms in $`\rho `$ come to play important roles and $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi `$ decreases.

The slope of $`\sigma `$ at low density is approximately 1/3. If we expand $`\sigma `$ about $`\rho =0`$ and compare it with eq. (5), we obtain

$$\sigma 1\frac{1}{3}\frac{\rho }{\rho _0}+\mathrm{}1\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}}{f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2}\rho +\mathrm{},$$
(33)
which yields $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2/(3\rho _0)42`$ MeV, which is comparable with the experimental value 45 MeV 888While this value is widely quoted, there is at present a considerable controversy on the precise value of this sigma term. In fact it can even be considerably higher than this. See  for a recent discussion.. This comparison is fully justified from the point of view of the $`\frac{1}{N}`$ expansion since both approaches should produce the same result to leading order in this expansion. The liner term is $`𝒪`$(1).

The length scale is strongly dependent on our choice of the parameters $`f_\pi `$ and $`e`$. Thus one should be aware that the $`\rho `$ scale in Fig. 4 could change quantitatively considerably if one chooses another parameter set, however the qualitative behavior will remain unchanged.

We next proceed to a more rigorous derivation of these quantities using perturbation theory. The presence of the zero modes, associated with the collective motion of the skyrmion, and the complexity of $`G^{ab}`$ make the quantization procedure non-trivial. Furthermore, $`G^{ab}`$ becomes singular at the points where $`\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})=0`$.

Let us obviate the complications associated with the zero modes and proceed. The momenta conjugate to the pion field $`\varphi _a`$ are given by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_a=(\delta _{ab}+G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x}))\dot{\varphi }_b$$
(34)
which leads to the following Hamiltonian

$$=\mathrm{\Pi }_a\dot{\varphi }_a_M_I.$$
(35)
It is convenient, as in chiral perturbation theory , to decompose it into the free pion Hamiltonian, $`_0`$, plus the interacting Hamiltonian, $`_I`$, defined by

$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }_a\dot{\varphi }_a+\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{}\varphi _a)(\stackrel{}{}\varphi _a)+\frac{1}{2}m_\pi ^2\varphi _a\varphi _a,`$ (36)
$`_I`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }_aG^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})\dot{\varphi }_b+\frac{1}{2}(_i\varphi _a)H_{ij}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})(_j\varphi _b)`$ (37)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f_\pi ^2}}ϵ_{abc}(_i\varphi _a)\varphi _bV_i^c(\stackrel{}{x})+\frac{1}{2}m_\pi ^2\varphi _a(\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})1)\varphi _a.`$
Note that the momenta $`\mathrm{\Pi }_a`$, defined by eq. (34), and used in the derivation of the Hamiltonian do not appear in $`_0`$. This simplifies matters considerably since only $`\dot{\varphi }_a`$ will define the canonical momenta of the quantization procedure. $`_0`$ defines the free pion propagator and $`_I`$ the interaction potentials as summarized in Fig. 5.

We define the effective mass of the pion in skyrmion matter as the pole in the pion propagator in the limit of $`\stackrel{}{p}0`$,

$$G(p)=\frac{1}{p^2m_\pi ^2\mathrm{\Sigma }(p)},$$
(38)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(p)`$ is the pion self-energy in matter. Thus, the interactions associated with the spatial derivatives acting on the pion fields will not play any role in the process up to second order in the interactions. Only the interactions characterized by $`G^{ab}`$ and $`\sigma `$ will be active to this order.

Due to the crystal structure of the background fields in the homogeneous phase, $`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})`$ can be expressed as

$`\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z}{}}\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{x}\pi /L),`$ (39)
$`G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z}{}}\widehat{G}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{x}\pi /L),`$ (40)
with the help of a set of integers $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}=(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)`$. Thus, the corresponding $`\widehat{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{p})`$ and $`\widehat{G}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{p})`$ in momentum space have the following structure,

$$\widehat{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{p})=\underset{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}}{}\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}),\widehat{\gamma }^{ab}(\stackrel{}{p})=\underset{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}}{}\widehat{G}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}).$$
(41)
The FCC crystal yields non-vanishing expansion coefficients only for the integer set listed in Tab. 2. Furthermore, the coefficients have the following symmetries

$`\widehat{S}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{S}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{S}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{S}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)`$
$`\widehat{G}^{11}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=\widehat{G}^{11}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{G}^{11}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{G}^{11}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)`$ (42)
$`\widehat{G}^{12}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=\widehat{G}^{12}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=\widehat{G}^{12}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)=+\widehat{G}^{12}(\mathrm{}_x,\mathrm{}_y,\mathrm{}_z)`$
To the first order in the interactions, the self-energy gets contributions from $`\sigma (\stackrel{}{0})`$ and $`G^{11}(\stackrel{}{0})`$ given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^I(p_0,\stackrel{}{p}0)=m_\pi ^2(\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{0})1)p_0^2\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{0}).$$
(43)
To this order, the effective pion mass $`m_\pi ^{}`$ becomes

$$m_\pi ^I=\left(\frac{\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{0})}{1+\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{0})}\right)^{1/2}m_\pi .$$
(44)
Since $`\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{0})`$ is nothing but $`\sigma `$, if we ignore the denominator, we can interpret our result as the naive estimate (26). Furthermore, keeping only the first order terms in $`G^{11}(\stackrel{}{x})`$, the result coincides with our estimate (32). Thus, eq. (44) differs from eq. (32) by the presence of the higher order term coming from the Skyrme term. Since the latter is positive definite, $`\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{0})`$ is always larger than $`\frac{2}{3}\pi ^2`$ appearing in eq. (32). According to our numerical results, however, $`\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{0})`$ takes negative values for a wide range of $`\rho `$ down to the density where $`E/B`$ has the minimum. Thus, eq. (44) tells us that $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi `$ decreases slower than $`\sigma ^{1/2}`$ in this range of $`\rho `$, but faster than the naive estimate (32).

If we include the second order diagrams as shown in Fig. 6, we obtain the self-energy as

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{II}(p_0,\stackrel{}{0})`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^I(p_0,\stackrel{}{0})`$ (45)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{0}}{}}({\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})m_\pi ^4}{p_0^2m_\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2/L^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})m_\pi ^2p_0^2}{p_0^2m_\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2/L^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\widehat{G}^{11}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})+2\widehat{G}^{12}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}})\widehat{G}^{21}(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}))p_0^4}{p_0^2m_\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2/L^2}}).`$
The resulting effective pion mass can be found numerically by solving the equation

$$p_0^2m_\pi ^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^{II}(p_0,\stackrel{}{0})=0,$$
(46)
after substituting $`p_0m_\pi ^{II}`$.

In the chiral limit where $`m_\pi =0`$, eq. (46) always provides us with the trivial solution $`p_0=0`$, which supports the consistency of our process. We show in Fig. 7 the numerical results on $`m_\pi ^{}/m_\pi `$ as a function of the density $`\rho `$. We have taken in eq. (45) up to $`|\stackrel{}{\mathrm{}}|^2<6`$ Fourier components. Although, there is no apparent reason for the interactions to be weak, $`m_\pi ^{II}`$ is very close to $`m_\pi ^I`$. The Fourier expansion for $`\widehat{S}(\stackrel{}{p})`$ and $`\widehat{G}^{ab}(\stackrel{}{p})`$ can only be done for the homogeneous skyrmion crystal.

Now that we have developed the perturbative expansion, we may check our estimate eq. (31) of the pion decay constant in the medium. We proceed by calculating it directly from the appropriate expectation value of the axial current.

The total axial current of the system can be written as

$`𝒜_{\mu ,a}`$ $`=`$ $`f_\pi _\mu \varphi _a(x)+f_\pi G^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})_\mu \varphi _b(x)+f_\pi H_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(\stackrel{}{x})^\nu \varphi _b(x)`$ (47)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2f_\pi }}ϵ_{abc}\varphi _b(x)V_{\mu ,c}(\stackrel{}{x})+A_{\mu ,a}(\stackrel{}{x}),`$
where $`A_{\mu ,a}`$ and $`V_{\mu ,a}`$ are the axial and vector currents from the background skyrmion matter, respectively. The total axial current satisfies the following conservation relation,

$$^\mu 𝒜_{\mu ,a}=f_\pi m_\pi ^2\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _a(x)\frac{1}{2f_\pi }ϵ_{abc}^\mu \varphi _b(x)V_{\mu ,c}(\stackrel{}{x})+\frac{f_\pi ^2}{2}m_\pi ^2\mathrm{Tr}(i\tau _aU_0).$$
(48)
The axial current of the fluctuating pion is obtained from eq. (47) by omitting the background (last) term of the equation. Let us use the symbol $`A_{\mu ,a}^\varphi `$ for the in medium pion axial current. Its conservation leads to the equation of motion,

$$^\mu A_{\mu ,a}^\varphi =f_\pi m_\pi ^2\sigma (\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _a(x)\frac{1}{2f_\pi }ϵ_{abc}^\mu \varphi _b(x)V_{\mu ,c}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(49)
Applying the LSZ reduction formalism, the appropriate matrix element of the pion axial current in the ground state of skyrmion matter is,

$$\stackrel{~}{0}|A_{\mu ,1}^\varphi (x)|\pi _1(q)\stackrel{~}{0}=i\sqrt{Z}f_\pi q_\mu (1+G^{11}(\stackrel{}{x}))e^{iqx},$$
(50)
where we have used $`\pi ^1`$ to perform the calculation, exploiting isospin symmetry, and $`Z`$ is the wave function renormalization constant obtained as $`Z^1=(1+G^{11}(\stackrel{}{0}))`$ in eq. (43). The ground state of skyrmion matter is denoted by $`|\stackrel{~}{0}`$. In the spirit of our approximation we only consider the $`\mu =0`$ component, to which $`H_{\mu \nu }^{ab}`$ does not contribute. If we regard the quantity appearing in the right hand side of the above equation as the in-medium pion decay constant and take the spatial average of $`G^{11}(\stackrel{}{x})`$, we obtain,

$$f_\pi ^{}=f_\pi (\sqrt{Z})^1=f_\pi (1+G^{11}(\stackrel{}{0}))^{1/2},$$
(51)
which supports eq. (31). Similarly, the matrix element for the conservation relation becomes

$$\stackrel{~}{0}|^\mu A_{\mu ,1}^\varphi (x)|\pi _1(q)\stackrel{~}{0}=\sqrt{Z}f_\pi m_\pi ^2\sigma (\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(52)
Again, if we take the quantity in the right hand as $`f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2`$, this equation gives the following relation between free and in-medium quantities,

$$\frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\pi ^2}\frac{f_\pi ^{}}{f_\pi }=\sqrt{Z}\sigma (\stackrel{}{0}).$$
(53)
Incorporating the relation eq. (51), we obtain

$$\frac{m_\pi ^2}{m_\pi ^2}\frac{f_\pi ^2}{f_\pi ^2}=\sigma (\stackrel{}{0}),$$
(54)
which is nothing but eq. (32).

Up to now, we have considered only the “homogeneous” phase where the background fields are in a crystal configuration. We next proceed to describe the “inhomogeneous phase”. In Fig. 8, we present the situation schematically; in (a) the skyrmions are in the homogeneous crystal phase, while in (b) they condense to form rather dense lumps of matter and empty spaces. Our crude approximation consists of describing the dense lumps of matter by the crystal structure at the minimum energy per baryon ignoring surface effects. In this approximation $`E/B`$ of the inhomogeneous phase (b) will be the same as $`(E/B)_{\text{min}}`$. That is, the inhomogeneous matter has a lower energy than the homogeneous one and becomes stable. In Fig. 1, such energy is represented by a horizontal line starting at the minimum. Our approximation can be interpreted as a Maxwell construction between the two phases.

In the inhomogeneous matter space is divided into two different phases. Let us distinguish these by using the subscripts “vac” denoting the (empty) vacuum phase and “min” denoting the lumps of skyrmion matter at the minimum energy. The expectation values $`\sigma `$ can be approximated by

$$\sigma ^{(i)}\frac{\sigma _{\text{min}}^{(h)}V_{\text{min}}+\sigma _{\text{vac}}^{(h)}V_{\text{vac}}}{V_{\text{min}}+V_{\text{vac}}}$$
(55)
where the superscript “h” and “i” denote that the quantities are for the homogeneous and inhomogeneous phase, respectively.

In the inhomogeneous matter, the total volume of the dense droplets $`V_{\text{min}}`$ is nothing but $`L_{\text{min}}^3`$ and the volume of the whole space is $`V_{\text{min}}+V_{\text{vac}}`$. Thus, eq. (55) can be simply written as

$$\sigma ^{(i)}\sigma _{\text{vac}}^{(h)}(\sigma _{\text{vac}}^{(h)}\sigma _{\text{min}}^{(h)})(L_{\text{min}}/L)^3.$$
(56)
The dash-dot lines in Fig. 9 represent the value of $`\sigma `$ for the inhomogeneous phase obtained by using the approximate Maxwell construction defined by eq. (55). The change of $`\sigma `$ in the chiral limit is remarkable. Chiral restoration occurs at the point $`L=L_{min}`$ where $`E/B`$ has its lowest value through a phase transition from the inhomogeneous phase to the homogeneous half-skyrmion CC phase at $`L=L_{\text{min}}`$. The sharp phase transition may be an artifact of our naive approximation (55). In the case of $`m_\pi 0`$ also a rapid change in $`\sigma `$ occurs in the transition to the stable inhomogeneous phase, moreover there is almost no difference between the massive and massless cases.

We show in Fig. 10 the value of $`m_\pi ^i`$ obtained by eq. (32) for the inhomogeneous phase.

We learn from our calculation that the dynamics of the pion in the medium depends not only on the density of the baryonic matter but also from its detailed structure. It may be possible to interpret this as simulating the effect of the “intrinsic” density dependence required in Harada-Yamawaki theory .

## 4 Concluding Remarks

We have studied the dynamics of the pion in a baryonic environment by incorporating quantum fluctuations to classical skyrmion matter. The procedure has led to an effective Lagrangian for the pion in the medium defined in terms of the parameters, $`f_\pi ^{}`$ and $`m_\pi ^{}`$, which are density-dependent. The fact that we have a unified hadronic scheme to calculate both baryonic matter and the interactions of the pion in the background of such matter, with only a few parameters, allows us to draw important conclusions. This contrasts with the conventional approach where the starting point is the matter-free vacuum, with the density effect taken into account perturbatively. While our scheme is still far from being realistic, it contains the right symmetries and the support of $`\frac{1}{N}`$ physics, which renders it qualitatively predictive if not yet quantitatively. We are able to describe interesting phenomena though we are not able to predict yet the scales at which they will occur.

The main result of our presentation is that, as the density of matter increases, chiral symmetry for the dynamics of the pion is restored, i.e. the effective parameters become those of a chiral symmetric phase. Two important dynamical mechanisms lead to this phenomenon. On the one hand the structure of the matter state is crucial in producing the phase transition. At high densities, the symmetries of the classical field describing the CC half skyrmion crystal, conspire to provide the $`\sigma `$ components with adequately distributed values on the lattice so that its average tends to vanish as the crystal becomes more and more precisely defined. This phenomenon which occurs at the level of the baryonic state is carried over by the quantum fluctuations to the dynamics of the pion in this baryonic medium. Thus the important physical quantities of the pion become density-dependent in terms of the expectation values of the classical fields and therefore are essential to this phase transition, which tends to restore chiral symmetry in the dynamics of the pion. On the other hand our procedure produces a density dependence which is non-trivial, i.e., the classical field leads to higher orders in the density dependence of the parameters. This intricate density dependence is analogous, if not entirely equivalent, to the intrinsic density dependence found in hidden local symmetry theory with the vector manifestation fixed point . The results show that these additional terms, which do not appear in more conventional calculations, play an important role in the phase transition, suggesting that one should not trust results of this phenomenon obtained with the linear approximation or in few-order low-density expansions.

It is important to stress that the results just exposed have required the development of a non-trivial perturbative procedure which has been solved beyond the leading order in the case of the effective pion mass.

Ours is not yet a realistic calculation. The model we have used describes skyrmion matter, not nuclear matter. For instance we do not have the liquid structure of normal nuclear matter. In fact it appears nontrivial to arrive at a Fermi liquid from the crystal structure. Specifically while the in-medium pion decay constant going proportional to $`\sigma ^{1/2}`$ up to near nuclear matter density is consistent with what one expects in the effective field theory with vector manifestation , its saturation at higher density and non-vanishing as one approaches the chiral transition indicate that we may be describing a phase which is not the standard Wigner-Weyl symmetry. It may be in a pseudo-gap phase where the gap is non-zero though chiral symmetry is restored, resembling what might be happening in the “normal phase” of high $`T_c`$ superconductivity  999We are grateful to Kurt Langfeld for bringing our attention to this reference.. This may account for the fact that the in-medium pion mass $`decreases`$ as one goes beyond normal matter density, which is at variance with the results of other approaches.

It should be reiterated that the beauty of the whole procedure is that a unique Lagrangian is able to describe in a unified way $`all`$ hadronic interactions, the ground state and fluctuations based on it. This hadronic theory provides us with results which are promising and exciting while exposing weaknesses of the more traditional approaches. Needless to say, there is still a long way to go before confronting Nature, such as, for instance, the properties of the pionic atoms that are offering a tantalizing view of what is going on in dense medium and of course the interior of compact stellar systems where chiral symmetry is presumably restored. Properly and realistically formulated, we might be able to “derive” from the first principles such novel notions as BR scaling , the hidden local symmetry/vector manifestation  etc.

## Acknowledgments

Hee-Jung Lee, Byung-Yoon Park and Vicente Vento are grateful for the hospitality extended to them by KIAS, where this work was finished. This work was partially supported by grants MCyT-BFM2001-0262 and GV01-26 (VV), KOSEF Grant R01-1999-000-00017-0 (DPM, BYP), M02-2002-000-10008-0 (HJL), Brain Korea 21 Project in 2002, and KRF Grant 2001-015-DP0085 (DPM).