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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In theories with Chern-Simons interactions, such as the SUGRA theories that provide the classical limits of string theories, there are many distinct varieties of field strength  which exhibit varying degrees of quantization and gauge invariance. The different field strengths of type II supergravity are distinguished by their dependence on the NS fields $`B`$ and $`H`$. In particular in the absence of NS forms there is only one type of RR field strength, the exterior derivative of the RR gauge potentials

$$G_{p+1}=dC_p.$$
(1.1)
This is the case analyzed in Ref. , where it was concluded that RR fluxes are classified by K-theory. When the NS fluxes are reintroduced it is believed that some notion of field strength is then classified by twisted K-theory . However few examples of fluxes classified by twisted K-groups have been analyzed, and in fact one of the most careful analyses  revealed a counterexample. It was found that the set of allowed RR charges does not even necessarily form a group, a finding which may have been expected because even classically the allowed fluxes are solutions of nonlinear equations. When the H-field is turned off these equations become linear, and so in that case one may expect their solutions to form a group.

In the present note several examples with NS fluxes are considered in an attempt to determine what notion of RR field strength is classified by twisted K-theory and when this classification may fail. The Maldacena, Moore and Seiberg (MMS) perspective  of the K-theory classification of solitons will be used extensively. In this perspective, the relevant K-group is constructed as the set of D$`p`$-branes which are anomaly free quotiented by the brane configurations that may decay via “instantonic” D$`(p+2)`$-branes. The term “instantonic” was coined in Ref.  and refers to the fact that these branes may be solutions to either the Euclidean or Minkowskian equations of motion. In the first case they therefore correspond to the unstable branes tunnelling out of existence in some quantum theory. However the idea behind this construction does not rely upon any quantum theory111After all, D-branes may not be suitable degrees of freedom in such a theory.. Rather, these branes are characterized by the fact that they exist for a finite amount of time. Therefore we will refer to them as “mortal” branes, thus avoiding a continued notational clash with “D-instantons”.

At $`g_s=0`$ mortal branes appear, consume the unstable branes and then disappear. When the string coupling is finite this is a continuous process in which the unstable branes blow up via the Myers effect , sweep out a cycle which causes them to lose all of their charges and then shrink into nothing. The unstable D$`p`$-branes are trivial in twisted K-theory, and thus their decay into nothing would allow us to quotient by their associated charges and thus confirm the twisted K-theory classification. However the D$`p`$-branes do not quite decay into nothing, because the mortal D$`(p+2)`$-brane creates $`G_{6p}`$ flux which remains after all of the branes have disappeared. This means that configurations which differ only by the inclusion of an unstable stack of D-branes are not related by any dynamical process.

This effect does not affect the classification of D-branes, because the remaining flux does not carry any D-brane charge and so may be neglected222If one does not ignore the flux, one may use it to constructed twisted K-theory with every possible twist, including the twist which yields integral cohomology. All such charges are conserved simultaneously. Of course only one of these groups classifies D-branes at any given time, but which group this is changes whenever one crosses an NS5-brane.. However when classifying RR fluxes one must determine if and when the residual flux is classified by twisted K-theory.

We begin in Section 2 with a review of the classical equations of motion and different notions of field strengths in $`N`$=2 10d supergravities. In particular we describe the inclusion of charges and the relevant Gauss’ laws, using the brane surgery viewpoint developed in Ref. . In Section 3 we focus on a $`spin^c`$ example with time-independent topology, type II string theory on $`S^3\times S^5\times ^{1,1}`$. We investigate various dynamical process involving the spontaneous creations and destructions of branes and the related monodromies which may lead to the equivalence of different field strengths. We attempt to determine which configurations are covered by the twisted K-theory classifications and which are identified. We find that $`dG`$ terms which are trivial in ordinary cohomology but nontrivial in compactly supported cohomology are not represented by any K-theory class. To understand this from another perspective, in Section 4 we outline the way in which twisted K-theory appears to arise in the $`E_8`$ gauge bundle formalism. We see that the fluxes in question do not affect the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundles, and so do not affect the K-theory class of a configuration. Finally in Section 5 we include dynamical processes involving NS5-branes and fundamental strings and find that the twisted K-theory classification is modified so as to include less configurations and to identify more fields. The further identifications are caused by monodromies as one encircles an NS5-brane. NS5-branes, roughly, divide the world regions with differing values of the $`H`$-field, but it appears as though one may consistently classify branes and fluxes in each of those regions by the corresponding twisted K-theory.

## 2 Supergravity Review

### 2.1 Fields and Charges in Type II SUGRA

The bosonic degrees of freedom in $`N=2`$ 10-dimensional supergravities are the graviton, the dilaton, the NS B-field $`B`$ and the RR $`p`$-form gauge connections $`C_p`$ where $`p`$ is odd and even for type IIA and IIB supergravities respectively. The NS and RR forms enjoy the abelian gauge symmetries

$$BB+d\omega ,C_pC_p+d\mathrm{\Lambda }_{p1}Bd\mathrm{\Lambda }_{p3}.$$
(2.1)
From these one may construct the gauge-invariant field strengths

$$H=dB,G_{p+1}=dC_p+HC_{p2}.$$
(2.2)
The various field strengths are related by a self-duality which takes these Bianchi identities to equations of motion, but we will not need to make use of this fact. For notational simplicity, we will always denote the multiplication of fluxes by a wedge product as above. However if one wishes to apply the formulas of this note to torsion cohomology classes it should be understood that the wedge products are in fact cup products. Our examples will not contain torsion classes and so there will be no distinction.

The gauge-invariant field strengths are gauge-invariant but need not be closed. On the other hand, the exterior derivatives of the connections, being exterior derivatives of forms which are at least patchwise well-defined, are closed although they are not gauge-invariant. The exterior derivative of a closed form vanishes and so we find the Bianchi identities

$$0=ddC_p=d(G_{p+1}HC_{p2})=dG_{p+1}HG_{p1}.$$
(2.3)
We may couple the theory to charged matter by allowing the Bianchi identities to be violated by a source $`j_p`$

$$ddC_p=dG_{p+1}HG_{p1}=j_p.$$
(2.4)
Physically $`j_p`$ measures D$`(7p)`$-brane charge.

One may calculate the total charge in a region $`U`$ by integrating the current $`j_p`$

$$Q_U=_Uj_p=_Ud(dC_p)=_U𝑑C_p=_UG_{p+1}HC_{p2}.$$
(2.5)
To make charges integral and equations small we have included an extra, hidden factor of $`2\pi `$ in each of these integrals and in all integrals that follow. $`dC_p`$ is not gauge invariant and furthermore in the presence of other RR currents even its integral over $`U`$ is not gauge invariant. This is reflected in the nonconservation of the current $`j_p`$

$$dj_p=Hj_{p2}.$$
(2.6)
The physical interpretation is that $`k`$ D$`(7p)`$-branes must end on any D$`(9p)`$-brane that wraps a 3-cycle supporting $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux. In the sequel we will always consider $`k0`$. The nonconservation of $`j_p`$ is manifested in the fact that if $`U`$ links the D$`(7p)`$-branes then the interior region $`U`$ may be chosen to intersect the branes, in which case the charge is detected, or it may be chosen to go around the D$`(9p)`$-brane, in which case $`Q_U`$ vanishes. The two choices of interior $`U`$ are illustrated in Figure 1.

### 2.2 Classification Schemes

Thus we learn that groups of $`k`$ D$`(7p)`$-branes can decay if a D$`(9p)`$-brane bubble nucleates carrying no charges and then proceeds to absorb the D$`(7p)`$-branes and sweep out a 3-cycle carrying $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux before disappearing itself. This implies that D$`(7p)`$-charge, for each type of consistent brane, is roughly classified by the cyclic group $`_k`$. The RR field strength $`G_{p+1}`$ may be classified by a cohomology group, perhaps $`H^{p+1}(M,U(1))`$. Although it is not homotopy-invariant , there is no evidence here that $`G_{p+1}`$ ill-defined and so it does not appear as though a quotient needs to be taken. It contains an integral of the $`C`$-field, which is not quantized, and so real or $`U(1)`$ coefficients would seem appropriate. $`U(1)`$ coefficients are chosen here to reflect the fact that the $`C_{p2}`$ is classified by $`U(1)`$-cohomology ($``$ coefficients would miss, for example, discrete torsion).

On the other hand, in the quantum theory $`dC_p`$ is quantized by the Dirac quantization condition, which up to gravitational corrections forces its integrals to be integral. Its integrals are only defined modulo $`k`$, as evidenced by the two representatives of $`U`$ in Fig. 1 that give answers which differ by $`k`$. Thus each “type” of $`dC_p`$ appears to be classified by $`Z_k`$. This is in accord with the twisted K-theory classification, in fact even the gravitational corrections are naturally interpreted in this framework .

However the twisted K-theory classification is not supposed to classify only a single RR flux at a time, it is conjectured to classify the entire collection of fluxes at once. All of them are supposed to be the characteristic classes associated with a single K-theory class. In particular, the above decay left a residual $`G_{p1}`$ flux. This remaining flux is particularly dangerous because its source wraps a cycle which supports $`H`$ flux, which may indicate that $`G_{p1}H`$ does not vanish and may even be nontorsion. In this case $`G_{p1}`$ could not be one of the RR forms associated with twisted K-theory, whose wedge products with $`H`$ are always pure torsion. However this would not violate the Bianchi identity (2.3), it would merely imply that $`dG_{p+1}=HG_{p1}`$ is a nontorsion class333$`dG_{p+1}`$ may be nontrivial only as an element of cohomology with compact support.. As the Bianchi idenity is not violated, there is no D-brane charge and so this is a situation in which RR fields are conjectured to be classified by twisted K-theory.

Reversing the logic, if the twisted K-theory classification is to be sensitive to this RR flux, then $`HG_{p1}`$ must be pure torsion at the end of the decay described above, in fact it must equal $`Sq^3G_{p1}`$. We will now test whether this is indeed the case in examples.

## 3 Examples

### 3.1 The MMS Example

Consider massless type IIA string theory on $`S^3\times S^5\times ^{1,1}`$, although all of the remarks that will be made apply equally to the MMS example $`SU(3)\times ^{1,1}`$. Let there be $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux supported on the 3-sphere. Consider the following decay process . $`k`$ static D6-branes wrap the 5-cycle and also extend along the noncompact direction. A D8-brane forms which also wraps the 5-cycle and extends in the noncompact direction, and with its other 3 directions it sweeps out the 3-sphere. The 3-sphere may be swept out all at one instant, making the D8-brane an S-brane , or for example it may start as a small 2-sphere on the 3-sphere and as time progresses it may grow until it wraps an equator and then shrink out of existence on the other side. Sometime during its finite life, let the D8-brane swallow the D6’s. If it fails, that is inconsequential as when it shrinks to a point on the 3-sphere it will have $`k`$ units of $`\overline{\text{D}6}`$ charge and can annihilate the D6’s later. At finite $`g_s`$ these two processes are indistinguishable as the stack D6-branes will always be slightly dielectric  and thus will always be a spherical D8 brane. In the end there are no branes, and so the remaining fluxes should be described by twisted K-theory. This process is drawn in Figure 2.

However during the decay the world was engulfed by a bubble of D8-brane, and as usual the inside of this bubble is Romans massive IIA with a Romans mass $`G_0=1`$. This flux is precisely of the dreaded form,

$$dG_2=G_0H=H$$
(3.1)
which is nonvanishing and nontorsion. Stated another way

$$d_3G_0=(Sq^3+H)G_0=H0$$
(3.2)
where $`d_3`$ is a differential from the Atiyah-Hirzebruch spectral sequence. This means that $`G_0`$ does not correspond to any K-theory class.

The initial state contained D-branes and so its fluxes were not supposed to be classified by twisted K-theory. However, from this state we may have known that the final product also would not correspond to a K-theory class. Recall that the RR fluxes are gauge invariant, and so integrals of $`G_2`$ and therefore $`dG_2`$ are well-defined over any given surface, although integrals of $`G_2`$ may change if the surface is moved through a D6-brane. The initial state contained $`dG_2`$ flux supported on the D6-branes. This is clear from inserting the initial condition $`G_0=0`$ of massless IIA into the modified Bianchi identity

$$dG_2G_0H=j_1$$
(3.3)
where $`j_1`$ is the D6-brane current. $`dG_2`$ is conserved and so it is also nonvanishing in the final state, which implies that $`G_0`$ is not annihilated by $`d_3`$ and thus the final state does not represent a K-theory class. Conversely, twisted K-theory does seem to classify field configurations which are the decay products of brane configurations in which each $`dG_{p+1}`$ is cohomologically trivial.

One way out of this restriction on the applicability of twisted K-theory would be to observe that $`dG_{p+1}`$ and in fact $`H`$ itself are nontrivial only as elements of cohomology of compact support. Thus if one is interested in K-theory without compact support, one may be inclined to consider $`dG_2`$ and therefore $`H`$ to vanish. However, with $`H`$ ignored (gauged away using a $`B`$ without compact support, although possibly with rapid decrease depending on details of the SUGRA solution) it is hard to justify the use of twisted K-theory in this example, as $`H`$ is identified with zero. But perhaps there is some sense in which $`dG_2`$ is trivial but not $`H`$.

To restate the issue, we know from the Bianchi identity that in the absence of branes

$$HG_{p1}=dG_{p+1}$$
(3.4)
and so $`HG_{p1}`$ may only be nontrivial as an element of compactly supported cohomology. $`HG_{p1}`$ is required to be torsion444More precisely, it must equal $`Sq^3G_{p1}`$. in order for the field configuration to correspond to a K-theory class. In cohomology without compact support $`dG_{p+1}`$ and therefore $`HG_{p1}`$ vanish and so configurations do correspond to K-theory classes, but not twisted K-theory classes unless $`H`$ represents a class in the theory without compact support. On the other hand $`HG_{p1}`$ is often nontrivial and nontorsion in compactly supported cohomology, and so such states do not fit into the twisted K-theory classification.

If the physics were to somehow force $`dG_{p+1}`$ to be trivial, then the field configurations missed by twisted K-theory classification would be eliminated. One way to do this would be to restrict attention to compact manifolds. $`dG_{p+1}`$ would then be forced to vanish to assure that $`G_{p+1}`$ is well defined, or equivalently $`dG_{p+1}`$ would vanish because it is an element of quotient of cohomology with compact support by the usual cohomology , but in the compact case everything has compact support and so the quotient is trivial. More intuitively (but less precisely), if we require spacetime to be compact then we cannot introduce D-brane charge, apparently even D-brane charge which is trivial in K-theory but not in homology, and so there will be no troublesome decay products in the final state. Of course D-brane charge which is trivial in K-theory may form spontaneously, but $`dG_{p+1}`$ will be trivial throughout this process, the Bianchi identity violation in such a case comes entirely from the $`HG_{p1}`$ term and this conveniently disappears when the unstable branes vanish.

### 3.2 Lower-Dimensional Branes and Monodromies

The last paragraph supports the claim that fluxes on compact spaces are in fact classified by twisted K-theory. A remaining question is whether the configurations on noncompact spaces which have fluxes not corresponding to any K-theory class may be pathological. In particular the example above had only “one noncompact direction” and the D6-branes were extended in that direction, meaning that as one continues in that direction it is possible that the $`G_2`$ field strength grows ever larger. This effect is not as severe as one may think, as Einstein’s equations demand that the noncompact directions grow at the same time, and so perhaps divergences are avoided in an actual SUGRA solution. However it does appear to be worthwhile to constuct examples where there is no such danger.

To this end we consider  the decay of a stack of $`k`$ D0-branes propagating in the same spacetime as above. This is depicted in Figure 3. Begin with $`k`$ D0-branes, $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux and no nontrivial $`G_6`$ flux. These D0-branes are unstable and may be absorbed by a D2-brane which appears from nothing, sweeps out the 3-sphere and then shrinks until nothing remains except for $`G_6`$ flux whose integral over the 5-cycle crossed with the noncompact spatial direction yields $`1`$:

$$_{M^5\times }G_6=1.$$
(3.5)
Again this flux does not correspond to any twisted K-theory class because

$$d_3G_6=Sq^3G_6+HG_6=0+kx^9=kx^9$$
(3.6)
is nonzero. Here $`x^9`$ generates the ninth compactly supported cohomology class of a timeslice.

To better understand the origin of this flux we will describe the field configuration at each step in the decay process explicitly. In the original configuration there was a stack of $`k`$ D0-branes. These are sources for $`G_8`$ and so

$$ddC_7=dG_8HG_6=\delta (\text{D0-branes})=kx^9.$$
(3.7)
Every timeslice is the product of an 8-cycle and the real line. The stack of D0’s therefore provides a domain wall in a projection onto the real line. $`dC_7=G_8HC_5`$ may be integrated over the 8-cycle which projects to some point and (3.7) implies that this integral jumps by $`k`$ when this cycle is pushed past the stack of D0-branes.

Further Eq. (3.7) implies that this is the only deformation that changes the integral. In particular, we may consider a 1-parameter family of 8-cycles which is the preimage, under the projection map

$$M^8\times ^{1,1}^{1,1}$$
(3.8)
of a circle linking the mortal D2-brane. Going around this circle the integral of $`G_8HC_5`$ over the 8-cycle increases by $`k`$ when the cycles intersects the D0-branes but otherwise does not change. This means that the cycle enjoys a nontrivial monodromy

$$_{M^8}G_8HC_5k+_{M^8}G_8HC_5.$$
(3.9)
This is consistent with the fact that $`G_8HC_5`$ is valued in $`_k`$, as predicted by the twisted K-theory classification. The integral of $`G_8`$, on the contrary, is well-defined which means that it cannot be subject to any monodromies. $`H`$ is held constant everywhere in this section, its integral over the 3-cycle is always equal to $`k`$. This means that $`C_5`$ must be subject to the monodromy

$$_{M^5}C_51+_{M^5}C_5.$$
(3.10)
This is true, because the integral of $`G_6`$ over the corresponding circle-valued family of 5-cycles is equal to $`1`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{M^5}C_5=_{S^1\times M^5}G_6=_{B^2\times M^5}𝑑G_6=_{B^2\times M^5}\delta (\text{D2-brane})=1$$
(3.11)
because the cycle links the D2-brane. The fact that $`C_5`$ is well defined only modulo 1 is consistent with the fact that it is classified by $`U(1)`$-valued cohomology. Notice that a shift in $`C_5`$ by 1 does not change the partition function of a D4-brane to which it couples electrically because the action is exponentiated (and we have absorbed a factor of 2$`\pi `$ into our measure.)

We have now seen two explanations for the fact that $`dC_7`$ is well-defined only modulo $`k`$. The first is that $`G_8=dC_7+HC_5`$ is well defined while $`C_5`$ is an element of $`U(1)`$-valued cohomology. The second is that in the presence of D2-branes, even D2-branes that carry no net D2-brane charge and only exist for a finite period of time, the $``$-valued cohomology class of $`dC_7`$ is subject to a nontrivial monodromy. In this example the D2-brane in question existed because it described the decay of the D0-branes in the initial condition. However this initial condition was not necessary for mortal D2’s to form, nor was the nontriviality of $`dG_8`$. So long as there is a three-cycle supporting $`H`$-flux (which does not cancel the relevant $`W_3`$’s) D2-branes may spontaneously appear and sweep out a 3-manifold leaving a stack of D0-branes, which may later decay by the inverse process. This process will occur frequently if the system is probed at an energy higher than $`V_3/g_s`$ where $`V_3`$ is the volume of the 3-cycle. However it seems unlikely that the well-definedness of the form should know whether such a process is occuring somewhere far away and perhaps not yet causally connected, and so one may expect that at any energy-scale $`dC_p`$ fluxes are well-defined only modulo $`k`$, where $`k`$ is the greatest common divisor of the integrals of the $`H`$ fluxes over 3-submanifolds of the Poincare dual of $`dC_p`$ (more precisely $`H`$ runs over the factors of $`dC_p`$ in the compactly supported cohomology ring).

This monodromy generalizes the usual monodromy which acts on the fields of IIB string theory in the presence of a D7-brane, which is responsible for the fact that $`dC_2`$ is well defined only modulo $`H=k`$. To see this, compactify the spatial real line above, T-dualize and decompactify. Of course this compactification must be done without the net D-brane charge of the above examples, as the flux would have no where to go. However if after the T-duality to IIB we decompactify the circle then we may consider the T-dual of the process described in the previous subsection. Begin with $`k`$ D5-branes and no $`G_1`$-flux. These D5-branes may then decay via the nucleation, wrapping and destruction of a mortal D7-brane. The integral of $`G_1`$ over a circle which links the D7-brane once is $`1`$. This means that $`C_0`$, the IIB axion, has a monodromy of 1. A 3-sphere wrapping the nontrivial 3-cycle may be dragged around the loop and the integral of $`G_3`$ over this sphere will incriment by $`k`$ as it crosses the stack of D5-branes. This is the usual monodromy

$$HH,G_3G_3+H$$
(3.12)
associated with loops around a D7-brane, but in this case it is the same ill-definedness that leads to the $`Z_k`$ classification of $`G_3`$ in the twisted K-theory framework.

## 4 $`E_8`$ Interpretation

We have seen that twisted K-theory appears to classify the configurations of fields in the absence of D-branes but does not discern configurations containing fields $`dG_{p+1}`$ which are nontrivial only compactly-supported cohomology and vanish in the usual cohomology. Such fields, of course, can only exist on noncompact manifolds. To begin to understand why such configurations are missed by the twisted K-theory classification we consider a more powerful classification scheme, which incorporates all of the data of the NS and RR fields of IIA. This is the $`E_8`$ gauge bundle formalism , which is conjectured to contain within it the twisted K-theory classifications of branes ignoring fluxes and fluxes in the absence of branes as special cases . Included here is a preview of how these classifications are realized which leads to a justification for the absence of the D-brane decay residues in twisted K-theory.

### 4.1 $`E_8`$ in M-Theory

$`E_8`$ gauge bundle formalism” means that we begin with some 11-dimensional M-theory configuration and for each $`G_4`$ four-form field strength we create an $`E_8`$ gauge bundle such that $`G_4`$ is roughly its instanton charge, more precisely

$$\frac{G_4}{2\pi }=\frac{\text{Tr}(F^2)}{16\pi ^2}\frac{\text{Tr}(R^2)}{32\pi ^2}.$$
(4.1)
Due to the uniquely simple topology of $`E_8`$, the fact that $`\pi _3(E_8)=`$ is the only nonvanishing low-dimensional homotopy class, $`E_8`$ is the only group for which such a condition uniquely specifies the topology of the bundle. An important construction is the nontrivial $`E_8`$ bundle over the four-sphere. The subbundles over the northern and southern hemispheres are trivialized and the transition function is a map from the equatorial $`S^3`$ to $`E_8`$, which is a nontrivial element of $`\pi _3(E_8)`$.

The soliton spectrum of M-theory on a topologically trivial patch of spacetime is easily reproduced. The M5-brane is the defect such that any $`S^4`$ has the nontrivial $`E_8`$ bundle over it whose transition function represents the class in $`\pi _3(E_8)`$ equal to the linking number of the $`S^4`$ and the M5-brane. In our topologically trivial patch of space we can introduce Minkowski coordinates. We can then introduce an M5-brane and ignore the fact that it has an infinite throat by cutting out a tubular neighborhood, but leaving the nontrivial bundles that link it behind. Really we only need to cut out the M5-brane itslf, which was already infinitely far away from everything else, and we can reparametrize the coordinates to leave 11-dimensional Minkowski space minus a 6-manifold.

Now we can make an M2-brane using the Myers dielectric effect. Consider an M5-brane whose intersection with this patch is $`^{1,2}\times S^3`$. To avoid confusion we will name this 3-sphere $`S_D^3`$. We will consider a configuration in which everything is constant over the $`^{1,2}`$ along which the M5 extends and we will project it out. Our coordinate patch is trivial, and so the $`S_D^3`$ is contractible and the configuration carries no net M5 charge. The configuration does however carry M2 charge which is equal to

$$Q_{M2}=_{S_D^3}T_3$$
(4.2)
where $`T_3`$ is the self-dual 3-form field strength which propagates on the M5-brane worldvolume. To interpret $`T_3`$ we will need to study the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundle over $`^8S_D^3`$.

Choose $`S_D^3`$ to be the unit 3-sphere along an $`^4`$ plane in $`^8`$. Consider a small, round 4-sphere centered at some point $`yS_D^3`$. This 4-sphere extends in the radial direction of $`S_D^3`$, and we will call its point of closest approach to center of $`S_D^3`$ the 4-sphere’s north pole. The 4-sphere’s equatorial 3-sphere, which we will call $`S_E^3`$, is a sphere of fixed radius in the $`^4^8`$ orthogonal to $`S_D^3`$. Trivialize the $`E_8`$ bundle over the northern and southern hemisphere of the 4-sphere. The 4-sphere links a (deleted) M5-brane and so the transition function is a map

$$f_y:S_E^3E_8,[f]=1\pi _3(E_8)=.$$
(4.3)
Notice that $`f`$ is the transition function for a given 4-sphere, but the function and in particular its basepoint may depend on which 4-sphere is chosen. There is one 4-sphere for each point $`yS_D^3`$, the 4-sphere whose center is $`y`$. Thus there is a family of $`f`$’s, one for each $`y`$

$$F:S_D^3\times S_E^3E_8.$$
(4.4)
In particular if we choose a point $`xS_E^3`$ then we may define a new function

$$g:S_D^3E_8:yF(y,x)=f_y(x),[g]\pi _3(E_8)=.$$
(4.5)
Thus the choice of $`E_8`$ bundle over this space is not determined by the shape of the M5-brane alone, but also by the homotopy class of the function $`g`$.

This homotopy class is precisely the M2-brane charge of the configuration. To see this, consider the following situation. Set the homotopy class to be zero and the integral of $`G_4`$ over the 4-ball bounded by $`S_D^3`$ to be $`k`$:

$$[g]=0,_{B^4}G_4=k,B^4=S_D^3.$$
(4.6)
This means that the $`E_8`$ bundle over $`B^4`$ has an instanton number of $`k`$. We can divide $`B^4`$, which has a radius of one, into two patches: an inner patch $`B_{1/2}^4`$ which is a $`4`$-ball of radius $`1/2`$ and the rest of $`B^4`$ which is an annulus $`A^4`$. The $`E_8`$ bundle may be trivialized over these two patches, with a transition function $`h`$ over the boundary 3-sphere, called $`S_F^3=B_{1/2}^4`$, which represents the homotopy class $`k`$

$$h:S_F^3E_8,[h]=k\pi _3(E_8)=.$$
(4.7)
Our $`S_D^3`$ lives in the patch $`A^4`$, but we may contract it, bringing it across $`S_F^3`$, into the patch $`B_{1/2}^4`$ where the bundle is trivial. This changes the transition function on $`S_D^3\times S_E^3`$ by composing it with $`h`$

$$F(x,y)F^{}(x,y)=h(x)F(x,y).$$
(4.8)
In particular this changes the homotopy class of the transition function $`g`$

$$g(x)g^{}(x)=h(x)g(x),[g][h]+[g]=k+0=k.$$
(4.9)
Thus the homotopy class $`[g]`$ shifts by $`k`$ as the M5-brane sweeps out $`k`$ units of $`G_4`$ flux, or equivalently as the $`C_3`$ flux on its worldvolume shifts by $`k`$.

$`C_3`$ is not a gauge-invariant quantity, in the worldvolume of an M5-brane the gauge-invariant quantity is $`C_3+T_3`$. On the topologically trivial patch $`B_{1/2}^4`$ we would like to eliminate $`C_3`$ so that we may shrink the M5-brane to nothing and see if it disappears, but gauging away $`C_3`$ leaves us with $`k`$ units of $`T_3`$, which are the desired $`k`$ units of M2-brane charge according to Eq. (4.2). Of course we may also see from the topology of the bundle that this configuration is nontrivial and cannot be contracted away.

To see how the torsion classes of K-theory show up is now not difficult. The simplest approach would be to notice that we can make a 4-cycle with $`k`$ units of $`G_4`$ flux by simply identifying $`S_D^3`$ with a point in the above example. Then the $`k`$ units of membrane charge that were found would be trivial, as the original M5-brane on $`S_D^3`$ contained no M2 charge and wrapped no volume and so would simply disappear, whereas a stack of k-membranes could grow into an M5-brane wrapping a trivial $`S^3`$ in $`S_{1/2}^4`$ and continue to grow until it wrapped $`S_D^3`$, at which point the M2 charge is gone and the branes have disappeared. Thus M2-branes in this background are classified by $`_k`$. Replacing the 4-sphere with $`S^3\times S^1`$ and dimensionally reducing on the $`S^1`$ we find $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux and the $`_k`$ above reduces to the $`_k`$ of twisted K-theory.

If we think of $`g`$ as an inclusion of the M5-brane into the total space of the $`E_8`$ bundle then M2-branes are classified by the homology of the total space of the bundle. The homology of the total space $`E`$ of the bundle in this case contains the necessary $`H_3(E)=_k`$. This picture is appealing because $`T_3`$ has the simple interpretation as the Jacobian determinant of the embedding map555The determinant of the $`3\times 3`$ submatrix specified by the indices on $`T_3`$., which suggests that perhaps the bosonic part of the M2-brane action has a simple 259d interpretation such as the volume of the image of this embedding with the $`T_3`$ terms in its worldvolume action coming from the dimensional reduction of the $`E_8`$ fibres. Notice that in this perspective the M2-brane is just an M5-brane (a 6-manifold in $`E`$) that wraps the 3-sphere in the group manifold $`E_8`$ and also extends in 3 directions along the 11-dimensional base space.

### 4.2 $`E_8`$ in Type II String Theory

We are actually interested in type II string theory and not M-theory. Following the suggestion of , these ideas extend to type IIA using the isomorphism of $`E_8`$ bundles over circle bundles over a 10-manifold $`M^{10}`$ to $`LE_8`$ bundles over $`M^{10}`$, where $`LE_8`$ is the trivially centrally-extended free loop group of $`E_8`$ . Topologically this loop group is a circle crossed with the group manifold $`E_8`$ crossed with the based loop group of $`E_8`$. The circle is the M-theory circle. Now instead of maps from $`g`$ to $`E_8`$ we have maps to $`LE_8`$, which decompose into maps to a circle, maps to the group manifold $`E_8`$ and maps to the based loop group of $`E_8`$. The fundamental and adjoint representations of $`E_8`$ are the same, and so there is an isomorphism between maps to the $`E_8`$ group manifold and sections of an associated vector bundle, which we may then use to construct sections of the vector bundle associated to the loopgroup.

The based loop group approximates $`K(,2)`$, it only differs in homotopy groups of dimension at least 14, which appear to be irrelevant here. This suggests that Proposition 7.2 of Ref.  may then be applied to demonstrate that topologically distinct bundles are in a one to one correspondence with elements of twisted K-theory. The condition that these bundles be free of defects is the condition that they contain no D-branes. Similarly the defects themselves, the D-branes, should be classified by twisted K-theory. To prove such a correspondence, one would need to show, among other things, that cohomology classes that do not lift to K-theory correspond to obstructions to creating the $`LE_8`$ bundle. In the case of D6-branes this has already been shown by Sethi , in particular this anomaly is an obstruction to the existence of the $`S^1`$ piece of the bundle. The D8-brane anomaly was studied in Ref.  with the conclusion that the conditions, originally derived from SUGRA, of how many branes must end on each type of brane in massive IIA are precisely the conditions under which the $`LE_8`$ bundle exists. In the case of D6 branes ending on D8-branes this is the Freed-Witten anomaly, which is responsible for solitons being classified by K-theory instead of cohomology.

One also needs to show that cohomology classes which are identified by the K-theory classification correspond to topologically equivalent $`LE_8`$ bundles. In the $`spin^c`$ case this identification relates fluxes which differ by the product of $`H`$ and another cohomology class. For simplicity, consider a non-contractible 3-sphere that supports K-units of $`H`$ flux

$$_{S^3}H=k.$$
(4.10)
It is important that the sphere is noncontractible, because otherwise there would be NS5-branes and we would not expect the twisted K-theory classification to apply. We have seen above that in M-theory this yields a $`S^1\times S^3`$ which supports $`k`$ units of $`G_4`$ flux, and so the $`E_8`$ bundle has an instanton number of $`k`$. We may trivialize the bundle over the northern and southern hemispheres of the $`S^3`$, and then the transition function is a map from its equator crossed with $`S^1`$ to $`E_8`$, that is a map

$$S^2\times S^1E_8$$
(4.11)
which is equivalent to a map from $`S^2`$ to $`LE_8`$. Thus in IIA our 3-sphere is the base of a nontrivial $`LE_8`$ bundle with a transition function on its two-sphere equator that represents the class $`k`$ in $`\pi _2(LE_8)=`$. The two-sphere in $`LE_8`$ generates $`H_2(LE_8)=`$ but in the total space $`E`$ of the bundle this is a torsion class $`H_2(E)=_k`$.

Now we may try to classify D$`p`$-branes that do not wrap this 3-sphere. Equivalently, using the above technology, we may classifiy D$`(p+2)`$-branes that carry D$`p`$-brane charge because they wrap the 2-sphere in $`LE_8`$. This 2-sphere generates a $`k`$-torsion homology class in the total space, and so these D$`p`$-branes are classified by $`k`$-torsion. This is precisely the identification made by the twisted K-theory classification. And so, at least in this class of examples, the twisted K-theory identifications are contained in the topology of the $`LE_8`$ bundle. In the $`spin^c`$ case the restriction on possible branes also appears to be manifest in the $`LE_8`$-formalism, because a D$`p`$-brane that wraps a 3-cycle supporting $`H`$-flux may be interpreted as a D$`(p+2)`$-brane which wraps the 2-cycle in the fiber, but this 2-cycle cannot be extended everywhere. In particular, it may be extended everywhere except for $`k`$ Dirac strings. These Dirac strings, in the case of D8-branes, have been shown  to be precisely the $`k`$ D$`(p2)`$-branes that must end on the D$`p`$-brane to cancel the Freed-Witten anomaly. These two types of evidence suggest that choice of twisted K-theory class depends on the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundle, although a no precise correspondence has been made in the general case.

The above construction of course only applies to type IIA, and no analogous formulation is known for IIB on a general spacetime. However if type IIB is compactified on a 10-manifold which is a circle fibred over a 9-manifold then we may proceed666U. Varadarajan independently reached conclusions similar to those that follow.. We compactify IIA on a circle and use the loop group correspondence again. This time we get a 9-manifold with an $`LLE_8`$ bundle fibered over it.

$$\pi _1(LLE_8)=^3$$
(4.12)
there are two circles from the central extension after each compactification, which are just the two circles that M-theory was compactified on. We will call these $`S_M^1`$ and $`S_{IIA}^1`$. There is a third circle which is the nontrivial circle in the based loop group of the based loop group of $`E_8`$, that is it decends from $`\pi _3(E_8)`$. We will call this circle $`S_{E8}^1`$.

The electrically charged objects corresponding to $`\pi _3(E_8)`$ are M2-branes and so the electrically charged objects under $`S_{E8}^1`$ are membranes which wrap the other two circles. These are fundamental strings wrapping $`S_{IIA}^1`$ and so have a mass of $`R_{IIA}/\alpha ^{}`$. This is the mass of the lowest KK mode after a reduction on $`S_{E8}^1`$ and so the radius of $`S_{E8}^1`$ is

$$R_{E8}=\frac{1}{R_{\text{IIA}}/\alpha ^{}}=\frac{\alpha ^{}}{R_{\text{IIA}}}.$$
(4.13)
The KK reduction is invalid when $`R_{IIA}`$ is smaller than $`R_{E8}`$, which happens when $`R_{IIA}`$ is smaller than $`\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$, but in this case we may KK reduce $`S_{IIA}^1`$ and leave $`S_{E8}^1`$ as an “external” direction. This leaves the other two circles as an internal torus, known in the literature as the F-theory torus . Although we have swapped two circles, we have not changed the topology of the total space and so we may arrive at a K-theory classification, although of course dimensions of forms are shifted by one because an internal and external circle has been swapped. In fact we want this shift in dimensions, because we want fields to be classified by $`K^1`$ instead of $`K^0`$, which differs exactly by a wedge product with a new circle.

There are many simple checks on this identification which may be done. For instance, one may show that an NS5-brane in IIA which does not wrap $`S_{IIA}^1`$ is T-dual to a KK-monopole in IIB. Also a D6-brane which does not wrap is dual to a D7-brane with the usual F-theory interpretation. T-dualizing the D7-brane again about a circle which it does not wrap yields IIA once again, now with an $`LE_8`$ apparently unrelated to the original $`LE_8`$ fibers, with a D8-brane that has a nontrivial circle fibration over the $`K(,2)`$ fibers. This confirms a conjecture concerning the $`E_8`$ interpretation of massive IIA made in  and further tested in , but the above approach has the advantage that the T-duality to Hull’s proposal  may be seen explicitly. We have done these checks and they will appear elsewhere.

This was a long tangent, but finally we may address the relevant question to this paper, which is why D-brane decay reminants do not appear to correspond to twisted K-theory classes. First we note that we may start in a configuration with no D-branes that is classified by twisted K-theory, the processes described above may then create D-branes which later decay into nothing. The final state here is the same as the initial state and is described by twisted K-theory, despite the fact that D-branes have decayed. The reason that these D-branes, unlike those of the previous section, are captured by the K-theory classification is that these do not support $`dG_{p+1}`$ flux. These carry D-brane charge because they violate the Bianchi identity (2.3), but instead of violating the Bianchi identity with a $`dG_{p+1}`$ term they violate it with a nontrivial $`HG_{p1}`$. The fact that $`HG_{p1}`$ is supported on the unstable brane means that twisted K-theory does not capture the flux on the unstable brane, but the twisted K-theory classification is only supposed to apply to backgrounds with no D-brane charges so this poses no problem. When the unstable branes decay the undesired flux is promptly canceled by the flux emitted by the mortal brane responsible for the decay. This leaves the original flux configuration, which was given to be described by twisted K-theory. This $`HG_{p1}`$ which was created and violated the Bianchi identity temporarily may be understood in terms of the topology of the $`LE_8`$ bundle just as the $`G_4G_4`$ flux sourced by an M2-brane was understood in the last subsection. The only difference is that the dimensions of the spheres, balls, annuli and forms have changed.

By contrast, the unstable D-branes of the previous section were Poincare dual to $`dG_{p+1}`$ while $`HG_{p1}`$ vanished. The case of unstable D2-branes and a mortal D4 lifts to a picture similar to our M-theory picture. Yet this configuration is not quite the same. Instead of nontrivial $`G_4G_4`$ flux, we have nontrivial $`dG_4`$ flux. After the unstable membranes have decayed the Bianchi identity must be solved, which yields a nontrivial $`G_4G_4`$ flux, but we still will have the $`dG_4`$ flux. This expression contains a Hodge star and thus is not a topological quantity in our $`E_8`$ bundle. In fact, it is possible that topologically equivalent $`E_8`$ bundles correspond to distinct $`dG_4`$ fluxes. A geometrical description of the $`E_8`$ bundle will of course contain the information about this flux, as the flux is determined by $`G_4`$ and $`G_4`$ is determined from the data of the bundle via Eq. (4.1). However the twisted K-theory class is determined by the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundle, and the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundle does not appear to be sensitive to the presence of such D-brane decay reminants.

## 5 Mortal NS5-Branes

Twisted K-theory is only an approximate classification of RR field configurations, reflecting an approximation which is thought to be valid under some sort of weak-coupling condition777However the success of the analogous $`E_8`$-bundle classification in M-theory (which has no weak-coupling regime) as well as the fact that D-brane charges are conserved even if the background $`H`$ fluxes temporarily change throughout the universe may lead one to believe that such a condition may be relaxed with a suitable generalization of K-theory.. The nature of this approximation has never been made precise and will not be made precise here, rather we will use the phenomena described above to understand how the classification of fields by K-theory twisted by $`H`$ breaks down when NS fluxes are no longer held constant. Here we are only concerned with a topological description of the fluxes, therefore allowing $`H`$ and $`H`$ to vary is equivalent to including NS5-branes and fundamental strings. The fact that treating NS fluxes on equal footing with RR fluxes must lead to a breakdown of the twisted K-theory classification was seen already in, for example, Ref.  which demonstrated the incompatibility of the K-theory classification with S-duality in IIB.

There are two differences between the set of elements of twisted K-theory and those of integer valued cohomology, which provide the physical motivation for classifications of fluxes by K-theory instead of cohomology. The first is that many elements of cohomology do not correspond to elements of K-theory. We have seen that, in the $`spin^c`$ case, this appears to have the physical interpretation of excluding configurations which contain the decay products of nontrivially-wrapped D-branes. The second is that many distinct elements of cohomology correspond to the same K-theory class. This was physically interpreted as the fact that fields are defined only up to certain monodromies corresponding to translation around possible mortal branes. Whether these mortal branes exists or not should not affect physics far away, and so fluxes are classified only up to the actions of the monodromies that would exist were there to be such mortal branes somewhere. Of course there are processes that are neglected in this reduction from cohomology to K-theory. Such processes are the subject of the present section.

One omission is that monodromies about NS5-branes are not considered. For example, consider a spacetime with a nontrivial 3-cycle $`Z^3`$ that supports $`j`$ units of $`G_3`$ flux. Begin with no other fluxes and no branes. The spacetime may be compact or noncompact. An NS5-brane may spontaneously form which during its lifetime sweeps out $`Z^3`$ and is extended along 3 irrelevant directions. When the NS5-brane tries to shrink to a point on the other side of $`Z^3`$ it now carries $`j`$ units of D3-brane charge. This leaves a stack of $`j`$ D3-branes, which later may decay by the inverse process of their creation. The D3-branes are sources for $`dC_4`$ flux, and so the lack of conservation of D3-brane number appears to imply that a mondromy around the NS5-brane shifts the cohomology class of $`dC_4`$ by $`j`$ units. Alternately this may be seen by noting that $`G_5`$ is gauge invariant and so should be well defined, while $`B`$ shifts by one unit. An application of the Bianchi identity (2.3) then yields the desired monodromy.

$$G_5=dC_4BG_3G_5,G_3=jG_3,BB+1,dC_4dC_4+j.$$
(5.1)
Similarly we could have considered a background $`G_5`$ flux and unstable D-strings, as in Figure 5, which would have led to a monodromy for $`dC_6`$

$$G_7=dC_6BG_5G_7,G_5=jG_5,BB+1,dC_6dC_6+j.$$
(5.2)
These relations are of course the flux versions of the known terms in the S-duality covariant AHSS for charges. An application of this viewpoint to a non-$`spin^c`$ example may be a useful step in the formulation of an S-duality covariant AHSS for fluxes. Notice that in the $`spin^c`$ case these arguments extend quite naturally to IIA, where we may also consider D2-branes and D4-branes whose nonconservation leads to mondromies for $`dC_5`$ and $`dC_3`$ fluxes respectively.

One may now wonder whether there exists an approximation in which it was valid to omit these equivalences. Perhaps there is some weak-coupling limit which reproduces this approximation, for example if one considers a box in spacetime of size $`O(1/g_s)`$ then one may expect to find some mortal D-branes but NS5-branes are much heavier and so would be unlikely to appear at small coupling. The static space-time topology could then only be recovered in the weak-coupling limit, where the box size and thus the extent of the time coordinates become infinite.

Another missing effect is that while fluxes resulting from D-brane decay are explicitly dropped, there is no such treatment of the decay products of unstable F-strings. At least in the compact case such an exclusion is necessary to assure that F-strings do not spontaneously form if their fluxes would have no place to go. More explicitly, consider an initial condition consisting of a $`spin^c`$ spacetime with $`j`$ units of background $`G_p`$ flux on some $`p`$-cycle, $`j`$ fundamental strings which perhaps wrap a circle or perhaps extend to infinity, and no other fluxes or branes. Now the $`j`$ fundamental strings may decay by blowing up into a dielectric Dp-brane which sweeps out the $`p`$-cycle and then disappears, while also extending in whatever other direction was spanned by the F-strings.

For concreteness we now consider the case $`p=3`$. The F-strings are a source for $`dH`$ flux, more precisely their charge is defined by the violation of the equation of motion

$$G_3G_5=dH.$$
(5.3)
$`G_5`$ is given to vanish in the initial condition and so the F-strings must source the dual NS flux. When the strings decay the Bianchi identity is restored because the D3-brane creates a $`G_5`$ flux. However this leaves

$$G_3G_50$$
(5.4)
which is S-dual to a $`G_5`$ flux which is not annihilated by the AHSS differential $`d_3`$. Therefore this flux configuration is not part of a classification scheme which extends twisted K-theory by “imposing” S-duality. Reversing the logic, an S-duality covariant extension of K-theory should not capture such configurations. Now we may ask why we were allowed to ignore these in our approximation. It is a bit more difficult to see why this effect should go away at small $`g_s`$, where presumably F-strings become much more plentiful than D-branes. But whether this is a reasonable approximation at weak coupling requires an understanding of what it means to omit such fluxes in the first place.

A third missing process, drawn in Figure 6, is a topologically trivial bubble of NS5-branes which forms and decays in spacetime. The result is a region of spacetime with a different $`H`$ flux from the ambient spacetime. Any of the above processes may occur inside of the bubble, where “inside” means that the 3-cycles wrapped by mortal branes link the NS5-brane and so the $`H`$ flux integrates to $`k+1`$ instead of $`k`$. Inside of the bubble $`dC_p`$ fluxes are therefore conserved modulo $`k+1`$ instead of modulo $`k`$, as a result of the monodromy caused by a mortal D$`(9p)`$-brane

$$C_{p2}C_{p2}+1,dC_p=G_{p+1}HC_{p2}G_{p+1}H(C_{p2}+1)=dC_p(k+1).$$
(5.5)
However outside of the bubble there are still only $`k`$ units of $`H`$ flux, and so the $`C_{p2}`$ monodromy of one unit only leads to a $`dC_p`$ monodromy of $`k`$ units outside of the bubble. This means that if there are two regions of spacetime with different amounts of H flux, the RR fluxes in each region will be classified by the corresponding twisted K-theory. One must bear in mind of course that NS5-branes, being of codimension more than 1, do not actually split spacetime into multiple regions. Thus the notion of a region needs to be interpreted very carefully, in terms of how many times a given 3-cycle links the NS5-brane. In fact this implies that there are an infinite number of “regions”, but BPS configurations are unlikely to exist in more than two.

## 6 Conclusion

The twisted K-theory classification of fields implies that distinct cohomology classes must be somehow physically equivalent. We have seen that this physical equivalence results from monodromies generalizing the well-known physical equivalence of fields in the presence of a D7-brane. These monodromies are caused by the mortal D-branes  that are responsible for the the decay of unstable D-branes that wrap non-trivial cycles. When the zero-coupling restriction is relaxed mortal NS5-branes also must be considered, and these lead to further identifications which modify the twisted K-theory classification. Such corrections may be expected, for example, from the lack of S-duality covariance of the twisted K-theory classification of fluxes in type IIB .

The final states of brane-decay processes provide examples of fluxes which are nontrivial in compactly supported cohomology but trivial in ordinary cohomology. The usual K-theoretic classification is not sensitive to such fluxes, and in fact the notion of field strength which does include these fluxes does not respect the forementioned equivalences of configurations related by brane decays. In fact this notion of field strength is not even quantized.

To gain an alternate understanding of the failure of twisted K-theory to capture compactly-supported fluxes, we previewed the relation between the K-theory classification and the $`E_8`$ bundle formalism. The $`E_8`$ bundle formalism appears to reproduce twisted K-theory as a set of sections constructed explicitly above in the M-theory case. The compactly-supported cohomology classes in question did not appear to affect the topology of the $`E_8`$ bundle, although they did affect the geometry. As the twisted K-theory class of a configuration was determined by the topology of the corresponding bundle, twisted K-theory could not be sensitive to these classes. Many details in this construction were left to work in progress.

Acknowledgements

Jarah would like to thank himself for many discussions, some of which he found useful. Jarah has been brought to you by the INFN Sezione di Pisa.


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# Is Quantum Chaos Weaker Than Classical Chaos?

## Abstract

We investigate chaotic behavior in a 2-D Hamiltonian system - oscillators with anharmonic coupling. We compare the classical system with quantum system. Via the quantum action, we construct Poincaré sections and compute Lyapunov exponents for the quantum system. We find that the quantum system is globally less chaotic than the classical system. We also observe with increasing energy the distribution of Lyapunov exponts approaching a Gaussian with a strong correlation between its mean value and energy.

Introduction. Quantum chaos has been experimentally observed in irregular energy spectra of nuclei, of atoms perturbed by strong electromagnetic fields Friedrich , and in billiard systems Milner ; Dembrowski ; Friedman . Irregular patterns have been found in the wave functions of the quantum mechanical stadium billard McDonald , where scars are reminders of classical motion Heller . Recently, dynamical tunneling in atoms between regular islands has been observed. The transition is enhanced by chaos Raizen ; Hensinger . Spectra of fully chaotic quantum systems can statistically be described by random matrices Bohigas , which corresponds to a level density distribution of Wigner-type, while integrable (nonchaotic) quantum system yield a Poissonian distribution. Here we ask: What happens between these two extremes? For example, an hydrogen atom exposed to a weak exterior magnetic field shows a level distribution, which is neither Poissonian nor Wignerian. Can we compare classical chaos with quantum chaos? And is the quantum system more or less chaotic than the corresponding classical system? Also we address the following problem: An understanding of how classically regular and chaotic phase space is reflected in quantum systems is an open problem. Semiclassical methods of quantisation (EKB, Gutzwiller’s trace formula) are not amenable to mixed dynamical systems Bohigas2 . Here we suggest a solution using the concept of the quantum action Q1 ; Q5 . It parametrizes quantum transition amplitudes in terms of a local renormalized action defined by $`G(x_{fi},t=T;x_{in},t=0)=\stackrel{~}{Z}\mathrm{exp}[i\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}/\mathrm{}]`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a local action - the so called quantum action - evaluated along its classical trajectory going from boundary point $`(x_{in},t=0)`$ to $`(x_{fi},t=T)`$. In the limit of large transition time, the quantum action has been proven to exist, giving an exact parametrisation of transition amplitudes Q4 . The quantum action being local allows to construct a portrait of phase space of a quantum system by applying the tools of nonlinear dynamics to this action Q3 . In particular, it allows to construct Poincaré sections and Lyapunov exponents, in analogy to classical nonlinear dynamics (note that the definition of Lyapunov exponents requires the limit $`T\mathrm{}`$). The quantum action has been found useful also to characterize quantum instantons Q2 .

Model and its quantum action. In order to study full chaos the so-called K-system (2-D Hamiltonian, potential $`V=x^2y^2`$) is widely used. It is almost globally chaotic, having small islands of stability Dahlquist . In order to study mixed dynamics (entangling chaos and regular islands) it is numerically convenient to consider the following classical system Pullen ,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^T}𝑑t{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m(\dot{x}^2+\dot{y}^2)V(x,y),`$
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`v_2(x^2+y^2)+v_{22}x^2y^2.`$ (1)
The parameters of the corresponding quantum action for transition time $`T=4.5`$ (large compared to dynamical time scale $`T_{sc}=1/E_{gr}`$) and parameter $`v_{22}=0.25`$ (which controls chaos) are shown in Tab.. They have been obtained by a global fit to transition amplitudes in imaginary time. The bracket gives the estimated error of the fit. The numerical results presented below all refer to $`v_{22}=0.25`$, but qualitatively the same results have been found for $`v_{22}=0.05`$.

Before we present our comparison of classical to quantum chaos, we ask what behavior do we expect? In the 1-D quartic potential quantum effects produce a strong positive quadratic term in the quantum action Q1 . In the 1-D double well potential, the quantum potential becomes softend, i.e. has lower barrier and closer minima. As a consequence, the instanton solutions of the quantum action are softer than the corresponding classical instantons Q2 . Are such softening effects also occuring in chaotic phenomena?

Classical chaos vs. quantum chaos. Poincaré sections for the classical and the quantum system are shown in Fig.. One observes an smaller number of chaotic trajectories in the quantum case than in the classical case. This is visible, in particular, in the domain around hyperbolic fixed points (see insert). In order to get a quantitative measure for chaotic versus regular phase space, we have chosen randomly a large number of initial conditions and computed the finite time Lyapunov exponent for each such trajectory. The distribution of these Lyapunov exponents in the neighborhood of $`\lambda =0`$ are shown in Fig., and those for $`0<\lambda <0.25`$ are shown in Fig.. Fig. shows the distribution of Lyapunov exponents for different energies for the classical and quantum system. While $`\lambda =0`$ corresponds to regular behavior, $`\lambda >0`$ indicates to chaotic behavior. For the purpose to distinguish numerically the two regimes, we used this distribution to define some cut-off $`\lambda _c`$ (vertical dashed line in Fig.). In order to discriminate numerically $`\lambda \lambda _c`$, one has to follow the trajectory for a long time. We used $`T_c=20000`$ to measure $`\lambda `$. The figure also shows the cumulative distribution (full line), which is a measure for the degree of chaoticity. As can be seen this curve is higher for the quantum systen compared to the classical system. We denote by $`R`$ the ratio of chaotic phase space (positive Lyapunov exponent) over total phase space.

The distribution of positive Lyapunov exponents is displayed in Fig.. First, one observes a pronounced peak near zero, which has been magnified in Fig.. Second, with increase of energy, the system becomes more chaotic ($`R`$ increases). Third, with increasing energy, the distribution of positive Lyapunov exponents seems to approach the shape of a Gaussian. Fourth, the width of the Gaussian (variance) diminishes with increasing energy. Fifth, with increasing energy, a strong linear correlation develops between the expectation value of $`\lambda `$ and energy $`E`$, which can be represented by a linear fit $`<\lambda >=\lambda ^{(0)}+ϵE`$. All those features hold for both, the classical system and the quantum system.

A quantitative difference between classical and quantum system is apparent in the degree of chaoticity $`R`$, shown in Figs. and plotted in Fig.. For all energies, $`R`$ is smaller in the quantum system. The same tendency is visible also in the distribution of Lyapunov exponents. For all energies the mean value $`<\lambda >`$ is smaller in the quantum system (fit parameters are: $`\lambda _{cl}^{(0)}=0.040`$, $`ϵ_{cl}=0.033`$ and $`\lambda _{qm}^{(0)}=0.026`$, $`ϵ_{qm}=0.024`$, i.e. $`ϵ_{qm}<ϵ_{cl}`$). For all energies the classical system turns out to be more chaotic than the quantum system. This is the main result of this work.

How can we understand the observed behavior? The distribution of Lyapunov exponents approaching a Gaussian with increasing energy is well known from Hamiltonian system with mixed dynamics Prasad . The shape of the curve and its decreasing width can be understood as a consequence of the central limit theorem, which predicts such behavior for an arithmetic mean of $`N`$ random variables for $`N\mathrm{}`$. Second, quantum fluctuations which occur in the parameters of the quantum action can be viewed as renormalisation effects of the classical parameters Q5 . The value of $`v_2`$ (if sole term of potential would render it integrable) is increased, while $`v_{22}`$ (term which drives the system away from integrability) is decreased (see Tab.. Hence chaos is reduced in the quantum system. Such increase of the quadratic term has been observed in other systems also and seems to occur more generally.

Acknowledgements
H.K. and K.M. are grateful for support by NSERC Canada. G.M. and D.H. have been supported in part by FCAR Québec. For discussions and constructive suggestions H.K. is very grateful to A. Okopinska and B. Eckhardt.


text:
# Perturbation approach to the Casimir force between two bodies made of different real metals

## I Introduction

Recently the Casimir effect attracted much attention as a macroscopic quantum phenomenon caused by the existence of zero-point oscillations of the electromagnetic field. Casimir  first theoretically proposed that the change of the zero-point oscillation spectrum in the presence of metallic boundaries as compared to the case of empty space leads to a finite force acting onto these boundaries. The Casimir force can be considered as the relativistic limit of the van der Waals force under the condition that the spatial separations between the surfaces of the macrobodies are so large that the retardation effects become essential. This was demonstrated at first qualitatively by Sparnaay . During the last time a lot of precision experiments on measuring the Casimir force have been performed . The increasing interest in the Casimir effect is caused by the fact that it found both fundamental as well as technological applications. Thus, the precise measurements of the Casimir force and the extent of their agreement with theory have been used  to set the strongest constraints on hypothetical long-range forces predicted by many extensions of the standard model of elementary particles. Concerning technological applications the first microelectromechanical machines were created being driven by the Casimir force .

Increased precision and important applications of the Casimir force measurements call for the elaboration of new computational methods taking real experimental conditions into account. During the last years different corrections to the ideal Casimir force were computed due to surface roughness, finite conductivity of the boundary metal and nonzero temperature (see, e.g., papers  and review ). Also the combined effect of these influential factors was investigated for the case of two boundary bodies being made of one and the same metal. It was shown that at separations smaller than one micrometer the surface roughness and the finite conductivity of the boundary metal can contribute up to several tens percent of the ideal Casimir force. At the same time, at separations of order of several micrometers the temperature corrections can achieve the value of the main contribution and even become larger. In a transition range of separations all the above corrections play an important role and their combined effect must be considered. However, the case of boundary bodies made of different metals was not investigated up to now.

Here, we present a perturbative approach to the calculation of the Casimir force acting between two bodies made of different real metals. We start from the famous Lifshitz formula  and describe metals in the framework of the plasma model. Both the configurations of two plane parallel plates and a sphere (spherical lens) above a plate are considered. The combined effect of finite conductivity and nonzero temperature is found on the basis of a perturbation expansion in powers of the relative penetration depth of electromagnetic zero-point oscillations into the metals under consideration. The coefficients of this expansion up to the fourth order are calculated explicitly. The temperature effect is shown to be essential only in the zeroth- and first-order terms. The obtained results are generalizations of those which previously have been obtained in  for the case of boundary bodies made of one and the same metal. The case of different metals considered here is of especial importance for the nanotechnology where one of the plates (playing the role of an active element) and the underlying substrate are typically made of different materials. The perturbation formulas given below are very simple in its application and open the possibility to compute the combined effect of finite conductivity and nonzero temperature with an error not larger than 1–2% within a wide separation range which is usually adequate for any practical purposes. In doing so one avoids labour-intensive numerical computations based on the use of optical tabulated data for the complex refraction index (compare with  where such computations were performed for two bodies made of one and the same metal). As an example, the test bodies covered by $`Au`$ and $`Cr`$ layers are considered. The obtained formulas can simply be modified to take into account the surface roughness (see, e.g.,  for the special averaging procedure). Thus, they can be used for a complete description of the Casimir force with all essential corrections.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II the perturbation expansion for the Casimir force at zero temperature acting between plates made of different metals is derived. Sec. III is devoted to the consideration of temperature corrections in configurations of two different plates. The configuration of a sphere (spherical lens) above a plate made of different metals is considered in Sec. IV. Sec. V contains conclusions and discussion.

## II Perturbation expansion for two parallel plates made of different metals at zero temperature

We consider first the configuration of two metallic semispaces marked by an index $`ss`$ and described by the dielectric permittivities $`\epsilon _1(\omega )`$ and $`\epsilon _2(\omega )`$, respectively. Let these semispaces be separated by a plane parallel gap of width $`a`$. The Casimir force between two different metals at zero temperature is given by the Lifshitz formula

$$F_{ss}^{(\delta ,0)}(a)=\frac{\mathrm{}c}{32\pi ^2a^4}_0^{\mathrm{}}x^3𝑑x_1^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dp}{p^2}\left[X_1(p,x)+X_2(p,x)\right],$$
(1)
where

$$X_1(p,x)=\left[\frac{(s_1+p\epsilon _1)(s_2+p\epsilon _2)}{(s_1p\epsilon _1)(s_2p\epsilon _2)}e^x1\right]^1,X_2(p,x)=\left[\frac{(s_1+p)(s_2+p)}{(s_1p)(s_2p)}e^x1\right]^1.$$
(2)
The quantities $`s_k`$ ($`k=1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$) are given by $`s_k=\sqrt{\epsilon _k1+p^2}`$, and the dielectric permittivities are computed on the imaginary frequency axis $`\epsilon _k\epsilon _k(i\xi )=\epsilon _k[icx/(2pa)]`$. The upper index $`\delta `$ in (1) marks the account of the effect of finite conductivity, and the second upper index 0 is the value of temperature.

For separation ranges of practical interest, namely from a few tens of a micrometer to ten micrometers, relaxation processes can be neglected and the dielectric permittivities of the metals are given by the free electron plasma model,

$$\epsilon _k(i\xi )=1+\frac{\omega _{pk}^2}{\xi ^2},$$
(3)
where $`\omega _{pk}`$ are the plasma frequencies of the metals under consideration. The perturbative approach for calculating the effect of finite conductivity is based on the use of small parameters,

$$\alpha _k=\frac{\xi }{\omega _{pk}}=\frac{\delta _k}{a}\frac{x}{2p},$$
(4)
where $`\delta _k=\lambda _{pk}/(2\pi )`$ are the effective penetration depths of the electromagnetic zero-point oscillations into the metals and $`\lambda _{pk}=2\pi c/\omega _{pk}`$ are the plasma wavelengths. For the case of plates made of one and the same metal this approach was used in  (up to the first order), in  (up to the second order) and in  up to the fourth and the sixth orders, respectively (see also the detailed explanations in the monographs ). The obtained results were compared with the numerical computations using the tabulated data for the complex refraction index and were found to be in agreement with an error of only 1–2% at all separation distances larger than the plasma wavelength . Here, we apply this approach to the case of different metals up to the fourth perturbative order which is sufficient for practical purposes.

The quantities $`\epsilon _k`$ and $`s_k`$ entering Eq. (2) can be represented in terms of the small parameters (4) as

$$\epsilon _k(i\xi )=1+\frac{1}{\alpha _k^2},s_k=\sqrt{p^2+\frac{1}{\alpha _k^2}}.$$
(5)
Expanding $`X_1`$ from Eq. (2) up to the fourth power in $`\alpha _k`$ one obtains

$`X_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^x1}}\{12{\displaystyle \frac{A}{p}}(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)+2{\displaystyle \frac{A}{p^2}}(2A1)(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)^2{\displaystyle \frac{A}{p^3}}(28A+8A^22p^2+p^4)(\alpha _1^3+\alpha _2^3)`$ (6)
$`4{\displaystyle \frac{A}{p^3}}(16A+6A^2)(\alpha _1^2\alpha _2+\alpha _1\alpha _2^2)+2{\displaystyle \frac{A(2A1)}{p^4}}\left[(2A1)^22p^2+p^4\right](\alpha _1^4+\alpha _2^4)`$ (7)
$`+2{\displaystyle \frac{A(2A1)}{p^4}}(216A+16A^22p^2+p^4)(\alpha _1^3\alpha _2+\alpha _1\alpha _2^3)+4{\displaystyle \frac{A(2A1)}{p^4}}(112A+12A^2)\alpha _1^2\alpha _2^2\},`$ (8)
where $`Ae^x/(e^x1)`$.

In the same way the expansion of $`X_2`$ is

$`X_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^x1}}[12Ap(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)+2Ap^2(2A1)(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)^2Ap^3(18A+8A^2)(\alpha _1^3+\alpha _2^3)`$ (9)
$`4Ap^3(16A+6A^2)(\alpha _1^2\alpha _2+\alpha _1\alpha _2^2)+8A^2p^4(13A+3A^2)(\alpha _1^4+\alpha _2^4)`$ (10)
$`2Ap^4(118A+48A^232A^3)(\alpha _1^3\alpha _2+\alpha _1\alpha _2^3)4Ap^4(114A+36A^224A^3)\alpha _1^2\alpha _2^2].`$ (11)
Substituting expressions (7) and (10) into Eq. (1) and performing the integrations with respect to $`p`$ and $`x`$ one finally obtains

$`F_{ss}^{(\delta ,0)}(a)=F_{ss}^{(0,0)}(a)\{1{\displaystyle \frac{16}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}+24{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{640}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{2800}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\},`$ (13)
where

$$\delta \frac{\delta _1+\delta _2}{2},\kappa \frac{\delta _1\delta _2}{(\delta _1+\delta _2)^2},$$
(14)
and $`F_{ss}^{(0,0)}(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{}c/(240a^4)`$ is the ideal Casimir force per unit area of plates made of perfect metal. If $`\delta _1=\delta _2=\delta _0`$, i.e., when the plates are made of one and the same metal, Eq. (13) coincides with the result obtained earlier in Refs. .

## III Two parallel plates made of different metals at nonzero temperature

Now let us consider the case of nonzero temperature. The Lifshitz formula at $`T0`$ is obtained from Eq. (1) by changing the integration with respect to $`x`$ into a summation over the discrete Matsubara frequencies $`\xi _l=cx_l/(2ap)=2\pi lk_BT/\mathrm{}`$, where $`l=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$ and $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant. It is convenient also to introduce a new variable $`k_{}=\xi _l\sqrt{p^21}/c`$ . The result is

$$F_{ss}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)=\frac{k_BT}{2\pi }\underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_0^{\mathrm{}}k_{}𝑑k_{}\sqrt{\frac{\xi _l^2}{c^2}+k_{}^2}\left[X_1(k_{},\xi _l)+X_1(k_{},\xi _l)\right].$$
(15)
Using the Poisson summation formula this expression can be represented as the sum of the zero-temperature result (1) and a temperature correction.

It can be easily checked that the temperature corrections of the first expansion coefficients of the perturbation result (13) following from (1) are independent on the materials, i.e., they are the same for plates made of one and the same metal and of different metals. In the framework of the plasma model these corrections can be calculated analytically in a closed form without using any perturbation expansion (see Refs. where the corrections to the zeroth-, first-, and second-order coefficients, respectively, were found for the plates made of one and the same metal). It was proved in  that the plasma model is well adapted to the Lifshitz formula (15) at nonzero temperature and that it avoids all problems and contradictions arising in the case of Drude dielectric function. As it was shown in Ref., in the temperature range from 0 K to 1000 K the temperature corrections to the expansion coefficients starting from the second-order one are not essential. The reason is that at small surface separations the temperature effect itself is negligible whereas at large separations the contribution of all the terms of order $`(\delta /a)^k`$ with $`k2`$ is smaller than 1%. This opens the opportunity to modify Eq. (13) by the use of temperature corrections, calculated in  in order to obtain the approximate expression for the Casimir force acting between different metals with account of both finite conductivity and nonzero temperature. The final result can be represented in the form

$`F_{ss}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)=F_{ss}^{(0,0)}(a)\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{30}{\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(nt)^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^3}{nt}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{coth}(\pi nt)}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi nt)}}]2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}[{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{15}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{nt\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi nt)}}`$ (16)
$`\times ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\pi nt)^2}}\mathrm{sinh}(\pi nt)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi nt)+4\mathrm{coth}(\pi nt)+2\pi nt6\pi nt\mathrm{coth}^2(\pi nt)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi nt}})]`$ (17)
$`+24{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{640}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{2800}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\},`$ (18)
where $`tT_{eff}/T`$, and $`k_BT_{eff}\mathrm{}c/(2a)`$.

One can easily find the asymptotic behavior of Eq. (17) at low ($`TT_{eff}`$) and high ($`TT_{eff}`$) temperatures (which also means small, respectively, large separations when taking into account the definition of $`T_{eff}`$). At low temperatures ($`t1`$) it holds

$`F_{ss}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)F_{ss}^{(0,0)}(a)\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3t^4}}2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}[{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{15}{\pi ^3t^3}}\zeta (3)]`$ (19)
$`+24{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{640}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{2800}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\},`$ (20)
where $`\zeta (z)`$ is the Riemann zeta function. At high temperatures ($`t1`$) the result is given by

$$F_{ss}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)F_{ss}^{(0,0)}(a)\frac{30\zeta (3)}{\pi ^3t}\left(13\frac{\delta }{a}\right).$$
(21)
All the results (17)–(21) take into account that the metals of both plates are different.

By way of example, in Table I some numerical data obtained by Eq. (17) are presented for the pairs of plates $`AuAu`$, $`AuCr`$ and $`CrCr`$. Note that both $`Au`$\- and $`Cr`$-covered test bodies are widely used in the measurements of the Casimir force (see, e.g., ). For $`Au`$ the value of the plasma wavelength $`\lambda _{p1}=136`$nm was used  and for $`Cr`$ $`\lambda _{p2}=314`$nm . The separations range 0.35–10 $`\mu `$m is covered including both the cases of low and high temperatures. The smallest separation 0.35 $`\mu `$m is chosen to be larger than both plasma wavelengths in order to respect the application range of the four-order perturbation expansion of Eq. (17). In Table I the ratio of the Casimir force acting between real metals at zero and room temperatures relative to the ideal value (i.e. to a force between perfect metals at zero temperature) is given. In the last column the absolute values of the ideal Casimir force in units of force per unit area are presented. As is seen from Table I, the effect of finite conductivity is especially important at the smallest separations. The results for the pair of different metals ($`AuCr`$) differ significantly from both the cases $`AuAu`$ and $`CrCr`$. At small separations the temperature effect is negligible. With an increase of the separation distance also the temperature effect increases in all cases, and for separations larger than 3 $`\mu `$m it becomes larger than the ideal Casimir force. However, even at largest separations under consideration the effects of finite conductivity influence the value of the temperature force. Note that the asymptotics of low temperatures (20) is applicable at separations smaller than 2 $`\mu `$m and the asymptotics of high temperatures (21) works good starting from 4 $`\mu `$m.

## IV Configuration of a sphere above a plate made of different metals

The configuration of two plane parallel plates was used only in two experiments . More often the configuration of a sphere (spherical lens) above a plate was employed . By this reason it is expedient to modify the obtained results for this configuration. This can be achieved by the application of the Proximity Force Theorem . According to this theorem the Casimir force acting between a semispace and a lens $`F_{sl}(a)=2\pi RE_{ss}(a)`$, where $`R`$ is the lens (sphere) radius, and $`E_{ss}(a)`$ is the energy per unit area of two parallel plates which is related to the force of Eqs. (1) and (13) by the equality $`F_{ss}(a)=E_{ss}(a)/a`$. Although the Proximity Force Theorem is an approximation, its accuracy is very high (it leads to an error of order $`a/R`$ which is much smaller than 1% for configurations used in the experiments ).

Applying the Proximity Force Theorem to Eq. (13) one obtains the Casimir force acting between a plate and a lens (sphere) made of different real metals at zero temperature

$`F_{sl}^{(\delta ,0)}(a)=F_{sl}^{(0,0)}(a)\{14{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{72}{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{320}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{400}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\},`$ (23)
where $`F_{sl}^{(0,0)}(a)=\pi ^3\mathrm{}cR/(360a^3)`$ is the ideal Casimir force. If one puts $`\delta _1=\delta _2=\delta _0`$ then Eq. (23) coincides with the earlier result for test bodies made of one and the same metal .

In the same way as it was done for the two parallel plates, Eq. (23) can be generalized to take into account nonzero temperature in the range from 0 K to 1000 K. Using the results of Ref. , one obtains

$`F_{sl}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)=F_{sl}^{(0,0)}(a)\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{90}{\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2(nt)^3}}\mathrm{coth}(\pi nt){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(nt)^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2(nt)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi nt)}}]`$ (24)
$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}\left[2{\displaystyle \frac{45}{\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{(nt)^3}}\mathrm{coth}(\pi nt){\displaystyle \frac{4}{(nt)^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{(nt)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi nt)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^3}{nt}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{coth}(\pi nt)}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(\pi nt)}}\right)\right]`$ (25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{72}{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{320}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{400}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\}.`$ (26)
The asymptotic behavior of Eq. (24) at low temperatures (separations) is

$`F_{sl}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)F_{sl}^{(0,0)}(a)\{1+{\displaystyle \frac{45\zeta (3)}{\pi ^3t^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{t^4}}2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{a}}[2{\displaystyle \frac{45\zeta (3)}{\pi ^3t^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{t^4}}]`$ (27)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{72}{5}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{320}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^3}{a^3}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{105}}(13\kappa )]+{\displaystyle \frac{400}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^4}{a^4}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{326\pi ^2}{3675}}(13\kappa )]\}.`$ (28)
In the opposite case of high temperatures (large separations) the asymptotic behavior is

$$F_{sl}^{(\delta ,T)}(a)F_{sl}^{(0,0)}(a)\frac{45\zeta (3)}{\pi ^3t}\left(12\frac{\delta }{a}\right).$$
(29)
As an example, in Table II the numerical results obtained by Eq. (24) are presented for the case of a plate and a sphere made of $`AuAu`$, $`AuCr`$ and $`CrCr`$. Table II is organized in the same manner as Table I – only the configuration of the test bodies is different. The last column of Table II contains the values of the ideal Casimir force for a sphere of radius $`R=1`$mm. The data demonstrate almost the same behavior with the increase of the separation as in the case of two plane parallel plates. It is seen, however, that the effect of nonzero temperature becomes noticeable at smaller separations. The asymptotics of low temperatures (27) works good at separations smaller than 2 $`\mu `$m and the asymptotics of high temperatures (29) is applicable for $`a>4\mu `$m.

## V Conclusions and discussion

To conclude, we have developed a perturbative approach to the calculation of the Casimir force acting between two parallel plates or a sphere (spherical lens) above a plate made of different real metals. The coefficients of the perturbation expansion in powers of two small parameters were found up to the fourth order. These parameters have the meaning of the effective penetration depth of electromagnetic zero-point oscillations into both metals. The effect of nonzero temperature was taken into account explicitly in the coefficients of perturbation expansions of zeroth and first orders. The temperature dependence of the higher order expansion coefficients is negligible in the temperature range from 0 K to 1000 K and thereby it is of no practical interest. The asymptotic behavior of the explicit temperature dependences at low and high temperatures is also given.

The obtained formulas are simple in application and give the possibility to calculate the Casimir force with account of both finite conductivity and nonzero temperature between the test bodies made of different metals. They can be applied in a wide range of separations and temperatures quite sufficient for all practical purposes. The error of the results obtained in such a way is of only 1–2% and is caused in fact by the error in the values of plasma wavelengths. The much more complicated alternative approach using the optical tabulated data for the complex refraction index and the exact Lifshitz formula does not lead to more exact results because of the errors in optical data and the necessity to use some interpolation and extrapolation procedures . It is notable also that the above perturbative approach is very convenient to take into account the surface roughness. This can be done by averaging of the obtained results over all possible separation distances and it leads to a perfect agreement between experiment and theory . Thus, the suggested perturbative approach presents a complete description of the Casimir force acting between different metals with all important corrections and can be used in various applications of the Casimir effect.

## Acknowledgments

G.L.K. and V.M.M. are indebted to the Center of Theoretical Studies and the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leipzig University, for kind hospitality. Their work was supported by the Saxonian Ministry of Science and Fine Arts (Germany) and by CNPq (Brazil).