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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Gauge field theories at strong coupling are of great importance in particle physics. Exact results in gauge theories at strong coupling have a special weight. In the last few years supersymmetry (SUSY) proved to be a guiding principle (see e.g. ) providing deep insights in gauge dynamics. Recently it was suggested that a large number of symmetry relations valid in supersymmetric theories remain valid in the large $`N`$ limit in non-supersymmetric daughter theories obtained from the parent one through orbifoldization . The most popular (non-SUSY) orbifolds are $`𝐙_2`$, or $`𝐙_k`$in general . In particular, in the last paper it was argued that the superpotential of SUSY gluodynamics ,

$$W(S)=N(S\mathrm{log}S/\mathrm{\Lambda }^3S),S=\lambda \lambda +\mathrm{},$$
(1)
can be in a sense extended to its $`𝐙_2`$orbifold. This is equivalent to the statement that the daughter theory has $`N`$ vacua labeled by a bifermion condensate

$$\lambda \lambda _k=N\mathrm{\Lambda }^3\mathrm{exp}\left(i\frac{2\pi k}{N}\right).$$
(2)
While the planar equivalence is certainly true in perturbation theory  its nonperturbative status is being debated; a number of arguments pro and con can be found in the literature .

The purpose of this work is to present a non-supersymmetric daughter (different from the $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds) for which the large $`N`$ equivalence between the parent SUSY theory and the daughter non-supersymmetric one at nonperturbative level rests on a more solid ground than in the case of the $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds. This “orientifold field theory” was suggested in Refs.  in a somewhat different context. One of its advantages over more popular $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds is the absence in it of the twisted sector.

The field content of the orientifold gauge field theory differs from the one of its parent theory, U($`N`$) SUSY gluodynamics, in that the gluinos are replaced by massless Dirac fermions in the rank-two antisymmetric tensor representation of U($`N`$) (denoted by $`\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }+\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}`$). The total number of (say) left handed fermions is thus $`N(N1)`$ in the daughter theory and $`N^2`$ in the parent theory and agrees to leading order in $`1/N`$. Similarly, one can discuss a theory with a Dirac fermion in the symmetric representation ($`\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }+\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}`$). As we will see, this theory lives on a brane configuration of type 0A string theory  which consists of NS5 branes, D4 branes and an orientifold plane — hence the name “orientifold field theory.” The daughter theory in our case is a much closer cousin of $`𝒩=1`$SYM than the $`𝐙_2`$orbifold. Indeed, the gauge groups in the parent and daughter theories are the same, and no rescaling of the gauge couplings is needed.

Assuming that both theories are in the confining regime 111In the Higgs regime the $`1/N`$ expansion becomes more subtle, see a discussion below., we will show that in the large $`N`$ limit many results and symmetry relations that were obtained for $`𝒩=1`$SYM hold also for the above orientifold field theory. One specific quantity is the bifermion condensate (2). It labels distinct vacua. The number of vacua turns out to be the same in the parent and daughter theories, $`N`$. Another result is the vanishing of the vacuum energy density in the daughter theory.

We would like to emphasize that the spectrum of the orientifold field theory does not coincide with that of $`𝒩=1`$SYM in the large $`N`$ limit. In particular, there is no SUSY. While the composite color-singlet hadrons of $`𝒩=1`$are fermi-bose degenerate, the composite color-singlet hadrons of the orientifold field theory are purely bosonic.

The organization of this paper is as follows: in Sect. 2 we present our main result — the perturbative and nonperturbative equivalence. In Sect. 3 we briefly present the string theory realization of the theory in its conjectured relation to M-theory. In Sect. 4 we compare our analysis and results with those referring to $`𝐙_k`$orbifold field theories and summarize conclusions.

## 2 Orientifold field theory and $`𝒩=1`$SYM

In this section we will argue that in the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit there is a sector in the orientifold theory exactly identical to $`𝒩=1`$SYM and, therefore, exact results on the IR behavior of this theory can be obtained.

The parent theory is $`𝒩=1`$SUSY gluodynamics with the gauge group U($`N`$). In the large $`N`$ limit the U(1) factor is irrelevant. The daughter theory has the same gauge group, and the same gauge coupling 222To be more precise, the gauge groups are almost the same. The U(1) factor completely decouples in the parent theory, while it does not decouple in the daughter one. Moreover, in the former theory the $`𝐙_k`$center of the gauge group acts trivially while in the latter one it is only $`𝐙_2`$that acts trivially. These distinctions are unimportant in the large $`N`$ limit. . The gluino field $`\lambda _j^i`$ is replaced by two Weyl spinors $`\lambda _{[ij]}`$ and $`\xi ^{[ij]}`$. We can combine the Weyl spinors into one Dirac spinor, either $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{[ij]}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{[ij]}`$. Note that the number of fermionic degrees of freedom is $`N^2N`$, as in the parent theory in the large $`N`$ limit.

The hadronic (color-singlet) sectors of the theories are different. In the parent theory composite fermions with mass scaling as $`N^0`$ exist, and moreover, they are degenerate with their bosonic SUSY counterparts. In the daughter theory any interpolating color-singlet current with the fermion quantum numbers contains a number of constituents growing with $`N`$. Hence at $`N=\mathrm{}`$ the spectrum contains only bosons.

Classically the parent theory has just an $`R`$ symmetry corresponding to chiral rotations of the gluino field. Instantons break this symmetry down to $`𝐙_{2N}`$. The daughter theory has, on top, a conserved anomaly free current

$$\overline{\lambda }_{\dot{\alpha }}\lambda _\alpha \overline{\xi }_{\dot{\alpha }}\xi _\alpha .$$
(3)
In terms of the Dirac spinor this is the vector current $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Psi }`$. If the corresponding charge is denoted by $`Q`$, in the color-singlet bosonic sector $`Q=0`$, with necessity. Then the only global symmetry which remains in both theories is $`𝐙_{2N}`$ spontaneously broken down to $`𝐙_2`$by the respective bifermion condensates. This explains the existence of $`N`$ vacua in both cases. We will compare the bosonic sectors of the parent and daughter theories. Note that in the daughter theory the part of the bosonic sector probed by the operators of the type (3), which have no analogs in the parent theory, is inaccessible.

Let us start from perturbative consideration. The general argument for any orbifold/orientifold field theory is given in . Let us see how it works in our orientifold field theory. The Feynman rules of the planar theory are shown in Fig.1. The difference between the orientifold theory and $`𝒩=1`$is that the arrows on the fermionic lines point in the same direction, since the fermion is in the antisymmetric representation, in contrast to the supersymmetric theory where the gaugino is in the adjoint representation and the arrows point in the opposite directions. This difference between the two theories does not affect planar graphs provided each gaugino line is replaced by the sum of $`\lambda _{[..]}`$ and $`\lambda ^{[..]}`$.

There is a one-to-one correspondence between the planar graphs of the two theories. Diagrammatically this works as follows (see, for example, Fig. 2). Consider any planar diagram of the daughter theory: by definition of planarity it can be drawn on a sphere. The fermionic propagators form closed, non-intersecting loops that divide the sphere into regions. Each time we cross a fermionic line the orientation of color-indices loops (each one producing a factor $`N`$) changes from clock to anti-clock wise, and vice-versa, as easily seen in Fig. 2c. Thus, the fermionic loops allow to attribute to each one of the above regions a binary label (say $`\pm 1`$) according to whether the color loops go clock- or anti-clock-wise in that region. Now imagine that the orientation of color loops in all regions with the $`1`$ label is reversed. We will get a planar diagram of the SYM theory in which all color loops go, by convention, clock-wise. The number associated with both diagrams will be the same since the diagrams inside each region always contain an even number of powers of $`g`$ so that the relative minus signs of Fig. 1 do not matter.

Let us illustrate how this works, say, for the inside part of the graph in Fig. 2b. In the parent theory we have the color factor Tr $`(T^aT^bT^c)f^{abc}`$ while in the daughter one Tr $`(\overline{T}^a\overline{T}^b\overline{T}^c)f^{abc}`$ where $`\overline{T}=\stackrel{~}{T}`$ and the tilde marks the transposed matrix 333To make the following expressions concise we use a shorthand, $`T^a=T_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a`$ and $`\overline{T}^a=T_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a`$. . Using the fact that

$$[T^aT^b]=if^{abc}T^c\text{and}[\overline{T}^a\overline{T}^b]=if^{abc}\overline{T}^c$$

we immediately come to the conclusion that the above two expressions coincide.

Thus, all perturbative results that we know of in $`𝒩=1`$SYM apply for the orientifold model as well. For example, the $`\beta `$ function of the orientifold field theory is

$$\beta =\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{3N\alpha ^2}{1(N\alpha )/(2\pi )}\left\{1+O\left(\frac{1}{N}\right)\right\},$$
(4)
where $`\alpha =\frac{g^2}{4\pi }`$. In the large $`N`$ limit it coincides with the $`𝒩=1`$SYM result . Note that the corrections are $`1/N`$ rather than $`1/N^2`$. For instance, the exact first coefficient of the $`\beta `$ function is $`3N4/3`$ versus $`3N`$ in the parent theory.

Now let us argue that the perturbative argument can be elevated to nonperturbative level in the case at hand. A heuristic argument in favor of the nonperturbative equivalence is that the coincidence of all planar graphs of the two theories implies that the relevant Casimir operators of the two representations are equivalent in the large $`N`$ limit. The partition functions of the two theories depend on the Casimir operators and therefore must coincide as well.

A more formal line of reasoning is as follows. It is essential that the fermion fields enter bilinearly in the action, and that for any given gauge field configuration in the parent theory there is exactly the same configuration in the daughter one. (The latter feature is absent in the $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds.) Our idea is to integrate out fermion fields for any fixed gluon field configuration, which yields respective determinants, and then compare them.

Consider the partition function of $`𝒩=1`$SYM,

$$𝒵_0=𝒟A𝒟\lambda \mathrm{exp}\left(iS[A,\lambda ,J]\right),$$
(5)
where $`J`$ is any source coupled to color-singlet gluon operators (we will discuss color-singlet fermion bilinears later).

For any given gluon field, upon integrating out the gaugino field, we obtain

$$𝒵_0=𝒟A\mathrm{exp}\left(iS[A,J]\right)det\left(\overline{)}+\overline{)A}^aT_{\mathrm{adj}}^a\right),$$
(6)
where $`T_{\mathrm{adj}}^a`$ is a generator of the adjoint representation.

If one integrates out the fermion fields of the non-supersymmetric orientifold theory, at fixed $`A`$, one arrives at a similar expression, but with the generators of the anti-symmetric representation instead of the adjoint, $`T_{\mathrm{adj}}^aT_{\mathrm{as}}^a`$.

To compare the fermion determinants in the parent and daughter theories (assuming that the gauge field configuration $`A_\mu ^a(x),a=1,\mathrm{},N^2,`$ is the same and fixed) we must cast both fermion operators in similar forms. To this end we will extend both theories. In the parent one we introduce the second adjoint Weyl fermion $`\xi _j^i`$ and combine two Weyl fermions into one Dirac adjoint fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }_j^i`$. The determinant in this extended theory is the square of the original one; we assume that taking the square root at the end is harmless.

In the daughter theory instead of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{[ij]}`$, we will work with the reducible representation, combining both symmetric and antisymmetric, $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{ij}`$ (no (anti)symmetrization over the color indices). Then the number of the fermion Dirac fields is the same as in the extended parent. Again, as in the previous case, the determinant in the extended daughter theory is the square of the original one. For infrared regularization we will introduce small mass terms, assuming that the vanishing mass limit is smooth.

Next, we will make use of the fact that

$$T_{adj}^aT_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\times \overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a=T_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a1+1T_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a,$$
(7)
and

$$T_d^a=T_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a1+1T_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a,$$
(8)
or

$$T_d^a=T_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a1+1T_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a.$$
(9)
The subscript d stands for “daughter.” Let us now introduce, as an auxiliary object,

$$F(A,B)=\mathrm{tr}\mathrm{ln}\left(\overline{)}+\overline{)A}^a(T_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a1)+\overline{)B}^a(1T_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a)\right),$$
(10)
and notice that (at large$`N`$) $`F`$ is invariant under separate gauge transformations acting on $`A^a`$ and $`B^a`$. Using the fact that the Wilson loop operators $`𝒲_𝒞(A)=\mathrm{tr}P\mathrm{exp}\left(i_𝒞A\right)`$ form a complete set of gauge invariant operators, we can write

$$\mathrm{exp}\left\{F(A,B)\right\}=\underset{𝒞,𝒞^{}}{}\alpha _{𝒞,𝒞^{}}𝒲_𝒞(A)𝒲_𝒞^{}(B).$$
(11)
The partition function of $`𝒩=1`$SYM can be written, at large $`N`$, as

$$𝒵_0=𝒟A𝒟B\delta (AB)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{1}{2}(S[A]+S[B])\right\}\underset{𝒞,𝒞^{}}{}\alpha _{𝒞,𝒞^{}}𝒲_𝒞(A)𝒲_𝒞^{}(B).$$
(12)
Now let us turn to the daughter theory. The partition function of the orientifold theory, at large $`N`$, can be written as (12), but with the orientations of the Wilson loops $`𝒲(B)`$ reversed, since we replace the fundamental fermions by anti-fundamental fermions. This gives

$$𝒲_𝒞^{}𝒲_{\overline{𝒞^{}}}=\left\{𝒲_𝒞^{}\right\}^{}.$$

Moreover, $`𝒲_𝒞^{}`$ is real, and this is why reversing the orientation should not change the value of the partition function.

Let us present now a more detailed derivation which relies on the fact that at large $`N`$ the two kinds of gluons do not interact with each other. The partition function (12) can be written as

$$𝒵_0=𝒟A\mathrm{exp}\left\{S[A]+F(A,B=A)\right\}.$$
(13)
Let us expand $`\mathrm{exp}(S)`$

$$\mathrm{exp}\left\{S[A]\right\}=\underset{n}{}\frac{(1)^n}{n!}\left\{S[A]\right\}^n.$$
(14)
At $`N\mathrm{}`$, the vertices or propagators coming from each factor of $`S`$ cannot connect $`A`$ with $`B`$. Thus, we have

$$S^n\underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}C_kS^k[A]S^{nk}[B],$$
(15)
where the $``$ sign means “can be replaced by” and $`C_k`$ is a combinatorial factor corresponding to the various choices of picking $`k`$ out of $`n`$,

$$C_k=\frac{n!}{k!(nk)!}.$$

Then

$`\mathrm{exp}(S)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n!}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{n!}{k!(nk)!}}\left\{S[A]\right\}^k\left\{S[B]\right\}^{nk}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(S[A]S[B]).`$
Thus, we conclude that $`\mathrm{exp}(S)`$ acts as $`\mathrm{exp}(S[A]S[B])`$ and, at large $`N`$, we can think of the partition function as if we actually have two gauge fields. Thus, at large $`N`$, Eq. (12) becomes

$$𝒵_0=\underset{𝒞,𝒞^{}}{}\alpha _{𝒞,𝒞^{}}𝒲_𝒞𝒲_𝒞^{}.$$
(17)
In order to pass to the daughter theory one has to replace $`B=B^aT_{\overline{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}}^a`$ by $`B=B^aT_{\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }\text{ }}^a`$. But $`B`$ is a dummy variable and, hence, this substitution will not change the value of the partition function. Though we used a perturbative intuition in order to arrive to the factorization of either the Wilson loops in (12) or the action in Eq. (16) we believe that this is an exact property of the partition function. Note also that the factorization in the partition function follows immediately from the existence of a master field . Thus, given the existence of a large $`N`$ master field, the equivalence of the parent and daughter theories is proven.

Another line of reasoning supporting non-perturbative planar equivalence of the parent and orientifold theories is based on lattice formulations of both theories. If one examines strong coupling diagrams for, say, a Wilson loop on the lattice, one readily concludes that the large $`N`$ diagrams of the two theories can be put in a one-to-one correspondence and agree to leading order in $`1/N`$.

For all these reasons we believe that the full equivalence of these two theories takes place in the large $`N`$ limit, for quantities which do not involve fermion external legs. The equivalence is nonperturbative. An immediate result is that the vacuum energy of the orientifold theory is zero in the large $`N`$ limit (or at finite $`N`$ it is $`1/N`$ relatively to a natural $`N^2`$ behavior). To be more precise, the expected dependence of the vacuum energy on the UV cut-off and $`N`$ is generically

$$\rho =\mathrm{\Lambda }_{UV}^4N^2(c_0+c_1/N+c_2/N^2+\mathrm{}).$$
(18)
In the present theory $`c_0=0`$ while, generically, $`c_1,c_2,\mathrm{}`$ are non-zero. Namely, the vacuum energy is zero only in the planar theory. If one keeps the combination $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{UV}^4N^2`$ fixed then the limiting theory has a zero vacuum energy. While this is an almost trivial statement in the UV, simply because of the equivalence of the planar graphs, it is highly nontrivial from the IR point of view. The daughter theory hadronic spectrum consists of bosons only, since it is impossible to form light color-singlet fermions. Nonetheless one should remark that contributions to the cosmological constant from color-singlet loops only enter at the level of the genus-1 (torus) diagrams. These are already O($`1/N^2`$) down with respect to the leading contribution to the cosmological constant (which vanishes) and O($`1/N`$) relative to the presumed leading non-vanishing contribution in the daughter theory.

In order to go beyond the equivalence of vacuum diagrams and correlators with external gluonic sources we have to understand how the above argument can be extended if we add fermionic bilinear sources.

It looks quite obvious that sources coupled to $`\lambda \lambda \pm \overline{\lambda }\overline{\lambda }`$ in the parent theory can be mapped into sources coupled to $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(1\pm \gamma _5)\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in the daughter theory. This will be enough to prove the equality of condensates in the two theories and the $`x`$-independence of certain correlators, hence the parity-doublet structure of the spectrum in both theories (see below). In particular, a mass terms can be added to both theories without spoiling their large $`N`$ equivalence. Although we have not made a systematic study of this problem it looks that many other fermionic bilinears (FB) — involving the gluon field as well — can be mapped in the two theories so that

$$W_{\mathrm{SYM}}(J_{\mathrm{glue}}^i,J_{FB}^j)=W_{\mathrm{ori}}(J_{\mathrm{glue}}^i,\stackrel{~}{J}_{FB}^j)(1+O(1/N))$$
(19)
with an explicit dictionary relating $`J_{FB}^j`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{J}_{FB}^j`$. An example of such a pair is

$$\left(G_{\alpha \beta }\right)_j^i\left(\lambda _\alpha \right)_i^k\left(\lambda _\beta \right)_k^j\left(G_{\alpha \beta }\right)_j^i\left(\lambda _\alpha \right)_{[ik]}\left(\xi _\beta \right)^{[kj]},$$
(20)
where $`\left(G_{\alpha \beta }\right)_j^i`$ is the gluon field strength tensor.

As was mentioned, we can derive the bifermion condensate $`\lambda \xi 0`$ in the daughter theory starting from $`\lambda \lambda 0`$ in the parent one, hence

$$\lambda \xi _k=N\mathrm{\Lambda }^3\mathrm{exp}\left(i\frac{2\pi k}{N}\right),$$

as in Eq. (2).

Another property which is inherited by the daughter theory is the constancy of the chiral correlator

$$\lambda \xi (x_1)\lambda \xi (x_2)\mathrm{}\lambda \xi (x_n)=\mathrm{const}.$$
(21)
Physically it is related to the mass degeneracy of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons.

It should be stressed that in $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds some background gauge field configurations are present in the parent theory and absent in the daughter one, so that comparison of the fermion determinants does not prove nonperturbative equivalence.

To summarize, we can relate many correlators which involve even number of fermions and/or gluon operators (hence, the corresponding hadron spectra). However, the parent and daughter theories differ from each other in the sector of odd number of fermions. For example, there is a gauge invariant three-fermions state in $`𝒩=1`$SYM. Such a state does not exist in the orientifold theory. Remember also that the sector of the daughter theory probed by the operators of the type (3) is not accessible for predictions.

## 3 The relation with type 0A string theory and M-theory

In this section we show that our orientifold field theory has a simple realization in type 0A string theory. Type 0A/B are bosonic closed string theories with a low-energy spectrum which consist of the universal NS-NS sector, a tachyon and a doubled set of R-R forms with respect to type IIA/B string theories. Type 0B string theory has three kinds of orientifolds . We will be mostly interested in the nontachyonic one . Consider the action $`\mathrm{\Omega }(1)^{f_R}`$, namely the world-sheet parity combined with the world-sheet fermion number. The NS-NS vacuum is odd with respect to this action and, therefore, it is removed from the spectrum. Thus, the bulk theory is tachyon free. In addition this orientifold removes half of the R-R fields so that the theory now has only one set of R-R fields, as in the type IIB theory. In order to remove R-R tadpoles one has to introduce 32 D9 branes. The field theory on the D9 branes is a 10 dimensional $`U(32)`$ gauge theory with an antisymmetric fermion.

One can perform a sequence of T dualities to obtain a system of D4 branes and O4 plane. Moreover, a brane configuration which consists of NS5 branes and an O4 plane as in Fig. 3, leads  to our “orientifold field theory”.

We would like to use the relation of type 0A string theory to M-theory to study the strong coupling regime of the orientifold theory at large $`N`$. This argument is certainly not a proof and we present it just to indicate that our results in Sect. 2 are in agreement with the string theory picture.

Similarly to type IIA string theory, type 0A can be obtained from M-theory by a compactification of the eleventh dimension on a Scherk-Schwarz circle . By using this conjecture we can lift the brane configuration (Fig. 3) to M-theory, similarly to the lift of the analogous type IIA brane configuration . Note that the presence of the orientifold plane can be neglected in the large $`N`$ limit, since its R-R charge is negligible with respect to the R-R charge of the branes ($`N`$). Similarly to the type IIA situation we will obtain a smooth M5 brane and the resulting curve (the shape of the M5) will be the same as the curve of $`𝒩=1`$SYM

$$S^N=1.$$
(22)
The meaning of this curve is that there are $`N`$ vacua with the bifermion condensate (2) as the order parameter, in agreement with our field theory results.

## 4 Discussion and conclusions

One of the goals of this section is to compare in more detail the results that are obtained in this work for orientifold field theories with the previous results for orbifold field theories.

In order to be concrete let us discuss, as an example, the $`𝐙_2`$orbifold theory (see Table). This theory as well has a realization in type 0A theory . It lives on a brane configuration of type 0A which consists of ‘electric’ and ‘magnetic’ D-branes, hence the labels ‘e’ and ‘m’ in the Table.

Let us divide the operators in the $`𝐙_2`$orbifold theory to operators that are invariant (even) under the exchange of the labels ‘e’ and ‘m’ and operators which are odd under this exchange. The first are called “untwisted operators,” the second “twisted operators.” For example, the operator $`𝒪^+=\mathrm{tr}F_{\mathrm{ee}}^2+\mathrm{tr}F_{\mathrm{mm}}^2`$ is an untwisted operator whereas $`𝒪^{}=\mathrm{tr}F_{\mathrm{ee}}^2\mathrm{tr}F_{\mathrm{mm}}^2`$ is a twisted operator.

The perturbative relation between the orbifold theory and its supersymmetric parent concerns only the untwisted sector . The parent theory does not carry information about the twisted sector of the daughter theory. It is always assumed that the vacuum of the daughter theory is $`𝐙_2`$invariant. However, the $`𝐙_2`$symmetry might be broken dynamically 444A.A. thanks Y. Shadmi for suggesting this scenario., due to a an expectation value of $`𝒪^{}`$.

A possible sign of the $`𝐙_2`$instability comes from perturbation theory. Indeed, let us assume for a moment that at some UV scale where perturbation theory is applicable the gauge couplings of the two U(N) factors in the orbifold theory are slightly different. We will denote $`2\pi /\alpha _e=z_e`$ and $`2\pi /\alpha _m=z_m`$ where the subscripts $`e,m`$ refer to the first and second U(N) factors, respectively. It is not difficult to find the renormalization group flow of $`\delta z`$ towards the IR domain. As long as $`\delta \alpha \alpha _{e,m}`$ we have

$$\frac{d(\delta z)}{d\mathrm{ln}\mu }=\frac{3N^2}{z^2}(\delta z)+\text{higher orders}.$$
(23)
Neglecting weak logarithmic $`\mu `$ dependence of $`\alpha `$ we get

$$\delta z(\mu )=\delta z(\mu _0)\left(\frac{\mu }{\mu _0}\right)^{3N^2\alpha ^2/(4\pi ^2)}.$$
(24)
If $`\delta z`$ is small in UV, it grows towards the IR domain, an indication on a destabilization tendency. A similar analysis for the conformal daughter theory of extended SUSY, $`𝒩=4`$, was carried out in Ref. .

The advantage of the orientifold theory over the orbifold theory is the absence of the twisted sector. Moreover, the gauge groups are the same in the parent and daughter theories, and so are the patterns of the spontaneous breaking of the global symmetry and the numbers of vacua. This is also seen from the string theory standpoint. The orbifold field theory originates from the type 0A string theory which is obtained by a $`𝐙_2`$orbifold of type IIA. The result is a bosonic string theory with a tachyon in the twisted sector. In contrast, the orientifold field theory originates from a configuration with an orientifold which removes the twisted sector (the result is very similar to the bosonic part of the type I string).

If the equivalence between $`𝒩=1`$SUSY gluodynamics and orientifold theory does hold nonperturbatively, this must have a strong consequence for the symmetry of the IR theory. Indeed, the degeneracy of the meson masses inherited from the parent theory would imply that in the daughter theory there is a tensorial operator (other than the energy-momentum tensor) which is conserved in the large $`N`$ limit. This is in no contradiction with the Coleman-Mandula theorem  since in the large $`N`$ limit all scattering amplitudes vanish, and the $`S`$ matrix tends to unity. Note that we discuss here only the large $`N`$ theory, namely the theory of planar graphs. In this limit the theory is expected to be a free theory of color singlet glueballs. Glueball couplings are all suppressed by powers of $`1/N`$.

Since the perturbative planar equivalence does not depend on the geometry of space-time, one can compactify one or more dimensions, with a small compactification size, to make the theory weakly coupled. One can then compare the parent and the orbifold theories. This was done, in particular, in Ref.  where it was shown that the toron contributions in the parent and $`𝐙_2`$orbifold theories do not match ($`T^4`$ compactification is implied).

Compactifying one or more extra dimensions one should be very cautious, however. In doing so we get a theory with scalar moduli (flat directions at the classical level). It may happen (and in fact happens) that one or several components of the moduli fields develop vacuum expectation values which scale as $`N^{1/2}`$. This breaks (a part of) the gauge symmetry leading to the Higgs regime. Simultaneously, the $`1/N`$ expansion is broken too. Indeed, in this expansion we assume that the smallness of $`g^2`$ is compensated not by a large value of the gluon field (the gluon propagator is $`O(N^0)`$) but by a large number of components of the gluon fields circulating in loops. Upon compactification we get scalar fields, just a few components of which may condense, compensating the smallness of $`g^2`$.

An example was given by Tong , who considered $`R^3\times S`$ compactification at one loop. On $`R^3\times S`$ the third spatial component of the gluon field becomes a scalar field with a flat (vanishing) potential at the classical level, $`(A_3)_j^i\varphi _j^i`$. (Alternatively, one may speak of the Polyakov line in the $`x_3`$ direction.) In the parent theory the flatness is (perturbatively) maintained to all orders by supersymmetry. Nonperturbatively, the flatness is lifted by $`R^3\times S`$ instantons (monopoles) which generate a superpotential. It turns out that in supersymmetric vacua the non-Abelian gauge symmetry is completely broken by $`\varphi _j^i=v_i\delta _j^i`$, down to U(1)2N, so that the theory is in the Coulomb phase . The expectation values $`v_i`$ scale as $`1/g\sqrt{N}`$. This explains why the generated masses $`gv_iN^0`$.

Tong showed that in the daughter theory a potential emerges at one loop, making the point of the broken gauge symmetry unstable. Shifting from this point, for a trial, one finds oneself in the $`𝐙_2`$-noninvariant (or twisted) sector, for which no planar equivalence exists, and which proves to be energetically favored in this case. In the true vacuum the energy density is negative rather than zero and the full gauge symmetry is restored. The daughter theory is in the confining phase. Obviously, then there is no equivalence.

The above remark implies that in considering equivalence between $`𝒩=2`$ (or $`𝒩=4`$) theories where scalar moduli are abundant, with the corresponding orbifold/orientifold theories, one should be sure to be in the confining rather than Higgs regime.

Another indication that the presence of the twisted sector in $`𝐙_k`$orbifolds may have a negative impact on the untwisted sector came from consideration of the low-energy theorems. In particular, topological susceptibilities in the parent and $`𝐙_2`$daughter theories were analyzed in .

The topological susceptibility reflects dependence of the vacuum energy on the vacuum angle $`\theta `$. For massless fermions such dependence is absent and the topological susceptibility vanishes. Only if $`m0`$, the topological susceptibility does not vanish and can be readily derived to leading order in $`m`$. Thus it is necessary to deform the parent/daughter theories by fermion mass terms. This deformation does not affect perturbative planar equivalence.

It was shown  that under certain reasonable assumptions the topological susceptibilities do not match, the discrepancy being a factor of 2. This factor can be traced back to the fact that the number of vacua in U($`2N`$) SUSY parent is $`2N`$ while its $`U_\mathrm{e}(N)\times U_\mathrm{m}(N)`$ daughter ($`𝐙_2`$orbifold) has only $`N`$ vacua.

Needless to say, in our case of the orientifold daughter the topological susceptibilities are identical, as so are the gauge groups, gauge couplings and the number of vacua.

In conclusion, let us formulate a question which naturally comes to one’s mind at the end of this paper:

“What is the symmetry of the daughter theory, weaker than SUSY, which nevertheless implies infinite number of degeneracies in the spectrum?”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A.A. would like to thank O. Aharony, C. Angelantonj, O. Bergman, Y. Frishman, A. Hanany, R. Rabadan, E. Rabinovici, and Y. Shadmi for useful discussions. M.S. is grateful to A. Gorsky and D. Tong for numerous communications and discussions of the $`𝐙_k`$orbifold theories. The work of M.S. is supported in part by DOE grant DE-FG02-94ER408.


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# Exact steady state solution of the Boltzmann equation: A driven 1-D inelastic Maxwell gas

## I Introduction

In kinetic theory there is a long standing interest in overpopulated high energy tails of velocity distribution functions BKW  because of chemical reactions and other activated processes that occur only at energies far above thermal. This interest has been considerably increased in the past 10 years because of research in granular fluids with dissipative or inelastic interactions. The velocity distributions in fluidized systems have been studied theoretically WM96 ; W96 ; EP97 ; vNE98 ; SBCM98 ; BSSS99 ; BBRTW , and measured in Monte Carlo BBRTW ; MC ; MS00  and molecular dynamics simulations vNETP99 , and in numerous laboratory experiments GM-exp .

Very recently a revival in this field occurred when Baldassarri et al. Rome1 ; Rome2  discovered an exact scaling solution – with an algebraic high energy tail – of the non-linear Boltzmann equation for an inelastic one-dimensional freely cooling gas (without energy input) with a collision frequency independent of the energy of the colliding particles. This model, called Inelastic Maxwell Model (IMM), was introduced by Ben–Naim and Krapivsky BN-K-00 . It is in fact an inelastic modification of Ulam’s stochastic model to illustrate the velocity relaxation of elastic one-dimensional point particles towards a Maxwellian Ulam . A three-dimensional version of it has been constructed by Bobylev et al. Bobyl-00 ; Cercig-00 . For a recent review on inelastic Maxwell models, see Refs. EB-03 ; BNK03 .

Baldassarri et al. have demonstrated the importance of this type of solutions in Rome1  with the help of Monte Carlo simulations of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional IMM’s. It appeared that the solution, $`F(v,t)`$, for large classes of initial distributions $`F(v,0)`$ (e.g. uniform or Gaussian) and for all values of the inelasticity could be collapsed for large times on a scaling form $`v_0^d(t)f(v/v_0(t))`$, where $`v_0(t)=v^2^{1/2}`$ is the r.m.s. velocity. In one dimension the scaling form was given by $`f(c)=(2/\pi )(1+c^2)^2`$, which has a heavily overpopulated algebraic tail $`c^4`$ when compared to a Maxwellian. In two dimensions the solutions also approached a scaling form with an algebraic tail, $`f(c)c^{da}`$ with an exponent $`a(q)`$ that depends on the degree of inelasticity $`q=\frac{1}{2}(1\alpha )`$, where $`\alpha `$ is the coefficient of restitution. Soon after, Ben–Naim and Krapivsky BN-K-02 , and Ernst and Brito B-E-02a  obtained asymptotic solutions with algebraic tails for the velocity distribution in $`d`$-dimensional freely cooling IMM’s from self-consistently determined solutions of the Boltzmann equation. Using methods previously developed for the inelastic hard sphere case, the asymptotic solutions were also extended to non-equilibrium steady states (NESS) in $`d`$-dimensional systems driven by Gaussian white noise and other thermostats vNE98 ; B-E-02c . There the tails exhibited over-populations of exponential type, $`\mathrm{exp}(a|c|)`$, for all $`d`$-dimensional IMM’s B-E-02c . For inelastic hard spheres, which is the prototypical model for granular gases, the velocity distribution function shows an overpopulated exponential tail in free cooling vNE98 ; BBRTW ; MC , and a stretched exponential tail $`\mathrm{exp}(a|c|^{3/2})`$, when driven by white noise vNE98 ; BBRTW ; MS00 .

For the case of $`d`$-dimensional free IMM’s the approach of $`F(v,t)`$ to a scaling form with an algebraic tail has also been rigorously proven, for initial distributions in the $`_1`$ function space, satisfying the physical requirements of finite mass and energy, i.e. $`𝑑𝐯\{1,v^2\}F(v,0)<\mathrm{}`$ BCT02 .

What about exact and/or more explicit results for the distribution function in the one-dimensional IMM, driven by Gaussian white noise? The exact solution of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for this case is given in the form of an infinite product for the Fourier transform of the distribution function BN-K-00 . Nienhuis and van der Hart Nienhuis  made an extensive numerical analysis of this solution, and demonstrated exponential decay, in agreement with the predictions of Ref. B-E-02c . More numerical evidence for exponential high energy tails in the one-dimensional driven IMM was given recently by Marconi and Puglisi Rome3 , and by Antal et al. Droz . In a recent paper BNK03 , Ben–Naim and Krapivsky have also used the Fourier transform method to show that the high energy tail is exponential for any inelasticity, but with an amplitude that diverges in the quasi-elastic limit. On the other hand, the problem of determining for what range of velocities the exponential tail actually applies remains open. This is one of the points addressed in this paper.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In the remainder of this Section we present the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for the velocity distribution function $`F(v)`$ or $`f(c)`$, driven by Gaussian white noise, and we discuss qualitatively the physical properties of the model in different limiting cases. In Section II the exact solution $`\varphi (k)=𝑑ce^{ikc}f(c)`$ of the Fourier transformed Boltzmann equation in the NESS is presented in the form of an infinite product, and its large- and small-$`k`$ properties are analyzed. In Section III we determine the inverse Fourier transform, $`f(c)`$, in the form of an infinite series of exponentially decaying terms. In the limit of totally inelastic collisions ($`\alpha 0`$) substantial simplifications occur. The rather singular quasi-elastic limit ($`\alpha 1`$) is studied in Section IV, where also the crossover from Maxwellian to exponential decay is analyzed. We end with some comments in Section V, and some technical details are moved to Appendices A and B.

Before concluding this introduction we present the Boltzmann equation for the one-dimensional inelastic Maxwell model (IMM) BN-K-00 , driven by Gaussian white noise, and we discuss some of its important properties. The time evolution of a spatially homogeneous isotropic velocity distribution function $`F(v,t)=F(|v|,t)`$ is described by the nonlinear Boltzmann equation ,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F(v)}{t}}D{\displaystyle \frac{^2F(v)}{v^2}}={\displaystyle 𝑑v_1\left[\frac{1}{\alpha }F(v^{\prime \prime })F(v_1^{\prime \prime })F(v)F(v_1)\right]}`$
$`=F(v)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}{\displaystyle 𝑑uF(u)F\left(\frac{vqu}{p}\right)}I(v|F).`$ (1)
All velocity integrations extend over the interval $`(\mathrm{},+\mathrm{})`$. The diffusion term represents the (heating) effect of the Gaussian white noise with noise strength $`D`$. The nonlinear collision term represents the inelastic collisions, where $`v^{\prime \prime }=v\frac{1}{2}(1+\alpha ^1)(vv_1)`$ and $`v_1^{\prime \prime }=v_1+\frac{1}{2}(1+\alpha ^1)(vv_1)`$ denote restituting velocities. Here $`\alpha =2p1=12q`$ with $`0<\alpha <1`$ is the coefficient of restitution. The mass is normalized as $`𝑑vF(v)=1`$, and the mean square velocity or temperature as $`v^2(t)=𝑑vv^2F(v)v_0^2(t)`$ . The rate equation,

$$_tv^2=2D2pqv^2,$$
(2)
obtained from (I), describes the approach to the non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) with width $`v^2=D/pq`$, where the heating rate $`D`$ caused by the random forces is balanced by the loss rate, $`pqv^2=\frac{1}{4}(1\alpha ^2)v^2`$, caused by the inelastic collisions.

To understand the physical processes involved, we first discuss in a qualitative way the relevant limiting cases. Without the heating term $`(D=0)`$, Eq. (I) reduces to the freely cooling IMM, whose exact solution has been discussed in Refs. Rome1 ; Rome2 . If one takes in addition the elastic limit $`(\alpha 1`$ or $`q0)`$, the collision laws reduce in the one-dimensional case to $`v^{\prime \prime }=v_1,v_1^{\prime \prime }=v`$, i.e. an exchange of particle labels, the collision term vanishes identically, every $`F(v,t)=F(v)`$ is a solution, there is no randomization or relaxation of the velocity distribution through collisions, and the model becomes trivial at the Boltzmann level of description, whereas the distribution function in the presence of infinitesimal dissipation $`(\alpha 1)`$ approaches a Maxwellian.

If we turn on the noise $`(D0)`$ at vanishing dissipation $`(q=0)`$, the exact solution of (I) in Fourier representation is $`\widehat{F}(k,t)=\mathrm{exp}(Dk^2t)\widehat{F}(k,0)`$, and the granular temperature, $`v_0^2(t)=v_0^2(0)+2Dt`$, increases linearly with time. With stochastic heating and dissipation (even in infinitesimal amounts) the system reaches a NESS, and it is the goal of this paper to determine the NESS distribution function.

To expose the universality of this NESS it is convenient to measure the velocities, $`c=v/v_0(\mathrm{})`$, in units of its typical size $`v_0(\mathrm{})`$, i.e. the r.m.s. velocity or width of the velocity distribution $`v_0(\mathrm{})`$,

$$F(v,\mathrm{})=v_0^1(\mathrm{})f\left(v/v_0(\mathrm{})\right),$$
(3)
which obeys the normalizations $`𝑑c\{1,c^2\}f(c)=\{1,1\}`$. Different normalizations have been used as well norm .

The rescaled velocity distribution in the NESS is then the solution of the scaling equation,

$$I(c|f)=\frac{D}{v_0^2(\mathrm{})}f^{\prime \prime }(c)=pqf^{\prime \prime }(c),$$
(4)
where primes denote $`c`$-derivatives. The first equality may suggest that $`f(c)`$ may depend on the noise strength $`D`$ and possibly on the initial distribution via $`v_0(\mathrm{})`$. By eliminating $`v_0(\mathrm{})`$ with the help of (2) in the NESS we have shown that the scaling form of the distribution function $`f(c)`$ is a universal function, that does not depend on the strength $`D`$ of this thermostat, nor on any property of the initial distribution. It only depends on the type of thermostat used.

## II Fourier transform of IMM Boltzmann equation

The nonlinear Boltzmann equation for characteristic function, $`\varphi (k)=𝑑ce^{ikc}f(c)`$, is obtained by Fourier transformation of (4) with the result,

$$(1+pqk^2)\varphi (k)=\varphi (pk)\varphi (qk).$$
(5)
The simple structure of the equation for the Fourier transform $`\varphi (k)`$ follows because the nonlinear collision operator for (in)elastic Maxwell models is a convolution in the velocity variables BKW . Equation (5) is a nonlinear finite difference equation, that can be solved by iteration. A simple way to construct the exact solution is to introduce $`\psi (k)\mathrm{ln}\varphi (k)`$, which satisfies

$$\psi (k)=\psi (pk)+\psi (qk)\mathrm{ln}\left(1+pqk^2\right).$$
(6)
The normalization of mass and energy implies that $`\varphi (k)1\frac{1}{2}k^2`$ and $`\psi (k)\frac{1}{2}k^2`$ at small $`k`$. The solution to (6) can be found iteratively starting from $`\psi _0(k)=\mathrm{ln}(1+pqk^2)`$ and inserting $`\psi _n(k)`$ on the right-hand-side of (6) to get $`\psi _{n+1}(k)`$ on the left-hand-side. By taking the limit $`\psi (k)=lim_n\mathrm{}\psi _n(k)`$, one finally obtains,

$`\psi (k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}}\nu _m\mathrm{}\mathrm{ln}\left[1+p^2\mathrm{}q^{2(m\mathrm{})}pqk^2\right]`$
$`\varphi (k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}}[1+p^2\mathrm{}q^{2(m\mathrm{})}pqk^2]^{\nu _m\mathrm{}},`$ (7)
where $`\nu _m\mathrm{}=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{\mathrm{}}\right)`$. These solutions satisfy the required boundary conditions at $`k=0`$. We further note that $`\overline{\psi }(k)=\psi (k)\lambda |k|`$ with $`\lambda `$ an arbitrary complex number is also a solution of (6), but in general does not satisfy the boundary conditions at small $`k`$. This property is a reflection of the Galilean invariance of the original Boltzmann equation.

Equations (7) provide an exact representation in Fourier space of the solution of the Boltzmann equation (I). The series (7) converges rapidly, even for large $`k`$. By expanding the logarithm in powers of $`k^2`$ and summing a geometric series we obtain,

$$\psi (k)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^n}{n}\frac{(k^2pq)^n}{1p^{2n}q^{2n}}.$$
(8)
It converges for $`k^21/pq`$, and $`\psi (k)`$ has a branch point singularity at $`k^2=1/pq`$, as is apparent from (6). Equation (8) allows one to get the cumulants $`C_{2n}`$ defined by

$$\psi (k)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^n}{(2n)!}C_{2n}k^{2n},$$
(9)
with the result

$$C_{2n}=\frac{(2n)!}{n}\frac{(pq)^n}{1p^{2n}q^{2n}}.$$
(10)
In particular, $`C_2=c^2=1`$. Since $`1p^{2n}q^{2n}>0`$, it follows that all cumulants are positive, indicating already an overpopulation of the high energy tails. So far a summary of the results obtained in Ref. BN-K-00 . We note that the Stirling approximation shows that the cumulants at fixed $`\alpha `$ or $`q`$ and $`n>e/(2\sqrt{pq})`$ are rapidly diverging with increasing $`n`$, as $`C_{2n}2\sqrt{\pi /n}(2n\sqrt{pq}/e)^{2n}`$.

The exact solution $`\varphi (k)`$ in (7) has an infinite sequence of poles of multiplicity $`\nu _m\mathrm{}`$ in the complex $`k`$-plane, all of which contribute to the amplitude of the asymptotic high energy tail of $`f(c)`$. This makes a numerical inversion of $`\varphi (k)`$ to obtain $`f(c)`$ a bit tricky. To determine $`f(c)`$ several authors Nienhuis ; Droz  have performed numerical inversions of $`\varphi (k)`$, starting from the infinite product (7) or from the more convenient series expansion (8). However the latter one is only convergent for $`pqk^2<1`$. To facilitate such numerical procedures, we have derived an expansion in powers of $`k^2`$, convergent in the complementary region, $`pqk^2>1`$, of the complex $`k`$-plane. This rather technical part is deferred to Appendix A. The results can be found in (A), (50), and (53).

## III High energy tail

On account of (7), the characteristic function $`\varphi (k)`$ can be written as

$$\varphi (k)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}\left(1+k^2/k_m\mathrm{}^2\right)^{\nu _m\mathrm{}},$$
(11)
where $`k_m\mathrm{}ap^{\mathrm{}}q^{(m\mathrm{})}`$ with $`a1/\sqrt{pq}`$. Thus $`\varphi (k)`$ has poles at $`k=\pm ik_m\mathrm{}`$ with multiplicity $`\nu _m\mathrm{}`$. The velocity distribution,

$$f(c)=\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ke^{ikc}\varphi (k),$$
(12)
can then be obtained by contour integration. As $`f(c)`$ is an even function, we only need to evaluate the integral in (12) for $`c>0`$. The replacement $`c|c|`$ gives then the result for all $`c`$. By closing the contour through an infinite upper half-circle and applying the residue theorem we obtain

$$f(c)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}e^{k_m\mathrm{}|c|}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\nu _m\mathrm{}1}{}}|c|^nA_{m\mathrm{}n},$$
(13)
where

$`A_{m\mathrm{}n}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i^{n+1}k_m\mathrm{}^{2\nu _m\mathrm{}}}{n!(\nu _m\mathrm{}1n)!}}\underset{kik_m\mathrm{}}{lim}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}\right)^{\nu _m\mathrm{}1n}`$ (14)
$`\times (k+ik_m\mathrm{})^{\nu _m\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m\mathrm{}(k),`$
with

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m\mathrm{}(k)\underset{m^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{\mathrm{}^{}=0}{\overset{m^{}}{}}\left(1+k^2/k_m^{}\mathrm{}^{}^2\right)^{\nu _m^{}\mathrm{}^{}\left(1\delta _{mm^{}}\delta _{\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{}}\right)}.$$
(15)
Note that the factor labeled $`(m^{},\mathrm{}^{})=(m,\mathrm{})`$ is absent. The dominant terms in (13) for large $`|c|`$ correspond to the smallest values of $`k_m\mathrm{}`$. The two smallest ones are $`k_{00}=a`$ and $`k_{11}=a/p`$. Consequently, the leading and sub-leading terms are

$$f(c)A_0e^{a|c|}+A_1e^{a|c|/p}+\mathrm{},$$
(16)
where

$$A_nA_{nn0}=(a/2p^n)\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{nn}(ia/p^n).$$
(17)
We calculate the first two explicitly, i.e.

$`A_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^{2m}+q^{2m}}{m(1p^{2m}q^{2m})}}\right]`$ (18)
$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ap^3}{2(1p^2)(pq)}}`$ (19)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^{2m}(p^{2m}+q^{2m})^2}{m(1p^{2m}q^{2m})}}\right].`$
In the last equalities we have followed steps similar to those used to obtain (8) from (7). The results (13)–(19) exhibit the full analytic structure of the dominant and subdominant high energy tails of the velocity distribution in the NESS, as already demonstrated numerically for the one-dimensional case in Refs. Nienhuis ; Rome3 ; Droz , and derived in B-E-02c  for $`d`$-dimensional IMM’s on the basis of self-consistent solutions. Moreover we have obtained here explicit expressions for the amplitudes $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$ in the form of sums that are rapidly converging when $`q`$ is not too small. The coefficients $`A_0A_{000}`$ and $`A_1A_{110}`$ are shown in Fig. 1 as functions of $`\alpha `$, where $`A_{110}1/(pq)=1/\alpha `$ diverges according to (19). The next term to those explicitly given in (16) corresponds either to $`k_{22}=a/p^2`$ if $`p^2>q`$ (i.e., if $`\alpha >\sqrt{5}20.236`$) or to $`k_{10}=a/q`$ if $`p^2<q`$. Note that the amplitude $`A_{100}`$ of $`\mathrm{exp}(k_{10}|c|)`$ can be obtained from $`A_1`$ in (19) by interchanging $`pq`$.

Figure 2 compares the asymptotic form $`f(c)A_0e^{a|c|}`$ with the function $`f(c)`$ obtained by numerically inverting $`\varphi (k)`$ for $`\alpha =0`$ and $`\alpha =0.5`$. We observe that the asymptotic behavior is reached for $`a|c|4`$ if $`\alpha =0`$ and for $`a|c|8`$ if $`\alpha =0.5`$. As $`a=1/\sqrt{pq}`$ this corresponds to velocities far above the r.m.s. velocity.

There are two interesting limiting cases: the quasi-elastic limit $`(\alpha 1,q0)`$, and the totally inelastic limit $`(\alpha 0,p\frac{1}{2}^+,q\frac{1}{2}^{})`$. We start with the latter. In the totally inelastic limit $`(\alpha 0)`$ the subdominant terms $`A_{110}e^{a|c|/p}`$ and $`A_{100}e^{a|c|/q}`$ become equally important, i.e. the single poles in (11) at $`k_{11}=a/p`$ and $`k_{10}=a/q`$ coalesce, and (16) no longer describes the subdominant large-$`c`$ behavior correctly. Moreover $`A_{110}A_{100}1/\alpha `$, as can be seen in Fig. 1 for $`A_{110}`$. In fact, the poles $`k_m\mathrm{}k_m2^ma`$ coalesce for all $`\mathrm{}`$, some of the coefficients $`A_{m\mathrm{}n}`$ diverge, e.g. $`A_{mm0}(1/\alpha )^{2^m1}`$, and the expansion makes no sense anymore. So, we analyze the case $`\alpha =0`$ separately. In this case the characteristic function is according to (7),

$$\varphi (k)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left(1+k^2/k_m^2\right)^{\nu _m},$$
(20)
where $`\nu _m2^m`$ and $`k_m2^ma`$ with $`a=1/\sqrt{pq}=2`$. Then the distribution function is

$$f(c)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{k_m|c|}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\nu _m1}{}}|c|^nA_{mn},$$
(21)
where the residues or amplitudes are given by,

$`A_{mn}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i^{n+1}k_m^{2\nu _m}}{n!(\nu _m1n)!}}\underset{kik_m}{lim}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}\right)^{\nu _m1n}`$ (22)
$`\times (k+ik_m)^{\nu _m}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_m(k),`$
and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n(k)`$ is defined as,

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_n(k)\underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left(1+k^2/k_m^2\right)^{\nu _m\left(1\delta _{nm}\right)}.$$
(23)
For large $`|c|`$ the distribution function becomes,

$$f(c)A_{00}e^{2|c|}+(A_{10}+A_{11}|c|)e^{4|c|}+\mathrm{}.$$
(24)
To calculate the amplitudes of the dominant terms we derive from (23),

$`\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}2^m\mathrm{ln}(1+2^{2m}k^2/a^2)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{(k/a)^{2n}}{2^{2n1}1}}`$
$`\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}(1+k^2/a^2)`$ (25)
$`+2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n}}{\displaystyle \frac{(k/2a)^{2n}}{2^{2n1}1}}.`$
The definitions (22)–(23) with $`k_m=2^ma(a=2)`$ yield then,

$`A_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}a\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_0(ia)=e^{S_0}2.958389`$
$`A_{11}`$ $`=`$ $`a^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1(2ia)=\frac{4}{3}A_{00}^211.669422`$
$`A_{10}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}a\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1(2ia)ia^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1^{}(2ia)`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`\frac{4}{3}\left(S_1\frac{11}{12}\right)A_{00}^23.138267,`$
where we have used the rapidly converging sums,

$`S_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}(2^{2n1}1)^11.084645`$
$`S_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2^{2n1}1)^11.185597.`$ (27)
In fact, the results (24) could have been derived directly from (13)–(19) after lengthy calculations, by expanding $`A_{110}`$ and $`A_{100}`$ in powers of $`\alpha `$, with the result,

$$A_{1s0}=(1)^{s+1}A_{11}/(8\alpha )+\frac{1}{2}A_{10}+𝒪(\alpha )$$
(28)
with $`s=0,1`$. Insertion of these results in (13) yields (24). The limit $`\alpha 1`$ is discussed in the next Section.

## IV Quasi-elastic limit

As already mentioned in the introduction, the velocity distribution approaches a NESS, even in the presence of an infinitesimal dissipation ($`\alpha 1,q0`$), balanced by a ditto amount of stochastic heating. This limit is referred to as the quasi-elastic limit. For the rescaled functions $`f(c)`$ and $`\varphi (k)`$ it simply refers to the limit $`q0`$.

Once we have first taken the large $`|c|`$ limit at fixed $`\alpha <1`$ — as has been done in the previous Section — we can next take the quasi-elastic limit $`\alpha 1`$. When the limits are taken in that order, the asymptotic behavior is still of the form $`e^{a|c|}`$, where the decay constants are $`k_{mm}=a/p^ma`$, and the amplitudes may diverge. On the other hand, if the limits are taken in the reverse order, first $`\alpha 1`$ at fixed $`|c|`$ and next $`|c|\mathrm{}`$, the behavior is in general totally different.

First consider the second case, and observe that $`\psi (k)`$ in (8) has at small $`q`$ the form $`\psi (k)=\frac{1}{2}k^2+_{n=2}^{\mathrm{}}a_{2n}(q)k^{2n}`$ with rapidly decreasing coefficients $`a_{2n}(1)^nq^{n1}(1\frac{1}{2}q)/(2n^2)`$ for $`n2`$. Consequently $`\varphi (k)=e^{\psi (k)}`$ can be expanded as,

$$\varphi (k)=e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}k^2}\left[1+\underset{n=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mu _{2n}(q)k^{2n}\right],$$
(29)
where the relation between $`a_{2n}`$ and $`\mu _{2n}`$ is the same as between cumulants and moments after setting $`a_2=\mu _2=0`$. The coefficients $`\mu _{2n}`$ are to dominant order in $`q^2`$ given by

$`\mu _4`$ $`=`$ $`a_4=\frac{1}{8}q(1\frac{1}{2}q\frac{3}{4}q^2)+𝒪(q^4)`$
$`\mu _6`$ $`=`$ $`a_6=\frac{1}{18}q^2(1\frac{1}{2}q)+𝒪(q^4)`$
$`\mu _8`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}a_4^2+a_8=\frac{1}{128}q^2(1+3q)+𝒪(q^4)`$
$`\mu _{10}`$ $``$ $`a_4a_6=\frac{1}{144}q^3+𝒪(q^4)`$
$`\mu _{12}`$ $``$ $`\frac{1}{6}a_4^3=\frac{1}{3072}q^3+𝒪(q^4),`$ (30)
and in general $`\mu _{4n2}\mu _{4n}𝒪(q^n)`$ for $`n2`$. The series above can be Fourier inverted term-wise, using the following relation,

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }}e^{ikc}e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}k^2}k^{2n}=(1)^n\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dc}}\right)^{2n}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}c^2)/\sqrt{2\pi }`$
$`=(1)^nHe_{2n}(c)f_0(c)=2^nn!L_n^{(1/2)}(\frac{1}{2}c^2)f_0(c),`$ (31)
where $`f_0(c)=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}c^2)/\sqrt{2\pi }`$ is the Maxwellian. In the last two equalities Rodrigues’ formula for the Hermite polynomials has been used, as well as their relation to the generalized Laguerre or Sonine polynomials (see Ref. A+S , Eqs. (22.11.88), (22.5.18) and (22.5.40)). The resulting Sonine polynomial expansion of the velocity distribution in the NESS reads then,

$$f(c)=f_0(c)\left[1+\underset{n=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^n\mu _{2n}(q)He_{2n}(c)\right].$$
(32)
Similar expansions of the NESS-distribution function in low order Hermite or Sonine polynomials have also been derived for inelastic hard spheres in $`d`$-dimensions vNE98 , and for a 3-dimensional IMM in Cercig-00 .

Next we consider the case, where first $`|c|\mathrm{}`$ at finite $`\alpha <1`$, and next $`\alpha 1`$, or $`q0`$. The large-$`c`$ behavior at fixed $`\alpha `$ has already been discussed in (13)–(19), and we observe that the terms in Eq. (13) at large $`c`$, associated with all poles of the form $`k_n\mathrm{}=a/p^{\mathrm{}}q^n\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}<n)`$ decay rapidly as $`q0`$, and only poles with $`k_{nn}=a/p^n`$ need to be considered:

$$f(c)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_ne^{k_{nn}|c|}.$$
(33)
We will analyze the behavior of the associated amplitudes $`A_n`$ by combining (17) with (15), i.e.

$`\mathrm{ln}A_n=\mathrm{ln}(a/2p^n)`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{\mathrm{}}}\right)(1\delta _{mn}\delta _\mathrm{}n)\mathrm{ln}[1p^{2(n\mathrm{})}q^{2(m\mathrm{})}]`$
$`B_n^{(1)}+B_n^{(2)}+B_n^{(3)}+\mathrm{ln}(a/2p^n),`$ (34)
where

$`B_n^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{\mathrm{}}}\right)\mathrm{ln}[1p^{2(n\mathrm{})}q^{2(m\mathrm{})}]`$
$`B_n^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{\mathrm{}}}\right)\mathrm{ln}[1(q/p)^{2(n\mathrm{})}]`$
$`B_n^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=n+1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{m}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{m}{\mathrm{}}}\right)\mathrm{ln}[1p^{2(n\mathrm{})}q^{2(m\mathrm{})}].`$
Now we take the limit $`q0`$ at finite $`n`$ and retain terms to order $`q`$. The dominant small-$`q`$ contribution to $`B_n^{(1)}`$ comes from $`\mathrm{}=m`$, i.e.

$`B_n^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\mathrm{ln}(1p^{2m})+o(q)`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}[(2q)^nn!]\frac{1}{2}n(n+2)q+o(q),`$
where we used the relation $`11/p^{2m}2mq[1+(m+\frac{1}{2})q]`$, and $`o(q^k)`$ denotes terms which are negligible with respect to $`q^k`$. Note that the complex number $`B_n^{(1)}`$ is only determined modulo $`\{2\pi i\}`$, but $`\mathrm{exp}\left(B_n^{(1)}\right)`$ is single-valued. Furthermore, we observe that $`B_n^{(2)}=𝒪(nq^2)`$. The analysis of $`B_n^{(3)}`$ in (IV) is more involved and given in Appendix B. The result is,

$$B_n^{(3)}=\frac{\pi ^2}{12q}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}qK_0+\frac{1}{2}\left(n+\frac{13}{12}\frac{\pi ^2}{72}\right)q+o(q),$$
(37)
where

$$K_0=\frac{3}{4}+\frac{\pi ^2}{24}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}2R0.733598.$$
(38)
Combining the small-$`q`$ results (36) and (37) for $`B_n^{(1)}`$ and $`B_n^{(3)}`$ with (IV) yields for $`A_n`$,

$`A_n={\displaystyle \frac{a}{2p^n}}\mathrm{exp}[B_n^{(1)}+B_n^{(3)}+o(q)]`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{2n!(2q)^n}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{12q}}K_0\frac{1}{2}n(n1)q+K_1q+o(q)\right]`$ ,
where

$$K_1=\frac{25}{24}\frac{\pi ^2}{144}0.9731278.$$
(40)
To describe the crossover between the two different limiting behaviors, i.e. (32) with first $`q0`$, next $`c\mathrm{}`$, and (33), (IV) with first $`c\mathrm{}`$, next $`q0`$ we need to couple these limits, which will be discussed next.

By an extension of the steps followed in Appendix B, it can be verified that the terms denoted by $`o(q)`$ in Eq. (IV) have the form $`n^{k_1}q^{k_2}`$ with $`k_1k_2+1`$ and $`k_22`$. Therefore, those terms can be neglected against the terms of order $`q`$ if $`nq^1`$.

The ratio $`R(c)`$ between the distribution function $`f(c)`$ in (33) and its asymptotic high energy form $`A_0e^{a|c|}`$, defines a crossover function

$$R(c)f(c)/A_0e^{a|c|}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b_nr_n,$$
(41)
where $`r_n`$ and $`b_n=A_n/A_0`$ follow from (33) and (IV) as,

$`r_n`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[a|c|(p^n1)\right]`$
$`b_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n!(2q)^n}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}n(n1)q+o(n^2q)\right].`$ (42)
Here we have written $`o(q)o(n^2q)`$ to emphasize the fact that Eq. (42) remains valid if $`nq^1`$. So there is a crossover behavior in $`R(c)`$ from a large-$`c`$ behavior of $`𝒪(\mathrm{exp}[c^2/2])0`$ in the small-$`q`$ Sonine polynomial expansion (14), to the the small-$`q`$ behavior of $`R(c)`$ of $`𝒪(1)`$ in (41). The transition region is characterized by a crossover velocity $`c_0`$ such that $`R(c_0)\frac{1}{2}`$. The interesting questions are, how does $`c_0`$ scale with $`q`$ in the quasi-elastic limit, and what is the width of the crossover region? To address these questions, note that the series (41) converges for all velocities and the signs of the terms are alternating. Therefore, when breaking off the infinite sum at $`n=N`$, the maximum error is $`|b_{N+1}|r_{N+1}`$:

$`R(c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}}b_nr_n+\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c)`$
$``$ $`R^{(N)}(c)+\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c),|\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c)||b_{N+1}|r_{N+1}.`$
This suggests that the pure exponential high energy tail $`A_0e^{a|c|}`$ qualitatively describe the large-$`c`$ behavior of $`f(c)`$ if

$$|b_1|r_1=\frac{e^{a|c|q/p}}{2q}\frac{e^{\sqrt{q}|c|}}{2q}\frac{1}{2}.$$
(44)
Of course the bound $`\frac{1}{2}`$ may be replaced by any number of the order of 1 in this estimate. Equation (44) implies that $`w|c|\sqrt{q}/\mathrm{ln}q^11`$. Therefore, we can estimate the crossover velocity to be $`c_0=(\mathrm{ln}q^1)/\sqrt{q}`$ or, equivalently, $`w_0=1`$. To confirm this and get a closed form for the crossover function $`R(c)`$, consider a value of $`w`$ in the range $`0.5<w<1`$ and take $`N=\beta q^{w1}`$, where $`\beta 1`$. In that case, $`N1`$ but $`N^2q1`$, so that $`r_nq^{nw}`$ and $`b_n(1)^n/n!(2q)^n`$ for $`nN`$, and $`|b_{N+1}|r_{N+1}(2\beta /e)^N/2\beta \sqrt{2\pi N}`$. Therefore, with this choice of $`N`$,

$`R^{(N)}(c)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n!}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q^{w1}}{2}}\right)^n,`$
$`|\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c)|`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta \sqrt{2\pi N}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\beta }{e}}\right)^N.`$ (45)
If $`\beta >e/21.36`$ then $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c)1`$ and $`R(c)`$ can be approximated by $`R^{(N)}(c)`$. By the same arguments, the upper limit in the summation of (45) can be replaced by infinity. The choice $`N=\beta q^{w1}`$ is justified by the fact that for $`w<1`$ the term $`|b_n|r_n`$ reaches a high maximum value $`|b_{n_0}|r_{n_0}\mathrm{exp}(n_0+\frac{1}{2})/\sqrt{2\pi n_0}`$ at $`n_0\frac{1}{2}(q^{w1}1)`$ and then decays rapidly. If $`w>1`$, however, $`|b_n|r_n`$ decreases monotonically and thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{(N)}(c)1`$ for any choice of $`N`$. In conclusion, the crossover function for $`w>0.5`$ in the quasi-elastic limit becomes

$$R(c)\mathrm{exp}\left(q^{w1}/2\right),w|c|\sqrt{q}/\mathrm{ln}q^1.$$
(46)
At $`w=1`$ we have $`R(c=c_0)1/\sqrt{e}0.6`$, thus confirming the estimate of the crossover velocity $`c_0`$ made below Eq. (44). Figure 3 represents the crossover function $`R(c)`$ versus the scaled velocity $`w`$ for $`q=0.01`$, 0.001, and 0.0001. To measure the width of the crossover region, let $`w_1`$ and $`w_2`$ denote the values of $`w`$ at which $`R=0.1`$ and $`R=0.9`$, respectively. From Eq. (46) we obtain $`w_111.5/\mathrm{ln}q^1`$, $`w_21+1.6/\mathrm{ln}q^1`$, so the width scales as $`w_2w_11/\mathrm{ln}q^1`$. Going back to unscaled velocities, the crossover takes place between $`c_1=c_01.5/\sqrt{q}`$ and $`c_2=c_0+1.6/\sqrt{q}`$ with a width $`c_2c_11/\sqrt{q}`$. For $`q=0.01`$, 0.001, 0.0001 one has $`c_046`$, 218, 921 and $`c_2c_131`$, 98, 310, respectively. For these high values of the velocity the distribution function is extremely small. For instance, at $`c=c_0`$, $`f(c_0)\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{exp}\left[(q^1+\frac{1}{2})\mathrm{ln}q+\pi ^2/12qK_0\frac{1}{2}\right]`$. This yields $`f(c_0)10^{166},10^{2645},10^{36431}`$ for $`q=0.01`$, 0.001, 0.0001, respectively. These values are beyond the accuracy of any numerical or simulation method, so the high energy tail in the quasi-elastic limit would look like a Maxwellian for the domain of velocities numerically accessible. On the other hand, our asymptotic analysis of the exact solution shows that the true tail is actually exponential.

## V Conclusion

The exact nonequilibrium steady state solution of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for a driven one-dimensional inelastic Maxwell gas was obtained in Ref. BN-K-00  in the form of an infinite product for the Fourier transform $`\varphi (k)`$ of the distribution function $`f(c)`$. The main goal of this paper has been to show that this relatively simple exact solution in the one-dimensional case also possesses the generic properties of overpopulation of high energy tails and exhibits a rich mathematical structure, especially in the different limiting cases.

We have inverted the Fourier transform to express $`f(c)`$ in the form of an infinite series of exponentially decaying terms, as given by Eq. (13) with the velocity $`c`$ measured in units of the r.m.s velocity (i.e. $`c^2^{1/2}=1`$). For all values of the coefficient of restitution $`0\alpha <1`$ the high energy tail is exponential, namely $`f(c)A_0\mathrm{exp}(a|c|)`$, where $`a1/\sqrt{pq}=2/\sqrt{1\alpha ^2}`$ and the amplitude $`A_0`$ is given by Eq. (18) and plotted in Fig. 1.

Special attention has been paid to two complementary limiting cases: the totally inelastic limit ($`\alpha 0`$) and the quasi-elastic limit ($`\alpha 1`$). In the former case some poles coalesce and the dominant high energy term is still exponential, but the subdominant term becomes an exponential times a linear function of the velocity, where the numerical value of the associated amplitudes is given by (III).

The quasi-elastic limit is much more delicate and requires some care. If we first take $`\alpha 1`$ at fixed $`|c|`$ and next $`|c|\mathrm{}`$ (order A), the high energy tail has a Maxwellian form. On the other hand, if the limits are taken in the reverse order, i.e. first $`|c|\mathrm{}`$ at fixed $`\alpha <1`$ and then $`\alpha 1`$ (order B), the asymptotic high energy tail is exponential. The crossover between both limiting behaviors is described by the coupled limit $`c\mathrm{}`$ and $`q0`$ with the scaling variable $`w=|c|\sqrt{q}/\mathrm{ln}q^1=\text{fixed}`$ with $`q\frac{1}{2}(1\alpha )1`$, and occurs at $`w1`$. If $`w<1`$ (more specifically, $`1w1/\mathrm{ln}q^1)`$, the distribution function is essentially a Maxwellian, while the true exponential high energy tail is reached if $`w>1`$ (more specifically, $`w11/\mathrm{ln}q^1`$).

It is of interest to emphasize that the results for the scaling form in the quasi-elastic limit not only depend sensitively on the order in which both limits are taken. They also depend strongly on the collisional interaction, i.e. on the energy dependence of the collisional frequency, as well as on the mode of energy supply to the system. To illustrate this we have collected in Table 1 what is known for the different inelastic models in one dimension: (i) hard spheres and (ii) Maxwell models, and for different modes of energy supply: (i) no energy input or free cooling, (ii) energy input or driving through Gaussian white noise, represented by the forcing term $`D^2F(v,t)/v^2`$ in the Boltzmann equation, and (iii) energy input through a negative friction force $`gv/|v|`$, acting in the direction of the particle’s velocity, but independent of its speed. This driving, referred to as gravity thermostat, can be represented as the forcing term $`g(/v)[(v/|v|)F(v,t)]`$ in the Boltzmann equation. The results corresponding to order A with the gravity thermostat have been obtained by the same method as followed in Ref. BBRTW . It is worthwhile noting that in the quasi-elastic limit a bimodal distribution, $`\frac{1}{2}\left[\delta (c+1)+\delta (c1)\right]`$, is observed in inelastic hard sphere systems both for free cooling and for driving through the gravity thermostat, whereas in inelastic Maxwell models this bimodal distribution is only observed for the gravity thermostat.

It is important to note that in the normalization where velocities are measured in units of the r.m.s. velocity, the high energy tail in the driven inelastic Maxwell model is only observable for very large velocities, as illustrated in Figure 2 for strong $`(\alpha 0)`$ and intermediate $`(\alpha =\frac{1}{2})`$ inelasticity. In the quasi-elastic limit, where $`(\alpha 1)`$, the tail is even pushed further out towards infinity, as analyzed at the end of Section IV. This also explains how to reconcile the paradoxical results of exponential large-$`c`$ behavior with the very accurate representation (32) of the distribution function in the thermal range, in the form of a Maxwellian, multiplied by a polynomial expansion in Hermite or Sonine polynomials with coefficients related to the cumulants. The validity of these polynomial expansions, over a large range of inelasticities with $`(0\alpha <1)`$ had been observed before in vNE98  for inelastic hard spheres and in Cercig-00  for inelastic Maxwell models. On the other hand the high energy tail is $`e^{a|c|}`$, and not $`c^Ne^{c^2/2}`$, where $`N`$ is some large number, and yields diverging moments $`M_{2n}=c^{2n}`$ and cumulants $`C_{2n}`$ in the limit $`n\mathrm{}`$, as shown in Section II.

The exact solutions of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation for the freely evolving Rome1  and the driven BN-K-00  inelastic Maxwell model (extended in this paper), as well as the rigorous proof of BCT02  for the long time approach of the distribution function to a scaling form, validate the self consistent method, developed in vNE98  for analytical studies of possible over- or underpopulations of the high energy tail of velocity distributions, not only for inelastic Maxwell models, but – more importantly – also for inelastic hard sphere, where exact solutions are not known. This possibility of assessing the validity of general kinetic theory methods by means of exact solutions of the nonlinear Boltzmann equation is one of the main reasons why the study of inelastic Maxwell models is of interest.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are indebted to B. Nienhuis for stimulating discussions about the subject of this paper. A.S. acknowledges partial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología (Spain) through grant No. BFM2001-0718.

## Appendix A Large-$`k`$ Expansion

The asymptotic behavior of $`\psi `$ for large $`k`$ can be obtained by inserting the ansatz, $`\psi =\lambda |k|+\mathrm{ln}(Ak^2)+_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}a_nk^{2n}`$, with unknown coefficients $`\{A,a_n\}`$ into (6), and equating the coefficients of equal powers of $`\mathrm{ln}k`$ and $`k^n`$ with the result,

$$\psi (k)=\lambda |k|+\mathrm{ln}(k^2/pq)\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^n}{n}\frac{(k^2pq)^n}{p^{2n}+q^{2n}1},$$
(47)
where $`\lambda `$ is as yet undetermined. The series converges for $`k^2q/p`$. However for the $`\psi (k)`$ above to qualify as a solution of (6) the radius of convergence is further restricted to $`(qk)^2q/p`$ or $`pqk^21`$. The constant $`\lambda `$ must be chosen such that $`\psi (k)`$ satisfies the boundary condition $`\psi \frac{1}{2}k^2`$ at small $`k`$. This can be done by matching (47) with (8). The latter satisfies already the small-$`k`$ boundary condition. Matching at $`pqk^2=1`$ yields then,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\sqrt{pq}}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2}\mathrm{ln}(pq)+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{n+1}}{n}}`$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{1p^{2n}q^{2n}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^{2n}+q^{2n}1}}\right).`$ (48)
Both terms can be combined into a single $`n`$-sum with $`n=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$. The above result is not only convenient for numerical evaluation, as shown in Fig. 4, but also for analytic evaluation in two limiting cases.

We first consider the totally inelastic limit ($`\alpha 0`$ or $`p=q=\frac{1}{2}`$). There the expansion (47) can be cast into a simpler form,

$`\psi (k)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda |k|+\mathrm{ln}(4k^2)\frac{1}{2}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{(1)^n}{n}\frac{k^{2n}}{12^{(2n+1)}}`$ (49)
$`=`$ $`\lambda |k|+\mathrm{ln}(4k^2)+\frac{1}{2}_{m=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2^m}\mathrm{ln}(1+\frac{1}{2^{2m}k^2})`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda |k|+\frac{1}{2}_{m=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2^m}\mathrm{ln}(1+2^{2m}k^2).`$
Matching this expression in $`k^2=1/pq=4`$ with the exact solution in (7), $`\psi (2)=_{m=0}^{\mathrm{}}2^m\mathrm{ln}(1+2^{2m})`$, yields the nice result,

$`\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}_{m=\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}2^m\mathrm{ln}(1+2^{2m})`$ (50)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\mathrm{ln}2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑xx^{3/2}\mathrm{ln}(1+x)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2\mathrm{ln}2}}.`$
One can verify using the Euler–MacLaurin summation formula (see Eq. (23.1.30) of A+S ) that all correction terms to the integral are vanishing, and the integral is listed in Eq. (4.293.3) of Grad-Ryz .

In the quasi-elastic limit $`(\alpha 1`$ or $`q0`$) the sum originating from the second term inside $`(\mathrm{})`$ in (A) is of $`𝒪(q^2)`$, and will be neglected. To evaluate the first term $`T`$ for small $`q`$ we expand it as follows,

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{k+1}}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1p^{2k}}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{2k}}{1p^{2k}}}+𝒪(q^{2(2k1)})\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{k+1}}{k}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2kq}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2k1}{4k}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{2k}}{(2kq)^2}}+𝒪(q)\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2q}}\text{Li}_2(1)\frac{1}{2}\text{Li}_1(1)+\frac{1}{4}\text{Li}_2(1)+\frac{1}{4}+𝒪(q),`$
where the polylogarithmic functions are defined as,

$$\text{Li}_k(x)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}x^n/n^k$$
(52)
with $`\text{Li}_2(1)=\frac{1}{12}\pi ^2`$ and $`\text{Li}_1(1)=\mathrm{ln}2`$ Wolfram . The final result for $`\lambda `$ at small $`q`$ is then,

$`\lambda `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{q}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{24}}2q\mathrm{ln}q+\frac{1}{2}q(\mathrm{ln}2+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\pi ^2}{12})`$ (53)
$`+q^2\mathrm{ln}q+𝒪(q^2)].`$
## Appendix B Asymptotics in quasi-elastic limit

To calculate $`B_n^{(3)}`$ in (IV) for small $`q`$ we expand the logarithm, and perform the $`(m,\mathrm{})`$-summation. The result is,

$`B_n^{(3)}={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^{2k}}{k(1p^{2k})}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+q^{2k}/p^{2k})^{n+1}}{1q^{2k}/(1p^{2k})}}`$ (54)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^{2k}}{k(1p^{2k})}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{2k}}{1p^{2k}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{4k}}{(1p^{2k})^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(n+1)q^{2k}}{p^{2k}}}\right]+o(q)`$
$`S(x)+\delta S(n,x)+o(q),`$
where all contributions $`q^0`$ and $`q`$ have been included. The dominant term is,

$$S(x)=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{e^{kx}}{k(1e^{kx})}(x=2\mathrm{ln}p).$$
(55)
In the remaining contributions to (54) only the term $`k=1`$ needs to be taken into account, and yields

$$\delta S(x,n)=\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{2}q(n+\frac{3}{4})\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{4}x(n+\frac{3}{4}).$$
(56)
To study the small-$`x`$ behavior of (55) we construct an asymptotic series for $`S(x)`$, by expanding $`1/(1e^{kx})`$ in powers of $`x`$. This can be done most conveniently by using the small-$`x`$ expansion of $`x\mathrm{coth}x`$, or equivalently the generating function for the Bernoulli numbers, $`B_{2k}=(1)^{k+1}|B_{2k}|`$ (see Eqs (23.1.1-2) of A+S ), which we write as,

$$\frac{1}{1e^x}=\frac{1}{x}+\frac{1}{2}+\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{B_{2m}}{(2m)!}x^{2m1}.$$
(57)
Substitution of (57) with $`xkx`$ into (55) yields,

$`S(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}\text{Li}_2(e^x){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}(1e^x)`$ (58)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^{2m1}}{(2m)!}}B_{2m}\text{Li}_{22m}(e^x).`$
We have used the definition (52) of the polylogarithmic functions, which are all singular in $`x=0`$. To determine the behavior of the dilogarithm, $`\text{Li}_2(e^x)`$ we use the functional relation (see Eq. (5) of Wolfram ),

$`\text{Li}_2(e^x)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}\mathrm{ln}(e^x)\mathrm{ln}(1e^x)\text{Li}_2(1e^x)`$ (59)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}+x(\mathrm{ln}x\frac{1}{2}x)(x\frac{1}{4}x^2)+𝒪(x^3).`$
Here the small-$`x`$ expansion of the sum in (58) can be obtained from the relation,

$`\text{Li}_n(e^x)={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}k^ne^{kx}`$
$`=\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\right)^n\text{Li}_0(e^x)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\right)^n(e^x1)^1`$
$`=\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{dx}}\right)^n\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{2m}}{(2m)!}}x^{2m1}\right\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{n!}{x^{n+1}}}\left[1\frac{1}{2}x\delta _{n0}+o(x)\right].`$ (60)
The small-$`x`$ expansion of $`1/(e^x1)`$ has been obtained from (57) with $`xx`$.

By combining the relations (59) and (B) with the small-$`x`$ expansion of $`\mathrm{ln}(1e^x)`$, we obtain from (58),

$`S(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6x}}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}(1e^x)\frac{1}{x}\text{Li}_2(1e^x)`$ (61)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{2m}}{2m(2m1)}}(1\frac{1}{2}x\delta _{m1})`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6x}}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}x1+R_0\frac{x}{24}+O(x^2),`$
where $`R_0_{m=1}^{\mathrm{}}B_{2m}/[2m(2m1)]`$. As $`|B_{2k}|2(2k)!/(2\pi )^{2k}`$ for $`k\mathrm{}`$ (see Eqs. (23.2.16) and (23.2.18) of A+S ), the series is a divergent asymptotic series with alternating  signs. One obtains the greatest accuracy, denoted by $`R_0^{(m_0)}`$, if one breaks off the series just before the smallest term in the series, which is defined to be the $`(m_0+1)`$-th term. Then the maximum error is $`|B_{2m_0+2}/(2m_0+1)(2m_0+2))|`$ (see Chap. 0.33 of Grad-Ryz ). In the present case one can simply verify that $`m_0=3`$, and the best possible estimate for the remainder in the limit where $`q0`$ is given by,

$$R_0=R_0^{(3)}\pm \frac{1}{56}|B_8|0.0813492\pm 0.0005952.$$
(62)
The inaccuracy in $`S(x)`$, caused by the inaccuracy in the asymptotic series $`R_0`$, can be substantially reduced – if so desired – by restricting the $`m`$-sum in (58) to $`m_0=3`$ terms, and calculating the difference,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{kx}}{k}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1e^{kx}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kx}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ (63)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{2m}}{(2m)!}}(kx)^{2m1}],`$
in the small-$`x`$ limit as an integral. The result for instance, to seven decimal points is $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.0002877`$. Hence

$$R_0=R_0^{(3)}+\mathrm{\Delta }0.0810615.$$
(64)
Combination of the results (54), (56) and (61) gives the dominant small-$`x`$ behavior of $`B_n^{(3)}`$ in the form,

$$B_n^{(3)}=\frac{\pi ^2}{6x}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}x\frac{3}{4}+R_0+\frac{1}{4}x(n+\frac{7}{12}).$$
(65)
Final elimination of $`x=2q(1+\frac{1}{2}q+\frac{1}{3}q^2+\mathrm{})`$ in favor of $`q`$ gives (37) in the main text.