text:
# Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Neutron Matter

## I Introduction

Since the discovery of neutron stars in 1967 there has been a continued interest in calculating the properties of neutron matter from realistic models of nuclear forces PR95 ; HP00 . It is difficult to extrapolate the data on bound nuclei using energy-density functionals to estimate the equation of state $`E(\rho )`$ of pure neutron matter. Various Skyrme and relativistic energy-density functionals which fit the binding energies and radii of nuclei available in laboratories at present give rather different $`E(\rho )`$ for neutron matter. These energy-density functionals also predict different properties of nuclei near the neutron drip line WNX , which may be synthesized in the near future using radioactive ion beams. Theoretical predictions of the neutron matter $`E(\rho )`$ have been used to constrain the energy density functionals used to study neutron rich nuclei.

The two-neutron interaction is strong and highly spin dependent. Therefore calculating the neutron matter $`E(\rho )`$ is a challenging many-body problem, though in some ways it is simpler than that of symmetric nuclear matter. Neutron matter properties have been calculated recently with Brueckner theory Engvik97 ; BBB97  and with variational methods using chain summation techniques WFF88 ; APR98 . There is good agreement between the results of these two methods HP00 , and recent high precision models of $`nn`$ interaction give rather similar neutron matter $`E(\rho )`$ with the lowest order Brueckner method Engvik97 . The results for symmetric nuclear matter, however, have more model dependence. The $`E(\rho )`$ of high density neutron matter is also sensitive to the lesser known three neutron interaction APR98 .

The Brueckner and variational methods use different expansions. From the results of two- and three-hole line contributions, the cluster expansion in Brueckner theory appears to converge SBGL98 , though contributions of clusters with more than three neutrons have not been calculated. In contrast, the cluster expansion of the energy expectation value of neutron matter used in the variational method has a rather poor convergence when the optimum variational wave function, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_V`$ is used. In the latest calculations MPR02  two- and three-body cluster contributions are calculated accurately, while those of $`4`$-body clusters are summed approximately with hypernetted and single-operator chain summation methods. The convergence rate of the expansion is sensitive to the range of correlations in $`\mathrm{\Psi }_V`$. Hence it is often possible to use shorter range correlations, which give a more convergent cluster expansion together with a variational energy within a few % of the optimum minimum. Thus, even though the results of these two methods are in agreement within several %, the theoretical error in the treatment of long range correlations is not well estimated.

In the past few years it has been possible to calculate the energies of all the bound states of nuclei having up to ten nucleons with errors estimated to be $``$ 2 % using the Green’s function Monte Carlo (GFMC) method WPCP00 ; PWV02 . Results of these calculations are being used to construct realistic models of three-nucleon interactions PPWC01 . The computational effort necessary for a nuclear GFMC calculation scales approximately with $`2^AA!/(N!Z!)`$ for a system with $`N`$ neutrons, $`Z`$ protons and $`A=N+Z`$. The factor $`2^A`$ comes from the number of spin states of $`A`$ nucleons and $`A!/(N!Z!)`$ is the number of charge conserving isospin states. In the present work we report calculations of the ground state of 14 neutrons in a periodic box (PB) with the GFMC method considering all the $`2^{14}`$ spin states. We have also used the auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo (AFDMC) method proposed by Schmidt and Fantoni SF99  to calculate the ground state energy. In this method one effectively samples the $`2^{14}`$ spin states stochastically. The computational effort of AFDMC scales with $`A^3`$, and thus it can be used to study systems with larger values of $`A`$ FSS01 . The present AFDMC calculations seem to have larger errors than the GFMC; however, it may be possible to improve their accuracy.

The interactions and the variational wave functions used in this work are described in sect. II. The quantum Monte Carlo calculations, variational (VMC), GFMC and AFDMC, are described briefly in section III, where we present results at $`\rho =0.04,0.08,0.16`$ and 0.24 fm-3. The details of these methods have been presented previously; here we simply describe the additional techniques used to calculate results for 14 neutrons in a PB, and discuss several tests of the calculations. The total energy and the potential energy expectation values are reported for each density.

The variational calculations using chain summation methods (VCS) are reported in section IV. In this section we also discuss the difference between the density matrices of 14 neutrons in a PB and of uniform gas (UG) with large number of neutrons. The smallness of this difference makes the 14-particle PB a useful approximation to UG. The difference between the energy per neutron in the PB and in UG is estimated using variational wave functions. It is small at subnuclear densities, $`\rho \rho _0=0.16`$ fm-3, but significant at 1.5 $`\rho _0`$. The comparison of VCS results with the QMC suggests that the former can have errors up to $``$ 10 %.

The pair distribution functions obtained from VMC and GFMC calculations are compared in section V. These indicate that neutron matter has strong correlations even at small densities, as expected from the large scattering length, $`a18`$ fm in the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ state. The results for the $`E(\rho )`$, extrapolated to the UG limit, are presented in section VI. Here we also discuss the expansion of the $`E(\rho )`$ in powers of $`k_F`$. When $`|ak_F|<1`$, this expansion begins with the Fermi-gas kinetic energy, $`T_{FG}=0.3k_F^2/m`$. However, at densities of interest in nuclear or neutron star physics $`|ak_F|>>1`$, and the expansion of the $`E(\rho )`$ seems to begin with $`T_{FG}/2`$, which is the estimated UG energy for a short range interaction with scattering length $`(a)\mathrm{}`$. This approximation to nuclear forces in low-density neutron-gas was suggested by Bertsch Bertsch .

The accuracy of the present calculation is discussed in the last section VII. At densities $`\rho _0`$ the GFMC calculation appears to be well converged and presumably has an accuracy of $`2`$ % for the energy of normal neutron matter. However, there is exceptionally strong pairing in dilute Fermi gases with $`ak_F\mathrm{}`$ ERS97 , and their superfluid state can have energies below those of the normal state by $``$ 10 % dfg . The main error in the predicted energy of low density neutron matter, where three-body forces are small, is likely to be due to the neglect of the superfluidity in the present calculation.

## II Interactions and Variational Wave Functions

We have used the Argonne $`v8^{}`$ two-nucleon interaction PPCPW97  in this work. This simplified interaction equals the isoscalar part of the realistic Argonne $`v18`$ interaction in all the S- and P-waves as well as in $`{}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}`$ and its coupling to $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$. In neutron matter this interaction can be written as an operator with four terms:

$`v_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{p=1,4}{}}v_p(r_{ij})O_{ij}^p,`$ (1)
$`O_{ij}^{p=c,\sigma ,t,b}`$ $`=`$ $`1,𝝈_i𝝈_j,S_{ij},𝐋𝐒.`$ (2)
Here $`S_{ij}`$ and $`𝐋𝐒`$ are the usual tensor and spin-orbit operators. In the calculations using the PB boundary condition, the interaction is truncated at $`r_{ij}=L/2`$, where $`L`$ is the length of the cubic box holding 14 neutrons $`(L^3\rho =14)`$ :

$$v(r_{ij})=v(r_{ij})\theta (\frac{L}{2}r_{ij})+v(r_{ij})\theta (r_{ij}\frac{L}{2}).$$
(3)
The contribution of the long range part, $`v(r_{ij})\theta (r_{ij}\frac{L}{2})`$, to the $`E(\rho )`$ of UG is estimated using variational calculations. While at low densities this contribution is small, at $`\rho =0.24`$ fm-3 it becomes comparable to the total $`E(\rho )`$ in magnitude.

The variational wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_V`$ used in this work has the form:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_V=\left(𝒮\underset{i<j}{}F_{ij}\right)\mathrm{\Phi },$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the noninteracting Fermion wave function. In UG calculations $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}`$, the Fermi-gas wave function, while in calculations using the PB boundary conditions $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_{PB}`$. It has 14 neutrons occupying spin up and down states with momenta

$$𝐤=0,\pm k_B\widehat{𝐱},\pm k_B\widehat{𝐲},\pm k_B\widehat{𝐳}.$$
(5)
Here $`k_B=2\pi /L`$ and $`\widehat{𝐱},\widehat{𝐲}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ are unit vectors.

The $`𝒮`$ denotes a symmetrized product of the noncommuting $`F_{ij}`$ pair correlation operators. In VCS calculations they have four terms involving the four operators of Eq. (2):

$$F_{ij}=\underset{p=c,\sigma ,t,b}{}\beta _pf_p(r_{ij})O_{ij}^p.$$
(6)
The correlation functions $`f_p(r_{ij})`$ are obtained by solving two-body Schrödinger-like equations WFF88 , and have three parameters, $`d,d_t`$ and $`\alpha `$. They correspond to the range of all but the tensor correlations $`(d)`$, range of tensor correlations $`(d_t)`$, and the average quenching of spin-dependent interactions in matter $`(\alpha )`$.

In the case of UG, the values of $`d,d_t`$ and $`\alpha `$ are determined by minimizing the energy with the VCS method for $`\beta _p=1`$. Constraints imposing conservation of nucleons are used during this minimization WFF88  to prevent the $`F_{ij}`$ from going into regions where the chain summation approximation fails. The parameters $`\beta _\sigma ,\beta _t`$ and $`\beta _b`$ provide additional variation of $`F`$; $`\beta _c`$ is not a variational parameter since $`F(r_{ij}\mathrm{})=1`$. The $`\beta _{pc}`$ parameters were not used in recent calculations APR98  since they do not lower the energy significantly after optimizing $`d,d_t`$ and $`\alpha `$. They are used here for the following reason. The optimum values of $`d`$ and $`d_t`$ in UG are $`>L/2`$. However, in VMC as well as VCS calculations using the PB boundary condition the $`d`$ and $`d_t`$ must be $`L/2`$. In all PB calculations we use $`d=d_t=L/2`$, and vary the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta _{pc}`$ to minimize the energy.

In VMC calculations the spin-orbit correlations in the $`F_{ij}`$ are neglected due to computational difficulties associated with the gradient operator in $`𝐋`$. These calculations use the $`v6`$ interaction obtained by dropping the spin-orbit term in the $`v8^{}`$. There results are compared with those of VCS with the same $`F`$ to test the accuracy of the chain summation approximation. The complete $`v8^{}`$ interaction is used in the GFMC calculations where the spin-orbit correlations are generated by propagation in imaginary time as discussed in the next section.

## III Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations

Quantum Monte Carlo methods have often been used to study infinite systems of either fermions or bosons at both zero and finite-temperature. Examples include atomic liquid 3He and 4He lheqmc , the electron gas, egasqmc  as well as a myriad studies of lattice models in condensed matter theory. They have proven remarkably successful at studying the equation of state of strongly-interacting systems, and have also been used to explore phase transitions, momentum distributions, static and dynamic response, etc. Although studies of fermion systems are usually treated via approximate fixed-node fixednode  or constrained path (CP) constrainedpath  methods, these approximations can often be quite accurate.

The nuclear many-body problem is more difficult than all the cases listed above, because of the strong spin-isospin dependence of the interaction. Instead of a single function of the 3A coordinates of the particles, the wave function of simple systems, the nuclear state is described with a set of (complex) amplitudes dependent upon the spins and isospins of the nucleons. This complexity has been handled successfully for few-body (A $``$ 10) nuclei PWV02  by simply summing explicitly over all these amplitudes. Monte Carlo is then used to evaluate the 3A-dimensional spatial integrals.

Variational Monte Carlo (VMC) calculations evaluate the energy and other observables through the use of the Metropolis Monte Carlo method. The method is described in detail in WPCP00 , the basic idea being to generate points in the 3A-dimensional configuration space distributed with the probability density of a weight function $`W(𝐑)`$. Here $`𝐑`$ is the 3A-dimensional configuration vector $`𝐫_1,\mathrm{}𝐫_A`$. The expectation values of operators are obtained as averages over the sampled points $`𝐑_i`$:

$$O=\frac{_i\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑_i)|O|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑_i)/W(𝐑_i)}{_i\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑_i)|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑_i)/W(𝐑_i)}.$$
(7)
The optimum weight function in most cases is the square of the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ for which the denominator of $`O`$ has zero variance. For a system of 14 neutrons the $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐑)`$ is a sum of squares of the $`2^{14}`$ spin amplitudes.

This method grows exponentially in computational time with increasing A, and present-day computers limit practical simulations to roughly 14 neutrons. This is somewhat larger than the largest nuclei handled to date because there is only one isospin component to the wave function. Another limitation of these initial calculations is that we have dropped the $`LS`$ pair correlation functions, as they depend upon the momentum of the particles in the pair. A complete evaluation of these terms would be difficult because the derivative operators in one pair correlation function can, in principle, act on all other pair correlations. This limitation is not very important at low densities, but can be quite significant at higher densities. The variational wave function cannot adequately describe p-wave pairing of the neutrons which appears to be important at nuclear densities and above. It may be possible to construct a simplified wave function which includes most of these correlations in the future.

Green’s function Monte Carlo (GFMC) methods are then used to obtain the ground-state energy and other properties for the 14 neutrons with periodic boundary conditions. The method is the same as that used for light nuclei WPCP00 , with only very minor modifications used to implement the periodic boundary conditions. The basic idea is to sample a wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau )`$ by evaluating path integrals of the form:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau )=\mathrm{exp}[(HE_0)\mathrm{\Delta }\tau ]|\mathrm{\Psi }_V>,$$
(8)
where each step in the product evolves the system over a short imaginary time $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$; after many steps $`n\mathrm{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau =n\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )`$ will converge to the true ground state of the system as long as the original (variational) wave function is not orthogonal to it. Because we are studying systems at densities higher than equilibrium nuclear density $`\rho _0`$, the time step used here is 0.00025 MeV-1, or 1/2 the time step typically used in nuclear calculations. Again the spatial integrals are done with Monte Carlo, using a sum over many configurations with different spatial coordinates $`𝐑`$. Each configuration includes amplitudes for all the 214 spin states which are explicitly summed in the evaluation of matrix elements.

Some of the GFMC results reported here are obtained with the CP approximation constrainedpath ; WPCP00 . Since the neutrons are fermions, they may exchange and produce contributions to the wave function of opposite signs, and indeed with arbitrary complex phases. In an exact GFMC calculation, this leads to a statistical error that grows with $`\tau `$. This problem is more severe at higher densities (or with larger numbers of particles) since it is then easier for a pair to interchange.

To deal with this problem, we implement a constraint on the paths to be included in the evaluation of $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau )`$. For a spin-isospin independent interaction the wave function is a scalar, and one can perform a fixed-node calculation in which configurations where the variational wave function is zero are discarded. This defines a surface within which the evolution proceeds, and eliminates the sign problem at the cost of introducing an approximation into the calculation. The fixed-node method is exact when the variational wave function has the true nodal surface, and provides an upper bound to the true ground state energy. This upper bound is often quite accurate because we are solving for the “optimum” solution subject only to the boundary condition that the wave function is zero on a predefined surface close to the correct one.

The nuclear case is more complex, both because the trial wave function is a set of complex amplitudes and because we cannot evaluate the full wave function for a given set of coordinates. We can only evaluate it for a specific order of pair correlation operators in Eq 4, as a complete set would require $`[A(A1)/2]!`$ terms. These pair orders are sampled in both the VMC and GFMC calculations. Fortunately the fluctuations in samples of pair orders arise from the commutators of correlation operators. These involve clusters of three or more nucleons, and they have a small effect on the variance. For the nuclear case, we construct an alternative constraint based on the overlap of each configuration $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau ,𝐑_i)`$ with the sampled variational wave function. Configurations with negative overlap are discarded along with those with correspondingly small positive overlap, ensuring that the average overlap of the discarded configurations with the trial wave function is zero. This yields a stable simulation, and the calculation can proceed out to quite large imaginary time, much larger than the inverse gap in the system. This approximation is not guaranteed to produce an upper bound to the ground-state energy, though it has proven to be quite accurate for few-body nuclei. The results obtained using this method are labeled with CP.

The CP approximation is tested by removing the constraint. The configurations generated by the CP calculation are evolved further in the imaginary time $`\tau `$ without constraint. The fermion sign problem makes this calculation more difficult for increasing density and for increasing $`\tau `$. In principle we can evaluate the energy for a much larger $`\tau `$ at low density. In practice the low-density calculations appear to be well converged at fairly small imaginary time. Of course the total unconstrained imaginary time propagation is quite small here, typically 0.005 MeV-1, and hence only fairly high-energy excitations are removed by this procedure. The results of these unconstrained (UC) GFMC calculations are the most accurate of the presented results.

In this work we use $`\tau `$ to denote the time after the CP propagation. The CP GFMC propagation starts at a large negative $`\tau `$ and ends at $`\tau =0`$. The propagation time of CP GFMC is large enough to ensure convergence; however that of UC GFMC is limited by the growth in statistical errors due to the fermion sign problem.

Results for the VMC and GFMC calculations at different densities are presented graphically in Figure 1. The upper square point at $`\tau =0`$, at each density, is the VMC results for the $`v6`$ Hamiltonian, while the lower square point, also at $`\tau =0`$, shows the CP GFMC results. The CP GFMC energies are typically 5 - 10% lower than the VMC for the $`v6`$ interaction. The $`v6`$ VMC and the PB variational chain summation (VCS) calculations discussed in section IV use the same wave function.

The UC GFMC results are plotted as a function of unconstrained propagation time $`\tau `$ after the end of CP propagation. Circles and squares show results for the $`v8^{}`$ and $`v6`$. At all densities, the $`v6`$ calculations appear to be fairly stable and little change is observed between the CP results and the unconstrained results for larger imaginary time. Table 1 lists the total and potential energy per neutron for various densities. The GFMC potential energies are approximately 15% lower than the VMC results indicating that true ground state has more correlations than the present variational wave function. The difference in the VMC and the GFMC potential energies is more than twice that in the total energies as expected near the minimum. The results of VCS calculations are also listed in Table 1; they are discussed in section IV.

The results for $`v8^{}`$ interaction are given in Table 2 and Figure 1. The VMC rows in this table give results with the variational wave function for the $`v6`$ potential without any spin-orbit correlation. With this wave function the expectation value of the spin-orbit interaction, $`v_{LS}`$, is small and positive. It in nonzero due to the tensor correlations. In contrast the variational wave function used in the VCS calculations contain spin-orbit correlations which give significant negative $`v_{LS}`$. The $`LS`$ correlations absent in the $`v6`$ variational wave function are partly generated via the CP propagation as can be seen from the GFMC-CP $`v_{LS}`$ values. However, the constraint imposed by the $`v6`$ wave function hinders their growth. After the constraint is removed, the spin-orbit correlations increase substantially, and we obtain significantly more attaction from the $`v_{LS}`$. This will be more evident in the comparison of pair distribution functions in section VI. The UC GFMC energy decreases with $`\tau `$ (Fig. 1), and at $`\rho \rho _0`$ the growth in statistical error limits the UC calculation.

We have also performed calculations with different input correlation functions in the trial wave function. Their results for $`\rho =\rho _0`$ are illustrated by the two sets of square points in Figure 2. The points labeled GFMC(LR) are obtained with the trial wave function having pair correlation functions of range L/2, while those labeled GFMC(SR) have much shorter range input pair correlation functions. There appears to be very little dependence of the UC GFMC results upon the choice of the range of input two-body correlation functions; this has been checked for the pair distribution functions as well.

We have also implemented the auxiliary-field Diffusion Monte Carlo (AFDMC) method of Schmidt and Fantoni SF99 . Since this method scales much better with A than the GFMC method discussed here, it can be used to treat much larger systems. At present the trial wave function used in these calculations includes only spin-independent Jastrow factors times a Fermi-Gas determinant:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_J=[\underset{i<j}{}f^c(r_{ij})]\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}.$$
(9)
Each configuration now has 14 two-component vectors describing the relative amplitude and phases of the spin of each neutron. These spins rotate in the presence of fluctuating fields which, when summed, reproduce exactly the results of the two-nucleon interaction. As in the GFMC calculation, a constraint is imposed requiring a positive overlap between the configuration at any time $`\tau `$ and the trial wave function.

The two sets of UC AFDMC results shown in Figure 2 are obtained with two different estimators of the ground-state energy. The growth energy (black dots) is determined from the rate of increase/decrease in the population with imaginary time $`\tau `$, while the mixed estimate (red dots) is determined by the overlap of the configurations with the Hamiltonian acting on the trial wave function. These two estimates should be equal within statistical errors for small values of the time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$.

The $`\mathrm{\Psi }_J`$ is a very simple trial function and hence does not provide an accurate constraint. The CP AFDMC energies at $`\tau =0`$ are higher than the CP GFMC because of this relatively poor constraint. As $`\tau `$ increases beyond the CP propagation region, the energy drops and becomes compatible with the GFMC results. The statistical errrors are somewhat worse, though, as each configuration contains only a single set of 14 spin vectors rather than the 214 amplitudes in the GFMC. The correlations between these amplitudes reduce the fermion sign problem, but at the cost of an exponentially increasing computational time. The AFDMC method has been used to study much larger systems with this simple constraint, and also to study the spin susceptibility of neutron matter. It could be used to determine the difference between the infinite-particle limit and the results for 14 neutrons. Here, though, we use VCS methods to calculate this difference. In addition, the QMC results provide a test of the VCS calculations often used in studies with more realistic Hamiltonians that include three-nucleon interactions and relativistic corrections.

## IV Variational Chain Summation Calculations

In VCS calculations of UG the expectation value of $`HT_{FG}`$:

$$E_VT_{FG}=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}|[𝒮_{i<j}F_{ij}](HT_{FG})[𝒮_{i<j}F_{ij}]|\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}|[𝒮_{i<j}F_{ij}][𝒮_{i<j}F_{ij}]|\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}}$$
(10)
is expanded in powers of the short range functions $`(F_{ij}1)`$ PW79 . The $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}`$ is an eigenstate of the kinetic energy operator $`T=_i_i^2/2m`$ with the eigenvalue $`T_{FG}=0.3k_F^2/m`$, hence the terms with $`T`$ operating on $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}`$ are not included in the expansion. The $`n`$-body cluster contribution contains all the terms of this expansion having $`n`$ neutrons.

The leading two-body cluster contribution to the energy of UG of neutrons is given by:

$`E(2b)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r_{ij}C[F(r_{ij})\left(\frac{1}{m}^2+v(r_{ij})\right)F(r_{ij})]}`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2}}{\displaystyle d^3r_{ij}C[e_{ij}F(r_{ij})\left(\frac{1}{m}^2+v(r_{ij})\right)F(r_{ij})]\mathrm{}^2(r_{ij})}`$
$``$ $`\rho {\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}{\displaystyle d^3r_{ij}C[e_{ij}F(r_{ij})\mathbf{}F(r_{ij})]\mathrm{}(r_{ij})\mathbf{}\mathrm{}(r_{ij})}.`$
Here $`C[\mathrm{}]`$ denotes the spin independent part, called the C-part PW79  of the operators inside the square parenthesis, $`e_{ij}`$ is the spin exchange operator:

$$e_{ij}=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+𝝈_i𝝈_j\right),$$
(12)
and $`\mathrm{}(r)`$ is the spatial density matrix:

$$\mathrm{}(𝐫)=\frac{1}{A}\underset{i}{}e^{i𝐤_i𝐫},$$
(13)
normalized such that $`\mathrm{}(r=0)=1`$. It is given by the Slater function:

$$\mathrm{}(r)=3[sin(x)xcos(x)]/x^3;x=k_Fr.$$
(14)
for the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{FG}`$.

It is relatively simple to calculate the above 2-body cluster contribution without approximations. All the terms in the 3-body cluster energy except those containing spin-orbit correlations can now be calculated exactly MPR02 . However, all the $`4`$-body cluster contributions as well as the 3-body contributions from $`𝐋𝐒`$ correlations are estimated approximately using the chain summation methods.

Results of VCS calculations of the UG are given in Table 3. These are at optimum values of $`d`$ and $`d_t`$, which generally exceed the $`L/2`$ of 14 neutron PB. In this case the $`E_V`$ obtained with $`\beta _p=1`$ is within $``$ 2 % of the $`E_V`$ with optimum $`\beta _p`$. The contributions of clusters are calculated following MPR02 . The 3- and $`4`$-b-static contributions do not include spin-orbit interaction and correlation terms; their contributions are listed in row $`3`$-b-$`𝐋𝐒`$. The values of 3-b-static contributions calculated with the chain summation approximation are also given in Table 3 for comparison. They are typically within 10 % of the exact values. The listed values of $`4`$-b-static contributions include the elementary 4-body circular exchange diagram discussed in Appendix A. It was omitted in previous APR98 ; MPR02  calculations because it is generally small in symmetric nuclear matter. However, this contribution contains the factor $`s^3`$, where $`s=2,4`$ is the spin-isospin degeneracy factor in neutron and symmetric nuclear matter. It is relatively larger in neutron matter, and its values are listed in Table 3.

Table 3 clearly shows that the cluster expansion of the $`E(\rho )`$ has slow convergence. At low densities this is primarily due to the large $`nn`$ scattering length. With the $`v8^{}`$ interaction, the the total contribution of clusters with $`n4`$ is $``$ 30 (10) % of the total energy at $`\rho =`$ 0.04 (0.16).

Table 4 gives the results for UG variational energy for $`d=d_t=L/2`$ and optimum values of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta _p`$. The cluster expansion has better convergence for these shorter range correlations, and the $`E_V(d=d_t=L/2)`$ is above the optimum $`E_V`$ by only $``$ 0.1 MeV for $`\rho \rho _0`$, while at $`\rho =1.5\rho _0`$ it is higher by 0.3 MeV. At small $`\rho `$ the $`\beta _t`$ is significantly larger than 1.

### IV.1 Variational Calculations with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{PB}`$

These calculations use the truncated interaction, $`v(r_{ij})\theta (L/2r_{ij})`$, and correlation ranges $`d=d_t=L/2`$. The $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{PB}`$ is an eigenstate of the kinetic energy with the eigenvalue (per neutron):

$$T_{PB}=\frac{1}{2m}\frac{6}{7}\left(\frac{2\pi }{L}\right)^2=1.014T_{FG}.$$
(15)
We note that the kinetic energy, $`T_{PB}`$ per neutron of the 14 noninteracting neutrons in a periodic box is only 1.4 % larger than that of free Fermi gas.

As in the case of the UG we expand the expectation value of $`HT_{PB}`$ as a sum over clusters. The leading two-body cluster contribution is given by Eq. (11) with the PB density matrix:

$$\mathrm{}_{PB}(𝐫)=\frac{1}{7}(1+2cos(xk_B)+2cos(yk_B)+2cos(zk_B))$$
(16)
in place of the UG density matrix given by the Slater function (Eq. 14). The $`\mathrm{}_{PB}`$ depends upon the direction of $`𝐫`$, as illustrated in Fig. 3. The $`\mathrm{}_{PB}`$ is largest for $`𝐫`$ parallel to the box side and smallest along the diagonal.

The C-parts of the operators in $`E(2b)`$ (Eq. 11) are spherically symmetric functions of $`r_{ij}`$, therefore the $`E(2b)`$ depends only on the angle averaged value of $`\mathrm{}^2`$:

$$\overline{\mathrm{}_{PB}^2(r)}=\frac{1}{4\pi }sin\theta 𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \mathrm{}_{PB}^2(𝐫),$$
(17)
at $`rL/2`$. The $`\overline{\mathrm{}_{PB}^2(r)}`$ is fairly close to $`\mathrm{}^2(r)`$ in UG as shown in Fig. 3. Therefore the 2-body cluster contributions obtained with the UG and PB density matrices are not very different. In the variational calculations with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{PB}`$ we approximate the contributions of all $`n3`$-body clusters by their values in the UG. The 3-b-static cluster is calculated exactly, and the rest with chain summation approximations. We note that Fantoni and Schmidt PBFHNC  have developed chain summation methods for calculations with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{PB}`$ sans tensor correlations. They retain the $`\mathrm{}_{PB}`$ in all the many-body cluster contributions calculated with chain summation methods.

The results of calculations with the $`v6`$ and $`v8^{}`$ interactions are given in Tables 5 and 6. The values of $`T_{FG}T_{PB}`$ and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E(2b)=E_{UG}(2b)E_{PB}(2b)$$
(18)
are also listed in Table 6. The smallness of these differences makes the 14-neutron periodic box a good approximation for studying uniform gas $`E(\rho )`$. The variational parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta _p`$ have essentially the same values in PB calculations as in UG with $`d=d_t=L/2`$. The main difference between the UG and PB energies comes from the contribution of the long range interaction, $`v(r_{ij})\theta (r_{ij}L/2)`$ omitted in the PB. Its contribution denoted by $`v(r_{ij}>L/2)`$ is estimated from UG calculations and listed in Table 6. It becomes comparable to the total $`E_{UG}(\rho )`$ at $`\rho 1.5\rho _0`$.

### IV.2 Comparison with QMC Calculations

The results of the approximate VCS calculations are compared with those of QMC calculations in Tables 1 and 2 for the $`v6`$ and $`v8^{}`$ interactions. Since the VMC and VCS calculations use the same wave function for the $`v6`$ Hamiltonian, they should ideally give the same results. The difference between them is due only to the approximations in the VCS calculations. Relative to the VMC results, the VCS total energy is higher by 8 % at $`\rho _0/4`$ and lower by 2 % at $`1.5\rho _0`$. The difference between the VCS and VMC potential energy, $`v6`$ is similar. The clusters with $`3`$-neutrons give a relatively larger contribution at smaller densities (Table 5) due to the large $`nn`$ scattering length. It is thus not surprising that VCS has larger errors in that region. The GFMC-UC energies are below those of the VCS by 12 to 4 % in this density range. We note that the differences between the GFMC-UC and VCS or VMC potential energies are much larger, of order 20 %. This is because the present variational wave functions underestimate the correlations in matter, as is further elaborated in the next section.

In the case of the $`v8^{}`$ Hamiltonian, the VMC calculations do not include the spin-orbit correlations while the VCS do, therefore the VMC and VCS results are not comparable in this case. However, we can compare the GFMC-UC and VCS results. As for $`v6`$, the GFMC-UC energies are lower by 10 % at lower densities; however, at $`1.5\rho _0`$ the VCS energy is lower by $`2\pm 0.5`$ MeV. Most of this difference seems to come from the spin-orbit interaction. The $`v_{𝐋𝐒}=8\pm 1`$ and $`12`$ MeV in these two calculations at $`1.5\rho _0`$. When the density dependence of spin-orbit correlations is neglected, the leading two-neutron cluster gives a contribution proportional to $`\rho ^{5/3}`$ to $`v_{𝐋𝐒}`$. This comes about because the spin-orbit contributions are proportional to $`\rho ^{2/3}`$ via the $`k^2`$ momentum dependence of $`v_{𝐋𝐒}𝐋𝐒f_{𝐋𝐒}𝐋𝐒`$, and the summation over particles gives an additional factor of $`\rho `$ for 2-body clusters. The VCS results for $`v_{𝐋𝐒}`$ approximately follow this density dependence as shown in Table 2. Up to $`\rho _0`$ the GFMC-UC $`v_{𝐋𝐒}`$ also has a similar density dependence. However, at $`1.5\rho _0`$ the GFMC-UC is smaller in magnitude. It could be that higher order cluster terms become more important at this density and that VCS overestimates the $`v_{𝐋𝐒}`$ contribution, or that, if GFMC-UC is propagated further in the imaginary time $`\tau `$ after the CP, the $`v_{𝐋𝐒}`$ will decrease and the GFMC-UC energy will go down. In the present calculation we can not test this possibility because of the increase in the statistical errors due to the Fermion sign problem.

## V Pair Distribution Functions

The pair distribution functions obtained from QMC calculations with the $`v8^{}`$ interaction are shown in Figures 4 to 7. In each figure the circles show the results of VMC calculations with a wave function containing $`f6`$ correlations (without L$``$S correlations). Squares and triangles represent the result of the constrained path (GFMC-CP), and the unconstrained (GFMC-UC). The pair distribution functions $`g_p(r)`$ are given by the expectation value:

$$g_p(r)=N\underset{i<j}{}\mathrm{\Psi }|\delta (r_{ij}r)O_{ij}^p|\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(19)
with a normalization $`N`$ such that $`g_1(r)g_c(r)`$ goes to one at large distances. The $`g_{24}`$ are denoted by $`g_\sigma ,g_t`$ and $`g_{LS}`$ for clarity. The $`g_c(r)`$ gives the probability to find a neutron at a distance $`r`$ from another neutron since $`O_{ij}^{p=1}=1`$. In contrast $`O_{ij}^{p=2}=𝝈_i𝝈_j`$, thus $`g_\sigma `$ is proportional to the expectation value of $`\delta (r_{ij}r)𝝈_i𝝈_j`$. Using the projection operators:

$`P_{S=0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(1𝝈_i𝝈_j),`$ (20)
$`P_{S=1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(3+𝝈_i𝝈_j),`$ (21)
the pair distribution functions in spin $`S=0`$ and 1 pairs are found to be:

$`g_{S=0}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(g_c(r)g_\sigma (r)),`$ (22)
$`g_{S=1}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(3g_c(r)+g_\sigma (r)).`$ (23)
Since $`g_{S=1}(r0)0`$, the $`g_\sigma (r)=3g_c(r)`$ at small $`r`$. In noninteracting Fermi gases:

$`g_c^{FG}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{}^2(r),`$ (24)
$`g_\sigma ^{FG}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\mathrm{}^2(r),`$ (25)
$`g_t^{FG}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`g_{LS}^{FG}=0.`$ (26)
The VMC calculations do not have spin-orbit correlations, and give $`g_{LS}0`$.

At $`\rho =0.04`$ fm-3, there is a very strong pairing into spin 0 states as indicated by the large negative $`g_\sigma `$. It can be seen more clearly in Figure 8 which compares the $`g_{S=0,1}(r)`$ in neutron matter and Fermi gases. The large peak of the $`g_{S=0}`$ is due to the large negative $`nn`$ scattering length; it should be relatively model independent and grow at smaller densities. This pairing is present in the variational calculations, though underestimated by $``$ 25 %. The tensor and $`LS`$ correlations are quite modest at these low densities. There is little change between the constrained GFMC-CP and unconstrained GFMC-UC, indicating reasonably good convergence within this class of wave functions. The tensor correlations are long-ranged, extending nearly to the $`L/2`$ limit imposed by the periodic boundary conditions. This same behavior is seen even when starting the GFMC with trial wave functions having much shorter range correlations.

The correlations at $`\rho =0.08`$ fm-3 are fairly similar, though the spin correlation is not as large, and the tensor and $`LS`$ correlations are becoming more significant. The $`g_{LS}`$ is essentially zero in the variational calculation, and underestimated in CP GFMC.

At the largest densities considered, $`\rho `$ = 0.16 and 0.24 fm-3, the differences between the variational, GFMC-CP, and the GFMC-UC results are quite large. Both the tensor and $`LS`$ correlations are quite important and significantly underestimated in the VMC and GFMC-CP calculations. We see a transition from low densities, where the S-wave interaction and spin zero pairing is dominant, to these higher densities, where the P-wave interactions are crucial. It could be associated with the 3P2-3F2 pairing BCLL92  expected at higher densities. In VCS calculations with three nucleon interaction (see Fig.9 of Ref.AP97 ) such a behavior is associated with the onset of pion condensation.

## VI Density Dependence of Neutron Matter Energy

The total energy of neutron matter interacting with the $`v8^{}`$ potential is reported in Table 7. It is obtained by adding the box corrections listed in Table 6 to the GFMC-UC energies listed in Table 2. The ratio of neutron matter $`E(\rho )`$ to the noninteracting neutron Fermi gas energy is also listed in Table 7. This ratio approaches $`0.5`$ at low densities.

The properties of low density neutron matter are dominated by the large negative $`nn`$ scattering length. When $`|ak_F|<<1`$ we have the well known low density expansion FWbook :

$$E(\rho )=E_{FG}(\rho )\left[1+\frac{10}{9\pi }ak_F+\frac{4}{21\pi ^2}(112ln2)(ak_F)^2+\mathrm{}\right].$$
(27)
Such an expansion is not useful for neutron matter because even at densities as low as 1% of $`\rho _0`$, $`|ak_F|>6`$. The limit $`ak_F\mathrm{}`$ is perhaps more applicable to neutron gas than the low density expansion, as suggested by Bertsch Bertsch . In this limit it is known that:

$$E(\rho )=E_{FG}(\rho )\xi .$$
(28)
The estimates of $`\xi `$ range from 0.326 baker ; hh  to 0.568 baker  to 0.59 ERS97 . Recent quantum Monte Carlo calculations dfg  give $`\xi 0.54`$ for the normal phase and $`\xi =0.44\pm 0.02`$ for the superfluid phase. Most many-body calculations, both Brueckner and variational, give $`\xi 0.5`$ for normal neutron matter. As an example, we compare the energies of neutron matter calculated with the CSM in 1981 FP81  with the $`E_{FG}`$ and results of present calculation in Figure 9.

Eq. 28 implies that at low densities the interaction energy of neutron matter becomes proportional to $`k_F^2`$ as is the FG kinetic energy. This interaction energy is proportional to density $`(=k_F^3/3\pi ^2)`$ times the volume integral of the effective $`G`$-interaction, related to the bare $`v`$-interaction by the well-known Brueckner equation $`G\varphi =v\psi `$. Here $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are the unperturbed and perturbed two-nucleon wave functions. At small relative momenta of interest at low-densities, $`\varphi =1`$, and in vacuum $`\psi =1a/r`$ beyond the the range $`R_v`$ of $`v`$. When $`a/R_v>>1`$, as is the case for neutrons, we can neglect the $`1`$ in comparison and approximate the $`\psi `$ by $`a/R_v`$. The effective interaction in vacuum is essentially enhanced by a factor $`a/R_v`$ by the large scattering length. In matter the effective scattering length is limited by the interparticle spacing of order $`1/k_F`$. Thus, when $`ak_F>>1`$, the $`G`$ is enhanced by a factor proportional to $`1/k_FR_v`$, its integral becomes proportional to $`1/k_F`$, and the interaction energy proportional to $`k_F^2`$. At higher densities we see a deviation from Eq. 28 in Fig. 9. It starts when $`k_FR_v`$ becomes of order 1 and the first (unit) term of $`\psi `$ can not be neglected. When $`R_v0`$, as in the challenge problem proposed by Bertsch, Eq. 28 is valid at all densities when $`a=\mathrm{}`$.

Most of the nonrelativistic Skyrme as well as the relativistic mean field energy density functions commonly used to study nuclei and neutron star matter assume that $`\xi =1`$. None of these therefore can reproduce the equation of state, $`E_0(\rho )`$ of pure neutron matter PR95  obtained from realistic interactions even at low densities. The effective interaction used in mean field models must diverge as $`\rho 0`$ due to large $`nn`$ scattering length. Energy density functionals containing such low-density divergences PRlect  are probably necessary to study nuclei near neutron drip line or in the inner crust of neutron stars.

## VII Superfluidity and Accuracy of the Present Calculations

Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of 14 neutrons described above start from a correlated Slater trial wave function. This trial function is appropriate for the normal phase of Fermi liquids and is used here as the starting point for the CP GFMC and to obtain the constraints used to limit the Fermion sign problem in that calculations. Its results are expected to give the equation of state of the normal phase. The long-wavelength properties of the correlated Slater wave function do not include the expected superfluid properties of neutron matter. Generally, the energy of the superfluid phase is not significantly different from that of the normal one, since in most systems the pairing is confined near the Fermi surface, and involves only relatively few particles. Here, however, the magnitude of the $`nn`$ scattering length is very large compared to the interparticle spacing, the pairing is exceptionally strong, and affects all the particles.

In principle it may be possible for the unconstrained GFMC calculations to relax to the lower energy superfluid phase provided there is sufficient overlap between the fourteen particle wavefunctions of these phases. However, the unconstrained calculations are limited to fairly short paths, due to small unconstrained propogation time, and hence are unlikely to relax to the superfluid phase. In calculations with simple spin-independent, short-range interactions with $`a=\mathrm{}`$, Schmidt et al. dfg  find, upon including superfluid pairing into the trial wave function, important effects, including an $``$ 20% reduction in the energy per particle mentioned in the previous section.

One of the important features of the Monte Carlo approach pursued here is that it can be extended to include BCS pairing into the trial wave function. Thus it will be possible to study properties of superfluid neutron matter with realistic models of the $`nn`$ interaction. We are presently pursuing such studies. The main remaining uncertainty in the equation of state of low density neutron matter is probably due to the neglected difference in the $`E_0(\rho )`$ of normal and superfluid phases.

## VIII Acknowledgments

We would like to thank K. E. Schmidt for valuable discussions. The work of J.C. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36, while that of J.M., V.R.P. and D.G.R. is partly supported by the US National Science Foundation grant PHY00-98353. The QMC calculations reported here were performed at the National Energy Research Supercomputer facility.

## Appendix A Elementary four-body circular exchange diagrams

The 4-body diagrams in the expansion of $`E_VT_{FG}`$ (Eq. 10), not included in the Fermi hypernetted chain summation, are called elementary PW79 . In Fermi liquids they were first calculated by Zabolitzky zab81 . The circular exchange diagram shown in Fig. 10 is the only one of first order in the expansion in powers of $`(F_{ij}^21)`$, among these. It therefore has special importance as emphasized by Krotscheck krot79 , and was included in the study of nuclear matter structure functions npa473 . The thick interaction line in this diagram represents:

$$I_{13}=F_{13}\left(v_{13}F_{13}\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m}[^2F_{13}]\right).$$
(29)
We approximate the contribution of this diagram with:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^3}{4}}`$ $`{\displaystyle }`$ $`d^3r_{12}d^3r_{13}d^3r_{14}\mathrm{}_{12}\mathrm{}_{23}\mathrm{}_{34}\mathrm{}_{41}f_c^2(r_{12})f_c^2(r_{23})f_c^2(r_{34})f_c^2(r_{41})`$ (30)
$`C`$ $`\left[(e_{12}e_{23}e_{34}+e_{34}e_{23}e_{12})I_{13}(F_{24}^21)\right].`$
The term with $`e_{34}e_{23}e_{12}`$ takes into account the circular exchange in the other direction. The spin-orbit interactions and correlations, and the spin correlations between neutron pairs 12, 23, 34 and 41 are neglected in this approximation expected to have an accuracy of order 20 %.


format: text

text:
# Excavation of the first stars

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Though the first generation stars (so called Population III stars) in the Galaxy must have been formed from the pristine gas with no heavy elements, all the stars observed so far contain some amount of heavy elements such as iron (Fe). According to our scenario, the recent discovery of the most metal-deficient star HE0107-5240 with an Fe abundance as low as $`1/200,000`$ of the solar value (Christlieb et al., 2002) suggests that Population III (Pop III) stars contained long-lived low-mass objects (Yoshii & Sabano, 1979). Thus there have survived Pop III stars even in the present Milky Way. To identify such stars, we have investigated how the surface metallicity of a Pop III star increases by accreting gas polluted with heavy elements and found that HE0107-5240 is much more likely to have been formed from the pristine gas cloud than from a gas cloud that had already contained Fe (see also Thoul et al., 2002, in the case of globular clusters and field stars).

No stars without heavy elements have been discovered to date probably because stars experience the external pollution. Due to their gravity, stars can accrete the interstellar matter (ISM) polluted with heavy elements. A star with a mass $`M`$ moving at a velocity $`v`$ relative to gas accretes gas at a rate $`\dot{M}(v)=1.120\pi \left(2GM/v^2\right)^2\rho v`$ (Bondi, 1952), where $`\rho `$ denotes the density of the gas and $`G`$ the gravitational constant. Thus a long-lived star moving at a velocity of $`200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ due to the gravitational potential of the Milky Way accretes gas at a rate of the order of $`10^{17}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. The ISM has been enriched with heavy elements since the first stars were formed. Hence this accretion may increase the surface metallicity to an observable level if the surface convective layer is as shallow as in a metal-deficient dwarf star on the main sequence of the stellar evolution (Yoshii, 1981). On the other hand, a metal-deficient red-giant star would reduce the external pollution to a negligible level by diluting the accreted heavy elements inside its more extended surface convective region (Fujimoto et al., 1995; Fujimoto, Ikeda, & Iben, 2000). The mass of the surface convective layer in a red-giant star becomes about two orders of magnitude larger than that on the main sequence. Therefore the recently discovered most metal-deficient red-giant star HE0107-5240 has not increased its surface metallicity only by accretion but has reached such a low value through an accretion followed by the dilution due to the growing of the convective envelope.

Since the accretion rate is inversely proportional to $`v^3`$, a much more rapid accretion can be expected when a star remains in its birth place, that is, in a cloud where a star moves with a smaller velocity relative to gas. The minimum mass that can gravitationally collapse immediately after the recombination of the universe indicates a typical mass of the first clouds to be about $`10^6M_{}`$ (Peebles & Dicke, 1968). After contraction, a cloud formed a self-gravitating system in an equilibrium configuration with a velocity dispersion $`\sigma 10\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ corresponding to the sound speed at the recombination. Thus stars in this cloud move at $`\sqrt{2}\sigma 14\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ relative to the turbulent gas with the same velocity dispersion and accrete gas at a rate $``$8,000 times larger than those moving at a velocity of the order of 200 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with respect to the surrounding ISM. The density of the cloud being greater than the mean density of the Galaxy, the accretion rate is also enhanced, whereas the lifetime $`t_{\mathrm{life}}`$ ($`<`$ 1 Gyr) of a cloud being shorter than the age of the Galaxy, the accreted mass might be reduced by a factor of $``$20. A quantitative description of the external pollution by accretion will be presented in the next section.

## 2 Accretion onto metal-free stars

From the virial theorem, the average density $`\rho `$ of the gas is given by the formula $`\rho =3\sigma ^6/\left(4\pi G^3M^2\right)`$. The accretion rate is assumed constant during the lifetime of the cloud for simplicity. A star thus increases its surface abundance of Fe according to the formula

$`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=`$ $`\mathrm{log}\left\{\dot{M}(v){\displaystyle _0^{t_{\mathrm{life}}}}𝑑tX_{\mathrm{Fe}}(t)/\left(X_\mathrm{H}M_{\mathrm{mix}}\right)\right\}`$ (1)
$`\mathrm{log}(X_{\mathrm{Fe}}/X_\mathrm{H})_{}.`$
Here \[Fe/H\] denotes the logarithmic value of the ratio of Fe to hydrogen (H) relative to the solar value $`\left(X_{\mathrm{Fe}}/X_\mathrm{H}\right)_{}`$, $`X_{\mathrm{Fe}}(t)`$ denotes the Fe abundance of the gas at time $`t`$, $`X_\mathrm{H}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{mix}}`$ denote the H abundance (=0.75) and mass of the surface convection zone in a star, respectively. Since the accretion rate is the only factor that depends on the velocity $`v`$ relative to gas, the number of Pop III stars per unit interval of \[Fe/H\] (metallicity distribution function, MDF) can be expressed using the distribution function $`f(v)`$ with respect to velocity as

$$\frac{dN}{d[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]}\left([\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]\right)=f(v)\left|\frac{dv}{d[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]}\right|=\frac{\mathrm{ln}10}{3}vf(v).$$
(2)
Here stars and gas are assumed to follow the Gaussian distribution function with the same velocity dispersion $`\sigma =10\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Eliminating $`v`$ from equations (1) and (2) yields the MDF.

To describe the evolution of Fe abundance $`X_{\mathrm{Fe}}(t)`$ of the gas, we use a chemical evolution model by Tsujimoto, Shigeyama, & Yoshii (1999) that successfully reproduces the distribution of halo field stars with respect to their Fe abundances \[Fe/H\] observed by Ryan & Norris (1991) . This model assumes that stars are formed from the gas compressed by the blast wave generated by a single supernova (SN) and inherit the elemental abundance pattern of the compressed gas comprising the ejecta of the SN. It is also assumed that the star formation was initiated by supernova explosions of Pop III massive stars. The star formation ends when SN remnants overlap each other to heat up the cloud. Since a majority of SNe eject roughly 0.1$`M_{}`$ of Fe per event (e.g., Hamuy, 2003) and the mass of the ISM compressed by a single SN is of the order of 10$`{}_{}{}^{5}M_{}^{}`$ (Shigeyama & Tsujimoto, 1998), it is predicted that most stars formed in the compressed ISM will have a metallicity of \[Fe/H\]$`>4`$ (Tsujimoto et al., 1999). To achieve such low values, the accretion process onto metal-free stars must be taken into account. This is consistent with the observed MDF of halo field stars belonging to Pop II as shown in Figure 1. A similar scenario has been proposed for the formation of globular clusters and Pop II field stars (Parmentier et al., 1999). As mentioned above, our model requires the existence of Pop III stars in a gravitationally bound cloud. The recently discovered most metal-deficient star suggests that these Pop III stars include some stars with lifetimes as long as the age of the universe. Thus the external pollution of these stars must influence the current MDF of extremely metal-deficient stars. In this model, the mass fraction $`x`$ of Pop III stars is a free parameter to determine the duration of the star formation or the lifetime of the cloud. For a given mass of the cloud, this fraction must be greater than a certain value to form at least one massive star leading to SN explosion. A cloud mass of $`10^6M_{}`$ requires $`x10^4`$ that leads to $`t_{\mathrm{life}}700`$ Myr (Tsujimoto et al., 1999). Here the initial mass function (IMF) is assumed to be the same as the one derived for the solar neighbourhood (Salpeter, 1955; Tsujimoto et al., 1997).

The mass of HE0107-5240 is estimated to be $`0.8M_{}`$ (Christlieb et al., 2002). Theoretical stellar evolution models suggest that the mass range of stars that were formed first in the Galaxy and have now evolved to red-giant stars must be quite narrow around 0.8$`M_{}`$ because the red-giant phase is brief as compared to the whole lifetime. Thus the MDF only for 0.8$`M_{}`$ stars is considered in the following. Theoretical calculations (e.g., Fujimoto et al., 2000) show that a Pop III giant star with this mass has a surface convection zone with $`M_{\mathrm{mix}}=0.35M_{}`$ at present. To illustrate the maximum effect of the accretion onto 0.8$`M_{}`$ stars, we have calculated the MDF of Pop III stars with this minimum fraction $`x(=10^4)`$ corresponding to the longest lifetime of a cloud. The result is shown in Figure 1 together with the MDF for later generation stars (Tsujimoto et al., 1999). These MDFs have been normalized to unity when they are integrated over the whole range of metallicity. Here the IMF is assumed not to vary with time during the halo star formation. Figure 2 shows the relation between $`v`$ and \[Fe/H\] given by Equation (1). A larger fraction $`x`$ of Pop III stars would lead to a shorter lifetime of the cloud. As a consequence, the accreted mass would be reduced. Thus the maximum of the MDF for Pop III stars would be shifted toward a smaller \[Fe/H\] without changing the shape of the distribution. Of course, the MDF for Pop III stars would increase relative to that for Pop II stars with increasing $`x`$. Therefore Figure 1 strongly suggests that most of stars with \[Fe/H\]$`=5.3`$ such as HE0107-5240 belong to Pop III. Since the shape of the predicted distribution is invariant to the parameter $`x`$, future observations will be able to test the accretion model described above. This external pollution inevitably converges the elemental abundance pattern on the stellar surface to the uniform one represented by the average yield from SNe with all possible progenitor masses. The observed pattern in HE0107-5240 (Christlieb et al., 2002) is compatible with the average pattern for halo field stars, although this uniformity in chemical composition is questionable (Jehin et al., 1999). However, the observed enhancement of the carbon abundance (\[C/H\]$`=1.3`$) is ascribed to a dredge-up of C and nitrogen to the surface taking place in an extremely metal-poor star such as HE0107-5240 (Fujimoto et al., 2000; Christlieb et al., 2002) and cannot be explained by supernovae before the birth of this star, because a supernova supplies not only C but also oxygen, which was not observed.

The short lifetime of a cloud indicates that stars were accreting gas while they were still unevolved dwarf stars. Hence a dwarf star born from the pristine gas should have exhibited a fairly high metallicity when the cloud was disrupted by supernova explosions at time $`t_{\mathrm{life}}`$. Then the star evolved off the main sequence to become a red-giant star if the stellar mass is as massive as 0.8 $`M_{}`$. In the mean time, the surface convection zone grew and diluted the accreted heavy elements. As a result, the surface metalliciy has decreased by about two orders of magnitudes to be $`1/100,000`$ of the solar value. On the other hand, less massive Pop III stars still remain on the main sequence with a metallicity of $`1/1,000`$ of the solar value.

A strong stellar wind may prevent a star from accreting the ISM. However, even if a main sequence star blew a wind as strong as the sun, it would hardly stop the accretion because the typical accretion rate considered here is $`2\times 10^{13}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Fig. 2) that is significantly larger than the solar mass loss rate of $`2.5\times 10^{14}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Cox, 2000). Furthermore, a metal-free dwarf star with a mass of 0.8$`M_{}`$ has a surface convection zone much shallower than the sun leading to a less active corona in HE0107-5240 on the main sequence. As a result, it is likely that the wind from HE0107-5240 was much weaker than the sun while this star was accreting gas.

## 3 Alternative origins of heavy elements

Other possibilities to produce a star with this metallicity will be discussed in this section.

### 3.1 External pollution by a single supernova

If a low mass Pop III star was formed as a member of a binary system with a massive companion, the companion star might have injected a part of the ejecta into the atmosphere of the dwarf star when it exploded as a SN. Since the average speed of ejecta is $`3,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the mass injection into the dwarf star is expected to be extremely inefficient. If the ejecta that expand into the geometrical cross section of the star with the radius $`R`$ are injected, the total mass $`M_{\mathrm{inj}}`$ of the injected ejecta will be given by the formula $`M_{\mathrm{inj}}=M_{\mathrm{ej}}\left(R/2D\right)^2`$, where $`M_{\mathrm{ej}}`$ denotes the total mass of the ejecta and $`D`$ the separation of the stars. This will give the maximum injected mass because the ejecta move at a velocity much greater than the escape velocity of the star. To explain the observed value of \[Fe/H\]$`=5.3`$ on the surface of a star with the solar radius, the separation at the time of SN explosion must be closer than $`10^{13}`$ cm if the SN ejected $`0.1M_{}`$ of Fe. In reality, the ejecta with sufficiently high velocities cannot be injected into the star even if they initially proceed toward the star. Since the radius of a red super-giant star could exceed this separation, these two stars would merge into a single massive star before SN explosion.

If the companion star was so massive ($`\stackrel{>}{}100M_{}`$) that it underwent a so-called pair instability supernova that ejected more than 10$`M_{}`$ Fe (e.g., Heger & Woosley, 2002), it was able to inject enough Fe into the dwarf star to explain the observed metallicity even if the separation was as large as $`10^{14}`$ cm. According to current theoretical models for this type of supernovae (Heger & Woosley, 2002), however, it seems that no SN can inject heavy elements with the abundance pattern observed in HE0107-5240. Since different elements expand at different velocities in SN ejecta, detailed hydrodynamic calculations are needed to explore the abundance pattern of heavy elements injected by this process. A pair instability supernova is so energetic that it can disrupt a cloud with a mass of $`10^6M_{}`$. As a result, other Pop III stars inside the same cloud would not accrete the gas. Pair instability supernovae might prevent most of metal-free stars from an external pollution.

### 3.2 HE0107-5240 as a Pop II star

There might still be a possibility that stars with \[Fe/H\]$`=5.3`$ were formed from gas into which the precursor SNe had already injected heavy elements, that is, belong to Pop II. It has been suggested that the elemental abundance pattern of a metal-deficient star (with \[Fe/H\]$`\stackrel{<}{}2`$) was imprinted by a single SN and coincides with that in the gas eventually swept up by the blast wave generated from this SN (Shigeyama & Tsujimoto, 1998). Thus the amount of Fe corresponding to \[Fe/H\]$`=5.3`$ suggests that the precursor SN ejected only $`0.0005M_{}`$ of Fe. In fact, the current SN observations have revealed that each of the least luminous SNe ever observed, SN 1997D and SN 1999br, ejected a small amount of Fe, while a majority of SNe eject an amount of Fe per event at least one order of magnitude larger (see Hamuy, 2003; Zampieri et al., 2003). Theoretical SN models suggest that the deficiency of Fe must be a result of the fall back of some Fe in the ejecta onto the compact remnant at the center (Turatto et al., 1998). As a consequence, the ejecta exhibit an apparent enhancement of $`\alpha `$-elements such as magnesium (Mg) relative to Fe. By contrast, the observed ratio in HE0107-5240, \[Mg/Fe\]$`=0.2`$, is comparable with the average value for halo field stars. Therefore it is unlikely that HE0107-5240 inherited heavy elements ejected by a subluminous SN. On the contrary, two extremely metal-deficient stars CS22949-037 and CS29498-043 exhibit distinct enhancements of $`\alpha `$-elements with respect to Fe such as \[Mg/Fe\]$`>1`$ (Depagne et al., 2002; Aoki et al., 2002). These stars might have inherited heavy elements from subluminous SNe (Tsujimoto & Shigeyama, 2003).

There is, of course, inhomogeneity in the matter swept up by a single SN. Thus it could be expected that stars with \[Fe/H\]=-5.3 were formed even from luminous SNe. A numerical study of metal enrichment by the first SN in an inhomogeneous ISM apparently denies this possibility. 3-D hydrodynamic calculations of a SN explosion at different sites has shown that there is little gas with \[Fe/H\]=-5.3 inside the matter swept up by the SN (Nakasato & Shigeyama, 2000). In addition, the MDF must be easily distinguished from that presented in Figure 1 because the mechanism to acquire Fe are quite different from the accretion. The MDF for stars with \[Fe/H\]$`<5`$ is indispensable for identifying the origin of heavy elements in these stars. Further differences must exist in the abundance pattern of each star that reflects the precursor SN and exhibit a feature different from each other. This is in contrast with the consequence of the accretion mentioned above.

## 4 Conclusions

Here we have discussed the gas accretion onto metal-free stars while they stayed in a cloud with a mass of $`10^6M_{}`$ and predicted the MDF for Pop III stars as a consequence of the external pollution. After the disruption of the cloud, stars have been moving at $`200\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ under the gravitational potential of the whole galaxy and no longer accreting a substantial amount of matter. This MDF strongly suggests that the recently discovered most metal-deficient star HE0107-5240 belongs to Pop III. The expected elemental abundance patterns on the surfaces of these Pop III stars with external pollution should not be diverse but exhibit the average pattern of numerous SN explosions. The observed pattern in HE0107-5240 satisfies this requirement. The argument presented here can be tested by future observations for a number of extremely metal-deficient stars with \[Fe/H\]$`<5`$.

This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (11640229, 12640242) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan.


text:
# Untitled Document

DAMTP/03-11

hep-th/0302119

Local Couplings and Sl(2,R) Invariance for Gauge Theories at One Loop

H. Osborn

Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics,

Silver Street, Cambridge, CB3 9EW, England

The response of the one loop effective action for a gauge theory with local couplings $`g(x),\theta (x)`$ under a local Weyl rescaling of the background metric is calculated. Apart from terms which may be removed by local contributions to the effective action the result is compatible with $`Sl(2,R)`$ symmetry acting on $`g,\theta `$. Two loop effects are also discussed.

PACS no:11.10Gh, 11.15-q, 11.30Pb

Keywords:local couplings, $`Sl(2,R)`$ symmetry

address for correspondence: Trinity College, Cambridge, CB2 1TQ, England   email: ho@damtp.cam.ac.uk

Requiring that a renormalisable quantum field theory is extended to be finite for local couplings, so that the usual coupling constants are arbitrary functions of position, ensures that functional derivatives of the effective action with respect to the local couplings directly define finite correlation functions for all composite operators that appear in the basic lagrangian. In supersymmetric theories local couplings, which may be given by supergravity backgrounds, are directly relevant in constructing low energy effective theories and also for understanding the interplay of various anomalies \[1,,2,,3\]. The use of local couplings also avoids the requirement in more conventional treatments of introducing additional local counterterms which are necessary for finiteness of composite operator correlation functions since they are essentially included in the renormalised quantum action. Further the usual renormalisation group equations can be extended to equations corresponding to local Weyl rescalings of the metric. Imposing the necessary integrability conditions has proved to a convenient method for deriving non trivial relations amongst the $`\beta `$ and other functions that enter into the renormalisation of quantum field theories and the correlation functions of composite operators . In two dimensions the necessary consistency relations involve identities which are equivalent, within the allowed ambiguities, to the Zamolodchikov $`c`$-theorem and in four dimensions similar results are obtained which are sufficient to show irreversibility of renormalisation group flow in the perturbative regime where the associated metric on the space of couplings can be calculated and shown to be positive (unlike in two dimensions there is no presently known connection to a two point function with manifest positivity properties). The resulting equations then reflect some of the fundamental aspects of quantum field theories.

Previously  we calculated the various renormalisation quantities that were necessary for a finite quantum field theory with local couplings for general renormalisable theories in four dimensions at one and two loops. In this note we extend these considerations to include the $`\theta `$ coupling which is of course present in a general four dimensional gauge theory. Assuming a Euclidean metric $`\gamma _{\mu \nu }(x)`$, and arbitrary local couplings $`g(x),\theta (x)`$ the gauge invariant Euclidean action has the usual form

$$S=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }(\frac{1}{g^2}F^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }i\widehat{\theta }F^{\mu \nu }(F)_{\mu \nu }),(F)_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\gamma _{\mu \tau }\gamma _{\nu \omega }ϵ^{\tau \omega \sigma \rho }F_{\sigma \rho },$$

with $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ the usual field strength and we define

$$\widehat{\theta }=\frac{\theta }{8\pi ^2}.$$

For calculational convenience we choose a gauge fixing term of the form

$$S_{\mathrm{g}.\mathrm{f}.}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }g^2^\mu \left(\frac{1}{g^2}A_\mu \right)^\nu \left(\frac{1}{g^2}A_\nu \right),$$

and the associated ghost action is

$$S_{\mathrm{gh}}=\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\frac{1}{g^2}^\mu \overline{c}D_\mu c,D_\mu c=_\mu c+A_\mu \times c.$$

Adding $`S`$ and $`S_{\mathrm{g}.\mathrm{f}.}`$ and expanding to quadratic order gives

$$S_{\mathrm{quadratic}}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }A^\mu (\mathrm{\Delta }_1A)_\mu ,$$

where, using form notation1 Thus $`\mathrm{d}`$ is the exterior derivative with $`(\mathrm{d}A)_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$ and for a scalar $`\varphi `$ $`(\mathrm{d}\varphi )_\mu =_\mu \varphi `$ while $`\delta `$ is its adjoint with $`(\delta F)_\mu =\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\gamma _{\mu \omega }_\tau (\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{\tau \sigma }\gamma ^{\omega \rho }F_{\sigma \rho })`$, $`\delta A=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}_\sigma (\sqrt{\gamma }\gamma ^{\sigma \rho }A_\rho )`$. Also for a vector $`u^\mu `$ and a $`n`$-form $`F_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _n}`$ we define $`(\mathrm{i}_uF)_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{n1}}=u^\mu F_{\mu \mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{n1}}`$.,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_1=\delta \frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}+\frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}g^2\delta \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{2}i\mathrm{i}_{\widehat{\theta }}\mathrm{d}=\delta \frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}+\frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}g^2\delta \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{2}i\delta \mathrm{i}_{\widehat{\theta }}.$$

If we introduce a modified connection

$$\stackrel{~}{}_\sigma A_\mu =_\sigma A_\mu +\frac{1}{2}ig^2\frac{1}{\sqrt{\gamma }}\gamma _{\sigma \tau }\gamma _{\mu \omega }ϵ^{\tau \omega \rho \nu }_\rho \widehat{\theta }A_\nu ,$$

then $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ may be written in the form,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{\Delta }_{1\mu }{}_{}{}^{\nu }=& \stackrel{~}{}^\sigma \frac{1}{g^2}\stackrel{~}{}_\sigma \delta _\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }+\frac{1}{g^2}X_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu },\hfill \\ \hfill X_{\mu \nu }=& g^4_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}g^2_\mu _\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{2}g^4\left(^\sigma \widehat{\theta }_\sigma \widehat{\theta }\gamma _{\mu \nu }_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\right)+R_{\mu \nu }.\hfill \end{array}$$

The corresponding ghost operator obtained from (1) is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_0=\delta \frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}=^\sigma \frac{1}{g^2}_\sigma .$$

Using

$$g^\sigma \frac{1}{g^2}_\sigma g=^2X,X=\frac{1}{2}g^2^2\frac{1}{g^2}\frac{1}{4}g^4^\sigma \frac{1}{g^2}_\sigma \frac{1}{g^2},$$

we may easily see from (1) and (1),

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1=g\mathrm{\Delta }_1g=\stackrel{~}{}{}_{}{}^{2}1+Y_1,\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0=g\mathrm{\Delta }_0g={}_{}{}^{2}+Y_0,$$

with $`Y_{1\mu \nu }=X_{\mu \nu }+X\gamma _{\mu \nu }1,Y_0=X1`$.

The one loop effective action is then defined by

$$W^{(1)}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}det\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1+\mathrm{ln}det\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0.$$

For an operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the functional determinant may be defined in terms of the heat kernel,

$$\mathrm{ln}det\mathrm{\Delta }=\zeta _\mathrm{\Delta }{}_{}{}^{}(0),\zeta _\mathrm{\Delta }(s)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(s)}_0^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{d}\tau \tau ^{s1}\mathrm{Tr}\left(e^{\tau \mathrm{\Delta }}\right).$$

We here consider the response to a local Weyl rescaling of the metric $`\delta _\sigma \gamma _{\mu \nu }=2\sigma \gamma _{\mu \nu }`$ for this classically conformally invariant theory. Using (1) and (1) we have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta _\sigma \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1=& 2\sigma \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1+2\sigma \frac{1}{g}\mathrm{d}g^2\delta \frac{1}{g}+\frac{1}{g}\mathrm{d}g^2\delta \frac{1}{g}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\sigma \frac{1}{g}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\sigma g^2\delta \frac{1}{g},\hfill \\ \hfill \delta _\sigma \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0=& 4\sigma g\delta \frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}g+g\delta \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\sigma \frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}g,\hfill \end{array}$$

so that, since $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }_1=\mathrm{\Delta }_0g^2\delta \frac{1}{g^2},\mathrm{\Delta }_1\mathrm{d}=\frac{1}{g^2}\mathrm{d}g^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and using cyclicity of the functional trace,

$$\delta _\sigma \left(\mathrm{Tr}\left(e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}\right)2\mathrm{Tr}\left(e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}\right)\right)=2\tau \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}\tau }\left(\mathrm{Tr}\left(\sigma e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}\right)2\mathrm{Tr}\left(\sigma e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}\right)\right).$$

Hence with the definition (1) we have

$$\delta _\sigma W^{(1)}=\mathrm{Tr}\left(\sigma e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}\right)|_{\tau ^0}2\mathrm{Tr}\left(\sigma e^{\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}\right)|_{\tau ^0},$$

where $`|_{\tau ^0}`$ denotes the term $`\mathrm{O}(\tau ^0)`$ in the heat kernel expansion. For operators of the form $`\mathrm{\Delta }=^2+Y`$ we have

$$\mathrm{Tr}\left(\sigma e^{\tau \mathrm{\Delta }}\right)|_{\tau ^0}=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\sigma \mathrm{tr}(a_2^\mathrm{\Delta }|),$$

where the diagonal DeWitt coefficient is given by

$$a_2^\mathrm{\Delta }|=\frac{1}{360}(3FG)1+\frac{1}{12}F^{\sigma \rho }F_{\sigma \rho }+\frac{1}{2}(Y\frac{1}{6}R)^2\frac{1}{6}^2Y+\frac{1}{30}^2R\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}.$$

with $`F`$ the square of the Weyl tensor, $`G`$ the Euler density, both quadratic in the Riemann tensor2 $`F=R^{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }R_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }2R^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{3}R^2,G=R^{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }R_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }4R^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }+R^2`$., and $`[_\sigma ,_\rho ]=F_{\sigma \rho }`$.

Since according (1) both $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0`$ are of the required form we may readily obtain $`a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}|`$ and $`a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}|`$ using (1). For the former we may note that

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{tr}_v\left((Y_1\frac{1}{6}R)^2\right)=& g^4^\mu ^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu _\nu \frac{1}{g^2}2g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu _\nu \frac{1}{g^2}\hfill & \\ & +\frac{1}{2}g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{3}{4}g^8^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}\hfill & \\ & +\frac{1}{2}g^6^2\frac{1}{g^2}^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }g^6^\mu ^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }+\frac{1}{4}g^8^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\hfill & \\ & g^8^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }+\frac{3}{4}g^8^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\hfill & \\ & +G^{\mu \nu }\left(2g^4_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}2g^2_\mu _\nu \frac{1}{g^2}g^4_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\right)\hfill & \\ & +R\left(\frac{1}{2}g^4^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}\frac{1}{3}g^2^2\frac{1}{g^2}\right)+R^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }\frac{2}{9}R^2,\hfill & (1)\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\mathrm{tr}_v`$ denotes the trace over vector indices and $`G_{\mu \nu }=R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}\gamma _{\mu \nu }R`$ is the Einstein tensor. In addition $`F^{\sigma \rho }F_{\sigma \rho }^{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }`$ where $`[\stackrel{~}{}_\sigma ,\stackrel{~}{}_\rho ]A_\mu =_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }A^\nu `$ and

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill ^{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }=& 2g^4^\mu ^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\mu _\nu \widehat{\theta }+g^4^2\widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }4g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\mu _\nu \widehat{\theta }2g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }\hfill & \\ & +2g^8^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }+g^8^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu _\nu \widehat{\theta }\frac{3}{4}g^8^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\hfill & \\ & +G^{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}g^4_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }R^{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }R_{\mu \nu \sigma \rho }.\hfill & (2)\hfill \end{array}$$

With these results it is straightforward to obtain from (1),

$$16\pi ^2\delta _\sigma W^{(1)}=\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\sigma (\mathrm{tr}(a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}|)2\mathrm{tr}(a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}|)),$$

where, for $`n_V`$ vector fields, we may write

$$\mathrm{tr}(a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_1}|)2\mathrm{tr}(a_2^{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_0}|)=cFaGh^2R+n_V(_\mu 𝒵^\mu +^2𝒴),$$

which may be identified with $`16\pi ^2\gamma ^{\mu \nu }T_{\mu \nu }`$ at one loop. $``$ can be reduced to the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill =& \frac{1}{4}g^4(^2\frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}+^2\widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }2G^{\mu \nu }(_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta })\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{3}R(^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}+^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }))\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{2}g^6\left(^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}+2^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }^2\frac{1}{g^2}^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }\right)\hfill \\ & +g^8(\frac{5}{16}^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{13}{12}^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\hfill \\ & +\frac{11}{24}^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }+\frac{5}{16}^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }).\hfill \end{array}$$

In (3) we should take $`c=\frac{1}{10}n_V,a=\frac{31}{180}n_V,h=\frac{1}{10}n_V`$ but they may be left general since they are altered by one loop contributions for scalar and spinor fields. $``$, $`𝒵^\mu `$ and $`𝒴`$, which depend on $`_\mu \frac{1}{g^2},_\mu \widehat{\theta }`$, are not so affected. For $`𝒵^\mu ,𝒴`$ we also obtain

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝒵^\mu =& G^{\mu \nu }g^2_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{2}g^4^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{6}g^4^\mu \widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{2}g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{12}g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^\nu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\frac{1}{2}g^6^\nu \frac{1}{g^2}^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta },\hfill \\ \hfill 𝒴=& \frac{1}{6}g^4^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}\frac{1}{6}g^4^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }.\hfill \end{array}$$

We now demonstrate that $``$ may be expressed in a form which exhibits manifest $`Sl(2,R)`$ invariance. We define as usual

$$\tau =\frac{\theta }{2\pi }+i\frac{4\pi }{g^2},$$

where $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)Sl(2,R)`$ acts according to $`\tau (a\tau +b)/(c\tau +d)`$. The quadratic terms in $``$ correspond to the invariant line interval on the upper half complex plane defined by

$$\mathrm{d}s^2=\frac{1}{(\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau )^2}\mathrm{d}\tau \mathrm{d}\overline{\tau },$$

which describes the constant negative curvature hyperboloid. With this metric the Christoffel connections are just $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\tau {}_{\tau \tau }{}^{}=i/\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau ,\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\overline{\tau }}{}_{\overline{\tau }\overline{\tau }}{}^{}=i/\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau `$, and we may then define

$$D^2\tau =^2\tau +\frac{i}{\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau }^\mu \tau _\mu \tau ,D^2\overline{\tau }=^2\overline{\tau }\frac{i}{\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau }^\mu \overline{\tau }_\mu \overline{\tau }.$$

and consequently rewrite (3) in the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill =& \frac{1}{4(\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau )^2}\left(D^2\tau D^2\overline{\tau }2G^{\mu \nu }_\mu \tau _\nu \overline{\tau }\frac{1}{3}R^\mu \tau _\mu \overline{\tau }\right)\hfill \\ & +\frac{1}{16(\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau )^4}\left(^\mu \tau _\mu \overline{\tau }\right)^2+\frac{1}{48(\mathrm{𝐼𝑚}\tau )^4}\left(^\mu \tau ^\nu \tau _\mu \overline{\tau }_\nu \overline{\tau }\left(^\mu \tau _\mu \overline{\tau }\right)^2\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

The remaining terms given by (3) cannot be expressed in an $`Sl(2,R)`$ invariant form but they can be removed by taking $`W^{(1)}W^{(1)}+W_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ with,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 16\pi ^2W_{\mathrm{loc}}=& \frac{n_V}{8}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{ln}g^2G\hfill \\ & n_V\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }(\frac{1}{8}g^4^2\frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}+\frac{1}{24}g^4^2\widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }\frac{1}{6}R𝒴\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{4}g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}^2\frac{1}{g^2}\frac{1}{4}g^6^\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\mu \widehat{\theta }^2\widehat{\theta }+\frac{1}{24}g^6^2\frac{1}{g^2}^\mu \widehat{\theta }_\mu \widehat{\theta }),\hfill \end{array}$$

where we may easily calculate $`\delta _\sigma W_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ using $`\delta ^2=2\sigma ^2+2_\mu \sigma ^\mu ,\delta R=2\sigma R6^2\sigma `$ and $`\delta G=4\sigma G+8G^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu \sigma `$. Save for the $`\mathrm{ln}g^2G`$ term, which cancels the term involving $`G^{\mu \nu }_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}`$ in (3), the terms present in $`W_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ reflect the usual arbitrariness up to local expressions in the effective action arising from renormalisation scheme dependence3 In  a calculation for $`\theta =0`$ based on dimensional regularisation gave different results for coefficients of the terms in $`𝒵^\mu ,𝒴`$ except for the one involving $`G^{\mu \nu }`$..

The possible presence of such additional local contributions may be seen by considering an alternative one loop effective action instead of (1)

$$\widehat{W}^{(1)}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}det\mathrm{\Delta }_1+\mathrm{ln}det\mathrm{\Delta }_0,$$

where the operators $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1,\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ are given by (1) and (1), without the rescaling in (1) which is equivalent in the original action to taking $`A_\mu =ga_\mu `$ and correspondingly for the ghost fields. With the zeta function definition (1) we have for arbitrary $`\lambda (x)`$

$$\mathrm{ln}det\lambda \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}det\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{Tr}\left(\mathrm{ln}\lambda e^{\tau \mathrm{\Delta }}\right)|_{\tau ^0}.$$

Hence we have

$$16\pi ^2\left(\widehat{W}^{(1)}W^{(1)}\right)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{ln}g^2\left(cFaGh^2R+n_V(_\mu 𝒵^\mu +^2𝒴)\right).$$

The $`\mathrm{ln}g^2G`$ term in (3) matches that in (3) if $`a=\frac{1}{4}n_V`$. This is exactly the result for $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric gauge theories (when $`c=a`$). Under a Weyl rescaling $`\delta _\sigma \gamma _{\mu \nu }=2\sigma \gamma _{\mu \nu }`$ the remaining terms just lead to an expression for $`\delta _\sigma \widehat{W}^{(1)}`$ which is of the form (3) with the same result (3) for $``$ although a modified $`𝒵^\mu `$. Exactly the same set of independent terms appear in the new $`𝒵^\mu `$ as are present in the formula in (3). As before these may then be cancelled by a simple local counterterm of the same form as (3), with differing coefficients, but without the need now for a $`\mathrm{ln}g^2G`$ term. To show this we need to note that

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \delta _\sigma =4\sigma +_\mu (_\nu \sigma 𝒰^{\mu \nu }),\hfill \\ \hfill 𝒰_{\mu \nu }=& g^4\left(_\mu \frac{1}{g^2}_\nu \frac{1}{g^2}+_\mu \widehat{\theta }_\nu \widehat{\theta }\right)\frac{1}{2}\gamma _{\mu \nu }g^4\left(^\rho \frac{1}{g^2}_\rho \frac{1}{g^2}+^\rho \widehat{\theta }_\rho \widehat{\theta }\right).\hfill \end{array}$$

The form for $`\delta _\sigma `$ with $`𝒰_{\mu \nu }=𝒰_{\nu \mu }`$ follows from the consistency relations in , this condition constrains the quadratic and cubic terms in $``$ although it is not fully determined.

It would of course be interesting to extend these considerations beyond one loop and to see whether $`Sl(2,R)`$ invariance is maintained. In general we may write

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 16\pi ^2𝒟_\sigma W=& \mathrm{d}^4x\sqrt{\gamma }\sigma \left(cFaGh^2R\frac{1}{9}bR^2+L_\mu Z^\mu +^2Y\right),\hfill \\ \hfill 𝒟_\sigma =& \mathrm{d}^4x\sigma \left(2\gamma ^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta }{\delta \gamma ^{\mu \nu }}+\beta ^i\frac{\delta }{\delta g^i}\right),\hfill \end{array}$$

for local couplings $`g^i`$, with corresponding $`\beta `$-functions $`\beta ^i`$, and where $`L,Z^\mu ,Y`$ depend on their derivatives. Various consistency conditions were derived in  from $`[𝒟_\sigma ,𝒟_\sigma ^{}]=0`$. For a simple gauge coupling $`g`$, with $`\theta =0`$, we may write

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill L=n_V\{& \frac{1}{g^2}\left(\alpha (^2g)^22\delta G^{\mu \nu }_\mu g_\nu g\frac{1}{3}ϵR^\mu g_\mu g\right)\hfill \\ \multicolumn{2}{c}{}\\ & 2\kappa \frac{1}{g^3}^\mu g_\mu g^2g+2\lambda \frac{1}{g^4}^\mu g_\mu g^\nu g_\nu g\},\hfill \end{array}$$

and to two loop order using dimensional regularisation, for $`\widehat{g}^2=g^2/16\pi ^2`$, extending the results in 4 The coefficient of $`C`$ in $`\lambda `$ is corrected from .,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \alpha =\delta =& 1+\frac{1}{3}\left(51C20R_\psi \frac{7}{2}R_\varphi \right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill ϵ=& 1+\frac{1}{3}\left(29C12R_\psi \frac{5}{2}R_\varphi \right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill \kappa =& 1+\frac{4}{3}\left(11C4R_\psi \frac{1}{2}R_\varphi \right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill \lambda =& 1+\frac{1}{18}\left(323C76R_\psi \frac{25}{2}R_\varphi \right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \end{array}$$

where it $`t_a^\varphi ,t_a^\psi `$ are the gauge group generators acting on scalar, fermion fields, $`\mathrm{tr}(t_a^\varphi t_b^\varphi )=\delta _{ab}R_\varphi ,\mathrm{tr}(t_a^\psi t_b^\psi )=\delta _{ab}R_\psi `$. The results are scheme dependent. For supersymmetric theories it is more natural to transform to a dimensional reduction scheme by letting $`1/\widehat{g}^21/\widehat{g}^2+\frac{1}{3}C`$. For $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry we let $`2R_\psi =C+R,R_\varphi =2R`$ and also add $`\frac{2}{3}R\widehat{g}^2`$ to $`\alpha ,\delta ,ϵ`$ since there are Yukawa couplings proportional to $`g`$ (for more details see ). This gives

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \alpha =\delta =& 1+\left(13C5R\right)\widehat{g}^2,ϵ=1+\left(7C3R\right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill \kappa =& 1+4\left(3CR\right)\widehat{g}^2,\lambda =1+\frac{1}{2}\left(31C7R\right)\widehat{g}^2.\hfill \end{array}$$

For $`𝒩=2`$ theories $`RC+2R`$ and Yukawa couplings add a further $`2C\widehat{g}^2`$ to $`\alpha ,\delta ,ϵ`$, giving now

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \alpha =\delta =& 1+10\left(CR\right)\widehat{g}^2,ϵ=1+6\left(CR\right)\widehat{g}^2,\hfill \\ \hfill \kappa =& 1+8\left(CR\right)\widehat{g}^2,\lambda =1+\left(12C7R\right)\widehat{g}^2.\hfill \end{array}$$

For $`𝒩=4`$, when there is a single adjoint hypermultiplet, $`C=R`$, as is necessary for a zero $`\beta `$-function. In this case there are no corrections to $`\alpha ,\delta ,ϵ,\kappa `$, in accord with consistency relations, although $`\lambda `$ remains non zero. Even for $`𝒩=4`$ there are thus additional perturbative contributions beyond one loop. It is natural to suppose that for $`𝒩=4`$ $`L`$ in (3) extends with the inclusion of $`\theta `$ to a form which is invariant under $`Sl(2,Z)`$, where $`\alpha =\delta =ϵ=\kappa =1`$ and $`\lambda `$ becomes an appropriate modular form.

Appendix A. Two loop Calculations with Local Couplings

We here revisit old calculations for the divergences at two loops  for pure gauge theories using just the local coupling $`g`$. Using integration by parts and Ward identities van der Ven  showed that the two loop vacuum amplitude on flat space can be reduced to just

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill W^{(2)}=& gg^{}((D_\alpha G_{\beta \gamma },G_{\beta \gamma }\stackrel{}{D}{}_{}{}^{}{}_{\delta }{}^{},G_{\alpha \delta })+2(D_\alpha G_{\beta \gamma },G_{\alpha \gamma }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\delta }{}^{},G_{\beta \delta }))\hfill \\ & \frac{1}{4}g^2(2\mathrm{t}\mathrm{r}(T_aG_{(\alpha \beta )}|T_aG_{\alpha \beta }|)\mathrm{tr}(T_aG_{\alpha \alpha }|T_aG_{\beta \beta }|)+\mathrm{tr}(T_aG_{\alpha \beta }|)\mathrm{tr}(T_aG_{\alpha \beta }|)),\hfill \end{array}$$

where the ghost contribution is cancelled. In the first line of (A.1), involving integrations over $`x,x^{}`$, $`G_{aa^{}\beta \gamma }(x,x^{})`$ is the vector propagator, $`(X,Y,Z)=f_{abc}f_{a^{}b^{}c^{}}X_{aa^{}}Y_{bb^{}}Z_{cc^{}}`$, $`g=g(x),g^{}=g(x^{})`$ are the local gauge couplings and

$$D_\alpha =_\alpha +v_\alpha (x),\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\delta }{}^{}=\stackrel{}{}^{}{}_{\delta }{}^{}+v_\delta (x^{}),v_\alpha =\frac{1}{g}_\alpha g.$$

In the second line of (A.1) $`(T_a)_{bc}=f_{abc}`$ and $`G_{\alpha \beta }|`$ denotes the coincident limit $`x^{}=x`$ and the trace is over group indices $`a,b=1,\mathrm{},n_V`$. The counterterms necessary to subtract sub-divergences are given by ($`\mathrm{tr}\{T_aT_b\}=C\delta _{ab}`$),

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill W_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{t}.}^{(2)}=\frac{C}{16\pi ^2\epsilon }g^2\mathrm{tr}\{& \frac{5}{3}D_\alpha G_{\beta \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\alpha }{}^{}|\frac{14}{3}D_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|+2(v_\beta D_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }|+v_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|)\hfill & \\ & +2vG_{\beta \beta }|4(_\alpha v_\beta +v_\alpha v_\beta )G_{\alpha \beta }|\}.\hfill & (\text{A.}1)\hfill \end{array}$$

This form is in accord with that expected according to , combining the ghost contribution here with the vector piece,5 We note here the following misprints, in (5.7) the result for $`Z_\beta ^{(1)}`$ should have a $``$ sign, in (5.1) $`Y_{\mathrm{gh}}=^\sigma v_\sigma +v^\sigma v_\sigma `$. Note also that the first two terms on the r.h.s. of (2.20) and the first three on the r.h.s. of (2.21) should have the opposite sign. if we note the identity

$$D_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|2(v_\beta D_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }|+v_\alpha G_{\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|)+4v_\alpha v_\beta G_{\alpha \beta }|=0.$$

Using an expansion of the propagators in terms of Seeley-DeWitt coefficients $`a_n(x,x^{})`$ then in  a simple algorithm was given for calculating the poles in $`\epsilon =4d`$,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill W_{\mathrm{div}}^{(2)}=& \frac{C}{(16\pi ^2\epsilon )^2}g^2\mathrm{tr}\{(\frac{5}{3}+\frac{\epsilon }{36})D_\alpha a_{1\beta \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\alpha }{}^{}|(\frac{14}{3}\frac{\epsilon }{18})D_\alpha a_{1\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|+(1\frac{\epsilon }{4})a_{2\beta \beta }|\hfill & \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{}\\ & +(2\frac{\epsilon }{2})(v_\beta D_\alpha a_{1\alpha \beta }|+v_\alpha a_{1\alpha \beta }\stackrel{}{D}^{}{}_{\beta }{}^{}|)+(2+\frac{\epsilon }{2})va_{1\beta \beta }|\hfill & \\ & (4+\epsilon )_\alpha v_\beta a_{1\alpha \beta }|4v_\alpha v_\beta a_{1\alpha \beta }|+\frac{1}{4}\epsilon a_{1\alpha \alpha }|a_{1\beta \beta }|\}\hfill & \\ & +\frac{C}{(16\pi ^2)^2\epsilon }\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{tr}\left\{^2g^2g\right\}.\hfill & (\text{A.}2)\hfill \end{array}$$

Simplifying (A.2), using standard results for $`a_1,a_2`$, we get

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill W_{\mathrm{div}}^{(2)}=\frac{Cn_V}{(16\pi ^2\epsilon )^2}g^2& \{\frac{22}{3}((v)^2+2v^2v+2v^2v^2)\hfill \\ \multicolumn{2}{c}{}\\ & \epsilon (\frac{17}{2}(v)^2+\frac{7}{3}v^2v+\frac{106}{9}v^2v^2)\}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Correspondingly at one loop

$$W_{\mathrm{div}}^{(1)}=\frac{n_V}{16\pi ^2\epsilon }\left((v)^2+v^2v^2\right).$$

To two loop order this gives

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill (\epsilon \widehat{\beta }(g)\frac{}{g})W_{\mathrm{div}}=\frac{n_V}{16\pi ^2}\{& (1+17C\widehat{g}^2)\frac{1}{g^2}(^2g)^22(1+\frac{44}{3}C\widehat{g}^2)\frac{1}{g^3}(g)^2^2g\hfill \\ \multicolumn{2}{c}{}\\ & +2(1+\frac{323}{18}C\widehat{g}^2)\frac{1}{g^4}(g)^2(g)^2\},\hfill \end{array}$$

for $`\widehat{g}^2=g^2/16\pi ^2`$.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Johanna Erdmenger for discussions which prompted this investigation, Massimo Bianchi for elucidating $`Sl(2,R)`$ symmetry and Ian Jack for recovering old calculations.

References

relax V. Kaplunovsky and J Louis, Field dependent gauge couplings in locally supersymmetric quantum field theories, Nucl. Phys. B422 (1994) 57, hep-th/9402005. relax H. Liu and A.A. Tseytlin, $`D=4`$ Super Yang Mills, $`D=5`$ gauged supergravity and $`D=4`$ conformal supergravity, Nucl. Phys. B533 (1998) 88, hep-th/9804083. relax E Kraus, Calculating the anomalous supersymmetry breaking in Super-Yang-Mills theories with local coupling, Phys. Rev. D65 (2002) 105003, hep-th/0110323; E Kraus, An anomalous breaking of supersymmetry in supersymmetric gauge theories with local coupling, Nucl. Phys. B620 (2002) 55, hep-th/0107239; E Kraus, C. Rupp and K Sibold, Supercurrent and local coupling in the Wess-Zumino model, Eur. Phys. J. C24 (2002) 631, hep-th/0205013; E Kraus, C. Rupp and K Sibold, Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with local coupling: the supersymmetric gauge, hep-th/0212064. relax H. Osborn, Weyl consistency conditions and a local renormalisation group equation for general renormalisable theories, Nucl. Phys. B363 (1991) 486. relax I. Jack and H. Osborn, Analogs of the $`c`$-theorem for four dimensional renormalisable field theories, Nucl. Phys. B343 (1990) 647. relax B.S. DeWitt, Dynamical theory of groups and fields, Blackie & Son Ltd (Glasgow, 1965). relax D.Z. Freedman and H. Osborn, Constructing a $`c`$-function for SUSY gauge theories, Phys. Lett. B 432 (1998) 353, hep-th/9804101. relax A.E.M. van de Ven, Two-loop quantum gravity, Nucl. Phys. B378 (1992) 309. relax I. Jack and H. Osborn, Two-loop background field calculations for arbitrary background fields, Nucl. Phys. B207 (1982) 474.