# Bifurcation of Periodic Instanton in Decay-Rate Transition

## I Introduction

Recently, much attention is paid to quantum-classical decay-rate transition in various branches of physics such as spin tunneling systems, field theoretical models, and cosmology. An important issue in this field is to determine the type of the decay-rate transition. At zero temperature the decay rate by quantum tunneling is governed by instanton or bounce, and at intermediate range of temperature periodic instanton plays an important role. At high temperatures the decay takes place mainly by thermal activation, which is represented by sphaleron. Usually the decay-rate transition means the transition between quantum tunneling regime dominated by periodic instanton and thermal activity regime dominated by sphaleron.

The type of the decay-rate transition is completely determined by Euclidean action-temperature diagram as shown in Ref.. The typical action-temperature diagrams which appear frequently in quantum mechanical or field theoretical models can be classified by three types(see Fig. 1). Fig. 1(a) represents a smooth second-order transition in which there is no bifurcation of periodic instanton and hence, the decay rate varies smoothly with increasing temperature. In Fig. 1(b) there is one bifurcation point and the decay rate exhibits an abrupt change at the crossover from periodic instanton to sphaleron. Thus this is a typical diagram for the first-order transition. Fig. 1(c) has two bifurcation points and the decay-rate transition between regimes dominated by periodic instanton and sphaleron, respectively, is second order. However, there exists a sharp change of decay rate in quantum tunneling regime in this case. For convenience we call the types of decay-rate transition associated to Fig. 1(a), Fig. 1(b), and Fig. 1(c) type I, type II, and type III, respectively.

In order to determine the type of transition completely from action-temperature diagram one has to compute a periodic instanton explicitly. However, the explicit derivation of periodic instanton in field theoretical models is very complicated and sometimes impossible. Hence, it is important to develop a method which determines the type of decay-rate transition without computing the periodic instanton in the full range of temperature.

The researches along this direction were done recently by using nonlinear perturbation method or counting the number of negative modes of full hessian operator around sphaleron. Although these two methods start from completely different point of view, both method derive a same criterion for the sharp first-order transition. Since, however, these two methods use only periodic instanton near sphaleron, it is impossible to distinguish type III transition from type I by these methods.

The purpose of this letter is to develop a more powerful method which not only distinguish type III from type I but also enable one to understand the whole behaviour of decay-rate transition by exploring the properties of bifurcation point. In Sec. II we will show analytically that multiple zero modes should be arised at bifurcation point. This fact is used to derive a criterion for the appearance of bifurcation point in action-temperature diagram, which will be explored in Sec. III. Also, application of this criterion to simple quantum mechanical model will be presented in the same section. It is shown that the criterion derived by nonlinear perturbation method is only special limit of our result. In the final section a brief conclusion is given.

## II Zero modes at bifurcation point

The decay rate at finite temperatures can be evaluated by Euclidean action of periodic instanton as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)=Ae^{S_E[x]}$$
(1)   
where $`A`$ is pre-exponential factor. The Euclidean action $`S_E[x]`$ is represented as

$$S_E[x]=_0^\beta 𝑑\tau [\frac{1}{2}\dot{x}^2+V(x)],$$
(2)   
where $`\beta `$, period at Euclidean space, is given by inverse of temperature, and we assume, for convenience, particle mass is unity. The equation of motion for periodic instantion is

$$\ddot{x}=V^{}(x),$$
(3)   
where the prime denotes the coordinate derivative, i.e, $`V^{}(x)=dV/dx`$, and the Euclidean energy $`E`$ is

$$E=V(x)\frac{1}{2}\dot{x}^2.$$
(4)   
Now, let us consider periodic instantons $`x_0(\tau )`$ with period $`\beta _0`$ and $`x_1(\tau )`$ with $`\beta _1=\beta _0+\delta \beta `$. Then we can write

$`x_1(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`x_0({\displaystyle \frac{\beta _0}{\beta _1}}\tau )+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \beta }{\beta _0}}\eta (\tau )`$ (5)   
$``$ $`x_0(\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{\delta \beta }{\beta }}[\tau \dot{x_0}\eta (\tau )]`$ (6)   
where $`\eta (\tau )`$ is some periodic function which can be determined from the fact that $`x_0(\tau )`$ and $`x_1(\tau )`$ must be a solutions of equation of motion. Hence, $`\eta (\tau )`$ has to satisfy

$$\widehat{M}\eta =2\ddot{x_0},$$
(7)   
where $`\widehat{M}`$ is the fluctuation operator at $`x_0`$;

$$\widehat{M}=\frac{d^2}{d\tau ^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(x_0).$$
(8)   
Using Eqs. (4) and (6), one can obtain the ratio between energy and period differences;

$$\frac{\delta E}{\delta \beta }=\frac{1}{\beta }[V^{}(x_0)\eta +\dot{x_0}^2\dot{x_0}\dot{\eta }].$$
(9)   
It is worthwhile noting that the right-hand side of Eq.(9) is a constant of motion. Since bifurcation point takes place when $`\frac{d\beta }{dE}=0`$, the absolute value of the right-hand side of the above equation must diverge at this point. This means that $`\eta `$ must be a singular function at the same point. In order for $`\eta `$ to be singular we need another zero mode different from well-known one, i.e., $`\dot{x_0}`$ originated from time translational symmetry. This fact can be easily shown as follows. If we expand the right-hand side of Eq.(7) in terms of eigenstates $`|\xi _n>`$ of $`\widehat{M}`$, the equation for $`\eta `$ becomes

$$\widehat{M}|\eta >=\underset{n}{}{}_{}{}^{}a_{n}^{}|\xi _n>,$$
(10)   
where $`a_n`$’s are expansion coefficients and the prime denotes that the sum excludes the known zero mode $`|\dot{x_0}>`$ due to its orthogonality to $`|\ddot{x_0}>`$. Then $`|\eta >`$ can be simply written as

$$|\eta >=\underset{n}{}{}_{}{}^{}\frac{a_n}{h_n}|\xi _n>,$$
(11)   
where $`h_n`$’s are corresponding eigenvalues of $`\widehat{M}`$. Here, it is shown that in order to get infinite magnitude of $`|\eta >`$ at bifurcation point, at least one of $`h_n`$’s should be zero.This zero mode does not correspond to the known zero mode($`\dot{x_0}`$) but new zero mode at bifurcation point. This fact is numerically explored at Ref..

In the next section we derive a condition for appearane of bifurcation point in action-temperature diagram.

## III Condition for bifurcation point

As mentioned in the previous section, the zero mode satisfies the following second-order ordinary differential equation;

$$\frac{d^2y}{d\tau ^2}+V^{\prime \prime }(x_0)y=0.$$
(12)   
Since this equation is second order, there are two independent solutions; one is the known one, $`y_1=\dot{x_0}`$, and another is

$$y_2(\tau )=y_1(\tau )^\tau \frac{d\tau ^{}}{y_1^2(\tau ^{})}=\dot{x_0}(\tau )^\tau \frac{d\tau ^{}}{\dot{x_0}^2(\tau ^{})}.$$
(13)   
This fact does not mean that the periodic instanton $`x_0`$ always have two independent zero modes, because in general $`y_2(\tau )`$ does not satisfy periodic boundary condition. In fact, $`y_2(\tau )`$ satisfies the physically relevant boundary condition at only bifurcation point. From the symmetry of $`x_0(\tau )`$ one can conjecture that in order for $`y_2(\tau )`$ to be an another zero mode $`\dot{x_0}(\tau )`$ and $`y_2(\tau )`$ must have common turning points. Using Eq.(4), this conjecture can be mathematically written as

$$_x_{}^{x_+}𝑑x\frac{1}{(V(x)E)^{3/2}}=\frac{2}{V^{}(x_{})\sqrt{V(x_{})E}}\frac{2}{V^{}(x_+)\sqrt{V(x_+)E}}$$
(14)   
where $`x_+`$ and $`x_{}`$ are turning points. This is not a desirable expression for the condition of bifurcation since both sides of this equation are infinite. However, if one uses a relation

$$\frac{d}{dx}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{V(x)E}})=\frac{V^{}(x)}{2(V(x)E)^{3/2}},$$
(15)   
the condition for the appearance of bifurcation becomes

$`f(E)`$ $``$ $`V^{}(x_{}){\displaystyle _{x_s}^{x_+}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(x_+)V^{}(x)}{(V(x)E)^{3/2}}}+V^{}(x_+){\displaystyle _x_{}^{x_s}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(x_{})V^{}(x)}{(V(x)E)^{3/2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2[V^{}(x_{})V^{}(x_+)]}{\sqrt{V(x_s)E}}}`$ (16)   
$`=`$ $`0,`$ (17)   
where $`x_s`$ is sphaleron solution, i.e, position of barrier top. It is easily shown that the values of $`f(E)`$ at minimum energy $`E=E_{min}`$ and at sphaleron energy $`E=E_s`$ are positive and zero, respectively, i.e., $`f(E_{min})>0`$ and $`f(E_s)=0`$. Since at zeros of $`f(E)`$ bifurcations take place, we can determine the type of decay rate from the number of zeros of $`f(E)`$ in the range of $`E_{min}<E<E_s`$; non-existence of zeros means type I, one and two zeros correspond to type II and type III, respectively.

Now, let us apply our criterion (17) to simple quantum mechanical model whose potential is

$$V(x)=\frac{4+\alpha }{12}\frac{1}{2}x^2\frac{\alpha }{4}x^4+\frac{\alpha +1}{6}x^6\frac{\gamma }{3}x^3.$$
(18)   
Numerical calculation using the criterion (17) yields Fig. 2 which shows the type of decay rate along the potential parameter $`\alpha `$ and$`\gamma `$. The dashed line distinguishing type III from type I cannot be obtained by the criterion of Ref. since type I and III have same behavior in the vicinity of sphaleron. Now, let us derive the previous result of Ref. by imposing a simple restriction on $`f(E)`$. Since the sufficient criterion for first-order transition has been derived by nonlinear perturbation at sphaleron, it can be obtained from a simple restriction on value of $`f(E)`$ near sphaleron;

$$f(E_sϵ)<0,$$
(19)   
where $`ϵ`$ is a infinitesimal positive number.

Since one can put $`x_s=0`$ without loss of generality, two integrals of Eq.(17) can be properly expanded in terms of following integrals;

$`G_n`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{x_+}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{x^n}{\sqrt{x_+x}(xx_{})^{3/2}}},`$ (20)   
$`H_n`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _x_{}^0}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{x^n}{\sqrt{xx_{}}(x_+x)^{3/2}}}.`$ (21)   
Since $`G_n`$ and $`H_n`$ can be exactly evaluated by $`x_\pm `$, we can expand Eq.(19) as increasing power series of $`x_\pm `$. Then we get first non-zero term as

$$\frac{5}{3}\frac{V^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)^2}{V^{\prime \prime }(0)}+V^{\prime \prime \prime \prime }(0)<0,$$
(22)   
where we leave out irrelevant factor. This is the same with the result of nonlinear perturbation method, which means that the previous result is a special case of our condition for bifurcation.

## IV Conclusion

From the fact that an additional zero mode appears at bifurcation points, we derive the condition Eq.(17) for occurrence of bifurcation in action-temperature diagram. Using this condition, one can count the number of bifurcations in allowed energy range and hence, understand the whole behaviour of decay-rate transition. The sufficient criterion for the first-order transition can be also derived by imposing a restriction near sphaleron, without use of nonlinear perturbation or negative-mode consideration. From the restriction it can be understood that the previous criterion is a condition to have odd number of bifurcations, so that with the criterion one cannot distinguish type III from type I. We hope that the idea for bifurcation in this paper could be generalized to be applicable to field theoretical models, which, however, might be non-trivial. Work on this direction is in progress.