An instanton (or pseudoparticle) is a notion appearing in theoretical and
mathematical physics
Mathematical physics is the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the de ...
. An instanton is a classical solution to
equations of motion with a finite,
non-zero action, either in
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
or in
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
. More precisely, it is a solution to the equations of motion of the
classical field theory
A classical field theory is a physical theory that predicts how one or more fields in physics interact with matter through field equations, without considering effects of quantization; theories that incorporate quantum mechanics are called qua ...
on a
Euclidean spacetime
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualiz ...
.
In such quantum theories, solutions to the equations of motion may be thought of as
critical points of the
action. The critical points of the action may be
local maxima of the action,
local minima, or
saddle points. Instantons are important in
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
because:
* they appear in the
path integral as the leading quantum corrections to the classical behavior of a system, and
* they can be used to study the tunneling behavior in various systems such as a
Yang–Mills theory.
Relevant to
dynamics, families of instantons permit that instantons, i.e. different critical points of the equation of motion, be related to one another. In physics instantons are particularly important because the condensation of instantons (and noise-induced anti-instantons) is believed to be the explanation of the
noise-induced chaotic phase known as
self-organized criticality.
Mathematics
Mathematically, a ''Yang–Mills instanton'' is a self-dual or anti-self-dual
connection in a
principal bundle
In mathematics, a principal bundle is a mathematical object that formalizes some of the essential features of the Cartesian product X \times G of a space X with a group G. In the same way as with the Cartesian product, a principal bundle P is equ ...
over a four-dimensional
Riemannian manifold
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold is a geometric space on which many geometric notions such as distance, angles, length, volume, and curvature are defined. Euclidean space, the N-sphere, n-sphere, hyperbolic space, and smooth surf ...
that plays the role of physical
space-time
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three-dimensional space, three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum (measurement), continu ...
in
non-abelian gauge theory. Instantons are topologically nontrivial solutions of
Yang–Mills equations that absolutely minimize the energy functional within their topological type. The first such solutions were discovered in the case of four-dimensional Euclidean space compactified to the
four-dimensional sphere, and turned out to be localized in space-time, prompting the names ''pseudoparticle'' and ''instanton''.
Yang–Mills instantons have been explicitly constructed in many cases by means of
twistor theory, which relates them to algebraic
vector bundle
In mathematics, a vector bundle is a topological construction that makes precise the idea of a family of vector spaces parameterized by another space X (for example X could be a topological space, a manifold, or an algebraic variety): to eve ...
s on
algebraic surfaces, and via the
ADHM construction, or hyperkähler reduction (see
hyperkähler manifold), a geometric invariant theory procedure. The groundbreaking work of
Simon Donaldson, for which he was later awarded the
Fields medal, used the
moduli space of instantons over a given four-dimensional differentiable manifold as a new invariant of the manifold that depends on its
differentiable structure and applied it to the construction of
homeomorphic but not
diffeomorphic four-manifolds. Many methods developed in studying instantons have also been applied to
monopoles. This is because magnetic monopoles arise as solutions of a dimensional reduction of the Yang–Mills equations.
Quantum mechanics
An ''instanton'' can be used to calculate the transition probability for a quantum mechanical particle tunneling through a potential barrier. One example of a system with an ''instanton'' effect is a particle in a
double-well potential. In contrast to a classical particle, there is non-vanishing probability that it crosses a region of potential energy higher than its own energy.
Motivation of considering instantons
Consider the quantum mechanics of a single particle motion inside the double-well potential
The potential energy takes its minimal value at
, and these are called classical minima because the particle tends to lie in one of them in classical mechanics. There are two lowest energy states in classical mechanics.
In quantum mechanics, we solve the
Schrödinger equation
:
to identify the energy eigenstates. If we do this, we will find only the unique lowest-energy state instead of two states. The ground-state wave function localizes at both of the classical minima
instead of only one of them because of the quantum interference or quantum tunneling.
Instantons are the tool to understand why this happens within the semi-classical approximation of the path-integral formulation in Euclidean time. We will first see this by using the WKB approximation that approximately computes the wave function itself, and will move on to introduce instantons by using the path integral formulation.
WKB approximation
One way to calculate this probability is by means of the semi-classical
WKB approximation, which requires the value of
to be small. The
time independent Schrödinger equation for the particle reads
:
If the potential were constant, the solution would be a plane wave, up to a proportionality factor,
:
with
:
This means that if the energy of the particle is smaller than the potential energy, one obtains an exponentially decreasing function. The associated tunneling amplitude is proportional to
:
where ''a'' and ''b'' are the beginning and endpoint of the tunneling trajectory.
Path integral interpretation via instantons
Alternatively, the use of
path integrals allows an ''instanton'' interpretation and the same result can be obtained with this approach. In path integral formulation, the transition amplitude can be expressed as
:
Following the process of
Wick rotation
In physics, Wick rotation, named after Italian physicist Gian Carlo Wick, is a method of finding a solution to a mathematical problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space by means of a transformation that sub ...
(analytic continuation) to Euclidean spacetime (
), one gets
:
with the Euclidean action
:
The potential energy changes sign
under the Wick rotation and the minima transform into maxima, thereby
exhibits two "hills" of maximal energy.
Let us now consider the local minimum of the Euclidean action
with the double-well potential
, and we set
just for simplicity of computation. Since we want to know how the two classically lowest energy states
are connected, let us set
and
.
For
and
, we can rewrite the Euclidean action as
:
:
:
The above inequality is saturated by the solution of
with the condition
and
. Such solutions exist, and the solution takes the simple form when
and
. The explicit formula for the instanton solution is given by
:
Here
is an arbitrary constant. Since this solution jumps from one classical vacuum
to another classical vacuum
instantaneously around
, it is called an instanton.
Explicit formula for double-well potential
The explicit formula for the eigenenergies of the Schrödinger equation with
double-well potential has been given by Müller–Kirsten with derivation by both a perturbation method (plus boundary conditions) applied to the Schrödinger equation, and explicit derivation from the path integral (and WKB). The result is the following. Defining parameters of the Schrödinger equation and the potential by the equations
:
and
:
the eigenvalues for
are found to be:
:
:
Clearly these eigenvalues are asymptotically (
) degenerate as expected as a consequence of the harmonic part of the potential.
Results
Results obtained from the mathematically well-defined Euclidean
path integral may be Wick-rotated back and give the same physical results as would be obtained by appropriate treatment of the (potentially divergent) Minkowskian path integral. As can be seen from this example, calculating the transition probability for the particle to tunnel through a classically forbidden region (
) with the Minkowskian path integral corresponds to calculating the transition probability to tunnel through a classically allowed region (with potential −''V''(''X'')) in the Euclidean path integral (pictorially speaking – in the Euclidean picture – this transition corresponds to a particle rolling from one hill of a double-well potential standing on its head to the other hill). This classical solution of the Euclidean equations of motion is often named "kink solution" and is an example of an ''instanton''. In this example, the two "vacua" (i.e. ground states) of the
double-well potential, turn into hills in the Euclideanized version of the problem.
Thus, the ''instanton'' field solution of the (Euclidean, i. e., with imaginary time) (1 + 1)-dimensional field theory – first quantized quantum mechanical description – allows to be interpreted as a tunneling effect between the two vacua (ground states – higher states require periodic instantons) of the physical (1-dimensional space + real time) Minkowskian system. In the case of the double-well potential written
:
the instanton, i.e. solution of
:
(i.e. with energy
), is
:
where
is the Euclidean time.
''Note'' that a naïve perturbation theory around one of those two vacua alone (of the Minkowskian description) would never show this ''non-perturbative tunneling effect'', dramatically changing the picture of the vacuum structure of this quantum mechanical system. In fact the naive perturbation theory has to be supplemented by boundary conditions, and these supply the nonperturbative effect, as is evident from the above explicit formula and analogous calculations for other potentials such as a cosine potential (cf.
Mathieu function) or other periodic potentials (cf. e.g.
Lamé function and
spheroidal wave function) and irrespective of whether one uses the Schrödinger equation or the
path integral.
Therefore, the perturbative approach may not completely describe the vacuum structure of a physical system. This may have important consequences, for example, in the theory of
"axions" where the non-trivial QCD vacuum effects (like the ''instantons'') spoil the
Peccei–Quinn symmetry explicitly and transform massless
Nambu–Goldstone bosons into massive
pseudo-Nambu–Goldstone ones.
Periodic instantons
In one-dimensional field theory or quantum mechanics one defines as "instanton" a field configuration which is a solution of the classical (Newton-like) equation of motion with Euclidean time and finite Euclidean action. In the context of
soliton theory the corresponding solution is known as a
kink. In view of their analogy with the behaviour of classical particles such configurations or solutions, as well as others, are collectively known as
pseudoparticles or pseudoclassical configurations. The "instanton" (kink) solution is accompanied by another solution known as "anti-instanton" (anti-kink), and instanton and anti-instanton are distinguished by "topological charges" +1 and −1 respectively, but have the same Euclidean action.
"Periodic instantons" are a generalization of instantons.
[Harald J.W. Müller-Kirsten, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics: Schrödinger Equation and Path Integral, 2nd ed., World Scientific (Singapore, 2012).] In explicit form they are expressible in terms of
Jacobian elliptic functions which are periodic functions (effectively generalisations of trigonometrical functions). In the limit of infinite period these periodic instantons – frequently known as "bounces", "bubbles" or the like – reduce to instantons.
The stability of these pseudoclassical configurations can be investigated by expanding the Lagrangian defining the theory around the pseudoparticle configuration and then investigating the equation of small fluctuations around it. For all versions of quartic potentials (double-well, inverted double-well) and periodic (Mathieu) potentials these equations were discovered to be Lamé equations, see
Lamé function. The eigenvalues of these equations are known and permit in the case of instability the calculation of decay rates by evaluation of the path integral.
Instantons in reaction rate theory
In the context of reaction rate theory, periodic instantons are used to calculate the rate of tunneling of atoms in chemical reactions. The progress of a chemical reaction can be described as the movement of a pseudoparticle on a high dimensional
potential energy surface (PES). The thermal rate constant
can then be related to the imaginary part of the free energy
by
[
]
whereby
is the canonical partition function, which is calculated by taking the trace of the Boltzmann operator in the position representation.
Using a Wick rotation and identifying the Euclidean time with
, one obtains a path integral representation for the partition function in mass-weighted coordinates:
[
]
The path integral is then approximated via a steepest descent integration, which takes into account only the contributions from the classical solutions and quadratic fluctuations around them. This yields for the rate constant expression in mass-weighted coordinates
where
is a periodic instanton and
is the trivial solution of the pseudoparticle at rest which represents the reactant state configuration.
Inverted double-well formula
As for the double-well potential one can derive the eigenvalues for the inverted double-well potential. In this case, however, the eigenvalues are complex. Defining parameters by the equations
:
the eigenvalues as given by Müller-Kirsten are, for
:
The imaginary part of this expression agrees with the well known result of Bender and Wu. In their notation
Quantum field theory
In studying
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
(QFT), the vacuum structure of a theory may draw attention to instantons. Just as a double-well quantum mechanical system illustrates, a naïve vacuum may not be the true vacuum of a field theory. Moreover, the true vacuum of a field theory may be an "overlap" of several topologically inequivalent sectors, so called "
topological vacua".
A well understood and illustrative example of an ''instanton'' and its interpretation can be found in the context of a QFT with a
non-abelian gauge group,
[See also: Non-abelian gauge theory] a
Yang–Mills theory. For a Yang–Mills theory these inequivalent sectors can be (in an appropriate gauge) classified by the third
homotopy group of
SU(2) (whose group manifold is the
3-sphere ). A certain topological vacuum (a "sector" of the true vacuum) is labelled by an
unaltered transform, the
Pontryagin index. As the third homotopy group of
has been found to be the set of
integer
An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative in ...
s,
:
there are infinitely many topologically inequivalent vacua, denoted by
, where
is their corresponding Pontryagin index. An ''instanton'' is a field configuration fulfilling the classical equations of motion in Euclidean spacetime, which is interpreted as a tunneling effect between these different topological vacua. It is again labelled by an integer number, its Pontryagin index,
. One can imagine an ''instanton'' with index
to quantify tunneling between topological vacua
and
. If ''Q'' = 1, the configuration is named
BPST instanton after its discoverers
Alexander Belavin,
Alexander Polyakov,
Albert S. Schwarz and
Yu. S. Tyupkin. The true vacuum of the theory is labelled by an "angle" theta and is an overlap of the topological sectors:
:
Gerard 't Hooft first performed the field theoretic computation of the effects of the BPST instanton in a theory coupled to fermions i
He showed that zero modes of the Dirac equation in the instanton background lead to a non-perturbative multi-fermion interaction in the low energy effective action.
Yang–Mills theory
The classical Yang–Mills action on a
principal bundle
In mathematics, a principal bundle is a mathematical object that formalizes some of the essential features of the Cartesian product X \times G of a space X with a group G. In the same way as with the Cartesian product, a principal bundle P is equ ...
with structure group ''G'', base ''M'',
connection ''A'', and
curvature
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry that intuitively measure the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line or by which a surface deviates from being a plane. If a curve or su ...
(Yang–Mills field tensor) ''F'' is
:
where
is the
volume form on
. If the inner product on
, the
Lie algebra
In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an operation called the Lie bracket, an alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow \mathfrak g, that satisfies the Jacobi ident ...
of
in which
takes values, is given by the
Killing form
In mathematics, the Killing form, named after Wilhelm Killing, is a symmetric bilinear form that plays a basic role in the theories of Lie groups and Lie algebras. Cartan's criteria (criterion of solvability and criterion of semisimplicity) sho ...
on
, then this may be denoted as
, since
:
For example, in the case of the
gauge group U(1), ''F'' will be the electromagnetic field
tensor
In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects associated with a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other ...
. From the
principle of stationary action, the Yang–Mills equations follow. They are
:
The first of these is an identity, because d''F'' = d
2''A'' = 0, but the second is a second-order
partial differential equation
In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives.
The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to ho ...
for the connection ''A'', and if the Minkowski current vector does not vanish, the zero on the rhs. of the second equation is replaced by
. But notice how similar these equations are; they differ by a
Hodge star. Thus a solution to the simpler first order (non-linear) equation
:
is automatically also a solution of the Yang–Mills equation. This simplification occurs on 4 manifolds with :
so that
on 2-forms. Such solutions usually exist, although their precise character depends on the dimension and topology of the base space M, the principal bundle P, and the gauge group G.
In nonabelian Yang–Mills theories,
and
where D is the
exterior covariant derivative. Furthermore, the
Bianchi identity
:
is satisfied.
In
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...
, an ''instanton'' is a
topologically nontrivial field configuration in four-dimensional
Euclidean space
Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, in Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are ''Euclidean spaces ...
(considered as the
Wick rotation
In physics, Wick rotation, named after Italian physicist Gian Carlo Wick, is a method of finding a solution to a mathematical problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space by means of a transformation that sub ...
of
Minkowski spacetime). Specifically, it refers to a
Yang–Mills gauge field ''A'' which approaches
pure gauge at
spatial infinity. This means the field strength
:
vanishes at infinity. The name ''instanton'' derives from the fact that these fields are localized in space and (Euclidean) time – in other words, at a specific instant.
The case of instantons on the
two-dimensional space may be easier to visualise because it admits the simplest case of the gauge
group, namely U(1), that is an
abelian group. In this case the field ''A'' can be visualised as simply a
vector field. An instanton is a configuration where, for example, the arrows point away from a central point (i.e., a "hedgehog" state). In Euclidean
four dimensions,
, abelian instantons are impossible.
The field configuration of an instanton is very different from that of the
vacuum. Because of this instantons cannot be studied by using
Feynman diagrams, which only include
perturbative effects. Instantons are fundamentally
non-perturbative
In mathematics and physics, a non-perturbative function (mathematics), function or process is one that cannot be described by perturbation theory. An example is the function
: f(x) = e^,
which does not equal its own Taylor series in any neighbo ...
.
The Yang–Mills energy is given by
: