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8
The Uncanny Precision of the Spectral Action
Ali H. Chamseddine
1,3
, Alain Connes
2,3,4
1
Physics Department, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
2
College de France, 3 rue Ulm, F75005, Paris, France
3
I.H.E.S. F-91440 Bures-sur-Yvette, France
4
Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240 USA
Abstract
Noncommutative geometry has been slowly emerging as a new paradigm of
geometry which starts from quantum mechanics. One of its key features is
that the new geometry is spectral in agreement with the physical way of
measuring distances. In this paper we present a detailed introduction with
an overview on the study of the quantum nature of space-time using the
tools of noncommutative geometry. In particular we examine the suitability
of using the spectral action as action functional for the theory. To demon-
strate how the spectral action encodes the dynamics of gravity we examine
the accuracy of the approximation of the spectral action by its asymptotic
expansion in the case of the round sphere S
3
. We nd that the two terms
corresponding to the cosmological constant and the scalar curvature term
already give the full result with remarkable accuracy. This is then applied
to the physically relevant case of S
3
S
1
where we show that the spectral
action in this case is also given, for any test function, by the sum of two
terms up to an astronomically small correction, and in particular all higher
order terms a
2n
vanish. This result is conrmed by evaluating the spectral
action using the heat kernel expansion where we check that the higher order
terms a
4
and a
6
both vanish due to remarkable cancelations. We also show
that the Higgs potential appears as an exact perturbation when the test
function used is a smooth cuto function.
1
1. An overview
Our experimental information on the nature of space-time is based on two
sources:
High energy physics based on cosmic ray information and particle
accelerator experiments, whose results are encapsulated in the Stan-
dard Model of particle physics.
Cosmology based on astronomical observations.
The large scale global picture is well described in terms of Riemannian ge-
ometry and general relativity, but this picture breaks down at high energy
where the quantum eects take over. It is thus natural to look for a par-
adigm of geometry which starts from the quantum framework, where the
role of real variables is played by self-adjoint operators in Hilbert space.
Such a framework for geometry has been slowly emerging under the name
of noncommutative geometry. One of its key features, besides the ability
to handle spaces for which coordinates no longer commute with each other,
is that this new geometry is spectral. This is in agreement with physics in
which most of the data we have, either about the far distant parts of the
universe or about high energy physics, are also of spectral nature. The red
shifted spectra of distant galaxies or the momentum eigenstates of outgo-
ing particles in high energy experiments both point towards a prevalence of
spectral information. In the same vein the existing unit of time (length) is
also of spectral nature. From the mathematical standpoint it takes some
doing to obtain a purely spectral (Hilbert space theoretical) counterpart of
Riemannian geometry. One reason for the diculty of this task is that, as
is well known since the examples of J. Milnor [1], non-isometric Riemannian
spaces exist which have the same spectra (for the Dirac or Laplacian oper-
ators). Another reason is that the conditions for a (compact) space to be a
smooth manifold are given in terms of the local charts, whose existence and
compatibility is assumed, but whose intrinsic meaning is more elusive.
The paradigm of noncommutative geometry is that of spectral triple. As
its name indicates it is of spectral nature. By denition a spectral triple is
a unitary Hilbert space representation of something. This something is
an equipment that allows one to manipulate algebraically coordinates and
to measure distances. The algebra of the coordinates is denoted by / and
is an involutive algebra, with involution a a

. The equipment needed

to measure distances is the inverse line element D which is unbounded and
fullls D = D

. Altogether these data fulll some algebraic relations, e.g.

if we talk about the simplest geometric space i.e. the circle S
1
the relation
between the complex unitary coordinate U and the inverse line element D
is just [D, U] = U, which is in the vein of the Heisenberg commutation
relations.
Thus, a geometry is given as a Hilbert space representation of the pair (/, D)
and can be encoded by the spectral triple (/, H, D) where H is the Hilbert
space in which both the algebra / and the inverse line element D are now
2
concretely represented, the latter as an unbounded self-adjoint operator.
This picture shares with the Wigner paradigm for a particle as an (irre-
ducible) representation of the Poincare group the feature that it separates
the kinematical relations from the choice of the Hilbert space representation.
It is only when the latter is chosen that actual measurements of distances
between points x and y can be performed by formulas such as
Distance (x, y) = sup [f(x) f(y)[ , f /, |[D, f]| 1
where indeed the norm |[D, f]| is the operator norm in Hilbert space and
depends on the specic choice of the representation.
We now have at our disposal a reconstruction theorem (cf [2]) which shows
that ordinary Riemannian spaces are neatly characterized among spectral
triples by the following kinematical relations:
The algebra / is commutative.
The commutator [[D, a], b] = 0 for any a, b /.
The following Heisenberg type relation
1
holds
2
, for some a

j
/:
(1)

0
[[D, a

1
], [D, a

2
], . . . , [D, a

n
]] = 1
together with the following spectral requirements:
The k-th characteristic value of the resolvent of D is O(k
1/n
).
Regularity.
Absolute continuity.
We refer to [2] for the precise statement. The meaning of (1) is that the
determinant of the metric g

does not vanish, and more precisely that its

square root multiplied by the volume form

0
da

1
da

2
da

n
gives 1.
The reason for the last two spectral requirements is technical and allows one
to specify the regularity (C

, real analytic...) of the space and to control

the spectral measures. The rst of the spectral requirements is crucial in
that it bounds the eective dimension of the spectrum of the space in the
representation. There are good physics reasons to consider that the appar-
ent dimension, equal to four, of space-time is governed by the asymptotic
behavior of the eigenvalues of the line element, which is the Euclidean prop-
agator. Moreover this spectral dimension is not restricted to be an integer
a priori and can model fractal dimension easily. The above reconstruction
Theorem shows furthermore that the operator D in the spectral triple is
a Dirac type operator, i.e. an order one operator with symbol given by a
representation of the Cliord algebra. The restriction to spin manifolds is
obtained by requiring a real structure i.e. an antilinear unitary operator J
1
Here the multiple commutator is dened as
[T1, T2, . . . , Tn] =
X

() T
(1)
T
(2)
T
(n)
2
We assume for simplicity that the dimension n is odd
3
acting in H which plays the same role and has the same algebraic proper-
ties as the charge conjugation operator in physics. When the dimension n
involved in the reconstruction Theorem is even (rather than odd) the right
hand side of (1) is now replaced by the chirality operator which is just a
Z/2-grading in mathematical terms. It fullls the rules
(2)
2
= 1 , [, a] = 0, a /
The following further relations hold for D, J and
(3) J
2
= , DJ =

JD, J =

J, D = D
where ,

1, 1. The values of the three signs ,

depend only,
in the classical case of spin manifolds, upon the value of the dimension n
modulo 8 and are given in the following table [3]:
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 1 -1 -1 -1 -1 1 1

1 -1 1 1 1 -1 1 1

1 -1 1 -1
In the classical case of spin manifolds there is thus a relation between the
metric (or spectral) dimension given by the rate of growth of the spectrum
of D and the integer modulo 8 which appears in the above table. For more
general spaces however the two notions of dimension (the dimension modulo
8 is called the KO-dimension because of its origin in K-theory) become
independent since there are spaces F of metric dimension 0 but of arbitrary
KO-dimension. More precisely, starting with an ordinary spin geometry M
of dimension n and taking the product M F, one obtains a space whose
metric dimension is still n but whose KO-dimension is the sum of n with
the KO-dimension of F, which as explained can take any value modulo 8.
Thus, one now has the freedom to shift the KO-dimension at very little
expense i.e. in a way which does not alter the plain metric dimension. As
it turns out the Standard Model with neutrino mixing favors the shift of
dimension from the 4 of our familiar space-time picture to 10 = 4 + 6 = 2
modulo 8 [4], [5]. The shift from 4 to 10 is a recurrent idea in string theory
compactications, where the 6 is the dimension of the Calabi-Yau manifold
used to compactify. Eectively the dimension 10 is related to the existence
of Majorana-Weyl fermions. The dierence between this approach and ours
is that, in the string compactications, the metric dimension of the full
space-time is now 10 which can only be reconciled with what we experience
by requiring that the Calabi-Yau ber remains unnaturally small. In order
to learn how to perform the above shift of dimension using a 0-dimensional
space F, it is important to classify such spaces. This was done in [6], [7].
There, we classied the nite spaces F of given KO-dimension. A space F
is nite when the algebra /
F
of coordinates on F is nite dimensional. We
no longer require that this algebra is commutative. The rst key advantage
4
of dropping the commutativity can be seen in the simplest case where the
nite space F is given by
(4) / = M
k
(C) , H = M
k
(C) , D = 0 , J =

, H
F
where the algebra / = M
k
(C) is acting by left multiplication in H = M
k
(C).
We have shown in [8] that the study of pure gravity on the space M F
yields Einstein gravity on M minimally coupled with Yang-Mills theory for
the gauge group SU(k). The Yang-Mills gauge potential appears as the inner
part of the metric, in the same way as the group of gauge transformations
(for the gauge group SU(k)) appears as the group of inner dieomorphisms.
One can see in this Einstein-Yang-Mills example that the nite geometry
fullls a nice substitute of commutativity (of /) namely
(5) [a, b
0
] = 0 , a, b /
where for any operator a in H, a
0
= Ja

J
1
. This is called the order
zero condition. Moreover the representation of / and J in H is irreducible.
This example is (taking = 1) of KO-dimension equal to 0. In [6] we
classied the irreducible (/, H, J) and found out that the solutions fall into
two classes. Let /
C
be the complex linear space generated by / in L(H),
the algebra of operators in H. By construction /
C
is a complex algebra and
one only has two cases:
(1) The center Z (/
C
) is C, in which case /
C
= M
k
(C) for some k.
(2) The center Z (/
C
) is CC and /
C
= M
k
(C) M
k
(C) for some k.
Moreover the knowledge of /
C
= M
k
(C) shows that / is either M
k
(C)
(unitary case), M
k
(R) (real case) or, when k = 2 is even, M

(H), where
H is the eld of quaternions (symplectic case). This rst case is a minor
variant of the Einstein-Yang-Mills case described above. It turns out by
studying their Z/2 gradings , that these cases are incompatible with KO-
dimension 6 which is only possible in case (2). If one assumes that one is in
the symplecticunitary case and that the grading is given by a grading of
the vector space over H, one can show that the dimension of H which is 2k
2
in case (2) is at least 216 while the simplest solution is given by the algebra
/ = M
2
(H) M
4
(C). This is an important variant of the Einstein-Yang-
Mills case because, as the center Z (/
C
) is C C, the product of this nite
geometry F by a manifold M appears, from the commutative standpoint,
as two distinct copies of M. We showed in [6] that requiring that these two
copies of M stay a nite distance apart reduces the symmetries from the
group SU(2) SU(2) SU(4) of inner automorphisms
3
to the symmetries
U(1) SU(2) SU(3) of the Standard Model. This reduction of the gauge
symmetry occurs because of the second kinematical condition [[D, a], b] = 0
which in the general case becomes:
(6) [[D, a], b
0
] = 0 , a, b /
3
of the even part of the algebra
5
3 2 1 1 2 3
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Figure 1. Cuto function f
Thus the noncommutative space singles out 4
2
= 16 as the number of phys-
ical fermions, the symmetries of the standard model emerge, and moreover,
as shown in [9], the model predicts the existence of right-handed neutrinos,
as well as the see-saw mechanism. In the above Einstein-Yang-Mills case,
the Yang-Mills elds appeared as the inner part of the metric in the same
way as the group of gauge transformations (for the gauge group SU(k)) ap-
peared as the group of inner dieomorphisms. But in that case all elds
remained massless. It is the existence of a non-zero D for the nite space F
that generates the Higgs elds and the masses of the Fermions and the W
and Z elds through the Higgs mechanism. The new elds are computed
from the kinematics but the action functional, the spectral action, uses in
a crucial manner the representation in Hilbert space. In order to explain
the conceptual meaning of this spectral action functional it is important
to understand in which way it encodes gravity in the commutative case.
As explained above the spectrum of the Dirac operator (or similarly of the
Laplacian) does not suce to encode an ordinary Riemannian geometry.
However the Einstein-Hilbert action functional, given by the integral of the
scalar curvature multiplied by the volume form, appears from the heat ex-
pansion of the Dirac operator. More generally it appears as the coecient
of
2
in the asymptotic expansion for large of the trace
(7) Tr(f(D/)) 2
4
f
4
a
0
+ 2
2
f
2
a
2
+f
0
a
4
+. . . +
2k
f
2k
a
4+2k
+. . .
when the Riemannian geometry M is of dimension 4, and where f is
a smooth even function with fast decay at innity. The choice of the
function f only enters in the multiplicative factors f
4
=
_

0
f(u)u
3
du,
6
f
2
=
_

0
f(u)udu, f
0
= f(0) and f
2k
= (1)
k k!
(2k)!
f
(2k)
(0), i.e. the deriva-
tives of even order at 0, for k 0. Thus, when f is a cuto function
(cf Figure 1) it has vanishing Taylor expansion at 0 and the asymptotic
expansion (7) only has three terms:
(8) Tr(f(D/)) 2
4
f
4
a
0
+ 2
2
f
2
a
2
+f(0)a
4
The term in
4
is a cosmological term, the term in
2
is the Einstein-Hilbert
action functional, and the constant term a
4
gives the integral over M of cur-
vature invariants such as the square of the Weyl curvature and topological
terms such as the Gauss-Bonnet, with numerical coecients of order one. It
is thus natural to take the expression Tr(f(D/)) as a natural spectral for-
mulation of gravity. We are working in the Euclidean formulation i.e. with a
signature (+, +, +, +) and the Euclidean space-time manifold is taken to be
compact for simplicity. In the non-compact case we have shown in [10] how
to replace the simple counting of eigenvalues of [D[ of size < given
4
by
(7), by a localized counting. This simply introduces a dilaton eld. We also
tested this idea of taking the expression Tr(f(D/)) as a natural spectral
formulation of gravity by computing this expression in the case of manifolds
with boundary and we found [11] that it reproduces exactly the Hawking-
Gibbons [12] additional boundary terms which they introduced in order to
restore consistency and obtain Einstein equations as the equations of motion
in the case of manifolds with boundary. Further, Ashtekar et al [13] have
recently shown that the use of the Dirac operator in a rst order formalism,
which is natural in the noncommutative setting, avoids the tuning and sub-
traction of a constant term. One may be worried by the large cosmological
term
4
f
4
a
4
that appears in the spectral action. It is large because the value
of the cuto scale is dictated, roughly speaking, by the Planck scale since
the term
2
f
2
a
2
is the gravitational action
1
16G
_
R

gd
4
x. Thus it seems
at rst sight that the huge cosmological term
4
f
4
a
4
overrides the more sub-
tle Einstein term
2
f
2
a
2
. There is, however, and even at the classical level
to which the present discussion applies a simple manner to overcome this
diculty. Indeed the kinematical relation (1) in fact xes the Riemannian
volume form to be
5
(9)

gd
4
x =

0
da

1
da

2
da

3
da

4
Thus, if we vary the metric with this constraint we are in the context of
unimodular gravity [14], and the cosmological term cancels out in the com-
putation of the conditional probability of a gravitational conguration with
total volume V held xed. The remaining unknown, then, is the distribution
of volumes d(V ), which is just a distribution on the half-line R
+
V . The
striking conceptual advantages of the spectral action are
4
for f a cuto function
5
up to a numerical factor
7
Simplicity: when f is a cuto function, the spectral action is just
counting the number of eigenstates of D in the range [, ].
Positivity: when f 0 (which is the case for a cuto function) the
action Tr(f(D/)) 0 has the correct sign for a Euclidean action.
Invariance: one is used to the dieomorphism invariance of the grav-
itational action but the functional Tr(f(D/)) has a much stronger
invariance group, the unitary group of the Hilbert space H.
One price to pay is that, as such, the action functional Tr(f(D/)) is not
local. It only becomes so when it is replaced by the asymptotic expansion
(8). This suggests that one should at least compute the next term in the
asymptotic expansion (even though this term appears multiplied by the
second derivative f

(0) = 0 when f is a cuto function) just to get some

idea of the size of the remainder. In fact both D and have the physical
dimension of a mass, and there is no absolute scale on which they can be
measured. The ratio D/ is dimensionless and the dimensionless number
that governs the quality of the approximation (8) can be chosen to just
be the number N() of eigenvalues of D whose size is less than , i.e.
[[ . When f is a cuto function the size of the error term in (8) should
be O(N
k
) for any positive k, using the atness of the Taylor expansion of
f at 0. In the case of interest, where M is the Euclidean space-time, a rough
estimate of the size of N is the 4-dimensional volume of M in Planck units
i.e. an order of magnitude
6
of N 10
214
(at the present radius, see section
two for details). Thus, even without the vanishing of f

(0), the rough error

term N
1/2
10
107
is quite small in the approximation of the spectral
action by its local version (8). We shall in fact show that a much better
estimate holds in the simplied model of Euclidean space-time given by the
product S
3
a
S
1

. Another advantage of the above spectral description of the

gravitational action is that one can now use the same action Tr(f(D/))
for spaces which are not Riemannian. The simplest case is the product
of a Riemannian geometry M (of dimension 4) by the nite space F of
(4). The only new term that appears is the Yang-Mills action functional of
the SU(k) gauge elds which form the inner part of the metric. This new
term appears as an additional term in the coecient a
4
of
0
, and with
the positive sign. In other words gravity on the slightly noncommutative
space M F gives ordinary gravity minimally coupled with SU(k)-Yang-
Mills gauge theory. The latter theory is massless and the fermions are in
the adjoint representation. The fermionic part of the action is easy to write
since one has the operator D whose inner uctuations are
(10) D
A
= D +A+JAJ
1
, A =

a
j
[D, b
j
] , a
j
, b
j
/, A = A

6
using the age of the universe in Planck units to estimate the spatial Euclidean direc-
tions and the inverse temperature = 1/kT also in Planck units, to set the size of the
imaginary time component of the Euclidean M.
8
In the Einstein-Yang-Mills system so obtained, all elds involved are mass-
less.
We now consider the product M F of a Riemannian geometry M (of
dimension 4) by the nite space F of KO-dimension 6 which was determined
above. The computation shows that (cf [9])
The inner uctuations of the metric give an U(1) SU(2) SU(3)
gauge eld and a complex Higgs doublet scalar eld.
The spectral action Tr(f(D/)) plus the antisymmetric bilinear form
J, D
A
) on chiral fermions, gives the Standard Model minimally
coupled to gravity, with the Majorana mass terms and see-saw mech-
anism.
The gauge couplings fulll the unication constraint, the Yukawa
couplings fulll Y
2
= 4g
2
, where Y
2
is dened in eq(11), and the
Higgs quartic coupling also fullls a unication constraint.
Most of the new terms occur in the a
4
term of the expansion (8). This is the
case for the minimal coupling of the Higgs eld as well as its quartic self-
interaction. The terms a
0
and a
2
get new contributions from the Majorana
masses (cf [9]), but the main new term in a
2
has the form of a mass term
for the Higgs eld with the coecient
2
. This immediately raises the
question of the meaning of the specic values of the couplings in the above
action functional. Unlike the above massless Einstein-Yang-Mills system we
can no longer take the above action simply as a classical action, would it be
because of the unication of the three gauge couplings, which does not hold
at low scale. The basic idea proposed in [8] is to consider the above action
as an eective action valid at the unication scale and use the Wilsonian
approach of integrating the high frequency modes to show that one obtains
a realistic picture after running down from the unication scale to the
energies at which observations are done. This approach is closely related
to the approach of Reuter [15], Dou and Percacci [16], [17]. The coarse
graining uses a much lower scale which can be understood physically as
the resolution with which the system is observed. The modes with momenta
larger than cannot be directly observed and their eect is averaged out
by the functional integral. In fact the way the renormalization group is
computed in [16] shows that the derivative

of the eective action is

expressed as a trace of an operator function of the propagators and is thus
of a similar nature as the spectral action itself, though the trace involves
all elds and not just the spin
1
2
elds as in the spectral action. It is an
open question to compute the renormalization group ow for the spectral
action in the context of spectral triples. One expects, as explained above,
that new terms involving traces of functions of the bosonic propagator
7

2
DD
Tr(f(D/)) will be generated. The idea of taking the spectral action
as a boundary condition of the renormalization group at unication scale
7
We thank John Iliopoulos for discussions on this point.
9
generates a number of severe tests. The rst ones involve the dimensionless
couplings. These include
(1) The three gauge couplings
(2) The Yukawa couplings
(3) The Higgs quartic coupling
As is well known, the gauge couplings do not unify in the Standard Model
but the meeting of g
2
and g
3
species a unication scale of 10
17
GeV.
For the Yukawa couplings the boundary condition gives
(11) Y
2
= 4 g
2
, Y
2
=

(y

)
2
+ (y

e
)
2
+ 3 (y

u
)
2
+ 3 (y

d
)
2
.
This yields a value of the top mass which is 1.04 times the observed value
when neglecting
8
the Yukawa couplings of the bottom quarks etc...and is
hence compatible with experiment. The Higgs quartic coupling (scattering
parameter) has the boundary condition of the form:

() = g
2
3
b
a
2
g
2
3
The numerical solution to the RG equations with the boundary value
0
=
0.356 at = 10
17
GeV gives (M
Z
) 0.241 and a Higgs mass of the order of
170 GeV. This value now seems to be ruled out experimentally but this might
simply be a clear indication of the presence of some new physics, instead of
the big desert which is assumed here in the huge range of energies between
10
2
GeV and 10
17
GeV. To be more precise the above prediction of the
Higgs mass is in perfect agreement with the one of the Standard Model,
when one assumes the big desert (cf [19]). In a forthcoming paper [18]
we show that the choice of the spectral function f could play an important
role, even when it varies slightly from the cuto function. This is related
to the fact that the vev of the Higgs eld is proportional to the scale
and thus higher order corrections do contribute. This will cause the relation
between the gauge coupling constants to be modied and to change the
Higgs potential. Such gravitational corrections are known to cause sizable
changes to the Higgs mass [20].
The next tests involve the dimensionful couplings. These include
(1) The inverse Newton constant Z
g
= 1/G.
(2) The mass term of the Higgs.
(3) The Majorana mass terms.
(4) The cosmological constant.
Since our action functional combines gravity and the Standard Model, the
analysis of [16] applies, and the running of the couplings Z which have
the physical dimension of the square of a mass is well approximated by

Z
= a
1
k
2
where the parameter k is xing the cuto scale but is considered
itself as one of the couplings, while the coecient a
1
is a dimensionless
8
See [9] for the precise satement.
10
number of order one. For the inverse Z
g
of the Newton constant, one gets
the solution:
(12) Z
g
=

Z
g
(1 +
1
2
a
1
k
2

Z
g
)
which behaves like a constant and shows that the change in Z
g
is moderate
between the low energy value

Z
g
at k = 0 and its value at k = m
P
the Planck
scale, for which
k
2

Zg
= 1. We have shown in [9] that a relation between the
moments of the cuto function f involved in the spectral action, of the form
f
2
5f
0
suces to give a realistic value of the Newton constant, provided
one applies the spectral action at the unication scale 10
17
GeV. The
above discussion of the running of Z
g
shows that this yields a reasonable
low energy value of the Newton constant G.
The form
Z
= a
1
k
2
of the running of a coupling with mass
2
dimension
implies that, as a rule, even if this coupling happens to be small at low
scale, it will necessarily be of the order of
2
at unication scale. For the
Majorana mass terms, we explained in [9] why they are of the order of

2
at unication and their role in the see-saw mechanism shows that one
should not expect them to be small at small scale, thus a running like (12)
is realistic. Things are quite dierent for the mass term of the Higgs. The
spectral action delivers a huge mass term of the form
2
H
2
and one can
check that it is consistent with the sign and order of magnitude of the qua-
dratic divergence of the self-energy of this scalar eld. However though this
shows compatibility with a small low energy value it does by no means al-
low one to justify such a small value. Giving the term
2
H
2
at unication
scale and hoping to get a small value when running the theory down to low
energies by applying the renormalization group, one is facing a huge ne
tuning problem. Thus one should rather try to nd a physical principle to
explain why one obtains such a small value at low scale. In the noncommu-
tative geometry model M F of space-time the size of the nite space F
is governed by the inverse of the Higgs mass. Thus the above problem has
a simple geometric interpretation: Why is the space F so large
9
in Planck
units? There is a striking similarity between this problem and the problem
of the large size of space in Planck units. This suggests that it would be
very worthwhile to develop cosmology in the context of the noncommutative
geometry model of space-time, with in particular the preliminary step of the
Lorentzian formulation of the spectral action.
This also brings us to the important role played by the dilaton eld which
determines the scale in the theory. The spectral action is taken to be a
function of the twisted Dirac operator so that D
2
is replaced with e

D
2
e

.
In [10] we have shown that the spectral action is scale invariant, except for
the dilaton kinetic energy. Moreover, one can show that after rescaling the
9
by a factor of 10
16
.
11
physical elds, the scalar potential of the theory will be independent of the
dilaton at the classical level. At the quantum level, the dilaton acquires
a Coleman-Weinberg potential [21] and will have a vev of the order of the
Planck mass [22]. The fact that the Higgs mass is damped by a factor of
e
2
, can be the basis of an explanation of the hierarchy problem.
In this paper we investigate the accuracy of the approximation of the spec-
tral action by the rst terms of its asymptotic expansion. We consider the
concrete example given by the four-dimensional geometry S
3
a
S
1

where S
3
a
is the round sphere of radius a as a model of space, while S
1

is a circle of ra-
dius viewed as a model of imaginary periodic time at inverse temperature
. We compute directly the spectral action and compare it with the sum of
the rst terms of the asymptotic expansion. In section two we start with the
round sphere S
3
a
and use the known spectrum of the Dirac operator together
with the Poisson summation formula, to estimate the remainder when using
a smooth test function. This is then applied to the four-dimensional space
S
3
a
S
1

where it is shown that, for natural test functions, the spectral action
is completely determined by the rst two terms, with an error of the order
of 10

2
where is the inner diameter , = inf(a, ) in units of the
cuto . Thus for instance an inner diameter of 10 in cuto units yields the
accuracy of the rst hundred decimal places, while an inner diameter of 10
31
corresponding to the visible universe at inverse temperature of 3 Kelvin and
a cuto at Planck scale
10
, yields an astronomical precision of 10
62
accurate
decimal places. This is then extended in the presence of Higgs elds. The
above direct computation allows one to double check coecients in the spec-
tral action. It also implies, for S
3
a
S
1

, the vanishing of all the Seeley-De

Witt coecients a
2n
, n 2, in the heat expansion of the square of the Dirac
operator. This is conrmed in section three, by a local computation of the
heat kernel expansion, where it is shown that a
4
and a
6
vanish due to subtle
cancelations.
2. Estimate of the asymptotics
The number N() of eigenvalues of [D[ which are
(13) N() = # eigenvalues of D in [, ],
is a step function N() which jumps by the integer multiplicity of an eigen-
value whenever belongs to the spectrum of [D[. This integer valued func-
tion is the superposition of two terms,
N() = N()) +N
osc
().
The oscillatory part N
osc
() is generically the same as for a random matrix.
The average part N()) is computed by a semiclassical approximation from
10
while the age of the universe in Planck units gives a 10
61
.
12
local expressions involving the familiar heat equation expansion and will now
be carefully dened assuming an expansion of the form
11
(14) Trace (e
t
)

(t 0)
for the positive operator = D
2
. One has,
(15)
s/2
=
1

_
s
2
_
_

0
e
t
t
s/21
dt
and the relation between the asymptotic expansion (14) and the function,
(16)
D
(s) = Trace (
s/2
)
is given by,
< 0 gives a pole at 2 for
D
with
(17) Res
s=2

D
(s) =
2 a

()
= 0 (no log t term) gives regularity at 0 for
D
with
(18)
D
(0) = a
0
.
For simple superpositions of exponentials, as Laplace transforms,
(19) f(u) =
_

0
e
su
h(s) ds
we can write formally,
(20) f(t) =
_

0
e
st
h(s) ds
and
(21) Trace (f(t))

_

0
s

h(s) ds .
For < 0 one has,
s

=
1
()
_

0
e
sv
v
1
dv
and
_

0
s

h(s) ds =
1
()
_

0
f(v) v
1
dv
so that
Trace (f(t))

<0
1
2
Res
s=2

D
(s)
_

0
f(v) v
1
dv t

+
D
(0) f(0) +

>0
a

_

0
s

h(s) ds . (22)
11
the a dened here is equal to the Seeley-de Witt coecients an+2 in dimension n.
13
Now we assume that the only > 0 for which a

,= 0 are integers and note

that
(23)
_

0
s
n
h(s) ds = (1)
n
f
(n)
(0) ,
so that all the terms a

for > 0 have vanishing coecients when f is

a cuto function which is constant equal to 1 in a neighborhood of 0. To
dene the average part we consider the limit case f(v) = 1 for [v[ 1 and
0 elsewhere and get for the coecients of (22)
(24)
1
2
_

0
f(v) v
1
dv t

=
t

(2)
,
which, with t =
2
, gives the following denition for the average part
(25) N()) :=

k>0

k
k
Res
s=k

D
(s) +
D
(0) .
To get familiar with this denition we shall work out its meaning in a simple
case,
Proposition 1. Assume that Spec D Z and that the total multiplicity of
n is P (n) for a polynomial P(x) =

c
k
x
k
. Then one has
N ()) =
_

0
P (u) du +c , c =

c
k
(k) ,
where is the Riemann zeta function.
Proof. One has by construction, with P(x) =

c
k
x
k
,

D
(s) =

P(n) n
s
=

c
k
(s k)
Thus
Res
s=k

D
(s) = c
k1
and
N()) :=

k>0

k
k
c
k1
+
D
(0) .
The constant
D
(0) is given by

c
k
(k)
and is independent of .
14
2.1. The sphere S
4
. We check the hypothesis of Proposition 1 for a round
even sphere. We recall ([26]) that the spectrum of the Dirac operator for
the round sphere S
n
of unit radius is given by
(26) Spec(D) = (
n
2
+k) [ k Z, k 0
where the multiplicity of (
n
2
+k) is equal to 2
[
n
2
]
_
k+n1
k
_
. Thus for n = 4 one
gets that the spectrum consists of the relative integers, except for 1, 0, 1.
The multiplicity of the eigenvalue m is 4
_
k+3
k
_
for k + 2 = m which gives,
for the total multiplicity of m
P(m) =
4
3
(m + 1)m(m1) =
4
3
(m
3
m)
which shows that one gets the correct minus sign for the scalar curvature
term after integration using Proposition 1. Thus one gets (up to the nor-
malization factor
4
3
)
(27) Tr([D[
s
) = (s 3) (s 1)
This function has a value at s = 0 given by
(3) (1) =
1
120
+
1
12
=
11
120
which, taking into account the factor
4
3
from normalization, matches the
coecient
11
360
4 which appears in the spectral action in front of the Gauss-
Bonnet term, as will be shown in 3.
2.2. The sphere S
3
. We now want to look at the case of S
3
and determine
how good the approximation of (22) is for test functions.
In order to estimate the remainder of (22) in this special case we shall use
the Poisson summation formula
(28)

Z
h(n) =

h(n) ,

h(x) =
_
R
h(u)e
2ixu
du
or rather, since the spectrum is
1
2
+Z in the odd case, the variant
(29)

Z
g(n +
1
2
) =

Z
(1)
n
g(n)
(obtained from (28) using h(u) = g(u +
1
2
)).
In the case of the three sphere, the eigenvalues are (
3
2
+k), for k 0 with
the multiplicity 2
_
k+2
k
_
. Thus n +
1
2
has multiplicity n(n + 1). This holds
not only for n 0 but also for n Z since the multiplicity of (n +
1
2
)
is n(n + 1) = m(m + 1) for m = n 1. In particular
1
2
is not in the
spectrum. Thus when we evaluate Tr(f(D/)), with f an even function, we
get the following sum
(30) Tr(f(D/)) =

Z
n(n + 1)f((n +
1
2
)/)
15
We apply (29) with g(u) = (u
2

1
4
)f(u/). The Fourier transform of g is
g(x) =
_
R
g(u)e
2ixu
du =
_
R
(u
2

1
4
)f(u/)e
2ixu
du
=
3
_
R
v
2
f(v)e
2ixv
dv
1
4

_
R
f(v)e
2ixv
dv
We introduce the function

f
(2)
which is the Fourier transform of v
2
f(v) and
we thus get from (29),
(31) Tr(f(D/)) =
3

Z
(1)
n

f
(2)
(n)
1
4

Z
(1)
n

f(n)
If we take the function f in the Schwartz space o(R), then both

f and

f
(2)
have rapid decay and we can estimate the sums

n=0
[

f(n)[ C
k

k
,

n=0
[

f
(2)
(n)[ C
k

k
which gives, for any given k, an estimate for a sphere of radius a of the form:
(32) Tr(f(D/)) = (a)
3
_
R
v
2
f(v)dv
1
4
(a)
_
R
f(v)dv +O((a)
k
)
The radius simply rescales D and enters in such a way as to make the product
a dimensionless. This can be seen by noting that the ratio
D

contains the
term
1

and the radius enters as

1
a
in the inverse dreibein e

. Note
that, provided that k > 1 one controls the constant in front of (a)
k
from
the constants c
j
with
[x
k

f(x)[ c
1
, [x
k

f
(2)
(x)[ c
2
.
To get an estimate of these constants c
j
, say for k = 2, one can use the
L
1
-norms of the functions f(v) and (v
2
f(v)) where =
2
v
is the
Laplacian. If we take for f a smooth cuto function we thus get that the c
j
are of order one.
In fact we shall soon get a much better estimate (Corollary 4 below) which
will show that, for suitable test functions, a size of N in cuto units, a N,
already ensures a precision of the order of e
N
2
. We shall work directly with
the physically more relevant model consisting of the product S
3
S
1
viewed
as a model of the imaginary time periodic compactication of space-time at
a given temperature. Our estimates will work well for a size in cuto units
as small as N 10 and will give the result with an astronomical precision
for larger values. These correspond to later times since both the radius of
space and the inverse temperature are increasing functions of time in this
simple model.
16
2.3. The product S
3
S
1
. We now want to move to the 4-dimensional
Euclidean case obtained by taking the product M = S
3
S
1
of S
3
by a
small circle. We take the product geometry of a three dimensional geometry
with Dirac operator D
3
by the one dimensional circle geometry with Dirac
(33) D
1
=
1

so that the spectrum of D

1
is
1

(Z +
1
2
).
Lemma 2. Let D be the Dirac operator of the product geometry
(34) D =
_
0 D
3
1 + i D
1
D
3
1 i D
1
0
_
The asymptotic expansion for of the spectral action of D is given by
(35) Tr(h(D
2
/
2
)) 2 Tr(k(D
2
3
/
2
)) ,
where the function k is given by
(36) k(x) =
_

x
(u x)
1/2
h(u) du
Proof. By linearity of both sides in the function h (using the linearity of
the transformation (36)) it is enough to prove the result for the function
h(x) = e
bx
. One has
D
2
=
_
D
2
3
1 + 1 D
2
1
0
0 D
2
3
1 + 1 D
2
1
_
and
Tr(e
b D
2
/
2
) = 2 Tr(e
b D
2
1
/
2
) Tr(e
b D
2
3
/
2
)
Moreover by (33) the spectrum of D
1
is
1

(Z +
1
2
) so that, using (29), and
for xed and b, one has for all k > 0,
Tr(e
b D
2
1
/
2
)

b
1/2
+O(
k
) .
Thus
Tr(e
b D
2
/
2
) = 2 Tr(

b
1/2
e
b D
2
3
/
2
) +O(
k+3
)
and the equality (35) follows from
_

x
(u x)
1/2
e
bu
du =

b
1/2
e
bx
which shows that the function k associated to h(x) = e
bx
by the linear
transformation (36) is k(x) =

b
1/2
e
bx
.
One can write (36) in the form
(37) k(x) =
_

0
v
1/2
h(x +v) dv ,
17
which shows that k has right support contained in the right support of h
i.e. that if h vanishes identically on [a, [ so does k. It also gives a good
estimate of the derivatives of k since

n
x
k(x) =
_

0
v
1/2

n
x
h(x +v) dv .
In fact, in order to estimate the size of the remainder in the asymptotic
expansion of the spectral action for the product M = S
3
S
1
, we shall now
use the two dimensional form of (29),
(38)

Z
2
g(n +
1
2
, m +
1
2
) =

Z
2
(1)
n+m
g(n, m)
where the Fourier transform is given by
(39) g(x, y) =
_
R
2
g(u, v)e
2i(xu+yv)
dudv
For the operator D of (34), and taking for D
3
the Dirac operator of the
3-sphere S
3
a
of radius a, the eigenvalues of D
2
/
2
are obtained by collecting
the following
(
1
2
+n)
2
(a)
2
+ (
1
2
+m)
2
()
2
, n, m Z
with the multiplicity 2n(n + 1) for each n, m Z. Thus, more precisely
Tr(h(D
2
/
2
)) =

Z
2
2n(n + 1)h((
1
2
+n)
2
(a)
2
+ (
1
2
+m)
2
()
2
)
which is of the form:
(40) Tr(h(D
2
/
2
)) =

Z
2
g(n +
1
2
, m+
1
2
)
where
(41) g(u, v) = 2(u
2

1
4
)h(u
2
(a)
2
+v
2
()
2
)
One has
g(0, 0) =
_
R
2
g(u, v)dudv = 2
_
R
2
(u
2

1
4
)h(u
2
(a)
2
+v
2
()
2
)dudv
= 2 (a) ()
_
R
2
((a)
2
x
2

1
4
)h(x
2
+y
2
)dxdy
using u = x(a) and v = y () . Thus we get:
(42) g(0, 0) = 2 () (a)
3
_

0
h(
2
)
3
d () (a)
_

0
h(
2
)d
To estimate the remainder, given by the sum

(n,m)=(0,0)
(1)
n+m
g(n, m)
18
we treat separately the Fourier transforms of
g
1
(u, v) = u
2
h(u
2
(a)
2
+v
2
()
2
) , g
2
(u, v) = h(u
2
(a)
2
+v
2
()
2
)
One has
g
2
(n, m) =
_
R
2
g
2
(u, v)e
2i(nu+mv)
dudv
=
2
a
_
R
2
h(x
2
+y
2
)e
2i(nax+my)
dxdy =
2
a
2
(na, m)
where the function of two variables
2
(u, v) is the Fourier transform,
(43)
2
(u, v) =
_
R
2
h(x
2
+y
2
)e
2i(ux+vy)
dxdy = (u
2
+v
2
)
The function is related to the function k(x) dened by (36), and one has
(44) (u
2
) =
_
R
k(x
2
)e
2iux
dx
so that (u
2
) is the Fourier transform of k(x
2
).
For g
1
one has, similarly,
g
1
(n, m) =
_
R
2
g
1
(u, v)e
2i(nu+mv)
dudv
=
4
a
3
_
R
2
x
2
h(x
2
+y
2
)e
2i(nax+my)
dxdy =
4
a
3

1
(na, m)
where the function of two variables
1
(u, v) is the Fourier transform,

1
(u, v) =
_
R
2
x
2
h(x
2
+y
2
)e
2i(ux+vy)
dxdy
which is given in terms of (43) by
(45)
1
(u, v) =
2
(u
2

(u
2
+v
2
) +
1
2

(u
2
+v
2
))
Now for any test function h in the Schwartz space o(R), the function
x
2
h(x
2
+y
2
) is in the Schwartz space o(R
2
) and thus we have for its Fourier
transform, and any k > 0, an estimate of the form
(46) [
1
(u, v)[ C
k
(u
2
+v
2
)
k
We thus get, for k > 2,
[

(n,m)=(0,0)
(1)
n+m
g
1
(n, m)[

(n,m)=(0,0)
[ g
1
(n, m)[
=
4
a
3

(n,m)=(0,0)
[
1
(na, m)[ C
k

4
a
3

(n,m)=(0,0)
((na)
2
+(m)
2
)
k
C
k

4
a
3
()
2k

(n,m)=(0,0)
(n
2
+m
2
)
k
, = inf(a, )
We thus get, using a similar estimate for g
2
,
19
Theorem 3. Consider the product geometry S
3
a
S
1

. Then one has, for

any test function h in the Schwartz space o(R), the equality
(47) Tr(h(D
2
/
2
)) = 2
4
a
3
_

0
h(
2
)
3
d
2
a
_

0
h(
2
)d+()
where () = O(
k
) for any k is majorized by
[()[ 2
4
a
3

(n,m)=(0,0)
[
1
(na, m)[+
1
2

2
a

(n,m)=(0,0)
[
2
(na, m)[ .
with
j
dened in (43) and (45).
This implies that all the Seeley coecients a
2n
vanish for n 2, and we
shall check this directly for a
4
and a
6
in 3.
This vanishing of the Seeley coecients does not hold for the 4 sphere and it
is worth understanding why one cannot expect to use the Poisson summation
in the same way for the 4 sphere. The problem when one tries to use the
Poisson formula as above is that, e.g. for the heat kernel, one is dealing with
a function like [x[e
tx
2
which is not smooth and whose Fourier transform
does not have rapid decay at .
2.4. Specic test functions. We shall now concretely evaluate the re-
mainder in Theorem 3 for analytic test functions of the form
(48) h(x) = P(x)e
x
where P is a polynomial of degree d. The Fourier transforms of the functions
of two variables x
2
h(x
2
+y
2
) and h(x
2
+y
2
) are of the form

j
(u, v) = P
j
(u, v)e
(u
2
+v
2
)
where the P
j
are polynomials. More precisely, since the Fourier transform of
e
(x
2
+y
2
)
is
1

(u
2
+v
2
)

one obtains the formula for P

2
by dierentiation
at = 1 and get

2
(u, v) = P(

)
=1
1

(u
2
+v
2
)

which is of the form

2
(u, v) = Q((u
2
+v
2
))e
(u
2
+v
2
)
where Q is a polynomial of degree d. The transformation P Q = T(P) is
given by
(49) Q(z) = P(

)
=1
1

Moreover one then gets

1
(u, v) = (2)
2

2
u

2
(u, v)
= (u
2
Z
1
((u
2
+v
2
)) +Z
2
((u
2
+v
2
)))e
(u
2
+v
2
)
20
where
(50) Z
1
= Q+ 2Q

, Z
2
=
1
2
(QQ

)
We let C
P
be the sum of the absolute values of the coecients of Q = T(P).
Corollary 4. Consider the product geometry S
3
a
S
1

. Let = inf(a, ).
Then one has, with h any test function of the form (48), the equality
(51) Tr(h(D
2
/
2
)) = 2
4
a
3
_

0
h(
2
)
3
d
2
a
_

0
h(
2
)d+()
where, assuming
_
d(1 + log d) and 1,
(52) [()[ Ce

2
()
2
, C =
4
a
3
C
P
(8 + 6d + 2d
2
)
Proof. One has
x
k
e
x/2
1 , x 3k(1 + log k)
Thus, for (n, m) ,= (0, 0) one has
[
2
(na, m)[ C
P
e

2
((na)
2
+(m)
2
)
since ((na)
2
+ (m)
2
) 3d(1 + log d). Moreover, since e

2
()
2

1
4
,
one gets

(n,m)=(0,0)
e

2
((na)
2
+(m)
2
)
8e

2
()
2
and

(n,m)=(0,0)
[
2
(na, m)[ 8 C
P
e

2
()
2
A similar estimate using (50) yields

(n,m)=(0,0)
[
1
(na, m)[ (2 + 3d +d
2
) C
P
e

2
()
2
Thus by Theorem 3, the inequality (52) holds for
C = C
P
(2
4
a
3
(2 + 3d +d
2
) + 4
2
a) .
One then uses the hypothesis 1 to simplify C.
The meaning of Corollary 4 is that the accuracy of the asymptotic expansion
is at least of the order of e

2
()
2
. Indeed the term
4
a
3
in (52) is the
dominant volume term in the spectral action and the other terms in the
formula for C are of order one. Thus for instance for a size 100 one
gets that the asymptotic expansion accurately delivers the rst 6820 decimal
places of the spectral action. Note that some test functions of the form (48)
give excellent approximations to cuto functions, in particular
(53) h
n
(x) =
n

0
(x)
k
k!
e
x
21
The graph of h
n
(x
2
) is shown in Figure 1 for n = 20. For h = h
20
the
computation gives C
P
(8 + 6d + 2d
2
) 2 10
6
so that this constant only
interferes with the last six decimal places in the above accuracy.
In our simplied physical model we test the approximation of the spectral
action by its asymptotic expansion for the Euclidean model
E(t) = S
3
a(t)
S
1
(t)
where space at a given time t is given by a sphere with radius a(t) and (t)
is a uniform value of inverse temperature. One can then easily see that the
above approximation to the spectral action is fantastically accurate, going
backwards in time all the way up to one order lower than the Planck energy.
In doing so the radius a(t) varies between at least 10
61
Planck units and
10 Planck units (i.e. 10
34
m), while the temperature varies between 2.7

K
and
_
10
31
_

K. It is for an inner size less than 10 in Planck units that the

approximation does break down.
Remark 5. For later purpose it is important to estimate the constant C
P
in terms of the coecients of the polynomial P. Let then P(z) = z
n
. One
has h(x) = (x)
n
e
x
and the function k(x) associated to h by (36) is
k(x) =
_
R
h(x +y
2
)dy =
n
e
x
n

0
_
n
k
_
x
nk
_
R
y
2k
e
y
2
dy
=
1/2
e
x
n

0
_
n
k
_
(
1
2
+k)(x)
nk
To obtain Q = T(P) one then needs to compute the Fourier transform (u
2
)
of the function k(x
2
) as in (44). The Fourier transform of (x
2
)
m
e
x
2
is

m
(u) = (4)
m

2m
u
e
u
2
= L
m
(u
2
)e
u
2
and one checks, using the relation
L
m+1
(z) = 1/2((1 2z)L
m
(z) + (1 + 4z)L

m
(z) 2zL

m
(z)
that the sign of the coecient of z
k
in L
m
(z) is (1)
k
. Thus the sum of the
absolute values of the coecients of L
m
is equal to L
m
(1) =
m
(i
1/2
)/e.
Thus since the above sum giving k(x) has positive coecients we get that,
for P(z) = z
n
, the constant C
P
is given by Q((u
2
+ v
2
)e
(u
2
+v
2
)
)/e for
(u, v) = (i
1/2
, 0), which gives
C
P
=
_
R
2

n
(y
2
+x
2
)
n
e
y
2
x
2
+2

x1
dxdy .
One then gets
(54) C
P
2
_

0
u
2n+1
e
(u1)
2
du = O(
n
n!) , > 1 .
22
Thus, for an arbitrary polynomial P(z) =

d
0
a
k
z
k
one has
(55) C
P
2
_

0
[P[(u
2
)e
(u1)
2
udu, [P[(z) =

[a
k
[z
k
2.5. The Higgs potential. We now look at what happens if one performs
the following replacement on the operator
D
2
D
2
+H
2
where H is a constant. This amounts with the above notations to the
replacement
(56) h(u) h(u +H
2
/
2
) .
As long as H
2
/
2
is of order one, we can trust the asymptotic expansion
and we just need to understand the eect of this shift on the two terms of
(47). We look at the rst contribution, i.e.
2
4
a
3
_

0
h(
2
)
3
d =
4
a
3
_

0
uh(u)du
We let x = H
2
/
2
, and get, after the above replacement,
_

0
uh(u+x)du =
_

x
(vx)h(v)dv =
_

0
(vx)h(v)dv
_
x
0
(vx)h(v)dv
=
_

0
vh(v)dv x
_

0
h(v)dv
_
x
0
(v x)h(v)dv
The rst term corresponds to the initial contribution of
4
a
3
_

0
uh(u)du.
The second term gives
(57)
4
a
3
x
_

0
h(v)dv =
2
a
3
H
2
_

0
h(v)dv
which is the expected Higgs mass term from the Seeleyde Witt coecient
a
2
. To understand the last term we assume that h is a cuto function.
Lemma 6. If h is a smooth function constant on the interval [0, c], then
for x = H
2
/
2
c the new terms arising from the replacement (56) are
given by
(58)
2
a
3
_

0
h(v)dv H
2
+
1
2
ah(0) H
2
+
1
2
a
3
h(0) H
4
Proof. For the perturbation of
4
a
3
_

0
uh(u)du, besides (57), we just
need to compute the last term
_
x
0
(v x)h(v)dv, and one has

_
x
0
(v x)h(v)dv = h(0)
_
x
0
(x v)dv =
1
2
h(0)x
2
since h is constant on the interval [0, x].
23
We then look at the eect on the second contribution, i.e.

2
a
_

0
h(
2
)d =
1
2

2
a
_

0
h(u)du
We let, as above, x = H
2
/
2
, and get
_

0
h(u +x)du =
_

x
h(v)dv =
_

0
h(v)dv
_
x
0
h(v)dv
Thus the perturbation, under the hypothesis of Lemma 6 is

1
2

2
a(xh(0)) =
1
2
ah(0) H
2

The three terms in formula (58) correspond to the following new terms for
the spectral action
The Higgs mass term coming from the Seeleyde Witt coecient a
2
.
The RH
2
term coming from the Seeleyde Witt coecient a
4
.
The Higgs potential term in H
4
coming from the Seeleyde Witt
coecient a
4
.
We can now state the analogue of Theorem 3 as follows
Theorem 7. Consider the product geometry S
3
a
S
1

. Let = inf(a, ).
Then one has, with h any test function of the form (48), the equality
Tr(h((D
2
+H
2
)/
2
)) = 2
4
a
3
_

0
h(
2
)
3
d
2
a
_

0
h(
2
)d
+
4
a
3
V (H
2
/
2
) +
1
2

2
a W(H
2
/
2
) +()
where
(59) V (x) =
_

0
u(h(u +x) h(u))du, W(x) =
_
x
0
h(u)du
and, assuming
_
d(1 + log d), 1, and H
2

2
c/,
(60) [()[ Ce

2
()
2
, C =
4
a
3
C

P
(8 + 6d + 2d
2
)
where, with P(z) =

d
0
a
k
z
k
one has
C

P
= 4
_

0
[P[(u
2
+c)e
(u1)
2
udu, [P[(z) =

[a
k
[z
k
Proof. The new terms simply express the replacement (56) in the formula of
Theorem 3. The new function

h thus obtained is still of the form (48) since
it is obtained from h by a translation. It thus only remains to estimate C

P
where

P is the polynomial such that

h(u) =

P(u)e
u
. For P(z) = z
n
the
constant C

P
for a translation u u +x, x 0 of the variable, is less than
the constant C
Px
for the polynomial
P
x
(u) = P((u +x)) =

_
n
k
_
(x)
nk
(u)
k
24
Thus, by Remark 5, (55), the constant C
Px
is estimated by
C
Px
2
_

0
(u
2
+x)
n
e
(u1)
2
udu
which is an increasing function of x and thus only needs to be controlled for
x = c/ in our case.
For instance, for h = h
20
the computation gives C

P
(8 +6d +2d
2
) 3 10
7
for c = 1, so that this constant only interferes with the last seven decimal
places in the accuracy which is the same as in Corollary 4.
Moreover as shown in Lemma 6, when h is close to a true cuto function
(61)
4
a
3
V (H
2
/
2
) +
1
2

2
a W(H
2
/
2
)
= 2
2
a
3
_

0
h(
2
)d H
2
+
1
2
ah(0) H
2
+
1
2
a
3
h(0) H
4
+
where the remainder is estimated from the Taylor expansion of h at 0. For
instance for the functions h
n
of (53), one has by construction 0 h
n
(x) 1
for all x and since
h
n
(x) = 1

a(n, k)x
n+k+1
, a(n, k) = (1)
k
/((n +k + 1)n!k!)
one gets, for h = h
n
the estimate
[[
4
a
3
x
n+3
(n + 3)(n + 1)!
+
2
a
x
n+2
2(n + 2)!
, x = H
2
/
2
.
While the function W is by construction the primitive of h, and is increasing
for h 0 one has, under the hypothesis of positivity of h,
Lemma 8. The function V (x) is decreasing with derivative given by
V

(x) =
_

x
h(v)dv
The second derivative of V (x) is equal to h(x).
Proof. One has
V

(x) =
_

0
uh

(u +x)du = [uh(u +x)]

0

_

0
h(u +x)du
which gives the required results.
3. SeeleyDe Witt coefficients and Spectral Action on S
3
S
1
In this section we shall compute the asymptotic expansion of the spectral
action on the background geometry of S
3
S
1
using heat kernel methods.
This will enable us to check independently the accuracy of the estimates
derived in the last section. This background is physically relevant since it
can be connected with simple cosmological models. We refer to [23], [8] for
the formulas and the method of the computation. The general method we
25
use is also explained in great detail in a forthcoming paper [18]. We start
by computing a
0
:
a
0
=
Tr(1)
16
2
_

gd
4
x =
1
4
2
_
S
3
_
3
gd
3
x
_
S
1
dx
=
1
4
2
_
2
2
a
3
_
(2) = a
3
where is the radius of S
1

and the volume of the three sphere S

3
a
of radius
a is 2
2
a
3
[25] .
Next we calculate a
2
a
2
=
1
16
2
_
d
4
x

gTr
_
E +
1
6
R
_
where E is dened from the relation
D
2
= (g

+E)
where for pure gravity we have
E =
1
4
R
so that (using Tr(1) = 4 )
a
2
=
1
4
2
_

R
12
__
d
4
x

g
since the curvature is constant. The curvature tensor
12
is, using the coordi-
nates of [25] for the three sphere S
3
a
with labels i, j, k, l and the label 4 for
the coordinate in S
1

,
R
ijkl
= a
2
(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) , i, j, k, l = 1, 3
R
ijk4
= 0
R
i4j4
= 0
where g
ij
is the metric on the three sphere as in [25]. The Ricci tensor is
given, following the sign convention of [24] which introduces a minus sign in
passing from the curvature tensor to the Ricci tensor, by
R
ij
= g
kl
R
ikjl
= 2a
2
g
ij
R
i4
= 0
R
44
= 0
Thus the scalar curvature is
R = g
ij
R
ij
=
6
a
2
12
the sign convention for this tensor is the same as in [23]
26
and the a
2
term in the heat expansion simplies to
a
2
= a
_
1
2
_
Next for a
4
we have
a
4
=
1
16
2
1
360
_
M
d
4
x

g Tr
_
12R

;
+ 5R
2
2R

+2R

+ 60RE + 180E
2
+ 60E

;
+ 30

_
where for the pure gravitational theory, we have
E =
1
4
R,

=
1
4
R
ab

ab
In this case it was shown in [8] that a
4
reduces to
a
4
=
1
4
2
1
360
_
d
4
x

g
_
5R
2
8R
2

7R
2

_
=
1
4
2
1
360
_
d
4
x

g
_
18C
2

+ 11R

_
(62)
which is obviously scale invariant. The Weyl tensor C

is dened by
C

= R

+
1
2
(R

+R

1
6
(g

) R
This tensor vanishes on S
3
S
1
as can be seen by evaluating the components
C
ijkl
= a
2
[(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) + 2(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) (g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
)] = 0
C
ijk4
= 0
C
i4k4
= 0
Similarly the Gauss-Bonnet term
R

=
1
4

=
ijk4

_
R

ij
R

k4
_
= 0
The next step of calculating a
6
is in general extremely complicated, but
for spaces of constant curvature the expression simplies as all covariant
derivatives of the curvature tensor, Riemann tensor and scalar curvature
vanish. The non-vanishing terms are, using Theorem 4.8.16 of [23] and the
27
above sign convention for the Ricci tensor R

and the scalar curvature,

a
6
=
1
16
2
_
d
4
x

gTr
_
1
9 7!
_
35R
3
42RR
2

+ 42RR
2

208R

192R

48R

44R

80R

)
+
1
360
_
12

6R

4R

+ 5R
2

+60E
3
+ 30E
2

+ 30RE
2
+ 5R
2
E 2R
2

E + 2R
2

E
__
We can now compute each of the above eighteen terms. These are listed in
an appendix. Collecting these terms we obtain that the integrand is

4a
6
9 7!
_
35 6
3
+ 42 72 42 72 + 208 24 192 24 + 48 24 44 24 80 6
_

4a
6
360
_
9 + 18 12 + 45 +
15 27
2

5 27
2
15 27 + 10 27 36 + 36
_
= a
6
_
2
3

2
3
_
= 0
implying that
a
6
= 0 ,
which shows that the cancelation is highly non-trivial. We conclude that
the spectral action, up to terms of order
1

4
is given by
S =
4
_

0
xh(x) dx
_
a
3
_

2
_

0
h(x) dx
_
a
1
2
_
+O
_

4
_
After making the change of variables x =
2
we get
S = ()
_
2 (a)
3
_

0

3
h
_

2
_
d (a)
_

0
h
_

2
_
d
_
+O
_

4
_
This conrms equation (47) and shows that, to a very high degree of accu-
racy, the spectral action on S
3
S
1
is given by the rst two terms.
Remark 9. It is worth noting that one can also check the value of the
Gauss-Bonnet term on S
4
and show that it agrees with the value obtained
in (27). To see this note that the Riemann tensor in this case is given by
([25])
R

= a
2
(g

)
which implies
13
that
C

= 0
R

= 6a
4
13
One can double check the value of R

using the GaussBonnet Theorem.

28
and thus
a
4
=
1
4
2
11
60
a
4
_
S
4
d
4
x

g
The volume of S
4
is
V
4
=
_
S
4
d
4
x

g =
2
5
2

_
5
2
_a
4
=
8
2
3
a
4
and this implies that
a
4
=
11
360
4
which agrees exactly with the calculation of (27) based on zeta functions.
Appendix
In this appendix we compute the eighteen non-vanishing terms that appear
in the a
6
term of the heat kernel expansion. Using the properties
R
2

= R
2
ij
= 12a
4
R
2

= R
2
ijkl
= 12a
4
35R
3
= 35(6)
3
a
6
42RR
2

= 42 (6) (12) a
6
208R

= 208 (2)
3
g
ij
g
ik
g
jk
= 208 (2)
3
(3) a
6
192R

= 192R
ik
R
jl
R
ijkl
= 192 (2)
2
g
ik
g
jl
(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) a
6
= 192 (24) a
6
48R

= 48 (2) g
ij
(g
ik
g
lm
g
il
g
km
) (g
jk
g
lm
g
jl
g
km
) a
6
= 48 (4) g
ij
(2g
ij
) a
6
= 48 (24) a
6
44R

= 44 (g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) (g
ip
g
jq
g
iq
g
jp
) (g
kp
g
lq
g
lq
g
lp
) a
6
= 44 (4) (6) a
6
80R

= 80 (g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) (g
ik
g
pq
g
iq
g
pk
) (g
jl
g
pq
g
jq
g
pl
) a
6
= 80 (3g
jl
g
pq
g
pq
g
jl
g
lj
g
pq
+g
lq
g
jp
) (g
jl
g
pq
g
jq
g
pl
) a
6
= 80 (9 3 + 3 3) a
6
= 80 (6) a
6
Collecting the rst set of terms we get

4a
6
9 7!
_
35 6
3
+ 42 72 42 72 + 208 24 192 24 + 48 24 44 24 80 6
_
=
2
3
a
6
29
Now we continue with the second set of terms
12Tr (

) = 12
_
1
4
_
3
Tr (
ab

cd

ef
) R
ab

R
cd

R
ef

= Tr (1) 12
_
1
4
_
3
(8) R
ab
R
bc
R
ac
=
3
2
(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) (g
jl
g
pq
g
jp
g
lq
) (g
pk
g
iq
g
pi
g
kq
) a
6
Tr (1)
=
3
2
(3g
ik
g
pq
g
ik
g
pq
g
ik
g
pq
+g
iq
g
pk
) (g
pk
g
iq
g
pi
g
kq
) 4a
6
=
3
2
(3 3 + 9 3) 4a
6
= 9 4a
6
6R

Tr (

) =
6
4
2
R

Tr (
ab

cd
) R
ab

R
cd

=
12
16
R

R
ab

R
ab
Tr (1)
=
3
4
(g
ik
g
jl
g
il
g
jk
) (g
ip
g
jq
g
iq
g
jp
) (g
kp
g
lq
g
kq
g
lp
) 4a
6
= 3 (9 3) 4a
6
= 18 4a
6
4R

Tr (

) =
1
4
R

Tr (
ab

cd
) R
ab

R
cd

=
1
2
R

R
ab

R
ab
Tr (1)
=
1
2
(2) g
ij
(g
ip
g
mq
g
iq
g
mp
) (g
jp
g
mq
g
jq
g
mp
) 4a
6
= 2 (9 3) 4a
6
= 12 4a
6
5RTr
_

_
=
5
16
RTr (
ab

cd
) R
ab

R
cd

=
5
8
RR
2

Tr (1)
=
5
8
(6) (12) 4a
6
= 45 4a
6
30
60Tr
_
E
3
_
= 60
_

1
4
_
3
R
3
Tr (1)
= 60
_

1
4
_
3
(6)
3
4a
6
=
1
2
(15 27) 4a
6
30Tr
_
E
2

_
= 30
_

3
2
_
(2)
_

1
4
_
2
a
2
R
2

Tr (1)
=
90
16
(12)4a
6
=
1
2
(5 27) 4a
6
30RE
2
Tr (1) =
30
16
R
3
Tr (1)
=
_
15
8
_
(6)
3
4a
6
= (15 27) 4a
6
5R
2
ETr (1) =
5
4
R
3
4
=
5
4
(6)
3
4a
6
= (10 27) 4a
6
2R
2

ETr (1) = 2R
2

R
4
_
4
= 2 (12)
_

3
2
_
4a
6
= 36 4a
6
2R
2

ETr (1) = 2 (12)

_

3
2
_
4a
6
= 36 4a
6
Collecting the second set of terms we get

4a
6
360
_
9 + 18 12 + 45 +
15 27
2

5 27
2
15 27 + 10 27 36 + 36
_
=
2
3
a
6
Thus the sum of all the terms in a
6
is zero.
31
Acknowledgements
The research of A. H. C. is supported in part by the Arab Fund for Social
and Economic Development.
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