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# Phenotypical Behavior and Evolutionary Slavery

## 1 Introduction

A problem that has always puzzled evolutionary game theorists is the amount of observed cooperation among individuals from the same specie or even belonging to different species, even when it would be harmful for each individual to cooperate. Animals warn their companions about the approach of a predator shouting to their comrades, attracting attention to themselves and, therefore, increasing the chances that the predator will notice them and choose them as the next meal. Animals seem to help their fellows more often than it would be expected in these situations and this problem has been offered two solutions. The problem here is that, even if cooperation is the best solution for all the individuals, it is not stable in a Prisoner Dilemma circumstance. Any mutant that would decide not to cooperate would see its success increasing, as the other animals help him, but he doesn’t run the risks of attracting the predators to himself by not shouting when it could.

However, the structure that really is playing these games and ”learning” a way to improve its strategy, is not the individuals, who are mortal and, no matter how successful they become, will disappear. It is their genetic code that is continuously changing itself, to adapt to new circumstances or simply because it has found out a better way to do things. This idea was first proposed by Richard Dawkins .

Hamilton  proposed that, for a rare gene to survive, it would make sense to cooperate with our brothers, as they would have a 50% chance of having that same gene. The percentage would go down fast to $`1/8`$ of chance between first cousins, so the cooperation would be something that could happen inside families, among close relatives. Our own survival would still be more important than that of our relatives, but we could warn them about danger, as long as that would make their survival, along with our own genes, much more likely. In extreme cases, like in an ant colony where all ants share exactly the same genetic code, the advantages to a gene survival gained from cooperation would be even stronger and the behavior of soldier ants, who never reproduce and die without hesitation to protect their colony would make even more sense.

Axelrod suggested the second solution to the dilemma in the form of a strategy. He created several programs who would compete inside a computer, in an environment where the Prisoner Dilemma were to happen and gave it of them a strategy to try to defeat the other competing programs. He found out that the program that cooperated with programs that had previously cooperated with it and did not when in the other case would systematically win over the non-cooperating strategies. The reason for that was quite simple. When facing a non-cooperative algorithm, our algorithm would not risk itself and would not cooperate getting the best possible return. However, at least when facing copies of itself, both would cooperate, allowing for a best overall performance of the individuals.

Therefore, the theoretical possibilities for cooperation, so far, seemed to be some limited true cooperation among members of a family and the possibility of adoption of an strategy that would take us to be cooperative only when the individual we are interacting with has not failed to cooperate with us in the past. In this paper, I propose a third possible source of cooperation among individuals of a species. The key to such a cooperation is in the way that genes do influence the real behavior of one individual. So far, it has been considered in the literature that having a specific genetic code forces you to adopt a specific strategy .

But this doesn’t have to be that way. A mutant gene could come up with instructions that a percentage of the individuals possessing it would behave in a way, while others would do it differently. There might be some sort of trigger determining which individuals will follow which strategy, like the position of the individual in some hierarchy or anything as trivial as the fact of been born during a cold or a warm day. What makes the mutation here proposed a possible winner is not how this decision is taken, although for specific problems there might be best answers, but the fact that some individuals with exactly the same code will, at some point, decide to act one way or the other.

This possibility for different behaviors associated with the same gene, or the appearance of phenotypical properties nor dictated by the gene will, as we will see, open the possibility for the appearance of individuals who exist merely to serve their peers, while the others have a more comfortable life. Therefore, the use of the name evolutionary slavery in the title of this paper.

## 2 The Prisoner’s Dilemma and its Strategies

The Prisoner Dilemma happens in a very simple game between two players. In the example above, where an individual must decide whether or not warn its relative about the arrival of a predator, possibly calling the attention of the hunter to itself, let’s say that, in average it has a chance of 10% of being killed if she and her companion cooperate, 50% if none of them does and 90% of chance of been killed to the individual who cooperates when its partner does not, while the non-cooperative specimen will always stay safe if her partner cooperates. This can be represented in a matrix form as bellow:

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}0,5& 0\\ 0,9& 0,1\end{array}\right)$$
(1)
There are some known good strategies, in the sense that your decision doesn’t have to be never cooperate. As we mentioned those strategies are cooperate only with your very close relatives or cooperate with everybody but those who have failed to cooperate with you before. Both are good answers to the Dilemma and they can also be used together, so that you would always cooperate with someone who is a very close relative, regardless of their past actions, and cooperate with your friends as long as they cooperate with you. It is quite possible that we won’t find other fixed strategies that are not variations on these two themes and that work well in an evolutionary dynamics, not leading to extinction. However, a small change in the way we look at the problem immediately opens a new possibility.

So far, we have always considered that when an individual has a specific genetic code, the strategy he will choose is already completely determined by that code, like it was set in stone. In other words, we are imposing that the strategy one adopts had a purely genetical component, leaving nothing to the phenotype. Biologists know very well that same genes can lead to different external manifestations, different phenotypes. Therefore, there is really no reason why we should assume that for a specific gene, we should have a specific strategy. As we will see, a mutant gene that allows for different strategies associated with it could also flourish in a world where everybody else never cooperates or even in situations where everybody else is playing tit-for-tat.

Now imagine that our species is well adapted to its environment, meaning that it uses a strategy as good as everyone else. It has means to identify its close relatives reasonably well and the genes make it sure that cooperation happens in this case. Tit-for-tat may or may not be used by everybody; if it is, just assume our species does it as well. Now, a mutation occurs and we have that the new gene determines that part of the individuals who have it behave in a certain way, and the rest of the population behaves according to different rules. We are not concerned at this point with what triggers the individual decision about which behavior manifests in each case. We will return to this point later.

The two possible phenotypes for that gene differ in the strategy they assume when facing someone who will probably have the same genetic code (a close relative, something the species already knows how to recognize). When meeting strangers, they still act the same way, using the well-tested strategy their species developed. In the internal relations that lead to the Prisoner Dilemma, part of the population, that I will name as leaders, for reasons that will become clear very soon, never cooperates, while the other part, the servants, cooperate everytime. This way, a leader will always get the maximum benefit when interacting with a servant, while the servant has to support the burden of the worst result in return. The only advantage for a servant is the fact that the other servants will always cooperate with him.

For the gene, if the proportion of leaders and servants is right, the advantage obtained by the leaders is far stronger than the problems caused by their non-cooperative attitude. Against a population who never cooperates, this strategy may even improve the fitness of the servants, for the right parameters, as what they have to lose from the non-cooperation of the leaders may be compensated by the cooperation from other servants. The reason for that is quite easy to see. Suppose that half of the population of the mutant gene is consisted of leaders and the other half of servants. The interaction with individuals who do not have the gene is not altered and everybody always get a $`0.5`$ in average, just as the non-mutants get every time. Among themselves, the servants get a $`0.1`$ half of the time and a $`0.9`$ the other half, for the same $`0,9`$ average. If the penalty for cooperating with a non-cooperator was just a little smaller or if the result obtained for two non-cooperating individuals a little worse, the servant population would, in average, have an evolutionary advantage when compared with the non-mutant gene.

In any case, it is easy to see that the non-cooperative population has no protection at all against an invasion by this genetic strategy. For a percentage of the total population $`ϵ`$ having the mutant gene, the average result for the non-mutants doesn’t change from $`0.5`$. The mutants, however, get a

$$0.5+\frac{ϵ^2}{8}$$
(2)
result, with is always better than what the non-mutant population gets, for every value of $`ϵ`$.

Let’s see how this works on the general case where we have an invasion by a percentage of $`ϵ`$ mutants, where there is a probability of $`p`$ for a specific mutant to be a leader (and, of course $`1p`$ that he will be a servant). The Prisoner Dilemma takes here the general form

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& c\\ d& b\end{array}\right)$$
(3)
where $`c>b>a>d`$. That is, if you don’t cooperate and your opponent does, you get $`c`$ and he $`d`$, if both cooperate, both get $`b`$ and if none does, both get $`a`$.

In this case, we will have that a non-cooperative population would get as a result of its actions always $`a`$, no matter if they are interacting with mutants or with non-mutants. The case for the mutants, however has to be divided in two parts, the gains obtained by the leaders $`G_l`$ and the gain for servants $`G_s`$. These are given by

$`G_l`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1ϵ\right)a+ϵ\left[pa+\left(1p\right)c\right]`$
$`G_s`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1ϵ\right)a+ϵ\left[pd+\left(1p\right)b\right]`$
The average gain $`G`$ for the gene would then be given by

$$G=pG_l+\left(1p\right)G_s=a\left(1ϵ\right)+ϵS$$

where

$$S=\left[p^2\left(a+bcd\right)+p\left(c+d2b\right)+b\right]$$

If we have no leaders ($`p=0`$), we have that $`G=a(1ϵ)+bϵ`$. That is clearly better than the result for non-mutants, $`a`$, reflecting the fact that it is always good for a gene to create cooperation within the close family, or, in other words, with itself. If that kind of cooperation were already the rule, our newly created mutant population would also be identified as family by its close relatives and the result would change to $`G=b`$, or no improvement at all, but no worsening, as it was obvious, as everybody is cooperating with everybody, regardless of their genetic codes.

When we have only leaders ($`p=1`$), we obtain $`G=a`$, as nobody is cooperating. In a population where nobody cooperates, that would again mean no difference at all. If cooperation with your family is already the common strategy, we get $`G=b(1ϵ)+aϵ`$, which is actually worse than the result for the non-mutants. If you have only leaders and no servants, the strategy is useless, as expected.

For the appearance of some leaders to bring some advantage to the only servants case, we must see that $`G`$ increases as $`p`$ moves away from $`0`$, or, in other words,

$$\left(\frac{G}{p}\right)_{p=0}>0$$

which means $`c+d>2b`$. Therefore, we see that the strategy to acquire leaders only pays off when the average of $`c`$ and $`d`$ is higher than the result one gets from the cooperative strategy, what makes sense. When we have a Prisoner Dilemma where the parameters obey the $`c+d>2b`$ relation, the appearance of a gene with two phenotypes, servants and leaders, is possible. A population of non-cooperative individuals has no barrier against such an invasion.

Let’s now turn to the problem of invading a population where cooperation already happens. We have seen that, in this case, an invasion by a genetic code having only leaders can not happen as the result for such genes is actually worse than for those genes that do cooperate within their families. In this case, it is just a good idea to improve the mutant strategy. If a leader can recognize who in his close family is also a leader (using any kind of cues, like smell or body posture, the details of this recognition are not important to the discussion) and who is a servant, he might decide not to cooperate only with the servants and cooperate with the other leaders inside his own family. As that changes his results from the interaction with the other leaders from $`a`$ to $`b`$, that is actually an improved version that could easily replace the strategy we were discussing so far in all the events where that strategy was a winner. It is always useful for the leaders to cooperate inside their family.

In this case, we see have that

$`G_l`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1ϵ\right)b+ϵ\left[pb+\left(1p\right)c\right]`$
$`G_s`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1ϵ\right)b+ϵ\left[pd+\left(1p\right)b\right]`$
and

$$G=b\left(1ϵ\right)+ϵS$$

where

$$S=\left[p^2\left(2bcd\right)+p\left(c+d2b\right)+b\right]$$

Here, we will have that $`G(p=0)=G(p=1)=b`$, that is, for both a population with only leaders or only servants, the result is exactly the same as for the non-mutant population. If once more we have $`c+d>2b`$, we will have that, for any $`p`$ such that $`0<p<1`$ we have $`G>b`$. We have a maximum for $`G`$ when $`p=1/2`$, therefore, we see that the population will eventually mutate to a point where the numbers of leaders and servants are equal, as that point gives the highest gains.

Against a non-mutant population playing tit-for-tat, the outer strategy of the mutant gene just has to be tit-for-tat, as everybody. This way, the gene makes it sure that they keep getting cooperation from the individuals outside their family. In this case, both leaders and servants should keep playing tit-for-tat, as they did before their gene mutated. However, inside the family, we have seen that the division among leaders and servants, for the right parameters in the Prisoner Dilemma, brings a better result than simply cooperation. This way, the mutant gene can also invade an environment where everybody plays tit-for-tat and prosper there.

The equality in the number of leaders and servants means one very specific thing. That, under a Prisoner Dilemma game, it is the best genetic reply to have an equal number of individuals who increase their fitness as the number of individuals who have their fitness decreased. When the population is divided into these two groups, assymetric situations will arise as we will disccuss in the next section and it is not clera right now if the $`p=1/2`$ would be always the best reply.

## 3 Leaders and Servants in the General Two Players Case

The result obtained in the last section was first developed as an alternative solution to the Prisoner Dilemma, but that is not its only application. Let’s examine now another type of game, one non-symmetric game with complete information, where a dominant strategy exists. Non-symmetric games can happen among members of the same species easily, specially if each member has different positions, as males and females, parents and children, or, if the leader-servant solution was developed previously, among leaders and servants. So far, it was believed that all genes should choose that strategy, as it would be silliness to do otherwise, according with traditional Evolutionary Game Theory. That is not true anymore if we introduce leaders and servants. Let’s see how.

Two players, A and B, compete with each other, player A choosing the row and player B the line. Their payoffs are given by the pair

$$A=\left(\begin{array}{cc}2& 10\\ 4& 3\end{array}\right)$$

$$B=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 2& 3\end{array}\right)$$

Here, it is clear that player B will chose the second line, as no matter what A does, it is his best solution. Knowing this, either by rational analysis, or simply observing that B always do that, A is limited to choose between second line payoff and it will clearly picks the first column, so that the total result will be, for (A,B), (4,2). We have here an average result of 3. However, were the two players to choose first line and second column, the average would go up to 5.5, thanks to very good result A would be getting. Therefore, if these numbers represent, per example, the average number of surviving offspring A and B will have, when facing this asymmetric situation, it is a good strategy for a gene make its owners to choose the first line, second column whenever faced with this decision. Again, we are supposing A and B can determine here, with reasonable success, that they share this same gene, or in other words, that they are close relatives, something we will go on assuming in this paper.

Here, if the gene of player B changes, so that he will not cooperate for A to get a better result, B will prosper initially, but, as his descendents form their own family, where the components take always the dominant strategy, they lose the advantage our mutant gene had and, as consequence, evolution works to take them out of the scenario.

The same dynamics can happen for a number of other games, including games with multiple Nash equilibria, where one of the equilibria is clearly more favorable to the gene than the other one.

A point that should be very clear is that being a leader has not necessarily anything at all to do with be the one who gives the orders or make the decisions. Being a leader, in this context, means just that other beings from your family will sacrifice their own fitness in order to increase yours. They might even be the ones responsible for the decision making and you nothing more than a reproductive machine. The point of view here is not a subjective one, but an evolutionary one, where all that matters is whether you will leave fertile children or not. Evolution is not concerned with issues like freedom or happiness, unless they would represent some change in your fitness.

## 4 Flexibility, Specialization and Multi-Cellular Organisms

An important genetic decision is on strategies to decide who would play the role of leader and who would be the servant. More specifically, it is interesting to ask if these positions sholud be perpetual. We can reason that it is not clear whether a leader should remain leader for his entire life as there it may happen that it is evolutive better for the roles to be traded. A gene that, once the decision about which role a individual would be playing was made, would mark the leaders as leaders for life as well as the servants would be less flexible and possibly less efficient than one that would allow a change of ranks. Flexibility seems a good idea, at first. The flexible gene has to develop a way to determine when it is convenient to change the hierarchical positions, based on the actual information the individual has access to, and, maybe, on the amount of resources already invested in the old leaders. In the extreme case, supposing a well tuned mechanism of change, the change wouldn’t be necessary and this strategy would not cause any changes. Being as efficient as the non-flexible variety. In all the other occasions, the flexible gene would use its flexibility to get improved chances. In human societies, we see new leaders taking the place of old ones. That may be this effect of changing the position of leaders and servants working, or simply the rise of a new generation, as the older individuals, due to age, have their fitness decreased and it is useful for the species to put other leaders in their places.

This way of doing things should lead to change in the individual characteristics, associated with a change in the hierarchical position. This effect can be a good way to determine if the leaders are turning into servants or if they are just been replaced by new leaders. If the old leader, when demoted, loses its regal posture and seems weaker, as happens with some of them, we are actually seem his position been reverted. The opposite is hardly true. The only people who ever makeit into leader positions seem to be those who were already leaders of smaller groups. However, good fortune can change positions bringing power and/or money to a servant. In these cases, the opposite change, from servant to leader, is to be expected.

On the other hand, very rigid structures, where no changes at all are possible, allow a better specialization. A servant who is always a servant can specialize his work and get a better result for his family and genetic code, like in an ant colony. The gene could mutate to include an instruction that, if the individual is turned into a servant, his development would happen according to some blueprint; if he is a leader, his development to adulthood is changed to fit his different hierarchical position.

If specialization wins, this can lead to the appearance of large social structures and multicelular organisms. It has already been pointed that, the fact that all the beings in a community evolving towards a single organism share the same genetic code, makes cooperation a good idea, as that gene has its survival chances improved. Here, not only cooperation happens, but some individuals use strategies athat decreases their fitness, in order to improve their leaders’ fitness. In the limit situation, the servants might give up completely on having descendents of their own. The leaders make up for this by having descendents who are servants and others who are leaders, keeping the population with the same distribution as before. If the servants start contributing with very few descendants to the next generations, they soon stop having any evolutionary utility but increasing their leaders fitness.

That way, unicellular beings may have found, at some stage of their evolutions, that creating infertile descendents was a very good idea. Those beings would be programmed with some specific task, like protection, improved food gathering or anything else, whose function was to serve the ones who would be responsible for the procriation. That can lead to cells who were expert in their tasks, unable to survive on their on, but that contribute to the whole. In this sense, we could understand that the whole body of cells that make up a multicellular being are all slaves to the sexual cells, who are the ones that really make copies of themselves and of everybody else, of course. The genetic code survives and alters itself exactly by that reproduction. And, of course, the sexual cells, or leaders in the framework we developed above, want to create new servants (actually, the other parts of the body) or else they would fail in their task to get reproduced.

When the dynamics between flexibility and specialization comes to a stable solution, we have the creation of a new kind of being, a multicelular being, with no inner struggles about who should get the better fitness. The servant cell fitness can decrease to the point where they only reproduce to repair damaged tissues, and they don’t even try to get an evolutionary advantage for themselves.

The same process can work with multi-cellular entities and we will have structures like ant colonies, that are actually one only being, from an evolutionary point of view. The question of why some ants work only as soldiers, never getting reproduced, living just to be sacrificed, actually does not make sense from an evolutionary point of view. Those soldiers do not reproduce, so their fitness is not an issue when determining any type of evolutionary success. During the process they when they became servants, their fitness was decreasing and becoming each time less important for the species as a whole. Therefore, it was just expected that they have turned into expendable servants.

Both forces, for flexibility and for specialization, will compete and the most apropriate structure for the situation will win. It is quite possible, from what we see in nature, that the rigidity has a tendency to win, forming new individuals, superorganisms composed of the smaller organisms working together as one. It has won in the multi-cellular case, we see very few examples of colonies of microorganisms working together, with fertile leaders and servants present. While superorganisms consisting of very specialized servants cells working to improve the fitness of a few cells are very common and are all around us, like ourselves, or every animal or plant that we find. Specialization has won among the social insects. Among us, the struggle between the two forces still exists, but this may be just a transient phase. Only the future can tell.

## 5 Some Comments and Possible Applications

In this section will allow myself to speculate on the possible explanantions to natural phenomena provided by this result. I will ask the reader to forgive me if she thinks I have gone too far, my only defense is that I do believe that what I will be saying here is, if not a true description of Nature, at least, very reasonable and likely.

A first important warning is that one should be very careful when trying to identify situations where leaders and servants have appeared. This because these terms were used here in a very strict sense. Servants are not individuals who obey the leaders, but individuals who take strategies that decrease their fitness in order to increase their leader’s fitness. In this sense, there are situations where leaders and servants might, according to our definition be identified in the reversed positions than leaders and servants in every day language.

We know that it can be a good decision for a gene to spend some of its carriers to further the survivability of other carriers. We have seen how this mechanism works, how it can be the right evolutionary thing to do to sacrifice some individuals for a greater ”good”. It can not be stressed enough that this does not mean any of us must agree with this genetic moral. The point is just that moving resources from the servants to the leaders, when facing a problem with the appropriate parameters, can be a winner evolutionary strategy. Therefore, living beings can have inside them some kind of structure that makes this type of slavery not only possible, but even desirable by the servants. This slavery is not necessarily of the type we humans are used to recognize as such, of course.

All this can lead us to some speculation on how this genetic strategy can be actually seen working in nature and in ourselves. It seems to me that much of our society could have been built around such idea. In the old days, our communities were much smaller and people from the same tribe as we were probably our relatives. Therefore, it was a good genetic strategy to divide the human society in leaders and servants and to base our decision on whether someone belonged or not to our family on the fact that they lived in the same tribe we did.

We have inherent abilities to recognize hierarchy and our position in it and we expect to be treated accordingly. When a person is low in the hierarchy (a servant) it accepts abuses it wouldn’t accept if its position were higher (a leader). We have always heard that power corrupts. Well, when you are a leader, you should expect to be treated like one, that is part of the strategy. Per example, when a family has two children, the parents may decide to invest more in one of them and simply ignore the other one, if that would make the family fitness higher. The servant child will be expected to work and actually help feeding and fulfilling the needs of the leader, so that the leader child will have even better chances. More food, protection, more access to suitable members of the opposite sex.

When detecting leaders, human beings seem to use other clues than posture to determine the hierarchical position of someone. More specifically, we use clothing to represent our position and this seems to be a trace common to many cultures. Therefore, it is not so strange that people worry far more than would seem reasonable about fashion and tend to prefer more clothing that is more expensive just because it is more expensive and not because it is better or more difficult to make. If wearing clothes is something people will use to determine if we are leaders or servants and decide whether to cooperate or not with us, it is not strange at all that people, since a very young age, seem so irrationally attracted to clothes. That can be not just a way to show to which group you belong but also a strategy to be seen as a leader.

The teenage struggles to be accepted by their peers become now even more desperate. If all of them would play tit-for-tat in their social relationships, they would not have many problems among them. But that’s not the point of the game, the point is to establish oneself as leader, as someone the servants must cooperate with and not expect cooperation in return. Therefore, it is to be expected problems at some point before the adult life, some period when, if left to themselves, humans will fight each other, physically or verbally, trying by all means make themselves leaders and those they don’t like servants. And we all know what happens when one is a teenager.

The same effect should be expected around organizations and this could be checked. Organizations seen as leaders, with prestige, should be able to atract workers with smaller wages for the same task than declining organizations, as people would want to be seen as leaders. It is also very interesting to see how many organizations make it a very clear point to tell people they are servants as soon as they are accepted as part of the organization. Universities, with the treatment freshmen get from their just a little older fellows, military organizations, the examples are many. Make the man know he is a servant and he will cooperate, even when the organization, or its leaders, do not.

Other area where this effect can happen is in the field of ideas and in politics. Some ideas are know to send its followers to paths that actually make their fitness lower, but the idea still flourish. A priest who is told he can’t have sexual relationships, much less, children; a terrorist who dies for the cause, all have their fitness terribly diminished by these strategies. However, as we do have the ability to become servants, they can take these paths. In this case, their paths might serve somehow to further the goals of the ideas they are slaved to. But they can also serve to increase the fitness of the other member of the man’s tribe, be it a rligious community or a military party.

Our leaders do think about the life of their soldiers as something expendable in order to get to their objectives. Objectives that make them more powerful, possibly allowing their genes, or the dominant genes in their country, to dominate and spread over greater areas, therefore, increasing the fitness of their own genetic code. We have a great sense of hierarchy, we are constantly gauging our position in the social hierarchy and we tend to behave according to that. Our judgement may be different from that accepted by the official society, as in the case of a mob leader, but, even there, there is a hierarchy to be respected, it is always clear who the leaders are. We instinctively tell in our body stance, in the clothes we wear, where in that hierarchy we are and that knowledge is used by everybody to decide how to behave around us.

In the old days, we would just normally meet and call friends people who belonged to our tribe and who were probably our relatives. Working with them and playing leaders and servants then was a good choice. Nowadays we carry the same genes, but most people we meet are not family. Our systems to decide who we might expect to share a servant-leader relationship do not work as well anymore and can be exploited by our bosses, religious political leaders. It is no surprise to me that one of the most common practices in this fields is to make you feel like you are part of a family. Because people not only cooperate with their families, they also accept servant roles in that position and make sacrifices they wouldn’t do otherwise.

This has other possible applications. Police officers are notoriously known, to a greater or smaller extent, in several parts of the world and/or periods of history, for abusing their functions. Political leaders have done it even worse, some considering that nothing was more important than their personal desire. In both cases, we see people in positions that give them power, using this power in a non-cooperative way, expecting that the servants would obey them. The more power given to a person, the more she requires from her followers, and the more corrupt she becomes. What could be happening here is simply the fact that this person, who learned she is the supreme leader, knows instinctively that she must not cooperate with the servants. That can be the best genetic strategy. Therefore, it is our own genes that make us corrupt as we grow more and more powerful.

It is probaably more than a coincidence that, as culture changed and we start to tell our leaders and police men that they are not the real leaders, but servants of the rest of society, their behavior changes towards a more cooperative one. They still have power and the desire to use it and become leaders but, as the society do not treat them as leaders, the problems with abuses decreases.

Turning our attention back to psychological problems, it is interesting to ask how we notice and classify who is a leader and who is a servant. Posture is a good guess as well as tips we can give with our behavior. Other subtle ways can be working as well and some research to identify them could lead to interesting discoveries.

This dynamics can be used also to explain the apparently irrational success of self-help literature and movements. If you can convince people to behave as leaders, and the world will react to that by treating them that way, it is very likely they their lives will get better, as more people start cooperating with them. The down side to it is that their improvement happens with servants sacrificing themselves for the new leaders; this way, they are not really making the world a better place, just exploring it and making sure they get their best share of it.

Aggression inside families can be a mean to determine leadership. As we have seen, it is exactly inside a family that the leader-servant strategy is expected to work best, all other cases been just weaker variations, based on erroneous instinctive methods to determine family. What we have is that violence can be a mean for the leader to establish his dominance. Servants can’t be violent with their leaders, as that would make their leaders fitness worse, but, under the right circumstances, leaders could be violent and the servants would still serve them.

When someone makes himself a leader using brute force, it would be reasonable to expect that the other person would, if he were acting according to a dominant strategy for his personal interests, do something. Taking the problem to the police, changing relationships, fighting back, all are better personnal strategies than just accepting the violence. However, when servants recognize their position as servants, their instincts are expected to work towards keeping them in that position. Therefore, it should be very hard to convince a victim of aggression to act against her aggressor, when this happens inside a family.

In the economic arena, this type of dynamics is also known to happen. Conglomerates can force their component companies to take bad individual decisions, specially when dealing with companies from the same group, so that, in the whole, the conglomerate will profit more. As long as the group ends up better, they would never care about making one of their companies worse.

## 6 Conclusion

We have seen that when genes are playing their games, it is not always in their best interest to play it so that the individuals playing their parts would always the problem answer with a dominant strategy. There are situations when it is genetically preferred to have individuals making decisions against their best interests, so that the whole survivability of the gene gets increased. As long as the servants have a mean to adequately determine who are the leaders with the same genes as them, they can use that information to increase the leader’s fitness, even when it decreases their own. This solution is not evolutionary unstable, if the individuals adopting it belong to the same family.

The major consequences of this is that not only cooperation becomes more likely, helping to explain how it is so common in our word, but also that there will be times, even in non-symmetric games, when a dominant strategy for the gene carriers is not the best answer, from the gene point of view.


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# Phenomenology of the radion in the Randall-Sundrum scenario at colliders

## Abstract

Phenomenology of a radion ($`\varphi `$) that stabilizes the modulus in the Randall-Sundrum scenario is considered. The radion couples to the trace of energy momentum tensor of the standard model (SM) with a strength suppressed only by a new scale ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$) of an order of the electroweak scale. In particular, the effective coupling of a radion to two gluons is enhanced due to the trace anomaly of QCD. Therefore, its production cross section at hadron colliders could be enhanced, and the dominant decay mode of a relatively light radion is $`\varphi gg`$, unlike the SM Higgs boson case. We also present constraints on the mass $`m_\varphi `$ and the new scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ from the Higgs search limit at LEP and perturbative unitarity bound.

preprint:     KAIST–TH 00/1  DESY 00–030

It is one of the problems of the standard model (SM) to stabilize the electroweak scale relative to the Planck scale under quantum corrections, which is known as the gauge hierarchy problem. Traditionally, there have been basically two avenues to solve this problem : (i) electroweak gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by some new strong interactions (technicolor or its relatives) or (ii) there is a supersymmetry (SUSY) which is spontaneously broken in a hidden sector, and superpartners of SM particles have masses around the electroweak scale $`O(1001000)`$ GeV. However, new mechanisms based on the developments in superstring and M theories including D-branes have been suggested by Randall and Sundrum . If our world is confined to a three dimensional brane and the warp factor in the Randall and Sundrum (RS) theory is much smaller than 1, then loop corrections can not destroy the mass hierarchy derived from the relation $`v=e^{kr_c\pi }v_0`$, where $`v_0`$ is the VEV of Higgs field ($``$ $`O(M_P)`$) in the 5 dimensional RS theory, $`e^{kr_c\pi }`$ is the warp factor, and $`v`$ is the VEV of Higgs field ($``$ 246 GeV) in the 4 dimensional effective theory of the RS theory by a kind of dimensional reduction. Especially the extra-dimensional subspace needs not be a circle $`S^1`$ like the Kaluza-Klein theory , and in that case, it is crucial to have a mechanism to stabilize the modulus. One such a mechanism was recently proposed by Goldberger and Wise (GW) , and also by Cs$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}`$ki et al.. In such a case, the modulus (or the radion $`\varphi `$ from now on) is likely to be lighter than the lowest Kaluza-Klein excitations of bulk fields. Also its couplings to the SM fields are completely determined by general covariance in the four-dimensional spacetime, as shown in Eq. (1) below. If this scenario is realized in nature, this radion could be the first signature of this scenario, and it would be important to determine its phenomenology at the current/future colliders, which is the purpose of this work. Some related issues were addressed in Ref. .

In the following, we first recapitulate the interaction Lagrangian for a single radion and the SM fields, and calculate the decay rates and the branching ratios of the radion into SM particles. Then the perturbative unitarity bounds on the radion mass $`m_\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ are considered. Current bounds on the SM Higgs search can be easily translated into the corresponding bounds on the radion, which we will show in brief. Then the radion production cross sections at next linear colliders (NLC’s) and hadron colliders such as the Tevatron and LHC are calculated. Then our results will be summarized at the end.

The interaction of the radion with the SM fields at an electroweak scale is dictated by the 4-dimensional general covariance, and is described by the following effective Lagrangian   :

$$_{\mathrm{int}}=\frac{\varphi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi }T_{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }(\mathrm{SM})+\mathrm{},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =\varphi O(v)`$. The radion becomes massive after the modulus stabilization, and its mass $`m_\varphi `$ is a free parameter of electroweak scale. Therefore, two parameters $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ and $`m_\varphi `$ are required in order to discuss productions and decays of the radion at various settings. The couplings of the radion with the SM fields look like those of the SM Higgs, except for $`v\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$. However, there is one important thing to be noticed : the quantum corrections to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor lead to trace anomaly, leading to the additional effective radion couplings to gluons or photons in addition to the usual loop contributions. This trace anomaly contributions will lead to distinct signatures of the radion compared to the SM Higgs boson.

The trace of energy-momentum tensor of the SM fields at tree level is easily derived :

$`T_{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }(\mathrm{SM})^{\mathrm{tree}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \underset{f}{}}m_f\overline{f}f2m_W^2W_\mu ^+W^\mu m_Z^2Z_\mu Z^\mu +\left(2m_h^2h^2_\mu h^\mu h\right)+\mathrm{}\right],`$ (2)
where we showed terms with only two SM fields, since we will discuss two body decay rates of the radion into the SM particles, except the gauge bosons of which virtual states are also considered. The couplings between the radion $`\varphi `$ and fermion pair or weak gauge boson pair are simply related with the SM Higgs couplings with these particles through simple rescaling : $`g_{\varphi f\overline{f}}=g_{hf\overline{f}}^{\mathrm{SM}}v/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, and so on. On the other hand, the $`\varphi hh`$ coupling is more complicated than the SM $`hhh`$ coupling. There is a momentum dependent part from the derivatives acting on the Higgs field, and this term can grow up as the radion mass gets larger or the CM energy gets larger in hadroproductions of the radion. It may lead to the violation of perturbative unitarity, which will be addressed after we discuss the decay rates of the radion. Finally, the $`h\varphi \varphi `$ coupling could be described by

$$_{\mathrm{int}}(h\varphi ^2)=\frac{v}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}\varphi ^2\left[\frac{1}{2}^2h+\frac{m_h^2}{2}h\right],$$
(3)
which might lead to an additional Higgs decay $`h\varphi \varphi `$, if this mode is kinematically allowed, thereby enlarging the Higgs width compared to the SM case. However, this coupling actually vanishes upon using the equation of motion for the Higgs field $`h`$. This is also in accord with the fact that the radion couples to the trace of the energy momentum tensor and there should be no $`h\varphi `$ mixing after field redefinitions in terms of physical fields.

In addition to the tree level $`T_\mu ^\mu (\mathrm{SM})^{\mathrm{tree}}`$, there is also the trace anomaly term for gauge fields  :

$$T_{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }(\mathrm{SM})^{\mathrm{anom}}=\underset{G=\mathrm{SU}(3)_C,\mathrm{}}{}\frac{\beta _G(g_G)}{2g_G}\mathrm{tr}(F_{\mu \nu }^GF^{G\mu \nu }),$$
(4)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }^G`$ is the field strength tensor of the gauge group $`G`$ with generator(s) satisfying $`\mathrm{tr}(t_G^at_G^b)=\delta ^{ab}`$, and $`\beta _G`$ is the beta function for the corresponding gauge group. The trace anomaly term couples with the parameter of conformal transformation in our 3-brane. And the radion $`\varphi `$ plays the same role as the parameter of conformal transformation, since it belongs to the warp factor in the 5 dimensional RS metric . Therefore, the parameter associated with the conformal transformation is identified with the radion field $`\varphi `$. As a result, the radion $`\varphi `$ has a coupling to the trace anomaly term. For QCD sector as an example, one has

$$\frac{\beta _{QCD}}{2g_s}=(11\frac{2}{3}n_f)\frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }\frac{\alpha _s}{8\pi }b_{QCD},$$
(5)
where $`n_f=6`$ is the number of active quark flavors. There are also counterparts in the $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ sector. This trace anomaly has an important phenomenological consequence. For relatively light radion, the dominant decay mode will not be $`\varphi b\overline{b}`$ as in the SM Higgs, but $`\varphi gg`$.

Using the above interaction Lagrangian, it is straightforward to calculate the decay rates and branching ratios of the radion $`\varphi `$ into $`f\overline{f},W^+W^{},Z^0Z^0,gg`$ and $`hh`$.

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi f\overline{f})`$ $`=`$ $`N_c{\displaystyle \frac{m_f^2m_\varphi }{8\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\left(1x_f\right)^{3/2},`$ (6)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi W^+W^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^3}{16\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\sqrt{1x_W}(1x_W+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}x_W^2),`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi ZZ)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^3}{32\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\sqrt{1x_Z}(1x_Z+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}x_Z^2),`$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi hh)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_\varphi ^3}{32\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\sqrt{1x_h}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{x_h}{2}})^2,`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\varphi gg)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^2m_\varphi ^3}{32\pi ^3\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\left|b_{QCD}+{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}I_q(x_q)\right|^2,`$ (10)
where $`x_{f,W,Z,h}=4m_{f,W,Z,h}^2/m_\varphi ^2`$, and $`I(z)=z[1+(1z)f(z)]`$ with

$`f(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{y}}\mathrm{ln}[1{\displaystyle \frac{4}{z}}y(1y)]`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{arcsin}^2(1/\sqrt{z}),& z1,\hfill \\ \frac{1}{4}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1+\sqrt{1z}}{1\sqrt{1z}}\right)i\pi \right]^2,& z1.\hfill \end{array}`$ (14)
Note that as $`m_t\mathrm{}`$, the loop function approaches $`I(x_t)2/3`$ so that the top quark effect decouples and one is left with $`b_{QCD}`$ with $`n_f=5`$. For $`\varphi WW,ZZ`$, we have ignored $`SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$ anomaly, since these couplings are allowed at the tree level already, unlike the $`\varphi gg`$ or $`\varphi \gamma \gamma `$ couplings. This should be a good approximation for a relatively light radion.

Using the above results, we show the decay rate of the radion and the relevant branching ratio for each channel available for a given $`m_\varphi `$ in Figs. 1 and 2. In the numerical analysis, we use $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =v=246`$ GeV and $`m_h=150`$ GeV, and also included the QCD corrections. The decay rates for different values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ can be obtained through the following scaling : $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi )=(v/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi )^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =v)`$. The decay rate scales as $`(v/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi )^2`$, but the branching ratios are independent of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$. In Fig. 1, we also show the decay rate of the SM Higgs boson with the same mass as $`\varphi `$. We note that the light radion with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =v`$ could be a much broader resonance compared to the SM Higgs even if $`m_\varphi 2m_W`$. This is because the dominant decay mode is $`\varphi gg`$ (see Fig. 2), unlike the SM Higgs for which the $`b\overline{b}`$ final state is a dominant decay mode. This phenomenon is purely a quantum field theoretical effect : enhanced $`\varphi gg`$ coupling due to the trace anomaly. For a heavier radion, it turns out that $`\varphi VV`$ with $`V=W`$ or $`Z`$ dominates other decay modes once it is kinematically allowed. Also the branching ratio for $`\varphi hh`$ can be also appreciable if it is kinematically allowed. This is one of the places where the difference between the SM and the radion comes in. If $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi v`$, the radion would be a narrow resonance and should be easily observed as a peak in the two jets or $`WW(ZZ)`$ final states. Especially $`\varphi ZZ(l\overline{l})(l^{^{}}\overline{l^{^{}}})`$ will be a gold plated mode for detecting the radion as in the case of the SM Higgs. Even in this channel, one can easily distinguish the radion from the SM Higgs by difference in their decay width.

The perturbative unitarity can be violated (as in the SM) in the $`V_LV_LV_LV_L`$ or $`hhV_LV_L`$, etc. Here we consider $`hhhh`$, since the $`\varphi hh`$ coupling scales like $`s/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ for large $`s(p_{h_1}+p_{h_2})^2`$. The tree-level amplitude for this process is

$`(hhhh)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{sm_\varphi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t^2}{tm_\varphi ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{u^2}{um_\varphi ^2}}\right)`$ (17)
$`36\lambda ^2v^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{sm_h^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{tm_h^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{um_h^2}}\right)`$
$`6\lambda ,`$
where $`\lambda `$ is the Higgs quartic coupling, and $`s+t+u=4m_h^2`$. Projecting out the $`J=0`$ partial wave component ($`a_0`$) and imposing the partial wave unitarity condition $`|a_0|^2\mathrm{Im}(a_0)`$ (i.e. $`|\mathrm{Re}(a_0)|1/2`$), we get the following relation among $`m_h,v,m_\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, for $`sm_h^2,m_\varphi ^2`$ :

$$\left|\frac{2m_h^2+m_\varphi ^2}{8\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}+\frac{3\lambda }{8\pi }\right|\frac{1}{2}.$$
(18)
This bound is shown in the lower three curves of Fig. 3. We note that the perturbative unitarity is broken for relatively small $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi 130(300)`$ GeV for $`m_\varphi `$ 200 GeV (1 TeV). Therefore, the tree level results should be taken with care for this range of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ for a given radion mass.

At the $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders, the main production mechanism for the radion $`\varphi `$ is the same as the SM Higgs boson : the radion–strahlung from $`Z`$ and the $`WW`$ fusion, the latter of which becomes dominant for a larger CM energy . Again we neglect the anomaly contributions here. Since both of these processes are given by the rescaling of the SM Higgs production rates, we can use the current search limits on Higgs boson to get the bounds on radion. With the data from L3 collaboration, we show the constraints of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ and $`m_\varphi `$ in the left three curves of Fig. 3. Since L3 data is for $`\sqrt{s}=189`$ GeV and mass of $`Z`$ boson is about 91 GeV, the allowed energy for a scalar particle is about 98 GeV. If the mass of the scalar particle is larger than 98 GeV, then the cross section vanishes. Therefore if $`m_\varphi `$ is larger than 98 GeV, there is no constraint on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$. And the forbidden region in the $`m_\varphi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ plane is not changed by $`m_h98`$ GeV, because there is no Higgs contribution to the constraint for $`m_h98`$ GeV.

The radion production cross sections at NLC’s and the corresponding constant production cross section curves in the ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, $`m_\varphi `$) plane are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, respectively. We have chosen three different CM energies for NLC’s : $`\sqrt{s}=500`$ GeV, 700 GeV and 1 TeV. We observe that the relatively light radion ($`m_\varphi 500`$ GeV) with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi v`$ (upto $`1`$ TeV) could be probed at NLC’s if one can achieve high enough luminosity, since the production cross section in this region is less than a picobarn.

The production cross sections of the radion at hadron colliders are given by the gluon fusion into the radion through quark loop diagrams, as in the case of Higgs boson production, and also through the trace anomaly term, Eq. (4), which is not present in the case of the SM Higgs boson :

$$\sigma (pp(\mathrm{or}p\overline{p}))=K\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{LO}}(gg\varphi )_\tau ^1\frac{\tau }{x}g(x,Q^2)g(\tau /x,Q^2)𝑑x,$$
(19)
where $`\tau m_\varphi ^2/s`$ and $`\sqrt{s}`$ is the CM energy of the hadron colliders ($`\sqrt{s}=2`$ TeV and 14 TeV for the Tevatron and LHC, respectively). The $`K`$ factor includes the QCD corrections, and we set $`K=1.5`$. The parton level cross section for $`gg\varphi `$ is given by

$$\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{LO}}(gg\varphi )=\frac{\alpha _s^2(Q)}{256\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi ^2}\left|b_{QCD}+\underset{q}{}I_q(x_q)\right|^2,$$
(20)
where $`I(z)`$ is given in the Eqs. (11). For the gluon distribution function, we use the CTEQ5L parton distribution functions . In Fig. 6, we show the radion production cross sections at the Tevatron and LHC as functions of $`m_\varphi `$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =v`$. We set the renormalization scale $`Q=m_\varphi `$ as shown in the figure. When we vary the scale $`Q`$ between $`m_\varphi /2`$ and $`2m_\varphi `$, the production cross section changes about $`+30\%`$ to $`20\%`$. The production cross section will scale as $`(v/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi )^2`$ as before. Compared to the SM Higgs boson productions, one can clearly observe that the trace anomaly can enhance the hadroproduction of a radion enormously. As in the SM Higgs boson, there is a great possibility to observe the radion upto mass $`1`$ TeV if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi v`$. For a smaller $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, the cross section becomes larger but the radion becomes very broader and it becomes more difficult to find such a scalar. For a larger $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, the situation becomes reversed : the smaller production cross section, but a narrower width resonance, which is easier to detect. In any case, however, one has to keep in mind that the perturbative unitarity may be violated in the low $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$ region.

In summary, we presented the collider phenomenology for the radion, which was suggested by means of stabilizing the modulus in Randall-Sundrum scenario. Unlike other similar scenarios solving the hirerachy problem where the radion or Kaluza-Klein modes are heavy and/or very weakly coupled to the SM fields, the radion discussed by Goldberger and Wise can have sizable interactions with the SM, only suppressed by a one power of the electroweak scale. The radion phenomenology is very similar to the SM Higgs boson upto a simple rescaling of couplings by $`v/\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, except that its couplings to two gluons or two photons are enhanced by the trace anomaly. Also $`\varphi hh`$ coupling can be substantially larger than the corresponding triple Higgs couplings, and it increases as $`m_\varphi `$ or the CM energy grows up. We discussed various branching ratios and the decay rate of this radion, and the possibility to discover it at linear or hadron colliders. Unlike the SM Higgs boson, the relatively light radion dominantly decays into two gluons, not into the $`b\overline{b}`$ pair, and this makes the radion substantially broader than the SM Higgs if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi =v`$. A heavier radion decays into $`WW,ZZ`$ pairs with some fraction into two Higgs if it is kinematically allowed. Depending on the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi `$, the radion can be either broad or narrow, leading to larger (smaller) production rates at hadron colliders but more harder (easier) to detectability. One may be also able to probe some regions of $`(m_\varphi ,\mathrm{\Lambda }_\varphi )`$ if enough luminosity is achieved. It would be exciting to search for such a scalar particle which interacts with the trace of the energy-momentum tensor of the SM at the current/future colliders. Finally, although we considered the radion in the Randall-Sundrum-Goldberger-Wise scenario, our study can be equally applied to any scalar particle which couples to the $`T_\mu ^\mu (\mathrm{SM})`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

The work of SB, PK and HSL was supported by grant No. 1999-2-111-002-5 from the interdisciplinary Research program of the KOSEF and BK21 project of the Ministry of Education. JL is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Notes Added : While we were completing this work, there appeared two papers   that consider the same subjects as we do. The paper by Giudice et al. includes a direct coupling between the radion and the Ricci scalar parameterized by $`\xi `$ : $`_{\mathrm{int}}=\xi R\varphi ^2/2`$. Our case corresponds to $`\xi =0`$ in Ref. . And the usefulness of the mode $`\varphi \gamma \gamma `$ at hadron colliders was emphasized in Ref. . Qualitative conclusions of these papers are the same as ours where there are overlaps.


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# Moments of inertia for multi-quasiparticle configurations

## I Introduction

The moments of inertia of deformed atomic nuclei at low spins are a factor of two or three smaller than the rigid-body value. The reduction is attributed to the strong pair correlations, because nuclei in the ground state are in a superfluid condensed state . Angular momentum is generated by either rotating the deformed superfluid or by breaking Cooper pairs from this condensed state. In order to reach high spins, an increasing number of Cooper pairs are broken, which reduces and finally quenches the pair condensate. It has been often stated that after this transition, the moments of inertia should reach the rigid-body value . However, this conjecture is based on the consideration of two special cases : (i) the limit of large particle number, where the nuclear shell structure becomes unimportant; and (ii) nucleons in a harmonic oscillator potential at its equilibrium deformation.

Particularly for independent particles in a harmonic oscillator potential well, the moment of inertia has in the limit of vanishing angular velocity exactly the rigid-body value in any combination of stationary single-particle states provided the total energy is stationary with respect to volume-conserving variations of the equipotential ellipsoids . At finite angular velocity, the condition for the rigid-body value is that the second moments of the density distribution should have the ratio of the squares of the axes of the oscillator-plus-centrifugal equipotential ellipsoids, which is not exactly equivalent to a stationary energy . These results have led to the expectation that in real nuclei, the moment of inertia would not be very different from the rigid-body value if the pairing is quenched. This expectation was substantiated by early studies like, for example, that in Ref. of more realistic single-nucleon potentials, which seemed to indicate that permitting the nuclear system to relax to an equilibrium shape generally tends to reduce deviations from the rigid-body moment of inertia due to shell structure. The validity of the aforementioned conjecture for the real nuclear potential remains, however, a continuing subject of investigation with new theoretical and experimental techniques, and so does the related question of the current distribution in a rotating nucleus .

Systematic deviations from rigid-like behavior at high angular velocity have been demonstrated for transitional nuclei in the A$``$110 region  and discussed for superdeformed nuclei . In the present study we address the inertial behavior of a different class of nuclear excitations: high-seniority states in well deformed A$``$180 nuclei (see also the earlier work by Andersson et al. ). Recently, rotational bands have been observed in, for example, 178Hf, 178W and 179 that are built on configurations with up to four broken pairs (that is, seniority eight) and high $`K`$ values, where $`K`$ is the angular momentum with respect to the body-fixed deformation axis. It is found (see the empirical data in Fig. 1) that the moments of inertia are substantially below the rigid-body value. Furthermore, some bands deviate from the linear dependence of the angular momentum on the angular velocity, expected for the strong coupling of quasiparticles to the deformed field.

These features can be explained  by the persistence of pair correlations in the Lipkin-Nogami pairing model, combined with the assumption that the zero-pairing limit would result in rigid-like rotation. However, since the latter assumption is not self-evident, a microscopic determination of the moment of inertia in the zero-pairing limit is required. In the present work it is demonstrated, through tilted-axis-cranking (TAC) calculations, that the main experimental features can be understood by assuming that nucleons move in a rotating mean field with no pairing. The preliminary results of Ref.  are extended.

## II The tilted-axis-cranking Model

To describe the high-$`K`$ rotational bands, involving many unpaired nucleons and predominant magnetic dipole transitions, the tilted-axis-cranking approach  is employed. When pairing is neglected, the nuclear state $`|\omega `$ considered is a uniformly rotating Slater determinant which is an eigenstate of the “Routhian”

$$h^{}=h_{\text{def}}(\epsilon _2,\epsilon _4)\omega (j_1\mathrm{sin}\vartheta +j_3\mathrm{cos}\vartheta ),$$
(1)
where $`h_{\text{def}}`$ is the Hamiltonian of independent nucleons in a deformed potential, $`\omega `$ is the angular velocity, $`j_1`$ and $`j_3`$ the components of the angular momentum with respect to the principal axes 1 and 3 (symmetry axis) of the deformed potential, and $`\vartheta `$ the angle of the angular velocity with the 3-axis. The total Routhian $`E^{}`$ is obtained by applying the Strutinsky renormalization to the energy of the non-rotating system $`E_0`$. This kind of approach has turned out to be a quite reliable calculation scheme in the case of standard cranking . Thus we have

$$E^{}(\omega ,\vartheta ,\epsilon _2,\epsilon _4)=E_{LD}(\epsilon _2,\epsilon _4)\stackrel{~}{E}+\omega |h^{}|\omega .$$
(2)
By means of Strutinsky-averaging , the smooth energy $`\stackrel{~}{E}`$ is calculated from the non-rotating single-nucleon energies, obtained from the Hamiltonian $`h_{\text{def}}(\epsilon _2,\epsilon _4)`$.

The orientation angle $`\vartheta `$ is found by requiring the total angular momentum $`\stackrel{}{J}=\omega |\stackrel{}{j}|\omega `$ to be parallel to $`\stackrel{}{\omega }`$. This makes $`E^{}`$ a minimum with respect to $`\vartheta `$. In the case of the high-K bands we are interested in, the rotational axis is “tilted”, i. e. it does not coincide with one of the principal axes of the deformed potential ($`\vartheta 90^{}\text{ or }0^{}`$). The equilibrium shape is found by minimizing $`E^{}`$ with respect to the deformation parameters $`\epsilon _2`$ and $`\epsilon _4`$ of the potential.

The calculated angular momentum $`J(\omega )=\sqrt{J_1^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+J_3^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}}`$ is compared with the corresponding experimental function, which is constructed by the standard procedure: In terms of the energy levels $`E(I)`$ of a $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1`$ rotational band, where $`I`$ denotes the angular momentum quantum number, one sets $`\omega (J)=E(I)E(I1)`$ for $`J=I`$. For a given observed band, this defines a discrete set of empirical pairs of $`J`$ and $`\omega `$ from which the experimental function $`J(\omega )`$ is obtained by interpolation. (Taking $`\omega (J)`$ at $`J=(I\frac{1}{2})+\frac{1}{2}=I`$ simulates an RPA-correction to the Hartree-Fock energy ).

## III Single-nucleon Hamiltonian and deformations

In the present calculation for the nuclei 178Hf, 178W and 179W, the modified oscillator form  of the Hamiltonian $`h_{\text{def}}`$ was adopted. For the combinations of single-nucleon states listed in Table I, the equilibrium shape at zero angular velocity was

determined. Most of the configurations in 178W and 179W were found to have equilibrium values of the quadrupole deformation $`\epsilon _2`$ and hexadecapole deformation $`\epsilon _4`$ (see Ref. ) close to $`\epsilon _2=0.23`$ and $`\epsilon _4=0.02`$. Only the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ configurations, which have a proton in the $`1h_{9/2}`$ state, have somewhat larger equilibrium deformations, given approximately by $`\epsilon _2=0.25`$ and $`\epsilon _4=0.015`$. In the $`K^\pi =16^+`$ configuration in 178Hf, the equilibrium shape has $`\epsilon _2=0.22`$ and $`\epsilon _4=0.05`$. These values of the shape parameters were used in the following calculations. The difference between the deformation of the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ configurations and that of the other configurations in 178W and 179W changes the rigid-body moment of inertia by 6 %.

For the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ configurations, we studied the change of equilibrium shape as a function of the angular velocity. In the relevant interval of $`\omega `$, the variation of $`\epsilon _2`$ stays below 0.005 and that of $`\epsilon _4`$ is negligible. This corresponds to a 2 % variation of the rigid-body moment of inertia.

## IV Results and discussion

Figure 1 shows the calculated and empirical functions $`J(\omega )`$ for the configurations in Table I except those with $`K^\pi =7^{}`$ and $`15^+`$. A close correspondence between calculation and data is apparent from this figure. This includes recent data for a $`K^\pi =30^+`$ band in 178. It is also evident that the moments of inertia are considerably smaller than the rigid-body value, which is about 85 MeV-1 for these masses and shapes. The typical empirical moment of inertia is about 55 MeV-1. The $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands are discussed later.

This strong deviation from the behavior of the moment of inertia in the limit of large particle number  may be understood from the details of the shell structure at prolate deformation. Thus, the upper and middle parts of the 50–82 proton and 82–126 neutron shells, where the Fermi levels are situated in these nuclei (with $`Z=72,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}74}`$ and $`N=104\text{}106`$), have a concentration of orbitals that are strongly coupled to the deformed potential. This inhibits the generation of total angular momentum by alignment of the angular momenta of the individual nucleons with the 1-axis. The result is a moment of inertia that is smaller than the average. The effect is illustrated by Fig. 2, which shows that in comparison with the weakly coupled $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton orbital, the angular momentum of the strongly coupled orbitals tends to stay closely aligned with the 3-axis, and for some orbitals even slightly antialigned with the 1-axis.

In contrast, moments of inertia above the average are expected for nuclei with Fermi levels in the lower parts of the major shells. Such a variation was actually found through the 82–126 neutron shell in the detailed calculations in Ref. . With increasing deformation, the shell structure, and hence its contribution to the moment of inertia, is progressively damped . Less pronounced deviations from the rigid-body value are therefore expected for superdeformed nuclei.

It should be noted that the substantial deviations from the rigid-body moment of inertia seen in Fig. 1 occur at the calculated equilibrium shape of each configuration. A similar experience applies to the magnetic susceptibility of small metal clusters , which have a flat-bottom single-particle potential like that of atomic nuclei. The deviation from the rigid-body moment of inertia reflects a non-rigid flow of mass in the rotational states. Such intrinsic mass currents have been discussed for atomic nuclei by several authors  as well as for small metal clusters .

The behavior of the $`K^\pi =16^+`$, $`39/2^+`$, $`22^{}`$ and $`30^+`$ bands is well described in terms of a constant moment of inertia of each configuration with a value about 55 MeV-1. Such a constant moment of inertia corresponds to the familiar expression for the energy levels in a rotational band built on a strongly coupled intrinsic state, $`E(I)=(I(I+1)K^2)/2𝒥`$, and it indicates a collective origin of the angular momentum with respect to the 1-axis.

The $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands show a totally different behavior with a large up-curvature of the function $`J(\omega )`$. Asymptotically, in the limit of large angular velocity, the moments of inertia approach values similar to those of the other bands. As discussed in Ref. , this behavior results from the presence of a $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton orbital in the configurations of the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands. In fact, as the component $`\omega _1`$ of the angular velocity becomes finite, this weakly coupled orbital, which intrudes from the the $`Z=82\text{}126`$ spherical shell, immediately aligns its angular momentum with the 1-axis, thus making a significant contribution to the component $`J_1`$ of the total angular momentum on the 1-axis. The situation is illustrated in Fig. 2.

The functions $`J_1(\omega _1)`$ actually calculated for these two bands are shown in Fig. 3. Corresponding empirical functions were extracted from the

data by assuming, in close accordance with what is calculated, that $`J_3`$ is constant and equal to $`K`$, i. e.

$$J_1=\sqrt{J^2K^2},\omega _1=\omega \sqrt{1(K/J)^2}.$$
(3)
In the empirical range of $`\omega _1`$, both the calculated and the measured functions are seen to be fairly linear, and extrapolating these parts of the curves to $`\omega _1=0`$ yields the common value $`J_1=2.8\pm 0.5`$ (cf. Fig. 3).

In order to see how the behavior of the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands seen in Fig. 1 may emerge from this picture, consider an idealized scenario where the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton orbital makes a constant contribution $`i`$ to $`J_1`$, and all orbitals together a constant contribution to $`J_3`$ equal to $`K`$ and a contribution to $`J_1`$ equal to $`𝒥_R\omega _1`$, where $`𝒥_R`$ is a constant. (Such a schematic model is discussed in more detail in Sec. V C). With $`J_1=𝒥_R\omega _1+i`$ and (3), we have

$$\omega =\left(1\frac{i}{\sqrt{J^2K^2}}\right)\omega _{\text{sc}},\omega _{\text{sc}}=\frac{J}{𝒥_R},$$
(4)
whence $`\omega `$ is seen to become smaller than the frequency $`\omega _{\text{sc}}`$ for strong coupling ($`i=0`$).

In the calculation, there is a gradual increase of the contribution $`i`$ to $`J_1`$ of the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton orbital towards it maximum 9/2. Thus, the assumption above of a constant $`i`$ was too schematic. The calculated curves show a slight down-curvature due to saturation of $`i`$. The absence of a similar down-curvature in the data might be the result of a counteractive non-linearity of the remaining, collective, part of $`J_1`$. In that case, the present calculation does not get this part quite right and overestimates the collective moment of inertia by about 5 MeV-1. Nevertheless, these considerations show that (i) the essential difference of behavior, induced by the alignment with the 1-axis of the angular momentum of the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton, can be well understood, and (ii) the collective part $`𝒥_R`$ is about 55 MeV-1, like for the other bands.

## V Additional investigations

The calculations for zero pairing, and their comparison with experimental data, constitute the principal outcome of this work. However, it is also instructive to investigate some finite-pairing effects and other model assumptions.

### A Static pairing

Pairing is taken into account  by including the pair field in the quasiparticle Routhian

$$h^{}=h_{\text{def}}+\mathrm{\Delta }(P^++P)\lambda N\omega (j_1\mathrm{sin}\vartheta +j_3\mathrm{cos}\vartheta ),$$
(5)
where $`P^+`$ is the monopole pair operator and $`N`$ is the particle number. In order to keep the notation simple we do not distinguish between the proton and neutron parts of the pair field. The rotating deformed state is obtained by replacing the Slater determinant by the quasiparticle configuration $`|\omega `$, which is the eigenstate of (5). The vector $`\stackrel{}{J}`$ is equal to $`\omega |\stackrel{}{j}|\omega `$ with this new state $`|\omega `$. The chemical potential $`\lambda `$ is fixed by requiring $`\omega |N|\omega `$ to be equal to the actual particle number, and the pair gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ by the self-consistency condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }=G\omega |P|\omega `$. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$, this formalism is equivalent to the previous one.

The pairing force constants $`G_n`$ and $`G_p`$ were determined by the condition that the pair gaps in the nuclear ground state should be equal to the empirical odd-even mass differences. It is well known from previous studies (for instance, Ref. ) that with increasing angular velocity, the pair gaps and chemical potentials change their values essentially stepwise with a successive breaking of Cooper pairs. Since a detailed description of the paired state is not the concern of this paper, the chemical potentials and pair gaps were kept constant for each configuration as long as there was no pair breaking encountered.

The pair gaps determined at the band heads are listed in Table I. For most of the configurations, they are seen to vanish. Exceptions are the $`K^\pi =7^{}`$ and $`15^+`$ states. These have a common neutron configuration with one broken Cooper pair, which leaves a reduced but finite neutron pair gap. The $`K^\pi =7^{}`$ state furthermore has the ground-state proton configuration and hence the ground-state proton pair gap. The proton configuration of the $`K^\pi =15^+`$ state is found in the calculation to be just on the border of having a static proton pair field. Small variations of $`G_p`$ about the value obtained by adjustment to the odd-even mass difference in fact cause $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p`$ to vary between 0 and 0.5 MeV. For the calculations, we have chosen $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p=0`$, as also listed in Table I. This gives a good agreement with the measured function $`J(\omega )`$.

Figure 4 shows the functions $`J(\omega )`$ calculated for the $`K^\pi =7^{}`$ and $`15^+`$ bands. Both of them are seen to bend upwards near $`\omega =0.35`$ MeV. This is because, by breaking a Cooper pair, two neutrons in $`1i_{13/2}`$ orbitals align their angular momenta with the 1-axis. For $`\omega 0.4`$ MeV, a vanishing pair gap is calculated for this neutron configuration. Therefore, we let in the figure the curves calculated with the neutron pair gap at the band head join for $`\omega 0.4`$ MeV those calculated with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n=0`$. These are about 2 units below the measured curves in this range of $`\omega `$. We could not find a reason for the discrepancy.

This pair breaking is of the type known as a $`BC`$-crossing (see, for example, Ref. ). As also seen from Fig. 4, no similar upbends arise in the case $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n=0`$. This conforms to the general experience  that a static pair field is required for band crossings of the types $`AB`$, $`BC`$, etc.. Thus, the presence of upbends in the data is evidence for a static neutron pair field in these bands.

### B Pair fluctuations

Near the critical point of the vanishing of the static pair gap, large fluctuations of the pair field, known as dynamic pair correlations, are expected . Dynamic pair correlations are taken into account in an approximate way by the Lipkin-Nogami correction for the fluctuation of particle number in the BCS state. (See Ref.  and refs. therein). For several configurations, we made the Lipkin-Nogami calculation at the band head. The resulting Lipkin-Nogami pair gaps are also shown in Table I. With these gaps, $`J(\omega )`$ was calculated as in the case of static pairing (see Sec. V A), except that the chemical potentials were adjusted with the angular velocity so as to keep the correct expectation values of the proton and neutron numbers.

The calculated functions $`J(\omega )`$ for the $`K^\pi =16^+`$ and $`25^+`$ bands shown in Fig. 5 are representative for the results. It is seen that relative to the calculation without pairing, the pair fields produced by the Lipkin-Nogami pair gaps make only minor corrections to the angular momentum (of the order of 1 unit), which do not improve the agreement with experiment. Thus, pair fluctuations appear to be inessential for the explanation of the observed deviations from the rigid value of the moments of inertia at high values of $`K`$.

This result may seem to be at variance with the investigation of low-$`K`$ bands in Refs. . There it was found that at frequencies where the static pair gap is zero the pair fluctuations reduce the angular momentum by 3–4 units in the yrast band of even-even nuclei. The different sensitivity to the pair correlations may be understood. In order to generate the angular momentum along the 3-axis (high $`K`$) several pairs are broken. This blocks the affected single particle states from taking part in the pair correlations. However, it is just the contribution of these particles near the Fermi surface which is most sensitive to the pair correlations. In the case of the yrast bands of the even-even nuclei only one neutron pair (1$`i_{13/2}`$) is broken. Consequently these bands are more sensitive to the pair fluctuations. This argument is consistent with Refs. , where it was found that in bands with two broken pairs (odd-$`A`$ nuclei and negative parity bands in even-even nuclei) the pair fluctuations reduce the angular momentum only by 1–2 units. Hence, only the low-$`K`$ bands are suited to study the influence of the pair fluctuations on the moments of inertia.

### C A particle-rotor model calculation

It was seen in Sec. IV that the behavior of the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands at low angular velocity is largely determined by a single proton in a $`1h_{9/2}`$ orbital. The behavior was qualitatively explained in terms of a particle-rotor model where all nucleons except the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton are assumed to make a constant contribution to $`J_3`$ equal to $`K_R=K\frac{1}{2}`$ and a contribution to $`J_1`$ equal to $`𝒥_R\omega _1`$, where $`𝒥_R`$ is a constant. This situation may be further analyzed by calculating the quantal states of this model. In particular, we address the question of whether the deviation between the experiment and the calculation in the upper panel of Fig. 3 are related to the violation of angular momentum conservation in the TAC model. A quantal treatment of the system of a particle coupled to a $`K_R0`$ rotor was given previously in Ref. .

The coupling of the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton to the deformed core is treated in a schematic way. The particle space is restricted to a multiplet of angular-momentum eigenstates with quantum number $`j=9/2`$, and $`h_{\text{def}}`$, acting on the single proton, is taken to be a quadratic function of $`j_3`$. The coefficient of this quadratic function is chosen so as to reproduce the splitting of the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton level found for the full Hamiltonian $`h_{\text{def}}`$ at the deformations of the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ band heads (see Sec. III).

The particle-rotor problem can be treated in the semiclassical TAC approximation. The details are described in Ref. . The function $`J_1(\omega _1)`$ of the $`K^\pi =25^+`$ band thus calculated with $`𝒥_R`$=55 MeV-1 is shown in the lower panel of Fig. 3. It is seen that the schematic model reproduces the result of the full TAC calculation, seen in the upper panel, very closely.

The result of the exact quantal treatment of the same particle-rotor model is also shown in the lower panel of Fig. 3. In order to generate the plot the quantal energies are treated like empirical ones (see Secs. II and IV). The quantal calculation conforms better to the data than the TAC approximation in producing a more linear function $`J_1(\omega _1)`$. However, extrapolating this function from the empirical range of $`\omega _1`$ to $`\omega _1=0`$ yields $`J_1=3.5`$, which is significantly larger than the empirical value $`J_1=2.8`$.

The different behaviors of the quantal particle-rotor model and the TAC approximation to it arise essentially from replacing the recoil energy $`(j_1^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+j_2^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}})/2𝒥_R`$ by $`j_1^2/2𝒥_R`$ . While the former is approximately a constant, the latter acts as a potential that hinders the increase of $`j_1`$. Contrary to the quantal model, the cranking model was seen to reproduce the extrapolated value of $`J_1`$ found empirically for the $`K^\pi =45/2^{}`$ and $`25^+`$ bands. Thus, the nuclear system does not seem to absorb the recoil angular momentum of the $`1h_{9/2}`$ proton into just a single degree of freedom, as assumed in the quantal particle-rotor model. The present study does not provide an answer to the interesting question: How can the experimental curve $`J_1(\omega _1)`$ be so strikingly linear while the alignment is far from being complete?

### D How important is tilting the cranking axis?

In the standard principal-axis cranking (PAC) model, $`\omega _3=0`$ is assumed. Thus, one obtains a function $`J_1(\omega _1)`$. A corresponding empirical function is extracted from the data by combining the TAC geometry with the assumption $`J_3=K=\text{constant}`$ for a rotational band with a band head angular-momentum quantum number $`K`$ . What makes the essential difference between the PAC and TAC models is thus the term $`\omega _3j_3`$ in the Routhian (1) of the latter. This term violates the invariance under rotation by the angle $`180^{}`$ about the 1-axis, whose eigenvalue is the “signature”. In the PAC model, a “favored” and an “unfavored” function $`J_1(\omega _1)`$, where the latter is the larger, are associated with a configuration with $`K0`$. These functions have opposite signature and correspond to two separate level sequences with $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=2`$.

Derivatives $`dJ_1/d\omega _1`$ for the $`K^\pi =25^+`$ and $`30^+`$ bands calculated in both models are compared with the corresponding empirical data in Fig. 6. The derivative is seen to depend much more violently on $`\omega _1`$ in the PAC model than in the TAC model. Furthermore, the PAC calculation shows a substantial signature splitting. Since neither of these features is seen in the data, it must be concluded that the term $`\omega _3j_3`$ in the Routhian (1) is significant for the description of these high K-bands. The difference between the PAC and TAC results is larger for the $`K^\pi =30^+`$ than the $`K^\pi =25^+`$ band. This is due to the smaller deformation $`\epsilon _2`$ of the former.

## VI Conclusion

It has been shown quantitatively how the moments of inertia in the zero-pairing limit may be substantially lower than the rigid-body value, indicating the presence of mass currents of quantal origin in the body-fixed frame of reference. Lower-than-rigid moments of inertia are both calculated and observed systematically for rotational bands in 178Hf, 178W and 179W, where the neutron and proton Fermi levels are in the mid-to-upper portions of their respective shells. The analysis of a number of high-seniority bands shows that they behave as if the nuclei rotate in the unpaired state. The limited sensitivity of the calculated multi-quasiparticle rotational motion to pair gaps in the range 0–50% of their full value suggests that moments of inertia of high-$`K`$ bands may not be significantly affected by dynamic pair correlations.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and by the DOE grant DE-FG02-95ER40934.