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# Texture Specific Mass Matrices and CP Violating Asymmetry in 𝐵^𝑜_𝑑(𝐵̄^𝑜_𝑑)→𝜓𝐾_𝑆

## Abstract

In the context of texture 4 - zero and texture 5 - zero hierarchical quark mass matrices, CP violating asymmetry in $`B_d^o(\overline{B}_d^o)\psi K_S`$ (sin2$`\beta `$) has been evaluated by considering quark masses at $`m_Z`$ scale. For a particular viable texture 4 - zero mass matrix the range of sin$`2\beta `$ is: 0.27 - 0.60 and for the corresponding texture 5 - zero case it is 0.31 - 0.59. Further our calculations reveal a crucial dependence of sin2$`\beta `$ on light quark masses as well as the phase in this sector.

The recent first measurements of time dependent CP asymmetry $`a_\psi K_S`$ in $`B_d^o(\overline{B}_d^o)\psi K_S`$ decay by BABAR and BELLE collaborations suggest that these values could be smaller than the expectations from Standard Model analysis of the CKM unitarity triangle. For example, the reported asymmetry by BABAR and BELLE are as follows,

$`a_\psi K_S`$ $`=`$ $`0.12\pm 0.37\pm 0.09\mathrm{BABAR}\text{[1]},`$ (1)
$`a_\psi K_S`$ $`=`$ $`0.45_{0.440.09}^{+0.43+0.07}\mathrm{BELLE}\text{[2]},`$ (2)
whereas the earlier CDF measurements gave ,

$$a_\psi K_S^{\mathrm{CDF}}=0.79_{0.44}^{+0.41},$$
(3)
and a recent global analysis of the CKM unitarity triangle  gives the value

$$a_\psi K_S^{\mathrm{SM}}=0.75\pm 0.06.$$
(4)
Recently, several authors  \-  have studied the implications of the possibility of low value of $`a_\psi K_S`$ in comparison to the CDF measurements as well as the standard model expectations. In particular, Silva and Wolfenstein  have examined the possibilities of physics beyond the standard model in case $`a_\psi K_S`$ $`0.2`$.

In the context of texture specific mass matrices, $`a_\psi K_S`$ has been evaluated in the leading approximations , however without going into the detailed implications of $`a_\psi K_S`$ on the texture as well as the mass scale at which the quark masses are evaluated. Recently, it has been demonstrated - that texture 4 - zero quark mass matrices not only accommodate the CKM phenomenology but are also able to reproduce a neutrino mixing matrix which can accommodate Solar Neutrino Problem, Atmospheric Neutrino Problem and the oscillations observed at LSND. In particular, Randhawa et al.  have shown that there is a unique set of viable texture 4 - zero mass matrices in the quark sector as well as in the lepton sector. The purpose of the present communication is to investigate in detail and beyond the leading order the implications of $`a_\psi K_S`$ measurements for particular viable case of texture 4 - zero mass matrices as well as for texture 5 - zero mass matrices. It would also be interesting to examine the implications of low values of $`a_\psi K_S`$, in particular of $`a_\psi K_S`$ $``$ 0.2, a benchmark for Physics beyond the standard model as advocated by Silva and Wolfenstein .

We begin with the unique set of texture 4 - zero quark mass matrices considered by Randhawa et al. , for example,

| $`M_u=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& A_u& 0\\ A_u^{}& D_u& B_u\\ 0& B_u^{}& C_u\end{array}\right)`$ | $`M_d=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& A_d& 0\\ A_d^{}& D_d& B_d\\ 0& B_d^{}& C_d\end{array}\right)`$ |
| --- | --- |

(5)
where $`A_u=|A_u|e^{i\alpha _u}`$, $`A_d=|A_d|e^{i\alpha _d}`$, $`B_u=|B_u|e^{i\beta _u}`$ and $`B_d=|B_d|e^{i\beta _d}.`$ The elements of the mass matrices follow the following mass hierarchy

$$A_iD_iB_iC_i,i=u,d.$$
(6)
Within the Standard Model, $`a_\psi K_S`$ is related to the angle $`\beta `$ of the unitarity triangle, expressed as

$$a_\psi K_S^{\mathrm{SM}}=\mathrm{sin2}\beta ,\beta \mathrm{arg}\left[\frac{V_{cd}V_{cb}^{}}{V_{td}V_{tb}^{}}\right],$$
(7)
sin$`2\beta `$ can be calculated by evaluating the elements $`V_{cd}`$, $`V_{cb}`$, $`V_{td}`$ and $`V_{tb}`$ from the above mass matrices.

The above matrices can be diagonalized exactly and the corresponding CKM matrix elements can easily be found, for details we refer the reader to reference . However for the sake of readability of manuscript as well as for facilitating the discussion to evaluate sin$`2\beta `$, we reproduce below the exact expressions of $`V_{cd}`$, $`V_{cb}`$, $`V_{td}`$ and $`V_{tb}`$.

$`V_{cd}`$ $`=`$ $`ae^{i\varphi _1}+c\sqrt{(1R_u)(1R_d)}+c\sqrt{(b^2+R_u)(d^2+R_d)}e^{i\varphi _2},`$ (8)
$`V_{cb}`$ $`=`$ $`acd^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{d^2+R_d}{1R_d}}}e^{i\varphi _1}+\sqrt{(1R_u)(d^2+R_d)}`$ (9)
$`\sqrt{(b^2+R_u)(1R_d)}e^{i\varphi _2},`$
$`V_{td}`$ $`=`$ $`ab^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{b^2+R_u}{1R_u}}}e^{i\varphi _1}+c\sqrt{(b^2+R_u)(1R_d)}`$ (10)
$`c\sqrt{(1R_u)(d^2+R_d)}e^{i\varphi _2},`$
$`V_{tb}`$ $`=`$ $`acb^2d^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(b^2+R_u)(d^2+R_d)}{(1R_u)(1R_d)}}}e^{i\varphi _1}+\sqrt{(b^2+R_u)(d^2+R_d)}`$ (11)
$`+\sqrt{(1R_u)(1R_d)}e^{i\varphi _2},`$
where $`a=\sqrt{m_u/m_c}`$, $`b=\sqrt{m_c/m_t}`$, $`c=\sqrt{m_d/m_s}`$, $`d=\sqrt{m_s/m_b}`$, $`\varphi _1=\alpha _u\alpha _d.`$, $`\varphi _2=\beta _u\beta _d.`$ $`R_u=D_u/m_t`$ and $`R_d=D_d/m_b`$. In principle, sin$`2\beta `$ can be calculated using equations 7-11, however before doing that we first ensure that by varying the various input parameters, the CKM matrix elements are within their respective range given by PDG . In carrying out these calculations, we have taken the quark masses at $`m_Z`$ scale as recently advocated by Fusaoka and Koide  as well as by Fritzsch and Xing . For the sake of completion, however, we have also repeated the whole analysis with masses at 1 GeV scale, the scale conventionally used.

To facilitate the analysis, without loss of generality we first consider $`\varphi _2=0`$ as advocated by several authors . As mentioned earlier we have carried out our calculations at two different mass scales i.e. at $`m_Z`$ scale and at 1 GeV, the corresponding input masses are summarized in Table 1. For calculating the limits on sin$`2\beta `$, we scanned the full ranges of all the input masses at different CLs as well as at both the scales, varying $`\varphi _1`$ from $`0^o`$ to $`180^o`$. It may be of interest to point out that while carrying out the variations in $`R_u`$ and $`R_d`$, we have restricted their variation upto 0.2 only as the values higher than that are not able to reproduce the CKM elements within their range given by PDG. This is in accordance with our earlier calculations  as well as the hierarchical structure of mass matrices described by equation 6. Having taken care of the CKM matrix elements being within the limits mentioned by PDG, we proceed to find a range for sin$`2\beta `$ using expressions 7 \- 10. A similar exercise is carried out for (i) $`D_u`$ = 0, $`D_d0`$, (ii) $`D_u0`$, $`D_d`$ = 0, the two cases corresponding to texture 5 - zero matrices.

In Table 2, we have summarized the results of our calculations at the different mass scales for texture 4 - zero and texture 5 - zero mass matrices. From the table one can immediately find that the range of sin$`2\beta `$ in the case of texture 4 - zero mass matrices, with input masses at $`m_Z`$ scale and at 1$`\sigma `$ CL, is given by

$$sin2\beta =0.270.60.$$
(12)
This range looks to be narrow in comparison with the BELLE and BABAR results and is ruled out by the SM analysis. The corresponding range for sin$`2\beta `$ narrows further when quark masses are considered at 1 GeV scale, for example,

$$sin2\beta =0.390.54.$$
(13)
This can be easily understood from the fact that the light quark masses at $`m_Z`$ scale show much more scatter compared to masses at 1 GeV scale. In view of the sensitive dependence of sin$`2\beta `$ on the quark masses, in figures 1 \- 4, we have plotted the variation of sin$`2\beta `$ with mass ratios $`m_u/m_c`$, $`m_d/m_s`$, $`m_c/m_t`$ and $`m_s/m_b`$. From these figures, it is easy to conclude that sin$`2\beta `$ is very sensitively dependent on the ratios of the light quark masses, $`m_u/m_c`$ and $`m_d/m_s`$, while variations in $`m_c/m_t`$ and $`m_s/m_b`$ do not affect sin$`2\beta `$ much. This gets further emphasized when one closely examines the figures, for example, sin$`2\beta `$ varies from 0.40 to 0.52 when $`m_u/m_c`$ varies from 0.0026 to 0.0045, while it varies only from 0.464 to 0.457 when $`m_c/m_t`$ varies from 0.0032 to 0.0044. Similarly sin$`2\beta `$ varies from 0.52 to 0.41 when $`m_d/m_s`$ varies from 0.0383 to 0.0658, while it varies only from 0.458 to 0.461 when $`m_s/m_b`$ varies from 0.0258 to 0.0364. It is perhaps desirable to mention that while considering the above mentioned variation of sin$`2\beta `$ on a given mass ratio all other masses have been kept at their mean values at $`m_Z`$ scale, whereas $`\varphi _1=90^o`$ and $`R_u=R_d=0.1`$.

In view of the scale sensitivity of sin$`2\beta `$, it is perhaps desirable to study the affect of quark masses on sin$`2\beta `$ at higher confidence levels of quark masses in comparison to the $`1\sigma `$ CL corresponding to equations 12 \- 15. In the table 2, we have also listed the results for sin$`2\beta `$ with the input quark masses being at their 2$`\sigma `$ and 3$`\sigma `$ confidence levels. A look at the table reveals that when the quark masses are considered at $`2\sigma `$ CL, we obtain the following ranges for sin$`2\beta `$ for the set of texture 4 - zero matrices given in equation 5: 0.057 - 0.68. These ranges get further broadened when masses are considered at their $`3\sigma `$ CL, for example, 0.04 - 0.75. Thus we see that with input masses at their $`2\sigma `$ and $`3\sigma `$ CL, the entire range of BABAR and BELLE is covered, once again emphasizing the sensitivity of sin$`2\beta `$ on the quark masses. This brings into focus the better evaluation of light quark masses.

Further scrutiny of the Table 2 reveals interesting results for texture 5 - zero case. For example, we obtain the following range for sin2$`\beta `$ with $`D_u0`$, $`D_d`$ = 0 and with quark masses at $`m_Z`$ scale and at 1$`\sigma `$ CL,

$$sin2\beta =0.310.59.$$
(14)
and correspondingly with the masses at 1 GeV we get,

$$sin2\beta =0.450.54$$
(15)
Thus, in comparison to the corresponding ranges for texture 4 - zero matrices, the lower bound on sin$`2\beta `$ goes up somewhat while there is not much change in the upper bound. This can be understood by an examination of equations 7 and 10 where $`D_d=0`$ results in lowering the upper bound on $`|V_{td}|`$, thus pushing up the lower bound on sin$`2\beta `$. In the other texture 5 - zero case, for example $`D_d0`$ and $`D_u`$ = 0, we find that it is not meaningful to talk of the range of sin$`2\beta `$ as in this case the CKM matrix elements do not show overlap with the PDG CKM matrix even after the full variation of all the parameters.

A few comments are in order. In view of the dependence of sin$`2\beta `$ on $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ through $`V_{cd}`$, $`V_{cb}`$, $`V_{td}`$ and $`V_{tb}`$, we have also studied the case when both $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are taken non zero. The results in this case do not show much deviation from the case when $`\varphi _2=0`$ and $`\varphi _1`$ is varied. However when $`\varphi _1=0`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ is given full variation, interestingly we find that we are not able to reproduce the CKM matrix elements and hence finding a range for sin$`2\beta `$ in this case is meaningless. Thus, it seems that the CP violating phase resides only in the light quark sector, in agreement with the conclusions of Fritzsch and Xing  based on leading order calculations only.

Interestingly, from equations 12 \- 15, we find that a value of sin$`2\beta `$ lower than 0.2 would rule out, with good deal of confidence, texture 4 - zero and texture 5 - zero matrices. This would force one to consider texture 3 - zero and texture 2 - zero mass matrices, which would be discussed elsewhere. Therefore it seems that a sharper measurement of sin$`2\beta `$ will have strong bearings on the specific textures of mass matrices.

To conclude, we have found a range for sin$`2\beta `$ using texture 4 - zero and texture 5 - zero hierarchical quark mass matrices with input quark masses at $`m_Z`$ scale. In the texture 4 - zero case with masses at 1$`\sigma `$ CL, we get sin$`2\beta `$=0.27 - 0.60 and in the texture 5 - zero case we get sin$`2\beta `$ =0.31 - 0.59. Both texture 5 - zero and texture 4 - zero matrices are ruled out if sin$`2\beta `$ is found to be $``$ 0.2 and one may have to go to texture 3 - zero matrices. Our analysis indicates a sensitive dependence of sin$`2\beta `$ on the light quark masses as well as the phase in this sector.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
M.G. would like to thank S.D. Sharma for useful discussions. M.R. would like to thank CSIR, Govt. of India, for financial support and also the Chairman, Department of Physics, for providing facilities to work in the department.


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# X-ray Luminosity Functions of Young Stars in Taurus-Auriga-Perseus

## 1. Introduction

Within the last years extensive X-ray observations of star forming regions have established that the youngest among the stellar coronal X-ray sources are characterized by the strongest activity levels. A standard picture of stellar magnetic activity has developed in which the activity decreases as the stars evolve from the pre-main sequence (PMS) to the main sequence (MS), and continues to decline during the MS life.

While in some early investigations of the X-ray emission of PMS objects a power-law relation between age and stellar activity was found, other observations seem to indicate that activity remains relatively constant during the PMS and starts to drop rapidly once the MS is reached (Feigelson & Kriss 1989, Walter et al. 1988). Instead of being a pure age effect the decline of activity could be related to the rotational evolution of the objects: Once on the MS the stars spin down and the dynamo should become less efficient. Many observational studies concerning the connection between rotation and X-ray activity have indicated a correlation between X-ray emission and rotational velocity favoring the spin-down scenario (see e.g. Bouvier 1990; Neuhäuser et al. 1995 = N95; Stauffer et al. 1997). However, these results were contradicted by other studies (Gagné et al. 1995; Micela et al. 1996). Thus, despite all efforts, the details of the relation between age, activity, and rotation are still not well understood.

An important tool to assess the strength of the X-ray activity are X-ray Luminosity Functions (XLF), i.e. cumulative distributions of X-ray luminosities $`L_\mathrm{x}`$. Previous analyses of XLF of young stars have either focused on individual X-ray exposures of selected sky regions or were based on spatially extended but low-sensitivity observations, such as e.g. the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS).

In this contribution a systematic analysis of the XLF of young stars in Taurus-Auriga-Perseus on basis of all publicly available ROSAT PSPC observations pointed towards that portion of the sky is presented. The stellar sample includes both PMS objects (T Tauri Stars from Taurus-Auriga), and representatives of young MS stars (the Pleiades and the Hyades cluster). A total of 106 observations are evaluated and more than 800 sources detected. The statistical analysis was performed with the ASURV package (Feigelson et al. 1985) to take proper account of upper limits for non-detections.

## 2. XLF of samples with unresolved binary stars

Most of the binary stars in the region under study are unresolved with the ROSAT PSPC (spatial resolution $`25^{\prime \prime }`$ on-axis). The emission from unresolved multiples is difficult to interpret because it is not clear which of the components plays the active part. In a study of TTS binaries in the Taurus-Auriga region which are resolved by the ROSAT HRI König et al. (2000) found that both components emit X-rays. Therefore, it seems adequate to split the observed $`L_\mathrm{x}`$ in equal amounts on the number of components in each (unresolved) stellar system. As a check of this hypothesis separate XLF for single and binary stars have been computed for each sample (i.e. TTS, Pleiades and Hyades). Because of the known dependence of X-ray emission on spectral type we consider G, K, and M stars separately. Binary stars are treated in two ways: (A) according to the assumption described above, and (B) without taking account of the multiplicity, i.e. by attributing all observed X-rays to the primary in the system. Fig. 1 visualizes the effects this different assumptions have on the XLF. Distributions of binaries treated as in (A) are termed ‘b2’, and those of type (B) are termed ‘b1’. In Fig. 1 the XLF of both types of binary distributions is compared to that of single stars. As expected the distributions ‘b1’ lie off to the right of the distributions ‘b2’. Statistical tests reveal that the latter ones agree with the distributions of singles, but the ‘b1’ distributions are significantly different.

Pye et al. (1994) and Stern et al. (1995) have discussed the XLF of Hyades stars based on a smaller set of ROSAT observations. They found that among the Hyades stars of spectral type K the binaries are stronger X-ray emitters than the single stars. The distributions derived in these earlier studies correspond to our type ‘b1’ distribution. This indicates that a proper treatment of the binary character is important in understanding the XLF if the sample includes unresolved multiples. In view of the above result all XLF discussed furtheron in this paper are based on choice (A).

## 3. XLF of cTTS and wTTS

In an analysis of RASS observations in Taurus-Auriga Neuhäuser et al. (1995) found that cTTS and wTTS are statistically different concerning the amount of X-rays emitted: wTTS show stronger X-ray emission than cTTS. This can in principle be explained in terms of rotational evolution, because the wTTS – having lost their disks – can spin up and drive a more efficient dynamo, while for the cTTS the rotation rate is restrained by magnetic coupling between the star and its accretion disk. Contrary to this obvious explanation, X-ray studies in other star forming regions (Feigelson et al. 1993; Grosso et al. 2000) do not show differences between the activity of cTTS and wTTS.

In order to test the XLF for various contaminating effects a systematic analysis of pointed ROSAT observations in the Taurus-Auriga region (including the Pleiades and Hyades) is performed. The resulting XLF for cTTS and wTTS are displayed in Fig. 2. The distributions derived from this study of pointed PSPC observations are similar to those obtained earlier by N95 from the RASS at the high luminosity end, but demonstrate the better sensitivity of the pointed observations in the low-luminosity regime. The wTTS are found to be stronger X-ray emitters than the cTTS, confirming the result of N95. The remainder of this paper will be focused on the discussion of several effects that could be responsible for the observed differences.

### 3.1. An X-ray selection bias in the sample of wTTS ?

One argument that can be put forth against results of the type shown in Fig. 2 is that the wTTS sample may be biased towards strong X-ray emitters, because the main identification method for wTTS are indeed their X-rays. cTTS are not affected by this bias because most of them have been identified by optical surveys (e.g. H$`\alpha `$). A possible selection bias in the wTTS sample is examined by computing separate XLF for wTTS discovered by X-ray satellites (Einstein and ROSAT) and those discovered by other methods, e.g. proper motion studies. The comparison of these distributions (displayed in Fig. 3 on the left) shows that there is no significant difference. This leads to the conclusion that the total sample of wTTS is not biased towards strong X-ray emitters.

### 3.2. Age segregation

A large fraction of the TTS discovered in the RASS are wTTS at the outer edge of well-known star forming regions. Although the individual ages of the stars are subject to large uncertainties, there is a tendency of these objects to be somewhat older than stars in the central parts of the molecular clouds. In this sense the differences between the XLF of cTTS and wTTS could be the result of comparing samples with different ages. XLF from wTTS on the clouds should then be similar to the XLF of cTTS (most of which are on the clouds). Fig. 3 on the right shows a comparison of the XLF of cTTS and wTTS in the L1594 E cloud, the region of densest concentration of molecular material in the Taurus-Auriga complex. The data are taken from a long pointed observation ($`ROR`$ 200001-0 and 200001-1). The X-ray luminosities of the on-cloud cTTS are lower than those of the on-cloud wTTS ruling out that the observed difference in the total sample is an effect of age segregation.

### 3.3. Distribution of spectral types

The X-ray luminosity of active stars scales with spectral type. This implies that differing spectral type distributions of cTTS and wTTS may have an effect on the XLF. However, XLF computed separately for three spectral type bins show that from G to M stars wTTS are stronger X-ray emitters than cTTS. Fig. 4 shows the XLF of K and M TTS together with Pleiades and Hyades stars of the same spectral type, and demonstrate the continual decline of $`L_\mathrm{x}`$ for stars on the MS. The corresponding XLF for G stars (not shown) have similar shape but low statistics in the sample of cTTS.

## 4. Conclusions

A study of the XLF from a large sample of PMS and ZAMS objects was performed on basis of pointed ROSAT PSPC observations.

This analysis shows that the XLF are sensitive to the way in which unresolved binaries are dealt with. Two cases have been considered, in which the observed luminosity is either all attributed to the primary or distributed equally onto all components in multiples. A comparison shows that the latter assumption is consistent with the XLF of single stars. If all X-rays are assumed to come from the primary instead, the XLF of binaries are too bright.

In Taurus-Auriga the wTTS show higher $`L_\mathrm{x}`$ than the cTTS in agreement with earlier studies in the same star forming region, but in contrast to results from other regions (e.g. Cha I, $`\rho `$ Oph). A detailed analysis was undertaken to examine possible explanations for the discrepancy of the XLF of cTTS and wTTS in Taurus-Auriga. Effects which could be ruled out are

* an X-ray bias in the wTTS sample,
* different age distributions of cTTS and wTTS,
* different spectral type distributions of cTTS and wTTS,
* uncertainties in the X-ray emission from unresolved binaries (not discussed in the text).

The only obvious parameter left with a possible influence on the X-ray emission is rotation. A comparison of slow to fast rotating wTTS in Taurus-Auriga indicates that fast rotators show higher $`L_\mathrm{x}`$. However, the sample of stars with measured rotation periods is small (16 fast versus 12 slow rotators among the wTTS).

For a more detailed discussion of the XLF and the rotation-activity relation we refer to Stelzer & Neuhäuser (2000).

#### Acknowledgments.

The ROSAT project is supported by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Germany’s federal government (BMBF/DLR).

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König B., Neuhäuser R., Stelzer B. 2000, A&A, submitted

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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A variety of models have been proposed in which astrophysical neutrinos exceed the expected atmospheric neutrino flux at energies in the TeV scale or higher . The detectors presently in design or construction stages  look for Čerenkov light from the neutrino-induced muon in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) charged current (CC) interactions and take advantage of both the long muon range and the rise of the neutrino cross section to meet the neutrino detection challenge.

Several alternatives have been proposed for observing high energy neutrinos and they are all based on the detection of the showers that are also produced in most of the neutrino interactions. These include the detection of particle shower fronts in the atmosphere in the horizontal direction (Horizontal Air Showers)  and coherent pulses from showers in different media, both acoustic  and in radio  waves. Shower detection is sensitive both to neutral current interactions and to all neutrino flavors. In DIS interactions with nuclei, showers of hadronic type are always initiated by the debris of the struck nucleons. For electron neutrino charged current interactions an electromagnetic shower is initiated at the lepton vertex in addition to the hadronic shower. Certainly conventional detectors in construction can also look for the Čerenkov light from the induced showers provided they are contained or sufficiently close to the instrumented volume. In fact it is likely that shower detection is the main way these detectors can observe ultra high energy neutrinos because of the earth’s opacity and the atmospheric muon background.

The high energy neutrino cross section is a crucial ingredient in the calculation of the event rate in high energy neutrino telescopes. The DIS cross section is given in terms of structure functions whose energy dependence (scaling violations) is calculated in perturbative QCD. In practice, structure functions are computed from available parton (quark and gluon) distribution functions which depend on $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ (see below). Parton densities are extracted from data using DGLAP evolution equations  which effectively sum $`\mathrm{ln}(Q^2)`$ terms contained in the QCD perturbative expansion.

The DGLAP approach can break down at low $`x`$ because of potentially large $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)`$ terms which also appear in the perturbative series. The theoretical behaviour of structure functions at small $`x`$ has been discussed since the seventies and recently revived in the context of the low $`x`$ HERA data (see Ref.  for a review).

The sumation of the $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)`$ terms for intermediate $`Q^2`$ is performed with the BFKL formalism  which evolves parton densities unintegrated in transverse momentum. Within BFKL at LO and fixed $`\alpha _s`$, the structure function $`F_2`$ behaves as power like $`x^\lambda `$, with $`\lambda 0.53`$ for $`\alpha _s`$=0.2 (for $`\alpha _s(M_z^2)`$=0.12, $`\lambda 0.32`$). The exponent $`\lambda `$ is related to the intercept of the Pomeron which governs the high-energy asymptotics of the total cross section. The consideration of NLO effects in BFKL is a matter of present discussion due to the large correction found ($`\lambda `$ becames negative). However, recently it has been found  that the NLO value of $`\lambda `$, improved by optimization of the renormalization scale, has a very weak dependence on the virtuality $`Q^2`$, ranging the values $`\lambda 0.130.18`$ at $`Q^2=1100`$ GeV2.

This result, $`x^\lambda `$, is obtained in DGLAP when the input structure function at fixed $`Q_0^2`$ has a singular behavior at low $`x`$ but also when it is flat. In the latter case, the solution is the so call double logarithmic approximation (DLA) and effectively resums terms of type $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}(1/x)\mathrm{ln}(Q^2)`$ . After evolution over a suficiently large $`Q^2`$ interval, the DLA result mimics the BFKL behavior, $`x^\lambda `$ .

At this point it should be stressed that the low $`x`$ behavior of structure functions is fundamental in the high energy limit of the neutrino-nucleon DIS cross section. The calculation of the neutrino-nucleon cross section involves an integration over $`x`$ which corresponds to the fraction of momentum carried by the struck parton (see below). For $`x^\lambda `$ with $`\lambda >0`$, as the neutrino energy increases, the integral becomes dominated by the interaction with partons of lower $`x`$, while the $`Q^2`$ integral remains dominated by $`Q^2`$ values up to the electroweak boson mass squared (see for example  and below). For $`Q^2`$ above $`M_W^2`$ the integrand behaves as $`Q^4`$ and quickly becomes irrelevant.

On the experimental side there are however no $`F_2`$ measurements at very small $`x`$ and large $`Q^2`$. Consequently, in the process of the total cross section calculation, the parton densities extracted from present data must be carefully extrapolated to the region in the $`x,Q^2`$ plane without experimenta support. The dominant kinematical region calls for the connection between the low $`x`$ behavior at intermediate $`Q^2`$ (the BFKL region) and the high $`Q^2`$ region but at moderate low $`x`$ obtained in fits to experimental data (the DGLAP region) .

The consideration of QCD effects in the neutrino DIS cross section for neutrino energies well above the electroweak boson threshold was done at the end of the seventies  motivated by the DUMAND project. Previously the neutrino-nucleon DIS cross section had been studied in detail for lower neutrino energies in an attempt to disentangle asymptotic freedom effects and, in particular, scaling violations (see  for a review). The study of the uncertainty in the cross section calculation, which is important in the context of high energy neutrino telescopes, has been recently addressed . The uncertainty due to the extrapolation to high $`Q^2`$ is not expected to be large because the low $`x`$ shape of the parton distribution functions at low $`Q^2`$ is narrowly constrained by HERA while the further evolution to high $`Q^2`$ values seems well defined by DGLAP QCD evolution. At the highest energies uncertainties within $`20\%`$ , $`40\%`$  and a factor $`2^{\pm 1}`$  are typically reported. However we think that the consideration of conventional DGLAP evolution to small $`x`$ values and high $`Q^2`$, as for example $`x=10^9`$ and $`Q^2=10^4`$ GeV2, should at least be questioned in view of absence of data.

Conversely if any neutrino interactions measurements could be made leading to information on the cross section, such information would be of great value to constrain the theoretical predictions at low $`x`$ and high $`Q^2`$. Of particular interest is the $`y`$ distribution which can be shown very sensitive to the value of $`\lambda `$ (see below), $`y`$ being the fraction of the neutrino energy which flows to the hadronic part of the interaction in the laboratory frame.

This distribution is incidentally very important for neutrino detection, particularly for all the alternatives in neutrino detection which rely on detecting the high energy showers which are always produced at the hadronic vertex, whatever the neutrino flavor and for both charged current (CC) and neutral current (NC) interactions.

The article is organized as follows: Firstly we collect the most relevant formulae used in the calculation of the neutrino nucleon cross section. Then, we present the result for the total cross section and the average inelasticity $`y`$ computed from two sets of parton distribution functions. We explain the characteristics of the results for neutrinos, antineutrinos in CC and NC interactions in terms of the parton distribution dependences, stressing the connection between these quantities and the low $`x`$ limit of the structure functions at the highest energies.

In the assumption that the low $`x`$ behavior of $`F_2`$ at large $`Q^2`$ can be described by $`x^\lambda `$, we present a very simple analytical relation between $`\lambda `$ and the average inelasticity $`y`$ which does not depend of any other parameter. We suggest that $`\lambda `$ could be determined from $`y`$-measurements in the events which are expected in high energy neutrino detectors. Although $`y`$-measurements could be thought to be rather speculative at this early stage neutrino astronomy is at present, we point out a method to measure $`y`$ in neutrino telescopes.

## 2 The neutrino-nucleon DIS cross section at UHE

In terms of structure functions the charged-current (CC) neutrino-nucleon DIS differential cross section is given by:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^{\nu (\overline{\nu })N}}{dxdy}}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}\right)2ME_\nu \left({\displaystyle \frac{M_W^2}{M_W^2+Q^2}}\right)^2(y_+F_2y^2F_L\pm y_{}xF_3)`$ (1)
where $`y_\pm =1\pm (1y)^2`$, $`M`$ is the nucleon mass, $`E_\nu `$ the neutrino energy in the lab frame, $`Q^2=2ME_\nu xy`$ and we have neglected terms suppressed by powers of $`M^2/Q^2`$.

In the QCD improved parton model, the structure functions $`F_i`$ ($`i=2,3,L`$) are calculated in terms of quark and gluon distribution functions. At leading order (LO) approximation in perturbative QCD $`F_2`$ ($`xF_3`$) is simply related to the sum (difference) of parton densities. At next-to-leading order (NLO) further integrals are involved relating at order $`\alpha _s(Q^2)`$ the parton densities with the structure function. The contribution due to $`F_L`$, which is also proportional to $`\alpha _s(Q^2)`$ becomes small at large $`Q^2`$ and like the $`M^2/Q^2`$ terms are neglected in this work.

We present, for simplicity, the expressions which relate the cross sections and the parton densities at the LO approximation. Within the above approximations the differential cross section for the charged current (CC) interaction of neutrinos on isoscalar target takes the form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma ^{\nu N}}{dxdy}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{M_W^4ME_\nu }{(M_W^2+Q^2)^2}}\left[A(x,Q^2)+\overline{B}(x,Q^2)(1y)^2\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma ^{\overline{\nu }N}}{dxdy}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{M_W^4ME_\nu }{(M_W^2+Q^2)^2}}\left[\overline{A}(x,Q^2)+B(x,Q^2)(1y)^2\right]`$ (2)
where

$`A(x,Q^2)=x(u+d+2s+2b),B(x,Q^2)=x(u+d+2c+2t)`$
The antiquark combinations $`\overline{A}`$ and $`\overline{B}`$ are obtained from $`A`$ and $`B`$ replacing each quark by the corresponding antiquark of the same flavor.

The total cross section is calculated by integration of Eq. (2). We have used two representative sets of parton densities111The consideration of nuclear effects in parton distributions which could be relevant for heavy nuclei will be presented elsewhere : the LO set from Ref.  (MRST98) and the NLO set in the DIS factorization scheme from Ref.  (GRV98)222 Rigurously, NLO corrections modify Eq. (2) in the DIS scheme by terms proportional to $`\alpha _s`$ coming from x$`F_3`$. We neglect them in this calculation. In the integration we extrapolate the quark distribution functions in $`x`$ below the low $`x`$ limit given by the authors ($`x=10^5`$ for MRST98 set and $`x=10^9`$ for the GRV98 set) using the $`x`$ slope at the lowest $`x`$ value of the parametrization for each value of $`Q^2`$. This simple phenomenological extrapolation agrees with the more elaborated prescriptions based on perturbative QCD as for example the double-logarithmic-approximation which explain HERA data (see  and also Fig. 1b). We choose this ad hoc extrapolation for simplicity because our purpose is just to show the sensitivity of the high energy neutrino cross section to the low $`x`$ parton behavior.

The total charged and neutral current interaction cross sections333For brevity, in this work we do not present the explicit expressions used in the calculation of the NC cross sections for both neutrinos and anti-neutrinos calculated with MRST98 partons are shown in Fig. 1a as a function of the neutrino energy. At low energy one can observe the linear rise of the cross section with the neutrino energy ($`E_\nu `$). At high energy it would follow a logarithmic rise $`\mathrm{ln}(E_\nu )`$ were it not for the increase of the sea quark densities at small $`x`$ ($`x^\lambda `$) which imply a high energy cross section that rises as $`(E_\nu )^\lambda \mathrm{ln}(E_\nu )`$ for $`E_\nu `$ above 1 PeV.

We have also calculated the cross sections with GRV98 partons. For neutrino energies considered in this work, i.e. below $`10^{13}`$ GeV, the results are insensitive to the extrapolation below $`x=10^9`$. The cross sections from MRST98 and GRV98 parton distribution can be compared in Fig.1b.

## 3 The mean inelasticity at UHE

In this work we are interested in the fraction of the neutrino energy which flows to the hadronic part of the interaction in the laboratory frame, $`y`$, which is also called inelasticity. For a given muon neutrino high energy flux, this parameter fixes the relative rates of the two main types of detections, using muons in charged current interactions and using the showers produced in the interactions. It is also reponsible for the relative sizes of the electromagnetic and hadronic showers induced in charged current electron neutrino interactions. This quantity is necessary for any attempt at extracting the neutrino energy in high energy neutrino telescopes whether by detecting the shower produced in the interaction or by detecting the muon produced by muon neutrino CC interactions from the detected hadronic shower or muon.

The average value of $`y`$ can be obtained by integration of the differential cross section:

$`y={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma }}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑yy{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dy}}`$ (3)
The energy dependence of $`y`$ has been studied in the past to test asymptotic freedom in strong interactions (see  for a review). The effect of the boson propagator on the $`y`$ distribution and the relevance of the small $`x`$ region were pointed out in Refs. .

In the present work we have calculated $`y`$ using modern parton densities which better describe the low $`x`$ kinematic region. The results using MRST98 partons are shown in Fig. 2a.

Let us explain the general features observed in Fig. 2a from the cross section formulas given in Eq. (2). At low energy, the value of $`y`$ for $`\nu `$ is larger than for $`\overline{\nu }`$ because the most important contribution comes from the valence quarks which are suppressed by $`(1y)^2`$ in the anti-neutrino cross section formula (see Eq. (2)). If there were not sea quarks, the $`y`$ distributions given by Eq. (2) would behave as $`(1y)^2`$ (would be flat) for antineutrinos (neutrino) and correspondingly $`y=0.25`$ ($`0.5`$). In the case of low energy $`\overline{\nu }`$, the increase of $`y`$ with energy is due to the rise of the sea quark distribution functions. For neutrinos, this effect is less apparent.

The depletion of $`y`$ for energies above 1000 GeV (see Fig. 2a) is due to the $`W`$ propagator appearing in Eq. (2) which acts as a cutoff in the integration restricting the values of $`Q^2`$ to around $`M_W^2`$, i.e. $`xyM_W^2/(2ME_\nu )`$. Thus, the $`d\sigma /dy`$ distribution is shifted to lower values of $`y`$.

At the highest energies, because of the sea quark dominance, both neutrino and antineutrino cross sections become almost equal (see Fig. 2a) and the small difference between CC and NC interactions is due to the characteristic couplings of the electroweak interaction.

Concerning the value of $`y`$, Fig. 2a shows that it typically becomes stable at values slightly above 0.2. It is remarkable that in the high energy limit $`y`$ should be constant while the average value of the Bjorken $`x`$ variable, $`x`$, decreases strongly (see Fig. 4b). The low $`x`$ rise of the sea quark densities (predicted by perturbative QCD) shifts the weight of the cross section to small $`x`$ values compensating the $`y`$ distribution.

The energy dependence of $`y`$ at high energy is related to the behavior of the slope assumed constant in the extrapolation of the MRST98 quarks at low $`x`$. If $`\lambda `$ were negative or zero, $`y`$ would send to zero in this limit.

For example, if in the cross section calculation one uses GRV98 partons, $`y`$ is not constant and we find that it decreases with increasing energy (see Fig. 2b) which reflects the depletion of the effective slope $`\lambda `$ of the GRV98 partons with increasing $`Q^2`$.

In the following we show that the observed correlation between $`y`$ at high energy and $`\lambda `$ at low $`x`$ can be put in analytic form using very simple approximations.

## 4 Low $`x`$ physics and high energy neutrino telescopes

Let us assume that $`F_2`$ at low $`x`$ and high $`Q^2`$ is given by the power-like expression $`F_2=A(Q^2)x^\lambda `$, where $`\lambda `$ is assumed constant (or smoothly dependent on $`Q^2`$ as predicted by ) Then the CC neutrino-nucleon differential cross section (in $`y`$ and $`Q^2`$) takes the form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma }{dydQ^2}}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi }}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_W^2}{M_W^2+Q^2}}\right)^2A(Q^2)\left({\displaystyle \frac{2ME}{Q^2}}\right)^\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{[1+(1y)^2]}{y}}y^\lambda `$ (4)
where in Eq. (1) we have neglected the contribution from $`F_L`$ and $`xF_3`$ structure functions, expected to be negligable at low $`x`$ and high $`Q^2`$.

In the calculation of $`y`$ by Eq. (3) the $`Q^2`$ integral of Eq. (4) in numerator and denominator cancels at high energy, i.e. provided that $`2ME_\nu `$ is much larger than $`M_W^2`$. Then one has:

$`y={\displaystyle \frac{_0^1𝑑yy\frac{d\sigma }{dy}}{_0^1𝑑y\frac{d\sigma }{dy}}}{\displaystyle \frac{_0^1𝑑y[1+(1y)^2]y^\lambda }{_0^1𝑑y[1+(1y)^2]y^{\lambda 1}}}`$ (5)
which can be easily integrated to get the simple analytical relation:

$`y{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^3+5\lambda ^2+8\lambda }{\lambda ^3+6\lambda ^2+13\lambda +12}}`$ (6)
Analogously, one can proceed as above in the calculation of the average $`Q^2`$ which is expected (see above) to be around $`M_W^2`$ at energies sufficiently above the $`W`$ propagator threshold. One finds:

$`Q^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma }}{\displaystyle 𝑑Q^2Q^2\frac{d\sigma }{dQ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1\lambda }{\lambda }}M_W^2`$ (7)
To check Eq. (6), let us find out the value of $`\lambda `$ which corresponds to $`y=0.23`$, which is the result from the explicit integration of the CC neutrino-nucleon differential cross section $`d\sigma /dy`$ calculated with MRST98 parton densities at $`E_\nu =10^{10}`$ GeV (see Fig. 2a). Looking at Fig. 3 one finds $`\lambda =0.42`$. We have checked that the MRST98 sea partons at $`x=10^5`$ and $`Q^2=10^4`$ GeV2 have this slope which confirms the validity of Eq. (6).

Furthermore , substituting $`\lambda =0.42`$ in Eq. (7), one obtains $`Q^2=\mathrm{0.9\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$ GeV2 which agrees with the asymptotic value reached at high energy from explicit numerical integration of the diferential cross section using the MRST98 partons (see Fig. 4a).

Assuming that the mean inelasticity $`y`$ could be experimentally determined, Eq. (6) can be inverted to obtain directly the $`F_2`$ slope parameter $`\lambda `$ at small $`x`$ for $`Q^2`$ around $`M_W^2`$, which is outside the kinematic limits of present accelerators.

We have to stress that the measurement of $`y`$ will not be easy to obtain because it would require the determination of the final state energy corresponding to both, the nuclear cascade and the lepton. If electron neutrinos are detected, the showers that come out of charged current interactions will have a different character depending on $`y`$ because the neutrino induced electromagnetic (hadronic) shower arising at the leptonic (hadronic) vertex carries a fraction $`1y`$ ($`y`$) of the neutrino energy. In particular it has been recently suggested that it may be possible to measure $`y`$ by using the radio technique . This tecnique relies of the detection of coherent radio pulses from the excess charge in the induced showers in a dense medium such as ice. As the radiation is coherent the angular structure of the distribution is sensitive to the longitudinal development of the shower. The sensitivity to $`y`$ arises from the elongation of the showers that develop at the electron vertex because of the Landau-Pomerančuck-Migdal (LPM)  effect .

For the case of muon neutrinos in charged current interactions, both the muon and the nuclear shower in the final state would have to be detected. As the muon energy loss is proportional to the muon energy above 1 TeV, this may not be out of question in a future large conventional neutrino telescope such as IceCube  although many difficulties can be forseen. In any case the ratios of rates detected with muons to those detected with showers should be dependent on $`y`$ for a given high energy neutrino flux.

## 5 Conclusions

The measurement of $`y`$ at high energies in high energy neutrino interactions would give direct information on the behavior of the sea quarks distribution functions in the nucleon in a kinematic range unreachable to the most powerful accelerators, independently of the neutrino flux. We have presented a simple analytical parametrization which relates $`y`$ with $`\lambda `$, the $`x`$ slope of $`F_2`$ at low $`x`$ and high $`Q^2`$.

We have also pointed out that neutrino telescopes are sensitive to the value of $`y`$ and the possibility to measure $`y`$ from the interference pattern of the radio-signals of the showers produced in the neutrino interaction.

Some other interesting information can be obtained from the measurement of $`y`$. For example, it has been proposed that supersymmetric effects, as $`R`$-parity violation could increase $`y`$ with energy significantly . Also the effect of extra dimensions in neutrino-nucleon interactions  should be manifested through the modification of $`y`$ .

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Xunta de Galicia under grant PGIDT00PXI20615PR and CICYT under grant AEN99-0589-C02-02).

Figure captions

Figure 1. The total neutrino-nucleon deep inelastic cross section as a function of neutrino energy in lab frame for a) NC and CC neutrino and antineutrino interactions with MRST98 partons and b) CC neutrino interactions with MRST98 and GRV98 parton densities.

Figure 2. The average inelasticity $`y`$ in deep inelastic neutrino-nucleon interaction as a function of laboratory neutrino energy for a) NC and CC neutrino and antineutrino interactions with MRST98 partons and b) CC neutrino interaction with MRST98 and GRV98 parton densities.

Figure 3. The parameter $`\lambda `$ ($`F_2x^\lambda `$) at low $`x`$ and high $`Q^2M_W^2`$ as a function of the average inelasticity in CC $`\nu N`$ deep inelastic interaction.

Figure 4. a) The average $`Q^2`$ in deep inelastic CC neutrino-nucleon interaction as a function of the laboratory neutrino energy. b) The average $`x`$ in deep inelastic CC neutrino-nucleon interaction as a function of the laboratory neutrino energy.


text:
# Mean Field Theory for a driven Granular Gas of Frictional Particles

## 1 Introduction

Granular gases  are usually described as collections of macroscopic particles with rough surfaces and dissipative interactions. In order to study them, kinetic theories  and numerical simulations  were applied for special boundary conditions. The dynamics of the system is assumed to be dominated by two-particle collisions, modeled by their asymptotic states: A collision is characterized by the velocities before and after the contact, and the contact is assumed to be instantaneous. In the simplest model, one describes inelastic collisions by normal restitution $`r_n`$ only. However, surface roughness is important , since it allows for an exchange of translational and rotational energy. Here we briefly sketch a study of a model where a Coulomb friction law with coefficient $`\mu `$ and a tangential restitution coefficient $`r_t`$ account for tangential inelasticity and friction . We first introduce the model, then we describe a MF theory for the driven granular gas of rough spheres, and finally, we compare analytical results and numerical simulations. In the conclusions we discuss possible future refinements of the computational scheme.

## 2 The Model

We consider $`N`$ $`3`$-dimensional spheres of mass $`m`$ and diameter $`2a`$ interacting via a hard-core potential, confined on a $`2`$-dimensional (2D) layer of linear size $`L`$, with periodic boundary conditions. Inelasticity and roughness are described by a normal restitution $`r_n`$, a Coulomb friction law with friction $`\mu `$, and a tangential restitution $`r_t`$ which depends on $`r_n`$, $`\mu `$ and the collision angle $`\gamma _c`$ for sliding contacts and on a maximum tangential restitution $`r_t^m`$ for sticking contacts, when the tangential elasticity becomes important. When two particles $`1`$ and $`2`$ collide, their velocities after collision depend on the velocities before collision through a collision matrix whose elements depend on $`r_n`$, $`\mu `$, $`\gamma _c`$, and $`r_t^m`$. Thus we calculate the momentum change using a model that is consistent with experimental measurements . From the momentum conservation laws for linear and angular direction, energy conservation, and Coulomb’s law we get the change of linear momentum of particle $`1`$ as a function of $`r_n`$, $`\mu `$, and $`r_t`$ . The change of the normal component of the relative velocity depends on the normal restitution $`r_n`$, which is a tunable parameter, while the change of the tangential component of the relative velocity depends on by the tangential restitution coefficient $`r_t=\mathrm{min}[r_t^C,r_t^m]`$, where $`r_t^m`$ is the coefficient of maximum tangential restitution, $`1r_t^m1`$.The quantity $`r_t^C`$ is determined using Coulomb’s law such that for solid spheres $`r_t^C=1(7/2)\mu (1+r_n)\mathrm{cot}\gamma _c`$ with the collision angle $`\pi /2<\gamma _c\pi `$ . Here, we simplified the tangential contacts in the sense that exclusively Coulomb-type interactions, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }P^{(t)}`$ is limited by $`\mu \mathrm{\Delta }P^{(n)}`$, or sticking contacts with the maximum tangential restitution $`r_t^m`$ are allowed .

## 3 The mean field Theory

We start from the results of Huthmann and Zippelius  for a freely cooling gas of infinitely rough particles. Here we apply their MF theory to the case of a driven gas of rough particles, which is the most common experimental situation . The MF kinetic theory of Huthmann and Zippelius is formulated for a gas of rough particles with constant tangential restitution $`r_t`$, corresponding to the limit $`\mu =\mathrm{}`$ in our model. It is based on a pseudo–Liouville–operator formalism and on the assumption of a homogeneous state, with a Gaussian probability distribution of translational and rotational energies. The main outcome of this approach is a set of coupled evolution equations for the translational and rotational temperatures $`T_{tr}`$ and $`T_{rot}`$ . Here, we write down and solve the MF equations for $`T_{tr}`$ and $`T_{rot}`$ for a granular gas of rough particles in which the translational velocities are subjected to a random uncorrelated Gaussian driving of variance $`\xi _0^2`$. These equations read for a 2D layer of spheres

$$\begin{array}{cc}\frac{d}{dt}T_{tr}(t)=\frac{2}{D}\left[GAT_{tr}^{3/2}+GBT_{tr}^{1/2}T_{rot}\right]+m\xi _0^2\hfill & \\ \frac{d}{dt}T_{rot}(t)=\frac{2}{2D3}\left[GBT_{tr}^{3/2}GCT_{tr}^{1/2}T_{rot}\right]\hfill & \\ G=4an\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{m}}\chi ,A=\frac{1r_n^2}{4}+\frac{\eta }{2}(1\eta )\hfill & \\ B=\frac{\eta ^2}{2q},C=\frac{\eta }{2q}\left(1\frac{\eta }{q}\right),\hfill & \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`\eta =q(1+r_t)/(2q+2)`$, $`q=2/5`$ for spheres, $`n`$ is the gas density and $`\chi `$ is the pair correlation function at contact.
We can use the Verlet-Levesque  approximation in 2D $`\chi =(17\varphi /16)/(1\varphi )^2`$ where $`\varphi `$ is the volume fraction of the gas. For long times the system approaches a steady state. By imposing $`\frac{d}{dt}T_{tr}^{eq}=0,\frac{d}{dt}T_{rot}^{eq}=0`$ we get the equilibrium temperatures

$$T_{tr}^{eq}=m\left(\frac{\xi _0^2\sqrt{\pi }}{2\gamma \mathrm{\Omega }_D\chi na^{D1}}\right)^{2/3}\mathrm{and}\frac{T_{rot}^{eq}}{T_{tr}^{eq}}=R=\frac{2(1+r_t)}{95r_t},$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_D=2\pi ^{D/2}/\mathrm{\Gamma }(D/2)=2\pi `$ for $`D=2`$ and $`\gamma =\frac{1r_n^2}{4}+\frac{1}{49}(1+r_t)\left(6r_t\right)(5/49)(1+r_t)^3/(95r_t)`$ for spherical particles. By linearizing the set of Eqs. (1) around $`T_{tr}^{eq}`$ and $`T_{rot}^{eq}`$ we get the final approach to the steady state: $`\delta T_{rot}(t)R\delta T_{tr}(t)`$ and $`T_{tr}(t)T_{tr}^{eq}=\delta T_{tr}(t)\delta T_{tr}(0)\mathrm{exp}[3\gamma \omega t]`$. The quantity $`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }_D\chi na^{D1}\sqrt{\frac{T_{tr}^{eq}}{\pi m}}`$ is the Enskog collision frequency for elastic particles at the temperature $`T_{tr}^{eq}`$, and $`t_c=(3\gamma \omega )^1\gamma ^{2/3}`$ is a characteristic relaxation time . The MF Eqs. (1) can be applied to the three parameter model in the limit $`\mu =\mathrm{}`$, see Fig. 1.
However, experimental measurements are well reproduced by this model only for finite $`\mu `$. Here we investigate the possibility to describe the effect of finite friction $`\mu `$ by replacing $`r_t`$ in the Eqs. (1) with its average $`r_t`$ over the probability density $`P[\mathrm{sin}(\gamma _t)]`$ of the normalized impact parameter $`b/(2a)=\mathrm{sin}(\gamma _t)`$, with the condition $`r_tr_t^m`$. The used simplifying approach ($`\gamma _c\gamma _t`$) ignores the fluctuations of $`r_t`$ due to its dependence on the rotational degree of freedom, and we expect that it is correct only in some trivial limiting cases. Nevertheless, this simple approximation allows us to realize that for $`r_t^m=0.4,\mu =0.5,r_n0.9`$, corresponding to many experiments, simulations fit well with the modified MF theory, as we will se below. If the molecular chaos hypothesis is valid $`P[\mathrm{sin}(\gamma _t)]=1`$, and we get $`r_t=1+\frac{7}{2}\mu (1+r_n)\mathrm{ln}(\sqrt{1+c^2}+c)`$, with $`c=\frac{2}{7}(1+r_t^m)/(\mu (1+r_n))`$.

## 4 The simulations

Here we compare numerical simulations of a randomly driven monolayer of spheres, performed by using an Event Driven (ED) algorithm , with the MF predictions (for details see ). Every simulation is equilibrated without driving with $`r_n=1`$ and $`r_t^m=1`$. Then inelasticity and driving are switched on. We used a fixed volume fraction $`\varphi =0.34`$, $`N=11025`$ and different values of $`r_n`$, $`r_t^m`$, $`\mu `$. In Fig. 1a-d, the translational and rotational temperatures for fixed $`r_n=0.95`$, $`\mu =10^7`$ and different values of $`r_t^m`$ are rescaled with the MF equilibrium temperatures and plotted versus the rescaled time $`t/t_ct\gamma ^{2/3}`$. The high value of $`\mu `$ allows to decouple normal and tangential momentum ($`r_t=r_t^m`$). The agreement is good, even for low positive values of $`r_t^m`$.

For negative $`r_t^m`$, agreement with MF is observed for the translational temperature, while the rotational temperature shows deviations from scaling in the transient phase, although the equilibrium value fits well with MF, for $`r_t^m1`$. This is due to a failure of the approximation $`\delta T_{rot}(t)R\delta T_{tr}(t)`$ for weak coupling between rotational and translational degrees of freedom and finite time. In Fig. 2a-b we plot the same quantities as in Fig. 1 but for $`r_n=0.95`$, $`\mu =0.5`$. We obtain for $`r_t^m`$ near to unity significant deviations from mean field theory, while for negative $`r_t^m`$ the agreement with mean field theory is very good. The explanation for this results is that for $`r_t^m1`$ and high enough $`\mu `$, one has $`r_tr_t^m`$, and this correspond to have $`\mu \mathrm{}`$. In Fig. 3a-b we show simulation results for $`r_n=0.95`$ and variable $`\mu `$ for $`r_t^m=0.4`$. These simulations confirm the previous interpretation. Finally, in Fig. 3c-d we show simulation results for $`\mu =0.5`$, $`r_t^m=0.4`$ and different $`r_n`$. In this case the data collapse is very good although deviations from MF are observed. This is a coincidence, since $`r_t0.363r_t^m`$. To improve the MF theory for the finite $`\mu `$ case, the effect of a random $`r_t`$ must be fully taken into account. We actually are studying the possibility to include a collision angle dependent $`r_t`$ in the ensemble average of the energy variation due to collisions . The MF theory we obtain seems to be very promising and gives a good qualitative agreement with simulations. A paper is in preparation with the results of this study  and also a three-dimensional analysis is in progress .

We thank H. J. Herrmann for inspiring discussions and acknowledge financial support under the European network project FMRXCT980183 and of the German Science Foundation (DFG).


text:
# Bounds on the generalized entanglement of formation for multi-party systems Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 69773052

## Abstract

We present a general method to find the upper and lower bounds on the generalized entanglement of formation for multi-party systems. The upper and lower bounds can be expressed in terms of the bi-partite entanglements of formation and/or entropies of various subsystems. The examples for tri- and four-party systems in the both pure states and mixed states are given. We also suggest a little modified definition of generalized entanglement of formation for multi-party systems if EPR pairs are thought of belonging to the set of maximally entangled states.

PACS: 03.67.-a, 03.65.Bz, 89.70.+c

As a resource, entanglement can be exploited to implement novel quantum information processing task . So there has been an ongoing effort to characterize quantitatively and qualitatively entanglement , in special, for multi-particles  and multi-party system  in recent years. The central issue is now what the definition of maximally entangled states (set) for multi-party systems would be so that one can clearly know to distill to them. Since for bi-partite systems the relative entanglement entropy is a upper bound to distillable entanglement, it is indeed reasonable to think this to be the case for multi-party systems . In their paper, Plenio and Vedral showed this institution by deriving various upper and lower bounds of the relative entanglement entropy for tri-party systems in terms of the bi-party entanglements of formation and distillation and entropies of various subsystems. In this paper, we will derive out the upper and lower bounds on the generalized entanglement of formation for both tri-party systems  and four-party systems not only in the pure states but also in the mixed states which can be expressed in terms of the bi-party entanglements of formation and entropies of various subsystems. Moreover, our method, in principle, can be extended to find the bounds on the generalized entanglement of formation for the arbitrary multi-party systems.

We start with the following inequantions for a tri-party quantum system $`X,Y,Z`$

$`S(\rho _X)+S(\rho _Y)S(\rho _{XZ})+S(\rho _{YZ})`$ (1)
$`S(\rho _{XYZ})+S(\rho _Y)S(\rho _{XY})+S(\rho _{YZ})`$ (2)
Their proofs are based deep mathematical results known as Lieb’s theorem . It is easy to see that

$`S(\rho _X)+S(\rho _Y)+S(Z)`$ $``$ $`S(\rho _{XY})+S(\rho _{XZ})+S(\rho _{YZ})`$ (3)
$`3S(\rho _{XYZ})+S(\rho _X)+S(\rho _Y)+S(\rho _Z)`$ $``$ $`2\left[S(\rho _{XY})+S(\rho _{XZ})+S(\rho _{YZ})\right]`$ (4)
For a four-party system we have the corresponding generalization:

$`S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})]`$ (5)
$`S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)`$ $``$ $`S(\rho _{ABC})+S(\rho _{ABD})+S(\rho _{ACD})+S(\rho _{BCD})`$ (6)
$`S(\rho _{ABC})+S(\rho _{ABD})+S(\rho _{ACD})+S(\rho _{BCD})+S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (8)
Note the fact that

$$S(\rho _X)E_{GF}(\rho _{XY}),S(\rho _Y)E_{GF}(\rho _{XY})$$
(9)
We immediately obtain the bounds on generalized entanglement of formation for tri-party systems in the pure state

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)]`$ (10)
$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}[E_F(\rho _{AB})+E_F(\rho _{AC})+E_F(\rho _{BC})]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)]`$ (11)
where we have used our definition of the generalized entanglement of formation for any pure tri-particle state (density matrix) $`\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P}`$

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\left[E_F(\rho _{AB})+E_F(\rho _{AC})+E_F(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)\right]`$ (12)
In order to compare with the results of the relative entanglement entropy

$$\frac{2}{3}[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)]E_R(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P})\frac{1}{3}[E_R(\rho _{AB})+E_R(\rho _{AC})+E_R(\rho _{BC})]+\frac{1}{3}[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})]$$
(13)
we first write Eqs. (10), (11) and (13) in the forms

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})]E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[E_F(\rho _{AB})+E_F(\rho _{AC})+E_F(\rho _{BC})]`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)]E_R(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P}){\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}[E_R(\rho _{AB})+E_R(\rho _{AC})+E_R(\rho _{BC})]`$ (15)
It is worth to emphasizing that the factors in two bounds inequations are different. This is because in our definition of generalized entanglement of formation, we have taken the equal weight average on various entanglements of formation of subsystem and various entropies of subsystems. If we modify a little our definition by

$$\overline{E}_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}^\mathrm{P})=\frac{1}{3}\left[E_F(\rho _{AB})+E_F(\rho _{AC})+E_F(\rho _{BC})\right]+\frac{1}{6}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)\right]$$
(16)
This implies that the extend Bell-states $`|\psi _{AB}^{\mathrm{EB}}=|\varphi _{AB}^\mathrm{B}|\chi _C`$, $`|\psi _{AC\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}}^{\mathrm{EB}}=(|0_A|\chi _B|0_C\pm |1_A|\chi _B|1_C)/\sqrt{2}`$,$`|\psi _{AC\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}}^{\mathrm{EB}}=(|0_A|\chi _B|1_C\pm |1_A|\chi _B|0_C)/\sqrt{2}`$,$`|\psi _{BC}^{\mathrm{EB}}=|\chi _A|\varphi _{BC}^\mathrm{B}`$ are included in the set of the maximally entangled states since their generalized entanglements of formation are 1. Obviously, we have

$$\frac{2}{3}[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{BC})]\overline{E}_{GF}(\rho _{ABC})\frac{2}{3}[E_F(\rho _{AB})+E_F(\rho _{AC})+E_F(\rho _{BC})]$$
(17)
If it is in this case, we can see that for tri-party systems, the upper bound of generalized entanglement of formation that is an equal weight average of entropies for all bi-partite subsystems are larger than the upper bound of relative entanglement entropy that is an equal weight average of entropies for all one-party subsystems, and the lower bound of generalized entanglement of formation that is an equal weight average of entanglements of formation for all bi-partite subsystems are higher than the lower bound of relative entanglement entropy that is the equal weight average of relative entanglement entropies for all bi-partite subsystems.

However, if we accept Plenio and Vedral’s conjecture

$$E_R(\rho _{ABC})\frac{1}{2}[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)]$$
(18)
it seems to need us to keep our original definition. This leads to EPR pairs not to be included in the set of the maximally entangled states.

Now let us consider the case for four-party systems in the pure state. In general, its reduced density matrices for tri-party subsystems are the mixed states. Thus, assuming that there are the pure state decompositions

$$E_{GF}(\rho _{XYZ}^\mathrm{M})=\underset{i}{}p_i^{XYZ}E_{GF}(\rho _{XYZ}[i])(XYZ=ABC,ABD,ACD,BCD)$$
(19)
corresponding to the minimized statistical average of generalized entanglements of formation of all component pure states, we can derive out

$$E_{GF}(\rho _{XYZ}^\mathrm{M})\frac{1}{6}\underset{i}{}p_i^{XYZ}[S(\rho _{XY}[i])+S(\rho _{XZ}[i])+S(\rho _{YZ}[i])]+\frac{1}{3}\underset{i}{}p_i[S(\rho _X[i])+S(\rho _Y[i])+S(\rho _Z[i])]$$
(20)
In terms of concavity of von Neumann entropy, it becomes

$$E_{GF}(\rho _{XYZ}^\mathrm{M})\frac{1}{6}[S(\rho _{XY})+S(\rho _{XZ})+S(\rho _{YZ})]+\frac{1}{3}[S(\rho _X)+S(\rho _Y)+S(\rho _Z)]$$
(21)
This means that the upper bound of generalized entanglement of formation for a tri-party system in the mixed state has the same form as one in the pure state. But the lower bound of generalized entanglement of formation for a tri-party system in the mixed state needs to be written as

$$E_{GF}(\rho _{XYZ}^\mathrm{M})\frac{1+\gamma _2^{XYZ}}{3}[E_{GF}(\rho _{XY})+E_{GF}(\rho _{XZ})+E_{GF}(\rho _{YZ})]$$
(22)
Here, for simplification, we have denoted the following relation

$$\frac{1}{6}\underset{i}{}p_i^{XYZ}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{XY}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{XZ}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{YZ}[i])\right]=\frac{\gamma _2^{XYZ}}{3}[E_{GF}(\rho _{XY})+E_{GF}(\rho _{XZ})+E_{GF}(\rho _{YZ})]$$
(23)
Furthermore, we have

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ABD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ACD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BCD})`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (25)
$`+S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)`$ (26)
$`S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})`$ (27)
$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ABD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ACD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BCD})`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2(1+\gamma _2)}{3}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (29)
where

$`2\gamma _2\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (30)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{XYZ}{}}\gamma _2^{XYZ}[E_{GF}(\rho _{XY})+E_{GF}(\rho _{XZ})+E_{GF}(\rho _{YZ})]`$ (31)
Similarly,

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})`$ (32)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\left[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)\right]`$ (33)
$`S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})`$ (34)
Therefore, the upper bound of generalized entanglement of formation for four-party systems in the pure state is just

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABCD}^\mathrm{P})`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{14}}\left[S(\rho _{ABC})+S(\rho _{ABD})+S(\rho _{ACD})+S(\rho _{BCD})\right]`$ (37)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{21}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)\right]`$
From Eqs. (5-8), it can be written as

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABCD}^\mathrm{P})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{21}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{28}}\left[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{13}{42}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (40)
The lower bound of generalized entanglement of formation for a four-party system in a pure state reads

$`E_{GF}(\rho _{ABCD}^\mathrm{P})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5+2\gamma _2}{42}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (42)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5+2\gamma _2}{42}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (44)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[S(\rho _A)+S(\rho _B)+S(\rho _C)+S(\rho _D)\right]`$
$``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{7}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _2}{21}}\right)\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (45)
It is easy to obtain the results of the mixed state for a four-party systems. That is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{13}{42}}\left[S(\rho _{AB})+S(\rho _{AC})+S(\rho _{AD})+S(\rho _{BC})+S(\rho _{BD})+S(\rho _{CD})\right]E(\rho _{ABCD}^\mathrm{M})`$ (46)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _3(1+\gamma _2)+\delta _2}{6}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (47)
where assume that the pure state decomposition corresponding to the minimized statistical average of generalized entanglements of formation of all component pure states is taken and define

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{14}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_i^{ABCD}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD}[i])\right]`$ (48)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\delta _2}{6}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{AB})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{AD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{CD})\right]`$ (49)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{14}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_i^{ABCD}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{ABD}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{ACD}[i])+E_{GF}(\rho _{BCD}[i])\right]`$ (50)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{3\gamma _3}{12}}\left[E_{GF}(\rho _{ABC})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ABD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{ACD})+E_{GF}(\rho _{BCD})\right]`$ (51)
For simplicity, the terms related to $`\gamma _3,\delta _2`$ can be omited.

It is clear that by use of Eqs. (1) and (2) to the multi-party systems, we can find the bounds on generalized entanglement of formation for arbitrary multi-party systems in principle. Of course, it is interesting if the definition of generalized entanglement of formation is an equal weight average of the generalized entanglements of formation and von Neumann entropies taken over all of subsystems. For example, for tri-party system, we point out another possibility. As stated above, this problem depends on our understanding to the set of maximally entangled states. This is still an open question. Even if we takes a unequal weight average of the generalized entanglements of formation and von Neumann entropies taken over all of subsystems, above method can be directly used, but in the bound expressions the coefficients before the entanglements of formation and entropies for bi-partite system will be changed.


text:
# The Edge of the Solar System

## 1 Introduction

Our planetary system should not be expected to be bounded by the orbit of the ninth planet Pluto, as pointed out by Edgeworth (1949) and Kuiper (1951). Our current general understanding of the formation of our solar system is consistent with the expectation that a large population of small bodies – leftovers from the primordial planetesimal disk in the Solar Nebula – exists at the present time beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto where planetary accretion timescales exceed the current age of the solar system. Indirect evidence for such a population (now known as the Kuiper Belt) exists in the orbital properties of the short period comets, as has been suggested by several authors (Fernandez, 1980; Duncan, Quinn, & Tremaine, 1988). Direct observational evidence was first obtained with the discovery of 1992 QB1 (Jewitt and Luu, 1993), and has subsequently grown with the detection of more than 300 objects. It is notable that all but one of the currently known Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) lie within 55 AU of the Sun.

The semimajor axis zone $`30<a<50`$ AU is dynamically a very complex region. The primordial Kuiper Belt population here is expected to have been extensively sculpted and depleted throughout solar system history \[see review by Malhotra, Duncan, & Levison (2000)\]. Numerical simulations show that most primordial KBOs on orbits with $`a<36`$ AU would have been ejected from the Kuiper Belt in much less than the age of the solar system (Holman & Wisdom, 1993; Levison & Duncan, 1993; Duncan, Levison, & Budd, 1995). In the $`36<a<42`$ AU zone, the dynamical lifetime of low eccentricity, low inclination orbits is comparable to the age of the solar system, whereas beyond $`a42`$ AU the dynamical lifetime is well in excess of the age of the Solar system. The orbital migration of the giant planets in early solar system history is expected to have rearranged the primordial orbital distribution in the $`a<50`$ AU zone, by sweeping a significant fraction of KBOs into eccentric orbits at narrow semimajor axis zones at the locations of mean motion resonances with Neptune (Malhotra, 1993, 1995). Furthermore, there exists a significant “scattered” KBO population, in very eccentric orbits with perihelia near $`36`$ AU; these KBOs are thought to have been formed in the $`36<a<42`$ AU zone and been gravitationally scattered during a close encounter with Neptune (Levison & Duncan, 1997).

The current estimate of the surface density in the inner Kuiper Belt is approximately two orders of magnitude less than that expected from a smooth extrapolation of the surface density from the planetary region \[cf. Weidenschilling (1977)\]. It is also approximately two orders of magnitude less than that required for the formation of the largest observed KBOs within $`10^8`$ yrs, before perturbations from the giant planets curtailed their growth (Stern, 1996; Stern & Colwell, 1997b; Kenyon & Luu, 1999). These arguments suggest severe depletion of the Kuiper Belt within 50 AU.

Beyond 50 AU, the gravitational influence of Neptune and the giant planets is insignificant. A higher present-day density of objects, reflective of the primordial surface density of solids in the Solar Nebula, would be expected in this unperturbed distant Kuiper Belt. Previous surveys have detected no objects beyond 50 AU, leading several authors (Dones, 1997; Chiang & Brown, 1999; Jewitt, Luu, & Trujillo, 1998) to suggest that this higher-density outer region is in fact absent, and that the primordial planetesimal disk must have had a cutoff near 50 AU. Gladman et al. (1998) calculate the fraction of detected KBOs expected to be beyond 50 AU; applying their formula to the number of KBOs known today also indicates that there is a deficiency of distant objects. These conclusions, however, depend quite sensitively upon the exponents of assumed power laws for size and radial distributions of the population.

In this Letter we report the results of a survey for faint KBOs covering more than one square degree of the ecliptic. Most of the known KBO population lie at $`40`$ AU and have magnitudes $`R24`$. At our limiting magnitudes of $`R25`$, we can detect physically similar objects to a distance of 65 AU or greater. We compare the results of our faint survey with the detected population of similarly sized KBOs at smaller distances, and test whether the population density increases beyond 50 AU. This comparison of the population of $`160`$ km objects is independent of any models or assumptions for the size distribution of the KBOs in the two regions.

## 2 Search for Distant Objects

Observations were taken using the BTC CCD Mosaic Camera (Wittman et al. 1998) at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory on 3 nights in May 1998 and 4 nights in May 1999. The BTC images 0.25 deg2 of (non-contiguous) sky per exposure. Each field was observed for a series of 20 to 30 eight-minute exposures spread across two consecutive nights. These images are registered and summed (with sigma-clipping rejection) to yield a deep template image of the fixed field. The template is then subtracted from each individual exposure after applying an algorithm to match the point spread functions, thus efficiently removing all non-moving objects from the images. These images are first searched for bright slow-moving objects. Then each field’s images are summed with displacements to track a potential KBO motion, and the sum image searched for faint objects. This last step is repeated several thousand times to permit detection of KBOs in any bound orbit at distances 30–80 AU. The entire search procedure is repeated on another pair of nights six to eight days later. Candidate KBOs were confirmed using data taken six to eight days apart.

A detailed description of our processing and detection methods will be published at a later date.

Effective areas and limiting magnitudes are determined by inserting several thousand artificial KBOs into the raw data at a variety of velocities and positions. We then search for these using the same methods used to detect real KBOs. The total area subtended by the six search fields is $`1.5`$ deg2, but bright stars, CCD defects, etc., limit the effective area of the search to $`1.3`$ deg2 for bright KBOs. The effective search area drops at fainter magnitudes due to noise.

The May 1998 observations used the Kron-Cousins $`R`$ filter, and we find that the effective area of these three fields of the search is $`0.51\mathrm{deg}^2`$ at bright magnitudes, dropping by 50% at $`R=24.9`$ to $`R=25.4`$. The May 1999 observations, using a wide-band $`VR`$ filter (Jewitt, Luu, & Chen, 1996), reach 50% completeness for 25.3–25.9 $`R`$ mag KBOs over effective area of $`0.77\mathrm{deg}^2`$. $`VR`$ magnitudes are converted to $`R`$ assuming a KBO color index of $`VR=0.3`$. Table 1 lists the fields observed for this survey and the total integration times, limiting magnitudes and effective areas for each. Several times more area is covered than for the largest previously published survey to this depth (Luu & Jewitt, 1998).

Twenty-three KBOs and one Centaur were discovered in the survey. The observing scheme produces a 10-day arc for most of these objects. Orbital parameters and their uncertainties are determined using the software described in Bernstein & Khushalani (2000). Although the full orbital parameters are poorly constrained by such a short arc, the distance is determined fairly accurately. This is because the object’s apparent acceleration is due almost entirely to the reflex of the Earth’s transverse acceleration, and hence the apparent acceleration is inversely proportional to the distance. Note that this technique requires that we not observe at opposition. Recovery observations have been made for 7 of the objects, and in all cases the refined orbits produce distances consistent with the 10-day estimates. A few of the objects were detected near the edges of the frame and were outside the field of view for the second (confirming) pair of nights. Distances to these objects with only 24-hour arcs are less certain, and dependent upon the assumption that the orbit is bound. Table 2 contains a list of detected objects and their heliocentric distances, and Figure 1 plots their size vs. distance under the assumption of a 4% albedo. Distances beyond 53 AU are ruled out for all of these objects. Thus, over $`1.3\mathrm{deg}^2`$, we have zero detections of objects beyond 53 AU, even though objects with diameters larger than 160 km would be visible to 65 AU over much of the field.

The diameter (D \[km\]) of a Kuiper Belt Object can be estimated using the formula for a uniformly scattering sphere (Russell, 1916):

$$pD^2\varphi =9\times 10^{16}\mathrm{km}^2\frac{R^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{1\mathrm{AU}^4}10^{0.4(m_{}m_R)}$$
(1)
where $`p`$ is the geometric albedo, taken to be $`p0.04`$ following Jewitt, Luu, & Trujillo (1998). $`R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are the heliocentric and geocentric distances in AU, which are approximately equal for these large distances; $`m_{}`$ and $`m_R`$ are the apparent magnitude of the Sun and KBO, respectively; and $`\varphi `$ is a phase correction, which we ignore for these distant KBOs since the phase angle is always small.

A quantitative characterization of the upper limit on large KBOs in the 55–65 AU range is as follows: At 55 AU, a magnitude of $`R=25.1`$ is sufficient to detect $`D>160`$ km objects, while at 65 AU, the necessary depth is $`R=25.8`$. The search efficiency is dropping in this magnitude interval, so an exact estimate of the effective search volume would require a model for the intrinsic KBO distance distribution. An approximation adequate for our purposes is to take the effective area to be that of a $`D=160`$ km object at the midpoint, 60 AU. This corresponds to a magnitude of $`R=25.5`$, at which the effective search area is $`0.58\mathrm{deg}^2`$. Our upper limit to the surface density of KBOs with $`D>160`$ km at distances $`55<r<65`$ AU is therefore 5 deg-2 (95% CL).

## 3 Comparison to the Inner Kuiper Belt

We test the hypothesis of inner-belt depletion by comparing the volume density of KBOs inside 50 AU to that outside 50 AU. Because we have a faint limiting magnitude and we have determined the distances (and hence approximate size) for all our detected objects, we can proceed by constructing samples of objects of similar size in the two distance regimes, without any assumption about the KBO size distribution. The outer region is the $`55<R<65`$ AU annulus quantified above.

For our inner region, we select all KBOs with distances in the range 30–50 AU and diameters greater than 160 km. Most known KBOs within 40 AU are in mean-motion resonance orbits or have likely been perturbed by a Neptune encounter, affecting the surface density in an uncertain manner. For this reason, we will also compare our results to an inner region of 40–50 AU.

Our survey yields 8 KBOs which have a distance between 30–50 AU and diameter greater than 160 km. These are all brighter than $`R=24.1`$, although at 50 AU a 160 km KBO is only $`R=24.7`$.

Denoting the mean volume density of $`D>160`$ km KBOs in the inner and outer regions as $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$, respectively, we are interested in an upper bound to the density ratio $`fn_2/n_1.`$ We assume that $`N_1`$ objects were detected in the inner region over an effective volume $`V_1`$, and $`N_2=0`$ objects were detected in the effective volume $`V_2`$ of the outer region. A Bayesian analysis with uniform prior on $`n_1`$ yields the following simple formula for the probability of $`f`$ being above some value:

$$P(>f)=(1+fV_2/V_1)^{N_1}$$
(2)
The effective volume for the inner region is simply that subtended by our survey’s $`1.3\mathrm{deg}^2`$ effective area over the $`30<R<50`$ AU distance range, since the inner-region KBOs are well above our detection threshold. The effective volume of the outer region is given by the $`0.58\mathrm{deg}^2`$ effective area through the 55–65 AU depth. The ratio of volumes between the 55–65 AU sample and the 30–50 AU sample, $`V_2/V_1`$, is then 0.49. Equation (2) then gives $`f<0.92`$ at 95% confidence. If only the 7 KBOs in the inner region from 40–50 AU are considered, then we find $`f<0.67`$ (95% CL). We can thus assert in a model-independent way that the density of KBOs in the 55–65 AU range is at least ⅓ lower than in the 40–50 AU range.

We could estimate the inner-region density from other surveys with brighter magnitude limits than ours, though the comparison with our own brighter objects has the advantage of cancelling any dependence on ecliptic latitude or longitude which may be present in the KBO density. There are very few published wide-area KBO surveys to serve as comparison samples. Jewitt, Luu, & Chen (1996, JLC) and Jewitt, Luu, & Trujillo (1998, JLT) are the two largest. The JLC survey covers 8.3 deg2 to a limiting magnitude of $`R=24.2`$. At this depth, KBOs must have diameter $`D>200`$ km, to be visible all the way to 50 AU. Out of 15 KBOs found by JLC, 12 have distances within 30–50 AU and $`D>200`$ km. Using JLC’s effective areas quoted at $`R=23.2`$ and $`R=24.2`$, a rough estimate for the effective area for all 12 KBOs is 6.1 deg2. Our survey will detect 200 km objects to a distance of 67 AU, if the same $`R=25.5`$ limit is used, so we may conservatively take the outer region in this case to be 55–67 AU across the $`0.58\mathrm{deg}^2`$ effective area for $`R25.5`$. This then yields a Bayesian limit of $`f<2.17`$ (95% CL) for the ratio of outer to inner volume densities of $`D>200`$ km objects.

The JLT survey, with a much brighter limiting magnitude of $`R=22.5`$ over 51.5 deg2, detects 13 KBOs. Of these, 12 are between 30–50 AU, but only 6 are larger than $`D=320`$ km, the smallest size that can be seen at 50 AU in this survey. These 6 KBOs are all inside 45 AU, although we will still consider the inner region 30–50 AU. Objects with $`D>320`$ km are detectable to 85 AU at $`R25.5`$, so we take the outer region to be 55–85 AU. Using the same procedures as for the JLC survey, we calculate $`f<4.9`$.

We should at some point expect to find objects beyond 55 AU since the orbits of the known scattered-disk members will carry them well beyond this point. The sole known KBO that is likely beyond 55 AU (1999 DG8) could be a scattered-disk member; its 1-night arc is insufficient to determine an orbit. Seven objects with $`m_R>25`$ were discovered in very deep Keck pencil-beam surveys (Luu & Jewitt, 1998; Chiang & Brown, 1999); all have motions over arcs of a few hours that are consistent with distances $`<50`$ AU.

Our failure to detect any scattered-disk objects beyond 50 AU does not invalidate our argument, since we claim only a fair sample of the population, not an exhaustive survey. We can test the fair-sample hypothesis by examining our detected population of $`D>160`$ km objects; we claim that this population is complete to about 65 AU, and that majority of the population is within 55 AU, i.e. that we are capable of detecting most of the objects anywhere in their orbits. There should consequently be no bias toward finding objects at perihelion. Examining the 9 objects with $`D>160`$ km in Table 2, we see that 4 are closer to aphelion than perihelion (1998 KY61, KG62, KR65, and 1999 KR18), 1 is nearer perihelion (1998 KS65), and 4 have uncertain $`a`$ (1999 JA132, JB132, JD132, and JF132). Our objects’ distance distribution is thus qualitatively consistent with an unbiased sampling of their own orbits. A quantitative comparison (KS test) also demonstrates internal consistency. While this is a weak test, it is one which the full population of known KBOs fails miserably—there is an extremely strong bias toward objects near perihelion. Indeed our 1999 KR18 is the only known KBO of significant orbital eccentricity ($`e>0.1`$) to be discovered near aphelion.

Our lack of detections beyond 55 AU is consistent with a density beyond 55 AU that is at most similar to that within 50 AU, and it is likely we have observed an under-density in the outer Kuiper Belt. The measurements are not consistent with a large increase in the surface density beyond 50 AU.

## 4 Conclusions

If planetary perturbations are solely responsible for the structure of the Kuiper Belt, a dense primordial disk would be expected beyond $`50`$ AU where these perturbations are insignificant. Our survey could have detected such a disk but did not.

There are several possible explanations for this non-detection.

1. KBOs in the outer Kuiper Belt could be fainter than expected, owing to a lower albedo or much redder color or much smaller sizes. To explain our survey results, this would require a change in the physical properties of KBOs beyond 50 AU.
2. The outer Kuiper Belt could have been dynamically excited early in the history of the solar system by a stellar encounter (Ida et al., 2000) most likely during the Sun’s residence in its birth cluster (Adams & Laughlin, 2000); by perturbations from large Neptune-scattered planetesimals (Petit et al., 1999) or by proto-planetary cores (Thommes et al., 1999). Such excitation could have increased the orbital inclinations and eccentricities of the objects, lowering the apparent surface density on the sky and possibly decreasing the maximum size of objects through the cessation or reversal of the accretion process. More extreme excitation could have stripped away the outer Kuiper Belt.
3. The disk is actually present, but dynamically cold (Hahn, 2000). It could have escaped our survey by simply not intersecting our fields. This is entirely possible, if this disk is inclined to the ecliptic plane by as little as 1°. The invariable plane (the angular momentum plane of the solar system), inclined to the ecliptic by 1.5°, would be a likely candidate for the location of such a cold, dense disk. Our Field G is only 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$6 from the invariable plane, so the scale height of the cold disk would have to be $`1\mathrm{°}`$ to have escaped detection. This implies a very thin, extremely dense disk. Absence of $`>50AU`$ detections in future deep survey fields would eliminate the possibility of a cold disk.

We thank P. Guhathakurta for his help in retrieving some of these objects, and the staff on Cerro Tololo for their excellent support. P. Fischer provided much of the software used to process the BTC images. This work is supported by NASA Planetary Astronomy grant #NAG5-7860; GB is further supported by grant #AST-9624592 from the National Science Foundation; RM is further supported by NASA Origins of Solar systems grant #NAG5-4300 and NASA Planetary Geophysics grant #NAG5-6886.