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# The inclusive reaction 𝑑(𝛾,𝜋)𝑁𝑁 in the first resonance region

## I Introduction

Recently, comprehensive measurements of total and differential cross sections of inclusive, coherent and incoherent $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the deuteron in the energy region from 200 to 792 MeV were carried out at MAMI . It was found that the coherent data are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. However, in the case of the incoherent cross sections the situation is much less satisfactory. The theoretical predictions from Refs.  in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-region are significantly above the data. It is evident that the model of Ref.  can hardly provide a reasonable description of the data on pion photoproduction from the deuteron since it takes into account the pole diagrams only. It is known that the effect of nucleon-nucleon final state interaction (FSI) is extremely important in incoherent photoproduction especially for small pion angles (see Refs. ).

Although FSI was incorporated in the model of Ref. , it nevertheless failed to reproduce the data. A possible reason for this may be that Laget used in his calculations of the $`\gamma d\pi ^0np`$ process the well-known Blomqvist-Laget (BL) parametrization  of the pion photoproduction amplitude on the nucleon. This parametrization gives a satisfactory fit to the amplitude for charged pion photoproduction. But it is not able to describe $`(\gamma ,\pi ^0)`$ production from the proton. Since data on $`(\gamma ,\pi ^0)`$ production from the neutron are absent there is no possibility to check the reliability of the BL model in the description of this channel. An attempt to remedy this defect in Ref.  led to a $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction amplitude which is not very suitable for the use in nuclear calculations.

In our previous analyses of $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the deuteron  we also used the BL operator. However, in those cases it was quite justified due to the following reasons. In Ref.  we studied the incoherent reaction $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0n)p`$ in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-region in the neutron quasi-free kinematics. Our main purpose was to estimate the relative contributions of the neutron pole diagram and background effects due to FSI and $`\pi N`$ rescattering. Since all these ingredients depend on the same pion photoproduction amplitude, the relative contributions are therefore not very sensitive to its magnitude. In Ref.  the reaction was considered in the threshold region. There, only the charged channels are of importance because of a big $`\pi ^\pm N`$ rescattering effect and the use of the BL operator is certainly possible.

In this article we present a new computation of the inclusive reaction $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0)np`$ in the first resonance region. The main difference between the present calculation and the one of Ref.  is, that a more realistic version of the elementary pion photoproduction operator is used. It is taken in the standard CGLN form  with four partial amplitudes $`F_i(\omega ,\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi )`$ calculated with the use of the SAID  and MAID  multipole analyses *** An analogous method was used in Ref.  when considering the reaction $`d(\gamma ,\gamma ^{}n)p`$. Needed in practical calculations, the nucleon Compton scattering operator was taken in that work in on-shell form with partial amplitudes obtained in the framework of dispersion approach  (see also Ref. ).. Since a generalization of the approach into charged pion photoproduction is straightforward we take the opportunity to consider all possible inclusive channels $`d(\gamma ,\pi )NN`$ restricting ourselves, as in Ref. , to the first resonance region.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. II, kinematical relations used within calculations are briefly reviewed. A description of the theoretical model and its ingredients is given in Sect. III. In Sect. IV, we compare our results with all available experimental data. In Appendix A an extension of the non-relativistic approximations of the Bonn OBE potential is described, in order to make them applicable to $`nn`$ and $`pp`$ scattering. Kinematical relations between the variables in the so-called photon-nucleon c.m. frame and the ones in the $`\gamma d`$ c.m. frame are given in Appendix B.

## II Kinematics

Let us denote by $`k=(k^0,𝐤),p_d=(\epsilon _d,𝐩_d),q=(\epsilon _\pi ,𝐪),p_1=(\epsilon _1,𝐩_1)`$ and $`p_2=(\epsilon _2,𝐩_2)`$ the 4-momenta of the initial photon and deuteron, the final pion and nucleons, respectively. A symbol $`E_\gamma `$ is reserved for the lab photon energy ($`k_{lab}^0=E_\gamma `$) and a symbol $`\omega `$ will be used for the photon energy in the $`\gamma d`$ c.m. frame: $`k_{cm}^0=\omega =E_\gamma M/W_{\gamma d}`$ with $`W_{\gamma d}=\sqrt{M^2+2ME_\gamma }`$ and $`M`$ being the deuteron mass.

It is convenient to take as independent kinematical variables the photon energy and pion momentum $`𝐪`$ in the used frame of reference (generally, the lab or c.m. frame) and the angles $`\mathrm{\Theta }_𝐏`$ and $`\varphi _𝐏`$ of one of the nucleons in the c.m. frame of the final $`N_1N_2`$ pair. Using the equality

$`W_{NN}=2\epsilon _P=2\sqrt{𝐏^2+m^2}=\sqrt{(k+p_dq)^2},`$ (1)
where $`m`$ is the averaged mass of the final nucleons, one can find the momentum $`𝐏`$. After boosting the momenta $`𝐏`$ and $`𝐏`$ with the velocity $`(𝐤+𝐩_d𝐪)/(k^0+\epsilon _d\epsilon _\pi )`$ the momenta of the outgoing nucleons are obtained and, therefore, the kinematics is totally determined.

The differential cross section is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d𝐪d\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐏}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^5}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\epsilon _d|𝐏|}{8kp_d\epsilon _\pi \epsilon _P}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_2m_1\lambda m_d}{}}|m_2m_1|T|\lambda m_d|^2,`$ (2)
where $`m_2`$, $`m_1`$, $`\lambda `$, and $`m_d`$ are spin states of the two nucleons, photon, and deuteron, respectively. To obtain the inclusive differential cross section $`d\sigma /d\mathrm{\Omega }_\pi `$, the r.h.s. of Eq. (2) has to be integrated over the value of the pion momentum $`q=|𝐪|`$ and the solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐏`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_\pi }}={\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{q^{max}}{}}}q^2𝑑q𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐏{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d𝐪d\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐏}}.`$ (3)
An extra factor of 1/2 must be included in the r.h.s. of Eq. (3) in case of charged pion photoproduction. The maximum value $`q^{max}`$ can be found from Eq. (1) at $`W_{NN}=2m`$. In the c.m. frame it is given by

$`q^{max}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2W_{\gamma d}}}\sqrt{[W_{\gamma d}^2(2m+\mu )^2][W_{\gamma d}^2(2m\mu )^2]},`$ (4)
where $`\mu `$ is the pion mass. In the lab frame one has

$`q^{max}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}\left[aE_\gamma z+(E_\gamma +M)\sqrt{a^2b\mu ^2}\right],`$ (5)
where $`a=(W_{\gamma d}^24m^2+\mu ^2)/2`$ and $`b=(E_\gamma +M)^2E_\gamma ^2z^2`$ with $`z=\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi `$.

## III The theoretical model for inclusive pion photoproduction on the deuteron

As in our previous papers on $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the deuteron  we will exploit the diagrammatic approach to calculate the amplitude $`m_2m_1|T|\lambda m_d`$. However, we reduce the set of diagrams under consideration. For example, in Ref.  working in the threshold region we were forced to take into account a two loop diagram which includes simultaneously $`np`$ and $`\pi N`$ interactions. Such a diagram is of importance at threshold energies since it involves a block with charged pion photoproduction from the nucleon. With increasing photon energy this diagram becomes less important (see Ref. ). Above 200 MeV it can safely be disregarded. It is known (see Refs. ) that there are kinematical regions where a one loop diagram with $`\pi N`$ rescattering noticeable contributes to the amplitude. But this rather concerns the exclusive process $`\gamma d\pi NN`$. We have checked that $`\pi N`$ rescattering changes the final results in the first resonance region only by a few percent.

As a result, we retain in our calculations the two diagrams shown in Fig. 1. The pole diagram 1$`a`$ must be considered since at the integrations in Eq. (3) there are the kinematical regions where one of nucleons (or both simultaneously) has a small momentum, the so-called quasi-free regions. These lead to peaks in the exclusive cross sections. The inclusive cross section from the pole diagrams is mainly saturated in these peaks. When at the integration mentioned above $`q`$ is approaching $`q^{max}`$ and, therefore, $`W_{NN}2m`$, the relative momenta ($`|𝐏|`$) of the outgoing nucleons become small. Now there are peaks in the exclusive cross sections due to strong $`NN`$ interaction in the $`s`$-waves (see, e.g., Refs. ) which manifest themselves in a big contribution of diagram 1$`b`$ to the inclusive cross section. This effect is expected to be most pronounced at small pion angles since in this case the kinematics permits both for the deuteron wave function (DWF) and $`NN`$ scattering amplitude to work simultaneously in low momentum regime. The above mentioned smallness of the $`\pi N`$ rescattering effects can be explained also by the fact that the $`s`$-wave $`\pi N`$ scattering lengths are about two orders smaller than those for $`NN`$ scattering.

Let us now write out the matrix elements corresponding to the diagrams in Fig. 1 (see also Refs. ). One has for the pole diagram 1a

$$m_2m_1|T^a(𝐤,𝐪,𝐩_2)|\lambda m_d=\underset{\stackrel{~}{m}_1}{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{m_2\stackrel{~}{m}_1}^{m_d}\left(𝐩_2\frac{𝐩_d}{2}\right)m_1|T_{\gamma \stackrel{~}{N}_1\pi N_1}(𝐤_{\pi N_1},𝐪_{\pi N_1})|\lambda \stackrel{~}{m}_1,$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{m_2\stackrel{~}{m}_1}^{m_d}(𝐩_2𝐩_d/2)`$ is DWF and $`m_1|T_{\gamma \stackrel{~}{N}_1\pi N_1}(𝐤_{\pi N_1},𝐪_{\pi N_1})|\lambda \stackrel{~}{m}_1`$ is the amplitude of the elementary process $`\gamma N\pi N`$. The amplitude depends on photon ($`𝐤_{\pi N_1}`$) and pion ($`𝐪_{\pi N_1}`$) momenta taken in the c.m. frame of the $`\pi N_1`$ pair. These momenta can be obtained from the corresponding momenta in the used frame of reference through a boost with the velocity $`(𝐩_2𝐤𝐩_d)/(k^0+\epsilon _d\epsilon _2)`$.

Of course there is one more pole diagram identical to that in Fig. 1a but with the replacement $`12`$. In case of $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction the corresponding matrix element should be added to Eq. (6). For the charged channels a subtraction of two matrix elements should be done.

The calculations were done using DWF for the non-relativistic versions of the Bonn OBE potential (OBEPR) . In fact, in those papers three OBEPR models where built. A parametrization for one of them was given in Table 14 of Ref. . Two other parametrizations were given in Table A.3 of Ref.  denoted in that table by “A” and “B”. For these three versions we shall use the notations “OBEPR”,“OBEPR(A)” and “OBEPR(B)”, respectively. Analytical parametrizations of the $`s`$\- and $`d`$-amplitudes of DWF for these three models were taken from Ref. . We would like to note here that our results are practically independent of the choice of the potentials so that all results below were obtained with the OBEPR model.

It has been noted in Sect. I that in our previous papers  on $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the deuteron we used the BL operator to calculate the amplitude $`m_1|T_{\gamma \stackrel{~}{N}_1\pi N_1}|\lambda \stackrel{~}{m}_1`$. In the present paper the latter was obtained with the use of multipole analyses. The CGLN operator has the following form:

$`T_{\gamma N\pi N}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi W_{\gamma N}}{m}}\left[i𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_\lambda F_1+𝐪(𝐤\times \mathit{ϵ}_\lambda )F_2+i𝝈𝐤𝐪\mathit{ϵ}_\lambda F_3+i𝝈𝐪𝐪\mathit{ϵ}_\lambda F_4\right].`$ (7)
It is written in the $`\pi N`$ c.m. frame so that all vectors in Eq. (7) should be taken in this frame. Of course, the partial amplitudes $`F_i(\omega ,\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi )(i=14)`$ are also functions of the photon energy $`\omega `$ and pion angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi `$ in the same frame. Therefore, in practical calculations, in particular at the numerical integration in Eq. (3) (and in Eq. (9), see below) one has to make Lorenz transformations to this frame for every grid point. But such a procedure is of no principal difficulty and does not require time-consuming computations. We do not give here explicit expressions for the amplitudes $`F_i(\omega ,\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi )`$ through electric and magnetic multipoles and the derivatives of the Legendre polynomials  since they are very well-known. The multipoles are taken from the SAID  and MAID  analyses. If not stated otherwise all results below have been obtained with the SAID multipoles.

The matrix element corresponding to diagram 1b is

$`m_2m_1|T^b(𝐤,𝐪,𝐩_2)|\lambda m_d=`$ (9)
$`m{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐩_s}{(2\pi )^3}\underset{\stackrel{~}{m}_2^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_1^{}}{}\frac{𝐩_{out},m_2m_1|T_{NN}|𝐩_{in},\stackrel{~}{m}_2^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_1^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_2^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_1^{}|T^a(𝐤,𝐪,𝐩_s)|\lambda m_d}{p_{in}^2p_{out}^2i0}},`$
where $`𝐩_{out}=(𝐩_2𝐩_1)/2`$ and $`𝐩_{in}=𝐩_s+(𝐪𝐩_d𝐤)/2`$ are the relative momenta of the $`N_1N_2`$ pair after and before scattering, respectively, and $`𝐩_{out},m_2m_1|T_{NN}|𝐩_{in},\stackrel{~}{m}_2^{}\stackrel{~}{m}_1^{}`$ is the half off-shell $`NN`$ scattering amplitude. We will not discuss here details of the computations of the amplitude (9) because they are given in Ref. . Note that all partial waves with the total angular momentum $`J=0`$ and 1 were retained in the $`NN`$ scattering amplitude. In fact, however, only two waves, $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$, are of importance when the inclusive channels are considered. All other waves give a few percent contribution to the cross section.

The same OBEPR models of $`NN`$ interaction were used when solving the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the $`NN`$ scattering amplitude needed for the calculations of diagram 1b. It must be noted, however, that those models are valid for $`np`$ interaction only. Therefore, they should be modified in such a way that they may be applicable to $`nn`$ and $`pp`$ interactions as well. We follow a procedure for such a modification proposed in Ref. . It is described in some detail in Appendix A.

As in our previous papers , all summations over polarizations of the particles in Eqs. (6) and (9) as well as the three-dimensional integrations in Eq. (9) have been carried out numerically. The number of chosen nodes at this integration and that in Eq. (3) was taken to be sufficient for prediction of the differential cross section with the numerical accuracy better than 2%.

## IV Results and Discussion

We begin our discussion with the results for the $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0)np`$ channel. In Fig. 2, the predicted differential cross sections of this reaction are shown at energies between 208 and 456 MeV together with experimental results from Ref.   In Ref.  the differential cross sections are given in the so-called “photon-nucleon c.m. frame”. Relations needed to transform the cross sections and angles from the $`\gamma d`$ c.m. frame to the frame mentioned are presented in Appendix B. . One can see one more confirmation of a prediction of Refs.  that the effect of $`np`$ final state interaction should lead to a reduction of the cross section and this reduction is the stronger the smaller the pion angles are. This effect is mainly attributed to the strong repulsive $`np`$ interaction in the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ wave.

Without FSI the model totally fails to reproduce the data. After including FSI one has a quite reasonable description of the data at all energies except for $`E_\gamma =208`$ MeV in the backward direction. Only the points corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi ^N=110^{}`$ at energies from 285 to 362 MeV are noticeably below the curves. But it is difficult to draw smooth curves through the data if these points are included.

In the same figure we compare our results with those from Refs. . Since in Ref.  FSI was disregarded one could expect the dotted curves to be close to the predictions of that work. In fact, one has some deviation which is reduced when the energy approaches the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-position. A reason for this deviation may be due to the use of different pion photoproduction operators since the only remaining ingredient of the models, namely the deuteron wave functions, are very similar for all modern $`NN`$ potentials. Indeed, a comparison of predictions for the total cross sections of the reaction $`\gamma p\pi ^0p`$ given in Fig. 2 of Ref.  with those calculated with the SAID (and MAID) multipoles shows that these former go above the latter.

An analogous reason seems to be responsible for the disagreement between our full calculation and the predictions from Ref.  where FSI was taken into account. As already mentioned in Sect. I, the BL operator is not good for the description of neutral pion photoproduction. The deviation is clearly seen at $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi ^N90^{}`$ above 300 MeV.

To illustrate, we show at 324 MeV the contribution from the pole diagram with $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the proton. A constructive effect of two mechanisms with quasi-free pion photoproduction on separate nucleons is obvious. One can see that at backward pion angles the total contribution of the pole diagrams is practically equal to the direct sum of the contributions of each diagram so that the interference term is very small. The reason for this is that at backward angles the kinematics does not allow both nucleons to have simultaneously small momenta and, therefore, both diagrams cannot work in the quasi-free regime.

After integrating Eq. (3) over the solid pion angle one obtains the total cross section for a given channel. In Fig. 3, the total cross section for $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction is shown. As in the case of the differential cross section, one can see that without FSI the model clearly overestimates the data. After inclusion of FSI one has good agreement with the data. Only in the center of the peak our model overestimates the measured cross sections by about 25 $`\mu b`$. Note that the inclusion of FSI does not shift the position of this peak. This fact has a simple explanation. Indeed, diagram $`b`$ in Fig. 1 contains the same $`\gamma N\pi N`$ amplitude as the pole diagram $`1a`$. Taking into account that the integral over the loop is saturated at small momenta due to the deuteron wave function, the boosts mentioned in Sect. III lead only to small shifts in energies. Therefore, the $`\gamma N\pi N`$ vertex works practically in the same energy regime as it does in the pole diagrams.

It is clear that the calculation of Ref.  totally fails to describe the data, as can be expected from the previous discussion. Although FSI was taken into account in Ref. , the predictions from that work give still too high cross sections.

We begin the discussion of charged pion photoproduction with the $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^{})pp`$ channel. There is one experimental article  which supplies us with a lot of data points in the energy region from 0.2 to 2.0 GeV. However, we will discuss the first resonance region only. In Fig. 4 the predicted differential cross sections are shown at energies ranging from 210 to 540 MeV. The dotted curves which correspond to the contribution of one pole diagram, reproduce the behaviour of the angular dependence for the differential cross section of the elementary reaction $`\gamma n\pi ^{}p`$. In particular, at energies above 400 MeV the strong forward peak due to the contribution of the pion exchange in the $`t`$-channel is clearly seen. After inclusion of the second pole diagram one has a drastic reduction of the cross section at forward pion angles, exhibiting the total difference from the case of neutral pion photoproduction and showing how the Pauli principle manifests itself. One can again see that at backward angles the cross section from two pole diagrams is practically equal to twice the cross section from one diagram.

The effect of FSI in the case of the charged channels is expected to be quite different in comparison with the neutral one. Since only $`s`$-wave $`NN`$ interaction is of importance for the inclusive $`d(\gamma ,\pi )NN`$ reaction, FSI shows up in the charged channels through attractive interaction in the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ wave. This interaction is again significant at small pion angles but has to lead to an increase of the differential cross section. A confirmation of our anticipations is seen in Fig. 4. A very interesting observation is that above 400 MeV the cross section again becomes to be strongly forward peaked but now due to FSI. After inclusion of FSI we obtain good agreement with the data from Ref. .

At 350 MeV we compare our results with those from Ref. . One can see that there is agreement in the shapes of the angular distributions but we predict lower values for the cross sections.

The total cross section for $`\pi ^{}`$-photoproduction is shown in Fig. 5. Here the contribution of FSI is noticeable smaller than that for $`\pi ^0`$-production and leads to an increase of the cross section. We find good agreement with the data from Refs.  and  but the data from Ref.  lie above our solid curve at $`E_\gamma 375`$ MeV. At the same time a data pion from Ref.  at 250 MeV lies markedly below both our predictions and the data from Refs.  and . Theoretical predictions from Refs.  are also shown in Fig. 5. They are very close to each other and are able to reproduce the data only below 250 MeV.

In Figs. 6 and 7 we give our results for $`\pi ^+`$-photoproduction. All the theoretical conclusions we have just drawn for the case of $`\pi ^{}`$-photoproduction are valid for the $`\pi ^+`$ channel as well. To our knowledge there are no data on this process in the first resonance region so that we cannot compare our predictions with experimental results.

Having results for the total cross sections in all the channels mentioned above one can try to make predictions for the total photoabsorption cross section on the deuteron in the first resonance region. Of course, two more reactions contribute to it as well. These are coherent $`\pi ^0`$-photoproduction from the deuteron ($`\gamma d\pi ^0d`$) and deuteron photodisintegration ($`\gamma dnp`$). Predictions for the former are taken from a theoretical paper  which are in good agreement with the data from Ref. . The total cross sections for the latter reaction were calculated making use of a phenomenological fit  to available experimental data up to 440 MeV.

In Fig. 8 we present our results for the total photoabsorption cross section per nucleon for the deuteron. Good agreement with the data is seen excluding, however, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-peak region. In the center of the peak at about 320 MeV we find our results with SAID and MAID multipoles to overestimate the experimental value of $`(452\pm 5)\mu b`$ by 33 $`\mu b`$ and 48 $`\mu b`$, respectively. We have no explanation for this disagreement.

It is instructive to compare the results of the direct measurements of the total photoabsorption cross section for the deuteron from Refs.  and those which can be extracted from the data on the separate channels contributing to this cross section. Let us try to put together all available data at 320 MeV. From Ref.  one has for the $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0)np`$ and $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0)d`$ channels $`(348\pm 27)\mu b`$ and $`(124\pm 19)\mu b`$, respectively (the additional normalization error of 6% has been added). The result for the $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^{})pp`$ channel from Refs.  is $`(249\pm 10)\mu b`$ (again the additional normalization error of 5% has been added). At 320 MeV the phenomenological fit  gives $`53\mu b`$ for the contribution of deuteron photodisintegration. The errors in this number can be safely neglected. Since there are no data on the $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^+)nn`$ channel in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-region we accept for its contribution our theoretical prediction of $`199\mu b`$. Collecting all these numbers we obtain the value of $`(487\pm 17)\mu b`$ for the total photoabsorption cross section per nucleon for the deuteron at 320 MeV which is in disagreement with the results from Refs. . However, there exists good agreement with our values of $`485\mu b`$ and $`500\mu b`$ obtained with the SAID and MAID multipoles, respectively.

## V Summary

We have investigated inclusive single pion photoproduction on the deuteron in the first resonance region. Unlike most previous calculations, although not numerous, we have exploited as the elementary operator for pion photoproduction from the nucleon the one calculated with the SAID and MAID multipoles rather than the commonly used Blomqvist-Laget one or an operator built in Ref. . We have found that the model involving the pole diagrams and FSI gives a good description of all available data both on the differential and total cross sections. This description is much better than that in other theoretical approaches. The only unsolved problem is that our predictions for the total photoabsorption cross section for the deuteron in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-peak region overestimate the data by about 10%. We suppose, however, that there is some inconsistency in the experimental results. New measurements, both inclusive single pion photoproduction on the deuteron in all inelastic channels and total photoabsorption cross section for the deuteron, would be extremely desirable and could shed more light on possible reasons for the above disagreement.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank B. Krusche and A.I. L’vov for many fruitful discussions. We are very grateful to S.S. Kamalov for providing us with the results of his calculations and to R. Machleidt for a computer code for the CD-Bonn potential. This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under contract 436 RUS 113/510.

## A Application of the Bonn OBEPR model to neutron-neutron and proton-proton scattering.

Used through this article the Bonn OBEPR model  is valid, strictly speaking, for $`np`$ interaction only. Since in our consideration of charged pion photoproduction the amplitudes of $`nn`$ and $`pp`$ interactions are also needed we have to modify the potential so that it could be applicable to these interactions too. To do this we will use a procedure proposed in Ref.  which consists in adding Coulomb interaction to the original Bonn model and making small adjustments of the parameters of the model  It would be much more consistently to deal with a model which includes the charge dependence of nuclear forces and describes simultaneously all channels in $`NN`$ interaction. Such a model called ‘CD-Bonn’ has recently been built by Machleidt . Unfortunately, all our main calculations had already been finished when we got to know about the new potential. Very first estimates made with this potential show only small variations, within less than 1%, of the presented results..

A method to handle Coulomb interaction in momentum space was proposed by Vincent and Phatak . We will not discuss it here since it is described in full detail in that article (see also Refs. ). We only mention that we applied the method to the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ partial wave. All other waves with $`J=0`$ and 1 were taken for the switched off Coulomb potential. It makes no sense to include the Coulomb modifications for the waves other than $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$, since the contributions of these former to the differential and total cross sections were found to be very small.

Coulomb interaction is mainly responsible for the difference of the $`nn`$ and $`pp`$ scattering lengths. But the difference of the $`nn`$ and $`np`$ scattering lengths is due to the breaking of the charge independence of the nuclear force. The major reason for it is the pion mass splitting. This effect was not taken into account in the construction of the Bonn potentials. At least quantitatively, the differences above can be modelled by a procedure given in Ref. . In that article it was proposed to vary the coupling constants of the $`\sigma NN`$ (for the isospin $`I=1`$ channel) and $`\delta NN`$ vertices keeping all other parameters of the model unchanged. These coupling constants were changed in such a way that the new model with the switched on Coulomb potential describes the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ scattering length in the $`pp`$ channel. At the same time in the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$$`{}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}`$ partial wave there were the same deuteron properties as for the original version of the potential. Carrying out the proposed procedure we obtained the following coupling constants for the OBEPR, OBEPR(A) and OBEPR(B) models, respectively: 7.7135, 8.6226 and 8.7316 for $`g_\sigma ^2/4\pi `$ ($`cf.`$ the former values 7.7823, 8.7171 and 8.8322) and 2.586, 2.81 and 6.744 for $`g_\delta ^2/4\pi `$ ($`cf.`$ the former values 2.6713, 2.742 and 6.729). The resulting scattering lengths and effective ranges for three OBEPR models together with experimental values are given in Table I.

Solving the Lippmann-Schwinger equation with the original and modified versions of the OBEPR models we directly obtained the partial half-off shell amplitudes for $`np`$ and $`nn`$ scattering, respectively. For the $`pp`$ scattering we used a prescription from Ref.  consisting of the following parametrization of the half-off-shell $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ partial amplitude:

$`t_{off}^{{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}}(|𝐩_{out}|,|𝐩_{in}|)={\displaystyle \frac{|𝐩_{out}|^2+\beta ^2}{|𝐩_{in}|^2+\beta ^2}}t_{on}^{{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}}(|𝐩_{out}|,|𝐩_{out}|),`$ (A1)
with $`\beta =1.2`$ fm-1 and the on-shell amplitude $`t_{on}^{{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}}(|𝐩_{out}|,|𝐩_{out}|)`$ is obtained with the use of the Vincent and Phatak method for the modified potentials with switched on Coulomb interaction.

## B Kinematical relations between the variables in photon-nucleon c.m. frame and the $`\gamma d`$ c.m. frame.

In Ref.  the differential cross sections for the reaction $`d(\gamma ,\pi ^0)np`$ are given in the so-called photon-nucleon c.m. frame. This latter corresponds to an assumption that all nucleons in a nucleus (we suppose the nucleus with mass number $`A`$ but not only the deuteron) have the same momenta $`𝐤/A`$ in the $`\gamma A`$ c.m. frame. This means that in the lab frame all nucleons in the nucleus are at rest and, therefore, the total energy of the $`\gamma N`$ system is equal to $`W_{\gamma N}=\sqrt{m^2+2mE_\gamma }`$. The well known formulae give the photon energy and pion momentum in the $`\gamma N`$ c.m. frame:

$`\omega ^{}={\displaystyle \frac{m}{W_{\gamma N}}}E_\gamma ,q^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2W_{\gamma N}}}\sqrt{[W_{\gamma N}^2(m+\mu )^2][W_{\gamma N}^2(m\mu )^2]},`$ (B1)
and the pion energy is $`\epsilon _\pi ^{}=\sqrt{q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\mu ^2}`$.

One can show that the photon energy and pion momentum in the frame where the nucleon has the momentum $`𝐤/A`$ are expressed through the following relations:

$`\stackrel{~}{\omega }={\displaystyle \frac{W_{\gamma N}^2m^2}{2\sqrt{\frac{W_{\gamma N}^2+(A1)m^2}{A}}}},`$ (B2)
$`\stackrel{~}{q}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}_1\left[a_1\omega _Az+d\sqrt{a_1^2b_1\mu ^2}\right],`$ (B3)
where $`a_1=(d^2m^2+\mu ^2\omega _A^2)/2`$, $`b_1=d^2\omega _A^2z^2`$, $`d=\stackrel{~}{\omega }+\sqrt{(\stackrel{~}{\omega }/A)^2+m^2}`$, $`\omega _A=\stackrel{~}{\omega }(A1)/A`$ and $`z`$ the cosine of the pion angle in the $`\gamma A`$ c.m. frame. Of course, at $`A=1`$ one gets from Eqs. (B2) and (B3): $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }=\omega ^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{q}=q^{}`$.

Using Eqs. (B1)–(B3) one can express $`z^N=\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi ^N`$ through $`z`$

$`z^N={\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^{}\epsilon _\pi ^{}(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_\pi \stackrel{~}{q}z)\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{\omega ^{}q^{}}}.`$ (B4)
The derivative of $`z^N`$ with respect to $`z`$ is then given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z^N}{z}}={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{\omega ^{}q^{}}}\left[\left(z{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{q}}{\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_\pi }}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{q}}{z}}+\stackrel{~}{q}\right].`$ (B5)
Presented in Fig. 2 the differential cross sections and angles $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\pi ^N`$ were obtained making use of Eqs. (B4)–(B5) for $`A=2`$.


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# Relativity of Entanglement

## Abstract

It has recently been suggested that various entanglement measures for bipartite mixed states do not in general give the same ordering even in the asymptotic cases \[S. Virmani and M. B. Plenio, Phys. Lett. A 268, 31 (2000)\]. That is, for two certain mixed states, the order of the degree of entanglement depends on the measures. Therefore, incomparable pairs of mixed states which cannot be transformed to each other with unit efficiency by any combinations of local quantum operations and classical communications exist. We make an analogy of the relativity of the order of the degree of entanglement to the relativity of temporal orders in the special theory of relativity.

Quantum entanglement led to a controversy over the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment  and to the nonlocality of quantum mechanics . On the other hand, entanglement is one of the key ingredients in quantum information processing . For example, a speedup in quantum computation  is obtained through parallel quantum operations on massively superposed states, which are, in general, entangled.

Recently, it has been shown that different entanglement measures can give rise to different orderings for mixed states of bipartite systems . In this paper, we make an analogy between the non-uniqueness (or relativity) of the order of the degree of entanglement and the relativity of temporal order in the special theory of relativity . The temporal order of two certain events can be reversed, depending on the observers’ reference frames when the two events are not causally conntected. This is analogous to the following fact: The order of the degree of entanglement for two certain mixed states can be reversed, depending on the entanglement measures. A trajectory of quantum states induced by a local quantum operation assisted by classical communications (LOCCs) corresponds to a dynamic trajectory of a particle in special relativity.

A few authors have proposed serveral entanglement measures, which quantify the degree of entanglement of quantum states, such as negativity of entanglement $`E_n`$ , entanglement of cost $`E_C`$, entanglement of distillation $`E_D`$ , and quantum relative entropy of entanglement $`E_r`$ . These are reasonable measures in the sense that they satisfy the three necessary conditions : (C1) $`E(\rho )=0`$ if and only if the density operator $`\rho `$ of a bipartite system is separable, (C2) local unitary operations leave $`E(\rho )`$ invariant, and (C3) the expected degree of entanglement does not increase under any LOCCs.

The entanglement of quantum states has a rich structure and require, in general, multiple parameters for complete characterization. It was shown that a single parameter is sufficient to characterize pure entangled states of bipartite systems in the asymptotic case . In this special case, all entanglement measures are reduced to a unique measure . In general, however, the entanglement requires multiple parameters for characterization, for example, $`N1`$ parameters for pure entangled states of bipartite $`N`$-dimensional systems .

For better understanding and manipulation of entangled states, quantum states must be classified as well as possible. The degree of entanglement of an entangled pair can be compared by investigating the existence of LOCCs that transform one state to another. One state can be said to be more entangled than another if the former can be transformed to the latter by LOCCs with unit efficiency. However, some pairs of entangled states exist such that one cannot be transformed to the other by any LOCCs. These pairs of states cannot be compared with each other; in other words, they are ‘incomparable’ (A simple example is given in Ref. ).

Consideration of orderings in degree of entanglement are important in analyzing the structure of entanglement. Two certain entanglement measures $`E_A`$ and $`E_B`$ are defined to have the same ordering if they satisfy the following condition for any two density operators $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _j`$;

$$E_A(\rho _i)>E_A(\rho _j)E_B(\rho _i)>E_B(\rho _j).$$
(1)
Recently, Virmani and Plenio showed that if two certain entanglement measures, which are identical for pure states, give different degrees of entanglement for some mixed states, the orderings of the two measures are different for those mixed states . For examples, the existence of a bound entangled state and some losses  in purification processes cause the entanglement of cost $`E_C`$ to be strictly greater than entanglement of distillation $`E_D`$ even in asymptotic cases. (In the finite case, it was explicitly shown by numerical analysis that the entanglement of formation $`E_f`$  and the negativity of entanglement $`E_n`$ give different orderings .) Thus, the orderings in the degree of entanglement depend on the measures. This fact suggests that the various entanglement measures do not have to give the same ordering for mixed states even in asymptotic cases.

We note that, although the conclusion appears to be odd, it does not give rise to any bare contradictions. Let us consider two density operators $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _j`$. The fact that the order depends on the entanglement measures obviously means that degree of entanglement of $`\rho _i`$ is less than that of $`\rho _j`$ in one of the two measures and vice versa in the other. That is, we have either

$`E_A(\rho _1)>E_A(\rho _2)\text{and}E_B(\rho _1)<E_B(\rho _2),`$ (2)
or

$`E_A(\rho _1)<E_A(\rho _2)\text{and}E_B(\rho _1)>E_B(\rho _2).`$ (3)
A quantum state with density operator $`\rho _i`$ cannot be transformed to one with $`\rho _j`$ by any LOCCs due to condition (C3) if the degree of entanglement of $`\rho _i`$ is less than $`\rho _j`$ in any of the reasonable entanglement measures. (With less efficiency than one, forbidden paths may be allowed by LOCCs.) Thus, the pairs of states are incomparable , implying the necessity of multiple parameters for characterizing the entanglement of bipartite mixed states. Now, it is interesting to note that this fact is analogous to a fact of the special relativity. The temporal order of two certain events depends on observers’ reference frames . Although it appears to be odd, this fact does not give rise to contradictions because the two events cannot be causally connected (or can only be space-likely connected) in this case. Let us consider a map where each mixed state is coordinated by degree of entanglement of two certain measures, $`E_A`$ and $`E_B`$. (See Fig. 1.) We can easily see that a point in the map cannot be moved by any local unitary operation due to condition (C2). Thus, a class of mixed states, which are equivalent within a local unitary operation, corresponds to a point in the map. In general, the converse is not true. The larger the number of reasonable entanglement measures we adopt, the more refined the coordination of density operators will become. If LOCCs are applied, a point can flow through a trajectory that always points in the lower-left direction from a point in the map. This fact is analogous to a fact in special relativity; each observer goes through a path in space-time that always points from a point to somewhere within the light cone. Here, a point and a trajectory in the map, respectively, correspond to an event and an observer’s path in space-time. That there is no unique entanglement measure is also analogous to there being no preferred reference frame in special relativity. Multiplicity of measures does not mean oddity, but a higher dimensional structure of degree of entanglement of quantum states. In fact, the conclusion that multiple parameters are needed has been logically obtained by Vidal and by Bennett et al. in the case of finite pure states where incomparable states exist . What we have shown here is that existence of incomparable states and multiple measures are in close analogy with some facts in the special theory of relativity.

In conclusion, various entanglement measures for quantum bipartite mixed states do not give the same ordering in general , even in asmyptotic cases. That is, two certain mixed states’ ordering in the degree of entanglement depends on the entanglement measures. However, such pairs of mixed states cannot be transformed to each other by LOCCs, so they are incomparble. We make an analogy between these facts and the relativity of temporal order in the special theory of relativity. The non-uniqueness of the entanglement measure is also in analogy with the non-existence of a preferred reference frame. Our hope is that this analogy will inspire other ideas which may lead us to a better understanding of the structure of entanglement measures. It is notable that after this work the analogy was persued in the case of finite pure-state entanglement .

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology through the Creative Research Initiatives Program under Contract No. 99-C-CT-01-C-35.

Fig. 1; Consider a map where each mixed state is coordinated by the degrees of entanglement of two certain measures, $`E_A`$ and $`E_B`$. If LOCCs are applied, a point can flow through a trajectory that always points in the lower-left direction from a point in the map. This fact is in analogy with special relativity where each observer goes through a path in space-time that always points to somewhere within the light-cone from a point. A point and a trajectory in the map, respectively, correspond to an event and an observer’s path in space-time. The states corresponding to $`p`$ and $`q`$ are incomparable since they cannot be transformed, with unit efficiency, to each other by any LOCCs.


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# Polarization transfer in the 4He(𝑒⃗,𝑒'𝑝⃗)³H reaction

## Abstract

Polarization transfer in the 4He$`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})^3`$H reaction at a $`Q^2`$ of 0.4 (GeV/c)2 was measured at the Mainz Microtron MAMI. The ratio of the transverse to the longitudinal polarization components of the ejected protons was compared with the same ratio for elastic $`ep`$ scattering. The results are consistent with a recent fully relativistic calculation which includes a predicted medium modification of the proton form factor based on a quark-meson coupling model.

PACS numbers: 13.40.Gp, 13.88.+e, 24.70.+s, 25.30.Dh, 27.20.+h

A long standing question in nuclear physics is the effect of the nuclear medium on the properties of the nucleon. The close proximity of nucleons in the nucleus would lead one to expect effects on the spatial distribution of the nucleon’s constituent particles. However, experimentally distinguishing changes of the nucleon structure from other conventional nucleus-related effects, such as meson-exchange currents (MEC), isobar configurations (IC), and final state interactions (FSI) has proven difficult. The form factor of a bound nucleon is not directly observable; it must be inferred from calculations which predict how a modification of the form factor will affect measurable quantities such as cross sections or polarizations.

In this paper we report on the first measurement of polarization transfer in the 4He$`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})^3`$H reaction in quasielastic parallel kinematics. Polarization provides a sensitive test of any model and should be more sensitive to changes in the form factor than cross section measurements.

Several recent calculations  have demonstrated the importance of dynamic enhancement of lower components of Dirac spinors (spinor distortions) for the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reaction. The $`R_{LT}`$ response function is sensitive to distortion of the bound-state spinor while recoil polarization is more sensitive to distortion of the ejectile spinor. The relativistic calculations of Udias et al. provide excellent descriptions of $`A_{TL}`$ in 16O$`(e,e^{}p)`$  and the induced polarization for 12C$`(e,e^{}\stackrel{}{p})`$ . The sensitivity of recoil polarization to possible density dependence of nucleon form factors was investigated first by Kelly  using a local density approximation for the current operator and an effective momentum approximation (EMA) for spinor distortion. Udias then performed a fully relativistic calculation which shows that the accuracy of the EMA for the recoil polarization is better than 1% for missing momentum $`p_m<100`$ MeV/c. Both groups have shown that recoil polarization for modest $`p_m`$ is relatively insensitive to gauge and Gordon ambiguities and to variations of the optical potential and have concluded that polarization transfer provides a promising probe of density-dependent modifications of nucleon electromagnetic form factors.

Polarization transfer was first used to study nuclear medium effects in deuterium . Within statistical uncertainties, no evidence of medium modifications was found. Malov et al.  made the first measurement of polarization transfer in a complex nucleus, 16O. Their results were consistent with predictions of relativistic calculations, with limited statistical precision.

Cross section data indicate only upper limits on possible modifications of the form factors in the nucleus. The limits come primarily from quasielastic electron scattering with separation of the longitudinal and transverse response functions  and from $`y`$-scaling  of inclusive electron scattering. In the Q2 range of 0.1 to 0.5 (GeV/c)2 $`L/T`$ separations limit modifications to 3% for the magnetic and 5-10% for the electric form factor. The limits from $`y`$-scaling at higher $`Q^2`$, in the range of 1 to 5 (GeV/c)2, are about the same.

While the data exclude substantial form factor modification, especially of the magnetic form factor, recent theoretical work predicts modifications within the experimental limits . Lu et al. , using a quark-meson coupling model (QMC), and Frank et al. , using a light front constituent quark model, both predicted changes of a few percent in the form factors. Lu calculated the change for both 16O and 4He and found little difference in the size of the modification. We shall later examine the effect on the predicted polarization of the QMC modification.

In the case of electron-nucleon scattering, there is a direct relationship between the form factors and the polarization transfer components :

$$\frac{G_E}{G_M}=\frac{P_x^{}}{P_z^{}}\frac{E+E^{}}{2m_N}\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2)$$
(1)
where $`E`$ and $`E^{}`$ are the energies of the incident and scattered electron, $`\theta `$ is the electron scattering angle, $`m_N`$ is the nucleon mass, and the longitudinal and transverse polarization transfer observables are $`P_z^{}`$ and $`P_x^{}`$, respectively. The relation in Eq. (1) was recently used to extract $`G_E/G_M`$ for the proton . This relationship is only approximately correct for electron scattering from a bound nucleon; one must calculate the expected polarization ratio in the context of some model.

We use the coordinate system with unit vectors pointing in the direction of the three momentum transfer $`\widehat{z}=\widehat{q}`$, normal to the electron scattering plane $`\widehat{y}=(\widehat{k}_i\times \widehat{k}_f)/|\widehat{k}_i\times \widehat{k}_f|`$, and transverse $`\widehat{x}=\widehat{y}\times \widehat{z}`$, where the initial and final electron momenta are $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}_f`$. The results are presented in terms of $`P_x^{}`$ and $`P_z^{}`$, the projections of the transferred polarizations on these axes.

The advantage of using polarization is that the polarizations do not depend on the target thickness or total current; the beam polarization and analyzing power both cancel in the ratio of polarizations. The difference between the asymmetries measured with positive and negative beam helicity cancels instrumental asymmetries to first order. The only significant experimental systematic uncertainty is the determination of the spin precession in the spectrometer.

This experiment was done at MAMI at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany, using the spectrometer facilities of the A1 collaboration Ref. . A proton focal plane polarimeter (FPP) was installed in Spect. A . The beam energy was 854.5 MeV. The nominal settings were 625 MeV/c central momentum at $`50.24^{}`$ for the electron arm (Spect. B) and 660 MeV/c and $`46.56^{}`$ for the proton arm (Spect. A). The data covered the $`Q^2`$ range of 0.35 to 0.42 (GeV/c)2. To measure the polarization ratio for the free proton and to study systematic effects, $`\stackrel{}{e}p`$ elastic scattering data were taken at the same nominal settings as for the 4He measurement except that the central angle for the proton arm was set to $`48.16^{}`$ in order to better match the kinematic acceptance.

The FPP includes a graphite analyzer with a thickness of 11.9 g/cm2 (7 cm). The spectrometer vertical drift chambers serve as the tracking detectors before the analyzer and two horizontal drift chambers track scattered protons after the analyzer. The basic design of the FPP is similar to several used previously . For further details, see Ref. .

The helium target consisted of a gas cell 8 cm long, at a temperature of 19 K and pressure of 19 bar. The target thickness was about 250 mg/cm2. The same cell was used for liquid hydrogen, with a thickness of about 560 mg/cm2, in order to minimize any systematic differences. The beam current used for hydrogen was typically 0.5 $`\mu `$A, set by the data acquisition rate, and for helium 14 $`\mu `$A. The beam polarization was approximately 75%, as determined from the recoil polarization measured for hydrogen using the analyzing power from Ref. . The invariant mass resolution was approximately 0.8 MeV, which allowed clear separation of the 3H$`p`$ final state from the 2H$`pn`$ and $`ppnn`$ final states.

In the data analysis the criteria for selected events included, among others, tests on spectrometer acceptance, target geometry, missing mass, and FPP polar scattering angle ($`7^{}<\theta _c<35^{}`$). The physical quantities of interest, $`P_x^{}`$ and $`P_z^{}`$, were determined by means of the maximum likelihood technique, utilizing the azimuthal distribution of the protons scattered from the graphite analyzer

$$I=I_0\left[1+ϵ_y\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _c)+ϵ_x\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _c)\right].$$
(2)
The asymmetries $`ϵ_x`$ and $`ϵ_y`$ are proportional to the analyzing power and to the proton’s polarizations perpendicular to its momentum as it enters the analyzer and are linear functions of the proton’s polarization components at the target. The relationship is given by a rotation which takes into account the change of coordinate system and the proton spin precession  in the spectrometer’s magnetic fields and is calculated on an event by event basis.

The systematic uncertainty in the determination of $`P_x^{}/P_z^{}`$ can be estimated by introducing artificial shifts in various parameters and finding the effect on the ratio. The total systematic uncertainty was estimated to be $`\pm 0.03`$ on the ratio, for both helium and hydrogen.

Table I lists the extracted polarization ratios for 4He and 1H. No radiative corrections have been applied; they are expected to have an effect which is of order 1% . The hydrogen ratio is found to be in agreement with the polarization ratio derived from the world average of $`G_E/G_M`$  for data between $`Q^2`$ of 0.3 and 0.5 (GeV/c)2.

Since systematic effects on the polarization ratio for hydrogen and helium were nearly the same in both size and sign, the effect of systematic uncertainties on the ratio of helium to hydrogen data

$$R=(P_x^{}/P_z^{})_{\mathrm{He}}/(P_x^{}/P_z^{})_\mathrm{H}$$
(3)
nearly canceled. This “super-ratio” is estimated to have a systematic uncertainty of less than 0.01. The uncertainty on $`R`$ is then limited by the statistical uncertainty, mainly of the hydrogen ratio measured in this experiment. Using the ratio of $`G_E/G_M`$ derived from the world average for hydrogen would give a smaller statistical uncertainty but larger systematic uncertainty. Table II lists the super-ratio, using the hydrogen ratio from this experiment, as a function of $`p_m`$, along with the value averaged over the entire data set. Negative values of $`p_m`$ correspond to the recoiling nucleus having a momentum component along the direction of $`\stackrel{}{q}`$.

A meaningful interpretation of the polarization ratio measured for 4He with that of hydrogen can only be made by utilizing theoretical calculations which include the effects of FSI, the off-shell current operator, relativistic effects, MEC, and IC on the ratio. In addition, any calculation must be averaged over the spectrometer acceptance.

We now proceed as follows. The polarization transfer is predicted using a model which includes the free form factors and the best phenomenologically determined optical potentials and bound state wave functions (BSWF), and FSI. MEC and IC are included in one nonrelativistic model. If the value predicted using the free form factor does not describe the measured value well, within the theoretical uncertainties, the effect of a modified form factor will be considered. If the new value predicted provides a better description of the data, we can take it as evidence that the proton form factors inside 4He differ from those of a free proton.

Figure 1 shows a comparison of the experimental result $`R`$, the 4He polarization ratio normalized to the hydrogen ratio, with the acceptance-averaged calculations. The hydrogen calculation made use of the same form factor parameterization as does the corresponding 4He calculation.
FIG. 1.: Comparison of measured $`R`$ (Exp.) with theoretical calculations. Laget - PWIA (1); full calculation (2). Udias - PWIA, $`cc1`$ (3), $`cc2`$ (4); positive energy projection, $`cc1`$ (5), $`cc2`$(6); no spinor distortions, $`cc1`$ (7), $`cc2`$ (8); fully relativistic, $`cc1`$ (9), $`cc2`$ (10); fully relativistic, and QMC, $`cc1`$ (11), $`cc2`$ (12).

We first examined the effect of MEC and IC using the non-relativistic calculations of Laget . The result of the full Laget calculation was found to be nearly identical to the PWIA result, points 2 and 1, respectively, in Fig. 1, indicating that MEC and IC do not contribute significantly in our kinematics. There is a discrepancy of over two standard deviations between the observed value and both calculations of Laget.

We next use the model of Udias et al. to determine the magnitude of relativistic effects. Udias solves the Dirac equation and uses relativistic optical potentials, but does not include MEC or IC. For each case, we give the result for two different de Forest  off-shell current operators, $`cc1`$ and $`cc2`$. The PWIA calculation of Udias (points 3 and 4) includes positive and negative energy components for the bound state, but only positive energy components for the ejected nucleon. It gives nearly the same results as that of Laget, indicating that $`R`$ is insensitive to the negative energy components of the bound state. The calculations are insensitive to differences between the two forms of the current operator.

The optical potential for $`p+^3`$H was obtained by folding a density-dependent empirical effective $`pN`$ interaction (EEI) with the measured charge density for tritium. Kelly and Wallace  derived an effective interaction for nucleon-nucleus scattering for $`9A208`$, designated IA2, in which spinor distortion is represented by density-dependent modifications that are very similar to those of the EEI model fitted to proton elastic and inelastic scattering data. Some parameters were adjusted to fit $`p^4`$He data yielding a better fit to the proton elastic scattering data than any previous optical potential. Furthermore, the dominant source of density dependence is consistent with the spinor distortion employed by relativistic $`(e,e^{}p)`$ calculations. We investigated the sensitivity to final-state interactions by using several other optical models and found variations of $`\pm 0.02`$ in the polarization ratio.

In principle, the result should not depend on the gauge used. However, the calculations do show a small gauge dependence. We show the result using the Coulomb gauge, which gives nearly the same ratio as the Landau gauge; the Weyl gauge gives a larger ratio by $`0.04`$.

The results of the Udias relativistic calculation projecting out the negative energy sector (points 5 and 6) and with no spinor distortion (points 7 and 8), called EMA-noSV in Ref. , are also nearly the same as the PWIA calculation (points 3 and 4), demonstrating the small influence of relativistic effects, other than the negative energy components of the outgoing nucleon wave function, which are not included in any of the calculations 1 to 8, and of FSI, on $`R`$. The fully relativistic calculations are shown as points 9 and 10. The ratio decreases noticeably, in particular with $`cc1`$, but it remains slightly larger than the observed ratio. Both results are between one and two standard deviations from the observed value.

Finally, we include the density dependent form factor modifications predicted by the QMC model of Lu et al. , using a bag constant of 0.8 fm (points 11 and 12). These decrease the ratio further by about 4%. The difference between the $`cc1`$ and $`cc2`$ results are about the same as for points 9 and 10. The effect on the ratio is less than the 10% effect discussed in Ref. . However, the calculations of Ref.  averaged over the bound state wavefunction. As discussed in Ref. , an integration over the final state, including the effects of absorption and non-locality corrections, reduces the effect. The addition of QMC brings the calculation into good agreement with the observed value.

Calculations using Kelly’s EMA for similar conditions give very similar results. The variations in the result due to choice of the BSWF and the effect of Coulomb distortions were negligible in both models.

The dependence of $`R`$ on the missing momentum was found to be small, as shown in Fig. 2. A sample of the calculations given in Fig. 1 are shown in Fig. 2. The other calculations give curves nearly parallel to those shown, with separations about the same as the separations of the averages shown in Fig. 1.

In conclusion, we have measured polarization transfer in the reaction 4He$`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})^3`$H for the first time. The $`P_x^{}/P_z^{}`$ ratio is in clear disagreement with PWIA and non-relativistic calculations. A full relativistic calculation agrees at the two standard deviation level. The variation in the result for different choices of the bound-state wave function, optical model, and current operator, added in quadrature, is less than one standard deviation. These measurements give the first evidence that a fully relativistic calculation that includes negative energy components giving rise to spinor distortions, is required for a correct description of spin transfer in $`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})`$ for 4He, even at low missing momentum. The addition of a modified proton form factor to the calculation, predicted by the QMC model, brings the result into good agreement with the data. Although the data do favor the models with a modified form factor, the statistical significance is not sufficient to exclude calculations without form factor modification.

We wish to thank the MAMI accelerator staff for their excellent work during this experiment. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of J.-M. Laget with theoretical calculations. This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Schweizerische Nationalfond.

aPermanent address: Department of Physics, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
bPresent address: Physik Department E18, T.U. München, Germany
cPresent address: Netherlands Industrial Property Office, Rijswijk, The Netherlands
dPresent address: Glasgow University, Glasgow, Scotland, UK


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# 𝜎 Exchange in the 𝑁𝑁 Interaction within the Chiral Unitary Approach

## 1 Introduction

The intermediate range attraction in the $`NN`$ interaction has been traditionally described by the $`\sigma `$-exchange in the meson exchange picture.  It has also been noticed  that box diagrams with two-pion exchange and intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation lead to an intermediate range attraction. A weakened $`\sigma `$ exchange together with these box diagrams has also been used to describe the intermediate range $`NN`$ attraction.

With the success of chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi PT`$) in the meson-meson and meson-baryon sectors,  attempts to extend these ideas to the $`NN`$ sector have been pursued.  In a recent paper,  following the line of Ref. , the peripheral $`NN`$ partial waves are studied within a chiral scheme, using the meson-meson and the meson-baryon interaction Lagrangians. With this input, together with more conventional processes with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ box diagrams, $`\rho `$ exchange and other meson exchange, a good reproduction of the $`NN`$ data for $`L>2`$ partial waves is obtained.

A striking feature of Ref.  is that the exchange of two interacting pions in the scalar-isoscalar channel (the $`\sigma `$ channel) leads to a repulsion (although weak), instead of the commonly accepted attraction from $`\sigma `$ exchange. Simultaneously, from the box diagrams with intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, an attraction is obtained with the range and strength of the standard $`\sigma `$ exchange of the boson exchange models. Two basic approximations lead to these results. First, the $`\pi `$$`\pi `$ isoscalar interaction is used only to lowest order in $`\chi PT`$. Second, no form factors are considered for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ box diagrams.

In the present work we wish to reconsider this idea and go further by treating the exchange of two interacting pions in the isoscalar channel in a nonperturbative way. The approach followed here for the $`\pi `$$`\pi `$ interaction produces a $`\sigma `$ pole in the complex plane in the physical region $`s>4m_\pi ^2`$. Then the analytical extrapolation of the model is used in order to find the strength of the isoscalar exchange interaction for the situation $`s<0`$, which one encounters in the $`NN`$ scattering problem.

The $`\sigma `$ meson has been rather problematic, with ups and downs in the particle data tables, where it has been once again welcome.  Some analyses of the $`\pi `$$`\pi `$ data rely on the $`\sigma `$ pole in the $`\pi \pi `$ t matrix.  Theoretical models for the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction based on meson exchange  find also a pole in the t matrix for the $`\sigma `$ meson. Yet, of relevance to the present work is the fact that the $`\sigma `$ pole is found in recent chiral nonpertubative approaches which have developed independently.  In Ref.  the inverse amplitude method using the lowest order and second order chiral Lagrangians is formulated and it leads to a pole position for $`\sigma `$ at $`440i245`$ MeV. In Ref.  the Bethe Salpeter equation, with a cutoff in the loops fitted to the data of the scalar sector, is shown to reproduce accurately the data in the scalar sector up to around $`\sqrt{s}=1.2`$ GeV, using only the lowest order chiral Lagrangian as input. In this case, $`\sigma `$ appears as a pole at $`469i203`$ MeV \[Ref. ,erratum\]. The approach of Ref. , using coupled channels, is able to reproduce the $`\sigma `$ and $`f_0`$ (980) resonance in the scalar-isoscalar sector and the $`a_0`$(980) resonance at $`L=0`$, $`I=1`$. The approach of Ref.  using only the $`\pi \pi `$ channel could only generate $`\sigma `$ in the scalar channel, but $`\rho `$ and $`K^{}`$ in the vector channel were accurately reproduced.

A generalization of the inverse amplitude method of Ref. , incorporating coupled channels as in Ref.  and using the lowest and second order chiral Lagrangians, is given in Ref. , and there, all meson-meson data up to $`\sqrt{s}=1.2`$ GeV are accurately reproduced. In the latter work, the $`\sigma `$ pole appears at $`442i225`$ MeV.

A different chiral approach is employed in Ref. , using the N/D method. This explicitly intoduces resonances on top of the lowest order chiral Lagrangian. That approach, which includes contributions from the physical and unphysical cuts through dispersion relations, produces good results up to $`\sqrt{s}=1.4`$ GeV and also leads to a $`\sigma `$ pole at $`445i221`$ MeV.

As we can see, all these different schemes, which uses the lowest order chiral Lagrangian and the implementation of exact unitarity, lead invariably to a $`\sigma `$ pole around $`450i225`$ MeV, with small fluctuations.

Our aim here is to follow these lines and use the unitary scheme to generate the $`\pi \pi `$ scalar isoscalar amplitude in the unphysical (virtual) region, and later its contribution to the $`NN`$ interaction.

## 2 Lowest order contribution in isoscalar exchange in the $`NN`$ interaction

We first investigate the lowest-order contribution to the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction in the scalar isoscalar channel, which is given by the diagrams of Fig. 1 for $`pppp`$. We leave out the box diagram contribution here and just refer the literature.

Considering the $`\stackrel{}{\tau }`$ $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }`$ isospin dependence of the $`\pi NN`$ coupling, one gets from the sum of the diagrams in Fig.1 the combination,

$`t_{\pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0}+2t_{\pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}}+2t_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0\pi ^0}+4t_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}}.`$ (1)
Taking into account the unitary normalization of the $`\pi \pi `$ states of Ref. ,

$`|\pi \pi ,I=0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}|\pi ^0\pi ^0+\pi ^+\pi ^{}+\pi ^{}\pi ^+,`$ (2)
the combination of $`t`$-matrices in Eq. (1) corresponds, in terms of the isoscalar $`\pi \pi `$ amplitude, to

$`6t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0)}.`$ (3)
We should note here that all the pion lines in Fig. 1 are off shell, which requires the use of the off shell $`t`$-matrix. From Ref.  this off shell amplitude obtained from the lowest order meson-meson Lagrangian is given by

$`t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0,L)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{9f^2}}\left(9s+{\displaystyle \frac{15m_\pi ^2}{2}}3{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_i^2\right),`$ (4)
where $`f`$ is the pion decay constant ($`f=93`$ MeV), $`s`$ is the $`\pi \pi `$ Mandelstam variable, and the $`p_i`$ are the momenta of the pion lines. We define the on-shell value of the amplitude as that of Eq. (4) when $`p_i^2=m_\pi ^2`$. This allows us to write in a convenient way

$`t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0,L)}=t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0,L,OS)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3f^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}(p_i^2m_\pi ^2),`$ (5)
with the on shell value of the amplitude

$`t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0,L,OS)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{f^2}}\left(s{\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2}}\right).`$ (6)
In what follows we prove that the off shell contribution of the amplitude, i.e., the terms proportional to $`p_i^2m_\pi ^2`$, cancels exactly with the diagrams of Fig. 2, which appear at the same order of the chiral counting. The diagrams of Fig. 2 contain the vertices with one baryon line and three mesons. The baryon-meson chiral Lagrangian relates this function to that with one meson attached to the baryon line. This interaction term is given by

$`_1^{(B)}={\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2}}(\overline{p}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5u_\mu ^{11}p+\overline{n}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5u_\mu ^{22}n+\overline{n}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5u_\mu ^{21}p+\overline{p}\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5u_\mu ^{12}n)`$ (7)
where $`p`$ and $`n`$ represent the proton or neutron fields. In Eq. (7) $`u_\mu `$ is the $`SU(2)`$ matrix given by

$`u_\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{f}}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{12f^3}}(_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }^22\mathrm{\Phi }_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{\Phi }^2_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }),`$ (8)
and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the $`SU(2)`$ matrix for the pions given by

$`\mathrm{\Phi }=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\pi ^0& \pi ^+\\ \pi ^{}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\pi ^0\end{array}\right).`$ (11)
Equation(7), with the first term of $`u_\mu `$ in Eq. (8) gives rise to the $`\pi NN`$ coupling, which in the nonrelativistic reduction, $`\gamma ^\mu \gamma _5\sigma ^k\delta _{\mu k}`$, reads

$`it_{\pi ^iNN}=C_i{\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2f}}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p},`$
$`C_{\pi ^+}=C_\pi ^{}=\sqrt{2};C_{\pi ^0pp}=1;C_{\pi ^0nn}=1`$ (12)
for incoming pion with momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$.

The second term in the expansion of $`u_\mu `$ gives rise to the three pion vertices and involves derivatives in the three pion fields. However, given the fact that the $`\pi NN`$ vertex in the loops with meson momentum $`p`$ of Fig. 2 contain the $`p`$-wave coupling $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}`$, only the term which involves the derivative in the pion with momentum $`p`$, which will give rise to another $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}`$ vertex, will contribute in the loop integration. In Fig. 3 we show the diagrams corresponding to the loop in Fig. 2(a) for the different isospin combinations of Fig. 1, together with the contribution of the three meson vertex to each diagram.

If one sums the contributions of all the diagrams in Fig. 3 including the isospin weight of the $`\pi NN`$ vertices one obtains an equivalent three pion vertex,

$`it_{3\pi }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3f^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2f}}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}\left(2+2+2\right)={\displaystyle \frac{6}{3f^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2f}}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}.`$ (13)
Now let $`q`$ be the momentum exchanged between the protons and let us evaluate the diagrams of Fig. 1 with the off shell part of the meson-meson vertex and the diagrams of Fig. 3. We present them in Fig. 4 with the appropriate momentum assignment.

The loops to the right in both diagrams of the figure are the same. Hence, we concentrate only on the loop of the left. Let us pick up the term $`((p+q)^2m_\pi ^2)/3f^2`$ of the meson-meson vertex, which provides the off shell contribution of the left top meson in diagram (A). We then get

$`V^{(A)}`$ $`=`$ $`i\left({\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2f}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\stackrel{}{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}6\frac{1}{3f^2}[(p+q)^2m_\pi ^2]\frac{1}{p^2m_\pi ^2+iϵ}}`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p+q)^2m_\pi ^2+iϵ}}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{E(\stackrel{}{p_1}+\stackrel{}{p})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_1^0+p^0E(\stackrel{}{p_1}+\stackrel{}{p})+iϵ}},`$
with $`M`$ and $`E`$ the mass and on shell energy of the nucleon. Similarly, we obtain the contribution from the loop on the left in diagram (B),

$`V^{(B)}`$ $`=`$ $`i\left({\displaystyle \frac{D+F}{2f}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}6\frac{1}{3f^2}\frac{1}{p^2m_{\pi ^2}+iϵ}}`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{E(\stackrel{}{p_1}+\stackrel{}{p})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_1^0+p^0E(\stackrel{}{p_1}+\stackrel{}{p})+iϵ}}.`$
In Eq. (14) one can see a cancellation of the off-shell part of the meson-meson vertex with the corresponding meson propagator. The rest of the integrand only contains $`q`$ in the term $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}`$. This term vanishes exactly in the limit $`\stackrel{}{p_1}0`$, or in any case if one makes the heavy baryon approximation $`p_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}E(\stackrel{}{p_1}+\stackrel{}{p})=0`$. (The corrections are of order $`(\stackrel{}{p_1}/M)^2`$, which we can neglect.) We shall evaluate the $`NN`$ potential for $`\stackrel{}{p_1}=0`$ for simplicity. With the $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{q}`$ $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}`$ term of Eq. (14) vanishing, we observe that $`V^{(A)}`$ and $`V^{(B)}`$ are equal but with opposite sign, and hence there is an exact cancellation of these two terms.

If now we take the off shell part of the meson vertex corresponding to the other mesons we would observe an exact cancellation with the diagrams $`(b)`$-$`(d)`$ of Fig. 2. This is interesting for practical purposes since it means at the end that we must evaluate only the diagrams of Fig. 1 and using only the on-shell value of the meson-meson vertex.

The need to include this subset of chiral diagrams to find cancellations in the $`NN`$ isoscalar interaction was already stressed in Ref. . There, different arguments were used, recalling that in the expansion of the pion field matrix $`U(\stackrel{}{\pi })`$, the third order term has ambiguities and the result cannot depend upon them. The on-shell amplitude does not depend on these ambiguities, so here we also prove that, after summing the terms discussed above, the results do not depend on unknown parameters which would affect the off shell meson-meson amplitude.

The derivation here is particularly useful for our purposes, since in Ref. 16) it was also shown that in the construction of the full meson-meson amplitude, only the on-shell part of the meson-meson vertex was needed. This allows us to sum immediately the set of diagrams that were included in the unitary Bethe-Salpeter approach to the scalar meson amplitude and, hence, in the $`NN`$ interaction we would have the set of diagrams shown in Fig. 5.

## 3 Unitary approach for the interacting pions in the isoscalar chnnel

The diagrams of Fig. 5 are easily summed up. First one must substitute the on-shell lowest-order meson-meson amplitude of Eq. (6) with the Bethe-Salpeter amplitude,

$$t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0)}=\frac{1}{f^2}\frac{(s\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{1+\frac{1}{f^2}(s\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})G(s)}.$$
(16)
The function $`G(s)`$ is the loop function with two pion propagators,

$$G(s)=i\frac{d^4q}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{q^2m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+iϵ}\frac{1}{(Pq)^2m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+iϵ},$$
(17)
where $`P`$ is the total momentum of the two-pion system and $`P^2=s`$. In Ref.  the integral in Eq. (17) was regularized with a cut-off in the $`CM`$ frame of the two mesons. Here it is better to work in the $`CM`$ of the two nucleons, and hence an invariant form for $`G(s)`$ is preferable. This can be done by using the results for $`G(s)`$ obtained with dimensional regularization, which are shown in Appendix A of Ref.  to be equivalent to those of a cut-off. We then have

$$G(s)=\frac{1}{(4\pi )^2}\left[1+\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{\mu ^2}+\sigma \mathrm{ln}\frac{\sigma +1}{\sigma 1}\right],$$
(18)
with $`\mu `$ the regularization mass, which was found to be $`\mu =1.2q_{\mathrm{max}}=1.1`$ GeV for the value of the cutoff, $`q_{\mathrm{max}}`$, needed for a good fit to the data with the B-S equation and the lowest order $`\chi PT`$ as the kernel of the equation. In Eq. (18) the magnitude of $`\sigma `$ is

$`\sigma =\sqrt{1{\displaystyle \frac{4m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{s}}},`$ (19)
In the range $`0<s<4m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$, one has an analytical extrapolation which leads to

$$\sigma \mathrm{ln}\frac{\sigma +1}{\sigma 1}(\pi 2\alpha )\sqrt{\frac{4m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{s}1};\alpha =\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\frac{4m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{s}1},$$
(20)
and for $`s>4m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ the log of Eq. (18) develops a negative imaginary part. For $`s<0`$, $`\sigma `$ is always larger than 1, and the log term behaves smoothly.

We would also like to note that at the same order as calculated in this section there are other pieces, like in Fig. 6. The $`BBMM`$ contact term is proportional to $`\gamma ^\mu \tau ^a`$, which implies vector and iso-vector exchange in the $`t`$ channel, and hence we do not have to consider it for the isoscalar exchange channel we are concerned with here.

In the $`NN`$ $`CM`$ frame we have the momentum $`q`$ exchanged between the nucleons with $`q(0,\stackrel{}{q})`$, such that $`s=\stackrel{}{q}^{2}`$. The $`NN`$ potential corresponding to the isoscalar $`2\pi `$ exchange of Fig. 5 then becomes

$$t_{NN}(q)=\stackrel{~}{V}_{N}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(q)\frac{6}{f^2}\frac{(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{1G(\stackrel{}{q}^{2})\frac{1}{f^2}(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}.$$
(21)
Here $`\stackrel{~}{V}(q)`$ is the vertex corresponding to the triangle loop to the left in Fig. 4, which in the limit $`\stackrel{}{p_1}0`$ can be written as

$`\stackrel{~}{V}_N(q)`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\left(\frac{D+F}{2f}\right)^2\stackrel{}{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}\frac{1}{p^2m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+iϵ}\frac{1}{(p+q)^2m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+iϵ}}`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{E(\stackrel{}{p})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M+p^0E(\stackrel{}{p})+iϵ}}.`$
With the sums over the spins of the intermediate nucleon in the loop we have

$$\stackrel{}{\sigma }(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}=(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})\stackrel{}{p}+(\stackrel{}{q}\times \stackrel{}{p})\stackrel{}{\sigma },$$
(23)
but the integral over $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ in Eq. (22) leads to a vector proportional to $`\stackrel{}{q}`$, which makes the term with $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ of Eq. (23) vanish in the integral. Furthermore, the $`p^0`$ integration in Eq. (22) can be done analytically, and one finds

$`\stackrel{~}{V}_N(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left(\frac{D+F}{2f}\right)^2(\stackrel{}{p}^{2}+\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{q})\frac{M}{E}\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{\omega }\frac{1}{\omega ^{}}\frac{1}{\omega +\omega ^{}}}`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E+\omega M}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E+\omega ^{}M}}[\omega +\omega ^{}+EM],`$
with

$$E=E(\stackrel{}{p});\omega =\sqrt{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\stackrel{}{p}^{2}};\omega ^{}=\sqrt{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})^{2}},$$
(25)
The integral in Eq. (24) is logarithmically divergent.

It is straighforward to include the contribution with an intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ instead of a nucleon in the vertex function, as depicted in Fig. 7. It can be evaluated in a straighforward way, substituting $`S_iT_j`$ for $`\sigma _i\tau _j`$ with $`S`$ and $`T`$ the spin and isospin transition operators.

The inclusion of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the fermionic loops is required in order to satisfy the basic rules in the large $`N_c`$ limit,  and we include it here. We obtain

$`\stackrel{~}{V}_\mathrm{\Delta }(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{9}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}}{f_{\pi NN}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left(\frac{D+F}{2f}\right)^2(\stackrel{}{p}^{2}+\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{q})\frac{M_\mathrm{\Delta }}{E_\mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{\omega }\frac{1}{\omega ^{}}}`$ (26)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega +\omega ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E_\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega M}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{E_\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega ^{}M}}[\omega +\omega ^{}+E_\mathrm{\Delta }M],`$
with $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass and $`E_\mathrm{\Delta }=(M_{\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\stackrel{}{p}^{2})^{1/2}`$. We take the empirical value for the ratio of the couplings $`f_{\pi N\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}`$ to $`f_{\pi NN}`$ as 2.12 .

The integral of Eq. (26) is also logarithmically divergent. In order to regularize the integrals of Eqs. (24) and (26), one needs a cutoff or a form factor. Within a quark model one finds natural form factors due to the finite size of the nucleon, but one must still sum over excited states of the quarks in the intermediate states, which leads to a divergence in spite of the form factors.  The regularization of the loop in this case can be accomplished by a cutoff in the space of intermediate states, together with a form factor. The truncation at $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, together with the use of monopole form factors with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of order 1 GeV has been found to be a sensible regularization procedure, as proved by the success of such an approach in the cloudy bag model.  We shall use here static form factors to keep the $`p^0`$ integral of Eq. (22) simple, and hence we include in the integrand of Eqs. (24) and (26) the product of form factors

$$F(\stackrel{}{p})F(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+\stackrel{}{p}^{2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})^{2}},$$
(27)
with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }11.2`$ GeV.

Our final form for the $`NN`$ potential in momentum space is thus given by

$$t_{NN}(q)=\stackrel{~}{V}(q)^2\frac{6}{f^2}\frac{(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{1G(\stackrel{}{q}^{2})\frac{1}{f^2}(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})},$$
(28)
with

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(q)=\stackrel{~}{V}_N(q)+\stackrel{~}{V}_\mathrm{\Delta }(q).$$
(29)
Here $`\stackrel{~}{V}_N(q)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{V}_\mathrm{\Delta }(q)`$ are given by Eqs. (24) and (26) incorporating in the integrand the product $`F(\stackrel{}{p})F(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{q})`$ of Eq. (27). The potential in coordinate space is given by

$`V_{NN}^{(S)}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}t_{NN}(q)}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}q𝑑q\mathrm{sin}(qr)t_{NN}(q).`$
We would like to compare $`V_{NN}^{(S)}(r)`$ with the empirical $`\sigma `$ exchange given by

$`V_{NN}^{(\sigma )}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}\frac{g_{\sigma NN}^2}{\stackrel{}{q}^{2}m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\sigma NN}^2}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{m_\sigma r}}{r}},`$
with

$$\frac{g_{\sigma NN}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{4\pi }=5.69;g_{\sigma NN}=8.46,$$
(32)
from Ref. . This corresponds to the empirical $`\sigma `$ exchange when the two pion box diagrams with the intermediate $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are considered in addition.

Actually, in Ref.  a monopole form factor per vertex with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma =1.7`$ GeV is also included so that

$`V_{NN}^{(\sigma )}(q)=g_{\sigma NN}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma ^2m_\sigma ^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma ^2+\stackrel{}{q}^{2}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_\sigma ^2+\stackrel{}{q}^{2}}},`$ (33)
which leads to the potential in coordinate space

$`V_{NN}^{(\sigma )}(r)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}g_{\sigma NN}^2\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}e^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma r}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma ^2m_\sigma ^2}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma }}e^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma r}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}e^{m_\sigma r}\right\},`$ (34)
with the same asymptotic behaviour as Eq. (31) at large distances and the finite limit $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma m_\sigma )^2/2\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma `$ for $`r0`$.

## 4 Qualitative discussion of the potential

Let us go back to Eq. (16) in the physical region. We know from Ref.  that the isoscalar amplitude develops a pole around $`450i225`$ MeV. Let us neglect for this study Im$`G(s)`$ and rewrite Eq. (16) as

$$t_{\pi \pi \pi \pi }^{(I=0)}=\frac{G(s)^1(s\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{s(\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2}f^2G(s)^1)},$$
(35)
so that

$$\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2}f^2G(s)^1m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2};G(s)^1=\frac{1}{f^2}(\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2}m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}).$$
(36)
Assuming now that $`G(s)^1`$ is a smooth function of $`s`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{V}(q)`$ is a smooth function of $`q`$, we would have

$`t_{NN}(q)`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{V}(0)^2{\displaystyle \frac{6}{f^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{V}(0)^2{\displaystyle \frac{6(m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{f^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2})(m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{\stackrel{}{q}^{2}+m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}.`$
We see that the first term in the numerator of the second fraction gives rise to a repulsive $`\delta `$ function in coordinate space, while the second term gives rise to an attractive potential due to a standard $`\sigma `$ exchange with the equivalent coupling

$$g_{\sigma NN}\stackrel{~}{V}(0)\sqrt{6}\frac{(m_{\sigma }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\frac{m_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2})}{f}$$
(38)
With the value $`\stackrel{~}{V}(0)0.10\times 10^2`$ MeV<sup>-1</sup> that we obtain, as we shall see, the $`\sigma NN`$ coupling would be of the order of $`g_{\sigma NN}5`$, which has the right order of magnitude, compared with the empirical coupling used in Ref.  to provide the needed intermediate range attraction, $`g_{\sigma NN}8.5`$.

This qualitative study is certainly improved by the accurate results which we give in the next section, but it serves to illustrate the features which we can expect from such a potential. The interesting thing is that, apart from the intermediate attraction, one gets a scalar repulsion, which is also demanded by the $`NN`$ scattering data.

## 5 Results and discussion

The qualitative discussion of §4 relies on the constancy of the $`G(s)`$ function of Eq. (18). This function is rather smooth and is negative in the range of momenta of interest. For $`s`$ = 450 MeV<sup>2</sup> it is about $`0.02`$, and in the range of $`s`$ from 0 to $`500`$ MeV<sup>2</sup> it varies between $`0.02`$ and $`0.015`$ . The function $`\stackrel{~}{V}(q)`$ changes slightly faster and drops by a factor of 2 as $`q`$ varies from 0 to 550 MeV. Hence the qualitative results of that section are only indicative of the actual numerical results. We performed the calculations using a value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ for the monopole form factors of Eq. (27) of 1.1 GeV.

In Fig. 8 we give the results for the vertex function, which display a moderate but steady decrease of the vertex with $`q`$. This ensures convergence of the integral of Eq. (30) for $`V(r)`$. At this point we note already some discrepency with Ref. , where no form factors were used in the evaluation of the vertex function. The divergences obtained there led to singularities at short distances which were disregarded, since only the peripheral $`NN`$ partial waves were investigated there. In the present case, both the $`q`$ dependence of the form factor and the extra denominator in Eq. (28) from the iteration of unitary loops, which produces the sigma resonance, improve the convergence properties of the integral of Eq. (30).

The function $`t_{NN}(q)`$ of Eq. (28) is plotted in Fig. 9. It exhibits an increase from 0 to about 500 MeV and then drops as q increases further. For $`q`$ around 2 GeV, it has a value about 250 times smaller than at the maximum.

We should caution that the unitary theory used here leads to good results in the physical region up to about $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 1.2 GeV. It is then clear that one should not extrapolate the results of the model in the unphysical region to values of $`q`$ much larger than 1 GeV. In this sense, the form factors in the $`\pi NN`$ vertices with lambda of order 1 GeV guarantee that one does not enter into this unknown region. In any case, the uncertainties for these large values of $`q`$ would revert into uncertainties at short distances in $`V(r)`$, which we certainly must admit. Technically, the function $`t_{NN}(q)`$ of Eq. (28) develops a pole around 2060 MeV, far away from the region of validity of the model used, and to which we do not give any physical meaning. This is anyway a warning that we should not attempt to investigate the behaviour of the potential at very short distances with the present model. The numerical integrations are extended up to 2 GeV in the actual calculations. The predictions for $`V(r)`$ beyond $`r`$ = 0.5 fm should be rather safe.

In Fig. 10 we show the results for $`V(r)`$. We find interesting behaviour with a moderate attraction beyond $`r`$ = 0.9 fm and a repulsion at shorter distances, which become of order 1 GeV at very short distances, with the caveat discussed above. Around 0.5 fm it has a value of around 200 MeV. The trend of the results agrees with the qualitative results anticipated in §4. The first thing to note is that these results are quite different qualitatively from those of the conventional sigma exchange, where there is only attraction, according to Eq. (34). They also differ appreciably from those of Ref.  where a very weak repulsion is obtained in the region where we find an attraction here (the attraction of the order of eV found numerically at larger distances in Ref.9 is not significative). This finding is relevant since it shows that even for large distances, which is the focus of Ref. , one needs to go beyond perturbation theory in the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction in order to determine the behaviour of the potential. A study of the behaviour of $`V(r)`$ around 2.5 fm reveals Yukawa behaviour with $`m_\sigma `$ around 450 MeV and a coupling $`g_{\sigma NN}`$ of about 8, in rough agreement with the results of the qualitative discussion of §4, demonstrating that the sigma pole appearing in the physical region shows up indeed in the potential at large distances. Yet, the presence of the sigma pole is not the only element responsible for the behaviour of the potential seen in Fig. 10. Indeed, if we replace the denominator of Eq. (28) by unity, thus removing the sigma pole, we still find structure of the potential similar to that in Fig. 10, with the attraction appearing at shorter distances beyond $`r`$ = 0.85 fm. The strength of the attraction is larger and also falls off faster with increasing $`r`$, indicating that the range is now given by other $`q`$-dependent functions. In this case, the vertex function and its $`q`$ dependence are responsible for that behaviour and for the differences with the results of Ref. . Both the vertex function and the unitary approach to the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction are thus very important for the isoscalar potential and for determining its strength in all ranges of distances. Note that the phenomenological form factor that we assume modulates the structure of the vertex. It not only affects the vertex at large $`q`$, in which case only the short range part of the interaction would be modified, but it also modifies the strength of the vertex at finite $`q`$, and this also has influence in the medium and long range parts of the interaction. For similar reasons, the unitarization changes the $`q`$ dependence, but more importantly it introduces a pole in the $`s`$ channel, which is reflected in the t channel by a distinct tail in $`r`$ that goes roughly as $`e^{m_\sigma r}/r`$.

The evaluation of the vertex function here has been done using elements of phenomenology, beyond the chiral approach otherwise used. In this sense the monopole form factors were used and the space of intermediate baryon states was truncated in the delta. Other more realistic options could be used, maybe even using form factors obtained within the chiral approach in some self-consistent way. For the time being we should admit uncertainties from this source.These uncertainties should not be minimized since the results depend appreciably on the choice of the range parameters. For instance a change of lambda from 1.1 GeV to 1.2 GeV changes the attraction from 10 to 15 MeV. A different vertex evaluation, in which an explicit contribution of states beyond the delta in the intermediate states is allowed, as in Ref.  would also lead to different $`q`$ behaviour of the vertex function, with immediate results in the potential in coordinate space. The regularization procedure can be done in many ways. In chiral perturbation, it requires a regularization scheme by means of a regularization scale or a cut-off, but at the same time one has to introduce counter-terms of higher order. In the case of the meson-meson interactions, it is proved in Ref.  and  that a cut-off, or equivalently dimensional regularization at a certain scale, effectively generates the counter-terms in the meson-meson $`s`$-wave channel. For the vertex functions, which we generate here, such a procedure is not yet available. In Ref.  and , infinities in the vertex function are removed with the claim that this removal affects only the short range part of the interaction. In our case we have resorted to phenomenology using an empirical $`\pi NN`$ form factor which makes the loop function convergent. The fact that with this procedure we find an assymptotic behavior for the potential similar to the empirical $`\sigma `$ potential gives us confidence that this “empirical” regularization in the baryon sector is a reasonable procedure.

In any case, given all the limitations which have been discussed above, we can not make strong claims about the strength of this $`\sigma `$ potential, but we certainly can stress the qualitative features, which are rather different from the conventional results for sigma exchange and from results obtained in the perturbative approach to the problem.

## 6 Conclusions

We have evaluated the contribution to the $`NN`$ potential from the exchange of an interacting pion pair in the scalar-isoscalar channel, the sigma channel. We have used a unitary model based upon the lowest order chiral Lagrangian and the Bethe-Salpeter equation. This model is supported by a more elaborate approach using the inverse amplitude method and the lowest and second order chiral Lagrangians, but technically simpler. Both approaches generate a sigma pole around 450 MeV, although with a large width. The $`\pi \pi `$ amplitude extrapolated to negative values of $`s`$, retains memory of the sigma pole and leads to a tail of the $`NN`$ potential reflecting a Yukawa behaviour with the range of the sigma mass. We obtain some moderate attraction beyond 0.9 fm and a stronger repulsion before that. This behaviour is quite different from that of the conventional sigma exchange, which always leads to an attractive force, even in the presence of form factors for the $`\sigma NN`$ vertices.

We have also found that the procedure chosen to regularize the $`\sigma NN`$ vertex function also has important consequences for the potential. We have chosen to introduce phenomenological form factors for the $`\pi NN`$ vertices and to restrict the space of baryon intermediate states in the loop to the nucleon and the delta, a procedure which has been often used in related problems in connection with chiral quark models. The results are sensitive to the form factors and the manner in which the vertex is constructed. This is one of the problems that requires further thought. For the moment, we should accept one degree of freedom due to the divergence of the vertex loop, which must be cured with some regularization mass, a counterterm, the use of a form factor, etc. We can hope to reduce the freedom by using some empirical information, as in the present case . Hence we believe our results are qualitatively acceptable in the range of distance beyond 0.5 fm, and more quantitatively accurate results. The findings of this paper are important because they reveal behaviour that is quite different from that which one gets from the conventional sigma exchange picture. On the other hand, it is also known that a nonperturbative approach to the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction is needed, and such an approach should be important for obtaining proper results in the whole range of distances in the $`NN`$ interaction. These findings should thus have important consequences in the chiral approach to the $`NN`$ interaction, which is now the subject of much theoretical investigation.

## Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the COE Professorship program of Monbusho, which enabled E. O. to stay at RCNP to perform the present work. One of us, E. O., wishes to thank N. Kaiser for useful discussions. This work is partly supported by DGICYT contract number PB96-0753.