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# Vortex Matter Transition in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y under Tilted Fields

## Abstract

Vortex phase diagram under tilted fields from the $`c`$ axis in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y is studied by local magnetization hysteresis measurements using Hall probes. When the field is applied at large angles from the $`c`$ axis, an anomaly ($`H_p^{}`$) other than the well-known peak effect ($`H_p`$) is found at fields below $`H_p`$. The angular dependence of the field $`H_p^{}`$ is nonmonotonic and clearly different from that of $`H_p`$ and depends on the oxygen content of the crystal. The results suggest existence of a vortex matter transition under tilted fields. Possible mechanisms of the transition are discussed.

It has been made clear that the vortex state in high-$`T_c`$ superconductors has various interesting features. Important parameters which control these features are large thermal fluctuations due to high critical temperature $`T_c`$ and the anisotropy of these materials. Although the anisotropy parameter $`\gamma (\lambda _c/\lambda _{ab})`$ is very different in two typical high-$`T_c`$ superconductors, YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) $`\gamma 5`$ (ref.2) and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y (BSCCO) $`\gamma 200`$ (ref.3), similar phenomena such as the first-order phase transition (FOT)  and the (second) peak effect  are commonly observed. The difference of anisotropy is reflected in the fact that these transitions in BSCCO occur in a much lower-field range than those in YBCO. An interesting question one may ask is whether the difference of anisotropy induces a qualitative difference in the vortex states or not.

When the field is inclined from the $`c`$ axis, a drastic change in the vortex order is expected due to large anisotropy. A vortex chain state in which all vortices form arrays in the tilt plane has been observed under tilted fields in YBCO by the Bitter decoration method. The existence of such a vortex chain in anisotropic superconductors has been predicted within the framework of the anisotropic London model. The motive force of the chain formation originates from the attractive magnetic interaction between inclined vortices. On the other hand, vortices form more complicated arrangements in BSCCO. Vortex chains embedded in approximately triangular vortex lattices have been observed. This vortex ordering has attracted theoretical attention and the coexistence of two vortex species has been suggested. Experimentally, Grigorieva et al. concluded that vortex chains embedded in the vortex lattice consist of two inclined vortex species which have different angles from the $`c`$ axis. These results suggest that the difference of anisotropy between YBCO and BSCCO causes different vortex arrangements under tilted fields.

Such observations of vortex states under tilted fields, however, have been limited to very low fields ($`<`$ 200 Oe). Our purpose is to clarify the vortex phase diagram in BSCCO single crystals under tilted applied fields in a wide field range ($`<`$10 kOe). In this paper, we report on an anomaly in the local magnetization in BSCCO which is observed only under tilted fields. This anomaly suggests the existence of vortex matter transition under tilted fields. Based on the angular, temperature, and doping-level dependence of the anomaly, we discuss the origin of the transition.

Single crystals of BSCCO have been grown by the floating-zone method .  We measured several samples with different oxygen contents, which were controlled by annealing at 300-500C for one day in appropriate partial oxygen pressure. In this paper, we show results for four samples; optimally doped (OPT), overdoped (OV1, OV2), and highly overdoped (HOV) crystals. The critical temperatures $`T_c`$ are 86.7, 80.3, 83.5, and 76.8 K, respectively. The configuration of the measurement by using micro-Hall probes is schematically shown in the inset of Fig.1. The details of the measurement are described in the previous paper.

A typical local magnetization curve at 35 K under a tilted field from the $`c`$ axis is shown with a curve in the field parallel to the $`c`$ axis in Fig. 1. In addition to the well-known peak effect ($`H_p`$) , an anomaly, indicated by $`H_p^{}`$, is observed below $`H_p`$. This anomaly is observed only under tilted fields. We confirmed the presence of this anomaly in more than ten single crystals and Pb-doped BSCCO crystals.

Figures 2(a) and 2(b) show the first quadrant part of the local magnetization hysteresis curves at 35 K in the OV1 sample at various angles from 0 to 84. When the field is nearly parallel to the $`c`$ axis, only the peak effect ($`H_p`$) is observed at 630 Oe. On the other hand, the magnetization anomaly $`H_p^{}`$ starts to be observed below $`H_p`$ at angles above about 60 in this crystal. Since the anomalies have a broad steplike forms at lower angles, the field $`H_p^{}`$ is picked up as the position of the shoulder of magnetization, which is shown by the dashed line in Fig. 2. At larger angles, the anomaly has sharper shape and the definition of $`H_p^{}`$ is not ambiguous.

The angular dependence of $`H_p^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ is plotted in Fig. 3 together with the normal peak effect. The difference of peak positions between increasing and decreasing field process is due to the self-trapped field in the crystal. The angular dependence of $`H_p`$ follows the scaling relation, $`H_p(\mathrm{cos}\theta +\alpha \mathrm{sin}\theta )^1`$, as reported previously. At angles higher than a characteristic angle $`\theta ^{}`$, $`H_p\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ deviates from the scaling and starts to increase. On the other hand, $`H_p^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ slightly increases with increasing angle up to $`\theta ^{}`$, and it decreases rapidly above $`\theta ^{}`$. At around $`\theta ^{}`$ both $`H_p\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ and $`H_p^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ approach closely to each other. Since the angular dependence of $`H_p^{}`$ is quite different from that of $`H_p`$, the origins for these two anomalies should be different.

Figure 4(a) shows the hysteresis curves at 45 and 55 K at a constant angle of 83.7 which is larger than $`\theta ^{}`$. The normal peak effect observed at 45 K and 630 Oe changes into the magnetization step at 55 K which is a sign of the FOT. In addition, a steplike structure is observed at a field lower than $`H_p`$. This anomaly can be traced to the anomaly $`H_p^{}`$ observed at lower temperatures as shown in Fig. 1. We could not observe an anomaly within our experimental resolution $`10`$mG when the irreversible magnetization disappears at high temperatures. The temperature dependence of $`H_{FOT}`$, $`H_p`$, and $`H_p^{}`$ at 83.7 is shown in Fig. 4(b). One can see that the $`H_p^{}(T)`$ line is always below the normal transition lines ($`H_{FOT}`$, $`H_p`$) even above $`\theta ^{}`$, which rules out a possibility that $`H_p(\theta )`$ crosses $`H_p^{}(\theta )`$ at $`\theta ^{}`$ (see Fig. 3). Thus this $`H_p^{}`$ line divides the vortex lattice phase into two parts under an oblique field.

Let us discuss possible origins of the observed anomaly at $`H_p^{}`$. Dynamical scenario may also be applied in this case as in the case of the fish-tail effect in YBCO. However, in such a case, changes in the irreversible magnetization is smoother compare with the present case at $`H_p^{}`$. The situation is rather similar to the case of the peak effect in BSCCO , where the irreversible magnetization shows a steplike change. The peak effect is believed to be a transition in the vortex solid phase, and is accompanied by a drastic change in the vortex configuration. A disorder-induced transition  and a dimensional crossover of the vortex system  are proposed as possible origins of the peak effect. Since the critical current is related to the collective pinning force determined by the configuration of vortices and the pinning potential, a change in the vortex configuration induce a steplike change of the critical current at the characteristic field. As a result, the irreversible magnetization show a distinct anomaly, as in the present case at $`H_p^{}`$. Although magnetization step is not observed in the reversible regime, the height of the step might be simply too small to be observed. Since the transition occurs within the vortex solid state, it is reasonable that the entropy change, which is proportional to the magnetization step, is much smaller than the case of the vortex lattice melting transition.

Several theories predict an existence of a transition of the vortex arrangements in highly anisotropic layered superconductors under tilted fields. A recent theoretical work by Koshelev  showed that the ground state under the tilted fields except for $`\theta 0^{}`$ is the crossing lattice state consisting of almost independent units of pancake and Josephson vortices in such superconductors. The interesting Bitter decoration pattern of vortex chains embedded in vortex lattices observed in BSCCO single crystals  is explained by the mechanism that Josephson vortices attract additional pancake vortices. In the same framework, experimentally observed linear dependence of $`H_{FOT}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ on the in-plane component of field  is also understood. In this theory, a transition from the mixed chains-lattice state to the distorted lattice is suggested in the crossing lattice state. This transition is a good candidate for the origin of the anomaly at $`H_p^{}`$. Experimental data below $`\theta ^{}`$ can be fitted by the estimated transition field (Eq. 11 of Ref. 22) as shown in Fig. 5(a). Although we have a reasonable fitting to the data in $`\theta <\theta ^{}`$ and the reasonable values of $`\gamma `$ (600, 240, 200, 140 for the OPT, OV1, OV2, HOV samples, respectively), the obtained penetration depth $`\lambda =400`$ Å is too short compared with generally accepted value of about 2000 Å in BSCCO. Strictly speaking, the formula is valid when pancake-lattice spacing $`a\lambda `$ and $`\gamma \lambda /s`$, which do not hold at $`H_p^{}`$. However, general trend is believed to be valid beyond this range. This might be the reason why we get unexpectedly short $`\lambda `$ from the fitting.

In this scenario, deviation from the above behavior at angles larger than $`\theta ^{}`$ might reflect the presence of additional transition in the vortex lattice structure. Particularly, it is interesting to point out that the transition in this angle range occurs at an almost constant in-plane field value as shown in Fig. 5(a), suggesting the contribution from the Josephson vortex lattice. The deviation from the scaling law of $`H_p`$ above $`\theta ^{}`$ may also be understood as reflecting a change in Josephson vortex lattice, such as the overlap of Josephson vortices.

Another possible transition is the one from the mixed chains-lattice state to uniformly tilted lattice state. Bitter decoration pattern observed by Bolle et al.  implies that the uniformly tilted lattice is not an equilibrium phase in low and oblique fields in superconductors with large anisotropy. Besides Koshelev’s theory, the instability of uniformly tilted vortex lattice has been predicted by several theories. Particularly, Thompson and Moore  have suggested that uniformly tilted vortex lattice state including vortex chain state observed in YBCO is not stable in low and tilted fields, when the superconductor has larger anisotropy ratio than a threshold. According to their calculation, the threshold is $`\gamma 12`$ for $`\kappa =50`$, which is much smaller than $`\gamma `$ of BSCCO.

To compare the anomaly with the instability of the vortex lattice, the angular dependence of $`H_p^{}`$ in four samples with different oxygen contents is plotted in Fig. 5(b). The characteristic features that $`H_p^{}(\theta )`$ reaches maximum at about 80 and decreases at higher angles are consistent with the expectation of the instability field for $`\gamma =60`$ and $`\kappa =50`$ by Thompson and Moore. The angle where the instability field has a maximum is predicted to shift to lower angle at smaller anisotropy $`\gamma `$. This is actually observed in our experiments. As shown in the inset of Fig. 5(b), this angle decreases with decreasing anisotropy, which is known to be inversely correlated to the peak field $`H_p(0)`$ when $`Hc`$. Another point is that the temperature dependence of the instability field is expected to be proportional to the mean-field upper critical field $`B_{c2}(T)`$, which may explain the observed linear temperature dependence above 0.5$`T_c`$ \[Fig. 4(b)\]. As shown above, qualitative features of the magnetization anomaly $`H_p^{}`$ are consistent with the calculation of Thompson and Moore.

In summary, we measured the local magnetization hysteresis curves under tilted fields from the $`c`$ axis in BSCCO single crystals. We found a magnetization anomaly in the vortex lattice phase, which is not present when the field is parallel to the $`c`$ axis. Observed sharp change of magnetization at the anomaly ($`H_p^{}`$) suggests the change of the vortex ordering as a possible origin of the anomaly. Transition from the mixed chains-lattice state to the distorted lattice state as suggested recently by Koshelev may explain this anomaly. Alternatively, the angular, temperature, and oxygen doping dependence of $`H_p^{}`$ are qualitatively similar to the theoretical calculation for the instability of the uniformly tilted vortex lattice. Direct observations of vortex lattice ordering under tilted fields in the field range of interest are highly desirable.

The authors are grateful to A. E. Koshelev for stimulating discussion. This work is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture. S. O. acknowledges the supports by JSPS for Research Fellowships for Young Scientists.


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# Modelling Horizontal Air Showers Induced by Cosmic Rays

## I Introduction

The old idea to detect neutrinos through Horizontal Air Showers (HAS)  has been recently brought to attention with the calculation of the acceptance of the Auger Observatories for the detection of high energy neutrinos . At large zenith angles, cosmic rays (whether they are protons, heavier nuclei, or even photons) develop ordinary showers in the top layers of the atmosphere in a very similar fashion to the well understood vertical showers. Their electromagnetic component is however almost completely absorbed by the greatly enhanced atmospheric slant depth and prevented from reaching ground level. By contrast, high energy neutrinos may also induce Horizontal Air Showers (HAS) deeper into the atmosphere and hence resemble vertical air showers in their particle content at ground level, provided they interact sufficiently close to an air shower array.

The main background to neutrino induced HAS of very high energy (in the EeV range and above) is expected to be due to the remaining muon component of the cosmic ray showers, after practically all the electromagnetic component is absorbed. A preliminary study of the air shower data at zenith angles above $`60^o`$ from the Haverah Park array has shown that the observed rate is consistent to that expected from the ultra high energy ($`E>1`$ EeV) cosmic rays arriving at large zenith angles . These muon showers that penetrate the whole atmospheric slant depth to reach ground level are the object of this study which is intended to be detector independent. As the neutrino induced HAS rate that could be expected is quite low, zenith angle misreconstructions of vertical showers can also constitute a serious potential background to neutrino detection. However the relative importance of this background is very dependent on technical details of the experimental setup and, in particular, on the angular resolution actually achieved. Thus these matters cannot be further addressed in this article.

The interest in HAS induced by ordinary cosmic rays is not just limited to understanding the background of neutrino induced showers. The measurement of high zenith angle showers would enhance the aperture of existing air shower array data and it would increase the data on cosmic ray arrival directions to previously inaccessible directions in galactic coordinates . Besides these obvious advantages, high zenith angle cosmic ray showers are unique because they select the muon component of the showers and they naturally probe a region of phase space which is quite inaccessible from vertical air shower measurements: the shower core.

The cosmic ray induced HAS are different mainly because they consist of muons which are produced far away from ground level. The particle density profiles for HAS induced by protons or heavy nuclei display complex muon patterns at the ground which result from the long path lengths travelled by the muons in the presence of the Earth’s magnetic field . These complex patterns are difficult to analyse  because the conventional approaches used for interpretation of low zenith angle showers ($`<60^{}`$) are usually based on the approximate circular symmetry of the density profiles. The analysis of HAS produced by cosmic rays requires a radically different approach.

Here we present a qualitative explanation of the ground muon patterns as well as analytical expressions for the muon density profile based on simple ideas. Our approach agrees remarkably well with simulation results for a wide range of distances to the core and zenith angles between $`60^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$. Besides its convenience for data analysis which would otherwise depend on lengthy and cumbersome simulation results, the model gives a lot of insight into HAS and their complementarity to vertical showers and can be used for calculating the expected HAS rates for future detectors such as the Auger Observatories . We also briefly discuss a simple method involving rotations for approximately generating muon ground density profiles for any azimuthal incidence using a single shower of the same zenith angle.

The article is organized as follows. In section II we present a toy model which describes the qualitative behavior of the ground muon patterns. In section III we discuss quite generally the implications of geomagnetic fields and the geometry implied. In section IV we extend the toy model to account for the magnetic field. In section V we give a detailed prescription to calculate muon densities for any azimuthal and zenith angle. In section VI we discussed the asymmetries that arise at ground level and introduce a number of ways to account for them. In section VII we compare the analytical densities obtained to those obtained with Monte Carlo simulations and finally in section VIII we summarize the achievements, briefly enumerating possible applications.

## II Generalities: A Toy Model

The number of electrons, positrons and photons, the electromagnetic component, in an air shower induced by a 1019 eV proton rises as the shower penetrates higher depths to reach a maximum after which it rapidly becomes absorbed by low energy processes and the photoelectric effect. This component behaves much like shower size (number of electrons and positrons) reaching its maximum typically at $`X_m=750`$ g cm-2. Below this depth it starts to become exponentially suppressed. The atmosphere is $``$ 1000 g cm-2 deep for vertical showers doubling to $``$ 2000 g cm-2 for 60 and becoming over 30 times deeper for completely HAS at sea level so that the electromagnetic component from $`\pi ^0`$ decay can be safely neglected at large zenith angles.

For inclined showers the main sources of electrons and photons at ground level are in fact the long range muons themselves, mainly through decay, but also through bremsstrahlung and pair production. The electron number density follows closely that of muons at all distances from shower axis and, as they are produced in small electromagnetic subshowers initiated by the decay electrons, their energy spectrum is very much like that expected in a vertical shower. A very similar argument applies to photons so that we can state that the total electromagnetic energy of an inclined shower is much less than the energy of the muonic component, unlike in vertical showers.

As the zenith angle rises, the average length traversed by the shower muons from their production point to the ground increases from $`10`$km for vertical showers to $`300`$ km for nearly horizontal ones (see table I) . As a result only the muons produced with sufficiently high energy survive to ground level and this is crucial for HAS. Typically the energy loss ranges from a few GeV for the lowest energy muons in vertical showers to well over 100 GeV for a completely horizontal shower. As a result the average energy of the muons at ground level varies by close to two orders of magnitude between vertical and horizontal showers, as shown in table I.

We now introduce a very simple toy model that reproduces some of the qualitative features of the muon density patterns on the ground. Later we will build on this simple model to obtain parameterizations of muon densities at ground level. Let us consider a shower of zenith angle $`\theta `$ and assume that there is no magnetic field. At ground level we calculate muon number densities in a plane perpendicular to the shower axis: the transverse plane. In this plane the description of the shower becomes considerably simpler because it accurately respects the approximately cylindrical symmetry expected, except for minor effects due to changes in air density with height. This plane avoids the distortion of the muon densities resulting from the projection onto the Earth surface. Moreover, when the magnetic field is fully taken into account and the cylindrical symmetry is broken, as the azimuthal angle of the shower is rotated the muon density contours just rotate in the transverse plane remaining otherwise practically unchanged as will be shown below.

We consider a highly relativistic muon of energy $`Ecp`$, and transverse momentum $`p_{}`$ that travels a distance $`d`$ to reach the ground. We assume this muon will only be deviated due to the $`p_{}`$ inherited from its parent pion (kaon) to arrive at distance $`r`$ to shower axis in the transverse plane. This is equivalent to neglecting multiple scattering and deviations of the pions themselves from shower axis. In this case $`r`$ is simply given by:

$$r=\frac{p_{}}{p}d\frac{cp_{}}{E}d.$$
(1)
This relation means that the muons of a given shower have distributions in $`E`$, $`d`$ and $`p_{}`$ which are not independent.

For a given zenith $`\theta `$ the toy model is obtained taking an input energy distribution for the shower muons and fixing the values of $`d`$ and $`p_{}`$. The production distances $`d`$ of the shower muons reaching ground level have a distribution fixed by shower development with an average $`<d>`$ that rises as the zenith angle $`\theta `$ increases. As the development of inclined showers takes place in the upper layers of the atmosphere and spans only a small fraction of the atmosphere, the width of the $`d`$ distribution is small compared to $`<d>`$. This means that taking $`d`$ to be a function of $`\theta `$ and ignoring its distribution can be a fairly good approximation. On the other hand the muon $`p_{}`$ results from multiple pion interactions in the shower development and has a relatively broad distribution. This is one of the reasons that prevents the toy model from being valid at quantitative level as will be shown below.

The virtue of this toy model is that it implies an approximately correct correlation between the muon energy, $`E`$, and its deviation from shower axis, $`r`$, through Eq. (1). Fig. 1 shows the correlation between the average muon energy and $`r`$ as obtained in the simulation of one hundred $`10^{19}`$eV proton showers without magnetic field effects. ***This and all the simulations in this work, unless otherwise stated, have been generated with AIRES (verison 1.4.2)  and SIBYLL (version 1.6)  for hadronic interactions. Such a relation means that at ground level the muon differential energy spectrum, $`\varphi [E]=dN/dE`$, and the number density, $`\rho _\mu (r)`$, are related through:

$$\rho _\mu (r)=\frac{dE}{dr}\frac{1}{2\pi r}\varphi \left[E(r)\right]=\frac{cp_{}d}{2\pi r^3}\varphi \left[E(r)\right].$$
(2)
If for instance the energy spectrum of the shower muons is assumed to be $`\varphi (E)=AE^\gamma `$ the above relation implies:

$$\rho (r)=A\frac{(cp_{}d)^{1\gamma }}{2\pi }r^{3+\gamma }.$$
(3)
In the absence of a geomagnetic field the toy model can be adjusted to roughly reproduce Monte Carlo results. One can use a muon energy spectrum $`\varphi [E]=dN/dE`$ and $`d`$ as obtained in simulations and only needs to adjust a single parameter namely $`p_{}`$. We have done this exercise to obtain muon densities which are compared to AIRES simulations at different zenith angles. As an example Fig. 2 compares the results of simulation for three different zenith angles to density profile functions obtained with the toy model using the muon energy distributions from the simulations which are shown in Fig. 3. It is remarkable that such a crude model reproduces the muon lateral distributions to better than $`30\%`$ in the interval 20 m $`<r<`$ 2 km with a single $`p_{}`$ value of $`200`$MeV for all zenith angles considered. The results are nevertheless only academic since in practice the ground density profiles are severely modified by the Earth’s magnetic field.

## III Generalities: Geomagnetic deviations

To study the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field we choose to decompose the field $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ in two components $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$, respectively parallel and perpendicular to shower axis. It is worth studying with a little detail the resulting geometry in the transverse plane since much of the ground pattern can be qualitatively understood in this way. We define two coordinate axes ($`x,y`$) in this plane, such that $`y`$ is parallel to $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ as shown in Fig. 4. In the transverse plane we define $`\psi `$ as the angle between the $`y`$ axis (or equivalently $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$) and the direction parallel to the Earth’s surface.

A muon travelling a distance $`d`$ from the production site to the ground will bend its trajectory in a direction perpendicular to its velocity, $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ and to $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}^{}`$. Here $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}^{}`$ is the component of $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ perpendicular to $`\stackrel{}{v}`$. If the muons are almost parallel to shower axis $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}^{}`$ largely coincides with $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ and the transverse plane is perpendicular to the muon trajectory in this approximation. The parallel component of the Earth’s magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ can be neglected and neglecting other muon interactions and energy loss, the helicoidal trajectory is well approximated by an arc of a circle of radius $`R`$ in the plane containing shower axis and $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$.

For a complete description of the deviations we only need $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ or, equivalently, its intensity $`B_{}`$ and the angle $`\psi `$. The circular symmetry of the shower in the absence of magnetic fields is distorted depending on the projected magnetic field $`B_{}`$, the distance traversed by the muons, and their energy distribution. At low zenith the path length travelled is small and the circular patterns are hardly modified because the deviations are small. As the zenith rises the pattern turns first into an ellipsoid which eventually becomes two lobes at each side of $`B_{}`$ corresponding to the negative and positive charge muons deviating in opposite directions.

For a fixed zenith angle the density pattern in the transverse plane depends only on the intensity of the magnetic field. The pattern is oriented according to the direction of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$. Both the magnitude and direction of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ depend on the azimuthal angle of the shower $`\varphi `$. In this article azimuthal angles are measured counterclockwise with respect to the magnetic North. Figs. 5 and 6 respectively show how both these quantities vary as the azimuthal angle takes all possible values at two different locations, corresponding to Haverah Park  and Pampa Amarilla (the southern hemisphere Auger Observatory)  for illustrative purposes. On the basis of these two graphs alone and the discussion that follows it is straightforward to conclude that the muon density patterns in these sites will be completely different. A detailed study of HAS in Pampa Amarilla will be published elsewhere.

As the shower azimuthal angle varies at the Haverah Park site, $`B_{}`$ oscillates in magnitude about a central value. The oscillation amplitude decreases as the zenith angle rises being $`15\%`$ ($`8\%`$) of the central value for $`70^{}`$ ($`80^{}`$) zenith. It is remarkable that for this location once the zenith angle $`\theta `$ is fixed at a high value, $`B_{}`$ is not too sensitive to the azimuthal direction of the shower $`\varphi `$. On the other hand as the zenith angle decreases the length transversed by the muons $`d`$ becomes much smaller and the magnetic field is less effective in modifying the ground density profiles. While for low zenith the magnetic effect is small and there is little need for considering it, for high zenith $`B_{}`$ can be regarded as approximately independent of azimuth.

This means that we can make use of the fact that $`B_{}`$ is approximately azimuth independent to quickly generate HAS from a single simulation. If we fix the zenith angle to a high value, we make the approximation that $`B_{}`$ is constant and let the azimuth angle vary, the variations of the shower densities at ground level are only due to the corresponding changes in the angle $`\psi `$. In this approximation different azimuths are equivalent to a pattern rotation in the transverse plane. This approximation has important practical implications as it means that, given the zenith angle, a single shower can be used to generate muon density profiles on the ground for all azimuthal angles with the appropriate rotations of $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ and projections onto the plane corresponding to the Earth’s surface. This alone represents an important tool that can help the analysis of high energy HAS and has already been successfully used in the analysis of Haverah Park data presented in .

We have tested this economical means for generating HAS in a very simple fashion. We have generated approximate showers of predetermined azimuths from the results of a single shower. The ground level muon number density contours obtained in this way have been compared with the results of a direct simulations for the corresponding rotated azimuths. For the Haverah Park site as an example we have obtained approximate proton showers at $`\varphi =90^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$ from the Monte Carlo results of a shower at $`\varphi =0^{}`$ for three different zenith angles: $`\theta =60^{},70^{},80^{}`$. The rotated showers agree rather well with simulation results. Indeed fluctuations from shower to shower and the uncertainties introduced by thinning are much larger than the error made in the constant $`B_{}`$ approximation. At extreme zeniths ($`87^{}`$) however the separated lobes on the ground plane obtained with simulations are slightly asymmetric. Clearly rotation in the transverse plane and simple projection onto the ground cannot generate these asymmetries. These asymmetries arise because at high zeniths most of the muon deviation is due to the magnetic field and linear projection becomes inadequate. They can be taken into account as will be further discussed in section VI.

## IV Geomagnetic deviations in the Toy model

The distinction between the two parameters $`p_{}`$ and $`d`$ made in section II is important for considering geomagnetic field effects separately. We quantify the magnetic deviation through $`\delta x`$, the distance between the intersections of the two muon trajectories with and without magnetic effects and the transverse plane as shown in Fig. 7. Note that the coordinates $`x,y`$ are conveniently chosen in the perpendicular and parallel directions to $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$.

The geomagnetic deviation of the muons is easily shown to be:

$$\delta x=R\left[1\sqrt{1\left(\frac{d}{R}\right)^2}\right]\frac{d^2}{2R}=\frac{eB_{}d^2}{2p},$$
(4)
where $`e`$ is the electron charge, $`R`$ is the radius of curvature, and $`p`$ is the muon momentum and we have expanded brackets to first order in $`d/R`$. For $`\delta x`$ less than 2 km we expect it to be valid at the $`5\%`$ level at zenith $`60^{}`$ because the typical production distance $`<d>`$ is 16 km. At higher zenith the approximation is excellent. When we combine the above relation with Eq. 1 we obtain the following expression:

$$\delta x=\frac{eB_{}d^2}{2p}=\frac{0.15B_{}d}{p_{}}\overline{r}=\alpha \overline{r},$$
(5)
where in the last equation $`B`$ is to be expressed in Tesla, $`d`$ in m and $`p_{}`$ in GeV.

Physically $`\overline{r}`$ (given by Eq. 1) corresponds to the muon deviation in the transverse plane in the absence of magnetic field. When $`\overline{r}`$ and $`\delta x`$ are small compared to $`d`$ we can add them as two dimensional vectors in this plane. We can gain some insight in this relation considering that all muons (that for $`\stackrel{}{B}=0`$ would intersect the transverse plane at a distance $`\overline{r}`$ to the shower axis) are further deviated by $`\stackrel{}{B}0`$ a distance proportional to $`\overline{r}`$ in the direction perpendicular to $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ as schematically shown in Fig. 7. The $`\mu ^+`$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ deviate in opposite senses so that the projection of the geomagnetic field in the transverse plane introduces a kind of mirror symmetry axis. We expect that the symmetry will not be exact being modulated by the expected excess of $`\mu ^+`$ respect to $`\mu ^{}`$ in atmospheric showers .

The dimensionless parameter $`\alpha `$ measures the ratio of the two described components of the displacement in the transverse plane, that due to the transverse momentum and that due to the magnetic field. Technically we can obtain the muon number density in the transverse plane in this model making the transformation:

$$\begin{array}{cc}x=\hfill & \overline{x}+\alpha \sqrt{\overline{x}^2+\overline{y}^2},\hfill \\ y=\hfill & \overline{y}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
Here the barred (unbarred) coordinates represent the position of the muon in the transverse plane in the absence (presence) of the Earth’s magnetic field. The muon number density is then:

$$\rho (x,y)=\overline{\rho }(\overline{x}(x,y),\overline{y}(x,y))\left[\frac{(\overline{x}\overline{y})}{(xy)}\right],$$
(7)
where $`\overline{\rho }(\overline{x},\overline{y})`$ is the density at distance $`\overline{r}=\sqrt{\overline{x}^2+\overline{y}^2}`$ in the case $`\stackrel{}{B}=0`$ and the last factor in brackets is the Jacobian of the transformation. We have checked that the above equations reproduce the main features observed in the muon density profiles in the transverse plane with magnetic fields. The muon number densities at ground level can be obtained after an appropriate projection onto the plane of the Earth’s surface.

The value of $`\alpha `$ is a measure of the importance of the magnetic field. For instance for vertical showers we can plausibly set the distance to production to $`d4`$ km, $`B_{}10\mu `$T, and $`p_{}0.3`$ GeV, which gives $`\alpha 0.02`$; i.e. $`\alpha `$ is very small and the effect of the magnetic field is not very important for vertical showers. For horizontal showers, however, $`d`$ can be as large as $`300`$ km and $`B_{}40\mu `$T, making $`\alpha 1`$. For large values of $`\alpha `$ we expect that the density profiles obtained with $`\stackrel{}{B}=0`$ are strongly modified.

It can be shown that if $`\alpha >1`$ all $`\mu ^+`$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ are confined to a region in the transverse plane limited by two straight lines as illustrated in Fig. 9. The figure has been obtained with Eq. 7, $`\alpha =3`$ and using a standard parameterization for the lateral muon distribution: $`\rho (r)r^{0.5}(1+r/a)^5`$ with $`a=1.5`$km. This result is qualitatively very important because it implies that for large zenith angles we expect void regions or shadows in which no muons are expected. The angle subtended by these voids is dependent on the parameter $`\alpha `$, physically on the zenith angle. The effect can be easily explained with a geometrical construction matching the textbook graph for explaining the Cherenkov effect, see Fig. 8. The existence of these shadows is indeed the case as observed in simulations (see next section) and can be used for distinguishing between HAS produced by protons or nuclei high in the atmosphere and those produced by deeply penetrating neutrinos. These results are only valid at a qualitative level and hence the actual function used for $`\rho (r)`$ is not relevant. Further steps are needed to transform the toy model into a valid parameterization as shown below.

## V Muon Number Densities in HAS

One of the reasons that has difficulted the study of HAS in particle array experiments is their intricate density profiles and their azimuthal dependence. Experiments with good sensitivity to particles incident at high zenith angles such as the Haverah Park Array did not have data from many stations that allowed the study of these effects from the experimental data. From the discussion of the previous section it is clear that the expected asymmetries due to the geomagnetic field depend on the value of the projection of $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ onto the transverse plane. This projection obviously differs depending on the location of the experiment. For the purpose of checking the validity of the parameterizations that we present here, we have selected as an example the field corresponding to the Haverah Park array site, which has a value of $`48.5\mu `$T, declination of $`7.61^{}`$ and inclination of $`68.4^{}`$.

Unfortunately the toy model presented in the previous section is not good enough for quantitative purposes. The actual situation is more complicated even when $`\stackrel{}{B}=0`$ because the transverse position of the muon, $`\overline{r}`$, is affected by both multiple scattering and the transverse position of the parent pions. Nevertheless the simple relation provided by Eq. 1 manifests a true correlation between $`\overline{r}`$ and $`E`$ which can be easily checked through simulation. Fig. 1 shows how the average muon energy, $`<E>`$, is clearly inversely related to distance from the shower axis $`\overline{r}`$ as obtained in AIRES simulated proton showers at zenith angles $`60^{}`$, $`70^{}`$ and $`80^{}`$. To a very good approximation $`\overline{r}<E>^\beta `$ where $`\beta 1.1`$. We will now show how a relatively simple extension of the toy model converts it into a quantitatively valid parameterization of the muon component in HAS induced by cosmic rays.

The quantitative model proposed still makes use of Eq. 1, keeping $`d`$ constant but assuming that at a given $`\overline{r}`$ there is an energy distribution. It is more convenient to work with the variable $`ϵ=\mathrm{log}_{10}E`$. In this variable the correlation can be approximated:

$$<ϵ>=A\gamma \mathrm{log}_{10}\overline{r}.$$
(8)
For all zenith angles above $`60^{}`$ $`\gamma `$ ranges between 0.73 and 0.83 (see table II and Fig. 10). Simulations show that as the transverse distance to the shower axis ($`\overline{r}`$) increases the width of the $`ϵ`$ distribution at fixed $`\overline{r}`$ varies slowly as shown in Fig. 10, being typically $`0.4`$ at $`\overline{r}=1`$ km.

We now consider a muon ”spectral density” in the new variable $`ϵ`$ which is taken to be:

$$\rho (\overline{r},ϵ)=P(ϵ;<ϵ>,\sigma )\rho (\overline{r}),$$
(9)
where $`P`$ is a distribution of mean $`<ϵ>`$ and standard deviation $`\sigma `$. The distribution is normalized to 1 so that $`\rho (\overline{r})`$ is recovered after integration in $`ϵ`$.

To obtain the muon number density in the presence of the magnetic field we now have to perform the same transformation:

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{x}+{\displaystyle \frac{eB_{}d^2c}{2E}},`$ (10)
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{y}.`$ (11)
Note that this only differs subtly from Eq. 6 as three variables are now involved, namely $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`ϵ`$, and the energy $`E`$ in the first equation is now independent of $`\overline{r}`$. The analogous expression to Eq. 7 for the muon number density becomes:

$$\rho (x,y)=𝑑ϵP(ϵ,<ϵ>,\sigma )\rho (\overline{r}),$$
(12)
where in this case $`\overline{r}`$ is given by:

$$\overline{r}=\sqrt{(x\frac{eB_{}d^2c}{2E})^2+y^2}.$$
(13)
The advantage lies in the fact that effects ignored in the toy model, such as the pion transverse momentum, are taken into account through the energy distribution. Once an approximate but realistic $`ϵ`$ distribution is considered at a fixed $`\overline{r}`$, the model transforms into a quite accurate parameterization of the muon number density profiles in the transverse plane. This is not too difficult to understand if we consider the density contours as described in the previous section. For large values of $`\alpha `$, which imply a shadow effect, the geometrical construction of the previous section implies largely enhanced densities accumulated at the border line of the shadow regions. This enhancement corresponds to the shock front in our Cherenkov analogy. The sharp edge of the distribution is an artifact of the toy model approach which becomes blurred when the $`E`$ distribution is taken into account. The shadow angles are radically altered, so that they are no longer easily related to the parameter $`\alpha `$. Muon number densities are also significantly modified with respect to the toy model in the previous section.

Eq (12) requires just four inputs namely a distribution for $`ϵ`$, the effective distance to the production site $`d`$, the relation between the mean of the distribution and $`\overline{r}`$ and finally the lateral distribution function of the muons in the transverse plane. We have obtained reasonable choices for the inputs from the results of 100 proton showers of energy $`10^{19}`$eV generated with AIRES for each zenith angle. All of these simulations must be made in the absence of magnetic fields for this purpose. For the $`ϵ`$ distribution we choose a Gaussian with mean given by Eq. 8 and a fixed intermediate value of $`\sigma 0.4`$ which is accurate enough for our purposes. In table I the production distance $`d`$ is shown for zenith angles $`60^{}`$, $`70^{}`$, $`80^{}`$ and $`87^{}`$. The required parameters for the mean in Eq. 8 can be read in Table II. Lastly for the lateral distribution function we fit a function of the NKG type :

$$\rho (\overline{r})=N\overline{r}^{p_1}\left[1+\frac{\overline{r}}{a}\right]^{p_2},$$
(14)
to the simulated results. The results of the fits are shown in Fig. 11 and the corresponding parameters are included in Table III. To take energy loss into account in a simple fashion we can replace $`E`$ at the transverse plane in Eq. 13 by the average energy along the muon path which is considered to start at distance $`d`$. The number densities can now be easily obtained with Eq. 12 what completes our model.

## VI Ground Plane Effects

Our results have been designed for the transverse plane to retain the maximum symmetries of the problem. In the event of equal number of $`\mu ^+`$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ it is easy to see that muon distributions must have a very accurate mirror symmetry about the line defined by the transverse component of the magnetic field (see Fig. 7). Unfortunately a projection (extrapolation) from the transverse onto the ground plane or vice versa must be made to compare our results both with real data or with simulation. If we just make the obvious rectangular projection which only involves the cosine of the zenith angle, the results on the ground will keep the mirror symmetry.

At high zenith angles however the results of a simulation show some distortion of this mirror symmetry, see Fig. 12. Clearly half of transverse plane is ”below” ground level which means that in a real situation the muons arrive to the ground before reaching the transverse plane while the other half is ”above” so that the muons have to travel more atmosphere before hitting the surface of the Earth. One way of quantifying the asymmetry is through $`\mu ^+`$ $`\mu ^{}`$ ratio shown in Fig. 13. The $`\mu ^+`$ and $`\mu ^{}`$ are completely separated into two lobes which in general arrive at different times to the ground. As expected this effect is largest when the angle $`\psi `$ (see Fig. 4) is smallest (corresponding to azimuth $`\varphi =90^{}`$) but disappears at $`\psi =90^{}`$ (when the shower is aligned with the magnetic North $`\varphi =0^{}`$).

The asymmetry arises because of the different muon paths from the production point to ground level. The cumulative effects of all muon interactions (such as magnetic deflections and continuous energy loss) and decays depend on the muon path. As a result the asymmetries have a markedly geometrical nature growing as the distance to shower core increases. This is fortunate since simple geometrical algorithms can be devised to correct these asymmetries when necessary.

The two sources of muon deviations from shower axis that have been considered in previous sections account for most of the geometric effect. For each zenith angle the muon paths are considered to start at a fixed distance $`d`$ to the transverse plane. Corrected projections must take this common origin of the muon paths into account that clearly generates an asymmetry on the ground plane. The muon deviations due to the magnetic field are also a clear source of asymmetry, which is quadratic on the muon path (arcs of circle). When this is taken into account the simulated results can be ”projected” onto the transverse plane in a way that most of the asymmetries arising at high zenith angles can be removed.

There are several possibilities available for projection, the easiest being the obvious rectangular projection. Such a projection is enough for most purposes because the asymmetries are small, except for extreme zenith angles. For such cases the ”quadratic” deviation due to the magnetic field becomes most important and we have two ways to account for it depending on whether we work with simulated results or not. We can project simulated results onto the transverse plane just extrapolating the individual muon trajectories since all the information on the particles reaching the ground is easily available in a simulation. Alternatively one can use approximate geometrical projections which will be shown to be sufficiently accurate in spite of ignoring the details of the individual muons. This is because of the discussed correlation between energy and position of the muons.

Clearly individual muon extrapolation is the best way of obtaining the muon densities in the transverse plane. A simple helix would only neglect muon energy loss and decay and some correction can be further implemented to account them. For a purely geometrical extrapolation we will use the following procedure which is shown to be sufficient for all purposes. In the direction parallel to $`B_{}`$ one simple joins the muon position to the fixed production point while in the orthogonal direction one considers muon trajectories which are circles tangent to shower axis at the same production point. In Figs. 12 and in Fig. 13 the results of the rectangular projection are compared to the extrapolation of the simulated densities for a shower at extreme zenith $`\theta =87^{}`$ and having azimuth $`\varphi =90^{}`$ (maximum asymmetry). A large fraction of the unwanted asymmetries in the transverse plane is equivalently removed with either of the two methods. The residual asymmetries are mostly due to muon decay and the neglect of muon energy loss. For distances to shower core below $`4`$ km the residual asymmetry is below $`20\%`$; it should be stressed that this range corresponds to distances up to 80 km away from shower core in the ground plane.

In the analytical results obtained for the muon densities in the transverse plane (previous section) the information on the individual muon energy and direction is lost. Fortunately the geometrical algorithm to remove the asymmetries can be inverted to convert the symmetric results obtained in our model to the ground, approximately reproducing the asymmetries, what makes it appropriate for comparison with data to the precision level indicated by these graphs. The systematic error in the ground projection that would be generated at large $`r`$ could be largely removed accounting for asymmetries due to energy loss and muon decay.

## VII Results

Testing the muon number density results obtained with the prescription described in the previous section by comparison with dedicated simulations is by no means a straightforward task. The main difficulty arises from the uncertainties associated with the muon densities on the ground plane that are obtained with any simulation program which necessarily implies the statistical treatment of shower particles, thinning algorithms, for the energies considered to avoid excessive computing times. There is a complex combination of statistical fluctuations, shower fluctuations and thinning fluctuations which is rather difficult to unravel. The simulated muon number density results fluctuate depending on the two dimensional binning choices which are rather awkward to choose because of the complexity of the patterns involved particularly at the highest zenith angles.

For testing purposes, we choose to compare the densities obtained with the described prescription to the results of simulations using AIRES  with the magnetic effects on. We have also generated 100 proton showers of energy $`10^{19}`$eV and azimuths $`\varphi =0^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$ for each zenith angle ($`60^{}`$, $`70^{}`$, $`80^{}`$, and $`87^{}`$). We project the average muon densities (over the 100 showers) onto the transverse plane as described in the previous section to eliminate the asymmetries and to compare to the results of our model.

The number density results of Eq. (12) are compared to the averages obtained with the specific simulations made. No normalization has been made in the comparisons shown in Figs. 1419 that illustrate the reach of our results. The figures shown very much speak on their own. The agreement is rather impressive considering the ranges of distances involved and particularly the ranges in densities which can span over four orders of magnitude. We firstly show in Figs. 14 and 15 two density contour plots for two different zeniths. These graphs display well defined shadow regions as anticipated and show an excellent agreement in the shape of the densities obtained compared to the simulation results. The isolated density spots in the simulation also indicate very clearly how the fluctuations due to the simulation become very important even at distances very close to shower axis in some specific directions. The figures even suggest that in many respects the parameterization results are ”better behaved” in the sense that they avoid many unphysical fluctuations and can be extrapolated to very low muon densities.

Quantitative tests of the average two dimensional density distribution in polar coordinates integrated over the radial (azimuthal) coordinate up to 6 km (up to $`2\pi `$) in the transverse plane are shown in Fig. 16 (Fig. 17). The bars are indicative of the statistical errors in the obtained averages taking into account shower fluctuations and poisson statistics. These graphs are particularly good for stressing systematic effects that are cumulative and highlight the discrepancies. The disagreement is largest for the highest values of $`r`$ so that the highest discrepancies correspond to low muon number densities where results are going to be less relevant. As stressed before some of the differences between the model and the simulation are due to muon decay and are thus still an artifact of using results on the ground plane for comparison with our analytical muon number densities. They are nevertheless indicative of the uncertainties that can be expected if geometrical projections are used for obtaining densities at ground level ignoring muon decay. These are below statistical fluctuations and consequently quite hidden by shower fluctuations.

Lastly, Fig. 18 shows the $`x`$ distribution calculated in a 40 meter bin centered at $`y=0`$ while Fig. 19 shows the $`y`$ distribution for a 40 meter bin centered at $`x=1`$km. Although for the highest zenith ($`87^{}`$) the $`r`$ distributions disagree above the $`20\%`$ level for $`r`$ distances exceeding 4 km in the transverse plane, the discrepancies in the actual densities correspond to very low values of the densities which are relatively less important.

## VIII Summary and Discussion

We have successfully obtained a framework for studying the muon content of HAS produced by protons in the atmosphere. It can be effectively considered as a semianalytical parameterization for the muon number densities in the transverse plane for HAS. Although it relies on Monte Carlo it can be considered as an alternative to it since the simulation is only needed in first instance to obtain the inputs ignoring the magnetic effects and hence eliminating azimuthal angle dependences. Although only proton showers of $`10^{19}`$eV energy have been considered for the Haverah Park site, this framework is completely general and can be applied to showers of any energy and composition located in any site in a completely analogous fashion.

The method consists of splitting the muon propagation in a shower into two fictitious parts, one which takes place in the absence of a magnetic field and a second one in which the magnetic effects are separately analysed. As the first part preserves the approximate circular symmetry of the shower development it allows simple parameterizations in terms of a single variable. The second part can be implemented in an analytical way. As a spinoff we have obtained a way to obtain ground density profiles of fixed zenith angle but any azimuthal angle from a single shower of the corresponding zenith.

We expect to refine this model by improving the fits for the required inputs and including ignored effects such as correlations between muon impact position and distance to production site, muon decay, and distributions of distance to production site. These ignored effects could be implemented in an analogous way to the introduction of the energy distribution. Although these refinements may be necessary in the future, we do not feel at this time there is need to be so accurate since there are many uncertainties in the simulation programs which surely exceed the precision level of the results obtained. The simulations used require extrapolations of cross sections and distributions of particle interactions in energy regions which are well above those explored in current particle physics experiments or those to be made in the near future.

Besides giving insight into the complexity of large zenith angle showers, the results presented here have a rather broad range of applications connected with the detection of Horizontal Air Showers. The need of systematic simulations of complicated high energy showers which is very time consuming can be avoided. Such a task is of great help for the analysis of large zenith angle data as well as for the study of the sensitivity of these air showers to any of the current concerns about the highest energy cosmic rays such as the expected acceptance of Pierre Auger Observatories .

Acknowledgements: We are indebted to A.A. Watson for having introduced us into the real experimental problems of HAS and an invitation to Leeds when most of this work was initially conceived. We also thank J.A. Hinton, G. Parente, and A.A. Watson for many discussions and also for comments after reading our manuscript. This work was partly supported by a joint grant from the British Council and the spanish Ministry of Education (HB1997-0175), by Xunta de Galicia (XUGA-20604A98) and by CICYT (AEN99-0589-C02-02).


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# Coexistence of large and small polarons in manganites

## Figure captions

F1 The function $`G(\rho ,\mu )=F(\rho )\mu \rho `$ is plotted as a function of the doping for different values of the chemical potential at fixed temperature: $`K_BT=0.4\omega _0`$ (for $`\omega _0=50meV`$ $`K_BT=0.5\omega _0`$ corresponds to a temperature T of order of $`300K`$).

F2 The phase diagram corresponding to: $`t=2\omega _0`$, $`g=3.5`$, $`ϵ=0.01t`$. The area between the dotted lines indicates the region where the localized and delocalized phases coexist.


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# Optical and EUV Light Curves of Dwarf Nova Outbursts

## 1. Introduction

Dwarf nova outbursts are understood to be the result of an instability in the rate of mass transfer through the accretion disk surrounding the white dwarf in these semidetached binaries. The instability can be triggered at large or small disk radii, resulting in normal, fast-rise outbursts or anomalous, slow-rise outbursts, respectively. In either case, the beginning of the outburst is signaled by a rise of the optical flux, followed by a rise of the UV flux as material sinks through the disk, converting gravitational potential energy into rotational kinetic energy and radiation. This is followed by a rise in the EUV flux as material passes through the boundary layer between the disk and the surface of the white dwarf, where it converts its prodigious rotational kinetic energy into radiation.

Because the optical and EUV flux of dwarf novae is produced in physically distinct regions of the accretion disk, light curves in these wavebands provide important diagnostics of the nature of dwarf nova outbursts. Toward this end, we present optical and EUV light curves of dwarf novae observed by the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) satellite.

## 2. EUVE Observations

During the past seven years, EUVE was used to observe four dwarf novae in outburst: SS Cyg in narrow and wide, normal and anomalous outbursts; U Gem in normal outburst (twice); VW Hyi in normal and superoutburst (twice); and OY Car in superoutburst (twice). These eleven observations were originally obtained for varying reasons, and on a couple of occasions they were coordinated with other satellites (RXTE, Voyager, HST) sensitive in other wavebands (hard X-rays, FUV, UV). Details of the EUVE observations are provided in Table 1. Note that the exposures are 55–274 ks, and because the satellite takes data for $`<`$ one third of its orbit, the EUV light curves span intervals of 2–13 days.

## 3. Optical and EUV Light Curves

Optical light curves of these outbursts were constructed from visual magnitude estimates and CCD photometric measurements obtained by members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and the Variable Star Section/Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (VSS/RASNZ). EUV light curves were constructed from the EUVE deep survey photometer (DS) or short wavelength spectrometer (SW) in those instances when the DS was turned off (during the peak of the 10/96 outburst of SS Cyg, both outbursts of U Gem, and the 6/94 outburst of VW Hyi). The resulting optical and EUV light curves are shown in Figures 1–6, with the EUVE DS and SW data shown by filled circles and squares, respectively, and the optical data shown by dots and open diamonds (measurements) or carets (upper limits). Half-day averages of the optical measurements are shown by the histograms for SS Cyg and U Gem. In Figure 4 the Voyager 950–1150 Å (FUV) flux density light curve of VW Hyi in normal outburst is shown by the filled triangles.

## 4. Discussion

The anomalous outbursts of SS Cyg (Fig. 1) manifest the gradual increase of the optical and EUV light curves expected for inside-out outbursts. The optical and EUV flux rises during the beginning of these outbursts as the heating wave sweeps outward through the disk, causing more and more material to flow through the disk and boundary layer onto the white dwarf. In contrast, the normal outbursts of SS Cyg (Fig. 2), U Gem (Fig. 3), and VW Hyi (Fig. 4) manifest the fast increase of, and the delay between, the optical and EUV light curves expected for outside-in outbursts. As measured from the initial rise of the optical light curves, the delay of the rise of the EUV light curves is $`1.5`$, 1.25, and 0.75 days for SS Cyg, U Gem, and VW Hyi, respectively. In VW Hyi, the FUV light curve rises $`0.5`$ days after the optical light curve and $`0.25`$ days before the EUV light curve, but falls as slowly as the optical light curve, consistent with the expectation that the accretion disk and not the boundary layer is the source of the FUV flux. We were not able to observe the rise of the EUV light curves of the superoutbursts of VW Hyi (Fig. 5) or OY Car (Fig. 6), but during both observations of OY Car the EUV light curve was observed to fall and then rise while the optical light curve was declining only slowly. This behavior is evidence for a decrease and subsequent increase of the mass-accretion rate onto the white dwarf, as might be expected if a normal outburst is rejuvenated by an increase in the mass-accretion rate driven by the tidal instability expected for such high mass-ratio binaries.

The observed optical-EUV delays of the normal outbursts of SS Cyg, U Gem, and VW Hyi provide the most direct measurement of the velocity of the heating wave which transforms the disk from quiescence to outburst. Assuming the system parameters shown in Table 1, that the radius of the disk is $`R_{\mathrm{disk}}0.7\times R_{\mathrm{L1}}`$, and that the disk instability starts at the outer edge of the disk, the velocity of the heating wave $`vR_{\mathrm{disk}}/\mathrm{delay}3\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This result is consistent with $`v=\alpha c_\mathrm{s}`$ if the viscosity parameter $`\alpha 0.2`$ and the sound speed $`c_\mathrm{s}=10(T/10^4\mathrm{K})^{1/2}15\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

### Acknowledgments.

We thank the many members of the AAVSO and VSS/RASNZ for providing the triggers for our satellite observations and for the data used to construct the optical light curves. We are grateful to J. Cannizzo for years of discussions about the dwarf nova instability theory and to J. Holberg and J. Collins for acquiring and reducing the Voyager data shown in Fig. 4. J.A.M. acknowledges NASA grants NAG5-3144, -0727, -7357, -7358, and 06545.03A. C. W. M.’s contribution to this work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.


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# Peripheral Collisions of Relativistic Heavy Ions

## 1 Introduction

Peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions have attracted a great number of theoretical and experimental work (see, e.g., , and references therein). It is the purpose of this article to review these phenomena.

## 2 Peripheral Collisions

This field was born in 1924, when E. Fermi had an ingenious idea of relating the atomic processes induced by fast charged particles (the electron) to processes induced by electromagnetic waves. In 1934-1935, Weizsäcker and Williams corrected Fermi’s calculation by including the appropriate relativistic corrections. The original Fermi’s idea is now known as the Weizsäcker-Williams method , an approximation widely used in coherent processes in QED and QCD. In this method the field generated by a fast particle is replaced by a flux of photons (QED), or a flux of by mesons and gluons (QCD) . The number of equivalent photons, $`n(\omega )`$, of given energy, $`\omega `$, in peripheral collisions of relativistic heavy ions (PCRHI) can be calculated classically, or quantum-mechanically. For the electric dipole (E1) multipolarity both results are identical under the assumption of very forward scattering . In ref.  the number of equivalent photons for all multipolarities was calculated exactly. It was shown that for the electric dipole multipolarity, E1, the equivalent photon number, $`n_{E1}(\omega )`$, coincides with the one deduced by Weizsäcker and Williams. It was also shown that in the extreme relativistic collisions the equivalent photon numbers for all multipolarities agree, i.e, $`n_{E1}(\omega )n_{E2}(\omega )n_{M1}(\omega )\mathrm{}`$. The cross sections for one- and two-photon processes depicted in figure 1(a,b) are given by

$$\sigma _X=𝑑\omega \frac{n\left(\omega \right)}{\omega }\sigma _X^\gamma \left(\omega \right),\mathrm{and}\sigma _X=𝑑\omega _1𝑑\omega _2\frac{n\left(\omega _1\right)}{\omega _1}\frac{n\left(\omega _2\right)}{\omega _2}\sigma _X^{\gamma \gamma }(\omega _1,\omega _2),$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _X^\gamma \left(\omega \right)`$ is the photon-induced cross section for the energy $`\omega `$, and $`\sigma _X^{\gamma \gamma }(\omega _1,\omega _2)`$ is the two-photon cross section. Note that we do not refer to the photon momenta. The virtual photons are real: $`q^2=0`$, a relation always valid for PCRHI.

Most applications of PCRHI were reviewed in ref. . Since then a great amount of work has been performed in this field. I will only be able to quote a short number of references.

### 2.1 Bremsstrahlung and Delbrück scattering

Bremsstrahlung (fig. 1c) is a minor effect in PCRHI . The cross section is proportional to the inverse of the square mass of the ions. Most photons have very low energies (infrared). For 10 MeV photons the central collisions (CCRHI) deliver 106 more photons than the PCRHI . However, Bremsstrahlung could be relevant to obtain information on the elastic scattering of photons off unstable particles, like pions: $`Z+\pi Z+\pi +\gamma `$. For a collider the Bremsstrahlung cross section is given by

$$\frac{d\sigma _\gamma }{d\omega }=\frac{16Z^6\alpha ^3}{3\omega A^2m_N^2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\gamma }{\omega R}\right)$$
(2)
where $`m_N`$ is the nucleon mass, $`\gamma =2\gamma _c^21`$, where $`\gamma _c`$ is the collider Lorentz gamma factor ($`\gamma _c100`$ for RHIC/BNL), and $`R`$ is the nuclear dimension ($`R2.4A^{1/3}`$ fm) .

Delbruck scattering ($`\gamma ^{}+\gamma ^{}\gamma +\gamma `$) involves an aditional $`\alpha ^2`$ as compared to pair production and has never been possible to study experimentally. The cross section is about 50 b for the LHC  and the process is dominated by high-energy photons, $`E_\gamma m_e`$. A study of this process in PCRHI is thus promising if the severe background problems arising from CCRHI can be eliminated. To my knowledge, no experiments of Bremsstrahlung or Delbrück scattering in PCRHI have been performed so far. The total cross section for Delbrück scattering ($`\omega m_e`$) in colliders is given by

$$\sigma _{\gamma \gamma }=2.54Z^4\alpha ^4r_e^2\mathrm{ln}^3\left(\frac{\gamma }{m_eR}\right),$$
(3)
where $`r_e=e^2/m_e`$ is the classical electron radius .

### 2.2 Atomic ionization

Atomic ionization by RHI is used in experiments with fixed targets for the basic understanding of atomic structure physics in high-Z few electron atoms such as hydrogen-like or helium-like uranium atoms. A nice book on this subject has been written by Eichler and Meyerhof (see also the review by Anholt and Gould) .

The cross sections are very large, of order of kilobarns, increasing slowly with the logarithm of the RHI energy. For a fixed target experiment using bare naked projectiles one gets :

$$\sigma _I=\frac{Z_P^2r_e^2}{Z_T^2\alpha ^2}\left[1.8\pi +9.8\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{2\gamma }{Z_T\alpha }\right)\right],$$
(4)
which decreases with the target charge $`Z_T`$. This is due to the increase of the binding energy of $`K`$-electrons with the atomic charge. The first term is due to close collisions assuming elastic scattering of the electron off the projectile, while the second part is for distant collisions, with impact parameter larger than the Bohr radius. The probability to eject a $`K`$-electron is much larger than for other atomic orbitals. Recent experiments have reported ionization cross sections for $`Pb^{81+}`$ (33 TeV) beams on several targets . In this case, the role of projectile and target are exchanged in the previous equation. In figure 2 we show the results this equation (dashed line) compared to the experimental data. Since the targets are screened by their electrons, the discrepancy is expected. Even the most detailed calculations by Anholt and Becker  (solid line) yield larger cross sections than the experimental data.

Non-perturbative calculations, solving the time dependent Dirac equation exactly, were first performed by Giessen and Oak Ridge groups . It is claimed in ref.  that such non-perturbative calculations do in fact reproduce their data since they yield cross sections which are approximately 70% the perturbative ones . However, there are little data available for a decisive conclusion about an appropriate theory.

### 2.3 Free and bound-free electron-positron pair production

Between 1933 and 1937, Furry, Carlson, Landau, Lifshitz, Bhabha, Racah, Nishina, Tomonaga, and several others performed calculations of $`e^+e^{}`$ production in relativistic collisions of fast particles (cosmic rays) . The purpose was to test the newly born Dirac theory for the positron. Starting with the Dirac equation for the electron and its antiparticle they obtained that, to leading order in $`\gamma `$,

$$\sigma =\frac{28}{27\pi }Z_P^2Z_T^2r_e^2\mathrm{ln}^3\left(\frac{\gamma }{4}\right).$$
(5)
Unfortunately, in view of the experimental difficulties, these results could never been fully tested. A renewed interest in this process appeared with the construction of relativistic heavy ion accelerators. For heavy ions with very large charge (e.g, lead, or uranium) the pair production probabilities and cross sections are very large. They cannot be treated to first order in perturbation theory , and are difficult to calculate. This resulted in a great amount of theoretical studies . The formulation of the problem with use of numerical algorithms has varied wildly among several groups. Semi-analytical approaches have also been used. The comparison among all these results is rather deceiving, since very different results are obtained for the production cross sections, sometimes differing by orders of magnitude. The perturbative calculations are simple to write down, but involve rather complicated integrals, specially for low energy electrons, due to the distortion and relativistic effects on the continuum electronic wavefunction . Screening is also a source of problems. The non-perturbative calculations are simpler to formulate, but are useless without a numerical algorithm which contains implicit approximations.

Recently, good developments in more tractable formulations of the problem appeared in the literature. One replaces the Lorentz compressed electromagnetic fields by delta functions, works with light cone variables, and obtains almost closed form expressions . However, some of these works have been strongly criticized  because they do not account properly for Coulomb distortion of the lepton wavefunctions. This problem was addressed again in ref.  with the conclusion that a full account of distortion of the leptonic wavefunctions has not been achieved so far. In other words, no theory has ever been possible to tackle the multiple photon exchange between the electron (or positron) with both the target and the projectile. A simple thought reveals why the Coulomb distortion is so important. In the frame of reference of one of the nuclei, the energy spectrum of the emitted electron (or positron) is peaked at $`\epsilon 2m_e`$ . This peak is due to the Coulomb attraction (repulsion) which eliminates low energy components of the leptonic wavefunctions, combined with the decrease in energy of the number of equivalent photons generated by the other nucleus. Changing frame of reference, changes this picture. Thus, a correct calculation should yield two peaks in the energy distribution of the electron (or positron): one at $`\epsilon 2m_e`$, and another around $`\epsilon 2\gamma _c^2m_e`$. The reason it does not appear in perturbative calculations is that the distortion on the leptonic wavefunctions are calculated with respect to only one of the nuclei. Accounting for the distortion with respect to both nuclei, suggests that the total cross section should be about twice the value obtained by Landau and others . This seems to be a challenge for present theoretical calculations.

An important phenomenon occurs when the electron is captured in an atomic orbit of the projectile, or of the target. In a collider this leads to beam losses each time a charge modified nucleus passes by a magnet downstream . A striking application of this process was the recent production of antihydrogen atoms using relativistic antiproton beams . Here the positron is produced and captured in an orbit of the antiproton. Early calculations for this process used perturbation theory . Evidently, the best way to perform the calculation is using the frame of reference of the nucleus where the electron is captured. Many other calculations have been performed . Some of them used non-perturbative approaches, e.g., coupled-channels calculations. Initially some discrepancy with perturbative calculations were found, but later it was shown that non-perturbative calculations agree with the perturbative ones at the 1% level (see, e.g., first reference of ). In fact, it would be a surprise if a different result was found. The first term of the perturbation series is already small enough to neglect the inclusion of higher order terms .

The expression

$$\sigma =\frac{3.3\pi Z^8\alpha ^6r_e^2}{\mathrm{exp}\left(2\pi Z\alpha \right)1}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(0.681\gamma _c^2\right)\frac{5}{3}\right]$$
(6)
for pair production with electron capture in PCRHI was obtained in ref. . The term $`\left[\mathrm{}\right]^1`$ is the main effect of the distortion of the positron wavefunction. It arises through the normalization of the continuum wavefunctions which accounts for the reduction of the magnitude of the positron wavefunction near the nucleus where the electron is localized (bound). Thus, the greater the $`Z`$, the less these wavefunctions overlap. The above equation also predicts a dependence of the cross section in the form

$$\sigma =A\mathrm{ln}\gamma _c+B,$$
(7)
where $`A`$ and $`B`$ are coefficients depending on the system. This dependence was used in the analysis of the experiment in ref. . In recent calculations, attention was given to the correct treatment of the distortion effects in the positron wavefunction . In figure 3 we show the recent experimental data of ref.  compared to the above equation and recent calculations (second reference of ). These calculations also predict a $`\mathrm{ln}\gamma _c`$ dependence but give larger cross sections than in ref. . The comparison with the experimental data is not fair since atomic screening was not taken into account. When screening is present the cross sections will always be smaller by at least a factor 2-4 . The conclusion here is that pair production with electron capture is a process which is well treated in first order perturbation theory. The main concern is the correct treatment of distortion effects (multiphoton scattering) .

### 2.4 Relativistic Coulomb excitation and fragmentation

Relativistic Coulomb excitation is becoming a popular tool for the investigation of the intrinsic nuclear dynamics and structure of the colliding nuclei . This is specially important in reactions involving radioactive nuclear beams . Coulomb excitation and dissociation of such nuclei are common experiments in this field . The advantage is that the Coulomb interaction is very well known. The real situation is more complicated since the contribution of the nuclear-induced processes cannot be entirely separated in the experimental data. The treatment of the dissociation problem by nuclear forces is very model dependent, based on eikonal or multiple Glauber scattering approaches . Among the uncertainties are the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections at high-energies, the truncation of the multiple scattering process and the separation of stripping from elastic dissociation of the nuclei . Nonetheless, specially for the very weakly-bound nuclei, relativistic Coulomb excitation has lead to very exciting new results .

The Coulomb breakup of $`{}_{}{}^{11}Li`$ has lead to interesting results which gave rise to a series of speculations about the reaction mechanism, the dynamics, and the structure of this nucleus. One speculates if the reaction proceeds under a single or multiple photon-exchange between the projectile and the target. In the first case, perturbation theory gives a straight relation between the data and the matrix element for electromagnetic dissociation. Such matrix elements are the clearest probes one can get about the nuclear structure of these nuclei. In the second case, often called by post-acceleration effects , one has to perform a non-perturbative treatment of the reaction what complicates the extraction of the electromagnetic (mainly E1) matrix elements. By solving such problems one expects to learn if the Coulomb-induced breakup proceeds via a resonance or by the direct dissociation into continuum states . There is a strong ongoing effort to use the relativistic Coulomb excitation technique also for studying the excitation of bound excited states in exotic nuclei, to obtain information on gamma-decay widths, angular momentum, parity, and other properties of hitherto unknown states .

Another application of Coulomb dissociation of radioactive nuclei is in astrophysics. Radiative capture reactions are known to play a major role in astrophysical sites, e.g., in a pre-supernova . Some of these reactions, like for example, $`{}_{}{}^{7}Be(p,\gamma )^8B`$, can be studied via the inverse photo-dissociation reaction $`{}_{}{}^{8}B(\gamma ,p)^7Be`$. One often uses the astrophysical S-factor, defined by

$$S(E)=E\sigma \left(E\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[2\pi \eta \left(E\right)\right],\mathrm{where}\eta \left(E\right)=\frac{Z_1Z_2e^2}{\mathrm{}\sqrt{2\mu _{12}E}},$$
(8)
where $`E`$ is the relative kinetic energy of the two nuclei. The matrix elements involved in the dissociation processes are the same as those involved in the absorption by real photons . One of the experiments using this technique was performed at the GSI/Darmstadt . The S-factor obtained in this experiment is shown in figure 4 as solid circles. Such experiments are very important specially in those cases where the radiative capture cross section is so small that the direct fusion experiments are very difficult, or even impossible to carry out. The contribution of the nuclear-induced breakup and of post-acceleration effects also limit the use of the Coulomb dissociation technique for this purpose. But, in view of the much more difficult experiments on direct capture, it is a very useful alternative method.

Another important application of relativistic Coulomb excitation is the study of the DGDR (Double Giant Dipole Resonance). A GDR occurs in nuclei at energies of 10-20 MeV. Assuming that these are harmonic vibrations of protons against neutrons, one expects that DGDRs, i.e., two giant dipole vibrations superimposed in one nucleus, will have exactly twice the energy of the GDR . Small deviations are expected from non-harmonic properties of the nuclear response. A series of experiments at the GSI/Darmstadt have obtained energy spectra, cross sections, and angular distribution of fragments following the decay of the DGDR. Initially they observed cross sections twice as large as expected from theoretical calculations. These results lead to a series of studies on deviations from the harmonic picture of the giant resonances. More recently, new experiments and new analysis have shown that the experimental cross sections are only about 30%, or less, bigger than the theoretical ones. This is shown in figure 5 where the cross sections for the excitation of 1-phonon (GDR),

$$\sigma _12\pi S\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{2\gamma A_T^{1/3}}{A_P^{1/3}+A_T^{1/3}}\right],$$
(9)
while for the 2-phonon state it is

$$\sigma \frac{S^2}{\left(A_P^{1/3}+A_T^{1/3}\right)^2},\mathrm{where}S=5.45\times 10^4\frac{Z_P^2Z_TN_T}{A_T^{2/3}}\mathrm{mb}.$$
(10)
The dashed lines of figure 5 are the result of more elaborate calculations . The GSI experiments are very promising for the studies of the nuclear response in very collective states. One should notice that after many years of study of the GDRs and other collective modes, the width of these states are still poorly explained theoretically, even with the best microscopic approaches known sofar. The extension of these approaches to the study of the width of the DGDRs will be helpful to improve such models. Hopefully, after addressing more fundamental questions on QCD and QED of strong electromagnetic fields, some experiments on relativistic colliders will also be proposed for the study of nuclear structure issues, specially the issue of the DGDR.

The DGDR contributes only to about 10% of the total fragmentation cross section induced by Coulomb excitation with relativistic heavy ions. The main contribution arises from the excitation of a single GDR, which decays mostly by neutron emission. This is also a potential source of beam loss in relativistic heavy ion colliders , and an important fragmentation mode of relativistic nuclei in cosmic rays.

### 2.5 Meson and hadron production

The production of heavy lepton pairs ($`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, or $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$), or of meson pairs (e.g., $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$) can be calculated using the second of equation (1). One just needs the cross sections for $`\gamma \gamma `$ production of these pairs. Since they depend on the inverse of the square of the particle mass , the pair-production cross sections are much smaller in this case. The same applies to single meson production by $`\gamma \gamma `$ fusion. The $`\gamma \gamma `$ cross section is given by

$$\sigma _{\gamma \gamma M}=8\pi ^2(2J+1)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{M\gamma \gamma }}{M}\delta (W^2M^2),$$
(11)
where $`J`$, $`M`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{M\gamma \gamma }`$ are the spin, mass and two-photon decay width of the meson, $`W`$ is the c.m. energy of the colliding photons . A correction for the equivalent photon numbers is necessary, since the two-photon energy folding in eq. (1) has to account for the space geometry of the two-photon collision .

A careful study of the production of meson pairs and single mesons in PCRHI was performed recently in ref. . In table I we show the magnitude of the cross sections for single meson production at RHIC and at LHC . Also shown are the cross sections due to difractive processes (pomeron-pomeron exchange). We see that they are several orders of magnitude smaller than those from $`\gamma \gamma `$ fusion. The cross sections for the production of $`\eta _c`$, $`\eta _c^{}`$ and $`\eta _b`$ are very small due to their higher masses. Similar studies have been done for meson production in $`\gamma `$-nucleus interactions. Particles like $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$, $`\varphi `$, $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$, etc, can be produced in this way .

The possibility to produce a Higgs boson via $`\gamma \gamma `$ fusion was suggested in ref. . The cross sections for LHC are of order of 1 nanobarn, about the same as for gluon-gluon fusion. But, the two-photon processes can also produce $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs which create a large background for detecting the Higgs boson. A good review of these topics was presented in ref. .

## Acknowledgment(s)

The author is currently a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. This work was partially supported by the Brazilian funding agencies CNPq, CAPES, FUJB and MCT/FINEP/CNPQ(PRONEX) under contract No. 41.96.0886.


text:
# Mass–dependence of the Λ hypernuclear decay widths

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Because of its kinematics, the decay mode of the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$–hyperon, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\pi N`$, is disfavoured by the Pauli principle if it occurs in nuclear systems. However, the presence of the nuclear medium is responsible for the opening of new, non–mesonic decay channels, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }NNN`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }NNNNN`$. The non–mesonic decay is characterised by large momentum transfers, thus the details of nuclear structure do not have a substantial influence, but the $`NN`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N`$ short range correlations turn out to be very important. Experimental data show an anticorrelation between mesonic and non–mesonic decay modes such that the total lifetime is quite stable over the whole hypernuclear mass spectrum.

## 2 FRAMEWORK FOR CALCULATION

Within the polarization propagator method the weak decay of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$–hypernuclei is studied through a many–body description of the hyperon self–energy, whose imaginary part gives the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decay width:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=2\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(1)
This technique provides a unified picture of the different decay channels. Moreover, it is alternative and equivalent to the standard wave function method, which makes use of shell model hypernuclear wave functions and pion waves generated by pion–nucleus optical potentials.

Here we only present and discuss the results of our calculations. Details concerning the framework used can be found in refs. . The $`2p2h`$ part of the irreducible polarization propagator has been estimated, in ref. , by using a phenomenological parameterization supplied by the pion–nucleus optical potential, extracted from data on pion absorption in pionic atoms. The phase space available for real $`2p2h`$ excitations has also been taken into account, in order to extrapolate the data for off–mass shell pions. The Feynman diagrams contributing to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ self–energy in nuclear systems can be classified in a theoretically grounded scheme by using a functional approach, according to the prescriptions of the so–called bosonic–loop–expansion. In ref. , a microscopic calculation of the non–mesonic decays within the one–boson–loop approximation has been performed.

## 3 RESULTS

In this section the main results obtained in refs.  are discussed.

### 3.1 Phenomenological calculation

The local density approximation, used to extend the calculation made in nuclear matter to finite nuclei, requires the knowledge of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ wave function in nuclei. We have obtained these wave functions from Wood–Saxon wells with radius and depth fixed to reproduce the first two single particle states of the hypernuclei considered.

A crucial ingredient in the calculation of the non–mesonic decay rates is the short range part of the strong $`NN`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N`$ interactions. They have been expressed by phenomenological functions, which supply a good reproduction of realistic $`G`$–matrix calculations in the $`NN`$ case. Since 1) there are no experimental indications on the strong $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N`$ short range interaction and 2) we use a phenomenological picture of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decay which go beyond the description usually employed for processes not involving strangeness, the zero energy and momentum limit, $`g^{}`$ and $`g_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$, of the correlation functions have been kept as free parameters. They have been fixed (on the values $`g^{}=0.8`$ and $`g_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}=0.4`$) in order to reproduce the non–mesonic decay rate of $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{12}`$C.

Then, the calculation has been extended to hypernuclei ranging from $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{5}`$He to $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{208}`$Pb. The result are shown in figure 1.

The mesonic rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_M`$ rapidly vanishes with the nuclear mass number $`A`$. This is related to the decreasing phase space allowed for the decay and to smaller overlaps between the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ probability distribution and the nuclear surface, as $`A`$ increases. The results for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_M`$ are in good agreement both with experimental data (included the new ones from KEK presented at this conference ) and with other theoretical estimations , obtained in shell model calculations. With the exception of $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{5}`$He, the two–body induced decay ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$) is rather independent of the hypernuclear dimension and is about 15% of the total width, which is also fairly constant with $`A`$. In figure 1 our calculation for non–mesonic and total decay widths ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_1+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_T`$) is compared with recent (after 1990) experimental data . The theoretical results are in good agreement with the experiment over the whole hypernuclear mass range explored. In particular, the saturation of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }NNN`$ interaction in nuclei is well reproduced.

### 3.2 Microscopic calculation

The results presented in this section have been obtained in ref.  within the one–boson–loop (OBL) approximation. The calculation of the OBL diagrams for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ self–energy in finite nuclei (using the local density approximation) is not possible here because of the long computing time already for the evaluation of the decay rates at fixed Fermi momentum (namely in nuclear matter). In order to compare the calculation with experimental data, we assigned different “average” Fermi momenta to three mass regions in the hypernuclear spectrum. We used the following prescription:

$$k_F=𝑑\stackrel{}{r}k_F(\stackrel{}{r})|\psi _\mathrm{\Lambda }(\stackrel{}{r})|^2,$$
(2)
which derives from weighting the nucleon local Fermi momentum $`k_F(\stackrel{}{r})`$ with the probability density of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ inside the nucleus $`|\psi _\mathrm{\Lambda }(\stackrel{}{r})|^2`$. We classified the hypernuclei for which experimental data are available into the following mass regions:

* medium–light: $`A10`$ $``$ $`k_F=1.1`$ fm-1;
* medium: $`A30÷60`$ $``$ $`k_F=1.2`$ fm-1;
* heavy: $`A>200`$ $``$ $`k_F=1.36`$ fm-1 .

As in the phenomenological approach, the Landau parameters $`g^{}`$ and $`g_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ are the only free parameters of the calculation.

In figure 2 we show the dependence of the total non–mesonic width on the Fermi momentum of nuclear matter (we remind that for this range of Fermi momenta, in infinite nuclear matter the mesonic decay is strictly forbidden). Here $`g_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ has been fixed to 0.4, since with this value the experimental data can be reproduced, in ring approximation, by using $`g^{}`$ values compatible with the phenomenology of other physical processes.

The solid curves refer to the OBL approximation, with $`g^{}=0.7`$, 0.8, 0.9 from the top to the bottom, while the dashed lines refer to the ring approximation, with $`g^{}=0.5`$, 0.6, 0.7, again from the top to the bottom. We note that the OBL calculation reproduce rather well the data for the three mass regions when $`g^{}=0.8`$. Incidentally, the same value for $`g^{}`$ has been employed in the phenomenological calculation. However, one must point out that the role played by the Landau parameters is different in the two approaches we used.

In conclusion, both calculations reproduce, with approximately the same accuracy, the experimental data. This proves the reliability in using 1) averaged Fermi momenta to simulate the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decay in finite nuclei and 2) the phenomenological model to describe the non–mesonic decay.