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# Strange Dibaryons in Neutron Stars and in Heavy-Ion Collisions

## 1 HYPERONS AND DIBARYONS IN NEUTRON STARS

There has been a lot of speculations about the appearance of new particles in the interior of neutron stars. A traditional neutron star consists of neutrons, protons, and leptons only. Cameron suggested first in 1959, that hyperons will also appear at high baryon density . A possible phase transition to quark matter was conjectured shortly after the quark model was introduced . Pion condensation  as well as kaon condensation were considered later . Finally, strange stars, built out of absolutely stable strange quark matter, have been studied within the MIT bag model . The appearance of one or the other exotic phase in the core of neutron stars is still a matter of active debates. Nevertheless, recent developments in the field indicate, that hyperons are probably the first exotic particle to appear in neutron star matter at twice normal nuclear density. This result was consistently derived within various, different models: nonrelativistic potential models , quark-meson coupling model , relativistic mean-field models , relativistic Hartree-Fock , Brueckner-Hartree-Fock models , and chiral effective Lagrangians . Hence, the onset of hyperons at $`2\rho _0`$ seems to be rather insensitive to the underlying details of the hyperon-nucleon interaction used.

If there are a lot of hyperons in the interior of neutron stars, then it might be also possible to form dibaryons with strangeness. Besides the famous H-dibaryon proposed by Jaffe  built out of six quarks, the most recent version of the Nijmegen potential predicts the existence of deeply bound states of two hyperons, involving the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$’s and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$’s with maximum isospin . Their results can be understood in terms of the underlying SU(3) symmetry for the baryon-baryon interactions (see ).

Let us assume in the following, that there exist bound states with hyperons. What would be the consequences for the properties of dense matter, as present in the interior of neutron stars? Bound systems in dense matter have been discussed before in connection with the liquid-gas phase transition of nuclear matter. They dissolve at rather low density due to effects in analogy to the Mott transition; deuterons disappear at $`1/15\rho _0`$ and $`\alpha `$ particles around $`1/2\rho _0`$, as detailed e.g. in . A similar transition will happen for bound states with hyperons. Hence, weakly bound systems will have no influence on the equation of state of neutron star matter — unless, there is a deeply bound state which can be treated as a quasiparticle. The H-dibaryon as well as heavier quark bags with strange quarks (strangelets) are such deeply bound states. They can actually be formed as precursor of the deconfinement phase transition in the core of neutron stars. The general condition for the appearance of a strangelet in s-wave with baryon number $`A`$ and charge $`Z`$ is that the effective energy of the particle equals its chemical potential

$$E_s^{}(k=0)=M_s+U(\rho )=A\times \mu _nZ\times \mu _e.$$
(1)
Here, $`U(\rho )`$ stands for the effective potential felt by the strangelet at finite density. In order to estimate the effects of these exotic states, we focus on the lightest possible one, the H-dibaryon with $`A=2`$ and $`Z=0`$. We use an extended Relativistic Mean-Field Model which incorporates the H-particle in a consistent scheme. The Lagrangian part for the H-dibaryon field reads

$$_H=D_\mu ^{}H^{}D^\mu Hm_{H}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}H^{}H$$
(2)
with a minimal coupling scheme for the scalar and vector meson fields

$`D_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`_\mu +ig_{\omega H}V_\mu `$ (3)
$`m_H^{}`$ $`=`$ $`m_H+g_{\sigma H}\sigma .`$ (4)
For the coupling constant to the vector field, we choose the simple quark counting rule as guidance, i.e. we set $`g_{\omega H}=4/3g_{\omega N}`$. We fix the scalar coupling to an optical potential at normal nuclear matter density in the range

$$U_H(\rho _0)=g_{\sigma H}\sigma (\rho _0)+g_{\omega H}V_0(\rho _0)=30\mathrm{}+30\text{ MeV}.$$
(5)
Figure 1 shows the resulting equation of state when using the parameter set TM1 and including effects from hyperons (see  for details). The equation of state turns out to be quite sensitive to the choice of the optical potential of the H-dibaryon. The phase transition to the H-dibaryon condensate is of second order in all cases studied. For an attractive optical potential, $`U_H(\rho _0)=30`$ MeV, the equation of state has a plateau-like behaviour, i.e. the pressure is very slowly rising with energy density.

The drastic softening of the equation of state has crucial consequences for the maximum mass of a neutron star, which will be lowered below the acceptable value of the Hulse-Taylor pulsar of $`M=1.44M_{}`$. Hence, one can constrain the properties of the H-dibaryon in dense matter from pulsar data. These constraints are summarized in fig. 2 as a function of the vacuum mass of the H-dibaryon and its optical potential at $`\rho _0`$. The calculations have been done by using two completely different parameterizations for the nucleon and the hyperon coupling constants (denoted as set TM1 and GM91 in the figure) and our findings seems to be rather insensitive to these choices. According to these calculations, the shaded area in the lower left side of the plot can be ruled out, as the corresponding neutron star equation of state gives too low a maximum mass. Therefore, a deeply attractive potential for the H-dibaryon with a mass close to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ threshold is incompatible with the measured Hulse-Taylor pulsar mass. Also, a H-dibaryon mass below the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$N threshold requires even a repulsive potential in matter in our model calculation to get sufficiently heavy neutron stars.

Finally, we remark that the existence of deeply bound states of two hyperons can have an indirect effect on the properties of neutron stars, though. If the hyperon-hyperon interaction is deeply attractive, it can give rise to a phase transition to hyperonic matter . This phase transition can result in a drastically modified mass-radius relation for neutron stars, like neutron star twins with similar masses but smaller radii than ordinary neutron stars . Hence, measurements of the mass and the radius of neutron stars will provide important insights into the equation of state and may reveal that there is indeed something strange going on at high density.

## 2 STRANGE DIBARYONS IN RELATIVISTIC HEAVY-ION COLLISIONS

There is the possibility to probe the hyperon-hyperon interaction in less remote places than neutron stars. Terrestrial relativistic heavy-ion collisions will produce dozens of hyperons in a single central collisions of two heavy nuclei, and for RHIC even close to 200 hyperons are expected . The hyperons, sitting close in phase-space, can coalesce to form a bound state or a resonance which is decaying afterwards. The final products will be measured then in the detectors.

The production rates for dibaryons with hyperons at RHIC has been estimated in the coalescence model to be in the range of $`10^2`$ to $`10^4`$ per single event. Effects from the details of the dibaryon wavefunction have been found to be rather small . The rapidity distribution is rather flat, so that dibaryons are also produced at forward and backward rapidities where the decay length is considerably longer than at midrapidity. The production rates can be enhanced dramatically in two ways which are not taken into account in the above coalescence estimates. If a quark-gluon plasma is formed, strange quark-antiquark pairs are produced more abundantly so that the total initial number of produced strange hadrons increases. If matter is created in a chirally restored phase, the effective hyperon masses are reduced drastically which will result in an enhanced hyperon-antihyperon yield.

To detect strange dibaryons, their weak decay patterns have to be investigated. Starting point is the weak nonleptonic decay of hyperons in vacuum. Both, s-wave and p-wave amplitudes have been measured and correspond to a parity violating and a parity conserving amplitudes, respectively. The standard approach for describing these amplitudes is by means of chiral perturbation theory. The p-wave amplitudes are beyond leading order and are usually derived within the pole model. The basic version fails to describe the p-wave amplitudes. This constitutes the so called s-wave/p-wave puzzle for the weak nonleptonic decay of hyperons (for a discussion and more elaborate ways to remedy the situation see  and references therein). We have found a simple way to parameterize both amplitudes, s-wave and p-wave, in terms of pure SU(3) symmetry for the weak interactions . The effective Lagrangian involves the baryon octet $`B`$, the pseudoscalar octet $`P`$, and the Gell-Mann matrix $`\lambda _6`$, which ensures the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule and a change of hypercharge by one unit:

$``$ $`=`$ $`D\mathrm{Tr}\overline{B}B[P,\lambda _6]+F\mathrm{Tr}\overline{B}[P,\lambda _6]B`$ (6)
$`+G\mathrm{Tr}\overline{B}P\gamma _5B\lambda _6+H\mathrm{Tr}\overline{B}\lambda _6\gamma _5BP+J\mathrm{Tr}\overline{B}\{P,\lambda _6\}\gamma _5B.`$
The first two terms give the s-wave contributions, while the other three the p-wave contributions. Table 1 compares the resulting amplitudes with the measured ones when setting $`D=4.72`$, $`F=1.62`$, $`G=40.0`$, $`H=47.8`$, and $`J=7.1`$ (in units of $`10^{10}`$). We conclude that the above model as defined in eq. (6) gives a reasonable description of all amplitudes.

The weak decays of possible dibaryons with hyperons are then calculated by adopting a Hulthen-type wavefunction with varying binding energy. The nonmesonic decay is described by pion- and kaon- exchange diagrams, where the weak coupling constants are given by eq. (6) and the strong coupling constants by SU(6) symmetry. We note in passing, that the state-of-the-art calculations for the weak nonmesonic decay of hypernuclei rely on the (wrong) pole model (see  and references therein). While this will not affect the pion exchange diagrams, accidentally, it will certainly alter the coupling constants for the kaon exchange diagrams. The use of the SU(3) symmetric model might be interesting to pursue in this direction to investigate possible effects, e.g. for the ratio of neutron- to proton-induced decay which comes out too small in the standard approach.

Figure 3 depicts the branching ratio for a bound $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ system versus the binding energy, and fig. 4 shows the case for a possible $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0`$p dibaryon. The mesonic decay channel dominates for binding energies of a few MeV. Then, for higher binding energies, the nonmesonic decay channels take over. For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the dominant nonmesonic decay mode is to a $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ and a proton, the same as for the hypothetical H-particle. The $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0`$p decays mainly to a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and a proton for binding energies of just 1.5 MeV and more. This weak decay has the same decay topology as the weak decay of the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ and the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$, and both particles have readily been measured in relativistic heavy-ion collisions . Other interesting decay topologies occur for the doubly negatively charged dibaryons $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, all of which have been predicted to be bound in the recent Nijmegen model . Here, a negatively charged object decays into two negatively charged tracks — a unique decay prong which should be easily seen in tracking devices. The calculated lifetimes of all dibaryons are lying just below the one for the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with decay lengths in the range of $`c\tau =1`$–5 cm.

There are in principle three ways to detect possible short-lived strange dibaryons (for an experimental investigation we refer to the detailed feasibility study of Coffin and Kuhn for the case of the H-dibaryon at the STAR detector ). Firstly, if the dibaryon is bound, one can look for exotic decays in a TPC, like a charged track splitting into two charged ones. Secondly, if the mass of the strange dibaryon is close to threshold, it will show up in the invariant mass spectrum of its decay products by using background subtraction. Note, that this method is also sensitive to dibaryon resonances, if their decay widths are not too large . Thirdly, the hyperon-hyperon interaction and possible broad dibaryon resonances can be probed in correlation functions as the low momentum part is sensitive to final state interactions .


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# Annihilations from the Galactic Centre

## 1 Introduction

There is convincing evidence for the existence of an unseen non-baryonic component in the energy density of the universe. The most promising dark matter candidate appear to be weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and in particular the so-called neutralinos, arising in supersymmetric scenarios (for a review of particle candidates for dark matter see e.g. ). The annihilation of these X-particles would produce quarks, leptons, gauge and Higgs bosons and gluons. In particular $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs are produced either directly or by successive decays of mesons, and lose their energy through synchrotron radiation as they propagate in the galactic magnetic field. This radiation is expected to be greatly enhanced in the proximity of the galactic centre, where the existence of a massive black hole creates a region of very high dark matter particle density and consequently a substantial increase in the annihilation rate and in the ensuing synchrotron radiation.

## 2 Dark matter distribution around the Galactic Centre

There is strong evidence for the existence of a massive compact object lying within the inner $`0.015\mathrm{pc}`$ of the galactic centre (see  and references therein). This object is a compelling candidate for a massive black hole, with mass $`M=2.6\pm 0.2M_{}`$. The galactic halo density profile is modified in the neighbourhood of the galactic centre by the adiabatic process of accretion towards the central black hole. If we consider an initially power-law type profile of index $`\gamma `$, as predicted by high resolution N-body simulations , the corresponding dark matter profile after accretion is modified to

$$\rho ^{}=\left[\alpha _\gamma \left(\frac{M}{\rho _DD^3}\right)^{3\gamma }\right]^{\gamma _{sp}\gamma }\rho _Dg(r)\left(\frac{D}{r}\right)^{\gamma _{sp}}$$
(1)
where $`\gamma _{sp}=(92\gamma )/(4\gamma )`$, $`D`$ is the solar distance from the galactic centre and $`\rho _D=0.24GeV/c^2/cm^3`$ is the corresponding density. The factors $`\alpha _\gamma `$ and $`g_\gamma (r)`$ cannot be determined analytically (for approximate expressions and numerical values see ). Expression 1 is only valid in a central region of size $`R_{sp}=\alpha _\gamma D(M/\rho _DD^3)^{1/(3\gamma )}`$ where the central black hole dominates the gravitational potential.

If we take into account the annihilation of dark matter particles, the density cannot grow to arbitrarily high values, the maximum density being set by the value

$$\rho _{core}=m/\sigma vt_{BH}$$
(2)
where $`t_{BH}10^{10}\mathrm{years}`$ is the age of the central black hole. The final profile, resulting from the adiabatic accretion of annihilating dark matter onto a massive black hole, is

$$\rho _{dm}(r)=\frac{\rho ^{}(r)\rho _{core}}{\rho ^{}(r)+\rho _{core}}$$
(3)
following a power-law profile for large values of r, and with a flat core of density $`\rho _{core}`$ and dimension

$$R_{core}=R_{sp}\left(\frac{\rho (R_{sp})}{\rho _{core}}\right)^{(1/\gamma _{sp})}$$
(4)
## 3 Constraints from Synchrotron Emission

Among the products of annihilation of dark matter particles, there are energetic electrons and positrons, which are expected to produce synchrotron radiation in the magnetic field around the galactic centre. The pair production spectrum is determined by the quark fragmentation function and has been evaluated using the MLLA approximation (see  for details). The galactic magnetic field can be modeled by making the ’equipartition assumption’, where the magnetic, kinetic and gravitational energy of the matter accreting on the central black hole are in approximate equipartition (see ). In this case, the magnetic field can be expressed as

$$B(r)=1\mu G\left(\frac{r}{\text{pc}}\right)^{5/4}$$
(5)
Most of the annihilations occur at very small distances from the centre, typically at $`min(R_{core},10R_s)`$, i.e. in a region with magnetic fields of the order of $`>1G`$. Under these conditions, comparable to the size of the region where most of the annihilations occur, the electrons lose their energy almost in place. To compute the synchrotron luminosity resulting from the propagation of $`e^\pm `$ in the galactic magnetic field, we need to evaluate their energy distribution in the magnetic field, following

$$\frac{dn}{dE}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }Y_e(>E)}{P(E)}f_e(r)$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the annihilation rate

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{\sigma v}{m_x^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\rho _{sp}^24\pi r^2𝑑r,$$
(7)
the function $`f_e(r)`$ is given by

$$f_e(r)=\frac{\rho _{sp}^2}{_0^{\mathrm{}}\rho _{sp}^24\pi r^2𝑑r}$$
(8)
and

$$P(E)=\frac{2e^4B^2E^2}{3m_e^4c^7}$$
(9)
The quantity $`Y_e(>E)`$ is the number of $`e^+e^{}`$ with energy above E produced per annihilation, which depends on the annihilation modes. The energy dependence of $`Y_e(>E)`$ can be neglected, and we estimate $`Y_e(>E)`$ by the number of charged particles produced in quark fragmentation (see ). We obtain a simple analytical expression for the total synchrotron luminosity

$$L_\nu \frac{9}{8}\left(\frac{1}{0.29\pi }\frac{m_e^3c^5}{e}\right)^{1/2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }Y_e(>E)}{\sqrt{\nu }}I$$
(10)
where

$$I=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}4}\pi r^2f_e(r)B^{1/2}(r)$$
(11)
The synchrotron self-absorption coefficent is defined  by

$$A_\nu =\frac{1}{a_\nu }_0^{\mathrm{}}(1e^{\tau (b)})2\pi b𝑑b$$
(12)
where $`\tau (b)`$ is the optical depth as a function of the cylindrical coordinate $`b`$

$$\tau (b)=a_\nu _{d(b)}^{\mathrm{}}f_e(b,z)𝑑z$$
(13)
and the coefficent $`a_\nu `$ is given by

$$a_\nu =\frac{e^3\mathrm{\Gamma }B(r)}{9m_e\nu ^2}_{m_e}^mE^2\frac{d}{dE}\left[\frac{Y_e(>E)}{E^2P(E)}\right]F\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu _c}\right)𝑑E$$
(14)
The final luminosity is obtained by multiplying eq. (10) with $`A_\nu `$ given by eq. (12). It is evident that in the limit of small optical depths the coefficent $`A_\nu 1`$, as can be seen by expanding the exponential. We find for $`a_\nu `$ the following expression

$$a_\nu =\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }Y}{4\pi }\frac{c^2}{\nu ^3}$$
(15)
which can in turn be used to evaluate $`\tau (b)`$ in eq. (13) and $`A_\nu `$ in eq. (12).

We first evaluate the self-absorption coefficent for selected values of the mass, as a function of frequency. The coefficent (see left part of fig. 1) grows from very low values and then reaches the value 1, around a frequency which is strongly dependent on the cross section and the mass $`m_X`$, but not very much on the profile power-law index $`\gamma `$. The right part of fig.1 shows the self-absorption coefficent at the fixed frequency of408MHz as a function of the wimpzilla mass. The behaviour shown is qualitatively the same for any value of the cross-section and for different $`\gamma `$.

The coefficent is evaluated for two different values of the cross section, the first one corresponding to the maximum possible value $`\sigma v10^{28}/m_X^2(\mathrm{GeV})\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1,`$ (the so-called unitarity bound, see ) and the second one corresponding to typical cross sections for supersymmetric scenarios, $`\sigma v=10^{38}/m_X^2(\mathrm{GeV})\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1`$ (see, e.g., ).

In figure 2 we compare the predicted spectrum with the observations; we choose a set of parameters $`m_X`$, $`\gamma `$ and $`\sigma v`$ in order to reproduce the observed normalisation. It is remarkable that in this way one can reproduce the observed spectrum over a significant range of frequencies. The submillimeter excess is generally attributed to processes in the accretion disk within several Schwarzschild radii of the black hole (e.g. ). The set of dark matter parameters for which the fluxes predicted in our model are consistent with observations is shown in the exclusion plot of fig. 3.

## 4 Conclusions and perspectives

We have shown that present data on the emission from Sgr A\* are compatible with a wide set of dark matter parameters. The evaluation of synchrotron self-absorption has enabled us to reach an alternative conclusion to an earlier claim of incompatibility of cuspy halos with the existence of annihilating wimp dark matter. We find that the experimental data on the Sgr A\* spectrum at radio wavelengths could be explained by synchrotron emission of electrons produced in the annihilation of rather massive dark matter particles, extending up to and beyond TeV masses. This is relevant to a recent study of coannihilations , which suggests that WIMPs with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Xh^2=0.2`$ can extend up to several TeV, as well as to very massive particles (wimpzillas) that are produced non-thermally in the primordial universe. We also find that the synchrotron emission tends to give somewhat sharper constraints on masses and cross sections than the observed gamma-ray fluxes and neutrino limits. This situation could change with more sensitive gamma-ray and neutrino observations anticipated from forthcoming experiments.


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# Random matrix theory for systems with an approximate symmetry and widths of acoustic resonances in thin chaotic plates

## I Introduction

Random matrix theory has been used with success in a variety of physical systems for the description of certain generic features of spectral correlators which are determined by the underlying symmetries of the Hamiltonian . In Sec. II of this paper we discuss a random matrix model of systems with an approximate symmetry. A problem like this is found, e.g., in nuclear physics where isospin symmetry, characteristic of the strong interactions, is only approximate due to Coulomb effects . Isospin mixing was analysed by Guhr and Weidenmüller in 1990 using a random matrix approach . They used a random matrix model to describe experimental data and to estimate the average symmetry-breaking matrix element, i.e., the average Coulomb matrix element. The random matrix model discussed here differs from the one considered in , and we comment on this difference. In addition to the spectral fluctuation statistics for the model we consider a measure of the asymmetry of the eigenvectors and describe it using simple analytical arguments.

In Sec. III we present two experimental studies of acoustic resonances in thin aluminium plates. The plates have the shape of the so-called three-leaf clover, see Sec. III B. Frequency spectra of acoustic resonators were first compared with random matrix results by Weaver in 1989 . Further experimental studies of the fluctuation properties of acoustic resonance spectra in blocks of aluminium and quartz were made by Ellegaard and coworkers . In Ref.  the level spacing distribution measured in  was compared with the random matrix model of . In this paper we focus on acoustic plates which in many respects are simpler than the three-dimensional resonators mentioned before. Acoustic resonances in plates were investigated by Bertelsen et al. . We present a short review of the theory of acoustic waves in thin isotropic plates and discuss the characteristics of the different types of resonances. We find experimentally that modes can be separated into two different classes which each have a characteristic dependence of their widths on the damping by the air surrounding the plate. One class of modes has widths which are almost independent of the air-pressure, and the other class has widths with a strong dependence on the air-pressure. We argue that these modes are in-plane and flexural modes, respectively. In the first experiment, we measure the spectral fluctuation statistics for both mode types individually and compare with well-known results for the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE). Then, in a second experiment, we mix the two mode classes by gradually cutting a slit on one face of the plate. We thus observe the transition from two separate classes of modes to one class of modes. This transition is studied by comparing the data to the random matrix model for systems with an approximate symmetry for both the spectral fluctuation statistics and the width distribution. The latter is described using eigenvector information from the model.

## II Random Matrices and Approximate Symmetries

### A The random matrix model

Let $`H`$ be a random real symmetric $`N\times N`$ matrix with the following block-structure:

$$H=\left(\begin{array}{cc}D_A+A& 0\\ 0& D_B+B\end{array}\right)+g\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& C\\ C^T& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`D_A`$ and $`A`$ are random $`N_1\times N_1`$ matrices, and $`D_B`$ and $`B`$ are random $`N_2\times N_2`$ matrices. The random matrix $`C`$ is $`N_1\times N_2`$, and the coupling strength, $`g`$, is a real parameter. Note that $`NN_1+N_2`$. The elements of the diagonal matrices $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$ are drawn uniformly on the interval $`[0.5,0.5]`$ and ordered in increasing order for each block. This choice of probability distribution leads to level spectra for $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$ which, except for small end-point corrections, are described by the Poisson statistics appropriate for a sequence of uncorrelated energy levels. The elements of $`A`$, $`B`$, and $`C`$ are Gaussian distributed with zero mean. The variance, $`\sigma ^2`$, of the distribution of the diagonal elements of $`A`$ and $`B`$ scales as $`1/N^2`$. The variance of the distribution of the off-diagonal elements of the matrices $`A`$ and $`B`$ and the elements of $`C`$ is set to half the value of $`\sigma ^2`$.

The diagonal contributions $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$ in $`H`$ are intended to mimic the effects of the kinetic energy operator, and the Gaussian distributed elements of $`A`$ and $`B`$ simulate “interactions” due to boundary conditions. Since the elements of $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$ are “sufficiently” small compared with the Gaussian distributed elements, the short-range spectral fluctuation statistics are identical to the statistics obtained for two superimposed GOE spectra (2 GOE) when $`g=0`$ and to GOE statistics when $`g=1`$. (See Sec. II B for a more detailed discussion of the spectral fluctuation statistics.) The average distance between neighbouring levels scales as $`1/N`$ because of the presence of the diagonal matrix elements. With a finite value of $`g`$ both the root mean square (RMS) symmetry-preserving matrix element and the RMS symmetry-breaking matrix element also scale like $`1/N`$, and the transition from 2 GOE statistics to GOE statistics takes place as a function of $`g`$ independent of the value of $`N`$.

This is not the case if the kinetic energy terms are not present as in a random matrix model, like the one used in Refs. , with two GOE-like diagonal blocks coupled by Gaussian-distributed matrix elements. For such a model the ratio between the RMS symmetry-breaking matrix element and the average distance between neighbouring levels for the unperturbed problem scales like $`g\sqrt{N}`$. The transition from 2 GOE to GOE spectral fluctuation statistics takes place as a function of this ratio. If $`g`$ is independent of $`N`$, it follows that the ratio scales like $`\sqrt{N}`$, and in particular that it goes to infinity in the large-$`N`$ limit for any finite value of $`g`$. To observe a smooth transition from 2 GOE statistics to GOE statistics independent of $`N`$, it is thus necessary that the ratio between the RMS symmetry-breaking matrix element and the RMS symmetry-preserving matrix element scales like $`1/\sqrt{N}`$ in a random matrix model without kinetic energy terms.

### B Spectral fluctuation statistics

To describe the short-range spectral fluctuation statistics we consider the standard level spacing distribution, and as a measure of the long-range spectral fluctuation statistics we choose to look at the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic . Numerical calculations of the level spacing distribution and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic for $`N_2=2N_1=200`$ with $`\sigma ^2=16/N^2`$ are shown in Figs. 1 and 2 together with the exact results for the GOE and two superimposed GOE spectra with fractional densities 1/3 and 2/3, respectively. The ensembles in the simulations consisted of 500 matrices, and 150 eigenvalues from the “middle” of the spectrum for each matrix were considered. Figures 1(a) and 1(d) show that the level spacing distribution for the random matrix model is identical to the 2 GOE result when $`g=0`$ and to the GOE result when $`g=1`$. Similarly Fig. 2 shows that this is also the case for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ for $`L20`$. It is clear from Fig. 1 that the level spacing distribution looks very much like the level spacing distribution for the GOE even when $`g=0.1`$. It is well known that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ for a model with diagonal terms like $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$ deviates from the corresponding GOE result for large values of $`L`$ . The value of $`L`$ where this transition to more Poisson-like behaviour sets in is referred to as the Thouless energy. For $`g=1`$ and $`\sigma ^2=16/N^2`$ we find a Thouless energy of about 35. A different choice of the variance, $`\sigma ^2`$, leads to a picture for the spectral fluctuation statistics similar to the one shown on Figs. 1 and 2 as long as $`L`$ is less than the Thouless energy.

### C Eigenvector information

As a measure of the asymmetry of the eigenvectors of $`H`$ we define a quantity, $`a`$, which we denote the asymmetry number. Consider a $`N=N_1+N_2`$ dimensional vector $`(v_1,v_2,\mathrm{},v_N)`$ of unit length, and let $`a`$ be defined by

$$a\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_1}{}}v_i^2\underset{i=N_1+1}{\overset{N}{}}v_i^2.$$
(2)
For two decoupled systems described by the subspaces spanned by the first $`N_1`$ and the last $`N_2`$ basis vectors, respectively, the distribution $`P_A(a)`$ has a $`\delta `$-function peak at $`a=1`$ and one at $`a=1`$. For the GOE it has a single peak at $`a=(N_1N_2)/N`$. These features are obvious in Fig. 3, which shows $`P_A`$ calculated numerically for the ensembles considered in Sec. II B. Notice that the smaller of the two peaks present when $`g=0`$ has almost vanished when $`g=0.1`$, whereas the strength of the largest peak is reduced to half its original value.

Imagine that two uncoupled classes of resonances have width distributions $`P_F`$ and $`P_I`$, respectively. The width distribution of all the resonances, $`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, is the sum of $`P_F`$ and $`P_I`$ when the two classes are uncoupled. The width distribution, $`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, changes if the two classes are coupled, and in our random matrix approach we model $`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ using the asymmetry distribution:

$`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}\text{d}x{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}\mathrm{\Gamma }_F{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}\mathrm{\Gamma }_I`$ (4)
$`\times \delta (\mathrm{\Gamma }x\mathrm{\Gamma }_F[1x]\mathrm{\Gamma }_I)2P_A(12x)P_F(\mathrm{\Gamma }_F)P_I(\mathrm{\Gamma }_I)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^1}\text{d}x{\displaystyle \frac{2P_A(12x)}{1x}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}\mathrm{\Gamma }_FP_F(\mathrm{\Gamma }_F)P_I\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }x\mathrm{\Gamma }_F}{1x}}\right).`$ (5)
Notice that the integral reduces to the weighted sum of $`P_F`$ and $`P_I`$ if $`P_A`$ is the sum of two $`\delta `$-functions as in the case $`g=0`$ shown in Fig. 3(a), and that $`P`$ is expressed in terms of $`P_A`$ if $`P_F`$ and $`P_I`$ are $`\delta `$-functions.

We now consider the case $`N_1=N_2`$ and describe the characteristic properties of the asymmetry distribution using a simple analytical model and arguments from perturbation theory. Figure 4 shows numerical calculations of the distribution of the asymmetry numbers for $`N_1=N_2=150`$ for three values of $`g`$. We considered ensembles of 500 random matrices, and, as in the numerical simulations described in Sec. II B, we focused on the 150 eigenvalues in the “middle” of the spectrum. The distribution $`P_A(a)`$ increases linearly as a function of $`g`$ close to $`a=0`$ as shown in Fig. 4(d).

The small fraction of the eigenvectors for which the asymmetry number is close to zero are most likely superpositions of an eigenvector of $`D_A+A`$ and an eigenvector of $`D_B+B`$ with eigenvalues lying close in the unperturbed spectrum where $`g=0`$. Let the unperturbed spacing between the two eigenvalues be denoted $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and consider the matrix which connect the two states when the symmetry-breaking perturbation is introduced:

$$H_c=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& c\\ c& \mathrm{\Delta }\end{array}\right).$$
(6)
The distribution, $`P_C`$, of the matrix elements, $`c`$, is Gaussian with zero mean and variance $`(g\sigma )^2/2`$. In the numerical simulation shown in Fig. 4 the eigenvectors come from the “middle” of the eigenvalue spectrum where the level density is almost constant, and we thus assume that the level density for each diagonal block is equal to a constant which we denote $`R_1`$. In this case the spacing, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, comes from the distribution

$$P_\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta })=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{\Delta }_0}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{2\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}\right),$$
(7)
where the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2=1/(2\pi R_1^2)`$. In the two-dimensional approximation the eigenvectors have the asymmetry numbers

$$a=\pm \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+4c^2/\mathrm{\Delta }^2}},$$
(8)
and thus the distribution of the asymmetry numbers becomes

$`P_A(a)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}c{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}\mathrm{\Delta }P_C(c)P_\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ (10)
$`\times \left[\delta \left(a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+4c^2/\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}}\right)+\delta \left(a+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+4c^2/\mathrm{\Delta }^2}}}\right)\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}\sigma g}{\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_0\sqrt{1a^2}[1a^2+(\sqrt{2}a\sigma g/\mathrm{\Delta }_0)^2]}}.`$ (11)
When $`a=0`$ the expression reduces to

$$P_A(0)=\frac{2\sigma R_1}{\sqrt{\pi }}g,$$
(12)
which is in perfect agreement with the numerical simulation shown in Fig. 4 for which $`\sigma =4/300`$ and $`R_1=140`$.

The majority of the eigenvectors, which have values of $`|a|1`$, can be described using perturbation theory. The shift in the position of the peak of the distribution away from $`a=1`$ is to first order proportional to $`g^2`$, since the average correction to a given state from a state from the other block is proportional to $`g`$.

## III The Acoustic Experiment

### A Acoustic resonances in thin plates

In a homogeneous and isotropic three-dimensional medium, sound waves obey the elastomechanical wave equation for the vectorial displacement field $`𝐮`$:

$$\rho \frac{^2𝐮}{t^2}=(\lambda +\mu )(𝐮)+\mu ^2𝐮,$$
(13)
where $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$ are the Lamé coefficients, $`\rho `$ is the density, and we have assumed no external forces. Equation (13) allows for two types of wave motion: longitudinal and transverse. (In the literature the transverse modes have names like shear or secondary, and the longitudinal modes are often called pressure or primary.) Longitudinal waves always travel faster than transverse waves. For aluminium, which we consider in this paper, the difference is approximately a factor of 2. In the bulk, the two types of waves propagate independently. However, upon reflection at a boundary, mode conversion takes place: an incident wave that is purely longitudinal or transverse will, in general, give rise to two reflected waves, one longitudinal and one transverse. Moreover, their angles of reflection will be different due to their different velocities, as dictated by Snell’s law.

We now briefly present some facts about elastic waves in thin infinite plates, see, e.g.,  and the recent studies in Ref. . Three types of modes exist in an infinite isotropic plate, when considered at frequencies below the first critical frequency, i.e., when one half of a transverse wavelength is larger than the thickness of the plate. The flexural modes have displacement mainly normal to the plane of the plate, but they also have a small in-plane component. These modes are anti-symmetric with respect to reflection through the middle plane of the plate. (In the literature the flexural modes are sometimes called bending modes.) The in-plane modes are symmetric with respect to reflection through the middle plane of the plate and consist of two mode types. The in-plane transverse modes have displacement exactly in the plane of the plate, and the in-plane longitudinal modes have displacement mainly in the plane of the plate, but they also have a small out-of-plane component.

Now consider a finite plate. As mentioned above, the boundaries introduce mode conversion. For a finite plate there is thus the possibility of a coupling between the different mode classes. In Ref.  it was concluded, first, that the flexural modes are uncoupled from the in-plane modes and, second, that the in-plane longitudinal modes couple to the in-plane transverse modes. The densities of flexural modes and in-plane modes were calculated theoretically and found to be of the same order . These results explain the spectral fluctuation statistics measured in Ref.  where resonances, i.e., both flexural and in-plane modes, of a quarter of a thin Sinai stadium plate were investigated. In Sec. III C we explain how to separate the flexural and in-plane modes experimentally using their measured widths. This technique allows us to measure the number of modes of the two types separately and to compare these numbers to the theoretical predictions of Ref. . It also enables us to study the spectral statistics and the width distributions for the two classes of modes independently and to find out if the flexural modes are in fact uncoupled from the other modes.

### B Acoustic systems and experimental technique

For the experiments, we use two aluminium plates of different thickness cut in the shape of the three-leaf clover shown in Fig. 5. This billiard, which was first considered in Ref. , was chosen because it is known to be classically chaotic and, when $`Rr`$, it has no continuous families of periodic orbits . Thus, we have chosen $`r=70`$ mm and $`R=80`$ mm. The area of the plates was $`8250\pm 100`$ mm2, and the circumference was $`390\pm 3`$ mm. The plates were $`1.5`$ mm and $`2`$ mm thick.

The choices of $`r`$ and $`R`$ and the thickness are important for the experiment in so far as they determine the relative densities of the two mode classes and also the total number of modes. In our case, these parameters were chosen to give many modes for the purpose of producing significant statistics while keeping the density of in-plane modes approximately equal to the density of flexural modes in the frequency range (300 kHz – 600 kHz) where our transducers are most effective.

Aluminium was chosen for the plates because it is isotropic and very easy to machine, while maintaining a high Q value; at 500 kHz the Q value measured in vacuum is around 104. There are isotropic materials with much higher Q values, such as fused quartz. However, fused quartz is more difficult to machine and thus not suitable for the symmetry-breaking experiment, where one must remove material from the plate many times in a controlled way.

The elastic constants for the two plates cannot be found in standard tables of material properties, since they are not pure aluminium but a special alloy. However, the elastic constants for this alloy were determined by experiment in Ref. . We shall use the values from Ref.  for Young’s modulus $`E=`$70 $`\pm `$ 1 GPa and Poisson’s ratio $`\nu =`$0.330 $`\pm `$ 0.005. The density is 2.698 g/cm3 . The corresponding bulk sound velocities are 3123 m/s for transverse waves and 6200 m/s for longitudinal waves.

The experimental setup is in many ways the same as that used for previous experiments as reported in . We use an HP 3589A spectrum/network analyser to measure transmission spectra of acoustic resonators via piezoelectric transducers. The plate rests horizontally, supported by three gramophone diamond styli. This ensures a very small contact area between the plate and the rest of the world, thus making the vibrations of the plate as close to free as possible. The diamond styli are glued to cylindrical piezo ceramics that are polarised along the symmetry axis (z-axis). One such combination functions as transmitter, the two others as receivers.

One may wonder if our experimental technique can really measure all modes. In particular, one could question if the in-plane modes, for which the displacement is mainly (or exactly) in the plane of the plate, are detected by our transducers. This question was answered in Ref. , where the same experimental technique is used. The authors find that all modes are detected. To understand this, one can imagine what happens microscopically when strain is passed from the plate to the piezoelectric component through the diamond stylus. Obviously, there can be no slip between the tip of the stylus and the plate. If there were indeed slip, there would also be friction. The diamond would then quickly drill a hole in the plate, and this is not observed in the experiments. In fact, after many days of oscillations at frequencies of several hundred kHz, the plate is completely intact. Since the base of the diamond stylus is fixed to the piezo electric component, the diamond stylus undergoes a wiggling motion which deforms the piezo electric component in a complicated way, including compression along the z-axis.

In both of the experiments the temperature was room temperature, i.e., it was not kept constant but could fluctuate by a few degrees. Obviously, the temperature is important in these measurements, since both the size of the plate and the elastic constants depend on the temperature, and changes in these parameters affect the eigenfrequencies. However, for aluminium thermal expansion is the dominant effect, and to first order eigenfrequencies shift locally by the same amount. Since we are not interested in single eigenfrequencies but only in differences between them, this shift has no influence on our results.

The plate is placed in a vacuum chamber, which allows control of the pressure of the air surrounding the plate. At pressures lower than $`10^2`$ Torr air damping is insignificant compared to intrinsic losses and losses to the supports. Therefore, we shall refer to such low pressure as “vacuum”. When the pressure is increased, the flexural modes, that have large out-of-plane oscillations, are strongly affected, since the plate then functions like a loudspeaker generating sound waves in the air. As a result, the amplitudes of the flexural modes decrease with increasing pressure, and the widths of the resonance peaks increase. This is demonstrated in Fig. 6, which shows a section of the transmission spectrum measured for the three-leaf clover in vacuum, at a pressure of 0.5 atm, and at atmospheric pressure. Note that one can label most of the modes into flexural and in-plane by eye.

### C The separation experiment

The first experiment was designed to separate the modes into flexural and in-plane types so that the spectral statistics could be studied separately for each class. To get a statistically significant result, many eigenfrequencies are needed, and it is crucial to find all the levels so that the results are free from missing level effects. For this reason we performed the following measurement sequence. The acoustic transmission spectrum for the plate of thickness 2 mm was measured in the range 300 kHz – 540 kHz. The measurement was carried out first in vacuum, then at a pressure of 0.5 atm, and finally at 1 atm, see Fig. 6. In each case, the measurement was performed twice, using two independent receivers. This procedure gave 6 resonance spectra. Then, the system was subject to a perturbation, when a mass of 14 mg, corresponding to 314 ppm, was removed from one face of the plate using a piece of fine sand paper. After this, the above procedure was repeated, giving another 6 resonance spectra. Then, in the same way, another perturbation was made, this time removing 43 mg of material, corresponding to 965 ppm. Again, the measurement sequence was carried out, giving a total of 18 resonance spectra. The perturbations done to the system are small enough that it is possible to follow every resonance peak through all 18 spectra, but large enough that near-degeneracies in one set of spectra are destroyed by the perturbations, giving well-resolved peaks in the next set of spectra. This technique allows us to find all resonances. There are no missing levels.

We would like to establish a simple and reliable criterion that permits us to separate the spectrum into flexural and in-plane modes. To this end, each resonance peak is fitted using the so-called “skew Lorentzian” approach . This fit yields a number of parameters of which only the resonance frequency and the width, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, are of interest. In Fig. 7 we show the distribution of widths obtained from this fitting procedure for increasing values of the air pressure. It is evident that the widths of one group of modes increases with increasing pressure while the widths of the remaining modes is largely unaffected. We interpret these groups as flexural and in-plane modes, respectively. However, even at atmospheric pressure, it is not possible to separate the modes on the basis of resonance width alone.

Since the width distribution does not allow us to separate the flexural modes from the in-plane modes with certainty, we must find a more reliable criterion. Therefore, we consider the individual resonance widths as function of pressure, see Fig. 8.

The curves for the two resonances in Fig. 8 are typical for the measured modes and show that the curves are well approximated by straight lines. Consequently, it makes sense to label them by the slope of the best straight line fit. We then consider the distribution of these slopes, see Fig. 9. The distribution has two well-separated peaks. Large slopes correspond to flexural modes; small slopes correspond to in-plane modes. Based on this information, we choose the “separation” slope to be 11 Hz/atm.

In the range 300 kHz to 540 kHz we find 1537 levels for the 2 mm plate, of which 781 are flexural and 756 are in-plane, judging from the separation criterion discussed above. Reference  presents an expansion of the exact dispersion relations for an infinite isotropic plate and also gives the corresponding expansion for the number of modes, i.e., the staircase function, for a finite, thin plate. Using this theoretical expansion, we expect $`782`$ flexural modes and $`753`$ in-plane modes. This is in perfect agreement with the measured numbers, given the uncertainty in the elastic constants of the aluminium alloy and in the dimensions of the plate.

Since we can identify the character of individual modes, it is possible to consider the level spacing distribution and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic separately for each of the two classes. Figures 10 and 11 show the level spacing distribution and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic for each of the two mode classes compared with the GOE statistics. We find that both the level spacing distribution and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic for the flexural modes agree with the GOE statistics. This result confirms numerical calculations by Bogomolny and Hugues showing that the flexural modes of a chaotic billiard have GOE fluctuation statistics, see Ref. . The $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic for the in-plane modes lies above the GOE curve. This is a bit surprising, because mode conversion is expected to be a strong effect, see, e.g. Ref. , which should guarantee that all in-plane modes are strongly coupled and obey GOE statistics. We note that the deviation from the GOE curve seen in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic does not appear in the spacing distribution; the spacing distribution for the in-plane modes looks much like the spacing distribution for the GOE. The same feature is seen for the random matrix model for systems with an approximate symmetry, see the results for $`g=0.2`$ on Figs. 1(c) and 2. If we think of mode conversion as a mechanism that breaks the longitudinal-transverse “symmetry” for in-plane modes, our results could indicate that this symmetry is not completely broken.

An issue to consider in this context is the value of the wavelength, $`\lambda `$, compared to the size, $`l`$, of the system. The ratio $`l/\lambda `$ is a measure of how “semiclassical” our system is. Roughly, $`l=100`$ mm. Random matrix results are only expected to apply when $`l/\lambda 1`$. For flexural modes, the typical wavelength is 5 mm, so $`l/\lambda =20`$. For travelling in-plane waves, the typical transverse wavelength is 7 mm and the typical longitudinal wavelength is 13 mm. Roughly, this leads to $`l/\lambda =10`$. Thus, in our experiments we have the two length scales separated by at least an order of magnitude. Nevertheless, the factor of 2 between $`l/\lambda `$ for flexural and in-plane modes shows that the flexural modes are more “semiclassical” than the in-plane modes, which is another possible explanation for the slight difference observed in the fluctuation properties.

We emphasise that the main results of this section are, first, that the flexural and the in-plane modes can be separated and, second, that each of the two mode classes behave as one class of strongly-coupled modes. The fact that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic lies slightly above the GOE curve for the in-plane modes is a small correction to this picture. In the following section, we regard the in-plane modes as one class of strongly-coupled modes.

### D The symmetry-breaking experiment

The second experiment was designed for a detailed study of the transition from two independent mode classes to one mode class. The transition takes place as the mirror-symmetry through the middle plane of the plate is broken. For this experiment, we used the three-leaf clover plate of thickness 1.5 mm and gradually cut a slit on one side of the plate, as shown in Fig. 12.

For the cutting of the slit in the plate we used a computer-controlled milling machine and chose steps in the thickness of 1/40 mm. In our case, this amounted to about 18 mg of material for each increment of the depth of the slit. The mass of the intact plate was 32.8870 g. First, the frequency spectrum was measured for the intact plate in vacuum and at atmospheric pressure. The procedure of cutting and measuring the frequency spectrum at atmospheric pressure was then repeated 9 times. In all measurements the frequency range was 456 kHz – 533 kHz and only one receiver was used. The justification for using just one receiver for this experiment is as follows: Removal of material from the plate corresponds to a small perturbation. One can therefore easily follow each resonance peak through the entire scenario, and although a resonance peak can sometimes disappear in one spectrum because the receiver is accidentally placed on a nodal line, it always reappears in subsequent spectra. Thus, the results of this symmetry-breaking experiment are protected against missing level effects.

As in the previous experiment, the resonance peaks are fitted and we calculate the distribution of widths, focusing first on the intact plate. In the plot for atmospheric pressure, the modes are separated into two classes: those that have widths smaller than 22 Hz and those that have widths larger than 22 Hz, see Fig. 15. This sets the criterion for separation of the flexural modes from the in-plane modes. We note that for the 1.5 mm plate it is possible to perform the separation purely on the basis of the widths measured at atmospheric pressure. This was not the case for the 2 mm plate.

In general, we expect that the widths of the flexural modes at some value of the pressure will depend on many parameters. Among these, the thickness of the plate and the typical wavelength play important roles. However, comparing our two experiments, all of the parameters are the same except for the thickness. The average width for the in-plane modes is about the same in the two cases. At a pressure of 1 atm, the mean width for the flexural modes for the 2 mm plate is around 35 Hz and for the 1.5 mm plate the mean width is 42 Hz. This indicates that damping from the air is larger for thinner plates.

We consider first the plate before any material has been removed and find 600 levels in the frequency range 456 kHz - 533 kHz. According to our separation rule, this time based solely on the width distribution measured at atmospheric pressure, 310 modes are flexural and 290 are in-plane. Using again the expansion for the number of modes given in Ref. , there should be 311 flexural modes and 285 in-plane modes, in perfect agreement with our results. As in Sec. III C we have obtained the level spacing distribution and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic for the two mode classes separately. We find the same spectral statistics for the 1.5 mm plate as for the 2 mm plate.

Figures 13 and 14 show the level spacing distributions and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistics for all the modes for increasing depth of the symmetry-breaking slit. The experimental data are fitted with results for the random matrix model of Sec. II. We have used $`N_1=N_2=150`$ and $`\sigma ^2=64/N^2`$. Table I summarises the results for the theoretical fits to the spectral statistics for the symmetry breaking experiment. The spectral statistics are well described by the model, and the best fits to the level spacing distribution and to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic yield consistent values for the coupling strength $`g`$.

In Fig. 15 the measured width distributions are compared with the distributions calculated numerically using Eq. (4). To model the width distribution $`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ for all modes, we use the asymmetry distribution for the eigenvectors and assume that the in-plane modes and the flexural modes have Gaussian width distributions $`P_I`$ and $`P_F`$. For each of the different cases we fix the value of the coupling strength, $`g`$, to the value obtained from the spectral statistics. For the intact plate, see Fig. 15(a), we fitted the width distribution by minimising $`\chi ^2`$, and found the mean values $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_I^0`$ = 12.2 Hz and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_F^0`$ = 42.0 Hz, and the standard deviations $`\sigma _I`$ = 2.8 Hz and $`\sigma _F`$ = 5.8 Hz. The mean values for the fit agree with the measured average width of 27.1 Hz, see Tab. I. The average width depends on the slit depth as shown in Tab. I, and increases, e.g., by 2.1 Hz when the cut increases from 0 mg to 37.4 mg. To take effects like this into account we have fitted the width distributions by varying the four parameters $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_I^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_F^0`$, $`\sigma _I`$, and $`\sigma _F`$. The only parameter which changed significantly from case to case was the average width of the flexural resonances, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_F^0`$. This seems reasonable since we expect that the modes with large out-of-plane components are damped most by surface perturbations like the cut. For the width distributions shown in Fig. 15(b), (c), and (d) we therefore held $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_I^0`$, $`\sigma _I`$, and $`\sigma _F`$ fixed, whereas $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_F^0`$ was varied so that the average width equalled the measured average shown in Tab. I. The overall features of the width distribution as function of slit depth are described by the random matrix model. As the slit depth increases, the strength of the width distribution between the two peaks increases while the strength of the peaks decreases. Notice that the value of $`P(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ around $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=27.5`$ Hz increases linearly with $`g`$ in agreement with Eq. (8).

## IV Discussion and Conclusions

We have presented experimental results for acoustic resonances in two thin aluminium plates of three-leaf clover shape. For both plates we found that the measured number of flexural and in-plane resonances were in very good agreement with the theoretical Weyl formula. The two classes of modes were separated using their width or the dependence of the width on the pressure of the air surrounding the plate. The spectral statistics for the flexural modes were in perfect agreement with the GOE result in both cases whereas the spectra of the in-plane modes seemed to be slightly less rigid than the GOE.

The random matrix model of systems with an approximate symmetry modelled the experimental data on the spectral statistics and wave function information from the mixing experiment well. Both the level spacing distribution, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-statistic, and the distribution of widths were fitted consistently by the numerical random matrix results. The qualitative changes in the width distribution as the depth of the cut was increased could thus be ascribed to the complex mixed nature of the acoustic wave functions.

The successful description of the statistics of the frequency spectrum and the widths of the thin acoustic plates may be extended to include other features. The presence of both a kinetic energy term and an interaction term in the random matrix model is natural not only in the modelling of the mixing process but also to describe the Thouless energy of acoustic resonators due to the localisation of wave functions. In this way the model represents an extension of the simplest random matrix models, like the GOE, to include several important features present in real physical systems.

## Acknowledgements

KS acknowledges financial support from the Danish National Research Council.


text:
# Driving superfluidity with photoassociation

## Abstract

We theoretically examine photoassociation of a two-component Fermi degenerate gas. Our focus is on adjusting the atom-atom interaction, and thereby increaing the critical temperature of the BCS transition to the superfluid state. In order to avoid spontaneous decay of the molecules, the photoassociating light must be far-off resonance. Very high light intensities are therefore required for effective control of the BCS transition.

As the field of quantum degenerate vapors emerges from its burgeoning adolescence, attention is increasingly shifting from Bose  to Fermi  systems. Beyond degeneracy itself, much of this effort is concentrated on observing the BCS transition to a superfluid state. However, such investigations are currently at an impasse: the lowest temperature that has been achieved is about a third of the Fermi temperature , whereas the formation of Cooper pairs requires temperatures colder by at least an order of magnitude . Rather than finesse the experiments to lower the temperature of the gas further, a more fruitful approach might be to adjust the atom-atom interaction so as to raise the value of the critical temperature. Possible means for adjustment include the magnetic-field-induced Feshbach resonance , rf microwave fields , dc electric fields , and photoassociation . In fact, the Feshbach resonance has been recently applied in this manner to induce condensation in the otherwise incondensable 85Rb , and was additionally explored (theoretically) for its usefulness in spurring the superfluid transition .

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the utility of photoassociation for inducing the BCS transition. We  and others  have earlier written down field theories for photoassociation of bosons. In the present case we consider instead a binary mixture of fermionic atoms, given by the fields $`\varphi _\pm (𝐫)`$, photoassociating into a bosonic molecule, given by the field $`\psi (𝐫)`$. The fermions would typically be two states with different $`z`$ components of angular momentum in the same atom. As a result of the Pauli exclusion principle, there is no $`s`$-wave photoassociation for two atoms in the same internal state, but such a restriction does not apply to two different spin components.

We thus have a model Hamiltonian density governing photoassociation,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\mathrm{}}}`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\varphi _+\varphi _{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\varphi _{}+\psi ^{}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4m}}+\delta \frac{1}{2}i\gamma _s\right]\psi `$ (1)
$``$ $`\left[𝒟\psi ^{}\varphi _+\varphi _{}+𝒟^{}\varphi _{}^{}\varphi _+^{}\psi \right]+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \mathrm{}a}{m}}\varphi _{}^{}\varphi _+^{}\varphi _+\varphi _{},`$ (2)
where $`m`$ is the mass of an atom and $`\delta `$ is the detuning of the laser from the threshold of photodissociation. The detuning is positive when the photodissociation (inverse of photoassociation) channel is open. The coupling strength for photoassociation is $`𝒟`$. It may be deduced implicitly from Refs. , and is discussed explicitly in Ref. . Either way, we have

$$|𝒟(𝐫)|=\underset{v0}{lim}\sqrt{\frac{\pi \mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝐫)}{v\mu ^2}}.$$
(3)
Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝐫)`$ is the photodissociation rate that a light with the intensity prevailing at $`𝐫`$ would cause in a nondegenerate gas of molecules, given that the laser is tuned in such a way that the relative velocity of the molecular fragments (atoms) is $`v`$, and $`\mu =m/2`$ is the reduced mass of two atoms. Because of the statistics, there is a factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$ difference in Eq. (3) from the corresponding expression for identical bosons. Finally, we have included an interspecies collisional interaction governed by the $`s`$-wave scattering length $`a`$ in the Hamiltonian.

Under ordinary circumstances photoassociation by absorption of a photon leads to a molecular state that is unstable against spontaneous emission. There is no particular reason why spontaneous break-up of a primarily photoassociated molecule would deposit the ensuing atoms back to the degenerate Fermi gases. A spontaneously decaying molecule is considered lost for our purposes. Correspondingly, we add to the Hamiltonian a nonhermitian term proportional to the spontaneous emission rate of the molecular state $`\gamma _s`$.

The Heisenberg equation of motion for the molecular field $`\psi `$ is

$$i\dot{\psi }=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4m}+\delta \frac{1}{2}i\gamma _s\right]\psi 𝒟\varphi _+\varphi _{}.$$
(4)
We assume that the detuning $`\delta `$ is the largest frequency parameter in the problem, and solve Eq. (4) adiabatically for the field $`\psi `$. In the process we keep the imaginary part in the energy, and obtain

$$\psi \left[\frac{𝒟}{\delta }+i\frac{\gamma _s𝒟}{2\delta ^2}\right]\varphi _+\varphi _{}.$$
(5)
Inserting into Eq. (2), we find an effective Hamiltonian density for fermions only,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\mathrm{}}}`$ $``$ $`\varphi _+^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\varphi _+\varphi _{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\varphi _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \mathrm{}a}{m}}\varphi _{}^{}\varphi _+^{}\varphi _+\varphi _{}`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{|𝒟|^2}{\delta }}i{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _s|𝒟|^2}{2\delta ^2}}\right]\varphi _{}^{}\varphi _+^{}\varphi _+\varphi _{}.`$ (7)
Let us first ignore the decay term $`\gamma _s`$. Equation (7) displays an added contact interaction between the two spin species, as if from the $`s`$-wave scattering length

$$\overline{a}=\frac{|𝒟|^2m}{4\pi \delta \mathrm{}}.$$
(8)
The interaction is attractive if the detuning is positive. But an attractive interaction is exactly what is needed for the BCS transition. To simplify matters we assume here that the collisional interaction in the absence of light $`a`$ is too weak for experiments on the BCS transition, and ignore the native collisions altogether.

The critical temperature for the BCS transition is

$$T_c=T_F\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\pi }{2k_F|\overline{a}|}\right]=T_F\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}\delta }{k_Fm|𝒟|^2}\right].$$
(9)
Here $`k_F=(3\pi ^2\rho )^{1/3}`$ is the Fermi wave number for the total density of atoms $`\rho `$, and $`T_F=\mathrm{}^2k_F^2/2mk_B`$ is the corresponding Fermi temperature. Finally, using $`(\rho /2)^2`$ for $`\varphi _{}^{}\varphi _+^{}\varphi _+\varphi _{}`$, we find the loss rate per atom due to spontaneous emission from photoassociated molecules,

$$\frac{1}{\tau }=\frac{\gamma _s|𝒟|^2\rho }{2\delta ^2}.$$
(10)
To estimate practical experimental numbers, we first note that the rate of photoassociation in a nondegenerate sample at temperature $`T`$ is

$$R=\lambda _D^3\rho e^{\frac{\mathrm{}\delta }{k_BT}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\rho \left(\frac{I}{\mathrm{}\omega }\right)\kappa .$$
(11)
Here $`\lambda _D=\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{}^2/\mu k_BT}`$ is the thermal deBroglie wavelength, $`I`$ is the intensity ($`\mathrm{W}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) of photoassociating light, and $`\kappa `$ ($`\mathrm{cm}^5`$) is the photoassociation rate coefficients. There may be statistics dependent numerical factors in Eq. (11). However, in the current literature such factors are usually ignored, and we write Eq. (11) accordingly.

Using Eq. (11), a calculation or a measurement of the photoassociation rate in a thermal sample may be converted into a prediction of effective scattering length, transition temperature, and lifetime in a degenerate Fermi-Dirac gas. We express the results in terms of $`\mathrm{\lambda ̄}=\lambda /2\pi `$, wavelength of photoassociating light divided by $`2\pi `$, $`ϵ_R=\mathrm{}/(2m\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^2)`$, familiar photon recoil frequency, and a characteristic intensity for the given photoassociation transition, $`I_0`$. This gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{a}}{\mathrm{\lambda ̄}}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.0140077{\displaystyle \frac{I}{I_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_R}{\delta }},`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{T_c}{T_F}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[36.2478{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^3\rho )^{1/3}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{ϵ_R}}{\displaystyle \frac{I_0}{I}}\right],`$ (13)
$`ϵ_R\tau `$ $`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^2}{ϵ_R\gamma _s}}{\displaystyle \frac{I_0}{I}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^3\rho }}.`$ (14)
The obscure numerical factors, powers of 2 and $`\pi `$, are there because we want to use the characteristic intensity for photoassociation defined in Ref. . For instance, if the photoassociation rate coefficient $`\kappa `$ is known at a temperature $`T`$ and detuning $`\delta `$, the critical intensity is

$$I_0=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }\sqrt{\mathrm{}\delta }c\mathrm{}^4}{2\kappa m^2(k_BT)^{3/2}\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^2}e^{\mathrm{}\delta /k_BT}.$$
(15)
Detailed microscopic calculations (or measurements) of photoassociation rates are sparse, but they exist for the fermionic isotope $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}`$ of lithium . Let us consider an example already discussed in Ref. , transitions to the triplet vibrational state $`v^{}=79`$ with the binding energy $`1.05\mathrm{cm}^1`$. The characteristic intensity is then $`I_0=9.8\mathrm{mW}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the wavelength is $`\lambda =671\mathrm{nm}`$, and the recoil frequency is $`ϵ_R=63.3\times 2\pi \mathrm{kHz}`$. We take the decay rate of the molecular state to be twice the spontaneous decay rate of the corresponding atom, so that $`\gamma _s=12\times 2\pi \mathrm{MHz}`$. In our estimate we assume $`\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^3\rho =1`$, corresponding to the density $`\rho =8.21\times 10^{14}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ that is high but not unreasonable. It would then take the intermediate detuning $`\delta =2\times 2\pi \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{14}\mathrm{Hz}`$ and the intensity $`I=460\mathrm{MW}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ to make $`T_c=0.1T_F`$ and $`\tau =10\mathrm{s}`$.

The intensity came out very high for a continuous-wave laser, so it seems that the only potential candidate for experiments is a tightly focused, powerful $`\mathrm{CO}_2`$ laser. Our formalism, though, is based on the assumption that the laser is close to a photoassociating resonance. We need to amend the calculations to give meaningful estimates for the $`\mathrm{CO}_2`$ laser, whose electric field is in practice direct current compared to the molecular transition frequencies involved.

To this effect we first note that in an ordinary two-level system one may carry out perturbation theory both within the rotating-wave approximation, and in the quasistatic limit without the rotating-wave approximation as well. The result is that the quasistatic results are obtained from the near-resonance formulas by replacing the detuning with the molecular transition frequency, $`\delta \omega _0`$, and multiplying the intensity by two, $`I2I`$. Applying this substitution to the scattering length, at $`\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^3\rho =1`$ we find that the intensity required for $`T_c=0.1T_F`$ again becomes $`460\mathrm{MW}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. With the same substitutions, the lifetime would be about 20 s. However, as the frequency of the CO2 laser is $`1/16`$ of the resonance frequency for photoassociation, the phase space for spontaneously emitted photons is reduced, and the actual rate of spontaneous emission would be reduced by an extra factor of at least $`16^2300`$. It is clear that spontaneous emission is not an issue with CO2 laser excitation.

Up to this point we have only considered photoassociation with one molecular state, the triplet state with vibrational quantum number $`v^{}=79`$. Now, in lithium as well as in other alkali atoms, most of the transition strength for dipole transitions starting from the ground state is in the $`D`$ lines. Just a few electronic states in a molecule then inherit most of the transition strength for photoassociation. We only consider the singlet and triplet excited manifolds in the $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}`$ dimer, for which calculations of the photoassociation matrix elements exist for all vibrational states . It turns out that the triplet state $`v^{}=79`$ carries about the factor $`0.07`$ of the total transition strength for photoassociation of low-energy atoms. As one should obviously add the changes of the scattering lengths due to all molecular states, in our CO2 laser example the intensity also gets multiplied by $`0.07`$ and becomes $`30\mathrm{MW}\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

It is, in principle, possible to tailor the scattering length by off-resonant photoassociation, and thereby effect the BCS transition in a low-temperature Fermi gas of, say, $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}`$ vapor. The required laser intensities, however, are high. As in the case of coherent photoassociation , the problem is not so much that the matrix elements for photoassociation are weak, but that the primarily photoassociated molecules tend to decay spontaneously and the sample is lost. To avoid spontaneous emission, one has to go very far off resonance, which leads to challenging requirements on laser intensity. In pursuit of BCS transition by means of off-resonant photoassociation, it might be worthwhile to try and look for other ways of getting around the spontaneous emission.