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# Observation of Polarization in Bottomonium Production at √𝑠=38.8 GeV

## Abstract

We present a measurement of the polarization observed for bottomonium states produced in $`p`$-$`Cu`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=38.8`$ GeV. The angular distribution of the decay dimuons of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) state show no polarization at small $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$ but significant positive transverse production polarization for either $`p_T>1.8`$ GeV/c or for $`x_F>0.35`$. The $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S+3S) (unresolved) states show a large transverse production polarization at all values of $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$ measured. These observations are compared with an NRQCD calculation that predicts a transverse polarization in bottomonium production arising from quark-antiquark fusion and gluon-gluon fusion diagrams.

It has been known for some time that the observed production rates of charmonium and bottomonium resonances in hadronic collisions are much larger than the predictions of lowest order Perturbative Quantum-Chromodynamics (PQCD) . A calculational approach based upon Non-Relativistic Quantum Chromodynamics (NRQCD) has emerged as a reliable framework for calculating onium production .

Data on the direct production of the charmonium mesons $`\psi `$(1S) and $`\psi `$(2S) at high energies, when compared with the predictions of NRQCD, indicate that color octet contributions dominate the cross section and that S state charmonia are produced through gluon fragmentation into a $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{(8)}`$ octet state . Recent investigations have shown that the contribution of color octet states to onium production may also be very important at fixed target energies, but quantitatively the picture is far from complete . In particular, NRQCD predictions disagree with measurements of the polarization of $`\psi `$(1S) and $`\psi `$(2S) mesons produced at collider  and fixed target energies .

In NRQCD, the predicted spin effects in onium production can provide further tests of and constraints on the various color octet contributions. The quark-antiquark fusion and gluon-gluon fusion diagrams which are expected to dominate onium production at fixed target energies yield significant transverse polarization  for the produced bottomonium mesons $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S), $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S), and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S). The polarization results in a $`1+\alpha \mathrm{cos}^2(\theta )`$ decay angle distribution for the polar angle of the decay dimuons in the Collins-Soper frame . Transversely, longitudinally, and unpolarized states decay with $`\alpha `$ = $`+1`$, $`1`$, and $`0`$ respectively.

We have studied the production of dimuons in the collision of $`800`$ GeV/c protons with a copper beam dump,

$`p+Cu\mu ^+\mu ^{}+X.`$

The apparatus was originally constructed for Experiment 605  and was located in the Meson East Laboratory at Fermilab. The data reported here were taken as part of a subsequent experiment, Experiment 866 . Details of the apparatus used in E866 and a full description of a similar study of the polarization of dimuons from charmonium states can be found in Reference .

Here we present polarizations derived from the angular distribution of 2 million dimuons in the range $`8.1<m_{\mu ^+\mu ^{}}<15.0`$ GeV. The data, after analysis cuts, cover the kinematic range $`0.0<x_F<0.6`$ ($`x_F`$ is the fractional longitudinal momentum of the dimuon in the nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass frame), and $`p_T<4.0`$ GeV/c ($`p_T`$ is the transverse momentum of the dimuon).

For this measurement the currents of the two spectrometer magnets were set to 4200 A and 4265 A, their maximum excitation, which produced a spectrometer acceptance that decreased rapidly for dimuon masses below $`8`$ GeV. Figure 1 shows the observed dimuon mass spectrum from $`8.1`$ GeV to $`15.0`$ GeV dimuon mass. The components of a fit described below are also indicated. The smooth continuum of dimuons under the bottomonium peaks arises from the production of dimuons via quark-antiquark annihilation, the Drell-Yan process . The experimentally observed width of the intrinsically narrow onium states arises from muon multiple scattering and energy loss in the 4m-thick copper target.

The Drell-Yan dimuon continuum is described well with a PQCD calculation  incorporating a recent MRST determination of the proton structure functions . The yield of Drell-Yan dimuons is modeled with a Monte Carlo simulation of the apparatus that generates events as a function of dimuon $`p_T`$ and the apparent fractional momenta, $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$, of the annihilating quark-antiquark pair (where $`sx_1x_2=m^2`$ and $`x_1x_2=x_F`$; $`m`$ is the dimuon mass, $`s`$ is the center-of-mass energy squared). A standard parametrization of the Drell-Yan production cross section versus $`p_T`$ was fit to the data . Drell-Yan virtual photons are produced transversely polarized and hence their dimuon decay is predicted to yield a $`1+\mathrm{cos}^2(\theta )`$ angular distribution.

Since the mass of a bottomonium state is fixed, the production of a bottomonium state is a function of $`p_T`$ and $`x_F`$ only. The functional form of the production distributions can be found from the data directly. Due to the 330 MeV rms mass resolution of this measurement, we cannot resolve the 2S and 3S states. It has previously been observed that the $`p_T`$ and $`x_F`$ distributions of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) states are very similar . Thus, in our fits to the data to extract the decay angular distributions, we assume that the 2S and 3S states have the same $`p_T`$ and $`x_F`$ distributions. However, we note that the results in this paper are insensitive to this assumption within statistics.

We generated twice as many accepted Monte Carlo events as were observed in the data. The Drell-Yan dimuon continuum was generated using PQCD with MRST parton distributions , a shape versus $`p_T`$ that fit the data, and a transverse polarization of 100$`\%`$. The Drell-Yan continuum events were then weighted with quadratic polynomial functions of $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ to match the data exactly. The weighting polynomials (which varied in value from 0.85 to 1.15) correct for small inaccuracies in the modelling of the apparatus and for variations of the p-Cu cross section from the PQCD prediction (there are known to be small nuclear effects in Drell-Yan dimuon yields ). The weighting is important since acceptance correlations between muon momenta and dimuon decay angle could lead to a false polarization signal if the observed yield is not modelled correctly versus $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$.

The Monte Carlo simulation of the bottomonium states generated unpolarized $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S), $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) events with $`p_T`$ and $`x_F`$ shapes and a relative 1S/2S/3S weight that matched the data. In the final fit to the data, the polarization parameter $`\alpha `$ of both the Drell-Yan continuum and the bottomonium resonances was allowed to vary. The polarizations of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) states were set equal in the fit after attempts to assign different polarizations to these two states led to large, negatively correlated statistical errors on $`\alpha `$ for the two states (consistent with the limited resolution mentioned above).

The final fit independently varied the shapes of the production distributions and the polarizations of the Drell-Yan, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S+3S) generated events to match the data. The shapes of the production distributions agree, within errors, with those obtained earlier . Figure 1a shows the results of the fit versus dimuon mass for all the data. Figure 1b shows the ratio of the data and generated resonances to the generated Drell-Yan events. The separation of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) from the combined $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) states is sufficient to yield a stable fit.

In figure 2 we show the $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$ distributions observed for the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) ($`8.8<m_{\mu ^+\mu ^{}}<10.0`$ GeV) data along with the fitted Monte Carlo distributions for the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S). The data spectra are obtained by subtracting the Monte Carlo fit distributions for the Drell-Yan, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S), and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) dimuons from the data. The figure also includes similar curves for the sum of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) states. The acceptance varies more slowly than the observed event yield versus either $`x_F`$ or $`p_T`$; the average $`x_F`$ of either the analysed $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) or $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S+3S) data is 0.23 and the average $`p_T`$ is 1.3 GeV/c.

Figure 3 shows the angular distributions, in one of four $`p_T`$ bins, for the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) decays and for the sum of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) decays. Each point in figure 3a shows the data in a mass bin $`8.8<m_{\mu ^+\mu ^{}}<10.0`$ GeV with the Monte Carlo-generated contributions from Drell-Yan dimuons, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) decays, and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) decays subtracted away. Similarly, figure 3b shows the data in a mass bin from $`10.0<m_{\mu ^+\mu ^{}}<11.1`$ GeV minus the Monte Carlo-generated Drell-Yan and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) events. The expected $`1+\alpha \mathrm{cos}^2(\theta )`$ decay angle distribution fits well in both cases. The $`\chi ^2`$/DF of the fits are 0.7 and 1.2 respectively.

The values of $`\alpha `$ arising from the combined production distribution and decay angular distribution fit in the Drell-Yan sideband and two onium mass regions for 4 bins in $`p_T`$ (bin boundaries at $`p_T`$ = 0.0, 0.8, 1.3, 1.8 and 4.0 GeV/c) are shown in figure 4a. The results versus $`x_F`$ (4 bins, boundaries at 0.0, 0.12, 0.23, 0.35 and 0.6) are shown in figure 4b. The points are plotted at the cross-section-weighted average value of the abscissa. A systematic error in $`\alpha `$ of $`\pm `$ 0.06 should be added to the values of the onium polarizations in figure 4. This was estimated by varying the form of the fitting function for the Drell-Yan continuum dimuons and by varying the width of the mass bins used to fit the onium resonances and the Drell-Yan continuum.

The observed polarization of the Drell-Yan continuum dimuons is consistent with 100$`\%`$ transverse polarization in all bins and with previous measurements . The Drell-Yan sidebands have $`0.2<x_1<0.8`$ and $`0.06<x_2<0.4`$, a region where no significant nuclear shadowing is observed . A fit to the Drell-Yan sideband data (for all $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$) yields $`\alpha =1.008\pm 0.016`$ with an estimated systematic error of $`\pm 0.020`$.

The $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) data show almost no polarization at small $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$. The data show a finite transverse polarization at either large $`p_T`$ or at large $`x_F`$ (there are no significant $`x_F`$ versus $`p_T`$ production distribution correlations observed in the data).

This observation disagrees with an NRQCD calculation that predicts a polarization of 0.28 to 0.31 at our energies . If we fit the 1S state for a polarization independent of $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$, we get $`\alpha =0.07\pm 0.04`$.

The observation that the polarization of the cross-section-weighted average of the 2S+3S states is much larger than that of the 1S state at all $`x_F`$ and $`p_T`$ contrasts sharply with what is seen in the charmonium system . Although an NRQCD calculation  predicts that feeddown decays from higher S, P, and D upsilon states dilute the polarization of the 1S state, we can find no explicit calculation of the polarization expected for the 2S or 3S state.

In the kinematic range $`0.0<x_F<0.6`$ and $`p_T<4.0`$ GeV/c, the fit to the data yields a ratio of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S+3S)/$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(1S) events of $`0.50\pm 0.01`$. A separate 3-peak fit yielded an overall ratio of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) to $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) events of $`0.46\pm 0.03`$ consistent with previous high resolution measurements . Note that even if the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) were 100$`\%`$ polarized, the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) must be at least 35$`\%`$ polarized to yield the observed polarizations of the combined peaks. Likewise, if the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(2S) were 100$`\%`$ polarized, the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(3S) must have significant positive polarization in most bins.

This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy.


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# I Introduction

## I Introduction

Strong indications for nonzero neutrino mass and mixing come from solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments. In fact, if interpreted in terms of neutrino oscillations, such experiments, together with the tritium beta decay endpoint, imply small neutrino masses .

In the minimal standard model (MSM) the neutrino is massless because there are no right-handed neutrino singlets and there is no Higgs scalar triplet. The simplest way to get a mass for the neutrino field is by adding the right-handed state $`\nu _R`$, the analogue of the quark state $`u_R`$ in the leptonic sector, in which case it becomes possible to build both a Dirac mass term $`m_\nu \overline{\nu }_L\nu _R`$ and a Majorana mass term $`(1/2)m_R\overline{\nu }_L^c\nu _R`$ for the right-handed neutrino. The Dirac mass $`m_\nu `$ is expected to be of the same order of magnitude of the quark or charged lepton masses, while the Majorana mass $`m_R`$ is not constrained. A popular mechanism to obtain a very small neutrino mass is the seesaw mechanism , where the right-handed neutrino mass is very large and as a consequence a very light left-handed Majorana neutrino appears, with a mass $`m_Lm_\nu ^2/m_R`$.

The MSM plus the right-handed neutrino (which we would like to call SM) is also a minimal scenario to produce a baryonic asymmetry in the universe, according to the Fukugita-Yanagida baryogenesis-via-leptogenesis mechanism . In this framework the out-of-equilibrium decays of right-handed neutrinos generate a leptonic asymmetry which is partially transformed into a baryonic asymmetry by electroweak sphaleron processes .

The baryonic asymmetry depends on both the Dirac and the right-handed Majorana neutrino mass matrices. Therefore, assuming a quark-lepton symmetry or a charged-neutral lepton symmetry, we should be able to determine the value of the baryonic asymmetry, and to match it with the experimental bounds coming from nucleosynthesis in the standard big bang theory. This is the main subject of the present paper, already discussed by several authors . However, our approach is quite different, more general and direct. We scan over the neutrino parameter space, using several forms for the Dirac mass matrices, and taking into account the vacuum and matter solutions to the solar neutrino problem. A graphical representation of the results is given, from which one can eventually infer approximate bounds on neutrino parameters. Both the nonsupersymmetric (SM) and the supersymmetric (SSM) cases are considered.

Section II is about neutrino oscillation data, from which one may obtain light neutrino masses and mixings. Section III deals with the quark-lepton symmetry, which allows to get the Dirac and heavy neutrino mass matrices. In section IV, after a short collection of the relevant formulas of the baryogenesis-via-leptogenesis mechanism, the calculation of the baryonic asymmetry is carried out, based on the content of sections II and III. In section V the same calculation is done assuming a charged-neutral lepton symmetry. Finally, in section VI, we give our conclusions and a brief discussion.

## II Neutrino parameters

From the phenomenological point of view the baryonic asymmetry also depends on which solution for solar neutrinos is taken into account. Therefore, in this section we summarize the neutrino oscillation data that we will use in our analysis. For atmospheric neutrinos the best fit is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_a^2=3.5\times 10^3\text{eV}^2$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _a=1.0,$$

that is maximal mixing. For solar neutrinos we have three matter (MSW) solutions : the small mixing angle (SMA)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2=5.4\times 10^6\text{eV}^2$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _s=0.006,$$

the large mixing angle (LMA)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2=1.8\times 10^5\text{eV}^2$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _s=0.76,$$

and the low-$`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ (LOW) solution

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2=7.9\times 10^8\text{eV}^2$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _s=0.96.$$

Moreover, we also have the vacuum oscillation (VO) solution

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2=8.0\times 10^{11}\text{eV}^2$$

$$\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _s=0.75.$$

The latest day-night and spectral data favour the LMA and LOW solutions, but do not exclude the others . A further information on neutrino oscillations comes from the CHOOZ experiment  which gives $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _c0.16`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_c^2>1\times 10^3\text{eV}^2`$.

Therefore, neutrinos do have masses and mixings, and a unitary matrix $`U_{\alpha i}`$ ($`\alpha =e,\mu ,\tau ;i=1,2,3`$) relates the mass eigenstates $`\nu _i`$ to the weak eigenstates $`\nu _\alpha `$,

$$\nu _{\alpha L}=\underset{i}{}U_{\alpha i}\nu _{iL}.$$

It is clear that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_a^2`$. According to ref.  we assume

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2=m_2^2m_1^2,\mathrm{\Delta }m_a^2=m_3^2m_1^2$$

where the numbering corresponds to the family index. Moreover, we work with the hierarchical spectrum of light neutrinos, $`m_1m_2m_3`$. Then, $`m_3^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_a^2`$, $`m_2^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_s^2`$, and for $`m_1`$ we take $`10^4m_2<m_1<10^1m_2`$.

The mixing matrix $`U`$ (the MNS matrix ) can be written as the standard parametrization of the CKM matrix (including one phase $`\delta ^{}`$) times a diagonal phase matrix $`D=\text{diag}(e^{i\phi _1},e^{i\phi _2},1)`$ . Hence, it depends on three angles and three phases. From neutrino oscillation data we can determine the three angles . For $`|U_{e3}|`$, related to the result of the CHOOZ experiment, we use the bound

$$|U_{e3}|0.2,$$

while $`U_{e2}`$ and $`U_{\mu 3}`$ are obtained from the best fits of atmospheric and solar neutrinos. Then we are left with five free neutrino parameters: $`|U_{e3}|`$, $`\delta =\mathrm{arg}(U_{e3})`$, $`m_1`$, $`\phi _1`$, $`\phi _2`$. Choosing values for the free parameters leads to a complete determination of light masses and the mixing matrix $`U`$. These will be used in the following section, together with the quark-lepton symmetry, to obtain the heavy neutrino mass matrix.

## III Seesaw mechanism with quark-lepton symmetry

The Lagrangian for the relevant lepton sector is (for simplicity we do not write the 1/2 factor in the Majorana terms)

$$=\overline{e}_LM_ee_R+\overline{\nu }_LM_\nu \nu _R+g\overline{\nu }_Le_LW+\overline{\nu }_L^cM_R\nu _R$$
(1)
where $`M_e`$ is the mass matrix of charged leptons, $`M_\nu `$ is the mass matrix of Dirac neutrinos, and $`M_R`$ the mass matrix of right-handed Majorana neutrinos. The effective Lagrangian of the seesaw mechanism is

$$_{ss}=\overline{e}_LM_ee_R+\overline{\nu }_LM_L\nu _R^c+g\overline{\nu }_Le_LW+\overline{\nu }_L^cM_R\nu _R$$
(2)
with the light neutrino mass matrix $`M_L`$ given by

$$M_L=M_\nu M_R^1M_\nu ^T.$$
(3)
Setting

$$U_LM_LU_L^T=D_L,U_{eL}M_eU_{eR}^{}=D_e,$$
(4)
where $`D_L`$, $`D_e`$ are diagonal matrices, we obtain the MNS matrix as

$$U=U_LU_{eL}^{}.$$
(5)
Inverting eqn.(3) we get the heavy neutrino mass matrix

$$M_R=M_\nu ^TM_L^1M_\nu .$$
(6)
Now, assuming a quark-lepton symmetry, we take the pair of hermitian matrices

$$M_\nu =\frac{m_\tau }{m_b}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& \sqrt{m_um_t}\\ 0& m_c& 0\\ \sqrt{m_um_t}& 0& m_t\end{array}\right),$$
(7)
$$M_e=\frac{m_\tau }{m_b}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \sqrt{m_dm_s}\text{e}^{\text{i}\alpha }& 0\\ \sqrt{m_dm_s}\text{e}^{\text{i}\alpha }& 3m_s& \sqrt{m_dm_b}\\ 0& \sqrt{m_dm_b}& m_b\end{array}\right),$$
(8)
with one phase $`\alpha =\pi /2`$ in $`M_{e12}`$. These lepton mass matrices are obtained in the following way. We take the five texture zero model for the quark mass matrices $`M_u`$ and $`M_d`$ from ref., which studies the phenomenologically viable textures. The quark mass matrices are related to the lepton mass matrices by an approximate running factor $`m_b/m_\tau `$ from the high scale where the quark-lepton symmetry should hold , and in addiction a factor $`3`$ is included in $`M_{e22}`$ in order to have a good relation between charged lepton and down quark masses . For five texture zeros the matrices $`M_u`$, $`M_d`$ lead to the simple meaningful relations

$$V_{us}\sqrt{\frac{m_d}{m_s}},V_{cb}\sqrt{\frac{m_d}{m_b}},V_{ub}\sqrt{\frac{m_u}{m_t}}.$$
(9)
In this way, by means of eqns.(4)-(8), we can calculate $`M_R`$ and then its eigenvalues $`M_1,M_2,M_3`$ . The quark-lepton symmetry is usually obtained within unified theories such as $`SU(5)`$ and mostly $`SO(10)`$, where quarks and leptons belong to the same multiplets. In particular, the factor $`3`$ in $`M_{e22}`$ is due to suitable Yukawa couplings of these multiplets with the 45 (in $`SU(5)`$) or 126 (in $`SO(10)`$) Higgs representations. However, here we can also regard the quark-lepton symmetry as a phenomenological feature.

## IV The baryonic asymmetry

A baryonic asymmetry can be generated from a leptonic asymmetry . In order to study this baryogenesis-via-leptogenesis mechanism we diagonalize $`M_e`$:

$$^{}=\overline{e}_LD_ee_R+\overline{\nu }_LM_\nu ^{}\nu _R+g\overline{\nu }_Le_LW+\overline{\nu }_L^cM_R\nu _R,$$

where

$$M_\nu ^{}=U_{eL}M_\nu ,$$
(10)
and also $`M_R`$ by means of $`U_RM_RU_R^T=D_R`$:

$$^{\prime \prime }=\overline{e}_LD_ee_R+\overline{\nu }_LM_\nu ^{\prime \prime }\nu _R+g\overline{\nu }_Le_LW+\overline{\nu }_L^cD_R\nu _R$$

where

$$M_\nu ^{\prime \prime }=M_\nu ^{}U_R^TM_D.$$
(11)
Due to electroweak sphaleron effect, the baryonic asymmetry $`Y_B`$ is related to the leptonic asymmetry $`Y_L`$ by

$$Y_B=aY_{BL}=\frac{a}{a1}Y_L$$
(12)
with

$$a=\frac{8N_f+4N_H}{22N_f+13N_H},$$

where $`N_f`$ is the number of families (three) and $`N_H`$ the number of Higgs doublets (one in the SM and two in the SSM; $`a1/3`$ in both cases). Remember that

$$Y_B=\frac{n_Bn_{\overline{B}}}{7.04n_\gamma }$$

where $`n_{B,\overline{B},\gamma }`$ are number densities. The leptonic asymmetry can be written as

$$Y_L=d\frac{ϵ_1}{g^{}}$$
(13)
where, in the SM, the CP-violating asymmetry $`ϵ_1`$ is given by

$$ϵ_1=\frac{1}{8\pi v^2(M_D^{}M_D)_{11}}\underset{j=2,3}{}\text{Im}[(M_D^{}M_D)_{j1}]^2f\left(\frac{M_j^2}{M_1^2}\right),$$
(14)
with

$$f(x)=\sqrt{x}\left[1(1+x)\mathrm{ln}\frac{1+x}{x}\frac{1}{x1}\right],$$

$`g^{}(\text{SM})=106.75`$; $`v`$ is the VEV of the SM Higgs doublet. In the SSM, $`vv\mathrm{sin}\beta `$, $`f(x)g(x)`$, $`g^{}(\text{SSM})=228.75`$,

$$g(x)=\sqrt{x}\left[\mathrm{ln}\frac{1+x}{x}+\frac{2}{x1}\right],$$

and a factor $`4`$ is included in $`ϵ_1`$ , due to more decay channels. For a hierarchical spectrum of heavy neutrinos $`f3M_1/2M_j`$, $`g3M_1/M_j2f`$, with a very good accuracy. Eqn.(14) arises from the interference between the tree level and one loop decay amplitudes of the lightest heavy neutrino, and includes vertex and self-energy corrections. The latter may be dominant if $`M_1`$ and $`M_j`$ are nearly equal, so that an enhancement of the asymmetry may occur.

A good approximation for $`d`$, the dilution factor, is inferred from refs. :

$$d=(0.1k)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}[(4/3)(0.1k)^{1/4}]$$
(15)
for $`k10^6`$,

$$d=0.24/k(\mathrm{ln}k)^{3/5}$$
(16)
for $`10k10^6`$, and

$$d=1/2k,d=1$$
(17)
for $`1k10`$, $`0k1`$, respectively, where the parameter $`k`$ is

$$k=\frac{M_P}{1.7v^232\pi \sqrt{g^{}}}\frac{(M_D^{}M_D)_{11}}{M_1},$$
(18)
and $`M_P`$ is the Planck mass. In the SSM the critical value $`10^6`$ for $`k`$ is lowered, but in our calculation $`k`$ remains always much smaller. The presence of the dilution factor in eqn.(13) takes into account the washout effect produced by inverse decay and lepton number violating scattering.

We make a random extraction of the free neutrino parameters for a total of 8000 points and we plot $`Y_B`$ versus such parameters. As expected, about 4000 points give a negative $`Y_B`$. Only $`|U_{e3}|`$ and $`\delta `$ show a major effect and the results for the five texture zero model are presented in figs. 1-4, according to the four different solar neutrino solutions. Changing the other parameters, in particular $`U_{e2}`$ and $`m_2`$, within the allowed experimental limits, does not affect the general result. Since the favoured range for the baryonic asymmetry is

$$Y_B=(1.7÷8.9)\times 10^{11},$$

one can look at the region of $`Y_B`$ between $`10^{11}`$ and $`10^{10}`$. The SMA, VO and LOW solutions can produce the required amount of baryonic asymmetry, but with fine tuning of the parameters. Notice that we plot $`\text{Log}_{10}Y_B`$, which is negative. However, the trend is clear. For example, we find the phase $`\delta `$ tuned around $`\pi \alpha `$, which corresponds to $`\delta ^{}=\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{e3}<0`$. Moreover, according to ref., we find an enhancement of the asymmetry for $`|U_{e3}|V_{D12}U_{\mu 3}`$, where $`V_D=U_{\nu L}U_{eL}^{}`$ is the mixing matrix in the Dirac sector (the analogue of $`V_{CKM}=V_uV_d^{}`$). Since $`V_{D12}(1/3)\sqrt{m_d/m_s}0.07`$, we get the maximum of $`Y_B`$ around $`|U_{e3}|0.070.70.05`$. In a similar way one can explain why the SMA solution shows an enhancement, contrary to the LMA solution. In fact, the further condition is $`U_{e2}V_{D12}U_{\mu 2}`$, which is compatible with the SMA but not with the LMA. The two conditions correspond to the decoupling of $`M_1`$ from $`m_3`$ and $`m_2`$, respectively. Note that in ref. $`V_{D12}0.21`$ because there the factor $`3`$ in our $`M_{e22}`$ is absent. In this case one has a different enhancement value for $`U_{e2}`$, $`|U_{e3}|`$, so that the SMA is also excluded. The presence of the factor $`3`$ allows the SMA to be reliable for leptogenesis, for the matrix texture (7),(8).

In the supersymmetric case the calculated baryonic asymmetry is increased by a factor nearly 6. In fact, going from the SM to the SSM, there is a factor 4 due to $`ϵ_1`$, a factor $`1/\sqrt{2}`$ due to $`g^{}`$ (for $`d1/k`$) and a factor 2 due to $`g(x)`$: $`4(1/\sqrt{2})26`$. Hence, in the present context, the SSM works better for leptogenesis, with respect to the SM.

To test the dependence of $`Y_B`$ on matrix texture, let us consider a second pair of hermitian matrices , with four texture zeros, which is formed by the same matrix $`M_e`$ as in eqn.(8), but with a further phase $`\pi /2`$ in $`M_{e23}`$, and

$$M_\nu =\frac{m_\tau }{m_b}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \sqrt{m_um_c}& 0\\ \sqrt{m_um_c}& m_c& \sqrt{m_um_t}\\ 0& \sqrt{m_um_t}& m_t\end{array}\right).$$
(19)
Note that this form for $`M_\nu `$ has entries 1-2 and 2-3 filled in, with respect to matrix (7), while $`M_{\nu 13}=0`$. Results useful are in figs. 5, 6, for the SMA, LOW and VO solutions, while the LMA gives very small asymmetry as in the foregoing case. For SMA, LOW to work one has $`|U_{e3}|0.01`$, and for VO also $`\delta \pi /2`$.

## V The case of a charged-neutral lepton symmetry

If there is a charged-neutral lepton symmetry, the Dirac neutrino mass matrix is related to the charged lepton mass matrix rather than to the up quark mass matrix: $`M_\nu M_e`$, with

$$M_e=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \sqrt{m_em_\mu }& 0\\ \sqrt{m_em_\mu }& m_\mu & \sqrt{m_em_\tau }\\ 0& \sqrt{m_em_\tau }& m_\tau \end{array}\right),$$
(20)
for example (four texture zeros). This form for $`M_e`$ is obtained by analogy to $`M_d`$ in ref.. There are some theoretical (left-right) models  with a charged-neutral lepton symmetry, along with an up-down symmetry. However, again, we can also assume it as a phenomenological hypothesis. The position of phases is somewhat arbitrary. We put phases $`\pi /2`$ in $`M_{e12}`$, $`M_{e23}`$ in order to have a mixing in the Dirac sector similar to the previous case. The value of the baryonic asymmetry $`Y_B`$ is quite analogous to the case of a quark-lepton symmetry, see figs. 7, 8. However, the maximum level of asymmetry is now reached for $`|U_{e3}|0`$.

Also for this case, we have checked the dependence on matrix texture by using the hermitian matrices formed by six texture zeros

$$M_\nu M_e\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& \sqrt{m_em_\tau }\\ 0& m_\mu & 0\\ \sqrt{m_em_\tau }& 0& m_\tau \end{array}\right),$$

with a single phase $`\pi /2`$ in $`M_{e13}`$, but we have found no relevant difference with the asymmetry generated by matrix (20).

## VI Conclusion and discussion

The baryonic asymmetry $`Y_B`$ has been calculated using a random extraction for five of the nine neutrino parameters (three light masses; three angles and three phases in the mixing matrix) and assuming quark-lepton symmetry or charged-neutral lepton symmetry for the Dirac mass matrices. Other parameters have been checked. As a result, for quark-lepton symmetry, we find that the SMA, VO, and LOW solutions for solar neutrinos are able to generate enough asymmetry, especially in the supersymmetric case, but with fine tuning and selected values of the parameters $`|U_{e3}|`$ and $`\delta `$. For charged-neutral lepton symmetry the general results are similar.

Let us discuss some related theoretical issues. Unified theories such as $`SO(10)`$, or left-right models such as $`SU(3)_c\times SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{BL}`$, naturally contain heavy Majorana neutrinos, generated at the unification or left-right scale , but also contain other particles, for example additional gauge bosons. Usually these particles are much heavier than the lightest heavy Majorana neutrino, so that they are sufficiently decoupled from the leptogenesis process, as confirmed in ref.. In this way, the idea of baryogenesis through leptogenesis may be attractive also within unified or left-right models. The VO solution with quark-lepton symmetry gives the scale of $`M_R`$ around the Planck mass, while the SMA and LMA solutions give the scale of $`M_R`$ near the unification scale ($`10^{16}`$ GeV) . Also the LOW solution may be consistent with the unification scale. Thus, it is hard to reconcile the VO solution with quark-lepton symmetry, in the context of unified theories, whereas for the SMA and perhaps the LOW solutions this is possible. We point out that if the LMA is the right solution to the solar neutrino problem, then the framework used in this paper does not work for leptogenesis. If the VO solution is right, then a good amount of leptogenesis can be obtained, but with fine tuning and outside normal unified models. The SMA and LOW solutions may be consistent with both unified theories and leptogenesis bounds, for selected values of the complex parameter $`U_{e3}`$.

In the case of charged-neutral lepton symmetry the VO solution gives $`M_R`$ around the unification scale, while the SMA and LMA solutions give $`M_R`$ near the intermediate (left-right) scale ($`10^{12}`$ GeV) . The LOW solutions lies between the two. Hence, the VO solution may be consistent with both the unification scale and leptogenesis, and the SMA with both the intermediate scale and leptogenesis. Since the quark-lepton symmetry is natural in unified models, while the charged-neutral (up-down) symmetry is natural in left-right models, in the present context the preferred solution for solar neutrinos could be the SMA. However, neutrino data slightly favour the LMA solution . A possible alternative for the baryogenesis-via-leptogenesis mechanism to work more extensively is by means of horizontal symmetries .

## Acknowledgements

We thank G. Covone for a quick help to Mathematica and F. Buccella for comments on the manuscript.


text:
# On “Sub-Threshold” Reactions Involving Nuclear Fission

## I Introduction

There are several types of reactions that can proceed even with incident particles whose energies are apparently below threshold, because of certain mechanisms that make the requisite energy available. This is true, in particular, for reactions in which the target is a nucleus, denoted here by $`(Z,A)`$, where $`Z`$ denotes the number of protons and $`A`$ denotes the mass number. Here we explore reactions involving heavy nuclei which can proceed, although the energy of the incident particle is “below threshold”, because the reaction leads to the fission of the nucleus, thereby releasing a substantial amount of energy, $`E_{fiss.}150`$ MeV, which may be partially available to exceed a threshold. We also consider the small energy release due to the formation of a Coulomb bound state of a $`\mu ^{}`$ with the nucleus or with a fission fragment.

## II Photofission with Pion Production

Fission in heavy nuclei can be induced in several ways, in addition to sometimes occurring spontaneously; these ways include bombardment by slow (thermal and resonance) neutrons with energies from about 0.02 to O(10) eV, by medium and fast neutrons with energies from keV to MeV, by other hadronic projectiles such as protons, deuterons, and $`\pi `$ mesons, by photons, and by the capture of $`\mu ^{}`$’s (some reviews are , a recent conference is , and a recent paper on photofission is ). Typical fission energy barriers (measured, e.g., in fast neutron or photofission reactions) are around 5 MeV. In general, from the roughly 0.1 eV widths of resonances observed in fission induced by neutrons with energies between 0.2 and $`10^2`$ eV, it has been inferred that the time taken for fission to occur is $`t_{fiss.}10^{14}`$ sec .

Fission induced by incident photons, photofission, has been extensively studied. The fissioning nucleus breaks into two fragments:

$$\gamma +(Z,A)(Z_1,A_1)+(Z_2,A_2)$$
(1)
with $`Z_1+Z_2=Z`$, $`A_1+A_2=A`$. The fission daughter nuclei are typically produced in excited states and de-excite with prompt neutron and $`\gamma `$-ray emission. The cross section for photofission in a heavy element such as 238U rises from threshold for photon energies of about $`E_\gamma 5`$ MeV to a pronounced peak of about 100 mb at $`E_\gamma 14`$ MeV due to the excitation of the giant dipole resonance . For higher photon energies, the cross section decreases, and then increases again for $`E_\gamma \stackrel{>}{}100`$ MeV. This second increase is interpreted as being due to the production of virtual excited states of a nucleon in the nucleus, in particular, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$, which transfer energy and thereby catalyze the fission process .

One may also consider photoproduction reactions yielding a pion in the final state, including

$$\gamma +(Z,A)(Z,A)_{g.s.}+\pi ^0$$
(2)
$$\gamma +(Z,A)(Z1,A)_{g.s.}+\pi ^\pm $$
(3)
where $`g.s.`$ means ground state, and the fission processes

$$\gamma +(Z,A)(Z_1,A_1)+(Z_2,A_2)+\pi ^0$$
(4)
and

$$\gamma +(Z,A)(Z_1,A_1)+(Z_2,A_2)+\pi ^\pm $$
(5)
The $`\pi ^0`$ decays to $`\gamma \gamma `$ with a mean lifetime of $`0.8\times 10^{16}`$ sec, so that the signature for reaction (4) would be the detection of the two fission fragments together with the two photons whose invariant mass reconstructs to that of the $`\pi ^0`$. The signature for reaction (5) would be the detection of the two fission fragments together with the $`\pi ^\pm `$, which, however, may undergo charge-exchange reactions in the nucleus, so that one would actually detect the diphoton signal from the decay of the $`\pi ^0`$. Before one takes account of the fission energy the naive threshold ($`thr.`$) energy for the reaction (4) is

$$E_{\gamma ,0,thr.}=m_{\pi ^0}+\frac{m_{\pi ^0}^2}{2M(Z,A)}.$$
(6)
With the definition of the difference in nuclear ground state (g.s.) energies

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_{Z\pm 1,Z;A}=E_{(Z\pm 1,A),g.s.}E_{(Z,A),g.s.}$$
(7)
the analogous naive threshold photon energy for the reaction (5) is

$$E_{\gamma ,\pm ,thr.}=m_{\pi ^\pm }+\frac{m_{\pi ^\pm }^2}{2M(Z,A)}+\mathrm{\Delta }E_{Z\pm 1,Z;A}.$$
(8)
Of course, one must also take account of Fermi momentum and Pauli blocking in the reaction kinematics. Now consider a case where the available energy, including the effect of the Fermi momentum of the struck nucleon, is below threshold for pion production without fission. However, with fission, pion production might still occur because of the energy $`E_{fiss.}`$ may be partially transferred by strong, as well as Coulombic, interactions, from the final state fission fragments to the pion.

In the relevant range of photon energy, slightly below the naive threshold of about 140 MeV for pion production, the total photofission cross sections on 238U and 232Th are approximately 150 mb and 45 mb, respectively . Since the transfer of the fission energy to the pion is via the strong interaction, this transfer should not significantly reduce the cross section. However, for total energies only slightly beyond the true threshold, there would be substantial phase space suppression of the three-body reactions (4) and (5). Although the full reaction involves the integral over phase space of the squared amplitude $`||^2`$ for the reaction, one can obtain a rough measure of the kinematic threshold suppression by considering the threshold dependence of the phase space factor by itself. Recall that the usual Lorentz-invariant $`n`$-body final state phase space integration is

$$R_n=(2\pi )^{43n}\left[\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{d^3p_j}{2E_j}\right]\delta (P\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}p_j)$$
(9)
where $`p_j^\lambda =(E_j,𝐩_j)`$ denotes the 4-momenta of the $`j`$’th final-state particle, and $`P^\lambda =(\sqrt{s},0,0,0)`$ in the center-of-mass-frame. Let us denote the overall energy release as

$$Q=\sqrt{s}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}m_j.$$
(10)
Near threshold, i.e. for $`Q0`$, $`R_n`$ has the expansion (e.g., )

$$R_n\frac{(2\pi ^3)^{\frac{n1}{2}}}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{3}{2}(n1))}\frac{(_{j=1}^nm_j)^{1/2}}{(_{j=1}^nm_j)^{3/2}}Q^{\frac{3n5}{2}}.$$
(11)
Hence, near threshold, while the two-body phase space factor relevant for the photofission reaction (1) (before photon or prompt neutron emission by the excited fission fragments) only involves a square root suppression $`R_2Q^{1/2}`$, the three-body phase space factor relevant for the pion production reactions (4) and (5) involves a more severe quadratic suppression, $`R_3Q^2`$. A more detailed estimate would require calculation of the Coulomb distortion of the outgoing plane wave representing the pion, which would be represented by a factor analogous to the Fermi function in nuclear beta decay. However, the phase space considerations discussed above suggest that it would be quite difficult to observe the pion production reactions near to their thresholds. Slightly above threshold, $`\pi ^0`$ production by photofission on a heavy nucleus such as 238U might show low energy $`\pi ^0`$’s and higher energy $`\pi ^0`$’s which have gained energy from the fission. In addition, one should mention the possibility that in the case where a $`\pi ^{}`$ is produced, it may form a Coulomb bound state with the larger-$`Z`$ fission fragment. This channel would suffer less kinematic suppression for two reasons: first, because it is a two-body final state, and second because of the small additional release of energy due to the Coulomb binding of the $`\pi ^{}`$. However, the $`\pi ^{}`$ would rapidly be absorbed by the fission fragment to which it binds.

## III “Sub-threshold” Charged-Current Neutrino Reactions

We next proceed to neutrino-induced fission reactions, namely the charged-current processes

$$\nu _\mu +(Z,A)\mu ^{}+(Z+1,A)\mathrm{fission}$$
(12)
and

$$\overline{\nu }_\mu +(Z,A)\mu ^++(Z1,A)\mathrm{fission}.$$
(13)
Suitable targets include 232Th, 238U, and the stable heavy nuclei of Pb and Bi. The naive threshold energy for a charged-current (CC) reaction on a nucleus $`(Z,A)`$ with incident $`\nu _\mu `$ (or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$) is

$$E_{\nu ,thr.}\mathrm{\Delta }E_{Z\pm 1,Z;A}+m_\mu +\mathrm{\Delta }E_{F,PB}$$
(14)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{F,PB}`$ represents the effect of the Fermi momentum, $`p_F270`$ MeV, of the struck nucleon and the effect of Pauli blocking. The Fermi momentum smears out the threshold. We envision a situation in which, without fission, the incident energy $`E_\nu `$ would be below threshold, but the reaction (12) or (13) is rendered possible by energy transferred from the fission. (Clearly, some of the energy transfer $`q^0`$ from the incident neutrino would be taken up to push the nucleus over the fission energy barrier of about 5 MeV.)

In the case of an incident $`\nu _\mu `$, there would be a significant probability for the resultant $`\mu ^{}`$ to form a Coulomb bound state with one of the two fission fragments, preferentially the one with higher $`Z`$. The $`\mu ^{}`$ could be captured in an excited state and de-excite to the ground state with photon emission. The Coulombic binding energy, say in the ground state, is $`E_B5`$ MeV for a fission fragment with $`Z60`$ -, so this would provide an additional source of energy for the reaction. If we assume that the mechanism of fission via the deformation of the nucleus  also applies to neutrino-induced fission reactions, then the resultant time scale is expected to be similar to that characterizing neutron-induced fission, of order $`10^{14}`$ sec. In the fraction of the reactions where the muon does form a Coulomb bound state with the nucleus of one of the fission fragments, the time $`\tau _\mu =\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^1`$ during which the muon stays bound, before it either decays or undergoes a CC reaction with the nucleus of the fragment to which it is bound, is thus considerably longer than the time characterizing the initial fission.

Near threshold, the usual charged-current neutrino cross sections on nuclei vary strongly with energy. For example, for the well-studied $`A=12`$ system, the cross section for the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})^{12}N`$ has been calculated to vary from less than $`10^{42}`$ cm2 slightly above the threshold of about 120 MeV to $`0.7\times 10^{40}`$ cm2 for $`E_\nu \stackrel{>}{}150`$ MeV . Similar energy dependence is found in calculations of neutrino reactions on heavier nuclei such as 56Fe and 208Pb  (see also the related works -) and would be expected to hold for the analogous reactions on 232Th or 238U. Since these reactions involve a two-body final state, the phase space factor has the $`Q^{1/2}`$ dependence in this threshold region as $`Q0`$. In the present case, for the CC reactions yielding an outgoing $`\mu ^\pm `$, the cross section would be further suppressed near threshold, since the three-body phase space factor by itself goes like $`Q^2`$ for $`Q0`$. However, for the fraction of the reactions with an incident $`\nu _\mu `$ in which the $`\mu ^{}`$ forms a Coulomb bound state with the nucleus of the higher-$`Z`$ fission fragment, one would still have the less severe $`Q^{1/2}`$ factor.

To obtain a rough estimate of the cross section for the reaction (12) leading to a Coulomb bound state of the $`\mu ^{}`$ with the nucleus of a fission fragment, with $`E_\nu `$ below threhold for the production of an asymptotic $`\mu ^{}`$ state, but above the true threshold, taking into account the release of fission energy and the smaller energy release from the Coulomb binding, we proceed as follows. The first step consists of the reaction $`\nu _\mu +n(p+\mu ^{})_{virtual}`$ on one of the neutrons in the nucleus. This elementary process is characterized by a usual weak amplitude $`G_F`$ and a time $`t_W1/m_W10^{26}`$ sec. Assuming that the energy transfer to the nucleus is sufficient to push it over the fission barrier of about 5 MeV, the nucleus fissions at a later time, around $`t_{fiss.}10^{14}`$ sec. The fission energy can be transferred by the exchange of a virtual photon. To incorporate this in the amplitude one would multiply by a factor $`Z\alpha `$, and hence $`(Z\alpha )^2`$ in the cross section. Next, for the formation of the Coulomb bound state, one would multiply the rate by a factor $`|\psi (0)|^2`$ where $`\psi `$ is the quantum mechanical wavefunction describing the $`\mu ^{}`$ and the nuclear fission fragment with charge $`Z_f`$ to which it binds . If this fission fragment were a point charge then, since the Bohr radius $`a`$ of the ground state of the Coulomb bound state is much smaller (by the factor $`m_e/m_\mu =1/207`$) than those of the electrons, there would not be strong screening of the nuclear charge, and one would have simply $`|\psi (0)|^2=(\pi a^3)^1=(Z_f\alpha )^3m_\mu ^3/\pi `$. However, since $`a`$ is comparable to the nuclear radius, one must take account of the non-pointlike nature of the nuclear charge. Combining the factor of $`(Z_f\alpha )^3`$ with the factor of $`(Z\alpha )^2`$ for the energy transfer from the fissioning nucleus, one has an overall factor of $`f_{NIFM}Z^2Z_f^3\alpha ^5`$, where $`NIFM`$ stands for neutrino-induced fission with formation of a muonic Coulomb bound state. Substituting $`Z=93`$ for the virtual 238Np nucleus resulting from the elementary reaction $`\nu _\mu n\mu ^{}p`$, and a typical $`Z_f=60`$ for the larger-$`Z`$ fission fragment, this factor is $`f_{NIFM}0.04`$. Therefore, a lowest-order estimate of the cross section for the neutrino-induced fission reaction (12) with $`\mu ^{}`$ binding to a fission fragment could be obtained by starting with the cross section for the corresponding nonfission reaction, making the substitution $`E_\nu E_\nu +aE_{fiss.}+E_B`$, and then multiplying by the factor $`f_{NIFM}`$, where for a given target nucleus $`(Z,A)`$ the value of $`E_{fiss.}`$ depends on which fission products are produced, and the factor $`a`$ represents the fraction of the fission energy available for transfer to the $`\mu ^{}`$. Thus if one uses 238U as the target nucleus, and (i) $`E_\nu `$ is below the naive threshold by, say, 30 MeV, (ii) the fission energy release is 150 MeV, of which about 80 MeV is transferred to the muon, and (iii) the muon Coulomb binding energy is 5 MeV, it follows that the true energy is about 55 MeV above the true threshold, then, taking into account the factor $`f_{NIFM}`$ with $`Z_F60`$, our rough estimate of the cross section for the neutrino-induced fission reaction leading to the formation of a Coulomb bound state of the $`\mu ^{}`$ with the nucleus of the $`Z60`$ fission fragment suggests that this cross section could be as large as a few percent of the corresponding weak charged-current reaction a similar interval of 55 MeV above threshold, and hence of order $`10^{43}10^{42}`$ cm2.

One could also carry out a similar estimate for the reaction channels leading to the production of an outgoing $`\mu ^\pm `$. For these channels, one would not have to multiply by $`|\psi (0)|^2`$, but the cross section would be suppressed by the more severe $`Q^2`$ dependence of the phase space near threshold for the three-body final state. Furthermore, if the effective energy is only slightly above the true threshold, the $`\mu ^+`$ from an incident $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ and the $`\mu ^{}`$ from an incident $`\nu _\mu `$ (if the $`\mu ^{}`$ is not bound in a muonic atom with a fission fragment) will have low energy, so that the Coulomb correction to the rate will be substantial. In the absence of fission, this would be approximately given by the Fermi function

$$F(E,Z)=\frac{2\pi \eta }{1e^{2\pi \eta }}$$
(15)
where

$$\eta =\frac{Z_f\alpha }{\beta }$$
(16)
where the $``$ ($`+`$) sign applies for an outgoing $`\mu ^+`$ ($`\mu ^{}`$), $`Z_f`$ is again the charge of the final state nucleus, and $`\beta =v/c`$ is the dimensionless velocity of the outgoing $`\mu ^\pm `$ . This factor suppresses (enhances) the emission of $`\mu ^+`$ ($`\mu ^{}`$). In the present case, the Coulomb effect is more complicated to compute because the outgoing charged lepton interacts not just with the Coulomb field of a single final-state nucleus, but with the Coulomb fields of the two fission fragments, with two relative velocities, $`\beta _1`$ and $`\beta _2`$. However, the qualitative effect would be similar to that for a charged lepton recoiling against a single nucleus.

In estimating the cross sections for these “below-threshold” charged-current neutrino reactions leading to an outgoing $`\mu ^\pm `$, it is useful to observe that in one respect they are analogous to a rare type of fission in which the final state consists not just of the two daughter fission fragments (usually with rather asymmetric mass distributions), but also a long-range $`\alpha `$ particle or higher-$`A`$ cluster . In these processes the energy of the fission products is partially transferred to other particles, e.g. long-range $`\alpha `$’s and ternary fission clusters. The emission of energetic $`\alpha `$’s is peaked near to $`90^{}`$ relative to the axis of motion of the two outgoing fission fragments and hence is denoted as “equatorial emission”. A plausible explanation of this process, within the general liquid-drop model of fission, is that as the two lobes of the droplet are pulling apart, the $`\alpha `$ particle is emitted from a region of the drawn-out neck between these two lobes, and the $`\alpha `$ particle is then accelerated roughly away from the axis of the receding droplets by the Coulomb repulsion with the nuclei of these fission fragments. A typical energy for the $`\alpha `$ particle is 20 - 30 MeV. For a heavy nucleus such as 235U, this ternary fission with emission of an energetic $`\alpha `$ occurs with a frequency, relative to the usual binary fission, of a few parts in $`10^3`$. This thus gives some measure of the suppression due to phase space and Coulombic energy transfer. A rarer type of ternary fission occurs when an $`\alpha `$ particle or heavier cluster is emitted roughly along the polar axis defined by the two receding fission fragments, termed “polar emission” . This emission has been interpreted as being due in part to the excitation of a giant dipole resonance  due to the fission process. Estimates of the energy transfered in the decay of this giant dipole resonance to the $`\alpha `$ particle or heavier cluster are consistent with the observation that these latter particles tend to have higher energies than the $`\alpha `$ particles emitted in an equatorial manner.

The phenomenon of “below-threshold” charged-current neutrino reactions on heavy nuclei may also be relevant to supernova neutrinos. We recall that neutrinos from supernovas would, in general, be comprised of a mix of $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$, $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}=\nu _e,\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau `$. The $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ have average energies of about 25 MeV and flux distributions, as a function of energy, that extend up to about 50 MeV . A method for observing these (anti)neutrinos via neutral current reactions on 16O involving proton or neutron emission, populating excited states of 15N and 15O which then undergo photon emission, has been discussed in . We note that although the above range of energies of supernova (anti)neutrinos is below threshold for usual charged-current $`\mu ^\pm `$ production, this could be rendered possible by the neutrino-induced fission that we have discussed here. Thus, these charged-current reactions could, in principle, help as a means for the detection of supernova-generated $`\nu _\mu `$’s and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$’s, explicitly distinguishing these from other types (flavors) of (anti)neutrinos, which neutral current reactions do not do. Although it is not straightforward to calculate accurate cross sections for our neutrino-induced fission reactions going beyond the rough estimates given here, and these cross sections may well be somewhat smaller than those for the neutral current reactions of , our reactions have the useful property of yielding information on the type of incident (anti)neutrino, $`\nu _\mu `$ or $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$, and are subject to different systematics. The detection of our reactions would use an appropriate 238U target, from which the neutrons due to the fission (adding to those from neutral current reactions) could be detected. Since the the time of the initial arrival of neutrinos from the supernova would have been obtained from a parallel neutrino detector containing hydrogen (e.g., in water) via the $`\overline{\nu }_epe^+n`$ reaction, any background from spontaneous fission during the $`O(10)`$ sec. duration of the supernova neutrino signal would be very small. For incident $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ one might also be able to detect the outgoing $`\mu ^+`$ via the high-energy positron from its decay.

## IV Concluding Remarks

In conclusion, we have discussed several types of reactions that are naively below threshold but can proceed because of the release of binding energy from fission and the formation of Coulombic bound states. These include photofission reactions with pion production and charged-current neutrino reactions on heavy nuclei. It would be of interest to search for these reactions experimentally.

The U.S. government retains a non-exclusive royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution or to allow others to do so for U.S. government purposes. This research was supported in part by DOE DE-AC02-98CH10886. The research of R.S. was also supported by the NSF grant PHY-97-22101 at Stony Brook.


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# Simulations of Bose fields at finite temperature

## Abstract

We introduce a time-dependent projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation to describe a partially condensed homogeneous Bose gas, and find that this equation will evolve randomised initial wave functions to equilibrium. We compare our numerical data to the predictions of a gapless, second order theory of Bose-Einstein condensation \[S. A. Morgan, J. Phys. B 33, 3847 (2000)\], and find that we can determine a temperature when the theory is valid. As the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is non-perturbative, we expect that it can describe the correct thermal behaviour of a Bose gas as long as all relevant modes are highly occupied. Our method could be applied to other boson fields.

The achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in a dilute gas offers the possibility of studying the dynamics of a quantum field at finite temperatures in the laboratory . However, direct numerical simulation of the full equations of motion for such systems is well beyond the capability of today’s computers. Even equilibrium calculations in the region of a phase transition require non-perturbative methods, meaning that fully quantal treatments are unfeasible.

At finite temperature, when there are an appreciable number of non-condensed particles, the fully quantal second order theory of Morgan  (and other equivalent treatments ) should be sufficient for an accurate description of many properties of the dilute Bose gas in equilibrium and away from the region of critical fluctuations. Dynamical treatments are much harder, and in general require significant approximations. For example, calculations have been performed for small systems ; with a restricted number of modes ; and for the dynamics of condensate formation where the ground state is assumed to grow adiabatically .

The Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) has been used to predict the properties of condensates near $`T=0`$, when there are very few non-condensate atoms present. Both statically and dynamically it has shown excellent agreement with experiment . It has been argued, however, that the GPE can be used to describe the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate at finite temperature . In the limit where the modes of the system are highly occupied ($`N_k1`$), the classical fluctuations of the field overwhelm the quantum fluctuations, and these modes may therefore be represented by a coherent wave function. This is analogous to the situation in laser physics, where the highly occupied laser modes can be well described by classical equations.

Using this argument, Damle et al. have performed calculations of the approach to equilibrium of a near ideal superfluid , and similar approximations to other quantum field equations have been successful elsewhere . References  also use the GPE to represent the classical modes of a Bose-condensed system. The main advantage of this method is that realistic calculations, while still a major computational issue, are feasible—methods for solving the GPE are well developed. Also, as the GPE is non-perturbative it should be possible to study the region of the phase transition, as long as the condition $`N_K1`$ is satisfied.

There are, however, problems associated with the GPE. It is a classical equation, and so in equilibrium it will satisfy the equipartition theorem—all modes of the system will contain an energy $`k_BT`$. Thus, if we couple a system to a heat bath, and solve the equation with infinite accuracy, we will observe an ultra-violet catastrophe. Also, the higher the energy of any given mode, the lower its occupation will be in equilibrium, and eventually the criterion $`N_k1`$ will no longer be satisfied. For these low occupation modes a form of kinetic equation is more appropriate. The solution to both of these problems is to introduce a cutoff in the modes represented by the GPE.

Our theoretical approach begins with the full operator equation for the Bose field with two-body interactions

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫)}{t}=\widehat{H}_0\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫)+U_0\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫)\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫),$$
(1)
where $`U_0=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a/m`$ is the effective interaction strength at low momenta, $`a`$ is the s-wave scattering length, and $`m`$ is the particle mass. The route to the usual GPE is to assume that the full field operator can be replaced by a wave function $`\psi (𝐫)`$—i.e. that all quantum fluctuations can be neglected. We proceed instead by defining a projection operator $`\widehat{𝒫}`$ such that

$`\widehat{𝒫}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫)={\displaystyle \underset{𝐤C}{}}\widehat{a}_𝐤\varphi _𝐤(𝐫),`$ (2)
where the region $`C`$ is determined by the requirement that $`\widehat{a}_𝐤^{}\widehat{a}_𝐤1`$, and the set $`\{\varphi _𝐤\}`$ defines some basis in which the field operator is approximately diagonal at the boundary of $`C`$. For these modes, the quantum fluctuation part of the projected field operator can be ignored, and so we replace $`\widehat{a}_𝐤c_𝐤`$ and write

$`\psi (𝐫)={\displaystyle \underset{𝐤C}{}}c_𝐤\varphi _𝐤(𝐫).`$ (3)
Defining the operator $`\widehat{𝒬}=\widehat{𝟙}\widehat{𝒫}`$ and $`\widehat{𝒬}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}(𝐫)=\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)`$, operating on Eq. (1) with $`\widehat{𝒫}`$ and taking the mean value results in what we call the finite temperature GPE

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi (𝐫)}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{H}_0\psi (𝐫)+U_0\widehat{𝒫}\left\{|\psi (𝐫)|^2\psi (𝐫)\right\}`$ (4)
$`+`$ $`U_0\widehat{𝒫}\left\{2|\psi (𝐫)|^2\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)+\psi (𝐫)^2\widehat{\eta }^{}(𝐫)\right\}`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`U_0\widehat{𝒫}\left\{\psi ^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)+2\psi (𝐫)\widehat{\eta }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)\right\}`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`U_0\widehat{𝒫}\left\{\widehat{\eta }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)\right\}.`$ (7)
This describes the full dynamics of the region $`C`$ and its coupling to an effective heat bath $`\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)`$, which in principle can be described using a form of quantum kinetic theory. The finite temperature GPE is discussed in detail in Ref. .

In this letter, however, we wish to show that the GPE alone can describe the evolution of general configurations of the coherent region $`C`$ towards an equilibrium that can be parameterised by a temperature. We therefore ignore all terms involving $`\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)`$ in Eq. (7) and concentrate on the first line, which we call the projected GPE. Although this equation is both unitary and reversible, we expect it to evolve general states to equilibrium, because deterministic nonlinear systems exhibit chaotic, and hence ergodic, behaviour if more than a few degrees of freedom are present . This is confirmed by our numerical simulations and forms the main result of this letter.

The projected GPE describes a microcanonical system. However, if the region $`C`$ is large, then fluctuations in energy and particle number in the grand canonical ensemble would be small. Hence we expect the final equilibrium state of the projected GPE to be similar to that of the finite temperature GPE coupled to a bath $`\widehat{\eta }(𝐫)`$ with the appropriate chemical potential and temperature. This does not affect the main result of this letter, however, which is simply that equilibrium is attained. The detailed non-equilibrium dynamics of the system will depend on the exchange of energy and particles between $`C`$ and the bath, and this will be addressed in future work.

We have performed simulations for a fully three-dimensional homogeneous Bose gas with periodic boundary conditions. This choice has been made to simplify the projection operation that must be carried out. In this case the single particle states are plane waves, and the effect of a condensate is simply to mix modes of momenta $`𝐩`$ and $`𝐩`$. This allows us to apply the projector cleanly in momentum space, which is easily accessible by fast fourier transform. In principle there is no barrier to performing the same computation in a trap—in practice the projection operation is much more time consuming.

The dimensionless equation we compute is

$$i\frac{\psi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})}{\tau }=\stackrel{~}{}^2\psi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})+C_{\mathrm{nl}}\widehat{𝒫}|\psi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})|^2\psi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫}),$$
(8)
where we have defined $`d^3\stackrel{~}{𝐫}|\psi (\stackrel{~}{𝐫})|^2=1`$. The nonlinear constant is $`C_{\mathrm{nl}}=2mNU_0/\mathrm{}^2L`$, where $`N`$ is the total number of particles in the volume, and $`L`$ is the period of the system. Our dimensionless parameters are $`\stackrel{~}{𝐫}=𝐫/L`$, wave vector $`\stackrel{~}{𝐤}=𝐤L`$, energy $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }=\epsilon /\epsilon _L`$, and time $`\tau =\epsilon _Lt/\mathrm{}`$, with $`\epsilon _L=\mathrm{}^2/(2mL^2)`$.

The calculations presented here have been performed with $`C_{\mathrm{nl}}=2000`$, and the projector $`\widehat{𝒫}`$ chosen such that all modes have $`|𝐤|<15\times 2\pi /L`$. This means that most of the states contained in the calculation are phonon-like for large condensate fraction. We note that while the number of states in the problem is fixed, the nonlinear constant only determines the ratio of $`NU_0/L`$. This means that for a given value of $`C_{\mathrm{nl}}`$, we are free to choose $`N`$, $`U_0`$ and $`L`$ such that our condition $`|c_𝐤|^21`$ is always satisfied for a given physical situation. In particular we can choose 87Rb atoms with $`N=5\times 10^5`$ and $`L17`$ $`\mu `$m to give a number density of about $`10^{14}`$ cm-3—similar parameters to current experiments in traps.

We begin our simulations with wave functions far from equilibrium with a chosen total energy $`\stackrel{~}{E}`$. They have a flat distribution in $`k`$-space out to some maximum momentum determined by $`\stackrel{~}{E}`$, and the phase of each momentum component is chosen at random. These initial states are then evolved for a time period of $`\tau =0.4`$, by which stage equilibrium appears to have been reached. We determine the properties of the system at equilibrium by assuming that the ergodic theorem applies, and time-averaging over 50 wave functions from the last $`\delta \tau =0.1`$ of the simulation. We find that the equilibrium properties depend only on the total energy—they are independent of the details of the initial wave function.

Strong evidence that the simulations have reached equilibrium is given by the time dependence of the condensate population. For all energies this settles down to an average value that fluctuates by a small amount, and the results are presented in Fig. 1. Further support is provided by the distribution of the particles in momentum space. Rather than using the plane-wave basis, we transform the wave functions into the quasiparticle basis of quadratic Bogoliubov theory, the sole parameters of the transformation being the condensate fraction and the nonlinear constant $`C_{\mathrm{nl}}`$. We then average the populations of the quasiparticles states over time and angle to produce a one dimensional plot, and the results are shown in Fig. 2.

The GPE is the high occupation limit of the full equation for the Bose field operator. Therefore, in equilibrium we expect the mean occupation of the quasiparticle mode $`k`$ to be the classical limit of the Bose-Einstein distribution—i.e. the equipartition relation

$$N_k=\frac{k_BT}{\epsilon _k\mu }.$$
(9)
Since we can determine the Bogoliubov occupation $`N_k`$ from our simulation data, we can attempt to fit this distribution to a dispersion relation for $`\epsilon _k`$, and hence determine the temperature.

In the limit of large condensate fraction $`N_0/N1`$, we expect the Bogoliubov dispersion relation to be a good estimate of the energies. The Bogoliubov transformation approximates the many-body Hamiltonian by a quadratic form, which can be diagonalised exactly. The eigenstates are quasiparticles, and in our dimensionless units the dispersion relation takes the form

$$\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_k=\left(\stackrel{~}{k}^4+2C_{\mathrm{nl}}\frac{N_0}{N}\stackrel{~}{k}^2\right)^{1/2}.$$
(10)
Manipulating Eq. (9) and measuring the excitation spectrum relative to the condensate we find

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_k}{\stackrel{~}{T}}=\left(\frac{N}{N_k}\frac{N}{N_0}\right),$$
(11)
where $`\stackrel{~}{T}=k_BT/(N\epsilon _L)`$ is our dimensionless temperature, and the second term on the RHS arises from the difference between the condensate energy and the chemical potential of the system. By comparing the curve of this relation with that of Eq. (10), a temperature can be determined. For the $`\stackrel{~}{E}=1400`$ simulation we find $`\stackrel{~}{T}=0.0284`$ gives an excellent fit, and this is shown in Fig. 3. At higher simulation energies, however, the shape of Eq. (11) no longer agrees with Eq. (10) and we must use a more sophisticated theory to predict the dispersion relation.

As the occupation of the quasiparticle modes becomes significant (in this case more than a few percent), the cubic and quartic terms of the many-body Hamiltonian that were neglected in the Bogoliubov transformation become important. In Ref.  Morgan develops a consistent extension of the Bogoliubov theory to higher order that leads to a gapless excitation spectrum. This theory treats the cubic and quartic terms of the Hamiltonian using perturbation theory in the quasiparticle basis. Expressions for the energy-shifts of the excitations are given in Sec. 6.2 of Ref. , and we have calculated these shifts for our simulations, with typical results plotted in Fig. 4.

The energy spectrum predicted by the second order theory for the $`\stackrel{~}{E}=4000`$ simulation is in good agreement with the quasiparticle populations extracted from the simulations, and is a significantly better fit than the Bogoliubov theory of Eq. (10). The validity of the second order theory is constrained by the requirement

$$\left(\frac{k_BT}{n_0U_0}\right)(n_0a^3)^{1/2}1,$$
(12)
where $`n_0`$ is the condensate density. For the results of Fig. 4 with $`\stackrel{~}{E}=4000`$, this parameter is 0.14 and so we are beginning to probe the boundary of validity of the theory. At higher $`\stackrel{~}{E}`$, the shifts it predicts at low $`k`$ are of the order of the unperturbed energies, and the results become unreliable. In this region higher order terms are important and the second order theory can no longer be expected to give good results.

In summary for the system with $`Cnl=2000`$, Bogoliubov theory gives a good prediction of the energy spectrum for simulations with total energies $`\stackrel{~}{E}1600`$, while the predictions of second order theory are good up until about $`\stackrel{~}{E}4000`$. We would like to point out, however, that as the GPE is non-perturbative we expect it will be valid up to and beyond the transition region as long as the condition $`N_k1`$ is satisfied.

In addition to the results described above, we have also run simulations with $`C_{\mathrm{nl}}=10000`$ and carried out an identical analysis. We have found that the results from evolving the GPE are qualitatively the same, and for very large condensate fractions Bogoliubov theory accurately predicts the energy spectrum accurately. However, it appears that the second order theory develops a gap in the energy spectrum in systems with a momentum cutoff. This feature is yet to be understood.

In this Letter we have presented results for some of the equilibrium properties of the homogeneous gas. Other properties such as fluctuations, coherence lengths, as well as the non-equilibrium dynamics will be considered elsewhere. We would like to emphasise that this method relies on the lowest energy modes of the system being classical in nature, and thus cannot handle situations where strong quantum fluctuations are important.

In conclusion, we have presented evidence that the projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation is a good approximation to the classical modes of a Bose gas. We have described how to carry out the projection technique in the homogeneous case with periodic boundary conditions, and have shown that starting with a randomised wave function with a given energy, the projected GPE evolves towards an equilibrium state. We have analysed the numerical data in terms of the gapless, finite temperature theory of Ref.  in the classical limit, and found that both the occupation and energies of the quasiparticles agree quantitatively with the predictions.

We would like to thank R. J. Ballagh and C. W. Gardiner for useful discussions. This work was financially supported by St John’s College and Trinity College, Oxford, and the UK-EPSRC.


text:
# Gravitational lensing in galaxy redshift surveys

## 1. Introduction

Gravitationally-lensed quasars are both valuable (individually and statistically) and rare. They are mostly discovered through time-consuming re-imaging of known quasars, but can also be found spectroscopically in galaxy redshift surveys. Q 2237+0305 (Huchra et al. 1985) was found in this manner, but remains the only such discovery. Kochanek (1992) predicted that $`1`$ in $`10^5`$ redshifts would yield a lens although this is somewhat pessimistic, as described below. It is also important that lenses discovered in galaxy surveys tend to have bright, low redshift lens galaxies. Such lenses are particularly useful, as shown by the successful measurement of the source-size and transverse velocity in the Q 2237+0305 system (e.g., Wambsganss et al. 1990; Wyithe et al. 1999).

## 2. Calculation

The calculation, detailed in Mortlock & Webster (1999), of the expected number of lenses, $`N_{\mathrm{lens}}`$, is based on the formalism developed in Kochanek (1992). The lensing probability of a single galaxy is integrated over the survey population, subject to a number of selection effects. A lens of total magnitude $`m`$, in which the quasar images have magnitude $`m_\mathrm{q}`$ and the galaxy has magnitude $`m_\mathrm{g}`$, is detectable in a galaxy redshift survey if: the quasar-galaxy composite image is brighter than the survey limit (i.e., $`mm_{\mathrm{lim}}`$); the quasar images are bright enough to be detected in the composite spectrum (which can be quantified by requiring that $`m_\mathrm{q}m_\mathrm{g}\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}2`$; Kochanek 1992); and the galaxy is bright enough for the composite object to be classified as non-stellar, and hence enter the redshift survey at all (which can be characterised by the condition that $`m_\mathrm{g}m_\mathrm{q}\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{gq}}0`$). The inclusion of the quasar light in the calculation of $`m`$ is critical to this calculation, as the sensitivity to lenses is increased by $`1`$ mag, and the number of lenses is increased by up to an order of magnitude, relative to the results of Kochanek (1992).

## 3. Results

Figure 1 shows the number of lenses expected per $`10^4`$ redshifts as a function of survey depth. Several values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}`$ are shown, as this represents the largest single uncertainty in the calculation. Note that, at least at the depths of the current redshift surveys, there is very little dependence on the cosmological model, which stands in marked contrast to the usual quasar lensing probability. These results imply that the a posteriori likelihood of a lens being discovered in the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) survey is $`0.03`$, which is much greater than the previous estimate of $`0.003`$ (Kochanek 1992).

The new generation of surveys – in particular the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the 2 degree Field (2dF) redshift survey – will dwarf the CfA survey, and should result in the discovery of many new lenses. The SDSS will obtain $`10^6`$ high quality galaxy spectra (i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{\mathrm{qg}}>4`$) to $`m_{\mathrm{lim}}19`$, which implies $`N_{\mathrm{lens}}100`$. The 2dF redshift survey will contain a quarter the number of galaxies, but has $`m_{\mathrm{lim}}=19.5`$, and should yield $`10`$ lenses. Most of these lenses will have deflector redshifts of $`<0.2`$, and in several cases the observer-deflector distance should be comparable to that in the Q 2237+0305 system.

## References

Huchra, J.P., Gorenstien, M., Kent, S., Shapiro, I., Smith, G., Horine, E., & Perley, R. 1985, AJ, 90, 691

Kochanek, C.S. 1992, ApJ, 397, 381

Mortlock, D.J., & Webster, R.L. 1999, MNRAS, in preparation

Wambsganss, J., Paczyński, B., & Schneider, P., 1990, ApJ, 358, L33

Wyithe, J.S.B., Webster, R.L., Turner, E.L., & Mortlock, D.J., 1999, MNRAS, submitted


text:
# ELECTROGENESIS IN A SCALAR FIELD DOMINATED EPOCH

## I Introduction

Scalar fields are used to model either a very early universe (inflation), or a very late universe (‘quintessence’jf-zws . Their role at intermediate times is however largely ignored. In this talk 111Invited talks presented at the conferences Strong and Electroweak Matter (SEWM-2000) in Marseille, (June 14-17, 2000), and Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (CAPP-2000) in Verbier, Switzerland (July 17-28, 2000); based on work with Michael Joyce JoyceProkopec ; Prokopec ; JoyceProkopec2 . I discuss models in which a homogeneous scalar field is used to modify the standard cosmology at the electroweak scale to allow for baryogenesis, even when the electroweak transition is smooth or weakly first order.

In order to produce any baryon number, a source is required that drives the Universe out of equilibrium ShaposhnikovRubakov . Since at the electroweak scale the expansion rate is very small ($`H/T10^{16}`$), it is often assumed that it cannot drive baryogenesis, simply because the produced baryon-to-entropy ratio, $`n_B/sH/T`$, is too small to account for observation, $`(n_B/s)_{\mathrm{observed}}5\times 10^{11}`$.

## II Scalar fields and the expansion rate

In Refs. JoyceProkopec  we discussed models in which, based on the dominance of a kinetic scalar field mode (kination), the expansion rate of the Universe changes to

$$\frac{H}{T}\frac{T}{T_{\mathrm{reh}}}\left(\frac{H}{T}\right)_{\mathrm{rad}},$$
(1)
where $`(H/T)_{\mathrm{rad}}`$ is the expansion rate in radiation-dominated universe, and $`T_{\mathrm{reh}}`$ is the ‘reheat’ temperature at which the energy-densities are equal, $`\rho _\varphi \rho _{\mathrm{rad}}`$ (see Model A in figure 1). At the nucleosynthesis scale, $`T_{\mathrm{ns}}1`$MeV, the Universe is radiation dominated, and hence $`T_{\mathrm{reh}}T_{\mathrm{ns}}`$. Since $`T_{\mathrm{ew}}/T_{\mathrm{ns}}10^5`$, the expansion rate at the electroweak scale ($`T_{\mathrm{ew}}100`$GeV) can be enhanced to about $`(H/T)_{\mathrm{ew}}10^{11}`$. With some tuning in the parameters of the model JoyceProkopec , this is enough for successful baryogenesis even at a smooth or a weakly first order transition. We also note that the same scalar field can be both the inflaton and the kinaton JoyceProkopec .

The expansion rate can be further enhanced if the scalar field decays. In this case we have

$$\frac{H}{T}\left(\frac{T}{T_{\mathrm{decay}}}\right)^2\left(\frac{H}{T}\right)_{\mathrm{rad}},$$
(2)
where again $`T_{\mathrm{ew}}T_{\mathrm{decay}}T_{\mathrm{ns}}`$, and $`T_{\mathrm{decay}}=T_{\mathrm{reh}}`$ is the temperature at which the field decays (see Model B in figure 1). At a first sight one can get the expansion rate at the electroweak scale high enough to drive baryogenesis. There is a caveat however: as the scalar field decays, entropy is released, which then dilutes the original baryon number produced at the electroweak scale. The entropy release is minimal if the scalar field energy is dominated by the kinetic mode Prokopec .

## III Approximately conserved charges and baryon number

We have argued that the dominance of a kinetic scalar mode can be used to increase the expansion rate of the Universe at the electroweak scale by orders of magnitude. In fact the expansion rate can easily become larger than the destruction rate of some of approximately conserved species, e.g.

$$H(T_{\mathrm{ew}})\mathrm{\Gamma }_{e_R},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu _R},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{u_R},..$$
(3)
This simply means that, if any of these charges are produced above the electroweak scale, they decay only below the electroweak scale, that is when the baryon number violating processes are already frozen-in. If a net right-handed electron number, $`e_R`$, is produced at a scale $`T>T_{\mathrm{ew}}`$, in chemical equilibrium the baryon number $`B`$ is shifted to JoyceProkopec2

$$B\frac{1}{3}e_R.$$
(4)
This simple relation describes the correct local chemical equilibrium as long as the destruction rate for the right-handed electrons is large when compared with the expansion rate at the electroweak scale, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{e_R}10^{13}T_{\mathrm{ew}}<H(T_{\mathrm{ew}})`$. At $`T=T_{\mathrm{ew}}`$ the baryon-number violating processes (‘sphalerons’) freeze-in, i.e. the sphaleron rate drops below the expansion rate, and the baryon number (4) remains frozen until today. Eq. (4) can be intuitively understood as follows. Above the electroweak scale the Universe must be hypercharge-neutral, $`Y=0`$. In the presence of net $`e_R`$ the corresponding electron hypercharge $`Y_{e_R}=y_{e_R}e_R`$ must be screened by various charges pulled out of the plasma. The charges that minimize the relevant free energy include the quarks that carry a net baryon number $`B`$ as given in Eq. (4).

## IV Electrogenesis

We now present a simple perturbative model for production of the right-handed electrons required for baryogenesis (cf. Eq. (4)). To this purpose we introduce heavy scalar fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }^a`$ (with a mass at least in the TeV range) that couple to the standard-model fermions via a Yukawa interaction term of the form

$$_{CP}[\mathrm{\Phi }^a]=h_{ij}^a\mathrm{\Phi }^a\overline{\psi }_{iL}\psi _{jR}+h.c.,$$
(5)
where the couplings $`h_{ij}^a`$ are CP violating, i.e. $`𝐡_{}^{𝐚}{}_{}{}^{}𝐡^𝐚`$ ($`𝐡^𝐚`$ denotes the matrix of couplings). In order to violate CP symmetry, $`𝐡^𝐚`$ must contain a complex phase unremovable by phase transformations on the whole Lagrangian, which can be achieved by the flavor mixing structure and the existence of at least two such scalars. The most stringent constraints on the masses and the couplings of such scalars come from the fact that they are flavor changing. For leptons the strongest constraint of this type comes from the bounds on the decay $`\mu e\gamma `$. For couplings $`h_{ij}^a`$ of order one this requires masses $`M_\mathrm{\Phi }100`$TeV.

When $`\mathrm{\Phi }^a`$ decay out of equilibrium, a net $`e_R`$ may be produced. An example of such a decay channel is shown in figure 2, where CP violation is realised as the interference term between the tree level and 1-loop 3-body decay channels (cf. YanagidaYoshimuraFukugita ). The resulting electron-to-entropy ration is then

$$\frac{e_R}{s}\frac{10^2}{g_{}}|𝐡|^4\delta _{\mathrm{CP}},$$
(6)
where $`g_{}`$ is the number of relativistic degrees of freedom in the plasma, $`\delta _{\mathrm{CP}}`$ the relevant CP-violating angle. In order that $`\mathrm{\Phi }^a`$ decay out of equilibrium, they ought to be sufficiently massive. One finds JoyceProkopec2  that in Model A,

$$M_\mathrm{\Phi }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}|𝐡|\times 10^6\mathrm{GeV},$$
(7)
while in Model B, when the dominant component decays, the bound reads

$$M_\mathrm{\Phi }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}|𝐡|^{\frac{2}{3}}\mathrm{TeV}.$$
(8)
This implies that the scalars $`\mathrm{\Phi }^a`$ may be observable by the future accelerators (e.g. LHC). This fact alone gives a sufficient motivation for a more detailed investigation of the models that contain such heavy scalar fields.


text:
# Coherent superposition of photon- and phonon-assisted tunneling in coupled quantum dots

\[

## Abstract

We report on electron transport through an artificial molecule formed by two tunnel coupled quantum dots, which are laterally confined in a two-dimensional electron system of an AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs heterostructure. Coherent molecular states in the coupled dots are probed by photon-assisted tunneling (PAT). Above 10 GHz, we observe clear PAT as a result of the resonance between the microwave photons and the molecular states. Below 8 GHz, a pronounced superposition of phonon- and photon-assisted tunneling is observed. Coherent superposition of molecular states persists under excitation of acoustic phonons.

preprint: submitted to Phys. Rev. B

\]

An artificial molecule is defined by coupling two quantum dots, leading to the formation of coherent electronic states in this molecule . As a controllable two-level system, double dots are proposed for realizing a single quantum bit in solid state systems . One of the obstacles for such an application is the considerable dephasing induced by the semiconductor host materials. The investigation of dissipation processes in these nanostructures is thus of great importance. Operating such a double dot in the regime of weak coupling to the contacts ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{l,r}0`$) minimizes the dephasing of molecular states via the electron-electron interaction and it is then possible to study the interaction between confined molecular states and discrete phonon modes within the dots. Recently, Fujisawa et al.  found that at low temperatures vacuum fluctuations indeed result in pronounced transitions between energetically well-separated quantum states, generating discrete phonon modes. A theoretical treatment of this effect was then given by Brandes and Kramer . However, the limitation of this experiment is that it can only be applied at large bias at which coherent molecular states can not be probed.

Here, we present transport measurements on a double-dot molecule coupled to both microwave photons *and* acoustic phonons. An external microwave source generates photons and piezoelectrically induces coherent acoustic phonons in phonon cavities formed by the Schottky gates. At near-zero bias, the formation of molecular states is revealed through single- and double-photon assisted tunneling (PAT). In addition, the combination of PAT with acoustic phonon-assisted tunneling is observed. We verify the persistence of coherent molecular states under phonon excitation.

As shown in Fig. 1, five pairs of Schottky gates are defined by electron beam lithography and evaporation of gold on the surface of an AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs heterostructure. By applying proper negative voltages to these gates two quantum dots are formed in the two-dimensional electron system (2DES) located 90 nm below the surface. The left and right tunnel barriers determine the tunnel coupling of the double dot to the drain and source contact, respectively. The coupling conductance ($`G_c`$) between the dots is controlled by the central gate voltage ($`V_t`$) (see Fig. 1). At 4.2 K the carrier density of the 2DES is $`1.7\times 10^{15}`$ m-2 and the electron mobility is 80 m2/Vs, yielding a mean free path of around 5 $`\mu `$m which is almost one order of magnitude larger than the dots’ effective diameters ($`0.6\mu `$m). The 2DES is cooled to a bath temperature of 140 mK in a 3He/4He dilution refrigerator. To couple microwave radiation to the quantum dots, we use a Hertzian wire-loop antenna about 1 cm above the dots, which is fed with an HP83711A microwave generator .

The double dot is weakly coupled to the drain and source contacts, i.e., the tunneling rates of the outer left and right tunnel barriers are fixed around $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_l\mathrm{\Gamma }_r100`$ MHz ($`h\mathrm{\Gamma }_l`$, $`h\mathrm{\Gamma }_rk_BT`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ^{}`$, see below for the excited-state energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ^{}`$). In the measurements, the drain-source bias $`V_{ds}`$ is fixed at around $`10\mu V\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ^{}/e`$. When $`V_{ds}<0`$ electrons tunnel through the double dot from drain to source. For characterization, charging diagrams are recorded by measuring the drain-source current while altering the left ($`V_{gl}`$) and right ($`V_{gr}`$) plunger gate voltages. We find the effective energy calibration factors $`\alpha _{l/r}`$ of $`6\times 10^2`$ for both the left and right gate voltages and the addition energies are $`351\mu `$eV and $`232\mu `$eV for the left and right dot, respectively . Both dots show excited states at $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ^{}120\mu `$eV. In Fig. 2(a) the charging diagram of the coupled dot is plotted in a linear grayscale representation in the weak coupling regime ($`G_c0.08e^2/h`$). In linear transport, only two ground states participate, e.g., the ground state $`E_l`$ in the left dot and $`E_r`$ in the right dot, as schematically shown in Fig. 2(b) . The detuning between the two ground states is $`E_{lr}=(E_lE_r)`$. The finite tunnel coupling $`t`$ between these two states induces a bonding ($`E_{}`$) and an anti-bonding ($`E_+`$) molecular state, as shown in Fig. 2(b). The energetic offset between these states is $`E_+E_{}=\sqrt{E_{lr}^2+4t^2}`$ . For weak tunnel coupling and non-zero detuning ($`E_lE_r`$) it follows that a bonding electron is localized in one of the dots (as shown in Fig. 2(b)). At zero detuning ($`E_l=E_r`$), the bonding electron tunnels back and forth between the dots at a Rabi frequency of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R=t/h`$. The discrete conductance peaks in Fig. 2(a) are main peaks (M) resulting from resonant tunneling through the molecular states with $`E_{lr}=0`$.

Within the diamond shaped regions (Fig. 2(a)) enclosed by dashed lines Coulomb blockade prevails and the number of electrons in the dots is well defined, corresponding to the charge configuration ($`N_l`$, $`N_r`$). In the direction marked by arrow A in Fig. 2(a), the detuning $`E_{lr}`$ is kept constant, while the average of the ground state energies $`\overline{E}=(E_l+E_r)/2`$ is increased relative to the chemical potentials ($`\mu _d`$, $`\mu _s`$) of the contacts. In direction of B, $`\overline{E}`$ is fixed but $`E_{lr}`$ is varied. We find that the broadening in both directions is dominated by the temperature but not the intrinsic lifetime of the quantum levels: A signature of weak coupling to the contacts. The electron temperature in the contacts ($`T_e170`$ mK) is obtained simply by measuring the full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of the conductance peak of a single quantum dot . In direction of B, the FWHM of about $`70\mu `$eV is lower than that in direction of A ($`100\mu `$eV) . The level diagram shown in Fig. 2(b) takes into account the temperature broadening in the contacts.

The charging diagram shown in Fig. 2(a) exhibits electron transport by thermally induced phonons. To clarify this, a typical single trace extracted from the diagram is shown in Fig. 2(c). On the left side of the peak, where $`E_l>E_r`$, the data is well approximated by $`\mathrm{cosh}^2(E_{lr}/2k_BT_e)`$. This implies that transport at the center of the peak is dominated by resonant tunneling through a molecular state with $`E_{lr}=0`$ (see the solid line in Fig. 2(c)). However, on the right side where $`E_l<E_r`$, an additional contribution to the tunneling current is found, which has a maximum (see the dark region in Fig. 2(c)) about 10 GHz away from the main peak. By increasing the bath temperature, we find the position of this maximum to shift slightly to the right side, as shown in Fig. 2(d). We can exclude both electronic excitations from the drain and source contacts ($`|eV_{ds}|10\mu `$eV $`<h3`$ GHz) and intrinsic excitations in the dots ($`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ^{}120\mu `$eV $`h30`$ GHz) inducing this additional tunneling. Furthermore, tunneling through the bonding or anti-bonding molecular state with $`E_{lr}0`$ is strongly suppressed in this weak coupling regime ($`E_+E_{}E_{lr}`$). Hence, we can attribute this additional off-resonant tunnel current to be induced by a background of acoustic phonons.

Application of microwave radiation allows us to perform spectroscopy on single quantum states by measuring the direct photo-response . Fig. 3(a) shows a charging diagram of the weakly coupled dot ($`G_c0.08e^2/h`$) under microwave radiation at a frequency of $`f=20`$ GHz. As seen in the right panel of Fig. 3(a), in addition to the main resonant tunneling peak (M) two side-peaks (P1, P2) appear. Tunneling at the side-peaks is enabled by the resonance between the microwave photons and the energy difference between the molecular states: $`E_+E_{}=nhfE_{lr}`$, $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$. Side-peaks P1 and P2 correspond to one-photon ($`n=1`$) and two-photon ($`n=2`$) absorption processes, respectively. In the right panel of Fig. 3(a), the solid line is an approximation including three peaks according to $`\mathrm{cosh}^2((E_{lr}nhf)/2k_BT_e)`$, with $`n=0`$ for the main peak (M) and $`n=1,2`$ for P1 and P2. For frequencies above 10 GHz this can be clearly seen in Fig. 4(a) where filled squares (open circles) denote the distance of the P1 (P2) side-peaks.

Below 10 GHz, two side-peaks (S1, S2) are resolved from the charging diagrams. In Fig. 3(b), the charging diagram at 3 GHz is shown. The single trace in the right panel is approximated by three $`\mathrm{cosh}^2(E_{lr}/2k_BT_e)`$-shaped peaks. The peak S1 is masked between the main peak M and the side-peak S2. The existence of S1 is confirmed under microwave radiation at 3, 4.5, and 5.9 GHz. For the detuning at side-peaks S1 and S2, we find the following relations:

$`E_{lr}^{S_1}h(f+f_0),`$ (1)
$`E_{lr}^{S_2}2h(f+f_0),`$ (2)
with a constant offset of $`f_010`$ GHz, as shown in Fig. 4(a). The slopes of the traces correspond to absorption of one and two photons. The offset, however, indicates that transport through the dots involves not only pure photon absorption processes, but also another absorption process of $`hf_0`$ or $`2hf_0`$.

We attribute this offset energy quanta in Eqs.  to acoustic phonons at $`f_{ph}f_010`$ GHz. As discussed above, we observe thermally induced acoustic phonons already without microwave radiation, as shown in Fig. 2(c,d). Additionally, the Schottky gates on the heterostructure surface not only define the quantum dots, but also form phonon cavities since AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs is a piezoelectric material . Electrons in the quantum dots confined only 90 nm below the heterostructure surface thus mainly couple to local phonon modes within the cavities. Furthermore, the applied microwave field enhances via piezoelectrical coupling the interaction of electrons and phonons localized within the cavities. Experimentally, strong photon side-peaks shifted by $`f_{ph}10`$ GHz are observed in the microwave frequency range from 1 to 6 GHz. This phonon frequency is determined by the size of the cavities. Assuming a sound velocity of about $`4500`$ m/s in bulk GaAs crystals and a phonon frequency of 10 GHz, we find a wavelength of 450 nm. This roughly agrees with the dots’ diameters as shown in Fig. 1. Moreover, this piezoelectrical resonator formed by Schottky gates possesses a large bandwidth, due to the limited number of gates in comparison to conventional IDTs . Hence, exciting this transducer off resonance will also generate phonons at 10 GHz as verified experimentally. Most importantly, confined phonons generated by the microwave field are naturally coherent with the microwave photons. Finally, no significant heating by microwaves is observed. Indeed, the much stronger side-peaks under radiation (see Fig. 3) compared to the weak shoulder without radiation (see Fig. 2(c)) confirm that the confined phonon mode at $`f_{ph}10`$ GHz in the cavities is enhanced.

The central question now is to verify the coherent superposition of molecular states by microwave photons under the excitation of acoustic phonons. For this purpose, charging diagrams under radiation are measured upon increasing the tunnel coupling. ¿From these diagrams, the coupling dependence of the detuning of two quantum states, at which the two molecular states are in resonance with microwave photons, are obtained. As shown in Fig. 4(b), we find that at 15 and 20 GHz the detuning at side-peak P1 follows the well-known relation

$$E_{lr}=\sqrt{(hf)^24t^2},$$
(3)
where it is simply assumed that $`tG_c`$. Eq.  is a signature of a coherently coupled two-level system as studied before .

Commonly, one expects no coherent superposition of the molecular states by single-photon resonance below $`f=8`$ GHz, since the thermal fluctuations are comparable to the photon energy. Nevertheless, the coupling dependence obtained at 3 GHz turns out to be quite similar to those at 15 and 20 GHz: Due to the participation of both photons and phonons the detuning at resonance is larger than without phonons. Furthermore, the detuning at resonance decreases as the tunnel coupling is enhanced (see Fig. 4 (b)), behaving like Eq. 3. Considering the dynamics of electron transport at 3 GHz, the processes of phonon and photon absorption between the dots can be coherent as well as sequential. The first sequential process to be considered is the following: Phonon absorption occurs within the single dots exciting an electron into an intermediate state, while photon absorption couples the dots, i.e.

$$E_{lr}=\sqrt{(2hf)^24t^2}+2hf_{ph},$$
(4)
being depicted by the dashed curve in Fig. 4(b) for the side-peaks S2 , which is obviously not observed. The other sequential process is given by the absorption of photons in the dots but the dots are coupled by phonon absorption. The corresponding coupling dependence follows

$$E_{lr}=\sqrt{(2hf_{ph})^24t^2}+2hf,$$
(5)
depicted by the dashed/dotted trace in Fig. 4(b), which is in reasonable agreement with the experimental data. On the other hand, assuming coherent photon and phonon generation by the microwave source, an electron tunneling coherently between the dots can absorb both photons and phonons. The coupling dependence is then written as

$`E_{lr}=\sqrt{\left[2hf+2hf_{ph}\right]^24t^2},`$ (6)
illustrated by the solid curve for $`f=3`$ GHz in Fig. 4(b). Within the error bars also this process can be assumed. The coherent absorption of both two-phonons and two-photons by an electron can be viewed as a two-quanta absorption process, while the sequential absorption is a four-quanta process, which has an even smaller probability. The observed strong side-peaks S1 and S2 at 3, 4.5, and 5.9 GHz imply the coherent absorption of both microwave photons and acoustic phonons. This is supported by the fact that microwave photons are excited coherently with acoustic phonons via the Schottky gates. The superimposed molecular states in the double dot are not demolished by absorbing acoustic phonons, which is in agreement with the theoretical prediction by Smirnov et al. . Finally, the hatched area in Fig. 4 (a), marks a transition region between 8 and 10 GHz. An increase of the coupling at 8 GHz enhances the detuning at resonance (see Fig. 4 (c)), i.e., in this transition region no simple superposition of photon and phonon modes exists.

To summarize we connect two quantum dots of medium size and probe the coherent coupling of the discrete states under near zero bias by using microwave spectroscopy. The applied radiation coherently excites photons and acoustic phonons via the Schottky gates. Apart from conventional photon-assisted tunneling observed above 10 GHz, we find a coherent superposition of photon- and phonon-assisted tunneling below 8 GHz. We conclude that molecular states in the double dot persist under the excitation of acoustic phonons.

We like to thank W. Zwerger, M. Shayegan and J. P. Kotthaus for helpful discussions. This work was funded in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the project SFB 348, the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) within the project Quantenstrukturbauelemente (01BM914), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) within the Ultrafast Electronics Program (F61775-99-WE015). HQ gratefully acknowledges support by the Volkswagen Stiftung.