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# Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters

## 1 Introduction

Galaxy clusters are the largest virialized objects in the universe and should be useful cosmological probe since the properties of clusters are considered to depend on cosmological parameters and to reflect the structure formation history. Galaxy clusters contain a diffuse hot gas which emits X-rays via thermal bremsstrahlung. The X-ray temperature and luminosity functions of clusters and their evolution have been used to determine the density of the universe and the amplitude of the rms density fluctuation. If there exist unique mass-temperature ($`T`$) and mass-luminosity ($`L`$) relations, one can predict X-ray temperature and luminosity functions of clusters at redshift $`z`$ from a theoretical mass function. Therefore, it is important to investigate into correlations among physical quantities of clusters and examine if such unique relations exist. Recently, Fujita & Takahara (1999a) have found that clusters at low redshifts ($`z<0.1`$) form a plane (the fundamental plane) in the three dimensional space ($`\mathrm{log}\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}`$, $`\mathrm{log}r_c`$, $`\mathrm{log}T`$), where $`\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}`$ is the central gas density, and $`r_c`$ is the core radius of clusters. The data on the plane still have a correlation and form a band on the plane. The observed relation $`LT^3`$ turns out to be the cross section of the band normal to the major axis. The existence of the fundamental plane implies that the clusters form a two-parameter family, suggesting that the physical quantities of clusters are determined by the halo mass and density at the time of their formation and that no unique mass-temperature or mass-luminosity relation exists (Fujita & Takahara, 1999b). In fact, using $`N`$-body simulations, Navaro, Frenk, & White (1997) found that the structure of clusters is related to their formation epoch, although they claimed that the clusters are a one-parameter family by assuming a unique relation between the mass and formation redshift. In this paper, motivated by the finding of the fundamental plane, we present a formulation of statistics of clusters in the context of hierarchical structure formation theory taking account of formation epoch distribution.

So far, Press & Schechter (1974, hereafter PS) mass function has been widely used to calculate temperature and luminosity functions (e.g. Eke, Cole, & Frenk, 1996). Although PS mass function provides the number of dark halos at a given time, it does not contain information about the formation time of halos. Thus, a conventional way to compute the temperature and luminosity functions is simply to assume that the formation time is the same as the observed time. Since in this case clusters form a one-parameter family about the mass, an extension of PS theory is necessary to investigate the two-parameter nature of clusters, taking account of the effect of the formation epoch distribution. Using the merger probabilities in an extended Press & Schechter clustering model (Bond et al., 1991; Bower, 1991), Lacey & Cole (1993, hereafter LC) derived a formation epoch distribution function in an enlightening way, although LC did not calculate predictions of X-ray luminosity and temperature functions. The formation time in their model is defined by that time when the halo mass becomes half that at the observed epoch and this definition does not discriminate between tiny and notable relative mass capture, or between accretion and merger. In the hierarchical clustering scenario, low-mass objects successively merge with one another to build up ever more massive objects. However, major deviations from equilibrium and subsequent relaxation take place only when halos of comparable masses merge, while tiny mass captures have little effect on the capturing halos. So, it is desirable to devise such formulations. Kitayama & Suto (1996a, b) have attempted to describe the formation and destruction of halos within the extended PS prescription by discriminating between accretion and merger. They define the halo formation and destruction rates and define the formation epoch distribution by utilizing the survival probability. Although they predict various statistical properties of X-ray clusters, they assume an empirical relation between temperature and luminosity in such predictions, which is not satisfactory from our point of view.

In this paper, we adopt another model of the formation epoch distribution proposed by Salvador-Solé, Solanes & Manrique (1999, hereafter SSM). They developed a modification of the extended PS model that differentiates merger from accretion and define the formation epoch as the epoch of the last major merger by utilizing the empirical mass-density correlation obtained by $`N`$-body simulations. Following this formalism, we can obtain not only formation time distribution but also the halo mass at the formation time. In order to obtain statistics of galaxy clusters, we assume that the halo mass and density at its last major merger determine the structure of clusters. The temperature and luminosity of galaxy clusters are calculated in terms of the halo mass and density at the formation without resorting to empirical relations. On the basis of these prescriptions, we construct a simple scaling model of X-ray clusters and calculate $`LT`$ distribution, the temperature and luminosity functions. Since it is well known that a simple scaling model between gas and dark matter results in an $`LT`$ relation different from observations (Eke, Navarro, & Frenk, 1998), we also investigate a simple preheating model. The paper is organized as follows. The formulation of statistics is presented in § 2. The X-ray cluster model is constructed in § 2.2. The results and discussion are described in § 3.

## 2 Formulation

### 2.1 Formation time distribution

In this subsection, we summarize the SSM formalism. To follow the formation and evolution of halos, SSM used a modified version of the extended PS clustering model (Bond et al., 1991; Bower, 1991, ; LC) and made a schematic distinction between minor and major mergers by defining the formation of a halo as the last major merger it experienced. This definition does not affect the abundance of halos at a given time, although it affects the description of their growth. Thus, the mass function is equal to the PS mass function

$$n(M,t)dM=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\frac{\rho _0}{M}\frac{\delta _c(t)}{\sigma ^2(M)}\left|\frac{d\sigma (M)}{dM}\right|\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\frac{\delta _c^2(t)}{\sigma ^2(M)}\right]dM,$$
(1)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the present mean density of the universe, $`\delta _c(t)`$ is the critical density contrast for collapse at $`t`$, and $`\sigma (M)`$ is the rms density fluctuation in spheres containing a mean mass $`M`$. In this paper, we use an approximate formula of $`\delta _c(t)`$ for spatially flat cosmological model (Nakamura & Suto, 1997) and a fitting formula of $`\sigma (M)`$ for the CDM fluctuation spectrum (Kitayama, 1997).

In the LC model, the instantaneous merger rate for halos with mass $`M`$ at $`t`$ per infinitesimal range of final mass $`M^{}>M`$, or specific merger rate, is

$`r_{\mathrm{LC}}^m(MM^{},t)dM^{}`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{d\delta _c(t)}{dt}}\right|{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^2(M^{})}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (M^{})}{dM^{}}}\right|`$ (2)
$`\times `$ $`\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2(M^{})}{\sigma ^2(M)}}\right]^{3/2}`$
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _c^2(t)}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^2(M^{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^2(M)}}\right]\right\}dM^{}.`$
In the SSM formalism, it is assumed that a halo with mass $`M`$ experiences a major merger and is destroyed when the relative mass increment $`\mathrm{\Delta }M/M(M^{}M)/M`$ exceeds a certain threshold $`\mathrm{\Delta }_m`$. The major merger is regarded as the formation of a new halo. On the other hand, when $`\mathrm{\Delta }M/M<\mathrm{\Delta }_m`$, the event is regarded as continuous accretion; the halo keeps its identity and its core structure. Thus, from the specific merger rate (eq. ), the mass accretion rate, $`R_{\mathrm{mass}}(M,t)dM/dt`$, of halos with mass $`M`$ at time $`t`$ is defined as

$$R_{\mathrm{mass}}(M,t)=_M^{M(1+\mathrm{\Delta }_m)}\mathrm{\Delta }Mr_{\mathrm{LC}}^m(MM\stackrel{´}{},t)𝑑M^{}.$$
(3)
The destruction rate is defined as

$$r^d(M,t)=_{M(1+\mathrm{\Delta }_m)}^{\mathrm{}}r_{\mathrm{LC}}^m(MM^{},t)𝑑M\stackrel{´}{}.$$
(4)
The formation rate should be written by

$$r^f[M(t),t]=\frac{d\mathrm{ln}n[M(t),t]}{dt}+r^d[M(t),t]+_MR_{\mathrm{mass}}[M(t),t]$$
(5)
from the conservation equation for the number density of halos per unit mass along mean mass accretion tracks, $`M(t)`$, which is the solution of the differential equation

$$\frac{dM}{dt}=R_{\mathrm{mass}}[M(t),t].$$
(6)
From this formation rate, one can obtain the distribution of formation time, $`t_f`$, for halos with masses $`M`$ at $`t`$;

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_f(t_f;M,t)dt_f=r^f[M(t_f),t_f]\mathrm{exp}\left\{_{t_f}^tr_f[M(t^{}),t^{}]𝑑t\stackrel{´}{}\right\}dt_f.$$
(7)
From equation (6), the halo mass at formation time, $`M_f=M(t_f)`$, becomes

$$M_f=M_{t_f}^tR_{\mathrm{mass}}[M(t^{}),t^{}]𝑑t^{}.$$
(8)
The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_m`$ is fixed by the fits to the empirical mass-density (or mass-radius) correlation obtained by $`N`$-body simulations (Navaro, Frenk, & White, 1996, 1997). The best fit is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_m=0.6`$ in a number of different cosmological models (SSM). To be precise, $`M_f`$ for fixed $`M`$ and $`z_f`$ should have scatter around the mean accretion track (eq. ). Therefore, $`M_f`$ in equation (8) is an approximation to the mean formation mass of true distribution. Although we ignore this scatter for the sake of simplicity, it could be estimated by using the algorithm given in Nusser & Sheth (1999).

In this paper, we investigate two cosmological models (SCDM and LCDM). In Table 1, we tabulate the cosmological density parameter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$), the cosmological constant ($`\lambda _0`$), the Hubble constant in units of $`100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ ($`h`$), and the present rms density fluctuation in spheres of radius $`8h^1\text{Mpc}`$ ($`\sigma _8`$). Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters shows the formation time distributions (eq. ) for the SCDM and LCDM models for several values of the present halo mass. Since in the LCDM model the universe is in the accelerated expanding stage at $`z0`$, the growth of density fluctuation has stopped. Thus, the slope of the formation time distribution in the LCDM model is less steep in comparison with the SCDM model at $`z0`$ (Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters) . Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters shows halo masses at its formation time (eq. ) for the halo with the present mass of $`10^{15}M_{}`$.

Note that, in the PS formalism, there is no distinction between merger and accretion. Any mass capture is regarded as merger, that is, $`t_f=t`$. Consequently, the formation time distribution is

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_f(t_f;M,t)=\delta ^D(t_ft),$$
(9)
where $`\delta ^D(x)`$ is Dirac’s delta function.

### 2.2 X-ray cluster model

In the SSM formalism, the mass function of dark halos at a fixed epoch is given by the PS mass function. On the other hand, for a given mass, the dark halos take a range of formation time as depicted by equation (7). Thus, dark halos form a two-parameter family. SSM found that the characteristic density and the scale radius of a halo at the present epoch are proportional to the critical density of the universe and the virial radius of the halo at the formation time $`t=t_f,`$ respectively. This means that, between major mergers, halos gradually grow through the accretion of surrounding matter while keeping the central part unchanged. Considering the two-parameter family nature of clusters, we thus assume that the physical quantities of clusters of galaxies are represented by the mass and the virial density at the their formation time or the last major merger. On this assumption, the temperature and luminosity of a cluster are determined by the formation redshift $`z_f`$ and the halo mass $`M_f`$ at $`z_f`$; $`T=T[z_f,M_f(M,z_f)]`$, $`L=L[z_f,M_f(M,z_f)]`$. Here, the relation between $`t_f`$ and $`z_f`$ are straightforwardly determined once the cosmological model is specified. In order to obtain $`L`$ and $`T`$, we use the spherical collapse model (Tomita, 1969; Gunn & Gott, 1972) and assume that the cluster is spherically symmetric and intracluster gas is in an isothermal hydrostatic equilibrium in the gravitational potential of dark matter halo.

In the spherical collapse model, the virial density $`\rho _f`$ of a halo at the formation redshift $`z_f`$ is given by

$$\rho _f=\rho _c(z_f)\mathrm{\Delta }_c(z_f)=\rho _{c0}\mathrm{\Delta }_c(z_f)\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0(1+z_f)^3}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)},$$
(10)
where $`\rho _c(z_f)`$ is the critical density of the universe, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c(z_f)`$ is the ratio of the virial density to the critical density, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)`$ is the cosmological density parameter. The index 0 refers to the values at $`z=0`$. We use the fitting formula of Bryan & Norman (1998) for the virial density of spatially flat cosmological models;

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ $`=`$ $`18\pi ^2+82x39x^2,`$ (11)
where $`x\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)1=(\mathrm{\Omega }_01)/[\mathrm{\Omega }_0(1+z_f)^3+1\mathrm{\Omega }_0]`$.

The virial radius is obtained by

$$r_f=\left(\frac{3M_f}{4\pi \rho _f}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(12)
The virial temperature $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is given by

$`k_BT_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu m_pGM_f}{3r_f}}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`0.92\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_f}{10^{15}M_{}}}\right)^{2/3}\left[h^2\mathrm{\Delta }_c{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)}}\right]^{1/3}(1+z_f)\text{keV}`$
where $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight which we take to be $`\mu =0.6`$, $`m_p`$ is the proton mass, and $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant.

The luminosity of a cluster is

$$L=6.50\times 10^{24}\left(\frac{k_BT}{1\text{keV}}\right)^{1/2}_0^{r_f}n_e^24\pi r^2𝑑r\text{erg s}^1$$
(14)
where $`n_e`$ is the electron number density in CGS units. Note that the gas temperature $`T`$ is not equal to the virial temperature $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ in general. In order to calculate luminosity from equation (14), we need to specify the gas density profile. Here, we adopt isothermal $`\beta `$ model

$$\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)=\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}\left[1+\left(\frac{r}{r_c}\right)^2\right]^{3\beta /2},$$
(15)
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}`$ is the central gas density and $`r_c`$ is core radius. The central gas density is calculated through the relation

$$_0^{r_f}\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)4\pi r^2𝑑r=M_{\mathrm{gas}}$$
(16)
where $`M_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ is the total gas mass. From now on, we assume that $`r_c=r_f/8`$ (Fujita & Takahara, 1999b).

Thus, from (14) and (15), the luminosity is given by

$$L=1.79\times 10^{44}\left(\frac{k_BT}{1\text{keV}}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{M_f}{10^{15}M_{}}\right)\left[h^2\mathrm{\Delta }_c\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)}\right](1+z_f)^3f_m^2\text{erg s}^1$$
(17)
where $`f_mM_{\mathrm{gas}}/M_f`$ is the gas mass fraction and we assume here $`\beta =2/3`$ for simplicity. Equations (13) and (17) show that the temperature and luminosity are functions of the halo mass and the formation redshift indeed when one specifies the cosmological model and the relation between $`T`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$.

### 2.3 Temperature and luminosity function

Next, we formulate statistics of galaxy clusters. Now that the temperature and luminosity are expressed as functions of $`t_f`$ and $`M_f`$, such that $`T=T[t_f,M_f(M,t_f)]`$ and $`L=L[t_f,M_f(M,t_f)]`$, we can derive temperature and luminosity functions using the transformation of the two variables from $`(t_f,M)`$ to $`(T,L)`$ as follows.

For a mass range $`MM+dM`$ at $`t`$, the comoving number density of clusters formed at $`t_ft_f+dt_f`$ is given by

$$n(t_f,M;t)dt_fdM=n(M;t)\mathrm{\Phi }_f(t_f;M,t)dt_fdM.$$
(18)
Thus the comoving number density of clusters at $`t`$ with $`TT+dT`$ and $`LL+dL`$ is given by

$`n(T,L;t)dTdL`$ $`=`$ $`n(t_f,M;t)dt_fdM.`$ (19)
Accordingly,

$`n(T,L;t)`$ $`=`$ $`n(t_f,M;t)\left|{\displaystyle \frac{(t_f,M)}{(T,L)}}\right|.`$ (20)
Since the comoving number density $`n(T,L;t)`$ gives the distribution function on $`LT`$ plane, it reflects $`LT`$ relation of clusters.

The temperature function and luminosity function are respectively given by

$`n(T;t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle n(T,L;t)𝑑L}`$ (21)
and

$`n(L;t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle n(T,L;t)𝑑T}.`$ (22)
It is to be noted that these functions take account of the distribution of cluster formation time, $`t_f`$.

Thus, given the relations $`T=T[t_f,M_f(M,t_f)]`$ and $`L=L[t_f,M_f(M,t_f)]`$, one can calculate the $`LT`$ distribution function, the temperature function and the luminosity function.

## 3 Results and discussion

In this section, we derive the temperature function, the luminosity function and $`LT`$ distribution function. We assume that the gas mass fraction of clusters $`f_m`$ is the same as the cosmic baryon ratio $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is the density parameter of baryon and we adopt $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.0125h^2`$ to be consistent with the primordial nucleosynthesis.

### 3.1 Scaling model

First, we examine the case where the gas temperature $`T`$ is equal to the virial temperature $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$. In this case, the structure is self-similar and we call this model the scaling model. We calculate the temperature and luminosity functions based on the SSM formalism (eq. ) and compare them with those based on the PS formalism (eq. ). The temperature function and their redshift evolution are shown in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, where thin lines and symbols denote SSM and PS predictions, respectively. As is seen, there is little difference between the predictions of the two formalisms. This can be explained as follows. When we take account of the distribution of the formation time, physical quantities of clusters are affected by two factors. First, if the object formed earlier, its virial density becomes larger (eq. ). Second, if the object formed earlier, its mass at the formation becomes smaller for a given mass at $`z=0`$ (Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters). Gas temperature depends on the virial density and mass at the formation time as $`TM_f/r_f\rho _f^{1/3}M_f^{2/3}`$, and these two factors tend to cancel out. This behavior of temperature function is the same as that of previous studies (e.g. Kitayama & Suto, 1996b). This feature is common to both the cosmological models we investigate. The $`z_f`$ dependence of temperature, $`T=T(z_f,M=10^{15}M_{})`$, is shown in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, which explicitly shows that $`T`$ is roughly constant for $`z_f2`$. Note that Mathiesen (1999) also finds no evidence for a correlation between X-ray temperature and formation time in his simulation of X-ray clusters. The difference between SCDM model and LCDM model is mainly caused by the dependence on the time evolution of virial density (eq. ).

The luminosity function and their redshift evolution are shown in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, where thin lines and symbols denote SSM and PS predictions, respectively. As is seen, SSM formalism predicts larger number density than PS formalism and for the SSM formalism, there is little evolution even in SCDM model in contrast with the PS formalism. This result is different from that of the temperature function, because of the difference between the dependence of temperature and luminosity on the virial density and mass at the formation. Since $`L\rho _f^2r_f^3T^{1/2}\rho _fM_fT^{1/2}\rho _f^{7/6}M_f^{4/3}`$, the luminosity depends more strongly on the virial density than the temperature. The $`z_f`$ dependence of luminosity, $`L=L(z_f,M=10^{15}M_{})`$, is presented in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, which shows that $`L`$ increases with $`z_f`$. Therefore, earlier formed dense clusters contribute to the increase of the luminosity function shown in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters. Moreover, the increase of $`L`$ with $`z_f`$ explains that there is little evolution of the luminosity function from $`z=1.0`$ to $`z=0`$ both in SCDM and LCDM universes. Since the growth of density fluctuations in SCDM model is more rapid than that in LCDM model, one might think that the luminosity function in SCDM model should evolve rapidly. However, the present result implies that it is not the case if we consider the effect of the distribution in the formation redshift. Thus, recent observational evidence for little evolution of luminosity function (Rosati et al., 1998; De Grandi et al., 1999; Nichol et al., 1999) does not necessarily mean that SCDM model is disfavored against LCDM model. It is also noted that if we consider the effect of formation epoch distribution, smaller value of $`\sigma _8`$ is needed to reproduce observations compared with the PS formalism.

When we compare the predictions with observations, one should note that the amplitude of temperature and luminosity functions can be adjusted by changing $`\sigma _8`$ so that we are concerned with their shape. In Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, the thick line is the best power-law fit to the observed low redshift temperature function obtained by Henry (2000). The predicted shape of the temperature function is consistent with observations both for SCDM and LCDM models, although agreement is better for LCDM model. In Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters the thick line is the best fitted Schechter function to the observed bolometric luminosity function within $`z=0.3`$ obtained by Ebeling et al. (1997). The predicted shape is much steeper than the observations both for SCDM and LCDM models. This is another representation of the well-known discrepancy of the $`LT`$ relation.

Next, we investigate the distribution on the $`LT`$ relation. For several values of $`n[\mathrm{log}(T),\mathrm{log}(L);z=0]`$, we plot iso-density contours on the $`LT`$ plane in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters. From the relations $`T\rho _f^{1/3}M_f^{2/3}`$ and $`L\rho _f^{7/6}M_f^{4/3}`$, the luminosity behaves as $`L\rho _f^{1/2}T^2`$. As discussed in §1, in the PS formalism it is assumed that the observed redshift of a cluster is equal to the formation redshift ($`z=z_f`$). Thus, most of the observed clusters ($`z0`$) have nearly the same virial density $`\rho _f(z)`$ and their physical quantities depend only on mass. Therefore, in the PS formalism, clusters form a one-parameter family, which is shown by the straight line. On the other hand, in the SSM formalism, the virial densities take a wide range of values because $`\rho _f`$ depends on the formation redshift. Thus, clusters form a two-parameter family. The scatter of the $`LT`$ relation shown in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters reflects the dispersion of the halo formation time. Scharf & Mushotzky (1997) also pointed this out. Since $`\rho _f`$ tends to be distributed more widely for smaller clusters, the scatter of $`LT`$ relation is larger at lower $`T`$ and $`L`$. Thus, the slope of $`LT`$ relation in the SSM formalism becomes shallower than $`LT^2`$. This is, however, in conflict with the observed correlation $`LT^3`$ (e.g. David et al., 1993). As long as we assume that the ratio of the gas density of the core to the virial density is constant, this tendency persists. To resolve this discrepancy, this ratio should vary such that less massive clusters have smaller baryon fraction at the cluster core from which much of the X-ray emission originates (Metzler and Evrard, 1994; Kay and Bower, 1999; Valageas and Silk, 1999; Wu, Fabian, & Nulsen, 2000). Many authors have attributed such behavior to preheating of intracluster gas (Kaiser, 1991; Evrard & Henry, 1991; Cavaliere et al., 1998; Balogh et al., 1999), in which intracluster gas had already been heated before the cluster formed. On the other hand, some authors claimed that intracluster gas is heated after the formation of the cluster (Loewenstein, 2000; Brighenti & Mathews, 2001). Moreover, Bryan (2000) argued that cooling of gas and the resultant galaxy formation are sufficient to explain to lower the gas fraction in small clusters and groups without additional heating. Since these models give qualitatively similar gas distributions, we will adopt a preheating model in the next subsection. It is to be noted future observations may discriminate the heating or galaxy formation models (e.g. Fujita, 2001).

### 3.2 Preheating model

We examine the effects of preheating using a simple model of Fujita & Takahara (2000) based on the models of Cavaliere et al. (1998). They combine effects of shock heating and preheating so that the gas temperature is higher than the virial temperature such that

$$T=T_{\mathrm{vir}}+\frac{3}{2}T_1,$$
(23)
where $`T_1`$ is a given preshock temperature. In this model, $`\beta `$ is given by

$$\beta =\frac{T_{\mathrm{vir}}}{T_{\mathrm{vir}}+(3/2)T_1}.$$
(24)
If $`T_1`$ is not negligible compared to $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$, $`\beta `$ becomes smaller, which means that hot gas expands and the gas density in the core decreases under the condition that the total gas mass of the cluster is constant. As a result, X-ray luminosity becomes smaller, which results in a steeper $`LT`$ relation. Comparison with observations of clusters suggests that the preheated temperature, $`T_1`$, is about $`0.52\text{keV}`$ (Fujita & Takahara, 2000). Here, we adopt $`T_1=1\text{keV}`$.

Using equation (15), we define the normalized central gas density as

$$f_d(\beta )\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{gas},0}}{\rho _f}=\frac{4\pi f_m}{3I_1(\beta )}\left(\frac{r_f}{r_c}\right)^3,$$
(25)
where

$$I_1(\beta )4\pi _0^{r_f/r_c}\frac{x^2}{(1+x^2)^{3\beta /2}}𝑑x.$$
(26)
From equations (14), (15) and (25), the luminosity is written, using $`f_d(\beta )`$, as

$$L=3.2\times 10^{40}\left(\frac{k_BT}{1\text{keV}}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{M_f}{10^{15}M_{}}\right)\left[h^2\mathrm{\Delta }_c\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z_f)}\right](1+z_f)^3f_d(\beta )^2I_2(\beta )\text{erg s}^1,$$
(27)
where we assume $`r_f/r_c=8`$, and

$$I_2(\beta )4\pi _0^8\frac{x^2}{(1+x^2)^{3\beta }}𝑑x.$$
(28)
Because $`\beta `$ is a function of $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ once $`T_1`$ is fixed, $`T`$ $`L`$ are function of $`z_f`$ and $`M_f`$ in this preheating model, as is the case of the scaling model. Thus, we can calculate the $`z_f`$ dependences of the temperature and luminosity functions using the formulation constructed in § 2.3. The $`z_f`$ dependence of temperature, $`T=T(z_f,M=10^{15}M_{})`$, and that of the luminosity, $`L=L(z_f,M=10^{15}M_{})`$, are shown by thick lines in Figures Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters and Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, respectively. Because of preheating, the gas temperature becomes higher and luminosity becomes lower compared with the scaling model predictions for this case. The temperature and luminosity functions are shown in Figures Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters and Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, respectively. For several values of $`n[\mathrm{log}(T),\mathrm{log}(L);z=0]`$, iso-density contours on the $`LT`$ plane are plotted in Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters. Because of the preheating, the gas temperature is raised and the gas expands compared to the case without preheating. Thus, the central gas density, $`f_d`$, is decreased and luminosity is lowered. When $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}T_1`$, the effect of preheating is large and luminosity is greatly decreased. On the other hand, when $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}T_1`$, a cluster is not much affected by the preheating and $`\beta 1`$. Since we assumed $`\beta =2/3`$ in the scaling model, the luminosity in the preheating model is larger than that in the scaling model in spite of preheating. Therefore, the slope of $`LT`$ relation in the preheating model is steeper than $`LT^2`$ (Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters), the number of clusters with $`L>10^{44}\text{erg s}^1`$ increases (Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters), and the number of clusters with $`L<10^{44}\text{erg s}^1`$ decreases (Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters). In the preheating model, there is also little evolution of luminosity function. This reason is the same as the scaling model.

In Figures Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters and Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, the thick lines are the observed temperature and luminosity functions which are the same as Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters and Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters. Both in the SCDM and LCDM model, the slope of the luminosity function based on the SSM formalism are near to the observed one, although it is still slightly steeper in the LCDM model. On the other hand, the slope of the temperature function is steeper than the observed one. Better data and better preheating models are needed to resolve this mismatch. In Figure Effects of Formation Epoch Distribution on X-Ray Luminosity and Temperature Functions of Galaxy Clusters, the thick solid lines show the PS prediction which becomes as steep as the observed slope because of the preheating effect. The thick dotted lines represent the observed $`LT`$ relation obtained by David et al. (1993). Note that observed $`LT`$ relation has a large dispersion which is comparable to the predicted width. Both in the SCDM and LCDM models, the predicted $`LT`$ relation can match the observed relation rather well.

## 4 Conclusions

We have investigated the effects of formation epoch distribution on the statistical properties of galaxy clusters in the context of hierarchical structure formation scenario. The mass and formation redshift of galaxy clusters constitute two independent parameters. In this way, using the formalism of Salvador-Solé, Solanes & Manrique (1999), with a few plausible assumptions, we have derived temperature and luminosity functions and the distribution on the $`LT`$ plane. First, we investigated a simple scaling model in which gas temperature is equal to the virial temperature. The temperature function is almost the same as that in the PS formalism, while the luminosity function is shifted to higher luminosity and shows no significant evolution independent of the cosmological model because earlier formed clusters have denser intracluster gas in the cluster core. The luminosity-temperature relation becomes a band with a broad width instead of a linear line, but its slope becomes a little flatter than that of the PS formalism, which is inconsistent with the observations. Second, we have examined a simple preheating model in this framework. Preheating makes the gas distributions of poor clusters flatter than those of rich clusters, which reduces the X-ray luminosity. The resultant $`LT`$ relation is steeper than that in the scaling model and becomes consistent with observations. Although the temperature and luminosity functions are broadly consistent with observations, too, better observations and better preheating models are needed for quantitative comparisons.


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# Remarks on Screening in a Gauge-Invariant Formalism

## I INTRODUCTION

The binding energy of an infinitely heavy quark-antiquark pair represents a fundamental concept which is expected to play an important role in the understanding of non-Abelian theories and especially of quark confinement. In fact, a linearly increasing quark-antiquark pair static potential provides the simplest criterion for confinement, although unfortunately there is up to now no known way to analytically derive the confining potential from first principles. However, as it is well known, in certain theories the rising potential can be screened at large distances by dynamical charges. An illustrative example arises when one considers two dimensions of spacetime, where it was shown in Ref.  that matter fields can screen any Abelian fractional charge. In three dimensions massive fermions screen any charge . In this context it may be recalled the confining and screening nature of the potential in QED3 . As the three dimensional fermions induce a topological mass for the photon, the logarithmically rising potential is transformed into an exponentially decreasing one. We further note that recently the stability of the above potential in the presence of a self-interaction among fermions has been studied . In particular it was considered the Thirring interaction. As a result it was argued that when the Thirring coupling $`g`$ is positive, the new model displays a marked departure of a qualitative nature from the results of Ref.  at short distances. More precisely, the resulting potential obtained has the form of a well, which may be contrasted with the result of  where for small separation the potential tends to a logarithmic Coulomb potential. In this way, the author of Ref.  is lead to the conclusion that the effect of adding the Thirring term is to stabilize the charge system. Despite their relevance, this study was carried out in a gauge fixed scheme, and we think that their results should be confirmed by a gauge independent analysis.

Meanwhile, in a previous paper  we have proposed a general framework for studying the confining and screening nature of the potential in QED3 in terms of gauge-invariant but path-dependent field variables. According to this formalism, the interaction potential between two static charges is obtained once a judicious identification of the physical degrees of freedom is made. This procedure leads to the physical phenomena of electrostatic and dressed electrons, where we refer to the cloud made out of the vector potentials around the fermions as dressing. In this sense, our formalism has provided a method for the determination of the potential between charges which, in our view, is of interest both for its simplicity and physical content. We also point out that a similar analysis has been developed for the Schwinger model .

In this Brief Report we will continue our program  to study the structure of the interaction energy between charged fermions. In the next section we develop further the discussion that was begun in  by considering how the charged fermions behave in the Chiral Schwinger model . Section III is concerned with the calculation of the interaction energy in QED3 with a Thirring interaction term among fermions. Particular care is paid to reexamine the consequences of including this term in the confining and screening nature of the potential.

## II PRELIMINARY: GAUGE-INVARIANT VARIABLES FORMALISM

First, let us briefly review the framework of the gauge-invariant but path-dependent field variables formalism as described in Ref. . Accordingly, we consider the gauge-invariant field

$$𝒜_\mu (y)=A_\mu (y)+_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }(y).$$
(1)
The function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(y)`$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(y)=_{C_{\xi y}}𝑑z^\nu A_\nu (z),$$
(2)
where the path integral is to be evaluated along some contour $`C_{\xi y\text{ }}`$ connecting $`\xi `$ and $`y`$. Here $`A_\mu `$ is the usual electromagnetic potential and, in principle, it is taken in an arbitrary gauge. It can easily be verified that $`𝒜_\mu (y)`$ is invariant with respect to gauge transformations $`A_\mu \left(y\right)A_\mu \left(y\right)+_\mu \mathrm{\Theta }\left(y\right)`$. It is now important to notice that the gauge invariant field (1) depends not only on the points $`\xi `$ and $`y`$ but also on the path. Furthermore, by choosing a spacelike path from the point $`\xi ^k`$ to $`y^k`$, on a fixed time slice, it is possible to express the gauge-invariant field in terms of the magnetic ($`𝐁`$) and electric ($`𝐄`$) fields as:

$$𝒜_0(t,𝐲)=𝐲\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha 𝐄(t,\alpha 𝐲),$$
(3)
$$𝒜(t,𝐲)=𝐲\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha \alpha 𝐁(t,\alpha 𝐲),$$
(4)
where $`\alpha `$ $`\left(0\alpha 1\right)`$ is the parameter describing the contour $`y^k=\xi ^k+\alpha \left(y\xi \right)^k`$ with $`k=1,2,3`$. For simplicity we have assumed the reference point $`\xi `$ at the origin. The above expressions coincide with the Poincaré gauge conditions  for the path-dependent fields $`𝒜_\mu `$, while other contour choices coincide with other gauge conditions for these fields. For reasons that will become evident later, we now focus our attention on the fermion field. In the context of our formalism, the charged matter field together with the electromagnetic cloud (dressing) which surrounds it, is given by ,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(y)=\mathrm{exp}\left(ie_{C_{\xi y}}𝑑z^\mu A_\mu (z)\right)\psi (y).$$
(5)
Thanks to our path choice, the physical fermion (5) then becomes

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(y)=\mathrm{exp}\left(ie_0^y𝑑z^kA_k(z)\right)\psi (y).$$
(6)
The expressions (3), (4) and (6) will form the basis of our subsequent considerations, where the gauge invariance of the formalism guarantees that the relevant physical information will be preserved. We conclude this brief introduction to gauge invariant variables by pointing out that the breaking of the gauge invariance of the fields in the standard formalism is transformed into breaking of the translational invariance in the path-dependent formalism. This drawback is avoided by letting the reference point $`\xi ^k`$ go to infinity.

As already mentioned, we now want to study the interaction energy between external probe sources in the Chiral Schwinger model (CSM) , which consists of a U(1) gauge field coupled to chiral fermions in two-dimensional spacetime. As was shown by Jackiw-Rajaraman  this theory can be consistently quantized and the quantum theory is unitary, in spite of its gauge anomaly. Faddeev and Shatashvili  have suggested a modification of the canonical quantization by addition new degrees of freedom through a Wess-Zumino action. At present two formalisms of the Chiral Schwinger model are available: the gauge noninvariant one  and the gauge invariant one .

We begin by recalling the bosonized form of the gauge-invariant version under consideration :

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill =\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2+\frac{1}{2}\left(_\mu \phi \right)^2\frac{g}{\sqrt{\pi }}\left(g^{\mu \nu }\epsilon ^{\mu \nu }\right)_\mu A_\nu \phi +\frac{ag^2}{2\pi }A_\mu A^\mu \\ \hfill +\frac{1}{2}\left(a1\right)\left(_\mu \theta \right)^2\frac{g}{\sqrt{\pi }}\left[\left(a1\right)g^{\mu \nu }+\epsilon ^{\mu \nu }\right]_\mu A_\nu \theta A_0J^0,\end{array}$$
(7)
where $`J^0`$ is the external current. The parameter $`a`$ reflects the ambiguity of fermionic radiative corrections or may be considered as a bosonization ambiguity parameter. Here we focus our attention to the $`a>1`$ case. As we have already indicated in , to compute the interaction energy we need to carry out the integration over $`\phi `$ and $`\theta `$ in Eq.(7). Once this is done, we arrive at the following effective Lagrangian for the gauge fields

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }\left(1+\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{^2}\right)F^{\mu \nu }A_0J^0.$$
(8)
One immediately sees that this expression is very similar to the effective Lagrangian for the Schwinger model. Notwithstanding, in order to put our discussion into context it is useful to summarize the relevant aspects of the analysis described previously . Thus, our first undertaking is to calculate the expectation value of the Hamiltonian in the physical state $`|\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which we will denote by $`H_\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

We now proceed to obtain the Hamiltonian. For this we restrict our attention to the Hamiltonian framework of this theory. The canonical momenta read $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mu =\left(1+\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{^2}\right)F^{\mu 0}`$, and one immediately identifies the sole primary constraint $`\mathrm{\Pi }^0=0`$. The canonical Hamiltonian is given by

$$H_C=𝑑x\left(\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_1\left(1+\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{^2}\right)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^1+\mathrm{\Pi }^1_1A_0+A_0J^0\right).$$
(9)
With this at hand, the consistency condition $`\dot{\mathrm{\Pi }}_0=0`$ lead to the secondary constraint

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1\left(x\right)=_1\mathrm{\Pi }^1J^0,$$
(10)
and the time stability of the secondary constraint does not induce further constraints. Therefore, in this case there are two constraints, which are first class. The extended Hamiltonian that generates translations in time then reads

$$H=H_C+𝑑x\left(c_0(x)\mathrm{\Pi }_0(x)+c_1(x)\mathrm{\Omega }_1(x)\right),$$
(11)
where $`c_0(x)`$ and $`c_1(x)`$ are the Lagrange multiplier fields. Moreover, it follows from this Hamiltonian that $`\stackrel{}{A_0}\left(x\right)=[A_0\left(x\right),H]=c_0\left(x\right)`$ , which is an arbitrary function. Since $`\mathrm{\Pi }^0=0`$ always, neither $`A^0`$ nor $`\mathrm{\Pi }^0`$ are of interest in describing the system and may be discarded from the theory. Thus the Hamiltonian takes the form

$$H=𝑑x\left\{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_1\left(1+\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{^2}\right)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^1+c^{}(x)\left(_1\mathrm{\Pi }^1J^0\right)\right\},$$
(12)
where $`c^{}(x)=c_1(x)A_0(x)`$.

Now the presence of the arbitrary quantity $`c^{}(x)`$ is undesirable since we have no way of giving it a meaning in a quantum theory. To avoid this trouble we introduce a supplementary condition on the vector potential such that the full set of constraints becomes second class. A particularly convenient condition is

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_2(x)=_0^1𝑑\alpha x^1A_1(\alpha x)=0,$$
(13)
where, as before, $`\alpha `$ is the parameter describing a spacelike straight line of integration. In this case, the basic Dirac brackets between the canonical variables have the following form:

$$\{A_1(x),A^1(y)\}^{}=0=\{\mathrm{\Pi }_1(x),\mathrm{\Pi }^1(y)\}^{},$$
(14)
$$\{A_1(x),\mathrm{\Pi }^1(y)\}^{}=\delta ^{(1)}(xy)_1^x_0^1𝑑\alpha x^1\delta ^{(1)}(\alpha xy).$$
(15)
Next, as remarked by Dirac , the physical states $`|\mathrm{\Omega }`$ correspond to the gauge invariant ones. In this way, we consider the stringy gauge-invariant $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(y)\mathrm{\Psi }(y^{})`$ state,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(y)\mathrm{\Psi }(y^{})=\overline{\psi }(y)\mathrm{exp}\left(iq_y^y^{}𝑑z^1A_1(z)\right)\psi (y)|0,$$
(16)
where $`|0`$ is the physical vacuum state.

We have finally assembled the tools to determine the interaction energy. Recalling again that the fermions are taken to be static, we can therefore substitute $`^2`$ by -$`_1^2`$ in the Hamiltonian. As a consequence, the expectation value $`H_\mathrm{\Omega }`$ simplifies to

$$H_\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }\left|𝑑x_1\left(\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Pi }_1\left(1\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{_1^2}\right)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^1\right)\right|\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(17)
Taking into account the above Hamiltonian structure, the resulting interaction energy of the dressed fermion-antifermion system takes the form

$$H_\mathrm{\Omega }=H_0+\frac{q^2\sqrt{\pi }}{2g}\sqrt{\frac{a1}{a}}\left(1e^{\frac{g}{\sqrt{\pi }}\sqrt{\frac{a}{a1}}|yy^{}|}\right),$$
(18)
where $`H_o=0\left|H\right|0`$ . The second term on the right-hand side of Eq.(18) is clearly dependent on the distance between the external static fields. Therefore the potential for two opposite charges located at $`y`$ and $`y^{}`$ is given by

$$V=\frac{q^2\sqrt{\pi }}{2g}\sqrt{\frac{a1}{a}}\left(1e^{\frac{g}{\sqrt{\pi }}\sqrt{\frac{a}{a1}}|yy^{}|}\right).$$
(19)
This result agrees with that of Ref., and finds here an independent derivation. An immediate consequence of the Eq.(19) is that it saturates at $`\frac{q^2\sqrt{\pi }}{2g}\sqrt{\frac{a1}{a}}`$ for large $`|yy^{}|`$. In other terms, the charged fermions behave in the same way as in the Schwinger model, that is, the probe charges are screened. The point we wish to emphasize, however, is that within this framework one circumvents completely the need to introduce the Wilson loop, where subtleties related to the correct calculation must be considered . Thus, in the context of our present formalism, the potential energy between fermions can be directly obtained once the structure of the electromagnetic cloud around static fermions is known.

We also observe at this stage that the gauge-invariant variables $`𝒜_\mu `$ commute with the sole first class constraint (Gauss law), corroborating the fact that these fields are physical variables . This last point enables us to arrive at the result (19) by an alternative but equivalent way. To this end we first note that the physical electron ( i.e. an electron together with the electric field surrounding it ), Eq. (5), may be rewritten as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }\left(y\right)=\mathrm{exp}\left(ie\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^1A_1^L\left(z\right)\right)\psi \left(z\right),$$
(20)
where $`A_1^L`$ refers to the longitudinal part of $`A_1`$. It is worth noting here that the above expression uses a modified form for the electromagnetic cloud in the Poincaré gauge Eq. (6), which is equivalent to the Coulomb gauge . Having made this observation and from the previous Hamiltonian analysis, we can write immediately the following physical scalar potential

$$𝒜_0(t,x)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha x^1E_1^L(t,\alpha x)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha x^1\left(1\frac{g^2}{\pi }\frac{a}{a1}\frac{1}{_1^2}\right)_{\alpha x}^1\frac{_1^{\alpha x}\left(J^0\left(\alpha x\right)\right)}{_{\alpha x}^2},$$
(21)
where $`J^0`$ is the external current. The static current describing two opposites charges $`q`$ and $`q`$ located at $`y`$ and $`y^{}`$ is then described by

$$J^0(t,x)=q\{\delta (xy)\delta (xy^{})\}.$$
(22)
Substituting this back into the Eq. (21), we obtain

$$V=q\left(𝒜_0\left(y\right)𝒜_0\left(y^{}\right)\right)=\frac{q^2\sqrt{\pi }}{2g}\sqrt{\frac{a1}{a}}\left(1e^{\frac{g}{\sqrt{\pi }}\sqrt{\frac{a}{a1}}|yy^{}|}\right).$$
(23)
It is clear from this discussion that a correct identification of physical degrees of freedom is a key feature for understanding the physics hidden in gauge theories. According to this viewpoint, once that identification is made, the computation of the potential is achieved by means of Gauss law .

## III GENERALIZED MAXWELL-CHERN-SIMONS GAUGE THEORY

We now extend the analysis of the previous section to a (2+1)-dimensional topologically massive gauge theory, which includes a self-interaction among fermions, the so-called generalized Maxwell-Chern-Simons gauge theory . As mentioned above, in this section we concentrate on the effect of including the self-interaction term in the confinement and screening nature of the potential.

Before going to the derivation of the interaction energy, we will describe very briefly the model under consideration. It is described by the following Lagrangian:

$$=\frac{pe^2}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{qe^2}{2}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda }A^\mu F^{\nu \lambda }+\overline{\psi }i\gamma ^\mu \left(_\mu ieA_\mu \right)\psi m\overline{\psi }\psi +\frac{g}{2}|\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \psi |^2+J_0A^0,$$
(24)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$, $`J^0`$ is an external current and $`p=\frac{1}{e^2}`$, $`q=\frac{\chi }{2e^2}`$.

Next, in order to linearize this theory, we introduce the auxiliary field $`B_\mu `$. It follows that the expression (24) can be rewritten as

$$=\frac{pe^2}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2+\frac{qe^2}{2}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda }A^\mu F^{\nu \lambda }+\overline{\psi }i\gamma ^\mu \left(_\mu ieA_\mu iB_\mu \right)\psi \frac{1}{2g}B_\mu ^2m\overline{\psi }\psi +J^0A_0.$$
(25)
By using bosonization methods, it can be shown that in the large fermion mass limit, the Lagrangian (25) then becomes $`𝒪(\frac{1}{m})`$ :

$$=\frac{a}{4}W_{\mu \nu }W^{\mu \nu }+\frac{\alpha }{2}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda }W^\mu W^{\nu \lambda }\frac{1}{2g}B_\mu ^2\frac{pe^2}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{qe^2}{4}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda }A^\mu F^{\nu \lambda },$$
(26)
where $`W_\mu =B_\mu +eA_\mu `$, $`W_{\mu \nu }=_\mu W_\nu _\nu W_\mu `$, $`\alpha =\frac{1}{8\pi }`$ and $`a=\frac{1}{8\pi m}`$.

Following our earlier discussion, this expression allows us to derive an effective Lagrangian. Thus, after the $`B_\mu `$ fields are integrated away, one gets up to $`𝒪(\frac{1}{m})`$ a generalized Maxwell-Chern-Simons gauge theory:

$$=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }\left(1+e^2a\left[112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right]\right)F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon _{\mu \nu \lambda }A^\mu ^\nu A^\lambda .$$
(27)
It is now once again straightforward to apply the gauge-invariant formalism discussed in the preceding section. For this purpose, we start by observing that the canonical momenta read $`\mathrm{\Pi }^\mu =\left(1+e^2a\left[112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right]\right)F^{0\mu }+\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon ^{0\mu \nu }A_\nu `$. As we can see there is one primary constraint $`\mathrm{\Pi }^0=0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Pi }^i=\left(1+e^2a\left[112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right]\right)E^i+\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon ^{ij}A_j`$ $`(i,j=1,2)`$. The canonical Hamiltonian for this system is in this case

$$H_C=d^2x\left\{\begin{array}{c}\hfill \frac{1}{2}F_{i0}\left(1+e^2a\left[112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right]\right)F^{i0}+\frac{1}{4}F_{ij}\left(1+e^2a\left[112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right]\right)F^{ij}\\ \hfill +\mathrm{\Pi }^i_iA_0\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon ^{ij}A_0_iA_j+A_0J^0\end{array}\right\}.$$
(28)
The conservation in time of the constraint $`\mathrm{\Pi }^0`$ leads to the secondary constraint (Gauss law)

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1\left(x\right)=_i\mathrm{\Pi }^i+\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon _{ij}^iA^jJ^0=0.$$
(29)
There are no more constraints in the theory and the two we have found are first class. It follows, therefore, that the total Hamiltonian (first class) is given by

$$H=H_C+d^2x\left(c_0\left(x\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_0\left(x\right)+c_1\left(x\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_1\left(x\right)\right),$$
(30)
where we recall from Eq. (11) that $`c_0(x)`$ and $`c_1(x)`$ are arbitrary functions. We also recall that $`A_0`$ is not a dynamical variable. Thus the total Hamiltonian $`H`$ is given as

$$H=d^2x\left\{\frac{1}{2}F_{i0}F^{i0}+\frac{1}{4}F_{ij}F^{ij}+c^{}\left(x\right)\left[_i\mathrm{\Pi }^i+\frac{\chi }{2}\epsilon ^{ij}_iA_jJ^0\right]\right\},$$
(31)
where $`c^{}(x)=c_1(x)A_0(x)`$.

As before, we now proceed to impose a supplementary condition on the vector potential such that the full set of constraints becomes second class. Therefore, we once again write the supplementary condition as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_2(x)=_0^1𝑑\alpha x^iA_i(\alpha x)=0,$$
(32)
where $`\alpha `$ is the parameter describing a spacelike straight line of integration. Correspondingly, the fundamental Dirac brackets are given by

$$\{A_i(x),A^j(y)\}^{}=0=\{\mathrm{\Pi }_i(x),\mathrm{\Pi }^j(y)\}^{},$$
(33)
$$\{A_i(x),\mathrm{\Pi }^j(y)\}^{}=\delta _i^j\delta ^{(2)}(xy)_i^x_0^1𝑑\alpha x^j\delta ^{(2)}(\alpha xy).$$
(34)
We now have all the information required to compute the potential energy for this theory. As we pointed above, this calculation is straightforward by using

$$𝒜_0(t,𝐱)=_0^1𝑑\alpha \text{ }x^iE_i^L(t,\alpha 𝐱),$$
(35)
which may be rewritten as

$$𝒜_0(t,𝐱)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha \frac{1}{1+e^2a\left(112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right)}\frac{x^i_i^{\alpha x}\left(J^0\left(\alpha x\right)\right)}{_{\alpha x}^2\chi ^2}.$$
(36)
Accordingly, for $`J^0(t,𝐱)=q\delta ^{(2)}(𝐱,𝐚)`$, expression (36) takes the form

$$𝒜_0(t,𝐱)=\frac{q}{2\pi }\frac{1}{1+e^2a\left(112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right)}\left(K_0\left(\chi |𝐱𝐚|\right)K_0\left(\chi |𝐚|\right)\right).$$
(37)
By means of Eq. (37) we evaluate the potential energy for a pair of static pointlike opposite charges at $`𝐲`$ and $`𝐲^{}`$, that is,

$$V=q\left(𝒜_0\left(𝐲\right)𝒜_0\left(𝐲^{}\right)\right)=\frac{q^2}{\pi }\frac{1}{1+e^2a\left(112\alpha ^2g^2^2\right)}K_0\left(\chi |𝐲𝐲^{}|\right).$$
(38)
Considering again that the fermions are taken to be static, we can write immediately the potential energy as

$$V=Q^2K_0\left(\chi |𝐲𝐲^{}|\right)\frac{\beta }{\eta }Q^2^2K_0\left(\chi |𝐲𝐲^{}|\right),$$
(39)
where $`Q\frac{q^2}{\pi \alpha }`$, $`\beta =12e^2a\alpha ^2g^2`$, $`\eta =1+e^2a`$ and $`K_0`$ is a modified Bessel function. This result explicitly shows the effect of including the self-interaction term, in the form of the second term on the right-hand side of Eq.(39). It is straightforward to see that when $`g=0`$ the potential (39) reduces to the one in , as indeed it should. Now we recall that the limiting form of $`K_0`$ for small $`\chi r`$ ($`r|𝐲𝐲^{}|`$) is $`K_0\mathrm{ln}\left(\chi r\right)`$, and hence expression (39) reduces to

$$V=Q^2\left(\mathrm{ln}z\gamma \frac{1}{z^2}\right),$$
(40)
where $`z\chi r`$ and $`\gamma \frac{12e^2a\alpha ^2g^2\chi ^2}{1+e^2a}`$, which is a rather small number since $`a\frac{1}{m}`$. In this way one obtains that in the short distances regime the potential has the form of a well (Fig.1), as was noted in Ref.. Figure 1 represents the potential energy Eq.(40) for the case of $`\gamma =0.01`$, plotted with respect to $`z`$. It is important to notice that the presence of the second term on the right-hand side of Eq.(40), which predominates for small $`z`$ values, causes $`V`$ to be attractive at short distances. One is thus lead to the interesting conclusion that the effect of adding the self-interaction term is to generate stable bound states of quark-antiquark pairs at short distances. However, the central difference between the above analysis and that of Ref.  lies on the fact that the potential Eq.(39) is present at the classical level too. In this context, the present gauge-invariant investigation supplements the earlier analysis done in Ref. , as well as it reveals the general applicability of the gauge-invariant approach.

## IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Work supported in part by Fondecyt (Chile) grant 1980149 and grant 1000710, and by a Cátedra Presidencial (Chile).


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# Spinon excitation and Möbius boundary condition in 𝑆=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin ladder with zigzag structure

## Abstract

We investigate the low-lying excitation of the antiferromagnetic zigzag spin ladder with Möbius boundary condition. Using the Lanczos and Householder diagonalization methods, we calculate the excitation spectrum of the zigzag ladder in the momentum space. We then show that the topological defect generated by the Möbius boundary provides the clear evidence of the single spinon excitation. On the basis of the obtained single-spinon dispersion curve, we analyze the two-spinon scattering states under the usual periodic boundary condition. We further discuss the interaction effect between the spinons, and the connection to the cusp singularity in the magnetization process.

Antiferromagnetic(AF) $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg spin ladder with the zigzag structure has been an important issue in theoretical studies of quasi one-dimensional(1D) quantum spin systems, since it is a minimal model including both of the quantum fluctuation and the frustrated interaction. Particularly it is an interesting problem to clarify how the effect of the frustration appears in the structure of the low-lying excitations, which is closely related to various characteristic behaviors of observable physical quantities, such as the cusp singularity in the magnetization curve.

In analyzing the low-energy excitation of the zigzag antiferromagnet, an essential object is the spinon excitation, which may be described by a “local-defect particle” in the ground state. However, the nature of the single spinon excitation can not been investigated directly for the system with the periodic boundary condition(PBC), which is assumed in the most of theoretical studies; The total-$`S`$ of the system under the PBC takes integer values and hence one can not extract the single-spinon excitation of $`S=1/2`$ straightforwardly.

In order to discuss the topological-defect excitation, in this letter, we deal with the AF zigzag spin ladder with the Möbius boundary condition(MBC), which creates a domain-wall type defect in the system without losing the translational invariance.(See Fig.1) In contrast to the usual PBC, the zigzag ladder with the Möbios boundary contains the odd number of spins due to the network structure of the zigzag lattice, where the total-$`S`$ of the system can be labeled with a half integer. Then an essential difference can be expected in the low-energy spectrum for the MBC, where the defect particle is able to move with a finite momentum. We find that this defect particle, i.e. the Möbius twist in the zigzag spin ladder, is identified as the spinon excitation of $`S=1/2`$.

In the following, we discuss the spinon excitation generated by the MBC, using the Lanczos and Householder diagonalization technique in the momentum space. On the basis of the calculated spinon dispersion for the MBC, we further consider the low-energy excitation of the zigzag spin ladder with the PBC, where the two spinon scattering state plays an important role. In addition, we show that the shape change of the spinon dispersion curve, which is connected with the cusp singularity in the magnetization process, can be illustrated in the exact diagonalization spectrum obtained for the MBC.

The Hamiltonian of the zigzag spin ladder is given by

$$=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\left[\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}+\alpha \stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_{i+2}\right]$$
(1)
where $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ is the $`S=1/2`$ spin operator at $`i`$-th site and $`\alpha `$ is the ratio of the inter- and intra-ladder couplings. The number of sites is denoted as $`N`$, which takes odd integer for the MBC and even number for the PBC. Here we note that, for the infinite-length system, the ground state of Eq. (1) for $`\alpha <\alpha _c0.2411`$ is in the spin liquid phase and that for $`\alpha >\alpha _c`$ is in the dimer gapped phase.

An important feature of the Möbius boundary is that the translational invariance of the system is maintained, although the domain wall is inserted in the system. This implies that the topological defect can move around in the “Möbius ribbon” smoothly. (In the Fig. 1, the twisted part can move in the whole region of the “Möbius ribbon”.) Thus we can make the Hamiltonian (1) block-diagonal with respect to the momentum quantum number $`k_l=2\pi l/N`$, where $`l=0,1,\mathrm{},N1`$. We perform the Lanczos diagonalization up to 28 sites and the Householder diagonalization up to 18 sites in the momentum space.

Before proceeding to a discussion of the computed results, here, it should be noted that, in the spin liquid phase, there are gapless excitations near the ground state, which requires us to analyze the calculated data precisely. Thus, in this paper, we consider the dimer-gapped phase $`\alpha _c\alpha 1`$ mainly, although the argument of the MBC is also available for the spin liquid phase. The single-spinon excitation in the dimer phase has been discussed only near the Majumdar-Ghosh point($`\alpha =1/2`$), using the variational approach combined with the matrix-product ground-state. In the context of the spin-Peierls system, the dynamical properties of the zigzag spin ladder is also investigated with a variety of the numerical techniques. However, the topological boundary condition has not been emphasized so far. In the following, the striking evidence of the single spinon excitation is demonstrated in the exact diagonalization spectrum of the system with the MBC.

In Fig. 2-(a), we show the low-energy spectrum of the zigzag spin ladder of $`\alpha =0.5`$, $`0.6`$ and $`0.7`$, which are obtained with the Lanczos diagonalization up to 27 spins in the total-$`S^z=1/2`$ subspace. We also show the Householder diagonalization results for $`\alpha =0.6`$ in Fig. 2-(b), which include the higher-energy spectrum. Since the defect particle of the MBC can move in the ring, the low-energy spectrum is described with the continuous curve, which is adiabatically connected to the ground state of the MBC system. In other word, the ground-state energy for the MBC is given by the bottom of the dispersion curve of the defect particle, which is located at near $`k=\pi /2`$. In Fig. 2, however, we have determined the origin of the energy axis with

$$E_0^{\mathrm{MBC}}(N)=e_g\times N,$$
(2)
where $`e_g`$ denotes the ground-state energy per site obtained from the ground-state energy for the PBC system of 28 sites with use of $`e_g=E_0^{\mathrm{PBC}}(N)/N`$. For example, we have $`e_g=0.375`$(exact), $`0.3802`$, and $`0.3972`$ for $`\alpha =0.5`$, $`0.6`$ and $`0.7`$ respectively, where the finite-size correction can be negligible. Then, we find that the computed spectra for the various $`N`$ get on a single curve, which can be regarded as the one-particle dispersion curve above the “virtual ground state” with the “virtual excitation gap”. Moreover, in Fig. 2-(b), the dispersion curve of the defect particle is clearly separated below the continuum spectrum, which implies that the particle is a well defined object in the zigzag spin ladder. Thus it will be allowed for us to call this defect particle in the MBC system as a “spinon excitation”. In fact, the dispersion curve for $`\alpha =0.5`$ is in good agreement with the spinon dispersion obtained with the variational calculation, which is represented as the dashed line in the Fig. 2-(a).

In Fig. 2, we can also see that the shape of the dispersion curve changes into the double well structure, which is expected from the cusp singularity in the magnetization process. Such a clear evidence of the shape change is difficult to find for the PBC case, where the two-spinon continuum should be dealt with numerically.(See also Fig.3) Precise calculations indicate that this shape change occurs at $`\alpha _{\mathrm{cusp}}0.54`$, which is slightly larger value than the Majumdar-Ghosh point $`\alpha =1/2`$. We note that the similar behavior of the dispersion curve is reported in the $`S=1`$ bilinear-biquadratic spin chain, which exhibits the magnetization cusp and the exact matrix product state called valence-bond-solid.

Let us next investigate the excitation spectrum of the PBC case, exploiting the spinon dispersion curve extracted from the MBC. In Fig. 3, we display the energy spectrum of the PBC for $`\alpha =0.6`$, which is computed with Householder diagonalization method up to 18 sites. For the case of the PBC, the dimerized ground-state is located at $`k=0`$ and $`\pi `$, and there is the excitation gap whose magnitude is twice of the virtual gap for the MBC. This magnitude of the gap is consistent with the result of the density matrix renormalization group. Further we can see that the singlet and triplet excitations conform the continuum spectrum above the excitation gap, which can be represented as the scattering state of the two spinons. (In Fig.1, this will be illustrated as the two twists running in the zigzag ribbon independently.)

To see this, we compare the free two-spinon continuum with the Householder results. The two-spinon continuum is given by

$`E(q)`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon (k_+)+\epsilon (k_{}),`$ (3)
$`q`$ $`=`$ $`k_++k_{},`$ (4)
where $`\epsilon (k)`$ is the single-spinon dispersion curve, which can be determined from the result of the MBC system. We find that $`\epsilon (k)`$ is well fitted with the form:

$`\epsilon (k)=\sqrt{A(k)B(k)},`$ (5)
where $`A(k)=1+a_1\mathrm{cos}(2k)+a_2\mathrm{cos}(4k)`$ and $`B(k)=b_1+b_2\mathrm{cos}(2k)+b_3\mathrm{cos}(4k)`$ with the fitting parameters $`\{a\}`$ and $`\{b\}`$. The calculated two-spinon continuum is shown as the shaded region in Fig. 3. Clearly the lower bound of the two-spinon continuum can explain the diagonalization results, including the subtle structure above the excitation gap near $`k=0`$ and $`\pi `$. Hence we can conclude that the excited state in the PBC system is basically described with the two-spinon scattering state.

As was seen in the above, the low-energy property of the PBC system is well explained with the free two-spinon state. For the purpose of the quantitative analysis, however, the interaction effect between the spinons becomes important, especially in the finite-size system. In addition, we can see that the eigenvalues in the $`S^z=1`$ subspaces deviate from those of $`S^z=0`$ even in the low-energy region(see Fig. 3). This is because the frustrated interaction affects the excitation spectrum. Thus, let us next investigate the spinon-spinon interaction effect on the low-energy spectrum. For this purpose, we consider the dilute spinon gas model, which may be described with an effective Hamiltonian with two-body interaction:

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}={\displaystyle \underset{k,s}{}}\epsilon (k)a_{k,s}^{}a_{k,s}`$ (6)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{k,k^{},s,s^{}}{}}V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})a_{k,s}^{}a_{k,s}^{}a_{k^{},s^{}}a_{k^{},s^{}},`$ (7)
where $`a_{s,k}^{}(a_{s,k})`$ is the spinon creation(annihilation) operator and $`V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})`$ is the effective coupling. The index $`s`$ denotes the $`z`$-component of the spinon excitation and the single-spinon dispersion curve $`\epsilon (k)`$ has been determined with Eq. (5).

In order to discuss the interaction effect in the exact diagonalization spectrum, let us now concentrate on the two-spinon problem, for which the Schrödinger equation can be written down explicitly:

$`\left[\epsilon (k_+)+\epsilon (k_{})E(q)\right]\psi _s(k_+,k_{})=`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k^{},s^{}}{}}V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})\psi _s^{}(k_+^{},k_{}^{}),`$ (9)
where $`k_\pm =q/2\pm k`$ and $`q`$ is the momentum of the center of mass. The spin symmetry can be classified in the spin singlet and triplet sectors. Assuming the repulsive $`\delta `$-function-type interaction $`V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})=c`$(=const), the solution of (9) is given by

$$1=c\underset{k}{}\frac{1}{E(q)\epsilon (k_+)\epsilon (k_{})},$$
(10)
We solve Eq. (10) for a finite-size system numerically and compare the results with the diagonalization ones. Particularly we consider the system of the $`N=28`$, where the wave number is given by $`k_l=2\pi l/N`$ with $`l=0,1,\mathrm{},27`$.

We first discuss the spectrum obtained with the Lanczos method in the total-$`S^z=0`$ subspace, where the singlet state and the $`S^z=0`$ state of the triplet appear. Fig. 4 shows the results for the two-body problem (9) with $`c=0.1`$, where we can see the quantitative agreement in the Lanczos results of $`S^z=0`$ sector. If we drop the interaction term(i.e. free-spinons case), the second lowest and the third lowest eigenvalues of the effective model degenerate and then a branch of the spectrum can not be explained. Thus we can conclude that the Lanczos spectrum of total-$`S^z=0`$ is well explained by the effective spinon gas model with the repulsive interaction.

We next proceed to the analysis of the $`S^z=1`$ sector. In Fig. 4, we can see that the Lanczos results of the triplet sector are rather scattered, comparing with those of the singlet one. Such a difference between the singlet and triplet spectrum in the low-energy region may be a characteristic behavior in the strongly frustrated system, in contrast to the Heisenberg spin chain where the triplet and singlet excitations exhibit a quite good correspondence. In fact, we find that this kind of singlet-triplet difference emerges, as $`\alpha `$ is increased beyond $`\alpha 0.4`$. Accordingly, some of the spectrum of the triplet sector do not agree with the present analysis for $`\alpha =0.6`$ utilizing the simple $`\delta `$-function interaction; The effect of the frustration may appear in the triplet excitations significantly, and the interaction term $`V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})`$ can be expected to have more complicated form than that of the singlet. Here, we remark that the finite-size effect in the triplet sector is much bigger than the singlet sector, which is consistent with the observation of the strongly affected triplet sector. In order to verify the dilute spinon gas model for the triplet, however, it is required to investigate the excitation spectrum of a longer system.

Finally we make a comment on the bound state. In the variational treatment of the two spinon excitation, $`V_{s,s^{}}(k,k^{})`$ is not a simple repulsive interaction, where the bound state of the two spinon can appear near $`k=\pi /2`$. In the diagonalization results, we can see that there are lower energy eigenvalues at $`k=\pi /2`$ than the scattering state, which is consistent with the bound state.

To summarize, we have discussed the Möbius boundary condition(MBC) in the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin ladder with the zigzag structure. The MBC introduces the topological defect that is described with the domain-wall type particle of $`S=1/2`$. Using the exact diagonalization method in the momentum space, we have found that this defect particle gives the clear evidence of the spinon excitation. In addition, we have shown the shape change of spinon dispersion curve, which is associated with the cusp singularity of the magnetization process.

We have investigated the low-energy spectrum with the usual periodic boundary condition(PBC), where the two spinon state plays an important role. We have shown that the two spinon scattering state explains well the spectrum computed with the exact diagonalization. We have further discussed the interaction effect between the spinons, using the dilute spinon gas model. The $`S^z=0`$ sector is in good agreement with the effective model, while the spectrum of $`S^z=1`$ subspace exhibits rather complicated behavior. To clarify the role of the frustrated interaction in the triplet sector, a further analysis of the zigzag system will be required.

The authors would like to thank T. Nishino for valuable comments. A part of the present numerical computations was performed at Yukawa Institute Computer Facility.


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# Single-spin Azimuthal Asymmetries in Electroproduction of Neutral Pions in Semi-inclusive Deep-inelastic Scattering

## Abstract

A single-spin asymmetry in the azimuthal distribution of neutral pions relative to the lepton scattering plane has been measured for the first time in deep-inelastic scattering of positrons off longitudinally polarized protons. The analysing power in the $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ moment of the cross section is $`0.019\pm 0.007(\text{stat.})\pm 0.003(\text{syst.})`$. This result is compared to single-spin asymmetries for charged pion production measured in the same kinematic range. The $`\pi ^0`$ asymmetry is of the same size as the $`\pi ^+`$ asymmetry and shows a similar dependence on the relevant kinematic variables. The asymmetry is described by a phenomenological calculation based on a fragmentation function that represents sensitivity to the transverse polarization of the struck quark.
PACS numbers: 13.87.Fh, 13.60.-r, 13.88.+e, 14.20.Dh

Semi-inclusive pion production in polarized deep-inelastic scattering is a powerful tool for investigating the spin structure of the nucleon and providing information about the spin-dependent parton distribution and fragmentation functions. The recent observation of a significant azimuthal asymmetry for semi-inclusive $`\pi ^+`$ production in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) of unpolarized positrons off longitudinally polarized protons  has revealed effects of quark distribution and fragmentation functions that describe the transverse polarization of quarks. In particular, the occurrence of single-spin asymmetries, where only the target is polarized, offers access to the fundamental but still unmeasured chiral-odd transversity distribution functions  through the so-called Collins effect . This effect involves a chiral-odd fragmentation function, the Collins function, that describes the fragmentation of a transversely polarized quark into an unpolarized hadron and is discussed in recent experimental  and theoretical publications  on this subject.
Single-spin asymmetries in pion production have already been measured in proton-proton scattering experiments , where the $`\pi ^0`$ asymmetry is found to be similar to the $`\pi ^+`$ one, but with opposite sign as compared with the $`\pi ^{}`$ one. This isospin dependence could be understood  in terms of the difference between the unpolarized cross sections for $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ production. However, these asymmetries from proton-proton scattering may also arise from initial-state interactions, which are negligible for semi-inclusive lepton-nucleon scattering processes. In the latter case any single-spin asymmetry can originate only from a spin dependence in the fragmentation of a polarized quark. In fact such a dependence is assumed in  where a sizeable $`\pi ^0`$ single-spin asymmetry is predicted for lepton-nucleon scattering.
This paper reports the first observation of a single-spin azimuthal asymmetry in semi-inclusive neutral pion electroproduction. The relevant kinematic variables of this process in the target rest frame are the spacelike squared four-momentum $`Q^2`$ of the exchanged virtual photon with energy $`\nu `$, the pion fractional energy $`z=E_\pi /\nu `$, the pion transverse momentum $`P_{}`$, and the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ of the pion around the virtual-photon axis. Here $`E_\pi `$ is the pion energy, $`P_{}`$ is defined with respect to the virtual-photon direction and $`\varphi `$ is defined relative to the lepton scattering plane. The fractional energy transferred to the proton is given by $`y=\nu /E`$ and the Bjorken scaling variable is defined as $`x=Q^2/2M\nu `$, where $`E`$ is the lepton beam energy and $`M`$ is the proton mass.
The data were collected in 1996 and 1997 using a longitudinally polarized hydrogen gas target in the 27.57 GeV HERA positron storage ring at DESY. The average target polarization was 0.86 with a fractional uncertainty of 5$`\%`$. The scattered positron and the decay photons from the $`\pi ^0`$ were detected by the HERMES spectrometer . Positrons were distinguished from hadrons with an average efficiency of 99$`\%`$ at a hadron contamination of less than 1$`\%`$ using the information from an electromagnetic calorimeter, a transition radiation detector, a preshower scintillator detector, and a threshold Cerenkov detector. The kinematic requirements imposed on the scattered positrons were $`Q^2>1`$ GeV2, $`0.023<x<0.4`$, $`0.2<y<0.85`$, and an invariant mass squared of the initial photon-nucleon system $`W^2>4`$ GeV2.
Neutral pion identification was provided by the detection of the two photon clusters originating from the $`\pi ^0`$ decay in the electromagnetic calorimeter , each with a minimum energy deposition of 1.0 GeV and without a corresponding charged track. The reconstructed photon-pair invariant mass $`m_{\gamma \gamma }`$ shows a clear $`\pi ^0`$ mass peak with a mass resolution of about 0.012 GeV. Neutral pions were selected within the invariant mass range of $`0.10<m_{\gamma \gamma }<0.17`$ GeV where background contributions from uncorrelated photons typically amount to 20$`\%`$. An upper limit of $`z<0.7`$ was used in order to minimise acceptance effects and to suppress possible contributions of exclusive processes. The requirement $`P_{}>0.05`$ GeV ensures an accurate measurement of the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$.
The analysing powers for unpolarized (U) beam and longitudinally (L) polarized target are evaluated as

$$A_{\mathrm{UL}}^W=\frac{\frac{L^{}}{L_\mathrm{P}^{}}_{i=1}^N^{}W(\varphi _i^{})\frac{L^{}}{L_\mathrm{P}^{}}_{i=1}^N^{}W(\varphi _i^{})}{\frac{1}{2}[N^{}+N^{}]},$$
(1)
using the weighting functions $`W(\varphi )=\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ and $`W(\varphi )=\mathrm{sin}2\varphi `$. Here, the superscripts $``$ and $``$ denote opposite target helicity states. Each summation runs over the number $`N^{()}`$ of pions selected for each target helicity state and is multiplied with the dead-time corrected luminosities $`L^{()}`$ and $`L_\mathrm{P}^{()}`$, the latter being weighted by the target polarization magnitude. The analysing powers were determined by integrating over the spectrometer acceptance in the kinematic variable $`y`$ with a mean value of 0.57. Small corrections were applied for cross-contamination between the $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}2\varphi `$ moments due to the spectrometer acceptance, based on a Monte Carlo simulation. Aside from this, the results have been shown to be little affected by the limited acceptance of the HERMES spectrometer. A background contribution from uncorrelated photons was estimated by varying the window in the reconstructed invariant mass of the photon pair. It was found to be negligible within the statistical accuracy of the data and was taken into account in the systematic error. The primary contributions to the systematic uncertainty arise from the target polarization and from the acceptance corrections. Radiative effects on the unpolarized cross section were evaluated and a contribution to the asymmetry of less then 0.1$`\%`$ averaged over the full acceptance was found .
The analysing power in the azimuthal $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ moment of the $`\pi ^0`$ production cross section, averaged over $`z`$, $`x`$, and $`P_{}`$ with mean values of 0.48, 0.09, and 0.44 GeV, respectively, is $`0.019\pm 0.007\text{(stat.)}\pm 0.003\text{(syst.)}`$. This result is consistent with the $`\pi ^+`$ measurements for which an analysing power of $`0.022\pm 0.005\text{(stat.)}\pm 0.003\text{(syst.)}`$ was reported . The observed azimuthal asymmetry implies a substantial magnitude for the Collins fragmentation function $`H_1^{}`$. The analysing power in the $`\mathrm{sin}2\varphi `$ moment for the same process, calculated using Eq. (1), is consistent with zero within the statistical uncertainty: $`0.006\pm 0.007\text{(stat.)}\pm 0.003\text{(syst.)}`$. This is expected from predictions for the ratio of $`A_{\mathrm{UL}}^{\mathrm{sin}2\varphi }`$ to $`A_{\mathrm{UL}}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }`$ , which are small in the valence region for the specific kinematic range of relatively low $`Q^2`$ and moderate $`P_{}`$ accessible at HERMES.
In Fig. 1 the analysing power $`A_{\mathrm{UL}}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }`$ is shown as a function of the pion fractional energy $`z`$, the Bjorken scaling variable $`x`$, and the pion transverse momentum $`P_{}`$, after averaging over the other two kinematic variables. Also shown are results for charged pions  obtained in the same kinematic range. The $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ asymmetries exhibit a similar behaviour in all kinematic variables. The $`z`$ dependence of the $`\pi ^0`$ asymmetry is consistent with the monotonic increase of the $`\pi ^+`$ asymmetry. The increase of $`A_{\mathrm{UL}}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }`$ with increasing $`x`$ suggests that single-spin asymmetries are associated with valence quark contributions.

The dependence on $`P_{}`$ can be related to the dominant kinematic role of the intrinsic transverse momentum of the quark, if $`P_{}`$ remains below the typical hadronic mass of about 1 GeV . Also shown in Fig. 1 are the predictions of a model calculation  for the $`\pi ^0`$ single-spin azimuthal asymmetry using isospin and charge conjugation invariance . In the case of longitudinally polarized nucleons, two distribution functions enter the calculation. One, $`h_{1\mathrm{L}}^{}`$, is twist-2 and describes the quark transverse spin distribution in a longitudinally polarized nucleon, while $`h_\mathrm{L}`$ includes an interaction dependent twist-3 part. Both are related to the twist-2 distribution function $`h_1`$, called transversity, that describes the quark transverse spin distribution in a transversely polarized nucleon, by $`h_\mathrm{L}(x)=h_1(x)\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}x}h_{1\mathrm{L}}^{(1)}(x)`$ , where $`h_{1\mathrm{L}}^{(1)}`$ is the $`k_\mathrm{T}^2`$-moment of $`h_{1\mathrm{L}}^{}`$ over the intrinsic quark transverse momentum $`k_\mathrm{T}`$. Assuming a vanishing $`h_{1\mathrm{L}}^{(1)}`$ , the number of unknown distribution functions can be reduced to one: $`h_\mathrm{L}h_1`$. The range of predictions, shown in Fig. 1, is obtained by varying $`h_1`$ between the two assumptions $`h_1=g_1`$ (non-relativistic limit) and $`h_1=(f_1+g_1)/2`$ (Soffer inequality), with the usual polarized and unpolarized distribution functions $`g_1`$ and $`f_1`$, respectively. In both cases a simple parameterisation for the spin-dependent time-reversal-odd fragmentation function $`H_1^{}`$ was adopted. The predictions are consistent with the measured $`\pi ^0`$ azimuthal asymmetries and describe the dependences on the kinematic variables. These new $`\pi ^0`$ data provide additional information also for other phenomenological approaches .
In summary, a single-spin azimuthal asymmetry for $`\pi ^0`$ production has been measured in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic lepton scattering off a longitudinally polarized proton target. The dependence of this asymmetry on the kinematic variables $`x`$, $`z`$, and $`P_{}`$ has been investigated. The results are similar to the previously measured azimuthal asymmetry for $`\pi ^+`$ electroproduction, while the $`\pi ^{}`$ asymmetry was consistent with zero. This finding can be well described by a model calculation where the asymmetry is interpreted as the effect of the convolution of a chiral-odd distribution function and a time-odd fragmentation function. The observed single-spin azimuthal asymmetries for neutral and charged pion electroproduction are consistent with the assumed $`u`$-quark dominance in both distribution and fragmentation functions. These results provide evidence in support of the existence of non-zero chiral-odd structures that describe the transverse polarization of quarks. New data are expected from future HERMES measurements on a transversely polarized target, which will give direct access to the transversity .
We thank M. Anselmino, R.L. Jaffe, A.M. Kotzinian, and P.J. Mulders for many interesting discussions on this subject. We gratefully acknowledge the DESY management for its support, the staffs at DESY, and the collaborating institutions for their significant effort, and our funding agencies for financial support. Additional support for this work was provided by the DAAD and INTAS, HCM, TMR network contributions from the European Community, and the U.S Department of Energy.