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# Quark-Hadron Duality and the Nuclear EMC Effect

## I Introduction

The modification of hadron properties in the nuclear environment is of fundamental importance in understanding the implications of QCD for nuclear physics. Over the past few years there has been considerable interest in possible changes to masses, charge radii and other hadron properties in the nuclear medium. There is a significant constraint on the possible change in the “radius” of a bound nucleon based on $`y`$-scaling of a bound nucleon — especially in 3He . On the other hand, the axial charge of the nucleon is known to be suppressed in nuclear $`\beta `$ decay, and a change in the charge radius of a bound proton provides a natural suppression of the Coulomb sum rule . One of the most famous nuclear medium effects — the nuclear EMC effect , or the change in the inclusive deep-inelastic structure function of a nucleus relative to that of a free nucleon — has stimulated theoretical and experimental efforts for almost two decades now which seek to understand the dynamics responsible for the change in the quark-gluon structure of the nucleon in medium .

The EMC effect illustrates an inherent difficulty in identifying genuine nuclear quark-gluon effects in a background of purely hadronic physics, such as conventional nuclear binding and Fermi motion, associated with the nuclear bound state. Most features of the nuclear to nucleon structure function ratio can be (at least qualitatively) understood in terms of conventional nuclear physics . On the other hand, some of these features can also be attributed to a modification of the intrinsic nucleon structure function in medium.

Recently the search for evidence of modification of nucleon properties in medium has been extended to electromagnetic form factors, in polarized $`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})`$ scattering experiments on 16O  and 4He  nuclei. These experiments measured the ratio of transverse to longitudinal polarization of the ejected protons, which for a free nucleon is proportional to the ratio of electric to magnetic elastic form factors ,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{G_E}{G_M}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_x^{}}{P_z^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{E+E^{}}{2M}}\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2),`$ (1)
where $`P_x^{}`$ and $`P_z^{}`$ are the transverse and longitudinal polarization transfer observables, $`E`$ and $`E^{}`$ the incident and recoil electron energies, $`\theta `$ the electron scattering angle, and $`M`$ the nucleon mass. Compared with the more traditional cross section measurements, polarization transfer experiments provide more sensitive tests of dynamics, especially of any in-medium changes in the form factor ratios. The feasibility of this technique was first demonstrated in the commissioning experiment at Jefferson Lab on 16O  nuclei at $`Q^2=0.8`$ GeV2. Unfortunately, the errors in this exploratory study were too large to draw firm conclusions about possible medium modification effects. In the subsequent experiment at MAMI on 4He  at $`Q^20.4`$ GeV2, which had much higher statistics, the polarization ratio in 4He was found to differ by $`10\%`$ from that in hydrogen.

Conventional models using free nucleon form factors and the best phenomenologically determined optical potentials and bound state wave functions, as well as relativistic corrections, meson exchange currents, isobar contributions and final state interactions , fail to account for the observed effect in 4He . Indeed, full agreement with the data was only obtained when, in addition to these standard nuclear corrections, a small change in the structure of the bound nucleon was taken into account . Regardless of the microscopic origin of the nucleon structure modification, if there are density dependent effects which modify the quark substructure of the nucleon, then these should leave traces in a variety of processes and observables, including structure functions and form factors.

Of course, one must caution that the study of off-shell nucleon effects is hampered with difficulties in unambiguously identifying effects associated with nucleon structure deformation . In principle, one can reshuffle strength from off-shell corrections to meson exchange currents or interaction terms , so that “off-shell effects” can only be identified after specifying a particular form of the interaction of a nucleon with the surrounding nuclear medium. Nevertheless, within a given model of the nucleus, one can study the capacity to simultaneously describe form factors and structure functions as well as static nuclear properties. It is in this context that we proceed with the discussion of the possible modifications of nucleon properties in the nuclear medium.

There has recently been considerable interest in the interplay between form factors and structure functions in the context of quark-hadron duality. As observed originally by Bloom and Gilman , the $`F_2`$ structure function measured in inclusive lepton scattering at low $`W`$ (where $`W`$ is the mass of the hadronic final state) generally follows a global scaling curve which describes high $`W`$ data, to which the resonance structure function averages. Furthermore, the equivalence of the averaged resonance and scaling structure functions appears to hold for each resonance region, over restricted intervals of $`W`$, so that the resonance–scaling duality also exists locally. These findings were dramatically confirmed in recent high-precision measurements of the proton and deuteron $`F_2`$ structure function at Jefferson Lab , which demonstrated that local duality works remarkably well for each of the low-lying resonances, including surprisingly the elastic, to rather low values of $`Q^2`$.

In this paper we use the concept of quark-hadron duality to relate the medium dependence of nucleon electromagnetic form factors to the medium dependence of nucleon structure functions. To the extent that local duality is a good approximation, these relations are model independent, and can in fact be used to test the self-consistency of the models. We find that the recent form factor data for a proton bound in 4He  place strong constraints on the medium modification of inclusive structure functions at large Bjorken-$`x`$. In particular, they appear to disfavor models in which the bulk of the nuclear EMC effect is attributed to deformation of the intrinsic nucleon structure off-shell – see e.g. Ref. .

In Section II we discuss the modification of nucleon electromagnetic form factors as inferred from the recent polarization transfer experiments. As found in the analysis of the data in Ref., amongst those models for which predictions were available, the modifications could only be understood within the context of the quark-meson coupling model . We therefore use this model to calculate the density dependence of the bound nucleon electromagnetic form factors. In Section III quark-hadron duality is used to relate the observed form factor modification to that which would be expected in the deep-inelastic structure functions. We briefly review the relevant features of Bloom-Gilman duality and compare the results of models with and without large medium modifications of the intrinsic nucleon structure. Finally, in Section IV we make concluding remarks and discuss implications of our results for future experiments.

## II Nuclear Medium Modification of Form Factors

Let us briefly review the medium modification of the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon, as suggested in the recent quasi-elastic scattering experiment on 4He . The data were analyzed using a variety of models, nonrelativistic and relativistic, based on conventional nucleon-nucleon potentials and well-established bound state wave functions, including corrections from meson exchange currents, final state interaction and other effects . The conventional models with the free nucleon form factors could produce a deviation of at most one half of a percent in the nuclear transverse to longitudinal ratio, $`P_x^{}/P_z^{}`$, compared with that in hydrogen, although spinor distortions in fully relativistic calculations were found to produce an effect of order 2–5% . The observed deviation, which was of order 10%, could only be explained by supplementing the conventional nuclear description with the effects associated with the modification of the nucleon internal structure. Even though the effect is currently only at the level of 1–2 standard deviations, it is of considerable interest and importance as the first relatively model independent indication of a change in the internal structure of the nucleon in a nuclear environment.

In the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model  the medium effects arise through the self-consistent coupling of phenomenological scalar $`(\sigma )`$ and vector $`(\omega _\mu ,\rho _\mu )`$ meson fields to confined valence quarks, rather than to the nucleons, as in Quantum Hadrodynamics . As a result, the internal structure of the bound nucleon is modified by the surrounding nuclear medium. The modification of the electromagnetic form factors of the bound nucleon has been studied using an improved cloudy bag model (CBM) , together with the QMC model . The improved CBM includes a Peierls-Thouless projection to account for center of mass and recoil corrections, and a Lorentz contraction of the internal quark wave function. In this study we calculate the change of the nucleon electromagnetic form factor in a nuclear medium as in Ref. .

Because the average nuclear densities for all existing stable nuclei heavier than deuterium lie in the range $`\frac{1}{2}\rho _0\rho \rho _0`$, where $`\rho _0=0.15`$ fm-3 is the normal nuclear matter density, we consider two specific nuclear densities ($`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\rho _0`$ and $`\rho =\rho _0`$) to give the upper and lower bounds for the change of the electromagnetic form factors (and structure functions at large $`x`$) of the bound nucleon. Furthermore, for the isoscalar 4He and 16O nuclei we neglect the tiny amount of charge symmetry breaking (due to the Coulomb force and the $`u`$ and $`d`$ current quark mass differences).

The Lagrangian density of the QMC model for symmetric nuclear matter is given by :

$`_{\mathrm{QMC}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\overline{\psi }_q(i\gamma ^\mu _\mu m_q)\psi _q\theta _VB\theta _V`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`g_\sigma ^q\overline{\psi }_q\sigma \psi _qg_\omega ^q\overline{\psi }_q\gamma ^\mu \omega _\mu \psi _q{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\omega ^2\omega ^\mu \omega _\mu ,`$ (3)
where $`\psi _q`$ is the quark field for a quark flavor $`q`$, $`B`$ is the bag constant, $`g_\sigma ^q`$ and $`g_\omega ^q`$ denote the quark-meson coupling constants, and $`\theta _V`$ is a step function equal to unity inside the confining volume and vanishing outside (the $`\rho _\mu `$ meson mean field vanishes in symmetric nuclear matter). In the mean field approximation, the meson fields are treated as classical fields, and the quark field inside the bag satisfies the equation of motion :

$$\left[i\gamma ^\mu _\mu m_q^{}g_\omega ^q\overline{\omega }\gamma ^0\right]\psi _q(x)=0,$$
(4)
where $`\overline{\sigma }`$ and $`\overline{\omega }`$ denote the constant mean values of the scalar and the time component of the vector field, respectively, in symmetric nuclear matter, and $`m_q^{}m_qg_\sigma ^q\overline{\sigma }`$ is the current quark mass in the nuclear medium (hereafter we denote the in-medium quantities by an asterisk ). The electromagnetic current is given by the sum of the contributions from the quark core and the pion cloud,

$`j^\mu (x)={\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}Q_qe\overline{\psi }_q(x)\gamma ^\mu \psi _q(x)ie[\pi ^{}(x)^\mu \pi (x)\pi (x)^\mu \pi ^{}(x)],`$ (5)
where $`Q_q`$ is the charge operator for a quark flavor $`q`$, and $`\pi (x)`$ destroys a negatively charged (or creates a positively charged) pion.

In the Breit frame the quark core contribution to the electromagnetic form factors of the bound nucleon is given by :

$`G_E(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2G_E^{\mathrm{sph}}(\eta ^2Q^2),`$ (7)
$`G_M(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\eta ^2G_M^{\mathrm{sph}}(\eta ^2Q^2),`$ (8)
where $`Q^2q^2=\stackrel{}{q}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$, and the scaling factor $`\eta =M^{}/E^{}`$, with $`E^{}=\sqrt{M_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+Q^2/4}`$ the energy and $`M^{}`$ the mass of the nucleon in medium, and $`G_{E,M}^{\mathrm{sph}}(Q^2)`$ are the form factors calculated with the static spherical bag wave function:

$`G_E^{\mathrm{sph}}(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D}}{\displaystyle d^3rj_0(Qr)f_q(r)K(r)},`$ (10)
$`G_M^{\mathrm{sph}}(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D}}{\displaystyle \frac{2M}{Q}}{\displaystyle d^3rj_1(Qr)\beta _qj_0(\omega _0r/R)j_1(\omega _0r/R)K(r)}.`$ (11)
Here $`f_q(r)=j_0^2(\omega _0r/R)+\beta _q^2j_1^2(\omega _0r/R)`$, where $`R`$ is the bag radius, $`\omega _0`$ the lowest eigenfrequency, and $`\beta _q^2=(\mathrm{\Omega }_qm_qR)/(\mathrm{\Omega }_q+m_qR)`$, with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q=\sqrt{\omega _0^2+m_q^2R^2}`$. The recoil function $`K(r)=d^3xf_q(\stackrel{}{x})f_q(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{r})`$ accounts for the correlation of the two spectator quarks, and $`D=d^3rf_q(r)K(r)`$ is the normalization factor. The scaling factor $`\eta `$ in the argument of $`G_{E,M}^{\mathrm{sph}}`$ arises from the coordinate transformation of the struck quark, and the prefactor in Eqs.(II) comes from the reduction of the integral measure of the two spectator quarks in the Breit frame.

The contribution from the pionic cloud is calculated along the lines of Ref. . Although the pion mass would be slightly smaller in the medium than in free space, the pion field has little effect on the proton form factors, so that we use $`m_\pi ^{}=m_\pi `$. Furthermore, since the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ isobar is treated on the same footing as the nucleon in the CBM, and because it contains three ground state light quarks, its mass should vary in a similar manner to that of the nucleon in the QMC model. As a first approximation we therefore take the in-medium and free space $`N`$$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mass splittings to be approximately equal, $`M_\mathrm{\Delta }^{}M^{}M_\mathrm{\Delta }M`$.

Including both the quark core and pion cloud contributions, the electric and magnetic form factors of the free and bound nucleons were calculated in Ref.. One finds that the modification of the bound nucleon form factors is 1–2% for the magnetic and of order 8% for the electric form factor, respectively, at normal nuclear matter density ($`\rho =\rho _0`$), and for $`Q^20.3`$ GeV2, when all form factors are normalized to unity at $`Q^2=0`$. Of course, in the present analysis the absolute value of the proton magnetic form factor at $`Q^2=0`$ (the magnetic moment), which is enhanced in medium, also plays an important role – as it did in the analysis of polarized $`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})`$ scattering experiments. The values of the current quark masses, $`m_qm_u=m_d=5`$ MeV, and the nucleon bag radius in free space, $`R=0.8`$ fm, are the same as those used in the earlier calculations which reproduce nuclear saturation properties, and which produced the good agreement with the form factor data in Ref.. None of the results for nuclear properties, however, depend strongly on the choice of parameters once the quark-meson coupling constants are fixed to reproduce the nuclear saturation properties. As shown in Ref., the dependence of the properties of finite nuclei on $`m_q`$ and $`R`$ is relatively weak.

The change in the ratio of the electric to magnetic form factors of the proton,

$`R_{EM}^p(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_E^p(Q^2)}{G_M^p(Q^2)}},`$ (12)
from free to bound, is illustrated in Fig. 1 for $`Q^2`$ up to 4 GeV2, for $`\rho =\rho _0`$ and $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\rho _0`$. Because of charge conservation, the value of $`G_E^p`$ at $`Q^2=0`$ remains unity for any $`\rho `$. On the other hand, the proton magnetic moment is enhanced in the nuclear medium, increasing with $`\rho `$, so that $`R_{EM}^p<R_{EM}^p`$ at $`Q^2=0`$. In fact, the electric to magnetic ratio is $`5\%`$ smaller in medium than in free space for $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\rho _0`$, and $`10\%`$ smaller for $`\rho =\rho _0`$. The effect increases with $`Q^2`$ out to $`2`$ GeV2, where the bound/free ratio deviates by $`20\%`$ from unity.

On the other hand, because nuclear density is not uniform throughout the nucleus, the $``$ 20% change in the form factors produces only a few % effect in the polarization ratio . The experiment not only probes the central region where $`\rho `$ is maximal, but also outer regions where $`\rho `$ is much smaller, so that integration over the entire nucleus dilutes the effect. Nevertheless, a form factor modification of this order of magnitude is needed to explain the observed effect . In the next section we examine the implications of the modification of the form factors for the medium modification of structure functions at large $`x`$.

## III Quark-Hadron Duality and Nucleon Structure Functions in Medium

The relationship between form factors and structure functions, or more generally between inclusive and exclusive processes, has been studied in a number of contexts over the years. Drell & Yan  and West  pointed out long ago that, simply on the basis of scaling arguments, the asymptotic behavior of elastic electromagnetic form factors as $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$ can be related to the $`x1`$ behavior of deep-inelastic structure functions. In perturbative QCD language, this can be understood in terms of hard gluon exchange : deep-inelastic scattering at $`x1`$ probes a highly asymmetric configuration in the nucleon in which one of the quarks goes far off-shell after the exchange of at least two hard gluons in the initial state; elastic scattering, on the other hand, requires at least two gluons in the final state to redistribute the large $`Q^2`$ absorbed by the recoiling quark .

More generally, the relationship between resonance (transition) form factors and the deep-inelastic continuum has been studied in the framework of quark-hadron, or Bloom-Gilman, duality: the equivalence of the averaged structure function in the resonance region and the scaling function which describes high $`W`$ data. The recent high precision Jefferson Lab data  on the $`F_2`$ structure function suggests that the resonance–scaling duality also exists locally, for each of the low-lying resonances, including surprisingly the elastic , to rather low values of $`Q^2`$.

In the context of QCD, Bloom-Gilman duality can be understood within an operator product expansion of moments of structure functions : the weak $`Q^2`$ dependence of the low $`F_2`$ moments can be interpreted as indicating that higher twist ($`1/Q^2`$ suppressed) contributions are either small or cancel. However, while allowing the duality violations to be identified and classified according to operators of a certain twist, it does not explain why some higher twist matrix elements are intrinsically small.

A number of recent studies have attempted to identify the dynamical origin of Bloom-Gilman duality using simple models of QCD . It was shown, for instance, that in a harmonic oscillator basis one can explicitly construct a smooth, scaling structure function from a set of infinitely narrow resonances . Although individual resonance contributions are suppressed by powers of $`1/Q^2`$, the number of states accessible increases with $`Q^2`$ so as to compensate the fall off, and as $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$ quark-hadron duality arises from the summation over a complete set of hadronic states. At lower $`Q^2`$, however, the appearance of duality could in some cases be accidental, for example, because of a fortuitous cancellation of off-diagonal terms in the valence quark charges in the proton , allowing a coherent process (exclusive form factors) to be expressed in terms of incoherent scattering (structure functions). Whatever the ultimate microscopic origin of Bloom-Gilman duality, for our purposes it will be sufficient to note the empirical fact that local duality is realized in lepton-proton scattering down to $`Q^20.5`$ GeV2 at the 10-20% level for the lowest moments of the structure function. In other words, here we are not concerned about why duality works, but rather that it works.

Motivated by the experimental verification of local duality, one can use measured structure functions in the resonance region to directly extract elastic form factors . Conversely, empirical electromagnetic form factors at large $`Q^2`$ can be used to predict the $`x1`$ behavior of deep-inelastic structure functions . The assumption of local duality for the elastic case implies that the area under the elastic peak at a given $`Q^2`$ is equivalent to the area under the scaling function, at much larger $`Q^2`$, when integrated from the pion threshold to the elastic point . Using the local duality hypothesis, de Rújula et al. , and more recently Ent et al. , extracted the proton’s magnetic form factor from resonance data on the $`F_2`$ structure function at large $`x`$, finding agreement to better than 30% over a large range of $`Q^2`$ ($`0.5Q^25`$ GeV2). In the region $`Q^21`$–2 GeV2 the agreement was at the $`10\%`$ level. An alternative parameterization of $`F_2`$ was suggested in Ref., which because of a different behavior in the unmeasured region $`\xi 0.86`$, where $`\xi =2x/(1+\sqrt{1+x^2/\tau })`$ is the Nachtmann variable, with $`\tau =Q^2/4M^2`$, led to larger differences at $`Q^24`$ GeV2. However, at $`Q^21`$ GeV2 the agreement with the form factor data was even better here. As pointed out in Ref., data at larger $`\xi `$ are needed to constrain the structure function parameterization, and reliably extract the form factor at larger $`Q^2`$. Furthermore, since we will be interested in ratios of form factors and structure functions only, what is more relevant for our analysis is not the degree to which local duality holds for the absolute structure functions, but rather the relative change in the duality approximation between free and bound protons.

Applying the argument in reverse, one can formally differentiate the local elastic duality relation  with respect to $`Q^2`$ to express the scaling functions, evaluated at threshold, $`x=x_{\mathrm{th}}=Q^2/(W_{\mathrm{th}}^2M^2+Q^2)`$, with $`W_{\mathrm{th}}=M+m_\pi `$, in terms of $`Q^2`$ derivatives of elastic form factors. In Refs. the $`x1`$ behavior of the neutron to proton structure function ratio was extracted from data on the elastic electromagnetic form factors. (Nucleon structure functions in the $`x1`$ region are important as they reflect mechanisms for the breaking of spin-flavor SU(6) symmetry in the nucleon .) Extending this to the case of bound nucleons, one finds that as $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$ the ratio of bound to free proton structure functions is:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2^p}{F_2^p}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dG_M^{p\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}/dQ^2}{dG_M^{p\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}/dQ^2}}.`$ (13)
At finite $`Q^2`$ there are corrections to Eq.(13) arising from $`G_E^p`$ and its derivatives, as discussed in Ref.. (In this analysis we use the full, $`Q^2`$ dependent expressions .) Note that in the nuclear medium, the value of $`x`$ at which the pion threshold arises is shifted:

$`x_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $``$ $`x_{\mathrm{th}}^{}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi (2M+m_\pi )+Q^2}{m_\pi (2(M^{}+V)+m_\pi )+Q^2}}\right)x_{\mathrm{th}},`$ (14)
where $`V=3g_\omega ^q\overline{\omega }`$ is the vector potential felt by the nucleon and (consistent with chiral expectations and phenomenological constraints) we have set $`m_\pi ^{}=m_\pi `$. However, the difference between $`x_{\mathrm{th}}`$ and $`x_{\mathrm{th}}^{}`$ has a negligible effect on the results for most values of $`x`$ considered.

Using the duality relations between electromagnetic form factors and structure functions, in Fig. 2 we plot the ratio $`F_2^p/F_2^p`$ as a function of $`x`$, with $`x`$ evaluated at threshold, $`x=x_{\mathrm{th}}`$ (solid lines). Note that at threshold the range of $`Q^2`$ spanned between $`x=0.5`$ and $`x=0.8`$ is $`Q^20.3`$–1.1 GeV2. Over the range $`0.5x0.75`$ the effect is almost negligible, with the deviation of the ratio from unity being $`1\%`$ for $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\rho _0`$ and $`2\%`$ for $`\rho =\rho _0`$. For $`x0.8`$ the effect increases to $`5\%`$, although, since larger $`x`$ corresponds to larger $`Q^2`$, the analysis in terms of the QMC model is less reliable here. However, in the region where the analysis can be considered reliable, the results based on the bound nucleon form factors inferred from the polarization transfer data  and local duality imply that the nucleon structure function undergoes very little modification in medium.

It is instructive to contrast this result with models of the EMC effect in which there is a large medium modification of nucleon structure. For example, let us consider the model of Ref., where it is assumed that for large $`x`$ the dominant contribution to the structure function is given by the point-like configurations (PLC) of partons which interact weakly with the other nucleons. The suppression of this component in a bound nucleon is assumed to be the main source of the EMC effect. This model represents one of the extreme possibilities that the EMC effect is solely the result of deformation of the wave function of bound nucleons, without attributing any contribution to nuclear pions or other effects associated with nuclear binding . Given that this model has been so successfully applied to describe the nuclear EMC effect, it is clearly important to examine its consequences elsewhere.

The deformation of the bound nucleon structure function in the PLC suppression model is governed by the function :

$`\delta (k)`$ $`=`$ $`12(k^2/2M+ϵ_A)/\mathrm{\Delta }E_A,`$ (15)
where $`k`$ is the bound nucleon momentum, $`ϵ_A`$ is the nuclear binding energy, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_A0.3`$–0.6 GeV is a nucleon excitation energy in the nucleus. For $`x0.6`$ the ratio of bound to free nucleon structure functions is then given by :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2^N(k,x)}{F_2^N(x)}}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta (k).`$ (16)
The $`x`$ dependence of the suppression effect is based on the assumption that the point-like configuration contribution in the nucleon wave function is negligible at $`x0.3`$ ($`F_2^N/F_2^N=1`$), and for $`0.3x0.6`$ one linearly interpolates between these values . The results for 4He and 16O are shown in Fig. 2 (dashed lines) for the average values of nucleon momentum, $`k^2`$, in each nucleus. The effect is a suppression of order 20% in the ratio $`F_2^N/F_2^N`$ for $`x0.6`$–0.7. In contrast, the ratios extracted on the basis of duality, using the QMC model constrained by the 4He polarization transfer data , show almost no suppression ($`1`$–2%) in this region. Thus, for 4He, the effect in the PLC suppression model is an order of magnitude too large at $`x0.6`$, and has the opposite sign for $`x0.65`$.

Although the results extracted from the polarization transfer measurements  rely on the assumption of local duality, we stress that the corrections to duality have been found to be typically less than 20% for $`0.5Q^22`$ GeV2 . The results therefore appear to rule out large bound structure function modifications, such as those assumed in the point-like configuration suppression model , and instead point to a small medium modification of the intrinsic nucleon structure, which is complemented by standard many-body nuclear effects.

As a consistency check on the analysis, one can also examine the change in the form factor of a bound nucleon that would be implied by the corresponding change in the structure function in medium. Namely, from the local duality relation :

$`\left[G_M^p(Q^2)\right]^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\xi _0}{\xi _0^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\tau )}{(1/\mu _p^2+\tau )}}{\displaystyle _{\xi _{\mathrm{th}}}^1}𝑑\xi F_2^p(\xi ),`$ (17)
one can extract the magnetic form factor by integrating the $`F_2^p`$ structure function over $`\xi `$ between threshold, $`\xi =\xi _{\mathrm{th}}`$, and $`\xi =1`$. Here $`\xi _0=\xi (x=1)`$, and $`\mu _p`$ is the proton magnetic moment. In Fig. 3 we show the PLC model predictions for the ratio of the magnetic form factor of a proton bound in 4He to that in vacuum, derived from Eqs.(16) and (17), using the parameterization for $`F_2^p(\xi )`$ from Ref., and an estimate for the in-medium value of $`\mu _p^{}`$ from Ref.. Taking the average nucleon momentum in the 4He nucleus, $`k=k`$, the result is a suppression of about 20% in the ratio $`G_M^p/G_M^p`$ at $`Q^21`$–2 GeV2 (solid curve). Since the structure function suppression in the PLC model depends on the nucleon momentum (Eq.(15)), we also show the resulting form factor ratio for a momentum typical in the $`(\stackrel{}{e},e^{}\stackrel{}{p})`$ experiment, $`k=50`$ MeV (long dashed). As expected, the effect is reduced, however, it is still of the order 15% since the suppression also depends on the binding energy, as well as on the nucleon mass, which changes with density rather than with momentum. In contrast, the QMC calculation, which is consistent with the MAMI 4He quasi-elastic data, produces a ratio which is typically 5–10% larger than unity (dashed). Without a very large compensating change in the in-medium electric form factor of the proton (which seems to be excluded by $`y`$-scaling constraints), the behavior of the magnetic form factor implied by the PLC model $`+`$ duality would produce a large enhancement of the polarization transfer ratio, rather than the observed small suppression .

## IV Conclusion

In this paper we have examined the consequences of quark-hadron duality applied to nucleons in the nuclear medium. Utilizing the experimental results  from polarized proton knockout reactions off 4He nuclei, which suggest a small but nonzero modification of the proton electromagnetic form factors in medium, we use local duality to relate model-independently the medium modified form factors to the change in the intrinsic structure function of a bound proton.

The analysis in Ref. found that, compared with conventional nuclear calculations, the medium modifications observed in the 4He data could only be described within models which allowed a small modification of the nucleon form factors in medium, such as the quark-meson coupling model  (see also Ref.). In the context of the QMC model, the change in nucleon form factors allowed by the data imply a modification of the in-medium structure function of $`1`$–2% at $`0.5x0.75`$ for all nuclear densities between nuclear matter density, $`\rho =\rho _0`$, and $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\rho _0`$. While the results rely on the validity of quark-hadron duality, the empirical evidence suggests that for low moments of the proton’s $`F_2`$ structure function the duality violations due to higher twist corrections are $`20\%`$ for $`Q^20.5`$ GeV2 , and decrease with increasing $`Q^2`$.

The results place rather strong constraints on models of the nuclear EMC effect, especially on models which assume that the EMC effect arises from a large deformation of the nucleon structure in medium. For example, we find that the PLC suppression model  predicts an effect which is about an order of magnitude larger than that allowed by the data , and has a different sign. The findings therefore appear to disfavor models with large medium modifications of structure functions as viable explanations for the nuclear EMC effect, although it would be desirable to have more data on a variety of nuclei and in different kinematical regions. The recently completed Jefferson Lab 4He polarization transfer experiment, which covered a large range of $`Q^2`$, between 0.5 GeV2 and 2.6 GeV2 , should provide valuable additional information. Preliminary results  indicate that the lowest $`Q^2`$ point is in very good agreement with the Mainz $`Q^2=0.4`$ GeV2 data point, which provides further support for the QMC description. In addition, the proposed Jefferson Lab experiment on 16O  at $`Q^2=0.8`$ GeV2, which would make use of other, high precision cross section data at this momentum transfer, would have about 15 times the statistics of the original commissioning experiment . This would enable a more thorough comparison of the medium dependence of form factors and structure functions for different nuclei.

These results have other important practical ramifications. For instance, the PLC suppression model was used recently  to argue that the EMC effects in 3He and 3H differ significantly at large $`x`$, in contrast to calculations  based on conventional nuclear physics using well-established bound state wave functions which show only small differences. Based on the findings presented here, one would conclude that the conventional nuclear physics description of the 3He/3H system should indeed be a reliable starting point for nuclear structure function calculations, as the available evidence suggests little room for large off-shell corrections. Finally, let us stress that quark-hadron duality is a powerful tool with which to simultaneously study the medium dependence of both exclusive and inclusive observables, and thus provides an extremely valuable guide towards a consistent picture of the effects of the nuclear environment on nucleon substructure.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank S. Strauch and S. Dieterich for helpful discussions and communications, D.H. Lu for providing the computer codes for the improved bag model form factor calculations, and J. Arrington for a helpful discussion. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council, and the U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC05-84ER40150, under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab).


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# Observation of B̄⁰→D⁰𝜋⁰ and B̄⁰→D^{∗0}𝜋⁰

## Abstract

We have studied the color-suppressed hadronic decays of neutral B mesons into the final states D(∗)0$`\pi ^0`$. Using 9.67 million $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ pairs collected with the CLEO detector, we observe the decays $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ with the branching fractions $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$) = ($`2.74_{0.32}^{+0.36}`$$`\pm `$0.55)$`\times `$10-4 and $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$) = ($`2.20_{0.52}^{+0.59}`$$`\pm `$0.79)$`\times `$10-4. The first error is statistical and the second systematic. The statistical significance of the $`\mathrm{D}^0`$$`\pi ^0`$ signal is 12.1$`\sigma `$ (5.9$`\sigma `$ for $`\mathrm{D}^0`$$`\pi ^0`$). Utilizing the $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ branching fractions we determine the strong phases $`\delta _{I,D()}`$ between isospin 1/2 and 3/2 amplitudes in the $`\mathrm{D}\pi `$ and $`\mathrm{D}^{}\pi `$ final states to be $`\mathrm{cos}\delta _{I,D}`$=0.89$`\pm `$0.08 and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta _{I,D}`$=0.89$`\pm `$0.08, respectively.

preprint:   CLNS 01/1755 CLEO 01-18

T. E. Coan,1 Y. S. Gao,1 F. Liu,1 Y. Maravin,1 I. Narsky,1 R. Stroynowski,1 J. Ye,1 M. Artuso,2 C. Boulahouache,2 K. Bukin,2 E. Dambasuren,2 R. Mountain,2 T. Skwarnicki,2 S. Stone,2 J.C. Wang,2 A. H. Mahmood,3 S. E. Csorna,4 I. Danko,4 Z. Xu,4 G. Bonvicini,5 D. Cinabro,5 M. Dubrovin,5 S. McGee,5 A. Bornheim,6 E. Lipeles,6 S. P. Pappas,6 A. Shapiro,6 W. M. Sun,6 A. J. Weinstein,6 G. Masek,7 H. P. Paar,7 R. Mahapatra,8 R. J. Morrison,8 H. N. Nelson,8 R. A. Briere,9 G. P. Chen,9 T. Ferguson,9 G. Tatishvili,9 H. Vogel,9 N. E. Adam,10 J. P. Alexander,10 C. Bebek,10 K. Berkelman,10 F. Blanc,10 V. Boisvert,10 D. G. Cassel,10 P. S. Drell,10 J. E. Duboscq,10 K. M. Ecklund,10 R. Ehrlich,10 L. Gibbons,10 B. Gittelman,10 S. W. Gray,10 D. L. Hartill,10 B. K. Heltsley,10 L. Hsu,10 C. D. Jones,10 J. Kandaswamy,10 D. L. Kreinick,10 A. Magerkurth,10 H. Mahlke-Krüger,10 T. O. Meyer,10 N. B. Mistry,10 E. Nordberg,10 M. Palmer,10 J. R. Patterson,10 D. Peterson,10 J. Pivarski,10 D. Riley,10 A. J. Sadoff,10 H. Schwarthoff,10 M. R .Shepherd,10 J. G. Thayer,10 D. Urner,10 B. Valant-Spaight,10 G. Viehhauser,10 A. Warburton,10 M. Weinberger,10 S. B. Athar,11 P. Avery,11 C. Prescott,11 H. Stoeck,11 J. Yelton,11 G. Brandenburg,12 A. Ershov,12 D. Y.-J. Kim,12 R. Wilson,12 K. Benslama,13 B. I. Eisenstein,13 J. Ernst,13 G. D. Gollin,13 R. M. Hans,13 I. Karliner,13 N. Lowrey,13 M. A. Marsh,13 C. Plager,13 C. Sedlack,13 M. Selen,13 J. J. Thaler,13 J. Williams,13 K. W. Edwards,14 R. Ammar,15 D. Besson,15 X. Zhao,15 S. Anderson,16 V. V. Frolov,16 Y. Kubota,16 S. J. Lee,16 S. Z. Li,16 R. Poling,16 A. Smith,16 C. J. Stepaniak,16 J. Urheim,16 S. Ahmed,17 M. S. Alam,17 L. Jian,17 M. Saleem,17 F. Wappler,17 E. Eckhart,18 K. K. Gan,18 C. Gwon,18 T. Hart,18 K. Honscheid,18 D. Hufnagel,18 H. Kagan,18 R. Kass,18 T. K. Pedlar,18 J. B. Thayer,18 E. von Toerne,18 M. M. Zoeller,18 S. J. Richichi,19 H. Severini,19 P. Skubic,19 S.A. Dytman,20 S. Nam,20 V. Savinov,20 S. Chen,21 J. W. Hinson,21 J. Lee,21 D. H. Miller,21 V. Pavlunin,21 E. I. Shibata,21 I. P. J. Shipsey,21 D. Cronin-Hennessy,22 A.L. Lyon,22 C. S. Park,22 W. Park,22 and E. H. Thorndike22

1Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275

2Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244

3University of Texas - Pan American, Edinburg, Texas 78539

4Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37235

5Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202

6California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

7University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093

8University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106

9Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

10Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853

11University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

12Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

13University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801

14Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6

and the Institute of Particle Physics, Canada

15University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045

16University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

17State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222

18Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210

19University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019

20University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

21Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907

22University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627

The decay $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ proceeds predominantly through the internal spectator diagram shown in Fig. 1. This diagram is color-suppressed, since the color of the quark-pair originating from the W decay must match the color of the other quark pair. The rate of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ relative to $`\mathrm{B}^{}\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^{}`$ is suppressed, crudely, by one factor of (1/3)2, and an additional $`(1/\sqrt{2})^2`$ due to the projection of the $`\mathrm{d}\overline{\mathrm{d}}`$ state onto the pion wave function . This gives a total suppression of 1/18 compared to the color-favored decay modes. Detailed theoretical calculations  predict an even larger suppression of about a factor 1/50.

So far the only established color-suppressed decays are two-body B decays into Charmonium plus neutral hadrons. A measurement of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ is therefore a benchmark test for theoretical models of hadronic B decays. An investigation of color-suppressed decays into a D meson and light neutral mesons other than a $`\pi ^0`$ is currently underway and will be addressed in a future publication.

The observation of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ completes the measurement of $`\mathrm{D}^{()}\pi `$ final states and allows us to extract the strong phase difference between isospin 1/2 and 3/2 amplitudes .

In this Letter we present the observation of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$, superseding the limits from our previous publication . Our new analysis has significantly increased statistics and is based on a data sample with improved calibration and track reconstruction. The background shapes and the signal separation power have also been significantly improved. Charge conjugates are implied throughout the paper. Our analysis uses e+e- annihilation data recorded with the CLEO detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. The integrated luminosity of our data sample is 9.15 fb-1 for data collected on the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4\mathrm{S})`$ (on-resonance), corresponding to 9.67 million $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ pairs, and 4.35 fb-1 collected 60 MeV below the $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ threshold (off-resonance), which is used for background studies.

CLEO is a general purpose solenoidal magnet detector. Data were recorded with two detector configurations, CLEO II and CLEO II.V . Cylindrical drift chambers in a 1.5T solenoidal magnetic field measure momentum and specific ionization (dE/dx) of charged particles. Photons are detected using a CsI(Tl) crystal electromagnetic calorimeter, consisting of a barrel-shaped central part of 6144 crystals and 1656 crystals in the forward regions of the detector (endcaps). In the II.V configuration the innermost chamber was replaced by a three-layer, double-sided silicon microvertex detector, and the main drift chamber gas was changed from argon-ethane to a helium-propane mixture. As a result of these modifications, the CLEO II.V part of the data (2/3 of the total sample) has improved momentum resolution and particle identification.

B mesons were reconstructed by selecting high-momentum D(∗)0 and $`\pi ^0`$ mesons. Track quality requirements are imposed on charged tracks and the purity of pion and kaons is improved by using dE/dx information whenever available. The $`\pi ^0`$ candidates are reconstructed from isolated electromagnetic clusters of at least 30 MeV in the barrel region and 50 MeV in the endcaps. The mass resolution is 8 MeV in the barrel region and 10 MeV in the endcaps. We require that the candidate’s mass is within $`2.5`$ standard deviations ($`\sigma `$) of the nominal $`\pi ^0`$ mass. Prompt $`\pi ^0`$’s from B decays are required to have a momentum larger than 1.8 GeV.

$`\mathrm{D}^0`$ mesons are selected in the decay modes $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{K}^{}\pi ^+`$, $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{K}^{}\pi ^+\pi ^0`$ and $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{K}^{}\pi ^+\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. The invariant mass of the D daughter particles is required to be within $`2.5`$ $`\sigma `$ of the known $`\mathrm{D}^0`$ mass. The mass resolution depends on the decay mode and is between 6 and 12 MeV. The momentum of the $`\mathrm{D}^0`$ is required to be larger than 1.65 GeV. In the $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{K}^{}\pi ^+\pi ^0`$ mode we suppress combinatorial background by using only certain regions of the Dalitz plane.

$`\mathrm{D}^0`$ mesons are selected in the decay modes $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ and $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{D}^0\gamma `$. To reduce the combinatorial background in the decay mode $`\mathrm{D}^0\mathrm{D}^0\gamma `$ we require that the $`\mathrm{D}^0`$ decays into $`\mathrm{K}^{}\pi ^+`$. We require that the mass difference m$`_{\mathrm{D}^0}`$-m$`_{\mathrm{D}^0}`$ is within $`2.5\sigma `$ of the known value and that the momentum of the $`\mathrm{D}^0`$ is larger than 1.8 GeV. The kinematic resolution of $`\pi ^0`$ and D(∗)0 candidates is improved by a mass-constrained kinematic fit.

B decay candidates are selected from $`\pi ^0`$ and D(∗)0 pairings that have no electromagnetic clusters in common. B candidates are identified using a beam-constrained mass $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}=\sqrt{\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{beam}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{p}_\mathrm{B}^2}`$, where $`\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{beam}}`$ is the beam energy and $`\mathrm{p}_\mathrm{B}`$ is the B candidate momentum, and an energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}=\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{D}+\mathrm{E}_{\pi ^0}\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{beam}}`$, where $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{D}`$ and $`\mathrm{E}_{\pi ^0}`$ are the energies of the D(∗)0 and $`\pi ^0`$. The resolution in $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$ depends on the D decay mode and is between 3.5 and 4 MeV. The resolution is dominated by the beam energy spread and the $`\pi ^0`$ energy resolution. The resolution in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$ is between 35 and 40 MeV. The energy resolution is slightly asymmetric due to the energy loss out of the back of the CsI crystals. The mass-constrained kinematic fit to the pion 4-momentum compensates for most of this effect. We accept B candidates with $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$ above 5.24 GeV and $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}|`$ $`<`$ 300 MeV. To better suppress background from $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}`$ events (continuum background), several event shape variables are combined into a Fisher discriminant $`_\mathrm{D}`$. For $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ events (continuum background), the $`_\mathrm{D}`$ distribution is almost a Gaussian and has its maximum at 0.42 (0.57). The standard deviation is 0.11 (0.12). The separation between the $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ and continuum distributions is 1.3 $`\sigma `$. We reject clear continuum events by requiring $`_\mathrm{D}`$$`<`$ 1. For each candidate we calculate the sphericity vectors of the B daughter particles and of the rest of the event. We require the cosine of the angle between these two vectors to be within -0.8 and 0.8. The distribution of this angle is strongly peaked at $`\pm `$1 for continuum background and is nearly flat for $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ events.

The number of signal events in the sample is obtained from unbinned, extended maximum likelihood fits. The free parameters of the fits are the number of signal events, background from B decays ($`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$) and from continuum e+e- annihilation (continuum). Four variables are used as input to the maximum likelihood fit: the beam-constrained mass $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$, the energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$, the Fisher Discriminant $`_\mathrm{D}`$, and the cosine of the decay angle of the B $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{BHel}.}`$, defined as the angle between the D(∗) momentum and the B flight direction calculated in the B rest frame.

In each of the fits, the likelihood of the B candidate is the sum of probabilities for the signal and two background hypotheses with relative weights maximizing the likelihood. The probability of a particular hypothesis is the product of probability density functions (PDFs) for each of the input variables. The PDFs for $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$ are represented by a bifurcated Gaussian for signal, an empirical shape, $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}\sqrt{(1x^2)}\mathrm{exp}(E_{fact}(1x^2))`$, with $`x=\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{E}_{\mathrm{beam}}`$, for continuum and a Gaussian on top of the empirical background shape***The parameters of the empirical shapes for $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ and Continuum background are different. for $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$; the PDFs for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$ are the sum of two Gaussians with a common mean (signal), 1st-order polynomial (continuum) and a sum of two Gaussians plus a 1st-order polynomial ($`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$); the PDFs for $`_\mathrm{D}`$ are the sum of two Gaussians with a common mean; and the PDFs for $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{BHel}.}`$ are 2nd-order polynomials. The PDF parameters are determined from off-resonance CLEO data (continuum) and from high-statistics Monte-Carlo (MC) samples (signal and $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$).

Monte Carlo experiments are generated to test the fitting procedure and to obtain the relation between fit yield and signal branching fractions. The experiments are repeated several hundred times with different Monte Carlo test samples randomly selected from high-statistics MC samples.

We summarize the results of the fits to CLEO data in Table I. We give results for all B decay modes, corresponding D decay modes and the combination of all D decay modes. We combine the results for different D decay modes by adding the log likelihood as a function of the branching fraction. Branching fractions for each mode are obtained via

$`(\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Yield}_{\mathrm{fit}}}{\epsilon \times (\mathrm{D}^{()})\times \mathrm{N}(\mathrm{B}^0,\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0)}}`$The number of $`\mathrm{B}^0`$ plus $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0`$, $`\mathrm{N}(\mathrm{B}^0,\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0)`$=9.67 M $`\pm `$ 0.10 M, is derived assuming equal branching fractions for charged and neutral B meson decays . The uncertainty in the branching fractions of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4\mathrm{S})`$ is taken into account in the systematics. The significances of the observed signals in the seven fits is determined from the change in -2$`\mathrm{log}`$ when refit with the signal yield constrained to zero: $`significance=\sqrt{2(\mathrm{log}\mathrm{log}_{\mathrm{N}_{\mathrm{Sig}}=0})}`$. We obtain a total significance of 12.1$`\sigma `$ for $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ and 5.9$`\sigma `$ for $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$. Varying the PDF shapes within the systematic errors to obtain the lowest signal yield, the statistical significance is reduced to 9.4$`\sigma `$ ($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$) and 4.2$`\sigma `$ ($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$). We obtain branching fractions of $`(\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0)`$ = $`(2.74_{0.32}^{+0.36}\pm 0.55)\times 10^4`$ and $`(\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0)`$ = $`(2.20_{0.52}^{+0.59}\pm 0.79)\times 10^4`$. The first error is statistical and the second error systematic. Our result for $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ is higher than the previous CLEO upper limit . We ascribe this disagreement, which is of the order of $`3.1`$ $`\sigma `$, partly to a statistical fluctuation and partly to the description of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$-background in the old CLEO publication.

We consider sources of systematic uncertainties from the PDF shapes, D and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4\mathrm{S})`$ branching ratios, luminosity, possible fit bias, B candidate reconstruction and cross-feed between different modes. The dominant systematic uncertainty comes from the PDF shapes. The systematic uncertainty on the shapes is derived by varying the PDF shapes within the statistical errors of the fit parametrization as well as comparing the CLEO data in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$ and $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$ sideband regions to the PDF shapes and taking differences as systematic errors. Figures 2 and 3 show our results for $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ with the number of signal, $`\mathrm{B}\overline{\mathrm{B}}`$ and Continuum background as free parameters of the fit. The fit result is projected into a signal region, defined in the $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$-$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$ plane as $`0.05`$ $`<`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{E}`$ $`<`$ $`0.05`$ GeV, $`5.275`$ $`<`$ $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{B}`$ $`<`$ $`5.285`$ GeV. The fit results describe the data well. The background in the sidebands is also well modeled by the fit.

The observation of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$ completes the measurement of D$`{}_{}{}^{()}\pi `$ final states. This allows us to calculate the relative phase between the isospin 1/2 and 3/2 amplitudes in the D$`{}_{}{}^{()}\pi `$ system. The basic relation can be expressed in an amplitude triangle: $`𝒜(\overline{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0}}\pi ^+)=𝒜(\mathrm{D}^{}\pi ^+)+\sqrt{2}𝒜(\overline{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0}}\pi ^0)`$, following the formulation in . With the PDG values  $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0}}`$$`\pi ^+`$) = (53$`\pm `$5)$`\times `$10-4, $``$($`\mathrm{D}^{}`$$`\pi ^+`$) = (30$`\pm `$4)$`\times `$10-4, $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{D}}^0`$$`\pi ^+`$) = (46$`\pm `$4)$`\times `$10-4, $``$($`\mathrm{D}^{}`$$`\pi ^+`$) = (27.6$`\pm `$2.1)$`\times `$10-4, $`\tau (B^+)/\tau (B^0)`$ = $`1.073\pm 0.027`$, and our measurement of $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^{()0}\pi ^0`$, we determine the relative phase between the isospin amplitudes to be $`\mathrm{cos}\delta _{I,D}=`$0.89$`\pm `$0.08 for the $`\mathrm{D}\pi `$ final state and $`\mathrm{cos}\delta _{I,D}`$=0.89$`\pm `$0.08 for $`\mathrm{D}^{}\pi `$. The ratios of isospin amplitudes $`\mathrm{A}_{1/2}/\mathrm{A}_{3/2}`$ are 0.70$`\pm `$0.11 ($`\mathrm{D}\pi `$) and 0.74$`\pm `$0.08 ($`\mathrm{D}^{}\pi `$). A similar calculation has been performed in  using our preliminary results  and preliminary results obtained by the Belle collaboration .

Models of hadronic B decay  have successfully described experimental results using two phenomenological parameters, $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$, that characterize non-factorizable contributions. Both are believed to be process-dependent but so far experimental data have been consistent with universal values for $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$. Recent work by Beneke, Buchalla, Neubert and Sachrajda  has shown that $`a_1`$ is only slightly process-dependent. Based on our $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ measurement, we derive a value $`a_2`$=0.57$`\pm `$0.06. Comparing our result to the $`a_2`$ value from two-body B decays to charmonium, $`a_2`$=0.29 , the process dependence of $`a_2`$ is favored .

To summarize we observed the color-suppressed decays $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$. The number of signal events in our data sample was obtained from an unbinned extended maximum likelihood fit in four variables. The measurements of the two branching fractions are $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$) = ($`2.74_{0.32}^{+0.36}`$$`\pm `$0.55)$`\times `$10-4 and $``$($`\overline{\mathrm{B}}^0\mathrm{D}^0\pi ^0`$) = ($`2.20_{0.52}^{+0.59}`$$`\pm `$0.79)$`\times `$10-4. The first error is statistical and the second systematic. The statistical significance of the $`\mathrm{D}^0`$$`\pi ^0`$ signal is 12.1$`\sigma `$ (5.9$`\sigma `$ for $`\mathrm{D}^0`$$`\pi ^0`$).

We gratefully acknowledge the effort of the CESR staff in providing us with excellent luminosity and running conditions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Research Corporation and the Texas Advanced Research Program.


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# Infall variability in the Classical T Tauri system VZ Cha

## 1 Introduction

Classical T Tauri stars (CTTS) accrete material through circumstellar discs at a rate of $`10^8`$ to $`10^7`$ Myr-1 (Gullbring et al 1998). This accretion leads to strong infrared and ultraviolet excess continuum emission, and the formation of emission lines. Absorption features relative to the mean profile are often seen in the red wings of emission lines (Edwards et al 1994) and indicate free-falling material in the line of sight (e.g. Bonnell et al, 1998). Coupled with various other factors such as generally rapid rotation rates, apparent star-disc rotation locking and the occasional presence of photospheric spots, these suggest that the inner part of the circumstellar disc is truncated by a strong stellar magnetic field and the accreting material is channelled down the field lines onto the star (Königl, 1991). This picture is analogous to models developed for magnetic neutron star systems (e.g. Ghosh & Lamb 1978 and following papers), and became more firmly established for CTTS with the detection of kilogauss-strength magnetic fields in small samples of T Tauri systems (Basri et al, 1992, Guenther et al 1999, Johns-Krull et al 1999). The geometry and detailed nature of the magnetically funnelled accretion process remain poorly understood, and are of importance if we are to understand both accretion and related phenomena such as jets and outflows or the regulation of the star’s angular momentum during pre-main sequence evolution. A crucial initial question is whether the field is a large-scale ordered dipole, presumably tilted with respect to the stellar rotation axis, or whether it has more complex structure, perhaps similar to scaled-up magnetic loops in the Solar corona. In the former case we expect to see either one or two distinct accretion streams pass through the line of sight in each rotation period. In the latter case, there could in principle be any number of loops. Solar active regions can persist for weeks and by analogy we would expect T Tauri magnetic structures to survive at least for timescales comparable to the rotation period.

Modelling the optical spectroscopic appearance of these regions, which will be ultimately necessary for comparison with spectral variations, is problematic as full radiative transfer models are needed. Line profile modelling has been undertaken in an attempt to reproduce the observed hydrogen line profiles (Hartmann et al 1994, Muzerolle et al 1998). Line profiles were modelled as being due to the velocity distribution of the infalling material in the magnetosphere. The profiles produced were in good agreement with observed profiles, although no wind component was considered and Stark broadening was needed to explain the very broad profile of H$`\alpha `$. Temperatures in the magnetosphere would need to be of the order of 7000 - 10,000 K, and the heating mechanism required is not specified, although magnetic effects (i.e. reconnection) would be a reasonable assumption.

The line profiles, and in particular the redshifted absorption components, are typically found to be strongly variable, and this is usually explained as being caused by accretion streams crossing the observer’s line of sight as the system rotates. This implies an azimuthally-asymmetric accretion geometry. The simplest such geometry would be a dipole inclined to the stellar rotation axis, a situation which might be expected in any case by analogy with the Sun. Together with knowledge of the rotation period provided by previous photometric work, these variations could in principle be used to reveal the detailed structure of the magnetically dominated inner regions. It seems that non-axisymmetric models are applicable in at least some cases. For example, Kenyon et al (1994) observed photometric variability of the extremely active CTTS DR Tau which was modelled as being due to a hot spot on the surface. This spot was identified as the accretion shock at the base of an accretion stream, indicating either a tilted dipole or a non-global field geometry. Hessman and Guenther (1997) observed quasi-periodic variations in the fluxes of the major emission lines of DR Tau and DG Tau, attributed also to rotational modulation of the emitting accretion shock. Smith et al (1998) also observed DR Tau, and reported varying redshifted absorption, consistent with one of several previously detected photometric periods and therefore suggestive of a rotating accretion stream being carried through the observer’s line of sight. Analysis of equivalent width variations from the same data set revealed time lags of several hours between the four lowest Balmer lines and Ca II H and K, with the higher Balmer lines varying before the lower ones (Smith et al, 1999). In the rotating-streams scenario, this would indicate that the variations of the different Balmer lines are linked but spatially displaced in some way. The most likely explanation is that the proportion of flux in the Balmer lines varies along the accretion stream, with the higher lines having a larger proportion from close to the hot accretion shock on the stellar surface. There is some evidence for this from the line flux modelling of Muzerolle et al (1998). The interpretation proposed was that the time lags were the signature of a stream moving over the limb, the hot dense regions near the star being seen first with decreasing occultation by overlying stream material, then disappearing over the limb.

Analysis of line profiles at high resolution for SU Aur was made by Johns and Basri (1995). They reported evidence of both infalling and outflowing components, which seemed to vary periodically with a 180 phase difference. The interpretation was an “egg-beater” model in which a rotating inclined stellar dipole field disrupts a disk and is responsible for powering a disk wind. This model resembles models proposed by Shu et al (1994) and also Paatz and Camenzind (1996) in which a dipole stellar field powers an outflow from the inner disc. A major outstanding question is how these disc wind models would behave if the dipole field were non-axisymmetric, in particular, whether the outflow would originate from only those regions of the inner disc edge where the stellar field was locally strongest.

MUSICOS observations of SU Aur allowed this object to be monitored at high spectral resolution continuously over 10 nights (Oliveira et al, 2000). Profile variability of the principal Balmer lines and also Na I and He I D3 (5876 Å) was monitored. An approximate half period shift was found between the variation of the red and blue wings of H$`\beta `$, indicating outflow and infall are approximately in antiphase. Smaller time lags were found between the He I line and the redshifted component of H$`\beta `$, both supposedly formed close to the stellar surface. The authors attribute this to an eclipse of a twisted accretion stream. The twisting is then interpreted as being caused by the differential rotation between the star and inner disc creating toroidal field.

Despite these tentative successes in understanding T Tauri environments in terms of an inclined dipole scenario, the possibility remains that the spectral variations may be caused by non-rotational effects. Variable accretion rates or magnetic reconnection in the magnetosphere would be candidates to produce such variations. The buildup of toroidal field by shear between disc and star would need to be dissipated if the field geometry is to be maintained, which leads us to expect some reconnection, with associated plasma heating and hence variability. Meanwhile, a persistant problem in the channeled accretion scenario is the loading of material onto the field lines before it can fall onto the star. Simulations by Miller & Stone (1997) illustrate this for an aligned dipole geometry. The field lines in the disc plane are forced to bow inwards by the pressure of accretion through the disc, creating a local potential minimum from which disc material cannot escape. Accretion through the disc proceeds to build up material in this potential well, until the accretion pressure overwhelms the field and the material accretes at the stellar equator. This process could perhaps be circumvented in a non-aligned dipole geometry, but the possibility of unsteady accretion, through this or another mechanism, remains. Examples of models based on variable accretion include a “beat frequency” model proposed by Smith et al (1995), which is analogous to that envisaged for low mass X-ray binaries, to produce quasi-periodically varying accretion from the inner disc. Ultchin et al (1997) suggested a model in which blobs of disc material are dislodged from the disc by stellar magnetic field and orbit the star, impacting either on the star or disc and giving rise to variations.

The situation in the centre of T Tauri systems is therefore far from clear. The cartoon picture of the star having an ordered dipole field, which then channels smooth accretion flows onto the magnetic poles, is almost certainly a crude simplification, although it seems that elements of it are useful. The full picture is too complex for detailed modelling to be a viable strategy. We must therefore continue to glean clues to the morphology of the magnetosphere through further observations.

In the current study, we present spectroscopic observations of the CTTS VZ Cha over five consecutive nights, corresponding to two and a half times the rotation period. On some nights, we obtained several spectra and so we are able to comment on variations on timescales of hours. We observed extreme profile variability of several different types, including redshifted absorption and emission, blue shifted absorption and emission, and equivalent width variability. We describe this variability and attempt to decompose the profiles into distinct components. We then examine the behaviour of the line components in the context of variable accretion and rotational modulation pictures.

## 2 VZ Cha

VZ Cha is a Classical T Tauri star with a K6 type photosphere. It is located in the Chamaeleon low mass star forming region at a distance of approximately 160pc. The apparent V magnitude is 12.75 and highly variable (Herbig & Bell, 1988). The star is a strong H$`\alpha `$ emitter. The continuum veiling has not been previously measured, but the lack of any absorption lines in our blue spectra suggests the star is heavily veiled. Intermediate-resolution spectroscopy by Appenzeller et al (1983) revealed redshifted absorption at H$`\beta `$. Higher resolution spectroscopy then established the presence of various interesting spectroscopic phenomena, such as He II emission (indicative of hot plasma), blue shifted emission at a velocity of 189 kms-1 at H$`\alpha `$ and redshifted absorption in the Balmer lines at velocities of around 240 kms-1 (Krautter et al, 1990). Drissen et al (1989) found linear polarization, indicating the presence of a circumstellar disc. A photometric period of 2.56 days was found by Batalha et al (1998), which is at odds with previously reported photometric periods of around 7 days (Kappelman and Mauder 1981, Mauder and Sosna 1975) although it should be noted that these last two studies were not based on sufficient data to derive statistically significant periods, but rather found suggestive evidence of periods in lightcurves when examined by eye. A $`K`$-band speckle survey for binarity by Ghez et al (1996) did not detect any close companion, the limiting flux ratio being approximately 1 for a sky separation down to 0.1 arcsec (16AU at 160pc).

## 3 The observations

The observations were carried out between 6/7 and 10/11 May 1998 with the 2.3m ANU telescope, at the Siding Spring observatory in New South Wales, Australia. The instrument used was the dual beam spectrograph. Gratings of 1200 lines/mm were employed in each arm. This allowed us to observe (at first order) the spectral region from approximately 3900Å to 4880Å in the blue, and from approximately 5680Å to 6640Å in the red arm. Because our sensitivity was greater in the red, we were able to obtain several exposures of the red spectrum for every blue exposure. The data were reduced using standard IRAF111IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by AURA under co-operative agreement with the National Science Foundation. routines. The dispersion was approximately 0.5Å per pixel in each arm. The FWHM of a typical unblended arc line was found to be approximately 2.0Å. The wavelength scale was calibrated by reference to arc spectra observed during the run. The RMS of the fits to the arc-lines was found to range between 0.08 and 0.15Å.

No photometric standards were observed, since the observations were not carried out in photometric conditions. The continuum was therefore removed by fitting with a Chebyshev polynomial and dividing it out.

## 4 Analysis

Various types of profile variability were seen, including redshifted and blueshifted emission and redshifted absorption. This variability occured predominantly on night-to-night timescales. The clearest variation was the appearance of Inverse P Cygni (IPC) type profiles on nights three and five. The pixel by pixel standard deviation across the profiles of the six strongest lines was computed and is shown in Figure 1. For comparison an average profile constructed by taking the mean of all the available spectra, excluding the minimum and maximum at each pixel to prevent unwanted effects due to outliers, is also shown. For the Balmer lines at least, the variability seems to be divided into two main components, one in the blue wing and one in the red wing. We estimate the red component to lie at a velocity relative to the line centre (measured from the average profile) of approximately 70kms-1, a value which remains more or less constant from H$`\alpha `$ through to H$`\delta `$. The varying component in the blue wing steadily increases in velocity shift from around 50kms-1 in the case of H$`\delta `$ up to 130kms-1 for H$`\alpha `$. The shape of the average H$`\alpha `$ profile appears to have a blue hump, indicating a wind component which is present to some extent most of the time. To further quantify this variability, we subtracted the average spectrum from each of the programme spectra to obtain a measure of the variable residual emission at different times.

### 4.1 Description of line profile variations

The spectra, average profiles, and residuals are plotted in Figure 2. Variations on both sides of the profiles are seen. Below, we describe the features seen in the residual profiles. We note first that some care must be taken when describing lack of emission in a profile relative to the average profile. Where the actual profile dips below the continuum level (which in Figure 2 is at the zero flux level), we can be sure that absorption is occuring. However, where there is a lack of flux relative to the continuum, but the spectrum does not dip below the continuum, we may be seeing absorption or merely a comparative lack of emission. Hereafter we will refer to the former case as absorption and to the latter as a deficit of emission, in contrast to excess emission.

Classical T Tauri spectra typically contain a strong excess continuum which veils the stellar spectrum. This veiling continuum is variable and this will cause variations in the equivalent widths of the emission lines. Attempts were made to measure the veiling variations amongst our red spectra by measuring the variation of absorption lines (the blue spectra contained no significant absorption lines at all). These lines would be assumed to be purely photospheric. The most prominent absorption features available were the Na D lines at about 5890Å,. These revealed variations which were apparently slightly anticorrelated with the equivalent width variations of the Balmer lines. This would be expected from variable veiling, but also from filling-in of the absorption lines by extra line flux. Since the Na D lines have been seen to show some non-photospheric emission flux in other CTTS (Edwards et al 1994), we regard our veiling estimates as unreliable and have not included them. Variations in the veiling will of course produce variations in the emission line strength across the whole profile.

The higher Balmer lines (from H$`\beta `$ onwards) and Ca II H and K show clear evidence of redshifted and blueshifted excess emission early in the run (nights one and two). H$`\alpha `$ by contrast shows excess red emission and a deficit on the blue side of the line. A central emission component appears and grows in the H$`\alpha `$ profile over nights one and two, whilst the blue deficit diminishes. By night three, the excess in the higher Balmer and Ca II lines has given way to a general emission deficit across the profile, with the main part in the red wing. H$`\alpha `$ meanwhile shows small deviations from the average profile, with the red side slightly in excess and the blue side in deficit. The H$`\alpha `$ profiles on night three appear by eye to be skewed towards the red. On night three, at H$`\gamma `$, H$`\delta `$ and the Ca II lines, the redshifted features dip below the continuum level and can therefore be classified as true absorption features. It should be noted here that Ca II H at 3969.6Å will be blended with H$`ϵ`$ at 3971.2Å, so that behaviour in the red wing of Ca II H which differs from that observed at Ca II K is possibly due to variations in H$`ϵ`$. The profiles of these lines return to an emission excess by night four, although there is less excess emission than formerly. There is some evidence in the higher Balmer lines that the narrow central excess at the beginning of the night is replaced by a very broad excess component at JD=43.26. On night four H$`\alpha `$ also shows excess emission, preferentially on the blue side with a long tail into the red, and with a steady decrease in the emission near the profile centre. By the fifth night, deficits are again seen for all lines (with the possible exception of Ca II K). This time the main component is located in the blue wing for H$`\gamma `$, H$`\delta `$ and Ca II H. At H$`\beta `$ the deficit is more pronounced on the red side of the line and at H$`\alpha `$ the deficit is entirely on the red side.

### 4.2 Time series behaviour

We computed the centroids of the lines over a wavelength range centred on the centroid of the average profile. The line centroid is

$$\lambda _c=\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }|f_p|\lambda _p}{\mathrm{\Sigma }|f_p|},$$
(1)
where $`f_p`$ are the fluxes and $`\lambda _p`$ the wavelengths at each pixel. A major consideration in this calculation is the range over which the sum is taken. We chose a range of 12 pixels which ensures the entire profile is covered. The centroid of the average profile was chosen as the centre of this range as it is the most stable estimate of the true line position. Since the pixels of the average profile are interpolated to the same wavelength values as the spectrum before subtraction, the centroid of the average profile is not exactly the same for each spectrum. The variations from spectrum to spectrum due to interpolation are typically of the order of thousandths of an Ångstrom, and so not significant compared to the centroid variations caused by spectral variability.

An additional problem arises because the value of the average profile centroid will typically lie between pixels in the spectra. To counter this, we introduced a weighting factor to the first and last terms in each sum in Equation 1. These fluxes were weighted in inverse proportion to the proximity of the average spectrum centroid. For example, if the interpixel spacing is $`\delta \lambda `$, and the average spectrum centroid lay 0.1$`\delta \lambda `$ from pixel $`n`$ and 0.9$`\delta \lambda `$ from pixel $`n+1`$, we would assign a weight of 0.9 to the first pixel in each sum in Equation 1 and a weight of 0.1 to the last.

The line centroid positions are marked with vertical lines in Figure 2. We also computed the equivalent widths of the lines. Both the centroids and equivalent widths are shown in time series form in Figure 3. Also shown in the bottom panel is the root mean square of the dispersion of the residual about the line centre. This is defined as

$$W=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }|f_p|(\lambda _p\lambda _c)^2}{\mathrm{\Sigma }|f_p|}},$$
(2)
where $`\lambda _p`$ is the wavelength and $`f_p`$ the residual value at each pixel and $`\lambda _c`$ is the line centroid. We will refer to this quantity as the ’width’ of the residual. It is insensitive to differences between absorption and emission, and also relatively insensitive to changes in the veiling, and is intended to serve as a measure of the velocity dispersion of material causing changes in the line profile. The ordinate in the lower panel of Figure 3 has been labelled in wavelength units (on the left side) and in equivalent velocity (on the right side).

From Figure 3 we can make a number of observations. The centroid of H$`\alpha `$ moves from red to blue in a gradual trend over the entire observing run with no discernable shorter timescale variations. This reflects the development of deep redshifted absorption over the course of the observations (cf Figure 2). The other lines show more complicated behaviour. The possibility of periodic effects is discussed in a separate subsection (4.3). There is a tendency to exhibit a blueshifted centroid on night three, indicating redshifted absorption which is also clear in Figure 2. There is also a tendency to show redshifted centroids on night one, indicative of excess redshifted emission, and also on night five, where they seem to indicate instead a lack of blue flux.

The lower panel of Figure 3 shows that the residual widths are generally highest on night three, when the redshifted absorption was strongest for most lines. The exceptions are H$`\alpha `$ and Ca II K. The residuals show the least dispersion about the line centre on night two for all the lines except H$`\alpha `$. The widening of the residual profiles for most lines on night four is visible in Figure 2 and is clear for most of the lines in Figure 3.

We have plotted the variables against one another in Figure 4 and searched for correlations between them. Correlation coefficients and resulting significances were computed for each pair of quantities. The results appear in Table 1. It is clear that strong correlations exist between equivalent width and centroid shift for most lines. This indicates that the equivalent width variability is primarily caused by variation in the red wing of the line, since a deficit in the red will push the centroid to the blue side (a negative centroid shift in our scheme), whilst red emission will drag the centroid to the red (a positive shift). This is consistent with the standard deviations shown in Figure 1. The exception is Ca II K, for which the correlation is not significant.

The correlations between equivalent width and residual width and between line centroid and residual width are generally less significant. In the case of equivalent width versus residual width, a positive or negative correlation would indicate that the varying components (whether emission or absorption) occur in the line wing. Variation in both wings simultaneously would cause the largest increase in residual width. Variations in either wing, either with flux excess or flux deficit relative to the average spectrum, will cause the residual width to increase. In the equivalent width versus residual width plots, H$`\beta `$ and Ca II H show slightly significant anticorrelations. The fact that these correlations are negative may indicate that the dominant transient features are absorption features.

Correlations between the residual width and line centroid shift probably indicate activity in the wings of the lines. Significant anticorrelations (by the non-parametric test) are seen for H$`\gamma `$ and H$`\delta `$. This may indicate red flux deficits causing the line centroid to shift to the blue (negative) whilst increasing the residual width. These correlations are not immediately evident to the eye, however, and the parametric correlation coefficients are modest, perhaps indicating that the relationship is complicated by the appearance of red excess on night one or blue deficit features on night five.

To further characterise the time series behaviour of the centroids, the lines were split in two, taking the middle point to be the peak of the average spectrum at each line. The total residual on either side of the line centre was then determined. This tactic was intended primarily as a search for an anticorrelation between red shifted absorption and blue shifted emission, as reported by previous authors (Johns & Basri, 1995, Oliveira et al 2000).

Figure 5 shows correlation plots of the total red residual versus the total blue residual. The red and blue sides of most of the lines vary together - as more red flux is present, so more blue flux is also observed. This situation would be expected if the line variations are driven mostly by variations in the veiling continuum. Only at H$`\alpha `$ is this correlation not always seen. The correlation coefficients in Table 1 show that the correlations of red and blue residuals are significant at levels of 99.9% for all the lines except H$`\alpha `$.

### 4.3 Periodic effects

Our time series’ are too short and poorly sampled to make a search for periodicities in various features, but we can comment on the consistency of the data with various supposed rotational effects. As already noted, the photometric period of VZ Cha has been measured to be 2.56 days, and the implication is that this represents the stellar rotation period. This photometric variation could have been caused by the presence of dark photospheric spots, or by bright regions such as the accretion shocks at the magnetic poles. In the latter case we would expect to see the emission lines, which supposedly form in the accretion stream, modulated with the same period. If the photometric variation is caused by dark spots, then the line emission could be modulated with the same period or with a higher harmonic of it if there are multiple streams. In principle it is also possible that there are more spots than streams, so that the 2.56 day photometric period is a high harmonic of the true period, and the line period would then be longer. As well as modulation of the line strengths, we might expect to see modulation of the components at various characteristic velocities as the non-axisymmetric velocity field of the accreting material rotates. This could lead to periodic behaviour in the line centroids. It should be noted that any rotational modulation would not necessarily be sinusoidal in shape.

To illustrate the discussion of periodicity for the equivalent widths, we show overplotted sine curves in the right-hand panel of Figure 3. These curves are constrained to have a 2.56 day period, as found by Batalha et al. The amplitude, phase and y-offset were left as free parameters. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of these fits is very large in all cases, which would be expected from inspection of Figure 3. It can be seen that the underlying night-to-night modulation of the equivalent widths roughly matches the expectation from the sine curve. We recomputed $`\chi ^2`$ for the night-to-night variations, using nightly means of the equivalent width and Julian date and determining standard deviations of each nightly distribution separately. These are then interpreted as characterising the supposed short-timescale variations superimposed on the night-to-night variations. Night two was excluded for all the lines except H$`\alpha `$, as there was only one point available and so it was not possible to estimate the short timescale variation.

With this procedure, the best fits are found to be H$`\delta `$ and H$`\gamma `$ with reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 3.4 and 4.1 respectively. H$`\beta `$ has a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 7, and Ca II H and K have $`\chi ^2=14`$ and $`30`$. H$`\alpha `$ still has a large $`\chi ^2`$ of several hundred indicating a poor fit, but for H$`\alpha `$, the night two data is retained. Including the point from night two for the other lines, and taking the measurement uncertainty in this as $`\sigma `$, the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ increases for all the lines, the best still being H$`\delta `$ with a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 8.7. Finally we refitted H$`\alpha `$, using the night by night data and $`\sigma `$’s, and obtained a fit with reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of a little over 17. This represents the best possible sine curve fit to the H$`\alpha `$ equivalent width time series.

Similar fits were made to the centroid time series’. These fits were in general less successful at reproducing the night to night behaviour than the fits to the equivalent width time series’. It can be seen from Figure 3 that only H$`\beta `$ and to a lesser extent Ca II K display the night to night variations which might be consistent with a period of around 2.5 days. Finally we note that the behaviour of the H$`\alpha `$ centroid is entirely inconsistent with a periodic effect with a period shorter than the data set. If the H$`\alpha `$ centroid behaviour is periodic, it must have a period of at least 10 days.

## 5 Discussion

We concluded in Section 4.3 that whilst the night-to-night equivalent width variations of all the lines except H$`\alpha `$ might in part be caused by a periodic modulation with a 2.56 day period, the detailed behaviour of the equivalent width variations is inconsistent with a sine wave variation. Furthermore, the amplitude of the variation has changed between the two maxima in our dataset. This indicates that there must be some other variation of the accretion system superimposed on any rotational effect.

Could we reject the idea of rotating streams altogether and rely only on variable accretion to explain the variations observed? It is of course possible to construct models based on varying accretion alone which could explain the variations, but such explanations are in our view unlikely. Many features in the profiles are seen to persist for timescales of at least one night (for example redshifted absorption on night three) or even two nights (for example the redshifted excess emission on nights one and two). Since the infall time from the inner disc edge is likely to be of order twelve hours (e.g. Paatz & Camenzind, 1991), we would expect spectral variations due to accretion of distinct blobs to occur on timescales shorter than this. The profile activity therefore suggests that accretion occurs in streams which are stable over timescales longer than the actual infall time and comparable to the rotation period. It therefore seems likely that the observed variations are indeed partly due to rotational modulation.

Two episodes of absorption in the red wings of the lines are seen. The first occurs during night three, predominantly affects H$`\gamma `$, H$`\delta `$ and Ca II H and K, and causes genuine absorption features which dip below the continuum. A second episode begins on night four and affects H$`\alpha `$ strongly, persisting into night five when the effect on H$`\alpha `$ diminishes but the feature is seen at the higher Balmer lines as well.

The H$`\alpha `$ activity is in several cases inconsistent with the activity of the other lines. A similar situation was noted by Johns-Krull & Basri (1997) in the case of DF Tau. It seems H$`\alpha `$ must mostly originate in a more extended region than the other lines. This is also suggested by the decoupled behaviour of the red and blue wings of H$`\alpha `$ compared to the other lines, and is expected due to the higher optical depth of H$`\alpha `$ compared to the other Balmer lines. Nevertheless, H$`\alpha `$ does show a lack of flux in the red wing on night five, when the other lines undergo a weaker redshifted-absorption episode. In this instance, the behaviour seems to be more strongly coupled.

The night five observations are at a slightly earlier phase in the rotation cycle than the night three observations. It is possible therefore that we are seeing a twisted accretion stream, as suggested for SU Aur by Oliveira et al (2000). The H$`\alpha `$, originating mostly from the outer parts of the flow, is affected by the outer stream passing through the line of sight. This would be the effect that we observe on night five. A fraction of a rotation later, the inner part of the stream passes through the line of sight, and the optically thinner higher Balmer lines show redshifted absorption features (as on night three).

Alternatively, it is possible that there are two accretion streams causing the variations (the inclined dipole scenario). The 2.56 day period could then be one half the true rotation period of the system, and the events on night three and night five would represent the two separate streams passing through the line of sight. A non-equatorial observer’s line of sight would intersect different parts of each stream, and so the variation caused by each stream would show different characterisitics. In particular, the inner part of one stream would pass through the observer’s line of sight, whilst only the outer regions of the other may do so. This could lead to strong obscuration of the higher Balmer lines by rapidly moving inner material in the first stream, followed by effects seen predominantly at H$`\alpha `$ which originates from the outer regions of the second stream. It must be remembered that such a scenario requires that an observer viewing from the northern hemisphere should have an unobstructed view of at least part of the southern hemisphere accretion stream, or vice versa. We estimate that an observer viewing from 11o above the disc plane, with the disc truncated at 5R and fully transparent inside that orbit, should be able to view a southern hemisphere accretion shock at an inclination of 10o or more from the rotation axis of the star. Of course, such an observer would view the inner stream region from almost side on, and so would not see a large component of the infall velocity close to the stellar surface. Such an observer might see a large component of the infall velocity from the central portion of a curved stream, and this velocity could still be considerable (of order 100kms-1 or more, see again Paatz & Camenzind, 1991).

In either case, we would expect the highest velocities to be associated with the inner part of the stream, and to be seen on night three. This is borne out by the lower two panels of Figure 3, where the largest line centroid shifts are seen on night three, and also the largest residual widths. The large residual widths may indicate the phases where we see the largest dispersion of velocities in the line of sight. This is consistent with the idea that we are looking down an accretion stream during the redshifted absorption episode on night three. H$`\alpha `$ shows some signs of behaving similarly to the other lines on night three, as the residual widths increase slightly against the general downward trend from night one to night four. Apparently, H$`\alpha `$ is affected only slightly by an event which causes the high velocity dispersion variations in the other lines. This may be the passage through the line of sight of the inner part of an accretion stream, but with the outer part of the stream not passing directly through the line of sight. We favour this type of geometric explanation rather than an explanation based purely on optical depth, since we see from night five that H$`\alpha `$ can be strongly affected by high velocity receding material.

## 6 Summary

Our data show that VZ Cha is an interesting object for future study. The line profiles show definite redshifted absorption features and other transient features which vary on timescales similar to the rotation timescale. We found that the variation occurred in the red wing more than in the blue wing of the line. The data we present here is not sufficiently well sampled to rigorously examine the hypothesis of periodicity for the line equivalent widths or profiles, but we can assess the viability of a rotational picture for the activity of VZ Cha. We find that the night-to-night variations in equivalent width are to some extent consistent with a 2.56 day periodicity, but that other variations, such as variable accretion or reconnection, are necessary to account fully for the behaviour. It is unlikely that rotational effects are entirely unimportant as the observed lifetimes of varying profile components are longer than or comparable to the infall time from the inner disc, and also comprise a significant fraction of the rotation period. We found that the red and blue variations, probably representing accretion and outflow respectively, were correlated for all lines except at H$`\alpha `$, where there were episodes of anticorrelated behaviour. This suggests that H$`\alpha `$ originates in a more extended region than the higher Balmer lines and samples parts of the accretion and outflow streams which are affected differently by the system’s rotation.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the staff at SSO and ANU for providing the facilities on which this paper is based. We thank also the referee, Christopher Johns-Krull, for his helpful comments which have allowed us to considerably improve this paper.