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# Evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production

## I Introduction

The proton spin has stayed as an interesting problem for more than one decade. The quark-spin content of the nucleon is usually extracted according to the data on polarized deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering and hyperon semileptonic decays (HSD) with the SU(3) flavor symmetry assumption. However, some current analyses have shown that the effect of SU(3) symmetry breaking in HSD on the quark-spin content of the octet baryons is significant KimPRD ; Manohar98 ; KimNPA . The effect has been estimated by the chiral quark soliton model KimPRD  and the large $`N_c`$ QCD Manohar98 . The consistent results were obtained separately by different approaches. However, there is a lack of external evidences for the SU(3) symmetry breaking. In order to view the SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking effect as a whole, we should broaden our vision from the nucleon to all octet baryons since the effect is related to the octet hyperon semileptonic decays. Hyperon production is a very important source from which we can get information on the spin properties of the octet hyperons. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon is of special interest in this respect since its decay is self-analyzing with respect to its spin direction due to the dominant weak decay $`\mathrm{\Lambda }p\pi ^{}`$ and the particularly large asymmetry of the angular distribution of the decay proton in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ rest frame. So polarization measurements are relatively simple to be performed and the polarized fragmentation functions of quarks to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ can be measured. Also the fragmentation of quarks to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ hyperons can be investigated experimentally since the detection technique of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ hyperons is gradually maturing and will allow to measure various quark to hyperon fragmentation functions SigmaP ; XiP ; Sigma0P . On the other hand, recent investigations indicate that the quark fragmentation functions seem to have relation to the corresponding quark distributions via an approximate relation GLR . Thus, it is of great significance to examine the influence of the SU(3) symmetry breaking on the spin properties of the octet hyperons from fragmentation.

Based on the known experimental data of HSD constants and the first moment of the spin structure function of the proton in DIS, we can extract quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons. In order to obtain quark distributions of the octet baryons, we need some theoretical models. Quark distributions of the nucleon have been precisely measured by combination of various deep inelastic scattering (DIS) processes DISprocess  and Drell-Yan processes DYprocess . With decades of experiments, our knowledge of the quark distributions for the nucleon is more or less clear concerning the bulk features of momentum, flavor and helicity distributions. For the other octet baryons, we can only predict the quark distributions for them by means of some successful models which produce the quark structure of the nucleon. Recently, a statistical model for polarized and unpolarized parton distributions of the nucleon has been presented by Bhalerao  et al. Bhalerao00 . The model can reproduce the almost all data on the nucleon structure functions $`F_2^p(x,Q^2)`$, $`F_2^p(x)F_2^n(x)`$ and parton sum rules. We find that the model is suitable to study the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the quark spin properties of the octet baryons since quark contributions to the spin content are important inputs of the model. According to some constraints, we determine two typical sets of parton density functions (PDFs) for the octet baryons at an initial scale: Set-1 with SU(3) flavor symmetry and Set-2 with SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking in HSD. Then we relate PDFs to fragmentation functions at the initial scale by using an approximate relation between the quark distributions and the fragmentation functions. Finally, we employ the evolved two sets of fragmentation functions to predict octet baryon polarizations in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, the polarized charged lepton DIS and neutrino DIS in order to reveal the influence of SU(3) symmetry breaking on baryon production.

The paper is arranged as follows: In Sec. II, we will re-extract quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons based on some known experimental data in order to obtain reasonable central values for them. In Sec. III we present the quark spin structure of all octet baryons based on a successful statistical model at an initial scale. In Sec. IV, we relate the fragmentation functions to the corresponding quark distributions and evolve them to a higher energy scale. Then, we predict spin observables for the octet baryons produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, charged letopn DIS and neutrino DIS. We find that one can get a possible collateral evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production. A brief summary with some discussions on the theoretical uncertainties is given in Sec. V.

## II Quark Contributions to Spin Content of Octet Baryons

The standard way to determine quark contributions to the spin content of a baryon in the $`J^P=\frac{1}{2}`$ octet is based on two pieces of information. One comes from the first moment of the spin structure function $`g_1^p(x)`$ of the proton:

$$I_p=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}g_1^p(x)𝑑x=\frac{1}{18}(4\mathrm{\Delta }U+\mathrm{\Delta }D+\mathrm{\Delta }S)(1\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }+\mathrm{}),$$
(1)
which is obtained in deep-inelastic lepton-proton scattering experiments. According to the experimental data of $`I_p`$ EMC89 , one has

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=4\mathrm{\Delta }U+\mathrm{\Delta }D+\mathrm{\Delta }S=2.42\pm 0.26.$$
(2)
Another information comes from the hyperon semileptonic decay constants $`F`$ and $`D`$ which are usually obtained from the empirical values for the ratios of axial-vector to vector coupling constants $`g_A/g_V`$ via

$$(g_A/g_V)^{(np)}=F+D,(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}n)}=FD$$
(3)
with the exact flavor SU(3) symmetry. However, there are some uncertainties in the analysis since $`F`$ and $`D`$ can also be obtained by combining any another two ratios of axial-vector to vector coupling constants $`g_A/g_V`$ of six known weak semileptonic decays HSD1 ; HSD2 . With various combinations, it is found that there exist large uncertainties in the central values of $`F`$ and $`D`$ as follows:

$$F=0.40÷0.55,D=0.70÷0.89,$$
(4)
which shows that the theoretical error due to using the exact SU(3) symmetry in describing the hyperon semileptonic decays is about 15%. Thus, the obtained the quark spin content of the proton $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Delta }U+\mathrm{\Delta }D+\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ based on the constants $`F`$ and $`D`$ can be any value in the range $`[0.02,0.30]`$, which implies that the SU(3) symmetry breaking plays an essential role in extracting $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ from the experimental data. For this reason, the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect has been recently considered in the chiral quark soliton model and the large $`N_c`$ QCD. The same algebraical structure of ratios of axial-vector to vector coupling constants for known weak semileptonic decays with dynamical parameters were obtained by two different approaches KimPRD ; Manohar98 . In order to obtain model independent results, one can fix the dynamical parameters by fitting them to the data of the known six weak semileptonic decays instead of calculating them within a specified model. The quark contributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$ ($`Q=U`$, $`D`$, $`S`$) to the spin content of the octet baryons given by Kim et al KimNPA  in this way are listed in Table 1.

One can see from Table 1 that the results have very big errors and some central values of them are beyond the physics region although they could be meaningful with their errors. The central values of the total quark spin content of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ hyperons are larger than 1. In addition, the quark spin content $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.51`$ of the nucleon is out of the range $`[0.02,0.3]`$ which corresponds to different combinations of the known 6 semileptonic decay constants. The large errors in the results are mainly due to a very large experimental error in the data on the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ decay. In order to improve the central values of quark contributions to the spin content, we re-do the analysis by adopting the data on the first moment $`I_p`$ of the proton spin structure function $`g_1^p`$ instead of using the data on the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ decay since our knowledge on $`g_1^p`$ seems to be a little better than on $`(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^0)}`$. Following Ref. KimNPA , we can express ratios of axial-vector to vector coupling constants for 5 semileptonic decays and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ as:

$$A_1=(g_A/g_V)^{(np)}=14r+2s44x20y4z+8q,$$
(5)
$$A_2=(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Sigma }^+\mathrm{\Lambda })}=9r3s42x6y+15q,$$
(6)
$$A_3=(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Lambda }p)}=8r+4s+24x2z6q,$$
(7)
$$A_4=(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}n)}=4r+8s4x4y+2z+4q,$$
(8)
$$A_5=(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Lambda })}=2r+6s6x+6y2z+6q,$$
(9)
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_p=24r+132s48x66y+6z+48q,$$
(10)
where $`r`$, $`s`$, $`x`$, $`y`$, $`z`$ and $`q`$ are dynamical parameters within the chiral quark model. We can fix these parameters by solving the above set of equations with the central values of the experimental data EMC89 ; HSD1 ; HSD2 . The six parameters are found to be: $`x=0.00035405`$, $`s=0.00398698`$, $`y=0.00006039`$, $`q=0.00214004`$, $`z=0.02560072`$, $`r=0.08189920`$. With the obtained parameters, we find

$$(g_A/g_V)^{(\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^0)}=14r+2s+22x+10y+2z4q=1.103,$$
(11)
which is close to the experimental data $`1.278\pm 0.158`$. With our new set of parameters, quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons as listed in Table 3 are in the range of physics region. In addition, the total spin contribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.08`$ for the nucleon is in the interval $`[0.02,0.3]`$ which covers the range obtained by different combinations of the known 6 semileptonic decay constants. All of these indicate that the above obtained central values of quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons are reasonable. Based on them, we will do further analysis about the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect in HSD.

## III Quark Distributions of Octet Baryons

We have bulk of data to constrain the shape of the quark distributions of the nucleon and check various theoretical models for the quark distributions. Starting from the SU(6) quark model wave function of the nucleon, the quark diquark spectator model Ma96 ; MSSY  can give the shape of valence quark distributions. The non-perturbative effects such as gluon exchanges can be effectively described by introducing mass differences in constituent quarks and diquark spectators. On the other hand, in consideration of minimally connected tree graphs of hard gluon exchanges, it was found that the behavior of quark distributions at large Bjorken $`x`$ obeys some counting rules countingr  and has ”helicity retention” property Bro95 . Furthermore, it has been recently found that the input-scale parton densities in the nucleon may be quasi-statistical in nature Flambaum98 ; Bickerstaff90 ; Bhalerao96 . With a statistical model, a vast body of polarized and unpolarized nucleon structure functions can be well described Bhalerao00  even including proper $`\overline{d}\overline{u}`$ for explaining the Gottfried sum rule. The above three models predict different ratios $`d(x)/u(x)`$ of the nucleon,

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(\frac{d(x)}{u(x)})_{Diquark}\hfill & 0;\hfill \\ (\frac{d(x)}{u(x)})_{pQCD}\hfill & \frac{1}{5};\hfill \\ (\frac{d(x)}{u(x)})_{Statistical}\hfill & 0.22.\hfill \end{array}$$

It is interesting that the ratio $`d(x)/u(x)|_{x1}=0.22`$ predicted by the statistical model is very close the pQCD prediction. The most recent analysis Yang99 ; Sch00  of experimental data for several processes seems to support the pQCD and statistical predictions of unpolarized quark flavor structure of the nucleon at $`x1`$. In addition, there are less free parameters in the statistical model than the pQCD based analysis. All of these motivate us to extend the statistical model from the nucleon to octet hyperons.

Following Ref. Bhalerao00 , the parton number density $`dn^{IMF}/dx`$ in the infinite-momentum frame (IMF) can be related to the density $`dn/dE`$ in the octet baryon $`B`$ rest frame by

$$\frac{dn^{IMF}}{dx}=\frac{M_B^2x}{2}\underset{xM_B/2}{\overset{M_B/2}{}}\frac{dE}{E^2}\frac{dn}{dE},$$
(12)
where $`M_B`$ is the mass of the baryon $`B`$ and $`E`$ is the parton energy in the baryon rest frame. It should be pointed out that Eq. (12) is an assumption even for massless quarks since it assumes that quarks can be boosted using a purely kinematic transformation, which is in general not true in an interacting theory, especially not in a strongly interacting theory such as QCD. However, the reasonableness of the model has been tested by its successful application to the prediction of quark distributions of the nucleon. Extending the model from the nucleon to other members of the octet can provide an independent check of the same mechanism that produces the flavor and spin structure of the nucleon and enrich our knowledge of the nucleon.

In consideration of the finite size effect of the baryon, $`dn/dE`$ can be expressed as the sum of the volume, surface and curvature terms,

$$dn/dE=gf(E)(VE^2/2\pi ^2+aR^2E+bR),$$
(13)
with the usual Fermi or Bose distribution function $`f(E)=1/[\mathrm{e}^{(E\mu )/T}\pm 1]`$. In (13), $`g`$ is the spin-color degeneracy factor, $`V`$ is the baryon volume and $`R`$ is the radius of a sphere with volume $`V`$. The parameters $`a`$ and $`b`$ in (13) have been determined by fitting the structure function data for the proton. We choose the same values of them for other octet baryons, i.e. $`a=0.376`$ and $`b=0.504`$. Then, $`n_{q(\overline{q})}^{()}`$ which denotes the number of quarks(antiquarks) and spin parallel (anti-parallel) to the baryon spin can be written as

$$n_{q(\overline{q})}^{()}=g\underset{0}{\overset{M_B/2}{}}\frac{VE^2/2\pi ^2+aR^2E+bR}{\mathrm{e}^{(E\mu _{q(\overline{q})}^{()})/T}+1}𝑑E.$$
(14)
Similarly, the momentum fraction carried by the quark $`q`$ (antiquark $`\overline{q}`$) and gluon $`G`$ can be expressed as

$$M_{q(\overline{q})}^{()}=\frac{4g}{3M_B}\underset{0}{\overset{M_B/2}{}}\frac{E(VE^2/2\pi ^2+aR^2E+bR)}{\mathrm{e}^{(E\mu _{q(\overline{q})}^{()})/T}+1}𝑑E,$$
(15)
$$M_G^{()}=\frac{4g}{3M_B}\underset{0}{\overset{M_B/2}{}}\frac{E(VE^2/2\pi ^2+aR^2E+bR)}{\mathrm{e}^{(E\mu _G^{()})/T}1}𝑑E.$$
(16)
Hence, the quark numbers and the parton momentum fractions have to satisfy the following 7 constraints:

$$n_q^{}+n_q^{}n_{\overline{q}}^{}n_{\overline{q}}^{}=N_Q,$$
(17)
$$n_q^{}n_q^{}+n_{\overline{q}}^{}n_{\overline{q}}^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }Q,$$
(18)
$$\underset{q}{}(M_q^{}+M_q^{}+M_{\overline{q}}^{}+M_{\overline{q}}^{})+(M_G^{}+M_G^{})=1,$$
(19)
where $`q=u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$. $`N_Q`$ is the quark number of the baryon $`B`$. In order to describe the spin structure of the baryon, it is necessary to distinguish between $`\mu _{q(\overline{q})}^{}`$ and $`\mu _{q(\overline{q})}^{}`$. We assume that the gluon is not polarized at the initial scale and hence $`\mu _G^{}=\mu _G^{}=0`$. Thus at input scale, $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(x)=0`$ and the gluon polarization comes from the QCD evolution. In addition, it has been noticed that $`\mu _{\overline{q}}^{}=\mu _q^{}`$ and $`\mu _{\overline{q}}^{}=\mu _q^{}`$ Bhalerao00 . Therefore, by solving 7 coupled nonlinear equations (17)-(19), we can determine 7 unknowns, namely $`\mu _u^{}`$, $`\mu _u^{}`$, $`\mu _d^{}`$, $`\mu _d^{}`$, $`\mu _s^{}`$, $`\mu _s^{}`$, and $`T`$. For the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$, the 7 equations reduce into 5 equations since the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks in these two hyperons are expected to be equal due to isospin symmetry.

The important inputs for the statistical model are quark contributions to the spin content of a baryon. We have noticed that the SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking in HSD has a significant effect on the extraction of the quark contribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$ to the spin of the octet baryons. In order to check the effect of SU(3) symmetry breaking, we adopt two sets of typical $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$: Set-1 corresponds to the SU(3) symmetry case with the same $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.28`$ for all octet baryons Bor98 ; Set-2 corresponds to the SU(3) broken case with $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$ obtained in the last section. The corresponding solutions of $`\mu _q^{}`$, $`\mu _q^{}`$ ($`q=u`$, $`d`$, $`s`$) and $`T`$ for Set-1 and Set-2 $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s are listed in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively. With these values of the chemical potentials and temperature, unpolarized and polarized parton distributions in the octet baryons can be obtained directly from (12).

We find that the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on quark spin structures of the octet hyperons is significant. Therefore, the octet hyperons are suitable laboratories to examine SU(3) symmetry breaking in HSD.

## IV Octet Baryon Polarizations from Fragmentation

Unfortunately, we cannot check the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the obtained quark distributions of the octet hyperons by means of structure functions in DIS scattering since they cannot be used as a target due to their short life time. Also one obviously cannot produce a beam of charge-neutral hyperons such as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. For this reason, some efforts have been made to model fragmentation functions for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ Nza95 ; Bor99 ; Yang02 . On the other hand, there have been attempts to connect the quark distributions with the quark fragmentation functions, so that one can explore the quark structure of hyperons by means of hyperon production from quark fragmentation. The connection is the so called Gribov-Lipatov (GL) relation GLR

$$D_q^h(z)zq_h(z),$$
(20)
where $`D_q^h(z)`$ is the fragmentation function for a quark $`q`$ splitting into a hadron $`h`$ with longitudinal momentum fraction $`z`$, and $`q_h(z)`$ is the quark distribution of finding the quark $`q`$ carrying a momentum fraction $`x=z`$ inside the hadron $`h`$. The GL relation should be considered as an approximate relation near $`z1`$ on an energy scale $`Q_0^2`$ BRV00 ; Bar00 . It is interesting to note that such a relation provided successful descriptions of the available $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization data in several processes MSSY ; Yang01 , based on quark distributions of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in the quark diquark model, pQCD based counting rules analysis and statistical model. Thus we still use (20) as an Ansatz to relate the quark fragmentation functions for the octet baryons to the corresponding quark distributions at an initial scale. Then, the quark fragmentation functions are evolved from the initial scale to the experimental energy scale. We use the evolution package of Ref. Miyama94  suitable modified for the evolution of fragmentation functions in leading order, taking the initial scale $`Q_0^2=M_B^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}=0.3\mathrm{GeV}`$. In Fig. 1, the spin properties of the Set-1 (thin curves) and Set-2 (thick curves) fragmentation functions are presented at $`Q^2=4\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. From Fig. 1, we find that the difference between the two sets of fragmentation functions for the nucleon is very small. However, the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the fragmentation functions for the octet hyperons is significant and it might be detected via hyperon production. For this reason, we use the obtained fragmentation functions to predict spin observables for the various hyperon production processes.

We need some experimental data to examine the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the quark spin structure of the octet baryons. There has been some recent progress in the measurements of polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production. The longitudinal $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at the Z-pole has been measured by several collaborations ALEPH96 ; DELPHI95 ; OPAL97 . The HERMES Collaboration at DESY HERMES  and the E665 Collaboration at FNAL E665  reported their results for the longitudinal spin transfer to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in polarized positron DIS. Very recently, the measurement results of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in charged current interactions were obtained by the NOMAD Collaboration NOMAD . We can check whether the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production is supported by the available experimental data. In order to obtain some more information on SU(3) symmetry breaking, we also predict polarizations for other octet baryons produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, charged lepton DIS and neutrino DIS.

### IV.1 Octet baryon polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation

Within the framework of the standard model of electroweak interactions, the qaurks and antiquarks produced in $`e^+e^{}`$-annihilation near the $`Z`$-pole are polarized due to the interference between the vector and axial vector couplings, even though the initial $`e^+`$ and $`e^{}`$ beams are unpolarized. Then the polarized quarks and antiquarks lead to the polarization of a baryon produced from fragmentation. Theoretically, the baryon (B) polarization can be expressed as

$$P_B=\frac{\underset{q}{}\widehat{A}_q[\mathrm{\Delta }D_q^B(z)\mathrm{\Delta }D_{\overline{q}}^B(z)]}{\underset{q}{}\widehat{C}_q[D_q^B(z)+D_{\overline{q}}^B(z)]},$$
(21)
where $`\widehat{A}_q`$ and $`\widehat{C}_q`$ ($`q=u,d`$ and $`s`$) can be found in Refs. MSSY ; Yang02 , and $`D_q^B(z)`$ ($`D_{\overline{q}}^B(z)`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_q^B(z)`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{\overline{q}}^B(z)`$) are the unpolarized and polarized quark $`q`$ (antiquark $`\overline{q}`$) to baryon $`B`$ fragmentation functions. With the obtained two sets of fragmentation functions, we can check whether there exist some SU(3) symmetry breaking effects on the baryon polarizations. Our theoretical predictions for the octet baryon polarizations at the $`Z`$-pole are shown in Fig. 2. We find from Fig. 2(a) that the prediction with SU(3) symmetry breaking is closer to the experimental data than the prediction with SU(3) symmetry although both predictions are only qualitatively compatible with the experimental data. From Fig. 2, one can see that the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the octet hyperon polarizations is much more significant than on the nucleon polarizations. For $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ production, the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect leads to changes in the sign of the polarization. The effect is also obvious for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^\pm `$ production. Therefore, the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect might be observed via hyperon production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, especially for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ production.

### IV.2 Spin transfer to octet baryon in charged lepton DIS

In the deep inelastic scattering of a longitudinally polarized charged lepton on an unpolarized nucleon target, the polarization of the beam leads struck quark to be polarized and its spin will be transferred to a baryon produced via the quark fragmentation. The longitudinal spin transfer to the produced baryon $`B`$ is given in the quark-parton model by

$$A_B(x,z)=\frac{\underset{q}{}e_q^2[q^N(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }D_q^B(z,Q^2)+(q\overline{q})]}{\underset{q}{}e_q^2[q^N(x,Q^2)D_q^B(z,Q^2)+(q\overline{q})]},$$
(22)
where $`q^N(x,Q^2)`$ is the quark distribution of the target nucleon and will be adopted as the CTEQ5 set 1 parametrization form CTEQ5  in our numerical calculation. The spin transfers to the octet baryons can be calculated with the two sets of fragmentation functions and the results are shown in Fig. 3.

From Fig. 3. We find that the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the spin transfers to the octet hyperons is much stronger than on the spin transfer to the nucleon. For the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ hyperons, the sign of the spin transfer is changed due to the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect. The reason for this big change lies in that the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect leads to the positively polarized $`u`$ quark fragmentation function whereas the SU(3) symmetry gives the negatively polarized $`u`$ quark fragmentation function (cf. Tables 2 and 3). There has been preliminary data by HERMES Collaboration HERMES  on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production. It is interesting that the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the spin transfer to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ makes the prediction to be consistent with the HERMES data point, which indicates that inclusion of the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect improves the spin structure of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The modifications for other hyperons due to SU(3) symmetry breaking are also significant. Therefore, the spin transfers to the hyperons in charged lepton DIS are another set of suitable observables to check the existence of SU(3) symmetry breaking in HSD. Although the present data are not sufficient to draw a quantitative conclusion, it seems that the data favor somewhat the case in which the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect works.

### IV.3 Baryon polarizations in neutrino DIS

The neutrino DIS scattering on the nucleon target can also provide a source of polarized quarks and should be another important process to study the polarizations of the octet baryons. For baryon $`B`$ production in the current fragmentation region from neutrino and antineutrino DIS, the longitudinal polarization of $`B`$ in its momentum direction can be expressed as Ma99 ,

$$P_\nu ^B(x,y,z)=\frac{[d^N(x)+\varpi s^N(x)]\mathrm{\Delta }D_u^B(z)(1y)^2\overline{u}^N(x)[\mathrm{\Delta }D_{\overline{d}}^B(z)+\varpi \mathrm{\Delta }D_{\overline{s}}^B(z)]}{[d^N(x)+\varpi s^N(x)]D_u^B(z)+(1y)^2\overline{u}^N(x)[D_{\overline{d}}^B(z)+\varpi D_{\overline{s}}^B(z)]},$$
(23)
$$P_{\overline{\nu }}^B(x,y,z)=\frac{(1y)^2u^N(x)[\mathrm{\Delta }D_d^B(z)+\varpi \mathrm{\Delta }D_s^B(z)][\overline{d}^N(x)+\varpi \overline{s}^N(x)]\mathrm{\Delta }D_{\overline{u}}^B(z)}{(1y)^2u^N(x)[D_d^B(z)+\varpi D_s^B(z)]+[\overline{d}^N(x)+\varpi \overline{s}^N(x)]D_{\overline{u}}^B(z)},$$
(24)
where the terms with the factor $`\varpi =\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _c/\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _c`$ ($`\theta _c`$ is the Cabibbo angle) represent Cabibbo suppressed contributions. The beam can be either neutrino or antineutrino, and the produced hadron can be either baryon or antibaryon. Therefore, we have four combinations of different beams and produced baryons and can get rich information on the flavor dependence of quark fragmentation functions.

We present in Figs. 4-11 the longitudinal polarizations for the octet baryons produced in neutrino (antineutrino) DIS. For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production, there have been preliminary experimental data by NOMAD Collaboration NOMAD . The NOMAD data have relative high precision and can be used to distinguish different predictions. The data seem to support again the Set-2 prediction with SU(3) symmetry breaking. The polarizations $`P_\nu ^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`P_{\overline{\nu }}^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`P_\nu ^\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ and $`P_\nu ^{\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}^+}`$ are very valuable for us to reveal the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect. The octet hyperon polarizations are more sensitive to SU(3) symmetry breaking than the nucleon polarizations. We can also obtain some useful information on SU(3) symmetry breaking by means of the polarizations of the octet hyperons produced in neutrino (antineutrino) DIS.

## V Summary and Discussion

Based on the known data of the semileptonic decays and lepton-nucleon deep inelastic scattering, we re-extracted quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons with SU(3) symmetry breaking in order to get reasonable central values for them. We constrained the quark distributions of the octet baryons at an initial scale with the two sets of typical quark contributions to the spin content of the octet baryons: one set with SU(3) flavor symmetry and another set with SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking. By means of the statistical model, we calculated quark distributions for the octet baryons in the rest frame and then used free boost transformations to relate the rest frame results to the IMF and made predictions about PDFs. We find that quark distributions of the octet hyperons are much more sensitive to SU(3) symmetry breaking than those of the nucleon. In consideration of the fact that it is difficult for one to access the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the quark distributions of the octet hyperons, we focused our attention on exploring the possible SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the octet baryon polarization from fragmentation. It was found that the available experimental data on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production seem to favor the predictions with SU(3) symmetry breaking. The spin observables in hyperon production from quark fragmentation, especially the polarization of the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, the spin transfers in charged lepton DIS and polarizations in neutrino DIS for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ hyperons, are very valuable for us to reveal the SU(3) symmetry breaking effect. We find that the high precision measurement on the hyperon polarizations in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, charged lepton DIS and neutrino DIS can provide a possible collateral evidence for the SU(3) symmetry breaking in HSD of the octet baryons.

It is worth to mention that there exist many uncertainties in our predictions and there are many unknowns to be explored before we can arrive at a firm conclusion. We used the following three model assumptions: (1) an approximate relation between the fragmentation functions and quark distributions functions, Eq.(20); (2) the model for the symmetry breaking, Refs. KimPRD ; Manohar98 ; KimNPA ; (3) the model for the parton densities, Ref. Bhalerao00 . Each of these assumptions introduces its own uncertainties into our predictions. It should be of great significance to estimate these uncertainties in order to complete our analysis. The largest uncertainty and probably the only one which can be relatively easy estimated comes from the errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s. As an example, we estimate the errors on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production since we have had some available experimental data for making a comparison with our predictions. The uncertainties for other hyperon production are similar to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ case. We have noticed that there still exist big errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s although their central values have been improved by adopting the new fit. In order to calculate the errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s, we express $`\mathrm{\Delta }U=\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in terms of the five semileptonic hyperon decay constants ($`A_i`$, $`i=15`$) and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }U=\frac{11}{23}A_1\frac{37}{69}A_2+\frac{7}{46}A_3+\frac{107}{46}A_4+\frac{85}{23}A_5\frac{4}{23}\mathrm{\Gamma }_p,$$
(25)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }S=\frac{54}{23}A_1\frac{90}{23}A_2\frac{243}{23}A_3\frac{639}{23}A_4\frac{66}{23}A_5+\frac{51}{23}\mathrm{\Gamma }_p.$$
(26)
We estimate errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s by simply adding the all errors on the decay constants and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ in quadrature and we get

$$\mathrm{\Delta }U=\mathrm{\Delta }D0.03\pm 0.19,$$
(27)
and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S0.65\pm 0.78.$$
(28)
The errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s are still large although their central values seem to be more reasonable than those in the original fit of Ref. KimNPA . With the errors, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ may vary in the range $`[0.13,1.43]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }U=\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in the range $`[0.16,0.22]`$. The value $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=0.62`$ for the SU(3) symmetry case is in the range of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ with errors for the SU(3) symmetry breaking case, but the value $`\mathrm{\Delta }U=\mathrm{\Delta }D=0.17`$ for the SU(3) symmetry case stays at the edge of the band of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$) for the SU(3) symmetry breaking case. Therefore, the theoretical errors for our predictions are supposed to be very large.

Let us analyse the three processes for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production before looking into the effect of errors. First, in consideration of the fact the strange quark polarization is much larger than the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quark polarizations in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and according to the relative magnitudes of the constants $`\widehat{A}_q`$ and $`\widehat{C}_q`$ in Eq. (21) for $`q=u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$, we have noticed that the strange quark dominates the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation. Second, we find the spin transfer to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in charged lepton DIS can be approximated by

$$A_\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }D_u^\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)}{D_u^\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)},$$
(29)
due to the charge factor for the $`u`$ quark. Finally, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in neutrino DIS is also mainly controlled by

$$P_\nu ^\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }D_u^\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)}{D_u^\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)}.$$
(30)
To sum up, the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation is sensitive to the error on $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$’s, and the spin transfer to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in charged lepton DIS and the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in neutrino DIS are sensitive to the error on $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$’s.

Now, let us look the detailed numerical calculation results. With the allowed value ranges of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, we estimate the errors for our predictions of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, the spin transfer to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in charged lepton DIS and the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in neutrino DIS. The numerical results are shown as bands in Figs. 12-14. The predictions with SU(3) symmetry are also shown in Figs. 12-14 in dashed curves as a comparison. As expected, the theoretical errors for our predictions are indeed very large. However, the available experimental data seem to favor the predictions with SU(3) symmetry breaking even though the errors on $`\mathrm{\Delta }Q`$’s are included. Therefore, the high precision measurements of the semileptonic hyperon decay constants and the hyperon polarizations are crucial important in order to get a distinguishable evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is inspired by my cooperative work with Bo-Qiang Ma, Ivan Schmidt, and Jacques Soffer. I would like to express my great thanks to them for their encouragements and valuable comments. In addition, this work is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Number 19875024 and by Fondecyt (Chile) project 3990048.


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# On the Origin of Cosmic Rays

## 1 Introduction

### 1.1 The problem in historical perspective - outline

Around 1930 Millikan,Cameron and Regener realized that the energy density of cosmic rays in space is about as high as that of integrated star-light. This made clear that cosmic rays are an important cosmic phenomenon, and two questions were raised.

1. By which mechanism are cosmic rays accelerated?
2. Where and in which sources does this occur?
In this manuscript I try to summarize what is presently known about the answer to the second question. I strive for brevity and will review neither the theoretical nor the experimental literature exhaustively. My style is inspired by a memorable article of Philip Morrison with almost the same title in 1957  (“On the Origins of Cosmic Rays” ), because our situation concerning the second question is hardly better than the one described by Morrison like this: “the broad road (towards the answer) is finally visible, but the details may well be all wrong”.
Up to 1948 both questions remained a complete riddle, revealing a deep fundamental lack of knowledge of the physical world. Highly speculative origin theories \- without a firm basis in contemporary physics - were proposed. Millikan suggested a new fundamental production process and Lemaître explained cosmic rays as relics of the early universe. These ideas stood at the cradle of modern nuclear astrophysics and cosmology but did not really advance cosmic-ray physics. Two publications by Baade and Zwicky from 1934, suggesting an origin of CRs in extragalactical supernovae, stand out for their impressing far-sight222Their basic idea was that relativistic particles with a total energy between 1053 and 1054 ergs would be ejected in a supernova. These particles indirectly “heat” the stellar debris and thus lead to the visible SN event. It might still turn out that this image is very close to being correct..
Then, in a brief, productive “golden period” - from about 1948 to 1962 - Fermi conceived the fundamental theoretical concept for the acceleration mechanism and several crucial experimental discoveries provided the basic framework in which we still grapple today for an answer to the question of the site of origin. Fermi’s brilliantly simple idea was the realization that nuclei colliding via magnetic interactions with macroscopic gas clouds reach equilibrium only when their energies are similar, i.e. when the nuclei possess macroscopic kinetic energies. Henceforth the question was no longer “how can such high energies be reached?” but “under which circumstances and with what time scale?” This was the deathblow for the early speculative theories, CR origin had become a problem of conventional astrophysics. Since the mid 1980s very speculative theories are considered once again, see section 4.2.
The most important experimental achievement of the “golden period” was arguably the determination of the CR spectrum as a function of total particle energy. Today the flux of the dominating hadronic component, consisting of protons and heavier nuclei, of the local non-solar cosmic rays (CRs), is determined at energies between about 0.1 GeV and 3 $``$ 1020 eV. Neglecting solar modulation effects, the all-particle CR flux can be described by power-laws with indices in the narrow range between -2.5 and -3.2 over the whole range (more than 10 decades) in energy (see data points in fig. 1) and a single power law with an index of -3 is quite a good approximation to the experimental data (see thin dashed line in fig. 1).
A framework for the explanation of this spectrum, assuming various different sites of origin, is at present practically universally accepted and is sketched in fig.1. In sections 2 and 4 I will critically discuss the origin of the low-energy and very-high energy component, respectively. Following a seminal paper by Biermann and Davis section 3 explains why observations make necessary a departure from the conventional framework. Section 5 briefly discusses two recent and one historic proposed alternative major source of CRs. In the final section 6 I will give a personal interpretation of the current situation and lay down some questions to be answered by future research.

### 1.2 Cosmic-Ray Origin: the single most important problem of “Astroparticle Physics”

When I talk to younger colleagues in the field of astroparticle physics I get sometimes the impression that for them, the question of low-energy cosmic-ray origin is some old problem left over from the last century. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cosmic-ray origin is the only important physics problem where astroparticle physics is called upon to take the lead \- both theoretically and experimentally - in providing a full solution for all energies. In other areas, like the physics of active-galactic nuclei, the emission-mechanism of pulsars, the quest for dark matter or the nature of cosmological background fields astroparticle physics just supplies some pieces to jigsaw puzzles being assembled by others.

## 2 Origin of “low-energy” (energies below the “knee”) CRs

### 2.1 The proposal of SNRs as sources of the low-energy component

In 1953 Iosif Shklovsky \- armed with his recent identification of the bright radio source Cas A as the remnant of a historic supernova explosion (SNR) 333An identification that was initially vehemently resisted by Walter Baade who had proposed SNe as cosmic-ray sources some 20 years earlier. \- proposed that SNRs (rather than SNe themselves) are the main sources of Galactic cosmic rays444 Shklovsky’s priority on this crucial idea is clearly stated by V.Ginzburg in an early review.. Shklovsky gave two arguments for his idea:
1. the total power of the of CRs injected into the Galaxy is “similar” to the kinetic explosion power of a Galactic supernovae (i.e. 1051 erg/50 years) 555 This “equality” does not point directly to SNRs as the site of CR acceleration, rather it only points towards a possible connection “CRs - supernovae”. . Quantitatively the power of the injected CRs was determined to be about 30 $`\%`$ (with an uncertainty of a factor 3) 666This is the most recent value (a previous careful determination gave the range of 10 - 30 $`\%`$). In Shklovsky’s article the total injected power by SNRs was estimated to be about 2 orders of magnitude smaller (this was sufficient given the incomplete knowledge of Galactic CR propagation in 1953). Such a smaller efficiency is in line with the expectation of Biermann and Davis (see section 3.1).  of the total kinetic power of young Galactic SNRs777Such an argument was first made made by Baade and Zwicky in an extragalactic context. With the same values and assumptions about propagation and explosion energy as Shklovsky, it was first made by ter Haar..
2. SNRs are most prominent non-thermal radio sources because they produce non-thermal electrons copiously. Shklovsky wrote: “…it is quite natural to consider that simultaneously with relativistic electrons, also occur relativistic heavy particles.

### 2.2 A guiding principle: is synchrotron emission indicative of the total non-thermal acceleration power?

Shklovsky’s second point fell on fertile ground. In the year before Ludwig Biermann had made the “tentative assumption that the radio emission indicates the order of magnitude of all non thermal emissions.”. Henceforth, the assumption that the main CR sources are prominent radio sources was a beacon to most theoretical studies on CR origin. In 1962 Geoffrey Burbidge formulated the idea that the other class of celestial radio sources that rival SNRs in apparent luminosity, active galaxies (typified by Cyg A, the second brightest radio source in the sky after Cas A) are the main sources of all cosmic rays.
The following decade’s discussion concentrated on a heated controversy between Burbidge and Vitaly Ginzburg, who had become the main proponent of Shklovsky’s idea. A discussion of alternatives (such as e.g. a stellar origin of a very-low energy component as favored by Morrison or the ideas of Biermann and Davis, discussed in section 3) fell completely by the wayside.

### 2.3 The present situation: are SNRs the main source of low energy CRs?

In spite of enormous advances in experimental techniques in the half century that has elapsed since the publication of Shklovsky’s paper, not a single additional observational fact directly supporting the hypothesis that SNRs are the major source of Galactic cosmic rays has come to light.
To make matters worse - in what I consider to be the most important experimental discovery in CR physics since the 1950s - it was recently learnt that Cas A is not an important source of hadronic cosmic rays (see section 3.1 for further discussion). This saps the foundations of Shklovsky’s second argument. The beacon mentioned in the previous subsection - that still guides many888 The gist of a prominent colleague’s only reaction to a recent manuscript was : “Nobody believes that because the proposed CR-producing ejecta were not seen in the radio.” \- threatens to have misled us for nearly half a century. The dominant sources of hadronic CR are either SNRs or they are not prominent radio sources. The sole direct evidence in favor of a SNR origin of CRs is again the ter Haar’s energy argument, evidence that is still far from adequate
But if not SNRs, then what? Let us take a big step back in time and reconsider some early arguments against SNRs as CR sources in the light of today’s body of experimental evidence, in an attempt to point a way out of this impasse.

## 3 A Path not taken - 1958: Returning to a critique by Biermann and Davis

Near the end of the “golden period”, in 1958, two of its principal architects, Ludwig Biermann and Leverett Davis, summarized some lessons learnt. Their analysis, though certainly noticed999Their collaboration on Galactic CRs was explicitely mentioned in the laudation on occasion of the award of the Bruce medal to Biermann., had little impact on the consecutive research101010The paper was quoted only five times, the last time in 1969.. This is a pity since their doubts and some of their surmises have been born out by observations in a truly impressive way.

### 3.1  Acceleration efficiency in SNRs

Biermann and Davis write: “With the present frequency of supernovae, it would just be possible to account for the acceleration of cosmic rays if one assumes a very high efficiency for the conversion of kinetic to cosmic ray energy. Even with a higher frequency in the early stages \[of Galactic evolution\], the efficiency remains so high (several percent) that the present authors find this proposal difficult to accept.”
Today’s value for the required efficiency at about 30 $`\%`$ is even higher. Biermann and Davis refrain from telling us why to them an efficiency of several $`\%`$ seemed unrealistically high, but it is easy to guess the reason for this judgment. As pioneers of solar-system CR physics, they knew that the efficiency of hadron acceleration to relativistic energies in large solar flare events is typically 0.1 $`\%`$111111 The stress is on relativistic, the efficiency for acceleration to lower, but still non-thermal energies can be much higher.. The velocities, matter densities and magnetic field strengths involved in these events are not radically different to those in SN ejecta. However, there are also important differences in temporal and spatial scale121212 The acceleration efficiency for relativistic electrons in nova explosions \- intermediate in energy between solar flares and supernova outbursts - has been been determined to about 1 $`\%`$. This value is similar to the one in SNRs (section 3.3). Perhaps an efficiency for acceleration to relativistic energies in the order of 0.1 - 1 $`\%`$ is typical for non-relativistic shocks in a magnetized low-density medium for all species., so Biermann and David prudently did not cite solar-system evidence in support of their doubt. Today’s direct evidence on the hadron acceleration efficiency in SNRs strongly supports their doubts.
Accelerated hadrons interact with ambient matter producing $`\pi _0`$ mesons. The level of very-high energy $`\gamma `$-ray radiation expected from $`\pi _0`$ decay allows to derive the efficiency of proton acceleration and has been searched for in a considerable number of SNRs using air-shower arrays and air Cherenkov telescopes. Let’s take a closer look at the two most interesting cases.

#### 3.1.1 SNR G78.2+2.1 - a cosmic beam dump

G78.2+2.1 - probably the remnant of a core-collapse supernova in the Cyg OB9 association 1.4 $`\pm `$ 0.6 $`\times `$ 104 years ago - is fourth brightest SNR at 1 GHz in the sky. At a distance of only 1.5 $`\pm `$ 0.3 kpc it subtends an angle of 1 degree, about twice as much as the moon. Based on various observational indications Pollock suggested that a bright “hot spot” (called “DR4”) of radio synchrotron emission in the south-east corner of the SNRs radio shell is due to the dense molecular cloud Cong 8, that was recently hit by the advancing SN shock front. Since the time Pollock wrote the paper, Fukui and Tatematsu have reconfirmed a CO emission at 2.6 mm and Wendker et al. found H2CO absorption in four out of five positions in DR4. Because CO and especially H2CO are indicators of high density, “…there is good evidence that interaction with quite a dense cloud is occurring in this part of the SNR. (cited from )”. The reality of the association between shock wave and molecular cloud has been doubted because Frail et al. failed to find OH(1720) MHz Maser emission from SNR G78+2.1. This is unwarranted, Frail et al. write:”Since masers are a nonlinear physical phenomenon, depending sensitively on input parameters the non detection of OH (1720 MHz) maser emission does not in itself rule out an interaction.” In fig.3 I compare the detailed shape of the IR emitting region at 100 $`\mu `$m as measured by the IRAS satellite (taken from IRAS ISSA server) and DR4 at 92 cm as measured by the Westerbork radio telescope (from the WENSS survey). The position and general elliptical shape, with a major axis from SW to NE, of the IR and radio emitting region are similar. This morphological resemblance suggests that indeed a molecular cloud was heated and compressed by the SNR shock wave.
G78.2+2.1 accelerates electrons to a spectrum with a power-law index of -2.08 $`\pm `$ 0.04, very close to the theoretically preferred value of -2.1. This makes G78.2+2.1 an excellent candidate for a typical hadronic CR accelerator. The spectral index within DR4 is similar to the one in the rest of the remnant. The entire cloud must then act as a “beam dump” for accelerated protons. The high matter density in the molecular cloud and relative closeness of the remnant make DR4 a most sensitive test-bed of hadron acceleration in SNRs.
Fig.4 compares various observational upper limits on VHE emission from DR4 with theoretical expectation, calculated under the assumption that 10$`\%`$ of the kinetic explosion energy was converted to hadronic CRs. The most restrictive limit (from 47 hours of on-source measurement with the HEGRA system of telescopes) falls below the expected value by more than a factor of 100.

#### 3.1.2 Cas A - cradle and bier of the belief that SNRs are the main source of CRs

Cas A, at a distance of 2.8 - 3.5 kpc, is the remnant of Flamsteed’s type Ib supernova “3 Cas” in the year 1680. It is the brightest non-thermal radio source in the sky and one of the best studied and understood non-thermal objects. It was Cas A that inspired Shklovsky to propose that Galactic CRs are mainly accelerated in SNRs . His idea was refined in the 1970s by models in which the CRs are mainly accelerated at the outer plane shock front via the first-order Fermi mechanism. Recently very clear experimental evidence from X-ray measurements for such a shock was found in Cas A (see fig. 2).

Berezhko, Pühlhofer and Völk carefully calculated the expected VHE $`\gamma `$ flux from Cas A, under the assumption that CR acceleration efficiency of Cas A is 20 $`\%`$. They point out that the observed flux of $`\gamma `$-rays with energies above 500 GeV falls below the expected flux by more than a factor of 100. The observed signal might well be due to inverse Compton emission by CR electrons, that are known to exist in Cas A. The discrepancy would then increase.

#### 3.1.3 SNRs are not the main sources of cosmic rays - their efficiency for acceleration is too low

The upper limits on $`\gamma `$ radiation from these two remnants bound the hadronic acceleration efficiency to about 20/100=0.2 $`\%`$. This shows that the intuition of Biermann/Davis was correct: the efficiency with which the kinetic energy of SNRs is converted to CRs is not much larger than 1 $`\%`$, thus excluding SNRs as the major source of hadronic Galactic cosmic rays.
Let us consider various attempts to avoid this conclusion.
The different ages of Cas A and G78.2+2.1 exclude that the small VHE $`\gamma `$-ray flux is due to a long time scale of hadron acceleration (“late injection”) or faster than usually expected diffusive CR loss from the remnant.
There is a handful of other SNRs for which less restrictive or more model-dependent upper limits from Cherenkov telescope and low energy-threshold air-shower arrays below the theoretical predictions exist. Therefore speculating that only a small fraction of “special” SNRs are the main sources of CRs quickly runs afoul with the required efficiency of particle acceleration that can hardly be much higher than the 30 $`\%`$ required if all Galactic SNRs contribute equally131313 This is only true of the CR producing SNRs are already known. The idea of an hitherto unknown class of “SNRs” with very different properties is indeed plausible and the subject of some proposals presented in section 5. .
The non-detection of $`\gamma `$-rays in the required amount might indeed be due to an upper energy cutoff below the threshold of the detectors (at 200 GeV and higher for various Cherenkov telescopes and at 3 TeV and higher for various arrays). Berezhko and Völk considered this possibility and aptly concluded: “Note however, that in this case SNRs would hardly be considered as the sources of Galactic CRs.141414 Because the unity of the spectrum up to the knee implies a common origin of all CRs below the knee.
Finally, the enormity of the discrepancy for the two cases presented above precludes to invoke a SNR source spectrum steeper than the one expected from the standard theory (power-law index of -2.1). The steepest index compatible (with difficulty ) with observational evidence from CR abundance ratios is -2.4. This value still results in a discrepancy from observation by a factor 10.

### 3.2 Anisotropy and Galactic distribution of CRs

Biermann and Davis also directed their attention to air-shower experiments that had just shown that the amplitude of anisotropy of Galactic cosmic rays was surprisingly small, below 10-3 up to 1014 eV and still below 10 $`\%`$ at 1017 eV. These experimental results have stood the test of time.
If cosmic rays are produced mainly within the solar circle (as is the case if SNRs are their dominant sources) at earth their diffusive leakage out of the Galaxy is equivalent to a slow net motion towards the Galactic anti center. A finite anisotropy is then expected due to the so called “Compton-Getting” effect: less particles are incident in the direction of net motion. The most recent detailed analysis of this effect  finds that the amount of anisotropy expected at an energy of 1014 eV is far larger than observed in three out of four considered models (by factors between 5 and 40). The remaining model manages to reproduce an anisotropy of 10-3 \- but only at the price of implausible ad hoc assumptions, like a CR source spectrum of the form $``$ R-2.4/(1+(2/R)2)1/2 (unexpected in any theory) - here R is the rigidity in GV - and an energy dependence of a cosmic-ray diffusion constant in flat contradiction to the most recent analyses of CR abundance ratios .
This problem is sometimes dismissed as mere coincidence. Perhaps the effects of various local sources of CRs conspire to result in an unusually small anisotropy near earth? Such a “conspiracy” appears unlikely when considering the determination of the CR density within the Galaxy by using observations from the 1970s onwards of low-energy $`\gamma `$-rays. The small anisotropy turned out to be the first indication of a deep lying problem.
The radial scale length of the cosmic-ray density \- derived in the interval between 5 and 20 kpc - has a value between 16 kpc and 34 kpc in various recent determinations based in data obtained with the EGRET experiment(earlier determinations based on SAS and COS-B data had given similar results). The space-density of SNRs is maximal at a distance about 4 kpc from the Galactic center and falls off with a scale length of about 5 kpc with increasing Galactocentric distance. Calculation of CR propagation based on this distribution predict a Galactocentric gradient which is about 3 - 5 times smaller than the observed one (see fig.5).

The distribution of CRs within the Galaxy is much more homogeneous than expected, and this leads to the smaller than expected isotropy. There are two possible explanations for the discrepamcy. Either the Galactic-propagation properties or the source location of CRs are different from what was thought plausible up to now.
With remarkable foresight Biermann and Davis had anticipated the problem just discussed from the limited data available to them and proposed an age of the observed cosmic rays of several billion years - one to two orders of magnitude larger than normally assumed. The longer diffusion time would indeed quantitatively result in the observed more homogenous distribution of CRs in the Galaxy. However, their proposal was ruled out by later experimental results: In particular, the work on the relatively large concentration of unstable isotopes with lifetimes in the order of 10 million years (Be10 and Al26) - performed after 1958 - has convincingly proven that the CR ages cannot exceed several hundred million years. An alternative modification of the propagation properties suggests that the timescale of CR escape from the Galaxy might decrease towards the Galactic center. This reduces the expected Galactocentric CR-density gradient. However the inferred total CR power of the Galaxy then exceeds the conventional value, thus requiring unreasonable acceleration efficiencies in SNRs (section 3.1).
It is then most natural to blame the Galactic location of the CR sources for the small Galactocentric CR-density gradient. The main cosmic-ray sources are distributed in the Galaxy with a Galactocentric scale length in the order of 25 $`\pm `$ 10 kpc. Various systematic uncertainties are still too large to derive the specific form of the source distribution - it might e.g. be exponential with a scale length of order 25 kpc or, alternatively, constant up to 25 kpc with an additional Galactic-center contribution of order of 10$`\%`$ of the total.
The distribution of SNRs in the Galaxy has not only be observed directly, but can also reliably be inferred - yielding similar results - from the one of their precursors, massive stars in our Galaxy and their brethren, pulsars. This firmly excludes that SNRs may be distributed in the Galaxy as required by the assumption that they are the main sources of CRs (as had been suggested by Strong and Moskalenko). There simply is no known class of potential CR accelerators located as required. Even Galactic dark matter (if it exists) is too strongly concentrated towards the Galactic center. The main sources of hadronic cosmic rays must be a completely novel 151515“Novel” is meant in the sense “not yet directly observed”, the new source-class might well be related to known phenomena, like supernovae. class astrophysical objects.

### 3.3 The Origin of CR electrons in SNRs

Biermann and Davis continue after their rejection of the hypothesis of SNRs as the main CR sources:
“Supernovae might well maintain the energy and number balance of the relativistic electrons responsible for the radio radiation of the halos. This is independent of the overall energy balance of the nuclei, which constitute $``$ 99 $`\%`$ of the cosmic rays.”
I think that Biermann and Davis were correct161616See Dar et al. for a different view.. In SNR 1006 about 1$`\%`$ of the remnant’s total kinetic energy was converted to relativistic electrons171717 This value was derived from the expressions in Ref. and the experimental flux at TeV energies.. If this value is typical for Galactic SNRs, diffusive and radiative losses of Galactic CR electrons can be replenished by SNRs. Electrons are observed to be accelerated in SNRs up to the highest energies observed in the ambient electron spectrum. Moreover electrons - unlike the hadrons - are not found to have a homogeneous distribution in the Galaxy. Rather they are strongly concentrated towards the Galactic center. The radial scale length of the synchrotron emissivity of the Galactic thick disk is only 3.9 $`\pm `$ 0.2 kpc - in good agreement with theoretical expectation under the assumption of an origin of the CR electrons in SNRs181818This conclusion only holds under the observationally plausible assumption that the mean Galactic interstellar B-field falls with a Galactocentric radial scale length much in excess 5 kpc..
The excellent agreement between theoretical expectation and observational results under the assumption of a SNR origin of CR electrons makes the glaring failures of theory in the case of nucleons seem all the more alarming.

## 4 Origin of “high-energy” (energies above the “knee”) CRs

### 4.1 Morrison’s dark question: absence of a cutoff in the CR spectrum near the knee

Philip Morrison already realized that SNRs cannot accelerate CRs to energies above about 1014 eV (the “knee” feature in the primary CR spectrum lies at a rather higher energy of 3 $`\times `$ 1015 eV). His conclusion has since then been confirmed in numerous detailed theoretical studies. Impressive observational evidence on the reality of the cutoff 191919Reynolds and Keohane conclude that in 14 SNRs they studied, only one (none) has a maximum electron energy above 100 (1000) TeV and that this limit should also apply to nuclei. make it unlikely that recent ingenious suggestions (e.g. ) to circumvent Morrison’s limit are realized in SNRs. Morrison called the question of the origin of CRs with higher energies “dark”, a designation that remains completely appropriate to the present day.

### 4.2 Today’s second dark question: absence of the Greisen cutoff

The most recent results from the AGASA air shower experiment indicate that the CR spectrum continues with a differential index of about -2.5 from an “ankle” at 5 $`\times `$ 1018 eV to 3 $`\times `$ 1020 eV without any evidence for a spectral cutoff above 5 $`\times `$ 1019 eV that is expected if UHE CRs are extragalactic. The newest data favor a power law from 5 $`\times `$ 1018 eV to 3 $`\times `$ 1020 eV without any structure. Three basic explanations have been brought forward to understand this202020 I do not list the possibility of an origin in the Galactic disk that had been resurrected by some. It requires an iron dominated composition above 1019 eV that was experimentally ruled out recently. :
1. Magnetic fields with a strength commonly encountered only in the center of large clusters unexpectedly exist also in extra-galactic space within about 10 Mpc of the Milky Way. This allows to “wash out” both anisotropies and the Greisen cutoff to a smooth increase of the spectral index in the mentioned energy range . UHE CRs could then be due to active galaxies 212121In addition, a density ratio of CR producers inside and outside the local supergalaxy higher than the one suggested by independent astrophysical evidence has to be assumed. It is obvious that this proposal was born of distress..
2. New physics occurs. The ideas proposed have a similar status as the ones of Millikan and Lemaître mentioned in the introduction.
3. UHE CRs have their origin in the Galactic halo.
I concluded in section 3.2 that the sources of low-energy CRs are a novel type of astrophysical object that is located mainly in the outer reaches of our Galaxy. The simplest point of departure for further research is then to adopt option 3 and to postulate that low and UHE CRs - and then indeed CR of all energies - have a common origin in the same novel source class. A “numerical coincidence” is in favor of such a paradigm. Magnetic confinement to our Galaxy is usually expected to set in at energies below a few times 1018 eV. The “ankle” is an increase in the spectral index of the primary CR spectrum by about 0.5 at about this energy. If only one source class dominates CR production at all energies, this coincidence can easily be naturally understood as the onset of Kraichnanian Galactic confinement.

## 5 Alternatives to SNRs as CR major sources

To my knowledge there have been only two proposals about an origin of the bulk of cosmic rays proposing objects different from SNRs or pulsars222222The known population of Galactic pulsars falls short by about an order of magnitude in power to replenish the loss of Galactic CRs, even if high acceleration efficiencies are invoked. within the last decade. In addition there is one historic proposal for an origin of CR in the Galactic halo.

### 5.1 Burbidge

In 1955 Geoffrey Burbidge proposed that CRs are accelerated up to the highest energy in the Galactic halo. Density irregularities with typical velocities of 200 km/sec were proposed as scattering centers. The ultimate energy source was imagined to be Galactic rotation tapped via turbulent hydromagnetic frictional effects.

### 5.2 Dar and Plaga

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are non-thermal objects that are ill understood. We are sure that sometimes GRBs occur in our own Galaxy, but where, how often and with what kind of remnants remains shrouded in mystery. It is then an obvious speculation to identify the main source of CRs with GRBs (section 3.2). This has been first proposed by Arnon Dar and worked out by Dar and Plaga. In the latter paper GRBs are proposed as “universal” (dominating at all energies) CR sources. An origin of CRs in GRBs (at energies above the “knee”) was first proposed by Milgrom and Usov, Vietri and Waxman.) More recently Plaga proposed that bipolar supernovae eject plasma clouds into the Galactic halo. These “plasmoids” are posited as the main sources of CRs. He based this scenario on the “cannonball model” of Dar and de Rùjula.

### 5.3 Dermer

It might be that Dar and Plaga fell into the same trap as Shklovsky and Burbidge before: again the source of CRs is directly identified with a bright non-thermal object in the sky. Charles Dermer recently suggested that \- in a addition to GRBs - a special type of stellar collapse event resulting in “fireball transients” (FT) occurs in the Galaxy. FTs are explosion events where $``$ 50 $`\%`$ of the kinetic energy of the ejecta resides in relativistic ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $`>`$ 2) outflows. These outflows are proposed as the main source of Galactic CRs. GRBs would then only be the exceptionally baryon poor “tip of the iceberg” of the underlying novel FT source class, that is up to now mainly seen in the “light” of hadronic CRs. In Dermer’s scenario UHE CRs are produced on extragalactic GRBs, whereas Dar and Plaga propose Galactic GRBs also for this component.

### 5.4 General constraints on alternatives

I expect that the final answer will involve two ingredients: an origin mainly (but probably not exclusively) in the Galactic halo (taken from Burbidge and Dar/Plaga) and a process with a more direct and effective conversion of gravitational into kinetic energy than the one that shaped SNRs (taken from Dermer and Dar/Plaga). This leaves room for ideas quite different from the ones presented in this section, like an origin in a novel, primordial class of neutron or quark stars in the Galactic halo.

## 6 Conclusion - present status and future progress. A personal view

### 6.1 Present status - my view

Summarizing, SNRs are not the main sources of Galactic cosmic rays. SNRs are the main sources of one of its minor components, the electrons. The distribution of the actual main sources of Galactic cosmic rays differs from that of any other known class of potential CR accelerators. It stands to reason to speculate that these sources accelerate the complete CR spectrum up to the highest energies. The astroparticle physics community holds in its hands solid evidence for a completely novel type of astrophysical phenomenon. It must rise to the challenge to study this phenomenon, not by merely waiting for a serendipitous observational discovery but by systematic theoretical work on alternatives to a SNR origin of CRs.

### 6.2 Present status - prevailing view

The extremely disappointing experimental situation is not denied in the astroparticle/cosmic-ray community. It is generally and clearly stated that a CR origin mainly in SNRs is not certain232323 E.g. Matthew Baring skilfully avoids a personal endorsement in his summary of the 1999 26th ICRC (“… has led to the almost universal acclaim that SNRs are the site of CR acceleration. Yet …”). However, “faute de mieux” (“for lack of something better”, quote from a report by a working group on “tests of Galactic cosmic-ray source models”) any consideration of alternatives to SNRs as major CR sources is refused (not a single alternative to a SNR origin of the low-energy component is mentioned 242424 The strongly related concept of super bubbles - agglomerates of several old SNRs - as a possible site of CR origin is discussed, but the authors stop short of considering them as the primary CR source class.). Thus the prevailing view is that theoretical work on the origin of the low-energy component must remain restricted to the presently known class of SNRs252525formed of non-relativistic, very roughly spherical, SN ejecta, because it is “the (only) one model that has been worked out in some detail262626In support of my evaluation I quote from the rejection of an anonymous referee on a manuscript suggesting an alternative to a SNR origin of CRs. The referee had demanded an impossibly large extension of an already relatively long manuscript and reasoned: “Dr. Plaga argues that 15 A & A pages is quite a lot, but he is trying to challenge the cosmic ray edifice that stands upon uncounted thousands of pages, articles, and conferences!”. Moreover in none of two recent reviews of CR origin any alternative in the sense of section 5 is mentioned, though in both cases such alternatives were presented at the corresponding conferences. .

### 6.3 If the prevailing view continues to predominate…

…this will have two unhappy consequences:
1. The problem of the origin of CRs will probably be solved outside the astroparticle-physics community, when eventually other astrophysicists will stumble on the CR source class by chance272727 Because VHE astrophysics lacks sensitive all-sky detectors, it seems likely that the objects will eventually be discovered in the X-ray..
2. The vital chance will be lost to be the first to study the new source class by means of CR evidence.
To illustrate the latter point, Arnon Dar and I proposed an extremely jetted geometry of GRBs (later worked out in detail by him and Alvaro de Rújula within the “cannonball model”) guided by CR evidence.

### 6.4 Future progress - some important open questions

Two questions are of primary importance for the problem of CR origin and serve as a possible point of departure for the research recommended in section 6.1. The third one is of more general interest.
1. There is solid observational evidence that some fraction of supernovae involves the ejection of ultrarelativistic plasma with a total kinetic energy larger than the one of SNRs (the most recent observation of a gamma-ray burst \- supernova association is discussed by Lazzati et al.).
Where are their remnants (observation) and what properties do they have (theory) 282828A consideration of various anomalous non-thermal remnants in our Galaxy  might be interesting in this connection.? What is the CR total-power and spectrum produced in these events in our and other galaxies?
2. There is solid observational evidence that spiral galaxies possess the extended, thermal, magnetized halo or “corona” originally introduced by Spitzer, that our Galaxy forms no exception and that these halos are in a very dynamic, turbulent state.
Where and with what total power are particles accelerated in these halos?
3. What is the total cosmic-ray power of our Galaxy?
If the answer turns out to be significantly higher than the standard value of 1.5 $`\times `$ 1041 erg/sec (as recently advocated by Dar & De Rùjula) a similar upscale is necessary for other galaxies. With an increase by more than a factor 10 CR pressure is expected to dominate the thermal gas pressure in the center of galaxy clusters. This would refute one of the strongest arguments against “MOND”, Mordehai Milgrom’s modified Newtonian dynamics.
Acknowledgments The author is supported by a Heisenberg fellowship of the DFG. I thank Jürgen Gebauer, Silvia Pezzoni and Julian Schlegl for reading the manuscript and discussions.


text:
# Loop structure of the lowest Bloch band for a Bose-Einstein condensate

## Abstract

We investigate analytically and numerically Bloch waves for a Bose–Einstein condensate in a sinusoidal external potential. At low densities the dependence of the energy on the quasimomentum is similar to that for a single particle, but at densities greater than a critical one the lowest band becomes triple-valued near the boundary of the first Brillouin zone and develops the structure characteristic of the swallow-tail catastrophe. We comment on the experimental consequences of this behavior.

The possibility of studying experimentally the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials created by optical lattices (see e. g. expt ; morsch ) has stimulated a number of theoretical investigations. These include nonlinear tunneling phenomena WN1 ; ZG , Bloch oscillations kirstine ; choi , stability of Bloch waves WN2 , and oscillations of condensates and localized excitations TS . In a two-level model of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling, evidence was found for a loop structure in the adiabatic energy levels WN1 . Recently Bronski et al. BCDK  discovered a remarkable exact solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice for a quasimomentum corresponding to the boundary of the first Brillouin zone. The reason for an exact solution being possible is that the spatially dependent parts of the lattice potential and the internal field due to interparticle interactions cancel. Subsequently, in Ref. WDN  it was shown by numerical studies that the current of the condensate for quasimomenta in the vicinity of the zone boundary had a singular behavior, and it was speculated that the chemical potential of the condensate became multivalued near the zone boundary. In this Letter we use analytical and numerical methods to show that the lowest band has the structure associated with the swallow-tail catastrophe thom , and we comment on implications of this result for experiment.

The potential $`V(x)`$ produced by a one-dimensional standing light wave has the form

$$V(x)=V_0\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\pi x}{d},$$
(1)
where $`d`$ is the period of the lattice. We shall assume that the condensate may be described by the Gross–Pitaevskii functional for the energy density, which when averaged over a lattice period is given by

$$=\frac{1}{d}_{d/2}^{d/2}𝑑x\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\left|\frac{d\psi }{dx}\right|^2+V(x)|\psi |^2+\frac{U_0}{2}|\psi |^4\right],$$
(2)
and the mean number density $`n`$ is given by

$$n=\frac{1}{d}_{d/2}^{d/2}𝑑x|\psi |^2.$$
(3)
Here $`\psi `$ is the wave function of the condensate, $`m`$ is the particle mass, and the effective two-body interaction is given by $`U_0=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a/m`$, where $`a`$ is the scattering length for two-body collisions. The condensate wave function satisfies the nonlinear Schrödinger equation

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\frac{d^2\psi }{dx^2}+\left[V(x)+U_0|\psi |^2\mu \right]\psi =0.$$
(4)
The quantity $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential, and this depends both on the mean density of particles, and on the quasimomentum. We shall look for solutions where the mean density is independent of position, and therefore these must satisfy the condition for quasi-periodicity,

$$\psi (x+d)=\mathrm{exp}(ikd)\psi (x)$$
(5)
for all $`x`$. The quantity $`\mathrm{}k`$ is the quasimomentum of the condensate. Our objective is to find the energy per particle, the chemical potential, and the current density of nonlinear Bloch waves as a function of $`k`$ and of $`n`$. The current density of the condensate is given by

$$j(k)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2mi}\left(\psi ^{}\frac{d\psi }{dx}\psi \frac{d\psi ^{}}{dx}\right).$$
(6)
It is independent of $`x`$ provided $`\psi `$ satisfies Eq. (4). By direct calculation one can demonstrate that

$$j(k)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}\frac{(k,n)}{k}.$$
(7)
The quantity $`j/n`$ is the mean particle velocity.

Without loss of generality, we may choose $`\psi (0)`$ to be real. Since the periodic potential is even in $`x`$, one infers from the quasi-periodicity condition (5) that the real part of the condensate wave function is an even function of $`x`$ and the imaginary part an odd function.

The solution at the zone center ($`k=0`$) corresponds to a purely real and periodic wave function, $`\psi (x+d)=\psi (x)`$. Also at the zone boundary ($`k=\pm \pi /d`$) there is a purely real solution which is antiperiodic, $`\psi (x+d)=\psi (x)`$. Since $`\psi `$ is real, these solutions have zero current, $`j=0`$. Other solutions are complex and the current is non-zero. Since the potential in Eq. (4) is real, it follows that $`\psi _k(x)=\psi _k^{}(x)`$. Naturally, all physical quantities are periodic in $`k`$ with period $`2\pi /d`$.

The structure of the energy as a function of $`k`$ near the zone boundary may be brought out by making a variational calculation of the energy. We use a trial function of the form

$$\psi (x)=\sqrt{n}\{\mathrm{cos}\alpha \mathrm{exp}ikx+\mathrm{sin}\alpha \mathrm{exp}(i[k2\pi /d]x)\},$$
(8)
where $`\alpha `$ is a variational parameter. This is similar to that used in the almost-free-electron approximation for the band structure of a single particle, and it also corresponds to the two-level model studied in Ref. WN1 . When the trial function (8) is inserted into the energy functional (2), it becomes

$$=n\left(\overline{ϵ}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ}{2}\mathrm{cos}2\alpha \right)+\frac{nV_0}{2}\left(1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}2\alpha \right)$$

$$+\frac{n^2U_0}{2}\left(1+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^22\alpha \right),$$
(9)
where the three terms are the kinetic, potential and interaction energies, respectively, with $`\overline{ϵ}=(ϵ_k+ϵ_{k2\pi /d})/2`$, where $`ϵ_k=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ=ϵ_kϵ_{k2\pi /d}=(2\pi \mathrm{}^2/md)(k\pi /d)`$. The optimal value of $`\alpha `$ is obtained by requiring (9) to be stationary with respect to variations in $`\alpha `$, and the chemical potential $`\mu `$ is then found by differentiating the resulting energy with respect to the density, $`\mu =/n`$.

At the zone boundary $`k=\pm \pi /d`$ the stationarity of (9) yields two solutions: $`\mathrm{sin}2\alpha =V_0/2nU_0`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}2\alpha =0`$. The first solution, which requires that the density exceed a critical value $`n_\mathrm{c}`$ given by

$$n_\mathrm{c}=V_0/2U_0,$$
(10)
has an energy density

$$_1=n\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2}{2md^2}+\frac{V_0}{2}\right)+\frac{n^2U_0}{2}\frac{V_0^2}{16U_0},$$
(11)
a chemical potential

$$\mu _1=\mu _\mathrm{c}+(nn_\mathrm{c})U_0,$$
(12)
where

$$\mu _\mathrm{c}=V_0+\frac{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2}{2md^2},$$
(13)
and a current density

$$j=\pm \frac{\mathrm{}\pi }{md}\sqrt{n^2n_\mathrm{c}^2}.$$
(14)
The two possible signs for the current density reflect the fact that if $`\alpha `$ is a solution to the stationarity condition, so is $`\pi /2\alpha `$.

Equations (10)–(14) are in fact exact, the variational trial function (8) being in this case identical with the analytical solution found in Refs. BCDK ; WDN . At the critical density when the analytical solution first appears with $`\alpha =\pi /4`$, the current is zero since $`\psi (x)`$ is real. We note that the critical chemical potential is the height of the barrier, plus the kinetic energy of a free particle with a momentum equal to the quasimomentum at the zone boundary.

For $`n>n_\mathrm{c}`$ the exact solution (8) with $`\mathrm{sin}2\alpha =V_0/2nU_0<1`$ is complex and carries a non-zero current. Remarkably, although this state has $`k=\pm \pi /d`$, it has neither the highest energy nor the highest chemical potential of all states in the band: the real antiperiodic wave function, also with $`k=\pm \pi /d`$, has higher $`\mu `$, and it corresponds to the second solution of the stationarity condition, $`\mathrm{cos}2\alpha =0`$ or $`\alpha =\pi /4`$ (the other possibility, $`\alpha =3\pi /4`$, belongs to the next, excited Bloch band and will not be considered here). This solution exists at all densities and corresponds to a chemical potential $`\mu _2=\mu _\mathrm{c}+3(nn_\mathrm{c})U_0/2`$ which is higher than $`\mu _1`$ at $`n>n_\mathrm{c}`$.

For a general value of $`k`$, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$ term in Eq. (9) for the total energy tends to make the roots of the stationarity condition initially at $`\alpha =\pi /4`$ and $`\alpha =[\mathrm{arcsin}(V_0/2nU_0)]/2`$ approach one another, and the two roots merge and disappear for a sufficiently large value of the magnitude of $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ`$. The energy per particle obtained using the trial function (8) is shown in Fig. 1, where one sees the swallow-tail structure near the zone boundary. Throughout, we shall measure energies in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, where $`\omega =(2V_0/m)^{1/2}\pi /d`$ is the angular frequency of small oscillations about a minimum of the potential.

A quantitative analysis shows that the trial form (8) is a good approximation near the zone boundary provided $`\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2/2md^2nU_0`$. The analytical calculations may be improved by including plane-wave components with wave numbers that differ from the ones in Eq. (8) by multiples of the reciprocal lattice vector $`2\pi /d`$.

We now demonstrate that the swallow-tail structure also arises in numerical solutions of the full Gross–Pitaevskii equation (4). At condensate densities below the critical one, the wave function and dispersion relation for nonlinear Bloch waves are qualitatively similar to those for a single particle. To illustrate this, we again consider the case where the potential barrier is $`V_0=3\mathrm{}\omega `$.

In Figs. 2 and 3 we plot the chemical potential $`\mu (k,n)`$ and the energy per particle for several values of density $`n<n_\mathrm{c}`$. In all cases the chemical potential lies below the top of the potential barriers. Therefore, the energy bands are relatively narrow as the motion of the condensate involves tunneling through the barriers. The difference between the chemical potential and the energy per particle reflects the nonlinear character of the interparticle interaction.

In Fig. 4 we show the current density $`j(k,n)`$ of the nonlinear waves for the same number densities as in Figs. 2 and 3. The current goes to zero both at the zone center and the zone boundary. At the critical density the real antiperiodic wave function corresponding to the top of the band and having $`k=\pm \pi /d`$ coincides with the analytical solution,

$$\psi _\mathrm{c}^{k=\pm \pi /d}(x)=\sqrt{\frac{V_0}{U_0}}\mathrm{cos}\frac{\pi x}{d}.$$
(15)
The current density $`j(k,n_\mathrm{c})`$ goes to zero at $`k=\pm \pi /d`$ but has an infinite derivative at this point, see Fig. 4. Consequently, $`\mu (k,n_\mathrm{c})`$ develops a singularity at $`k=\pm \pi /d`$ (see Fig. 2), as does the energy density.

For $`n>n_\mathrm{c}`$ the Bloch wave evolves from a real periodic wave function at $`k=0`$ to the analytical plane-wave solution (8) at $`k=\pi /d`$, which, however, is now complex. At $`k=\pi /d`$ there is a second solution equal to the complex conjugate of the first one and, in addition, a third one which is real, and which therefore carries no current. Also for $`k`$ close to $`\pi /d`$ one finds three solutions for a given $`k`$. We plot the chemical potential $`\mu (k,n)`$, the current density $`j(k,n)`$, and the energy per particle $`(k,n)/n`$ in Figs. 5–7, respectively, for two values of the density $`n>n_\mathrm{c}`$. We note that $`j(k,n)`$ calculated from the wave function using Eq. (6) is consistent with the relation (7).

The unusual structure of the energy bands has important implications for experiment. If a single particle in a periodic potential is subjected to a small constant force, $`k`$ varies linearly in time, and the particle velocity and position execute Bloch oscillations. Such behavior has been observed in optical lattices for thermal atoms above the Bose-Einstein transition temperature salomon . Similar arguments apply to the motion of a Bose–Einstein condensate, provided the energy of the condensate in the lowest band is a continuous, single-valued function of $`k`$. Bloch oscillations have indeed been observed for condensates morsch . At densities greater than $`n_\mathrm{c}`$, the situation is different because of the swallow-tail structure of the energy band. When a weak force is applied to a condensate initially at rest, in the simple picture of the motion $`k`$ will increase and with time will reach the value $`\pi /d`$. With further increase of $`k`$, the system will continue on the branch of the spectrum for $`k>\pi /d`$ which has the same slope at $`k=\pi /d`$ as that of the initial branch. With this choice of branch, the wave function varies continuously as $`k`$ increases past $`\pi /d`$, whereas there is a discontinuous change in the wave function of the lowest energy state. A dramatic manifestation of this is that the current density in the lowest energy state changes sign at $`k=\pi /d`$. With time, $`k`$ will eventually reach the tip of the swallow tail, and it then becomes impossible to describe the condensate motion in terms of the usual adiabatic picture, as was found in Ref. WN1  for a two-level model. How to treat the dynamics under such conditions remains a challenging open problem.

The experiments on Bloch oscillations in Ref. morsch  were carried out in a regime in which the interaction energy was small compared with the depth of the potential due to the optical lattice, and therefore one would not have expected the energy band to have the swallow-tail structure. It is important to extend such experiments into the regime in which the strong nonlinear effects predicted here should occur. Theoretically, the stability of a condensate moving in a periodic potential has been examined for relatively low values of the two-body interaction WN2 , and such studies should be extended to higher values of the interaction, where the swallow tail develops.

We are grateful to D. Aristov and S. J. Chang for very useful discussions.


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# Dissipation of non-linear circularly polarized Alfvén waves

## 1. Introduction

The acceleration of the fast solar wind is a long-standing problem in solar physics. It is likely that Alfvén waves play a significant role in this process (e.g. Leer et al. 1982). They can propagate over long distance, which allows them to reach the outer corona, because to lowest order they are incompressible and do not dissipate. However dissipative damping is required at some point to avoid too high wind velocities (e.g. Holzer et al. 1983). A closer examination shows though that a linearly polarized Alfvén wave is compressible to second order, since the magnetic pressure, $`B_1^2/(2\mu _0)`$, varies with half the wave length of the Alfvén wave itself (Alfvén & Fälthammar 1963). In a circularly polarized Alfvén wave, on the other hand, the magnetic pressure is constant along the wave, which is the physical reason why the circularly polarized Alfvén wave in a homogeneous medium is an exact solution to the nonlinear MHD equations.

Several groups have studied different mechanism through which Alfvén waves can dissipate. In two dimensions phase mixing due to a transverse gradient in the phase velocity (e.g. Heyvaerts & Prist 1983) can lead to a strong damping of the wave. This mechanism is not available in one dimension though, and one has then rather considered the nonlinear coupling of the Alfvén wave with other modes (e.g. Wentzel (1973), for circularly polarized Alfvén waves in particular see also Del Zanna et al. (2001) ). Cohen & Kulsrud (1974) found in an approximate solution of the nonlinear MHD equations that the linearly polarized Alfvén wave steepens and can form current sheets. This result has later been confirmed by numerical simulations by Boynton & Torkelsson (1996) and Ofman & Davila (1997).

## 2. Results

In this paper we use the numerical code of Boynton & Torkelsson (1996) (see also Torkelsson & Boynton (1998)) to simulate propagating circularly polarized Alfvén waves. In the following we will consider both models with a constant background density, and stratified models. For all the simulations the temperature is $`10^6`$ K and the period of the waves is 300 s. The isothermal speed of sound is $`\mathrm{1.29\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ m s-1.

### 2.1. Unstratified models

For the unstratified models, we differentiate between two cases, when the magnetic field is weak, that is $`\beta _{\mathrm{mag}}=17`$ and $`c_\mathrm{s}>v_\mathrm{A}`$, and when it is strong that is $`\beta _{\mathrm{mag}}=0.042`$ and $`v_\mathrm{A}>c_\mathrm{s}`$. For both the runs $`\rho =\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}10}^{14}`$ kg m-3. We compare the runs in Fig. 1. If we compare our Fig 1a to Fig. 1 of Boynton & Torkelsson (1996) we notice that in both cases there is an acoustic precursor moving at a speed close to $`c_s`$, but in their case the precursor is a sinusoidal oscillation in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$ and $`v_z`$. Apparently the gradual increase of the magnetic pressure at the front of the linearly polarized Alfvén wave drives an oscillatory wave, while the sharp discontinuity of the magnetic pressure at the front of the circularly polarized wave works as a piston. The amplitude of the acoustic precursor in Fig. 1a scales with the square of the amplitude of the Alfvén wave.

When $`v_\mathrm{A}>c_\mathrm{s}`$ (Fig. 1c and 1d) a density enhancement propagates with the wave. $`v_z`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$ are then related by $`v_z=v_\mathrm{A}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\rho }{\rho }`$. While the right edge of the enhancement coincides with the front of the Alfvén wave, the left edge propagates with the velocity $`c_\mathrm{s}`$. In the leftmost part of Fig. 1c we see the effect of the non-linear interaction between the acoustic wave and the Alfvén wave.

Boynton & Torkelsson (1996) found that when $`B_1`$ approaches $`B_z`$ in strength, the Alfvén wave starts to steepen into current sheets (Fig. 2a) which enhance the dissipation of the wave. The circularly polarized Alfvén wave does not develop such current sheets (Fig. 2b).

### 2.2. Stratified models

We discus in this paper two models: one with $`(\frac{B_x}{B_z})_0=0.1`$ and one with $`(\frac{B_x}{B_z})_0=1.0`$, both have a background magnetic field $`B_z=3\times 10^5`$ T.

At the bottom of the grid $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ is smaller than $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ and equal to $`3.8\times 10^4`$ m s-1, but it increases with $`z`$ and eventually becomes higher than $`c_\mathrm{s}`$. Density is taken to be equal to $`5\times 10^{13}`$ kg m-3 at the bottom of the corona and varies with $`z`$ as

$`\rho _0(z)=\rho _0(0)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{R}{H}}{\displaystyle \frac{z}{R+z}})`$ (1)
where $`H_0=\mathrm{6.1\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$ m is the scale height at $`z=0`$, and $`R`$ is the solar radius.

The wave front of the Alfvén wave pushes matter upwards forming a density perturbation which behaves as an acoustic precursor as long as $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ is smaller than $`c_\mathrm{s}`$. When $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ becomes larger than $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ the Alfvén wave begins to overtake the precursor, which however persists and propagates forward with a speed close to the speed of sound (Fig. 3a). For a low amplitude Alfvén wave the density enhancement almost keeps its shape as it propagates while for a high amplitude wave the density enhancement changes gradually.

In Fig. 3c we see a decrease in the Poynting flux in front the acoustic precursor. Fig. 4 shows the time average over one Alfvén wave period of the Poynting flux and the integrated work it does via the Lorentz force. In the linearly polarized case the wave loses $`70\%`$ of its Poynting flux below $`z=0.4`$ R and very little of it is dissipated after that (see Boynton & Torkelsson (1996) Fig. 9) while in the circularly polarized case the wave loses very little of its Poynting flux below $`z=0.5`$, but it has lost almost half of it at $`z=0.8`$ R by doing mechanical work on the plasma.

## 3. Conclusions

In constructing models of Alfvén wave driven stellar winds it is important to understand the mechanism by which the Alfvén waves are damped. A linearly polarized Alfvén wave of high amplitude can steepen and form current sheets even in a homogeneous medium, which leads to a quick damping of the wave. While a circularly polarized Alfvén wave does not dissipate its energy in a homogeneous medium, we have found that it may do so in a stratified medium. The dissipation sets in later than for a linearly polarized Alfvén wave though, but a significant fraction of its Poynting flux may still be spent on doing work on the medium through which the Alfvén wave propagates.

## References

Alfvén, H.,Fälthammar, C.-G. 1963, Cosmical electrodynamics. Fundamental principles, (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Boynton, G. C., Torkelsson, U. 1996, A&A, 308,299

Cohen, R. H., & Kulsrud, R. M., 1974, Phys. Fluids, 17, 2215

Del Zanna, L., Velli, M., Londrillo, P. 2001, A&A, 367,705

Heyvaerts, J., & Prist, E. R. 1983, A&A, 117, 220

Holzer, T. E., Flå, T., & Leer, E., 1983, ApJ, 275, 808

Leer, E., Holzer, T. E., & Flå, T., 1982, Space Sci. Rev., 33, 161

Ofman, L., & Davila, J. M., 1997, ApJ, 476, 357; ApJ, 476, L51

Torkelsson, U., Boynton, G. C. 2000, MNRAS, 376, 214

Wentzel, 1973, Solar Phys. 39, 129


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# Deterministic Small-World Networks

## 1 Deterministic models for small-world networks

Our models are based on the replacement of nodes with networks and the addition of new networks to an arbitrary low diameter “backbone” network resulting in small-world networks which have more nodes than the original.

### Constant degree small-world networks

We consider first the replacement of nodes of a network by new networks. Consider an arbitrary sparse network with $`n`$ nodes such that each node has $`k`$ neighbors. Its expected diameter is $`d\mathrm{log}_{k1}n`$  and the expected clustering coefficient is $`(k1)/n`$ . This coefficient is defined as the fraction of existing edges between the neighbors of a node and the maximum number of edges that could possibly exist among the neighbors, averaged over all the nodes of the network. A high clustering coefficient means that the neighborhood of an average node is highly connected to each other.

For $`nk`$ the clustering is almost zero. Replacing each node with a totally connected network of $`k`$ nodes will lead to a new network with $`kn`$ nodes, diameter $`2d+1`$ and clustering $`(n2)/n`$ such that each node also has $`k`$ neighbors (Fig. 1b). This new network has the characteristics of a small-world network: a relatively low diameter and a high clustering. Moreover, this construction maintains symmetry properties of the original network. For example, if the original network looks the same from any node and any link (is node-symmetric and edge-symmetric) the resulting network is also node-symmetric. This property is important, for instance in communication networks, because it simplifies routing algorithms and network management. Barabási et al.  already mention partial self-similarity for their construction of scale-free networks.

### Small-world networks with variable degree distributions

In a second construction a small-world network is obtained by connecting nodes of a network of diameter $`d`$ to a complete network of any size, which may be different from node to node (Fig. 1c). In that case the resulting network has diameter $`d+2`$, a high clustering and nodes may have a different number of neighbors. The construction can be generalized if we connect dense networks with reduced diameter ($`d^{}`$) instead of complete networks. In that case we obtain a small-world network with diameter at most $`d+2d^{}`$. This technique is very flexible as it allows different final degree distributions, including scale-free networks. Thus, it can be used for the construction of small-world networks adapted for different contexts.

## 2 Discussion

With our models we show that it is quite simple to generate a network with low diameter and high clustering. The World Wide Web, for example, has been increasing in size exponentially from a few thousand nodes in the early nineties to hundreds of millions today. However, it has been shown recently  that the diameter of the Web is small and grows very slowly – a tenfold increase on the present size of the World Wide Web would only modify its diameter from 19 to 21. Similar to Milgram’s study, this result might be astonishing at first sight. But with our second model, starting from a network with 300,000 nodes, diameter 15 and clustering 0 and such that each node has 5 neighbors, we obtain, for example, a network with 3,300,000 nodes, diameter 17 and clustering 0.95, by adding complete networks of 10 nodes to each node. This is in contradiction to the usual belief that the World Wide Web has an extremely good topology. It is easily possible to construct networks with a higher clustering index and a lower diameter by our deterministic techniques. Neither complex simulations nor stochastic models are necessary to generate networks with similar small-world characteristics.111Although the replacement of vertices by networks in our model could be associated to a local growth of an existing network, we do not intend to model the growth of real networks, which is considered to be much more difficult. We only want to give an immediately comprehensible technique how to generate a network with small-world characteristics.

It is possible to obtain a scale-free network with the same number of nodes, diameter and clustering by adding complete networks of different sizes and distributed according to a power-law. In the same manner, our constructions can model the existence of small-world networks which have similar defining parameters (size, clustering, diameter) but different connectivity distributions such as: Gaussian, in the randomized model of Watts and Strogatz ; power-law distributions, in some real life networks  such as the power grid of the western US, the collaboration graph of actors, etc.; and constant distributions, in which all nodes of the small-world network have the same number of neighbors . The addition of totally connected networks of different size to the appropriate nodes can produce the desired distribution.

We believe that the variety of deterministic small-world networks that may be obtained with these simple constructions will help to demystify the small-world phenomenon. We claim that using deterministic techniques it will be possible to construct networks which are much better than those found in nature. As no simulation is needed in our models and relevant parameters can be directly calculated, the contrast of real with synthesized networks can be done immediately.

## Acknowledgements

Research supported by *Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia*, Spain (TIC97-0963).