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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Exclusive vector meson production by real and virtual photons is deemed to provide important information on the transition region from the “soft” dynamics at low virtualities of the photon $`Q^2`$ to the “hard” perturbative regime at high $`Q^2`$. An evidence of such a transition was the rapid growth of $`J/\psi `$ meson production discovered at HERA which raised the question of the applicability and validity of the Regge pole model in such a region.

Similarly the question of how to reconcile within QCD the transition from the perturbative regime (hard diffraction) and the one of hadron-hadron scattering cross-sections (soft diffraction) remains still quite open.

The effect discovered at HERA caused a vivid response by theorists. Vector meson photoproduction is described in phenomenological and QCD based approaches.

Based on the idea of soft Pomeron exchange, a model of Donnachie and Landshoff  is capable of describing $`\rho _0`$ and $`\phi `$ meson photoproduction using vector meson dominance with a scale factor $`0.84`$. At the same time it fails to describe $`J/\psi `$ meson photoproduction cross section since the modest rise of soft Pomeron exchange with the intercept $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{IP}0.08`$ could not account for the steep behaviour of the $`J/\psi `$ cross section. To cope with such a steep behaviour they proposed a model of two Pomerons  in which an additional hard Pomeron is present with a high intercept $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{IP_0}0.4`$ and the introduction of such an exchange helps to describe the data on $`J/\psi `$ photoproduction and charm component $`F_2^c(x,Q^2)`$.

The model of Haakman, Kaidalov and Koch , taking into account both (‘eikonal’) multiple-Pomeron exchanges and a more complete set of diagrams including the interactions among the exchanged Pomerons, is capable of describing not only the photoproduction of vector mesons but also the $`Q^2`$ dependent $`\rho _0`$ meson photoproduction by virtual photons. The model is based on a Pomeron with intercept $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{IP}0.2`$ which is softened by multi Pomeron exchanges in hadron-hadron interactions and the effective intercept grows with $`Q^2`$ leading to an increase of the growth of vector meson cross sections with increasing $`Q^2`$. The authors relate the vector meson differential cross section to the proton structure function $`F_2^p(x,Q^2)`$ and obtain a good description of the $`\rho _0`$ meson photoproduction by virtual photons using their model for $`F_2^p(x,Q^2)`$ .

Using a method of off shell extension of Regge eikonal model, Petrov and Prokudin  described $`\rho _0`$ and $`J/\psi `$ vector meson production by real and virtual photons using the universal Pomeron with intercept $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{IP_0}0.1`$ obtained from the description of $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ total, elastic and differential cross sections. The model uses a non $`Q^2`$ dependent Pomeron trajectory, takes into account unitarity corrections and does not violate unitarity for hadron-hadron processes and vector meson production.

A model based on dipole Pomeron by Jenkovszky, Martynov and Paccanoni  describes the vector meson photoproduction cross section for $`\rho _0`$, $`\omega `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ vector meson using the Pomeron with intercept equal to 1, thus not violating unitarity restrictions.

The Dipole Pomeron was used in Ref.  to describe heavy meson photoproduction. The model  does not violate unitarity and shows good agreement with the data.

At the same time vector meson photoproduction at large $`Q^2`$ is seen as a test of perturbative QCD and of exchanges of the so called BFKL Pomeron.

Brodsky, Frankfurt, Gunion, Mueller and Strikman  using pQCD calculations show that with increasing $`Q^2`$, the vector meson photoproduction cross section starts rising more steeply as compared with photoproduction by real photons. They argue that the cross section is dominated (at large $`Q^2`$) by two gluon exchange through its longitudinal component

$$\sigma \sigma _L\frac{1}{Q^6}[xg(x,Q^2)]^2,$$
(1)
(where $`xg(x,Q^2)`$ is the gluon distribution) with respect to which the transverse component is suppressed by a factor of $`Q^2`$

$$\sigma _T\frac{1}{Q^8}[xg(x,Q^2)]^2.$$
(2)
Martin, Ryskin and Teubner  show that the diffractive electroproduction of $`\rho `$ meson at high $`Q^2`$ can be described by pQCD and argue that the conflict between the QCD of prediction for the ratio

$$\frac{\sigma _L}{\sigma _T}\frac{Q^2}{2m_\rho ^2}$$
(3)
and the existing data  may be resolved introducing the relation

$$\frac{\sigma _L}{\sigma _T}=\frac{Q^2}{M^2}\left(\frac{\gamma (Q^2)}{\gamma (Q^2)+1}\right)^2,$$
(4)
where $`M`$ is the invariant mass of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair and $`\gamma `$ is the effective anomalous dimension of the gluon.

Cudell and Royen  using the lowest-order QCD calculation show that it reproduces correctly the ratios of cross sections for $`\rho `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$. At the same time, the data for $`\frac{\sigma _L}{\sigma _T}`$ are not reproduced as in most of the models and they propose a new approach  where the asymptotic form of the transverse cross section gives $`\sigma _T\frac{1}{Q^6}`$ leading to a good description of the ratio $`\frac{\sigma _L}{\sigma _T}`$.

The energy dependence of the vector meson photoproduction cross section was investigated in a paper by Donnachie, Gravelis and Shaw  who use pQCD calculations, the model of Cudell and Royen , soft Pomeron contribution modelling non-perturbative two-gluon exchange and several models for the vector meson wave function and achieve good global description of the vector meson data.

Nemchik, Nikolaev, Predazzi and Zakharov  use color dipole phenomenology and predict for the dipole cross section

$$\frac{\sigma (\gamma ^{}\omega )}{\sigma (\gamma ^{}\rho _0)}=\frac{1}{9}$$
(5)
independent of energy and $`Q^2`$. The elastic dipole cross section is in accord with the QCD prediction

$$\sigma (\gamma ^{}V)=\sigma _T(\gamma ^{}V)+ϵ\sigma _L(\gamma ^{}V)\frac{1}{(Q^2+m_V^2)^4}\left(1+ϵR_{LT}\frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}\right).$$
(6)
Nemchik, Nikolaev and Zakharov  observe that elastic production of vector mesons is of great potentiality for probing the BFKL Pomeron .

Vanderhaeghen, Guichon and Guidal  estimate the leading order amplitudes for exclusive meson electroproduction at large $`Q^2`$ in terms of skewed quark distributions and obtain a good description of $`\sigma _L`$ for $`\rho _0`$ meson exclusive production.

The $`|t|`$ dependence of $`J/\psi `$ production is discussed in  using DGLAP equation with one and two Pomeron exchanges being taken into account.

High $`t`$ vector meson production, finally, is analyzed in a paper by Laget . Good description of elastic cross section for $`\rho `$, $`\omega `$ and $`\phi `$ meson is obtained using the soft Pomeron approach, but the $`J/\psi `$ cross section is not well reproduced.

The problem of reconciling “soft” and “hard” regimes is still present despite the substantial progresses of the theory. It is not clear if the hard Pomeron is ultimately needed to describe the data or not (see for example ). We attempt to describe the data in the framework of “soft” physics, so that not we do not violate unitarity. In addition, we describe hadron-hadron processes thus answering in the positive the question: is it possible to use the universal soft Pomeron not only for hadron-hadron processes but also for photoproduction of light and heavy vector mesons?

## 2 General formalism

We utilize the following picture of the interaction: a photon fluctuates into a quark-antiquark pair and as the lifetime of such a fluctuation is quite long (by the uncertainty principle it grows with the beam energy $`\nu `$ as $`2\nu /(Q^2+M_V^2)`$ ), the proton interacts via Pomeron or secondary Reggeon exchange with this quark-antiquark pair. After the interaction this pair forms a vector meson . We may conclude that such an interaction must be very close to that among hadrons and following the principle of Regge pole theory that the Pomeron is universal in all hadron-hadron interactions, we use the same Pomeron which is used to describe hadron-hadron interaction. Thus if Pomeron exchange is present in some interaction, then it has the same properties (is the form of singularity, position of such a singularity in the $`J`$-plane, trajectory etc.) as in hadron-hadron interaction. This is true at least for on shell particles. Concerning the $`Q^2=0`$ photon, we consider it as a hadron (according to the experimental data). Then for $`Q^20`$ we assume that no new singularity appears . More precisely, even if we assume a new singularity at $`Q^20`$, its contribution must be equal to zero for $`Q^2=0`$. Indeed the analysis of the data  shows that there is no need for such a new contribution.

Our choice of the Pomeron contribution is the so called dipole Pomeron which gives a very good description of all hadron-hadron total cross sections  and was used already to describe photoproduction of vector mesons . However the dipole Pomeron was applied in this paper only at $`Q^2=0`$ in a qualitative rather than in a detailed description of the data. In addition, a large wealth of new data have appeared since .

The basic diagram is depicted in Figure 1; $`s`$ and $`t`$ are the usual Mandelstam variables, $`Q^2=q^2`$ is the virtuality of the photon.

We introduce the “scaling” variable $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2`$

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}^2=Q^2+M_V^2,$$

where $`M_V^2`$ is the mass of the vector mesons. One assumes that a large meson mass plays the same rôle as the photon virtuality setting a “hard” scale for the reaction.

In general, the dipole Pomeron model generalized for virtual external particles can be written as

$$A(W^2,t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)=IP(W^2,t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)+f(W^2,t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)+\mathrm{},$$
(7)
where $`W^2=(p+q)^2=m_p^2+2m_p\nu Q^2`$. $`IP`$ is the Pomeron contribution, with $`s=W^2`$

$$IP(W^2,t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)=ig_0(t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)\left(\frac{is}{s_0(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1}+ig_1(t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)ln(\frac{is}{s_1(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)})\left(\frac{is}{s_1(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1}$$
(8)
and

$$g_i(t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)=g_i(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)\mathrm{exp}(b_i(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)t).$$
(9)
A similar expression applies to the contribution of the $`f`$-Reggeon

$$f(W^2,t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)=ig_f(t;\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)\left(\frac{is}{s_f(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)}\right)^{\alpha _f(t)1}.$$
(10)
It is important to stress that in this model the intercept of the Pomeron trajectory is equal to 1

$$\alpha _{IP}(0)=1.$$
(11)
Thus the model does not violate the Froissart-Martin bound .

The parameters in $`\alpha _{IP}(t)`$ and $`\alpha _f(t)`$ are universal and independent of the reaction; $`g_i,b_i,s_i`$ are functions of the variable $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2`$ and the same for all reactions. Universality is a good approximation, which turns out to work very well in the present case, though in the framework of Regge theory strict universality does not hold and, in principle, most parameters could depend on the type of reaction as well. It may happen that new detailed set of data will need such a dependence; this of course would not automatically imply that the model is not able to describe the data or that the framework is a false one.

In hadronic phenomenology $`g_i`$ and $`b_i`$ are constants. Here, they may, in general, be $`Q^2`$-dependent functions. The slope $`B(s,t;Q^2)=2b_i(Q^2)+2\alpha _{IP}^{^{}}ln(s/s_i(Q^2))`$ contains a universal energy-dependent term, while the parameter $`b_i(Q^2)`$ is responsible for the quark content. In what follows we find that the experimental data do not demand any $`Q^2`$ dependence in $`b_i(Q^2)`$; as a consequence we use $`Q^2`$ independent parameters $`b_i`$, where $`i=IP,f`$.

Let us stress here that the only variable that differentiates among the various vector meson elastic cross sections in this framework is the mass of the vector mesons in the case of photoproduction ($`Q^2=0`$) or $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2`$, i.e. the sum of the mass and virtuality of the photon in the case of DIS scattering. Thus, we propose a universal description for all vector mesons. We will see that such a description is very good, for example, we predict the correct cross sections for heavy vector meson $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ in the case of photoproduction, and the correct $`Q^2`$ and $`W^2`$ dependence for $`\omega `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ vector mesons in the case of DIS when we fit only the $`\rho `$ meson cross sections. The differential cross sections in all cases are described without any additional fitting. Such set of predictions give credit to the present model, given that most approaches have been able to make similar predictions in a correct way.

## 3 The Model

### 3.1 Photoproduction of vector mesons by real photons

For $`\rho `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ meson photoproduction we write the scattering amplitude as the sum of a Pomeron and $`f`$ contribution. According to Okubo-Zweig rule, the $`f`$ meson contribution ought to be suppressed in the production of $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ mesons, though, taking into account the present crudeness of the state of the art, we added the $`f`$ meson contribution even in the $`J/\psi `$ meson case. The result of the fit proved that the $`f`$ contribution is indeed negligible for $`J/\psi `$ meson production (see the end of this Section for details) whereas it is not irrelevant for $`\phi `$ meson production. We believe, in fact, that due to $`\omega \varphi `$ mixing $`f`$ contribution is present in the latter; indeed in the $`\phi `$ decay mode, more than $`15`$% is due to non strange particles and the $`\overline{K}K`$ decay mode is present for $`f`$ meson decay. Thus, we conclude that the $`f`$ meson may contribute to $`\phi `$ meson production.

For $`\omega `$ meson photoproduction, we include also $`\pi `$ meson exchange (see also the discussion in ), which is needed to describe the low energy data given that we try to describe the data for all energies $`W`$, starting from its threshold. Initially we did not expect model to work in the threshold area but it turned out to be capable of describing well the reactions even around threshold.

By writing the amplitude as $`A=A_{IP}+A_{IR}`$, where $`IR`$ stands for the secondary Reggeon contribution, we obtain for the integrated elastic cross section $`\sigma _{el}`$

$$\sigma (W^2,M_V^2)_{el}^{\gamma pVp}=4\pi \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}𝑑t|A^{\gamma pVp}(W^2,t;M_V^2)|^2.$$
(12)
We propose the following parametrizations for Pomeron and Reggeon couplings:

$`g_0(t;M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_0M_V^2}{(W_0^2+M_V^2)^2}}exp(b_{IP}^2t);`$ (13)
$`g_1(t;M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_1M_V^2}{(W_0^2+M_V^2)^2}}exp(b_{IP}^2t);`$
$`g_{IR}(t;M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_{IR}M_p^2}{(W_0^2+M_V^2)^2}}exp(b_{IR}^2t),`$
where $`g_0,g_1,`$ $`W_0^2(GeV^2)`$, $`b_{IP}^2(GeV^2)`$ are adjustable parameters; $`M_p^2`$ is the proton mass. $`IR=f`$ for $`\rho `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$, and $`IR=f,\pi `$ for $`\omega `$. $`g_f`$, $`g_\pi `$, $`b_{IR}^2(GeV^2)`$ are also adjustable parameters. We use the same slope $`b_{IR}^2`$ for $`f`$ and $`\pi `$ Reggeon exchanges.

The parametrizations of the Pomeron contribution is the following

$`A_{IP}(W^2,t;M_V^2)=ig_0(t;M_V^2)\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+M_V^2}}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1}+`$ (14)
$`ig_1(t;M_V^2)\mathrm{ln}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+M_V^2}}\right)\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+M_V^2}}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1},`$
where we use a linear Pomeron trajectory

$$\alpha _{IP}(t)=1+\alpha _{IP}^{}(0)t$$
(15)
with $`\alpha _{IP}^{}(0)=0.25(GeV^2)`$.

The contribution of the secondary Reggeons to the amplitude is written as

$$A_{IR}(W^2,t;M_V^2)=ig_{IR}(t;M_V^2)\left(i\frac{W^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+M_V^2}\right)^{\alpha _{IR}(t)1}.$$
(16)
In order to take into account the threshold behaviour 444 We believe that without such a factor it is not possible to obtain the correct parameters for the secondary Reggeons (and correspondingly those of the Pomeron), and thus a correct description of the data for $`J/\psi `$ meson production at high energies $`W`$ (let alone the data near threshold). we multiply the amplitude $`A`$ by a threshold factor

$$\left(1\frac{(M_p+M_V)^2}{W^2}\right)^{\sqrt{M_V^2/M_0^2}}$$
(17)
where $`M_0^2(GeV^2)`$ is an adjustable parameter and $`M_p+M_V`$ is the reaction threshold. The threshold behaviour of the amplitude is also discussed in  where the exponent ( calculated in terms of the number of quark spectators $`n_s`$) is $`2n_s`$, where $`n_s=0,1,\mathrm{or}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}`$. The empirical value we find in our model, $`1.3`$ for the $`J/\psi `$ threshold behaviour (see Table 1), is well compatible with the result of .

We take into account the isostructure of vector mesons using the following relation between $`\omega `$ and $`\rho _0`$ cross-sections ($`\omega `$ is an isoscalar while $`\rho _0`$ is an isovector) which is predicted to hold in

$$\frac{\sigma _\omega }{\sigma _\rho }=\frac{1}{9}.$$
(18)
Accordingly, given that the masses of $`\omega `$ and $`\rho _0`$ are very close one to the other, we multiply the cross-section in Eq. 12 by a factor of $`9`$ for the case of $`\rho _0`$ meson exclusive production.

In the fit we use all available data starting from the threshold for each meson and we do not discriminate among sets of data having different normalizations. It is, however, quite evident that, especially at low energies, different experiments have different normalizations. This implies that the $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{d}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{f}.`$ will not be very good while the overall agreement is quite satisfactory.

The whole set of data is composed of $`272`$ experimental points 555The data are available at
REACTION DATA Database http://durpdg.dur.ac.uk/hepdata/reac.html
CROSS SECTIONS PPDS database http://wwwppds.ihep.su:8001/c1-5A.html and having a grand total of $`8`$ parameters, we find $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{d}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{f}=1.32`$. The main contribution to the $`\chi ^2`$ comes from the low energy region ( $`W4GeV`$); had we started fitting from $`W_{min}=4GeV`$, the resulting $`\chi ^2/\mathrm{d}.\mathrm{o}.\mathrm{f}=0.96`$ would be much better and more appropriate for a high energy model.

The parameters are given in Table 1. The errors of the parameters are those obtained by MINUIT.

The results are presented in Fig. 2, which shows also the prediction of the model for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(9460)`$ photoproduction.

As a temporary comment, we stress that the model describes the data on vector meson exclusive photoproduction without the need of Pomeron contribution with intercept higher than 1.

Moreover, the rapid rise of the $`J/\psi `$ cross section at low energies is described as a transition phenomenon, a delay of the onset of the real asymptotics.

Most remarkable, the data on $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(9460)`$ production is very well predicted in this framework, as seen in Fig. 2.

Let us address once more the issue of $`J/\psi `$ meson photoproduction. In the framework of the model, the rapid growth of the cross section is a transition effect of the onset of the asymptotic behavior.

In Fig. 4 one can see the cross section and the available corridor due to the uncertainty in the parameters (see Table 1). We suppose that with the growth of $`W`$, the energy dependence of elastic cross section will change to a mild $`\mathrm{ln}(s)`$ behavior thus growing no faster than hadron-hadron elastic cross-sections. Another interesting question is the suppression of secondary Reggeons. As the quark content of $`J/\psi `$ ($`\overline{c}c`$) suggests that $`f`$ Reggeon exchange (composed of light quarks) must be suppressed, we show in Fig. 4 corresponding cross section without $`f`$ Reggeon contribution. We may conclude that in the model we have this suppression, as the contribution of the $`f`$ Reggeon is just some percent in the region of low $`W`$ and negligible for $`W20GeV`$.

### 3.2 Photoproduction of vector mesons by virtual photons

In the case of nonzero virtuality of the photon, we have a new variable in play $`Q^2=q^2`$. At the same time, we have a nonzero contribution of $`\sigma _L`$ for the cross section. According to , QCD predicts the following dependence for $`\sigma _T`$, $`\sigma _L`$ and their ratio as $`Q^2`$ goes to infinity:

$`\sigma _T{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^8}}(x_{IP}g(x_{IP},\stackrel{~}{Q}^2))^2;`$
$`\sigma _L{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^6}}(x_{IP}g(x_{IP},\stackrel{~}{Q}^2))^2;`$ (19)
$`R\sigma _L/\sigma _TQ^2/M_V^2;`$
$`\sigma =(\sigma _T+\sigma _L)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}\sigma _L.`$
Here $`x_{IP}g(x_{IP},\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)`$ is the gluon distribution function, $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2\frac{Q^2+M_V^2}{4}`$, $`x_{IP}=\frac{Q^2+M_V^2}{W^2+M_V^2}`$.

Enforcing these predictions, we use the following (most economical) parametrization for $`R`$ (which cannot be deduced from the Regge theory)

$$R(Q^2,M_V^2)=c\frac{Q^2+M_V^2}{Q_r^2+Q^2+M_V^2}\frac{Q^2}{M_V^2}$$
(20)
where $`c`$ and $`Q_r^2(GeV^2)`$ are adjustable parameters. Thus, the asymptotic behaviour of $`R(Q^2,M_V^2)`$ reproduces that of Eq. 19

$$R(Q^2,M_V^2)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}\frac{Q^2}{M_V^2}.$$
(21)
Accordingly, in the case $`Q^20`$ we use the following parametrizations for Pomeron and Reggeons couplings (compare with Eq. 13):

$`g_0(t;Q^2,M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_0M_V^2}{(W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2)^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{Q_0^2}{Q_0^2+Q^2}}}exp(b_{IP}^2t);`$ (22)
$`g_1(t;Q^2,M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_1M_V^2}{(W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2)^2}}exp(b_{IP}^2t);`$
$`g_{IR}(t;Q^2,M_V^2)={\displaystyle \frac{g_{IR}M_p^2}{(W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2)^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{Q_{IR}^2}{Q_{IR}^2+Q^2}}}exp(b_{IR}^2t),`$
where $`Q_0^2(GeV^2)`$ and $`Q_{IR}^2(GeV^2)`$ are adjustable parameters.

In Eq. 22 we have introduced a new factor that differentiates virtual from real photoproduction

$$f(Q^2)=\sqrt{\frac{Q_{0,IR}^2}{Q_{0,IR}^2+Q^2}},f(0)=1.$$
(23)
Since in Eq. 13 we have complete control in the $`Q^2`$ dependence (recall that we use the sum $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2=Q^2+M_V^2`$ as a variable) up to any dimensionless function $`f(Q^2)`$, such that $`f(0)=1`$.

The parametrization of the Pomeron contribution is now the following (compare with Eq. 14)

$`A_{IP}(W^2,t;M_V^2,Q^2)=ig_0(t;Q^2,M_V^2)\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2+Q^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2}}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1}+`$ (24)
$`ig_1(t;Q^2,M_V^2)\mathrm{ln}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2+Q^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2}}\right)\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{W^2+Q^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2}}\right)^{\alpha _{IP}(t)1},`$
while the parametrization of the Reggeon contribution is (compare with Eq. 16)

$$A_{IR}(W^2,t;M_V^2,Q^2)=ig_{IR}(t;Q^2,M_V^2)\left(i\frac{W^2+Q^2M_p^2}{W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2}\right)^{\alpha _{IR}(t)1}.$$
(25)
For simplicity, we multiply both components by the same threshold factor already used for real photoproduction (Eq. 17)

$$\left(1\frac{(M_p+M_V)^2}{W^2}\right)^{\sqrt{M_V^2/M_0^2}}.$$
(26)
The (integrated) elastic cross-section can now be written as

$$\sigma _{el}^{\gamma ^{}pVp}(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2)=\sigma _T(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2)+\sigma _L(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2),$$
(27)
where

$`\sigma _T(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2)=4\pi {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}𝑑t|A_{IP}(W^2,t;M_V^2)+A_{IR}(W^2,t;M_V^2)|^2|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^8}};`$
$`\sigma _L(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2)=R(Q^2,M_V^2)\sigma _T(W^2;M_V^2,Q^2)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^6}};`$ (28)
$`\sigma =(\sigma _T+\sigma _L)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}\sigma _L.`$
Notice that we have directly enforced the asymptotical behaviour expected from QCD (Eq. 19) for $`\sigma _T`$ and $`\sigma _L`$ through the (empirical) choice of $`R`$ made earlier (Eq. 20).

We have, altogether 4 additional adjustable parameters as compared with real photoproduction.

In order to obtain the values of the parameters for the case $`Q^20`$, we choose to fit just the data666The data are available at
REACTION DATA Database http://durpdg.dur.ac.uk/hepdata/reac.html
CROSS SECTIONS PPDS database http://wwwppds.ihep.su:8001/c1-5A.html on $`\rho _0`$ meson photoproduction in the region $`0Q^235GeV^2`$; the parameters for photoproduction by real photons are the same as in Table 1. In order to avoid the low $`W`$ region where nucleon resonances may spoil the picture of $`\rho `$ meson exclusive production, we restrict the energy region to the domain $`W4GeV`$. The parameters thus obtained are shown in Table 2.

The results of the fit are depicted in Figs. 5, 6, 8, 8. The description of the data is very good in all the range of energies. Both high energy data from ZEUS and H1 Fig. 5 and low energy data from HERMES Fig. 8 are described. In the region of the HERMES data (Fig. 8) our description is comparable to the one of Haakman, Kaidalov and Koch  (see  for details).

We can now check the predictions of the model. As stated earlier, we aimed at proposing a unified model for all vector meson production, thus the only variable that changes is the mass of the vector meson. In the following figures we depict our predictions for $`\omega `$, $`\phi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ mesons and we compare them with the available data. The description of the data is very good for all the three mesons. The $`\chi ^2=0.83`$ for $`J/\psi `$ meson exclusive production follows without any fitting. Both $`W`$ and $`Q^2`$ dependences are reproduced very well.

We can also plot the various ratios $`\sigma _L/\sigma _T`$ ( shown in Fig. 17 and 17, 17) which , we recall, are constrained by our “ad hoc” choice that the large $`Q^2`$ QCD predictions Eq. 19 be satisfied. The result shows, indeed, a rapid increase of $`\sigma _L/\sigma _T`$ with increasing $`Q^2`$ but this, at least for exclusive $`\rho _0`$ meson virtual photoproduction is not in agreement with the data (see Fig. 17). This leaves open the question already discussed in  of modifying appropriately the QCD predictions Eq. 19 to account for the data. This could be easily done within our model by reconsidering the choice of introducing the factor $`f(Q^2)`$ in Eq. 22.

Indeed, we can write

$$\sigma =(1+R)\sigma _T=(1+R)\frac{f(Q^2)}{f(Q^2)}\sigma _T=(1+\stackrel{~}{R})\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T,$$
(29)
where $`\stackrel{~}{R}=(1+R)/f(Q^2)1`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T=f(Q^2)\sigma _T`$. By setting $`f(Q^2)=\left(\frac{W_0^2+Q^2+M_V^2}{W_0^2+M_V^2}\right)^a`$ (see Eq. 22). If we choose $`a=0,0.5,\mathrm{or}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}`$, we can obtain various asymptotical behaviors for $`\sigma _T`$

$`a=0,\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^8}};`$
$`a=0.5,\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^7}};`$
$`a=1,\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^6}}.`$
In the figures 17, 17, 17 we show possible adjustments of $`Q^2`$ behaviour of $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_L/\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T`$. Solid line corresponds to $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T\frac{1}{Q^8}`$, dashed line corresponds to $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T\frac{1}{Q^7}`$ and dotted line corresponds to $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_T\frac{1}{Q^6}`$.

From this pure phenomenological analysis we would say that the data prefer $`a=0.5`$, though we believe that more complete and accurate set of data is needed in order to resolve the question on the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the ratio.

### 3.3 Differential cross section of vector meson exclusive production

We have constructed the amplitude $`A(W^2,t;Q^2,M_V^2)`$ and made sure that the model is valid for integrated observable such as elastic cross section. The natural question of applicability of such an amplitude to describe also angular distributions arises.

The differential cross section is the following:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}=4\pi |A(W,t;Q^2,M_V^2)|^2$$
(30)
Using the amplitude from the previous section this quantity can be calculated and the comparison with the data is presented in Fig. 19, 19, 23, 20, 22 and 22.

The description is very good without any additional fitting and we find that $`\alpha _{IP}^{}(0)=0.25(GeV^2)`$ is universal for both hadron-hadron scattering and exclusive vector meson photoproduction.

In view of our result concerning the universality of our approach we are led to conclude that extracting the Pomeron trajectory from the experimental data as proposed in  using the data depicted in Fig. 20 cannot be regarded as a valid support to the need of either hard Pomeron contribution or NLO BFKL Pomeron.

## 4 Conclusion

We have shown that all available data on photoproduction of the various vector mesons can be described in the framework of the Regge approach. Not only the cross sections at $`Q^2=0`$ but also the data at $`Q^20`$ are described with a good quality. Moreover our model describes without additional fitting (as far as all parameter are determined from the fit to $`t=0`$ data) also the differential cross-sections of vector meson production. We would like to emphasize the following important points

1. Pomeron and secondary Reggeons appear as universal objects in Regge theory. So the corresponding $`j`$-singularities of $`\gamma `$ p amplitudes and their trajectories (intercepts $`\alpha (0)`$ and slopes $`\alpha ^{}`$ in a linear approximation) at $`Q^2=0`$ coincide with those in pure hadronic amplitudes. They do not depend on the properties of external particles and, consequently, on $`Q^2`$. The unitarity restrictions on Pomeron contribution obtained strictly for the $`hh`$ case has to be valid for $`\gamma h`$ one as far as it is universal.
2. The growth with energy of hadronic total cross sections and the restriction on the Pomeron intercept ($`\alpha _{IP}(0)1`$) implied by the Froissart-Martin bound mean that the Pomeron is a more complicated singularity than a simple pole with $`\alpha _{IP}(0)=1`$. In accordance with the above mentioned universality this statement can be extended to the DIS case.

We have considered the simplest case when the Pomeron is a double $`j`$-pole leading to $`\sigma (s)lns`$. Thus double pole (or dipole) Pomeron model describes well hadronic reactions (total and differential cross-sections) and the proton structure function.
3. There are no new $`j`$-singularities in the DIS amplitudes $`Q^20`$. In particular, no hard Pomeron contribution appears necessary in the present regime of $`Q^2`$ and $`t`$.
4. The model we suggest is quite economic. The only parameter that makes the transition from one photoproduction process to another is the mass of vector meson $`m_V`$.
5. Our model describes the data also at low energies due to the threshold factor. This is particularly important for $`J/\psi `$ production where the bulk of available data are not so far from threshold.
6. Many simplifying assumptions have been implicitly made, for example, some parameters were taken the same for different terms of the amplitudes. When more precise data will become available, some of these simplifying assumptions need not be valid anylonger. So the model has a potential to be improved if necessary.

Note added in proof. After this paper was completed, we learned about a paper  by Fiore, Jenkovszky, and Paccanoni where some of the arguments discussed here are covered.

### Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Alexander Borissov for various and fruitful discussions.


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# The COMPASS Experiment and the measurement of the gluon polarisation

## 1 Introduction

A large experimental effort at CERN, SLAC and DESY during the last decade led to the collection of high quality inclusive data on polarised deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and several NLO QCD analyses have extracted accurate quark helicity distributions. Despite of many attempts (including a comparison between high $`p_T`$ data and monte carlo simulations by HERMES) the gluon helicity distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ is still substantially unconstrained but most indications suggest positive large values.

In the incoming years the effort to clarify the nucleon spin puzzle will benefit from direct measurements of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ by a new generation of experiments: COMPASS (NA48) at CERN SPS, STAR and PHENIX at BNL Polarised Proton Collider and E161 (Real Photon Experiment) at SLAC.

## 2 The COMPASS Collaboration

In 1996 the two communities which had presented the HMC and CHEOPS Letters of Intent for fixed target experiments at CERN merged in the COMPASS (COmmon Muon and Proton Apparatus for Structure and Spectroscopy) Collaboration and presented a Proposal  which obtained approval in 1997. 35 Institutes participate in the Collaboration, for a total of almost 200 physicists.
COMPASS has a broad physics program with different beams and targets. It has a spin program with polarised muon beam: its main goal is to provide the first direct measurement of the gluon polarisation $`\mathrm{\Delta }G/G`$; it will perform flavour decomposition of the quark helicity distributions; determine the transversity structure function $`h_1`$; measure polarised fragmentation functions.

Using hadronic beams it will study Primakoff reactions to obtain $`\pi `$ and $`K`$ polarisabilities; perform extensive meson spectroscopy to investigate the presence of exotic states (glueballs or hybrids); collect large samples of semi-leptonic decays of charmed mesons and baryons to measure the CKM matrix elements $`V_{cs}`$ and $`V_{cd}`$, determine formfactors and probe predictions from Heavy Quark Effective Theory; perform a systematic study of charm hadroproduction cross sections; observe doubly charmed baryons for the first time.

## 3 The COMPASS Apparatus

For the spin program COMPASS uses the $`\mu ^+`$ beam from the CERN SPS, with an energy between 100 and 200 GeV. Muons are produced by parity violating decay of $`\pi `$ (and K) mesons and are naturally polarised: $`P_B80\%`$. The beam intensity is $`2.210^8\mu ^+`$ per spill, with 5 s long spills of 14.4 s period. Each incoming muon is tracked by scintillating fibres hodoscopes and momentum analysed before the target.

The target consists in two cells (60 cm long, 3 cm diam.) filled with solid state NH3 for proton and 6LiD for deuteron measurements. The luminosity $`510^{32}cm^2s^1`$ (for 6LiD). A 3He -4He dilution refrigerator keeps the target at T $`<`$ 100 mK, while a solenoid provides a 2.5 T magnetic field along the beam axes; a dipole is used for the rotation of the polarisation.

The COMPASS solenoid (600 mm diam.) is not yet available and this year the solenoid from the SMC experiment (255 mm diam.) was used.

The two target cells are dynamically polarised and kept in opposite directions, (either longitudinal or transverse); the polarisation of the nucleons is measured via 10 NMR coils with an accuracy of about 3%. In NH3 protons can be polarised at $`P_T`$ 90%, and the dilution factor is $`f`$ 0.17, while for 6LiD, successfully used in the 2001 run, $`P_T`$50% and $`f`$ 0.5.

To achieve high resolution detection and identification of particles over a large angular and dynamical range the COMPASS spectrometer comprises two magnetic stages: the first has an acceptance of $`\pm `$180 mrad and a large aperture dipole magnet providing 1 Tm bending power; the second, with 40 mrad acceptance and 5 Tm bending power is used to analyse high momentum particles.

Tracking in the beam region is granted by a set of stations of scintillating fibres hodoscopes, with fibres diameters ranging from 0.5 mm in the central region to 1 mm in the outer regions, read by multi-anode PMs: they provide 400 ps time resolution.

The high flux area around the beam region is covered by micro-pattern detectors: Micromegas and GEMs. COMPASS Micromegas  contain a thin micro-mesh foil separating an ionization volume from a high field (40 KV/cm, 100 $`\mu m`$ gap) amplification region; they have high efficiency and a space resolution of $`80\mu m`$. COMPASS GEMs (Gas Electron Multiplier)  are made of kapton foils having Cu layers on both sides and a large ($`10^4/cm^2`$) number of $`60\mu m`$ diameter holes: a high field inside the holes, provides electrons amplification. Triple GEM chambers are used with 31$`\times 31cm^2`$ active area and two-dimensional projective readout with 100 $`\mu m`$ resolution.

A set of MWPCs with fast electronic readout, planar drift chambers and drift chambers made of straw tubes layers with a size of 320$`\times 240cm^2`$ are used for the large area tracking.

Both stages of the spectrometer are equipped with high resolution electro-magnetic and hadron calorimeters, muon filters and hadron identification provided by a RICH detector. The high momentum RICH is not yet available, while the large acceptance RICH, RICH1 is fully equipped, and consists in a 3.3 m long vessel filled with a heavy fluorocarbon radiator gas ($`C_4F_{10}`$), a large (5. m high, 6. m wide) wall of spherical mirrors which focuses Cherenkov photons onto a set of UV photon detectors (MWPC’s with quartz windows and CsI photo-converting layers deposited on pcb cathodes segmented in $`8\times 8mm^2`$ pads) with signal amplitude readout for a total of 83000 channels. RICH1 should provide $`\pi K`$ separation in the range between 3 GeV/$`c`$ and 65 GeV/$`c`$.

Coincidences between elements of hodoscope planes at different positions along the beam select scattered muons for triggering purpose.

Parallel readout front-end electronics with local pre event building and pipelined acquisition system allow to stand trigger rates up to 100 kHz with minimal dead-time with event sizes $``$ 30 kB.

COMPASS uses fully object oriented databases and software for storage and analysis of the 35 MB/s data flow (300 TB/year stored data) and has set-up a computer farm of $``$ 200 PCs.

## 4 Measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$

The gluon polarisation $`\mathrm{\Delta }G/G`$ will be accessed by measuring the asymmetry of two processes: the open charm production and the correlated high $`p_T`$ hadron pair production.

Charm production in DIS is dominated by the photon gluon fusion process $`\gamma ^{}qc\overline{c}`$. The scale of the process is the photon-gluon centre of mass energy $`\widehat{s}`$ which is large ($`\widehat{s}>4m_c^2`$) even for very low $`Q^2`$, allowing to make use of the whole production cross section, which is both measured and calculable: for 100 GeV beam and energy transfers between 35 GeV and 85 GeV the COMPASS useful cross sections is 1.9 nb. The systematics from intrinsic charm and diffractive or resolved photon contributions are small.

The detection of open charm hadrons in the final state of an event will be primarily done by identifying $`D^0`$ and $`\overline{D^0}`$ mesons through their golden decay channel: $`D^0K^{}\pi ^+,\overline{D^0}K^+\pi ^{}`$. On average 1.2 neutral $`D`$s are produced per open charm event; the branching ration of this decay is 4%.

In a mass window of $`m(D^0)\pm 20`$ MeV the typical signal to background ratio expected for COMPASS is 1:30. By imposing a cut on the $`K`$ direction in the $`D^0`$ rest frame: $`|cos(\theta _K^{})|<0.5`$ and on $`z_D=E_D/E_\gamma ^{}<0.25`$ the ratio becomes 1:4, with an efficiency of $``$30%. This corresponds to almost 1000 reconstructed $`D^0`$/day.

Further improvements will come from other $`D^0`$ decay channels and other open charm channels, like $`D^+K^+\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ (B.R. = 9%) and in particular from the $`D^\pm D^0\pi ^\pm `$ decay which is almost background free due to the small mass difference: $`m(D^{})m(D^0)`$ = 145 MeV.
The measured asymmetry is: $`(N_{c\overline{c}}^{}N_{c\overline{c}}^{})/(N_{c\overline{c}}^{}+N_{c\overline{c}}^{})=P_BP_TfDA_{c\overline{c}}^{\gamma ^{}N}`$ where $`N_{c\overline{c}}^{}(N_{c\overline{c}}^{})`$ is the number of events with target spin parallel (anti-parallel) to the $`\mu `$ spin and $`D`$ is the $`\gamma ^{}`$ depolarisation ($`D0.66`$).

$`\mathrm{\Delta }G(\eta )`$ can be extracted from $`A_{c\overline{c}}^{\gamma ^{}N}`$ at an average value of the nucleon momentum fraction carried by the gluon $`\eta `$=0.1 using:

$`_{4m_c^2}^{2MEy}\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (s)^{\gamma gc\overline{c}}𝚫𝐆(\eta ,𝐬)𝑑s=A_{c\overline{c}}^{\gamma ^{}N}_{4m_c^2}^{2MEy}\sigma (s)^{\gamma gc\overline{c}}G(\eta ,s)𝑑s`$

where the unpolarised terms can be taken from literature and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (s)^{\gamma gc\overline{c}}`$ comes from QCD calculations. The partonic asymmetry $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (\widehat{s})/\sigma (\widehat{s})`$ is shown in fig. 2 in the photoproduction limit ($`Q^2=0`$).

For one year of running COMPASS expects from the open charm asymmetry measurement a statistical error $`\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }G/G)0.15`$.

Fig. 2 shows that the partonic asymmetry for light quark production in photon-gluon fusion is large too. In order to discriminate this process from the leading order $`\gamma ^{}qq`$ process events with hadron pairs having correlated high transverse momentum will be selected: ($`p_T>1`$ GeV/$`c`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{h_1}\mathrm{\Phi }_{h_2}=180^o\pm 30^o`$ where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ is angle between the lepton scattering plane and the plane containing the virtual photon and the hadron momenta).

A more abundant production rate for these events is expected in comparison with the open charm events, and their kinematics allows the reconstruction of $`\eta `$, probing $`\mathrm{\Delta }G(\eta )`$ in different $`\eta `$ bins in the range 0.02 $`<\eta <`$ 0.4.

A concurrent process which contributes for about 26% of the events is the QCD compton scattering $`\gamma ^{}qqg`$. The selection of $`K^+K^{}`$ pairs will reduce its contribution and the comparison of equal and opposite sign pairs can help to estimate it, but the systematic errors will remain larger than in the open charm case.

The expected statistical errors for one year of run for the two methodes are presented in fig. 3 together with three parametrisations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G/G`$ from Gehrmann and Stirling : a measurement with similar resolution will represent a major step toward a deeper understanding of the nucleon spin.

## 5 Conclusion

COMPASS is a new fixed target experiment at CERN with a wide physics program on hadron structure and spectroscopy: it has an outstanding apparatus with high resolution tracking, particle identification and calorimetry, capable of standing high event rates. It will contribute to the large experimental effort to clarify the spin structure of the nucleon by providing the first direct measurement of the gluon polarisation $`\mathrm{\Delta }G/G`$ with an accuracy of 10%.


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# Topological Shocks in Burgers Turbulence

Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 24501

## Abstract

The dynamics of the multi-dimensional randomly forced Burgers equation is studied in the limit of vanishing viscosity. It is shown both theoretically and numerically that the shocks have a universal global structure which is determined by the topology of the configuration space. This structure is shown to be particularly rigid for the case of periodic boundary conditions.

The $`d`$dimensional randomly forced Burgers equation

$$_t𝒖+(𝒖)𝒖=\nu ^2𝒖F(𝒙,t),$$
(1)
appears in a number of physical problems, ranging from the dynamics of interfaces and cosmology to hydrodynamics (see, e.g., Ref. houches  for a review). In the context of fluid dynamics, the Burgers equation, frequently referred to as “Burgers turbulence”, is a simple model for analyzing the signature of singularities, mostly shock discontinuities, in the statistics of the velocity field (see, e.g., Refs. cy95 ; p95 ; ekms ; eve99 ; b01 ). The (statistical) steady-state theory for Burgers turbulence in the limit of vanishing viscosity ($`\nu 0`$) was developed for $`d=1`$ in the spatially periodic case ekms . The analysis of the Lagrangian dynamics led to the distinguishing of a particular trajectory, the *global minimizer*, corresponding to the unique fluid particle that is never absorbed by a shock. The counterpart to the global minimizer is a unique *main shock*, with which all other shocks are merging after a finite time and hence, in which all the matter gets concentrated. Here the goal is to show that these objects, extended to multi-dimensional situations, determine the global structure of the stationary solution. This structure is strongly connected with the topology of the configuration manifold defined by the boundary conditions. We show that in any dimension, a unique global minimizer exists, so that the shocks have either a local or a global topological nature. The global shocks, unavoidably present in Burgers dynamics, are called the *topological shocks*; they have a nontrivial structure for $`d>1`$. For simplicity, we mostly consider space-periodic forcing potentials for which the configuration manifold is the $`d`$-dimensional torus $`𝕋^d`$ ($`1`$-periodic boundary conditions), but most of our work can be extended to other types of boundary conditions and configuration spaces.

If the initial data is of gradient type, the velocity field preserves this property at any later time, so that $`𝒖(𝒙,t)=\psi (𝒙,t)`$, where the velocity potential $`\psi `$ solves the Hamilton–Jacobi equation

$$_t\psi \frac{1}{2}\left|\psi \right|^2=\nu ^2\psi +F(𝒙,t).$$
(2)
When the external potential $`F`$ is delta-correlated in both space and time, this equation is known as the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang model for interface dynamics kpz86 . We focus here on smooth-in-space forcing potentials with a correlation function given by

$$F(𝒙_1,t_1)F(𝒙_2,t_2)=G(𝒙_1𝒙_2)\delta (t_1t_2),$$
(3)
where $`G`$ is a smooth large-scale function. This type of large-scale forcing was chosen analogous with that usually assumed in work on forced Navier–Stokes turbulence. Note that the results discussed in this Letter can be extended to other types of random forcing (e.g. with a finite correlation time). Because of space periodicity, the average velocity $`𝒃_{𝕋^d}𝒖(𝒙,t)𝑑𝒙`$ is an integral of motion. Its value does not affect the structure of the topological shocks and, for simplicity, we choose $`𝒃=0`$.

The initial-value problem associated to the Hamilton–Jacobi equation (2), in the inviscid limit $`\nu 0`$, has a variational solution variational . Denoting $`\psi _0`$ the potential at the initial time $`t_0`$, the velocity potential at times $`t>t_0`$ is given by

$$\psi (𝒙,t)=\underset{𝜸()}{inf}\left[𝒜(𝜸,t)\psi _0(𝜸(t_0))\right],$$
(4)
where the infimum is taken over all differentiable curves $`𝜸:[t_0,t]𝕋^d`$ such that $`𝜸(t)=𝒙`$ and $`𝒜`$ is the Lagrangian action

$$𝒜(𝜸,t)_{t_0}^t\left(\frac{1}{2}\left|\dot{𝜸}(\tau )\right|^2F(𝜸(\tau ),\tau )\right)𝑑\tau .$$
(5)
A minimizing trajectory is called a minimizer on the interval $`[t_0,t]`$ and is associated to a fluid particle reaching $`𝒙`$ at time $`t`$. In the limit $`t_0\mathrm{}`$, a stationary regime is obtained, independent of $`\psi _0`$. The solution is then determined by *one-sided minimizers*, i.e. action-minimizing trajectories from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`t`$. It is easily seen from Eq. (4) that all the minimizers are solutions of the Euler–Lagrange equations

$`\dot{𝜸}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`𝒗(\tau ),`$ (6)
$`\dot{𝒗}(\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`F(𝜸(\tau ),\tau ).`$ (7)
A *global minimizer* (or a *two-sided minimizer*) is defined as a curve which minimizes the action for any time interval $`[t_1,t_2]`$ and thus corresponds to the trajectory of a fluid particle that is never absorbed by shocks.

We now state three main results whose rigorous proof is given in Ref. ik01  and that are essential for the introduction of topological shocks. First, there exists a unique solution of the Hamilton–Jacobi equation (2) in the limit $`\nu 0`$ which is extendible to all times. This solution is continuous and almost everywhere differentiable in space. It generates uniquely a stationary distribution for the random Hamilton-Jacobi equation and its gradient defines a unique statistically stationary solution of the inviscid Burgers equation. Second, for a given time and for every space location where the potential is differentiable, there exists a unique one-sided minimizer. The locations where the one-sided minimizers are not unique correspond to shock positions. Finally, there exists a unique global minimizer. This third statement is crucial for the construction of topological shocks because it implies that for large negative times $`\tau \mathrm{}`$, all the one-sided minimizers are asymptotic to the global minimizer remark2 .

To introduce the notion of topological shock, we “unwrap”, at a given time $`t`$, the configuration space $`𝕋^2`$ to the entire space $`^d`$ (see Fig. 1(a)). Now, for a given realization of the forcing, we obtain instead of a single global minimizer an infinite number of them, each being the image of others by integer shifts. They form a lattice parameterized by vectors $`𝒌`$ with integer components and are denoted $`𝜸_𝒌^{(\mathrm{g})}`$. The backward-in-time convergence to the global minimizer on $`𝕋^d`$ implies that every one-sided minimizer emanating from some location in $`^d`$ is asymptotic to a particular global minimizer $`𝜸_𝒌^{(\mathrm{g})}`$ on the lattice. Hence, every location $`𝒙`$ which has a unique one-sided minimizer is associated to an integer vector $`𝒌(𝒙)`$, defining a tiling of the space at time $`t`$. The tiles $`O_𝒌`$ are the sets of points whose associated one-sided minimizer is asymptotic to the $`𝒌`$-th global minimizer. The boundaries of the $`O_𝒌`$’s correspond to the positions of particular shocks that are called the topological shocks. They are the locations for which at least two one-sided minimizers approach different global minimizers on the lattice. Indeed, a point where two tiles $`O_{𝒌_1}`$ and $`O_{𝒌_2}`$ meet, has at least two one-sided minimizers, one of which is asymptotic to $`𝜸_{𝒌_1}^{(\mathrm{g})}`$ and another to $`𝜸_{𝒌_2}^{(\mathrm{g})}`$. Of course, there are also points on the boundaries where three or more tiles meet and thus where more than two one-sided minimizers are asymptotic to different global minimizers. For $`d=2`$ such locations are isolated points corresponding to the intersections of three or more topological shock lines, while for $`d=3`$, they form edges and vertices where shock surfaces meet. Note that, generically, there exist other points inside $`O_𝒌`$ with several minimizers. They correspond to shocks of “local” nature because at these locations, all the one-sided minimizers are asymptotic to the same global minimizer $`𝜸_𝒌^{(\mathrm{g})}`$ and hence, to each other. In terms of mass dynamics, the topological shocks play a role dual to that of the global minimizer. Indeed, all the fluid particles are converging backward-in-time to the global minimizer and are absorbed forward-in-time by the topological shocks. Assuming that the Burgers equation (1) is accompanied by a continuity equation for the mass density, this implies that all the mass concentrate at large times in the topological shocks.

We now describe the global structure of the topological shocks. Parameter counting suggests that there are generically $`(d1)`$-dimensional surfaces of points with two one-sided minimizers which contain $`(d2)`$-dimensional sub-manifolds with three one-sided minimizers and so on. This ends up with single points (zero-dimension) from which emanate $`(d+1)`$ one-sided minimizers. As one expects to see only generic behavior in a random situation, the probability to have points associated to more than $`(d+1)`$ one-sided minimizers is zero. It follows that there are no points where $`(d+2)`$ tiles $`O_𝒌`$ meet, an important restriction on the structure of the tiling. Thus for $`d=2`$, the tiling is constituted of curvilinear hexagons. Indeed, suppose each tile $`O_𝒌`$ is a curvilinear polygon with $`s`$ vertices corresponding to triple points. For a large piece of the tiling which consists of $`N`$ tiles, the total number of vertices is $`n_vsN/3`$ and the total number of edges is $`n_esN/2`$. The Euler formula implies that $`1=n_vn_e+N(6s)N/6`$; so we have $`s=6`$, corresponding to an hexagonal tiling. As shown in Fig. 1(b), this structure corresponds on the periodicity torus $`𝕋^2`$, to two triple points connected by three shock lines which are the curvilinear edges of the hexagon $`O_\mathrm{𝟎}`$. The connection between the steady state velocity potential and the topological shocks is shown on Fig. 2 which was obtained numerically.

Although the topological shocks always form hexagonal patterns when $`d=2`$, the corresponding tilings can be of different types; in the course of time, the merger of two triple points is the generic mechanism for changing the type of the tiling. This so-called flipping bifurcation AppendixBookGurbatov  has the property of redistributing matter among nodes, so that the mass does not concentrate in a particular triple point. In higher dimensions, the structure of topological shocks can be more complex; for instance, it is not possible to determine uniquely the shape of polyhedra forming the tiling. Nevertheless, the minimal polyhedra defining such tilings for $`d=3`$ can be shown to have 24 vertices anisov ; matveev .

All the above results concerning the global structure of solutions require a statistical steady state, achieved asymptotically at large times. The convergence to this regime is actually exponential so that, generally, the global picture of the flow is reached after just a few turnover times. The nature of the convergence is related to the local properties of the global minimizer and more particularly to its hyperbolicity. For $`d=1`$, the global minimizer has been shown to be a hyperbolic trajectory of the dynamical system defined by the Euler–Lagrange equations (6-7) ekms . In multi-dimensional situations the hyperbolicity of the global minimizer is an open problem. Since the Lagrangian flow defined by (6-7) is Hamiltonian, one can define $`d`$ pairs of non-random Lyapunov exponents with opposite signs. Hyperbolicity means that none of these exponents vanishes. This question can be addressed in terms of the backward-in-time convergence of the one-sided minimizers to the global one or, in terms of forward-in-time dynamics, by looking at how fast Lagrangian fluid particles are absorbed into shocks. For this, we consider the set $`\mathrm{\Omega }(T)`$ of locations $`𝒙`$ such that the fluid particle at $`𝒙`$ at time $`t=0`$ survives, i.e. is not absorbed by any shock, until the time $`t=T`$. The long-time shrinking of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ as a function of time is asymptotically governed by the Lyapunov exponents. To ensure the absence of vanishing Lyapunov exponents, it is sufficient to show that the diameter of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(T)`$ decays exponentially as $`T\mathrm{}`$. Below we demonstrate numerically that this is indeed the case for $`d=2`$.

For this we assume that the forcing is a sum of independent random impulses concentrated at discrete times bfk00 , a case to which the present theory remains applicable. Between “kicks” the velocity field decays according to the unforced Burgers equation. This allows us to use the fast Legendre transform method nv94 , based on discrete approximations of the one-sided minimizers over a grid, which gives directly the solution in the inviscid limit and is particularly useful due to its strong connection with the Lagrangian picture of the flow. We can then track numerically the set $`\mathrm{\Omega }(T)`$ of regular Lagrangian locations. As shown in Fig. 3 for three different types of forcings, the diameter of this set decays exponentially in time, providing strong evidence for the hyperbolicity of the global minimizer when $`d=2`$.

Since all the one-sided minimizers converge backward-in-time to the global minimizer, hyperbolicity implies that, in the statistical steady state, the graph of the solution in the phase space $`(𝒙,𝒖)`$ is made of pieces of the smooth unstable manifold associated to the global minimizer with discontinuities along the shocks lines or surfaces. In other words, shocks appear as jumps between two different folds of the unstable manifold. The smoothness of the unstable manifold is key; for instance, it implies that when $`d=2`$, the topological shock lines are smooth curves. The above geometrical construction of the solution has much in common with that appearing in the unforced problem. Indeed, when $`F=0`$, the solution can be obtained by considering in the $`(𝒙,𝒖)`$ space, the Lagrangian manifold defined by the position and the velocity of the fluid particles at a given time. This analogy gives good ground to conjecturing that several universal properties associated to the unforced problem still hold in the forced case, as indeed happens in one dimension ekms ; b01 . Hyperbolicity implies that there exists a strong parallel between the forced and the unforced situations. Despite the fact that the mass dynamics is completely different in the two cases (mass is absorbed by shocks linearly in time in the decaying case and exponentially fast in the forced case), many features of the velocity field are universal. For instance, it was shown in Ref. fbv01  that, for the unforced case and $`d>1`$, large but finite mass densities are localized near time-persistent boundaries of shocks (“kurtoparabolic” singularities) contributing, in any dimension, power-law tails with the exponent $`7/2`$ in the probability density function (PDF) of both velocity gradients and mass densities. When a force is applied, the geometry of the solutions is very similar to that appearing in unforced situations. This leads again to a universal $`7/2`$ power-law behavior of the PDF of velocity gradients and mass density, irrespective of $`d`$. The issue of similarities between forced and unforced Navier–Stokes turbulence and the search for universal statistical properties of the velocity field is, of course, still an open problem.

Note, finally, an important physical problem which will be addressed in a future work, namely the understanding of the behavior of minimizers and the effects related to global shocks in the case of *spatially extended non-periodic systems*. This amounts to investigating intermediate time asymptotics when the size of the system is much larger than the forcing scale. Preliminary numerical results indicate the appearance of a shock structure resembling the structure of topological shocks.

We are grateful to S. Anisov, I. Bogaevski, U. Frisch, T. Matsumoto, S. Novikov, Ya. Sinai, S. Tarasov for illuminating discussions and useful remarks. R.I. was supported by CONACYT-México grant 36496-E. Simulations were performed in the framework of the SIVAM project of the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, funded by CNRS and MENRT.


text:
# The (𝑔-2)_𝜇 data and the lightest Higgs boson in 2HDM(II)

IFT-2001/40

## Abstract

The present limits on the lightest Higgs boson in 2HDM (II) in light of the new E821 measurement of $`g2`$ for the muon are discussed.

preprint: IFT-2001/40

The precision measurement of $`g2`$ for the muon is expected to shed light on ”new physics”. Here Krawczyk:2001pe  we discuss constraints on the lightest neutral Higgs boson in 2HDM (II) which can be drived from the new E821 measurement based on 1999 data Brown:2001mg . A current mean of experimental results for $`(g2)_\mu `$ is (from Brown:2001mg )

$$a_\mu ^{exp}(g2)_\mu ^{exp}/2=11659203(15)10^{10},$$

where the accuracy of this result (in parentheses) approaches the size of electro-weak contribution, $`a_\mu ^{EW}`$. The ultimate accuracy of the E821 experiment is 4 $`10^{10}`$. The Standard Model prediction for $`a_\mu `$ consists of the QED, hadronic and EW contributions:

$`a_\mu ^{SM}=a_\mu ^{QED}+a_\mu ^{had}+a_\mu ^{EW}.`$

Both the QED and EW contributions to $`a_\mu ^{SM}`$ are well under control. The predictions for the hadronic contribution, $`a_\mu ^{had}`$, differ considerably among themselves. Its uncertainty is presently of order $`(710)10^{10}`$, with the dominant error coming from the leading vacuum polarization contribution (see discussions in Czarnecki:2001pv , also Yndurain:2001qw ). A new controversy of the light-by-light scattering contribution (a sign !) has appeared recently Knecht:2001qf .

The difference between the experimental data, $`a_\mu ^{exp}`$, and the Standard Model (SM) prediction, $`a_\mu ^{SM}`$, defines the room for ”new physics”. Obviously the uncertainties of the hadronic contributions influence the estimation of a size of new effects. To illustrate the present situation we calculate 95% CL intervals ($`lim(95\%)`$) for an allowed new contribution, $`\delta a_\mu `$, using two representative SM predictions Czarnecki:2001pv : one based on the calculation of leading vacuum polarization diagrams by Davier and Höcker (DH)Davier:1998si  and the other by Jegerlehner (J2000)Eidelman:1995ny , with a smaller and larger $`a_\mu ^{had}`$ (and its uncertainty), respectively.

The obtained intervals we apply to constrain the parameters of the non-supersymmetric, CP conserving 2HDM (’Model II’) hunter . This model, based on the two doublets of complex scalar fields, predicts existence of five Higgs particles: two neutral Higgs scalars $`h`$ and $`H`$, one neutral pseudoscalar $`A`$, and a pair of charged Higgses $`H^\pm `$. In this model one light neutral Higgs boson, $`h`$ or $`A`$, with mass even below 20 GeV is still allowed by the LEP Krawczyk:1999kk ; Yu  and low energy experiments keh ; pich  in contrast to the SM Higgs boson which should be heavier than 114.1 GeV (95 % CL) MSSM . Previous (CERN) data and the SM prediction(s) for $`a_\mu `$ were used by us to derive the constraints (based on the one-loop calculation old ) for $`h`$ or $`A`$ in 2HDM (II) Krawczyk:1997sm . A very small improvement with comparison to the LEP limits were obtained. In this paper we use new E821 data and apply the two-loop approach Chang:2001ii  to derive tight constraints on the Yukawa couplings to muon of $`h`$ and $`A`$ (similar results are in Chang:2001ii , see also Dedes:2001nx ; Krawczyk:2001pe  for one-loop results). Next we combine these constraints with other limits to derive current constraints for the lightest Higgs boson in 2HDM(II).

We study separately case A and case B based on the DH and J2000 calculation of the leading vacuum polarization diagram, respectively. The contributions due to higher order hadronic corrections and the light-on-light scattering are taken from Kinoshita:1985it  and ll , respectively. In the table below we collect, following Czarnecki:2001pv , the corresponding SM contributions (and their uncertainties). From $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$, the difference of the central values $`a_\mu ^{exp}a_\mu ^{SM}\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$, and the error for this quantity, $`\sigma `$, one can calculate an allowed at chosen confidence level (CL) interval of an additional contribution. We estimate $`\sigma `$ by adding in quadrature $`\sigma _{exp}`$ and $`\sigma _{tot}`$. Assuming a Gaussian distribution we calculate in both cases, A and B, the allowed at 95% CL $`\delta a_\mu `$ regions, symmetric around $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu `$ (see table below).

$$\begin{array}{ccc}case\hfill & \hfill \mathrm{A}[\mathrm{in}10^{11}]& \hfill \mathrm{B}[\mathrm{in}10^{11}]\\ & & \\ \mathrm{QED}\hfill & \hfill 116584706(3)& \hfill 116584706(3)\\ \mathrm{had}\hfill & \hfill 6739(67)& \hfill 6803(114)\\ \mathrm{EW}\hfill & \hfill 152(4)& \hfill 152(4)\\ & & \\ \mathrm{tot}\hfill & \hfill 116591597(67)& \hfill 116591661(114)\\ & & \\ & & \\ \mathrm{\Delta }a_\mu (\sigma )\hfill & \hfill 426(165)& \hfill 362(189)\\ & & \\ lim(95\%)\hfill & \hfill 102\delta a_\mu 750& \hfill 8.65\delta a_\mu 733\end{array}$$

We see that at 95 %CL the more conservative estimation of the hadronic contribution to $`a_\mu ^{SM}`$ (case B) leads to both the negative and positive $`\delta a_\mu `$, while in case A $`\delta a_\mu `$ is of a positive sign only. As a consequence, the 95 %CL interval leads in case A to an allowed positive contribution (an allowed band) and at the same time to the exclusion of the negative contribution. For the case B, the positive (negative) contribution is only bounded from above (below) (upper limits for the absolute value of the new contribution). This reflects the fact that the SM prediction lies within the 95% CL interval for case B, while for case A it is outside the corresponding interval.

One- and two-loop diagrams. The $`W^+`$ and $`H^+`$ loops contribute only for a $`h`$ exchange.

We apply the obtained intervals $`\delta a_\mu `$ to constrain parameters of the 2HDM (II) using a simple approach, where only one neutral Higgs boson, $`h`$ or $`A`$, contributes. In the one-loop calculation (based on the one-loop diagram, see above) a light scalar scenario leads to the positive, whereas the one with a light pseudoscalar to the negative contribution to $`a_\mu `$, independently of mass. In the two-loop analysis, based on a sum of the one- and two-loop (fermionic and bosonic) diagram contributions, the situation changes drastically. Now the positive (negative) contribution can be ascribed to a scalar $`h`$ with mass below (above) 5 GeV or a pseudoscalar $`A`$ with mass above (below) 3 GeV. For $`h`$ we assumed $`\chi _V^h`$=0, so the $`W`$-loop does not contribute. A $`H^+`$ loop, for $`M_{H^+}`$ = 400, 800 GeV and infinity (and with parameter $`\mu =0`$ in the $`hH^+H^{}`$ coupling), is included in the analysis.

Our results are presented in Fig.2 and Fig. 2 (tick lines) together with current upper limits from the Yukawa process (ALEPH, DELPHI and OPAL results) and lower limits from the $`Zh(A)\gamma `$ Krawczyk:1999kk . In addition the upper 90% CL limits from the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ decay (K,N), rescaled by a factor 2, and from the TEVATRON TEV  are presented. Constraints based on case B lead to an improvement of the existing upper limits for $`h`$ for mass above 10 GeV (Fig.2(left)) and for $`A`$ above 50 GeV (Fig. 2(left)). For case A our results are in form of allowed regions for mass below 5 GeV for $`h`$ (Fig.2(right)) and for mass above 3 GeV for $`A`$ (Fig.2(right)) (see also Chang:2001ii ).

This two-loop analysis based on new $`(g2)_\mu `$ data and on the DH estimation of $`a_\mu ^{had}`$ (case A) if combined with constraints from other experiments allows in the 2HDM (II) for an existance of a pseudoscalar with mass between $``$ 25 GeV and 70 GeV, and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ above 30. A light scalar is excluded. This latter result is in agreement with a conclusion of theoretical analysis Kanemura:1999xf .

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank P. Zalewski, M. Kobel and F. Akesson for sending their new results on Yukawa process. I am grateful organizers of this excellent meeting for the financial support. Supported in part by Polish Committee for Scientific Research, Grant5 P03B 121 20, and the EC 5th framework contract HPRN-CT-2000-00149.


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# FRACTIONAL PERIODICITY OF PERSISTENT CURRENTS: A SIGNATURE OF BROKEN INTERNAL SYMMETRY

## Abstract

We show from the symmetries of the many body Hamiltonian, cast into the form of the Heisenberg (spin) Hamiltonian, that the fractional periodicities of persistent currents are due to the breakdown of internal symmetry and the spin Hamiltonian holds the explanation to this transition. Numerical diagonalizations are performed to show this explicitely. Persistent currents therefore, provide an easy way to experimentally verify broken internal symmetry in electronic systems.

Remarkable advances in fabrication techniques, now make it possible to confine a few electrons in a conducting wire where electron motion is governed by quantum mechanics, rather than classical mechanics. The system becomes an electron waveguide within the confinement potential. The phase coherence of the electrons is maintained over the sample, making it possible to observe several intrinsic quantum mechanical phenomena including Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, universal conductance fluctuations, quantized conductance in point contact, quenching of Hall resistance in narrow cross boo , current magnification effect deo1 , etc. A remarkable consequence of such coherence is the existence of equilibrium persistent currents hun  in a ring threaded by an Aharonov-Bohm flux, that was first predicted theoretically but  and subsequently detected experimentally exp  in mesoscopic systems. Aharonov-Bohm flux here refers to a situation when the magnetic field is restricted to a small region in the center of the ring, and the electrons in the ring do not feel the magnetic field. Although these are equilibrium currents, they can yield information about transport deo2  and may help us to understand the effects of electron-electron interaction on transport, using Hamiltonian diagonalization techniques.

Interacting fermions exhibit very novel properties that fascinate scientists for a long time. Interacting nucleons for example has shown many novel features of interactions boh . Of special relevance to this work, is the discovery that certain heavy nuclei can exhibit rotational excitations, that could not be explained by the shell structure of a spherical neuclous. Initial understanding was provided by Bohr and Mottelson, in terms of collective modes of a deformed nuclei, in the simplest model as rigid rotation of the deformed nucleus. Similar ideas of internal symmetry breaking, explained the details of the mass spectra of alkali metal clustersclemenger85 , and suggest an existence of static spin-density waves in quantum dotskos1 . Indeed, mesoscopic systems give us an unique opportunity to access regimes that do not occur naturally and study a few electrons in man made quantum dots, both experimentally and simultaneously with almost exact theoretical methods. Hence these systems can give us a rare opportunity to study how few electron properties evolve into macroscopic collective properties as we increase the number of electrons.

Wigner crystalization of electrons is one such bulk phenomenon and is still a very debatable issue, although it was first proposed a very long time ago. We hereby exclude the situation when the quantum mechanical kinetic energy or uncertainty of an electron can be quenched by a strong magnetic field. Theoretically one can find signatures of a crystal structure when one looks at the conditional probability (the probability of finding other electrons when the coordinates of one electron is fixed by hand) of the interacting electrons, while the probability itself (density) does not show any sign of a crystal structure. The conditional probability shows oscillationsborrmann01  which suggest broken internal symmetry. However, in finite systems the situation is not so clear due to the fact that the correlation coming from the Pauli exclusion principle alone will cause oscillating conditional probability at short distances, even in noninteracting systems. On the other hand a recent work of Koskinen et al kos1  raises the issue that a few electron system in a quantum dot and quantum ring can exhibit broken internal symmetry. Their mean field studies of the electron probability (density) showed a perfect crystal structure. It was subsequently shown vei  that the quantum mechanical superposition of states is destroyed by the non-linearity of the mean field and as a result the internal symmetry is mapped out (as a consequence the angular momentum quantum number does not take integral values anymore). Effects of non-linearity cannot be ignored (the exact cause of non-linearity not being important) and can well lead to a quenching of the quantum mechanical uncertainty and result in Wigner crystals. Hence at this state it would be useful to find some experimental ways of determining if the internal symmetry is broken or not and what are the signatures that one should look for when treating larger systems using approximate methods like mean field theories and effective Hamiltonians. For example, in nuclei, the experimental evidence of such broken symmetry states can be obtained from the rotational spectrum. The purpose of this work is to show that the measurement of the persistent current can give signature of broken internal symmetry of electronic states in small quantum rings.

The many-body Hamiltonian for electrons in a quasi-1D-ring can be written as

$$H=\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}}_i^2+V(r_i)\right)+\underset{i<j}{}\frac{e^2}{4\pi ϵ_0ϵ|\stackrel{}{r}_i\stackrel{}{r}_j|}$$
(1)
where $`V`$ is the potential confining the electron in the ring. $`V`$ is assumed to have a circular symmetry. Koskinen et al kos2 ; koskinen2002  have performed exact numerical computations for a few electrons confined in such a ring and shown that for narrow rings the many-body spectrum can be described essentially exactly with a simple model Hamiltonian

$$H_{eff}=J\underset{i}{}\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j+\frac{1}{2I}M^2+\underset{\alpha }{}\mathrm{}\omega _\alpha n_\alpha $$
(2)
where the first term is an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Hamiltonian, the second term describes rigid rotations of the electron system ($`M`$ is the centre of mass angular momentum and $`I`$ is the moment of inertia), and the last term describes the vibrational states of localized electrons. Koskinen et al kos2 ; koskinen2002  compared the energy spectra of exact diagonalization of Hamiltonian (1) to those of the model Hamiltonian (2) and found an excellent agreement for hundreds of many-body states in rings with from 2 to 7 electrons.

The model Hamiltonian can be understood as a result of localization of electrons and forming a Wigner molecule which is freely rotating in the external potentialkos2 . Related ideas of electron localization in noncircular dots had been suggested earlierjef ; cre . Assuming localization, the Coulomb energy of the exact Hamiltonian (1) can be expanded around the classical equilibrium positions of electrons. This leads to potential wells at each classical site. The tight binding model of the system can be described by a half filled Hubbard model, which in the limit of the strong Coulomb energy (Hubbard $`U`$) leads to the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model vol . It is important to note, however, that for our continuous system where the localizing potential is not an external potential, we do not get an insulating phase for the half filled case kus . The rigid rotation and the the vibrations of the localized electrons can be assumed to separate out from the spin Hamiltonian leading to the simple effective Hamiltonian of Eq. (2). The antisymmetry of the total Hamiltonian have to be taken into account by matching the symmetries of the different parts of the wave function (spin, rotations, vibrations)koskinen2002 . In the present case when we are studying only the ground state properties (persistent current being a ground state property) the vibrational states do not play any role.

An external magnetic field will bring two additional terms in the model Hamiltonian. The gauge field will change the angular momentum part and the direct interaction with the electron spins will add a Zeeman term. Since we are interested in the equilibrium persistent currents, we will assume that the magnetic field is confined only inside the ring so that the Zeeman energy is absent. By ignoring the vibrations (which have higher energy than rotations) the model Hamiltonian in the presence of a magnetic field flux $`\varphi `$ penetrating the ring is

$$H_B=J\underset{i,j}{}\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j+\frac{(MN\varphi )^2}{2I}$$
(3)
where $`M`$ is the angular momentum, $`N`$ the number of electrons in the ring and $`\varphi `$ is the flux through the ring in units of $`\varphi _0=hc/e`$ i.e., $`\varphi `$=$`\frac{e}{hc}\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{d}r`$ $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ being the vector potential. The strongly interacting case here correspond to $`J0`$, $`J`$=0 being the classical case when the electrons do not overlap. In this case, there is no uncertainty in the internal frame of the system and it is a perfect crystal in its internal frame. It is important to notice that keeping $`I`$ fixed, the small $`J`$ limit correspond to a narrow ring with strong correlation and the large $`J`$ limit approaches the non-interacting case.

The correspondence between (1) and (3) shown in Ref. kos2  in the absence of flux, can be easily extended to the case when there is Aharonov-Bohm flux. First of all the Hamiltonian in (3) cannot have any extra contribution from the 2nd term in the Hamiltonian in (1). This is because when we write the Hamiltonian in (1) in terms of a centre of mass coordinate and relative coordinates, the second term contains only relative coordinates, and will only affect the vibrational states, which in turn does not affect the persistent currents. This means that $`J`$ is independent of flux because the second term in (1) only depends on relative coordinates and is not affected by the flux. Another way to prove this is to show that the Coulomb matrix elements are independent of Aharonov Bohm flux, which can be shown analytically. This is also evident in the numerical calculations pie ; tap . Secondly, the flux also cannot affect the relative motions (kinetic energy part) of the electrons and this was proved in Ref. wei . The proof essentially puts all the flux dependence on the wavefunction by gauging away the flux dependence of the Hamiltonian. Writing the many body wavefunction in presence of flux as a linear combination of Slater determinants, constructed from the flux dependent, non-interacting, single particle wave functions, it is easy to show that all the flux dependence of the relative coordinates cancel each other. The second term in (3) also directly follow from there, once we put the flux dependence back into the Hamiltonian.

The persistent current can be determined as a derivative of the ground state energy with respect of the fluxhun . Consequently, it is sufficient to study the periodicity of the ground state energy as a function of the flux. First of all it can be shown that the Heisenberg Hamiltonian remains unchanged under the transformation $`MM+N`$ and so we need to consider only the first N eigen-energies of the system. In Fig. 1 we show a contour plot of the eigen-energies for N= 4, 5, 6 and 8 in the $`J\varphi `$-plane. When $`J`$0 then the periodicity with flux is $`\varphi _0/N`$ and correspond to the case when the flux quantum is $`\varphi _0/N`$ corresponding to the rigid rotor of charge $`Ne`$. As $`J`$ is increased, signifying that the electrons are getting delocalized and overlapping with each other, the periodicity changes smoothly to $`\varphi _0`$. For even number of electrons, $`\varphi _0/N`$ periodicity first changes over to $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity before the full $`\varphi _0`$ periodicity is recovered. For odd $`N`$ also $`\varphi _0`$ periodicity changes to $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity, which unlike the case of even $`N`$, remain all the way up to $`J=\mathrm{}`$. This can also be see in Fig. 2 where we plot the $`M`$ values of the ground state for different flux $`\varphi /\varphi _0`$ and $`Jr_0^2`$ ($`r_0`$ being the radius of the ring, $`I=Nmr_0^2`$). The ground state switches its $`M`$ values as shown in the figure 2 in the different parameter regimes. While for even $`N`$ one can see converging phase regions that cannot be extended to infinity, for $`N=5`$ the line separating $`M=1`$ and $`M=4`$ is a vertical line that can be extended to infinity. This is also consistent with the fact that when $`J`$ is large we should recover the free electron results and odd number of spin-full free electrons in a ring always give $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity los . But, for even $`N`$ the $`\varphi _0/N`$ periodicity first changes to $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity as $`J`$ is increased, and then the free electron result of $`\varphi _0`$ periodicity is recovered for very large $`J`$.

The value of flux which gives the minimum total energy for large $`J`$ depends on the number of electrons in the ring. For even particles with $`N=4`$, 8, 12, etc. ($`N/2`$ is even) the minimum is at flux $`\varphi =\varphi _0/2`$ (see fig. 3) while for $`N=6`$, 10 etc. ($`N/2`$ is odd) the minimum is at $`\varphi =0`$. The reason is the symmetry of the solution of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian as can be proved for any $`N`$ from group theoretical analysis. For odd $`N/2`$ the minimum energy corresponds to $`M=0`$ and the second lowest state has $`M=N/2`$ while for even $`N/2`$ the minimum energy has $`M=N/2`$ and the second lowest state has $`M=0`$ (see fig. 3 as an example). In both cases it happens that at a certain region of $`J`$, when the angular momentum is increased, the ground state jumps between these two lowest states leading to $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity in the total energy and persistent current. When $`J`$ becomes large enough then the splitting between these two lowest states also become very large and only the ground state of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian matters and $`\varphi _0`$ periodicity is obtained. For odd number of electrons (odd $`N`$) the situation is different since there are two angular momentum values corresponding to the minimum energy of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian. For noninteracting electrons these two values appear at angular momenta (in the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$) $`N/4`$ and $`3N/4`$. Consequently, there are two equal energy minima leading to $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodicity even at infinitely large values of $`J`$. In the case of small number of electrons the energy minimum can not occur exactly at $`N/4`$ and the $`\varphi _0`$ and $`\varphi _0/2`$ periodities are superimposed as in Fig. 1(b). This signifies that for intermediate $`J`$ values, when there is no longer any correlation between all the $`N`$ particles as in a rigid rotor, there still seems to be correlation between electron pairs leading to quasi-particles with charge $`2e`$. For odd $`N`$ since every electron cannot find a pair (similar to the parity effect in superconducting grains), such correlation is not possible. Spin values may or may not change as flux is changed from 0 to $`\varphi _0`$. The sequence of change is depicted in Fig. 2. The $`\varphi _0/N`$ periodicity occurs when $`J`$ is small and the splitting between the states is so small that the flux can create transition through all the states.

It should be noted that the flux dependence of the eigenenergies, in a clean ring, should be the same in presence and absence of interactions wei . A many body eigenenergy, in absence of interactions, should change parabolicaly with $`N\varphi `$. Our model Hamiltonian in (3) is consistent with this and the flux dependence of a given state is always parabolic in the calculated eigenenergies. However, as the periodicity is reduced by N, the amplitude of the persistent currents is also reduced by N as the Brillouin zone becomes 1/N of the non-interacting case. For large $`J`$, when we recover the $`\varphi _0`$ periodicity, once again the flux dependence of a particular many body state changes parabolically with $`N\varphi `$, all the way up to the non-interacting zone boundary.

The relation of the parameters of the model Hamiltonian (2) to those of the original Hamiltonian (1) require exact diagonalization of the latter. The results of Koskinen et alkos2 ; koskinen2002  indicate that the onset of the $`\varphi _0/N`$ periodicity, which happens at $`Jr_0^20.1`$, can be obtained with a ring with $`V(r)=\frac{1}{2}m^{}\omega _0^2(rr_0)^2`$, by choosing (in effective atomic units) $`\omega _01/m^{}r_0^2`$ (for $`N=6`$). For a material with $`m^{}=0.1`$ and $`ϵ=10`$ this condition could be achieved, for example, with $`r_0=80`$ nm and $`\omega _0=1.7`$ meV.

Fractional periodicities of persistent currents in a 1D Hubbard ring has been discussed before kus ; wu ; kot . These studies correspond to a situation when there is an externally applied periodic potential or a lattice. In presence of such an externally applied potential the concept of Wigner crystal is not meaningful. The observed fractional periodicities, Kotlyar et alkot  associate with magnon excitations. How this interpretation relates to our findings is an interesting subject of future studies.

Breakdown of internal symmetry of a many body system kos1 , crystallization of electrons in the bulk (Wigner crystals), fractional periodicities of persistent currents tap  are three different intersting research topics that are brought together in this work. It is shown that fractional periodicity of persistent currents is due to the breakdown of internal symmetry. The Hamiltonian, diagonalized upto 8 electrons in a ring threaded by a flux show this explicitely and symmetry considerations establish this for any $`N`$. Broken internal symmetry in electronic systems is of special importance as the interaction between electrons is well known as compared to that between neucleons. It is difficult to observe such broken symmetry states because most of the physical quantities that can be measured, do not depend on whether the internal symmetry is broken or not. In the nuclei, the only evidence of such broken internal symmetry comes from the rotational and vibrational spectrum of a nuclei. For electrons embedded in a solid the equilibrium persistent currents provide a way to find this evidence. At present a few electron ring can be realized lor  and possibly reveals the much sought experimental proof of broken internal symmetry in an electronic system.

This work has been supported by the Academy of Finland under the Finnish Centre of Excellence Programme 2000-2005 (Project No. 44875, Nuclear and Condensed Matter Programme at JYFL).

Figure Captions

Fig. 1. 2D plot of the energy of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian for electrons in a 1D ring versus $`Jr^2`$ and $`\varphi /\varphi _0`$ for N=4 (Fig. a), 5 (Fig. b), 6 (Fig. c) and 8 (Fig. d). The dark areas are maxima and bright areas are minima. The persistent is the derivative of the energy with respect to the flux and so for the persistent currents dark areas are minima and bright areas are maxima.

Fig. 2. Phase diagram of the ground state angular momentum of the Heisenberg Hamiltonian for electrons in a 1D ring versus $`Jr^2`$ and $`\varphi /\varphi _0`$ for N=4 (Fig. a), 5 (Fig. b), 6 (Fig. c) and 8 (Fig. d). The region with a particular shade denotes the $`Jr^2`$ and $`\varphi /\varphi _0`$, corresponding to which the ground state angular momentum is $`M`$, where $`M`$ is designated in the shaded regions as M(S), where S is the total spin.

Fig. 3. States of an 8 electron system in a 1D ring as obtained by diagonalizing the Heisenberg Hamiltonian. $`\varphi /\varphi _0`$=0, $`Jr^2=1.0`$, the M values are given at the base and the S values are labeled by the side of each state. The difference between the lowest state and the highest state in the Fig. is 5.651$`Jr^2`$.