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# DNA Torsional Solitons in Presence of localized Inhomogeneities

## I Introduction

The origin and dynamics of open states in DNA have been the subject of intense study in the last three decades. To date some nonlinear models have been proposed that addresses this issue, which is somehow related to the transcription or replication processes in this molecule, in terms of solitons and their interactions. The torsional model proposed by Yakushevich is one of such models, and in this paper we generalize it to take into account the effects of inhomogeneity, which take place in real DNA molecules.This problem has been considered before but in the framework of a simpler version of the model; we are not aware that the effect of the inhomogeneities have been studied previously within the full Yakushevich model.
This paper is organized as follows. In section 2 a description of our generalized model and the fundamental equations are presented. In section 3 an analysis of the model are presented. Furthermore, in order to complete this analysis, some energetics consideration are carried out in section 4. The last section summarizes our results and in it we make some suggestions for further research on the subject.

## II Description of the model

To study the DNA torsional dynamics in the spirit of the model proposed by Yakushevich, we consider the DNA molecule as two long elastic and weakly interacting rods that are bound around each other, producing a double helix. Each rod represents one of the polynucleotide chains of the DNA molecule. For simplicity, we neglect the helical structure, and instead of the double helix we consider only parallel rods each having the form of the straight line. Assuming that the twist and the bend motions are independent and only taking into account the first of the above motions, we have the mentioned torsional model.
One of the limitations of the model considered above is that in it the effects of inhomogeneities are neglected. The changes in the strength of hydrogen bonds for different pairs of nitrogen bases, i.e.,the inhomogeneous character of the DNA molecule, can be taken into account incorporating to the equations proposed by Yakushevich a new term that represents the presence of such inhomogeneities. Assuming a local character for these bonds, distributed along the double helix in sites denoted by $`z_n,n=1,2,..`$ the DNA torsional dynamics is now described by the following equations:

$`I_1{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{t^2}}K_1a^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{z^2}}+k{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }l}{l}}[(2R^2+l_0R)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)R^2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (2)
$`+M{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\delta (zz_n){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }l}{l}}[(2R^2+l_0R)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)R^2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$ (3)
$`I_2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{t^2}}K_2a^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{z^2}}+k{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }l}{l}}[(2R^2+l_0R)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)R^2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (4)
$`+M{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\delta (zz_n){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }l}{l}}[(2R^2+l_0R)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)R^2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$ (5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }l/l=1l_0[(2R+l_0R\mathrm{cos}\varphi _1R\mathrm{cos}\varphi _2)^2+(R\mathrm{sin}\varphi _1R\mathrm{sin}\varphi _2)^2]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ and $`\delta (x)`$ is the Dirac’s Delta function of argument $`x`$.
In these equations, $`\varphi _i(i=1,2)`$ is the rotational angle, $`I_i`$ is the moment of inertia, $`K_i`$ is the rigidity of the longitudinal springs of the $`ith`$ chain, $`k`$ is the rigidity of the transversal springs connecting both chains(weak bonds), M is the rigidity of the springs modeling the local inhomogeneities that connect the chains in the positions labeled by $`z_n`$, $`R`$ the radius of the chains, $`l_0`$ the maximum separation between chains and $`a`$ is the characteristic length of the base pair in the double helix(see Fig.1). As in reference, we can simplify these equations by assuming $`l_0=0`$, which leads to:

$`I_1{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{t^2}}K_1a^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{z^2}}+kR^2[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (7)
$`+MR^2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\delta (zz_n)[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$ (8)
$`I_2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{t^2}}K_2a^2{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{z^2}}+kR^2[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (9)
$`+MR^2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\delta (zz_n)[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$ (10)
## III Analysis of the Model

Now we proceed to analyze the Eqs.(II) in a general way. As it is of common usage. Let us to introduce the traveling wave variable $`\xi =zvt`$, where $`v`$ is a constant. Then we obtain the following system:

$`W_i{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _i}{\xi ^2}}+kR^2[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _i)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (12)
$`+MR^2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\delta (\xi \xi _n)[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _i)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$
with $`i=1,2`$
where $`W_i=K_ia^2I_iv^2`$ and $`\xi _n=z_nvt`$. In the last system, we have considered for simplicity the presence of one inhomogeneity located at the point $`z_0`$.
The system Eqs.(3) is equivalent to the following dynamical system:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{W_1}}(kR^2+MR^2\delta (\xi \xi _0))[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _2}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ (16)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{W_1}}(kR^2+MR^2\delta (\xi \xi _0))[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (17)
For points $`\xi \xi _0`$,the Eqs.(III) reduces to the system studied in reference.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{W_1}}kR^2[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (20)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _2}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\xi }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{W_1}}kR^2[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (22)
The last equations corresponds to the potential function:

$$V(\varphi _1,\varphi _2)=kR^2[2(\mathrm{cos}\varphi _1+\mathrm{cos}\varphi _2)\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]\text{,}$$
(23)
which has a maxima at the point $`\varphi _1=2n\pi `$, $`\varphi _2=2m\pi `$, with $`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$ and $`m=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$. the points $`\varphi _1=\left(2n1\right)\pi `$, $`\varphi _2=\left(2m1\right)\pi `$, correspond to local minima, while the points $`\varphi _1=\left(2n1\right)\pi `$, $`\varphi _2=2m\pi `$ and $`\varphi _1=2n\pi `$,$`\varphi _2=\left(2m1\right)\pi `$ are saddle points. The trajectories joining these critical points correspond to kink solitons. For $`\xi \xi _0`$ the system has the same soliton solution, now perturbed by the presence of the local inhomogeneities at this point, as we will see later.
Let us analyze the situation $`\varphi _1=\varphi _2`$. In references it has been shown that for this case there exists exact soliton-like solutions. If the distance between the inhomogeneity and the center of mass of the soliton is much greater than the soliton radius, the interaction between these two entities is very weak, and our model reproduces the solution of the mentioned references. The interaction becomes appreciable at a certain critical distance, that we will estimate later below.

Let us consider symmetrical chains, i.e.;$`I_1=I_2=I`$ and $`K_1=K_2=K`$ and only one inhomogeneity. Then we can write Eqs.(II)as:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{t^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _1}{z^2}}`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (26)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\delta (zz_0)[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{t^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2\varphi _2}{z^2}}`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]`$ (28)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\delta (zz_0)[2\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _2)\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=0`$
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2=Ka^2/kR^2`$, $`Q=M/k`$ and $`c^2=Ka^2/I`$.
To investigate the stability of non-perturbed soliton solution that in our case is,

$$\varphi _1(z)=\varphi _2(z)=\varphi _K(z)=4\mathrm{arctan}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{zz_m}{2r}\right)\right]$$
(29)
where $`z_m`$ is the point that localizes the soliton radius $`r`$(half width of the soliton) defined by

$$r=\mathrm{\Lambda }/2\sqrt{2}$$
(30)
We consider small-amplitude excitations around $`\varphi _i(z)`$, i.e., we put:

$$\varphi _i(z,t)=\varphi _i(z)+f_i(z)\mathrm{exp}(\lambda _it),i=1,2$$
(31)
where $`f_i(z)`$ are small. Linearizing in a standard way  Eqs.(III) around $`\varphi _i(z,t)`$ we get the following spectral problems for the exited modes:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2f_1}{dz^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{c^2}}f_1+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left[2\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi _K\right)f_1f_1f_2\right]`$ (34)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\delta \left(zz_0\right)\left[2\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi _K\right)f_1f_1f_2\right]=0`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2f_2}{dz^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{c^2}}f_2+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left[2\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi _K\right)f_2f_1f_2\right]`$ (36)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\delta \left(zz_0\right)\left[2\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi _K\right)f_2f_1f_2\right]=0`$
We can write the above system as follows:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2F_\pm }{dz^2}}N_\pm F_\pm `$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_\pm }{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\left(zz_m\right)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}}`$ (38)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\left(z_0z_m\right)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}}\right]\delta \left(zz_0\right)=0`$
where $`F_+`$ and $`F_{}`$ are symmetric and antisymmetric solutions, i.e.,$`F_\pm =(f_1\pm f_2)/2`$, $`N_+`$,$`N_{}`$ corresponds to $`F_+`$, $`F_{}`$ and:

$$N_+=\frac{\lambda _+^2}{c^2},N_{}=\frac{\lambda _{}^2}{c^2}+\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}$$
(39)
We can see that $`\chi =z_0z_m`$ represents the distance between the inhomogeneity and the soliton’s center of mass. The soliton is unstable for positive eigenvalues. For the spectral problem Eqs.(38),(39)there exist two positive eigenvalues corresponding to the discrete spectrum\[see Appendix\]. The solution corresponding to the first positive eigenvalue:

$$\lambda _+=c\sqrt{\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}+\frac{Q^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^4}\left[\frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(\sqrt{2}\chi /\mathrm{\Lambda })}1\right]^2}$$
(40)
is

$$f_1=f_2=F_+(z)=\{\begin{array}{c}A\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left({\scriptscriptstyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left[{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\chi /\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}}1\right]\left(zz_0\right)\right)}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\sqrt{2}\left(zz_m\right)\right)}z>z_0\\ \\ A\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left({\scriptscriptstyle \frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}}\left[{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\chi /\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}}1\right]\left(zz_0\right)\right)}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(\sqrt{2}\left(zz_m\right)\right)}z<z_0\end{array}$$
(41)
where $`A`$ is determined from the normalization condition.
For the other positive eigenvalue:

$$\lambda _{}=c\frac{Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\left|\left[\frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\chi /\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}1\right]\right|$$
(42)
we have for $`f_1=f_2=F_{}(z)`$ the same expressions Eq.(41). As we can see from the equations above if we put in these $`Q=0`$ and $`z_m=0`$, the results coincide with those reported in reference  for these solitons. From the condition of instability($`\lambda >0`$), the equation Eq.(55) and the condition Eq.(59) we find that for only distances smaller than a critical distance the inhomogeneity can affect the structural stability of the open state, i.e., that for distances(between the propagating soliton and the inhomogeneity) greater than such a critical distance, the interaction only influences the dynamics of its motion. This fact can be explained because for greater distances the inhomogeneity has not influence on the discrete states of the eigenvalue problem for the stability analysis, namely its solution reduces to the translational mode which is stable. This change in the stability can only to be due to a releasing of energy, i.e, a rupture of the stronger bond.
The critical distance at which a rupture of the stronger bond occur, can be obtained from the Eq.(62). This can written as a function of soliton’s radius as:

$$\chi =d_{crit}=1.606r$$
(43)
The existence of a critical distance starting from which the bond is broken giving place to new implications no cleared up to now. For that reason we make in the following a simple energetic analysis.

## IV Some energetics considerations

In this section we briefly discuss some aspects concerning to the energetic contributions that appear in the presence of the inhomogeneities and it is a proposed field in order to model the motion of solitons as a point-particles as is usually done . The total energy for this mechanical model without to take into account the contribution due to inhomogeneities is given by the following expression:

$$E_0=E_K+E_g+E_T$$
(44)
where $`E_g`$, $`E_T`$ are the energies due to elastic force between the cylinders of different chains and the torsional force between the cylinders of the same chain respectively. $`E_K`$ is the corresponding kinetic energy.
In the presence of inhomogeneities $`E`$ has the form

$$E=E_0+V$$
(45)
where the term

$$V=\frac{MR^2\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi ^2}{2}$$
(46)
takes into account the difference between the strength of weak and strong bonds.
From the energetic point of view the traveling solitary wave must give an additional energy for breaking such a bond. Neglecting the dissipative effects and making the assumption that the rupture is produced when the solitary wave center is separated from the inhomogeneity by the critical distance then the rupture is possible if the effective kinetic energy has a value greater than the potential energy at the critical distance.
If this hypothesis is true it is possible to model the motion of solitons as free particles in a potential field $`V`$ with an effective kinetic energy $`E_0`$. This function $`V`$ is a renormalized potential, which picking up the main effects due to the interaction with the inhomogeneity.
In order to build the potential function we have taken into account that for distances lower than the critical distance between the center of soliton and the inhomogeneity the elastic energy becomes zero because of the rupture of the bond at this distance. In a general form the potential function is:

$$V(\xi )=\{\begin{array}{c}\frac{MR^2}{2}[(\varphi _{2u}(\mathrm{})\varphi _{2p}(\xi z_0))(\varphi _{1u}(\mathrm{})\varphi _{1p}(\xi z_0))]^2\xi z_0>d_{crit}\\ 0|\xi z_0|<d_{crit}\\ \frac{MR^2}{2}[(\varphi _{2u}(\mathrm{})\varphi _{2p}(\xi z_0))(\varphi _{1u}(\mathrm{})\varphi _{1p}(\xi z_0))]^2\xi z_0<d_{crit}\end{array}$$
(47)
The functions $`\varphi _{ip}`$ with $`i=1,2`$ are the unperturbed functions Eq.(29), plus certain induced perturbations by the inhomogeneity. A suitable solutions for $`\varphi _{ip}`$ are possible to find by using the perturbative approach. However, due to the extenuant calculus, we propose with good approximation the perturbation given by a function like the shape mode, first, for the relevant contribution that it plays in the interaction dynamics with the inhomogeneity, outlined by some authors in another generic problems and second, because the main effect produced by inhomogeneity in its relative motion towards on solitons in this model is a contraction of soliton radius which is well represented by the shape mode, for being the inhomogeneity a simple bond between the chains, on the contrary of others similar models. Also we consider only the situation of a slow motion for the solitons which does not take into account the deformation due to the velocity. For the case of antisymmetric functions we get the following potential function:

$$V(\xi )=\{\begin{array}{c}2MR^2\left[2\pi 4\mathrm{arctan}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\xi z_0)\right]\right]\frac{\beta \sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\beta {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(\xi z_0\right)\right)}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\beta {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(\xi z_0\right)\right)}\right]^2\xi z_0>d_{crit}\\ 0|\xi z_0|<d_{crit}\\ 2MR^2\left[4\mathrm{arctan}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\xi z_0)\right]\right]+\frac{\beta \sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\beta {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(\xi z_0\right)\right)}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\beta {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\left(\xi z_0\right)\right)}\right]^2\xi z_0<d_{crit}\end{array}$$
(48)
where $`\beta =\frac{M}{k}`$ is a parameter that we consider gives a measure of the deformation due to the strength of the inhomogeneity.
In order to clarify our results, we will proceed to compare Eq.(47) with a potential function calculated by standard methods.
In our model the stronger bonds distributed along the chain correspond to static inhomogeneities. The static inhomogeneities have been considered as perturbations in many nonlinear models. By using a perturbative procedure we can estimate the effect of inhomogeneities on solitons dynamics if the characteristic size of the impurities is either much larger or much smaller than the soliton size. For take into account only the zeroth-order approximation we suppose that the influence of the inhomogeneities on the soliton gives rise only to a change in their parameters, like the center position, velocity, ect. It is usually named adiabatic approach.
For the Eqs(III), taking the antisymmetric solutions, the coupled equations become:

$$\frac{1}{c^2}\frac{^2\varphi }{t^2}\frac{^2\varphi }{z^2}+\frac{2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\mathrm{sin}\varphi =\frac{2Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\delta \left(zz_0\right)\mathrm{sin}\varphi $$
(49)
This is the perturbed Sine-Gordon equation which for $`Q=0`$ has a kink-like solution given by:

Among the quantities that are conserved during the evolution there is the momentum

$$P=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{\varphi }{t}\frac{\varphi }{z}$$
(50)
In the presence of inhomogeneities the momentum is no longer conserved by using Eq(4.6) it is possible to show that it varies according to:

$$\frac{dP}{dt}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{2Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\delta \left(zz_0\right)\frac{\left(\mathrm{cos}\varphi \right)}{z}$$
(51)
The adiabatic theory is defined by the assumption that for small enough values Q, the kink shape will not be affected and its coordinate $`xi`$ and its velocity $`v`$ will become slowly changing functions of time. Within this hypothesis it can be shown that, in the non-relativistic limit $`v^2c^2`$, the kink center obeys the following evolution law.

$$\frac{d^2\xi }{dt^2}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{2Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\delta \left(zz_0\right)\frac{\left(\mathrm{cos}\varphi \right)}{z}$$
(52)
where the potential function is

$$U\left(\xi \right)=\frac{4Q}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\left(\xi z_0\right)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}$$
(53)
and $`\xi `$, $`z_0`$ are the positions of the mass center and the inhomogeneity respectively.
The Eq.(53) is a dimensionless function, multiplying it by the term $`Ka^2`$ this becomes

$$U\left(\xi \right)=\frac{4MR^2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}\left(\xi z_0\right)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}$$
(54)
By comparing both Eq.(48) and Eq.(54) it is easy to(see Fig.2)that there exist a great differences between the profiles of the two curves.
Such differences are explained, on the one hand, because the calculation of the standard potential was done with the zeroth-order approach, which only produces changes in parameters like center position, velocity, without altering the shape. On the other hand, our proposal is a renormalized function which takes with a good approximation the deformation due to the interaction with the inhomogeneity. However the great difference owes its cause to the fact that the inhomogeneities on the contrary of other models, are localized in the bonds between the chains, therefore when the solitons (rupture of bonds in a localized region along the coupled chains)are situated from the inhomogeneity below the critical distance it is removed because the bond is broken. From the energetic analysis and taking into a account this last issue we derive two implications, first, the maxima elastic potential energy is reached for this critical distance and second, a potential well is formed whose width is given by twice the critical distance, such as is depicted in the (Fig. 2). The existence of this potential well could given place to interesting dynamics for example localized traps for the solitons distributed along the couple chains. Beside DNA being a low dimensional system these results could give many possibilities in its applications for the develop of new nanoelectronic devices as reported for such systems.

## V Concluding Remarks

We have extended the model of Yakushevich for the DNA torsional dynamics, to take into account the presence of inhomogeneities in the molecular chains. The stability of certain kind of solitons that can propagate through the molecule, simulating the dynamics of open states, are studied. The obtained results are more general than those reported in the literature and include them as particular cases. We have found that for distances larger than 1.606 times the soliton’s radius, the effect of the inhomogeneities in the structural stability of the open state can be neglected. Furthermore we analyzed the motion of DNA torsional solitons as the motion of point-particles through a renormalized potential function expressed in terms of the critical distance, which could give interesting dynamics.
Our study has been done considering the presence of only one inhomogeneity and for the antisymmetric solitons reported in as exact analytical solutions for the unperturbed model. Subsequent studies can be directed to analyze the behavior of solitons between two inhomogeneities in terms of soliton’s radius and the distance between inhomogeneities ratio. The more general case including a well-determined distribution of those bonds along the double helix will be considered in a future work.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author L M. Molina wishes to thanks the fruitful comments of the Professors A. Sanchez from the University Carlos III of Madrid and F.G. Mertens from the University of Bayreuth of Germany.

## appendix

The Eq.(12) is a eigenvalue problem which have a quantum mechanical analogue:

$$\frac{d^2\varphi }{dz^2}\frac{2m|E|\varphi }{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{2b^2\varphi }{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}(zz_m)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}+2Df(\chi )\delta (zz_0)=0$$
(55)
being:

$$f(\chi )=\left[\frac{2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(\sqrt{2}\chi /\mathrm{\Lambda })}1\right],\chi =z_0z_m$$
(55)
where the potential function of the Schrödinger problem is:

$$U(z)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\left(\frac{2b^2}{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}(zz_m)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}+2Df(\chi )\delta (zz_0)\right)$$
(56)
We propose the following solution:

$$\varphi (z)=\{\begin{array}{c}A\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[Df\left(\chi \right)\left(zz_0\right)\right]}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(b\left(zz_m\right)\right)}z>z_0\\ A\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[Df\left(\chi \right)\left(zz_0\right)\right]}{\mathrm{cosh}\left(b\left(zz_m\right)\right)}z<z_0\end{array}$$
(57)
with the normalization condition

$$A^2\left(_{\mathrm{}}^{z_0}\frac{\mathrm{exp}[2Df(\chi )(zz_0)]}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(b(zz_m))}𝑑z+_{z_0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}[2Df(\chi )(zz_0)]}{\mathrm{cosh}^2(b(zz_m))}𝑑z\right)=1$$

whose eigenvalue is

$$E=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}[b^2+D^2f(\chi )^2]$$
(58)
This solution Eq.(A1) in the intervals $`(\mathrm{},z_0\sigma ]`$,$`[z_0+\sigma ,+\mathrm{})`$ where $`\sigma `$ can take a very small value. If we put the proposed solution in Eq.(55), integrating in the interval and then tending to the limit $`\sigma 0`$ we can demonstrate the uniqueness of the solution with the constraint:

$$f(\chi )>0$$
(59)
For degenerated cases,i.e., $`D=0`$, $`b0`$ and $`D0`$, $`b=0`$, the Eq.(55) reduces to:

$$\frac{d^2\varphi }{dz^2}\frac{2m|E|\varphi }{\mathrm{}^2}+\frac{2b^2\varphi }{\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\sqrt{2}(zz_m)/\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}=0\text{ with }E<0$$
(60)
and

$$\frac{d^2\varphi }{dz^2}\frac{2m|E|\varphi }{\mathrm{}^2}+2Df(\chi )\delta (zz_0)=0\text{with }E<0,D>0$$
(61)
respectively
The above equations were studied in reference.It is easy to show that our proposed solution Eq.(57) with eigenvalues Eq.(58) reduces to those proposed for the corresponding particular cases, i.e. Eq.(60) and Eq.(61).
By comparison of both Eq.(38) and Eq.(55) using the above results we obtain the formulae Eq.(40)- Eq.(42).
For the case $`f(\chi )<0`$, we would obtain a function potential with a similar shape but now with a reverse Delta function away from the well formed by the hyperbolic function potential.In this case the stationary states formed in the well of the potential function are not affected and corresponds with the eigenfunction for $`D=0`$ Eq.(60).
From the condition

$$f(\chi )=f(d_{crit})=0$$
(62)
derives a distance starting from which either the well potential introduced by Delta function can have influence on the discrete states formed in the well of the function potential or not(see Fig3).The Fig.(3) is the plot of the potential function(Eq.(A3)) with $`z_m=0`$, $`b^2=1/2`$ and the rest of parameters that not appear in the figure are set to one for simplicity.


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# Persistence solves Fermi Paradox but challenges SETI projects

\[

## Abstract

Persistence phenomena in colonization processes could explain the negative results of SETI search preserving the possibility of a galactic civilization. However, persistence phenomena also indicates that search of technological civilizations in stars in the neighbourhood of Sun is a misdirected SETI strategy. This last conclusion is also suggested by a weaker form of the Fermi paradox. A simple model of a branching colonization which includes emergence, decay and branching of civilizations is proposed. The model could also be used in the context of ant nests diffusion.

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Fermi paradox has important scientific and science policy consequences. For example, how much money is it reasonable to spend on SETI-like projects? Simply stated, Fermi paradox arises from a back envelop calculation about how much time a technological civilization, able to perform inter-stellar colonization, needs to diffuse through the entire galaxy. With reasonable assumptions, this calculation gives a colonization time of the order of a hundred million years  . But since, notwithstanding X-files fans and Erick von Danikën, they are clearly not here, one must conclude that there is no such galactic civilization.

I live in Brazil, and sometimes I wonder about such exotic places like New York or Paris and the curious costumes of their inhabitants: they do not make gestures when speaking and mix sweet food with salty food! Some people drink warm beer and even do not like soccer! And their women use very large bikinis! Very irrational behavior, indeed! However, I must recognize that there are also a lot of exotic places (and even populations) inside Brazil, which are almost never visited or contacted by the global civilization. Suppose that you are a member of a lost Amazonian tribe that has never been contacted. Now, it is obvious that a technological civilization able to perform travel by air at 1000 km/hour certainly had time to colonize the entire globe. But since they have not reached you (remember, you are a member of a undiscovered Ianomani tribe), should you conclude that there is no such global civilization?

A nice view of the global civilization is given by the nocturnal Earth observed from space (see figure at ). It is clear from this view not only the perverse distribution of global wealth but also the fact that the distribution of technological human colonies (commonly called “cities”) is highly non-uniform. Huge areas are not inhabited, and even never visited (or visited sporadically only by fanatic explorers). But, despite the provincial worldview of lost tribes, the global civilization is there.

The colonization process clearly is not a simple and uniform diffusion process as assumed by Fermi calculation. However, even some simple diffusive processes have important properties not considered by Fermi paradox advocates. Here I call attention to the existence, in various systems, of the so called phenomenon of ”persistence”, that is, the number of unvisited sites may decay not exponentially with time but as a power law. In other words, the probability that a site has not been visited (or colonized) by diffusive walkers is given, in certain scenarios, by

$$P(t)=P_{\mathrm{}}+Ct^\theta ,$$
(1)
where $`P_{\mathrm{}}`$ is an asymptotic probability, $`C`$ is a constant, $`t`$ corresponds to time and $`\theta `$ is the persistence exponent .

This formula gives origin to two important facts to be considered by exobiologists. First, the probability of a site never being visited, even in the infinite time limit, is a non-zero value P . Second, even this asymptotic value is reached by a slow (power law) process, not an exponential one. If $`\theta `$ is small, a very long time must be necessary for a site being visited for the first time. Of course, for long times, these unvisited sites are not typical (however, due to the power law behavior, their number is not insignificant).

Therefore, we must consider whether we are typical or we are like the lost Amazonian tribe. That is, what is the probability that Earth is a persistent site unvisited by aliens? But now arises an Anthropic-like (or better, probabilistic) argument. We surely pertain to an independent, not colonized civilization. The pre-requisite to this fact is that we have not been visited (at least, not very much) by aliens, because (as we all know) low technology civilizations normally do not survive to the contact with civilizations of more advanced technology. Notice that the argument is not circular. What I am saying is that, if we would reside in a typical region of the galaxy (that is, one with high traffic) then we would not be here considering the Fermi paradox but our civilization or even our Biosphere should be already extinct (at least as an independent development). In other words, the conditional probability $`P(\text{Earth is typical}|\text{we are independent})`$ is very small under the galactic civilization hypothesis, leading to the conclusion that we should not expect that our civilization is typical (again under this hypothesis). So, Fermi paradox assumptions are misleading.

Another consequence of taking in account persistence effects is that persistent sites are clusterized (like Amazonian forest, Siberia, Australia, Canada, Indonesia islands etc.). This means that, if we reside at a persistent site (and we do, because we have not been colonized!) then our neighboring stars probably are also persistent sites, that is, do not have inhabited planets or technological civilizations. This follows simply from the fact that, if technological civilizations developed near the Earth, then they already had the time to colonize us (Fermi paradox is valid in small scale, not in the larger one). Therefore, it is not productive, as some SETI projects do, to search for other civilizations in neighboring stars, as is not a good strategy for lost tribes to send or try to receive smoke and drum signals from neighboring regions.

I conclude that it is more profitable to concentrate SETI searches in, for example, trying to detect for distant stars radio/laser/neutrino signals and artificial features in stellar clusters or nearby galaxies. This is not an easy task: for each apparent artificial signal one could think a plethora of natural hypothesis to explain it. Think about what should a lost tribe to do for detecting the global civilization. The only artificial signals that lost tribes have access are radio/TV signals (but they do not have radios! in our case this would correspond, say, to neutrino-based communication technology), pollution/fire traces (almost not measurable and, if detected, explainable as natural fires) and the sights of artificial satellites and the international space station in the sky (which they would interpret also as a natural phenomena). Our civilization is almost not detectable by lost tribes! (This explains why they are lost!). Of course we can detect them, say by satellite search, but who will bother to contact them? Brazilian government estimates that there are two hundred not contacted populations inside Amazonia, and they will continue not contacted by a large time from now (again a persistence phenomenon).

Persistence solves Fermi Paradox without appealing to non-testable sociological assumptions about galactic civilizations such as the Zoo hypothesis and the like. To explain the Great Silence we need not assume that we are inside a reserve preserved by the galactic ONU. It suffices that we are like an Indonesian tribe in a lost island (there are 17000 such islands but only 6000 are inhabited, another example of the persistence phenomenon). Persistence also explains the null results of SETI project when screening neighbor stars of the Sun. Indeed, it is a waste of time and money to examine neighboring stars, because if there were civilizations there then they should have colonized Earth a long time ago. SETI null results are fully compatible (indeed required) by the persistence phenomenon.

To test these ideas we are presently performing simulations in the following model. We put $`N`$ random points in a two dimensional sheet. Each point has a binary state ($`0=`$ unoccupied, $`A=`$ occupied by a technological civilization). Then, we define the following branching process:

$`0`$ $``$ $`A\text{with rate }ϵ\text{ (emergence of civilizations)},`$ (2)
$`A`$ $``$ $`0\text{with rate }q\text{ (decay of civilization)},`$ (3)
$`A`$ $``$ $`A+A\text{with rate }p\text{ (colony formation)},`$ (4)
$`A`$ $``$ $`A\text{with rate }r=1qp.`$ (5)
Since $`ϵp,q`$, consider the case $`ϵ=0`$ and the emergence of a non extensive number of civilizations. It is clear that, if the average branching ratio $`\sigma =(1qp)+2p=1+pq`$ is less than one, then the branching process is subcritical and the galaxy will not be colonized. This is the usual Fermi Paradox solution. However, even if $`\sigma >1`$, we must consider spatial correlations and density limiting constraints of the colonization process (the exponential growth for $`sigma>1`$ in the above mean field calculation is only a first approximation). Due to the persistence phenomenon, large regions will remain not colonized for considerable time intervals. A complete account of the simulation results of this model in d=2 and d=3 space (which is similar to a branching partial self-avoiding polymer model or a model of diffusion of ant nests) will be reported elsewhere .

If the persistence solution to Fermi paradox is correct, then Earth belongs to a huge but poorly inhabited galactic domain. Since these regions could be very large (as the analogy with the highly non-uniform Earth global colonization suggests), the probability that Earth is inside them is high indeed. We must consider the distressing possibility that we live not in the “first world” part of the galaxy, but in a large region analogous to Amazonia, Indonesian islands or Africa. I conclude that Earth might not be a typical but an exotic place, being a persistent site unvisited by the galactic colonization process. We must all perform a change of view about what is typical and what is exotic (this fact motivated my early joke about Americans/Europeans and Brazilians). The opposite (Asimov/Tippler ) view that we are the first technological civilization of the galaxy or the “Star Trek” expectation that one day we will be the “leaders” of the Federation of United Planets probably originates from a misplaced first world perspective, or better, it is simply wishful thinking: we “wish” that this could be true because we cannot accept the Copernican Mediocrity Principle that we pertain to a mediocre civilization. As a literary antidote to these naive views, I recommend the books of Stanislaw Lem .

Acknowledgments: The author thanks Nelson Alves, Antonio Carlos Roque and Nestor Caticha for reading, commenting and pruning the manuscript, and Alexandre S. Martinez for calling attention to the nice Earth photography.


text:
# Nucleation and Interfacial Coupling between Pure and Dirty Superfluid Phases of 3He

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## Abstract

The nucleation of the first order phase transition of superfluid 3He-B from superfluid 3He-A is quite remarkable since it requires a seed of the order of a micron. We have studied this nucleation for 3He confined to a very dilute silica aerogel. This dirty superfluid behaves in a manner similar to previous reports for the pure superfluid. But we have discovered a novel magnetically driven nucleation switch acting on the pure superfluid B-phase. Lastly, we find the surprising result that the proximity effect between the pure and dirty superfluids at their interface is insufficient to nucleate the B-phase in either superfluid.

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The A-phase of superfluid 3He can be extensively supercooled, far into the region at low temperatures where the B-phase is thermodynamically stable. Leggett pointed out that the very small difference in free energy between these phases makes homogeneous nucleation of this first order phase transition so improbable as to be unrealizable within the age of the universe. If a seed of the B-phase is to grow it must surpass a critical size of a few microns, so large as to be inaccessible by thermal fluctuations. Thus the experimental fact that the B-phase nucleates at all from the A-phase indicates the existence of some heterogeneous mechanism. Quite a number of experiments have shown that ionizing radiation, vibrations, or rough surfaces can be, under various restrictive circumstances, active sites for this nucleation; but how the process proceeds remains a major puzzle and is actively debated.

The discovery of a class of 3He superfluids constrained by silica aerogel raises new questions concerning B-phase nucleation. Does the metastability of the A-phase for these superfluids follow the same pattern as for the pure case? Is there sufficient coupling between the two superfluids across their interface for nucleating the B-phase? With an appropriate choice of experimental conditions, temperature, pressure, and magnetic field, we can arrange that the interface separates two superfluids with the same, or different, order parameter symmetry. And if they are the same, we might expect the proximity effect, well known in superconductivity, to provide a nucleation source. By this we mean that the B-phase from one side of the interface should readily nucleate the B-phase in the other. We report here that indeed the superfluid constrained in aerogel exhibits supercooling and metastability similar to that of pure superfluid 3He in the absence of aerogel; however, contrary to our expectation, there is no evidence of nucleation from the proximity effect. In addition, we have discovered a nucleation source for the pure B-superfluid that is extremely efficient and can be switched off by applying a magnetic field.

The new ‘dirty’ superfluids are characterized by quasiparticle scattering from a silica aerogel-matrix that reduces their transition temperature and suppresses the amplitude of the order parameter. The aerogel structure can be varied through choice of porosity, which in this work is 98%. It is formed by silica strands about $`30`$ Å in diameter with an average inter-strand spacing of $`300`$ Å. The pure superfluid coherence length, $`\xi `$, varies from $`880`$ Å at low pressure (zero bar) to $`180`$ Å at melting pressure (34 bar) and is much larger than the aerogel microstructure, yet much less than the scattering mean free path $`2500`$ Å. This satisfies conditions for the existence of a superfluid, albeit one with a reduced order parameter. The phase diagrams of the pure and dirty systems have some similarity as shown in Fig.1 and 2. The magnetic field independent line marks the normal to superfluid A-phase boundary and the transition temperature from A to B-phases is quadratically suppressed by field. The first observation of an AB-transition in the dirty superfluid was reported by Barker et al.. We assume that the order parameter symmetry of the dirty phases corresponds to that of the pure 3He superfluids, i.e. the dirty A-phase is an equal-spin, p-wave pairing state called the axial state, exhibiting broken rotation symmetry separately in spin and orbital spaces, and that the B-phase is the isotropic p-wave pairing state that breaks relative spin-orbit symmetry.

First-order phase transitions, such as the the liquid-solid transition, characteristically exhibit supercooling. Nucleation of the stable phase can be understood in terms of a trade-off in surface and bulk Gibbs free energy. The nucleation theory developed by Gibbs and discussed by Landau and Lifshitz, and later extended by Cahn and Hilliard considers a small embryo of the stable phase in the metastable medium. If the embryo is sufficiently large and exceeds a critical radius $`R_c`$, it will expand over the whole volume. This critical radius, $`R_c=2\sigma _{AB}/\mathrm{\Delta }G_{AB}`$ is given by twice the ratio of the surface tension, $`\sigma _{AB}`$, between the two phases, A and B, and the bulk Gibbs free energy difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }G_{AB}`$. There are several examples of quantum fluids and solids at low temperatures, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ is very small, forcing the critical radius to be rather large, leading to extensive supercooling. This is true for the liquid-solid transition of 4He or the transition between superfluid 3He A and B-phases.

Our acoustic technique measures the transverse acoustic impedance at $`8.691`$ MHz of a gold-plated quartz transducer. Two transducers separated by a distance of 270 $`\mu `$m  define a $`9.5`$mm diameter disk of silica aerogel grown in situ. The interface region between pure and dirty 3He is a circular band of 270 $`\mu `$m width at the perimeter of the transducers. We observed abrupt changes in impedance at all of the known phase transitions in each of pure and dirty superfluids . The technique is very precise and is sensitive over almost all of the phase diagram. We have used it to map the phase diagram of the superfluid phases inside the aerogel sample, together with monitoring the pure superfluid transitions. Our thermometers include the magnetization of a diluted cerious magnesium nitrate salt measured with a SQUID, complemented by a melting curve thermometer. Overall our precision in the measurement of temperature is $`2\mu `$K with an accuracy on cooling of $`20`$ $`\mu `$K.

We have performed both primary and secondary nucleation experiments. Primary nucleation of the B-phase, from the supercooled A-phase, occurs on cooling provided that there has been no prior history of B-phase. Secondary nucleation occurs on supercooling of the A-phase after a primary nucleation, but without having warmed to the normal state. Representative nucleation experiments are outlined in Fig.1 at 25 bar and Fig.2 at 33.4 bar, as vertical dotted lines superposed on the phase diagrams for pure 3He (dashed lines)  and dirty 3He (solid lines) . The shading corresponds to the region of the dirty superfluid, where the darker area is the A-phase in equilibrium. Supercooling of the A to B-transition is observed for both pure (star) and dirty superfluids (solid circle) with all data for primary nucleation collected in Fig.3. The path for a secondary nucleation experiment in the pure superfluid is sketched in Fig.2 with the results in Fig.4.

We have found that primary nucleation in the pure and dirty superfluid (Fig.3) are similar with one exception which we discuss later: for pure 3He at 25 bar in fields less than $`2`$ kG nucleation can be efficiently induced by a novel nucleation source. Otherwise, supercooling for both pure and dirty superfluids is similar in magnitude, field independent below $`2`$ kG, somewhat stronger at higher pressures (open circles), but more stochastic for pure 3He. Earlier reports of supercooling in pure 3He have shown sensitivity to outside influences such as radiation, but the most efficient nucleation, seems to take place at rough surfaces such as in the silver sintered powder of the heat exchanger required to cool samples to low temperatures. With the exception noted above, we find supercooling for pure 3He to be consistent in magnitude with that previously discussed for rough walls. The similarities between the pure and dirty superfluids are quite surprising since they are in very different environments and presumably have access to different nucleation sites. Furthermore, as we discuss later, the critical radius for nucleation is significantly different for the two superfluids.

The one exception to this picture is the 25 bar data where we found extremely efficient nucleation of the pure AB-transition for magnetic fields less than $`2`$ kG. This nucleation source switches off when a field larger than 2 kG is applied and exhibits hysteresis; on reducing the field to $``$1 kG from $``$2.5 kG the nucleation source remains inactive. The data at 33.4 bar, Fig.3 lower panel, were taken with the switch deactivated in this way. They show supercooling to be large, $`350\mu `$K. The strong nucleation source is restored (switched on) following a warmup of the experimental cell to room temperature. These observations, together with the hysteretic behavior in field, suggest that the nucleation source has a magnetic origin which we have not yet identified.

The effectiveness of heterogeneous nucleation depends on the critical radius at the temperature where nucleation takes place. To estimate this for the dirty superfluid we note that Osheroff and Cross have established a reasonable theoretical understanding of the surface tension between A and B-phases, summarized by Leggett and Yip, $`\sigma _{AB}F_s\xi `$. The coherence length $`\xi `$ varies as $`1/T_c`$ and the condensation energy $`F_s`$ can be calculated from the suppression of the order parameter in the dirty superfluid . We find $`\sigma _{AB}^{dirty}0.25\sigma _{AB}^{pure}`$ near melting pressure. The free energy difference between the phases, $`G_{AB}`$, can be determined from their susceptibility difference and the field dependence of the AB-transition. The susceptibility difference in the dirty superfluid has been measured at 18 and 32 bar, and is approximately a factor of two weaker than for the pure superfluid. We have measured the field dependence of the dirty AB-transition at 25 and 33.4 bar, Fig.1 and 2. Consequently, the estimated critical radius for nucleation of the dirty B-phase is larger than that for the pure superfluid, $`R_c^{dirty}(t)5R_c^{pure}(t)`$, at the same reduced temperature $`tT/T_{AB}`$ and near melting pressure where $`R_c^{pure}`$ 1 micron. With a critical radius for the dirty superfluid somewhat larger than for pure 3He we might expect larger supercooling, and the data have this trend. At 25 bar, for magnetic fields between 0.5 and 2 kG, supercooling in pure 3He is quenched implying that a different mechanism is active, one that generates a huge nucleation seed. Since supercooling was at most $`10`$ $`\mu `$K, this seed must have been larger than $``$ 70 microns .

The primary nucleation experiments we have discussed allow us to study the juxtaposition of a pure B-phase and a metastable dirty A-phase. We can also reverse the roles of pure and dirty superfluids but this requires $`T_{AB}^{dirty}>T_{AB}^{pure}`$ which is possible at 33.4 bar and low field (path 2 in Fig. 2). In this case the nucleation will be secondary. Secondary nucleation in pure 3He was first observed by Osheroff et al. . Remnants of the B-phase persist above the AB-transition temperature giving rise to a memory effect for nucleation on subsequent cooling. We also observe a memory effect in the pure system but in contrast there is none in the dirty superfluid. It is quite striking that the memory effect evident in the pure superfluid data of Fig.4 is unperturbed on crossing the AB-phase boundary of the dirty superfluid. This shows that the presence or absence of a B-superfluid in the aerogel has no effect on nucleation of the B-phase in pure 3He.

Consider the interface between the two superfluids. The rectangular shaded regions at the right of Fig.1 and 2 correspond to a metastable A-phase, which for convenience we call an A’ phase, in contact across the interface with a B-phase. Either pure or dirty superfluids can be in this configuration. These experiments show that the B-phase from one superfluid does not act as a nucleation source for the B-phase in the other. The Gibbs free energy difference between phases on either side of the interface (separating the pure and dirty superfluids) is relatively large and can be estimated from the suppression of the gap in the dirty superfluid . If we assume that the surface tension at the interface is of similar magnitude as that of the AB-phase boundary in the pure and dirty superfluids, then we calculate that the effective critical radius for penetration of one phase through the interface is, $`R_c^I(t)R_c^{pure}(t)/80`$ $``$125 Å. This is so small that we expect that the B-phase on one side should be an effective nucleation source for the B-phase on the other. From the experiments we report here there is no evidence for such nucleation. Is it possible that the dirty superfluid is sufficiently inhomogeneous that a suitably large homogeneous seed cannot be generated? Imry and Ma  found that an order parameter is unstable to any amount of disorder from a random field. So we speculate that the absence of nucleation by the proximity effect may be related to decoherence of the order parameter in the dirty superfluid on the length scale of the critical radius. Another possibility is that the orbital symmetry of the dirty superfluid is not the isotropic state, as we have assumed.

We have studied nucleation of the B-phase of superfluid 3He and compared it to a dirty superfluid formed in an aerogel matrix. The supercooling behavior is similar except at low field where a highly efficient nucleation source can be magnetically activated for the pure superfluid AB-transition. Furthermore, we find that there is no nucleation provided by proximity between pure and dirty superfluids at their interface. We suggest an explanation in terms of decoherence of the dirty superfluid order parameter on the scale of the critical radius.

We acknowledge helpful discussions with J.A. Sauls. One of the authors (G.G) acknowledges support from FCAR (Québec). This work was supported by the NSF, grant no. DMR-0072350.


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# The Azimuthal Asymmetry at large 𝑝_𝑡 seem to be too large for a pure “Jet Quenching”

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## Abstract

We discuss simple generic model of “jet quenching” in which matter absorption is defined by one parameter. We show that as absorption grows, the azimuthal asymmetry parameter $`v_2`$ grows as well, reaching the finite limit $`v_2^{}`$ which has a simple geometric interpretation. We show that this limit is still below the experimental values for $`6>p_t>2GeV`$, according to preliminary data from STAR experiment at RHIC. We thus conclude that “jet quenching” models alone cannot account for the observed phenomenon, and speculate about alternative scenarios.

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1.Azimuthal asymmetry for non-central heavy ion collisions have been predicted  to be larger at RHIC then at lower energies. In hydrodynamic models this happens due to the stronger push by high pressure of Quark-Gluon Plasma well above the phase transition region, which is expected to be produced at RHIC. In contrast to that, models based on string picture of hadron production (e.g. RQMD and UrQMD event generators) or on mini-jet scenarios (e.g. HIJING) have predicted its decrease. The issue has been settled already by the first data from RHIC, by STAR collaboration , which have found large asymmetry consistent with hydrodynamic predictions. Detailed studies  have provided significant details, such as the asymmetry parameter

$`v_2=<cos(2\varphi )>`$ (1)
(where $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the impact parameter and momentum of a secondary hadron in the transverse plane) as a function of centrality, particle type and its $`p_t`$. Data from STAR and PHENIX experiments for rather wide range of momenta $`p_t<2GeV`$ agree well with these predictions for all secondaries. This is probably the most direct signature of QGP plasma formation, observed at RHIC.

In this letter we however discuss a different question, related with (much less certain experimentally) such asymmetry at $`higher`$ transverse momenta $`6>p_t>2GeV`$. According to the latest STAR data  (which are still unpublished and are thus considered preliminary, although reported at many meetings), $`v_2(p_t)`$ for all charged secondaries seem to be about constant, for each centrality. This means a different regime seem to be established in this region of $`p_t`$, and the original intention of this note was to compare these data with a simple geometric model for jet quenching by relating the asymmetry to the strength of the jet quenching itself. However, after playing with different versions of the model, from more complex to a most generic one to be reported in this note, I concluded that the intended fit is simply impossible.

A “jet quenching” idea has been discussed for a long time, see e.g. , and it has been naturally related to the azimuthal asymmetry for non-central collisions. If a high-$`p_t`$ jet is loosing energy in matter, jet emission is dominated by the surface of the almond and the correlation between position and the emission direction appears, thus the observed azimuthal asymmetry.

A relation between this phenomenon and data has been discussed in , where it was concluded that a $`combination`$ of jet quenching and hydrodynamical expansion can approximately describe them*** Although no curves for jet quenching alone are shown, the text implies that it is indeed insufficient by itself, in agreement with the (more general) argument we will give below.. Later STAR data have shown at high $`p_t=26`$ an approximately $`p_t`$-independent $`v_2`$, which disagree with a decreasing trend expected from jet quenching. Qualitative discussion of many possible scenarios which can have such a behavior has been made in Ref., including the interplay of jet quenching, hydrodynamical expansion and “baryon junction dynamics”. We return to this discussion at the end of the paper.

2.The present work ignores such details as $`p_t`$ dependence of $`v_2`$ and focuses instead on its measured $`values`$: we demonstrate that looking at pure geometric aspect of the problem one can show that those are too high for $`any`$ jet quenching model (without hydro).

The most generic model we use can be described as follows. First, the distribution of origination points for outgoing jets is simulated: this is done using the usual assumption of parton model and the simplest model of nuclei as two homogeneous colliding spheres. (Diffuse boundary only makes effects smaller.)

The second step is the calculation of the chances for the parton to escape the absorption in matter, as it goes out of the almond. The absorption rate is characterized by one (and the only) free parameter of the model. Its magnitude determines the strength of jet quenching itself (the fraction of escaping partons $`f(p_t,b)`$), with the predicted azimuthal asymmetry, $`v_2(b)`$.

As high-$`p_t`$ partons move with the speed of light, we ignore possible change of shape due to geometrical expansion of the “almond” during this time. (If anything, this will reduced the asymmetry, as expansion reduces spatial asymmetry.)

Naturally, in the absence of an absorption there is no azimuthal asymmetry, $`v_2(\kappa =0)=0`$, while increasing absorption creates increasing $`v_2`$. Interestingly, in the limit of very strong absorption the asymmetry reaches a finite limit, denoted by asterix below

$`v_2(b,\kappa \mathrm{})v_2^{}(b)`$ (2)
The reason for that is that in this case all the emitted partons/hadrons originate from the thin surface of the almond (see below). Even in this case, however, partons have half solid angle open for them: thus $`v_2^{}(b)`$ has direct geometric interpretation. The main point of this letter is that, after evaluating $`v_2(b)`$ values for the experimental conditions and comparing it with data we have found that even the limiting ones, $`v_2^{}(b)`$, are below the data.

3.Let us now provide more details about the model itself. In fig.1 we show geometry of the collision and definition of two longitudinal lengths, $`L_\pm (x,y)`$ for a hard collision at point (x,y). For hard spheres

$`L_\pm (x,y)=2[R^2y^2(x\pm b/2)^2]^{1/2}`$ (3)
The probability of production of a parton in hard collisions at position x,y is simply proportional to the product of longitudinal lengths $`P(x,y)=\alpha L_+(x,y)L_{}(x,y)`$. Vanishing of each of these factors defines the boundary of the initial almond in the transverse plane. Fig.1 shows the sketch of the initial distribution in transverse, x-y, plane. One characterizes it by the standard spatial anisotropy

$`s_2(b)=<y^2x^2>/<y^2+x^2>`$ (4)
where angular brackets means average over all produced jets, with the weight given by the parton model as described above. The distribution depends on impact parameter b, indicated in the l.h.s. In the table below we will make integration over b with geometric weight $`2\pi bdb`$ over bins of centrality, within limits defined by upper and lower percentage of the total cross section.

The probability to escape depends not only on the point of jet origin but also on the optical depth of matter along the outgoing line, $`(x+sn_x,y+sn_y)`$ which we calculate as follows

$`f=exp[\kappa {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑s(L_{}L_+)(x+sn_x,y+sn_y)]`$ (5)
The parameter $`\kappa `$ (dimension $`fm^3`$) includes both the density of the material and the absorption rate. The following fig.2 shows how the efficiency of the parton quenching and the $`v_2`$ parameter depend on it, in the whole dynamical range. The dependence of jet quenching and $`v_2`$ on the absorption strength is shown in Fig.2(b). It displays the saturation of $`v_2`$ as well as the tendency toward the surface emission at large absorption, mentioned in the introduction.

The main outcome of the simulations is summarized in the Table 1, in which we compare the high absorption limit $`v_2`$ calculated from the model with STAR preliminary dataThe error bars are calculated by the author, based on three STAR points at the largest $`p_t`$ bins, for each centrality. As at this point the data still have preliminary status, the reader should be warned that the error bars may be modified and the systematic errors be better understood and included. Now it is not possible to quantify the problem we discuss any better.  at $`p_t>3.5GeV`$. As one can easily see, even in the high absorption limit the model fails to reproduce data, being systematically below the present preliminary data. The difference is especially striking for the most central bin, in which the observed $`v_2`$ nearly matches the asymmetry $`s_2`$ of the original almond.

(Although the result is described as that in the high absorption limit, it actually corresponds to the calculation in which absorption was large but finite, $`\kappa =.2fm^3`$, with the actual quenching factors $`f`$ also given in the table.)

5.Let us now summarize the main result of this letter: the dynamical range of “jet quenching” scenarios is approximately confined in the region

$`0<v_2^{}/s_2<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}/3`$ (6)
while the preliminary STAR data give larger values $`v_2/s_2=.51`$ and therefore they cannot be explain by models of this kind alone , no matter what magnitude of jet quenching be used. The generic model used can of course be modified in many ways, but it seems unlikely that jet quenching by matter absorption in whatever form is able to explain these data by itself.

Assuming these preliminary STAR data are correct, let us consider what their explanation can be. The main shortcoming of the model comes from the idea that secondaries in this region of $`p_t`$ originate $`only`$ from jets, obtaining azimuthal asymmetry $`only`$ from geometrical asymmetry of the almond. The interplay between jet quenching and hydro expansion, quantitatively discussed in , only reduces the effect due to reduction of geometrical asymmetry with time.

The resolution of this puzzle can only be obtained if a significant fraction of secondaries originate from a source other than jets. A general discussion in  have mentioned a possibility that $`v_2`$ for baryons and pions can be very different, with the former getting a contribution from “baryon junctions” and/or collective flow, as the sources complementary to jets. We also think that it is likely to be the explanation, although we are quite sceptical about the role of the baryon junctions Recent STAR data on spectra of $`\varphi `$ mesons have provided one more argument against it. These data show that $`\varphi `$ has $`p_t`$ slopes consistent with hydro predictions  with the slope not very different from the nucleon’s: so it is the mass not the baryon number which matters here..

Collective hydro expansion is not just a simple and general concept, it is basically the only known mechanism capable to generate very large values of the azimuthal anisotropy. (Let us remind the reader why is it so. Due to different hydro motion in different directions, spectra have the $`\varphi `$-dependent $`p_t`$ $`slopes`$, resulting in asymmetry, $`v_2`$, about linearly increasing with $`p_t`$ .) However, the issue is far from being simple, and a significant role of hydro component in the high-$`p_t`$ tails of spectra, at $`p_t46GeV`$, is a very non-trivial thing. These tails of the particle spectra are 6 orders of magnitude below the majority of the particles, way below where a macroscopic language is routinely used. More work is needed in order to understand whether such approaches can at all be used in this region. In connection with that let me mention a very interesting paper by Molnar and Gyulassy  in which $`v_2`$ has been generated kinetically in some model with very large cross section, way above perturbative predictions. Although it is far from being clear that the extreme assumptions made in these calculations are realistic, it has been able to yield collective flow and sufficient values of the $`v_2`$.

Experimentally it is quite obvious what one should do: as soon as statistics will allow, to study $`v_2`$ at such $`p_t`$ for any identified secondaries. Particles which are seen via decays, e.g. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`K_s`$ and especially $`\varphi `$ can be identified at rather high momenta and are thus most interesting. Since jets decay into pions much more than into strange mesons like $`\varphi `$ and especially into baryons, one should expect the corresponding fractions of jet-originated and hydro-originated secondaries be very different for all of them. The observed constancy of $`v_2`$ with $`p_t`$ for all charge secondaries is likely to be just a result of occasional cancellation between rising hydro-based and decreasing jet-based components.

Note Added in proofs After the paper was submitted to PRC, STAR data used have passed necessary procedures and are no longer preliminary. The final data are submitted to PRL for publication, as “Azimuthal anisotropy and correlations in the hard scattering regime at RHIC”, by C.Adler et al,nucl-ex/0206006. Systematic effects due to two-body correlations have been studied by comparison between 2-particle and 4-particle cumulants. When the latter values for $`v_2`$ is used, the discrepancy with the maximal model values at strong jet quenching $`v_2^{}`$ nearly disappears. Another significant fact reported in this STAR publication is the first direct observation of jet component in the 2-body correlations. More recent STAR data at 200 GeV/N have been presented at recent Quark Matter 2002 conference. Due to much higher statistics, those extends to larger $`p_t=612GeV`$, but display about the same $`v_2`$. Good agreement between the measured values of $`v_2`$ and the theoretical high quenching limit $`v_2^{}`$ has been shown in the summary talk there by S.A.Voloshin: it seem to suggest that geometrical interpretation of azimuthal asymmetry suggested in this paper seem to be correct, after all.

This work is partially supported by the US-DOE grants DE-FG02-88ER40388 and DE-FG03-97ER4014.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The beautiful CM diagram presented in 1990 by Anthony-Twarog et al. for the intermediate age open cluster NGC2420 has been in the last ten years a favourite target for all the people concerned with the evolution of low to intermediate mass stars. The occasion for revisiting this cluster has been given to us by the recent paper by Pols et al. (1998, hereinafter P98), who presented new evolutionary tracks carefully discussing the fit of a selected (and well chosen) sample of galactic clusters. As discussed in that paper, NGC2420 seems to give a good chance to put firm constraints on the efficiency of the mechanism of core overshooting. Owing to the relevance of such an issue, we decided to go deep into the matter, hoping eventually to settle down such a long debated argument. However, as we will discuss in the following, the situation is far from being assessed.

## 2 Isochrone fitting

According to Anthony-Twarog et al. (1990) metallicity estimates give for the cluster \[Fe/H\]=-0.35 $`\pm `$0.10, but with evaluations reaching \[Fe/H\]=-0.6 (Canterna et al. 1986). Following P98, we will assume Z=0.007 (\[Fe/H=-0.4\]). By taking Y=0.23 for old metal poor stars and accounting for a galactic He enrichment law as given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }Y/\mathrm{\Delta }Z2.4`$ (see e.g. Pagel & Portinari 1998) we obtain for the cluster Y=0.244. The adopted evolutionary code and physical inputs are the same as in Cassisi et al. (1998); in particular to start our investigation we adopted the OPAL EOS (Rogers et al. 1996).

Figure 1 (left panel) shows the best fitting of our isochrone to the cluster CM diagram, as obtained by using colour-temperature relations from Kurucz (1992) and by adopting for the cluster just the same reddening and the same age as in P98. As a result, we found that a best fitting is indeed achieved, with only a small difference in the cluster distance modulus (DM = 12.05 against 11.95 in P98), which appears the natural result of the differences between the two MS luminosities already discussed in Prada Moroni et al. (2000). The impressive agreement between the two theoretical scenarios can obviously taken as an evidence that neither differences in the adopted input physics nor in the color-temperature relation play a relevant role in the predicted models. As already discussed by P98, one finds that theoretical He burning stars appear too luminous, by about 0.3 mag. However, in both theoretical isochrones one can also find the evidence for a misfitting of the lower portion of the MS, with too blue theoretical models. As well known, low masses MS stars are less and less affected by the efficiency of the external convection, thus it appears difficult to reconcile theory and observation only by tuning the mixing lenght parameter (see e.g. Castellani et al. 1999). To discuss overshooting, Figure 1 (right panel) depicts theoretical expectations, showing a synthetic cluster as obtained by randomly populating the isochrone till obtaining 24 stars brighter than $`M_V=2.1`$, as observed. Comparison with the CM diagram in Fig. 1 (left panel) discloses in the observational data the two well known overshooting signatures, namely: i) the larger extension of the “hook” preceding the overall contraction gap, and ii) the lack of the concentration of stars just at the end of the gap, expected under canonical assumptions.

However, the fitting can be improved by increasing the reddening thus driving a larger evaluation of the cluster distance modulus, alleviating the overluminosity of predicted He burning stars. This is shown in Fig. 2 (left panel), which reports our best fitting as obtained for E(B-V) =0.08. Moreover, increasing the reddening the Turn Off becomes bluer and the cluster younger, increasing the extension of the hook (see Fig. 1 for comparison), also alleviating this discrepancy. However, no one of these discrepancies is completely resolved, nor increasing the reddening helps to solve the disagreement for the lower MS. Concerning the problem of the MS fitting, one has to conclude that either the color temperature relation or the MS models are wrong, if not both. To explore theoretical models, we repeated the previous computations but adopting the alternative Equation of State presented by Straniero (1998). As shown in Fig. 2 (right panel), we found that theoretical and observational MSs appear now in reasonable agreement, disclosing that a solution to this problem already exists within the currently available theoretical scenarios. On the contrary, the replacement of Kurucz (1992) colour-temperature relations with the most recent and widely adopted semiempirical relations by Alonso et al. (1996, 1999) cannot solve the dicrepancy between the theoretical and the observational low MS. In this case, in fact, one obtains a shift toward bluer MS colours, which would affect (increase) the reddening evaluations by about 0.05 mag, but not the MS slope.

## 3 The tricky binaries

According to the discussion in the previous section, one is left with the evidence of a small overluminosity of He burning stars and with two clear signatures for the efficiency of overshooting. As a matter of the fact, numerical experiments confirmed that allowing for a moderate overshooting (of the order of 0.1 pressure scale height, Hp) our theoretical isochrone would match much better the observed diagram. However, in a previous paper (Castellani et al. 1999) we have already drawn the attention on the evidence that binaries stars, as obviously present in the cluster, may mimike overshooting by extending the hook above its natural maximum luminosity. Thus we tested the effects of binarity again by producing synthetic clusters from canonical (without overshooting) models but allowing for 30% binaries (as obtained by a rough estimate from the CM diagram) according to the following distribution of mass ratio: 50% between 0.8 and 1, 30% between 0.6 and 0.8, the remaining 20% totally random (Tornambè A., private communication).

As predicted, and as shown in Fig. 3, left panel, binaries tend to extend the hook, producing in this region a CM diagram which appears in better agreement with overshooting computations. However, and to our surprise, one also finds that in a good percentage of the random clusters, namely of the order of about 50%, the predicted “post-gap” distribution sensitively deviates from canonical expectations, approaching the one actually observed in the cluster (see, e.g., Fig. 3, right panel). The reason for such an occurrence is easily found in the scarce statistical significance of the number of luminous stars together with the non negligible contribution of binaries. As a result, we conclude that NGC2420 is actually failing to give the expected constraints about the overshooting efficiency. As a matter of the fact, both the discussed canonical and mild overshooting cases appear acceptable. However, numerical simulations seems to suggest that an overshooting as large as 0.25 Hp would depopulate too much the red part of the subgiant branch.

## 4 Conclusions

According to the previous sections, one finds that three out of the four theoretical misfitting of the cluster CM diagram can be accounted for within current evolutiony scenarios. On the contrary, no assumption appears able to reconcile the predicted luminosity of He burning stars with observation. To explore all the possibilities one may guess that a given amount of mass loss could account for this discrepancy. One generally assumes that mass loss occurs in the advanced phase of H shell burning, so that the internal structure of the He burning star is not affected by such an occurrence, which only decreases the amount of envelope surrounding the central He core. Under this assumption, the effect of mass loss on He burning models can be easily computed by simply decreasing the envelope of the constant-mass model. Numerical simulations shows that to reach the agreement between theory and observation for the clump luminosity one needs to decrease the He burning mass from the standard value of $``$ 1.5 M to 1.0 M. This very high amount of mass loss seems very unlikely to us.

At present time the discrepancy between theory and observation in the luminosity of He burning stars with degenerate RGB progenitors it is not a surprising result; it appears as a constant prediction of models based on updated physics (see e.g. P98, Castellani et al. 2000), whereas similar suggestions for the overluminosity of theoretical models have been also derived from the pulsational properties of RR Lyrae (see e.g. Caputo et al. 2000). We conclude that using clumping He burning stars as theoretical standard candles, as we did (Castellani et al. 1999), is at least a risky procedure. We note that in the above quoted work, one could recognize a signature of the overluminosity in the need of assuming rather large reddenings for all the clusters. In this context, it follows that firm constraints about the reddening of galactic clusters will help in solving this problem.


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# STAR results from the first RHIC year

## 1 The STAR experiment and its physics goals

The recent announcement of indirect evidence for the formation of a new state of matter in several CERN heavy-ion experiments has led to renewed interest for the field of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In its first run, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory collided Au ions at a center of mass energy of 130 GeV per nucleon pair, some 7.5 times higher than that previously possible in fixed target experiments at CERN. The ultimate goal of experiments is to establish the existence of a deconfined phase of quarks and gluons and to study the behaviour of strongly interacting matter under these conditions. As expected, the very first measurements reported from RHIC were based on hadronic observables. Thermal model descriptions of hadronic particle production at CERN, in particular the strange particle abundances and ratios, have concluded that only the inclusion of a phase transition into any model calculation will allow a proper description of the measured results . In addition, particle production at high transverse momentum ($`p_T`$) is expected to become more pronounced at RHIC energies. High $`p_T`$ particles originate from hard processes occuring during the earliest stages of the collision and may therefore offer new insight into the state of matter produced.

The Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC (STAR) detector is a large acceptance spectrometer primarily designed to study hadron production in nuclear collisions ranging from proton-proton to central Au+Au. During the first year of operation, the STAR detector comprised a central Time Projection Chamber (TPC), a Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH), a Central Trigger Barrel (CTB) and two Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC). The TPC operated in a 0.25 Tesla solenoidal magnet and gives tracking information for charged particles in a pseudorapidity interval of approximately $`|\eta |<1.8`$. It also provides a means of particle identification from ionisation (energy loss) measurements along each particle trajectory. Particle identification at higher momenta was made possible using the RICH. The RICH covers only a narrow acceptance window centered at mid-rapidity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =20^{}`$ in azimuth and $`|\eta |<0.3`$), thus its measurements in year-1 were statistics limited. Overall about 500,000 Au+Au collisions (central and minimum bias) recorded with the STAR detector in year-1 were analyzed for the results shown here. The detector was triggered using the signals from the CTB and ZDCs.

## 2 Results

Fig. 2 shows the inclusive transverse momentum distribution of negative hadrons measured out to $`p_T=6`$ GeV/$`c`$. The data shown are for the 5% most central event. The data has been corrected for background arising from interactions in the detector and the products of weak decay processes, as well as for losses due to the reconstruction efficiency.

Also shown in Fig. 2 is the negative hadron distribution from Pb+Pb collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=17.2`$ GeV of NA49  and the distribution of charged hadrons $`(h^{}+h^+)/2`$ from proton-antiproton collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$ GeV of UA1 . It can be seen that the STAR data is flatter than that measured in Pb+Pb collisions at lower energy, corresponding to an increase in the mean $`p_T`$ of negative hadrons by 18%. The total yield, which was obtained by extrapolation of a power-law fit to the data , was found to be $`dN/d\eta |_{\eta =0}=280\pm 1(stat)\pm 20(syst)`$, a 52% increase compared to the NA49 measurement. In order to compare to the proton-antiproton data, Fig. 2 shows the ratio of the STAR data to a scaled parametrisation of the UA1 data. The UA1 data has been scaled to account for the energy difference in the nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass frame and by the nuclear overlap integral, TAA = 26 mb-1 to arrive at the yield appropriate for the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions expected in central Au+Au collisions. The horizontal lines shown in Fig. 2 correspond to the expected value of the ratio under two scaling assumptions. The upper line shows the expected value if the distribution scales with the number of binary collisions. This line corresponds to a ratio of unity due to the scaling of the UA1 data. The lower line corresponds to the expected value of the ratio if the distributions scale with the number of wounded nucleons. As expected, at low $`p_T`$, where particle production is dominated by soft processes, the total pion yield scales with the number of wounded nucleons. However, this is only the case for the lowest transverse momentum bin. In general, the data below $`p_T=2`$ GeV/$`c`$ exceeds the wounded nucleon scaling, rising as a function of $`p_T`$ toward the binary collision limit. This upper limit is relevant for hard processes in the absence of any nuclear effects, such as initial state multiple scattering, jet quenching or collective radial flow. In fact, the ratio never reaches the binary collision scaling, but drops again for $`p_T>2`$ GeV/$`c`$. At a $`p_T`$ of 6 GeV/$`c`$, the ratio falls below the binary collision scaling by more than a factor of two. A second measurement that may be sensitive to high $`p_T`$ phenomena is elliptic flow. Elliptic flow is studied in minimum bias collisions, where the initial spatial anisotropy caused by the partial overlap of two nuclei is transformed into a momentum anisotropy of particles in the final state. For each event a reaction plane is determined from the predominantly low $`p_T`$ tracks reconstructed in the TPC . Particle distributions are then studied for an azimuthal asymmetry with respect to the reaction plane, which may stem from pressure gradients generated in the earliest stages of the collision. Fig. 4 shows the second Fourier coefficient, $`v_2`$, of the azimuthal distribution of negative hadrons as a function of $`p_T`$. The data shows that $`v_2`$ rises as a function of $`p_T`$, as expected from hydrodynamic calculations , until around $`p_T=2`$ GeV/$`c`$ where-after the data falls systematically below the hydrodynamical prediction. This departure is not unexpected as high $`p_T`$ particles may escape the reaction zone with little rescattering. However, $`v_2`$ appears to saturate rather than decrease and this may be related to the in-medium energy loss of high $`p_T`$ partons. Calculations have shown that in this case the magnitude of $`v_2`$ is sensitive to the initial gluon density .

It is tempting to connect the two observations seen in Figs. 2 and 4. In Fig. 2 a suppression of high $`p_T`$ hadrons is observed in Au+Au collisions relative to scaled $`p+\overline{p}`$ data, while in Fig. 4 the anisotropic flow signal is found to saturate at high $`p_T`$, both of which may be the result of partonic energy loss (jet quenching) in the excited medium.

Particle identification in STAR can be performed in three ways: using the specific ionisation ($`dE/dx`$) in the TPC, from the angle at which Cherenkov light is emitted from particles entering the RICH, and by the topology of weak decays reconstructed from the tracks in the TPC. At a given momentum, the difference in the mean ionisation between particle species allows the separation of pions and kaons for momenta $`p0.6`$ GeV/$`c`$ and the separation of kaons and protons for momenta $`p1.0`$ GeV/$`c`$. The RICH extends the particle identification capability of the TPC to around 3 GeV/$`c`$ for kaons and 5 GeV/$`c`$ for protons. The topological pattern recognition technique is applicable to a wide range of weak decay processes, from neutral strange particle decays such as $`K_s^0\pi ^++\pi ^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }p+\pi ^{}`$, to cascade decay processes such as $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }+\pi ^{}`$ and one-prong decays such as $`K^{}\mu ^{}+\nu _\mu `$.

Fig. 4 shows the anti-particle over particle ratios for identified baryons at mid-rapidity in the 11% most central collisions. The ratios indicate that the mid-rapidity region is not net baryon free, although comparisons with measurements at SPS energies indicate that the net baryon density is much reduced. The ratios are consistent with simple quark counting models  and statistical thermal models which are governed by a common baryon chemical potential and chemical freeze-out temperature . The ratios shown in Fig. 4 are based on integrated yields, which are easy to obtain in the case of the strange baryons, where the topological pattern recognition allows to cover around 70% of the particle’s momentum spectrum. In the case of the $`\overline{p}/p`$ ratio the coverage based on the energy loss technique is much smaller due to the rather low momentum cutoff ($`p1`$ GeV/$`c`$). Still, an extrapolation was done and the details can be found at . The particle identified transverse mass distributions of negative hadrons ($`\pi ^{}`$, K- and $`\overline{p}`$) obtained by the $`dE/dx`$ method in the 6% most central collisions were compared to an exponential fit. A clear mass dependence was observed in the inverse slope parameter, with values ranging from 190 MeV for $`\pi ^{}`$ to 300 MeV for K- and 565 MeV for $`\overline{p}`$. These observations are suggestive of a significant increase in transverse radial flow compared to CERN observations . Unfortunately the transverse mass range obtained from the $`dE/dx`$ measurement is very limited, especially for the $`\overline{p}`$. The transverse momentum spectra of $`h^{}`$, $`\overline{p}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ are shown in Fig. 6.

It is noteworthy that the inverse slope obtained from an exponential fit to the $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ spectrum is significantly lower than that of the $`\overline{p}`$ spectrum. One of the consequences of radial flow is a flattening of the transverse momentum spectra for heavier particles at low $`p_T`$ . Therefore the slope obtained from a simple exponential fit to the data will be dependent on the range of $`p_T`$ used in the fit. Fig. 6 also suggests that the relative yield of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ to negative hadrons becomes increasingly larger at higher $`p_T`$. It should be noted that the negative hadron distribution already contains the yield of primary antiprotons. If this trend continues, then it would appear that the yield of antibaryons may exceed that of mesons at transverse momenta above 2 GeV/$`c`$. This is in qualitative agreement with the direct measurement of the $`\overline{p}/\pi ^{}`$ reported by the PHENIX collaboration . A detailed study of baryon production in year-2 may determine whether this observation is solely a consequence of transverse radial flow, or due to novel baryon dynamics .

In an attempt to remove the dependence of the fit range and seek a common explanation for the spectra, a hydrodynamical motivated fit  has been performed. The model allows a choice of the transverse flow profile of matter produced in the collision. The choice which best describes the data is a radial flow velocity which varies as $`\beta _r=\beta _s\sqrt{r/R}`$ where $`\beta _s`$ is the surface flow velocity at a radius, $`R`$. A fit was performed to each of the particle spectra, allowing the freezeout temperature and mean flow velocity to vary. It was found that a freezeout temperature of $`T=120_{25}^{+50}`$ MeV and an average flow velocity of $`\beta _r=0.52_{0.08}^{+0.12}`$ could simultaneously describe all measured particle spectra. These values represent a modest rise in the transverse flow velocity and similar freezeout temperature compared to earlier measurements at CERN . For the strange particles reconstructed in STAR (including the Kaon kink analysis, which extends the mT coverage up to 2 GeV/c) the coverages are similar and a simple exponential fit can be applied in order to yield a common mass dependence. The result is shown and compared to SPS data in Fig. 6.

## 3 Summary

In summary, STAR has measured a wide range of hadronic probes in both central and minimum bias Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV. The pseudorapidity density of negative hadrons is $`dN/d\eta =280\pm 1\pm 20`$ in central collisions, representing a 52% increase compared to lower energy data from CERN. The elliptic flow measurement in minimum bias collisions is consistent with the predictions of a hydrodynamical model at low transverse momentum, implying that the system equilibrates early. Studies of the transverse momentum spectra of identified particles produced in central collisions indicate the presence of a strong collective radial flow, which complicates the interpretation of transverse momentum spectra. However, a common description of the spectra is possible within a hydrodynamical framework. At transverse momenta greater than 2 GeV/$`c`$ there is a suppression of negative hadrons compared to an extrapolation from proton-antiproton collisions. The elliptic flow measurement is also found to saturate in this momentum region. Both observations may be sensitive to partonic energy loss (jet quenching) at this higher energy. Finally it has been shown that antibaryons (and baryons) become an increasingly larger fraction of the total particle yield at high $`p_T`$.


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# BaSeL: a library of synthetic spectra and colours for GAIA

## 1. Brief description of the BaSeL model and its interactive server

The Basel Stellar Library (BaSeL) is a library of theoretical spectra corrected to provide synthetic colours consistent with empirical colour-temperature calibrations at all wavelengths from the near-UV to the far-IR (see Lejeune et al. 1997, 1998 for a complete description, and Westera et al. 1999 for the most recent version). These model spectra cover a large range of fundamental parameters (2000 $``$ Teff $``$ 50,000 K, $``$5 $``$ \[Fe/H\] $``$ 1 and $``$1.02 $``$ log g $``$ 5.5) and hence allow to investigate a large panel of multi-wavelength astrophysical questions, as briefly reviewed in the next section. Since they are based on synthetic spectra, they can in principle be used in many photometric systems taken either individually or collectively, and this is another major advantage of these models. The ”BaSeL interactive server” is the web version of the BaSeL models (http://www.astro.mat.uc.pt/BaSeL/). This server is under development and the photometric systems presently available in interactive mode are: Geneva, Washington, Johnson-Cousins, Strömgren, HST-WFPC2, photographic RGU, and EROS. All details about this server will be given elsewhere.

## 2. Astrophysical applications

The BaSeL models are currently used in an increasing number of astrophysical studies. It is far beyond the scope of this work to cite all the studies but some examples of application cover globular clusters (e.g. Bruzual et al. 1997, Weiss & Salaris 1999, Kurth et al. 1999, Lejeune & Buser 1999), open clusters (e.g. Lastennet 1998, Pols et al. 1998), preparation of the COROT space mission (Lastennet et al. 2001a), HR diagram of the Hyades (e.g. Lastennet et al. 1999b, Lebreton et al. 2001), blue stragglers (e.g. Deng et al. 1999), AGB stars (e.g. Lastennet et al. 2001b), eclipsing binary stars (e.g. Lastennet et al. 1999a), stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (Cordier et al. 2000), and clusters of galaxies (e.g. Steindling et al. 2001). Moreover, the photometric systems available in BaSeL can be used independently (e.g. the photographic RGU system, Buser et al. 2000) or collectively (e.g. Johnson and Strömgren, Lastennet et al. 2001a). Finally, the BaSeL library has been used recently to evaluate the performance of the proposed GAIA photometric system 3G (Sudzius et al. 2001).

## 3. The GAIA mission

The GAIA mission, with a launch date in 2010-2012, is an approved Cornerstone mission by ESA designed to solve many of the most fundamental challenges in astronomy: to determine the composition, formation and evolution of our Galaxy. The core science case for GAIA requires measurement of luminosity, effective temperature, mass, age, and composition for the stellar populations in our own Galaxy and in its nearest galaxy neighbours. These quantities can be derived from the spectral energy distribution of the stars, through multi-band photometry. Because the GAIA photometric system must be able to classify stars across the entire HR diagram, as well as to identify peculiar objects, none of the existing photometric systems satisfy all the GAIA requirements, and a new system has to be defined (standard wavebands and sets of standard stars). Moreover, a recent study from the Vilnius GAIA group (Vansevicius et al. 2001), comparing the performance of the proposed GAIA photometric systems 1F, 2A & 3G, seems to indicate that no optimal photometric system for GAIA is proposed to date. Covering a large spectral domain, extending from the UV to the far-IR, BaSeL is adapted to perform simulations with the (new) proposed photometric systems, and should help to choose the most efficient one.

## 4. One of the future developments of the BaSeL web site for GAIA

In its actual version, the BaSeL models can already provide relevant information to select between the proposed GAIA photometric systems. Given a set of effective temperature, metallicity and surface gravity (Teff, \[Fe/H\], log g), the BaSeL models provide colours that can be directly compared with photometric observations of stellar populations. Alternatively, the inverse method (Lastennet et al. 1999a, LLWB99) would be very useful to derive the atmospheric parameters from the observed colours. LLWB99 applied this method to derive simultaneously the Teff and metallicity of a sample of eclipsing binary stars (EBs) with photometric data in the Strömgren system. They obtained very good results from the BaSeL models, in agreement with the Teff derived from accurate HIPPARCOS data and with spectroscopic determination of metallicity (when available). However, while they fix log g because this quantity is known with an excellent accuracy for their sample of EBs, we intend to use a more general $`\chi ^2`$-minimization algorithm for the GAIA targets in order to derive the 3 atmospheric parameters:

$$\chi ^2(T_{\mathrm{eff}},[Fe/H],logg)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left[\left(\frac{\mathrm{GPI}(\mathrm{i})_{\mathrm{syn}}\mathrm{GPI}(\mathrm{i})}{\sigma (\mathrm{GPI}(\mathrm{i}))}\right)^2\right],$$
(1)
where $`n`$ is the number of photometric indices, GPI(i) is a selected GAIA Photometric Index and GPI(i)syn is the BaSeL synthetic index in the GAIA photometric system. The uncertainty on the index measurements - $`\sigma `$(GPI(i)) - will provide confidence contours on the (Teff, \[Fe/H\], log g) results. The interstellar absorption can either be included in equation (1) as an additional parameter (see an example in LLWB99, sect. 3.3.2) or can be determined by independent methods (see e.g. Lastennet et al. 2001a).

An obvious advantage of this algorithm is to know the quality of the fit: an example is given in a Teff-\[Fe/H\] diagram (Fig. 1) where comparisons with previous Teff determinations show a good agreement. Note that the BaSeL models also provide an \[Fe/H\] determination in Fig. 1. Other examples, including bad fits, can be found in Lastennet et al. (1999a, 2001a). In the context of the GAIA mission, we propose to develop an automatic tool based on this extended method of Lastennet et al. to complete the facilities of the BaSeL server. Provided that the new GAIA pass-bands (e.g. for the 1F system: 4 broad and 11 intermediate bands covering the spectral range 280 to 920 nm) are implemented in the BaSeL models, this new tool will provide automatically (Teff, log g, \[Fe/H\]) estimates and uncertainties for the stars observed with the GAIA photometric bands. An automatic and efficient treatment of any sample of GAIA targets will be possible.

## 5. Conclusion

Covering a large spectral domain, extending from the UV to the far-infrared, the BaSeL models are adapted to perform simulations with the proposed GAIA photometric systems and should help to choose the most efficient one. We present and discuss a proposition to develop an automatic method, already used with success for COROT potential targets (Lastennet et al. 2001a), for a systematic determination of fundamental parameters from BaSeL synthetic multi-photometry. This new tool should be publicly available in 2002 on the following web site http://www.astro.mat.uc.pt/BaSeL/.

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Cordier D., Lejeune T., Lebreton Y., Goupil M.-J., 2000, ASP Conf. Ser., Vol. 203, 381

Deng L. et al., 1999, ApJ, 524, 824

Kurth O.M., Fritze-v. Alvensleben U., Fricke K.J., 1999, A&AS, 138, 19

Lastennet E., 1998, Ph-D thesis, Univ. L. Pasteur, Obs. de Strasbourg, France

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Lastennet E., Lignières F., Buser R. et al., 2001a, A&A, 365, 535

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