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# 1 Electroweak for CFL

## 1 Electroweak for CFL

Here I present a compendium of the effective Lagrangians for three and two flavors QCD describing the relevant color superconductive light degrees of freedom and their electroweak interactions. However I will not consider some more recent developments involving new phases which are presented by other participants in this conference. Possible phenomenological applications include the description of quark stars, neutron star interiors, the physics near the core of collapsing stars and supernova explosions .

At high density, in the 3 flavor case, the symmetry group $`SU_L(3)\times SU_R(3)\times SU_c(3)`$ breaks spontaneously to $`SU_{c+L+R}(3)`$ leaving behind $`16`$ Goldston bosons. However, being $`SU_c(3)`$ a gauge group 8 Goldstone bosons are absorbed in the longitudinal components of the massive gluons. So we are left with 8, not colored, physical massless Goldstone bosons. They can be encoded in the unitary matrix  transforming linearly under the left-right flavor rotations $`Ug_LUg_R^{}`$ with $`g_{L/R}SU_{L/R}(N_f)`$. $`U`$ satisfies the non linear realization constraint $`UU^{}=1`$. We also require $`\mathrm{det}U=1`$. In this way we avoid discussing the axial $`U_A(1)`$ anomaly at the effective Lagrangian level. (See Ref.  for a general discussion of trace and $`U_A(1)`$ anomaly). We have $`U=\mathrm{exp}\left[i\mathrm{\Phi }/F\right]`$ with $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Phi }^at^a`$ representing the $`8`$ Goldstone bosons and $`\mathrm{Tr}\left[t^at^b\right]=\delta ^{ab}/2`$. $`F`$ is the Goldstone bosons decay constant at finite density.

The effective Lagrangian, for massless quarks, globally invariant under chiral rotations (up to two derivatives) and invariant only under the rotational subgroup of the Lorentz group is:

$$L=\frac{F^2}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\dot{U}\dot{U}^{}v^2\stackrel{}{}U\stackrel{}{}U^{}\right].$$
(1)
Clearly by rescaling the vector coordinates $`\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}/v`$ we can recast the previous Lagrangian in the form $`L={\displaystyle \frac{F^2}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\left[_\mu U^\mu U^{}\right]`$.

We now augment the theory by the time-honored Wess-Zumino term which is compactly written using the language of differential forms. It is useful to introduce the algebra valued Maurer-Cartan one forms:

$$\alpha =\left(_\mu U\right)U^1dx^\mu \left(dU\right)U^1,\beta =U^1dU=U^1\alpha U,$$
(2)
which transform, respectively, under the left and right $`SU(N_f)`$ flavor group. The Wess-Zumino effective action is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{WZ}\left[U\right]=C_{M^5}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\alpha ^5\right],C=i\frac{N_c}{240\pi ^2}.$$
(3)
$`C`$ assumes the same value then the one used at zero density and $`N_c`$ is the number of colors (fixed to be 3 in this case). The coefficient is fixed by saturating the global anomalies at the effective Lagrangian level . The 3 flavor case respects the ’t Hooft global anomaly matching conditions at non zero density. A relevant feature is that $`\alpha `$, being a differential form, is unaffected by coordinate rescaling (actually topological terms being independent on the metric are unaffected by medium effects), and hence the Wess-Zumino term is not modified at finite matter density.

At this point it is important to note111I thank D.K. Hong for helping me clarifying this point. that in reference  the coefficient of the Wess-Zumino term actually agrees with the one presented here  while it is the one presented/computed in  which disagrees by a factor three. A relevant consequence of our results is associated to the solitonic (Skyrme) sector of the effective Lagrangian theory. In fact now we have the same winding number as for ordinary QCD and hence we get massive excitations, which after collective quantization, describe spin half particles with the same quantum numbers of ordinary baryons.

Next we extend the previous effective Lagrangian by incorporating the electroweak intermediate vector mesons as external fields.

$`DU`$ $`=`$ $`Ui{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\sqrt{2}}}\left[W^+\tau ^++W^{}\tau ^{}\right]Ui{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}}Z^0\left[\tau ^3U\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W[Q,U]\right]`$ (4)
$`i\stackrel{~}{e}\stackrel{~}{A}[Q,U]i\stackrel{~}{e}\mathrm{tan}\theta \stackrel{~}{G}^8[Q,U]`$
where $`\theta _W`$ is the electroweak angle and

$$\tau ^+=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right),\tau ^{}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right),\tau ^3=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
The last two terms in Eq. (4) describe the, non anomalous, interaction of the Goldstone bosons with respectively the physical massless photon and the physical massive eight gluon. The physical photon and eight gluon states are related to the, in vacuum, ones via:

$`\stackrel{~}{G}^8=\mathrm{cos}\theta G^8+\mathrm{sin}\theta A,\stackrel{~}{A}=\mathrm{sin}\theta G^8+\mathrm{cos}\theta A,`$ (6)
with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta =\sqrt{3}g_s/\sqrt{3g_s^2+4e^2}`$. Clearly $`\stackrel{~}{e}=e\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ is the finite density new electric charge.

The $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ Lagrangian term is obtained by gauging the Wess-Zumino action  and is given by:

$$_{\pi ^0\gamma \gamma }=\frac{30}{4}e^2Ci\mathrm{Tr}\left[t^3Q^2\right]\pi ^0\frac{\sqrt{2}}{F}ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\rho \sigma },$$
(7)
and $`\pi ^0=\mathrm{\Phi }^3`$. After substituting the, in vacuum, photon field with its expression as function of the physical photon and gluon  we discover that the process is identical to the in the vacuum one when replacing the, in vacuum, electric charge with $`\stackrel{~}{e}`$. It is also worth noticing that since the mass of the physical eight gluon is larger than the pion mass the process $`\pi ^0\stackrel{~}{G}^8\stackrel{~}{G}^8`$ is barred kinematically.

## 2 Electroweak for 2SC

Here I summarize the effective low energy Lagrangian for two flavors (when a 2SC phase sets is) which contains all of the relevant degrees of freedom.

In 2SC the diquark condensate leaves invariant the following symmetry group:

$$\left[SU_c(2)\right]\times SU_L(2)\times SU_R(2)\times \stackrel{~}{U}_V(1),$$
(8)
where $`\left[SU_c(2)\right]`$ is the unbroken part of the gauge group. The $`\stackrel{~}{U}_V(1)`$ generator $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ is the following linear combination of the previous $`U_V(1)`$ generator $`B=\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1)`$ and the broken diagonal generator of the $`SU_c(3)`$ gauge group $`T^8=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{3}}\mathrm{diag}(1,1,2)`$: $`\stackrel{~}{B}=B\frac{2\sqrt{3}}{3}T^8`$. The quarks with color $`1`$ and $`2`$ are neutral under $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ and consequently the condensate too ($`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ is $`\sqrt{2}\stackrel{~}{S}`$ of Ref. ). The superconductive phase for $`N_f=2`$ possesses the same global symmetry group of the confined Wigner-Weyl phase . In Reference , it was shown that the low-energy spectrum, at finite density, displays the correct quantum numbers to saturate the ’t Hooft global anomalies. In Reference  it was then seen, by using a variety of field theoretical tools, that global anomaly matching conditions hold for any cold but dense gauge theory.

The lowest lying excitations are protected from acquiring a mass by the aforementioned constraints and dominate the low-energy physical processes. Here, see , the relevant coset space is $`G/H`$ with $`G=SU_c(3)\times U_V(1)`$ and $`H=SU_c(2)\times \stackrel{~}{U}_V(1)`$ is parameterized by

$$𝒱=\mathrm{exp}(i\xi ^iX^i),$$
(9)
where $`\{X^i\}`$ $`i=1,\mathrm{},5`$ belong to the coset space $`G/H`$ and are taken to be $`X^i=T^{i+3}`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},4`$ while $`X^5=B+\frac{\sqrt{3}}{3}T^8=\mathrm{diag}(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2},0)`$. $`T^a`$ are the standard generators of $`SU(3)`$. The coordinates

$$\xi ^i=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }^i}{f}i=1,2,3,4,\xi ^5=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }^5}{\stackrel{~}{f}},$$
(10)
via $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ describe the Goldstone bosons.

$`𝒱`$ transforms non linearly

$$𝒱(\xi )u_Vg𝒱(\xi )h^{}(\xi ,g,u)h_{\stackrel{~}{V}}^{}(\xi ,g,u),$$
(11)
with $`u_VU_V(1)`$, $`gSU_c(3)`$, $`h(\xi ,g,u)SU_c(2)`$ and $`h_{\stackrel{~}{V}}(\xi ,g,u)\stackrel{~}{U}_V(1)`$. It is, also, convenient to define:

$$\omega _\mu =i𝒱^{}D_\mu 𝒱\mathrm{with}D_\mu 𝒱=(_\mu ig_sG_\mu )𝒱,$$
(12)
with gluon fields $`G_\mu =G_\mu ^mT^m`$. Following  we decompose $`\omega _\mu `$ into

$$\omega _\mu ^{}=2S^a\mathrm{Tr}\left[S^a\omega _\mu \right]\mathrm{and}\omega _\mu ^{}=2X^i\mathrm{Tr}\left[X^i\omega _\mu \right],$$
(13)
where $`S^a`$ are the unbroken generators of $`H`$ with $`S^{1,2,3}=T^{1,2,3}`$, $`S^4=\stackrel{~}{B}/\sqrt{2}`$. Summation over repeated indices is assumed.

To be able to include the in medium fermions in the picture we define:

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }=𝒱^{}\psi ,$$
(14)
transforming as $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }h_{\stackrel{~}{V}}(\xi ,g,u)h(\xi ,g,u)\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ and $`\psi `$ possesses an ordinary quark transformations (as Dirac spinor).

The simplest non-linearly realized effective Lagrangian describing in medium fermions, the five gluons and their self interactions, up to two derivatives and quadratic in the fermion fields is:

$`=`$ $`f^2a_1\mathrm{Tr}\left[\omega _0^{}\omega _0^{}\alpha _1\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\right]+f^2a_2\left[\mathrm{Tr}\left[\omega _0^{}\right]\mathrm{Tr}\left[\omega _0^{}\right]\alpha _2\mathrm{Tr}\left[\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\right]\mathrm{Tr}\left[\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\right]\right]`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`b_1\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}i\left[\gamma ^0(_0i\omega _0^{})+\beta _1\stackrel{}{\gamma }\left(\stackrel{}{}i\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\right)\right]\stackrel{~}{\psi }+b_2\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\left[\gamma ^0\omega _0^{}+\beta _2\stackrel{}{\gamma }\stackrel{}{\omega }^{}\right]\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$
$`+`$ $`m_M\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }^C}\gamma ^5(iT^2)\stackrel{~}{\psi }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }^C=i\gamma ^2\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}`$, $`i,j=1,2`$ are flavor indices and

$$T^2=S^2=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma ^2\hfill & 0\hfill \\ 0\hfill & 0\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(16)
$`a_1,a_2,b_1`$ and $`b_2`$ are real coefficients while $`m_M`$ is complex. The breaking of Lorentz invariance to the $`O(3)`$ subgroup, following , has been taken into account by providing different coefficients to the temporal and spatial indices of the Lagrangian, and it is encoded in the coefficients $`\alpha `$s and $`\beta `$s.

To construct the low energy effective theory for the electroweak sector we need to generalize the one form $`\omega _\mu =i𝒱^{}D_\mu 𝒱`$ by introducing the new covariant derivative:

$$D_\mu 𝒱=(_\mu ig_sG_\mu ig^{}YB_\mu ^y)𝒱=(_\mu ig_sG_\mu ig^{}\frac{B}{2}B_\mu ^y)𝒱.$$
(17)
$`B_\mu ^y`$ is the standard hypercharge gauge field and is a linear combination of the electroweak eigenstates associated to the photon field $`A_\mu `$ and the neutral massive vector boson $`Z_\mu ^0`$, i.e.:

$$B_\mu ^y=\mathrm{cos}\theta _WA_\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta _WZ_\mu ^0,$$
(18)
with $`\theta _W`$ the standard electroweak angle.

After diagonalizing the full quadratic terms the new massless eigenstate is interpreted as the, in medium, photon and is a linear combination of the in vacuum photon and eight gluon:

$$\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu =\mathrm{cos}\theta _QA_\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta _QG_\mu ^8,$$
(19)
with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _Q=\sqrt{3}\frac{g_s}{\sqrt{3g_s^2+e^2}}`$. The massive state orthogonal to $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu `$ is $`\stackrel{~}{G}_\mu ^8=\mathrm{cos}\theta _QG_\mu ^8+\mathrm{sin}\theta _QA_\mu `$ and further mixes with $`Z^0`$ of, in vacuum, mass $`m_Z`$. The new eigenstates are:

$`\widehat{G}_\mu ^8=\mathrm{cos}\theta _M\stackrel{~}{G}_\mu ^8+\mathrm{sin}\theta _MZ_\mu ^0,\stackrel{~}{Z}_\mu ^0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _MZ_\mu ^0\mathrm{sin}\theta _M\stackrel{~}{G}_\mu ^8,`$ (20)
with $`\mathrm{tan}2\theta _M\frac{2f^2\mathrm{tan}\theta _W}{9m_Z^2}\left(a_1+2a_2\right)\sqrt{3g_s^2+e^2}`$ and we considered the physical limit $`m_Z^2f^2`$. In the same limit, as expected, $`\stackrel{~}{G}^8`$ and $`Z^0`$ do not mix much and we can use them as physical eigenstates.

Having identified the correct physical eigenvalues and eigenvectors we now turn to the quark sector. We have $`Q=\tau ^3+\frac{BL}{2}`$ with $`\tau =\tau _L+\tau _R`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{e}=e\mathrm{cos}\theta _Q`$ is the new electric charge while $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ is the associated electric charge operator associated with the field $`\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu `$:

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}=\tau ^3\times \text{1}+\frac{\stackrel{~}{B}L}{2}=Q\times \text{1}\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\text{1}\times T^8.$$
(21)
By expanding around $`𝒱=1`$ the relevant interaction terms we derive  the following full modified quark coupling to the neutral weak current:

$$b_1\frac{g}{\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}Z_\mu ^0\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \left[T_L^3\mathrm{sin}\theta _W^2Q\frac{b_2b_1}{3b_1}\mathrm{sin}\theta _W^2(B+Q\stackrel{~}{Q})\right]\psi ,$$
(22)
where we used Eq. (21) and $`X^5=B+Q\stackrel{~}{Q}`$. Hence we discover that the neutral weak current is directly affected by finite density effects even when neglecting the small physical mixing between the eighth gluon $`\stackrel{~}{G}^8`$ and $`Z^0`$. We also observe that the modified electroweak coupling only emerges for quarks with color indices 1 and 2, since $`X^5={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{diag}(1,1,0)`$. We expect relevant phenomenological consequences of our result for the cooling history of compact objects  (see Ref.  for more details).

## 3 The $`SU_c(2)`$ Glueball Effective Lagrangian

The $`SU_c(2)`$ gauge symmetry does not break spontaneously and confines. If the new confining scale  is lighter than the superconductive quark-quark gap the associated confined degrees of freedom (light glueballs)  can play, together with the massless quarks a relevant role for the physics of Quark Stars featuring a 2SC superconductive surface layer .

Defining by $`H`$ the mass-scale dimension 4 composite field describing, upon quantization, the scalar glueball  we can construct the simplest light glueball action, in medium, for the SU(2) color theory:

$`S_{Gball}={\displaystyle d^4x\left\{\frac{c}{2}\sqrt{b}H^{\frac{3}{2}}\left[^0H^0Hv^2^iH^iH\right]\frac{b}{2}H\mathrm{log}\left[\frac{H}{\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^4}\right]\right\}}.`$ (23)
This Lagrangian correctly encodes the underlying $`SU_c(2)`$ trace anomaly . The glueballs move with the same velocity $`v`$ as the underlying gluons in the 2SC color superconductor. $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ is the intrinsic scale associated with the theory and can be less than or of the order of few MeVs  while $`c`$ is a constant of order unity. The glueballs are light (with respect to the gap) and barely interact with the ungapped fermions. They are stable with respect to the strong interactions unlike ordinary glueballs. We define the mass-dimension one glueball field $`h`$ via $`H=H\mathrm{exp}\left[h/F_h\right]`$. By requiring a canonically normalized kinetic term for $`h`$ one finds $`F_h^2=c\sqrt{bH}`$, while the glueball mass term is $`M_h^2=\sqrt{b}\sqrt{H/2c}=\sqrt{b}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2/2c\sqrt{e}`$, which is clearly of the order of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$.

Once created, the light $`SU_c(2)`$ glueballs are stable against strong interactions but not with respect to electromagnetic processes. The following decay width, at non zero baryon density, was obtained by saturating the electromagnetic trace anomaly in :

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }\left[h\gamma \gamma \right]1.2\times 10^2\mathrm{cos}\theta _Q^4\left[{\displaystyle \frac{M_h}{1\mathrm{MeV}}}\right]^5\mathrm{eV},`$ (24)
where $`\alpha =e^2/4\pi 1/137`$. For illustration purposes we consider a glueball mass of the order of $`1`$ MeV which leads to a decay time $`\tau 5.5\times 10^{14}s`$. We used $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _Q1`$ since $`\theta _Q2.5^{}`$ .

The present light glueball analysis is limited to the zero temperature and high matter density case. However it is interesting to investigate the effects of a non zero temperature.

It is a pleasure for me to thank R. Casalbuoni, Z. Duan, S. D. Hsu, R. Ouyed and M. Schwetz for sharing part of the work on which this talk is based. This work is supported by the Marie-Curie fellowship under contract MCFI-2001-00181.


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# Influence of extended dynamics on phase transitions in a driven lattice gas

The concept of universality is well established in equilibrium critical phenomena. According to this concept only just a few parameters, i.e. spatial dimension of the system and the dimensionality of the order parameter determine the critical exponents meanwhile other details like the microscopic dynamics are irrelevant. The nonequilibrium systems exhibit richer and more complex feature. One of the important questions to address is whether this concept also applies to nonequilibrium systems. There are examples when a slight extension of microscopic dynamics results in different morphology of the stationary state . The importance of the dynamics also manifests in other problems, such as chemically reactive mixtures  or driven diffusive systems (DDS)  where the microscopic and the supposed macroscopic model yield different morphologies. The former nonequilibrium system also exemplifies that the resulting stationary state may differ significantly from that of the corresponding equilibrium model .

Very recently Dickman has introduced a simple driven lattice gas model whith hard-core interaction between the particles which excludes the simultaneous occupation of the nearest neighbor sites on a square lattice . In the absence of driving this model is equivalent to a thoroughly investigated equilibrium model discussed in connection with the theory of melting . For this particular interaction the only (control) parameter of the model is the particle concentration. The driven version of this nearest neighbor exclusion (NNE) model can be related to some traffic and granular flow models as detailed by Dickman . Despite its simplicity the driven NNE model shows remarkable nonequilibrium behavior such as the coexistence of a low- and high-density phases and the current may decrease in response to increased drive. The order-disorder phase transition also changes from second to first order in the presence of drive. In this Brief Report we slightly modify the microscopic dynamics to explore the robustness of this behavior. We demonstrate that the coexistence of two phases disappears and the phase transition remains continuous for all drives by allowing the next-nearest-neighbor hops too. A more accurate version of the dynamical mean-field theory predicts a phase diagram in good qualitative agreement with the results of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations.

We consider two-dimensional driven lattice gases on a square lattice with $`L\times L=N`$ sites under periodic conditions. The occupation variables $`\sigma _i=0(1)`$ if the lattice site $`i`$ is empty (occupied) and the concentration is defined as $`\rho =_i\sigma _i/N`$. The only interaction is to forbid the simultaneous nearest-neighbor occupancy. During the time evolution a randomly chosen particle can hop to one of its empty neighboring sites satisfying the condition of NNE. In the basic model studied by Dickman the particles can hop only to the nearest neighbor sites while in this extended model the next-nearest-neighbor hops are also permitted with a probability as defined in Fig. 1. Here, the value of $`P`$ is varied from $`0.5`$ to $`1`$. The case $`P=0.5`$ corresponds to the isotropic hopping rate characteristic to the equilibrium model and $`P=1`$ represents the infinitely strong drive. Further details and the review of the equilibrium properties can be found in Ref. .

In the stationary state of this model the particle distribution is disordered if the concentration is low enough. For sufficiently high concentration sublattice ordering can be observed, that is the particles form a chequerboard-like pattern. In other words, if the square lattice is divided into two interpenetrating sublattices ($`A`$ and $`B`$) then the particles prefer to stay in one of these sublattices. The transition between the ordered and disordered states is characterized by an order parameter

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{\rho _A\rho _B}{\rho _A+\rho _B},$$
(1)
where $`\rho _A`$ and $`\rho _B`$ denotes the concentration of particles in sublattice $`A`$ and $`B`$. In the disordered phase $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$. Conversely, $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1`$ (or $`1`$) if all the particles are positioned in the sites of sublattice $`A`$ ($`B`$). When decreasing the concentration the equilibrium system ($`P=0.5`$) undergoes an order-disorder transition which is continuous and belongs to the Ising universality class . In the driven system, however, this transition becomes first order if only nearest neighbor hops are permitted . The present dynamics conserves the number of particles therefore the first order transition is accompaned with the coexistence of high- and low-density phases.

To explore the phase diagram of the extended model, we have performed a dynamical mean-field analysis. The most relevant details of this laborious technique are given in the Appendix of the work by Dickman  at the levels of two- and four-site clusters. Using this method one can determine the probability of possible configurations on a given set of clusters if the particle distribution is homogeneous. Similarly to the NN hop model, the two- and four-site approximations are not capable to describe the effect of driving as a consequence of the strong constraints of NNE. This means that the results are independent of $`P`$ and equivalent to those obtained by using the tradional cluster variation method  for the equilibrium system ($`P=1/2`$). The predictions for the phase transition point are $`\rho _c^{2p}=0.25`$ at two-point and $`\rho _c^{4p}=0.317`$ at four-point level.

The failure of dynamical mean-field approximation is disappointing since previously this method gave qualitatively good phase diagrams for several nonequlibrium models . To overcome this shortage we have performed a six-point approximation used succesfully for a similar driven lattice gas . In this case we determine the configuration probabilities on $`2\times 3`$ clusters. Taking the compatibility conditions and symmetries into account the configuration probabilities are described by 17 parameters whose value are determined by solving numerically the corresponding set of equations of motion. At $`P=1/2`$ this calculation has reproduced the same solution obtained at the level of four-point approximation. For the driven cases, however, the solutions (for $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }>0`$) are already affected by the value of $`P`$. As an example, for infinite drive the transition appears at $`\rho _c^{6p}(P=1)=0.3026`$. The resulting phase diagram is shown in Fig. 2. We should mention that the phase transition remains continuous for any drives according to this level of approximation.

To check these predictions MC simulations are performed for $`L=20`$, $`40`$, $`80`$, $`160`$, and $`320`$ under periodic boundary conditions varying the concentration $`\rho `$ and drive $`P`$. To reach the stationary state we have used both homogeneous random and ordered initial states. In the former initial state the particles are positioned within a strip parallel to the drive.

In agreement with the expectation the modification of dynamics does not influence the stationary state if $`P=0.5`$ (equilibrium model). The MC data of $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho )`$ functions collapse when comparing the results obtained for the NN and NNN dynamics at any system sizes. At the same time the evolution toward the stationary states becomes faster when NNN hops are allowed. Similar effect was also reported in another driven diffusive model  as well as in domain growth processes . In contrast, a significant difference can be observed in the stationary states when the systems are driven. While the separation of the high- and low-density phases characterizes the NN dynamics  leading to a jammed “herring-bone” structure then the stationary state remains homogeneous for any drive and concentration when NNN jumps are also allowed. The study of order parameter and density profiles as a function of transversal coordinate also support that the ordered phase is homogeneous in the case of extended dynamics. As a consequence, the current has no size-dependence and varies smoothly with the concentration and $`P`$. The phase diagram obtained by MC simulations confirm the qualitative prediction of the dynamical mean-field theory. Namely, the critical concentration ($`\rho _c`$) decreases with $`P`$ and the transition remains continuous for those drives displayed in Fig.2.

The classification of the critical behavior for a nonequilibrium model requires careful analysis. The difficulties are well demonstrated by the investigation of standard model  whose critical behavior is even controversial . Here, we present a finite-size scaling analysis for the infinite strong drive ($`P=1`$) in the case of extended (NNN) dynamics. For this purpose we have used the scaling form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(L,\rho )=L^{\beta /\nu }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\rho _rL^{1/\nu }),$$
(2)
where $`\rho _r(\rho \rho _c)/\rho _c`$ is the reduced concentration. Assuming that the nonequlibrium phase transition belongs to the class of the equilibrium model (i.e. Ising exponents are supposed), nice data collapse is found (see Figure 3). Here, $`\rho _c^{MC}(P=1)=0.350(5)`$. This value is consistent with an alternating estimate which comes from the analysis of the fourth order cumulant of order parameter $`U_L=1\mathrm{\Phi }^4_L/3\mathrm{\Phi }^2_L^2`$ . Similar critical behavior is found for any $`P<1`$ drive.

In summary, the microscopic dynamics has been slightly extended in a previously introduced driven diffusive lattice gas where the only interaction is to forbid the simultaneous nearest-neighbor occupancy. Despite the weak modification the nonequlibrium behavior changes significantly. The stationary states are found to be homogeneous for any drives and densities if the next-nearest-neighbor hops are also permitted. In this case the system exhibits a sublattice ordering when the particle concentration is increased. The value of critical concentration decreases with the drive and this behavior can be explained by the higher level of dynamical mean-field approximation. The numerical results support that the system is in the same universality class of the equilibrium Ising model. This model exemplefies that the nonequlibrium behavior may be significantly influenced by a weak modification of microscopic dynamics.

The authors thank Ron Dickman for stimulating discussions. This research was supported by the Hungarian National Research Fund (OTKA) under Grant No. F-30449 and T-33098. A. S. thanks the HAS for financial support by a Bolyai scholarship.


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# Cosmic Shear with Keck: Systematic Effects

## References

Bacon, D., Refregier, A., Clowe, D., & Ellis, R. 2001, MNRAS, 325, 1065

Erben, T. et al. 2001, A&A, 366, 717

Kaiser, N., Squires, G., & Broadhurst, T. 1995, ApJ, 449, 460

van Waerbeke, L. et al., 2001 A&A, 358, 30


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# Theory of single spin detection with STM

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## Abstract

We propose a mechanism for detection of a single spin center on a non-magnetic substrate. In the detection scheme, the STM tunnel current is correlated with the spin orientation. In the presence of magnetic field, the spin precesses and the tunnel current is modulated at the Larmor frequency. The mechanism relies on the effective spin-orbit interaction between the injected unpolarized STM current and the local spin center, which leads to the nodal structure of the spatial signal profile. Based on the proposed mechanism, the strongest spin-related signal can be expected for the systems with large spin-orbit coupling and low carrier concentration.

There is no fundamental principle that precludes the single spin measurement. Possibility of a single spin observation is therefore a question of spatial and temporal resolution. The standard electron spin measurement technique – electron spin resonance – is limited to a macroscopic number of electron spins – $`10^{10}`$ or more; the state-of-the-art magnetic resonance force microscopy has recently achieved the resolution of about 100 fully polarized electron spins. It has already been shown that optically induced ESR of a single spin is possible . There are proposals for the spin detection using single electron transistor and spin-polarized current . In this letter we propose the theoretical basis for the new spin-detection technique – electron spin precession scanning tunneling microscopy (ESP-STM) – capable of single spin detection.

The applications of single spin detection and manipulation range from the study of strongly correlated systems, to nanotechnology, to quantum information processing. In the strongly correlated systems, the ability to detect single spin will allow one to investigate the magnetism on the nano scale by detecting the changes in the spin behavior while entering magnetically ordered states . One could also explore temperature evolution of the magnetic properties of a single paramagnetic atom in the Kondo regime. Magnetic properties of spin centers in superconductors is another area where single spin plays an important role by generating intragap impurity states . In nanotechnology, spins can be used as elementary information storage units. In the realm of quantum computing, several architecture proposals rely on the ability to manipulate and detect single spins. Here we argue that STM offers a powerful technique to detect a single spin.

The electron spin can be detected through its coupling to the magnetic field, which can either freeze the spin along the field, or make it precess around the field direction. To detect the single-spin signal, the superb spatial and temporal resolutions are required. The necessary level of sensitivity can be achieved in the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). It is well known that spatial resolution of the STM is in the sub-Ångström range. Therefore, the technique naturally lends itself for the detection of the single spin. In the STM setup, the spin precession in an external magnetic field can be detected through an ac modulation of the tunnel current. In this purely dc configuration, the ac tunnel current at the precession, or Larmor, frequency can be generated due to the effective coupling of the precessing localized spin to the tunneling electrons. Hence we argue that STM can operate as Larmor frequency generator. The experimental setup we consider is given in Fig. 1.

Our work is motivated by experiments of Manassen et al. . In these experiments, STM was used to measure the tunneling current while scanning the surface of Si in the vicinity of a local spin impurity (Fe cluster) or imperfection (oxygen vacancy in Si-O). A small signal in the current power spectrum at the Larmor frequency was detected. The ac signal was spatially localized at the distances on the order of $`510`$ Å from the spin site. The extreme localization of the signal and the linear scaling of its frequency with the magnetic field prompted Manassen et al. to attribute the detected ac signal to the Larmor precession of a single spin site.

Rather than going into further details of these experiments, we pose here a general question: Under what conditions it is possible to detect the single precessing spin with STM? Surprisingly, we find that a number of mechanisms can generate a detectable ac current. The interaction that provides the coupling of the precessing spin to the tunneling current is the spin-orbit (SO) interaction. Based on our analysis, we argue that single spin detection is within the reach of current STM technology and can be realized in a variety of non-magnetic materials with isolated paramagnetic centers.

Consider a localized magnetic site with spin $`𝐒,S=1/2`$. In the presence of magnetic field, $`𝐁`$, the spin-up ($`E_{}`$) and spin-down ($`E_{}`$) energy levels are Zeeman split. At zero temperature, only the lowest energy state (parallel to magnetic field) is occupied; at a finite temperature, or due to an external excitation, the spin may be driven into the mixed state characterized by the wavefunction, $`|\psi =\alpha |+\beta |`$, with the time evolution $`\alpha =|\alpha |\mathrm{exp}(iE_{}t)`$ and $`\beta =|\beta |\mathrm{exp}(iE_{}t+i\varphi (t))`$. The drifting phase $`\varphi (t)`$ determines the spin coherence time $`\tau _\varphi `$ and is related to the ESR spin relaxation time $`T_2`$. In such a state, the spin expectation value, $`\psi (t)|𝐒|\psi (t)/\psi (t)|\psi (t)`$, will precesses around the direction of the magnetic field at the Larmor frequency,

$`\mathrm{}\omega _L=E_{}E_{}=g\mu _BB,`$ (1)
where $`g`$ is the gyromagnetic ratio and $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton. In magnetic field of 100 Gauss, this frequency for a free electrons is 280 MHz. We assume hereafter that in the course of the ESP-STM experiment the spin is $`not`$ in the groundstate either due to a thermal fluctuation or an external excitation by the tunneling current. We also assume that $`\tau _\varphi `$ is sufficiently long for the spin precession to be well defined, $`\omega _L\tau _\varphi 1`$. The validity of these assumptions is verified at the end of the paper.

We present now a mechanism for the ac STM current generation with no ac input based on the time-dependent modification of the tunneling density of states induced near the precessing spin in the presence of applied current. On the time scale of all conduction-electron processes, the spin precession is very slow. This follows from the comparison of the energy associated with the rf spin precession, $`\mathrm{}\omega _L10^6`$ eV, and the typical electronic energy scale in metals or semiconductors, which is on the order of 1 eV. Hence, for every “instantaneous” spin orientation the electronic problem can be solved as if the local moment is static. This is similar to the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for atoms where atomic nuclear dynamics is much slower than the electronic motion. We describe the system of electrons interacting with the local impurity spin by the Hamiltonian

$`H=H_0+J𝐒𝝈(0),`$ (2)
where $`J`$ is the strength of the exchange interaction between the local spin and conduction electron spin density, $`𝝈(0)=𝝈_{\alpha \beta }c_\alpha ^{}(0)c_\beta (0)`$, on the impurity site. To provide the coupling of the spin orientation to the orbital degrees of freedom of electrons, the non-interacting part of the Hamiltonian, $`H_0`$, should include spin-orbit interaction. We will focus here on the two-dimensional band of states on the material surface. From the symmetry considerations, the energy of the surface states contains spin-orbit part that is linear both in the electron spin, $`𝝈`$, and momentum, $`𝐤`$,

$`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }(𝐤)={\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{2m^{}}}+g_{\mathrm{SO}}[𝐤\times 𝝈_{\alpha \beta }]_{\widehat{n}}.`$ (3)
Here, $`m^{}`$ is the band mass of the surface states and $`g_{\mathrm{SO}}`$ is the SO coupling strength. The cross-product of the spin and momentum is projected onto the normal to the surface, $`\widehat{n}`$.

The problem specified by equations (2) and (3) can be solved for each instantaneous value of the precessing spin $`𝐒(t)`$. Specifically, we are looking for the correction to the conduction electron density of states due to the local spin. The Green function matrix for the conduction electrons is

$`\widehat{G}_0(𝐤,\omega )=[\omega \widehat{ϵ}(𝐤)]^1.`$ (4)
In the presence of the current flow $`𝐣`$ in the system, the equilibrium momentum distribution is shifted by an amount proportional to the current, $`𝐤_0=𝐣m^{}/ne`$, where $`n`$ is the carrier density and $`e`$ is electron charge. This shift can be approximately introduced by modifying the electronic Green functions,

$`\widehat{G}(𝐤,\omega )=\left[\omega {\displaystyle \frac{(𝐤𝐤_0)^2}{2m^{}}}g_{\mathrm{SO}}[𝐤\times \widehat{𝝈}]\right]^1.`$ (5)
Here, only the kinetic energy momentum is shifted since SO term is explicitly non-invariant under shift ($`𝐤𝐤𝐤_\mathrm{𝟎}`$) as it measures the SO effects due to lattice. The correction to the density of states near the Fermi surface caused by the impurity can be then calculated straightforwardly in the first order in the scattering potential,

$`\delta N(𝐫)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \beta \gamma }{}}G_{\alpha \beta }(𝐫)J𝐒𝝈_{\beta \gamma }G_{\gamma \alpha }(𝐫)`$ (6)
Expanding in the strength of the SO interaction relative to the Fermi energy, the $`𝐒`$-dependent contribution to the density of the surface states obtains in the first order in the exchange coupling and the strength of SO interaction,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta N}{N}}=g_{\mathrm{SO}}J{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{dE}}J_0^2(k_Fr)[𝐤_0\times 𝐒]_{\widehat{n}}.`$ (7)
This correction depends on the distance from the spin center, $`r`$, through the Bessel function of the first kind, $`J_0(x)`$. This result also follows from considering Friedel spin oscillation of electrons coupled to the tunneling DOS in the presence of the SO term. It is time-dependent in the presence of magnetic field since the projection of $`𝐒`$ oscillates at the Larmor frequency. This expression is consistent with general properties of DOS. Since $`N(𝐫,t)`$ is a scalar, it should be invariant under time reversal, whereas $`𝐒`$ is odd under time reversal. Hence $`\delta N(𝐫,t)`$ can depend only on product of the spin vector with some other vector that is odd under time reversal or on time derivative of spin vector. Possible combinations include $`\delta N[𝐈\times 𝐒]_{\widehat{n}}`$ (Eq. 7) and $`\delta N[_t𝐒(t)\times 𝐫]_{\widehat{n}}`$. Indeed, we have found mechanism for the latter contribution as well; however, for the experimental conditions of Refs.  the time-dependent DOS mechanism described here dominates.

The current in the STM tunnel junction is proportional to the single electron density of states in the substrate. Therefore, the ac current contribution relative to the base dc STM current, $`I`$, can be estimated as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta I(t)}{I}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta N(t)}{N}}.`$ (8)
Notice, that the magnitude of the effect is proportional to the current in the system via $`𝐤_0`$. Experimentally, the necessary bias current can either be provided externally (by extra leads) or can be injected by STM itself. In the latter case, the direction of the current will vary in space and, in the absence of anisotropy, will flow directly away from the tip-sample junction. From the symmetry considerations, in Eq. (7), $`𝐤_0`$ should be oriented from the tip towards the spin center. The magnitude of the equilibrium shift is the 2D case considered here is $`k_0m^{}I/nr`$, where $`n`$ is the 2D density of the surface carriers. Since $`𝐤_0`$ itself is proportional to injected current, the $`𝐒`$-dependent correction to the current is proportional to $`I^2`$. For direct tunneling into the spin center, $`𝐤_0`$ is parallel to the tunneling axis and hence there is no $`𝐒`$-dependent contribution to the current. This nodal structure is a consequence of the problem symmetry. The magnitude of the time-dependent density of states is independent of the magnetic field orientation.

The intuitive understanding of this result can be obtained using an analogue of the spin-dependent Büttiker-Landauer formalizm. The electrical circuit that corresponds to the STM experiment is shown in Fig. 2. When current is injected through the tunnel junction with resistance $`R_T`$, it can either flow to the leads directly (left branch with conductance $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$) or through the channel affected by the spin center (right branch, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\sigma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^\sigma `$). We assume here that there are no spin flips. From geometric considerations, the closer tip is laterally to the spin center, the larger is the ratio, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{1(2)}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$. From the form of SO interaction, Eq. (3), the relevant spin $`\sigma `$ quantization axis for electrons flowing from the tunneling point to the impurity is perpendicular both to the surface normal, $`\widehat{n}`$, and the vector connecting these two points, $`𝐤_0`$. The essence of the right branch of the circuit is that in the presence of SO interaction the current becomes spin polarized, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}`$, and the transmission of the local magnetic center is spin sensitive, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^{}`$. Approximately,

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+g_{SO}k_0\sigma /E_F),`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+JS\sigma /E_F),`$ (10)
where $`E_F`$ is the Fermi energy of the substrate, and S is the projection of spin $`𝐒`$ onto the $`\sigma `$ quantization axis (above). Similar to the Green function treatment presented above, the expression for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^\sigma `$ goes beyond linear response since it depends on the current through $`k_0`$. The correction to the current due to the spin-selectivity of the circuit is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta I}{I}}={\displaystyle \frac{R_M^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{R_M+R_T}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_{SO}k_0J}{E_F^2}}S,`$ (11)
where $`R_M=1/(\mathrm{\Gamma }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_3)`$. This expression is the same as the previously obtained result, Eqs. (7) and (8).

From Eq. (7) it is clear that the largest ESP-STM effect can be obtained in the systems with large spin orbit interaction and strong particle-hole asymmetry in the density of states. Small density of surface carriers, $`n`$, helps to drive the carrier system out of equilibrium, which is crucial for the ESP-STM effect. All these parameters can be tuned by the choice of the substrate material, as well as the type of the spin center, to achieve large response. For model parameters, $`g_{\mathrm{SO}}k_F0.01`$ eV, $`J1`$ eV, $`dN/dE1`$ eV<sup>-2</sup>, and Fermi surface displacement $`k_0/k_F0.1`$, the effect in the density of states is $`\delta N/N10^3`$, which should be experimentally detectable.

In the above discussion we assumed that the spin dephasing time, $`\tau _\varphi `$, is long compared to the Larmor period, which implies weak coupling to environment. However, even under ideal circumstances, the measurement will induce spin dephasing. This $`backaction`$ is an unavoidable side effect of measurement. We will now estimate the backaction of the tunneling electrons on the precessing spin. By applying a canonical transformation, the original Hamiltonian, Eqs. (2) and (3), can be mapped to a model of two reservoirs ($`L`$ and $`R`$) of spinless electrons coupled through a spin-dependent tunneling matrix element,

$$H_{\mathrm{eff}}=H_L+H_R+h_zS_z+\underset{lL,rR}{}c_l^{}[T_0+T_1S_x]c_r.$$

Here $`T_0`$ is the tunneling amplitude that doesn’t involve local spin and $`T_1g_{so}k_0J(dN/dE)T_0`$ is the spin-dependent part of the tunneling. The $`x`$ axis is chosen along $`\widehat{n}\times 𝐤_0`$ direction. For spin-1/2 quantum systems, this model has been extensively studied. Two important parameters in the model are the electron tunneling rate, $`1/\tau _e=\pi T_0^2N_LN_RV`$, and the measurement-induced spin-dephasing rate, $`1/\tau _s=\pi T_1^2N_LN_RV`$. It has been demonstrated that under the weak measurement conditions, $`\mathrm{}/\tau _s<h_z`$, the stationary power spectrum of the tunnel current has a peak at the Larmor frequency,

$$\frac{I_\omega ^2}{2eI_0}=\frac{4/\tau _s^2}{(\omega \omega _L)^2+1/\tau _s^2}$$
(12)
For weak measurement, increasing applied voltage does not change the peak value relative to the shot noise level; however it increases the weight under the resonance peak. Under the stationary conditions, the coupling to the current fluctuations also provides the excitation for the spin. For the same parameters as above we find spin dephasing time $`1/\tau _s10^4\mathrm{}10^5\mathrm{Hz}\omega _L`$. Experimentally, the observed linewidth is narrow, $`500\mathrm{KHz}\omega _L`$ , which is consistent with our effective model. Any extrinsic (unrelated to measurement) dephasing mechanisms will decrease the signal to shot noise ratio.

The applicability of the presented ESP-STM mechanism is not limited to semiconductors. Other systems with stronger spin-orbit interaction, such as Au or Cu surfaces with local magnetic defects may be expected to show a similar effect. Yet another route is to use heavy magnetic atoms, such as Eu or Gd as the local spin impurities with large intrinsic SO interactions. In this case, a result similar to Eq. 7 obtains, with the strength of the effect proportional to the spin-orbit coupling on the impurity site. In general, any form of SO interaction is capable of coupling the precessing local spin to the itinerant electron density of states, which can be measured with STM.

The spin-current coupling mechanism that we described applies to the static (dc) case as well. The dc case can be realized by applying a strong polarizing magnetic field and detecting the variation of the tunneling current as a function of the magnetic field orientation. This, however, is only possible at low temperatures, due to the limited strength of available magnetic fields. The dc measurement is further complicated by the low-frequency (1/f) noise.

In conclusion, we have proposed a mechanism for the novel technique for the single spin detection with STM. It is based on the ac modulation of the tunneling current caused by the effective spin-orbit coupling to the precessing local spin. From the analysis of the coupling mechanism we identified classes of materials and experimental conditions for which significant single spin signal can be expected.

We are grateful to G. Boebinger, F. Bronold, G. Brown, J.C. Davis, D. Eigler, C. Hammel, M. Hawley, Y. Manassen, A. Migliory, D. Mozyrsky, Y. Nazarov, D. Pines and A. Yazdani for useful discussions. We are grateful to D. Mozyrsky for pointing out unversal features of the current spectral density. This work was supported by the U.S. DoE.


text:
# Ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations and superconductivity in the hcp-phase of Fe.

High purity iron, which transforms into the hcp phase under pressure, has recently been reported to be superconducing in the pressure range 150-300 kBar . The electronic structure and the electron-phonon coupling ($`\lambda _{ph}`$) are calculated for hcp iron at different volumes. A parameter-free theory for calculating the coupling constants $`\lambda _{sf}`$ from ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin fluctuations is developed. The calculated $`\lambda _{sf}`$ are sufficiently large to explain superconductivity especially from FM fluctuations. The results indicate that superconductivity mediated by spin fluctuations is more likely than from electron-phonon interaction.

Recent observations of superconductivity in several magnetic or nearly magnetic materials  have renewed the interest in theories of paramagnon mediated superconductivity . Progress in metallurgy has been very important for these discoveries, since this type of superconductivity is sensitive to perturbations and impurities. In particular, the recent report of superconductivity in the hcp phase of iron, at a pressure of about 150 kBar  is interesting, since it is a non-compound material where high purity might be easier to achieve. A subsequent theoretical work concluded that this superconductivity could be due to conventional electron-phonon coupling, but that the disappearance of superconductivity at higher pressure can not be explained by the same means . Spin fluctuations, ferromagnetic (FM) or antiferromagnetic (AFM) have an important role to suppress superconductivity in this scenario. The alternative explanation, where superconducting pairing is caused by spin fluctuations, has been put forward for nearly magnetic materials such as ZrZn2 or SrRuO3 . Here we investigate the possibilities for superconductivity mediated by spin fluctuations in hcp iron.

The electronic structure of bcc and hcp Fe has been calculated using the linear muffin-tin orbital method in the local spin density approximation (LSDA) . Non-local potential corrections included in the generalized gradient correction (GGA ) scheme is known to be crucial for a correct description of the fcc vs. bcc stability of Fe, but other properties are not very different in the two types of density functional potentials . Since we are not focusing on structural stability in this work we use the LSDA potential. As in ref.  it is found that two AFM configurations are more stable than nonmagnetic or FM configurations of hcp Fe at high pressure. The first (AFM-I) has opposite polarization on each alternate z-plane layers, while the second (AFM-II) has opposite polarization on each layer perpendicular to the x-axis. The AFM-I configuration can be described within the normal hcp unit cell, where the bands are calculated in 252 irreducible k-points. The AFM-II configuration is described in an orthorhombic unit cell containing 4 atoms, and the bands are calculated in 200 k-points within 1/8 of the Brillouin zone. The basis set includes states up to $`\mathrm{}`$=3. The c/a-ratio is fixed to 1.59 for all volumes. This is close to the calculated average value within a wide pressure range . The d-band is the dominant character at the Fermi energy ($`E_F`$) and it is involved in the magnetic orderings. In the case of spin fluctuations we apply staggered magnetic fields locally on each site. The calculations for the three types of magnetic configurations are made independently of each other.

The AFM-I configuration develops stable moments for the lattice constant $`a>`$ 4.81 a.u., and AFM-II for $`a>`$ 4.61 a.u., approximately. The total energy of the AFM-II state is nearly 2 mRy/atom lower then the AFM-I configuration at the largest volume. These results are in fair agreement with ref.  despite the use of different potentials. The calculated minimum in total energy of the bcc structure is found at lattice constant which is $`3`$ percent smaller than the experimental one. The bulk modulus calculated at the experimental lattice constant, about 1.5 Mbar, agree well with experiment, while it is about 2.2 Mbar at the calculated equilibrium. Such errors are common when using LSDA for 3d metals. The present results give a lower total energy of the hcp phase (compared to bcc) for $`a<4.75`$.

The electron-phonon coupling parameter $`\lambda _{ep}`$ is calculated from the electronic structure;

$$\lambda _{ep}=NV^2/M\omega ^2=NV^2/K$$
(1)
where $`N`$ is the density of states at $`E_F`$, $`M`$ the atomic mass, $`\omega `$ a phonon frequency and $`K`$ a force constant. It is related to the change of total energy $`E`$ due to an atomic displacement $`r`$, $`K=d^2E/dr^2`$. The Hopfield parameter $`NV^2`$ contains $`V`$, the Fermi surface average of the matrix element $`<\psi _k(dv(r)/dr)\psi _k>`$, the first order change in potential due to the displacement, where $`\psi _k`$ is the wavefunction at $`k`$. For elementary metals it can to a good approximation be calculated within the rigid muffin-tin approximation . This matrix element could also be obtained from the change in band energies, $`\epsilon _k`$, when the structure is deformed as in a ’frozen’ phonon. The force constant is fitted to the experimental value of the Debye temperature $`\mathrm{\Theta }_D`$ for bcc Fe, and then scaled to hcp and other volumes by the calculated bulk modulus .

For FM or AFM spin fluctuations we make a development analogous to the case of frozen phonon calculations. Instead of applying a force on an atom to obtain a displacement as in frozen phonon calculations, we apply a magnetic field $`\xi `$ to obtain a magnetic moment $`m`$. This analogy can be extended to the calculation of mass enhancement due to spin fluctuations, $`\lambda _{sf}`$.

$$\lambda _{sf}=NV^2/K=N<\psi _k(dv(r)/dm)\psi _k>^2/(d^2E/dm^2)$$
(2)
In practice, the calculations are made at two different configurations, one with an applied field and one without, to give two band structures and two magnetisations. If the changes of the free energy $`(E)`$ are harmonic, i.e. quadratic functions of the induced magnetic moment, we have $`E_\xi =E_0+Jm^2`$ where $`m`$ is the moment (induced by the field $`\xi `$) per atom. $`E_\xi `$ is the free energy for the configuration with moment $`m`$, which is the total energy plus the term moment times field. The constant $`J=\frac{1}{2}d^2E/dm^2=(E_\xi E_0)/m^2`$ is calculated from spin polarized results, where the applied fields range from 1 to 10 mRy. The local Stoner enhancement, $`S`$, is defined as $`(ϵ_\xi ϵ_0)/\xi `$, where $`ϵ_\xi `$ is the increase of the exchange splitting at an atom (obtained from the logarithmic derivative of the d-band) induced by the field $`\xi `$. The $`S`$-values are generally smaller for large $`\xi `$, indicating some aversion against large moments. Non-harmonic variations of $`J`$ as function of field are found, especially for FM cases. This tendency is less pronounced for AFM configurations.

The matrix element is estimated from the change in band energies $`<\psi _kdv\psi _k>^2=(\epsilon _k^m\epsilon _k^0)^2`$, where $`\epsilon _k^m`$ is the band energy at point $`k`$ for the configuration belonging to $`m`$. In the harmonic limit we obtain;

$$\lambda _{sf}=N<(\epsilon _k^m\epsilon _k^0)^2>_{FS}/2(E_mE_0)$$
(3)
Here $`<>_{FS}`$ means a Fermi surface (FS) average.

The same formalism can be used for FM and AFM fluctuations. An alternative determination of $`\lambda _{sf}`$ for the FM case from the Stoner model and paramagnetic band results  gives $`\lambda _{sf}=\frac{1}{2}S\overline{S}^2`$. The usual Stoner parameters are related by $`S=(1\overline{S})^1`$, and $`\overline{S}=NI`$, where $`I`$ is the exchange integral. The two methods give very similar values for $`\lambda _{sf}`$ as long as the Stoner enhancement is the same in paramagnetic and spin polarized calculations. However, it is noted that the spin polarized results give somewhat larger Stoner enhancements than the paramagnetic calculations.

Our calculated $`\lambda _{ep}`$ are of the same order as in ref. , but the decrease as function of pressure (P) is faster. This is mainly caused by our P-dependence of the force constant $`K`$. The exchange integral I, used for the FM Stoner factor, calculated from paramagnetic results, varies from 0.065 to 0.067 Ry/atom from the largest to the smallest lattice constant. Mazin et. al  obtained 0.075 Ry/atom in their fixed spin method using GGA. This together with a slightly smaller DOS makes our FM Stoner factors smaller than in ref. , but it makes no essential difference for the conclusion regarding superconductivity based on electron-phonon coupling. In particular, our calculation of $`\lambda _{sf}`$ without parameters permits to determine the parameter $`\alpha `$ introduced in ref.  to fit the transition temperature near the volume corresponding to $`a`$=4.76 a.u.. With $`\lambda _{sf}=\alpha S`$, $`\alpha `$=0.13 and S=4.6, they obtain $`\lambda _{sf}=0.6`$, while we have $`\lambda _{sf}=0.54`$ at this volume, cf. table 1. The overall fair agreement between the two methods of estimating $`\lambda _{ep}`$ and $`\lambda _{sf}`$ (the latter tends to suppress superconductivity) leads to similar conclusions for electron-phonon based superconductivity as in ref. . Calculated electron-phonon coupling in nonmagnetic simple cubic Fe is of the same order and superconductivity of the order of 10 K has been predicted .

We now turn to the possibility that superconductivity is based on spin fluctuations. A comparison of the local Stoner enhancements for FM and AFM cases, reveals that the enhancements can be much larger in the latter cases, in particular for the volumes near AFM instabilities (cf. Table 1-3). The AFM enhancements decrease rapidly for larger or smaller volumes. The enhancements for hcp Fe are calculated within a wide range of volumes, although it should be noted that bcc is stable structure at the largest volumes. The decreasing Stoner enhancements at large volumes, within the AFM stability region, indicate that it is relatively difficult to increase the local moments further by applying fields. The same effect is probably behind the nonlinear behavior at small volumes, and for FM cases at all volumes, where there is a saturation of the moments for the largest applied fields. The only exception to this behavior at larger fields, is for AFM fluctuations for volumes just smaller than the critical volume for the AFM instability, where the non-linearity is reversed. The Stoner enhancements are then larger for the largest field, and J are ’softer’. It is as if a soft AFM mode will approach ’zero’ field regime near the critical volume for the AFM instability. The relatively small FM enhancements reflect the fact that hcp Fe is never near a FM instability in this range of volumes, but a metastable FM state is found at large volume .

Despite much larger $`S`$ for some AFM cases, there are no large differences between the $`\lambda _{sf}`$ in the FM and the two AFM cases. One explanation is that the matrix element for FM fluctuations is more efficient, because as is easy to imagine, a FM field applied in a system where one band is dominant at $`E_F`$, will split all bands about equally. The same difference $`(\epsilon _k^m\epsilon _k^0)`$ will appear almost everywhere over the FS. For induced AFM configurations it is more difficult to visualize these differences. Positive and negative differences are likely, which means that small differences should exist at some sections of the FS and make the averaged matrix element smaller.

The energy of the fluctuations, $`\mathrm{}\omega _{sf}`$, is estimated from a Heisenberg model, where the exchange integral corresponds to our parameter $`J`$. The k-dispersion is $`\omega =\omega _{sf}(1cos(ka))`$ for FM, and $`\omega =\omega _{sf}sin(ka)`$ for AFM fluctuations . The characteristic $`\omega _{sf}`$ to use in an estimate of the superconducting transition temperature should be some k-point average. For ferromagnetic fluctuations it has been proposed that $`\mathrm{}\omega _{sf}=1/(4NS)`$ . This corresponds to $`J/4`$, since $`m^2/(NS)`$, the estimated free energy from the Stoner model, is equal to $`Jm^2`$ in the present approach.

For calculating the superconducting transition temperature we use a weak coupling BCS-like formula for paramagnon coupling .

$$k_BT_C=(\mathrm{}\omega _{sf}/1.2)exp((1+\lambda _{ep}+\lambda _{sf})/\lambda _{sf})$$
(4)
The results using this formula are only approximate, but it turns out that they are of reasonable amplitude. The results for the three types of fluctuations are shown in the figure. The $`T_C`$ as function of lattice constant in the case of FM fluctuations has a triangular shape with a maximum reaching 25 K at the largest volume. However, the stable structure is bcc for $`a`$ larger than about 4.75 a.u. according to the calculations. Experimentally, the transition pressure is about 150 kBar, which would put the transition further away from the bcc equilibrium, somewhere towards 4.6 a.u.. From the calculated results one expects a $`T_C`$ of the order 12 K at the hcp transition, while it levels off rather slowly at higher pressure. The difference in P between $`a`$=4.7 and 4.4 a.u. is of the order 700 kBar, while $`T_C`$ at the smallest lattice constant still is about 1 K. According to experiment it is only within a pressure range of 150 kBar that superconductivity is observed.

Superconductivity from AFM fluctuations appears only for volumes (on the nonmagnetic side) near the AFM instability. The $`T_C`$’s are lower and the pressure range narrower than in the FM case. The AFM-II configuration extends into smaller volumes than AFM-I, further away from the bcc-hcp transition. The drop in $`T_C`$ as function of pressure is more significant and corresponds better to experiment than from FM fluctuations. Whereas the FM fluctuations give a reasonable $`T_C`$ within a wide range of volumes, and can develop as soon as the hcp structure is stabilized by pressure, the AFM fluctuations lead to superconductivity only near the magnetic instability. Thus, if AFM fluctuations are responsible for the observed $`T_C`$ it is a coincidence that it appears just after the bcc-hcp transition.

Two possibilities to explain experiment in terms of spin fluctuations can be discussed. First, as superconductivity due to FM fluctuations is sensitive to impurity scattering , it is possible that lattice defects induced in the pressure experiment near the structural transition can suppress $`T_C`$. A decrease of 8-10 K would bring $`T_C`$ into agreement with the measured one within a correct pressure range as soon as the hcp phase becomes stable. Lattice imperfections like dislocations, interstitial sites, vacancies etc. may be generated especially near the critical volume for the structural structural transitions, leading to a gradual onset of $`T_C`$. A second possibility is that the concentration of imperfections will suppress $`T_C`$ from FM fluctuations completely, leaving the mechanism of AFM-II fluctuations to be responsible for the $`T_C`$. As was mentioned the $`T_C`$ and the pressure range fit experiment reasonable well, but one must understand why AFM fluctuations can resist better to imperfections than FM ones. Short wave AFM fluctuations are ’optical’ corresponding to $`ka=\frac{\pi }{4}`$ in the formula for the dispersion. The propagation velocity, $`d\omega /dk`$, is very small for such waves, so that they can be confined between defects. The scattering with defects is larger for dispersive waves with long wave length. The reduction of $`T_C`$ compared to $`T_C`$ itself is proportional to $`v_F/(\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })`$, where $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity, $`\mathrm{}`$ the impurity scattering length and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the superconducting energy gap . Our arguments follow if the velocity of the spin excitations take the place of $`v_F`$. In both of these possibilities it is expected that $`T_C`$ should increase if the concentration of defects can be reduced, since superconductivity based on FM fluctuations give a larger $`T_C`$ within a wider range of pressures. Further experiments on high impurity samples showing superconductivity in a large fraction of the volume should be able to distinguish between the two possibilities, or if electron-phonon coupling is responsible for superconductivity.


text:
# 1 The difference in photon survival probability difference for two energy bands summed over 3000 domains of size 1 Mpc. The horizontal axis is the photon plasma frequency in units of 10⁻¹⁵ eV.

## Acknowledgements

We thank Scott Armel-Funkhouser, Christophe Grojean, Georg Raffelt and Martin White for useful discussions and correspondence. C.C. is an Oppenheimer fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is supported in part by a DOE OJI grant. C.C. and J.T. are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36. N.K. is supported in part by an NSF grant PHY-9870115.


text:
# Kaon and Pion Fluctuations from Small Disoriented Chiral Condensates

## I Introduction

Heavy ion collisions at the Brookhaven Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at center of mass energies up to $`200`$ $`A`$ GeV and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at $`5.5`$ $`A`$ TeV may produce matter in which chiral symmetry is restored. One possible consequence of the restoration and the subsequent re-breaking of chiral symmetry is the formation of disoriented chiral condensates (DCC) – transient regions in which the average chiral order parameter differs from its value in the surrounding vacuum .

Measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ baryon enhancement  at $`17`$ $`A`$ GeV at the CERN SPS can be explained by the production of many small DCC regions within individual collision events . If true, this explanation has two important consequences. First, the DCC regions must be rather small, with a size of about $`2`$ fm. Such a size is consistent with predictions based on dynamical simulations of the two flavor linear sigma model . More startling is the second implication that the evolution of the condensate can have a significant effect on strange particle production. The importance of strange degrees of freedom in describing chiral restoration has been long appreciated , but simulations of the three flavor linear sigma model had suggested that strange kaon fields are much less important than the pion fields . Nevertheless, the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ data demand that we explore without prejudice techniques for measuring kaon fluctuations.

In this paper we study pion and kaon isospin fluctuations in the presence of many small DCC. In the next section we compute probability distributions that describe the DCC contribution to these fluctuations. Pion fluctuations due to many small DCC have been addressed by Amado and Lu  and Chow and Cohen , although the distribution we compute is new. Ours is the first work to study kaon fluctuations. In sec. 3 we combine the DCC fluctuations with a contribution from a random thermal background. In sec. 4 we discuss how the size and number of DCC vary with impact parameter, target and projectile size. In sec. 5 we assess robust statistical observables that can be used to measure the impact of many small DCC at RHIC and LHC. In particular, we obtain a dynamic isospin fluctuation observable analogous to the dynamic charge observable used to measure net charge fluctuations at RHIC . Of the quantities considered, this observable isolates the DCC effect from other sources of fluctuations best.

To illustrate how a strange DCC can form, we first consider QCD with only up and down quark flavors. Equilibrium high temperature QCD respects chiral symmetry if the quarks are taken to be massless. This symmetry is broken below $`T_c150`$ MeV by the formation of a chiral condensate $`\sigma \overline{u}u+\overline{d}d`$ that is a scalar isopin singlet. However, chiral symmetry implies that $`\sigma `$ is degenerate with a pseudoscalar isospin triplet of fields with the same quantum numbers as the pions. In reality, chiral symmetry is only approximate and the 140 MeV pion mass is different from the $`800\pm 400`$ MeV mass of the leading sigma candidate . Nevertheless, lattice calculations exhibit a dramatic drop of $`\sigma `$ near $`T_c`$ at finite quark masses.

A DCC can form when a heavy ion collision produces a high energy density quark-gluon system that then rapidly expands and cools through the critical temperature. Such a system can initially break chiral symmetry along one of the pion directions, but must then evolve to the $`T=0`$ vacuum by radiating pions. A single coherent DCC radiates a fraction $`f_\pi `$ of neutral pions compared to the total that satisfies the probability distribution

$$\rho _1(f_\pi )=\frac{1}{2f_\pi ^{1/2}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}<f_\pi 1,$$
(1)
. Such isospin fluctuations constitute the primary signal for DCC formation. The enhancement of baryon-antibaryon pair production is a secondary effect due to the relation between baryon number and the topology of the pion condensate field .

This two flavor idealization only applies if the strange quark mass $`m_s`$ can be taken to be infinite. Alternatively, if we take $`m_s=m_u=m_d=0`$, then the chiral condensate would be an up-down-strange symmetric scalar field. The more realistic case of $`m_s100`$ MeV is between these extremes, so that $`\sigma \mathrm{cos}\theta (\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d)+\mathrm{sin}\theta (\overline{s}s)`$. The mixing angle $`\theta `$ is highly uncertain since it depends on the sigma mass together with the $`\pi ,K,\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ masses and the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing angle . A disoriented condensate can evolve by radiating $`\pi ,K,\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mesons, with the neutral pion fraction satisfying (1). Randrup and Schäffner-Bielich find that the kaon fluctuations from a single large DCC satisfy

$$\rho _1(f_K)=\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}f_K1,$$
(2)
where $`f_K=(K^0+\overline{K}^0)/(K^++K^{}+K^0+\overline{K}^0)`$. Moreover, the condensate fluctuations can now produce strange baryon pairs . Linear sigma model simulations indicate that pion fluctuations dominate three-flavor DCC behavior, while the fraction of energy imparted to kaon fluctuations is very small due to the kaons’ larger mass. On the other hand, domain formation may be induced by other mechanisms such as bubble formation  or decay of the Polyakov loop condensate .

Why does the DCC’s size matter? Pion measurements in individual collision events can distinguish DCC isospin fluctuations from a thermal background only if the disoriented region is sufficiently large . DCC can then be the dominant source of pions at low transverse momenta, since $`p_t1/R`$ for a coherent region of size $`R`$. Experiments focusing on low $`p_t`$ can study neutral and charged pion fluctuations , wavelet  and HBT signals  to extract detailed information. In contrast, for small domains ($`R<3`$ fm ) DCC signals are hidden by fluctuations due to ordinary incoherent production mechanisms. This holds even if many such regions are produced per event. DCC mesons from small regions may have momenta of a few hundred MeV, nearer the $`pp`$ mean value. Different regions would not add coherently to alter HBT, nor would their small spatial structures affect wavelet analyses.

Importantly, baryon pair enhancement is substantial only if there are many small incoherent regions. The large winding numbers that produce baryon-antibaryon pairs require many small regions with random relative orientations of the pion field. To describe strange antibaryon enhancement, Kapusta and Wong assume roughly 100 DCC regions of size of roughly $`2`$ fm . Topological models of baryon-antibaryon pair production successfully describe $`e+e`$ and hadronic collision data . The connection of DCC to topological pair production was pointed out in Ref. ; see also .

## II Fluctuations in Neutral DCC Mesons

In this section we will compute the statistical distribution of the ratio of neutral to total number of mesons, first for kaons and then for pions. In both cases the limit that the number of DCC domains becomes large is taken. It is natural that this limit results in a Gaussian distribution for both kaons and pions on account of the Central Limit Theorem. In the next section these distributions will be folded together with a random or thermal source which most likely would comprise the bulk of the mesons in a high energy heavy ion collision.

### A Kaons

Define $`f=(K^0+\overline{K}^0)/(K^++K^{}+K^0+\overline{K}^0)`$. To an excellent approximation the number of neutral kaons is equal to twice the number of short-lived neutral kaons $`K_S`$ which are more readily measurable in high energy heavy ion collisions. The fraction $`f`$ ranges from 0 to 1.

The statistical distribution in $`f`$ for a single domain is $`\rho _1(f)=1`$. The distribution for $`n`$ randomly oriented, independent domains is

$$\rho _n(f)=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}df_k\rho _1(f_k)\delta \left(f\frac{1}{n}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}f_j\right).$$
(3)
The Dirac delta function can be represented as an integral. Then $`\rho _n`$ can be written as

$$\rho _n(f)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dz}{2\pi }e^{ifz}\left[_0^1𝑑x\rho _1(x)e^{ixz/n}\right]^n.$$
(4)
Since $`\rho _1(f)=1`$, the integration over $`x`$ can be done, resulting in a one- dimensional integral.

$$\rho _n(f)=\frac{n}{\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}t}{t}\right)^n\mathrm{cos}\left[n(12f)t\right]$$
(5)
The integral can be evaluated and expressed in terms of a finite sum.

$$\rho _n(f)=n^2\underset{0k<n(1f)}{}(1)^k\frac{[n(1f)k]^{n1}}{k!(nk)!}$$
(6)
It is useful to have a simple analytic formula for $`\rho _n`$ in the limit that $`n1`$. In this limit the factor $`(\mathrm{sin}t/t)^n`$ in the integral formula is strongly peaked at $`t=0`$. Let us write this factor as $`\mathrm{exp}(F(t))`$ with a view towards a saddle point approximation. We get

$`F(0)`$ $`=`$ $`F^{}(0)=0`$ (7)
$`F^{\prime \prime }(0)`$ $`=`$ $`n/3`$ (8)
$`e^{F(t)}`$ $``$ $`e^{nt^2/6}.`$ (9)
Use of this approximation yields the asymptotic formula

$$\rho _n(f)=\sqrt{\frac{6n}{\pi }}\mathrm{exp}[6n(f1/2)^2].$$
(10)
The distribution is strongly peaked around $`f=1/2`$ as one might expect.

Figure 1 shows the evolution of $`\rho _n(f)`$ with $`n`$. It goes from a flat distribution for $`n=1`$ to a Gaussian sharply peaked at $`f=1/2`$ as $`n`$ becomes large compared to 1. In fact a Gaussian is a very good representation for $`n>2`$.

### B Pions

Define $`f=\pi ^0/(\pi ^++\pi ^{}+\pi ^0)`$. To a good approximation the number of neutral pions is equal to half the number of photons. Therefore, to this level of precision, it is not necessary to identify each $`\pi ^0`$ via its decay into $`2\gamma `$. The fraction $`f`$ ranges from 0 to 1.

The statistical distribution in $`f`$ for a single domain is $`\rho _1(f)=1/2\sqrt{f}`$. The distribution for $`n`$ randomly oriented, independent domains can be computed along the same lines as for kaons.

$$\rho _n(f)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dz}{2\pi }e^{ifz}\left[_0^1\frac{dx}{2\sqrt{x}}e^{ixz/n}\right]^n.$$
(11)
Since pions from DCC have been extensively studied we shall be content to evaluate the distribution in the large $`n`$ limit. This is accomplished by expanding the exponential in the $`x`$ integration to second order in $`1/n`$, evaluating the resulting integrals, and exponentiating. Thus

$$_0^1\frac{dx}{2\sqrt{x}}e^{ixz/n}\mathrm{exp}\left[i\frac{z}{3n}\frac{2z^2}{45n^2}\right].$$
(12)
The $`z`$ integral can then be done, yielding a Gaussian centered at $`f=1/3`$.

$$\rho _n(f)=\sqrt{\frac{45n}{4\pi }}\mathrm{exp}\left[45n(f1/3)^2/4\right]$$
(13)
## III Folding DCC and Thermal Mesons

In a more realistic scenario some kaons will come from the decay or realignment of DCC domains and some will come from more conventional sources. We shall refer to the latter as random or thermal, even though that may be a bit of a misnomer. What we mean by random or thermal is that the distribution of kaons from non-DCC sources is

$$\rho _0(f_0)=\frac{1}{2\pi \sigma _0^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[(f_01/2)^2/2\sigma _0^2\right].$$
(14)
For a completely random source the width $`\sigma _0`$ is related to the total number $`N_{\mathrm{random}}`$ of non-DCC kaons by

$$\sigma _0^2=\frac{1/2(11/2)}{N_{\mathrm{random}}}=\frac{1}{4N_{\mathrm{random}}}.$$
(15)
Now let us assume that a fraction $`\alpha _K`$ of all kaons come from non-DCC sources and the remaining fraction $`\beta _K=1\alpha _K`$ come from $`n1`$ independent DCC domains. Letting $`N`$ denote the total number of kaons, we have $`N_{\mathrm{random}}=\alpha _KN`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{DCC}}=\beta _KN`$. Folding together two Gaussians gives a Gaussian.

$`\rho _K(f)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑f_0𝑑f_n\rho _0(f_0)\rho _n(f_n)\delta (f\alpha _Kf_0\beta _Kf_n)}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_K^2}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[(f1/2)^2/2\mathrm{\Delta }_K^2\right]`$ (17)
The net width is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_K^2=\frac{\alpha _K}{4N}+\frac{\beta _K^2}{12n}=\frac{1}{4N}+\left\{\frac{\beta _K^2}{12n}\frac{\beta _K}{4N}\right\}.$$
(18)
The expression in curly brackets at the end represents the difference between the actual width and the width the distribution would have if there was no contribution from DCC kaons. This change in the width may be positive or negative, depending on the parameters.

An analogous analysis can be given for pions. This results in the distribution

$`\rho _\pi (f)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑f_0𝑑f_n\rho _0(f_0)\rho _n(f_n)\delta (f\alpha _\pi f_0\beta _\pi f_n)}`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_\pi ^2}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[(f1/3)^2/2\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi ^2\right]`$ (20)
with a net width of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi ^2=\frac{2\alpha _\pi }{9N}+\frac{2\beta _\pi ^2}{45n}=\frac{2}{9N}+\left\{\frac{2\beta _\pi ^2}{45n}\frac{2\beta _\pi }{9N}\right\}.$$
(21)
As with the kaons, the last expression in curly brackets represents the difference between the actual width and the width the distribution would have if there was no contribution from DCC pions. Note that the fractions $`\alpha _K`$ and $`\alpha _\pi `$ need not be the same.

## IV Volume or Surface Scaling?

The issue we wish to address is whether the number of DCC mesons (kaons or pions) scales with the volume or surface area of the system. This is an important issue when studying the impact parameter dependence or the dependence on the size of the projectile and target nuclei.

In this paper it is assumed that DCC have a typical size of order 2 fm which does not change much with collision energy or the total volume of the system. Thus the number of domains $`n`$ is just given by the ratio of the two volumes: $`n=V_{\mathrm{system}}/V_{DCC}`$. Scaling of the number of DCC kaons or pions, $`N_{DCC}`$, with $`n`$ or $`V_{\mathrm{system}}`$ is the same because the size of individual domains is fixed. The $`N_{DCC}`$ will depend on the extra energy associated with the formation of a domain. If the up and down quark masses were zero then QCD would have perfect SU(2) flavor symmetry. In that case the energy density of a large uniform domain would be independent of its orientation. All directions in chiral space are equivalent. However, the misalignment between adjacent domains results in a surface energy, and so the number of DCC pions would be proportional to the total surface energy between domains. The up and down quark masses are not zero (they’re about 5 to 7 MeV), and this will result in an excess volume energy too. For pions one might expect the surface energy to dominate since the up and down quark masses are so small. For kaons one might expect the volume and surface energy contributions to be comparable on account of relatively large mass of the strange quark (about 120 MeV).

Let us analyze the scaling of the excess surface energy more quantitatively. Consider a cube with sides of length $`L`$ into which fit $`n=(L/l)^3`$ cubic domains, each with sides of length $`l`$. Assuming that each domain is oriented independently of its neighbors, the total surface energy scales with the total surface area, which is $`3\left(\frac{L}{l}+1\right)\frac{L^2}{l^2}`$. With $`Ll`$, and with the domain size $`l`$ fixed, the total surface area, energy, and therefore number of DCC mesons scale with $`n`$ to the power of one. Thus $`N_{DCC}nV_{\mathrm{system}}`$ no matter whether one imagines the excess energy being associated with domain interfaces or with domain interiors.

## V Statistical Analysis

Detection of small incoherent DCC regions in high energy heavy ion collisions requires a statistical analysis in the $`\pi ^0\pi ^\pm `$ or the $`K_S^0K^\pm `$ channels. Neutral mesons can be detected by the decays $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ or $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. The analysis we propose is sensitive to correlations due to isospin fluctuations. We expect these correlations to vary when DCC regions increase in abundance or size as centrality, ion-mass number $`A`$, or beam energy are changed. Correlation results combined with other signals, such as baryon enhancement , can be used to build a circumstantial case for DCC production.

Correlations of $`\pi ^0\pi ^\pm `$ and $`K_S^0K^\pm `$ can be determined by measuring the robust isospin covariance,

$$R_{c0}=\frac{N_cN_0N_cN_0}{N_cN_0},$$
(22)
where $`N_0`$ and $`N_c`$ are the number of neutral and charged mesons. We take $`N_0=N_{\pi ^0}`$ and $`N_c=N_{\pi ^+}+N_\pi ^{}`$ for pion fluctuations and $`N_0=2N_{K_S^0}`$ and $`N_c=N_{K^+}+N_K^{}`$ for kaon fluctuations. The ratio (18) has two features that are convenient for experimental determination. First, this observable is independent of detection efficiency as are the “robust” ratios discussed in . Robust observables are useful for DCC studies because charged and neutral particles are identified using very different techniques and, consequently, are detected with different efficiency. Observe that robust quantities are not affected by the unobserved $`K_L^0`$, since the strong-interaction eigenstates $`K^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0`$ are a superposition $`K_L^0`$ and $`K_S^0`$ until their decay well outside the collision region. Second, since (18) is obtained from a statistical analysis, individual $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ or $`K_S^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ need not be fully reconstructed in each event. This feature is crucial because it would be extraordinarily difficult – if not impossible – to reconstruct a low momentum $`\pi ^0`$ in heavy ion collisions except on a statistical basis.

Next we define robust variance

$$R_{aa}=\frac{N_a^2N_a^2N_a}{N_a^2},$$
(23)
where $`a=c`$ or 0. To see why (19) is robust, denote the probability of detecting each meson $`ϵ`$ and the probability of missing it $`1ϵ`$. For a binomial distribution the average number of measured particles is $`N_a^{\mathrm{exp}}=ϵN_a`$ while the average square is $`N_a^2^{\mathrm{exp}}=ϵ^2N_a^2+ϵ(1ϵ)N_a`$. We then find

$$R_{aa}^{\mathrm{exp}}=R_{aa},$$
(24)
independent of $`ϵ`$ ; the proof that (18) is robust is similar. The ratios (18) and (19) are strictly robust only if the efficiency $`ϵ`$ is independent of multiplicity. Further properties and advantages of these and similar quantities are discussed in .

To study DCC fluctuations we define the dynamic isospin observable

$$\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}=R_{cc}+R_{00}2R_{c0}.$$
(25)
Analogous observables have been employed to study net charge fluctuations in particle physics  and were considered in a heavy ion context in  and . This quantity can be written in terms of

$$\nu ^{c0}=\left(\frac{N_0}{N_0}\frac{N_c}{N_c}\right)^2.$$
(26)
To isolate the dynamical isospin fluctuations from other sources of fluctuations, one obtains (21) by subtracting from (22) the uncorrelated Poisson limit $`\nu _{\mathrm{stat}}^{c0}=N_0^1+N_c^1`$. Indeed, we show in (27) below that the quantity (21) depends primarily on the fluctuations of the neutral fraction $`f`$, while the individual ratios (18) and (19) have additional contributions.

We illustrate the effect of DCC on the dynamic isospin fluctuations by writing $`N_0=fN`$ and $`N_c=(1f)N`$. Small fluctuations on $`f`$ or $`N`$ results in the changes

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N_0}{N_0}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N}{N}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }f}{f}},`$ (27)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N_c}{N_c}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N}{N}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }f}{1f}}.`$ (28)
We obtain the average

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N_0^2}{N_0^2}=v+\frac{2c}{Nf}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{f^2}.$$
(29)
Here the contribution of the variance of the total number of mesons is $`v\mathrm{\Delta }N^2/N^2`$ and the charge-total covariance is $`c\mathrm{\Delta }N\mathrm{\Delta }f`$. DCC formation primarily effects the charge fluctuation contribution, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2(\mathrm{\Delta }f)^2`$, from (15) or (17). Similarly,

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }N_c^2}{N_c^2}=v\frac{2c}{N(1f)}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{(1f)^2},$$
(30)
and

$$R_{c0}=v+\left(\frac{1}{f}\frac{1}{1f}\right)\frac{c}{N}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{(1f)^2}$$
(31)
where $`R_{c0}`$ is given by (18). Using (21) we get

$$\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}=\frac{1}{f(1f)}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{f(1f)}\frac{1}{N}\right).$$
(32)
This observable isolates the isospin fluctuations, whereas the individual $`R_{ab}`$ depend on the fluctuations in total meson number, $`v`$ and $`c`$ as well.

We estimate the effect of DCC on the dynamical fluctuations (27) using (15) and (17). We take $`N=N_K`$ for kaons and $`N=N_\pi `$ for pions; these are the total number of mesons of the indicated kind. For kaons

$$\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{DCC})=4\beta _K\left(\frac{\beta _K}{3n}\frac{1}{N_K}\right),$$
(33)
and for pions

$$\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}(\pi \mathrm{DCC})=4.5\beta _\pi \left(\frac{\beta _\pi }{5n}\frac{1}{N_\pi }\right).$$
(34)
These quantities can be positive or negative depending on the magnitude of $`\beta `$ compared to the number of domains per kaon. In fact the dynamical fluctuation may even be positive for one kind of meson and negative for the other.

How big is the DCC effect compared to alternative sources of fluctuations? In the absence of DCC $`\alpha =1`$ and $`\beta =0`$ so that (29) implies $`\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}0`$ for both pions and kaons. On the other hand, in models which treat nuclear collisions as a superposition of independent nucleon-nucleon collisions, each nucleon-nucleon collision contributes an amount $`\nu _{c0}^{pp}`$ to the overall fluctuations. Consequently, $`M`$ nucleon-nucleon collisions can contribute an amount $`\nu _{c0}^{pp}/M`$ to the total $`\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}`$ . While little is known from $`pp`$ experiments about kaon fluctuations, HIJING and RQMD models yield negative values of $`\nu _{c0}^{pp}`$. For kaons, HIJING simulations of central Au+Au at 200 $`A`$ GeV yield $`\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}0.002`$ for 47 $`K^+`$ and 44 $`K_S^0`$ on average . The onset of a DCC contribution to $`\nu _{\mathrm{dyn}}^{c0}`$ can substantially change this value. A detailed of analysis of this problem within microscopic models will appear elsewhere .

## VI Discussion and Conclusion

Reference  argued that the anomalous abundance and transverse momentum distributions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ baryons in central collisions between Pb nuclei at 17 $`A`$ GeV at the CERN SPS is evidence that they are produced as topological defects arising from the formation of many domains of disoriented chiral condensates (DCC) with an average domain size of about 2 fm. Motivated by this interpretation, we have studied the effect of DCC on the distribution of the fractions of neutral kaons and pions. We showed that the distributions are accurately described by Gaussians with centroids at $`f`$ = 1/2 and 1/3, respectively, once the number of domains exceeds just a few. Folding together kaons or pions arising from DCC with other sources that are Gaussian distributed results once again in Gaussians. These may have a width that is greater or less than a purely random source without DCC formation.

The DCC pioneers  had hoped that a large percentage of pions might be emitted from just a few big domains, on the order of 5 to 8 fm (kaons were not considered). Such large domains have been ruled out at SPS , but remain possible at RHIC. More conservatively, as the number of domains grow and their average size diminishes, the impression left on the fluctuations in the neutral fraction becomes more subtle and less unique. For many small domains, statistical measurements of both neutral kaons (pions) and charged kaons (pions) are needed. Since not every hadron emitted can possibly be detected with 100% efficiency, and since the experimental techniques that identify $`K_S`$, $`K^\pm `$, $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\pi ^\pm `$ are very different, we have identified robust observables that are essentially independent of all these uncertainties. In particular, we propose that the dynamical isospin observable (21) can be parameterized as in eqs. (28) and (29). DCC effects can appear as changes in the magnitude of the dynamical isospin observable as centrality is varied. We emphasize that similar consequence may follow from any mechanism that produces many small domains that decay to pions and kaons, such as the Polyakov Loop Condensate . We anxiously await what RHIC will have to say!

## Acknowledgements

S. G. thanks the Nuclear Theory Group at the University of Minnesota for kind hospitality during visits in March and December 2001 during which much of this work was done. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant numbers DE-FG02-87ER40328 and DE-FG02-92ER40713.