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# Absence of the Transition into Abrikosov Vortex State of Two-Dimensional Type-II Superconductor with Weak Pinning.

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## Abstract

The resistive properties of thin amorphous NbOx films above and below $`H_{c2}`$ were investigated experimentally. It was shown that near $`H_{c2}`$ the excess conductivity dependencies agree with the predictions of the paraconductivity theory. The current-voltage characteristics in a perpendicular magnetic field remain Ohmic down to very low magnetic field. This is interpreted as the absence of the transition into Abrikosov vortex state of two-dimensional type-II superconductor with weak pinning.

PACS numbers: 74.60.Ge

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Before the discovery of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors (HTSC’s) the point of view prevailed that between the first, $`H_{c1}`$, and the second, $`H_{c2}`$, critical fields type II superconductors can be only in the vortex-lattice state, first described by Abrikosov . The unusual properties of HTSC’s in a magnetic field have stimulated considerable interest to fluctuation effects in type-II superconductors. In addition to the vortex-lattice the existence of other states (vortex glass, vortex fluid) is assumed in many works . In the majority of papers the influence of fluctuation on mixed state properties of HTSC’s was investigated. But a HTSC is unconvenient object for initial investigation of this phenomenon. The HTSC’s have some peculiarities that are not quite understood. Besides, all known HTSC samples have a strong vortex pinning. In most of the works the fluctuation influence on properties connected with pinning is investigated. But until now the pinning effect is not described quantitatively for a real case. A limited number of theories of weak pinning  can be compared with experimental data only qualitatively. For this reason numerous experimental confirmations of fluctuation theories of the HTSC mixed state are not looked reliable. The experimental data have alternative explanations almost in all cases.

Therefore we think that investigation of fluctuation effects in conventional, low-$`T_c`$ type-II superconductors (LTSC’s) with weak pinning is very actual. The investigation of this objects can help to verify the fluctuation theories of mixed state. The point of view is widespread that in LTSC the fluctuation effects are small . But this opinion is not correct for the high magnetic field region. Calculation  and investigation  have shown that fluctuation effects in the mixed state of conventional ”dirty” type-II superconductors are great, no more smaller than in HTSC.

The thermodynamic average order parameter is distributed inhomogeneously in a superconductor which is in the Abrikosov state. Therefore properties of type-II superconductors in the mixed state may be separated on two type. It is obvious that the magnetization and the specific heat are connected with the spatial average of the order parameter, whereas the vortex pinning is connected with inhomogeneous distribution of the order parameter in the space. It was shown in  that the fluctuation essentially alters the spatial average value of order parameter inside the critical region only. The experimental dependencies of the specific heat  and the magnetization  in the $`H_{c2}`$ critical region are described by the fluctuation theory of D-2 dimensional superconductors. The dependencies for bulk superconductor are described by the theory of one-dimensional superconductor. The resistive transition in parallel magnetic field of bulk superconductors is also described by the theory of one-dimensional superconductor .

Therefore the fluctuation influence on the order parameter distribution is the most interesting problem now. There are two different theoretical approach to this problem. In most works (see for example ) the fluctuations are considered as a oscillation of the Abrikosov vortex lattice. The concept of ”vortex lattice melting” has appeared in this approach. In other works (see for example ) a revision of the Abrikosov solution is made. Experimental investigation of this problem is connected with investigation of vortex pinning because the pinning appearance is connected with appearance of the inhomogeneous distribution of the order parameter.

It is well known that the vortex pinning causes the non-Ohmic current-voltage characteristics in perpendicular magnetic field. According to the classical work , the linear part of the current-voltage characteristic at a large current can be described as $`V=R_f(II_c)`$. $`R_f`$ is the flux flow resistivity. $`I_c`$ is the dynamic critical current determined by pinning. The experimental investigations show that the current-voltage characteristics become non-Ohmic ($`I_c`$ become nonzero) below $`H_{c2}`$ both in bulk superconductors  and in thin films . In Refs.  this qualitative change is interpreted as a vortex lattice melting whereas in  it is interpreted as a transition from the normal state into the Abrikosov vortex state. But the vortex liquid does not represent a new genuine thermodynamic phase different from the normal state . Therefore these two interpretation coincide.

The position and the width of this transition in bulk superconductor differ from those in thin film. In bulk conventional superconductors the current-voltage characteristics become non-Ohmic at some percent below $`H_{c2}`$ only  whereas in thin films the position of this transition (”melting”) depends on the film thickness  and may be below $`0.5H_{c2}`$ . This difference agrees with the difference of influence of fluctuation on three- and two-dimensional superconductors with real size which is predicted by theory .

It was shown in  that in bulk superconductor with weak pinning the width of the transition connected with pinning appearance (”melting” transition) is very small, much smaller than the width of the specific heat transition , the magnetization transition  and resistive transition in parallel magnetic field , which are connected with the change of the spatial average value of the order parameter. Therefore in  the transition connected with the appearance of non-Ohmic current-voltage characteristics (with pinning appearance) was called a narrow transition, whereas the transition connected with the change of the spatial average value of the order parameter was called wide transition. The intrinsic width of the narrow transition has not been determined. It was determined only in  that the narrow transition of the most homogeneous sample is more than 10 times narrower than intrinsic wide transition. It was shown in  also that not only does the pinning appear (the $`I_c`$ value becomes non-zero) but also the flux flow resistivity $`R_f`$ decreases sharply at the narrow transition of bulk superconductors (see  also). The resistivity dependencies of thin films do not have sharp feature and are smooth at the pinning appearance (at ”melting”) .

In the present work we investigated thin films. Thin films were studied before in some works . But our investigations have shown that the position of the ”melting” transition is not universal for different films and depends on a amount of pinning centers in them. Therefore we wanted to produce films with a smallest amount of pinning centers. The results of the investigation of these films are presented here. Following  and  we will determine the transition (melting  or transition into Abrikosov state ) position as the point at which the current-voltage characteristics in a perpendicular magnetic field change qualitatively (become Ohmic on increasing of magnetic field and become non-ohmic on decreasing one). It is obvious that this change of current-voltage characteristics is caused by the pinning appearance (disappearance). Therefore we will connect this transition with the pinning ($`I_c`$) appearance (disappearance) also.

The Nb, NbN, PbBi, Sn, NbOx films produced by magnetron sputtering, pulse laser deposition and electron beam evaporation were examined. All films, except some amorphous NbOx film, did not have enough small vortex pinning and therefore are not suitable for our purpose. For this reason we mainly studied the NbOx films.

The NbOx films were produced by magnetron sputtering of Nb in an atmosphere of argon and oxygen. The critical temperature $`T_c`$ of films used is equal to 2.37 K and $`dH_{c2}/dT=22`$ kOe/K. The film thickness $`d=20`$ nm. The normal resistivity $`\rho _n=99\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{}`$. The temperature dependence of normal resistivity is very weak. $`1/\rho _n\left|d\rho _n/dT\right|<0.0002`$ in the region 20-40 K, where superconducting fluctuation is small. The resistivity increases with decreasing temperature. This change can be connected with weak localization. A magnetic field up to 50 kOe produced by a superconducting solenoid was measured with relative error 0.0005. The resistivity was measured in perpendicular magnetic field, with a relative error 0.0001. The 0.01 error in the measurement of the specific resistivity was due to the inaccurate determination of the geometric dimensions of the film structure. The temperature was measured with a relative error 0.001.

The measurement shown that the resistive transition of NbOx films broadens in a magnetic film as well as of the HTSC resistive transition (Fig.1). The paraconductivity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma =\sigma \sigma _n`$ dependencies above $`H_{c2}`$ in the linear approximation region are well described by Ami-Maki theory  adapted to a two-dimensional superconductors (Fig.2). The Maki-Thompson contributions are partly suppressed. The normal conductivity value $`\sigma _n`$ was determined from extrapolation of its high temperature dependence and it is not fit parameter. Therefore the single fit parameter is a $`H_{c2}`$ value. The temperature dependence of the fit $`H_{c2}`$ values agree with Maki theoretical dependence . Consequently we have one fit parameter, $`H_{c2}`$(T=0), for all paraconductivity dependencies. The discrepancy between experimental and Ami-Maki dependencies near Tc2 is connected with invalidity of the linear approximation in the critical region. The calculation of the fluctuation interaction in Hartree approximation removes this discrepancy (Fig.2). For this calculation the Ginsburg number, $`D=2\pi k_BT_c/H_c^2(0)d\xi ^2(0)`$, was used as fit parameter. The only parameter, which was not determined irrespective, is a thermodynamic critical field $`H_c(0)=T_c(dH_c/dT)_{T=T_c}`$. The fit value of $`(dH_c/dT)_{T=T_c}=300`$ Oe/K. It is not far from this value for pure Nb, which is equal 472 Oe/K.

The paraconductivity investigations show that the amorphous NbOx films studied are conventional homogeneous two-dimensional type-II superconductor. But the narrow transition, which was observed near $`H_{c2}`$ in bulk type-II superconductors , or the ”melting” transition, which was observed in films , are not observed in these films. The current-voltage characteristics remain Ohmic down to very low magnetic field (Fig.3). The resistivity value decreases gradually with decreasing magnetic field value (Fig.3). At low magnetic field it is close to a flux flow resistivity value (Fig.3) . The resistivity of a 10 $`\mu `$m width strip at T = 1.6 K is equal zero up to current value of 10 mA in zero magnetic field and is not equal to zero already at current value 1 nA in a low magnetic field 100 Oe.

The absence of a nondissipative current, $`I_c`$ = 0, and a resistivity value which is close to a flux flow resistivity value, $`R_f/R_n=0.25H/H_{c2}`$, in a low magnetic field are obviously connected with the absence of vortex pinning. It should be noted that the absence of nondissipative current can be connected not only with the absence of pinning but also with flux creep, particularly vortex lattice moving and so on. But in these cases the resistivity value differs from the flux flow resistivity value. This situation was observed earlier in  where the resistivity is more than 3 orders of magnitude less than flux flow resistivity, and in other works. Therefore we may say that the pinning absence down to a magnetic field much lower than $`H_{c2}`$ is observed first in our work.

As was written above, in thin films the pinning disappears (”melting” transition occurs) not near $`H_{c2}`$ (as takes place in bulk superconductors ) but markedly below $`H_{c2}`$ (at $`H=0.3H_{c2}`$ for the film thickness 18 nm and $`T/T_c=0.67`$ ). Our investigations show that there are films in which the pinning does not appear down to H much lower than H at which the ”melting” transition was observed in  (down to $`H=0.1kOe=0.006H_{c2}`$ for film thickness 20 nm and $`T/T_c=0.67`$, see the insertion on Fig.3). This means that the ”melting” transition in our films can occure below $`0.006H_{c2}`$ (at $`T/T_c=0.67`$) only. Consequently the position of the pinning appearance (disappearance) is not universal for different films. Therefore the theory of vortex lattice melting, used in , is not valid there. The ”melting” position depends on a amount of pinning centers. The possible influence of pinning centers on the fluctuation value was mentioned in .

In the papers  the resistivity dependencies above ”melting” are compared with flux flow resistivity dependencies obtained in the mean field approximation. It can not be right because the fluctuation is big there. It was shown in  that the resistivity dependencies of bulk superconductors above ”melting” are described by the paraconductivity theory both above and below $`H_{c2}`$. Fig.4 demonstrates that the experimental dependencies of two-dimensional superconductors can also be described by paraconductivity theory both above and below $`H_{c2}`$. The experimental dependence of $`[1+(\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma /\sigma _n)\sqrt{h/t}]^1`$ is a universal function of $`(tt_{c2})/\sqrt{ht}`$ (Fig.4), where $`t=T/T_c`$; $`t_{c2}=T_{c2}/T_c`$; $`h=H/H_{c2}(T=0)`$; $`T_{c2}`$ is second critical temperature. This scaling low follows from the fluctuation theory . The universal experimental dependence is close to the theoretical paraconductivity dependence obtained in Hartree approximation (Fig.4).

Thus the experimental dependencies are described by the same paraconductivity dependence both above and below $`H_{c2}`$. This confirms the opinion  that the second critical field line $`H_{c2}(T)`$ marks only a crossover from the normal state to a strongly fluctuating superconducting state with no real phase transition . As was written above, the real phase transition in the Abrikosov vortex lattice state (melting transition) is connected now with qualitative changes of the resistive properties in a perpendicular magnetic field . Therefore the absence of the qualitative changes of the resistive properties (the current-voltage characteristics remain Ohmic, $`V=R_fI`$, down to $`0.006H_{c2}`$, see the inset in Fig.3) may be interpreted as the absence of the transition into the Abrikosov vortex lattice state of two-dimensional superconductors with small amount of pinning centers down to magnetic field hundreds times smaller than the second critical field.

This work was supported by the National Scientific Council on High Temperature Superconductivity, Project No. 92124. A.V.N. thanks the International Science Foundation for financial support.


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# Radial Oscillations of Hybrid Stars

## 1 Introduction

Recently there have been important developments in the determination of neutron star masses in binary systems. Where as the best determination of neutron star masses, all in the range $`1.35\pm 0.04`$ $`M_{}`$ (Thorsett 1999), is found for binary radio pulsars, limits on the masses of neutron stars from measurements of kilohertz quasiperiodic oscillation frequencies in low mass X-ray binaries lie in the region of 2$`M_{}`$ (Miller 1998a; 1998b; 1998c; see also van-der Klis 1998). In addition several X-ray binary masses have also been found to be high viz. Vela X-1 and Cygnus X-2 with masses $`(1.8\pm 0.2)`$$`M_{}`$ and $`(1.8\pm 0.4)`$$`M_{}`$ respectively (van Kerkwijk 1995; Orsoz 1999). These large masses put severe constraints on the equation of state(EOS) of dense matter and only very stiff EOS’s are capable of sustaining such high masses. There are esentially two classes of EOS’s for dense matter, one class based on relativistic mean field type of models with coupling constants treated as parameters to be fitted to observable quantities and the other based on realistic interactions between constituents obtained by fitting scattering data and using techniques of many body theory to evaluate energy and pressure. Both classes of models however, suffer from lack of sufficient experimental data. This situation is likely to be ameleorated by our understanding of the physics of heavy-ion collisions in laboratory experiments in near future. In the core of neutron stars where densities rise few times the normal nuclear densities, the state of matter is essentially unknown and the possibility of a phase transition to constituent quark matter or to hadronic matter containing hyperons and/or meson condensates has been extensively studied in the litrature (see for example Heiselberg 2001 and references therein). All these phase transitions whether first order or second result in softening of the EOS and thus aggravating the maximum mass limit. In a phase transition to quark matter, the neutron star may have a core of pure quark matter with a mantle of nuclear matter surrounding it and the two phases co-existing in a first order phase transition. Alternatively one may have a so called hybrid star discussed by Glendenning (Glendenning 1992; ibid 1997; see also Heiselberg 2001), wherein the quark and nuclear matter coexist in mixed phase with continuous pressure and density variation - a situation obtained by applying Gibb’s criteria to a two-component system.

One important aspect of various compact stars is the study of their radial modes of oscillation. Radial oscillations give information about the stability of the stellar structure under consideration, and are thus quite important in distinguishing between various models of the stellar structure. Also as is well known, radial oscillations do not couple to gravitational waves; as a result the equations governing radial oscillations are quite simple and it is relatively easy to solve the eigenvalue problem that leads to the descrete set of eigenfrequencies for the system. The eigenfrequencies form a complete set and hence it is possible to describe any arbitrary periodic radial disturbance as a superposition of its various eigenmodes.

For neutron stars, beginning with Chandrasekhar (1964), radial modes have been investigated in the literature for more than thirty years and for various nuclear matter equations of state. (see for example Chanmugam 1977; Glass and Lindblom 1983; Vath and Chanmugam 1992; Kokkotas 2001) . In view of the fact that only a few EOS viz. those of Wiringa, Fiks and Fabrocini (Wiringa 1988) using A14+UV11 and U14+UV11 interactions and the recent EOS of Akaml, Pandharipande and Ravenhall (Akaml 1998) incorporating relativistic corrections and three- nucleon interactions in a new nucleon-nucleon interaction model (the Argonne A18 potential) are practically the only viable neutron star models capable of giving neutron star masses greater than 1.9 $`M_{}`$, we have picked them for the present study. In addition we also consider the EOS given by Glendenning from the class of relativistic mean field theoretical models (Glendenning 1997). These equations invariably allow a phase transition in the core. In this paper we study the effect of a mixed quark-nuclear matter core on radial oscillations of hybrid stars.

## 2 Radial Oscillations of a non-rotating Star

The equations governing the radial oscillations of a non-rotating star, using static, spherically symmetric metric

$$ds^2=e^{2\nu }dt^2+e^{2\lambda }dr^2+r^2(d\theta ^2+sin^2\theta d\varphi ^2)$$
(1)
were given by Chandrasekhar (Chandrasekhar 1964). The structure of the star in hydrostatic equilibrium is determined by the Tolman-Openheimer-Volkoff equations

$$\frac{dp}{dr}=\frac{G(p+\rho )(m+4\pi r^3p)}{r^2(1\frac{2GM}{r})}$$
(2)
$$\frac{dm}{dr}=4\pi r^2\rho $$
(3)
$$\frac{d\nu }{dr}=\frac{2GM(1+\frac{4\pi r^3p}{m})}{r(1\frac{2GM}{r})}$$
(4)
where we have put $`c=1`$. Assuming a radial displacement $`\delta r`$ with harmonic time dependence $`\delta r`$$``$$`e^{i\omega t}`$ and defining variables $`\xi =\frac{\delta r}{r}`$ and $`\zeta =r^2e^\nu \xi `$ , the equation governing radial adiabatic oscillations is given by

$$F\frac{d^2\zeta }{dr^2}+G\frac{d\zeta }{dr}+H\zeta =\omega ^2\zeta $$
(5)
where

$$F=\frac{e^{2\nu 2\lambda }(\gamma p)}{p+\rho }$$
(6)
$$G=\frac{e^{2\nu 2\lambda }}{p+\rho }\left[\gamma p(\lambda +3\nu )+\frac{d(\gamma p)}{dr}\frac{2}{r}(\gamma p)\right]$$
(7)
$$H=\frac{e^{2\nu 2\lambda }}{p+\rho }\left[\frac{4}{r}\frac{dp}{dr}+8\pi Ge^{2\lambda }p(p+\rho )\frac{1}{p+\rho }(\frac{dp}{dr})^2\right]$$
(8)
$`\lambda `$ is related to the metric function through

$$e^{2\lambda }=(1\frac{2GM(r)}{r})$$
(9)
and $`\gamma `$ is the adiabatic index, related to the speed of sound through

$$\gamma =\frac{p+\rho }{p}\frac{dp}{d\rho }$$
(10)
Equation(5) is solved under the boundary conditions

$$\zeta (r=0)=0\delta p(r=R)=0$$
(11)
where $`\delta p(r)`$ is given by

$$\delta p(r)=\frac{dp}{dr}\frac{e^\nu \zeta }{r^2}\frac{\gamma pe^\nu }{r^2}\frac{d\zeta }{dr}$$
(12)
Equation (5) with the boundary condition (11) represent a Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problem for $`\omega ^2`$ with the well known result that the frequency spectrum is descrete. For $`\omega ^2>0`$, $`\omega `$ is real and the solution is purely oscillatory whereas for $`\omega ^2<0`$, $`\omega `$ is imaginery resulting in exponentially growing unstable radial oscillations. Another important consequence is that if the fundamental radial mode $`\omega _0`$ is stable, so are the rest of the radial modes. For neutron stars $`\omega _0`$ becomes imaginery at central densities $`\rho _c>\rho _c^{critical}`$ for which the star attains it’s maximum mass. For $`\rho _c=\rho _c^{critical}`$, the fundamental frequency $`\omega _0`$ vanishes and becomes unstable for higher densities and the star is no longer stable. There also exists another unstable point at the lower end of the central density, namely there exists a minimum mass for a stable neutron star and the frequency of the fundamental mode at the minimum mass again goes to zero.

## 3 Results

The only information required to obtain the structure of the star and eigenvalues of radial oscillation modes is the knowledge of the EOS. For a given EOS, equations (2)-(5) are solved numerically by standard techniques under the boundary conditions (11). While numerically integrating the equations for each EOS we make sure that the eigenfrequency of the fundamental mode goes to zero at the maximum mass of the star. We have also checked that the frequency also vanishes at the minimum stable mass too. For the EOS, as discussed in the introduction, we use two relativistic mean field theoretic models taken from Glendenning (Glendenning 1997) and two potential models incorporating relativistic corrections and three body interactions given by Akaml, Pandharipande and Ravenhall (Akaml 1998). Both class of models admit of mixed quark-nucleon phase in the core and correspond to matter as below :

RFT1H : pure confined hadronic phase for $`nB<0.26fm^3`$, mixed confined phase at intermediate densities and pure quark-matter at $`nB>1.17fm^3`$. Nuclear properties correspond to $`K=240`$ MeV and $`\frac{m^{}}{m}=0.78`$.

RFT2H : confined hadronic phase for $`nB<0.26fm^3`$, deconfined phase for $`nB>1.0fm^3`$, mixed phase inbetween. $`K=300`$ MeV and $`\frac{m^{}}{m}=0.78`$.

The models RFT1 and RFT2 correspond to pure hadronic phase occuring in the core of neutron stars without the existence of any quark phase.

PMT1H : Incorporating Argonne A18 potential along with three body interaction (A18+UIX model of Akaml et al. 1998) corresponds to pure confined hadronic phase for $`nB<0.1fm^3`$, mixed phase at intermediate densities and pure phase for $`nB>0.49fm^3`$.

PMT2H : Incorporating relativistic boost correction $`\delta v`$ along with three body interaction $`UIX^{}`$ with Argonne A18 potential model corresponds to pure confined hadronic phase for $`nB<0.1fm^3`$, and pure phase for $`nB>0.74fm^3`$.

The models PMT1 and PMT2 refer to the above two models with pure confined hadronic phase.

The quark matter in the above EOS models is described by the Bag Model with $`m_u=m_d=0`$, $`m_s=150`$ MeV, the Bag constant $`B^{\frac{1}{4}}=180`$ MeV and $`\alpha _s=0`$.

To illustrate the effect of mixed phase on neutron star parameters, namely mass-radius relationship and on the frequency of radial oscillations, we have taken one model each from the above two categories considered. since the mass fraction contained in the crust of the star is a small fraction of the total star mass ($`<2\%`$), we have used the earlier results (Baym 1971; Lorenz 1993; Pethick 1995) of the EOS for matter densities $`0.1fm^3`$. In fig 1 we have plotted the M-R curves and find that the effect of the existence of mixed quark-nuclear matter phase in the core of neutron stars is to reduce the maximum mass. The effect is more pronounced for the relativistic mean field theory model than for the potential model. Whereas for the RFT models also radius corresponding to maximum mass decreases, for the potential models it increases instead. For smaller mass the two curves RFT2 and RFT2H (PMT2 and PMT2H) come very close to each other; this is to be expected since these points correspond to low central densities by which time the effect of deconfinement becomes negligible. In fig2 we have plotted the frequency of the fundamental mode and the next mode as a function of central density for the pure neutron and hybrid stars in the two categories and find that the frequency exhibits oscillatory behaviour in the case of a neutron star with a mixed quark-nuclear matter core. In tables (1a)-(4b), we provide the numerical results for the star parameters and radial mode frequencies of the models discussed in the text. In each table we list the central density $`\rho _c`$, radius R, mass M, red shift $`Z=(1\frac{2GM}{R})^{\frac{1}{2}}1`$ of the stellar model and the frequencies of the first two radial models. The model above the stability limit is marked by a star.

## 4 Acknowledgements

We thank J. V. Narlikar for providing hospitality at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. One of us A. G. thanks University Grants Commission, India for partial financial support.

TABLE 1a: RFT1
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`nu_1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$)  (KHz) (KHz)    30.04 10.63 1.546 0.33 0.96 6.22\*  25.35 10.95 1.550 0.31 0.45 6.32  15.22 12.09 1.496 0.257 1.52 6.26  10.65 12.78 1.394 0.22 1.89 6.16  8.79 13.07 1.314 0.19 2.09 6.14  7.00 13.35 1.187 0.17 2.38 6.05  5.83 13.48 1.072 0.14 2.65 6.26  4.70 13.58 0.868 0.11 2.81 5.67  3.61 13.70 0.608 0.07 2.89 4.01  3.07 13.86 0.471 0.05 3.04 3.18

TABLE 1b: RFT1H
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$  (KHz) (KHz)    31.68 10.20 1.45 0.31 0.89 6.30\*  28.58 10.42 1.45 0.30 0.29 6.12  18.50 11.18 1.41 0.26 1.84 6.31  15.26 11.56 1.36 0.24 2.04 12.60  11.68 12.18 1.24 0.20 2.02 6.65  8.97 12.85 1.10 0.16 1.80 6.26  6.69 13.38 0.98 0.13 1.90 5.64  4.58 13.58 0.84 0.11 2.84 5.49  4.15 13.62 0.74 0.09 2.81 4.86  3.61 13.69 0.61 0.07 2.89 4.01

TABLE 2a: RFT2
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  gm/cc (Km) ($`M_{}`$)  (KHz) (KHz)    30.82 10.88 1.645 0.346 1.38 5.976\*  25.12 11.28 1.659 0.332 0.77 6.072\*  23.50 11.42 1.661 0.326 0.50 6.076\*  22.10 11.57 1.662 0.320 0.32 6.084  12.07 12.86 1.577 0.253 1.61 5.953  8.86 13.35 1.458 0.216 2.01 5.909  7.04 13.64 1.319 0.184 2.28 5.741  5.84 13.77 1.186 0.159 2.56 5.835  4.70 13.85 0.956 0.121 2.66 5.668  4.15 13.89 0.807 0.099 2.64 5.066  3.62 13.97 0.651 0.077 2.60 4.143  3.07 14.17 0.495 0.057 2.51 3.146  2.55 14.81 0.344 0.036 2.05 2.394

TABLE 2b: RFT2H

| $`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ | R | M | Z | $`\nu _0`$ | $`\nu _1`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| (gm/cc) | (Km) | ($`M_{}`$) |  | (KHz) | (KHz) |
| 32.07 | 10.31 | 1.430 | 0.303 | 0.776 | 6.27\* |
| 27.40 | 10.68 | 1.434 | 0.289 | 0.213 | 6.13 |
| 20.88 | 11.40 | 1.425 | 0.261 | 0.851 | 5.57 |
| 17.39 | 11.68 | 1.409 | 0.248 | 1.426 | 5.83 |
| 13.27 | 12.20 | 1.346 | 0.219 | 1.723 | 6.16 |
| 10.92 | 12.66 | 1.268 | 0.193 | 1.721 | 6.14 |
| 8.60 | 13.22 | 1.160 | 0.163 | 1.641 | 5.72 |
| 6.48 | 13.68 | 1.041 | 0.136 | 1.795 | 5.09 |
| 5.26 | 13.83 | 0.958 | 0.122 | 2.262 | 5.00 |
| 4.10 | 13.89 | 0.807 | 0.099 | 2.643 | 5.07 |
| 3.62 | 13.97 | 0.651 | 0.077 | 2.603 | 4.14 |
| 3.07 | 14.17 | 0.495 | 0.056 | 2.515 | 3.15 |
| 2.55 | 14.81 | 0.344 | 0.036 | 2.054 | 2.40 |

TABLE 3a: PMT1
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$)  (KHz) (KHz)    26.47 10.56 2.36 0.72 1.27 7.71\*  24.33 10.70 2.37 0.70 0.60 7.86  20.45 11.02 2.35 0.65 1.53 8.14  17.05 11.36 2.30 0.58 2.31 8.38  14.08 11.69 2.19 0.48 2.92 8.53  11.47 11.98 1.96 0.39 3.40 8.51  16.34 12.17 1.61 0.28 3.70 8.21  9.17 12.20 1.38 0.23 3.73 7.91  8.11 12.21 1.13 0.17 3.67 7.39  7.10 12.23 0.87 0.13 3.50 6.52  5.21 12.35 0.65 0.09 3.29 5.26  4.31 12.80 0.45 0.06 2.82 3.48  3.42 13.41 0.35 0.04 2.41 2.65

TABLE 3b: PMT1H
$`rho_c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$)  (KHz) (KHz)    31.40 11.33 1.96 0.43 1.96 5.33\*  20.59 11.49 1.97 0.43 0.46 6.67  13.31 11.89 1.89 0.38 2.51 7.61  11.29 12.05 1.80 0.34 3.05 7.70  9.07 12.15 1.65 0.29 3.54 7.95  8.95 12.18 1.56 0.27 3.71 8.17  7.41 12.21 1.33 0.22 3.73 7.81  7.30 12.22 1.18 0.18 3.49 7.10  6.33 12.23 0.92 0.13 3.54 6.73  5.95 12.26 0.82 0.12 3.46 6.31  5.39 12.32 0.70 0.10 3.36 5.61

TABLE 4a: PMT2
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$  (KHz) (KHz)    27.10 10.03 2.188 0.68 0.64 8.49  17.49 10.82 2.066 0.52 2.90 8.98  13.47 11.22 1.831 0.39 3.55 8.93  12.28 11.34 1.711 0.35 3.71 8.81  11.14 11.43 1.569 0.30 3.82 8.64  10.05 11.51 1.403 0.25 3.88 8.38  9.01 11.57 1.220 0.21 3.88 8.01  8.01 11.63 1.025 0.16 3.79 7.51  5.19 12.17 0.520 0.07 3.11 4.40  3.42 14.20 0.269 0.03 1.80 2.22

TABLE 4b: PMT2H
$`\rho _c`$$`\times `$$`10^{14}`$ R M Z $`\nu _0`$ $`\nu _1`$  (gm/cc) (Km) ($`M_{}`$)  (KHz) (KHz)    28.56 10.56 1.908 0.47 1.31 6.76\*  24.64 10.65 1.911 0.46 0.50 7.25  20.04 10.83 1.898 0.44 1.86 7.83  17.13 11.00 1.861 0.42 2.48 8.15  14.97 11.16 1.801 0.38 2.93 8.30  13.24 11.29 1.716 0.35 3.30 8.34  11.78 11.40 1.606 0.31 3.62 8.37  11.12 11.45 1.542 0.29 3.76 8.43  10.49 11.49 1.471 0.27 3.86 8.48  9.42 11.55 1.295 0.22 3.89 8.18  8.40 11.62 1.104 0.18 3.84 7.74  7.42 11.70 0.908 0.14 3.70 7.10  6.48 11.84 0.721 0.10 3.48 6.14  5.56 12.04 0.589 0.08 3.25 5.05  4.65 12.57 0.426 0.05 2.84 3.48  3.77 13.68 0.305 0.35 2.14 2.45


text:
# Tomographic Separation of Composite Spectra. X. The Massive Close Binary HD 101131

## 1 Introduction

The hot star HD 101131 (HIP 56726, LS 2420) is found in the heart of the young open cluster IC 2944. This cluster contains a population of some dozen relatively unevolved O-type stars (Walborn, 1987; Mermilliod, 1995) 111See also http://obswww.unige.ch/webda, a Web site devoted to stellar open clusters created by J.-C. Mermilliod. that form the ionizing source of the surrounding H II region, Gum 42 (Georgelin et al., 2000). The two brightest members of the cluster are HD 101131 (O6 V ((f)); Walborn (1973)) and its nearby companion, HD 101205 (O7 IIIn ((f)); Walborn (1973)). HD 101131 appears single in speckle interferometric observations (Mason et al., 1998), but the spectroscopic evidence to date suggests that it is a close, unresolved binary. Feast et al. (1955) were the first to suspect its spectroscopic binary nature, and they observed double-lines on several occasions. Thackeray & Wesselink (1965) reported on new radial velocity measurements and plans to determine the orbit, but, unfortunately, subsequent results were never published. The system has been relatively neglected since, save for a single radial velocity measurement by Conti et al. (1977) and one double-lined observation made with the International Ultraviolet Explorer Satellite (IUE) (Penny, 1996; Howarth et al., 1997; Stickland & Lloyd, 2001).

We have explored the properties of a number of massive binaries in this series of papers using UV spectra available in the IUE archive. However, in a recent paper (Penny et al., 2002), we applied many of the same techniques to new optical spectra obtained from the CASLEO and Mount Stromlo Observatories in 1997 and 1998, respectively. HD 101131 was also a target during these runs, and here we present the first orbit for this massive binary. We discuss the observations and radial velocity measurements for this double-lined system in §2. We then apply a version of the Doppler tomography algorithm to reconstruct the individual spectra of both components, from which we determine their spectral classifications, projected rotational velocities, and flux ratio (§3). Finally, we discuss the probable masses and evolutionary state of the binary in §4.

## 2 Observations and Radial Velocities

Our spectra were obtained mainly in two observing runs at different sites (see Penny et al. (2002) for details). The first set was obtained with the 2.15-m telescope of the Complejo Astronomico El Leoncito (CASLEO) and REOSC echelle spectrograph during the period 1997 March 19 – 28. The detector was a TEK $`1024\times 1024`$ CCD with 24$`\mu `$m square pixels. We extracted 23 orders from these echellograms, and the resulting spectra span the range from 3575 to 5700 Å with a spectral resolving power of $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =`$ 13,000 (with a signal-to-noise ratio of $`150`$ per pixel in the better exposed portions of the spectrum).

Our second observing run took place at the 74-inch telescope at Mount Stromlo Observatory over the period 1998 April 6 – 14. These spectra were made with the coude spectrograph and a SITe CCD detector (D14) with 15 $`\mu `$m square pixels in a $`4096\times 2048`$ format. The resulting single order spectra cover the range 3804 – 4220 Å with a reciprocal dispersion of 0.10 Å per pixel and a resolution element of 0.30 Å FWHM ($`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =13400`$ at 4012 Å). The MSO spectra have a typical S/N equal to 160 pixel-1 in the continuum.

The spectra were reduced using standard routines in IRAF222IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.. The extracted orders of the CASLEO echellograms were rectified to a unit continuum by fitting a high order spline function to line-free regions. Small amplitude irregularities related to this fitting of the echelle blaze function were evident in the continuum, and the same pattern was seen in all spectra made on a given night. We were able to remove most of the pattern by dividing the target spectrum by a correction spectrum formed from spectra of B-star, $`\tau `$ Sco, which was also observed each night. The correction spectrum was a smoothed version of the particular night’s $`\tau `$ Sco spectrum divided by a global average representation of this star’s stellar spectrum. The spectra from each run were collected and transformed onto their respective heliocentric wavelength grids.

A visual inspection of the spectra immediately showed evidence of cyclic variation in profile shape over a period of approximately 10 days. However, the binary components were only cleanly separated in the He I $`\lambda \lambda 4026,4471`$ profiles of spectra obtained near the orbital quadrature phases. Thus, we decided to measure these generally blended features using a scheme of fitting single-star template spectral lines to our observed composite spectra (Penny et al., 2002).

We used the star HD 57682 (O9 IV; Walborn (1972)), which was observed in both runs, as the template for the fainter secondary, but, unfortunately, we observed no hot star in common between the CASLEO and MSO runs that could be used as a template for the primary. We selected HD 93160 (O6 III(f); Walborn (1972)) as the primary star template for the CASLEO spectra, and we used HD 164492 (O7 III((f)); Walborn (1972)) as the template for the MSO spectra. All of the template spectra stars appeared to be constant-velocity objects in our observations. The individual spectra for each template were averaged together to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), shifted to the rest frame, and any obvious interstellar lines were excised. The radial velocities of the template stars were measured by parabolic fitting of lines taken from the list of Bolton & Rogers (1978), and we found average radial velocities of $`+25.0\pm 0.5`$ and $`+26.0\pm 1.1`$ km s-1 from the CASLEO and MSO spectra, respectively, for HD 57682; $`1.0\pm 2.3`$ km s-1 for HD 93160 (CASLEO); and $`+5.3\pm 0.9`$ km s-1 for HD 164492 (MSO).

Next, we artificially broadened each template spectrum by convolution with a rotational broadening function to produce profiles that matched the spectral components of HD 101131 in the best-separated quadrature spectra. We also used these resolved profiles to estimate the line-depth ratio between the components. Once these fitting parameters were set, we determined the radial velocities of each component for a given line by a least-squares fit of the observed profile with the co-addition of the two template profiles shifted in wavelength to obtain the best match. We used this technique to measure radial velocities for the strongest lines in the CASLEO spectra, specifically H I $`\lambda \lambda 3797`$, 3835, 3889, 3970, 4101, 4340, 4861; He I $`\lambda \lambda 4026`$, 4471, 4713, 5015; He II $`\lambda \lambda 4199`$, 4541, 5411; and O III $`\lambda 5592`$. A subset of these (plus the C III $`\lambda 4070`$ blend) was measured in the smaller wavelength range of the MSO spectra.

There was no evidence of systematic line-to-line differences in the radial velocity measurements, and so no line-specific corrections were applied. The radial velocities from all the available lines were averaged together after deletion of any very discrepant measurements. Finally, we made small adjustments to these averages based on measurements of the strong interstellar Ca II $`\lambda \lambda 3933,3968`$ lines. An interstellar spectrum was formed by extracting the mean spectrum in the immediate vicinity of each interstellar absorption line. (We made Gaussian fits of the interstellar Ca II profiles in the average spectra, and we found the radial velocity was $`6.4\pm 0.2`$ and $`4.9\pm 0.3`$ km s-1 for the CASLEO and MSO spectra, respectively.) We then cross correlated this spectrum with each individual spectrum to measure any small deviations in our wavelength calibration (generally $`<2`$ km s-1), and these small corrections were applied to the mean velocities. Table 1 lists the heliocentric dates of mid-observation, orbital phase, and, for each component, the mean radial velocity, the standard deviation of the mean, the observed minus calculated ($`OC`$) residual from the orbital fit, and the number of lines used in the mean.

We also obtained 8 high resolution CCD spectra between 1992 and 1994 using the European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1.52-m telescope, equipped with the ECHELEC echelle spectrograph, and the ESO 1.4-m coudé auxiliary telescope feeding the coudé echelle spectrograph of the ESO 3.6-m telescope (Lorenz et al., 1999). Radial velocities measured from these spectra are listed in Table 1 along with data from Feast et al. (1955), Conti et al. (1977), and Stickland & Lloyd (2001). After publishing the radial velocities of HD 101131 in 1955, the Radcliffe Observatory staff obtained more spectra. These were made available to one of us (PM); due to the low dispersion of these plates and the wide spectral lines, only the primary component (or the blended feature) was visible. We measured radial velocities by matching the line profile with its wavelength reversed version (Lorenz et al., 1999). Usually only H$`\gamma `$ and H$`\delta `$ were measurable, but in some cases results for several He I lines were included in forming the mean radial velocity (listed in Table 1).

We made a preliminary period search using a version of the discrete Fourier transform and CLEAN deconvolution algorithm of Roberts et al. (1987) (written in IDL333IDL is a registered trademark of Research Systems, Inc. by A. W. Fullerton), and the position of the strongest peak in the CLEANed power spectrum for the primary velocities was used as the starting value for a general solution of the orbital elements using the nonlinear, least-squares fitting program of Morbey & Brosterhus (1974). We found that the scatter in the pre-1995 measurements was significantly larger than in CASLEO and MSO results and that these early data were often affected by pair blending with the secondary’s lines, so we made a final fit by assigning a lower weight (0.10) to the earlier data. The secondary radial velocity measurements have larger associated errors, so we fitted these for the systemic velocity, $`V_0`$, and semi-amplitude, $`K`$, only with the other elements set by the solution for the primary. The solutions are listed in Table 2, and the combined radial velocity curve is illustrated in Figure 1.

We find residuals from the fit that are approximately $`18\%`$ of the projected rotational velocities (§3), which is not unexpected given the severe line blending in most of the spectra. The system apparently has a significant eccentricity, but this is not unusual for binaries with similar periods (Mason et al., 1998). The systemic velocities of the two components are approximately $`3\sigma `$ apart. The primary’s systemic velocity is more negative than the secondary’s value, which is what we would expect due to line formation in the greater outflow from photosphere to wind in the more luminous primary. Thackeray & Wesselink (1965) find a mean radial velocity of $`+1.1`$ km s-1 for the bright, hot stars in IC 2944, a value which sits comfortably between our results for the systemic velocities and which is probably close to the physical systemic velocity of the binary.

## 3 Tomographic Reconstruction

We used the Doppler tomography algorithm described by Bagnuolo et al. (1994) to reconstruct the individual primary and secondary spectra independently from the CASLEO and MSO spectra. We took the radial velocity shifts for each component from the orbital solutions in Table 2, then the reconstruction was run for 50 iterations with a gain of 0.8 (the results are insensitive to both parameters). The reconstructed spectra are plotted in in Figure 2 in a format similar to that used in the spectral atlas of Walborn & Fitzpatrick (1990). The reconstructions from the MSO spectra are shown just above those from the CASLEO spectra (in the short wavelength portion of Fig. 2), and there is good agreement between these two sets of spectra.

We compared the reconstructed spectra with the spectrum standards in the atlas of Walborn & Fitzpatrick (1990) to determine the spectral classifications of the components. The strengths of the He I $`\lambda \lambda 4026,4471`$ lines relative to those of He II $`\lambda \lambda 4200,4541`$ are all consistent with a spectral type of O6.5 for the primary. In particular, the weak but convincing presence of He I $`\lambda 4387`$ is more consistent with the O6.5 type than the O6 V((f)) type given for the composite spectrum by Walborn (1973). The small ratio of Si IV $`\lambda 4088`$ to He I $`\lambda 4026`$ indicates a main sequence class, as does the near equality of He II $`\lambda 4686`$ and He II $`\lambda 4541`$. Thus, we classify the primary as type O6.5 V((f)), where the suffix indicates the presence of weak emission in N III $`\lambda \lambda 463446404642`$. We compare its spectrum in Figure 2 to that of HD 93146, which is given as the standard of this class in Walborn & Fitzpatrick (1990).

The secondary, on the other hand, has features indicating a cooler temperature and later type. All the He I transitions appear stronger in the secondary’s spectrum, and the defining ratios of He II $`\lambda 4541`$/He I $`\lambda 4387`$ and He II $`\lambda 4200`$/He I $`\lambda 4144`$ are most consistent with a type of O8.5. The relative strength of the Si IV $`\lambda \lambda 4088,4116`$ lines compared to the neighboring He I $`\lambda \lambda 4121,4144`$ features indicates a luminosity class V, as does the robust strength of He II $`\lambda 4686`$. Figure 2 illustrates the good agreement between the spectrum of the secondary and that of HD 46149, which Walborn & Fitzpatrick (1990) use as a standard for type O8.5 V.

The two spectral standards, HD 93146 and HD 46149, provided us with the means to estimate the visual flux ratio, $`r=F_2/F_1`$, by matching the line depths in the reconstructed spectra with those in the standards. This was done by aligning the reconstructed and standard spectra, adjusting for differences in the placement of the continuum, Gaussian smoothing of the spectra to eliminate differences in projected rotational velocity and instrumental broadening, and then finding a best-fitted line ratio that allocates a proportion of flux to each component to best match the line depths. We found $`r=0.52\pm 0.12`$ and $`0.56\pm 0.12`$ for the MSO and CASLEO reconstructions, respectively, and we adopted the mean result, $`r=0.54\pm 0.08`$, for the depictions of the reconstructed spectra in Figure 2.

Finally, we used the reconstructed spectra to estimate the projected rotational velocities of the components. Our procedure involved calculating a grid of rotational broadening functions for a linear limb darkening law (Wade & Rucinski, 1985; Gray, 1992) and then convolving an observed narrow-lined spectrum with these broadening functions. We focused on the Si IV $`\lambda 4088`$ profile for the primary’s spectrum since it represents the strongest metallic line (intrinsically narrow) in the range covered by the MSO spectra. We compared the spectral reconstructions from the CASLEO and MSO spectra with broadened versions of the spectrum of the narrow-lined star HD 164492 ($`V\mathrm{sin}i=48`$ km s-1, Penny (1996)). The best fitting profile matches with the primary’s spectrum were made with $`V\mathrm{sin}i=102\pm 10`$ km s-1. The secondary’s spectrum shows stronger He I features in the MSO range, so we fit all the profiles in the range between He I $`\lambda 4009`$ and Si IV $`\lambda 4088`$. Here we compared the secondary’s spectrum with broadened versions of the spectrum of the star HD 57682 ($`V\mathrm{sin}i=33`$ km s-1, Penny (1996)), and the best fits were made with $`V\mathrm{sin}i=164\pm 12`$ km s-1. These are comparable to the estimates from the IUE observation (Penny, 1996; Howarth et al., 1997; Stickland & Lloyd, 2001).

## 4 Discussion

The mass limits derived from the orbit, $`M\mathrm{sin}^3i`$ (Table 2), are quite large, and given the relative scarcity of data on the masses of O-type stars (Burkholder et al., 1997), it is important to compare our results with predictions based on evolutionary tracks. Since HD 101131 is a member of the cluster IC 2944, we can use the cluster distance modulus to help place the individual component stars in the H-R diagram. We estimated the stellar temperatures from the spectral classifications using the calibrated sequence given by Howarth & Prinja (1989). These temperatures and other stellar parameters are listed in Table 3. We used flux models from Kurucz (1994) to transform our observed flux ratio based upon the relative line depths in the blue part of the spectrum into a $`V`$-band flux ratio (Penny et al., 1997), $`f_2(V)/f_1(V)=0.55\pm 0.08`$, so that we could determine the $`V`$ magnitude of both components. We adopted the composite magnitude, $`V=7.16`$, and cluster distance modulus, $`mM=12.5\pm 0.2`$, from Thackeray & Wesselink (1965), which agree well with more recent estimates (Tovmassian et al., 1998). We used the bolometric corrections given by Howarth & Prinja (1989) to arrive at estimates of the individual luminosities, and these are listed in Table 3. Table 3 also includes the resulting stellar radii estimates. We calculated the sizes of the Roche volume radius (Eggleton, 1983) of both stars for the time of smallest separation (Table 3), and both are well within their critical Roche surfaces then, even after accounting for their rapid rotation (Limber, 1963). Thus, given these stellar dimensions and the youthful appearance of the IC 2944 cluster, it is safe to assume that the interacting stage in this system lies far in the future and that we can compare the stars’ evolutionary state with the predictions for single stars with the same physical parameters.

The primary and secondary components are placed in the H-R diagram in Figure 3 together with the evolutionary tracks for single stars from the models of Schaller et al. (1992). Both stars appear close to the zero-age main sequence, and an interpolation in these tracks gives ages of $`1.5\pm 0.4`$ and $`2.7\pm 0.8`$ million years for the primary and secondary, respectively. The predicted current masses from these evolutionary tracks are listed in Table 3. Note that both stars are relatively rapid rotators (with angular velocities greater than 2 and 4 times synchronous for the primary and secondary, respectively). Rapidly rotating stars may have luminosities larger than their nonrotating counterparts (Heger & Langer, 2000; Meynet & Maeder, 2000), so the predicted masses given in Table 2 may be slight overestimates.

Lower limits for the masses can be taken directly from the $`M\mathrm{sin}^3i`$ values, but we can improve these somewhat from light-curve considerations. The target was observed by the Hipparcos satellite (Perryman, 1997), and we examined the Hipparcos epoch photometry data for any evidence of eclipses based on our orbital ephemeris. There is no sign of any eclipse deeper than 0.01 mag, so we can use the lack of eclipses together with our estimates of the binary separation at superior conjunction of the primary (the closer of the two conjunctions) and the stellar radii to find an upper limit on the orbital inclination, $`i<(72\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0\pm 1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6)`$. The resulting lower limits for the stellar masses are listed in the final row of Table 3. We find that the predicted masses are somewhat larger than these lower limits, and, in fact, if the evolutionary masses are correct, then the system inclination is actually $`i=56^{}\pm 2^{}`$. A second consistency check is obtained from the implied mass ratio from the evolutionary models, $`q=M_2/M_1=0.63\pm 0.05`$, that agrees within errors with the observed mass ratio, $`q=0.56\pm 0.02`$. Thus, we find that the constraints on the system masses provided by the orbital elements and distance modulus are fully consistent with the predictions from evolutionary tracks, in agreement with the conclusions of Burkholder et al. (1997) for other unevolved close binary systems. The predicted maximum angular separation is 0.15 mas, which may be within the reach of future optical interferometers.

We thank the staffs of CASLEO and MSO for their assistance in making these observations. We also thank Alex Fullerton for sharing his period search code with us. We are grateful to Dr. T. Lloyd Evans (SAAO), who kindly arranged the plate loan, and to Mr. J. Havelka (Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences) who digitized these plates. Institutional support for L.R.P. has been provided from the College of Charleston School of Sciences and Mathematics. Additional support for L.R.P. was provided by the South Carolina NASA Space Grant Program and NSF grant AST-9528506. Institutional support for D.R.G. has been provided from the GSU College of Arts and Sciences and from the Research Program Enhancement fund of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, administered through the GSU Office of the Vice President for Research. We gratefully acknowledge all this support.


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# UASLP–IF–02–002 Resonances in Λ_𝑐⁺→𝑝𝐾⁻𝜋⁺Talk given at the VIII Mexican Workshop on Particles and Fields, November 14-20, 2001, Zacatecas, Mexico. Proceedings to be published by AIP.

## 1 Introduction and Analysis Method

In our search for resonances in the 3-body decay of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+pK^{}\pi ^+`$ we are considering in addition to the non-resonant mode the following resonant decay modes: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+\overline{K^0}p`$, $`\overline{K^0}K^{}\pi ^+`$; $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}K^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}p\pi ^+`$; and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)\pi ^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)pK^{}`$.

As a search tool for the resonances we calculate the invariant masses of pairs of daughter particles $`M_{ij}^2`$, $`M_{ik}^2`$ and fill with them into a two-dimensional histogram (Dalitz plot). A Monte-Carlo simulation of what could be expected is shown in fig. 1 (right).

The data sample used for this analysis is the same as in a previous SELEX publication lambdaclife , where more details can be found. We applied the following cuts to get a clean $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ signal: good fits for tracks and vertices; momentum $`>8.0\text{GeV}/c`$ for all tracks; proton and kaon identified in the RICH selexrich ; secondary vertex outside material; separation $`L`$ of primary and secondary vertices $`L>8\sigma `$, where $`\sigma `$ denotes the combined error of the vertices; $`\sigma <1.7\text{mm}`$; at least two tracks with a miss distance to the primary vertex of more than $`20\mu \text{m}`$; the momentum vector of the reconstructed $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ has to point back to the primary vertex. The obtained $`pK^{}\pi ^+`$ invariant mass distribution can be found in fig. 1 (left).

To eliminate the contribution of background under the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$-peak, we produce a Dalitz-plot of the sidebands shown in fig. 1, with a proper mapping of the allowed phase space. After normalizing to the correct number of events, we subtract this contribution bin-by-bin from a Dalitz plot of the signal region. We verified this procedure by comparing the plots obtained by different sideband regions on the left and right side of the signal region. In fig. 2 we show the Dalitz plots for the sideband and the signal regions.

In the background subtracted signal region one can still see some enhancement on the lower left of the phase space, also present in the sideband; we are still investigating the nature of this.

To extract the information from the Dalitz plot, we used an helicity formalism fox ; brasil . We will describe the fit functions used in the following sections.

## 2 Helicity Formalism for Two Body Decays

From Fermi’s Golden Rule the partial decay width is given by $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{(2\pi )^4}{2M}|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2d\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$, with $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2=|<BC|T|A>|^2`$, where $`A`$ and $`BC`$ denote the initial and final states. We are working in the eigenstate base $`|M,S,p^\mu ,\lambda >`$ of the operators $`M^2=P_\mu P^\mu `$, $`S=\omega _\mu \omega ^\mu `$ with $`\omega ^\sigma =\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\sigma \mu \nu \lambda }M_{\mu \nu }P_\lambda `$, and $`P^\mu ,\omega ^O=J_xP_x+J_yP_y+J_zP_z`$; $`\omega ^O`$ represents the helicity operator with eigenvalue $`\lambda `$. For simplicity we assume only $`|p^\mu ,\lambda >`$.

In the rest frame of the mother particle $`A`$ we can express the spin states as $`|j_Am_A>`$ and the final state as $`|\theta _B\varphi _B\lambda _B\lambda _C>`$, with

$$|\theta _B\varphi _B\lambda _B\lambda _C>=\underset{JM}{}\sqrt{\frac{2J+1}{4\pi }}D_{M\lambda _1}^J(\varphi _B,\theta _B,\varphi _B)|JM\lambda _B\lambda _C>.$$

Applying angular momentum conservation, we can write the transition amplitude as

$$<BC|T|A>=\sqrt{\frac{2j_A+1}{4\pi }}D_{m_A\lambda _1}^{j_A}(\varphi _B,\theta _B,\varphi _B)<\lambda _B\lambda _C|T|j_Am_A>$$

With $`D_{m\lambda }^j(\varphi ,\theta ,\varphi )=e^{i\varphi (m\lambda )}d_{m\lambda }^j(\theta )`$, $`\lambda _1=\lambda _B\lambda _C`$ ($`|\lambda _1|m_A`$), and summing over all spin and helicity projections and we obtain

$$d\mathrm{\Gamma }\underset{m_A}{}\underset{\lambda _B\lambda _C}{}|\alpha _{\lambda _B\lambda _C}e^{i\varphi _B(m_A\lambda _1)}d_{m_A\lambda _1}^{j_A}(\theta _B)|^2$$

## 3 Helicity Formalism for Three Body Resonant Decays

The decay width in this case is given by $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }|<DE|T_2|B><BC|T_1|A>|^2`$. In the rest frame of the resonance $`B`$, with the $`z`$-axes pointing into the direction of motion of the resonance $`B`$ in the rest system of the mother particle $`A`$, we can write

$$<DE|T_2|B>=\sqrt{\frac{2j_B+1}{4\pi }}e^{i\varphi _D^{^{}}(\lambda _B\lambda _2)}d_{\lambda _B\lambda _2}^{j_B}(\theta _D^{^{}})<\lambda _D\lambda _E|T_2|B>.$$

Summing over all resonances we obtain

$$d\mathrm{\Gamma }\underset{m_A}{}\underset{\lambda _C\lambda _D\lambda _E}{}|\underset{\lambda _B}{}\underset{B}{}BW(m_r)\alpha _{\lambda _B\lambda _C}\alpha _{\lambda _D\lambda _E}e^{i\varphi _B(m_A\lambda _1)}e^{i\varphi _D^{^{}}(\lambda _B\lambda _2)}d_{m_A\lambda _1}^{j_A}(\theta _B)d_{\lambda _B\lambda _2}^{j_B}(\theta _D^{^{}})|^2$$
(1)
where we also consider the finite width of the resonance with a Breit-Wigner distribution $`BW(m_r)\frac{m_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_r}{m_r^2m_0^2+im_r\mathrm{\Gamma }_r}`$. In the parity conserving decay of the resonance we can write $`\alpha _{\lambda _D\lambda _E}=(1)^{S_D+S_ES_B}\eta _B\eta _D\eta _E\alpha _{\lambda _D\lambda _E}`$.

In this formalism we can naturally introduce an initial polarization of the mother particle $`P_A`$, given by $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{1}{2}(1+P_A)_{\lambda _C\lambda _D\lambda _E}|_{\lambda _B}_BBW(m_B)\xi _{B,\frac{1}{2},\lambda _B,\lambda _C,\lambda _D,\lambda _E}|^2`$
$`+\frac{1}{2}(1P_A)_{\lambda _C\lambda _D\lambda _E}|_{\lambda _B}_BBW(m_B)\xi _{B,\frac{1}{2},\lambda _B,\lambda _C,\lambda _D,\lambda _E}|^2`$.

Integrating the contribution of a resonance over the phase space gives

$$F_r=\frac{_{m_A,\lambda _B}|BW(m_r)\xi _{r,m_A,\lambda _B}|^2d\stackrel{}{x}}{_{m_A,\lambda _B}|_BBW(m_B)\xi _{B,m_A,\lambda _B}|^2d\stackrel{}{x}}$$
(2)
from where, after applying weight factors for isospin conservation, we can extract the branching ratio for the resonance.

## 4 Preliminary Results

We performed an unbinned maximum likelihood fit with the functions described in the previous section, with 23 free parameters in the fit. The preliminary results are shown in the following tables. Only statistical errors are shown.

|  | Parameter | Amplitude | Phase |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | $`N_1`$ | 1. fixed | 0. fixed |
| nonres. | $`N_2`$ | $`320\pm 82`$ | $`.2\pm 1.9`$ |
|  | $`N_3`$ | $`26\pm 56`$ | $`4.7\pm 1.9`$ |
|  | $`N_4`$ | $`200\pm 135`$ | $`3.2\pm 0.2`$ |
| $`\overline{K}^0`$ | $`A_1`$ | $`495\pm 143`$ | $`5.6\pm 0.2`$ |
|  | $`A_2`$ | $`70\pm 91`$ | $`3.9\pm 10^3`$ |
| $`\overline{K}^0`$ | $`A_3`$ | $`362\pm 91`$ | $`3.3\pm 0.1`$ |
|  | $`A_4`$ | $`95\pm 69`$ | $`2.9\pm 481`$ |
|  | $`B_1`$ | $`11\pm 23`$ | $`3.3\pm 10^4`$ |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ | $`B_2`$ | $`196\pm 87`$ | $`3.5\pm .9`$ |
|  | $`C_1`$ | $`115\pm 142`$ | $`2.6\pm 18`$ |
| $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)`$ | $`C_2`$ | $`644\pm 144`$ | $`0.8\pm .2`$ |

| Polarization | $`P_A=0.1\pm 0.4`$ |
| --- | --- |
| Branching Ratio | |
| nonres. | $`0.73\pm 0.29`$ |
| $`\overline{K}^0`$ | $`0.14\pm 0.17`$ |
| $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ | $`0.09\pm 0.14`$ |
| $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)`$ | $`0.04\pm 0.09`$ |

The two most significant features in the Dalitz plot are not properly taken into account in this analysis method. The fit function does not include a resonance describing the feature seen in the lower left of the phase space, leading to an over-estimate of the non-resonant contribution, and the central region with a small number of entries is not taken into account in an unbinned fit. At this moment, we are finalizing the analysis procedure, by optimizing the cuts used for extracting the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$ signal, a study if additional resonances have to be included, and on a binned fit to included the information about the center region. Also some systematic studies are under way to quantify the significance of the results. This work was supported by CONACyT Mexico under Grant 28435-E.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of the primary quests of present and future colliders is the search for the Higgs boson. Precision electroweak data indicate that the mass of the Higgs boson lies in the range 114 GeV $`<m_h<`$ 200 GeV . Such a Higgs boson may be discovered in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron , and it cannot escape the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) .

Once a Higgs boson is discovered, it will be important to measure its couplings to other particles to establish whether these couplings are those of a standard-model Higgs boson, or those of a Higgs boson from an extended Higgs sector, such as a two-Higgs-doublet model. For example, the minimal supersymmetric standard model requires the presence of two Higgs doublets to cancel gauge anomalies and to generate masses for both up- and down-type quarks . There are many other models that employ an extended Higgs sector as well. The coupling of the Higgs boson to other particles will be measured by studying the various production processes and decay modes of the Higgs boson .

In this paper we study the feasibility of measuring the Yukawa coupling of the Higgs boson to the top quark via the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair ($`t\overline{t}h`$) , followed by the decay $`hW^+W^{}`$ ,111For $`m_h2M_W`$, one or both of the $`W`$ bosons is virtual. as shown in Fig. 1. This decay mode has a branching ratio in excess of $`10\%`$ for $`m_h>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}120}`$ GeV, and is the dominant decay mode of the Higgs boson for $`m_h>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}135}`$ GeV . We study this process at the LHC ($`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV) with both low-luminosity and high-luminosity running. We also consider a $`\sqrt{s}=`$ 100 TeV Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC) in order to judge the merits of increased energy. We omit a study at the Tevatron since, even with 30 fb-1 of integrated luminosity, the number of signal events is less than unity once branching ratios are included.

Let us compare the measurement of the top-quark Yukawa coupling via $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$ with other methods for measuring this Yukawa coupling. A less direct way to measure the top-quark Yukawa coupling at a hadron collider is to produce the Higgs boson via gluon fusion . In the standard model this process is dominated by a top-quark loop, but if there are other heavy colored particles that couple to the Higgs boson (such as squarks), they too contribute to the amplitude, complicating the extraction of the top-quark Yukawa coupling. The process $`ggh`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$, will be accessible at the LHC , and perhaps also at the Tevatron , for some range of Higgs-boson masses. The ratio of $`ggh`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$ and $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$ is a good probe of additional contributions to the $`ggh`$ amplitude beyond that of the top quark, as $`BR(hW^+W^{})`$ and many systematic uncertainties cancel.

An $`e^+e^{}`$ linear collider of sufficient energy and luminosity could also measure the top-quark Yukawa coupling via $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$. A machine of energy somewhat greater than $`m_h+2m_t`$ would be required in order to overcome the phase space suppression near threshold. In particular, a $`\sqrt{s}=500`$ GeV machine would not be adequate for Higgs-boson masses above 130 GeV. We are not aware of any studies of this process at a linear collider.

For a Higgs boson of mass $`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}135}`$ GeV, the dominant decay mode is $`hb\overline{b}`$. Such is the case for the lightest Higgs boson of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, which has a mass less than about 130 GeV . The measurement of the top-quark Yukawa coupling via $`t\overline{t}h`$ in this decay mode at the LHC has been studied elsewhere .222This process might also be accessible at the Tevatron , but only a crude measurement of the Yukawa coupling could be made. The ratio of $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hb\overline{b}`$ and $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$ is a good measure of the ratio of the Yukawa coupling of the $`b`$ quark and the coupling of the Higgs boson to $`W`$ bosons, as $`\sigma (t\overline{t}h)`$ and many systematic uncertainties cancel.

In Section 2 we discuss the signal for $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$, as well as the backgrounds. We consider final states with two, three, and four leptons. In Section 3 we discuss the details of the calculations. In Section 4 we present the numerical results for the number of signal and background events and discuss uncertainties. We draw conclusions in Section 5.

## 2 Signal and backgrounds

We assume that the Higgs boson has been discovered and its branching ratio into $`W^+W^{}`$ is known (or is assumed to have the standard-model value). The extraction of the top-quark Yukawa coupling then requires a measurement of the cross section for $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$. The total cross section is given in Table 1 for a variety of Higgs-boson masses.

After the top quarks decay, the final state is $`W^+W^{}W^+W^{}b\overline{b}`$. This can be divided into different cases, depending on how many $`W`$ bosons decay leptonically. To reduce backgrounds that do not contain top quarks, we require that both $`b`$ jets are tagged, with an efficiency $`ϵ_b=`$ 60% (50% at high luminosity).333Since we require two $`b`$ tags, any improvement in the $`b`$-tagging efficiency would be magnified. We also include a lepton identification and reconstruction efficiency $`ϵ_{\mathrm{}}=`$ 85%. We do not require that either of the top quarks are reconstructed, since the principal backgrounds also contain top quarks. For a similar reason, we do not require any missing transverse momentum. We also do not require that the Higgs boson be reconstructed, which would be difficult due to the loss of neutrinos from leptonic $`W`$ decays. A trigger lepton of $`p^T>`$ 20 GeV (30 GeV at high luminosity) is required. The cuts made to simulate the acceptance and resolution of the detector are given in Table 2.

We consider three different cases for the final state, depending on whether there are two, three, or four leptonic decays of the $`W`$ bosons in the signal $`W^+W^{}W^+W^{}b\overline{b}`$. Each case is discussed separately below.

### 2.1 $`\mathrm{}^\pm \mathrm{}^\pm `$

First consider the case where two $`W`$ bosons decay leptonically. The signal consists of $`2\mathrm{}+2b+4j`$. To eliminate the background $`t\overline{t}+4j`$, we require that the leptons have the same sign. The backgrounds are:

* $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$, where the $`W`$ decays leptonically and the top quark of the same sign decays semileptonically. We require that the di-jet invariant mass lie within 25 GeV of the $`W`$ mass. This captures most of the signal events.
* $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}jj`$, where one lepton is missed, and the top quark of the same sign as the detected lepton decays semileptonically. A lepton is considered missed if it has $`p^T<10`$ GeV or $`|\eta |>2.5`$.444If the missed lepton has 1 GeV $`<p^T<10`$ GeV and is within a cone of $`\mathrm{\Delta }R<0.2`$ from a detected lepton, then the detected lepton does not pass the isolation criteria and the event is rejected.
* $`t\overline{t}W^+W^{}`$, where one $`W`$ decays leptonically and a top quark of the same sign decays semileptonically.
* $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$, where the leptons come from the semileptonic decay of same-sign top quarks. We demand that two and only two jets are $`b`$ tagged. We accept events with four or more non-$`b`$-tagged jets.

### 2.2 $`3\mathrm{}`$

Next consider the case where three $`W`$ bosons decay leptonically. The signal is $`3\mathrm{}+2b+2j`$. Similar backgrounds are present as in the two-lepton case:

* $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$, where the $`W`$ and both top quarks decay semileptonically. We require that the di-jet invariant mass lie within 25 GeV of the $`W`$ mass.
* $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, where both leptons are detected and one of the top quarks decays semileptonically. We suppress this background by requiring that there are no same-flavor, opposite-sign dileptons within 10 GeV of the $`Z`$ mass.
* $`t\overline{t}W^+W^{}`$, where both $`W`$’s decay leptonically and one top quark decays semileptonically, or both top quarks decay semileptonically and one $`W`$ decays leptonically.
* $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$, where three of the top quarks decay semileptonically. We demand that two and only two jets are $`b`$ tagged. We accept events with two or more non-$`b`$-tagged jets.

### 2.3 $`4\mathrm{}`$

Finally, consider the case where all four $`W`$ bosons decay leptonically. The signal is $`4\mathrm{}+2b`$. The same backgrounds are present as in the three-lepton case, with the exception of $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$:

* $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, where both leptons are detected and both top quarks decays semileptonically. We suppress this background by requiring that there are no same-flavor, opposite-sign dileptons within 10 GeV of the $`Z`$ mass.
* $`t\overline{t}W^+W^{}`$, where both $`W`$’s decay leptonically and both top quarks decay semileptonically.
* $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$, where all four top quarks decay semileptonically. We demand that two and only two jets are $`b`$ tagged. We accept events with zero or more non-$`b`$-tagged jets.

There will also be backgrounds from processes not involving top quarks, such as non-resonant $`W^\pm W^\pm +6j`$ and $`W^\pm Z+6j`$ (with one of the leptons from the $`Z`$ decay missed) in the $`\mathrm{}^\pm \mathrm{}^\pm `$ final state, and $`W^\pm \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}+4j`$ in the $`3\mathrm{}`$ final state. We expect such backgrounds to be small due to the requirement of double $`b`$ tagging, in the same way that non-resonant $`W^\pm +4j`$ is a small background to $`t\overline{t}`$ (with double $`b`$ tagging) . Any such background could be suppressed by demanding the reconstruction of a top quark in the final state.

Requiring one or more $`b`$ tags instead of two yields a significant increase in the number of signal events. However, non-resonant backgrounds such as those described above may become significant. We refrain from pursuing such an analysis in this paper.

## 3 Calculations

All calculations are performed at leading order with the code MADGRAPH , using the CTEQ4L parton distribution functions  and $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.119`$ with one-loop running.555 The factorization and renormalization scales are chosen as follows: i) $`t\overline{t}h`$: $`\mu _F=\mu _R=(2m_t+m_h)/2`$; ii) $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$: $`\mu _F=(2m_t+M_W)/2`$, $`\mu _R=\mu _F`$ for two factors of $`\alpha _s`$ and $`p^T`$ of each radiated jet for each of the other two factors; iii) $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$: $`\mu _F=\mu _R=(2m_t+m_{\mathrm{}\mathrm{}})/2`$; iv) $`t\overline{t}W^+W^{}`$: $`\mu _F=\mu _R=m_t+M_W`$; v) $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$: $`\mu _F=\mu _R=2m_t`$. For $`t\overline{t}h`$, the one-loop running top-quark Yukawa coupling is evaluated at $`\mu _R=m_h`$. The code HDECAY (Version 2.0)  is used to calculate $`BR(hW^+W^{})`$, except for $`m_h>2M_W`$, where HDECAY uses the narrow-width approximation for the $`W`$ bosons. We find that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(hl\overline{\nu }\overline{l}\nu )`$ is less than the narrow-width approximation $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(hW^+W^{})BR(W^{}l\overline{\nu })BR(W^+\overline{l}\nu )`$, by as much as 9% near threshold. For $`m_h=130,160,190`$ GeV, $`BR(hW^+W^{})=30,92,79\%`$, respectively.

Spin correlations between production and decay processes are maintained in all calculations. The top quarks are constrained to be nearly on-shell, but the $`W`$ bosons can be off shell. We also checked each calculation by using the narrow-width approximation for the top quarks and ignoring the spin correlation between production and decay. Good agreement was obtained.

The background $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$ is sufficiently complicated that it requires approximation. We first calculate the ratio $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj/t\overline{t}W^\pm `$ for stable top quarks and $`W`$ bosons, with the acceptance cuts of Table 2 applied to the two jets. We then calculate $`t\overline{t}W^\pm `$ with all particles decaying to final-state quarks and leptons, and multiply by this ratio.

There are subtleties in the calculation of the background $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}jj`$ where one lepton is missed, and the top quark of the same sign as the detected lepton decays semileptonically. First, one must take care to implement the top-quark width in a manner than ensures gauge invariance of the amplitude. We use the “overall factor scheme” . Second, the lepton mass must be maintained in the calculation to regulate the divergence when the missed lepton is collinear with an observed lepton.666This is only relevant if the missed lepton has $`p_T<1`$ GeV; otherwise, the observed lepton does not pass the isolation cut mentioned in a previous footnote. We used the muon mass to perform the calculation; to obtain the result for electrons, we scale the cross section by a factor $`\mathrm{ln}(m_\mu /m_e)`$ since the divergence is logarithmic. This avoids problems with gauge invariance at very low dilepton invariant mass. Third, we approximate $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}jj`$ by calculating $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ with all particles decaying to final-state quarks and leptons, and then multiplying by the ratio $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}jj/t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. Rather than calculating this ratio, we approximate it from the ratio $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj/t\overline{t}W^\pm `$ calculated above, since these two ratios entail QCD radiation from very similar subprocesses.

In the $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$ background we demand two and only two $`b`$-tagged jets. This helps reduce this background, which has four $`b`$ quarks in the final state. If only two of these $`b`$ quarks are within the acceptance of the detector, we multiply by $`ϵ_b^2`$; if three are within the acceptance, we multiply by $`3ϵ_b^2(1ϵ_b)`$; and if all four are within the acceptance, we multiply by $`6ϵ_b^2(1ϵ_b)^2`$.

## 4 Results

The number of signal and background events with 30 fb-1 of integrated luminosity at the LHC are given in Table 3 for $`m_h=130,160,190`$ GeV. The low-luminosity cuts of Table 2 have been applied. The two-, three-, and four-lepton final states are considered individually. In each case, the signal-to-background ratio is of order unity, but the number of signal events is not large. The dominant backgrounds are $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$ and $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$; the background $`t\overline{t}W^+W^{}`$ is comparatively small, and $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$ is negligible.

We give in Table 4 the number of signal and background events with 300 fb-1 of integrated luminosity at the LHC. The high-luminosity cuts of Table 2 have been applied. The number of events is increased due to the factor of ten increase in integrated luminosity, but this is partially compensated by the decreased acceptance.

Table 5 gives the number of events at a 100 TeV VLHC with 300 fb-1 of integrated luminosity.777Preliminary results for the VLHC were reported in Ref. . The high-luminosity cuts of Table 2 have been applied. The increased energy results in many more events than at the LHC with the same integrated luminosity. The signal-to-background ratio remains of order unity. All four sources of background are comparable at the VLHC.

There are three sources of uncertainty in the extraction of the top-quark Yukawa coupling from the measured cross section: statistical, systematic, and theoretical. The statistical uncertainty in the measured cross section is $`\sqrt{S+B}/S`$, where $`S`$ and $`B`$ are the number of signal and background events, respectively. Since the cross section is proportional to the square of the Yukawa coupling, the statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the Yukawa coupling is half that of the cross section. We show in Figs. 2 and 3 the statistical uncertainty $`\delta y_t/y_t`$ at the low- and high-luminosity LHC, respectively. The statistical uncertainty from the two- and three-lepton final states are given separately, as well as the statistical uncertainty from the sum of the two channels, combined in quadrature. The statistical uncertainty in the four-lepton final state is much greater, due to the dearth of signal events. Combining the low- and high-luminosity runs at the LHC in quadrature yields a statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the Yukawa coupling of $`16\%,8\%,12\%`$ for $`m_h=130,160,190`$ GeV, respectively.

The systematic uncertainty arises from our ability to measure and calculate the backgrounds. Since the signal is not separated from the backgrounds by kinematics, an accurate knowledge of the backgrounds is essential. It is beyond the scope of this work to attempt to estimate the systematic uncertainty in the measurement of the backgrounds; an uncertainty of $`20\%`$ or less is desired in order to match the statistical uncertainty.

The dominant background in the three- and four-lepton final states is $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. This background could be estimated by measuring $`t\overline{t}Z`$, $`Z\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, and extrapolating away from the $`Z`$ resonance. This background is absent altogether if all opposite-sign leptons are of different flavor (e.g., $`\mu ^+\mu ^+e^{}`$ or $`\mu ^+\mu ^+e^{}e^{}`$), but the number of events of this type is sufficiently small that the statistical uncertainty in the cross section increases when one considers only these events.

The dominant background in the two-lepton final state is $`t\overline{t}W^\pm jj`$. It is likely that our calculation overestimates this background, because, using the cuts of Table 2, each of the two jets can lie near the soft and collinear regions of phase space where perturbation theory overshoots the true cross section . This background could be estimated by measuring the cross section for $`W^\pm jj`$ invariant masses far from the Higgs mass, and then extrapolating. This is nontrivial, as it assumes that one can correctly identify the $`W^\pm jj`$ system with good efficiency.

The theoretical uncertainty stems from the uncertainty in the subprocess cross section $`gg,q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$ and the uncertainty in the parton distribution functions. The subprocess cross section has been calculated at next-to-leading order in the strong interaction . The dependence of the cross section on the common factorization and renormalization scales is relatively mild at the LHC, varying by about $`10\%`$ as the scale is varied from half to twice its central value of $`\mu _R=\mu _F=(2m_t+m_h)/2`$. The largest uncertainty in the parton distribution functions is from the gluons. The gluon-gluon luminosity is known to about $`10\%`$ accuracy at the LHC , and will be measured via $`ggt\overline{t}`$. Hence the total theoretical uncertainty in the cross section is about $`15\%`$. This is adequate in comparison with the statistical uncertainty.

The statistical uncertainty in $`\delta y_t/y_t`$ at the VLHC from the sum of the two- and three-lepton final states is $`3.3\%,1.6\%,2.2\%`$ for $`m_h=130,160,190`$ GeV. This is negligible compared with the likely systematic uncertainty. Thus the measurement of the top-quark Yukawa coupling at the VLHC would be limited almost entirely by the systematic uncertainty.

The background $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$ is negligible at the LHC, but it is significant at the VLHC; it is the largest background in the two-lepton final state, and one of the two largest backgrounds in the three-lepton final state. This background has two additional jets in the final state compared with the signal, so it could be reduced by vetoing events with extra jets. For example, vetoing events with two extra jets (but not one) reduces the $`t\overline{t}t\overline{t}`$ background at the VLHC to 500, 170, 21 in the two-, three, and four-lepton final states, respectively. While this does not decrease the statistical uncertainty (which is negligible in any case), it may be relevant to control the systematic uncertainty.

The process $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hZZ`$ may also be accessible at the VLHC. If both $`Z`$ bosons decay leptonically, the Higgs-boson mass could be reconstructed, which would reduce the backgrounds.

## 5 Conclusions

We have studied the measurement of the top-quark Yukawa coupling to the Higgs boson via $`t\overline{t}h`$, $`hW^+W^{}`$ at the LHC. A signal is available in the two- and three-lepton final states, and the signal to background ratio is of order unity. Combining both channels, and assuming 30 fb-1 of integrated luminosity at low luminosity and 300 fb-1 at high luminosity, we find a statistical uncertainty in the measurement of the Yukawa coupling $`\delta y_t/y_t`$ of $`16\%,8\%,12\%`$ for $`m_h=130,160,190`$ GeV, respectively.

The statistical uncertainty in the Yukawa coupling would be negligible at a 100 TeV VLHC. Thus the uncertainty in the Yukawa coupling would be dominated by the systematic uncertainty.

## Acknowledgments

We are grateful to T. Stelzer for extensive assistance and advice. We are also grateful for conversations and correspondence with U. Baur, M. Dittmar, K. Jacobs, T. Liss, S. Nikitenko, K. Pitts, J. Strologas, and G.-P. Yeh. We thank the organizers of the Snowmass 2001 workshop and the Aspen Center for Physics, where part of this work was conducted. This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy under contract No. DOE DE-FG02-91ER40677.


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# Hadrosynthesis at SPS and RHIC and the statistical model

## 1 Introduction

The statistical model of hadronisation, in different versions, is being used extensively in heavy ion collisions as a tool to determine the global conditions of the matter at the stage where interactions among hadrons cease (freeze-out), . The agreement of the model with the data is somehow impressive  and its validity has been unexpectedly proved in elementary collisions as well , where inelastic rescattering between final hadrons is believed to be negligible. This latter finding has given rise to the interpretation that the hadronisation process itself generates hadrons according to the equiprobability of multi-hadronic phase space states (maximum entropy)  and the apparent chemical equilibrium among different species is driven by hadronisation itself rather than inelastic rescattering .

The far most used observables in the statistical model analyses are hadronic multiplicities and ratios of them. The main reason of this choice resides in their Lorentz invariance, implying their independence on the momenta of cluster (or fireballs) and thence on dynamical effects such as flow or collective momentum inherited by the pre-hadronisation dynamical evolution . On the other hand, both transverse and longitudinal momentum spectra do depend on dynamics besides the local properties of hadronising matter and the extraction of statistical-thermodynamical parameters based on them is more complicated. Moreover, they can only probe the state of hadronic matter at the later stage of kinetic freeze-out \- i.e. when also elastic collisions cease - which does not necessarily coincide with the chemical freeze-out \- i.e. when inelastic collisions cease - in heavy ion collisions.

The detailed description of the statistical model which has been used for the present analysis can be found elsewhere . As far as heavy ion collisions, in the examined energy range, are concerned, the 4$`\pi `$ integrated multiplicities can be described by means of a grand-canonical formula depending on four free parameters (temperature $`T`$, baryon-chemical potential $`\mu _B`$, volume $`V`$ and extra strangeness suppression parameter $`\gamma _S`$) provided that the actual fluctuations of cluster masses and charges for fixed volumes meet a special requirement: they have to be the same relevant to the splitting of one equivalent global cluster (EGC) into an arbitrary number of sub-clusters . If this is the case, the volume $`V`$ is meant to be the sum of the volumes of the clusters, measured in the EGC rest frame.

The formulae and the methods used in this analysis are described in detail in ref. . In this paper, we will mainly discuss the results obtained in the analysis of three different systems: Pb–Pb collisions at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=8.7`$ and 17.2 GeV, and Au–Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=130`$ GeV.

## 2 Analysis and results for SPS

The basic analysis of Pb–Pb collisions at SPS has been performed with NA49 data measured at a beam momentum of 40 (preliminary) and 158 $`A`$ GeV corresponding to nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energies of 8.7 and 17.2 GeV. The multiplicities or their ratios are measured or extrapolated to full phase space. The results are shown in tables 1 and 2 along with relevant references. The fit quality is satisfactory in both cases, taking into account that some measurements are still preliminary and that the only sizeable discrepancy at 158 $`A`$ GeV, the $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ratio  is probably going to disappear . The $`\gamma _S`$ fitted values turns out to be in agreement with each other and less than 1 at both energies. This clearly indicates that strangeness is not fully equilibrated in these collisions. The value of temperature and baryon-chemical potential in Pb–Pb collisions at 40 $`A`$ GeV, determined here for the first time, lie on the expected curve drawn by the values determined in previous analyses (see fig. 1). It is worth pointing out that recent measurements of short-lived strongly decaying particles in NA49, such as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)`$  have found a large discrepancy with respect to the prediction of the statistical model in this particular analysis (1.45 $`\pm `$ 0.7 measured  against 3.516 expected). Within the statistical model, this can only be accounted for by admitting that the decay products of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1520)`$ undergo significant elastic rescattering in the hadronic medium, thus losing memory of their invariant mass correlation.

The experiment WA97  has measured multiplicities of many strange particles in a limited phase space region ($`\mathrm{\Delta }y=1`$) around mid-rapidity in Pb–Pb collisions at 158 $`A`$ GeV in several centrality bins. In general, a cut on phase space like this, introduces a non-trivial dependence of the yields on the distribution of cluster charges (baryon number, electric charge and strangeness) as a function of rapidity, which can be otherwise disregarded in the $`4\pi `$ analysis . The statistical model is, by construction, not able to predict such distributions and, therefore, a dynamical model is needed. However, although an appropriate fit of abundances within the statistical model requires integration over $`4\pi `$, we have nonetheless performed a similar analysis especially in order to study the effect of the phase space cut upon the extracted parameters and compare our results with previous analyses where particle ratios measured in both full and limited phase space have been fitted at the same time .

It must be pointed out that, in order to keep the same number of free parameters of the full phase space fit, this analysis has been performed by enforcing the net vanishing strangeness constraint, which might not apply in a limited kinematic region.

The results of the fits to WA97 multiplicities are shown in fig. 2 along with those relevant to the fit to $`4\pi `$ multiplicities measured by NA49 in the most central collisions. It can be clearly seen that the thermal-statistical parameters fitted by using WA97 data do not essentially change going from central to peripheral collisions. Moreover, the extra strangeness suppression parameter is about 1, unlike in the $`4\pi `$ NA49 analysis. The different value of $`\gamma _S`$ fitted by using the limited and full phase space multiplicity samples proves quite definitely that ratios of hadronic yields measured in different kinematical regions cannot by any means be mixed in a single statistical model analysis, as has been done in ref.  where $`\gamma _S=1`$ was claimed. It is also worth emphasizing that the fact that $`\gamma _S<1`$ in full phase space does not depend on the inclusion or not in the fit of particles carrying two strange quarks such as $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\varphi `$ .

## 3 Analysis and results at RHIC

We have used the same model to fit ratios of hadronic multiplicities measured at RHIC in Au–Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=130`$ GeV in a small window around mid-rapidity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }y1`$), which is the probably the widest kinematical region accessible to RHIC experiments. As a limited region of phase space is involved, all the caveats discussed in the previous section concerning the use of such data hold. The data sample is the same as in ref.  with one more measurement of $`\varphi /h^{}`$ ratio . In this analysis, the net vanishing strangeness constraint has been used and hadronic weak decays products have been included in the multiplicities. The results are shown in table 1 and are in very good agreement with those in ref. . They are quite consistent with ref.  (taking into account that only 50% of weak decay products were included) while the temperature is somewhat lower than that quoted in ref. .

## 4 Discussion and conclusions

The obtained $`\gamma _S`$ values in several heavy ion collisions are shown in fig. 3 while the ratio between newly produced valence s quarks and u, d quarks for direct hadrons (the so-called Wroblewski factor) is shown in fig. 4 for both heavy ion and elementary collisions. This plot updates previous studies . It is clear that the behaviour of strange quark production in heavy ion is very different from that in elementary collisions where $`\lambda _S`$ is seemingly constant $`0.2`$. The relative strangeness production seems to attain a maximum around a beam energy of 30 $`A`$ GeV  and decrease then to an asymptotic value of $`0.4`$. However, the largest energy point for heavy ion collisions in fig. 4, the RHIC one, has been calculated on the basis of a fit to mid-rapidity yields and, thus, this $`\lambda _S`$ is not likely to be the same as in full-phase space on the basis of what has been discussed about Pb–Pb data at SPS in Sect. 2, rather un upper limit of it.

A major issue in this kind of studies is related to the achievement or not of full hadron chemical equilibrium in heavy ion collisions. The analysis of $`4\pi `$ multiplicities in heavy ion collisions clearly indicate that strangeness chemical equilibrium is globally not achieved in any of the examined systems (see fig. 3) 111It has been proposed that even light flavours could be out of equilibrium inside the hadronising volume  but, in our opinion, the present degree of accuracy in hadronic yield measurements does not allow to draw such a conclusion. Recent claims that $`\gamma _S=1`$ in Pb–Pb collisions  depend on a mixture of hadronic ratios measured in different rapidity windows. The question now arises whether the full chemical equilibrium is at least achieved locally. The fact that $`\gamma _S`$ turns out to be about 1 by using hadronic yield ratios at mid-rapidity might be taken as a clearcut indication of the formation of a completely equilibrated hadron gas in the central region. However, it must be pointed out that this could not be the case.
The usual global statistical-thermal analysis of hadron multiplicities relies on a particular distribution of cluster charges and masses once their volumes are fixed  but with no requirement on cluster charge distribution as a function of rapidity, provided that one deals with full phase space multiplicities. Otherwise stated, the same $`4\pi `$ yields can be obtained with many different distributions of cluster charges (e.g. strageness) as a function of rapidity and the ultimate reason of this special property is the Lorentz invariance of hadron multiplicities . It must be emphasized that this kind of requirement justifying the use of one global statistical-thermal formula for hadron abundances and based on charges and masses fluctuations of clusters for fixed volumes, is more general than the usual one based on the hydrodynamical picture. Indeed, in the latter argument, each cluster is described by grand-canonical parameters such as temperature and baryon-chemical potential and this implies that all of them have to be large enough; on the other hand, fluctuations of cluster masses and charges are anyway fixed by the grand-canonical framework, so the involved assumptions are altogether stronger than in the previous case. Furthermore, it might happen that clusters endowed with non-vanishing strangeness, or with a larger number of strange quarks to be coalesced in the final hadrons, tend to lie in the mid-rapidity region (see fig. 5), thus creating an apparent enhancement of strange particles thereabout even though the underlying $`\gamma _S`$ was less than 1 throughout. Therefore, one could obtain a $`\gamma _S`$ about 1 by fitting mid-rapidity ratios even if this was not the case. Indeed, the dependence of fitted $`\gamma _S`$, as well as the other parameters, on the rapidity window has been studied in ref.  on the basis of RQMD simulated data along with strangeness neutrality and a clear dependence of $`\gamma _S`$ on the rapidity cut has been found.

In summary, the issues of local full chemical equilibrium and of the soundness of the use of mid-rapidity multiplicities are not settled yet. More and more detailed studies are necessary, particularly in view of the experiments at RHIC and LHC where only a limited window in rapidity is accessible.

## Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the organizers of the conference for having provided an enjoyable and stimulating environment. I am greatly indebted with M. Gaździcki and R. Stock for having provided me with the NA49 data and for their help in using it. Discussions with F. Antinori, J. Cleymans, A. Keränen and N. Xu are gratefully acknowledged.

## References