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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The modern cosmology implies A) inflation, B) baryosynthesis and C) dark matter and energy, what inevitably leads to the whole ABC, with which the NATURE writes the true WORDS in the BOOK (BIBLIO) on the History and Fate of the Universe. Cosmoparticle physics is aimed to find these Words, and to face on without fear the WORD, which was put into the Beginning of Creation. Treating the Universe as the physical process, the methods, developed by cosmoparticle physics, resolve the main problem of the modern cosmology: they probe the true picture of the cosmological evolution together with the whole set of physical laws, governing it. Based on the fundamental relationship between micro- and macro worlds, cosmoparticle physics offers the cross-disciplinary studies of the foundations of particle physics and cosmology in the proper combination of their indirect cosmological, astrophysical and physical signatures.

Cosmoparticle physics originates from the well established relationship between microscopic and macroscopic descriptions in theoretical physics. Remind the links between statistical physics and thermodynamics, or between electrodynamics and theory of electron. Turning to the role of microscopic properties in macroscopic phenomena or to the investigation of microscopic processes by their macroscopic effects, we, in fact, indirectly use the ideas of cosmoparticle physics. In this sense all the methods of experimental study of elementary particles are based on these ideas, as well as these ideas underlie the theoretical description of astrophysical processes. To the end of the XX Century the new aspects of such links were realised in cosmological necessity for the extension of the world of known elementary particles and their interactions and in the necessity for particle theory to use cosmological tests as the unique way to probe its predictions.

Being the last word of the fundamental physics of XX Century, cosmoparticle physics offers to the new millennium the set of questions. Their proper formulation is more than half of their proper answers. There are serious grounds to expect in the very near future definite answers on some of these questions. It specifies the modern step of development of cosmoparticle physics: on the basis of its principles and in its framework it not only sheds new light and offers nontrivial solutions for old astronomical problems but also comes to positive predictions of new phenomena, accessible for their search.

## 2 The "ecological" aspects of the modern cosmology

Ecology studies the mutual relationship between the population and its environment. In this sense the mutual relationship between the fundamental particle content, particle interactions and the structure and evolution of the Universe, studied by cosmoparticle physics, is ecological.

Lets specify the links between fundamental particle properties and their cosmological effects in some more details. The role of particle content in the Einstein equations is reduced to its contribution into energy-momentum tensor. So, the set of relativistic species, dominating in the Universe, realises the relativistic equation of state $`p=ϵ/3`$ and the relativistic stage of expansion. The difference between relativistic bosons and fermions or various bosonic (or fermionic) species is accounted by the statistic weight of respective degree of freedom. The very treatment of different species of particles as equivalent degrees of freedom physically assumes strict symmetry between them.

Such strict symmetry is not realised in Nature. There is no exact supersymmetry (symmetry between bosons and fermions). There is no exact symmetry between various quarks and leptons. The symmetry breaking results in generation of particle masses. The particle mass pattern reflects the hierarchy of symmetry breaking.

Noether’s theorem relates the exact symmetry to conservation of respective charge. The lightest particle, bearing the strictly conserved charge, is absolutely stable. So, electron is absolutely stable because of the conservation of electric charge. The mass of electron $`m_e`$ is related to the scale of the electroweak symmetry breaking, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$: the standard model gives the electron mass as $`m_e=g_e\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$, where $`g_e`$ is the Higgs field Yukawa coupling. In the same manner the stability of proton is conditioned by the conservation of baryon charge and its mass reflects the chiral symmetry breaking being determined by the scale of QCD confinement, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. The stability of ordinary matter is thus protected by the conservation of electric and baryon charges, and its properties reflect the fundamental physical scales of electroweak and strong interactions.

Extensions of the standard model imply new symmetries and new particle states. The respective symmetry breaking induces new fundamental physical scales in particle theory. If the symmetry is strict, its existence implies new conserved charge. The lightest particle, bearing this charge, is stable. The set of new fundamental particles, corresponding to the new symmetry, is then reflected in the existence of new stable particles, which should be present in the Universe and taken into account in the total energy-momentum tensor.

Most of the known particles are unstable. For a particle with the mass $`m`$ the particle physics time scale is $`t\frac{1}{m}`$, so in particle world we refer to particles with lifetime $`\tau \frac{1}{m}`$ as to metastable. To be of cosmological significance metastable particle should survive after the temperature of the Universe $`T`$ fell down below $`Tm`$, what means that the particle lifetime should exceed $`t\frac{m_{Pl}}{m}\frac{1}{m}`$. Such a long lifetime should find reason in the existence of an (approximate) symmetry. From this viewpoint, cosmology is sensitive to the most fundamental properties of microworld, to the conservation laws reflecting strict or nearly strict symmetries of particle theory.

However, the mechanism of particle symmetry breaking can also have the cosmological impact. Heating of condensed matter leads to restoration of its symmetry and to formation of topological defects in the course of phase transitions, corresponding to symmetry breaking. One can directly observe formation of such defects in liquid crystals or in superfluids. In the same manner the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking should reflect in restoration of symmetry and, depending on the symmetry breaking pattern, to formation of topological defects in phase transitions in very early Universe. The defects can represent the new form of stable particles (as it is in the case of magnetic monopoles), or the form of extended structures, such as cosmic strings or cosmic walls. In the latter case primordial strong non-homogeneity appears, triggering gravitational instability.

In the old Big bang scenario the cosmological expansion and its initial conditions was given a priori. The whole set of fundamental particles, most of which are unstable, was taken into account in the conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium, and the number of particle species entered the relationship between the temperature and cosmological time. The properties of stable particles cause much more influence on the physics of expansion. The baryon mass at initially given baryon to photon ratio determines the change of equation of state in the transition from radiation to matter dominance. The chemical composition, resulting from primordial nucleosynthesis is defined by the rate of beta-reactions, determining the neutron to proton frozen out ratio, by nuclear reaction rates and Coulomb interaction (defining the Coulomb barrier in reactions with electrically charged nuclei). The period of recombination of hydrogen is determined by electron mass and its Coulomb interaction and scales of gravitational instability is defined by the dissipation scale, being in turn determined by photon-electron Compton scattering. In the framework of standard model of particle interactions the above microphysical parameters reflect the QCD and electroweak scales. In the early Universe, when the temperature was of the order of these scales the QCD and electroweak phase transitions should have taken place.

In the modern cosmology the expansion of the Universe and its initial conditions is related to the process of inflation. The global properties of the Universe as well as the origin of its large scale structure are the result of this process. The matter content of the modern Universe is also originated from the physical processes: the baryon density is the result of baryosynthesis and the nonbaryonic dark matter represents the relic species of physics of the hidden sector of particle theory. Physics, underlying inflation, baryosynthesis and dark matter, is referred to the extensions of the standard model, and the variety of such extensions make the whole picture in general ambiguous. However, in the framework of each particular physical realisation of inflationary model with baryosynthesis and dark matter the corresponding model dependent cosmological scenario can be specified in all the details. In such scenario the main stages of cosmological evolution, the structure and the physical content of the Universe reflect the structure of the underlying physical model. The latter should include with necessity the standard model, describing the properties of baryonic matter, and its extensions, responsible for inflation, baryosynthesis and dark matter. In no case the cosmological impact of such extensions is reduced to reproduction of these three phenomena only. The nontrivial path of cosmological evolution, specific for each particular realisation of inflational model with baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter, always contains some additional model dependent cosmologically viable predictions, which can be confronted with astrophysical data. The part of cosmoparticle physics, called cosmoarcheology, offers the set of methods and tools probing such predictions.

## 3 Cosmoarcheology of new physics in the modern cosmology

Cosmoarcheology considers the results of observational cosmology as the sample of the experimental data on the possible existence and features of hypothetical phenomena predicted by particle theory. To undertake the Gedanken Experiment with these phenomena some theoretical framework for treatment of their origin and evolution in the Universe should be assumed. As it was pointed out  the choice of such framework is a nontrivial problem in the modern cosmology.

Indeed, in the old Big bang scenario any new phenomenon, predicted by particle theory was considered in the course of the thermal history of the Universe, starting from Planck times. The problem is that the bedrock of the modern cosmology, namely, inflation, baryosynthesis and dark matter, is also based on experimentally unproven part of particle theory, so that the test for possible effects of new physics is accomplished by the necessity to choose the physical basis for such test. There are two possible solutions for this problem: a) a crude model independent comparison of the predicted effect with the observational data and b) the model dependent treatment of considered effect, provided that the model, predicting it, contains physical mechanism of inflation, baryosynthesis and dark matter.

The basis for the approach (a) is that whatever happened in the early Universe its results should not contradict the observed properties of the modern Universe. The set of observational data and, especially, the light element abundance and thermal spectrum of microwave background radiation put severe constraint on the deviation from thermal evolution after 1 s of expansion, what strengthens the model independent conjectures of approach (a).

One can specify the new phenomena by their net contribution into the cosmological density and by forms of their possible influence on parameters of matter and radiation. In the first aspect we can consider strong and weak phenomena. Strong phenomena can put dominant contribution into the density of the Universe, thus defining the dynamics of expansion in that period, whereas the contribution of weak phenomena into the total density is always subdominant. The phenomena are time dependent, being characterised by their time-scale, so that permanent (stable) and temporary (unstable) phenomena can take place. They can have homogeneous and inhomogeneous distribution in space. The amplitude of density fluctuations $`\delta \frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }`$ measures the level of inhomogeneity. The case $`\delta 1`$ within the considered component corresponds to its strong inhomogeneity. Strong inhomogeneity is compatible with the smallness of total density fluctuations, if the contribution of inhomogeneous component into the total density is small.

The phenomena can influence the properties of matter and radiation either indirectly, say, changing of the cosmological equation of state, or via direct interaction with matter and radiation. In the first case only strong phenomena are relevant, in the second case even weak phenomena are accessible to observational data. The detailed analysis of sensitivity of cosmological data to various phenomena of new physics are presented in .

The basis for the approach (b) is provided by a particle model, in which inflation, baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter is reproduced. Any realisation of such physically complete basis for models of the modern cosmology contains with necessity additional model dependent predictions, accessible to cosmoarcheological means. Here the scenario should contain all the details, specific to the considered model, and the confrontation with the observational data should be undertaken in its framework. In this approach complete cosmoparticle physics models may be realised, where all the parameters of particle model can be fixed from the set of astrophysical, cosmological and physical constraints. Even the details, related to cosmologically irrelevant predictions, such as the parameters of unstable particles, can find the cosmologically important meaning in these models. So, in the model of horizontal unification, the top quark or B-meson physics fixes the parameters, describing the dark matter, forming the large scale structure of the Universe.

## 4 Cosmophenomenology of new physics

To study the imprints of new physics in astrophysical data cosmoarcheology implies the forms and means in which new physics leaves such imprints. So, the important tool of cosmoarcheology in linking the cosmological predictions of particle theory to observational data is the Cosmophenomenology of new physics. It studies the possible hypothetical forms of new physics, which may appear as cosmological consequences of particle theory, and their properties, which can result in observable effects.

The simplest primordial form of new physics is the gas of new stable massive particles, originated from early Universe. For particles with the mass $`m`$, at high temperature $`T>m`$ the equilibrium condition, $`n\sigma vt>1`$ is valid, if their annihilation cross section $`\sigma >\frac{1}{mm_{Pl}}`$ is sufficiently large to establish the equilibrium. At $`T<m`$ such particles go out of equilibrium and their relative concentration freezes out. More weakly interacting species decouple from plasma and radiation at $`T>m`$, when $`n\sigma vt1`$, i.e. at $`T_{dec}(\sigma m_{Pl})^1`$. The maximal temperature, which is reached in inflationary Universe, is the reheating temperature, $`T_r`$, after inflation. So, the very weakly interacting particles with the annihilation cross section $`\sigma <\frac{1}{T_rm_{Pl}}`$, as well as very heavy particles with the mass $`mT_r`$ can not be in thermal equilibrium, and the detailed mechanism of their production should be considered to calculate their primordial abundance.

Decaying particles with the lifetime $`\tau `$, exceeding the age of the Universe, $`t_U`$, $`\tau >t_U`$, can be treated as stable. By definition, primordial stable particles survive to the present time and should be present in the modern Universe. The net effect of their existence is given by their contribution into the total cosmological density. They can dominate in the total density being the dominant form of cosmological dark matter, or they can represent its subdominant fraction. In the latter case more detailed analysis of their distribution in space, of their condensation in galaxies, of their capture by stars, Sun and Earth, as well as of the effects of their interaction with matter and of their annihilation provides more sensitive probes for their existence. In particular, direct experimental search for cosmic fluxes of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is possible. WIMP annihilation in galactic halo contributes into the fluxes of cosmic rays, and their annihilation in Sun and Earth is the source of neutrinos accessible to underground neutrino observatories. New particles with electric charge and/or strong interaction can form anomalous atoms and contain in the ordinary matter as anomalous isotopes.

Primordial unstable particles with the lifetime, less than the age of the Universe, $`\tau <t_U`$, can not survive to the present time. But, if their lifetime is sufficiently large to satisfy the condition $`\tau \frac{m_{Pl}}{m}\frac{1}{m}`$, their existence in early Universe can lead to direct or indirect traces. Cosmological flux of decay products contributing into the cosmic and gamma ray backgrounds represents the direct trace of unstable particles. If the decay products do not survive to the present time their interaction with matter and radiation can cause indirect trace in the light element abundance or in the fluctuations of thermal radiation. If the particle lifetime is much less than $`1`$s the multi-step indirect traces are possible, provided that particles dominate in the Universe before their decay. On the dust-like stage of their dominance black hole formation takes place, and the spectrum of such primordial black holes traces the particle properties (ma! ! ss, frozen concentration, lifetime). The particle decay in the end of dust like stage influences the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. So cosmophenomenoLOGICAL chains link the predicted properties of even unstable new particles to the effects accessible in astronomical observations.

The parameters of new stable and metastable particles are determined by the pattern of particle symmetry breaking. This pattern is reflected in the succession of phase transitions in the early Universe. The phase transitions of the first order proceed through the bubble nucleation, which can result in black hole formation. The phase transitions of the second order can lead to formation of topological defects, such as walls, string or monopoles. The observational data put severe constraints on magnetic monopole and cosmic wall production, as well as on the parameters of cosmic strings. The succession of phase transitions can change the structure of cosmological defects. The more complicated forms, such as walls-surrounded-by-strings can appear. Such structures can be unstable, but their existence can lead the trace in the nonhomogeneous distribution of dark matter and in large scale correlations in the nonhomogeneous dark matter structures, such as archioles. The large sc! ! ale correlations in topological defects and their imprints in primordial inhomogeneities is the indirect effect of inflation. Inflation provides the equal conditions of phase transition, taking place in causally disconnected regions. Phase transitions, taking place directly at inflational stage, can lead to strong inhomogeneity at any scale, Which can lead to formation of primordial black holes of a whatever large mass. In the combination with successive phase transitions, taking place after reheating, phase transitions at inflational stage can result in such structures as closed walls of any size, collapsing into black holes after their size equals the horizon. So the primordial strong inhomogeneities is the new important phenomenon of cosmological models, based on particle models with hierarchy of symmetry breaking.

## 5 Experimental probes for new physics

The new physics follows from the necessity to extend the Standard model. The white spots in the representations of symmetry groups, considered in the extensions of the Standard model, correspond to new unknown particles. The extension of the symmetry of gauge group puts into consideration new gauge fields, mediating new interactions. Global symmetry breaking results in the existence of Goldstone boson fields.

For a long time the necessity to extend the Standard model had purely theoretical reasons. Esthetically, because full unification is not achieved in the Standard model; practically, because it contains some internal inconsistencies. It does not seem complete for cosmology. One has to go beyond the Standard model to explain inflation, baryosynthesis and nonbaryonic dark matter. Recently there has appeared a set of experimental evidences for the existence of neutrino oscillations and WIMPs, and for the effects of new particles in the precise measurements of muon magnetic momentum. Whatever convincing and reliable these evidences are, they indicate that may be we have already crossed the border in the experimental searches for new physics.

In particle physics direct experimental probes for the predictions of particle theory are the most attractive. The predictions of new charged particles, such as supersymmetric particles or quarks and leptons of new generation, are accessible to experimental search at accelerators of new generation, if their masses are in 100GeV-1TeV range. However, the predictions related to higher energy scale need non-accelerator or indirect means for their test.

The search for rare processes, such as proton decay, neutrino oscillations, neutrinoless beta decay, precise measurements of parameters of known particles, experimental searches for dark matter represent the widely known forms of such means.

Cosmoparticle physics offers the nontrivial extensions of indirect and non-accelerator searches for new physics and its possible properties. In experimental cosmoarcheology the data is to be obtained, necessary to link the cosmophenomenology of new physics with astrophysical observations (See ). In experimental cosmoparticle physics the parameters, fixed from the consitency of cosmological models and observations, define the level, at which the new types of particle processes should be searched for (see ).

Note that there is a way, in which new physics may be elusive for the existing methods of experimental particle physics: the higher is the energy of colliding particles the higher is the resolution in small spatial scales, but if some abnormal forms of particles exist, being extended in space, their existence can escape detection. For example, if some fictious spatially isomeric form of proton existed, having the form of a rod with the molecular size length, it could hardly been detected by the means of deep inelastic collisions. For the moment, there is no theoretical reasoning for such exotic forms of known particles, but the principal possibility for such solutions can not be ignored.

## 6 Cosmoparticle physics of theories of everything

The theories of everything should provide the complete physical basis for cosmology. The problem is that the string theory  is now in the form of "theoretical theory", for which the experimental probes are widely doubted to exist. The development of cosmoparticle physics can remove these doubts. In its framework there are two directions to approach the test of theories of everything.

One of them is related with the search for the experimentally accessible effects of heterotic string phenomenology. The mechanism of compactification and symmetry breaking leads to the prediction of homotopically stable objects  and shadow matter , accessible to cosmoarcheological means of cosmoparticle physics. The condition to reproduce the Standard model naturally leads in the heterotic string phenomenology to the prediction of fourth generation of quarks and leptons  with a stable massive 4th neutrino , what can be the subject of complete experimental test in the near future. Moreover, there are evidences from EGRET galactic gamma-background measurements and underground WIMP searches, favoring the hypothesis of 4th neutrino with the mass about 50 GeV, and it was recently shown that capture and annihilation of such neutrinos and their antineutrinos inside the Earth, should lead to the flux of underground monochromatic neutrinos of known types, which can be traced in the analysis of the already existing data of underground neutrino detectors .

It is interesting, that heterotic string phenomenology predicts even in its simplest realisation both supersymmetric particles and the 4th family of quarks and leptons. Provided that both R-parity and the new gauge charge, ascribed to the 4th generation, are strictly conserved, the same model predicts simultaneously two types of WIMP candidates: neutralinos and massive stable 4th neutrinos. So in the framework of this phenomenology the multicomponent analysis of WIMP effects is favorable.

In the above approach some particular phenomenological features of simplest variants of string theory are studied. The other direction is to elaborate the extensive phenomenology of theories of everything by adding to the symmetry of the Standard model the (broken) symmetries, which have serious reasons to exist. The existence of (broken) symmetry between quark-lepton families, the necessity in the solution of strong CP-violation problem with the use of broken Peccei-Quinn symmetry, as well as the practical necessity in supersymmetry to eliminate the quadratic divergence of Higgs boson mass in electroweak theory is the example of appealing additions to the symmetry of the Standard model. The horizontal unification and its cosmology represent the first step on this way, illustrating the might of cosmoparticle physics in the elaboration of the proper phenomenology for theories of everything .

## 7 Conclusion

We can conclude that our ideas on the Universe experience the dramatic change, comparable with the one, caused by the Copernicus idea that Earth moves around Sun and by the Friedman’s idea on the non-stationary Universe. From the very beginning to the modern stage, the evolution of Universe is governed by the forms of matter, different from those we are built of and observe around us. From the very beginning to the present time, the evolution of the Universe was governed by physical laws, which we still don’t know. Observational cosmology offers strong evidences favouring the existence of processes, determined by new physics. Obsevations favor the dominance of new forms of matter in the total energy of the modern Universe.

Cosmoparticle physics, studying the physical, astrophysical and cosmological impact of new laws of Nature, explores the new forms of matter and their physical properties, what opens the way to use the corresponding new sources of energy and new means of energy transfer. It offers the great challenge for the new Millennium.

It’s regrettful, that A.D.Sakharov isn’t now with us on this way, but he was with us in its beginning , and it’s the aim of the present conference to present the new step in the development of Sakharov’s legacy in the field of cosmoparticle physics .

## 8 Acknowledgement

The work was performed in the framework of the project "Cosmoparticle physics" and was partially supported by the Cosmion-ETHZ and AMS-Epcos collaborations and by a support grant for the Khalatnikov Scientific School. The author expresses his gratitude to IHES for its kind hospitality.


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# References

## Abstract

It is shown that the photon, the quantum of electromagnetic field, allows the consideration in the framework of the scheme which in some aspects is typical for the phonon, an excitation of the crystal lattice of a solid. The conclusion is drawn that the photon may be interpreted as an elementary excitation in a fine-grained space. The corollary is in excellent agreement with the space structure and submicroscopic quantum mechanics, which have recently been constructed by the author in a series of works.

Key words: photon, phonon, space, quantum theory

PACS: 01.55.+b General physics – 03.50.De Classical electromagnetism, Maxwell equations – 11.90.+t Other topics in general theory of fields and particles

Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie 27, no. 1 or 2, … (2002), in press
also arXiv.org e-print archive http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0202170

On the notion of the photon

Volodymyr Krasnoholovets

Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences,

Prospect Nauky 46, UA-03028 Kyïv, Ukraine

(web page http://inerton.cjb.net)

Louis de Broglie was the first who proposed the detailed wave theory of the photon . In the theory, quanta of light were composite formations: the photon regarded as a couple of Dirac particles with very small masses. De Broglie equations decomposed to equations for a spinless particle and the Maxwell equations were complemented by correction terms with the electromagnetic potentials. Thus, de Broglie’s theory representing a grand synthesis of matter and light was excellently constructed in an ordinary space. The notions employed were very close to classical images and yet the quantization of fields was an integral part of the photon theory.

Today free photons and their interaction with particles are widely described in the framework of the second quantization methodology. However, the description of the electromagnetic field in terms of creation and annihilation operators is justified in the wave vector presentation. Quantum electrodynamics does not study the problem of spatial pattern of the photon. One can only assume that the problem is reduced to the imagination of an energetic object that moves as a ”particle-wave” (i.e. something of an indeterminate nature) with the velocity of light $`c`$ and occupies a volume $`\lambda ^3`$, where $`\lambda `$ is the photon wavelength. However, on the other hand, photons obey the Bose statistics and therefore a number of photons may collect in a volume $`v<<\lambda ^3`$. This is why in the case of the high density of photons we meet with some conceptual difficulty.

One kind of such problems has been studied by the author in paper . The work deals with the investigation of the interaction of an intensive photon pulse radiated by laser with atoms of gas and electrons of the metal. It has been argued that a photon flux can be regarded as a flow of corpuscles which are only several nm apart in spite of the fact that the wavelength of photons is of the order of several hundreds nm. Thus the examination  of numerous experiments has shown that photons, indeed, might be considered as very small corpuscles in a 3D space. But what is spatial pattern of the photon considered from the microscopic standpoint? To answer the question we should revise the modern views on notions of a particle and the quantum of a field.

Bussey  has recently considered the phonon as a model for elementary particles. He has analyzed ”the phonon collapse” in the one-dimensional lattice and emphasized that this is exactly analogous to the familiar wavefunction collapse of a normal quantum particle, such as a photon, as he notes, observed by Mizobuchi and Ohtake . Bussey notes that the atomic displacements $`u_l`$ which create the phonon state resemble the field elements $`\varphi (x)`$ of a particle, since quantum field theory describes elementary particles as excitations of fields whose ground state is the vacuum. He says  that the existence of such parallels between excitations of fields and phonons has long been recognized (see, e.g. Ref. ).

However, one may treat quantum field theory only as an approximation to the description of nature, just as the Fourier approximation is applied to a concrete continuous function in mathematics.

On the other hand, the photon might be considered as an aether wave, as has been pointed out by Meno . Nonetheless, his model is restricted by a pure phenomenological description of a wave in an aether treated as a gas of incompressible ”gyrons”.

In the recent concept by the author \[7-13\] particles appear as stable local deformations of a degenerate space that is regarded as a 3D elastic cellular net with the size of a cell $`10^{28}`$ cm (recall that at this scale all types of physical interactions come together) . In this case we do not need abstract field elements $`\varphi (x)`$. Any motion of the deformation is accompanied by excitations of the space net that were called inertons  and the motion of such a complex formation, i.e. a particle surrounded by its inerton cloud, falls within the formalism of quantum mechanics both Schrödinger’s  and Dirac’s . In paper  we have theoretically studied the collective motion of atoms, i.e. phonons, in the crystal lattice assuming the existence of inerton clouds in their surrounding and then proved it experimentally (other manifestations of clouds of inertons have been demonstrated in Ref. ). Thus owing to a great success of the new concept we may assume that photons migrated in the space net might be considered as something similar to phonons which are excited in the crystal lattice.

Phonons appear due to spontaneous vibrations of atoms in the crystal lattice. Actually owing to the atom-atom interaction, one can write the Lagrangian

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\stackrel{}{n}}{}m\dot{\stackrel{}{r}}_\stackrel{}{n}^2\frac{1}{2}\underset{\stackrel{}{n},\stackrel{}{n^{}}}{}^{}\gamma _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{n^{}}}\stackrel{}{r}_\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}_\stackrel{}{n^{}}$$
(1)
where $`m`$ is the mass of the $`\stackrel{}{n}`$th atom, $`\stackrel{}{r}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ and $`\dot{\stackrel{}{r}}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ are the displacement of the atom from the equilibrium position and the velocity of the atom respectively, $`\gamma _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{n^{}}}`$ is the tensor of elasticity interaction of atoms, the dot over the vector $`\dot{\stackrel{}{r}}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ means the differentiation with respect to the proper time of the crystal (compare with Ref. ). As is well known, expression (1) can be rewritten via the generalized, or canonical, coordinates $`A_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ and $`\dot{A}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}P_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ (see, e.g. Ref. )

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\left(\dot{A}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\dot{A}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\mathrm{\Omega }_s^2(\stackrel{}{k})A_{\stackrel{}{k}s}A_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\right)$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s^2(\stackrel{}{k})`$ is the frequency of the $`s`$th branch of acoustic vibrations of atoms. $`\dot{A}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ denotes the generalized momentum $`P_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$. Coordinates $`A_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ and $`P_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ are substituted for the corresponding operator

$`A_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\widehat{A}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/2\mathrm{\Omega }_s(\stackrel{}{k})}(\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}+\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{});`$ (3)
$`P_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\widehat{P}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}=i\sqrt{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_s(\stackrel{}{k})/2}(\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}).`$
Here, $`\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}(\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s})`$ is the Bose operator of creation (annihilation) of a phonon. In terms of the second quantization operators the energy operator of the lattice vibrations takes the form

$$\widehat{H}=\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_s(\stackrel{}{k})\left(\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}\widehat{b}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}+\frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(4)
Now let us proceed to the inspection of the energy operator of a free electromagnetic field, which has the same form

$$\widehat{}=\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\mathrm{}\omega _s(\stackrel{}{k})\left(\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}+\frac{1}{2}\right)$$
(5)
where $`\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}(\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s})`$ is the Bose operator of creation (annihilation) of a photon, an elementary excitation of the electromagnetic field; $`\omega _s(\stackrel{}{k})`$ is the cyclic frequency of the photon with the wave vector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ and the $`s`$ polarization. In spite of the similarity of expressions (4) and (5), their original classical Lagrangians are absolutely different. In the case of phonons we start from the discrete function (1), but in the case of photons we emanate from the Lagrangian density of the continual electromagnetic field

$$=\frac{1}{8\pi }\left\{\frac{1}{c^2}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{A}}{t}\right)^2(\times \stackrel{}{A})^2\right\}$$
(6)
where $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ is the vector potential of the field. However if we formally do an analysis trying to advance from the energy operator (5) to an initial classical Lagrangian keeping the phonon scheme above, we will come to a very interesting finding.

First, the operators of canonical variables expressed in terms of $`\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}`$ and $`\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}`$ are

$`\widehat{𝒜}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)=\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{}c^2/\omega _\stackrel{}{k}}\left(\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)+\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}(t)\right);`$ (7)
$`\widehat{𝒫}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)=i\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega _\stackrel{}{k}/8\pi c^2}\left(\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}^{}(t)\widehat{a}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)\right).`$
Then the corresponding canonical variables are

$`\stackrel{}{𝒜}(\stackrel{}{r},t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}}\stackrel{}{e}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}𝒜_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{r}};`$ (8)
$`\stackrel{}{𝒫}(\stackrel{}{r},t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}}\stackrel{}{e}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}𝒫_{\stackrel{}{k}s}(t)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{r}}.`$
Formulas (8) present the Fourier-series expansion of the classical variables $`\stackrel{}{𝒜}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝒫}(\stackrel{}{r},t)(1/4\pi c^2)\stackrel{}{𝒜}/t`$ in the volume $`V`$. And the expansion, indeed, adequately depicts the actual discrete structure of electromagnetic field, i.e., photonic nature of the field. Thus one can rewrite the Lagrangian density (6) as

$$=\frac{1}{8\pi V}\underset{\stackrel{}{k},s}{}\left[\frac{1}{c^2}\frac{𝒜_{\stackrel{}{k}s}}{t}\frac{𝒜_{\stackrel{}{k}s}}{t}\left(\times \stackrel{}{e}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}𝒜_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\right)\left(\times \stackrel{}{e}_{\stackrel{}{k}s}𝒜_{\stackrel{}{k}s}\right)\right].$$
(9)
Let us invert expression (9) written via the wave vector presentation to that written in terms of discrete spatial variables

$$=\frac{1}{8\pi V}\underset{\stackrel{}{n}}{}\left[\frac{1}{c^2}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}}{t}\right)^2\left(_\stackrel{}{n}\times \stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}\right)^2\right].$$
(10)
Under this new description, the vector $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ plays the role of the radius vector that defines knots of a lattice of space or cells of a space net. The most credible speculation is that the space consists of cells (or balls, or superparticles) which are closely packed \[7-9,11-13\]. Then the equation of motion

$$\frac{^2\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}}{t^2}\frac{1}{c^2}_\stackrel{}{n}^2\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}=0$$
(11)
followed by expression (10) specifies the behavior of some kind of a polarization $`\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ localized in the cell which position in the space net is defined by the $`\stackrel{}{n}`$th radius vector in the moment $`t`$.

From the results obtained it may be deduced that the photon should be regarded as an elementary excitation, or quasi-particle of some sort that migrates hopping from cell to cell in the space net rather than a canonical particle-wave of an undetermined nature that moves in an empty space, or a dim vacuum. In this case the vector potential $`\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ should be interpreted as some kind of polarization/deformation that is induced in an incoming cell along a path of the corresponding photonic excitation. The vector of local peculiar deformation $`\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{n}`$ changes in any point (i.e. cell) that is characterized by the radius vector $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ according to Eq. (11). But the migration of the photon ”core” features the equation

$$\frac{d}{dt}\stackrel{}{n}=\frac{\stackrel{}{n}}{n}c$$
(12)
where the proper time $`t>\tau `$ and $`\tau `$ is the ”inoculating” time (i.e. photon lifetime in a cell, see below). Thus, a couple of equations (11) and (12) completely describe the behavior of the photon.

Consequently, we may conclude that unlike the phonon that envelopes a great number of the lattice sites (the phonon is enclosed in a volume $`k_{\mathrm{ac}}^3`$ where $`k_{\mathrm{ac}}=2\pi /\lambda _{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is the wave number and $`\lambda _{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is the wavelength of the appropriate acoustic excitation), the photon may be considered as something that is located only in one cell of the space. However, the lifetime of the photon in one cell whose size $`a10^{28}`$ cm should be extremely short. It can be estimated if we divide the period $`T`$ of the photon by a number $`N`$ of cells that cover the section of spatial period $`\lambda =2\pi /k`$ of the photon. Therefore $`N=\lambda /a`$ and hence the lifetime $`\tau =Ta/\lambda `$. For instance in the case of an optical photon $`\lambda 10^8`$ cm, $`N10^{36}`$ and then $`T1`$ fs and $`\tau 10^{35}`$ s.

The notion of the wavelength $`\lambda `$ of the photon specifies the spatial period at which the cell’s polarization restores its initial state. In other words, the photon wavelength $`\lambda `$ is a distance which the photon should run hopping from cell to cell in order that the initial phase of the photon polarization be restored. The period of polarization oscillations $`T=1/\nu `$ is connected with $`\lambda `$ by relation $`c=\lambda /T`$. Yet the real size of the photon, i.e. size of its ”core”, is limited by the size of a cell of the space net $`a10^{28}`$ cm.

Thereby, the photon that is characterized by the energy $`\epsilon =h\nu `$ makes up an excitation of the space net, which migrates by structural cells of the net and carriers a polarization from cell to cell. This hopping motion is similar to the migration of Frenkel, or molecular excitons in molecular crystals.

The interaction of the photon with a matter is realized by means of the interaction of the photon with inerton clouds of the matter entities such as electrons, atoms, etc. as the radius of the dense inerton cloud that surrounds an electron or an atom much exceeds the mean distance between the entities in condensed media . One can raise the question, how can inertons which represent a substructure of the matter waves of any charged particle be distinguished from the particle’s virtual photons which feature the particle’s electromagnetic field? Inertons were uniquely determined  as elementary excitations, or quasi-particles of the space net, which carry a local deformation of the net. In order for agreement the particle’s electrodynamics to particle’s quantum mechanics, photons must be treated as the same quasi-particles, i.e. massive inertons, which however are endowed with an additional property. Thereby the notion of electromagnetic ”polarization” of a cell, i.e. a special additional deformation of a cell, should be clarified and this indeed is quite possible in the framework of the model that is developing.

A theory of the photon-inerton interaction being constructed will allow concrete practical applications. Namely, it will make possible: (i) the disclosing a microscopic mechanism of the phenomenon of the diffraction of light, which so far is still described in pure geometrical (i.e. phenomenological) terms; (ii) a microscopic description of the phenomenon of the bending of a luminous ray in the vicinity of a star, which is till now considered solely in the framework of the general relativity macroscopic approach; (iii) a detailed theoretical analysis of entangled states; (iv) the construction of submicroscopic models describing the photon-photon cross-section into hadrons (modern models, see e.g. Refs. , operate with $`\gamma `$-photons as very complicated formations. We may assume that those $`\gamma `$-photons are not canonical photons described above but rather peculiar cooperative excitations of a sort. In fact, the concept is not contradictory to elementary particle physics: the photon is not included in the list of elementary particles ).

Thus, the results presented in this work permits the tracing a microscopic physical pattern of the photon in a 3D space, or 4D space-time. The new concept of the photon turns the study of the photon properties to an inner structure of a cell, or superparticle, the building block of the real space.


text:
# Fusion of light exotic nuclei at near-barrier energies: effect of inelastic excitation

## Abstract

The effect of inelastic excitation of exotic light projectiles (proton- as well as neutron-rich) 17F and 11Be on fusion with heavy target has been studied at near-barrier energies. The calculations have been performed in the coupled channels approach where, in addition to the normal coupling of the ground state of the projectile to the continuum, inelastic excitation of the projectile to the bound excited state and its coupling to the continuum have also been taken into consideration. The inclusion of these additional couplings has been found to have significant effect on the fusion excitation function of neutron-rich 11Be on 208Pb whereas the effect has been observed to be nominal for the case of proton-rich 17F on the same target. The pronounced effect of the channel coupling on the fusion process in case of 11Be is attributed to its well-developed halo structure.

One of the interesting aspects of the study of nuclear reactions involving radioactive beams is the possibility of using radioactive projectiles to synthesize new, exotic heavy nuclei . In particular, nuclei located near the neutron or proton drip lines, for which the valence particles are very loosely bound, give rise to interesting new phenomena, e.g., formation of halo structures . The low binding energies of the valence nucleons result in large sizes and thus, in increased probabilities for specific reaction channels such as nucleon tranfer and fusion. The synthesis of heavier nuclei could thus be achieved through fusion reactions induced by these exotic nuclei.

Due to the increasing availability of radioactive ion beams, many questions concerning the effects of breakup processes on sub-barrier fusion of drip-line nuclei have been raised recently, both from the experimental  and theoretical  points of view. From studies of fusion of stable nuclei where breakup process is not so important, it is known that any coupling of the relative motion of the colliding nuclei to nuclear intrinsic excitations causes large enhancements of the fusion cross sections at sub-barrier energies over the predictions of a simple barrier penetration model. It is expected that the same thing happens for coupling to the breakup channel as well, especially for the weakly bound exotic nuclei lying close to or on the neutron/proton drip lines, for which the probability of dissociation prior to or at the point of contact is quite high. Therefore, for these nuclei, the cross sections for inclusive processes, i.e., the sum of complete and incomplete fusion cross sections should be enhanced when couplings to the breakup channels are considered. Considered from another point of view, the presence of halo structure means a root mean square (rms) matter radius larger than the usual value deduced from the $`r_0A^{\frac{1}{3}}`$ systematics. As a consequence, the sub-barrier fusion cross section should be enhanced since the Coulomb barrier is lowered. On the other hand, one could also argue intuitively that increased breakup probabilities for these nuclei remove a significant part of flux and thus cross sections for complete fusion would be hindered.

Since the halo effects have first been detected in the two-neutron halo nucleus 11Li, most of the early investigations dealt with nuclei involving weakly bound neutrons. This has been the trend as well insofar as fusion reactions are concerned. Very recently fusion at near-barrier energies has been investigated theoretically for the neutron halo nuclei 11Be and 6He on Pb target. Coupled channel calculations have been performed by discretizing in energy the particle continuum states . The calculations show that the coupling to the breakup channels has two effects: the loss of flux to the breakup channels and the dynamical modification of fusion potential. Their net effects differ depending on the energy region. At energies above the Coulomb barrier, the former effect dominates over the latter and cross sections for complete fusion are hindered compared to the no-coupling case. On the other hand, at sub-barrier energies the latter effect is much larger than the former and complete fusion cross sections are enhanced consequently. This is unlike the outcome of the theoretical formulation by Hussein et al., according to which the breakup process always hinders complete fusion cross sections .

Recently, a complete fusion excitation function has been measured for the loosely bound nucleus 9Be on a Pb target at near-barrier energies . The measurements show that cross sections for complete fusion are considerably smaller at above-barrier energies compared with a theoretical calculation that reproduces the total fusion cross sections. Also, the fusion cross sections for the 4,6He + 238U systems measured by the SACLAY group seem to indicate that the breakup effects enhance fusion cross sections at sub-barrier energies . The results of these two recent experiments are in general agreement with the theoretical findings in Ref. .

Fusion induced by light proton-rich systems has received attention only recently , but not to a good extent. Unlike the neutron-rich systems the valence proton in the loosely bound proton-rich exotic nuclei has to tunnel through the barrier resulting from the Coulomb repulsion due to the charged core, which hinders the formation of proton halo. In fusion reaction, this might not lead to a significant lowering of the Coulomb barrier when such nuclei interact with a target. Thus the observations made in connection with fusion of neutron-rich nuclei at energies around the Coulomb barrier may not be the same for them. The breakup probabilities of the exotic nuclei depend significantly on the separation energy of the valence nucleon as well as its orbital angular momentum configuration . Any non-zero angular momentum with respect to the core will lead to a centrifugal barrier, which will restrict the extent of the wave function in the coordinate space. The increase of the separation energy of the valence nucleon further decreases the spread of the wave function and thereby the cross sections of breakup processes in which the valence particle is removed from the nucleus also decrease . If the exotic nucleus has some bound excited state(s), a part of the flux will go to its inelastic transition(s) from the ground state to the excited state(s). Transition from the ground state into the continumm via the excited state(s) would be possible. All these could also affect its fusion with a target nucleus.

We find it interesting to investigate the roles of all these aspects that could affect the fusion of an unstable, exotic nucleus with a stable, normal target. In the present work, we report first calculations on fusion reactions induced by the proton drip line exotic nucleus 17F and examine the effects of its inelastic excitation on the fusion cross sections. To compare and contrast the situation with a light neutron-rich exotic nucleus, we also perform calculations for the one-neutron halo nucleus 11Be. We follow the same coupled channel formalism as in Ref. . But unlike the calculations in this reference, we include continuum-continuum couplings. We assume the target to be inert in all cases, i.e., possible excitations of the target are neglected. Both Coulomb and nuclear effects are included in the calculations. In recent measurements with the proton drip line exotic nucleus 17F in fusion-fission reaction on Pb at energies around the Coulomb barrier no enhancement of the fusion cross section is observed . In Fig. 1, we show our calculations on the fusion cross section for 17F + Pb at near-barrier energies alongwith the data . We have done two sets of calculations. In the first set of calculation (left half of Fig. 1), we consider only the transition from the ground state of 17F (600 keV below the breakup threshold) into the continuum. In the second set (right half of Fig. 1), the bound first excited state situated 495 keV above the ground state is also included in the calculation. This means that we have considered ground state (0$`d_{\frac{5}{2}}`$) to first excited state (1$`s_{\frac{1}{2}}`$) coupling (through quadrupole transition) and also couplings from the first excited state to the continuum. In both the cases, the continuum up to 2 MeV has been considered and it has been found that the results converge. The continuum has been discretized into 10 bins with a bin size of 200 keV. The continuum states have been taken to be situated at the middle of each bin. We consider transitions of multipolarity 1 and 2 for transitions into the continuum, with $`s`$-, $`p`$-, $`d`$\- and $`f`$-waves in the continuum, for the appropriate transitions. The nuclear part of the valence proton-target interaction, causing the inelastic transition/breakup of 17F, has been taken to be the same as the neutron-target interaction in Ref. . The nuclear part of the ion-ion interaction potential has been taken to be equal to that of the neighbouring nucleus 16O on Pb at 88 MeV laboratory energy . As far as the structure of 17F is concerned, we assume a single particle potential model in which the valence proton moves in a Coulomb and Woods-Saxon potential relative to 16O core. The depth of the Woods-saxon potential has been adjusted to reproduce the known one-proton separation energies for the bound states. The radius and diffuseness parameters of the Woods-Saxon potential have been taken to be 1.25 fm and 0.5 fm respectively.

There is good overall agreement of our calculations with the data. But compared to the no-coupling case, we do not observe any noticeable change of the fusion cross sections when the channel coupling effects are considered (see left and right parts of Fig. 1). However, with inclusion of the 1$`s_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ state in the calculation, we see a small increase in the complete fusion cross sections at above-barrier energies (see left and right parts of Fig. 2). We have done calculations for lighter targets also (not shown here) and found that the channel coupling effects are even smaller.

However, the observations are much different when fusion cross sections have been computed for the one-neutron halo nucleus on a Pb target. In this case, our calculations are different from those reported in Ref.  in five aspects. Firstly, we take into account the proper rms size, 2.91 fm, of the 11Be nucleus in its ground state. In Ref. , this was obtained from $`r_0A^{\frac{1}{3}}`$, with $`r_0`$ = 1.1 fm. This gives a rms size of 2.45 fm, which underestimates the actual size by almost 20%. Secondly, we also include the first excited state of 11Be, situated at 320 keV with respect to the ground state, in the calculation. Thirdly, unlike Ref. , where the continuum up to 2 MeV has been considered, we consider the continuum up to 8 MeV, thereby ensuring convergence of the results. However, the continuum discretization scheme is the same as that for 17F. Fourthly, continuum-continuum couplings are considered. Fifthly, we consider dipole transitions only, as these have been found to be very much predominant in case of dissociation of 11Be . But unlike the treatment of Ref. , in which only $`p_{\frac{3}{2}}`$ waves in the continuum are considered, we consider $`s`$-, $`p`$\- and $`d`$-waves in the continuum. The couplings, corresponding to dipole transitions, have been taken appropriately.

We display the results in Fig. 3 alongwith the data on total (i.e. complete plus incomplete) fusion cross section on a 209Bi target , the neighbouring nucleus of Pb, since the data on a Pb target is not available for 11Be induced fusion. When only couplings from the ground state to the continuum are considered, we see significant enhancement of the sub-barrier complete and total fusion cross sections, and suppression of complete fusion cross sections at energies above the barrier. Above the Coulomb barrier, the total fusion cross sections gradually become identical with the cross sections obtained in the no-coupling limit. With inclusion of the first excited state of 11Be in the calculation the total fusion cross sections remain almost the same at energies above the barrier. But both the complete and the total fusion cross sections become larger below the barrier, by almost a factor of two at smaller energies. However, there is significant decrease ($``$21%) of the complete fusion cross sections at above-barrier energies when the additional couplings with the first excited state are considered (see the two solid lines). Since complete fusion occurs when 11Be is absorbed by the target in its ground state as well as in the bound excited state, this indicates that a considerable amount of flux goes into inelastic excitation of 11Be to its first excited state. This is in agreement with the fact that this transition is known to be one of the strongest dipole transitions, with a $`B(E1)`$ value equal to 0.36$`\pm `$0.03 W.u. .

In Fig. 3, the agreement of the total fusion cross sections with the data is good at above-barrier energies. However, there are large error bars in the data, both in the horizontal and vertical directions, at sub-barrier energies. At low energies, there are only few data points. Further high-precision measurements, especially on complete fusion cross sections are suggested. We expect that it would reveal the importance of including the first excited state of 11Be in the calculation.

The difference in features of the fusion cross sections in reactions induced by 17F and 11Be could be attributed to different structures of these two nuclei. The dominant ground state configuration of 11Be is 10Be$`(0^+)\nu `$(1$`s_{\frac{1}{2}}`$), whereas for 17F it is 16O$`(0^+)\pi `$(0$`d_{\frac{5}{2}}`$). The valence proton in 17F feels the Coulomb barrier and the $`\mathrm{}`$=2 centrifugal barrier unlike the valence neutron in 11Be which interacts only via nuclear potential with the 10Be core and does not experience any centrifugal barrier. Therefore, although the one-nucleon separation energies are almost the same (0.504 MeV in 11Be and 0.6 MeV in 17F), breakup through one-nucleon removal is much more favoured in case of 11Be as compared to 17F. We expect that breakup of 17F will have little bearing on its fusion cross section at near-barrier energies. This is also true so far as its inelastic transition to the first excited state is concerned. Dynamical calculations in Ref.  also show that the excitation/breakup probabilities of 17F are small enough to affect the fusion process significantly. On the other hand, the cross sections are very large for excitation/dissociation of 11Be on a heavy target . Due to the large size, there is more chance of lowering of the fusion barrier in case of 11Be. In fact, the 11Be rms radius is 2.91 fm, $``$20% larger than that obtained from the systematics, and consequently the Coulomb barrier is about 1.6 MeV lower. However, 17F is a usual nucleus in this sense with an almost normal size of 3.04 fm .

In summary, we have performed coupled channel calculations of fusion cross sections in reactions induced by the exotic nuclei 17F and 11Be on Pb target. We include couplings to the inelastic and breakup channels of the projectiles. For 17F induced reaction, there is no modification of the fusion cross sections as compared with the no-coupling case. This is due to the small breakup probabilities of 17F even on a heavy target, which in turn is related to its structure in the ground state. Although proton-rich, 17F is not a one-proton halo nucleus. On the other hand, 11Be is an established one-neutron halo nucleus with a well-developed halo structure, and consequently has large probabilities of undergoing dissociation. This is reflected in the large enhancement of the sub-barrier complete and total fusion cross sections, and suppression of the complete fusion cross sections at energies above the Coulomb barrier. The suppression becomes less when additional couplings from the only bound excited state of 11Be are taken into consideration. This is due to the strong dipole transition between the ground state and the first excited state of 11Be, which also contributes to the complete fusion cross section.

It would be interesting to check the effects of couplings to breakup channels in fusion of a more exotic proton-rich nucleus, e.g., with a proton halo and with breakup probabilities as large as those of 11Be. The nucleus 8B, with one-proton separation energy of 0.137 MeV only, would be an ideal candidate in this regard. These calculations are under progress.

One of the authors (P.B.) thanks J. N. De for his encouragement during this work. Fruitful discussions with Andrea Vitturi are gratefully acknowledged.


text:
# On flavor mixing by an effective Light-Cone QCD-Hamiltonian

## 1 Introduction

In the fundamental hadronic theory, the gauge theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), isospin symmetry is not manifested in an obvious way. As part of an ongoing work on the light-cone approach, the present note contributes another facet to this problem .

As reviewed in , the light-cone approach is to diagonalize the light-cone Hamiltonian, $`H_{LC}|\mathrm{\Psi }=M^2|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, and to calculate the spectra and invariant mass-squared of physical particles. In particular the method addresses calculation of the associated wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n=\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}},\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}g},\mathrm{}`$, which are the Fock-space projections of the hadrons eigenstate. The total wave function for a meson is then $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{meson}=_i(\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}__i,\lambda _i)|q\overline{q}+\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}g}(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}__i,\lambda _i)|q\overline{q}g+\mathrm{})`$. The problem has been solved thus far only for 1-space dimension by the method of Discretized Light-Cone Quantization, see , a method which in principle can be applied also to the physical 3-space and 1-time dimensions.

For 3-space dimensions, however, it is technically easier to resort to an effective interaction. One can reduce the full light-cone Hamiltonian with its complicated many-body aspects by the method of iterated resolvents  to an effective light-cone Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, which yields the same eigenvalues and which by definition acts only in the Fock space of a quark and an anti-quark

$$H_{\mathrm{eff}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}=M^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}},$$
(1)
with the effective Hamiltonian

$$H_{\mathrm{eff}}=T+U_{\mathrm{OGE}}+U_{\mathrm{TGA}}=T+VG_3V+VG_3VG_2VG_3V.$$
(2)
The kinetic energy $`T`$ is as usual a diagonal operator in momentum space while the effective interaction kernel $`U=U_{\mathrm{OGE}}+U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ is off-diagonal. It has two contributions, an effective one-gluon-exchange interaction $`U_{\mathrm{OGE}}=VG_3V`$ and an effective two-gluon-annihilation interaction $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}=VG_3VG_2VG_3V`$. The action of these two interactions is conceptually different, as illustrated in Fig. 1. In the upper left diagram, the vertex interaction $`V`$ creates a virtual gluon which propagates with the two quarks in the $`q\overline{q}g`$-space by means of the propagator $`G_3(\omega )=G_{q\overline{q}g}(\omega )`$, before it is annihilated by another action of $`V`$. The momentum transfer causes a genuine $`q\overline{q}`$-interaction. If it is absorbed however on the same line by the quark, as illustrated by the diagram in the upper right of the figure, the momentum is unchanged, hence there is no interaction but a contribution to the effective quark mass. The vertex interaction $`V`$ is known and tabulated in , as part of the total light-cone Hamiltonian $`H_{LC}`$. A priori unknown is the propagator $`G_3(\omega )`$, and much of the compact, and perhaps confusing, discussion in  deals with this question. A broader presentation is now available in . There, it is also shown that the higher Fock-space wave functions like $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n=\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}g},\mathrm{}`$, can be found by quadratures like $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_n=GV\mathrm{}GV|\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}`$, i.e. as functionals of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{q\overline{q}}`$ without that an other eigenvalue problem has to be solved.

The second part of the interaction is even more complicated, as illustrated in the lower diagram of Fig. 1. There, the second hit of $`V`$ does not absorb the gluon but creates a second one. Together they propagate in the $`gg`$-space by means of the propagator $`G_2(\omega )=G_{gg}(\omega )`$. Finally, a third and fourth action of $`V`$ brings the system back to the $`q\overline{q}`$-space.— The graphs in the figure illustrate the difference of the two interactions: $`U_{\mathrm{OGE}}`$ conserves the flavor of each quark individually, as opposed to $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ which can act only if the quark and anti-quark have the same flavor and which scatters a pair $`f\overline{f}`$ into the same or another pair $`f^{}\overline{f}^{}`$.

The question I ask in this short note is: Does the excellent agreement between theory and experiment to be reported in section 2 gets spoiled when I include the flavor-changing interaction $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$?

For this purpose I summarize the main results for the flavor-conserving interaction $`U_{\mathrm{OGE}}`$ in section 2 and formulate a very simple model for including the flavor-changing interaction $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ in section 3. This will allow me to present numerical results in section 4, which are based on the numerical diagonalization of a $`5\times 5`$-matrix. To understand these results analytically, I formulate a schematic model in section 4. I draw the conclusions in section 5.

## 2 The flavor-off-diagonal mesons

If one restricts to mesons whose valence quarks and anti-quarks have different flavor, one can solve the simpler equation

$$H_{\mathrm{OGE}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f}^{}}=(T+U_{\mathrm{OGE}})|\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f}^{}}=M_{f\overline{f}^{}}^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f}^{}},$$
(3)
to obtain physical masses $`M_{f\overline{f}^{}}`$ and the associated wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f}^{}}`$. I refer to these mesons as flavor-off-diagonal.

The solution of this equation is far from trivial. One faces all the difficult questions of gauge field theory, among them introducing cut-offs and their removal by renormalization. By reducing the difficulties with the simple $``$-model , it was possible to generate solutions with a rather modest effort. I see no point in quoting many details since they will not be needed here, except the fact that the model has the 7+1 canonical parameters of a gauge field theory: the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$, the six flavor quark masses $`m_f`$, plus the one scale parameter $`\mu `$, which arises due to renormalization. By adjusting them, all flavor-off-diagonal meson-masses are reproduced, see Tables 2 and 2, with the experimental data taken from .

Since the top quark is omitted here for simplicity, I deal with $`n_f=5`$ flavors. Since the up and the down quark mass is put equal as usual, i.e. $`m_u=m_d=406\text{ MeV}`$, the model has 5 adjustable parameters which are determined by the underlined data in the table. There remain 12 data whose agreement with the available experimental values is remarkable, to say the least.

## 3 A crude model for flavor-diagonal mesons

When dealing with the flavor-diagonal mesons one has to include the effective two-gluon-annihilation interaction $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}=VG_3VG_2VG_3V`$, but the explicit calculation of this operator is cumbersome and far from being trivial. I try to get around this work as long as possible, and for convenience define the ground-state-to-ground-state correlations

$$a_{ff^{}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f}}|U_{\mathrm{TGA}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{f^{}\overline{f}^{}}.$$
(4)
The matrix $`a_{ff^{}}`$ is symmetric and depends on the wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, which are solutions to Eq.(3). Whatever the structure of $`VG_3VG_2VG_3V`$, the $`a_{ff^{}}`$ must obey

$$a_{uu}=a_{dd}=a_{ud}=a_{dd}a,\text{and }M_{d\overline{d}}=M_{u\overline{u}},$$
(5)
since the up and the down quarks have equal masses.

Suppose for a moment that the would-be-$`\pi ^0`$ is a pure $`u\overline{u}`$, and the would-be-$`\eta `$ a pure $`d\overline{d}`$-state. One could calculate the impact of $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ by first order perturbation theory with the result that the $`\pi ^0`$ and the $`\pi ^\pm `$ can have very different masses for large $`a`$ and that the $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$ are degenerate, i.e.

$$M_{\pi ^0}^2=M_{\pi ^\pm }^2+a,\text{and }M_{\pi ^0}=M_\eta ,$$
(6)
respectively. The first answer to the question above must be therefore: The model does not work for flavor-diagonal mesons.

Upon second thought one realizes that the flavor-changing interaction causes a flavor-mixing as illustrated in Table 4. The matrix shown in this table displays the kernel of the effective Hamiltonian as a matrix of block matrices . Say, the effective Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{OGE}}`$ contributes $`E_i`$ to the diagonal blocks. The flavor-changing interaction $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ contributes $`A_i`$, thus every diagonal block is $`D_i=E_i+A_i`$. But $`U_{\mathrm{TGA}}`$ contributes also to the sector-dependend off-diagonal blocks which depend on the flavor masses.

The diagonalization of $`H_{\mathrm{OGE}}`$ and the generation of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ can be understood as a unitary transformation to pre-diagonalize the flavor-mixing matrix. Although

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{f\overline{f};i}|U_{\mathrm{TGA}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_{f^{}\overline{f}^{};j}=0,\text{for }ij,$$
(7)
is not true in general, one can expect that the off-diagonal matrix elements ($`ij`$) are (much) smaller than the diagonal ($`i=j`$). Requiring Eq.(7) to be true, however, makes things very simple. Eq.(7) will be referred to as model assumption I. As model assumption II, I introduce

$$a_{us}=a_{dc}=a_{ub}=\mathrm{}=a_{bb}a,$$
(8)
just to reduce their number. In principle, these correlations could be calculated from the wave functions, but here I adjust $`a`$ as a free parameter to experiment. Note that $`a`$ is different for pseudo-scalar and vector mesons, since their wave functions are different.

For $`n_f=5`$ flavors, the model assumptions (7) and (8) reduce the problem to diagonalize a $`5\times 5`$-matrix:

$$f|H_\mathrm{M}|f^{}=a+M_{f\overline{f}}^2\delta _{f,f^{}},\text{for }f,f^{}=1,\mathrm{},n_f.$$
(9)
The flavor-diagonal mass eigenvalues $`M_{f\overline{f}}^2`$ are fixed by the $``$-model and are tabulated below, in Tables 6 and 6. Adjusting the only free parameter $`a`$ to the mass of the $`\eta ^{}`$ yields the eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as displayed in Table 4. The corresponding eigenvalues, the physical masses $`M`$, are given in Table 6.

The wave functions in Table 4 have a characteristic pattern which should be discussed to some further detail. Only the light flavors $`(u\overline{u},d\overline{d},s\overline{s})`$ are mixed significantly, while the heavy flavors $`(c\overline{c},b\overline{b})`$ are essentially pure. The physical $`\pi ^0`$ is a superposition of the $`u\overline{u}`$ and the $`d\overline{d}`$-state with no admixture of the $`s\overline{s}`$. The pattern $`(1,1,0)`$ is independent of $`a`$ and a consequence of the equal up and down quark mass, as to be understood by the considerations in Section 4. The wave functions of the $`\eta `$ and the $`\eta ^{}`$ have the pattern $`(1,1,1)`$ and $`(1,1,2)`$, respectively, in rough agreement with the SU(3)-pattern to be explained.

By adjusting one single parameter, one reproduces three empirical facts: (1) the mass of the $`\pi ^0`$ is (roughly) degenerate with $`\pi ^\pm `$ (isospin); (2) the unperturbed mass of the $`\eta `$ is lifted from the comparably small value of $`140`$ MeV to the comparatively large value of $`485`$ MeV; (3) the unperturbed mass of the $`\eta ^{}`$ is lifted by roughly 50% the meet the experimental value due to the fit.

## 4 A schematic model for flavor-SU(2) and flavor-SU(3)

To understand better the pattern of the wave functions in Table 4, I select first to 2 flavors with equal masses $`m_u=m_d`$. The flavor-mixing matrix reduces to a 2 by 2 matrix, with

$$H_\mathrm{M}=\begin{array}{ccccc}& & u\overline{u}& d\overline{d}& \\ u\overline{u}& (\mathrm{}& a+M_{u\overline{u}}^2& a& )\mathrm{}\\ d\overline{d}& a& a+M_{u\overline{u}}^2\end{array}.$$
(10)
The diagonalization of $`H_\mathrm{M}|\mathrm{\Phi }_i=M_i^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$ is easy. The two eigenstates,

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}|u\overline{u}\\ |d\overline{d}\end{array}\right),|\mathrm{\Phi }_2=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}|u\overline{u}\\ |d\overline{d}\end{array}\right),$$
(11)
are associated with the eigenvalues

$$M_1^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2,M_2^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2+2a.$$
(12)
The assumption of equal quark masses leads thus to $`M_{u\overline{d}}=M_{d\overline{u}}=M_1`$. They can be arranged into a mass degenerate triplet of isospin 1, independent of the numerical value of $`a`$.

Next, consider 3 flavors. The flavor mixing matrix for the ground state becomes

$$H_\mathrm{M}=\begin{array}{cccccc}& & u\overline{u}& d\overline{d}& s\overline{s}& \\ u\overline{u}& (\mathrm{}& a+M_{u\overline{u}}^2& a& a_{us}& )\mathrm{}\\ d\overline{d}& a& a+M_{u\overline{u}}^2& a_{ds}\\ s\overline{s}& a_{us}& a_{ds}& a_{ss}+M_{s\overline{s}}^2\end{array}.$$
(13)
If one assumes $`m_u=m_d=m_c=m`$, thus $`M_{s\overline{s}}^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2`$, as above, $`H_\mathrm{M}`$ can be diagonalized again in closed form. The three eigenstates

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}|u\overline{u}\\ |d\overline{d}\\ 0|s\overline{s}\end{array}\right),|\mathrm{\Phi }_2=\frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}\left(\begin{array}{c}|u\overline{u}\\ |d\overline{d}\\ 2|s\overline{s}\end{array}\right),|\mathrm{\Phi }_3=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\left(\begin{array}{c}|u\overline{u}\\ |d\overline{d}\\ |s\overline{s}\end{array}\right),$$
(14)
are associated with the eigenvalues

$$M_1^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2,M_2^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2,M_3^2=M_{u\overline{u}}^2+3a.$$
(15)
The coherent state picks up all the strength, again. The eigenvalues of the remaining two states coincide with the unperturbed ones. State $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ can again be interpreted as the eigenstate for the charge neutral $`\pi ^0`$ and the mass of the coherent state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_3`$ could be fitted with the $`\eta ^{}`$. But then state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ is degenerate with the $`\pi ^0`$: Instead of a mass triplet, one has a mass quadruplet. In the calculation of Section 3, this degeneracy is broken by the quark mass differences.

## 5 Conclusions

In the present light-cone approach to gauge theory with an effective interaction isospin is not a dynamic symmetry, but a consequence of equal up and down mass. Flavor-SU(3) is an approximate symmetry. The approach explains the phenomenological observation that flavor-SU(3) symmetry works better than SU(4) or SU(5): the large mass of the heavy quarks dominates the flavor-mixing matrix so strongly that the symmetry induced by the annihilation interaction is destroyed. Despite the simple model, the present work contributes to the $`\eta `$-$`\eta ^{}`$ puzzle  and has an accuracy comparable to state-of-art lattice-gauge calculations . To the best of my knowledge no other model including the phenomenological ones  covers the whole range of flavored hadrons with the same set of parameters.

The present approach is in conflict, however, with other theoretical constructs. Zero modes are absent since one works with the light-cone gauge $`A^+=0`$ . In consequence there are no chiral condensates which seem to be so important otherwise. They are not needed here since the parameter $`a`$ provides the additional mass scale. This fit-parameter is not on the same level as the physical parameters of the theory like the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ or the quark-flavor masses $`m_f`$. The present but still on-going work gives evidence why its calculation from theory might be worth the effort.