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# Possible Pairing-Induced Even-Denominator Fractional Quantum Hall Effect in the Lowest Landau Level

## Abstract

We report on our theoretical investigations that point to the possibility of a fractional quantum Hall effect with partial spin polarization at $`\nu =3/8`$. The physics of the incompressible state proposed here involves p-wave pairing of composite fermions in the spin reversed sector. The temperature and magnetic field regimes for the realization of this state are estimated.

The absence of fractional quantum Hall effect at the simplest even denominator fraction, $`\nu =1/2`$, continued to be an enigma for a decade after the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), but found a natural explanation  in the framework of the composite fermion (CF) theory of the FQHE. The sequence $`\nu =\frac{n}{2n\pm 1}`$, corresponding to the integral quantum Hall effect of composite fermions carrying two vortices (denoted by 2CFs) at $`\nu ^{}=n`$, converges to $`\nu =1/2`$ in the limit $`n\mathrm{}`$. At least for a model of non-interacting composite fermions, a gapless Fermi sea of composite fermions is obtained here, for which good experimental support exists. A FQHE at $`\nu =1/2`$ is not ruled out in principle, though; it may occur if, due to the residual inter-CF interaction, the CF Fermi sea should become unstable into an incompressible state as the temperature is lowered. There is, however, no experimental evidence at present for such an instability at $`\nu =1/2`$.

One might expect similar physics at the half filled second Landau level (LL), $`\nu =5/2`$, but a FQHE is observed here instead. The most promising proposal for the physical origin of the FQHE at $`\nu =5/2`$ is based on a p-wave pairing of composite fermions, described by a BCS-like Pfaffian wave function of Moore and Read. In spite of the intuitive appeal and theoretical support of this idea, further experimental tests of its consequences are crucial for its establishment. The difference between $`\nu =1/2`$ and $`\nu =5/2`$ lies in the interaction matrix elements, i.e. the Haldane pseudopotentials. A strong short range repulsion between electrons produces a Fermi sea of composite fermions, but when the interaction becomes weakly repulsive at short distances, as in the second LL, it produces an effective attractive interaction between composite fermions, causing a pairing instability of the CF Fermi sea . For an attractive interaction between electrons, either a charge-density-wave (CDW) phase  or a spin-singlet FQHE state becomes relevant, depending on parameters. The p-wave pairing between composite fermions thus seems to be favored when the interparticle interaction is weakly repulsive at short distances.

An example of weakly interacting fermions is composite fermions themselves. This raises the natural question if they could ever do what electrons do at $`\nu =5/2`$, namely put on (additional) vortices and pair up to produce FQHE. After a careful consideration of a wide range of possibilities, we have concluded that the best candidate is at CF filling of $`\nu ^{}=1+1/2`$, when the 0$``$ Landau level of 2CFs is fully occupied and the 0$``$ 2CF Landau level is half filled, as shown schematically in the inset of Fig. (1). This corresponds to a partially polarized state at $`\nu =3/8`$. The reason why this system is a good candidate for pairing is because the CF-CF interaction here is weakly repulsive at short distances, the origin of which can be understood intuitively following an argument by Nakajima and Aoki. The Haldane pseudopotentials for composite fermions, $`V_m^{CF}`$, are expected to be related to the electron pseudopotentials in the lowest LL, $`V_m^{elec}`$, approximately according to $`V_m^{CF}V_{m+2p}^{elec}`$, because a capture of $`2p`$ vortices by electrons shifts the relative angular momentum of any pair by $`2p`$ units. The strong short-range repulsion is thus eliminated when electrons transform into composite fermions. Below we describe our investigations that indeed support the possibility of a p-wave pairing of composite fermions in the spin reversed sector.

The spatial part of the wave function of the electronic state at $`\nu =3/8`$ is written as:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{\frac{3}{8}}=J^2\varphi _1^{}[\{w_r\}]\varphi _{1/2}^{}[\{z_i\}]$$
(1)
$`J^2={\displaystyle \underset{r<s}{\overset{N_{}}{}}}(w_rw_s)^2{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{\overset{N_{}}{}}}(z_iz_j)^2{\displaystyle \underset{i,r}{\overset{N_{},N_{}}{}}}(w_rz_i)^2`$ (2)
where $`w_r=x_riy_r`$ and $`z_j=x_jiy_j`$ refer to the coordinates of the electrons with up and down spins, respectively. The full wave function is written by multiplying by the appropriate spin part followed by antisymmetrization. It has spin polarization $`(N_{}N_{})/(N_{}+N_{})=1/3`$, and can be shown to be an eigenstate of the total spin with $`S=S_z`$.

The factor $`\varphi _1^{}[\{w_r\}]`$ is the wave function for the completely occupied lowest Landau level. Different states at $`\nu =3/8`$ correspond to different choices for $`\varphi _{1/2}^{}[\{z_i\}]`$ For the Fermi sea state at $`\nu =3/8`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\frac{3}{8}}^{FS}`$, we take in Eq. (1)

$$\varphi _{1/2}^{}[\{z_i\}]=𝒫_{LLL}\underset{j<k}{}(z_jz_k)^2\varphi _{\mathrm{}}^{}[\{z_i\}]$$
(3)
where $`\varphi _{\mathrm{}}^{}`$ is the Fermi sea wave function of electrons in zero magnetic field and $`𝒫_{LLL}`$ is the lowest Landau level projection operator. The Pfaffian state, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\frac{3}{8}}^{Pf}`$, is obtained with the choice

$$\varphi _{1/2}^{}[\{z_i\}]=\underset{j<k}{}(z_jz_k)^2Pf(M^{})$$
(4)
where $`Pf(M^{})`$ is the Pfaffian of the $`N_{}\times N_{}`$ antisymmetric matrix $`M^{}`$ with components $`M_{j,k}^{}=(z_jz_k)^1`$, defined as $`Pf(M^{})A[M_{12}M_{34}\mathrm{}M_{N_{}1,N_{}}]`$, $`A`$ being the antisymmetrization operator. $`Pf(M^{})`$ is a real space BCS wave function and $`\varphi _{1/2}^{}`$ can therefore be viewed as a p-wave paired quantum Hall state of composite fermions.

These states not only have mixed spin, but also an admixture of different flavors of composite fermions, those carrying 2 and 4 vortices, called 2CFs and 4CFs, respectively. In the first case, 2CFs capture two additional vortices to convert into 4CFs, which effectively experience no magnetic field and form a Fermi sea. In the second case, the 2CFs capture two additional vortices to convert into 4CFs, which form pairs; a gap opens up due to pairing and FQHE results. The wave functions above can be interpreted as describing Fermi sea and paired states of spin-down 4CFs in the background of spin-up 2CFs.

To check which state is energetically superior, we use the explicit analytical expressions for the lowest LL projected wave functions for composite fermions  and perform $`2N`$ dimensional integrals using Monte Carlo to obtain their Coulomb energy. We map the states onto the surface of a sphere  and calculate the energy of each state in the thermodynamic limit using a least squares fit. Fig. (1) shows that while both the paired state and the Fermi sea have energies quite comparable to those of the fully polarized states at 1/3 and 2/5 (-0.4098 and -0.4328 $`e^2/ϵl`$, respectively ), the former is favored over the latter. The energy difference is reduced by approximately an order of magnitude as compared to the analogous difference at 5/2, indicative of a substantially weaker interaction between the composite fermions.

Though consistent with pairing within the spin-down sector, the variational nature of the preceding result does not rule out other ground states. One way to ascertain the validity of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\frac{3}{8}}^{Pf}`$ would be to compare it with exact results for small systems. Unfortunately, the smallest system size for this state is 10 particles in the spherical geometry, where the Hilbert space is already prohibitively large for an exact diagonalization study. To make progress, we treat the filled 0$``$ 2CF Landau level as inert, and map the problem of composite fermions at $`\nu ^{}=1+1/2`$ into fermions at half filling. The advantage of this method is that only the reversed spin composite fermions in the 0$``$ 2CF-LL are considered explicitly, which reduces the size of the Hilbert space considerably. Given the strongly correlated nature of the problem, the effective 2CF-2CF interaction is complicated and is expected to contain two, three, and higher body terms. In order to proceed, we neglect all but the two body term; i.e., we assume that the three and higher body terms do not cause any phase transition. This approximate treatment of the effective interaction between these composite fermions is the most serious limitation of our model. The physics of the problem suggests the following CF-CF interaction. Consider two electrons in the lowest LL. Attaching $`2p`$ vortices to each electron modifies the interaction in three ways: i) The charge is reduced by a factor $`(2p+1)^1`$. ii) The effective magnetic field seen by CFs increases the magnetic length by a factor $`(2p+1)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$. iii) The model pseudopotentials have their relative angular momentum shifted by $`2p`$. This motivates the following model, similar to the one used previously for an investigation of the spin wave dispersion at $`\nu =1/3`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_m^{}^{elec}}{e^2/ϵl^{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{V_m^{CF}}{e^2/ϵl_0}}`$ (5)
where $`m^{}=m+2p`$, $`e^{}=\frac{e}{2p+1}`$, and $`l^{}=l_0\sqrt{2p+1}`$. A comparison with the pseudopotentials obtained directly from the microscopic wave functions, following the method of Refs. , demonstrates that the above model is surprisingly accurate. It should be noted that this model is valid only for spin-reversed composite fermions on top of the 1/3 state; in general, the more complicated method of Refs.  must be used.

With the above effective interaction between the spin-down composite fermions, we carry out exact diagonalization to look for pairing correlations within the 0$``$ 2CF LL. To begin with, we find a uniform ($`L=0`$) ground state at the flux $`2Q=2N_{}3`$, which corresponds to the Pfaffian wave function, for $`N_{}=8`$, 10, 14 and 16. Next we compare the ground state to the Pfaffian wave function, which is obtained by diagonalizing an interaction (containing three body terms) for which the Pfaffian wave function is the only zero energy eigenstate. The overlaps between the ground state of the $`V^{CF}`$ interaction (which we identify with the 3/8 state here) and the Pfaffian wave function are given in Table I; for comparison, the overlaps between the ground state at 1/2 filling in the second electronic Landau level (identified with 5/2) and the Pfaffian are also given. While the overlaps are not as decisively large as those between the filled CF-LL wave functions and the exact ground states at the principal filling factors, they are significant, and overall support the interpretation of the 3/8 state as a paired state of composite fermions.

To address the issue of the robustness of the 3/8 paired state, we have investigated its evolution in a model in which the first odd pseudopotential, $`V_1^{CF}`$, is replaced by $`V_1^{model}`$. As shown in Fig. (2), the state survives an $``$8% change in $`V_1`$ in either direction. Based on the previous discussion, one would expect that on the large $`V_1^{model}`$ side of the “paired” region ($`V_1^{model}/V_1^{CF}1`$), the Fermi sea has the lowest energy, whereas the stripe phase is likely on the small $`V_1`$ side. We have confirmed this by comparing the energies of the three states following the method of Ref. . This points to the interesting possibility that a transition from the paired state to stripes or Fermi sea may be driven by a change of parameters, as was suggested at 5/2 as well. It is noted that for the fully spin polarized state at $`\nu =3/8`$, where one must consider half filled 1$``$ 2CF Landau level, a similar model for the CF-CF interaction appears to indicate the stripe phase.

Another measure of the strength of a FQHE state is the excitation gap. The lowest energy excitations of the 3/8 state are expected to lie within the spin-down CF LL, because of the reduced effective interaction. Therefore, our effective model containing only spin-down composite fermions is also valid for low energy excitations. Fig. (3) shows the low energy spectrum for 8, 10, 14, and 16 particles for the effective interaction, $`V^{CF}`$, obtained by the Lanczos method. The energy gap is on the order of $`0.0004\frac{e^2}{ϵl_0}`$. While the smallest gap is not identical to the gap to creating a far separated particle-hole pair, we expect both to be of similar magnitude. In an analogous study, Morf  estimated the gap at $`\nu =5/2`$ to be $`0.02\frac{e^2}{ϵl_0}`$. For a given density, the units $`\frac{e^2}{ϵl_0}`$ differ by a factor of $`\sqrt{20/3}`$ at 5/2 and 3/8, and the theoretical estimates for the 5/2 and 3/8 gaps differ by a factor of $``$ 20 in constant units (e.g., mK). Experimentally, the gap at 5/2 is in the range 200-300 mK, which would suggest that the gap for the paired state at 3/8 might be in the range 10-15 mK, which is quite small but above the lowest temperatures where FQHE experiments have been performed. (Given that the 5/2 gap is a factor of 3-5 smaller than the theoretical value, the number 10-15 mK ought to be taken only as a crude estimate.)

A sufficiently large Zeeman energy will eliminate a partially polarized ground state at $`\nu =\frac{3}{8}`$. In order to estimate the magnetic field range where the partially polarized state may be viable, let us consider the addition of a single composite fermion to the state in which all states of the 0$``$ CF-LL are occupied. The composite fermion can be added to either the 0$``$ CF-LL or the 1$``$ CF-LL. The former is favorable so long as the Zeeman splitting energy, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_Z=|g|\mu _BB`$, is smaller than the effective cyclotron energy of the composite fermion, $`\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}`$, defined as $`\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}=ϵ^1ϵ^0`$ where $`ϵ^1`$ and $`ϵ^0`$ are the Coulomb self energies for the additional composite fermion in the 1$``$ and 0$``$ CF-LLs. It has been estimated from exact diagonalization as well as CF wave functions  that $`\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}=0.028\frac{e^2}{ϵl_0}`$ for the Coulomb interaction. The condition favoring the addition of the spin reversed CF, $`\mathrm{}\omega _c^{}>\mathrm{\Delta }_Z`$, is satisfied for $`B<20`$T for parameters appropriate to GaAs. Many experimentally relevant effects like finite thickness, LL mixing, or disorder have not been considered in this estimation, and also the problem of the addition of only a single composite fermion at $`\nu =1/3`$ has been considered, but it nonetheless indicates that a partially polarized state at 3/8 may be possible in the accessible parameter regime. (We note that numerous partially or un-polarized FQHE states have been observed.)

Before concluding, it is worth noting how fantastically complex the proposed 3/8 paired state is when viewed in terms of electrons: first all electrons at $`\nu =3/8`$ capture two vortices to become 2CFs at $`\nu ^{}=1+1/2`$; then those in the half filled spin reversed 2CF Landau level capture two additional vortices to transform into 4CFs that see no magnetic field; these would normally form a 4CF Fermi sea, but the Fermi sea is unstable to pairing due to a weak residual attraction between the 4CFs; pairing of 4CFs opens up a gap to produce FQHE. An observation of FQHE at this even denominator fraction in the lowest LL, apart from being interesting in its own right, will provide further support for pairing of composite fermions as a valid mechanism for FQHE.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants no. DMR-9986806, DGE-9987589, and DMR-0086191 (EHR). We are grateful to the Numerically Intensive Computing Group led by V. Agarwala, J. Holmes, and J. Nucciarone, at the Penn State University CAC for assistance and computing time with the LION-X cluster. We thank Seung-Yeop Lee for many helpful discussions.


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# REFERENCES

Comment on “A simple one-dimensional model of heat conduction which obeys Fourier’s law”

In a recent letter Garrido et al  consider heat conduction in a model of hard point particles of alternating masses on a one-dimensional line. Based on a number of numerical results, the authors claim that this momentum conserving model exhibits Fourier’s law. We first comment on the apparent contradiction with an earlier result of Prosen and Campbell  (PC). We then point out certain inconsistencies in their results and disagreements with our own results.

The authors have first measured the system size dependence of the mean current $`J=N^1_lm_lu_l^3/2`$ where $`m_l`$, $`x_l`$ and $`u_l`$ denote the mass, position, velocity of the $`l`$th particle and $`N`$ is the number of particles . As they correctly point out, it is not possible to make definite conclusions from this simulation data, since the asymptotic regime may not have been attained. Next the authors compute the current-current correlation $`C(t)=NJ(t)J(0)`$ and find a decay $`C(t)t^{1.3}`$, which is sufficiently fast to give a finite Kubo conductivity $`\kappa `$. This would seem to contradict the exact result of PC on infinite thermal conductivity in momentum conserving systems. Their proof applies to this model. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that, in their simulation, Garrido et al work in an ensemble with total momentum set to zero and in this case the PC proof does not predict anything. As has been pointed out by Bonetto et al , the correct expression for the Kubo formula requires one to use the connected part of the correlation function if one is working in the canonical ensemble . Alternatively one may fix the momentum to be zero and work with the usual correlation function as Garrido et al have done. Thus the work of PC does not really prove divergence of $`\kappa `$.

However some aspects of the paper appear to be unsatisfactory and need some explanation. Firstly the linear temperature profiles obtained in the paper are inconsistent with the finding of finite $`\kappa `$. The temperature dependence of $`\kappa `$ can be scaled out from the Kubo formula, yielding a $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence (given $`\kappa `$ is finite). This follows from the fact that the correlation $`C_T(t)`$ at temperature $`T`$ has the scaling form $`C_T(t)=T^3C_1(T^{1/2}t)`$. The $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence of $`\kappa `$ also follows from simple kinetic theory arguments. A temperature dependent $`\kappa `$ at once leads to nonlinear temperature profiles. Infact in our study of the same model  we clearly see the expected nonlinear profiles for similar system sizes. One possible reason for the difference could be that Garrido et al use determistic heat baths unlike the stochastic heat baths used by us. It is not clear how well such deterministic baths simulate true thermal sources. Another possibile source of error is the way Garrido et al define local temperature, namely, by measuring the mean kinetic energy and mean position of each particle. In one dimensions position fluctuations are large ($`\sqrt{N}`$) and a more correct procedure is the one used by us: to define the local number and energy densities as $`n(x,t)=_l\delta (xx_l)`$ and $`ϵ(x,t)=_l(m_lu_l^2/2)\delta (xx_l)`$ respectively, and then define the local temperature as $`T(x)=2ϵ(x)/n(x)`$.

Secondly, from our own simulations, we are unable to verify the results of . The authors have computed $`C(t)`$ and also the onsite correlator $`c(t)=j_i(t)j_i(0)`$. They find that for the unequal mass case, $`C(t)`$ and $`c(t)`$ have roughly the same long-time decay $`1/t^{1.3}`$ while for the equal mass case $`c(t)1/t^3`$. Our results are summarized in Fig. (1) and the important differences with  are:

(i) We do not find any evidence for the decay $`C(t)1/t^{1.3}`$. Infact the behaviour we find is consistent with the decay $`J1/N^{0.83}`$ found in . However we do not wish to make a strong case for the number $`0.83`$ though it is rather striking that we get the same number from two very different approaches.

(ii) The behaviour of $`c(t)`$ seems to be very different from that of $`C(t)`$ contrary to what is claimed in . The authors comment that $`c(t)`$ has better averaging properties and, because it shows approximately the same decay, this confirms the behaviour seen for $`C(t)`$. But is there any reason to expect that for the unequal mass case $`C(t)`$ and $`c(t)`$ will have similar decay laws ? Infact for the equal mass case we know that $`C(t)`$ is a constant (since $`J`$ is a constant of motion) and therefore the behaviour of $`C(t)`$ and $`c(t)`$ are drastically different.

(iii) The equal mass case is nonergodic since there are a macroscopic number of conservation laws. Thus time averages from simulations are initial-condition-dependent. We can verify this in our simulations and also find that making the masses slightly unequal restores ergodicity. Thus it is hard to understand how the decay $`c(t)1/t^3`$ is obtained by . We note that the paper by Jepsen  (quoted by Garrido at al) only gives $`v_i(t)v_i(0)1/t^3`$. It is not clear how this leads to the same prediction for the asymptotic behaviour of $`c(t)`$ which is more like $`v_i^3(t)v_i^3(0)`$. Besides, the calulation of Jepsen is not done in the zero-momentum ensemble.

In our simulations time averages were performed over $`10^910^{10}`$ collisions. As checks on our simulations we found that $`C(0)`$ and $`c(0)`$ agree with their exactly known values and also that $`C(t)`$ and $`c(t)`$ satisfy the exact scaling relations mentioned above. In the equal mass case we got a constant $`C(t)`$, as expected.

In conclusion we have shown that there does not seem to be any hard evidence to prove validity of Fourier’s law in this system. We think it is as hard to conclude anything (about finiteness of $`\kappa `$ ) from correlation function data as it is from the $`J`$versus $`N`$ data.

I thank Onuttom Narayan for illuminating discussions and for critically reading the manuscript.

Abhishek Dhar
Raman Research Institute
Bangalore 560080
India.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Despite concerted efforts by many groups over a period of more than three decades, the problem of stellar collapse, supernova production, and neutron star formation is still not understood. The basic physical inputs required for calculations of stellar collapse are, apart from an initial stellar model, the equation of state of hot dense matter, and the rates of neutrino production, absorption, and scattering processes. There are tantalizing hints that, if the microscopic physical input differed from what is presently used in simulations, the “delayed” mechanism , in which the outgoing shock wave is revived by deposition of energy by neutrinos streaming out of the stellar core, could account for core collapse supernovae and the formation of neutron stars in the collapse of a massive star.

One such hint comes from a relatively old calculation in which it was found that the allowance for pion-like excitations in the equation of state led to an increase in the explosion energy . This indicates the importance of performing improved calculations of the equation of state in which pionic degrees of freedom are treated realistically. A second hint comes from parametric studies of core-collapse models, which indicate that the outcome of stellar collapse is sensitive to modest changes (a factor of two, say) in the neutrino opacity . The effects of some parts of the nucleon-nucleon interactions on rates of neutrino processes in stellar collapse have been investigated by a number of groups, but so far the tensor part of the interaction has received scant attention, except in the work of Raffelt and colleagues . Given what is known about the role of the tensor force in finite nuclei, there is reason to believe that its effect on neutrino processes in stellar collapse could be significant.

Numerical simulations of stellar collapse provide motivation for taking up the question of how important tensor correlations are in nuclear and neutron matter. In addition, theoretical investigations of the equation of state of cold dense matter point to there being strong pionic correlations at densities only slightly above that of saturated nuclear matter . In the latter work it was found that a state resembling a neutral pion condensate was energetically favorable compared with one that did not, contrary to the view accepted for the past quarter of a century that pion condensation is ruled out at such densities by the strong central part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction in the spin-isospin channel. The pionic correlations give rise to maxima in the static longitudinal structure factor for the nuclear spin in neutron matter, and for the nucleon spin-isospin in nuclear matter, as shown in Fig. 1. The definition of the structure factor is given in Eq. (11) below.

All these pieces of evidence point to the importance of investigating anew tensor correlations in dense matter.

The aspect we shall focus on most here is that of neutrino processes, and how they are affected by non-central forces, of which the pion-exchange interaction between nucleons is an example. Our aim is to provide a general framework within which to describe neutrino processes, including production, scattering and absorption. We shall make connections to Landau’s theory of normal Fermi liquids, and indicate how the usual formulation, which assumes that the interaction is invariant under rotation of the spins of the particles, needs to be extended.

## 2 Neutrino processes

Rates of neutrino processes in dense matter are affected significantly by nucleon-nucleon interactions. Among early works on this subject we mention Refs.  and  on neutrino scattering processes in degenerate matter. Rates of neutrino processes in dense matter were calculated with allowance for the effect of nucleon-nucleon interactions on the energies of the quasiparticles in Ref. . In addition, the influence of the finite lifetime of excitations in the nuclear medium on rates of neutrino processes has been considered in Refs.  and . In the latter calculations, the non-central character of the nucleon-nucleon interaction plays an important role. Finally, in Ref. , the calculations of Refs.  and  have been extended to allow for partial degeneracy of the nucleons, and for non-zero momentum transfers. In the latter work the screening of the weak interaction matrix elements by the central part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction was taken into account. Tensor correlations play an important role in determining the rates of neutrino processes in dense matter, both for the neutrino processes of importance in stellar collapse, as we shall explain in greater detail below, as well as for the modified Urca process which is important for the cooling of neutron stars.

Since the weak coupling constant is small, it is generally an excellent approximation to calculate the rate of neutrino processes in dense matter using the standard golden-rule result for the transition rate. Furthermore, the effects of other interactions, such as electromagnetic ones, between leptons and hadrons are generally small, and the expression for the rate $`Q`$ of transitions may be written in the form

$$QG_{F}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}n\frac{d^3𝐪d\omega }{(2\pi )^4}S_{\mu \nu }(𝐪,\omega )N^{\mu \nu }(𝐪,\omega )$$
(1)
where $`G_F`$ is the weak coupling constant, $`n`$ is the baryon density, $`S_{\mu \nu }(𝐪,\omega )`$ is a dynamical structure factor for the hadron system, and $`N^{\mu \nu }(𝐪,\omega )`$ is a function that depends only on the leptons. The quantity $`𝐪`$ denotes the momentum transfer to the nucleon system, and $`\omega `$ the energy transfer. The weak interaction has the form of a product of current operators, either the vector current or the axial vector one, for the leptonic and hadronic systems. For definiteness, let us assume that the hadron system consists of non-relativistic nucleons. In this case, the leading contribution to a current is the time component which, for the vector current, is proportional to the nucleon density and, for the axial vector current, to the spin density. More generally one must include relativistic effects, such as weak magnetism (see e.g. Ref. ), and other hadronic degrees of freedom.

### 2.1 Neutral-current processes

To illustrate the qualitative effects of a non-central interaction, such as the tensor interaction, on neutrino processes, we consider as an example scattering of neutrinos by the weak neutral-current interaction. The structure factor of interest in calculating the rate of the process is then the one for the spin density. The tensor interaction has three qualitatively different effects. These are conveniently examined for processes in which the momentum and energy transfers are small compared with the typical energies and momenta of a nucleon in the medium. One effect is to change the expectation value of the spin of an excitation in the nuclear medium to a value different from that for an isolated nucleon. This effect is well-known in the context of nuclear magnetic moments, where the spin-orbit and tensor components of the nucleon-nucleon interaction modify the nuclear moment . A second effect is to introduce into the effective interaction between nucleon-like excitations a non-central component – this modifies screening phenomena. A third effect is that the spin operator, which, if one neglects contributions due to exchange currents, is a one-body operator when expressed in terms of nucleon degrees of freedom, acquires two- and higher-body contributions for the excitations in the nuclear medium.

### 2.2 Landau theory

To illustrate the effects of non-central interactions described above, we consider the special case of long wavelengths, and temperatures low compared with the Fermi temperature. In this regime the concepts and machinery of Landau’s theory of normal Fermi liquids may be applied . We shall examine the form of the spin response for a one-component system. As we mentioned above, this is relevant for calculating the rates of neutral-current processes that proceed via the axial vector contribution of the interaction. If interactions are central, the static magnetic susceptibility of an interacting Fermi liquid with a single fermion component may be expressed in the form

$$\frac{\chi }{\chi _0}=\frac{m^{}/m}{1+G_0}$$
(2)
where $`\chi _0`$ is the susceptibility of a non-interacting Fermi gas of the same density, $`m^{}`$ is the effective mass of a quasiparticle, and $`G_0`$ is the Landau parameter describing the isotropic part of the spin-dependent component of the interaction. When there are non-central forces, this expression must be modified, and we shall consider the three effects mentioned above in turn.

The quasiparticle energy $`ϵ_{𝐩𝝈}`$ is defined quite generally by the equation

$$ϵ_{𝐩𝝈}=\frac{\delta E[n_{𝐩𝝈}]}{\delta n_{𝐩𝝈}},$$
(3)
where $`E`$ is the total energy and $`n_{𝐩𝝈}`$ is the quasiparticle distribution function. The magnetic moment $`\mu _{𝐩𝝈}`$ of a quasiparticle is given by $`(\mu _{𝐩𝝈})_i=ϵ_{𝐩𝝈}/B_i`$. From the requirement that the energy of a quasiparticle be invariant under simultaneous rotations of the direction of the magnetic field and of the quasiparticle momentum, it follows that the magnetic moment of a quasiparticle at the Fermi surface must have the general form

$$\mu _i(𝐩)=\mu \sigma _i+(3/2)\mu _2(\widehat{b}_i\widehat{b}_j\delta _{ij}/3),$$
(4)
where $`\widehat{𝐛}`$ is a unit vector in the direction of the magnetic field, and $`\mu `$ and $`\mu _2`$ are coefficients. The interaction between two quasiparticles $`f_{𝐩𝝈,𝐩^{}𝝈^{}}=\delta ^2E[n_{𝐩𝝈^{}}]/\delta n_{𝐩𝝈}\delta n_{𝐩^{}𝝈^{}}`$ may be written in the general form

$$f_{𝐩𝝈,𝐩^{}𝝈^{}}=f_{\mathrm{𝐩𝐩}^{}}+g_{\mathrm{𝐩𝐩}^{}}𝝈𝝈^{}+t_{\mathrm{𝐩𝐩}^{}}(3𝝈\widehat{𝐤}𝝈^{}\widehat{𝐤}𝝈𝝈^{}),$$
(5)
where there is tensor contribution in addition to the usual expression for a central interaction. If we assume that we may neglect all but the isotropic parts of the quasiparticle interaction, one finds for the magnetic susceptibility the result

$$\frac{\chi }{\chi _0}=\frac{m^{}}{m}\left(\frac{\mu }{\mu _0}\right)^2\frac{1}{(1+G_0K_0^2/8)}+\frac{1}{5}\frac{m^{}}{m}\left(\frac{\mu _2}{\mu _0}\right)^2+\frac{\chi _\mathrm{M}}{\chi _0},$$
(6)
where $`\mu _0`$ is the magnetic moment of the particle in the absence of the medium, $`K_0=N(0)t`$ is the tensor Landau parameter, $`N(0)`$ being the density of quasiparticle states at the Fermi surface, $`G_0=N(0)g`$ and $`\chi _M`$ is the multipair contribution to the susceptibility.

One reason for the great success of Landau Fermi-liquid theory for liquid 3He and for electrons in metals is that the forces between particles are central to a good first approximation. In addition, the quantities of greatest physical interest are the particle number density and the spin density. What the result for the static susceptibility demonstrates is that many more parameters are needed to characterize the long-wavelength properties of a normal Fermi liquid with non-central forces, compared with the two needed for a liquid with only central forces.

### 2.3 Kinematics of neutrino processes

Now let us consider scattering of neutrinos by dense matter. For the simultaneous conservation of momentum and energy in the process, the magnitude of the energy transfer $`\omega `$ to the neutrino must be less than $`cq`$, where $`𝐪`$ is the momentum transfer. In other words, the four-momentum transfer from the nuclear medium to the neutrino must be space-like. For production of neutrino-antineutrino pairs via neutral-current processes, the requirements are the opposite, since the total energy of the pair must be greater than $`cq`$, $`𝐪`$ in this case being the total momentum of the pair, or the four-momentum transfer must be time-like. It is therefore of interest to explore which sorts of transitions in the nuclear medium can contribute to the various classes of neutrino process. For simplicity, let us again consider momentum transfers small compared with the Fermi momentum of the nucleons, and temperatures low compared with the Fermi temperature. The energy of a single quasiparticle-quasihole pair is given by $`\omega =ϵ_𝐩ϵ_{𝐩𝐪}𝐯_𝐩𝐪`$, where $`𝐯_𝐩=\mathbf{}_𝐩ϵ_𝐩`$ always has a magnitude less than $`v_\mathrm{F}q`$, where $`v_\mathrm{F}`$ is the velocity of a quasiparticle at the Fermi surface. Thus single pair excitations in the nuclear medium always have space-like four momentum. Consequently annihilation of a single quasiparticle-quasihole pair cannot create a neutrino-antineutrino pair, while it can contribute to scattering of a neutrino. This clearly indicates the important role that excitations containing two or more quasiparticle-quasihole states play in neutrino pair emission.

### 2.4 Relative importance of single-pair and multi-pair states

The discussion above indicates the different roles that the two sorts of states play. One simple result may be obtained for operators $`𝒪`$ that satisfy a local conservation law of the usual form

$$\frac{𝒪(𝐫)}{t}+\mathbf{}𝐣(𝐫)=0,$$
(7)
where $`𝐣(𝐫)`$ is the associated current density. On taking the matrix element of this equation between an excited state $`j`$ and the ground state and Fourier transforming in space, one finds

$$\omega _{j0}(𝒪_𝐪)_{j0}=𝐪(𝐣_𝐪)_{j0}.$$
(8)
This shows that the matrix element of the density satisfies the condition

$$(𝒪_𝐪)_{j0}=\frac{𝐪(𝐣_𝐪)_{j0}}{\omega _{j0}}.$$
(9)
Thus for an excited state with non-zero energy, the matrix element of the operator tends to zero as $`q`$ tends to zero, provided only that the matrix element of the current remains finite. Therefore, since the vector current is conserved, there will be no multipair contributions to the time component of the current. However, the axial current is not conserved, and consequently multipair contributions will be present in general.

To determine how large these multipair contribution are, a number of approaches are possible. One is to calculate them directly from a nucleon-nucleon interaction and microscopic many-body theory. Another is to make use of sum rules to put bounds on multipair contributions. To illustrate the latter method, let us look at the structure function, defined by

$$S(q,\omega )=\underset{j}{}|<j|𝒪_𝐪|0>|^2\delta (\omega \omega _{j0})=\mathrm{Im}\chi (q,\omega )/\pi .$$
(10)
In the limit $`q0`$, only multipair states contribute to the static structure factor

$$S(q)=\frac{1}{n}\underset{j}{}|<j|𝒪_𝐪|0>|^2,$$
(11)
and to the energy-weighted sum

$$W(q)=\underset{j}{}|<j|𝒪_𝐪|0>|^2\omega _{j0}.$$
(12)
Another moment of interest is the static response function, $`\chi (q,0)`$, which is given by

$$\chi (q,0)=\underset{j}{}2|<j|𝒪_𝐪|0>|^2/\omega _{j0}.$$
(13)
Let us denote the multipair contribution to the structure function by $`S_\mathrm{M}(q,\omega )`$. From the fact that the integrand is positive for positive $`\omega `$, it follows that

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{S_\mathrm{M}(q,\omega )}{\omega }\left(\omega \overline{\omega }\right)^20,$$
(14)
where the mean excitation energy $`\overline{\omega }=W(q)/S(q)`$. This leads to the following condition on the multipair contribution to the static response function $`\chi _\mathrm{M}`$:

$$\chi _\mathrm{M}(0)2\frac{nS(q)}{\overline{\omega }}.$$
(15)
If one were to take the $`q0`$ limit of the calculations of the static spin structure factor and the energy-weighted sum calculated in Ref. , one would be led to the conclusion that multipair excitations make up more than $``$60% of the total static response function. This estimate is surprisingly large, but we should stress that the calculations in Ref.  were designed to shed light on correlations at non-zero wave numbers, where pionic correlations were found to enhance the static structure factor, and not to give accurate results for the long-wavelength response. It is possible that the calculations of Ref.  overestimate the structure factor at small wave numbers. Consequently, improved calculations of the static structure function are needed before it will be possible to place better bounds on the magnitude of multipair contributions to the response.

## 3 Concluding remarks

From the discussion above it is apparent that tensor correlations potentially play an important role in the microscopic physics needed as input to simulations of stellar collapse and supernovae. Similar conclusions apply to other processes that we do not have space to consider here, among them charged current processes, such as the modified Urca process , which is important for the cooling of neutron stars.

Many open problems remain. With respect to neutrino processes, improved expressions are needed for the modification of axial vector matrix elements in a nuclear medium, and for the Landau parameters . To obtain an improved equation of state, the effects of pionic correlations need to be included in a realistic manner.

We are grateful to A. Akmal for supplying us with tables of his results for the static structure factor and average excitation frequencies, and to S. Fantoni and V. R. Pandharipande for valuable discussions. Part of this work was carried out while the authors enjoyed the hospitality of the Institute of Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington. E.O. thanks the school on Advanced Instrumentation and Measurements (AIM) and the EU Marie Curie Training Site at NORDITA for financial support.


text:
# References

Comment on “ A simple model for DNA denaturation” By T. Garel, C. Monthus and H. Orland, Europhys. Lett. 55, 132(2001)”
Somendra M. Bhattacharjee
Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar 751 005, India; email:somen@iopb.res.in

Garel, Monthus and Orland (to be referred to as GMO) in a study of DNA denaturation transition argued that the effect of mutual repulsion of the two strands can be approximated by a long range interaction. Such a replacement is unjustified and can lead to disastrous consequences.

The dimensionless Hamiltonian is

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{2}{}}}{\displaystyle _0^N}𝑑s{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{𝐫_i(s)}{s}}\right)^^2+{\displaystyle _0^N}𝑑sV(𝐫_{12}(s))+H_{\mathrm{ev}},`$ (1)
$`H_{\mathrm{ev}}`$ $`=`$ $`u_0{\displaystyle _0^N}𝑑s𝑑s^{}\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐫_1(s)𝐫_2(s^{}))`$ (2)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^N}𝑑s{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _d}{𝐫_{12}(s)^{d2}}},(\mathrm{by}\mathrm{GMO})`$ (3)
where $`𝐫_i(s)`$ is the $`d`$-dimensional position coordinate of a monomer point at a contour length $`s`$ of chain $`i`$, each of length $`N`$, $`V`$ is the base pairing interaction at the same contour length (“directed polymer” interaction), $`H_{\mathrm{ev}}`$ is the mutual excluded volume (ev) interaction represented by the $`u_0>0`$ term with $`\delta _\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐫)`$ as the usual delta function with an ultraviolet cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in the reciprocal space. The thermodynamic properties come from the partition function $`Z=𝒟e^H`$, where the integration is over the configurations of the polymers. Eq. 3 is the replacement advocated by GMO, obtained by a partial sum over the polymer configurations given by the first term on the right hand side of Eq. 1. The base-pairing interaction $`V(r)`$ has just been added on to this effective repulsion in Eq. 16 of Ref. 1.

It is well-recognized that the self- and mutually avoiding chains can be described by the prevalent renormalization group approach which predicts that in the large length scale limit the chains are described by the stable fixed point $`u^{}ϵ4d`$, where $`u`$ is an appropriate running dimensionless variable. From a dimensional analysis point of view, $`[u_0]=[\alpha _d]=L^{d4}`$ where $`L`$ is a length scale but there is a major difference between the two terms in the renormalization group (RG) framework. While the $`u_0`$ term flows under renormalization, thereby reaching a fixed point (fp) for $`ϵ>0`$, i.e., $`d<4`$, the singular $`\alpha _d`$ term does not get renormalized because of the analyticity of the RG transformation. This tells us that for $`ϵ0`$ the renormalized dimensionless mutual avoidance, $`u`$, goes to zero (chains behave like noninteracting random walkers up to log-corrections) but, on the contrary, $`\alpha _4`$ does not vanish. In technical terms, $`\alpha _4`$ remains marginal while $`u`$ is a marginally irrelevant variable at $`d=4`$. In fact $`\alpha _4`$ leads to continuously varying exponents as GMO also rediscovered (see Eq. 33 of Ref. 1). For $`ϵ>0`$, $`u`$ reaches a f.p. but $`\alpha `$ does not. Therefore, Eq. 3, the replacement proposed by GMO, leads to a major contradiction, if we do not want to discard RG.

Lastly, the effects of long-range interactions for directed polymers, as done in Ref.  are already available in Refs. .

I thank ICTP for hospitality.


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# Dynamical relaxation and the orbits of low–mass extrasolar planets

## 1 Introduction

The extrasolar planets discovered so far have masses, semi–major axes and eccentricities in the range 0.16–11 Jupiter masses ($`M_\mathrm{J}`$), 0.038–4.47 au and 0–0.93, respectively. In general, high eccentricities are very difficult to explain in the context of a model where an isolated planet forms in a disc, as the disc–protoplanet interaction leads to strong eccentricity damping (Nelson et al. 2000).

Papaloizou & Terquem (2001, hereafter PT01) investigated a scenario in which a population of planetary mass objects formed rapidly through a fragmentation process occuring in a thick disc or protostellar envelope on a scale of 100 au. Such a system then underwent dynamical relaxation on a timescale of hundreds of orbits which resulted in ejection of most of the objects. It was found that the characteristics of massive eccentric extrasolar planets and the massive ’hot Jupiter’ observed so far might be accounted for by such a model. However, planets with masses smaller than a few $`M_\mathrm{J}`$ are probably too small to have formed through a gravitational instability or fragmentation process (Masunaga & Inutsuka 1999, Boss 2000) and are thus more likely to have grown through the core accretion mechanism in a protoplanetary disc (Mizuno 1980).

Here, we investigate a scenario in which we have a planet accumulated in a disc (PAID) on a timescale of $`10^6`$ years, being the observed lifetime of protostellar discs (Haisch, Lada & Lada 2001), together with a population of massive outer planets already formed through fragmentation processes on a much shorter timescale. During its formation phase, the PAID is kept in a circular orbit by tidal interaction with the disc while the system of outer planets undergoes dynamical relaxation. After disc dispersal occurring at $`t=10^6`$ years, the eccentricity of the PAID can be pumped up to high values by interaction with the remaining bound massive planets.

In order to focus on the interaction mechanisms, we analyse the motion of a planet under a distant perturber in a highly eccentric orbit in § 2. In § 3 we present numerical simulations of the evolution of a system containing outer massive planets and an inner PAID interacting with each other. Finally, in § 4 we discuss our results.

## 2 Secular perturbation theory and long term cycles

We consider the evolution of the orbit of a PAID around a central star due to gravitational interaction with a massive long period perturber on a highly eccentric orbit that may have resulted from a prior relaxation process. We illustrate three possible effects. The first is the appearance of long period cycles in which the inner planet may attain high eccentricity. The second, occuring for stronger perturbations, is a sequence of dynamical interactions leading to the collision of the inner planet with the central star. The third, occurring for weakly bound perturbers, is an interaction leading to the gradual ejection of the the outer planet to large radii, where additional perturbations from external objects could cause it to become unbound, leaving the inner planet on a highly eccentric orbit.

To discuss these three scenarios, we denote the osculating semi–major axes of the inner planet and the perturber by $`a`$ and $`a_p`$, respectively. The corresponding eccentricities are $`e`$ and $`e_p`$ and the masses are $`m`$ and $`m_p`$, respectively. The central mass is $`M_{}.`$

When the pericentre distance of the perturber, $`d_p=a_p(1e_p)`$, significantly exceeds $`a,`$ the large difference in the orbital periods reduces the significance of short term variations such that the interaction can be discussed using secular perturbation theory, in which one considers evolution of the time averaged orbits.

Consider first the case when the orbits are coplanar. Then analytic treatment is possible in the limit $`mm_p`$. We denote $`(r,\varphi )`$ and $`(r_p,\varphi _p)`$ the cylindrical coordinates of the inner and outer mass, respectively, in a frame centered on the star. The perturbing potential energy or Hamiltonian of the inner planet, including the indirect term (which accounts for the acceleration of the origin of the coordinate system), is:

$$H=\frac{Gmm_p}{\sqrt{r^2+r_p^22rr_p\mu }}+\frac{Gmm_pr\mu }{r_p^2},$$
(1)
where $`\mu =\mathrm{cos}(\varphi \varphi _p).`$ For $`r/r_p1,`$ we expand $`H`$ in spherical harmonics retaining terms up to third order in $`r/r_p`$:

$$H=\frac{Gmm_p}{r_p}\left[\left(\frac{r}{r_p}\right)^2P_2\left(\mu \right)+\left(\frac{r}{r_p}\right)^3P_3\left(\mu \right)\right],$$
(2)
where $`P_n`$ is the Legendre polynomial of order $`n`$. We have omitted the term $`Gmm_p/r_p`$ as it does not depend on the coordinates of the inner planet ($`H`$ is defined within the addition of a constant). On performing time averages over both orbits (see, e.g., Roy 1978), one obtains correct to second order in $`e`$ but with no restriction on $`e_p`$:

$$H=\frac{Gmm_pa^2}{\left(1e_p^2\right)^{3/2}a_p^3}\left[\frac{1}{4}+\frac{3e^2}{8}\frac{15ee_pa\mathrm{cos}\varpi }{16a_p\left(1e_p^2\right)}\right].$$
(3)
Here $`\varpi `$ is the angle between the apsidal lines of the two orbits. For $`mm_p`$, we can consider that the orbit of the outer planet is fixed, i.e. that $`a_p`$ and $`e_p`$ are constant. The secular evolution is characterized by a constant $`a`$ and oscillations of $`e`$ (see, e.g., Murray & Dermott 1999). Since $`de/dtH/\varpi `$ (Lagrange’s equation), $`e`$ is maximum for $`\varpi =0`$. During the evolution $`H(e,\varpi )`$ is constant. Since $`e`$ passes through zero (the inner orbit has no initial eccentricity), the maximum value of $`e`$, $`e_{\mathrm{max}}`$, can then be calculated by writing $`H(0,\varpi )=H(e_{\mathrm{max}},0)`$. This gives $`e_{\mathrm{max}}=5ae_p/[2a_p(1e_p^2)]`$. For illustrative example we take $`e_p=0.9`$ and $`a/a_p=0.01`$, so that $`d_p/a=10`$. Then $`e_{\mathrm{max}}=0.118`$ which is significant and independent of $`m_p`$.

Below we consider the case $`a=0.5`$ au, $`a_p=50`$ au, $`m=0.3`$ MJ and $`m_p=7`$ MJ. It turns out that for such small $`a`$, relativistic effects have to be taken into account. This can be done following the procedure given in Lin et al. (2000), according to which the central potential is modified such that:

$$\frac{GM_{}}{r}\frac{GM_{}}{r}\left(1+\frac{3GM_{}}{rc^2}\right).$$
(4)
This amounts to adding the term $`3(GM_{})^2m(1+e^2/2)/(a^2c^2)`$ on the right hand side of equation (3). From this one readily finds that $`e_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is reduced by a factor

$`1+4[GM_{}/(ac^2)](M_{}/m_p)(a_p/a)^3(1e_p^2)^{3/2}`$. For the above parameters and $`M_{}=1`$ M, this factor is 1.93, giving $`e_{\mathrm{max}}=0.06`$.

We have calculated the orbital evolution numerically using the Bullirsh–Stoer method (e.g., Press et al. 1993). The outer planet was started at pericentre and the inner one on a circular orbit at random phase. Of course, in contrast to the above analysis, both orbits were allowed to vary. Figure 1 shows the evolution of the orbital eccentricities as a function of time. The results are in good agreement with the analysis, exhibiting eccentricity cyles with amplitide $`e_{\mathrm{max}}0.06`$ as expected. This is much lower than typical values observed for extrasolar planets. However, much higher eccentricities can be obtained through the Kozai mechanism if the orbits are mutually inclined (e.g. Lin et al. 2000 and references therein). Analysis for an outer circular orbit suggest high eccentricities may be obtained for mutual inclinations exceeding $`\mathrm{arccos}\sqrt{3/5}40^{}`$. We have also followed the orbital evolution of the system when the orbits are initially mutually inclined at an angle of $`60^{}`$ and the results are also shown in figure 1. In this case, large amplitude cyles with $`e`$ attaining values up to $`0.7`$ are obtained. This is typical for runs of this kind. Cases with $`a/a_p=0.01`$ and $`e_p=0.9`$ lead to long term secular variations that can provide high eccentricities of the inner orbit.

When $`a/d_p`$ is larger, the ensuing interaction with the inner planet is stronger and can lead to very high eccentricities. In such cases, there can be a close approach or collision with the central star. An example of a run of this kind is illustrated in figure 2. In this case the initial mutual orbital inclination, the initial values of $`a`$ and $`e_p`$ and planet masses were as above, but the initial value of $`a_p`$ was reduced by a factor of four. The outer planet was started at apocentre and the inner one on a circular orbit at random phase. This case led to very strong interactions at pericentre which resulted in the eccentricity of the inner planet approaching unity and a collision with the central star after about $`t=7\times 10^4`$ y. This situation corresponds to a more strongly bound outer planet than previously.

When more weakly bound outer planets are considered, the interactions can also lead to high eccentricities of the inner planet. As an example we consider a case with $`e_p=0.99`$ and $`a_p=252a`$, other parameters being as above. The evolution is illustrated in figure 3. Here, $`d_p/a=2.52`$, which is similar than in the previous case. However, here, the outer planet is very weakly bound. Therefore, as a result of significant energy changes occurring at pericentre passage in a chaotic manner, it eventually reaches radii exceeding $`10^4`$ au, where it could become unbound if additional perturbations from external objects occured. The inner planet is left on a highly eccentric orbit with $`e0.7`$.

## 3 $`N`$ planets simulations

We consider a system of $`N`$ outer planets each having a mass $`m_p=7`$–8 MJ, one inner planet with a mass $`m`$, and a primary star with a mass $`M_{}=1`$ M, moving under their gravitational attraction. We take $`m=0.3`$ MJ (Saturn mass) as, among the observed systems, this is the most extreme case of a planet forming in a disc. We suppose the outer massive planets have formed rapidly through fragmentation on a scale of 100 au, while the PAID forms in the disc surrounding the star on a much longer timescale.

### 3.1 Initial conditions

At $`t=0`$, we place $`5N20`$ massive planets taken at random from a mass distribution corresponding to a uniform density spherical shell with outer radius of $`100`$ au and inner radius of $`10`$ au. The planets, the orbits of which are not coplanar, are given the local circular velocity in the azimuthal direction. As shown by PT01, adopting different initial conditions, such as a mass distribution in the form of a flattened disc, leads to the same qualitative evolution as long as three dimensional relaxation occurs , so our results do not depend on these initial conditions. The system is then allowed to evolve under the influence of the gravitational attraction of the central star and the different planets (the potential of the star has been modified according to eq. ). We also include the tidal interaction between the star (which radius is taken to be 1 R) and a closely approaching planet (see PT01 for details). The approximation used is valid only when the planet approaches the star on a highly eccentric orbit, which is the case when tidal interactions first occur in the systems we consider here. The system undergoes dynamical relaxation as described by PT01.

We assume a PAID forms on a timescale of $`10^6`$ y. During the formation process, any eccentricity that would be excited by the outer massive planets is damped by the tidal interaction with the disc. We therefore built up the planet progressively and constrained its orbit to remain circular during this phase, with an orbital radius $`a`$ in the range 0.3–10 au. Depending on $`a`$, the planet may have either formed at this location or migrated there as a result of tidal interactions with the disc.

### 3.2 Results

We have run about 30 cases with the initial conditions described above. As found in PT01, most of the dynamical relaxation of the system of outer planets is over after a few hundred orbits, i.e. a few $`10^5`$ y. This relaxation results in most of the planets being ejected, while a few (usually between 0 and 3) of them end up on highly, sometimes close, eccentric and inclined orbits around the star. These objects may still interact with each other after most of the relaxation has occured. As a result, or directly because of the main relaxation, they may end up close enough to the star to perturb significantly the PAID after it forms.

When there are still a few outer massive planets left at $`t=10^6`$ y, if they make frequent incursions into the inner parts of the system, the eccentricity of the PAID is pumped up to high values and the object eventually hits the star (e.g. the calculation illustrated in figure 2).

In some cases, the PAID may approach the star closely enough for tidal effects to become important while a collision is avoided. This is illustrated in figure 4, which shows the evolution of the semi–major axes and the pericentre distances of the planets. Here $`m_p=8`$ MJ, $`N=4`$ and $`a=0.2`$ au. The interaction with the outer planets left in the system at $`t=10^6`$ y increases the eccentricity of the PAID up to high values. It approaches the star closely enough for tidal circularization to start to occur. This causes the semi–major axis to decrease while maintaining the pericentre distance almost constant equal to 0.02 au. At this stage the inclination between the orbits of the two planets is close to 90.

If they are at most a few incursions down to small radii of the massive planets left in the system at $`t=10^6`$ y, the PAID may remain on an orbit with at most a moderate eccentricity and a constant semi–major axis more or less equal to its initial value. This case is illustrated in figure 5, which shows the semi–major axes and the eccentricities of the different planets as a function of time. Here $`m_p=8`$ MJ, $`N=9`$ and $`a=0.3`$ au. At $`t=10^6`$ years, there are still two massive outer planets with high semi–major axes and eccentricities interacting with each other and one massive planet on an eccentric orbit with a semi–major axis of about 10 au. Close approaches of the two outermost planets (which eventually are ejected) pump the eccentricity of the PAID up. This eccentricity subsequently goes into a cycle where it varies between 0.1 and 0.24 due to the secular interaction with the third outer object. This is the same type of process as illustrated in figure 1. The semi–major axis of the PAID stays constant equal to its intial value $`a=0.3`$ au and the inclination between the orbits of the two planets oscillates between 0 and 30.

When the few outer planets left from the relaxation process make at most a few incursions in the inner system, the eccentricity of the PAID may be increased up to high values by the secular interaction with one of the massive objects with appropriate orbital parameters, but without the process resulting in a collision with the star. The eccentricity then varies in a cycle as described in § 2. This also happens when there is only one outer planet left at $`t=10^6`$ y, provided it is close enough to perturb the PAID. This case is illustrated in figure 6. Here $`m_p=7`$ MJ, $`N=29`$ and $`a=0.77`$ au. Among the massive planets, we have represented the only one which was not ejected after about $`3\times 10^5`$ y. We note that the pericentre distance of the outer planet is about 9 au. These results are then in agreement with those of § 2, which showed similar behaviour of the eccentricity for such a ratio of outer pericentre distance to inner semi–major axis when the initial inclination was 60 ( see figure 1). Here the inclination between the orbits of the two planets oscillates between 0 and 60.

A complete survey of all the runs we have performed indicates that due to the randomization of the inclinations of the orbits by dynamical relaxation in three dimensions high inclinations always occur and an eccentric PAID is produced provided the semi–major axis of its orbit is in the appropriate range, that is not less than about 10 times smaller than the pericentre distance of the innermost outer giant planet and there need be only one of these. If this condition is satisfied, efficient eccentricity pumping occurs because of the inclination of the orbit of the PAID with respect to that of the outer planet. An assessment of the probability for the semi–major axis of the PAID to be in the appropriate range depends on as yet poorly understood mechanisms of planet formation and migration in the disc in the presence of perturbation by an outer giant planet. More information about this will be obtained with increasing planet detections. We have assumed that the disc is removed after $`10^6`$ y. However, similar results are obtained if this occurs at a later time as long as the PAID orbit is circularized when the disc is present. This is the case as long as the disc is removed after the major relaxation (see also § 2) .

## 4 Summary and Discussion

The analysis and results presented above show that the eccentricity of an inner PAID may be increased up to high values by secular interaction with a more distant massive planet on an eccentric orbit. The mechanism is efficient when the ratio of outer pericentre distance to inner semi–major axis is about 10 and the orbits of the planets are significantly inclined.

Such a situation arises when the dynamical relaxation of a system of outer massive planets takes place on a timescale shorter than the timescale for assembling the PAID in a disc. After disc dispersal, as was shown by PT01, the PAID would be expected to mostly interact with one more massive object orbiting the star with semi-major axis on the order of tens of au. If the relaxation is not over by the time the PAID forms, close approaches with the massive outer planets tend to result in the object colliding with the star (see figure 2).

Since giant planet formation occurs on a timescale not longer than the disc lifetime of $`10^6`$ y (Haisch et al. 2001), assuming formation of massive planets occurs on a scale of 100 au, an eccentric PAID at less than 1 au from the central star is more likely to be produced when the number of outer planets in the system is $`N15`$, although $`N=5`$ may also produce such a system.

To illustrate the operation of the processes described here, we consider observed planets with masses in the Saturn mass range. Two of them (HD 16141 and HD 6434) have orbital eccentricities of 0.28 and 0.3, respectively. These modest eccentricity systems could be similar to that represented in figure 5. Two others (HD 83443 and HD 108147) have orbital eccentricities of 0.42 and 0.58 respectively. These larger eccentricity systems systems could be similar to that shown in figure 6. In these cases the eccentricities are driven by secular interactions with a more closely approaching outer planet. Note however that the probability of getting a very high eccentricity on a close orbit is reduced because the chance of hitting the central star increases as the semi–major axis decreases. Nonetheless, in some cases, the interactions (secular or not) with the outer planets increase the eccentricity of the PAID up to very high values without the object colliding with the star. The orbit can then be tidally circularized by the central star, which leads to a ’hot PAID’. Six ’hot Saturns’ have been observed so far, with $`0.24M_\mathrm{J}<m\mathrm{sin}i<0.52M_\mathrm{J}`$ and $`0.038\mathrm{au}<a<0.066\mathrm{au}.`$ Although such a process is expected to be rare within the context of this model, observational bias against observing low mass planets at larger distances makes it difficult to assess to what extent an an alternative mechanism such as direct migration is required.

If the scenario we have studied in this Letter has opperated, there should be a massive planet with $`a`$ on the order of tens of au and a high eccentricity associated with the eccentric PAID on a close orbit. In the case represented in figure 6 for instance, the amplitude of the stellar radial velocity induced by the outer planet is about 60 m s-1 (that of the inner planet is between 10 and 20 m s-1). Over a short period of time ($`1`$ y), only the trajectory of the inner planet would be resolved, with the mean value of the stellar radial velocity drifting by an amount which depends on whether the outer companion is near apocentre or not, and which varies between a few m s-1 and tens of m s-1. Twelve systems have been selected by Fischer et al. (2001) as candidates for which such residual velocity drifts are potentially observable, and their results indicate that the kind of systems we have been describing here are on the verge of detectability. Among the systems selected by Fischer et al. (2001) with a residual drift of 50 m s-1 over a two year period, HD 38529 has a planet with $`m\mathrm{sin}i=0.76`$ MJ, $`a=0.13`$ au and $`e=0.27.`$ This is similar to the system illustrated in figure 5.

## acknowledgment

J.C.B.P. acknowledges visitor support from the CNRS through a Poste Rouge and the IAP for hospitality.


text:
# Polarized Gluon Distribution Function from 𝜂' Production

## 1 Introduction

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory will collide polarized protons at a center of mass energy of $`\sqrt{s}=250\text{GeV}`$ in very near future (for a review of the spin program at RHIC, see ). One of the most important goals of the experiment is to measure the poorly known polarized gluon distribution in a proton. In general, polarized distributions will be measured at RHIC in a more extended kinematic region and with higher accuracy than the previous experiments.

Even though Deep Inelastic Scattering of electrons on protons is the best process in which to measure QCD structure functions and the parton distribution functions, it is also possible to extract the parton distribution functions from Drell-Yan, direct photons, $`J/\psi `$’s, etc. Recently, we proposed  measuring $`\eta ^{}`$ in (unpolarized) proton-nucleus collisions as a way to extract the gluon distribution function in nuclei. This process allows one to directly (without any deconvolution) extract the nuclear gluon distribution function. Furthermore, the accessible kinematic region in $`x`$ in this measurement is orders of magnitude smaller than other processes in hadronic collisions. One can also investigate the possibility of the restoration of $`U_A(1)`$ symmetry at zero temperature due to high gluon density effects in nuclei . Production of $`\eta ^{}`$ in heavy ion collisions was considered in .

In this short note, we extend our previous work on $`\eta ^{}`$ production in proton-nucleus collisions to polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC and estimate the double spin asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$111 The possibility of using $`\eta ^{}`$ at low $`P_t`$ to probe the polarization of gluons inside the proton was first mentioned in Ref...

We show that the predicted asymmetry is large enough to be experimentally measurable in a wide range of rapidity. We predict the asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$ to be $`0.001`$ at mid rapidity using the available parameterization of the polarized gluon distribution functions. Alternatively, by measuring the asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$ in the mid rapidity region, one can probe the polarized gluon distribution function at $`x0.004`$ and $`Q^2=1\text{GeV}^2`$.

## 2 $`\eta ^{}`$ production cross section

The $`\eta ^{}`$ meson is much heavier than its fellow pseudo-scalar mesons, $`\pi ,K`$ and $`\eta `$. This fact has intrigued the physics community for decades. It is now understood that $`\eta ^{}`$ gets most of its mass through instantons and breaking of $`U_A(1)`$ symmetry due to the triangle anomaly . Atwood and Soni used this anomaly to propose the following effective vertex for gluon-gluon-$`\eta ^{}`$ coupling in

$`T_{ab}^{\alpha \beta }(p,q,P)=H(p^2,q^2,P^2)\delta _{ab}ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \gamma }p^\mu q^\nu ϵ^\lambda (p,\alpha )ϵ^\gamma (q,\beta )`$ (1)
$`p`$ and $`q`$ are the momanta of the gluons while $`P`$ is the momentum of the produced $`\eta ^{}`$. Here, $`ϵ_\lambda (p,\alpha )`$ is the polarization vector of a gluon with momentum $`p`$ and helicity $`\alpha =\pm 1`$. The Kronecker delta $`\delta _{ab}`$ indicates that only the color singlet combination of the gluons contribute. In Ref., the form factor $`H(p^2,q^2,P^2)`$ was estimated to be $`1.8\text{GeV}^1`$ in the limit where the incoming gluons and the produced $`\eta ^{}`$ are on-shell. Using this effective vertex, it is easy to calculate the differential cross section for $`gg\eta ^{}`$ which is given by

$`d\widehat{\sigma }_{ab,\alpha \beta }^{gg\eta ^{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sqrt{(pq)^2}}}|T_{ab}^{\alpha \beta }|^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(Ppq){\displaystyle \frac{d^3P}{(2\pi )^32E_P}}`$ (2)
with $`p^2=q^2=0`$ and $`P^2=M_\eta ^{}^2`$.

We will now consider the collision of longitudinally polarized protons at RHIC. The double spin asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$ is defined as (for an introduction to spin effects in high energy collisions, see )

$`A_{LL}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{++}d\sigma _+}{d\sigma _{++}+d\sigma _+}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma }{2d\sigma }}`$ (3)
where $`d\sigma _{++}`$ denotes the cross section where both protons have their spins parallel to their momenta while $`d\sigma _+`$ denotes the cross section when one proton has its spin anti-parallel to its momentum. The unpolarized proton-proton differential cross section is denoted by $`d\sigma `$.

The differential cross section $`d\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ is related to the polarized gluon distribution function through

$`d\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^{pp\eta ^{}X}={\displaystyle 𝑑x_1𝑑x_2\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_1,Q_f^2)\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_2,Q_f^2)𝑑\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\sigma }^{gg\eta ^{}}}`$ (4)
where $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are the momentum fractions of the incoming gluons, $`Q_f^2`$ is the factorization scale and $`d\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\sigma }d\widehat{\sigma }_{++}d\widehat{\sigma }_+`$. Here $`d\widehat{\sigma }_{++}`$ is the differential cross section for scattering of two positive helicity gluons averaged over the color. Explicitly,

$`d\widehat{\sigma }_{++}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(N_c^21)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{a,b}{}}d\widehat{\sigma }_{ab,++}^{gg\eta ^{}}`$ (5)
and similarly for $`d\widehat{\sigma }_+`$. However, since $`\eta ^{}`$ is a pseudo-scalar, it is clear that only positive helicity gluons will contribute. In other words,

$`d\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^{gg\eta ^{}}=d\widehat{\sigma }_{++}`$ (6)
Calculation of $`|T_{ab}^{++}|^2`$ is straightforward and gives

$`|T_{ab}^{++}|^2=\delta _{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^4H_0^2}{4}}`$ (7)
where we defined $`H_0=H(0,0,M_\eta ^{}^2)`$. The differential cross section for inclusive $`\eta ^{}`$ production in polarized proton-proton collisions is then222The unpolarized cross-section calculated in Ref. is    $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^{pp\eta ^{}X}}{dx_L}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi H_0^2}{64x_E}}x_+G(x_+,Q_f^2)x_{}G(x_{},Q_f^2)`$  (8) which is the average of the polarized cross-sections $`d\sigma _{++}^{pp\eta ^{}X}/dx_L`$ and $`d\sigma _+^{pp\eta ^{}X}/dx_L`$.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma ^{pp\eta ^{}X}}{dx_L}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi H_0^2}{32x_E}}x_+\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_+,Q_f^2)x_{}\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_{},Q_f^2)`$ (9)
where $`x_L=2P_z/\sqrt{s}`$ and $`x_E=2E_P/\sqrt{s}`$ are the momentum and energy fractions of the produced $`\eta ^{}`$ respectively and

$`x_\pm {\displaystyle \frac{x_E\pm x_L}{2}}={\displaystyle \frac{E_P\pm P_z}{\sqrt{s}}}`$ (10)
Using (9) in (3) leads to the following result for the asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$

$`A_{LL}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_+,Q_f^2)\mathrm{\Delta }G(x_{},Q_f^2)}{G(x_+,Q_f^2)G(x_{},Q_f^2)}}`$ (11)
Equation (11) is our main result. It simply relates the measured double spin asymmetry to the polarized gluon distribution in a proton.

## 3 Results

To estimate the cross-sections and the theoretical uncertainties, we use following two sets of gluon distribution functions. The first set consists of the MRST99 unpolarized gluon distribution function and LSS2001  polarized gluon distribution function which is based on MRST99. The second set consists of GRV98 unpolarized gluon distribution function and GRSV2000 polarized gluon distribution function which is based on GRV98. The minimum $`Q^2`$ allowed by MRST99 is $`1.25\text{GeV}^2`$ and that’s what we set our value of $`Q_f^2`$ to be.

Using MRST99 the cross section integrated between $`10^5<x_L<0.1`$ is

$`\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\sigma _{++}+\sigma _+)=0.21\text{mb}`$ (12)
while using GRV98 gives

$`\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\sigma _{++}+\sigma _+)=1.0\text{mb}`$ (13)
in the same range. This difference in the cross-section is mainly due to the difference of the two gluon distribution functions at small $`x`$. For illustration, we plot $`xG(x,Q_f^2)`$ for both sets in Figure (1).

From the thermal model as well as exclusive reaction studies one would expect the $`\eta ^{}`$ cross-section to be a few % of the pion production cross-section, or $`O(0.1\text{mb})`$. However, this does not necessarily imply that MRST99 is better suited for our purpose. To the authors’ knowledge, there is no measurement of $`\eta ^{}`$ inclusive production cross-section. By measuring the $`\eta ^{}`$ inclusive production cross-section, one can better constraint the behavior of the gluon distribution function at small $`x`$.

The polarized gluon distributions from LSS2001 and GRSV2000 are also very different. Using LSS2001, we get

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma =(\sigma _{++}\sigma _+)=0.97\mu \text{b}`$ (14)
integrated in the $`10^5<x_L<0.1`$ range while using GRSV2000 gives

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma =(\sigma _{++}\sigma _+)=0.17\mu \text{b}`$ (15)
in the same range. These results indicates that the asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$ can range from $`1.7\times 10^4`$ to $`4.6\times 10^3`$ or can differ by a factor of 30 or more depending on the choice of current gluon distribution functions. Therefore measuring $`\eta ^{}`$ cross-section and the asymmetry accurately can greatly help constrain different gluon distribution functions currently in use.

Figure (2) shows $`A_{LL}`$ as a function of $`\eta ^{}`$ meson momentum fraction $`x_L`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=250\text{GeV}`$.

Again we use the two sets of gluon distribution functions as described above. The solid curve in Figure (2) uses Set 1 (MRST99+LSS2001) and the dashed curve uses Set 2 (GRV98+GRSV2000). The difference between two sets is quite large. The values of $`A_{LL}`$ at small $`x`$ differ by a factor of almost 40.

One notable feature of this figure is that for $`x_L<0.001`$, $`A_{LL}`$ is constant. To understand the plateau, we note that

$`x_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{x_L^2+4M_\eta ^{}^2/s}\pm x_L}{2}}`$ (16)
If $`x_LM_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s}`$, then $`x_+x_{}M_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s}`$ and hence

$`A_{LL}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }G(x=M_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s})}{G(x=M_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s})}}\right)^2`$ (17)
will remain almost constant. The value of the asymmetry $`A_{LL}`$ at $`y=0`$ of course is a function of the collision energy. The input parametrization used for the unpolarized gluon distribution function for both LSS2001 and GRSV2000 is of the form

$`x\mathrm{\Delta }G(x)=Cx^a(1x)^bxG(x)`$ (18)
If our $`Q_f^2=1.25\text{GeV}^2`$ is not very much different from the input $`Q_0^2`$ of the distribution functions, the asymmetry should be given by

$`A_{LL}(x_L)`$ $``$ $`C^2x_+^a(1x_+)^bx_{}^a(1x_{})^b`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`C^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{s}}\right)^a(1x_+)^b(1x_{})^b`$
where we used $`x_+x_{}=M_\eta ^{}^2/s`$. Near $`x_L=0`$, both $`x_+`$ and $`x_{}`$ are small so that

$`A_{LL}C^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{s}}\right)^a`$ (20)
Therefore measuring the asymmetry at $`y=0`$ for various energies can tell us what the exponent $`a`$ should be without knowing the detailed form of $`xG(x)`$. For LSS2001, this exponent turned out to be about $`0.6`$ and for GRSV2000, it is about $`0.8`$. The reason that Set 2 curve deviates from a straight line may be explained by the fact that the input $`Q_0^2`$ of set $`2`$ $`(0.4\text{GeV}^2)`$ is not so close to our $`Q_f^2=1.25\text{GeV}^2`$.

Even though the detectors at RHIC can only go up to the maximum $`x`$ of about 0.01, it is worth noting the behavior of $`A_{LL}`$ for larger values of $`x`$ in Figure (2). When $`x_LM_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s}`$, $`x_\pm `$ can be approximated to be333 For RHIC at $`\sqrt{s}=250\text{GeV}`$, $`M_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s}=0.0038`$. For LHC at $`\sqrt{s}=5500\text{GeV}`$, $`M_\eta ^{}/\sqrt{s}=0.00017`$.

$`x_+x_L+{\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{sx_L}}\text{and}x_{}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{sx_L}}`$ (21)
and the asymmetry becomes

$`A_{LL}(x_L)`$ $``$ $`C^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{s}}\right)^a\left(1x_L{\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{sx_L}}\right)^b\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2}{sx_L}}\right)^b`$ (22)
In LSS2001, the exponent $`b`$ is argued to be 0. In other parametrizations, $`b`$ is substantially different from 0. For instance in GRSV2000, $`b`$ ranges from 4 to 7. Therefore even at moderately large $`x_L`$, the behavior of $`A_{LL}`$ as a function of $`x_L`$ depends strongly on the exponent $`b`$. In this way, very forward $`\eta ^{}`$’s can distinguish between different parameterizations of the unpolarized gluon distribution function.

## 4 Conclusion

In this paper, we showed the dependence of $`A_{LL}`$ on $`\eta ^{}`$ $`x_L`$ as well as the ($`pp`$) center of mass energy of the collison using (11). Measuring $`A_{LL}`$ in this way directly probes the gluon distribution function in the proton. Had we known the unpolarized gluon distribution function well, $`A_{LL}`$ could be used to map out the polarized gluon distribution. As it happens, currently the gluon distribution is not very well constrained by the past experiments in the small $`x`$ region. Measuring $`\eta ^{}`$ at high energy can greatly constrain the gluon distribution in this region.

There are several caveats to our results. First and perhaps the most important one theoretically, is that $`M_\eta ^{}1\text{GeV}`$ is not very large and therefore higher order (in $`\alpha _s`$) corrections can be quite sizable. This is somewhat “cured” by introducing a $`K`$ factor which is supposed to take higher order corrections into effect. In our case, since we are calculating the ratio of cross sections, these effects should largely cancel out. However, without a real calculation of higher order effects, there is no way to know for sure. Another complication arises due to effects such as initial state radiation of gluons, etc. which would lead to the produced particle having a transverse momentum. These effects can be resummed for few limited processes but are mostly included phenomenologically by introducing an intrinsic $`k_t`$ for the incoming partons . We intend to do this in the near future and investigate the dependence of $`A_{LL}`$ on the transverse momentum of $`\eta ^{}`$. However, if we consider $`p_t`$ smaller than the intrinsic $`k_t`$ scale, our analysis should still apply.

Another potential problem is that we have neglected possible contribution of annihilation of quarks and anti quarks into $`\eta ^{}`$s. We believe we can avoid this problem here for two reasons. First, the values of $`x`$ considered are quite small where gluons are the dominant partons. Therefore contribution of sea quarks to this process should be of order of a few percent which we can safely neglect. Furthermore, if the $`q\overline{q}\eta ^{}`$ vertex is of the derivative type, then in the on-shell limit the quark anti-quark annihilation matrix element is $`O(m_q/M_\eta ^{})`$ smaller than the gluon fusion matrix element. Hence, in the small $`x`$ range the gluon fusion process should dominate over quark anti-quark annihilation process.

In summary, we have investigated the production of $`\eta ^{}`$ in polarized $`pp`$ collisions and estimated the double spin asymmetry variable $`A_{LL}`$ using the available polarized gluon distribution functions. Alternatively, measuring $`A_{LL}`$ at polarized proton-proton collisions at RHIC will enable us to directly extract the polarized gluon distribution function at $`Q^21`$ and different values of $`x`$.

## Acknowledgement

We would like to thank G. Bunce, K. Itakura and W. Vogelsang for useful discussions. We also thank W. Vogelsang for providing us with the GRSV2000 FORTRAN code. J.J-M. is supported in part by a PDF from BSA and by U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886. S.J. was in part supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant No. PHY-00-70818, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada and by le Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche du Quèbec.


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# Magnetic field effects on 𝑇_𝑐 and the pseudogap onset temperature in cuprate superconductors

## Abstract

We study the sensitivity of $`T_c`$ and the pseudogap onset temperature, $`T^{}`$, to low fields, $`H`$, for cuprate superconductors, using a BCS-based approach extended to arbitrary coupling. We find that $`T^{}`$ and $`T_c`$, which are of the same superconducting origin, have very different $`H`$ dependences. The small coherence length makes $`T^{}`$ rather insensitive to the field. However, the presence of the pseudogap at $`T_c`$ makes $`T_c`$ more sensitive to $`H`$. Our results for the coherence length $`\xi `$ fit well with existing experiments. We predict that very near the insulator $`\xi `$ will rapidly increase.

The pseudogap phenomena have been a great challenge to condensed matter physicists since last century. Yet there has been no consensus on the origin of the pseudogap and its relation to the superconducting order parameter. Theories about the pseudogap physics fall into two categories: (1) precursor versus (2) non-precursor superconductivity. For the former, pseudogap forms as a consequence of precursor superconducting pairing, and therefore, shares the same origin as the order parameter. In contrast, for the latter category, pseudogap has a different origin, e.g., a hidden DDW (d-density wave) order.

On the other hand, experiment has revealed different behaviors of $`T_c`$ and the pseudogap onset temperature $`T^{}`$ in magnetic fields. However, there is still no proper theoretical explanation. This difference has been used as evidence against precursor superconductivity scenarios. Here we show that it can be well explained within the present precursor superconductivity theory.

Our calculation is based on an extension of BCS theory which incorporates incoherent pair excitations. These pair excitations become increasingly important at large coupling $`g`$, and lead to a pseudogap in the single-particle excitation spectrum, as seen in the cuprates. As the temperature increases from $`T=0`$, these pairs can survive a higher temperature ($`>T_c`$) than the condensate, until they are completely destroyed by the thermal effect at $`T^{}`$. In agreement with experiment, we find that $`T^{}`$ and $`T_c`$ have very different field ($`H`$) dependences. The small coherence length ($`\xi `$) makes $`T^{}`$ rather insensitive to the field. However, the presence of the pseudogap at $`T_c`$ (at optimal and under- doping) makes $`T_c`$ relatively more sensitive to $`H`$. Our results for the coherence length $`\xi `$ fit well with existing experiments. Furthermore, we predict that very near the insulator $`\xi `$ will rapidly increase.

We first consider the zero magnetic field case. We include, in addition to time-reversal state pairing, finite center-of-mass momentum pair excitations in the problem and then treat the interrelated single- and two-particle propagators self-consistently. We truncate the infinite series of equation of motion at the three-particle level, and then factorize the three-particle Green’s function $`G_3`$ into single-particle ($`G`$) and two-particle ($`G_2`$) Green’s functions.

Here we consider an electron system near half filling on a quasi-two dimensional (2D) square lattice, with tight-binding dispersion $`ϵ_𝐤`$. The electrons interact via a separable potential $`V_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}=g\phi _𝐤\phi _𝐤^{},`$ where $`\phi _𝐤=\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y`$ (for $`d`$-wave). We use a T-matrix approximation for the self-energy, and have

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(K)=G_0^1(K)G^1(K)=\underset{Q}{}t(Q)G_0(QK)\phi _{𝐤𝐪/2}^2,$$
(1)
$$t(Q)=\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_{sc}|^2}{T}\delta (Q)\theta (T_cT)+\frac{g}{1+g\chi (Q)},$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{sc}`$ is the order parameter, and $`\chi (Q)=_KG(K)G_0(QK)\phi _{𝐤𝐪/2}^2`$. For small $`Q0`$, $`t(Q)`$ can be written in a standard propagator form. The pseudogap is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}^2_Qt(Q)`$, the total gap by $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_{sc}^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}^2}`$, and the quasiparticle dispersion by $`E_𝐤=\sqrt{ϵ_𝐤^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2\phi _𝐤^2}`$.

$`T_c`$ is determined by the superconducting instability condition $`1+g\chi (0)=0`$, in conjunction with the number constraint $`n=2_KG(K)`$. We obtain a set of three equations. Taking into account that the cuprates is close to the Mott insulator and thus in-plane hopping $`t_{}(x)=t_0(1n)=t_0x`$, where $`x`$ is the doping concentration, we solve for $`T_c`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, chemical potential $`\mu `$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$. The results for $`T_c`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}(T_c)`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(T=0)`$ as a function of $`x`$ are summarized in Fig. 1(a). Our predictions fit experiment well with $`g/4t_0=0.045`$ and $`t_00.6`$ eV. For more details, see Refs. 3–5.

In a finite field, the Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional near $`T_c`$ can be expanded to quadratic order in the order parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{sc}`$:

$$F\left(\tau _0(T)+\eta ^2\left(\frac{}{i}\frac{2e𝐀}{c}\right)^2\right)\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_{sc}\right|^2,$$
(3)
where $`\tau _0(T)=\overline{\tau }_0\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{T}{T_c}}\right)`$, and $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{dT_c}{dH}}|_{H=0}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}}\xi ^2={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2}{\overline{\tau }_0}}`$. As an estimate, one has $`H_{c2}(0)\mathrm{\Phi }_0/(2\pi \xi ^2)`$. ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=hc/2e`$ is the flux quantum).

For 3D weak coupling (BCS), $`\overline{\tau }_0=N(0)`$ and the phase stiffness $`\eta ^2=N(0)7\zeta (3)/48\pi ^2(v_F/T_c)^2`$. Therefore $`N(0)`$ is canceled in $`\xi _{BCS}^2=7\zeta (3)/48\pi ^2(v_F/T_c)^2`$. In general, $`\tau _0`$ and $`\eta ^2`$ can be determined from the expansion of $`t^1(Q)`$:

$$\tau _0=\frac{1}{g}+\chi (\mathrm{𝟎},0),\eta ^2=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\mathrm{det}\left[_{q_i}_{q_j}\chi (Q)\right]}|_{Q=0}.$$
(4)
In weak field, $`TeH/mc`$, we use semiclassical phase approximation to treat the single-particle and pair propagators. Both the single-particle and pair momenta can be modified by the interaction with the field. But formally, the Dyson’s equation remains the same, and the superconducting transition is still determined by the pairing instability (Thouless) condition: $`g^1+\widehat{\chi }(0)=0\tau _0+\eta ^2\left(\frac{2e}{c}H\right)`$, where $`\widehat{\chi }(Q)`$ is the pair susceptibility in the field. To linear order in $`H`$, we can evaluate $`\tau _0`$ and $`\eta ^2`$ at $`H=0`$.

At $`T^{}`$, the pseudogap is zero, only the bare Green’s function is involved, $`\chi _0(Q)=_KG_0(K)G_0(QK)\phi _{𝐤𝐪/2}^2`$. We have

$$\frac{1}{T^{}}\frac{dT^{}}{dH}|_{H=0}=\frac{\eta ^2}{\overline{\tau }_0^{}}\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Phi }_0},\xi ^2=\frac{\eta ^2}{\overline{\tau }_0^{}},$$
(5)
where $`\overline{\tau }_0^{}={\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}\phi _𝐤^2\left[f^{}(ϵ_𝐤)+{\displaystyle \frac{d\mu }{dT}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{ϵ_𝐤}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{12f(ϵ_𝐤)}{2ϵ_𝐤}}+f^{}(ϵ_𝐤)\right)\right]_{T=T^{}}`$

At weak coupling (for $`s`$-wave $`\phi _{k_F}=1`$), we recover the BCS limit: $`\mu E_F`$, $`\overline{\tau }_0^{}=_𝐤f^{}(ϵ_𝐤)\phi _𝐤^2N(0)\phi _{k_F}^2N(0)`$. And $`\eta _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ is determined by expanding $`\chi _0(𝐪,0)={\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1f(ϵ_𝐤)f(ϵ_{𝐤𝐪})}{ϵ_𝐤+ϵ_{𝐤𝐪}}}\phi _{𝐤𝐪/2}^2`$ to the $`q^2`$ order.

At large $`g`$ (for the underdoped cuprates), $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}(T_c)`$ is large. Noticing that $`T^{}`$ is very weakly $`H`$ dependent in the strong pseudogap regime \[see Fig. 1(b)\], and that $`T^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ in zero field, we assume $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ is only weakly $`H`$ dependent. In other words, only the superconducting order parameter is strongly coupled to the field. Then we obtain $`\overline{\tau }_0_𝐤\phi _𝐤^2f^{}(E_𝐤)`$, which decreases rapidly as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ increases. $`\eta ^2`$ is obtained by expanding to the $`q^2`$ order

$$\chi (𝐪,0)=\underset{𝐤}{}\left[\frac{1f(E_𝐤)f(ϵ_{𝐤𝐪})}{E_𝐤+ϵ_{𝐤𝐪}}u_𝐤^2\frac{f(E_𝐤)f(ϵ_{𝐤𝐪})}{E_𝐤ϵ_{𝐤𝐪}}v_𝐤^2\right]\phi _{𝐤𝐪/2}^2.$$
(6)
At weak coupling, $`\xi `$ and $`\xi _{BCS}`$ coincide. But they split apart as $`g`$ increases and the pseudogap opens (see Ref. 10 for details). In Fig. 1(b), we plot the doping dependence of the calculated $`\xi `$ and $`\xi ^{}`$. At large $`x`$ (overdoping, weak coupling), the two are nearly equal. But for underdoping, while $`\xi ^{}`$ continues to decrease with decreasing $`x`$, $`\xi `$ remains nearly flat for a broad range of $`x`$ until its final rapid increase toward the insulator limit. Since $`dT/dH\xi ^2`$, $`T^{}`$ is rather insensitive and $`T_c`$ is relatively more sensitive to $`H`$. These results are in agreement with experimental observations.

This work was supported by NSF-MRSEC, grant No. DMR-9808595, and by the State of Florida (Q.C.).