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# Thermal conductivity of dense quark matter and cooling of stars

## I Introduction

At sufficiently high baryon density the nucleons in nuclear matter should melt into quarks so that the system becomes a quark liquid. It should be weakly interacting due to asymptotic freedom , however, it cannot be described as a simple Fermi liquid. This is due to the nonvanishing attractive interaction in the color antitriplet quark-quark channel, provided by one-gluon exchange, which renders a highly degenerate Fermi surface unstable with respect to Cooper pairing. As a result the true ground state of dense quark matter is, in fact, a color superconductor .

Recent phenomenological  and microscopic studies  have confirmed that quark matter at a sufficiently high density undergoes a phase transition into a color superconducting state. Phenomenological studies are expected to be appropriate to intermediate baryon densities, while microscopic approaches are strictly applicable at asymptotic densities where perturbation theory can be used. It is remarkable that both approaches concur that the superconducting order parameter (which determines the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the quark spectrum) lies between $`10`$ and $`100`$ MeV for baryon densities existing in the cores of compact stars. For a review of color superconducting quark matter see Ref. .

At realistic baryon densities only the three lightest quarks can participate in the pairing dynamics. The fact that the current mass of the strange quark is more than an order of magnitude larger than the masses of the up and down quarks suggests two limiting cases. The first extreme limit assumes that the strange quark is sufficiently massive that it does not participate in the pairing dynamics at all. The corresponding quark phase is the color superconducting phase involving two quark flavors (2SC). Since it was suggested in Ref.  that such a phase is absent in compact stars, we focus on the second extreme case. This applies when all three quark flavors have a mass which is small in comparison to the chemical potential so that they participate equally in the color condensation. The ground state is then the so-called color flavor locked (CFL) phase . Here the original gauge symmetry $`SU(3)_c`$ and the global chiral symmetry $`SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R`$ break down to a global diagonal “locked” $`SU(3)_{c+L+R}`$ subgroup. Because of the Higgs mechanism the gluons become massive and decouple from the infrared dynamics. The quarks also decouple because large gaps develop in their energy spectra. The breaking of the chiral symmetry leads to the appearance of an octet of pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons ($`\pi ^0`$, $`\pi ^\pm `$, $`K^\pm `$, $`K^0`$, $`\overline{K}^0`$, $`\eta `$). In addition an extra NG boson $`\varphi `$ and a pseudo-NG boson $`\eta ^{}`$ appear in the low energy spectrum as a result of the breaking of global baryon number symmetry and approximate $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry, respectively.

The low energy action for the NG bosons in the limit of asymptotically large densities was derived in Refs. . By making use of an auxiliary “gauge” symmetry, it was suggested in Ref.  that the low energy action of Refs.  should be modified by adding a time-like covariant derivative to the action of the composite field. Under a favorable choice of parameters, the modified action predicted kaon condensation in the CFL phase. Some unusual properties of such a condensate were discussed in Refs. .

While the general structure of the low energy action in the CFL phase can be established by symmetry arguments alone , the values of the parameters in such an action can be rigorously derived only at asymptotically large baryon densities . Thus, in the most interesting case of intermediate densities existing in the cores of compact stars, the details of the action are not well known. For the purposes of the present paper, however, it suffices to know that there are 9 massive pseudo-NG bosons and one massless NG boson $`\varphi `$ in the low energy spectrum. If kaons condense  an additional NG boson should appear.***Strickly speaking the additional NG boson in a phase with kaon condensation has a small, but nonzero, mass as a result of weak interactions that break strangeness. The estimated value of the mass is of order 50 keV . These NG bosons should be relevant for the kinetic properties of dense quark matter.

It has been found  that neutrino and photon emission rates for the CFL phase are very small so that they would be inefficient in cooling the core of a neutron star. The purpose of the present investigation is to determine quantitatively the thermal conductivity of the CFL phase of dense quark matter in order to see whether it can significantly impact the cooling rate. We shall argue that the temperature of the CFL core, as well as the neighboring neutron layer which is in contact with the core, falls quickly due to the very high thermal conductivities on both sides of the interface. In fact, to a good approximation, the interior of the star is isothermal. A noticeable gradient of the temperature appears only in a relatively thin surface layer of the star where a finite flux of energy is carried outwards by photon diffusion.

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we derive the microscopic expression for thermal conductivity of the (pseudo-) NG bosons in the CFL phase. In Sec. III we estimate the mean free path $`\mathrm{}`$ of the NG boson in the CFL phase. Knowledge of this quantity is crucial to a reliable calculation of the thermal conductivity. The role of photons in affecting the thermal conductivity and specific heat of the quark core is discussed in Sec. IV. In Sec. V we discuss our findings and their implication for the cooling dynamics of a compact star with a quark core in the CFL phase. Our conclusions are summarized in Sec. VI. In the Appendix we present some useful formulae.

## II Thermal conductivity

A detailed understanding of the cooling mechanism of a compact star with a quark core is not complete without a study of thermal conductivity effects in the color superconducting quark core. The conductivity, as well as the other kinetic properties of quark matter in the CFL phase, is dominated by the low energy degrees of freedom. It is clear then that at all temperatures of interest to us $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$, it is crucial to consider the contributions of the NG bosons. In addition, there may be an equally important contribution due to photons; this is discussed in Sec. IV. Note that, at such small temperatures, the gluon and the quark quasiparticles become completely irrelevant. For example, a typical quark contribution to a transport coefficient would be exponentially suppressed by the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }/T)`$. Therefore, in the rest of this section, we concentrate exclusively on the contributions of the NG bosons.

Let us start from the general definition of the thermal conductivity as a characteristic of a system which is forced out of equilibrium by a temperature gradient. In response to such a gradient transport of heat is induced. Formally this is described by the following relation:

$$u_i=\kappa _iT,$$
(1)
where $`u_i`$ is the heat current, and $`\kappa `$ is the heat conductivity. As is clear from this relation, the heat flow would persist until a state of uniform temperature is reached. The higher the conductivity, the shorter the time for this relaxation.

In the linear response approximation, the thermal conductivity is given in terms of the heat current correlator by a Kubo-type formula. We derive the expression for the heat (energy) current carried by a single (pseudo-) NG boson field $`\phi `$. The corresponding Lagrangian density reads

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\left(_0\phi _0\phi v^2_i\phi _i\phi m^2\phi ^2\right)+\mathrm{},$$
(2)
where the ellipsis stand for the self-interaction terms as well as interactions with other fields. Notice that we introduced explicitly the velocity parameter $`v`$. In microscopic studies of color superconducting phases, which are valid at very large densities, this velocity is equal to $`1/\sqrt{3}`$ for all (pseudo-) NG bosons. It is smaller than $`1`$ because Lorentz symmetry is broken due to the finite value of the quark chemical potential. By making use of the above Lagrangian density, we derive the following expression for the heat current:

$$u_i=\frac{L}{(^i\phi )}_0\phi =v^2_i\phi _0\phi ,$$
(3)
This definition leads to the expression  for the heat conductivity in terms of the corresponding correlator:

$$\kappa _{ij}=\frac{i}{2T}\underset{\mathrm{\Omega }0}{lim}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\left[\mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}^R(\mathrm{\Omega }+iϵ)\mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}^A(\mathrm{\Omega }iϵ)\right],$$
(4)
where, in the Matsubara formalism,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}(i\mathrm{\Omega }_m)`$ $`=`$ $`v^4T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}k_ik_ji\mathrm{\Omega }_n(i\mathrm{\Omega }_n+i\mathrm{\Omega }_{nm})}`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`S(i\mathrm{\Omega }_n,\stackrel{}{k})S(i\mathrm{\Omega }_{nm},\stackrel{}{k}).`$ (6)
Here $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n2\pi nT`$ is the bosonic Matsubara frequency, and $`S(i\mathrm{\Omega }_n,\stackrel{}{k})`$ is the propagator of the (pseudo-) NG boson. In general, the propagator should have the following form:

$$S(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})=\frac{1}{(\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)^2v^2\stackrel{}{k}^2m^2},$$
(7)
where the width parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})`$ is related to the inverse lifetime (as well as the mean free path) of the boson.

In our calculation, it is very convenient to utilize the spectral representation of the propagator,

$$S(i\mathrm{\Omega }_n,\stackrel{}{k})=\frac{1}{\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega A(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})}{i\mathrm{\Omega }_n\omega }.$$
(8)
Then, the conductivity is expressed through the spectral function $`A(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})`$ as follows:

$$\kappa _{ij}=\frac{v^4}{2\pi T^2}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega ^2d\omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}k_ik_jA^2(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k}).$$
(9)
By making use of the explicit form of the propagator in Eq. (7), we see that the spectral function of the (pseudo-) NG boson is

$`A(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }}{(\omega ^2e_k^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4)^2+\omega ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}}`$ (10)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{4e_k}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left(\omega e_k\right)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4}}\left(\omega \omega \right)\right],`$ (11)
where $`e_k\sqrt{v^2k^2+m^2}`$. By substituting this spectral function into the general formula (9), we notice that the off diagonal components of the thermal conductivity are zero and all the diagonal components are equal. Both of these facts are a consequence of the rotational symmetry of the system. Thus the conductivity is characterized by a single scalar quantity $`\kappa `$ which is introduced as follows: $`\kappa _{ij}=\kappa \delta _{ij}`$. The explicit expression for this scalar function reads

$$\kappa =\frac{1}{48\sqrt{2}\pi ^2v\mathrm{\Gamma }T^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega d\omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\left(\sqrt{X^2+\omega ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}+X\right)^{3/2},$$
(12)
where we introduced the notation $`X\omega ^2m^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4`$. In the calculation leading to Eq. (12), we made use of the result :

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{a^2x^4dx}{\left[(x^2+b)^2+a^2\right]^2}=\frac{\pi }{8\sqrt{2}|a|}\left(\sqrt{a^2+b^2}b\right)^{3/2}.$$
(13)
For our purposes it will be sufficient to consider the conductivity in the limit of a very small width. This is because the (pseudo-) NG bosons in the CFL quark matter are weakly interacting. In this case we derive the following approximate relation:

$$\kappa =\frac{1}{24\pi ^2vT^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}_m^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega \omega }{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\omega }{2T}}\left(\omega ^2m^2\right)^{3/2}.$$
(14)
It is interesting to notice that the same result can be easily derived from Eq. (9). Indeed, in the limit of a very small width, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Gamma }0`$, we can replace the square of the spectral function by a sum of two $`\delta `$-functions:

$$A^2(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})\frac{\pi }{4\mathrm{\Gamma }e_k^2}\left[\delta \left(\omega e_k\right)+\delta \left(\omega +e_k\right)\right].$$
(15)
where the coefficients in front of the $`\delta `$-functions were determined unambiguously by using the following replacement rule:

$$\underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }0}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^3}{(x^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4)^2}4\pi \delta (x).$$
(16)
Now in the limit of small temperature, $`Tm`$, the result in Eq. (14) is given approximately by:

$`\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^5}{24\pi ^2v\mathrm{\Gamma }T^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^4dx}{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{m\sqrt{1+x^2}}{2T}}}`$ (17)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{5/2}\sqrt{T}}{2\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}v\mathrm{\Gamma }}}e^{m/T}.`$ (18)
This demonstrates clearly that the contributions of heavy pseudo-NG bosons to the thermal conductivity are strongly suppressed. The largest contribution comes from the massless NG boson $`\varphi `$ for which the thermal conductivity is

$$\kappa _\varphi =\frac{4T^3}{3\pi ^2v\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{x^4dx}{\mathrm{sinh}^2x}=\frac{2\pi ^2T^3}{45v\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi }.$$
(19)
In order to calculate $`\kappa _\varphi `$ the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi `$ is required, or equivalently the mean free path $`\mathrm{}_\varphi `$ since $`\mathrm{}_\varphi \overline{v}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi `$, where $`\overline{v}`$ is the average thermal velocity of the particles responsible for heat transfer. This will be discussed in the next section. For the moment we note that expression (19) for the thermal conductivity is similar to the phonon conductivity often used in solid state physics . It is also interesting to note that the result for the thermal conductivity of both massive and massless bosons in Eqs. (18) and (19) are consistent with a general relation from classical Boltzmann kinetic theory :

$$\kappa =\frac{1}{3}\overline{v}c_v\mathrm{},$$
(20)
where $`c_v`$ is the specific heat. In order to see that this relation holds, we note that the average thermal velocity, $`e_k/k`$, of massive bosons is a factor $`\sqrt{3T/m}`$ smaller than the velocity of massless bosons $`v=1/\sqrt{3}`$. After taking this into account, as well as using the expressions for the specific heat in Eqs. (A8) and (A12) in the Appendix, we find that the relation (20) between the conductivity and the specific heat is indeed satisfied.

## III Mean free path of the NG boson

In the preceding section we derived a general expression for the boson portion of the thermal conductivity. The result involved the decay width of the (pseudo-) NG boson or equivalently the mean free path, $`\mathrm{}=\overline{v}/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, for which we derive a simple estimate here. Using this we can understand the effect of the heat conductivity on the relaxation time of the temperature gradient inside the quark core of a star. This is crucial for understanding the cooling mechanism of compact stars with quark cores.

As we have remarked, the contribution of massive pseudo-NG bosons to the thermal conductivity is suppressed by the exponential factor $`\mathrm{exp}(m/T)`$. In the CFL phase of quark matter, however, there is one truly massless NG boson $`\varphi `$ which should therefore give the dominant contribution to the heat conductivity. The interactions of $`\varphi `$ with the CFL matter leads to a finite value for its mean free path. Since this boson is a composite particle there is always a non-zero probability at finite temperature for its decay into a pair of quark quasiparticles. It is natural to expect that such a process is strongly suppressed at small temperatures, $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This is confirmed by a direct microscopic calculation in the region of asymptotic densities which yields a decay width :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi qq}(k)\frac{5\sqrt{2}\pi vk}{4(218\mathrm{ln}2)}\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{T}\right).$$
(21)
If this were the only contribution, then the order of magnitude of the mean free path of the NG boson would be

$$\mathrm{}_{\varphi qq}\frac{v}{T}\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{T}\right).$$
(22)
This grows exponentially with decreasing the temperature. For example, if $`T\mathrm{\Delta }/33`$ the mean free path is $`30`$ km or more (in deriving this estimate we set $`\mathrm{\Delta }50`$ MeV). This scale is a few times larger than the typical size of a compact star. The underlying physics in this calculation of the mean free path closely resembles the propagation of sound waves in superfluid helium. We recall that there are two types of excitations in superfluid helium: gapless phonons and finite gap rotons. The main contribution to the thermal conductivity comes from the phonons whose mean free path is mainly determined by scattering on rotons . The value of the mean free path, as in the case of NG bosons, becomes exponentially large at small temperatures ($`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$).

Now, in the case of the NG bosons the decay channel into quarks is not the only contribution to the mean free path since the NG bosons can also scatter on one another. The amplitude has been derived by Son  and is of order $`k^4/\mu ^4`$ which gives a cross section of $`\sigma _{\varphi \varphi }T^6/\mu ^8`$. This yields the following contribution to the width of the NG boson:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\varphi \varphi }=v\sigma _{\varphi \varphi }n_\varphi \frac{T^9}{\mu ^8},$$
(23)
where $`n_\varphi `$ is the equilibrium number density of the NG bosons. The explicit expression for $`n_\varphi `$ is given in Eq. (A11) in the Appendix. At small temperatures the scattering contribution in Eq. (23) dominates the width. This leads to a mean free path

$`\mathrm{}_{\varphi \varphi }{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^8}{T^9}}8\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{500}^8}{T_{MeV}^9}}\text{ km}.`$ (24)
Here we defined the following dimensionless quantities: $`\mu _{500}\mu /(500\text{ MeV})`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{50}\mathrm{\Delta }/(50\text{ MeV})`$, and $`T_{MeV}T/(1\text{ MeV})`$. Both $`\mathrm{}_{\varphi \varphi }`$ and $`\mathrm{}_{\varphi qq}`$ depend very strongly on temperature, however the salient point is that they are both larger than the size of a compact star for temperatures $`T_{MeV}`$ of order 1.

We define $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ to be the temperature at which the massive NG bosons decouple from the system. This is determined by the mass of the lightest pseudo-NG boson for which it is not presently possible to give a reliable value. Different model calculations  produce different values which can range as low as 10 MeV. Thus, conservatively, we choose $`\stackrel{~}{T}1`$ MeV. Then the mean free path of the NG boson is comparable to or even larger than the size of a star for essentially all temperatures $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$. It is also important to note that the mean free path is very sensitive to temperature changes. In particular, at temperatures just a few times higher than $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ the value of $`\mathrm{}`$ may already become much smaller than the star size. This suggests that, during the first few seconds after the supernova explosion when the temperatures remain considerably higher than $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$, a noticeable temperature gradient may exist in the quark core. This should relax very quickly because of the combined effect of cooling (which is very efficient at $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$) and diffusion. After that almost the whole interior of the star would become isothermal.

Before concluding this section, we point out that the geometrical size of the quark phase limits the mean free path of the NG boson since the scattering with the boundary should also be taken into account. It is clear from simple geometry that $`\mathrm{}R_0`$, where $`R_0`$ is the radius of the quark core. A similar situation is known to appear in high quality crystals at very low temperatures .

## IV Photon contributions

In this section, we discuss the role of photons in the CFL quark core. It was argued in Ref.  that the mean free path of photons is larger than the typical size of a compact star at all temperatures $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$. One might conclude therefore that the photons would leave a finite region of the core in a very short amount of time after the core becomes transparent. If this were so, the photons would be able to contribute neither to thermodynamic nor to kinetic properties of the quark core. However the neighboring neutron matter has very good metallic properties due to the presence of a considerable number of electrons. As is known from plasma physics, low frequency electromagnetic waves cannot propagate inside a plasma. Moreover, an incoming electromagnetic wave is reflected from the surface of such a plasma . In particular, if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ is the value of the plasma frequency of the nuclear matter, then all photons with frequencies $`\omega <\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ are reflected from the boundary. This effect is similar to the well known reflection of radio waves from the Earth’s ionosphere.

The plasma frequency is known to be proportional to the square root of the density of charge carriers and inversely proportional to the square root of their mass. It is clear therefore that the electrons, rather than the more massive protons, will lead to the largest value of the plasma frequency in nuclear matter. Our estimate for the value of this frequency is

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_p=\sqrt{\frac{4\pi e^2Y_e\rho }{m_em_p}}4.7\times 10^2\sqrt{\frac{\rho Y_e}{\rho _0}}\text{ MeV},$$
(25)
where the electron density $`n_e=Y_e\rho /m_p`$ is given in terms of the nuclear matter density $`\rho `$ and the proton mass $`m_p`$. Also $`m_e`$ denotes the electron mass, $`Y_e0.1`$ is the number of electrons per baryon, and $`\rho _02.8\times 10^{14}\text{ g cm}^3`$ is equilibrium nuclear matter density.

Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ is more than 100 MeV electromagnetic waves of essentially all frequencies for temperatures appropriate to the CFL phase will be reflected back into the core region. Thus photons present very early in the life of the star, those produced by decays in the CFL matter as well as those produced at the nuclear interface will be trapped in the core. In a way the boundary of the core looks like a good quality mirror with some leakage which will allow a thermal photon distribution to build up, even at the relatively high temperatures that existed during the first moments of stellar evolution.

Now, since photons are massless they also give a sizable contribution to the thermal conductivity of the CFL phase. The corresponding contribution $`\kappa _\gamma `$ will be similar to the contribution of the massless NG boson in Eq. (19). Since the photons move at approximately the speed of light  ($`v1`$ in our notation) and they have two polarization states, we obtain

$$\kappa _\gamma =\frac{4\pi ^2T^3}{45\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma }.$$
(26)
Since the thermal conductivity is additive the total conductivity of dense quark matter in the CFL phase is given by the sum of the two contributions:

$$\kappa _{CFL}=\kappa _\varphi +\kappa _\gamma \frac{2\pi ^2}{9}T^3R_0,$$
(27)
where for both a photon and a NG boson the mean free path $`\mathrm{}R_0`$. This yields the value

$$\kappa _{CFL}1.2\times 10^{32}T_{MeV}^3R_{0,km}\text{ erg cm}^1\text{sec}^1\text{K}^1,$$
(28)
which is many orders of magnitude larger than the thermal conductivity of regular nuclear matter in a neutron star .

## V Stellar cooling

In discussing the cooling mechanism for a compact star we have to make some general assumptions about the structure of the star. We accept without proof that a quark core exists at the center of the star. The radius of such a core is denoted by $`R_0`$, while the radius of the whole star is denoted by $`R`$. We exclude the possibility that the star is made completely of CFL quark matter. Schematically, the internal structure of the star is shown in Fig. 1. The quark core stays in direct contact with the neighboring nuclear matter. From this nuclear contact layer outwards the structure of the star should essentially be the same as in an ordinary neutron star.

A detailed analysis of the interface between the quark core and the nuclear matter was made in Ref. . A similar analysis might also be very useful for understanding the mechanism of heat transfer from one phase to the other here. For our purposes it is sufficient to know only that direct contact between the quark and nuclear phases is possible. In fact the only assumption we need is that the temperature is continuous across the interface.

Having spelled out the basic assumptions, we can consider the physics that governs stellar cooling. Let us start from the moment when the star is formed in a supernova explosion. Right after the explosion a lot of high-energy neutrinos are trapped inside the star. After about $`10`$ to $`15`$ seconds most of them escape from the star by diffusion. The presence of the CFL quark core could slightly modify the rate of such diffusion . By the end of the deleptonization process, the temperature of the star would rise to a few tens of MeV. Then, the star relatively quickly cools down to about $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ by the efficient process of neutrino emission. It is unlikely that the quark core would greatly affect the time scale for this initial cooling stage. An ordinary neutron star would continue to cool mostly by neutrino emission for quite a long time even after that . Here we need to discuss how the presence of the CFL quark core affects the cooling process of the star after the temperature drops below $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$.

Our result for the mean free path of the NG boson demonstrates that the heat conductivity of dense quark matter in the CFL phase is very high. For example, a temperature gradient of $`1`$ MeV across a core of $`1`$ km in size is washed away by heat conduction in a very short time interval of order $`R_{0,km}^2/v\mathrm{}(T)6\times 10^4`$ sec. In deriving this estimate, we took into account the fact that the specific heat and the heat conductivity in the CFL phase are dominated by photons and massless NG bosons and that $`\mathrm{}R_0`$. In addition, we used the relation in Eq. (20). This estimate proves that, to a good approximation, the quark core is isothermal at all temperatures $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$.

The heat conductivity of the neighboring nuclear matter is also known to be very high because of the large contribution from degenerate electrons which have a very long mean free path. It is clear, then, that both the quark and the nuclear layers should be nearly isothermal with equal values of the temperature. When one of the layers cools down by any mechanism, the temperature of the other will adjust almost immediately due to the very efficient heat transfer on both sides of the interface. This observation has a very important consequence for the cooling rate of the star. It will eventually be determined by the combination of two effects: (i) neutrino emission from the nuclear part of the star, and (ii) diffusion of photons through the outer crust made of nuclei and non-degenerate electrons. Even if, for any reason the intermediate nuclear layer happens to be abnormally thin photon diffusion will provide efficient cooling. The corresponding cooling time would be of order $`10^7`$ years. This is many orders of magnitude shorter than the estimated time of cooling of the CFL matter by neutrino emission .

Now consider the order of magnitude of the cooling time for a star with a CFL quark core. One of the most important components of the calculation of the cooling time is the thermal energy of the star which is the amount of energy that is lost in cooling. There are contributions to the total thermal energy from both the quark and the nuclear parts of the star. The dominant amount of thermal energy in the CFL quark matter is stored in photons and massless NG bosons, see Eq. (A12) and the brief discussion in the Appendix. It is given by the following expression:

$`E_{CFL}(T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi R_0^3}{3}}{\displaystyle _0^T}c_v(T^{})𝑑T^{}`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6(1+2v^3)T}{5}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi TR_0}{3v}}\right)^3,`$ (30)
where, for simplicity, we use the Newtonian approximation. The specific heat here contains both $`\varphi `$ and photon contributions ($`c_v=c_v^{(\varphi )}+c_v^{(\gamma )}`$) which can be obtinaed from Eq. (A12) using the appropriate degeneracies and velocities. Numerically the expression in Eq. (30) leads to the following result:

$$E_{CFL}(T)2.1\times 10^{42}R_{0,km}^3T_{MeV}^4\text{ erg}.$$
(31)
Here $`R_{0,km}`$ is the quark core radius measured in kilometers. The thermal energy of the outer nuclear layer is provided mostly by degenerate neutrons. A numerical estimate is :

$$E_{NM}(T)8.1\times 10^{49}\frac{MM_0}{M_{}}\left(\frac{\rho _0}{\rho }\right)^{2/3}T_{MeV}^2\text{ erg},$$
(32)
where $`M`$ is the mass of the star, $`M_0`$ is the mass of the quark core and $`M_{}`$ is the mass of the Sun. It is crucial to note that the thermal energy of the quark core is negligible in comparison to that of the nuclear layer. Moreover, as the star cools the ratio $`E_{CFL}/E_{NM}`$ will further decrease.

The second important component that determines stellar cooling is the neutrino and/or photon luminosity which describes the rate of energy loss. Typically, the neutrino luminosity dominates the cooling of young stars when the temperatures are still higher than about $`10`$ keV and after that the photon diffusion mechanism starts to dominate. As argued in Ref. , neutrino emission from the CFL quark phase is strongly suppressed at low temperatures, i.e., at $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$ in our notation. The neighboring nuclear layer, on the other hand, emits neutrinos quite efficiently. As a result, it cools relatively fast in the same way as an ordinary neutron star. The nuclear layer should be able to emit not only its own thermal energy, but also that of the quark core which constantly arrives by the very efficient heat transfer process. The analysis of this cooling mechanism, however, is greatly simplified by the fact that the thermal energy of the quark core is negligible compared to the energy stored in the nuclear matter. By making use of the natural assumption that local neutrino emissivities from the nuclear matter are not affected by the presence of the quark core, we conclude that the cooling time of a star with a quark core is essentially the same as for an ordinary neutron star provided that the nuclear layer is not extremely thin.

## VI Conclusions

As is clear from our analysis, the thermal conductivity of the CFL color superconducting dense quark matter is very high for typical values of the temperature found in a newborn compact star. This is a direct consequence of the existence of the photon and the massless NG boson associated with the breaking of baryon number. (Note that the quark contribution to the thermal conductivity is strongly suppressed in the CFL phase, as discussed in Ref. .) The mean free path of the NG boson appears to be very large as a result of its weak self-interaction and its weak interaction with the rest of the matter in the CFL phase. The same is true for the photon. Our rough estimate shows that even at a relatively early stage of stellar cooling when the temperature is of order $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$, say 1 MeV or so, the mean free paths are already larger than the size of the star. It should be noted, however, that the NG bosons cannot leave the CFL phase and escape from the core of the star carrying away their energy. By their nature, these NG bosons are collective excitations of the CFL phase and thus they are “confined” to the medium which made their existence possible. In this respect, they resemble phonons in solid state physics which also, by their nature, cannot escape from inside a crystal. Although for a different reason, thermal photons also cannot leave the finite region of the quark core. They are efficiently reflected from the electron plasma of the neighboring nuclear matter.

We mention that the (pseudo-) NG bosons and photons should also dominate other kinetic properties of dense quark matter in the CFL phase. For example, the shear viscosity should be mostly due to photons and the same massless NG bosons associated with the breaking of baryon number. The electrical conductivity, on the other hand, would be mostly due to the lightest charged pseudo-NG boson, i.e., the $`K^+`$. Thus, in the limit of small temperatures $`T0`$ the electrical conductivity will be suppressed by a factor $`\mathrm{exp}(m_{K^+}/T)`$.

Since the neutrino emissivity of the CFL core is strongly suppressed, the heat is transferred to the outer nuclear layer only through the direct surface contact. While both the core and the outer layer contribute to the heat capacity of the star, it is only the outer layer which is capable of emitting this heat energy efficiently in the form of neutrinos. The combination of these two factors tends to extend the cooling time of a star. However, because of the very small thermal energy of the quark core compared to that of the nuclear matter, the time scale for cooling would only get noticeably shorter than that for an ordinary neutron star when the quark core radius is nearly the same as the stellar radius. Thus it appears that the cooling of stars with CFL quark cores will differ little from the cooling of standard neutron stars. A similar conclusion has been reached for stars with regular, non-CFL quark interiors .

In passing it is interesting to speculate about the possibility that a bare CFL quark star made entirely of dense quark matter could exist. If it were possible, it would look like a transparent dielectric . Our present study suggests such a star would also have very unusual thermal properties. Indeed, if the star has a finite temperature $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$ after it was created, almost all of its thermal energy would be stored in the NG bosons. Notice that all the photons would leave the star very soon after transparency set in because the star is assumed to have no nuclear matter layer. The local interaction as well as the self-interaction of the NG bosons is very weak so that we argued in Sec. III that their mean free path would be limited only by the geometrical size of the star. This suggests that the only potential source of energy loss in the bare CFL star would be the interaction of the NG bosons at the star boundary, together with very strongly suppressed  photon and neutrino emission. It is likely, therefore, that such stars might be very dim and might even be good candidates for some of the dark matter in the Universe. A more detailed discussion of this issue is, however, beyond the scope of the present paper.

Finally, we would also like to note that the thermal conductivity of the 2SC color superconducting phase of two lightest quarks should also be very large, but for a different reason. In this case there are quarks which do not participate in color condensation and thus give rise to gapless quasiparticles. The corresponding contribution to the heat conductivity (which is similar to the contribution of degenerate electrons inside nuclear matter) should be very large. Therefore, if it were possible for the core of a compact star to be made of the 2SC quark phase, it would again be nearly isothermal. The results of Ref.  suggest, however, that the 2SC phase cannot appear in a compact star.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Yong Qian for many interesting discussions and M. Prakash, S. Reddy and D. T. Son for useful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Grant No. DE-FG02-87ER40328.

## A Thermodynamical quantities

In this Appendix, for convenience we list expressions for the thermodynamic quantities that we use throughout the main text of the paper.

It is most convenient to start with the expression for the pressure. The other quantities (entropy, free energy, etc.) can then be easily derived . In the case of a massive boson field, the pressure is

$$P^{(bos)}=T\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}(1e^{e_k/T}),$$
(A1)
where $`e_k=\sqrt{v^2k^2+m^2}`$. The corresponding energy density, number density and the specific heat are:

$`U^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{e_k}{e^{e_k/T}1}},`$ (A2)
$`n^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{e^{e_k/T}1}},`$ (A3)
$`c_v^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4T^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{e_k^2}{\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{e_k}{2T}}}.`$ (A4)
In the case of a small temperature (as compared to the value of mass), these thermodynamic quantities approach the following asymptotic expressions :

$`P^{(bos)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{3/2}T^{5/2}}{2\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}v^3}}e^{m/T},`$ (A5)
$`U^{(bos)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{5/2}T^{3/2}}{2\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}v^3}}e^{m/T},`$ (A6)
$`n^{(bos)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{3/2}T^{3/2}}{2\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}v^3}}e^{m/T},`$ (A7)
$`c_v^{(bos)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^{7/2}}{2\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}v^3\sqrt{T}}}e^{m/T}.`$ (A8)
And, in the limit of massless particles, they are

$`P^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2T^4}{90v^3}},`$ (A9)
$`U^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2T^4}{30v^3}},`$ (A10)
$`n^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (3)T^3}{\pi ^2v^3}},`$ (A11)
$`c_v^{(bos)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2T^3}{15v^3}},`$ (A12)
where the value of the Riemann function $`\zeta (3)1.202`$. For completeness, let us also present some thermodynamical properties of color superconducting quarks. In this case, it is very convenient to separate the zero and finite temperature contributions explicitly. For the pressure of a single quark with a gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we find:

$`P_{qrk}`$ $`=`$ $`P_{qrk}^{(0)}+2T{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}(1+e^{E_k^{()}/T})}`$ (A13)
$`+`$ $`2T{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}(1+e^{E_k^{(+)}/T})},`$ (A14)
where $`E_k^{(\pm )}=\sqrt{(e_k\pm \mu )^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}`$ are the quasiparticle energies and $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. The zero temperature contribution is approximately given by

$$P_{qrk}^{(0)}=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\left(E_k^{(+)}+E_k^{()}\right)\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }^2.$$
(A15)
The last term is needed so that the gap equation is obtained when the pressure is maximized with respect to variations in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Using the gap equation to eliminate $`\alpha `$ and renormalizing by removing the divergent term, the pressure becomes

$$P_{qrk}^{(0)}\frac{\mu ^4}{12\pi ^2}+\frac{\mu ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{4\pi ^2}+\mathrm{},$$
(A16)
in agreement with the results obtained using the framework of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model  and directly from quantum chromodynamics . The ellipsis denotes subleading terms suppressed by powers of either $`(m/\mu )^2`$ or $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu )^2`$. As is easy to check, at small temperatures, i.e., $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the finite temperature corrections in Eq. (A14) are suppressed by a factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }/T)`$. Thus, the above zero temperature contribution will dominate the pressure of the CFL phase. Similarly, the main contribution to the number density and the energy density of CFL matter at $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$ comes from the zero temperature terms. Using Eq. (A16) the $`T=0`$ contribution to the number density is

$$n_{qrk}^{(0)}\frac{\mu ^3}{3\pi ^2}+\frac{\mu \mathrm{\Delta }^2}{2\pi ^2}\left(1+\frac{\mu }{\mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mu }\right).$$
(A17)
Note that the partial derivative term is needed since the gap equation, which specifies $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\mu )`$, was used in arriving at Eq. (A16). This term contributes at the same order (unity) as the first term in parentheses. The energy density is then

$$U_{qrk}^{(0)}\frac{\mu ^4}{4\pi ^2}+\frac{\mu ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{4\pi ^2}\left(1+\frac{2\mu }{\mathrm{\Delta }}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mu }\right).$$
(A18)
Here it is appropriate to note that all thermodynamic functions which are defined through the temperature derivatives of either the pressure (e.g., entropy) or the energy (e.g., specific heat) are exponentially suppressed at $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Therefore, the dominant contributions to this second type of functions would come from (pseudo-) NG bosons in the CFL phase of dense quark matter.


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# Lyapunov Exponents, Transport and the Extensivity of Dimensional Loss

## Abstract

An explicit relation between the dimensional loss ($`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$), entropy production and transport is established under thermal gradients, relating the microscopic and macroscopic behaviors of the system. The extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in systems with bulk behavior follows from the relation. The maximum Lyapunov exponents in thermal equilibrium and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in non-equilibrium depend on the choice of heat-baths, while their product is unique and macroscopic. Finite size corrections are also computed and all results are verified numerically.

Fractal structures in phase space have become the focus of attention in the understanding of the relationship between microscopic dynamics and macroscopic non-equilibrium physics. In the escape-rate formalism, the properties of a fractal repellor are known to govern the transport. In contrast, in boundary driven non-equilibrium steady states, the stationary distribution is generally fractal, but the precise connection to transport is not fully understood. This reduction in dimension, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$, has been argued to be related to transport, although the only precise understanding arises in the weak field limit of the Lorentz gas, which does not have clear generalization to non-equilibrium many-body systems. The presence of fractals has also been used to demonstrate how the second law of thermodynamics is consistent with time-reversal invariant, deterministic dynamics. Many of these issues require the understanding of the Lyapunov spectrum, whose analytic properties are known only in certain special cases. In this letter we study general Hamiltonians coupled to two heat baths at different temperatures at opposite sides of the system, generating heat flow. We will see that the type of heat baths chosen affect $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ and the Lyapunov exponents, for the same boundary temperatures. We investigate the meaning and the origins of extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in systems with bulk behavior, including finite size corrections, and relate them to transport. The new relations are verified numerically. We systematically study the system not only close to but also far from equilibrium, as well as the dependence on the heat-baths themselves. While the extensivity of dimensional loss has been disputed due to the incompatibility with local equilibrium, we will see that this is not an issue.

In systems with bulk behavior, to say that $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ behaves “extensively” means that $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ should remain relatively the same under the same local non-equilibrium conditions when we change the size of the system. For systems in thermal gradients, one might expect

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }D}{D}=C^{}\left(\frac{T}{T}\right)^2+𝒪\left(\left(\frac{T}{T}\right)^4\right)$$
(1)
where the constant $`C^{}`$ might depend on $`T`$. Such a behavior is particularly natural if one envisions that a continuum limit of the theory ultimately exists. $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ has been studied previously for color conduction, sheared fluids and thermal conduction, numerically. Analytic computations of the Lyapunov spectrum and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ have understandably been restricted to small or idealized systems such as the Lorentz gas. The physical properties are far from trivial; even whether $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ generally arises has been an issue. Extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ under thermal gradients has been analyzed , but the relation to transport and entropy production was not elucidated previously. Extensivity has been investigated in sheared fluids and for color conductivity. Study of the dependence on the number and types of thermostats or systematic analysis far from equilibrium have not been performed before.

We first discuss the properties of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$, its extensivity and its relation to transport. Consider a system with cross-sectional area $`A`$ placed in contact with two heat-baths at both ends having temperatures $`(T_1^0,T_2^0)`$. The Lyapunov spectrum $`\left\{\lambda _j\right\}_{j=1,2,\mathrm{},D}`$ distills the microscopic properties of the classical system and are the time averaged eigenvalues of the stability matrix $`(\dot{\phi }_i/\phi _j)`$, where $`\left\{\phi _j\right\}_{j=1,2,\mathrm{},D}`$ are all the degrees of the freedom of the system, including the heat-baths. From the spectrum, we may compute the fractal dimension using the Kaplan–Yorke estimate $`D_{KY}`$, which has the property that $`\mathrm{\Delta }DDD_{KY}>0`$ in non-equilibrium and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D=0`$ in equilibrium systems. While the extensivity relation (1) is natural, the relation is ill-defined for two reasons: First, $`T`$ is in general not constant within the system and which $`T`$ we choose visibly affects the results. Second, it is unclear what $`D`$ in the denominator should mean. It can be the number of degrees of freedom of the whole system including the thermostats, that without, or that only of the interior. These difficulties arise since $`D_{KY}`$ is a global quantity defined only for the whole system. An expression consistent with (1) in the near equilibrium limit that suffers no such ambiguity even far from equilibrium is (denoting the heat flux by $`J`$),

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }D}{V_{in}}=C_DJ^2$$
(2)
since $`J`$ is constant throughout the system. $`V_{in}`$ is the interior volume of the system. We shall derive this relation near equilibrium and further verify it numerically.

Computing $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ requires the full Lyapunov spectrum, which involves evolving $`D^2+D`$ degrees of freedom. This apparently makes it difficult to explicitly check extensivity. Close to equilibrium, this difficulty can be overcome as follows. Define $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max},\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}\frac{\underset{j=1}{\overset{D}{}}\lambda _j}{\lambda _{max}},\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}\frac{\underset{j=1}{\overset{D}{}}\lambda _j}{\lambda _{min}}$$
(3)
where $`\lambda _{max},\lambda _{min}`$ are the maximum and minimum exponents. When $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}=\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ holds exactly. (More generally, when $`K1<\mathrm{\Delta }DK`$, we need only to compute $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$ and the $`K`$ lowest Lyapunov exponents to obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$.) This holds when the system is close to equilibrium. $`T/T1/L`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }DL^{d2}`$ (in $`d`$-dimensions) so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ is always small for large systems in 1-d. Since $`\lambda _{min}=\lambda _{max}`$ in equilibrium, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ should also be a good approximation to $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$, close to equilibrium. We analyze these conditions systematically in the following and make these conditions more precise. $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$, the total rate of phase space contraction, can be computed from the equations of motion of $`\{\phi _j\}`$ alone and $`\lambda _{max}`$ can be computed from evolving one tangent vector, so we need only to evolve $`2D`$ degrees of freedom to compute $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ — a huge reduction for large $`D`$.

We now systematically investigate how the extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ arises. First note that $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$ is the rate of entropy production, $`\dot{S}`$, for the system. We use this to derive a thermodynamic relation

$`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{D}{}}}\lambda _j`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{S}=AJ\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_1^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_2^0}}\right)`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{in}J^2}{\kappa T^2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha \kappa }{V_{in}}}\right)+𝒪(J^4)`$ (5)
where $`\kappa `$ is the thermal conductivity. We have included the effects of boundary temperature jumps that behave as $`\alpha J`$ when the jumps are not too big. $`\alpha `$, which arises as a finite size correction, measures the efficacy of the heat-baths, which can be stochastic or deterministic, and can have significant effects as will be shown. Notice that (4) always holds, both close to and far from equilibrium and is independent of the type and number of thermostats used. Further, it is $`V_{in}`$ that arises in the relation, rather than $`D`$.

$`\lambda _{max}`$ behaves as $`\lambda _{max}=\lambda _{max}^{eq}+𝒪(J^2)`$, where $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ is its equilibrium value. $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ is independent of $`V_{in}`$ for large enough systems, but can depend on $`T`$ and also on the thermostats used. Close to equilibrium, the above behavior of $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$ and $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$, when combined, explain the extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ as in (2). In this limit, the extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ arises from $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$ and the thermostat dependence from $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$. Since $`C_D`$ can be derived in the $`J0`$ limit, we derive

$$C_D=\frac{1}{\kappa \lambda _{max}^{eq}T^2}\left(1+\frac{2\alpha \kappa }{V_{in}}\right)\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{V_{in}\mathrm{}}{}\frac{1}{\kappa \lambda _{max}^{eq}T^2}$$
(6)
which relates macroscopic transport and entropy production to the microscopic $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$. A subtlety needs to be mentioned: We have found that $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ is consistent with having a finite large volume limit but have not proven this statement analytically. In fact, this difficult issue is open and there have been conflicting results on the existence of the thermodynamic limit of $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$. From our argument, we see that the extensive nature of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ requires that $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ have a thermodynamic limit or vice versa. We note that in systems without a bulk limit, such as the FPU model, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ needs not be extensive and $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ needs not have a thermodynamic limit, which might explain some of the discrepancy seen in the previous literature. Far from equilibrium, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ will be quite different, yet the extensivity relation (2) can and seems to still hold for $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$. This reflects the deeper geometric significance of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ not present in $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$.

While the above theory is valid in any dimension, we now apply it to the 1–d $`\varphi ^4`$ theory described by the following Hamiltonian:

$$H=\underset{x=1}{\overset{L}{}}\left[\frac{\pi _x^2}{2}+\frac{\left(\varphi _x\right)^2}{2}+\frac{\varphi _x^4}{4}\right].$$
(7)
We choose the $`\varphi ^4`$ theory because it is a classic statistical model that naturally appears in broad physical contexts. Also, the statistical properties of the theory have been studied previously, including thermal transport which has bulk behavior. We model the heat-baths dynamically by applying Nosé-Hoover (NH) thermostats or their variants (demons) at the boundaries, as explained in . The interior includes the dynamics only of the $`\varphi ^4`$ theory. Temperature is defined unambiguously using the ideal gas thermometer, $`T(x)=\pi _x^2`$. The number of (heat-bath) boundary sites thermostatted on each end, $`N_B`$, will be varied. We employ one set of thermostats per thermostatted site. We run the simulations with time steps of $`10^3`$ to $`0.05`$ for $`10^6`$ to $`10^9`$ steps, understanding its convergence properties and also checking that the results do not change with the step size. To obtain the Lyapunov spectrum, we use the method in .

Let us first look at the dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}`$ with respect to $`J`$ (Fig. 1). We see that close enough to equilibrium, all three quantities agree and display $`J^2`$ behavior as in (2) and (6). Remarkably, even far from equilibrium and well into the non–linear regime, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ has a robust $`J^2`$ behavior, but not $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max,min}`$. We further note that the boundary temperature jumps have a significant effect, the effect being larger for smaller $`T`$. For instance, using $`\kappa =2.83(4)T^{1.35(2)},\alpha =2.6(1)`$, $`2\alpha \kappa =300,6`$ for $`T=0.1,2`$, respectively.

Performing an analysis similar to those performed for Fig. 1, we can extract the proportionality constant $`\mathrm{\Delta }D/J^2`$ for a particular $`L`$, $`N_B`$ and $`T`$. Combining this data for various $`V_{in}(=L2N_B+1)`$, $`N_B`$, we find that the relations (2),(6) describe the results quite well over a few orders in magnitude (Fig. 2). We have also included the data of  which used stochastic thermostats and see that the formulas work quite well.

There are a few subtleties which we now resolve: First, we can and have made the distinction between the total volume and $`V_{in}`$ in the formula (2), since we have performed analyses with $`N_B=140`$ sites. Secondly, $`C_D`$ can and does depend on $`T`$ and also on the type of thermostats used, including $`N_B`$. $`C_D`$ has similar behavior both for NH thermostats and for demons, with the former being larger, and both decreasing with $`N_B`$. Since the demons have twice the number of degrees of freedom per thermostatted site compared to NH thermostats, this is quite remarkable. Furthermore, somewhat surprisingly, when we increase $`N_B`$ by one, thereby increasing the total number of degrees of freedom by 6(8) in the NH thermostat (demons) case, $`C_D`$ decreases and so does $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ for the same $`J`$. The reason for this will be clarified below.

We study examples of the behavior of $`_{j=1}^D\lambda _j`$ in Fig. 3 (left). We see that the entropy production relation Eq. (4) works well near and far from equilibrium, and that the quadratic behavior with respect to $`J`$ can be observed close to equilibrium. This is true, independently  of the type of thermostats used. On the other hand, $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ can and does depend on the type of thermostats used as well as $`T`$ (Fig. 3 (right)). This is responsible for the thermostat dependence of $`C_D`$ seen in Fig. 2. The larger $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ for demons and the increase seen with $`N_B`$ are quite natural since the existence of more thermostats lead to more chaotic behavior.

We now study in detail the difference between $`\mathrm{\Delta }D,`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$: Let us first work out what the condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$ means. Define $`r\mathrm{\Delta }T/T`$, where $`T`$ is the central temperature and $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ is the difference in the boundary temperatures so that $`r2`$, always, and $`TrT/V_{in}`$. Then, we can derive a simple estimate,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }D1V_{in}\frac{\kappa \left(T\right)^2}{\lambda _{max}^{eq}T^2}r^2\frac{\kappa }{\lambda _{max}^{eq}}$$
(8)
Let us analyze $`T=0.5`$ case more concretely; the condition is most stringent for $`N_B=1`$ (NH) case, when $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ is the smallest. So we obtain the condition $`V_{in}/r^2130`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$ and for large lattices, $`V_{in}400`$, it should be satisfied for any gradient, which is consistent with our results. While we did not consider here the non-linearity of the profiles, the boundaries temperature jumps and the non-linearity of the response, we are in some sense close to equilibrium when $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$ so that the rough arguments suffice for the purpose at hand.

When $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$, how large is the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}\mathrm{\Delta }D`$? In this case, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}=\mathrm{\Delta }D`$, as explained above, so we need to consider $`\lambda _{max}+\lambda _{min}`$, which is zero in equilibrium since the Lyapunov spectrum is symmetric with respect to sign inversion. As we move away from equilibrium, the behavior can be described by $`\lambda _{max}/\lambda _{min}+1=C_\lambda J^2+𝒪\left(J^4\right)`$. Then, when $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$,

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}\mathrm{\Delta }D}{\mathrm{\Delta }D}C_\lambda J^2\frac{C_\lambda }{V_{in}C_D}$$
(9)
For $`N_B=1`$, $`T=0.5`$, $`C_\lambda =13L^{0.5}`$, so that $`(\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}\mathrm{\Delta }D)/\mathrm{\Delta }D0.1\times (V_{in}/100)^{0.5}`$. Since the statistical errors are typically at a few % level, the difference between $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ is at most comparable to them except for small systems, when $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$. In Fig. 1, it can indeed be seen that for $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ agrees with $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ within error. Similar analysis can be applied at different $`T`$.

When $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$, the relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{min}=\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ no longer holds exactly and the deviations from it is of $`𝒪(\delta \lambda /\lambda )`$, with $`\delta \lambda `$ being the sum of the differences of the exponents $`\lambda _j(j>D_{KY})`$, which is not zero even in equilibrium. $`\delta \lambda /\lambda \mathrm{\Delta }D/D`$ so that in systems with small relative dimensional loss, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ can still be a good approximation. In Fig. 1, we see that when $`\mathrm{\Delta }D1`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D_{max}`$ is in general not a good approximation to $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ and that it is a clearly better approximation there for the larger system.

We derived the extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in systems with bulk behavior under thermal gradients in (2), thereby making the notion precise. The extensivity was explicitly related to the macroscopic transport properties as in (6) through entropy production. Previously, it was emphasized that the extensivity of $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ is not compatible with local equilibrium so that it is questionable. It is now known that systems such as $`\varphi ^4`$ theory in $`d=13`$ display violations of local equilibrium under thermal gradients in a similar manner, as $`\left(T/T\right)^2`$ . This resolves the apparent conflict since the violations of local equilibrium emerge in a manner analogous to (2).

We further explicitly verified that $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ in $`\varphi ^4`$ theory behaves extensively under various thermal gradients for $`L10^4`$ and its relation to transport. The relations (2),(4) and (6), however, are more general. We saw that the relations applied well to  which used stochastic thermostats in a different model. An application to dilute gas using the standard estimates of $`\lambda _{max}`$ yields $`C_D2/[\rho v^2\mathrm{ln}(4l/d)]`$, where $`\rho `$ is the density, $`v`$ is the average particle velocity, $`l`$ is the mean free path and $`d`$ is the particle diameter. Then for $`T/T0.01`$m<sup>-1</sup>, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D10^8`$$`\mathrm{m}^3`$ at room temperature — quite large, yet far smaller than the total number of degrees of freedom.

We find the results satisfying from the physics point of view: Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ pertains to the whole system, it includes the temperature profile which is curved in general, boundary temperature jumps and the various types of thermostats. Yet, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ can be related to macroscopic transport with the thermostat dependence cleanly separated into $`\lambda _{max}`$. Furthermore, $`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$ has extensive behavior with respect to the internal volume wherein the system is manifestly in non-equilibrium. We have seen that $`\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ is not unique: In global thermal equilibrium, different choices of heat-baths can lead to very different values. The result is that dimensional loss is not unique either, only the product $`\mathrm{\Delta }D\lambda _{max}^{eq}`$ behaves macroscopically and can be related to thermodynamic quantities.


text:
# Effective photon mass in nuclear matter and finite nuclei

## I Introduction

The observation of electron-positron pairs in high-Z heavy ion collision experiments at lower energies has been paid close attention cowa/86 ; cowa/87 ; sala/90 . From the Monte Carlo simulations of the lepton kinetic-energy and time-of-flight distributions, it seems that there exists a prompt two-body decay of a light neutral particle of mass $`1.8MeV`$ at rest in the center-of-mass frame. Although it was claimed that the sharp sum-energy lines in electron-positron pairs emission from heavy-ion collisions was not repeated by the ATLAS Positron Experiment$`(APEX)`$ in 1995 APEX95 , the APEX results have been suspected Gri96 ; Gri9706 ; Gri9741 ; Gri98 . In this paper, by studying the properties of the electromagnetic field in the nuclear matter and finite nuclei, we would show that the predicted light neutral particle of mass $`1.8MeV`$ is just a massive photon. In nuclear matter, we suggested that the photon gains mass through the interaction with nucleons, and the same mechanism may also be applied to the electromagnetic field in finite nuclei.

## II Perturbation calculation of effective photon mass in nuclear matter

In nuclear physics, we always define the ground state of nuclear matter as ”vacuum”, where the Fermi sea is filled by nucleons, and no anti-nucleons and holes exist. Because the proton has one unit of positive charge, and the expectation value of electric density operator in the nuclear matter is not zero, namely $`\widehat{\rho }_Q0`$. This ”vacuum” is different from the real vacuum where nothing exists.

If the electromagnetic field and proton field interaction is considered as a perturbation, the perturbative hamiltonian in the interactive representation can be expressed as

$$_I=e\overline{\psi }_p(x)\gamma ^\mu \psi _p(x)A_\mu (x),$$
(1)
with $`\psi _p`$ being the fields of the proton, and $`A_\mu `$ being the electromagnetic field.

The S-matrix can be written as

$$\widehat{S}=\widehat{S}_0+\widehat{S}_1+\widehat{S}_2+\mathrm{},$$
(2)
where

$$\widehat{S}_n=\frac{(i)^n}{n!}d^4x_1d^4x_2\mathrm{}d^4x_nT\left[_I(x_1)_I(x_2)\mathrm{}_I(x_n)\right].$$
(3)
To study the proton-proton interaction via the photon exchange,

$$\widehat{S}_2=\frac{(i)^2}{2!}d^4x_1d^4x_2T\left[_I(x_1)_I(x_2)\right].$$
(4)
should be calculated.

The proton field operator $`\psi _p(x)`$ and its conjugate operator $`\overline{\psi }_p(x)`$ can be expanded in terms of a complete set of solutions to the Dirac equation:

$$\psi _p(x)=\underset{\lambda =1,2}{}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}\sqrt{\frac{m}{E(p)}}A_{p,\lambda }U(p,\lambda )\mathrm{exp}(ip_\mu x^\mu ),$$
(5)
$$\overline{\psi }_p(x)=\underset{\lambda =1,2}{}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}}\sqrt{\frac{m}{E(p)}}A_{p,\lambda }^{}\overline{U}(p,\lambda )\mathrm{exp}(ip_\mu x^\mu ),$$
(6)
where $`E(p)=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}`$, and $`\lambda `$ denotes the spin of the proton, $`A_{p,\lambda }`$ and $`A_{p,\lambda }^{}`$ are the annihilation and creation operators of the nucleon respectively. In these two expressions, we have assumed that there are no antinucleons in the nuclear matter or finite nuclei, thus only positive-energy components exist. The photon field operator $`A_\mu (k,x)`$ can be expressed as

$$A_\mu (k,x)=a(k,\delta )\epsilon _\mu (k,\delta )\mathrm{exp}(ikx)+a^{}(k,\delta )\epsilon _\mu (k,\delta )\mathrm{exp}(ikx),$$
(7)
with $`k`$ being the momentum of the photon.

Since a perturbative single nucleon loop would contribute to the self energy of the photon a term of $`e_0^2k^2C(k^2)`$, which can be eliminated by the renormalization procedureRu.68 , the diagrams in Fig.1 should be calculated.

The expectation value of $`\widehat{S}_2`$ can be written as

$`k_2,\epsilon _\mu (k_2,\delta _2)|\widehat{S}_2|k_1,\epsilon _\nu (k_1,\delta _1)`$ $`=`$ $`ie^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(p_1+k_1p_2k_2)\epsilon _\mu (k,\delta )\epsilon _\nu (k,\delta )`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{E(p)}\theta (p_F|\stackrel{}{p}|)}`$
$`\overline{U}(p,\lambda )\left(\gamma ^\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p\text{/}km}}\gamma ^\mu +\gamma ^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p+\text{/}km}}\gamma ^\nu \right)U(p,\lambda ),`$
where $`k_1=k_2=k,`$ and $`p_1=p_2=p,`$ and $`\theta (x)`$ is the step function.

As the situation in Fig.1 is considered, we obtains the photon propagator $`G(k)`$ in nuclear matter as

$`G(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{ig_{\mu \nu }}{k^2+i\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{ig_{\mu \alpha }}{k^2+i\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda =1,2}{}}(ie^2)(2\pi )^4{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{E(p)}\theta (p_F|\stackrel{}{p}|)}`$
$`\overline{U}(p,\lambda )\left(\gamma ^\beta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p\text{/}km}}\gamma ^\alpha +\gamma ^\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p+\text{/}km}}\gamma ^\beta \right)U(p,\lambda ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{ig_{\beta \nu }}{k^2+i\epsilon }}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\mu \nu }}{k^2+i\epsilon }}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{k^2+i\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{E(p)}\theta (p_F|\stackrel{}{p}|)}`$ (9)
$`\overline{U}(p,\lambda )\left(\gamma _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p\text{/}km}}\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p+\text{/}km}}\gamma _\nu \right)U(p,\lambda ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2+i\epsilon }}.`$
According to the Dyson equation

$$\frac{ig_{\mu \nu }}{k^2\mu ^2+i\epsilon }=\frac{ig_{\mu \nu }}{k^2+i\epsilon }+\frac{i}{k^2+i\epsilon }g_{\mu \nu }\mu ^2\frac{1}{k^2+i\epsilon },$$
(10)
we obtain

$`g_{\mu \nu }\mu ^2`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{E(p)}\theta (p_F|\stackrel{}{p}|)}`$ (11)
$`\overline{U}(p,\lambda )\left(\gamma _\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p\text{/}km}}\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\text{/}p+\text{/}km}}\gamma _\nu \right)U(p,\lambda ).`$
Under the on shell condition of protons

$$p^2m^20,$$
(12)
the self-energy of the real, on-shell photon can be easily derived as

$`\mu ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{E(p)}\theta (p_F|\stackrel{}{p}|)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\rho _S^p}{2m}}.`$ (13)
In this expression, $`e^2=4\pi \alpha `$, with $`\alpha =\frac{1}{137}`$ being the fine structure constant, $`m`$ is the mass of proton, and $`\rho _S^p`$ denotes the scalar density of protons

$$\rho _S^p=2_p\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{m}{(\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}}.$$
(14)
Thus, the photon gains the effective mass

$$\mu =\sqrt{\frac{e^2\rho _S^p}{2m}}$$
(15)
in nuclear matter.

It should be mentioned that the effective mass of photon is only related to the scalar density of protons in the nuclear matter, but not the momentum of the photon. In a symmetric nuclear matter, where the densities of proton and neutron are the same, If the nucleon density is $`0.16fm^3`$, the effective mass of photon is about $`5.42MeV`$.

In a finite nucleus, a two-parameter Fermi model of nuclear charge-density-distribution can be written asVR.87 :

$$\rho _p(r)=\frac{\rho _c}{1+\mathrm{exp}(\frac{rc}{z})},$$
(16)
where $`c=6.874fm`$, $`z=0.556fm`$ for $`{}_{}{}^{238}U`$, and $`\rho _c=0.0635fm^3`$ is determined by the equation

$$4\pi \rho _p(r)r^2𝑑r=Z.$$
(17)
By assuming that in a finite nucleus, the proton number density is equal to the nuclear charge-density, the proton densities and corresponding effective photon masses at different radii around the surface region of $`{}_{}{}^{238}U`$ can be calculated and the corresponding results are listed in Table 1. It seems that at the surface of $`{}_{}{}^{238}U`$, the photon has effective mass of about $`2.0MeV`$, which is consistent with the predicted neutral particle mass in the low energy $`{}_{}{}^{238}U+{}_{}{}^{232}Th`$ heavy-ion collisions near Coulomb barrier cowa/86 ; cowa/87 ; sala/90 , so the massive photon at the surface of $`{}_{}{}^{238}U`$ or $`{}_{}{}^{232}Th`$ might decay into an electron-positron pair in the disturbances of the nuclear Coulomb field. It might be the reason of the discovery of sharp line 800keV $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs in the $`{}_{}{}^{238}U+{}_{}{}^{232}Th`$ heavy-ion collisions.

The electromagnetic interaction between protons is realized by exchanging virtual photons in nuclear matter. In the relativistic Hartree approximation shown in Fig. 2, the momentum of virtual proton $`k=0,`$ consequently $`k^2=0`$. Then the argument for the real photon mentioned above is suitable for the virtual photon exchanged between protons in nuclear matter. The contribution of the photon mass term should be included in the calculation of relativistic Hartree approximation or relativistic mean-field approximation in the finite nuclei.

## III Higgs mechanism

Again in the nuclear matter, because $`\rho _p0`$, the $`U(1)`$ local gauge symmetry of electric charge is spontaneously broken, and the Higgs field should be included.

The Lagrangian density of Higgs field $`\varphi `$ isHuang

$$=(D^\mu \varphi )^{}(D_\mu \varphi )V(\varphi ^{}\varphi ),$$
(18)
with

$$D^\mu =^\mu +ieA^\mu ,$$
(19)
$$V(\varphi ^{}\varphi )=\lambda \left(\varphi ^{}\varphi \varphi _0^2\right)^2(\varphi _00).$$
(20)
The Lagrangian is invariant under the local gauge transformation

$$A^\mu (x)A^\mu (x)+^\mu \omega (x),$$

$$\varphi (x)e^{ie\omega (x)}\varphi (x),$$

$$\varphi ^{}(x)e^{ie\omega (x)}\varphi ^{}(x),$$
(21)
where $`\omega (x)`$ is an arbitrary real function. The local gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken when $`\varphi _00`$.

Obviously, the lowest-energy solution is

$$A^\mu (x)=0,$$
(22)
$$\varphi (x)=\varphi _0e^{i\alpha _0}.$$
(23)
To study the classical modes near such a solution, the most convenient way is staying in the ”unitary gauge”, in which $`\varphi (x)`$ is real under a continuous local gauge transformation. Thus we can always write

$$\varphi (x)=\rho (x)(real).$$
(24)
Then the equations of motion become

$$\frac{F_{\mu \nu }}{x_\nu }=2e^2\rho ^2A_\mu e\overline{\psi }_p\gamma _\mu \psi _p,$$
(25)
$$(^\mu +ieA^\mu )(_\mu +ieA_\mu )\rho =2\lambda \rho (\varphi _0^2\rho ^2),$$
(26)
$$\left(i\gamma _\mu D^\mu m\right)\psi _p=0,$$
(27)
$$\left(i\gamma _\mu ^\mu m\right)\psi _n=0.$$
(28)
Since $`_\nu _\mu F^{\mu \nu }=0`$, we must have

$$_\mu A^\mu (x)=0,$$
(29)
wherever $`\rho (x)0`$. Taking

$$\rho (x)=\varphi _0+\eta (x)$$
(30)
and treating $`\eta (x)`$ and $`A^\mu (x)`$ as small quantities, one can deduce Eqs. (25) and (26) into linearized forms

$$\frac{F_{\mu \nu }}{x_\nu }=2e^2\varphi _0^2A_\mu e\overline{\psi }_p\gamma _\mu \psi _p,$$
(31)
and

$$\left(^\mu _\mu 4\lambda \varphi _0^2\right)\eta =0.$$
(32)
These equations show that the fields $`A^1`$, $`A^2`$, $`\varphi `$ and $`\varphi ^{}`$ in a fixed gauge are now replaced by $`A^1`$, $`A^2`$, $`A^3`$ and $`\eta `$. The spin-1 particle has a mass of $`\sqrt{2}e\varphi _0`$, and the spin-0 particle has a mass of $`2\sqrt{\lambda }\varphi _0`$, In other word, the photon obtains mass in the nuclear matter.

From above discussion, we find that in the nuclear matter, the effective mass of photon can either be obtained by the Higgs mechanism or the perturbutive calculation. This result also implies that the Higgs mechanism is not a unique method to solve problems when the local gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken.

## IV Summary

In summary, the electromagnetic field in nuclear matter is studied. Because in the nuclear matter the expectation value of the electric charge density operator is not zero, the $`U(1)`$ local gauge symmetry of electric charge is spontaneously broken, consequently the photon gains a effective mass. Alternatively, this mass can also be obtained from the perturbative calculation of the photon self-energy in the nuclear matter. It is shown that the effective mass is related to the scalar density of protons. The effective mass of photon is about $`5.42MeV`$ in the symmetric nuclear matter at the saturation density of $`\rho _0=0.16fm^3`$ , and about $`2.0MeV`$ in the surface of $`{}_{}{}^{238}U`$. It just fits the mass of the neutral particle suggested in the high-Z heavy ion collision experiments at low energies near Comloub barrier, in which the sharp lines of electron-positron pair was observed. Obviously, the two-body decay of such a massive photon would produce a pair of electron and positron. The property of electromagnetic field in the nuclear matter or finite nuclei is different from that in the vacuum. Because the photon in the nuclear matter has an effective mass , this fact should also carefully be considered in the investigation of the nuclear many-body problems. In the future work, we will continue to study the relevant effects on this aspect.

The authors are grateful for the constructive discussions with Dr. Terry Goldman. This work was supported in part by the Major State Basic Research Development Programme under Contract No. G2000-0774, the CAS Knowledge Innovation Project No. KJCX2-N11 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant numbers 10075057 and 90103020.


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# Manipulating ionization path in a Stark map: Stringent schemes for the selective field ionization in highly excited Rb Rydberg atoms

## Abstract

We have developed a quite stringent method in selectivity to ionize the low angular- momentum ($`\mathrm{}`$) states which lie below and above the adjacent manifold in highly excited Rb Rydberg atoms. The method fully exploits the pulsed field-ionization characteristics of the manifold states in high slew-rate regime: Specifically the low $`\mathrm{}`$ state below (above) the adjacent manifold is firstly transferred to the lowest (highest) state in the manifold via the adiabatic transition at the first avoided crossing in low slew-rate regime, and then the atoms are driven to a high electric field for ionization in high slew-rate regime. These extreme states of the manifold are ionized at quite different fields due to the tunneling process, resulting in thus the stringent selectivity. Two manipulation schemes to realize this method actually are demonstrated here experimentally.

, , thanks:  Present address: Research Center for Neutrino Science, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan  , , , , , thanks:  Present address: Department of Physics, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan  , ,

One of the attractive characteristics of the Rydberg atoms is that they couple strongly to the external electromagnetic field. From this property, it has been proposed that the atoms are utilized for a single photon detector in the microwave range besides a number of other applications in fundamental physics research such as the cavity quantum electrodynamics . In fact the electric dipole transition matrix elements between the states with principal quantum number $`n`$ and $`n\pm 1`$ are larger with increasing $`n`$ (proportional to $`n^2a_0`$, where $`a_0`$ is the Bohr radius) and yet the lifetime of these states is long enough (proportional to $`n^3`$ for the low $`\mathrm{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}n`$) states) to be utilized for this purpose. In actual schemes along this line, the Rydberg atoms, excited from the initially prepared lower state to a upper state by absorbing microwave photons, are selectively ionized by means of the field ionization.

In order to utilize the Rydberg atoms as a microwave single-photon detector, it is therefore essential to field-ionize the lower and the upper states selectively. In the Rydberg states with $`n`$ less than 50, where the corresponding photons are in the millimeter to sub-millimeter wave region, this selectivity is mostly achieved by fully exploiting the adiabatic transitions in the time evolution of atoms in the Stark map. However this ionization scheme has increasing difficulty to achieve good selectivity for the higher excited Rydberg states because the difference in the ionization field for these states via the adiabatic transitions is smaller with increasing $`n`$. Moreover the non-adiabatic process becomes dominant for the higher excited Rydberg states, thus the efficiency for the selection is correspondingly reduced with this conventional scheme.

In this Letter we present a new stringent method to selectively ionize the highly excited Rydberg atoms with $`n`$ larger than 90; this new method is realized by choosing, as the lower and the upper states, two low angular-momentum ($`\mathrm{}`$) states which lie below and above the adjacent manifold. The ionization paths are then manipulated for the chosen two states in the following way. Firstly the low $`l`$ state below (above) the adjacent manifold is transferred to the lowest (highest) state in the manifold through the first avoided crossing with a slowly varying (low slew-rate) pulsed electric field. Then a pulsed field is applied to drive the manifold states into the ionization along the non-adiabatic paths in the Stark structure in high slew rate regime.

The stringent selectivity in the above ionization scheme now results from the characteristics of the field ionization process for the manifold states as revealed in our previous work: In fact the tunneling process in the field ionization is increasingly the dominant process in the highly excited Rydberg atoms with increasing $`n>90`$ . The ionization field value with this process depends strongly on the energy position in the split manifold states as well known in Hydrogen atom , that is, the ionization field value is higher in the higher energy (bluer) state than in the lower energy (redder) state. The ionization field values for the lowest and the highest states of $`n`$=120 manifold in Rb, for example, are 4.5 and 10.5 V/cm, respectively, quite large difference compared to the case of the adiabatic transition scheme mentioned earlier. The effectiveness and universality of the present scheme are demonstrated here in the highly excited Rydberg states of Rb.

Schematic diagram of the present experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. A thermal atomic beam of Rb was introduced to the center of the field ionization electrodes, where the 85Rb atoms in the ground state $`5s_{1/2}`$ were excited to the $`ns`$ and $`np`$ states through the second excited $`5p_{3/2}`$ state by the two-step laser excitation. A diode laser (780 nm) and a dye laser (479 nm) with a dye of coumarin 102 pumped by a Kr ion laser were used for the first and second step excitations, respectively. The polarizations of the laser lights adopted in the present experiment are parallel and perpendicular to the electric field applied for the first and the second lasers, respectively111 No appreciable change in the experimental results was observed, however, with other configurations such as both parallel and perpendicular cases. .

The electrodes consist of two parallel plates of 52 mm length and 40 mm width, the distance between them being 24 mm. A pulsed electric field was applied to the electrodes for the field ionization in the present experiment. For this purpose a sequence of voltage pulse was generated by a waveform generator AWG420 (Sony Tektronix) and amplified by fast amplifiers before applying to the electrodes. The pulse profile adopted here has mainly three components, slow ($`s`$), fast ($`f`$) and holding ($`h`$) parts as shown in Fig. 1; the slow component $`s`$ is used for transferring the low $`\mathrm{}`$ states into the manifold states, while the fast component $`f`$ is to ionize the manifold states in high slew rate regime as will be explained in detail later. The component $`h`$ is used for an advanced pulse profile to improve and enhance the selectivity more. The pulse profile adopted for each measurement will be shown later together with the experimental data 222 Repetition rate of the applied pulse was typically 5 kHz. The rate does not give any effect on the experimental results and conclusion presented here, but is related to the detection efficiency of the Rydberg atoms since we used cw atomic beam in the present experiment. The detection efficiency depends on various experimental factors, maximum being about 80 %. .

The electrons liberated by the field ionization were guided to a channel electron multiplier through two fine-mesh grids placed in one of the electrode plates. Ionization signals of electrons from the channel electron multiplier were amplified by a preamplifier and a main amplifier and then fed to a multichannel scaler P7886 (FAST ComTek) after the pulse height discrimination. The ionization events were counted as a function of the elapsed time from the starting time of the ramp field with the dwell time of 500 ps. From the correspondence of the applied electric field and the time bin, the observed timing spectra were converted into the field ionization spectra as a function of the applied electric field.

As the first step for the selective field ionization, two schemes of forward and backward drivings for the manipulation of the ionization path were examined experimentally;

1) forward driving scheme: Typical pulse profile applied for this scheme is shown in Fig. 2 together with the Stark structure around $`n`$ = 108 manifold for $`|m_j|=1/2`$. The Stark energy structure was calculated with the matrix diagonalization method. The relevant energy levels here are the 111$`s`$ (lower) and 111$`p`$ (upper) states which are below and above the adjacent 108 manifold, respectively, as shown in the top of the figure. In order to transfer the initially excited $`s`$ and $`p`$ states into the manifold states, a linearly ramped field is first applied to the atoms up to $``$ 80 mV/cm. Here the slew rate of the applied field is slow enough (less than 1 mV/(cm$`\mu `$s)) to cause the $`s`$ ($`p`$) state transfer adiabatically to the lowest (highest) manifold state333 Detailed slew rate dependences of the transition probabilities for the adiabatic and non-adiabatic processes at the first avoided crossings of the $`s`$ (and also the $`p`$) state and the adjacent manifold states were measured in a separate experiment and compared with theoretical predictions taking into account the multilevel-crossing effect. Detailed results of these studies will be presented elsewhere. . Then the atoms are driven for ionization to high electric field with the same direction to the preceding slow component, here in this case up to 14 V/cm, with a slew rate of 13.4 V/(cm$`\mu `$s). The observed ionization spectra resulting from the applied pulse field are shown also in Fig. 2. As presented in detail in our previous investigation, the high field peaks in the spectra (peaks $`\gamma `$ and $`\beta `$ in Figs. 2$`d`$ and 2$`e`$, respectively) come from the tunneling process and the values of the ionization field corresponding to these peaks are quite different. We call this scheme forward driving scheme.

2) backward driving scheme: In Fig. 3$`a`$ shown is the pulse profile applied for this scheme, where the initially applied slow component and the following fast pulse component of the electric field have opposite polarity. The reversed electric field causes the atoms driven to zero field once after the transition to the manifold states and then driven to higher electric field for ionization. This reversed ($`backward`$) driving of the applied electric field makes the ionization path completely different from the case of the $`forward`$ driving: In fact the peaks due to the tunneling process for the $`p`$ and $`s`$ states in Figs. 3$`d`$ and 3$`e`$ have reversed positions to those shown in Figs. 2$`d`$ and 2$`e`$ in their ionization fields. This kind of reversed driving in the ionization process has been previously studied by Harmin theoretically and also by several groups  experimentally but only at lower $`n`$ region. More detailed characteristics of this backward driving scheme revealed systematically in the present experiment will be presented elsewhere.

The above two driving schemes have different features as revealed in the observed spectra: 1) The fraction of the tunneling-process component to the total ionization signals for the 111$`p`$ state is larger in the case of backward driving, 2) the width of the component for the 111$`p`$ state in the backward driving is narrower than in the forward driving. These features indicate that the backward driving scheme is superior for the microwave single-photon detector from the view point of the selectivity and the detection efficiency, although the peak position of the tunneling-process component for the 111$`p`$ state is in between the two peaks for the 111$`s`$ state.

It is also noted here that a small peak (denoted by $`\beta `$) observed in between the two prominent peaks ($`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$) in Fig. 3$`e`$ in the ionization spectrum of 111$`s`$ state is due to the transition induced by the blackbody radiations from the initially prepared 111$`s`$ state to the neighboring $`p`$ states: In fact this peak position corresponds exactly to that observed in the excitation of the 111$`p`$ state as seen in Fig. 3$`d`$. The observed ratio (2%) of this peak component to that of the initially excited 111$`s`$ component is also in rough agreement with the value (3%) estimated from the relevant transition rates under the actual experimental conditions. The origin of this peak was further confirmed by introducing a microwave source into the present experimental system, where the source frequency is tuned to the transition frequency from the 111$`s_{1/2}`$ to the 111$`p_{3/2}`$ states; in Fig. 3$`f`$ shown is the enhanced peak due to the effect of this microwave source 444 Similar transition component would be also expected in the counter case of forward driving scheme. This component is, however, too small to be seen clearly in the spectrum shown in Fig. 2$`e`$ because of its small relative ratio to the lower peak from the autoionization-like process and also of its broad distribution. . Manipulating the ionization path as described above was thus found to be quite effective to selectively ionize the low $`\mathrm{}`$ states below and above the adjacent manifold. However the lower peak ($`\alpha `$) due to the autoionization-like process is rather broad and has a tail component which extends to the region of the peak ($`\beta `$) due to the blackbody induced transitions as noted above. The extension of this tail part to the transition component is more clearly seen in Fig. 4$`b`$ where a raw timing spectrum is shown in logarithmic scale.

In order to improve the selectivity further more, the applied pulse profile was modified as shown in Fig. 4$`c`$; essential modification here is that the pulse profile at the ionization stage is divided into three parts, in each of which the applied electric field is held for some period before proceeding to the next step of ionization. Each part of the pulse profile is used to induce the field ionization corresponding to each peak observed in the previous scheme as seen in Fig. 4$`b`$. However this division of the pulse profile into three parts is not just for dividing the ionization spectra into three in which each of the three peaks is just included. Instead this pulse profile actually enhances the separation between the low field ionization (portion $`\alpha `$ in Fig. 3$`e`$) of the autoionization-like process and the following ionization related to the $`s`$ \- $`p`$ transition (portion $`\beta `$ in Fig. 3$`e`$) as clarified actually in Fig. 4$`d`$. This is because the ionization at the portion $`\alpha `$ has a finite lifetime, which depends strongly on the applied electric field , and even at the lower electric field than its peak field, the atoms relevant to this ionization process are ionized within the holding time (5 $`\mu `$s in the present case) longer than their lifetimes. Since the ionization field value to be held for this part can be chosen in such a way that at this lower field the atoms in the upper $`p`$ state are not ionized at all, the extended tail of the lower peak $`\alpha `$ which entered into the peak region of the portion $`\beta `$ in the previous one-step backward driving scheme is almost completely removed out in this new three-step scheme.

The background underneath the transition peak was thus reduced by more than two orders of magnitude compared to the one-step scheme described earlier. As a result the effective noise temperature of this detector system, intrinsically determined by the background contributions due to the tail contaminations from the initially prepared lower state, is well below 10 mK with this scheme. Thus the present method of field ionization detection satisfies the most important requirement of low noise characteristics for a sensitive microwave single-photon detector.

In conclusion, we have established a quite stringent method to selectively ionize the low $`\mathrm{}`$ states which lie below and above the adjacent manifold by properly manipulating the ionization path through the pulsed electric field. With more sophisticated pulse profile of three steps further, which has the holding time in between the steeply rising field for ionization, the selectivity is much more enhanced due to the characteristics of the ionization mechanism in these highly excited Rydberg atoms. Two actual schemes were proposed and experimentally demonstrated to be practical and effective for this purpose. It was shown in particular that the backward driving scheme is more efficient for the Rydberg atoms to be utilized as the microwave single photon detector. The present method thus opens a new way to detect single microwave photons individually over the region of 10 cm wavelength with higher $`n`$ Rydberg atoms.

This research was partly supported by a Grant-in-aid for Specially Promoted Research by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture, Japan (No. 09102010). M.T., S.Y., and T.H. thank the financial support of JSPS, Japan under the Research Fellowships for the Young Scientists.