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# The 𝑄² evolution of the generalized Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral for the neutron using a 3He target

## Abstract

We present data on the inclusive scattering of polarized electrons from a polarized 3He target at energies from 0.862 to 5.06 GeV, obtained at a scattering angle of 15.5$`^{}`$. Our data include measurements from the quasielastic peak, through the resonance region, to the beginning of the deep inelastic regime, and were used to determine the virtual photon cross-section difference $`\sigma _{1/2}\sigma _{3/2}`$. We extract the extended Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral for the neutron in the range of 4-momentum transfer squared $`Q^2`$ of 0.1–0.9 (GeV)2.

Sum rules involving the spin structure of the nucleon offer an important opportunity to study Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). At long distance scales or in the confinement regime, a sum rule of great interest is that due to Gerasimov, Drell and Hearn (GDH). The GDH sum rule relates an integral over the full excitation spectrum of the spin-dependent total photoabsorption cross section to the nucleon’s anomalous magnetic moment. It has not been investigated experimentally until recently, and further measurements are needed for a definitive test. At short distance scales or in the perturbative regime, two other sum rules, one due to Bjorken and the other derived by Ellis and Jaffe, have provided us with significant information on nucleon spin structure through an extensive experimental and theoretical investigation. These sum rules make predictions involving the first moments of the spin structure functions measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS).

The GDH sum rule pertains strictly to the real photon case for which the four momentum transfer $`Q^2`$ =0. DIS data, in contrast, are taken at relatively high values of $`Q^2`$. It is desirable to have both experimental and theoretical bridges between these two very different regimes. This was achieved by generalizing the “GDH integral” to include the scattering of virtual photons for which $`Q^2>0`$. The GDH integral is often written as

$`I(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\nu _0}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\nu }{\nu }}\left[\sigma _{1/2}(\nu ,Q^2)\sigma _{3/2}(\nu ,Q^2)\right]`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle _{\nu _0}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\nu }{\nu }}\sigma _{TT}^{},`$ (2)
where alternative generalizations are discussed in  and . Here $`\sigma _{1/2(3/2)}(\nu ,Q^2)`$ is the total virtual photoabsorption cross section for the nucleon with a projection of $`\frac{1}{2}`$ ($`\frac{3}{2}`$) for the total spin along the direction of photon momentum, $`\nu `$ is the electron’s energy loss, $`\nu _0`$ is the pion production threshold, and $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ is the transverse-transverse interference cross section. As $`Q^20`$, $`I(Q^2)`$ is predicted by the original GDH sum rule:

$$I(0)=\frac{2\pi ^2\alpha }{M^2}\kappa ^2,$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is the fine structure constant, $`M`$ is the mass of the nucleon, and $`\kappa `$ is the nucleon’s anomalous magnetic moment. As $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$, $`I(Q^2)16\pi ^2\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_1/Q^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=_0^1g_1𝑑x`$ is the first moment of the nucleon’s spin structure function $`g_1`$, and $`x=Q^2/2M\nu `$ is the Bjorken scaling variable. Both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^p`$ for the proton and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^n`$ for the neutron have been well studied experimentally at high $`Q^2`$. At the low $`Q^2`$ limit, recent measurements have been made on $`I(0)`$ for the proton, but the neutron has yet to be measured. The two limits of the $`Q^2`$ evolution of $`I(Q^2)`$ are thus constrained by a combination of theory and experimental data.

It has recently been emphasized that the extended GDH integral can be related to the forward virtual Compton scattering amplitudes thus establishing a true $`Q^2`$ dependent sum rule. The original GDH sum rule and the Bjorken sum rule can both be viewed as special cases of this “extended GDH sum rule”. We note that in the Bjorken sum rule the difference of $`I^p(Q^2)`$ for the proton and $`I^n(Q^2)`$ for the neutron is considered. The extended GDH sum rule can be tested at any value of $`Q^2`$ for which the Compton amplitudes can be computed. Near $`Q^2=0`$, where the amplitudes are best understood in terms of hadronic degrees of freedom, several calculations have been performed using chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi `$PT). The two most recent of these efforts, which take different approaches, include next-to-leading order corrections. An important issue is the highest values of $`Q^2`$ at which the calculations are valid, with estimates ranging as high as $`0.3\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. For large $`Q^2`$, a region best described by partonic degrees of freedom, Operator Product Expansion (OPE) techniques have been used to express the Compton amplitudes as a perturbative series in $`\alpha _s`$ and a (higher twist) power series in $`1/Q^2`$. The predictions of the Bjorken sum rule can thus be extended to finite $`Q^2`$, perhaps as low as $`Q^20.5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. For lower values of $`Q^2`$, that are still well above the range where $`\chi `$PT is applicable, there is currently little theoretical guidance. This transition region, however, is well suited to the use of lattice QCD. Mapping out $`I(Q^2)`$ experimentally, as we have done in this paper for the range of $`0.1\mathrm{GeV}^2Q^20.9\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, is an important step to testing these ideas and building our understanding of the dynamics of nonperturbative QCD.

We measured the inclusive scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons from a polarized 3He target in Hall A of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). Data were collected at six incident beam energies: 5.06, 4.24, 3.38, 2.58, 1.72, and 0.86 GeV, all at a nominal scattering angle of 15.5. The measurements covered values of the invariant mass $`W`$ from the quasielastic peak (not discussed in this paper), through the resonance region, to the values indicated in Fig. 1. Data were taken for both longitudinal and transverse target polarization orientations. Both spin asymmetries and absolute cross sections were measured.

A cw beam of polarized electrons was produced by illuminating a strained GaAs photocathode with circularly polarized light. Beam currents were limited to $`1015\mu `$A to minimize depolarization of the target. The average polarization of the electron beam was $`0.70\pm 0.03`$, and was monitored using a double arm Møller polarimeter. The polarization was typically reversed at a rate of 1 Hz.

The 3He target was polarized by spin-exchange with optically pumped rubidium (Rb). Built specifically for this and subsequent experiments in Hall A, the design of the target is similar to that built at SLAC for E142, but with greater flexibility for polarization direction and increased capacity for handling higher average beam currents. The average in-beam polarization was $`0.35\pm 0.014`$. The 3He gas was contained in sealed glass cells with densities corresponding to 10–12 atm at 0$`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$. A small quantity (about 70 Torr) of nitrogen was also present to aid in the optical pumping process. The portion of the cell in the electron beam, the target chamber, was a long cylinder approximately 40 cm in length. The length was chosen so that the glass end windows of the cell were at the edge of the acceptance of the spectrometers. The portion of the cell in which optical pumping took place, the pumping chamber, was irradiated with about 90 W of light from high-power diode-laser arrays with their wavelength centered at the first transition line of Rb ($`795\mathrm{nm}`$). The polarization of the 3He was monitored by the NMR technique of adiabatic fast passage (AFP). The response of the NMR system was calibrated by two methods. In one method the AFP signals of 3He were compared with the AFP signals from water which had a small polarization due to the usual Boltzmann distribution. In the other method AFP signals were observed following a determination of the 3He polarization using a shift of the Rb EPR lines due to collisions with polarized 3He atoms. Independent verification of our target polarimetry at the level of 4% was provided by measuring the asymmetry in elastic scattering, which depends on the product of the target and beam polarizations.

The scattered electrons were detected using the two Hall A high resolution spectrometers. Momenta were determined by track analysis, and particle identification was accomplished using gas Cerenkov detectors and lead-glass shower counters. Pion rejection was better than $`10^3`$ in both spectrometer arms, which was more than sufficient since the $`\pi /e`$ ratio was never worse than 10.

The quantities we measure experimentally are related to $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ and the transverse-longitudinal interference term $`\sigma _{LT}^{}`$ in the Born approximation according to the relations

$$\frac{d^2\sigma ^{}}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dE^{}}\frac{d^2\sigma ^{}}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dE^{}}=B\left(\sigma _{TT}^{}+\eta \sigma _{LT}^{}\right)$$
(4)
and

$$\frac{d^2\sigma ^{}}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dE^{}}\frac{d^2\sigma ^{}}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dE^{}}=B\sqrt{\frac{2ϵ}{1+ϵ}}\left(\sigma _{LT}^{}\zeta \sigma _{TT}^{}\right)$$
(5)
where $`d^2\sigma ^{()}/d\mathrm{\Omega }dE^{}`$ is the cross section for the case in which the beam and target spin directions are antiparallel (parallel), and the left side of (5) represents the corresponding quantity for transverse target spin orientation. Also $`B=2(\alpha /4\pi ^2)(K/Q^2)(E^{}/E)(2/(1ϵ))\left(1E^{}ϵ/E\right)`$, where $`E`$ and $`E^{}`$ are the initial and final electron energies, $`ϵ^1=1+2[1+Q^2/4M^2x^2]\mathrm{tan}^2(\theta /2)`$, $`\theta `$ is the scattering angle in the laboratory frame, $`\eta =ϵ\sqrt{Q^2}/(EE^{}ϵ)`$, and $`\zeta =\eta (1+ϵ)/2ϵ`$. The factor $`K`$ represents the virtual photon flux and is convention dependent. We use the convention $`K=\nu Q^2/2M`$, due to Hand.

To extract from our raw 3He data $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$, which is defined within the Born approximation, we must first apply “radiative corrections” to account for the emission of real and virtual photons. These corrections were performed using the procedure first described by Mo and Tsai for the case of unpolarized scattering, and extended to include polarized effects using the program POLRAD. For our experiment, we incorporated into POLRAD our actual data for the quasielastic and resonance regions, as their effect on the radiative corrections are significant. The results for $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ are shown in Fig. 1 as a function of the invariant mass $`W`$ for each of the six energies measured, and represent the neutron to the extent that we have set $`M`$ equal to the neutron mass in equations (3) and (4). We note, though, that for $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$, no corrections for nuclear effects were applied.

The error bars are due to statistics only, with the grey bands indicating systematic errors. The error due to radiative corrections, which dominates the systematic errors on $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$, was taken as 20% of the applied correction for all but the lowest energy where 40% was assumed. Other systematic errors included a relative uncertainty in normalization of 5% from absolute cross section, 4% from target polarization, and 4% from beam polarization.

To compute $`I(Q^2)`$, $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ is needed at constant $`Q^2`$. We chose six equally spaced values of $`Q^2`$ in the range $`0.10\mathrm{GeV}^2Q^20.9\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and determined $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ from our measured points by interpolation , or for a few points, extrapolation. The results are plotted in Fig. 2 as a function of $`\nu `$.

The prominent peak in the cross section is the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{1232}`$ resonance, which decreases in magnitude with increasing $`Q^2`$. The error bars represent the uncertainty due to statistics, and the grey bands indicate the uncertainty due to systematic errors, which in addition to those shown in Fig. 1, include a contribution from interpolation and extrapolation.

The extended GDH integral was computed for each value of $`Q^2`$ according to eq. 1 using limits of integration extending from the nucleon pion threshold to a value of $`\nu `$ corresponding to $`W=2.0\mathrm{GeV}`$. The results are given in Table I. Before plotting our results, we have applied a correction to account for the fact that our neutron was embedded in a 3He nucleus using a calculation due to Ciofi degli Atti and Scopetta. This procedure introduces an additional 5% systematic uncertaintly in our result. Our results for $`I(Q^2)`$ for the neutron, with the integration covering roughly the resonance region, are shown in Fig. 3 using open circles. The error bars, when visible, represent statistical uncertainties only, and the systematic effects are shown with the grey band. We have made an estimate of the unmeasured strength in $`I(Q^2)`$ for the region $`4\mathrm{GeV}^2<W^2<1000\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ using the parameterization of Thomas and Bianchi ($`1000\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ was the highest value considered in their paper). The solid squares have this estimate included, and an estimate of the theoretical uncertainty has already been included in the systematic error shown.

Our data indicate a smooth variation of $`I(Q^2)`$ to increasingly negative values as $`Q^2`$ varies from $`0.9\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ toward zero. Our data are more negative than the prediction of Drechsel, Kamalov, and Tiator, whose calculation is mostly based on the phenomenological model MAID, and is shown on Fig. 3 as a solid line. Their prediction includes contributions to $`I(Q^2)`$ for $`W2\mathrm{GeV}`$, and should thus be compared with the open circles. At high $`Q^2`$, our data approach those of HERMES, which spans the range $`1.28\mathrm{GeV}^2<Q^2<7.25\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, but includes only the DIS part of the GDH integral. It is desirable to compare our data with the GDH sum rule prediction $`I(0)=232.8\mu \mathrm{b}`$. This prediction is indicated on Fig. 3, along with extensions to $`Q^2>0`$ using two $`\chi `$PT calculations, that described in  (dotted line) and collectively in  and (dot-dashed line). Taken together,  and  describe an extended calculation including resonance effects, and have associated with them a large error (shown with a grey band) due to the uncertainty in certain resonance parameters. The error can be seen to encompass both our lowest $`Q^2`$ point and the calculation of . We note, though, that at $`Q^2=0.3\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, the prediction of  and  is much more negative than our data. We look forward to both further calculations as well as further measurements.

In conclusion we have made the first measurements of $`\sigma _{TT}^{}`$ and the generalized GDH integral $`I(Q^2)`$ of the neutron at low $`Q^2`$ ($`0.1\mathrm{GeV}^2Q^20.9\mathrm{GeV}^2`$). The data show a dramatic change in the value of the integral from what is observed at high $`Q^2`$ ($`0.9\mathrm{GeV}^2<Q^2`$). While not unexpected from phenomenological models, our data illustrate the sensitivity of $`I(Q^2)`$ to the transition from partonic to hadronic behavior. Our data provide a precision data base for twist expansion analysis, provide a check of $`\chi `$PT calculations, and establish an important benchmark against which one can compare future calculations and measurements of low $`Q^2`$ spin structure.

We would like to thankfully acknowledge the untiring support of the JLab staff and accelerator division. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the DOE-EPSCoR, the U.S. National Science Foundation, NSERC of Canada, the European INTAS Foundation, the Italian INFN, and the French CEA, CNRS, and Conseil Régional d’Auvergne. The Southeastern Universitites Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility for the DOE under contract DE-AC05-84ER40150.


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# Statistical transmutation of quantum bosonic strings coupled to general four-dimensional Chern-Simons theory

## I Introduction

The obtainment of a full quantum field theory of strings would require the construction of the complete creation operator for the string and the evaluation of its correlation functions. Nevertheless, a full quantum description of the statistical transmutation undergone by bosonic strings when coupled to certain fields, surprisingly, can be achieved at an intermediate stage, where the fields attached to the string by the interaction are fully quantized. The achievement of this description, which may be considered as a partial field quantization of the bosonic string is the main purpose of this work.

Statistical transmutation of bosonic strings has been recently investigated in various different frameworks fgt ; gs ; fg ; m1 . It has been shown in particular gs  that a closed spatial string bearing a magnetic flux and moving in the presence of the field of a classical topological charge would undergo statistical transmutation. Here we provide the full quantum description of this fact in the framework of the generalized Chern-Simons (CS) theory in 3+1 dimensions. This theory has been shown to belong to a hierarchy of theories, related by dimensional reduction, which contains the usual CS Lagrangian in 2+1D as a particular case cs3 . We start from the observation that a bosonic string coupled to this theory bears a magnetic flux along itself, whenever it is closed and a topological charge at its extremity, whenever it is open. We then explicitly construct the operators creating the full quantum field states, which are attached to the string through the coupling. The creation operator for the magnetic field along the string is basically the same one considered previously in the framework of the BF-theory m1 . The topological charge quantum field creation operator, however, is specific for the CS-theory. We show that these operators indeed create eigenstates of the corresponding appropriate operators with the correct eigenfield configurations. We then show that the magnetic field and topological charge creation operators satisfy a dual algebra, which implies that their product possesses generalized statistics. We also show that our result is the operator version of the statistical transmutation of bosonic Nambu-Goto strings coupled to CS theory, observed in fgt  within the functional integral framework.

We mention that there is another CS term at $`D=3+1`$ cs3  involving a scalar and rank three gauge fields. However, this term is not related to statistical transmutation because there is no charge-flux system associated to it.

The procedure we have presented in this paper can be naturally extended to higher spacetime dimensions, where statistical transmutation of membranes coupled to gauge fields of rank higher than two should occur mb .

## II Chern-Simons Theory in 3+1D and Its Coupling to the String

Chern-Simons theory in 3+1D involves a gauge vector field $`A_\mu `$ as well as a gauge tensor field $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ (Kalb-Ramond) and is characterized by the Lagrangian cs3 ; cs4

$$_{CS}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\nu B_{\alpha \beta }.$$
(2.1)
Consider now a point particle, described by the current $`j^\mu `$ and a string placed at the curve $`C`$ and associated to the current density

$$J^{\mu \nu }=_{S(C)}d^2\xi ^{\mu \nu }\delta (x\xi ),$$
(2.2)
where $`S(C)`$ is the universe-sheet of the string. We may couple these to the Chern-Simons Lagrangian in the usual way, namely,

$$=\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\nu B_{\alpha \beta }\frac{1}{2}J^{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }j^\mu A_\mu .$$
(2.3)
The field equations associated to (2.3) are

$`J^{\mu \nu }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\alpha A_\beta `$
$`j^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\nu B_{\alpha \beta }.`$ (2.4)
We see that the string density along direction $`i`$ is given by

$$J^{0i}=ϵ^{ijk}_jA_k=^i,$$
(2.5)
implying the existence of a magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{}`$ along the string. Note, however, that since magnetic field lines should be closed, only closed strings can bear a magnetic flux. Also the second field equation means that $`j^\mu `$ is identified with the topological current, implying that a topological charge is associated to the particle coupled to $`A_\mu `$. A very interesting case is the one in which we take

$$j^\mu =_C𝑑\xi ^\mu \delta ^4(x\xi ).$$
(2.6)
where $`C`$ is the border of the universe-sheet of the string. For a closed spatial string $`j^0=0`$, implying that this type of string does not bear a topological charge, but only magnetic flux. For an open spatial string, however, $`j^00`$ and we see that it carries topological charge but no magnetic flux. Notice that, in this case, $`C`$ is still closed in spite of the fact that the string is open.

In what follows, we are going to study the operators creating the quantum states corresponding to the above mentioned field configurations. For this, we will need the basic commutation rules for the theory described above, which are given by the expression

$`[B^{ij}(\stackrel{}{x},t),A^k(\stackrel{}{y},t)]=iϵ^{ijk}\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}),`$
$`[B^{ij},B^{kl}]=[A^i,A^j]=0.`$ (2.7)
after elimination of the second-class constraints of the theory (no gauge condition was used).

## III The Magnetic Field and Topological Charge Operators

Let us determine now the creation operators for the field configurations corresponding to the closed string and point topological charge. Firstly, we shall obtain the creation operator for the magnetic field associated to a closed string at the spacelike curve $`C`$. Following m1 ; m2 , we write

$$\sigma (C,t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{ia}{2}_{S(C)}d^2\xi ^{ij}B^{ij}(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\}$$
(3.1)
where $`d^2\xi ^{ij}`$ ($`i,j`$ along $`S(C)`$) is the surface element of $`S(C)`$, an arbitrary surface with border along $`C`$.

According to the field equation (2.5), the string is associated to a magnetic flux along $`C`$. In order to characterize $`\sigma (C)`$ as a quantum creation operator for the field configuration associated to the string, let us evaluate $`[^i,\sigma (C)]`$. For this purpose, we write $`\sigma (C)e^{\alpha (C)}`$ and, using (2.7), obtain

$$[^i(\stackrel{}{x},t),\alpha (C)]=a_C𝑑\xi ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(3.2)
From this we get

$$[^i(\stackrel{}{x},t),\sigma (C,t)]=\left[a_C𝑑\xi ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})\right]\sigma (C,t),$$
(3.3)
which implies

$$^i(\stackrel{}{x})|\sigma (C)>=\left[a_C𝑑\xi ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})\right]|\sigma (C)>,$$
(3.4)
which clearly shows that the operator $`\sigma `$ indeed creates an eigenstate of the magnetic field with the correct eigenfield-configuration.

We now turn to the topological charge creation operator. Let us consider

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ib_{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^iA^i(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\},$$
(3.5)
where $`L`$ is an arbitrary line going from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`\stackrel{}{x}`$. We are going to evaluate the commutator $`[Q,\mu ]`$, where

$$Q=d^3xϵ^{ijk}_iB_{jk}$$
(3.6)
is the topological charge operator. Writing $`\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)e^\beta (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ and using (2.7), we obtain

$$[Q,\beta (\stackrel{}{y},t)]=bd^3x\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}),$$
(3.7)
which implies $`[Q,\mu ]=b\mu `$ or $`Q|\mu >=b|\mu >`$, thus showing that the operator $`\mu `$ carries $`b`$ units of topological charge.

According to our considerations after Eq. (2.6), observe that we may consider (3.5) as the creation operator for the field configuration associated to an open string at the curve $`L`$, which bears a topological charge at its extremity $`\stackrel{}{x}`$.

## IV Generalized Statistics of Composite Strings with Topological Charge and Magnetic Field

Before studying the commutation rules of the composite topologically charged string operators, let us determine the dual algebra satisfied by the magnetic field and topological charge creation operators, $`\sigma e^\alpha `$ and $`\mu e^\beta `$, given respectively by (3.1) and (3.5). Using (2.7), we obtain

$$[\alpha (C,t),\beta (\stackrel{}{y},t)]=iab_{S(C)}d^2\xi ^i_{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{y}𝑑\eta ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{\eta }),$$
(4.1)
where $`d^2\xi ^i\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{ijk}d^2\xi ^{ij}`$.

We now use the identity

$$_{(\xi )}^i\left[\frac{1}{4\pi |\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|}\right]=\{\begin{array}{cc}ϵ^{ijk}_{(\xi )}^j\phi _k(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x});& \stackrel{}{\xi }V_L\\ _{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\eta ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\eta }\stackrel{}{\xi });& \stackrel{}{\xi }V_L\end{array}$$
(4.2)
where $`V_L`$ is a cone of infinitesimal angle with vertex at $`\stackrel{}{\xi }=\stackrel{}{x}`$ and axis along the line $`L:(\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\phi }=\frac{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }{r\mathrm{sin}\theta }\widehat{\phi }`$, with $`r=|\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|`$. Because of the $`delta`$-function, observe that (4.1) is non vanishing only inside $`V_L`$, hence we can use the second part of (4.2) to write

$`[\alpha (C,t),\beta (\stackrel{}{y},t)]`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{ab}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _{S(C)}}d^2\xi ^i{\displaystyle \frac{(y\xi )^i}{|\stackrel{}{y}\stackrel{}{\xi }|^3}}`$ (4.3)
$`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{ab}{4\pi }}\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C)`$ is the solid angle comprised between $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ and the curve $`C`$. Since $`[\alpha ,\beta ]`$ is a c-number, it immediately follows that

$$\sigma (C_x,t)\mu (\stackrel{}{y},t)=\mu (\stackrel{}{y},t)\sigma (C_x,t)\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{ab}{4\pi }\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C)\right\}.$$
(4.4)
This is the dual algebra dual ; odd  satisfied by the magnetic string field and topological charge operators, which is identical to the one satisfied by the corresponding operators in the B-F theory m1 .

We now consider the composite operator creating a magnetic-field-bearing-topologically-charged string. Choosing the string as a circle $`C_x`$ centered at $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, this may be defined as

$$\psi (x;C_x;t)=\underset{\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}}{lim}\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)\sigma (C_y,t)$$
(4.5)
Now, considering the property $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{x};C_y)\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C_x)=4\pi ϵ\left(\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{x};C_y)\right)`$, where $`ϵ(x)`$ is the sign function, we get

$`\psi (x;C_x;t)\psi (y;C_y;t)`$
$`=e^{iabϵ\left(\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{x};C_y)\right)}\psi (y;C_y;t)\psi (x;C_x;t).`$ (4.6)
This commutation relation shows that the composite field operator $`\psi `$, which creates the quantum field states with topological charge and magnetic flux, associated to the composite of a closed and an open string, possesses generalized statistics $`S=\frac{ab}{2\pi }`$ in the four- dimensional Chern-Simons theory given by (2.3). Suppose now the quantum bosonic string, Nambu-Goto for instance, is created by a certain bosonic operator $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, in the absence of the CS coupling. When the string is coupled to the CS Lagrangian, the appropriate operator becomes $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\sigma `$ or $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\mu `$ (where $`\sigma `$ and $`\mu `$ are given by (3.1) and (3.5)), respectively, according to whether the string is closed or open. Hence, the appropriate operator for the composite closed-open string quantum states becomes $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_C\sigma \mathrm{\Sigma }_O\mu =\mathrm{\Sigma }_C\mathrm{\Sigma }_O\psi `$. This has generalized statistics $`S`$, according to (4.6). The complete description of the statistical transmutation of bosonic strings coupled to CS theory in 3+1D, therefore, has been achieved at a full quantum level.

## V Remarks on the Functional Integral Formulation

In a previous work fgt , it has been shown that a bosonic string coupled to four-dimensional Chern-Simons theory as in (2.3), with $`j^\mu `$ given by (2.6) undergoes Fermi-Bose transmutation. The demonstration is made within the functional integral formulation, where a sum is performed upon all possible universe-sheets $`S(C)`$ associated to $`C`$. We would like to remark that the result found in fgt  is related to ours in an interesting way. In order to see this, we note that the coupling with $`A_\mu `$ in (2.3) involves a sum over all values of the index $`\mu `$ and this fact is used in the derivation of the fermionic algebra that leads to the Fermi-Bose transmutation in fgt . Observe now that the spacelike part of the sums corresponds to a closed spatial string, which, as we saw, bears a magnetic flux along it. The timelike part of the sums, on the other hand, correspond to an open spatial string, which bears a point topological charge at its tip, as we have seen. The whole sum in (2.3), therefore, comprises the composite state of a topologically charged open string and a magnetic flux carrying closed string, which is precisely the situation we have considered here from the operator point of view. Transmutation to a generalized statistics should be also obtained in the framework used in fgt  by considering arbitrary parameters in the couplings in (2.3). We see that the present work, therefore, unifies the results obtained in fgt  and gs  and opens the possibility of evaluation of quantum correlators for the operators describing the quantized field associated to strings coupled to vector and tensor fields $`A_\mu `$ and $`B_{\mu \nu }`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by CNPq, FAPERJ and PRONEX-66.2002/1998-9


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# Probing Physics at Extreme Energies with Cosmic Ultra-High Energy Radiation

## 1 Introduction

Over the last few years, several giant air showers have been detected confirming the arrival of cosmic rays (CRs) with energies up to a few hundred EeV (1 EeV $`10^{18}`$ eV) . The existence of such ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) pose a serious challenge for conventional theories of CR origin based on acceleration of charged particles in powerful astrophysical objects. The question of the origin of these UHECRs is, therefore, currently a subject of much intense debate and discussions as well as experimental efforts; see Ref.  for recent brief reviews, and Ref.  for a detailed review.

The problems encountered in trying to explain UHECRs in terms of “bottom-up” acceleration mechanisms have been well-documented in a number of studies; see, e.g., Refs. . It is hard to accelerate protons and heavy nuclei up to such energies even in the most powerful astrophysical objects such as radio galaxies and active galactic nuclei. Also, nucleons above $`70`$EeV lose energy drastically due to photo-pion production on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) effect  — which limits the distance to possible sources to less than $`100`$Mpc . Heavy nuclei are photodisintegrated in the CMB within a few Mpc . There are no obvious astronomical sources within $`100`$ Mpc of the Earth .

The distance restriction imposed by the GZK effect can be circumvented if the problem of energetics is somehow solved separately and if one postulates new particles beyond the Standard Model; this will be discussed in the third section.

In contrast, in the “top-down” scenarios, which will be discussed in the last section, the problem of energetics is trivially solved. Here, the UHECR particles are the decay products of some supermassive “X” particles of mass $`m_X10^{20}`$eV, and have energies all the way up to $`m_X`$. Thus, no acceleration mechanism is needed. The massive X particles could be metastable relics of the early Universe with lifetimes of the order the current age of the Universe or could be released from topological defects that were produced in the early Universe during symmetry-breaking phase transitions envisaged in Grand Unified Theories (GUTs). If the X particles themselves or their sources cluster similar to dark matter, the dominant observable UHECR contribution would come from the Galactic Halo and absorption would be negligible.

The main problem of non-astrophysical solutions of the UHECR problem in general is that they are highly model dependent. On the other hand, they allow to at least test new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics (such as Grand Unification and new interactions beyond the reach of terrestrial accelerators) as well as early Universe cosmology (such as topological defects and/or massive particle production in inflation) at energies often inaccessible to accelerator experiments.

The physics and astrophysics of UHECRs are intimately linked with the emerging field of neutrino astronomy (for reviews see Refs. ) as well as with the already established field of $`\gamma `$ray astronomy (for reviews see, e.g., Ref. ). Indeed, all scenarios of UHECR origin, including the top-down models, are severely constrained by neutrino and $`\gamma `$ray observations and limits. In turn, this linkage has important consequences for theoretical predictions of fluxes of extragalactic neutrinos above a TeV or so whose detection is a major goal of next-generation neutrino telescopes: If these neutrinos are produced as secondaries of protons accelerated in astrophysical sources and if these protons are not absorbed in the sources, but rather contribute to the UHECR flux observed, then the energy content in the neutrino flux can not be higher than the one in UHECRs, leading to the so called Waxman Bahcall bound for sources with soft acceleration spectra . If one of these assumptions does not apply, such as for acceleration sources with injection spectra harder than $`E^2`$ and/or opaque to nucleons, or in the top-down scenarios where X particle decays produce much fewer nucleons than $`\gamma `$rays and neutrinos, the Waxman Bahcall bound does not apply, but the neutrino flux is still constrained by the observed diffuse $`\gamma `$ray flux in the GeV range.

## 2 Propagation of Ultra-High Energy Radiation: Simulations

Before discussing specific scenarios for UHECR origin we give a short account of the numerical tools used to compute spectra of ultra-high energy cosmic and $`\gamma `$rays, and neutrinos . In the following we assume a flat Universe with a Hubble constant of $`H=70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{sec}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ and a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, as favored by current observations.

The relevant nucleon interactions implemented are pair production by protons ($`p\gamma _bpe^{}e^+`$), photoproduction of single or multiple pions ($`N\gamma _bNn\pi `$, $`n1`$), and neutron decay.

$`\gamma `$-rays and electrons/positrons initiate electromagnetic (EM) cascades on low energy radiation fields such as the CMB. The high energy photons undergo electron-positron pair production (PP; $`\gamma \gamma _be^{}e^+`$), and at energies below $`10^{14}`$ eV they interact mainly with the universal infrared and optical (IR/O) backgrounds, while above $`100`$ EeV they interact mainly with the universal radio background (URB). In the Klein-Nishina regime, where the CM energy is large compared to the electron mass, one of the outgoing particles usually carries most of the initial energy. This “leading” electron (positron) in turn can transfer almost all of its energy to a background photon via inverse Compton scattering (ICS; $`e\gamma _be^{}\gamma `$). EM cascades are driven by this cycle of PP and ICS. The energy degradation of the “leading” particle in this cycle is slow, whereas the total number of particles grows exponentially with time. All EM interactions that influence the $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum in the energy range $`10^8\mathrm{eV}<E<10^{25}`$eV, namely PP, ICS, triplet pair production (TPP; $`e\gamma _bee^{}e^+`$), and double pair production (DPP, $`\gamma \gamma _be^{}e^+e^{}e^+`$), as well as synchrotron losses of electrons in the large scale extragalactic magnetic field (EGMF), are included.

Similarly to photons, UHE neutrinos give rise to neutrino cascades in the primordial neutrino background via exchange of W and Z bosons . Besides the secondary neutrinos which drive the neutrino cascade, the W and Z decay products include charged leptons and quarks which in turn feed into the EM and hadronic channels. Neutrino interactions become especially significant if the relic neutrinos have masses $`m_\nu `$ in the eV range and thus constitute hot dark matter, because the Z boson resonance then occurs at an UHE neutrino energy $`E_{\mathrm{res}}=4\times 10^{21}(\mathrm{eV}/m_\nu )`$ eV. In fact, the decay products of this “Z-burst” have been proposed as a significant source of UHECRs . The big drawback of this scenario is the need of enormous primary neutrino fluxes that cannot be produced by known astrophysical acceleration sources , and thus most likely requires a more exotic top-down type source such as X particles exclusively decaying into neutrinos . Even this possibility appears close to being ruled out due to a tendency to overproduce the diffuse GeV $`\gamma `$ray flux observed by EGRET

The two major uncertainties in the particle transport are the intensity and spectrum of the URB for which there exist no direct measurements in the relevant MHz regime , and the average value of the EGMF. Simulations have been performed for different assumptions on these. A strong URB tends to suppress the UHE $`\gamma `$-ray flux by direct absorption whereas a strong EGMF blocks EM cascading (which otherwise develops efficiently especially in a low URB) by synchrotron cooling of the electrons. For the IR/O background we used the most recent data .

In top-down scenarios, the particle injection spectrum is generally dominated by the “primary” $`\gamma `$-rays and neutrinos over nucleons. These primary $`\gamma `$-rays and neutrinos are produced by the decay of the primary pions resulting from the hadronization of quarks that come from the decay of the X particles. In contrast, in acceleration scenarios the primaries are accelerated protons or nuclei, and $`\gamma `$-rays, electrons, and neutrinos are produced as secondaries from decaying pions that are in turn produced by the interactions of nucleons with the CMB.

## 3 New Primary Particles and Interactions

A possible way around the problem of missing counterparts within acceleration scenarios is to propose primary particles whose range is not limited by interactions with the CMB. Within the Standard Model the only candidate is the neutrino, whereas in extensions of the Standard Model one could think of new neutrals such as axions or stable supersymmetric elementary particles. Such options are mostly ruled out by the tension between enforcing small EM coupling and large hadronic coupling to ensure normal air showers . Also suggested have been new neutral hadronic bound states of light gluinos with quarks and gluons, so-called R-hadrons that are heavier than nucleons, and therefore have a higher GZK threshold . Since this too seems to be disfavored by accelerator constraints  we will here focus on neutrinos.

In both the neutrino and new neutral stable particle scenario the particle propagating over extragalactic distances would have to be produced as a secondary in interactions of a primary proton that is accelerated in a powerful AGN which can, in contrast to the case of extensive air showers (EAS) induced by nucleons, nuclei, or $`\gamma `$rays, be located at high redshift. Consequently, these scenarios predict a correlation between primary arrival directions and high redshift sources. In fact, possible evidence for a correlation of UHECR arrival directions with compact radio quasars and BL-Lac objects, some of them possibly too far away to be consistent with the GZK effect, was recently reported . Only a few more events could confirm or rule out the correlation hypothesis. Note, however, that these scenarios require the primary proton to be accelerated up to at least $`10^{21}`$eV, demanding a very powerful astrophysical accelerator.

### 3.1 New Neutrino Interactions

Neutrino primaries have the advantage of being well established particles. However, within the Standard Model their interaction cross section with nucleons, whose charged current part can be parametrized by

$$\sigma _{\nu N}^{SM}(E)2.36\times 10^{32}(E/10^{19}\mathrm{eV})^{0.363}\mathrm{cm}^2,$$
(1)
for $`10^{16}\mathrm{eV}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}E\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{21}\mathrm{eV}`$, falls short by about five orders of magnitude to produce ordinary air showers. However, it has been suggested that the neutrino-nucleon cross section, $`\sigma _{\nu N}`$, can be enhanced by new physics beyond the electroweak scale in the center of mass (CM) frame, or above about a PeV in the nucleon rest frame. Neutrino induced air showers may therefore rather directly probe new physics beyond the electroweak scale.

One possibility consists of a large increase in the number of degrees of freedom above the electroweak scale . A specific implementation of this idea is given in theories with $`n`$ additional large compact dimensions and a quantum gravity scale $`M_{4+n}`$TeV that has recently received much attention in the literature  because it provides an alternative solution (i.e., without supersymmetry) to the hierarchy problem in grand unifications of gauge interactions. It turns out that the largest contribution to the neutrino-nucleon cross section is provided by the production of microscopic black holes centered on the brane representing our world, but extending into the extra dimensions. The cross sections can be larger than the Standard model one by up to a factor 100 . This is not sufficient to explain the observed UHECR events .

However, the UHECR data can be used to put constraints on cross sections satisfying $`\sigma _{\nu N}(E\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{19}\mathrm{eV})\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{27}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. Particles with such cross sections would give rise to horizontal air showers which have not yet been observed. Resulting upper limits on their fluxes assuming the Standard Model cross section Eq. (1) are shown in Fig. 1. Comparison with the “cosmogenic” neutrino flux produced by UHECRs interacting with the CMB then results in upper limits on the cross section which are about a factor 1000 larger than Eq. (1) in the energy range between $`10^{17}`$eV and $`10^{19}`$eV . The projected sensitivity of future experiments shown in Fig. 2 below indicate that these limits could be lowered down to the Standard Model one . In case of a detection of penetrating events the degeneracy of the cross section with the unknown flux could be broken by comparing horizontal air showers with Earth skimming events .

## 4 Top-Down Scenarios

As mentioned in the introduction, all top-down scenarios involve the decay of X particles of mass close to the GUT scale which can basically be produced in two ways: If they are very short lived, as usually expected in many GUTs, they have to be produced continuously. The only way this can be achieved is by emission from topological defects left over from cosmological phase transitions that may have occurred in the early Universe at temperatures close to the GUT scale, possibly during reheating after inflation. Topological defects necessarily occur between regions that are causally disconnected, such that the orientation of the order parameter associated with the phase transition, can not be communicated between these regions and consequently will adopt different values. Examples are cosmic strings, magnetic monopoles, and domain walls. The defect density is consequently given by the particle horizon in the early Universe. The defects are topologically stable, but time dependent motion leads to the emission of particles with a mass comparable to the temperature at which the phase transition took place. The associated phase transition can also occur during reheating after inflation.

Alternatively, instead of being released from topological defects, X particles may have been produced directly in the early Universe and, due to some unknown symmetries, have a very long lifetime comparable to the age of the Universe. In contrast to Weakly-Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS) below a few hundred TeV which are the usual dark matter candidates motivated by, for example, supersymmetry and can be produced by thermal freeze out, such superheavy X particles have to be produced non-thermally (see Ref.  for a review). In all these cases, such particles, also called “WIMPZILLAs”, would contribute to the dark matter and their decays could still contribute to UHECR fluxes today, with an anisotropy pattern that reflects the dark matter distribution in the halo of our Galaxy.

It is interesting to note that one of the prime motivations of the inflationary paradigm was to dilute excessive production of “dangerous relics” such as topological defects and superheavy stable particles. However, such objects can be produced right after inflation during reheating in cosmologically interesting abundances, and with a mass scale roughly given by the inflationary scale which in turn is fixed by the CMB anisotropies to $`10^{13}`$GeV . The reader will realize that this mass scale is somewhat above the highest energies observed in CRs, which implies that the decay products of these primordial relics could well have something to do with UHECRs which in turn can probe such scenarios!

For dimensional reasons the spatially averaged X particle injection rate can only depend on the mass scale $`m_X`$ and on cosmic time $`t`$ in the combination

$$\dot{n}_X(t)=\kappa m_X^pt^{4+p},$$
(2)
where $`\kappa `$ and $`p`$ are dimensionless constants whose value depend on the specific top-down scenario , For example, the case $`p=1`$ is representative of scenarios involving release of X particles from topological defects, such as ordinary cosmic strings , necklaces  and magnetic monopoles . This can be easily seen as follows: The energy density $`\rho _s`$ in a network of defects has to scale roughly as the critical density, $`\rho _s\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}t^2`$, where $`t`$ is cosmic time, otherwise the defects would either start to overclose the Universe, or end up having a negligible contribution to the total energy density. In order to maintain this scaling, the defect network has to release energy with a rate given by $`\dot{\rho }_s=a\rho _s/tt^3`$, where $`a=1`$ in the radiation dominated aera, and $`a=2/3`$ during matter domination. If most of this energy goes into emission of X particles, then typically $`\kappa 𝒪(1)`$. In the numerical simulations presented below, it was assumed that the X particles are nonrelativistic at decay.

The X particles could be gauge bosons, Higgs bosons, superheavy fermions, etc. depending on the specific GUT. They would have a mass $`m_X`$ comparable to the symmetry breaking scale and would decay into leptons and/or quarks of roughly comparable energy. The quarks interact strongly and hadronize into nucleons ($`N`$s) and pions, the latter decaying in turn into $`\gamma `$-rays, electrons, and neutrinos. Given the X particle production rate, $`dn_X/dt`$, the effective injection spectrum of particle species $`a`$ ($`a=\gamma ,N,e^\pm ,\nu `$) via the hadronic channel can be written as $`(dn_X/dt)(2/m_X)(dN_a/dx)`$, where $`x2E/m_X`$, and $`dN_a/dx`$ is the relevant fragmentation function (FF).

We adopt the Local Parton Hadron Duality (LPHD) approximation  according to which the total hadronic FF, $`dN_h/dx`$, is taken to be proportional to the spectrum of the partons (quarks/gluons) in the parton cascade (which is initiated by the quark through perturbative QCD processes) after evolving the parton cascade to a stage where the typical transverse momentum transfer in the QCD cascading processes has come down to $`R^1`$ few hundred MeV, where $`R`$ is a typical hadron size. The parton spectrum is obtained from solutions of the standard QCD evolution equations in modified leading logarithmic approximation (MLLA) which provides good fits to accelerator data at LEP energies . Within the LPHD hypothesis, the pions and nucleons after hadronization have essentially the same spectrum. The LPHD does not, however, fix the relative abundance of pions and nucleons after hadronization. Motivated by accelerator data, we assume the nucleon content $`f_N`$ of the hadrons to be $`10`$%, and the rest pions distributed equally among the three charge states. Recent work suggests that the nucleon-to-pion ratio may be significantly higher in certain ranges of $`x`$ values at the extremely high energies of interest here , but the situation is not completely settled yet.

### 4.1 Predicted Fluxes

Fig. 2 shows results for the time averaged nucleon, $`\gamma `$ray, and neutrino fluxes in a typical TD scenario, along with low energy $`\gamma `$ray flux constraints and neutrino flux sensitivities of future experiments. The spectrum was optimally normalized to allow for an explanation of the observed UHECR events, assuming their consistency with a nucleon or $`\gamma `$ray primary. The flux below $`\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}2\times 10^{19}`$eV is presumably due to conventional acceleration in astrophysical sources and was not fit. The PP process on the CMB depletes the photon flux above 100 TeV, and the same process on the IR/O background causes depletion of the photon flux in the range 100 GeV–100 TeV, recycling the absorbed energies to energies below 100 GeV through EM cascading. The predicted background is not very sensitive to the specific IR/O background model, however . The scenario in Fig. 2 obviously obeys all current constraints within the normalization ambiguities and is therefore quite viable. Note that the diffuse $`\gamma `$ray background measured by EGRET  up to 10 GeV puts a strong constraint on these scenarios, especially if there is already a significant contribution to this background from conventional sources such as unresolved $`\gamma `$ray blazars . However, this constraint is much weaker for TDs or decaying long lived X particles with a non-uniform clustered density

The energy loss and absorption lengths for UHE nucleons and photons are short ($`\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}100`$ Mpc). Thus, their predicted UHE fluxes are independent of cosmological evolution. The $`\gamma `$ray flux below $`10^{11}`$eV, however, scales as the total X particle energy release integrated over all redshifts and increases with decreasing $`p`$ . For $`m_X=2\times 10^{16}`$GeV, scenarios with $`p<1`$ are therefore ruled out, whereas constant comoving injection models ($`p=2`$) are well within the limits.

It is clear from the above discussions that the predicted particle fluxes in the TD scenario are currently uncertain to a large extent due to particle physics uncertainties (e.g., mass and decay modes of the X particles, the quark fragmentation function, the nucleon fraction $`f_N`$, and so on) as well as astrophysical uncertainties (e.g., strengths of the radio and infrared backgrounds, extragalactic magnetic fields, etc.). More details on the dependence of the predicted UHE particle spectra and composition on these particle physics and astrophysical uncertainties are contained in Ref. .

We stress here that there are viable TD scenarios which predict nucleon fluxes that are comparable to or even higher than the $`\gamma `$ray flux at all energies, even though $`\gamma `$rays dominate at production. This occurs, e.g., in the case of high URB and/or for a strong EGMF, and a nucleon fragmentation fraction of $`10\%`$. Some of these TD scenarios would therefore remain viable even if UHECR induced EAS should be proven inconsistent with photon primaries (see, e.g., Ref. ). This is in contrast to scenarios with decaying massive dark matter in the Galactic halo which, due to the lack of absorption, predict compositions directly given by the fragmentation function, i.e. domination by $`\gamma `$rays.

The normalization procedure to the UHECR flux described above imposes the constraint $`Q_{\mathrm{UHECR}}^0\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{22}\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{sec}^1`$ within a factor of a few  for the total energy release rate $`Q_0`$ from TDs at the current epoch. In most TD models, because of the unknown values of the parameters involved, it is currently not possible to calculate the exact value of $`Q_0`$ from first principles, although it has been shown that the required values of $`Q_0`$ (in order to explain the UHECR flux) mentioned above are quite possible for certain kinds of TDs. Some cosmic string simulations and the necklace scenario suggest that defects may lose most of their energy in the form of X particles and estimates of this rate have been given . If that is the case, the constraint on $`Q_{\mathrm{UHECR}}^0`$ translates via Eq. (2) into a limit on the symmetry breaking scale $`\eta `$ and hence on the mass $`m_X`$ of the X particle: $`\eta m_X\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10^{13}`$GeV . Independently of whether or not this scenario explains UHECR, the EGRET measurement of the diffuse GeV $`\gamma `$ray background leads to a similar bound, $`Q_{\mathrm{EM}}^0\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}2.2\times 10^{23}h(3p1)\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{sec}^1`$, which leaves the bound on $`\eta `$ and $`m_X`$ practically unchanged. Furthermore, constraints from limits on CMB distortions and light element abundances from <sup>4</sup>He-photodisintegration are comparable to the bound from the directly observed diffuse GeV $`\gamma `$-rays . That these crude normalizations lead to values of $`\eta `$ in the right range suggests that defect models require less fine tuning than decay rates in scenarios of metastable massive dark matter.

As discussed above, in TD scenarios most of the energy is released in the form of EM particles and neutrinos. If the X particles decay into a quark and a lepton, the quark hadronizes mostly into pions and the ratio of energy release into the neutrino versus EM channel is $`r0.3`$. The energy fluence in neutrinos and $`\gamma `$rays is thus comparable. However, whereas the photons are recycled down to the GeV range where their flux is constrained by the EGRET measurement, the neutrino flux is practically not changed during propagation and thus reflects the injection spectrum. Its predicted level is consistent with all existing upper limits (compare Fig. 2 with Fig. 1) but should be detectable by several experiments under construction or in the proposal stage (see Fig. 2). This would allow to directly see the quark fragmentation spectrum.

## 5 Conclusions

Ultra-high energy cosmic rays have the potential to open a window to and act as probes of new particle physics beyond the Standard Model as well as processes occuring in the early Universe at energies close to the Grand Unification scale. Even if their origin will turn out to be attributable to astrophysical shock acceleration with no new physics involved, they will still be witnesses of one of the most energetic processes in the Universe. The future appears promising and exciting due to the anticipated arrival of several large scale experiments.


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# Temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy in BaRuO3 systems

## I Introduction

Recently, it was reported that a pseudogap formation can occur in 4$`d`$ transition metal oxides, BaRuO3 compounds. Optical conductivity spectra $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$ of both four-layer hexagonal (4$`H`$) BaRuO3 and nine-layer rhombohedral (9$`R`$) compounds show clear electrodynamic response changes resulting from the pseudogap formation. In their metallic states, concurrent developments of a gap-like feature and a coherent mode below a gap-like feature are observed due to the partial-gap opening in the Fermi surface.

The pseudogap formations in the ruthenates could be closely related to their structures characterized by hexagonal close-packing. As shown in Fig. 1, their layered structures include the face-sharing structure of RuO6 octahedra along the $`c`$-axis. In 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ structures, two and three adjacent RuO6 octahedra participate in face-sharing, respectively. A direct Ru-Ru metal-bonding formed through such face-sharing distinguishes their physical properties from those of the perovskite ruthenates only with the Ru-O-Ru interaction through corner-sharing. Actually, the metal-bonding has been seen to be closely related to interesting physical properties, such as a metal-insulator transition in Ti2O3 and non-Fermi liquid behavior in La4Ru9O16. In the case of BaRuO3 systems, the quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Ru metal-bonding along the $`c`$-axis might induce a charge density wave (CDW) instability. It was reported that a 5$`d`$ transition metal oxide 9$`R`$ BaIrO3, which is expected to have stronger metal-bonding character than 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 due to a more extended 5$`d`$-orbital character, shows a static CDW instability. For Ba$`M`$O3 ($`M`$=Ru, Ir) with 9$`R`$ or 4$`H`$ structure, it was observed that the strength of the metal-bonding through the face-sharing should be a parameter in determining their physical properties. These strongly indicate that a CDW instability could be related to the pseudogap formation in the BaRuO3 systems.

In usual 1D density wave systems, a static CDW ordering state accompanies a structural distortion with a metal-insulator transition. When Peierls-type lattice distortion occurs, in general, new phonon modes in infrared (IR) and Raman spectra can be observed due to structural symmetry breaking. This could also result in a superlattice or an additional peak in x-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns or neutron scattering experiments. In the case of BaRuO3 systems, although a 1D-like CDW instability is strongly suggested, there has been no structural report about structural distortions. These might be related to a fluctuation-type instability without any static CDW ordering.

When the time scale of CDW fluctuations is long enough to induce a pseudogap formation in $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$, a phonon anomaly, such as the creation or splitting of a phonon, can be observed. In the metallic state of BaRuO3 compounds, the screening of free carriers makes the detailed analysis of IR-active phonons difficult. On the other hand, Raman spectroscopy is known to be less affected by free-carrier responses than IR spectroscopy. So, Raman spectroscopy could be a useful tool to address the origin of pseudogap formation of BaRuO3 compounds in view of their structural properties.

In this paper, we report the Raman spectra of 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 compounds. According to group theory analysis, the observed phonon modes are properly assigned. From the temperature ($`T`$)-dependent experiments, it is observed that the $`T`$-dependent behavior of phonons strongly depends on the vibrational directions, which could be related to the structural characteristics with the face-sharing of RuO6 octahedra. Interestingly, the $`E_{2g}`$ mode of the face-shared oxygen in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 becomes split with decreasing $`T`$. These observations indicate that there should be a structural instability due to the metal-bonding through the face-sharing of RuO6 octahedra, which could be closely related to the pseudogap formation in these ruthenates.

## II Experimentals

4H BaRuO3 epitaxial film on (111) SrTiO3 substrate was fabricated by a 90$`^\text{o}`$ off-axis sputtering technique.  Its thickness is about 3200 Å. XRD and transmission electron microscopy reveal that the film is composed of a high quality single domain with a c-axis structure. 9R BaRuO3 single crystal was prepared by a flux-melting method. The size of the sample is 0.5$`\times `$0.5$`\times `$0.2 mm3. XRD measurements showed that the c-axis was pointing along the short dimension. Due to the size limitation, most Raman spectra were obtained in the ab-plane.

Raman scattering measurements were performed in the backscattering geometry using a triple Raman spectrometer (Jobin Yvon T64000). The incident laser beam was the 514.5 nm line of an Ar-ion laser and the laser power was about 3.6 mW on the sample surface. Raman spectra were measured at various $`T`$ between 5 K and 650 K. Below 300 K, a continuous flow type of cryostat was used. Above 300 K, a home-made sample heating system was used. Due to the heating effect of the focused laser, the assigned temperatures in this paper could be slightly different from the actual ones on the measured sample surface. At all $`T`$, polarized and depolarized spectra were obtained and corrected by a Bose-Einstein factor. The details are described elsewhere.

## III Results and Discussions

### A Group theory analysis and phonon assignment

The 4$`H`$ structure has D6h symmetry, and four molecular units in the primitive cell with eight Raman-active modes (2$`A_{1g}`$ \+ 2$`E_{1g}`$ \+ 4 $`E_{2g}`$), twelve IR-active modes (5$`A_{2u}`$ \+ 7$`E_{1u}`$) and eighteen silent optic modes ($`A_{2g}`$ \+ $`A_{1u}`$ \+ 3$`B_{1g}`$ \+ 2$`B_{1u}`$ \+ 5$`B_{2u}`$ \+ 6$`E_{2g}`$). The Raman-active modes are composed of $`E_{2g}`$ of Ba, $`A_{1g}`$, $`E_{1g}`$, and $`E_{2g}`$ of Ru, and $`A_{1g}`$, $`E_{1g}`$, and 2$`E_{2g}`$ of O. The point group for the 9$`R`$ structure is D3d, with three molecular units in the primitive cell. A factor group analysis predicts nine Raman-active modes (4$`A_{1g}`$ \+ 5$`E_g`$), sixteen IR-active modes (7$`A_{2u}`$ \+ 9$`E_u`$), and three silent optic modes (2$`A_{1u}`$ \+ $`A_{2g}`$). The Raman-active modes are composed of $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_g`$ of Ba, $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_g`$ of Ru, and 2$`A_{1g}`$ and 3$`E_g`$ of O.

It is noted that only the O ions participating in the face-sharing and only the Ru ions in RuO6 octahedra participating in the corner-sharing have Raman-active phonon modes. O ions in both ruthenates are positioned at two irreducible sites, i.e. a face-shared plane and an edge in RuO6 blocks, represented by O(1) and O(2) respectively, in Fig. 1. From the group analysis, O(2) should have only the IR-active phonon modes ($`A_{2u}`$+2$`E_{1u}`$ for 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 and 2$`A_{2u}`$+3$`E_u`$ for 9$`R`$ BaRuO3), while O(1) should have both IR- and Raman-active modes. Unlike 4$`H`$ BaRuO3, 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 has two irreducible Ru-ion sites, i.e. a side and a center position in the RuO6 blocks, represented by Ru(1) and Ru(2) in Fig 1(b). Similarly to the case of O ions, Ru(2) should have the IR-active phonon modes ($`A_{2u}`$+$`E_u`$) only. So, it is expected that 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 show similar Raman-active phonon spectra in spite of the different layered structures. For convenience, we will abbreviate O(1) and Ru(1) to O and Ru, respectively.

Figure 2(a) shows the polarized and depolarized spectra of 4$`H`$ BaRuO3. Six phonon peaks are observed in the polarized spectra. In the depolarized spectra, four peaks are observed at the same frequency positions with the corresponding phonons in the polarized spectra. Note that both the $`A_{1g}`$ and the $`E_{2g}`$ modes in the D6h symmetry contribute to the polarized signal, but only the $`E_{2g}`$ modes are present in the depolarized spectra, which is an indicator for assigning the observed phonon modes. So, four modes observed in depolarized spectra can be assigned as $`E_{2g}`$ modes. Generally, the phonon frequencies related to the vibration of heavier ions are lower than those of lighter ions. Thus, the four modes in ascending order of their frequency are assigned as one $`E_{2g}`$(Ba), one $`E_{2g}`$(Ru) and two $`E_{2g}`$(O). The rest of the modes in the polarized spectra are assigned as $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) and $`A_{1g}`$(O) from the lowest frequency. Note that according to the predictions of group theory, two $`E_{1g}`$ modes of Ru and O cannot be observed in Raman spectra from the $`ab`$-plane of the thin film sample.

The observed phonons in 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 are assigned in a similar way. As shown in Fig. 2(b), eight phonons are observed in the polarized spectra. And, three clear modes, which are assigned as $`E_g`$(Ba), $`E_g`$(Ru) and $`E_g`$(O), are observed in the depolarized spectra. Though the mode near 403 cm-1 in the polarized spectra is not clearly observed in the depolarized spectra at 300 K, a distinguishable feature of this mode is detected in the depolarized spectra at low $`T`$. So, the mode is assigned as another $`E_g`$(O) mode. The rest of the modes in ascending order of their frequency in the polarized spectra are assigned as $`A_{1g}`$(Ba) near 85 cm-1, $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) near 280 cm-1, and two $`A_{1g}`$(O) near 463 cm-1 and 625 cm-1. The phonon assignments of 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 are summarized in TABLE I.

On the other hand, Quilty et al., from the $`c`$-axis measurement of 9$`R`$ BaRuO3, assigned the $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) mode at 280 cm-1 as another O($`E_g`$) mode. We note, as we will discuss later, that $`T`$-dependence of this mode and its frequency are quite similar to those of the $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) mode in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3. So, it is very likely that the mode at 280 cm-1 is assigned as a $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) mode. It might be possible that a weak $`E_g`$(O) and a strong $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) mode are at nearly the same frequency.

### B $`T`$-dependent phonon spectra

Figures 3(a) and 3(b) show the $`T`$-dependent polarized spectra of 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ BaRuO3, respectively. The spectra are shifted up for clarity. It is observed that both compounds show similar phonon spectra. Except for the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode near 245 cm-1 in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3, five distinct phonon modes are observed at similar frequencies in both compounds. The $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_{2g}`$ modes of 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 correspond to the $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_g`$ modes of 9$`R`$ BaRuO3, respectively. It is noted that the corresponding phonon modes in both ruthenates show similar $`T`$-dependent behavior.

The $`A_{1g}`$ modes show different $`T`$-dependent behavior from the $`E_{2g}`$ ($`E_g`$) modes in both compounds. First, the $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) mode near 620 cm-1 and the $`A_{1g}`$(O) mode near 270 cm-1 strongly shift to higher frequencies with decreasing $`T`$. \[The $`A_{1g}`$(Ba) mode in 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 shows a relatively weak hardening.\] On the contrary, the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 near 340 cm-1 and the $`E_g`$(O) mode in 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 near 300 cm-1 show a strong softening at lower $`T`$. These softenings are quite unusual in that the general $`T`$-dependent behavior of phonons is to show a hardening at lower $`T`$ due to an anharmonicity of lattice vibrations. Even in a quite wide $`T`$ variation by $``$ 650 K, the $`E_{2g}`$(Ba, Ru) mode in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 and $`E_g`$(Ba, Ru) mode in 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 show a very small change. On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 3(b), another $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode near 245 cm-1, which is present only in the 4$`H`$ BaRuO3, shows an anomalous $`T`$-dependence. This mode splits into two modes at low $`T`$. \[The details will be discussed in the next section.\]

Figure 4 shows the detailed $`T`$-dependence of the phonons. The left panels, Figs. 4 (a), (b), (c), and (d) show the $`T`$-dependences of the $`A_{1g}`$(O), $`E_{2g}`$(O), $`A_{1g}`$(Ru), and $`E_{2g}`$(Ru) modes, respectively, of 4$`H`$ BaRuO3. The right panels, Figs. 4 (e), (f), (g), and (h) show the $`T`$-dependence of the phonons of 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 corresponding to those of 4$`H`$ BaRuO3, in sequence. While $`A_{1g}`$(O) modes show strong hardenings, $`E_{2g}`$(O) (or $`E_g`$) modes show softenings with decreasing $`T`$. Similarly, $`A_{1g}`$(Ru) modes show strong hardenings, but no significant change of $`E_{2g}`$(Ru) (or $`E_g`$) modes is observed. It is clear that $`A_{1g}`$ modes show different $`T`$-dependent behavior from $`E_{2g}`$ ($`E_g`$) modes.

It is noted that the $`T`$-dependent behavior of the phonon modes closely depends on the direction of lattice vibrations. As a tentative description, $`E_g`$ (or $`E_{2g}`$) and $`A_{1g}`$ modes are related to the vibrations in the $`ab`$-plane and along the $`c`$-axis, respectively. The different $`T`$-dependence of the $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_{2g}`$ (or $`E_g`$) modes could originate from their anisotropic structural properties with the face-sharing of RuO6 octahedra along the $`c`$-axis, through which a strong anisotropic interaction, i.e. a direct Ru metal-bonding, occurs.

The strong hardenings of $`A_{1g}`$ modes indicate that the bonding stiffness along the $`c`$-axis becomes larger. This also implies that the interaction along the $`c`$-axis, i.e. a direct Ru metal-bonding, becomes stronger. It is noted that strong hardenings of $`A_{1g}`$ modes cannot be simply explained by the variation of the $`c`$-axis lattice constant c. The $`A_{1g}`$ modes vibrating along the $`c`$-axis are expected to have a close relation with c. However, while synchrotron XRD experiments with 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 report that its c is changed just by $``$ 0.005 Å with $`T`$ varying between 30 K and 310 K, the phonon frequency $`\omega _{ph}`$ of the $`A_{1g}`$ modes is changed by $``$ 10 cm-1 in the corresponding $`T`$ range. These changes of the $`\omega _{ph}`$($`A_{1g}`$) are much larger than those of the cuprates, where the stretching modes in Cu-O planes are quite sensitive to Cu-O bonding distances; while the lattice constant in the $`ab`$-plane is reduced by about 0.1 Å, the $`\omega _{ph}`$ increases higher by 100 cm-1. The relatively large change of the $`\omega _{ph}`$($`A_{1g}`$) in BaRuO3 systems means that there must be another electronic contribution to the strong hardening of the $`A_{1g}`$ modes in addition to those of the lattice effect. It is noted that similar hardening of the phonon modes in some manganites are observed due to charge ordering fluctuation. On the other hand, in the infinite 1D chain cuprates, i.e. Ca2-xSrxCuO3, Drechsler et al. suggested the possible existence of a dynamic Peierl-type distortion and predicted phonon anomalies such as a hardening or a splitting. The strong hardenings of the $`A_{1g}`$ modes in the 1D-like ruthenates might be related to the CDW fluctuation by the metal-bonding.

Unlike the $`A_{1g}`$ modes, $`E_{2g}`$ (or $`E_g`$) modes vibrating normally to the metal bonding direction show softenings or no significant change. Especially, strong softenings of the $`E_{2g}`$(O) (or $`E_g`$) modes are quite unusual. It is noted that only the oxygens participating in the face-sharing have Raman-active modes. So, the softenings of the $`E_{2g}`$(O) (or $`E_g`$) modes indicate that the bonding stiffness among the face-shared oxygens reduces and that there should be a kind of structural instability in the face-shared O structure. This also implies that the Ru-O-Ru interaction weakens as a Ru-Ru interaction strengthens, which could induce the stronger 1D-character. These differences in $`T`$-dependence between $`A_{1g}`$ and $`E_g`$ ($`E_{2g}`$) modes in BaRuO3 could be a unique feature reflecting a structural instability due to the increase of the metal-bonding strength.

### C Splitting of $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3

Another important observation is that the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode near 245 cm-1 in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 shows a clear splitting. It is noted that this $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode is not permitted in 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 from group theory analysis. As shown in Fig. 5(a), as $`T`$ decreases, the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode becomes suppressed and a new mode at lower frequency develops. Together with the softenings of other $`E_{2g}`$(O) modes, this splitting clearly indicates the existence of a structural instability in the face-shared structure. While the onset temperature of the phonon splitting is not clear, as shown in Fig 5(b), some anomaly is observed at $``$ 360 K, where the $`T`$-dependence of the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode is changed. This appears consistent with the optical observation that the pseudogap feature is still observed at 300 K. It is very likely that this structural instability is closely related to the origin of the pseudogap formation in the ruthenates, i.e. the CDW instability.

It is noted that the phonon splitting happens in the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode vibrating normally to the metal-bonding direction. The splitting of an IR-active phonon mode in the $`ab`$-plane was also observed for a static CDW 9$`R`$ BaIrO3. This implies that the charge modulation along the $`c`$-axis might be closely related to the structural instability in the $`ab`$-plane. On the other hand, it is interesting that only the $`E_{2g}`$(O) mode near 245 cm-1 shows the splitting. This means that the local structural distortion related to this mode occurs, maintaining the total crystallographic symmetry of the 4$`H`$ compound. More theoretical and experimental studies are needed to understand the unusual CDW instability and its detailed relation to the pseudogap formation.

### D Electronic Raman continua

Electronic Raman continua give important information about the electronic excitation. Figure 6 shows $`T`$-dependent polarized spectra of 4$`H`$ BaRuO3. As $`T`$ decreases, Raman continua below 200 cm-1 increase. This behavior is commonly observed in polarized and depolarized spectra in both ruthenates. The increase of Raman continua in low frequency region could be due to the reduction of the screening of free carriers on elastic scatterings, such as Rayleigh responses. This is consistent with optical observations that a reduction of carrier density $`n`$ occurs with pseudogap formation. Similar behavior was observed in some perovskite manganites with the metal-insulator transition.

Another important point is that a broad Raman continuum near 400 cm-1 in 4$`H`$ BaRuO3 is observed with a significant $`T`$-dependence. As shown in Fig. 6, this broad continuum becomes suppressed with decreasing $`T`$. Because the maximum of the continuum is at a relatively high frequency, it cannot be an electronic Raman scattering by charge fluctuations arising from electron-hole excitations near the Fermi energy. And, its position is different from that of the pseudogap position, $``$ 650 cm-1. To get qualitative physical insights, we integrated the Raman backgrounds in the frequency region of 250 $``$ 600 cm-1, where the $`T`$-dependence is dominant. Interestingly, as shown in the inset of Fig. 6, the integrated area $`S`$ is strongly correlated with the square of the plasma frequency $`\omega _p^2`$, obtained by optical measurement. The reduction in $`\omega _p^2`$ originates mainly from a reduction in $`n`$ caused by a partial-gap opening on the Fermi surface. The strong correlation between $`S`$ and $`\omega _p^2`$ indicates that the suppression of the distinct Raman excitation near 400 cm-1 might be closely related to the pseudogap formation.

## IV Summary

Raman spectra in 4$`H`$ and 9$`R`$ BaRuO3 show interesting features related to the metal-bonding formed through the face-sharing of RuO6 octahedra. The temperature-dependence of the observed phonons strongly depend on the vibration direction with respect to the metal-bonding. For 4$`H`$ BaRuO3, another $`E_{2g}`$ mode of the oxygen participating in the face-sharing is split clearly. The temperature-dependence of the broad electronic Raman continua near 400 cm-1 suggests a partial-gap opening on the Fermi surface. These observations indicate that there occurs a kind of structural instability due to the metal-bonding, which could be closely related to the pseudogap formation in the BaRuO3 systems.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge Jaejun Yu at Seoul National University for his helpful discussions. This work was supported by KOSEF through CSCMR. TWN acknowledges Ministry of Science and Technology for financial supports through the Creative Research Initiative program. EJO and ISY acknowledge the support from the grant (No. KRF2000-015-DS0014) of Basic Science Research Institute program of the Korea Research Foundation.