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# Grain Formation in Post-Shocked Wind Collisions of Massive Binary Systems

## 1. Introduction

Many massive binary systems are known, and almost all present high-energy fluxes, not originated in the stars, but around them, indicating the presence of colliding winds. The source of observed X-rays high fluxes should be a hot and dense gas, generated by shocks around these objects (Zhekov & Skinner 2000). At high temperature and density, free-free emission in X-rays becomes highly important (Usov 1992; Ishibashi et al. 1999). X-ray emissions associated with interacting winds were observed on many objects (Corcoran et al. 2001; Thaller et al. 2001). Grains also may be formed and grow on post-shocked gases (Monnier, Tuthill, & Danchi 2001) when the heated gas loses high amount of energy, mainly by bremsstrahlung, cools and becomes denser. Recent observations in IR supply this idea, showing episodic dust formation events in these regions (Marchenko, Moffat, & Grosdidier 1999; Harries, Babler, & Fox 2000). Some binary systems present, periodically, a sudden decrease of X-ray emission (Ishibashi et al. 1999). A fast dust formation and growth event in these regions due to the shocked winds might provoke a considerable increase in extinction explaining these features of the light curves. This could cause the temporary reduction on X-rays and UV fluxes, which may increase a posteriori with the evaporation of the particles, or even by the expansion of the dust shell.

## 2. Model and Results: an application to $`\eta `$Carinae

The model assumes the colliding winds of two massive stars A and B, which have mass loss rates $`\dot{M}_A`$ and $`\dot{M}_B`$, and wind velocities $`u_A`$ and $`u_B`$, respectively, orbiting each other with period $`T`$, eccentricity $`e`$ and distance $`D`$ at periastron. We divide the shock evolution in four parts: i) the instantaneous collision, neglecting radiative losses, ii) the gas cooling at post-shock, iii) the formation of dust and its growth and iv) the evolution of the dust shell, and its consequence to the light curve observed. The basic physics of the shock is very well known, and described by the hydrodynamics equations of: mass continuity, fluid momentum and energy. The growth and evaporation rates of the dust particles are given by the classic nucleation theory.

$`\eta `$Car is a super massive star, supposed to be a LBV class star, and also is supposed to have a companion, probably another massive WR or OB star (Damineli et al. 2000). The system total mass, inferred by luminosity is $`120M_{}`$. $`\eta Car_A`$ is responsible for major of this mass and $`\eta Car_B`$ should have typical WR stellar winds, $`\dot{M}10^5M_{}yr^1`$ and $`u_{\mathrm{}}3\times 10^3kms^1`$. Observations indicate that $`\eta Car_A`$ should have $`\dot{M}10^3M_{}yr^1`$ and $`u_{\mathrm{}}500kms^1`$ (Hillier 2001; Damineli et al. 2000). For the above parameters and $`\dot{M}=5\times 10^4M_{}yr^1`$ and $`e0.8`$, it was possible to reproduce its observed light curve.

## 3. Conclusions

In this work we present a model for colliding winds where we determined the changes in physical parameters, like density, temperature and pressure in the post-shock. This gas, cooled and denser after shock, can be the site for grains formation. The model was applied to $`\eta Car`$ which could explain: i-) the rapid decline on fluxes observed periodically; and ii-) the slightly decrease in opacity considering the expansion of the dust with the wind. This model agrees better with observations for $`e0.8`$, and a mass loss rate of the primary star of $`(35)\times 10^4M_{}yr^1`$.

### Acknowledgments.

The authors thank the Brazilian agencies CNPq, CAPES and FAPESP for support and also the project PRONEX (41.96.0908.00).

## References

Corcoran, M.; Ishibashi, K.; Swank, J.; Petre, R.: 2001, ApJ, 547, 1034.

Damineli, A.; Kaufer, A.; Wolf, B.; Stahl, O.; Lopes, D.; Araújo, F.: 2000, ApJ, 528, 101.

Harries, T. J.; Babler, B. L.; Fox, G. K.: 2000, A&A, 361, 273.

Hillier, D.; Davidson, K.; Ishibashi, K.; Gull, T.: 2001, ApJ, 553, 837.

Ishibashi, K.; Corcoran, M.; Davidson, K.; Swank, J.; Petre, R.; Drake, S.; Damineli, A.; White, S.: 1999, ApJ, 524, 983.

Marchenko, S.; Moffat, A.; Grosdidier, Y.: 1999, ApJ, 522, 433.

Monnier, J.; Tuthill, P.; Danchi, W.: 2001, A&AS, 199, 608.

Pittard, J. M.; Corcoran, M. F.: 2002, ApJ, 383, 636.

Thaller, M.; Gies, D.; Fullerton, A.; Kaper, L.; Wiemker, R.: 2001, ApJ, 554, 1070.

Usov. V.: 1992, ApJ, 389, 635.

Zhekov, S.; Skinner, S.: 2000, ApJ, 538, 808.


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# Reply to Comment on “Electron Mass Operator in a Strong Magnetic Field and Dynamical Chiral Symmetry Breaking”

(July 10, 2002)

In the Letter Kuznetsov and Mikheev (2002) we have demonstrated a consistent calculation of the electron mass operator in a strong magnetic field in the leading-log approximation (LLA). It means that we have always neglected the terms $`\alpha ^2\mathrm{ln}(eB/m^2)`$ and $`\alpha `$ against the terms $`\alpha \mathrm{ln}(eB/m^2)`$. This program has been successfully realized with the main result presented in Eq. (11).

The analysis has shown that the solution of Eq. (11) for the electron physical mass $`m`$ was independent in strong fields on the initial field-free mass $`m_0`$ and was reduced in fact to the solution at $`m_0=0`$. The result (11) has been applied to a calculation of the fermion dynamical mass generated by a magnetic field, in a model with $`N`$ charged fermions which were massless in the field-free limit. This treatment has led us to such unusual conclusions as an existence of a critical number of fermions in the theory, $`N_{cr}`$, such that the dynamical mass has not been arised for $`N>N_{cr}`$ and it has been generated with a doublet splitting for $`N<N_{cr}`$.

The authors of the Comment Gusynin et al. (2002) show, that taking into consideration of a part of the next-to-leading corrections changes the results fundamentally: no $`N_{cr}`$ and no double splitting arise.

However, one can see that using of the “corrected” formula (2) of Ref. Gusynin et al. (2002) instead of our approximate formula (12) of Ref. Kuznetsov and Mikheev (2002) is a little part of a step beyond the LLA. Really, the left-hand side of Eq. (2), Ref. Gusynin et al. (2002), can be rewritten as

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _R}{2\pi }}\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{N\alpha _R}}\gamma _\text{E}\right)+O(\alpha _R^2)\right]\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{eB}{m^2}}.`$ (1)
On the other hand, such the next-to-leading terms $`\alpha _R^2\mathrm{ln}(eB/m^2)`$ have already been neglected, for example, when the truncated set of the Schwinger-Dyson equations was formulated. Namely, the reduction of the exact vertex in a strong magnetic field to the bare one, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \gamma _\mu `$, is valid in LLA only.

To give a conclusion on the dynamical mass generation by a strong magnetic field in the next-to-leading log approximation, one should consistently take such $`\alpha ^2\mathrm{ln}`$ corrections everywhere, and first, without the truncation of the Schwinger-Dyson equation set. To our knowledge, this program was not performed yet.

Regarding the renormalization of the coupling constant $`\alpha _R`$, it follows directly (see, e.g. Kuznetsov et al. (2002)) from the photon polarization operator in a strong magnetic field:

$`𝒫={\displaystyle \frac{N\alpha }{3\pi }}q^2f(\mathrm{}){\displaystyle \frac{2N\alpha }{\pi }}eB\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q_{}^2}{2eB}}\right)H({\displaystyle \frac{q_{}^2}{4m^2}}),`$ (2)
where the function $`H(z)`$ is presented in Eq.(9) of our Letter, and the function $`f(q_{}^2,q_{}^2,m^2,eB)`$ has in general case the form of a double integral over the Fock-Schwinger proper times, and can be extracted from the papers by Tsai and Shabad cited in our Letter. In the limiting case regarding to our consideration, $`q_{}^2,m^2q_{}^2eB`$, the function $`f`$ is simplified, $`f\mathrm{ln}(eB/m^2)1.792`$. It immediately leads in the LLA to Eq.(13) of our Ref. Kuznetsov and Mikheev (2002). In another limit, e.g. $`q_{}^2eB`$, one has $`f\mathrm{ln}(q_{}^2/m^2)5/6`$. In the LLA $`\alpha _R`$ appears to look like a field-free running coupling with the substitution $`\mu ^2eB`$, but in a general case it is a complicated function of the field strength and of the momenta $`q_{}^2,q_{}^2`$. Thus, the statement made in the Comment that we took the running coupling from the one-loop RG equations in QED without a magnetic field, is incorrect.

We note also, that the specificity of our approach is the self-regulation of the “condition” $`\alpha _R<\mathrm{}`$ emphasized in the Comment.

We did not speculate in our Letter on possible physical consequences of an appearance of two different dynamical masses. Possibly, it would lead not only to two different theories, but rather to two different types of domains of our Universe.


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# Realistic shell-model calculations for proton particle-neutron hole nuclei around 132Sn

## I Introduction

The study of nuclei around doubly magic 132Sn is a subject of special interest. This is well evidenced by the attention focused on these nuclei in several recent papers mach01 ; mach02 , which has resulted in a substantial increase in the knowledge of their properties. This offers the opportunity for testing the basic ingredients of shell-model calculations, in particular the neutron-proton effective interaction, well away from the valley of stability.

During the last few years, we have studied several nuclei in the 132Sn region in terms of shell model employing realistic effective interactions derived from modern nucleon-nucleon ($`NN`$) potentials andr97 ; cove97 ; cove99 ; andr99 ; cora02 . While our main aim was to assess the ability of such interactions to give an accurate description of nuclear structure properties, in some cases we have also found it interesting to make predictions which could stimulate experimental efforts to gain further information on nuclei in this region.

So far, we have been mainly concerned with nuclei having few identical valence particles or holes. It is the purpose of this paper to present the results of realistic shell-model calculations for nuclei with proton particles and neutron holes around 132Sn. Actually, the proton particle-neutron hole nucleus 132Sb was already studied in a previous work andr99 , where we considered 100Sn as a closed core and treated the odd proton and the remaining 31 neutrons as valence particles. In that case we derived from the Bonn-A $`NN`$ potential an effective interaction for two nucleons outside 100Sn and consistently used a unique set of single-particle energies for neutrons and protons (see Ref. andr99 ). This effective interaction, however, may not be quite adequate when moving away from closed shells since many-body correlations are likely to come into play. A more appropriate study of 132Sb may be performed by making use of the particle-hole ($`ph`$) formalism, which implies that the proton-neutron effective interaction has to be explicitly derived for a system with one proton particle and one neutron hole away from 132Sn. This is done here starting from the CD-Bonn $`NN`$ potential machleidt01  (in the discussion of Sect. IV we will comment on the results of our previous calculations as compared to the present ones). To have a more complete test of our realistic $`ph`$ interaction, we also consider the neighboring odd-odd isotope 130Sb as well as the two odd neighbors 133Te and 131Sb. We shall see in Sec. III that for the description of the two latter nuclei the effective interaction in the proton-proton and neutron-neutron channels is also quite relevant. The interaction in these two channels is calculated in the particle-particle ($`pp`$) and hole-hole ($`hh`$) formalism, respectively.

To place this work in its proper perspective, it should be mentioned that the first attempts to derive realistic effective interactions in the $`ph`$ formalism date back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this context, we may mention the work of Refs. kuo68 ; blom69 ; kuo70 , where the nuclei 208Bi, 40Ca, 48Ca, and 208Pb were studied using $`ph`$ matrix elements deduced from the Hamada-Johnston potential Hamada62 . In Ref. west69  the effective interaction theory was applied to the study of the relation between the particle-particle and $`ph`$ spectra. An important result of this work was the explanation of the violation of the Pandya $`pp`$-$`ph`$ relation pand56 . Despite these early achievements, little work skour86  along these lines has been done ever since.

By considering the amount of experimental data which are becoming available on proton particle-neutron hole nuclei around 132Sn, we have found it timely to revive this kind of calculations making use of a modern $`NN`$ potential and improved many-body methods for deriving the effective interaction. As regards the latter, we make use here of a new approach bogner02  which provides an advantageous alternative to the use of the traditional Brueckner $`G`$ matrix. It consists in deriving a low-momentum $`NN`$ potential, $`V_{lowk}`$, that preserves the physics of the original potential $`V_{NN}`$ up to a certain cut-off momentum $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This is achieved by integrating out high-momentum components of $`V_{NN}`$. The scattering phase shifts and deuteron binding energy calculated from $`V_{NN}`$ are reproduced by $`V_{lowk}`$. The latter is a smooth potential that can be used directly as input for the calculation of shell-model effective interactions. A detailed description of our derivation of $`V_{lowk}`$ can be found in Ref. bogner02 .

Once the $`V_{lowk}`$ is obtained, the calculation of the matrix elements of the $`pp`$ and $`hh`$ effective interaction proceeds in the usual way, as described, for instance, in Refs. Jiang92 ; cor00 . Our derivation of the effective interaction in the $`ph`$ formalism is outlined in Sec. II. In Sec. III we present the results of our calculations and compare them with the experimental data. Section IV contains a discussion and a summary of our conclusions.

## II Particle-hole effective interaction

Here, we give a brief description of how to derive the shell-model effective interaction $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ within the framework of the $`ph`$ formalism. We use a model space folded-diagram formalism kuosnes90 . The basis states of the model space are the one-particle one-hole states $`\varphi _{ph}a_p^{}a_hC`$, where $`a_p^{}`$ and $`a_h`$ denote respectively a proton particle and neutron hole creation operator and $`C`$ represents the 132Sn core. The secular matrix is of the form

$$(ϵ_pϵ_h)\delta _{ph,p^{}h^{}}+\varphi _{ph}V_{\mathrm{eff}}\varphi _{p^{}h^{}},$$
(1)
where $`ϵ`$ denotes the unperturbed single-particle energy.

The effective interaction can be schematically written kuosnes90  in operator form as

$$V_{\mathrm{eff}}=\widehat{Q}\widehat{Q^{}}\widehat{Q}+\widehat{Q^{}}\widehat{Q}\widehat{Q}\widehat{Q^{}}\widehat{Q}\widehat{Q}\widehat{Q}+\mathrm{},$$
(2)
where $`\widehat{Q}`$ is the irreducible vertex function, usually referred to as the $`\widehat{Q}`$-box. $`\widehat{Q^{}}`$ is obtained from $`\widehat{Q}`$ by removing terms of first order in the interaction. The integral sign above represents a generalized folding operation. Once the $`\widehat{Q}`$-box is calculated, $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is obtained by summing up the folded-diagram series of Eq. (2) to all orders by means of the Lee-Suzuki iteration method suzuki80 .

As mentioned earlier, we have derived from the CD-Bonn $`NN`$ potential the $`V_{lowk}`$ (hereafter this will be abbreviated as $`V`$). Since it is a smooth potential (without strong repulsive core), we can use it directly in the calculation of the the vertex function $`\widehat{Q}`$-box, which is composed of irreducible valence-linked diagrams. We have included all such diagrams through second order in $`V`$, namely six one-body diagrams and six two-body diagrams, shown respectively in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2.

Regarding the one-body diagrams, their calculation within the $`ph`$ formalism is the same as that in the $`pp`$ and $`hh`$ cases. However, since we are dealing with both external particle and hole lines, the calculation of the two-body $`\widehat{Q}`$-box diagrams is somewhat different. For example, the familiar core-polarization diagram, see (e) in Fig. 2, is given by

$$12;J|V_{2\mathrm{p}2\mathrm{h}}|34;J=\frac{1}{\widehat{J}}\underset{J^{}}{}\widehat{J^{}}\underset{\mathrm{ph}}{}(1)^{j_2+j_4+j_p+j_h}X\left(\begin{array}{ccc}j_3j_4J& & \\ j_1j_2J& & \\ J^{}J^{}0& & \end{array}\right)$$

$$\times \left[\frac{1p|V|3h_J^{}^{cc}h4|V|p2_J^{}^{cc}}{\omega (ϵ_1ϵ_4+ϵ_pϵ_h)}+\frac{1h|V|3p_J^{}^{cc}p4|V|h2_J^{}^{cc}}{\omega (ϵ_3ϵ_2+ϵ_pϵ_h)}\right],$$
(3)
where $`\widehat{x}=(2x+1)^{1/2}`$ and $`\omega `$ is the so-called starting energy. $`X`$ is the standard normalized 9-$`j`$ symbol. The matrix elements on the right-hand side of Eq. (3) are the cross-coupled ones kuo81 . They are related to the usual direct-coupled matrix elements by the simple transformation

$`12|V|34_J^{}^{cc}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\widehat{J^{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{J^{\prime \prime }}{}}\widehat{J^{\prime \prime }}X\left(\begin{array}{ccc}j_3j_4J^{\prime \prime }& & \\ j_1j_2J^{\prime \prime }& & \\ J^{}J^{}0& & \end{array}\right)12;J^{\prime \prime }|V|34;J^{\prime \prime }.`$ (7)
Using the diagram rules described in Ref. kuo81 , the expressions for the diagrams in Fig. 1 and the other second-order diagrams of Fig. 2 can be readily obtained.

Note that in our calculation the effective interaction has both one-body and two-body connected terms. The one-body terms summed to the unperturbed energies of Eq. (1) represent the single-particle (SP) and single-hole (SH) energies of 133Sb and 131Sn, respectively. Thus, in Eq. (1) we have replaced the unperturbed energies with the experimental SP and SH energies, while in the $`\varphi _{ph}V_{\mathrm{eff}}\varphi _{p^{}h^{}}`$ matrix elements we have retained only the two-body connected parts for the effective interaction. A subtraction method shurpin83  has been used in extracting the two-body connected parts from the folded diagram series of Eq. (2).

## III Results and Comparison with experiment

In this Section we present and compare with experiment the results of a shell-model study of the four nuclei 132Sb, 130Sb, 133Te, and 131Sb. In our calculations we consider 132Sn as a closed core and let the valence protons and neutron holes occupy the five levels $`0g_{7/2}`$, $`1d_{5/2}`$, $`1d_{3/2}`$, $`2s_{1/2}`$, and $`0h_{11/2}`$ of the 50-82 shell.

As mentioned in the Introduction, we start from the CD-Bonn free $`NN`$ potential and derive the $`V_{lowk}`$ using a value of the cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$=2.1 fm-1 (see Ref. bogner02 ). The effective interaction in the proton-neutron, proton-proton, and neutron-neutron channels has been derived in the $`ph`$, $`pp`$ and $`hh`$ representation, respectively.

The single-particle (SP) and single-hole (SH) energies have been taken from the experimental spectra of 133Sb sanc99  and 131Sn foge84a ; foge84b , respectively. The only exception is the proton $`ϵ_{s_{1/2}}`$ which was taken from Ref. andr97 , since the corresponding SP level has not been observed in 133Sb. Our adopted values for the proton SP energies are (in MeV): $`ϵ_{g_{7/2}}=0.0`$, $`ϵ_{d_{5/2}}=0.962`$, $`ϵ_{d_{3/2}}=2.439`$, $`ϵ_{h_{11/2}}=2.793`$, and $`ϵ_{s_{1/2}}=2.800`$, and for the neutron SH energies: $`ϵ_{d_{3/2}}^1=0.0`$, $`ϵ_{h_{11/2}}^1=0.100`$, $`ϵ_{s_{1/2}}^1=0.332`$, $`ϵ_{d_{5/2}}^1=1.655`$, and $`ϵ_{g_{7/2}}^1=2.434`$. Note that for the $`h_{11/2}^1`$ level we have used the position suggested in Refs. gene00a ; mach02 .

The results for the odd-odd nuclei 132Sb, 130Sb and the odd ones 133Te, 131Sb are presented in subsections A and B, respectively. All calculations have been performed using the OXBASH shell-model code OXBASH .

### III.1 The odd-odd nuclei 132Sb and 130Sb

The most appropriate system to study the proton-neutron interaction is 132Sb, with one proton valence particle and one neutron valence hole. Experimental information on this nucleus is provided by the studies of Refs. ston89 ; mach95 ; bhat01 . Two $`\beta `$-decaying isomers with $`J^\pi =4^+`$ and $`8^{}`$ are known, which originate from the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ and $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ configurations, respectively. While the relative energy of these two states has not been determined, there are indications that the $`8^{}`$ state is located about 200 keV above the $`4^+`$ ground state ston89 . As regards the positive-parity states, besides the other three members of the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ multiplet, some states originating from the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu s_{1/2}^1`$, $`\pi d_{5/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$, and $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{5/2}^1`$ configurations have been identified. However, only three other negative-parity states have been observed and they have not received firm spin assignment. In a very recent study bhat01 , several new transitions feeding the $`8^{}`$ isomer have been revealed. While most of these new states have been interpreted as excitations of the 132Sn core, the $`9^{}`$, $`10^+`$, and $`11^+`$ states at 1.025, 2.799, and 3.199 MeV are attributed to the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ and $`\pi h_{11/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ configurations. In this context, we have found it interesting to also include in our study the 130Sb nucleus, for which five low-lying states with $`J^\pi =5^{},6^{},7^{},8^{}`$ and $`9^{}`$ have been identified walte94 ; gene02  and interpreted as members of the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ multiplet. The comparison between theory and experiment for 130Sb offers therefore the opportunity to gain more information on the proton-neutron interaction.

Several calculated multiplets for 132Sb are reported in Fig. 3 and compared with the existing experimental data. Note that in Fig. 3(a) all energies are relative to the $`4^+`$ state while in Fig. 3(b) they are relative to the $`8^{}`$ state (our calculations predict that the $`8^{}`$ state lies 226 keV above the $`4^+`$ ground state). It should also be noted that in the $`\pi h_{11/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ multiplet we have not included the $`0^+`$, $`1^+`$, and $`2^+`$ states, since no positive-parity state with one of these angular momenta was found to be dominated by this component. For the $`3^+`$, $`4^+`$, and $`5^+`$ members of this multiplet, the percentage of configurations other than the dominant one ranges from 23% to 33 %. All the other states reported in Fig. 3 have a leading component whose percentage is at least 85%.

As regards the comparison between theory and experiment, we see that the calculated energies are in good agreement with the observed ones. In fact, the discrepancies are all in the order of few tens of keV, the only exceptions being the $`1^+`$ and $`9^{}`$ states of the $`\pi d_{5/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ and $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ multiplets, which come about 300 keV above and 200 keV below their experimental counterparts, respectively.

It is evident from Fig. 3 that a main feature of all these multiplets (obviously leaving aside the doublet $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu s_{1/2}^1`$) is that the states with minimum and maximum $`J`$ have the highest excitation energy, while the state with next to the highest $`J`$ is the lowest one. This pattern is in agreement with the experimental one for the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ multiplet and the few experimental data available for the other multiplets also go in the same direction. Before moving to 130Sb, it is worth mentioning that in a very recent paper mach02  some preliminary results are reported concerning the states of the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ multiplet. These results are consistent with the predictions of our calculations.

The calculated $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ multiplet for 130Sb is reported and compared with the available experimental data in Fig. 4. For the experimental levels at 0.085, 0.112, and 0.145 MeV we adopt the $`J^\pi =5^{}`$, $`6^{}`$, and $`7^{}`$ assignment proposed in Ref. walte94 , the $`6^{}`$ state having been also observed in a more recent experiment gene02 . For the level at 0.870 MeV we take the spin-parity value $`J^\pi =9^{}`$ gene02 . We see that the calculated energies practically overlap the experimental ones, thus providing further support to our predictions for 132Sb. As regards the wave functions of the states reported in Fig. 4, we find that they are indeed dominated by the $`ph`$ configuration $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ while the remaining two neutron holes give rise to a zero-coupled pair occupying the $`d_{3/2}`$, $`h_{11/2}`$, and $`s_{1/2}`$ levels.

Based on the above agreement between theory and experiment, we have tried to clarify the nature of the low-lying positive-parity states of 130Sb, none of them having received a firm spin assignment . In Table I all the calculated and experimental levels nndc  up to 0.350 MeV are reported while in the higher-energy region we only include the four levels observed in Ref. gene02 . The negative-parity states already presented in Fig. 4 are also included for the sake of completeness. First, we note that our calculations predict for the ground state $`J^\pi =4^+`$ instead of $`8^{}`$ as experimentally observed. However, in the observed spectrum the $`(4,5)^+`$ state is located only 5 keV above the ground state. As regards the four experimental levels at 0.005, 0.068, 0.075, and 0.267 MeV, we may identify them with our low-lying $`4^+`$, $`3^+`$, $`5^+`$, and $`2^+`$ states, which is supported by the behavior of the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ multiplet in 132Sb. The level at 0.346 MeV can be associated with the calculated second $`3^+`$ state arising from the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu s_{1/2}^1`$ configuration. For the three highest states reported in Table I, we confirm the spin-parity assignment proposed in Ref. gene02  as well as the interpretation of the $`11^+`$ and $`13^+`$ states as arising from the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1h_{11/2}^2`$ configuration. For the $`10^{}`$ state, we predict an admixture of different three-neutron hole configurations with the spectator proton in the $`g_{7/2}`$ level.

### III.2 The odd nuclei 133Te and 131Sb

Let us now come to the results for 133Te and 131Sb. Both these nuclei have been the subject of recent experimental studies bhat01 ; hwan02 ; gene00b , where high-spin states of a particularly simple structure were identified. The calculated spectra of 133Te and 131Sb are compared with the experimental ones in Figs. 5 and 6, where we also report the dominant configurations. We include all the observed and calculated states up to 1.3 and 1.8 MeV for the former and latter nucleus, respectively. The experimental levels in this energy region are taken from Ref. nndc , except the $`J^\pi =\frac{19}{2}^{}`$ in 131Sb which is reported in Ref. gene00b . In the higher energy regions, where several states with unknown or ambiguous spin and parity have been observed, we only include for both nuclei the high-spin states reported in bhat01 ; hwan02 ; gene00b . As regards the calculated spectra, we report the states which can be safely associated with the experimental ones. In addition, we also show one (yrast) or two (yrast and yrare) states with $`J13/2`$ which can be unambiguously identified as belonging to the $`\pi g_{7/2}^2`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$, $`\pi g_{7/2}d_{5/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$, $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^2`$ configurations for 133Te and to the $`\pi g_{7/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^2`$, $`\pi g_{7/2}\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ $`h_{11/2}^1`$ configurations for 131Sb.

For 133Te we find that the six lowest states shown in Fig. 5 originate from the $`\pi g_{7/2}^2`$ $`\nu d_{3/2}^1`$ configuration and have a percentage of the dominant component ranging from 66% to 89%. While the proton wave functions of the ground and first excited states are mainly of seniority-0 nature, the other four states result essentially from the coupling of a neutron hole in the $`d_{3/2}`$ level to the first $`2^+`$ of 134Te. The percentage of the dominant component in the other three groups of states reported in Fig. 5 is at least 90%, the only exceptions being the $`\frac{17}{2}^{}`$ at 2.4 MeV (53%) and the two $`\frac{21}{2}^{}`$ states. As regards these two latter states, they contain almost the same admixture of the $`\pi g_{7/2}d_{5/2}`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ and $`\pi g_{7/2}^2`$ $`\nu h_{11/2}^1`$ configurations. The three groups characterized by a neutron hole in the $`h_{11/2}`$ level correspond just to those existing in the experimental spectrum of 134Te, which arise from the $`\pi g_{7/2}^2`$, $`\pi g_{7/2}d_{5/2}`$ and $`\pi g_{7/2}h_{11/2}`$ configurations. This reflects the effect of the proton-proton effective interaction, while the proton-neutron interaction is responsible for the arrangement of the states inside each group. As regards the quantitative agreement between theory and experiment, we see that all the observed excitation energies are very well reproduced by our calculations, the discrepancies being well below 100 keV for most of the states.

For 131Sb, we find that none of the first seven positive-parity states is dominated by a single configuration. However, it turns out that the ground and first excited states result essentially from the coupling of the valence proton in the $`g_{7/2}`$ and $`d_{5/2}`$ levels to the ground state of 130Sn, while in the other five states the $`g_{7/2}`$ valence proton is coupled to the first $`2^+`$ state. The states of the next two groups shown in Fig. 6 are instead dominated by a single configuration. They correspond to the $`\nu d_{3/2}^1h_{11/2}^1`$ and $`\nu h_{11/2}^2`$ multiplets in 130Sn, with the proton in the $`g_{7/2}`$ level. From Fig. 6 we see that up to 1.8 MeV a one-to-one correspondence can be established between the experimental and calculated spectra. The experimental state at 1.76 MeV with unknown spin and parity may be identified with our $`\frac{9}{2}^{}`$ state at 1.80 MeV. It should be mentioned that some other states, which are not reported in Fig. 6, are predicted by the theory just above the $`\frac{9}{2}^{}`$ one. As it was the case for 133Te, the quantitative agreement is quite satisfactory, the discrepancies being larger than 100 keV only for the excitation energies of the $`\frac{3}{2}^+`$ and $`\frac{11}{2}^+`$ states.

## IV Discussion and conclusions

In this work, we have performed shell-model calculations for the four nuclei 132Sb, 130Sb, 133Te and 131Sb, employing an effective interaction derived from the CD-Bonn nucleon-nucleon potential. This has been done within the framework of a new approach bogner02  to shell-model effective interactions which provides an advantageous alternative to the usual Brueckner $`G`$-matrix method. The effective interaction in the proton-neutron channel has been explicitly calculated in the $`ph`$ formalism.

We have shown that all the experimental data available for these nuclei are well reproduced by our calculations. These data, however, are still rather scanty and we have found it challenging to make predictions which may stimulate further experimental efforts to study these neutron-rich nuclei lying well away from the valley of stability.

In this connection, of great interest are the proton-neutron hole multiplets. A relevant outcome of our calculations is that the highest- and lowest-spin members of each multiplet are well separated from the other states which lie very close in energy (see Figs. 3 and 4). This behavior is completely consistent with the experimental data (only one multiplet, however, is completely known) and is quite similar to that observed more than thirty years ago for the multiplets in the heavier particle-hole nucleus 208Bi kuo68 ; moin69 . Also, it is worth noting that in all of our calculated multiplets the state of spin ($`j_\pi +j_\nu 1`$) is the lowest, in agreement with the predictions of the Brennan-Bernstein coupling rule bren60 .

To conclude this discussion, let us make some comments about our previous calculations on 132Sb andr99 , which were briefly outlined in the Introduction. To start with, we should point out that they also led to a good agreement with the available experimental data. In Table II the excitation energies of the low-lying positive-parity states obtained from the previous and present calculations are reported and compared with the experimental ones. We see that the differences between the results of the two calculations do not exceed few tens of keV. It turns out, however, that significant differences exist for some states which have no experimental counterpart, in particular the $`J=0^+`$ states. Of course, these are to be ascribed to the differences in the two calculations, namely the $`NN`$ potential we start from and the derivation of $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ which implies having two different closed cores, 100Sn and 132Sn. Since a main feature of the present calculations is the derivation of the proton-neutron effective interaction in the particle-hole formalism, we have found it interesting to calculate the $`ph`$ matrix elements starting from the $`pp`$ ones of Ref. andr99  by means of the well-known Pandya transformation pand56  and compare them with those obtained directly in the $`ph`$ formalism. To make this comparison free from ambiguites, the latter have been calculated starting from the Bonn-A $`NN`$ potential. By way of illustration, the matrix elements $`<\pi g_{7/2}\nu d_{3/2}^1;J|V_{\mathrm{eff}}|\pi g_{7/2}\nu d_{3/2}^1;J>`$ and $`<\pi h_{11/2}\nu h_{11/2}^1;J|V_{\mathrm{eff}}|\pi h_{11/2}\nu h_{11/2}^1;J>`$ obtained in the two cases are reported in Table III. We note that the differences are within 150 keV in all cases, with the exception of the $`J=0`$ matrix elements which differ by about 700 keV. These findings are in line with those of the study west69 , where it was shown that the $`pp`$-$`ph`$ transformation of Pandya is an approximation to a more general many-particle relation.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Italian Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (MURST) and by the U.S. DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-88ER40388.


text:
# When is Uniform Rotation an Energy Minimum?

## 1 Introduction

It is a classical notion of hydrodynamics that a state of uniform rotation represents an energy minimum. A simple discussion of this is given by Lynden-Bell & Pringle (1974). The very same paper notes, however, that accretion disks behave in the opposite sense of seeking a state of uniform rotation. Instead, they strive to segregate matter and angular momentum, hoarding all the mass at their centers, and expelling all the angular momentum to large distances. Lynden-Bell and Pringle showed that this behavior emerges as a consequence of mass exchange in the disk, so that whatever unfavorable energy cost is incurred by the differential rotation is more than offset by the decrease in gravitational potential energy.

The question arises of when, more generally, a rotating system system will tend toward a state of constant angular velocity, and when it will accrete toward the singular “black hole” state. Do systems with mass exchange in a gravitational potential necessarily lead to a black hole final state? The problem is clearly one of widespread astrophysical interest, as it has a direct bearing on when rotating gas coalesces into cores and when it simply rotates uniformly.

The magnetorotational instability (Balbus & Hawley 1998) is a natural mechanism to drive a rotating system to either of these states. Imagine a rotating cloud with a small angular velocity gradient. The singular state will be attained only if the instability acts continuously without turning itself off. But this is precisely what the outcome of a core collapse would be: should the core contract due to angular momentum loss, it would rotate more rapidly and increase the initial angular velocity gradient. This in turn increases the growth rate of the instability, leading to an even greater outward flow of angular momentum from the core. On the other hand, should the extracted angular momentum bring the more slowly rotating outer zones into uniform rotation with the more rapidly rotating core, the instability would cease. What then are the conditions that lead a system down one path or the other?

In this Letter we derive a very simple, general result of some astrophysical significance. Though our treatment is brief and straightforward, we are unaware of any discussion of the result in the prior astrophysical literature. We consider a uniformly rotating barotropic gas confined by an external potential. The case of self-gravitating cylinders has been investigated by Inagaki & Hachisu (1978) and Hachisu (1979), but is significantly more complex than our treatment. (A comparison of our work with the results of these authors will be presented in a later more detailed numerical and analytic study.) We show that the energy is a true minimum in a state of uniform rotation if and only if the rotation velocity is everywhere less than the sound speed. If there exists a region of supersonic rotation, then it is possible to find second-order variations that will lower the energy from the extremal state. In this case, the uniformly rotating state is not a minimum, but a saddle point. Supersonic rotation, when it is unstable, evolves not toward a uniform profile, but towards a state of central mass concentration with a surrounding Keplerian-like disk.

The plan of this Letter is as follows. In §2, we present a variational treatment of a non–self-gravitating, uniformly rotating barotropic fluid as described above. In §3, we present a brief discussion of the astrophysical significance of our results, arguing that they provide a simple way of deciding when systems evolve toward uniform rotation, and when they evolve toward a strong central mass with a surrounding disk–halo structure. We also show that our findings may be relevant to understanding the length scales over which molecular cloud cores show coherence.

## 2 Analysis

### 2.1 Equilibrium First Order Variation

Consider a rotating barotropic gas confined by an external potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The energy of the system is

$$E=\left(\frac{1}{2}\rho v^2+\epsilon +\rho \mathrm{\Phi }\right)𝑑V$$
(1)
where $`\rho `$ is the mass density, $`v`$ the velocity, and $`\epsilon `$ is the internal energy density. Introduce first order Eulerian variations into the fluid quantities (e.g. $`\rho \rho +\delta \rho `$, etc.) subject to the constraint that the total mass and the total angular momentum remain constant. We use Lagrangian multipliers $`\zeta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to ensure these conditions (the minus signs are for later convenience), and vary the quantity

$$I=E\zeta \rho 𝑑V\mathrm{\Omega }\rho Rv𝑑V,$$
(2)
where $`R`$ is the cylindrical radius about the axis of rotation. If the energy is an extremum, then $`\delta I=0`$, or

$$0=\left[\delta \rho \left(\zeta \mathrm{\Omega }Rv+\frac{\delta (\mathrm{int})}{\delta \rho }\right)+\delta v\rho \left(v\mathrm{\Omega }R\right)\right]𝑑V,$$
(3)
where the variational derivative of the integrand of equation (1) is

$$\frac{\delta (\mathrm{int})}{\delta \rho }=\frac{v^2}{2}+\frac{d\epsilon }{d\rho }+\mathrm{\Phi }.$$
(4)
We require the coefficients of $`\delta v`$ and $`\delta \rho `$ to vanish independently. The first condition leads to solid body rotation,

$$v=\mathrm{\Omega }R,$$
(5)
whence we may identify the Lagrange multiplier $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with the angular velocity. To understand the consequences of the second condition (vanishing of the $`\delta \rho `$ coefficient), we need to interpret the $`d\epsilon /d\rho `$ derivative. If our $`\delta `$ variations are nondissipative, this is an adiabatic derivative, and the first law of the thermodynamics gives

$$\frac{d\epsilon }{d\rho }=\frac{1}{\rho }(\epsilon +P)=H,$$
(6)
where $`P`$ is the gas pressure, and $`H`$ the enthalpy function. The vanishing of the $`\delta \rho `$ coefficient then yields

$$\frac{v^2}{2}+H+\mathrm{\Phi }=\zeta ,$$
(7)
whence we may identify the Lagrange multiplier $`\zeta `$ with the conserved Bernoulli constant. Equation (7) is simply the integrated form of the hydrostatic equilibrium equation for a uniformly rotating system

$$0=\frac{1}{\rho }\mathbf{}P+\mathbf{}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }\frac{R^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{2}\right)$$
(8)
(recall $`dH=(1/\rho )dP`$), showing that the equilibrium solution is an energy extremum. We do not know at this point that the extremum corresponds to a minimum. For that, we must go to second order in the energy variation.

### 2.2 Second Order Variations

The second-order variation in the integrand of $`E`$ is

$$\delta ^2E=\frac{1}{2}\left[\rho (\delta v)^2+2v\delta \rho \delta v+(\delta \rho )^2\frac{dH}{d\rho }\right]𝑑V.$$
(9)
Define the volume specific angular momentum $`j=\rho Rv`$. Then

$$\rho (\delta v)^2+2v\delta \rho \delta v=\frac{(\delta j)^2}{\rho R^2}\rho v^2\left(\frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }\right)^2.$$
(10)
Note additionally that

$$\frac{dH}{d\rho }=\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{dP}{d\rho }=\frac{a^2}{\rho },$$
(11)
where $`a`$ is the adiabatic sound speed, so that upon substituting for the cross term $`2v\delta \rho \delta v`$ in (9), we are brought to

$$\delta ^2E=\frac{\rho }{2}\left[\left(\frac{\delta j}{\rho R}\right)^2+(a^2v^2)\left(\frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }\right)^2\right]𝑑V.$$
(12)
Equation (12) is the main result of this Letter. If the rotation is subsonic everywhere, then $`\delta ^2E>0`$, and the original equilibrium is a true energy minimum. But if the rotation is supersonic at some point, it is possible to find variations (say with $`\delta j=0`$) for which $`\delta ^2E<0`$. In this case, the energy is not a local minimum, and the possibility of instability is present. Whether a given system is unstable or not depends upon whether it is possible to reach the states of lower energy. Weak magnetic fields give fluids new internal degrees of freedom, and may provide the pathway to these lower energy states. Subsonic and supersonic rotation should have very different consequences for the host system.

## 3 Discussion

We are now in a position to answer the question posed in the Letter title. Subsonic uniform rotation is a true energy minimum, whereas supersonic rotation carries no such guarantee. Note that our procedure does not ensure instability in the latter case, it simply shows that neighboring states of lower energy exist. If a weak magnetic field is present, however, these states should be accessible. Thus, we would expect the MRI to eliminate a small angular velocity gradient and in subsonic rotation, but to accentuate it in supersonic rotation.

The physical content of our result may be understood as follows. The most unstable disturbances (i.e., “steepest descent” in the $`\delta \rho \delta j`$ plane) in a supersonically rotating gas cloud are associated with $`\delta j=0`$ disturbances. While any particular system may or may not be able to follow the route of steepest descent, it is of interest to understand the reason that $`\delta j=0`$ corresponds to such a path. At a given radial distance from the axis, the vanishing of $`\delta j`$ would mean that either (1) the density rises as the angular velocity drops; or (2) that the density drops as the angular velocity rises. The first describes efficient extraction of mass specific angular momentum and the development of a pressure-supported slowly rotating core, the second describes the development of an extended low density disk and the acquisition of mass specific angular momentum.

Typical disk flow will of course rotate rapidly near the core and slowly in the outer regions. But the $`\delta j=0`$ states infinitesimally close to the uniformly rotating equilibrium solution should not be confused with some kind of quasi-Keplerian disk profiles. Rather, they represent the virtual state of the disk after it is subject to variations but before it has relaxed to another equilibrium. However, this behavior is also recognizable as the evolutionary strivings of real systems, with slowly rotating pressure-supported dense cores and diffuse rotationally-supported surroundings.

Self-gravity represents a significant mathematical complication to our analysis, but not necessarily a physical one. One expects the bifurcation condition between supersonic and subsonic behavior to be reasonably accurate even in self-gravitating systems, since it is the outer regions that are prone to instability. Here, the direct effects of self-gravity tend to be locally less important. A numerical simulation is being undertaken by the authors to investigate this point in detail.

One practical application of these ideas is to be found in the scales of rotating molecular cores internal to larger turbulent cloud complexes. Barranco & Goodman (1998) and Goodman et al. (1998) present the results of an observational study of coherence in molecular cloud cores. On length scales smaller than $`R_{coh}0.1`$ pc, molecular linewidths are constant with scale, while on larger length scales than $`R_{coh}`$ the linewidths are scale-dependent. It is suggested that $`R=R_{coh}`$ marks the transition between coherent and noncoherent (i.e. turbulent) behavior, and is, as such, an inner scale to a turbulent cascade. The interesting question of what sets the value of $`R_{coh}`$ remains open, with these authors favoring an interpretation in which $`R_{coh}`$ is a dissipation scale for MHD processes.

The results presented in this Letter may be relevant to understanding the formation of these uniformly rotating cloud cores if the existence of lower energy states for supersonic rotation follows the scenario we have presented above. The velocity gradient $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{sin}i`$ (where $`i`$ is the inclination of the rotation axis to the line of sight) of several cloud cores is presented in Table (4) of Barranco & Goodman (1998). A representative value for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ from this tabulation is about 1 km s-1 pc-1. At $`T=10`$ K, the adiabatic sound speed for molecular gas of cosmic abundances is 0.22 km s-1. This means that the radius of the cores should all be less than the sonic rotation radius $`R_s=0.22`$ pc, and such is indeed the case. Moreover, since the cores have likely coalesced, their inferred scale of 0.1 pc is quite consistent with this larger initial radius of core detachment. The above argument ignores magnetic and turbulent support in the cores, but such support appears to be subsonic for the $`H_2`$ gas in these regions (Barranco & Goodman 1998). In this interpretation, molecular cores do in fact mark the scale at which a transition to coherence occurs, but this scale is present for reasons that are essentially dynamical, not dissipative, in character.

A somewhat more theoretical implication of our results concerns the edge behavior of uniformly rotating cores. A polytrope has a temperature scaling as $`T\rho ^{\gamma 1}`$ ($`\gamma `$ is the usual adiabatic index), so that any finite rotation speed for sufficiently low density will become supersonic. Edge cooling will have a similar effect, more generally. In essence, uniform rotation may not be maintained across the radial extent of a gaseous body with a cold outer surface layer. Provided there is a pathway to the local lower-lying energy states, the supersonic surface layers will soak up angular momentum, and form an outer disk. This process will continue on a time scale given by the cooling time of the core’s surface layers. Keplerian-like disks with uniformly rotating cores would thereby result.

A more definitive exploration of the evolutionary differences between supersonic and subsonic rotation, including the effects of self-gravity, is best carried out by way of numerical simulation techniques. These are currently in progress, and will be reported upon in a forthcoming journal article.

We thank J. Papaloizou and C. Terquem for helpful discussions. SF would like to thank the Programme National de Physique Stellaire and the Programme National de Planétologie for travel support. SAB is grateful to the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris for its visitor support, and acknowledges support from NASA grants NAG 5–9266 and NAG – 10655, and NSF grant AST–0070979.


text:
# Prospects for Observing an Invisibly Decaying Higgs Boson in the 𝐭𝐭̄𝐇 Production at the LHC

## 1 Introduction

While several production and decay modes of the Higgs boson have already been studied in the past , the invisibly decaying Higgs boson has not yet been exhaustively discussed in the searches scenarios of the LHC experiments. There are however many different and reasonable theoretical ideas which implicate an invisibly decaying Higgs boson. These motivations include models with light neutralinos, spontaneously broken lepton number, radiatively generated neutrino masses, additional single scalar(s), or right handed neutrinos in the extra dimensions. For a nice recent overview see e.g. .

Some theoretical studies have already some time ago addressed the question of how to look for the evidence of an invisible Higgs decay. In  the use of the $`WH/ZH`$ production mode was suggested and roughly evaluated. This analysis have been recently revised in . The observation of the invisibly decaying Higgs boson in the associated $`t\overline{t}H`$ production has been proposed in . Prospects for the observability of this decay mode in the Vector Boson Fusion production has been proposed and evaluated in . The aforementioned options have been recently revisited in , where the results from the more experiment–specific analyses were reported.

In this paper the prospects for observation of an invisibly decaying Higgs in the $`t\overline{t}H`$ production are revised. The evidence will be an excess of very exclusively selected events with a single isolated lepton, large missing transverse energy, two identified b-jets and one reconstructed top-quark in the hadronic decay mode. Such signature requires very dedicated work on understanding the systematic sources originating in both physics and detector simulation. Currently, all these aspects can certainly not be covered. The aim of this paper is rather to evaluate possible sources of the Standard Model backgrounds and to identify the dominant contributions thereof.

## 2 Signal and Background Processes

The proton-proton collisions at 14 TeV centre-of-mass energy are simulated, using the matrix element based generator AcerMC  and general purpose generators PYTHIA  and HERWIG  for event generation.

The signal events, $`gg,q\overline{q}t\overline{t}H`$, are generated with the PYTHIA event generator. No model for the invisibly decaying Higgs is assumed; the only postulate is that the Higgs boson is invisible to the detector. The latter is equivalent to assuming a 100% branching ratio of the Higgs boson to invisible particles and its coupling to the $`t\overline{t}`$ pair is set equal the Standard Model prediction. In addition, any assumptions on the mass/spin of the invisible decay products are omitted. The signal production in the mass range 100-200 GeV is analysed.

For simulation of the computationally demanding $`24`$ background processes the presented study benefits from the availability of the matrix element implementations and efficient phase-space modeling in the AcerMC generator. Events generated with the matrix elements of AcerMC are further evolved through the QCD shower algorithms and eventually hadronised using the shower evolution provided by PYTHIA. In addition, the top-quark decays in the matrix element processes generated by AcerMC are handled by PYTHIA. The CTEQ5L parton density functions  and the default settings of the initialisation parameters for PYTHIA and HERWIG are used. The cross-sections for signal and background processes are specified in Table 1.

The proposed analysis relies on identifying the top-quark pair production in the association with the invisibly decaying object and the lepton-hadron*** lepton-hadron denotes one top quark decaying $`tWbq\overline{q}b`$ and the other $`tWb\mathrm{}\nu b`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ stands for electron or muon. decay mode of the top-quark pair, where an isolated lepton will trigger an experiment. In the initial step of the events selection one requires two identified (tagged) b-jets, at least two additional jets in the central detector region and a large missing transverse energy. The possible background processes are those which involve a top-quark pair or b-quark pair production associated with the W or Z-boson.

$`\mathrm{𝐠𝐠},𝐪\overline{𝐪}𝐭\overline{𝐭}`$ : This irreducible continuum background is generated both with PYTHIA and HERWIG generators. As the implementations of the QCD showering/hadronisation models are different in PYTHIA and HERWIG, it is considered as very interesting to study how the consistency of the estimates from both event samples, while the same initial cross-section is assumedThe PYTHIA cross-section value is used throughout the analysis. The HERWIG cross-section prediction is lower by $``$17%, mainly due to the different implementation of $`\alpha \mathrm{QCD}`$..

$`\mathrm{𝐠𝐠},𝐪\overline{𝐪}𝐭\overline{𝐭}𝐙,𝐙\nu \nu `$ : This irreducible resonant background is generated with the AcerMC matrix element generator.

$`𝐪\overline{𝐪}𝐭\overline{𝐭}𝐖,𝐖\mathrm{}\nu `$ : This reducible background is generated with the AcerMC matrix element generator. In the implemented matrix element the W-boson from the hard process is forced to decay into a lepton and neutrino. As the required lepton can also be produced in the semi-leptonic top-quark decays, the hard-process W-boson could thus also decay hadronically; consequently the generated background is multiplied by an combinatorial factor three in the final results. This approximation is acceptable under the assumption that the acceptance is roughly comparable for events involving either a leptonic decay of the W-boson from the hard process or a leptonic decay of a W-boson from top-quark decays. This is an acceptable assumption as already the initial cross-section for this process is comparable with the signal values and the irreducible $`t\overline{t}Z`$ background predictions. Even with the combinatorial factor three included, the $`t\overline{t}W`$ background contribution is expected to be on the order of the $`t\overline{t}Z`$ contribution at most.

$`\mathrm{𝐠𝐠},𝐪\overline{𝐪}𝐛\overline{𝐛}𝐙/\gamma ^{},𝐙/\gamma ^{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{𝐣𝐞𝐭𝐬}`$ : This reducible background is generated with the AcerMC matrix element generator. The $`Z/\gamma ^{}`$ is required to decay into a lepton pair. This background process is considered to reproduce quite reliably the estimates from the inclusive ’Z-boson $``$ jets’ production. Recent study in  has shown that the rates for $`Zb\overline{b}`$ events agree within 10% with the predictions of the more inclusive approach of generating $`q\overline{q}Z`$ hard processes and invoking parton shower afterward. Requiring a reconstruction of one top-quark in the hadronic mode, large missing transverse energy and vetoing additional lepton will strongly suppress this background.

$`𝐪\overline{𝐪}𝐛\overline{𝐛}𝐖,𝐖\mathrm{}\nu \mathrm{𝐣𝐞𝐭𝐬}`$ : This reducible background is generated with the AcerMC matrix element generator. The W boson is required to decay to a lepton and neutrino. This background represents the lowest limit of what is expected from the ’inclusive W $``$ jets’ production. Recent study in  has shown that the more inclusive, parton shower based estimates for events with two b-jets and one isolated lepton, are not exceeding the matrix element results by more than a factor two. Requiring reconstruction of one top-quark in the hadronic mode and a large transverse missing energy will suppress it strongly.

The list presented above, although quite exhaustive already, does not include different reducible backgrounds with one or two misidentified b-jets. From the experience of several studies done in , one does not expect these backgrounds to contribute more than 20-30% of the respective backgrounds with two true b-quarks.

In the presented analysis about $`10^8`$ unweighted events were generated for the $`t\overline{t}`$ process with PYTHIA and HERWIG and about $`10^6`$ for each of the background processes generated with AcerMC.

## 3 Simplified Detector Simulation

For the needs of this analysis a simplified version, , of the fast simulation/reconstruction of the ATLAS detector at LHC was used. It reads generated events and provides reconstructed experimental observables: isolated leptons, jets, identified b-jets, transverse energy. Isolated leptons are reconstructed within the pseudo-rapidity range of $`|\eta |<2.5`$; the same pseudo-rapidity coverage is possible for b-jet identification. Jets are reconstructed within $`|\eta |<5.0`$. The transverse momentum thresholds are set for trigger muon to 20 GeV, for trigger electron to 25 GeV and the threshold for jet reconstruction is set to 15 GeV. Additional leptons are vetoed with the threshold of 6 GeV for muon and 10 GeV for electron.

The applied estimates are a 90% efficiency for lepton identification and reconstruction, about 80% efficiency for jet reconstruction and 60% efficiency for b-jet identification (with misidentification probability of 1% for light jets and 10% for c-jets). Resolution of the reconstructed missing transverse energy components is on the order of 6 GeV.

These performance figures are representative for the low luminosity operation of the ATLAS detector. More details about the detector performance and fast simulation/reconstruction can also be found in .

## 4 Analysis

The invisibly decaying Higgs boson production in association with two top-quarks leads to a very distinct signature, namely the large missing transverse energy and an accompanying top-quark pair. Requiring a fully or partially reconstructed top-quark pair will allow for strong suppression of backgrounds from W or Z production, leaving the $`t\overline{t}`$ background as the dominant one. The (reducible) top-quark background production rate is enormous, the initial cross-section is by factor $`5\times 10^25\times 10^3`$ higher then the signal one. The only notable distinction between the signal events and the $`t\overline{t}`$ events should be a much larger missing transverse energy. Therefore, a selection which implies accepting the purest possible sample with fully reconstructed hadronic top-quark decay and partially reconstructed semi-leptonic top decay is proposed.

The focal point of the proposed selection is to suppress as much as possible the contribution from events with one $`t\mathrm{}\nu b`$ and another $`t\tau \nu b`$ decay, which results in presence of lepton and a a large transverse missing energy in the event.

* An isolated lepton from the semi-leptonic decay of the one top-quark is required to provide trigger for these events. In addition, a veto on events with an additional isolated lepton is set in order to suppress the $`Z/\gamma ^{}b\overline{b}`$ background.
* Both b-jets have to be identified (tagged), which efficiently reduces background from the inclusive Z- or W-boson production.
* One top-quark reconstructed in the hadronic decay mode $`tjjb`$ is required. The best $`jjb`$ combination is chosen from the set of possible permutations, the criteria being $`m_{jj}=m_W\pm 15`$ GeV and $`|\eta ^{jet}|<2.0`$. Taking only the central jets for $`Wjj`$ reconstruction reduces the fraction of events with “fake” reconstruction of the “ $`Wjj`$”, where the jets originate in the initial or final state QCD radiation and not in the W-boson decay. We apply a W-mass constraint in order to re-calibrate the four-momenta of jets as this optimises the resolution of the reconstructed $`jjb`$ system. The $`jjb`$ system is considered to reconstruct a top-quark if $`m_{jjb}=m_t\pm 25`$ GeV.
* It is not feasible, without further assumptions, to require a full reconstruction of the semi-leptonically decaying top-quark in signal events. For such a reconstruction one needs information on the missing transverse energy from the W-boson decay. The latter is however not available, as both the leptonic W-boson decay and the Higgs boson decay itself contribute to the missing transverse energy in those events. Instead, we decided to explore the fact that the expected transverse mass of the lepton and $`\mathit{}_T`$ system, $`m_T(\mathrm{},\mathit{}_T)`$, is much higher in the signal than in the $`t\overline{t}`$ background events, see Figure 1. For the $`t\overline{t}`$ events, with the missing transverse energy coming predominantly from the $`W\mathrm{}\nu `$ decay, one can observe characteristic sharp end-point in the $`\mathit{}_T`$ distribution at about the W-boson mass. The tail in this distribution is contributed mostly by events with one $`W\tau \nu `$ decay or with both W-bosons decaying $`W\mathrm{}\nu `$. For selection we require $`m_T(\mathrm{},\mathit{}_T)>120`$ GeV.
* A relatively large missing transverse energy of the system, $`\mathit{}_T>150`$ GeV, is required.
* The signal-to-background ratio is enhanced by the additional requirement of the large transverse momenta in the reconstructed system, $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}>250`$ GeV. The $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}=p_T^j+p_T^l`$ where the sum runs over the transverse momenta of reconstructed objects from top-quarks decays: two b-jets, two light jets used for the reconstruction of the $`Wq\overline{q}`$ decay and an isolated lepton. This further suppresses the backgrounds where true top quarks are not present, like $`b\overline{b}Z`$ and $`b\overline{b}W`$.
* Finally, further enhancement of the signal-to-background ratio can be achieved by the additional requirement on the cone separation, $`R_{jj}`$, between jets which were used for the $`Wjj`$ reconstruction, the $`R_{jj}<2.2`$.

In Table 2 the selection criteria and cumulative acceptances from signal and dominant background processes are specified. The selection cutoff $`\mathit{}_T>150`$ GeV is quite loose and certainly can be optimised further. The cumulative acceptance for signal events after these cuts is about 0.3%. The acceptance is indeed very similar for the $`t\overline{t}H`$ signal events at $`m_H=120`$ GeV and for the $`t\overline{t}Z`$ background events. The cumulative acceptance for the $`t\overline{t}`$ process is of $`7.610^6`$ for PYTHIA events and $`1.210^5`$ for HERWIG events.

After performing the selection, about 70% of the $`t\overline{t}`$ events comes from the lepton-tau  The lepton-tau label denotes one top quark decaying $`tWb\mathrm{}\nu b`$ and another $`tWb\tau \nu b`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ stands for electron or muon. The lepton-lepton decay labels events with both top quarks decaying $`tWb\mathrm{}\nu b`$. Finally, the lepton-hadron decay labels events with one top quark decaying $`tWb\mathrm{}\nu b`$ and another $`tWbq\overline{q}b`$  decay and 20% from the lepton-lepton decay of the top-quark pair in the PYTHIA sample with compatible fractions also found in HERWIG events. In these two cases the $`jjb`$ combination is thus made from the ISR/FSR jets and not from the true $`Wq\overline{q}`$ decays. These events could hopefully be suppressed further by implementing a tau-jet veto and with more stringent requirements in the $`tjjb`$ reconstruction. The cumulative acceptance for the $`t\overline{t}`$ background is found to be about 50% higher for events generated with HERWIG than with PYTHIA generator. The signal events in contrast contain only a $`10\%`$ fraction of lepton-tau and lepton-lepton decays; the relative fractions of signal and $`t\overline{t}`$ background events are shown in Figure 2.

Considering the relative fractions of the tau-lepton events in the signal and background, one can assume that the inter-jet cone separation, $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}`$, might provide some additional separation power; the $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}`$ for signal and $`t\overline{t}`$ background events are given in Figure 2. Subsequently, a loose cut of $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}<2.2`$ was applied; the final efficiencies are listed in Table 2.

It can reasonably be assumed that the $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}`$ cut is the most sensitive one to the modeling of ISR and FSR jets, which in certain regions of phase space might not be adequately described by the parton shower generators such as PYTHIA or HERWIG. Nevertheless, since the efficiency for the $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}`$ cut is nearly identical for the $`t\overline{t}`$ backgrounds produced by PYTHIA and HERWIG(c.f. Table 2), it is assumed that the cut is robust enough to be included. Due to its clear physics content it should remain valid also when more accurate simulations of the $`t\overline{t}jets`$ background become available.

The distributions of the rapidity and transverse momentum of the two light jets used in the $`Wq\overline{q}`$ reconstruction in contrast do not exhibit a significant difference when originating either in true $`Wjj`$ events, $`W\tau \nu `$ or in the initial or final state radiation but for an expected tendency to higher rapidities and lower transverse momenta, typical for the ISR/FSR jets. The obtained distributions for the $`t\overline{t}`$ background are shown in Figure 3.

The expected numbers of events for an integrated luminosity of $`30fb^1`$ are given In Table 3. Several values of the Higgs boson masses are studied, while assuming the Standard Model production cross-sections.

Taking as an example the results for the $`t\overline{t}`$ background obtained with PYTHIA generator, the signal-to-background ratio is about 39% for Higgs boson mass of 100 GeV and about 9% for the Higgs mass of 200 GeV. The total number of expected events from all backgrounds, but the $`t\overline{t}`$ one, is on the level of the signal itself. It is evident that in case the “fake” reconstructions could be eliminated in the $`t\overline{t}`$ events, the signal-to-background ratio could be brought to e.g. 90% for the $`m_H=120`$ GeV, without changing thresholds on the $`\mathit{}_T`$.

In Figure 4 the expected final (post-selection) distribution of the $`\mathit{}_T`$ and $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$ is shown for the Higgs mass of 120 GeV. One can clearly see that the shape of the $`\mathit{}_T`$ distribution is much steeper for the $`t\overline{t}`$ events than for the signal ones. In addition, the shape of the $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$ distribution is different for both classes of events and in fact the applied threshold 250 GeV is shown to be rather low. One may also expect that the shape of the $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$ (or analogous) distributions will be sensitive to the Higgs boson mass, thus allowing for the extraction of that information with some precision, limited by the signal-to-background ratio.

One can certainly increase the signal-to-background ratio by rising thresholds on the $`R_{\mathrm{jj}}`$,$`\mathit{}_T`$, $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$ or other reconstructed visible observables, like e.g. the total transverse momenta of the top-quark and lepton system, $`P_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$, or transverse momenta of the top-quark, $`p_T^{top}`$. Taking as the reference the distributions shown in Figure 5, increasing the threshold on the $`\mathit{}_T`$ to about 250 GeV would result in increasing the signal-to-background ratio (only $`t\overline{t}`$ background) to about one, while still keeping the expected number of signal events to about 20.

One can also increase signal-to-background ratio by further optimising the selection criteria, e.g. by asking for an isolation in the azimuthal angle of the $`\mathit{}_T`$ direction from the reconstructed jets, reconstructed top-quark or the isolated lepton. It has been checked that the moderate isolation requirement, $`\delta \varphi >0.4`$, can improve signal-to-background ratio by 20-30% at the price of reducing signal rates by a comparable amount.

Nevertheless, in our opinion, the key point for the signal observability remains the experimental efficiency for reducing the fake $`Wq\overline{q}`$ reconstruction and thus the contribution from the $`t\overline{t}`$ events with lepton-tau and lepton-lepton decays.

## Conclusions

The prospects for observing the invisibly decaying Higgs boson in the $`t\overline{t}H`$ production at LHC were discussed. The proposed analysis required one top-quark reconstructed in the hadronic decay mode, an isolated lepton (electron, muon) from the decay of the second top-quark and a large missing transverse energy. Evidence for signal would be an observation of an excess of such events above the background. Expected excess can be on the level from 10% to even 100% or more, depending on the required threshold on the missing transverse energy and on the assumed Higgs boson mass. It can be expected that some sensitivity to the Higgs boson mass could be revealed by the hardness of the reconstructed visible part of the event, the $`p_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$, $`P_T^{\mathrm{rec}}`$ or similar distributions. The signal observability should not degrade significantly for the high-luminosity operation of the detectors. Thus, the sensitivity to the signal is expected to rise with the increasing collected integrated luminosity.

The availability of the matrix element implementations for $`t\overline{t}Z`$, $`t\overline{t}W`$, $`t\overline{t}Z`$ and $`t\overline{t}W`$ processes in the AcerMC generator allowed to conclude that the total contribution from these background processes could be kept on the level or below the signal one.

The dominant Standard Model background comes from the $`t\overline{t}`$ production with one top-quark decaying semi-leptonically into electron or muon and the second one into tau-lepton. It was also shown, by comparing results for the $`t\overline{t}`$ background generated with PYTHIA and HERWIG Monte Carlo, that for the final estimate one would have to study very carefully systematics from the showering, hadronisation and decays models. The key to reduce the $`t\overline{t}`$ background further will be the purest possible reconstruction of the top-quark hadronic decays ($`tq\overline{q}b`$), thus eliminating the events with the top-quark decaying to tau-lepton ($`t\tau \nu b`$).

It was concluded that the final optimisation of the observability potential demands much more sophisticated experimental analysis than foreseen in the scope of this paper. Rather than increasing threshold on the required missing transverse energy one should aim for the best possible suppression of the contribution from the tau-lepton events of the top-quark pair decays.

In Table 4 a comparison between the sensitivity to the invisible Higgs production in the $`t\overline{t}H`$ channel and in the $`qqqqH`$ vector boson fusion (VBF) published in  is given in terms of the sensitivity of the $`\xi ^2`$ parameter:

$$\xi ^2=\frac{\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H})}{\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H})_{\mathrm{SM}}}\times \mathrm{Br}(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{inv}).$$

The parameter $`\xi ^2`$, as defined in  and presented in Table 4, serves as an estimate of the branching fraction
$`\mathrm{Br}(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{inv})`$. It is derived from the fact that since the true $`\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H})`$ is also not known a priori, one is restricted to measuring the $`\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{inv})=\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H})\times \mathrm{Br}(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{inv})`$ and thus the $`\mathrm{Br}(\mathrm{H}\mathrm{inv})`$ estimate has to be scaled by the ratio between the unknown cross-section and the Standard Model prediction $`\sigma (\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H})_{\mathrm{SM}}`$. The Table 4 lists the sensitivity limits of the $`\xi ^2`$ which can be probed at 95% confidence level. In the table the VBF limits have been re-scaled to the luminosity of $`30\mathrm{f}\mathrm{b}^1`$; in case the data point was not provided the nearest value was taken.

The presented limits of $`\xi ^2`$ do not contain the estimates of systematic uncertainties since the level of uncertainty about the background predictions is in our opinion still too large, as it is evident from the difference between PYTHIA and HERWIG predictions for the $`t\overline{t}`$ background. It might well be, that for more firm background estimates one might have to wait for the availability of NLO Monte-Carlo generators and/or tuning on the data itself.

It is nevertheless evident that even if an efficient way to reject events with fake $`Wjj`$ reconstruction (topological selection, tau-jet veto) is found the potential for invisible Higgs detection in the $`t\overline{t}H`$ channel is about a factor two to three less weaker than with the VBF channel  in the low-mass Higgs region while in the high-mass region the clear VBF dominance is evident. One has to stress, however that the $`t\overline{t}H`$ channel does not require the implementation of an efficient forward jet trigger essential for the VBF studies as stated in  and that with more stringent cut optimisation it might still be possible to significantly increase the sensitivity listed in Table 4.

The associated Higgs production $`t\overline{t}H`$ already turned to be very powerful for the $`Hb\overline{b}`$ decay mode . Establishing the observability in the same production mode and the complementary decay channel (if $`Hinv`$ is open the $`Hb\overline{b}`$ is suppressed) will make this search very interesting in the range of the intermediate strength of both decays.