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# Constraints on the 22Ne(𝛼,n)25Mg s-process neutron source from analysis of natMg+n total and 25Mg(n,𝛾) cross sections

## I Introduction

During helium-burning and, perhaps, carbon-burning phases in massive and intermediate mass stars, the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction is thought to be the neutron source driving the synthesis of nuclides in the A$``$60-90 mass range during the slow-neutron-capture (s) process Kappeler (1999); Hoffman et al. (2001). The s process in these stars also can modify the abundances of several lighter nuclides. The 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction also acts as a secondary neutron source during the s process in low-mass asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars during which roughly half the abundances of nuclides in the A$``$90 - 209 range are thought to be synthesized Straniero et al. (1995). Although the overall neutron exposure due to this reaction in AGB stars is much smaller than that due to 13C($`\alpha `$,n)16O, the neutron density as well as the temperature are much higher during the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg phase, resulting in important modifications to the final s-process abundances. Massive stars during their later burning stages are also the leading candidates for the production of the rare neutron-deficient isotopes of nuclides in the A$``$90 mass range through the so-called p process. Because the s process in these stars produces seed nuclides for a later p process, the size of the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate used in the stellar model can have a significant effect on the predicted abundances of the p isotopes Costa et al. (2000).

There have been several attempts to determine the rate for this reaction either through direct 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements Drotleff et al. (1991); Harms et al. (1991); Drotleff et al. (1993); Giesen et al. (1993); Jaeger et al. (2001) or indirectly via 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg Berman et al. (1969) or charged-particle transfer reactions Giesen et al. (1993). However, direct measurements have suffered from relatively poor resolution as well as the fact that the cross section is extremely small at the lower energies corresponding to s-process temperatures. Indirect methods have also suffered from limited sensitivity and relatively poor resolution. This rate, in principle, could be determined via the inverse 25Mg(n,$`\alpha `$)22Ne reaction, but the small size of the cross section in the relevant energy range makes these measurements exceedingly difficult, so no results have been reported. As a result, various evaluations Drotleff et al. (1993); Caughlan and Fowler (1988); Kappeler et al. (1994); Angulo et al. (1999) of this rate show considerable differences and all but the most recent Jaeger et al. (2001) recommend uncertainties much larger than needed to adequately constrain astrophysical models. Because the lowest observed resonance (Eα=832 keV, which corresponds to En=235 keV in the inverse reaction) in direct 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements is considerably above the most important energy range for s-process temperatures, the uncertainty in this rate is dominated by the poorly known properties of states in 26Mg between this resonance and threshold. Because both 22Ne and 4He have $`J^\pi `$=0+, only natural parity (0+, 1-, 2+..) states in 26Mg can participate in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction, so only a subset of 26Mg states in the relevant energy range observed via neutron reactions can contribute to the reaction rate. Most evaluations have made the assumption that either all, or only one, of the known states Mughabghab et al. (1981); Endt (1998) in this region can contribute to the reaction rate. For example, in the recent NACRE Angulo et al. (1999) evaluation, all known states in this region were considered when calculating the uncertainty whereas in the most recent report Jaeger et al. (2001) only one state was assumed to have natural parity. As a result, the recommended uncertainties in the NACRE evaluation are much larger than those in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001). For example, at $`T`$=0.2 GK, the NACRE uncertainty is approximately 300 times larger than that given in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001).

Much of the information about states in 26Mg in the relevant energy region comes from neutron measurements Newson et al. (1959); Singh et al. (1974); Weigmann et al. (1976). In principle, the combination of neutron total and capture cross section measurements on 25Mg can determine all of the relevant resonance parameters (Er, $`J^\pi `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_^_\gamma `$) except $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$ with much better sensitivity and to greater precision than other techniques. Both high-resolution natMg+n total and 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg cross sections have been reported Weigmann et al. (1976) and some resonance parameters were extracted from these data. However, the resonance analysis was rather limited and it is possible to extract much more information using current techniques. For example, resonance shapes and peak heights in the total cross section should allow the extraction of Jπ values, but no definite assignments were made in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) for states in 26Mg. Also, it should be possible to determine the partial widths for many of the resonances, but only five $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$ and no $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ values were reported for the 17 25Mg+n resonances reported in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). Partial width information can be particularly valuable in assessing the relative strengths of the competing 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg reactions in stars, and hence the efficiency of the s-process neutron source.

I have analyzed previously reported Weigmann et al. (1976) $`^{\text{nat}}`$Mg+n total and 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg cross sections using the multi-level, multi-channel $``$-matrix code SAMMY Larson (2000) to obtain a much improved set of resonance parameters for states from threshold through the lowest observed 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonances. In the next section, I describe the data and analysis technique used. In section III, I compare the new results to previous analyses of neutron data as well as resonance parameter information from 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg, 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg, and 22Ne(6Li,d)26Mg measurements. In section IV, I use the new resonance parameters together with recently reported Jaeger et al. (2001) upper limits for the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg cross section to compute the uncertainty in this rate at s-process temperatures. I conclude that the most recent report Jaeger et al. (2001) of this reaction rate has underestimated the uncertainty by at least a factor of 10 and that high resolution 25Mg+n total cross section measurements would be invaluable in further refining the uncertainty in this important reaction rate.

## II Data and $``$-matrix Analysis

The best data for the present purposes are those of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). The data consist of very high resolution natMg+n total and high-resolution 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg cross sections measured using time-of-flight techniques at the white neutron source of the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA) facility Peelle et al. (1982); Bockhoff et al. (1990); Reffo et al. (1997). Total cross sections were measured using a relatively thick (0.2192 at/b) metallic Mg sample and a plastic scintillator detector on a 200-m flight path. The neutron capture measurements were made using a thin (0.030 at/b), 97.87% enriched sample on a 40-m flight path, and employed the pulse-height weighting technique using fluorocarbon scintillators to detect the $`\gamma `$ rays. Although total cross section measurements have been reported Newson et al. (1959) using an enriched 25Mg sample, the data are of much lower resolution and precision than those of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976).

The original, unaveraged natMg+n transmission data were obtained Harvey and Wiarda (2001) to preserve the best resolution so that the best possible parameters could be obtained from fitting the data. The data between resonances were averaged to speed up the fitting process. Only a subset of the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data, corresponding to energy regions near the resonances reported in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) and extending to only En=275 keV, could be located Macklin (2001). These data were corrected by a factor of 0.9325 as recommended in Ref. Macklin and Winters (1981). The 24,26Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)25,27Mg data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) could not be found.

The data were fitted with the $``$-matrix code SAMMY Larson (2000) to extract resonance parameters. All three stable Mg isotopes were included in the analysis because the sample for the total cross section measurements was natural Mg (78.99% 24Mg, 10.00% 25Mg, and 11.01% 26Mg). Orbital angular momenta up to and including d-waves were considered. Radii of 4.9 fm were used in all 25Mg+n channels as well as the 24Mg+n d-wave channels, and a radius of 4.3 fm was used in all 26Mg+n channels. Because 24Mg is the major isotope in natural Mg and because the s\- and p-wave penetrabilities are considerably larger than d-wave at these energies, the s\- and p-wave radii for 24Mg+n were allowed to vary while fitting the total cross sections. The fitted radii were 5.88 fm and 4.17 fm for s\- and p-waves, respectively, in 24Mg+n. All resonances up to the highest energy given in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) (1.754 MeV) were included in the $``$ matrix although I did not attempt to fit the total cross section data above 500 keV because the unavailability of 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data above 275 keV made it increasingly difficult to assign 25Mg+n resonances at the higher energies. The parameters of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976), supplemented by those in Ref. Mughabghab et al. (1981) in some cases, were used as starting points in the fitting process.

The starting parameters required considerable adjustments in some cases to fit the data. Some of these differences probably can be ascribed to the Breit-Wigner fitting approach of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). The resulting parameters are given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. All parameters for all observed resonances are included in these tables, even those that are not well determined, so that the present results could be duplicated if necessary. The natMg+n and 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) and the SAMMY fits are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively.

Although I did not have 24,26Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)25,27Mg data to fit, the gamma widths for the strong resonances and the neutron widths for the weak resonances presented herein were calculated to be consistent with the corrected Macklin and Winters (1981) neutron capture data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). For strong resonances that were clearly visible in the total cross section data, the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ values in Tables 1 and 2 were calculated to yield the corrected Macklin and Winters (1981) capture kernels ($`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) given in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). Because $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n>>\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ for these resonances, the choice of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ has negligible effect on the fit to the total cross section data. For weak resonances not visible in the total cross section, I used $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ = 3.0 eV and the corrected Macklin and Winters (1981) capture kernels of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) to calculate the neutron widths. I used $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ = 3.0 eV because it appears to be close to the average gamma width for these nuclides. In these cases, it is clear that the neutron widths are fairly small. I also used $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ = 3.0 eV for those cases where neither capture kernels nor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ values were given in Refs. Weigmann et al. (1976); Mughabghab et al. (1981). Because the neutron widths for these resonances are large, any physically reasonable choice of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ could be used to fit the total cross section data. I also used $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ = 3.0 eV in those cases where resonances were visible only in the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data and fitted the data to obtain the neutron widths. In these cases, only the capture kernels are well determined, so the individual $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ and 2g$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$ values given in Table 3 are rather arbitrary. However, the widths of peaks in the neutron capture data and/or the total cross section data can be used to set limits on neutron, and hence the total, widths in these cases. For these cases, the tenth column in Table 3 lists the limits on the total widths rather than the actual total widths ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma +\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$) used to fit the data.

One-standard-deviation uncertainties in the partial widths determined in fitting the data are also given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. Uncertainties in the partial widths were added in quadrature to obtain uncertainties in the total widths. Uncertainties in the resonance energies are dominated by the flight path length uncertainty, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$d$``$3 cm. Because the flight path length for neutron capture was shorter than that for the total cross section measurements, energy uncertainties for resonances observed only in the neutron capture data are correspondingly larger. Weak and very broad resonances can also have additional nonnegligible uncertainties in their energy associated with the fitting process. The two uncertainties were added in quadrature to obtain the values given in Tables 1, 2, and 3.

If the neutron width of a resonance is large enough, then it is possible to discern its spin and/or parity. For example, s-wave resonances have a characteristic asymmetric shape in the total cross section due to interference with potential scattering. On this basis, the 25Mg+n resonances at $`E_n`$=19.880, 72.674, 79.30, 100.007, 188.334, and 261.00 keV definitely can be assigned as being s wave. Similarly, although it is not possible to discern the parity of the 25Mg+n resonances at $`E_n`$=156.169 and 211.20 keV, they are definitely not s wave. In addition, the spins of the 25Mg+n resonances at $`E_n`$=19.880, 72.674, 79.30, 100.007, 156.169, 194.502, 200.285, 244.58, 261.90, 311.56, 361.88, and 387.35 keV definitely can be assigned by virtue of the heights of the peaks in the total cross section (depths of the dips in the transmission spectrum).

For the present application, it is important to identify natural parity resonances in 25Mg+n because only they can participate in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction. On the basis of the neutron data alone, there are at least 16 states in 26Mg between threshold and the lowest observed 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance, two of which ($`E_n`$=19.880 and 72.674 keV) definitely have natural parity and two others ($`E_n`$=79.30 and 100.007 keV) definitely have non-natural parity. From the present analysis, together with information from 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg measurements Berman et al. (1969), two more ($`E_n`$=62.738 and 200.285 keV) of the states in this region can be assigned as natural parity. In the next section, this and other issues arising from comparisons to previous work are discussed.

## III Comparison to Previous Work

The 24,26Mg+n resonance parameters of the present work are, with a few notable exceptions, in agreement with those of Refs. Weigmann et al. (1976); Macklin and Winters (1981); Mughabghab et al. (1981) to within the experimental uncertainties. Exceptions include the 24Mg+n resonance at 46.347 keV which was previously assigned as a definite $`\frac{3}{2}^+`$ Mughabghab et al. (1981). This resonance is so weak in the total cross section that it was not possible to make a firm $`J^\pi `$ assignment in the present work. In addition, I find that the width of the 24Mg+n resonance at 498.27 keV is almost 10 standard deviations larger than given in Refs. Weigmann et al. (1976); Mughabghab et al. (1981). Also, the neutron width (and hence the total width) of the 26Mg+n resonance at 219.39 keV was found to be four times smaller in the present work than that given in Refs. Weigmann et al. (1976); Mughabghab et al. (1981). Also, a broad $`\frac{1}{2}^{()}`$ 26Mg+n resonance at $`E_n`$=300$`\pm `$4 keV is listed in Ref. Mughabghab et al. (1981) but not in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). I find that the fit to the total cross section data is much improved if a 26Mg+n resonance is included with an energy and width in agreement with those give in Ref. Mughabghab et al. (1981), but only if $`J^\pi `$=$`\frac{3}{2}^{}`$. In addition, the 68.529-keV resonance listed in Table 1 has not been noted in any previous study but is clearly visible in the total cross section data. This resonance should be visible in the isotopic (n,$`\gamma `$) data, but the data are not available in this energy range for 25Mg, or at all for 24,26Mg, so I tentatively assign this resonance to 24Mg+n. The neutron width is clearly too large to correspond to the 68.7-keV resonance attributed to 26Mg+n in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). Finally, this latter resonance as well as the 176.7-keV resonance in 24Mg+n were not visible in the total cross section, but they are included in Tables 1 and 2 in the interest of completeness.

The 25Mg+n parameters extracted in the present work are compared to parameters resulting from a previous analysis of these same data Weigmann et al. (1976) as well as to information from 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg Berman et al. (1969) and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg Jaeger et al. (2001) measurements and to a recent compilation Endt (1998) in Table 3. Unless otherwise noted, the parameters in Table 3 are from the present work. To aid the comparison between the various experiments, the energies of Refs. Berman et al. (1969); Endt (1998); Jaeger et al. (2001) have been converted to laboratory neutron energies using the Q-values given in Ref. Endt (1998).

Overall, there is fairly good agreement between the results of the present work and previous studies although, except for excitation energies, there is sparse information about states in 26Mg in this energy range from previous work. In order of increasing energy, important correspondences with and differences between the present and previous work are outlined in the next several paragraphs.

### III.1 Neutron resonances below the lowest energy 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance

One of only two definite Jπ assignments in this energy range was made in Ref. Singh et al. (1974) at $`E_n`$=19.9 keV. This assignment is confirmed in the present work although the width needed to fit the data is considerably larger than given in Ref. Singh et al. (1974).

A natural-parity state at $`E_x`$=11142 keV ($`E_n`$=51 keV) tentatively assigned in Ref. Endt (1998) was not observed in this work. This state has been shown Drotleff et al. (1993) to be an erroneous assignment Drotleff et al. (1991); Harms et al. (1991) due to background from the 11B($`\alpha `$,n)14N reaction.

Resonances at $`E_n`$=62.738 and 72.674 keV correspond well with the $`E_L`$=54.3- and 63.2-keV ($`E_n`$=62.4 and 72.3 keV according to equations 7 and 8 in Ref. Bowman et al. (1967)) resonances observed in the 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg Berman et al. (1969) reaction. Note that the neutron energies $`E_n`$, corresponding to the $`E_L`$ values of Ref. Berman et al. (1969), given in the footnote of Table 3 of Ref. Wolke et al. (1989) are incorrect. The former resonance was assigned as $`J^\pi `$=1- in Ref. Berman et al. (1969) and is a strong resonance in 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg but because it is barely visible in the natMg+n total cross section data, it is not possible to make a firm $`J^\pi `$ assignment based on the data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). The total width fitted in the present work is in agreement with Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) but the capture kernel I obtained is 30% smaller. The $`J^\pi `$ value of the $`E_L`$=63.2-keV resonance is not discussed in Ref. Berman et al. (1969), but the firm 2+ assignment from the present work is consistent with the small size of the peak in the 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg data.

The precision of the width of the $`E_n`$=81.13-keV resonance given in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) seems insupportable. This resonance could not be observed in the total cross section due to a nearby broad 24Mg+n resonance; hence, only the area and width of the peak in the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data can be used to determine the resonance parameters. The resolution of the experiment at this energy was 120 eV, or five times the width of the resonance assigned in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). I found that the data could be well fitted with widths as large as 75 eV. Because the data could be fitted by such a wide range of partial widths, I decided to hold $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ fixed at 3 eV and vary only $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$ while fitting the data.

The state in Ref. Endt (1998) at $`E_x`$=11191 keV ($`E_n`$=102 keV) was not observed in this work, but its existence can not be ruled out due to the presence of the broad resonance at $`E_n`$=100.007 keV.

A state at $`E_x`$=11194.5 keV ($`E_n`$=105.5 keV) is listed as a firm $`J^\pi `$=2+ assignment having a fairly large width ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=10$`\pm `$2 keV) in Refs. Mughabghab et al. (1981); Endt (1998) and apparently is based on the work of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) in which a weak resonance was assigned at $`E_n`$=105.8 keV, although no width is given in this latter reference. Such a broad resonance easily would be visible in the total cross section data analyzed in this work, but there is no sign of it. Perhaps the compilers have confused it with the broad resonance at $`E_n`$=100.007 keV. Although it is possible to add a small resonance at $`E_n`$=105.8 keV, the fit to the data is not improved by its inclusion.

A doublet is required to fit the data near $`E_n`$=201 keV rather than the single resonance listed in previous work. The lower resonance in this pair has a much larger neutron width than the upper one and definitely can be assigned as J=1. It appears to correspond to the $`E_L`$=182 keV ($`E_n`$=204 keV) resonance in 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg Berman et al. (1969) and so is assigned natural parity in Table 3.

The width of the resonance at $`E_n`$=211.20 keV fitted in this work is three times larger than determined in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) and reported in Refs. Mughabghab et al. (1981); Endt (1998). Although it is clear that there is a broad 25Mg+n resonance at this energy, the data could not be fitted as well as one would like with any single resonance, although it is clear a broad s-wave resonance is ruled out. There is also a fairly weak resonance just below the 211.20-keV resonance visible in the total cross section data. Because there is no sign of this resonance in the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data, it is likely to be due to one of the other two Mg isotopes.

### III.2 Which neutron resonance corresponds to the lowest energy 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance?

There are four neutron resonances ($`E_n`$=226.19, 242.45, 244.58, and 245.57 keV) near the energy ($`E_n`$=235$`\pm `$2 keV) corresponding to the lowest observed 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance. None of these four resonances has an energy in agreement with the reported 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance to within the experimental uncertainties, but only one ($`E_n`$=244.58 keV) is broad enough to corresponed to the width reported in the latest 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements Jaeger et al. (2001). It appears that either the width or the energy reported in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) is in error, and if the reported width is correct, then the partial widths determined in this work indicate that different resonances near this energy have been observed in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg reactions.

The first two neutron resonances in this region ($`E_n`$=226.19 and 242.45 keV) are visible only as small peaks in the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data; hence, they have relatively small neutron widths. The higher-energy one has not been reported in any previous work. The upper two resonances in this region ($`E_n`$=244.58, and 245.57 keV) appear as a partially resolved doublet in the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data. Only the lower-energy one of this pair is visible in the natMg+n total cross section data, via which it definitely can be assigned J=1.

In addition to the previous analysis of these data Weigmann et al. (1976) and the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg Drotleff et al. (1991); Harms et al. (1991); Drotleff et al. (1993); Jaeger et al. (2001) work, resonances near this energy have been identified in 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg Berman et al. (1969), 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg Wolke et al. (1989), and 22Ne(6Li,d)26Mg Giesen et al. (1993) measurements. Data from the latter two and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reactions have been interpreted as having observed the same state in 26Mg corresponding to an $`E_\alpha `$830-keV resonance. If the fairly large width reported in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) is correct, then the bulk of the width must be due to the neutron channel and a corresponding resonance easily would be visible in the data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976). In this case, the only possible corresponding resonance is at $`E_n`$=244.58 keV. The energy of this resonance is almost 5 standard deviations higher than the energy determined in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001), but its width is in good agreement with Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) whereas all the other neutron resonances near this energy are too narrow. Given the much superior energy resolution of the data of Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976), the excellent correspondence of the energies determined from the natMg+n total cross section and 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data, and the vast quantity of data on other nuclides taken with this apparatus, it is extremely unlikely that the energy of the $`E_n`$=244.58-keV resonance could be in error by such a large amount. Therefore, if the width in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) is correct, then the reported energy must be almost 10 keV too low. Furthermore, if the width for the $`E_\alpha `$=832-keV resonance reported in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) is correct, then the parameters reported in that work and Ref. Wolke et al. (1989) indicate that different resonances were observed in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements, and the partial widths determined in this work indicate that the resonance observed in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg measurements would not be seen in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements and vice versa.

The width ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=250$`\pm `$170 eV) and strength ($`\omega \gamma _{(\alpha ,n)}=(2J+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_n/\mathrm{\Gamma }=118\pm 11`$ $`\mu `$eV) for the $`E_\alpha `$=832$`\pm `$2-keV resonance from the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurements Jaeger et al. (2001), together with the strength ($`\omega \gamma _{(\alpha ,\gamma )}=(2J+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }=36\pm 4`$ $`\mu `$eV) of the $`E_\alpha `$=828$`\pm `$5-keV resonance from the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg measurements Wolke et al. (1989) imply $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$=58 eV if the same resonance is being observed in both reactions. This is almost 20 times larger than the average radiation width for 26Mg and, although radiation widths vary more widely in this mass range than for heavier nuclides, it is considerably larger than any reported radiation width for nuclides in this mass range. Furthermore, the partial widths resulting from assuming the same resonance has been observed in both the ($`\alpha `$,n) and ($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$) channels imply a capture kernel ($`g\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma /\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) roughly ten times larger than observed for any of the four 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg resonances near this energy.

If instead different resonances were observed in the ($`\alpha `$,n) and ($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$) reactions, then the strength of the resonance observed in 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg together with the partial widths for the $`E_n`$=244.58-keV resonance from the present work ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n/\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma =117`$) imply a resonance strength in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg reaction of $`\omega \gamma _{(\alpha ,\gamma )}`$=1.0 $`\mu `$eV, well below the sensitivity of the measurements of Ref. Wolke et al. (1989). Similarly, if the $`E_\alpha `$=828-keV resonance from 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg is identified with either the $`E_n`$=226.19- or 242.45-keV resonance from the present work, then the strength from the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg measurements together with the partial widths from the present work imply a strength in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction of about $`\omega \gamma _{(\alpha ,n)}`$=10 $`\mu `$eV. This is smaller than any resonance reported in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001), and in any case would have been obscured by the much stronger $`E_\alpha `$=832-keV resonance if indeed different resonances near this energy were being observed in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg reactions.

Alternatively, if the width reported in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) for the $`E_\alpha `$=832$`\pm `$2-keV resonance is too large, then it is possible that the same state in 26Mg has been observed in the various reactions and the corresponding neutron resonance is at $`E_n`$=226.19 or 242.45 keV. However, the energies still do not agree to within the reported experimental uncertainties.

Interestingly, a resonance at $`E_L`$=224 keV, corresponding to $`E_n`$=250 keV was observed Berman et al. (1969) in the 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg reaction and assigned $`J`$=1 in agreement with the $`E_n`$=244.58-keV resonance of the present work, but it was tentatively assigned as being non-natural parity. Although no energy uncertainties were stated in Ref. Berman et al. (1969), information given in Ref. Bowman et al. (1967) implies that the energy of the $`E_L`$=224-keV resonance corresponds to the $`E_n`$=244.58-keV resonance observed in this work to well within the experimental uncertainties. Also, a state in 26Mg at $`E_x`$=11311$`\pm `$20 keV (corresponding to $`E_\alpha `$=828 or $`E_n`$=231 keV), having a spectroscopic factor $`S_\alpha `$=0.04, was observed in 22Ne(6Li,d)26Mg measurements Giesen et al. (1993) and was assigned $`J^\pi `$=2+ although 1- could not be ruled out. Because the energy resolution of the experiment was fairly broad ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$=120 keV), these measurements are not helpful in ascertaining whether there is more than one 22Ne+$`\alpha `$ resonance near this energy.

### III.3 Higher energy resonances

The possible multiplet identified in Ref. Weigmann et al. (1976) near $`E_n`$=261 keV clearly shows up as a doublet in both the 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg and natMg+n total cross section data. The lower-energy resonance of the pair is clearly s-wave whereas the upper-energy one can be assigned as a definite $`J`$=4 resonance.

The lack of 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$)26Mg data was a severe handicap to the analysis above this energy. However, the analysis was continued to $`E_n`$=500 keV in an attempt to overlap with the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg data as much as possible. Of the eight resonances listed in Ref. Endt (1998) in this region, three were observed, two of which correspond to 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonances.

The second and third lowest energy 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonances Jaeger et al. (2001) at $`E_\alpha `$= 976, and 1000 keV appear to correspond to the $`E_n`$= 361.88-, and 387.35-keV resonances, respectively, observed in this work. There is fairly good agreement in the widths and energies between the neutron and 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg data. Curiously, the $`J`$-values required to fit the neutron data imply rather high lα values for these two resonances. Because the $`E_n`$=387.35-keV resonance is also observed as a resonance at $`E_\alpha `$=1000 keV in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction, it is assigned as natural parity (ln=3) in Table 3 even though f-waves were not included in the $``$-matrix analysis. It should make little difference to the quality of the fit to the data that the fitted cross section was calculated with a d-wave rather than an f-wave resonance at this energy.

## IV Impact on the 22Ne ($`\alpha `$, n)25Mg astrophysical reaction rate

At s-process temperatures, the uncertainty in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate is dominated by possible contributions from undetected resonances below the lowest observed resonance at $`E_\alpha `$=832 keV. Most previous evaluations of this rate have assumed either that all the known states, or at most only a single state, in 26Mg in this energy range can contribute to the reaction rate. To contribute to this reaction rate, the state must have natural parity. Two Mughabghab et al. (1981) or three Endt (1998) states in this region have been assigned natural parity in the compilations. As discussed above, two of these states do not even exist, let alone have natural parity. The third ($`E_x`$=11112.18, $`E_n`$=19.880 keV) was identified via the neutron total cross section measurements of Ref. Singh et al. (1974) and this assignment was verified in the present work. In addition, another state ($`E_x`$=11162.95, $`E_n`$=72.674 keV) has been assigned definite natural parity ($`J^\pi `$=2+) in the present work, two others ($`E_x`$=11169.32, 11189.23, $`E_n`$=79.30, 100.007 keV) have been assigned definite non-natural parity ($`J^\pi `$=3+), and together with information from 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg measurements Berman et al. (1969), two more ($`E_x`$=11153.40, 11285.65, $`E_n`$=62.738, 200.285 keV) can be assigned as very likely natural parity ($`J^\pi `$=1-). Therefore, at the very least four states of the 16 (17 if the $`E_x`$=11191, $`E_n`$=102 keV state of Ref. Endt (1998) is included) in this energy range should be included when estimating the contributions of possible low-energy resonances to the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate, and two states definitely can be eliminated from consideration.

The yields below the lowest observed 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance together with the quoted upper limit on the strength of the possible $`E_\alpha `$=635-keV resonance from Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) can be used to estimate the contributions of this and other possible unobserved resonances to the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate. Assuming that the thick target approximation applies Rolfs and Rodney (1988), the upper limit on the resonance strength ($`\omega \gamma _2`$) of a possible resonance at energy $`E_2`$ having yield $`Y_2`$ scales from the measured limits on the strength ($`\omega \gamma _1`$) and yield ($`Y_1`$) of the $`E_\alpha `$=$`E_1`$=635-keV resonance as:

$$\omega \gamma __2=\omega \gamma _1\frac{Y_2E_2}{Y_1E_1}.$$
(1)
The yield limits of Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) in this energy are approximately constant, so I simply scaled the strengths of possible low-energy resonances from the measured limit for the $`E_\alpha `$=635-keV resonance according to their energies. The contribution of these resonances to the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate then can be estimated using the simple $`\delta `$-resonance formula Bahcall and Fowler (1969):

$$N_A<\sigma v>_r=1.54\times 10^5A^{3/2}T_9^{3/2}(\omega \gamma )e^{11.605E_r/T_9}.$$
(2)
Here $`A`$ is the reduced mass, $`T_9`$ is the temperature in GK, $`(\omega \gamma )_r`$ is the resonance strength in eV, $`E_r`$ is the c.m. resonance energy in MeV, and $`N_A<\sigma v>`$ is the reaction rate in cm3/s/mole. However, in some cases the widths of the resonances may be important, so I also calculated the reaction rate by numerically integrating the cross section calculated from the resonance parameters. To do this, I used the definitions of the resonance strength ($`\omega \gamma _{(\alpha ,n)}=(2J+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_n/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) and total width ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_n+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma +\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$) to calculate the alpha widths ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha =\frac{\omega \gamma (\mathrm{\Gamma }_n+\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma )}{(2J+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\omega \gamma }`$) from the scaled resonance strengths as well as the partial widths determined in the present work. Then, I used these partial widths in SAMMY to calculate the 25Mg(n,$`\alpha `$)22Ne cross section, from which the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg cross section was calculated using detailed balance. The two approaches were in satisfactory agreement for the purposes of the present work. For example, using the measured Jaeger et al. (2001) upper limit for the strength of the $`E_\alpha `$=635-keV resonance of 60 neV and the $`J^\pi `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ values for the $`E_n`$=62.738-keV resonance in Table 3 leads to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$$`<`$27 neV, and a reaction rate at $`T_9`$=0.1 of 3.3$`\times `$10-29 cm3/s/mole from numerical integration and 3.4$`\times `$10-29 cm3/s/mole from the $`\delta `$-resonance formula.

The contributions of the two definite natural parity ($`J^\pi `$=2+, $`E_n`$=19.880 and 72.674 keV) states and one very likely natural parity state ($`J^\pi `$=1-, $`E_n`$=62.738 keV) to the uncertainty in the reaction rate are shown in Fig. 3. Shown in this figure are the reaction rates due to each of the resonances divided by the difference between the “High” and “Recomm.” rates of Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001). The other very likely natural parity state ($`J^\pi `$=1-, $`E_n`$=200.285 keV) contributes much less to the uncertainty so it is not shown. As can be seen in Fig. 3, the present results indicate that the uncertainty in the reaction rate calculated in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) is approximately a factor of 10 too small at s-process temperatures. Most of the increase in the uncertainty indicated by the present work results from inclusion of the $`E_n`$=19.880-keV resonance. The natural-parity nature of this state has been known for many years Singh et al. (1974), but it often has been overlooked when estimating the uncertainty in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate. Instead, most of the attention has been focussed on the $`E_n`$=62.738-keV resonance since attention was first called to it in Ref. Berman et al. (1969). The contribution of the $`E_n`$=62.738-keV resonance to the reaction rate uncertainty appears to have been underestimated by a factor of two in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001). Both the $`\delta `$-resonance formula and numerical integration results using a resonance strength of 60 neV yield a reaction rate approximately twice as large as the “High” rate of Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) at the lower temperatures where their “High” rate is due mostly to this resonance. The reason for this difference is unknown, but the $`\delta `$-resonance formula and numerical integration results were verified by a third technique Blackmon (2002) in which the reaction rate was calculated using a Breit-Wigner resonance shape.

Another effect that has been overlooked in previous evaluations of the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate is the uncertainty due to the resonance energy. As limits for resonance strengths are pushed lower and lower, the uncertainty in the energy of the resonance can become a significant effect. For example, in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001) the energy of the possible $`E_\alpha `$=635-keV resonance was estimated to be uncertain by $`\pm `$10 keV. Using Eq. 2, this uncertainty in the resonance energy translates to a factor of 2.7 uncertainty in the reaction rate at $`T_9`$=0.2, which is comparable to the total uncertainty of a factor of 5.9 (“High”/“Low”) at this temperature recommended in Ref. Jaeger et al. (2001). Although it is questionable that the energy of this state so uncertain, the results of the present work should make it clear that energies resulting from analysis of the neutron data are so precise that this source of uncertainty now is practically eliminated.

## V Summary and conclusions

I have analyzed previously reported $`^{\text{nat}}`$Mg+n total and 25Mg(n,$`\gamma `$) cross sections to obtain parameters for resonances below $`E_n`$=500 keV. With a few notable exceptions, the obtained 24Mg+n and 26Mg+n parameters are in agreement with previous results to within the experimental uncertainties. The main focus of the present work has been to obtain an improved set of 25Mg+n parameters and hence an improved estimate of the uncertainty in the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg astrophysical reaction rate. This reaction is the main neutron source during the weak component of the s-process nucleosynthesis as well as a secondary neutron source during the main component of the s process. The uncertainty in this rate at s-process temperatures is dominated by possible contributions from resonances between threshold and the lowest observed resonance.

The new 25Mg+n parameter set represents a substantial improvement over previous work. For example, several $`J^\pi `$ assignments were made and the partial widths for most resonances were determined. In the previous analysis, no definite $`J^\pi `$ assignments were made and very few partial widths were reported. Also, one previously reported Weigmann et al. (1976) resonance was not observed and, if it does exist, has a width much smaller than reported in compilations Mughabghab et al. (1981); Endt (1998). In addition, four new resonances were observed in this energy range. Furthermore, corresponding resonances were found for all three of the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonances as well as the four 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg resonances reported Jaeger et al. (2001); Berman et al. (1969) in this energy range, although the energy or width of the lowest 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonances appears to be in error.

Only natural parity states in 26Mg can contribute to the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate. Much attention has been focused on a 26Mg($`\gamma `$,n)25Mg resonance at $`E_L`$=54.3 keV because it very likely has natural parity and therefore could correspond to a 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance at $`E_\alpha `$=636 keV, nearly the optimal energy to make a large contribution to the reaction rate at s-process temperatures. The $``$-matrix analysis of the present work revealed that of the 16 states observed, there are at least two, and very likely three, other definite natural parity states in 26Mg in this energy range and two definite non-natural parity states. The parameters for these natural parity states, together with yield limits from a recent 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg measurement Jaeger et al. (2001) have been used to estimate the contributions of these states to this reaction rate. In a recent report Jaeger et al. (2001), only one of these states ($`E_\alpha `$=636 keV) was considered, and it was concluded that the uncertainty in the reaction rate was much less than previously estimated. However, using the upper limit on the resonance strength of the possible $`E_\alpha `$=636-keV resonance reported in this reference, I calculate that they have underestimated the uncertainty due to this resonance alone by a factor of two. More importantly, the definite natural parity resonance at $`E_n`$=19.880 keV, which corresponds to a possible 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance at $`E_\alpha `$=588 keV, contributes a ten times larger uncertainty to the rate at s-process temperatures.

There are still at least 10 more states in 26Mg observed in the neutron data that could contribute to the 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg reaction rate. It was not possible to make definite $`J^\pi `$ assignments for these resonances because 25Mg comprises only 10% of the natMg sample used in the total cross section measurements analyzed in this work. New high-resolution total cross section measurements on highly-enriched 25Mg samples could go a long way towards discerning how many of these states have natural parity. It may be that neutron elastic scattering measurements would also be needed in the more difficult cases. In addition, it would be useful to determine the energy and width of the lowest observed 22Ne($`\alpha `$,n)25Mg resonance with improved precision. At present, the reported energy is not in good agreement with any observed neutron resonance, and the reported width implies that a different state at nearly the same energy has been observed in 22Ne($`\alpha `$,$`\gamma `$)26Mg measurements.

###### Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank J. A. Harvey, R. L. Macklin, and D. Wiarda for help locating the data analyzed in this work, and D. W. Bardayan, J. C. Blackmon, J. A. Harvey, and S. Raman for useful discussions. This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC.


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# ITEP-LAT/2002–18 P-VORTICES, NEXUSES AND EFFECTS OF GRIBOV COPIES IN THE CENTER GAUGES 11footnote 1Talk given by V.G.B. at the International Symposium on Quantum Chromodynamics and Color Confinement (Confinement 2000), Osaka, March 2000.

## 1 Introduction

The old idea about the role of the center vortices in confinement phenomena  has been revived recently with the use of lattice regularization. Both gauge invariant  and gauge dependent  approaches are developed. The gauge dependent studies were done in several center gauges. The center gauge leaves intact center group local gauge invariance. It is believed that gauge dependent P-vortices defined on the lattice plaquettes are able to locate thick gauge invariant center vortices and thus provide the essential evidence for the center vortex picture of confinement. So far 3 different center gauges have been used in practical computations: the indirect maximal center (IMC) gauge , the direct maximal center (DMC) gauge  and the Laplacian center gauge . The first two suffer from Gribov copies problem. Many results supporting the important role of P-vortices are obtained in these two gauges but the problem of Gribov copies effects, we are addressing here, has not been studied properly. We also investigate properties of recently introduced new objects called nexuses  or center monopoles . One can define nexus in $`SU(N)`$ gauge theory as a particle-like object formed by $`N`$ center vortices meeting at the center, with the zero (mod $`N`$) net flux. We use P–vortices in the center projection to define nexuses in $`SU(2)`$ lattice gauge theory.

In  we have found that in DMC gauge the projected string tension is much lower than the physical one which contradicts the earlier claims. We also confirmed the observation made in : there are gauge copies which correspond to higher maxima of the gauge fixing functional $`F`$ (see below for definition) than usually obtained and at the same time these new gauge copies produce P-vortices evidently with no center vortex finding ability. These results are discussed in section 2. In section 3 we present our results for IMC gauge. Results of sections 2 and 3 were obtained with the relaxation - overrelaxation (RO) algorithm. In section 4 we present our preliminary results obtained with more effective algorithm, simulated annealing (SA). We show that the use of this algorithm permits to obtain higher maxima and thus to solve the puzzle imposed in . Moreover SA algorithm gives the lowest value of the string tension. We also discuss the finite volume effects  for the projected string tension.

## 2 Direct maximal center gauge

The DMC gauge is defined  by the maximization of the following functional:

$$F(U)=\frac{1}{4V}\underset{n,\mu }{}\left(\frac{1}{2}\text{Tr}U_{n,\mu }\right)^2=\frac{1}{4V}\underset{n,\mu }{}\frac{1}{4}\left(\text{Tr}_{adj}U_{n,\mu }+1\right),$$
(1)
with respect to local gauge transformations, $`U_{n,\mu }`$ is the lattice gauge field, $`V`$ is the lattice volume. DMC gauge condition fixes the gauge up to $`Z(2)`$ gauge transformation. The fixed configuration can be decomposed into $`Z(2)`$ and coset parts: $`U_{n,\mu }=Z_{n,\mu }V_{n,\mu }`$, where $`Z_{n,\mu }=\text{sign}\text{Tr}U_{n,\mu }`$. Plaquettes constructed from $`Z_{n,\mu }`$ field have values $`\pm 1`$. Those of them taking values $`1`$ compose the so called P-vortices. P-vortices form closed surfaces in 4D space. Some evidence has been collected, that P-vortices in the center gauges can serve to locate gauge invariant center vortices. In ref.  the projected Wilson loops, $`W_{Z(2)}`$, are computed via linking number of the static quarks trajectories and P-vortices. It was found that the string tension, $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$, obtained from $`W_{Z(2)}`$ is very close to the physical string tension $`\sigma _{SU(2)}`$. This fact has been called center dominance. Another important observation was that the density of P-vortices scales in agreement with asymptotic scaling . We inspect these statements using careful gauge fixing procedure.

The problem of the DMC gauge fixing is that the functional $`F(U)`$ has many local maxima. This is the analogue of the Gribov problem in continuum gauge theories . We call configurations corresponding to different local maxima Gribov copies. To perform unambiguous computations one must fix the gauge completely, i.e. to find the global maxima . It is impossible to do it numerically, and we generate a large number $`N_{cop}`$ of local maxima, calculate observables using configuration corresponding to the highest maximum and extrapolate results to $`N_{cop}\mathrm{}`$ limit. The local maxima are produced by applying the RO algorithm to random gauge copies of the original configuration.

Our computations have been performed on lattices $`L^4=12^4`$ at $`\beta =2.3,2.4`$ and $`L^4=16^4`$ at $`\beta =2.5`$. At $`\beta =2.3,2.4`$ ($`\beta =2.5`$) we use $`100`$ ($`50`$) statistically independent gauge field configurations. In Table 1 we show the ratio of string tensions $`\sigma _{Z(2)}/\sigma _{SU(2)}`$ 222The data for $`\sigma _{SU(2)}`$ are taken from . $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ is computed from the Creutz ratio $`\chi (I)`$; $`3I4`$ on $`12^4`$ lattice, and $`3I6`$ on $`16^4`$ lattice. For $`N_{cop}=3`$ (the number of gauge copies used in ) $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ is close to $`\sigma _{SU(2)}`$. But it becomes significantly lower for large $`N_{cop}`$. Thus RO gauge fixing gives the strong dependence of $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ on $`N_{cop}`$. In the limit $`N_{cop}\mathrm{}`$ $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ is 20-30 % lower than $`\sigma _{SU(2)}`$.

In Table 1 we also show the ratio $`2\rho /\sigma _{SU(2)}a^2`$ ($`\rho `$ is the density of P-vortices). As it is claimed in ref.  $`2\rho `$ coincides with the dimensionless string tension, $`\sigma _{SU(2)}a^2`$ if plaquettes carrying P-vortices are uncorrelated. Our results in Table 1 show that the density of P-vortices does not satisfy this relation. We have found that for $`N_{cop}=3\rho `$ is in a good agreement with asymptotic scaling, as it was observed before . But for $`N_{cop}\mathrm{}\rho `$ deviates from the two loop asymptotic scaling formula and its dependence on $`\beta `$ becomes similar to that of $`\sigma _{SU(2)}a^2`$.

We also performed computations using the modified gauge fixing procedure (LRO) suggested in : every copy has been first fixed to Landau gauge, and then the RO algorithm for DMC gauge has been applied. With this procedure we found the local maximum higher than local maxima of RO procedure for any $`N_{cop}[1;20]`$ and in the limit $`N_{cop}\mathrm{}`$ (see Table 2). We confirm that RO and LRO gauge fixing procedures generate two classes of gauge equivalent copies with different properties: $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ is zero for local maxima produced with LRO and nonzero for those produced with RO. The density of P-vortices is essentially lower for LRO. Then the idea of the complete gauge fixing based on the choice of the global maximum would force us to choose the LRO local maxima. Thus the vortex finding property is completely lost. In chapter 4 we demonstrate that SA algorithm solves this problem.

### 2.1 Nexuses.

We also investigate the properties of the point like objects, called nexuses. On the 4D lattice we have the conserved currents of nexuses, defined after the center projection. First we calculate the phase, $`s_l`$, of the $`Z(2)`$ link variable: $`Z_l=\mathrm{exp}(i\pi s_l),s_l=0,1`$. Then we define the plaquette variable $`\sigma _P=\text{d}s\text{mod}2`$, $`(\sigma _P=0,1)`$. The nexus current (or center monopole current ) is then defined as $`{}_{}{}^{}j=\frac{1}{2}\delta ^{}\sigma _P`$. These currents live on the surface of the P-vortex (on the dual 4D lattice) and P-vortex flux goes through positive and negative nexuses in alternate order. The important characteristic of the cluster of currents is the condensate, $`C`$, defined  as the percolation probability. As it is shown in ref.  the condensate $`C`$ of the nexus currents is the order parameter for the confinement – deconfinement phase transition. We found that $`C`$ is nonzero for the gauge copies obtained via RO procedure (when the projected Wilson loops have the area law). On the other hand $`C`$ is zero (in the thermodynamic limit $`L\mathrm{}`$) for gauge copies obtained using LRO procedure (when the projected Wilson loops have no area law). It is interesting that for RO procedure $`C`$ seems to scale  as the physical quantity with the dimension $`(mass)^4`$ . This is illustrated in Fig.1, where we plot the $`\beta `$–dependence of the ratio $`C/(\sigma _{SU(2)}a^2)^2`$. Thus these new objects might be important degrees of freedom for the description of the nonperturbative effects.

## 3 Indirect maximal center gauge

The gauge fixing condition for IMC gauge consists of two steps :
Maximal abelian gauge ($`SU(2)U(1)`$) is fixed by solving maximization problem :

$$\underset{\{g\}}{\mathrm{max}}\{F_1(U^g)\},gSU(2)/U(1);F_1(U)=\frac{1}{8V}\underset{n,\mu }{}\text{Tr}\left(U_{n,\mu }\sigma _3U_{n,\mu }^{}\sigma _3\right)$$

and $`U(1)`$ field is extracted: $`U_{n,\mu }=V_{n,\mu }u_{n,\mu },u_{n,\mu }U(1)`$.

Then $`Z(2)`$ gauge is fixed by maximizing

$$\underset{\{\omega \}}{\mathrm{max}}\{F_2(u^\omega )\};\omega U(1)/Z(2),F_2(u)=\frac{1}{4V}\underset{n,\mu }{}\left(\text{Re}u_{n,\mu }\right)^2.$$

The $`Z(2)`$ field is defined as: $`u_{n,\mu }=Z_{n,\mu }v_{n,\mu }`$.

In this section we discuss our results obtained with two gauge fixing procedures:

* RO procedure: RO algorithm at both steps;
* LRO procedure: LRO algorithm at the 1st step and RO algorithm at the 2nd one;

Our results for the ratios $`\sigma _{Z(2)}/\sigma _{SU(2)}`$ and $`2\rho /\sigma _{SU(2)}a^2`$ obtained with RO procedure are presented in the Table 3. These results are in good qualitative and even quantitative agreement with the results obtained in DMC gauge. The LRO procedure (as in DMC gauge case) corresponds to $`\sigma _{Z(2)}=0`$. Another important observation is that at the first stage (MA gauge) LRO procedure local maxima average $`<F_{1,max}>`$ is higher than those of RO procedure (see Table 4). Thus the problem discussed in the previous section is also relevant for IMC gauge.

## 4 Results of the SA algorithm .

The simulated annealing algorithm has been applied to the maximal abelian gauge fixing in  and its advantages in reducing the bias due to Gribov copies effects has been demonstrated. In this section we describe our preliminary results in fixing for both DMC and IMC gauges obtained with SA algorithm. For IMC gauge SA algorithm has been applied at the first step only, while RO algorithm has been applied at the 2nd step. The details of the SA algorithm for DMC gauge will be explained elsewhere.

Our first observation is that with SA algorithm it is possible to reach higher local maxima $`<F_{max}>`$ (for DMC gauge) and $`<F_{1,max}>`$ (at the first step of IMC gauge - MA gauge) than those reached with the LRO procedure. This can be seen from the Tables 2 and 4. Our second observation is that results obtained with these local maxima are qualitatively similar to those obtained with RO procedure, i.e. $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ computed on these configurations is nonzero. The values of $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ and $`\rho `$ are lower than those obtained with RO algorithm.

For SA algorithm applied to DMC gauge we generated only 3 local maxima per configuration, since this algorithm is rather time consuming. Thus we are not able to make extrapolation $`N_{cop}\mathrm{}`$. Nevertheless the example $`N_{cop}=3`$ is instructive. Our results are $`\frac{\sigma _{Z(2)}}{\sigma _{SU(2)}}=0.69(2),0.72(2),0.49(2)`$ at $`\beta =2.3,2.4,2.5`$ correspondingly. Comparing with results in Table 1 one can see that already for $`N_{cop}=3`$ SA values for $`\sigma _{Z2}`$ are lower than values obtained with RO procedure in $`N_{cop}=\mathrm{}`$ limit. For IMC gauge with SA algorithm at the first step we get $`\frac{\sigma _{Z(2)}}{\sigma _{SU(2)}}=0.73(4)`$ at $`\beta =2.4`$ (computations have been made at this $`\beta `$ only). This is in agreement with the result in Table 3 obtained with RO procedure. It is still possible that employing SA algorithm also at the second step of IMC gauge fixing will bring further decreasing of the projected string tension.

In  it has been argued that low values for $`\sigma _{Z2}`$ reported in  can be due to finite volume effects which spoil vortex finding property even on the lattices where finite volume effects are not visible in the gauge invariant observables. We made some computations for DMC gauge with RO procedure for lattices $`10^4`$ to $`20^4`$ and found out results in qualitative agreement with fig. 3 of ref. . But the problem is still not settled since increasing of $`\sigma _{Z2}`$ with lattice volume can be due to lower value of local maxima found on larger lattices where finding higher maxima becomes too costly, while there is clear anticorrelation between $`\sigma _{Z2}`$ and the value of $`<F_{max}>`$ 333We thank Ph. De Forcrand for this remark. Moreover our results with SA algorithm indicate that these finite volume effects must be much more pronounced if one takes the highest maxima available. We made computation in DMC gauge on $`L=16`$ lattice at $`\beta =2.4`$. We apply the SA algorithm with more updating sweeps than it was done for $`L=12`$ computations at the same $`\beta `$. We obtained higher value $`<F_{max}>=0.7784(1)`$ and lower value $`\frac{\sigma _{Z(2)}}{\sigma _{SU(2)}}=0.64(2)`$ than corresponding values given in Table 1. The question of the finite volume effects for IMC gauge has not been studied so far.

## Conclusions

We conclude that DMC and IMC gauges suffer from strong Gribov copies effects and careful gauge fixing is necessary to make the bias caused by these effects reasonably small. This procedure is rather costly. Another problem of DMC and IMC gauges is that $`\sigma _{Z(2)}`$ is too low. It is not clear whether relation $`\sigma _{Z(2)}=\sigma _{SU(2)}`$ can be valid at large enough lattices. Even if this is the case, the size of these lattices is enormous. The alternative gauge, the Laplacian center gauge  is then more favorable.

## 5 Acknowledgments

V.B. and M.P. are very much thankful to the Organizing Committee for financial support and for making the meeting very inspiring and enjoyable. This study was partially supported by grants RFBR 96-15-96740, RFBR 99-01230a, INTAS 96-370 and Monbushu grant.

## References


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# Erratum to: “Nuclear Effects on 𝑅=𝜎_𝐿/𝜎_𝑇 in Deep-Inelastic Scattering” Phys. Lett. B 475 (2000) 386

The HERMES Collaboration

This erratum revokes the main conclusion of a Letter that reported measurements of cross sections for deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) of leptons on 3He and 14N targets, expressed as ratios of $`\sigma _A/\sigma _D`$ to the cross section on the deuterium target * . In the particular kinematic domain $`x<0.03`$ with $`Q^2<1.25`$ GeV2, $`\sigma _A/\sigma _D`$ was reported to differ as much as 35% from earlier such measurements at higher energies. As the only significant difference from the earlier measurements appeared to be the kinematic variable $`y`$, and hence the polarization parameter $`ϵ`$, the new results were interpreted as evidence for a nuclear influence on the ratio $`R`$ of the cross sections for longitudinal and transverse photons. This anomaly has now been discovered to be due to a peculiar instrumental effect.

Radiative corrections do not cancel in the ratio $`\sigma _A/\sigma _D`$ because the yield of radiative events associated with elastic scattering scales nonlinearly, with $`Z^2`$. At small values of apparent $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ (inferred from the measured angle and energy of the scattered lepton), corresponding to large values of $`y`$, the contribution from radiative elastic scattering becomes large. Unlike radiation associated with inelastic processes, which is predominantly emitted in the direction of either the beam lepton (initial state radiation or ISR) or the scattered lepton (final state radiation or FSR), the hard photons associated with nuclear elastic scattering involve negligible momentum transfer $`q`$ to the target nucleus (Compton peak). There are two reasons for this. One is that the Bethe-Heitler cross section for radiative elastic processes predicts that in kinematic conditions corresponding to quite small values of apparent $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$, the Compton peak becomes much more prominant compared to ISR and FSR, simply because smaller values of $`q`$ become kinematically available, and the cross section is modulated by a factor of $`1/q^4`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 1, which shows the nuclear-elastic Bethe-Heitler cross section in two different coplanar kinematic situations, both with and without including the nuclear form factor.

This latter comparison reveals the other reason — that the nuclear form factor strongly suppresses the cross section for significant momentum transfer to the target, leaving only the Compton peak.

With negligible nuclear recoil momentum, essentially all of the transverse momentum of the scattered lepton must be balanced by that of the radiated hard photon, which also carries away most of the beam energy at these large values of apparent $`y`$. Hence we have

$$(1y)\mathrm{sin}\theta _e^{}=y\mathrm{sin}\theta _\gamma ,$$
(1)
showing that at large $`y`$, the angle of the high-energy photon on the opposite side of the beam line is correspondingly smaller than that of the scattered lepton, but not negligible. In the mirror-symmetric open geometry of the HERMES spectrometer, this can have drastic consequences. These energetic photons from nuclear targets have a high probability of hitting the detector frames surrounding the beam line in front of the dipole magnet, and producing extensive electromagetic showers that cause very high hit multiplicites in these tracking detectors. For many of these nuclear-elastic events, track reconstruction is therefore impossible, resulting in a large tracking inefficiency that is strictly correlated with only this process and kinematic situation.

This problem is pernicious because it is far from apparent in the experimental data. The event trigger rate for real DIS events is typically very small compared to that from hadron background. Only after event reconstruction can all of the particle identification criteria be applied to eliminate the hadrons. However, event reconstruction is impossible for the affected radiative elastic events, so they remain hidden in the dominant hadron background and lost to the analysis, even though they are included in the radiative corrections. A simulation of the experiment reveals the problem only if it includes both the nuclear target with its particular radiative effects, and a complete treatment of showers in material outside of the geometric acceptance. This was not included in the data analysis for the original Letter. Subsequent such studies newpaper  revealed that these showers can indeed account for the differences between the HERMES results and previous measurements in similar kinematic regions. The strong correlation of the shower phenomenon with the kinematic variable $`y`$ accounts for its correlation also with the photon polarization parameter $`ϵ`$, which led to the incorrect interpretation in terms of $`R_A/R_D`$. This interpretation became untenable when analyzing 84Kr/2H cross section ratios extracted from data collected after the publication of the 14N/2H data: for this heavy target nucleus the instrumental effects described above are so severe that the extracted Born cross section ratio became unphysical. The corrected 3He/2H and 14N/2H data and the new 84Kr/2H data are presented in the accompanying paper newpaper .

The part of the HERMES kinematic region affected by the correlated background from nuclear targets is restricted to $`x<0.06`$ with $`Q^2<2`$GeV2. Polarized DIS data from hydrogen, deuterium and helium-3 targets are unaffected by this effect, because of both the more restricted kinematic range, and the much smaller value of $`Z^2`$ modulating the elastic Bethe-Heitler cross section. Semi-inclusive data are also unaffected even with nuclear targets seminuc , as radiative elastic events are excluded by the presence of a hadron in the final state.


text:
# On the residual resistivity near a two dimensional metamagnetic quantum critical point

## I Introduction

The interplay of quantum mechanics, disorder and reduced dimensionality is a central question in condensed matter physics. The issue becomes particularly interesting for materials near a quantum critical point (i.e. one produced at temperature $`T=0`$ by variation of a control parameter such as pressure or chemical composition). Near such a critical point, quantum fluctuations may become particularly strong, and may interact with randomness in an important way. In this paper, we consider the heretofore little studied question of the effect of quantum critical fluctuations on the residual resistivity of a metal. We consider two dimensional systems in which the criticality involves long wavelength fluctuations and find that the critical fluctuations lead to a singular, and possibly divergent, renormalization of the amplitude for an electron to backscatter off of an isolated impurity atom. For a system with a nonvanishing density of impurities, we find that this physics leads to a strengthening of the ‘Altshuler-Aronov’ Altshuler80  correction to the conductivity from $`ln(1/T)`$ to $`ln^2(1/T)`$.

Renormalization of some electron-impurity vertices is expected in materials near density wave transitions; for example, near a charge density wave transition, an impurity will produce density fluctuations whose component at the ordering wavevector will diverge as the transition is approached (for an experimental demonstration, see Wertering98 ). However, we show here that long-wavelength spin fluctuations can drastically increase backscattering by spinless impurities. Our work is related to a previous analysis, by Altshuler, Ioffe. Larkin, and one of us, of the staggered susceptibility of a model of electrons interacting with gauge fluctuations Altshuler95 .

Our work is motivated by recent experiments on the bilayer ruthenate, $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ , which apparently can at ambient pressure be tuned through a quantum critical point by variation of applied magnetic field Perry01 ; Grigera01 ; Chiao02 . $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ has a layered crystal structure and highly anisotropic conductivity properties charactered by a very low in-plane (‘ab’) resistivity ($`\rho _{ab}5\mu \mathrm{\Omega }cm`$ as $`T0`$) and a much higher out of plane (‘c-axis’) resistivity ($`\rho _c10^3\mu \mathrm{\Omega }cm`$ as $`T0`$) Ikeda00 , so its electronic properties are to a good approximation two dimensional. At ambient pressure and no applied magnetic field the material is paramagnetic, but with a magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$ which is strongly $`T`$dependent (for $`T10K`$) and at low $`T`$ strongly enhanced above the band theory value Ikeda00 . As applied magnetic field $`H`$ is increased at low $`T`$ ($`T<2K`$) resistivity measurements indicate that the material passes near to a critical point Perry01 ; Grigera01 . In the vicinity of this critical point the differential magnetic susceptibility $`\chi _{\mathrm{diff}}=dM/dH`$ becomes large and the residual resistivity $`lim_{T0}\rho (T)`$ exhibits a pronounced cusp Grigera01 .

The natural interpretation is that the transition observed in $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ is metamagnetic in nature. Metamagnetic materials exhibit a phase diagram in the field ($`H`$)-temperature ($`T`$) plane characterized by a line of first order transitions across which the magnetization jumps. The first order line ends in a critical point at temperature $`T_M`$ and field $`H_M`$. In $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ parameters are apparently such that at ambient pressure $`T_M`$ is very near to $`T=0`$ (indeed for one field orientation it can be made to vanish exactly ) so that one has a quantum critical end point Perry01 ; Grigera01 ; Millis02a ; Chiao02 . A renormalization group theory of quantum critical end-points and their application to $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ was given by Millis02a ; in this paper we extend their theory to include electron-impurity coupling and use it to calculate the residual resistivity. In addition we make a few remarks about the applicability of our calculations to more general classes of critical points.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the critical theory, section III gives the analysis of the renormalization of the Born approximation amplitude for an electron to scatter off of an isolated impurity, section IV considers the single impurity problem beyond the Born approximation and applies the results to $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$, section V treats the extension to a non-vanishing density of impurities and section VI is a conclusion and discussion of implications for other experiments.

## II Metamagnetic Quantum Criticality

Ref Millis02a  employed the standard approach of Hertz Hertz76  and Millis Millis93  which involves integrating out electronic degrees of freedom to obtain an effective field theory with overdamped bosonic excitations, which is then analysed. This approach is presently the subject of debate Coleman01 . On the experimental side, the theory is apparently inconsistent with data obtained on a variety of materials with antiferromagnetic critical points, and on the theoretical side the validity of integrating out gapless electronic degrees has been questioned Belitz98 ; Chitov01 ; Abanov01 , both two dimensional antiferromagnets and for ferromagnetic transitions involving an order parameter with continuous symmetry and time reversal invariance in the disordered phase. However, the assumptions made in Belitz98 ; Chitov01  do not apply to metamagnetic transitions, which involve an Ising order parameter and an explicitly broken time reversal symmetry, nor do the Fermi surface nesting complications of antiferromagnetic transitions Abanov01  apply here, because the order parameter is centered at $`q=0`$.

The order parameter for a metamagnetic critical point occurring at a field $`H_M`$ is the difference of the local magnetization density $`M(𝐱,\tau )`$ (which we write here in space and imaginary time) from the average value $`M^{}`$ produced by the field $`H_M`$ at $`T=0`$. ($`M^{}.5\mu _B`$ for $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$.) It is convenient to measure the field and magnetization with respect to $`H_M`$, $`M^{}`$, and to normalize the field to an energy scale $`E_0`$ (discussed below) and the magnetization fluctuations per $`Ru`$ via

$`\varphi (𝐱,\tau )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{M(𝐱,\tau )M^{}}{M_{sat}}},`$ (1)
$`h`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{(HH_M)M_{sat}}{E_0}},`$ (2)
where $`M_{sat}`$ is the high field saturation magnetization. In a clean (non-disordered) system the action describing the fluctuations of $`\varphi `$ was argued Millis02a  to be ($`\beta =1/T`$)

$$S=\frac{E_0}{2}\frac{d^2x}{a^2}_0^\beta 𝑑\tau \left[2h\varphi +\xi _0^2\left(\varphi \right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^4\right]+S_{dyn}$$
(3)
with $`\varphi (𝐪,\nu )=E_0a^2d^2x_0^\beta 𝑑\tau e^{i𝐪𝐱i\nu \tau }\varphi (𝐱,\tau )`$ and, in a clean system,

$$S_{dyn}=\frac{a^2}{2E_0}\frac{d^2q}{\left(2\pi \right)^2}T\underset{\nu _n}{}\frac{\left|\nu _n\right|}{vq}\left|\varphi (𝐪,i\nu _n)\right|^2,$$
(4)
where $`\nu _n=2\pi nT`$. For $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$, $`E_07000K`$ Millis02a  ; a value for $`\xi _0`$ has not been established. A natural guess would be something of the order of the in-plane lattice constant $`a4\stackrel{̊}{A}`$. However in many ferromagnetic materials band theory suggests that the momentum dependence of the magnetic polarizability is very weak, suggesting $`\xi _0<a`$; while if the considerations of Belitz98  are relevant a considerably larger value might be appropriate. A value for $`v`$ has also not yet been established; the natural expectation is that it is of order the planar-band Fermi velocity $`v_F1eV\stackrel{̊}{A}`$. The theory is above its upper critical dimension so the nonlinear term is a ‘dangerously’ irrelevant operator and may be treated by standard means Millis93 ; Millis02a .

We have written a two dimensional theory. At some scale a crossover to three dimensional behavior will occur, but present neutron experiments have so far been unable to observe any correlations along the c-axis Capogna02 . Because the transition takes place in a magnetic field, the fluctuating field has Ising symmetry and time reversal invariance is explicitly broken. Neither ‘precession’ terms in the dynamics nor the anomalous $`\left|q\right|`$ momentum dependence proposed in Belitz98  will occur.

The action given in Eq 3 describes the critical fluctuations. In the absence of critical fluctuations we take the action for electrons to be

$$S_{el}=\frac{a^2}{E_0^2}T\underset{\omega _n}{}\frac{d^2p}{(2\pi )^2}\psi _\alpha ^{}(𝐩,i\omega _n)(i\omega _n+\xi _𝐩)\psi _\alpha (𝐩,i\omega _n),$$
(5)
where $`\psi _\alpha `$ represents the electrons with the “spin” index $`\alpha `$, $`\xi _𝐩`$ is the electron dispersion and $`\omega _n=(2n+1)\pi T`$. The coupling between the electrons and the critical fluctuations can be written as

$$S_{\varphi \psi }=g\frac{d^2x}{a^2}E_0𝑑\tau \psi _\alpha \sigma _{\alpha \beta }^z\psi _\beta \varphi ,$$
(6)
where $`\sigma ^z`$ is the $`z`$-component of the Pauli matrix.

To obtain the propagator $`D`$ describing the metamagnetic fluctuations we expand the action about the mean field value $`\varphi _0`$ given by $`S/\varphi =0`$ and read off the quadratic term, obtaining

$$D(𝐪,i\nu _n)=\frac{1}{\frac{\left|\nu _n\right|}{vq}+\xi _0^2q^2+h^{2/3}}$$
(7)
The coupling constant $`g`$ may be determined because the damping term in $`S_{dyn}`$ arises from processes in which a critical fluctuation decays into one particle-hole pair Hertz76 ; Millis93  and is

$$g^2=\frac{4\pi ^2}{a^2E_0}\frac{v_F^2}{vS_F}$$
(8)
with $`S_F`$ the length of the Fermi surface in two dimensions ($`S_F=2\pi p_F`$ for a circular Fermi surface).

Using these definitions we find that the one-loop self energy at $`T=0`$, shown in Fig 1a, is

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(𝐩,i\omega )=\frac{2iv_F}{S_F\xi _0^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xx\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\frac{\omega \xi _0}{v}+x^3+h^{2/3}x}{x^3+h^{2/3}x}\right).$$
(9)
Notice that as $`\omega 0`$ at fixed $`h0`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(𝐩,i\omega )=\frac{2v_F}{vS_F\xi _0}\frac{i\omega }{h^{1/3}}`$ while as $`h0`$ at fixed $`\omega `$ we have $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_1(𝐩,i\omega )=\frac{isgn(\omega )\left|\omega \right|^{2/3}2\pi \left(v/\xi _0\right)^{1/3}}{\sqrt{3}S_F\xi _0(v/v_F)}`$.

In spatial dimension $`d>2`$ the fact that the theory is above the upper critical dimension guarantees that a one-loop (Migdal-like) approximation yields an asymptotically exact approximation to the self energy, but in $`d=2`$ this is not the case Altshuler94 ; Ioffe98 ; Kim94 . While higher corrections such as those shown in Fig 1b do not change the powers, they do introduce a dependence on momentum $`\delta p=pp_F`$ and induce a dependence on $`\frac{\omega }{\omega ^{}(h)}`$ with $`\omega ^{}(h)=vh/\xi _0`$. The scaling function for the self-energy has only been computed in large $`N`$ and small $`N`$ expansions where $`N`$ is the number of order parameter components. Unfortunately, in the metamagnetic problem of interest here $`N=1`$.

## III Electron-Impurity Vertex: Born Approximation

We now consider the effect of critical fluctuations upon the amplitude, $`A_{𝐩_1,𝐩_2}`$ for an electron initially in a state of momentum $`𝐩_1`$ to scatter off of an isolated impurity atom into a state of momentum $`𝐩_2.`$ The basic electron-impurity vertex is shown in Fig 2a; we assume that this is structureless; corresponding to scattering amplitude independent of $`𝐩_{1,2}`$. The first correction due to critical fluctuations is shown in Fig 2b, and is found to be divergent when $`𝐩_{1,2}`$ are on the Fermi surface and are such that the Fermi surface tangents at these two points are parallel. For a circular Fermi surface this condition corresponds to $`𝐩_1+𝐩_2=0`$ and $`\left|𝐩_1\right|=p_F.`$ In this case, choosing the $`x`$ coordinate to be parallel to $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_{1,2}`$ to be on the Fermi surface we have $`\epsilon _{𝐩_1+𝐪}=v_F\left(q_x+q_y^2/2q_0\right)`$ and $`\epsilon _{𝐩_2+𝐪}=v_F\left(q_x+q_y^2/2q_0\right)`$ with $`q_0`$ a quantity of the order of $`p_F`$ parametrizing the curvature of the Fermi surface. If $`𝐩_2=𝐩_1+𝐩`$ with $`|𝐩||𝐩_1|`$, we find that the the correction shown in Fig 2b is

$$A_1(𝐩,h)=A_0I\left(\frac{2\pi q_0}{S_F}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{max}[h^{2/3},(p_y\xi _0)^2]}\right)$$
(10)
with $`I(b)=\frac{2b}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑y\frac{(\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}b)y}{(1+y^3)[(\frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}b)^2+y^4]}`$ and $`A_0`$ is the bare scattering amplitude; $`I(1)0.23`$; $`I(10)0.5`$ and $`I(b)`$ is an increasing function of $`b`$. Notice that if $`\pi \theta `$ is the angle between $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$, then $`p_y\xi _0\theta `$.

A very similar result was obtained in the context of the $`U(1)`$ gauge theory of the ‘RVB’ regime of the two-dimensional $`tJ`$ model Altshuler94 , where the $`2p_F`$ spin susceptibility was considered. The $`U(1)`$ gauge theory possesses an interaction (mediated by an internal gauge field) with a very similar mathematical structure to our interaction $`D(𝐪,i\nu _n)`$ (Eq.7), except that in the $`U(1)`$ problem gauge invariance dictates that in the $`RVB`$ regime the mass ($`h`$ in our notations) vanishes. Further, in the vertex computation two additional minus signs occur (but compensate each other), one from the fact that gauge interaction involves currents which are oppositely directed at momentum transfer $`2p_F`$ and one from the transverse nature of the gauge interaction.

Higher order diagrams such as those shown in Fig. 2c may be evaluated similarly; we find that the leading behavior of the $`n^{th}`$ order term is

$$A_n=A_0\frac{1}{n!}\left[I\left(\frac{2\pi q_0}{S_F}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{max}[h^{2/3},\theta ^2]}\right)\right]^n$$
(11)
so that finally we obtain

$$A(\theta ,h)A_0\left(\mathrm{max}[h^{2/3},\theta ^2]\right)^\psi $$
(12)
with $`\psi =I\left(\frac{S_F}{2\pi q_0}\right)`$ at one loop order.

We should further consider the effect of higher order diagrams, such as those shown in Fig 2d. These do not change the basic power counting, and may therefore be expected not to alter the basic power law we have found; they will however change the numerical value of the exponent. According to the result of small $`N`$ expansion Altshuler94 , the effect of ‘crossed diagrams’ is to increase the exponent. We conclude that the Born-approximation amplitude for an electron to back-scatter off of an impurity suffers a singular renormalization near criticality.

## IV Beyond Born Approximation; Resistivity

The previous section presented the renormalization of the leading-order term in the electron-impurity vertex. In this section we consider effects arising when the Born approximation is not justified, either because the initial scattering amplitude is not small or because the renormalizations increase an initially weak interaction beyond the regime of validity of the Born approximation. Corrections to the Born approximation result for the electron self energy correspond to multiple scattering of the electron off of the same impurity, and are represented diagrammatically in Fig. 3. Within the ‘non-crossing’ approximation used in previous sections we find that the leading renormalization near criticality comes from the correcting each impurity vertex individually. The series for the self energy may be summed by defining the $`T`$-matrix which for incident electron energies very close to the fermi surface becomes

$$T(\theta \theta ^{},h)=A(\theta \theta ^{},h)i\frac{d\theta _1}{2\pi }N(\theta _1)A(\theta \theta _1,h)T(\theta _1\theta ^{},h)$$
(13)
with $`N_0=\frac{d^2k}{\left(2\pi \right)^2}\delta (\epsilon _p)`$ the single-spin fermi surface density of states. Assuming for simplicity a circular fermi surface with density of state $`N_0`$ we may solve the equation by resolving $`T`$ and $`A`$ into their angular components $`T_m=\frac{d\theta }{2\pi }T(\theta ,h)e^{im\theta }`$ and $`A_m=\frac{d\theta }{2\pi }A(\theta ,h)e^{im\theta }`$ so that

$$T_m=\frac{A_m}{1+iA_mN_0}.$$
(14)
We note that the sign of $`T_m`$ and therefore the sign of the angular momentum-$`m`$ channel phase shift alternates with $`m`$, so that the Friedel sum rule is straightforwardly satisfied.

The final result depends on the parameter $`g_0=A_0N_0`$ and on the exponent $`\psi `$. If $`\psi <1/2`$, then none of the $`A_m`$ or $`T_m`$ are divergent as $`h0`$. The distance to criticality, parametrized by $`h`$, controls the number $`m_{\mathrm{max}}`$ of angular momentum channels for which $`A_m`$ and $`T_m`$ are non-negligible ($`m_{\mathrm{max}}h^{1/3}`$). On the other hand, if $`\psi >1/2`$, then in each angular momentum channel the amplitude $`A`$ diverges as $`h0`$ so that the resulting phase shift saturates at $`\pi /2`$ in each channel, and again the number of channels which are relevant diverges rather strongly as $`h0`$.

The contribution of this scattering amplitude to the probability that an electron is scattered through an angle $`\theta `$, $`W(\theta ),`$ is given by $`|T(\theta )|^2`$. The impurity scattering rate revealed by the resistivity, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tr}=\frac{d\theta }{2\pi }(1+\mathrm{cos}(\theta ))W(\theta )`$ (note that we have defined angular coordinates so that $`\theta =0`$ corresponds to backscattering). Because we are concerned with a scattering amplitude strongly peaked about the back-scattering direction, the $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$ factor is unimportant. Then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tr}`$ is given by the imaginary part of the diagonal $`T`$matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tr}\mathrm{Im}T(0;h)`$ in the usual approximation. Therefore, we obtain

$$\rho _{res}\mathrm{Im}[T_0]+2\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{Im}T_m$$
(15)
As noted above, within this approximation the resistivity diverges as criticality is approached, but the approximation itself breaks down when the mean free path implied by Eq.15 becomes smaller than the correlation length. The question of a divergent resistivity is further examined in section VII.

## V Application to Data

In this section we attempt to relate calculations of the $`h`$ dependence of $`\rho _{res}`$ to data obtained on $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7.`$ We first note that it is sensible to discuss the scattering from an isolated impurity only if the elastic mean free path $`l`$ is greater than the correlation length $`\xi =\xi _0h^{1/3}`$. The observed low-T resistivity of clean samples of $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ is of the order of $`5\mu \mathrm{\Omega }cm`$ corresponding to a $`p_Fl250`$, i.e. to an $`l`$ of the order of $`300400\stackrel{̊}{A}`$. The appropriate value of $`\xi _0`$ is not known at present, but if it is of the order of the lattice constant or smaller then almost all the available data are in the regime in which the calculation applies.

$`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ presents an interesting issue in modelling. If the estimates presented in Millis02a  are correct, then even in zero field the material is close to a ferromagnetic critical point, so that renormalizations of impurity vertices could be substantial, even at vanishing applied field (provided, of course, that a sufficiently wide regime exists in which the $`\left|𝐪\right|`$ effects of Belitz98  are not important). What is unambiguously measurable, however, are the effects caused by a varying magnetic field. Further, the parameters presented in Millis02a  allow a quantitative determination of the parameter $`h`$ above in terms of the applied magnetic field. We have used the parameters $`u_{cc}=3500K`$, $`v_{cccc}=58000K`$, $`r=100K`$ defined and given below Eq.6 of Millis02a  to compute the ‘mass’ in Eq.7 for applied fields from $`0`$ to $`10T`$, and have used this and Eq.15 to calculate the field dependence of the residual resistivity for various choices of exponent $`\psi `$ and initial scattering amplitude. Representative results are shown in Fig.4. The values at applied field $`H=0`$ depend on the behavior of the theory at higher energy scales, which is not known for the reasons given above. However, the change in behavior near the metamagnetic field (about $`7T`$ for the parameters used here) should be reliable. We observe that there is some interplay between exponent and initial scattering strength but that sharpness and relative height of the resistivity peak depend most strongly on the exponent. Comparison to data Grigera01  shows that our calculation is consistent with a moderate bare scattering amplitude and an exponent $`\psi 3/4`$. We also note that the rather small resistivities observed in experimental systems suggest either that the initial scattering amplitude is weak or that the renormalizations associated with the nearby ferromagnetic quantum critical point are not large, perhaps for the reasons given in Belitz98 .

## VI Friedel Oscillations

The physics which gives rise to this correction to the conductivity also gives rise to a singular behavior Altshuler95  in the susceptibility at wavevector $`q=2p_F`$ and it is proportional to $`(2p_Fq)^{13\psi }`$; this leads to a change in amplitude and distance dependence of the Friedel oscillations induced by an impurity in two dimensions. We find that if $`\psi <1/3`$ the Friedel oscillations decay as $`\mathrm{cos}(2p_FR)/R^{\frac{5}{2}3\psi }`$ while it is $`\mathrm{cos}(2p_FR)/R^{\frac{1}{2}+3\psi }`$ when $`\psi >1/3`$. Notice that it decays slower (faster) than the standard $`1/R^2`$ form if $`1/6<\psi <1/2`$ ($`\psi <1/6`$ or $`\psi >1/2`$). At non-zero field, the spin up and spin down Fermi surfaces are characterized by different Fermi wave vectors so we predict two superposed oscillations emerging from each impurity site, each decaying with a characteristic power. These oscillations should be observable in STM experiments. We note, however, that the effect discussed here is a long wavelength, low energy effect. It does not imply that the density modulations are greatly enhanced near to an impurity; only that they decay much less (or more) rapidly with distance than in a non-critical material.

It is also interesting to consider the situation at $`H=0`$, i.e. near to a 2D ferromagnetic transition, and indeed we note that for the $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$ parameters given in Millis02a , $`H=0`$ corresponds to $`h10^3`$ so one might expect the enhancements to be noticeable even at zero field. The Friedel oscillations from a non-magnetic impurity would indeed be long ranged, however it is interesting to note that the RKKY interactions are suppressed (in a system with Heisenberg symmetry) because the spin commutation relations lead to a minus sign in the renormalization of $`\sigma _z`$ vertex by $`\sigma _x`$ or $`\sigma _y`$ fluctuations.

We also note that field-dependent STM studies might present an interesting test of the result Belitz98  that for 2D Heisenberg materials the leading momentum dependences is $`|𝐪|`$. In this case, the renormalizations we have discussed would not exist. As $`H`$ is increased, the effects that produce $`|𝐪|`$ are believed to be cut off, and the unconventional Friedel oscillations should reappear.

Finally, we observe that the presence of the Friedel oscillations implies that the state of a critical system is in some sense a random charge density wave, characterized by infinite ranged charge oscillations emerging from the various impurity sites. The resistivity and other properties of such a state are an interesting issue for future research.

## VII Nonvanishing Impurity Density

The preceding treatment is valid for correlation lengths less than the mean free path. We now consider what happens when parameters are tuned so that the correlation length $`\xi `$ exceeds the mean free path $`l`$. We first note that the problem has two energy scales: the impurity scattering rate $`\tau ^1=v_F/l`$ and the characteristic quantum critical frequency $`\omega ^{}=v\xi _0^2/\xi ^3`$ so that near criticality, when $`\xi >\xi _0`$ we have $`\omega ^{}\tau <1`$.

For length scales longer than the mean free path the dynamic term in the action is modified to be Hertz76

$$S_{dyn,dirty}=\frac{a^2}{2E_0}\frac{d^2q}{(2\pi )^2}T\underset{\nu _n}{}\frac{|\nu _n|}{D^{}q^2}|\varphi (𝐪,i\nu _n)|^2$$
(16)
with $`D^{}`$ of the order of the diffusion constant $`D=v_F^2\tau /2`$. We note $`D^{}/D=v/v_F`$ from the definition of $`g^2`$ in Eq.8. Here $`1/\tau =2\pi u^2N_0`$ is the impurity scattering rate, $`u^2`$ is the renormalized squared impurity scattering strength (renormalized due to the effects discussed in section IV), and $`N_0`$ is the density of states at the Fermi energy. Thus the dynamical critical exponent is $`z=4`$ in this case and the nonlinearity in the critical theory remains dangerously irrelevant.

The leading order correction to the conductivity is given by the sum of two diagrams in Fig.5 Altshuler80 , where the wavy line represents the metamagnetic fluctuations with the propagator $`D(𝐪,i\nu _n)=1/(\frac{|\nu _n|}{D^{}q^2}+q^2\xi _0^2+h^{2/3})`$. Notice that there exist three more diagrams at the same order, but they cancel each other Altshuler80 . Each interaction vertex that represents the coupling between the electrons and the bosonic mode is renormalized by the Diffuson correction, $`(|\nu _n|+Dq^2)^1\tau ^1`$. After evaluating these diagrams we find that the leading correction to the dc conductivity at nonzero temperature is given by (we assume $`T<1/\tau `$)

$`\delta \sigma `$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\lambda D}{T\xi _0^2}}\right)\mathrm{for}T>T_h`$ (17)
$`\delta \sigma `$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{3\pi ^2}}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{h}}\right)\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\lambda D}{T\xi _0^2}}\right)\mathrm{for}T<T_h,`$ (18)
where $`\lambda =v_F/v`$ and $`T_h=h^{4/3}\lambda D/\xi _0^2`$. Notice that these results are valid as far as we are in the perturbative regime, i.e., $`\delta \sigma \sigma _0=\frac{e^2}{2\pi \mathrm{}}k_Fl`$.

The physical content of Eqs 17,18 is that as field is varied at a fixed, low, temperature the resistivity will initially increase as the critical point is approached, but sufficiently close to the critical point (i.e. when $`h<h_T`$ with $`h_T=(\frac{\xi _0^2T}{\lambda D})^{3/4}`$ ) resistivity will level off at a temperature dependent but field-independent value. Fig. 6 presents a qualitative sketch of the predicted behavior, including both the ’single-impurity’ regime of the previous sections and the ’Altshuler-Aronov’ regime considered in this section.

This result should be compared with the well-known behavior of the quantum correction to the conductivity, $`\delta \sigma =\frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}}\mathrm{ln}(1/T\tau )`$, in weakly disordered interacting two dimensional electron systems Altshuler80 . The notable differences are i) $`\delta \sigma `$ in the present case has more singular temperature dependence when $`T>T_h`$ and at the critical point ($`h=0`$). ii) If $`T<T_h`$, the coefficient of the logarithmic term explicitly depends on $`h`$ and it increases as the critical point is approached until it is cut off by temperature.

Now let us estimate the size of the perturbative quantum correction in $`Sr_3Ru_2O_7`$. We assume that $`D^{}D`$ and $`\xi _0`$ is of the order of the in-plane lattice constant $`4\stackrel{̊}{A}`$. Using $`v_F1eV\stackrel{̊}{A}`$ and $`l300400\stackrel{̊}{A}`$, we get $`1/\tau 30K`$ and $`D4560cm^2/sec`$. Let us consider $`h10^6`$, then $`T_h10^3K`$. In this case, $`T>T_h`$ for experimentally relevant temperature range and Eq.17 should be used. Using the leading order result, $`\sigma _0=\frac{e^2}{2\pi \mathrm{}}k_Fl`$, in two dimensions the relative size of the correction can be estimated as $`\delta \sigma /\sigma _00.07`$ at $`T=2K`$ and $`\delta \sigma /\sigma _00.1`$ at $`0.1K`$.. Thus the relative correction is only $`710\%`$. Given that the residual resistivity is about $`5\mu \mathrm{\Omega }cm`$, it will be hard to see the effect of these corrections. If the material were more dirty, say $`k_Fl50`$, we would get $`1/\tau 150200K`$ and $`T_h=10^4K`$. Similar estimation would predict that the relative correction is $`3050\%`$ at $`T=0.12K`$. It would be interesting to test these predictions in more dirty samples.

To conclude this section we note that the scattering time $`\tau `$ is the impurity scattering rate, as renormalized by critical fluctuations at scales less than the (renormalized) $`l`$. We also observe that our result is perturbative in both the disorder strength and the interaction. Presumably when the resistivity becomes of the order of the Mott value a crossover to insulating behavior occurs. The insulating state should presumably be interpreted in terms of the random charge density wave state discussed at the end of Section VI, but the issue deserves more careful investigation.

## VIII Conclusion

In summary, the effect of critical fluctuations on the residual resistivity is studied near a two dimensional metamagnetic quantum critical point. When the correlation length is smaller than the mean free path, the critical fluctuations induce a singular renormalization of the amplitude of the back-scattering off an impurity of an electron. This leads to a pronounced cusp in the residual resistivity near the metamagnetic critical point in accordance with the experimental results. When the correlation length becomes larger than the mean free path, the critical fluctuations convert the ‘Aronov-Altshuler’ logarithmic correction to the conductivity to the more singular squared-logarithmic behavior near the critical point. Our results imply a divergent resistivity at criticality. We argued that the state which gives rise to this divergence is some sort of random charge density wave, but a detailed investigation of its properties has not been performed.

Our results may have broader implications. The apparently successful comparison of our calculation to data suggests that the singular “$`2p_F`$” renormalization discovered in the gauge theory context in Altshuler94  is more than a theoretical curiosity, and therefore motivates examination of other systems where $`2p_F`$ effects might be important; for example in the transresistance of bilayer $`\nu =1/2`$ quantum Hall systems. Work in this direction is in progress.

Acknowledgements: We thank A. Mackenzie for stimulating our interest in this problem and E. Abrahams, P. A. Lee and E. W. Plummer for very helpful conversations. We are also grateful to L. Taillefer, F. Ronning, and R. Hill for showing their unpublished data and helpful discussions. This work was supported by NSF-DMR-00081075 (AJM), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the NSERC of Canada (YBK), and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. We acknowledge the hospitality of the Aspen Center for Physics, where part of this work was performed.