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# Confining potential in a color dielectric medium with parallel domain walls

## I Introduction

The color dielectric models have been used to describe phenomenologically the confinement of quarks and gluons inside the hadrons — see Refs. fl ; mit ; slac ; cornell  for pioneering papers on this subject. We shall investigate the quark confinement in a system of two parallel domain walls separating different color dielectric media. Such a system is regarded as a hadron and our main goal in this paper is to search for a confining potential of the color electric field. The color dielectric effect is achieved via coupling between a color dielectric function $`G`$ chosen properly and the dynamical term of the gauge field. As one knows the color vacuum in QCD has an analog in QED. In QED the screening effect creates an effective electric charge that increases when the distance between a pair of electron-antielectron decreases. On the other hand, in QCD there exists an anti-screening effect that creates an effective color charge which decreases when the distance between a pair of quark-antiquark decreases. This means that for small distance (large momentum transfer) the quarks and gluons are considered approximately free inside the hadrons (asymptotic freedom).

In the examples described above, the screening effect is essentially due to the vacuum polarization in the relativistic limit. However, it is believed to be possible to treat the physics of quarks quite well in non-relativistic models of hadrons. This is of special interest in physics of heavy quarks, where one considers non-relativistic quarks and antiquarks connected by a color flux tube known as a QCD string. The energy of such configuration is described by confining potentials, i.e., by potentials that increase linearly with the distance. In color dielectric models one considers the QCD vacuum as a color dielectric medium. This is somehow analog to what happens with two electrical charges of opposite signs embedded in a polarizable dielectric medium. This is a common phenomenon that occurs in classic electrodynamics. The Lagrangian should contain a term like $`GF_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }`$ in order to describe the dielectric effects on the electric field, e.g., the displacement vector. The dielectric function $`G(r)`$ usually assumes the behavior: $`G(rd)1`$ and $`G(rd)<1`$, where $`d`$ is the diameter of the polarized molecules and $`r`$ represents an arbitrary position on the dielectric medium. The QCD analog to this electric effect is achieved using in the QCD Lagrangian the term $`GF_{\mu \nu }^aF_a^{\mu \nu }`$. The color dielectric function $`G(r)`$ in order to guarantee absolute color confinement must assume the behavior: $`G(r>R)=0`$ in the color dielectric medium (outside the hadron) and $`G(r<R)=1`$ inside the hadron, where $`R`$ is the radius of the hadron.

For simplicity, in this paper we focus attention on QCD in two-dimensions, QCD2, for short. Two-dimensional QCD in the large $`N_c`$ limit was introduced long ago thooft74 . It is a truly relativistic field theory resembling the realistic four dimensional QCD — see, for instance, nefediev . The theory naturally exhibits confinement since the Coulomb force is confining in two dimensions.

We choose a function $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ for the self-interacting part of the real scalar fields $`\varphi `$ and $`\chi `$. The function $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ is chosen such that one of the scalar fields provides kink (anti-kink) solutions and the other scalar field contributes to the color dielectric function $`G(\varphi ,\chi )`$, with the right behavior for confinement. We find a solution representing two parallel domain walls that confine the color flux in between the two walls. In $`(3,1)`$ dimensions, the kink solutions are seen as thick domain walls which in the thin limit are regarded as 2-branes that can be found in string/M-theory. In the QCD realm, a 2-brane solution can be a place where the color flux terminates. This possibility has been considered first in the context of M-theory witten97  and also in field theory trodden ; campos ; shifman ; dvali ; sakai . In this scenario one considers a QCD string (flux tube) ending on a 2-brane (quark or antiquark). The QCD string itself is usually good to describe the spectra of heavy mesons such as charmonium or bottomonium — see td ; wil . Since we shall restrict ourselves to a two-dimensional theory, our kink (anti-kink) solutions will be regarded as 0-branes (quark or antiquark), which are the ending points for the QCD2 string (flux line). In our model the two parallel domain walls solution (0-branes) that confines the color field can be regarded as a QCD2 string connecting a quark to an antiquark.

In order to find classical solutions of the equations of motion we take advantage of the first-order differential equations that appear in a way similar to the Bogomol’nyi approach, although we are not dealing with supersymmetry in this paper. The formalism lead us to a suitable potential $`V`$ in order to make applications feasible. The first-order equations for the scalar fields decouple from the gauge field part. The dynamics of the fermionic sector, used to describe quarks is not considered at this stage of the calculations. Rather we regard the fermionic (quarks) effects via an external color current source. We also assume that the set of QCD2 equations of motions can be replaced to another set, which consider only Abelian fields. This is because through the color dielectric function $`G(\varphi ,\chi )`$ the scalar field couples to an average of the gauge field $`A_\mu ^a`$ NPA448 . Thus, it suffices to consider only the Abelian part of the non-Abelian gauge dynamics.

We organize this work as follows. In Sec. II we introduce the Lagrangian of the QCD2 in a color dielectric medium and then we solve the equations of motion using first-order differential equations. The parallel domain wall solution that we find allows to have a confining color electric potential. In Sec. III we comment the results. Our notation is standard, and we use dimensional units such that $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$, and metric tensor with signature $`(+,)`$.

## II QCD2 with color dielectric function

A general theory of QCD2 in a color dielectric medium can be described by the Lagrangian

$`^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}G(\varphi ,\chi )F_{\mu \nu }^a(x)F_a^{\mu \nu }(x)`$ (1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \varphi (x)^\mu \varphi (x)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \chi (x)^\mu \chi (x)V(\varphi ,\chi )`$
$`+\overline{\psi }(x)(i\gamma ^\mu _\mu m)\psi (x)`$
$`+\overline{\psi }(x)(g\gamma ^\mu A_\mu ^aX_af(\varphi ,\chi ))\psi (x)`$
where $`X_a`$ are $`SU(N_c)`$ color matrices, $`F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^a+gf_{bc}^aA_\mu ^bA_\nu ^c`$, $`x`$ stands for $`(x_0,x)`$ and we have suppressed the flavor indices. The quark spinor field $`\psi `$ is in general coupled to the scalar fields via the Yukawa coupling term $`\overline{\psi }f(\varphi ,\chi )\psi `$. Here, however, we first discard all the fermions, to focus on the bosonic background fields. The presence of fermions will be further examined below, to discuss how the walls can be charged.

In a medium which accounts mainly for one-gluon exchange, the gluon field equations linearize and are formally identical to the Maxwell equations wil . In this sense, it suffices to consider only the Abelian part of the non-Abelian strength field NPA448 , i.e., $`F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^a`$. Further, without loss of generality we can suppress the color index $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}a\mathrm{"}`$ if we take an Abelian external color source slusa  due to quarks or antiquarks represented by an external color current density $`j_a^\mu `$. This is because the results both for Abelian and non-Abelian cases are very similar slusa ; dick1 ; dick2 ; cha1 ; cha2 . We account for all these facts, thus the model we start with to investigate confinement is the effectively Abelian Lagrangian

$`_{eff}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}G(\varphi ,\chi )F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+j_\mu A^\mu `$ (2)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \chi ^\mu \chi V`$
where $`j_\mu `$ is an Abelian external current density.

### II.1 Equations of motion

We search for static solutions of the equations of motion. Thus, we consider the fields depending only on the spatial coordinate, $`x`$. The equations of motion that follow from (2) are written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\varphi }{dx^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`V_\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_\varphi \left({\displaystyle \frac{dU}{dx}}\right)^2`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\chi }{dx^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`V_\chi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_\chi \left({\displaystyle \frac{dU}{dx}}\right)^2`$ (4)
and

$$\frac{d}{dx}\left[G(\varphi ,\chi )\frac{dU}{dx}\right]=\rho (x)$$
(5)
where we have set $`U=A^0`$ and $`\rho =j^0`$. Also, $`V_\varphi `$ and $`G_\varphi `$ stand for derivatives with respect to $`\varphi `$, and so forth. Now, we choose the potential in the form

$`V(\varphi ,\chi ,x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}W_\varphi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}W_\chi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2G}}\left[{\displaystyle ^x}𝑑x^{}\rho (x^{})\right]^2`$ (6)
where the function $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ is smooth everywhere, in general. The form of $`V(\varphi ,\chi ,x)`$ in (6) appears because we want to use first-order differential equations, instead of the second-order equations of motion. To see this, we notice that the above equations of motion are solved by $`\varphi (x),\chi (x)`$, and $`U(x)`$ that solve the new set of first-order equations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`W_\varphi `$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\chi }{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`W_\chi `$ (8)
$`G(\varphi ,\chi ){\displaystyle \frac{dU}{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle ^x}𝑑x^{}\rho (x^{})`$ (9)
This result is inspired in the procedure introduced in Ref. bog , although here the situation is quite different because we are not minimizing the total energy of the system – see, for instance, Ref. bb2000  for further details. However, we can show that the above first-order equations solve the equations of motion.

To solve the first-order equations we first notice that the equations (7) and (8) do not couple with the other equation (9). We take advantage of this and we define the function $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ to look for solutions of (7) and (8). We consider

$$W(\varphi ,\chi )=\lambda a^2\varphi \frac{\lambda }{3}\varphi ^3\mu \varphi \chi ^2$$
(10)
where $`\lambda ,\mu `$ and $`a>0`$ are real parameters. For this particular $`W`$, the dynamical system (7) and (8) has four singular points, given by $`(\varphi =\pm a,\chi =0)`$ and $`(\varphi =0,\chi =\pm \sqrt{\lambda /\mu }a)`$, for $`\lambda /\mu >0`$, which are interpolated by domain wall solutions bb2000 ; bsr ; brs ; bb ; shvol ; bbb . Before going into this, let us now specify the functions $`\rho (x)`$ and $`G(\varphi ,\chi )`$. Since we are representing here quarks and antiquarks as domain walls (0-branes) with non-zero width, the color charge density is not necessarily point-like. In this way we introduce the color charge distribution on the walls as

$$\rho (x\pm s)=q\frac{\eta }{2}\mathrm{sech}^2\eta (x\pm s)$$
(11)
where $`s`$ is the center of the distribution, which we choose to be real and positive. This charge density is interesting since it tends to be point-like $`[q\delta (x\pm s)]`$ in the limit as $`\eta \mathrm{}`$. The point-like limit is realistic as long as $`x\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where the width $`\mathrm{\Delta }1/\eta `$ is of the same order as the quark (or antiquark) radius. As we show below, $`\eta `$ is defined according to the width of the domain wall solutions that solve (7) and (8).

Let us now discuss the choice (11) that we have just done for the color charge density on the walls. It can be justified due to the presence of fermion zero modes on the walls. To show this explicitly, we consider the Lagrangian density $`^{}=_{eff}^{}+_D+_Y`$, where $`_{eff}^{}`$ is given in (2), with $`j_\mu =q\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu \psi `$. The other fermion contributions are given by the Dirac Lagrangian density $`_D`$ and the Yukawa coupling term $`_Y`$. The variation $`\delta ^{}/\delta \overline{\psi }=0`$ gives the fermion equation of motion

$`i\gamma ^\mu _\mu \psi +q\gamma ^\mu A_\mu \psi [m+f(\varphi ,\chi )]\psi =0.`$ (12)
We choose $`f(\varphi ,\chi )=m+k\mathrm{\Phi }(x)`$, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)=\varphi (x)\varphi _0`$ where $`\varphi (x)`$ is the bosonic background solution for the scalar field $`\varphi `$, which is given below, in Eq. (21). The meaning of $`\varphi _0`$ is going to be clear later. Looking for two-dimensional solutions ($`\mu =t,x`$) we start with the Ansatz

$`\psi =e^{iqA_0(x)t}h(x)ϵ_\pm `$ (13)
where $`ϵ_\pm `$ is a constant spinor and $`A_0(x)`$ is the color electric potential. Substituting (13) in (12) and using the fact that $`\gamma ^xϵ_\pm =\pm iϵ_\pm `$, we find the solution $`h(x)=C\mathrm{exp}[iqA_0(x)t]\times \mathrm{exp}[k^x\mathrm{\Phi }(x^{})𝑑x^{}]`$, where $`C`$ is an arbitrary constant. Now we use Eq. (13) to get to the spinor solution

$`\psi (x)=\left[Ce^{k^x\mathrm{\Phi }(x^{})𝑑x^{}}\right]ϵ_\pm `$ (14)
The solution (21) \[together with (22)\] represent two parallel domain walls. Each domain wall can be treated separately. Explicitly, this can be done by shifting $`x`$ in (21) as $`x\pm s+2z`$ such that one has

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)={\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\left[\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{2(z\pm s)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}+\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{2z}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right]\varphi _0.`$ (15)
Now it is clear that $`\varphi _0`$ must be $`(a/2)\mathrm{tanh}(2z/\mathrm{\Delta })`$ such that we are able to study each domain wall isolated which are described as

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)={\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{2(z\pm s)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}.`$ (16)
Note that, locally, each domain wall solution (16) changes its sign in $`z=s`$ and $`z=s`$. Thus, there are fermion zero modes jack  localized on the domain walls at the points $`x=\pm s`$. In fact, we can find the zero mode solutions explicitly: substituting (16) in (14) and integrating in $`x^{}(=z)`$ we find the normalizable chiral zero modes

$`\psi =C\mathrm{sech}{\displaystyle \frac{2(x\pm s)}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}ϵ_\pm `$ (17)
where we have set $`k=4/a\mathrm{\Delta }`$. With these solutions, the localized charge on the domain walls due to fermionic charge carriers is given by using the current density $`j_\mu =q\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu \psi `$. The charge density is $`\rho =j_0=q\psi ^{}\psi `$ and so, we use the fermion solutions (17) to find $`\rho (x\pm s)=q(\eta /2)\mathrm{sech}^2\eta (x\pm s)`$, where we have identified $`\eta =2/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\eta /2=C^2R`$, with $`R=ϵ_\pm ^{}ϵ_\pm `$ being a constant number. This charge distribution is the charge distribution that we have chosen in Eq. (11).

On the other hand, we define the color dielectric function as

$$G(\varphi ,\chi )=A\chi ^2$$
(18)
where $`A`$ is a normalization constant, dimensionless. As we show below, this definition is sufficient to produce an absolute color confining effect since the $`\chi ^2`$ solution has the appropriate behavior, to make the above $`G`$ to have the required asymptotic profile, as we have mentioned in the introduction.

We notice that the limit $`\mu 0`$ decouples the scalar fields, making the model meaningless. Also, the choice (10) appears as a simple extension of the $`\varphi ^4`$ model (with spontaneous symmetry breaking) to include another field, the $`\chi `$ field, which interacts with the gauge field via the color dielectric model that we propose, inspired in the former Refs. wil ; slusa ; dick1 ; dick2 .

### II.2 Confinement with two parallel domain walls

Among several domain wall solutions connecting the four singular points of the system (7) and (8), when $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ is given as in Eq. (10), there is a particular solution of interest here: the two parallel domain wall solution reported in Refs. shvol ; volosh ; gani . To see this explicitly, we substitute (10) into the first-order equations (7) and (8) to obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda (a^2\varphi ^2)\mu \chi ^2`$ (19)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\chi }{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`2\mu \varphi \chi `$ (20)
This system presents analytical solutions such as

$`\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\left[\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda a(x+s)}{2}}+\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda a(xs)}{2}}\right]`$ (21)
$`\chi `$ $`=`$ $`\pm \sqrt{2}a\left[1\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda a(x+s)}{2}}\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda a(xs)}{2}}\right]^{1/2}`$ (22)
if one sets $`\mu =\lambda /4`$. This solution clearly represents two parallel domain walls at the positions $`x=s`$ and $`x=s`$. It provides a color dielectric function $`G=A\chi ^2`$ (with $`A=1/2a^2`$) with the proper behavior inside and outside the region in between the domain walls: $`G1`$ for $`sxs`$, and $`G0`$ for $`x>s,x<s`$, as we illustrate in Fig. 1. This characterizes an absolute color confinement, as desired. The interpretation of this is that the color flux inside such a region connects charged domain walls with opposite color charges.

It is now clear that $`\eta `$ in the color charge density function (11) should agree with the domain walls width that appears in the solutions (21) and (22), i.e., $`\eta =\lambda a/2`$. Let us now write the equation (9), with $`\rho (x)`$ and $`G(\varphi ,\chi )`$ defined as in (11) and (18) respectively, in the form

$`\chi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{dU}{dx}}=qa^2\left(\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{x+s}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{xs}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)`$ (23)
where we are using $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2/\lambda a`$ to represent the width of each domain wall. This expression has to be integrated over the external color charge density of the quark-antiquark pair represented by the solution obtained in Eqs. (21) and (22). The convention is such that the lines of the color electric flux come from the domain wall on $`x=s`$ (a quark) and end on the domain wall on $`x=s`$ (an antiquark).

We substitute the solution (22) into the equation (23) to perform the integration in the interval that goes from $`s\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ to $`s+\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$, which is the region where the solutions (21) and (22) appreciably deviate from trivial vacuum states. The result is

$$U(s)=2\sigma \left(s+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\right)\mathrm{tanh}(2s/\mathrm{\Delta })$$
(24)
where we are using $`\sigma =q/2`$, as the string tension of the string that connects the quark-antiquark pair. At large distance, for $`s\mathrm{\Delta }`$ we obtain

$$U(s)\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }+2\sigma s,$$
(25)
which nicely reproduces the well-known linear behavior in quark confinement This is the scenario we have in the thin-wall limit.

The above scenario is introduced to represent a meson. In the region outside the parallel domain walls (the vacuum) the field $`\chi 0`$ and so does the color dielectric function $`G`$, whereas the field $`\varphi `$ is non zero. This scalar field can be excited around its vacuum $`\varphi _0`$. Such excitation can be identified with $`glueballs`$, i.e., pure gluonic hadrons surrounding the meson. In our model the glueball mass is given by $`^2V(\varphi )/\varphi ^2|_{\varphi =\varphi _0}`$, where $`V(\varphi )=(1/2)[W_\varphi ^2+W_\chi ^2]|_{\chi =0}`$ with the $`W(\varphi ,\chi )`$ chosen as in (10), with $`\mu =\lambda /4`$. The glueball mass is then given by $`m_{GB}^2=4\lambda ^2a^2`$. One can redefine some quantities in terms of the glueball mass; for instance, the scale of symmetry breaking can be given as $`a^2=3m_q/m_{GB}`$, once we are identifying $`m_q=2\lambda a^3/3`$ (the mass $`m_q`$ of each quark is identified with the tension of each isolated wall). For heavy quarks we have $`m_qm_{GB}`$ and then $`a^21`$. Since the wall width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is $`(2/\lambda a)`$ and so, for finite $`\lambda `$ the thin-wall limit is then ensured, in accordance with the previous results.

Let us now turn attention to the small distance ($`s\mathrm{\Delta }`$) behavior of our model. We cannot use the above result (24) to examine the small distance behavior of the potential. This limitation is to be expected, since at small distance the two walls overlap and change the scenario. To circumvent this issue we turn back to solutions (21) and (22), to see that the limit $`s\mathrm{\Delta }`$ leads to other solutions, as follows

$`\varphi (x)`$ $``$ $`\varphi ^{(0)}(x)=a\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)`$ (26)
$`\chi (x)`$ $``$ $`\chi ^{(0)}(x)=\pm \sqrt{2}a\mathrm{sech}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)`$ (27)
The solutions $`\varphi ^{(0)}`$ and $`\chi ^{(0)}`$ were first obtained in Ref. bsr ; they represent genuine two-field solutions, not two-wall solutions anymore. This represents the thick wall solution with internal structure brs ; bb . The fields $`\varphi `$ and $`\chi `$ play another game now. The field $`\varphi `$ is regarded to describe a “bag” mit ; slac  filled with gluons which is represented by $`\chi `$. It is not difficult to see that in doing all the above calculations in order to obtain the color potential using the solutions (26) and (27) we end up with a new confining potential. The leading contribution that appear from the right hand side of Eq. (23) in the limit $`s\mathrm{\Delta }`$ vanishes, making the potential constant, describing absence of force in between the gluons inside the bag, in agreement with the asymptotic freedom behavior of QCD. The bag represents a purely gluonic hadron, i.e., a gluewall, in analogy to the three-dimensional glueball. Our understanding is that at very small distance the pair quark-antiquark annihilates, decaying into a colorless gluewall.

## III Comments and conclusions

In this paper we have presented a scenario which can describe quark confinement via a monotonically increasing color electric potential. This is achieved by considering a color flux confined to a region in between two parallel domain walls. In two-dimensional QCD, the color flux is confined to a flux line ending on 0-branes. This is similar to QCD strings connecting 2-branes in string/M-theory witten97 . The color electric potential varies linearly with distance, in the large distance limit between the domain walls, in the thin-wall limit. On the other hand, at very small distance, our results predict that the pair quark-antiquark annihilates to form a colorless gluewall. This is the (analog of a) purely gluonic hadron described by a bag represented by a domain wall with internal structure.

Despite its simplicity, we see that our model presents a very reasonable description of quark confinement at relatively large distance. This result encourages us to investigate more realistic models, taking into account mainly the non-Abelian character of the color dielectric medium. Another line of investigation is directly related to the way we couple the gauge field to the scalar fields via the dielectric function $`G(\varphi ,\chi )`$. This coupling is somehow similar to the coupling that appears in Kaluza-Klein compactifications involving non-Abelian dick1 ; dick2  and Abelian mts  gauge fields. In this sense, an issue to be pursued refers to the relation between the two scalar fields that appear in the present work, and the dilaton and moduli fields used in Ref. mts .

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank C. Pires for useful discussions, and CAPES, CNPq, PROCAD and PRONEX for partial support. FB and WF would like to thank Departamento de Física, UFPB, for hospitality. WF also thanks FUNCAP for a fellowship.


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# Excitation of 𝑆₁₁ resonances in pion scattering and pion photoproduction on the proton

## I Introduction

Hadron spectroscopy has always played an important role in unraveling the underlying quark dynamics. For example, the pattern of similarity between the eight baryons and the eight pseudoscalar mesons led to the epochal discovery of SU(3) symmetry.

There are 44 nonstrange baryon states listed in the Particle Data Group , 22 in $`T=\frac{1}{2}`$ and another 22 in $`T=\frac{3}{2}`$ channels. Among them, 18 are rated four-star and 6 rated three-star. The rest are weakly excited states with at most fair evidence of existence. Even though the existence of the four-star baryon resonances is certain, some very large discrepancies exist in their properties as obtained from different analyses. One example is the extracted width of the four-star $`S_{11}(1535)`$ state given as $`66`$ MeV , $`120\pm 20`$ MeV , $`151\pm 27`$ MeV , $`151198`$ MeV , and $`270\pm 50`$ MeV . The differences between different analyses arise mostly from the data set included in the analysis or the separation of background and resonance contributions. This model dependence in the extraction of the resonance properties has made it difficult to test the predictions of theoretical models with existing data.

At present the resonance properties are extracted mainly from $`\pi N`$ scattering, 2$`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ production and pion photoproduction using different approaches (for details see Refs. ). The first coupled channel analysis that combines pion and eta data was done in Ref.  within the isobar model. Later, more sophisticated models were developed which account for background contributions. Most of them are based on the solution of coupled-channels equations by use of the K-matrix approximation, i.e., by ignoring off-shell intermediate scattering states. A motivation for such an approximation is the result of Ref. , where it was shown that off-shell effects could be incorporated into the vertex renormalization of the lowest order Lagrangians.

On the other hand, in the analysis of pion scattering and pion photoproduction within dynamical models , the off-shell dynamics (i.e., the dynamics at short distance) is taken into account. Within this framework we have recently developed a meson-exchange (MEX) model for pion-nucleon scattering  which gives good agreement with the data up to 400 MeV pion lab energy. In addition, we have also constructed a dynamical model for pion electromagnetic production  which describes the $`\pi ^0`$ photo- and electro-production data near threshold  and most of the existing data up to the second resonance region.

In this paper, we extend our meson-exchange $`\pi N`$ model in the $`S_{11}`$ channel up to $`2`$ GeV by explicitly introducing a set of $`S_{11}`$ resonances into the model. The results are then fed into the pion photoproduction model to analyze the existing $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0^+}^{}`$ multipole. The $`S_{11}`$ channel is of interest for several reasons. First of all, the first resonance $`S_{11}(1535)`$, which lies only 48 MeV above the $`\eta N`$ threshold, has a remarkably large $`\eta N`$ branching ratio. This necessitates the inclusion of the $`\eta N`$ channel into our MEX $`\pi N`$ model. Secondly, the analyses based solely on pion photoproduction always underestimate the $`A_{1/2}^p`$ helicity amplitude of $`S_{11}(1535)`$ with a value around $`60\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2, while extractions from the $`(\gamma ,\eta )`$ data give a value close to and above $`100\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2 . Lastly, there have been suggestions  that there could exist a third $`S_{11}`$ resonance in the neighborhood of $`18001900`$ MeV, in addition to the well-known resonances at 1535 and 1650 MeV. A consistent analysis of both $`\pi N`$ scattering and pion photoproduction reactions can shed new light on the mentioned issues concerning helicity amplitudes and higher resonance as well as reduce the large uncertainties in the width obtained from previous analyses.

## II $`\pi N`$ scattering

Our MEX $`\pi N`$ model results by use of a three-dimensional reduction scheme of the Bethe-Salpeter equation for a model Lagrangian involving $`\pi ,N,\mathrm{\Delta },\rho ,`$ and $`\sigma `$ fields. Details can be found in Ref.. Here we only present the general scheme to extend the model to the case of coupled $`\pi `$, $`\eta `$, and $`2\pi `$ channels, including in addition the couplings with baryon resonances in the $`S_{11}`$ partial wave. To do this, we first enlarge the Hilbert space to include a bare $`S_{11}`$ particle $`R`$ which acquires a width by couplings with $`\pi N`$ and $`\eta N`$ channels via the Lagrangian

$`_{}=ig_{\pi NR}^{(0)}\overline{R}𝝉N𝝅+ig_{\eta NR}^{(0)}\overline{R}N\eta +h.c.,`$ (1)
where $`N,R,𝝅,`$ and $`\eta `$ denote the field operators for the nucleon, bare $`R`$, pion and eta, respectively. The full $`t`$-matrix can then be written as a system of coupled equations,

$`t_{ij}(E)=v_{ij}(E)+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{ik}(E)g_k(E)t_{kj}(E),`$ (2)
where $`i`$ and $`j`$ denote the $`\pi `$ or $`\eta `$ channel and $`E=W`$ is the total center of mass energy. Equation (2) is a system of three-dimensional coupled integral equations which is derived from the four-dimensional Bethe-Salpeter equation using a three-dimensional reduction scheme with a relativistic propagator $`g_k`$ for the free $`kN`$ system ($`k=\pi `$, or $`\eta `$), constructed according to the Cooper-Jennings reduction scheme .

In general, the potential $`v_{ij}`$ is a sum of non-resonant $`(v_{ij}^B)`$ and bare resonance $`(v_{ij}^R)`$ terms,

$`v_{ij}(E)=v_{ij}^B(E)+v_{ij}^R(E).`$ (3)
The non-resonant term $`v_{\pi \pi }^B`$ for the $`\pi N`$ elastic channels contains contributions from the $`s`$\- and $`u`$-channels, Born terms and $`t`$-channel contributions with $`\omega `$, $`\rho `$, and $`\sigma `$ exchange. In the present work the parameters in $`v_{\pi \pi }^B`$ are fixed from the analysis of the pion scattering phase shifts for the $`s`$ and $`p`$waves at low energies ($`W<1300`$ MeV). In channels involving the eta, $`v_{i\eta }^B`$ is taken to be zero because of the small $`\eta NN`$ coupling . The bare resonance contribution $`v_{ij}^R(E)`$ arises from excitation and de-excitation of the resonance $`R`$ via the interaction Lagrangian of Eq. (1).

Let us first consider the case with only one $`S_{11}`$ resonance contributing in the energy region of interest, i.e., $`W<2`$ GeV. The corresponding potential $`v_{ij}^R(E)`$ can then be symbolically expressed in the form of

$`v_{ij}^R(q,q^{};E)={\displaystyle \frac{f_i(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_i,q;E)g_i^{(0)}g_j^{(0)}f_j(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_j,q^{};E)}{EM_R^{(0)}+i\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^R(E)}},`$ (4)
where $`q`$ and $`q^{}`$ are the pion (or eta) momenta in the initial and final states, and $`M_R^{(0)}`$ and $`g_{i(j)}^{(0)}`$ are the bare masses and resonance vertex couplings, respectively. According to our previous $`\pi N`$ model, we associate with each line of the particle $`\alpha `$ in a Feynman diagram the covariant form factor $`F_\alpha `$ $`[n_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\alpha ^4/(n_\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }_\alpha ^4+(p_\alpha ^2m_\alpha ^2)^2)]^{n_\alpha }`$, where $`p_\alpha `$, $`m_\alpha `$, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\alpha `$ are the four-momentum, mass, and cut-off parameter of particle $`\alpha `$, respectively. The quantity $`f_i`$ of Eq. (4) is then a product of three form factors $`F_\alpha `$, each of them corresponding to one of the three legs associated with the considered vertex. As a result, $`f_i`$ depends on the product of three cut-off parameters, i.e., $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\pi (\mathrm{\Lambda }_N,\mathrm{\Lambda }_R,\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pi )`$. We refer the readers to Refs.  for details and only mention that $`n_\alpha =10`$ is used in the present work.

In Eq. (4) we have added a phenomenological term $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^R(E)`$ in the resonance propagator in order to take into account the $`\pi \pi N`$ decay channel. Therefore, our resonance propagator is not purely ”bare” but includes renormalization (or ”dressing”) effects due to the coupling with the $`\pi \pi N`$ channel. Using this prescription we assume that the additional non-resonant mechanisms of coupling with the $`\pi \pi N`$ channel are small. Following Refs. we take $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^R(E)`$ as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^R(E)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^{0,R}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q_{2\pi }}{q_0}}\right)^{2l+4}\left({\displaystyle \frac{X^2+q_0^2}{X^2+q_{2\pi }^2}}\right)^{l+2},`$ (5)
where $`l`$ is the pion orbital momentum, $`q_{2\pi }`$ the momentum of the compound $`2\pi `$ system with mass $`2m_\pi `$ and $`q_0=q_{2\pi }`$ at $`E=M_R^{(0)}`$. We note that this form takes account of the correct energy behavior of the phase space near the three-body threshold . The parameter $`X`$ is fixed at 500 MeV as suggested in Ref. , and the quantity $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^{0,R}`$ is associated with the $`2\pi `$ decay width at resonance. In general, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^{0,R}`$ can be considered as a free parameter. However, its value is strongly correlated with the values of the unknown coupling constants $`g_i^{(0)}`$. In particular, a small $`g_i^{(0)}`$ usually requires a large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^{0,R}`$. Therefore, we will fix the value for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^{0,R}`$ by use of recent knowledge about the decay modes of the resonances and their total Breit-Wigner widths .

Summarizing our parametrization of the potential $`v_{ij}^R`$ in the case of coupled pion and eta channels, we would like to emphasize that, in general, one isolated resonance contains five free parameters, the bare mass $`M_R^{(0)}`$, the decay width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{2\pi }^0`$, two bare coupling constants $`g_i^{(0)}`$ and $`g_j^{(0)}`$, and one cutoff parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$.

In the channel of interest, $`S_{11}`$, there are two well-known four-star resonance states, $`S_{11}(1535)`$ and $`S_{11}(1650)`$, and one one-star resonance, $`S_{11}(2090)`$. In the Hypercentral Constituent Quark Model , a third and fourth $`S_{11}`$ resonance with energies 1860 and 2008 MeV were predicted. The generalization of our coupled channels model for multiple resonances with the same quantum numbers is simply

$`v_{ij}^R(q,q^{};E)={\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}}v_{ij}^{R_n}(q,q^{};E),`$ (6)
with additional parameters for the bare masses, widths, coupling constants and cut-off parameters for each resonance.

We first start with the analysis of Re $`t_{ij}`$ and Im $`t_{ij}`$ for pion scattering and eta production in the energy range $`1100`$MeV $`<W<1750`$ MeV where the $`S_{11}(1535)`$ and $`S_{11}(1650)`$ resonances are very pronounced. The results of our best fit of $`t_{\pi \pi }`$ in this energy range with only these two resonances included are shown in Fig. 1 by the dotted curves. We are not able to improve our results in the region $`W>1800`$ MeV without additional $`S_{11}`$ resonances. Next we extend the energy range up to $`W=2000`$ MeV and add a third resonance with the parameters for the first resonance fixed as obtained above. Our results for this case are shown by the dash-dotted curves, which correspond to a bare mass of the third $`S_{11}`$ resonance $`M_3^{(0)}=1901`$ MeV. We find that this value is very stable and changes only within 2% if the energy range is increased up to 2200 MeV. However, this does not remove the remaining discrepancy, in particular for the imaginary part at $`W>2000`$ MeV. We find that the only way to improve the agreement with the data in this energy range is to introduce a fourth resonance. Our final fit results ($`\chi ^2/120=4.56`$) with four $`S_{11}`$ resonances are shown by the solid lines in Fig. 1. The obtained value for the bare mass of the fourth $`S_{11}`$ resonance is $`M_4^{(0)}=2160`$ MeV. Note that in Fig. 1 the background contributions (dashed curves) are defined by the equation

$`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^B(E)=v_{\pi \pi }^B(E)+v_{\pi \pi }^B(E)g(E)\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^B(E),`$ (7)
which are hereafter called the ”nonresonant background”, i.e., the background with nonresonant rescattering. In the following Fig. 2 we show our results for the t-matrix of the $`\pi N\eta N`$ reaction in the $`S_{11}`$ channel, which clearly indicate the presence of the $`\eta `$ decay mode in the second and third $`S_{11}`$ resonance regions.

Now let us turn to the more sophisticated part of the analysis, namely, the extraction of the physical (or ”dressed”) masses, partial widths and branching ratios of the resonances. As was pointed out in Ref. , the procedure is certainly model dependent. This is mainly connected with the question how to separate background and resonance contributions in a well-defined way. The solution to this problem becomes more difficult with an increasing number of overlapping resonances in the same channel. Below we present our solution to this problem.

First, we determine the physical mass using as definition for the contribution of the $`n`$-th resonance $`R_n`$ in the elastic pion scattering channel:

$`t_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}(E)=v_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}(E)+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{\pi k}^{R_n}(E)g_k(E)t_{k\pi }(E),`$ (8)
with $`t_{k\pi }(E)`$ the full $`t`$-matrix obtained from the solution of Eq. (2). It is easy to see that Eq. (8) corresponds to the following decomposition of the full $`t_{\pi \pi }`$ matrix:

$`t_{\pi \pi }(E)=t_{\pi \pi }^B(E)+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}}t_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}(E),`$ (9)
where the new background operator is defined as

$`t_{\pi \pi }^B(E)=v_{\pi \pi }^B(E)+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{\pi k}^B(E)g_k(E)t_{k\pi }(E).`$ (10)
We call this the ”resonant background”, because it contains resonance contributions via the full scattering matrix $`t_{k\pi }(E)`$.

It can be shown that the sum of the two terms on the r.h.s. of Eq. (8) can be expressed by a single term as represented by the diagram on the l.h.s. in Fig. 3, which consists of a bare initial $`\pi NR_n`$ vertex, followed by a dressed resonance propagator and then finally decay through a dressed $`\pi NR_n`$ vertex. It now becomes obvious that $`t_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}`$ should have the standard Breit-Wigner form, $`(WM_{R_n}+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_n}/2)^1`$, near the resonance position. The energy $`W`$ where Re $`t_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}`$ crosses zero can be considered as the physical mass of the resonance $`R_n`$. The total width can be determined by the full width at half maximum of $`Imt_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}(W)`$. The branching ratios for the pion, eta and two-pion decay modes can be extracted from the corresponding self-energies calculated by projection of the $`t_{\pi \pi }^{R_n}`$-matrix on the standard Breit-Wigner form.

Our final results for the resonance parameters are summarized in Table I. Here we also compare with the results of the GW-Giessen collaboration, Pitt-ANL collaboration and Kent State University (KSU) group, taken from Ref. . Our parameters for the first and second $`S_{11}`$ resonances are close to the Pitt-ANL results. Both models predict a total width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_1}`$100 MeV for the first and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_2}`$200 MeV for the second $`S_{11}`$ resonance. Note that the value obtained for the total width of the $`S_{11}(1535)`$ is very close to the recent result of Ref.  (94 MeV) and Ref.  (106 MeV). However, there is no agreement with the results of the GW-Giessen model, which yields $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_1}`$230 MeV, and the KSU model, which yields $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_2}`$108 MeV. In the last case the reason for the discrepancy could be the absence of the $`\eta N`$ production data in the fit of that reference. Within our model we can get a similar result for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{R_2}`$ if we also exclude this channel from our data base. Further differences lie in the parameters for the third $`S_{11}`$. The position and total width of this resonance in our and the Pitt-ANL analyses are close, but our model suggests a strong one-pion decay mode (about 40%), while the Pitt-ANL value is only 17%. The situation with the strength of the eta decay mode is opposite: we find a branching ratio of 12% as opposed to 41% in the Pitt-ANL analysis. As we will see below such differences have visible consequences for the pion and eta photoproduction. We further note that in the case of the third $`S_{11}`$, results similar to ours were also obtained in Ref.  ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi /\mathrm{\Gamma }_R=51`$%).

## III Pion photoproduction

The above analysis of elastic $`\pi N`$ scattering indicates the existence of four $`S_{11}`$ resonances. Let us now check this result by an independent analysis of pion photoproduction using the dynamical model developed in Refs. , hereafter called the DMT (Dubna-Mainz-Taipei) model. Concerning the details of the DMT model, we refer the reader to Ref. .

The t-matrix for pion photoproduction in the dynamical model is

$`t_{\gamma \pi }(E)=v_{\gamma \pi }+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{\gamma k}g_k(E)t_{k\pi }(E),`$ (11)
with $`v_{\gamma k}`$ the transition potential for the $`\gamma NkN`$ reaction ($`k=\pi `$ or $`\eta `$), $`t_{k\pi }`$ the full $`kN`$ scattering t-matrix of Eq. (2), and $`g_k`$ the free $`kN`$ propagator.

If the transition potential $`v_{\gamma \pi }`$ consists of two terms,

$`v_{\gamma \pi }(E)=v_{\gamma \pi }^B+v_{\gamma \pi }^R(E),`$ (12)
where $`v_{\gamma \pi }^B`$ is the background transition potential and $`v_{\gamma \pi }^R(E)`$ the contribution of a bare resonance R, we may decompose the resulting t-matrix into two terms ,

$`t_{\gamma \pi }(E)=t_{\gamma \pi }^B(E)+t_{\gamma \pi }^R(E),`$ (13)
where

$`t_{\gamma \pi }^B(E)=v_{\gamma \pi }^B+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{\gamma k}^Bg_k(E)t_{k\pi }(E),`$ (14)
$`t_{\gamma \pi }^R(E)=v_{\gamma \pi }^R+{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}v_{\gamma k}^Rg_k(E)t_{k\pi }(E).`$ (15)
In our numerical calculations we have neglected the contribution of the $`\eta `$ channel in the intermediate states in Eq. (14), because this contribution is found to be much smaller than for the $`\pi `$ channels. We further note that all the processes which start with the excitation of the resonance by the bare $`\gamma NR`$ vertex are summed up in $`t_{\gamma \pi }^R`$. This is similar to our definition Eq. (8) of the resonance contribution for $`\pi N`$ scattering. Using the decomposition of Eqs. (13-15) we can now extract the value of the bare $`\gamma NR`$ vertex. As in the case of pion scattering (see Eq. (10)), the corresponding background $`t_{\gamma \pi }^B`$ is called ”resonant background” since it contains the full pion scattering $`t`$-matrix. Note that, for example, in Ref.  the background is defined differently,

$`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^B(E)=v_{\gamma \pi }^B+v_{\gamma \pi }^Bg_\pi (E)\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^B(E),`$ (16)
where $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^B`$ is defined by Eq. (7). This definition corresponds to the so-called nonresonant (smooth) background, because it contains none of the resonance contributions. The corresponding resonance term $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^R=t_{\gamma \pi }\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^B`$ describes a resonance with a dressed $`\gamma NR`$ vertex.

It can be easily proved that the following relation holds between $`t_{\gamma \pi }^R`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^R`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^R(E)=t_{\gamma \pi }^R(E)+v_{\gamma \pi }^Bg_\pi (E)\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^R(E),`$ (17)
where $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^R(E)=t_{\pi \pi }(E)\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pi \pi }^B(E)`$ is the dressed resonance contribution in pion scattering, as is graphically illustrated in Fig. 4.

The background potential $`v_{\gamma \pi }^B`$ contains Born terms with an energy dependent mixing of pseudovector and pseudoscalar $`\pi NN`$ coupling and t-channel vector meson exchanges . The mixing parameters and coupling constants were determined from an analysis of the nonresonant multipoles. The standard physical multipoles in a channel $`\alpha =\{l,j,I\}`$ can then be expressed as

$`t_{\gamma \pi }^{B,\alpha }(q_E,k)`$ $`=`$ $`v_{\gamma \pi }^{B,\alpha }(q_E,k)[1+iq_EF_{\pi \pi }^{(\alpha )}(q_E,q_E;E)]{\displaystyle \frac{P}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^2dq^{}}{(q^{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_{\pi \pi }^{(\alpha )}(q_E,q^{};E)v_{\gamma \pi }^{B,\alpha }(q^{},k)}{EE_{\pi N}(q^{})}},`$ (18)
where $`F_{\pi \pi }^{(\alpha )}`$ is the pion-scattering amplitude with the on-shell value $`F_{\pi \pi }^{(\alpha )}(q_E,q_E)=[\eta _\alpha \mathrm{exp}(2i\delta _\alpha )1]/2iq_E,`$ with $`\delta _\alpha `$ the phase shift and $`\eta _\alpha `$ the inelasticity parameter, and $`(q)=E_\pi (q)E_N(q)/E_{\pi N}(q)`$ the relativistic pion-nucleon reduced mass. We mention in passing that the so-called ”K-matrix” approximation, as in the case of MAID  and many others models, neglects the principal value integral in Eq. (18), and parametrizes the background in terms of on-shell pion rescattering only. In this case, the off-shell rescattering associated with the principal value integral contribution is phenomenologically absorbed in the resonance parameters, while in the DMT model it is considered as a part of the background. Therefore, the resonance parts in DMT and K-matrix approach are different: in the DMT model the resonance is described by the amplitude $`t_{\gamma \pi }^R`$ with a bare electromagnetic vertex and, as we will see below, in the models based on the K-matrix approximation, the resonance description is essentially given by $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^R`$ with a dressed electromagnetic vertex.

Following Ref. , we assume a Breit-Wigner form for the resonance contribution $`t_{\gamma \pi }^{R,\alpha }(W)`$,

$$t_{\gamma \pi }^{R,\alpha }(W)=\overline{𝒜}_\alpha ^R\frac{f_{\gamma R}(W)\mathrm{\Gamma }_RM_Rf_{\pi R}(W)}{M_R^2W^2iM_R\mathrm{\Gamma }_R},$$
(19)
where $`f_{\pi R}`$ is the usual Breit-Wigner factor describing the decay of a resonance $`R`$ with total width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R(W)`$ and physical mass $`M_R`$. The expressions for $`f_{\gamma R},f_{\pi R}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$ are given in Ref. . In the DMT model the electromagnetic form factor $`\overline{𝒜}_\alpha ^R`$ describes the bare $`\gamma NR`$ vertex. This is a free parameter to be determined from the experimental data.

In Fig. 5 (upper panel) we see that the resonant background in the DMT model (dash-dotted curve) is very important, in particular for $`W>1450`$ MeV where it becomes large and negative. This is in contrast to the prediction based on the K-matrix approximation (dashed curve). The difference comes mainly from the principal value integral contribution in Eq. (18). Such a background will thus require a much stronger resonance contribution in order to describe the results of the recent partial wave analysis of Ref.. Consequently, the dynamical model predicts much larger values for the electromagnetic form factors (or helicity amplitudes $`A_{1/2}`$) than those obtained with the K-matrix approximation.

In order to estimate the new values for the resonance parameters, we will first fit Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{}`$ in the photon energy range $`1075<W<2300`$ MeV only, thereby assuming that $`v_{\gamma \pi }^{R,\alpha }=_{n=1}^4v_{\gamma \pi }^{R_n,\alpha }`$. The results of our fit are presented in Tables II-IV and Fig. 5. We would like to stress that, since the DMT background is large and negative even at $`W>1770`$ MeV, the best fit requires two new $`S_{11}`$ resonances with masses 1800 MeV and 2042 MeV, in addition to the well known resonances $`S_{11}(1535)`$ and $`S_{11}(1650)`$. In fact the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit improves from 64 to 3.5 by introducing these two additional resonances. This result clearly indicates that, in agreement with our previous findings for pion scattering, our pion photoproduction model calls for a low-lying third $`S_{11}`$ resonance which may be one of the missing resonances predicted by quark models .

Our next important result concerns the value of the helicity amplitude for the first $`S_{11}(1535)`$ resonance. Here we expect to get more reliable information by analyzing the observables (differential cross sections, beam, target and recoil asymmetries) in the full energy range $`1075<W<1770`$ MeV, similar to the work of Ref.. In other words, we have to perform a new partial wave analysis including the new background description. For this purpose the resonances in the higher partial waves have to be taken into account as well. The details of our fitting procedure are described in Ref. . We only note that our analysis includes experimental data for $`E_\gamma <1200`$ MeV. In the proton channel the corresponding data base contains 14880 data points. We fix the parameters for the third and fourth $`S_{11}`$ resonances using the results for Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{}`$ as described above. Our final results are shown in Fig. 6 and summarized in Table V. In general they are consistent with the earlier results obtained directly from Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{}`$.

Our final value for the bare helicity amplitude of the first $`S_{11}(1535)`$ resonance is $`A_{1/2}(\mathrm{bare})=116\pm 3\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2. In order to obtain the dressed value, we first have to determine the nonresonant background $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^{B\alpha }`$, as given by Eq. (16). The result for this background, shown in Fig. 7 (left panel) by the dashed curve, is small near resonance position. The dressed value for the $`A_{1/2}`$ can be calculated directly from Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{(1/2)}`$ using the relation

$$A_{1/2}=\sqrt{\frac{2\pi M_R\mathrm{\Gamma }_Rq_R}{k_Rm_N\beta _\pi }}\mathrm{Im}_pE_{0+}^{(1/2)}C_{\pi N},$$
(20)
where $`q_R`$ and $`k_R`$ are the pion and photon momentum, respectively, at $`W=M_R=1528`$ MeV and $`C_{\pi N}=\sqrt{3}`$ is an isospin factor . Subtracting the contribution of the other $`S_{11}`$ resonances we obtain Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{(1/2)}=(3.930.14)\times 10^3/m_{\pi +}`$, where the last number is the contribution of the nonresonant background $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\gamma \pi }^{B\alpha }`$, and $`A_{1/2}(\mathrm{dressed})=(72\pm 2)\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2. Another separation of the resonance and background contributions can be obtained by use of the K-matrix approximation for pion rescattering. In this case Im $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0+}^{(1/2)}=(3.930.42)\times 10^3/m_{\pi +}`$ and the corresponding helicity amplitude $`A_{1/2}`$(K-matrix)$`=(67\pm 2)\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2, which is very close to the dressed value obtained above.

As a last step, we extract the bare and dressed values for $`A_{1/2}`$ from eta photoproduction. The formalism for this reaction is similar to the pion photoproduction case, the only difference being that in the eta channel it is important to take account of the coupling to the pion channel. The resonant background $`t_{\gamma \eta }^B`$ can then be written as

$`t_{\gamma \eta }^B(E)=v_{\gamma \eta }^B+v_{\gamma \eta }^Bg_\eta (E)t_{\eta \eta }(E)+v_{\gamma \pi }^Bg_\pi (E)t_{\pi \eta }(E),`$ (21)
where $`t_{\eta \eta }(E)`$ and $`t_{\pi \eta }(E)`$ are the full t-matrices describing eta scattering and eta production by pions, respectively, as obtained by solving Eq. (2).

Our results for the resonant background in the $`{}_{p}{}^{}E_{0^+}^{}`$ channel are shown in Fig. 7 (right panel) by the dash-dotted curve. We can see that this background is about 30% of the total amplitude (solid curves), and that it originates mainly from the coupling to the pion channel. Using Eq. (20) (with the eta momentum for $`q_R`$, branching ratio $`\beta _\eta =0.5,`$ and $`C_{\eta N}=1`$) we can now extract $`A_{1/2}`$(bare), $`A_{1/2}`$(dressed) and $`A_{1/2}`$(K-matrix). The final results and a comparison with the results obtained for the first $`S_{11}`$ resonance in pion photoproduction are given in Table VI. In general the values of the helicity amplitudes derived from the two reactions are consistent within 10%. Note that our bare values are also close to the result obtained in Ref.  ($`A_{1/2}=102\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2) by solving of the coupled Bethe-Salpeter equations. However, our dressed value considerably differs from the results of Ref. where $`A_{1/2}(\mathrm{dressed})=118\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2. This is mainly due to the different total width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$, which is 191 MeV in Ref. and 95 MeV in our model. For example using Eq. (20), we can easily obtain that $`A_{1/2}`$(dressed)$`118\sqrt{95/191}=83\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2 which is close to our result.

The comparison with the results of others groups are given in Table VII. Here we present only the dressed values for the helicity amplitude of the first $`S_{11}`$ resonance. Our corresponding background is shown in Fig. 7 (left panel) by the dashed curve which does not contain the pion loop contribution in the electromagnetic vertex (last diagram of Fig. 4). At the resonance position this background is very close to the backgrounds of the Pitt-ANL and GW-Giessen groups . Therefore, we expect that the values for the helicity amplitudes will also be close if the other resonance parameters ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$ and $`\beta _\pi `$) are the same. With this condition a simple recalculation of the Pitt-ANL results yields $`A_{1/2}`$(dressed)$`87\sqrt{0.35/11295/0.40}=74\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2, which is close to our value. In a similar way we obtain $`A_{1/2}`$(dressed)$`60\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2 for the GW-Giessen results. Large differences remain only with the results of the KSU analysis, and this is mainly connected with a larger the background contribution in the KSU model (see Fig. 1 in Ref. ).

We thus conclude that the large differences for the helicity amplitude of the $`S_{11}(1535)`$ resonance obtained in different analyses, are due to the differences for the total widths and differences in the background description. From our coupled channel analysis of pion scattering and pion photoproduction reactions, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R100`$ MeV. Note that values close to ours were also obtained within the Pit-ANL and KSU models  and in Refs. . It seems that in order to clarify the situation for the total width, a new analysis of eta photoproduction is required, especially with the additional background contributions appearing due to the coupling to the pion channel.

## IV Conclusion

We have performed a self-consistent analysis of pion scattering and pion photoproduction within a coupled channels dynamical model. In the case of pion photoproduction, we obtain background contributions to the imaginary part of the $`S`$\- wave multipole which differ considerably from the result based on the K-matrix approximation. Within the dynamical model these background contributions become large and negative in the region of the $`S_{11}(1535)`$ resonance. Due to this fact much larger resonance contributions are required in order to explain the results of the recent multipole analyses. For the first $`S_{11}(1535)`$ resonance we obtain as values of the bare and dressed electromagnetic helicity amplitudes: $`A_{1/2}(\mathrm{bare})=(116\pm 3)\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2 and $`A_{1/2}(\mathrm{dressed})=(72\pm 2)\times 10^3`$GeV-1/2. Similar values can be derived from eta photoproduction if one takes the same total width ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R=95\pm 5`$ MeV) as in pion scattering and pion photoproduction.

At invariant energy $`W1750`$ MeV, our analysis yields considerable strength, which can be described by a third and a fourth $`S_{11}`$ resonance with the masses $`1846\pm 47`$ and $`2113\pm 70`$ MeV. Such resonances are also predicted by quark models. However, our coupled channels approach yields large resonance widths of the order of 300 MeV or more, and therefore the energy dependence of the $`S_{11}`$ amplitude is not very pronounced at these higher energies. Whether or not these indications for higher $`S_{11}`$ strengths will eventually lead to well-established resonances, will strongly depend on future experiments and analyses of final states with uncorrelated two-pion systems, $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ mesons and sequential decays like the $`\rho \mathrm{\Delta }`$ process.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

S.K. and L.T. are grateful to the Physics Department of the NTU for the hospitality extended to them during their visits. This work is supported in part by the National Science Council/ROC under grant NSC 90-2112-M002-032, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 443), and by a joint project NSC/DFG TAI-113/10/0.


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# Localization of electromagnetic waves in two-dimensional random dielectric systems

(January 14, 2003)

## Abstract

We rigorously calculate the propagation and scattering of electromagnetic waves by rectangular and random arrays of dielectric cylinders in a uniform medium. For regular arrays, the band structures are computed and complete bandgaps are discovered. For random arrays, the phenomenon of wave localization is investigated and compared in two scenarios: (1) wave propagating through the array of cylinders; this is the scenario which has been commonly considered in the literature, and (2) wave transmitted from a source located inside the ensemble. We show that within complete band gaps, results from the two scenarios are similar. Outside the gaps, however, there is a distinct fundamental difference, that is, waves can be blocked from propagation by disorders in the first scenario, but such an inhibition may not lead to inhibition or wave localization in the second scenario. The study suggests that the traditional method may be ambiguous in discerning localization effects.

Wave localization is a peculiar property of random media that completely block wave propagation due to multiple scattering, thus inducing a surprising phase transition, for example, in optical or acoustic transparency or electrical conductivity. When localized, waves remain confined in space until dissipated.

More than two decades have passed since the phenomenon of wave localization was explored for propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves in random media. During this period, a great body of literature has been generatedreviews . And the interest in the subject continues to grow even further in recent yearsweak ; Marian ; Sigalas ; Wiersma ; AAA ; AAC ; debate ; Emile . Despite the efforts, however, some important problems still remain unsolved.

The first issue is with the way in which the localization effect is investigated. To date, claims of localization have been based on observations of the exponential decay of waves as they propagate through disordered mediaAAC . That is, in most previous experimental or theoretical studies, the apparatus was set up in such a manner that waves were transmitted at one end of a scattering ensemble, then the scattered waves were recorded on the other end to measure the transmission through the sample. The results were then compared with the theory to infer the localization effect. In this method, it is quite plausible that other effects such as reflection and deflection due to the presence of boundaries may also attenuate waves, resulting in a similar decay in transmission and obscuring the data interpretation. Therefore it is desirable to look for a unique feature which can differentiate localization from other effects; the inability to discriminate the localization effect from other effects has caused significant debate in the literaturedebate .

Second, although it has been suggested a while ago that the regions of localized states coincide with the positions of the gaps, the relation between localization in random media and bandgaps of the corresponding regular systems is still inconclusiveSigalas ; Datta .

Third, it has been the prevailing view over the past twenty years that all EM waves are localized in two dimensions (2D) for any given amount of disorder, following the scaling analysis of electronic systemsgang4 . Recently, there is an intensive debate on this view from new experimentsPudalov ; Shashkin2 , as reviewed in EA . Since localization in electronic and EM systems has the same physical origin, it is therefore imperative to re-look at the view that all EM waves are always localized in 2D random systems. This task may be difficult, due to the obvious limitation of the finite sample size for either numerical or experimental workers, but at least one may examine whether the phenomenon of localization has been explored in a proper way in the past.

With this Letter, we wish to shed new light on these questions. Here, we present a rigorous study of EM wave scattering and propagation in media containing many dielectric cylinders. The approach is based upon the self-consistent theory of multiple scatteringTwersky  and has been used previously to study acoustic localization in liquid mediaEmile  and acoustic attenuation by rigid cylinders in airChen . Wave propagation is expressed by a set of coupled exact equations and is solved rigorously. We show that wave localization can be achieved in ranges of frequencies, coincident with yet wider than the complete bandgap. For the phenomenon of wave localization, we compare two scenarios by analogy with the acoustic caseScaling3 : (1) the traditional setup of probing localization both numerically and experimnentally, as stated in, e. g. Ref. Sigalas ; AAC , that is, wave propagating through the array of cylinders, and (2) wave transmitted from a source located inside the ensemble. We show that within complete band gaps, results from the two scenarios are similar, whereas there is a distinct qualitative difference outside the gap. Moreover, when localized, not only are waves confined near the transmitting source but a unique collective phenomenon emerges, illustrated by a phase diagram in analogy to the acoustic systemEmile .

The system considered here is similar to what has been presented in Sigalas . Assume that $`N`$ uniform dielectric cylinders of radius $`a`$ are placed in parallel in a uniform medium, perpendicular to the $`xy`$ plane. The arrangement can be either random or regular. For brevity, we only consider the case of the E-polarization, i. e. the E-field parallel to the z-direction. The qualitative features for both E- and H-polarizations are similar. The scattering and propagation of EM waves can be solved by using the exact formulation of TwerskyTwersky . While the details can be found in Chen , here we brief the main procedures. A unit pulsating line source transmitting monochromatic waves is placed at a certain position. The scattered wave from each cylinder is a response to the total incident wave, which is composed of the direct contribution from the source and the multiply scattered waves from each of the other cylinders. The response function of a single cylinder is readily obtained in the form of the partial waves by invoking the usual boundary conditions across the cylinder surface. The total wave ($`E`$) at any space point is the sum of the direct wave ($`E_0`$) from the transmitting source and the scattered wave from all the cylinders. The normalized field is defined as $`TE/E_0`$; thus the trivial geometrical spreading effect is eliminated.

In line with Sigalas , the following parameters are used in the computation. The ratio of the dielectric constant between the cylinders and the hosting medium is 10; the dielectric constant of the medium is taken as one. The filling factor $`\beta `$, the fraction of area occupied by the cylinders per unit area, is 0.28. The radius $`a`$ of the cylinders is 0.38 cm. The lattice constant $`d`$ of the corresponding square lattice array of the cylinders is thus about 1.28 cm ($`d=a\sqrt{\pi /\beta }`$). For convenience, we scale all lengths by the lattice constant $`d`$. The computation is continued until the convergence is reached.

First, in Fig. 1 we show the band structure of the corresponding square lattice arrangement of the cylinders, obtained by the plane wave method. The wave transmission in two symmetric directions is also shown. Two complete bandgap regions are identified and are consistent with the highly attenuated regions in the transmission computation. These results are also consistent with that in Fig. 4 of Sigalas , thereby verifying our numerical scheme.

To investigate wave localization, two situations are considered and compared: (1) wave propagating through the array of cylinders, labeled hereafter as the ‘Outside’ situation that imitates the traditional experimentalWiersma  and theoretical setupsSigalas ; AAA , and (2) wave transmitted from a source located inside the ensemble, labeled hereafter as the ‘Inside’ situation. Both cases are illustrated by Fig. 2. For the ‘Outside’ case, all cylinders are randomly or regularly placed within a rectangular area with length $`L`$ and width $`W`$. The transmitter and receiver are located at some distance from the two opposite sides of the scattering area. For the ‘Inside’ situation, all cylinders are placed either completely randomly or regularly within a circle of radius $`L`$ with the source located at the center and the receiver located outside the scattering cloud.

The frequency response of the averaged logarithmic transmission is presented in Fig. 3 for both ‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’ scenarios. Here we see that the disorder somewhat tends to enhance transmission within the bandgaps for both scenarios, while obviously reduces the transmission for all frequencies outside the gaps in the ‘Outside’ case. For the ‘Inside’ situation, however, the reduction for regions outside the gaps is not generally obvious, and is only seen near the gap edges. It has been suggested in the literature that the transmission reduction in the ‘Outside’ scenario indicates wave localization. For example, the authors in Sigalas ; AAA  computed the transmission in the context of the ‘Outside’ scenario, and subsequently obtained the localization length for all frequencies. We find that this approach towards localization may not be appropriate. The reasons follow.

If the transmission reduction in the ‘Outside’ scenario is only caused by the localization effect, it will be implied that the random system only supports localized states. Then waves will not be allowed to propagate not only through but also inside the system. Therefore we would expect the transmission to follow an exponential decay with increasing sample size for both ‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’ setups.

Fig. 4 presents the results for the random ensemble averaged transmission and its fluctuation as a function of the sample size at two frequencies. The sample size is varied by adjusting the number of the cylinders. For the ‘Outside’ case, we have done the following to remove the effect of the width $`W`$. With a fixed sample size (i. e. the length $`L`$), we plot the transmission versus width. We find that the transmission is very nicely saturating to a certain value in an exponential manner. We have done for several lengths, and obtained the corresponding saturated value for each length. Then we plot these values versus sample lengths. As an example, the results for 8.64 GHz are shown in Fig. 4 (e) and (f). For 6.54 GHz, the localization is strong, the width effect diminishes very quickly when the width increases. Here the plot for 6.54 GHz has width 26 in the ‘Outside’ scenario. Note that the width should not be started at a value too close to zero; otherwise the variance will be too large, making the results unstable. The average has been taken for 500 configuration to ensure the stability.

A few important features are discovered. For the frequency of 6.54 GHz (within the first gap), the transmission decays exponentially with the sample size for both ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’ situations with almost the same slop of -1.35, suggesting that at this frequency, waves are localized. And inside the localization regime, the absolute value of the transmission fluctuation is small, as expected from an earlier work Emile . Here we see that within the localization regime, wave localization can be indeed observed in both ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’ scenarios.

For 8.64 GHz (between the first and the second gaps), the ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’ scenarios differ significantly. For the ‘Outside’ case the transmission decreases exponentially with a slop of -0.0612 along the path. If this exponential decay is caused by localization, then we should also observe the exponential decay for the same sample size ($`L`$) in the ‘Inside’ scenario. The result in the center panel of Fig. 4 clearly does not support this point of view. Instead, Fig. 4 tends to indicate that waves are not yet localized at 8.64 GHz in the ‘Inside’ scenario. The fact that the exponential decay only occurs in one scenario but not in the other for the same sample size ($`L`$) is itself intriguing and important. Therefore we may conclude that the ‘Outside’ scenario is inappropriate in isolating the localization effect, and it would be a mistake to interpret the exponential decay or transmission reduction shown in the ‘Outside’ situation as a conclusive indication of wave localization. Furthermore, as at this frequency, waves are not yet localized in the ‘Inside’ case and they have a weaker exponential decay in the ‘Outside’ case, the transmission will be more sensitive to the arrangement of the cylinders. Therefore the fluctuation at this frequency is stronger than that at 6.54 GHz. However, the ratio between the fluctuation and the transmission at 8.64 GHz can be smaller than that at 6.54 GHz.

To this end, a few notes are appropriate. We have also examined other frequencies in general and two in particular: one is within the second gap and the other is above the second gap. The results are very similar to that shown in Fig. 4. For brevity, we will not show the results here. From Fig. 3, the fact that the transmission reduction occurs not only within but also outside the gaps (at areas around the edges of the gaps) indicates that the localized regions are coincident with the complete bandgaps, and these regions seem wider than the gaps. Our results show that although the disorders may block waves from propagation through the medium, but they may not yet localize the waves inside a 2D system.

Now we discuss a unique feature of EM wave localization. The energy flow of EM waves is $`\stackrel{}{J}\stackrel{}{E}\times \stackrel{}{H}`$. By invoking the Maxwell equations to relate the electrical and magnetic fields, we can derive that the time averaged energy flow is $`<\stackrel{}{J}>_t\frac{1}{T}_0^T𝑑t\stackrel{}{J}|\stackrel{}{E}|^2\theta ,`$ where the electrical field is written as $`\stackrel{}{E}=\stackrel{}{e}_E|\stackrel{}{E}|e^{i\theta }`$, with $`\stackrel{}{e}_E`$ denoting the direction, $`|\stackrel{}{E}|`$ and $`\theta `$ being the amplitude and the phase respectively. It is clear that when $`\theta `$ is constant, at least by spatial domains, while $`|\stackrel{}{E}|0`$, the flow would come to a stop and the energy will be localized or stored in the space. We assign a unit phase vector, $`\stackrel{}{u}=\mathrm{cos}\theta _i\stackrel{}{e}_x+\mathrm{sin}\theta _i\stackrel{}{e}_y`$ to the oscillation phase $`\theta _i`$ of the dipoles. Here $`\stackrel{}{e}_x`$ and $`\stackrel{}{e}_y`$ are unit vectors in the $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions respectively. These phase vectors are represented by a phase diagram in the $`xy`$ plane.

In Fig. 5, the two-dimensional spatial distribution of EM energy ($`|E/E_0|^2`$) and the phase vectors of the E-field are plotted for the two frequencies discussed in Fig. 4. The phase vectors are located randomly in the $`xy`$ plane but to avoid the positions of the cylinders. The ‘Inside’ scenario is considered. Here we clearly see that for 6.54 GHz, the energy is mainly confined near the source, consistent with Fig. 4. The phase vectors are orderly oriented. These fully comply with the above general discussion. Therefore at this frequency, EM wave is indeed localized. When we increasingly add an imaginary part to the dielectric constant, the ordered orientation of the phase vectors will disappear, confirming that the phase coherence is a unique feature of EM wave localization. We note from Fig. 5 that near the sample boundary, the phase vectors start to point to different directions. This is because the numerical simulation is carried out for a finite sample size. For a finite system, the energy can leak out at the boundary, resulting in disappearance of the phase coherence. When enlarging the sample size, we observe that the area showing the perfect phase coherence will increase. At 8.64 GHz, however, there is no ordering in the phase vectors $`\stackrel{}{u}(\stackrel{}{r})`$. The phase vectors point to various directions. The energy distribution is extended in the $`xy`$ plane, and no EM wave localization appears, in agreement with what has been described for Fig. 4.

In summary, we have examined some fundamental problems of EM wave localization in 2D. Although it may be still hard to conclude that extended waves are possible in 2D random media, as limited by the finite sample size, the present results do indicate that the traditional method may be unable to isolate the localization effect. It is also shown that the localization region is related to and seems to be wider than the complete bandgaps. When localized, not only are waves confined near the transmitting source but a unique collective phenomenon emerges.

This work is supported by the National Science Council of Republic of China.


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# First-principles phase-coherent transport in metallic nanotubes with realistic contacts

## Abstract

We present first-principles calculations of phase coherent electron transport in a carbon nanotube (CNT) with realistic contacts. We focus on the zero-bias response of open metallic CNT’s considering two archetypal contact geometries (end and side) and three commonly used metals as electrodes (Al, Au, and Ti). Our ab-initio electrical transport calculations make, for the first time, quantitative predictions on the contact transparency and the transport properties of finite metallic CNT’s. Al and Au turn out to make poor contacts while Ti is the best option of the three. Additional information on the CNT band mixing at the contacts is also obtained.

Controversy on the observed electrical transport properties of carbon nanotubes (CNT’s) has been mostly due to our lack of control and understanding of their contact to the metallic electrodes. It has finally become clear that the contact influences critically the overall performance of the CNT and that it is crucial to lower the inherent contact resistance to achieve the definite understanding of the intrinsic electrical properties of CNT’sFrank et al. (1998); Bachtold et al. (2000); Nygard et al. (2000). In order to determine the relevant factors behind the contact resistance so that this can be pushed down to its alleged quantum limit $`R_0=h/2e^2`$ per CNT channel a big experimental effort has been made both in CNT growth and lithographic techniquesSoh et al. (1999); Zhou et al. (2000); Appenzeller et al. (2001); Kong et al. (2001); Kanda et al. (2001); Liang et al. (2002); Derycke et al. (2002). While considerable progress in this direction has already been achieved, theoretical progress, on the other hand, lags behind in this important issue.

The actual atomic structure of the electrode (and probably that of the CNT) at the contact are unknown and, most likely, change from sample to sample when fabricated under the same conditions. Atomic-scale modeling, however, can still be of guidance to the interpretation of the experiments and to the future design of operational devices with CNT’s. In this work we focus on the two key ingredients in this puzzle: The effect the atomic-scale geometry and the chemical nature of the electrode have on the transparency of the contact. We have studied open single-walled metallic (5,5) CNT’s contacted in two representative forms (see Fig. 1) to Al, Au, and Ti electrodes which are among the most commonly used metals in the experiments . From our ab-initio transport study we find that in CNT’s contacted to Al and Au electrodes for end-contact geometry \[see Fig. 1(a)\] the two CNT bands couple weakly to the electrodes. This allows us to resolve quasi-bound CNT states in the conductance and to estimate the magnitude of the degeneracy removal due to Coulomb blockade effects in a direct manner. Moreover, we find that the two bands couple very differently to the electrodes (one of them is almost shut down for transport) and do not mix. For the side-contact geometry \[see Fig. 1(b)\] the coupling is the same for both bands, but similar in strength to the end-contact geometry. Finally, our study presents the first direct numerical evidence of what has been hinted at on the basis of indirect first-principles calculationsAndriotis et al. (2000); Yang et al. (2002) and what has recently been observed in experimentsKong et al. (2001): Early 3-$`d`$ elements as Ti are probably the best choice for making high-transparency contacts to CNT’s compared to more traditional metals such as Al and Au. Although perfect transparency at the contact is nerver achieved, our calculations indicate that properly engineered Ti contacts are a good bet for future perfect contacts to CNT’s.

From a theory point of view, the “contact” problem has been previously addressedChoi et al. (1999); Anantram (2001); Derycke et al. (2002), but only partially. The reason is that a full analysis of this problem requires the use of sophisticated state-of-the-art numerical techniques to calculate electrical transport from first-principlesLang (1995); Yaliraki and Ratner (1998); Damle et al. (2001), where even the electrodes need to be described down to the atomic levelTaylor et al. (2001a, b); Palacios et al. (2001, 2002); Brandbyge et al. (2002). These techniques are currently under development. First of all, charge transfer at the contact, which aligns the chemical potentials of the electrodes and the CNT, needs to be evaluated self-consistentlyXue and Datta (1999); Rubio et al. (1999). Secondly, one needs to combine the ab-initio calculation with Landauer’s formalismDatta (1995). Recently, we have presented a very promising approach, termed Gaussian Embedded Cluster MethodPalacios et al. (2001, 2002), that allows us to address this problem in its full complexity. Our method is based on standard quantum chemistry calculations performed with the Gaussian98 codeFrisch et al. . A density functional (DF) calculation of a cluster comprising the CNT and a significant part of the electrodes is performed (see Fig. 1). Next, the retarded(advanced) Green’s functions associated with the self-consistent hamiltonian or Fock operator $`\widehat{F}`$ of the cluster is modified to include the rest of the semi-infinite electrodes:

$$\left[(E\pm i\delta )\widehat{F}\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{(\pm )}\right]\widehat{G}^{(\pm )}=\widehat{I}.$$
(1)
In this expression $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{(\pm )}=\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{R}^{(\pm )}+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{L}^{(\pm )}`$, where $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{R}`$($`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{L}`$) denotes a self-energy operator that accounts for the part of the right(left) semi-infinite electrode that has not been included in the initial DF calculation111We choose to describe the bulk electrode with a Bethe lattice tight-binding model with the coordination and parameters appropriate for the electrodesPalacios et al. (2001, 2002). Details on the Bethe lattice parameters, the density functional, and the basis set used in our calculations can be found in Ref. Palacios et al., 2002., and $`\widehat{I}`$ is the unity matrix. In a non-orthogonal basis, like those commonly used in Gaussian98, the embedded cluster density matrix takes the form

$$P=\frac{1}{\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{E_\mathrm{F}}\mathrm{Im}\left[S^1G^{()}(E)S^1\right]dE,$$
(2)
where $`S`$ is the overlap matrix, $`G^{()}`$ is the retarded Green’s function expressed in the non-orthogonal basis, and $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ is the Fermi energy which is set by imposing overall charge neutrality in the cluster. The density matrix is returned to Gaussian98 and the process is repeated until the procedure converges. The conductance can finally be calculated through the standard expressionDatta (1995):

$$𝒢=\frac{2e^2}{h}\mathrm{Tr}[T]=\frac{2e^2}{h}\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Gamma }_LG^{()}\mathrm{\Gamma }_RG^{(+)}],$$
(3)
where Tr denotes the trace over all the orbitals in the cluster and where the matrices $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L`$ are $`i(\mathrm{\Sigma }_R^{()}\mathrm{\Sigma }_R^{(+)})`$ and $`i(\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_L^{()}\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_L^{(+)})`$, respectively. In order to single out the contribution of individual channels to the current one can diagonalize the transmission matrix $`T`$.

Figure 2(a) shows $`𝒢`$ around the Fermi energy for a (5,5) metallic CNT composed of $`N=10`$ carbon layers that has been end-contacted \[Fig. 1(a)\] to Al(111) surfaces (the end-carbon-layer–surface distance has been optimized to a value of 1.8Å)222A word of caution is due here. Within DF theory only $`𝒢(E_\mathrm{F})`$ has a strict meaning. In order to obtain the zero-bias conductance at different energies which would correspond to the conductance for different values of an external gate potential which can charge or discharge the system, one must perform the self-consistent calculation for a varying Fermi energy. We have analyzed the extent of this problem and found that our conclusions are not modified significantly as the charge in the system varies. This partially justifies plotting $`𝒢(E)`$ for neutral systems. However this problem might deserves a further consideration when bound or quasibound states are present in the CNT (see text below).. Four resonances appear around the Fermi energy (set to zero). These resonances can be easily traced back to four extended states of the isolated finite CNTRubio et al. (1999). Two of them ($`k_1,k_2`$) originate in the bonding ($`\pi `$) band of the CNT and the other two ($`k_1^{},k_2^{}`$) in the antibonding ($`\pi ^{}`$) band (see inset in Fig. 2). The resonances have different widths for different bands indicating that they couple very differently to the electrodes. Moreover, the two bands do not mix with each other. This is more clearly seen in Fig. 2(b) where we show the highest transmission eigenvalues of the transmission matrix. Two independent channels exhibit resonances in the energy window ($`3.5eV`$) around $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ where only the $`\pi `$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ bands can contribute to transport. This result is consistent with the fact that $`\pi ^{}`$ states, of large angular momentum, do not couple to the low-angular momentum states of the electrode, while $`\pi `$ states, of low angular momentum, couple more easilyChoi et al. (1999); Anantram (2001). Notice that there is a charge transfer from the metal to the CNT, but this mainly localizes at the end carbon layer ($`0.2`$ per carbon atom) and it does not affect the overall band positioning in the center of the CNT.

The specific band assignment of the resonances is nicely confirmed by their evolution on the length of the CNT presented in Fig. 3. We have calculated the conductance for $`N=8,9,10,11,12`$, and 13 carbon-layer CNT’s. The opposite signs of the group velocity for the $`\pi `$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ bands make the quasi-bound states belonging to the $`\pi ^{}`$ band shift down in energies while those belonging to the $`\pi `$ band shift up as $`N`$ increases. As expected from a simple particle-in-a-box argument applied to finite CNT’sRubio et al. (1999), for $`N=3l`$, where $`l`$ is an integer, we should expect two states with the same wave vector $`k_n`$ but in different bands to coincide at the Fermi energy. Naively one should thus expect $`𝒢=4e^2/h`$Orlikowski et al. (2001). Our results for the contacted $`N=9`$ and $`N=12`$ CNT’s show otherwise: Two resonances never coincide at the Fermi level. The reason is that Coloumb blockade prevents two (band and/or spin) degenerate quasibound states to be filled up at the same time and degeneracies are removed333We have analyzed the Coulomb blockade process in detail for the $`N=9`$ CNT. For a partially discharged CNT the two resonances labeled $`k_1`$ and $`k_1^{}`$ coincide in energy above the Fermi energy and the conductance reaches there 4$`e^2/h`$. For the neutral \[see Fig. 3(b)\] or slightly charged system this degeneracy is partially removed and the conductance drops. The spin degeneracy removal due to Coulomb blockade requires technically challenging open shell calculations and is currently under study.. From Figs. 3(b) and (e) we estimate the charging energy to be $`0.3`$ eV in these CNT’s which is smaller than the single-particle level spacing as confirmed by experimentsLiang et al. (2002).

If the interpretation of the different coupling strengths of the CNT bound states with the Al electrodes is correct and angular momentum considerations are relevant, similar couplings should be expected for both bands if no axial symmetry is present. This is the case for the other contact geometry considered in this work \[see Fig.1(b)\]. Figure 4 shows results for an $`N=15`$ CNT side-contacted to Al(111) surfaces (the CNT–surface distance has been optimized to 2.3Å). Conductance resonances come in pairs in the relevant energy window which is what is expected for an $`N=15`$ CNT. More importantly, all of them present similar widths, confirming our expectations. Contrary to the previous geometry, localized end statesRubio et al. (1999) influence the coupling around 1eV for this contact geometry where mixing with the CNT extended states takes place. Our results for the coupling strength with Al contacts are consistent with previous studies where jellium models were considered as contactsAnantram (2001), and with those in Ref. Taylor et al., 2001a, but we do not subscribe previous ab-initio results presented in Ref. Nardelli et al., 2001 based on what it seems to be more realistic contact models similar to ours.

We now complete our study for end-contacted $`N=10`$ CNT’s considering Au and Ti electrodes (see Figs. 5 and 6). Several resonances are clearly visible close to the Fermi energy for the case of Au, but, in contrast to Al electrodes, it is difficult to identify specific extended states as we did above. This is in part due to the mixing of the $`\pi `$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ bands with the end states which, in addition, induce extra channels in the conductance, although these channels are only relevant for transport in very short CNT’s444A detailed analysis of why the end states do not play a significant role for Al in end-contact geometries is deferred for future work.. Apart from this, the coupling strength of the two bands is similar to that found for Al electrodes despite of the fact that the Mulliken population analysis reflects a minor charge transfer from the electrode to the CNT. In Fig. 5(b) we appreciate that the $`\pi `$ band coupling is also stronger than that of the $`\pi ^{}`$ band. In contrast to Al and Au electrodes, where $`𝒢`$ exhibits resonances, $`𝒢`$ presents an oscillatory behavior for Ti around $`E_\mathrm{F}`$. This is accompanied, as the anticrossings in the transmission eigenvalues reveal in Fig. 6(b), by band mixing. This result reflects, as suggested in Ref. Yang et al., 2002, that Ti couples differently to the CNT (due to the presence of $`d`$-states at the Fermi energy) and forms a better contact (the charge transfer is $``$ 0.4 electrons per C atom at the end layer). At this point, however, we can only speculate on the possibility of perfect transparency for other Ti electrode geometries.

We acknowledge support by the Spanish CICYT under Grant No. 1FD97-1358 and by the Generalitat Valenciana under Grants No. GV00-151-01 and GV00-095-2. J.J.P. thanks S. Y. Wu for encouraging this work in its initial stages.