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# Prediction of protein secondary structure based on residue pairs

## 1 Introduction

Methods for predicting the secondary structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence have been developed for 3 decades. Besides neural network models and nearest-neighbor methods, the statistically based Chou-Fasman/GOR method is well-established and commonly used. In 1974, assuming an oversimplified independency to cope with the large size 20 of the amino acid alphabets at a small size of database, Chou and Fasman (1974) derived a table of propensity for a particular residue to be in a given secondary structure state. By combining with a set of rules, the protein secondary structure was predicted using this propensity. Later, in the first version of the GOR program (Garnier, Osguthorpe, and Robson, 1978), the state of a single residue $`a_i`$ was predicted according to a window from $`i8`$ to $`i+8`$ surrounding the residue. Unlike Chou-Fasman which assumes that each amino acid individually influences its own secondary structure state, GOR takes into account the influence of the amino acids flanking the central residue on the central residue state by deriving an information score from the weight matrix describing 17 individual amino acid frequencies at sites $`i+k`$ with $`8k+8`$. By using a single weight matrix, the correlation among amino acids within the window was still ignored. In the later version GOR III (Gibrat, Garnier, and Robson, 1987), instead of single weight matrix for every structure state, 20 weight matrices, each of which corresponds to a specific type of the central residue, were used. These conditional weight matrices take the pair correlation between the central residue and a flanking one into account. In the most recent version of GOR (GOR IV, Garnier, Gibrat, and Robson, 1996), all pairwise combinations of amino acids in the flanking region were included.

The GOR program maps a local window of residues in the sequence to the structural state of the central residue in the window. Correlations among positions within the window is essential for improvements in prediction accuracy. We give an example to show the importance of high order correlations. For central residue $`a_i=K`$ being at the extended strand state, the conditional probability for $`a_{i3}=V`$ is $`P_{3;0}^e(V|K)=0.088`$, while the conditional probability for $`a_{i3}=V`$ at $`a_i=K`$ and $`a_{i+1}=E`$ is $`P_{3;0,+1}^e(V|KE)=0.186`$, and $`P_{3;0,+1}^e(V|KV)=0.058`$. With the growth of protein structure database, now the size of known protein structures allows us to consider correlations higher than pair ones. Here we shall extend the GOR program to include triple correlations, developing a program to predict protein secondary structure based on residue pairs (PSSRP). As a method using single sequence, the computation required is rather light, but its prediction accuracy reaches 70%.

## 2 Methods

Kabsch and Sander (1983) define eight states of secondary structure according to the hydrogen-bond pattern. As in most methods, we consider 3 states $`\{h,e,c\}`$ generated from the 8 by the coarse-graining $`H,G,Ih`$, $`Ee`$ and $`X,T,S,Bc`$.

### 2.1 Window-based scores

A window is a sequence segment $`a_ia_{i+1}\mathrm{}a_{i+l1}`$ of the width $`l`$. Consider two residues $`a_{i+j}=x`$ and $`a_{i+k}=y`$ inside the window (with $`0<j<k<l1`$). Their conformation state are $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, respectively. Let us denote by $`w`$ the set of the sites within the window with $`i+j`$ and $`i+k`$ excluded. When discussing probability, we ignore the starting site index $`i`$.

The Chou-Fasman propensity of residue $`x`$ to conformation $`\alpha `$ is defined by

$$CF(x;\alpha )=\frac{P(x|\alpha )}{P(x)},$$
(1)
where $`P(x)`$ is the probability for residue $`x`$ to appear, and $`P(x|\alpha )`$ the conditional probability for $`x`$ to be at conformation $`\alpha `$. Here we use only a logarithmic propensity, the logarithm of $`CF`$:

$$LCF(x;\alpha )=\mathrm{log}CF(x;\alpha ).$$
(2)
As an extension of the Chou-Fasman propensity of residues, the propensity of residue pair $`xy`$ to conformation $`\alpha \beta `$ may be defined as

$$r_d(xy;\alpha \beta )=\frac{P_d(xy|\alpha \beta )}{P_d(xy)},d=kj1,$$
(3)
where $`P_d(xy)`$ is the probability for residue pair $`x`$ and $`y`$ to appear with their site index difference being $`d`$, and $`P_d(xy|\alpha \beta )`$ the conditional probability on the condition that the conformation states of $`x`$ and $`y`$ are $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, respectively.

When a window flanking the pair $`xy`$ is examined to infer the conformation $`\alpha \beta `$ of $`xy`$, a further extension of the Chou-Fasman propensity is

$$R_d(xy;\alpha \beta )=\frac{P_d(xy,w|\alpha \beta )}{P_d(xy,w)},d=kj1,$$
(4)
where $`P_d(xy,w)`$ and $`P_d(xy,w|\alpha \beta )`$ are now probability for the whole window, i.e. $`xy`$ and $`w`$. Making the assumption of independency, we introduce the conditional weight matrix $`𝐐_{xy}`$ of $`(l2)`$ columns and 20 rows, whose entries describe the probability for a specific residue $`z`$ to appear at some flanking site, say the $`n`$-th site from the window starting position. We denote the probability by $`Q_{d,n}(z|xy)`$, and write

$$P_d(xy,w)=P_d(xy)P_d(w|xy)=P_d(xy)\underset{nw}{}Q_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy).$$
(5)
A similar simplification for $`P_d(xy,w|\alpha \beta )`$ is

$$P_d(xy,w|\alpha \beta )=P_d(xy|\alpha \beta )P_d(w|xy,\alpha \beta )=P_d(xy|\alpha \beta )\underset{nw}{}Q_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy,\alpha \beta ),$$
(6)
where the meaning of $`Q_{d,n}(z|xy,\alpha \beta )`$ is analogous to $`Q_{d,n}(z|xy)`$. The window score $`I_d(xy;\alpha \beta )`$ for pair $`xy`$ to be at conformation $`\alpha \beta `$ is then defined as the logarithmic ratio of $`R_d`$:

$$I_d(xy;\alpha \beta )=\mathrm{log}\left[\frac{P_d(xy|\alpha \beta )}{P_d(xy)}\right]+\underset{nw}{}\mathrm{log}\left[\frac{Q_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy,\alpha \beta )}{Q_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy)}\right].$$
(7)
So far we have not determined the window width $`l`$ and the position of the inferred residue pair inside the window, especially the separation $`d`$ of the two residues. To do this, we need a measure of the distance between two probability distributions. A well defined measure is the Kullback-Leibler (KL) distance or relative entropy (Kullback et al., 1959; Kullback, 1987; Sakamoto et al., 1986), which, for two distributions $`\{p_i\}`$ and $`\{q_i\}`$, is given by

$$KL(\{p_i\},\{q_i\})=\underset{i}{}p_i\mathrm{log}(p_i/q_i).$$
(8)
It corresponds a likelihood ratio, and, if $`p_i`$ is expanded around $`q_i`$, its leading term is the $`\chi ^2`$ distance. It is often to use the following symmetrized form

$$D(\{p_i\},\{q_i\})=\frac{1}{2}[KL(\{p_i\},\{q_i\})+KL(\{q_i\},\{p_i\})].$$
(9)
The distance $`D_n(xy,\alpha \beta )D[\{Q_{d,n}(z|xy,\alpha \beta )\}_z,\{Q_{d,n}(z|xy)\}_z]`$ measures the power for site $`i+n`$ to infer conformation $`\alpha \beta `$. Asymptotically $`D_n(xy,\alpha \beta )`$ approaches zero, when $`n`$ becomes far away from the sites of pair $`xy`$. The power for a window to infer conformation $`\alpha \beta `$ of $`xy`$ may be measured by $`_{nw}D_n(xy,\alpha \beta )`$, the window sum distance averaged with the weight $`P(xy,\alpha \beta )`$. We find a reasonable choice is $`l=16`$ and $`d=0,1`$ with residue $`y`$ being at 9-th site of the window. Detailed discussion will be published elsewhere. Due to limited samples, we consider only $`\alpha \beta \{cc,ee,hh,ce,ch,ec,hc\}`$ with $`eh`$ and $`he`$ excluded.

### 2.2 Prediction steps

Using scores $`I_d(xy;\alpha \beta )`$ and sliding windows, we may calculate scores of true and false windows for each combination of $`xy;\alpha \beta `$ and $`d`$. The threshold $`T_d(xy;\alpha \beta )`$ is determined by the error rate 5% at which non-$`\alpha \beta `$ conformations are wrongly predicted as $`\alpha \beta `$. For a given window, if its score $`I_d(xy;\alpha \beta )`$ is greater than the corresponding threshold $`T_d(xy;\alpha \beta )`$, we say that ‘$`x`$ at $`\alpha `$’, ‘$`y`$ at $`\beta `$’ and ‘$`xy`$ at $`\alpha \beta `$’ are evidenced by the event $`(d;xy;\alpha \beta )`$.

Step 1: If ‘$`xy`$ at $`\alpha \beta `$’ is evidenced by event $`(d;xy;\alpha \beta )`$, and, at the same time, both ‘$`x`$ at $`\alpha `$’ and ‘$`y`$ at $`\beta `$’ are further evidenced by some other events, we say that ‘$`xy`$ at $`\alpha \beta `$’ is strongly confirmed. Determine all strongly confirmed pairs.

Step 2:

We now consider the case that ‘$`xy`$ at $`\alpha \beta `$’ is evidenced, but not strongly confirmed. If either ‘$`zx`$ at $`\gamma \alpha `$’ or ‘$`yz`$ at $`\beta \gamma `$’ is strongly confirmed, we say that ‘$`xy`$ at $`\alpha \beta `$’ is weakly confirmed. Determine all the weakly confirmed pairs.

Step 3:

From a confirmed pair, either strongly or weakly, we calculate the score $`I(x;\alpha )`$ for single residue $`x`$ to be at conformation $`\alpha `$ according to

$$I(x;\alpha )=\underset{d,d^{},y,z,\beta ,\gamma }{\mathrm{max}}\{I_d(xy;\alpha \beta )LCF(y;\beta ),I_d^{}(zx;\gamma \alpha )LCF(z;\gamma )\},$$
(10)
where only confirmed pairs are searched for maximum. The conformation of $`x`$ is finally inferred as

$$\alpha ^{}=\mathrm{arg}_\alpha \mathrm{max}\{I(x;\alpha )\},$$
(11)
i.e. $`\alpha ^{}`$ is the $`\alpha `$ corresponding to the maximal $`I(x;\alpha )`$. Infer residue conformation for all the confirmed pairs.

Step 4:

In this step we expand already inferred $`h`$ and $`e`$ segments in both direction. Suppose residue $`x`$ be a candidate for elongating $`e`$. We calculate score $`I(x;e)`$ according to (10), but now only pairs fit ‘$`x`$ at $`e`$’ are searched for maximum. If $`I(x;e)`$ is positive, we assign conformation $`e`$ to $`x`$. The elongation of $`h`$ is similar.

Step 5:

At both ends of the sequence no full windows are available. The first and last two residues are always assigned to $`c`$. With the contribution of the missing sites set as zero, scores $`I(x;\alpha )`$ of some residue $`x`$ in the end regions are calculated for the elongation of the already determined boundary conformation $`\alpha `$ in a similar way to the last step. For remaining residues we examine only the cases of four successive residues, say $`a_ia_{i+1}a_{i+2}a_{i+3}`$, in the same confirmation $`\alpha `$ by calculating $`I_0(a_ia_{i+1};\alpha \alpha )+I_0(a_{i+2}a_{i+3};\alpha \alpha )`$, and then infer the conformation according to the largest positive score.

Step 6:

This final step is filtering. Each single residue $`h`$ and $`e`$ segment is discarded. A conformation segment $`hh`$ is expanded to $`hhh`$ according to whichever neighbor site has a large score for $`h`$. Each residue whose conformation cannot be predicted so far is assigned to conformation $`c`$.

Let us explain the prediction steps in more words by a simple example. Suppose that total of five events are found for segment PDEFGHI of a sequence as shown as follows.

```
  ...ACLMNPDEFGHIKQRST...
          --e.c--
          e.e----
          ----c.h
          ----ch-
          ----cc-

```

In step 1, EG at ec is strongly confirmed by the first three events. This is the only strongly confirmed pair in the segment. Based on the pair, in Step 2 we find that, all the remaining four events are weakly confirmed. In Step 3, we can easily infer ‘P at e’, ‘E at e’, ‘G at c’, and ‘I at h’. Further calculation of $`I(H;h)`$ and $`I(H,c)`$ leads to ‘H at h’. The conformation of PDEFGHI is now inferred as e-e-chh. Step 4 then fills up the gaps to get eeeechh.

## 3 Result

We create a nonredundant set of 1612 non-membrane proteins for training parameters from PDB\_SELECT (Hobohm and Sander, 1994) with amino acid identity less than 25% issued on 25 September of 2001. The secondary structure for these sequences are taken from DSSP database (Kabsch and Sander, 1983). As mentioned above, the eight states of DSSP are coarse-grained into 3 states: $`h`$, $`e`$ and $`c`$. This learning set contains 268031 residues with known conformations, among which 94415 are $`h`$, 56510 are $`e`$, and 117106 are $`c`$. The size of the learning set is reasonable for training our parameters.

To convert observed amino acid counts into frequencies or probabilities for scoring is a basic problem faced in training. A practical approach is to use pseudocounts (Aitchison and Dumsmore, 1972). We estimate background amino acid frequencies $`\{\rho _x\}`$ directly from counts of the whole learning set. Then, we estimate the weight matrix element $`Q_{d,n}(z|xy,\alpha \beta )`$ from the count $`N_{d,n}(z|xy,\alpha \beta )`$ of amino acid $`z`$ at position $`n`$ under the condition that residue pair $`xy`$ with separation $`d`$ is in conformation $`\alpha \beta `$ as follows.

$$Q_{n,z}=\frac{N_{n,z}+\sqrt{N_n}\rho _z}{N_n+\sqrt{N_n}},N_n=\underset{z}{}N_{n,z},$$
(12)
where $`Q_{n,z}`$, indicating specifically only $`n`$ and $`z=a_{i+n}`$, stands for $`Q_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy,\alpha \beta )`$, and $`N_{n,z}`$ stands for $`N_{d,n}(a_{i+n}|xy,\alpha \beta )`$. Here, the conditional probability $`Q_{n,z}`$ is estimated by using a pseudocount propotional to the background distribution $`\rho _z`$. If $`_zN_{d,n}(z|xy,\alpha \beta )`$ is less than 10, the sample size is too small to reliably estimate the score. No such scores will be used for inference. Or, equivalently speaking, they are set to be negative infinity.

In order to assess the accuracy of our approach, we use the following 2 test sets: Sets 1 and 2. A set of 124 nonhomologous proteins is created from the representative database of Rost and Sander (1993) by removing subunits A and B of hemagglutinin 3hmg, which are designated as membrane protein by SCOP (Murzin et al, 1995). The 124 sequences and the learning set are not independent of each other according to HSSP database (Dodge, Schneider and Sander, 1998). That is, some proteins of the 124 sequences and certain proteins in the learning set belong to the same putative homologue family of HSSP. Removing these proteins from the 124 sequences and 5 seuqences with unknown amino acid segments longer than 6, we construct Set 1 of 76 proteins, a subset of the 124 sequences. 34 proteins with known structures of the CASP4 database issued in December of 2000 are taken as Set 2.

The predicted counts of each conformation type in the test sets are listed in Table 1. The quantities assessing accuracy on single residue level for a given test set are the total percent correct $`Q_3`$, percent of types $`h`$ and $`e`$ predicted correctly (sensitivity $`S_n`$) and percent of predictions correct for types $`h`$ and $`e`$ (specificity $`S_p`$). Results obtained on the test sets are listed in Table 2 in comparison with the results of GOR IV and SSP (Solovyev and Salamov, 1991, 1994), another secondary structure predictor based on discriminant analysis using single sequence. The approach PSSRP performs very well. The overall value of $`Q_3`$ averaged over Sets 1 and 2 is 70.2%. We show $`Q_3`$ statistics for Sets 1 and 2 in Fig. 1.

Generally, strongly confirmed pairs are the portion with a high confidence in prediction. Strongly confirmed pairs cover 58.4% and 53.8% of Set 1 and 2, respectively. There is a clear correlation between the coverage rate or the percentage of the strongly confirmed pairs in the total length of a sequence and accuracy $`Q_3`$, which are 79.5% and 77.4% for the coverage portion, respectively. To examine the correlation between the coverage rate $`C`$ of strongly confirmed pairs and the whole sequence accuracy $`Q_3`$, we conduct simple linear regression of $`Q_3`$ on $`C`$ for Sets 1 and 2, as shown in Fig. 2 with regression line $`Q_3=0.728C+0.306`$. Correlation coefficient $`r`$ and standard deviation $`\sigma `$ are 0.779 and 0.0276 for Set 1, while for Set 2, they are 0.830 and 0.0209, and for the two sets total are 0.795 and 0.0253. Thus, the coverage rate of the strongly confirmed pairs provides us a self-checking confidence level of the prediction accuracy.

$`Q_3`$ measure gives an overall number of residues predicted correctly. It is well known that single-residue accuracy sometimes poorly reflects the quality of prediction. Measures concentrating on secondary structure segment prediction accuracy would better reflect the nature of structure. A simple segment overlap measure is: a segment is considered correctly predicted if the predicted and observed segments have at least two amino acids in common (Taylor, 1984). Results of this segment prediction accuracy from our approach are listed in Table 3.

## 4 Discussions

We have presented an improved approach using single protein sequence to predict secondary structure. The improvement is achieved by including triple correlations. Most recent improvements in accuracy come from methods which are capable to consider correlations nonlocal in sequence. Combining evolutionary information via multiple alignments of homologous sequences is a main way to include such correlations. Although methods using single sequence generally cannot cope with nonlocal correlations easily, their simple nature of requiring least computation in the prediction step is still attractive.

There are rooms for further improvement of PSSRP. The original scores are obtained for residue pairs. The scores are then converted to those for single residues in the prediction Step 3. It is possible to construct a scoring system to directly use pair scores by introducing appropriate weighting. We may tune the thresholds to compromise $`S_p`$ with $`S_n`$. We may integrate the segment length statistics into the approach, e.g. by dynamic programming.

The size of the amino acid alphabets is 20. Number of parameters increases drastically with the order of correlations considered. A statistical model containing a tremendous number of parameters will require a huge learning set to train parameters. Furthermore, an over-complicated model can easily result in overfitting. It seems that the overfitting is not too serious. A way to reduce the number of parameters is to coarse-grain the 20 amino acids into a small number of categories. This is under study.

> We thank Dr. Shan Guan and Prof. Jing-Chu Luo for their kindly help to our work.
>
> This work was supported in part by the Special Funds for Major National Basic Research Projects and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Table 1. Predicted counts for each conformation type.
Predicted   Set 1 Set 2   $`h`$ $`e`$ $`c`$ $`h`$ $`e`$ $`c`$     $`h`$ 3296 275 1097 2097 205 806  Observed $`e`$ 271 1815 912 188 1030 558   $`c`$ 749 765 4999 504 383 2553

Table 2. Single residue accuracies.
Set $`Q_3`$ $`S_n^h`$ $`S_p^h`$ $`S_n^e`$ $`S_p^e`$    PSSRP 1 71.3 70.6 76.4 60.5 63.6  GOR IV 1 66.0 63.3 68.5 54.7 55.3  SSP 1 66.8 68.1 69.0 55.3 60.0  PSSRP 2 68.2 67.5 75.2 58.0 63.7  GOR IV 2 63.2 67.1 64.3 43.0 54.6  SSP 2 61.2 66.3 63.3 45.7 55.6

Table 3. A comparison of segment prediction accuracy for short and long helices and sheets. Here a simple measure of segment overlap is used: a predicted segment is couted as a true positive (TP) if the predicted segment and an observed segments have at least two residues in commen. With this definition the sensitivity $`S_n`$ and specificity $`S_p`$ are calculated.
Set 1 Set 2   GOR IV SSP PSSRP GOR IV SSP PSSRP   $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$ $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$ $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$ $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$ $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$ $`S_n`$ $`S_p`$    All helices 62.7 76.1 64.9 83.2 76.7 76.2 63.2 66.9 66.0 76.2 71.8 72.4  Long helices($`l>8`$) 89.7 91.0 94.2 86.7 96.3 94.1 84.4 81.7 85.6 78.0 93.1 96.3  Short helices($`l8`$) 54.7 55.3 38.9 56.5 59.3 70.0 42.3 48.4 46.6 56.5 51.0 64.2  All sheets 65.5 59.5 57.0 74.6 71.4 66.2 50.9 60.0 49.3 73.9 64.6 67.4  Long sheets($`l>6`$) 84.7 75.0 82.0 80.6 86.0 88.2 64.4 75.7 58.9 80.6 86.3 86.4  Short sheets($`l6`$) 59.1 56.9 48.5 67.3 66.5 63.1 47.7 57.9 47.1 66.7 59.4 63.2


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# Comments On String Theory

## Abstract

String theory avoids the ultraviolet infinities that arise in trying to quantize gravity. It is also more predictive than conventional quantum field theory, one aspect of this being the way that it contributed to the emergence of the concept of “supersymmetry” of particle interactions. There are hints from the successes of supersymmetric unified theories of particle interactions that supersymmetry is relevant to elementary particles at energies close to current accelerator energies; if this is so, it will be confirmed experimentally and supersymmetry is then also likely to be important in cosmology, in connection with dark matter, baryogenesis, and/or inflation. Magnetic monopoles play an important role in the structure of string theory, and thus should certainly exist, if string theory is correct, though they may have been diluted by inflation to an unobservable level. The monopole mass in many attractive models is near the Planck mass, but, if unification of elementary particle forces with gravity occurs near TeV energies through large or warped extra dimensions, as in some recent models, then monopoles should be below 100 TeV and in an astrophysical context would be ultrarelativistic. In such models, supersymmetry would definitely be expected at TeV energies.

In string theory, at the most basic level, an elementary particle is treated as a vibrating string, rather than a point particle. A string has many different harmonics of vibration, and in this context different elementary particles are interpreted as different harmonics of the string.

In a Feynman diagram of ordinary quantum field theory, there are interaction vertices at which particles split and rejoin (figure 1(a)). These are definite spacetime events that every Lorentz observer can agree upon. By contrast, in the splitting and rejoining of a string (figure 1(b)), there is no definite moment at which an interaction occurred. If one looks at the whole history, it is clear that one string split into two, but nevertheless any small piece of the history looks like any other. This is a hint of one of the most important facts about the theory: once one decides what the string is, the interactions follow; they need not be separately postulated, as is the case in quantum field theory.

Quantizing a relativistic string proves to be very subtle. When this was done in the 1970’s, some highly unusual features appeared. Perhaps the most dramatic is that the ground state of the (closed) string proves to be a massless spin two field, i.e. a graviton. The interactions do mimic those of general relativity at long wavelengths, so string theory proves to be a quantum theory of gravity. This is something that we need in physics – since both quantum mechanics and gravity are present in nature – and and it is something that we otherwise do not have, since conventional attempts at quantizing general relativity are thwarted by ultraviolet divergences.

The ultraviolet divergences of quantum general relativity disappear when one replaces a particle by a string. This is so roughly because of the fact that was illustrated in figure 1: replacing particles by strings has the effect of smearing out the interaction vertex in a Feynman diagram.

String theory also leads to gauge symmetry in much the same way that it leads to gravity. For example, the ground state of an open string turns out to be a gauge field. (A closed string is a loop of string that closes on itself without ends; an open string does have ends.)

Supersymmetry

Along with gauge theory and gravity, string theory generates “supersymmetry,” which is symmetry between bosons and fermions. In fact, the appearance around 1970 of what we now call worldsheet supersymmetry in the Ramond model of string theory was part of the historical origin of the idea of supersymmetry. Nature does not have exact supersymmetry. But it is possible that nature does have an underlying supersymmetry which is “spontaneously broken,” like the $`SU(2)\times U(1)`$ gauge symmetry of the standard model of particle physics. In fact, it may be that supersymmetry is detectable at energies relevant to current and planned accelerator experiments. There are a few hints of this.

One is the “hierarchy problem,” which is a modern version of Dirac’s “problem of large numbers.” In Dirac’s formulation, why is the gravitational force between two protons $`10^{38}`$ times weaker than the electric force? The appearance of such a tiny dimensionless number in the laws of physics seems to require some explanation. An updated version of the question is to ask why the $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons (the gauge bosons whose masses are ultimately linked to the mass scale of other particles) have masses $`10^{17}`$ times smaller than the Planck mass. At any rate, supersymmetry offers a possible solution to this problem, because supersymmetry removes the quadratic divergences that otherwise affect the Higgs boson mass.

A more quantitative hint of supersymmetry comes from the measured values of the strong, weak, and electromagnetic coupling constants. They agree at about the $`1\%`$ level with a relation that follows from supersymmetry together with grand unification of the elementary particle forces.

If supersymmetry is discovered (presumably at Fermilab or at the LHC, the new accelerator that is being built at CERN), there is much to be learned about the masses and couplings of the supersymmetric particles. Theoretical models of the details of the supersymmetric world are currently all over the map. Even if one of the them is on the right track, we have no idea which one.

Discovering supersymmetry would undoubtedly give string theory a big boost, showing that the three structures – gravity, gauge theory, and supersymmetry – that arise from string theory in roughly the same way are all part of the description of nature. It is impossible right now to guess how big a boost string theory might get from the discovery and exploration of supersymmetry, because we do not know what the pattern of supersymmetric masses would turn out to be and therefore what clues we would get about physics at still higher energies.

There are also several possibilities for how discovering supersymmetry might be relevant to cosmology:

(1) Some of the supersymmetric particles make plausible dark matter candidates, as calculations show that they would have just about the right mass and abundance to agree with observation. (However, supersymmetric particles are not the only plausible particle physics candidates for dark matter, and some supersymmetric models do not have such candidates.)

(2) If supersymmetry is correct, this must be taken into account in theories of baryogenesis in the early universe. In fact, supersymmetric theories have scalar fields with baryon number that might very well have played an important role .

(3) Supersymmetric scalar fields might also be relevant to inflation (this was discussed in L. Randall’s talk), though supersymmetry and strings have not given a clear picture yet.

In 1984, string-based models of particle physics became much more interesting when Green-Schwarz anomaly cancellation and the construction of the heterotic string by Gross, Harvey, Martinec, and Rohm made possible models of particle physics plus quantum gravity that are elegant and semi-realistic. In this context, “semirealistic” means that one neatly gets the right particles and gauge forces, but one does not have a reasonable picture of particle masses, because these involve supersymmetry breaking, for which we have no sensible model.

A good model of supersymmetry breaking ought to shed light on the extreme smallness (or vanishing?) of the cosmological constant, since in our semi-realistic models, the cosmological constant vanishes when supersymmetry is unbroken. Thus, not only is the extreme smallness of the cosmological constant a big mystery – sharpened by observations suggesting that it is not zero – but not understanding the cosmological constant makes it hard to improve the models of particle physics.

Supersymmetry breaking models that we have now lead to quintessence-like behavior (an evolving scalar field and no stable vacuum) but with highly unrealistic parameters and couplings. In general, quintessence with a scalar field seems troublesome due to coherent couplings that would likely already have been detected, notably in tests of the equivalence principle. In that respect, quintessence with an evolving pseudo-scalar (an axion-like field with a potential like $`V(a)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^4(1\mathrm{cos}(a/F))`$ with some constants $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`F`$) seems more attractive, given the absence (or extreme suppression, given that parity is not an exact symmetry of nature) of coherent couplings for pseudoscalars. There have only been a few papers on quintessence-like models based on pseudoscalars , .

Five String Theories

By 1984, there were five string theories, differing by very general properties of the string:

(1) In Type IIA and Type IIB, the strings are closed, oriented, and insulating.

(2) Type I strings are open or closed and insulating; open Type I strings have electric charges at the ends. (This model has an analogy with strong interaction physics, with the open and closed strings corresponding respectively to mesons and glueballs; the analogy played a role in the discovery of string theory and continues to motivate much current research.)

(3) Finally, heterotic $`SO(32)`$ and $`E_8\times E_8`$ strings are closed, oriented, and superconducting.

Five string theories, each of which includes gravity, is four too many, but it is much better than the situation in pre-string physics, where there are infinitely many possible quantum field theories, none of which include gravity.

Here is another characteristic difference between string theory and pre-string physics. In quantum field theory, we generally have adjustable dimensionless parameters, such as the fine structure constant $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c1/137`$ or the electron-muon mass ratio $`m_e/m_\mu `$, which is about $`1/200`$. These adjustable parameters mostly appear at the interaction vertices of figure 1, and they disappear in going to string theory. In string theory, there are no adjustable dimensionless parameters, but instead there are scalar fields $`\varphi _i`$ whose expectation values determine $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c`$, $`m_e/m_\mu `$, etc.

This means that in principle $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c`$, $`m_e/m_\mu `$, and the rest might be computed by minimizing the energy as a function of the $`\varphi `$’s. In practice, to do this we would have to understand supersymmetry breaking and the cosmological constant, since in the absence of supersymmetry breaking, $`V(\varphi )`$ is identically zero. This is another reason that it would be good to discover supersymmetry at accelerators and thus have the chance to explore supersymmetry breaking experimentally.

Strong Coupling

In trying to answer any of the really big questions in string theory, we run against the fact that we do not really understand what the theory is. In contrast to (say) general relativity, where the big ideas came first, string theory emerged, originally in the early 1970’s, by a process of tinkering without anyone having the big picture. At first, one could see only the loftiest peaks above the clouds. For thirty years now, we have chipped away, uncovering some of the underlying structure, but with much still unclear.

One important development in the 1990’s was that, as long as one can ignore supersymmetry breaking, we learned to extrapolate to large values of parameters such as $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c=e^\varphi `$. We always could calculate for $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c<<1`$; now we can say something for $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c>>1`$.

The basic technique is to study magnetic monopoles and other nonperturbative excitations. For $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c`$ the monopoles are extremely heavy compared to the ordinary particles, and this makes them less important. However, for $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c`$ large, the monopoles become light and we should find a description of the theory in terms of monopoles.

At the cost of oversimplifying things a bit, I will give a qualitative explanation of this. According to Dirac, the magnetic charge of a magnetic monopole is $`g=2\pi \mathrm{}c/e`$. This shows that $`g`$ is much larger than $`e`$ when $`e`$ is small, and much smaller than $`e`$ when $`e`$ is large. So to the extent that the mass of an electron or a magnetic monopole has an electromagnetic origin, one would expect that monopoles are the light objects for $`e\mathrm{}`$.

So for $`e^2/4\pi \mathrm{}c\mathrm{}`$, we need to use a description that favors monopoles rather than electrons, but this turns out to be another string theory, or a close cousin. Thinking along these lines led to the understanding that there is only one string theory: the five string theories as traditionally understood are different limiting cases of one more complete theory, sometimes called $`M`$-theory. $`M`$-theory is the candidate for superunification, though we still do not really understand it.

Magnetic Monopoles

Monopoles have played an important role in developing this picture, so in particular, if string theory is correct, they should exist. Where are they? Inflation may have made the monopole density unobservably small; this was plausible when first proposed over 20 years ago, and remains plausible. But it would be a shame, so let us hope that a reasonable number of monopoles survived somehow.

What is the monopole mass? The standard picture based on GUT-like models leads to monopole masses above the GUT scale, say in the range of $`10^{17}`$ to $`10^{20}`$ GeV. (The upper bound is the mass of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole carrying magnetic charge; the lightest monopole could scarcely be heavier than this.)

Monopoles of such high mass are not affected by the Parker bound on monopole flux, because in a galaxy the gravitational force on such a monopole is much greater than the magnetic force. As far as I know, they would have been viable dark matter candidates, except that bounds from MACRO  and other experiments exclude the hypothesis that monoples, even at the highest plausible mass, are the dominant component of the galactic halo.

Along with GUT-like models, we also should consider models in which a low scale unification with gravity is achieved, via large extra dimensions  or a warped scenario . For example, if such unification occurs at energies of a few TeV, we should expect monopoles at perhaps 10 - 100 TeV. Such light monopoles would be accelerated in the galactic magnetic field to ultrarelativistic energies, so their experimental signatures are completely different from those of the GUT-scale monopoles. (For a recent assessment, see .) Also, they might not have been diluted by inflation. It is hard to be specific on this last point, as current ideas for low-scale unification are really scenarios more than detailed models.

Another interesting property of monopoles in string models  is that in many models, the minimum magnetic charge is not the Dirac quantum $`2\pi \mathrm{}c/e`$, but is larger than this by an integer $`n`$ that depends on the model. Reciprocally, these models have unconfined massive particles with electric charge $`e/n`$. These particles would have GUT-like masses in the GUT-scale models and would be at the TeV energy scale in models with low energy unification. The cosmic ray flux of particles with electric charge equal to or greater than $`e/5`$ and $`\beta >1/4`$ has been significantly constrained by MACRO .

Ironically, though models with TeV scale unification with gravity are sometimes seen as making TeV scale supersymmetry unnecessary, they also make it inevitable, if string theory is correct. To see this, let us perform a simple thought experiment (which we could have considered earlier in the case of the monopoles). Suppose that accelerator experiments at TeV energies do discover a unification with quantum gravity and an effective higher-dimensional Planck scale of a few TeV. Then, if it is true (as string theory seems to tell us) that quantum gravity requires supersymmetry at the fundamental Planck scale, we should expect to find supersymmetry at energies of a few TeV, if not less!

A nice illustration of this last point is in a recent paper by Giddings and DeWolfe . (See also  for a related discussion.) They consider a warped scenario with an underlying ten-dimensional Planck mass that for most of the states is effectively at or above the usual GUT scale; moreover, supersymmetry is broken at this high scale. However, because of the warping of the metric, some of the states survive down to TeV energies and below. In this model, the TeV scale particles include some excited gravitons, and by experiments at TeV energies involving this low energy sector (which is assumed to contain the familiar particles), one could observe unification of elementary particles with gravity. And sure enough, as our heuristic argument would predict, Giddings and DeWolfe find that although the GUT-scale particles have GUT-scale supersymmetric mass splittings, the TeV scale particles have TeV-scale supersymmetric splittings. Thus, experiments that uncover unification with gravity would also have the energy to uncover supersymmetry.

So in short, weak scale monopoles and weak scale supersymmetry breaking should be general consequences of models with weak scale unification with gravity.

Where else might we see signatures of string theory? It would be nice to detect some of the numerous stringy scalar fields either because of changes in time of natural constants (because of evolution of scalar fields in the vacuum) or because of departures from the equivalence principle, or deviations from Newton’s law of gravity at short distances. Concerning the changes in natural constants, I am personally a little pessimistic because I suspect that scalars whose evolution causes a detectable change in natural constants might have already shown up in tests of the equivalence principle.111To spell this out a bit, scalars that are evolving so slowly as to produce a change in natural constants on cosmic time scales are so light that their Compton wavelengths are far greater than any length scale that is relevant in tests of the equivalence principle or general relativity. Such particles would therefore be detected in such experiments unless their couplings are significantly weaker than gravitational. By contrast, since current laboratory tests of gravity involve shorter distances than those explored in the other experiments, a scalar of the right mass might produce a detectable departure from Newton’s laws of gravity without showing up in tests of the equivalence principle or general relativity. But let’s hope.

Among various other conceivable possibilities, I will only add that the very name “string theory” suggests that if this theory is right, strings may exist in the heavens. (Again, the cosmic strings may be greatly diluted by inflation; this remark applies especially to heavy ones.) One can imagine elementary strings stretching across the sky, and other conceivable objects with GUT-like tension, possibly visible in the CMB maps. But also plausible are other, lighter objects, perhaps all the way down to the TeV scale (which corresponds to a string tension of roughly $`10^4`$ $`\mathrm{gm}/\mathrm{cm}`$). The light objects might arise, for example, from spontaneous breaking of extra $`U(1)`$ factors of the gauge group that we do not yet know about. The light ones would not be detectable gravitationally, but they might be detected if they are abundant in the Milky Way (or the Solar System? ), in which case, if they are superconducting (not unlikely for strings that arise from breaking of extra $`U(1)`$’s ), they might be detectable by causing magnetic disturbances and creating antimatter clouds when they interact with a magnetic field.


text:
# Abstract

## Abstract

We have studied the three quark systems in an Effective Hamiltonian approach in QCD. With only two parameters: the string tension $`\sigma =0.15`$ GeV2 and the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s=0.39`$ we obtain a good description of the ground state light and heavy baryons. The prediction of masses of the doubly heavy baryons not discovered yet are also given. In particular, a mass of 3637 MeV for the lightest $`ccu`$ baryon is found by employing the hyperspherical formalism to the three quark confining potential with the string junction.

The discovery of the $`B_c`$ meson  demonstrates that new sectors of hadron physics are becoming accessible to experiment. In particular, the existence of doubly heavy baryons is a natural consequence of the quark model, and it would be surprising if they did not exist. Data from the BaBar and Belle collaborations at the SLAC and KEK B-factories would be good places to look for doubly charmed baryons. Recently the SELEX, the charm hadroproduction experiment at Fermilab, reported a narrow state at $`3519\pm 1`$ MeV decaying in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+K^{}\pi ^+`$, consistent with the weak decay of the doubly charged baryon $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{cc}^+`$ . The SELEX result was recently critically discussed in . Whether or not the state that SELEX reports turns out to be the first observation of doubly charmed baryons, studying their properties is important for a full understanding of the strong interaction between quarks.

Estimations for the masses and spectra of the baryons containing two or more heavy quarks have been considered by many authors . The purpose of this letter is to present a consistent treatment of the masses and wave functions of the light, heavy and doubly heavy baryons obtained in a simple approximation within the nonperturbative QCD. In Ref.  starting from the QCD Lagrangian and assuming the minimal area for the asymptotics of the Wilson loop the Hamiltonian of the $`3q`$ system in the rest frame has been derived. The methodology of the approach has been reviewed recently . By using this approach and the hypercentral approximation  we calculate the ground state energies and wave functions of the doubly heavy baryons as three quark systems, with the three-body confinement force. As a by-product, we also report the masses and wave functions for light and heavy baryons.

From experimental point of view, a detailed discussion of the excited QQ’q states is probably premature. Therefore we consider the ground state baryons without radial and orbital excitations in which case tensor and spin-orbit forces do not contribute perturbatively. Then only the spin-spin interaction survives in the perturbative approximation. The EH has the following form

$$H=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left(\frac{m_i^{(0)2}}{2m_i}+\frac{m_i}{2}\right)+H_0+V,$$
(1)
where $`H_0`$ is the non-relativistic kinetic energy operator, $`V`$ is the sum of the perturbative one-gluon exchange potentials $`V_c`$:

$$V_c=\frac{2}{3}\alpha _s\underset{i<j}{}\frac{1}{r_{ij}},$$
(2)
and the string potential

$$V_{\mathrm{string}}(𝒓_1,𝒓_2,𝒓_3)=\sigma l_{\mathrm{min}},$$
(3)
where $`l_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is the sum of the three distances $`|𝒓_i|`$ from the string junction point. In contrast to the standard approach of the constituent quark model the dynamical masses $`m_i`$ are no longer free parameters. They are expressed in terms of the running masses $`m_i^{(0)}(Q^2)`$ defined at the appropriate hadronic scale of $`Q^2`$ from the condition of the minimum of the baryon mass $`M_B^{(0)}`$ as function of $`m_i`$:

$$\frac{M_B^{(0)}(m_i)}{m_i}=0,M_B^{(0)}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left(\frac{m_i^{(0)2}}{2m_i}+\frac{m_i}{2}\right)+E_0(m_1,m_2,m_3),$$
(4)
$`E_0`$ being eigenvalue of the operator $`H_0+V`$. Technically, this has been done using the einbein (auxiliary fields) approach, which is proven to be rather accurate in various calculations for relativistic systems. Einbeins are treated as $`c`$ number variational parameters: the eigenvalues of the EH are minimized with respect to einbeins to obtain the physical spectrum. Such procedure provides the reasonable accuracy for the meson ground states .

The physical mass $`M_B`$ of a baryon is

$$M_B=M_B^{(0)}+C,C=\frac{2\sigma }{\pi }\underset{i}{}\frac{\eta _i}{m_i},$$
(5)
where the constant $`C`$ has the meaning of the quark self energy. The values of $`\eta _i`$ are taken from . They are 1, 0.88, 0.234, and 0.052 for $`q`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, and $`b`$ quarks, respectively.

The Effective Hamiltonian is solved using the hyperspherical approach adequate for confining potentials. The baryon wave function depends on the three-body Jacobi coordinates

$$𝝆_{ij}=\sqrt{\frac{\mu _{ij}}{\mu }}(𝒓_i𝒓_j),𝝀_{ij}=\sqrt{\frac{\mu _{ij,k}}{\mu }}\left(\frac{m_i𝒓_i+m_j𝒓_j}{m_i+m_j}𝒓_k\right)$$
(6)
($`i,j,k`$ cyclic), where $`\mu _{ij}`$ and $`\mu _{ij,k}`$ are the appropriate reduced masses

$$\mu _{ij}=\frac{m_im_j}{m_i+m_j},\mu _{ij,k}=\frac{(m_i+m_j)m_k}{m_i+m_j+m_k},$$
(7)
and $`\mu `$ is an arbitrary parameter with the dimension of mass which drops off in the final expressions. In terms of the Jacobi coordinates the kinetic energy operator $`H_0`$ is written as

$$H_0=\frac{1}{2\mu }\left(\frac{^2}{𝝆^2}+\frac{^2}{𝝀^2}\right)=\frac{1}{2\mu }\left(\frac{^2}{R^2}+\frac{5}{R}\frac{}{R}+\frac{K^2(\mathrm{\Omega })}{R^2}\right),$$
(8)
where $`R`$ is the six-dimensional hyper-radius $`R^2=𝝆_{ij}^2+𝝀_{ij}^2`$, and $`K^2(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is angular momentum operator whose eigen functions (the hyper spherical harmonics) are $`K^2(\mathrm{\Omega })Y_{[K]}=K(K+4)Y_{[K]}`$, with $`K`$ being the grand orbital momentum. In terms of $`Y_{[K]}`$ the wave function $`\psi (𝝆,𝝀)`$ can be written in a symbolical shorthand as

$$\psi (𝝆,𝝀)=\underset{K}{}\psi _K(R)Y_{[K]}(\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(9)
In the hyper radial approximation which we shall use below $`K=0`$ and $`\psi =\psi (R)`$. Since $`R^2`$ is exchange symmetric the baryon wave function is totally symmetric under exchange. Introducing the variable $`x=\sqrt{\mu }R`$ and averaging the interaction $`U=V_c+V_{\mathrm{string}}`$ over the six-dimensional sphere $`\mathrm{\Omega }_6`$ one obtains the Schrödinger equation for $`u(x)=x^{5/2}\psi (x)`$

$$\frac{d^2u(x)}{dx^2}+2\left[E_0+\frac{a}{x}bx\frac{15}{8x^2}\right]u(x)=0,$$
(10)
with the boundary conditions $`u(x)𝒪(x^{5/2})`$ as $`x0`$ and the asymptotic $`u(x)Ai(y)\frac{1}{2}\pi ^{1/2}y^{1/4}`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2}{3}y^{3/2})`$, $`y=(2b)^{1/3}x`$, as $`x\mathrm{}`$. In Eq. (10) $`E_0`$ is the ground state eigenvalue and

$`a`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _s}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{16}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i<j}{}}\sqrt{\mu _{ij}},`$ (11)
$`b`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{R\sqrt{\mu }}}{\displaystyle V_{\mathrm{string}}(𝒓_1,𝒓_2,𝒓_3)\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }_6}{\pi ^3}},`$
The potential $`V_{\text{string}}(𝒓_1,𝒓_2,𝒓_3)`$ has rather complicated structure. In the Y-shape, the string meet at $`120^o`$ in order to insure the minimum energy. This shape moves continuously to a two–legs configuration where the legs meet at an angle larger than $`120^o`$. Let $`\phi _{ijk}`$ be the angle between the line from quark $`i`$ to quark $`j`$ and that from quark $`j`$ to quark $`k`$. If $`\phi _{ijk}`$ are all smaller than $`120^{}`$, then the equilibrium junction position coincides with the so-called Torichelli point of the triangle in which vertices three quarks are situated. In this case, in terms of the variables $`x`$, $`\theta =\mathrm{arctan}(\rho _{12}/\lambda _{12})`$, and $`\mathrm{cos}\chi =𝝆_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}𝝀_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟐}}/\rho _{12}\lambda _{12}`$ ($`0\theta \pi /2`$, $`0\chi \pi `$) one obtains

$`ł_{\text{min}}^2`$ $`=`$ $`x^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{(m_1^3m_2^3)\mathrm{tan}^2\theta }{m_1m_2(m_1^2m_2^2)}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_2m_1}{m_2+m_1}}\mathrm{cos}\chi +\sqrt{3}\mathrm{sin}\chi \right){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{tan}\theta }{m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mu _{12,3}}}\right),`$
where $`m^2=m_1m_2m_3/(m_1+m_2+m_3).`$ For the case $`m_1=m_2=m_3`$ this expression coincides with that derived in Ref. . If $`\phi _{ijk}>120^o`$, the lowest energy configuration has the junction at the position of quark $`j`$ and $`l_{\text{min}}=r_{ij}+r_{jk}`$, where

$$r_{12}=\frac{x\mathrm{sin}\theta }{\sqrt{\mu _{12}}},r_{13}=\frac{x\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\sqrt{\mu _{12,3}}}\sqrt{\frac{m^2}{m_1^2}\mathrm{tan}^2\theta +\frac{2m}{m_1}\mathrm{tan}\theta \mathrm{cos}\chi +1},$$
(13)
and

$$r_{23}=\frac{x\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\sqrt{\mu _{12,3}}}\sqrt{\frac{m^2}{m_2^2}\mathrm{tan}^2\theta \frac{2m}{m_2}\mathrm{tan}\theta \mathrm{cos}\chi +1}.$$
(14)
The boundaries corresponding to the various regions in the $`(\theta ,\chi )`$ plane are: $`\theta _{1(2)}(\chi )=\mathrm{arctan}(m_{1(2)}(\mathrm{cos}\chi \mathrm{sin}\chi /\sqrt{3})/m),`$ $`\theta _3(\chi )=\mathrm{arctan}(m_2(f(\chi )+\sqrt{f^2(\chi )+4\kappa })/2m),`$ $`f(\chi )=(1\kappa )\mathrm{cos}\chi +(1+\kappa )\mathrm{sin}\chi /\sqrt{3}`$, $`\kappa =m_1/m_2`$. These boundaries are shown in Fig. 1 for the case of equal quark masses.

Note that the frequently used approximation ,  is to choose the string junction point as coinciding with the center-of-mass coordinate. In this case

$$V_{\text{string}}=\sigma \underset{i<j}{}\frac{1}{m_k}\sqrt{\mu \mu _{ij,k}}|𝝀_{ij}|,b=\sigma \frac{32}{15\pi }\underset{i<j}{}\frac{\sqrt{\mu _{ij,k}}}{m_k}.$$
(15)
This approximation that greatly simplifies the calculations increases the value of $`b`$ in Eq. (10) by $`5\%`$ as illustrated by the results of Table 1.

We first solve Eq. (4) for the dynamical quark masses $`m_i`$ retaining only the string potential in the effective Hamiltonian (1). This procedure is consistent with Ref. , but different from that of . Then we add the perturbative Coulomb potential and solve Eq. (10) to obtain the ground state eigenvalues $`E_0`$. The baryon masses $`M_B`$ are then obtained from solving Eq. (5).

Table 1. Illustration of the accuracy of the approximation (15). Shown are the values $`b\sqrt{m_q}/\sigma `$ given by Eqs. (11) and (15) where $`m_q`$ is the light quark mass.

| barion | Eq. (11) | Eq. (15) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| qqq | 1.583 | 1.663 |
| qqs | 1.556 | 1.636 |
| qss | 1.530 | 1.608 |
| qsc | 1.339 | 1.417 |
| qqb | 1.293 | 1.384 |
| qcb | 1.038 | 1.101 |
| qbb | 0.925 | 0.975 |

Table 2. For various $`3q`$ systems in column (1) we display the dynamical quark masses given by Eq. (4), the ground state eigenvalue $`E_0`$ in Eq. (10), the baryon masses including the self energy correction Eq. (5) (all in units of GeV) and the correlation function $`\gamma `$, Eq. (16) (in units GeV3/2).

| baryon | $`m_1`$ | $`m_2`$ | $`m_3`$ | $`E_0`$ | $`M_B`$ | $`\gamma `$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| qqq | 0.362 | 0.362 | 0.362 | 1.392 | 1.144 | 0.1389 |
| qqs | 0.367 | 0.367 | 0.407 | 1.362 | 1.242 | 0.1369 |
| qss | 0.371 | 0.411 | 0.411 | 1.335 | 1.336 | 0.1351 |
| sss | 0.415 | 0.415 | 0.415 | 1.307 | 1.426 | 0.1333 |
| qqc | 0.406 | 0.406 | 1.470 | 1.142 | 2.464 | 0.1241 |
| qsc | 0.409 | 0.448 | 1.471 | 1.116 | 2.542 | 0.1228 |
| ssc | 0.452 | 0.452 | 1.473 | 1.090 | 2.621 | 0.1214 |
| qqb | 0.425 | 0.425 | 4.825 | 1.054 | 5.823 | 0.1201 |
| qsb | 0.429 | 0.469 | 4.826 | 1.026 | 5.903 | 0.1188 |
| ssb | 0.471 | 0.471 | 4.826 | 1.000 | 5.975 | 0.1177 |
| qcc | 0.444 | 1.494 | 1.494 | 0.876 | 3.659 | 0.1143 |
| scc | 0.485 | 1.496 | 1.496 | 0.851 | 3.726 | 0.1134 |
| qcb | 0.465 | 1.512 | 4.836 | 0.753 | 6.969 | 0.1136 |
| scb | 0.505 | 1.514 | 4.837 | 0.729 | 7.032 | 0.1128 |
| qbb | 0.488 | 4.847 | 4.847 | 0.567 | 10.214 | 0.1207 |
| sbb | 0.526 | 4.851 | 4.851 | 0.544 | 10.273 | 0.1202 |

We use the same parameters as in Ref. : $`\sigma =0.15\text{ GeV}^2`$ (this value has been confirmed in a recent lattice study ), $`\alpha _s=0.39`$, $`m_q^{(0)}=0.009`$ GeV, $`m_s^{(0)}=0.17`$ GeV, $`m_c^{(0)}=1.4`$ GeV, and $`m_b^{(0)}=4.8`$ GeV. In Table 2 for various three-quark states, we give the quark masses $`m_i`$, the ground state eigenvalues $`E_0`$, and the baryon masses $`M_B`$. For completeness, in the last column we report the values of the integral

$$\gamma =\frac{u^2(x)}{x^3}𝑑x$$
(16)
in terms of which the quantities $`R_{ijk}=(4\mu _{ij}^{3/2}/\pi ^2)\gamma `$ are expressed determining the probability to find a quark $`i`$ at the location of the quark $`j`$ in a baryon $`ijk`$. These quantities are of special importance for the lifetime calculations of heavy hadrons.

Note that there is no good theoretical reason why quark masses $`m_i`$ need to be the same in different baryons. Inspection of Table 2 shows that the masses of the light quarks ($`u`$, $`d`$ or $`s`$) are increased by $`100`$ MeV when going from the light to heavy baryons. The dynamical masses of light quarks $`m_q\sqrt{\sigma }400500`$ MeV qualitatively agree with the results of Ref.  obtained from the analysis of the heavy–light ground state mesons.

While studying Table 2 is sufficient to have an appreciation of the accuracy of our predictions, few comments should be added. We expect an accuracy of the baryon predictions to be $`510\%`$ that is partly due to the approximations employed in the derivations of the Effective Hamiltonian itself  and partly due to the error associated with the variational nature of hyperspherical approximation. From this point of view the overall agreement with data is quite satisfactory. E.g. we get $`\frac{1}{2}(N+\mathrm{\Delta })_{\text{theory}}=1144`$ MeV vs $`\frac{1}{2}(N+\mathrm{\Delta })_{\text{exp}}=1085`$ MeV ( a $`5\%`$ increase in $`\alpha _s`$ would correctly give the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ center of gravity), $`\frac{1}{4}(\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Sigma }+2\mathrm{\Sigma }^{})=1242`$ MeV vs experimental value of 1267 MeV. We also find $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{\text{theory}}=1336`$ MeV (without hyperfine splitting) vs $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{\text{exp}}^{1/2}=1315`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{c\text{theory}}=2542`$ Mev vs $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{c\text{exp}}=`$ 2584 MeV. On the other hand, our study shows some difficulties in reproducing e.g. the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-hyperon mass.

In Table 3 we compare the spin–averaged masses (computed without the spin–spin term) of the lowest double heavy baryons to the predictions of other models , ,  as well as variational calculations of Ref.  for which the center of gravity of non-strange baryons and hyperons is essential a free parameter. Most of recent predictions were obtained in a light quark-heavy diquark model , , in which case the spin-averaged values are $`M=\frac{1}{3}(M_{1/2}+M_{3/2})`$. Note that the wave function calculated in the hyperspherical approximation shows the marginal diquark clustering in the doubly heavy baryons. This is principally kinematic effect related to the fact that in this approximation the difference between the various mean values $`\overline{r}_{ij}`$ in a baryon is due to the factor $`\sqrt{1/\mu _{ij}}`$ which varies between $`\sqrt{2/m_i}`$ for $`m_i=m_j`$ and $`\sqrt{1/m_i}`$ for $`m_im_j`$. In general, in spite of the completely different physical picture, we find a reasonable agreement within 100 MeV between different predictions for the ground state masses of the doubly heavy baryons. Our prediction for $`M_{ccu}`$ is 3.66 GeV with the perturbative hyperfine splitting $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{ccu}^{}\mathrm{\Xi }_{ccu}40`$ MeV. Note that the mass of $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{cc}^+`$ is rather sensitive to the value of the running $`c`$-quark mass $`m_c^{(0)}`$ .

In conclusion, we have have shown that baryon spectroscopy can be unified in a single framework of the Effective Hamiltonian which is consisted with QCD. This picture uses the stringlike picture of confinement and perturbative one-gluon exchange potential. The main advantage of this work is demonstration of the fact that it is possible to describe all the baryons in terms of the only two parameters inherent to QCD, namely $`\sigma `$ and $`\alpha _s`$.

Table 3. Comparison of our predictions for ground state masses (in units of GeV) of doubly heavy baryons with other predictions.

| Baryon | This | Ref. | Ref. | Ref. | Ref. |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | Work |  |  |  |  |
| $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{cc}`$ | 3.66 | 3.69 | 3.57 | 3.69 | 3.70 |
| $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{cc}`$ | 3.73 | 3.86 | 3.66 | 3.84 | 3.80 |
| $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{cb}`$ | 6.97 | 6.96 | 6.87 | 6.96 | 6.99 |
| $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{cb}`$ | 7.03 | 7.13 | 6.96 | 7.15 | 7.07 |
| $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{bb}`$ | 10.21 | 10.16 | 10.12 | 10.23 | 10.24 |
| $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{bb}`$ | 10.27 | 10.34 | 10.19 | 10.38 | 10.34 |

This work was supported in part by RFBR grants ## 00-02-16363 and 00-15-96786.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Baryon number flow over large rapidity intervals attracts much theoretical attention now . It is assumed that observed increase of baryon multiplicity over antibaryon multiplicity in the central rapidity region of nucleus-nucleus interactions  is connected with a specific space configuration of the gluon field in baryons. The configuration of local maxima of the energy density in the baryon can have the Mercedes star form  (see left part of Fig. 1). The global maximum is associated with a string junction in the string model of baryons . It is possible, of course, a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-form of baryons (see consideration in Refs. ). It is assumed very often that baryon has a compact diquark (see right part of Fig. 1).

Depending on the assumed structure there can be various final states in baryon-baryon interaction, especially in $`\overline{p}p`$ ones. Some of them are shown in Fig. 2. In the process of Fig. 2a the string junctions from colliding baryons represented by dashed lines annihilate, and three strings are created.

In the process of Fig. 2b quark and antiquark annihilate, and one string appears. In the process of Fig. 2c quark, antiquark and the string junctions annihilate. In the process of Fig. 2d diquarks annihilate, and so on. Additional to the annihilations there can be creation of two strings (see Fig. 2g) or creation of one string (Fig. 2h) at the diffraction dissociation of baryon. The process 2f can be responsible for glueball production, and the process 2d – for exotic meson production. So, various final states included glueball and exotic meson production can be in $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions. One can expect that creation of the antiproton factory at GSI  will allow to study most of them.

It is very important for future experimental investigations to estimate production cross sections and dominating modes of the exotic state decays. In the paper estimations of various reaction cross sections obtained within the framework of the standard Regge phenomenology are presented. They can be useful at determination of background condition of the experiments.

According to the Regge phenomenology cross sections of various reactions in the $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions are connected with various cuts of the elastic scattering amplitude. In the simplest approach the amplitude is determined as a sum of contributions of different diagrams with different reggeon exchanges, with vacuum (pomeron – P) and non-vacuum ones ($`f`$, $`\omega `$, $`A_2`$, …).

$$F_{\overline{p}p}=F_P+F_f+F_\omega +\mathrm{}$$
(1)
Contribution of a diagram with one reggeon exchange in the impact parameter representation has a form111) Basis of the Regge theory see in Ref. .);

$$F_R(\stackrel{}{b})=i\frac{\eta _Rg_{\overline{p}R}(0)g_{pR}(0)}{R_{\overline{p}R}^2+R_{pR}^2+\alpha _R^{}\xi }e^{(\alpha _R(0)1)\xi }e^{\stackrel{}{b}^2/4(R_{\overline{p}R}^2+R_{pR}^2+\alpha _R^{}\xi )}.$$
(2)
The quantities $`\alpha _R(0)`$ and $`\alpha _R^{^{}}`$ are the intercept and slope of Regge trajectory $`R`$, $`g_{pR}`$ and $`g_{\overline{p}R}`$ are constants of the reggeon interaction with the proton and antiproton, respectively. Parametrization of the interaction vertex dependence on 4 momentum transfer is the gaussian one, $`g_R(t)=g_R(0)e^{R_R^2t}`$. $`R_R`$ is the effective radius of the reggeon interaction with the nucleon. $`\eta _R`$ is the signature factor, $`\eta _R=1+ictg(\pi \alpha _R/2)`$ for pole with positive signature, and $`\eta _R=1+itg(\pi \alpha _R/2)`$ for pole with negative signature. $`\xi =\mathrm{ln}(s/s_0)`$, $`s`$ is the square of CMS energy of the $`\overline{p}p`$ interaction, $`s_0=1`$ GeV2.

The following parameter values are usually used for the pomeron exchange:

$$\alpha _P(0)=1.08,\alpha _P^{}=0.13$$

$$\alpha _P(0)=1.12,\alpha _P^{}=0.13$$

Increase of the yield of the one-pomeron exchange with energy growth violates the unitarity condition ($`ImF(\stackrel{}{b})1`$), and the problem of taking into account contributions of the more complicated diagrams arouses. One of its solution is the eikonal approach222) Expression (2) is obtained in the assumption  that the nucleon does not convert into a jet of particles with low mass.)

$$F(\stackrel{}{b})=i\left\{1exp\left[i\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]\right\}.$$
(3)
This solves also the problem of the unitarization at low energies where increase of the contributions of the non-vacuum exchanges takes place (see Refs. ). Typical values of $`\alpha _M`$ of the meson exchanges are $`0.5`$, the nucleon ones – $`\alpha _N0.5`$, and so on. However a task of a correct definition of inelastic process cross sections appears.

The total cross section in the chosen representation has a form:

$$\sigma ^{tot}=2Imd^2b\left\{1exp\left[i\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]\right\}.$$
(4)
The total elastic cross section is given by the expression:

$$\sigma ^{el}=d^2b\left\{12Reexp\left[i\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]+exp\left[2Im\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]\right\}.$$
(5)
The inelastic cross section is

$$\sigma ^{in}=d^2b\left\{1exp\left[2Im\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]\right\}.$$
(6)
Considering only the pomeron exchanges, in the high energy approximation, $`\sigma ^{in}`$ can formally be represented as

$$\sigma ^{in}=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\sigma _n=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}d^2b\frac{[2ImF_p(\stackrel{}{b})]^n}{n!}exp\left[2Im\underset{R}{}F_R(\stackrel{}{b})\right]$$
(7)
The same result can be obtained at an application of the asymptotic Abramovski-Gribov-Kancheli cutting rules , AGK rules. At this, one can find that $`\sigma _n`$ is the cross section with $`n`$ cut pomerons. According to the existing interpretation  $`\sigma _n`$ is the cross section of the process with the creation of $`2(n1)`$ quark–antiquark strings and 2 quark-diquark strings. If we assume that each string produces at least one meson, we obtain a restriction on $`n`$,

$$nn_{max}=\sqrt{s}/2M_M,M_M0.5GeV.$$

Therefore the series (7) must be effectively restricted, or a principle of the cut diagram yield re-summation must be formulated. It is disirable to save the simple expressions for $`\sigma ^{tot}`$ and $`\sigma ^{el}`$.

The simplest recipe is,

$$\sigma ^{in}=\underset{n=1}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}d^2be^{2ImF_p}\left(e^{2ImF_p/n_{max}}1\right)\times e^{\frac{n1}{n_{max}}2ImF_p}.$$
(8)
The other simple prescription approbated by the additive quark model is,

$$\sigma ^{in}=\underset{n=1}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}d^2be^{\frac{n_{max}n}{n_{max}}2ImF_p}\left[1e^{2ImF_p/n_{max}}\right]^n.$$
(9)
The two different representations lead to two different interpretations of the AGK rule application at finite energies, and two different scenarios (mechanisms) of the interaction can be created, respectively.

At a consideration of the other reggeon exchanges we have additional problem of selection of cross sections connected with cutting of different reggeons. For example, as known jet production takes place in nucleon-nucleon interactions at super high energies. To take them into account the phase function, $`\chi =_RF_R`$, is represented as $`\chi =\chi _{soft}+\chi _{jet}`$. This gives

$$\sigma ^{in}=d^2b\left(1e^{2Im(\chi _{soft}+\chi _{jet})}\right)=\underset{m,n=0,m+n0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\sigma _{m,n},$$
(10)
$$\sigma _{m,n}=d^2b\frac{[2Im\chi _{soft}]^m}{m!}\frac{[2Im\chi _{jet}]^n}{n!}e^{2Im(\chi _{soft}+\chi _{jet})}.$$

$`\sigma _{m,n}`$ is interpreted as a cross section of a process with creation of $`2n`$ jets and $`2m`$ strings.

In the case of $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions at low energies one needs to consider both energy restriction and different reggeons.

## 2 General expressions

Most of the existing applications of the Regge phenomenology to the description of the $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions consider only one-reggeon exchanges,

$$F(\stackrel{}{b})=\underset{R}{}F_R=F_p+F_f+F_\omega +\mathrm{}$$
(11)
In this case the imaginary part of the amplitude is a sum of positive defined terms.

Performing the unitarization and finding the inelastic cross section, we have

$$\sigma ^{in}=d^2b\left[1e^{2ImF_p2ImF_f2ImF_\omega \mathrm{}}\right].$$
(12)
Of course, one can use for expansion of the $`\sigma ^{in}`$ an analogy of the expression (10) and try to take into account the finiteness of the energy. At this one can meet a problem of physical interpretation. The matter is that the expression (7) was obtained in the assumption of non-planar vertexes of the pomeron interactions with the nucleon. At low energies contributions of planar diagrams are dominated in the amplitude.

Consideration of the planar diagrams at the calculation of the $`\sigma _n`$ is a rather difficult task. Though, assuming identical dependencies of all $`F_R`$ on $`b`$ and the same longitudinal structure of the reggeon-baryon interactions we propose the following expression,

$$\sigma ^{in}=\underset{i}{}\sigma _i,\sigma _i=\frac{ImF_i(0)}{_RImF_R(0)}d^2b\left[1e^{2Im_RF_R}\right].$$
(13)
Each quantity $`\sigma _i`$ is the sum of contributions of diagrams shown in Fig. 4 in the assumption that states $`X`$ associated with cuts of different reggeons are ortogonal to each other.

It is obvious that there must be gluon exchanges in the $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions. Therefore the pomeron contributions must be in the elastic scattering amplitude, and a term proportional to $`s^{\alpha _p(0)1}`$ must be in the phase function

One meson exchange must be responsible for the quark and antiquark annihilation. Therefore a corresponding term proportional to $`s^{\alpha _M(0)1}`$ must be in the phase function. Because the typical values of $`\alpha _M(0)0.5`$, the corresponding term is proportional to $`1/\sqrt{s}`$.

The baryon annihilation is connected with the processes shown in Figs. 2a, 2c, 2e . According to the estimations of Ref.  the corresponding reggeon trajectories can have intercepts 333 It was used the expression (4) of Ref.  and $`\alpha _p=1.`$)

$`\alpha _a(0)=2\alpha _B(0)1+(1\alpha _M(0)),`$ (14)
$`\alpha _c(0)=2\alpha _B(0)1+2(1\alpha _M(0)),`$ (15)
$`\alpha _e(0)=2\alpha _B(0)1+3(1\alpha _M(0)),`$ (16)
where $`\alpha _B`$ is the intercept of the leading baryon trajectory.

Using as in Ref.  the values of the parameters $`\alpha _B(0)0`$, $`\alpha _M(0)=0.5`$, we have $`\alpha _a=0.5`$, $`\alpha _c=0`$ and $`\alpha _e=0.5`$. Therefore terms proportional to $`1/\sqrt{s}`$, $`1/s`$ $`1/s^{1.5}`$ can be in the phase function.

The choice of the effective intercept $`\alpha _B(0)0`$ is seemed reasonable  because $`\alpha _N(0)=0.35`$ and $`\alpha _\mathrm{\Delta }(0)=+0.15`$ (see Ref. ). Though as it was noted in Ref.  it is not known what kind of the exchanges are dominated, and a pessimistic choice $`\alpha _B(0)\alpha _N(0)=0.35`$ gives the values $`\alpha _a0.2`$, $`\alpha _c0.7`$ and $`\alpha _e1.2`$. The value of $`\alpha _N(0)=0.5`$ is often used last years, it leads to $`\alpha _a0.5`$, $`\alpha _c1`$ and $`\alpha _e1.5`$.

In order do not miss any possibilities we have parametrized the phase function by the following form,

$$\chi (0)_{\overline{p}p}=a_1\eta _PS^\mathrm{\Delta }+\eta _M\frac{a_2}{S^{a_3}}+\eta _c\frac{a_4}{S^1}+\eta _e\frac{a_5}{S^{1.5}}+\eta _c^{}\frac{a_6}{S^2}+\eta _e^{}\frac{a_7}{S^{2.5}}$$
(17)
A choice of the signature factors is a rather complicated question. It is known  that the meson trajectories have a strong exchange degeneracy. Therefore in the first approximation we assume $`\eta _M=1`$ . We suppose a negative signature of the pole responsible for the process of Fig. 2c. We will try to estimate the signature of the pole connected with the process of Fig. 2e. Criteria of the rightness of the choice can be a successful description of the total cross sections of the $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interactions, and the ratios of the real to imaginary part of the corresponding elastic scattering amplitudes. In accordance with saying above we choose the phase function of the $`pp`$ scattering in the form,

$$\chi (0)_{pp}=a_1\eta _PS^\mathrm{\Delta }+\frac{a_2}{S^{a_3}}\frac{a_4}{S^1}\pm \frac{a_5}{S^{1.5}}\eta _c^{}\frac{a_6}{S^2}\eta _e^{}\frac{a_7}{S^{2.5}}$$
(18)
The dependence of the phase function was determined as in Ref. ,

$$\chi (\stackrel{}{b})=\chi (0)e^{b^2/2B_{eff}},$$
(19)
$$B_{eff}=B_0+2\alpha _p^{}\xi ,B_0=10GeV^2,\alpha _p^{}=0.13GeV^2.$$

## 3 Fitting procedure

We have used at fitting of the parameters the experimental data on the total $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interaction cross sections collected in the Particle Data Group data base . The fit is a rather complicated procedure because:

1. The number of the parameters is large, and the fitting results are unstable;
2. The signatures of the poles are not determined quite well;
3. Application region of the considered approach is not known.

At the beginning we performed the fit taking only the two first terms of the phase function. Such oversimplified approach can be useful at a rough estimation of the cross sections. We present results of the fit in table. 1 and description of the experimental data at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c in Fig. 5 444 Behavior of the approximating functions below the fitting region is shown in all the figures in order to determine a direction of father approximation).

As seen, the parameters $`a_1`$ for $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interactions become close to each other with the energy growth. This is not observed for the parameters $`a_2`$ and $`a_3`$. To crown it all, the small value of the parameter $`a_3`$ for the $`pp`$ interactions points out that we need to increase the imaginal part of the phase function taking additional exchanges. This contradicts with the starting assumptions. The contradiction can be erased at fixing the parameter $`a_3`$ at the level 0.5. Results of the corresponding fit are given in table 2, and presented in Fig. 5 by the dashed lines. As seen, the results allows one to hope on a father success.

Let us include the additional exchanges. The results of the fit of the experimental data at $`a_3=0.5`$ and $`a_5`$, $`a_6`$, $`a_7=0`$ are presented in table 3 and in Fig. 6 by solid lines. As seen, a significant rapprochement of the pomeron exchange parameters has occurred. It is observed a difference between the parameters $`a_2`$ as before. At the same time at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c the parameters of the trajectory responsible for the process of Fig. 2c become close. It is clear that the next additional exchange must have the positive signature.

Results of the fit with four terms of the phase function are presented in table 4. As seen, the fit does not give a self-consistent set of the parameters for $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interactions. Summing up we choose at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c the set of the parameters presented in table 5.

Let us consider a pessimistic variant with $`\alpha _a=0.5`$. Doing the same as it was before, we have results presented in table 6 and shown in Fig. 6 by the dashed lines. Once more, as it was before the parameters $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ become close at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c. In the same manner we determine that the additional exchange must have the positive signature. Though taking into account the fifth term of the phase function does not lead to a rapprochement of the parameters for the $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interactions. Therefore we propose for the region of $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c the parameter set presented in table 7 for the considered case.

An explanation is needed for the difference of the parameters $`a_2`$ for $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interaction. Usually it is assumed that the contribution of the one-meson exchange consists from yields of the two poles with negative and positive signatures: $`F_{\overline{p}p}=F_P+F_f+F_\omega `$, $`F_{pp}=F_P+F_fF_\omega `$. In accordance with this one can introduce $`a_{2f}=(a_{2\overline{p}p}+a_{2pp})/2`$ and $`a_{2\omega }=(a_{2\overline{p}p}a_{2pp})/2`$ and repeat the fit once more. However this procedure is rather unstable. It is needed to look at other set of experimental data what is out of the scope of our paper. The simplest receipt for overcoming the problem is neglection by the real part of the second term of the phase function. An apparently consequence of the assumption is that the ratios of the real to imaginary parts of the elastic scattering amplitude for $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interactions will be near to zero in the studied energy range. At the same time, it is well known from experiment that the ratio for the $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions has a positive value at low energies, but the ratio for the $`pp`$ interactions has a negative value.

The more complicate situation takes place with a description of the elastic scattering cross section (see Fig. 7), and with a description of the data at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c. Here one needs to assume various interaction radii of different reggeons with nucleon.

If we restrict ourself by the region of $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c, we believe that the reached results are acceptable. The results are shown in Fig. 7.

## 4 Cross sections of $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions

Cross sections of the processes of Fig. 2b, 2c and 2g obtained with a help of Eq. (13) are presented in Fig. 8. There are also inelastic cross sections of $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions calculated with the HERA-CERN parametrization  (upper solid curve) and with the parameter set No 1 (upper dashed curve). As seen, the two parametrization are close to each other.

Let us note that the screening corrections (Eq. (13)) change the energy dependencies of the processes of Fig. 2b and 2c. For example, the cross section of the process of Fig. 2b falls down more slowly than $`1/\sqrt{s}`$ with energy increase. One needs to take these into account at a calculation of cross sections of other reactions, e.a. $`\overline{p}pK^+K^{}`$, $`\overline{p}p\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, in the spirit of Ref. .

It is a subject of specific interest to describe annihilation cross section, the cross section of reaction without baryons in the final state. The known experimental data  are presented in Fig. 8 by the open points. The parametrization of the form $`1/s`$ used in the Ultrarelativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamic (UrQMD) model is given by filled points. As seen, the annihilation can not be explained by the process of Fig. 2c. It can not be a constant part of the processes connected with the second term of the phase function due to different energy dependencies of the annihilation and the cross section of the process of Fig. 2b. It can not be a part of the pomeron exchange, as it is often assumed starting from Ref. . One needs to assume a new mechanism of the baryon annihilation.

In Refs.  it was assumed that at intermediate energies the main contribution to the annihilation cross section is given be the process with quark and antiquark annihilation with following one-gluon exchange (see Fig. 9a). However the gluon exchange can not change the energy dependence of the type $`1/\sqrt{s}`$ .

We believe that diquark or anti-diquark can emit a meson, and after that the string junction annihilation takes place (see Fig. 9b). Nearly the same mechanism is accepted in Ur.QMD model  which describes quite well experimental data at intermediate energies. Because diquark – anti-diquarks strings are created in the processes of Fig. 2b and 2g, the proposed mechanism can be connected with the main processes of $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions. The energy dependence of the annihilation can be determined by the fragmentation of the strings. We are going to consider the fragmentation in following paper.

## Summary

* The expression is proposed for the calculation of the cross sections of various reactions in $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions, for the processes with creation of one or two strings, within the framework of the eikonal approach in the assumption of the identical interaction radii of different reggeon with nucleon. The cross sections are needed for Monte Carlo simulation of the reactions.
* The parameters of the pomeron exchange, meson exchange, and exchange of a meson with hidden baryon number are determined at fitting the experimental data on the total $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ interaction cross sections.
* Using the fitted parameters, the cross sections of $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions are calculated at $`p_{lab}5`$ GeV/c.

The authors are thankful to E. Strokovsky, J. Ritman and M. Sapozhnikov for stimulating discussions, and A.B. Kaidalov and K.G. Boreskov for consideration of the paper. We thank A. Polanski for his support and interest to the paper.


text:
# Prospects for detecting neutral hydrogen using 21cm radiation from large scale structure at high redshifts

## 1. Introduction

Observations of galaxies and absorption systems at high redshifts have shown that the assembly of present day galaxies started around $`6z1`$. At higher redshifts, the fraction of matter that had collapsed to form stars was small. By the end of the redshift range mentioned here, the rate of star formation was starting to decline and assembly of larger structures like the clusters of galaxies is the dominant process. In order to understand the process of galaxy formation completely, it is important to study galaxies in this redshift range in as many wavelengths as possible.

In this paper we present results for the large scale distribution of HI at $`z3`$. More detailed results for the entire range of redshifts will be presented elsewhere. References for earlier theoretical work as well as related observations can be found in Bagla (1999a) and Bharadwaj (2001).

Observations of galaxies and quasars at high redshifts provide convincing proof that the inter-galactic medium is ionised out to $`z6.2`$ (Pentericci et al. 2002). Thus most of the neutral hydrogen at $`z3`$ is to be found in galaxies. We have an estimate of the total neutral hydrogen content from observations of DLAS (Storrie-Lombardi, McMahon and Irwin , 1996). There is no observational evidence to support the hypothesis that DLAS and Lyman break galaxies (LBG) have different properties (Fynbo et al. 2002). Thus we can safely assume that neutral hydrogen is distributed uniformly amongst galaxies at $`z3`$, and that the total amount of neutral hydrogen adds up to give us the density parameter contributed by neutral hydrogen in DLAS.

## 2. From Haloes to Radio Maps

In this section we outline the method used for estimating the signal from neutral hydrogen at high redshifts.

We ran N-Body simulations of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model. The size of the simulation box in physical units is $`50h^1Mpc`$ (comoving) and the number of particles used in this gravity only simulation was $`256^3`$. We used the TreePM method (Bagla, 1999b) for these simulations.

The density around each particle was estimated by measuring the distance to the $`n`$th neighbour, where neighbours were sorted by distance. The results presented here used $`n=16`$ but the numbers do not change much for $`n=32`$ or for a different choice of estimator for density.

Particles in regions with over-density higher than a threshold were then selected from the simulation. Each of these particles was assigned an equal amount of neutral hydrogen such that the density parameter of neutral hydrogen was $`0.002`$. Results can be scaled trivially if one prefers a different value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{HI}`$.

The dependence of emission on the local spin temperature is weak enough to be ignored in physical situations of interest. The optical depth in $`21`$cm is sufficiently small for us to ignore any absorption. Thus the problem of making radio maps essentially reduces to that of assigning frequency and angular position to each particle in high density regions and adding up the signal in relevant frequency channel and pixel. The conversion from neutral hydrogen mass to signal is

$$S_\nu =309\mu Jy\left(\frac{M_{HI}}{10^{13}M_{}}\right)\left(\frac{1\mathrm{M}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}{\mathrm{\Delta }\nu }\right).$$
(1)
The simulated radio maps can then be used to look for optimum frequency window and angular scales at which a search for signal should be carried out. In such an exercise, parameters of present day telescopes need to be considered and we have used sensitivity levels of the GMRT (Swarup et al. 1991) for this. Figure 1 shows the expected signal from the largest objects for a frequency channel of $`1`$MHz as a function of angular scale. We scanned the radio maps with a very fine resolution in order to locate the maximum signal. The expected signal is compared with the sensitivity of the GMRT at $`327`$MHz for a $`10^3`$hour observation. This figure suggests that a $`3\sigma `$ detection of the largest structures is possible at angular scales $`3^{}6^{}`$ in such an observation. Signal expected from typical structures is much smaller.

The expected observation time is very large and hence it is important to ask whether such extreme structures are likely to be there in the volume sampled by the GMRT beam or not. The volume sampled by a GMRT beam at $`327`$MHz is much larger than the volume of the simulation used here. It is also much larger than the volume of the fields in which spikes in the redshift distribution of LBGs have been observed (Steidel et al. 1998). As the rate at which spikes occur in the redshift distribution of LBGs is close to one per field, we expect that the GMRT beam will contain at least one extreme object.

## 3. Discussion

We have used N-Body simulations to estimate the signal in redshifted $`21`$cm line from large scale structure at $`z3`$. We find that the present day telescopes can detect extreme objects in the large scale structure at these redshifts.

In our estimation, we made use of gravity only simulations and ignored any effects coming from gas physics. These effects play a very important role in the distribution and state of gases at small scales. However, we are interested only in gross properties and that too at large scales and there is no reason to suspect that we will get these wrong in the method that we have used as long as we restrain our estimates to scales larger than $`1`$Mpc (comoving). The weakest point in our method is that we assumed that the amount of neutral hydrogen assigned to an N-Body particle did not depend on the mass of the collapsed structure that contained this particle. We expect larger structures ($`M>10^{13}`$M) to be like groups of galaxies and have less neutral hydrogen by fraction. Also, we expect smaller structures ($`M<10^{10}`$M) to have less neutral fraction as these will be influenced strongly by the photo-ionising background. However, the fraction of mass in haloes at these extremes is negligible and hence we do not expect these effects to invalidate our results at these redshifts. Such effects will be very important at lower redshifts where very massive haloes are more common, or at high redshifts where the low mass haloes contain most of the mass in collapsed structures.

### Acknowledgments.

JSB thanks Jayaram Chengalur for many useful discussions. A part of the work presented here was done using the Beowulf cluster at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute (http://cluster.mri.ernet.in).

## References

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Bagla, J.S. 1999b, astro-ph/9911025.

Bharadwaj, S. and Sethi, S. K. 2001, J.Ap.A., 22, 293.

Fynbo, J.P.U., Ledoux, C., Møller, P., Thomsen, B., Burud, I., Leibundgut, B. 2002, astro-ph/0205234.

Pentericci, L. et al. 2002, AJ, 123, 2151.

Steidel C.C., Adelberger K.L., Dickinson M., Giavalisco M., Pettini M. and Kellogg M. 1998, ApJ 492, 428.

Storrie-Lombardi, L.J., McMahon, R.G. and Irwin, M.J. 1996, MNRAS, 283, 79.

Swarup, G., Ananthakrishnan, S., Kapahi, V.K., Rao, A.P., Subrahmanya, C.R. and Kulkarni, V.K. 1991, Cu.Sc., 60, 95.