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# Polarized Hyperons from 𝑝𝐴 Scattering in the Gluon Saturation Regime

## Abstract

We study the production of transversely polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperons in high-energy collisions of protons with large nuclei. The large gluon density of the target at saturation provides an intrinsic semi-hard scale which should naturally allow for a weak-coupling QCD description of the process in terms of a convolution of the quark distribution of the proton with the elementary quark-nucleus scattering cross section (resummed to all twists) and a fragmentation function. In this case of transversely polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production we employ a so-called polarizing fragmentation function, which is an odd function of the transverse momentum of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ relative to the fragmenting quark. Due to this $`k_t`$-odd nature, the resulting $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization is essentially proportional to the derivative of the quark-nucleus cross section with respect to transverse momentum, which peaks near the saturation momentum scale. Such processes might therefore provide generic signatures for high parton density effects and for the approach to the “black-body” (unitarity) limit of hadronic scattering.

It has been known for over 25 years that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s produced in collisions of unpolarized hadrons exhibit polarization perpendicular to the production plane. As of yet, such data are not available for very high energies where one expects that hadronic cross sections are close to their geometrical values (the “black body limit”). However, the BNL-RHIC collider will soon collide protons and deuterons on gold nuclei at energies of $`200`$ GeV in the nucleon-nucleon center of mass frame; later on, much higher energies will be accessible at the CERN-LHC. In this letter, we demonstrate that the polarization of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperons produced in the forward region in high-energy collisions of protons and heavy nuclei may generically be a sensitive probe of high-density effects and gluon saturation in the target.

The wave function of a hadron (or nucleus) boosted to large rapidity exhibits a large number of gluons at small $`x`$, which is the fraction of the light-cone momentum carried by the gluon. The density of gluons is expected to saturate when it becomes, parametrically, of the order of the inverse QCD coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ . The parton density at saturation is denoted by $`Q_s^2`$, the so-called saturation momentum. This provides an intrinsic momentum scale  which grows with atomic number and with rapidity because more gluons can be radiated in the initial state when phase space is big. For sufficiently high energies and/or large nuclei, the saturation momentum $`Q_s`$ can become much larger than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, such that weak coupling methods are applicable.

Forward $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production in $`pA`$ collisions is dominated by high-$`x`$ quarks from the proton traversing the high gluon density region of the heavy nucleus. The quarks typically experience interactions with momentum transfers of the order of the saturation momentum. Thus, for large gluon densities in the target, such that the saturation momentum is in the perturbative regime, $`Q_s\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ GeV, the coherence of the projectile is lost, and the scattered quarks (having an average transverse momentum proportional to $`Q_s`$) fragment independently . While nonperturbative constituent-quark and diquark scattering and hadronization models  have been employed to understand hyperon polarization in collisions of protons with dilute targets, we expect that in the high-energy limit the presence of the intrinsic semi-hard scale $`Q_s`$ should naturally allow for a weak-coupling QCD description of the process. One can thus calculate the cross section for $`qA`$ scattering in this kinematical domain within pQCD , and the deflected, outgoing quark will subsequently fragment into hadrons, which is described by a fragmentation function.

In order to explain the transverse $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in unpolarized hadron collisions within such a factorized pQCD description, it has been suggested that unpolarized quarks can fragment into transversely polarized hadrons, for instance $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperons. The associated probability  is described by a so-called polarizing fragmentation function, sometimes also called Sivers (effect) fragmentation function. Its main properties are that it is an odd function of the transverse momentum relative to the quark, $`\stackrel{}{k}_t`$, and that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization is orthogonal to $`\stackrel{}{k}_t`$, because of parity invariance. The polarizing fragmentation function is defined as ***Another commonly used notation for the polarizing fragmentation function is $`D_{1T}^{}`$, but with a slightly different definition .:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)=\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t),`$ (1)
and denotes the difference between the densities $`\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)`$ and $`\widehat{D}_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)`$ of spin-1/2 hadrons $`h`$, with longitudinal momentum fraction $`z`$, transverse momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}_t`$ and transverse polarization $``$ or $``$, in a jet originating from the fragmentation of an unpolarized parton $`q`$. Clearly, this $`k_t`$-odd function vanishes when integrated over transverse momentum and also when the transverse momentum and the transverse spin are parallel. In order to set the sign convention for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization we define

$`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{h^{}/q}(z,|\stackrel{}{k}_t|){\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{P}_h(\stackrel{}{q}\times \stackrel{}{k}_t)}{|\stackrel{}{q}\times \stackrel{}{k}_t|}},`$ (2)
where $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ is the momentum of the unpolarized quark that fragments and $`\stackrel{}{P}_h`$ is the direction of the polarization vector of the hadron $`h`$ (the $``$ direction). Fig. 1 shows the kinematics of the process under consideration and indicates the direction of positive $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization for each quadrant in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production plane.

It should be emphasized that such a nonzero probability difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{h^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)`$ is allowed by both parity and time reversal invariance. Generally it is expected to occur due to final state interactions in the fragmentation process, where the direction of the transverse momentum yields an oriented orbital angular momentum compensated by the transverse spin of the final observed hadron. This polarizing fragmentation function is the analogue of the so-called Sivers effect for parton distribution functions , which yields different probabilities of finding an unpolarized quark in a transversely polarized hadron, depending on the directions of the transverse spin of the hadron and the transverse momentum of the quark. The Sivers effect can lead to single spin asymmetries, for instance in $`p^{}p\pi X`$, a process for which such (large) asymmetries have been observed in several experiments.

Recently, such a single spin asymmetry in $`ep^{}e^{}\pi X`$ has been calculated in a one-gluon exchange model . Shortly afterwards it was understood  as providing a model for the Sivers effect distribution function. A similar calculation has recently been performed by Metz  for the production of polarized spin-1/2 hadrons in unpolarized scattering, which can be viewed as providing a model for the polarizing fragmentation function. Here we will not employ such a model calculation, but rather use a parametrization for the polarizing fragmentation functions obtained from a fit to data . However, these model calculations do demonstrate that nonzero Sivers effect functions can arise in principle.

Due to the $`k_t`$-odd nature of the polarizing fragmentation function it is accompanied by a different part of the partonic cross section (essentially the first derivative w.r.t. $`k_t`$) compared to the ordinary, unpolarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ fragmentation function, which is $`k_t`$-even. The characteristics of the resulting $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization will turn out to be rather different from presently available data for hadronic collisions at moderately high energies and with “dilute” targets. These data show a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization that increases approximately linearly as a function of the transverse momentum $`l_t`$ of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, up to $`l_t1`$ GeV/c, after which it becomes flat, up to the highest measured $`l_t`$ values: $`l_t4`$ GeV/c. No indication of a decrease at these high $`l_t`$ values has been observed. Furthermore, the polarization increases with the longitudinal momentum fraction $`\xi `$ and is to a large extent $`\sqrt{s}`$ independent. These features do not change with increasing $`A`$ . The only $`A`$ dependence observed is a slight overall suppression of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization for large A and higher energies. For Cu and Pb fixed targets, probed with a 400 GeV/c proton beam , the magnitude of the polarization is about 30 % lower than for light nuclei. This effect is usually attributed to secondary $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production through $`\pi ^{}N`$ interactions . The slight suppression shows no evidence for a dependence on $`l_t`$ in the investigated range 0.9 $`<l_t<`$ 2.6 GeV/c, albeit with rather low statistical accuracy. It is clear that this data on heavy nuclei is not in the kinematic region where saturation is expected to play a dominant role and the main differences to the results presented below are that in the saturation regime the transverse $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization will depend on the collision energy and no plateau region is expected.

We shall now present our calculation of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in the gluon saturation regime, following ref.  regarding the treatment of the polarizing fragmentation functions.

As mentioned above, in the calculation of the $`qA`$ cross section one is dealing with small coupling if the target nucleus is very dense; however, the well known leading-twist pQCD can not be used when the density of gluons is large. Rather, scattering amplitudes have to be resummed to all orders in $`\alpha _s^2`$ times the density. When the target is probed at a scale $`\stackrel{<}{}Q_s`$, scattering cross sections approach the geometrical “black body” limit, while for momentum transfer far above $`Q_s`$ the target appears dilute and cross sections are approximately determined by the known leading-twist pQCD expressions.

At high energies, and in the eikonal approximation, the transverse momentum distribution of quarks is essentially given by the correlation function of two Wilson lines $`V`$ running along the light-cone at transverse separation $`r_t`$ (in the amplitude and its complex conjugate),

$`\sigma ^{qA}={\displaystyle \frac{d^2q_tdq^+}{(2\pi )^2}\delta (q^+p^+)\frac{1}{N_c}\mathrm{tr}\left|d^2z_te^{i\stackrel{}{q}_t\stackrel{}{z}_t}\left[V(z_t)1\right]\right|^2}.`$ (3)
Here, $`P^+`$ is the large light-cone component of the momentum of the incident proton, and that of the incoming quark is $`p^+=xP^+`$ ($`q^+`$ for the outgoing quark). The correlator of Wilson lines has to be evaluated in the background field of the target nucleus. A relatively simple closed expression can be obtained  in the “Color Glass Condensate” model of the small-$`x`$ gluon distribution of the dense target . In that model, the small-$`x`$ gluons are described as a classical non-abelian Yang-Mills field arising from a stochastic source of color charge on the light-cone which is averaged over with a Gaussian distribution. The quark $`q_t`$ distribution is then given by

$`q^+{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^{qA}}{dq^+d^2q_td^2b}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^+}{P^+}}\delta \left({\displaystyle \frac{p^+q^+}{P^+}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}C(q_t),`$ (4)
$`C(q_t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2r_te^{i\stackrel{}{q}_t\stackrel{}{r}_t}\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left[2Q_s^2\frac{d^2p_t}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{1}{p_t^4}\left(1\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{p}_t\stackrel{}{r}_t)\right)\right]2\mathrm{exp}\left[Q_s^2\frac{d^2p_t}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{1}{p_t^4}\right]+1\right\}}.`$ (5)
This expression is valid to leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ (tree level), but to all orders in $`Q_s`$ since it resums any number of scatterings of the impinging quark in the strong field of the nucleus. The saturation momentum $`Q_s`$, as introduced in eq. (5), is related to $`\chi `$, the total color charge density squared (per unit area) from the nucleus integrated up to the rapidity $`y`$ of the probe (i.e. the projectile quark), by

$`Q_s^2=4\pi ^2\alpha _s^2{\displaystyle \frac{N_c^21}{N_c}}\chi .`$ (6)
In the low-density limit, $`\chi `$ is related to the ordinary leading-twist gluon distribution function of the nucleus, see for example . From BFKL evolution, $`Q_s^2`$ evolves as $`\mathrm{exp}(\lambda y)x^\lambda `$, with the intercept $`\lambda 0.3`$ . Thus, if $`Q_s^210`$ GeV2 at the proton beam rapidity (i.e. $`x=1`$) and for $`A200`$ targets , then $`Q_s3`$ GeV at $`x=0.6`$, decreasing to $`Q_s2`$ GeV at $`x=0.05`$; furthermore, assuming $`Q_s^2A^{1/3}`$ scaling, then at $`x=0.6`$, $`Q_s`$ drops from 3 GeV to 2 GeV when the atomic number $`A`$ of the target decreases from $`20020`$. It is clear therefore that in order to be sensitive to high-density effects, experimentally one should study high-energy $`pA`$ collisions in the forward region (where the polarization is largest anyway, see below) and with large target nuclei, and then compare to $`pp`$ collisions. Below, we shall focus on polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production in a relatively small rapidity interval in the forward region, and so take $`Q_s`$ as a constant of order $`23`$ GeV.

The integrals over $`p_t`$ in eq. (5) are cut off in the infrared by some cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which we assume is of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$. We denote the momentum of the produced $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ by $`\stackrel{}{l}=z\stackrel{}{q}+\stackrel{}{k}`$, with $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ the transverse momentum relative to the fragmenting quark. Assuming parity conservation in the hadronization process, only the component of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ in the production plane contributes to the polarization $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, therefore in order to simplify the kinematics we choose $`k_y=0`$ as was done in Ref. . For forward kinematics, $`q^+q_t`$, one then finds $`zq_tl_tk_t`$. The polarized cross section is given by

$`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }(l_t,\xi )\xi {\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\xi d^2l_td^2b}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d\left(\frac{q^+}{P^+}\right)\frac{dz}{z^2}f_{q/p}(x,Q^2)\frac{d^2k_t}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,Q^2,\stackrel{}{k}_t)\frac{q^+}{P^+}\delta \left(\frac{q^+}{P^+}x\right)C(q_t)}`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dz}{z^2}f_{q/p}(x,Q^2)\frac{d^2k_t}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,Q^2,\stackrel{}{k}_t)xC(q_t)}`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\xi }{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\xi }}f_{q/p}(x,Q^2){\displaystyle \frac{d^2k_t}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2,\stackrel{}{k}_t)C(q_t)},`$ (9)
where $`\xi =l_z/P_zxz`$ is the longitudinal momentum fraction carried by the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. We assume that $`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,\stackrel{}{k}_t)`$ is strongly peaked around an average $`\stackrel{}{k}_t^0`$ lying in the production plane, such that

$`{\displaystyle d^2k_t\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,Q^2,\stackrel{}{k}_t)F(\stackrel{}{k}_t)}\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,Q^2)\left[F(k_t^0)F(k_t^0)\right].`$ (10)
Note that $`k_t^0`$ is a function of $`z`$, see below. Alternatively, one could consider Gaussian distributions over $`k_t`$ , though the above simplified treatment is sufficient for our purposes.

Considering the unpolarized cross section, we can safely neglect $`k_t`$-smearing from hadronization, which is of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, while the quarks are typically scattered to much larger transverse momenta, namely of order $`Q_s`$. In our numerical results shown below we also include the contribution from anti-quarks and gluons to the unpolarized cross section, although this is a small correction for $`\xi \stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0.1}`$. For the polarizing fragmentation functions, only contributions from $`u`$, $`d`$, and $`s`$ quarks (the valence quarks of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) are considered . Thus, we obtain

$`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }(l_t,\xi )={\displaystyle \frac{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)\left[C\left(\frac{x}{\xi }(l_tk_t^0)\right)C\left(\frac{x}{\xi }(l_t+k_t^0)\right)\right]}{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)C\left(\frac{x}{\xi }l_t\right)}}.`$ (11)
The factorization scale is chosen to be the saturation momentum of the dense nucleus, $`Q^2=Q_s^2`$. A parametrization for $`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z)`$ in terms of the unpolarized fragmentation function $`D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}(z)`$ was given in ref. . It was obtained by performing a fit to available $`pA\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}X`$ data (for light nuclei only), where the transverse momentum $`l_t`$ was required to be larger than 1 GeV/c, in order to justify the application of a factorized expression and of pQCD for the partonic cross section. Although doubts have arisen about the applicability of pQCD in the kinematic region covered by the available data , the resulting functions do exhibit reasonable features. Here, we shall employ those functions as an Ansatz to investigate the dependence of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization on the saturation momentum $`Q_s`$, which turns out not to depend on the detailed parameterization of the polarizing fragmentation functions. Rather, it is the $`k_t`$-odd structure (and the fact that it is peaked around an average nonzero transverse momentum) that is responsible for the dependence. Of course, future parameterizations can be easily implemented.

To be explicit, we use

$`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(z,Q^2)N_qz^{c_q}(1z)^{d_q}{\displaystyle \frac{D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}(z,Q^2)}{2}},`$ (12)
where

$`N_u=N_d=28.13,N_s=57.53,c_q=11.64,d_q=1.23.`$ (13)
The average transverse momentum $`k_t^0`$ acquired in the fragmentation is parameterized as

$`k_t^0=0.66z^{0.37}(1z)^{0.50}\text{GeV}/c.`$ (14)
For the unpolarized fragmentation function $`D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}`$ in eq. (12) the parametrization of ref.  is to be used; strictly speaking, that parameterization holds for the fragmentation into $`\mathrm{\Lambda }+\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$. However, in the forward region ($`\xi \stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0.1}`$), one expects $`𝒫_{\mathrm{\Lambda }+\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Furthermore, the parameterization of  assumes $`SU(3)`$ symmetry: $`D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/u}=D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/d}=D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/s}`$. However, the polarizing fragmentation functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}`$ reduce the flavor symmetry to $`SU(2)`$, since $`N_{u,d}N_s`$ ($`N_u=N_d`$ was imposed in  to reduce the number of fit parameters). But even though $`\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/s}>|\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/u,d}|`$, the overall $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in the process under consideration is in fact dominated by the valence-like quarks of the proton, not by the strange quark.

The polarizing fragmentation function describes the probability of an unpolarized quark to fragment into a transversely polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Here, no difference is made as to whether the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is produced directly or as a secondary particle, for instance as a decay product of heavier hyperons like the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ or $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$. This second type is usually expected to have a depolarizing effect, which means that the degree of polarization is higher for the directly produced $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s. The number of directly produced $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s is estimated to be roughly 75 % of the total, such that the depolarizing effect could be on the order of 30 %. The polarizing fragmentation functions of ref.  thus effectively account for the depolarizing effect from decays, since they were obtained by a fit to data that does not discriminate between direct and decay contributions either.

A numerical evaluation of eq. (11) is shown in Fig. 2, using the CTEQ5L LO parton distribution functions for the proton . Generically, one observes that $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is negative (due to the fact that $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks dominate); it first increases with transverse momentum, then peaks at $`l_tQ_s`$, and asymptotically approaches zero again. The fact that $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ peaks at $`l_tQ_s`$ has its origin in the $`k_t`$-odd nature of the polarizing fragmention function: from eq. (11), $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ corresponds to the difference of the cross sections taken with “intrinsic” transverse momentum $`k_t^0`$ parallel and antiparallel to the quark transverse momentum $`q_t`$. Since $`k_t^0`$ is small, $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is essentially proportional to the derivative of $`d\sigma ^{qA}/d^2q_t`$, the differential quark-nucleus cross section, which varies most rapidly at $`q_tQ_s`$ (see also eq. (18) below). Consequently, $`|𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }|`$ exhibits a maximum at such transverse momentum. This conclusion is independent of the details of the polarizing fragmentation functions; only the $`k_t`$-odd nature and the fact that they are strongly peaked about an average $`k_t^0`$ matters. In contrast, $`k_t`$-even distribution and fragmentation functions only probe the $`qA`$ cross section itself but not its derivative with respect to $`q_t`$.

The behavior of $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }(l_t)`$ is qualitatively rather different when the quark cross section is taken at leading twist. In that case, not only is the magnitude of the polarization larger, but moreover $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in the forward region peaks about small transverse momentum $`\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ GeV. This can be understood by noting that the derivative of the $`qA`$ cross section at leading twist peaks in the infrared, contrary to eqs. (5,18). For a more quantitative evaluation of polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ production in the “dilute regime” (hadronic collisions far below the unitarity limit, e.g. $`pp`$ collisions at RHIC) we refer to Ref. .

To understand the behavior of eq. (11) in more detail, consider first large transverse momentum, $`q_tQ_s`$. Here, the last two terms of eq. (5) can be dropped, since they contribute only via a $`\delta (q_t)`$ term. At large transverse momentum the phase factor $`\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{q}_t\stackrel{}{r}_t)`$ in eq. (5) effectively restricts the integral over $`d^2r_t`$ to the region $`r_t\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}/q_t1/Q_s`$; the first exponential can then be expanded order by order to generate the usual power series in $`1/q_t^2`$. The leading and subleading twists are (see also )

$`C(q_t)=2{\displaystyle \frac{Q_s^2}{q_t^4}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_s^2}{q_t^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{q_t}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}+𝒪\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q_s^2}{q_t^2}}\right)\right].`$ (15)
This expression is valid to leading logarithmic accuracy. The first term corresponds to the perturbative one-gluon $`t`$-channel exchange contribution to $`qgqg`$ scattering . To leading order in $`k_t^0/l_t`$, the polarization given in eq. (11) thus becomes

$`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }(l_t,\xi )=8{\displaystyle \frac{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)x^4\left[1+\frac{6\xi ^2}{\pi x^2}\frac{Q_s^2}{l_t^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{l_t}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right]k_t^0/l_t}{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)x^4\left[1+\frac{4\xi ^2}{\pi x^2}\frac{Q_s^2}{l_t^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{l_t}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right]}}.`$ (16)
It is known  that the polarization (for large $`l_t`$) is a higher-twist effect, i.e. it is suppressed by powers of the “intrinsic” transverse momentum at hadronization, $`k_t^0`$, over the external momentum scale $`l_t`$. Eq. (16) shows that despite a partial cancellation the first power-suppressed correction to the quark-nucleus cross section (the subleading terms in the square brackets) enhance $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at large $`l_t`$, in agreement with the behavior at $`l_t\stackrel{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}5}`$ GeV in Fig. 2.

Regarding the scaling of $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at the peak, consider the quark-nucleus cross section for $`q_tQ_s\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Again, the last two terms of eq. (5) can be dropped, while in the leading logarithmic approximation the argument of the first exponential reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_s^2r_t^2}{4\pi }}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_t\mathrm{\Lambda }}}+𝒪(Q_s^2r_t^2).`$ (17)
The phase factor effectively cuts off the integral at $`r_t1/q_t1/Q_s`$, and so $`1/r_t\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is large. We therefore replace $`1/r_tQ_s`$ in the argument of the above logarithm, since it is slowly varying and formally makes the expression well-behaved at large $`r_t`$. The remaining integral leads to

$`C(q_t){\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2}{Q_s^2\mathrm{log}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi q_t^2}{Q_s^2\mathrm{log}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\right).`$ (18)
This approximation reproduces the behavior of the full expression (5) about $`q_tQ_s`$ reasonably well. Expressions (17,18) are useful only when the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }Q_s`$, that is, when color neutrality is enforced on distance scales of order $`1/\mathrm{\Lambda }1/Q_s`$. If, however, color neutrality in the target nucleus were to occur on distances of order $`1/Q_s`$  then $`\mathrm{\Lambda }Q_s`$ and one would have to go beyond the leading-logarithmic approximation.

From eq. (18), $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is given by (to leading order in $`k_t^0/l_t`$)

$`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }(l_t,\xi )=4\pi {\displaystyle \frac{l_t^2}{Q_s^2\mathrm{log}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)\mathrm{\Delta }^ND_{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)\frac{x^2}{\xi ^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi l_t^2}{Q_s^2\mathrm{log}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{x^2}{\xi ^2}\right)k_t^0/l_t}{_\xi ^1𝑑xxf_{q/p}(x,Q^2)D_{\mathrm{\Lambda }/q}(\frac{\xi }{x},Q^2)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi l_t^2}{Q_s^2\mathrm{log}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda }}\frac{x^2}{\xi ^2}\right)}}.`$ (19)
Thus, at the peak $`𝒫_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ scales approximately with $`1/(Q_s\sqrt{\mathrm{log}}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, as indeed seen in Fig. 2. The strong dependence on the target gluon density, as parametrized by $`Q_s`$, is rather different from leading-twist perturbation theory.

As mentioned above, there is a related $`k_t`$-odd effect in processes with one transversely polarized hadron in the initial state (the Sivers effect), which can lead to asymmetries in $`p^{}p\pi X`$ , for example. Since at RHIC polarized proton beams are also available (for recent preliminary $`p^{}p\pi X`$ data from STAR, see Ref. ), one could investigate the process $`p^{}A\pi X`$ in the saturation regime. Similar signatures should arise in that process as for $`pA\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}X`$ pointed out here.

In summary, we have studied transverse $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization in $`pA`$ collisions at high energies and with dense targets. The resulting $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization is quite different from that observed in $`pA`$ and $`pp`$ collisions to date, which presumably did not probe the saturation regime yet. To study the high-density limit, we have performed a weak coupling analysis of the hard $`qA`$ scattering, determined by the saturation momentum $`Q_s`$, and described the unpolarized quark fragmentation into a transversely polarized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon by the so-called polarizing fragmentation functions. We observe that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ polarization peaks at transverse momentum $`Q_s`$, where it also scales approximately as $`1/(Q_s\sqrt{\mathrm{log}}Q_s/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ and hence is collision energy dependent. Moreover, no plateau region for larger transverse momenta is present. These features are independent of the details of the polarizing fragmentation functions, but rather occur due to their $`k_t`$-odd nature. Similar effects are expected in the process of $`p^{}A\pi X`$ in the saturation region. Both processes can be studied, in principle, at the BNL-RHIC collider, and perhaps in the future at the CERN-LHC.

Acknowledgement:
We thank Francois Gelis and Werner Vogelsang for helpful discussions and for contributing some of their computer codes. A.D. gratefully acknowledges support by the German Minister for Education and Research (BMBF) and by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC02-98CH10886. The research of D.B. has been made possible by financial support from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.


text:
# Electron-plasmon interaction in a cylindrical mesoscopic system: important similarities with Kaluza-Klein theories

\[

## Abstract

Similarities between nonlinear electron-plasmon interactions in a cylindrical mesoscopic system and Kaluza-Klein theories, which stem from the analogy between the angular coordinate of a nanocylinder with the compactified coordinates of the Kaluza-Klein theories, have been considered. These similarities indicate that electron and plasmon states with non-zero angular momenta exhibit strong long-range interaction with each other via exchange of plasmons with zero angular momentum. This insight has been confirmed by finding correspondent solutions of the nonlinear Maxwell equations for interacting plasmons. Such solutions have important consequences for description of electromagnetic and transport properties of mesoscopic metallic wires, holes and rings, such as recent observation of density-dependent spin polarization in quantum wires. Numerical estimates indicate that the latter effect can be explained by the electron energy level splitting in the gyration field induced due to the magneto-optical effect by the current flowing through the quantum wire.

PACS no.: 78.67.-n, 73.63.-b, 11.10.Kk

\]

1. INTRODUCTION

Electromagnetic and transport properties of mesoscopic nanowires and nanoholes are the topic of considerable current interest, due to the strong drive towards development of nanotechnology and quantum computing. While studying nanoscale science of these systems, researchers constantly meet new surprising phenomena caused by yet undiscovered quantum mechanical effects. One of such recent surprises was the discovery of anomalously high transmission of an array of nanoholes in a metal film by Ebbesen et al , which has been explained by light coupling to the surface plasmons on the interfaces of the film (surface plasmons are the collective excitations of conductivity electrons and the electromagnetic field). Another recent surprise was the fact that such plasmon-assisted transmission does not destroy photon entanglement , which makes nanohole arrays very interesting for optical quantum computing applications. Since any quantum computer needs some interaction between the qubits, nonlinear optics of surface plasmons in nanohole arrays becomes a topic of extreme interest for many fields of science. In another recent development, strong evidences of nonlinear optical effects which indeed occur inside the nanoholes due to excitation of localized and propagating cylindrical surface plasmons have been obtained in observations of single-photon tunneling , and light-controlled photon tunneling effects . While linear optics of cylindrical surface plasmons (CSP) is relatively well understood , currently there is no theoretical description of their nonlinear optics.

Another important reason for taking a close look at the nonlinear optics of nanowires and nanoholes is the current state of mesoscopic physics. There exist numerous current contradictions between mesoscopic theories and experiment . At least some of these contradictions may be explained by previously unaccounted intrinsic electron-electron interactions . Electron-electron interaction mediated by cylindrical surface plasmons may be one of such intrinsic interactions in nanowires, since the surface plasmon electromagnetic field reaches considerable strength when the radius of the nanowire drops down to nanometer scale. As this happens, nonlinear interactions become enhanced and increasingly important (as has been observed in large number of nonlinear optical effects at nanometer-scale-rough metal surfaces, such as surface enhanced Raman scattering, etc. where enhancement factors reach up to 8-10 orders of magnitude). Unfortunately, no current mesoscopic theory takes these nonlinear interactions into account.

The main reason for this lack of theoretical developments is the general difficulty of nonlinear systems analysis when nonlinear interactions are strong, and they can not be considered as small perturbations. In such situations, often one can only guess the general form of the solutions, based on the comparison of the nonlinear system of interest with other better understood nonlinear systems described by similar equations. Surprisingly, it appears  that the theory of cylindrical surface plasmon (CSP) nonlinear interactions with electrons and with each other has a lot in common with a class of high energy physics theories called the Kaluza-Klein theories, which introduce extra N-4 compact and small spatial dimensions (with characteristic size on the order of the Planck length) with the symmetries of the internal space chosen to be the gauge symmetries of some gauge theory . The compactified extra dimensions are needed in order to formulate a unified theory, which would contain gravity together with the other observed fields.

Similarity between the nonlinear optics of CSPs and the Kaluza-Klein theories stems from the way in which the electric charges are introduced in the original five-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory (see for example ). In this theory the electric charges are introduced as chiral (nonzero angular momentum) modes of a massless quantum field, which is quantized over the cyclic compactified fifth dimension. Electromagnetic forces between the electric charges appear as nonlinear coupling of these chiral modes, so four-dimensional electrodynamics described by the Maxwell equations may be understood as nonlinear optics of these modes. Similar Kaluza-Klein theories may be formulated in the lower-dimensional space-times. Such theories reproduce electrodynamics of electric charges in the worlds with less than three spatial dimensions. Since surface plasmons may be considered as if they live in a curved three-dimensional space-time defined by the metal interface, nonlinear optics of cylindrical surface plasmons looks as if it occurs in a space-time which besides an extended z-coordinate has a small ”compactified” angular $`\varphi `$-dimension along the circumference of the cylinder. Thus, the theory of CSP mode propagation and interaction (when the interaction is strong) may be expected to be similar to the three-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory, and similarity between the behavior of CSP chiral modes with nonzero angular momenta and the behavior of electric charges in lower-dimensional worlds may be expected. This similarity is very useful in understanding of nonlinear optics of surface plasmons, since electromagnetic interactions of electric charges are very well understood.

In this paper I explore the above mentioned Kaluza-Klein analogy to gain more understanding of the nonlinear mesoscopic physics of thin cylindrical metal wires and nanoholes in metal films. Using the insights gained from the Kaluza-Klein theories I am going to obtain solutions of the nonlinear Maxwell equations for interacting cylindrical surface plasmons, which behave as interacting effective charges of non-electric origin. According to these solutions, higher $`(n>0)`$ CSP modes posses quantized effective chiral charges proportional to their angular momenta $`n`$. In a metal nanowire these slow moving effective charges exhibit long-range interaction via exchange of fast massless CSPs with zero angular momentum. These zero angular momentum CSPs may be considered as massless quanta of the gyration field (the field of the gyration vector $`\stackrel{}{g}`$), which relates the $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ fields in an optically active medium . I describe the conditions for such physical picture to be valid, namely, the medium in or around the nanohole or nanowire should be chiral or optically active, and exhibit magneto-optical effect. This condition is fulfilled automatically in the case of any metal , which is optically active in the presence of magnetic field. This mode-coupling theory may be used in description of nonlinear optics of cylindrical nanowires and nanochannels, for example, in single-photon tunneling effect where under some circumstances there is a direct analogy between the role of Coulomb blockade in single-electron tunneling effect and the role of long-range chiral interaction of CSPs in single-photon tunneling. I will further show that the electron states with nonzero angular momenta exhibit similar long range chiral interaction via exchange of zero angular momentum CSPs. This result is of great relevance for low-temperature mesoscopic conductance of thin cylindrical wires and carbon nanotubes, which will be shown by considering the recent observation of density-dependent spin polarization in quantum wires. Thus, the nonlinear electron-electron, electron-plasmon, and plasmon-plasmon interactions may be considered in a unified way via introduction of effective chiral charges and fields, similar to the way in which unified field theories are constructed in high energy physics. It is also interesting to note that the nanohole geometries in this Kaluza-Klein description have many similarities with the space-time wormholes, which appear in many contemporary field theories. Thus, optical experiments performed on nonlinear nanoholes may become the proving ground for experimental testing of many novel ideas in theoretical physics, such as compactified extra dimensions and wormholes. Finally, I will show that so developed effective Kaluza-Klein theory of electron-plasmon interaction has strong similarities with the nonlinear electrodynamics of a rotating nonlinear-optical medium.

2. BASIC FEATURES OF KALUZA-KLEIN THEORIES

As a first step, let us recall the basic features of the Kaluza-Klein theories. In the original form of the theory a five-dimensional space-time was introduced where the four dimensions $`x^1,\mathrm{},x^4`$ were identified with the observed space-time. The associated 10 components of the metric tensor $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ were used to describe gravity. After a compactified fifth dimension $`x^5`$ with a small circumference $`L`$ was added, the extra four metric components $`g_{\alpha 5}`$ connecting $`x^5`$ to $`x^1,\mathrm{},x^4`$ gave four extra degrees of freedom, which were interpreted as the electromagnetic potential (here we use the following convention for greek and latin indices: $`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},4`$; $`i=1,\mathrm{},5`$). An additional scalar field $`g_{55}`$ or dilaton may be either set to a constant, or allowed to vary.

When a quantum field $`\psi `$ coupled to this metric via an equation

$$\mathrm{}_5\psi +a\psi =0$$
(1)
is considered, where $`\mathrm{}_5`$ is the covariant five-dimensional d’Alembert operator, the solutions for the field $`\psi `$ must be periodic in the $`x^5`$ coordinate. This leads to the appearance of an infinite ”tower” of solutions with quantized $`x^5`$-component of the momentum:

$$q_n^5=2\pi n/L$$
(2)
where $`n`$ is an integer. In our four-dimensional space-time on a large scale such solutions with $`n0`$ interact with the electromagnetic potential $`g_{\alpha 5}`$ as charged particles with an electric charge $`e_n`$ and mass $`m_n`$:

$$e_n=\mathrm{}q_n(16\pi G)^{1/2}/c$$
(3)
$$m_n=\mathrm{}(q_n^2a)^{1/2}/c$$
(4)
where $`G`$ is the gravitational constant (see for example the derivation in ). For the purposes of discussion below let us follow this derivation when an angular coordinate $`\varphi ^5`$ varying within an interval from 0 to $`2\pi `$ is introduced, so that

$$\varphi ^5=2\pi \frac{x^5}{L}$$
(5)
Now the metric can be written as

$$ds^2=g_{\alpha \beta }dx^\alpha dx^\beta +2g_{\alpha 5}dx^\alpha d\varphi ^5+g_{55}d\varphi ^5d\varphi ^5,$$
(6)
Here we are not interested in possible spatial dependence of $`g_{55}`$ and consider all $`g_{i5}`$ components to be independent of $`\varphi ^5`$. Equation (1) with $`a=0`$ for the quantum field $`\psi `$ in this metric should be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x^\alpha }}(g^{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{x^\beta }})+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x^\alpha }}(g^{\alpha 5}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{\varphi ^5}})+`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi ^5}}(g^{5\alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{x^\alpha }})+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\varphi ^5}}(g^{55}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{\varphi ^5}})=0`$ (8)
Since we assume that the $`g_{i5}`$ do not depend explicitly on $`\varphi ^5`$, we should not address the terms like $`g^{i5}/\varphi ^5`$. Thus, we may search for the solutions in the usual form as $`\psi =\mathrm{\Psi }(x^\alpha )e^{iq\varphi ^5}`$, where periodicity in $`\varphi ^5`$ requires $`q_n=n`$. As a result, we obtain

$$\mathrm{}\psi q_n^2\frac{1g_{\alpha 5}g^{\alpha 5}}{g_{55}}\psi +2iq_ng^{\alpha 5}\frac{\psi }{x^\alpha }+iq_n\frac{g^{\alpha 5}}{x^\alpha }\psi =0$$
(9)
This is the same as the Klein-Gordon equation in the presence of an electromagnetic field: in four-dimensional space-time it describes a particle of mass

$$m=\frac{2\pi \mathrm{}q_n}{cg_{55}^{1/2}(q_n)},$$
(10)
which interacts with a vector field $`g^{\alpha 5}`$ through a quantized charge $`e_nq_n`$. In this theory the conservation of the electric charge is a simple consequence of the conservation of the $`x^5`$-component of the momentum. Similar Kaluza-Klein theory may be formulated in a three-dimensional space-time, which has one compactified spatial dimension. Again, quantized $`\varphi `$-component of the momentum will play a role of an effective charge, which interacts with a two-component vector field $`g^{\alpha 3}`$.

It is well-known that Maxwell equations in a general curved space-time background $`g_{ik}(x,t)`$ are equivalent to the macroscopic Maxwell equations in the presence of matter background with some nontrivial electric and magnetic permeability tensors $`ϵ_{ik}(x,t)`$ and $`\mu _{ik}(x,t)`$ . Thus, strong similarity between the results of the three-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory and the solutions of Maxwell equations in some quasi-three-dimensional cylindrical waveguide geometries may be expected: in both cases we consider a massless field in a geometry which has a compactified cyclic $`\varphi `$-dimension in the presence of nontrivial space-time curvature or permeability tensors, respectively. This similarity is expected to be especially strong in the case of surface plasmon waveguides, since surface plasmons live in (almost) three- dimensional space-times on the metal interfaces.

3. NONLINEAR OPTICS OF CYLINDRICAL SURFACE PLASMONS

In this chapter the similarity described above will be confirmed by finding the respective solutions of the nonlinear Maxwell equations for cylindrical surface plasmons. Let us first consider general properties of Maxwell equations in a medium (media), which has cylindrically symmetric geometry. The insight gained from the previous discussion tells us that in order to look similar to the three-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory, the medium should discriminate between left- and right- circular polarized waves (the waves which have opposite angular momenta, and thus expected to posses opposite effective Kaluza-Klein charges). This means that the medium should be chiral or optically active. There are different ways of introducing optical activity (gyration) tensor in the macroscopic Maxwell equations. It can be introduced in a symmetric form, which is sometimes called Condon relations :

$$\stackrel{}{D}=ϵ\stackrel{}{E}+\gamma \frac{\stackrel{}{B}}{t}$$
(11)
$$\stackrel{}{H}=\mu ^1\stackrel{}{B}+\gamma \frac{\stackrel{}{E}}{t}$$
(12)
Or it can be introduced only in an equation for $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ (see ). In our consideration I will follow Landau and Lifshitz , and for simplicity use only the following equation valid in isotropic or cubic-symmetry materials:

$$\stackrel{}{D}=ϵ\stackrel{}{E}+i\stackrel{}{E}\times \stackrel{}{g},$$
(13)
where $`\stackrel{}{g}`$ is called the gyration vector. If the medium exhibits magneto- optical effect and does not exhibit natural optical activity $`\stackrel{}{g}`$ is proportional to the magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{H}`$:

$$\stackrel{}{g}=f\stackrel{}{H},$$
(14)
where the constant $`f`$ may be either positive or negative. For metals in the Drude model at $`\omega >>eH/mc`$

$$f(\omega )=\frac{4\pi Ne^3}{cm^2\omega ^3}=\frac{e\omega _p^2}{mc\omega ^3},$$
(15)
where $`\omega _p`$ is the plasma frequency and $`m`$ is the electron mass .

Initially, let us consider a medium with $`\stackrel{}{g}=\stackrel{}{g}(r,z,t)`$ directed along the $`\varphi `$-coordinate. Such a distribution may be produced, for example, in a medium exhibiting magneto-optical effect around a cylindrical nanowire if a current is passed through the wire. After simple calculations we obtain a wave equation in the form:

$$\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{B}=\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{B}=\frac{ϵ}{c^2}\frac{^2\stackrel{}{B}}{t^2}+\frac{i}{c}\frac{(\stackrel{}{}\times [\stackrel{}{E}\times \stackrel{}{g}])}{t}$$
(16)
The z-component of this wave equation for a solution $`e^{in\varphi }`$ is:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{r}}(r{\displaystyle \frac{B_z}{r}})+{\displaystyle \frac{^2B_z}{z^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^2B_z}{c^2t^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{r^2}}B_z+`$ (17)
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{ng}{rc}}{\displaystyle \frac{(iE_z)}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{in}{cr}}({\displaystyle \frac{g}{t}})(iE_z)=0`$ (18)
It can be re-written in the form similar to equations (1) and (8) as follows:

$$\widehat{a_r}B_z+\mathrm{}_2B_z\frac{n^2}{g_{\varphi \varphi }}B_z+in(\frac{g}{r})(\frac{iE_z}{ct})+in\frac{(g/r)}{ct}E_z=0,$$
(19)
where $`\widehat{a_r}`$ plays the role of factor $`a`$ in equation (1), and $`g_{\varphi \varphi }=r^2`$. Similarity of equations (8) and (17) becomes more evident if we identify the Kaluza-Klein vector field $`g^{0\varphi }`$ as $`g/r`$, disregard terms higher than linear in $`g`$, and recall that for cylindrical surface plasmon modes $`iE_z=\alpha B_z`$, where the coefficient of proportionality $`\alpha `$ is real and is determined by the boundary conditions . The missing factor of 2 in front of the fourth term in equation (17) originates from the asymmetric way of introducing the gyration in the macroscopic Maxwell equations (see equations (10-12) and the relevant discussion). Thus, from the macroscopic Maxwell equations we arrive to a picture of $`n>0`$ waveguide modes interacting with the ”gyration potential” $`g/r`$ via quantized effective ”chiral charges” proportional to the angular momenta of the modes.

The dispersion law and electromagnetic field distribution of cylindrical surface plasmon modes of a cylindrical metal wire may be found in . The $`\omega (k)`$ of the $`n=0`$ CSP mode goes down to $`\omega =0`$ approaching the light line $`\omega =kc/ϵ^{1/2}`$ from the right, as $`k0`$. The field of this mode has only the following nonzero components: $`E_r`$, $`E_z`$, and $`H_\varphi `$, thus satisfying our initial requirements for the direction of $`\stackrel{}{g}`$, and if we recall equation (13), we notice that in the media exhibiting magneto- optical effect, such as the cylindrical metal wire itself, the higher $`n>0`$ CSP modes interact with the $`H_\varphi `$ field of the $`n=0`$ CSPs via their effective ”chiral charges” proportional to $`n`$. Thus, CSP quanta with $`n=0`$ may be considered as massless (in the $`k0`$ limit) quanta of the ”gyration field”. The dispersion laws of the CSP modes with $`n>0`$ start at some nonzero frequencies and intersect the light line (become nonradiative and de-couple from free-space photons) at some finite $`\omega `$. The modes of different $`n`$ are well separated from each other, and there is no crossing. In the $`k\mathrm{}`$ limit the $`\omega (k)`$ of all the CSP modes saturates at $`\omega =\omega _p/2^{1/2}`$. Thus, the group velocity $`d\omega /dk`$ of the higher modes goes to 0 in this limit: the ”charged” quanta are slow.

Let us now derive an analog of the Poisson equation for the ”gyration potential” and ”chiral charges” around the cylindrical metal wire. Let us search for the solutions of the nonlinear wave equation (15) in the form $`\stackrel{}{B}=\stackrel{}{B_0}+\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{E}=\stackrel{}{E_0}+\stackrel{}{E_n}`$, where $`\stackrel{}{B_0}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ are the CSP fields with zero and nonzero ($`n`$) angular momenta, respectively, and the ”gyration field” in the magneto-active media is obtained in a self-consistent manner as $`\stackrel{}{g}=f(\stackrel{}{H}+\stackrel{}{B_0}+\stackrel{}{B_n})`$, where $`\stackrel{}{H}`$ is a constant external field. We are interested in the solution for the field $`\stackrel{}{B_0}`$ in the limit $`\omega _00`$ in the presence of the $`\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ field, so that in the found solution the $`\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ field will act as a source of $`\stackrel{}{B_0}`$. The resulting nonlinear Maxwell equation may be simplified assuming that the field $`\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ is supposed to be the solution of linear Maxwell equation, and the terms proportional to $`f^2`$ and higher may be neglected. As a result, we obtain:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{B_0}={\displaystyle \frac{if}{c}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{}\times [\stackrel{}{E_n}\times \stackrel{}{B_n}])}{t}}{\displaystyle \frac{if}{c}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{}\times [\stackrel{}{E_0}\times \stackrel{}{B_n}])}{t}}`$ (20)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{if}{c}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{}\times [\stackrel{}{E_n}\times \stackrel{}{B_0}])}{t}}`$ (21)
Since the fields $`\stackrel{}{B_0}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{B_n}`$ are not supposed to be coherent, their products disappear after time averaging, and we are left with the effective Poisson equation for the nonlinear interaction of CSPs:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{B_0}=\frac{f\omega _n}{c}\stackrel{}{}\times [\stackrel{}{E_n}\times \stackrel{}{B_n}]=\frac{4\pi f\omega _n}{c^2}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{S_n},$$
(22)
where $`\stackrel{}{S_n}`$ is the Pointing vector of the CSP field with the nonzero ($`n`$) angular momentum. As an interesting consequence of this equation, let us note that in an isotropic medium

$$\stackrel{}{}\times (\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{B_0}\frac{4\pi f\omega _n}{c^2}\stackrel{}{S_n})=0$$
(23)
This observation lets us to conjecture that electric currents may also be the sources of the chiral field, and that the electron states with nonzero angular momenta may act as chiral charges. We will discuss this extension of the CSP nonlinear optics later in this paper.

Using the same approximations as before, we can also derive an analog of the Gauss theorem for the ”chiral charges”. Let us consider a cylindrical volume $`V`$ around a cylindrical metal wire (see Fig.1), such that the side wall of the volume $`V`$ is located very far from the wire and the CSP fields are zero at this wall.

Using the vector calculus theorem we can write

$$_V\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{S}d^3x=_S\stackrel{}{n}\times \stackrel{}{S}𝑑a=_{S_2}\stackrel{}{N}\times \stackrel{}{S}𝑑a_{S_1}\stackrel{}{N}\times \stackrel{}{S}𝑑a,$$
(24)
where $`S`$ is the closed two-dimensional cylindrical surface bounding $`V`$, with area element $`da`$ and unit outward normal $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ at $`da`$, $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ are the front and the back surfaces of $`V`$, and $`\stackrel{}{N}`$ is the chosen direction of the wire. Using equation (20) we obtain

$`{\displaystyle _V}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi f\omega _n}{c^2}}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{S}d^3x={\displaystyle _{S_2}}\stackrel{}{N}\times [\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{B_0}]𝑑a`$ (25)
$`{\displaystyle _{S_1}}\stackrel{}{N}\times [\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{B_0}]𝑑a`$ (26)
Since $`\stackrel{}{N}\times [\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{B_0}]=B_{0\varphi }/z`$, we see that a ”chiral charge” produces a local step in the ”gyration field”. If this effective Gauss theorem would be precise at any distance, we would come up with an unphysical result that a localized ”chiral charge” would produce an infinite field $`B_\varphi `$ at infinity. In reality, one has to take into account all the effects that we neglected while deriving the effective Poisson equation and Gauss theorem, such as higher than quadratic terms in the nonlinear Maxwell equations, and also take into account final lifetime of the cylindrical surface plasmons. Nevertheless, the underlying Kaluza-Klein mechanism of the ”chiral charge” interaction lends credibility to the conclusion that CSPs of a cylindrical metal nanowire exhibit very strong long-range interaction. The case of cylindrical nanochannel is somewhat different, since in this case the zero angular momentum mode has nonzero frequency in the limit $`k0`$ (in other words it acquires some effective mass), so that interaction of higher mode quanta via exchange of zero- angular momentum CSPs becomes more short-ranged. Similar mode-coupling theory may be further developed to describe mode propagation and interaction in other chiral optical waveguides.

Let us estimate the strength of chiral charges interaction. Using equations (17) and (22) within the approximations described above the potential energy of two equal chiral charges $`n`$ separated by distance $`z`$ can be written as

$$W=z\frac{2\pi \mathrm{}\omega _nf^2nS_{n\varphi }}{ϵrc},$$
(27)
where $`S_{n\varphi }=n\omega _n(ϵE_z^2+B_z^2)/(4\pi \beta _n^2r)`$ is the $`\varphi `$-component of the Pointing vector, $`\beta _n^2=ϵ\omega _n^2/c^2k_n^2`$ is defined by the dispersion law of the $`n`$th mode, and $`r`$ is the radius of the cylindrical metal wire. Assuming $`f(\omega )`$ from (14) and $`\beta _nk_n`$ the order of magnitude estimate of $`W`$ may be written as

$$W=zn^2(\frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}c})\mathrm{}\omega _n(\frac{\omega _p^4}{\omega _n^4})(\frac{\lambda }{r})\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{r^3m^2c^2},$$
(28)
where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of $`\omega _n`$ light in vacuum. As may be expected, the nonlinear optical interaction of CSP modes grows inversely proportional to $`r^4`$, and achieves considerable strength in nanometer scale metallic nanowires and nanochannels even without addition of nonlinear dielectrics inside a nanochannel or around a nanowire. If we assume $`\mathrm{}\omega _n=1`$eV, $`\mathrm{}\omega _p=7`$eV, and $`r=1`$nm (disregarding nonzero skin depth) the potential energy of two unit chiral charges is of the order of $`W2\times 10^4z`$eV/cm, so even interaction of single CSP quanta separated by submicrometer distances is considerable. The effect of this interaction on the ground state of the nanowire will be discussed later in this paper.

A very useful physical picture of the chiral interaction may be obtained using the analogy between the Maxwell equations in a given gravitational field , and the Maxwell equations in a chiral medium. Relationship between the $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ fields in a gravitational field with the metric $`g_{ik}`$ can be written in the form

$$\stackrel{}{D}=\frac{\stackrel{}{E}}{h^{1/2}}+\stackrel{}{H}\times \stackrel{}{g},$$
(29)
where $`h=g_{00}`$ and $`g_\alpha =g_{0\alpha }/g_{00}`$. For an electromagnetic wave this relationship is very similar to equation (12) if we identify $`ϵ`$ as $`1/h^{1/2}`$, and take into account different conventions for the use of imaginary numbers used in  and . Thus, the space-time itself behaves as a chiral optical medium if $`\stackrel{}{g}0`$. Such a space-time region can be described locally as a rotating coordinate frame with an angular velocity

$$\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{ch^{1/2}}{2}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{g}$$
(30)
Similar vector $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ field can be defined for any chiral medium regardless of the nature of its optical activity (natural or magnetic field induced). Thus, nonlinear electrodynamics of such medium may be understood as if there is a distribution of local angular rotation $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ field in it. It is clear that in the presence of $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}0`$ (as is the case for a zero-momentum CSP propagating along the metal wire, due to the $`H_\varphi `$ field of the CSP and eq.(13)) any particle with nonzero angular momentum (CSP or electron) acquires additional energy $`\stackrel{}{L}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, where $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is the angular momentum of the particle. This is the physical meaning of the terms in equations (16) and (17) describing the chiral interaction of the CSP angular momenta with the gyration field. At the same time, the field of CSPs with zero angular momentum describes small spatial oscillations of the $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ field. Thus, zero-angular-momentum CSPs may be considered as quanta of the effective angular rotation field in the optically active nonlinear medium, and, according to the solution of the nonlinear Maxwell equations described by equation (19), CSPs with nonzero angular momenta (the chiral charges) act as the sources of the $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ field.

4. NONLINEAR ELECTRON-PLASMON INTERACTION

Let us now extend the above ideas to the description of nonlinear effects in electron-plasmon interaction. While linear Schrodinger equation is appropriate to determine the lowest order effects of the CSP field on the individual electron wave functions, such a description would not be appropriate in the case of nanowires and nanoholes, since plasmon field strength may become considerable and nonlinear optics of the materials must be taken into account. Thus, higher order nonlinear interaction terms of the nonlinear medium quantum electrodynamics must be considered. At the same time, since plasmons are collective excitations of the electron density and the electromagnetic field, collective effects must be taken into account if a proper description of electron-plasmon interaction must be obtained. Thus, we meet the general difficulty of the mesoscopic physics of finding the ground state of a one-dimensional electron system, which is described in  and the references therein. These arguments indicate considerable difficulties in constructing nonlinear theory of electron-plasmon interaction. On the other hand, reasonable success of using the insights gained from the analogy with the Kaluza-Klein theories in finding solutions of the nonlinear Maxwell equations for the interacting CSPs encourage us to develop similar analogy for the more complicated nonlinear electron-plasmon interactions.

The logical continuation of the ideas described above is to consider both the chiral charges of the CSPs and the normal electric charges in a symmetric and unified way, in which electron-electron, electron-plasmon, and nonlinear optical plasmon-plasmon interaction in a thin metal wire is described as if it happens in a four-dimensional space-time, which besides the extended z-coordinate has two compactified cyclic spatial dimensions: the $`\varphi `$-dimension along the circumference of the metal cylindrical wire, and the cyclic fifth dimension of the original Kaluza-Klein theory. Similar to high energy physics where the search for the underlying universal symmetries between different particles and fields has been a very fruitful approach, we may expect that such a unified description may bring about new deep insights into the mesoscopic physics. Such insights are highly necessary taking into account numerous current contradictions between mesoscopic theories and experiment . At least some of these contradictions may be explained by previously unaccounted intrinsic electron-electron interactions . Electron-electron interaction via exchange of cylindrical surface plasmons may be one of such interactions.

Let us now follow the general Kaluza-Klein recipe, and try and build a unified theory of electron-plasmon interaction in a thin metal wire by considering a four-dimensional space-time, which besides the extended z-coordinate has two compactified cyclic spatial dimensions: the $`\varphi `$-dimension along the circumference of the metal cylindrical wire, and the cyclic fifth $`\theta `$-dimension of the original Kaluza-Klein theory. As has been seen above, the effects of the radial coordinate can be included in the factor $`a`$ of equation (1), so we will neglect the radial coordinate of the real physical wire for the sake of simplicity. We will also assume temperature to be very low, so that interactions of only a few electrically charged quaziparticles can be considered, while the rest of the electrons in the metal are taken into account via electric and magnetic permeability tensors $`ϵ_{ik}`$ and $`\mu _{ik}`$ of the metal, which in turn are taken into account via the space-time metric $`g_{ik}`$. Thus, the effective metric can be written as

$`ds^2=c^2dt^2dz^2R^2d\varphi ^2r^2d\theta ^2+2g_{02}cdtd\varphi +`$ (31)
$`2g_{03}cdtd\theta +2g_{12}dzd\varphi +2g_{13}dzd\theta +2g_{23}d\theta d\varphi `$ (32)
where $`R(z)`$ and $`r`$ are the radii of the cylindrical wire and the compactified original fifth Kaluza-Klein dimension, respectively. Here we consider all the $`g_{0i}`$ and $`g_{1i}`$ components to be independent of $`\varphi `$ and $`\theta `$. Equation (1) with $`a=0`$ for a quantum massless scalar field $`\psi `$ in this metric should be written as

$$\frac{}{x^i}(g^{ik}\frac{\psi }{x^k})=0,$$
(33)
where $`i,k=0,\mathrm{},3`$. The field $`\psi `$ is considered to be scalar in order to make the consideration as simple as possible (for a vector field each component of the field will need to satisfy equation (28)). We will search for the solutions in the usual form as $`\psi =\mathrm{\Psi }(x^\alpha )e^{iq_2\varphi }e^{iq_3\theta }`$, where $`\alpha =0,1`$, and periodicity in $`\varphi `$ and $`\theta `$ requires $`q_2=n_2`$ and $`q_3=n_3`$ ($`n_2`$ and $`n_3`$ are integer). As a result, we obtain

$`({\displaystyle \frac{^2}{c^2t^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{z^2}})\psi (q_2^2g^{22}+q_3^2g^{33}+2q_2q_3g^{23})\psi +`$ (34)
$`2iq_2g^{\alpha 2}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{x^\alpha }}+2iq_3g^{\alpha 3}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{x^\alpha }}+iq_2({\displaystyle \frac{g^{\alpha 2}}{x^\alpha }})\psi +iq_3({\displaystyle \frac{g^{\alpha 3}}{x^\alpha }})\psi =0`$ (35)
This is a two-dimensional Klein-Gordon equation describing a two-component quantized superchiral charge $`(q_2;q_3)`$ in the presence of external $`g^{\alpha 2}(t,z)`$ and $`g^{\alpha 3}(t,z)`$ vector fields (the name superchiral is chosen to emphasize the unified description of electrons and plasmons). The $`q_3`$ component of the superchiral charge and the $`g^{\alpha 3}`$ field correspond to the quantized electric charge $`eq_3`$ and the electromagnetic field, respectively, while the $`q_2`$ component of the charge and the $`g^{\alpha 2}`$ field correspond to the chiral charge and the gyration field described above. Thus, we have obtained a unified symmetric description of both types of charges and their interactions. For example, it is easy to see that the term $`2q_2q_3g^{23}\psi `$ in equation (29) corresponds to the orbital magnetic moment of the electric charge $`q_3`$, which interacts with the axial magnetic field described by $`g^{23}`$. At the same time, equation (29) indicates that the axial magnetic field is not the only field acting on the electric charges which posses nonzero orbital momenta. According to (29), such states respond to the gyration field $`g^{\alpha 2}`$ in the same way as the CSPs with nonzero angular momenta ($`n>0`$). In other words, a rotating electric charge has an effective chiral charge, and it exhibits long-range interactions with other rotating electric charges and $`n>0`$ CSPs via exchange of fast massless CSPs with zero angular momentum.

After we have understood the general symmetry and structure of the electron-plasmon interaction in the Kaluza-Klein model, we can try and reformulate this description using normal language of nonlinear Maxwell and Schrodinger equations. Let us start from the effective Poisson equation for the chiral charges and the gyration field in the cylindrical wire geometry in the form of equation (20). By looking at the expression under the parenthesis, it is clear that the electric current $`\stackrel{}{j}`$ should act as an additional source of $`\stackrel{}{B_0}`$, so that the effective Poisson equation takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{}{B_0}=\frac{4\pi f\omega _n}{c^2}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{S_n}+\frac{4\pi }{c}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{j}$$
(36)
Thus, both the chiral charges of the CSPs and the rotating electric charges enter this equation in a symmetric way, and act as the sources of the gyration field in agreement with the Kaluza-Klein analogy. We can also conjecture that the electron s spins should also enter as the sources in this equation, although the proof of this conjecture can only be obtained in a complete nonlinear medium quantum electrodynamics treatment, which is beyond the scope of this paper.

As a second step, let us consider how the field of a zero-angular-momentum CSP (gyration field) acts on a rotating electric charge. The field of this CSP mode has only the following nonzero components: $`E_r`$, $`E_z`$, and $`H_\varphi `$ , and may be described in cylindrical coordinates $`(r,\varphi ,z)`$ by the vector potential of the form $`\stackrel{}{A}=(A_r,0,A_z)`$, so that $`E_r=A_r/t`$, $`E_z=A_z/t`$, and $`H_\varphi =A_r/zA_z/r`$. The linear Shrodinger equation with the vector potential of this form can be used in evaluation of CSPs effect on the phase of the electron wave function. Unfortunately, the chiral interaction of interest is due to nonlinear optical effects, and arises as higher order terms in QED of a nonlinear optical medium. However, the analogy with the electrodynamics of a rotating medium described above makes it physically clear that any particle with nonzero angular momentum (CSP or electron) acquires additional energy $`\stackrel{}{L}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ in the gyration field, where $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is the angular momemtum of the particle. Thus, the Kaluza-Klein analogy again looks justified in predicting the chiral field interaction with rotating electric charges.

As has been shown above, in a thin metal wire the chiral interaction of the CSP chiral charges via exchange of zero-angular-momentum CSPs becomes quite noticeable at large distances. Unlike the Coulomb interaction, which is screened by the presence of other free electrons, the chiral interaction does not experience much screening at short distances, due to its general weakness: we may say that the chiral charges are adiabatically free, similar to the behavior of quarks at short distances. However, because of the one-dimensional nature of the chiral interaction, it does not depend on the distance between the chiral charges unless the CSP decay (finite free propagation length) is taken into account. The strong frequency dependence of the constant $`f`$ in the equation (14) may even lead to the increase of the chiral interaction with distance (since $`f`$ grows proportional to $`\lambda ^3`$, as long as $`\omega >>eH/mc`$). These factors may make the chiral electron-electron, electron-plasmon and plasmon-plasmon interactions an important mechanism in mesoscopic transport phenomena, especially in long samples.

A number of experiments to check the importance of chiral interactions may be suggested. For example, the CSP spectrum of a cylindrical metal wire may be changed by periodic modulation of the shape of the wire, and the effects of this change on different mesoscopic properties may be studied. Comparison of transport properties of wires with different cross-sections may also be performed. Breaking of the cylindrical symmetry of the wire may be described as an external chiral field, which affects the chiral electron-plasmon interaction, but does not remove it completely. An external chiral field may also be created by coating the wire with a layer of chiral optical material or external illumination with circular-polarized light. In all these cases the chiral electron energy level splitting may be studied. If the energy level splitting is high enough, one can start to talk about para- or dia-chiral response of the samples.

The chiral interaction is especially important in possible applications of the nanohole arrays in quantum computing. A nanohole geometry can be described by equation (27) by choosing $`R(z)\mathrm{}`$ at $`z=0`$ and $`z=d`$, where $`d`$ is the metal film thickness. This choice of metric makes it look like a wormhole of the field theories, which connects two flat three-dimensional surface-plasmon space-times on the interfaces of the metal film. Since the structure of the equation (29) is not affected by z-dependence of R, the language of chiral interaction is the proper language to describe surface plasmon interaction around the nanoholes in a nanohole array. This interaction quickly fades away from the nanoholes, but it provides weak coupling of the qubits necessary for the quantum computer operation, while the external illumination of the nanohole array may act as a computer program. These are just a few of possible experimental checks and developments of the ideas described in this paper.

I should also mention that the density-dependent spin polarization recently observed in zero magnetic field in ultra-low-disorder quantum wires  may be explained as a manifestation of chiral energy level splitting, especially if we recall the observation of the authors that this effect is more pronounced in longer samples and at higher electron densities  (as we have seen from the previous discussion, longer samples increase the importance of the chiral interaction, while higher electron densities increase the plasma frequency, and, hence, the value of the constant $`f`$ in eq.(13)). Electric current flowing through the quantum wire during measurements may create some initial gyration field $`\stackrel{}{g}=f\stackrel{}{H}`$ circulating around the wire, and hence, the $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{g}`$ field directed along the wire. This will induce the initial chiral asymmetry between the left- and right- nonzero angular momenta of electrons and plasmons (the energy level splitting of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$). Although this initial splitting is probably too weak, it creates some predominance of chiral charges of one sign with respect to another, so one may expect some net chiral charge of the same sign separated by distances as large as the length of the sample. Taking into account our earlier estimate of the energy of the chiral charge interaction of the order of $`W2\times 10^4\times l`$ eV/cm, where $`l`$ is the sample length, we see that the chiral ordering (and, hence, spin polarization) may be expected in long quantum wires. Although more precise theoretical treatment of this effect will be necessary in the future, these arguments indicate that the chiral energy level splitting is an observable effect, and it may in fact already been observed.

In conclusion, similarities between nonlinear electron-plasmon interactions in a cylindrical mesoscopic system and Kaluza-Klein theories, which stem from the analogy between the angular coordinate of a nanocylinder with the compactified coordinates of the Kaluza-Klein theories, have been considered. These similarities indicate that electron and plasmon states with non-zero angular momenta exhibit strong long-range interaction with each other via exchange of plasmons with zero angular momentum. This insight has been confirmed by finding correspondent solutions of the nonlinear Maxwell equations for interacting plasmons. Such solutions have important consequences for description of electromagnetic and transport properties of mesoscopic metallic wires, holes and rings, such as recent observation of density-dependent spin polarization in quantum wires. Numerical estimates indicate that the latter effect can be explained by the electron energy level splitting in the gyration field induced due to the magneto-optical effect by the current flowing through the quantum wire.


text:
# IFUSP-DFN/02-078 IFT-P.001/2003 Determining the oscillation parameters by Solar neutrinos and KamLAND

## I Introduction

Many solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments have collected data in the last decades, giving evidence that neutrinos produced in the Sun and in the Earth’s atmosphere suffer flavor conversion. While the atmospheric neutrino results atmnuobs  may be understood by $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ conversion driven by a neutrino mass squared difference within the experimental reach of the accelerator based neutrino oscillation experiment K2K k2k , the mass squared difference needed to explain the solar neutrino data was, until quite recently, before the Kamioka Liquid scintillator AntiNeutrino Detector (KamLAND) kamland  has started its operation, too small to be inspected by a terrestrial neutrino oscillation experiment.

A number of different fits, assuming standard neutrino oscillations induced by mass and mixing fits  as well as other exotic flavor conversion mechanisms exotics , have been performed using the combined solar neutrino data from Homestake homestake , GALLEX/GNO gallex ; gno , SAGE sage , Super-Kamiokande-I superk  and SNO sno . These analyses selected some allowed areas in the free parameter region of each investigated mechanism, but did not allow one to establish beyond reasonable doubt which is the mechanism and what are the values of the parameters that are responsible for solar $`\nu _e`$ flavor conversion. After the first result of the KamLAND (or KL hereafter) experiment kamland  this picture has changed drastically.

In the first part of this paper, we present the allowed region for the oscillation parameters in two generations for the entire set of solar neutrino data, for KamLAND data alone and for KamLAND result combined with all solar neutrino data, showing that this last result finally establishes the so called large mixing angle (LMA) Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) msw  solution as the final answer to the long standing solar neutrino problem bahcall , definitely discarding all the other mass induced or more exotic solutions. (For the first discussions on the complete “MSW triangle” which includes the LMA region, see Ref. mswtriangle .) In the second part, we speculate on the possibility of further constraining the oscillation parameters in the near future. For instance, we point out the importance of SNO neutral-current (NC) data in further constraining the LMA MSW solution. In particular, we discuss the consequence of a significant reduction (50 %) of the SNO neutral-current data uncertainty. Finally, we simulate the expected inverse $`\beta `$-decay $`e^+`$ energy spectrum after 1 year of KamLAND data taking, based on the best fitted values of the oscillation parameters. We combine this with the current solar neutrino data in order to show how the allowed parameter region can be modified.

## II Determination of Oscillation Parameters

KamLAND has observed about 40% suppression of $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux with respect to the theoretically expected one kamland , which is compatible with neutrino oscillations in vacuum in two generations. In this case the relevant oscillation parameters, which must be determined by the fit to experimental data, are a mass squared difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$) and a mixing angle ($`\theta `$). We first obtained the allowed region in the ($`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$) plane compatible with all solar neutrino experimental data, then with KamLAND data alone, and finally we combine these two sets of data.

### II.1 Solar Neutrino Experiments

We have determined the parameter region allowed by the solar neutrino rates measured by Homestake homestake , GALLEX/GNO gallex ; gno , SAGE sage  and SNO (elastic scattering, charged-current and neutral-current reactions) sno  (6 data points) as well as by the Super-Kamiokande-I zenith spectrum data superk  (44 data points), assuming neutrino oscillations in two generations.

We have computed the $`\nu _e\nu _e`$ survival probability, properly taking into account the neutrino production distributions in the Sun according to the Standard Solar Model ssm , the zenith-angle exposure of each experiment, as well as the Earth matter effect as in Ref. exotics , except that here we solved the neutrino evolution equation entirely numerically. We then have estimated the allowed parameter region by minimizing the $`\chi _{}^2`$ function which is defined as

$$\chi _{}^2=\underset{i,j=1,\mathrm{},50}{}\left[R_i^{\text{th}}R_i^{\text{obs}}\right]\left[\sigma _{}^2\right]_{ij}^1\left[R_j^{\text{th}}R_j^{\text{obs}}\right],$$
(1)
where $`R_i^{\text{th}}`$ and $`R_i^{\text{obs}}`$ denote the theoretically expected and observed event rates, respectively, which run through all 50 data points mentioned above, and $`\sigma _{}`$ is the $`50\times 50`$ correlated error matrix, defined in a similar way as in Ref. exotics . In this work we have treated the 8B neutrino flux as a free parameter.

In Figure 2 we show the region, in the $`(\mathrm{tan}^2\theta ,\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)`$ plane, allowed by the Super-Kamiokande-I zenith spectrum data as well as by the rates of all other solar neutrino experiments at 90%, 95%, 99% and 99.73% C.L. In our fit we obtained a $`\chi _{}^2(\text{min})=37.7`$ for 47 d.o.f (83 % C.L.), corresponding to the global best fit values $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=7.5\times 10^5`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta =0.42`$.

### II.2 KamLAND

KamLAND kamland  is a reactor neutrino oscillation experiment searching for $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ oscillation from over 16 power reactors in Japan and South Korea, mostly located at distances that vary from 80 to 344 km from the Kamioka mine, allowing KamLAND to probe the LMA MSW neutrino oscillation solution to the solar neutrino problem.

The KamLAND detector consists of about 1 kton of liquid scintillator surrounded by photomultiplier tubes that register the arrival of $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ through the inverse $`\beta `$-decay reaction $`\overline{\nu }_e+pe^++n`$, by measuring $`e^+`$ and the 2.2 MeV $`\gamma `$-ray from neutron capture of a proton in delayed coincidence. The $`e^+`$ annihilate in the detector, producing the total visible energy $`E`$ which is related to the incoming $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ energy, $`E_\nu `$, as $`E=E_\nu (m_nm_p)+m_e`$, where $`m_n`$, $`m_p`$ and $`m_e`$ are respectively, the neutron, proton and electron mass.

After 145.1 days of data taking, which corresponds to 162 ton yr exposure, KamLAND has measured 54 inverse $`\beta `$-decay events, where 87 were expected without neutrino conversion. These events are distributed in 13 bins of 0.425 MeV above the analysis threshold of 2.6 MeV (applied to contain the background under about 1 event).

We have theoretically computed the expected number of events in the $`i`$-th bin, $`N_i^{\text{theo}}`$, as

$$N_i^{\text{theo}}=𝑑E_\nu \sigma (E_\nu )\underset{k}{}\varphi _k(E_\nu )P_{\nu _e\nu _e}_i𝑑ER(E,E^{}),$$
(2)
where $`R(E,E^{})`$ is the energy resolution function, $`E`$ the observed and $`E^{}`$ the true $`e^+`$ energy, with the energy resolution $`7.5\%/\sqrt{E(\text{MeV})}`$. Here $`\sigma (E_\nu )`$ is the neutrino interaction cross-section and $`\varphi _k`$ is the neutrino flux from the $`k`$-th power reactor, we have included all reactors with baseline smaller than 350 km in the sum. $`P_{\nu _e\nu _e}P_{\overline{\nu }_e\overline{\nu }_e}`$ (if CPT is conserved, which we will assume here) is the familiar neutrino survival probability in vacuum (the matter effect is negligible here), which is equal to one in case of no oscillation, and explicitly depends on $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$.

We were able to compute the region, in the $`(\mathrm{tan}^2\theta ,\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)`$ plane, allowed by the KamLAND spectrum data, by minimizing with respect to these free parameters, the $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2`$ function defined as $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2=\chi _\text{G}^2+\chi _\text{P}^2`$ with

$$\chi _\text{G}^2=\underset{i}{}\frac{(N_i^{\text{theo}}N_i^{\text{obs}})^2}{\sigma _i^2},$$
(3)
and

$$\chi _\text{P}^2=\underset{j}{}2(N_j^{\text{theo}}N_j^{\text{obs}})+2N_j^{\text{obs}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{N_j^{\text{obs}}}{N_j^{\text{theo}}},$$
(4)
where $`\sigma _i=\sqrt{N_i^{\text{obs}}+(0.0642N_i^{\text{obs}})^2}`$ is the statistical plus systematic uncertainty in the number of events in the $`i`$-th bin and the sum in $`i(j)`$ is done over the bins having 4 or more (less than 4) events. We have also computed the allowed regions using purely Gaussian or Poissonian $`\chi ^2`$ functions and found that the hybrid $`\chi ^2`$ definition above could reproduce better KamLAND’s allowed regions kamland . Therefore, we have prefered to use it in our paper (see also Ref. valle ).

Using this $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2`$ we have computed the allowed region at 90%, 95%, 99% and 99.73% C.L. shown in Fig. 2, which are quite consistent with the ones obtained by the KamLAND group in Fig. 6 of Ref. kamland . In our fit we obtained a $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2(\text{min})=5.4`$ for 11 d.o.f (91 % C.L.), corresponding to the best fit values $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=7.0\times 10^5`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta =0.79`$.

### II.3 Combined Results

Combining the results of all solar experiments with KamLAND data we have obtained the allowed region showed in Fig. 3. The minimum value of $`\chi _{\text{tot}}^2=\chi _{}^2+\chi _{\text{KL}}^2`$ for the combined fit is $`\chi _{\text{tot}}^2(\text{min})=43.6`$ for 60 d.o.f (94.5 % C.L.), corresponding to the best fit values $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=7.1\times 10^5`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta =0.42`$. We observe that there are two separated regions which are allowed at 99 % C.L.: a lower one in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ (region 1) where the global best fit point is located, and an upper one (region 2) where the local best fit values are $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=1.5\times 10^4`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta =0.41`$, corresponding to $`\chi _{\text{loc}}^2(\text{min})=49.2`$. We observe that depending on the definition of $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2`$ (gaussian, poisson or hybrid) used, a third tiny region above $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=2\times 10^4`$ eV2 appears at 99.73% C.L. However, apart from this small change, the combined allowed region is not essentially affected by the $`\chi _{\text{KL}}^2`$ used.

In Fig. 4 we show the theoretically predicted energy spectra at KamLAND for no oscillation, the best fit values of the oscillation parameters for KamLAND data alone and for KamLAND combined with solar data in regions 1 and 2. We note that the fourth energy bin, which is for the moment below the analysis cut, can be quite important in determining the values of the oscillation parameters in the future.

## III Future Perspectives

In this section we consider the effect of possible experimental improvements which can help in determining the oscillation parameters with more accuracy in the future. We first consider a reduction of the error in the SNO neutral-current measurement then an increase of event statistics in KamLAND.

### III.1 Effect of reducing SNO neutral-current error

In order to constrain the solar neutrino oscillation parameters even more, in particular, to decide in which of the 99% C.L. islands $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ really lie, we have investigated the effect of increasing the SNO neutral-current data precision to twice its current value. We have re-calculated the region, in the $`(\mathrm{tan}^2\theta ,\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)`$ plane, allowed by all current solar neutrino data, artificially decreasing the SNO NC measurement error but keeping the current central value, as well as the other solar neutrino data, unchanged. The result can be seen in Fig. 6. The best fit point and the value of $`\chi _{}^2`$(min) remain practically unchanged with respect to the result obtained in Sec. II.1, but the allowed region shrinks significantly. This is because the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino flux normalization, which can be directly inferred from SNO NC measurements, gets more constrained. Combining this with KamLAND data we obtain the allowed region shown in Fig. 6. We observe that this allowed region is substantially smaller compared to the one shown in Fig. 3. Moreover, region 2 only remains at 99% C.L.

### III.2 Effect of increasing KamLAND statistics

We simulate the expected KamLAND spectrum after one year of data taking for three distinct assumptions. We have generated KamLAND future data compatible with the best fitted values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$ obtained for : (a) KamLAND data alone, (b) KamLAND and current solar neutrino data in region 1 and (c) KamLAND and current solar neutrino data in region 2. We have also included an extra bin, corresponding to the fourth bin in Fig. 4. We have re-calculated the region allowed by the combined fit with the current solar neutrino data in each case.

The results of our calculations can be seen in Figs. 8-9. If the future KamLAND result is close to the current one (see Fig. 8), values of $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$ larger than the ones allowed now will be possible and region 2 will be excluded at 99% C.L. For this case we have obtained $`\chi _{\text{tot}}^2`$(min) $`=42.1`$. On the other hand, if the future KamLAND data are more compatible with the current best fit point of solar neutrino data (see Fig. 8), the global allowed region will diminish substantially with respect to Fig. 3 and region 2 will only remain at 99% C.L. For this case we have obtained $`\chi _{\text{tot}}^2`$(min) $`=39.1`$. Finally, if after one year KamLAND data is more compatible with region 2 (see Fig. 9) then one should observe an increase towards larger values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ in the combined allowed region with respect to the one shown in Fig. 3. In this case region 1 and 2 will have similar statistical significance, corresponding to $`\chi _{\text{tot}}^2`$(min) $`44.0`$.

## IV Discussions and Conclusion

We have performed a combined analysis of the complete set of solar neutrino data with the recent KamLAND result in a two neutrino flavor oscillation scheme. We have obtained, in agreement with other groups outros , two distinct islands, denominated regions 1 and 2, in the $`(\mathrm{tan}^2\theta ,\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)`$ plane, which are the most probable regions where the true values of these parameters lie. Region 1, where the global best fit point was found, is around $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=7.1\times 10^5`$ eV2, while region 2 is around $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2=1.5\times 10^4`$ eV2.

We have considered two possible future improvements in the determination of the neutrino oscillation parameters. First, we have investigated the effect of a 50 % decrease in the error of the SNO NC measurement. We have shown that this would substantially reduce the allowed parameter region when combined with KamLAND data. In particular, region 2 would not be allowed at 95% C.L. anymore.

Second, we have studied what can happen in the near future, when KamLAND collects 1 year of data. We have simulated the expected KamLAND spectrum including an extra lower bin, corresponding to the fourth bin in Fig. 3. Three different cases were studied in combination with the present solar neutrino data. In the first case, we have assumed that the future KamLAND spectrum will be compatible with oscillation parameter values at the best fit point for the present KamLAND data alone. This is the most restrictive case for region 2. In the second case, we have considered that future data will be more compatible with the present best fit point for the solar neutrino experiments. In this case, the combined allowed region will be much smaller than the present one and region 2 will be only allowed at 99% C.L. Finally, in the third case, we have assumed that the future KamLAND data will be compatible with the local best fit point in region 2. In this case, the combined allowed region will suffer an increase towards larger values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and region 1 and 2 will both have similar statistical significance.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Conselho Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (CNPq).