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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Too much of a good think may be bad. We know this from alcoholic drinks; few readers have lost as much money as Bill Gates did in 2000; and antibiotics not only saved many human lives but also created resistant strains of bacteria. Our immune system protects us against many diseases but may also go wrong and attack the own body, leading e.g. to many allergic reactions. Allergic reactions are unexpected reactions that are not caused by the normal action of the medicine and are due to stimulation of the immune system by the drug. The immune system may react in a variety of ways, most commonly by causing proliferation of lymphocytes which form antibodies. Antibodies may cause reactions when they combine with the drug.

The present note tries to model something similar: If we apply too much of a medicine strengthening our immune system, can it cause the immune cells to attack “everything” including healthy tissue, besides attacking the foreign antigen (infectious disease)? The antigen-specific immunoglobulin interacts with mast cells to protect the host against the invading parasite. However, the same antibody-cell combination is also responsible for typical allergy or immediate hyper-sensitivity reactions such as hay fever, asthma, hives and anaphylaxis.

Presumably many immunological models  would give such an effect. To avoid adding another example to the already large number of immunology models of the last decades, we selected a variant of the de Boer-Segel-Perelson model , which has been cited well in the last decade. We use one of the simplifications of  called BSP II there; since an even simpler version, BSP III, has been criticised , we take a somewhat more complicated and realistic version BSP II and explain it in the next section. Thereafter we bring our results and summarise our findings.

## 2 Model

The immune repertoire is represented by a five-dimensional shape space of linear dimension $`L`$ containing $`L^5`$ possible types of antibodies, which the immune cells may produce to fight against as many possible types of antigens. Each of the five dimensions corresponds to give different criteria (length, electric charge, curvature, …) by which our immune system characterises the antigen; for L = 7 this parameter may take the values $`x=3,2,1,0,1,2,3`$. The five components $`x`$ then give a five-dimenensional vector $`𝐫`$ such that the null vector is the lattice centre. Just as a key has to fit a lock, apart from minor scratches, the antibody has to be complementary to the antigen in order to detect and neutralise it. Thus an antigen with $`x=2`$ may be killed by an antibody with $`x=+2`$; more generally an antigen at a position –r in the shape space is neutralised by its complementary antibody at a position r, or by very similar antibodies. We define as very similar the ten nearest neighbours of r, which differ from the fully complementary site r only by a Hamming distance of one; but each of these ten neighbours contributes only one tenth as much to the immune response as the fully complementary r. Thus if $`b(𝐫)`$ is the concentration of B cells (producing antibodies) at a site $`𝐫`$ of the shape space, then

$$h(𝐫)=b(𝐫)+0.1\underset{n}{}b(𝐫_𝐧)$$
$`(1)`$
is the influence of the immune system on the site –r; the sum runs over the ten neighbours $`𝐫_𝐧`$ of r.

Following the Weber-Fechner law of physiology, that effects increase often only logarithmic with concentration or physical amplitude, we assume the concentrations $`b`$ to vary exponentially:

$$b=e^B$$
$`(2)`$
where the B’s are integers varying between 0 and 20. The rule for our simultaneous updating is: $`B`$ increases by one if and only if the influence $`h`$ at that site in the shape space lies between two thresholds $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$; otherwise it decreases by one. (If $`B`$ is zero it stays at zero; parameters were chosen such that $`B`$ does not surpass 20). The “naive” immune system thus has $`B=0`$ everywhere, i.e. only one B cell per a possible shape. This threshold automata rule mimics the bell-shaped natural immune response. Now we completed the definition of model BSP II.

(Actually the BSP model does not deal with antigen-antibody reactions but with the underlying idiotypic-antiidiotypic reactions within the immune network; therefore a field $`h`$ of the proper value $`\theta _1<h<\theta _2`$ increases and not decreases the corresponding $`b`$ and $`B`$.)

Initially we put the whole lattice to $`B=0`$ except at one line of length $`L`$ or one hyper-plane of $`L^4`$ sites; this initialisation models the initial response to a specific antigen. We then ask whether this initial response remains small and localised around the initial region, or becomes large by spreading over the whole lattice. We thus monitor the sum

$$S=\underset{𝐫}{}b(𝐫)$$
$`(3)`$
over the whole lattice; since our initially excited region is relatively small, it does not matter whether or not we subtract from this overall sum the sum over only the initially excited region. Thus a healthy localised immune response means $`S/L^51`$ while a dangerous over-reaction means $`S/L^51`$. Our simulations below show a clear separation between these two behaviours. Fortran programs are available from anap@phys.uni-sofia.bg and stauffer@thp.uni-koeln.de.

To simulate the dangers of excessive medication we assume that the medicine helps the immune system by increasing the window between $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _2`$ within which the immune response is positive. We made a test where the medication takes effect only after a few interactions (much shorter delays than in the aging studies of ) and then found the results to be the same as if the medication effects start with the beginning of the simulation. Thus all simulations reported below use one time-independent pair of thresholds, with smaller $`\theta _2/\theta _1`$ corresponding to no medication, and larger $`\theta _2/\theta _1`$ to the effect of medicine. At what threshold $`\theta _2`$, for fixed $`\theta _1`$, does the system switch from healthy localised to dangerous, huge, spreading immune response?

## 3 Results

Figure 1 shows how the number of $`B`$ cells per site varies as a function of the second threshold $`\theta _2`$ for a $`\theta _1`$ equal to 10. The antigen presentation was simulated by randomizing one line of length $`L`$, while all other sites were set to $`B=0`$. The results usually indicate that for $`\theta _2=5\theta _1`$ the $`B`$ cell concentration stays small while for $`\theta _2=10\theta _1`$ it spreads. This general trend can be violated in some cases, see the caption to Fig.1. The constant value (the plateau) is higher for an overdosed drug, meaning that the system memorises the amount of medicine absorbed. Figure 2 shows two phase transitions a a function of $`\theta 2`$.

The initial configuration with randomly flipped sites in one hyper-plane models a higher response than previously. We observe different time behaviours of the system depending on both the ratio $`R=\theta _1/\theta _2`$ and the $`\theta _1`$-value.

If the first threshold $`\theta _1`$ is 50, then the number of $`B`$-cells remains basically unchanged for $`R`$ less or equal to 5, increases smoothly for $`R`$ about 10, or has a prominent peak for $`R`$ about 20. The time at which the number of $`B`$ cells reaches its maximum value increases with the $`\theta _2`$-value, Fig.3.

A similar study with small $`\theta _1`$-values (5,10) shows an opposite time dependence: the peak appears at shorter times with the $`R`$-increase, Fig.4. However, the shapes change similarly, i.e. a smooth increase to the maximum $`B`$-value for $`R=5,10`$. Note that a healthy response (one $`B`$ cell per a site) is observed for much smaller $`R`$-values, about 2, e.g. for a narrower window. This is a general trend, the smaller $`\theta _1`$-value, the narrower window for a healthy response.

A different time-dependence of the immune response is sometimes observed: for example, if $`\theta _1`$ = 30 and $`R`$ = 20, the number of the $`B`$ cells increases again after some time being almost constant (at a plateau), Fig.5. Thus it seems that the model is able to describe the ’unhealthy’ response of the immune system to drugs if a specific time of treatment is surpassed.

## 4 Summary

Using a variant of the well-established BSP model we show that a properly working immune system may go wrong completely and attack “everything” if the second threshold is increased too much. This phase transition may explain some autoimmune diseases arising from medication.

This work was supported by the Sofia-Cologne university partnership. We thank R.M. Zorzenon dos Santos for encouragement.


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# The New Object Oriented Analysis Framework For H1

## I Introduction

H1 is an experiment at the electron proton collider HERA at DESY (Germany), which started collecting data in 1992. Essential parts of the analysis software architecture as well as the basic data model were established ten years ago. Like most of the high energy physics experiments at that time H1 used FORTRAN based packages such as BOS BOS  and FPACK for data storage and access. Physics analysis were performed on so-called n-tuples using HBOOK HBOOK  and PAW PAW . After the HERA and H1 upgrade in the year 2000, the increased luminosity put new demands on data storage and data handling. Therefore, the H1 Collaboration has decided to move towards a new technology and to develop an analysis environment which should:

* lower turn around time for physics analysis
* provide a unique, modern, extendable and re-usable framework
* incorporate and support all H1 physics analyses
* standardize the physics algorithms, e.g. kinematic reconstruction, selection criteria, particle identifications etc.
* provide one unique code reference and therefore facilitate exchange of information between different analysis groups
* make expert knowledge reusable by non-experts and lower the threshold of starting a new analysis
* provide a faster, more efficient access to the data
* make doing analyses in H1 more attractive to students

To cope with these requirements, the H1 Collaboration chose to base its analysis software on the object oriented analysis framework RooT ROOT . RooT is based on C++ and provides software for all aspects related to physics analysis (i.e. processing, storing and visualizing data). In addition a C++ interpreter allows interactive use of the framework within the same scripting language.

## II The data storage model

In order to standardize physics analysis and to take full advantage of the new partial event reading capability of the RooT framework a four layer data structure has been implemented.

* ODS ($`ObjectDataStore`$): This layer is a 1-1 copy of the reconstruction output formerly called ’Data Summary Tape’ (DST). It contains reconstructed tracks, clusters as well as important detector informations. Even though this layer can be stored persistently, the standard is to produce it transiently from DST. This way people doing analysis in the old and those using the new framework can work in parallel without having to store the same information twice. The size of ODS objects is of the order of 13 kb/event.
* $`\mu `$ODS ($`\mu ObjectDataStore`$): On $`\mu `$ODS 4-vectors of physical particles and particle candidates are stored (see fig. 1). The sum of all particle candidates provides a 4 $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ coverage of the solid angle around the reconstructed vertex and there is no double counting of energy. Each of the particles stores also a pointer to the ODS-tracks and clusters that it was build from.
The identified, physical particles contain all particle information and some specific detector informations that was used to identify the particle or that might be necessary for further specification during physics analysis. Composed particles (as for example jets or J/Psi particles) are stored in a special class containing pointers to the related particle candidates or identified particles. With the provided information, the $`\mu `$ODS is largely sufficient for most analysis purposes. A mean amount of 3 kb/event has been achieved.
* HAT: The HAT (’H1 Analysis Tag’) contains event summary level information, such as event kinematics and particle multiplicities. All variables are stored as basic types. The main purpose it to allow a fast event selection (“tagging”) for each of the physics analysis. The size is 0.4 kb/event.
* UserTree: To persistenly store user specific information that is not already stored on official data layers a so-called “user-tree” is supported by the framework.

The ODS layer is filled transiently using DST information only. The $`\mu `$ODS is filled by the physics algorithm detailed in the section IV. New $`\mu `$ODS and HAT are centrally produced whenever new analysis algorithms or calibration results are available.

## III The data access

The data access is implemented in a set of skeleton classes which were developed by following the three main requirements:

* the user has only one single event loop (synchronization of the different layers is transparent to the user)
* a transparent access to the different levels of the data: ’Smart’ accessor functions allow to retrieve information about event and particle attributes across boundaries of different files, e.g. $`\mu `$ODS-to-ODS.
* the access to the data is partial, e.g. accessing a cluster on ODS from $`\mu `$ODS should not require to read the full ODS event.

These requirements are implemented in the class ’H1Tree’ and some helper classes by using different RooT trees in parallel, one for each storage level. One of these helper classes is ’H1EventList’ which is based on the RooT TEventList and facilitates the access to events according to user selection. H1EventList allows to cumulate different selections and to select data on each layer.

## IV The physics algorithm

As H1 is a running experiment with an increasing flow of new data, it is essential that the quality and precision of these physics analysis be sustained. Therefore the first goal was, while learning from the already existing algorithms in FORTRAN, to develop and implement algorithms in the new framework with better performances than the old ones. To ensure quality and extendibility of the new analysis software, a modular organization of loosely physics algorithms is essential. The aim is to allow for routines developed in particular user analyses to be integrated in the official production code and in addition to facilitate the physics analysis and to lower the turn-around time for beginners. Modularity and portability is a prerequisite for the goal that the best knowledge of all physics working groups in H1 be propagated into one common framework. The interface between the filling code and the physics algorithms is structured such that the addition of new algorithms involves minimal changes to the software. Technically the algorithms are implemented in separate classes that obey the same interface. The running is divided into two steps:

* First, the particle finders reconstruct the identified particles and the particle candidates using ODS objects only.
* In a second step, the composed particle identifiers run on the already reconstructed particles.

The first category of finders comprises an electron, muon, hadron and photon finder. They are based on the already existing algorithms in fortran and show the same performances in terms of quality and precision. In the second category of finders, a jet finder using a $`K_T`$ algorithm as well as a J/$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, a $`D^{}`$ and K0 have been implemented and validated. In future, new particle finder could easely be integrated in the new scheme and the existings ones are continuously be improved.

## V The event display

A new event display has been developed. It is an application based on the new physics analysis framework and thus allows for the direct dialogue between the analysis part (e.g. event selection and histogramming) and visual inspection of events. The display was originally derived from the Alice 3D RooT display. Thanks to the RooT Run Time Information (RTTI), objects on the screen can be picked and inspected, thus accessing the physics information. Graphics sliders can be used to apply selections such that only relevant objects for a certain analysis are displayed. A new feature is the possibility to display the particle 4-vectors stored on $`\mu `$ODS on top of the detector objects. For instance, one could display the 4-vectors of particles (different particle types are displayed in different colours) on top of the detector information and require minimum transverse momentum for all particles by moving a graphic slider. One advantage of the new display is his full backward compatibility to the old 2D command-line base program based on LOOK LOOK . Existing code containing expert knowledge about detector details is reused, thus fully integrating the functionality of the previous display. A new parser for the ’LOOK’-macro language was written in C++. It is possible to display event information stored in RooT files as well as information stored in the former DST format. Raw information, like for example the hit information of a reconstructed track, could therefore easely be retrieved. The new program combines modern features, such as the GUI, the click and inspect options and the 3D-display with the advantages of the old display.

## VI Summary

A new analysis framework based on object oriented programming techniques has been succesfully introduced. The key to this success was the clear definition of the scope of the project:

* A code development group takes care of the technical challenges, such as encapsulation of the data handling. The physics working groups develop algorithms and add their code via well defined interfaces. The main reconstruction algorithms have been implemented, tested and validated.
* The end users obtain a nice and easy-to-use product integrating all analysis specific tools into one single framework.

The physics analysis all greatly profit from the new and enhanced analysis environment. The framework is widely accepted within the Collaboration: almost all of the new starting analyses are based on the framework. It is in addition used for the official data quality checks.


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# Neutrino processes in the 𝐾⁰ condensed phase of color flavor locked quark matter

## I Introduction

At high baryon density, where the baryon chemical potential $`\mu `$ is very large compared to the strange quark mass $`m_s`$, three flavor quark matter is expected to be in a symmetric phase called the Color Flavor Locked (CFL) phase, in which BCS like pairing involves all nine quarks Alford:1998mk . This, color superconducting, phase is characterized by a gap in the quark excitation spectrum. Model calculations indicate that the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }100`$ MeV for a quark chemical potential $`\mu 500`$ MeV Alford:1998zt ; Rapp:1998zu . In this phase, the $`SU(3)_{\mathrm{color}}\times SU(3)_L\times SU(3)_R\times U(1)_B`$ symmetry of QCD is broken down to the global diagonal $`SU(3)`$ symmetry. The lightest excitations in this phase are the nonet of pseudo-Goldstone bosons transforming under the unbroken, global diagonal $`SU(3)`$ as an octet plus a singlet and a massless mode associated with the breaking of the global $`U(1)_B`$ symmetry. At lower density, those that are of relevance to neutron stars, the baryon chemical potential $`\mu `$ is similar to $`m_s`$. At these densities, the strange quark mass induces a stress on the SU(3) flavor symmetric CFL state. Bedaque and Schafer Bedaque:2001je  have shown that the stress induced by the strange quark mass can result in the condensation of neutral kaons in the CFL state. This less symmetric phase, which is called the CFLK0 phase, breaks hypercharge $`U(1)_Y`$ and isospin symmetries and we can expect its low energy properties to be quite distinct from the CFL phase. For a detailed discussion of various meson condensed phases in CFL quark matter and their possible role in compact stars see Ref. Kaplan:2001qk .

In this article we extend earlier work (see Refs. Reddy:2002xc ; Jaikumar:2002vg ) on neutrino emission and propagation rates in the CFL phase to the CFLK0 phase. As discussed in detail in these aforementioned references, novel phases inside compact stars, if they should exist, influence the stars thermal evolution. In particular, neutrino production and propagation rates in these novel phases can directly influence observable aspects such as the supernova neutrino emission rate and longer term neutron star cooling rates Prakash:2000jr .

## II Thermodynamics of the CFLK0 Phase

The low energy excitations about the $`SU(3)`$ symmetric CFL ground state can be written in terms of the two fields: $`B=H/(\sqrt{24}f_H)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=e^{2i(\pi /f_\pi +\eta ^{}/f_A)}`$, representing the Goldstone bosons of broken baryon number $`H`$, and of broken chiral symmetry, the pseudo-scalar octet $`\pi `$, and the pseudo-Goldstone boson $`\eta ^{}`$, arising from broken approximate $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry. The leading terms of the effective Lagrangian describing the octet Goldstone boson field $`\pi `$ is given by

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}f_\pi ^2\left[\mathrm{Tr}_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}v^2\mathrm{Tr}\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right]`$ (1)
$`+f_\pi ^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}\stackrel{~}{M}\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\chi }{2}}\mathrm{Tr}M\left(\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\right)\right],`$
$`\mathrm{where}`$ $`_0\mathrm{\Sigma }=_0\mathrm{\Sigma }i\left[(\mu _QQX_L)\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Sigma }(\mu _QQX_R)\right].`$
The decay constant $`f_\pi =0.21\mu `$ has been computed previously Son:2000cm  and is proportional to the quark chemical potential. The quark mass matrix $`M=\mathrm{diag}(m_u,m_d,m_s)`$. $`X_{L,R}`$ are the Bedaque-Schafer terms: $`X_L=\frac{MM^{}}{2\mu },X_R=\frac{M^{}M}{2\mu },`$ $`\stackrel{~}{M}=|M|M^1`$ and $`\mu _Q`$ is the electric charge chemical potential associated with the unbroken $`U(1)`$ in the CFL phase . A finite baryon chemical potential breaks Lorentz invariance of the effective theory. The temporal and spatial decay constants can thereby differ. This difference is encoded in the velocity factor $`v`$ being different from unity. An explicit calculation shows that $`v=1/\sqrt{3}`$ and is common to all Goldstone bosons, including the massless $`U(1)_B`$ Goldstone bosonSon:2000cm . At asymptotic densities, where the instanton induced interactions are highly suppressed and the $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry is restored, the leading contributions to meson masses arise from the Tr$`\stackrel{~}{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ operator whose coefficient $`a`$ has been computed and is given by $`a=3\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}`$ Son:2000cm ; Schafer:2001za . At densities of relevance to neutron stars the instanton interaction may become relevant. In this case a $`\overline{q}q`$ condensate is induced Manuel:2000wm ; Schafer:2002ty . Consequently, the meson mass can receive a contribution from the operator Tr$`M\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Its coefficient, $`\chi `$, at low density is poorly known and is sensitive to the instanton size distribution and form factors. Although, conservative current estimates indicates that the instanton contribution to the $`K^0`$ mass for $`\mu 400`$ MeV lies in the range $`5120`$ MeV theory favors a value that is $`\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }30`$ MeV Schafer:2002ty . The $`\eta ^{}`$ mass is also poorly known at moderate density. The contribution to the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass due to the $`U(1)_A`$ anomaly, which does not vanish in the chiral limit, is not known. If this contribution is negligible, the neutral $`\pi ^0`$, $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mix due to the explicit breaking of SU(3)flavor by the quark masses. In our investigation here we will assume that the anomalous contribution to the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass is large and that the $`\eta ^{}`$ decouples from the low energy theory. We will return to comment on how a light $`\eta ^{}`$ will affect our results in §IV.

The meson masses, written in terms of the coefficients a and $`\chi `$ are given by

$`m_{\pi ^\pm }^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_u+m_d)m_s+\chi (m_u+m_d)`$ (2)
$`m_{K^\pm }^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_u+m_s)m_d+\chi (m_u+m_s)`$ (3)
$`m_{K^0}^2`$ $`=`$ $`a(m_d+m_s)m_u+\chi (m_d+m_s).`$ (4)
The dispersion relations for Goldstone modes in the CFL phase are unusual, as will become clear from the following discussion. They are easily computed by expanding the effective Lagrangian to second order in meson fields

$`E_{\pi ^\pm }(p)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{\pi _\pm }^2}E_{K^+}(p)=X+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{K^+}^2}`$
$`E_K^{}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`X+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_K^{}^2}E_{K^0}(p)=X+\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{K^0}^2},`$ (5)
where $`X=m_s^2/2\mu `$. We note that in deriving the above relations we have neglected terms of order $`m_{\mathrm{light}}^2/\mu `$ since they are negligible compared to all other relevant scales in the problem, namely $`\mu ,m_s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Meson dispersion relations violate Lorentz invariance and the induced effective chemical potential arising from the analysis of Bedaque and Schafer Bedaque:2001je  breaks the energy degeneracy of the kaons and anti-kaons. In Ref. Reddy:2002xc  we had chosen the instanton contribution to the $`K^0`$ mass is $`50`$ MeV (corresponding to $`\chi 15`$ MeV) at $`\mu =400`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV. For this choice the kaon mass is too large to allow for $`K^0`$ condensation. If the instanton contribution is small at $`\mu 400`$ MeV, the CFL phase becomes unstable to $`K^0`$ condensation when $`E_{K^0}(p=0)<0`$ or $`Xm_{K^0}`$Bedaque:2001je . In this article, wherein we investigate weak interaction processes in the $`K^0`$ condensed phase we assume that the instanton contribution is negligible at $`\mu =400`$ MeV and set $`\chi =0`$. Furthermore, the numerical results we present in subsequent sections will be for the specific choice of $`\mu =400`$ MeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV, $`m_u=3.75`$ MeV, $`m_d=7.5`$ MeV and $`m_s=150`$ MeV.

In the CFLK0 phase the ground state expectation value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\mathrm{𝟏}`$ (in the symmetric CFL phase the expectation value of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{𝟏}`$). As discussed in Ref. Kaplan:2001qk , the CFLK0 phase is characterized by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_0=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{cos}\theta & i\mathrm{sin}\theta \\ 0& i\mathrm{sin}\theta & \mathrm{cos}\theta \end{array}\right],$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta =m_{K^0}^2/X^2`$ and the number density of condensate $`n_{K^0}=f_\pi ^2X\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$.

To study the spectrum of low energy excitations in this phase we perturb about this new ground state Schafer:2001bq . We can incorporate the effect of the background kaon condensate by replacing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{exp}(2i\pi /f_\pi )`$ by $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\xi \mathrm{\Sigma }\xi `$ in Eq. 1 111This simple parameterization was originally suggested by David Kaplan, see also Ref. Kryjevski:2002ju ., where $`\xi =\sqrt{\mathrm{\Sigma }_0}`$. The matrix $`\pi =\pi _aT_a`$ where $`T_{a=\mathrm{1..8}}`$ are the generators of SU(3) and $`\pi _{a=\mathrm{1..8}}`$ are real scalar fields characterizing the excitations about the CFLK0 phase. Replacing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ in Eq. 1 and expanding to quadratic order in the fields $`\pi _{a=\mathrm{1..8}}`$, we obtain the leading order Lagrangian

$``$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}[_t\pi _t\pi ]v^2\mathrm{Tr}[\pi \pi ]i\mathrm{Tr}[_t\pi ([\mu _r,\pi ]+[\mu _l,\pi ])]`$ (7)
$``$ $`\mathrm{Tr}[[\mu _r,\pi ][\mu _l,\pi ]]a\mathrm{Tr}[(\stackrel{~}{M_l}+\stackrel{~}{M_r})\pi ^2]\chi \mathrm{Tr}[(M_l+M_r)\pi ^2].`$
where

$`\mu _r`$ $`=\xi (\mu _QQ+X_R)\xi ^{}`$ $`\mu _l`$ $`=\xi ^{}(\mu _QQ+X_L)\xi `$ (8)
$`\stackrel{~}{M_r}`$ $`=\xi ^{}\mathrm{det}MM^1\xi ^{}`$ $`\stackrel{~}{M_l}`$ $`=\xi \mathrm{det}MM^1\xi `$ (9)
$`M_r`$ $`=\xi ^{}M\xi ^{}`$ $`M_l`$ $`=\xi M\xi .`$ (10)
The equations of motion for the fields $`\pi _{a=1\mathrm{}8}`$ are given by

$`(\omega ^2v^2k^2)\pi _a`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa _{ab}\pi _b`$
$`\kappa _{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}[[\mu _l,t_a][\mu _r,t_b]+[\mu _l,t_b][\mu _r,t_a]]`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`\omega \mathrm{Tr}[t_b[(\mu _l+\mu _r),t_a]t_a[(\mu _l+\mu _r),t_b]]`$
$`+`$ $`a\mathrm{Tr}[(\stackrel{~}{M_l}+\stackrel{~}{M_r})(t_at_b+t_bt_a)]`$
$`+`$ $`\chi \mathrm{Tr}[(M_l+M_r)(t_at_b+t_bt_a)],`$
where $`\omega ,k`$ are the energy and momenta of the propagating modes.

Mixing arising due to non-diagonal components of $`\kappa _{ab}`$ is sparse. Spontaneous breaking of $`U(1)_Y`$ in the $`K^0`$ condensed phase leads to strong mixing between $`K^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0`$ states. The dispersion relations for these neutral kaons are given by

$`\omega _{K_1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`v^2p^2+{\displaystyle \frac{X^2}{2}}\left[(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )\sqrt{(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )^2+16\mathrm{cos}^2\theta {\displaystyle \frac{v^2p^2}{X^2}}}\right]`$ (12)
$`\omega _{K_2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`v^2p^2+{\displaystyle \frac{X^2}{2}}\left[(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )+\sqrt{(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )^2+16\mathrm{cos}^2\theta {\displaystyle \frac{v^2p^2}{X^2}}}\right].`$ (13)
For $`vpX`$ they are given by

$`\omega _{K_1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }{1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }}v^2p^2+{\displaystyle \frac{16\mathrm{cos}\theta ^4}{(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{v^4p^2}{X^2}}+𝒪\left[{\displaystyle \frac{v^6p^6}{X^4}}\right]`$ (14)
$`\omega _{K_2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )X^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1+7\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }{1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }}v^2p^2+{\displaystyle \frac{16\mathrm{cos}\theta ^4}{(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{v^4p^2}{X^2}}+𝒪\left[{\displaystyle \frac{v^6p^6}{X^4}}\right]`$ (15)
The $`K_1`$ mode is the massless Goldstone boson which we expected on general grounds since the ground state breaks hypercharge symmetry. As an aside, we note that when iso-spin is not explicitly broken by the quark masses, the $`K^+`$ is also massless mode and has a quadratic dispersion relation $`\omega _{K^+}=v^2p^2/2Y+(v^4p^4)`$. This latter mode, with its quadratic dispersion relation, has been shown to account for two broken generators and hence alters the number of expected Goldstone modes Schafer:2001bq ; Miransky:2001tw .

In contrast, since $`U(1)_Q`$ remains unbroken the charged kaon (and pion) states do not mix. The dispersion relations for the charged kaons and pions are given by

$`\omega _{K^\pm }`$ $`=`$ $`(Y+\mu _Q)+\sqrt{v^2p^2+Y^2+\delta m^2}`$ (16)
$`\omega _{\pi ^\pm }`$ $`=`$ $`(Z+\mu _Q)+\sqrt{v^2p^2+Z^2+m_{\pi ^+}^2},`$ (17)
where $`Y=X(1+\mathrm{cos}\theta )/2`$, $`Z=X(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )/2`$ and $`\delta m^2=m_{K^+}^2m_{K^0}^2`$. The mass of the $`K^+`$ mode in the CFLK0 phase $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{K^+}=\sqrt{Y^2+\delta m^2}Y`$ and is the lightest charged excitation. When the condensate amplitude is large, i.e. $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 0`$, the $`\pi ^+`$ is also a relatively light excitation with a mass $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{\pi ^+}=\sqrt{Z^2+m_\pi ^2}Z`$.

As discussed in Ref. Reddy:2002xc , differences in the excitation energies of mesons with positive and negative charge will result in a net charge density in the meson gas at finite temperature. With increasing temperature a finite electric charge chemical potential is induced to ensure that matter is electrically neutral. The excess positive electric charge of the meson gas is compensated by electrons with chemical potential $`\mu _e=\mu _Q`$. Fig. 1 shows the excitation energy and the number density of charged mesons (normalized by the photon number density $`n_\gamma =2\zeta (3)T^3/\pi ^2`$) and the electron chemical potential $`\mu _e`$ (normalized by the temperature) as a function of the ambient temperature. The two massless modes, namely the $`H`$ and $`K_1`$ are the most abundant species. The ratio $`n_H/n_\gamma =1/(2v^3)2.6`$, and for $`TX`$ the ratio $`n_{K_1}/n_\gamma =1/v_{K_1}^3`$ where $`v_{K_1}=\sqrt{(1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )/(1+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )}v`$ is the velocity of the $`K_1`$ mode. For $`TX`$ and for the numerical values of the parameters chosen, we find that $`n_{K_1}/n_\gamma 4`$. This indicates that the thermodynamic properties of the CFLK0 phase is dominated by the H and $`K_1`$ modes. The low temperature specific heat of the $`K^0`$ phase is roughly twice as large as the CFL phase.

On general grounds we can expect the amplitude of the kaon condensate to decrease with increasing temperature. A precise calculation of the critical temperature at which the condensate melts is beyond the scope of this work. However, we can make a rough estimate by noting that $`X=m_s^2/2\mu `$ is the important dimensional scale that characterizes the condensate at zero temperature (we assume a robust condensate that $`Xm_{k^0}`$) . A weakly interacting Bose Einstein condensate melts when the thermal wavelength becomes comparable to the inter-particle distance in the ground state. The inter-particle distance in the ground state $`l=(1/n_{K^0})^{1/3}`$ where $`n_{K^0}f_\pi ^2X`$. Numerical values of the parameters employed, we can expect $`T_c\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }50`$ MeV. For $`T`$ small compared to $`T_c`$, it is reasonable to assume that finite temperature effects on the propagation of Goldstone modes in the CFLK0 phase can be ignored. Further, we note that corrections due to thermal loops are suppressed by the factor $`T/f_\pi `$ due to the derivative coupling between the mesons. In the subsequent discussion of weak interaction rates we will restrict ourselves to these low temperatures where $`TT_c\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }f_\pi `$.

## III Neutrino Processes

We now turn to the calculation of weak interaction rates in the CFLK0 phase. To compute the weak couplings of Goldstone modes in the $`K^0`$ phase, which we represented by a $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, we gauge the chiral Lagrangian in the presence of the background field characterized by $`\xi `$. We replace the derivative term of the original Lagrangian by the covariant derivative and this generates the leading order couplings. The gauged chiral Lagrangian is given by

$$=\frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}Tr\left[D_\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }(D^\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi })^{}\right],$$
(18)
where the covariant derivative

$`D_\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }{\displaystyle \frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}}(W_\rho ^+\tau ^++W_\rho ^{}\tau ^{})\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }{\displaystyle \frac{igZ_\rho }{\mathrm{cos}\theta _W}}(\tau _3^W\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{sin}\theta _W[Q,\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }])i\stackrel{~}{e}A_\rho [Q,\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }],`$
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`(_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }+i\left[X_L\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }i\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }X_R\right],\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }),\mathrm{and}`$
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`\xi \mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2i\mathrm{\Phi }}{f_\pi }}\right)\xi .`$ (19)
In the above equation, $`\theta _W`$ is weak mixing angle, $`Q`$ is the quark charge matrix, $`\tau _3^W=1/2\mathrm{diag}(1,1,1)`$ is the weak isospin matrix and $`\tau ^\pm `$ are usual charged current raising and lower operators which include the Cabibo mixing and are given by

$$\tau ^+=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}0& \mathrm{cos}\alpha & \mathrm{sin}\alpha \\ 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right],\tau ^{}=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ \mathrm{cos}\alpha & 0& 0\\ \mathrm{sin}\alpha & 0& 0\end{array}\right].$$
(20)
As discussed earlier the factor $`v=1/\sqrt{3}`$ breaks Lorentz invariance and Minkowski product is given by

$$D_\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }(D^\rho \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi })^{}=D_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }(D^0\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi })^{}v^2\stackrel{}{D}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{D}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Phi })^{}.$$
(21)
Expanding the kinetic term in inverse powers of $`f_\pi `$ we can identify the leading order couplings of the Goldstone modes to the neutral and charged weak currents. At order $`f_\pi `$, the charged current weak interactions is described by

$`_{cc}^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{gf_\pi }{\sqrt{2}}}Tr\left[^R\mathrm{\Phi }\left[\stackrel{~}{\tau }^+W^++\stackrel{~}{\tau }^{}W^{}\right]\right],`$ (22)
$`\mathrm{where}`$
$`_\sigma ^R\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`(_0\mathrm{\Phi }i[\mathrm{\Phi },\xi X_R\xi ^{}],\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }),`$ (23)
$`\stackrel{~}{\tau }^+`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{}\tau ^+\xi \stackrel{~}{\tau }^{}=\xi ^{}\tau ^{}\xi .`$ (24)
We note that the condensate, which introduces mixing between down and strange quarks, modifies the Cabibo suppression of charged current reactions. The rotated raising and lowering operators $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_\pm `$ are given by

$$\stackrel{~}{\tau }^+=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}0& \mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }^{}& \mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }^{}\\ 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right],\stackrel{~}{\tau }^{}=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 0\\ \mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }& 0& 0\\ \mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }& 0& 0\end{array}\right],$$
(25)
where

$`\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}\mathrm{sin}\alpha i\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha ,`$ (26)
$`\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}\mathrm{cos}\alpha i\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}\mathrm{sin}\alpha .`$ (27)
Note, although $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ is complex, $`|\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }|^2+|\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }|^2=1`$.

The Lagrangian describing neutral current interactions at leading order can be obtained similarly from Eq. 19. Here, since $`\xi `$ commutes with both $`\tau _3^W`$ and $`Q`$, we find that

$`_{nc}^{(1)}={\displaystyle \frac{gf_\pi }{\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_W}}Z^\sigma Tr\left[\sigma ^R\mathrm{\Phi }\tau _3^W\right].`$ (28)
### III.1 Neutrino Opacity

Two classes of processes involving mesons contribute to the neutrino opacity. They are $`\nu e\varphi `$ and $`\nu \varphi e`$ where $`\varphi =K^\pm ,\pi ^\pm `$. These processes are kinematically forbidden in the vacuum since meson dispersion relations are restricted to be time-like with $`\omega (p)>p`$. In the medium, where Lorentz symmetry is broken, mesons on mass-shell can acquire a space-like dispersion relation. This allows for novel processes wherein a relativistic neutrino can radiate or absorb mesons Reddy:2002xc . These processes dominate the opacity since they are appear at leading order and are proportional to $`f_\pi `$. Other processes such as $`\nu e\varphi `$ are also possible and their contribution is proportional to the electron/positron density. Further, since there are two relativistic particles in the initial state (typical electrons have momenta $`p3Tm_e`$) the kinematic constraints for producing a meson final state are restrictive. Consequently, the contribution of these reactions is found to be negligible.

The neutral current process involving the massless baryon number Goldstone boson which we label as $`H`$ is identical to that in the CFL phase. The contribution of reactions $`\nu H\nu `$ and $`\nu H\nu `$ to the neutrino opacity have been computed previously Reddy:2002xc  and are given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{256}{45\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{v(1v)^2(1+\frac{v}{4})}{(1+v)^2}}\right]G_F^2f_H^2E_\nu ^3`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu H\nu }(E_\nu )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{128}{3\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{v(1+v)^2}{(1v)}}\right]\left[g_2(\gamma )+{\displaystyle \frac{2vg_3(\gamma )}{(1v)}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+v)g_4(\gamma )}{(1v)}}\right]G_F^2f_H^2E_\nu ^3`$ (30)
where $`\gamma =2vE_\nu /(1v)T`$ and the integrals $`g_n(\gamma )`$ are defined by the relation $`g_n(\gamma )=_0^1𝑑xx^n/(\mathrm{exp}(\gamma x)1)`$. The decay constant for the $`H`$ mode has been derived earlier and is given by $`f_H^2=3\mu ^2/(8\pi ^2)`$. As we shall find below these reactions continue to be the dominant source of opacity in the CFLK0 phase.

To begin, we consider processes involving the $`K^+`$ Goldstone mode since the $`K^+`$ is lightest charged mode. The leading order processes are $`\nu _ee^{}K^+`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_eK^+e^+`$. The matrix element for these processes is given by

$`A_{K^+}`$ $`=`$ $`Gf_\pi \mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu \overline{e}(k_2)\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)\nu (k_1),`$ (31)
$`\mathrm{where}\stackrel{~}{p}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(E_{K^+}+Xt_K,v^2\stackrel{}{p}),P^\mu =(E_\varphi ,\stackrel{}{p}),`$ (32)
$`\mathrm{and}t_K`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\alpha i\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\alpha }{\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }}}\right]\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}`$ (33)
Here $`\alpha `$ is the vacuum Cabibo angle, $`\theta `$ is the condensate amplitude and $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ (see Eq. 27) is the effective Cabibo angle in the $`K^0`$ phase. As discussed earlier, since the $`K^0`$ condensate breaks $`U(1)_Y`$, it modifies the Cabibo suppression of charged current reactions involving kaons. When the condensate amplitude is large corresponding to $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 0`$, the rate of charged current weak reactions involving kaons becomes independent of the $`\alpha `$ and are not Cabibo suppressed.

The opacity or inverse mean free path is defined to be the cross section per unit volume. For the process $`\nu _ee^{}K^+`$ this is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda _{\nu _ee^{}K^+}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2E_1}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^32_{K^+}}\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^32E_2}\underset{spin}{}|A|^2(2\pi )^4(1f_e^{}(E_2))\delta (k_1Pk_2)},`$ (34)
$`\mathrm{where},`$
$`_{K^+}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{v^2p^2+Y^2+\delta m^2},`$ (35)
Note that $`f_e^{}(E_2)=(1+\mathrm{exp}((E_2\mu _e)/T))^1`$ is the Fermi - Dirac distribution function for the electrons and the factor $`(1f_e^{}(E_2))`$ accounts for Pauli blocking of the final state electron. Since $`K^+`$ has a finite mass, neutrinos must have a threshold energy to radiate them. Energy and momentum conservation restrict the initial neutrino energy to have an energy $`E_1E_{\mathrm{th}}`$ given by

$`E_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{y+\delta m^2(1v^2)}y}{(1v^2)}}`$
$`E_{\mathrm{th}}`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{K^+}\mathrm{for}y\delta m^2.`$ (36)
Similarly, the opacity for the process $`\overline{\nu }_e(k_1)K^+(P)e^+(k_2)`$ is given by

$$\frac{1}{\lambda _{\overline{\nu }_eK^+e^+}}=\frac{1}{2E_1}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^32_K^+}f(E_\varphi )\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^32E_2}\underset{spin}{}|A|^2(2\pi )^4(1f_{e^+}(E_2))\delta (k_1+Pk_2)$$
(37)
where $`f_B(E_{K^+})`$ is a Bose distribution function for $`K^+`$ meson and $`f_{e^+}(E_2)=(1+\mathrm{exp}((E_2+\mu _e)/T))^1`$ is the Fermi - Dirac distribution function for the electrons .

Reactions involving other Goldstone bosons make relatively small contributions to the neutrino mean free path because they are heavy compared to the $`K^+`$. Nonetheless, it is straight forward to calculate their contribution to the neutrino mean free path. The amplitude for reactions involving charged pions is obtained by replacing $`\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ and

$$t_Kt_\pi =\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\alpha +i\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\alpha }{\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }}\right]\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}$$
(38)
As noted earlier, for maximal condensation i.e., when $`\mathrm{cos}\theta 0`$, the effective Cabibo angle $`|\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }|=1/\sqrt{2}`$. Consequently, neutrino reactions involving charged pions are mildly suppressed in the $`K^0`$ phase.

Neutral current reactions involving $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$ also contribute to the neutrino opacity. Isospin breaking due to kaon condensation results in a mixing between these states. Like in the vacuum, the $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$ mix in the CFL phase due to isospin breaking arises from $`m_um_d`$. However, since $`m_dm_u`$ is still small compared to other mass scales in the CFL phase, this mixing is small (albeit moderately large compared to mixing in the vacuum). In the CFLK0 phase, we can compute the mixing from Eq.11. The mass matrix for the fields $`\pi _3`$ and $`\pi _8`$ corresponding to the $`\pi _0`$ and $`\eta `$ fields is given by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\kappa _{33}& \kappa _{38}\\ \kappa _{83}& \kappa _{88}\end{array}\right],$$
(39)
where

$`\kappa _{33}`$ $`=`$ $`YZ+a\left[m_dm_sm_um_s{\displaystyle \frac{Y}{X}}+m_um_d{\displaystyle \frac{Z}{X}}\right]`$ (40)
$`\kappa _{88}`$ $`=`$ $`3YZ+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}\left[m_dm_s(1+5{\displaystyle \frac{Y}{X}})+m_um_s(1+5{\displaystyle \frac{Z}{X}})m_um_d\right]`$ (41)
$`\kappa _{38}=\kappa _{83}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}YZ+{\displaystyle \frac{a}{\sqrt{3}}}\left[m_dm_s+m_um_s{\displaystyle \frac{Y}{X}}+m_um_d{\displaystyle \frac{Z}{X}}\right]`$ (42)
The unitary matrix $`U=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\psi & \mathrm{sin}\psi \\ \mathrm{sin}\psi & \mathrm{cos}\psi \end{array}\right]`$ that diagonalizes $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ determines the masses and mixing. The masses $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }}`$ corresponding to the mass eigenstates $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ are given

$$\left[\begin{array}{cc}m_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0}^2& 0\\ 0& m_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }}^2\end{array}\right]=U\mathrm{\Pi }U^1,$$
(43)
and the eigenstates are given by

$$\left[\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0\\ \stackrel{~}{\eta }\end{array}\right]=U\left[\begin{array}{c}\pi _0\\ \eta \end{array}\right].$$
(44)
For the numerical values of parameters chosen in this work, we find that in the CFLK0 phase the mixing angle $`\psi 25^o`$ (in the CFL phase, $`\psi _{\mathrm{CFL}}15^o`$).

The amplitude for the tree level process such as $`\nu \nu \stackrel{~}{\pi }_0`$ and $`\nu \nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ are given by

$`A_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_FC_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}}{\sqrt{2}}}\stackrel{~}{p}^\mu \overline{\nu }(k_2)\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\nu (k_1)`$ (45)
$`\mathrm{where}\stackrel{~}{p}_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(E_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }},v^2\stackrel{}{p}),`$ (46)
and neutral current coupling constants for the mass eigenstates are given by

$$\left[\begin{array}{c}C_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0}C_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }}\end{array}\right]=\left[\begin{array}{c}C_{\pi _0}C_\eta \end{array}\right]U^1,$$
(47)
where $`C_{\pi _0}=1`$ and $`C_\eta =1/\sqrt{3}`$ are the weak (isospin) charges of the $`\pi _0`$ and $`\eta `$ respectively. Contribution to the neutrino mean free path from the emission and absorption of the neutral $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ mesons can be computed using the charged current results in Eq.35 and Eq.37, respectively but with the following substitutions: $`|A|^2|A_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}|^2`$, $`f_e(E_2)f_\nu (E_2)=1/(\mathrm{exp}(E_2/T)+1)`$, and $`_KE_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}=\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}^2}`$.

We present numerical results for neutrino mean free path in the CFLK0 phase at $`\mu =400`$ MeV and for two different temperatures $`T=5`$ MeV and $`T=15`$ MeV. For $`T\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }15`$ MeV we expect that finite temperature corrections to the meson dispersion relations would play a role. As discussed earlier, a rough dimension estimate of the critical temperature at which the $`K^0`$ condensate would melt is give by $`T_c3050`$ MeV. The results we present employ the following numerical values: $`m_u=3.75`$ MeV, $`m_d=7.5`$ MeV, $`m_s=150`$ MeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=100`$ MeV and $`\chi =0`$. The neutrino mean free path for thermal neutrinos ($`E_\nu =\pi T`$) due to different charged and neutral current processes involving chiral Goldstone modes are given in the table below. The results indicate that reactions involving the $`K^+`$ are important.

| process | $`\lambda `$(T=5 MeV) | $`\lambda `$(T=15 MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\nu _eK^+e^{}`$ | 682 m | 42 m |
| $`\overline{\nu }_eK^+e^+`$ | 848 m | 43 m |
| $`\nu _e\pi ^+e^{}`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | 81 m |
| $`\overline{\nu }_e\pi ^+e^+`$ | 8.3 km | 77 m |
| $`\overline{\nu }_eK^{}e^+`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ |
| $`\nu _eK^{}e^{}`$ | $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 10 km | 1.2 km |

| process | $`\lambda `$(T=5 MeV) | $`\lambda `$(T=15 MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\overline{\nu }_e\pi ^{}e^+`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ |
| $`\nu _e\pi ^{}e^{}`$ | $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 10 km | 200 m |
| $`\nu \stackrel{~}{\pi }^0\nu `$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | 6.9 km |
| $`\nu \stackrel{~}{\pi }^0\nu `$ | $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 10 km | 350 m |
| $`\nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }\nu `$ | $`\mathrm{}`$ | 1.6 km |
| $`\nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }\nu `$ | $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 10 km | 146 m |

Since the $`K^+`$ meson is the lightest and hence the most abundant flavor Goldstone mode reactions involving the $`K^+`$ dominate the neutrino opacity. In Fig.2 we show the neutrino mean free path arising due to the dominant processes - those involving the $`H`$ and $`K^+`$ Goldstone modes. The left panel shows the contribution of individual reactions to the neutrino mean free path for thermal neutrinos whose typical energy is $`E_\nu =\pi T`$. The right panel shows the total Roseland averaged mean free paths for the different neutrino species. The Roseland mean free path is defined as

$$\frac{1}{<\lambda _\nu >}=\frac{1}{𝒩}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E_\nu E_\nu ^2\frac{1}{\lambda (E_\nu )}f_\nu (E_\nu ),$$
(48)
where $`𝒩=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E_\nu E_\nu ^2f_\nu (E_\nu )`$ and $`f_\nu (E_\nu )=1/(1+\mathrm{exp}(E_\nu /T))`$ is the distribution function for thermal neutrinos. The neutral current process involving the H mode is common to all neutrinos types, while the process $`\nu _eK^+e^{}`$ is specific to the electron neutrinos and the reaction $`\overline{\nu }_eK^+e^+`$ is specific to the anti-electron neutrinos.

### III.2 Neutrino emissivities

We can compute the rate for these processes as outlined in Ref. Reddy:2002xc . The emissivity is defined to be the rate at which energy is radiated in neutrinos per unit volume. To begin, we consider the emissivity arising due to the decay of charged mesons into electrons(positrons) and anti-neutrinos(neutrinos). The contribution arising due to the decay of charge kaons can be computed using

$`\dot{ϵ}_{K^\pm e^\pm \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3pf_{K^\pm }(E_{K^\pm })}{(2\pi )^32_{K^\pm }}\frac{d^3k_2(1f_{e^\pm })}{(2\pi )^32E_2}}`$ (49)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_1}{(2\pi )^32E_1}|A_{K^\pm e^\pm \nu }|^2(2\pi )^4\delta ^4(PK_1K_2)}`$
where momenta $`P=(E_{K^\pm ,\stackrel{}{p}}),K_2=(E_2,\stackrel{}{k}_2)`$ and $`K_1=(E_1,\stackrel{}{k}_1)`$ are the four momenta of the K±, $`e^\pm `$ and neutrino respectively. The emissivity due to the decay charged pions can also be computed from Eq. 49 with appropriate substitutions for the amplitude and the distribution function. The inverse reactions such as $`K^\pm +e^{}\nu `$ can also be computed by replacing the factor $`1f_{e^\pm }`$ by $`f_e^{}`$ in the above equation. Emissivity due neutral current decays of $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ can be also be calculated using Eq. 49 by making the following substitutions: $`(1f_{e^\pm })1`$, $`A_{K^\pm e^\pm \nu }A_{\stackrel{~}{\pi ^0}/\stackrel{~}{\eta }e^\pm \nu }`$ and $`_{K^\pm }E_{\stackrel{~}{\pi ^0}/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}=\sqrt{v^2p^2+m_{\stackrel{~}{\pi ^0}/\stackrel{~}{\eta }}^2}`$.

| process | $`\dot{ϵ}`$(T=5 MeV) | $`\dot{ϵ}`$(T=15 MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  | ergs/cm3/s | ergs/cm3/s |
| $`K^+e^+\nu _e`$ | $`7.4\times 10^{30}`$ | $`3.5\times 10^{31}`$ |
| $`K^+e^{}\nu _e`$ | $`1.6\times 10^{34}`$ | $`6.9\times 10^{36}`$ |
| $`\pi ^+e^+\nu _e`$ | $`1.4\times 10^{29}`$ | $`3.7\times 10^{30}`$ |
| $`\pi ^+e^{}\nu _e`$ | $`1.1\times 10^{32}`$ | $`1.6\times 10^{36}`$ |

| process | $`\dot{ϵ}`$(T=5 MeV) | $`\dot{ϵ}`$(T=15 MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  | ergs/cm3/s | ergs/cm3/s |
| $`K^{}e^{}\overline{\nu }_e`$ | $`1.4\times 10^{32}`$ | $`1.1\times 10^{35}`$ |
| $`\pi ^{}e^{}\overline{\nu }_e`$ | $`1.0\times 10^{33}`$ | $`2.6\times 10^{35}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }_0\nu \overline{\nu }`$ | $`1.4\times 10^{35}`$ | $`1.1\times 10^{36}`$ |
| $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }\nu \overline{\nu }`$ | $`1.2\times 10^{35}`$ | $`7.1\times 10^{35}`$ |

We present results for the emissivities arising due to the various reactions in the CFLK0 phase. Numerical results are presented in units of ergs/cm3/s and are for chosen values of physical parameters indicated earlier. As expected at low temperature, the lightest mesons dominate the emissivity. However, the decay of the $`K^+`$ meson is not an efficient means of producing neutrinos. This is because the $`K^+`$ has a time-like four momentum only for momenta $`p\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }m_{K^+}`$. Thus, only a small fraction of the thermal $`K^+`$ modes can decay. The inverse reaction $`K^+e^{}\nu `$, on the other hand is more efficient, because in this case, a large fraction of the $`K^+`$ mesons with a space-like dispersion relation contribute. This is also true for reactions involving the $`\pi ^+`$ mode. In contrast the more massive negatively charged modes have time-like dispersion relation over a wider range of momenta and for this reason their decays makes a relevant contribution to the total emissivity. Due to their larger masses these contributions become important at higher temperature. The decay of neutral modes, which have intermediate mass, also make an important contribution to the total emissivity.

## IV Caveats

Prior to discussing how the results of this work will impact supernova and neutron stars we briefly mention a few caveats to the results presented in this work.

The size of the superconducting gap and the instanton induced $`\overline{q}q`$ at these relatively low densities is poorly known. If $`\overline{q}q`$ were large such that the $`Tr[M\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$ contribution to the masses become relevant, then it will affect the mass spectrum of Goldstone modes and thereby directly alter the neutrino rates. In particular, the strange mesons would be too heavy and would decouple from the low energy response.

In this work, we neglected the contribution of the $`\eta ^{}`$ Goldstone mode. This was based on our naive expectation that the anomalous contribution to its mass would be large. If this were not the case, the $`\eta ^{}`$ would be a very light state that would mix with the $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$ mesons Manuel:2000xt . To study how a light $`\eta ^{}`$ Goldstone mode would affect weak interaction rates we have computed the masses and mixing of neutral mesons. In doing so we assumed that only $`Tr[\stackrel{~}{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }]`$ operator contributes to the masses. For the parameters used in this work we find that the eigenstates $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0,\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}`$ have masses given by $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0}=31.5`$ MeV, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }}=29.3`$ MeV and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}}=3.7`$ MeV, respectively. Their neutral current couplings are given by $`C_{\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0}=0.71`$, $`C_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }}=0.29`$ and $`C_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}}=0.96`$, respectively. Due to its small mass and large neutral current coupling the $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}`$ contribution to the neutrino mean free path due to the processes $`\nu +\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}\nu `$ and $`\nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}+\nu `$ are larger than similar reactions involving $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$. At $`T=5`$ MeV: $`\lambda _{\nu +\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}\nu }=2.9`$ km and $`\lambda _{\nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}+\nu }=817`$ m; and at $`T=15`$ MeV: $`\lambda _{\nu +\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}\nu }=101`$ m and $`\lambda _{\nu \stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}+\nu }=177`$ m. This is comparable to the $`K^+`$ contribution to the opacity. The emissivity due to the reaction $`\eta ^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$ is small compared to those due the other neutral mesons. At $`T=5`$ MeV, $`\dot{ϵ}_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}\nu \overline{\nu }}=3.5\times 10^{30}`$ ergs/cm3/s and at $`T=15`$ MeV we find that it is $`\dot{ϵ}_{\stackrel{~}{\eta }^{}\nu \overline{\nu }}=1.1\times 10^{31}`$ ergs/cm3/s.

We have ignored the electromagnetic contribution to the mass of the charged Goldstone modes. Earlier estimates indicate that this could be of the order of a few MeV Hong:2000ng ; Manuel:2000xt ; Kaplan:2001qk . If $`m_{\mathrm{el}}\stackrel{>}{}\text{ }\delta m`$ it would alter our numerical results for the rates involving the $`K^+`$ mode. However, we note that this can be easily incorporated by substituting $`\delta m^2\delta m^2+m_{\mathrm{el}}^2`$. Another source of concern is related to our use of asymptotic expressions for the coefficients of the effective theory.

## V Discussion

We have studied neutrino reactions involving Goldstone bosons in the kaon condensed phase of CFL quark matter. A light and electrically charged $`K^+`$ mode is found to play an important role. The massless neutral kaon mode does not play a role because it does not couple to the neutrinos at leading order. In contrast, the massless mode associated with the breaking of baryon number in the CFL phase is unaffected by kaon condensation and continues to dominate the neutrino opacity. As in the CFL phase Reddy:2002xc , space like propagation of Goldstone modes allows for novel, Cerenkov-like, processes in which neutrinos radiate or absorb Goldstone bosons as they propagate in the medium. The amplitude for these leading order processes is large since they are proportional $`f_\pi \mu `$ . These processes continue to dominate the neutrino opacity.

### V.1 Comparison between CFL and CFLK0 phases:

The mean free path of neutrinos in the CFL and CFLK0 phases are nearly equal. This is one of our main findings. This is because the mean free path in the CFLK0 phase continues to be dominated by the neutral current process involving the U(1)B Goldstone mode. Thus, the main conclusions drawn in Ref.Reddy:2002xc  regarding the temporal aspects of the neutrino signal remain largely unchanged.

Neutrino emission processes arise mainly due to reactions involving massive pseudo-Goldstone modes. Reactions involving only one meson dominate because these amplitudes are proportional $`f_\pi \mu `$. These include decays such as $`K^\pm e^\pm \nu `$, $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0\nu \overline{\nu }`$ and absorption reactions such as $`K^\pm e^{}\nu `$. Reactions involving the $`K^+`$, and the neutral $`\stackrel{~}{\pi }^0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }`$ are dominant at low temperature. We find the neutrino emissivity in the CFLK0 phase to be roughly 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than in the CFL phase for temperatures $`T\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }15`$ MeV. At $`T=5`$ MeV, the emissivity in the CFL phase $`\dot{ϵ}_{\mathrm{CFL}}5\times 10^{33}`$ ergs/ cm3 /s, while in the CFLK0 phase the emissivity $`\dot{ϵ}_{\mathrm{CFLK}^0}3\times 10^{35}`$ ergs/ cm3/s. This enhancement in the CFLK0 phase arises because: (1) on average the Goldstone modes in the CFLK0 phase are lighter and (2) the Cabibo suppression of reactions involving kaons in the CFL phase is greatly alleviated in the CFLK0 phase.

### V.2 Comparisons between CFL/CFLK0 and other phases

Neutrino mean free path in the CFL and CFLK0 phases are typically larger than those nuclear phase. They are similar to those in the unpaired quark matter under similar ambient conditions. At $`T=15`$ MeV and baryon density of $`n_B=5n_0`$, the neutrino mean free path in the CFL$`K^0`$ phases $`\lambda _{\mathrm{CFLK}^0}6`$ m. The dominant neutrino reaction in the nuclear phase is $`\nu +n\nu +n`$ results in a mean free path $`\lambda _{\mathrm{nuclear}}10`$ cm. Under similar conditions the mean free path of neutrinos in unpaired quark matter arising due to neutral current scattering off quarks yields $`\lambda _{\mathrm{unpaired}}13`$ m. We note that these estimates ignore the possible role of strong interaction correlations and account only for the Pauli blocking effects in these reactions. Model calculations have shown that correlations in the nuclear phase can greatly increase the neutrino mean free path (by a factor of 3-5) Horowitz:1991it ; Burrows:1998cg ; Reddy:1998hb . Comparing the mean free paths in these different phases we conclude that the mean free path in unpaired quark and CFL/CFLK0 phases are similar (same order of magnitude) but are roughly about an order of magnitude larger than in the nuclear phase.

The neutrino emissivity in the CFL Jaikumar:2002vg  and CFLK0 phases are exponentially small compared to those in the nuclear phase for $`T1`$ MeV. This is because the meson masses are of the order of a few MeV. The lightest excitation that can contribute to the emissivity is the $`K^+`$ mode in the CFLK0 phase. At $`T=5`$ MeV, the emissivity in the CFL$`K^0`$ phase $`\dot{ϵ}_{\mathrm{CFLK}^0}3\times 10^{35}`$ ergs/cm3/s which is only an order of magnitude smaller than in the unpaired quark phase where $`\dot{ϵ}_{\mathrm{unpaired}}3\times 2\times 10^{36}`$ ergs/cm3/s. At higher temperature the rates become more similar. A general trend we see is that when the temperature become comparable to the mass of the lightest charged particle the rates in the CFL and CFLK0 phases become comparable to those in the unpaired quark phase.

### V.3 Astrophysical Implications

The primary motivation for studying the neutrino mean free paths in dense matter is core collapse supernova. The results obtained here will have little impact on the long term cooling of neutron stars which are characterized by temperatures $`T1`$ MeV. This is because at these low temperatures, the neutrino mean free path is large compared to the size of the neutron star. Massive Goldstone bosons with masses of order a few MeV are negligible and their contribution to the emissivity is exponentially small. In contrast, during the first tens of seconds subsequent to the birth of the neutron star neutrinos carry almost all (99 %) of the Gravitational binding energy ($`10^{53}`$ ergs) stored inside the newly born hot ”neutron” star, with $`T3050`$ MeV. The newly born star is also called the proto-neutron star (PNS). The rate at which neutrinos diffuse and the spectrum with which they decouple from the PNS can affect key aspects of core collapse supernova - the explosion mechanism and r-process nucleosynthesis. For a galactic supernova, the several thousand neutrino events predicted in detectors such as Super Kamiokande and SNO will provide information about the propagation of neutrinos inside the dense PNS. In the discussion that follows we speculate on how some the results obtained in this work might affect core collapse supernova.

Since neutrino mean free path is dominated by neutral current process in the CFL and CFLK0 phases, the mean free path for all six neutrino species are very nearly equal. This is in contrast to what is observed in the neutron-rich nuclear phase. Here, $`\lambda _{\nu _e}\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }\lambda _{\overline{\nu }_e}\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }\lambda _{\nu _{\mu /\tau }}`$. In the nuclear phase the charged current reaction $`\nu _e+ne^{}+p`$ dominates and the reaction $`\overline{\nu }_e+pe^++n`$ makes a smaller but relevant contribution to the mean free path while $`\mu /\tau `$ neutrinos interact only through the neutral current reactions. As can be inferred from Fig. 2, the differences between the mean free path of the different neutrino types is small in the CFL$`K^0`$ phase because the charged current reactions involving the $`K^+`$ mode makes only a modest contribution to the total mean free path. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that the Roseland mean free path show a trend that is similar to that of nuclear matter, i.e. $`<\lambda _{\nu _e}>\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }<\lambda _{\overline{\nu }_e}>\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }<\lambda _{\nu _{\mu /\tau }}>`$.

It is interesting to inquire if neutrinos decoupling from the quark phase could have (relative) spectra that are different from those that decouple from the nuclear phase. The spectra with which neutrinos emerge from the PNS impact several observable aspects of supernova such as the explosion mechanism, r-process nucleosynthesis and the number of detected neutrinos in the terrestrial detectors. The r-process in particular is sensitive to the relative spectra of the electron and anti-electron type neutrinos since this determines the neutron excess in the neutrino driven r-process wind in the supernova (for a recent review see Ref. Qian:2003ae ). If indeed, all six neutrinos types emerge from the CFL phase with similar spectra it could affect the neutron to proton ratio in the r-process wind. It is premature to make definitive statements regarding how our findings here would affect supernova observables since neutrino transport in the PNS depends on several micro and macroscopic inputs. Nonetheless, a robust finding of this work is that if neutrinos decouple from the CFL or CFLK0 phase the spectra of all six neutrino types will be very similar.

The characteristic time that governs the rate of cooling by neutrinos diffusion is given by $`\tau _D=\overline{C}_VR^2/c\overline{\lambda }`$, where $`\overline{C}_V`$ is the average specific heat, $`R`$ is the size of the diffusion region and $`\overline{\lambda }`$ is the typical neutrino mean free path in the region Prakash:1997xs . In nuclear and unpaired quark phases the specific heat per unit volume is large $`c_V\mu ^2T`$, while in the CFL and CFLK0 phases it is very small with $`c_VT^3`$. This is difference is likely to be the dominant effect that distinguishes the cooling of PNS with CFL and CFLK0 quark matter from the other conventional scenarios. As noted earlier, the presence of additional light degrees of freedom in the CFLK0 leads to a specific heat that is roughly twice as larger than that in the CFL phase. This difference could also be a potentially important in distinguishing between the CFL and CFLK0 phases.

Incorporating the findings of this work in astrophysical simulations of PNS evolution warrants much further work. This will allow one to make quantitative predictions for the supernova neutrino signal and r-process nucleosynthesis. A crucial, future, step in theoretical efforts to constrain novel high density phases with supernova observations.

Acknowledgments

S. R. would like to thank David Kaplan for useful discussions. We would like to thank Madappa Prakash and Thomas Schafer for reading the manuscript and for their comments and suggestions The research of S. R is supported by the Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36. The research of M.S. was supported by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research, (KBN) grant no. 2 P03B 09322.


text:
# Simulation Application for the LHCb Experiment

## I Introduction

The LHCb lhcb  experiment is one of the four main experiments that will be performed using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), presently under construction at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The experiment is devoted to the precision measurements of CP violation in the B meson system.

The simulation applications are of major importance both for the studies during the construction phase as well as during the running of the detector. The assumption is that they produce data (“digits”) that would normally be available from the electronics of the detector. This simulated data is then fed, in the same way as the real data would be, into the reconstruction and further on into the analysis applications. The LHCb collaboration is moving to a complete chain of object-oriented event processing software. With the new reconstruction and analysis applications already used in production, the simulation one is getting close to that stage as well.

The new object-oriented LHCb detector simulation application (Gauss) is based on the Geant4 g4  toolkit and is currently entering its final phase of development. It is built within the LHCb software framework (Gaudi) gaudi  which is also used by the rest of the LHCb event-processing software. The existence of the common underlying framework allows sharing of many basic services such as persistency, interactivity, histograming, etc. In addition, it provides a natural way of having common sources of data such as the detector geometry, the magnetic field map, or the particle properties. The actual interfacing of Geant4 toolkit to the Gaudi framework is done by GiGa (Gaudi Interface to Geant4 Application) giga .

The organization of this paper is the following. We will start with a brief presentation of the general structure of the Gaudi framework followed by a description of the structure of Gauss application itself. After that, we will discuss a few selected aspects of GiGa which are particularly relevant as the functional design of Gauss is concerned. Finally we will briefly present a few results of our physics validation and we will formulate some conclusions.

## II Overview of the underlying software framework

The philosophy of the Gaudi framework is that each application consists of a set of “algorithms” which represent some self-contained functional parts of the programme. Those algorithms behave like pluggable components. They can be easily added, removed, executed in series or separately. The job configuration, i.e. specification of the sequence of algorithms to be executed, setting of their options, defining input and output files, etc, is done via job options files, which are simply text files, read at the beginning of each job execution.

On the other hand, the existence of the so-called transient data stores which are used for the communication between the algorithms, guarantees the lack of mutual dependence between them. For instance, if an algorithm uses as an input MCHits to produce MCDigits, the only thing it requires is that there are some MCHits available in the transient store. It does not care whether those MCHits come from a simulation algorithm which was executed beforehead or from a data file which was used to populate the transient store. Moreover, if at the moment when the algorithm requested the MCHits from the transient store they were not there yet, it will be the framework who will take care of reading the appropriate file (if available of course) in order to populate the store. From the point of view of the algorithm, it will be a completely transparent procedure, and in particular the implementation of the algorithm will not depend in any way on the persistent technology used.

Such an architecture allows a modular structure of the whole simulation programme, introducing less coupling between different stages of the simulation job. The existence of the transient stores, provides also natural “communication channels” with other sets of algorithms such as the reconstruction algorithms or the visualization algorithms. In some sense, an “application” becomes a less well-defined entity, since one is able to combine any collection of algorithms into one executable sequence. One can imagine, for instance, running the simulation algorithms together with the visualization ones, providing a display of each simulated event. It is useful to stress here once again, that those different algorithms can be developed completely independently without implementing any specific interfaces between them (apart from the ones defined by the framework to communicate with the transient stores).

## III Overview of the simulation application

The Gauss simulation application consists of three major blocks responsible for the event generation, detector response simulation and digitization (see Figure 1). These three blocks are completely independent and, using the features of the underlying framework described in the previous section, can be executed separately reading (saving) the data from (to) the persistent stores. The format used to store the generated event (the output from the MC generators) is the HepMC event record hepmc . As far as the simulated event (the output from the detector simulation) is concerned, Gauss uses the LHCb event format event , which is then used as the input format for the reconstruction applications. As mentioned before, due to the existence of the underlying software framework, providing in particular the persistency service, the simulation application is fully independent from the underlying persistent technology. At the present moment, for instance, we are using the ROOT root  file format to save the information on the disk, but this could be changed at any time, without affecting the actual simulation application.

We will now go a little bit more into details and describe the first two blocks from Figure 1, i.e. the event generation and the interfacing to the simulation toolkit. The third block, being the digitization, is very detector-specific and therefore we will not discuss it here.

### III.1 Event generation

The main event generator for Gauss is Pythia pythia . It is used to produce both the minimum-bias as well as the signal events. The actual decays of the b-hadrons are performed, however, using a dedicated decay package called EvtGen evtgen . Both Pythia, as well as EvtGen are wrapped inside special Gaudi algorithms (called PythiaAlg and EvtDecayAlg, respectively) which make them to behave like pluggable components (callable and controllable) in the Gaudi framework. The configuration of those MC generators can, therefore, be done via the Gaudi job options interface.

As mentioned before, the generated events are stored in the HepMC event record, which also serves to communicate between different generators (decay packages). The entire sequence of the event generation is shown on Figure 2. First Pythia is called to generate the primary event. The settings of Pythia are such that most of the physical particles (those known to Geant4) are declared stable, and therefore the generated event consists, at this stage, of one physical vertex (store in the transient store in the HepMC format). Such an approach seems to be natural from the point of view of the detector response simulation which is performed afterwards. The exception, however, are the decays of the b-hadrons. Those are the most important in our simulation, and we want to have full control over them in order to be able to explicitly generate particular decay channels. In order to do so, the selection algorithm (SetDecayAlg) is called, which marks particles (normally b-hadrons) that should be decayed by the specialized package (the others will be left to be decayed by Geant4). Once that selection is performed, the EvtDecayAlg is executed. It calls EvtGen for each particle marked beforehead and adds the decay products to the HepMC tree. Geant4 will later on use that information in the context of the forced decay channel mechanism.

The final step in the event generation sequence is to call an additional algorithm which simulates the smearing of the position of the primary vertex (due to the size of the colliding beams). It generates the spread in the x, y and z directions according to distributions specific for the LHC beams, which are then used to shift the position of all the vertices in the event.

Such an architecture is very flexible and can be easily extended. It is very easy to add other (replace) event generators, without any change to the code of the remaining simulation chain. Having more than one event generator implemented (wrapped) in the form of the Gaudi algorithm, one can run different configurations (replacing, for example Pythia with some other primary generator) without any recompilation but simply with different job options.

### III.2 Interface to the simulation toolkit

The detailed description of the technical aspects of the Gaudi Interface to Geant4 Application (GiGa) can be found in giga  and therefore we will not repeat it here. We will rather concentrate on a few selected aspects of GiGa which are particularly interesting from the point of view of the overall simulation application.

As mentioned before, one of the advantages of building the simulation application on top of the common software framework is that it allows us to use sources of detector data, i.e. geometry description, magnetic field map, etc, shared with other applications such as the reconstruction or the visualization. The conversion of the LHCb geometry model to the Geant4 geometry tree is done at the beginning of each simulation job by a specialized geometry conversion service. It is worth noting that the actual geometry configuration can be also changed via the job options, without any need for recompilation. The specification of “sensitive volumes” is done via simple declarations of the corresponding sensitive detectors class names in the persistent description of the shared geometry data (for which we use the XML format). One can add, remove or change sensitive detectors by simply editing the geometry description file. Those changes are then taken into account at the runtime and the instantiation of the required sensitive detectors is done using the abstract factory approach. The overall structure of the way Geant4 is interfaced to the Gaudi environment is shown in Figure 3.

As we can see there, the actual Geant4 engine is put behind a façade pattern which provides a unified high level abstract interface. A set of abstract interfaces implemented within GiGa allows loading from the Gaudi transient stores into Geant4, detector geometry, primary event data, etc. It also makes it possible to use standard Gaudi services such as Magnetic Field service or Job Options service to be used by the Geant4 application. Let us mention as well that GiGa, through the existence of a specialized class called GiGaRunManager, provides internal access to the Geant4 event loop. The standard G4RunManager::BeamOn method is never used in the context of GiGa. The construction of the primary events is done via direct calls to G4Event::AddPrimaryVertex method and the simulation is triggered by direct calls to the G4EventManager::ProcessOneEvent method. This gives us more control over the each simulation run and provides us an extra flexibility as far as the construction of the primary events is concerned.

Probably the most interesting feature of GiGa as the interface to the underlying framework is that all the “actions” such as event action, tracking action, etc, are instantiated using the abstract factory approach and therefore can be loaded at the runtime. Such a design insures a very flexible structure of the simulation program and allows running different configuration by changing only the job options. As far as the physics lists are concerned, they are implemented in the form of Geant4 modular physics list and also are instantiated via the abstract factories. This again makes the architecture flexible, facilitating validation of different physics lists without a need of recompilation.

Let us illustrate the interplay between the underlying framework and the Geant4 toolkit on the concrete example of the sensitive detectors and hit creation. Figure 4 shows the whole chain starting from the sensitive volume declaration and ending with the creation of the LHCb event model hits.

Once Geant4 is aware of the given sensitive detector (instantiated using an abstract factory, as described at the beginning of this section), it will follow the standard procedure of calling the ProcessHit method every time there is a particle passing by the volume associate to it. The possible result of that (if the required conditions are satisfied, like the non-zero charge of the passing particle, etc.) will be the creation of Geant4 hits, stored in the Geant4 hit collections. The last part of the chain will be the conversion of all the created Geant4 hits during the given event, into the LHCb event model hits stored afterwards in the Gaudi transient data store (and available for the other algorithms like digitization, or for the serialization). Such a conversion is performed by a specialized GiGa converted at the end of each event.

From this example we can see that the user doesn’t actually deal directly with the “Geant4 world”. He declares the sensitive volumes in the “Gaudi world” and he gets the final output (simulated hits and particles) back in the Gaudi transient store.

## IV Physics validation

The physics validation of the new LHCb simulation program is done in two ways: by comparing with the test beam data and by comparing with the Geant3 simulation results. The former approach is used to validate particular processes like the Rayleigh scattering or the Cherenkov radiation in the material of the Ring Imaging Cherenkov counters (RICH), or hadronic interaction models for the calorimeter. The later approach is used more to test the overall simulation chain, together with the event generation phase. What we will briefly present in this section is a few comparison plots between the Geant3 and Geant4 results for the tracker-like devices in the LHCb.

### IV.1 Vertex Locator physics validation

The Vertex Locator (VELO) is the LHCb subdetector inside which the interaction point is placed. It consists of a series of Silicon sensors and its purpose is to perform precise measurements of tracks close to the interaction region. Those measurements are essential for the reconstruction of production and decay vertices of the beauty- and charm-hadrons.

We have examined several different histograms (multiplicities, distributions in space, energy depositions, time of flight, etc) produced using simulated data and they all show a good agreement between the Geant3 and Geant4 based applications. In the Figures 5 and 6 we see for instance the multiplicity of simulated VELO hits and the energy deposition in the Silicon of sensors.

In some cases, like for example for the time of flight distribution shown on Figure 7, we see that Geant4 plot looks actually “smoother” for the lower values, which is probably due to the higher precision compared to Geant3.

### IV.2 Outer Tracker physics validation

The outer tracking detector in LHCb consist of drift cells with straw-tube geometry. In the configuration of the tracking stations the emphasis is on tracking precision in the (x,z) magnet bending plane.

In order to validate the new simulation program, we have again compared a number of different distributions. In most of the cases, as we can see for instance for the momentum distribution of particles creating hits shown in Figure 8, we have not observed any significant discrepancies between the events simulated by Geant4 and Geant3. The only clearly visible difference was in the time of flight distribution, which we can see in Figure 9.

It seems that in the Geant3 simulation there are more particles with longer time of flights (and less with shorter ones, since the overall multiplicity seems to be the same) than in the Geant4 simulation. This result is not yet understood and we are currently investigating any possible cause of that difference.

## V Status and conclusions

Over the last year the Geant4 based simulation application for the LHCb experiment has evolved from a set individual components to a fully functional program. Its major parts such as the interfaces to Monte-Carlo generators, the interface to the Geant4 toolkit, as well as different sensitive detectors are, to a large extend, implemented. Due to the underlying software framework, many of the components, such as the detector description, are shared between the simulation as well as the other applications like the reconstruction or the visualization. The interface between Geant4 and that framework extensively uses the concept of abstract factories which makes the simulation environment very flexible and easily configurable.

The LHCb is now testing its new simulation application. With most of the results being positive, the move to the Geant4 based simulation is being prepared. The LHCb is planing to start extensive test productions in the summer 2003 and to move definitely to the Geant4-based simulation application at the beginning of the year 2004.


text:
# Experimental demonstration of a high quality factor photonic crystal microcavity

## Abstract

Sub-threshold measurements of a photonic crystal (PC) microcavity laser operating at $`1.3`$ $`\mu `$m show a linewidth of $`0.10`$ nm, corresponding to a quality factor ($`Q`$) $`1.3\text{x}10^4`$. The PC microcavity mode is a donor-type mode in a graded square lattice of air holes, with a theoretical $`Q10^5`$ and mode volume $`V_{\text{eff}}0.25`$ cubic half-wavelengths in air. Devices are fabricated in an InAsP/InGaAsP multi-quantum well membrane and are optically pumped at 830 nm. External peak pump power laser thresholds as low as $`100`$ $`\mu `$W are also observed.

Optical microcavities are typically characterized by two key quantities, the quality factor ($`Q`$), a measure of the photon lifetime for the relevant optical cavity mode, and the modal volume ($`V_{\text{eff}}`$), a measure of the spatial extent and energy density of the mode. Photonic crystals (PCs), consisting of a periodically patterned material, hold the potential for forming high-$`Q`$ optical microcavities with modal volumes approaching a cubic half-wavelength in the host material, the smallest theoretical volume. Planar two-dimensional (2D) PC slab waveguides are a particularly attractive geometry due to the scalability of the planar fabrication process used, as well as the flexibility in the tailoring of cavity mode anti-node positions, polarization, radiation direction, and wavelength through adjustments in the lattice geometryPainter et al. (1999a). Since the first demonstration of lasing in the defect of a planar 2D PC slab waveguidePainter et al. (1999b), much effort in design and fabrication Vučković et al. (2002); Srinivasan and Painter (2002); Ryu et al. (2002); Lončar et al. (2002); Yoshie et al. (2001) has been extended to improve the $`Q`$-factor of planar PC microcavities. In order to take advantage of the ultra-small mode volume and design flexibility afforded by planar PC cavities in applications such as cavity QEDKhitrova et al. (1999); Vernooy et al. (1998), single photon on demand sourcesMichler et al. (2000); Santori et al. (2001), or non-linear optical elementsSpillane et al. (2002), and to make them competitive with other small mode volume microcavities such as microdisksGayral et al. (1999) and micropostsGérard et al. (1998), a $`Q10^4`$ is required. Although a number of designs have been proposed with predicted $`Q`$s in excess of $`10^4`$ Vučković et al. (2002); Ryu et al. (2002), experimentally demonstrated values have been limited to around $`2,800`$ Yoshie et al. (2001), with an increase to $`4,000`$ for larger mode volume designs where the defect consists of several missing air holes Reese et al. (2001).

In Ref. Srinivasan and Painter (2002), high-$`Q`$ PC cavities were designed by considering the Fourier space properties and symmetry of cavity modes. An important feature of these designs is their robustness, in that perturbations to the size and shape of *individual* holes do not deteriorate the $`Q`$ significantly. Vertical radiation losses, which are characterized by the presence of power at in-plane momentum components ($`𝐤_{}`$) that lie within the light cone of the slab waveguide cladding, are reduced by choosing modes of a specific symmetry. In particular, the modes selected are those that are odd about mirror planes normal to the direction of the mode’s dominant Fourier components, eliminating the DC ($`𝐤_{}=\mathrm{𝟎}`$) part of the field. For the square lattice cavities studied in Ref. Srinivasan and Painter (2002), one such mode is a donor-type mode (labelled $`A_2`$ due to its symmetry) centered in the dielectric between two rows of air holes (point $`e`$ in Figure 1). Further improvements to both the in-plane and vertical loss are achieved by grading the lattice as shown in Figure 1(a). Figure 1(b)-(c) shows the magnetic field amplitude and Fourier transformed dominant electric field component for the resulting $`A_2`$ mode as calculated by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. FDTD calculations predict $`Q10^5`$ for this mode, with a modal volume $`V_{\text{eff}}0.25`$ cubic half-wavelengths in air ($`9.8`$ $`(\lambda /2n)^3`$ for refractive index $`n=3.4`$, $`4\text{X}`$ larger than original designs in Ref. Painter et al. (1999b)). Calculations show that the grade used in Figure 1(a) can be varied fairly significantly without degrading the $`Q`$ to a value less than $`2\text{x}10^4`$.

In order to measure the properties of the donor-type $`A_2`$ mode, graded square lattice PC cavities were fabricated in an active material consisting of five InAsP compressively-strained quantum wells, with peak spontaneous emission at 1285 nm. The details of the epitaxial growth and some of the important properties of the materials system are reported in Ref. Hwang et al. (1998). The creation of the 2D PC membrane is accomplished through a number of steps, including electron-beam lithography, pattern transfer to a SiO2 mask using an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etch (ICP/RIE), and a high-temperature ($`205`$ $`^\text{o}`$C) Ar-Cl2 ICP/RIE etch through the active material into a sacrificial InP layer. The sample is undercut by removing the InP layer with a HCl:H2O (4:1) solution leaving a 252 nm thick free-standing membrane; scanning electron micrographs (SEMs) of the graded lattice cavity are shown in Figure 2. Each cavity consisted of a total of 32 rows and 25 columns of air holes, with a lattice spacing of $`a=305`$, $`315`$, $`325`$, or $`335`$ nm (chosen for $`1.3`$ $`\mu `$m emission to be close to the normalized frequency of the $`A_2`$ mode, $`a/\lambda _o0.25`$), for total cavity dimensions on the order of $`8\text{x}11\mu `$m. The designed grade produces holes with radii between $`r=70`$-$`110`$ nm. As will be described elsewhere, the fabrication was optimized to produce smooth vertical sidewalls in the holes, and to obtain small air holes, both of which were limitations of previous PC cavity workPainter et al. (1999b).

Devices are optically pumped (typically with a $`10`$ ns pulse width and $`300`$ ns period) at room temperature with a semiconductor laser at $`830`$ nm through a 20X objective lens, also used to collect emitted photoluminescence (PL) into an optical spectrum analyzer (OSA). We initially pump the cavities with a broad pump beam (see Figure 2(b), area $`21\mu \text{m}^2`$) for two reasons: (i) the broad pump beam covers a significant portion of the cavity area, so that after diffusion of carriers, the majority of the cavity should be pumped and therefore non-absorbing, and (ii) use of a broad pump beam limits the effects of thermal broadening, which, as discussed below, are significant for focused pump beams. A typical L-L (light-in vs. light-out) curve using the broad pump beam condition is shown in Figure 3(a), where the power in the laser line is taken over a 10 nm bandwidth about the laser wavelength of $`\lambda =1298.5`$ nm. In addition, the off-resonance background emission at $`\lambda =1310`$ nm was measured over a similar 10 nm bandwidth. For low pump powers ($`<300`$ $`\mu `$W), the off-resonance emission and resonant wavelength emission linearly increase with pump power and are essentially identical in level, i.e., no resonance feature is observed. Above 300 $`\mu `$W, we just begin to see a resonance peak in the spectrum and a characteristic super-linear transition from below threshold to above threshold follows. In order to estimate the position of threshold we extrapolate back the L-L curve from above threshold (Fig. 3(b)), giving an approximate threshold pump level of $`360`$ $`\mu `$W. A plot of the off-resonance emission (Fig. 3(c)) shows a (weak) slope change around $`365`$ $`\mu `$W giving a similar value for the estimated threshold value. The slope change in the laser line versus pump power is initially a result of the material becoming transparent (more photons being radiated as opposed to being absorbed), and is then due to an increase in the stimulated rate of emission into the cavity mode as the lasing threshold is crossed, increasing the radiative efficiency into the cavity mode due to the presence of non-radiative carrier recombination and spontaneous emission into other modes. The kink in the off-resonance background emission L-L curve can be attributed to the clamping of the carrier density (gain) in the region of the cavity mode and consequent saturation of the off-resonance (non-lasing modes’) emission. The background emission continues to increase after crossing threshold (rather than completely saturating) as a result of the pumping of areas which are outside of the cavity mode volume and thus not affected by the gain clamping (non-equilibrium carrier distributionsSlusher (1994) may also play a role).

In order to estimate the cold cavity $`Q`$ value of the PC microcavity mode we measured the linewidth of the resonance in the PL around threshold. The full-width half-maximum (FWHM) linewidth narrows from $`0.138`$ nm (at the lowest pump level we could accurately measure the linewidth, $`320`$ $`\mu `$W) down to $`0.097`$ nm at threshold. A simple steady state rate equation modelAgrawal and Dutta (1993) of the cavity photon and excited state populations estimates the threshold pump level (with this beam size) to be $`350`$ $`\mu `$W for $`Q10^4`$ in this quantum well active material, close to the experimentally measured value. In this model the transparency carrier density occurs within $`10\%`$ of the threshold carrier density for cavity modes with $`Q>10^4`$. A PL spectrum (Fig. 3(a), inset) for this device with the broad pump conditions, measured soon after detection of a resonance feature in the spectrum and below the estimated threshold level by about $`10\%`$, shows a resonance linewidth $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.100`$ nm, corresponding to a best estimate of the cold cavity $`Q1.3\text{x}10^4`$. Above threshold we do not see further linewidth narrowing due to the resolution limit of the scanning monochromator ($`0.08`$ nm) used, as well as the presence of thermal broadening of the emission line during the pump pulse (this may also be partially due to incomplete saturation of the carrier densitySlusher (1994)).

By using a more tightly focused beam (see Figure 2(c), area $`8`$ $`\mu `$m2), the lasing threshold is considerably reduced. In Figures 3(d)-(f), we plot the L-L curve for the laser line and off-resonance background emission using such a pump beam. The plots are qualitatively similar to those for the diffuse pump beam; we begin to see a resonance feature when the pump power exceeds 95 $`\mu `$W. Estimates for the threshold pump power from the laser line curve and off-resonance background emission are 120 $`\mu `$W and 125 $`\mu `$W, respectively. The reduction in lasing threshold from the broad pump beam to the focused pump beam follows a nearly linear scale with the area of the pump beam. Through further optimization of the pump beam, lasers with thresholds as low as $`100`$ $`\mu `$W have been observed. From the sub-threshold spectrum shown in the inset of Figure 3(d) it is readily apparent that the lineshape has thermally broadened (the measured linewidth is now $`0.220`$ nm), as evidenced by its asymmetric shape on the short wavelength side. To reduce the effects of this thermal broadening, the duty cycle can be decreased to $`1\%`$ (1 $`\mu `$s period and 10 ns pulse width), resulting in a less asymmetric resonance and sub-threshold linewidth of approximately $`0.13`$ nm. Conversely, we have also increased the duty cycle to $`25\%`$ (1 $`\mu `$s period and 250 ns pulse width) and still observe lasing; heating in the membrane precludes lasing at even higher duty cycles.

To determine whether the laser mode described above is indeed the localized $`A_2`$ mode of Figure 1, we have measured polarized intensity in the far-field as well as the sensitivity of the emitted laser power to pump position. The measurements show the mode to be predominantly polarized along the $`\widehat{x}`$-axis (Fig. 4(b)) of the cavity, consistent with FDTD results, and eliminating the possibility that the mode is of the other potential symmetry supported by the cavity Srinivasan and Painter (2002). Furthermore, the lasing mode discussed above is the longest wavelength mode observed in the devices tested (higher frequency resonances are observed in some detuned devices), suggesting that it is the fundamental mode shown in Figure 1(b), and not a higher order version of it. In Figure 4(a) we show measurements of the emitted laser power as a function of the pump beam position (taken to be the center of the beam) relative to the center of the cavity (uncertainty in the pump position is $`0.25`$ $`\mu `$m). The measurements indicate the mode is highly localized within the center of the cavity, consistent with simulations.

In summary, we have observed linewidths of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.10`$ nm, corresponding to a cavity $`Q`$ of $`1.3\text{x}10^4`$, in sub-threshold measurements of graded square lattice photonic crystal microcavity lasers fabricated in an InAsP/InGaAsP multi-quantum well membrane. In addition, lasing is seen at threshold peak external pump powers as low as 100 $`\mu `$W. Measurements of the emitted power as a function of pump position show the mode to be strongly localized and give an estimate of the modal localization that is consistent with FDTD results. This realization of a high $`Q`$, small mode volume microcavity is an important step in demonstrating the potential of PC microcavities for use in optoelectronics and quantum optics.

K. Srinivasan thanks the Hertz Foundation for its financial support.