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# Evidence for 𝑩^𝟎→𝝅^𝟎𝝅^𝟎

on leave from \]Nova Gorica Polytechnic, Nova Gorica The Belle Collaboration

## Abstract

We report evidence for the decay $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$. The analysis is based on a data sample of $`152`$ million $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs collected at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB $`e^+e^{}`$ storage ring. We detect a signal for $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ with a significance of $`3.4`$ standard deviations, and measure the branching fraction to be $`(1.7\pm 0.6(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.2(\mathrm{syst}))\times 10^6`$.

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Recent measurements at $`B`$ factories have improved significantly our knowledge of CP violation and heavy flavour physics. In particular, measurements of the mixing-induced CP violation parameter $`\mathrm{sin2}\varphi _1`$ phi1\_belle ; phi1\_babar  lend strong support to the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism km . It is of great importance to test precisely this theory with complementary measurements, such as those of the other unitarity triangle angles $`\varphi _2`$ and $`\varphi _3`$ pdg .

The most promising technique for measuring $`\varphi _2`$ is by studying time dependent asymmetries in the $`B^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ system phi2\_belle ; phi2\_babar . The extraction of $`\varphi _2`$ from the observables is not trivial, however, because there are contributions from more than one weak phase. In order to disentangle $`\varphi _2`$, an isospin analyses of the $`\pi \pi `$ system can be performed isospin . One essential ingredient for these procedures, and hence for the measurement of $`\varphi _2`$, is knowledge of the branching fraction for the decay $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$. Such knowledge would also play a pivotal role in the understanding of charmless hadronic $`B`$ decays. Previously, upper limits for the branching fraction of $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ of $`(36)\times 10^6`$ have been reported hh\_belle ; hh\_babar ; hh\_cleo . Theoretical predictions are typically around or below $`1\times 10^6`$ pi0pi0\_predictions , but phenomenological models incorporating large rescattering effects can accommodate larger values theory . The BaBar group recently measured this branching fraction to be $`(2.1\pm 0.6\pm 0.3)\times 10^6`$ BaBar\_new .

In this paper, we report evidence for the decay $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$. The results are based on a 140 fb<sup>-1</sup> ($`152`$ M $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs) collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB $`e^+e^{}`$ storage ring kekb . KEKB operates at a center–of–mass (CM) energy of $`\sqrt{s}=10.58\mathrm{GeV}`$, corresponding to the mass of the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(4S) resonance. Throughout this paper, neutral and charged $`B`$ mesons are assumed to be produced in equal amounts at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(4S), and the inclusion of charge conjugate modes is implied.

The Belle detector is a large-solid-angle spectrometer consisting of a three-layer silicon vertex detector, a 50-layer central drift chamber (CDC), an array of threshold Cherenkov counters with silica aerogel radiators (ACC), time-of-flight scintillation counters, and an electromagnetic calorimeter comprised of CsI(Tl) crystals (ECL) located inside a superconducting solenoid coil that provides a 1.5 T magnetic field. An iron flux-return located outside of the coil is instrumented to detect $`K_L^0`$ mesons and to identify muons. A detailed description of the Belle detector can be found elsewhere belle .

Pairs of photons with invariant masses in the range $`115\mathrm{MeV}/c^2<m_{\gamma \gamma }<152\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ are used to form $`\pi ^0`$ mesons; this corresponds to a window of $`\pm 2.5\sigma `$ about the nominal $`\pi ^0`$ mass, where $`\sigma `$ denotes the experimental resolution, approximately $`8\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$. The measured energy of each photon in the laboratory frame is required to be greater than $`50\mathrm{MeV}`$ in the barrel region, defined as $`32^{}<\theta _\gamma <128^{}`$, and greater than $`100\mathrm{MeV}`$ in the end-cap regions, defined as $`17^{}\theta _\gamma 32^{}`$ and $`128^{}\theta _\gamma 150^{}`$, where $`\theta _\gamma `$ denotes the polar angle of the photon with respect to the beam line.

Signal $`B`$ candidates are formed from pairs of $`\pi ^0`$ mesons and are identified by their beam energy constrained mass $`M_{\mathrm{bc}}=\sqrt{E_{\mathrm{beam}}^2p_B^2}`$ and energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=E_B^{}E_{\mathrm{beam}}^{}`$, where $`E_{\mathrm{beam}}^{}`$ denotes the beam energy and $`p_B^{}`$ and $`E_B^{}`$ are the momentum and energy, respectively, of the reconstructed $`B`$ meson, all evaluated in the $`e^+e^{}`$ CM frame. We require $`5.2\mathrm{GeV}/c^2<M_{\mathrm{bc}}<5.3\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ and $`0.3\mathrm{GeV}<\mathrm{\Delta }E<0.5\mathrm{GeV}`$. The signal efficiency of the kinematic reconstruction is estimated using GEANT-based geant  Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and found to be 26%. The resolution for signal is approximately $`4\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ for $`M_{\mathrm{bc}}`$ and $`{}_{100}{}^{+50}\mathrm{MeV}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$.

We consider background from other $`B`$ decays and from $`e^+e^{}q\overline{q}`$ ($`q=u`$, $`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$) continuum processes. A large generic MC sample shows that backgrounds from $`bc`$ decays are negligible. Among charmless $`B`$ decays, the only significant background is $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$. We take these events, which populate the negative $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ region, into account in the signal extraction described below.

The dominant background is due to continuum processes. We discriminate signal events from the $`q\overline{q}`$ background using the event topology. In order to increase the expected sensitivity to the signal, we have improved the continuum rejection technique used in our previous publication hh\_belle . Previously, we have defined modified Fox-Wolfram moments fw  that treat particles involved in the signal $`B`$ candidate ($`s`$) separately from those in the rest of the event ($`o`$). We extend this idea, taking into account the missing momentum in the event, which we treat as a third category ($`m`$). We achieve some additional discrimination by considering charged and neutral particles in the $`o`$ category independently, and by taking the correlations of charges into account. In our previously used continuum rejection technique, the moments are normalized relative to the zeroth moment; in this improved technique we do not normalize in this way. We combine 16 modified moments with the scalar sum of the transverse momentum into a Fisher discriminant fisher , and tune coefficients separately for seven categories of missing mass squared to maximize the separation between signal and background. MC studies indicate that this redefinition of the Fisher discriminant leads to a $`24\%`$ improvement in the maximum value of the figure of merit (FOM) defined as $`N_s^{\mathrm{exp}}/\sqrt{N_{BG}^{\mathrm{exp}}}`$, where $`N_s^{\mathrm{exp}}`$ and $`N_{BG}^{\mathrm{exp}}`$ denote the expected signal and observed background yields in a region $`5.27\mathrm{GeV}/c^2<M_{\mathrm{bc}}<5.29\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ and $`0.20\mathrm{GeV}<\mathrm{\Delta }E<0.05\mathrm{GeV}`$.

The angle of the $`B`$-meson flight direction with respect to the beam axis ($`\theta _B`$) provides additional discrimination. A likelihood ratio $`_s=_s/(_s+_{q\overline{q}})`$ is used as the discrimination variable, where $`_s`$ denotes the product of the individual Fisher and $`\theta _B`$ likelihoods for the signal and $`_{q\overline{q}}`$ is that for the $`q\overline{q}`$ background. The likelihood functions are derived from MC for the signal and from events in the $`M_{\mathrm{bc}}`$ sideband region ($`5.20\mathrm{GeV}/c^2<M_{\mathrm{bc}}<5.26\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$) for the $`q\overline{q}`$ background. We find additional discrimination between signal and background using the Belle standard algorithm for $`b`$-flavour tagging phi1\_belle ; phi2\_belle . The flavour tagging procedure yields two outputs: $`q=\pm 1`$ (which we ignore), indicating the flavour of the other purported $`B`$ in the event, and $`r`$, which takes values between 0 and 1 and is a measure of the confidence that the $`q`$ determination is correct. Events with a high value of $`r`$ are considered well-tagged and are therefore unlikely to have originated from continuum processes. Moreover, we find that there is no strong correlation between $`r`$ and any of the topological variables used above to separate signal from continuum.

We combine $`r`$ and $`_s`$ into a single multi-dimensional likelihood ratio (MDLR) defined as $`_s^{\mathrm{MDLR}}/(_s^{\mathrm{MDLR}}+_{q\overline{q}}^{\mathrm{MDLR}})`$, where $`_s^{\mathrm{MDLR}}`$ denotes the likelihood determined by the $`r`$$`_s`$ two-dimensional distribution for the signal and $`_{q\overline{q}}^{\mathrm{MDLR}}`$ is that for the $`q\overline{q}`$ background. We then make a requirement on the likelihood ratio that maximizes the FOM. Incorporating the flavour tagging information in this way gives a 4% improvement in the FOM as compared to making a selection requirement on $`_s`$ alone. This criterion eliminates 99% of the $`q\overline{q}`$ background while retaining 39% of the signal. The MDLR distributions for signal MC and for sideband data are shown in Fig. 1. We verified that there is no correlation between the MDLR cut and $`M_{bc}`$ in the continuum MC events.

The signal yield is extracted using an unbinned maximum-likelihood fit to the $`M_{\mathrm{bc}}\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ two-dimensional distribution of the 596 candidates obtained after all the event selection requirements discussed above. The fitting function contains components for the signal, $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ and $`q\overline{q}`$ background. The probability density functions (PDFs) for the signal and for $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ are taken from smoothed two-dimensional histograms obtained from large MC samples. For the signal PDF, discrepancies between the peak positions and resolutions in data and MC due to imperfect simulation of the $`\pi ^0`$ energy are calibrated using $`D^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ decay. The invariant mass distribution of $`D^0`$ are fitted with a bifurcated Gaussian for data and MC, and the observed discrepancies in peak position and width are converted to the differences of peak position and resolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ in our signal PDF, since observed differences are caused by imperfect simulation of $`\pi ^0`$ energy. For the $`D^0`$ daughter particles, similar momentum ranges and the same reconstruction procedures are used as those for the signal daughters. We find a $`3\pm 9\mathrm{MeV}`$ difference between MC and data for the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ peak position and a 35 $`\pm 12`$ % discrepancy in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ resolution. To obtain the two-dimensional PDF for the continuum background, we multiply the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ PDF, which is modeled with a first-order polynomial, with the $`M_{\mathrm{bc}}`$ PDF, for which we use the ARGUS function argus . In the fit, the shapes of the signal and $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ PDFs are fixed, the normalization of $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ is fixed according to the recent result from the BaBar collaboration babar\_rhopi , and all other fit parameters are allowed to float. The fit results are shown in Fig. 2.

The obtained signal yield is $`25.6_{8.4}^{+9.3}`$ with a statistical significance ($`𝒮`$) of $`3.5`$, where $`𝒮`$ is defined as $`𝒮=\sqrt{2\mathrm{ln}(_0/_{N_s})}`$, and $`_0`$ and $`_{N_s}`$ denote the maximum likelihoods of the fits without and with the signal component, respectively. In order to take the uncertainty in the contribution from $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ into account in the significance calculation, we repeat the fit after increasing this contribution according to the error in the measurement of its branching fraction. In this case we find $`𝒮=3.4`$; we interpret this value as the significance of our signal. We also obtain consistent results when the normalization of the $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ component is allowed to float in the fit.

We vary each calibration constant for the signal PDF by $`\pm 1\sigma `$ and obtain systematic errors from the change in the signal yield. We also vary the $`B^+\rho ^+\pi ^0`$ normalization, as described earlier, and assign systematic errors accordingly. Adding these errors in quadrature, we find the yield is $`25.6_{8.4}^{+9.3}(\mathrm{stat})_{1.4}^{+1.6}(\mathrm{syst})`$.

In order to obtain the branching fraction, we divide the signal yield by the reconstruction efficiency, measured from MC to be $`9.9\%`$, and by the number of $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs. The trigger efficiency is not corrected since it estimated to be $`99\%`$ using our trigger simulator. We consider systematic errors on the reconstruction efficiency due to possible differences between data and MC. We assign a total error of $`7\%`$ due to $`\pi ^0`$ reconstruction efficiency, measured by comparing the ratio of the yields of the $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta \gamma \gamma `$ decays. The experimental errors on the branching fractions of these decays pdg  are included in this number. We compare the performance of the continuum suppression requirement on a control sample of $`B^+\overline{D}^0(K^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)\pi ^+`$ in data and MC; a systematic error of $`2\%`$ is assigned. The efficiency of the MDLR cut for the MC control sample is close to that for the signal MC. Finally, we assign a systematic error of $`0.5\%`$ due to the uncertainty in the number of $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs ($`152.0\pm 0.7`$) $`\times 10^6`$, and obtain a branching fraction of

$$(B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0)=(1.7\pm 0.6(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.2(\mathrm{syst}))\times 10^6.$$

The result is stable for variations of the MDLR cut; for example, if we use 0.925 and 0.9 cut, we obtain 1.5 $`\times 10^6`$ and 1.8 $`\times 10^6`$, respectively, which are within the systematic error.

In conclusion, we have measured the branching fraction of $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ from a data sample of $`152`$ million $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs collected at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$(4S) resonance with the Belle experiment. We obtain $`25.6_{8.4}^{+9.3}(\mathrm{stat})_{1.4}^{+1.6}(\mathrm{syst})`$ signal events with a significance of $`3.4`$ standard deviations ($`\sigma `$). We measure the branching fraction to be $`(1.7\pm 0.6(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.2(\mathrm{syst}))\times 10^6`$. This result supersedes our previous result. We find evidence for $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ at a level above most theoretical predictions pi0pi0\_predictions  and consistent with the BaBar measurement BaBar\_new . While larger values of the branching fraction for $`B^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ enhance the feasibility of the isospin analyses isospin , more precise measurements of the branching fraction, in addition to studies of the CP asymmetries in all $`B\pi \pi `$ decays, will be required in order to determine $`\varphi _2`$ from the $`\pi \pi `$ system.

We wish to thank the KEKB accelerator group for the excellent operation of the KEKB accelerator. We acknowledge support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training; the National Science Foundation of China under contract No. 10175071; the Department of Science and Technology of India; the BK21 program of the Ministry of Education of Korea and the CHEP SRC program of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation; the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research under contract No. 2P03B 01324; the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Russian Federation; the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia; the National Science Council and the Ministry of Education of Taiwan; and the U.S. Department of Energy.


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# Lattice calculations of hadron properties

## 1 Introduction

While the simplicity and elegance of QCD is very appealing theoretically, the phenomenological observations of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and even more so of the confinement of colour charges turned it into a major calculational nightmare: it took almost twenty years after the discovery of asymptotic freedom to convincingly demonstrate that the QCD Lagrangian indeed implies these highly non-trivial collective phenomena. This was done by numerical simulations; an analytic proof is still lacking.

Fortunately, due to the property of asymptotic freedom, many short distance/high energy QCD problems can be approached by means of perturbation theory. This need not be so since the very basis of the perturbative expansion is shaky: confinement implies that quark and gluon fields never appear as asymptotic states. Fortunately, the success of jet phenomenology suggests that QCD is reasonably benign in the high energy region. This is very different in the low energy regime of strong QCD. Among the few analytical tools that exist are the strong coupling and the $`1/N`$ expansions, effective field theories (EFTs) and various QCD inspired or phenomenological models.

QCD can in principle be solved rigorously by means of lattice simulations on a computer. In practise however computational resources are finite. This leads to pion masses of typically more than 400 MeV or to simulations within the quenched approximation, where sea quark effects are neglected. While these systematic uncertainties reduce with faster computers, improved numerical algorithms and theoretical ingenuity, it will always remain desirable to combine lattice simulations with EFT methods or, where necessary, with QCD motivated models as only relatively simple questions can directly be addressed on the lattice. In many cases problems of phenomenological interest factorise naturally into a high energy electro-weak part and a low energy QCD part which can then be evaluated on the lattice, for instance electromagnetic form factors and weak decay matrix elements. In many cases QCD problems can also be factorised within the framework of EFTs into low and high energy parts. Lattice simulations turn out to be invaluable to gain insight into the dynamics of QCD as many parameters such as the number of active quark flavours, quark masses, number of colours, temperature etc. are not limited to their phenomenological values but can be varied.

Several good reviews of lattice calculations exist in the literature and I refer to them for details on theoretical aspects, calculational methods and wider phenomenological implications McNeile:2003dy . The topics covered in Chris Michael’s review Michael:2003ai  “Exotics” have a non-vanishing overlap with this article, albeit written from a (slightly) different perspective. In my talk I covered the baryon spectrum and structure as well. Due to the page limit (and lack of new content) I refer to my recent review Bali:2003wj . Subjectively selected highlights since then include two studies of generalised parton distributions Hagler:2003jd ; Gockeler:2003jf  and a determination of the pion form factor vanderHeide:2003ip . Some progress has been made in the calculation of electromagnetic $`N`$ to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition form factors Alexandrou:2003ea , a new study of the mass spectrum of excited nucleons has appeared Brommel:2003jm  and a first step towards consolidation of previous results was performed Dong:2003zf . I will not mention the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, because there are no lattice results. Instead I will concentrate on the spectroscopy of charmonia and exotics.

## 2 Glueballs and friends

It was realised as early as 1974 Wilson:1974sk  that QCD offered the possibility of bound states composed only of energy. These closed-string-/glue-states/boxcitons became subsequently known as glueballs Robson:1976ff . It is hard to imagine anything that demonstrates confinement more than the discovery of quarkless massive bound states. One can also fantasize that non-perturbative physics with particles similar to glueballs might play a rôle in future theories beyond the Standard Model. After all QCD is the only part of the Standard Model with a chance of a mathematically rigorous definition. So glueballs, the simplest possible colour-neutral states, are a challenge that certainly has to be addressed.

The situation is complicated theoretically as well as experimentally by the possibility of mixing with standard quark model states. Even worse QCD does not know what is exotic and what is not. The very meaning of this term is “not quark model” and it is not at all a priori clear what exactly we mean by quark model. For instance we can ask ourselves how closely the quark model describes something as profane as the QCD proton. While introducing the concept of constituent quarks eliminates the puzzle that more than 98 % of its rest mass is generated by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, i.e. by the glue, it is impossible to attribute the proton’s spin and momentum exclusively to quark degrees of freedom. Gluodynamics plays an even greater rôle in properties of the $`\eta ^{}`$ and the $`\pi `$. So if the gluons already leave big footprints on quark model states how can we distinguish these from glue states? One possibility that immediately springs to mind would be to look for spin-exotic states: when coupling spin and angular momentum within mesons, only certain combinations of $`J^{PC}`$ are allowed while for instance $`0^{},0^+,1^+,2^+`$ are forbidden. Again the situation is complicated by the possibility of $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ molecular states to couple to these same quantum numbers.

One toy model is the pure Yang Mills theory of gluodynamics. In this fictitious world no quark fields exist but many central features of QCD including confinement and asymptotic freedom are still reproduced. This well defined and self consistent theory yields a rich spectrum of glueballs, all of which are absolutely stable, with the exception of very heavy ones that decay into lighter glueballs.

One can go one step further towards QCD by including quark fields that propagate in the gluodynamic background but whose feedback onto the vacuum is neglected, the so-called quenched approximation. Quenched QCD (qQCD) is no quantum field theory since unitarity is violated, however, even in this approximation chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken. Neglecting the feedback of slowly moving heavy quark sources onto their environment is a very natural thing to do. Quenching is also justifiable in the limit of the number of colours $`N\mathrm{}`$, however, it is not always clear whether $`1/31`$. Simulations of pure $`SU(N_c)`$ gauge theories for Lucini:2002ku ; Lucini2  $`N=2,\mathrm{},6`$ seem to indicate this. As it should be ratios of light hadron masses from lattice simulations of qQCD have been found to be inconsistent with the observed spectrum Aoki:2002fd  however the differences are typically smaller than 10 % suggesting that the quenched approximation has some predictive power if cautiously consumed. The consequences of violating unitarity at light quark mass can become dramatic in some channels and in particular in the scalar sector Bardeen:2001jm : roughly speaking as the axial anomaly does not exist in qQCD the $`\eta ^{}`$ will be a surplus light Goldstone boson. The impact of this can be investigated in quenched chiral perturbation theory where diagrams that include transitions from scalar to two $`\pi `$s yield unwanted contributions that explode as the $`\pi `$s, including the would-be $`\eta ^{}`$, become light.

One justification for quenching is that the computational effort is easily reduced by a factor of $`10^3`$. So it makes complete sense to learn and to understand statistics and systematics from a quenched study, prior to doing the real thing. Moreover, most models used in hadron physics neglect quark pair creation and annihilation, so the model builders can still learn from qQCD. Also, “un-quenching” a model to compare it with lattice results is easier than un-quenching the lattice simulation. Last but not least, life is easier in quenched as lattice studies of strong decays and excited states are notoriously complicated: glueballs will not mix with quark model mesons, spin exotic meson-gluon hybrids are distinct from mesons, are stable and do not mix with four-quark molecules either.

### 2.1 Heavy glueballs and charmonia

In Fig. 1 we compile the glueball spectrum (filled boxes) of gluodynamics Lucini2 ; Morningstar:1999rf . The scale $`r_0^1394`$ is set from potential models. Since this is not the real world a systematic scale error of about 10 % should be assumed, for stable states that do not mix! While these newer results agree with the spectrum of Ref. Bali:1993fb , during the past decade the statistical errors have been reduced by factors varying between 1.5 and 2, depending on the channel. It has also been established that the $`3^{++}`$ glueball is lighter than the $`1^{++}`$. This had only been suspected in the earlier reference, where the $`J`$ assignment of this state remained ambiguous.

The lightest glueball is a scalar, followed by a tensor and a pseudoscalar. Possibly the lightest state with exotic quantum numbers is a $`2^+`$ glueball around 4 GeV. Qualitative features can be understood in a bag model while the flux tube model seems inadequate Juge:2003qd . Without numerical simulation it would have been completely impossible to come close even to a semi-quantitative understanding of these truly unconventional bound states.

We include experimental charmonium levels (lines) for comparison. The $`{}_{}{}^{2S+1}L_{J}^{}`$ notation refers to these states. We have only included confirmed resonances, with masses taken from the Particle Data Book. For the $`\eta _c^{}`$ we took the Belle result from double charmonium production Abe:2003ja , 3630(8) MeV. One often thinks of the charm quark as heavy in the sense that its mass is much bigger than mesonic and baryonic QCD binding energies. However, the spectrum of states entirely made out of glue with no quarks at all covers a similar energy range! We also display recent quenched lattice results from two groups Okamoto:2001jb ; Chen:2000ej ; Liao:2002rj  (CP-PACS and Columbia). These have been obtained using relativistic charm quarks on anisotropic lattices with the ratio of spatial over temporal lattice spacings $`\xi 2`$ (Columbia) and $`\xi 3`$ (CP-PACS). A recent simulation of $`J1`$ $`S`$ and $`P`$ wave charmonia on isotropic ($`\xi =1`$) lattices by QCD-TARO Choe:2003wx  (who also study charmonium wave functions) confirms these findings. Note that in all these simulations the effect of diagrams with disconnected quark lines has been neglected. One might expect OZI violating contributions from these, in particular for states that lie close to glueballs with the same quantum numbers.

The charm quark mass has been adjusted such that the spin averaged $`1S`$ state reproduces experiment. This means that in this case the quenching errors of up to 10 % apply to spin-averaged level splittings with respect to this ground state, rather than with respect to zero energy. This systematic scale uncertainty caused by omitting sea quarks renders it irrelevant whether we use a “constructed” scale like $`r_0`$ or an experimental mass like the $`1P1S`$ gap as an input (which would increase the splittings by about 6 %). For the fine structure, potential models combined with lattice results Bali:1998pi  tell us that we should expect to undershoot the real world number by up to 40 %. For states above threshold or where mixing effects and strong decays play a big rôle radical changes might occur while for the $`2P`$ excitations finite volume effects could be an issue.

There are different ways of obtaining a given $`J^{PC}`$: for instance $`J^{PC}=1^{}`$ can be an $`S`$ or a $`D`$ wave. The correlation function associated with the respective $`D`$ wave operator decays very fast in Euclidean time, into the same ground state as the respective $`S`$ wave: it appears that the charm quark is too light to turn $`L`$ into an (approximately) good quantum number. A similar behaviour has been observed for the $`2^{++}`$ and $`1^{++}`$ states (either $`P`$ or $`F`$ waves).

In addition to the standard charmonia and glueball states the figure contains the lightest two spin exotic $`c\overline{c}`$-gluon hybrids Liao:2002rj . At least two other studies of hybrid charmonia with relativistic charm quarks exist to-date Mei:2002ip ; Bernard . Given the fact that not even $`L`$ is a good quantum number it is not clear how one would distinguish non spin-exotic hybrids from conventional radial excitations. The lightest exotic hybrid turns out to be a vector, $`1^+`$. This is followed by $`0^+`$ and $`2^+`$ hybrids.

Once sea quarks are switched on, most of the states calculated on the lattice will decay strongly and mixing will occur too. In this context it is interesting to see that the spin-exotic $`0^+`$ glueball and $`c\overline{c}g`$ hybrid have similar masses. We have included two experimental thresholds into the figure: $`1^{}`$ charmonia can and will decay into a $`D\overline{D}`$ meson pair. Nonetheless resonances that exceed this threshold by almost 1 GeV have turned out to be experimentally detectable. The exotic $`1^+`$ hybrid cannot decay into an identical boson-antiboson pair since $`PC=`$. The next possibility, a $`\overline{D}`$ and a vector $`D^{}`$, is suppressed both in flux tube models Page:1998gz  where the quark-antiquark pair that breaks the flux tube is produced in its centre, as well as in the heavy quark limit in which the angular momentum of the heavy quarks is fixed. The next possibility, which follows this $`S+P`$ selection rule, would be a decay into a $`\overline{D}`$ and a $`P`$ wave isovector $`D^{}[=D_1(2420)]`$. Interestingly the mass of the $`1^+`$ is compatible with this threshold such that mixing with (would be) molecular states is an issue. Should the state be below this threshold a resonance with a width smaller than 100 MeV might be possible, with dominant decay into a $`\chi _c`$ under emission of a light scalar meson McNeile:2002az .

At present we do not know whether the overlap with glueball states in the quenched approximation has any implications on the phenomenology of charmonia. Naïvely the phase space for decay of heavy glueballs appears huge with no quarks to preserve and more than 3 GeV of energy to disperse. However, before drawing definite conclusions dynamical issues related to the glueball wave functions need to be investigated. In particular mixing is a strong possibility: for instance the $`\psi (3770)`$, $`\psi (2S)`$, $`D\overline{D}`$ threshold and the vector glueball all lie within the same 100 MeV mass window, allowing for a potentially interesting phenomenology, in particular since there is little evidence from lattice simulations to support distinguishable $`2S`$ and $`1D`$ levels in this region. Recently, the interesting question of a (non-exotic) hybrid component in the $`1S`$ states has been addressed in a very nice study Burch:2003zf , in the framework of NRQCD. The conclusion is that this contribution is weak. The question becomes more exciting but also tremendously less approachable if the $`2S`$ charmonium state and glueball channels were considered in addition.

With data from Belle and Babar emerging, CLEO-c being online and the possibility of BES III starting to take data in 2006 the charmonium region is also exciting experimentally. Unfortunately, there is no way of producing say spin-exotic $`1^+`$ states at any detectable rate in a decay starting from a vector resonance. For this we might have to wait for the proton-antiproton PANDA experiment at GSI. However, in the meantime there will definitely be progress in measuring spectrum and decay rates. Possibly the glue-richness of this mass region will leave its imprint, for instance by enhancing OZI suppressed processes.

### 2.2 Light scalars: today

A lot of experimental attention has been devoted to the spectroscopy of light scalar mesons. The reasons are threefold: the scalar sector is intimately linked to chiral symmetry breaking which results in both light $`\pi `$s but at the same time also in heavy $`\sigma `$s. Furthermore, the lightest glueball is predicted to be a scalar and, as an added extra, the lightest four-quark candidate state has scalar quantum numbers as well: pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar bound states can be lighter then quark model scalars since chiral symmetry breaking makes the latter “artificially” heavy and the former “artificially” light. It is also not completely accidental that gluons play a dominant rôle in both the pseudoscalar and the scalar sectors, in the former due to the axial anomaly and in the latter due to glueballs, both of which result in large OZI violations and splittings between $`I=0`$ and $`I0`$ mesons. Unfortunately, it is exactly this rich phenomenology which complicates the interpretation of experimental results as well as theoretical calculations.

The lightest scalar “particle” is the $`\sigma `$ \[or $`f_0(600)`$\]. It seems by now clear that this pole shifts the phase of the $`\pi \pi `$ $`S`$ wave, both from $`\pi \pi `$ scattering experiments as well as from proton-antiproton collisions with a 3$`\pi `$ final state. With an imaginary part of the $`T`$ matrix pole of 450(150) MeV, which almost exceedes its real part \[800(400) MeV\], few people are left who would call this sort of “resonance” a “particle”. However historically, before the advent of lattice simulations, the $`\sigma `$ was among the first glueball candidates. Next there is the $`f_0(980)`$ which in contrast has a width not much larger than 50 MeV, and is accompanied by the $`I=1`$ $`a_0(980)`$ triplet. This “narrowness” is due to the fact that these states cannot decay into $`K\overline{K}`$, being 10–15 MeV lighter than this threshold. This proximity also turns them into natural candidates for either $`s\overline{l}l\overline{s}`$ or $`K\overline{K}`$ bound states. For simplicity We will not distinguish between four-quark and meson-meson bound states but refer to both as “molecules”.

Lattice results Bali:1993fb ; Sexton:1995kd ; Morningstar:1999rf ; Lucini2  suggest that the lightest glueball should be a scalar with mass somewhere between 1.4 and 1.8 GeV. While all raw lattice data agree within statistical errors of some 40 MeV, the large uncertainty quoted above is due to the scale uncertainty from using the quenched approximation. These results lie on top of three experimental scalar $`I=0`$ resonances, the broad $`f_0(1370)`$, the extremely well studied $`f_0(1500)`$ and the $`f_0(1710)`$. The standard picture is that these states are mixtures between a glueball and two $`I=0`$ nonet mesons, one with dominantly $`u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}`$ and the other with $`s\overline{s}`$ quark content. The seven remaining $`I0`$ nonet members are most likely the four $`K_0^{}(1430)`$ as well as three $`a_0(1450)`$ states. Whether there is an excess of experimental states over quark model states or not critically depends on how resonances are organised into nonets. It has to be said that the $`a_0(1450)`$ is quite broad and that the experimental evidence for these states is not rock hard. On the other hand, with a splitting of 450 MeV, it is extremely hard to reconcile the $`K_0^{}`$ and the $`a_0(980)`$ into the same nonet, in particular the near degeneracy of the $`a_0`$ with the $`f_0(980)`$ suggests very tiny OZI violating effects. \[This in turn also means that there is little chance for a significant glueball component in the $`f_0(980)`$.\] The remaining puzzle is the absence of $`S0`$ partners of the $`a_0/f_0(980)`$. Most likely these states have a large molecular component and are part of an inverted nonet Jaffe:1976ig , together with the $`f_0(980)`$, a would-be-$`\pi \pi `$ $`\sigma `$ state and would-be-$`\pi K`$ $`\kappa `$s, which just happen to be extremely fragile, due to the light $`\pi `$ involved.

### 2.3 Light scalars: future

To support the above picture an unambiguous experimental identification of the $`a_0(1450)`$ and a theoretical clarification of the molecular nature of the $`a_0/f_0(980)`$ states rank high on the wish list. Different experimental and theoretical inputs have led to various mixing models Amsler:1995td ; Burakovsky:1998zg ; Lee:1999kv ; Close:2001ga . Amsler and Close Amsler:1995td  suggest that the light quark state mainly goes into the $`f_0(1370)`$, with a subleading component mixing into the $`f_0(1710)`$ while the $`s\overline{s}`$ and the glueball are mainly distributed between the $`f_0(1500)`$ and $`f_0(1710)`$. This view has been superceeded by Close and Kirk’s more recent analysis of decays and production rates Close:2001ga  which suggests the $`f_0(1500)`$ to be dominantly glueball in character with light and strange quark components mixing destructively and additively into the $`f_0(1370)`$ and $`f_0(1710)`$, respectively. In contrast Refs. Burakovsky:1998zg ; Lee:1999kv  predict the $`f_0(1710)`$ to be the (dominant) glueball-state with the two lighter resonances being composed primarily of the quark model mesons.

All these predictions crucially depend on the input parameters used, in particular on the ordering of “unmixed” states and on assumptions on the mixing matrix. One might expect the unmixed $`d\overline{d}+u\overline{u}`$ state to have a mass close to that of the $`a_0(1450)`$ but unfortunately the latter resonance is very broad experimentally and not overly well established. While in QCD with light sea quarks all states will automatically be “mixed”, the quenched approximation is ideal to address the question of ordering of “unmixed” states and even for estimating off-diagonal mass-matrix elements. The main problem however is that in this case correlation functions will loose positivity at small quark masses as the $`\pi `$ and the $`\eta ^{}`$ are degenerate Bardeen:2001jm . In practise this means that at best $`s\overline{s}`$ scalars can be approached using traditional methods.

In Ref. Lee:1999kv  significant finite size effects and a strong lattice spacing dependence are observed. After extrapolations the quenched $`s\overline{s}`$ scalar appears to be about 300 MeV lighter than the pure glueball. RBC Prelovsek:2002qs  quote an even lower mass of 1.04(7) GeV for the light quark $`a_0`$ and 0.9(1) GeV for the $`I=0`$ $`f_0/\sigma `$. The leading chiral correction from the $`\pi \eta ^{}`$ loop was included into this study. One would however hope that systematic uncertainties will be identified and investigated in the future. Should this result be confirmed, then the $`a_0(980)`$ could be explained as a quark model state but what is the $`f_0(980)`$ and why are the $`K_0^{}`$s, that are experimentally well established, so heavy? In a very sophisticated study Bardeen et al. Bardeen:2003qz ; Bardeen:2001jm  determine the relevant low energy parameters of the quenched chiral Lagrangian and remove the leading order quenched chiral power and log. After testing the approach in the pseudoscalar sector they are able to determine an $`a_0`$ mass of 1.33(5) GeV, expressed in units of the $`\rho `$ mass, which is by about $`200\pm 100`$ MeV lighter than the glueball, extrapolated to the continuum limit and converted into the same units. The unmixed $`s\overline{s}`$ state might then be expected to be fairly equal in mass to the glueball. The main difficulty is that with only two lattice spacings at hand the extrapolation to the continuum limit is still a bit shaky.

The situation has also been studied by UKQCD Hart:2001fp  in QCD with sea quarks at lattice spacings $`a0.1`$ fm and $`a0.13`$ fm. In this case the $`a_0`$ is significantly lighter but the same holds true for the flavour singlet meson/glueball (see Fig. 2 below).

In addition to the studies of quark model scalars some results exist on four quark molecules, but with degenerate masses, with the aim of addressing the possibility of a $`\pi \pi `$ bound state. Results of quenched studies Alford:2000mm  are inconclusive due to the requirement of large volumes to avoid squeezing the $`\pi `$s on top of each other when they intend to be elsewhere: without a careful finite size study a residual interaction energy can hardly be disentangled from the $`\pi \pi `$ scattering phase Luscher:1985dn . Diagrams with disconnected quark lines have also been neglected (with one exception Fukugita:1994ve ). In the absence of definite results in the quenched approximation, the SCALAR collaboration has started the very ambitious program of determining the mass of an $`I=0`$ $`\pi \pi `$ state incorporating sea quarks Kunihiro:2002pu . In view of the above it is highly attractive to study simplified cases, with heavier quarks and $`I=1`$, like $`K\overline{K}`$ or $`DK`$ (see also Sec. 2.4 below) molecules, both with at least equally important phenomenological implications.

Few exploratory studies of strong decays exist. Since we are working in Euclidean time there is no concept of asymptotic states. Neither can we calculate the imaginary part of a forward amplitude but there are bug-fixes: the method of choice is the computationally very challenging exploitation of finite size effects introduced by Lüscher Luscher:1985dn . The poor man’s approximation has been developed by Gottlieb et al. Gottlieb:1983rh  and Michael Michael:1989mf . In the latter case an on-shell transition matrix element is evaluated by adjusting the rest mass of the decaying particle to the energy of the outgoing state. In QCD with sea quarks this method can only be approximate as the operator used to create the initial state will in general also have a non-vanishing overlap with the final state. The transition matrix element is related to a coupling which in turn, assuming momentum independence, can be normalised to phase space, predicting the partial decay width. The on-shell condition implies that for a given mass of the final state the relative momentum has to be adjusted to guarantee energy conservation. As momentum is discretized on a lattice this imposes some constraints. The initial state can be boosted such that at a fixed mass several relative momenta can be (approximately) realised, on sufficiently large volumes, and the momentum dependence of the coupling checked. Chiral perturbation theory can also help to connect results obtained at different quark mass, once these are sufficiently light.

Promising results using this approach have been obtained recently for the $`\rho \pi \pi `$ decay in $`n_f=2`$ QCD by McNeile and Michael McNeile:2002fh . Decay couplings of a glueball to two pseudoscalars have so far only been computed by GF11 Sexton:1995kd  some 9 years ago: a mass dependence has been observed with a stronger coupling to heavier mesons, which then has to be folded with phase space.

Elements of the glueball-scalar mass matrix have been calculated by two groups, again GF11 in qQCD Lee:1999kv  and UKQCD for $`n_f=2`$ McNeile:2001xx , for quark masses around the strange quark. Both collaborations obtain mixing energies of about 300 MeV and 500 MeV on relatively coarse lattices, respectively. Starting from two degenerate unmixed states this would imply level splittings between the mixed states of 0.5 – 1 GeV. An extrapolation to the continuum limit by GF11 who also simulated three finer lattice spacings resulted in 61(45) MeV, a very reasonable value but with a 100 % uncertainty.

We are still in the position that the combined “world data” on the scalar $`n_f=2`$ “glueball”, plotted as a function of the squared lattice spacing $`a^2`$, fits into Fig. 2. The quenched case Lucini2 ; Bali:1993fb  is included for reference. The un-quenched results have been obtained by use of three different lattice discretizations of the Dirac action: staggered (HEMCGC Bitar:1991wr ), Wilson (SESAM Bali:2000vr ) and clover (UKQCD McNeile:2001xx ; Hart:2001fp ). The quarks are all not much lighter than the strange quark, the scalar meson is still stable and the wave function turns out to be very close to that of the quenched glueball Bali:2000vr ; McNeile:2001xx . Most $`n_f=2`$ points clearly lie below the quenched line, however, there is certainly a slope in the results, such that the mass in the physical $`a=0`$ limit does not contradict the quenched result. Within the SESAM data set there is an apparent discontinuity because different points have been obtained at different quark masses; the “glueball” becomes lighter as the quark mass is reduced. Clearly additional studies at lighter quark masses and different lattice spacings are required.

### 2.4 The $`D_{sJ}^+(2317)`$

Recently a narrow $`D_{sJ}^+(2317)`$ state has been detected by BaBar Aubert:2003fg , dominantly decaying into $`D_s\pi `$. This finding was confirmed by CLEO Besson:2003jp  and by Belle Abe:2003jk . The latter two collaborations also reported a narrow resonance around 2537 MeV, decaying into $`D_s^{}+\pi `$. Both states lie by about 40 MeV below the respective $`DK`$ and $`D^{}K`$ thresholds. In contrast potential model calculations suggest Godfrey:xj  much heavier masses for the missing $`D_{s0}`$ and $`D_{s1}^{}`$ $`P`$ wave states, rendering these into broad resonances. These expectations have very recently received experimental support from Belle’s observation of the missing $`D_0^{}`$ and $`D_1^{}`$ states at $`2308(17)(15)(28)`$ MeV and at 2427 (26)(20)(15) MeV, respectively Abe:2003zm . These states indeed strongly decay into $`D\pi `$ and $`D^{}\pi `$, respectively, with widths of order 300 MeV.

If the new $`D_{sJ}`$ mesons were $`P`$ wave $`c\overline{s}`$ mesons, why are they so light but the corresponding $`c\overline{d}`$ mesons are not? Naturally this question invites speculation that the new scalar state might be of a $`DK`$ (or 4-quark) molecular nature, somewhat resembling the $`f_0/a_0(980)`$ system Barnes:2003dj . Of course such ideas eventually have to be substantiated by a QCD calculation and indeed lattice results exist: simulations in the static limit within the quenched approximation Michael:1998sg  and with sea quarks Bali:2003jv , simulations including NRQCD/HQET $`1/m`$ corrections Hein:2000qu  and simulations with a relativistic charm quark Boyle:1997rk ; Dougall:2003hv . The interpretation of these results is controversial: I Bali:2003jv  observed that both effects, including sea quarks and including relativistic corrections to the static limit, increase the mass of a quark model $`c\overline{s}`$ $`P`$ wave scalar state, pushing it above the $`DK`$ threshold and into agreement with potential model predictions. I then concluded that lattice results are incompatible with a pure quark model nature of the new $`D_{sJ}`$ states. On the other hand, while confirming an increase in the predicted mass when incorporating sea quarks, the authors of Ref. Dougall:2003hv  conclude that their results are consistent with the states observed by Babar and CLEO, however, within errors no disagreement is seen with the potential model predictions either. Interestingly, while $`1/m`$ corrections to the static limit are substantial for charm quarks and increase the $`0^+0^{}`$ splitting by about 25 % Bali:2003jv , the $`1^+1^{}`$ splitting is found to agree with the $`0^+0^{}`$ splitting within statistical and systematic errors of about 15 %, in quenched as well as with sea quarks Dougall:2003hv , as suggested by chiral symmetry in the heavy quark limit Nowak:1992um .

The same chiral symmetry argument would also apply to molecular states, such that the mere discovery of similar $`B_{sJ}`$ mesons would not help in discriminating between meson and molecule. Dynamical issues need to be addressed and decays investigated. In particular electromagnetic decays, where the theoretical understanding is much better than for strong decays, would reveal information about the internal structure of these states. The narrowness of these resonances suggests that this need not be a completely hopeless enterprise. If the lightest $`D_{sJ}`$ state was dominantly a molecule, then a quark model $`J=0`$ resonance should exist in addition. The recent Belle Abe:2003zm  evidence of the $`D_0^{}(2308)`$ suggests that another broad resonance, centred around 2.4 to 2.5 GeV with dominant decay into $`DK`$, might be detectable.

Better lattice studies are needed to clarify these important issues, and also with respect to the possibility of similar states in the $`B`$ meson system. Of course at physical light and strange quark masses lattice QCD should reproduce the experimental spectrum. So to gain insight into the nature of these states a high precision quenched benchmark study is required: in this approximation molecules and mesons are clearly distinct. In addition, the light sea quark mass dependence of both, a possible $`c\overline{l}l\overline{s}`$ molecule and a $`c\overline{s}`$ meson has to be traced down into the region where mixing can set in. Fortunately, the $`DK`$ system is more user friendly than its $`K\overline{K}`$ counterpart: heavier particles can be accommodated in smaller volumes and the binding energy that is suggested by phenomenology is comfortably large with about 40 MeV, rather than a mere 10–15 MeV. It is also conceivable to calculate matrix elements that are related to electromagnetic decay rates.

### 2.5 More hybrids

The spectrum of $`c\overline{c}`$ glue hybrids has already been discussed in Sec. 2.1 above. Light hybrids have been studied to some extent as well, with Lacock:1998be ; Bernard:2003jd  and without Lacock:1996ny ; Mei:2002ip ; Bernard  sea quarks. All these results yield the same ordering as in the charmonium case (and in fact also the bottomonium case) with $`1^+`$ being the lightest exotic, followed by $`0^+`$ and $`2^+`$. The $`1^+`$ is consistent with a mass of $`1.9(2)`$ MeV, with the corresponding strange quark exotic about 200 MeV heavier, in quenched as well as in un-quenched simulations. This is heavier than the $`\pi _1(1600)`$ candidate. Mixing with molecular states is a possible explanation and the feasibility of studying this has been demonstrated by MILC Bernard . However, at present the quarks are still so heavy that for instance the combined mass of a $`b_1`$ and a $`\pi `$ is around 1.9 GeV too. Clearly the lattice calculations are incomplete. Molecules have to be included and the quark mass dependence of the mixing matrix has to be studied carefully.

Heavy hybrids can be studied using NRQCD Collins:1997cb ; Manke:1998yg ; Manke:1998qc ; Juge:1999ie ; Manke:2001ft ; Burch:2003zf ; Juge:2003qd  or the Born-Oppenheimer approximation Perantonis:1990dy ; Collins:1997cb ; Juge:1999ie ; McNeile:2002az ; Juge:2003qd . In the charmonium case simulations with relativistic quarks on anisotropic lattices have been pursued by several groups Liao:2002rj ; Choe:2003wx ; Mei:2002ip  as well as with isotropic lattices Bernard ; Bernard:2003jd . Even a simulation of bottomonium with relativistic quarks on an anisotropic lattice exists Liao:2001yh . With the statistical errors of present simulations differences between quenched and un-quenched data cannot clearly be resolved. In Figure 3 We summarise the present estimates of the splitting of the $`1^+`$ hybrid with respect to the respective vector meson state: the flavour dependence is tiny. In addition three decay thresholds are displayed. As detailed in Sec. 2.1 a strong decay into two pseudoscalars is forbidden while the decay into vector and pseudoscalar is suppressed, in particular in the heavy quark limit. Theoretically the $`b\overline{b}`$ hybrid is most clean-cut but experimentally hard to produce.

On the lattice electromagnetic matrix elements can be calculated Choe:2003wx ; Burch:2003zf  but strong decays are very challenging. To this end McNeile et al. McNeile:2002az  predict that if the lightest bottomonium hybrid is indeed below the $`B^{}\overline{B}`$ threshold the dominant decay channel should be deexcitation by emission of a scalar: $`H_b\chi _b\pi \pi `$, with a width of about 100 MeV. The same argument should also be valid in the charmonium case, where phase space would reduce the width even further, but not necessarily for light hybrids.

## 3 Conclusions: from fiction to fact

A combination of new theoretical methods and computing technology has allowed us to arrive at the boundary between qualitative test of principle and quantitative prediction in the complicated area of flavour singlet physics, strong decays and mixing. A few years ago at least three major technical challenges had to be overcome: light quarks, sea quarks and disconnected quark lines. We are about half way through by now. With enough effort devoted onto the topics covered in this article, quantitative predictions are possible within the time scale that is relevant for experiments like glueX at JLAB or PANDA at GSI.

## Acknowledgments

I warmly thank Sigfrido Boffi, Claudio Ciofi degli Atti and Mauro Giannini for organizing this stimulating meeting. This work has been supported by PPARC grants PPA/A/S/2000/00271 and PPA/G/0/2002/0463.


text:
# Testing Chiral Dynamics in Pionic Atoms

## I Introduction and Methodology

The recent observation of $`1s`$ and $`2p`$ ‘deeply bound’ $`\pi ^{}`$ atomic states in isotopes of Pb  and very recently also of such $`1s`$ states in isotopes of Sn  has triggered renewed interest in the issue of partial restoration of chiral symmetry in dense nuclear matter . In a nutshell, it was argued that since (i) the pion in deeply bound states with relatively large neutron excess charts a fairly dense portion of the nuclear medium, and since (ii) the most influential term of the optical potential $`V_{\mathrm{opt}}`$ for this situation is generated by the $`s`$-wave isovector $`\pi N`$ threshold amplitude $`b_1`$, and since (iii) $`b_1`$ in free-space is well approximated in lowest chiral-expansion order by the Tomozawa-Weinberg expression

$$b_1=\frac{\mu _{\pi N}}{8\pi f_\pi ^2}=0.08m_\pi ^1,$$
(1)
then deeply-bound states could yield valuable information on the dependence of $`f_\pi `$ on the density $`\rho `$. The pion decay constant $`f_\pi `$ serves as an order parameter for the spontaneously broken chiral symmetry in hadronic physics, and its free-space value $`f_\pi `$= 92.4 MeV should go to zero in dense matter if and when chiral symmetry is restored. Indeed, it has been known for quite some time that the renormalized value of $`b_1`$ required to fit pionic-atom data is about $`0.12m_\pi ^1`$  clearly more repulsive than the free-space value $`0.09m_\pi ^1`$ .

Our most extensive recent work  has shown, however, that the deeply bound states by themselves on statistical grounds are insufficient to draw firm conclusions about whether or not $`b_1`$ is renormalized in dense matter. In fact, contrary to the expectation (i) above, the pion in deeply bound $`1s`$ states does not chart higher-density regions of the nucleus than it does so in ‘normal’ $`1s`$ states in light nuclei. It was shown in Ref.  that only by using a substantially larger data base that includes plenty of normal pionic atom data, and carefully considering uncertainties in the knowledge of neutron density distributions, it becomes possible to make a meaningful statement on the renormalization of the isovector threshold amplitude $`b_1`$, i.e. $`b_1=0.108\pm 0.007m_\pi ^1`$. It is tempting to ascribe this value for $`b_1`$, using Eq. (1), to a renormalization of $`f_\pi `$ in the nuclear medium.

Recently, Kolomeitsev, Kaiser and Weise  have suggested that pionic atom data could be reproduced using a pion optical potential underlain by chirally expanded $`\pi N`$ amplitudes, retaining the energy dependence of the amplitudes $`b_0(E)`$ and $`b_1(E)`$ for zero-momentum (q=0) pions in nuclear matter in order to impose the minimal substitution requirement $`EEV_c`$, where $`V_c`$ is the Coulomb potential. This has the advantage of enabling one to use a systematic chiral expansion as an input , rather than singling out the leading order term Eq. (1) for $`b_1`$. Kolomeitsev et al. applied this programme to study the shifts and widths of the Pb and Sn pionic deeply bound states and reported substantial improvement in reproducing these data with only minimal phenomenological input, mostly limited to the $`p`$-wave $`\pi N`$ interaction to which allegedly these data are insensitive . One could argue, however, that the deeply bound states do not offer sufficient variation over the energy range spanned by the bulk data on pionic atoms which include both ‘shallow’ states as well as ‘deep’ states. In the present work we test whether or not the energy dependence of this chiral expansion provides a satisfactory description for the bulk of pionic atom data.

The data used in the present work consist of 100 strong-interaction shifts and widths, stretching from 20Ne to 238U . The Klein-Gordon equation solved for the pionic-atom eigen energies is given by :

$$\left[^22\mu (B+V_c)+(B+V_c)^2\mathrm{\Pi }(E)\right]\psi =0(\mathrm{}=c=1)$$
(2)
where $`\mu `$ is the pion-nucleus reduced mass, $`B`$ is the complex binding energy and $`V_c`$ is the finite-size Coulomb interaction of the pion with the nucleus, including vacuum-polarization terms. The pion-nuclear polarization operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }(E)`$ is given by the standard Ericson-Ericson form

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=2\mu V_{\mathrm{opt}}=q(r)+\stackrel{}{}\alpha (r)\stackrel{}{},$$
(3)
with the $`s`$-wave part of $`V_{\mathrm{opt}}`$

$`q(r)`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi (1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{M}})\{\overline{b}_0(r)[\rho _n(r)+\rho _p(r)]+b_1[\rho _n(r)\rho _p(r)]\}`$ (5)
$`4\pi (1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{2M}})4B_0\rho _n(r)\rho _p(r).`$
In these expressions $`\rho _n`$ and $`\rho _p`$ are the neutron and proton density distributions normalized to the number of neutrons $`N`$ and number of protons $`Z`$, respectively, and $`M`$ is the mass of the nucleon; $`q(r)`$ is referred to as the $`s`$-wave potential term and $`\alpha (r)`$ is referred to as the $`p`$-wave potential term. The function $`\overline{b}_0(r)`$ in Eq. (5) is given in terms of the local Fermi momentum $`k_\mathrm{F}(r)`$ corresponding to the isoscalar nucleon density distribution:

$$\overline{b}_0(r)=b_0\frac{3}{2\pi }(b_0^2+2b_1^2)k_\mathrm{F}(r),$$
(6)
where the quadratic terms in $`b_0`$ and $`b_1`$ represent double-scattering modifications of $`b_0`$. In particular, the $`b_1^2`$ term represents a sizable correction to the nearly vanishing linear $`b_0`$ term. Similar double-scattering modifications of $`b_1`$, as well as other correction terms to $`\mathrm{\Pi }(E)`$ listed in Refs. , were found by us to yield negligibly small effects and will not be further discussed below. The complex parameter $`B_0`$ is due to $`s`$-wave absorption on pairs of nucleons. Its microscopic evaluation is outside the scope of chiral perturbation theory. Finally, the $`p`$-wave term $`\alpha (r)`$ is a standard one with the same form as in Ref. .

The chiral expansion of the $`\pi N`$ amplitudes for q = 0 at the two-loop level is well approximated by the following expressions :

$$4\pi \left(1+\frac{m_\pi }{M}\right)b_0(E)\left(\frac{\sigma \beta E^2}{f_\pi ^2}+\frac{3g_A^2m_\pi ^3}{16\pi f_\pi ^4}\right),$$
(7)
$$4\pi \left(1+\frac{m_\pi }{M}\right)b_1(E)\frac{E}{2f_\pi ^2}\left(1+\frac{\gamma E^2}{\left(2\pi f_\pi \right)^2}\right),$$
(8)
where $`\sigma `$ is the $`\pi N`$ sigma term, $`\sigma 50`$ MeV , $`g_A`$ is the nucleon axial-vector coupling constant, $`g_A=1.27`$, $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ are tuned to reproduce the threshold values $`b_0(m_\pi )0`$ and $`b_1(m_\pi )=0.0885_{0.0021}^{+0.0010}m_\pi ^1`$  respectively. For $`b_0`$, in view of the accidental cancellations that lead to its near vanishing we limit our discussion to the $`f_\pi ^2`$ term in Eq. (7), therefore choosing $`\beta =\sigma m_\pi ^2`$. The next, $`f_\pi ^4`$ term is much bigger than the scale of variation from zero expected for the threshold value and its inclusion here would appear somewhat dubious; if included, it would increase the energy dependence from the conservative estimate adopted by us. Implementing the minimal substitution requirement in the calculation of pionic atom observables, the constant parameters $`b_{0,1}`$ of the conventionally energy independent optical potential have been replaced in our calculation by

$$b_{0,1}(r)=b_{0,1}\delta _{0,1}(\mathrm{Re}B+V_c(r)),$$
(9)
where $`\delta _{0,1}=b_{0,1}(E)/E`$ is the appropriate slope parameter at threshold, Re$`B`$ is the (real) binding energy of the corresponding pionic atom state and $`V_c(r)`$ is the Coulomb potential. The constant fit parameters $`b_{0,1}`$ are then expected to agree with the corresponding free $`\pi N`$ threshold amplitudes if the energy dependence is indeed responsible for the renormalized values found in conventional analyses. The added piece proportional to $`\delta `$ in Eq. (9) is dominated by the attractive $`V_c(r)`$. Since the slope parameters $`\delta `$ from Eqs. (7,8) are negative, this added piece is always repulsive, in agreement with Refs. .

Before testing the above ‘chiral’ energy dependence for off-shell q = 0 pions we present results for the empirically known on-shell $`\pi N`$ amplitudes, when the pion energy $`E`$ and its three-momentum q are related by $`E^2=m_\pi ^2+𝐪^2`$. This choice corresponds to the original suggestion by Ericson and Tauscher  to consider the effect of energy dependence in pionic atoms. Ericson subsequently  pointed out that, for strongly repulsive short-range $`NN`$ correlations, the on-shell requirement follows naturally from the Agassi-Gal theorem  for scattering off non-overlapping nucleons. The corresponding $`\pi N`$ amplitudes will be denoted below as ‘empirical’. Figure 1 shows the energy dependence of the empirical $`b_0(E)`$ and $`b_1(E)`$ on-shell amplitudes as derived from the SAID data base . The value of $`b_0(E)`$ at threshold is very close to zero and the empirical slope $`\delta _0`$, which corresponds to adding repulsion in Eq. (9), is quite well-determined over the whole relevant energy range, having changed little since the classical KH80 analysis  of the pre pion-factories data to the most recent analyses of modern data. We note that the slope of the q = 0 chiral $`b_0(E)`$ amplitude of Eq. (7) is larger than the on-shell empirical slope by about 60%. For the empirical $`b_1(E)`$, its value at threshold has also changed little since KH80 to the present day analysis, and the slope of the empirical amplitude is essentially zero, in contrast to the fairly large slope of the q = 0 chiral amplitude of Eq. (8).

## II Results

The present analysis is based on the ‘global 3’ data set of Ref.  consisting of 100 data points from 20Ne to 238U. For the nuclear density distributions $`\rho _p`$ and $`\rho _n`$ we adopt the procedure of Ref.  where $`\rho _p`$ is obtained from the experimental charge distribution by unfolding the finite size of the charge of the proton, and where simple but physical parameterizations are used for $`\rho _n`$. A key quantity in this context is the difference $`r_nr_p`$ between the root-mean-square radii. Relativistic mean field (RMF) calculations  yield to a good approximation

$$r_nr_p=\alpha \frac{NZ}{A}+\eta ,$$
(10)
with the values $`\alpha `$=1.51$`\pm `$0.07 fm, $`\eta `$=$``$0.03$`\pm `$0.01 fm. A similar expression, but with $`\alpha =1.0`$, was obtained by analyzing strong interaction effects in antiprotonic atoms . Owing to the strong correlation between the values assumed for $`r_nr_p`$ and the values of $`b_1`$ derived from $`\chi ^2`$ fits to pionic atom data, we have varied the neutron-excess parameter $`\alpha `$ over a wide range, with the expectation that a value in the range of 1.0 to 1.5 will represent on the average the 41 nuclei in the present data base.

Figure 2 shows results for the ‘conventional’ model (left) for which $`\delta _{0,1}=0`$ and for the ‘empirical’ model (right) as function of the neutron-excess parameter $`\alpha `$ in Eq. (10) for two shapes of neutron densities. The dependence of the quality of fits on the shape of the neutron density distribution and the vanishingly small sensitivity of the derived values of $`b_1`$ to this shape are demonstrated by using either the ‘skin’ or the ‘halo’ shape, as discussed in Ref. . The results for the conventional (energy independent) model are practically the same as in Ref.  in spite of adopting now the ‘current’ SAID values  for the $`p`$-wave parameters $`c_0=0.21m_\pi ^3`$ and $`c_1=0.165m_\pi ^3`$, instead of the values 0.22 and 0.18 $`m_\pi ^3`$ respectively used beforehand. This slight change was made for consistency, since the slope parameters $`\delta `$ for the empirical model were taken from the ‘current’ SAID analysis. In fact, we also incorporated in the right hand side (rhs) of the figure the SAID weak energy dependence of $`c_0`$ ($`c_1`$ is essentially energy independent). The results on the rhs of the figure show that, for the ‘skin’ shape of $`\rho _n`$ and with the introduction of the empirical energy dependence of the amplitudes, the minimum in the $`\chi ^2`$ curve has shifted slightly towards the acceptable region of $`\alpha =`$1.0 to 1.5, and the value of $`b_1`$ for that minimum is in agreement with the free $`\pi N`$ value marked by ‘exp.’ in the upper panels of the figure. It is self-evident that the ‘halo’ shape for the neutron density distributions cannot be reconciled with the data. Finally, we add that the resulting values of $`b_0`$ for both the conventional and empirical models are close to zero, well within the experimental error .

A comment on the ‘anomalous $`s`$-wave repulsion’ in pionic atoms is here in order. The net effect of the nearly vanishing parameter $`b_0`$, of the repulsive $`b_1`$ and of the phenomenological parameter Re$`B_0`$ has been known  to produce a repulsive potential inside nuclei which is twice as large as expected. This is due to the combined action of the too repulsive $`b_1`$ and of Re$`B_0`$ which turns out to be too repulsive compared to the expectations that $`|`$Re$`B_0|<`$Im$`B_0`$ (see also Ref. ). For the fits mentioned above we obtain for the conventional potential Im$`B_0`$=0.053$`\pm `$0.002 $`m_\pi ^4`$ and Re$`B_0=`$0.10 $`\pm `$ 0.03 $`m_\pi ^4`$. Although the latter is determined to a moderate accuracy, we note that setting its value to zero while repeating the fits leads to a significant increase in the resulting $`\chi ^2`$ value and to a value for $`b_0`$ which is incompatible with experiment (cf. Table 4 of Ref. ). Using the empirical $`b_{0,1}(E)`$ we find Re$`B_0=`$0.07 $`\pm `$ 0.03 $`m_\pi ^4`$. We conclude that using the empirical energy dependence the anomaly in Re$`B_0`$ is reduced, whereas there is essentially no anomaly in the parameter $`b_1`$.

Figure 3 shows results for the ‘chiral’ model, when either $`b_0`$ (left) or $`b_1`$ (right) is made energy dependent according to Eqs. (7) and (8), respectively. The left hand side of the figure shows that the quality of the best fit, upon incorporating only the energy dependence of the chiral $`b_0`$ amplitude, is significantly inferior to the corresponding best fit obtained using the conventional, energy independent model (shown in Fig. 2). Furthermore, the value of $`\alpha `$ at the $`\chi ^2`$ minimum is unacceptably large and the corresponding value of $`b_1`$ is in sharp disagreement with the experimental free $`\pi N`$ threshold value. The rhs of the figure shows good fits with almost acceptable values for $`\alpha `$ and for $`b_1`$, upon incorporating only the energy dependence of the chiral $`b_1`$ amplitude, again for the ‘skin’ shape of the neutron density. However, incorporating the energy dependence of the chiral $`b_0(E)`$ (even within the limited scope of using only the $`f_\pi ^2`$ term on the rhs of Eq. (7)) on top of that for $`b_1(E)`$, leads to substantial disagreement between the resulting best-fit value for $`b_1`$ and the threshold value $`b_1(m_\pi )`$ which is marked by ‘exp.’ in Fig. 3. We conclude that, at present, the energy dependence generated by the chirally expanded $`s`$-wave $`\pi N`$ amplitudes of Eqs. (7,8) fails badly in reproducing consistently the bulk of pionic atom data.

## III Discussion and Conclusions

In the present work we have demonstrated that the consistency between pionic-atom data and the free $`\pi N`$ threshold amplitudes is greatly improved by using just the on-shell energy dependence of the $`\pi N`$ $`s`$-wave amplitudes, in accordance with the original suggestion made by Ericson and Tauscher . The idea behind using this empirical energy dependence is the same one as used for constructing the multiple-scattering series for short-ranged $`\pi N`$ interactions occurring within an assembly of largely non-overlapping nucleons . Multiple scattering is naturally described in this idealized limit as occurring on shell. Whereas using off-shell q=0 pions in chiral expansions is motivated by the ground-state wavefunction description of pions in nuclear matter, applying this limitation to the construction of the pion-nuclear optical potential that generates pionic-atom wavefunctions is questionable.

We have also shown that the energy-dependent chiral amplitudes given by Eqs. (7,8) for q=0 off-shell pions do not produce consistent or good global fits to pionic atom data. This conclusion is not at odds with the observation made by Kolomeitsev et al.  that the q=0 off-shell chiral amplitudes work well, and with no need for a dispersive term Re$`B_0`$ for the few deeply bound states available at present, since partial data sets of this kind do not have sufficient statistical significance to decide one way or another on this issue . In fact, as good average reproduction of these deeply-bound data is reached within a wide classs of optical potentials, including our ‘empirical’ energy-dependent potential of the present study. We defer this and other ramifications of the present analysis for a forthcoming detailed publication. Given the fact that the on-shell $`\pi N`$ amplitudes provide by far a better description of pionic atom data than the extremely off-shell q=0 chiral amplitudes do, we conclude that chiral dynamics is not yet at a stage of being tested in pionic atoms.

Finally, it should be emphasized that we have strictly adhered in the present calculation to imposing minimal substitution, $`EEV_c`$, on the pion-nuclear polarization operator $`\mathrm{\Pi }(E)`$ within the Klein-Gordon equation (2). Nowhere have we renormalized the threshold value of the $`\pi N`$ isovector amplitude $`b_1`$ of Eq. (1) by renormalizing the pion decay constant $`f_\pi f_\pi (\rho )`$ in dense matter . This latter prescription which appears to be rooted in the underlying chiral symmetry has been discussed extensively in the context of pionic atoms , but according to Refs.  it need not be applied once the full energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(E)`$ is incorporated.

We wish to thank Wolfram Weise for making critical remarks on a preliminary version of this manuscript. This research was partially supported by the Israel Science Foundation grant No. 131/01.


text:
# Why do starless cores appear more flattened than protostellar cores?

## 1 Introduction

Stars form in dense interstellar regions known as molecular clouds, and particularly in the densest cores of molecular clouds. A great deal of observational work on molecular cloud cores has been carried out and a large number of sites of star formation have been observed in various molecular transitions (e.g. Myers, Linke & Benson 1983; Myers & Benson 1983; Benson & Myers 1989). The chief transitions used tend to be various isotopes of CO (a tracer of column density) and NH3 (a tracer of volume density). A recent paper (Jijina, Myers & Adams 1999) cataloged all of the known molecular observations of a large sample of nearby star-forming regions, listing many of their physical properties such as density, temperature, size and shape. Such a catalogue provides a wealth of detailed information about the star formation process. In this letter we concentrate on what we can learn from this catalogue about the shapes of star-forming cores.

When observing molecular cloud cores, all we see are their projected shapes on the sky, whilst for detailed comparison with theory we would like information on their three dimensional shapes. Jijina et al. (1999) used their molecular-line maps of molecular cores and estimated the projected axial ratios ($`q`$) by fitting elliptical envelopes to the data. Here we analyze the resulting distribution of projected axial ratios, on the assumption that molecular cores are ellipsoidal, with a well-defined distribution of intrinsic axial ratios ($`1:\zeta :\eta `$), and that the cores in the Jijina et al. sample are randomly oriented. Our aim is to constrain the distribution of intrinsic three-dimensional axial ratios.

## 2 Deprojecting ellipticity

A triaxial object, when viewed from any angle, appears in projection as an ellipse. Binney (1985) calculated the projected axial ratio $`q`$ ($`=b/a\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$) for an ellipsoid having axial ratios $`1:\zeta :\eta `$ (where $`\eta \zeta 1`$) and viewed from an angle $`(\theta ,\varphi )`$ as

$$q=\sqrt{\frac{A+C\sqrt{[(AC)^2+B^2]}}{A+C+\sqrt{[(AC)^2+B^2]}}},$$
(1)
where $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`C`$ are functions of the intrinsic axial ratios and the viewing angles given by

$$A=\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2(\theta )}{\eta ^2}\left[\mathrm{sin}^2(\varphi )+\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2(\varphi )}{\zeta ^2}\right]+\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\theta )}{\zeta ^2},$$

$$B=\mathrm{cos}(\theta )\mathrm{sin}(2\varphi )\left[1\frac{1}{\zeta ^2}\right]\frac{1}{\eta ^2}$$

and

$$C=\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\varphi )}{\zeta ^2}+\mathrm{cos}^2(\varphi )\right]\frac{1}{\eta ^2}.$$

The simplest statistical approach to take in determining whether a given distribution of projected axial ratios ($`q`$) is drawn from a single distribution of intrinsic axial ratios ($`\zeta ,\eta `$), is to use an assumed distribution of $`\zeta `$\- and $`\eta `$-values to generate a large number (more than $`10^5`$) of projected $`q`$-values in a Monte Carlo simulation. These Monte Carlo $`q`$-values can be converted into a distribution function, and this ‘artificial’ distribution function can then be compared with the ‘real’ (i.e. observed) distribution function from the Jijina et al. data set. The KS-test and $`\chi ^2`$ test can be used to evaluate the likelihood of the assumed fit.

Following Jones, Basu & Dubinski (2001), we assume that the axial ratios $`\zeta `$ and $`\eta `$ have Gaussian distributions characterized by means ($`\overline{\zeta },\overline{\eta }`$) and standard deviations ($`\sigma _\zeta ,\sigma _\eta `$), with the additional constraint that $`\zeta `$ and $`\eta `$ must fall in the interval from 0 to 1.

## 3 Results

We find that the best fit to the observed $`q`$-values of the entire Jijina et al. (1999) sample is obtained with $`\overline{\zeta }0.8`$,$`\sigma _\zeta 0.1`$, $`\overline{\eta }0.4`$ and $`\sigma _\eta 0.2`$. It has $`\chi ^2`$ probability of 0.74. In contrast, Jones et al. (2001) find $`\overline{\zeta }0.9`$,$`\overline{\eta }0.5`$ and $`\sigma _\zeta \sigma _\eta 0.1`$. This difference is significant at the high ellipticity end of the distribution (but not in the heart of the distribution as both are good fits to the data). To test this $`10^5`$ ellipticities were drawn from both our best fit and that of Jones et al. and the KS test rejects the two distributions as being the same at very high probability ($`>95`$ per cent). The rejection is at even higher significance for less than $`10^5`$ samples.

The reason why our analysis rejects the Jones et al. (2001) best fit is that the smallest observed axial ratio $`q=0.175`$ requires the combination of an extremely small short axis ($`3\sigma _\eta `$ below $`\overline{\eta }`$) and a viewing direction within a few degrees of the mid-axis. This is extremely unlikely. Moreover it should be noted that the $`q=0.175`$ core is not a lone outlier; there are four cores with $`q<0.25`$.

Jijina et al. (1999) find significant differences in many of the cores’ properties between starless cores (ones with no associated IRAS source) and protostellar cores (ones with at least one associated IRAS source). They also find significant differences between cores which are associated with star clusters and those which are not. We therefore repeated our analysis for these subsamples. Association with a star cluster does not appear to affect the distribution of intrinsic axial ratios.

However, there does appear to be a statistically significant difference between starless cores and protostellar cores. There are 79 starless cores and 179 protostellar cores in the sample, excluding cores defined by Jijina et al. (1999) as being multiples, due to the difficulties of correctly determining the projected axial ratios of such cores.

Figure 1 shows the best fit for starless cores, obtained with $`\overline{\zeta }=0.8`$, $`\sigma _\zeta =0.1`$, $`\overline{\eta }=0.3`$, and $`\sigma _\eta =0.2`$. This fit maximises the KS probability at 0.46 (with a $`\chi ^2`$ probability of $`0.85`$), a reasonable fit to the data.

Figure 2 shows the best fit for the protostellar cores, obtained with $`\overline{\zeta }=0.8`$, $`\sigma _\zeta =0.1`$, $`\overline{\eta }=0.5`$, and $`\sigma _\eta =0.2`$. This fit has a KS probability of only 0.01 (but a $`\chi ^2`$ probability of $`0.83`$). Whilst this is the best fit it appears that a distribution formed so simply is not good at representing the observed distribution. The results are summarised in table 1.

Figure 3 demonstrates the fact that starless and protostellar cores have significantly different distributions, by comparing their cumulative distribution functions with our average fit obtained using $`\overline{\zeta }=0.8`$, $`\sigma _\zeta =0.1`$, $`\overline{\eta }=0.4`$, and $`\sigma _\eta =0.2`$. Evidently neither data set is matched especially well by this average fit. Instead, the average fit lies comfortably between the two cumulative distributions, with the majority of starless cores lying above the average fit, and the majority of protostellar cores lying below it. This difference is significant as the KS test shows that starless and protostellar cores only have a 5 per cent probability of being drawn from the same distribution.

To test whether the apparent difference between starless cores and protostellar cores is due to selection effects, we examined whether $`q`$ correlates with properties such as the linear size and density of a core. In the Jijina et al. data set, the protostellar cores are generally larger than the starless cores. We believe this to be a selection effect, since a protostellar core is on average hotter and more luminous than a starless core of the same mass, and therefore the outer parts of its envelope are more readily detected. However $`q`$ is uncorrelated with other properties (in particular linear size) and so we do not believe that selection effects are biasing our results significantly.

If selection effects cannot explain our result, then it is surprising. As explained by Zel’dovich (1970), and verified by many others since, one would expect a dynamically collapsing triaxial ellipsoid to collapse faster along its shortest axis than along the other axes. Consequently, more evolved cores (those with protostars) might be expected to have more extreme axial ratios than less evolved ones (starless cores), which is the opposite of our result. One possible explanation is that the collapse of cores with significant magnetic fields is not as simple as a pure gravitational collapse and may cause the effect we observe (eg. Habe et al. 1991). Another possibility is that the outer envelopes of protostellar cores are not collapsing and have greater isotropic support than those of starless cores. For instance, they could have higher turbulence, as inferred from the broader line-widths observed by Beichman et al. (1986). We are currently undertaking a programme of simulations of the collapse of triaxial cores, which may shed light on the evolution of the axial ratios.

## 4 Conclusions

We have shown that the projected axial ratios of molecular cores (Jijina et al. 1999) can be well fitted with randomly oriented ellipsoids having their intrinsic axial ratios distributed according to $`\overline{\zeta }0.8`$, $`\overline{\eta }0.4`$ and $`\sigma _\zeta \sigma _\eta 0.1`$. This conclusion is different to that of Jones et al. (2001) in that they infer less extreme axial ratios. The reason for this is that they allow distributions which (in effect) predict no low $`q`$-values even though several are observed.

When we divide the Jijina et al. (1999) data into subsamples and repeat our analysis we find a difference between starless cores and protostellar cores, in the sense that starless cores are flatter. Specifically, starless cores are best fit with $`\overline{\eta }0.3`$, while protostellar cores are best fit with $`\overline{\eta }0.5`$. This result is surprising. A triaxial ellipsoid in free-fall should collapse faster along its shortest axis than along the other axes. Hence older cores (those with protostars) might be expected to have more extreme axial ratios. It appears that the opposite is the case.


text:
# Observation of a Triangular to Square Flux Lattice Phase Transition in YBa2Cu3O7

## Abstract

We have used the technique of small-angle neutron scattering to observe magnetic flux lines directly in an YBa2Cu3O7 single crystal at fields higher than previously reported. For field directions close to perpendicular to the CuO2 planes, we find that the flux lattice structure changes smoothly from a distorted triangular co-ordination to nearly perfectly square as the magnetic induction approaches $`11\mathrm{T}`$. The orientation of the square flux lattice is as expected from recent d-wave theories, but is $`45^{}`$ from that recently observed in La1.83Sr0.17CuO4+δ.

preprint: Preprint

The technique of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) from flux lines has a long and honorable record in measuring the properties of flux lines in superconductors. However, it continues to bring new dividends, especially in unconventional superconductors, since important information about the nature of the superconducting state is often revealed by the flux line lattice (FLL) structure, for example SROKealey ; LSCOGilardi ; UPt3Huxley ; BcarbDon . The diffraction pattern not only reveals the co-ordination and perfection of the FLL, and its correlation with the crystal lattice, but also the absolute intensity may be used to determine the actual spatial variation of the magnetic field within the mixed state and the values of the coherence length and penetration depth SROKealey ; NbForgan ; SROTanya . In the simplest approximation, flux lines would order in a regular triangular FLL; however, anisotropy of the Fermi surface or of the superconducting order parameter can cause distortions of the triangular lattice or transitions to other structures. The simplest situation in a high-$`\kappa `$ material is anisotropy of the magnetic penetration depth associated with effective mass anisotropy Thiemann ; for example, the anisotropy in the ab plane of YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) leads at low values of field to a corresponding distortion of triangular FLLs Johnson . At the lower values of $`\kappa `$ in borocarbides, “nonlocal” effects are expected and observed KoganLondon ; dewilde ; BcarbDon  to give a variety of FLL distortions and transitions. If the superconducting order parameter has a different symmetry from that of the crystal, this can again be revealed via its effects on the FLL structure, for instance in the p-wave superconductor Sr2RuO4 Agterberg ; SROTanya . In general in d-wave superconductors ichioka ; shiraishi , there is expected to be a tendency towards a square FLL as the field is increased and the anisotropic flux line cores overlap. This may be the cause of the FLL phase transition recently observed in overdoped La1.83Sr0.17CuO4+δ (LSCO) at the comparatively low field of $`0.4\mathrm{T}`$ LSCOGilardi . According to ichioka , the FLL nearest-neighbour directions should lie along the directions of the nodes of the order parameter, which would be at $`45^{}`$ to the Cu-O bonds in the superconducting layers. This is not, however, the orientation of the square FLL observed in LSCO LSCOGilardi . The orientation may instead be controlled by band structure effects MachidaBS , even if the symmetry of the FLL is controlled by d-wave effects. It has been suggested that an peak effect in magnetisation measurements on overdoped YBCO may be a signature of a continuous triangular-to-square FLL transition in this material at high fields Knigavko . However, others have suggested that there is a glass transition in this region Nishizaki . Only by direct measurements may such suggestions be tested and the correlation between FLL and crystal lattice (or superconducting order parameter) determined.

Our experiments were performed on the SANS-I instrument at SINQ, PSI, Switzerland. Cold neutrons (8 Å to $`14`$Å, with a FWHM wavelength spread of $`10\%`$) were collimated over distances from $`4.5\mathrm{m}`$ to $`15\mathrm{m}`$, depending on the field and hence $`q`$-range required. The diffracted neutrons were registered on a $`128\times 128\times 7.5\mathrm{mm}^2`$ multidetector, which was similarly adjustable in distance from the sample. The undiffracted main beam was intercepted by a cadmium beamstop. A magnetic field of up to $`11\mathrm{T}`$ applied approximately parallel to the neutron beam, was provided by a cryomagnet with a field uniformity of $`0.2\%`$ over a $`1\mathrm{cm}`$ sphere. A variable temperature insert containing He heat exchange gas allowed sample temperatures from $`1.5\mathrm{K}`$ to $`300\mathrm{K}`$. The sample was a 40$`\mathrm{mg}`$ low–twin-density high-purity single crystal of YBCO grown in a BaZrO3 crucible erblovesbazro  and oxygenated close to $`\mathrm{O}_7`$ by high-pressure oxygen treatment in order to reduce pinning by oxygen vacancies in the Cu-O chains Erbprep . It was therefore overdoped and had a $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ of $`86\mathrm{K}`$. It was initially mounted with its $`𝐜`$-axis parallel to the field direction. In order to satisfy the Bragg condition for each diffraction spot in turn and hence establish the FLL structure, the cryomagnet and sample together could be rotated or tilted to bring the FLL Bragg planes to the appropriate small angles ($`1^{}`$) to the incident neutron beam.

In Fig. 1 is shown the FLL diffraction pattern obtained at the low field of $`1\mathrm{T}`$. The most obvious feature of this pattern is its fourfold symmetry which reflects the average fourfold symmetry of the twinned orthorhombic structure of our YBCO sample. However, the FLL structure itself has triangular coordination, and the symmetry of Fig. 1 arises from four orientations of distorted triangular FLLs, present in different domains in the sample, as was first observed by Keimeret al. Keimer . The diffraction spots arising from these four triangular lattices are represented in Fig. 2. It appears that the distortion of the individual lattices arises mainly from the a/b anisotropy present in each orthorhombic domain in the crystal ForganLee ; Walker . This interpretation was confirmed by measurements on an untwinned sample Johnson  which show diffraction spots distributed around an ellipse aligned with the $`𝐚`$ and $`𝐛`$ axes. The ratio of the principal axes of the ellipse should represent the anisotropy of the London penetration depth for $`B_{\mathrm{c1}}BB_{\mathrm{c2}}`$ Thiemann . The value we observe for the anisotropy ratio, $`\gamma _{ab}`$, in our sample is $`1.28(1)`$, whereas many estimates of this quantity are rather larger largerabanisotropyrefs . However comparable values to ours were obtained by measurements on a separate untwinned sample using neutrons Johnson  and muons and torque magnetometry leetorque . Our results are also corroborated by recent surface-sensitive measurements using a novel atomic-beam magnetic-resonance technique magres . It seems likely that the precise value of $`\gamma _{ab}`$ depends on the degree of perfection of the Cu-O chains along the $`𝐛`$ direction Tallon\_anisotropyref . The orientation of the triangular FLLs has been ascribed to pinning of a pair of spots, and hence planes of flux lines, to the twin planes ForganLee ; Walker . However, results reported later in this Letter also support the existence of a correlation between the nearest-neighbour FLL directions and the directions of zeroes of the d-wave order parameter.

In Fig. 3, we show diffraction patterns taken at higher fields. The data taken at $`7\mathrm{T}`$ show a distortion of the triangular FLLs so that some of the weaker spots are closer to the strong spots, and others have moved towards the diagonals. There is clearly another source of distortion than pure a/b anisotropy. Finally at $`11\mathrm{T}`$, the FLL has become almost exactly square, with the weak corner spots now playing the role of second order $`\{1,1\}`$ spots of a square FLL instead of first order spots from a distorted triangular FLL.

In order to investigate this steady change in the FLL structure with field, we rotated the crystal about the vertical axis in Fig. 3, so that the field was $`5^{}`$ from the $`𝐜`$-axis. This was done in order to break the degeneracy between those FLL structures giving strong vertical diffraction spots (Fig. 2(a) and (c)), and those giving strong horizontal spots (Fig. 2(b) and (d)). Within anisotropic London theory, this small angle of rotation should make a negligible change to the FLL distortion. As shown in Fig. 4., we found that at high fields the FLL structures giving horizontal spots were suppressed and instead only the structures depicted in Fig. 2(a) and (c) were observed. The advantage of this arrangement is that the pairs of spots near the horizontal axis in Fig. 4 could be observed easily, without being overlaid by the strong ones on the axis. This allowed us to measure accurately the spot positions and hence the FLL distortion. Nevertheless, at high field, this pair of spots overlaps, but by assuming that the spot size is independent of field, we may estimate the angle between them even when they overlap. Further measurements of spot positions allow us to give a complete description of the FLL distortions versus field in terms of the angles between the FLL reciprocal lattice vectors. The results of this analysis are shown in Fig. 5. It is clear that the low field structure progressively changes with increase of field, although in our available field range the FLL never exactly reaches a perfectly square shape. This may partly be because the phase transition is at the extreme of our available field range, but is also clearly a result of the orthorhombic structure of YBCO. As depicted in the inset to Fig. 5, the a/b anisotropy of each domain must, on symmetry grounds, distort a square lattice to a rectangular one, causing a slight splitting of the “square” spots from a twinned crystal such as ours.

We have further investigated future  the temperature-dependence of the FLL distortion shown in fig. 5. We find that with increasing temperature, the FLL structure changes more towards triangular. Thus the boundary between square and triangular phases must curve up in field as temperature is increased. We would expect this if the triangular to square transition is due to $`d`$-wave effects, as the nature of the pairing becomes less important as $`k_\mathrm{B}T`$ becomes comparable with the magnitude of the gap. The shape of the phase boundary is similar to that seen in an overdoped sample by macroscopic measurements Nishizaki , but not the same as that proposed in ref. Knigavko . Unlike LSCO LSCOGilardi , the orientation of the FLL that we observe is aligned as expected from $`d`$-wave theories ichioka ; shiraishi . It may be argued that twin planes, which are present in LSCO and YBCO are controlling the FLL orientation. To rule this out, measurements were also taken with the field at an angle to both sets of twin planes in our sample and the shape and orientation of the FLL was essentially unchanged. One should also note that the predicted difference in free energy between the two orientations of a square FLL is much larger than that between any triangular and the lower energy square orientation ichioka . We also note that a similar correlation between FLL orientation and probable direction of $`d`$-wave nodes has recently also been observed in CeCoIn5 CeCoInref . Further support of the $`d`$-wave origin of the triangular-square transition in YBCO is the value of the transition field, which is a similar order of magnitude to the predicted $`0.15B_{\mathrm{c2}}`$ ichioka . We do not believe that in a large-$`\kappa `$ material such as YBCO, the transition is due to nonlocal effects as has been proposed for borocarbides dewilde . We note that our bulk observations of FLL structure are not in complete agreement with surface measurements by STM techniques fischer ; shibatastm . It is possible that the FLL adopts a different structure near the surface, or that the surface has different doping from the bulk. It is clear Nishizaki  that the phase diagram is strongly doping-dependent.

In conclusion, using small-angle neutron scattering, we have directly observed a change from triangular to square co-ordination of the flux line lattice as a function of magnetic field in fully oxygenated YBa2Cu3O7. This phase transition is most naturally interpreted as a consequence of the d-wave character of the order parameter, which is expected to be more prominent at high magnetic fields, where the flux line cores begin to overlap. The orientation of the FLL is as expected from an isotropic d-wave theory ichioka ; shiraishi , unlike that in LSCO LSCOGilardi . It seems very likely from our measurements that at high fields, the FLL orientation, particularly when the FLL becomes square, is caused by the correlation between FLL planes and the directions of zeroes of the d-wave order parameter. It would clearly be of great interest to repeat these investigations in an untwinned crystal, where the effects of any pinning by twin planes would be completely removed, and the effect of the a/b anisotropy on the “square” FLL would be crystal-clear. It appears that further investigation of these phenomena will allow stringent tests of theories of the order parameter in the mixed state of high-$`T_\mathrm{c}`$ materials as a function of angle of field and doping.

This work was performed at the Swiss Spallation Neutron-Source SINQ, Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Villigen, Switzerland.

e-mail: sp.brown@physics.org