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# Robust gene regulation: Deterministic dynamics from asynchronous networks with delay

## Abstract

We compare asynchronous vs. synchronous update of discrete dynamical networks and find that a simple time delay in the nodes may induce a reproducible deterministic dynamics even in the case of asynchronous update in random order. In particular we observe that the dynamics under synchronous parallel update can be reproduced accurately under random asynchronous serial update for a large class of networks. This mechanism points at a possible general principle of how computation in gene regulation networks can be kept in a quasi-deterministic “clockwork mode” in spite of the absence of a central clock. A delay similar to the one occurring in gene regulation causes synchronization in the model. Stability under asynchronous dynamics disfavors topologies containing loops, comparing well with the observed strong suppression of loops in biological regulatory networks.

Erwin Schrödinger in his lecture “What is life?” held in 1943 Schroedinger  was one of the first to notice that the information processing performed in the living cell has to be extremely robust and therefore requires a quasi-deterministic dynamics (which he called “clockwork mode”). The discovery of a “digital” storage medium for the genetic information, the double-stranded DNA, confirmed one important part of this picture. Today, new experimental techniques allow to observe the dynamics of regulatory genes in great detail, which motivates us to reconsider the other, dynamical part of Schrödinger’s picture of a “clockwork mode”. While the dynamical elements of gene regulation often are known in great detail, the complex dynamical patterns of the vast network of interacting regulatory genes, while highly reproducible between identical cells and organisms under similar conditions, are largely not understood. Most remarkably, these virtually deterministic activation patterns are often generated by asynchronous genetic switches without any central clock. In this Letter we address this astonishing fact with a toy model of gene regulation and study the conditions of when deterministic dynamics could occur in asynchronous circuits. Let us start from the observed dynamics of small circuits of regulatory genes, then derive a discrete dynamical model gene, followed by a study of networks of such genetic switches, with a focus on comparing their asynchronous and synchronous dynamics.

Recently, several small gene regulation circuits have been described in terms of a detailed picture of their dynamics Elowitz ; Hes1 ; Baltimore ; p53 ; Smolen . A particularly simple motif is the single, self-regulating gene Rosenfeld ; Hes1  that allows for a detailed modeling of its dynamics. A set of two differential equations, for the temporal evolution of the concentrations of messenger RNA and protein, respectively, and an explicit time delay for transmission delay provide a quantitative model for the observed dynamics in this minimal circuit Jensen03 . The equations of this model take the basic form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}c}{\mathrm{d}t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha [f(s(t\vartheta ))c(t)]`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}b}{\mathrm{d}t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\beta [c(t)b(t)]`$ (2)
for the the dynamics of the concentrations $`c`$ of mRNA and $`b`$ of protein, with some non-linear transmission function $`f(s)`$ of an input signal $`s`$, a time delay $`\vartheta `$, and the time constants $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$. In order to define a minimal discrete gene model let us keep the basic features (delay, low pass filter characteristics), omit the second filter, and write the difference equation for one gene $`i`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_i=\alpha [f(s_i(t\vartheta ))c_i(t)]\mathrm{\Delta }t.$$
(3)
The non-linear function $`f`$ is typically a steep sigmoid. We approximate it as a step function $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ with $`\mathrm{\Theta }(s)=0`$ for $`s<0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(s)=1`$ otherwise. Rescaling time with $`ϵ=\alpha \mathrm{\Delta }t`$ and $`\tau =\vartheta /\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ this reads

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_i=ϵ[\mathrm{\Theta }(s_i(t\tau ))c_i(t)].$$
(4)
For simplicity let us update $`c_i`$ by equidistant steps according to

$$\mathrm{\Delta }c_i=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill +ϵ,& \mathrm{if}s_i(t\tau )0\mathrm{and}c_i1ϵ\hfill \\ \hfill ϵ,& \mathrm{if}s_i(t\tau )<0\mathrm{and}c_iϵ\hfill \\ \hfill 0,& \mathrm{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
The coupling between nodes is defined by

$$s_i(t)=\underset{j}{}w_{ij}x_j(t)a_i,$$
(6)
with discrete output states $`x_j(t)`$ of the nodes defined as

$$x_j(t)=\mathrm{\Theta }(c_j(t)1/2).$$
(7)
The influence of node $`j`$ on node $`i`$ can be activating ($`w_{ij}=1`$), inhibitory ($`w_{ij}=1`$), or absent ($`w_{ij}=0`$). A constant bias $`a_i`$ is assigned to each node.

In the following let us consider a network model of such nodes. Consider $`N`$ nodes with concentration variables $`c_i`$, state variables $`x_i`$, biases $`a_i`$ and a coupling matrix $`(w_{ij})`$. Given initial values $`x_i(0)=c_i(0)\{0,1\}`$ the time-discrete dynamics is obtained by iterating the following update steps:

(1) Choose a node $`i`$ at random. (2) Calculate $`s_i`$ according to Eq. (6). (3) Update $`c_i`$ according to Eq. (5).

For $`\tau =0`$ and $`ϵ=1`$ random asynchronous update is recovered. For $`\tau >0`$ there is an explicit transmission delay from the output of node $`j`$ to the input of node $`i`$. To be definite, at $`t=0`$ we assume that nodes have not flipped during the previous $`\tau `$ time steps.

Let us first explore the dynamics of a simple but non-trivial interaction network with $`N=3`$ sites and

non-vanishing couplings $`w_{01}=w_{21}=1`$ and $`w_{10}=w_{12}=+1`$, see Fig. 1. Note that under asynchronous update the sequence of states reached by the dynamics is not unique. The system may branch off to different configurations depending on node update ordering. This is illustrated in Fig. 2(a): Without delay ($`\tau =0`$) and filter ($`ϵ=1`$) the dynamics is irregular, i.e. non-periodic.

With filter only ($`\tau =0`$, $`ϵ=0.01`$, Fig. 2(b)), the dynamics is periodic at times, but also intervals of fast irregular flipping occur. Finally, in the presence of delay ($`\tau =100`$, $`ϵ=1`$, Fig. 2(c)) we obtain perfectly ordered dynamics with synchronization of flips. Nodes 0 and 2 change states practically at the same (macro) time, followed by a longer pause until node 1 changes state, etc. With increasing delay time $`\tau `$ the dynamics under asynchronous update approaches the dynamics under synchronous update (cf. Fig. 1) when viewed on a coarse-grained (macro) time scale.

Let us further quantify the difference between synchronous and asynchronous dynamics. First, a definition of equivalence between the two dynamical modes has to be given. Let us start from the time series $`𝐱(t)`$ of configurations $`𝐱=(x_0,\mathrm{},x_{N1})`$ produced by the asynchronous (random serial) update of the model and the respective time series $`𝐲(u)`$ produced by synchronous (parallel) update, using identical initial condition $`𝐲(0)=𝐱(0)`$. These time series live on different time scales, which we call the micro time scale of single site updates in the asynchronous case, and the macro time scale where each time step is an entire sweep of the system. Assume that at time $`t_u`$ the asynchronous system is in state $`𝐱(t_u)=𝐲(u)`$. In order to follow the synchronous update it has to subsequently reach the state $`𝐲(u+1)`$ on a shortest path in phase space. Formally, let us require that there is a micro time $`t_{u+1}>t_u`$ such that $`𝐱(t_{u+1})=𝐲(u+1)`$ and each node flips at most once in the time interval $`[t_u,t_{u+1}]`$. Once this is violated we say that an error has occured at the particular macro time step $`u`$. This error allows to define a numerical measure of discrepancy between asynchronous and synchronous dynamics. Starting from identical initial conditions, the system is iterated in synchronous and asynchronous modes (here for $`u_{\mathrm{total}}=10^7`$ macro time steps). Whenever the resulting time series are no longer equivalent, an error counter is incremented and the system reset to initial condition. The total error $`E`$ of the run is the number of errors divided by $`u_{\mathrm{total}}`$.

For the network in Fig. 1 and the initial condition $`x_i=c_i=0`$ for $`i=1,2,3`$ the error $`E`$ is exponentially suppressed with delay time $`\tau `$ (Fig. 3).

The asynchronous dynamics with delay follows the attractor during a time span that increases exponentially with the given delay time. Note that there is only one possibility for the asynchronous dynamics to leave the attractor: When the system is in configuration $`(1,1,0)`$ or $`(0,1,1)`$, node $`2`$ may change state such that the system goes to configuration $`(1,0,0)`$ or $`(0,0,1)`$ respectively, whereas the correct next configuration on the attractor is $`(0,1,0)`$. Consider the case $`ϵ=1`$ where $`c_i=x_i`$ for all $`i`$. Let us assume that the system is in configuration $`(1,1,1)`$ and at time $`t_0`$ node 0 changes state, thereby generating configuration $`(0,1,1)`$. This decreases the input sum $`s_1`$ below zero such that for $`\tau =0`$ node $`0`$ would change state immediately in its next update. With explicit transmission delay $`\tau >0`$, however, node 1 still “sees” the input sum $`s_i=0`$ generated by the configuration $`(1,1,1)`$ until time step $`t_0+\tau `$. If node $`2`$ is chosen for update in this time window $`t_0+1,\mathrm{},t_0+\tau `$ it changes state immediately and updates are performed in correct order. The opposite case, that node 2 does not receive an update in any of the $`\tau `$ time steps, happens with probability $`(2/3)^\tau `$, yielding the correct error decay of the simulation (Fig. 3).

Next we demonstrate that there are cases where also low-pass filtering, $`ϵ1`$, is needed for the asynchronous dynamics to follow the deterministic attractor. Consider a network of $`N=5`$ nodes with bias values $`a_0=a_4=0`$ and $`a_1=a_2=a_3=1`$. The only non-zero couplings are $`w_{10}=w_{21}=w_{31}=w_{42}=+1`$ and $`w_{01}=w_{43}=1`$. Nodes 0 and 1 form an oscillator, i.e. $`(x_0,x_1)`$ iterate the sequence $`(0,0)`$, $`(1,0)`$, $`(1,1)`$, $`(0,1)`$. Nodes $`2`$ and $`3`$ simply “copy” the state of node $`1`$ such that under synchronous update always $`x_3(t)=x_2(t)=x_1(t1)`$. Consequently, under synchronous update the input sum of node $`4`$ never changes because the positive contribution from node 2 and the negative contribution from node 3 cancel out. Under asynchronous update, however, the input sum of node 4 may fluctuate because nodes 2 and 3 do not flip precisely at the same time. The effect of the low-pass filter $`ϵ1`$ is to suppress the spreading of such fluctuations on the micro time scale. The influence of the filter is seen in Fig. 4.

When $`\tau `$ is kept constant, the error drops algebraically with decreasing $`ϵ`$. An exponential decay $`E\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /ϵ)`$ is obtained when $`\tau 1/ϵ`$ (the filter can take full effect only in the presence of sufficient delay).

Let us finally consider an example of a larger network with $`N=16`$ nodes and $`L=48`$ non-vanishing couplings (chosen randomly from the off-diagonal elements in the matrix $`(w_{ij})`$ and assigned values $`+1`$ or $`1`$ with probability $`1/2`$ each; biases are chosen as $`a_i=_jw_{ij}/2`$). Simulation runs under pure asynchronous update ($`\tau =0`$, $`ϵ=1`$) typically yield dynamics as in Fig. 5(a).

The time series $`𝐱(t)`$ is non-periodic and non-reproducible, i.e. under different order of updates a different series is obtained. For the same initial condition, periodic dynamics is observed in the presence of sufficent transmission delay and filtering, Fig. 5(b). In this case, the system follows precisely the attractor of period 28 found under synchronous update. As seen in Fig. 5(c), the error decays exponentially as a function of the delay time $`\tau `$.

Let us now turn to the dangers of asynchronous update: There is a fraction of attractors observed under synchronous update that cannot be realized under asynchronous update. Synchronization cannot be sustained if the dynamics is separable. In the trivial case, separability means that the set of nodes can be divided into two subsets that do not interact with each other. Then there is no signal to synchronize one set of nodes with the other and they will go out of phase. In general, synchronization is impossible if the set of flips itself is separable. Consider, as the simplest example, a network of $`N=2`$ nodes with the couplings $`w_{01}=w_{10}=+1`$, biases $`a_0=a_1=1`$ and the initial condition $`(y_0(0),y_1(0))=(0,1)`$. Under synchronous update, the state alternates between vector $`(0,1)`$ and $`(1,0)`$. Under asynchronous update with delay time $`\tau `$, the transition of one node $`i`$ from $`x_i=0`$ to $`x_i=1`$ causes the other node $`j`$ to switch from $`x_j=0`$ to $`x_j=1`$ approximately $`\tau `$ time steps later. The “on”-transitions only trigger subsequent “on”-transitions and, analogously, the “off”-transitions only trigger subsequent “off”-transitions. The dynamics can be divided into two distinct sets of events that do not influence each other. Consequently, synchronization between flips cannot be sustained, as illustrated in Fig. 6.

When the phase difference reaches the value $`\tau `$, on- and off-transitions annihilate. Then the system leaves the attractor and reaches one of the fixed points with $`x_0=x_1`$.

These observations have important implications for robust topological motifs in asynchronous networks. First of all, the above example of a small excitatory loop can be quickly generalized to any larger loop with excitatory interactions, as well as to loops with an even number of inhibitory couplings, where in principle similar dynamics could occur. Higher order structures that fail to synchronize include competing modules, e.g. two oscillators (loops with odd number of inhibitory links) that interact with a common target.

In conclusion we find that asynchronously updated networks of autonomous dynamical nodes are able to exhibit a reproducible and quasi-deterministic dynamics under broad conditions if the nodes have transmission delay and low pass filtering as, e.g., observed in regulatory genes. Timing requirements put constraints on the topology of the networks (e.g. suppression of certain loop motifs). With respect to biological gene regulation networks where indeed strong suppression of loop structures is observed Shen-Orr02 ; Milo02 , one may thus speculate about a new constraint on topological motifs of gene regulation: The requirement for deterministic dynamics from asynchronous dynamical networks.

Acknowledgements S.B. thanks D. Chklovskii, M.H. Jensen, S. Maslov, and K. Sneppen for discussions and comments, and the Aspen Center for Physics for hospitality where part of this work has been done.


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# Surprises in Bose-Einstein correlations

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The study of Bose-Einstein correlations (further quoted BEC ) in multiple particle production processes is an important source of information about the interaction region, i.e. about the region, where the hadrons are produced. One would like to know the size and shape of this region as well as its orientation with respect to the momentum of the incident particle and to the impact parameter vector. For the matter inside one would like to know: its flows, its equation of state and its phase transitions. Much information has already been obtained (cf. the reviews , , ,  and references quoted there), its reliability, however, depends on the correctness of our interpretation of the observed BEC.

Four surprising experimental results concerning BEC will be here briefly presented and discussed. By surprising we do not just mean that they disagree with some specific model, but that they seem to contradict the basic physical pictures used to build most of the currently popular models. Perhaps in the future some trivial explanations will be found, but if not, these observations may lead to a reinterpretation of the BEC data and consequently to changes in our conclusions concerning the interaction region. Thus the questions raised are interesting and potentially important.

## 2 No inter-W BEC at LEP

At LEP2 the reactions

$`e^+e^{}W^+W^{}`$ $`q\overline{q}l\nu `$ (1)
$`e^+e^{}W^+W^{}`$ $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ (2)
have been observed. In the first, further denoted $`W`$, one of the $`W`$-bosons decays into hadrons and the other one into leptons. In the second, further denoted $`WW`$, both $`W`$-s decay into hadrons. Assuming that in reaction $`WW`$ there are no inter-$`W`$ correlations, it is a standard exercise in the calculus of probabilities to express any two-particle distribution for reaction $`WW`$ in terms of the corresponding single-particle and two-particle distributions for reaction $`W`$. One finds

$$\rho _2^{(WW)}(p_1,p_2)=2\rho _2^{(W)}(p_1,p_2)+2\rho _1^{(W)}(p_1)\rho _1^{(W)}(p_2).$$
(3)
The surprise is that this formula works – there is no evidence for inter-$`W`$ correlations ,,,,.

There is a number of known factors, which reduce the inter-$`W`$ BEC (cf. e.g. ). The two $`W`$-s decay in different places and have non-zero relative velocity. The partons from one $`W`$ can form hadrons with the partons from the other. This effect – known as color reconnection – shortens the chain of interactions leading to the final hadrons and consequently reduces the multiplicity of the final particles. Since BEC increase the particle multiplicity, the two effects tend to cancel. Nevertheless, the observed reduction of the inter-$`W`$ BEC seems to be much stronger than what can be easily understood.

One can try various explanations of this fact. The belief that BEC for identical bosons must lead to attraction in momentum space is based on a restricted class of models, where the two-particle density matrix in the momentum representation is a symmetrized product of single particle density matrices ,. This does not have to be the case. For instance the amplitude

$$\psi (p_1,p_2)=Sign\left[(p_1p_2)(x_1x_2)\right]\times \left(e^{ip_1x_1+ip_2x_2}e^{ip_2x_1+ip_1x_2}\right)$$
(4)
has the correct symmetry, but corresponds to a different density matrix and leads to repulsion in momentum space instead of the attraction. Perhaps one should look for more general density matrices than those currently used. Häkkinen and Ringnér  suggested that the absence of the inter-$`W`$ correlations is natural in the framework of string models and postulated it. This point of view was supported by Bo Andersson (cf. e.g. ). Up to now, however, no convincing motivation for it has been published.

## 3 The Bertsch-Pratt radii

The next three surprising results have come from the study of heavy ion collisions at RHIC. In order to present them it is convenient to introduce the Bertsch-Pratt coordinate frame , , . This is a Cartesian frame with its axis $`L`$ – for longitudinal – along the event axis. For heavy ion collisions the event axis is along the direction of the momentum difference of the two nuclei in the centre of mass system or equivalently in the laboratory system. The other two axes are in the plane perpendicular to $`L`$ and are defined separately for each pair of particles. Denoting the four-momenta of the two particles forming the pair by $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ let us define two more four-vectors

$$K=\frac{1}{2}(p_1+p_2);q=p_1p_2.$$
(5)
The second axis of the Bertsch-Pratt frame – denoted $`out`$ – is parallel to the transverse (with respect to $`L`$) component of K. The third axis – denoted $`side`$ – is perpendicular to the $`L`$ and $`out`$ axes, or equivalently to the $`L`$-axis and to the K vector.

The correlation function measured in experiment, after a number of corrections which will not be discussed here, is parameterized as

$$C(K,q)=1+\lambda e^{R_L^2(K_T)q_L^2R_o^2(K_T)q_o^2R_s^2(K_T)q_s^2}.$$
(6)
The coefficient $`\lambda `$ is a constant and $`R_i(K_T)`$ are the three Bertsch-Pratt radii. The following three assumptions had been accepted.

* The momenta $`\text{p}_i`$ are measured in the local co-moving system (LCMS) obtained from the laboratory (or cms.) system by a Lorentz transformation along the $`L`$ direction such that in the LCMS: $`K_L=0`$.
* The distribution of momenta $`\text{p}_i`$ is invariant with respect to boosts along the $`L`$ axis. This is known as boost invariance .
* The distribution of pairs of momenta $`\text{p}_1,\text{p}_2`$ does not change under rotations around the $`L`$ axis. This means either that the collisions are central, or that the data is averaged over the angle between $`\text{K}_T`$ and the impact parameter vector b.

Under these assumptions vector K in the arguments of the $`R_i(K)`$ can be replaced by the length of its transverse component $`K_T=|\text{K}_T|`$. The dependence on the time component of $`K`$, which is allowed, is not written explicitly. Let us consider now the three surprising results referred to collectively as the RHIC (BEC) puzzle.

## 4 Approximate equality $`R_s(K_T)R_o(K_T)`$

At $`\text{K}_T=0`$ each direction perpendicular to $`L`$ can be considered parallel as well as perpendicular to $`\text{K}_T`$ and consequently

$$R_o(0)=R_s(0).$$
(7)
The relation of these parameters to the space distribution of the sources of pions is

$`R_o^2(0)=\stackrel{~}{x}_{out}^2_0,`$ (8)
$`R_s^2(0)=\stackrel{~}{x}_{side}^2_0,`$ (9)
where $`\stackrel{~}{x}=x\overline{x}`$ is the deviation of the position four-vector of the source from a fixed space time point $`\overline{x}`$ corresponding to the average position of the source in space-time. The averaging is over all the pairs of particles, which have $`K_T=0`$ and are of the type considered, say $`\pi ^+`$. We use the notation $`\stackrel{~}{x}=\{\stackrel{~}{x}_L,\stackrel{~}{x}_{out},\stackrel{~}{x}_{side},\stackrel{~}{t})`$. For reasons discussed below models suggest that the ratio $`R_s(K_T)/R_o(K_T)`$ should increase with increasing $`K_T`$ , . It came, therefore, as a surprise that this ratio remains approximately equal one, when $`K_T`$ increases from zero , , . What is more, subsequent data indicate that the ratio $`R_o(K_T)/R_s(K_T)`$ decreases below one with increasing $`K_T`$ , ,  as well as with decreasing impact parameter of the collision .

The transition from $`K_T=0`$ to $`K_T0`$ corresponds to a Lorentz transformation with velocity

$$\beta _T=\frac{K_T}{K_0}$$
(10)
along the direction of $`\text{K}_T`$. Therefore, since the dimensions orthogonal to the direction of the boost remain unchanged, one should expect

$$R_s^2(K_T)=\stackrel{~}{x}_{side}^2_0,$$
(11)
while the dimension perpendicular to the boost gets transformed according to the usual rules and one should get

$$R_o^2(K_T)=\stackrel{~}{x}_{out}^2_02\beta _T\stackrel{~}{x}_{out}\stackrel{~}{t}_0+\beta _T^2\stackrel{~}{t}^2_0.$$
(12)
The standard recommendation had been to identify the spatial radius in the transverse direction with $`R_s`$, to neglect the correlation term $`\stackrel{~}{x}_{out}\stackrel{~}{t}_0`$ and to calculate the time span of the production process from the formula (cf. e.g. ):

$$\tau _0^2\stackrel{~}{t}^2\beta _T^2(R_o^2R_s^2).$$
(13)
This, however, becomes incredible when $`R_oR_s`$ and absurd when $`R_o<R_s`$.

An obvious improvement is to take into account the correlation term. The hydrodynamic models, however, predict

$$\stackrel{~}{x}_o\stackrel{~}{t}<0,$$
(14)
which makes the situation even worse. On the other hand, the result of the hydrodynamic model has a clear physical interpretation and rejecting it is a serious decision. The picture behind it is that in the (expanding) cylindrical interaction volume hadronization begins at the surface and progresses inwards, so that particles produced at small $`\stackrel{~}{x}_{out}`$ are produced late. The opposite prediction

$$\stackrel{~}{x}_o\stackrel{~}{t}>0$$
(15)
occurs in the so-called microscopic models ,  where the expansion according to Euler’s hydrodynamics is replaced by an expansion according to some approximation to Boltzmann’s equation. The physical interpretation of this result is not quite clear yet, but at present the predicted correlation is too weak to explain the observed decrease of the ratio $`R_o(K_T)/R_s(K_T)`$. The description of some more ideas on how to solve this part of the puzzle can be found in the review paper . All these approaches, however, seem to have serious problems.

## 5 Approximate equality $`\frac{R_s}{K_T}\frac{R_o}{K_T}`$

Experimentally the transverse momentum dependence of $`R_s`$ and of $`R_o`$ is similar – both drop with increasing $`K_T`$. Studies of the ratio $`R_s(K_T)/R_o(K_T)`$ indicate that $`R_s`$ drops somewhat faster than $`R_o`$, Since data does not start at $`K_T=0`$, this does not necessarily mean that $`R_o(K_T)<R_s(K_T)`$. There could be a rise of $`R_o(K_T)/R_s(K_T)`$ in the small $`K_T`$ region. Nevertheless, these observations contradict the following simple argument consistent with most models.

Let us consider the case, when $`K_T`$ is large. Then $`\text{K}_T`$ should be strongly correlated with the transverse velocity $`\text{v}_T`$ of the corresponding element of the expanding gas or liquid. It should not be a bad approximation to assume that roughly the directions of $`\text{K}_T`$ and $`\text{v}_T`$ coincide. Thus, the $`out`$ components of the particle momenta are generated mostly by the collective velocity $`\text{v}_T`$ and less by the velocities of the particles in the rest frame of the element, which should be roughly isotropic, characterized by some temperature $`T`$. The side components of the momenta, on the other hand, result mostly from the internal motion – thermal in thermodynamic models. This picture implies that $`R_o(K_T)`$ is likely to change with $`K_T`$, while little or no change is expected for $`R_s(K_T)`$. The expectation

$$\frac{R_s}{K_T}0,$$
(16)
which as we now know contradicts experiment, was an important point in Bertsch’s argument in favor of the $`L,out,side`$ coordinate frame . It is amazingly robust and holds not only in hydrodynamic models, where local temperature is a natural concept, but also in microscopic models .

## 6 $`R_L`$ smaller than expected

It is well known that the parameter $`R_L`$ measures the size of the ”homogeneity region” and not the total size of the interaction region in the $`L`$ direction. The reason is that only pairs of identical particles with similar momenta contribute to BEC and, because of the strong $`\text{p}x`$ correlations at production, the particles with similar momenta cannot be produced very far from each other. Models typically give

$$R_L=\tau _0\sqrt{\frac{T}{M_T}}f(\frac{T}{M_T},\frac{K_T}{K_0}),$$
(17)
where $`\tau _0`$ is the life time of the interaction region (not to be confused with the much shorter time interval, where hadronization takes place), $`T`$ and $`M_T`$ are respectively the temperature and the transverse mass of the pair of particles and $`f`$ is a slowly varying function. The simplest choice – $`f=`$ Const – has been made by Makhlin and Sinyukov . The formula

$$R_L=\frac{A}{\sqrt{M_T}},$$
(18)
where $`A`$ is a constant, has been successfully used to fit the data . The problem is that the experimental values of the constant $`A`$, which rises from $`2.19\pm 0.05`$ fm GeV1/2 at AGS energies ($`\sqrt{s}=4.1/4.9`$ GeV/nucleon) to $`3.32\pm 0.03`$ fm GeV1/2 at RHIC energies ($`\sqrt{s}=(130200)`$ GeV/nucleon) , are much smaller than expected .

The difficulty can be overcome in a number of ways. One can choose a very small value of $`\tau _0`$, which corresponds to expansion with ultrasonic speed , or assume early chemical freeze-out, i.e. no chemical equilibrium among the final particles, . The trouble is that these modifications do not solve the problem with $`R_s`$ and spoil the good agreement with experiment for the single particle distributions . Thus, this problem, though perhaps less striking than the other two parts of the RHIC puzzle, remains puzzling.


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# Delayed feedback as a means of control of noise-induced motion

## Abstract

Time–delayed feedback is exploited for controlling noise–induced motion in coherence resonance oscillators. Namely, under the proper choice of time delay, one can either increase or decrease the regularity of motion. It is shown that in an excitable system, delayed feedback can stabilize the frequency of oscillations against variation of noise strength. Also, for fixed noise intensity, the phenomenon of entrainment of the basic oscillation period by the delayed feedback occurs. This allows one to steer the timescales of noise-induced motion by changing the time delay.

Very often in practical application the need arises to control the properties of oscillations. Usually control assumes an enhancement in regularity of motion arrhythmia ; BAB02 ; Balanov\_CSF03 . However, in some cases, for instance in medical applications, one aims to disorder oscillations, since too strong coherence might be undesirable and even lead to damaging consequences, e.g. epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy ; Tass . During the last decade new methods for control of irregular self-sustained oscillations in deterministic systems have been developed, including suppression of chaos by an external (periodic) signal chaos\_supp , stabilization of unstable periodic orbits embedded in a chaotic attractor by time-discrete control OGY , or the use of a time-delayed feedback loop Pyragas\_PLA92 ; SOC94  for the same purpose.

Whereas the existing methods are designed to control deterministic oscillations or, most recently, noise-induced enhancement of deterministic oscillations Gammaitoni99 ; Lindner01  and self-oscillations affected by noise Goldobin , there is a large class of systems that do not oscillate autonomously; but if they are forced even by a purely random process featuring no specific timescales, they demonstrate motion resembling a self-oscillatory process CR\_Gang ; CR\_Strogatz . Prominent representatives of this class are excitable systems like neurons CR\_neuron , chemical reaction systems Chem , and semiconductor nanostructures UNK03 . The degree of closeness of their oscillations to ideally periodic ones, i.e. coherence, can depend resonantly on noise intensity CR\_Gang , which is why it was called coherence resonance (CR) Pikovsky\_PRL97 . CR has been shown to occur in systems close to bifurcations CR\_Neiman , in excitable systems Pikovsky\_PRL97 , and in bistable systems Lindner00 . Remarkably, CR oscillators possess the fundamental property of self-oscillators, namely, the ability to synchronize CR\_Postnov .

Frequently the timescale of oscillations in a CR system varies substantially depending on noise intensity. Since the latter is not easily controllable in practice, there is need to make a CR device robust against variation in the properties of noise. Another important task is to find a reliable way to deliberately change the timescales of noise-induced oscillations in a universal way without affecting intrinsic system parameters. Finally, the obvious need is to control the regularity of noise-induced motion. At present, all three problems remain a challenge. In the present Letter we propose to exploit time-delayed feedback control to tackle all three issues.

As a first example of a CR oscillator, we consider the noisy Van der Pol system closely before the Hopf bifurcation, extended by a delayed feedback loop

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`y,`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`(\nu x^2)y\omega _0^2x+K(y_\tau y)+D\xi (t).`$
Here, $`x`$ and $`y`$ denote phase variables at time $`t`$, while $`y_\tau `$ denotes the delayed variable $`y(t\tau )`$; $`K`$ is the strength of delayed feedback. $`\xi (t)`$ is a random variable with Gaussian distribution, zero mean and unity variance, $`D`$ is the noise intensity. We set the parameters $`\nu =0.01`$ and $`\omega _0=1`$ at which a stable focus exists.

First consider $`K=0`$, i.e. no delayed feedback in Eq. (1). While no limit cycle occurs at $`D=0`$, application of noise induces oscillatory motion as illustrated by the phase portrait in Fig. 1 (a). The coherence of oscillations may be quantified by the correlation time $`t_{cor}`$, estimated from the normalized autocorrelation function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(s)`$ of $`y`$ as $`t_{cor}=_0^{\mathrm{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }(s)|𝑑s`$. In Fig. 2(a) the grey (green on-line) line shows $`t_{cor}`$ vs $`D`$ for $`K=0`$. At small noise intensity D the oscillations are more coherent.

In deterministic self-oscillatory systems, application of a delayed feedback in the form above acts as follows. If there exists an unstable periodic orbit of period $`T`$ in the phase space, a feedback with delay time $`\tau =T`$ can stabilize this orbit in some range of the control strength $`K`$. A CR system may have no periodic orbits, but noise may induce oscillations with a well-defined timescale that is associated with the spectral peak. We suppose that application of a delayed feedback can act by analogy with a system containing a periodic orbit, provided that $`\tau `$ is equal or close enough to the basic period $`T_0`$ of the noise-induced motion comment1  without feedback. Namely, it should suppress deviations from a reference state and thus enhance the regularity of oscillations.

To test this expectation, we switch on the control force in Eq. (1). We set $`\tau =T_0`$ with $`T_0=6.172839512\pi /\omega _0`$. The phase portrait with control at $`K=0.2`$ is shown in Fig. 1(b) for the same $`D`$ as in (a). Fig. 1(b) reveals a remarkable ordering of the oscillation as compared with Fig. 1(a).

To quantify the ordering due to the feedback, we estimate $`t_{cor}`$ in dependence on $`D`$ as above. It is given for $`K=0.2`$ by the black line in Fig. 2(a). One can see that for any $`D`$ the coherence of noise-induced oscillations becomes larger when the delayed feedback loop is switched on and $`\tau `$ is close to $`T_0`$. On the other hand, it was found that if $`\tau `$ is far from an integer multiple of $`T_0`$, the coherence of oscillations, on the contrary, decreases. Also, for $`\tau =T_0`$ the coherence of noise-induced oscillations in Eq. (1) was found to increase monotonically with increasing $`K`$. In the following we fix $`K=0.2`$.

Next, we study how the feedback can affect the system’s timescales. For this purpose, we set the noise at the intensity $`D=0.003`$ as for Figs. 1(a), (b), and follow the evolution of Fourier power spectra with $`\tau `$, which is illustrated by Fig. 3(a). Without feedback ($`\tau =0`$), system (1) has one pronounced peak $`f_0`$ in the spectrum. As $`\tau `$ increases from zero, the peak frequency, height and width change. At $`\tau >8`$, new peaks that change their positions, heights and widths with $`\tau `$ become clearly visible.

Since the control parameter of delayed feedback is the time interval $`\tau `$, we propose to describe the response of the system in terms of periods rather than frequencies. With feedback, we select all spectral peaks, and for each peak introduce the period $`T`$ as the inverse of the peak frequency. Denote the period of highest peak by $`T_1`$. The dependences of $`T`$ on $`\tau `$ are given in Fig. 4 (a): $`T_1`$ by circles (yellow on-line), other $`T`$ by crosses (blue on-line). One can see that variation of $`\tau `$ changes $`T_1`$ in a certain range, doing so most effectively as $`\tau <T_0/2`$. As $`\tau `$ increases beyond $`T_0/2`$, $`T_1`$ drops quickly, and again increases with $`\tau `$ with a similar slope as before. After $`\tau `$ has increased by about $`T_0`$, $`T_1`$ again drops abruptly to a lower branch, and again follows $`\tau `$, although with a smaller slope. These abrupt transitions to successive lower branches occur roughly every $`T_0`$ time units, and each subsequent entrainment happens at a lower slope. The plot of $`T_1`$ vs $`\tau `$ exhibits a piecewise approximately linear dependence, the larger the $`\tau `$, the closer each segment is to a straight line.

The numerical results obtained above for the Van der Pol system can be understood in terms of a general theory of a canonical nonlinear oscillator with time-delayed feedback

$`\ddot{x}+f(x,\dot{x})K(\dot{x}_\tau \dot{x})=0.`$ (2)
Note that Eq. (1) fits the form Eq. (2) if rewritten as a single second-order differential equation with $`f(x,\dot{x})=(\nu x^2)\dot{x}+\omega _0^2x`$ and $`y=\dot{x}`$. Without feedback ($`K=0`$ or $`\tau =0`$) the fixed point $`(x_0,0)`$ is a stabe focus if

$$0<\frac{f}{\dot{x}}<2\sqrt{\frac{f}{x}},$$
(3)
where partial derivatives are taken at the fixed point. In Eq. (1) $`x_0=0`$, and Eq. (3) is true for the given parameters. Setting $`K>0`$ does not change $`x_0`$. Either with, or without feedback the noise-induced oscillations take place in the close vicinity of the fixed point. It is to be expected that the motion is influenced by the local properties of this point. At $`\tau =0`$ the stable focus has a pair of complex conjugate eigenvalues $`\lambda _0=p_0\pm iq_0`$, $`p_0<0`$, $`q_00`$, and the value of $`q_0`$ should give an estimate of the angular frequency. Indeed, the only peak of the power spectrum (Fig. 3(a)) has frequency $`f_0|q_0|/2\pi `$. With $`\tau >0`$, the system becomes infinite-dimensional, and possesses a countable set of eigenvalues $`\lambda `$. In order to exclude that the delayed feedback might induce the birth of a stable limit cycle via a Hopf bifurcation, thus providing a trivial explanation for the remarkable ordering of oscillations, we perform a linear stability analysis of the fixed point of Eq. (2). Following the standard routine of linearizing Eq. (2) around the fixed point Hale , the characteristic equation for $`\lambda `$ is derived:

$`\lambda ^2+\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{f}{\dot{x}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{f}{x}}K\lambda (e^{\lambda \tau }1)=0,`$ (4)
Substituting $`\lambda =p+iq`$, real and imaginary parts can be separated. The condition for a Hopf bifurcation is $`p=0`$, $`q0`$. Substituting it into the imaginary part of Eq. (4) we obtain:

$`\mathrm{cos}q\tau ={\displaystyle \frac{K+f/\dot{x}}{K}}.`$ (5)
Since the right-hand side is larger than unity due to Eq. (3), the Hopf bifurcation condition is not satisfied for any $`K`$ and $`\tau `$. Thus, the delayed feedback in the given form cannot induce a Hopf bifurcation.

The numerical solution of Eq. (4) with $`f(x,\dot{x})`$ from Eq. (1) yields the eigenvalue spectrum $`\lambda =p+iq`$ as a function of $`\tau `$. The eigenperiods defined as $`T^e=2\pi /|q|`$ (dots in Fig. 4(a)) coincide remarkably with the inverse peak frequencies of the power spectrum of the noise-induced oscillations as a function of $`\tau `$. The corresponding real parts $`p`$ are given by dots in Fig. 4(b) (the seven largest $`p`$ are shown). All $`p`$ remain negative, but, as seen from Fig. 4(b), nonmonotonically change with $`\tau `$. As $`\tau `$ increases, separate branches of $`p`$ cross, thus providing a striking explanation of the strongly nonmonotonic, discontinuous evolution of the dominant spectral peak of the noise-induced motion under delayed feedback: The period $`T_1`$ of the highest spectral peak (circles (yellow on-line) in Fig. 4(a)) always coincides with the period $`T^e`$ of the least stable eigenmode, i.e. the one with the largest real part which we denote as $`p_1`$ (circles (yellow on-line) in Fig. 4(b)). The more stable eigenmodes result in the side peaks of the frequency spectrum. The more stable the modes are, the lower the peaks are.

As $`p_1`$ oscillates with $`\tau `$, the degree of stability of the fixed point of the deterministic system is modulated, thus leading to modulation of the coherence of the stochastic motion, quantified by the correlation time $`t_{cor}`$ (solid line (green on-line) in the upper part of Fig. 4(b)). The local maxima of coherence occur when $`p_1`$ is close to zero, and $`T_1`$ is close to $`T_0`$.

The entrainment of $`T_1`$ by $`\tau `$, which manifests itself in the almost piecewise linear dependence of $`T_1`$ on $`\tau `$ for large $`\tau `$, can be understood as follows. As shown above, it is related to the eigenvalue whose real part $`p_1`$ is closest to zero. Assuming $`p_10`$ in Eq. (4) we obtain Eq. (5). With $`f/\dot{x}=\nu K`$, and $`(K\nu )/K1`$, this gives $`\mathrm{cos}(q\tau )1`$ and $`|q|\tau 2\pi n`$, where $`n`$ is integer. Then the eigenperiod $`T^e`$ is

$`T^e=2\pi /|q|{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{n}}.`$ (6)
As illustrated by Fig. 4(b), $`p_1`$ is close enough to zero only for large $`\tau `$, for which the relation (6) holds most accurately. To obtain the location of the maxima of $`p_1`$, i.e. the maxima of coherence, substitute $`p_10`$, $`q=2\pi n/\tau `$ into the real part of Eq. (4), which yields $`\tau =2\pi n/\omega _0=nT_0`$.

To summarize, delayed feedback applied to an oscillatory system of the form (2), gives rise to a countable set of eigenmodes of the fixed point, whose eigenperiods and stability are controlled by $`\tau `$. The highest peak in the spectrum of the noise-induced motion is due to excitation of the least stable eigenmode. The coherence of oscillations is the higher, the less stable the mode is. The range of modulation of the peak frequency is largest for small tau and large K.

Next, we consider another example of a CR oscillator, the FitzHugh-Nagumo system, which serves as a prototype of an excitable system. Extending it again by a delayed feedback loop, we obtain

$`ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`x{\displaystyle \frac{x^3}{3}}y,`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`x+a+K(y_\tau y)+D\xi (t).`$
We set the parameters $`ϵ=0.01`$ and $`a=1.1`$ such that a stable node is the only attractor of the system in the absence of feedback.

Without feedback ($`K=0`$), the mechanism for inducing oscillations by noise is different from the Van der Pol oscillator (1). In Fig. 1(c), (d) dashed lines show the null-clines defined by $`dy/dt=0`$ (vertical) and by $`dx/dt=0`$ (cubic parabola). They intersect at the fixed point, which is slightly displaced to the left of the minimum of the parabola for the parameters chosen. The null-clines divide the phase plane into four regions with different directions of phase velocity. Dots in Fig. 1(c) show the phase portrait with noise $`D=0.09`$.

In Fig. 2(b) the grey (green on-line) line shows $`t_{cor}`$ for Eq. (7) versus noise intensity, exhibiting a distinct maximum at $`D=0.09`$. Also, grey (green on-line) circles show the basic period $`T_0`$ of oscillations. Unlike Eq. (1), here $`T_0`$ changes substantially with noise, as was earlier shown in Lindner00 .

Now, switch on the feedback with $`K=0.2`$ and set $`\tau `$ equal to the value of $`T_0=4.12694`$ at optimum noise. The black line in Fig. 2(b) denotes $`t_{cor}`$ vs $`D`$, and shows that for any $`D`$ the coherence of oscillations is higher with the feedback. However, this feature is not visible in the phase portrait (Fig. 1(d)). Black circles in Fig. 2(b) show the basic period $`T_1`$ with feedback. It is evident that delayed feedback substantially reduces the variation of the noise-induced basic timescale. Note, however, that this may not be so if $`\tau `$ is very different from $`T_0`$.

Next, we study how the feedback can control the timescales and the regularity of noise-induced motion. Fix $`D`$ at an optimum value $`0.09`$, $`K`$ at $`0.2`$ and change $`\tau `$. The spectrum in dependence on $`\tau `$ is given in Fig. 3(b). With increasing $`\tau `$, the spectral peaks move towards zero, and the spectrum is gradually enriched by new peaks. As with the Van der Pol oscillator, select all visible peaks with periods $`T`$, and denote the period of the highest peak as $`T_1`$. In Fig. 4(c) $`T`$ of several peaks are given by crosses (blue on-line), and $`T_1`$ by circles (yellow on-line), depending on $`\tau `$. These dependencies are qualitatively very much like those for Eq. (1) in Fig. 4(a). In Fig. 4(d) $`t_{cor}`$ is given depending on $`\tau `$, exhibiting oscillatory features. Local maxima of coherence occur when $`T_1`$ is equal to $`T_0`$. Unlike in case of the Van der Pol oscillator, the mechanism of delayed feedback control can not be explained by a local analysis of the fixed point since the oscillations are characterized by large excursions in phase space. Rather, a global analysis would be needed which is clearly beyond the scope of the present Letter.

In conclusion, time-delayed feedback in the form of the difference between the current and a delayed state of the system can be used to control oscillations that are induced merely by noise. The most crucial parameter of such a control is the time delay $`\tau `$, depending on which the coherence of noise-induced oscillations increases or decreases. With this, a phenomenon of entrainment of the basic period of noise-induced motion by the time delayed feedback is discovered. The latter ability is somehow reminiscent of classical synchronization phenomena, in that the externally imposed timescale $`\tau `$ tunes the basic period of oscillations in the system, although it involves quite different mechanisms.

This work was supported by DFG in the framework of Sfb 555. The authors gratefully acknowledge discussions with A. Nikitin and A. Amann.


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# ON THE PROBLEM OF COSMOLOGICAL SINGULARITY WITHIN GAUGE THEORIES OF GRAVITATION

## Abstract

In this note I discuss the problem of cosmological singularities within gauge theories of gravitation. Solutions of cosmological equations with the scalar field are considered.

The problem of cosmological singularity is one of the most fundamental issues in modern theoretical cosmology. Investigation of this problem within gauge theories of gravitation (GTG) is of undoubted interest, since numerous attempts of resolution of this problem did not reach success within general relativity (GR). Generalized cosmological Freidmann equations (GCFE) were derived in 1980 in  within the framework of GTG. It possesses important regularizing properties and allows obtaining nonsingular solutions having friedmannian asymptotics of GR.

The study of cosmological models with the scalar field within GTG is motivated by successes of existing inflationary models within GR. The first regular solution with nonlinear scalar field was obtained in . Since analytical solution of GCFE does not exist, the qualitative analysis (by analogy with GR ) seems to be promising. It turns out that unlike GR the phase space of the dynamical system, corresponding to GCFE in the case of scalar field, is bounded within GTG . The boundary of the phase space contains special solutions of cosmological equations . The presence of this boundary allows avoiding divergencies of the scalar field derivative with respect to time on contraction stage that take place for most solutions within GR in the finite region for the scalar field.

Within GR in simplest cases the stage of cosmological expansion is described by the phase portrait with the stable focus singular point at the origin . On the phase portrait describing contraction stage the corresponding singular point is unstable focus. Moreover, the two phase portraits are independent. In order to locate the solution one has to determine to sign of the Hubble parameter.

Within GTG the phase space has much more complicated structure. Close to the origin the phase portraits practically coincide with the corresponding portraits within GR since in this case the GCFE is equivalent to the Friedmann equation. However, according to  the Hubble parameter vanishes in the finite region of the phase space within GTG. As a consequence, there are inevitably regular transitions from contraction to expansion and back in the finite region of the phase space even in the case of flat and open type models in addition to close type models within GR. Moreover, the phase space has nontrivial topology: the phase portraits with stable and unstable focuses are glued along the boundaries of the phase space (in the case of negative indefinite parameter of cosmological equations of GTG). This leads to the remarkable consequence that the phase trajectories beginning in unstable focus reach the boundary of the phase space and then may pass to the phase portrait with stable focus and end there, rather than go to infinity. The Hubble parameter is negative inside the unstable focus and positive inside the stable focus (this circumstance can be considered as the consequence of the correspondence with GR). Thus, the phase trajectories cross the curves where the Hubble parameter vanishes and the corresponding solutions describe the regular transition from contraction to expansion. Notice in addition, that most regular solutions incorporate inflationary stage since in the region of the phase space close to the origin (again as a correspondence with GR) there are inflationary separatrices, playing the role of attractors .

In refs.  the ‘glued’ solutions are considered, being composed of a particular solution and the special (envelope) solution. Existence of such solutions is beyond question from the formal mathematical point of view. Since special solutions of GCFE diverge with simplest effective potentials of the scalar field, the conclusion that the singularity is inevitable for cosmological equations of GTG was obtained . However, it was out of account, that transition from the particular solution to the special solution and back is possible only with discontinuous behavior of the second derivative of the scale factor (the first derivative of the Hubble parameter ) with respect to time. From the physical point of view, the assumption about such discontinuous point in the cosmological solution seems to be too strong. As a consequence, the conclusion that most solutions of cosmological equations of GTG are singular , based implicitly on this assumption, appears to be a premature conclusion.

Indeed, the requirement that the derivative of the Hubble parameter be a continuous function of time excludes all the singular solutions from the consideration . In this context, conclusions that ‘…all cosmological solutions for flat, open and closed models are regular in metrics, Hubble parameter, its time derivative…’ and ‘…GTG permit to build nonsingular cosmology…’  are certainly correct.

The series of such regular solutions of cosmological equations of GTG with the scalar field is considered in my thesis . Solutions with discontinuous behavior of the Hubble parameter derivative  are not considered there, and the question on the physical meaning of such solutions remains open.


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# Random Matrix Theory and the Spectra of Overlap Fermions Talk presented by S. Shcheredin at Lattice 2003. Preprint HU-EP-03/55, DESY 03-127, SFB/CPP-03-30

## Abstract

The application of Random Matrix Theory to the Dirac operator of QCD yields predictions for the probability distributions of the lowest eigenvalues. We measured Dirac operator spectra using massless overlap fermions in quenched QCD at topological charge $`\nu =0,`$ $`\pm 1`$ and $`\pm 2`$, and found agreement with those predictions — at least for the first non-zero eigenvalue — if the volume exceeds about $`(1.2\mathrm{fm})^4`$.

In QCD with $`N_f`$ massless quark flavors, chiral symmetry is assumed to be broken spontaneously as $`SU(N_f)_RSU(N_f)_LSU(N_f)_{R+L}`$, which generates $`N_f^21`$ Goldstone bosons in the coset space $`SU(N_f)`$. They pick up a mass — so they can be identified with light mesons — in the case of small quark masses. Their dynamics is described by chiral perturbation theory as a low energy effective model of QCD. To the lowest order in the momenta and masses, the effective Lagrangian reads

$$[U]=\frac{F_\pi ^2}{4}\mathrm{Tr}\left[_\mu U_\mu U\right]\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\left[(U+U^{})\right]$$
(1)
where $`U(x)SU(N_f)`$ and $``$ is the (diagonal) quark mass matrix. The low energy constants $`F_\pi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ appear here as free parameters. In a box of size $`V=L^4`$ the relations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^1Lm_\pi ^1`$ characterize the $`ϵ`$-regime .

In that regime we consider the eigenvalues (EVs) $`i\lambda _n`$ of the Dirac operator, resp. the dimensionless variable $`z_n=\lambda _nV\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The spectral density is defined by $`\rho (\lambda )=_n\delta (\lambda \lambda _n)`$, and in particular the microscopic spectral density $`\rho _s`$ is given by

$$\rho _s(z)=_V\mathrm{}^{lim}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Sigma }V}\rho (\frac{z}{\mathrm{\Sigma }V}),z=\lambda V\mathrm{\Sigma }.$$
(2)
In the sectors of topological charge $`\pm \nu `$ it can be decomposed as

$$\rho _s^{(\nu )}(z)=\underset{k1}{}p_k^{(\nu )}(z),$$
(3)
where $`p_k^{(\nu )}(z)`$ is the probability distribution of the $`k`$-th EV (excluding the zero EV). The application of Random Matrix Theory (RMT) to QCD provides explicit predictions for the functions $`p_k^{(\nu )}(z)`$ in the $`ϵ`$-regime .

To test these predictions on the lattice, we simulated quenched QCD with the Wilson gauge action and the Neuberger overlap operator $`D_{\mathrm{ov}}`$ at zero quark mass . At $`\beta =6`$ resp. $`5.85`$ the mass of the Wilson kernel, $`\mu `$, was fixed by $`\mu =1.4`$ resp. $`1.6`$. In contrast to the continuum, where the EVs are imaginary, the EVs of $`D_{\mathrm{ov}}`$ lie on a circle in $`\mathrm{𝖢𝖨}`$ with center and radius $`\mu `$. For comparison to the continuum predictions we mapped this circle stereographically onto the imaginary axis.

The functions $`p_k^{(\nu )}(z)`$ depend significantly on $`|\nu |`$; for instance, the peak of $`p_1^{(\nu )}(z)`$ moves to larger values of $`z`$ as $`|\nu |`$ increases. This effect could not be seen convincingly, however, in simulations with staggered fermions (at least for the couplings investigated so far) . On the other hand, previous studies with Ginsparg-Wilson fermions were consistent with the RMT predictions in QED2 , QED4  and in QCD on a $`4^4`$ lattice . QCD studies on larger lattices were presented in Refs. .

Usually the test of RMT predictions was done by comparing the functions $`p_k^{(\nu )}(z)`$ to the histograms of lattice data. To avoid the arbitrariness of the bin size in that procedure, we compared instead the cumulative density

$$\rho _{k,c}^{(\nu )}(z)=\frac{_0^z\rho _k^{(\nu )}(z^{})𝑑z^{}}{_0^{\mathrm{}}\rho _k^{(\nu )}(z^{})𝑑z^{}}.$$
(4)
In Fig. 1 we show the RMT curves for $`\rho _{1,c}^{(\nu )}(z)`$, $`|\nu |=0,`$ 1 and 2, compared to data from the following lattices: $`10^4`$ at $`\beta =5.85`$, $`12^4`$ at $`\beta =6`$ and $`8^4`$ at $`\beta =5.85`$. The corresponding physical volumes are $`(1.23\mathrm{fm})^4`$, $`(1.12\mathrm{fm})^4`$ and $`(0.98\mathrm{fm})^4`$. We see that the $`k=1`$ EV tends to agree quite well with RMT, if the volume exceeds about $`(1.2\mathrm{fm})^4`$. It disagrees, however, if the physical volume is too small; then the data do not distinguish any more the different topological sectors, which is consistent with Ref. .

This comparison involves $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ as the only free parameter, which was optimized for agreement with RMT. In $`(1.23\mathrm{fm})^4`$ and $`(1.12\mathrm{fm})^4`$ we obtained very similar values, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=(253\mathrm{MeV})^3`$ resp. $`(256\mathrm{MeV})^3`$. These values are consistent with the literature, although $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is expected to diverge logarithmically at large $`V`$ in quenched QCD . Further volumes and higher statistics would be required to verify this behavior; our statistics was too small to associate error bars with the above values for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

The range of $`z`$ where the predictions are compatible with the RMT curves raises gradually as the volume is enlarged. For $`V<(1\mathrm{fm})^4`$ this range is so short that it doesn’t even capture the peak of the first non-zero EV, hence the RMT prediction is not applicable in that regime. However, our largest volume is still not sufficient to capture well the $`k=2`$ EV; we show results for our larger two volumes in Fig. 2.

Next we present results for the full spectral density $`\rho _s^{(\nu )}(z)`$ of eq. (2) (summed over $`k`$). Fig. 3 shows a histogram at $`|\nu |=1`$ on the $`12^4`$ lattice, which roughly follows the RMT prediction up to the second peak, before turning into the bulk behavior $`\rho _s^{(\nu )}(z)=c_0+c_1z^3`$.

We also studied the “unfolded level spacing distribution” which was considered earlier on a $`4^4`$ lattice . There we found good agreement with the behavior specific for $`SU(3)`$ in the fundamental representation that we were using. In this case, the results agree well with the prediction on all the three lattice sizes that we considered; the lower limit for the volume does not seem to affect this quantity, see Fig. 4. However, this type of “unfolding” only keeps track of the relative order of the EV in the ensemble, hence it is not sensitive to the energy scale and not directly physical.

In view of the future numerical exploration of the $`ϵ`$-regime by means of Ginsparg-Wilson fermions, our main conclusions are

* The volume should be larger than about $`(1.2\mathrm{fm})^4`$, which might just reflect that chiral perturbation theory is only applicable in the confinement phase. This observation can also be viewed as an empirical determination of the so-called Thouless energy.
* Once we are in the right regime, the RMT predictions for the low lying EVs are confirmed in some range $`z=0\mathrm{}z_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, where $`z_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ grows with the volume.
* The latter means that particularly in the topologically neutral sector there is a non-negligible density of very small non-zero EVs. Such EVs are dangerous for the measurement of physical observables; they lead to the requirement of a huge statistics .

In the $`ϵ`$-regime, observables tend to be strongly $`|\nu |`$ dependent , hence they should be measured at fixed $`|\nu |`$. The last observation now implies that such measurements should beware of $`\nu =0`$.


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# Point perturbations of circle billiards

## References


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# Compton drag as a mechanism for very high linear polarization in Gamma-Ray Bursts

## 1 Introduction

The claimed detection of a very high degree of linear polarization in the prompt emission of GRB 021206 \[$`\mathrm{\Pi }=(80\pm 20)\%`$; Coburn & Boggs 2003\] has triggered many theoretical interpretations. Since polarization is usually associated with some kind of asymmetry in the way the emitting material is viewed, the possible interpretations can be divided into two groups. In the first group, discussed in the observational paper itself, the asymmetry is attributed to a preferential direction of the magnetic field. Photons are supposed to be synchrotron emission from a power-law distribution of relativistic electrons; in the case of a perfectly aligned magnetic field, polarization can be as high as $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{syn}}=(p+1)/(p+7/3)`$ where $`p`$ is the power-law index of the electron distribution ($`n_e(\gamma _e)\gamma _e^p`$). A magnetic field with such an ordered configuration can not be generated at shocks (Gruzinov & Waxman 1999), and should be advected from the engine. It could be dominant in the energy budget of the outflow (Lyutikov, Pariev & Blandford 2003).

The second possible explanation invokes a particular observer set-up in order to provide the necessary anisotropy. Waxman (2003) suggested that a jet with a very small opening angle ($`\theta _j\stackrel{<}{}1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) viewed slightly off-axis ($`\theta _o1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the jet edge) would give a polarization level comparable to an ordered magnetic field even from a shock generated field (see also Gruzinov 1999 for similar considerations in the afterglow phase). The field should not be completely tangled, but either parallel to the shock normal (Sari 1999) or contained in the shock plane (Laing 1980; Medvedev & Loeb 1999), so that relativistic aberration would cause the observer to look along the edge of the fireball and see therefore an ordered field (Gruzinov 1999; Ghisellini & Lazzati 1999).

More detailed analyses of this models (Granot 2003; Nakar, Piran & Waxman 2003) showed that the ordered magnetic field can produce a larger polarization without requiring a particular geometrical set-up. On the other hand the extreme brightness of the event ($`25100`$ keV fluence $`=1.6\times 10^4`$ erg cm-2, Hurley et al. 2002) coupled with the assumption of a fairly typical redshift111Unfortunately no optical transient has been detected for this burst, partly because the burst position was only $`18\mathrm{°}`$ from the Sun at the moment of discovery (see Fatkhullin 2003 for a late upper limit). $`z=1`$ yields a narrow opening angle for the jet, making the probability of random realization of the geometrical set-up non negligible.

Synchrotron is not the only mechanism able to produce polarized radiation. In the context of a very narrow hyper-relativistic jet, in which the point-source approximation is applicable, Shaviv & Dar (1995a) discuss polarization as a characteristic signature of inverse Compton up-scatter (see also a more recent implementation in Dar & De Rujula 2003). The same mechanism was considered by Eichler & Levinson (2003), who discuss it in the framework of an ensheathed fireball. They consider the scattering of primary GRB photons, produced in the inner fast spine of the jet, by electrons advected in a slower sheath. They obtain a sizable polarization for the observed radiation under particular observing conditions.

In this paper we consider inverse Compton (hereafter IC) from a fireball with an opening angle comparable to or larger than the associated relativistic beaming (Lazzati et al. 2000; see also Begelman & Sikora 1987 for a similar scenario in AGNs). In this case the observed polarization is lower than in the point-source case due to the fact that the observed radiation comes from different angles. We numerically compute linear polarization as a function of the jet opening angle and observer line of sight. This mechanism, with respect to standard internal shocks, has the advantage of yielding a large efficiency in the conversion of bulk kinetic energy into radiation. On the other hand it does not naturally produce a broken power-law spectrum. A spectrum matching the one observed in GRBs can be obtained only under appropriate assumptions on the spectrum of the soft seed photons (Ghisellini et al. 2000).

In § 2 we describe the geometrical set-up and detail the computation of polarization from bulk Compton up-scattered photons; in § 3 we compute the observed polarization from a fireball as a function of the geometrical set-up and in § 4 we discuss our results in the contest of GRB 021206.

## 2 Compton Drag

Consider an ionized plasma moving relativistically through a photon field. A fraction $`\mathrm{max}(1,\tau _T)`$ of the photons ($`\tau _T`$ is the Thomson optical depth) suffers inverse Compton scattering on the relativistic electrons. Their energy is increased in the scattering by a factor $`4\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the electron Lorentz factor. As a net result, due to relativistic aberration, a flow of high energy photons beamed in an opening angle $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is produced at the expense of the kinetic energy of the plasma flow (see e.g. Begelman & Sikora 1987). This radiation mechanism goes under the name of Compton Drag (hereafter CD) or bulk Compton.

The possibility that the gamma-ray photons in the prompt phase of GRBs are due to the bulk Compton up-scatter of UV field photons has been discussed in several geometric setup (Zdziarski, Svensson & Paczynski 1991; Shemi 1994; Shaviv & Dar 1995ab; Lazzati et al. 2000; Dar & De Rujula 2003). We here concentrate on the case discussed in Lazzati et al. (2000), in which the relativistic electrons are contained in a fireball, in contrast to the cannonball (or ballistic) approximation considered in most of the other works. Lazzati et al. (2000) showed that the mechanism can in principle give very high efficiencies, curing the intrinsic inefficiency of internal shocks (Lazzati, Ghisellini & Celotti 1999). In this scenario the shape of the soft photon field had to be selected in order to reproduce the GRB spectra. Ghisellini et al. (2000) showed that if the soft photon field has a power-law distribution of temperatures the resulting spectrum will resemble that of a GRB. Independently of the details on how the spectrum is generated, in the electron comoving frame the typical photon frequency is $`h\nu 1/1000/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ keV $`m_ec^2`$ and therefore the scattering is elastic and the polarization properties of the scattered radiation are independent of frequency. We here show that, under certain geometrical conditions, it is possible to obtain a highly polarized flux from CD.

Compton (or Thomson) scattered photons are well known to be highly polarized, with a linear polarization that depends on the photon scattering angle $`\theta `$ as (Rybicki & Lightman 1979):

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=\frac{1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }{1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }$$
(1)
Consider now an electron moving at relativistic speed in an isotropic photon field. In the electron comoving frame222Comoving quantities are primed. photon aberration makes most of the photons arrive from one direction. The electron observes a photon field:

$$I^{}(\nu ^{})=\delta ^3I(\nu ^{}/\delta )$$
(2)
where $`\delta [\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta ^{})]^1`$ is the Doppler factor. The Stokes $`Q`$ parameter from a single electron can therefore be computed through:

$$Q=_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi ^{}_0^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}d\theta ^{}\delta ^3I\left(\frac{\nu ^{}}{\delta }\right)\frac{1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}}{1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}}\mathrm{cos}\left(2\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}\right)$$
(3)
where the polar and azimuthal scattering angles $`\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}`$ and $`\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}`$ are specified through:

$`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}^{}\mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}^{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ^{}`$
$`\mathrm{sin}\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}\mathrm{sin}\varphi ^{}}{\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}}}`$ (4)
and $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}^{}`$ is the observing angle with respect to the electron velocity in the electron comoving frame. Analogously, the Stokes $`U`$ parameter can be obtained from Eq 3 by substituting $`\mathrm{cos}\left(2\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}\right)`$ with $`\mathrm{sin}\left(2\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}\right)`$. For symmetry reasons, one always has $`U=0`$, so that the polarization vector is orthogonal to the plane containing the electron velocity and the line of sight. The linear polarization is therefore given by $`\mathrm{\Pi }=|Q|/I`$, where

$$I=2\pi _0^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta ^{}d\theta ^{}\delta ^3I\left(\frac{\nu ^{}}{\delta }\right)$$
(5)
Eq. 3 can be numerically integrated. The resulting polarization, as a function of the observing angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 1 for several values of the electron Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In the figure a photon field $`F(\nu )\nu ^0`$ has been assumed, in order to obtain a frequency-independent result. The curves in Fig. 1 are a good approximation for any photon field that does not vary sizably over a factor of $`2`$ in frequency. The figure shows that the maximum polarization is obtained for an observer that is at $`90\mathrm{°}`$ with respect to the electron velocity vector in the electron comoving frame. Also, electrons with larger Lorentz factors are more efficient polarizers, since they see a more anisotropic radiation field due to relativistic aberration. For $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{>}{}10`$ the curves are indistinguishable and can be approximated with Eq. 1 with an accuracy of $`2\%`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=10`$ and $`0.1\%`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }100`$.

## 3 Polarization from a fireball

In the previous section we considered the polarization arising from the interaction of a single electron with an isotropic photon field. We here consider a jet fireball of opening angle $`\theta _j`$, radially expanding at relativistic speed, observed from a viewing angle $`\theta _o`$.

In order to compute the polarization that is observed from a fireball, one has to integrate the single electron polarization over the fireball surface, taking into account the angle transformations from the comoving frame to the observed one. Since a comoving observer at $`90\mathrm{°}`$ transforms in an observer that makes an angle $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in the laboratory frame, one expects a maximum in the observed polarization for an observer located at $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the edge of the jet.

The stokes vector Q (U vanishes due to symmetry considerations as for the single electron case) is given by:

$$Q=_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^{\theta _j}\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta \delta ^3I^{}\left(\frac{\nu }{\delta }\right)\mathrm{\Pi }(\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{})\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}})$$
(6)
where the Doppler factor $`\delta `$ must be computed as a function of the angle between the local velocity and the line of sight. The scattering angles $`\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ and $`\varphi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ are as well defined in the spherical coordinate system where the line of sight is the polar axis and $`\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ is related to the comoving scattering angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}`$ through:

$$\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{}=\frac{\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}\beta }{1\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}}$$
(7)
Finally, $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\theta _{\mathrm{sc}}^{})`$ is the single electron polarization computed in Eq. 3 (or, for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{>}{}100`$, the simpler Eq. 1).

As for synchrotron models, the observed polarization depends on two parameters (Granot 2003; Nakar et al. 2003): the opening angle of the jet $`\theta _j`$ with respect to its Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the observer off-axis angle $`\theta _o`$. The resulting polarization, as a function of the observer angle, is shown for several jet geometries in Fig. 2, where again the spectral dependence of the radiation has been neglected for generality. Negative polarization values correspond to polarization in the plane that contains the jet axis and the line of sight, while positive polarization values correspond to an orthogonal polarization angle. The figure shows that it is indeed possible to obtain a large degree of polarization from CD in a fireball, especially if the fireball opening angle is close to the limit $`\theta _j1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (the jet with $`\theta _j=0.2/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is shown for completeness). As in the case of synchrotron (Granot 2003; Nakar et al. 2003) the observed polarization is smaller than the maximum that can be obtained in the non-relativistic case. However, the net observed polarization from CD is larger, since the maximum comoving value is $`100\%`$ rather than $`75\%`$ for synchrotron.

There are, however, two complications. First, the maximum of polarization is obtained for observers outside of the jet ($`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the jet edge). In this configuration the flux detected by the observer is smaller than the flux that an on-axis observer would detect. A highly polarized GRB should therefore appear dimmer than a non-polarized one, given the same explosion parameters. We define the efficiency $`ϵ`$ as the ratio between the detected flux and the flux an on-axis observer would detect. Since GRB 021206 was a rather bright event (Hurley et al. 2002) a situation in which $`ϵ0.1`$ is unlikely. For this reason we have underlined in Fig. 2 with a thicker line-style the range of off-axis directions in which $`ϵ>0.025`$. Even though the thick lines encompass the peak of polarization, it is clear that, particularly for the broader jets, only a small fraction of the random observers would detect a large linear polarization. In Fig. 3, with thick lines, we show the probability that a random observer would detect more than a threshold polarization as a function of the jet opening angle. Threshold polarizations of $`20\%`$ and $`40\%`$ have been assumed. For a narrow GRB jet this probability is not negligible. With a thin line we show, for comparison, the corresponding probability for synchrotron, according to the computations of Nakar et al. (2003), for an electron index $`p=3`$, corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mathrm{syn}}=75\%`$. It is clear that CD can produce $`30\%`$ larger linear polarization than synchrotron.

An interesting issue arises if the radiation efficiency of the prompt GRB phase is large enough to produce a sizable deceleration of the fireball. This may happen in CD scenarios and even at a larger extent in the synchrotron case, where only $`1/3`$ of the dissipated energy is radiated as MeV photons. The consequences of a deceleration of the fireball are two: both the jet geometry $`\theta _j\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the observer geometry $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ are affected. In terms of Fig. 2 the location moves to the left on the X-axis, simultaneously jumping from one curve to another with smaller $`\theta _j\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Whether the causes an increase or a decrease of polarization depends on the starting point, what is certain is that, if the deceleration is more than a factor of $`3÷4`$ in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ very small polarization is left.

### 3.1 Non uniform jets

The result we have shown are relative to sharp edged jets, i.e. jets in which the Lorentz factor and the energy per unit solid angle are constant inside the cone, dropping to zero (1 for the Lorentz factor) outside it. A more physical situation should be that of a jet with a transition region, where the energy per unit solid angle and the Lorentz factor drop smoothly from their central values to smaller ones.

In Figg. 4 and 5 we show the analogues of Figg. 2 and 3 in the extreme case of a Gaussian jet. In this jet, both the Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the energy per unit solid angle $`dE/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are distributed according to:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0e^{\frac{\theta ^2}{\theta _j^2}\mathrm{log}2}`$
$``$ $`=`$ $`_0e^{\frac{\theta ^2}{\theta _j^2}\mathrm{log}2}`$ (8)
so that $`\theta _j`$ coincides with the half width at half maximum of the Gaussian. The jet has been truncated at $`3\sigma =2.56\theta _j`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ has been chosen large enough to ensure that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\theta )1`$. There are two main differences with respect to the homogeneous jet. First, the polarization outside the core of the jet remains large out to wide angles, even though the total intensity drops. This effect is due to the fact that the Lorentz factor in the edge of the jet is much smaller than that in the core – which is used to define the unit on the X-axis of the figure – and therefore the observed burst properties vary more slowly with the off-axis angle. The main difference can be noticed by comparing Fig. 5 with Fig. 3. A narrow Gaussian jet produces more easily a large linear polarization, but the probability of observing such a high polarization by a random observer drops to zero much more quickly with respect to the uniform jet case.

Alternative configurations can be considered. For example, Nakar et al. (2003) consider a uniform jet with exponential wings only in the energy per unit solid angle $``$ and constant Lorentz factor. What we have shown are the two extreme cases: a pure uniform jet and a jet with smooth variations of both Lorentz factor and energy, in order to encompass all possibilities.

## 4 Discussion

We showed in the previous sections that CD from a moderately narrow jet (compared to its Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) can produce a large observable degree of linear polarization. Even though the observed polarization is larger than that attainable by synchrotron from a shock generated magnetic field (Granot 2003; Nakar et al. 2003), the condition $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\theta _j\stackrel{<}{}5`$ must be satisfied in order to have a non vanishing probability of observing linear polarization at first attempt. Unfortunately it is not possible to measure either the Lorentz factor of the fireball or its opening angle, since we do not have afterglow observations for GRB 021206. Nevertheless an estimate of $`\theta _j`$ can be made thanks to two correlations recently discovered in the sample of well-observed GRBs. First, we use the standard beaming corrected energy for GRBs $`E5\times 10^{50}`$ erg (Frail et al. 2001). Second, we adopt the “Amati correlation”, which relates the isotropic equivalent energy output of the GRB in $`\gamma `$-rays with the peak frequency (in $`\nu F(\nu )`$ representation) of its spectrum (Amati et al. 2002). For the case of GRB 021206 the observed peak frequency is $`h\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}1`$ MeV (Hajdas et al. 2003). Combining this information with the fluence of the GRB ($`25100`$ keV fluence $`=1.6\times 10^4`$ erg cm-2, Hurley et al. 2002) we obtain $`z1.5`$ and $`\theta _j2\mathrm{°}`$, making the jet of GRB 021206 one of the narrowest detected333It should be noted that in deriving the numerical values we have neglected the small efficiency implied by the measured polarization. Should it be taken into account, an even smaller opening angle would be derived (e.g. Nakar et al. 2003)., yet comparable to the jets of GRB 990123, GRB 990510 and GRB 000926 (Frail et al. 2001). The Lorentz factor of the fireball can be estimated from the observed peak frequency. If the soft photon field is produced by a simultaneously exploding supernova (Lazzati et al. 2000), the observed peak frequency is given by:

$$h\nu _{\mathrm{peak}}10\mathrm{\Gamma }^2kT_{\mathrm{ph}}$$
(9)
where $`T_{\mathrm{ph}}10^5`$ K is the black body temperature of the photon field. Inverting the equation we obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }130`$. This yields, as a most probable configuration for GRB 021206:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\theta _j5$$
(10)
We conclude that, if the jet configuration of GRB 021206 were sufficiently sharp-edged, polarization from CD would be a viable explanation for the RHESSI observation, even though the actual jet-observer configuration would be somewhat lucky. Under similar conditions, synchrotron radiation from a shock generated field, would produce somewhat smaller polarization.

Even though synchrotron radiation from an ordered toroidal magnetic field component advected from the inner engine is an alternative good explanation for the detected high level of polarization, we have shown that the detected polarization does not necessarily imply synchrotron as the emission mechanism (see also Eichler et al. 2003). CD has also the advantage of naturally providing a large efficiency, while it requires some ad-hoc assumptions in order to reproduce the observed spectrum. There are several ways to discriminate between the two mechanisms with future observations. First, CD requires a particular geometrical set-up to produce a large polarization. As a consequence, only a small fraction of GRBs should be highly polarized, the more luminous being more likely to be polarized than the dim ones, since they have narrower jets. On the other hand, if polarization is due to a toroidal magnetic field advected from the central source, it should be a general feature of all GRBs, irrespective of their observing angles and apparent luminosities444Only the small fraction of GRBs observed at $`\theta _o<1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ from the jet axis should be unpolarized.. Secondly, CD polarization is a property of the prompt event only, and the optical flash should be less polarized, while it should be highly polarized in the synchrotron case. Finally, synchrotron polarization has a well defined relation to the spectral slope of the radiation (Granot 2003; Lazzati et al. 2003 in preparation), while CD polarization should be almost independent on the spectral properties of the observed radiation.

## Acknowledgements

We thank Annalisa Celotti and David Eichler for useful discussions. DL acknowledges support from the PPARC postdoctoral fellowship PPA/P/S/2001/00268. ER thanks the Isaac Newton Fellowship and PPARC for financial support.


text:
# B, Λ_𝑏 and Charm Results from the Tevatron

## 1 Tevatron $`p\overline{p}`$ collider and performance during Run-II

The Tevatron $`p\overline{p}`$ collider is being used for extended data-taking for the second time in 10 years. During the period between 1992 and 1996 (Run-I) an integrated luminosity of 110pb-1 was delivered; the goals for the current period starting May 2001 (Run-II) are 2 fb-1, which is a $`\times `$ 20 increase over Run-I. The upgrades for Run-II consist of a new injection stage delivering more protons, an increased $`\overline{p}`$ transfer efficiency and a $`\overline{p}`$ recycler (undergoing commisioning) that uses remaining $`\overline{p}`$ from the previous store. A table of Run-I and Run-II operating parameters is given in table 1. The peak luminosity, though improving, is still $`\times `$ 4 below target.

## 2 $`B`$ Physics at Hadron Colliders: The CDF and D0 Detectors

The $`b\overline{b}`$ production cross section $`\sigma (b\overline{b})`$ is $``$ $`150\mu `$b at $`p\overline{p}`$ at the Tevatron, 1 nb at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4s)`$ and 7 nb at the $`Z_0`$. All $`B`$-hadrons are produced at the Tevatron (unlike the $`B`$ factories), the drawback being the inelastic cross section which is 1000$`\times \sigma (b\overline{b})`$ making online data selection crucial.

The CDF  and D0 detectors  have been described elsewhere. In order to utilize the high $`b\overline{b}`$ production cross section clean signatures of $`B`$ hadron decays must be used when selecting data online. During Run-I CDF used the clean signatures of $`BJ/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and the decays of $`B`$ hadrons to high transverse momentum ($`P_T`$ ) leptons. Now the long lifetime of $`B`$ hadrons is being utilized at CDF, events containing $``$2 tracks with high impact parameters ($`d_0`$) consistent with being daughters of $`B`$ hadrons are selected using the Silicon Vertex Trigger, events selected in this way are categorized as “hadronic $`B`$ trigger” or “displaced track trigger” events. Another trigger used for $`B`$ selection selects events requires the presence of a single high $`P_T`$ lepton and a high $`d_0`$ track, this is called the “lepton+SVT trigger ” or “lepton+displaced track trigger”. The high $`d_0`$ triggers have allowed CDF to significantly advance its $`B`$ and charm physics capability, now CDF can reconstruct $`B`$ decays to fully hadronic final states as well as use the conventional $`J/\psi `$ and high $`P_T`$ lepton triggers.

The D0 experiment utilizes the $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ signature to select $`J/\psi `$s (which may be prompt or long-lived—coming from $`B`$ hadrons). D0 triggers also use $`B`$ decays to high $`P_T`$ leptons. With the advent of a magnetic field and a completely new tracking system D0 has acquired a whole new capability in $`B`$ physics and several $`BJ/\psi X`$ decay modes have been observed during Run-II. The D0 experiment is on its way to introducing a hadronic $`B`$ trigger that uses online silicon pattern recognition to select tracks with high $`d_0`$, this will be a welcome addition to D0’s already enhanced capability in $`B`$ physics.

## 3 Physics Results: Testing Heavy Quark Expansion: Lifetimes of $`B`$ Hadrons at CDF and D0

Precise measurements of lifetimes of $`B`$ hadrons allow tests of the Heavy Quark Expansion (HQE) which predicts the following hierarchy for $`B`$ hadron lifetimes: $`\tau _{B_c^\pm }<\tau _{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}<\tau _{B_d}\tau _{B_s}<\tau _{B_u^\pm }`$. Both CDF and D0 are working toward precision tests of this theory.

### 3.1 Charged to Neutral Lifetime Ratio of $`B`$ Hadrons, and $`B_s`$ Lifetime from fully reconstructed decays

The ratio of the lifetimes of $`B_u^\pm `$ to $`B_d`$ has been measured at CDF, and the $`B_u^\pm `$ lifetime has been measured at D0 using fully reconstructed $`B_dJ/\psi K^{}`$ and $`B_u^\pm J/\psi K^\pm `$ decays. The decays are fully reconstructed, the invariant mass and proper decay length ($`c\tau `$) distributions of the $`B`$s are calculated from an un-binned log-likelihood function determining both mass and lifetime in a single fit. The result is $`1.11\pm 0.09`$ at CDF using 70 pb-1 of data, whereas the $`B_u^\pm `$ lifetime has been measured to be $`1.76\pm 0.24`$ ps at D0. Both these measurements test HQE and are consistent with the more accurate measurements at BaBar and Belle.

### 3.2 $`B_s`$ Lifetime from the fully reconstructed decay $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$, $`J/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$

The world’s largest number of fully reconstructed $`B_s`$ decays has been at the Tevatron since Run-I. CDF and D0 has successfully reconstructed this decay using data from their $`J/\psi \mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ trigger during Run-II, the reconstructed signals are shown in Fig. 1. A measurement of the lifetime is underway at D0, CDF has measured a ratio of $`\frac{\tau B_s}{\tau B_d}=0.89\pm 0.15`$ based on 70pb-1 collected during Run-II.

Strictly speaking this ratio isn’t what should be tested, since the CP composition of the final state is not known. The final state is a mixture of CP eigenstates, and the $`B_s`$ CP even and odd eigenstates can have a difference in lifetime of upto 10 % as predicted by theory, by fitting a single lifetime in this mode an “average” lifetime has been determined. The relationship between splitting in width (lifetime) of the $`B_s`$ CP eigenstates and the $`B_s`$ mixing parameter is known in the Standard Model, therefore a measurement of the width (lifetime) difference and mixing parameter provides a test of new Physics. It is planned to measure the lifetime difference of the $`B_s`$ CP eigenstates by utilizing angular variables to disentangle the two CP eigenstates and fitting two lifetimes, this approach will become viable with higher statistics. An accuracy of 5 % in determining the lifetime splitting is expected at CDF using 4000 $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ decays.

A clean measurement of the width difference $`(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\mathrm{\Gamma }})_{Bs}`$, can be made by measuring a single lifetime in a decay of the $`B_s`$ to a CP eigenstate e.g. $`B_sD_s^+D_s^{}`$ and $`B_sK^+K^{}`$. This approach is planned as well.

### 3.3 Measurement of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ Lifetime

The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ has been reconstructed at both CDF and D0 in various modes, Fig. 2 shows the reconstruction in the fully hadronic mode at CDF and in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bJ/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at D0.

CDF has also reconstructed $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ in the decays $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bJ/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (53 events) and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}\nu _{\mathrm{}}`$ (640 events) and in the purely hadronic decay mode $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^{}\pi ^\pm `$ with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_cpK\pi `$. A lifetime measurement has just been completed at CDF using the fully reconstructed decay $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_bJ/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with a result $`\tau _{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b}=1.25\pm 0.26(stat)\pm 0.1(syst)`$ ps shown in Fig. 3. Work on D0’s $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b`$ lifetime currently underway.

The decays $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^\pm \mathrm{}\nu _{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^\pm \pi ^{}`$ are selected using a trigger with $`d_0`$ cut, the resulting biases in the $`c\tau `$ distribution have to be understood before a lifetime measurement from these modes can be completed and CDF expects this will be done soon.

## 4 Charm Physics: $`D_s^\pm D^\pm `$ mass difference

The first CDF Run-II publication  was a measurement of the mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=M_{D_s^\pm }M_{D^\pm }`$. Both the $`D_s^\pm `$ and $`D^\pm `$ decay to $`\varphi \pi ^\pm `$ with $`\varphi K^+K^{}`$ with almost identical kinematics. Using data selected by the displaced-track hadronic trigger 2400 $`D_s^\pm `$ and 1600 $`D^\pm `$ were reconstructed using only 11.6 pb-1 of data. The measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=99.28\pm 0.43(stat)\pm 0.27(syst)`$ MeV/c2 is consistent with the current world average  of 99.2 $`\pm `$ 0.5 MeV/c2.

## 5 Rare Decays: The Search for the Flavour Changing Neutral Current Decay $`D\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`B_s^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$

The standard model predicts a branching ratio of $`O(10^{13})`$ for the decay $`D^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ via second order weak interactions. Some R-parity violating SUSY models predict branching ratios $`O(10^6)`$ . CDF has searched for $`D^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ decays using hadronic trigger data and $`D^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays which have almost identical acceptance and kinematics to $`D^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ . The probability of a $`\pi ^\pm `$ faking a $`\mu ^\pm `$ must be calculated, unambiguously identified pions are obtained using the decay chain $`D_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }D^0\pi ^\pm `$, $`D^0K^{}\pi ^\pm `$, the charge of the $`\pi ^\pm `$ from the $`D^\pm `$ determines the flavour of the $`D^0`$ and distinguishes the $`K^\pm `$ from the $`\pi ^\pm `$. The number of times a $`\pi ^\pm `$ is reconstructed as a $`\mu ^\pm `$ is determined after which $`D^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ are reconstructed and expected number of $`D^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ decays faking $`D^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is subracted, 0 events are found in a 2$`\sigma `$ search window. A limit for this branching ratio $`2.4\times 10^6`$ is calculated at 90 % confidence level, better than the best published limit of $`4.1\times 10^6`$  .

CDF has done a similar analysis of the decay $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ using 113 pb-1 of Run-II data. Standard Model prediction for the branching ratio is $`3.8\pm 1\times 10^9`$. Various SUSY models  allow for an enhancement by a factor of upto $`\times 10^3`$, areas of m-SUGRA space that overlap those predicting deviations of the $`g_\mu `$ from 2 are roughly consistent  with recent experimental measurements . CDF’s measurement yields limits $`BR(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ $`<9.5\times 10^7`$ and $`1.2\times 10^6`$ at the 90 % and 95 % confidence intervals respectively—a factor of 2 better than the best previous measurement .

## 6 CP Violation in Charm Decays

The Standard model prediction for CP violation in charm decays is of order 0.1-1 %. Since $`c`$ and $`u`$ quarks do not couple to $`t`$ quarks, box diagram contributions to mixing in charm are tiny, and so CP violation in Charm decays is almost entirely due to interference in decay (direct CP violation). A search for CP violation in charm decays has been done at CDF. Rates of decays of $`D^0`$ and $`\overline{D^0}`$ decaying to the CP eigenstates $`f=K^+K^{}`$ and $`f=\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ are measured. The flavour of the $`D^0`$ is tagged as described in section 5, and $`D^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`K^+K^{}`$ decays are reconstructed and counted and the asymmetry

$$A_{CP}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0f)\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{D^0}f)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0f)+\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{D^0}f)}$$
(1)
for each mode is calculated. The results are $`A_{CP}(D^0\pi ^+\pi ^{})=2.0\pm 1.7(stat)\pm 0.6(syst)`$ % and $`A_{CP}(D^0K^+K^{})=3.0\pm 1.9(stat)\pm 0.6(syst)`$ %, consistent with both the world averages of $`0.5\pm 1.6`$ % and $`2.1\pm 2.6`$ %  and better than the most recent (2001) CLEO results of $`0.0\pm 2.2\pm 0.8`$ % and $`1.9\pm 3.2(stat)\pm 0.8(syst)`$% respectively .

As a check of possible biases in counting, the ratios of branching ratios: $`\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0K^+K^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0K^\pm \pi ^{})}`$ and $`\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0\pi ^+\pi ^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^0K^\pm \pi ^{})}`$ were also calculated and found to be $`9.38\pm 0.18(stat)\pm 0.10(syst)`$% and $`3.686\pm 0.076(stat)\pm 0.036(syst)`$% respectively. These compare well with the measurements at FOCUS  $`9.93\pm 0.14(stat)\pm 0.14(syst)`$% and $`3.53\pm 0.12(stat)\pm 0.06(syst)`$%.

## 7 Towards CP violation in $`B`$-hadron decays and $`B_s`$ mixing

In Run-I the CDF was able to competetively measure the $`B_d`$ mixing parameter $`(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M}{\mathrm{\Gamma }})_{B_d}=x_d`$ and also perform a 2$`\sigma `$ measurement of the CP asymmetry in the decay $`B_dJ/\psi K_S`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$. The Run-I measurement was $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta =0.79\pm 0.39(stat)\pm 0.16(syst)`$, BaBar and Belle already have measurements of $`0.76\pm 0.067(stat)\pm 0.034(syst)`$ and $`0.733\pm 0.057(stat)\pm 0.028(syst)`$ respectively  . With $`\times `$40-50 more decays expected when 2 fb-1 have been accumulated, CDF’s precision should be $`\delta (\mathrm{sin}2\beta )0.05`$, D0 should have similar statistics. Clearly D0 and CDF cannot compete with the $`B`$-factories $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$ measurement, but $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$ will be measured as a benchmark, and a test of various flavour tagging schemes.

Various tagging schemes are under examination at CDF; including jet-charge, opposite and same-side tagging and using time of flight to identify $`K`$s. A final number for the statistical power i.e. $`ϵD^2`$ has not yet been calculated using data.

### 7.1 Measurement of $`\mathrm{sin}2\gamma `$ using $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`B_sK^+K^{}`$

Both tree and penguin graphs contribute to $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`B_sK^+K^{}`$ with the tree dominating in the former and the penguin in the latter. Without the penguin contributions the CP asymmetry ($`A_{CP}`$) in $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ is proportional to the CKM quantity $`\mathrm{sin}2(\gamma +\beta )`$ and $`A_{CP}`$ in $`B_sK^+K^{}`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}2\gamma `$. Assuming SU(3) symmetry and interchanging $`s`$ and $`d`$, the hadronic matrix element penguin to tree ratios are the same, the mixing and decay induced $`A_{CP}(t)`$ are functions of $`\mathrm{sin}2\gamma `$, $`\mathrm{sin}2\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$, the ratio of the hadronic matrix element amplitudes and the phase of this ratio. A measurement of the $`A_{CP}`$ thus determines $`\mathrm{sin}2\gamma `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}2\alpha `$. Before measuring this asymmetry the various $`B_dh^+h^{}`$ and $`B_sh^+h^{}`$ decays must be separated. Reconstructing $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ without clear hadron identification leads to a very broad peak in which the individual modes $`B_dK^\pm \pi ^{}`$, $`B_sK^\pm \pi ^{}`$, $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`B_sK^+K^{}`$ are indistinguishable. These can be separated at CDF utilizing $`\frac{dE}{dx}`$ using drift chamber charge deposition and kinematical variable separation. CDF has reconstructed $`39\pm 14`$ $`B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`90\pm 17`$ $`B_sK^+K^{}`$ decays, the latter is a first observation. The invariant mass distribution of all $`B`$ hadrons decaying to $`h^+h^{}`$ is shown in figure 5.

As a check the ratio of branching ratios $`\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(B_d\pi ^+\pi ^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(B_dK^\pm \pi ^{})}`$ has been measured, the result $`0.26\pm 0.11(stat)\pm 0.055(syst)`$ is consistent with the world-average $`0.253\pm 0.064`$ . The CDF experiment expects to be able to measure $`\gamma `$ to an accuracy of $`\sigma (\gamma )10`$ degrees.

### 7.2 Measurement of the $`B_s`$ Mixing parameter $`x_s=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{B_s}}`$

The measurement of the $`B_s`$ mixing parameter $`x_s=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{B_s}}`$ is one of the major goals of the Tevatron during Run-II. An observation of the flagship mode for measuring $`x_s`$, $`B_sD_s^\pm \pi ^{}`$ has been made at CDF. In addition to this mode $`B_s`$ mixing can also be measured using modes such as $`B_s\mu ^\pm \nu _\mu D_s^{}`$ and $`B_se^\pm \nu _eD_s^{}`$, however the vertex resolution in these decays is worse due to the missed neutrino. If a single $`B_s`$ lifetime is fit in any of these or any flavour specific mode the relation between the fit lifetime $`\tau _{fit}`$ and the CP odd and even lifetimes $`\tau _{CP+}`$, $`\tau _{CP}`$ is $`\tau _{fit}=\frac{(\tau _{CP+}^2+\tau _{CP}^2)}{(\tau _{CP+}+\tau _{CP})}`$, which can be used for a measurement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{B_s}`$ and to provide a useful constraint for the two-lifetime fit with $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ described earlier. The first observation of 40 $`B_sD_s^\pm \pi ^{}`$ decays has been made using hadronic trigger data at CDF, shown in Fig. 6. Also 309 $`B_s\mu ^\pm \nu _\mu D_s^{}`$ and 245 $`B_se^\pm \nu _eD_s^{}`$ have been observed using lepton+displaced track trigger data.

## 8 Conclusions

Both CDF and D0 are in the first phase of data taking ($`L𝑑t<200`$pb-1) which will test HQE with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_B`$ and $`B_s`$ lifetimes, and yield limits for CP violation and rare decays in $`B`$ and charm decays. Tagging and lifetime measurement techniques (for hadronic trigger data) will also be tested. In the next phase ($`200<L𝑑t<500`$pb-1) limits on $`B_s`$ mixing will be set and CP violation searches in the $`B`$ system will be done. In the final phase ($`500<L𝑑t<2000`$pb-1) $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{B_s}`$, $`x_s`$, and the CKM angle $`\gamma `$ will be measured and finally a search for unexpectedly large CP violation in $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ will be pursued.