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# On the size scaling of the nearest level spacing at criticality

thanks: On leave from Ioffe Physiko-Technical Institute, 26 Politechnicheskaya str., 194021 Saint-Petersburg, Russia

## Abstract

It is conjectured that the size scaling of the nearest level spacing in the critical spectral region, $`S(N)N^\lambda `$, remains qualitatively the same within phases of extended and critical states. The exponent $`\lambda `$ is therefore identical to that for the bare level spacing (at zero disorder). Our calculation of the scaling for the one-dimensional model with diagonal disorder and long-range power-like interaction confirms the conjecture.

Localization-delocalization transition (LDT) in disordered systems, predicted by Anderson for 3D in 1958 Anderson58 , still remains a thoroughly investigated problem (see Refs. Lee85 ; Kramer93  for an overview). A remarkable progress has been achieved in understanding of critical systems, in particular, the multifractal nature of critical wave functions has been discovered Wegner80 ; Aoki83 ; Castellani86 ; Schreiber91 ; Janssen94 ). Statistics of energy levels within disordered models have also been intensively investigated during the recent years. It was demonstrated that statistical properties of level spacing are closely related to general localization properties Altshuler86 ; Shklovskii93 ; Kravtsov94 .

The spacing between two energy levels is determined by the overlap of the corresponding wave functions. Thus, weak overlap of localized states results in Poisson statistics of energy levels in the thermodynamic limit, which implies that the level spacing can be arbitrary small and does not depend on the system size. Contrary to that, strong overlap of the extended eigenstates results in strong level repulsion. Therefore, Wigner-Dyson statistics describe well energy levels in good metal Efetov83 ; Altshuler86 . The level spacing for extended states depends on the system size. In this contribution we consider the level spacing in a critical spectral regions, i.e. in a region where the localization-delocalization transition takes place or at the mobility edge.

Within the phase of the extended states, the exponent $`\lambda `$ of the size scaling of the level spacing, $`S(N)N^\lambda `$, is expected to be independent of disorder, otherwise the statistics of the energy levels spacing could change with disorder, which would be in direct contradiction to the robustness of the Wigner-Dyson statistics within the phase of the extended states Efetov83 ; Altshuler86 ; Mirlin91 . At criticality, e.g. close to the transition point or the mobility edge, the level statistics, although manifesting strong level repulsion, is different from the Wigner-Dyson one Shklovskii93 . Moreover, reasonings based on the consideration of wave function overlap should be used with caution, because critical eigenstates are very sparse and it is not obvious how much they overlap. Fyodorov and Mirlin addressed this problem within the framework of the power law random-banded model (see Refs. Mirlin96, ; Mirlin00a,  and references therein for the detailed description of the model). They showed analytically that two close critical eigenstates are strongly correlated, in the sense that the overlap of the two states is of the order of the self-overlap of a state Fyodorov97 . It was conjectured in Ref. Fyodorov97  that the strong correlation of critical states is a general property. This correlation results in strong level repulsion up to the critical point Altshuler88 ; Shklovskii93 ; Evangelou94 ; Braun95 ; Zharekeshev95 ; Kravtsov94 ; Aronov95 . Because the level spacing is determined by the overlap of wave functions, we conjecture that the strong overlap of critical eigenfunctions preserves the size scaling of the level spacing within the phase of the critical states also. Thus, the scaling exponent $`\lambda `$ is expected to be the same throughout both phases of extended and critical states. The latter phase extends up to the magnitude of disorder at which the localization length becomes equal to the linear system size. The exponent is therefore identical to that for the bare level spacing (at zero disorder) in the considered energy region.

To prove the conjecture on the independence of the scaling exponent of disorder we consider the level spacing within the framework of the tight-binding Hamiltonian on a one-dimensional (1D) regular lattice of $`N`$ sites with power-like inter-site interaction:

$$=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}\epsilon _n|nn|+\underset{m,n=1}{\overset{N}{}}J_{mn}|mn|,$$
(1)
where $`|n`$ is the ket vector of a state with on-site energy $`\epsilon _n`$. The energies are stochastic variables, uncorrelated for different sites and distributed uniformly around zero within the interval of width $`W`$. The hopping integrals are $`J_{mn}=J/|mn|^\mu `$, $`J_{nn}=0`$ with $`1<\mu 3/2`$. We set $`J>0`$, then the LDT occurs at the upper band edge provided $`1<\mu <3/2`$ Rodriguez00 ; Rodriguez03 . The latter fact makes the model very advantageous from the viewpoint of numerical calculations because efficient algorithms, such as the Lanczos, can be used to find a few extreme eigenstates of interest. In all calculations we consider three uppermost states under open boundary conditions for system sizes in the range $`N=4096÷65536`$. All results are averaged over more than $`\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}10}^3\times (65536/N)`$ disorder realizations. The lattice constant is set to unity.

Recently, the model (1) was studied numerically for two values of interaction exponent $`\mu `$: $`\mu =3/2`$ and $`\mu =4/3`$ Malyshev03 . In the former marginal case no signs of transition was found, while at $`\mu =4/3`$ the model was found to reveal the LDT at $`W_c=10.9\pm 0.2`$. In this contribution we focus on the analysis of the level spacing. In particular, we study the size scaling of the level spacing at the top of the band in the vicinity of the critical value of disorder $`W_c`$ for $`\mu =4/3`$.

We are particularly interested in the scaling of the level spacing within the phase of the critical states. Because we deal with finite systems, the phase of critical states is of finite width, so we determine the width first. The critical phase extends from the critical point $`W=W_c`$ up to the disorder magnitude $`W=W_L`$ at which the localization length becomes equal to the linear system size: $`\xi (W_L)=L`$ (within the considered 1D model $`LN`$). To determine the disorder magnitude $`W_L`$ we analyze the size scaling of the typical value of the inverse participation ratio (IPR). The IPR for the state $`\alpha `$ is defined in a standard way:

$$I_2^{(\alpha )}=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _{\alpha n}|^4,$$
(2)
where $`\psi _{\alpha n}`$ is the $`\alpha `$-th normalized eigenstate of the Hamiltonian (1). The typical value of the IPR is defined as $`I_2=\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{ln}I_2^{(\alpha )}`$, where the angle brackets stand for averaging over disorder realizations and $`\alpha `$. We use the typical value of the IPR rather than the mean value of the IPR because, unlike the latter, the former is a self-averaged quantity Evers00 ; Mirlin00b .

Within the phase of extended states the IPR size scales as $`I_2L^1`$, while for the localized states the scaling reads: $`I_2L^0`$. Wegner found that at criticality $`I_2`$ size scales anomaluosly Wegner80 : $`I_2L^{D_2}`$ where the fractal dimension $`D_2`$ is smaller than the spacial dimensionality, which results from the multifractal structure of the eigenfunctions Wegner80 ; Aoki83 ; Castellani86 ; Schreiber91 ; Janssen94 . Above the transition point the scaling of the IPR is governed by the localization length $`\xi `$ rather than by the system size: $`I_2\xi ^{D_2}`$ Fyodorov95 . The localization length depends on the magnitude of disorder in the vicinity of the critical point $`\xi (W)=\xi _0|W/W_c1|^\nu `$ ($`\nu >0`$), therefore, two scaling regimes are expected above the critical point. Within the phase of the critical states, i.e. for $`W>W_c`$ and system sizes $`L<\xi (W)`$, the IPR scaling is still determined by the size of the system: $`I_2L^{D_2}`$. Contrary to that, within the phase of the localized states, i.e. for $`L>\xi (W)`$, the IPR scaling is determined by the localization length $`\xi (W)`$ and does not depend on the system size.

Fig. 1 shows the size scaling of the quantity $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2=I_2L^{D_2}`$. The value of the correlation dimension $`D_2`$ was obtained by studying the size scaling of the typical value of the IPR at criticality: $`D_2=0.66`$ for $`\mu =4/3`$ (a detailed analysis of the correlation dimension is to be published elsewhere). Within the phase of the extended states the quantity $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2`$ decreases with the system size: $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2L^{D_21}`$ ($`D_2<1`$). At the transition point, $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2`$ is expected to be constant. Above the transition, two scaling regimes are expected: $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2`$ remains constant for $`L<\xi (W)`$, while for systems that are larger than the localization length, $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2`$ is expected to increase with the size: $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2\xi ^{D_2}L`$. The above transparent scenario suggests that for a given set of system sizes the phase of the critical states extends from the critical point $`W=W_c`$ up to the disorder magnitude $`W=\stackrel{~}{W}>W_c`$ at which the size scaling of $`\stackrel{~}{I}_2`$ starts to deviate from a constant (as a matter of fact, $`\stackrel{~}{W}=W_L`$ for $`L=L_{max}`$). Fig. 1 demonstrates that, for the considered system sizes ($`LN=4096÷65536`$), the critical phase extends up to the $`\stackrel{~}{W}11.5J`$.

Having obtained the disorder at which the uppermost eigenstates are critical we turn to the analyses of the size scaling of the level spacing for these states. Under periodic boundary conditions the level spacing at the upper edge of the bare band (for non-disordered system) depends on the system size $`N`$ ($`N1`$) as follows:

$$S_p(N)=\frac{C(\mu )}{N^{\mu 1}}+O\left(\frac{1}{N^\mu }\right),$$
(3)
where $`C(\mu )=2\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\mu )\mathrm{cos}(\pi (\mu 1)/2)`$. Under open boundary conditions, which we used in all calculations, no analytical expression for the spacing at the upper band edge can be obtained. Nevertheless, its size scaling is close to Eq. (3) and the leading (non-zero) power of $`N`$ in the expansion is also $`1\mu `$. In particular, for $`\mu =4/3`$ the spacing reads:

$$S(N)=\frac{C_{4/3}}{N^{1/3}}+O\left(\frac{1}{N^{4/3}}\right),$$
(4)
the constant $`C_{4/3}`$ was obtained numerically: $`C_{4/3}3.58`$

We calculated the size scaling of the mean level spacing at the upper band edge for $`\mu =4/3`$ and different values of disorder magnitude $`W`$. For each value of $`W`$, we fit the formula $`CN^\lambda `$ to the calculated size dependence of the mean spacing, varying the system size within the range $`N=4096÷65536`$. The result of the fit is presented in Fig. 2: squares show the disorder dependence of the exponent $`\lambda `$ normalized to its value for non-disordered system, $`1/3`$, while triangles show the disorder scaling of the factor $`C`$ normalized to $`C_{4/3}`$ (see Eq. 4). Vertical lines demonstrate the critical disorder $`W=10.7÷11.1J`$ Malyshev03 . Error bars represent confidence intervals of the parameters $`C`$ and $`\lambda `$. The statistical error is of the order of the symbol size.

The figure demonstrates that within the phase of the extended and critical states, that is for $`W<11.5J`$, the exponent that determines the size dependence of the mean level spacing in the critical energy region (i.e. at the upper band edge) is the same as that for the bare band: $`\lambda =1/3`$. The disorder reduces the level spacing, as expected, but does not affect the qualitative dependence of the spacing on the system size. Within the phase of the localized states, that is for $`W>11.5J`$, the localization length becomes smaller than the system size, and the level spacing is not determined by the size of the system. Therefore, the formula $`CN^\lambda `$ becomes irrelevant within the phase of the localized states; the increase of the confidence intervals for the parameters $`C`$ and $`\lambda `$ in the range $`W>11.5J`$ manifests the irrelevance.

To conclude, we have demonstrated that within both phases of the extended and critical states the size scaling of the level spacing remains qualitatively unchanged: the exponent of the size scaling does not depend on disorder. The exponent is therefore the same as that in the considered energy region of the bare band (for a non-disordered system). The above result is probably general as it is a consequence of strong overlap of critical eigenstates that was reported on recently Fyodorov97 . The independence of the scaling exponent of the disorder has several important consequences. It suggests, in particular, that the bare scaling of the energy levels can be used for qualitative argumentations that are applied to disordered systems (see, for example, Ref. Rodriguez03,  and references therein). Properties of critical states are usually studied by considering all states within an energy window in the vicinity of the critical point. The mean level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }N^1`$ is often used to estimate the number of critical states, which can lead to an over-estimation of this number, because the spacing in the critical region is much greater than $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In particular, for the standard three-dimensional Anderson model the critical spectral region is the center of the band, where the spacing scales as $`SN^{1/3}`$; the relevant spacing is therefore much greater than the average one. The over-estimation of the number of the critical states can lead to consideration of not only critical states but localized states also, which would result in the under-estimation of the correlation dimension, affect the energy level statistics, etc.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author thank V. A. Malyshev and F. Domínguez-Adame for discussions. This work was supported by MECyD (SB2001-0146).


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# Source Chaoticity from Two- and Three-Pion Correlations in Au+Au collisions at √𝐬_𝐍𝐍=𝟏𝟑𝟎 GeV

## I Introduction

Pion interferometry is one of the most powerful tools in relativistic heavy ion physics. The fact that two-boson intensity correlation functions provide information concerning the geometry of particle sources is known as the Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) effect. The two-pion correlation function $`C_2(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ has been analyzed extensively to explore space-time structures of collision dynamics Tomasik\_qgp3 . The HBT effect is based on the assumption of a chaotic source; i.e., particles are emitted with relatively random phases. The chaoticity index $`\lambda `$ in the two-particle correlation function is defined as the two-pion correlation strength, $`\lambda =C_2(𝒑\mathbf{,}𝒑)1`$. It is unity for a chaotic source and vanishes for a coherent one. Thermal emission is naturally regarded as a perfect chaotic source, Hama\_PRD37 ; Morita\_PRC61  but non-thermal components need not be perfectly chaotic. For example, if a disoriented chiral condensation (DCC) region is produced, this domain can decay into coherent pions. Therefore, the chaoticity index $`\lambda `$ is an important parameter for understanding multiple particle production. However, experimental data are not so simply understood; even for a chaotic source, the chaoticity can be reduced by some other effects, such as long-lived resonances Gyulassy\_PLB217 ; Bolz\_PRD47 ; Csorgo\_ZPHYS ; Heiselberg\_PLB ; Wiedemann\_PRC56 .

As an alternative tool to investigate particle sources, the three-particle correlation function has also been proposed Biyajima\_PTP84 ; Heinz\_PRC56 ; Nakamura\_PRC60 ; Nakamura\_PRC61 . Regarding the chaoticity of the sources, the three-particle correlation is a more promising tool than the two-particle correlation, because long-lived resonances do not affect a normalized three-pion correlator (third order cumulant correlation function),

$`r_3(𝒑_1,𝒑_2,𝒑_3)={\displaystyle \frac{[C_3(𝒑_1,𝒑_2,𝒑_3)1][C_2(𝒑_1,𝒑_2)1][C_2(𝒑_2,𝒑_3)1][C_2(𝒑_3,𝒑_1)1]}{\sqrt{[C_2(𝒑_1,𝒑_2)1][C_2(𝒑_2,𝒑_3)1][C_2(𝒑_3,𝒑_1)1]}}}.`$ (1)
Here, $`C_2(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})`$ and $`C_3(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟑})`$ are the two- and three-pion correlation functions defined as

$$C_2(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})=\frac{W_2(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})}{W_1(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏})W_1(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})},$$
(2)
and

$$C_3(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟑})=\frac{W_3(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐},𝒑_\mathrm{𝟑})}{W_1(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏})W_1(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})W_1(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟑})},$$
(3)
with $`W_n(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{},𝒑_𝒏)`$ being the $`n`$ particle distribution. The chaoticity index in the three-pion correlator is the weight factor $`\omega =r_3(𝒑,𝒑,𝒑)/2`$, which becomes unity for a chaotic source. The three-pion correlator used in the current experiments is a modified form of Eq. (1), introduced due to a lack of statistics, as

$$r_3(Q_3)=\frac{[C_3(Q_3)1][C_2(Q_{12})1][C_2(Q_{23})1][C_2(Q_{31})1]}{\sqrt{[C_2(Q_{12})1][C_2(Q_{23})1][C_2(Q_{31})1]}},$$
(4)
where $`Q_{ij}=\sqrt{(p_ip_j)^2}`$ and $`Q_3=\sqrt{Q_{12}^2+Q_{23}^2+Q_{31}^2}`$, and $`\omega `$ is defined as $`r_3(0)/2`$. In both definitions, $`\omega `$ is expected to approach the same value at small $`Q_3`$.

In this paper, we analyze both the three- and two-pion correlation data measured by the STAR collaboration STAR\_3pi  for central events in Au+Au collisions at 130$`A`$ GeV using three kinds of partially coherent models. The STAR collaboration, adopting a partial coherent model for the pion source, concludes that about 80% of pions are emitted from a chaotic source in the central collision events, and the chaoticity depends on the centrality STAR\_3pi . In Ref. STAR\_3pi , analysis is carried out only with the three-pion correlation function, because the two-pion correlation function suffers from the effect of long-lived resonance decays. Hence, the chaoticity extracted from the three-pion correlation differs from that measured as the strength of the two-pion correlation function. One of the aims of this work is to account for this discrepancy. After an appropriate correction for the long-lived resonance decay contribution to the two-pion correlation function, the “true” chaoticity of the two-pion correlation function thereby obtained should be consistent with that extracted from the three-particle correlation function. We show that the chaotic fraction and the number of coherent sources evaluated from the “true” chaoticity of the two-pion correlation function are consistent with those obtained from the three-pion correlation function. Then, we study the structure of the source using three kinds of partial coherent source models. This paper is organized as follows. We give a brief explanation of the three kinds of source models in the next section. In Sec. III, we make corrections to the two-pion correlation for the long-lived resonance decay contributions. Section IV is devoted to a combined analysis of two- and three-pion correlation functions and analyses using the three models.

## II Models of pion emission

Let us start by giving a brief explanation of the models. In Model I, a chaotic source and a coherent source are assumed to be produced in every event of the collisions. This is a very limited case, because, in general, more than one coherent source can be produced in a collision. In Model II, we consider the case in which multiple coherent sources are produced. Model III is a mixture of Models I and II. A schematic depiction of the models is given in Fig. 1.

Model I is a partially coherent model Heinz\_PRC56  in which the solitary parameter $`\epsilon _{\text{pc}}`$ represents the ratio of the particle number emitted from the chaotic source to that emitted from both sources. In this model, pions are emitted from a mixture of a chaotic (thermal) and a coherent source. Here we do not discuss the origin of the coherent component. In general, we need to fix the source function of the coherent component, as well as that of the chaotic one, in order to express the correlation functions. Fortunately, because the chaoticity $`\lambda `$ and the weight factor $`\omega `$ are given by the correlation functions at vanishing relative momenta, they can be expressed in terms of the chaotic fraction as

$$\lambda =\epsilon _{\text{pc}}(2\epsilon _{\text{pc}}),\omega =\sqrt{\epsilon _{\text{pc}}}\frac{32\epsilon _{\text{pc}}}{(2\epsilon _{\text{pc}})^{3/2}}.$$
(5)
Model II is a multicoherent source model, Nakamura\_PRC61  in which the source is composed of a large number of similar, independent coherent sources. Here we do not discuss the origin of the coherence. Because each small coherent source is independent, a chaotic source is realized as a cluster of an infinite number of the coherent sources. Here, $`\lambda `$ and $`\omega `$ are given by

$$\lambda =\frac{\alpha _\text{m}}{\alpha _\text{m}+1},\omega =\frac{1}{2}\frac{2\alpha _\text{m}^2+2\alpha _\text{m}+3}{\alpha _\text{m}^2+3\alpha _\text{m}+1}\sqrt{\frac{\alpha _\text{m}+1}{\alpha _\text{m}}},$$
(6)
where $`\alpha _\text{m}`$ represents the mean number of coherent sources, which obeys the Poisson distribution. Note that each of the above two models contains only a single parameter ($`\epsilon _{\text{pc}}`$ for Model I and $`\alpha _\text{m}`$ for Model II) for two quantities, the chaoticity $`\lambda `$ and the weight factor $`\omega `$. Model III is a mixture of these two Nakamura\_PRC61  \[see also Fig. 1(c)\] and has already been applied to the SPS data by one of the present authors (H. N.). Nakamura\_PRC66  This model contains two parameters, which are related to $`\lambda `$ and $`\omega `$ as

$`\lambda `$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\alpha +(1\epsilon )^2}},`$ (7)
$`\omega `$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha ^2+2\alpha (1\epsilon )^2+3(1\epsilon )^3(12\epsilon )}{2[\alpha ^2+3\alpha (1\epsilon )^2+(1\epsilon )^3]}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha +(1\epsilon )^2}{\alpha }}},`$ (8)
where $`\epsilon `$ and $`\alpha `$ are the ratio of the number of particles from the chaotic source to the total number and the mean number of coherent sources, respectively.

Substituting $`\lambda `$ and $`\omega `$ from the experimental data into the above equations, we can obtain the parameters of the models, $`\epsilon `$ and $`\alpha `$. In Models I and II, $`\lambda `$ and $`\omega `$ must provide consistent values for the single parameter $`\epsilon _{\text{pc}}`$ or $`\alpha _\text{m}`$. As noted in the previous section, the STAR group analysis of the weight factor $`\omega `$ in the central Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV based on Model I indicates a value of $`\epsilon _{\text{pc}}0.8`$, which corresponds to $`\lambda 0.94`$ STAR\_3pi . Such a large $`\lambda `$ seems to contradict the two-particle correlation data. However, we make a correction for the long-lived resonances in the two-pion correlation function before proceeding to conclusive calculations to obtain the parameters $`ϵ`$ and $`\alpha `$ using Eqs. (5)–(8). Then we show that the analysis of STAR is consistent with the value of $`ϵ^{\text{pc}}`$ obtained from the resonance-corrected chaoticity.

## III Long-lived resonance decay contributions to $`\lambda `$

The existence of long-lived resonances that decay into pions causes the apparent reduction of the chaoticity in the two-pion correlation function. This is because the pion source caused by the long-lived resonance decay spreads over a much larger scale than that which is measurable with the present experimental resolution. The reduction factor $`\lambda ^{\text{eff}}`$ is related to the fraction of pions from long-lived resonances as Csorgo\_ZPHYS

$$\sqrt{\lambda ^{\text{eff}}}=1\frac{N_\pi ^\text{r}}{N_\pi },$$
(9)
with $`N_\pi `$ being the total number of emitted pions and $`N_\pi ^\text{r}`$ being the number of pions emitted from long-lived resonances. We estimate the fraction of the $`\pi ^{}`$ originating from the resonances with the help of a statistical model. According to the recent analyses, this statistical model provides a simple and good description of the particle yields of the RHIC experiments Braun-Munziger\_PLB518 ; Broniowski\_PRL87 . We take account of the resonances up to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}(1385)`$, in accordance with Ref. Wiedemann\_PRC56 . We treat $`K_\text{s}^0,\eta ,\eta ^{},\varphi ,\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ as the long-lived resonances whose widths are smaller than 5 MeV. Heavier resonances can be ignored, because their contributions are thermally suppressed. The thermodynamic parameters are determined with a $`\chi ^2`$ fitting to the experimental data for the particle ratio. Here we take into account $`\overline{p}/p,\overline{p}/\pi ^{},K^{}/\pi ^{},K^0/h^{},\overline{K^0}/K^0,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}/\mathrm{\Xi }`$. From the fit, we obtain the temperature $`T=158\pm 9`$ MeV and the chemical potential with respect to the baryon number $`\mu _\text{B}=36\pm 6`$ MeV, with $`\chi ^2/\text{dof}=2.4/5`$ Noteonmub . For simplicity, we fix the chemical potential with respect to the third component of the isospin as $`\mu _{I_3}=0`$. This does not affect the result, because the experimental data show $`\pi ^{}/\pi ^+1`$. The ratio of the number of particles $`i`$ to the number of particles $`j`$ can be calculated using the number densities in the local rest frame Cleymans\_PRC60 .

Then, the true chaoticity $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}`$, which is characterized by the partial coherence of the source, is estimated as $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}=\lambda ^{\text{exp}}/\lambda ^{\text{eff}}`$, with use of Eq. (9).In general, $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$ obtained from the 1-dimensional Gaussian fitting can differ from that extracted from the 3-dimensional Gaussian fitting because of the projection, experimental resolution, and other effects, though these should be the same for an ideal measurement. In this paper, we use the value extracted from the 3-dimensional Gaussian fitting

$$C_2^{\text{fit}}(𝒒)=1+\lambda ^{\text{exp}}\mathrm{exp}\left(R_{\text{side}}^2q_{\text{side}}^2R_{\text{out}}^2q_{\text{out}}^2R_{\text{long}}^2q_{\text{long}}^2\right),$$
(10)
as $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$. The STAR collaboration measured STAR\_HBT  $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$ for three transverse momentum bins. Because the transverse momentum dependence of $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$ agrees with the results obtained from Eq. (9) Wiedemann\_PRC56 , $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$ for the entire momentum range can be obtained by computing an average of $`\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}`$ in which the square of the number of pions is used as the weight:

$$\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}=\frac{_{i=1}^3\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}_{i\text{-th bin}}k_t𝑑k_t(dN/k_tdk_t)^2}{_{i=1}^3_{i\text{-th bin}}k_t𝑑k_t(dN/k_tdk_t)^2}.$$
(11)
Here, $`\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}`$ and $`dN/k_tdk_t`$ denote the measured chaoticity in the $`i`$-th bin and the pion transverse momentum distributions, respectively. We give a derivation of Eq. (11) in the appendix. In the calculation of Eq. (11), we use a result of the Bose-Einstein fit to the pion spectra carried out by the STAR collaboration STAR\_Spectra .

Using Eq. (11), we find $`\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}=0.57\pm 0.06`$.

Combining $`\lambda ^{\text{eff}}`$ obtained from the statistical model calculation, we finally obtain $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}=0.93\pm 0.08`$ for the present parameter region. The uncertainty of 0.08 is the sum of the experimental uncertainty on $`\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}`$ calculated from uncertainties on each $`\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}`$ and $`dN/k_tdk_t`$ and the statistical error propagated from the fit of the thermodynamic quantities $`T`$ and $`\mu _\text{B}`$ at 1-$`\sigma `$ confidence level.

## IV Combined analysis of the two- and three-particle correlation function

In order to obtain the weight factor $`\omega `$, we have to extrapolate $`r_3(Q_3)`$ \[Eq. (4)\] to $`Q_3=0`$. Because $`r_3(Q_3)`$ is constructed from $`C_2(Q_{ij})1`$ and $`C_3(Q_3)1`$ \[Eq. (4)\], we need to establish the functional forms of $`C_2(Q_{ij})`$ and $`C_3(Q_3)`$ so as to reproduce the experimental data (Figs. 2 and 3). Although quadratic and quartic fits to $`r_3(Q_3)`$ at low $`Q_3`$ are used in Ref. STAR\_3pi , we adopt an alternative approach, because the power law fits are relevant only for small $`Q_3`$, and it should be better to extrapolate $`r_3(Q_3)`$ to $`Q_3=0`$ after the fits of $`C_2`$ and $`C_3`$ within finite but broad relative momentum ranges. We also note that the $`Q_3`$ dependence of $`r_3`$ may be more complicated, Nakamura\_PRC60  and the quadratic and quartic fitting tends to lead to an overestimated weight factor. In the following, we treat a set of $`\pi ^{}`$ data measured in the lowest momentum bin for the event with the highest multiplicity.STAR\_3pi  We construct $`C_2`$ and $`C_3`$ from simple source functions with a set of parameters. This construction is determined by minimizing $`\chi ^2`$ with respect to the experimental data. For simplicity, we used a spherically symmetric Fourier-transformed source function with simultaneous emission, $`F_{ij}=f_{ij}(|𝒒_{ij}|)e^{i(E_iE_j)t_0}`$, where the exponential term corresponds to emissions at a fixed time $`t_0`$. We believe that the assumption of instantaneous emission is a good approximation, because recent two-particle correlation data reveal a small time duration (i.e. $`R_{\text{out}}R_{\text{side}}`$). In addition, the existence of a finite time duration would not affect the following treatment, because it does not influence the chaocitity in the two-particle correlation function but, rather, decreases the width of the correlation function. For the spatial part, $`f_{ij}`$, we consider a Gaussian, an exponential, and a function written in terms of $`\mathrm{cosh}`$, which becomes quadratic at small $`|𝒒|`$ and exponential at large $`|𝒒|`$:

$`f_{1,ij}(|𝒒_{ij}|)`$ $`=\mathrm{exp}\left(R^2|𝒒_{ij}|^2/2\right),`$ (12)
$`f_{2,ij}(|𝒒_{ij}|)`$ $`=\mathrm{exp}\left(R|𝒒_{ij}|/2\right),`$ (13)
$`f_{3,ij}(|𝒒_{ij}|)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{cosh}(R|𝒒_{ij}|)}}}.`$ (14)
Here, $`𝒒_{ij}=𝒑_i𝒑_j`$, and $`R`$ is the size parameter. The correlation functions are then calculated from the relations

$$C_2(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐})=1+\lambda _{\text{inv}}\frac{f_{12}^2}{f_{11}f_{22}}$$
(15)
and

$$C_3(𝒑_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}𝒑_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}𝒑_\mathrm{𝟑})=1+\nu \left(\underset{(i,j)}{}\frac{f_{ij}^2}{f_{ii}f_{jj}}+2\nu _3\frac{f_{12}f_{23}f_{31}}{f_{11}f_{22}f_{33}}\right),$$
(16)
where $`\lambda _{\text{inv}}`$, $`\nu `$ and $`\nu _3`$ are phenomenological adjustable parameters accounting for non-trivial coherence effects, and $`_{(i,j)}`$ is a summation over $`(i,j)=(1,2),(2,3),(3,1)`$. The forms Eqs. (15) and (16) are chosen so as to represent the chaotic case for $`\lambda _{\text{inv}}=1`$, $`\nu =1`$ and $`\nu _3=1`$. Equation (15) is a standard correlation function to fit data STAR\_HBT . Although an alternative form of the three-particle correlation function, $`C_3=1+\nu _{(i,j)}\frac{f_{ij}^2}{f_{ii}f_{jj}}+2\nu ^{3/2}\frac{f_{12}f_{23}f_{31}}{f_{11}f_{22}f_{33}}`$,111Actually, the resultant $`\chi ^2`$ value for this expression is worse than that for Eq. (16). is often used, this equation corresponds to a perfectly chaotic source with a long-lived resonance decay contribution, and is incapable of taking into account non-trivial coherence effects. Therefore, we simply parametrize the three-particle correlation function by including the parameters from both the two-particle correlation part \[the second term in Eq. (16)\] and the genuine three-particle correlation part \[the third term in Eq. (16)\]. Note that we need only $`C_2(0)1`$ and $`C_3(0)1`$ to obtain $`\omega `$. We can set $`\nu _3=1`$ without loss of generality for a description of $`C_3(Q_3)`$ at small $`Q_3`$. Then, the parameters $`R`$, $`\lambda _{\text{inv}}`$ and $`\nu `$ are determined through a simultaneous $`\chi ^2`$ fitting to both $`C_2(Q_{12})`$ and $`C_3(Q_3)`$.

The three-particle correlator $`r_3(Q_3)/2`$ is then obtained from separate projections of the numerator and denominator of Eq. (4) onto the single variable $`Q_3`$ WA98\_3piprl . The results are depicted in Figs. 24 and listed in Table 1.

The results show the failure of the Gaussian \[Eq. (12)\] and exponential \[Eq. (13)\] fittings. In Figs 2 and 3, each curve looks in agreement with the data, but the values of $`\chi ^2/\text{dof}`$ are larger than in the $`\mathrm{cosh}`$ source function case. Furthermore, the disagreement in $`r_3(Q_3)`$ for the exponential (Gaussian) case reveals an over-estimation (under-estimation) of $`C_2`$ in the extrapolation to small $`Q_{\text{inv}}`$. Constrastingly, the $`\mathrm{cosh}`$ source function \[Eq. (14)\] yields excellent agreement with the experimental data. Note that the resultant errorbars of $`\pm 0.097`$ for $`\omega `$ in the cosh case can also be obtained by an extrapolation of the error band expressed by the dash-dotted curves in Fig. 4. The error band is calculated using the propagation law from the errors of $`R`$, $`\lambda _{\text{inv}}`$ and $`\nu `$ in the $`\chi ^2`$ fit (1-$`\sigma `$ confidence level). Hence, our result for $`r_3`$ in the cosh case is consistent with all the experimental data points, within the error bars.

The deviation in Fig. 4 for larger $`Q_3^2`$ is not significant. Because both the numerator and denominator in Eq. (4) go to zero at the region, the projection requires a careful treatment and is strongly affected by unimportant tails. However, we do not know the real three-particle distribution which should be used as a weight. Therefore we use Eq. (16) instead. We confirmed that the most important quantity, $`\omega =r_3(0)/2`$, does not depend on the choice of the weight.

Now let us evaluate how chaotic the pion sources are by applying the models \[Eqs. (5)–(8)\] to the obtained values $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}=0.93\pm 0.08`$ and $`\omega =0.872\pm 0.097`$, where we adopt the result of the $`\mathrm{cosh}`$ source function. The allowed parameter regions of Models I and II are summarized in Table 2. In these single-parameter models, $`ϵ_{\text{pc}}`$ and $`\alpha _\text{m}`$ should give consistent results for the two input quantities, $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}`$ and $`\omega `$. Table 2 reveals that, after the appropriate correction for the long-lived resonance decay contributions to the two-pion correlation chaoticity index, the two-pion correlation function gives results consistent with the three-pion correlation function. The value of $`ϵ_{\text{pc}}`$ obtained from $`\omega `$ is slightly smaller than that obtained in the previous analysis carried out by the STAR collaboration STAR\_3pi , while the values of $`ϵ_{\text{pc}}`$ obtained from $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}`$ and $`\omega `$ are consistent with the result given in Ref. STAR\_3pi . The very large uncertainty on $`\alpha _\text{m}`$ is due to rapid changes of $`\alpha _\text{m}`$ as a function of $`\lambda ^{\text{true}}`$ and $`\omega `$ in these parameter regions. This feature may suggest the existence of a chaotic background introduced in Models I and III.

The success of extracting the “true” chaoticity by considering the long-lived resonance decay contribution suggests that it is needed to determine the source of pions, i.e., direct and short-lived resonance decay or long-lived resonance decay. Recently, a “partial” Coulomb correction has been proposed Bowler\_PLB270 ; Sinyukov\_PLB432  and actual computations have been carried out CERES\_NPA714 ; PHENIX\_PRL93 , in which pions from long-lived resonance decays are treated separately. Such a correction affects not only the HBT radii but also $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$. We leave its treatment for future publications Morita\_future .

The allowed region of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\alpha `$ for Model III is displayed in Fig. 5. In this figure, the darkest shaded area, labeled “III”, where the two lighter areas overlap, represents the ranges of $`\epsilon `$ and $`\alpha `$ that correspond to the regions of $`\lambda _{\text{true}}`$ and $`\omega `$ estimated from the experimental data. The best fit point, $`\epsilon =0.75`$ and $`\alpha =0.77`$, is indicated by the solid square. Unfortunately, the uncertainty is still too large to provide strong constraints on the pion production mechanism. Nevertheless, the result shows a strong correlation between $`\alpha `$ and $`\epsilon `$; that is, the experimental data reveal a mostly chaotic source which allows both a “partially coherent” picture ($`\alpha 0,\epsilon 1`$) and a “multicoherent” picture ($`\alpha 1,\epsilon 0`$). Though a fully chaotic source, $`\epsilon =1`$, is not excluded, the strong $`Q_3`$ dependence of $`r_3(Q_3)`$ seen in Fig. 4 is inconsistent with chaotic and symmetric sources. Even if the source is perfectly chaotic, the asymmetry of the source could cause a strong $`Q_3`$ dependence. In this case, however, $`r_3`$ becomes almost unity at small $`Q_3`$, while it deviates from unity at large $`Q_3`$ Nakamura\_PRC60 . Hence, we can claim that small coherent components are more likely to be produced.

In summary, we have given analyses of the two- and three-pion correlation data obtained by STAR, in terms of three kinds of partially coherent source models. We found that all three models give consistent description for both the three- and two-pion correlations if we take account of the apparent reduction of the chaoticity in the two-pion correlation function caused by the long-lived resonance decays. All models give the consistent picture that pion emission in the RHIC experiment is mostly chaotic, while coherent components are likely to exist (see Table II and Fig. 5). Further interesting problems concerning the multiplicity and the collision energy dependence of the chaoticity will be published elsewhere Morita\_future .

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to acknowledge Professor I. Ohba and Professor H. Nakazato for their support of this work. This work is partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (Grant No. 13135221) and Waseda University Grant for Special Research Projects (Nos. 2003A-095 and 2003A-591).

## Appendix A Derivation of $`\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}`$

From Eq. (9), assuming that the $`k_t`$ dependence of $`\lambda ^{\text{exp}}`$ is governed by the long-lived resonance decay contributions, we can write down $`\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}`$ for midrapidity as

$$\lambda _i^{\text{exp}}=\frac{_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i}k_t𝑑k_t\left(\frac{dN_{\text{dir+short}}}{k_tdk_t}\right)^2}{_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i}k_t𝑑k_t\left(\frac{dN_{\text{total}}}{k_tdk_t}\right)^2},$$
(17)
where $`N_{\text{dir+short}}`$ and $`N_{\text{total}}`$ represent the sum of the number of particles from direct emission and decay of short lived resonances and the total number of emitted particles, respectively. The values $`k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i`$ and $`k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i`$ are the minimum and maximum for a given momentum window of the $`i`$-th bin. Hence, $`k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i=k_{t_{\text{max}}}^{i1}`$. Then, the domain of integration for the momentum acceptance, $`k_{t_{\text{min}}}k_{t_{\text{min}}}^1<k_t<k_{t_{\text{max}}}^nk_{t_{\text{max}}}`$ , with $`n`$ being the number of the momentum bin, can be divided as

$$_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i}.$$
(18)
In terms of the above relation, $`\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}`$ can be written as

$$\overline{\lambda }^{\text{exp}}=\frac{_{i=1}^n_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i}k_t𝑑k_t\left(\frac{dN_{\text{dir+short}}}{k_tdk_t}\right)^2}{_{i=1}^n_{k_{t_{\text{min}}}^i}^{k_{t_{\text{max}}}^i}k_t𝑑k_t\left(\frac{dN_{\text{total}}}{k_tdk_t}\right)^2}.$$
(19)
Substituting Eq. (17) into Eq. (19), we obtain Eq. (11).