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# Sensitive behavior of 2𝜈𝛽𝛽-decay amplitude within QRPA and broken SU(4) symmetry in nuclei

## 1 Introduction

Numerous calculations of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude within the QRPA have revealed its sensitive dependence on the strength $`g_{pp}`$ of the charge-exchange triplet particle-particle (p-p) interaction (see, e.g., reviews ). The amplitude passes through zero at a realistic value of the interaction strength. However, the mechanism of such a dependence found for the first time in the pioneering work  almost 20 years ago still remains unexplained. The paper  already contained a clue that the vanishing of the amplitude may be related to the restoration of the Wigner spin-isospin SU(4) symmetry in nuclei. In an exactly solvable schematic model the authors of  also showed that this kind of dependence is not an artifact of the QRPA but shows up in the exact solution.

There have been several semiquantitative attempts to use the concept of the dynamically broken SU(4) symmetry as a basis for describing the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude . Since the amplitude is zero when the SU(4) symmetry is exact, it seems natural to express the amplitude explicitly in terms of those parts of the nuclear Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}`$ which are responsible for the violation of the symmetry. To achieve this goal, a model-independent transformation of the amplitude was suggested in . Unfortunately, the quantitative realization of this idea in  was based on a simplified model of independent quasiparticles and, therefore, could not address the question of the sensitivity of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude calculated within the QRPA. That was the reason why the work  faced strong criticism claiming that “the formalism fails in describing the double beta decay observables” .

To refute the criticism of , in present work we substantially develop the approach  by incorporating the QRPA into it. As in , the starting point for the analysis is model-independent, identity transformation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude: $`M_{2\nu }=M_{2\nu }^{}+S/\omega _g^2`$. That allows us to separate out a part proportional to an specific energy-weighted sum rule $`S`$ depending only on the particle-particle residual interaction. This part is shown within the QRPA to account for most of the sensitivity of the original $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude to $`g_{pp}^{}`$ for realistic $`g_{pp}^{}1`$ (with $`g_{pp}^{}`$ being the ratio of the triplet and singlet p-p interaction strengths). The sum rule $`S`$ can be expressed in the form that avoids the intermediate state summation and involves only the wave functions of the initial and final ground states. An analytical representation for $`S`$ that can be given within the QRPA using a simple separable p-p interaction reveals its simple linear dependence on $`g_{pp}^{}`$ with passing through zero at $`g_{pp}^{}=1`$ where the SU(4) symmetry is restored in the particle-particle sector of the Hamiltonian. The second part $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ in the decomposition of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude can be explicitly expressed in terms of those components of the nuclear Hamiltonian which violate the SU(4) symmetry. As shown by our QRPA calculations, this part behaves much smoother for the realistic values of $`g_{pp}^{}`$ and is mainly determined by the spin-orbit part of the nuclear mean field as was conjectured by Rumyantsev and Urin .

Thus, we think that our present results contribute to understanding of general physical properties of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay amplitude and bring new opportunity to constrain nuclear model uncertainties in calculations of the amplitude. In particular, it is shown that the sensitivity of the amplitude to the p-p interaction strength has its natural physical origin in the violation of the SU(4) symmetry in the particle-particle sector of a realistic nuclear Hamiltonian and has nothing to do with the shortcomings of the QRPA itself. Also an important influence of the spin-orbit mean field on the calculation results that has received rather little attention in the preceding publications is emphasized. Besides, the sum rule $`S`$ can be easily calculated in different nuclear models, for instance, in shell model, thereby providing a test of the quality of the QRPA calcuations.

Note, that we do not claim (as well as the authors of  did not) any model-independent calculations of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude (that was misunderstood by authors of ) rather we are dealing with model-independent transformation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude. Nevertheless, as shown in the paper this identity transformation allows us to shed some light on the general properties of the amplitude calculated within the QRPA.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 an identity transformation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude which is valid independently of a nuclear structure model is performed. The transformation turns out to be a power tool for the analysis of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay amplitude because it allows one to incorporate explicitly the symmetry properties of the nuclear Hamiltonian. The model Hamiltonian consisting of a mean field, the Landau–Migdal particle-hole interaction and a separable particle-particle interaction is specified in section 3. The identity transformation separates out a part proportional to a specific energy-weighted sum rule for which an analytical representation is given within the QRPA in section 4. Calculation results for 76Ge, 100Mo and 130Te are presented in section 5 and we conclude in section 6.

## 2 Model-independent transformation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude

We adopt here the same line of reasoning as presented in . To make the following derivation of the new representation for the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay amplitude more transparent, we will use the same approach for the Fermi and the Gamow-Teller transitions. Let $`\widehat{G}^{(\pm )}=_ag_a^{(\pm )}`$ be the operators of allowed Fermi ($`g^{(\pm )}=\tau ^{(\pm )}`$) and GT ($`g^{(\pm )}=𝝈\tau ^{(\pm )}`$) $`\beta `$ \- transitions.

We start our derivation with writing down the usual expression for the $`2\nu \beta ^{}\beta ^{}`$-decay amplitude (see, e.g., reviews ):

$$M_{2\nu }=\underset{s}{}\frac{g_sf_s}{\omega _s}.$$
(1)
Here, $`g_s=f|\widehat{G}^{()}|s`$, $`f_s=s|\widehat{G}^{()}|i`$ are the one-step matrix elements of the operator $`\widehat{G}^{()}`$ between the intermediate states $`|s`$ of an isobaric nucleus $`(N1,Z+1)`$ and the ground states $`|i`$ and $`|f`$ of a parent ($`Z,N`$) and the final ($`Z+2,N2`$) nucleus, respectively, with $`E_s`$, $`E_i`$ and $`E_f`$ being the corresponding energies and $`\omega _s=E_s(E_i+E_f)/2`$ being the excitation energy of an intermediate state measured from the mean value of the ground-state energies.

Then we perform the following identical splitting of the amplitude (1) into two parts:

$`M_{2\nu }=M_{2\nu }^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{S}{\omega _g^2}}`$ (2)
$`M_{2\nu }^{}={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega _g^2\omega _s^2)g_sf_s}{\omega _g^2\omega _s}}`$ (3)
$`S={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}\omega _sg_sf_s,`$ (4)
where $`\omega _g`$ is an arbitrary energy that was identified with the energy $`\omega _G`$ of the corresponding giant resonance in . It should be so in the limit of exact SU(4) symmetry, but for the realistic situation one can only say that $`\omega _g`$ should be rather close to $`\omega _G`$. Note, that the second term in (2) is proportional to $`S`$ having the form (4) of a specific energy-weighted sum rule. Bearing in mind that

$`\omega _sf_s=s|[\widehat{H},\widehat{G}^{()}]|i(E_fE_i)f_s/2,`$
$`\omega _sg_s=f|[\widehat{H},\widehat{G}^{()}]|s(E_fE_i)g_s/2,`$ (5)
where $`\widehat{H}`$ is the nuclear Hamiltonian, one can get the following expression for $`S`$:

$$S=\frac{1}{2}f|[\widehat{G}^{()},[\widehat{H},\widehat{G}^{()}]]|i.$$
(6)
Here we do not support the claim of  that $`S`$ should vanish (see Eq. (5) of the citation). That would be true only if the p-p interactions in the Hamiltonian could be neglected. But it has been known for a long time that the p-p interactions play an important role in the nuclei far from closed shells, especially for describing $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay amplitudes . Actually, the authors of  provided direct evidence by their QRPA calculations that $`S`$ does not vanish (except for one point in $`g_{pp}`$ dependence, see Fig. 1 of the reference).

We will show in Section 4 that one can get within the QRPA an analytical expression for $`S`$ depending linearly on $`g_{pp}`$. The point where $`S=0`$ then corresponds to the restoration of the SU(4)-symmetry in the particle-particle sector of the Hamiltonian (i.e. $`\widehat{G}^{()}`$ commutes with the p-p part of the Hamiltonian for this $`g_{pp}`$).

To conclude this section, we show, following , that $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ can be written as

$$M_{2\nu }^{}=\frac{1}{\omega _g^2}\underset{s}{}\frac{\stackrel{~}{g}_s\stackrel{~}{f}_s}{\omega _s},$$
(7)
where $`\stackrel{~}{f}_s=s|\widehat{V}_G^{()}|i=(\omega _g\omega _s)s|\widehat{G}^{()}|i`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_s=f|\widehat{V}_G^{()}|s=(\omega _g+\omega _s)f|\widehat{G}^{()}|s`$ are the matrix elements of the operator $`\widehat{V}_G^{()}`$ defined as:

$$\widehat{V}_G^{()}=[\widehat{H},\widehat{G}^{()}]\mathrm{\Delta }_g\widehat{G}^{()},\mathrm{\Delta }_g=\omega _g+\frac{E_fE_i}{2}.$$
(8)
It is noteworthy that $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ acquires contributions from all terms of the Hamiltonian violating the SU(4) symmetry (in contrast to the sum rule $`S`$ (6) which is determined only by the residual p-p interaction). On the mean field level the most important source of the violation is the spin-orbit mean field as was conjectured by Rumyantsev and Urin . We will see in Section 5 how strongly is $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ affected by varying the intensity of the spin-orbit mean field in the calculations.

Thus, the final expressions (6) and (7),(8) contain explicit information about symmetry properties of the nuclear Hamiltonian in terms of the corresponding commutators. Also we would like to stress again that the results of this section — the transformation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude Eqs.(2)-(4) and the representations for $`S`$ and $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ Eqs.(6)-(7) — are quite general and do not rely on any nuclear model.

## 3 Model Hamiltonian

For a quantitative realization of the relationships of the preceding section one has to specify the nuclear Hamiltonian. We adopt here the realistic model Hamiltonian of  consisting of a mean field $`U(x)`$, the Landau–Migdal zero-range forces for describing the particle-hole interaction $`\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}h}`$ and a separable particle-particle interaction in both the neutral and the charge-exchange channels $`\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}p}`$. Only isoscalar (central $`U_0(r)`$ plus spin-orbit $`U_{so}(r)𝝈𝐥`$) part of the mean field $`U(x)`$ is treated phenomenologically while the isovector (symmetry potential) and the Coulomb parts are calculated consistently in the Hartree approximation (see ). The explicit expression for the Landau–Migdal forces in the charge-exchange channel is :

$$\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}h}=2\underset{a>b}{}(F_0+F_1𝝈_a𝝈_b)\tau _a^{()}\tau _b^{(+)}\delta (𝐫_a𝐫_b)+h.c.$$
(9)
where the intensities of the non-spin-flip and spin-flip parts of this interaction, $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ respectively, are the phenomenological parameters. We choose the p-p interaction in the following separable form (as used in the BCS model) in both the neutral (pairing) and charge-exchange particle-particle channels:

$$\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}p}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{J\mu }{}G_J\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\beta =p,n}{\beta ^{}=p,n}}{}(\widehat{P}_{\beta \beta ^{}}^{J\mu })^+\widehat{P}_{\beta \beta ^{}}^{J\mu },$$
(10)
where $`G_J`$ are the intensities of the particle-particle interaction. Here we consider only the nucleon pairs with total angular momentum and parity $`J^\pi =0^+,1^+(L=0,S=J)`$. The annihilation operator for a nucleon pair $`P^{J\mu }`$ is given as follows:

$`\widehat{P}_{\beta \beta ^{}}^{J\mu }={\displaystyle \underset{\lambda \lambda ^{}}{}}(\chi _\lambda ^\beta \chi _\lambda ^{}^\beta ^{})P_{\beta \beta ^{},\lambda \lambda ^{}}^{J\mu };P_{\beta \beta ^{},\lambda \lambda ^{}}^{J\mu }=t_{(\lambda )(\lambda ^{})}^{(J)}{\displaystyle \underset{mm^{}}{}}(J\mu |j_\lambda ^\beta mj_\lambda ^{}^\beta ^{}m^{})a_{\lambda ^{}m^{}}^\beta ^{}a_{\lambda m}^\beta ,`$ (11)
where $`a_{\lambda m}(a_{\lambda m}^+)`$ is the annihilation (creation) operator of a nucleon in the state with the quantum numbers $`\lambda m`$ ($`m`$ is the projection of the particle angular momentum) and the single-particle radial wave functions $`r^1\chi _\lambda (r)`$, $`(\chi _\pi \chi _\nu )=\chi _\pi (r)\chi _\nu (r)𝑑r`$, $`t_{(\pi )(\nu )}^{(0)}=\sqrt{2j_\pi +1}\delta _{(\pi )(\nu )}`$, $`t_{(\pi )(\nu )}^{(1)}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(\pi )\sigma (\nu )`$.

Note that, apart from the p-p interaction, the model Hamiltonian has proven its reliability by successful continuum-RPA calculations of many structure and decay properties of charge-exchange giant resonances (see, e.g., ).

We use the Bogolyubov transformation to describe the nucleon pairing in the neutral channels in terms of quasiparticle creation (annihilation) operators $`\alpha _{\lambda m}^+(\alpha _{\lambda m})`$ (see, e.g., ). As a result, the following model Hamiltonian is obtained to describe Fermi and Gamow-Teller excitations within the pn-QRPA:

$$\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_0+\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}h}+\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}p}+\mu _n\widehat{N}+\mu _p\widehat{Z};\widehat{H}_0=\underset{\beta =p,n}{}\underset{\lambda m}{}E_\lambda ^\beta (\alpha _{\lambda m}^\beta )^+\alpha _{\lambda m}^\beta $$
(12)
Here, $`E_\lambda ^\beta =\sqrt{(\xi _\lambda ^\beta )^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta ^2}`$ is the quasiparticle energy, $`\xi _\lambda ^\beta =\epsilon _\lambda ^\beta \mu _\beta `$, $`\mu _\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta `$ are the chemical potential and the energy gap, respectively, which are determined from the BCS-model equations:

$$N_\beta =\underset{\lambda }{}(2j_\lambda ^\beta +1)(v_\lambda ^\beta )^2;\mathrm{\Delta }_\beta =G_0\underset{\lambda }{}(2j_\lambda ^\beta +1)u_\lambda ^\beta v_\lambda ^\beta $$
(13)
with $`v_\lambda ^2=\frac{1}{2}(1\frac{\xi _\lambda }{E_\lambda })`$ and $`u_\lambda ^2=1v_\lambda ^2`$.

The explicit expressions for the p-h and p-p interactions in terms of the quasiparticle (pn)-pair creation and annihilation operators are:

$`\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}h}={\displaystyle \underset{J\mu }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2F_J}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{\pi \nu \pi ^{}\nu ^{}}{}}(\chi _\pi \chi _\nu \chi _\pi ^{}\chi _\nu ^{})(Q_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu })^+Q_{\pi ^{}\nu ^{}}^{J\mu },`$ (14)
$`\widehat{H}_{p\text{-}p}={\displaystyle \underset{J\mu }{}}G_J{\displaystyle \underset{\pi \nu \pi ^{}\nu ^{}}{}}(\chi _\pi \chi _\nu )(\chi _\pi ^{}\chi _\nu ^{})(P_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu })^+P_{\pi ^{}\nu ^{}}^{J\mu },`$ (15)
$`Q_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }=t_{(\pi )(\nu )}^{(J)}(u_\pi v_\nu A_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }+v_\pi u_\nu (\stackrel{~}{A}_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu })^+),P_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }=t_{(\pi )(\nu )}^{(J)}(u_\pi u_\nu A_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }v_\pi v_\nu (\stackrel{~}{A}_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu })^+),`$
where $`A_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }=\underset{mm^{}}{}(J\mu |j_\pi mj_\nu m^{})\alpha _{\nu m^{}}\alpha _{\pi m}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{A}_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }=(1)^{J+\mu }A_{\pi \nu }^{J\mu }`$, $`(\chi _\pi \chi _\nu \chi _\pi ^{}\chi _\nu ^{})=\chi _\pi \chi _\nu \chi _\pi ^{}\chi _\nu ^{}r^2𝑑r`$. Note, that the radial integrals in the representation (15) for the separable p-p interaction should be kept rather than put equal to 1 as in many applications of the separable forces. This is due to a slight non-orthogonality of proton and neutron wave functions having the same quantum numbers.

Our model Hamiltonian preserves the isospin symmetry provided that a selfconsistency condition relating the isovector part of the mean field (symmetry potential) to the Landau–Migdal parameter $`F_0`$ is fulfilled (see , the p-p interaction (10) is isospin invariant by construction). That was proved by the direct continuum-QRPA calculations of the properties of the isobaric analog states in . Note, that the usual discretized version of the pn-QRPA which we are going to exploit here violates a bit the isospin symmetry due to a restricted basis of the particle-hole configurations. Apart from this source of the violation, we shall introduce another, usual one, namely, we allow the pairing constants for proton and neutron subsystems ($`G_{0p}`$ and $`G_{0n}`$, respectively) to have different values in order to reproduce the experimental pairing gaps. These approximations certainly affect the quality of the calculated Fermi matrix elements that is worth to discuss elsewhere. However, they seem to be of rather minor importance for the description of the Gamow-Teller matrix elements that we are pursuing here.

## 4 Analytical representation for $`S`$

In this section we show that a simple and elegant analytical representation for the EWSR $`S`$ (4) introduced in Section 2 can be obtained using the Hamiltonian of the preceding section. To do that, one has to calculate the expectation value of the double commutator (6). The equation of motion for the GT operator can be derived within the QRPA :

$`[\widehat{H},\widehat{G}_\mu ^{()}]=\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{ph}+\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{pp},`$ (16)
$`\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{pp}={\displaystyle \frac{G_{0n}G_1}{G_{0n}}}\mathrm{\Delta }_n(\widehat{P}_{pn}^{1\mu })^+{\displaystyle \frac{G_{0p}G_1}{G_{0p}}}\mathrm{\Delta }_p\stackrel{~}{\widehat{P}}_{pn}^{1\mu }.`$ (17)
The rhs of (16) is the sum of particle-hole $`\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{ph}`$ and particle-particle $`\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{pp}`$ operators originating from the commutator of $`\widehat{G}^{()}`$ with the p-h part (including the mean field) and the p-p part of the Hamiltonian, respectively. The explicit representation for $`\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{ph}`$ can be found in  but it is irrelevant for the current derivation of $`S`$ since $`f|[\widehat{G}^{()},\left(\widehat{U}_\mu ^{()}\right)_{ph}]|i=0`$ due to $`\tau ^{()2}=0`$. Hence, only p-p part of the Hamiltonian contribute to $`S`$:

$$S=f|[\widehat{G}^{()},\left(\widehat{U}^{()}\right)_{pp}]|i=3(1g_{pp}^{})\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_n\mathrm{\Delta }_p}{G_{0n}G_{0p}}\frac{G_{0n}+G_{0p}}{2},$$
(18)
where we have introduced the parameter $`g_{pp}^{}=2G_1/(G_{0n}+G_{0p})`$ describing the relative strength of p-p interaction in the triplet spin channel with respect to the singlet (pairing) one (not to be confused with the parameter $`g_{pp}`$ used in the calculations with realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions to renormalize the p-p part of them). In getting (18) we have used an approximation that the BCS vacua are the same for the initial and final ground states. For the Fermi transitions factor 3 in (18) should be omitted and $`g_{pp}^{}=2G_0/(G_{0n}+G_{0p})`$.

In the case of the restored isospin symmetry in the p-p channel, i.e. $`G_{0n}=G_{0p}=G_0`$, the expression (18) can be simplified further:

$$S=3(1g_{pp}^{})\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_n\mathrm{\Delta }_p}{G_0}.$$
(19)
The linear dependence of the sum rule $`S`$ on $`g_{pp}^{}`$ with crossing zero at the point of the restoration of SU(4)-symmetry ($`g_{pp}^{}=1`$) in the p-p channel is of great importance. It shows analytically that at least part of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay amplitude reveals a quite general sensitivity to $`g_{pp}^{}`$ which is not really restricted to the used approximations like the QRPA and BCS. In fact, any realistic nuclear Hamiltonian should contain singlet and triplet p-p interactions and any model of the ground states of open-shell nuclei should account for the pairing effects, in particular, the increased probability to pick up a pair of nucleons in the $`0^+`$ state which is described by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the BCS model. Therefore, we believe that $`S`$ will be linearly decreasing with respect to $`g_{pp}^{}`$ in any realistic model (including modern shell models) while the slope of the dependence and its zero may be slightly different from those given by (18),(19). 111This our conjecture has been confirmed by direct shell-model calculations of an anonymous Referee to whom we are indebted.

## 5 Calculation results

To illustrate the method suggested, we present in this section some calculation results obtained within the pn-QRPA for 76Ge, 100Mo and 130Te. Parameterization of the isoscalar part of the mean field $`U_0(x)`$ along with the values of the parameters used in the calculations have been described in details in . Here we increase the depth of the central part $`U_0(r)`$ by about 10 MeV to get a large enough basis of the bound single-particle states (this change of a isoscalar parameter should not affect much the isovector quantities like the Gamow-Teller matrix elements). The dimensionless intensities $`f_J`$ of the Landau-Migdal forces of Eq. (9) are chosen as usual: $`F_J=f_J300`$ MeV fm3. The value $`f_0=f^{}=1.0`$ of the parameter $`f^{}`$ determining the symmetry potential according to the selfconsistency condition is also taken from , where the experimental nucleon separation energies have been satisfactorily described for closed-shell subsystems for a number of nuclei. The dimensionless intensity $`f_1=g^{}`$ of the spin-isovector part of the Landau-Migdal forces is chosen as $`g^{}=0.6`$ that allowes one to reproduce rather well the experimental energies of GTR in the nuclei in question. The value $`g^{}=1.0`$ would correspond to the restoration of the SU(4) symmetry for p-h interaction in our model.

The strengths of the monopole pairing particle-particle interaction $`G_{0n},G_{0p}`$ are chosen to reproduce the experimental pairing energies in the considered nuclei. The BCS basis has 9 levels (oscillator shells $`N`$=3,4) for 76Ge, 10 levels (oscillator shells $`N`$=3,4 plus the $`1h_{11/2}`$ orbit from $`N=5`$) for 100Mo, and 12 levels (oscillator shells $`N`$=3,4 plus the $`1h_{9/2,11/2}+2f_{7/2}`$ orbits from $`N=5`$) for 130Te. For such basis systems the realistic values are $`G_{0n}G_{0p}12`$ MeV$`/A`$ with at most a variation of 20%. Hereafter, we will refer to this set of the pairing constants as set I. We have checked that increasing the BCS basis by adding $`N`$=1,2 shells change the results only slightly. Therefore, in addition, we choose artificially large $`G_{0n}=G_{0p}=18`$ MeV$`/A`$ (referred to as set II) as a test case in order to emphasize some important points of our approach.

The strength of the triplet spin-spin particle-particle interaction $`G_1`$ is considered as a free parameter and all dependencies are plotted as functions of the parameter $`g_{pp}^{}=2G_1/(G_{0n}+G_{0p})`$. Note, that the basis for the QRPA diagonalization consists of all the bound s.p. states, thereby containing all the main transitions among the spin-orbit doublets with the same radial quantum numbers. The explicit representation for the set of the QRPA equations can be found elsewhere (see, e.g., ). Note, that both $`\beta ^{}`$ and $`\beta ^+`$ branches to construct the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude are calculated within the QRPA in the same, initial for the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-decay, nucleus, so we adopt here the same approximation as in .

In Fig. 1 we show $`S(g_{pp}^{})`$ calculated according to the definition Eq. (4) (solid line) and its analytical representation Eq. (18) (dashed line). The horizontal dotted line corresponds to $`S=0`$. Also the dependences corresponding to the pairing parameter sets I and II are plotted, where the latter is steeper due to the larger $`\mathrm{\Delta }_p,\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$. In all cases the deviation of the numerical results from the analytical ones (with the largest deviation observed in 100Mo) can barely be seen despite the fact that our QRPA bases do not contain the whole p-h spectrum as assumed in deriving Eq. (18). It gives one more confirmation that the QRPA is capable of reproducing well various sum rules. Larger pairing correlations produce larger deviations due to a larger contribution of the p-h configurations discarded in the truncated basis. It is noteworthy that the calculations of $`S`$ in 76Ge using the G-matrix generated residual interaction have also revealed the linear dependence $`S(g_{pp})`$ with almost the same value $`S(g_{pp}=0)`$ (see Fig. 1 of ). It can also be seen from Fig. 1 that the realistic dependence $`S(g_{pp}^{})`$ is almost the same for different nuclei. It can be understood from the phenomenological proportionalities $`\mathrm{\Delta }A^{1/2}`$ and $`G_0A^1`$ put into $`S\mathrm{\Delta }_n\mathrm{\Delta }_p/G_0`$.

In Fig. 2 we plot $`M_{2\nu }(g_{pp}^{})`$ (solid line) calculated according to Eq. (1), $`S/\omega _g^2`$ (dashed line) and their difference $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ (dot-dashed line). The value of $`\omega _g`$ is calculated as the mean energy of the Gamow-Teller strength distribution in the $`\beta ^{}`$-channel. For each nucleus we have two sets of calculations - left and right panels contain the results corresponding to the pairing constant sets I and II, respectively. One can see from the figure that the dependence $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ is smoother than the original one, $`M_{2\nu }(g_{pp}^{})`$ (at least for not-too-large values of $`g_{pp}^{}`$ where the dependencies become essentially non-linear in the parameter). Furthermore, by going to the unphysical set II of the pairing parameters, one can see that the main change in the amplitude of $`M_{2\nu }(g_{pp}^{})`$ can be attributed to the change of $`S(g_{pp}^{})`$ with a smaller change of $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$. As for the function $`S/\omega _g^2`$, it shows basically a linear dependence on $`g_{pp}^{}`$ controlled by $`S`$.

Finally, we have tested the main conjecture of  that $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ (7) is mainly determined by the spin-orbit mean field contribution to the commutator (8). We plot the corresponding results in Fig. 3. The solid and dash-dotted lines represent $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ calculated according to the definition (3) for 100% and 50% of the realistic strength of the spin-orbit interaction, respectively. The dashed and dotted lines represent $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ calculated according to the (7),(8), taking only spin-orbit contribution to the latter equation (see  for the details), also for 100% and 50% of the realistic strength of the spin-orbit interaction, respectively. One can see from Fig. 3 that $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ is indeed very sensitive to the change of $`U_{so}`$. The approximation of $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ by (7),(8) is fairly good for the realistic $`g_{pp}^{}`$ in the vicinity of unity (a recent discussion of the realistic $`g_{pp}`$ can be found in ). Thus, in that region $`M_{2\nu }^{}(g_{pp}^{})`$ should scale almost quadratically with the magnitude of $`U_{so}`$ and the realistic choice of the spin-orbit interaction intensity is very important. It is also noteworthy that the schematic model QRPA calculations  revealed almost linear dependence of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude on $`g_{pp}^{}`$ that is quite understandable because the authors neglected the spin-orbit splitting in the model222unfortunately, it is not possible to compare our results with the values of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude from Fig. 2 of  because the ordinate was given in arbitrary units..

## 6 Conclusions

In this paper, using an identity transformation, we have represented the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude as a sum of two terms. One term has been shown to be proportional to an specific energy-weighted sum rule depending only on the particle-particle part of the Hamiltonian. This part has been shown within the QRPA to account for most of the sensitivity of the original $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude to $`g_{pp}^{}`$ for realistic $`g_{pp}^{}1`$. The sum rule has been found within the QRPA to depend linearly on the ratio $`g_{pp}^{}`$ and to vanish at the point $`g_{pp}^{}=1`$ where the Wigner SU(4) symmetry is restored in the p-p sector of the Hamiltonian. The analytical results for the sum rule have been reproduced very well by the QRPA calculations using truncated p-h bases. Thus, we have shown that the sensitivity of the amplitude to $`g_{pp}^{}`$ is due to the pronounced effect of violation of the SU(4) symmetry in the p-p sector of a realistic nuclear Hamiltonian. The second term, $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$, in the representation of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude has been shown within the QRPA to be a much smoother function for realistic values of $`g_{pp}^{}`$ than the original $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude. We have confirmed the conjecture of Rumyantsev and Urin  that $`M_{2\nu }^{}`$ is mainly determined by the intensity of the spin-orbit interaction of the nuclear mean field and scales approximately as square of the intensity for the realistic values of $`g_{pp}^{}`$. Therefore, the realistic choice of the spin-orbit mean field is very important for describing the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude. Finally, the analysis of the present work has revealed the reasons for the sensitivity of the $`2\nu \beta \beta `$-amplitude to different components of the nuclear Hamiltonian and thereby can help in constraining nuclear model uncertainties in calculations of the amplitude.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Landesforschungsschwerpunktsprogramm Baden-Württemberg “Low Energy Neutrino Physics”. V.A.R. would like to thank the Graduiertenkolleg “Hadronen im Vakuum, in Kernen und Sternen” (GRK683 of DFG) for support. M.H.U. acknowledges financial support from the “Nederlandse organisatie voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek” (NWO) during his stay at the KVI.


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# Entangled-Photon Imaging of a Pure Phase Object

## Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that a coherent image of a pure phase object may be obtained by use of a spatially incoherent illumination beam. This is accomplished by employing a two-beam source of entangled photons generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Though each of the beams is, in and of itself, spatially incoherent, the pair of beams exhibits higher-order inter-beam coherence. One of the beams probes the phase object while the other is scanned. The image is recorded by measuring the photon coincidence rate using a photon-counting detector in each beam. Using a reflection configuration, we successfully imaged a phase object implemented by a mems micro-mirror array. The experimental results are in accord with theoretical predictions.

Introduction.— It is well known in conventional optics that a pure phase object cannot be imaged by illumination with a spatially incoherent optical field Goodman (1968). “Coherence,” in this case, refers to coherence in the second-order Mandel and Wolf (1995). The question we ask is the following: Can an optical field lacking second-order spatial coherence, but endowed with higher-order coherence, be used to measure the spatial distribution of a pure phase object? Clearly, this is not possible by making use of conventional detectors, which are sensitive to the optical intensity. Measurement of the fourth-order coherence function has been used for imaging, as in the Hanbury-Brown–Twiss interferometer Mandel and Wolf (1995), but the imaging of a pure phase object can not be carried out using such a configuration if a conventional thermal source of light is used.

In this paper we demonstrate that the imaging of a phase object can, in fact, be achieved by making use of a special light source that is incoherent in second-order, but exhibits higher-order coherence properties. Perhaps the most celebrated example of an optical field exhibiting fourth-order coherence, in combination with second-order incoherence, is the twin-beam light emitted by the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a nonlinear optical crystal Klyshko (1980). Each of the emitted beams lacks second-order spatial coherence (as well as temporal coherence), but the two beams are endowed with inter-beam higher-order spatial (and temporal) coherence, which is exhibited via enhanced photon coincidences at directions for which photon momentum is conserved Ribeiro et al. (1994a, b); Joobeur et al. (1994, 1996); Barbosa (1996); Saleh et al. (1998). Such sources exhibit unique quantum-correlation features that have generated considerable interest, particularly in the past few years Pittman et al. (1995, 1996); Abouraddy et al. (2001a); Abouraddy et al. (2002); Bennink et al. (2002); Gatti et al. (2003); Tan et al. (2003); Howell et al. (2003). Since photons are emitted in pairs, in an entangled quantum state, imaging using such a light source has been referred to as entangled-photon imaging. In this imaging technique, only one of the beams interacts with the object; the photon coincidence rate is measured much the same way as it is in the Hanbury-Brown–Twiss interferometer.

Several experimental demonstrations and theoretical studies have been directed at dissecting the capabilities and limitations of entangled-photon imaging. On the theoretical side, it has been shown that such a two-photon imaging system requires entanglement in order to function as a coherent imaging system (i.e., as a system capable of imaging a phase object) Abouraddy et al. (2001a). On the experimental side, the class of objects that has been utilized in such demonstrations has been limited to that of amplitude objects Pittman et al. (1995, 1996), e.g., objects with a spatially varying amplitude transmittance. Such objects have usually taken the form of amplitude-modulating transparencies inserted in a transmission configuration.

We proceed to provide an experimental demonstration of entangled-photon imaging of a pure phase object in a reflection configuration. The phase object is illuminated by one of the (spatially incoherent) beams and the photon-coincidence rate for detectors placed at both beams is measured. This allows the formation of a coherent image of the phase object. Phase objects are of special interest in quantum information processing since they introduce a unitary operation that is reversible (this is in contrast to amplitude masks of any form).

Imaging configuration.—The arrangement used in our experiment is shown schematically in Fig. 1(a). The source of light is spontaneous parametric down-conversion generated in a nonlinear crystal (nlc) pumped by a laser beam (laser). The downconverted photons are emitted in pairs in two spatially separated beams (each of which is spatially incoherent, as indicated above). One of the beams (probe) impinges on the object, in our case a mems micro-mirror array configured so as to modulate the phase of the impinging wavefront. Upon reflection from the object, the probe beam is detected by a single detector d1 fitted with a fixed small pinhole p1. The other beam (reference) does not interact with the object, and is simply directed to a small pinhole p2 and a detector d2. The terms “probe” and “reference” are used since they are more descriptive in this case than the usual terminology: signal and idler. The coincidence rate of the photons detected by the two detectors is measured as detector d2 (together with pinhole p2) is scanned. As will be shown theoretically, and confirmed experimentally, if the intervening optical system is appropriately designed, a coherent image of the phase object may be obtained.

The system is configured such that the probe beam cannot, by itself, generate an image of the phase object. First, detector d1 is a single fixed detector lacking spatial resolution. Second, the probe beam lacks second-order spatial coherence. Third, the distance $`d_b`$ between the object and the detector d1 is deliberately chosen such that d1 does not lie in the far-field, thus precluding the formation of a far-field diffraction pattern of the phase object, which could provide information about the phase spatial distribution were the beam coherent.

The pure phase object we consider is characterized by a spatially varying unimodular complex amplitude transmittance or reflectance of the form $`\mathrm{exp}[i\theta (\text{r})]`$, where $`\theta (\text{r})`$ is a real function of the position r in the object plane. Such an object could not be imaged directly by using a conventional single-lens imaging system satisfying the imaging condition and a conventional intensity-sensitive detector. Since such a system ideally provides a geometric mapping between each point in the object plane and a corresponding point in the image plane, it yields no phase information. In the context of entangled-photon imaging, such a system was implemented in Ref. Pittman et al. (1995) for imaging the intensity transmittance of an object.

In conventional coherent optics, a phase object is typically imaged either interferometrically or by use of an optical spatial Fourier-transform system, which converts the phase distribution of the optical wave front at the object plane into a spatially varying amplitude distribution that is detectable by an intensity-sensitive detector. Two examples of Fourier-transform systems are (1) a single lens 2–$`f`$ system, and (2) free-space propagation in the Fraunhofer regime, commonly known as the far-field Saleh and Teich (1991). In our entangled-photon imaging system, we have implemented a Fourier-transform configuration based on lensless propagation to the far-field, a system similar to that used in Ref. Strekalov et al. (1995). The exact Fourier transform is achieved only in the Fraunhofer-diffraction region, which necessitates traveling a prohibitively long distance Saleh and Teich (1991). The distances used in our experiment actually place the image in the Fresnel-diffraction region.

Theory.—A theoretical expression for the photon coincidence rate in the above imaging configuration is obtained by using the formalism developed in Ref. Saleh et al. (2000). The coincidence rate of photon pairs at points $`\text{x}_1`$ and $`\text{x}_2`$, in the planes of detectors d1 and d2, is proportional to the fourth-order coherence function of the optical fields

$$G^{(2)}(\text{x}_1,\text{x}_2)=\left|𝑑\text{x}𝑑\text{x}^{}\varphi (\text{x},\text{x}^{})h_1(\text{x}_1,\text{x})h_2(\text{x}_2,\text{x}^{})\right|^2.$$
(1)
Here $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$ are the impulse response functions describing the optical systems that the probe and reference photons traverse from the crystal to d1 and d2, respectively. In the arrangement outlined here, both $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$ represent free-space propagation, and $`h_1`$ includes the phase object. The quantum state of light produced in the process of SPDC is represented by the state vector

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=𝑑\text{x}𝑑\text{x}^{}\varphi (\text{x},\text{x}^{})|1_\text{x},1_\text{x}^{};$$
(2)
the state function $`\varphi `$ is normalized so that $`𝑑\text{x}𝑑\text{x}^{}|\varphi (\text{x},\text{x}^{})|^2=1`$. The state function is related to the physical parameters of the SPDC source through the relation

$$\varphi (\text{x},\text{x}^{})=𝑑\text{y}E_p(\text{y})\xi (\text{x}\text{y},\text{x}^{}\text{y}),$$
(3)
where $`E_p(\text{x})`$ is the pump field spatial profile,; $`\xi (\text{x},\text{x}^{})`$ is the Fourier transform of the phase-matching function $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }(\text{q}_1,\text{q}_2)=\text{sinc}(\frac{l}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{l}{2}\mathrm{\Delta })`$; $`l`$ is the thickness of the nonlinear crystal; $`\text{q}_1`$ and $`\text{q}_2`$ are the transverse momenta of the probe and reference beams; and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\text{q}_1,\text{q}_2)`$ is the mismatch in longitudinal momenta of the pump, probe, and reference beams. These formulas all assume that only a narrow band of wavelengths, centered around the degenerate wavelength, is allowed, as is usually imposed by the use of interference filters in the optical arrangement.

Coherent image formation in this configuration may be understood by noting that the left hand side of Eq.(1) is mathematically identical to the coherent image at $`x_2`$ of a point source at $`x_1`$ illuminating an optical system composed of a cascade of systems with impulse response functions $`h_1(\text{x},\text{x}_1)`$, $`\varphi (\text{x}^{},\text{x})`$, and $`h_2(\text{x}_2,\text{x}^{})`$. This is physically identical to a point source located at the point detector d1 emitting light traveling backward through $`h_1`$ towards the nonlinear crystal, which serves as a special mirror reflecting the wave through $`h_2`$, and creating a coherent image in the plane of detector d2. This advanced-wave interpretation, pioneered by D. N. Klyshko Klyshko (1988), provides a rationale for the formation of a Fourier-transform image of the phase object in the far field.

The effect of the finite size of p1 may be accommodated by integrating the variable $`\text{x}_1`$ over the area of p1,

$$C(\text{x}_2)=_{\text{p}_1}𝑑\text{x}_1G^{(2)}(\text{x}_1,\text{x}_2).$$
(4)
The quantity $`C(\text{x}_2)`$ is the coincidence rate measured when p2 is scanned, while p1 is held fixed, and corresponds to the data collected in the experiment. In view of the advanced-wave interpretation, the finite size of p1 introduces partial coherence into the imaging system and may render the system effectively incoherent Saleh et al. (2000). The size of the pinhole p2, on the other hand, sets a limit on the resolution of the scanned coherent image.

Calculating $`C(\text{x}_2)`$ is difficult when all the physical parameters of the configuration are considered. To simplify the calculation we assumed that the nonlinear crystal is thin ($`l0`$) and that the pump is a plane wave incident normally on the crystal. This zeroth-order approximation underestimates the width of the produced far-field image, since an infinite spatial spectrum is implicit in the thin-crystal approximation. We have therefore approximately accommodated the finite width of the pump and finite crystal thickness by multiplying the calculated $`C(x_2)`$ by the measured conventional far-field image of the reference obtained from single-photon rates at d2, which is independent of the object and depends only on the parameters of the pump beam and the nonlinear crystal.

Experiment.—The pure phase object used in our experiments comprised a 12$`\times `$12 array of gold-plated micro-mirrors, each of dimension 300$`\times 300\mu \text{m}^2`$. The height of each mirror, with respect to a fixed datum, is altered via an electrostatic potential. If one micro-mirror is pulled down from the datum a distance $`d`$, the portion of the wavefront impinging on this region accumulates a phase $`2\pi (2d/\lambda )`$ relative to the datum (which is taken to be phase $`0`$), after reflection from the micro-mirror and double traversal of the distance $`d`$. For example, light at $`\lambda =812`$ nm, such as that in our experiment, when reflected from a micro-mirror pulled back a distance $`d=200`$ nm, accumulates a phase of approximately $`\pi `$ radians.

We conducted experiments using three distinct phase distributions: (a) zero phase everywhere (flat mirrors); (b) a single line of micro-mirrors pulled down to implement a phase of $`\pi `$; and (c) two lines of micro-mirrors pulled down to implement a phase of $`\pi `$ separated by an undisturbed line of phase zero. All three distributions are independent of one dimension of the array, and are thus effectively one-dimensional distributions ($`\text{r}x`$). This is helpful since it enables us to integrate along the uniform direction at d1 and d2.

A more detailed view of the experimental arrangement is illustrated in Fig. 2. The pump was the 406-nm line of a cw Kr-ion laser with a power of 30 mW. The nonlinear crystal was a 1.5-mm-thick BBO crystal cut for collinear (probe and reference emitted into the same beam), degenerate, type-I (probe- and reference have the same polarization) SPDC. We chose a type-I collinear configuration, rather than a type-II (probe- and reference with orthogonal polarizations) collinear configuration such as that used in Refs. Pittman et al. (1995) and Pittman et al. (1996), or the type-I non-collinear configuration used in Ref. Ribeiro et al. (1994b). The advantage of the type-I collinear configuration is that the two down-converted beams are emitted in the same circularly symmetric spatial mode. This is useful for carrying out imaging experiments since artifacts arising from differences between the spatial distributions of the two beams, as well as peculiarities of beam shape, are eliminated. However, half of the photon-pair flux is lost in this configuration, as will be elaborated upon below.

The pump (extraordinary polarization) was separated from the down-converted photons (ordinary polarization) by means of a pair of Glan-Laser polarizing beam splitters (gl1 and gl2), placed before and after the nonlinear crystal, respectively. A long-pass colored glass filter (cgf) of cutoff wavelength 560 nm was used to further separate away the pump. The photon pairs then permitted to impinge on a nonpolarizing sheet beam splitter (bs). As a result, half of the pairs are separated into the two output beams whereas the other half of the pairs emerge together at the same output port and thus fail to contribute to coincidences; this accounts for the 50% reduction of photon flux mentioned above.

The beam reflected from the beam splitter impinges on the phase object and from there is reflected to a single-photon-detector module (fiber-coupled EG$`\&`$G SPCM-AQR-15). The detector is preceded by a vertical slit p1 of width 1.4 mm and an interference filter f1 (centered at 800 nm with a bandwidth of 66 nm) to eliminate any remaining pump photons. The detected photons are integrated along the direction parallel to the slit. The beam transmitted through the beam splitter, which does not interact with the object, is directed to an identical detection unit (vertical slit p2 and filter f2). However this detector is mounted on a computer-controlled stage that permits scanning of the beam. The electrical pulses from the two detectors are sent to a coincidence circuit ($``$) with a 2-nsec timing window.

The distance from the nlc through the bs to the micro-mirrors is $`d_a=1.17`$ m; the distance from the micro-mirrors to the detector d1 is $`d_b=1.98`$ m; the distance from the nlc, reflecting from the bs, to d2 is $`d_2=3.96`$ m. For this configuration, the diffraction pattern is formed at a distance $`d_2+d_a`$ from the mirrors: from the mirrors to the bs to the nlc, back to the bs and then on to d2.

Results.—The results are displayed in Fig. 3 for the three phase objects on which we conducted imaging experiments. In each case, the coincidence counts measured by detectors d1 and d2 is plotted as a function of the scanned position $`x_2`$ of detector d2. The experimental results (open circles) are seen to match the theoretical predictions based on the approximate model (solid curves) reasonably well, although the theoretical profiles are slightly wider. We have also recorded the single-photon counts collected from d2, independently of the counts recorded from d1. This measure is, of course, completely independent of the object; it represents the far-field pattern of the reference beam and thus depends only on the physical parameters of the pump and nonlinear crystal. The first object has a uniform phase distribution, $`\theta (x)=0`$, which represents a highly reflecting, uniform mirror of finite aperture. The coincidence profile shown in Fig. 3(a) is simply the Fourier transform of this object, which is the diffraction pattern of the object aperture.

The second object has a phase distribution in the form of a single strip of phase $`\pi `$ in a uniform background of phase zero. We call this object a phase slit. The measured coincidence image presented in Fig. 3(b) has a double-peaked profile that is the Fresnel transform (approximately the Fourier transform) of the object phase distribution. This profile is dramatically different from that associated with the usual amplitude slit, which has a single central peak and smaller side lobes.

The third object is a double phase slit. The measured coincidence profile displayed in Fig. 3(c) is qualitatively similar to that for the single phase slit illustrated in Fig. 3(b), but has a wider and deeper dip, and also a lower peak value. There are two reasons for this: (1) The diffraction pattern for the double phase slit is more spread out, and since no photons are absorbed by the phase object, the height of the distribution must be lower; (2) The rate of single photons detected by d1 is smaller. The pattern reflected towards d1 is wider, and since the pinhole has the same width, fewer photons are collected for the double phase slit, thereby resulting in a further reduction of coincidence counts for this case. We have recorded the single-photon rate at both detectors in the two cases. It is gratifying that the incorporation of this additional reduction factor into the theoretical calculation leads to a ratio of heights of the theoretical patterns that match experiment.

The diffraction profile of a double-phase-slit object is dramatically different from that of a conventional double-slit amplitude object; the latter exhibits a single central peak with smaller side lobes, rather than a double-peaked distribution. For the same configuration and dimensions, the amplitude object produces a substantially wider diffraction pattern. Note, however, that a “double-strip” amplitude object (an aperture that transmits light everywhere except at two parallel strips) has a diffraction pattern similar to that of a double phase slit of the same dimensions, but it has far less visibility (it is well known in phase lithography that the maximum contrast produced by slit modulation is obtained for $`\pi `$-phase-shift slits).

Conclusion.—We have experimentally demonstrated that a coherent image of a reflective pure phase object may be obtained by using a spatially incoherent probe beam. This is accomplished by use of an auxiliary reference beam that does not interact with the object. Generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion, each of the two beams is spatially incoherent but together they exhibit inter-beam higher-order coherence, by virtue of the fact that the source emits photon pairs in an entangled state. By measuring the photon coincidence rate, using a single-photon detector in each of the two beams, we observe the fourth-order cross-coherence function for the reflected probe beam and the reference beam. This contains an image of the phase object identical to that measurable with coherent light. The experiments we carried out include measurements of the Fresnel (approximately Fourier) transform of simple phase objects, but other coherent images may be similarly measured. This includes phase-contrast imaging, which may be realized by splitting the probe beam into two laterally displaced probe beams transmitted through the object. It also includes holography, which may be realized by splitting the probe beam into a reference and an object beam as in conventional holography Abouraddy et al. (2001b).

Acknowledgments.—This work was supported by the National Science Foundation; by the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS), an NSF Engineering Research Center; and by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. We thank N. Vamivakas and J. Hofman for technical assistance. We are grateful to the Boston Micromachines Corporation and T. G. Bifano for providing us with the mems micro-mirror array.


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# Analysis of the characteristics of nucleus-nucleus collisions depending on the centrality

## 1 INTRODUCTION

One of the important experimental methods to get the information on the changes of states of nuclear matter with increasing its baryon density is to study the characteristics of hadron-nuclear and nuclear-nuclear interactions depending on the centrality of collisions ($`Q`$) at high energies. There are some results obtained in these experiments for the interactions of $`\pi `$-mesons, protons and nuclei with nuclei at energies less than SPS’ energies which demonstrate existence of the regime changes in these dependencies -. It is necessary to note that in different experiments the values of $`Q`$ are defined in different ways. Therefore it is very difficult to compare the obtaineed results on $`Q`$-dependencies in different papers .

QCD predicts that at high energy density, hadronic matter will turn into plasma of deconfined quarks and gluons . It is expected that the temperature of hadron matter T will be $`T>T_c150200MeV`$ and $`\mu _B`$ will be $`\mu _B>\mu _{B_c}`$ ($`\mu _B`$ increases with the barion charge). It is a new phase of nuclear matter. The $`T_c`$ could be reached at energies of SPS, RICH and LHC.

To explain the above mentioned results we consider the possibility of the phase transition at $`T<T_c`$ in the system with high barion density (at high $`\mu _B`$). In such systems the neighbouring nucleons could form the cluster and neighbouring quarks could form the diquarks ( for example in the result of percolation). So these systems are a mixed system (MS) of compressed nucleons (clusters) and diquarks which could appear at energies of GSI, Synchrophasotron (Nuclatron) and AGS.

Experimental information on the conditions of the MS appearance could give the possibilities to fix the onset of the deconfinement. It is important for further separate on of the effects connected with deconfinement of strong interaction matter from the other ones.

The regime changes which were shown above could be a better indication of the MS appearance in high energy interactions, but they are not enough to assert it. For further confirmation of the appearance and existence of the MS it is necessary to obtain an additional experimental information because the regime changes under consideration can be explained by some other approaches without the MS.

Let us discuss experimental possibilities to get a signal on the MS. First of all we have to answer a question, by what experimental observable effects the MS could be accompanied. It is clear that the first effect is a cluster formation ( for example in the result of percolation), the second effect could be the appearance of meson condensation (which could be formed in the result of hadronisation of diquarks).

There are many papers in which the processes of nuclear fragmentation  and the processes of central collisions  are considered as critical phenomena and percolation approach is suggested to be used to explain these phenomena. We have used some ideas from these works to experimental search of a signal on a cluster formation. We suppose that in hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions the cluster could appear on some critical values of $`Q`$ and would decay into fragments and free nucleons. The number of clusters and fragments would increase with $`Q`$ in the interval less than the critical values of $`Q`$ (for MS formation) and then their values would decrease with the increase of $`Q`$ to the boundary of the central collisions region. It could lead to the regime change in the behavior of different characteristics of events depending on $`Q`$ and the number of fragments. We believed that if the cluster exists and if it is a source of fragments then the influences of nuclear fragments on the behaviour of the events’ characteristics depending on $`Q`$ could have a critical character.

### 1.1 EXPERIMENT

To test this idea the behaviors of the events’ number depending on $`Q`$ have been studied by us . The values of $`Q`$ were determined in two variants. In the first variant the values of $`Q`$ were determined as a number of protons emitted in a event and in the second variant – as a number of protons and fragments emitted in the events. We have used 20407 $`{}_{}{}^{12}CC`$ events at the momentum of 4.2 A GeV/c . The experimental data were compared with the simulation data coming from the quark-gluon string model (QGSM) without nuclear fragments . We want to note that the behavior of the events’ number depending on $`Q`$ determined for both variants have to be similar if there are no cluster and they would differ if the cluster exists as a source of fragments. The distributions of the events’ number as a function of $`Q`$ are shown in fig. 1a,b . The open symbols correspond to the first variant of $`Q`$-determination, the black symbols correspond to the second ones( the fragments were included). It is seen that for the cases when the fragments numbers were included to determine $`Q`$ the form of the distributions sharply changes and has two steps structure (black symbols in fig. 1a). The $`Q`$-dependencies of the events’ number coming from the QGSM are shown in fig. 1b . The open symbols correspond to the cases without stripping protons and the black symbols correspond to the cases with the stripping protons. It is seen that the form of the distribution strongly differs from the experimental one in fig. 1a. There is no two steps structure in this figure. Therefore we could assure that the observed difference is connected with the fragment influence. This result demonstrates that the influence of nuclear fragmentation processes in the behavior of the events’ number depending on $`Q`$ has a critical character. To explain this result we can suppose that it could be connected with the existence of a cluster. It is possible that with the increase of $`Q`$ the probability of cluster formation grows but further increasing of the $`Q`$ ( in the region of high $`Q`$) leads to a cluster decay on nuclear fragments and then on free nucleons. It could be the reason of the observed two step structure in the distributions. The first step connected with the formation of a cluster and the second one with its decay. The obtained results on multifragment production at high energy nucleus-nucleus interaction could give additional confirmations for it (for example see ).