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# Reconstructing the evolution of double helium white dwarfs: envelope loss without spiral-in

## 1 Introduction

The long lasting problem that we observe many double stars which are expected to form close pairs of white dwarfs, but yet that of the observed white dwarfs not one seemed to have a close white dwarf companion, was solved by the discovery of such pairs, starting with L870-2 (= WD 0135+052) in 1988 (Saffer et al. 1988). In total 14 close detached binary white dwarfs are known at present, see Table 1. The fact that six of these systems have their orbital period and the masses of both components determined provides an opportunity to test binary evolution theory in detail.

Models for the formation of close double white dwarfs envision two standard scenarios to produce these systems (Tutukov & Yungelson 1981; Iben & Tutukov 1984; Webbink 1984; Tutukov & Yungelson 1988; Han et al. 1995; Iben et al. 1997; Han 1998). In the first scenario, two low-mass ($`M2.3\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$) stars evolve through two stages of spiral-in. The first spiral-in will shrink the orbit, so the second spiral-in happens in a binary with a much smaller orbital separation. The Roche lobe filling giant (secondary) now has a small radius and therefore a small core. The white dwarf that is formed last is thus less massive than its companion, with a mass ratio $`m_{\mathrm{bright}}/m_{\mathrm{dim}}0.55`$ (see e.g. Sandquist et al. 2000).

In the second scenario, the first phase of mass transfer is stable; the second phase of mass transfer is again a spiral-in. The evolution of the orbit and the growth of the core during the first, slow phase of mass transfer depend on the amount of mass and angular momentum that is lost from the system. If the evolution in this phase is conservative, the expected final mass ratio $`m_{\mathrm{bright}}/m_{\mathrm{dim}}1.141.18`$ (Tutukov & Yungelson 1988; Sandquist et al. 2000).

All white dwarfs in close pairs known today have low masses ($`M0.5\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$). Note, however, that the inaccuracy of the mass determinations is as large as $`0.05\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ due to uncertainties in model atmospheres and cooling curves for white dwarfs (see e.g. Napiwotzki et al. 1999). These low masses suggest they are helium white dwarfs, but it cannot be excluded a priori that white dwarfs with masses $`0.35\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ are so called hybrid white dwarfs, i.e. having small CO cores and relatively thick ($`0.1\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$) helium envelopes (Iben & Tutukov 1985). For the most massive ones $`(M0.45\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}})`$, this is even the only option, since helium white dwarfs must have a mass below 0.46 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Sweigart et al. 1990). For the less massive ones the probability to form hybrid white dwarfs is 4 – 5 times lower than to form helium white dwarfs (Nelemans et al. 2000).

## 2 Reconstructing the binary evolution

Because of the unique core-mass – radius relation for giants with degenerate helium cores (Refsdal & Weigert 1970), we can reconstruct the mass transfer phases in which helium white dwarfs are formed. The mass of the brightest star in WD 1101+364 (0.31 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$) indicates that it is a helium white dwarf. In WD 136+768 and WD 0957-666 it cannot be excluded that the brightest stars are hybrid white dwarfs. The low mass of the dimmer companions in these three systems indicates that those are all helium white dwarfs. The white dwarfs in WD 0135-052 and WD 1204+450 are formally inconsistent with being helium white dwarfs, so we will not include them in the discussion anymore. WD 1704+481 probably consists of a helium white dwarf and a dimmer CO white dwarf, but because CO white dwarfs cool faster than helium white dwarfs (Driebe et al. 1998), it is not clear which of the white dwarfs was formed most recent so we cannot use this system in our present study.

Assuming that the mass of the white dwarf is equal to the mass of the core of the giant at the onset of the mass transfer, the radius of the progenitor of a helium white dwarf can be calculated from the core-mass – radius relation given by Iben & Tutukov (1985):

$$R10^{3.5}M_\mathrm{c}^4$$
(1)
($`R`$ and $`M_\mathrm{c}`$ in solar units). This equation is in good agreement with other equations describing this dependence for giants (e.g. Webbink et al. 1983). The mass of the white dwarf progenitor is however not known, since the above relation is independent of the total mass of the star. However the mass of the giant must be in the range 0.8 - 2.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. For less massive stars the main-sequence life time is larger than the age of the Galaxy. More massive stars do not form degenerate helium cores.

For the remainder of this article we use the following notation: $`M_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}`$ indicate the initial mass of the original primary and the mass of the white dwarf that it forms, $`m_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{WD}}`$ represent the same for the original secondary. If the secondary accretes mass during the first phase of mass transfer, we represent its new mass with $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}`$. For the radii of the stars when they become giants we use $`R_\mathrm{g}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{g}`$ for the original primary and secondary respectively. With $`P_\mathrm{i},P_\mathrm{m}`$ and $`P`$ we indicate the initial period, the period after the first phase of mass transfer, and the current period of the binary.

## 3 Last mass transfer: spiral-in

Using Eq. (1) we calculate the radii of the progenitors of the brightest white dwarfs for the three double helium white dwarfs. Since we know the mass of the white dwarf that orbited this giant and may reasonably assume that it did not accrete anything during the spiral-in phase, we can calculate the orbital separation at the onset of the spiral-in, as function of the mass $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}`$ of the giant,

$$a_\mathrm{m}(m_\mathrm{i}^{})=\frac{r_\mathrm{g}(m_{\mathrm{WD}})}{r_\mathrm{L}(M_{\mathrm{WD}}/m_\mathrm{i}^{})},$$
(2)
where $`r_\mathrm{L}R_\mathrm{L}/a`$ is the dimensionless Roche lobe radius, given e.g. by Eggleton (1983) and we assume $`r_\mathrm{g}=R_\mathrm{L}`$. This is shown in Fig. 1, where we use Keplers 3rd law to compute the period from the orbital separation. Comparing the periods in Fig. 1 with the observed periods in Table 1, we see that in the last mass transfer phase the orbital separation must have reduced dramatically. This can only be accomplished if the last mass transfer was a spiral-in.

In a spiral-in, the envelope of the giant is expelled at the expense of the orbital energy of the binary. Balancing the binding energy of the envelope of the giant with the difference in orbital energy (Webbink 1984) one finds

$$\frac{M_{\mathrm{WD}}(m_\mathrm{i}^{}m_{\mathrm{WD}})}{\lambda r_\mathrm{g}}=\alpha \left[\frac{M_{\mathrm{WD}}m_{\mathrm{WD}}}{2a_\mathrm{f}}\frac{M_{\mathrm{WD}}m_\mathrm{i}^{}}{2a_\mathrm{m}}\right].$$
(3)
The parameter $`\lambda `$ depends on the structure of red giant envelope. The usual assumption is that $`\lambda =0.5`$ (De Kool et al. 1987). The parameter $`\alpha `$ represents the efficiency of the deposition of orbital energy into the common envelope. To reduce the number of parameters, the product $`\alpha \lambda `$ is treated as a single parameter in the remainder of this article, but it should be noted that both $`\lambda `$ and $`\alpha `$ will in reality be functions of the evolutionary stage of the stars.

Applying Eq. (3) and Eq. (2), we find $`\alpha \lambda `$ as a function of $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}`$ for the three systems considered. We plot this in Fig. 2, where we assume that the current periods are equal to the post spiral-in periods. This may not be the case in general since close orbits like the those of WD 0957-666 and WD 1101+364 will decay due to the loss of angular momentum by gravitational radiation. However, the estimated ages for these white dwarfs ($`10^7`$ yr (Moran et al. 1997) and $`10^9`$ yr (using the cooling curves of Driebe et al. (1998)) respectively) are short compared to the orbital decay time scale.

For the remaining white dwarf pairs listed in Table 1 the mass of only one component is known. We assume here that it is the last formed component we observe. Low-mass white dwarfs may have thick hydrogen envelopes which make them cool very slowly (Driebe et al. 1998) and the situation in which the older white dwarf is really observed cannot be excluded a priori. However, as we show in an forthcoming paper (Nelemans et al. 2000), in the majority of binary white dwarfs we indeed observe the youngest of the two dwarfs.

From Figs. 1 and 2 we see that we find a range of $`P_\mathrm{m}`$’s and $`\alpha \lambda `$’s for WD 0957-666, 1101+364 and 0136+768 where the mass of the second white dwarf is known. For the remaining systems we can also compute a range of $`P_\mathrm{m}`$’s and $`\alpha \lambda `$’s by determining the ranges for all possible masses of the unseen companion. We do know that the companion almost certainly is another white dwarf, so the mass of this object must be between 0.2 and 1.4 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and most probably even below 0.65 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Iben et al. 1997; Han 1998; Nelemans et al. 2000). Having also in mind that the mass of white dwarf progenitor is in the 0.8 – 2.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ range we can derive the possible ranges of intermediate periods and $`\alpha \lambda `$’s for all double white dwarfs, as is shown in Figs. 3 and 4.

Two conclusions can be drawn from Figs. 1 to 4:

1. The efficiency of the energy deposition into the common envelopes $`\alpha `$ must be high. From model calculations of stellar structure we know that $`\lambda 0.51.0.`$ If we assume that $`\alpha `$ does not depend on the evolutionary state of the giant or the combination of the masses of the giant and the white dwarf, the parameters of all double white dwarfs with two observed helium components can be reproduced with the same $`\alpha 4`$. The only exception is WD 0957-666 for which the efficiency appears to be much lower (see Sect. 6.2 for a different solution). Note that an error in the masses of the white dwarfs of 0.05 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ translates to an error in the value of $`\alpha \lambda `$ of a factor $``$1.5. However even this does not bring the value of $`\alpha `$ to 4 for WD 0957-666.

Since Eq. (3) only considers a rough energy budget, the conclusion $`\alpha >1`$ could simply mean that we do not calculate the energy accurately. It does mean that the orbital energy deposition into common envelope has to be highly efficient. It could also mean that sources other than the orbital energy contribute to the process of common envelope expulsion (Iben & Livio 1993). E.g. it is possible that the envelope is partially removed before Roche lobe contact by an enhanced stellar wind due to tidal interaction between the giant and the companion (Tout & Eggleton 1988), yielding a lower value of $`\alpha \lambda `$.
2. The immediate progenitors of the known close double white dwarfs (i.e. the white dwarf + giant binaries) all had rather wide orbits (25 – $`>`$500 days). This has important consequences for the understanding of the first phase of mass transfer.

## 4 The first mass transfer

We compute the evolution of the binary parameters in the first mass transfer, where we start from the initial binary and evolve it forward according to the two standard scenario’s. The resulting periods should be equal to the intermediate periods we reconstructed in the previous section.

### 4.1 Spiral-in

In the case when the first mass transfer was also a spiral-in, we can compute the period after the spiral-in by making a (standard) assumption that $`\alpha \lambda `$ is constant (i.e. here, as derived above $`\alpha \lambda =2`$). The initial separation at which the primary fills its Roche lobe is again determined by Eq. (1) and a value for $`M_\mathrm{i}`$ between 0.8 and 2.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. Applying Eq. (3), we find $`a_\mathrm{m}`$ (and thus $`P_\mathrm{m}`$) as a function of $`M_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`m_\mathrm{i}`$. The maximum period after the spiral-in is given for the case $`M_\mathrm{i}=m_\mathrm{i}`$, which we plot in Fig. 5 (bottom three lines). These periods are clearly much smaller than the periods derived in the previous section (see Fig. 1). We reproduce the latter on a logarithmic scale as the top three lines in Fig. 5. In a recent article Sandquist et al. (2000) came to the same conclusion, based on the observed mass ratios and also concluded that it is very hard for binaries containing two low-mass stars to survive two spiral-in phases.

It may be argued that $`\alpha \lambda `$ is different in the first mass transfer phases, because the companion now is a main-sequence star instead of a white dwarf. We can, just as in the case of the second mass transfer determine the value of $`\alpha \lambda `$ that is required to get the right period after the mass transfer. If we do this, however, we find $`15\alpha \lambda 5`$ clearly out of the allowed range. This means that a spiral-in phase in the first mass transfer phase for these systems is ruled out.

### 4.2 Stable mass transfer

For the alternative scenario, to start with a short period zero-age binary and evolve through a phase of stable mass transfer, the zero-age orbital period should be in a narrow interval, such that the primary fills its Roche lobe at the moment it still has a radiative or at least shallow convective envelope. For these stars mass transfer in which the donor stays in thermal equilibrium is possible if the initial mass ratio $`q_\mathrm{i}m_\mathrm{i}/M_\mathrm{i}0.8`$ (Tutukov et al. 1982). For more extreme mass ratio’s; $`q_\mathrm{i}0.3`$, mass transfer can proceed on a timescale in between the thermal and the dynamical timescale of the donor (e.g. trial computations for a system with $`M_\mathrm{i}=2.3\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}},m_\mathrm{i}=0.8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`a_\mathrm{i}=12.8R_{\mathrm{}}`$ show that $`\mathrm{log}\dot{M_\mathrm{i}}5.5\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ yr-1; A. Fedorova, private communication). However for mass ratio’s $`q_\mathrm{i}0.5`$, the thermal timescale of the accretor is much longer than the mass transfer timescale and the accretor is expected to expand, leading to a contact configuration which is unstable (e.g. Kippenhahn & Meyer-Hofmeister 1977), unless the secondary is a convective low-mass main-sequence star (Webbink 1977).

Since we want to explore the limits of the Algol scenario, we allow all values of $`q_\mathrm{i}>0.3`$ and calculate the possible periods after the Algol phase.

We assume the mass transfer is conservative and for a given total mass of the system $`M_{\mathrm{tot}}=M_{\mathrm{wd}}+m_\mathrm{i}^{}`$, the initial masses are $`M_\mathrm{i}=M_{\mathrm{tot}}/(1+q_\mathrm{i})`$ and $`m_\mathrm{i}=q_\mathrm{i}M_\mathrm{i}`$. We consider systems in which the primary fills its Roche lobe just before the star develops a relatively deep convective envelope (the outer 50% of the mass is convective). The radii of such stars are obtained by a fit to stellar models by Mengel et al. (1979): $`R_{\mathrm{max}}2.4M_\mathrm{i}^{1.56}`$ (solar units). Using the approximation to the Roche lobe given by Paczyński (1967) and the equation for the change in period for conservative mass transfer we find the period after the Algol phase is

$$P_\mathrm{m}1.38\frac{M_{\mathrm{tot}}^{7.84}}{(M_{\mathrm{wd}}m_\mathrm{i}^{})^3}\frac{q_\mathrm{i}^3}{(1+q_\mathrm{i})^{7.84}}\text{days.}$$
(4)
This equation has a maximum for $`q_\mathrm{i}=0.62`$. We compute these maximal periods as function of $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}`$, where of course $`M_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`m_\mathrm{i}`$ are limited by $`M_\mathrm{i}>0.8\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, because the primary has to evolve off the main-sequence and $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}<2.3\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, because the secondary must still develop a degenerate helium core.

The resulting periods for $`q=0.62`$ are shown as the middle set of lines in Fig. 5, where we actually used the equation for the Roche lobe given by Eggleton (1983), which is better in this mass ratio regime. The obtained periods are clearly not long enough to explain of the origin of WD 0957-666, 1101+364 and 0136+768.

One could argue that the assumption of conservative evolution is not correct. Han (1998), for example, in his ‘best’ model assumes 50% of the mass is lost with the specific angular momentum of the donor. This could yield wider orbits than obtained above. Looking at his Fig. 7 one sees that he can indeed explain WD 1101+364, but not WD 0957-666 and especially not WD 0136+768, because for these systems the masses of the last formed white dwarfs (i.e. the periods after the Algol phase) are too large. To get higher masses one needs to lose less angular momentum with the mass, leading to even wider orbits. However, analysis of observed low-mass Algols, which are binaries currently in this stage of stable mass exchange (e.g. Refsdal et al. 1974; Massevich & Yungelson 1975; Giannuzzi 1981; Iben & Tutukov 1984; Kraicheva et al. 1986; Maxted & Hilditch 1996) shows that their periods are smaller than would be expected with Eq. (4). This suggests that descendants of Algol-type systems have orbital separations even smaller than in the case of conservative evolution, which we assumed for Fig. 5.

We conclude that with the above assumptions Algol evolution in the first mass transfer stage for WD 0136+768, 0957-66 and 1101+364 is ruled out also.

There are some other observed systems with white dwarfs which probably could not be formed through Algol-type evolution (Table 2), since white dwarf + giant binaries with $`M_{\mathrm{WD}}0.25\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ end their Algol phase with periods below $``$30 d. (Kraicheva et al. 1986). In another system, HD 185510, with $`P_{\mathrm{orb}}`$=20.7 day, a giant has a hot companion which is classified as a 0.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ sdB star from its temperature and gravity (Frasca et al. 1998). However, it also fits the range of temperatures and gravities for $`0.25\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ helium white dwarfs (Driebe et al. 1998) and the system may be a viable Algol descendant. If it is an sdB star, which a priori is less likely, it actually matches a scenario similar to one for WD 0957-666 rather well (see Sect. 6.2).

## 5 Unstable mass transfer revised

Since both standard scenarios for the first phase of mass transfer appear to be ruled out, the situation apparently is more complex. Tout & Eggleton (1988) (see also Han 1998) assume that due to tidal effects of the companion, the star can lose up to 150 times more mass in the stellar wind than without companion. This has of course the desired effect that the orbit widens before the mass transfer starts, and that there is less envelope mass left to be expelled, leading to a less dramatic spiral-in. However, if we recompute the lines for a spiral-in in Fig. 5 with reduced envelopes such that they overlap with the reconstructed lines, we find that for WD 1101+364 we need to reduce the envelope by 70% and for the others by even more than 90%.

In searching for a different solution we start by noting that the original spiral-in picture (Paczyński 1976) considers a companion which orbits inside the envelope of the giant. The companion experiences drag forces while moving in the envelope and frictional effects brake the companion. In this process orbital energy is transformed into heat and motion of the gas and finally into kinetic energy that causes the envelope of the giant to be expelled. This picture is very much based on the situation where there is a tidal instability which causes the decay of the orbit of the companion in systems with a high mass ratios of the components (Darwin 1908; Counselman 1973). In the case that the common envelope is caused by a runaway mass transfer, the common envelope will not look much like the equilibrium envelope of the star and worse, the angular momentum of the orbit is so large that the common envelope is in principle easily brought into co-rotation with the orbit. At that moment there are no drag forces anymore.

Since for stars with deep convective envelopes mass loss on a dynamical time scale seems, in the current state of the art in stellar evolution modelling, inevitable, we have to assume that in the progenitors of the observed double white dwarfs some kind of common envelope engulfing the whole system forms. The parameters of the observed close binary white dwarfs suggest that this envelope is subsequently lost without much spiral-in. The energy to expel the envelope may be supplied by the luminosity of the giant or by tidal heating, or a combination of both. In absence of a detailed physical description we will describe the effects of this mechanism in terms of the angular momentum balance.

We compare the pre- and post-mass transfer binaries, under the assumption that the envelope of the giant is lost completely from the binary (i.e. $`m_\mathrm{i}^{}=m_\mathrm{i}`$), and that this mass loss reduces the angular momentum of the system in a linear way, as first suggested for the general case of non-conservative mass transfer by Paczyński & Ziołkowski (1967)

$$J_\mathrm{i}J_\mathrm{m}=\gamma J_\mathrm{i}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M}{M_{\mathrm{tot}}},$$
(5)
where $`J_\mathrm{i}`$ is the angular momentum of the pre-mass transfer binary and $`M_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is the total mass of the binary. The change of the orbital period as function of the initial and final masses of the components then becomes

$$\frac{P_\mathrm{m}}{P_\mathrm{i}}=\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{WD}}m_\mathrm{i}^{}}{M_\mathrm{i}m_\mathrm{i}}\right)^3(\frac{M_{\mathrm{WD}}+m_\mathrm{i}^{}}{M_\mathrm{i}+m_\mathrm{i}})\left(1\gamma \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M}{M_\mathrm{i}+m_\mathrm{i}}\right)^3.$$
(6)
We can estimate $`\gamma `$ for the three double helium white dwarf systems, just as for the case of $`\alpha \lambda `$. It turns out that all three systems are consistent with a value of $`\gamma `$ between $``$1.4 and $``$1.7 (Fig. 6).

Thus the mass transfer from a giant to a main-sequence star may in general either be stable (in the case where the giant still has a radiative, or at least not too deep convective envelope), unstable, leading to a spiral-in, or a process in which the envelope is lost without much of a spiral-in. Which systems do and which do not experience a spiral-in is related to the mass ratio of the components. As can be seen from Eq. (6) for systems with $`\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }MM_\mathrm{i}(1+q)`$ the periods already become very small and the effect is essentially the same as in the case of a spiral-in.

## 6 Formation of observed systems

From Figs. 2 and 4 it’s clear that WD 0136+768, WD 0957-666 and WD 1101+364 could be formed with $`\alpha \lambda `$ below 0.8. However from Fig. 4 it looks like the extremely short-period system WD 0957-66 falls out of the sample in the sense that the other systems, as well as systems with unobserved companions, are compatible with a value of $`\alpha \lambda 2.`$

### 6.1 Formation of helium white dwarf pairs

In Fig. 7 we show evolutionary scenarios for WD 0136+768 (left) and WD 1101+364 (middle) in which they consist of two helium white dwarfs. We included the effect of stellar winds which was not taken into account in the preceding discussion. Therefore we use slightly different values for $`\gamma `$ (1.75 and 1.85 respectively) than the values derived in Fig. 6. The difference in the initial mass ratio of the components results in dramatically different orbital periods after the envelope of the primary is lost: almost tripling in the first case and decrease by half in the second. As a result, after the second mass transfer episode the second white dwarf is the more massive member of the pair in WD 0136+768 but the less massive in WD 1101+364. The large difference in periods and especially masses after the first phase of mass transfer, results in rather different final orbital periods.

For WD 0957-666 a scenario in which both components are helium white dwarfs can also be constructed but then one has to assume that $`\alpha \lambda `$ is atypically small. However we suggest a different scenario.

### 6.2 An alternative scenario for WD 0957-666: carbon-oxygen white dwarf with helium companion

There is another solution which allows us to explain the origin of WD 0957-666 using $`\alpha \lambda 2`$ and $`\gamma 1.75`$, like for the other two systems.

The mass of the observable white dwarf in WD 0957-666 system allows it to be a hybrid white dwarf (Iben & Tutukov 1985). Such white dwarfs descend from stars with initial mass 2.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ \- 5 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, which fill their Roche lobes in the stage of hydrogen burning in a shell around a non-degenerate helium core, become hot subdwarfs in the core helium-burning stage, but don’t experience envelope expansion after the formation of a degenerate carbon-oxygen core. Their masses are between 0.33 and 0.8 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. The formation of hybrid white dwarfs was considered in the study of the population of white dwarfs by Tutukov & Yungelson (1993, see their scenario 3) and all their following studies.

In a scenario shown in Fig. 7 (right) we start with a system of 2.4 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and 2.0 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ in a relatively close orbit $`(a_037R_{\mathrm{}})`$. At the instant of Roche lobe overflow the primary has a deep convective envelope and we apply Eq. (6) to compute the change in the orbital period. The primary becomes a compact helium star. A peculiarity of low-mass helium stars is their long life time, $`1.1\times 10^7M^{3.75}`$ yr for $`0.33M/\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}0.7`$ (Pols et al. 1991), comparable to the lifetime of their main-sequence progenitors. As a consequence, the initially slightly less massive secondary fills its Roche lobe and becomes a helium white dwarf while the former primary still burns helium in its core. For some 250 Myr the system could be observed as a hot subdwarf with a companion unseen due to the difference in luminosities. After core helium exhaustion the subdwarf cools and becomes a “hybrid” white dwarf. Moran et al. (1997) estimate from its $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ that the cooling age of this white dwarf is only $`10^7`$ yr and that the ratio of the luminosities of components is close to 5. This is compatible with the age of about 250 Myr expected in our scenario for the 0.31 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ companion.

## 7 Conclusion

We followed the binary evolution for three double helium white dwarfs backwards and came to the following conclusions.

1. The last phase of mass transfer (the primary has already become a white dwarf and the secondary fills its Roche lobe) was a spiral-in, for which we can constrain $`\alpha `$, which describes the efficiency of orbital energy deposition into the common envelope, to lie between 1 and 6, assuming a structure parameter $`\lambda =0.5`$. This efficiency value may be an overestimate since $`\lambda `$ may increase towards 1 at the end of the first red giant stage. Our result is in agreement with values of $`\alpha 4`$ found in population synthesis studies of low-mass X-ray binaries (Tauris 1996), double neutron stars (Portegies Zwart & Yungelson 1998) and double white dwarfs (Nelemans et al. 2000).
2. The parameters of all observed double helium white dwarfs may be reproduced with the same $`\alpha \lambda 2`$.
3. WD 0957-666 is the only system for which $`\alpha \lambda `$ appears to be lower if both components are helium dwarfs. However, this system might have been formed with $`\alpha \lambda 2`$ if the immediate precursor of the currently observed white dwarf was a non-degenerate helium star and now it is a hybrid white dwarf.
4. In order to explain the relatively high masses of the observed white dwarfs in close pairs, their direct progenitors (i.e. white dwarf + giant binaries) must have had relatively wide orbits (between 25 and $`>`$500 days). The standard cases of mass transfer (Algol evolution and spiral-in) applied to the first phase of mass transfer, can not explain these intermediate wide orbits. Only if the masses of the observed white dwarfs are (much) lower than the current estimates (i.e. below 0.3 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$) they could be formed through a phase of stable mass transfer.
5. We suggest that in the first mass transfer phase for low-mass binaries with similar masses of the two stars, most of the mass of the envelope of the evolved star is lost without a significant spiral-in. This suggestion is supported by the fact that the original reasoning for spiral-in (drag forces in the envelope) is not applicable here, because the envelope can easily been spun up to corotate with the binary.

In the absence of a physical picture for the removal of the envelope, we introduce a simple parameter $`\gamma =(\mathrm{\Delta }J/\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{tot}})(M_{\mathrm{tot}}/J)`$ to describe the loss of the angular momentum of the system as in the early work of Paczyński & Ziołkowski (1967). Our analysis of the observed parameters for all observed double helium white dwarfs shows that the material of the envelope of the giant is expelled with 1.4 to 1.7 times the specific angular momentum of the initial binary. The details of this kind of mass transfer should be investigated using 3D gas-dynamical calculations, which are becoming available (e.g. Bisikalo et al. 1998), but are not yet accurate enough to make predictions.
6. With some well-constrained assumptions for the masses of the unseen companions in the other 8 double white dwarfs, we find similar results as for the double white dwarfs with two helium components.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are indebted to A. Fedorova for making some trial computations of stellar evolution upon our request and to the referee for very useful remarks. LRY acknowledges warm hospitality of the Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”. This work was supported by NWO Spinoza grant 08-0 to E. P. J. van den Heuvel, RFBR grant 99-02-16037, Russian Federal Program ‘Astronomy’ and by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01112.01-98A awarded (to SPZ) by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555.


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# Chiral Extrapolation, Renormalization, and the Viability of the Quark Model

## Abstract

The relationship of the quark model to the known chiral properties of QCD is a longstanding problem in the interpretation of low energy QCD. In particular, how can the pion be viewed as both a collective Goldstone boson quasiparticle and as a valence quark antiquark bound state where universal hyperfine interactions govern spin splittings in the same way as in the heavy quark systems. We address this issue in a simplified model which; however, reproduces all features of QCD relevant to this problem. A comparison of the many-body solution to our model and the constituent quark model demonstrates that the quark model is sufficiently flexible to describe meson hyperfine splitting provided proper renormalization conditions and correct degrees of freedom are employed consistently.

One of the fundamental symmetries of the strong interaction is chiral symmetry ($`\chi S`$). This symmetry arises because the bare masses of the light $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are small with respect to hadronic scales (or, $`m_{u,d}<<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$). The nonzero quark masses imply that chiral symmetry is explicitly broken. Chiral symmetry is also broken spontaneously by the QCD vacuum. This fact is represented by the nonzero value of the quark condensate which plays the role of an order parameter.

The phenomena associated with chiral symmetry breaking, for example the spectral properties of quarks in the dressed vacuum or the formation of Goldstone modes, are among the most important and most extensively studied aspects of strong QCD. As a consequence of chiral symmetry, the axial current is (partially) conserved and the interactions of low momentum pions with hadrons are weak. This forms the basis of chiral perturbation theory and, more generally, enables one to formulate an effective approach to low energy QCD with dynamics being dominated by weakly interacting Goldstone bosons and nucleons . At high temperatures or densities the chiral invariance of the QCD vacuum is expected to be restored. The thermodynamics of this phenomenon plays an important role in determining signatures of the quark–gluon plasma in relativistic heavy ion collisions . Finally, $`\chi S`$ is also relevant for lattice gauge simulations. In particular, chiral symmetry predicts a highly nonlinear dependence of a number of observables on the light quark mass. Since current lattice QCD simulations are limited to light quarks with masses of the order of $`200\text{ MeV}`$ the interpretation of lattice results requires input from chiral symmetry-based phenomenology. It is clear that chiral symmetry plays a central role in determining the structure and interactions of low energy hadrons .

The constituent quark model (CQM) has historically developed in parallel with chiral theory and has been extensively used as a simple alternative for the study of hadronic phenomenology. Even though it is loosely connected to QCD, the quark model has had a large number of remarkable successes . The CQM is based on the idea that strong interactions lead to massive quasiparticles (constituent quarks) and that hadronic structure is dominated by the interactions between valence constituent quarks. One argues that constituent quarks are the effective degrees of freedom arising after dynamical $`\chi S`$ breaking due to bare quark interactions with the quark sea in the chiral noninvariant vacuum . In the CQM, however, properties of the constituent quarks, e.g. masses and magnetic moments, are treated as free parameters making the approach effectively insensitive to the underlying chiral structure of QCD. This implies, in particular, that CQM pions lose their nature as Goldstone bosons and are not much different from, say, $`\rho `$ mesons. The mass splitting between the pion (a spin-0 constituent $`Q\overline{Q}`$ state) and the $`\rho `$ meson (a spin-1 state) is attributed to a residual hyperfine interaction. The hyperfine interaction is typically associated with the nonrelativistic reduction of single gluon exchange between constituent quarks and yields a vector–pseudoscalar splitting proportional to $`\alpha _s/(m_qm_{\overline{q}})`$.

Since the notion of gluon exchange is intrinsically perturbative, it is likely a useful concept in heavy quark systems where the large quark mass guarantees its applicability. However its relevance to the light quark sector is unclear. Indeed, one may expect that the $`\pi `$-$`\rho `$ mass splitting is largely driven by the underlying $`\chi S`$ rather than by the hyperfine interaction. It is therefore surprising that when the splitting between the flavored quark-antiquark vector and pseudoscalar mesons is plotted against the mass of one of the constituent quarks (the other constituent quark mass is held fixed), it does indeed behave like $`1/m_{con}`$ typical to a hyperfine interaction all the way down to the light quark sector . This is shown by the squares in Fig. 1. The definition of the CQM masses depends on details of the model, here we use typical values $`m_u=m_d=330`$ MeV, $`m_s=550`$ MeV, $`m_c=1600`$ MeV, and $`m_b=4980`$ MeV.

The question we address here is whether the apparent universality of the effective interactions of the constituent quark model is consistent with the dictates of chiral symmetry in the light meson sector. To address this issue it is natural to work within the framework of Hamiltonian Coulomb gauge QCD. This enables us to map the degrees of freedom and the global symmetries of QCD to those of the constituent quark model and thus effectively “derive” the quark model from QCD. The Coulomb gauge QCD Hamiltonian can be formally written as  $`H=H_{can}(\mathrm{\Lambda })+\delta H(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Here the first term is the canonical Hamiltonian which contains the Coulomb interaction $`H_{Coulomb}`$ regularized at a scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is necessary since products of field operators at the same point lead to divergences. Modifying the structure of the canonical Hamiltonian by the cutoff requires counterterms, $`\delta H`$ which are to be adjusted so that physical observables are $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-independent. We note that in the chiral limit $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the only scale in the Hamiltonian and that light meson masses will therefore be proportional to the cutoff.

Even though one can in principle choose an arbitrary value for the cutoff, there is typically an optimal choice, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$ which depends on the basis and approximation scheme used to diagonalize the Hamiltonian. Loosely speaking, as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ increases beyond $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$, the strength of the various interaction terms decrease but at the same time the available phase space for partons to interact increases. On the other hand, for small cutoffs the phase space decreases but the remaining Fock sectors interact strongly, making it difficult to determine the effective degrees of freedom. Since our goal is to understand the quark model from QCD, we choose $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$ to match to the quark model. The quark model scale is the scale where all QCD dynamics are given in terms of effective interactions between valence constituent quarks (that is if the quark model is to be a rigorous consequence of QCD). Thus, in particular, since soft gluons are not present in the Fock space at the quark model scale there are no contributions to hyperfine interactions from soft gluon intermediate states.

We now examine the appropriate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$ for heavy-heavy and heavy-light systems. Since the heavy-heavy case is analogous to Coulombic bound states, it is natural to choose $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$ so that it scales with $`m_Rm(\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)`$ – the heavy quark mass renormalized at the scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$. This constrains the average momenta of heavy quarks to lie below $`m_R`$. Furthermore, since interactions between heavy quarks and transverse gluons vanish in the nonrelativistic limit, gluons and heavy quarks decouple and the dominant interaction between heavy quarks is due to the nonabelian instantaneous Coulomb potential. As discussed in detail in Ref. , in nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) the proper scaling of the quark-gluon interaction is obtained if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R=\alpha _Rm_R`$ where $`\alpha _R=\alpha (\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)=p/m_R`$. Here $`p`$ denotes the typical momentum of a heavy quark in the bound state. The scaling $`p\alpha _Rm_R`$ and $`E2m_R\alpha _R^2m_R`$ for average momenta and energies is typical for a Coulombic bound state.

We now consider the heavy-light case. In this case the dynamics of the “brown muck” of gluons and light quarks is still subject to the full complexity of nonperturbative strong interactions. A heavy-light quark system with a single heavy quark is no longer Coulombic and thus the average separation between the quarks increases causing them to probe the long range confinement potential. Quark model phenomenology dictates that this potential be linear. Thus the relevant quantities are the scales of the linear potential $`b`$ and the kinetic energy, which is characterized by the reduced mass $`\mu `$. Dimensional analysis then indicates that the average momenta in the bound state scale as $`p=(b\mu )^{1/3}`$. Since the reduced mass is very nearly equal to the light constituent quark mass, and this mass and $`\sqrt{b}`$ are of the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, we simply use $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R=p\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ for the heavy-light case.

Proper determination of the renormalization scale is the first step toward “derivation” of the quark model from QCD. The second, is to implement dynamical chiral symmetry breaking which will generate masses for the light bare quarks thereby creating the constituent quarks of the CQM. The constituent Fock space then provides an efficient basis for diagonalizing the Hamiltonian.

In this letter we do not aim at a rigorous derivation of the meson spectrum. Our goal is to illustrate how the two steps discussed above enable one to derive the constituent quark picture while maintaining correct chiral properties. We will therefore approximate $`H`$ and use a simple contact interaction instead of the full nonabelian Coulomb kernel. This is sufficient as long as the interaction causes the typical momenta in the bound state to scale as $`p=\alpha _Rm_R`$ for heavy-heavy and $`p=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ for heavy-light mesons.

$$H_{Coulomb}H_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })=\frac{c_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}𝑑𝐱\left[\psi ^{}(𝐱)𝐓\psi (𝐱)\psi ^{}(𝐱)𝐓\psi (𝐱)\right]_\mathrm{\Lambda }$$
(1)
Here the subscript $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ indicates that the operators are to be point-split or smeared over a distance $`1/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`c_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ is the coupling which replaces $`\alpha (\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. The counterterms $`\delta H`$ contain relevant, marginal, and irrelevant operators. In the chiral limit, chiral symmetry prevents the occurrence of a relevant operator in the quark sector. For finite quark masses, the relevant operator is absorbed into the definition of the bare quark mass. The effect of transverse gluons eliminated by the cutoff show up through contact operators of dimension six or greater. There are a number of such terms; to illustrate the effect of hyperfine interactions we consider the dominant spin-dependent term,

$$H_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })=\frac{c_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}𝑑𝐱\left[\psi ^{}(𝐱)𝐓𝜶\psi (𝐱)\psi ^{}(𝐱)𝐓𝜶\psi (𝐱)\right]_\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(2)
where $`c_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ is proportional $`\alpha (\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Thus the full model Hamiltonian is given by $`H=\psi ^{}[i\alpha +\beta m(\mathrm{\Lambda })]\psi +H_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })+H_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$.

As stated above, generating spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking is crucial to examining the interplay of the hyperfine interaction and the Goldstone boson nature of the pion. As a result, we employ the BCS ansatz to construct an approximation to the chirally noninvariant vacuum. For the above Hamiltonian this leads to the following mass gap equation which determines the effective constituent quark mass

$$m_{con}=m(\mathrm{\Lambda })+\frac{m_{con}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\left(\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })\stackrel{~}{c}_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })\right)^\mathrm{\Lambda }q^2𝑑q\frac{1}{\sqrt{m_{con}^2+𝐪^2}},$$
(3)
where $`\stackrel{~}{c}_c=C_Fc_c/2\pi ^2`$, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_h=3C_Fc_h/2\pi ^2`$, and the single quasiparticle energies are given by $`E(𝐪)=\sqrt{m_{con}^2+𝐪^2}`$. These resemble energies of the constituent quarks if $`m_{con}300\text{ MeV}`$ for the light quarks.

We wish to carefully distinguish the three types of quark masses which have appeared. They are the bare cutoff-dependent quark mass, $`m(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ which is defined as the parameter appearing in the mass term of the canonical Hamiltonian, the renormalized quark mass, $`m_R`$, given by $`m(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)`$, and the constituent quark mass, $`m_{con}`$, which is the nonperturbative mass obtained by solving the gap equation. The cutoff dependence of the gap equation and $`m_{con}`$ are discussed later.

The RPA or Bethe-Salpeter equation for the meson bound state, $`M`$, is then given by

$$M|[H,Q_M^{}]|BCS=(E_ME_{BCS})M|Q^{}|BCS,$$
(4)
where $`Q_M^{}`$ is defined in a standard way in terms of the positive and negative energy wave functions, $`Q_M^{}=_{\alpha \beta }\left[\psi _{\alpha \beta }^+B_\alpha ^{}D_\beta ^{}\psi _{\alpha \beta }^{}D_\beta B_\alpha \right]`$ with $`B`$ and $`D`$ being the quasiparticle operators. In the simple approximation to $`H`$ used here, Eq. (4) is an algebraic equation for the bound state masses $`E_M=E_M(\mathrm{\Lambda },m(\mathrm{\Lambda }),\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda }),\stackrel{~}{c}_h(\mathrm{\Lambda }))`$. Requiring the $`E_M`$ to be $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-independent is used to determine the cutoff dependence of the couplings.

In the following we will concentrate on the pseudoscalar (ps) and vector (v) open flavor mesons. As discussed above, in the case of unequal quark masses, the renormalization constant should be fixed at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. Here we use the numerical value 420 MeV because this corresponds to $`\sqrt{b}`$. The average, renormalized light quark mass, $`m_Rm(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)`$ is set to $`5\text{ MeV}`$, and the two renormalized couplings $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{R,c,h}\stackrel{~}{c}_{c,h}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)`$ are determined by fitting the $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ meson masses, $`E_{\pi ,\rho }=E_{\pi ,\rho }(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R,m_R,\stackrel{~}{c}_{R,c},\stackrel{~}{c}_{R,h})`$.

Solving the gap equation yields a light constituent quark mass of $`380\text{ MeV}`$. For a heavy-light meson, the solid line in Fig. 1 shows the dependence of the hyperfine mass splitting $`M_{hfs}E_vE_{ps}`$ as a function of the renormalized heavy quark mass $`m_Q=m_R`$ with the renormalized light quark mass fixed at $`5\text{ MeV}`$. As $`m_Q`$ increases the splitting falls off as $`1/m_Q`$, however, as the heavy quark mass approaches the light quark limit the slope changes, reflecting the emergence of chiral symmetry: $`E_{ps}m_Q^{1/2}`$. Our predictions reproduce the lattice results (triangles in Fig. 1) available for large quark masses. The lattice results are given for $`M_{hfs}a`$ as a function of $`m_Ra`$ where $`a`$ is the lattice spacing. Lattice calculations match our results if one takes $`a^1=1.45\text{ GeV}`$ which is very close to that of Ref. . It is nontrivial that our predictions match the lattice over a large range of quark masses since the coupling constants were fixed in the chiral limit. We have fit the ansatz $`M_{hfs}=a+b\sqrt{m_R+d}+cm_R`$ to the data of Fig. 1. This ansatz has been employed in Ref.  to fit their lattice data and was found to be accurate for low quark masses. We similarly find it to be a very accurate representation of the mass splitting up to a quark mass of roughly 1 GeV.

The dashed-dotted line corresponds to the mass splitting when the hyperfine interaction is set to zero and the strength of the confining term is increased so that the light constituent quark mass remains unchanged. It follows that even in the chiral limit roughly $`80\%`$ of the $`\pi \rho `$ mass splitting is due to the presence of the hyperfine interaction. This ratio is $`92\%`$ and $`99\%`$ for $`K^{}K`$ and $`D^{}D`$ respectively. We stress that the numerical value of this ratio depends on the details of the confining interaction. It is possible, for example, to obtain the correct $`\pi \rho `$ mass splitting without a hyperfine interaction by adjusting the strength of the confining potential. The large $`m_Q`$ behavior of the vector-pseudoscalar mass difference would however not be properly described, ie., it would decrease with $`m_Q`$ more rapidly than $`1/m_Q`$. In this case it also found that the confining interaction alone leads to predictions for the quark condensate and pion decay constant which are too small. For example, typical predictions for the condensate are roughly -(95 MeV)3; which should be compared with the phenomenological value of -(250 MeV)3. In this model we obtain $`\overline{q}q(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)=(200\text{ MeV})^3`$. The improvement is due to the hyperfine term, which has not been accounted for in previous calculations.

We now examine whether it is possible for the quark model to mimic the chiral behavior of the hyperfine splitting shown in Fig. 1. Our hypothesis is that the freedom to define quark masses in the quark model is sufficient to reproduce the splitting. We address this by plotting the hyperfine splitting as a function of the constituent quark mass derived from Eq. 3 (this is shown as a dashed line in Fig. 1). The curve reproduces the observed splitting for $`\rho \pi `$, $`K^{}K`$, $`D^{}D`$ and $`B^{}B`$, shown as squares in the figure. We conclude that it is possible for a CQM to mimic the effects of chiral symmetry breaking. This is true because chiral symmetry breaking creates massive quasiparticles which may be used as effective degrees of freedom in model building. Furthermore, the hyperfine $`1/m_Q`$ behavior which is valid for heavy quarks continues to be valid for lighter constituent quarks.

We emphasize that the solid line in Fig. 1 is a prediction which may be compared with lattice data (triangles). The only adjustable parameters, the two renormalized potential strengths, are fixed by the pion and rho masses when using $`5\text{ MeV}`$ for the renormalized light quark mass.

We now consider hyperfine splittings in quarkonium systems as a function of the quark mass. In order to effectively mimic a Coulombic bound state for large $`m_R`$ and a confined state for small $`m_R`$ the renormalization scale is set to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R=\stackrel{~}{c}_Rm_R+(m_Rb)^{1/3}+b^{1/2}`$. In contrast with the heavy-light open flavor system, the hyperfine splitting does not vanish with increasing heavy quark mass $`m_R`$ but becomes proportional to $`\stackrel{~}{c}_R^4m_R`$, as expected for a Coulombic system. We also considered the case where the renormalization scale corresponds to purely “confined” systems, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R=(m_Rb)^{1/3}+b^{1/2}`$. This leads to $`M_{hfs}\mathrm{\Lambda }_R^2/m_Rm_R^{1/3}`$, a behavior which is different from that expected in the constituent quark model (where $`M_{hfs}\mathrm{\Lambda }_R^3/m_R^2m_R^1`$). The difference can be traced to the presence of negative energy solutions in the RPA equation. Elimination of the negative energy solutions leads to an effective hyperfine interaction which is proportional to $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{R,h}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_R^2/m_R`$, while $`H_h`$ alone leads to $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{R,h}\mathrm{\Lambda }_R^3/m_R^2`$. Thus it is clear that correctly choosing the renormalization scale is crucial to establishing contact with quark model phenomenology.

We conclude with a discussion of the renormalization procedure. In the simple model studied here there are three renormalization scale-dependent quantities: $`m(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_h(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. We have used the pseudoscalar and vector meson masses to determine the (nonperturbative) renormalization scale dependence of these parameters. The third renormalization condition is obtained by fixing $`m_{con}`$ (or alternatively $`m(\mathrm{\Lambda }_R)`$ as done above for the light quarks) and by taking $`m_{con}`$ to be $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-independent. For large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/\mathrm{\Lambda }_R`$ Eq. (3) implies that the bare quark mass behaves as $`m(\mathrm{\Lambda })m_{con}^3\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }/m_{con})/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. Furthermore, at large cutoff the couplings saturate to constants. Thus asymptotic freedom is not recovered in our model. This is because the contact central interaction leads to matrix elements of order $`\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. In contrast, the full nonabelian Coulomb potential yields matrix elements of order $`\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Asymptotic freedom is obtained because renormalization then requires that $`\stackrel{~}{c}_c(\mathrm{\Lambda })1/\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ for large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Instead of choosing $`m_{con}`$ to be a physical parameter one may use the condition $`d[m(\mathrm{\Lambda })\overline{q}q(\mathrm{\Lambda })]/d\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. This leads to a running constituent mass $`m_{con}=m_{con}(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ which vanishes for large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

The use of the contact interaction rather than the full Coulomb interaction leads to several other differences in phenomenology. For example, the constituent quark mass becomes a function of the quasiparticle momentum when the Coulomb potential is employed. Single particle energies are enhanced (even divergent) due to the confining nature of the nonabelian Coulomb potential. Thus, in a realistic calculation one cannot use the constituent quark energy (or constituent mass) to constrain parameters of the interaction. Instead one may, for example, use the condition on the quark condensate given above. Finally, the contact interaction leads to a single bound state per channel which certainly precludes analysis of the corresponding quark model excited states. While all of these points affect details of our computation, they do not change the main conclusion.

Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking causes a pseudoscalar-vector meson mass splitting, but the hyperfine interaction is required to obtain the necessary $`1/m_Q`$ behavior for both heavy and light constituent quark masses. The interaction between the constituent quarks need not retain a memory of the underlying chiral symmetry and is described well by an effective hyperfine interaction. Thus Fig. 1 represents a direct validation of the main assumption of the naive quark model.

We have shown how quark model phenomenology may be derived from a simple model of QCD. Elimination of high momentum components from quark-transverse-gluon coupling leads to short range hyperfine interactions. By choosing a renormalization scale which matches the quark model we neglect contributions from long range interactions (due to the exchange of low energy gluons) to the hyperfine interaction – as is consistent with the quark model. Then, studying the quark mass dependence of the pseudoscalar-vector mass splitting we are able to show that interactions between constituent quarks derived from QCD indeed follow that of the naive quark model while respecting chiral symmetry. As a result we have shown how the heavy quark mass limit extrapolates to the chiral limit and have illustrated the interplay between hyperfine interactions and chiral dynamics. The potential of utilizing standard many-body techniques in applications to QCD in the Coulomb gauge has been discussed by the authors and many others ; however, neither the role of renormalization in constructing the Hamiltonian and building the constituent quark representation nor a QCD-based demonstration of the applicability of the effective quark model interactions to both heavy and light quarks has been addressed in this context before. Even though the analysis presented here has used a simplified central potential, the key results are independent of this choice. This is because the simplified model captures all features (i.e., the presence of hyperfine interactions, correct momentum scales and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking) of QCD which are relevant. A study employing the full nonabelian potential will be presented elsewhere.

The authors would like to acknowledge Nathan Isgur and Anthony Thomas for many useful discussions. This work was supported in part by DOE under contracts DE-FG02-00ER41135, DE-AC05-84ER40150 (ES), and DE-FG02-87ER40365 (AS).


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# QCD ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURE FUNCTIONS OF REAL AND VIRTUAL PHOTONS11footnote 1Talk given at the DIS-2000 conference, Liverpool, 25-30 April 2000

## 1 Introduction

The hadronic structure of real and virtual photons can be measured in electron positron scattering processes in which one lepton serves as a source of target photons with virtuality $`P^2<<Q^2`$ where $`Q^2`$ is the virtuality of the probing photon. The measured $`e^+e^{}`$ cross section can then be obtained by a convolution of a flux of target photons with the deep inelastic electron (positron) photon scattering cross section which is (completely analogous to the case of deep inelastic electron proton scattering) described by two structure functions $`F_{2,L}`$. In the QCD impproved parton model the photon structure functions $`F_{2,L}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2)`$ are given by a convolution of non-perturbative parton densities of the (real or virtual) photon with appropriate perturbatively calculable short distance coefficient functions. The photonic parton distributions are governed by inhomogenous evolution equations which have to be supplemented with appropriate boundary conditions.

Here we briefly describe recently proposed parameter–free leading order (LO) and next–to–leading order (NLO) boundary conditions for real and virtual photons .

## 2 Boundary Conditions

The boundary conditions are given in the DISγ scheme at a low resolution scale $`Q_0^20.3`$ GeV2. The exact LO and NLO values of the universal (i. e. hadron–independent) input scale $`Q_0`$ are fixed by the experimentally well constrained radiative parton densities of the proton .

### 2.1 Real Photon

The boundary conditions for the real photon  are given by a vector meson dominance (VMD) ansatz where (at the low scale $`Q_0`$) the physical photon is assumed to be a coherent superposition of vector mesons which have the same quantum numbers as the photon

$$f^\gamma (x,Q_0^2)=f_{had}^\gamma (x,Q_0^2)=\alpha G_f^2f^{\pi ^0}(x,Q_0^2)$$
(1)
with $`G_{u,d}^2=(g_\rho \pm g_\omega )^2`$ and $`G_g^2=G_s^2=g_\rho ^2+g_\omega ^2`$ ($`g_\rho ^2=0.50`$, $`g_\omega ^2=0.043`$). This optimal coherence maximally enhances the up quark which is favoured by the experimental data.

Since parton distributions of vector mesons ($`\rho ,\omega `$,…) are experimentally undetermined, we furthermore assume that these are similar to pionic parton distributions. Thus, for given pionic parton distributions our model has no free parameter.

### 2.2 Pion

Since only the pionic valence density is experimentally rather well known, we utilize a constituent quark model  to relate the pionic light sea and gluon to the much better known parton distributions of the proton . In Mellin-$`n`$-space one easily finds the following boundary conditions for the pion distribution functions

$$g^\pi (n,Q_0^2)=\frac{v^\pi }{v^p}g^p,\overline{q}^\pi (n,Q_0^2)=\frac{v^\pi }{v^p}\overline{q}^p,$$
(2)
which only depend on the rather well determined valence distribution of the pion and the parton distributions of the proton.

### 2.3 Virtual Photon

In the virtual photon case we propose the following boundary conditions which of course smoothly extrapolate to the real photon case ($`P^20`$) :

$$f^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,Q^2=\stackrel{~}{P}^2)=f_{\mathrm{had}}^{\gamma (P^2)}(x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2)=\eta (P^2)f_{\mathrm{had}}^\gamma (x,\stackrel{~}{P}^2).$$
(3)
The employed dipole suppression factor (rho-meson propagator) $`\eta (P^2)=(1+P^2/m_\rho ^2)^2`$ is somewhat speculative and can be regarded as the simplest choice of modelling the $`P^2`$–suppression.

## 3 Numerical results

The presented model successfully describes LEP data on the photon structure function $`F_2^\gamma `$ and H1 dijet data. For details see Ref.  and references therein. As an example, in Fig. 1 the evolution of $`F_2`$ with $`Q^2`$ is shown for two different $`x`$-bins. Also shown are the GRVγ predictions . For $`0.1<x<0.6`$ all curves are close together because this $`x`$-range is already dominated by the point-like solution, whereas for $`0.01<x<0.1`$ our results are larger at small values of $`Q^2`$ and evolve weaklier with $`Q^2`$ due to the different boundary conditions.

## Acknowledgments

Supported in part by the Graduiertenkolleg ’Erzeugung und Zerfälle von Elementarteilchen’ of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the Universität Dortmund and by the Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn.

## References


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# Enhanced Event-by-Event Fluctuations in Pion Multiplicity as a Signal of Disoriented Chiral Condensates at RHIC

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Physics Division of the U.S. Department of Energy, under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098 and it used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at LBNL (NERSC). One of us (M.B.) acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation as a Feodor Lynen Fellow.

LBNL-46102: Physical Review C (Rapid Communication)


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# Mixed quark-nucleon phase in neutron stars and nuclear symmetry energy

## I Introduction

Recently, Glendenning  has shown that a proper construction of the nucleon-quark phase transition inside neutron stars implies the coexistence of nucleon matter and quark matter over a finite range of pressure. This has the effect that a core, or a spherical shell, of a mixed quark-nucleon phase can exist inside neutron stars. The fraction of space occupied by quark matter smoothly increases from zero at the core boundary, which corresponds to a critical pressure for the first quark droplets to form in the neutron star matter, to unity when eventually the last nucleons dissolve into quarks. Heiselberg et al.  included surface and Coulomb effects also in the mixed phase construction and concluded that the mixed phase remains the ground state of the neutron star matter for a physically reasonable range of surface tension.

In the original construction due to Glendenning, nucleon matter was treated in the relativistic mean field (RMF) model. The nuclear symmetry energy in the RMF model increases monotonically with the baryon number density . This is in contrast to several variational many-body (VMB) calculations of the equation of state (EOS) of nuclear matter , which predict the symmetry energy to saturate and then to decrease at high densities. The aim of this paper is to study how sensitive the formation of a mixed quark-nucleon phase in neutron stars is to the high density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy.

It was suggested in Ref.  that the isospin properties of the RMF model are responsible for the existence of the mixed quark-nucleon phase. We show here that it is the behavior of nucleon matter isobars that allows the existence of the mixed phase, irrespective of the particular form of the nuclear symmetry energy.

One should stress that different nuclear matter models, which fit the saturation point, display a rather diverse high density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy. As mentioned already, variational calculations with phenomenological nucleon-nucleon potentials predict a density dependence that is incompatible with that of the RMF models. This discrepancy leads to serious uncertainty about some astrophysically relevant properties of the neutron star matter. Here we study the consequences of this uncertainty for the nucleon-quark phase transition in neutron star cores.

## II Quark matter in neutron stars

Glendenning’s construction describes a global division of the baryon number between two phases. It is insensitive to the geometrical form of the volume enclosing, respectively, nucleons and quarks. To account for the shape and size of droplets of each phase, one should include the surface tension at the interface between the nucleon matter and the quark matter, the Coulomb interaction, and the Debye screening. Inclusion of these effects results in some corrections to the equation of state, which do not alter considerably the results of this simple approach. We discuss finite-size effects in Sec. VI where both the Coulomb interaction and the surface tension are included in the calculations.

The equilibrium conditions, in the case where the geometry of droplets is neglected, are those for bulk systems. The neutron star matter is assumed to be $`\beta `$ stable and charge neutral. Thermal effects are not expected to play any important role in neutron star cores. We neglect them and put the temperature $`T=0`$.

The equilibrium conditions for the quark matter droplet to coexist with the nucleon medium are that pressure and chemical potentials in both phases coincide. We choose pressure as an independent variable. The coexistence requires that

$$\mu _N^n(p)=\mu _N^q(p)$$
(1)
and

$$\mu _P^n(p)=\mu _P^q(p),$$
(2)
where $`\mu _N^n`$ and $`\mu _N^q`$ are the neutron chemical potentials in the nucleon and the quark phase, respectively. Similarly, $`\mu _P^n`$ and $`\mu _P^q`$ are the proton chemical potentials in respective phases. To solve the above coexistence conditions we construct isobars for both phases of baryon matter.

The $`\beta `$-equilibrium condition reads

$$\mu _N^i\mu _P^i=\mu _e,i=n,q,$$
(3)
where $`\mu _e`$ is the electron chemical potential, and $`n`$ and $`q`$ refer to the nucleon and the quark phases, respectively. It turns out that muons can safely be neglected as the electron chemical potential remains low. We assume that the electron distribution is uniform. In this case, neglecting the electron rest mass,

$$\mu _e=(3\pi ^2n_e)^{1/3},$$
(4)
where $`n_e`$ is the electron density.

Solutions of Eqs. (1) - (3) provide the densities of both baryon phases $`n_P`$ and $`n_q`$, where $`n_P`$ is the proton density and $`n_q`$ is the electric charge density of quarks in units of $`e`$. The global charge neutrality condition requires that

$$Vn_e=V_nn_P+V_qn_q,$$
(5)
where $`V_n`$ is the volume occupied by nucleons and $`V_q`$ is the volume of quarks. Since $`V_n+V_q=V`$, the total available volume, we can define a quantity $`\alpha =V_n/V`$, which is the fraction of space containing nucleons. The quarks occupy a complementary fraction, $`1\alpha `$, of the volume. From Eq. (5) we obtain $`\alpha `$ in the form

$$\alpha =\frac{n_en_q}{n_Pn_q}.$$
(6)
At a sufficiently low pressure we expect $`\alpha =1`$, as free quarks are absent in the neutron star matter. The first quark droplets form at some pressure $`p_i`$, which we refer to as the lower critical pressure. It corresponds to $`\alpha `$ starting to deviate from unity for the first time. With increasing pressure, more space is filled with the quark matter and $`\alpha <1`$. Nucleons disappear at the upper critical pressure $`p_f`$, with $`\alpha (p_f)=0`$. For pressure in the range $`p_i<p<p_f`$, nucleon matter coexists with quark matter.

The lower and upper critical pressure values $`p_i`$ and $`p_f`$ depend on both the nucleon matter EOS and the model of the quark matter. In the next section we specify the quantities used in our calculations of properties of the mixed phase.

## III The nuclear symmetry energy at high densities

Following Ref. , we adopt a simple parametrization of the nuclear matter EOS. As shown in Ref. , the results of variational many-body calculations with phenomenological nucleon-nucleon potentials can be simply parametrized as a function of the baryon number density and the proton fraction. The energy per particle can be expressed as

$$E(n,x)=T(n,x)+V_0(n)+(12x)^2V_2(n),$$
(7)
where $`n`$ is the baryon number density and $`x=n_P/n`$ is the proton fraction. The kinetic energy contribution is

$$T(n,x)=\frac{3}{5}\frac{1}{2m}(3\pi ^2n)^{2/3}[(1x)^{5/3}+x^{5/3}].$$
(8)
The functions $`V_0(n)`$ and $`V_2(n)`$ represent the interaction energy contributions. The form (7) of the energy per particle is a very good approximation of the numerical calculations as far as the $`x`$ dependence is concerned .

From Eq. (7) we obtain the pressure and chemical potentials of neutrons and protons. The pressure is

$$p=\frac{2}{5}\frac{1}{2m}(3\pi ^2n)^{2/3}n[(1x)^{5/3}+x^{5/3}]+n^2V_0^{}(n)+(12x)^2n^2V_2^{}(n).$$
(9)
The chemical potentials read

$`\mu _N^n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m}}(3\pi ^2n)^{2/3}[(1x)^{5/3}+x(1x)^{2/3}]+V_0(n)+nV_0^{}(n)`$ (11)
$`+(14x^2)V_2(n)+(12x)^2nV_2^{}(n)+m,`$
$`\mu _P^n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m}}(3\pi ^2n)^{2/3}[x^{5/3}+(1x)x^{2/3}]+V_0(n)+nV_0^{}(n)`$ (13)
$`+(3+8x4x^2)V_2(n)+(12x)^2nV_2^{}(n)+m.`$
Our aim here is to study the influence of the nuclear symmetry energy on the mixed phase properties. The energy per particle, Eq. (7), is well suited for this purpose as only the function $`V_2(n)`$ enters the expression for the nuclear symmetry energy, which is

$$E_{sym}(n)=\frac{5}{9}T(n,\frac{1}{2})+V_2(n).$$
(14)
To account for the uncertainty in high density behavior of $`E_{sym}(n)`$, we use different parametrizations of $`V_2(n)`$, keeping the function $`V_0(n)`$ fixed.

As an example of variational many-body calculations, we use the EOS with the UV14+TNI interactions from Wiringa, Fiks, and Fabrocini . Polynomial fits of this EOS are given in the Appendix. In Fig. 1 we show the function $`V_2(n)`$ corresponding to the UV14+TNI interactions. One should note that with this $`V_2(n)`$ the symmetry energy (12) reproduces the empirical value, $`E_{sym}(n_0)=34\pm 4`$ MeV . At higher densities, $`E_{sym}(n)`$ saturates and then decreases, reaching negative values for $`n>1.0`$ fm-3.

The energy per particle of the RMF model can also be cast in the form (7) . The function $`V_2(n)`$ in this case is

$$V_2(n)=\frac{1}{8}\frac{g_\rho ^2}{m_\rho ^2}n.$$
(15)
The coupling parameter $`g_\rho ^2/m_\rho ^2`$ is adjusted to fit the empirical value of the nuclear symmetry energy $`E_{sym}(n_0)`$. The function $`V_2(n)`$, Eq. (13), grows linearly with the baryon number density $`n`$, Fig. 1, and thus the nuclear symmetry energy in the RMF model increases monotonically with $`n`$. As we are concerned here mainly with the role of the symmetry energy, we model the energy per particle corresponding to the RMF theory using the function $`V_2(n)`$ in the form (13) and keeping other contributions in Eq. (7) the same as in the VMB case.

The $`\beta `$-equilibrium condition (3) and the formulas (10) and (11) show that the proton fraction of the neutron star matter is fully determined by the function $`V_2(n)`$. In Fig. 2 we show the proton fraction corresponding to both forms of $`V_2(n)`$. For both curves, the proton fraction at $`n_0`$ is $`x0.05`$. This is due to the empirical value $`E_{sym}(n_0)`$, which is reproduced by both forms of $`V_2(n)`$. At higher densities, the behavior of $`x(n)`$ is different in the two cases. The RMF model predicts that $`x(n)`$ monotonically increases with the density, whereas for $`V_2(n)`$ corresponding to the UV14+TNI interactions, the proton fraction decreases with $`n`$, and eventually protons disappear completely at some density $`n_v`$, $`x(n_v)=0`$. The disappearance of the proton fraction at high densities is a general property of nuclear interaction models that give $`V_2(n)<0`$ .

## IV Quark and nucleon isobars

The quark matter is described by a simple bag-model equation of state. We use the same parameters as in Ref. . The energy density for three flavors is, neglecting bare masses,

$$ϵ_q=\frac{3}{4}\pi ^{2/3}(n_u^{4/3}+n_d^{4/3}+n_s^{4/3})+B,$$
(16)
where $`n_i`$, $`i=u,d,s`$ are the quark number densities. The quark chemical potentials are

$$\mu _i=\pi ^{2/3}n_i^{1/3},i=u,d,s.$$
(17)
The pressure of quark matter reads

$$p=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}(\mu _u^4+\mu _d^4+\mu _s^4)B.$$
(18)
Below we show results corresponding to two values of the bag constant, $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3 and $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3. We choose these values in order to assess the sensitivity of the mixed phase properties to the bag constant, which is treated here as a phenomenological parameter subject to a substantial uncertainty.

The $`\beta `$ equilibrium requires that the chemical potential of down and strange flavors is the same,

$$\mu _d=\mu _s,$$
(19)
and the chemical potential of up quarks satisfies the condition

$$\mu _d=\mu _u+\mu _e.$$
(20)
Proton and neutron chemical potentials in the quark phase are

$$\mu _P^q=2\mu _u+\mu _d,$$
(21)
$$\mu _N^q=\mu _u+2\mu _d.$$
(22)
The simplest way to solve the equilibrium conditions (1) and (2) is to construct isobars for the nucleon and quark matter in the $`\mu _P\mu _N`$ plane. This can be done easily for the nucleon matter since proton and neutron chemical potentials, for a given value of pressure, are parametrized by one independent variable. For the quark phase, we impose the condition (17), which reduces the number of independent quark chemical potentials, for a given pressure, to two. Hence for each phase one can draw an isobar, a parametric curve in the $`\mu _P\mu _N`$ plane corresponding to a fixed pressure.

For the nucleon phase we parametrize isobars by the proton fraction $`x`$. As an example, in Fig. 4 we show proton and neutron chemical potentials as functions of $`x`$ for two values of pressure, $`p=20`$ MeV/fm3 and $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3. One can see that for $`p=20`$ MeV/fm3 the proton and neutron chemical potentials corresponding to VMB and RMF models do not differ much from one another. For $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3, the VMB and RMF curves deviate significantly. In particular, the difference $`\mu _N(p,x=0)\mu _P(p,x=0)`$ decreases with pressure for the VMB model, whereas it increases for the RMF one.

In the quark phase, using the condition (17), one finds an isobaric relation between up and down quark chemical potentials in the form

$$\mu _u^4=4\pi ^2(p+B)2\mu _d^4.$$
(23)
We choose $`\mu _d`$ as an independent variable. In Fig. 4 the proton and neutron chemical potentials in the quark matter are shown for the same values of pressure as above, $`p=20`$ MeV/fm3 and $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3, for both values of the bag constant, $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3 and $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3. One can see that the curve corresponding to $`p=20`$ MeV/fm3 and $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 coincides with that for $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3 and $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3.

Isobars for the two phases are shown in Figs. 6 and 6, where $`\mu _P`$ is plotted against $`\mu _N`$ for $`p=20`$ MeV/fm3 and $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3, respectively. The coexistence conditions (1) and (2) are fulfilled at the crossing point of the nucleon and quark isobars on the $`\mu _P\mu _N`$ plot. Also, the $`\beta `$-equilibrium condition (3) is satisfied at this point with the electron chemical potential $`\mu _e=\mu _P\mu _N`$. This formula allows us to calculate the density of the homogeneous electron background $`n_e`$ from Eq. (4).

The quark matter isobars are calculated assuming the strange quark mass to vanish, $`m_s=0`$. This approximation is justified for pressure values relevant to our analysis, as in this range isobars corresponding to $`m_s=0`$ and to the empirical value of the strange quark mass, $`m_s=150`$ MeV, are similar. Also, the lowest values of the strange quark chemical potential obtained from the coexistence conditions (1) and (2), $`\mu _s400`$ MeV, exceed the empirical mass $`m_s=150`$ MeV considerably. Corrections due to the empirical value of the strange quark mass would result in small changes of the critical parameters corresponding to the formation of the first quark droplets.

## V Results and implications for neutron stars

In order to find a critical pressure indicating the onset of the phase transition to quark matter, we analyze how the crossing of nucleon and quark isobars changes with pressure. For very low values of pressure, $`p1`$ MeV/fm3, the nucleon isobars for both VMB and RMF models do not cross the quark isobars, for both values of the bag constant. With increasing pressure, the lower end point of the nucleon isobar, corresponding to $`x=0`$, merges with the quark isobar at some pressure value $`p_0`$. At this pressure pure neutron matter can coexist with quark matter. This, however, is not the situation encountered in neutron stars, where at this value of pressure the neutron star matter contains a small proton fraction of about $`5\%`$, as shown in Fig. 2. For higher pressure, $`p>p_0`$, the proton fraction at the crossing point of the nucleon isobar with the quark isobar increases. The formation of the first quark droplets in the nucleon medium starts at such a pressure $`p_i`$ that the proton fraction of the nucleon matter at the crossing of the isobars coincides with that of the $`\beta `$-stable neutron star matter at this pressure. The pressure $`p_i`$ is referred to as the lower critical pressure.

For $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3, the lower critical pressure for the VMB and RMF isobars is, respectively, $`p_i=2`$ MeV/fm3 and $`p_i=3`$ MeV/fm3. The upper critical pressure $`p_f`$ at which the last nucleon droplets immersed in quark matter finally dissolve, is the same for both VMB and RMF isobars, $`p_f=115`$ MeV/fm3 (see Fig. 6).

In the case of $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3, the lower critical pressure for VMB and RMF models is, respectively, $`p_i=215`$ MeV/fm3 and $`p_i=35`$ MeV/fm3. The value of the upper critical pressure is $`p_f=290`$ MeV/fm3.

The fraction of volume filled with nucleons, $`\alpha `$, is shown in Fig. 7. For the lower value of the bag constant, $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3, the curves for VMB and RMF models are very similar. This is because the lower critical pressure $`p_i`$ is almost identical in the two cases. The situation is quite different for $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3. In this case the phase transition for the VMB model starts at much higher pressure than for the RMF model. This reflects the fact that the VMB isobar becomes much shorter at high pressure than the RMF one. One can easily see this difference in Fig. 6 where we show $`p=100`$ MeV/fm3 isobars.

The results shown in Fig. 7 prove that the properties of the nucleon-quark phase transition are very sensitive to the nuclear symmetry energy, for higher values of the bag constant. This is because, generally, the phase transition occurs at a higher pressure for higher values of the bag constant, and the VMB and RMF isobars differ much more at high values of pressure. For low values of $`B`$, the phase transition starts at a low enough pressure for the nuclear symmetry energy not to affect the isobars significantly.

In Fig. 8 we show the proton fraction of nucleon matter coexisting at a given pressure with quark matter, as a function of the mean baryon number density $`\overline{n}`$,

$$\overline{n}=\alpha n+(1\alpha )n^Q,$$
(24)
where $`n`$ and $`n^Q=(n_u+n_d+n_s)/3`$ are the baryon number densities of, respectively, nucleon and quark matter. The density corresponding to the lower critical pressure $`p_i`$ at which the phase transition starts is $`\overline{n}_i`$. The phase transition is completed at the density $`\overline{n}_f`$ corresponding to the upper critical pressure $`p_f`$. For $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3, $`\overline{n}_i=0.17`$ fm-3 is approximately the same for VMB and RMF models. One can notice that nucleon matter becomes more proton rich with increasing pressure irrespective of the nuclear symmetry energy. At the upper critical pressure $`p_f`$ disappearing nucleon droplets for both nuclear models are composed of symmetric nuclear matter. The corresponding density is $`\overline{n}_f=0.8`$ fm-3. For $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 the quark droplets start to form at a density $`\overline{n}_i=0.84`$ fm-3 and $`\overline{n}_i=0.35`$ fm-3, respectively, for the VMB and RMF models. Nucleons disappear at $`\overline{n}_f=1.39`$ fm-3.

Properties of quark matter in the mixed phase are displayed in Fig. 9, where the flavor composition is shown for both values of the bag constant. The flavor concentrations are $`f_i=n_i/n^Q`$, $`i=u,d,s`$. A strong dependence of the mixed phase properties on the symmetry energy for $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 is best visible in this figure. Quark matter, forming the first droplets at the lower critical pressure $`p_i`$, is composed mostly of negatively charged quarks. With increasing pressure the flavor composition becomes more symmetric, and, at the upper critical pressure $`p_f`$, the concentrations of all flavors become equal, $`f_u=f_d=f_s`$. Quark matter at $`pp_f`$ is charge neutral.

The electron density is shown in Fig. 10. At the lower critical pressure $`p_i`$, $`n_e=n_P`$, as only electrons compensate the positive charge carried by protons. With increasing pressure, negatively charged quarks become more abundant and the electron density decreases. Electrons disappear at the pressure $`p_f`$ when the whole available volume is filled with electrically neutral quark matter.

To investigate the consequences of the existence of a mixed quark-nucleon phase for neutron stars we construct the equation of state $`p=p(\overline{\rho })`$, where the mass density of the mixed phase is

$$\overline{\rho }=\frac{1}{c^2}[\alpha ϵ_{nuc}+(1\alpha )ϵ_q].$$
(25)
In Fig. 12 masses of neutron stars are shown as functions of the central density for pure nucleon matter and for the mixed quark-nucleon phase. The phase transition to quark matter makes the equation of state softer. The maximum mass of neutron stars containing the mixed phase decreases as compared with the pure nucleon case. The effect is stronger for low values of the bag constant, as the mixed phase comprises more mass of the star than for higher $`B`$. Results shown in Fig. 12 exclude, in fact, low values of the bag constant, as for $`B120`$ MeV/fm3 the maximum mass is below the observational limit. For $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 the maximum mass safely exceeds this limit. In this case, the influence of the nuclear symmetry energy is clearly visible. The maximum mass corresponding to the RMF model is well below that for the VMB model. Generally, reduction of the maximum mass due to the presence of the mixed phase is much more significant for the RMF model than for the VMB one. This reflects the fact that for $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 the phase transition to quark matter starts at much lower pressure in the RMF model than in the

VMB case. Correspondingly, the mixed phase core of the maximum mass neutron star is much smaller for the VMB model than for the RMF one.

We also show in Fig. 12 neutron star masses as functions of the radius for the same EOS’s as in Fig. 12. The error box indicates the constraints on the mass-radius relation for the x-ray burst source MXB 1636-536. In this case, equations of state involving a mixed phase with the bag constant $`B=120`$ MeV/fm3 are marginally compatible with the data.

It is interesting to note that the structure of a neutron star of the canonical mass $`M=1.44M_{}`$ is even more sensitive to the form of the nuclear symmetry energy. For $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3, with the RMF symmetry energy, such a star, whose radius is $`12`$ km, possesses a mixed phase core of $`7`$ km radius. In the VMB model, the star is composed entirely of nucleons. The central pressure of the VMB star, $`p_c=120`$ MeV/fm3, is below the lower critical value $`p_i=215`$ MeV/fm3 at which the phase transition to the mixed quark-nucleon matter begins.

## VI Coulomb and surface effects

Up to now we did not consider the space structure of the mixed phase. When the Coulomb interaction and the surface tension are included in the calculations, one can find a variety of geometric structures formed by regions filled with nucleons and quarks that have opposite electric charge density . The form of these structures changes with the fraction of space filled with nucleons, $`\alpha `$. It should be stressed, however, that the mixed phase (called also, following Ref. , the droplet phase) is the ground state of the neutron star matter only if the surface tension at the interface between nucleon and quark matter remains sufficiently small . In the opposite case, the mixed phase will not be favored energetically and a phase transition will lead to the coexistence of two bulk electrically neutral phases. We investigate here how the high density behavior of the nuclear symmetry energy influences the Coulomb and surface effects in the droplet phase.

We perform calculations using the Wigner-Seitz approximation. In this approach we assume that characteristic sizes of structures in the droplet phase are less than the Debye screening length, which is about $`10`$ fm for the nucleon phase and $`5`$ fm for quarks . In this case electrons are essentially uniformly distributed over the whole system and so are other particles within a given phase. When the spatial scale of structures is larger than the screening length the charge density becomes nonuniform and the mixed phase resembles two coexisting neutral phases.

The geometric forms of structures considered here are droplets or bubbles, rods, plates, and also intermediate forms, each of them characterized by a continuous dimensionality parameter $`d`$ ranging from $`d=3`$ for droplets to $`d=1`$ for plates. For all these geometries the minimized sum of Coulomb and surface energy densities reads

$$ϵ_C+ϵ_\sigma =6\pi \chi \left(\frac{\sigma ^2d^2[n_P(\alpha )n_q(\alpha )]^2e^2f_d(\chi )}{16\pi ^2}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(26)
The radius of the rare phase bubble immersed in the dominant phase is

$$r=\left(4\pi \frac{[n_P(\alpha )n_q(\alpha )]^2e^2f_d(\chi )}{\sigma d}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(27)
Here $`n_P(\alpha )`$ and $`n_q(\alpha )`$ are charge densities of nucleons and quarks, in units of $`e`$, corresponding to a given proportion of phases $`\alpha `$. The quantity $`r`$ expresses the characteristic sizes of geometric forms and particularly for droplets and rods is their radius, and in the case of plates is their half thickness. In the above equations $`\chi `$ is the fraction of volume occupied by the rare phase. It is equal to $`1\alpha `$ when nucleons are the dominant phase $`(\alpha 1/2)`$ and quarks form different structures, and it is simply $`\alpha `$ in the opposite situation $`(\alpha 1/2)`$. It also defines the half distance between structures, $`R`$, which is the radius of the Wigner-Seitz cell. The fraction $`\chi `$ can be expressed in terms of the two scales $`r`$ and $`R`$ as

$$\chi =(r/R)^d.$$
(28)
The function $`f_d(\chi )`$ is

$$f_d(\chi )=\frac{1}{d+2}\left(\frac{1}{d2}\left(2d\chi ^{12/d}\right)+\chi \right).$$
(29)
It has a correct logarithmic limit for $`d=2`$.

Having the values of $`n_P`$ and $`n_q`$ from Eqs. (1)-(3), and (5) we are able to calculate finite-size effects in the quark-nucleon mixed phase. The values of both $`ϵ_C+ϵ_\sigma `$ and $`r`$ are obtained by minimization of the energy, Eq. (24), with respect to $`d`$ for a given proportion of phases $`\alpha `$ and for fixed $`\sigma `$. Because the exact value of the surface tension is unknown we keep it as in the work of Heiselberg et al.  as a parameter which for simplicity is density independent.

For the mixed phase to be favorable, its energy density must be less than the energy densities of all other phases of baryon matter. When $`\sigma =0`$ and Coulomb and surface effects are absent the mixed phase is energetically favored, as we showed in Sec. IV by performing a proper construction of the phase transition. Nevertheless, when $`\sigma 0`$ the situation is different and for some high values of the surface tension the mixed phase becomes energetically unfavorable. Therefore to see what is the ground state of neutron star matter one should compare the energy density of the droplet phase with the energy densities of nucleon matter, quark matter, and coexisting electrically neutral phases of nucleon and quark matter.

To account for the energy density of coexisting phases of electrically neutral nucleon matter and quark matter we perform a double-tangent construction of the phase transition from nucleon to quark matter. The energy density gain in the mixed phase with respect to nucleon matter, quark matter, and coexisting neutral phases of nucleon and quark matter, $`ϵ\overline{ϵ}`$, where $`\overline{ϵ}`$ is the energy density of the mixed phase for $`\sigma =0`$, is shown as a dashed curve in Fig. 14 and Fig. 14 for VMB and RMF models, respectively.

We show here results only for the bag constant $`B=200`$ MeV/fm3 as possibly realized in nature. As one sees, the difference in energy densities is strongly dependent on the nuclear symmetry energy. For the VMB model it is only a few MeV/fm3 whereas it is almost $`25`$ MeV/fm3 for the RMF model. This implies that the allowed range of finite-size effects for the droplet phase to be energetically favorable will be smaller in the former case and larger in the latter. In Figs. 14 and 14 the solid curves represent the contributions of Coulomb and surface effects to the energy density of the droplet phase, for the indicated values of the surface tension. If the solid curve for a given $`\sigma `$ lies below the dashed one in some range of the baryon number density $`\overline{n}`$, then the droplet phase will be the ground state of neutron star matter. If not, the droplet phase will not be preferred energetically and transition between two electrically neutral phases will occur. As is shown, our results yield $`\sigma 10`$ MeV/fm2 for the VMB model and $`\sigma 150`$ MeV/fm2 for the RMF one. We can thus conclude that the appearance of the mixed phase, although dependent on the exact value of the surface tension, is also very sensitive to the form of the nuclear symmetry energy.

The above calculations were made neglecting the Debye screening, which is justified for small size of the structures. In Fig. 16 and Fig. 16 we show typical diameters of bubbles and their separations for the VMB and RMF model, respectively. As one sees in Figs. 16 and 16, for higher values of the surface tension the characteristic sizes of structures

are larger than screening lengths in nucleon and quark matter so that the assumption of uniform charge distribution may not be valid.

## VII Discussion

We have studied the formation of a mixed quark-nucleon phase in neutron stars, for different models of the nuclear symmetry energy. We conclude that the behavior of nucleon matter isobars in the $`\mu _P\mu _N`$ plane, as, e.g., in Figs. 6 and 6, is fully responsible for the existence of the mixed phase. The isobars, for any pressure, have a common end point, corresponding to $`x=1/2`$, which is thus independent of the nuclear symmetry energy. For $`x<1/2`$ the isobars corresponding to various forms of the nuclear symmetry energy differ considerably. The most different is the location of the $`x=0`$ end point of isobars (see Figs. 6 and 6).

The lower critical pressure $`p_i`$ for the first quark droplets to form is determined by the location of the $`x=0`$ end point of a nucleon isobar, which strongly depends on the form of the nuclear symmetry energy. The upper critical pressure $`p_f`$ for the last nucleons to dissolve into quarks is the same for all isobars that differ only in the form of the function $`V_2(n)`$ determining the nuclear symmetry energy. This explains why nucleon matter coexisting with quark matter becomes proton rich with increasing pressure, and disappearing nucleon matter at the critical pressure $`p_f`$ is symmetric. In Ref.  the increase of the proton fraction of nucleon matter coexisting in the mixed phase was attributed to the particular form of the nuclear symmetry energy in the RMF model.

Properties of neutron stars depend on both lower and upper critical pressure values, $`p_i`$ and $`p_f`$. Since the lower critical pressure $`p_i`$ strongly depends on the nuclear symmetry energy, properties of neutron stars also depend on it. In particular, the size of the mixed phase core, which determines the maximum mass of a neutron star, is rather sensitive to the nuclear symmetry energy. Conclusions concerning the presence of the mixed quark-nucleon phase in neutron stars are thus subject to some uncertainty that reflects incompatible high density predictions of the nuclear symmetry energy.

When the Coulomb interaction and the surface tension are included in the calculations, one can determine the surface tension values for which the mixed quark-nucleon phase is the ground state of neutron star matter. As shown in Fig. 14 and Fig. 14 the allowed range of $`\sigma `$ is very narrow for the VMB model ($`\sigma <10`$ MeV/fm2), whereas it is much wider for the RMF model ($`\sigma <150`$ MeV/fm2).

## acknowledgment

This research was partially supported by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN), under Grant No. 2 P03B 112 17.

## appendix

We fit the interaction energies $`V_0(n)`$ and $`V_2(n)`$ from Ref.  corresponding to the UV14+TNI interactions with the following polynomials:

$$V_0(n)=0.0827n^40.3111n^3+2.2624n^21.181n0.0571$$
(30)
and

$$V_2(n)=0.0528n^4+0.1n^30.836n^2+0.433n+0.0365.$$
(30)
Values of both functions are in fm-1.


text:
# Applicability of the orientation average formula in heavy-ion fusion reactions of deformed nuclei

## Acknowledgments

We thank D.M. Brink for useful discussions. This research was supported by the Monbusho Scholarship and the International Scientific Research Program: Joint Research: contract number 09044051 from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, and by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant no. DE-FG03-00-ER41132.

TABLE I : Dependence of the dissipation factor on the projectile in the fusion of 154Sm target estimated based on Eq. (5).

| Reactions | 12C | 16O | 20Ne | 24Mg | 28Si | 32S | 36Ar | 40Ar |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 154Sm | 0.810 | 0.689 | 0.567 | 0.456 | 0.357 | 0.274 | 0.207 | 0.164 |

TABLE II : The bare nuclear potential parameters for different systems.

| Systems | $`V_0`$ (MeV) | $`r_0`$ (fm) | $`a`$ (fm) | $`V_B`$ (MeV) | $`R_B`$ (fm) | $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (MeV) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`12`$C+154Sm | 150.0 | 0.950 | 1.05 | 44.60 | 10.81 | 3.47 |
| 16O+154Sm | 165.0 | 0.950 | 1.05 | 59.41 | 10.81 | 3.48 |
| 20Ne+154Sm | 190.0 | 0.945 | 1.05 | 73.85 | 10.87 | 3.48 |
| 24Mg+154Sm | 225.0 | 0.935 | 1.05 | 88.04 | 10.95 | 3.50 |
| 28Si+154Sm | 255.0 | 0.935 | 1.05 | 101.58 | 11.09 | 3.50 |
| 32S+154Sm | 285.0 | 0.935 | 1.05 | 114.89 | 11.22 | 3.51 |
| 36Ar+154Sm | 315.0 | 0.935 | 1.05 | 128.00 | 11.34 | 3.51 |
| 40Ar+154Sm | 294.0 | 0.935 | 1.05 | 127.57 | 11.38 | 3.34 |

Figure Captions

FIG. 1
The ratio of the fusion cross sections obtained in the exact coupled channels calculations to those obtained in the orientation average formula.

FIG. 2
Comparison of the experimental data and the results of the orientation average (the dashed line) and the exact coupled channels (the solid line) calculations for the 16O+154Sm fusion reaction. The top and bottom panels are the fusion excitation function and the fusion barrier distribution, respectively. The data are taken from Ref. .

FIG. 3
The same as Fig. 2, but for the 40Ar+154Sm fusion reaction. The data are taken from Ref. .