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# The one-pion-exchange three-nucleon force and the 𝐴_𝑦 puzzle

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## Abstract

We consider a new three-nucleon force generated by the exchange of one pion in the presence of a $`2N`$ correlation. The underlying irreducible diagram has been recently suggested by the authors as a possible candidate to explain the puzzle of the vector analyzing powers $`A_y`$ and $`iT_{11}`$ for nucleon-deuteron scattering. Herein, we have calculated the elastic neutron-deuteron differential cross section, $`A_y`$, $`iT_{11}`$, $`T_{20}`$, $`T_{21}`$, and $`T_{22}`$ below break-up threshold by accurately solving the Alt-Grassberger-Sandhas equations with realistic interactions. We have also studied how $`A_y`$ evolves below 30 MeV. The results indicate that this new $`3NF`$ diagram provides one possible additional contribution, with the correct spin-isospin structure, for the explanation of the origin of this puzzle.

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The $`A_y`$ puzzle (or, more appropriately, the puzzle of the vector analyzing powers) is probably the most famous of the open problems in $`3N`$ scattering at low energy. The problem with this observable has been observed quite early at the Tokio & Sendai Conference (Few-Body XI, 1986) , since at that time the first reliable Faddeev calculations with realistic $`2N`$ potentials were becoming available, thanks in particular to the employment of separable expansion methods which transform the $`3N`$ scattering equations of Alt, Grassberger, and Sandhas (AGS)  into an effective, multichannel Lippmann-Schwinger equation. This method of calculation has been pushed forward to obtain accurate results particularly by the Graz group . Since then, various alternative methods of solution of the $`3N`$ scattering equation have been developed and tested , and outstanding progresses have been made in the computational techniques in order to: 1) include three-nucleon forces ($`3NF`$) in the $`3N`$ scattering equations ; 2) treat explicitly the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ dynamics in the $`3N`$ system ; 3) provide a combined description of the $`3N`$ dynamics with Coulomb, realistic $`2N`$, and phenomenological $`3N`$ forces .

The puzzle was confirmed by these new approaches, and it turned out that the existing $`2\pi `$-$`3NF`$  provided a too small effect for $`A_y`$ , and not always in the right direction. In absence of new $`3NF`$’s that could explain the puzzle, and since the $`3N`$ $`A_y`$ is rather sensitive to the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{j}^{}`$ $`NN`$ phase shifts, it was concluded in Ref.  (see also references therein) that such phases and the associated $`NN`$ potentials derived from modern phase-shift analysis must be modified at low energy. These modifications can be achieved without affecting appreciably the $`2N`$ data because the low-energy $`2N`$ observables cannot resolve the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{j}^{}`$ phases uniquely due to the Fermi-Yang ambiguities. However, as has been argued in Ref. , it is not possible to increase the $`3N`$ $`A_y`$ with reasonable changes in the $`NN`$ potential, hence additional $`3NF`$’s of new structure have to be considered. Recently, an attempt has been made  using a purely phenomenological $`3NF`$ of spin-orbit type, constructed ad hoc to affect only the triplet-odd states of $`2N`$ subsystem. $`3NF`$ terms of pion-range/short-range form have been reconsidered lately from the point of view of Chiral Perturbation Theory  ($`\chi `$PT), which predicts for these terms a non-negligible role. Qualitatively, it was found that these terms somewhat affect $`A_y`$, but a quantitative conclusion could not be derived.

It is our intention to indicate here a possible solution of this puzzle in terms of a new $`3NF`$ proposed recently by the authors . This force is generated by the one-pion-exchange diagram when one of the two nucleons involved in the exchange process rescatters with a third one while the pion is “in flight”. The underlying diagram has been derived starting from a formalism  devoted to the explicit treatment of the pion dynamics in the $`3N`$ system. The resulting dynamical equation resembles a Faddeev-AGS equation, but entails in its inner structure the full complexity of the underlying four-body ($`\pi NNN`$) system. A gradual procedure to project out the pion degrees of freedom has been discussed in Ref. , where it has been shown that this formalism leads to irreducible $`3NF`$ diagrams, and includes in particular the $`3NF`$ we will evaluate here.

$`3NF`$ diagrams of the type derived in Ref.  and analyzed here are not new in the literature , but they have been discarded in modern few-nucleon calculations because of the presence of a cancellation effect which has been observed in Refs.  and discussed later from the point of view of effective chiral Lagrangians . This cancellation involves meson retardation effects of the iterated Born term, and the irreducible diagrams generated by sub-summing all time orderings involving the combined exchange of two mesons amongst the three nucleons. However, this cancellation is incomplete  and generates a three-nucleon force through a subtraction term of the type “$`t`$-$`v`$” with the 2$`N`$ $`t`$-matrix being pushed fully off-the energy shell because of the presence of the pion. Obviously, some ambiguities and model dependencies should be expected, since the subtraction involves the $`t`$-matrix in a region which is difficult to access and constrain, e.g., by 2$`N`$ data. In addition, there are also possible model dependencies on how this “imperfect” cancellation should be specified, since the input 2$`N`$ potential itself could possibly include - maybe in somewhat hidden way - meson-retardation correction effects. Ideally, this new $`3NF`$ term should be constructed consistently with the specific aspects and details of the given 2$`N`$ interaction.

The explicit expression of this force  is

$`V_3^{3N}(𝐩,𝐪,𝐩^{},𝐪^{};E)={\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN}^2(Q)}{m_\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}}`$ (5)
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐐)(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟑}𝐐)(𝝉_\mathrm{𝟏}𝝉_\mathrm{𝟑})+(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟐}𝐐)(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟑}𝐐)(𝝉_\mathrm{𝟐}𝝉_\mathrm{𝟑})}{\omega _\pi ^2}}\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{t}_{12}(𝐩,𝐩^{};E\frac{q^2}{2\nu }m_\pi )}{2m_\pi }}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\pi NN}^2(Q)}{m_\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{t}_{12}(𝐩,𝐩^{};E\frac{q_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{2\nu }m_\pi )}{2m_\pi }}`$
$`\times \left[{\displaystyle \frac{(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐐)(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟑}𝐐)(𝝉_\mathrm{𝟏}𝝉_\mathrm{𝟑})+(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟐}𝐐)(𝝈_\mathrm{𝟑}𝐐)(𝝉_\mathrm{𝟐}𝝉_\mathrm{𝟑})}{\omega _\pi ^2}}\right].`$
The full $`3NF`$ is given by summing over the cyclic permutations of the nucleons, $`V^{3N}=V_1^{3N}+V_2^{3N}+V_3^{3N}`$. The momenta $`𝐩,𝐪`$ represent respectively the Jacobi coordinates of the pair “$`1`$$`2`$”, and spectator “$`3`$”, while $`E`$ is the 3$`N`$ energy. We have set the pion-nucleon coupling constant to the traditional value $`f_{\pi NN}^2/(4\pi )`$ = 0.078, and have employed standard form-factors of monopole type to describe the effective, composite nature of the meson-baryon coupling:

$$f_{\pi NN}(Q)=f_{\pi NN}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pi ^2+Q^2}.$$
(6)
The chosen $`2N`$ model interaction implicitly determines the value of pion-nucleon cut-off in $`V^{3N}`$, e.g. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pi =1.7`$ GeV for the Bonn B potential. The transferred momentum $`𝐐=𝐪^{}𝐪`$ enters also in $`\omega _\pi =\sqrt{m_\pi ^2+Q^2}`$. $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{ij}`$ denotes the subtracted $`t`$-matrix between nucleons $`1`$ and $`2`$, defined according to the prescription

$$\stackrel{~}{t}_{12}(𝐩,𝐩^{};Z)=c(Z)t_{12}(𝐩,𝐩^{};Z)v_{12}(𝐩,𝐩^{}).$$
(7)
Other details can be found in Ref..

In addition, we have introduced here the effective parameter $`c(Z)`$, which is the only adjustable quantity of this $`3NF`$. This parameter represents an overall correction factor for the far-off-the-energy-shell $`2N`$ $`t`$-matrix entering this $`3NF`$ diagram. Ideally, $`c(Z)`$ should be one for a $`2NF`$ model able to provide a reliable extrapolation of the $`t`$-matrix down to $`Z160`$ MeV. However, none

of the existing $`2N`$ $`t`$-matrices can guarantee such extrapolation since they are all constrained by experiments at the deuteron pole and at $`Z0`$. Furthermore, $`c(Z)`$ might also correct for possible model dependencies on how this imperfect cancellation manifest itself, as already observed at the beginning of this communication. On general grounds, one expects that with increasing energy in $`nd`$ scattering, the factor $`c(Z)`$ should drift towards one, since the off-shell $`2N`$ $`t`$-matrix in $`V^{3N}`$ approaches gradually the energy region with experimental constrains.

To calculate the $`nd`$ scattering observables below threshold, we have used the high-rank BBEST potential as two body input . With this separable representations of the Bonn B potential, it is possible to solve accurately the Faddeev-AGS scattering equations, and obtain results comparable (with errors less than 1%) to those obtained from a direct solution of the Faddeev equations using the original potentials as input. As an example, Fig. 1 shows the results we have obtained for $`A_y`$ at 3 MeV with the BBEST potential and with the original Bonn interaction. There are three curves since the calculations have been performed using both the separable (1-dimensional) algorithm and the non-separable (2-dimensional) method based on spline interpolation and Padé approximants, but the lines are practically indistinguishable. Similar tests have been made also before  on various occasions. Triangles represent the $`nd`$ experimental data from Ref. .

The three-nucleon forces can be incorporated in the scattering equation in a relatively simple way if the $`2N`$ input potential is of finite rank. We sketch the procedure for a rank one case: once the separable $`2N`$ $`t`$-matrix is given, $`t=|g_1\tau g_1|`$, and the (anti)symmetrized AGS equation have been rewritten in the Lovelace form,

$$X_{11}=Z_{11}+Z_{11}\tau X_{11},$$
(8)
the above $`3NF`$ is incorporated into this one-dimensional

integral equation with the driving term calculated as follows

$$Z_{11}=g_1|G_0P|g_1+g_1|G_0V_1^{3N}G_0|g_1.$$
(9)
The first contribution is the standard $`2N`$ driving term, with $`G_0`$ and $`P`$ being the free Green’s function and the cyclic/anti-cyclic permutator, respectively, while the second takes into account the effects of the $`3N`$ force. This procedure is consistent with the formalism developed in Ref. to include irreducible pionic effects in the $`3N`$ dynamics, and at the same time it corresponds to the established perturbative procedure to include $`3NF`$ effects in the separable AGS equation .

The results obtained are shown in Fig. 2, for the differential cross-section, and the analyzing powers $`A_y`$, $`iT_{11}`$, $`T_{20}`$, $`T_{21}`$, and $`T_{22}`$. The panel exhibits the results obtained with the BBEST potential, where a rank-4 expansion has been used for all states with $`j2`$, aside for the states $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ (rank 5), $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}`$ (rank 6), and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ (rank 5).

The results without the $`3NF`$ are shown by the dashed lines, and are practically indistinguishable from the corresponding results for the Bonn B potential. The solid curve considers the additional contribution of the $`3N`$ force expressed in Eq. (5). We have used the subtraction method of Eq. (7), with $`t`$ and $`v`$ given by the Bonn B interaction while the parameter $`c(Z)`$ has been set to 0.73 for this energy. Results obtained with the PEST/Paris potential are similar.

In Fig. 3 we show how the puzzle evolves above the break-up threshold, up to 30 MeV. In the top panel we

compare our theoretical calculations with the experimental data at 10 MeV , obtaining the correct reproduction for $`A_y`$ with the $`3NF`$ when $`c(Z)=0.735`$. In the middle panel comparison is made with $`pd`$ data at 18 MeV . Comparison of $`nd`$ calculations with $`pd`$ data is somewhat questionable because of the perturbations introduced by the Coulomb field. However it is known that, aside for the angles in forward direction, one of the main effects of the Coulomb field in $`A_y`$ can be approximately reproduced by comparing the charged data with calculations performed at energies lowered of about 0.5-0.7 MeV. For this reason the data are compared with calculations at 17.3 MeV. (However, care must be exercized in interpreting this fact as a Coulomb slow-down effect ) At this energy we obtain the reproduction of the observable with $`c(Z)=0.773`$. The botton panel shows the results obtained at 29.6 MeV, compared with the corresponding data at the same energy  (triangles), and with $`pd`$ data at 30.2 MeV  (squares). The solid line has been obtained with $`c(Z)=0.81`$. It is evident that as the energy increases, the $`c(Z)`$ parameter shifts slowly towards one, as expected.

We checked also how the triton binding energy is affected, and found that here the effects are relatively small. With the highest possible rank, i.e., with a rank 5 representation in all states with $`j2`$, except the coupled states $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}D_{1}^{}`$ (rank 6), and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ (rank 7), the BBEST+$`3NF`$ result is $`8.137`$ while the corresponding $`2NF`$ result is $`8.090`$ (MeV).

We observe that some unavoidable approximations entered in this study. For instance, in obtaining Eq. (5) we have ignored nucleonic recoil effects and have divided the subtracted $`t`$-matrix by the pion mass, instead of $`\omega _\pi `$, to get simpler expressions in partial waves. In addition, there might be a possible $`3NF`$ contribution of shorter range for the exchange of a $`\rho `$-meson; this term whould then counteract the one-pion-exchange $`3NF`$, at least in the tensor part. Other uncertainties are related to the perturbative treatment of the pion dynamics in the AGS equation . Finally, uncertainties about the fully off-the-energy-shell extrapolation of the $`NN`$ $`t`$-matrix entering in this $`3NF`$ forced us to introduce the effective parameter $`c(Z)`$.

As discussed in Refs. , the $`3NF`$ contribution analyzed in this study is just one class of irreducible diagrams generated by the pion dynamics, and in a more complete analysis also other classes of $`3NF`$ diagrams should be taken into account. Forces of the type TM , Brasil , Urbana , belong to another class and they complement the $`3NF`$ whose effects have been calculated here separately. Some of these $`3NF`$’s give small corrections to $`A_y`$, but not always in the right direction ; their relevance, however, appears to be greater elsewhere (e.g., the binding energy of the triton). There are also additional $`3NF`$ terms of shorter range that might contribute, and in particular those obtained from $`\chi `$PT  appear very promising in providing an additional correction to $`A_y`$, possibly in the right direction.

To summarize and conclude: we have evaluated here for the first time a new “pionic” effect in the $`3N`$ system. The effect is a natural consequence of a recently developed theory  for the combined $`\pi `$-$`3N`$ dynamics in the $`3N`$ system, and has been recast into a $`3NF`$ term of new structure by the authors . The underlying $`3NF`$ diagram complements the extensively discussed $`2\pi `$-$`3NF`$ diagrams, and this complementarity shows up in the way this force affects the $`3N`$ observables: while the $`2\pi `$-$`3NF`$ terms have a large contribution on the $`3N`$ binding energy and little effects (in the considered energy range) on the vector analyzing powers, we have shown here that this new $`3NF`$ term greatly modifies in particular these two spin observables, and has the potential to provide in full the solution of the $`A_y`$ puzzle. Conversely, we checked also that the same force produces smaller changes for the triton binding energy. Since both effects are clearly needed for describing the low-energy behaviour of the $`3N`$ system, it will be important to investigate at this point what will be the effect of the combined treatment of these two forces.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported by the Italian MURST-PRIN Project “Fisica Teorica del Nucleo e dei Sistemi a Più Corpi”. W. Sch. thanks INFN and the University of Padova for hospitality and acknowledges support from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada. L. C. thanks TRIUMF for hospitality.


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# The ORFEUS II Echelle spectrometer: Instrument description, performance and data reduction

## 1 Introduction

The German spacecraft ORFEUS-SPAS was the primary payload aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia during mission STS-80, flown from 19 November to 7 December, 1996. The ORFEUS telescope was the main instrument aboard the astronomy platform Shuttle Pallet Satellite (ASTRO-SPAS).

The ASTRO-SPAS is a free flying platform that is designed to operate autonomously in the vicinity (up to 60 km) of the Space Shuttle for a limited period of up to 14 days. It was designed by the Daimler-Benz Aerospace AG (DASA) in Ottobrunn, Germany.

With a mission duration of 17.7 days STS-80 was the longest shuttle flight to date, the free flying time of ORFEUS-SPAS was 14 days. ORFEUS-SPAS was released a few hours after launch on 20 November, 1996. It was the third flight of the reusable ASTRO-SPAS platform and the second flight of the ORFEUS-SPAS configuration.

The ORFEUS telescope (Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer) (Krämer et al. kraemer1 (1988), kraemer2 (1990), Grewing et al. grewing1 (1991), grewing2 (1998)) consists of a 1 m normal incidence mirror with a focal length of 2.4 m and two spectrometers as focal plane instrumentation: the Berkeley spectrograph and the Echelle spectrograph. The Berkeley spectrograph was developed by the Space Sciences Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley (Hurwitz & Bowyer hurwitz1 (1986), hurwitz2 (1996), Hurwitz et al. hurwitz3 (1998)) and the Echelle spectrograph was developed by the University of Tübingen and the Landessternwarte Heidelberg (Appenzeller et al. appenzeller (1988)). As a third independent instrument, the Interstellar Matter Absorption Profile Spectrometer (IMAPS) was attached to the ASTRO-SPAS (Jenkins et al. jenkins (1996)).

The ORFEUS telescope and the Echelle spectrometer were designed and built by Kayser-Threde GmbH in Munich, Germany. The Echelle detector as well as the Echelle electronics and the Echelle onboard processor were designed and built by the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Department Astronomy, of the University of Tübingen.

The ORFEUS-SPAS total instrument operation time was 263$`\stackrel{h}{.}`$0, while the net integration time was 164$`\stackrel{h}{.}`$9, resulting in an efficiency of 62.5% for all instruments. This is an extremely high value as compared to other satellite missions.

50% of the total integration time were reserved for Guest Investigators selected by peer review. The other 50% were used by the Principal Investigator teams who had provided the instruments. 65 distinct objects were observed with the Echelle spectrometer.

In this paper we present the performance figures for the Echelle spectrometer and a short description of the principles of the data extraction procedure.

## 2 Instrument description

Within the ORFEUS telescope a movable mirror is used to switch between the two spectrometers. We will restrict the instrument description to the Echelle spectrometer.

The movable mirror is designed to act at the same time as an off-axis parabolic collimator (CM, Fig. 1). When moved in it feeds the Echelle grating (EG) with a parallel light bundle. When the collimator mirror is moved out, the beam is falling directly into the Berkeley spectrometer.

The Echelle grating has a groove density of 316 lines/mm with a blaze angle of 62$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5. It is operated in the diffraction orders 40 to 61 covering the wavelength range from 90 nm to 140 nm.

The Echelle diffraction orders are separated by means of a spherical cross disperser grating (CD) with 1200 lines/mm which also serves as the spectrograph camera. This design minimizes the number of reflections, which, in view of the low reflectivities in the FUV (ranging from 10% to 30%), was of critical importance for achieving an acceptable overall efficiency.

The spectrum is recorded by the Echelle detector (ED), which has a plane surface and a sensitive area of 40 mm $`\times `$ 40 mm.

The Echelle spectrometer is designed to achieve a spectral resolution of $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 10 000 when used with an entrance aperture of 10″ diameter (Appenzeller et al. appenzeller (1988)).

### 2.1 The Echelle Detector

The Echelle detector is a photon counting microchannel plate detector with a wedge and strip readout system. Three stacked microchannel plates (MCPs), operated in a Z-configuration, provide a gain of 107 to 108 electrons/photon. Each of the three MCPs has its own power supply and an accelerating voltage is applied to the gaps between the MCPs. During flight the gain of the Echelle detector was monitored and could be controlled by variation of the high voltage of the third MCP. The high voltage could be adjusted by commands during flight or by starting an automatic function that adjusted the high voltage so that a predefined gain value was achieved.

A repeller grid in front of the MCPs produces an electric field of about 50 V/mm, which is used to force those photo electrons back into the MCP channels, which are released from the areas in between the channels. This improves the quantum efficiency by about 30% but also causes a loss of 10% due to the shading by the repeller grid.

A four electrode wedge-and-strip anode (Martin et al. martin (1981)) was used as readout system for the MCP detector. A special design allowed for a significant reduction of the edge distortions, which are basically unavoidable. Further, by oversizing the active area of the anode to 44 mm $`\times `$ 44 mm, it was possible to avoid any distortions within the sensitive area of the detector. The image format of the detector is 1024 pixels by 512 pixels, which corresponds to the active area of the anode.

The detector sends for each photon event x/y-coordinates to the Echelle onboard processor where these events are integrated onto an image memory. The content of this image memory is stored on magnetic tape at the end of each observation.

In parallel, the x/y-coordinates for each single photon event are stored on tape directly, thus keeping also the photon arrival time to an accuracy of better than 1 second. This method is limited by the ASTRO-SPAS interface to an event rate of less than 3500 counts/s, whereas the onboard integration works with much higher photon rates up to 30 000 counts/s. The electronic dead time is about 13 $`\mu `$s per event.

The count rate of the Echelle detector is monitored online and also stored on tape together with many other housekeeping data. This count rate is derived from all events registered by the charge amplifiers falling above the lower threshold of the detector electronics. Not all of these events are finally integrated into the image for the following reasons:

* An upper electronic threshold suppresses pulses too large to be processed by the position decoding electronics.
* At high count rates the dead time of 13 $`\mu `$s for position decoding reduces the rate of registered events accordingly.
* Dead time effects from the interface electronics and from the onboard processor further reduce the electronic efficiency.

These effects are the cause that in general the rate of the integrated counts within an image is between 15% and 25% lower than the count rate of the lower electronic threshold.

In the main dispersion direction somewhat more than 3 pixels correspond to one optical resolution element of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = $`\lambda `$/10 000 (161 $`\mu `$m). The electronic resolution was estimated to be about 1.5 detector pixels FWHM. So the electronic detector resolution is sufficient to maintain the optical resolution of the Echelle spectrometer.

Electronic test pulses were fed onto the anode with a frequency of 10 Hz at two different detector positions and with 3 different pulse heights. These test pulses were extremely useful during the checkout of the instrument and provide a means of monitoring the electronic performance of the detector throughout the mission.

## 3 Extraction of Echelle orders

The extraction of the Echelle spectra from the Echelle detector images in x-direction (main dispersion direction) is done by summing up 11 pixels (orders 40 to 49) or 9 pixels (orders 50 to 61) in y-direction. The center of the extraction in y-direction follows a straight line along each order, but is located on integer pixel numbers.

Some Echelle images show tilted absorption lines within the strip of the Echelle orders. The reason for this effect is still unclear. In such cases the extraction was done summing up the pixels tilted by 45 degrees, which results in a significant increase in resolution. However an additional wavelength error was introduced by this procedure since the observed wavelength in this way became dependent on the centering of the Echelle order within the extraction strip. This is a nonlinearity error of the size of one pixel, which corresponds to 1/3 of the optical resolution element and is equal to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = $`\lambda `$/30 000.

### 3.1 Background

Between the Echelle orders a 3 pixel wide area was used to estimate the background. With exception of orders 40, 41 and 42 the background was calculated as average of the strip above and below the corresponding order. For the first three orders only the background values below each order were calculated. The so calculated background was smoothed prior to being used for subtraction.

The intrinsic background of the detector was about 10-5 counts/s/pix. As 9 or 11 detector pixels are added to one spectral pixel, this corresponds to about 10-4 counts/s/pix in the extracted spectra, which is negligible.

By far the strongest contribution to the background is straylight from the Echelle grating. The contribution in counts/detector-pixel is about 5% to 10% for the low Echelle orders and 10% to 20% for the high Echelle orders as these are closer together. The percentage values refer to the maximum counts/detector-pixel values of the Echelle orders. The contribution in counts/spectrum-pixel is about 15% for spectra with a rather flat continuum.

The Echelle straylight is scattered exactly horizontally across the detector, whereas the spectral orders run slightly tilted across the detector corresponding to the dispersion of the cross disperser. Hence emission lines produce additional straylight while broad absorption lines lead to a reduced straylight contribution in a horizontal line at the y-position of this absorption line. These varying straylight contributions are not yet correctly handled by the background subtraction algorithm.

An additional contribution is caused by particle events related to the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). These produced count rates of up to 1000 counts/s resulting in up to 2$``$10-3 counts/s/pix on the detector and 2$``$10-2 counts/s/pix in the spectra. The maximum duration of the passage through the SAA was about 12 min and the count rate curve showed a quasi Gaussian shape during this time. In the case of weak targets where the SAA background reduces the signal to noise ratio of the spectrum significantly, we are able to integrate the spectrum from the single photon records excluding the SAA transit period.

### 3.2 Correction of the blaze function

The efficiency of blazed Echelle gratings varies as (sin(x)/x)2 (blaze function) (Schroeder & Hiliard schroeder (1980)), where x depends on the deviation of the output angle from the specular angle of maximum efficiency (blaze angle) and on the wavelength. The optimized diffraction direction was preflight adjusted to the y-centerline of the Echelle detector. In the flight data we found the center of maximum efficiency to differ between the Echelle orders and furthermore both the position and the width of the blaze function differing from observation to observation. Therefore it was necessary to introduce an individual blaze correction for each observation. For spectra that showed a relatively undisturbed continuum the blaze correction could be done with a rather high accuracy. However for many spectra which are dominated by absorption lines only the overlap region between two adjacent orders could be used as a criterion for a good blaze correction, resulting in a less reliable correction.

After completion of the blaze correction for all observations no systematic time dependent effects in the variation of the blaze function were found.

### 3.3 Wavelength calibration

The wavelength calibration was calculated from the positions of 814 interstellar absorption lines in the Echelle images of 12 different objects. The centers of the lines were determined by fitting Gaussian functions to the profiles using a preliminary wavelength calibration. After identification of the lines a table with laboratory wavelengths and corresponding detector pixel numbers was created. Using the preliminary wavelength calibration, a mean radial velocity component for each object was estimated and corrected for. This approach assumes, that for each individual object all identified interstellar absorption lines, mainly H2 and neutral elements, originate in the same volume of gas.

With a least square fit algorithm we then determined a new set of pixel to wavelength conversion parameters.

In Fig. 2 the residuals for all lines demonstrate that the mean accuracy of the wavelength correspondence is better than $`\pm `$ 0.005 nm, i.e. better than the optical resolution of the instrument.

The above procedure results in a relative wavelength calibration. In order to determine an absolute scale we used the position of the geocoronal Ly-$`\alpha `$ emission line as a reference. We found that for different observing blocks the position of the Ly-$`\alpha `$ line changed by up to 0.006 nm (Fig. 3). The reason for this shift is still unclear, we assume that it emerges from temperature drifts of the telescope and the Echelle spectrometer. A correction for this effect has been applied in each observing block.

Shifting of the Echelle spectrum on the detector surface (e.g. displacement of the target within the aperture) basically results in a relative wavelength shift and thus in a radial velocity shift rather than in a wavelength shift. The reason is, that the wavelength dispersion is proportional to the wavelength.

The wavelength scale of the targets were shifted to correct for radial velocity components due to the Earth’s movement (heliocentric correction) and due to the satellite’s orbital movement.

A further shift occurs when the target image is not exactly centered within the 20″ diaphragm. The maximum resulting uncertainty due to the 10″ radius of the diaphragm is $`\pm `$ 1.2$``$10-4 as a relative wavelength error (corresponding to $`\pm `$ 36 km/s). This error was not corrected up to now.

### 3.4 Correction of loss of sensitivity in the detector edges

In the corners of the detector area and at the left edge the efficiency of the repeller grid is reduced, probably due to an inhomogenous field close to the edge of the detector. A step occurs between lower and normal sensitivity. In some images a circularly shaped area is visible due to this effect. We estimated a loss of about 25% and corrected this by applying a “smooth” step function. The position, width and height of the step was estimated for each order from the sum of all Echelle measurements.

A detailed flat field correction was not applied, due to the fact, that the optical light path of the spectrometer cannot be reproduced in our laboratory. This however would be essential for an exact estimation of the flat field behavior of the detector. Any other correction methods are too uncertain to be useful.

### 3.5 Absolute flux calibration

We used an HST archive model of G191 B2B “http://www.stsci.edu/ftp/cdbs/calspec/g191b2b\_mod\_002.tab” as a reference for the absolute flux calibration. The calibration was crosschecked with a model of BD +28° 4211 (R. Napiwotzki, priv. comm.). We estimate an accuracy of $`\pm `$ 10% for the flux calibration, provided the object was fully centered within the aperture, which was not always the case.

## 4 Performance

### 4.1 Sensitivity

The total efficiency of the Echelle spectrometer was estimated before the flight by measuring the efficiencies of the individual optical components. The product of these values resulted in a maximum effective area of 2.4 cm2.

For postflight recalibration we used a HST calibration spectrum of G191 B2B. By comparing the fluxes within complete orders we estimated an effective area value for the central wavelength of each Echelle order. Values for Echelle orders that were contaminated by strong absorption lines (e.g. Ly-$`\alpha `$) were deleted from the data set. This procedure leads to a maximum effective area of 1.3 cm2 near 110 nm (Fig. 4), which is based on all detector counts above the lower electronic threshold.

The 20″ diameter of the diaphragm should be sufficient to maintain the total flux of the object, as the jitter of the ASTRO-SPAS was about $`\pm `$ 2″. But we have indications that the telescope was not precisely focused during some periods of the mission, due to thermal problems during unexpected flight modes of the ASTRO-SPAS. Together with the fact that some objects were not fully centered this led to significant nonstatistical variations of the count rates, which resulted in a reduction of the flux and thus sensitivity. Therefore the flux calibration was calculated for the maximum observed count rate for the corresponding target (also from other observations of this target, if necessary). This count rate was scaled with the registered count rate in the integrated image.

### 4.2 Spectral resolution

The spectrum of HD 93521 with a signal to noise ratio of 20 to 30 is best suited to study the spectral resolution of the Echelle spectrograph. It shows many interstellar absorption lines, mainly from molecular hydrogen, which are very sharp and rather strong. Among a total of 814 interstellar line positions used for wavelength calibration, 159 line positions originated from this object. We coadded two observations of this object with integration times of 1080 s and 660 s respectively, taken within two successive orbits (Fig. 5).

We fitted many of these absorption lines in the wavelength range from 96 nm to 110 nm with Gaussian profiles and calculated the ratio of wavelength to the FWHM of these lines. We got values mainly between $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 7000 to 10 000 with depths of 60% to 80% (Fig. 6 and Table 1).

We further estimated an upper limit for the width of the instrument profile: Assuming that the absorption lines had originally depths of 100% with the same equivalent width, we calculated the width of the instrument profile that would be necessary to reproduce the observed absorption line profiles. For simplicity we assumed Gaussian profiles for both the absorption lines and the instrumental profile and a quadratic addition of the widths. The resulting values for the FWHM of the instrumental profiles are in the range $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 9000 to 13 000 (Table 1). As these calculations are estimates of a lower limit of the resolution of the Echelle spectrometer, we conclude that the achieved resolution of the Echelle spectrometer was significantly better than the goal of $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 10 000.

Another approach to estimate the achieved instrumental resolution is shown in Fig. 7. The equivalent widths of the fitted absorption lines are plotted against their observed $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ values. A linear least square fit is applied to all data points (point no. 9 was excluded from the fit in a conservative approach). Extrapolating this fitted straight line to an equivalent width of 0 should reproduce the instrumental resolution. The result is a value between $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 11 000 and 12 000.

This result is not really surprising, as the spectral resolution of 10 000 was calculated for a fully illuminated 10″ diaphragm. Though the Echelle spectrometer was operated with a 20″ diaphragm the ASTRO-SPAS pointing jitter was $`\pm `$ 2″ and therefore the effective object image size was much smaller than the assumed 10″.

Figure 8 shows the complete Echelle spectrum of HD 93521 smoothed with a 11 pixel wide boxcar. The individual Echelle orders are plotted separately, the spectral range for each order is indicated at the top of the figure. The overlap region between adjacent orders increases with the order number. A small gap exists between orders 40 and 41 and between orders 41 and 42.

## 5 Summary

The Echelle spectrometer was one of the two focal instruments of the ORFEUS telescope, which was flown on its second mission in November/December 1996. The in-flight performance and the principles of data reduction for this instrument are presented. The wavelength range is 90 nm to 140 nm and we showed, that the spectral resolution is significantly better than $`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ = 10 000, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`\lambda `$ is measured as the FWHM of the instrumental profile. The effective area peaks at 1.3 cm2 near 110 nm. The background is dominated by straylight from the Echelle grating and is about 15% in an extracted spectrum for spectra with a rather flat continuum. The internal accuracy of the wavelength calibration is better than $`\pm `$ 0.005 nm. No corrections could be applied which would correct for a possible systematic shift of the object within the 20″ aperture of the telescope.

For the future we plan to improved the data quality by further reduction steps and investigations:

* Integration of single photons with correction of actual orbital radial velocity and possibly correction for the ASTRO-SPAS pointing jitter.
* Correlation of count rate variations with ASTRO-SPAS pointing jitter to estimate the object’s position within the aperture and the size and the shape of the telescope’s image of the object.
* Investigation of small scale flat field variations.
* Investigation of the cause for the “tilted” absorption lines within the spectral orders.
* Stray light model for improved background subtraction.

###### Acknowledgements.

This project could not have been successfully carried out without the very efficient cooperation of all the many individuals and institutions involved. In particular we acknowledge the excellent performance of the teams of DASA with the construction and mission operations of the ASTRO-SPAS satellite, of Kayser-Threde with the construction of the ORFEUS telescope, the ground support teams at the Kennedy Space Center, the crew of STS-80 Columbia, the mission representatives of DARA and NASA and last not least our colleagues at the Space Sciences Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley. We wish to thank Dr. Ralf Napiwotzki for calculating the atmosphere models for BD +28° 4211 and making them available to us. The ORFEUS program was supported by DARA grants WE3 OS 8501 and WE2 QV 9304 and NASA grant NAG5-696.


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# A unique large thermal source of real and virtual photons in the reactions Pb(158 AGeV) + Pb, Au

## I Introduction

Direct real and virtual photons are now widely considered as very important penetrating probes of the early, hot and dense stage of relativistic heavy-ion collisions (cf.  for a recent survey). Efforts  have been devoted recently to understand the dielectron spectra measured by the CERES collaboration in the reaction Pb(158 AGeV) + Au in the low invariant mass region  and the dimuon spectra measured by the NA50 collaboration in the reaction Pb(158 AGeV) + Pb in the intermediate mass region . Both experiments point to a significant excess of dileptons above the conventional sources such as electromagnetic decays of light hadrons (resulting in the hadronic cocktail), and correlated semileptonic decays of open charm mesons, and the Drell-Yan process. It is commonly believed that, in particular, the CERES data, obtained with lead and sulfur projectiles, could indicate a drastic change of the properties of hadrons, mainly the $`\rho `$ meson, in a hot and dense surrounding hadronic medium . For instance, transport simulations  including in-medium modifications of the light vector meson masses and widths are found to account for the excess of dielectrons. At the same time ”traditional” hydrodynamical calculations , even when supplemented by the in-medium effects, give a dilepton yield which appears to be below the experimental data in the most important invariant mass region, 0.4 GeV $`<M<`$ 0.6 GeV. Only if one employs chemical off-equilibrium effects, e.g., parameterized by a finite pion chemical potential , the agreement of the hydrodynamical model calculations with data can be improved .

In a recent analysis  we proposed a model with a minimum set of parameters, which describes at the same time the CERES and NA50 dilepton data by a thermal source. In spite of its schematic character, the model is based on the nontrivial observation, made recently as a result of rather involved evaluations of the properties of hadrons near the chiral symmetry restoration, that the dilepton emission rate from a hadron gas at given temperature is fairly well described by the quark–anti-quark annihilation rate at the same temperature in a wide range of invariant masses extending to small values . This is called a ”duality” of the hadronic and quark-gluon degrees of freedom in describing the emissivity of strongly interacting matter. Such a simplification makes it possible to parameterize the thermal source by a Boltzmann like exponential function with effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and a normalization factor $`N_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ which reflects the space-time volume occupied by the thermal source . The most remarkable result of such a parameterization is that the dilepton spectra in both the low-mass region, as measured by the CERES collaboration, and the intermediate-mass region, as accessible to the NA50 collaboration, can be well described by the two unique parameters $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. Also the transverse momentum spectra are well described . This clearly indicates a common thermal source seen in different phase space regions and different dilepton channels.

In the present paper we employ the above mentioned model for the thermal source to analyze the direct real photons in the reaction Pb(158 AGeV) + Pb. In line with the hadron-quark ”duality” we assume that deconfined and hadron matter shine equally bright in a temperature region centered around the critical temperature of chiral symmetry restoration.

An important information, which can be extracted from the photon spectra, is related to the transverse collective flow of matter. Unfortunately, the corresponding transverse momentum ($`Q_{}`$) spectra of dileptons do not give so far such an opportunity, since in the large $`Q_{}`$ region, where the flow effect is strongest, the total yield is dominated by the background contributions.

The primary aim of the present note is to show that a thermal source, with parameters adjusted to the CERES and NA50 dilepton data, results in a photon spectrum which, when including the background, is in agreement with the data of the WA98 collaboration  for the reaction Pb(158 AGeV) + Pb.

## II Model

For the emission of photons from a thermal source we employ the rate obtained in  for the free quark-gluon plasma at temperature $`T`$

$$E\frac{dN}{d^4xd^3p}=\frac{5}{9}\frac{\alpha \alpha _s}{2\pi ^2}T^2\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{pu}{T}\right\}\mathrm{log}\left[1+\frac{\kappa (pu)}{\alpha _sT}\right],$$
(1)
where $`p^\mu =(E,\stackrel{}{p})=(p_{}\mathrm{cosh}y,p_{}\mathrm{sinh}y,\stackrel{}{p}_{})`$ denotes the four-momentum of the photon with transverse momentum $`p_{}`$ and rapidity $`y`$; $`u^\mu `$ is the four-velocity of the medium; the constant $`\kappa `$ is according to  $`\kappa =2.912/(4\pi )`$. We use units with $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$. The rate (1) takes into account the lowest order QCD processes, i.e. the $`q\overline{q}`$ annihilation and the Compton like process. For the strong coupling strength we take $`\alpha _s=0.3`$. As shown in , at $`T=200`$ MeV this rate is very close to that of hadron matter when including a quite complete list of reactions of light mesons and the decays of vector mesons. This gives an additional hint for extending the mentioned hadron-quark ”duality” to the real photon sector, at least for temperatures in the region of the chiral symmetry restoration. (At much higher temperature, the rate in  is probably more appropriate; cf. also .)

Since the thermal photon spectra are thought to be sensitive to the medium’s flow we consider here the simplest case of a spherically symmetric expansion with velocity profile $`v(r)=v_0r/R(t)`$, where $`r`$ stands for the radial coordinate and $`R(t)`$ is the radius of the source, so that for a constant velocity parameter $`v_0`$ the size $`R(t)`$ increases linearly with time $`t`$. In line with our model of the thermal dilepton source  we replace the temperature by an effective average temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, being constant. Within such an approximation one can factorize the space-time volume $`V_4`$ and the radiation emissivity. Performing the space-time integration in eq. (1) one gets the photon spectrum as

$`E{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^3p}}`$ $`=`$ $`V_4F(E,T_{\mathrm{eff}},v_0),`$ (2)
$`F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle d^3\stackrel{}{s}\frac{dN}{d^4x(d^3\stackrel{}{p}/E)}},`$ (3)
where $`\stackrel{}{s}=\stackrel{}{r}/R(t)`$ and $`V_4=\frac{4\pi }{3}𝑑tR(t)^3`$. Below we use the uniquely fixed parameters $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=170`$ MeV and $`V_4=N_{\mathrm{eff}}=3.3\times 10^4`$ fm4, which have been previously adjusted  to the CERES and NA50 dilepton data.

## III Analysis of photon spectra

We focus on the direct photon production assuming that the background, related to decays of secondary hadrons, is removed from the corresponding data . To describe the spectra one also needs the contribution from hard initial processes, like the Drell-Yan process in dilepton production, which is expected to dominate in the high-$`p_{}`$ region. The hard photon yield is generated in our study by the event generator PYTHIA  with structure functions MRS D-’, default cut-off parameter $`\widehat{p}_{min}=1`$ GeV for photons, and intrinsic transverse parton momentum spread $`\sqrt{k_{}^2}=`$ 0.8 GeV, adjusted to the transverse momentum spectra of dileptons in the Drell-Yan region in ; otherwise the default switches are used. Higher order calculations are presented in , but we try to absorb them into an appropriate K factor.

To check the reliability of estimates of the hard component, we compare in fig. 1 the PYTHIA results with the photon data obtained in pp collisions by the E704 collaboration at $`\sqrt{s}=`$ 19.4 GeV  (left part) and by the UA6 collaboration at $`\sqrt{s}=`$ 24.3 GeV  (right part). To reproduce the data one has to include the K factors of 3.2 (1.8) for $`\sqrt{s}=`$ 19.4 GeV ( $`\sqrt{s}=`$ 24.3 GeV). As seen in fig. 1, PYTHIA describes then well the data, i.e. the slopes of the spectra, which are in the high-$`p_{}`$ region, $`p_{}>2.5`$ GeV. This conclusion is important for the subsequent analysis of the photon data in heavy-ion collisions, where the absolute normalization of the hard production (i.e., the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions) is a priori unknown.

The comparison of our thermal model yield plus the hard yield from PYTHIA with the WA98 data  is displayed in fig. 2 for the case of neglecting the flow, i.e., $`v_0=0`$, and in fig. 3 for the flow parameter $`v_0=0.3`$. (Similar to the PYTHIA calculations we simulate the thermal yield eqs. (2, 3) by a Monte Carlo procedure and apply the detector acceptance.) As seen in fig. 2, the hard photon production process dominates in the high-$`p_{}`$ region, where we have adjusted the PYTHIA calculation to data. At $`p_{}<2.5`$ GeV one can observe the increase of the experimental yield above the hard yield. In this region secondary processes become important. One has to stress, however, that in the region of not too large values of $`p_{}`$ any hard photon production calculation based on perturbative QCD is not longer reliable. In particular, in the region of smaller $`p_{}`$ the PYTHIA results become sensitive to the cut-off parameter $`\widehat{p}_{min}`$.

As can be expected from eq. (1), the contribution from the thermal source strongly depends on the transverse flow. The moderate value of $`v_0=0.3`$, used in fig. 3, is consistent with the analysis of transverse hadron flow at kinetic decoupling . For such a flow parameter one finds good agreement with the data  when adding the thermal yield and the hard contribution (see fig. 3).

To make more firm conclusions on the role of thermal photons in Pb + Pb collisions at CERN-SPS energies, one needs a more reliable procedure to fix the hard background. Similarly to dileptons, an accurate adjustment of the hard rate at the high-$`p_{}`$ tail requires an improvement of the data statistics. Notice that our present up-scale factor from PYTHIA simulations of pp collisions to heavy-ion data can be considered as an upper bound for the hard radiation. Nevertheless, a remarkable space is left for the secondary radiation.

An additional insight can be gained by an analysis of non-central collisions which should allow a link to pA collisions, where also data are at hand . This will be subject of a separate future study.

## IV Summary and discussion

In summary we analyze the direct photon production in the reaction Pb(158 AGeV) + Pb by using a model with a minimum parameter set, i.e., the effective temperature and the space-time volume of the thermal source, both ones adjusted to dilepton data in similar central reactions. The model employs the hadron-quark ”duality” for the rate of electromagnetic radiation off matter. We have shown that our model, supplemented by the hard photon yield as described by PYTHIA, is in good agreement with the WA98 data. This result supports the assumption of an extended and long-living source of the electromagnetic radiation, which can be seen in both the real and virtual photon channels. The comparatively large value of the space-time factor $`V_4`$ in our model can be related to previous expectations on a long-living fireball  or a phase space overpopulation of hadrons .

It should be emphasized that our effective temperature parameter $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=170`$ MeV is in perfect agreement with the temperature parameter needed to describe hadron species ratios . Since $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is to be considered as average of the temperature, one concludes that the electromagnetic probes indeed point to temperatures above the expected deconfinement temperature. This corroborates the expectation of exciting deconfined matter in central heavy-ion collisions already at CERN-SPS energies.

The photon spectra are shown to be useful in extracting information on transverse flow. For firm conclusions, however, the hard photon production processes must be reliably accessible. Our approach can be contrasted with attempts to interpret the data either without any hard contribution  or by the hard yield alone by tuning parameters. Transport approaches  should smoothly interpolate between these extreme cases.

We expect that the future analysis of the starting experiments at the relativistic heavy-ion collider RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory should deliver a higher value of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ since the estimated maximum temperatures will be significantly larger.

### Acknowledgments

Useful discussions with H.W. Barz and G. Zinovjev are gratefully acknowledged, in particular Th. Peitzmann for valuable explanations of the WA98 data. O.P.P. thanks for the warm hospitality in the nuclear theory group in the Research Center Rossendorf. The work is supported by the grants BMBF 06DR829/1, STCU 015 and WTZ UKR-008-98.


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# VLBA observations of SiO masers: Arguments in favor of radiative pumping mechanisms

## 1 Introduction

SiO maser emission at 7 mm wavelength ($`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2, $`J`$=1–0 transitions near 43 GHz) has been observed in AGB stars with very high spatial resolution by means of VLBI techniques, yielding important results in relation with their not yet well understood pumping mechanism. The 7 mm maser emission regions are found to be distributed in a number of spots forming a ring-like structure at about 2–3 stellar radii: see observations of TX Cam, U Her, W Hya, and VX Sgr by Diamond et al. (1994), Miyoshi et al. (1994), and Greenhill et al. (1995). This ring-like flux distribution arises naturally in the framework of the radiative pumping mechanism of SiO masers (see Bujarrabal 1994a , and references therein), that requires a shell-like matter distribution. These structures may also be possible in collisional models, which are practically not geometry dependent (e.g. Doel et al. (1995)). From observations with the KNIFE VLBI array, Miyoshi et al. (1994) reported that the emission of these two lines systematically arises from positionally coincident spots, at least as seen with their 7 mas beam. Miyoshi et al. claimed that this result is a conclusive proof in favor of collisional pumping schemes, since radiative mechanisms, always more selective, tend to require different physical conditions to pump the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 masers.

VLBA observations (Kemball & Diamond (1997)) have also shown that most SiO spots are linearly polarized in the tangential direction, i.e. perpendicularly to the direction to the ring center, in a particularly well defined pattern. This result was interpreted as due to a magnetic field, but uncomfortably strong (close to 10 G). Moreover, Kemball & Diamond found problems to define a distribution of possible field directions that would explain such a tangential pattern, mostly if it systematically applies to SiO masers in AGB stars. The problem of explaining the tangential polarization can be solved invoking radiative pumping. Tangential linear polarization in SiO masers arises in these models as a direct result of the anisotropy introduced by the absorption of stellar (radial) photons, even in the absence of magnetic field. In fact, tangential polarization was predicted from radiative pumping models more than ten years before any VLBA observations were available (Bujarrabal & Nguyen-Q-Rieu 1981; Western & Watson, 1983b ).

## 2 Observations and data analysis

We performed observations of the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2, $`J`$=1–0 lines of SiO (at a rest frequency of 43,122.080 and 42,820.587 MHz respectively) with the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array111The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is operated by Associated Universities, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. in April 1996. The system was setup to record 4 MHz of left-circular and right-circular polarizations in both lines. The correlation was produced at the VLBA correlator in Socorro (NM, USA) providing 128 spectral channel cross correlations of the parallel- and cross-hand polarization bands (thus achieving a spectral resolution of $`0.22`$ km s-1), out of which all four Stokes parameters could be retrieved, and hence the full polarization state of SiO masers.

The calibration procedure used to derive the total intensity maps followed the standard scheme in the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS) for spectral line experiments. Maps of $`50\times 50`$ mas were produced for both $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 lines separately, with a restoring beam of $`0.6\times 0.3`$ mas FWHM (with the major axis being at a position angle PA = $`60^{}`$, measured from North to East) for TX Cam and $`0.7\times 0.2`$ mas (PA = $`29^{}`$) for IRC +10011.

AIPS also provides a set of tools to produce maps of the linearly polarized spectral line emission (for more details see e.g. the AIPS Cookbook222The AIPS Cookbook is available at the URL http://www.cv.nrao.edu/aips/cook.html, Cotton 1993, Leppanen et al. 1995, and Kemball et al. 1995). We observed the quasar 3C 454.3 (of known linear polarization) to estimate the delay correction between the RCP and LCP bands. The instrumental polarization leakage (or D-terms) were estimated from observations of the unpolarized quasar 3C 84, consistently with the corrections found independently with AIPS from the SiO maser sources.

In Figs. 1, we show the spectrum of auto-correlation and cross-correlation. These spectrum tell us that in the case of TX Cam less than 50% of the flux is lost in our map due to our high spatial resolution, but for IRC +10011, about 75% of the flux is lost. This suggest that the map of IRC +10011 is essentially sensible to the most compact components and that we missed part of flux due to the presence of extended components.

The determination of the absolute polarization position angle for IRC +10011 was performed using single dish observations made at the same epoch with the radio telescope at Centro Astronómico de Yebes (OAN, Spain). We identified and measured the polarization angle of a component spatially isolated within our velocity resolution in our VLBA maps(Desmurs et al. 1999). We measured the absolute position angle of the polarization observed at the same velocity in our single dish data. Comparing both polarization angles, we were able to find the correction to be applied to our VLBI map in order to be in agreement with our single dish observations. We estimate that the confidence in the final position angle is $`\pm 10^{}`$. We checked also that the correction obtained in this way, applied on the polarization map of 3C 454.3, produced a result consistent with that shown by Kemball et al. (1996).

Maps of the two transitions were independently produced by solving the residual fringes-rates on the line sources. This correction is determined by selecting a channel containing a simple feature with a simple spatial structure and a high S/N ratio (strong emission), that is used as phase reference for all other channels. To do this, we selected a maser spot appearing in both transitions assuming that these spots were actually spatially coincident. This fixed the position of that maser spots at the map origin in both transitions. This procedure assumes that this maser spot that appears in both lines at the same velocity and position respectively to the rest of the emission distribution actually arises from the same condensation (see result on Figs. 2 and 3); a similar procedure was followed for example, by Miyoshi et al. (1994).

## 3 Results and discussion

Our high-quality VLBA maps (Figs. 2 and 3) confirm that both $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 $`J`$=1–0 maser transitions arise from ring-like structures, at a distance from the center $`11`$ mas for IRC +10011, and $`14`$ mas for TX Cam. These radii are equivalent to about $`810^{13}`$ cm (assuming a distance of $`500`$ pc for IRC +10011, and $``$ 350 pc for TX Cam). In IRC +10011, a well defined pattern of tangential linear polarization is found. Linear polarization degrees as high as 22% are measured, though some spots are not linearly polarized. A tangential polarization pattern has been also detected in TX Cam, consistent with the work published by Kemball et al. (1995), and with similar properties to those of we find in IRC +10011.

The above observational results are expected from theoretical models for SiO radiative pumping. In fact, both the flux distribution in a thin ring and the tangential polarization are properties essentially related to the radiative pumping of SiO masers. Excitation of SiO vibrational states by absorption of stellar photons is much more probable than collisional excitation, as one can easily demonstrate by taking into account the expected physical conditions in the emitting regions. For instance, an SiO shell located at 3 stellar radii, with a kinetic temperature of 1500 K and a density of 109 particules cm-3, presents an absorption rate of stellar photons in the $`v`$=0$``$1 transition that is about 200 times larger than the corresponding collisional excitation rate. However, radiative excitation is efficient to produce population inversion in $`v>0`$ rotational transitions only when the SiO region fulfills some conditions, particularly when radiation comes from a central source at some distance from the SiO shell (Bujarrabal & Nguyen-Q-Rieu 1981, Bujarrabal 1994a). Under such conditions, the high probability of the photon absorption implies that the pumping must be radiative. Due to the geometrical conditions for the radiative pumping, the radiative maser excitation is more efficient close to the inner boundary of the SiO shell. In terms of flux, this effect is strengthened by the non-linear maser amplification (Bujarrabal 1994b, Western & Watson 1983a). This theoretically indicates that “tangential” (i.e. perpendicular to the radial direction) amplification is dominant, and leads to a radial flux distributions in a thin ring, strikingly similar to that observed in these stars.

Tangential polarization is also expected from radiative pumping models, as can be understood from a semiclassical point of view. Radiation incident on a gas shell from a central source must show electric and magnetic fields perpendicular to the radial direction. Linear molecules are preferentially excited by the absorption of such photons when they rotate in the tangential plane, and will preferentially rotate in it after the excitation. This is expected to be the case when SiO is vibrationally excited from the $`v`$ to the $`v`$+1 state by absorption of stellar 8$`\mu `$ photons. In other words, for a given $`J`$ level in $`v`$+1, the most populated magnetic sublevels will be those with largest $`|M|`$ values (when the quantization of the magnetic quantum number is taken along the radial direction). When the molecular emission is essentially tangential (as for SiO masers), the tangential plane, in which molecules rotate, contains the line of sight for intense spikes: one then expects to detect “tangential polarization”, in agreement with observations. Note that this mechanism does not require any magnetic field or exotic maser saturation effect.

This intuitive explanation of the linear polarization observed in SiO masers was first proposed, to our knowledge, by Bujarrabal & Nguyen-Q-Rieu (1981). Soon later, but well before the first VLBA polarization maps, Western and Watson (1983a,b) developed more in detail the theory of maser polarization under these conditions, confirming the expected presence of strong tangential polarization in the case of SiO masers from evolved stars. We can also see a more recent discussion in Elitzur (1996).

Our maps also show that the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 spots are systematically not coincident. Positioning of the $`v`$=1 features relative to the $`v`$=2 ones has been performed as described in Sect. 2. In TX Cam we identify, from the integrated flux maps in Fig. 3, about 17 features in both $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 transitions, out of which only one appears to be spatially coincident, within the resolution of our observation. In the case of IRC +10011, we find about 13 features, 4 of which could be coincident (see Fig. 2). In most cases in which spots of these lines are nearby, there is a systematic shift between them, of about 1–2 mas ($``$ 1013 cm), being the $`v`$=2 ones placed in a layer slightly closer to the star (Figs. 4 and 5).

The way how the maps in the two lines are aligned (see Sect. 2) implies that at least one maser spot appears in both lines at the same spatial position respectively to the rest of the emission distribution. Nevertheless, we can easily check that there is no possibility of selecting any spot that permits the alignment of a majority of the other spots in both lines.

Another geometrical argument is that the diameters of both emission rings differ. After suming all the velocity channels into one velocity integrated map (Fig. 2 and 3), we determined the position of the maser spots showing a S/N ratio at least equal to 5 $`\sigma `$ (for TX Cam 1$`\sigma `$ is $``$0.86 Jy and for IRC +10011 1$`\sigma `$ is $``$0.7 Jy). We fited a ring shell to our data giving a relative weight to each maser spot proportional to its intensity. The parameters (position center and radius of the emission ring) for which the coefficient of standard deviation is minimum is kept as the best possible fitting. As a result, for TX Cam the radii found for the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 maser transition are respectively 14.5$`\pm `$0.2 mas and 13.2$`\pm `$0.2 mas. This represents a difference between both diameters of the emission rings of 2.6 $`\pm `$0.5 mas, to be compared with our beam resolution of 0.6$`\times `$0.3 mas. For IRC +10011, the radii found are 11.7$`\pm `$0.2 mas for the $`v`$=1 and 11.1$`\pm `$0.2 mas for the $`v`$=2, which gives a diameter difference of 1.2$`\pm `$0.5 mas, for a resolution beam of about 0.7$`\times `$0.2 mas. These differences in the maser ring sizes are significant enough in comparison with our beam resolution, which leads us to conclude that the two lines come from shells with significantly different diameters.

The conclusion that the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 masers arise from the spatially coincident spots obtained previously by Miyoshi et al. (1994) is then not confirmed by our higher-resolution data. This disagreement could be explained by the fact that the measured shifts are significantly smaller than the beam in their data (7 mas). The claim by these authors ruling out radiative pumping, on the basis that radiative models tend to require different conditions for the pumping of transitions in these two vibrational states (see Sect. 1), was clearly premature. In fact, the systematic separation between the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 spots in our data must be considered as an additional support for the radiative pumping.

Preliminary calculations for radiatively pumped models (see Bujarrabal 1994a  and Herpin (1998)) indicate that, when both $`v`$=1 and 2 masers appear in the same clump, the $`v`$=2 lines tend to select its innermost parts, in agreement with the data. In any case, published calculations have not explicitly addressed this important point yet, and new accurate calculations are required.

Our observational results could also be explained under certain condition by collisional pumping. The tangential polarization can be produced in the presence of strong magnetic fields within certain directions, independently of the pumping process. But this mechanism cannot explain the tangential polarization if it is (as it seems) a systematic property in evolved stars. For instance, Kemball & Diamond (1997) argue that a pattern like that detected in TX Cam by them would require a poloidal magnetic field with a non-arbitrary inclination of the pole with respect to the plane of the sky, $``$ 40–60, other angles even leading to radial polarization. Shell-like spatial distributions of the maser flux can also appear when the pumping is collisional, if it acts in certain pulsating atmospheres (Humphreys et al. (1996), Doel et al. (1995)). As we have mentioned, the collisional pumping models tend to predict spatial coincidence between the $`v`$=1 and $`v`$=2 masers, though in the above mentioned papers there are also examples in which the $`v`$=2 $`J`$=1–0 masers are placed closer to the star.

But the main conclusion from the discussion presented in this paper is that the bulk of the existing empirical results on SiO maser emission from evolved stars strongly support radiative pumping. The spatial shell-like distribution of the flux, the tangential polarization pattern of $`v`$=1 and 2 $`J`$=1–0 SiO masers, and the shift in their spatial distributions (properties very often found in the existing observations) are intrinsically related with the radiative pumping schemes. Indeed, radiative models predicted, well before the observations were made, that such properties should be systematically observed.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish DGES Project PB96-0104. JFD acknowledges support for his research by the European Union under contract ERBFMGECT950012.


text:
# Stabilizing an Attractive Bose-Einstein Condensate by Driving A Surface Collective Mode

## Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensates of 7Li have been limited in number due to attractive interatomic interactions. Beyond this number, the condensate undergoes collective collapse. We study theoretically the effect of driving low-lying collective modes of the condensate by a weak asymmetric sinusoidally time-dependent field. We find that driving the radial breathing mode further destabilizes the condensate, while excitation of the quadrupolar surface mode causes the condensate to become more stable by imparting quasi-angular momentum to it. We show that a significantly larger number of atoms may occupy the condensate, which can then be sustained almost indefinitely. All effects are predicted to be clearly visible in experiments and efforts are under way for their experimental realization.

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in cold and dilute atomic gases, provide a new domain for studying nonlinear many-body quantum systems. Consider the condensate wavefunction in the mean-field picture: First, the zero-point kinetic energy of the atoms tends to increase the size of the condensate wavefunction. Second, this outward pressure is balanced by the effect of the confining harmonic trap potential $`V(\stackrel{}{r})`$. Finally, the nonlinearity enters through the interatomic interactions scaling as $`aN_0|\psi |^2`$, where $`a`$ is the s-wave scattering length for the gas and $`N_0`$ is the number of atoms participating in the condensate. The condensate is then well-characterized by the product wavefunction $`\varphi =\sqrt{N_0}\psi `$ where the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\psi (\stackrel{}{r},t)=\left[\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2+V(\stackrel{}{r})+\frac{4\pi \mathrm{}^2aN_0}{m}|\psi (\stackrel{}{r})|^2\right]\psi (\stackrel{}{r},t)$$
(1)
governs the single-particle wave-function $`\psi `$ of this weakly-interacting Bose condensate at zero temperature.

Among the systems in which BEC has been observed, 7Li is unique in that it has a negative value for $`a`$; i.e., the effective interaction between atoms is attractive. Such attractive interactions were initially argued to prevent BEC, but it is now established that a static metastable condensate exists as long as the number of participating atoms $`N_0`$ is less than a maximum $`N_\mathrm{s}`$. This is understood to unfold as follows: As the 7Li Bose gas is cooled below the critical temperature for BEC, the number of atoms in the condensate increases steadily with a kinetically determined ‘fill rate’. As $`N_0`$ increases the nonlinear attractive interactions grow and the condensate becomes more localized. At $`N_0N_\mathrm{s}`$, the condensate undergoes collective collapse and there is a rapid increase in condensate density. The rates for inelastic collision processes, including two-body dipolar collisions and three-body recombination, are density dependent and increase rapidly during collapse. The atoms participating in these processes acquire large kinetic energies and are ejected from the condensate. Although the quantitative details of this collapse are not yet fully understood, experimental evidence for this process has been obtained.

In this Letter, we analyze theoretically the effect of weakly perturbing the harmonic trapping potential for an attractive condensate. We have considered general potentials $`V\left(\stackrel{}{r}\right)=\frac{1}{2}m_{i=1}^3\omega _i^2x_i^2`$ where $`\stackrel{}{r}(x_1,x_2,x_3)(x,y,z)`$ and the parameters $`\omega _i`$ characterize the trapping potential along the three axes. For the case presented in detail below, $`\omega _i^2=\omega _0^2[1+\alpha _i\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)]`$ where $`\omega `$ is the frequency of the forcing and the $`\alpha _i`$ are its amplitudes. This corresponds to a spherically symmetric trap driven asymmetrically by a weak, sinusoidally time-dependent field. We employ a Gaussian time-dependent variational principle approximation (GVA) analysis of the GP equation to solve for the condensate dynamics. The Gaussian ansatz is motivated by the shape of the ground-state for non-interacting particles in a harmonic trap and constrains the condensate wavefunction to be of the form $`\psi (\stackrel{}{r},t)=\psi _x\psi _y\psi _z`$ where $`\psi _i=\left[2\pi a_i(t)\right]^{\frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{x_i^2(\frac{1}{4a_i(t)}+ib_i(t))\right\}.`$ This ansatz when used in Eq. (1) yields that the condensate dynamics correspond to a classical effective Hamiltonian. With the transformation $`a_i(t)=\rho _i^2(t)`$ and $`b_i(t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_i(t)}{2\rho _i(t)}`$ this Hamiltonian has the transparent form $`H_{var}=_i\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_i^2}{2m}+\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m\rho _i^2}+\frac{m\omega _i^2\rho _i^2}{2}\right]+\frac{\mathrm{}^2aN_0}{4\sqrt{\pi }}\frac{1}{\rho _1\rho _2\rho _3}.`$ The parameters $`\rho _i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i`$ are given by $`\widehat{x}_i^2=\rho _i^2`$ and $`\widehat{x}_i\widehat{p}_i+\widehat{p}_i\widehat{x}_i=2\rho _i\mathrm{\Pi }_i`$. Note that $`\widehat{x}_i=0=\widehat{p}_i`$ for this wavefunction. The centroid of the condensate thus sits at the trap minimum and all the dynamics is restricted to changes in the condensate width $`\rho _i`$ in the three directions. That is, the dynamics of a quasi-particle with canonically conjugate position and momentum variables $`\rho _i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i`$ characterizes the condensate. A further scaling by the length of the trap $`\mathrm{}_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/(m\omega _0)}`$, the time-scale $`\omega _0^1`$, and energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _0`$ yields the dimensionless Hamiltonian

$$H_{var}=\frac{1}{4}\underset{i}{}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_i^2}{2}+\frac{1}{\rho _i^2}+(1+\alpha _i\mathrm{cos}(\omega t))\rho _i^2\right]\frac{3\beta }{4\rho _1\rho _2\rho _3}$$
(2)
where $`\beta =\frac{4}{3\sqrt{2\pi }}\frac{N_0|a|}{\mathrm{}_0}`$. The kinetics of the condensate, including the fill rate and dissipative losses, affect the dynamics through the time-dependence of $`N_0`$. We set the fill rate $`G_0`$ to a constant, which is a good approximation to the results from the Boltzmann equation over the time-scales considered. Further, dipolar relaxation scales as $`\varphi ^2`$, while molecular recombination is a three-body process scaling as $`\varphi ^3`$. In particular, with the Gaussian approximation for the wavefunction, we can write

$$\dot{N}_0=G_0\frac{N_0^2}{\pi ^{3/2}\rho _1\rho _2\rho _3}\left(\frac{G_2}{2\sqrt{2}}+\frac{N_0G_3}{6\sqrt{3}\pi ^{3/2}\rho _1\rho _2\rho _3}\right)$$
(3)
where $`G_1`$ and $`G_2`$ are the appropriate rate constants. The Hamiltonian Eq. (2) and the kinetics Eq. (3) define the condensate dynamics completely.

To understand these dynamics consider the fixed points given by $`H_{var}/\mathrm{\Pi }_i=0=H_{var}/\rho _i`$. This yields a solution with $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i=0`$ and non-zero $`\rho _i`$ corresponding to the width of a metastable condensate. This solution $`\rho _\beta =|\stackrel{}{\rho }_\beta |`$ is strongly affected by the attractive hole at the origin ($`\stackrel{}{\rho }=0`$ or infinite condensate density) due to the term $`\beta /(\rho _1\rho _2\rho _3)`$ in the Hamiltonian. The condensate is only stable when the quasi-particle avoids this attractive hole. As $`N_0`$ and correspondingly $`\beta `$ increase, the metastable minimum moves closer to the origin, becomes shallower until it becomes an inflection point, and finally vanishes. Correspondingly, the width $`\rho _\beta `$ decreases abruptly when the minimum vanishes, leading to collapse via the kinetics. The critical values $`\rho _m`$ and $`\beta _m`$ for collapse are determined by further imposing the inflection condition $`\frac{d^2H_{var}}{d\rho _i^2}=0`$. This gives $`\rho _m=5^{1/4}`$ and $`\beta _m=\frac{8}{3}5^{5/4}`$, corresponding to $`N_\mathrm{s}1400`$ atoms for the conditions of the Rice experiment.

The normal modes of the quasi-particle dynamics around this minimum (when it exists) are the lowest-lying even collective excitations of the condensate. These normal mode frequencies are obtained by computing the matrices $`𝒱,𝒯`$ with elements $`𝒱_{ij}=\frac{^2H_{var}}{\rho _i\rho _j},𝒯_{ij}=\frac{^2H_{var}}{\mathrm{\Pi }_i\mathrm{\Pi }_j}`$ and then solving for the roots $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ of the equation $`det(𝒱\mathrm{\Omega }^2𝒯)=0`$. One solution is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1=\sqrt{5\rho _\beta ^4}`$ which is the frequency at which the quasi-particle vibrates radially, corresponding to the condensate’s ‘breathing’ mode. The other two solutions are the degenerate solutions $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{2,3}=\sqrt{2+2\rho _\beta ^4}`$. corresponding to vibrational motion perpendicular to the radial direction. This can be visualized as being along the surface of a sphere of fixed radius – these are then quadrupolar surface modes  of the condensate. Since $`\rho _\beta `$ decreases as a function of $`N_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ decreases and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{2,3}`$ increases with increasing $`N_0`$. Also note that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{1,2,3}=\mathrm{\Omega }_0=2`$ for $`\rho _\beta =1`$, i.e. for $`\beta =0`$ (non-interacting limit) in these natural units.

We now turn to the numerical solution of this system of equations. As expected, these lowest-lying even collective modes of the condensate are excited by the driving. Driving the lowest such mode, a radial breathing mode, further destabilizes the condensate and decreases the maximum number of atoms below the static maximum $`N_\mathrm{s}`$. Remarkably, driving the next-highest excitations, which are quadrupolar surface modes, causes the condensate to become more stable. That is, for certain frequencies, atoms occupy the condensate in numbers significantly greater than $`N_\mathrm{s}`$ and the condensate is sustained for correspondingly longer times. We have studied in particular the frequency-dependent value of the maximum number of atoms $`N_\omega `$ that can be sustained in the presence of the driving. We find that this frequency response is broad and qualitatively robust, with similar features for wide range of tested parameters and many alternative configurations for both the confining and perturbing fields. An example of these responses is shown in Fig. (1), along with a theoretical estimate $`N_{\mathrm{ang}}`$ as explained below. In obtaining it, we use $`\alpha _3=0.02=2\alpha _1=2\alpha _2`$ which represents the effect of a Helmholtz field oriented along the axis of an Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap. The response is shown as the ratio $`N_\mathrm{m}=N_\omega /N_\mathrm{s}`$. The broad stabilization effect is clear in this figure; further, it can be seen that the curve has some interesting structure, including in particular a signature dip corresponding to a parametric resonance between the radial and quadrupolar modes as explained below. The stabilization effect is so strong that in some cases it is no longer obvious whether and when a collapse occurs. It is possible for $`N_0`$ to grow so large that the loss rate equals the fill rate, even for relatively large $`\rho `$. The values in Fig. (1) are therefore calculated using a ‘worst case’ definition of the collapse, as the $`N_0`$ value at which the inelastic decay terms in Eq. (3) exceed the growth rate $`G_0`$. Although it is unclear whether the physics of the true dynamical situation in these cases is fully captured by the simple kinetics of Eq. (3), the stabilization is nonetheless remarkable.

To understand the detailed structure of Fig. (1), consider the case of driving the condensate with $`\omega <\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. Note that the dynamics of the quasi-particle are always restricted to the $`\rho _1=\rho _2`$ plane by our choice of driving. At an arbitrary value of $`\omega `$, the driving is not initially resonant with either of the excitations and there is a negligible response from the condensate. As $`N_0`$ increases with time, however, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\beta )`$ will ultimately equal any $`\omega <\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. The breathing mode is excited as a result and the quasi-particle oscillates along the radial direction. As this oscillation increases in amplitude, the quasi-particle is driven into the attractive hole and the condensate collapses. The net effect is to decrease $`N_m(\omega )`$, with the impact being greatest for $`\omega `$ slightly less than $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. The more interesting case is for $`\omega >\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ where again, the driving is not initially resonant. As $`N_0`$ increases, however, the quadrupolar surface modes come into resonance. The quasi-particle then oscillates with increasingly greater amplitude in a direction perpendicular to the radial direction, still in the $`\rho _1=\rho _2`$ plane. An angular momentum vector $`\stackrel{}{l}_{\widehat{q}}(t)=\stackrel{}{\rho }\times \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$ pointing in the $`\widehat{q}`$ direction can be associated with this motion, where $`\widehat{q}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1,1,0)`$ is the normal to the $`\rho _1=\rho _2`$ plane. This angular momentum vector reverses orientation during the oscillation, with its magnitude going to zero at the turning points of the oscillation. However, the mean-square value of this angular momentum increases as the surface mode acquires increasing energy. By virtue of the energy in this oscillation, the quasi-particle avoids the chasm of the attractive ‘hole’, and the condensate is stabilized, avoiding collapse even when the attractive interactions are significant. The above implies that the stabilizing effect may be quantitatively estimated by adding to the kinetic energy pressure terms an angular momentum term $`\frac{\overline{l}^2}{2m\rho ^2}`$ where $`\overline{l}^2`$ is the time-average of $`l_{\widehat{q}}^2(t)`$. This yields an estimated increase in the maximum number of atoms as $`N_{\mathrm{ang}}\frac{N_\mathrm{m}(\overline{l}0)}{N_\mathrm{m}(l=0)}=(1+\frac{4\overline{l}^2}{3})^{5/4}`$; this estimate is plotted in Fig. (1) with $`\overline{l^2}`$ computed directly from the dynamics. It is clear from comparing the curves that this simple angular momentum argument captures the essential features of the stabilization. In particular, the region of discrepancy is precisely where the naive kinetics and collapse criterion render suspect the value of $`N_\omega `$ shown, as argued above.

This resonant driving is easier to sustain for frequencies close to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{2,3}`$ has a weaker dependence on $`N_0`$ in that regime. As $`N_0`$ increases, the condensate ultimately falls out of resonance with the driving. Consider for example the condensate radius $`\rho (t)=|\stackrel{}{\rho }(t)|`$: It is initially unaffected by the driving and decreases slowly as in the static case; this is followed by a resonantly driven increase that ultimately saturates. An example of this mechanism is shown in Fig. (2a) for $`\omega =2.3`$ (corresponding to a driving frequency of $`308Hz`$ for the Rice experiment). In Fig. (2b) we show a numerical solution for the GP equation corresponding to the situation in Fig. (2a); the two curves agree qualitatively. We note here that the numerical solution to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the GP form for cylindrical symmetry is extremely difficult and a full scan of frequencies is computationally prohibitive. However, simulations including filling and inelastic decay similar to those in the literature have been performed to qualtitatively validate the GVA results.

As $`\omega `$ increases, the resonance occurs at increasingly later times and for decreasing windows of time, and hence the greatest stabilization happens for $`\omega `$ slightly greater than $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. There is no such stabilization for $`\omega >\omega _2=\sqrt{12}=3.46`$; this critical frequency is obtained by substituting the maximum value for the equilibrium $`\rho _m`$ into the expression for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{2,3}`$i.e., the driving cannot resonate with the condensate modes if the metastable minimum does not exist in the first place. This cut-off can be seen clearly in Fig. (1). Finally, we point out the significant dip in the curves at $`\omega =\omega _1=\sqrt{8}`$. This frequency corresponds to the situation where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{2,3}(\beta )=2\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\beta )`$ i.e. for $`\rho _\beta ^4=3`$. In this case, the driving and the surface modes parametrically excite the radial mode through the $`1:2`$ resonance between the frequencies. Thus, the condensate is destabilized even for a frequency greater than $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. Similar resonances account for the other detailed structure in the frequency response curves. All these features should be clearly visible experimentally, since the experimental resolution is of the order of $`50`$ condensate atoms, and the predicted features exceed this resolution significantly. Moreover, the details of the curves are sensitive to the precise models and parameters used. Comparison of experimental results with these theoretical predictions will therefore help a) define the regime of validity of a given model and b) improve our understanding of the details of the rich interplay between kinetics and non-linear many-body quantum dynamics in the attractive condensate. Efforts are under way for experimental realization of these phenomena.

The instability and finite lifetimes of attractive condensates have been a constraint in the push to understand these systems. It is expected that the significantly increased stability through weak driving will open the way to further novel experimental phenomena and interesting theory and ultimately a deeper understanding of this nonlinear quantum regime.

We gratefully acknowledge Keiko Petrosky and Hilary Lovett for their contributions to this research. AKP benefitted from useful discussions with Paul Stevenson. Research at Rice was supported by the NSF, ONR, the Welch Foundation and NASA. AG aknowledges partial support from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo.


text:
# Can CPT Symmetry Be Tested With 𝐾⁰ vs 𝐾̄⁰→𝜋⁺𝜋⁻𝜋⁰ Decays?

## Abstract

We show that the CP-violating effect in $`K^0`$ vs $`\overline{K}^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decays differs from that in $`K_\mathrm{L}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`K_\mathrm{L}\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ or the semileptonic $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ transitions, if there exists CPT violation in $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing. A delicate measurement of this difference in the KTeV experiment and at the $`\varphi `$ factory will provide a new test of CPT symmetry in the neutral kaon system.

preprint:     hep-ph/0006112  LUM-00-06  May 2000

The $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing system has been playing an important role in particle physics for testing fundamental symmetries (such as CP, T and CPT) and examining conservation laws (such as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{S}=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{Q}`$). The existing experimental evidence for CPT invariance in the mixing and decays of neutral kaon mesons remains rather poor : it is not excluded that the strength of CPT-violating interactions could be as large as about ten percentage of that of CP-violating interactions. This unsatisfactory situation will be improved in the near future, in particular after a variety of more delicate measurements are carried out in the KTeV experiment  and at the $`\varphi `$ factory .

There are several possibilities to pin down CPT violation in $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing with the decays of $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ and $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ mesons into the two-pion and (or) the semileptonic states . Recently a new possibility to test CPT symmetry, with the help of neutral kaon decays into the three-pion states, has been pointed out in Ref. . The idea is simply that the CP-violating effect induced by $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing in $`K^0`$ vs $`\overline{K}^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ transitions should not be identical to that in $`K_\mathrm{L}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, $`K_\mathrm{L}\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ or the semileptonic $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ decays, if CPT symmetry is also violated. Thus a careful comparison between these two types of CP-violating effects may provide a robust test of CPT invariance in $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing.

This paper aims at elaborating the preliminary idea proposed in Ref.  and presenting the time-dependent CP asymmetry between $`K^0(t)\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0(t)\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decays. Our result is expected to be useful for the forth-coming experiments of kaon physics.

Let us explain the main idea concisely. The mass eigenstates of $`K^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0`$ mesons can in general be written as

$`|K_\mathrm{S}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{|p_1^{}|^2+|q_1^{}|^2}}}\left(p_1^{}|K^0+q_1^{}|\overline{K}^0\right),`$ (1)
$`|K_\mathrm{L}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{|p_2^{}|^2+|q_2^{}|^2}}}\left(p_2^{}|K^0q_2^{}|\overline{K}^0\right),`$ (2)
where $`p_i^{}`$ and $`q_i^{}`$ (for $`i=1,2`$) are complex mixing parameters. Note that $`p_1^{}=p_2^{}`$ and $`q_1^{}=q_2^{}`$ follow from CPT symmetry. The traditional characteristic measurables of CP violation in the $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ system , $`\eta _+`$, $`\eta _{00}`$ and $`\delta `$, are all related to the $`(p_2^{},q_2^{})`$ parameters. For example,

$$\delta =\frac{|p_2^{}|^2|q_2^{}|^2}{|p_2^{}|^2+|q_2^{}|^2}$$
(3)
in the absence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{S}=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{Q}`$ interactions. A measurement of CP violation associated with

$$\kappa =\frac{|p_1^{}|^2|q_1^{}|^2}{|p_1^{}|^2+|q_1^{}|^2}$$
(4)
has been assumed to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to the rapid decay of the $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ meson to the two-pion or the semileptonic state. Nevertheless, we shall show that $`\kappa `$ can be measured from the rate asymmetry of $`K^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0`$ mesons decaying into the three-pion state $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$. The difference between $`\delta `$ and $`\kappa `$ signifies CPT violation in $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing.

The CP eigenvalue for the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ final state is given by $`(1)^{l+1}`$, where $`l`$ is the relative angular momentum between $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$. Since the sum of the masses of three pions is close to the kaon mass, the pions have quite low kinetic energy $`E_{\mathrm{CM}}(\pi )`$ in the kaon rest-frame, and the states with $`l>0`$ are suppressed by the centrifugal barrier . Therefore the $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ meson decays dominantly into the kinematics-favored ($`l=0`$) and CP-allowed (CP = $``$1) $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ state. The decay amplitude of $`K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ consists of both the kinematics-suppressed ($`l=1`$) but CP-allowed (CP=+1) component, and the kinematics-favored ($`l=0`$) but CP-forbidden (CP=$``$1) component. This implies an interesting Dalitz-plot distribution for the $`K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ transition: it is symmetric with respect to $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ for the CP-violating amplitude, but anti-symmetric for the CP-conserving amplitude. Let the ratio of $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ and $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ decay amplitudes be

$$\eta _{+0}^{}=\frac{A(K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)}{A(K_\mathrm{L}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)}.$$
(5)
It is clear that $`\eta _{+0}^{}`$ depends only upon the CP-violating component of $`A(K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$, if data are integrated over the whole Dalitz plot . The time-dependent rates for the initially pure $`K^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0`$ states decaying into $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$, denoted by $`(t)`$ and $`\overline{}(t)`$ respectively, can be calculated with the help of Eqs. (1) and (4). We arrive at

$`(t)`$ $``$ $`\left[|q_1^{}|^2+|q_2^{}|^2|\eta _{+0}|^2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t}+2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\left(q_1^{}q_2^{}\eta _{+0}e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }mt}\right)e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\right],`$ (6)
$`\overline{}(t)`$ $``$ $`\left[|p_1^{}|^2+|p_2^{}|^2|\eta _{+0}|^2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t}2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\left(p_1^{}p_2^{}\eta _{+0}e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }mt}\right)e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\right],`$ (7)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }m>0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }>0`$ are the mass difference and the width difference of $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ and $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ mesons, respectively. To a good degree of accuracy, we obtain the following CP asymmetry:

$`𝒜(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{}(t)(t)}{\overline{}(t)+(t)}}`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`\kappa 2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\left[\mathrm{Re}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\mathrm{Im}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\right]\xi `$ (11)
$`2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\left[\mathrm{Re}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)+\mathrm{Im}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\right]\zeta ,`$
in which

$`\xi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Re}(p_1^{}p_2^{}+q_1^{}q_2^{})}{|p_1^{}|^2+|q_1^{}|^2}},`$ (12)
$`\zeta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Im}(p_1^{}p_2^{}+q_1^{}q_2^{})}{|p_1^{}|^2+|q_1^{}|^2}}.`$ (13)
Obviously $`\kappa `$ can be determined through the measurement of $`𝒜(t)`$. In particular, the relationship $`\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}𝒜(t)=\kappa `$ holds ***Note that the result for $`\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}𝒜(t)`$ given in Ref.  is not correct..

As we have emphasized, the difference between $`\kappa `$ and $`\delta `$ hints at CPT violation in $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing. This point can be seen more clearly, if one adopts the popular $`(ϵ,\mathrm{\Delta })`$ parameters to describe CP- and CPT-violating effects in the $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing system:

$`p_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1+ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta },`$ (14)
$`p_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1+ϵ\mathrm{\Delta },`$ (15)
$`q_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1ϵ\mathrm{\Delta },`$ (16)
$`q_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1ϵ+\mathrm{\Delta }.`$ (17)
With this notation we find

$`\delta `$ $`=`$ $`2\left(\mathrm{Re}ϵ\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Delta }\right),`$ (18)
$`\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`2\left(\mathrm{Re}ϵ+\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Delta }\right).`$ (19)
If $`|\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{\Delta }|/\mathrm{Re}ϵ0.1`$, then the difference $`\kappa \delta =4\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can be as large as $`0.4\mathrm{Re}ϵ6.6\times 10^4`$ in magnitude, where the experimental value $`\mathrm{Re}ϵ1.65\times 10^3`$ has been used . Since both $`ϵ`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are small quantities, it turns out that $`\xi 1`$ and $`\zeta 0`$ are good approximations. Eq. (6) is therefore simplified as

$$𝒜(t)=\kappa 2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Gamma }t/2}\left[\mathrm{Re}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\mathrm{Im}\eta _{+0}^{}\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\right].$$
(20)
In the neglect of CPT violation, i.e., $`\kappa =2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}ϵ`$, Eq. (10) just reproduces the result obtained in Ref. . For illustration, we plot the behavior of $`𝒜(t)`$ in Fig. 1, in which $`\kappa =3\times 10^3`$ and $`|\eta _{+0}|=5\times 10^3`$ have been typically taken The CPLEAR constraint on the CP-violating parameter $`\eta _{+0}`$ is $`|\eta _{+0}|<0.017`$ at the $`90\%`$ confidence level .. We observe that $`𝒜(t)`$ approaches $`\kappa `$ for $`t5\tau _\mathrm{S}^{}`$ and reaches $`\kappa `$ if $`t10\tau _\mathrm{S}^{}`$, where $`\tau _\mathrm{S}^{}`$ is the mean lifetime of the $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ meson. This implies a certain feasibility to determine $`\kappa `$ from the time-dependent CP asymmetry $`𝒜(t)`$.

In the above discussions we have taken an integration over the whole Dalitz plot, such that $`\eta _{+0}`$ solely contains the CP-violating part of $`A(K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$. To look at the CP-conserving component of $`A(K_\mathrm{S}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$, one may study the phase-space regions $`E_{\mathrm{CM}}(\pi ^+)>E_{\mathrm{CM}}(\pi ^{})`$ and $`E_{\mathrm{CM}}(\pi ^+)<E_{\mathrm{CM}}(\pi ^{})`$ separately . In this case the corresponding CP asymmetries between $`\overline{}(t)`$ and $`(t)`$ take the same form as $`𝒜(t)`$ in Eq. (6) or Eq. (10), but $`\eta _{+0}`$ should be replaced by $`(\eta _{+0}\pm \lambda )`$, where $`\lambda `$ denotes the CP-conserving contribution to the ratio of $`K_\mathrm{S}`$ and $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ decay amplitudes . Certainly the CP-violating parameter $`\kappa `$ can still be determined from measuring the time dependence of the relevant decay rate asymmetries.

An accurate measurement of $`\kappa `$ from $`K^0`$ vs $`\overline{K}^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ is feasible at the $`\varphi `$ factory, where a huge amount of $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ events can be coherently produced . Choosing the semileptonic decay of one kaon to tag the flavor of the other kaon decaying into $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ on the $`\varphi `$ resonance, one should be able to construct the time-dependent rate asymmetry between $`K^0(t)\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\overline{K}^0(t)\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decays in a way similar to Eq. (6). It is also expected that the KTeV experiment at Fermilab  may measure $`\kappa `$ and $`\delta `$ to a good degree of accuracy.

To conclude, the CP-violating effect induced by $`K^0`$-$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing in $`K^0`$ vs $`\overline{K}^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ decays is possible to deviate somehow from that in $`K_\mathrm{L}\pi \pi `$ or the semileptonic $`K_\mathrm{L}`$ transitions due to the violation of CPT symmetry. Measuring this difference may serve as a new test of CPT invariance in the neutral kaon system.


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# Lepton Number And Neutrino Masses

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-9513835 and the Caltech Discovery Fund. On leave at Department of Physics, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125.