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# WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM NUCLEAR MATTER INSTABILITIES?

## 1 Instabilities in asymmetric nuclear matter

The process of multifragmentation following the collision of heavy nuclei in the region of medium energies displays several features analogous to usual liquid-gas phase transitions of water. However in this analogy one should by aware of differences due to Coulomb, finite size and quantum effects as well as to the binary, i.e. two-component, character of nuclear matter. Moreover, the time scales of the process are of the order of, or shorter than, the relaxation times of the relevant degrees of freedom. Therefore we have to consider not only equilibrium phase-transition in binary systems, but in an equally important way the dynamical evolution driving such phase transition and its dependence on the symmetry term of the equation-of-state. Indeed after a fast compression and expansion we expect the nuclear system to be quenched into an unstable state either inside the coexistence curve in the metastability region (where the phase is unstable against short wave length but large amplitude fluctuations) or in the instability (spinodal) region (were the system becomes unstable against long wave length but small amplitude fluctuations). Then the system will evolve toward a stable thermodynamical state of two coexisting phases either through nucleation (in former case) or through spinodal decomposition (in the latter case). These aspects were discussed repeatedly in the past,  but the binary character will induce new features for both scenarios that are absent in one-component systems. Therefore studying the nature of instabilities which develop in nuclear systems, their relaxation times and the influence of the isospin degree of freedom will provide information on the mechanisms involved in the fragment formation processes and will set limits for the applicability of fully equilibrium approaches.

In the framework of Landau theory for two component Fermi liquids the spinodal border was determined by studying the stability of collective modes described by two coupled Landau-Vlasov equations for protons and neutrons. In terms of the appropriate Landau parameters the stability condition can be expressed as ,

$$(1+F_0^{nn})(1+F_0^{pp})F_0^{np}F_0^{pn}>0.$$
(1)
It is possible to show that this condition is equivalent to the following thermodynamical condition

$$\left(\frac{P}{\rho }\right)_{T,y}\left(\frac{\mu _p}{y}\right)_{T,P}>0.$$
(2)
discussed in , where $`y`$ is the proton fraction. In Fig. 1 we show the spinodal lines obtained from eq. (1) (continuous line with dots) which for asymmetric nuclear matter is seen to contain the lines corresponding to ”mechanical instability”, $`\left(\frac{P}{\rho }\right)_{T,y}<0`$ (crosses). Therefore eqs. (1,2) describe the ”chemical instability” of nuclear matter.

We want to stress, however, that by just looking at the above stability conditions we cannot determine the nature of the fluctuations against which a binary system becomes chemically unstable. Indeed, the thermodynamical condition in eq. (2) cannot distinguish between two very different situations which can be encountered in nature: an attractive interaction between the two components of the mixture ($`F_0^{np},F_0^{pn}<0`$), as is the case of nuclear matter, or a repulsive interaction between the two species. We define as isoscalar-like density fluctuations the case when proton and neutron Fermi spheres (or equivalently the proton and neutron densities) fluctuate in phase and as isovector-like density fluctuations when the two Fermi sphere fluctuate out of phase. Then it is possible to prove, based on a thermodynamical approach of asymmetric Fermi liquid mixtures, that chemical instabilities are triggered by isoscalar fluctuations in the first, i.e. attractive, situation and by isovector fluctuations in the second one. For the asymmetric nuclear matter case because of the attractive interaction between protons and neutrons the phase transition is thus due to isoscalar fluctuations that induce chemical instabilities while the system is never unstable against isovector fluctuations. Of course the same attractive interaction is also at the origin of phase transitions in symmetric nuclear matter. However, in the asymmetric case isoscalar fluctuations lead to a more symmetric high density phase everywhere under the instability line defined by eq.(1.

## 2 ”Ab initio” simulations of Sn + Sn reactions

A new code for the solution of microscopic transport equations, the Stochastic Iso-BNV, has been written where asymmetry effects are suitably accounted for and the dynamics of fluctuations is included .

We have studied the $`50AMeV`$ collisions of the systems $`{}_{}{}^{124}Sn+^{124}Sn`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{112}Sn+^{112}Sn`$, where new data have been measured at $`NSCLMSU`$ . We will discuss averages over $`100`$ events generated in semi-central ($`b=2fm`$) and semi-peripheral ($`b=6fm`$) reactions. In Fig.2 we show the evolution with impact parameter of the density plot (projected on the reaction plane) for one event each (neutron rich case $`{}_{}{}^{124}Sn+^{124}Sn`$, EOS with stiff asymmetry term) .

We remark: i) In the cluster formation we see a quite clear transition with impact parameter from bulk  to neck  instabilities. ii) The ”freeze-out times”, i.e. when the nuclear interaction among clusters disappears, are decreasing with impact parameter. These two dynamical effects will influence the isospin content of the produced primary fragments, as shown below.

A detailed analysis of the results for the same system is shown in Fig.3 (central, $`b=2fm`$) and Fig.4 (peripheral, $`b=6fm`$). Each figure is organized in the following way: Top row, time evolution of: (a) Mass in the liquid (clusters with $`Z3`$, upper curve) and the gas (lower curve) phase; (b) Asymmetry $`I=(NZ)/(N+Z)`$ in gas ”central” (solid line with squares), gas total (dashed+squares), liquid ”central” (solid+circles) and IMF’s ($`3Z12`$, stars). ”Central” means in a cubic box of side $`20fm`$ around the c.m.. The horizontal line shows the initial average asymmetry; (c) Mean Fragment Multiplicity $`Z3`$. The saturation of this curve defines the freeze-out configuration, as we can also check from the density plots in Fig.2. Bottom row, properties of the ”primary” fragments in the freeze-out configuration: (d) Charge Distribution, (e) Asymmetry Distribution and (f) Fragment Multiplicity Distribution (normalized to $`1`$).

We see a neutron dominated prompt particle emission and a second neutron burst at the time of fragment formation in the ”central region”. The latter is consistent with the dynamical spinodal mechanism in dilute asymmetric nuclear matter, as discussed before. The effect is quite reduced for semi-peripheral collisions (compare Figs. 3b and 4b) and the IMF’s produced in the neck are more neutron rich (Figs. 3e and 4e). This seems to indicate a different nature of the fragmentation mechanism in central and neck regions, i.e. a transition from volume to shape instabilities with different isospin dynamics. In more peripheral collisions the interaction time scale is also very reduced (Fig.4c) and this will quench the isospin migration.

## 3 Conclusions

Starting from the thermodynamical features of instabilities and the dynamics of phase-transitions in binary systems we obtain a consistent description of the multifragmentation process in heavy ion collisions and, in particular, of isospin effects. Isospin proves to be a useful probe in signaling a change in the fragment formation mechanism passing from central to semipheripheral collisions. Moreover this ”isospin dynamics” is found to be quite sensitive to the symmetry term of the EOS, opening new stimulating perspectives on such studies, which are of great astrophysical interest, under laboratory controlled conditions.

## Acknowledgments

One of authors (V.B.) gratefully acknowledges for the warm hospitality at LNS Catania during his Postdoctoral fellowship.

## References


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# Binding Energies and Scattering Observables in the 4He3 Atomic SystemThis work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and National Research Foundation of South Africa. Contribution to Proceedings of 16th International Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, 6-10 March 2000, Taipei, Taiwan. LANL e-print physics/0009035.

## Abstract

The 4He3 system is investigated using a hard-core version of the Faddeev differential equations and realistic 4He–4He interactions. We calculate the binding energies of the 4He trimer but concentrate in particular on scattering observables. The atom-diatom scattering lengths are calculated as well as the atom-diatom phase shifts for center of mass energies up to $`2.45`$ mK.

There is a great number of experimental and theoretical studies of the 4He three-atomic system (see, e. g.,  and references cited therein). Most of the theoretical investigations consist merely in computing the bound states, while scattering processes found comparatively little attention. In Ref.  the characteristics of the He–He2 scattering at zero energy were studied. The recombination rate of the reaction $`(1+1+12+1)`$ was estimated in . The phase shifts of the He–He2 elastic scattering and breakup amplitudes at ultra-low energies have been calculated for the first time just recently  but only for the comparatively old HFD-B potential by Aziz et al. .

In the present paper we extend the investigations of Ref. . There, the formalism, which consists of a hard-core version of the Faddeev differential equations, has been described in detail. As in  we use the finite-difference approximation of the two-dimensional partial-wave Faddeev equations. We consider only the case of zero total angular momentum and take $`\mathrm{}^2/m=12.12`$ K Å2. In this work, we employ grids of the dimension 500–800 in both the hyperradius and hyperangle, while the cutoff hyperradius is chosen to be up to 1000 Å. As compared to  we use in the present work the refined He–He interatomic potentials LM2M2 of Ref. , and TTY of Ref. . Our numerical methods have also been substantially improved, which allowed us to deal with considerably larger grids. Furthermore, due to better computing facilities, we could take into account more partial waves.

Although we have performed detailed calculations of the 4He3 binding energies, the main goal of this work was to perform calculations for the scattering of a helium atom off a helium dimer at ultra-low energies. Our results for the trimer binding energies and 4He–atom 4He–dimer scattering lengths for the potentials employed are presented in Table 1. We also put in this table the corresponding dimer binding energies together with the 4He–4He atomic scattering lengths. It should be noted that the main contribution to the trimer binding energies stems from the $`l=0`$ and $`l=2`$ partial-wave components, the latter being about 30 %, and is approximately the same for all potentials used. The contribution from the $`l=4`$ partial wave is of the order of 3-4 % (cf. ). We notice that that our results for the ground-state energy $`E_t^{(0)}`$ of the trimer for $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=4`$ are in a perfect agreement with the corresponding values obtained in the most advanced calculations . The same also holds true for the excited-state energy $`E_t^{(1)}`$. Our results for $`E_t^{(1)}`$ are in quite a good agreement with those of Refs. .

There are not many results in the literature concerning the He–He2 scattering length. Apart from our previous result , there is that of Ref.  of $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{sc}}=195`$ Å, obtained within a zero-energy scattering calculation based on a separable approximation of the oldest Aziz et al. potential HFDHE2, and a more recent one obtained by Blume and Greene  via a Monte Carlo hyperspherical calculation with the LM2M2 potential. The latter result of $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{sc}}=126`$ Å is in good agreement with our result of $`131\pm 5`$ Å (see Table 1). Within the accuracy of our calculations, the scattering lengths provided by the LM2M2 and TTY potentials, like the energies of the excited state, are exactly the same. It should be mentioned that in this case also the two-body binding energies and scattering lengths are almost indentical.

We have also calculated the 4He–atom 4He–dimer scattering shifts for the HFD-B, LM2M2 and TTY potentials for center of mass energies up to $`2.45`$ mK. After transformation to the laboratory system the phase shifts for the these potentials turn out to be practically the same, especially those for LM2M2 and TTY. Thus, in Fig. 1 we only plot the phase-shift results obtained for the HFD-B and TTY potentials. Note that for the phase shifts we use the normalization required by the Levinson theorem. Inclusion of the $`l=4`$ partial-wave channel only adds about 0.5 % to the phase shifts obtained for $`l=0`$ and $`l=2`$. This is the reason why the corresponding curve for $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=4`$ is not depicted in Fig. 1.

A detailed exposition of the material presented, including tables for the phase shifts, is given in an extended paper .


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# Results from the AMANDA High Energy Neutrino Detector

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The AMANDA-B10 high energy neutrino detector was constructed between 1500–2000 m below the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet where the optical properties are suitable for track reconstruction. The instrumented volume forms a cylinder with outer diameter of 120 m. The surface electronics are located within a kilometer of the Amundsen-Scott Research Station at the geographic south pole. The detector was commissioned in February 1997, and initial scientific results were presented at the XXIVth International Cosmic Ray Conference. Reconstruction methods and detector calibration techniques are introduced in reference .

AMANDA-B10 consists of 302 optical modules (OMs) that contain an 8 inch diameter photomultiplier tube controlled by passive electronics and housed in a glass pressure vessel. They are connected to the surface by an electrical cable that provides high voltage and transmits the signals from the OM. The simple, reliable system architecture is responsible for the low fraction of OM failure ($`<`$ 10% after several years of operation, although most of the failures occur within a week of deployment).

In January, 2000, AMANDA-II was completed. It consists of 19 strings with at total of 677 OMs arranged in concentric circles, with the ten strings from AMANDA-B10 forming the central core of the new detector. New surface electronics consolidates several triggering functions and adds functionality. New scalers were installed that provides millisecond resolution - important for Supernova studies. Several technologies were deployed to evaluate their utility and readiness for future expansion to larger systems.

The search for astrophysical sources of high energy ($`E_\nu >`$ 1 TeV) neutrinos is one of the central missions of the AMANDA detector. Figure 1 provides a survey of model predictions for the flux of high energy neutrinos from point objects. It also contains the flux limit reported in this manuscript for sky bins with declinations greater than 30 degrees. Most theoretical models of potential astrophysical sources of neutrinos predict that the energy spectrum is very hard, approximately $`E^2`$. Due to the hard energy spectrum, the most probable energy of the detected neutrino is well above 1 TeV (typically 10-30 TeV).

In this report, we describe the status of a general search for continuous emission from point sources in the northern sky, restricted to declination greater than +$`5^o`$. The observation of atmospheric neutrinos and detailed studies of downgoing atmospheric muons have been used to study the sensitivity of the detector. The observed differences between observation and prediction are within $`\pm `$30%, which is within the systematic uncertainty. By restricting the atmospheric neutrino analysis to a search cone with a half angle of $`15^o`$ about zenith, a search was made for neutrino emission from WIMP annihilation near the center of earth. Finally, we report preliminary results for a search for high energy neutrinos from Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Neutrino signal from GRBs should be correlated in direction and time, greatly simplifying background rejection. All results reported here are based on data collected between April and October of 1997. Due to limitations in the data acquisition and archiving system at that early phase of operation, the livetime ranges between 130 and 140 days, depending on the details of the analysis.

## 2 ANALYSIS PROCEDURE - SEARCH FOR POINT SOURCES

The various physics objectives are best addressed by specialized analyses, although most are closely related. The search for sources of point emission can be used to illustrate the general methods. Trigger events are dominated by downgoing atmospheric muons, so analysis techniques were developed to reject this background while retaining good efficiency for upgoing neutrino-induced muons. Unlike many neutrino detectors, the effective sensitivity depends strongly as a function of the background rejection requirements, which are considerably weaker for searches for point sources than diffuse emission.

The analysis procedure utilizes two essential characteristics of the signal to simplify the analysis relative to atmospheric neutrino measurements. First, the sources are assumed to be point sources in the sky, so only events within a selected angular region are considered. Secondly, we use the topological characteristics of spectrally hard neutrino signal to reject poorly reconstructed atmospheric muons and atmospheric neutrinos, both of which have softer spectra. Topological variables include an estimate of muon energy and an assessment of the spatial fluctuation of the detected signals in a given event. The complete suite of variables was able to differentiate signal events from several classes of background topologies.

Monte Carlo based simulation programs determined the effective area for background and neutrino -induced muons. Several important results from these programs were tested by comparing the background simulation to the experimental data at various steps along the analysis chain.

An iterative analysis procedure was developed to maximize the $`S/\sqrt{BG}`$, where the signal, S, was computed with an energy spectrum proportional to $`E^2`$ for the source. BG is background from atmospheric muons. After optimizing the analysis parameters, the sensitivity was evaluated for power law spectra with indices between 2.0 and 3.0.

The space angle resolution is determined from simulation. The upper panel of Figure 2 shows that the median resolution is 3 degrees, and the lower panel indicates that this value only weakly depends on energy. Two studies were used to check the angular resolution and absolute offset. First, events that simultaneously trigger the GASP ACT and AMANDA provide a ”test beam” containing single muons with directional information provided by GASP. To improve the statistical accuracy of the investigation, a second study involved events which simultaneously trigger the SPASE air shower array and AMANDA. Although the interpretation of these special events is complicated by the presence of multiple muons, which tend to reconstruct with worse angular precision than single muon events, the response of the detector to these events appears to be correctly modeled.

The point source analysis yields an event sample of 1097 events which are distributed on the sky as shown (Fig.3):

Guided by the estimate of angular resolution, the sky was divided into 319 non-overlapping angular bins. The distribution of counts per sky bin is consistent with random fluctuations, which were determined by selecting all events within a declination band and randomly redistributing them in Right Ascension.

The neutrino limits were computed according to

$$\varphi _\nu ^{limit}(E_\nu >E_\nu ^{min})=\frac{\mu (N_b,N_0)}{T_{live}ϵ\overline{A}_{eff}^\nu }$$
(1)
where $`\overline{A}_{eff}^\nu `$, is the neutrino effective area weighted by the assumed neutrino energy spectrum. This quantity is related to the muon effective area shown in Figure 4. The factor $`T_{live}`$ is the livetime, and $`ϵ`$ is the efficiency due to finite angular resolution and also accounts for non-central source placement within an angular bin. The term $`\mu (N_b,N_0)`$ generates the 90% CL according to Feldman and Cousins for signal events given the measured number of events in the bin, $`N_0`$ and the expected background $`N_b`$ determined from the events in the declination band containing the source bin. The results of this calculation are shown in Figure 5 for various assumed spectral indices.

The inferred limits on neutrino flux apply to point sources with continuous emission (or episodic emission averaged over a time interval of approximately 0.6 years) and power law energy spectra with a fixed spectral index above the energy threshold of the detector. The limits for sources at large positive declination are comparable to the best published limits in the Southern sky.

## 3 ATMOSPHERIC NEUTRINOS

The final event sample in the search for point sources contains both atmospheric neutrinos and poorly reconstructed downgoing muons. The fraction of atmospheric $`\nu `$ in the sample can be enhanced at the expense of sensitivity. Experimental data is dominated initially by background events - typically downward going atmospheric muons with poorly known directions. This can be seen in figure 6. as indicated by the flat behavior for less restrictive selection criteria (quality $`<4.2`$). As selection criteria become progressively more restrictive (increasing values along the x-axis), the asymptotic flattening of the ratio (experimental data)/(Signal MC Atm.$`\nu `$) indicates that the evolution of the experimental data becomes consistent with signal expectation in the vicinity of the plot where the (BG MC)/Exp ratio approaches zero. From this evidence (and visual inspection), we conclude that the contamination in the atmospheric neutrino sample from known physics effects is small ($`<15`$%) for values of the event quality parameter greater than five. Background simulations with much greater statistical precision are currently underway.

Figure 7 shows that the angular distribution of 188 events is also consistent with the simulated distribution of atmospheric $`\nu `$ events. Due to the elongated cylindrical geometry of AMANDA-B10, the acceptance shows strong dependence on zenith angle.

Thus, the angular dependence of the atmospheric neutrino sample is consistent with expectation and contamination from background is small. Finally, the distribution of the number of OMs in an event is also consistent with expectation (see figure 9).

## 4 WIMP SEARCH

There is strong evidence for a non-baryonic component in the dark matter in the Universe. Supersymmetric extensions to the Standard Model provide promising dark matter candidates, such as the neutralino. Dark matter in the galactic halo can interact with nuclei in the earth, lose energy and become trapped. The annihilation of neutralinos within the core of the earth will generate high energy neutrinos in the nearly vertical direction (cos$`(\theta )<0.97`$). For this highly restricted search cone, the number of events observed agrees with prediction (17 predicted, 15 observed). Therefore, the lack of a statistically significant excess of neutrino events in the nearly vertical direction can be used to constrain the flux of neutrinos from neutralino annihilation. Figure 8 compares the AMANDA limits with predictions for a broad class of supersymmetric models, and with curves derived from published limits by MACRO and Baksan, illustrating the potential of the technique. Systematic errors associated with detector sensitivity and neutrino oscillation physics are currently under investigation, but are expected to weaken the limits.

## 5 HIGH ENERGY DIFFUSE FLUX

Many models of diffuse emission from unresolved sources predict an energy spectrum that is much harder than the atmospheric neutrino spectrum. Therefore, a limit on the diffuse flux can be extracted by searching for an excess of events at large energies. A simple, although not very precise, measure of energy of the neutrino-induced muons is counting the number of hit channels - optical modules that detected cherenkov light. Figure 9 shows the distribution of the hit multiplicity for experimental data, for simulated atmospheric neutrinos, and for an arbitrarily normalized, relatively hard energy spectrum. The experimental data agree with the atmospheric neutrino spectrum. From the non-observation of an excess of high multiplicity events, we derive an upper limit on an assumed diffuse $`E^2`$ spectrum. The preliminary limit (90% CL) is of order $`dN/dE_\nu 10^6E_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}cm^2s^1sr^1GeV^1`$. This experimental limit is below several models (e.g., ref. ), although still above the recent bound established by Waxman and Bahcall. The experimental limit can be improved by developing better energy estimators using charge and topological distributions. The response of the detector to muons with energies in excess of 100 TeV is still under investigation.

## 6 GRB SEARCH

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are thought to be produced by highly relativistic outflows originating from a compact, explosive event. A search for emission of high energy neutrinos correlated in time and direction with GRBs was performed. We examined a total of 78 GRBs detected by BATSE. The $`T_{90}`$ duration of the bursts, defined as the time required to accumulate between 0.05-0.95 of the total counts, varied between 0.2s and 200s. Guided by several models for neutrino emission, the analysis procedure optimized the effective area of the AMANDA detector for neutrino energies between 100 TeV and 1 PeV. The lack of a statistically significant excess from any GRB examined in 1997 leads to a range of limits (the variation is primarily due to attenuation by the earth which depends on arrival direction) on the fluence that span from $`E_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}dN/dE_\nu 0.051.0\times 10^1\times min(1,E_\nu /E_{break})TeVcm^2`$. The parameter $`E_{break}`$, which is of order 500 TeV, is the energy that characterizes the change in the power law of neutrino spectrum (approximately $`E^1`$ for $`E_\nu <E_{break}`$ and $`E^2`$ for neutrinos with energies larger than $`E_{break}`$. Another change in the spectral index is expected at even higher energies, but this feature does not impact our analysis. Using all of the GRBs, a preliminary cumulative upper limit of $`E_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}dN/dE_\nu 4\times 10^4min(1,E_\nu /E_{break})TeVcm^2`$ was also derived. For comparison, Waxman and Bahcall predict a fluence of $`4.8\times 10^7min(1,E_\nu /E_{break})TeVcm^2`$.

## 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs and Physics Division, the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Swedish Natural Science Research Council, the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden, the German Ministry for Education and Research, the U.S. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (supported by the Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy), UC-Irvine AENEAS Supercomputer Facility, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). C.P.H. received support from the EU 4th framework of Training and Mobility of Researchers, contract ERBFMBICT91551 and D.F.C. acknowledge the support of the NSF CAREER program. P.L. was supported by grant from the Swedish STINT program. P.D was supported by the Koerber Foundation.


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# Two-point correlations of the Gaussian symplectic ensemble from periodic orbits

## References


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# Astrometric demands of fibre-input spectrographs for wide-field quasar redshift surveys

## 1. Why this is interesting

The new era of wide-field redshift surveys, exemplified by 2df and SDSS (see Boyle et al. and Lupton et al., these proceedings), relies on multi-object spectrographs to observe thousands of candidates per night. Constructing homogeneous catalogues from such data requires automated analysis to achieve consistent and reliable spectral classifications and redshift measurements. The probability of correct results depends on the SNR achieved during observations, which is strongly affected by how much of each target image actually falls on a spectrograph aperture. Compared to single-object spectrographs, multi-object instruments thus introduce problems in reaching a consistent minimum SNR for faint objects across the survey. For fibre-input instruments observing point sources, the seeing, fibre diameter and fibre-to-image position error are the important parameters. Typical galaxy images are $`>4`$ $`h`$ arcsec across, giving some tolerance to fibre positioning errors, but quasar images are usually seeing-limited at $`0.5`$$`2.0`$ arcsec, demanding greater precision. Fibre-to-image offsets will clearly reduce the recorded signal and may also vary systematically across the field, leading to position-dependent selection.

## 2. Signal reduction due to fibre position errors

Most fibre spectrographs use blind positioning of individual fibres in (or close to) the telescope focal surface before observation, and employ a small number of coherent fibre bundles positioned on guide star images to centre the telescope on the desired field, adjust fibre mount plate rotation and track the field during exposure. Exposures are typically $`45`$$`90`$ min. Sources of fibre-to-image position errors in such systems include the fibre positioning robot or plate drilling machine, variations in differential atmospheric refraction and dispersion during exposure, image scale, focal surface and field distortion mapping, temperature changes in the fibre mount plate, and plate rotation and guiding errors. For typical 2-field instruments, the combination of these errors can give an r.m.s. fibre position uncertainty of $`0.5`$ arcsec (see e.g. Bridges 2000, Cuby 1994, Shectman 1993, Barden & Massey 1988). This is in addition to any input catalogue astrometric uncertainty which may be of similar size, particularly for surveys based on input catalogues constructed from Schmidt plates.

Quasars images are well approximated by a 2-D Gaussian point-spread function (PSF), with a size determined by the seeing disk (Brodie et al. 1988). For a fibre of radius $`R`$ displaced by $`x_0`$ from the centre of a symmetric PSF of variance $`\sigma ^2`$, the fraction of the image energy entering the fibre may be calculated from the integral of the PSF over a circular aperture, giving

$$f(x_0)=\frac{1}{\sigma \sqrt{2\pi }}_R^R\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(xx_0)^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right)\text{erf}\left(\frac{\sqrt{R^2x^2}}{\sqrt{2}\sigma }\right)𝑑x$$
(1)
where erf is the error function (Newman 1999). With measures of the seeing during observations, this function may be of use in determining the effective limiting magnitude of each of the individual exposures that make up a survey.

## 3. Conclusions and further work

Fig. 1 shows how $`f(x_0)`$ varies with $`x_0`$ for a range of typical fibre diameters and seeing conditions, and demonstrates how instruments with small fibre diameters place tremendous demands on fibre positioning precision and input catalogue astrometry. Fibres with diameters comparable to the seeing disk FWHM greatly reduce the signal even from well-centred images. Surveys constructed from tiled observations made under varying conditions may thus suffer from a very complicated position-dependent faint-end selection effect. The ultimate aim of this work is to characterize the position dependence of this selection and hence the catalogue incompleteness in such surveys, as well as quantifying a factor that should be considered in the design of future fibre-input spectrographs and quasar surveys made using them.

### Acknowledgments.

Part of this work was supported by PPARC grant B95300682. Thanks to Terry Bridges for several useful discussions.

## References

Barden, S.C. & Massey, P. 1988, in ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 3, Fiber Optics in Astronomy, ed. S.C. Barden, 140

Bridges T.J. 2000, http://www.aao.gov.au/AAO/2df/2dfstatus.html

Brodie, J.P., Lampton, M. & Bowyer, S. 1988, AJ, 96, 2005

Cuby, J.G. 1994, in Proc. SPIE Vol. 2198, Instrumentation in Astronomy VIII, ed. D.L. Crawford, 2

Newman, P.R. 1999, PhD thesis, University of Central Lancashire

Shectman, S.A. 1993, in ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 37, Fiber Optics in Astronomy II, ed. P.M. Gray, 26


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# Untitled Document

hep-th/0009213 BROWN-HET-1240 HU-EP-00/33

A Note on Non-Commutative Field Theory
and Stability of Brane-Antibrane Systems

Radu Tatar

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Physik,

Invalidenstrasse 110, 10115 Berlin, Germany 1 Permanent Address after September 1, 2000

and

Department of Physics, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

ABSTRACT

It has been conjectured that a pair of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ branes wrapped on some non-trivial two cycle of a Calabi-Yau manifold becomes a stable BPS $`D3`$ brane in the presence of a very large $`B`$ field and magnetic fluxes on their worldvolumes. We discuss this by considering the non-commutative field theory on the worldvolume of the pair of branes whose field multiplication is made with respect to two different $``$ products due to the presence of different $`F`$ fields on the two branes. The tachyonic field becomes massless for a specific choice of the magnetic fluxes and it allows a trivial solution. Our discussion generalizes recent results concerning stability of brane-antibrane systems on Calabi-Yau spaces to the case of non-commutative branes.

September 2000

1. Introduction

In the last few years an important amount of work has been done for studying D branes at orbifold and conifold sigularities \[1,,2\] and their conformal limit within the AdS/CFT correspondence \[3,,4\] as discussed in \[5,,6,,7,,8,,9,,10,,11,,12,,13\].

If we consider four dimensional field theories, they can appear either on $`D3`$ branes which are orthogonal to the singular space and carry integer charge or on (anti) $`D5`$ branes wrapped on different vanishing 2-cycles arising in the resolution of the singularity in which case the $`D3`$ branes are fractional branes and carry charges measured in terms of the $`B_{NSNS}`$ fluxes on the resolution 2-cycles \[14,,15,,16\].

In this paper we will concentrate on the phenomena appearing on a pair of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ branes wrapped on $`S^2`$ cycles in the presence of a large B field and different fluxes on their worldvolumes. The two fractional branes have tension and charge proportional to $`B`$ and $`(1B)`$, the constant being understood to arise from a world-volume magnetic flux that must be turned on in the antibrane and keeping the flux on the $`D5`$ brane equal to zero \[16\].

For general brane-antibrane pairs, there is a tachyon and the pairs are generically unstable \[17\]. The potential for the tachyon is an universal function with overall multiplicative factors coming from the brane tension \[18\]. For any nonzero value of the $`B`$-flux through the $`S^2`$ cycle, one may therefore naively expect to find a tachyon with its associated potential. However, we know from \[19\] that for a special choice of background $`B`$ and $`F`$ fields the tachyon becomes a massless scalar field and this implies that one should have a stable system. In the paper \[16\] it has been conjectured that this is an integer BPS $`D3`$-brane. The problem is to explain the fate of the massless scalar which is not seen in the field theory on the integer lower $`D3`$-brane. We are going to argue in the present paper that there is a trivial solution for the massless scalar field which actually therefore does not appear in the field theory on the brane-antibrane pair. The trivial solution will also determine the fact that the $`U(1)\times U(1)`$ gauge group survives.

The content of the present paper is as follows. In section 2 we will describe the non-commutative field theory on a $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair wrapped on a vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle, in the presence of large $`B`$ and different $`F`$ fields on the worldvolumes of the pair components. We use the assumption of holomophicity for the fields \[20\] to describe a trivial solution for the tachyon. This solution for the tachyon is different from the one of \[21\] where a B field is present but the magnetic fluzes on the branes are equal and from the one of reference \[20\] where the magnetic fluxes are different but there is no B field and the field theory is commutative. We discuss a smooth transition between the two previous known solution, transition which neccesarily passes through our solution.

The result is that the pair of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ cancel each other but what remains is an integer $`D3`$ brane instead of a tachyon condensation. One question that arises here is how could this happen in the view of the universality of the tachyon potential which tells us that the same phenomenon happens in any background. The answer is that the universality argument holds only for tachyons with zero momentum. In the case of different fluxes on the pair of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ branes, the tachyon are charged and they do not have zero momentum and the universality argument does not work. It would be very interesting to have a general description of this phenomenon.

In section 3 we discuss our results in connection with the results of \[16\] concerning the field theory on $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair wrapped on the vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle at the apex of a conifold singularity, when we have a unit flux on the $`\overline{D5}`$.

2. Fluxes and Stability of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ wrapped on an $`S^2`$ cycle

Recently, important evidence has been accumulated showing that string field theory provides a direct approach to study string theory tachyons. The tachyons of unstable systems such as non-BPS D-branes or pair of brane-antibrane acquire an expectation value at a minimum of their potential where the total negative potential energies exactly cancel the tensions of the unstable systems \[22,,23,,24,,25\]. These conjectures were checked by using approximation schemes in open string field theory and the acumulated evidence is impressive \[18,,26,,27,,28,,29,,30,,31,,32,,33,,34,,35,,36,,37,,38,,39,,40,,41\]. In the framework of \[42,,43,,21,,44,,45,,46,,47,,48,,49,,50,,51\], the description of the tachyon condensation is much simpler when a large background $`B`$ field is turned on. In our case a supplementary feature is that, besides the B field, we also turn on different fluxes on different branes. This will determine a different solution in our case for specific values of fluxes on pairs of branes and antibranes.

Consider the case when we have a flux $`F_1`$ on the worldvolume of the $`D5`$ brane and a flux $`F_2`$ on the worldvolume of the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane. Due to the presence of different gauge fields on the two branes together with the $`B`$ field, the field theory on the worldvolumes of the pair of branes becomes non-commutative and we have two different \*-products which are parametrised by \[52\]:

$$\theta _I^{ij}=\left(\frac{1}{F_IB}\right)ϵ^{ij}\theta _I,I=1,2$$

The field content of the theory is made of a $`U(1)`$ gauge boson $`A_{1\mu }`$ on the $`D5`$ brane, a $`U(1)`$ gauge boson $`A_{2\mu }`$ on the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane and a tachyon $`T`$ which is charged under both $`U(1)`$ groups.

The effective theory is a $`U(1)\times U(1)`$ non-commutative gauge theory and the fields are multiplied by a noncommutative $`_I`$ product with noncommutativity parameter $`\theta ^I,(I=1,2)`$ given as above. The gauge field $`A_{1\mu }`$ is multiplied by $`_I`$ product, the gauge field $`A_{2\mu }`$ is multiplied by $`_I`$ product respectively. The complex tachyon $`T=T_{12}`$ together with its complex conjugate $`\overline{T}=T_{21}`$ being charged with respect to both gauge groups are also multiplied by using one of the $`_I`$ products: namely, $`T_{12}T_{21}`$ is defined by using $`_2`$ while $`T_{21}T_{12}`$ is defined by using $`_1`$. For a $`D5\overline{D5}`$ system, the tachyon is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix, the $``$ product appears as $`2\times 2`$ matrix too and the $``$ products are applied to matrices. Because of the associativity of matrix products, it results that the $``$ product is associative and this is one of the required properties for any $``$ product.

A general discussion of field theories with different $`_I`$ products would be very interesting and could reveal many important results but at this point let us concentrate on a $`D5\overline{D5}`$ system wrapped on a vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle. The fact that the cycle is a vanishing one determines a large value for the $`B`$ and $`F`$ field in order to obtain a finite flux, and this implies a large non-commutativity condition Because there is no tachyon in the spectrum of the strings with both ends on the $`D5`$ brane or both ends on the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane but on the spectrum of the open strings which connect the pair, the tachyon is given by a $`2\times 2`$ matrix

$$T=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& T\\ T^{}& 0\end{array}\right)$$

i.e. $`T_{12}=T,T_{21}=T^{}`$.

With $`B`$ field and $`F`$ fields on the world volumes of the pair of branes, the low-energy effective action is

$$S=_{S^2}\left[\frac{1}{4}TrF_1^2+\frac{1}{4}Tr_2F_2^2+DTDT^{}+V(T,T^{})\right].$$

In the formula for the effective action the gauge field strenghts have the canonical form and the covariant derivatives are given by:

$$D_\mu T=_\mu T+i(A_{1\mu }_1TiT_2A_{2\mu }).$$

and

$$D_\mu T^{}=_\mu T^{}+i(T^{}_1A_{1\mu }iA_{2\mu }_2T^{}).$$

The $`V(T,T^{})`$ is the form of the tachyonic potential and this can be extended as a polynomial around a fixed point:

$$V(T,T^{})=V(T_c,T_c^{})+1/2V^{\prime \prime }(T_c,T_c^{})(T_2T^{}T_c_2T_c^{})+\mathrm{}$$

where $`V^{\prime \prime }(T_c,T_c^{})=m^2`$ represents the mass of the open string tachyon. This mass depends on the values of $`B`$ and $`F_i`$ fields. Even without knowing a precise form for the dependence on the $`F_i`$ fields, we can go directly to the particular case $`_{S^2}F_1=0,_{S^2}F_2=1`$ which corresponds to a zero flux on the $`D5`$ brane and a unit flux on the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane. As explained in \[19,,53\], in this case the open string between the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair contains in its spectrum a massless scalar field instead of a tachyon, which was obtained by considering a projection on the open string Chan-Paton factors. In terms of the equation (2.1), this means that

$$V^{\prime \prime }(T_c,T_c)=0$$

In order to avoid any confusion, we still denote the scalar field by $`T`$ even though is not a tachyon anymore but a massless scalar field.

Because we are on the limit of large non-commutativity due to the presence of large $`B`$ and $`F`$ fields, the equations of motion become:

$$[A_1^\nu ,[A_{1\nu },A_{1\mu }]]=A_{1\mu }_1T_2T^{}T_2A_{2\mu }_2T^{}+T_1T^{}_1A_{1\mu }T_2A_{2\mu }_2T^{},$$

$$[A_2^\nu ,[A_{2\nu },A_{2\mu }]]=A_{2\mu }_2T^{}_1TT^{}_1A_{1\mu }_1T+T^{}_1T_2A_{2\mu }T^{}_1A_{1\mu }_1T,$$

$$A_{1\mu }_1A^{1\mu }_1T+2A_1^\mu _1T_2A_{2\mu }T_2A_2^\mu _2A_{2\mu }=V^{}(T,T^{}).$$

In \[21\], a solution has been given to these equations for the case of vanishing $`F_i`$ fields. In our case we have non-vanishing and non-equal $`F_i`$ fields so that solution is not valid for the new conditions described in the present paper.

In order to obtain a solution, we will use a generalization of the results of \[20\] to the case of non-commutative theories. The system of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ branes is a triple $`(E_1,E_2,T)`$ where $`E_1,E_2`$ are $`U(1)`$ bundles over $`S^2`$ and the tachyon $`T`$ is a map between them. In order to have a stable 3-brane the condition on the bundle charges is:

$$c_1(E_2)c_1(E_1)=1$$

which is identical to the condition $`_{S^2}F_1=0,_{S^2}F_2=1`$ that we have in our paper. There is actually a minus sign difference between the equation (2.1) and the condition which appears in . This is because the Chern-Simons terms contain terms like $`BF`$ for the $`D5`$ brane and $`(BF)`$ for the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane, our $`c_1(E_i)`$ will be their $`c_1(E_i)`$. Therefore our condition (2.1) is the same as the condition of stability of the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair. The equations of motion (2.1) - (2.1) are implied by the condition that all the fields be holomorphic meaning that :

$$F_{i,zz}=F_{i,\overline{z}\overline{z}}=D_{\overline{z}}T=0$$

The holomorphicity of $`T`$ implies:

$$\overline{}T+iA_{1,\overline{z}}_1TiT_2A_{2\overline{z}}=0.$$

In the large non-commutativity limit, the derivative term can be neglected and the equation (2.1) becomes

$$A_{1,\overline{z}}_1T=T_2A_{2\overline{z}}.$$

The fact that $`E_1`$ is trivial means that $`A_1`$ can be gauged to zero at infinity and because $`E_2`$ has $`c_1(E_2)=1`$ means that $`A_2`$ can be gauged to the form $`A_2|_{\mathrm{}}=\theta `$ where $`z=re^{i\theta }`$. But equation (2.1) is valid everywhere which means that $`A_1,A_2`$ have the same behavior at infinity and this is contrary to the above choice for the assymptotic values at infinity. The only choice to satisfy equation (2.1) is to consider a solution for $`T`$ as $`T|_{\mathrm{}}=0`$.

In the case of zero $`B`$ field, the solution found in \[20\] is of the form $`T=f(r)e^{i\theta }`$ with $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(\mathrm{})`$ equal to a constant which is actually the mass of the tachyon. This is the solution of the vortex equations implied by the homophicity (2.1) and without neglecting the derivative terms. In our case, we do not change the condition $`T|_0=0`$ but the condition at $`\mathrm{}`$ is different, i.e. $`T|_{\mathrm{}}=0`$. By changing the boundary condition at infinity we change the solution and we allow the system to have a trivial $`T=0`$ solution everywhere. The change in the boundary condition at infinity can be also seen from the fact that in \[20\] the solution is $`f(\mathrm{})=\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ is the mass of the tachyon and this becomes zero for our specific choice for the fluxes.

Our solution can be obtain by starting either with the solution of \[21\] and turning on different fluxes on the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair or starting with the solution of \[20\] and turning on a $`B`$ field. The first solution is a Gaussian one which goes to zero at infinity and has a maximum at the origin. In one turns now different values for the $`F`$ fields on the pair, the system is not stable at the origin unless the tachyon solution becomes zero there so there is a factor $`a(F_1,F_2)`$ in front of the Gaussian solution which becomes zero for $`_{S^2}F_1=0,_{S^2}F_2=1`$. The second solution has a zero at the origin and has a non-zero value at infinity. If one turns now a $`B`$ field, the value at zero is unchanged but the value at $`\mathrm{}`$ is changed due to the previous argument concerning the behavior and becomes zero for very large $`B`$ field. Therefore we see that it is either the Gaussian solution which is deformed to a trivial one by turning on $`F`$ fields or the vortex solution which is deformed to a trivial one by turning on $`B`$ fields. We can navigate between the two non-trivial solutions by switching on and off the $`B`$ field and the fluxes $`F_i`$.

We have thus argued that in the case of large non-commutativity, with a trivial $`E_1`$ bundle and with $`c_1(E_2)=1`$, there is a trivial solution for the tachyon field $`T=0`$. The discussion was based on the fact that we could neglect the derivative terms and the fact the tachyon field becomes massless for a specific choice for the values of the fluxes.

3. Fractional Branes and Conifolds

We will use the result of the previous section to discuss the conjecture stated in \[16\]. In the case of a conifold singularity, there is an apex where blowing up a vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle resolves the singularity. If we probe the singularity with $`D3`$ branes, we can study aspects of the 4 dimensional field theories on the worldvolumes of the $`D3`$ branes. There are two types of $`D3`$ branes in the theory, the integer (anti) $`D3`$ branes which are orthogonal to the singularity and fractional (anti) $`D3`$ branes which are (anti) $`D5`$ branes wrapped on the vanishing cycle \[54,,16,,55,,56,,57\].

The question is what happens when one wraps a $`D5`$ and an anti $`D5`$ on the vanishing 2-cycle. In the usual case, without fluxes, the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ system would just annihilate by the usual tachyon condensation according to the formula:

$$V(T_0)+2M_{D5}=0$$

where $`T_0`$ is the expectation value for the tachyon. This is a general formula expected to be valid for $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair on any background by using the universality argument. It is only valid for the case when the fluxes on the branes are equal and it is not expected to be valid for different fluxes as explained in the introduction.

In the present paper we are in the case of different magnetic fluxes. In \[16\], it has been stated that if besides the $`B`$ field one turns on a unit magnetic flux on the $`\overline{D5}`$ brane and no magnetic flux on the $`D5`$ brane, the result is that one has stable BPS integer $`D3`$ brane instead of tachyon condensation. Their result was based on the fact that the correct gauge invariant quantity on a brane is $`B_{NS}F`$ and that is what appears in the Chern-Simons terms. In \[19,,53\] the result is that in the above specified condition, there is masless scalar in the spectrum of the open string connecting the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair and this is the tachyon whose mass has become zero due to the presence of the $`B`$ fields and $`F_i`$ fields. If we are to obtain an integer $`D3`$ brane, this field should not appear in the spectrum. But this exactly what we have discussed in the previous section, i.e. the fact that the equation of motion (or the homorphicity conditions) imply that it exists a trivial solution $`T=0`$. Therefore our above results are in complete agreement with the expectations for the field theory on a integer $`D3`$ brane at a conifold singularity. The tension of the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ system wrapped on the vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle is recovered as the tension of the integer $`D3`$ brane.

To discuss the charge of the stable system one uses the form of the Chern-Simons term worked out in \[58\] and which can be extended to a non-commutative field theory in the lines of \[59\]. There are two terms in the Chern-Simons coupling, one involves the tachyon field and is given by

$$Cd\mathrm{Tr}\left(TD\overline{T}\right).$$

and this is zero for our tachyon field solution. The second term arises from the coupling of the $`D3`$ brane RR potential to the relative $`U(1)`$ gauge field strength on the $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair, i.e. $`C_4(F_2F_1)`$. This means that in our case the induced $`D3`$ brane charge is one as expected. Our solution is different from the one of \[21\] where the first term in the Chern-Simons couplings contributed and the second was zero because $`F_2F_1=0`$ in their case.

What happens with the $`U(1)\times U(1)`$ gauge group which existed on the worldvolume of the initial $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair? The DBI coupling

$$FB=F^{ab}B_{ab}$$

tells us that the tachyon is charged under the relative gauge group $`A_{}=A_1A_2`$ and is neutral under $`A_+=A_1+A_2`$, where $`A_i,i=1,2`$ are the gauge fields on the $`D5`$ and $`\overline{D5}`$ respectively. In the usual case when the tachyon condenses $`A_{}`$ becomes massive and therefore decouples from the low energy spectrum by Higgs mechanism. The tachyon field plays the role of the Higgs field and the Higgs mechanism appears via tachyon condensation. The other gauge field $`A_+`$, under which the tachyon is neutral, gets confined\[23,,60,,61\]. In our case the Higgs mechanism does not occur because the tachyon scalar field has a zero expectation value and therefore the combination of the gauge fields remains massless and is not removed from the low-energy spectrum. By using standard electric-magnetic duality as in \[61\], one can show that the second gauge group does not become confined so both gauge groups survive and this implies that the entire $`U(1)\times U(1)`$ gauge group survives. This is just the gauge group on an integer $`D3`$ brane at a conifold singularity The theory on the $`D3`$ branes is a commutative one because there is no $`B`$ or $`F`$ fields along its worldvolume directions.

The above discussion tells us that a $`D5\overline{D5}`$ pair on a vanishing $`S^2`$ cycle with $`F_1=0,F_2=1`$ magnetic fluxes on the branes is a stable system and is an integer $`D3`$ brane.

In the presence of other $`D3`$ branes at the conifold singularity, the overall gauge group will be changed by a factor $`U(1)\times U(1)`$ which agrees with previous known results \[7,,16\].

Our discussion can be easily extended for orbifolded conifolds to describe pairs of $`D5\overline{D5}`$ branes wrapped on different vanishing 2-cycles described in \[57\].

Acknowledgments:

We would like to thank K. Dasgupta and S. Mukhi for collaboration and critical readings of the manuscript and A. Jevicki for valuable discussions. We would like to thank the Institute for Advanced Studies for hospitality.

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text:
# Pygmy dipole resonances in relativistic random phase approximation

## Abstract

The isovector dipole response in 208Pb is described in the framework of a fully self-consistent relativistic random phase approximation. The NL3 parameter set for the effective mean-field Lagrangian with nonlinear meson self-interaction terms, used in the present calculations, reproduces ground state properties as well as the excitation energies of giant resonances in nuclei. In addition to the isovector dipole resonance in 208Pb, the present analysis predicts the occurrence of low-lying E1 peaks in the energy region between 7 and 11 MeV. In particular, a collective state has been identified whose dynamics correspond to that of a dipole pygmy resonance: the vibration of the excess neutrons against the inert core composed of equal number of protons and neutrons.

The multipole response of nuclei with large neutron excess has been the subject of many theoretical studies in recent years. Exotic nuclei with extreme neutron to proton ratio exhibit many interesting and unique structure phenomena. In addition to exotic ground state properties, the onset of low-energy collective isovector modes has been predicted and experimental evidence for these modes in light nuclei has been reported . Catara et al. have studied the low-lying components in strength distributions of weakly bound neutron-rich nuclei , and the effect of large neutron excess on the dipole response in the region of the giant dipole resonance in O and Ca isotopes . They have shown that the neutron excess increases the fragmentation of the isovector giant dipole resonance (GDR) and that the radial separation of proton and neutron densities leads to non-vanishing isoscalar transition densities to the GDR states. The fragmentation of the isoscalar and isovector monopole strength in neutron rich Ca isotopes has been studied in Ref. , and in Ref.  the onset of pygmy dipole resonances in Ca isotopes has been analyzed.

The pygmy dipole resonance, which is also the subject of the present study, results from the excess neutrons oscillating out of phase with a core composed of equal number of protons and neutrons. A number of theoretical models have been applied in studies of the dynamics of pygmy dipole resonances. These include: the three-fluid hydrodynamical model (the protons, the neutrons of the same orbitals as protons, and the excess neutrons) , the two-fluid (the core fluid and the neutron excess fluid) Steinwedel-Jensen hydrodynamical model , density functional theory , and the Hartree-Fock plus random phase approximation (RPA) with Skyrme forces . More recently, large scale shell model calculations have been performed in studies of pygmy and dipole states in O isotopes , and dipole and spin-dipole strength distributions in 11Li .

There is also experimental evidence for possible pygmy dipole states in 208Pb. Studies of the low energy spectrum by elastic photon scattering , photoneutron , and electron scattering  have detected fragmented E1 strength in the energy region between 9 and 11 MeV. The fine structure exhausts between 3 and 6% of the E1 sum rule. The relationship between coherent neutron particle-hole (p-h) excitations and the onset of dipole pygmy resonances in 208Pb has been investigated in the Hartree-Fock plus RPA model . A concentration of strength has been found around 9 MeV exhausting 2.4% of the E1 sum rule. In particular, two pronounced peaks have been calculated at 8.7 MeV and 9.5 MeV, which appear as likely candidates to be identified as pygmy resonances. The exact location of the calculated pygmy states will, of course, depend on the effective nuclear interaction. Therefore, it would be important to compare the predictions of various nuclear effective forces with experimental data. 208Pb is a particularly good example, since all nuclear structure models have been tested in the description of ground and excited state properties of this doubly magic spherical nucleus. The pygmy dipole resonance can be directly related to the neutron excess, and therefore the splitting between the GDR and the pygmy resonance represents a measure of the neutron skin. Precise information on neutron skin in heavy nuclei is essential for the quantification of the isovector channel of effective nuclear forces.

In the present study the isovector dipole response in 208Pb is described in the framework of a fully self-consistent relativistic random phase approximation (RRPA). The same effective Lagrangian generates the Dirac-Hartree single-particle spectrum and the residual particle-hole interaction. The RRPA response functions with nonlinear meson terms have been derived in Refs. , and applied in studies of isoscalar and isovector giant resonances. However, the model configuration space did not include the negative energy Dirac states, and therefore model calculations did not reproduce the results obtained with the time-dependent relativistic mean-field model . The contribution of pairs formed from occupied positive-energy states and empty negative-energy states (in the $`nosea`$ approximation), is essential for current conservation and the decoupling of the spurious state . In addition, configurations which involve negative-energy states give an important contribution to the collectivity of excited states. In a recent study  we have employed a fully self-consistent RRPA, including configuration spaces with negative-energy Dirac states, to calculate the isoscalar dipole resonance structure in 208Pb. Two basic isoscalar dipole modes have been identified, and the discrepancy between the calculated strength distribution and current experimental data has been analyzed.

In Fig. 1 we display the isovector dipole strength distribution in 208Pb (left panel), and the corresponding transition densities to the two states at 7.29 MeV and 12.95 MeV (right panel). The calculations have been performed within the framework of self-consistent Dirac-Hartree plus relativistic RPA. The effective mean-field Lagrangian contains nonlinear meson self-interaction terms, and the configuration space includes both particle-hole pairs and pairs formed from hole states and negative-energy states. The discrete spectrum of RRPA states has been folded with a Lorentzian distribution with a width of 0.5 MeV.

The strength distribution has been calculated with the NL3  parameter set for the effective mean-field Lagrangian. This force has been extensively used in the description of a variety of properties of finite nuclei, not only those along the valley of $`\beta `$-stability, but also of exotic nuclei close to the particle drip lines. Properties calculated with NL3 indicate that this is probably the best effective interaction so far, both for nuclei at and away from the line of $`\beta `$-stability. In particular, in Ref.  it has been shown that the NL3 ($`K_{\mathrm{nm}}=271.8`$ MeV) effective interaction provides the best description of experimental data on isoscalar giant monopole resonances. The calculated energy of the main peak in Fig. 1 $`E_p=12.95`$ MeV has to be compared with the experimental value of the excitation energy of the isovector giant dipole resonance: $`13.3\pm 0.1`$ MeV . In the energy region between 5 and 11 MeV two prominent peaks are calculated: at 7.29 MeV and 10.10 MeV. In the following we will show that the lower peak can be identified as the pygmy dipole resonance.

The transition densities to the states at 7.29 MeV and at 12.95 MeV are displayed in the right panel of Fig. 1. The proton and neutron contributions are shown separately; the dotted line denotes the isovector transition density and the solid line has been used for the isoscalar transition density. As it has been also shown in Ref. , although the isoscalar B(E1) to all states must identically vanish, the corresponding isoscalar transition densities to different states need not to be identically zero. The transition densities for the main peak at 12.95 MeV display a radial dependence characteristic for the isovector giant dipole resonance: the proton and neutron densities oscillate with opposite phases; the total isovector transition density is much larger than the isoscalar component; at large radii they both have a similar radial dependence. A very different behavior is observed for the transition densities to the state at 7.29 MeV: the proton and neutron densities in the interior region are not out of phase; there is almost no contribution from the protons in the surface region; the isoscalar transition density dominates over the isovector one in the interior; the large neutron component in the surface region contributes to the formation of a node in the isoscalar transition density. In Ref.  it has been shown that this last effect is also characteristic for very neutron-rich systems. The transition densities to the state at 10.10 MeV display a radial behavior which is intermediate between those shown in Fig. 1, but closer to the isovector giant dipole at 12.95 MeV. We have also analyzed the RRPA amplitudes of the three states: the neutron p-h excitations contribute 65%, and the proton 35% to the total intensity of the isovector giant dipole at 12.95 MeV, while the neutron contribution is 86% for the state at 7.29 MeV. The proton p-h excitations contribute only 14% to the total RPA intensity of this state. For the state at 10.10 MeV, on the other hand, we find 68% of proton excitations and only 32% is the contribution from neutron p-h configurations. However, 31% of the total intensity comes from a single proton p-h state: $`g7/2^1h9/2`$. We notice that in the study of neutron halos and E1 resonances in 208Pb , performed in the HF+RPA model with the SGII interaction, it was found that for the pygmy states the neutron response is a factor 10 larger than the proton response, whereas at energies corresponding to the GDR this ratio is about 1.6 or roughly N/Z.

The phenomenon of low-lying isovector dipole strength was already studied almost thirty years ago in the framework of the three-fluid hydrodynamical model . By using a generalization of the Steinwedel-Jensen model  to three fluids: the protons, the neutrons in the same orbitals as protons, and the excess neutrons, two normal modes of dipole vibrations were identified: (i) vibrations of the protons against the two types of neutrons, and (ii) the vibration of the excess neutrons against the proton-neutron core. In the case of neutron-rich nuclei, the later mode corresponds to pygmy resonances. For 208Pb, in addition to the GDR state at 13.3 MeV, a low-lying pygmy state at 4.4 MeV excitation energy was found in the analysis of Ref. . The dipole strength of this state, however, was negligible (2 orders of magnitude) compared to the GDR state.

In Fig. 2 we plot the transition densities to the two states at 7.29 MeV and 10.10 MeV. The contributions of the excess neutrons ($`82<N126`$) (solid), and of the proton-neutron core ($`Z,N82`$) (dashed) are displayed separately. By comparing with the transition densities shown in Fig. 1, we notice that there is practically no contribution from the core neutrons ($`N82`$). The reason is, of course, that the p-h configurations which involve core neutrons have much higher excitation energies. For the GDR state at 12.95 MeV the transition densities of the excess neutrons and the core have the same sign in the interior ($`r<3fm`$), and opposite phases in the surface region. The overall radial dependence is, however, very similar. The two transition densities have the same sign for the state at 7.29 MeV. The core contribution, however, vanishes for large $`r`$ and only oscillations of the excess neutrons are observed on the surface of 208Pb.

The difference in the collective dynamics of the two modes is also exemplified in the study of transition currents. In Figs. 3 and 4 we plot the velocity fields for the peaks at 7.29 MeV and 12.95 MeV, respectively. The velocity distributions are derived from the corresponding transition currents, following the procedure described in Ref. . In both figures the velocity field of the proton-neutron core ($`Z,N82`$) (left panel), is separated from the contribution of the excess neutrons ($`82<N126`$) (right panel). To the largest velocity in Figs. 3 and 4 a vector of unit length is assigned. All the other velocity vectors are normalized accordingly. We notice that both the core and the excess neutrons contribute to the velocity field of the giant resonance state (Fig. 4), though the largest velocities correspond to the vibrations of the excess neutrons in the surface region. For the state at 7.29 MeV, on the other hand, the core velocities are much smaller than those of the excess neutrons on the surface. The velocity fields in Fig. 3 corroborate the picture of dipole pygmy resonances as oscillations of the excess neutrons against the inert core of protons and neutrons in the same shell model orbitals.

In conclusion, we have used a fully self-consistent relativistic random phase approximation to analyze the isovector dipole resonance structure in 208Pb. In particular, we have investigated the relationship between the neutron particle-hole excitations at low energy and the onset of dipole pygmy resonances. For the effective interaction we have used the set of nonlinear parameters NL3. This interaction has been used in many recent applications of the relativistic mean field model, both in stable nuclei and in nuclei far from the valley of $`\beta `$-stability, including drip-line systems. In the particular case studied in this Letter, model calculations reproduce the excitation energy of the isovector giant dipole resonance in 208Pb. In addition, low-lying E1 peaks are calculated in the energy region between 7 and 11 MeV . While some of these represent the fine structure of the giant resonance, a collective state has been identified whose dynamics correspond to that of a dipole pygmy resonance. By analyzing transition densities and velocity distributions, we have related the onset of pygmy resonance at 7.29 MeV to the vibration of the excess neutrons against the inert core composed of protons and neutrons in the same shell model orbitals. Experimental information on the fragmentation of E1 strength in 208Pb is, however, only available in the energy window $`812`$ MeV. In order to test the predictions of the present analysis, it would be important to obtain experimental data also in the energy region below 8 MeV.

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported in part by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung under project 06 TM 979, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and by the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) Darmstadt.

Figure Captions

* Fig.1 Isovector dipole strength distribution in 208Pb (left panel), and transition densities for the two peaks at 7.29 MeV and 12.95 MeV (right panel). Both isoscalar and isvoector transition densities are displayed, as well as the separate proton and neutron contributions. All transition densities are multiplied by $`r^2`$.
* Fig. 2 Isovector dipole transition densities to the 7.29 MeV and 12.95 MeV RRPA states in 208Pb. The contributions of the excess neutrons ($`82<N126`$) (solid), and of the proton-neutron core ($`Z,N82`$) (dashed) are displayed separately. The transition densities are multiplied by $`r^2`$.
* Fig. 3 Velocity distributions for the RRPA state at 7.29 MeV in 208Pb. The velocity field of the proton-neutron core ($`Z,N82`$) (left panel), is separated from the contribution of the excess neutrons ($`82<N126`$) (right panel).
* Fig. 4 Same as in Fig. 3, but for the RRPA state at 12.95 MeV in 208Pb.


text:
# The non-self-adjointness of the radial momentum operator in 𝑛 dimensions

## I INTRODUCTION

The radial momentum operator was the subject of long discussions since the early days of Quantum Mechanics. Its exact form and relation to the Hamiltonian were considered by many authors. Unlike the classical radial momentum, the connection between the radial momentum operator and the Hamiltonian of a free particle is not trivial . In fact, the connection between the radial momentum and the Hamiltonian in $`n`$ dimensions is :

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{\widehat{P}_r^2}{2m}+\frac{\widehat{𝑳}^\mathrm{𝟐}}{2mr^2}+\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\frac{\left(n1\right)\left(n3\right)}{4r^2}.$$

(at least formally, in principle one has to define the self-adjoint extension of $`\widehat{P}_r^2`$ , which is not self-adjoint.)
Another important question that was raised is whether the radial momentum operator is an observable. Although Dirac claimed in “The Principles of Quantum Mechanics” that the radial momentum operator is “real” , many authors realized that the radial momentum operator is not self-adjoint . Unfortunately none of these proofs is correct.
In order to be an observable the radial momentum operator should be self-adjoint. Simply checking that the eigenvalues are real (like  do) is not sufficient (or necessary), one has to pay attention to the domain on which the operator is defined. Perhaps the most appealing (but incorrect) argument appears in  (we use units where $`\mathrm{}=1`$):
“Since $`[\widehat{r},\widehat{P}_r]=i`$ the unitary transformation $`e^{ia\widehat{P}_r}`$ shifts the operator $`\widehat{r}`$ by $`a`$ ( because $`e^{ia\widehat{P}_r}\widehat{r}e^{ia\widehat{P}_r}=\widehat{r}+a`$) while leaving its spectrum invariant (being a unitary transformation). Therefore the spectrum of $`\widehat{r}`$ must be $`(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$. Since the spectrum of $`\widehat{r}`$ is $`(0,\mathrm{})`$ the operator $`\widehat{P}_r`$ cannot be self-adjoint.”
This statement, had it been true, would have prevented any operator, which has canonical commutation relation with $`\widehat{r}`$, from being self-adjoint. Unfortunately, this statement cannot be true as we can see from the following counter example. Consider the space: $`L^2[(0,1),dx]`$, the momentum operator $`\widehat{P}=i\frac{d}{dx}`$ with a suitable domain is self-adjoint in that space . The position operator $`\widehat{X}`$ is a bounded self-adjoint operator. Its spectrum is of course $`(0,1)`$ and we have for a suitable subspace of $`L^2[(0,1),dx]`$ (say, the infinitely differentiable functions whose compact support is in (0,1)) : $`[\widehat{X},\widehat{P}]=i`$. Following the logic of the above statement we would have concluded that $`\widehat{P}`$ is not self-adjoint. Therefore, from this simple example, we see that the above statement cannot be correct.
Nevertheless the operator $`e^{ia\widehat{P}_r}`$ should correspond to the translation operator on $`L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),r^{n1}dr]`$. This operator is at least an isometry so it should be of the form:

$$e^{ia\widehat{P_r}}\psi \left(r\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\psi \left(ra\right)\hfill & \text{if }ar\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{if }0<r<a.\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
Such an operator would not be unitary: if $`\psi \left(r\right)0`$ for $`r<a`$ then the action of $`e^{i\widehat{P_r}a}`$ on $`\psi \left(r\right)`$ is not defined. Stated differently, “we can move everything to the right but not to the left”. Since the translation operator is not unitary we have every reason to suspect that $`\widehat{P}_r`$ is not self-adjoint. Therefore, it seems that a correct proof to the non self-adjointness of the radial momentum operator is highly in order.
There’s seem to be almost a consensus in the literature that the operator which correspond to the radial momentum in $`n`$ dimensions is the operator $`i\left(\frac{}{r}+\frac{n1}{2r}\right)`$ . We shall now show that this operator is not self-adjoint and has no self-adjoint extensions.

## II THE PROOF

It is well known that the momentum operator in $`L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$ is not self-adjoint and has no self-adjoint extensions . When we say the “momentum operator” we mean the operator $`\widehat{P}=i\frac{d}{dr}`$ with the domain:

$$\left\{\psi \right|\psi L^2,\psi ^{}L^2,\psi \text{ is absolutely continuous on }(0,\mathrm{}),\psi \left(0\right)=0\}.$$

These conditions are needed to assure that $`\widehat{P}`$ would be symmetric (notice that since $`\psi `$ is absolutely continuous $`lim_r\mathrm{}\psi =0`$ ). We are going to use this fact to prove our assertion.
First, define a transformation:

$`U`$ $`:`$ $`L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),r^{n1}dr]`$
$`\left(U\psi \right)\left(r\right)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{r^{\frac{n1}{2}}}}.`$ (2)
We have

$$\psi ^2=_0^{\mathrm{}}\left|\psi \right|^2𝑑r=_0^{\mathrm{}}\left|\frac{\psi }{r^{\frac{n1}{2}}}\right|^2r^{n1}𝑑r=U\psi ^2,$$
(3)
so $`U`$ is an isometry. $`U`$ is a unitary operator since every $`\phi L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),r^{n1}dr]`$ has an inverse image $`r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$. This transformation (with $`n=3`$) is well known from elementary textbooks on quantum mechanics, where it is used to solve the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom .
$`U^1`$ is defined by:

$`U^1`$ $`:`$ $`L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),r^{n1}dr]L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$
$`\left(U^1\phi \right)\left(r\right)`$ $`:=`$ $`r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi .`$ (4)
The operator $`\widehat{P}`$ on $`L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$ is unitarily equivalent to:

$$\widehat{P_r}\stackrel{def}{=}U\widehat{P}U^1=r^{\frac{1n}{2}}\left(i\frac{d}{dr}\right)r^{\frac{n1}{2}}=i\left(\frac{d}{dr}+\frac{n1}{2r}\right),$$
(5)
which is, formally, the n-dimensional radial momentum operator.
If $`\phi D\left(\widehat{P}_r\right)`$ then $`U^1\phi D\left(\widehat{P}\right)`$. Therefore if $`\phi D\left(\widehat{P}_r\right)`$ then:

1. $`\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right)^{}L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$
2. $`r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi `$ is absolutely continuous in $`(0,\mathrm{})`$
3. $`\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right)\left(0\right)=0`$.

The obvious question arises: is this the “natural” domain for $`\widehat{P}_r`$ ?
First of all, $`\widehat{P}_r\phi L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),r^{n1}dr]`$, that is:

$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\left|\widehat{P}_r\phi \right|^2r^{n1}𝑑r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right|^2\left(r^{\frac{1n}{2}}\right)^2r^{n1}𝑑r`$ (6)
$``$ $`\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right)^{}L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr],`$
and we have (a).
$`\widehat{P}_r`$ is (at least) symmetric, that is if $`\phi ,\chi D\left(\widehat{P}_r\right)`$ then the following equality should hold:

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}\overline{\chi }\left(\widehat{P}_r\phi \right)r^{n1}𝑑r=_0^{\mathrm{}}\overline{\left(\widehat{P}_r\chi \right)}\phi r^{n1}𝑑r.$$
(7)
However,

$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\overline{\chi }\left(\widehat{P}_r\phi \right)r^{n1}𝑑r`$ $`=`$ $`\left(i\right){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\overline{\chi }r^{\frac{1n}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right)r^{n1}𝑑r`$
$`=`$ $`\left(i\right){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\overline{\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\chi \right)}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi \right)𝑑r=`$
$`\left(i\right)\overline{\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\chi \right)}r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi _0^{\mathrm{}}`$ $`+`$ $`i{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\overline{{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\chi \right)}r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi 𝑑r=`$
$`\left(i\right)\overline{\left(r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\chi \right)}r^{\frac{n1}{2}}\phi _0^{\mathrm{}}`$ $`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\overline{\left(\widehat{P}_r\chi \right)}\phi r^{n1}𝑑r,`$ (8)
where we were forced to assume (b) in order to use integration by parts. (b) also ensures that the boundary term in (II) is zero at infinity. In order that (7) will hold, we have to assume that the boundary term also vanishes at the origin, i.e. assume (c).

Thus we have defined $`\widehat{P}_r`$ with its proper domain and we see that it is symmetric. Furthermore it is also closed since it is unitarily equivalent to $`\widehat{P}`$, which is closed . As we have said earlier this operator is the radial momentum operator.

In order to find out whether this operator is self-adjoint or at least have self-adjoint extensions we have to check the dimensionality of the two subspaces: $`𝒦_{}=\mathrm{ker}\left(i+\widehat{P}_r^{}\right)`$ and $`𝒦_+=\mathrm{ker}\left(i\widehat{P}_r^{}\right)`$. If they do not have the same dimensionality the operator is not self-adjoint and has no self-adjoint extensions .

$`\widehat{P}_r^{}`$ is easy to find since  $`\widehat{P}_r^{}=U\widehat{P}^{}U^1`$ and we have:

$`\phi \mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}_r^{}\right)`$ $``$ $`\left(i\pm \widehat{P}_r^{}\right)\phi =0`$
$`\left(i\pm U\widehat{P}^{}U^1\right)\phi =0`$ $``$ $`U\left(i\pm \widehat{P}^{}\right)U^1\phi =0`$
$`\left(i\pm \widehat{P}^{}\right)U^1\phi =0`$ $``$ $`U^1\phi \mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}^{}\right).`$ (9)
In a similar way we can show that:

$$\psi \mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}^{}\right)U\psi \mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}_r^{}\right)$$
(10)
and we conclude that:

$$dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}_r^{}\right)=dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i\pm \widehat{P}^{}\right).$$
(11)
$`\widehat{P}^{}`$ has the following property  :

$`dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i+\widehat{P}^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i\widehat{P}^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (12)
because

$`\mathrm{ker}\left(i+\widehat{P}^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{ce^r\right|c𝐂\}L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr]`$
$`\mathrm{ker}\left(i\widehat{P}^{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{ce^r\right|c𝐂\}L^2[(0,\mathrm{}),dr].`$ (13)
Therefore

$$dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i+\widehat{P}_r^{}\right)dim\mathrm{ker}\left(i\widehat{P}_r^{}\right)$$
(14)
and $`\widehat{P}_r`$ is not self-adjoint and does not have self-adjoint extensions.
Using this equivalence we can understand the non self-adjoint nature of the radial momentum operator on a more intuitive level, by transferring the problem into a one dimensional problem .
In one dimension we can, in general, consider three types of interval: infinite interval, finite interval (“particle in a box”) and semi-infinite interval. In the first case the momentum operator is self-adjoint because we can translate a wave packet to both sides. In the case of a “particle in a box” we can translate a wave packet and whatever “comes out” at one end we can enter at the other end (possibly with a different phase which corresponds to a specific self-adjoint extension ). Therefore the momentum operator, which is not self-adjoint, has self-adjoint extensions. In the case of a semi-infinite interval, we can move a wave packet to the right but if we try to move it to the left what “comes out” at the origin cannot be entered at the other end since the “other end” is infinity. Therefore the translation operator is not unitary and the momentum operator is not self-adjoint and has no self-adjoint extensions.
To summarize, we have seen that the radial momentum operator is unitarily equivalent to the momentum operator on the half line $`(0,\mathrm{})`$. Since this operator is not self-adjoint (and has no self-adjoint extensions), the radial momentum operator is not self-adjoint (and has no self-adjoint extensions).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Technion Graduate School.
I thank Aviv Censor and Amnon Harel for useful discussions.