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# References

UCRHEP-T329

January 2002

Pattern of the Approximate Mass
Degeneracy of Majorana Neutrinos
Ernest Ma
Physics Department, University of California, Riverside, California 92521

## Abstract

In view of the recently reported evidence for a nonzero Majorana mass of the electron neutrino, together with the established phenomena of atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillations, the case of three nearly mass-degenerate Majorana neutrinos is now a distinct possibility. I show in this paper how a natural pattern of symmetry breaking in the recently proposed $`A_4`$ model of Majorana neutrino masses can accommodate the data on neutrino oscillations, resulting in the predictions $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{atm}=1`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{sol}=2/3`$.

In the past several years, there has been mounting evidence for neutrino oscillations . Since they require only neutrino mass differences, the possibility of nearly degenerate neutrino masses is often considered . Recently, the first positive evidence for neutrinoless double beta decay has been reported  which may be interpreted as an effective nonzero Majorana mass for the electron neutrino. Combined with the atmospheric and solar neutrino data, there is now a plausible argument for three nearly mass-degenerate Majorana neutrinos . However, the charged-lepton masses are certainly not degenerate, so whatever symmetry is used to maintain the neutrino mass degeneracy must be broken. To implement this idea in a renormalizable field theory, the discrete symmetry $`A_4`$ was proposed recently  where its spontaneous breaking results in charged-lepton masses and its explicit soft breaking results in neutrino mass differences.

The proposed $`A_4`$ model is based on a simple model of neutrino masses , where a leptonic Higgs doublet $`\eta =(\eta ^+,\eta ^0)`$ and three right-handed neutral singlet fermions $`N_{iR}`$ are added to the minimal standard model of particle interactions. These new particles may all be at or below the TeV energy scale, so that the seesaw mechanism  may be tested experimentally at future accelerators. With the report of a possible discrepancy in the experimental measurement  of the muon anomalous magnetic moment with the theoretical prediction, this leptonic Higgs model was used  to constrain the masses and couplings of these new particles. However, a sign error has been discovered  in the theoretical calculation, hence the experimental discrepancy is now only $`1.6\sigma `$, which is not much of a constraint on this model.

In this paper the explicit soft breaking of the $`A_4`$ symmetry is shown to allow for a natural solution with the predictions $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{atm}=1`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{sol}=2/3`$ which agree well with present data and may be tested more precisely in future neutrino-oscillation experiments. At the same time, the new particles $`N_{iR}`$ as well as an assortment of Higgs bosons with specific properties  are predicted to be accessible at future high-energy accelerators and their decays into leptons will map out the neutrino mass matrix.

Under $`A_4`$ and $`L`$ (lepton number), the color-singlet fermions and scalars of this model transform as follows.

$`(\nu _i,l_i)_L`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{3},1),`$ (1)
$`l_{1R}`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{1},1),`$ (2)
$`l_{2R}`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{1}^{},1),`$ (3)
$`l_{3R}`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{1}^{\prime \prime },1),`$ (4)
$`N_{iR}`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{3},0),`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_i=(\varphi _i^+,\varphi _i^0)`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{3},0),`$ (6)
$`\eta =(\eta ^+,\eta ^0)`$ $``$ $`(\underset{¯}{1},1).`$ (7)
Hence its Lagrangian has the invariant terms

$$\frac{1}{2}MN_{iR}^2+f\overline{N}_{iR}(\nu _{iL}\eta ^0l_{iL}\eta ^+)+h_{ijk}\overline{(\nu _i,l_i)}_Ll_{jR}\mathrm{\Phi }_k+h.c.,$$
(8)
where

$$h_{i1k}=h_1\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right],h_{i2k}=h_2\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& \omega & 0\\ 0& 0& \omega ^2\end{array}\right],h_{i3k}=h_3\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& \omega ^2& 0\\ 0& 0& \omega \end{array}\right],$$
(9)
with $`\omega ^3=1`$. Thus the neutrino mass matrix (in this basis) is proportional to the unit matrix with magnitude $`f^2u^2/M`$, where $`u=\eta ^0`$, whereas the charged-lepton mass matrix is given by

$$_l=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}h_1v_1& h_2v_1& h_3v_1\\ h_1v_2& h_2\omega v_2& h_3\omega ^2v_2\\ h_1v_3& h_2\omega ^2v_3& h_3\omega v_3\end{array}\right],$$
(10)
where $`v_i=\varphi _i^0`$. Now rotate $`_l`$ on the left by

$$U_L^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 1& 1\\ 1& \omega ^2& \omega \\ 1& \omega & \omega ^2\end{array}\right],$$
(11)
then

$$U_L^{}_l=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}v& v^{}& v^{\prime \prime }\\ v^{\prime \prime }& v& v^{}\\ v^{}& v^{\prime \prime }& v\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{ccc}h_1& 0& 0\\ 0& h_2& 0\\ 0& 0& h_3\end{array}\right],$$
(12)
where

$`v`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(v_1+v_2+v_3),`$ (13)
$`v^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(v_1+\omega v_2+\omega ^2v_3),`$ (14)
$`v^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(v_1+\omega ^2v_2+\omega v_3).`$ (15)
As shown in Ref. , $`v_1=v_2=v_3`$ is a natural solution of the $`A_4`$-symmetric Higgs potential, in which case $`v^{}=v^{\prime \prime }=0`$ and $`U_L^{}_l`$ is diagonal. Hence

$$_\nu =\frac{f^2u^2}{M}U_L^TU_L=\frac{f^2u^2}{M}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\\ 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right]$$
(16)
in the $`(\nu _e,\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau )`$ basis. This shows that $`\nu _\mu `$ mixes maximally with $`\nu _\tau `$, but since all physical neutrino masses are degenerate, there are no neutrino oscillations. To break the degeneracy, let $`_{ij}=M\delta _{ij}+m_{ij}`$, then

$$(^1)_{ij}M^1\delta _{ij}M^2m_{ij}.$$
(17)
Whereas $`m_{ij}`$ is assumed arbitrary in Ref. , it is required here to be invariant under $`U_L`$, i.e.

$$U_L^Tm_{ij}U_L=m_{ij}.$$
(18)
It is then a simple exercise to show that the most general solution is of the form

$$m_{ij}=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}2\delta +2\delta ^{}& \delta ^{}& \delta ^{}\\ \delta ^{}& \delta & \delta \\ \delta ^{}& \delta & \delta \end{array}\right].$$
(19)
Consider first the case $`\delta ^{}=0`$, then

$$_\nu \frac{f^2u^2}{M}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}12\delta /M& 0& 0\\ 0& \delta /M& 1\delta /M\\ 0& 1\delta /M& \delta /M\end{array}\right],$$
(20)
which has eigenvalues proportional to $`12\delta /M`$, $`12\delta /M`$, and $`1`$, corresponding to the eigenstates $`\nu _e`$, $`(\nu _\mu +\nu _\tau )/\sqrt{2}`$, and $`(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )/\sqrt{2}`$ respectively. This shows that the threefold degeneracy of $`_\nu `$ is broken by $`\delta `$ to a twofold degeneracy with $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ maximal mixing and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^24\delta f^4u^4/M^3`$, which is desirable for explaining atmospheric neutrino oscillations . It also provides a natural reason for having $`\delta ^{}<<\delta `$ because $`\delta ^{}`$ breaks even the twofold degeneracy, as discussed below.

To see how $`\delta ^{}0`$ affects $`m_{ij}`$ of Eq. (19), rotate $`_\nu `$ of Eq. (20) to the basis spanned by $`\nu _e`$, $`(\nu _\mu +\nu _\tau )/\sqrt{2}`$, and $`(\nu _\mu \nu _\tau )/\sqrt{2}`$. Then

$$_\nu \frac{f^2u^2}{M}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}12\delta /M2\delta ^{}/M& \sqrt{2}\delta ^{}/M& 0\\ \sqrt{2}\delta ^{}/M& 12\delta /M& 0\\ 0& 0& 1\end{array}\right],$$
(21)
which has the solution

$$\left[\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\\ \nu _3\end{array}\right]=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{cos}\theta & \mathrm{sin}\theta /\sqrt{2}& \mathrm{sin}\theta /\sqrt{2}\\ \mathrm{sin}\theta & \mathrm{cos}\theta /\sqrt{2}& \mathrm{cos}\theta /\sqrt{2}\\ 0& 1/\sqrt{2}& 1/\sqrt{2}\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}\nu _e\\ \nu _\mu \\ \nu _\tau \end{array}\right],$$
(22)
where $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =(\sqrt{3}1)/\sqrt{2}`$, and

$`m_1`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f^2u^2}{M}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\delta }{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\sqrt{3}+1)\delta ^{}}{M}}\right],`$ (23)
$`m_2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f^2u^2}{M}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{2\delta }{M}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(\sqrt{3}1)\delta ^{}}{M}}\right],`$ (24)
and $`m_3f^2u^2/M`$. Hence

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^2\frac{4\sqrt{3}\delta ^{}f^4u^4}{M^3},\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{12}=\frac{2}{3}.$$
(25)
This is then a satisfactory explanation of the solar neutrino data  with a large mixing angle. Numerically, let the common mass of all three neutrinos be $`f^2u^2/M=0.4`$ eV , and $`\delta /M=3.9\times 10^3`$, $`\delta ^{}/M=3.6\times 10^5`$; then $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)_{atm}=2.5\times 10^3`$ eV2 and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m^2)_{sol}=4.0\times 10^5`$ eV2, in good agreement with present data. Note also that these numbers are not spoiled by radiative corrections .

As Eq. (22) shows, under the assumption of $`v_1=v_2=v_3`$ and that of Eq. (18), the electron neutrino $`\nu _e`$ has only $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _2`$ components, i.e. $`U_{e3}=0`$. This is perfectly consistent with present data. However, if $`U_{e3}`$ is indeed zero, then there can be no $`CP`$-violating effects in neutrino oscillations. In the context of the present model, if the Higgs potential has soft terms which break the $`A_4`$ symmetry, then $`v^{}`$ and $`v^{\prime \prime }`$ of Eqs. (14) and (15) will not be zero, but may be assumed to be small. In that case, $`(h_1,h_2,h_3)`$ of Eq. (12) are still approximately proportional to $`(m_e,m_\mu ,m_\tau )`$, and it is easy to show that the rotation due to $`v^{}0`$ and $`v^{\prime \prime }0`$ results in $`|U_{e3}||v^{}/v\sqrt{2}|`$, which is bounded by reactor experiments  to be less than about 0.16.

The heavy right-handed singlet fermions $`N_{iR}`$ are of course also nearly degenerate in mass. As discussed in Ref. , they will decay into charged leptons plus either a $`W^\pm `$ boson or a charged Higgs boson. The mass eigenstates of $`N_{iR}`$ are given by $`N_1\mathrm{cos}\theta +(N_2+N_3)\mathrm{sin}\theta /\sqrt{2}`$, $`N_1\mathrm{sin}\theta +(N_2+N_3)\mathrm{cos}\theta /\sqrt{2}`$, and $`(N_2N_3)/\sqrt{2}`$, with masses $`M+2\delta +(\sqrt{3}+1)\delta ^{}`$, $`M+2\delta (\sqrt{3}1)\delta ^{}`$, and $`M`$ respectively. Their couplings are given by Eqs. (8) and (11), i.e. $`N_1(e+\mu +\tau )/\sqrt{3}`$, $`N_2(e+\omega \mu +\omega ^2\tau )/\sqrt{3}`$, and $`N_3(e+\omega ^2\mu +\omega \tau )/\sqrt{3}`$. An equal and incoherent mixture of all three $`N`$’s will of course decay equally into $`e`$, $`\mu `$, and $`\tau `$.

In conclusion, the case of three nearly mass-degenerate Majorana neutrinos in a renormalizable field theory based on the discrete symmetry $`A_4`$ is studied and found to accommodate a natural solution with two mass splittings, one larger than the other because it breaks the threefold degeneracy only down to a twofold degeneracy. This pattern is ideal for understanding the recently reported evidence for a nonzero effective Majorana mass of the electron neutrino, and the established phenomena of atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillations. It predicts $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{atm}=1`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{sol}=2/3`$ with a zero or small $`U_{e3}`$. It also predicts particles at the TeV energy scale which are responsible for the proposed pattern. As such, future neutrino-oscillation experiments are complementary to future high-energy accelerator experiments in the unambiguous test of this model.

This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG03-94ER40837.


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# Excitation of Triple Giant Resonances in Heavy-Ion Reactions∗

## Abstract

We calculate the cross-section for the excitation and subsequent decay of triple giant resonances (TGDR) in several nuclei excited with heavy ions. The recently developed coherent plus incoherent theory for the excitation in conjunction with the hybrid decay model of Dias-Hussein-Adhikari are used for the purpose. It is emphasized that the direct decay of the TGR is expected to deviate appreciably from the harmonic limit especially at low bombarding energies, owing to the incoherent contribution.

PACS Numbers: 25.70.De, 24.30.Cz, 21.10.Re

$``$Supported in part by CNPq and FAPESP.

The study of the double giant dipole resonance in nuclei has received a considerable amount of attention over the last 15 years . Both the pion double charge exchange and relativistic heavy ion Coulomb excitation reactions have been used to probe this large amplitude collective motion in may fermion systems. The quest for the similar double plasmon resonance in metallic clusters is underway . Plans are also in progress to search for the triple giant dipole resonance (TGDR) in nuclei . It is clearly of importance to supply theoretical estimates of the cross-section as well as the different decay branching ratios of these exotic collective modes. This is the purpose of the present paper. We use the recently developed coherent plus incoherent excitation theory of Ref.  in conjunction with the hybrid decay model of Dias-Hussein-Adhikari (DHA) of Ref. .

The existing models for the calculation of the excitation cross-section of DGDR can be grouped into three categories: a microscopic structure model in conjunction with second order Coulomb excitation perturbation theory , a macroscopic, oscillator (harmonic or anharmonic) model in conjunction with coupled channels Coulomb excitation theory  and finally the recently developed average plus fluctuation model . In this latter model the average cross-section is calculated according to the theory developed in , where the simple, double, etc. giant resonances are considered as doorway states belonging to the spectrum of a damped harmonic oscillator.

A fully microscopic structure calculation of the excitation cross-section of the TGDR resonance is prohibitively difficult. A huge number of three particle-three hole configurations have to be dealt with in a coupled channel context. A detailed account of the spreading of the TGDR would require the inclusion in the calculation of at least the four particle - four hole subspace. Not having available such a detailed description we opt for using our coherent + fluctuation model . The TGDR excitation cross-section is found to have the form

$$\sigma ^{(3)}=\sigma _c^{(3)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _c^{(3)}`$ is the average cross-section for the coherent excitation of the three phonons which proceeds through the one and two phonon states in a typical three-step description. This cross section can be guaranteed for the coupled channel Coulomb excitation model which contains explicit reference to flux loss from there states owing to their spreading into more complex configurations. The cross-section $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)`$ corresponds to fluctuation contribution arising from the decay of an intermediate collective GR phonon into the complicated background followed by the excitation of another collective phonon on the background states (the Brink-Axel phonon). The final states involved in this cross-section contains two collective phonons in contrast to $`\sigma _c^{(3)}`$. Finally $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)`$ contains contributions that lead to only one phonon in the final state. In terms of the time sequence of events, $`\sigma _c^{(3)}`$, being a three-step process, is the fastest, followed by the four-step process accounted for by $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)`$ (this is a four-step process since besides the three excitation steps one has one internal mixing step) and finally the five step process contained in $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)`$. The DGR cross section may be similarly decomposed as $`\sigma ^{(2)}=\sigma _c^{(2)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)`$.

In Ref.  we obtained the following estimates for $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(i)`$:

$$\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)=\left(\frac{2}{3}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}\text{ }\tau _c}{\mathrm{}}\sigma _c^{(3)},$$
(2)
$$\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)=\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}\tau _c}{\mathrm{}}\right)^2\text{ }\sigma _c^{(3)},$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}`$ is the spreading width of the single phonon $`GR`$ and $`\tau _c`$ is the average collision time given by $`\frac{b_o}{\gamma v}`$, with $`b_o`$ being the grazing impact parameter, $`v`$ the asymptotic relative velocity and $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor, $`\gamma =\left(1\left(\frac{v}{c}\right)^2\right)^{1/2}`$.

The above fluctuation contribution become insignificant at very high energies where the systems proceeds very quickly though the sequence ground state $`GDRDGDRTGDR`$. When the bombarding energy is lowered, the fluctuation effects may become appreciable . The estimates above were found to be quite reasonable when compared to the more elaborate model of Ref.  at relatively high bombarding energies. At lower energies, clearly, for the evaluation of the different contributions to the total excitation cross-section, Eq. (1), one should rely on the latter, more precise model. In order to discuss the decay of the final states into the open channels, we need to know the values of the different contributions to $`\sigma ^{(2)}`$ and $`\sigma ^{(3)}`$.

We have calculated the excitation cross-sections, $`\sigma ^{(1)}`$, $`\sigma ^{(2)}`$ and $`\sigma ^{(3)}`$, for various nuclei incident on 208Pb at several bombarding energies, using a three-dimensional (3D) generalization of the model of Ref. . The 3D time evolution equation used to describe the excitation and decay of the GDR phonons possesses the same form as the one-dimensional equation of Ref. . However, the collective and statistical excited states of the 3D model take into account all possible combinations of the (two) transverse and (one) longitudinal degrees of freedom, which yield 3 coherent one-phonon states, 6 coherent two-phonon states and 10 coherent three-phonon states as well as a multitude of states containing a mixture of coherent and statistical excitations. Decays of the three types of phonons to the statistical background are assumed to occur independently but to each obey Bose-Einstein statistics.

The Coulomb interaction matrix elements used to describe the transverse modes of the GDR excitation in the 3D model are the physically appropriate ones, as given in Ref. . The longitudinal Coulomb interaction matrix element, however, is modified from the form given there. It is reduced to a term proportional to the longitudinal component of the eletric field, in analogy to the transerse terms, but which differs from the expression given in Ref.  by a total time derivative. The latter term can be extracted from the equations and discarded when only the coherent excitation is included. This is no longer the case when decay to the statistical states is taken into account. Nevertheless, we have neglected its contribution here.

As in Ref. , the coupled equations of motion are solved as a function of impact parameter to yield asymptotic occupation probabilities. Effective asymptotic occupation probabilities are defined, for states that decay, as the sum over the probability that decays out of each state during the time evolution. Cross sections are obtained by integrating each probability x differential area over impact parameter and summing over polarizations.

The various contributions to the cross sections are easily extracted from the theoretical calculations. In Table I, we present the coherent and fluctuation contributions to the DGDR cross section, $`\sigma _c^{(2)}`$ and $`\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)`$ for various nuclei incident on 208Pb at several energies. In Table II, we present the contributions to the TGDR cross section, $`\sigma _c^{(3)}`$, $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)`$, and $`\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)`$. We observe that the cross sections increase dramatically with the charge of the projectile. As is well known, the coherent two-phonon cross sections scales approximately as the charge Z squared, while the three-phonon one scales as $`Z^3`$. We also observe that the coherent contribution to the cross sections only dominates at relatively high incident energies. At the lowest energy shown, 10 MeV/nucleon, the cross sections involving statistical phonons are substantially larger than the coherent ones. At $`E/A=100`$ MeV, it is clear from the tables that the fluctuation contribution to the DGDR cross section is about as large as the coherent one, while the fluctuation contribution to the TGDR is about three times larger than the coherent contribution.

We turn now to the decay of the DGR and TGR. We first remind the reader of the hybrid direct+fluctuation decay model of DHA . According to this model, which has been extensively used in the analysis of the decay data , the GR decays to a find channel $`f`$ in the following manner:

$`\sigma _f^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma ^{(1)}\left[\left(1\mu _1\right){\displaystyle \frac{\tau _f^{(GR)}}{_j\tau _j^{(GR)}}}+\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _f^{(CN)}+\mu _1\tau _f^{(GR)}}{_j\left(\tau _j^{(CN)}+\mu _1\tau _j^{(GR)}\right)}}\right]`$ (4)
$``$ $`\sigma ^{(1)}(P_f^{}+P_f^{}),`$ (5)
where $`\sigma ^{(1)}`$ is the one phonon excitation cross section discussed before, while $`\mu _1=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1}`$ and the $`\tau `$$`s`$ are the appropriate transmission coefficients. We have written the probability of populating the final channel $`f`$ through direct decay of the GR as

$$P_f^{}=\left(1\mu _1\right)\frac{\tau _f^{(GR)}}{_j\tau _j^{(GR)}},$$
(6)
and the probability of of populating the channel $`f`$ through the statistical states as

$$P_f^{}=\mu _1\frac{\tau _f^{(CN)}+\mu _1\tau _f^{(GR)}}{_j\left(\tau _j^{(CN)}+\mu _1\tau _j^{(GR)}\right)}$$
(7)
Note that the statistical decay component contains explicit reference to the GR direct transmission, $`\left(\mu _1\tau _f^{(GR)}\right)`$.

Before entering into the details of the decay of the multiple giant resonances, let us first analyze the decomposition into direct decay and decay into the statistical states. For this purpose, we use the branching ratios

$$P^{}=\underset{f}{}P_f^{}=1\mu _1\text{and}P^{}=\underset{f}{}P_f^{}=\mu _1.$$
(8)
The decomposition of the single GR decay is a direct result of Eq. (5),

$$\sigma ^{(1)}(P^{}+P^{})\sigma ^{(1)}.$$
(9)
To decompose the decay of the multiple giant resonances into direct and statistical parts, we assume that each of the collective phonons decays independently. The decay of the coherent contributions to the DGR and TGR can then be decomposed as

$`\sigma _c^{(2)}`$ $``$ $`(P^{}+P^{})^2\sigma _c^{(2)}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`(P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+2P^{}P^{}+P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}})\sigma _c^{(2)},`$ (11)
and

$`\sigma _c^{(3)}`$ $``$ $`(P^{}+P^{})^3\sigma _c^{(3)}`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`(P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}+3P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}P^{}+3P^{}P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}})\sigma _c^{(3)}.`$ (13)
That is, the coherent contribution to the DGR can decay through direct decay of each of the collective phonons, through a direct decay of one of the colective phonons and decay into the statistical states of the other, or through decay into the statistical states of both of the phonons. Decay of the coherent contribution to the TGR takes into account the different possible direct or statistical decays of the three initial phonons.

We can analyze the decomposition of the decay of the fluctuating contributions to the DGR and TGR cross sections in a similar manner. We need only take into account the number of collective phonons in each of the contributions. Thus, the decay of the fluctuating component of the DGR can be decomposed as

$$\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)(P^{}+P^{})\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1),$$
(14)
while the decay of the fluctuating components of the TGR can be decomposed as

$$\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)(P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+2P^{}P^{}+P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}})\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2),$$
(15)
and

$$\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)(P^{}+P^{})\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1).$$
(16)
We can now combine the various terms into decompositions of the decay of the total DGR and TGR cross sections,

$`\sigma ^{(2)}`$ $``$ $`P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}\sigma _c^{(2)}`$ (17)
$`+`$ $`P^{}(2P^{}\sigma _c^{(2)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1))`$ (18)
$`+`$ $`P^{}(P^{}\sigma _c^{(2)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)),`$ (19)
and

$`\sigma ^{(3)}`$ $``$ $`P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}\sigma _c^{(3)}`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}(3P^{}\sigma _c^{(3)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2))`$ (21)
$`+`$ $`P^{}(3P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}\sigma _c^{(3)}+2P^{}\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1))`$ (22)
$`+`$ $`P^{}(P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}\sigma _c^{(3)}+P^{}\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)),`$ (23)
where we have collected terms according to the number of direct decays involved.

In medium to heavy nuclei, one expects the spreading to dominate over the escape from the GR, which implies $`P^{}=\mu _11`$. In this case, we see that the completely statistical DGR and TGR decay cross sections, given by the last term in the preceding two equations, will be approximately proportional to their total excitation cross sections. They will not distinguish between the coherent and fluctuating components of the cross sections. Further analysis of the decay of the statistical component to equilibrium can be quite complicated. Usually, however, particle emission from the statistical component can be well described using the equilibrium Hauser-Feshbach formalism.

To best view the distinction between the coherent and fluctuation contributions to the GDR cross sections, we look for effects in the direct decay from the giant resonance. We have already analyzed the effects of the coherent and fluctuating components on exclusive decays of the DGDR.. Here, we wish to analyze their effects on inclusive decay cross sections of the DGR and TGR.

To separate direct contributions to an inclusive cross section from the statistical contributions, it is necessary to concentrate one’s attention on the high-energy end of the emission spectrum. There, the statistical weight of the high energy residuals in the statistical cross section strongly suppresses emission, leaving the direct emission to dominate the spectrum. To obtain the inclusive emission cross section from our decomposition of the decay of the excitation cross sections through direct and statistical modes, Eqs. 17 and 20, we take into account that each of the direct decay factors $`P^{}`$ can contribute independently to direct emission in channel $`f`$ with a relative probability $`P_f^{}/P^{}`$. Thus, for example, each of the factors of $`P^{}`$ in the $`P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$ (first) term of Eq. 17 contributes to the direct emission in channel $`f`$ with probability $`P_f^{}/P^{}`$, resulting in a total contribution of $`2P_f^{}/P^{}`$ of the term to the emission cross section. In general, we include a factor of $`P_f^{}/P^{}`$ for each of the factors of $`P^{}`$ appearing in the equations. We neglect the terms containing only statistical decays, since we have $`P_f^{}/P^{}0`$ at the high end of the emission spectrum.

We point out that the relative decay probabilities $`P_f^{}/P^{}`$ are not quit the same for each of the decays, since conservation laws constrain the energies and angular momenta of the emitted particles to values consistent with the residual values in the nucleus. The residual nuclear values will not be identical for a cold nucleus (first emission) and a hot one (second and later emissions). Nevertheless, the general structure of the phonon, which we assume to be essentially a one particle-one hole state, assure that the value of $`P_f^{}/P^{}`$ will be about the same for each of the emissions.

Using the rules above for estimating the contribution of the $`P^{}`$ factors to emission, we find the direct inclusive emission spectra to be given by

$`\sigma _f^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{P_f^{}}{P^{}}}P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}\sigma _c^{(2)}`$ (24)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_f^{}}{P^{}}}P^{}(2P^{}\sigma _c^{(2)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)),`$ (25)
and

$`\sigma _f^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`3{\displaystyle \frac{P_f^{}}{P^{}}}P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}\sigma _c^{(3)}`$ (26)
$`+`$ $`2{\displaystyle \frac{P_f^{}}{P^{}}}P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}(3P^{}\sigma _c^{(3)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2))`$ (27)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_f^{}}{P^{}}}P^{}(3P^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}\sigma _c^{(3)}+2P^{}\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)),`$ (28)
which reduce to

$$\sigma _f^{(2)}=P_f^{}(2\sigma _c^{(2)}+\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)),$$
(29)
and

$$\sigma _f^{(3)}=P_f^{}(3\sigma _c^{(3)}+2\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)+\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)).$$
(30)
Here we see clearly the importance of the (more) coherent contributions to the direct emission spectra. Each of the excitation cross sections contributes according to the number of collective phonons it possesses.

We can similarly analyze the contribution to the inclusive cross sections of each of the components of the of the excitation cross sections. In particular, we determine the contribution of the coherent DGR and TGR to the emission spectra to be

$$\sigma _{c,f}^{(2)}=2P_f^{}\sigma _c^{(2)}\text{and}\sigma _{c,f}^{(3)}=3P_f^{}\sigma _c^{(3)}.$$
(31)
We could call these values the harmonic limit of the cross section. Comparing these to the values for the total direct emission, we find

$$\frac{\sigma _f^{(2)}}{\sigma _{c,f}^{(2)}}=1+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\sigma _{fl}^{(2)}(1)}{\sigma _c^{(2)}},$$
(32)
and

$$\frac{\sigma _f^{(3)}}{\sigma _{c,f}^{(3)}}=1+\frac{2}{3}\frac{\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(2)}{\sigma _c^{(3)}}+\frac{1}{3}\frac{\sigma _{fl}^{(3)}(1)}{\sigma _c^{(3)}}.$$
(33)
Thus, a considerably larger direct decay may occur if the fluctuation contributions are important, which may occur at lower bombarding energies. Of course, one could obtain deviation of the direct decay from the harmonic limit (two or three independently decaying phonons), if anharmonic effects were allowed, This, however, will imply deviation of the spectrum of the oscillator from the harmonic sequence, which seems to be borne out neither by experiment  nor by calculation .

In conclusion, we have, in this paper, calculated the excitation cross-section and studied the the decay properties of the double and triple giant dipole resonances of various nuclei as excited in Coulomb collisions with 208Pb. It was found that the degree of deviation of the direct decay from the limit of two or three independently decaying collective phonons depends significantly on the bombarding energy, $`E`$, and can be appreciable at low values of $`E`$.


text:
# Efficiency of a stirred chemical reaction in a closed vessel

## Abstract

We perform a numerical study of the reaction efficiency in a closed vessel. Starting with a little spot of product, we compute the time needed to complete the reaction in the container following an advection-reaction-diffusion process. Inside the vessel it is present a cellular velocity field that transports the reactants. If the size of the container is not very large compared with the typical length of the velocity field one has a plateau of the reaction time as a function of the strength of the velocity field, $`U`$. This plateau appears both in the stationary and in the time-dependent flow. A comparison of the results for the finite system with the infinite case (for which the front speed, $`v_f`$, gives a simple estimate of the reacting time) shows the dramatic effect of the finite size.

Numerous physical, biological and chemical systems show the propagation of a stable phase into an unstable one . When this phenomenon takes place in a fluid, one generally speaks of front propagation in advection-reaction-diffusion (ARD) systems. Under this generic name one indicates many different processes, e.g., the propagation of plankton populations in ocean currents , the transport of reacting pollutants in the atmosphere (e.g. ozone) , or the premixed combustion .

In the last years much effort has been done to study the influence of an advection field on the front dynamics. In particular, it is well established that the front speed in a laminar or turbulent fluid is enhanced with respect to the propagation in a medium at rest . In the context of (premixed) combustion processes the flame front area is proportional to the front speed and, therefore, an increasing of the front area due to the fluid stirring gives rise to an enhancement of the burning efficiency, that is, the system burns faster.

It is important to note that most of the theoretical studies and, in particular, the above results about the enhancement of burning efficiency, have been shown for an infinite-size system (in the propagation direction). Moreover, in order to introduce well-defined mathematical quantities one is forced to work with an infinite (or with periodic boundary conditions) system. This is the case of the front speed, which is an asymptotic quantity well defined only for an infinite system.

However, from a practical point of view one usually has to treat cases where the size of the domain is not much larger than the typical length scale of the velocity field . The spreading of organisms in a lake or in a small closed sea basin, or the combustion of fuel in a machine motor are two clear examples where this may happen and, therefore, non-asymptotic properties can be very important .

In this work we treat the case of an ARD process confined in a closed area. Beginning with a small quantity of material in the stable phase (in the following called burnt material), we numerically compute the time needed for a given percentage of the total area to be also burnt (called in the following, the reacting or burning time). The velocity field is of cellular flow type, that is, formed by circulating cells of fluid. Both, the stationary and the chaotic time-dependent cellular flow will be considered. Our main result, obtained either for the time-independent and for the time-dependent flow, is that increasing the typical velocity of the field one has a saturation of the burning rate. This saturation happens when the advection time scale is much faster than the reaction time scale. Also, we compare our results with the infinite-size case, studying the crossover from finite size systems to the asymptotic regime. We observe that the relevance of the system size is more important than expected a priori.

Let us consider the simplest non trivial case described by a scalar field $`\theta (𝐱,t)`$ which represents the concentration of reaction products, such that $`\theta `$ is equal one in the space-time coordinates where the reaction is over (the stable phase), and $`\theta `$ is zero where there is fresh material (the unstable phase). The dynamical evolution of this field is given by

$$_t\theta +𝐯\theta =D^2\theta +\frac{f(\theta )}{\tau },$$
(1)
where $`𝐯(𝐱,t)`$ is the two-dimensional velocity field, $`D`$ is the diffusion coefficient, and $`f(\theta )`$ is the reaction term, where $`\tau `$ is the time scale for the reaction activity. For the reaction term we use the Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov (FKPP) nonlinearity , $`f(\theta )=\theta (1\theta )`$. Concerning the velocity field, $`𝐯`$, we first adopt a simple stationary incompressible two-dimensional flow defined by the stream function

$$\psi (x,y)=\frac{UL}{\pi }\mathrm{sin}(\frac{\pi x}{L})\mathrm{sin}(\frac{\pi y}{L}),$$
(2)
being the parameter $`U`$ the maximum vertical velocity of the flow, and $`L`$ the size of one cell. For a study of the transport properties in the field (2) see ref. ; the asymptotic behaviour of front propagation is discussed in ref. . The equations of motion for a fluid element are given by

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\dot{x}\hfill & =& \hfill _y\psi \\ \dot{y}\hfill & =& \hfill _x\psi .\end{array}$$
(3)
In this work the reaction processes described by (1) take place in a closed recipient. This confinement is implemented by assuming rigid boundary conditions on the box $`0yL`$ and $`0xnL`$, where $`n`$ is the number of circulating cells of the flow. One approaches to the asymptotic case increasing the value of $`n`$.

The settling of the problem is completed when we indicate the initial conditions, i.e., an initial spot of burnt material which starts the reaction. Thus, we use in all our numerical experiments a small circle of radius $`r`$ filled with stable material ($`\theta =1`$), that is placed at the initial time in the box filled with unstable material ($`\theta =0`$). The initial coordinates of the center of this circle are $`(x=r,y=L/2)`$ (the circle is on the border of the box; this mimic the injection of reacting material from the outside). As anticipated, the principal observable under investigation is the time needed for a given percentage of the total area to be burnt. We define $`S(t)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }S}_{\mathrm{\Delta }S}dxdy\theta (x,y,t)`$ as the percentage of area burnt at time $`t`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=L^2n`$ is the total area of the container. In our case, by choosing an appropriate $`r`$ the initial burnt material is $`S(0)=0.005/n`$, which is the $`0.5\%`$ of one cell. The reacting or burning time $`t_\alpha `$ is defined as the time needed for the percentage $`\alpha `$ of the total area of the recipient to be burnt, i.e., $`S(t_\alpha )=\alpha `$.

Numerically, to integrate (1) we use the Feynman-Kac (FK) or stochastic Lagrangian approach. In this algorithm the field evolution is computed using the Lagrangian propagator plus a Montecarlo integration for the diffusive term. Then, the reaction propagator accounts for the reacting term (for details see ). We also impose a rigid wall condition in the boundaries, in order to avoid that any fluid particle leaves the container, which could happen due to the noise term added to the velocity field in the Lagrangian approach.

We first show in Fig. (1) the influence of the velocity on the reacting efficiency, when different percentages, $`\alpha `$, of the final burnt area are considered.

Increasing the velocity of the flow, $`U`$, $`t_\alpha `$ decreases monotonically until a plateau is reached. Then, a further increasing of the flow velocity ($`U>15`$, similar for different $`\alpha ^{}s`$) does not decrease the burning time $`t_\alpha `$. We remark that this effect also appears for different finite values of the system size (different $`n`$’s), and different chemical rates $`\tau `$. At first glance, the appearance of the plateau seems to be surprising: in a closed container and for very high stirring intensity, increasing further more this intensity there is not an enhancement in the burning front propagation, that is, one does not improve the efficiency of burning.

The existence of the plateau can be understood noting that it is reached only when the reaction time, $`\tau `$, is large compared with the advection time, $`\tau _a=L/U`$. In this case, in the first stages of the process the active material invades the whole container because of advection and diffusion. Then the reaction term is the final responsible for the cell burning.

A direct comparison between the finite and the infinite system is interesting. In Fig. (2) we show the burning time scaled with the system size, i.e., $`t_\alpha /n`$, against the typical flow velocity, $`U`$, for some values of $`n`$. We also we plot the data obtained for an infinite system, which have been calculated from the front speed $`v_f`$ of the infinite system data according to

$$t_\alpha \frac{nL}{v_f},$$
(4)
which is expected to hold for $`\alpha `$ close to $`1`$ and large $`n`$.

Figure (2) shows that the asymptotic reacting time (given by $`v_f`$) is reached only in the large size limit, i.e., $`n`$ large, while the dynamics of small systems is dominated by the non asymptotic properties of the evolution.

Since the considered bidimensional velocity field (2) is stationary the Lagrangian trajectories are not chaotic. Nevertheless also in the case of Lagrangian chaotic trajectories, obtained with a time-dependent flow, the burning time shows the same qualitative behaviours shown in figures (1) and (2). Let us consider a time dependent flow whose streamfunction is

$$\psi (x,y,t)=U\mathrm{sin}(x+B(x)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t))\mathrm{sin}(y).$$
(5)
This is sufficient to induce Lagrangian chaos  in the evolution of passive tracers advected by the velocity field (3) generated by (5). Because we are dealing with closed systems $`B(x)`$ is constructed in such a way that it is zero near the boundary of the system and almost constant, $`B_0`$, otherwise: $`B(x)=B_0(1\mathrm{exp}(1/x)\mathrm{exp}(1/(nLx)))`$.

In Fig. (3) we show the curve $`t_\alpha `$ against $`U`$ for different values of $`\alpha `$. At difference from the previous case, when unsteady flow is concerned there is not a simple plateau in $`t_\alpha `$, but an oscillatory behaviour due to the interplay between the oscillation period of the separatrices and the circulation time inside the cell. It happens that circulation and oscillation “synchronize” producing a very efficient and coherent way of transferring passive particles from one cell to the other. A similar, but much more impressive, feature occurs for the effective diffusion coefficient in the horizontal direction . Anyway, for low values of $`U`$ the mixing induced by the time dependence makes that the system burns quite faster. For higher $`U`$, the mixing properties of the flow are not sufficient to improve furthermore the burning efficiency, and at the end, the typical time for the cell burning is proportional to the reaction time-scale.

Summing up, the physical mechanism of reaction in a closed recipient for both time-independent and time-dependent cellular flows are quite similar. When the typical time-scale of the velocity field, $`L/U`$, is larger than the reaction time-scale, $`\tau `$, the initial condition is quickly spread along the whole system due to advection (and diffusion), in such a way that in all the container the value of $`\theta `$ is small but different from zero. Then, basically only reaction plays an important role, and a further increasing of the flow velocity does not decrease the burning time.

Let us study the dependence of the saturation time $`t_\alpha ^s(\tau )`$, which is the value of the burning time in the plateau, as a function of $`\tau `$. In the unsteady case, we choose the minimum value of $`t_\alpha `$ at varying $`U`$ as the saturation time.

In Figure (4) we show the result for the unsteady case, which can be interpreted following the same arguments used to explain the existence of the plateau. Essentially the burning process in the case of large $`U`$ can be divided in two steps, the initial mixing regime and the reacting dominated regime. In fact, from the initial condition (in which only a small fraction of the volume is active) one has a rapid spreading (say in a time $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$) because of advection and diffusion. After the spreading one has an exponential increasing of the field due to the reaction term. The time $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ is expected to be a decreasing function of $`U`$ (with a limiting value for sufficiently large $`U`$). This implies, together with a dimensional argument, $`t_\alpha ^s(\tau )=\stackrel{~}{t}+b_\alpha \tau `$. Thus, there is a linear dependence of $`t_\alpha ^s`$ with $`\tau `$ as shown in Figure (4), which has been obtained for the time-dependent flow, but similar results hold also for the steady case.

The value of the slope of the saturation time against $`\tau `$, $`b_\alpha `$, can be analytically studied. We have that, in the regime of very high $`U`$ such that the plateau is reached, after the time $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ the initial condition is spread out through the whole container and one can approximate $`\theta (x,y,t)\stackrel{~}{\theta }(t)`$, being $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }(t)`$ a rough average of the $`\theta `$ field in the container, which evolves following only the reaction part of (1). This is because, as we have argued before, after $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ the important physical mechanism of burning comes from the chemical activity and not from the mixing due to the advection and diffusion. Then $`S(t)=\stackrel{~}{\theta }(t)`$ for $`t>\stackrel{~}{t}`$, and so:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}S}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{\tau }S(1S).$$
(6)
This can be integrated from $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ to $`t`$, taking into account that we can approximate $`S(\stackrel{~}{t})S(0)`$, i.e., the initial condition is just spread out in the system in the initial stages of the process. One has that

$$\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{S(t)}{1S(t)}\right)\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{S(0)}{1S(0)}\right)=\frac{t\stackrel{~}{t}}{\tau }.$$
(7)
Finally, as $`S(t_\alpha ^s)=\alpha `$ we get

$$t_\alpha ^s=\stackrel{~}{t}+\tau \mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\alpha (1S(0))}{(1\alpha )S(0)}\right)\stackrel{~}{t}+b_\alpha \tau ,$$
(8)
which gives the dependence of $`b_\alpha `$ on the percentage of burnt material, $`\alpha `$.

For the time-independent cellular flow the reasonings follow closely the former ones. In fact, in the regime of large $`U`$, when all over the cell (by diffusion) there is also a small quantity of active reagent, the reaction process can begin with an averaged $`S(t)`$ (in a mean-field sense).

Despite the numerous approximations done to obtain (8), it is in excellent agreement with the numerical results, see Fig. (5), confirming once again the physical mechanism we think that give rise to the existence of the saturation time.

Summarizing, we have performed a numerical study of an advection-reaction-diffusion system confined in a closed vessel, using stationary and time dependent cellular flows. Beginning with a small quantity of the active phase, we have calculated the time needed for a percentage of the total area to be burnt. Thus, our numerical experiments may represent the spreading of an organism in a lake or the combustion of a material in a vessel. The main lesson to learn from our studies is that the influence of the system size has been shown to be very important . In particular, we have shown that for very large flow velocities the reacting time saturates, giving rise to the unexpected result that increasing further more the flow velocity there is not a decreasing of the time to burn the material. We have to mention that a similar scenario, i.e., the appearance of the plateau in the burning time, has been obtained for other types of chemical reactions $`f(\theta )`$, like the Arrhenius $`f(\theta )=(1\theta )\mathrm{exp}(\theta _0/\theta )`$ ($`\theta _0`$ constant) or the Zeldovich function $`f(\theta )=\theta ^m(1\theta )`$, with $`m=2`$.

This work has been partially supported by INFM Parallel Computing Initiative and MURST (Cofinanziamento Fisica Statistica e Teoria della Materia Condensata). C.L. acknowledges support from MECD of Spain, D.V and A.V. acknowledge support from the INFM Center for Statistical Mechanics and Complexity (SMC).


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# Fundamental parameters of Cepheids. V. Additional photometry and radial velocity data for southern Cepheids1footnote 11footnote 1 Based on observations obtained at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla

## 1 Introduction

A significant amount of photometry and radial velocity data for Cepheids had been published by Bersier, Burki, & Burnet (1994) and Bersier et al. (1994). These have been used to devise a new version of the Baade-Wesselink method (Bersier, Burki, & Kurucz, 1997). However most Cepheids in Bersier, Burki & Kurucz’s sample are in the northern hemisphere. New observations have been obtained for (mostly) long-period Cepheids visible from the southern hemisphere. I present here these new observations, along with older unpublished data. The photometry is in the Geneva 7-color system and the radial velocity data have been obtained with the CORAVEL radial velocity scanner (Baranne, Mayor & Poncet, 1979).

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 Photometry

A search in the Geneva photometry database revealed that several Cepheids already had a substantial number of measurements. These data could constitute a basis for expanding Bersier et al.’s (1997) efforts to determine Period-Radius and Period-Luminosity relations via the Baade-Wesselink method. I present these old unpublished data222the present paper contains only unpublished data. Other Cepheid data can be found in Bersier, Burki, & Burnet (1994) and references therein. together with new data obtained in several runs during 1996 and 1997. Like the data given in Bersier, Burki, & Burnet (1994), the measurements are in the Geneva 7-color system (Golay 1980, Rufener 1988) and most have been obtained with the 70-cm Swiss telescope at La Silla Observatory. The instrument used is a photometer (Burnet, 1976) that measures each filter several times per second; the exposure is stopped after a minimum signal-to noise ratio has been reached in each filter; the integration time was at least three minutes. Given that most of our stars are brighter than $`m_V=10`$ the uncertainty is better than $`0.01^m`$ for virtually all measurements. Furthermore all measurements have been obtained in photometric conditions. Table 1 lists all 62 Cepheids that have data. The 1250 individual measurements in seven colors are given in Table 2333All the data presented in this paper are available electronically at
ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/dbersier/. Forty-three stars have more than 20 measurements. Figure 1 presents examples of light and color curves for well-observed Cepheids.

### 2.2 Radial velocity

Most observations were obtained in several runs on the 1.5 meter Danish telescope at ESO La Silla in 1996 and 1997, hence these data are contemporaneous with most of the photometry presented above. I used the CORAVEL spectrograph, described in detail in Baranne, Mayor & Poncet (1979). The instrument was optimized to yield accurate radial velocities through a cross-correlation method. The light is dispersed and then goes through a mask (based on the spectrum of Arcturus) before being detected by a photomultiplier. An arc spectrum is obtained just before and just after each star exposure, to provide a good wavelength solution. The observing setup is such that the cross-correlation function (CCF) is viewed in real-time. This allows to stop the exposure when the CCF has a sufficient signal-to-noise. A Gaussian is fitted to the observed cross-correlation function to yield the velocity.

A total of 46 Cepheids have been observed, representing 832 measurements. Twenty-four stars have 15 data points or more. Some stars have very few measurements though. They have been left out of the target list early in the program, when it has been realized that it would not be possible to obtain extensive phase coverage for all Cepheids before the instrument decommissioning. Table 3 gives the name of each program Cepheid and the respective number of measurements. Individual measurements and their associated uncertainties are given in Table 4. Given that most of the program stars are fairly bright, the average error per measurement is 0.38 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Examples of well-covered velocity curves are given in Fig. 1.

## Results and discussion

### 2.3 Reddening

Following the method of Bersier (1996) it is possible to determine the color excess for Cepheids. This is based on the method of Fernie (1990), using two colors that are linearly related to each other. In Bersier (1996) there was a hint of a possible systematic difference with Fernie’s scale. This became clearly apparent with the large number of stars available here when comparing both sources of color excesses (see Fig. 2), there is a problem for stars with $`E(BV)>0.5`$. The same problem was apparent when comparing my color excesses with those for Cepheids in open clusters (Feast & Walker, 1987), which is not surprising given that Fernie’s scale is ultimately tied to the reddening given by Feast & Walker (1987). The source of this problem might be in the small number of calibration stars with large $`E(BV)`$ used in Bersier (1996). In order to remedy this situation, I determined a new calibration of the color excess, using more stars with $`E(BV)>0.5`$. As in Bersier (1996) I used F- and G-type supergiants in clusters and OB associations from the list of Arellano-Ferro & Parrao (1990) and supergiants with low reddening from Gray (1991). I also tried to use different combinations of colors. The best results have been obtained with

$$E(BV)=0.887(B_2V_1)1.623m_20.913$$
(1)
where $`m_2=(B_1B_2)0.457(B_2V_1)`$. The average error on the reddening so determined is $`0.03^m`$. Figure 2 presents a comparison of the new reddenings with those of Fernie (1990), the agreement is now much better; a fit gives $`E(BV)_{F90}=0.98E(BV)_{here}+0.02`$. These new color excesses for 85 stars are given in Table 1.

### 2.4 Comments on individual stars

In most cases, I compared the CORAVEL data with already published radial velocity data, usually using the periods given in Szabados (1989). This is because a number of Cepheids have been suspected to be binary or to have a changing period.

#### U Car

It is clearly a binary. My data are offset from Coulson & Caldwell’s (1985, hereafter CC) velocities by more than 10 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

#### VY Car

The large phase offset between the CORAVEL+CC data and Stibbs (1955) data suggests a period change.

#### XX Car

Even though there a few new data points, it is enough to show that this star is a binary. The CORAVEL data are offset by about 30 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. with respect to CC’s data.

#### V Cen

Szabados (1989) suggested that this could be a binary. Adding data from Stibbs (1955), Lloyd Evans (1980) and Gieren (1981), the evidence for binarity is marginal. Lloyd Evans velocities are shifted by only $`2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with respect to CORAVEL+Gieren. Stibbs’ data only add scatter.

#### V659 Cen

Photometric measurements made around $`HJD=44600`$ are shifted in phase with respect to measurements obtained around $`HJD=50100`$.

#### S Cru

The CORAVEL data are shifted by 2.7 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with respect to Gieren’s (1981) data. The period giving the best Fourier fit ($`P=4.689838^d`$) is longer than what is predicted by Szabados (1989) ephemeris ($`P=4.689392^d`$).

#### T Cru

The binarity suspected by Szabados (1989) is confirmed. The data from Lloyd Evans (1980) are shifted by about 4 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ with respect to mine. Stibbs (1955) data are also significantly shifted, giving a lower limit on the amplitude of $`8\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

#### SY Nor

Binarity was suspected by Madore (1977). Bersier et al. (1994) confirmed the binary nature on the basis of radial velocity measurement. With the data published here, and adding the data of Metzger et al. (1992) it is possible to constrain the orbital period at $`P_{orb}=551.7^d`$. When folded with that period, the orbital amplitude is approximately 30 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

#### AQ Pup

Even though I have only two measurements, adding the data from Stibbs (1955), Coulson & Caldwell (1985) and Barnes, Moffett, & Slovak (1988) clearly shows that the period is changing.

#### Y Sgr

Szabados (1989) gives evidence that this is a binary. The present data seem to support an orbital period around 10000 days.

#### WZ Sgr

The data from Coulson & Caldwell (1985) are clearly shifted with respect to the CORAVEL data. This confirms the binary nature of this Cepheid (Szabados, 1989). The measurements from Gorynya et al. (1996) do not show any shift in $`\gamma `$-velocity with respect to mine.

#### RZ Vel

Using data from Stibbs (1955), Lloyd Evans (1980) and Coulson & Caldwell (1985), this star seems to show evidence for binarity and for a changing period.

#### AH Vel

This star is a known binary, although the orbital period is not known yet (Szabados 1989, and references therein). The $`\gamma `$-velocity determined from CORAVEL data is almost identical to that given by Stibbs (1955). Unfortunately the present data do not put much constraint on the orbital period.

Several Cepheids in this sample are known binaries. The list of known binaries for which I present data include U Aql, $`\eta `$ Aql, YZ Car, XX Cen, DX Gem, S Mus, U Sgr, X Sgr and Y Sgr. Apart from those that have a published orbit, evidence for binarity include the presence of a UV-bright companion, long-term shift in the $`\gamma `$-velocity or evidence from the photometry. One of the primary motivations for publishing the present data set is that it will provide additional radial velocities allowing to obtain orbits for several binary Cepheids. Also, some light and velocity curves are good enough to be used for a Baade-Wesselink analysis.

It is a pleasure to thank J.-C. Mermilliod, F. Kienzle and F. Pont for their help with the observations, and S. Udry for extracting the velocity data. I thank the referee for comments that improved the presentation of this paper. This work has been supported by NSF grant AST-9979812. I also acknowledge partial support from the Swiss NSF through grant 8220-050332.


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# Magnon-mediated NMR quantum gates in a 1-D antiferromagnet

## Abstract

We propose a method of controlling a quantum logic gate in a solid-state NMR quantum computer. A switchable inter-qubit coupling can be generated by using the longitudinal component of the Suhl-Nakamura interaction induced by a local singlet-triplet excitation in a 1-D antiferromagnet with a spin gap.

preprint: HEP/123-qed

An implementation of a quantum computer (QC) has been a chief research target in many fields of the materials science. The concept of the QC is quite general, which allows us to suppose many quantum systems to be potential candidates for the QC. Among them, a nuclear spin system is regarded as one of the most promising candidates because of a good isolation from the environment and an excellent controllability by the well-established technique of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Actually, the first 2-qubit QC’s were implemented by solution NMR Chuang et al. (1998); Jones and Mosca (1998), which proved a great promise of the NMR-QC. It is unfortunate, however, that the solution QC has a difficulty in its scalability, because the number of available qubits is limited by the number of nuclei in one molecule. In order to increase the number of qubits systematically, a solid-state (crystal) NMR-QC using a magnetic field gradient was proposed Yamaguchi and Yamamoto (1999). Although there are some practical issues in the original proposal Hashi et al. (2000), its scalability is attractive to realize the multi-qubit QC. It is our purpose to pursue the possibility of the solid-state NMR-QC by introducing new concepts into it.

One of the crucial processes in the QC implementation is to provide a controlled-NOT (CN) gate. The CN gate is a two-qubit operation in which a target qubit changes its logic according to the state of the control qubit. It holds the essential part of the quantum computation, where a quantum entanglement plays a crucial role. In the NMR-QC, the entanglement is provided by an inter-nuclear coupling so that it is the key issue to provide the appropriate inter-nuclear coupling. In fact, the characteristics of the coupling considerably affect the fundamental properties of the QC, such as a design and a performance. In particular, we find that a direct nuclear dipole coupling, which is regarded as a prospective inter-qubit coupling Yamaguchi and Yamamoto (1999), poses serious problems on the QC properties, as shown below.

From the practical point of view, the following two properties are the crucial requisites for the inter-qubit coupling. One is to be capable of switching. The coupling needs to be strong enough to finish the logic gate in an appropriate time scale, but to be removable whenever unnecessary. The nuclear dipole coupling is fortunate in that it is available whenever nuclear spins are put close to each other, while unfortunate in that the decouplings for a huge number of inter-nuclear couplings are formidable. It is desirable that the coupling be switched-on only when necessary. The other property is to reach rather long range so that qubits in the field gradient can be distinguished from each other in the frequency domain. The larger inter-qubit distance in the real space makes the frequency difference between adjacent NMR lines wider in the frequency domain, so that the constraint on the field gradient can be relieved by using a long-range coupling. Unfortunately, the nuclear dipole coupling reaches at most a few lattice points Goto et al. (2002), which motivates us to invoke some long-range indirect interactions via electrons.

In this letter, we present a switchable inter-qubit coupling realized by the Suhl-Nakamura (SN) interaction mediated by magnons Suhl (1959); Nakamura (1958) in a 1-D antiferromagnet with a spin gap. The coupling is switched on selectively by local magnon excitations across the spin gap, which works as a switch for the CN gate. The proposed system is intuitive in that the computation starts in a silent environment rather than the turbulence of interactions, which simplifies the designs of the logic gates. Moreover, since the SN interaction reaches rather long distance, one can take the inter-qubit distance longer and relieve the constraint on the field gradient significantly.

The main idea of the gate switching is illustrated in Fig. 1. Suppose a device with an antiferromagnetic electron spin chain placed in a magnetic field gradient produced by a micromagonet fabilicated outside the spin chain. The spin chain is supposed to have a singlet ground state ($`ss_z`$=$`00`$) with a finite gap to the lowest triplet branch of the magnon modes because of a quantum many body effect. Examples can be found in spin ladder and Haldane systems. One could also use dimer and spin-Peierls systems. Suppose that nuclear spins ($`I=1/2`$) serving as qubits can be placed periodically, e.g., every 10$`a`$ ($`a`$: lattice spacing), with the rest of the sites be occupied with $`I=0`$ nuclei. The field gradient enables us to access each qubit individually by tuning the NMR frequency. The rather long distance between qubits is effective both to diminish the nuclear dipole couplings between qubits and to distinguish each qubit in the frequency domain.

Since there are no unpaired electron spins in the ground state, the interactions between qubits are absent at low enough $`T`$, which means that each qubit is isolated from other qubits as well as the environment (= electron spin system). Then, the inter-qubit coupling needed for the CN-gate is switched on through the SN interaction by the $`k=0`$ triplet magnons, which are created locally by the singlet-triplet excitation across the spin gap. Although the excitation is primarily forbidden for the usual electric dipolar transition, it often becomes possible in the actual systems because of some higher order effects. Brill et al. (1994); Lu et al. (1991)

The position of the excited magnons along the chain can be specified in the field gradient. The energy diagrams of the $`k=0`$ magnon excitations in the magnetic field are shown in Fig. 2 Tachiki and Yamada (1970); Brill et al. (1994). The magnon excitation energy to $`11`$ are different position by position along the chain because of the field gradient, which provides us with a spatial resolution of the magnon excitation region. The microwave frequency is adjusted so as to specify the pair of qubits to be coupled. The process creates a packet of the superposition of $`00`$ and $`11`$ Brill et al. (1994), corresponding to a soliton-like magnon excitation with $`k0`$.

The packet is localized on the chain due, once again, to the magnetic field gradient. A mismatch in the magnon excitation energies between adjacent regions along the chain prohibits the packet from moving to the lower field region. On the other hand, the continuum excitations near the one-magnon excitations at $`k`$=0 is absent, so that it is difficult for the packet to move to the higher field region Augier and Poilblanc (1998); Uhrig and Schulz (1996); Garrett et al. (1997); Yu and Haas (2000); Grenier et al. (2000) unless the process of the energy release by phonon emissions is considerable. Consequently, the magnons are confined in the region where they are excited, and the SN interaction is produced only between the qubit pair of interest.

The triplet states make an additional field ($`h_{\mathrm{tr}}`$) at the target qubit, which should be distinguished from that from the control qubit via the SN interaction ($`h_{\mathrm{SN}}`$). $`h_{\mathrm{tr}}`$ can be measured by observing the NMR frequency shift of the target qubit during the microwave irradiation, while saturating the control qubit by applying the rf field continuously. The saturation of the control qubit results in $`h_{\mathrm{SN}}=0`$ at the target qubit site, so that the observed shift directly corresponds to $`h_{\mathrm{tr}}`$.

The SN coupling between the two qubits $`H_{\mathrm{SN}}`$ is given by $`H_{\mathrm{SN}}=W_{ij}I_i^zI_j^z`$ with,

$$W_{ij}=\left(\frac{\gamma _nA}{N}\right)^2\underset{kk^{^{}}}{}\frac{n_kn_k^{^{}}}{ϵ_k^{^{}}ϵ_k}\mathrm{cos}\{(kk^{^{}})r_{ij}\}.$$
(1)
Here, $`n_k`$ and $`ϵ_k`$ are, respectively, the population and the energy of the magnon with the wave number $`k`$, and $`r_{ij}`$ is the distance between the two qubits of interest. Zevin and Kaplan (1975) $`A`$ and $`N`$ are the hyperfine coupling constant and the number of sites (including the $`I=0`$ sites) inside the packet, respectively.

Suppose the magnon dispersion of the spin ladder, as an example, in the form, $`ϵ(k_n)=C+J(j_1j_1^3/4)\mathrm{cos}(k_n)+\mathrm{}`$, where $`k_n=n\pi /N`$, $`j_1=J_1/J`$ with $`J_1`$ and $`J`$ being the intra- and inter-chain exchange interactions, and $`C`$ is the part independent of $`k_n`$ Muller and Mikeska (2000). Recalling that the microwave irradiation excites only the $`k=0`$ magnons, i.e., $`n(k)=0`$ for $`k0`$, the range function $`W_{ij}`$ can be calculated as,

$`W_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _nA_{}}{N}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2n(0)}{ϵ(k_n)ϵ(0)}}\mathrm{cos}(k_nr_{ij})`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma _n^2A_{}^2\{n(0)/N\}}{J(j_1\frac{1}{4}j_1^3)N}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}(k_nr_{ij})}{\mathrm{cos}(k_n)1}}.`$
Assuming $`N`$ = 20, $`r_{ij}`$ = 10$`a`$, $`A_{}`$ = 100 kOe/$`\mu _B`$, $`\gamma _n/(2\pi )`$ = 4.3 MHz/kOe (1H as an example), $`J`$ = 50 K, $`j_2`$ = 0.2 and $`n(0)/N=0.01`$, one obtains $`W_{ij}`$ = 15 kHz, which is the same order of magnitude as the nuclear dipole coupling acting between nuclei 3 Å apart from each other Yamaguchi and Yamamoto (1999); Ladd et al. (2000), and one to three orders of magnitude greater than the J-couplings used in the solution NMR-QC’s Chuang et al. (1998); Jones and Mosca (1998). Note that $`W_{ij}`$ can be controlled by the microwave intensity via $`n(0)`$, i.e, $`n(0)`$ is determined by the balance between excitation and relaxation; $`dn(0)/dt=W_{\mathrm{ex}}n(0)/T_s,`$ with $`W_{\mathrm{ex}}`$ being the transition probability per unit time and $`T_s`$ the magnon lifetime. In the steady state, $`dn(0)/dt=0`$, so that $`n(0)=W_{\mathrm{ex}}T_s`$.

The CN gate is achieved by an NMR technique shown in Fig. 3. After the gate operation, the couping is switched-off by shutting-off the microwave irradiation. The triplet state relaxes to the singlet ground state by the time scale of $`T_s`$. Through these processes, the microwave irradiation works as a switch for the CN gate.

In summary, we have described the magnon-mediated quantum gate in a 1-D antiferromagnet. The switching capability of the gate is useful in designing the logic gate of the solid-state NMR-QC, whereas the long-range nature of the coupling significantly relieves the constraint on the field gradient required to distinguish each qubits. We are indebted to M. Kitagawa for fruitful discussion. This work has been supported by CREST of JST (Japan Science and Technology Corporation).