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# CERN–TH/2003–038 Signatures of Supernova Neutrino Oscillations into Extra Dimensions

## 1 Introduction

The study of sterile neutrinos propagating in the bulk of extra space dimensions  and of core collapse supernova evolution  establishes a nice link that can have interesting implications on both sides, even though the role of sterile neutrinos is not believed to be primary in solar and atmospheric contexts . We consider indeed a framework  in which the solar and atmospheric oscillation signals are independently accounted for in the standard way. In addition, a small mixing with the 4-dimensional Kaluza–Klein (KK) states (the 4d correspondent of the extra dimensional field) is the source of the non-standard effects on supernova (SN) physics, since it implies resonant oscillations with ordinary Standard Model neutrinos via matter effects. The point is that we have a large number of resonances that can enhance the effect, even if the mixing angles are small. As KK modes do not interact with ordinary matter and are therefore not trapped, conversions lead to a faster cooling and deleptonization of the SN dense core. The observed SN 1987A signal  requires such an energy loss not to take place with a time scale much shorter than $`10\mathrm{sec}`$. However, the consequent potentially severe bounds on the extra dimension size  are widely relaxed by a feedback mechanism  that self-limits the conversion. In a previous work , we analysed the possibility of a mixing between the electron neutrinos and a sterile bulk fermion and we explicitly showed that the mechanism indeed prevents the potentially dramatic cooling in a wide portion of the parameter space. We also pointed out that new interesting effects on the SN dynamics can arise in the enlarged parameter space. We speculated that the enrichment of the $`\nu _e`$ component in the outgoing neutrino flux might help the delayed shock mechanism and drive the explosion.111The difficulty to obtain an explosion in simulations, however, can be explained by the complexity of the system to be simulated, so that no new physics is in principle necessary. Furthermore, we found that while this picture is in good agreement with the observed SN 1987A signal, the flux composition can be significantly modified.

In the first part of the present work we address the case of muon and tau neutrinos. In the standard picture of collapse and cooling of the SN core, their role is rather different from the electron ones. In fact, while electron neutrinos are copiously produced by the neutronization process during collapse and build up a degenerate $`\nu _e`$ sea with large chemical potential $`\mu _{\nu _e}`$ (therefore electron antineutrinos are a negligible fraction in these conditions), muon and tau neutrinos and antineutrinos are produced in pairs and have almost vanishing chemical potential. Moreover, lacking in charged current interactions, they have a faster diffusion and give an important contribution to the transport of thermal energy out of the core. Also, their lepton number does not play a significant role in the diffusion dynamics.

The mixing of tau or muon neutrinos with bulk fermions opens an unconventional escape channel, which can affect the SN core cooling and deleptonization in a peculiar way. We will see that the usual energy loss bounds can be relaxed, as in the electron case, by the action of a feedback. We will then be interested in the phenomenological consequences on the revival of the shock and in the implications for the SN 1987A signal.

In the last part of the paper we discuss the peculiar signatures of the considered effects on the neutrino signal on the Earth. This we do not only for the case of $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$ but also for the case of $`\nu _e`$ conversion considered in .

In the following we will assume that the sterile fermions mix predominantly with the tau neutrino. This is the case if the SM/bulk neutrino couplings reflect the hierarchical structure of the SM Yukawa couplings. Actually, the inclusion of a significant muon neutrino mixing with bulk fields would just unnecessarily complicate the core dynamics. The point is that the oscillations into bulk neutrinos build up a non-zero tau (or muon) lepton number. The tau neutrino abundance is simply determined by the tau lepton number, since tau leptons are not thermally produced, as their mass is large with respect to the energies involved ($`T30\mathrm{MeV}`$). On the contrary, the muon neutrino abundance would also depend on the non-negligible muon fraction through the $`\beta `$-equilibrium processes $`\mu ^{}pn\nu _\mu `$ and $`\mu ^+np\overline{\nu }_\mu `$. One can also wonder whether the $`\nu _\mu `$$`\nu _\tau `$ mixing could reintroduce the muon fraction in the problem. This is not the case, since that mixing is largely suppressed by the difference at one loop of the muon and tau matter potential  and by an even larger difference originating from the new effect. In fact, as soon as the resonant conversion into the bulk begins, a non-vanishing tau lepton number is generated and thus the matter interactions produce different effective masses for tau and muon (anti)neutrinos. For sufficiently large mixing with the extra dimension fields, as is our case, the oscillations are suppressed before they significantly influence the neutrino fractions. Notwithstanding the complications described above, we do not expect a qualitatively different behaviour in the presence of muons; in section 4 we will thus deduce the case of $`\nu _\mu `$ mixing with bulk fermions from our results.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we briefly describe the general extra dimensional scenario and set the parameter space in which we are interested. In section 3 we first sketch the expected effect of such new physics on the evolution and then present the numerical model that we use. Finally, in section 4 we address the new phenomenology based on the results of our calculation and we compare the expected neutrino flux on Earth in the cases of $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$ conversions. In section 5 we sum up.

## 2 Framework

The cornerstones of our large extra dimension scenario are the following. We consider a single gravitational extra dimension 222More extra dimensions could be present at higher energies. This scenario is compatible both with a fundamental gravity scale at $`1\mathrm{TeV}`$  and with astrophysical and cosmological bounds ., probed by a sterile fermionic field, which results from a 4d point of view as a KK tower of states, predominantly mixed with tau neutrinos.

The parameter space we are interested in is illustrated in fig. 1.

The radius $`R`$ of the extra dimension, which sets the scale of the KK spectrum, is allowed to lie in the broad range $`10^3\mathrm{eV}\frac{1}{R}1\mathrm{keV}`$. The lower bound comes from direct gravity probes, the upper one from requiring that a sufficient number of resonances be crossed by neutrinos travelling in the core, a condition for observable effects to arise. The mixing angle of the $`\nu _\tau `$ with the k-th eigenstate of mass $`M_k`$ is generically parametrized as $`\theta _k\frac{m}{\sqrt{2}M_k}`$, which defines the parameter $`m`$; we only assume that the density of KK states is proportional to $`R`$, a feature that is quite model-independent. The condition $`mR1`$ ensures the smallness of the mixings, while keeping subleading effects under control  requires $`mR2\times 10^4`$. The above requests identify the unshaded region in fig. 1. In this region the new effects enter the analysis only through the crucial parameter $`m^2R`$.

If feedback effects were not taken into account, only values of $`m^2R`$ up to $`10^{10}\mathrm{eV}`$ would be compatible with the energy loss argument. For example, for $`m^2R=5\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}`$, the core would cool down in about $`10^5\mathrm{sec}`$. On the contrary, including the feedback, any value of $`m^2R`$ up to $`5\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}`$ turns out to be acceptable, while beyond that point the core is cooled by otherwise subleading effects. Thus, a new portion of the parameter space, $`10^{10}\mathrm{eV}m^2R5\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}`$, is opened once the feedback is taken into account. 333Compared with the electron neutrino escape case, the overall shift to higher values is justified (i) by the smaller number density of $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ with respect to $`\nu _e`$, since they are thermal, not degenerate, at the beginning; (ii) marginally, by the fact that $`\nu _\tau `$ diffusion is faster. In the following we will focus on the range

$$10^{12}\mathrm{eV}m^2R5\times 10^5\mathrm{eV},$$
(1)
where the neutrino escape affects the core evolution in a sizeable way.

Tau neutrinos in the SN core experience a Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein (MSW) potential given by

$$V_\tau =\sqrt{2}G_\text{F}n_B\left(\frac{1}{2}Y_e+2Y_{\nu _\tau }+Y_{\nu _e}\frac{1}{2}\right),$$
(2)
where $`G_\text{F}`$ is the Fermi constant, $`n_B`$ is the baryon number density, and $`Y_x`$ is the net number fraction per baryon of the species $`x`$: $`Y_x=(N_xN_{\overline{x}})/n_B`$. It will also be useful to consider the lepton number fractions $`Y_{L_{e,\mu ,\tau }}=Y_{e,\mu ,\tau }+Y_{\nu _e,\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }`$.

At the beginning $`Y_e`$ is the dominant term and, since it is not expected to be larger than $`0.4`$ in the inner core , $`V_\tau `$ is clearly negative. The tau antineutrinos acquire an effective squared mass $`m_{\text{eff}}^2=2E_{\overline{\nu }}V`$, where $`E_{\overline{\nu }}`$ is the antineutrino energy. The effective mass changes slightly along the neutrino path: whenever $`m_{\text{eff}}`$ equals the mass of one of the KK sterile states, a resonance occurs and the tau antineutrino has a certain probability of oscillating into a bulk state and escaping from the core. As a result, the tau lepton number increases and the potential becomes less negative. If the potential were positive the resonances would be met by neutrinos and the potential would get smaller. Note also that $`Y_{\nu _\tau }`$ is zero at the beginning but a positive value will be generated by the $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ escape itself. This term, which has a different weight for the $`\nu _\mu `$, is responsible for the suppression of the vacuum $`\nu _\mu `$$`\nu _\tau `$ oscillations.

The disappearance probability of a $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ into the bulk when travelling a distance $`L`$ is given by the usual Landau–Zener formula

$$P(\overline{\nu }_\tau \text{bulk})L\frac{\pi }{2\sqrt{2}}m^2R\left(\frac{|V_\tau |}{E_{\overline{\nu }}}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(3)
As is apparent, the parameter $`m^2R`$ sets the overall magnitude of the escape effect.

## 3 Model and evolution

Having introduced all the ingredients of the problem, let us first discuss the basic features of the expected evolution, compared when necessary with the case of $`\nu _e`$ conversion addressed in .

As already mentioned, the matter MSW potential is initially negative in the whole inner core so that only $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ cross resonances. As conversions push $`V_\tau `$ towards zero and deleptonization pulls it down to its negative minimum value, a non-trivial interplay between diffusion and the new effect takes place. Nevertheless, the main features of the evolution can be easily understood. First of all, since the new physics is in the $`\nu _\tau `$ sector, the $`Y_{L_e}`$ evolution is only indirectly affected, mainly via the modifications to the temperature. As the $`\nu _e`$’s are almost degenerate, we expect their diffusion to be only slightly changed and in particular the deleptonization time scale to be unaffected. On the other hand, the $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ escape generates a positive $`Y_{\nu _\tau }`$, the balance $`\nu _\tau `$$`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ is broken and a positive chemical potential $`\mu _{\nu _\tau }`$ arises. This in turn inhibits the escape itself, both because $`V_\tau `$ is lifted towards zero by the term $`Y_{\nu _\tau }`$ in eq. (2) and, more important, because the $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ abundance is suppressed in the presence of the chemical potential. In particular, $`V_\tau `$ has no chances to switch to positive values and only $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ do convert during all the evolution. Now, how do we expect the $`T`$ evolution to be affected? In a first fast phase, as long as the conversion is dominant, a portion of the thermal energy is absorbed both by bulk neutrinos and by the sea of increasingly degenerate $`\nu _\tau `$’s. During all the following evolution, the thermal energy that the $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$’s escape keeps on transferring to tau neutrinos is carried outside by their diffusion. Thus, we expect the $`T`$ evolution to be sped up with respect to the standard case. Moreover, we expect the $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$ escape cooling channel to be more effective than in  as the $`\nu _\tau `$ diffusion time scale is shorter than for $`\nu _e`$’s. Finally, the tau lepton number that arises in the inner core diffuses out into the mantle and may significantly influence the outgoing flux composition.

To study the above picture in some more detail, we use a simplified model that includes all the relevant physics, although it is not intended as a complete description of the SN core dynamics. A more detailed analysis would require a complete simulation of the core and of the external layers, with the inclusion of the new effect.

We follow all the core evolution in terms of the temperature $`T`$, the electron leptonic fraction $`Y_{L_e}`$ and the tau leptonic fraction $`Y_{L_\tau }`$ (that is equal to the neutrino fraction $`Y_{\nu _\tau }`$). One can express all the other relevant observables (chemical potentials, entropy, fluxes, …) simply as functions of these quantities, using thermodynamic equilibrium, beta equilibrium and charge neutrality. As in , we consider a typical SN core characterized by a mass of $`1.5M_{}`$ and a radius of $`12.7\mathrm{km}`$. For the matter density, we use a static profile $`\rho (r)`$, justified by the relative hydrodynamical stability of the inner core in which we are interested. Explicitly $`\rho (r)=\rho _c/(1+(r/\overline{r})^3)`$, with $`\rho _c=7.5\times 10^{14}`$ g/cm3 and $`4/3\pi \overline{r}^3\rho _c=1.1M_{}`$. As for the equation of state, we consider a core made only of $`n`$, $`p`$, $`e^\pm `$, $`\nu _{e,\mu ,\tau }`$, $`\overline{\nu }_{e,\mu ,\tau }`$ and $`\gamma `$. The effective nucleon mass is expressed as $`m_N^{}=\frac{m_N}{1+\beta _0\rho /\rho _0}`$, where $`m_N=939\mathrm{MeV}`$ is the vacuum value, $`\beta _0`$ is chosen to be 0.5 and $`\rho _0=3\times 10^{14}`$ g/cm3 is the reference nuclear density. As for the mean free paths $`\lambda _{\nu _e}`$ and $`\lambda _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }`$, in general they would exhibit a non-trivial dependence on the neutrino energy $`E_\nu `$ and the evolution variables ($`\rho `$, $`T`$, $`Y_{L_e}`$, $`Y_{L_\tau }`$), besides on several other aspects related to the medium in which the neutrinos diffuse. However, the essential features can be grasped by assuming a simple inverse quadratic dependence on the neutrino energy for all species and incorporating an inverse dependence on matter density for muon and tau neutrinos, while keeping constant with density the mean free path of electron neutrinos. We checked these simplified assumptions versus the more complete modellings of . Moreover, the above choices allow us to obtain an evolution whose main features and timescales agree with the results of more sophisticated analyses. The expressions we use are the following:444With respect to the electron neutrino case of  we refined the value of $`\lambda _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }^0`$ and we introduced the density dependence for muon and tau neutrinos.

$$\lambda _{\nu _e}(E_\nu )=\lambda _{\nu _e}^0\frac{E_{\nu ,0}^2}{E_\nu ^2},\lambda _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }(E_\nu ,r)=\lambda _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }^0\frac{\rho _c}{\rho (r)}\frac{E_{\nu ,0}^2}{E_\nu ^2},$$
(4)
taking $`\lambda _{\nu _e}^0=1.2`$ cm and $`\lambda _{\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau }^0=2.8`$ cm at the reference energy $`E_{\nu ,0}=260\mathrm{MeV}`$ and reference density $`\rho _c=7.5\times 10^{14}`$ g/cm3. The initial profiles for $`T`$ and $`Y_{L_e}`$ are typical ones as taken in . Of course, the profile for $`Y_{L_\tau }`$ is zero in all the core at the beginning.

Finally, with all the above prescriptions (see  for a more detailed discussion), the evolution equations for $`Y_{L_e}`$, $`Y_{L_\tau }`$ and $`T`$ read

$`n_B{\displaystyle \frac{Y_{L_e}}{t}}`$ $`=\stackrel{}{}(a_e\stackrel{}{}\mu _{\nu _e})`$ (5a)
$`n_B{\displaystyle \frac{Y_{L_\tau }}{t}}`$ $`=\stackrel{}{}(a_\tau \stackrel{}{}\mu _{\nu _\tau })+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sqrt{2}\pi }}m^2R\sqrt{|V_\tau |}T^{5/2}F_{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{\nu _\tau }}{T}}\right)`$ (5b)
$`\begin{array}{cc}\hfill n_BT{\displaystyle \frac{s}{t}}& =a_e\left(\stackrel{}{}\mu _{\nu _e}\right)^2+a_\tau \left(\stackrel{}{}\mu _{\nu _\tau }\right)^2+\stackrel{}{}\left((a_e+a_\mu +a_\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}\stackrel{}{}T^2\right)\hfill \\ & {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\sqrt{2}\pi }}m^2R\sqrt{|V_\tau |}T^{7/2}\left(F_{5/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{\nu _\tau }}{T}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{\nu _\tau }}{T}}F_{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{\nu _\tau }}{T}}\right)\right),\hfill \end{array}`$ (5c)
where $`a_i=\lambda _{\nu _i}^0E_{\nu ,0}^2/(6\pi ^2)`$, $`i=e,\mu ,\tau `$; $`s`$ is the entropy per baryon and the Fermi integrals are defined as $`F_q(y)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x^q}{e^{xy}+1}`$.

One can recognize the standard transport equation for electron neutrinos in eq. (3a), while eq. (3b) for the tau neutrinos shows the additional escape term that comes from the integration over neutrino energies of the probability in eq. (3), for $`L`$ equal to a mean free path. The first line of the temperature eq. (3c) features the heating terms $`a_j\left(\stackrel{}{}\mu _{\nu _j}\right)^2`$ ($`j=e,\tau `$) associated to the degradation of the degeneracy energy of neutrinos reaching regions with lower chemical potential. The novelty is the presence of such a term for tau neutrinos also, since they possess a non-vanishing chemical potential now. After the standard temperature diffusion term $`\stackrel{}{}(\stackrel{}{}T^2)`$, last comes the contribution from tau antineutrinos escape, which is a cooling term: its first part is related to the energy flux into bulk when an antineutrino is lost, the second one is associated with the (negative) tau lepton number flux into the bulk and thus with the storing of energy in the tau neutrino degenerate sea.

The numerical solutions of the above equations, for several choices of the parameter $`m^2R`$ in the range of eq. (1), confirm the expectations presented at the beginning of this section. Essentially, the electron neutrino density follows the standard evolution while the temperature fall is faster. The tau leptonic fraction $`Y_{L_\tau }`$ rapidly grows from zero up to a certain profile (the higher the larger $`m^2R`$, but always below about 0.1) and then lowers on typical diffusion timescales. In parallel, the chemical potential $`\mu _{\nu _\tau }`$ quickly grows up to values as large as those of $`\mu _{\nu _e}`$ (of order $`200\mathrm{MeV}`$) and then clears out with diffusion. A typical evolution of the matter potential is shown in fig. 2: at the beginning it is pushed towards zero by the rising of $`Y_{L_\tau }`$ but, the initial potential being well below zero, the available energy is not sufficient for a complete zeroing, and diffusion soon reverses the trend.

## 4 Phenomenology

Figures 4 and 4 show the energy and the tau lepton number drained out of the inner core in the first ten seconds of evolution, separating the portion that is actually radiated in the visible neutrino flux and the one that is irreparably lost into the invisible channel provided by the bulk. The first ten seconds are the most interesting interval since this is the lapse of time during which the relevant neutrino signal is produced.

As for the energy, one sees that a sizeable portion can be lost into the invisible channel, especially for high values of $`m^2R`$. At the same time, the total amount of drained energy increases significantly with $`m^2R`$, as a consequence of the faster cooling of the core. However, balancing the two effects, what is important is that the reduction of the portion emitted into the visible channel is always limited to $`20\%`$ of the standard case, which is well acceptable in the light of the need of accounting for the SN 1987A signal: no direct upper bound on the parameter $`m^2R`$ then needs to be imposed.

The other significant result is the emission of a net tau lepton number, counterbalancing the tau antineutrinos that escape into the bulk. The emission can grow up to values $``$ 10 times larger than the corresponding $`\nu _e`$ flux, for $`m^2R`$ at the end of the considered range. As for its time distribution, fig. 5 shows that the $`\nu _\tau `$ emission is concentrated in the very first seconds. An analogous behaviour is exhibited by the total energy emission, so that we can foresee a peculiar time dependence of the final neutrino number flux on Earth, more peaked at earlier times. Letting aside this general expectation, we focus in the following on time-integrated quantities.

Taking our outputs of the modified core evolution as the starting point, we now want to outline the subsequent vicissitudes and the ultimate fate of the neutrinos from the cooling phase in order to derive the possible consequences both for supernova physics and for the detectable signal on Earth.

First is the issue of how the energy flux and the sizeable $`\nu _\tau `$ net flux emitted from the inner core are redistributed by the subsequent diffusion that takes place up to the neutrino sphere (after which the neutrinos stream freely). A detailed examination of this phase would require studying the evolution of the mantle also; see e.g. . What we do is to assume that the energy $`E`$ emitted from the inner core ends almost equiparted in neutrinos and antineutrinos of all flavours, once the portion carried by the lepton number excesses has been subtracted. On the other hand, the (positive) lepton numbers $`L_e`$ and $`L_\tau `$ are separately conserved in the reprocessing. With these ingredients one can then determine the neutrino and antineutrino number fluxes in each flavour: $`n_{\overline{\nu }_j}\frac{1}{E_{\overline{\nu }_j}}\left(E_iE_{\nu _i}L_i\right)/\left(3+_iE_{\nu _i}/E_{\overline{\nu }_i}\right),n_{\nu _j}L_j+n_{\overline{\nu }_j}`$, where $`i,j=e,\mu ,\tau `$. For the average energies of the different families we use the typical values $`E_{\nu _e}13\mathrm{MeV}`$, $`E_{\overline{\nu }_e}16\mathrm{MeV}`$ and $`E_{\nu _{\mu ,\tau },\overline{\nu }_{\mu ,\tau }}23\mathrm{MeV}`$.555We are assuming that the average energies of the neutrinos at the neutrino sphere are not affected by the new physics effect, see . It has recently been pointed out  that the mean energies of muon and tau neutrino and antineutrino can be closer to the electron antineutrino’s, at the level of less than $`1.2E_{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ during the core cooling phase. Nevertheless, such a variation does not change our analysis. We will comment on this issue later on.

Thus, coming out from the neutrino spheres, the flux displays a peculiar composition (see fig. 6): for large values of $`m^2R`$, the $`\nu _\tau `$’s are $``$ 5 times more than in the case without new physics, at the expense of the $`\nu _e`$’s and of all flavours of antineutrinos (all reduced by up to $``$ 60%). These reductions, although not so large, go into the direction opposite to the need of rejuvenating the stalling shock wave and thus helping the explosion, since muon and tau neutrinos are much less efficient than the electron ones in transferring their energy to the lingering matter. On the other hand, this qualitative argument does not imply a strong drawback. The actual explosion mechanism may be hidden in the complexity of the system, whose simulation is still a non-trivial task.

Next, neutrinos and antineutrinos undergo the matter flavour oscillation in the peripheric low-density region of the star and the vacuum flavour oscillations in the journey from the supernova to Earth. We illustrate the outcome in the case of normal neutrino mass hierarchy. As for the oscillation parameters, we use $`\theta _{23}45^{}`$  and $`\theta _{12}32^{}`$ , while we consider values for $`\theta _{13}`$ compatible with the Chooz bound . The first transition at very high densities is produced by the small matter potential difference between tau and muon neutrinos, which is due to the mass difference of the corresponding leptons. This transition is found to be completely adiabatic and switches the $`\underset{\mu }{\overset{\text{(–)}}{\nu }}`$, $`\underset{\tau }{\overset{\text{(–)}}{\nu }}`$ flavour eigenstates to the states rotated by the angle $`\theta _{23}`$, labelled $`\underset{\mu ^{}}{\overset{\text{(–)}}{\nu }}`$ and $`\underset{\tau ^{}}{\overset{\text{(–)}}{\nu }}`$. At lower densities, two more resonances are met, due to the charged current contribution to the electron matter potential. In the case of normal hierarchy, these resonances are both active in the neutrino sector. The $`\nu _e`$$`\nu _\mu ^{}`$ resonance turns out to be adiabatic under our assumptions while for the $`\nu _e`$$`\nu _\tau ^{}`$ we consider a level crossing probability $`P_H`$, which can vary from 0 to 1 depending on the value of $`\theta _{13}`$. For a more detailed analysis, we refer the reader to . Finally, neglecting terms proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{13}`$, the neutrino and antineutrino fluxes $`F`$ reaching the Earth’s surface are related to the neutrino sphere fluxes $`F^0`$ by the simple relations

$`F_e`$ $`=P_Hs_{12}^2F_e^0+c_{12}^2F_\mu ^0+(1P_H)s_{12}^2F_\tau ^0`$ (6a)
$`F_\mu `$ $`=\left(P_Hc_{12}^2c_{23}^2+(1P_H)s_{23}^2\right)F_e^0+s_{12}^2c_{23}^2F_\mu ^0+\left(P_Hs_{23}^2+(1P_H)c_{12}^2c_{23}^2\right)F_\tau ^0`$ (6b)
$`F_\tau `$ $`=\left(P_Hc_{12}^2s_{23}^2+(1P_H)c_{23}^2\right)F_e^0+s_{12}^2s_{23}^2F_\mu ^0+\left(P_Hc_{23}^2+(1P_H)c_{12}^2s_{23}^2\right)F_\tau ^0`$ (6c)
$`F_{\overline{e}}`$ $`=c_{12}^2F_{\overline{e}}^0+s_{12}^2F_{\overline{\tau }}^0`$ (7a)
$`F_{\overline{\mu }}`$ $`=s_{12}^2c_{23}^2F_{\overline{e}}^0+s_{23}^2F_{\overline{\mu }}^0+c_{12}^2c_{23}^2F_{\overline{\tau }}^0`$ (7b)
$`F_{\overline{\tau }}`$ $`=s_{12}^2s_{23}^2F_{\overline{e}}^0+c_{23}^2F_{\overline{\mu }}^0+c_{12}^2s_{23}^2F_{\overline{\tau }}^0`$ (7c)
where $`s_{ij}`$ and $`c_{ij}`$ are the sine and cosine of the angle $`\theta _{ij}`$.

The indicative final composition of the flux reaching the surface of the Earth is illustrated in figs. 7c and 7f for the boundary values $`P_H=1`$ and $`P_H=0`$, corresponding respectively to $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}10^5`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}10^3`$. In the first case, the strong $`\nu _\tau `$ excess is distributed between muon and tau neutrinos, while the electron fraction decreases. The situation is different in the adiabatic ($`P_H=0`$) case, where we expect an higher $`\nu _e`$ component. A general important feature is the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux reduction that can amount to up to $`60\%`$. Given the limited statistics of the 1987 event, the overall uncertainties on the expected neutrino fluxes (as predicted by full simulations, also based on assumptions on the progenitor star) and finally the approximate nature of the supernova core evolution adopted here, such a reduction is still compatible with present observations. Nevertheless, this feature is an interesting and potentially challenging one, and deserves to be addressed more closely in case of a future SN event with higher statistics. A similar remark also holds for the time structure of the neutrino signal mentioned above.

Our analysis has been limited so far to the case of tau neutrinos, but can be readily extended to the case of mixing of muon neutrinos with the bulk fermions. Indeed, no relevant modifications are needed to the model of evolution described in sec. 3, so that the general conclusions reached for tau neutrinos are still valid. In particular, the indicative fluxes coming out of the neutrino spheres are given in first approximation by a plot similar to the one in fig. 6, with the excess in the $`\nu _\mu `$ channel. In turn, using eqs. (6) and eqs. (4), one can determine the compositions reaching the Earth’s surface shown in figs. 7b and 7e; the value of $`P_H`$ is only marginally important in this case.

Finally, we can recall the results of  for the case of the electron neutrinos oscillating into the bulk and derive the compositions in figs. 7a and 7d following the same steps.

Based on the above results, one can easily point out the most important observable modifications of the expected flux in a detector. First of all, as the net effect is always an increase in the total emitted lepton number, a crucial signature is the enhanced ratio between neutrinos and antineutrinos. This is a general feature of supernova neutrino oscillations into extra dimensions that does not depend on which flavour has a significant mixing with bulk neutrinos. What is case-dependent is which channel the enhancement shows up in. First one can focus on the electron channel, which will have high statistics in the future supernova events. Indeed, $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ are the dominant signal in the present and in most of the future detectors, while $`\nu _e`$ can be efficiently collected by large Čerenkov detectors, already existing (SK, SNO) or proposed (UNO), and liquid-argon detectors (Icarus, LANNDD) . For several cases in fig. 7 the $`\nu _e`$/$`\overline{\nu }_e`$ ratio is significantly enlarged. However, it is also clear from fig. 7 that, depending on the value of $`P_H`$ (i.e. of $`\theta _{13}`$), the effect of $`\nu _e`$ or $`\nu _\tau `$ conversion into the bulk could turn out to be irrelevant for the $`\nu _e`$/$`\overline{\nu }_e`$ channel in some cases, so that it would be necessary to measure the $`\nu _\mu `$ or $`\nu _\tau `$ fluxes. This is a harder task, which is however feasible at SNO, future detectors (UNO, LANNDD, OMNIS)  or even at large scintillator detectors (KamLAND, Borexino ). On the other hand, once an anomalous neutrino/antineutrino ratio is measured, how is it possible to distinguish which flavour does mix with the bulk? The answer lies in the energy spectrum. In fact, since the electron neutrinos are less energetic than the muon and tau ones when they leave the neutrino spheres, the effect of the $`\nu _e\nu _{\mu ,\tau }`$ oscillation is to harden the $`\nu _e`$ spectrum on the Earth. The conversion into the bulk of the electron flavour, increasing the $`\nu _e`$ component flowing in the SN mantle, reduces this hardness, while the muon or tau conversion enhances it.

We have illustrated our results for a specific point in the parameter space of the standard neutrino oscillations. The residual dependence on $`\theta _{12}`$ (and $`\theta _{23}`$) is mild. On the other hand, the distribution of the neutrino flux enhancement in the three flavours depends significantly on the neutrino mass pattern. Disentangling the flavour structure of the mixing with bulk neutrinos would therefore require the knowledge of sign($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{23}^2`$.

As already mentioned, another source of uncertainty is the precise value of the mean energies of the neutrinos coming out from their neutrino spheres. We checked that the adoption of a $`E_{\nu _{\mu ,\tau },\overline{\nu }_{\mu ,\tau }}`$ closer to $`E_{\overline{\nu }_e}`$, as suggested in , yields only minor modifications of our result. Namely, each column in fig. 6 and figs. 7 is affected at most by a variation of $`510\%`$ in composition, within the uncertainties of our simplified model. Thus, the analysis is unchanged and the general trend confirmed: we only remark that the closer the mean energies, the smaller the differences among the channels, although preserving the features described above.

Finally, in order to predict the actual signal in the detectors, one should also consider matter-induced oscillations inside the Earth. This effect has the power of dramatically changing the expected signal, but of course depends on the geographical position of the detectors at the time of arrival of the signal. For a given path in the Earth, it is not difficult to include the matter effect (see ).

While we have so far considered the case in which the neutrino escape is dominated by the oscillations in the bulk of one of the three neutrinos, it is also possible that all SM neutrinos are involved in the energy loss. In this case, the neutrino flux on the Earth would still be enhanced over the antineutrino one. However, the neutrino flux composition would also be determined by the relative size of the three mixing parameters $`m_e`$, $`m_\mu `$, $`m_\tau `$. The evolutions of the three neutrino abundances in the core would be coupled through the temperature and the matter potential. The feedback mechanisms would however still take place, but we expect the $`m_i`$$`R`$ parameter space for the three channels to be slightly reduced.

## 5 Conclusions

We dealt with the mixing of the Standard Model neutrinos with bulk sterile fermion fields, a natural and general feature of models with extra dimensions. In particular, we focused on the muon and tau case, while the electron case was addressed in . This mixing provides an unconventional escape channel for neutrinos in the supernova core during the cooling phase, which could in principle give strong bounds on the parameters of the extra dimensions when facing the observed SN 1987A signal. In order to simplify the core dynamics, we restricted the analysis to the case of $`\nu _\tau `$, but we easily completed it to the case of $`\nu _\mu `$.

Given the sign of the matter potential, the process consists in the escape of tau antineutrinos into the bulk, acting in parallel with diffusion. We showed that a feedback mechanism turns on, preventing extreme and unacceptable modifications of the evolution to occur (in particular, the characteristic time scale of deleptonization and cooling, of order 10 sec, is preserved). The direct bound on the parameters of extra dimensions can then be relaxed by about 4 orders of magnitude. The upper limit on the relevant combination $`m^2R`$ is lifted from $`10^{10}\mathrm{eV}`$ to $`5\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}`$, the new limit now coming from subleading effects. In fig. 1, we showed the allowed region in the $`m`$$`R`$ plane. The feedback is mainly due to the building up of a degenerate sea of trapped $`\nu _\tau `$ and thus of a positive tau neutrino chemical potential that suppresses the number of $`\overline{\nu }_\tau `$’s candidate to escape. For comparison, in the $`\nu _e`$ (and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$) case in  this kind of feedback acts together with the feedback on the matter potential in a sizeable portion of the core.

Although in such a ‘safe’ way, the supernova core evolution is significantly affected by the escape process, and we studied the main modifications. First of all, the cooling is sped up with respect to the standard case. Secondly, a sizeable net tau lepton number is emitted by the core, concentrated in the very first seconds. Therefore a neutrino number flux more peaked at earlier times can be predicted.

Next we speculated on the phenomenological consequences on the revival of the shock and on the neutrino signal reaching the Earth. As for the first point, since the $`\nu _e`$ flux is lowered by the reshuffling of the neutrino fluxes (although not largely), we suggested that the $`\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$ escape may reduce the energy transfer to matter and thus the push to the explosion. As for the second point, the compatibility with the SN 1987A signal is preserved once one is willing to accept a certain reduction of the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ component. Collecting the results for the $`\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$ escape cases, we indicated as signatures, in cases of future galactic SN events, a general dominance of neutrino flux over antineutrinos and, depending on the flavour that mixes with bulk fields, some peculiar structures of the relative enhancements in the neutrino fluxes and a harder or softer $`\nu _e`$ spectrum.

## Acknowledgments

This work has been partially supported by MIUR and by the EU under TMR contract HPRN–CT–2000–00148. Part of the work of A.R. was done while at Scuola Normale Superiore. M.C. acknowledges the hospitality of the CERN Theory Division, where this work was completed.


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# On 3+1 Dimensional Friedman-Robertson-Walker Universes with Matter

## Abstract

We examine the dynamical behavior of matter coupled to gravity in the context of a linear Klein-Gordon equation coupled to a Friedman-Robertson-Walker metric. The resulting ordinary differential equations can be decoupled, the effect of gravity being traced in rendering the equation for the scalar field nonlinear. We obtain regular (in the massless case) and asymptotic (in the massive case) solutions for the resulting matter field and discuss their ensuing finite time blowup in the light of earlier findings. Finally, some potentially interesting connections of these blowups with features of focusing in the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations are outlined, suggesting the potential relevance of a nonlinear theory of quantum cosmology.

In the past two decades there has been an extensive interest in 3-dimensional gravity, particular after the demonstration of the fact that its quantum version is solvable  and that it contains black hole solutions .

The idea of examining cosmological models in this context was, however, of interest before , as well as after  these findings. In most of these studies , the Friedman-Robertson-Walker (FRW) metric was used and the resulting equations were ordinary differential equation governing the time-evolution of the scale factor of the relevant metric and the evolution of the matter and/or radiation field coupled to it.

On a slightly different track, one can list the works of  (see also references therein and the review of ), where the metric scale factors were allowed to be temporally as well as spatially variable, and the resulting partial-differential equations (PDEs) were studied to obtain collapse type solutions.

In this brief report, we will restrict ourselves to the former type of considerations (but in a 3+1 dimensional setting), namely fixing the spatial dependence of the metric tensor to be of the FRW type (in co-moving coordinates and with a “cosmological” time choice)

$$ds^2=dt^2+a^2(t)\left(\frac{1}{1kr^2}dr^2+r^2d\theta ^2+r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right)$$
(1)
and coupling gravity to the simplest possible model for matter, namely a linear Klein-Gordon (KG) type equation for a massive scalar. In the metric of Eq. (1), $`a`$ is the scale factor while $`k`$ describes the curvature of the spatial slice and can be normalized to the values $`1,0,1`$ in the hyperbolic, flat and elliptic case respectively. Previously such models were examined in a more complicated setting (most often in 2+1 dimensions) where either equations of state  or special scalar field potentials  were used to obtain closed form solutions.

Here, we will examine the simplest possible (physically relevant) scalar field potential $`V(\varphi )=m^2\varphi ^2/2`$, which gives rise to a linear (in $`\varphi `$) equation for the scalar coupled to gravity. In particular the Einstein-Klein-Gordon field equations in this case read:

$`3{\displaystyle \frac{k+\dot{a}^2}{a^2}}+\rho _\varphi =0`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{k+\dot{a}^2+2a\ddot{a}}{a^2}}+p_\varphi =0`$ (3)
$`\ddot{\varphi }+m^2\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{3\dot{a}}{a}}\varphi =0`$ (4)
where the energy density and the pressure associated with the scalar field are given respectively by (see e.g., )

$`\rho _\varphi ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\dot{\varphi }^2+m^2\varphi ^2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi ),`$ (5)
$`p_\varphi ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\dot{\varphi }^2m^2\varphi ^2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2V(\varphi ).`$ (6)
Note that the first is the quadratic constraint $`G_0^0=T_0^0`$; the second is the only independent spatial equation $`G_1^1=T_1^1`$ while the last is the dynamical equation for the scalar field, i.e., the Klein-Gordon equation. $`G`$ and $`T`$ denote the Einstein curvature tensor and the energy-momentum tensor respectively.

In the above equations the dot denotes temporal derivative. Naturally, Eqs. (2)-(4) are not linearly independent as the linear combination of the derivative of the first and of the second can be used to obtain the third.

We first examine the spatially flat case of $`k=0`$, and use it as a guide. In this setting one immediately observes that from Eqs. (2) and (4), two separate expressions for $`\dot{a}/a`$ can be obtained, hence equating them, a second-order ordinary differential equation (ODE) emerges for the scalar field $`\varphi `$ in the form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2\left(m^2\varphi ^2+\dot{\varphi }^2\right)=\left(m^2\varphi +\ddot{\varphi }\right)^2.`$ (7)
Notice that this is the only case (among the ones that we will examine) in which the resulting ODE is of 2nd order. In the remaining cases, the ODE is of 3rd order. Moreover, it is worth commenting on the nature of this ODE: in particular, the resulting equation is nonlinear. Hence, even though the inclusion of matter is realized through a linear dynamical equation, in the setting of even the simplest cosmological models, the coupling of matter to gravity induces the emergence of a nonlinear equation; it is as if the “trace” of gravity, when the equation for the scalar field is decoupled from it, remains in the nonlinearity of the resulting ODE.

As the simplest possible case among the ones with $`k=0`$, we examine the massless case, i.e., $`m=0`$. In the latter setting, we obtain the solutions (up to a constant shift) of the form:

$`\varphi =\pm \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}\mathrm{log}\left(t^{}t\right)`$ (8)
which in turn results in a power law dependence of the scale factor of the form $`a(t^{}t)^{1/3}`$. Hence, a blowup (focusing) type effect occurs at $`t=t^{}`$ in a logarithmic fashion for the scalar and the corresponding scale factor shrinks to 0 with a power law dependence. Such dependencies are reminiscent of the critical blowup in prototypical nonlinear PDEs with focusing solutions (for a spatio-temporally dependent field $`\psi `$) such as the nonlinear Schrödinger equation

$`i\psi _t=\mathrm{\Delta }\psi |\psi |^{2\sigma }\psi .`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ stands for the Laplacian and $`\sigma `$ the power of the nonlinearity. For $`d\sigma <2`$, no focusing solutions occur (d is the dimensionality of the Laplacian); when $`d\sigma =2`$, logarithmically slow focusing phenomena take place (in the corresponding “proper time” see ), while when $`d\sigma >2`$, the so-called strong collapse occurs, where the focusing happens with a power law dependence . Hence, the critical case of the nonlinear focusing phenomena in equation (9) shares some of the collapse characteristics of the present model.

We now turn to the massive case (still for $`k=0`$). In the latter, we can no longer solve the problem analytically. However, we can directly observe that if we adopt a solution of logarithmic dependence of the form of Eq. (8) in this case as well, the massive terms diverge much more slowly (at worst as $`(\mathrm{log}(t^{}t))^2/(t^{}t)^2`$, as opposed to the $`(t^{}t)^4`$ divergence of the dominant (massless) terms). This signifies that asymptotic self-similarity will ensue from this case and the logarithmic dependence will eventually set in and dominate the asymptotic behavior leading to collapse. An example of this is shown in Fig. 1, where a numerical simulation of Eq. (7) clearly indicates the logarithmic focusing of the scalar field for as $`t1.38`$. This asymptotic type of self-similarity occurs quite often in cosmology, as can be seen for example in  (and references therein). One final comment worth making about this case is that it appears as if the massive case is asymptoting to the results for the massless one.

We now turn to the case with $`k0`$. In this case also, the reduction that leads to an equation only for the scalar field can be performed. However, due to the more complex nature of the equations, this reduction no longer leads to a second order ODE but rather to a third order one. In particular, in this case the reduction (after differentiating (4) and substituting the result, as well as (2) and (4), in (3)) results in

$`6\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{\varphi }\dot{\varphi }8\ddot{\varphi }^210m^2\varphi \ddot{\varphi }6\dot{\varphi }^4+6m^2\dot{\varphi }^2+3m^2\varphi ^2\dot{\varphi }^22m^4\varphi ^2=0`$ (10)
It is interesting to note then that the massless case once again shares the exact same, finite time blowup solutions of Eq. (8). One can then once again use the same argument for the massive case to identify such solutions as the dominant asymptotic behavior for $`m0`$, since these terms blowup as $`(t^{}t)^4`$ in Eq. (10), while the rest of the terms diverge with a rate of (at most) $`O(t^{}t)^2`$. Numerical integration of Eq. (10) for various initial conditions and various masses confirms the theoretical prediction of finite time collapse. It appears however that the mass of the scalar affects the time at which collapse will occur ($`t^{}`$) (see e.g., Fig. 2).

It is also worth noting that in the context of Eq. (10), the steady state $`\varphi =0`$ appears to be linearly stable since for small perturbations $`ϵ\mathrm{exp}(\omega t)`$, collecting the leading order behavior (O($`ϵ^2`$)), one obtains the algebraic stability equation of the form:

$`(\omega ^2+m^2)^2=0.`$ (11)
Eq. (11) has double imaginary roots:

$`\omega =\pm im`$ (12)
which, in turn, denote marginal stability. Notice that the same situation occurs in the critical case of Eq. (9). However, the nonlinear term of the form $`6\dot{\varphi }^4`$ asymptotically dominates and gives rise to a nonlinearity-induced instability leading to logarithmic blowup. This (blowup), in fact, is to be expected since the incompleteness of geodesics in $`3+1`$-dimensional spacetimes , established using general techniques of differential topology in , has been shown under quite general conditions  to lead to divergence of physically observable properties.

In conclusion, in this work, we have examined the coupling of $`3+1`$-dimensional gravity to a scalar field satisfying a linear Klein-Gordon equation. We have found that it is possible to decouple the equation for the massive scalar from the one for the scale factor of the FRW metric used in this work at the “expense” of obtaining a nonlinear ordinary differential equation for the scalar. The “memory” of the coupling to gravity has been encapsulated in the nonlinear nature of the resulting equation. Closed form solutions of the resulting equation can be obtained in the massless case and exhibit logarithmic divergence of the scalar field as a function of time (and power-law vanishing of the scale factor). It is then observed that these solutions persist as dominant asymptotic behavior in the case where $`m0`$. These results are corroborated by numerical integration of the nonlinear ODEs in the massive case. Even though slightly different methods have been used for the cases where the metric is flat ($`k=0`$) and when $`k0`$, the same principal conclusions have been drawn in all cases.

This phenomenon of decoupling persists even in the case of more general, anisotropic Bianchi models . In all these cases, special solutions to the ensuing decoupled non-linear ODE exist and they also exhibit blowup behavior.

Finally, we return to the analogy of the logarithmic focusing of the solutions in this simple model (where spatial dependence was a priori fixed in the metric) with the logarithmic blowup in the critical case of a prototypical nonlinear partial differential equation, namely the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, that sustains focusing solutions. It would be particularly interesting to examine whether the inclusion of spatial dependence can lead to an equation of this type (through appropriate envelope wave expansions, given that NLS is the envelope equation for nonlinear wave equations of the Klein-Gordon type). In particular, if, in the presence of the spatial dependence, the reduction to a nonlinear partial differential equation for the scalar field provides a nonlinear KG equation, then it will be natural to expect that the reduction to NLS and the ensuing focusing solutions will carry through. If such a program succeeds, it may appear natural to consider the NLS as prototypical model for a “nonlinear quantum cosmology”.

G.O. Papadopoulos is currently a scholar of the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y.) and acknowledges the relevant financial support. T Christodoulakis and G.O. Papadopoulos, acknowledge support by the University of Athens, Special Account for the Research Grant-No. 70/4/5000 This work was also partially supported by a University of Massachusetts Faculty Research Grant and NSF-DMS-0204585 (PGK), as well as the AFOSR (Dynamics and Control, IGK).


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# Light bullets in quadratic media with normal dispersion at the second harmonic

Current address: \]School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New South Wales at ADFA 2600, ACT, Australia

## Abstract

Stable two- and three-dimensional spatiotemporal solitons (STSs) in second-harmonic-generating media are found in the case of normal dispersion at the second harmonic (SH). This result, surprising from the theoretical viewpoint, opens a way for experimental realization of STSs. An analytical estimate for the existence of STSs is derived, and full results, including a complete stability diagram, are obtained in a numerical form. STSs withstand not only the normal SH dispersion, but also finite walk-off between the harmonics, and readily self-trap from a Gaussian pulse launched at the fundamental frequency.

A multidimensional soliton is a self-supporting solitary pulse resulting from the balance between nonlinearity of the medium and diffraction and dispersion of the wave field. The most physically relevant realization of this is provided by optical spatiotemporal solitons (STSs), alias “light bullets”, which are self-confined in the longitudinal and transverse directions Yaron .

Spatial optical solitons, which are not localized in the longitudinal direction, have been studied in depth review , and observed in both one- 1d  and two- 2d  dimensional (1D and 2D) geometries. Quasi-2D STSs, which are localized in the longitudinal and one transverse directions, have been observed too Liu99 . A challenge for the experimentalist is creating a fully 3D bullet. The issue has a special physical purport, as, unlike 2D solitons which occur in various media, optical crystals provide for a *single* real possibility to create 3D solitons in classical physics. Besides their significance as fundamental objects, STSs may provide THz switching rates in optic-logic systems, if used as information bits Macleod .

It is well known that STSs are unstable in Kerr media Rasmussen . They can be stabilized if the nonlinearity is saturable Blagoeva . Other effects can also stabilize a spatiotemporal pulse, as shown in an experiment demonstrating stable space-time focusing in a planar waveguide Eisenberg . However, it was not a soliton, as the stabilization was due to multi-photon absorption and intra-pulse Raman scattering, which are dissipative effects.

A promising path for making stable STSs is to employ second-harmonic generation (SHG). Various types of solitons in SHG materials have attracted a lot of interest Buryak . In particular, it was proven long ago Kanashov , by means of variational estimates, that SHG must give rise to *stable* 2D and 3D solitons realizing a minimum of the Hamiltonian.

Most theoretical works on STSs in SHG media assumed spatiotemporal isotropy Skr , which implies equal GVD (group-velocity-dispersion) coefficients at the fundamental frequency (FF) and second harmonic (SH), that does not take place in reality. A general non-symmetric case was considered in Ref. Malomed97 . Using the variational approximation (VA), STSs were predicted, and numerical simulations verified their stable existence in the 2D case. Later, numerically exact 2D and 3D soliton solutions were found and their stability was confirmed Mihalache98 . Then, another ingredient important for the description of the real physical situation was introduced, namely, the group-velocity mismatch (GVM, alias walkoff) between the harmonics, showing that stable STSs exist in this case too Mihalache99a .

It is obvious that solitons in SHG media may only exist if GVD is anomalous at FF. Even without postulating the above-mentioned spatiotemporal isotropy, *all* the previous works assumed that GVD must be anomalous at SH too. However, this assumption ignores a fundamental problem: in available SHG materials, FF suffers strong absorption if the SH wavelength is long enough for the dispersion to be anomalous. Note that, in Ref. Malomed97 , VA formally predicted STSs for normal GVD at SH, but simulations led to conclusion that it could really exist only with anomalous GVD at SH, while the prediction for the normal SH dispersion was an artifact of VA based on the Gaussian ansatz, which incorrectly treats exponentially decaying tails of the soliton (see a discussion of the role of the tails below). In the 3D case, VA predicted that STSs could exist at small normal values of GVD at SH, but this was never checked. Besides its crucial importance for the creation of LBs in experiment, the issue is also a challenge for analysis of multidimensional nonlinear-wave models.

In this work we demonstrate that, *contrary* to the common belief, STSs in the 3D and 2D cases effectively exists and can be stable in SHG media with normal GVD at SH. We also conclude that it survives in the presence of GVM. These results greatly enhance the likelihood that STSs will be generated experimentally.

The co-propagation of the FF and SH waves in SHG media is described by known equations Kanashov ; Malomed97 ,

$`iu_\xi +_{}^2u+u_{\tau \tau }u+u^{}v`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (1)
$`2iv_\xi +_{}^2v+\delta v_{\tau \tau }i\sigma v_\tau \gamma v+\left(1/2\right)u^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (2)
Here, $`u=\sqrt{2}_1e^{iz/z_0}z_0\omega _1^2\chi ^{(2)}/(k_1c^2)`$ and $`v=_2e^{2iz/z_0}z_0\omega _1^2\chi ^{(2)}/(k_1c^2)`$, $`_{1,2}`$ are complex electric-field envelopes at the frequencies $`\omega _1`$ and $`2\omega _1`$, $`k_1k\left(\omega _1\right)`$ is the FF carrier wavenumber, $`\xi =z/z_0`$ and $`\tau =(tz/v_g)/t_0`$ are the normalized propagation distance and reduced time, $`v_g`$ and $`t_0`$ being the group velocity and time scale at FF, $`z_0=2t_0^2/k_1^{^{\prime \prime }}`$, where $`k_1^{^{\prime \prime }}`$ is the GVD coefficient at FF, and the transverse radial coordinate is $`r=\sqrt{2k_1\left(x^2+y^2\right)/z_0}`$. The diffraction operator, $`_{}^2^2/r^2+[(D2)/r]/r`$, where $`D=3`$ or $`2`$ is the spatial dimension, acts on the transverse coordinates $`\{x,y\}\sqrt{2k_1/z_0}𝐫`$. In the experiment, units of time and transverse and propagation distance in the scaled equations typically correspond to $`100`$ fs, $`50`$$`\mu `$m, and $`1`$ cm, respectively Liu99 . Further, $`\sigma `$ in Eq. (2) is GVM, and $`\gamma 4+2z_0[2k(\omega _1)k(2\omega _1)]`$ is the phase mismatch between the harmonics. The equations conserve the Hamiltonian, momentum, axial angular momentum, and the Manley-Rowe invariant (energy), which is $`Q=2\pi _0^{\mathrm{}}r𝑑r_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑\tau \left(|u|^2+4|v|^2\right)`$ in the 3D case.

In Eq. (1), the FH dispersion is anomalous, while the ratio $`k_2^{^{\prime \prime }}/k_1^{^{\prime \prime }}\delta `$ of the SH and FH GVD coefficients is assumed negative, corresponding to *normal* GVD at SH. This case, which corresponds to the experimental reality, has not yet been studied (except for VA, with $`\sigma =0`$, in Ref. Malomed97 ).

First, an estimate for the existence of STSs can be obtained for small $`|\delta |`$. To this end, Eq. (2) is treated as a linear equation for SH, driven by the term $`\left(1/2\right)u^2`$. A SH field component of the CW (continuous-wave) form, $`B_{\mathrm{cw}}\mathrm{exp}\left(i𝐤𝐫i\omega \tau \right)`$, which does not vanish as $`r,|\tau |\mathrm{}`$ and thus prevents the existence of the soliton, is determined by zeros of the denominator of the corresponding Green’s function, which are located at

$$|\delta |\omega ^2\sigma \omega k^2\gamma =0.$$
(3)
On the other hand, an asymptotic form of the solution to Eq. (1) at $`r,|\tau |\mathrm{}`$ is $`u\rho ^{(D1)/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\rho \right)`$, with $`\rho \sqrt{\tau ^2+r^2}`$.

An estimate for the maximum amplitude $`B_{\mathrm{cw}}`$ of the possible CW component can be derived. To simplify the presentation, one can adopt a model form of the FF field complying with the above asymptotics and securing a globally correct shape of the solution. In the 3D case, it is $`u=\mathrm{const}\rho ^1\left(\mathrm{sinh}\rho \right)\mathrm{sech}^2\rho `$, but the final exponential estimate (see below) does not predicate on this “ansatz”. Straightforward calculations \[Fourier transform of $`u^2(𝐫,\tau )`$, inverse transform of its product with the Green’s function of Eq. (2), and isolating a CW contribution from $`\omega `$ determined by Eq. (3)\] show that, in the case $`\sigma =0`$ (no-walkoff), the CW intensity is exponentially small (for small $`|\delta |`$) if $`\gamma >0`$, an upper estimate for it being

$$B_{\mathrm{cw}}^2<\mathrm{const}\gamma \left(\gamma /|\delta |\right)^{3/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\pi \sqrt{\gamma /|\delta |}\right).$$
(4)
While the pre-exponential part of this estimate may be ansatz-dependent, the crucially important exponential part is not, and it applies to the 2D case as well; if $`\sigma 0`$, it is replaced by $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{\pi \left[\sqrt{\left(\gamma /|\delta |\right)+\left(\sigma /2\delta \right)^2}\left|\sigma /2\delta \right|\right]\right\}`$, i.e., the walkoff makes the estimate weaker.

Thus, although it is not guaranteed that the STS exists as a rigorous solitary-wave solution, the one with the CW tail obeying the exponentially small estimate may be tantamount to a true soliton in any possible experiment. The actual region of the existence and stability of STSs should be found numerically, which is done below.

Stationary solutions were found by solving the $`z`$-independent version of Eqs. (1) and (2) with $`\delta <0`$. Although the above analysis suggests that STS may have a small nonvanishing tail in the SH component, no tails were found, with the numerical accuracy available \[$`𝒪(10^4)`$\], in all the pulses which were identified as solitons. It was also verified that the shape of the soliton does not change with increasing the numerical accuracy and/or size of the integration domain (for instance, there was no change with the increase of the number of points from $`64^3`$ to $`256^3`$). Insets in Fig. 2 show an example of a 3D soliton, found for $`\delta =0.02`$, $`\gamma =5`$ and $`\sigma =0`$. An STS family was generated by varying $`\delta `$ and $`\gamma `$, Fig. 1 showing the soliton’s energy versus $`\gamma `$. A conclusion of direct relevance to experiment is that, in the most challenging 3D case, energy required to create a soliton with normal GVD at SH is *smaller* than in the previously studied case $`\delta =1`$ by a factor $`2.5`$.

Further consideration shows that, at large $`\gamma `$, the bulk of the STS’s energy is in FF (in compliance with the cascading limit Buryak ), while at smaller $`\gamma `$ the amplitudes of both components are nearly equal, hence SH has roughly four times the energy of the fundamental. This shows that, remarkably, the soliton is able to exist keeping $`80\%`$ of its energy in the *normal*-GVD component.

A crucially important issue is stability of the solitons. First of all, it may be judged using the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion, which states that solitons may only be stable if $`dQ/d\gamma >0`$ Buryak . Figure 1 shows that the soliton families satisfy this criterion, unless $`\gamma `$ is too small. A systematic stability test was performed by direct simulations of Eqs. (1) and (2). The results are summarized in Fig. 2.

At small $`|\delta |`$, the stability border in Fig. 2 is linear, which complies with the fact that the exponential factor in the estimate (4) is a function of the ratio $`\gamma /|\delta |`$ (the exponential estimate yields a factor $`10^5`$ at the stability border in the figure). Furthermore, the 2D and 3D stability borders are almost identical at small $`|\delta |`$, in agreement with the fact that the exponential estimate is the same for both dimensions. The solitons are truly robust: not only they are not destroyed by perturbations, but they also readily self-trap from initial pulses of quite an arbitrary shape, which is illustrated by Fig. 3. Note that the transition from the initial profile to the soliton’s one takes the propagation distance of few dispersion lengths ($`z_D`$), and the STS remains stable over an extremely long distance $`800z_D`$. This shows not only that the STS will be stable in any experimental setup, but also that possible energy leakage due to the formation of the above-mentioned CW tail cannot be spotted in the course of the extremely long propagation. The same figure shows persistent intrinsic oscillations in the stable STS, which is attributed to excitation of an intrinsic mode. The excitation is tangible if the initial pulse is launched at a point which is located deep within the stability region. If the pulse is taken close to the stability border, the inset to Fig. 3 shows that the vibrations quickly fade, the pulse relaxing to a stationary soliton through transient emission of radiation (the same is observed in the 2D case).

The realistic model must include GVM. A previous work Mihalache99a  addressed “walking” STSs, but in the case $`\delta >0`$. Starting with a Gaussian pulse in the FF component, we tried to generate STSs with a finite GVD parameter $`\sigma `$. Figure 4 shows the result: at large $`\gamma `$ and relatively large negative $`\delta `$, the bullet self-traps and is found to be fully localized for moderate values of $`\sigma `$. The pulse cannot self-trap (decaying into radiation) if $`\sigma >2`$. The stability diagram displayed in Fig. 2 can be extended, adding $`\sigma `$ as a parameter. For $`\sigma _{}^<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}1}`$, the stability region is nearly the same as at $`\sigma =0`$, but with the increase of $`\sigma `$, it quickly shrinks and no longer exists for $`\sigma >2`$.

Lastly, stationary 3D solitons with an internal vorticity were found too. However, they are always unstable against perturbations breaking their axial symmetry, similar to what was found for the same type of STS in the case $`\delta >0`$ Mihalache2000 .

In conclusion, we have shown in the numerical form that 2D and 3D stable spatiotemporal solitons exist in quadratically nonlinear media when the dispersion is anomalous at FF but normal at SH. An exponential analytical estimate for the existence of the solitons was obtained. The solitons readily self-trap from a Gaussian pulse launched at FF, showing no trace of decay over extremely long propagation distance. The solitons have the energy smaller than their counterparts in the case of the anomalous dispersion at SH, and they exhibit robustness to the walkoff between the harmonics. These features imply that the solitons of this type can be created under a variety of experimental conditions.

We appreciate a valuable discussion with D. Mihalache and K. Beckwitt. The work was supported in a part by the Binational (US-Israel) Science Foundation (contract No. 1999459) and by a matching grant from the Tel Aviv University (TAU). Access to supercomputing facilities was provided by the High Performance Computing Unit at TAU.


text:
# Competition of fusion and quasi-fission in the reactions leading to production of the superheavy elements

## Introduction

In the recent years, the heavy elements up to Z=112 have been synthesized using cold fusion reactions with Pb, Bi targets in the evaporation channel with emission of one neutron Z112Cold . The experimentalists had to face a steep decrease of cross sections up to the picobarn level due to increasing fusion hindrance whose origin was unclear. The same level of cross sections has been reached in the hot fusion reactions with emission of 3-4 neutrons using 48Ca beams which lead to synthesis of relatively neutron-rich isotopes of elements 112,114 and 116 Z112Vass ; Z114Vass ; Z114GNS ; Z116GNS . Again the fusion hindrance was observed. The possibility to describe fusion hindrance in both cold and hot fusion in a unified way as a competition between formation of the compound nucleus and a fast fission-like process ( quasi-fission ) was suggested in our article MVSHE  using a simple phenomenological model. A comparison of the recent experimental results to the results of the model calculation is provided in the present article. Furthermore, additional investigations on the nature of the fusion process are carried out using available data on capture cross section. An additional dynamical fusion hindrance is predicted based on available experimental evaporation residue data from the reactions where heavy nuclei are produced in the symmetric projectile-target combinations approaching the asymmetry of the fission channel.

## Statistical model for competition of fusion and quasi-fission

In our previous article MVSHE , we presented a simple statistical model for the description of production cross sections of superheavy nuclei in a wide range of excitation energies including cold, warm and hot fusion. The model assumes that the fusion hindrance, observed in cold fusion reactions where only one neutron is emitted prior to the formation of evaporation residue (ER), can be explained by the competition of fusion with fast fission-like process which can be identified with quasi-fission. It is not obvious what is the role of a traditional saddle configuration, used in description of fusion-fission, in quasi-fission. Therefore, the scission configuration was chosen as a final state in the fission channel. Then the fusion probability can be expressed using the level densities in compound and scission configurations as

$$P_{\mathrm{fus}}^{\mathrm{stat}}=\frac{\rho (E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{})}{\rho (E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{})+\rho (E_{\mathrm{sc},\mathrm{eff}}^{})}.$$
(1)
The excitation energy in the scission configuration is estimated empirically using the systematics of post-scission neutron multiplicities. Proportionality of the number of neutrons emitted from the fission fragments to the intrinsic excitation energy in the scission configuration is assumed. Then the excitation energy in the scission configuration can be expressed as

$$E_{\mathrm{sc},\mathrm{eff}}^{}=(\nu _\mathrm{n}^{\mathrm{s}.\mathrm{f}.}(A_{\mathrm{CN}})+\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{n}(E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{}))E_\mathrm{n}.$$
(2)
The multiplicity of emitted neutrons in the spontaneous fission of heavy nuclei $`\nu _\mathrm{n}^{\mathrm{s}.\mathrm{f}.}(A_{\mathrm{CN}})`$ is approximated by a linear extrapolation of the available spontaneous fission neutron multiplicity data to given $`A_{\mathrm{CN}}`$

$$\nu _n^{\mathrm{s}.\mathrm{f}.}(A_{\mathrm{CN}})=3.316+0.0969(A_{\mathrm{CN}}250).$$
(3)
An additional increase of the post-scission neutron multiplicity at a given excitation energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _n(E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{})`$ can be expressed approximately as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _\mathrm{n}(E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{})=0.035E_{\mathrm{CN}}^{},$$
(4)
as follows from the available post-scission neutron multiplicity data npost . A proportionality factor $`E_\mathrm{n}`$ is the amount of intrinsic excitation energy per emitted neutron. This is a free parameter and it was estimated from the systematics of production cross sections of transfermium nuclei produced in cold and hot fusion.

The unhindered fusion cross sections have been calculated using one-dimensional WKB approximation with Gaussian barrier width distribution GauBar  implemented into the statistical code HIVAP HIVAP . Such an approximation proved quite successful despite its simplicity. The depth of the nuclear potential well is taken as $`V_0`$=40 MeV, the half-density radius as $`r_0`$=1.11 fm and the diffuseness is set to $`d`$=0.75 fm. The width of barrier distribution ranges from 3 % for reactions with the doubly magic nucleus 208Pb to 5 % for reactions with heavy deformed nuclei away from the shell closure.

The survival probabilities were calculated using a conventional statistical calculation. The competition of fission vs particle emission was calculated using a modified version of HIVAP code HIVAP  with fission barriers expressed as CFull

$$B_\mathrm{f}(l)=C(B_\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{LD}}(l)+\mathrm{\Delta }B_\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{Shell}}).$$
(5)
The liquid drop component of the fission barrier ($`B_\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{LD}}`$) has been calculated according to the rotating charged liquid drop model of Cohen-Plasil-Swiatecki CO1 . The shell component of the fission barrier ($`\mathrm{\Delta }B_\mathrm{f}^{\mathrm{Shell}}`$) has been approximated by a value of the ground state shell correction taken from the calculation of Moller Mo95 . Such an approximation for the fission barriers proved successful for description of the evaporation residue cross sections in the region around neutron shell closure N=126 where the value of the parameter $`C`$ proved to be practically constant for the large set of evaporation residues with the values of the ground state shell correction ranging from zero up to 8 MeV CFull .

The shell corrections for transfermium nuclei are expected to be within the same range while the liquid drop fission barriers are virtually zero. The optimum values of parameter $`C`$, necessary to reproduce experimental cross sections of the evaporation residues with Z$`>`$100, are given in Figure 1 as a function of atomic number. One can see that the optimum values of $`C`$ for the hot fusion reactions remain stable within Z = 102 - 110. The value of $`C`$ = 0.8 - 0.9 is higher when compared to N=126 region and this difference could be most probably attributed to differences of saddle point configurations in both regions.

Unlike for the hot fusion products, the optimum values of the parameter $`C`$ for the cold fusion reactions with 208Pb target are increasingly falling out of systematics at Z $`>`$ 104 what can be attributed to emerging competition of the fusion with quasi-fission. Thus, the fusion probabilities for cold fusion were obtained by comparing the measured evaporation residue cross sections with those calculated using $`C`$ from the hot fusion systematics. The parametrization $`E_\mathrm{n}=3.795+0.04(A_{\mathrm{CN}}260)`$ for the parameter in the formula 2 was obtained and used in further calculation for nuclei with Z$`>`$110.

The alternative scenario of the fusion hindrance originating from tunneling through the barrier in the sub-barrier region seems to be contradiction with experimental ratios of the cross sections in 1n and 2n evaporation channels of reactions with 208Pb target Z112Cold  which increase from about 0.1 for 48Ca-beam ( Z=102 ) to 10 for 58Fe-beam ( Z=108 ). Such a situation suggests that even at excitation energies corresponding to 1n channel the reaction can not be considered of a sub-barrier type.

Table 1 gives the production cross sections of several new superheavy nuclei Z112Vass ; Z114Vass ; Z114GNS ; Z116GNS , reported since our initial article MVSHE  was published, compared to the maximum evaporation residue cross sections in xn channels estimated in MVSHE . No angular momentum dependence for description of the scission point was assumed and the cross sections were evaluated in the maxima of the excitation functions obtained from statistical calculations with no fusion hindrance assumed. One can see that the calculation predicted production cross sections rather well for the reaction 48Ca+238U. For heavier systems the estimated cross sections are lower by up to one order of magnitude since calculation exhibits systematic shift in the dominating xn evaporation residue channel toward higher number of emitted neutrons. The discrepancy observed can be attributed to the simplification used in the initial calculation where the unhindered maximum production cross sections obtained using HIVAP code were multiplied by the fusion probabilities with no angular momentum dependence assumed. Recently, the calculation was corrected MVPrgRep  by implementing an angular momentum into the description of the compound nucleus and scission configuration and by introducing the fusion probability calculation for each partial wave into HIVAP code. The moment of inertia of symmetric touching rigid spheres was used for the scission configuration. An improved version of HIVAP code uses the fusion probability for each partial wave as a multiplication factor to the unhindered fusion cross section. This allows to obtain more realistic shapes of excitation functions for evaporation residue channels.

In Table 2 are again given production cross sections of the recently synthesized superheavy nuclei, compared to the results of improved calculation MVPrgRep . The production cross sections track quite well with the reported ones. New calculation reproduces reasonably well not only the absolute values but also the positions of the maxima and thus promises possibility for further estimates. Concerning the recently reported Z118BGS  ( and more recently corrected Z118Ret  ) experimental results from the reaction 86Kr+208Pb, the calculation ( as published in MVPrgRep  ) lead to estimated production cross section for 1n channel of approximately 10-4 pb. Such a value was in contradiction with initial experimental cross section value 2.2 pb Z118BGS  but it is consistent with the corrected experimental results. As stated above, the parametrization of $`E_\mathrm{n}`$ used was obtained using data from cold fusion only and thus the estimated cross section for cold fusion is practically just an extrapolation of cross section trend. In any case, significant success of the extrapolation when used for hot fusion reactions virtually justifies its validity also for cold fusion reactions. Therefore, the cold fusion reactions do not seem to offer much promise for further progress in the synthesis of superheavy nuclei.

In Table 3 are given predictions for several reactions which may lead to the synthesis of even heavier nuclei. An improved calculation MVPrgRep  was used in this case. Only reactions of stable beams with stable or long-lived targets have been taken into account. The reactions 48Ca+249Cf and 58Fe+238U give promise for the synthesis of the isotope 292,293118 on the cross section level of 0.1-0.2 pb which seems to be an experimental limit for the foreseeable future. Compared to the system 58Fe+238U, the choice of heavier projectile 64Ni or target 244Pu leads to the drop of cross section by one and half orders of magnitude. It is necessary to note that the quality of the estimate directly depends on the prediction of the masses and ground state shell corrections Mo95  used in the calculation. The results given in Table 2 suggest that the masses and ground state shell corrections used are quite realistic. Nevertheless, any discrepancies in further extrapolation will affect the cross section estimates significantly.

## Capture cross sections

In order to understand the competition of the fusion and quasi-fission it is of great interest to investigate also the measured cross sections of the fusion-fission and quasi-fission. Such an analysis was performed on the data on measured capture cross sections Itkis  ( defined in the experiment as the cross section of the fission events with the total kinetic energy and fragment masses outside of the quasi-elastic/deep-inelastic region of the TKE vs mass matrix ). The experimental setup used was optimized to detect fusion-fission for each specific reactions. A comparison of the experimentally determined capture cross sections Itkis  to the calculated unhindered fusion cross sections GauBar  and fusion probabilities MVSHE ; MVPrgRep  is presented in Figures 2,3. As one can see from the Fig. 2 the calculated fusion cross sections track very well with the measured capture cross sections for the reactions 48Ca+208Pb and 58Ca+208Pb. For the heavier systems the measured capture cross sections become smaller than the calculated fusion cross sections. Such an effect appears to increase with decrease of the excitation energy of the compound nucleus. One can assume that such a discrepancy can be related to decrease of the fusion probability for the heavier systems. Such an assumption is examined in the Fig. 3 where the ratio of the measured capture cross section to the calculated unhindered fusion cross sections is represented as a function of the fusion probability calculated as in MVPrgRep . One can observe a surprising abrupt disappearance of the measured capture cross section at fusion probabilities below 10-6. Such an abrupt disappearance of the measured capture cross section when compared to the calculated fusion cross section seems to be rather global and it may indicate a dramatic change of the properties of reaction products due to different dynamical evolution. A possibility to explain the trend qualitatively is presented in Figure 4 in the framework of ”toy model” mimicking a competition of multi-step dynamical evolution toward fusion with a possibility of irreversible exit into the quasi-fission channel at each step. Fusion probability is treated as a product of N elementary sub-probabilities P(i) corresponding to elementary steps of the evolution toward fusion. The probability for the first step P(1) is assumed one, later the probability decreases linearly until it reaches minimum halfway toward fusion, then the probability starts to increase linearly and the probability of the last step is again assumed one. At each step, the quantity 1-P(i) can be considered the probability of exit into quasi-fission channel. The resulting exit channel probability density of fusion–quasi-fission competition with 100 steps is superimposed onto the exit channel probability density of another process with the exit channel probability density quickly exponentially decreasing with step number. The latter process is considered 10 times more frequent. Such a procedure can simulate an interplay with the quasi-elastic/deep-inelastic reactions occurring at the partial waves close to the grazing angular momentum ( and thus with higher cross section ). As one can see with decreasing fusion probability the exit channel probability densities of two processes increasingly overlap and at some point can not be decomposed anymore. This can be a qualitative explanation for the situation in Fig. 3 where the measured capture cross-section initially tracks with the calculated fusion cross section but at some point this correspondence disrupts abruptly. In the realistic process leading to either fusion or quasi-fission, the concentration of the probability density at the early stage of dynamical evolution may lead to kinematic properties of the fission fragments very different from the fusion-fission. Such a fragments can become undetectable using a given experimental setup optimized for detection of the fusion-fission products. In any case the disappearance of the measured capture cross sections in a given case can be understood as a signature of the interconnection of the fusion and the quasi-fission processes within the concept of their competition during the multi-step dynamical evolution of the system.

## Symmetric systems

Of great interest for the future prospects of synthesis of superheavy nuclei is the understanding of reaction dynamics in the case where both projectile and target are of comparable size. In order to investigate a possible fusion hindrance originating from increasing symmetry of the projectile-target system we compared the calculated evaporation residue cross section in the four reactions leading to compound nucleus 246Fm to the experimental cross sections from the work of Gaeggeler et al. Gaegg . The calculation used was identical to MVPrgRep . The result is presented in the Table 4. When looking at the results and taking into account the systematics in Fig. 1 where fusion hindrance occurs for cold fusion of compound nuclei with Z$`>`$104, one can assume that there appear to exist additional fusion hindrances which emerge with increasing symmetry of the reaction.

In order to understand a possible nature of such hindrances we carried out an analysis of the data in the Pb-U region Morawek ; Quint . Using the fusion model with WKB and Gaussian barrier distribution GauBar  and fission channel parameters from the systematics for given region CFull  ( $`C`$ $``$ 0.65 ) we observe an interesting behavior ( see Fig. 5 ). For the reaction 100Mo+100Mo the evaporation residue cross section is described well. In the transition to 110Pd+110Pd there is an increasing hindrance at low excitation energies. The hindrance factor seems to increase with decreasing excitation energy. To some surprise, the same effect can be seen also in the transition from 100Mo+100Mo to 100Mo+92Mo ( lighter system but with higher fissility ). Also of interest is the fact that experimental cross section data for Pd+Ru and Pd+Pd systems are only in the region above calculated fusion barrier where calculated fusion cross remain stable but disappear in the sub-barrier region where calculated cross sections start to drop quickly.

In order to test the fusion cross section model, the measured and calculated xn evaporation cross section for four systems leading to compound nucleus 220Th ( 40Ar+180Hf Vermeulen , 124Sn+96Zr Sahm1 , 48Ca+172Yt and 70Zn+150Gd Peter  ) are given in the Fig. 6. The calculations have been performed using HIVAP code. The barrier distribution widths GauBar  used comply to the usual prescription ( 5 % for Ar+Hf, Ca+Yt and Zn+Gd since ( heavy ) target is deformed and 4 % for Sn+Zr since ( heavier ) projectile is close to spherical ). The shapes of xn excitation functions are reproduced reasonably well, especially the ascending/barrier part and the maximum of xn excitation functions are reproduced acceptably. The fission barrier scaling parameter $`C`$ CFull  was equal for Ar+Hf and Ca+Yt ( $`C`$=0.67 ) and Zn+Gd and Sn+Zr ( $`C`$=0.61 ). The discrepancy in $`C`$ is not fully compliant with the concept of compound nucleus, since it should be the same in all cases. Most probably it is caused by the irregularities in alpha-emission where especially in the symmetric systems the memory of the entrance channel ( e.g. deformation ) may lead to enhanced emission of the alpha-particles and thus to reduction of xn cross sections. Experimental alpha-particle emission spectra AlVaz  suggest alpha emission barriers of about 90 % of the alpha-particle fusion barrier what is also used in calculations but such a prescription is rather simplistic and may not account for dynamical effects in symmetric reactions. Apart from entrance channel memory, an admixture from incomplete fusion channels with emission of alpha-particle is also possible. More detailed data will be necessary for complete understanding of the phenomena. In any case, the description of the fusion barrier by the approximation employed can be considered adequate.

Further comparisons of the calculated and experimental evaporation residue cross sections for reactions leading to various Th compound nuclei are given in Fig. 7. The maximum cross sections for various xn evaporation channels are considered. For the compound system 214Th where one can see a strong hindrance for reaction 110Pd+104Ru ( see Fig. 5 ) the same can not be concluded for the reaction 124Sn+90Zr Sahm2 . Also, for Th compound nuclei ranging from 214Th to 222Th no hindrance can be observed for reactions including 32S+182W Mitsuoka1 , 60Ni+154Sm Mitsuoka1 , 64Ni+154Sm Mitsuoka2  and 86Kr+136Xe Sagaidak . For 86Kr+136Xe data the xn cross sections are practically constant from 1n to 6n channel what is in conflict with extra-push theory XPush . As in the previous case the fission barrier scaling parameter $`C`$ varied from 0.6 to 0.67 and emission barriers were 10 % lower than fusion barriers for a given light charged particle. The widths of the fusion barrier distribution were consistent to above prescription. As one can see from Figs. 6 and 7, statistical model calculation with fission barriers compliant to the formula 5 ( giving equally good description for nuclei with and without strong g.s. shell corrections CFull  ) and with fusion cross section calculated using one-dimensional WKB approximation with fusion barrier distribution provides very consistent description of the evaporation residue cross sections virtually without using free parameters. No fusion hindrance can be observed for a wide range of compound nuclei. Thus one can conclude that the fusion hindrance in Th-region takes place only for the reactions leading to highly fissile compound nuclei with projectile-target asymmetry in narrow region close to zero.

When looking for an explanation of the above behavior one can turn attention to the properties of the fission fragments in the given region. Recent studies of low energy fission in Ac-U region FissKHS ; FissTx  show that there is a systematic transition from asymmetric to symmetric fission around the mass 222-226. The Th compound nuclei studied above all fall into the region with symmetric fission mode. Thus, one can assume that an additional fission hindrance appears when the asymmetry of fusion channel is close to the asymmetry of fission channel. There, one can assume that immediate fission is highly favored dynamically over the long evolution toward fusion. For the heavier nuclei with masses above 226 the dominant fission mode at low excitation energies is the mode where one fragment ( heavier one for lighter nuclei and lighter one for very heavy nuclei ) is of the mass approximately 132 and the mass of the other fragment increases linearly with the mass of fissioning system Itkis . The reaction 136Xe+110Pd studied by Gaeggeler et al. Gaegg  is virtually an inverse fission and a dynamical fusion hindrance can be understood there. The reactions 76Ge+170Kr, 86Kr+160Gd are far away from the main fission mode but still match the super-asymmetric mode ( with the maximum yiels of light fragment positioned around 82Ge ) which is usually necessary to reproduce the experimental mass distributions Rubch . Thus, the knowledge of fission modes in transfermium region seems to be an essential information for the study of fusion probability. An interesting test for such an assumption would be a reaction 132Sn+96Zr leading to compound nucleus 228Th which fissions asymmetrically and thus it would be an inverse fission again and hindrance factors should appear. The non-hindered cross sections can be expected in mb region so already a relatively moderate beam of 132Sn may be sufficient to show discrepancy. The use of radioactive beam is essential in this case since no symmetric combination of the stable beam and target appears to reach Th isotopes beyond 222.

## Summary and conclusions

In summary, the possibilities for synthesis of new superheavy elements using stable or long-lived projectiles and targets seem to be rather restricted. The parametrization of model parameters able to reproduce existing experimental results predicts a possibility to synthesize isotopes of element 118 in hot fusion reactions at the cross section level 0.1 pb. Concerning the nature of the process, the analysis of the measured cross sections suggests that the competition of fusion and quasi-fission is a multi-step dynamical process and that the low fusion probability is consistent with the fast re-separation of the reacting system even at low partial waves. For symmetric systems where the asymmetry of the projectile-target combination approaches the asymmetry of the fission channel an additional fusion hindrance caused by dynamical dominance of immediate re-separation into the fission channel over long evolution toward complete fusion seems to take place. Such a dynamical hindrance can strongly reduce the possible pathways toward superheavy elements. A knowledge on fission fragment asymmetry seems to be essential for further studies of synthesis of superheavy elements.

The author would like to thank S. Hofmann, A.V. Yeremin, J. Peter, R. Smolanczuk, G. Chubarian, E.M. Kozulin, W. Loveland and G.A. Souliotis for fruitful discussions. Furthermore, the author would like to thank Yu.Ts. Oganessian and M.G. Itkis for their interest to this work. This work was supported through grant VEGA-2/1132/21.