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# Fiber products of hyperelliptic curves

Let $`k`$ be a number field, and let $`S`$ be a finite set of maximal ideals of the ring of integers $`𝒪_k`$ of $`k`$. In his 1962 ICM address, Shafarevich  asked if there are only finitely many $`k`$-isomorphism classes of algebraic curves of a fixed genus $`g1`$ with good reduction outside $`S`$. He verified this for $`g=1`$ by reducing the problem to Siegel’s theorem. Parshin  extended this argument to all hyperelliptic curves (cf. also ). The general case was settled by Faltings’ celebrated work . In this note we give a short proof of Shafarevich’s conjecture for hyperelliptic curves, by reducing the problem to the case $`g=1`$ using the Theorem of de Franchis plus standard facts about discriminants of hyperelliptic equations.

Let $`k,𝒪_k`$ and $`S`$ be as above. Enlarge $`S`$ by a finite number of maximal ideals if necessary, so that

* $`S`$ contains every maximal ideal of $`𝒪_k`$ lying above $`2`$; and
* the ring $`𝒪_S`$ of $`S`$-integers in $`k`$ is a principal ring.

Denote by $`k_𝔭`$ the residue field of a maximal ideal $`𝔭`$ of $`𝒪_S`$. Denote by $`\overline{F}`$ a separable closure of a field $`F`$.

Fix an integer $`g2`$. Denote by $`k(g,S)`$ the compositum of all extensions of $`k`$ of degree dividing $`(2g+2)!`$ which are unramified outside $`S`$. By Hermite’s theorem, $`k(g,S)/k`$ is a finite extension. To prove Shafarevich’s Conjecture for hyperelliptic curves we proceed by induction on $`g`$, assuming as known the case $`g=1`$. Following Lockhart , we say that a hyperelliptic curve over $`k`$ is pointed if it has a $`k`$-rational Weierstrass point.

Denote by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S)`$ the set of hyperelliptic curves over $`k`$ of genus $`g`$ with good reduction outside $`S`$. Define $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)=\{X\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S):X\text{ is pointed over }k\}`$.

###### Lemma.

Let $`g2`$. To prove that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S)`$ is finite for every $`k`$ and $`S`$, it suffices to prove that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)`$ is finite for every $`k`$ and $`S`$.

###### Proof.

If $`X/k`$ is a curve of genus $`2`$, then $`\text{Aut}_{k(g,S)}(X)`$ is finite, and hence so does $`H^1(\text{Gal}(k(g,S)/k),\text{Aut}_{k(g,S)}(X))`$. Thus there are at most finitely many $`k`$-isomorphism classes of curves over $`k`$ which become isomorphic to $`X`$ over $`k(g,S)`$. To prove the lemma it then suffices to show that the Weierstrass points of every curve $`X\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S)`$ are defined over $`k(g,S)`$.

Pick $`X\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S)`$. As $`2`$ is a unit in $`𝒪_S`$ and $`X/k`$ has good reduction outside $`S`$, for every maximal ideal $`𝔭`$ of $`𝒪_S`$ the reduction mod $`𝔭`$ map induces a bijection between the Weierstrass points of $`X/\overline{k}`$ and those of $`X/\overline{k_𝔭}`$. Then the (conjugacy class of the) inertia group $`I_𝔭`$ of $`𝔭`$ in $`\text{Gal}(\overline{k}/k)`$ acts trivially on the Weierstrass points of $`X/\overline{k}`$, since $`I_𝔭`$ acts trivially on $`k_𝔭`$. There are exactly $`2g+2`$ such points, so we are done. ∎

Let $`g2`$. We now show that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)`$ is finite for all $`k`$ and for all $`S`$ satisfying (i) and (ii). Assume as inductive hypothesis that this is so for curves of positive genus $`<g`$, the case $`g=2`$ being taken care of by Shafarevich . Let $`X/k`$ be a pointed hyperelliptic curve of genus $`g`$. By \[3, Cor. 2.10\] and by our choice of $`S`$, there exists a model for $`X`$ of the form $`𝒞_X:y^2+yQ(x)=P(x)`$ with $`Q,P𝒪_S[x],\mathrm{deg}P=2g+1`$, and $`\mathrm{deg}Qg`$, such that for any maximal ideal $`𝔭𝒪_k`$ not in $`S`$, the curve $`X`$ has bad reduction at $`𝔭`$ if and only if the discriminant $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒞_X):=2^{4g}\text{disc}(P(x)+\frac{1}{4}Q(x)^2)`$ of the model $`𝒞_X`$ (cf. \[3, $`\mathrm{\S }1`$\]) is divisible by $`𝔭`$, viewed as a maximal ideal in $`𝒪_S`$. Furthermore, since $`2`$ is a unit in $`𝒪_S`$, by completing the square we can assume that $`Q=0`$. So if $`X`$ has good reduction outside $`S`$, then the principal ideal $`\text{disc}(P)𝒪_S`$ is equal to $`𝒪_S`$, and the polynomial $`Pk[x]`$ splits completely over $`K^{}=k(g,S)`$. Without loss of generality we can assume that $`P(0)0`$. Let $`R(z)=z^{2g+2}P(1/z)`$. Then $`y^2=R(z)`$ is another model of $`X`$ over $`𝒪_S`$, we have $`\mathrm{deg}R=2g+2`$, and $`R`$ splits completely over $`K^{}`$. Thus we can write (not uniquely) $`R=R_1R_2`$, where $`R_iK^{}[x]`$ and $`\mathrm{deg}R_1=3,\mathrm{deg}R_2=2g1`$. Denote by $`S^{}`$ the set of primes of $`K^{}`$ lying above those in $`S`$. From the discriminants of $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$ we see that the two $`K^{}`$-rational hyperelliptic curves $`X_i:y^2=R_i(z)`$ have good reduction outside $`S^{}`$. Moreover, both $`X_i`$ are pointed over $`K^{}`$, and their genus are both positive and are less than that of $`C`$. By induction there are at most finitely many $`K^{}`$-isomorphism classes of such $`X_i/K^{}`$.

Denote by $`X_3/K^{}`$ the fiber product $`X_1\times _{𝐏_K^{}^1}X_2`$ with respect to the hyperelliptic involutions $`X_i𝐏_K^{}^1`$. An affine coordinate ring for $`X_3/K^{}`$ is $`A=K^{}[z,\sqrt{R_1}]_{K^{}[z]}K^{}[z,\sqrt{R_2}]`$. It contains a subring isomorphic to $`K^{}[z,\sqrt{R_1R_2}]`$, which is an affine coordinate ring for $`X/K^{}`$. Moreover, $`K^{}`$ is algebraically closed in the field of fraction of $`A`$. Consequently, if we denote by $`X_3^{}/K^{}`$ the smooth model of $`X_3/K^{}`$, there is a non-trivial $`K^{}`$-morphism $`X_3^{}X`$. The Riemann-Hurwitz formula then implies that $`X_3^{}`$ has genus $`2`$ since $`X`$ does.

To recapitulate, with $`k,S`$ and $`g2`$ as above, there exists a finite collection $`\mathrm{\Xi }(K^{},g,s)`$ of smooth curves over $`K^{}`$ of genus $`2`$, such that every $`X\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)`$ when based changed to $`K^{}`$ is the $`K^{}`$-image of some $`X_3^{}\mathrm{\Xi }(K^{},g,S)`$. By the Theorem of de Franchis , there are at most finitely many $`\overline{K^{}}`$-isomorphism classes of pairs $`(\pi ,Z)`$, where $`Z`$ is a smooth projective curve of genus $`2`$ over $`\overline{K^{}}`$, and $`\pi :X_3^{}Z`$ is a non-trivial map over $`\overline{K^{}}`$. The same finiteness conclusion then holds if we replace $`\overline{K^{}}`$ by $`K^{}`$, since the automorphism group of any curve of genus $`2`$ is finite. Consequently, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)`$ falls into finitely many $`K^{}`$-isomorphism classes. Invoke the $`H^1`$-finiteness argument in the proof of the Lemma and we get the finiteness of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(k,g,S)`$ for all $`k`$ and $`S`$. Apply the Lemma and we get the finiteness of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,g,S)`$ for all $`k`$ and $`S`$, as desired.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Magnetars exhibit a variety of revealing properties: They generate soft gamma ray bursts (SGR events) which typically last $`80200`$ ms, and in extreme cases have super-Eddington luminosities, up to $`10^7L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$. The brightest of these events reach peak luminosity within several milliseconds to a few seconds, and have observable tails that taper off within a few seconds to hundreds of seconds. This prompt burst emission is followed by short term X-ray afterglows lasting thousands of seconds, and, in some cases, longer term X-ray afterglows which persist for weeks or longer. Three AXP’s have been discovered to emit optical and infra-red emission (Hulleman et al. 2000, 2001; Wang & Chakrabarty 2002). In one case, the optical emission is pulsed at the frequency observed in the X-ray bandpass (Kern & Martin 2002) and two other AXPs have shown longer timescale variability (of order weeks) in their IR flux coincident with episodes of burst activity (Kaspi et al. 2002a; Israel et al. 2002).

The light curve of some of the largest SGR bursts has been explained as a magnetically trapped pair fireball that shrinks to vanishing size (Thompson & Duncan 1995; Feroci et al. 2001). Usov (2001) has proposed that it is due to the cooling of a strange quark star surface just after heating by a GRB. Long term, transient X-ray afterglow has now been seen on two occasions from 1900+14, following large flares on Aug. 27, 1998 and April 18, 2001. The longest decay so far has been observed from 1627-41, lasting about 3 years (Kouveliotou et al., in preparation). The recent bursts from AXP 2259+586 also show prolonged X-ray afterglow (Kaspi, Gavriil & Woods 2002a,b).

Transient afterglow from neutron star surfaces following episodic energy releases was suggested by Eichler and Cheng (1989). Such emission could be useful for probing the crust of the neutron star as well as the depth of the energy release. There can be uplifting of surface material following a sufficiently powerful release of energy just below the surface, which is then radiated outward as short term afterglow. If the total energy release is sufficiently powerful and deep, then, although most of the heat is sucked into the star, some transient afterglow may be observed for weeks or months. The heat that is absorbed by the star reemerges as steady emission over human timescales.

Afterglow radiation also contains clues about the mechanism of SGR bursts: in particular, it is sensitive to the temperature to which the magnetosphere is heated during a burst (Thompson and Duncan 1995) and the manner in which the rigid crust of the star yields to magnetic stresses (Lyubarsky, Eichler, and Thompson 2002). The short term afterglow, with an observed $`t^{0.6}`$ power law, can be explained as the cooling of a pair-supported surface layer which is heated by exposure to an external fireball, and uplifted immediately thereafter. (Thompson, Woods, Eichler & Lyubarsky, in preparation). Heat deposited at depth (or conducted inward) may also contribute significantly to the persistent X-ray emission of magnetars: for example, the energy of a giant flare is roughly comparable to the persistent emission of the SGR integrated over its observed history.

The nonthermal infra-red and optical emission may be an important clue about relaxation of the magnetosphere. Eichler, Gedalin & Lyubarsky (2002) suggested that the infra-red and optical emission may be generated by coherent plasma processes in the magnetospheres of magnetars much as coherent radio emission is generated in pulsar magnetospheres.

## 2 Thermal relaxation of the crust and afterglows.

A soft gamma ray burst may involve not only a rearrangement of the magnetic field outside the neutron star, but also motion, deformation, and attendant heating of the crust itself. The timescale of any afterglow so induced depends on the depth to which the crust’s temperature is significantly raised by the SGR event. In order to study cooling of the magnetar crust, let us assume a deposition of thermal energy density of $`1\times 10^{25}`$ erg cm-3. This is near the maximum for which neutrino losses can be neglected, and it is comparable to the ratio of the flare energy ($`1\times 10^{44}`$ ergs) to the volume of the neutron star. Within the crust, this energy density is less than a percent of $`B^2/8\pi `$, but greater than the pre-existing thermal energy density at depths less than $`z_{heat}300`$ m (for a likely internal temperature of $`57\times 10^8K`$; Thompson and Duncan 1996). If deposited over the entire surface and to a depth of $`500`$ m, this energy density implies a total energy of a few times the measured Aug. 27 afterglow energy. A characteristic feature of this heating mechanism is that the post-burst temperature increases outward in the heated layer, due to the strong crustal density stratification and inward heat conduction.

In our model, which attributes the fading of the afterglow to the cooling of the magnetar surface, the key issue is the heat transfer below the surface. The super-strong magnetic field significantly affects the structure of the upper crust. The Landau energy is relativistic in a $`10^{15}`$ G magnetic field, $`E_L3B_{15}^{1/2}`$ MeV when $`BB_{QED}=4.4\times 10^{13}`$ G, and the electron Fermi energy, $`E_F`$, becomes comparable with the Landau energy only at a depth of $`100`$ m. At lesser depths electrons are one-dimensional.

Below a depth of a few meters, the heat is transferred by degenerate electrons. We calculated the electron thermal conductivity making use of the code developed by Potekhin (1999). The electron thermal conductivity, $`\kappa `$, has a prominent peak when $`E_F`$ is about the Landau energy. At larger density, $`\kappa `$ decreases, reaches a minimum when electrons become effectively 3-dimensional (at $`z2z_1`$) and then grows slowly, as in the nonmagnetized case. At small densities (at $`z<z_1`$), $`\kappa `$ rapidly decreases so that close to the surface the heat transfer is dominated by radiation. Close to the surface, $`\kappa `$ is so small that the heat resistance of the crust is dominated by the upper few meters. The outgoing thermal flux is formed within a “sensitivity strip” where the radiation thermal conductivities become comparable with the electron ones (Gudmundsson et al. 1983; Ventura & Potekhin 2001).

We have developed a code for simulations of time-dependent, one-dimensional heat transfer within the crust of the magnetar. The calculated outgoing flux is plotted, as a function of time, in Fig. 1 together with the data points obtained by Woods et al. (2001). The initial temperature distributions in curves 1 through 4 correspond to uniform heat density, with $`T`$ decreasing inward until it matched onto the initial (internal) value $`T_{int}`$. The heat density was normalized by the temperature $`T_{max}`$ at the bottom boundary of the skin zone. The remaining two curves show that the results are rather robust to varying the initial conditions. A slight “knee” occurs when the temperature maximum passes the minimum of the electron conductivity (at a few times $`10^4`$ s for $`B=10^{15}`$ G). Beyond this break, the light curve has a slope which is independent of $`B`$, because the thermal conductivity at greater depths approaches the $`B=0`$ value. An “ankle” can occur beyond $`10^6`$ s, when the temperature maximum merges with the interior region of almost constant temperature.

We find that the transient X-ray light curve of SGR 1900+14 in the 40 days following the Aug. 27 event is consistent with the hypothesis that the SGR is a magnetar made of otherwise normal material. While there may be some freedom in choosing the heat deposition profile, the 40 day timescale is consistent with the basic physics of an outer crustal layer which is supported by relativistic degenerate electrons against gravity, and the heat capacity and conductivity increase considerably with depth. The power law index of the decay, though certainly inconsistent with a constant initial temperature, is found to be weakly sensitive to the exact initial temperature profile: on timescales more than a few days, the deeper layers are in any case cooled by inward conduction. Qualitatively, this causes all but $`20`$ percent of the heat to be sucked into the star and reradiated only over much longer timescales as surface X-ray emission or neutrinos. The resulting transient afterglow emission is $`1`$ percent of the flare energy, as observed (Woods et al. 2001), if the initial thermal energy density in the crust is comparable to the ratio of the flare energy to the volume of the neutron star. This is also consistent with the observation that the time integrated luminosity of the SGR is dominated by steady emission rather than by the decaying post-burst flux.

## 3 Short Term Afterglow: Cooling of the Pair Supported Atmosphere

The magnetically trapped fireball heats the surface layers of the crust and the absorbed heat is reradiated by surface photon emission after the the fireball has dissipated. The temperature of the fireball reaches about 1 MeV for the strong bursts; photons diffuse into the crust and heat up the surface layer of the depth about $`10^910^{10}`$ g/cm2 (Thompson & Duncan 1995). This temperature is just enough to dissociate nuclei (including 4He). While the temperature is kept at 1 MeV by heating from above, the pressure is increased significantly over the initial hydrostatic pressure. This indicates that, in this conductive layer, the enthalpy per nucleon decreases with depth. After the hot magnetospheric plasma dissipates, the heated layer immediately expands, and the atmosphere is supported by the thermal pressure of the electron-positron pairs. The temperature is now low enough ($`kT0.1`$-$`0.5m_ec^2`$) that helium quickly recombines, releasing up to $`7`$ MeV per nucleon. We assume here that most of the nuclear dissociation energy is restored before radiative cooling is complete. (See Thompson et al. 2003 for a more detailed dicussion.) In this situation, the total extractable energy per nucleon $`\epsilon `$ is constrained to a dynamic range of several: it is unlikely to be more than tens of MeV, in the absence of fine tuning, since otherwise the material would be blown off the star. To summarize the above, $`\epsilon `$ is likely to lie in the range of a few to tens of MeV per nucleon, and to decrease slowly with depth. We normalize the column of material to an effective Thomson depth $`\tau _T=Y_e\sigma _T\mathrm{\Sigma }/m_p=(Y_e\sigma _T/m_p)_0^z\rho (z^{})𝑑z^{}`$ and choose $`\epsilon (\tau _T)=\epsilon _0(\tau _T/\tau _{T,0})^\delta `$.

The atmosphere cools by photon diffusion. This process may be envisioned as a cooling wave, i.e. an entropy discontinuity at depth $`z^{}(t)`$, which propagates inwards. We assume the strong magnetization provides stability against convection. A detailed analysis shows that the pair-rich zone is unstable to the formation of an annihilation front, above which (at $`zz^{}`$) the medium is essentially pair free (Thompson et al. 2003). Its specific enthalpy is well below that of the pair supported region, so that the flux which enters it from below mostly leaves the surface, and can therefore be taken to be constant at $`zz^{}`$. At the front of the wave, the annihilating pairs release the energy $`\epsilon `$ per nucleon, so that this constant flux is just

$$F=\frac{\epsilon }{m_p}\frac{d\mathrm{\Sigma }(z^{})}{dt}.$$
(1)
A detailed calculation shows that the temperature above the annihilation front varies slowly with depth, $`TT_0(\tau _T/\tau _{T,0})^\gamma `$, with index $`\gamma \frac{1}{5}`$ and normalization $`kT_0\frac{1}{7}m_ec^2`$ at $`\tau _{T,0}=10^8`$. Therefore the outgoing flux varies with time mainly because the column of matter above the cooling wave front $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(z^{})`$ increases with time.

In the super strong magnetic field, the radiation energy transfer is dominated by the extraordinary photons; their free path is very high and the Rosseland mean scattering cross-section is written as $`\sigma (T,B)=4\pi ^2\sigma _T(kT/m_ec^2)^2(B_{QED}/B)^2`$ (Silant’ev & Yakovlev 1980). The outgoing flux is

$$F=\frac{m_pc}{3Y_e\sigma (B,T)}\frac{U}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=\frac{F_0}{\tau _T}\left(\frac{B}{B_{QED}}\frac{T}{T_0}\right)^2,$$
(2)
where $`U(T)=(1/2)aT^4`$ is the energy density of the extraordinary photons, and $`F_0=acT_0^2(m_ec^2/k_B)^2/12\pi ^2`$. The energy balance equation (1) is now a differential equation for $`\tau _T[z^{}(t)]`$. With the above scaling between $`\epsilon `$ and $`\tau _T`$, one finds $`\tau _T[z^{}(t)]/\tau _{T,0}=[\left(\frac{8}{5}\delta \right)(Y_e/\tau _{T,0}^2)(B/B_{QED})^2(F_0\sigma _T/\epsilon _0)t]^{1/(8/5\delta )}`$, and

$$\frac{F}{F_0}=\left(\frac{B}{B_{QED}}\right)^{10(1\delta )/(85\delta )}\tau _{T,0}^{(5\delta 2)/(85\delta )}\left[\left(\frac{8}{5}\delta \right)\frac{Y_eF_0\sigma _T}{\epsilon _0}t\right]^{3/(85\delta )}.$$
(3)
For $`0.4\delta 0.75`$, the obtained dependence of the outgoing flux on time is close to the overall $`t^{0.6}`$ dependence (with slight fluctuations in the spectral index of order $`0.1`$) observed from 1900+14 over $`10^3`$ s following the Aug 29, 1998 burst (Ibrahim et al. 2001, Lenters et al. 2003). The large temperature ($`kT_{bb}4`$ keV) of that afterglow at $`10`$ s following the burst points to a small radiative area (about 1 percent of the surface area of a neutron star) and a radiative flux $`2\times 10^{26}(kT_{bb}/4\mathrm{keV})^4`$ erg cm-2 s-1. This implies

$$\frac{B}{B_{QED}}10\left(\frac{\epsilon _0}{10\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}\right)^{3/4}\left(\frac{kT_{bb}}{4\mathrm{keV}}\right)^5,$$
(4)
assuming $`\delta =0.6`$.

## 4 Coherent Emission from Magnetars

Magnetars, it has been proposed (Thompson & Duncan 1996; Thompson, Lyutikov & Kulkarni, 2002), have twisted magnetic loops in their magnetospheres. Most of the time, the thermal scale height of their atmospheres is too low to populate the magnetosphere with thermal plasma. On the other hand, magnetospheric currents can easily be drawn out of the surface of the star from at least one of the footpoints. A modest rate of magnetic field dissipation ($`d\mathrm{ln}B/dt1/10^2`$yr) yields a sufficient potential drop across the length of the loop to create enough plasma to short out any larger potential drop. The density of plasma so estimated is many orders of magnitude larger than that in pulsar magnetospheres. If pulsars can radiate coherently in the radio, this frequency being ultimately determined by the plasma frequency in the pulsar magnetosphere, then similar processes could occur in magnetar magnetospheres with the plasma frequency scaled up appropriately.

The total density must clearly be at least as high as the minimum to deliver the required current,

$$j=\frac{c}{4\pi }|\times 𝐁|ec\times [2\times 10^{17}\frac{B_{15}}{R_6}\mathrm{cm}^3]\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{NS}.$$
(5)
Here $`\theta `$ is the magnetic polar angle and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{NS}`$ is the relative twist (in radians) between the north and south magnetic poles. Because the above density greatly exceeds the co-rotation charge density, nearly equal numbers of positive and negative charges are required to avoid absurdly high electric fields. Positive charges may be supplied either by pulling ions off the surface of the star, or in situ through pair creation. In the second case, the particle density can exceed the above by a multiplicity factor $`\eta `$ (which may be quite large; e.g. Hibschmann & Arons 2001).

That a two-species plasma is needed suggests that there is counterstreaming between the positive and negative charges. This gives rise to a broad band two stream instability. The excited plasma waves may be converted into outgoing electromagnetic waves (see, e.g., Gedalin, Gruman & Melrose 2002; Lyubarsky 2002). Regardless of the details of any particular counterstreaming model for the coherent emission, escaping coherent radiation probably has a frequency of the order of the plasma frequency in the frame of the outflowing plasma, which gives a frequency in the observer frame of $`2\omega _p\gamma ^{1/2}`$, where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor, $`\omega _p(4\pi e^2n/m_e)^{1/2}`$, $`n`$ the plasma density in the laboratory frame, and $`m_e`$ the rest mass of the electron.

The characteristic Lorentz factor of the plasma may be estimated as that which will give rise to charges of both signs, which is a necessary condition for shorting out the strong electric fields that would otherwise obtain. To create a pair plasma in this situation, one probably requires resonant scattering of thermal X-ray photons that emerge from the star’s surface.111unless the magnetic field is extremely strong, $`B>10^{16}`$ G, and strongly sheared, in which case a pair corona can be maintained through multiple non-resonant Compton scattering (Thompson et al. 2002). In order to be resonantly scattered by a relativistic electron moving in its lowest Landau level, thermal photons of energy $`ϵ_\gamma `$ must have frequency of $`eB/m_ec`$ in the electron rest frame – just as in sub-QED magnetic fields. Therefore a Lorentz factor of $`\gamma (B/B_{QED})(m_ec^2/ϵ)10^3(10\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}/ϵ)B_{15}`$ is needed.

Making use of the above estimates for the plasma density and Lorentz factor, one finds the frequency for coherent emission,

$$\nu \frac{1}{\pi }\gamma ^{\frac{1}{2}}\omega _p2\times 10^{14}\left(\frac{\eta B_{15}\gamma _3}{R_6}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _{NS}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Hz}.$$
(6)
Near the surface, where $`B_{15}1`$ , this suggests emission in the near IR, optical, or even UV for high enough $`\eta `$ (Eichler, Gedalin and Lyubarsky, 2002). A twisted magnetic arch that protrudes from a magnetar surface could emit over a broad band, depending on the exact altitude of the emission. In the case where the current is supplied by electrons and ions, Lyutikov (2002) has suggested that coherent radio emission may be generated. (We note that strong emission at sub-millimeter wavelengths is plausible in this case.)

The coherent emission of pulsars is only a small fraction of the spin-down power, but it can be a much higher fraction of the power in polar currents, as the latter is itself only a small fraction of the total. By the same token, a considerable fraction of the long term magnetic energy dissipation in magnetars could end up as coherent electromagnetic emission; 1 to 10 percent is not unreasonable. A magnetar at a distance of up to 10 kpc could be detectable at 2.2 microns with imminent technology at a luminosity of $`10^{33}`$ erg/s ( $`10^2`$ of its persistent, pulsed X-ray flux). Such emission would almost certainly have the period of the magnetar, and would probably be polarized. In analogy to pulsars, where the direction of polarization can swing with pulse phase, the time-integrated polarization would probably be less than that at any instant, but it could nevertheless be non-zero.

Is the optical emission (Hulleman, van Kerkwijk & Kulkarni 2000) from the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U0142+61 coherent? On the one hand, this emission has been reported (Kern & Martin 2002) to have the periodicity of the AXP, which suggests that it arises from near the magnetar. With correction for reddening, the optical emission is about $`10^{32}(D/3Kpc)^2`$ erg/s, and, because the emitting surface is so small, it is almost certainly non-thermal. On the other hand, general energetic and thermodynamical considerations still allow incoherent optical emission from neutron star magnetospheres at detectable levels (Eichler & Beskin 2000): A brightness temperature of up to $`10^{12}(B/G)^{1/7}10^6T_{}`$K is allowable in the case of emission by electrons, and this can in principle provide detectable optical emission from very small emitting areas. (The optical pulsar in the Crab exemplifies this.) The lower limit on the size of the emitting region is likely to come, in the case of electrons, from the constraints on the field strength set by the emission frequency and other considerations. The frequency and luminosity of the AXP optical/IR emission are also consistent with incoherent cyclotron radiation from a corona of hot ions beyond the radius of fast cyclotron cooling (about $`30R_{NS}`$; Thompson et al. 2002).

Overall there are strong reasons to expect a substantial power in coherent plasma emission from the current-carrying magnetosphere of an AXP or SGR. Future tests that could conceivably establish coherence include a) ultra-fast photometry and polarimetry, which could reveal rapid time variability (micropulsation); b) pulsed infrared emission, which could set much higher floors for the brightness temperature; and c) polarization-time profiles, which could possibly distinguish between different coherent emission mechanisms. The peak frequency of this emission provides a strong diagnostic of the energy and composition of the charge carriers.

In conclusion, soft gamma ray repeaters and AXP’s display a rich variety of transient, non-$`\gamma `$-ray emission that may be caused or otherwise affected by the SGR events. They seem to be very nicely explained by the the very same hypotheses that explained the SGR events themselves: that they are neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields, that the SGR events are powered by magnetic energy release that can extend well into the neutron star crust, and that the magnetospheres are “twisted” and support long-lived currents. That the ultra-strong magnetic field $`10^{15}`$ G arises from quantitative fits to the data lends further support to the claim that the field is indeed so strong.

This research was supported by an Adler Fellowship from the Israel Science Foundation, the Arnow Chair of Theoretical Astrophysics, the Israel Ministry of Absorption, and the NSERC of Canada. We acknowledge helpful conversations with C. Kouveliotou.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The dynamics of a simple pendulum for small amplitudes is probably the most widely used example by educators to illustrate simple harmonic motion: Both the experiment and theory are accesible to college students. However the discussion of the large amplitude oscillations is rarely carried out, probably because there is no “simple” analytical formula for the period. Over the years several approximation schemes have been developed to discuss the large angle oscillations and in this paper we provide yet another. It turns out that the formula derived here, which is quite accurate even for very large amplitudes, was obtained a long time ago by Ganley  using a very different method. However, while the final result is the same, the derivation here is probably simpler and also directly linked to the usual derivation for the linearised pendulum. Indeed, the interested reader could potentially use the presentation here as the starting point for a systematic improvement of the formula. Furthermore, an important difference between the result of Ganley and that obtained in this paper is mentioned at the end of the next section.

## 2 Approximation Scheme

The equation of motion for the simple pendulum can be derived by applying Newton’s Second Law to motion along the tangential direction of the arc, giving

$$\ddot{\theta }+\frac{g}{l}\mathrm{sin}\theta =0,$$
(1)
where $`l`$ is the length of the pendulum, $`g`$ the acceleration due to gravity and $`\theta `$ the angular displacemnent. The usual linearised approximation involves replacing $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ by $`\theta `$. Let $`g/l=\omega _0^2`$, so that the period, $`T_0`$, of a linear pendulum is $`T_0=2\pi (\omega _0^2)^{1/2}=\frac{2\pi }{\omega _0}`$, which up to a constant of proportionality is the unique expression obtained by dimensional analysis. Indeed, by dimensional analysis the period of the non-linear pendulum must be of the form

$$T_a=T_0f(\alpha ),$$
(2)
where $`\alpha `$ is the amplitude of oscillations and $`f(\alpha )`$ a function to be determined. An approximate expression for $`f(\alpha )`$ can be obtained by first rewriting the equation of motion in the suggestive form

$$\ddot{\theta }+\omega _0^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\theta )}{\theta }\right)\theta =0.$$
(3)
If one could treat the term in brackets as a constant, as it approximately is for small angles, then an attempted estimate of the period of the non-linear pendulum would be $`T_a2\pi \left(\omega _0^2\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\theta )}{\theta }\right)^{1/2}`$. Of course this formula does not make much sense as it stands since the period cannot depend on the angular displacement: The varying $`\theta `$ should be replaced by some ”average” value $`\beta `$ that depends on the amplitude $`\alpha `$. Thus we obtain

$$f(\alpha )\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\beta )}{\beta }\right)^{1/2}.$$
(4)
Perturbative solutions  of the non-linear pendulum equation of motion give $`f(\alpha )1+\frac{\alpha ^2}{16}`$. Comparing this with the perturbative expansion of the right-hand-side of Eq.(4) implies

$$\frac{\alpha ^2}{16}\frac{\beta ^2}{12},$$
(5)
or $`\beta \frac{\sqrt{3}\alpha }{2}`$. Hence an first approximation for the period of a non-linear pendulum is

$$T_{a1}T_0\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\frac{\sqrt{3}\alpha }{2})}{(\frac{\sqrt{3}\alpha }{2})}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(6)
The quality of this approximation can be determined by comparing it to the exact value  given by

$$T_{ex}=\frac{2T_o}{\pi }K\left(\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{\alpha }{2})\right),$$
(7)
where

$$K(m)=_0^{\pi /2}\frac{dy}{(1m\mathrm{sin}^2y)^{1/2}},$$
(8)
is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. The two expressions $`T_{a1}/T_0`$ and $`T_{ex}/T_0`$ are plotted in Figure(1) which shows that the approximation $`T_{a1}`$ gives an accuracy of $`1\%`$ for amplitudes as large as $`\alpha 2.25`$ radians. It should be noted that the approximation always lies below the exact answer, but unlike the exact answer it does not diverge at $`\alpha =\pi `$.

While the same formula for the ratio $`T_{a1}/T_0`$ was obtained by Ganley in an interesting paper  using different methods, the approach presented here gives $`T_{a1}`$ explicitly and consequently in the limit of small angles the known expression $`T_0`$ is also recovered.

## 3 Comparison with Other Approximations

Perturbative solutions for $`f(\alpha )`$ are known (or can be obtained by expansing the right-hand-side of (7)). From the symmetry of the problem, one sees that only even powers of $`\alpha `$ can appear. A natural question is: “How many terms of the series expansion must be kept to get a $`1\%`$ accuracy in the period for an amplitude $`\alpha 2.25`$?” (that is, to compare with the approximate formula of the last section). A simple numerical exercise shows that all terms up to and including the eighth-order term must be taken into account.

In a recent paper Kidd and Fogg  motivated the approximation $`f(\alpha )1/\sqrt{\mathrm{cos}(\alpha /2)}`$ which provides a $`1\%`$ accuracy in the period for $`\alpha `$ up to $`\pi /2`$. Though the expression of Kidd and Fogg is accurate over a smaller range of amplitudes than the expression $`T_{a1}`$, it shares one interesting feature with the exact expression: A divergence at $`\alpha =\pi `$. This suggests that one generalise the method of the last section by trying an ansatz for $`f(\alpha )`$ that also diverges at the extreme amplitude $`\alpha =\pi `$. One simple possibility, suggested by the form of Eq.(3) is

$$f(\alpha )\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\alpha )}{\alpha }\right)^\gamma $$
(9)
where $`\gamma `$ is a positive constant to be determined. By comparing the first nontrivial terms of the power-series of both sides of the last equation, one obtains $`\gamma =3/8`$. The resulting expression

$$T_{a2}=T_0\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\alpha )}{\alpha }\right)^{3/8},$$
(10)
always exceeds the exact answer and has an accuracy of $`1\%`$ for amplitudes up to $`\alpha 1.9`$ radians. Interestingly, the result $`T_{a2}`$ is precisely the expression of Molina  but obtained there with a slightly different motivation.

## 4 Conclusion

The approach presented in Sect.(2) may possibly be viewed as a kind of “adiabatic approximation” and perhaps improved on to give successively better approximations. The main result (6) is relatively simple and accurate to very large amplitudes. While the ratio $`\frac{T_{a1}}{T_0}`$ was previously obtained in  using different arguments, here an explicit expression for $`T_{a1}`$ has been obtained.

Figure Caption

Figure 1: Plot of $`T_{ex}/T_0`$ and $`T_{a1}/T_0`$ against the angular amplitude $`\alpha `$. The exact expression of course diverges for $`\alpha =\pi `$.


text:
# Fair Solution to the Reader-Writer-Problem with Semaphores only

## .1 The reader-writer-problem

Assume the following situation: a shared resource, say a database, is accessed by several concurrent processes for reading or writing. Because the readers do not change the database, any number of them may be granted simultaneous access. On the other hand, only one writer is allowed to modify the database at a time.

## .2 The standard solution

The standard solution to the reader-writer-problem using semaphores as found in standard literature Lit1  and countless lecture scripts reads as follows ( in self explanatory pseudo code ):

|  |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | var integer num = 0; |  |  |  |
|  | var semaphore mutex = 1; |  |  |  |
|  | var semaphore access = 1; |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |
|  | process reader ( integer i = 1 ... m ) { |  | process writer ( integer j = 1 ... n ) { |  |
|  | do { |  | do { |  |
|  | P(mutex); |  | P(access); |  |
|  | num=num+1; |  | // ... writing ... |  |
|  | if(num==1) P(access); |  | V(access); |  |
|  | V(mutex); |  | // ... other operations ... |  |
|  | // ... reading ... |  | } |  |
|  | P(mutex); |  | } |  |
|  | num=num-1; |  |  |  |
|  | if(num==0) V(access); |  |  |  |
|  | V(mutex); |  |  |  |
|  | // ... other operations ... |  |  |  |
|  | } |  |  |  |
|  | } |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |

The above algorithm uses a global variable num to keep track of the number of readers currently reading the database. The first reader to enter and the last reader to leave requests respectively releases the database through the binary semaphore access. The same semaphore is used by the writers to ensure exclusive access. The binary semaphore mutex finally protects the critical sections involving the global counter.

The solution has two drawbacks, though. On the one hand, readers may enter and leave the database all the time without ever releasing waiting writers. This reader preference renders the solution unfair and leads to starving. On the other hand, global data is often inefficient as compared to pure synchronization objects like semaphores. And extensions of the algorithm above making it fair need even more global data like queues etc.

## .3 A fair solution

In fact, there is a very simple algorithm using only semaphores still offering a fair solution:

|  |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | var semaphore mutex = 1; |  |  |  |
|  | var semaphore access = m; |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |
|  | process reader ( integer i = 1 ... m ) { |  | process writer ( integer j = 1 ... n ) { |  |
|  | do { |  | do { |  |
|  | P(access); |  | P(mutex); |  |
|  | // ... reading ... |  | for k = 1 ... m do P(access); |  |
|  | V(access); |  | // ... writing ... |  |
|  | // ... other operations ... |  | for k = 1 ... m do V(access); |  |
|  | } |  | V(mutex); |  |
|  | } |  | // ... other operations ... |  |
|  |  |  | } |  |
|  |  |  | } |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |

The idea is here that one reader alone takes up the same space as all the readers together. This is realized with a generalized semaphore access. At the beginning its value is equal to the total number of readers. Everytime a reader enters the database it is decremented and everytime a reader leaves it is incremented. That way the readers alone are always granted simultaneous access.

But when a writer wants to enter the database it occupies all space step by step waiting for old readers to leave while denying entrance to new ones. The binary semaphore mutex is needed to prevent deadlocks when say two entering writers occupy half of the space each.

## .4 Conclusion

An algorithm for the reader-writer-problem has been presented which uses only semaphores for synchronization and no other global data. It offers a fair solution without reader-preference, writer-preference or starving.


text:
# Study of Generalized Parton Distributions with CLAS at Jefferson Lab

## 1 Introduction

In the past nearly five decades of electron scattering, experiments have focussed either on the measurements of form factors using exclusive processes or on measurements of inclusive processes to extract deep inelastic structure functions. Elastic processes measure the momentum transfer dependence of form factors, while the latter ones probe the quark’s longitudinal momentum and helicity distributions in the infinite momentum frame. Form factors and deep inelastic structure functions measure two different one-dimensional slices of the proton structure. While it is clear that the two pictures must be connected, a common framework for the interpretation of these data has only been discovered recently with the Generalized Parton Distribution (GPD) functions . The GPDs are two-parton correlation functions that encode both the transverse spatial dependence and the longitudinal momentum dependence. At the twist-2 level, for each quark species there are two spin-dependent GPDs, $`\stackrel{~}{E}(x,\xi ,t),\stackrel{~}{H}(x,\xi ,t)`$, and two spin-independent GPDs, $`E(x,\xi ,t),H(x,\xi ,t)`$. The first moments of GPDs in $`x`$ link them to the proton’s form factors, while at t=0, the GPDs $`H`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ reduce to the quark longitudinal momentum $`q(x)`$ and the helicity distributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }q(x)`$ , respectively. Mapping out the GPDs will allow, for the first time, to construct “tomographic” images of the nucleon’s charge and quark helicity distributions in transverse impact parameter space .

The joint probability distribution, represented by the GPDs, contains much more of the physics of partons than forward parton distributions and form factors. For example, the spin sum rule  makes a direct connection between GPDs and the total quark contribution to the nucleon spin:

$$J^q=\frac{1}{2}_1^1x𝑑x[H^q(x,\xi ,t=0)+E^q(x,\xi ,t=0)]$$

The quark helicity in $`J^q`$ has been measured for the past decade through polarized deep-inelastic scattering. Therefore, an experimental determination of $`J^q`$ allows a measurement of the quark orbital angular momentum.

## 2 Probing GPDs at Jefferson Lab

The basis for getting access to GPDs is the “handbag” mechanism for deeply virtual exclusive process shown in Fig.1. The process must be controlled by the pQCD evolution to probe the nucleon dynamics. Hard production of high energy photons (Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering, DVCS) is likely to enter the Bjorken regime at relatively low photon virtuality, $`Q^2`$. At the energies currently available at JLab, the DVCS process is masked by the more copious production of photons from the Bethe-Heitler (BH) process. However, using polarized electron beams allows to isolate the DVCS/BH interference term, which is related to the GPDs as:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma \mathrm{sin}\varphi [F_1H(\xi ,\xi ,t)+k_1(F_1+F_2)\stackrel{~}{H}(\xi ,\xi ,t)+k_2F_2E(\xi ,\xi ,t)],$$

where $`F_1,F_2`$ are the Dirac and Pauli form factors of the nucleon, $`k_1,k_2`$ are kinematical quantities, and $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the $`\gamma ^{}\gamma `$ plane and the electron scattering plane.

The well known BH term is used here to “boost” the much smaller DVCS terms which depends on the unknown GPDs. The asymmetry, which is due to the interference, has recently been measured . The polarization asymmetry is shown in Figure 2 compared to various GPD predictions . The CLAS data have been predicted within the GPD framework using cross section data from HERA  measured at very small $`x_B`$ values as input . The measured asymmetry is in excellent agreement with the prediction in LO. Other channels are currently under investigation with CLAS, e.g. $`\gamma _L^{}pp\rho ^0`$. For meson production the longitudinal component of the photon is of interest. L/T separated cross section data taken at $`Q^2=1.52.3`$ GeV2 have been analysed, and are approximately described within the GDP formalism, together with data from HERMES and Fermilab using a “frozen” $`\alpha _s`$ value . The results on both DVCS and deeply virtual $`\rho `$ production allow us to make a rough estimate of the $`Q^2`$ range where the handbag diagram may give the dominant contribution to the reaction, to $`Q^2>12`$ GeV2 for DVCS/BH, and $`Q^2>25`$ GeV2 for vector meson production.

## 3 GPD Program at 6 GeV

Data at 5.75 GeV have been taken with CLAS to measure vector meson and pion production in the deep inelastic region and further explore the validity of the GPD framework for meson production . Also DVCS/BH asymmetries have been measured with an order of magnitude improved statistics over the first measurement at 4.3 GeV. Experiments are in preparation at JLab with CLAS and in Hall A to measure the DVCS/BH interference in a range $`Q^2=1.53.5`$ GeV2 using a set of new detectors that will allow a complete measurement of all final state particles (e, $`\gamma `$, p) . The $`Q^2`$ dependence will be precisely measured, as will the $`\xi `$ and $`t`$-dependences, allowing to obtain a first detailed view at the kinematical dependences of DVCS, and to test GPD models. Figure 3 shows projected errors for some of the kinematics points that will be measured.

There will also be first results on DVCS/BH asymmetries using a longitudinally polarized hydrogen target. While beam spin asymmetries probe the GPD $`H(\xi ,\xi ,t)`$, longitudinal target asymmetries are sensitive to the GPD $`\stackrel{~}{H}(\xi ,\xi ,t)`$.

## 4 GPD with the CEBAF Upgrade to 12 GeV

At 11 GeV, the DVCS and BH cross section become comparable in size in a broader kinematics domain. Since the BH cross section is well known, this will allow direct extraction of the DVCS cross section. While beam asymmetries give access to the imaginary part of the DVCS amplitude, the DVCS cross section determines the $`x`$-integral, and contains other combinations of GPDs, therefore providing independent information.

The proposed energy upgrade of the JLab accelerator, in conjunction with the unprecedented luminosity that will be available, will allow a much broader kinematic coverage to be accessed in measurements of deeply virtual exclusive processes. Figure 4 shows the expected coverage in $`Q^2`$ and $`x_B`$. Although the energy is lower than for other experiments, the luminosity will be several orders of magnitudes greater for experiments at JLab. For the upgraded CLAS (CLAS++) an operating luminosity of $`10^{35}`$cm-2sec-1 is anticipated. Figure 5 shows the projected coverage of the beam spin asymmetry measurement. These measurements will produce high precisison DVCS data for $`Q^2=1.07.5`$GeV2, $`x_B=0.10.65`$, and $`(tt_{min})<1.5`$ GeV2.

## 5 From Observables to GPDs

Extracting GPD information from asymmetries and cross section measurements is not an easy task, and in general may not give unambiguous results. However, we can use constraints given by form factors as well as DIS experiments, and all deeply exclusive processes may be used in such an analysis. In addition, the GPDs are strongly constraint by certain polynomial conditions. Currently, at least three avenues are being investigated on how to obtain the most direct information on the GPDs from exclusive reactions.

(1) Approximations can be made for certain kinematics allowing to directly extract individual GPDs from asymmetry data . For example, the GPD $`H`$ may be extracted from the beam asymmetry measurements for $`x_B<0.25`$ values. Similar approximations may be possible for the GPD $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ in target asymmetry measurements.

(2) Fits of GPD parametrizations to large sets of data may be employed, in which constraints from elastic form factors, meson distribution amplitudes, forward parton distributions, and polynomiality conditions are imposed .

(3) A new technique, not unrelated to the focus of this workshop, has recently been proposed  that make use of partial wave analysis techniques where the GPDs are expanded in infinite sums over t-channel exchanges. The convergence of such a procedure, however remains to be explored.

## 6 “Tomographic” Images of the Nucleon.

Recently it was found  that knowledge of the $`x`$ and $`t`$ dependence of GPDs for specific quark flavors provides the basis for a visualization of the proton’s quark content in the transverse plane, in some analogy to the way images of macroscopic objects can be assembled in tomography. Using models for GPDs the quark density distribution and the quark spin distribution have been studied. A strong dependence of the quark density with increasing value of the longitudinal momentum fraction $`x`$ is found. These studies also show a very strong spin-flavor polarization between $`u`$ quarks and $`d`$ quarks if the proton is polarized in the transverse plane. It is found that the $`u`$ and the $`d`$ quark spin distribution are spatially separated from each other especially at high $`x`$. This regime can be accessed in deeply exclusive processes at currently available energies, and will be fully accessible after the JLab Upgrade.

In summary, GPDs uniquely connect the charge and current distribtions of the nucleon with the forward quark distributions measured in DIS. Recent results demonstrate the applicability of the GPD framework at currently achievable values of $`Q^2`$ for DVCS and possibly for vector meson production. There is a program underway at JLab to study the DVCS process at 6 GeV. A broad program of DVCS and DVMP has been proposed for the 12 GeV Upgrade. The results of such a program will provide new insights into the internal dynamics of the nucleon unimaginable just five years ago.


text:
# A New Evolutionary Channel for Type Ia Supernovae

## 1 Introduction

It is now generally agreed that Type Ia supernovae originate from accreting white dwarfs, and widely accepted that their occurrence signals arrival at the Chandrasekhar mass $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}1.4M_{}`$. However there is no consensus as to how the white dwarf gains mass (see e.g. Livio, 2001, for a review). Two possibilities are currently discussed. In the first, two white dwarfs merge as their relative orbit shrinks under gravitational radiation (the double–degenerate scenario). In the second possibility, a white dwarf accretes from a non–degenerate companion (the single–degenerate scenario). Observational evidence is currently too sparse to give a strong preference to either picture. However both have serious theoretical drawbacks.

For white dwarf mergers, many authors (Saio & Nomoto, 1985, 1998; Kawai, Saio & Nomoto, 1987; Mochkovitch & Livio, 1990; Timmes, Woosley & Taam, 1994; Mochkovitch, Guerrero & Segretain, 1997) argue that no explosion takes place and that the result is instead a quiet, accretion–induced collapse (AIC), forming a neutron star.

The single–degenerate picture suffers from two main problems. First, growth of the white dwarf mass $`M_1`$ requires efficient nuclear burning of most of the accreted hydrogen. This happens only for accretion rates $`\dot{M}`$ satisfying

$$\dot{M}_l\frac{\dot{M}}{M_1/M_{}0.52}\dot{M}_h2.5\dot{M}_l$$
(1)
where $`\dot{M}_l3.4\times 10^7M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ (Nomoto et al., 1979; Fujimoto, 1982). For lower $`\dot{M}`$ the burning occurs in nova explosions. These expel matter and leave the white dwarf mass essentially unchanged. For $`\dot{M}/(M_1/M_{}0.52)>\dot{M}_h8.5\times 10^7M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ not all of the hydrogen is burnt. In some pictures much of the excess is expelled in a radiatively driven wind: in e.g. the strong wind solution of Hachisu et al. (1996) the burning rate is limited by $`\dot{M}_h`$. This allows mass growth to continue, but for $`\dot{M}>>\dot{M}_h`$ this is clearly an inefficient process, as only a small fraction of the transferred mass is gained by the white dwarf. If there is no significant wind things may be still worse, as the excess accretion will probably form a common envelope around the binary, causing it to merge and become a massive red giant. The second difficulty with this single–degenerate scenario results from the proximity of a large H–rich companion at the time the supernova explodes. This may contaminate the supernova ejecta (Marietta, Burrows & Fryxell, 2000), in conflict with the defining characteristic of Type Ia SNe as having no detectable hydrogen (see, however, Lentz et al. 2002).

The $`\dot{M}`$ constraint rules out most candidate progenitor binaries for the single–degenerate scenario. Cataclysmic variables (CVs) generally have mass transfer rates $`\dot{M}_2<<\dot{M}_l`$ and so are prone to losing the transferred mass in nova explosions. Supersoft X–ray binaries (SSS) are more promising. Here in contrast to CVs the companion/WD mass ratio $`q=M_2/M_1`$ is $`1`$, and mass transfer shrinks the companion’s Roche lobe relative to the stellar surface. For a companion with a radiative envelope the result is mass transfer on a thermal timescale, i.e. $`\dot{M}=\dot{M}_2M_2/t_{\mathrm{KH}}`$. This is close to the required range if the companion has mass $`M_21M_{}`$ and thus a Kelvin–Helmholtz timescale $`t_{\mathrm{KH}}3\times 10^7`$ yr (van den Heuvel et al., 1992). The white dwarf in such SSS binaries can gain mass. However, systematic calculations (e.g. Langer et al., 2000) show that it may be difficult to grow $`M_1`$ from a typical value $`0.7M_{}`$ all the way to $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}`$. Thus only systems starting with rather more massive white dwarfs give SNe Ia. This in turn means that the main–sequence progenitor of the white dwarf must itself have been rather massive, significantly reducing the number of systems which can give SNe Ia by this channel. In addition, this type of evolution is vulnerable to the hydrogen contamination constraint. Not only is the companion fairly massive and hydrogen–rich, its Roche lobe offers a large target for the expanding SN shell as the mass ratio $`q`$ must be $`1`$ when the explosion occurs.

In this paper we reconsider the single–degenerate scenario, and offer an alternative that avoids these difficulties.

## 2 Long Period Dwarf Novae

We have seen that SSS binaries do not readily produce SNe Ia because the white dwarf mass does not grow enough. The accretion rate is sensitive to the mass ratio $`q`$, and moves out of the narrow band (1) in which efficient mass gain occurs before much mass is transferred. An accretion rate which remains almost constant as $`q`$ decreases is clearly a major advantage for a plausible progenitor WD binary class.

Only one type of WD binary satisfies this requirement: long–period ($`2`$ d) systems where the WD accretes from a low–mass red giant. These systems are driven by the nuclear expansion of the red giant. The helium core mass $`M_c`$ of this star increases slightly through shell–burning during the binary evolution, causing considerable envelope expansion. The envelope mass is depleted by shell–burning but much more by mass transfer to the white dwarf. Calculations (Webbink, Rappaport & Savonije, 1983; Ritter, 1999) show that the mass transfer rate varies remarkably little while most of the companion’s envelope is transferred, the value of the rate being fixed by the core mass or equivalently the binary period. Eq (36) of Ritter (1999) relates $`\dot{M}_2`$ directly to the companion mass $`M_2`$ for the case where all the transferred mass is accreted by the white dwarf. Fig. 1

shows that for a WD starting at $`M_{1,i}=1M_{}`$ the mass transfer rate $`\dot{M}_2`$ changes by no more than factors $`2`$ as $`M_2`$ decreases from $`M_{2,i}0.6M_{}`$ to $`0.3M_{}`$.

While this is encouraging for a candidate SNe Ia progenitor there appears at first sight to be a major difficulty. The mass transfer rates in such binaries are typically only $`10^8M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, more than a factor 10 short of the steady burning regime (1). However we must distinguish the mass transfer rate $`\dot{M}_2`$ from the mass accretion rate $`\dot{M}`$. All these long–period systems are so wide that their accretion discs have ionization zones; they are dwarf novae (King et al., 1997). This point was previously neglected but is crucial for modeling these long–period systems correctly. It is probably the shortness of the duty cycle $`d`$, together with the low space density resulting from their relatively rapid evolution that makes discovery of long–period systems of this type difficult. Accretion on to the white dwarf occurs almost entirely during outbursts, with accretion rates $`\dot{M}_2/d`$ which can therefore be close to the efficient burning regime.

The mean duty cycle $`d`$ is presumably itself a function of the evolutionary state of the binary, although the lack of understanding of disc viscosity in current theory does not allow one to predict it with any certainty. However for typical values $`0.1`$ to a few times $`10^3`$ one can always find initial white dwarf, donor and core masses which keep the accretion rate during outbursts inside the efficient burning regime (1) through most of the evolution. This kind of mass gain therefore works even if wind loss is inefficient for $`\dot{M}>\dot{M}_h`$. Figs. 2, 3 show a case where $`M_1`$ is able to grow to $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}`$.

A further advantage for this picture is that the SN Ia explosion must always occur for mass ratios $`q<1`$, and indeed generally with very little of the hydrogen envelope of the secondary remaining. This then avoids the second difficulty (hydrogen contamination) afflicting the single–degenerate scenario. The secondary is now a rather smaller target for the expanding supernova shell, and in any case contains little hydrogen.

## 3 SN Ia Progenitors

We have seen from the previous Section that long–period dwarf novae offer a route for making SNe Ia. Fig. 4

gives the regions of $`M_{1,\mathrm{i}},M_{2,\mathrm{i}}`$ – space where growth to $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}`$ may be possible. (This figure assumes conservative mass transfer, but we will show in a future paper that similar results are obtained when this assumption is relaxed.) The required $`M_{1,\mathrm{i}}`$ is somewhat higher than typically results from single–star evolution. This might seem to lead to the same need for massive main–sequence progenitors and thus the same restriction on progenitor numbers as for the SSS channel. However the nuclear–driven evolution discussed here is of course also open to the outcomes of thermal–timescale mass transfer, i.e. the SSS systems we discussed earlier. Many of these, starting from typical white dwarf masses $`0.7M_{}`$, have already increased them to values of the order required in Fig. 4. We therefore envisage a two–stage process in the growth of $`M_1`$ towards $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}`$ (Fig. 5).

First, a SSS system with $`M_10.7M_{}`$ and $`M_2>M_1`$ undergoes thermal–timescale mass transfer and increases the white dwarf mass to values $`1M_{}`$. Thermal–timescale mass transfer stops once the mass ratio $`q`$ drops below a value $`1`$. What happens next to the binary depends on the competition between orbital angular momentum loss (presumably through magnetic stellar wind braking) and nuclear expansion of the secondary (cf Schenker et al., 2002). If the angular momentum loss timescale is shorter than that for nuclear evolution the system becomes a short–period CV, often with some signs of chemical evolution as in AE Aquarii (Schenker et al. 2002). If instead the nuclear evolution timescale is shorter, the system will expand and eventually become the kind of long–period CV we discuss here. For suitable masses $`M_{1,\mathrm{i}},M_{2,\mathrm{i}}`$ and orbital separation at the end of thermal–timescale mass transfer the white dwarf mass can grow to $`M_{\mathrm{Ch}}`$ and produce a SN Ia.

Assuming mass transfer starts at or near the end of the main sequence and that the thermal–timescale phase has little effect on the core mass of the donor when it reaches the base of the RGB, the minimum donor mass which reaches the RGB with core mass $`\stackrel{>}{}0.2M_{}`$ is $`2M_{}`$. For massive donors (mass ratios $`q\stackrel{>}{}`$3–4) sustained thermal–timescale mass transfer leads to dynamical instability (Hjellming 1989; Kalogera & Webbink 1996; Kolb et al. 2000). This *delayed dynamical instability* limits the maximum donor mass before the thermal–timescale phase to $`3M_{}`$. Thus the donor mass at the start of mass transfer is limited to the approximate range 2 – 3$`M_{}`$. Future work involving accurate numerical modelling of the thermal–timescale evolution will refine this simple picture.

## 4 Conclusions

We have shown that long–period dwarf novae offer a promising channel for making Type Ia supernovae. In particular the white dwarf mass can be raised to the Chandrasekhar value without the need to invoke fairly massive and thus rare main–sequence progenitors. Moreover there is very little danger of hydrogen contamination of the supernova ejecta.

Clearly more work is needed. In particular we need to calculate the birthrate of such systems and compare this with the inferred rate $`3\times 10^3\mathrm{yr}^1`$ of SNe Ia per galaxy. This in turn requires an extensive grid of models. We shall return to this problem in a future paper.

## 5 Acknowledgments

Theoretical astrophysics research at Leicester is supported by a PPARC rolling grant. ARK gratefully acknowledges a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. We thank the referee, David Branch, for helpful comments.


text:
# Acknowledgments

## Acknowledgments

This work was partially financed by the Brazilian funding agencies CNPq and FAPERGS. M.V.T.M. thanks the support of the High Energy Physics Phenomenology Group at the Institute of Physics, GFPAE IF-UFRGS, Porto Alegre.


text:
# Direct Calculation of the Critical Effective Potential

## Abstract

The critical effective potential is the nonperturbative part of the effective action at a phase transition. It equals the scale invariant effective average potential and can be calculated from the renormalization group flow of the effective average action. In some cases this requires only the solution of an ordinary differential equation without actually simulating the renormalization group flow. Here the Ising model is examined beyond leading order and with full field dependent effective potential.

Introduction

The effective potential in statistical physics and quantum field theory Lit1 ; Lit2  includes fluctuations of all wavelenghts as opposed to the microscopic potential. It is therefore relevant for the computation of macroscopic properties.

The usual way to access the effective potential is to start with the potential given by the microscopic theory and follow the renormalization group flow to the infrared Lit2a . As the potential then depends on field variables and the scale, this requires solving a partial differential equation.

However, an especially interesting case is a second order phase transition where the correlation length diverges. The system becomes therefore scale invariant and the renormalization group flow ends up in a fix point, the effective critical potential. Its calculation requires only the solution of an ordinary differential equation LitA ; LitB ; LitC ; LitD ; LitE ; LitF ; LitG ; LitH .

Effective average action

The effective average action ( see e.g. Lit3  and references therein ) $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ interpolates between the microscopical or classical action $`S=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{}}`$ and the effective action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$. By construction it includes only fluctuations with momenta larger than $`k`$ and this transition is described by an exact renormalization group flow equation:

$`_k\mathrm{\Gamma }_k=\text{Tr}\left((\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{(2)}+R_k)^1_kR_k\right)`$

Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{(2)}`$ is the two point function and $`R_k`$ is an arbitrary momentum cutoff with the properties $`R_k0`$ for $`k0`$, $`R_k\mathrm{}`$ for $`k\mathrm{}`$ and $`R_k(q^2)>0`$ for $`q^20`$.

We want to consider a particular interesting and common model, the three dimensional Ising model. The $`O(1)`$ symmetry of this theory can be exploited for a lowest order derivative expansion of the effective average action:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k=d^dx\left(U_k(\rho )+Z_k\frac{1}{2}^\mu \phi (x)_\mu \phi (x)\right)`$

$`\rho =\frac{1}{2}\phi (x)^2\phi IR^3IR`$

in terms of the most general form of the nonperturbative effective average potential $`U_k(\rho )`$ and a field independent but scale dependent wave function renormalization $`Z_k`$.

When inserted into the flow equation for the effective average action this ansatz gives the flow of the effective average potential.

$`_kU_k=\frac{1}{2}\frac{d^dq}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{_kR_k(q^2)}{U_k^{}+2\rho U_k^{\prime \prime }+q^2Z_k+R_k(q^2)}`$

As the potential is only determined up to a constant, it is convenient to consider its first derivative instead. The corresponding flow equation is given by straightforward differentiation:

$`_kU_k^{}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{d^dq}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{(3U_k^{\prime \prime }2\rho U_k^{\prime \prime \prime })_kR_k(q^2)}{(U_k^{}+2\rho U_k^{\prime \prime }+q^2Z_k+R_k(q^2))^2}`$

Switching to dimensionless quantities $`u^{}=U_k^{}/(Z_kk^2)`$ and choosing a linear cutoff function $`R_k=Z_k(k^2q^2)\mathrm{\Theta }(k^2q^2)`$ Lit4 ; Lit4a  the flow equation becomes explicitely scale invariant:

$`_tu^{}(x)=(2+\eta )u^{}+(d2+\eta )xu^{\prime \prime }`$

$`4v_d\frac{d+2\eta }{d(d+2)}\frac{3u^{\prime \prime }+2xu^{\prime \prime \prime }}{(1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime })^2}`$

Here $`t=\text{Ln}(k)`$, $`x=Z_kk^{2d}\rho `$, $`v_d^1=2^{d+1}\pi ^{d/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)`$ and $`\eta `$ denotes the anomalous dimension $`\eta =_t\text{Ln}Z_k`$.

The latter one can either be taken self consistently from

$`\eta =\frac{8v_d}{d}\kappa \frac{(3\lambda +2\kappa u^{(3)})^2}{(1+2\kappa \lambda )^4}`$

( where $`\kappa (t)`$ denotes the running minimum ( $`u^{}(\kappa )=0`$ ) and $`\lambda =u^{\prime \prime }(\kappa )`$, $`u^{(3)}=u^{\prime \prime \prime }(\kappa )`$ ) or from the quite accurate approximation

$`\eta =d^d`$

which will be used in this paper.

For comparison with literature we also use a sharp cutoff, where in leading order

$`_tu^{}=2u^{}+(d2)xu^{\prime \prime }2v_d\frac{3u^{\prime \prime }+2xu^{\prime \prime \prime }}{1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime }}`$

Scaling solutions

The scale invariance of some system at a second order phase transition manifests itself in a fix point in the renormalization group flow of the dimensionless, scale invariant flow equations. We are thus interested in scaling solutions $`u^{}`$ such that

$`0=_tu^{}=acu^{}+bcxu^{\prime \prime }+c\frac{3u^{\prime \prime }+2xu^{\prime \prime \prime }}{(1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime })^2}`$

where

$`a=\frac{d(d+2)}{4v_d}\frac{2\eta }{d+2\eta }b=\frac{d(d+2)}{4v_d}\frac{d+2\eta }{d+2\eta }`$

This can be rewritten canonically in terms of first order ordinary differential equations for $`u^{}(x)`$ and $`u^{\prime \prime }(x)`$:

$`_xu^{}=u^{\prime \prime }`$

$`_xu^{\prime \prime }=\frac{1}{2x}\left((au^{}+bxu^{\prime \prime })(1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime })^2+3u^{\prime \prime }\right)`$

Given initial values $`u_0^{}`$, $`u_0^{\prime \prime }`$ at some point $`x_0`$ the differential equations yield a local solution $`u^{}`$, $`u^{\prime \prime }`$ in a vicinity around $`x_0`$. The space of such solutions has dimension two, its elements being uniquely defined by $`u_0^{}`$, $`u_0^{\prime \prime }`$.

However, we are interested only in physical solutions which are continuations of the local solutions to the whole positive real axis. In other words, we must find a point $`x_00`$ and initial values $`u_0^{}`$, $`u_0^{\prime \prime }`$ such that $`u^{}`$ is a smooth function for all $`x0`$.

Such a search is nontrivial, though, even numerically. As soon as the space of local solutions has a dimension larger than one, global solutions can be missed even if one is already close to the correct initial values. Fortunately, by using the constraint of requiring a global solution we are able to eliminate one of the two integration constants:

If $`_tu^{}=0x`$, this holds true especially for $`x_0=0`$:

$`0=_tu^{}_{x_0}=acu_0^{}+c\frac{3u_0^{\prime \prime }}{(1+u_0^{})^2}`$

And hence

$`u_0^{\prime \prime }=\frac{a}{3}u_0^{}(1+u_0^{})^2`$

In the analogous calculation for the sharp cutoff we find:

$`0=_tu^{}=acu^{}+bcxu^{\prime \prime }+c\frac{3u^{\prime \prime }+2xu^{\prime \prime \prime }}{1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime }}`$

where $`a=v_d^1`$, $`b=v_d^1(1d/2)`$ such that

$`_xu^{}=u^{\prime \prime }`$

$`_xu^{\prime \prime }=\frac{1}{2x}\left((au^{}+bxu^{\prime \prime })(1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime })+3u^{\prime \prime }\right)`$

$`u_0^{\prime \prime }=\frac{a}{3}u_0^{}(1+u_0^{})`$

Furthermore, we have additional constraints on $`u_0^{}`$: the physically interesting $`u^{}`$ has a single zero and is positive for large $`x`$. Thus $`u_0^{}<0`$. On the other hand, the denominator $`1+u^{}+2xu^{\prime \prime }`$ must be nonzero for all $`x`$. Therefore $`u_0^{}>1`$. Now the global solution can be found be varying only $`u_0^{}`$, in the range $`1<u_0^{}<0`$, until the above requirements are met. This can be done numerically efficiently.

For any initial $`u_0^{}`$ the solution $`u^{}`$ extends to some $`x_{max}`$. For too small $`u_0^{}`$ the flow diverges to positive infinity. On the other hand, for large initial values the flow crosses zero a second time. These two cases are separated by a critical initial value which leads to the physical solution we are interested in. The plot of $`x_{max}`$ as a function of $`u_0^{}`$ is then sharply peaked around this critical value:

FIG. I:
$`x_{max}(u_0^{})`$ for the linear cutoff (a),
$`\eta =0`$ (b) and the sharp cutoff (c).

In this way we find:

| linear cutoff, $`\eta =1/27`$ (a) | $`u_0^{}`$=-0.16902863438… |
| --- | --- |
| linear cutoff, $`\eta =0`$ (b) | $`u_0^{}`$=-0.18606424944… |
| sharp cutoff, $`\eta =0`$ (c) | $`u_0^{}`$=-0.46153372007… |

In perfect agreement with

| reference LitH  ( $`\eta =0`$ ) | $`\lambda _1`$=-0.1860642… |
| --- | --- |
| reference LitB  ( $`\eta =0`$ ) | $`\sigma `$=-0.46153372… |

Effective scaling potentials

We can now plot the solutions $`u^{}`$ for the above initial values:

FIG. II:
$`u^{}(x)`$ for the linear cutoff (a),
$`\eta =0`$ (b) and the sharp cutoff (c).
Compare plot (b) to fig. 2 in LitH .

Due to the numerically limited accuracy of the initial value and the integration we are able to track these solutions only up to $`x0.12`$ in case of the linear cutoff and $`x0.2`$ in case of the sharp cutoff.

The second quantity to be read off from the critical effective potential is its zero $`\kappa `$ where $`u^{}(\kappa )=0`$:

| linear cutoff, $`\eta =1/27`$ (a) | $`\kappa `$=0.03060106819… |
| --- | --- |
| linear cutoff, $`\eta =0`$ (b) | $`\kappa `$=0.03064764922… |
| sharp cutoff, $`\eta =0`$ (c) | $`\kappa `$=0.04711134650… |

The value $`\kappa `$=0.03060… is in good agreement with the fix point value $`\kappa ^{}`$=0.03053… from the dynamical method.

As one can see from the different solutions for the linear and the sharp cutoff, the effective potential is not cutoff independent. Interestingly however, the location of the minimum hardly depends on the anomalous dimension in case of the linear cutoff. Moreover, it is also only weakly dependent on the initial value $`u_0^{}`$.

The critical exponent $`\delta `$

That the effective scaling potential in fact describes critical phenomena can be seen from the power law $`u^{}x^{(\delta 1)/2}`$ for large $`x`$.

The critical exponents $`\delta `$ and $`\eta `$ are related by

$`\delta =\frac{d+2\eta }{d2+\eta }`$

Hence we expect

$`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}1+2\frac{\text{ln}(u^{})}{\text{ln}(x)}=5`$

in case $`\eta =0`$ and

$`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}1+2\frac{\text{ln}(u^{})}{\text{ln}(x)}=\frac{67}{14}`$

in case $`\eta =1/27`$.

These asymptotic values are plotted as horizontal lines:

FIG. III:
$`1+2\text{ln}u^{}/\text{ln}x`$ for the linear cutoff (a),
$`\eta =0`$ (b) and the sharp cutoff (c)
approaching the critical exponent $`\delta `$.

The asymptotic behaviour is as expected in all three cases. However, if one wanted to calculate $`\delta `$ from the potential its precision would suffer from the limited range of integration.

Comparison to the dynamical method

In order to assess the advantage in computing complexity of the method presented, we also take a look at the usual dynamical method Lit2a ; Lit5 . In this case one starts with an initial potential $`u_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}=\lambda _\mathrm{\Lambda }(x\kappa _\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ at some ultraviolet scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with an initial expectation value of the fields $`\kappa _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and some quartic coupling constant $`\lambda _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

With this initial potential the partial differential equation for $`_tu^{}(x)`$ is computed on a discretized grid. The renormalization group flow for $`t\mathrm{}`$ then either leads to the symmetric phase ( $`\kappa 0`$ ) or to the phase with spontaneous symmetry breaking ( $`\kappa \mathrm{}`$ ).

These phases are separated by a second order phase transition. Correspondingly, there is a critical $`\kappa _\mathrm{\Lambda }=\kappa _{cr}`$. Fine tuning $`\kappa _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ this value can be found. The renormalization group flow near the phase transition will then come close to the fix point and the scaling potential can be read out.

The fine tuning of $`\kappa _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is now replaced by fine tuning $`f_0`$. In effect, the solution of a partial differential equation is replaced by the solution of an ordinary differential equation. This is much simpler and may reduce computing time by several orders of magnitude.

Conclusion and outlook

The method allows the calculation of the effective scaling potential with very little effort. The integrable range seems to depend only on numerical precision and could maybe be improved by the use of high accuracy floating point libraries.

The effective scaling potential could also be used as an initial value in a dynamical simulation, allowing the determination of critical exponents dependend on small deviations from the critical point, while still overcoming the time consuming necessity for a dynamical fix point search.


text:
# Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations

## Abstract

A fully self-consistent treatment of short-range correlations in nuclear matter is presented. Different implementations of the determination of the nucleon spectral functions for different interactions are shown to be consistent with each other. The resulting saturation densities are closer to the empirical result when compared with (continuous choice) Brueckner-Hartree-Fock values. Arguments for the dominance of short-range correlations in determining the nuclear-matter saturation density are presented. A further survey of the role of long-range correlations suggests that the inclusion of pionic contributions to ring diagrams in nuclear matter leads to higher saturation densities than empirically observed. A possible resolution of the nuclear-matter saturation problem is suggested.

A correct description of the saturation properties of nuclear matter has remained an unresolved issue for a very long time. The Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone (BBG) expansion day1  supplies a converged result for the energy per particle in the relevant density range, for a given realistic interaction, at the level of three hole-line contributions day2 ; bald . Such calculations fail to reproduce the empirical saturation properties which require a minimum in the equation of state at a density corresponding to a Fermi momentum, $`k_F`$, of about 1.33 fm-1 with a binding energy of about 16 MeV. The authors of Ref. bald  obtain for the Argonne $`v_{14}`$ interaction wsa84  a saturation density corresponding to 1.565 fm-1 with about the correct amount of binding. This corresponds to an overestimation of the empirical density by about 60% but appears completely consistent with corresponding variational calculations dayw  for the same interaction.

Several different remedies for this serious problem have been proposed over the years. The intrinsic structure of the nucleon and its related strong coupling to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-isobar inevitably requires the consideration of three-body (or more-body) forces. When three-body forces are considered in variational calculations it is possible to achieve better saturation properties only when an adhoc repulsive short-range component of this three-body force is added cpw ; wff . It has also been suggested that a relativistic treatment of the nucleon in the medium using a Dirac-Brueckner approach provides the necessary ingredients for a better description of saturation acps ; hama ; brma ; amtj .

All many-body methods developed for nuclear matter have focused on a proper treatment of short-range correlations (SRC) without the benefit of experimental information on the influence of these correlations on the properties of the nucleon in the medium. This influence can now be clearly identified by considering recent results from (e,ep) reactions diehu ; sihu ; lap1  and theoretical calculations of the nucleon spectral function in nuclear matter rpd ; bff ; vond1 . A recent analysis of the (e,ep) reaction on 208Pb in a wide range of missing energies and for missing momenta below 270 MeV/c yields information on the occupation numbers of all the deeply-bound proton orbitals. These data indicate that all these orbitals are depleted by the same amount of about 15% lap2 . These occupation numbers are associated with the orbits which yield an accurate fit to the (e,ep) cross section. The properties of these occupation numbers suggest that the main effect of the global depletion of these mean-field orbitals is due to SRC. Indeed, the effect of the coupling of hole states to low-lying collective excitations only affects occupation numbers of states in the immediate vicinity of the Fermi energy rijs . In addition, nuclear matter momentum distributions display such an overall global depletion due to short-range and tensor correlations vond1 ; vond2 ; fapa . The latter results formed the basis of the now corroborated prediction dimu1 ; papa  for the occupation numbers in 208Pb lap2 .

Most of this depleted single-particle (sp) strength is located at energies more than 100 MeV above the Fermi energy vond1 ; vond2 ; dimu1 . This appearance of strength at high energy is another important aspect of the influence of short-range and tensor correlations. Yet another characteristic feature of these SRC is that this depletion of the sp strength must be compensated by the admixture of a corresponding number of particles with high-momentum components. These high-momentum components have not yet been unambiguously identified but are currently studied experimentally rohe . Solid theoretical arguments ciofi  and calculations clearly pinpoint this strength at high excitation energy in the hole spectrum both for nuclear matter vond1  and finite nuclei mpd1 . Indeed, experiment confirms that no substantial admixture of these high-momentum components is observed in the vicinity of the Fermi energy bobel .

We now present an argument showing that SRC are the dominant factor in determining the empirical saturation density of nuclear matter. We recall that elastic electron scattering from 208Pb froi  accurately determines the value of the central charge density in this nucleus. By multiplying this number by $`A/Z`$ one obtains the relevant central density of heavy nuclei, corresponding to 0.16 nucleons/fm3 or $`k_F=1.33`$ fm-1. Since the presence of nucleons at the center of a heavy nucleus is confined to $`s`$-wave nucleons, and, as discussed above, their depletion is dominated by SRC, one may therefore conclude that the same is true for the actual value of the empirical saturation density of nuclear matter. While this argument is particularly appropriate for the deeply bound $`1s_{1/2}`$ and $`2s_{1/2}`$ protons, it continues to hold to a large extent for the $`3s_{1/2}`$ protons which are depleted predominantly by short-range effects (up to 15%) and by at most 10% due to long-range correlations sihu ; grab . These considerations demonstrate clearly that one may expect SRC to have a decisive influence on the actual value of the nuclear-matter saturation density.

High-momentum components due to SRC also have a considerable impact on the binding energy of nuclear matter. This result can be inferred from the energy sum rule gami

$$\frac{E}{A}=\frac{2}{\rho }\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}_{\mathrm{}}^{\epsilon _F}𝑑\omega \left(\frac{k^2}{2m}+\omega \right)S_h(k,\omega ),$$
(1)
where $`\rho =\frac{2k_F^3}{3\pi ^2}`$ is the density. Eq. (1) illustrates the link between the energy of the system and the hole spectral function, $`S_h(k,\omega )`$. Results for the momentum distribution and true potential energy based on the spectral function show that enhancements as large as 200% for the kinetic and potential energy over the mean-field values can be obtained for both nuclear matter vond2  and finite nuclei mpd1 . These large attractive contributions to the potential energy of nuclear matter are mainly from weighing the high-momentum components in the spectral function with large negative energies in Eq. (1). The location of these high-momentum components as a function of energy is therefore an important ingredient in the determination of the energy per particle as a function of density. So far, the determination of this location has relied only on quasiparticle properties in the construction of the self-energy. A self-consistent determination of the spectral function including the location of these high-momentum components therefore includes the dominant physics of SRC in the description of nuclear matter and is consistent with the experimental observations of the nucleon spectral function in nuclei.

Such a determination requires the solution of the ladder equation for the effective interaction in the medium

$`q\left|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{}}^{JST}(K,\mathrm{\Omega })\right|q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`q\left|V_{\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{}}^{JST}\right|q^{}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑pp^2q\left|V_{\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{\prime \prime }}^{JST}\right|p`$
$`\times `$ $`\overline{𝗀}_f^{II}(p;K,\mathrm{\Omega })p\left|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{}^{\prime \prime }\mathrm{}^{}}^{JST}(K,\mathrm{\Omega })\right|q^{},`$
where a notation with relative momenta $`p,q,q^{}`$ and the conserved total momentum $`K`$ has been used. The propagator $`\overline{𝗀}_f^{II}`$ in Eq. (Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations) has been obtained by an angle-averaging procedure of the noninteracting two-particle propagator

$`𝗀_f^{II}(k,k^{};\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\epsilon _F}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle _{\epsilon _F}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{S_p(k,\omega )S_p(k^{},\omega ^{})}{\mathrm{\Omega }\omega \omega ^{}+i\eta }}`$ (3)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\epsilon _F}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\epsilon _F}}𝑑\omega ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{S_h(k,\omega )S_h(k^{},\omega ^{})}{\mathrm{\Omega }\omega \omega ^{}i\eta }},`$
in order to allow a partial wave decomposition of the ladder equation. Note that sp momenta $`k,k^{}`$ are used in Eq. (3). In turn, the spectral functions are needed to determine Eq. (3) and thereby the effective interaction $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ through Eq. (Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations). They can be obtained from the imaginary part of the sp propagator which solves the Dyson equation

$$𝗀(k,\omega )=𝗀^{(0)}(k,\omega )+𝗀^{(0)}(k,\omega )\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,\omega )𝗀(k,\omega ),$$
(4)
where the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ includes the contribution of SRC through $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, to complete the self-consistency loop.

The implementation of this self-consistency scheme is numerically quite involved and has been attempted by several groups dejong ; rd ; dwvnw ; bozek0 ; bozek1 ; bozek2 . In the present paper two different approaches have been used to generate results for different interactions. In the continuous scheme, a representation of the imaginary part of the self-energy in terms of four gaussians is used to completely describe the sp propagator. The parameters of these gaussians are then determined self-consistently rd  for the Reid potential reid  by solving Eq. (Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations) with the convolution of spectral functions in Eq. (3) as input, constructing the self-energy, and then solving the Dyson equation (4). In the discrete scheme we used a representation of the propagator in terms of three discrete poles dwvnw , which avoids a full continuum solution of Eq. (Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations). The latter approach is equivalent to a continuous version as far as the energy per particle is concerned, since it requires a reproduction of the relevant energy-weighted moments of the hole and particle spectral function dwvnw . This is substantiated by comparing the results of this discrete scheme with the results of the continuous self-consistency scheme used in Ref. bozek0  for the Mongan-type separable interaction mon  and in Ref.bozek2  for the separable Paris interaction haid . We find that the binding energies correspond to within 5% over the relevant $`k_F`$ range around the minimum, and moreover that the location of the minimum agrees to within 3%.

In Fig.1 we report the saturation points obtained within the discrete scheme of Ref. dwvnw  for the updated Reid potential (Reid93), the NijmI and NijmII interaction reid93  and the separable Paris interaction haid . The results demonstrate an important and systematic change of the saturation properties with respect to continuous choice Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (ccBHF) calculations, leading to about 4-6 MeV less binding, and reduced values of the saturation density, closer to the empirical one. Such a trend is entirely consistent with the observations in Ref. bozek2  made for a separable NN interaction, and is now extended to more realistic (non-separable) interactions.

The discrete scheme dwvnw  could not be used with the original Reid (Reid68) potential because of its slow decay in momentum space, but some results are available in the continuous scheme of Ref. rd . In Fig.1 the binding energy is shown at two densities ($`k_F=1.33`$ and 1.45 fm-1); the error bars are an estimate of the remaining uncertainty due to incomplete convergence and the non-selfconsistent treatment of some higher order partial waves rd . The results again seem to indicate a substantial shift in the saturation density for the Reid68 potential, from the ccBHF value of about 1.6 fm-1, to a value below 1.45 fm-1, without seriously underbinding nuclear matter.

The present self-consistent treatment of SRC (scSRC) differs in two main aspects from the ccBHF approach. Firstly, hole and particle lines are treated on an equal footing, thereby ensuring thermodynamic consistencybozek0 . Intermediate hole-hole propagation in the ladder diagrams is included to all orders. This feature provides, compared to ccBHF, a substantial repulsive effect in the $`k<k_F`$ contribution to Eq. (1), and comes primarily from an upward shift of the quasi-particle energy spectrum as a result of including $`\omega <ϵ_F`$ contributions to the imaginary part of the self-energy. The effect increases with density, and is the dominant factor in the observed shift of the saturation point. Secondly, the realistic spectral functions, generated through Eqs.(Saturation of nuclear matter and short-range correlations-4) and used in the evaluation of the in-medium interaction $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, are in agreement with experimental information obtained from (e,ep) reactions. For the Reid93 interaction at $`k_F=1.37`$ fm-1 we find $`z=0.74`$ for the quasiparticle strength at the Fermi momentum, whereas the hole strength for $`p=0`$, integrated up to 100 MeV missing energy, equals 83%; similar values are found for the other interactions. The depletion of the quasiparticle peaks is primarily important to suppress unrealistically large pairing instabilities around normal density. The improved treatment of the high-momentum components does affect the binding energy, through the $`k>k_F`$ contribution to Eq. (1). This feature, studied in dwvnw , provides a sizeable attraction, but is smaller than the afore-mentioned repulsive effect.

The inclusion of $`hh`$-propagation in scSRC also leads to a somewhat stiffer equation-of-state than in ccBHF. A recent analysis of the giant monopole resonance in heavy nuclei blaizot  yields an experimental estimate $`K_{nm}=210\pm 30`$MeV for the nuclear matter compression modulus,

$$K_{nm}=k_F^2\frac{d^2E/A}{dk_F^2}|_{k_F=k_{F,0}}.$$
(5)
At the saturation points in Fig.1 we find ccBHF values $`K_{nm}=154`$ MeV for Reid93 and $`K_{nm}=148`$ MeV for the separable Paris interaction, which are enhanced to $`K_{nm}=177`$ MeV and $`K_{nm}=216`$ MeV, respectively, in our scSRC calculation. These values agree reasonably well with the experimental estimate. Note that reasonable values for $`K`$ imply that the Reid68 energies in Fig.1 may still deviate by 1-1.5 MeV from numerically exact scSRC values, as indicated by the error bars.

The present results indicate that a sophisticated treatment of SRC lowers the ccBHF saturation densities, bringing them closer to the empirical one. It remains to be understood why apparently converged hole-line calculations bald  yield higher saturation densities. The three hole-line terms obtained in Ref. bald  indicate reasonable convergence properties compared to the two hole-line contribution. One may therefore assume that these results provide an accurate representation of the energy per particle of nuclear matter as a function of density for the case of nonrelativistic nucleons and two-body forces. At this point it is useful to identify an underlying assumption when the nuclear-matter problem is posed rd . This assumption asserts that the influence of long-range correlations in finite nuclei and nuclear matter are commensurate. We’d like to point out that this underlying assumption is questionable. Three hole-line contributions include a third-order ring diagram characteristic of long-range correlations. The effect of long-range correlations on nuclear saturation properties is sizeable, as shown by the results for three- and four-body ring diagrams calculated in Ref. dfm  (see also Refs. day2 ; bald ). The results of Ref. dfm  demonstrate that such ring-diagram terms are dominated by attractive contributions involving pion quantum numbers propagating around the rings, and increase in importance with increasing density. Such long-range pion-exchange contributions to the binding energy appear due to the possibility to coherently sample the attractive interaction in a given ring diagram at momenta $`q`$ above 0.7 fm-1. This feature is related to momentum conservation in nuclear matter and is not available in finite nuclei, in which no such collective pion-degrees of freedom are actually observed cz2 . It seems therefore reasonable to call into question the relevance of these coherent long-range pion-exchange contributions to the binding energy per particle since their behavior is so markedly different in finite and infinite systems. One may consider the salient difference of the ratio of spin-longitudinal and spin-transverse response function in nuclear matter and finite nuclei as another indication of the relevance of our suggestion alber . We also like to point out that experimental information of these response functions carey ; tadd ; wakas  suggests no characteristic enhancement of the (pionic) spin-longitudinal response as expected on the basis of nuclear matter calculations.

Clearly, the assertion that long-range pion-exchange contributions to the energy per particle need not be considered in explaining nuclear saturation properties, needs to be further investigated. At this point it appears that a fully self-consistent treatment of SRC has substantially different saturation properties than a conventional (continuous choice) Brueckner-Hartree-Fock treatment, and is capable of yielding saturation densities close to the empirical one.

This work is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. PHY-9900713 and PHY-0140316 and by the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) and the Research Council of Ghent University.