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# DIRC for a Higher Luminosity B Factory

## 1 Introduction

The study of CP-violation using hadronic final states of the $`B\overline{B}`$ meson system requires the ability to tag the flavor of one of the $`B`$ mesons via the cascade decay $`bcs,`$ while fully reconstructing the final state of the other over a large region of solid angle and momentum. The momenta of the kaons used for flavor tagging extend up to about $`2\text{GeV}/c`$, with most of them below $`1\text{GeV}/c`$. On the other hand, pions from the rare two-body decays $`B^0\pi ^+\pi ^{}(K^+\pi ^{})`$ must be well-separated from kaons. They have momenta between $`1.7\text{GeV}/c`$ and $`4.2\text{GeV}/c`$ with a strong momentum-polar angle correlation between the tracks (higher momenta occur at the more forward angles because of the c.m. system boost). The *Particle Identification* (PID) system in B A B AR is located inside the calorimeter volume. Therefore, it should be thin and uniform in terms of radiation lengths (to minimize degradation of the calorimeter energy resolution) and small in the radial dimension to reduce the volume, hence, the cost of the calorimeter.

The PID system being used in B A B AR is a new kind of ring-imaging Cherenkov detector called the Dirc (the acronym Dirc stands for *Detection of Internally Reflected Cherenkov* light). It is designed to be able to provide excellent $`\pi /K`$ separation for all tracks from $`B`$-meson decays from the pion Cherenkov threshold up to $`4.2\text{GeV}/c.`$ PID below $`700\text{MeV}/c`$ exploits also the $`dE/dx`$ measurements in the silicon vertex tracker and drift chamber.

## 2 Dirc Concept

The Dirc is based on the principle that the absolute values of angles are maintained upon reflection from a flat surface. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the Dirc geometry that illustrates the principles of light production, transport, and imaging. The radiator material of the Dirc is synthetic, fused silica in the form of long, thin bars with rectangular cross section. These bars serve both as radiators and as light pipes for the portion of the light trapped in the radiator by total internal reflection. Fused, synthetic silica (Spectrosil) is chosen because of its resistance to ionizing radiation, its long attenuation length, large index of refraction, small chromatic dispersion within the wavelength acceptance of the Dirc, and because it allows an excellent surface polish on the bars.

In the following, the variable $`\theta _C`$ is used to designate the Cherenkov angle, $`\varphi _C`$ denotes the azimuthal angle of a Cherenkov photon around the track direction, and $`n`$ represents the mean index of refraction of fused silica ($`n=1.473`$) within the wavelength acceptance of the Dirc ($`300\text{nm}`$ to $`600\text{nm}`$). The Cherenkov angle is given by the familiar relation $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _C=1/(n\beta )`$ with $`\beta =v/c,`$ the velocity of the particle $`v`$ and the velocity of light $`c.`$

For particles with $`\beta 1,`$ some photons will always lie within the total internal reflection limit, and will be transported to either one or both ends of the bar, depending on the particle incident angle. To avoid instrumenting both ends of the bar with photon detectors, a mirror is placed at the forward end, perpendicular to the bar axis, to reflect incident photons to the backward, instrumented end (see Figure 1).

Once photons arrive at the instrumented end, most of them emerge into a water-filled expansion region, called the *standoff box*. A fused silica *wedge* at the exit of the bar reflects photons at large angles relative to the bar axis. It thereby reduces the size of the required detection surface and recovers those photons that would otherwise be lost due to internal reflection at the fused silica/water interface. The photons are detected by an array of densely packed photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), each surrounded by reflecting *light catcher* cones to capture light which would otherwise miss the active area of the PMT. The PMTs are placed at a distance of about $`1.2\text{m}`$ from the end of the bars. The expected Cherenkov light pattern at this surface is essentially a conic section, where the cone opening-angle is the Cherenkov production angle modified by refraction at the exit from the fused silica window.

The Dirc bars are arranged in a 12-sided polygonal barrel (see Figure 2). Because of the beam energy asymmetry (at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$, Pep-II collides $`9\text{GeV}`$ electrons on $`3.1\text{GeV}`$ positrons), particles are produced preferentially forward in the laboratory. To minimize interference with other detector systems in the forward region, the Dirc photon detector is placed at the backward end. The bars are placed into 12 hermetically sealed containers, called *bar boxes*, made of aluminum-hexcel panels. Dry nitrogen gas flows through each box, and is monitored for humidity to ensure that the bar box to water interface remains sealed. Each bar box contains 12 bars, for a total of 144 bars. Within a bar box the 12 bars are optically isolated by a $`150\mu \text{m}`$ air gap between neighboring bars, enforced by custom shims made from aluminum foil.

The bars are $`17\text{mm}`$ thick, $`35\text{mm}`$ wide, and $`4.9\text{m}`$ long. Each bar is assembled from four $`1.225\text{m}`$ pieces that are glued end-to-end; this length is the longest high-quality bar currently obtainable. The bars are supported at $`600\text{mm}`$ intervals by small nylon buttons for optical isolation from the bar box. Each bar has a fused silica wedge glued to it at the readout end. The wedge, made of the same material as the bar, is $`91\text{mm}`$ long with very nearly the same width ($`33\text{mm}`$) as the bars and a trapezoidal profile ($`27\text{mm}`$ high at bar end, and $`79\text{mm}`$ high at the light exit end). The bottom of the wedge (see Figure 1) has a slight ($`6\text{mrad}`$) upward slope to minimize the displacement of the downward reflected image due to the finite bar thickness. The 12 wedges in a bar box are glued to a common $`10\text{mm}`$ thick fused silica window which provides the interface and seal to the purified water in the standoff box.

The standoff box (see Figure 2) is made of stainless steel, consisting of a cone, cylinder, and 12 sectors of PMTs. It contains about $`6000\text{l}`$ of purified water. Water is used to fill this region because it is inexpensive and has an average index of refraction ($`n1.346`$) reasonably close to that of fused silica, thus minimizing the total internal reflection at silica-water interface. Furthermore, its chromaticity index is a close match to that of fused silica, effectively eliminating dispersion at the silica-water interface. The iron gusset supports the standoff box. An iron shield, supplemented by a *bucking coil*, surrounds the standoff box to reduce the field in the PMT region to below $`1\text{G}`$.

The PMTs at the rear of the standoff box lie on an approximately toroidal surface. The distance from the end of the bar to the PMTs is $`1.17\text{m}.`$ Each of the 12 PMT sectors contains 896 PMTs (ETL model 9125) with $`29\text{mm}`$ diameter, in a closely packed array inside the water volume. A double o-ring water seal is made between the PMTs and the vessel wall. The PMTs are installed from the inside of the standoff box and connected via a feed-through to a base mounted outside. The hexagonal light catcher cone is mounted in front of the photocathode of each PMT which results in an effective active surface area light collection fraction of about 90%.

The Dirc occupies $`80\text{mm}`$ of radial space in the central detector volume including supports and construction tolerances with a total of about 19% radiation length thickness at normal incidence. The radiator bars cover a solid angle corresponding to about 94% of the azimuth and 83% of the c.m. polar angle cosine.

## 3 Dirc Performance

The performance of the Dirc is influenced by two factors. First, information from the PMTs has to be separated into background and signal. Second, the $`\theta _C`$ resolution of the signal has to allow for the separation of different particle species.

Figure 3 shows a typical di-muon event ($`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$). In addition to the signals caused by Cherenkov light from the muon tracks, about 500 background signals can be seen in the $`600\text{ns}`$ readout window centered around the trigger. This background is dominated by low energy photons from the Pep-II machine hitting the standoff box.

The time-to-digital converter (TDC) chip used in the Dirc data readout is designed such that a dead time of about 5% occurs at an input rate of $`250\text{kHz}.`$ Some care in machine tuning is required to stay under a limit of $`250\text{kHz}`$ per tube. To monitor this rate, one PMT in each sector is read out via a scaler. Figure 4 shows the maximum scaler rate as a function of the Pep-II luminosity during data taking in 2000 and 2001. In March 2000 the accelerator operated at a peak luminosity of $`10^{33}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1`$. Figure 4(a) shows, at a value corresponding to only one third of the design luminosity, the PMT rates reached a level that caused noticeable dead times. Due to those findings, lead shielding was installed in the summer of 2000 around the beam line components near the backward end-cap. Initially, localized shielding was added in the form of lead bricks which were stacked around the beam pipe and in front of a large quadrupole. This shielding significantly improved the background situation so that noticeable TDC dead times were reached only at $`2.5\times 10^{33}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1`$ (Figure 4(b)). During the shutdown in January 2001, the localized lead brick shielding was replaced by an engineered, homogeneous lead shielding of $`5\text{cm}`$ to $`8\text{cm}`$ thickness covering the inside radius of the standoff box and is easily removable to facilitate access to the central detector and beam line components. As is shown in figure 4(c), the maximum scaler rates at luminosities of $`4.2\times 10^{33}/\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1`$ are well below the level that would cause TDC inefficiencies.

During the shutdown following the 2001-2002 run, we plan to replace the TDCs with a faster version with deeper buffering that is designed to have a deadtime of less than 5% at $`2.5\text{MHz}`$ input rate, suitable for luminosities of at least $`10^{34}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1.`$

The Dirc is intrinsically a three-dimensional imaging device. Photons are focused onto the phototube detection surface via a “pinhole” defined by the exit aperture of the bar, so that the photon propagation angles $`\alpha _x`$ and $`\alpha _y`$ can be measured in two-dimensional space, where $`x`$ (bar width) and $`y`$ (bar thickness) are the directions transverse to the bar axis. The travel time of the photon down the bar is also related to the photon propagation angle ($`\alpha _z`$) with respect to the bar axis. Imaging in the Dirc occurs in all three of these dimensions, by recording the time of the PMT signal. As the track position and angles are known from the tracking system, these three $`\alpha `$ angles can be used to determine the two angles ($`\theta _C,\varphi _C`$). This over-constraint on the angles is particularly useful in dealing with ambiguities and high background rates.

The single photon resolution can be calculated from the geometrical, the chromatic and the transport term. The geometrical uncertainty is, for the pinhole optics of the Dirc, given by the standoff box size, the bar and the PMT size. With $`7.2\text{mrad},`$ it is the single biggest contribution to the single photon resolution. The chromatic uncertainty originates from the fact that the photons are produced with different wavelengths and, therefore, have different cone opening angles $`\theta _C.`$ Using the range in photon wavelength accepted by the PMTs, the chromatic effect contributes to the resolution with $`5.4\text{mrad}.`$ The final uncertainty comes from imperfections of the bars and the glue joints. This transport term is approximately $`2\text{mrad}`$ to $`3\text{mrad}.`$

Combining the three contributions, a single photon resolution of $`\sigma _{\theta _C,\gamma }=9.5\text{mrad}`$ is expected for the Dirc. Figure 5 shows the single photon angular resolution obtained from di-muon events. There is a broad background of less than 10% relative height under the peak that originates mostly from track-associated sources, such as $`\delta `$ rays, reflections off the glue-fused silica boundaries, and combinatorial background. The width of the peak translates to a resolution of about $`9.6\text{mrad},`$ in good agreement with the expected value.

The resolution on the track Cherenkov angle is defined by a correlated term and the single photon resolution which scales with the number of photoelectrons:

$$\sigma _{\theta _C}=\sigma _{\theta _C,\text{corr}}\frac{\sigma _{\theta _C,\gamma }}{\sqrt{N_{\text{pe}}}}$$
(1)
where $`N_{pe}`$ is the number of photons detected per track.

The number of photoelectrons varies between 16 for small values of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\text{track}}`$ at the center of the barrel and 60 at large values of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\text{track}}`$ as is shown in Figure 6. This variation is well reproduced by Monte Carlo simulation and can be understood from the geometry of the Dirc. The number of Cherenkov photons varies with the path length of the track in the radiator, it is smallest at perpendicular incidence at the center and increases towards the ends of the bars. In addition, the fraction of photons trapped by total internal reflection rises with larger values of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\text{track}}.`$ This increase in the number of photons for forward going tracks is a good match to the increase in performance required at larger momentum.

With the present alignment, the track Cherenkov angle resolution for di-muon events is shown in Figure 7. The width of the fitted Gaussian distribution is $`2.4\text{mrad}`$ compared to the design goal of $`2.2\text{mrad}.`$

The measured time resolution is $`1.7\text{ns},`$ close to the intrinsic $`1.5\text{ns}`$ transit time spread of the PMTs. This resolution is used to efficiently distinguish background from signal photons but is not sufficient to improve the Cherenkov angle resolution.

Figure 8 shows an example of the use of the Dirc for particle identification. The $`K\pi `$ invariant mass spectra are shown with and without the use of the Dirc for kaon identification. The peak corresponds to the decay of the $`D^0`$ particle.

The PID performance of the Dirc has been studied with a sample of pions and kaons, selected kinematically using $`D^0K^{}\pi ^+`$ decays from inclusive $`D^{}`$ production.

The $`\pi /K`$ separation power of the Dirc was defined as the difference of the expected Cherenkov angles for pions and kaons, divided by the measured track Cherenkov angle resolution. As shown in Figure 9, the separation between kaons and pions at $`3\text{GeV}/c`$ is about $`4.4\sigma `$, within 10% of the design goal.

The efficiency for correctly identifying a charged kaon that traverses a radiator bar and the probability to wrongly identify a pion as a kaon are also determined from the inclusive $`D^{}`$ sample and are shown as a function of the track momentum in Figure 10 for a particular choice of particle selection criteria. The kaon selection efficiency and pion misidentification, integrated over the $`K`$ and $`\pi `$ momentum spectra of the $`D^{}`$ control sample, are $`97.97\pm 0.07`$% (stat. only) and $`1.83\pm 0.06`$% (stat. only), respectively.

A report on the operational experience with the Dirc detector can be found in .

## 4 Dirc in Higher Luminosity Environment

In a higher luminosity environment, the accelerator-induced background will cause the main challenge. From a set of special runs taken in February 2002, the background rate as a function of the beam currents $`I_{\text{HER}}`$ and $`I_{\text{LER}}`$ in the high and low energy ring, respectively, and the luminosity $``$ can be parameterized as

$$R=13\frac{\text{kHz}}{\text{A}}I_{\text{HER}}+18\frac{\text{kHz}}{\text{A}}I_{\text{LER}}+10\frac{\text{kHz}}{10^{33}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1}.$$
(2)
For the conditions at the beginning of this year, the current terms dominate but for higher luminosities, the corresponding term will contribute significantly. The anticipated limit of the luminosity Pep-II will be able to provide without major upgrade is $`4\times 10^{34}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1.`$ With some upgrades to the shielding and the TDC upgrade, the Dirc will be able to reliably work in this environment. At higher luminosities, such as expected after major Pep-II updates or for SuperB A B AR, more changes will be necessary.

A solution to high background rates is to reduce the size of the standoff box. However, without modifications to the design, this would lead to an increase in the geometric resolution term and would cause a considerable decrease in the Dirc performance.

A modified design, as shown in figure 11, employs smaller sized photodetectors as well as focusing optics effectively removing the bar size uncertainty in the focusing plane. These two enhancements can be balanced so that the size of the standoff region can be reduced while keeping a similar or improved geometrical resolution.

In addition, smaller photodetectors with a better transit time spread will improve the timing resolution of the detector. This can be used to further reduce the background by using tighter time cuts and to reduce the chromatic uncertainty. The travel time of a photon is the difference between the time the particle hits the bar and the arrival time of the photon. It depends on the path length and the group velocity in the transit medium. The group velocity itself depends on the refractive index. Thus, the travel time and path length yield a measure of the wavelength of the photon. Figure 12 shows a calculation demonstrating that a timing resolution in the order of $`100\text{ps}`$ is needed for a significant improvement in the chromatic uncertainty.

Reducing the range of wavelength accepted in the detection system will reduce the range of Cherenkov cone opening angles contributing and, thus, reduce the chromatic uncertainty. The drawback of this solution is the loss in the number of photons detected per track causing a reduced suppression of the single photon resolution term. These two effects can be balanced in order to reach the optimal total $`\theta _C`$ resolution.

With a timing resolution in the order of $`100\text{ps},`$ the ratio of the track to detector distance over the path length will provide an additional measure of the photon angle. In some regions of phase space, especially at small dip angles, its resolution will be competitive to the angle resolution from the position of the PMT hit.

A more detailed discussion can be found in .

One of the photon detector candidates is the flat panel PMT H-8500 by Hamamatsu. It has $`8\times 8`$ square pads on a size of $`50\text{mm}\times 50\text{mm}.`$ This leads to a high area efficiency and packaging density. The timing resolution is expected to be in the range of $`100\text{ps}`$ to $`200\text{ps}.`$ The disadvantage of the currently available model is its low gain in the order of $`1.6\times 10^6.`$

Studies of the timing resolution on an early pre-production version were encouraging. The time was measured at two thresholds for each signal in order to perform a time walk correction. The corrected time distribution is shown in figure 13. A fit to a double Gaussian plus a second order polynomial describes the data well. The narrow Gaussian has a width of $`125\text{ps}.`$ This value is not yet corrected for the light pulse width and instrumentational effects. In addition, the double threshold method limits the data to PMT signals with a pulse height above the higher threshold. This removes some fraction of low signal events.

Currently, studies of the efficiency uniformity of the PMT area are in process and results will be available in near future.

## 5 Improvements for Future Dirc Detectors

The design described in the previous section will be sufficient to provide the required resolution of the Dirc for possible upgrade scenarios. However, for the SuperB A B AR environment with a design luminosity of $`10^{36}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1,`$ the projected occupancy in the tracking system makes building a completely new detector necessary.

This allows to reconsider the radiator and light guide design. Synthetic fused silica is still the material of choice as it fulfills all requirements in terms of transparency, radiation hardness, achievable uniformity in material and optical finish. In addition, it has a small radiation length which is benifical for a calorimeter outside of the Dirc system.

Increasing the thickness of the radiators will lead to an increased number of photons per track but it will also increase the amount of material in front of the calorimeter, so the thickness of the radiator can not be changed significantly.

Increasing the width of the radiators, such as using one plate instead of several bars, has advantages in the geometrical term of the single photon resolution. In a plate geometry, there are less side bounces and the path length for a photon measured in a given PMT with a known track position changes drastically with each additional side bounce. Therefore, the hit time can be used to determine the number of side bounces and because of this the exit position of the photon at the instrumented bar end can be inferred. This is shown in figure 14, where the full line and the dashed line have significantly different path lengths.

There are a few examples in the following on the expected resolution for the different setups. A detailed discussion of the geometries can be found in . Please note that the resolutions are given in terms of the photon exit angles $`\alpha `$ at the end of the bar or plate. These are different to the Cherenkov angle resolution $`\sigma _{\theta _C}.`$ However, there is a strong correlation between $`\sigma _{\alpha _y}`$ and $`\sigma _{\theta _C}`$ while the correlation between $`\sigma _{\alpha _x}`$ and $`\sigma _{\theta _C}`$ is weaker.

Current B A B AR Dirc

The current Dirc setup has round PMTs with $`29\text{mm}`$ diameter and rectangular bars of size $`35\text{mm}\times 17.5\text{mm}.`$ The resolution on the photon exit angle at the edge of the bar is

$$\sigma _{\alpha _x}\frac{1}{L_{\text{SOB}}}\sqrt{\sigma _x^2(\text{bar})+\sigma _x^2(\text{pixel})}\frac{1}{1170\text{mm}}\sqrt{\frac{1}{12}(35\text{mm})^2+\frac{1}{16}(29\text{mm})^2}=10.6\text{mrad}$$
(3)
and

$$\sigma _{\alpha _y}7.6\text{mrad}$$
(4)
The interface fused silica — water magnifies the angles thus improving the resolution by approximately 10% leading to $`\sigma _{\alpha _{x/y}}=9.5\text{mrad}/6.9\text{mrad}.`$

Focusing optics for B A B AR like Dirc

A focusing optic in $`y`$ with a pixel size of $`6\text{mm}\times 6\text{mm}`$ and a corresponding standoff distance of $`L=250\text{mm}`$ leads to

$$\sigma _{\alpha _y}\frac{1}{L}\sqrt{\sigma _x^2(\text{pixel})}\frac{1}{250\text{mm}}\sqrt{\frac{1}{12}(6\text{mm})^2}=6.9\text{mrad}$$
(5)
similar to the current $`\alpha _y`$ resolution. The resolution in $`x`$ will get worse as focusing in both dimensions would complicate ambiguity resolution. This can be compensated by the reduced chromatic uncertainty.

Focusing optics with plates for SuperB A B AR

In order to improve the resolution, a smaller pad size of $`2\text{mm}`$ in $`y`$ direction and $`6\text{mm}`$ in $`x`$ direction can be used. The resolution can be described by

$$\sigma _{\alpha _y}\frac{1}{L}\sqrt{\sigma _x^2(\text{pixel})}\frac{1}{250\text{mm}}\sqrt{\frac{1}{12}(2\text{mm})^2}=2.3\text{mrad}$$
(6)
in $`y`$ direction and in $`x`$

$$\sigma _{\alpha _x}\frac{1}{L}\sqrt{\sigma _x^2(\text{track})+\sigma _x^2(\text{pixel})}\frac{1}{1000\text{mm}}\sqrt{(4\text{mm})^2+\frac{1}{12}(6\text{mm})^2}=4.3\text{mrad}$$
(7)
In the last equation $`L`$ is the length of the region where the photon can expand without side bounces. This length varies depending on the number and positions of the side bounces.

Together with the improved chromatic resolution, this leads to a significant improvement in the single photon resolution compared to the current B A B AR Dirc.

The major uncertainty not directly related to the Dirc design is the correlated uncertainty on the position of the track at the entry into the radiator. In order to improve the particle separation, it is not sufficient to improve the intrinsic Dirc uncertainty only. A possible solution is to add a tracking device outside the Dirc volume. This would also allow for finding particle conversions and decays inside the radiator material.

A further improvement is to enlarge the angular coverage of the particle identification system by using an end-cap device. The Dirc covers the barrel region only. Additional challenges for an end-cap device are the limited amount of space in the end-cap, the higher radiation levels close to the beam-pipe, and that the readout has to be done inside the magnetic field which makes standard PMTs unusable. Interesting alternative photodetectors have been suggested but they still need to be studied in detail before an evaluation on the feasibility of an end-cap Dirc can be performed.

## 6 Conclusions

The Dirc is a novel particle identification system used for the first time in the B A B AR environment. It is performing close to the design and has a significant influence on most physics analysis.

Increasing the luminosity beyond the B A B AR design values will result in challenges for the Dirc system mainly due to increased background levels of low energy photons from Pep-II. Improvements in shielding and in the maximal data taking rate will allow for running the current detector up to the anticipated Pep-II limits. Beyond that, reducing the size of the standoff box will be necessary. In order to keep the Cherenkov angle resolution on the design level, the standoff box needs to be replaced by focusing optics with smaller sized photodetectors. Timing resolution in the order of $`100\text{ps}`$ is vital to reduce the chromatic uncertainty and can effectively separate signal from background photons. Research on candidate devices has started and first tests have shown promising results.

At luminosities in the order of $`10^{36}\text{cm}^2\text{s}^1`$ as envisioned for SuperB A B AR, a completely new Dirc can be built. Fused silica plates instead of bars and even smaller PMT pad sizes along with an improved tracking will allow for significant improvements in the Cherenkov angle resolution.

Enlarging the angular coverage of a Dirc particle identification system will require an end-cap device. The challenges for this device include photodetection inside of the magnetic field and the limited amount of space prohibiting large expansion volumes.


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# Energy thresholds for discrete breathers

## Abstract

Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice. An important issue, not only from a theoretical point of view but also for their experimental detection, are their energy properties. We considerably enlarge the scenario of possible energy properties presented by Flach, Kladko, and MacKay \[Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1207 (1997)\]. Breather energies have a positive lower bound if the lattice dimension is greater than or equal to a certain critical value $`d_c`$. We show that $`d_c`$ can generically be greater than two for a large class of Hamiltonian systems. Furthermore, examples are provided for systems where discrete breathers exist but do not emerge from the bifurcation of a band edge plane wave. Some of these systems support breathers of arbitrarily low energy in any spatial dimension.

The phenomenon of localization is of interest in almost any branch of physics. In addition to the well known Anderson localization due to disorder, the last decade has seen an increasing attention for localization phenomena in translational invariant systems, i.e., in the absence of disorder. Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice. A necessary condition for their existence is the nonlinearity of the equations of motion of the system, and the existence of discrete breathers has been proved rigorously for some classes of systems MacAubBam ; AuKoKa ; JaNo . In contrast to their analogues in continuous systems, the existence of discrete breathers is a generic phenomenon, which accounts for considerable interest in these objects from a physical point of view. In fact, recent experiments could demonstrate the existence of discrete breathers in various systems such as coupled optical waveguides Eisenberg\_ea , low-dimensional crystals Swanson\_ea , antiferromagnetic materials SchwarzEnSie , Josephson junction arrays (BiUs  and references therein), and molecular crystals EdHamm .

Properties of discrete breathers, as well as of some generalizations of discrete breathers, have been studied in detail in a large variety of different models. However, apart from existence proofs and studies of the spatial localization of discrete breathers (which is typically exponential), only a few general results exist. Among these it is worth mentioning the remarkable result by Flach, Kladko, and MacKay FlaKlaMac  on energy thresholds for discrete breathers in one-, two-, and three-dimensional lattices (and subsequent generalizations to systems with long range interactions Flach2  and to partially isochronous potentials DoFla ). These results on energy thresholds have practical relevance, as they can assist in choosing a proper energy range for the detection of discrete breathers in real experiments or computer experiments. The main achievement of these papers on energy thresholds can be summarized as follows: for a certain class of Hamiltonian systems of infinite size, a critical spatial dimension $`d_c`$ exists, such that

* for a system whose spatial dimension $`d`$ is smaller than $`d_c`$, no positive lower bound on the energy of discrete breathers exist, i.e., discrete breathers of arbitrarily low energy can be found,
* for a system where $`dd_c`$, there exists a positive lower bound on the energy of discrete breathers.

The critical dimension $`d_c`$ depends on the type of nonlinearity present in the system and is, according to FlaKlaMac , typically two, but never greater than two. This result was obtained by tacitly assuming that the Hamiltonian admits a Taylor series expansion around its equilibrium point. Although this is a reasonable assumption for many systems or models in physics, there exist some remarkable exceptions (see e.g. BaRaChri  and Nesterenko ). In the present Letter, some assumptions made in FlaKlaMac  are critically revisited and a larger class of Hamiltonian systems, not necessarily expandable around the equilibrium point, is considered. We find a much richer scenario for the existence of energy thresholds for discrete breathers:

1. The critical dimension $`d_c`$ can be greater than two for large classes of Hamiltonian systems. We report on systems which do not show an energy threshold for discrete breathers in spatial dimensions two and three.
2. There exist discrete breathers which do not emerge from a tangent bifurcation of the band edge plane wave. For these discrete breathers an energy threshold exists which, however, cannot be obtained by the analysis used in FlaKlaMac  and Flach2 ; DoFla ; Flach1 .
3. In the absence of a linear spectrum (“sonic vacuum”), discrete breathers are superexponentially localized and $`d_c=\mathrm{}`$.

We consider a $`d`$-dimensional hypercubic lattice with $`N`$ sites. Each site is labeled by a $`d`$-dimensional vector $`i^d`$, and a state $`x_i^f`$ is assigned to each lattice site, where $`f`$ is the number of components and is to be finite. The Hamiltonian of the system is of the general form

$$(\{x_i\})=\underset{i^d}{}\left[_{\text{loc}}(x_i)+_{\text{int}}(x_i,\{x_{i+j}\})\right],$$
(1)
where $`_{\text{int}}`$ describes the interaction of a state at site $`i`$ with the states $`\{x_{i+j}\}`$ in a (finite) neighborhood. $``$ is assumed to have an equilibrium point at $`x_i=0`$, with $`(\{0\})=0`$. In order to exemplify, in what follows we shall make reference to the form

$$(\{p_i,q_i\})=\underset{i^d}{}\left[\frac{p_i^2}{2}+V(q_i)+\underset{jN_i}{}W(q_i,q_j)\right],$$
(2)
where $`V`$ is a local potential, $`W`$ an interaction potential, and $`N_i`$ denotes the set of nearest neighboring sites of $`i`$. $`V`$ and $`W`$ are assumed to be two times continuously differentiable ($`C^2`$) and are allowed to have an isolated non-analyticity at zero, being of the shape

$$V(q)=V_2q^2+\underset{n=3}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_n^\pm q^n,$$
(3)
where the $`V_n`$ are constants which may be different for $`q0`$ ($`V_n^+`$) and $`q<0`$ ($`V_n^{}`$). (Analogous for $`W`$.)

For generic Hamiltonian systems, periodic orbits—and hence also discrete breathers—occur in one-parameter families, and some typical choices of quantities to index such a family are the energy $`E`$, the amplitude measured at the site with maximum amplitude, or the breather frequency $`\omega _b`$. It may or may not be the case that, in a certain system, discrete breathers with arbitrarily small amplitude can be found. (This is in contrast to FlaKlaMac , where it is argued that the breather amplitude can always be lowered to arbitrarily small values.)

Systems with small amplitude breathers and phonons: First, it is important to recall that, for discrete breathers to exist as generic solutions, the discrete breather frequency $`\omega _b`$ has to be nonresonant with the phonon spectrum $`\omega _q`$, i.e., $`\omega _q/\omega _b`$ Flach3 . Therefore, in the limit of small amplitudes, the discrete breather frequency $`\omega _b`$ has to approach an edge of the phonon spectrum from outside the phonon spectrum FlaKlaMac . With amplitudes tending to zero, it is observed that localized solutions (discrete breathers) and extended ones (phonons) become more and more similar, and one might suspect that discrete breathers appear through a bifurcation from a phonon mode. For some one-dimensional systems this has been proved JaNo , in other cases numerics supports this conjecture. Calculating the critical energy $`E_c`$ at which this bifurcation occurs, the minimal energy of discrete breathers in a system can be obtained. Flach Flach1  computed the critical energy for systems where the potentials $`V`$ and $`W`$ are infinitely many times differentiable ($`C^{\mathrm{}}`$) around their minima. Extending this type of analysis to systems where the Hamiltonian is $`C^2`$ in the vicinity of its equilibrium point, one obtains

$$E_cN^{14/d}$$
(4)
relating the bifurcation energy $`E_c`$ to the number of lattice sites $`N`$. Note that, as $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ is a subspace of $`C^2`$, also the result by Flach, Kladko, and MacKay ($`E_cN^{12/d}`$) can occur, however, as a non-generic case (not robust under $`C^2`$-perturbations of the Hamiltonian). Additionally to the above mentioned physical applications of nonanalytic potentials, the fact that the generic behavior is somewhat ruled by these potentials renders our result interesting from a theoretical point of view.

Considering the proportionality (4) in the limit of an infinite number of lattice sites,

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}E_c\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill =0\text{if}d& \hfill <4,\\ \hfill >0\text{if}d& \hfill 4,\end{array}$$
(5)
different energy properties are obtained, depending on the spatial dimension $`d`$ of the system. For $`d<4`$, discrete breathers of arbitrarily small energies can be found. For $`d4`$, however, breather energies do not approach zero even if the oscillation amplitude goes to zero, and below a certain positive energy threshold no breathers exist. The value of the threshold energy can be obtained from perturbation theory following the ideas of Flach1 . So, extending the result of Flach, Kladko, and MacKay FlaKlaMac , for this larger class of Hamiltonian systems we obtain a critical dimension $`d_c=4`$, instead of $`d_c=2`$, below which generically there is no positive lower bound on the discrete breather energy.

The mechanism which leads to the existence or non-existence of an energy threshold can be understood somewhat intuitively in the following way: when lowering the amplitude of a discrete breather towards zero, two different mechanisms, competing with respect to their effect on the breather energy, take place: the localization strength of the discrete breather tends to become weaker, leading to an increase in energy, while the mere lowering in amplitude causes a decrease in energy \[see Fig. 1(a) for an example\]. Depending on the respective strengths of these effects (which in turn depend on the spatial dimensionality of the system), an energy threshold may exist or not.

To confirm the above result, numerical data are presented for systems in two spatial dimensions, the first one showing an energy threshold, the second one supporting breathers of arbitrarily low energy. We consider a Fermi-Pasta-Ulam system in two spatial dimensions with interaction potentials of the form $`\frac{1}{2}x^2+\frac{1}{n}|x|^n`$ and $`n=3,4`$. The equations of motion of this Hamiltonian system read

$$\ddot{x}_i=\underset{jN_i}{}(x_jx_i)\left[1+|x_jx_i|^{n2}\right].$$
(6)
For $`n=4`$, the interaction potential, and hence the Hamiltonian $``$, is $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ and we expect the critical dimension to be $`2`$, whereas, for $`n=3`$, we have $`C^2C^3`$, and a critical dimension $`d_c=4`$ is expected. By numerical continuation of periodic orbits from an anti-continuum limit MaAub , discrete breathers on finite lattices can be computed numerically up to machine precision. Doing so for a set of frequencies approaching the phonon band edge, the dependence of the breather energy on its amplitude, measured at the site of maximum amplitude, is obtained. The result is plotted in Fig. 2.

For any finite number of lattice sites, a lower bound on the breather energy is observed. For $`n=3`$, with increasing system size $`N`$ this bound converges towards zero, whereas for $`n=4`$ it converges towards a non-zero value, thus confirming the theoretical predictions.

Systems without a phonon spectrum: A nongeneric, but still remarkable, exception from the above reported energy properties of discrete breathers is observed in systems where no quadratic term is present in the interaction potential. Granular materials provide systems where such interactions are realized and experimentally accessible (see Nesterenko  for a review). In such systems, discrete breathers have been shown to be superexponentially localized Flach3 ; DeyElFlaTsi ; Yuan , where an upper bound on the breather amplitude is given by the inequality $`|x_i|a\mathrm{exp}(|i|/b)c^{(d^i/3)}`$ Yuan , for some $`a,b,c,d`$, in one-dimensional systems. (The breathers are supposed to be centered at site $`i=0`$.) However, the arguments by which these results for the spatial decay are obtained should be equally applicable in higher spatial dimension, and numerical computations confirm this reasoning. For these sort of systems, the above analysis is not applicable, as discrete breathers do not emerge from the bifurcation of a band edge plane wave. Due to this, and in contrast to the results for systems with phonons reported above, no broadening of the discrete breather takes place when lowering its amplitude \[Fig. 1(b)\]. It is this constant localization strength—not the superexponential localization!— which allows for the existence of breathers of arbitrarily low energy regardless of the spatial dimension of the system.

This is confirmed numerically for a Hamiltonian system with a harmonic on-site potential and an interaction potential of the form $`|x|^3`$. The equations of motion of this system read

$$\ddot{x}_i=x_i+\underset{jN_i}{}(x_jx_i)|x_jx_i|.$$
(7)
In Fig. 3, for systems of spatial dimension $`d=1,2,3,4`$, the breather energy is plotted versus its amplitude. Independently of $`d`$, arbitrarily low breather energies are observed already in small finite systems.

Systems without small amplitude breathers: So far we have considered systems in which the amplitude of a family of discrete breathers can be lowered to arbitrarily small values, and formerly there has been uttered the belief that this were always the case FlaKlaMac . From a recent existence proof for discrete breathers by Aubry, Kopidakis, and Kadelburg AuKoKa  it follows, however, that this is not true in general. In a Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chain with equations of motion

$$\ddot{x}_i=\underset{j=i\pm 1}{}[(x_jx_i)+a(x_jx_i)^2+(x_jx_i)^3]$$
(8)
and parameter values $`\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{3}<|a|<\sqrt{3}`$, discrete breathers do exist, but their maximum amplitudes lie always above a certain positive lower bound, even when approaching the phonon band edge (Fig. 4). This automatically implies the existence of a threshold in energy.

###### Acknowledgements.

Helpful comments from and discussions with Dario Bambusi, Jérôme Dorignac, Sergej Flach, and Roberto Livi are gratefully acknowledged. The work was supported by EU contract HPRN-CT-1999-00163 (LOCNET network).


text:
# Probing neutrino mass with multilepton production at the Tevatron in the simplest 𝑅-parity violation model

## I Introduction

Supersymmetry (SUSY) provides a promising candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). The search for supersymmetric partners of the SM particles constitutes an important item in the agenda of current high energy colliders like the Tevatron, and future colliders like the CERN Large Hadron Collider or a linear $`e^+e^{}`$ collider. So far most of the effort in searching for supersymmetric signatures has been confined to the framework of $`R`$-parity conserving realizations susywg ; see, however, Ref. Allanach:1999bf  and references therein.

Recent data on solar and atmospheric neutrinos give a robust evidence for neutrino conversions Fukuda:2002pe , probably the most profound discovery in particle physics in the recent years. It has been suggested long ago that neutrino masses and supersymmetry may be deeply tied together rpold . Indeed, SUSY models exhibiting $`R`$-parity violation can lead to neutrino masses and mixings Hirsch:2000ef  in agreement with the current solar and atmospheric neutrino data. Furthermore, the simplest possibility is bilinear $`R`$-parity violation bilinear ; Diaz:1997xc  which may arise as an effective description of a spontaneous $`R`$-parity violation scenario Masiero:1990uj , or from some suitable ab initio symmetries Mira:2000gg .

It is interesting to notice that neutrino mass models based on $`R`$-parity violation can be tested at colliders Bartl:2000yh ; Porod:2000hv ; Hirsch:2002ys . In this work, we study the production of multileptons ($`3\mathrm{}`$ with $`\mathrm{}=e`$ or $`\mu `$) at the Fermilab Tevatron within the framework of the simplest supergravity (SUGRA) model without $`R`$-parity conservation Diaz:1997xc . We show that the presence of bilinear $`R`$-parity violating (BRpV) interactions enhances the supersymmetric multilepton signals over most of the parameter space, specially at moderate and large $`m_0`$. In order to make the comparison with the $`R`$-parity conserving case easier, we performed our detailed study of the signal and SM backgrounds, adopting the same cuts (soft cuts SC2) proposed in Ref. tata1 .

In SUGRA with universal soft breaking terms at unification, the masses of the sleptons, the lighter chargino ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$), and the lighter neutralinos ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0`$) are considerably smaller than the gluino and squark ones over a large range of the parameter space tata1 . Therefore, the production of charginos and neutralinos provides the largest reach at the Tevatron. In $`R`$-parity conserving scenarios, a promising signal for SUGRA at the Tevatron is the production of $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$ pairs and their subsequent decay into three charged leptons in association with missing energy due to the undetected lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), which turns out to be $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$. In the presence of $`R`$-parity violation, the LSP is no longer stable, giving rise to events containing more particles, and it can be electrically charged since it decays. Interesting signals for such scenarios have been worked out for staus Hirsch:2002ys , stops Bartl:1996gz , gluinos Bartl:1996cg  and also for supersymmtric Higgs bosons Akeroyd:1997iq . The larger activity in the detector can either enhance the signal, via the production of additional leptons or suppress it due to the hadronic activity that spoils the isolation of the leptons. Therefore, a careful reanalysis of the trilepton signal is necessary.

In this work, we consider a SUGRA model that includes the following bilinear terms in the superpotential bilinear ; Diaz:1997xc ; bilinear1

$$W_{\text{BRpV}}=W_{\text{MSSM}}\epsilon _{ab}ϵ_i\widehat{L}_i^a\widehat{H}_u^b,$$
(1)
where the last term violates $`R`$ parity. In order to reproduce the values of neutrino masses indicated by current neutrino data Maltoni:2002ni  we must have $`|ϵ_i||\mu |`$, where $`\mu `$ denotes the SUSY bilinear mass parameter Hirsch:2000ef . The relevant bilinear terms in the soft supersymmetry breaking sector are

$$V_{\text{soft}}=m_{H_u}^2H_u^aH_u^a+m_{H_d}^2H_d^aH_d^a+M_{L_i}^2\stackrel{~}{L}_i^a\stackrel{~}{L}_i^a\epsilon _{ab}\left(B\mu H_d^aH_u^b+B_iϵ_i\stackrel{~}{L}_i^aH_u^b\right),$$
(2)
where the terms proportional to $`B_i`$ are the ones that violate $`R`$ parity. The explicit $`R`$-parity violating terms induce vacuum expectation values (vev) $`v_i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$ for the sneutrinos, in addition to the two Higgs vev’s $`v_u`$ and $`v_d`$.

Our goal is to determine the impact of $`R`$-parity violation on SUSY multilepton signals, for example in the production of three or more electrons or muons, taking into account the magnitude of the mass scale indicated by the current atmospheric neutrino experiments. In phenomenological studies where the details of the neutrino sector are not relevant, it has been proven very useful to work in the approximation where $`R`$ parity and lepton number are violated in only one generation Akeroyd:1997iq ; BRpB\_tau . Thus, the first step to achieve our goal is to assume the approximation where $`R`$ parity is violated only in the third generation (of course all gauge interactions are treated in the full three-generation scheme). This is the theoretically natural choice to make, since the third generation forms the basis for the radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry, driven by the top quark Yukawa coupling. From the point of view of the analysis presented below, the breaking of $`R`$ parity only in the third generation also corresponds to the worst-case-scenario: the breaking of $`R`$ parity in the muon channel would produce muons directly, not just as tau decay products, leading to an enhanced multilepton (multi-muon) signal.

## II  Main features of our BRpV model

The parameter space of our SUGRA model, which exhibits $`R`$-parity violation only in the third generation, is

$$m_0,m_{1/2},\mathrm{tan}\beta ,\mathrm{sign}(\mu ),A_0,ϵ_\tau ,\mathrm{and}m_{\nu _3},$$
(3)
where $`m_{1/2}`$ and $`m_0`$ characterise the common gaugino mass and scalar soft SUSY breaking masses at the unification scale, $`A_0`$ is the common trilinear term, and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is the ratio between the Higgs field vev’s. Although many parameterisations are possible, it is convenient to characterise the BRpV sector by the bilinear superpotential term $`ϵ_\tau `$ and the neutrino mass $`m_{\nu _3}`$.

We considered the running of the masses and couplings to the electroweak scale, assumed to be the top mass, using the one–loop renormalization group equations. In the evaluation of the gaugino masses, we included the next–to–leading order (NLO) corrections coming from $`\alpha _s`$, the two–loop top Yukawa contributions to the beta-functions, and threshold corrections enhanced by large logarithms; for details see GGW . The NLO corrections are especially important for $`M_2`$, leading to a change in the wino mass up to 20%. We then input the soft terms into PYTHIA that was used to evaluated the masses and decay rates of all particles, except the first and second neutralinos.

Present neutrino oscillation data fix the mass splittings among the three neutrinos, leaving arbitrary the overall scale of neutrino masses. The latter could be as large as an electron volt or so without conflicting with cosmology, beta decays and neutrinoless double beta decays, given current uncertainties in nuclear matrix element calculations Valle:2002tm . However, in the BRpV model, neutrino masses are strongly hierarchical Hirsch:2000ef , specially the lightest neutrino mass. As a result the possibility of quasi-degenerate neutrinos is not realized in this model and, correspondingly, we will not discuss it any further. In what follows, whenever we fix the BRpV parameters, we take the tree level neutrino mass as $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV, the current atmospheric best fit value from Ref. Maltoni:2002ni ; Gonzalez-Garcia:2002dz , and fix the value of the remaining BRpV parameter $`ϵ_\tau `$ at representative values 0.22 GeV and $`7\times 10^4`$ GeV.

The presence of BRpV induces a mixing between the neutrinos and neutralinos, giving rise to $`R`$-parity violating decays of the LSP. In our model, the lightest neutralino presents leptonic decays $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\nu \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, semi-leptonic ones $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\nu q\overline{q}`$ or $`\mathrm{}q\overline{q}`$, and the invisible mode $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\nu \nu \nu `$ Porod:2000hv . The expected $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ lifetime and decay lengths depend both on the magnitude of $`R`$-parity breaking parameters and the chosen values of the SUGRA parameters.

Fig. 1(a) shows the lightest neutralino decay length as a function of its mass for $`A_0=0`$, $`\mu >0`$, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =3`$, and $`ϵ_\tau =0.22`$ GeV. In this figure, the solid lines stand for the tree-level neutrino mass $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV, corresponding to the best fit atmospheric scale as given in Ref. Maltoni:2002ni , and we chose $`m_0=200`$ and 700 GeV. The bands in these figures were obtained by taking $`m_{\nu _3}`$ within the 3$`\sigma `$ allowed atmospheric mass splitting of Ref. Maltoni:2002ni . Fig. 1(b) presents the LSP decay length as a function of the neutrino mass, for different lightest neutralino masses and the parameters used in Fig. 1(a).

From Figs. 1 we can see clearly that the LSP decay length is shorter for larger neutrino and LSP masses, as expected. Furthermore, irrespective of the smallness of the neutrino mass indicated by the atmospheric oscillation data, the LSP ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$) decays inside the detector in a large portion of the parameter space, specially for small $`m_0`$. It is interesting to notice that the kinks in Fig. 1 are associated to the opening of the LSP decays into on-shell gauge bosons.

Figure 2 contains the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ branching ratios as a function of $`m_{1/2}`$ for $`ϵ_\tau =0.22`$ GeV, $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV, $`A_0=0`$, and $`\mu >0`$. As we can see from this figure, the decay $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\nu b\overline{b}`$ dominates at small $`m_0`$ and large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. This decay channel arises from an effective coupling $`\lambda _{333}^{}`$, induced by the neutrino–neutralino mixing, which is proportional both to the bottom Yukawa coupling and to the bilinear parameter $`ϵ_\tau `$ in our model. Therefore, this decay is enhanced at small $`m_0`$ due to the lightness of the scalars that mediate it and at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ due to enhanced Yukawa couplings. Both features are apparent in the panels of this figure. Moreover, whenever $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\nu b\overline{b}`$ is not the leading channel, the LSP decays mostly to $`\tau u\overline{d}`$, with a sizable branching fraction $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\tau \nu _{\mathrm{}}\overline{\mathrm{}}`$.

In Fig. 3, we present the dependence of the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ branching ratios with respect to the $`R`$-parity violating parameter $`ϵ_\tau `$. The importance of the $`\nu b\overline{b}`$ decay mode increases for large $`ϵ_\tau `$, since the effective coupling $`\lambda _{333}^{}`$ is proportional to $`ϵ_\tau `$. Moreover, Fig. 4 shows that the LSP branching ratio into $`\nu b\overline{b}`$ decreases with increasing $`m_{\nu _3}`$ in the parameter regions where this mode is sizeable.

One comment is in order here, concerning the naturalness of the above branching ratio predictions. This issue depends somewhat on the assumptions about the supersymmetry soft breaking terms. We are tacitly assuming them to be universal at some unification scale. This is the usual practice and is adopted here to ensure simple comparison with the SUGRA $`R`$-parity conserving results for the trilepton signal obtained in Ref. tata1 . In the BRpV model universality plays another important role, namely, it ensures “calculability” of the neutrino mass $`m_{\nu _3}`$, by the renormalization group evolution. One finds in this case that the smallness of $`m_{\nu _3}`$ required by experiment follows naturally from the approximate “alignment” of BRpV parameters discussed, for example, in Ref. BRpB\_tau ; Mira:2000gg . In such scenario one has that the short LSP decay path is indeed technically natural, despite the small neutrino mass. However one should stress that strictly universal boundary conditions are not at all essential for the consistency of the results presented here.

Summing up, we can say that in the BRpV model the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays mainly into $`\tau ud`$ for large $`m_0`$ or small $`ϵ_\tau `$, while its decays are dominated by $`\nu b\overline{b}`$ at small $`m_0`$ and large $`ϵ_\tau `$ ($`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$). As we will see in what follows this has important implications for the trilepton signal.

## III Signal, Backgrounds, and Selection Cuts

In $`R`$-parity conserving scenarios, trilepton production at the Tevatron proceeds via $`p\overline{p}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$ with $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm \mathrm{}\nu \stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$, and the LSP ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$) leaving the detector undetected. The main SM backgrounds for trilepton production are displayed in Table 1. In order to suppress these backgrounds, we have imposed the soft cuts SC2 defined in Ref. tata1 , which were tailored for scenarios containing soft signal leptons coming from $`\tau `$ decays chung :

* We required the presence of three isolated leptons ($`e`$ or $`\mu `$) with a hadronic $`E_T`$ smaller that 2 GeV in a cone of size $`\mathrm{\Delta }R=0.4`$ around the lepton 3l-4l ;
* We required the most energetic lepton to satisfy $`|\eta _\mathrm{}_1|<1.0`$ and $`p_T(\mathrm{}_1)>11`$ GeV;
* The second (third) most energetic lepton must satisfy $`|\eta _{\mathrm{}_{2/3}}|<2.0`$ and $`p_T(\mathrm{}_{2(3)})>7`$ (5) GeV;
* We required the missing transverse energy to be larger than 25 GeV;
* We vetoed events exhibiting a $`\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ pair with an invariant mass smaller than 20 GeV and larger than 81 GeV (this avoids both Z boson and QED contributions);
* We vetoed events with a transverse mass of a charged lepton and missing transverse energy between 60 GeV and 85 GeV in order to suppress $`W`$ decays.

In our analysis, the signal and backgrounds were generated using PYTHIA pythia , except for the $`WZ^{}(\gamma ^{})`$ which was computed using the complete matrix elements madgraph . Furthermore, we also simulate experimental resolutions by smearing the energies, but not directions, of all final state particles with a Gaussian error given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/E=0.7/\sqrt{E}`$ ($`E`$ in GeV) for hadrons and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/E=0.15/\sqrt{E}`$ for charged leptons.

The cross section for the SM backgrounds after cuts are shown in Table 1. Notice that our results differ slightly from the ones in Ref. tata1  because the hadronization procedures used in PYTHIA and ISAJET are different. Moreover, we can see that the most important background is the $`t\overline{t}`$ production, accounting for 70% of the total background. We further tested our code by verifying that our results for the $`R`$-parity conserving signal agree with the ones in Ref. tata1 .

In our BRpV model there are more SUSY reactions that can contribute to the trilepton signal than in the $`R`$-parity conserving case, since the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays can give rise to charged leptons. In the parameter range interesting for neutrino physics $`R`$-parity violating decay modes are only important for the LSP decays and can safely be neglected for the other SUSY particles. We have incorporated all possible decay modes of the lightest neutralino and the second lightest neutralino taking fully into account large $`\mathrm{tan}(\beta )`$ effects in PYTHIA, leaving the other decay modes unchanged. Assuming that gluinos and squarks are too heavy to be produced at the Tevatron, we considered the following processes:

$$p\overline{p}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}^{},\stackrel{~}{\nu }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}},\stackrel{~}{\chi }_i^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_j^0(i(j)=1,2),\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^{}\text{, and}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_i^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm (i=1,2).$$

The $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays can contain charged leptons, and therefore, we should also analyse multilepton ($`4\mathrm{}`$) production. In order to extract this signal, we applied the cuts C1, C3, C5, and C2 but accepting leptons with $`|\eta (\mathrm{})|<3`$. We also required the presence of an additional isolated lepton with $`p_T>5`$ GeV and demanded the missing transverse energy to be larger than 20 GeV. The main SM backgrounds for this process are $`t\overline{t}`$, $`WZ`$, and $`ZZ`$ productions whose cross sections after cuts are shown in Table 2.

We can see from Fig. 1 that the lightest neutralino might not decay inside the detector depending on the point of the parameter space. If it decays inside the tracking system, it can give rise to spectacular events exhibiting displaced vertices without an incoming track associated to it. In our analyses, we did not look for displaced vertices since the corresponding backgrounds depend upon details of the detector. This possibly is a conservative hypothesis since this kind of events should present a small background, leading to a larger reach of the Tevatron. Nevertheless, we kept track of the position of the neutralino decay and accepted events where the neutralino decays inside the tracking system, rejecting all events where one of the neutralinos decays outside a cylinder around the beam pipe of radius 0.5 m and length 2.0 m; we named this requirement C7. Again, this is another conservative estimate of the expected BRpV signal.

We investigated the regions of the $`m_0m_{1/2}`$ plane where the trilepton and multilepton signals can be established at the Tevatron for integrated luminosities of 2 fb-1 and 25 fb-1 and fixed values of $`A_0`$ (=0), $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, $`\mathrm{sign}(\mu )(>0)`$, $`ϵ_\tau `$, and $`m_{\nu _3}`$ (= 0.05 eV). We evolved the renormalization group equations starting at the unification scale (few $`\times 10^{16}`$ GeV) for the soft parameters, rejecting the points where either the electroweak symmetry is not correctly broken, or which exhibit particles with mass excluded by present experimental data pdg . In our analysis, we have employed the Poisson statistics, except when the expected number of signal events is large enough to justify the use of the Gaussian distribution tatadif . We exhibit our results in the $`m_0m_{1/2}`$ plane, denoting by black circles the theoretically excluded points, and by white circles the experimentally excluded by sparticle and Higgs boson searches at LEP2 pdg . The black squares represent points accessible to Tevatron experiments at $`5\sigma `$ level with 2 fb-1 of integrated luminosity, while the white squares are accessible with 25 fb-1. Points denoted by diamonds are accessible only at the $`3\sigma `$ level with 25 fb-1, while the stars correspond to the region not accessible to the Tevatron.

The trilepton cross section is always dominated by the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$ productions, with the second process being about 20% to 50% larger than the first. For example, these reactions are responsible for approximately 99% of the cross section at large $`m_0`$. Note that the first process can contribute to the trilepton signal only in $`R`$-parity violating scenarios. Moreover, at small and moderate $`m_0`$ ($`400`$ GeV), the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$ production is responsible for approximately 5–10% of the signal cross section and the production of sleptons also gives a sizable contribution.

To study the multilepton signal we choose three representative parameter regions. The best scenario corresponds to the case where $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ and $`ϵ_\tau `$ are small. We subsequently relax this optimistic assumption by considering separately the cases where either (but not both, since in this case the signal is too small) $`ϵ_\tau `$ or $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ are large.

In Fig. 5, we present the region of the $`m_0m_{1/2}`$ plane that can be probed at the Tevatron for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =3`$ and BRpV parameters $`ϵ_\tau =7\times 10^4`$ GeV and $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV. For these values of the parameters, the signal cross section is dominated by $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0`$ production followed by $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0l^+\nu `$, $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0qq`$ and the LSP $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays mainly into $`\tau u\overline{d}`$. As expected, the long lifetime of the neutralino reduces considerably the signal in the shaded area of Fig. 5 after we apply the cut C7. Therefore, we might be able to further probe this region by looking for displaced vertices, and consequently enhance the Tevatron reach.

It is interesting to compare our results presented in Fig. 5 with the ones in Ref. tata1 . First of all, the presence of BRpV interactions reduces the Tevatron reach in the trilepton channel for small values of $`m_0`$. This happens because there are some competing effects in this region of parameters: on the one hand there are new contributions to the trilepton process due to LSP decay and on the other hand, the decay of the neutralinos produce a larger hadronic activity, worsening the lepton isolation, and reducing the missing $`E_T`$ compared with the MSSM case. Besides that, the leptons from the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decay can give rise to additional isolated leptons which can contribute to the trilepton signal or, alternatively, can suppress it due to the presence of more than three isolated leptons. The last effect and the larger hadronic activity reduce the trilepton signal at small $`m_0`$ in the BRpV model. In contrast, as can be seen from Fig. 5, the trilepton reach at large $`m_0`$ always tends to increase with respect to the MSSM expectation. This follows from the fact that the drastic reduction of the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_2^0`$ branching ratio into leptons at large $`m_0`$ is compensated by the additional production of charged leptons in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays. Since these extra leptons come from tau decays, it is important to adopt cuts which increase the acceptance of soft leptons. The cuts we used satisfy this requirement.

In Fig. 6(a) we present the Tevatron reach in the multilepton (four leptons or more) channel for the same parameters adopted in Fig. 5. As we can see, the multilepton reach is larger than the trilepton one, increasing the discovery potential at large values of $`m_{1/2}`$. For instance, the Tevatron reach at large $`m_0`$ is $`225`$ GeV in our BRpV model while it is of the order of 150 GeV in the MSSM. Moreover, unlike the trilepton signal, the discovery potential at small $`m_0`$ is also increased with respect to that of the MSSM. In this region it is clear that the reduction of the trilepton signal is largely due to the presence of additional isolated leptons. As in Fig. 5, the shaded area represent the region where displaced vertices could be used to further increase the sensitivity to BRpV. In Fig. 6(b) we present the combined results for the trilepton and multilepton searches using the chi-square criteria. It is interesting to notice that the presence of $`R`$-parity violating interactions leads to a $`5\sigma `$ SUSY discovery even at large $`m_0`$, a region where the usual $`R`$-parity conserving SUGRA model has no discovery potential at all. Notice the importance of combining trilepton and multilepton signals to achieve this conclusion.

Let us now consider a second scenario where the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays predominantly into $`\nu _3b\overline{b}`$ at low $`m_0`$. As seen in Fig. 3, the dominance of this decay channel happens for large $`ϵ_\tau `$ values since the LSP decay is scalar mediated. The $`\nu _3b\overline{b}`$ decay mode spoils lepton isolation, without producing any additional charged leptons and may be regarded, in a sense, as a worse case scenario in comparison with the case of small $`ϵ_\tau `$ and $`m_0`$. In order to illustrate this case we fixed $`ϵ_\tau =0.22`$ GeV and the remaining parameters as before; $`A_0=0`$, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =3`$, $`\mu >0`$, and $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV. From Fig. 7 we can see that the trilepton reach is indeed further reduced at small and medium $`m_0`$, as expected. The same happens for the multilepton signal; see Fig. 8. Nevertheless, combining these signals still leads to a reach that is better than the MSSM one for all $`m_0`$ and $`m_{1/2}`$ values.

Finally, we consider the case of small $`ϵ_\tau `$ and large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, say $`ϵ_\tau =7\times 10^4`$ GeV and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =35`$. Fig. 9 displays the Tevatron reach in the trilepton channel for this case, keeping the remaining parameters as before; $`A_0=0`$, $`\mu >0`$, and $`m_{\nu _3}=0.05`$ eV. For these parameters, the main $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decay mode is $`\tau u\overline{d}`$. However, there is a sizable contribution of the $`\nu b\overline{b}`$ channel at small $`m_0`$. As expected, the SUSY reach decreases at small $`m_0`$, specially as we increase $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. In contrast, there is a slight gain for $`m_0200`$ GeV; see Fig. 9. The similarity between the results in Fig. 5 and Fig. 9 at large $`m_0`$ can be ascribed to the $`\tau ud`$ dominance of the LSP decay; see Fig. 4(b) and Fig. 4(d). In contrast the situation is more complicated at smaller $`m_0`$ as seen in Fig. 5 and Fig. 9.

For the last choice of parameters, the Tevatron discovery potential in the multilepton channel is larger in our BRpV model than in the MSSM except at small $`m_0`$, however, it is similar to the first case we analyzed; see Fig. 10(a) and Fig. 6(a). This feature survives the combination of three and multilepton signals, as can be seen from Fig. 6(b) and Fig. 10(b). In contrast, the combined analysis does make a difference in the small $`m_0`$ region. In all cases, however, the reach of the BRpV model is larger than the MSSM one.

## IV Conclusion

We have analyzed the production of multileptons ( $`3\mathrm{}`$ with $`\mathrm{}=e`$ or $`\mu `$) in the simplest supergravity model with violation of $`R`$ parity at the Fermilab Tevatron. In this model, an effective bilinear term in the superpotential parameterizes the explicit breaking of $`R`$ parity. Despite the small $`R`$-parity violating couplings needed to generate the neutrino masses indicated by current atmospheric neutrino data, the lightest supersymmetric particle is unstable and can decay inside the detector. This leads to a phenomenology quite distinct from that of the $`R`$-parity conserving scenario. We have quantified by how much the supersymmetric multilepton signals differ from the $`R`$-parity conserving expectations, displaying our results in the $`m_0m_{1/2}`$ plane. We have shown that the presence of bilinear $`R`$-parity violating interactions enhances the supersymmetric multilepton signals over most of the parameter space, specially at moderate and large $`m_0`$. These topologies are useful not only for discovery, but also to verify whether $`R`$ parity is conserved or not.

Adopting the hadronization procedures used in PYTHIA, we have first reproduced the results for the trilepton signal expected in the conventional $`R`$-parity conserving supergravity model. We have found good agreement with the results of Ref. tata1  which adopts the ISAJET event generator. We have then shown how the presence of BRpV interactions leads to a small suppression of the trilepton signal at small values of $`m_0`$ irrespective of the value of BRpV parameter $`ϵ_\tau `$. This is due to the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decay into $`\nu b\overline{b}`$. However, the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decays lead to a drastically extended reach at large $`m_0`$ as a result of the LSP decay into $`\tau u\overline{d}`$. Moreover, the presence of additional isolated leptons in the signal allows us to look for multilepton events.

We have demonstrated that combining the trilepton and multilepton searches increases the Tevatron Run II sensitivity for most of SUGRA and $`R`$-parity breaking parameters. Note, however, that for neutrino masses in the range indicated by current atmospheric data one has a gap between the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ masses that can be probed at LEP2 (up to 40 GeV or so) and those that can be studied at the Tevatron (above 70 GeV or so): within this range the $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0`$ decay length is rather large, requiring the study of other topologies, like the presence of displaced vertices in the tracking system. It is interesting to notice that we can search for SUSY signals also in the low $`m_0`$ region by looking for events exhibiting multi jets + lepton \+ missing transverse momentum Barger:2001xe ; Matchev:1999nb .

In the present paper we have confined ourselves to the case in which the lightest neutralino is also the lightest supersymmetric particle 111In our model, any supersymmetric particle is a possible LSP candidate, since it is unstable and thus is not a cosmological relic. However, only the lightest neutralino leads to a signal cross section which can be large enough to be measurable at the Tevatron., the most likely possibility if we adopt the simplest set of supersymmetry soft breaking terms, universal at some unification scale. We also have focused on the case where we have only one generation and this is chosen to be the third. This is done first for simplicity. Second we adopt this choice as a worse-case scenario. In other words, in those parameter regions where our multi-lepton signal can be discovered in the present one-generation approximation, the inclusion of additional generations can only improve our result. In contrast, in those regions where our results are negative, the situation is totally inconclusive in the sense that a full fledged analysis including all generations might reveal that the signal can also be detected in part of those regions. Therefore our results are robust, in the sense that the inclusion of additional generations would imply new sources of leptons, specially muons. The analysis is substantially more involved, however, than the one considered here and will be taken up elsewhere.

###### Acknowledgements.

Research supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), by Programa de Apoio a Núcleos de Excelência (PRONEX), by Spanish MCyT grant BFM2002-00345 and by the European Commission RTN network HPRN-CT-2000-00148. W.P. has been supported by the ’Erwin Schrödinger fellowship’ No. J2272 of the ’Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung’ of Austria and partly by the Swiss ’Nationalfonds’. D.R. has been partially supported by UdeA-CODI Grant No. 381-8-10-02.


text:
# Probing O VI Emission in the Halos of Edge-on Spiral Galaxies

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In a seminal work, Spitzer (1956) predicted that the Milky Way (catalog ) is surrounded by a tenuous, hot corona. Provided that the temperature of such gas was below the escape temperature for a galaxy, he showed that the gas should extend several kiloparsecs above the midplane. Spitzer’s original arguments have been extended to a more general theory of the dynamical evolution of the gaseous disks of spiral galaxies. This so called “galactic fountain” model (Shapiro & Field 1976; Bregman 1980) postulates that the hot gas produced by multiple overlapping supernovae would be buoyant in the thin, cold disks of gas in spiral galaxies. As the hot gas rises from the thin disk into the halo, it cools, perhaps forming condensations of neutral material which then fall back towards the thin disk as high- or intermediate-velocity clouds.

The existence of such gas in the Milky Way is now well documented through observations of strong O VI absorption (e.g. Savage et al. 2000) and X-ray emission (Burrows & Mendenhall, 1991). The 1032/1038 Å doublet transition of Li-like oxygen (O VI) is an important tracer of hot, collisionally ionized material. At temperatures of $`3\times 10^5`$ K, where gas of near-solar metallicity cools most efficiently, emission from the O VI doublet can be the primary coolant. Hence, observations of O VI emission provide a direct probe of the cooling rate of material near this temperature. Furthermore, because the cooling of gas at temperatures of a few times 105 K is so much more efficient than that of material at higher (or lower) temperatures, O VI emission traces rapidly cooling material that may condense into clouds in the galactic fountain scenario. Observations of O VI from this “transition temperature” gas in the halos of galaxies provide fundamental information on the circulation of material within spiral galaxies.

An O VI absorption line survey of the Milky Way (Savage et al., 2003) showed that the observed O VI was best explained by a patchy disk corotating with the Galactic plane with signs of outflows. O VI observed in emission in the Milky Way has been associated with gas in or around the Local Bubble (Welsh et al. 2002 and references therein) and an outflow from the Perseus arm (Otte, Dixon, & Sankrit 2003). With our improving understanding of the O VI distribution inside the Milky Way, it becomes necessary to search for O VI emission in other galaxies as well in order to be able to distinguish between peculiarities and common properties of galaxies. We analyzed spectra of two galaxies (NGC 4631 (catalog ) and NGC 891 (catalog )) taken by the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE). Both galaxies are nearly edge-on (i.e. allow clear distinction between disk and halo gas) and known for strong extraplanar emission in radio continuum, optical lines, and soft X-rays (SXR). Thus, they appear to be good candidates to search for evidence of galactic fountains. While the spectra of NGC 891 did not reveal any O VI emission, we detected the O VI doublet in NGC 4631. This is the first detection of O VI in emission in a spiral galaxy other than the Milky Way and its companions.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS AND DATA REDUCTION

### 2.1 NGC 4631

We obtained spectra with the low resolution aperture ($`30\mathrm{}\times 30\mathrm{}`$) of FUSE at two positions above the disk of NGC 4631 (see Figure 1) as part of Project P134. Position A is at the peak of the 1/4 keV X-ray emission detected by Wang et al. (1995) using ROSAT. Position B is between two H$`\alpha `$ arcs that were believed to form the walls of an open chimney into the halo (Rand, Kulkarni, & Hester 1992), although a recent Hubble Space Telescope H$`\alpha `$ image (Wang et al., 2001) indicates that this feature may be a superposition of several loops. All FUSE observations were conducted in TTAG mode where the detectors record the arrival time, x- and y-position, and the pulse height of each event (Sahnow et al., 2000). About 2/3 of each observation was conducted during orbital night.

The O VI lines in the NGC 4631 spectra were extracted from the raw data files. Only events with a pulse height between 4 and 15, inclusive, were used in the analysis. Nearby O I airglow lines were used to determine the height of the extraction windows, and the spectra were summed perpendicular to the dispersion direction. Emission free regions adjacent to the O VI lines in the dispersion direction were used to determine the background.

Figure 2 shows a plot of the extracted spectra for both pointings toward NGC 4631. The wavelength scale was determined by running the spectra through the FUSE data pipeline V2.0.5. Its uncertainty is about one pixel (0.007 Å). Both the redshifted 1032 Å and 1038 Å line were detected on the LiF1A channel. However, the latter was blended with the O I $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1039.23,1040.94,1041.69 airglow triplet. The background at wavelengths $`>1040`$ Å was increased due to a stripe of scattered light within the satellite. The O VI emission lines were also seen on the LiF2B segment for Position B; however, the lower effective area significantly reduced the quality of the data. Therefore, we have used only data from the 1032 Å emission line of segment LiF1A in the analysis.

A comparison of day-plus-night versus night-only data yielded the same flux in the O VI $`\lambda `$1032 line and therefore ruled out the possibility that the emission arose from scattered solar O VI emission in the LiF channels. Deep integrations towards other lines of sight ruled out detector artifacts, scattered light, and stray light contamination at the positions of the detected lines. The background was not significantly higher during the sunlit portion of the orbit; therefore, we have used the combined day and night data in our analysis. The resulting signal-to-noise ratios for the integrated O VI $`\lambda `$1032 intensities are 4.5 (Position A) and 6.0 (Position B).

### 2.2 NGC 891

The data for NGC 891 were obtained as part of FUSE Guest Investigator Cycle 2 program B114. Two positions below the disk and one position above the bulge of NGC 891 (see Figure 3) were observed. The data reduction was identical to the data reduction for NGC 4631 above. Approximately 85% of the observations were conducted during the night portion of the orbit. The observational data for both galaxies are listed in Table 1. Given the large random errors in the intensities of NGC 891, we do not believe that any of these detections are significant.

## 3 RESULTS

### 3.1 NGC 4631

NGC 4631 is an Sc/SBd type galaxy at a distance of about 7.6 Mpc with an inclination of $`i85\mathrm{°}`$. The interaction between NGC 4631 and its two neighboring galaxies NGC 4656 (catalog ) and NGC 4627 (catalog ) might have triggered the active star formation observed in NGC 4631 today. The galaxy possesses a complex system of H$`\alpha `$ filaments and bubbles (Wang et al., 2001) and an extended radio halo with spurs up to 10 kpc above the disk (Hummel & Dettmar, 1990). X-ray observations of NGC 4631 revealed a SXR bubble on the north side of the disk (Wang et al., 1995) and a halo of gas extending up to 8 kpc above the plane with temperatures of $`(27)\times 10^6`$ K (Wang et al., 2001). Both the radio and the X-ray halo appear asymmetric with the larger extent being on the north side of the disk.

The two FUSE pointings for NGC 4631 were chosen to lie within the SXR bubble observed with ROSAT (Wang et al. 1995, see Figure 1). Assuming an effective area of 27.0 cm2 for the LiF1A segment and 900 arcs2 for the aperture area, we derive O VI $`\lambda `$1032 intensities of $`4600\pm 1000`$ photons s-1 cm-2 sr-1 (Position A) and $`8000\pm 1300`$ photons s-1 cm-2 sr-1 (Position B). Table 2 lists the intensities (also converted to ergs s-1 cm-2 sr-1) and the corresponding height above the disk. The O VI $`\lambda `$1032 intensity at Position B is a factor of five smaller than the 2 $`\sigma `$ upper limit of Ferguson et al. (1995), who observed the southern portion of the galaxy with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope on the Astro-2 mission. The full extent of the O VI emitting gas is unknown. However, it is useful to consider two cases. In the first scenario, the O VI emission is confined to the region of the SXR bubble on the north side of the disk. On the other hand, the O VI emission may extend across the full hot halo revealed by the Chandra observations of Wang et al. (2001). The former would correspond to a single large bubble breaking out into the halo, while the latter implies a full galactic fountain. Therefore, we will calculate the luminosity for both cases assuming that the average O VI surface brightness is equivalent to the average of Positions A and B. The O VI $`\lambda `$1032/O VI $`\lambda `$1038 line ratio approaches two in optically thin gas and is reduced in optically thick gas due to self-absorption. We assumed the upper limit for this line ratio of 2 in order to account for the O VI $`\lambda `$1038 emission in our calculations. Ignoring extinction (see below) we calculated a lower limit for the total O VI luminosity of $`L_{\mathrm{OVI}}=(6.2\pm 0.8)\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 for the bubble and $`L_{\mathrm{OVI}}=(2.3\pm 0.3)\times 10^{39}`$ ergs s-1 for the entire halo.

#### 3.1.1 Correction for Extinction

The Milky Way extinction toward NGC 4631 is $`E(BV)=0.017`$ (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998). Using a Galactic extinction curve by Cardelli, Clayton, & Mathis (1989), we derived an optical depth $`\tau =0.25`$, i.e. the UV flux is attenuated by a factor of 1.28. The corrected values for the luminosities are $`L_{\mathrm{OVI}}=(7.9\pm 1.1)\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 for the bubble and $`L_{\mathrm{OVI}}=(3.0\pm 0.4)\times 10^{39}`$ ergs s-1 for the entire halo. The amount of extinction within NGC 4631 is uncertain. Long slit optical spectroscopy of the Balmer lines by Martin & Kern (2001) has revealed evidence for significant and patchy extinction due to dust in the halo of NGC 4631 up to 5 kpc from the plane. However, another group found almost no extinction at a height of $`>1`$ kpc on the northern side of the disk (Otte et al., 2001). We obtained long slit spectra of NGC 4631 with the 2.3 m Steward Observatory on Kitt Peak, Arizona, on 2002 April 7–9. The slit was about $`4\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ wide and orientated north-south to cross both FUSE positions. The measured H$`\alpha `$/H$`\beta `$ line ratios are comparable to those measured by Otte et al. (2001). We therefore assume that extinction within the halo of NGC 4631 is negligible.

#### 3.1.2 Comparison with X-ray Luminosity

As mentioned earlier, the O VI emission is an important coolant for hot ionized gas. In fact, for gas in heating-cooling equilibrium, the O VI emission cooling at intermediate temperatures (few $`\times 10^5`$ K) should dominate the radiative cooling in the SXR emission of $`10^6`$ K gas (Sutherland & Dopita, 1993). The SXR intensities in the $`0.12`$ keV range measured by Chandra and integrated over the area of the FUSE positions are $`1.5\times 10^7`$ ergs s-1 cm-2 sr-1 (Position A) and $`3.1\times 10^7`$ ergs s-1 cm-2 sr-1 (Position B) yielding SXR/O VI ratios of $`1.2\pm 0.3`$ and $`1.3\pm 0.2`$ for Positions A and B, i.e. the intensities are more or less comparable between the O VI doublet and the SXR emission. However, the used O VI $`\lambda \lambda `$1032,1038 emission was a lower limit (see paragraph 3.1) and not corrected for Galactic extinction (because we did not know the Galactic extinction for the SXR emission); the SXR/O VI ratios did not account for any dust in NGC 4631 either. Thus, the quoted ratios are probably lower limits suggesting that the gas is not in equilibrium.

The total O VI luminosity (corrected for Galactic extinction, see paragraph 3.1.1), if assumed to cover the whole halo of NGC 4631, is by a factor of 9 lower than the two component fit of the X-ray luminosity ($`2.7\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1, Wang et al. 1995, corrected for different distances). The corresponding temperature of this X-ray luminosity was approximately $`6\times 10^5`$ K, i.e. a temperature about twice as high as the one for the peak of the O VI cooling curve. This again implies that the gas is not cooling efficiently in O VI, i.e. it is not in equilibrium. However, the uncertainties here are higher than for the comparison above, as we now have compared observational data with a model using different simplifications (e.g. for the shape and extent of the emitting halo).

Wang et al. (1995) estimated that the mechanical energy input from supernovae is about $`(1.515)\times 10^{41}`$ ergs s-1, i.e. the observed O VI luminosity can account for at most $`2`$ % of the total energy input from supernovae. If the gas is in equilibrium, then the remaining energy input has to be used to transport the gas from the disk into the halo against the gravitational potential of the galaxy and against the pressure of the magnetic field lines and is partially lost due to cooling of $`10^6`$ K hot gas by species other than oxygen. From the cooling flow models of Edgar & Chevalier (1986), we calculate that the full halo case is equivalent to a mass flux of 2.8 M yr-1 for cooling at constant density and 1.8 M yr-1 for cooling at constant pressure. In case of a single cooling bubble the corresponding mass fluxes are 0.74 M yr-1 (isochoric) and 0.48 M yr-1 (isobaric). A rough estimate for the mass flux derived from ROSAT observations is $`1`$ M yr-1 (Wang et al., 1995). Despite the large uncertainties due to unknown extinction and the differences in the cooling models, the data suggest that the O VI emitting region is larger than the SXR bubble, but smaller (within a factor of $`2`$) than the X-ray halo observed with Chandra. This means that outflows are more significant in the central region of the galaxy, as indicated by the filamentary structure in the H$`\alpha `$ image (Wang et al., 2001). If, in fact, there was strong, patchy extinction along our lines of sight, the actual O VI luminosities could be much higher than the observed luminosities and could account for a significant fraction of the input energy from supernovae. On the other hand, if the O VI emission originated in the interface between cold clouds moving through the hot coronal gas, the relationship between SXR and O VI emission would become more complicated.

#### 3.1.3 Rotation Velocity

We fitted the observed O VI $`\lambda `$1032 emission line by a convolution of a tophat (106 km s-1 wide to represent the filled FUSE $`30\mathrm{}\times 30\mathrm{}`$ square aperture) and a Gaussian profile (to represent the spectral resolution of FUSE). We used $`\chi ^2`$ calculations to determine the best central wavelengths and intrinsic velocity dispersions for the emission lines at Positions A and B. In order to estimate 1 $`\sigma `$ uncertainties for these parameters, we varied each parameter independently until the corresponding minimum $`\chi ^2`$ increased by 1 relative to the best fit $`\chi ^2`$. The derived values are $`\lambda _\mathrm{c}=1034.30\pm 0.09`$ Å and $`\mathrm{FWHM}=200\pm 50`$ km s-1 for Position A and $`\lambda _\mathrm{c}=1034.37\pm 0.08`$ Å and $`\mathrm{FWHM}=170\pm 50`$ km s-1 for Position B. The corresponding radial velocities (geocentric) are $`v=690\pm 30`$ km s-1 (Position A) and $`710\pm 20`$ km s-1 (Position B). An offset of $`9.1`$ and $`9.5`$ km s-1, respectively, yields local standard of rest velocities. If the O VI emitting gas does not fill the LWRS aperture and is not centered in it, the maximum additional offset in the line centroid is 50 km s-1 (for a point source at the border of the aperture). The line broadening due to the satellite’s orbital motion is $`<8`$ km s-1, i.e. well within the uncertainties of the FWHM.

The intrinsic FWHMs, if assumed to be thermal widths, correspond to temperatures of $`(1.4\pm 0.7)\times 10^7`$ K (Position A) and $`(1.0\pm 0.6)\times 10^7`$ K (Position B). These temperatures are an order of magnitude higher than the hottest component of the SXR emission. This suggests that the line widths are caused by turbulent motion or differential rotation rather than thermal motion. From position-velocity diagrams (Rand, 1994), one can expect an offset of about 50–100 km s-1 between the systemic velocity (606 km s-1) and the velocity of gas corotating in the disk at the distances of the FUSE positions projected onto the major axis. A combination of the size of the low resolution aperture (30$`\mathrm{}`$ or about 1.1 kpc) and differential rotation yields a velocity dispersion of up to 200 km s-1 in the galactic plane near the center. The O VI velocity centroids and FWHMs closely match those of the H I gas in the disk of NGC 4631. Thus, the line-of-sight component of the motion of the O VI emitting gas appears to follow the rotation of the underlying disk gas. Due to the galaxy’s high inclination, the velocity of the O VI emitting gas perpendicular to the disk is unknown. Although not conclusive, this strong relationship to the disk gas implies that the O VI emitting material originated in the disk.

#### 3.1.4 Scale Height

If the gas has an exponential distribution in the vertical direction above the disk, we can calculate the density scale height of the gas from the two observations at Positions A and B using:

$$h=\frac{2(z_\mathrm{A}z_\mathrm{B})}{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{I_\mathrm{A}}{I_\mathrm{B}})}$$
(1)
where $`z_\mathrm{A}`$ and $`z_\mathrm{B}`$ are the vertical heights of the projected aperture above the plane of the galaxy, and $`I_\mathrm{A}`$ and $`I_\mathrm{B}`$ are the measured specific intensities at Positions A and B, respectively. The 2 in Equation 1 results from the fact that the intensity is proportional to the square of the density. Using the intensities and $`z`$ heights from Table 2, we find

$$h=8.3\pm 4.1\mathrm{kpc}.$$
(2)
The large uncertainty in the density scale height results from the large uncertainties in the measured specific intensities at Positions A and B. However, it appears that the scale height of O VI gas in NGC 4631 is significantly larger than the 2.3 kpc scale height found by Savage et al. (2003) for the Milky Way. Using the intensities from paragraph 3.1.2, we find a scale height of about 6.6 kpc for the SXR emission in NGC 4631, whereas Hummel, Beck, & Dahlem (1991) reported a scale height of about 8 kpc for the magnetic field. Scale heights derived from optical emission lines range between 0.9 and 1.2 kpc, not considering the roughly constant intensity at $`z>3`$ kpc (Martin & Kern, 2001). Given the uncertainties, the scale heights of the O VI and SXR emission and the magnetic field appear to be comparable.

### 3.2 NGC 891

The Sb spiral galaxy NGC 891 is at a distance of about 9.6 Mpc with an inclination of $`i88.6\mathrm{°}`$ (Rupen et al., 1987). We observed three positions in the halo of NGC 891 and did not detect O VI in emission to a level greater than $`3\sigma `$ (Fig. 4). The $`3\sigma `$ intensity limits can be obtained from Table 2. The Milky Way extinction in this direction is $`E(BV)=0.065`$ (Schlegel et al., 1998). Assuming a standard interstellar extinction curve (Cardelli et al., 1989), the UV flux is attenuated by a factor of 2.4 ($`\tau =0.88`$). If we assume that the O VI emitting halo of NGC 891 is the same size as the X-ray emitting halo seen by Bregman & Pildis (1994), and that the average specific intensity of the halo in NGC 891 is equal to the average at Positions 1 and 2, then the upper limit to the O VI $`\lambda `$1032 luminosity is $`L_{1032}<7.5\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1. Bregman & Houck (1997) found that the SXR (0.1–2.5 keV) band luminosity is $`2.45\times 10^{39}`$ ergs s-1 with a cooling rate of 0.08 M yr-1 (corrected for $`d=9.6`$ Mpc). This predicts an O VI $`\lambda `$1032 luminosity (Edgar & Chevalier, 1986) of $`5.7\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1 (isochoric) and $`8.8\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1 (isobaric), well within our limits. We have not attempted any correction for extinction in the halo of NGC 891 itself.

## 4 CONCLUSIONS

NGC 4631 has a stronger radio halo than NGC 891, but a comparable far-IR luminosity. Rand, Kulkarni, & Hester (1992) concluded from these observations that NGC 4631 probably has a larger star formation rate than NGC 891. The Hubble Space Telescope images of Wang et al. (2001) clearly show loops, arcs, and filaments as would be expected from galactic chimneys. ROSAT observations (Wang et al., 1995) revealed the presence of a large region of SXR emission directly above the arcs and filaments, indicating that some of the hot supernovae gas has vented into the halo. In this paper, we reported the detection of O VI emission at two locations above the arcs at the peaks of the SXR emission with a line-of-sight velocity similar to the disk gas and a FWHM broader than what might be expected from thermal motions of hot gas. The observation of O VI emitting gas suggests that the hot gas originated in the disk and is cooling. Due to the large uncertainties in the O VI intensities and luminosities and the range in the luminosities and mass flux rates predicted by cooling flow models, it is not clear whether the cooling flow in NGC 4631 is (yet) in equilibrium with the mass flux derived from X-ray observations. However, given all this evidence, we believe that, because of its edge-on nature, NGC 4631 is the first spiral galaxy in which O VI has been detected in emission unambiguously from the galactic halo and in which all the expected components for a full cycle of gas in a galactic fountain have been observed. The lack of reliable O VI measurements for NGC 891 is likely explained with the large foreground extinction of the Milky Way and the amount of dust in NGC 891 itself. The O VI luminosities predicted from cooling flow models are well within our 3$`\sigma `$ limits for NGC 891.

The NGC 4631 data were obtained for the Guaranteed Time Team by the NASA-CNES-CSA FUSE mission operated by the Johns Hopkins University. Financial support to U. S. participants has been provided by NASA contract NAS5-32985. The NGC 891 data were obtained as part of the FUSE Cycle 2 Guest Investigator Program B114. Financial support to U. S. participants has been provided by NASA contract NAG5-10250. JCH recognizes support from NASA grant NAG5-10957. This work made use of the NASA Extragalactic Database (NED) and the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS).