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# Measurement of 𝑒𝑝→𝑒^'𝑝𝜋⁺𝜋⁻: experimental procedures and baryon resonance analysis

## Abstract

The cross section for the reaction $`epe^{}p\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ was measured in the resonance region for 1.4$`<`$W$`<`$2.1 GeV and 0.5$`<Q^2<`$1.5 GeV2/c2 using the CLAS detector at Jefferson Laboratory. The data show resonant structures not visible in previous experiments. The comparison of our data to a phenomenological prediction using available information on $`N^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ states shows an evident discrepancy. A better description of the data is obtained either by a sizeable change of the properties of the $`P_{13}`$(1720) resonance or by introducing a new baryon state, not reported in published analyses.

Electromagnetic excitation of nucleon resonances is sensitive to the spin and spatial structure of the transition, which in turn is connected to fundamental properties of baryon structure, like spin-flavor symmetries, confinement, and effective degrees of freedom. In the mass region above 1.6 GeV, many overlapping baryon states are present, and some of them are not well known; measurement of the transition form factors of these states is important for our understanding of the internal dynamics of baryons. Many of these high-mass excited states tend to decouple from the single-meson channels and to decay predominantly into multi-pion channels, such as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\pi `$ or $`N\rho `$, leading to $`N\pi \pi `$ final states Pdg96 . Moreover, quark models with approximate (or “broken”) SU(6)$``$O(3) symmetry Kon80 ; Gia90  predict more states than have been found experimentally; QCD mixing effects could decouple these unobserved states from the pion-nucleon channel Kon80  while strongly coupling them to two-pion channels Kon80 ; Cap94 ; Sta93 . These states would therefore not be observable in reactions with $`\pi N`$ in the initial or final state. Other models, with different symmetry properties and a reduced number of degrees of freedom, as e.g. in ref. Kir97 , predict fewer states. Experimental searches for at least some of the “missing” states predicted by the symmetric quark models, which are not predicted by models using alternative symmetries, are crucial in discriminating between these models. Electromagnetic amplitudes for some missing states are predicted to be sizeable Kon80  as well. Therefore, exclusive double-pion electroproduction is a fundamental tool in measuring poorly known states and possibly observing new ones.

In this paper we report a measurement of the $`epe^{}p\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ reaction studied with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at Jefferson Lab. CLAS consists of a six-coil superconducting magnet producing an approximately toroidal magnetic field, allowing detection of electrons and hadrons and full 4-momentum recontruction. Three sets of drift chambers allow the determination of the momenta of the charged particles with polar angles from 10o to 140o. A complete coverage of scintillators allows the discrimination of particles by a time-of-flight technique described in ref. Smi99 . The magnetic field was set to bent positive particles outwards, away from the primary beam. We analyzed data taken in the so-called ’e1c’ running period, corresponding to about two months of data taking in the spring of 1999. Beam currents of a few nA were delivered to Hall B on a liquid-hydrogen target, corresponding to luminosities up to $`4\times 10^{33}`$ cm-2s-1. The beam energies selected for this analysis were: 2.567 GeV at a torus current of 1500 A (’low’ field), with the goal of obtaining two $`Q^2`$ bins, between 0.5 and 0.8 $`GeV^2/c^2`$ and between 0.8 and 1.1 $`GeV^2/c^2`$, with $`W`$ up to 1.9 GeV; 4.247 GeV at a field of 2250 A (’low’ field), to obtain $`Q^2`$ between 1.1 and 1.5 $`GeV^2/c^2`$ , with $`W`$ up to 2.1 GeV. Important features of the CLAS Bro99  are its large kinematic coverage for multi-charged-particle final states and its good momentum resolution ($`\mathrm{\Delta }p/p`$1%). Using an inclusive electron trigger, many exclusive hadronic final states were measured simultaneously. Scattered electrons were identified through cuts on the calorimeter energy loss and the Cerenkov photo-electron distribution. Different channels were separated through particle identification using time-of-flight information and other kinematic cuts.

The hardware trigger in CLAS was based on a coincidence between Cherenkov counter and electromagnetic forward calorimeter. The discriminator threshold in the Cherenkov was put at a signal level of less than a single photoelectron produced on the photocathode, to avoid losing good events while rejecting most of the pion background. The energy threshold in the calorimeter was set to cut off events as close as possible to the kinematic edges of the W and Q2 domain covered by the measurement, but sufficiently high to keep the low energy contamination due to hadronically interacting particles at a reasonable limit. A cut on the energy deposited in the calorimeter was applied to eliminate part of the remaining pion background, mostly due to knock-off electrons giving a signal in the Cherenkov counter. We studied the effect of this cut on the electron detection efficiency, deriving a correction that was applied to the data. The Cherenkov efficiency was also studied by means of the shape of the photoelectron distribution in each module. This way, we evaluated the effect of a cut on the photoelectron number on the electron detection efficiency on each single Cherenkov module, as well as the module-to-module uniformity, deriving the appropriate corrections to be applied to the data.

Another cut was applied in the $`\beta `$ versus momentum plot, to select pions and protons in the reaction analyzed. All Time of Flight (ToF) scintillator paddles were carefully inspected to make sure that the cut applied was appropriate for all of them. To identify the $`e^{}p\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ final state, we used the missing-mass technique, requiring detection in CLAS of at least $`ep\pi ^+`$. The good resolution allowed selection of the exclusive final state, $`ep\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. After applying all cuts, our data sample included about $`2\times 10^5`$ two-pion events. Fig. 1 shows the missing mass distribution obtained from CLAS, together with the applied cut. The tail at higher mass is due to radiative effects and to multiple pion production.

In order to check the stability of CLAS in the detection of different reactions, we defined a set of histograms representing various reaction yields, i.e. electron inclusive, electron-proton inclusive, electron elastic (W cut), electron-proton elastic (W plus $`\theta `$-$`\varphi `$ correlation cut), electron-proton from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (W cut) and finally electron-proton-$`\pi ^+`$ with a cut on the missing $`\pi ^{}`$, each single yield being normalised to the Faraday cup charge obtained from the so called “live-gated” signal, where the signal from the Faraday cup is only integrated during the live-time: this way, the charge is already corrected for the data acquisition dead-time. Such normalised yields were calculated, using the PID procedures described in the previous subsection, for each data file inside a run (a run being typically a data taking over a period of an hour), therefore providing a very accurate monitoring of stability even inside a single run. “Good files” were selected requiring that the normalised yield for a single file should not deviate more than a few percent from the average. Subsequent analysis was performed only on the good files.

To obtain the cross section from the raw data, it is necessary to correct for detector non-uniformity, which has origin both in the geometry and in the response of the equipment to different particles. The geometrical and kinematic non-uniformity can be very well described by means of fiducial cuts that describe regions of the detector where the response of the various subsystems is well known. Fiducial cuts will eliminate dead regions like the torus coils in the first place. The detector response inside the fiducial regions was simulated using a GEANT-based representation of the detector containing a detailed description of particle interaction with the various subsystems. To evaluate all detector corrections, we divided the particle yield into kinematic bins defined through a complete set of independent kinematic variables of the hadronic state, plus $`W`$ and $`Q^2`$. This corresponds to binning all four-momenta of the particles involved (with the exception of the electron, for which no binning is applied to $`\varphi `$ azimuthal angle for symmetry reasons). This way, the folding of the detector response to the cross sections is done in narrow kinematic regions, where the cross section variation will be limited. The dependence of the results on the assumed particle distributions will therefore be much reduced. However, events still have to be generated according to a realistic Monte Carlo, in order to minimize the model dependence of acceptance and efficiency.

The event generator used for simulations in this experiment contains several electroproduction cross sections, including single, double and triple pion electroproduction. The code relies on cross section tables that describe measured total and differential cross sections from the literature, scaled by a virtual photon flux and a dipole form factor to provide a reasonable fall off with $`Q^2`$. Therefore our code gives a realistic description of cross sections and their relative weights, as well as backgrounds generated from competing channels. Radiative effects were also included in the simulation. As an example of how the Monte Carlo reproduces the main features seen in the data, we reproduce here the comparison of some kinematic distributions from the data at 2.567 GeV beam energy, 1500 A field, with the corresponding simulation. As specific example we report the case of the $`W`$ bin 1.6-1.625 GeV, and $`Q^2`$ between 0.5 and 0.8 GeV2/c2. Figure 2 shows the invariant mass distribution for the pion-pion pair. Figure 3 shows the invariant mass distribution for the proton-$`\pi ^+`$ pair. Figure 4 shows the CM angle of the $`p\pi ^{}`$ pair (which would correspond to the CM angle of a $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0`$ in the specific case that a $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0`$ is produced).

A particularly important issue regards the percentage of events lost in the binning process due to bins with zero acceptance: of course, for such bins it is not possible to correct the data and obtain a cross section; being the kinematic variable space multidimensional in the case of double pion production, extrapolating the cross sections from neighboring bins with non-zero acceptance to bins with zero acceptance can be unreliable. Therefore, we checked carefully, using our realistic Monte Carlo, the percentage of cross section lost because of bins with zero acceptance. It turned out that with the adopted binning, the percentage of unmeasured cross section in bins with vanishing acceptance was below 10 % and typically of the order of a few percent. Actually, the fact that a cell has zero acceptance or efficiency may be just connected to insufficient statistics in the simulation, as many cells end up with very few generated events; nevertheless, for those cells it is not possible to perform a correction to the data. To get the final cross sections, we therefore performed an extrapolation to the empty bins using the MonteCarlo distributions as an estimate of the missing cross section. This extrapolation is typically only a few percent and we quoted as systematic error a quantity equal to one half of the extrapolation, assuming that the extrapolated cross section may be wrong by plus or minus 50 %, due to the assumptions in the MonteCarlo.

The range of invariant hadronic center-of-mass (CM) energy $`W`$ (in 25 MeV bins) was 1.4-1.9 GeV for the first two bins in the invariant momentum transfer $`Q^2`$, 0.5-0.8 (GeV/c)2 and 0.8-1.1 (GeV/c)2, and 1.4-2.1 GeV for the highest $`Q^2`$ bin, 1.1-1.5 (GeV/c)2. Following the procedures schematically described above, data were corrected for acceptance, reconstruction efficiency, radiative effects, and empty target counts. They were further binned in the following set of hadronic CM variables: invariant mass of the $`p\pi ^+`$ pair (10 bins), invariant mass of the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ pair (10 bins), $`\pi ^{}`$ polar angle $`\theta `$ (10 bins), azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ (5 bins), and rotation freedom $`\psi `$ of the $`p\pi ^+`$ pair with respect to the hadronic plane (5 bins). The fully differential cross section is of the form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dWdQ^2dM_{p\pi ^+}dM_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}}d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi ^{}d\varphi _\pi ^{}d\psi _{p\pi ^+}}}=`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_v{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _v}{dM_{p\pi ^+}dM_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}}d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi ^{}d\varphi _\pi ^{}d\psi _{p\pi ^+}}}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_v{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _v}{d\tau }}`$ (1)
$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_v=\frac{\alpha }{4\pi }\frac{1}{E^2M_p^2}\frac{W(W^2M_p^2)}{(1ϵ)Q^2}$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_v`$ is the virtual photon flux, $`\frac{d\sigma _v}{d\tau }`$ is the virtual photon cross section, $`\alpha `$ is the fine structure constant, $`E`$ is the electron beam energy, $`M_p`$ is the proton mass, and $`ϵ`$ is the virtual photon transverse polarization Ama89 .

Since existing theoretical models Ose00  are limited to $`W<`$1.6 GeV, we have employed a phenomenological calculation Mok01  for a first interpretation of the data. This model describes the reaction $`\gamma _vpp\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ in the kinematic range of interest as a sum of amplitudes for $`\gamma _vp\mathrm{\Delta }\pi p\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ and $`\gamma _vp\rho ^0pp\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, while all other possible mechanisms are parameterized as phase space. A detailed treatment was developed for the non-resonant contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\pi `$, while for $`\rho p`$ production they were described through a diffractive ansatz. For the resonant part, a total of 12 states, classified as 4 Pdg96 , with sizeable $`\mathrm{\Delta }\pi `$ and/or $`\rho p`$ decays, were included based on a Breit-Wigner ansatz. A few model parameters in non-resonant production were fitted to CLAS data at high $`W`$, where the non-resonant part creates a forward peaking in the angular distributions, and kept fixed in the subsequent analysis. The phase between resonant and non-resonant $`\mathrm{\Delta }\pi `$ mechanisms was fitted to the CLAS data as well. To simplify the fits, we reduced eqn. (1) to three single-differential cross sections, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dM_{p\pi ^+}}`$, $`\frac{d\sigma }{dM_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}}}`$, and $`\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi ^{}}`$, by integrating over the other hadronic variables. These three 1-D distributions were then fitted simultaneously. Here $`\frac{d\sigma }{dM_{p\pi ^+}}`$ and $`\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{cos}\theta _\pi ^{}}`$ are both connected with the dominant $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}\pi ^{}`$ production reaction, while $`\frac{d\sigma }{dM_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}}}`$ is connected with $`p\rho ^0`$ production. For each $`W`$ and $`Q^2`$ bin, a total of 26 data points from the three single-differential cross sections were used in our fits. The two edge points in both the $`p\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ mass distributions were excluded as the model did not take into account the kinematic smearing in the $`M_{\pi ^+\pi ^{}}`$ versus $`M_{p\pi ^+}`$ plot caused by the $`W`$ bin width.

The physics analysis included the following steps: (A) We produced reference curves using the available information on the $`N^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonances in 1.2-2 GeV mass range. Discrepancies between the CLAS data and our calculation were observed, which led to the subsequent steps B and C. (B) Data around $`W`$=1.7 GeV were fitted using the known resonances in the PDG but allowing the resonance parameters to vary in a number of ways. The best fit, corresponding to a prominent $`P_{13}`$ partial wave, could be attributed to the PDG $`P_{13}`$(1720) resonance, but with parameters significantly modified from the PDG values. (C) As an alternative description, we introduced a new baryon state around 1.7 GeV. In what follows we describe each of the steps above in more detail.

Step (A) - To produce our reference curves, the $`Q^2`$ evolution of the $`A_{1/2}`$ and $`A_{3/2}`$ electromagnetic couplings for the states was taken either from parameterizations of existing data Bur94 , or from Single Quark Transition Model (SQTM) fits Bur94  where no data were available. For the $`P_{11}`$(1440) (Roper), given the scarce available data, the amplitude $`A_{1/2}`$ was taken from a Non-Relativistic Quark Model (NRQM) Clo90 . Partial $`LS`$ decay widths were taken from a previous analysis of hadronic data Man92  and renormalized to the total widths from Ref. Pdg96 . Results from step (A) are reported in Figs. 5 to 9 for the specific one-dimensional differential cross sections analysed and for a sample of $`W`$ bins. In Fig. 10 (left), we report the total cross section data and the corresponding curves from step (A). As demonstrated by the plots, our calculation, even without performing any adjustment of the resonance parameters, is able to give a good accounting of the main features of the data in a wide $`W`$ and $`Q^2`$ region. The total cross section strength for $`W<`$ 1.65 GeV (except for the region close to threshold), and for $`W>`$ 1.8 GeV is well reproduced. However, a strong discrepancy is evident at $`W`$ around 1.7 GeV. Moreover, at this energy the reference curve exhibits a strong peak in the $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ invariant mass (Fig. 10, right), connected to sizeable $`\rho `$ meson production. This contribution was traced back to the 70-91% branching ratio of the $`P_{13}`$(1720) into this channel Pdg96 ; Man92 ; Dyt00 .

Step (B) - We then considered whether the observed discrepancy around 1.7 GeV could be accomodated by varying the electromagnetic excitation of one or more of the PDG states. In our code, interference effects between continuum and resonances like those reported in Ref. Ose00 , are taken into account automatically inside the model frame Mok01 . Therefore, our investigation at this stage was including the possibility of accounting for the 1.7 GeV structure via interference effects, although the peaking of such an interference pattern at the same $`W`$ for all $`Q^2`$ bins would be rather surprising. All fit $`\chi ^2/\nu `$ values were calculated from the 8 $`W`$ bins between 1.64 and 1.81 GeV and from the 3 $`Q^2`$ bins (624 data points). The number of free parameters ranged from 11 to 32, depending on the fit, corresponding to $`\nu `$=613 to 592 degrees of freedom. Assuming the resonance properties given by the PDG, the bump at about $`W`$=1.7 GeV cannot be due to the $`D_{15}`$(1675), $`F_{15}`$(1680), or $`D_{33}`$(1700) states; the first because its well known position cannot match the peak; the second because of its well known position and photocouplings Bur01 ; the third due to its large width ($``$300 MeV). The remaining possibilities from the PDG are the $`D_{13}`$(1700), the $`P_{13}`$(1720), and the $`P_{11}`$(1710) (the latter was not included in step (A)), as there are no data available on the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`A_{1/2}`$ or $`A_{3/2}`$ Bur01 . If no configuration mixing occurs, the $`D_{13}`$(1700) cannot be excited in the SQTM from proton targets, while the SQTM prediction for the $`P_{13}`$(1720) relies on ad hoc assumptions. According to the literature Pdg96 ; Man92 ; Dyt00 , hadronic couplings of the $`D_{13}`$(1700) and the total width of the $`P_{11}`$(1710) are poorly known, while the $`P_{13}`$(1720) hadronic parameters should be better established. Several other partial waves were investigated in step (C).

To improve our reference curves before fitting the bump at around 1.7 GeV, the following steps were carried out: the $`P_{11}`$(1440) strength was fitted to our low W data; the $`D_{15}`$(1675) and the $`D_{13}`$(1700) photocouplings (which vanish in the SQTM) were replaced by NRQM values from Ref. Clo90 ; an empirically established $`A_{1/2,3/2}`$ SQTM fitting uncertainty or NRQM uncertainty of 10 or 20% ($`\sigma `$) was applied to all $`N^{}`$ states; the hadronic parameters were allowed to vary for the $`D_{13}`$(1700) according to Ref. Man92 ; and finally, the curves providing the best $`\chi ^2/\nu `$ were selected as the starting points. First we performed three fits, (B1), (B2), and (B3), where the photocouplings of only one resonance at a time were varied. In (B1), we varied A1/2, A3/2, hadronic couplings, and position of the D13(1700) in a wide range. In (B2), the same was done for the P13(1720), and in (B3) for the P11(1710). In both fits (B2) and (B3), we also varied the hadronic parameters and the position of the D13(1700) over a range consistent with their large uncertainties from Ref. Man92 . Fits (B1) and (B3) gave a poor description of the data, with $`\chi ^2/\nu `$=5.2 and 4.3, respectively. The best fit ($`\chi ^2/\nu `$ =3.4) was obtained in (B2) (Fig. 11). However, the resulting values for the branching fractions of the P13(1720) were significantly different from previous analyses reported in the literature and well outside the reported errors Pdg96 ; Man92 ; Dyt00 . Starting from (B3), we then performed a final fit, (B4), for which the $`P_{13}`$(1720) hadronic couplings were fixed from the literature, and varying the photocouplings of all three candidate states, D13(1700), P13(1720), and $`P_{11}`$(1710), by 100% ($`\sigma `$). No better solution was found, the $`\chi ^2/\nu `$ being 4.3 (Fig. 11). In Fig. 12 we report the final comparison of fits (B2) and (B4) with the total cross section data.

Table 1 shows our results (first row) with statistical uncertainties, in comparison with the PDG values (second row). Our fits were not providing an unambigous separation of $`A_{1/2}`$, $`A_{3/2}`$, and the longitudinal $`S_{1/2}`$, so we report as result the total photocoupling strength, $`\sqrt{A_{1/2}^2+A_{3/2}^2+S_{1/2}^2}`$. The resulting value for the $`P_{13}`$(1720) fit is reported in the first three rows of Table 2. The errors reflect the statistical uncertainties in the data and the correlations among the different resonances.

As discussed above, fitting the data around 1.7 GeV with established baryon states leads either to a poor fit or to a drastic change in resonance parameters with respect to published results. In the framework of our analysis, there is no way to assess the reliability of the previously determined hadronic parameters of the PDG $`P_{13}`$(1720). The resonant content of the reaction $`\pi N\pi \pi N`$, which is used to obtain the hadronic parameters, may be different from that of reactions initiated by an electromagnetic probe. In particular, the $`P_{13}`$(1720) state seen in $`\pi N\pi \pi N`$ may not be excited in electroproduction, while some other state that decouples from $`\pi N`$ may be excited electromagnetically. This possibility is studied in the next step.

Step (C) - We investigated whether our data could be fitted by including another baryon state, while keeping the hadronic parameters of the $`P_{13}`$(1720) as in Refs. Pdg96 ; Man92 . The quantum numbers $`S_{I1}`$,$`P_{I1}`$,$`P_{I3}`$,$`D_{I3}`$,$`D_{I5}`$, $`F_{I5}`$,$`F_{I7}`$ were tested on an equal footing, where $`I`$/2 is the isospin, undetermined in our measurement. We then simultaneously varied the photocouplings and the hadronic parameters of the new state and the $`D_{13}`$(1700). The total decay width of the new state was varied in the range of 40-600 MeV, while its position was varied from 1.68-1.76 GeV. The best fit ($`\chi ^2/\nu `$=3.3) was obtained with a $`P_{I3}`$ state, while keeping the $`P_{13}`$(1720) hadronic parameters at published values. Other partial waves gave a $`\chi ^2/\nu `$ $``$ 4.2. Curves obtained from the best fit were nearly identical with the red solid lines in Figs. 11 and 12. In order to avoid the unobserved $`\rho `$ production peak (Fig. 10, right), the photocouplings of the PDG $`P_{13}`$(1720) had to be reduced by about a factor of two with respect to the SQTM prediction, making its contribution very small. Instead, in this fit the main contribution to the bump came from the new state. Resonance parameters and total photocoupling value obtained from the assumed new state are reported in Table 1 (last row) and 2 (last 3 rows), respectively.

At this point, one could wonder whether a similar discrepancy between the calculation and the data is present in the real photon case, and whether introduction of a new state is compatible with the existing real photon data as well. To this purpose, we reproduce in Fig. 13 the old data from Ref. ABB68 , together with curves obtained from our model. The red solid curve in the graph represents the overall contribution from the non-resonant processes, while the blue dashed line corresponds the resonant contribution only, without introducing any new state. The black dashed line shows the result of our model when including both non-resonant and resonant processes, without new states. Finally, the black solid curve shows our fit of the real photon data when introducing a new state, and the blue solid curve shows the corresponding modification in the pure resonant excitation curve. The photocouplings of the new $`\frac{3}{2}^+`$(1720) state were determined extrapolating the values obtained from the CLAS experiment with virtual photons. An additional adjustment, within 10 %, was applied to reproduce the invariant mass distributions of the pairs $`p\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, measured at $`W`$=1.7 GeV ABB68 . It is clear how, due to the stronger dominance of the non-resonant mechanisms at the photon point, as well as due to the particular interference effects, a new state can be accomodated into the picture. In fact, the agreement between data and our calculation is even improved by the introduction of the new state.

A second $`P_{13}`$ state was indeed predicted in Ref. Cap94 , with a mass of 1870 MeV, and in Ref. Gia01 , with a mass of 1816 MeV. The presence of a new three-quark state with the same quantum numbers as the conventional $`P_{13}`$(1720) in the same mass range would likely lead to strong mixing. However, as mentioned above, a different isospin and/or partial wave cannot be excluded. The new state may also have a different internal structure, such as a hybrid baryon with excited glue components. Such a $`P_{13}`$ hybrid state is predicted in the flux tube model Pag00 . Finally, in Ref. Wal03  the existence of a $`P_{13}`$ pentaquark ($`qqqq\overline{q}`$) configuration with a mass in the range 1.76-1.78 GeV is predicted. Yet another possibility is that some resonance parameters established in previous analyses may have much larger uncertainties than reported in the literature. In this case, outlined in our step (B), our analysis would establish new, more precise parameters for a known state, and invalidate previous results.

In conclusion, in this paper we presented data on the $`epe^{}p\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ reaction in a wide kinematic range, with higher quality than any previous double pion production experiment. Our phenomenological calculations using existing PDG parameters provided a poor agreement with the new data at $`W`$ 1700 MeV. We explored two alternative interpretations of the data. If we dismiss previously established hadronic parameters for the $`P_{13}`$(1720) we can fit the data with a state having the same spin/parity/isospin but strongly different hadronic couplings from the PDG state. If, alternatively, we introduce a new state in addition to the PDG state with about the same mass, spin $`\frac{3}{2}`$, and positive parity, a good fit is obtained for a state having a rather narrow width, a strong $`\mathrm{\Delta }\pi `$ coupling, and a small $`\rho N`$ coupling, while keeping the PDG $`P_{13}`$(1720) hadronic parameters at published values. In either case we determined the total photocoupling at $`Q^2>0`$. A simultaneous analysis of single and double-pion processes provides more constraints and may help discriminate better between alternative interpretations of the observed resonance structure in the CLAS data. Such an effort is currently underway.

We would like to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the staff of the Accelerator and the Physics Divisions at JLab that made this experiment possible. This work was supported in part by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the French Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, and the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. U. Thoma acknowledges an “Emmy Noether” grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-84ER40150.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of paradigm models adopted for the description of pulse dynamics in nonlinear dispersive media with intrinsic loss is the parametrically driven damped nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation. In the one-dimensional case, it is

$$iu_t+\frac{1}{2}u_{xx}+\frac{1}{2}|u|^2u=(ki)u+\gamma u^{},$$
(1)
where $`u(x,t)`$ is the complex wave field, the asterisk stands for the complex conjugation, real $`k`$ is the frequency mismatch of the parametric drive, real $`\gamma `$ is the drive’s amplitude, which may be assumed positive, and the loss parameter, as well as the ones accounting for the spatial diffraction/dispersion and nonlinear frequency shift, are normalized to be $`1`$. Equation (1) finds applications to various physical problems, such as dynamics of spin waves in magnetics , plasma waves , and Faraday surface waves in a fluid layer driven by a time-periodic external force . Arguably, the most realistic application of eq. (1) is to models of nonlinear optics, such as a cavity filled with a Kerr-nonlinear lossy material, the driving term being provided for by an external field supplied at the frequency coinciding with that of the signal field, see, e.g., ref. 4 and references therein.

It is well known that eq. (1) gives rise to two exact solutions for phase-locked solitons,

$$u(x)=A(x)e^{i\theta },A(x)=2\sqrt{k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta }\mathrm{sech}\left(\sqrt{2(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )}x\right),$$
(2)
where the phase constant takes values

$$\theta _1=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^1\left(1/\gamma \right),\theta _2=\frac{1}{2}\left[\pi +\mathrm{sin}^1\left(1/\gamma \right)\right].$$
(3)
The solitons exist provided that $`\gamma >1`$.

The soliton with $`\theta =\theta _2`$, corresponding to the smaller value of the amplitude, $`A_02\sqrt{k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta }`$, is always unstable, while the other one may be stable. The soliton stability in this model was studied in detail . In particular, an obvious necessary condition is stability of the zero solution, which implies

$$k>\sqrt{\gamma ^21}.$$
(4)
Thus, the stable soliton may exist in the interval $`1<\gamma ^2<1+k^2`$ of the values of gain. Actually, the soliton is stable only in a part of this region, while in another part it is destabilized via a Hopf bifurcation, which was also studied in detail, see an earlier work  and a systematic analysis in refs. 8.

Another important dynamical model for pattern formation in nonlinear lossy media is based on the complex cubic Ginzburg-Landau (CCGL) equation, which may be written as

$$iu_t+(\beta _1i\beta _2)u_{xx}+(c_1+ic_2)|u|^2u=(k+i)u,$$
(5)
where the coefficients $`\beta _{1,2}`$ and $`c_{1,2}`$ are real, and $`\beta _2`$ and $`c_2`$ cannot be negative. The linear-gain coefficient on the right-hand side of eq. (5) is normalized to be $`1`$ \[cf. the normalized linear-loss coefficient in eq. (1)\]. The CCGL equation has many applications, including description of the onset of turbulence in the Poiseuille flow  and Langmuir waves in plasmas . Additionally, if $`t`$ and $`x`$ are replaced, respectively, by the propagation distance $`z`$ and reduced time $`\tau `$, eq. (5) describes the propagation of light signals in a pumped nonlinear optical waveguide, with the dispersion coefficient $`\beta _1`$, Kerr coefficient $`c_1`$, filtering coefficient $`\beta _2`$, and coefficient of two-photon absorption $`c_2`$ .

Various solutions to eq. (5) and their physical applications have been studied in detail, see a recent review . A particular solution, which is unstable but nevertheless quite meaningful (see, e.g., a detailed consideration in ref. 13), is a solitary pulse (SP) that can be found in an exact analytical form

$$u=A_0\left[\mathrm{sech}\left(\kappa x\right)\right]^{1+i\mu }\mathrm{exp}\left(i\omega t\right),$$
(6)
where all the real constants $`A_0,\kappa ,\mu `$ and $`\omega `$ are uniquely expressed in terms of parameters of eq. (5). It is noteworthy that the NLS equation proper, and its damped parametrically driven version (1), admit soliton solutions only under the condition which, in terms of eq. (5), is $`\beta _1c_1>0`$ (in terms of nonlinear optics, it implies that the nonlinear waveguide is either self-focusing with anomalous group-velocity dispersion, or self-defocusing with normal dispersion). However, except for the case $`\beta _2=c_2=0`$, the general CCGL equation (5) has the exact SP solution in the form (6) irrespective of the sign of the product $`\beta _1c_1`$, the only additional condition being that $`\beta _1`$ and $`c_1`$ must not simultaneously vanish. The most important difference of the SP solution (6) from the phase-locked soliton (2) is the presence of the chirp $`\mu `$, which accounts for a nontrivial intrinsic phase structure in the SP.

A natural generalization of both models (1) and (5) is a parametrically driven CCGL equation, which we take in the form

$$iu_t+(\beta _1i\beta _2)u_{xx}+(c_1+ic_2)|u|^2u=(ki)u+\gamma u^{}.$$
(7)
It may apply to the above-mentioned physical systems under properly modified conditions. For instance, in the case of the nonlinear optical waveguide, eq. (7) describes a situation when the loss is compensated not by intrinsic gain, but rather by a co-propagating pump wave. It should be mentioned that a parametrically driven model of that type was already introduced in a two-dimensional situation, which corresponds to the light propagation in a planar nonlinear waveguide , and stable anisotropic two-dimensional SPs were found. In one dimension, a CCGL system with a nonlocal parametric drive was considered recently , but the straightforward one-dimensional model (7) has not been considered yet. Complex dynamics of interfaces was also studied using this type equation .

The existence of the stable soliton (2) in the driven-NLS limit of the model (7), and of the unstable SP (6) in its CCGL counterpart, suggest a possibility to find a SP solution to eq. (7) and investigate its stability, which is the subject of the present work. One may expect that an essential difference of the SP solution from its NLS phase-locked counterpart (2) is a nontrivial intrinsic phase structure (chirp).

In section 2, we report results obtained for SPs in the model (7). First, we develop an analytical approximation, that predicts all the properties of SPs, except for the chirp, with good accuracy. Then, we demonstrate numerical results, which are summarized in the form of stability diagrams in the model’s phase space. The stability domain shrinks with the increase of the diffusion and nonlinear-loss parameters $`\beta _1`$ and $`c_1`$ in eq. (7), which make it different from the NLS counterpart (1). At one of the domain’s borders, the soliton is destabilized via a Hopf bifurcation, which gives rise to a stable breather. The breathers are also briefly considered in section 2.

In the case when the condition (4) for the stability of the zero solution is not met, SPs keep to exist, but they cannot be stable. In this case, relevant solutions are periodic waves. We briefly consider them in section 3, also first in an approximate analytical form, and then by means of numerical methods. In this case, analytical and numerical results are virtually indistinguishable.

## 2 Solitary-pulses

### 2.1 Analytical approximation

To develop an analytical approximation to SP solutions, we fix two parameters in eq. (7), $`\beta _1=c_1=1/2`$, which can always be done by means of rescaling (provided that $`\beta _1`$ and $`c_1`$ are positive). We then assume an approximate form for the solution which mimics the exact solution (2) available in the NLS limit (1),

$$u(x)=A(x)e^{i\theta },$$
(8)
with constant $`\theta `$. Then, substituting the ansatz (8) into eq. (7), we formally obtain two different equations for the single real function $`A(x)`$:

$$\frac{d^2A}{dx^2}=2\left[k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}(2\theta )\right]AA^3,$$
(9)
$$\beta _2\frac{d^2A}{dx^2}=\left[1+\gamma \mathrm{sin}(2\theta )\right]A+c_2A^3.$$
(10)
We consider the case that $`\beta _2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+\gamma \mathrm{sin}(2\theta )`$ and $`c_2`$ are small. Eliminating the derivative term from eqs.(9) and (10), we arrive at a simpler relation,

$$(c_2+\beta _2)A^3=\left(2\beta _2\left[k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}\left(2\theta \right)\right]\left[1+\gamma \mathrm{sin}(2\theta )\right]\right)A.$$
(11)
An exact solution to eq. (9) is given by the expression for $`A(x)`$ from eq. (2), which we will use here, but without adopting the relation (3). Instead, we substitute the expression for $`A(x)`$ into eq. (11), then multiply all the equation again by $`A(x)`$, and integrate the result over $`x`$ from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`+\mathrm{}`$. This procedure leads to the following relation, that we use as a definition of $`\theta `$ in the waveform (2), which is now considered as an approximate solution to eq. (7):

$$2(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )(4c_2+\beta _2)+3\left[1+\gamma \mathrm{sin}\left(2\theta \right)\right]=0.$$
(12)
In particular, eq. (12), with regard to eq. (4), predicts that a stable SP solution may exist in the interval

$$\sqrt{\gamma ^21}<k<k_{\mathrm{cr}}\frac{\gamma \sqrt{9+4(4c_2+\beta _2)^2}3}{2\left(4c_2+\beta _2\right)}.$$
(13)
With the increase of the combination $`\left(4c_2+\beta _2\right)`$, $`k_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ attains a minimum value,

$$\left(k_{\mathrm{cr}}\right)_{\mathrm{min}}=\sqrt{\gamma ^21},$$
(14)
at

$$4c_2+\beta _2=\left(3/2\right)\sqrt{\gamma ^21}$$
(15)
\[at this point, the interval (13) collapses into a point\]. With the further increase of $`\left(4c_2+\beta _2\right)`$, $`k_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ grows up to a maximum value, $`\left(k_{\mathrm{cr}}\right)_{\mathrm{max}}k_{\mathrm{cr}}\left(4c_2+\beta _2=\mathrm{}\right)=\gamma .`$

### 2.2 Numerical results

The stationary version of eq. (7) was solved numerically, and the findings were compared to those obtained in the approximate analytical form based on eqs. (2) and (12). A typical example is displayed in Fig. 1, where the panel (a) shows the numerically found profile of $`|u(x)|`$ together with the analytical approximation to it, and the panel (b) is the corresponding phase profile, which was found only in the numerical form, as the analytical approximation assumes a constant phase.

Results for the stationary SP solutions can be summarized in the form of the plot displayed in Fig. 2. Its panel (a) shows the soliton’s amplitude, as found numerically and in the analytical approximation, vs. the coefficient $`\beta _2=c_2`$, which measures the deviation of the model (7) from the NLS counterpart (1), and the panel (b) shows the average value of the SP’s phase $`\varphi (x)`$, which is defined as

$$\theta \frac{_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\varphi (x)|u(x)|^2𝑑x}{_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}|u(x)|^2𝑑x},$$
(16)
in comparison with the analytical prediction for the average phase, which is realized as the phase $`\theta `$ defined by eq. (12). The numerical and analytical results displayed in Fig. 2 terminate at points where, respectively, the numerical solution and eq. (12) cease to produce any nontrivial result (the numerical solution shows that, beyond the termination point, only the trivial state, $`u=0`$, can be found).

The results are further summarized in the diagram shown in Fig. 3, which displays a region in the parameter plane ($`\beta _2=c_2,k`$), in which stable stationary SP solutions were found \[the stability was verified by direct simulations of the full time-dependent equation (7)\]. The upper right border marked by stars is the one beyond which only the zero solution can be found numerically; the dashed curve is an analytical prediction for the same border as given by eq. (13), i.e., the boundary beyond which eq. (12) yields no solutions. Below the lower border, which is marked by crosses, stable SPs cannot be found. The width of an initial pulse increases and the pulse spreads out to a spatially extended state. (The spatially extended state is not a uniform state.) The lower border is slightly upper than the instability line $`k=\sqrt{\gamma ^21}`$ of the zero solution. The stability region in Fig. 3 ends approximately at $`\left(\beta _2\right)_{\mathrm{cutoff}}0.16`$, where the upper border approaches the lower border. Lastly, the upper left border, marked by rhombuses, is a line of the Hopf bifurcation destabilizing the SP: behind this border, a stable solution is a regularly or chaotically vibrating breather, see below.

The consideration of the above results, and the comparison with the analytical prediction shows that, first, the analytical approximation turns out to be fairly accurate, and, second, the stability region quickly shrinks with the increase of the diffusion and nonlinear-loss coefficients $`\beta _2`$ and $`c_2`$ in eq. (7). The stability region in Fig. 3 greatly extends in the direction of larger values of $`k`$ at small finite values of $`\beta _2=c_2`$ \[which may be easily explained by the analytical result showing that the maximum value of $`k`$, as given by eq. (13), diverges as $`\beta _2=c_20`$\].

Another relevant representation of the SP stability region is in terms of the parametric plane ($`\beta _1,k`$) for fixed values $`\beta _2=c_2=0.025,c_1=0.5`$ and $`\gamma =1.5`$ of the other parameters, which is shown in Fig. 4. The two borders in Fig. 4 denote the same types of bifurcation curves as in Fig. 3. The upper border marked by stars is the one beyond which only the zero solution can be found numerically; the dashed curve is an analytical prediction $`k_{\mathrm{cr}}=\{\gamma \sqrt{9+(8c_2+\beta _2/\beta _1)^2}3\}/(8c_2+\beta _2/\beta _1)`$, which is a modified one of eq. (13). The analytical prediction is good for large $`\beta _1`$, however, the approximation breaks down for small $`\beta _1`$, since the derivation of Eq. (13) is based on the conditions $`\beta _2\beta _1`$ and $`c_2c_1`$. Below the lower border, which is marked by crosses, stable SPs cannot be found. Note that the (unstable) exact SP solution (6) to the usual CCGL equation exists, unless both $`\beta _2`$ and $`c_2`$ vanish, not only at positive but also at negative values of the product $`\beta _1c_1`$ , which is a drastic difference from the classical NLS solitons that exist solely in the case $`\beta _1c_1>0`$. Nevertheless, Fig. 4 shows that the parametrically driven CCGL supports, as well as its NLS counterpart, (stable) SPs only in the case $`\beta _1c_1>0`$.

### 2.3 Breathers

As it was mentioned above, the SP solution suffers destabilization via the Hopf bifurcation at the border marked by rhombuses in Fig. 3, similar to what is known about solitons in the usual driven-NLS model 1 . The Hopf bifurcation gives rise to stable oscillatory pulses in the form of breathers. Similar breathing pulses are also found in the quintic CCGL equation . While we did not aim to investigate the breathers in detail, we have found that they always keep a single-humped shape. With further variation of the parameters, the breather performing regular oscillations undergoes period-doubling bifurcations, which do not destabilize the pulse as a whose, but render its intrinsic oscillations chaotic. Figure 5 shows the time evolutions of the breather’s amplitude, which is equal to $`|u(L/2)|`$, for $`\gamma =1.5`$ and $`k=4.5`$. The parameters $`\beta _1`$ and $`c_1`$ are again fixed to be 0.5. The amplitude of the pulse exhibits a limit cycle oscillation at $`\beta _2=c_2=0.005`$, a limit cycle oscillation with doubled period is seen at $`\beta _2=c_2=0.002`$, and the time evolution becomes chaotic at $`\beta _2=c_2=0.001`$.

## 3 Periodic waves

In the case when the condition (4) does not hold and the zero solution is unstable, SP solutions are irrelevant. However, it is natural to expect that the model supports spatially periodic stationary waves in this case, which may be quite relevant in the corresponding physical settings, provided that these waves are stable.

Periodic solutions can be first analyzed by means of an analytical approximation, similar to what was done above for the SP solutions, i.e., adopting the ansatz (8) with constant $`\theta `$. Then, an exact solution to the corresponding equation (9) is

$$u(x)=A_0\mathrm{cn}(\kappa x,q)e^{i\theta },$$
(17)
where $`\mathrm{cn}`$ is the elliptic cosine with the modulus $`q=A_0/\sqrt{a^2+A_0^2}`$, and other constants are defined as follows: $`\kappa =\sqrt{(a^2+A_0^2)/2}`$, $`A_0^2=2(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )+\sqrt{4(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )+2E}`$, and $`a^2=2(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )+\sqrt{4(k+\gamma \mathrm{cos}2\theta )+2E}`$. In these expressions, $`E`$ is a free parameter of the family of the periodic solutions, which can be fixed if a certain period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is selected by periodic conditions. In terms of the above parameters,

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=4\sqrt{2}K(q)/\sqrt{a^2+A_0^2},$$
(18)
where $`K(q)`$ is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind.

To determine the value of $`\theta `$, we follow the same approach as in the case of SP, viz., we substitute the expression (17) into Eq. (11), then multiply it again by the expression (17), and integrate over the period (18). The resultant equation was solved numerically, in order to find $`\theta `$ for a given period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$.

In a direct numerical simulation, we have obtained a stable pattern with the period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=20/9`$ at $`c_2=\beta _2=0.02`$, $`k=2`$ and $`\gamma =1.5`$. In Fig. 6, we compare the direct numerical solution and the predicted approximate analytical solution for the periodic wave. A more general comparison of the analytical and numerical results is presented in Fig. 7, cf. a similar picture for the SP solutions in Fig. 2 \[the average phase shown in Fig. 7(b) is defined by the expression (16), in which the integration is limited to one period of the solution; in fact, the phase of the periodic solution is almost constant, unlike that of SPs\]. The dependences in Fig. 7 terminate at points beyond which the numerical solutions could not be continued. As concerns the numerical solution, in the case shown in Fig. 7, a solution with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=20/9`$ cannot be found for $`\beta _2>0.04`$. Figure 8 displays a time evolution at $`\beta _2=c_2=0.045`$. The initial condition is the periodic solution with the period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=20/9`$ for $`\beta _2=c_2=0.02`$ shown in Fig. 6. The amplitude of the periodic solution with the period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=20/9`$ decays to zero, and another periodic solution with period $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=20/6`$ appears as a stable solution.

## 4 Conclusion

In this work, we have introduced a model of the one-dimensional nonlinear dispersive medium with intrinsic loss, which are compensated by a parametric driving field. The model is a combination of the parametrically driven nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) and complex cubic Ginzburg-Landau equations, and has various physical applications (in particular, to optical systems). In the case when the zero background is stable, we developed an analytical approximation for a solitary-pulse (SP) solution, which was found to be in good agreement with direct numerical results. Unlike the well-studied case of the driven damped NLS equation, in the present case SPs have a nontrivial phase structure. Combining the analytical and numerical methods, we have identified the stability domain for the SP solutions. Generally, the increase of the diffusion and nonlinear-loss parameters leads to shrinkage of the stability region, but a nontrivial feature is that it may stretch in the direction of large values of the frequency mismatch. At one border of the stability domain, the SP is destabilized by the Hopf bifurcation, which gives rise to a localized breather. Further period doublings make internal vibrations of the breather chaotic. In the case when the zero background is unstable, hence SPs are irrelevant, we constructed stationary periodic solutions, for which a very accurate analytical approximation was developed, and their stability was studied in direct simulations.


text:
# Activated bond-breaking processes preempt the observation of a sharp glass-glass transition in dense short-ranged attractive colloids

## Abstract

We study — using molecular dynamics simulations — the temperature dependence of the dynamics in a dense short-ranged attractive colloidal glass to find evidence of the kinetic glass-glass transition predicted by the ideal Mode Coupling Theory. According to the theory, the two distinct glasses are stabilized one by excluded volume and the other by short-ranged attractive interactions. By studying the density autocorrelation functions, we discover that the short-ranged attractive glass is unstable. Indeed, activated bond-breaking processes slowly convert the attractive glass into the hard-sphere one, preempting the observation of a sharp glass-glass transition.

Short-ranged attractive colloidal systems have recently become the focus of many experimentalpoon-trappe  and theoreticallekker  studies. The interest in these systems stems from their peculiar dynamicssciortino02 , for showing structural arrest phenomena both of gelation and vitrification type, and for being amenable of analytic treatments. Previous studies have convincingly shown that unusual dynamical phenomena emerge from the competition between two characteristic localization length scales; the hard-core and the short-ranged attraction localization lengths. In hard-sphere colloids, when the packing fraction $`\varphi `$ exceeds roughly $`0.58`$, the colloidal suspension turns into a glass and particles are confined in cages of size of the order of 10$`\%`$ of the hard core diameter (the hard-sphere localization length). In attractive colloids, localization can be realized not only via excluded volume (i.e. tuning $`\varphi `$) but also thermally (i.e. tuning the ratio between temperature $`T`$ and potential depth)experiments . Hence, slowing down of the dynamics can be induced not only by increasing $`\varphi `$ but also by progressively lowering $`T`$, i.e. increasing the inter-particle bonding. Previous studies have shown that when the range of the attractive interaction is smaller than 10$`\%`$ of the hard-core diameter, an additional localization length, controlled by the potential, sets in and an efficient mechanism of competition between the hard-sphere and the short-ranged bonding localization lengths arises. In the fluid phase-region where the two localization mechanisms compete, a highly non trivial dynamics is observed: particle diffusion shows a maximum on heating, the fluid can be transformed at constant $`\varphi `$ into a glass both on cooling and heating, the time dependence of dynamical quantities like the mean squared displacement and the density-density correlation function, have an uncommon behavior at intermediate times, showing respectively a sub-diffusive and a logarithmic regime. These anomalous properties have been recently observed in a series of beautiful experiments mallamace ; science02 ; bartsch02 ; malla2 , and extensive simulations of particles interacting via short-ranged square-wellRcomm02 ; zacca02 ; a4  and Asakura-Oosawa potentialpuertas02 .

Hard sphere colloids have been an important system for accurately testing theoretical predictions. It has been shown that the ideal Mode Coupling Theory (MCT), which neglects hopping phenomena, provides an accurate description of the dynamics close to the hard-sphere glass transitiongoetze91 ; vanmegen . Ideal MCT provides an accurate description of the fluid phase dynamics also in short-ranged attractive colloids, despite the complex dynamical processes alluded to previously. Several theoretical predictions fabbian99 ; bergenholtz99 ; dawson00 ; zaccarelli01 ; sperl02 ; sperlpisa  have been recently quantitatively confirmed by experimentsmallamace ; science02 ; bartsch02 ; malla2  and simulations science02 ; Rcomm02 ; zacca02 ; puertas02 ; a4 .

An untested important prediction of the theory regards the presence of a kinetic (as opposed to thermodynamics) glass-glass transition which should take place in the glass phase on crossing a critical temperature. Heating a short-ranged attractive glass should produce a sudden variation of all dynamical features, without significant structural changes. For example, at the transition temperature, the value of the long-time limit of the density-density correlation function, the non-ergodicity factor $`f_q`$, should jump from the value characteristic of the short-ranged attractive glass to the significantly smaller value characteristic of the hard-sphere glass.

In this Letter we report an extensive numerical study of the binary short-ranged square well (SW) potential in the glass phase aiming at studying the $`T`$-evolution of the glass dynamics and detecting the location of the glass-glass transition. We discover that hopping phenomena destabilize the attractive glass and prevent the observation of the a discontinuous glass-glass transition.

We perform molecular dynamics (MD) calculations of a $`50\%50\%`$ binary mixture of $`N=700`$ particles of unitary mass interacting via a square-well potential of unitary depth $`u_0`$. The asymmetry between the two hard-core diameters is fixed to $`20\%`$. The attractive well-width $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$ is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}/(\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}+\sigma _{ij})=0.03`$, where $`\sigma _{ij}`$ is the hard-core diameter for the $`ij`$-type interactionunits , with $`i,j=A,B`$. In this model, a bond between two particles can be unambiguously defined when the pair interaction energy is $`u_0`$. The one-component version of this model has been extensively studied within MCT dawson00 . The binary mixture case, which allows to prevent crystallization without substantial changes in the dynamics, has been studied numerically in the fluid phase zacca02 . The iso-diffusivity curves in the $`\varphi T`$ region are re-entrant and, close to the re-entrance, correlation functions show a logarithmic decay in agreement with MCT predictions. Comparing the theoretical MCT calculations for this specific model, with the numerical results reported in Ref.zacca02  — following the procedure first used by Sperlsperl03  — the glass-glass transition line has been located between ($`\varphi 0.625`$, $`T0.37`$) and the end-point ($`\varphi 0.64`$, $`T0.42`$)mapping . At $`\varphi =0.635`$, the packing fraction studied in this work, the glass-glass temperature is predicted to be $`T0.4`$.

To generate glass configurations, we compresscompress , to $`\varphi =0.635`$, $`136`$ independent equilibrium configurations generated at $`T=0.6`$ and $`\varphi 0.612`$ in a previous studyzacca02 . We checked that the results presented in this Letter do not depend on the $`T`$ and $`\varphi `$ of the starting uncompressed configurations. Since the simulated system is out-of-equilibrium, ensemble averages are requested to reduce the noise level. Each compressed configuration was instantly quenched to several temperatures $`T`$ by proper rescaling of the initial velocities and let to evolve in a NVT simulationthermostat . On the time scale of our study the system behaves as a glass at all $`T`$ values, i.e. no diffusional processes are observed. We analyze nine different $`T`$ values, from $`T=1.5`$ to $`T=0.1`$. Each $`T`$ requested about 15 CPU days on fast AMD Athlon processor.

Since the system is in an out-of-equilibrium state, correlation functions depend not only on $`t`$ but also on the time elapsed from the compression, the waiting time $`t_w`$. For $`t<<t_w`$, correlation functions for different $`t_w`$ collapse on the same curve — a phenomenon connected to the equilibration of the degrees of freedom faster than $`t_w`$aging . We exploit such feature to generate $`t_w`$-independent data and focus only on the $`T`$-dependence. For this reason we consider the dynamics for times up to approximately $`400`$ time units and $`t_w>4000`$.

To confirm that in the time window $`0<t<400`$, no $`t_w`$-dependence is observed for $`t_w4000`$, we calculate the density-density correlation function

$$\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)\rho _𝐪^{}(t_w+t)\rho _𝐪(t_w)/|\rho _𝐪(t_w)|^2$$
(1)
where $`\rho _𝐪(t)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}_ie^{i\mathrm{𝐪𝐫}_i(t)}`$ and $`𝐫_i(t)`$ are the coordinates of particle $`i`$ at time $`t`$. Fig. 1 shows $`\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)`$ for the case $`T=0.35`$, at $`q\sigma _{BB}25`$. For $`t_w>4000`$, $`\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)`$ becomes independent of $`t_w`$ for $`t400`$. We confirmed such $`t_w`$-independence at all studied $`T`$-values.

Before presenting the numerical data, we discuss the ideal-MCT predictions for the one-component system, using the Percus-Yevick static structure factor as input, extending the calculation reported in Ref.dawson00 . Fig. 2 (top panel) shows $`\varphi _q^{MCT}(t)`$ at different $`T`$ values. The long-time limit $`f_q`$ of the correlation function separates two groups of temperatures. At high $`T`$ values, correlation functions tend to $`f_q^{HS}0.6`$, while for lower $`T`$, $`f_q>0.9`$, a figure typical of the short-ranged attractive glass. The sharp jump in $`f_q`$ is the signature of a discontinuous glass-glass transition.

Fig. 2 (bottom panel) shows $`\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)`$ in the $`t_w`$-independent time window, calculated from MD trajectories. At the highest $`T`$, $`T=1.5`$, $`\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)`$ quickly approaches a plateau, consistent with the hard-sphere glass value, as expected since the kinetic energy is larger than the depth of the square well. On cooling, the approach to the plateau takes longer and longer, consistently with the MCT predictions. Around $`T=0.4`$, the decay is well represented by a logarithmic law, in agreement with the location of the MCT higher order singularity — the source of the logarithmic dynamicsa4 . For $`T0.4`$, the correlation functions show a very ill-defined plateau, around $`0.9`$, a value consistent with the MCT prediction for the short-ranged attractive glass. While in the theoretical predictions the attractive plateau lasts for ever, in the simulated systems all correlation functions, independently from $`T`$, appear to decay well below 0.9. The correlation functions for the two extreme temperatures in Fig.2 (bottom panel) show that a clear difference in the dynamics is indeed observed. However, the sharp glass-glass transition predicted by ideal MCT is not found. These results suggest that the range of stability of the attractive glass is considerably shorter than theoretically expected. Even lowering $`T`$ down to $`0.1`$, i.e. when $`T`$ is one tenth of the potential well depth and the system is expected to be deep in its attractive glass phase, the attractive plateau lasts less than two decades in timeconsiderazione . We also note that the time window in which the correlation function is close to the attractive plateau value does not extend on increasing $`t_w`$, as clearly shown in Fig.1. The absence of a clear short-ranged attractive plateau seems to suggest that the attractive cages are not as stable (in time) as the hard-sphere ones and that particles do manage to break the bond confinementshear .

A possible explanation of the observed instability of the attractive glass can be formulated in term of the so-called activated (or hopping) processes, decay processes which are not included in the ideal MCTextMCT . While in hard-spheres hopping phenomena are not significant due to the absence of an energy scale, in molecular systems it is well known that the ”MCT glass” is destabilized by activated processes, which slowly restore ergodicity. Indeed, in these systems the calorimetric glass transition temperature is located well below the MCT critical temperature. In short-ranged attractive colloids, activated processes can be associated with thermal fluctuations of order $`u_0`$, which are able to break the bonds. These processes generate a finite bond lifetime and destabilize the attractive glass. If $`\varphi `$ is sufficiently large, the underlying hard-core repulsive glass should emerge as limiting disordered arrested structure.

It is tempting to formulate the hypothesis that an ideal MCT short-ranged attractive glass would be stable if bond-breaking processes were negligible. Such ideal attractive glass should be characterized by bond-cages with infinite lifetime, in analogy with the hard-sphere glass which is characterized by neighbor-cages of infinite lifetime. To substantiate this claim, we artificially build a model in which bonds are never broken on the time scale of our numerical observation. To do so we add a finite barrier of infinitesimal width in the potential, just outside the attractive well (see Fig.3), with the purpose to make the bonds longer lived, and solve the Newton equations exactlyrapaport . The nice feature of this modified system is that the thermodynamics is identical to the one of the original potential, since the width of the repulsive barrier is infinitesimal. Dynamics are instead different, since bond-breaking takes now place on longer time-scales; for example, by choosing as height of the repulsive barrier 100$`u_0`$, we find that no bond is formed or broken in the timescale of the simulation.

Fig. 3 contrasts the decay of $`\varphi _q(t_w+t,t_w)`$ for different $`T`$ values in the range of $`T`$ where attractive glass is expected, both for the SW model and for the case of the square well complemented by a barrier (SWB) of height 100$`u_0`$. The same initial configurations (at $`t_w`$) are used for both models, so that at time $`t=0`$ the bonding pattern is identical. By construction, only decorrelation processes which do not modify the bonding pattern, i.e. the rattling motion within the bond-cages, are possible in the SWB model. We observe that, in the case of the SWB model, the correlation functions decay to a stable plateau, whose value, larger than 0.9, is consistent with the expected value for the attractive glass. In contrast, correlation functions for the unmodified SW model, already at short times, decay below the plateau value. Still, the extrapolated amplitude of the long-time decay (see Fig. 3) provides an estimate of $`f_q`$ very similar to the one of the SW model plus barrier. These results support the view that ideal-MCT, by neglecting the bond-breaking processes, predicts a stability window for the short-ranged attractive glass larger than numerically observed.

The present study suggests that the ideal attractive glass line in short-ranged attractive colloids has to be considered, in full analogy with what has been found in the study of glass-forming molecular liquidsextMCT , as a cross-over line between a region where ideal-MCT predictions are extremely good (in agreement with the previous calculation in the fluid phase) and an activated-dynamics region, where ideal-MCT predictions apply in a limited time window. The anomalous dynamics which stem from the presence of an higher-order singularity in the MCT-equationsfabbian99 ; a4 , still affect the dynamical processes in the fluid and in the glass, even if activated processes pre-empt the possibility of fully observing the glass-glass transition phenomenon, at least in the SW case. Short-ranged inter-particle potentials which stabilize bonding could produce dynamics which are less affected by hopping processes, favoring the observation of the glass-glass phenomenonmalla2 .

We acknowledge support from MIUR COFIN 2002 and FIRB. We thank S. Buldyrev for the MD code, W. Götze for a critical reading of the manuscript and M. Fuchs and A.M. Puertas for discussions. We acknowledge support from INFM Iniziativa Calcolo Parallelo.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In our paper we perform a comparative analysis of experimental data on $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions with calculations using the well-known Ultra-Relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamic model (UrQMD) .

The property of antinucleons - the ability to annihilate in nuclear matter, gives an ample possibility to investigate exotic nuclei and processes. The presence of an annihilation channel in the $`\overline{N}A`$-interaction leads to enhancement of such interesting effects in intranuclear cascades as multipion-nucleus interactions and the interaction of meson resonance with nuclei . This also may result in qualitatively new effects, for example, the formation of a droplet of ”hot” nuclear matter ,  with its subsequent specific decay. Specifically, in  it is shown that in the interaction of antiprotons with tantalum nuclei $`K_s^0`$-particles are mainly produced from the cluster containing p+3 nucleons with temperature $`T135`$ MeV, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-particles – from the cluster containing p+13 with temperature $`T97`$ MeV.

Analyzing the annihilation of antinucleons in nuclei, it is interesting, first of all, to determine the difference of the characteristics of secondary particles in the $`\overline{p}A`$\- interactions from the predictions of microscopic models for hadron-hadron and nucleus-nucleus collisions, in particular, Ultra-Relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamic model (UrQMD), and from the data on nucleon-nucleus interactions for which the UrQMD model gives a qualitative agreement. The above mentioned specific features may be associated with the effect of clustering nucleons in the intranuclear annihilation process or, probably, some demerits of the model.

Our work has been inspired by the goals of the PANDA project at GSI. Among them there are those which are especially important for UrQMD contribution:

* Study of interactions of hidden and open charm particles with nucleons and nuclei;
* Investigation of strange baryons in nuclei.

To reach these goals, it is necessary to have $`\overline{p}`$-nucleus events code-generator

* to estimate the background conditions for experiment;
* to develop the experimental setup, trigger conditions, and so on.

Of course, the generator of $`\overline{p}`$-nucleus interactions is needed to study the physics of processes.

There are only few event generators – FLUKA , Intranuclear cascade model , DTUJET , UrQMD, to simulate $`\overline{p}`$-nucleus collisions. We assume that the UrQMD approach is the most suitable tool to solve these tasks.

## 2 Main assumptions of UrQMD approach

A detailed model description can be found in papers . The UrQMD model is a microscopic transport theory based on the covariant propagation of all hadrons on classical trajectories in combination with stochastic binary scatterings, colour string formation and resonance decay.

It represents a Monte-Carlo solution of a large set of coupled partial integro-differential equations for the time evolution of various phase space densities $`f_i(x,p)`$ of particle species $`i=N,\mathrm{\Delta },\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, etc, that non-relativistically assumes the Boltzman form:

$$\frac{df_i(x,p)}{dt}\frac{p}{t}\frac{f_i(x,p)}{p}+\frac{x}{t}\frac{f_i(x,p)}{x}+\frac{f_i(x,p)}{t}=Stf_i(x,p),$$

where $`x`$ and $`p`$ are the position and momentum of particle, respectively, $`Stf_i(x,p)`$ denotes the collision term of these particle species, which are connected to any other particle species $`f_k(x,p)`$.

The UrQMD approach includes

* consideration of cross-section of various meson-meson, meson-baryon, and baryon-baryon interactions. It takes into account $``$ 50 baryons, $``$ 45 mesons.
* It considers $`Q\overline{Q}`$ string creation a la FRITIOF model at $`P_{lab}>5GeV/c`$.
* It also considers string fragmentation and formation time of particles.
* At lower energies, $`P_{lab}<5`$GeV/c there are reaction channels:
$`N+N\mathrm{\Delta }N,\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta },N^{}N,etc.,`$ $`M+N\mathrm{\Delta }^0,\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{}`$
* The potential interactions are supposed between the particles, especially, Yukawa, Coulumb, Pauli potentials.

The physical picture of $`hA`$ collisions, used by UrQMD model is approximately the following. The projectile hadron interacts with the target nucleus nucleon. A collision between two hadrons will occur if $`d<\sqrt{\sigma _{tot}/\pi }`$, where $`d`$ and $`\sigma _{tot}`$ are the impact parameter of hadrons and the total cross-section of two hadrons, respectively. In the UrQMD model the total cross-section $`\sigma _{tot}`$ depends on the isospins of colliding particles, their flavor and the c.m.s. energy. However, partial cross-sections are then used to calculate the relative weights for different channels. The total baryon-baryon cross-section of the reaction $`A+CD+E`$ has the following general form:

$$\sigma _{tot}^{BB}(2S_d+1)(2S_E+1)\frac{p_{D,E}}{p_{A,C}}\frac{1}{s}|M|^2,$$

with the spins of the particles, $`S_i`$, momenta of the pairs of particles, $`<p_{i,j}>`$, in the two particle rest frame, and the matrix element $`|M|^2`$.

At high energies, two quark strings are produced in the hadron interaction with target nucleon. The first fast string can collide with other target nucleon or emit a meson(s), before the collision with the second nucleon of the target. The second string, slow in the Lab. system, decays in the nucleus and its products interact with the nuclear nucleons. Here, the creation of different meson and baryon resonanses are taken into account. The resonances can interact with each other and nuclear nucleons, before they leave the nucleus. As a result, a lot of particles are produced in the simulated $`hA`$-interactions with UrQMD model.

At high energies ($`p_{lab}>2`$ GeV/c) baryon-baryon and meson-baryon cross-sections are parameterized as:

$$\sigma _{tot,el}(p)=A+Bp^n+Cln^2(p)+Dln(p)$$

with the parameters of the CERN-HERA fit , the laboratory momentum $`p`$ in GeV/c and the cross-section in mb. To describe the total meson-meson reaction cross-sections, the additive quark model (AQM) and the principle of detailed balance are used, that assumes the reversibility of the particles interactions. To model meson-meson interactions above the resonance region $`\sqrt{s}>1.7`$ GeV, one applies the rescaled total $`\pi p`$ cross section:

$$\sigma _{tot}^{MM}(\sqrt{s}>1.7GeV)=\sigma _{tot}^{\pi p}(\sqrt{s})\frac{\sigma _{AQM}^{MM}}{\sigma _{AQM}^{\pi p}}.$$

If we look at the Cascade model , it only considers the reactions:

$$NNNN+m\pi ,\pi N\pi N,\pi NN+m\pi ,\pi +(NN)NN.$$

As you can see, there are no $`\omega ,\rho `$-mesons, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-izobars, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-hyperons, etc. All of them are presented in the UrQMD approach. As a result, the model UrQMD describes the hadron-hadron and hadron-nucleus interactions quite well. To test this, we have considered experimental data on hadron-hadron and hadron-nucleus interactions.

In Fig. 1 we present experimental data and UrQMD model calculations on $`\pi ^{}`$-meson rapidity and transverse momentum distributions in neutron-proton interactions at the neutron momentum of $`P_n=`$1.25, 1.73, 2.23 and 5.1 GeV/c . The experimental data on $`np`$-interactions were obtained with the 1-meter hydrogen chamber of the Laboratory of High Energies (LHE), JINR, by a group of Yu.A. Troyan. The histograms are experimental data, the solid lines are calculations performed by means of the UrQMD model, the dashed lines are modified FRITIOF  model calculations. As seen in Fig. 1, the qualitative and quantitative description of $`\pi ^{}`$-meson characteristics was obtained by the UrQMD model and the modified FRITIOF model.

Fig. 2 gives experimental and model distributions of protons on transverse momentum in $`np`$-interactions in the reactions: $`nppp\pi ^{}`$ (Figs. 2a, 2d), $`nppp\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ (Figs. 2b, 2e), $`ppnp\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ (Figs. 2c, 2f) at the neutron momentum of $`P_n=`$3.83 GeV/c and 5.1 GeV/c. Histograms are the experimental data, solid lines are the UrQMD model calculations. Fig. 2 shows that the model predicts a larger yield of protons at small transverse momenta and underestimates their number at large momenta. However, the agreement of the calculations of transverse momentum distributions of protons in $`np`$-interactions with the experimental data is as satisfactory, as for $`\pi ^{}`$meson spectra.

Figs. 4, 4 present the data of $`pC`$-interactions at proton momentum of $`P=`$4.2 GeV/c, obtained by means of the 2-meter propan bubble chamber of LHE, JINR. A method of receiving and developing data is described in Ref. , . Fig. 4 depicts the multiplicity distributions of all charged particles, $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ mesons, and participant protons with the momentum more than 0.3 GeV/c in $`pC`$-interactions. The points are experimental data, the solid, dashed and dotted lines are the UrQMD, modified FRITIOF  and cascade  model calculations, respectively. It is interesting, that the UrQMD model describes the participant proton spectra better than the modified FRITIOF and the cascade model, and for the other groups of particles three models give the same good agreement with experimental multiplicity distributions. Fig. 4 presents the kinematical characteristics of the secondary particles: participant protons with the momentum more than 0.3 GeV/c, $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ mesons. The distributions of secondary particles on the rapidity and momentum are shown in Fig. 4. The UrQMD model calculation overestimates the production of $`\pi `$-mesons in the central rapidity region, and, especially, of the protons in the target fragmentation region. The same exceed of particle multiplicity in the target fragmentation region takes place in $`\overline{p}A`$-nucleus interactions, as it will be shown below. As seen in Fig. 4, the UrQMD model calculations reproduce quantitatively the experimental momentum distributions of $`\pi `$-mesons. On the whole, the UrQMD model calculations are in agreement with experimental data of the $`pC`$-interactions, as it was expected.

## 3 Results for $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions and analysis

Antibaryon-baryon interactions are especially considered in the UrQMD approach. It is well-known that at the energies $`100`$ GeV/c an important contribution to the total interaction cross-section comes from the annihilation process , where only mesons remain in the final state. In the model, the $`\overline{p}p`$ annihilation cross-section is parameterized by the relation taken from Koch and Dover

$$\sigma _{ann}^{\overline{p}p}=\sigma _0^N\frac{s_0}{s}\left[\frac{A^2s_0}{(ss_0)^2+A^2s_0}+B\right]$$

with $`\sigma _0^N`$=120 mb, $`s_0=4m_N^2`$, $`A=50`$MeV and $`B=0.6`$. As known, the $`\overline{n}p`$ cross-section does not differ significantly from $`\overline{p}p`$ cross-section , hence, they are set equal in the UrQMD model. It is assumed, that two massive strings and one meson creation take place at the annihilation. Since the strings have practically the same energies and masses and are flying in the same direction, we can expect, that there is a double multiplicity of produced particles, compared with the multiplicity in $`NN`$-interactions. Since the interference between the particles is not considered in the UrQMD model, we can expect that there is a more powerful cascade compared with the cascade in hadron-nucleus interactions.

To check the expectation, we turn to the experimental data on $`\overline{p},\overline{n}`$-interactions with nuclei. In the well-known ”Guide to experimental particle physics literature” , , there are only few references on antibaryon-nucleus interactions in the energy range from 1 to 20 GeV/c , . However, there are a lot of references on $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions at energies 40 GeV/c, 100 GeV/c, 200 GeV/c.

In Fig. 5 we present the charged particles multiplicity distributions in $`\overline{n}Ta`$-interactions at 6 GeV/c. The experimental data  were obtained by using the two-meter liquid-hydrogen chamber ”LYUDMILA” of the LHE of the JINR. A tantalum target was placed in the active volume of the chamber, which was exposed to the beam of antideutrons at momentum 12.2 GeV/c in the accelerator of the Institute for High-Energy Physics at Serpukhov. The statistics of experimental data consists of 250 events. Our statistics includes 2000 events. Fig. 5a shows the multiplicity distribution of all charged particles, $`N_{ch}`$. In the experiment , the protons with momentum less than 1 GeV/c have been identified. Fig. 5c gives the multiplicity distribution of slow (identified) protons, $`N_p`$. Figs. 5b and 5d illustrate the multiplicity distribution of secondary negative charged particles, $`N_\pi `$, and of all charged mesons,$`N_\pi `$, respectively. These so-called mesons (Fig. 5d) include all charged mesons and unidentified protons with momentum more than 1 GeV/c. As seen, there is a qualitative agreement between the experimental data and the theory.

Table 1 lists the considered experimental data  (the first line) and calculations of the average multiplicities of secondary charged particles for the interactions of antineutrons with tantalum nuclei at 6 GeV/c. We present the simulations in the framework of the UrqMD model (second line) and the intranuclear cascade model (ICM)  (third line). The average multiplicity of all charged particles, $`N_{ch}`$, calculated with the UrQMD model, overestimates the experimental one by 10$`\%`$. The theoretical average multiplicity of identified protons, $`N_p`$, also exceeds the experimental one by 10$`\%`$, the calculated multiplicity of the so-called $`\pi `$ mesons, $`N_\pi `$, overestimates the experimental data by 13$`\%`$, the simulated average multiplicity of negative charged particles, $`N_\pi ^{}`$, differs from the experimental multiplicity only by 3$`\%`$. The big difference is observed between the experimental data and UrQMD calculations on positive mesons and unidentified protons, $`N_{\pi ^+}`$, it reaches 22$`\%`$. Table 1 illustrates the big discrepancy in the intranuclear cascade model calculations and experimental data, especially, for average multiplicity of identified protons. This difference equals $`40\%`$.

The correlations between multiplicities of mesons and identified protons give additional information on features of $`\overline{n}Ta`$-interactions. Fig. 6 displays various experimental correlations between protons and pions with the corresponding UrQMD and ICM calculations. From Fig.6a one can see that the experimental average multiplicity of the identified protons (solid points) falls with increase of the pion production by $``$ 2.5 - 3 times. The average multiplicity of $`\pi `$-mesons decreases with enhance of the identified protons yield (see Fig.6b) by $``$ two times. On the whole, the UrQMD calculations (dashed lines and open points) reproduce quite well the shape of the experimental correlations, but there is a quantitative discrepancy. At the same time, predictions of ICM (the histograms) differ very strongly from the experimental data (see Figs. 6a, 6b). Due to low statistics of this experimental data we cannot make a conclusion on the accuracy of calculations with the UrQMD model.

Let us look at the experimental data ,  on $`\overline{p}+Li,C,S,Cu,Pb`$ interactions at $`\overline{p}`$ momentum of 40 GeV/c. These interactions were studied with the RISK-streamer chamber spectrometer. In Fig. 7, the average multiplicities of all charged particles, $`<N_{ch}>`$, the negative charged particles, $`<N_{neg}>`$, the slow, identified protons with momentum less than 500 MeV/c, $`<N_p>`$, and fast protons, $`<Q>`$, are given as functions of the atomic weight $`A`$. Since one cannot determine the number of fast protons exactly in the experiment , therefore, the multiplicity of the so-called fast protons is defined as: $`Q=N^+N^{}+1N_p`$, where $`N^{+()}`$ is the number of positive (negative) particles. For experimental data (square points), Fig 7b shows that the increase with $`A`$ of the average number of slow (identified) protons is much stronger than the linear behaviour and can be parameterized as $`<N_p>=cA^\alpha `$, where $`\alpha 0.62`$. The high value of $`\alpha `$ indicates that the slow protons are governed by cascading and, probably, by an admixture of some evaporation protons (at the $`10\%`$ level  ). From Fig. 7d, it is obvious that the average number of fast protons, $`<Q>`$, depends much weaker on A than $`<N_p>`$. The overestimation of the UrQMD model simulations (dashed lines in Fig. 7) on the average multiplicities of all charged particles, grows while increasing the atomic weight $`A`$. This is also true for the negative particles average multiplicity, $`<N^{}>`$, and the mean number of slow protons, $`<N_p>`$. This exceeding can be explained by the larger cascading of intermediate particles in nuclear matter on the model UrQMD than it takes place in the reality.

Table 2 shows that the disagreement reaches 60$`\%`$ for $`<N_{ch}>`$, 40$`\%`$ for $`<N^{}>`$, and 80$`\%`$ for $`<N_p>`$ for $`\overline{p}`$ interaction with lead nucleus. The UrQMD model calculations considerably exceeds the average multiplicity of the identified protons, emitted in backward hemisphere, $`<N_{pb}>`$, in Lab. system  for medium and heavy nuclei.

Let us consider experimental data  on $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions at momentum of anytiprotons 100 GeV/c. This experiment was performed with the Fermilab 30-inch bubble chamber and Downstream Particle Identifier to study inclusive charged pion production in the high energy interactions of $`\pi ^\pm ,K^\pm ,p`$ and $`\overline{p}`$ with thin foils of magnesium, silver and gold. The laboratory rapidity and transverse momentum distributions are presented separately for $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ production and compared with the VENUS string model Monte Carlo in Ref. . Laboratory rapidity is defined as

$$y=\frac{1}{2}ln\left(\frac{E+P_z}{EP_z}\right),$$

where $`E`$ and $`P_z`$ are the laboratory energy and longitudinal momentum, respectively.

We have performed the modeling of the reactions

$$\overline{p}+Mg,Ag,Au\pi ^\pm +X(1)$$

at momentum 100 GeV/c in the framework of the UrQMD model. Figs. 8, 9 show the results of the modeling and the corresponding experimental data .

Fig. 8 illustrates the transverse momentum distributions of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ \- mesons. All of the spectra are similar in shape, but the $`Au`$ data have slightly higher cross sections due to the higher charged particle multiplicities (see Table 3), and the $`Mg`$ data have the smallest cross sections. All of the data show distributions which are inconsistent with a single exponential slope but could be fitted with the sum of two exponential distributions. The UrQMD model calculations reproduce the experimental transverse momentum distributions of pions, even in the regions of large $`P_t`$, which are not described correctly with most of Monte Carlo models. In Fig. 9 we plot the pion rapidity distributions for all reactions (1). All of the plots are similar and display the following features. We observe that in the backward direction ($`y<2`$) they rise rapidly with increasing A. As the rapidity increases, the $`A`$ dependence becomes weaker and in the region $`y4.5`$ the distributions become almost independent of $`A`$. We also do not observe any region where a rapidity plateau exists.

The UrQMD model simulations shift (a little bit) the rapidity distributions of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$\- mesons to the target fragmentation region. On the whole, the agreement between UrQMD and data  is reasonably good. Let us note, that the UrQMD model describes the $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ kinematical spectra better than the VENUS model. In particular, the Venus model calculations strongly underestimate the yield of pions in the central rapidity region, and decrease essentially the meson production at large $`P_t`$ (see ).

However, the average multiplicity of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ \- mesons produced in $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions at 100 GeV/c calculated with UrQMD considerably overestimates the experimental ones, as it was observed for the reactions $`\overline{p}A`$ at 40 GeV/c.

Table 3 presents the experimental and the UrQMD model calculated average multiplicity of $`\pi ^+`$, $`<N_{\pi ^+}>`$, and $`\pi ^{}`$, $`<N_\pi ^{}>`$, produced in the reactions $`\overline{p}+Mg,Ag,Au`$ at momentum of antiprotons 100 GeV/c. For $`Mg`$ and $`Ag`$ targets, the difference between the UrQMD calculations and experimental results is equal to $`20\%25\%`$, and $`30\%35\%`$ for $`Au`$ target.

A similar situation with the multiparticle production in the $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions takes place at momentum 200 GeV/c. Table 4 lists experimental data  and calculations by the UrQMD approach on the number of events, the average multiplicities of all charged particles, $`<N_{ch}>`$, the negative particles, $`<N_{neg}>`$, the forward emitted particles in the CMS system, $`<N_F>`$, and the backward ones, $`<N_B>`$ for $`\overline{p}p,\overline{p}Ar,\overline{p}Xe`$ interactions at the 200 GeV/c antiproton beam.

The interactions of 200 GeV antiprotons on hydrogen, argon and xenon were studied with the streamer chamber vertex spectrometer  at the CERN SPS. Let us note, that the UrQMD model predicts low multiplicities for all and negative charged particles in $`\overline{p}p`$-collisions. At the same time, the model gives a larger multiplicity of particles for $`\overline{p}`$ interactions with heavy nuclei compared with experimental data. As seen from Table 4, the UrQMD model calculations reproduce quite well the experimental values of the average multiplicities of particles emitted in a forward hemisphere. The disagreement between the theory and the experimental data on the average multiplicity of the backward particles reaches 80$`\%`$ for $`\overline{p}Xe`$-interactions.

Figs. 10a, 10b show the average multiplicity of produced particles $`N_{ch}`$ and negative particles $`N_{neg}`$ in $`\overline{p}Xe`$-events versus the number $`N_p`$ of identified protons with the momentum less than 600 MeV/c. At high values of $`N_p`$ the average multiplicity has a value by about three times more than that at $`N_p=0`$. Fig. 10 illustrates the both average multiplicity of charged particles and negative particles rise with enhance of the identified proton number. The corresponding UrQMD model calculations reproduce the experimental correlations qualitatively, but there is a quantitative difference between the simulations and the data for dependence of the average multiplicity of all charged particles on the number of the identified protons. The number of identified protons in simulations can be more than 20. At the same time, the number $`N_p`$ in experiment reaches only 10.

Rapidity distributions of all, negative an positive charged particles give more detail information about the accuracy of model predictions. In Fig. 11 we present the rapidity distributions of secondary particles in $`\overline{p}Ar`$-interactions at 200 GeV/c. In the rapidity distributions of all and positive charged particles, the peak at $`y0`$ is associated with fast ejected target protons or with dissociation of the protons.

The following observations can be made:

* The UrQMD model assumes dominant production of all charged particles in the central rapidity region and in the target fragmentation region.
* The model gives a shift of the negative particle rapidity distribution to the target fragmentation region.
* The model overestimates the multiplicity of positive charged particles in the central and the target fragmentation regions.

The same features are also presented in $`\overline{p}Xe`$-interactions at momentum of the antiprotons at 200 GeV/c (Fig. 13). However, discrepancy between the calculated and experimental spectra in the central region and target fragmentation regions is essentially larger than in $`\overline{p}Ar`$-interactions. It can be explained by effects of powerful cascading and a large number of produced resonances in the model $`\overline{p}Ar`$-simulations.

The data of $`\overline{p}p`$-interactions on rapidity distributions (see Fig. 13) show that the UrQMD approach does not describe the target and projectile fragmentation regions. There is a clean effect of $`\overline{p}`$ leading and target proton leading in the experiment. However, the UrQMD approach assumes the central production of the charged particles, and there is no manifestation of the leading effect. Thus, we can conclude that the UrQMD approach does not consider diffraction dissociation quite correct.

In order to complete the consideration of the UrQMD model predictions, we have to analyse the products of nuclear residuals. To estimate radiation conditions of experiments, it is very important to know the multiplicity and energy spectra of neutrons produced by nucleus target in $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions. Thus, we start with the multiplicities of neutrons produced in $`\overline{p}Au,\overline{p}Bi,pBi`$ -interactions at the energy of projectile baryons 1.2 GeV. Figs. 14a, 14b, 14c give experimental data  and calculation by the UrQMD model of the neutron multiplicity distributions. It is not clear from Ref. , whether the efficiency of the neutron detection by the Berlin Neutron Ball (BNB)  is taken or not into account in the experimental neutron multiplicity distribution. Therefore, we have shown both calculations uncorrected and corrected for neutron detection efficiency (dashed and solid lines in Figs. 14a, 14b, and 14c, respectively). The neutron detector BNB counts the number of neutrons with efficiency $`80\%`$ in the evaporation energy regime. For higher neutron energy, BNB detection efficiency drops to 30 – 40 $`\%`$ for pre-equilibrium neutron emission .

As seen, the essential missing of neutrons takes place in the simulations corrected for the neutron efficiency. The decrease of the produced neutron number is caused by the absence of the nucleus evaporation mechanism in the UrQMD model. To demonstrate this, we show the energy spectra of neutrons produced in $`pPb`$-collisions at the proton energy of 1.5 GeV. In Fig. 14d, the neutron energy distributions  at the laboratory angles of emitted neutrons $`15^o,30^o,60^o,90^o`$ are exposed. As seen from Fig. 14d, at the neutron energy variation from 15 MeV to 1 MeV the calculated numbers of neutrons (solid lines) decrease. At the same time, the experimental spectra (points) grow up. Such slow neutrons are produced mainly in the procceses of target nucleus evaporation. The underestimation of the multiplicities of the neutrons is at the level of $`1525`$. We believe that it is needed to add the nucleus evaporation mechanism in the UrQMD model for accurate estimation of the kinamatic characteristics of secondary neutrons. It is also observed that the UrQMD model predicts correctly the energy spectra of the pre-equilibrium, fast neutrons (see Fig. 14d).

Summing up, we conclude that the predictions of the UrQMD model agree qualitatively with the experimental data on $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions. However, we believe that the accuracy of the UrQMD model predictions is not sufficient to estimate the background conditions for the experiment. The UrQMD model should be modified for a quantitatively description of the experimental data on $`\overline{p}A`$-interactions.

The authors have benefited from instructive discussions with V.V. Uzhinsky, E.A. Strokovsky and J. Ritman.