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# The BABAR Event Building and Level-3 Trigger Farm Upgrade

## I THE BABAR DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM

The primary data handling components of the BABAR data acquisition system are the Online Data Flow (ODF) babarodf  and the Online Event Processing (OEP) babaroep . ODF is the real-time system for trigger distribution, readout of the front end electronics, feature extraction and multi-stage event building. OEP provides near-real-time processing of fully built events: Level-3 software trigger, fast data quality monitoring, calibration processing and dispatch to data logging.

Figure 1 gives an overview of the BABAR data acquisition system.

Sampling and analog-to-digital conversion takes place in the front end electronics, mounted directly on or close to the subdetectors. From there, data is sent to “Read-Out-Modules” (ROMs) which are 9u VME modules that combine a commercial PowerPC single board computer running the VxWorks operating system with custom-built components. The number of VME crates and ROMs in the crate depends on design and data load of the subdetector. The ROMs apply detector-specific feature extraction algorithms and then transfer their event contributions via the VME bus to the ROM in slot 0 of their crate. This is the first stage of event building. The next stage is to combine all slot-0 ROM contributions of an event by sending them to the same Level-3 trigger farm node via Ethernet. The network event builder uses a UDP-based protocol, does not attempt to retransmit lost packets and employs a simple window-based flow control mechanism. Events are sent to a quasi-random sequence of farm nodes by using a hash value based on the event time stamp.

In the farm node, the Level-3 filter algorithms are applied on the complete event, events that pass the selection are sent to a central logging server where they are written to disk files. These files are subsequently transferred to the SLAC computer center for permanent tape storage and near-real-time full reconstruction.

The initial design goal was 2kHz of 30kByte events to be read out with negligible dead time from the front end electronics, feature extracted, built and shipped to the Level-3 trigger that would select 100Hz of events for logging and permanent storage. With the original farm of 32 330MHz Sun Ultra-5 machines the system did indeed reach 2kHz, limited by the amount of CPU time available to the Level-3 software trigger.

## II PLANNING THE UPGRADE

### II.1 Reasons for Upgrading

A farm upgrade became necessary for the following reasons:

* The projected PEP-II luminosities and trigger rate extrapolations require the data acquisition system to handle higher rates and larger event sizes, in addition, operational experience showed that headroom of a factor of two is desirable to handle temporary high background conditions.
* Having more CPU for more advanced Level-3 trigger algorithms will facilitate to keep the logging rate low.
* The Sun Ultra-5 machines were reaching their end of life, showing an increasing number of hardware failures.

To be able to safely handle the projected trigger rates until at least 2005, it was decided that an upgrade should increase the farm CPU capacity by a factor of about 10 and that the 100MBit/s Ethernet connections in the network event builder should be upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet.

### II.2 Requirements and Upgrade Options

Any upgrade option had to meet the following basic requirements:

* Run one of the two operating systems supported as BABAR software platforms: RedHat Linux on i386 or Solaris/SPARC
* Hardware must be available during the planning phase (fall 2001) so that performance measurements could be obtained and to prevent product availability from impacting the rigid deployment schedule during the Summer 2002 shutdown.

Some options had been ruled out a priori, because they were expected to be too different from the existing system and would have required extensive R&D and testing efforts, for example multiprocessor systems with more than 2 CPUs where the concern were symmetric multiprocessing scaling and interrupt distribution issues.

In the end, the following major options were considered:

1. Rack-mountable Sun 750MHz UltraSPARC-III dual-CPU systems (4 rack units high)
2. Replace Sun 330MHz Ultra-5 machines with rack-mountable 1-CPU 440MHz Sun machines (1 rack unit high), add systems as necessary and replace the farm later when faster and cheaper SPARC single or dual CPU systems became available
3. Intel 1.2Ghz Pentium-III Dual-CPU systems with Linux (1 rack unit high)

Both Sun options (1 and 2) had the advantage that no software modifications to ODF were required and that they could just be used as a drop-in replacement. However, compared to the Intel option (3), they were significantly more expensive and had much larger rack space requirements: For comparable CPU power, option 1 needed more rack space because of slower CPUs and a larger form factor, option 2 just because of the much slower CPUs.

The Intel option had the major disadvantage to require modifications to ODF and OEP software in order to accommodate the different byte ordering. Option 2 had the additional disadvantage to be a two-step upgrade where the second step relied on not yet existing hardware.

After extensive consideration of these options, the Intel Linux option was chosen because it was expected to be the most cost-effective and long-term maintainable solution.

## III ADAPTING THE SOFTWARE

### III.1 Data Flow Software

ODF hardware and software is responsible for real-time readout, data transport, feature extraction and multi-stage event building. The last stage is a network event builder implemented on top of UDP, using no retransmit and a simple end-to-end flow control protocol. The underlying link-level protocol is Ethernet. To maximize system performance, the original design required the machines on the receiving end of the network event builder to have the same byte ordering as the PowerPC embedded systems on the source side. For the network event builder, the event data payload is transparent binary data.

In order to accommodate Intel/Linux farm machines, ODF software had to be modified. To avoid wasting precious CPU time on the embedded systems, all byte swapping occurs on the farm machines. The ODF network protocol was changed so that all datagram headers are 32-bit aligned and swappable and whole datagrams (ODF headers as well as event data payload) are 32-bit byte swapped after they have been received by the farm machines. ODF software then builds the event and delivers the complete pre-swapped event data to OEP.

Since the ODF network protocol always uses the source byte order, it is independent of the byte order of the farm machines and allows the use of Sun or Linux machines, in principle even in a mixed farm. During testing we took advantage of this very important feature.

In parallel to upgrading the farm to Gigabit Ethernet, the embedded systems were upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet. To minimize the overhead in CPU and wall clock time for sending a packet, a custom minimal UDP protocol stack and network device driver was developed. This driver sends a 1500 byte packet in 17.3$`\mu `$s, compared to the 66$`\mu `$s of the VxWorks driver that came with the Gigabit Ethernet interface card and the 100$`\mu `$s needed by the 100MBit ethernet driver used before the upgrade.

### III.2 Online Event Processing and Level-3 Filter Software

OEP and Level-3 filter obviously need to look at the event data. While all navigational information is 32-bit wide and aligned on 32-bit boundaries, individual containers can hold 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit quantities. As mentioned above, events are delivered to OEP pre-swapped, that means that the navigational information is already intact. The classes that describe the data format then know how to fix up 8-bit and 16-bit quantities, this process only happens on demand. The on-disk representation of data is always big-endian, so on little endian machines the reverse process is applied before data is written out to disk or sent over the network.

### III.3 System Software and System Management

System management for Linux machines in the BABAR online computing infrastructure was achieved by modifying the BABAR-online-specific version of Taylor to support RedHat Linux redhat  and to set up a Kickstart configuration for network installation of Linux machines. Taylor is a system post-install and configuration language developed at SLAC taylor .

## IV TESTING AND HARDWARE ACQUISITION

### IV.1 Choosing Hardware

Since time and personnel resources for testing were limited, the initial choice of hardware was made, considering experience from the SLAC windows group who was already operating a number of Dell PowerEdge 1550 1 rack-unit, 1.2GHz dual-CPU servers with Intel E1000 Gigabit Ethernet cards. We decided to use fiber-optic Gigabit Ethernet because at decision time there was no significant experience at SLAC with the cheaper copper cable Gigabit Ethernet.

A small number of machines was acquired and used in different testing modes:

* Teststand testing during software development was used to develop the software, set up the system software infrastructure and verify the basic suitability of the machines for the task.
* “Parasitic” testing in the real system was used to find problems with system stability or other operational issues. The connection-less and byte order independent event builder protocol allowed to use the port monitoring feature of the event building switch to send real-time copies of datagrams to a small number of machines being tested. In this mode, the switch was configured to send copies of all packets addressed to a Sun farm node to the interface of a Linux node that had been set up with the same MAC and IP addresses as the original node but had been blocked from sending any replies back.

To ensure proper operation, two machines were run in this mode for several months, no problems were found.
* Small-scale testing of up to six new machines in the real system.

By the time of the purchase decision, the tested hardware was no longer available and we had to go through another testing cycle with the successor model (Dell PowerEdge 1650). At that time it was decided to use 1.4GHz systems instead of 1.2GHz.

Compared to the 330MHz UltraSPARC-II baseline, our application runs 2.75 times as fast on a 1.4GHz Pentium-III CPU. Because of limitations in the number of Gigabit Ethernet switch ports and cost issues, we decided to purchase 50 new machines in the final configuration:

* Dual-Pentium-III, 1.4 GHz
* 1GByte RAM
* optical Intel E1000 Gigabit Ethernet card
* single power supply
* no remote lights-out management capabilities (during data taking there are always operators in the control room who can manually power cycle a machine if necessary)

Compared to the old Sun farm the new farm provides 8.5 times the CPU power.

## V DEPLOYMENT AND RESULTS

During a 4-month shutdown in summer 2002, the 50 new machines were installed in 3 water-cooled racks in the BABAR electronics hut. Since the Dell rack rails could not easily be made fit into the existing racks, pairs of machines were stacked on regular rack shelves. The electronics hut is accessible during data taking, so it was decided to save the cost of a remote power control or reset system and simply install serial lines to the console ports. New modules with a total of 80 Gigabit Ethernet ports were installed in the Cisco 6509 event building switch. To satisfy subdetector data acquisition needs during the shutdown, a part of the old farm was kept in place and operational. Installation and startup of the new farm was very smooth, one machine was broken on arrival and another machine failed after one week of operation.

We did not encounter other major problems and since the start of BABAR Run 3 in November 2002 the new system is used in production. After additional improvements to the feature extraction code the system is now capable of handling 5.5kHz Level-1 trigger rate at 30kByte event size and nominal background rates, limited by the feature extraction code in the ROMs.

We did not observe any stability problems with the Linux farm machines.

## VI CONCLUSIONS

The upgrade of the BABAR data acquisition system to Linux and Gigabit Ethernet has been successful and improved the maximum rate capability at nominal backgrounds to 5.5kHz.

## VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the upgrade project and helped to actually make it happen on time.


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# Classical trajectories and quantum tunneling

## I INTRODUCTION

A control of processes of quantum tunneling through potential barriers by external signals is a part of the field called quantum control which is actively developed now, see, for example, Ref.  and references therein. Excitation of molecules, when one should excite only particular chemical bonds , formation of programmable atomic wave packets , a control of electron states in heterostructures , and a control of photocurrent in semiconductors , are typical examples of control by laser pulses. A control of quantum tunneling through potential barriers is also a matter of interest, since tunneling is a part of many processes in nature. The computation of probability for a classically forbidden region has a certain peculiarity from the mathematical stand point: there necessarily arises here the concept of motion in imaginary time or along a complex trajectory . The famous semiclassical approach of Wentzel, Kramers, and Brillouin (WKB)  for tunneling probability can be easily (in the case of a static potential) reformulated in terms of classical trajectories in complex time as a simple change of variables. The method of complex trajectories can also be applicable to a nonstationary case  which is not trivial. The method has been further developed in papers , when singularities of the trajectories in the complex plane were accounted for an arbitrary potential barrier (see also ). Recent achievements in the semiclassical theory are present in Refs..

Let us focus on the main aspects of tunneling under nonstationary conditions. When the electric field $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t`$ acts on a tunneling particle of the initial energy $`E`$, it can absorb the quantum $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (with the probability proportional to the small parameter $`^2`$) and tunnel after that in a more transparent part of the barrier with the higher energy $`E+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The pay in the absorption probability may be compensated by the probability gain in tunneling. In this case the system tends to absorb further quanta to increase the total probability of passing the barrier. This mechanism of barrier penetration is called photon-assisted tunneling. If $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is not big, the process of tunneling, with the simultaneous multi quanta absorption, can be described in a semiclassical way by the method of classical trajectories in the complex time . When a tunneling particle of the energy $`E`$ is acted by a short-time pulse, the tunneling probability is associated with the particle density carrying away in the outgoing wave packet. The particle energy after escape is $`E+\delta E`$, where the energy gain $`\delta E=N\mathrm{}\omega `$, should be extremized with respect to the number of absorbed quanta $`N`$ and the energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ of each quantum . This mechanism relates to semiclassical method for nonstationary potentials.

The semiclassical method in quantum mechanics is very elegant and constructive. On the other hand, this method is based on the delicate mathematical issue called Stokes phenomenon when a solution is not expected to appear but it appears . This makes a use of the semiclassical method to be not trivial even in the case of a static potential. In this situation the role of exactly solvable problems in quantum mechanics is very important. For example, in the problem of reflection of a particle from certain static potentials one can follow in details a formation of a semiclassical solution from the exact one . Is it possible to find an exactly solvable problem for a nonstationary potential (excepting not interesting parabolic one, where the effect is trivial ) to see how the exact solution is reduced to complex classical trajectories under semiclassical conditions? An exactly solvable problems would be extremely useful since the method of classical trajectories in nonstationary problems is still challenged and an exact analytical solution would place classical trajectories in the rank of mathematical theorem.

Such exactly solvable nonstationary problem exists. This is an inter-band tunneling (Zener breakdown) in a semiconductor  in a nonstationary electric field which is a constant in space. The latter condition makes the problem to be exactly solvable since in the momentum representation the Schrödinger equation is reduced to the first order which can be solved by the method of characteristics. In this paper it is studied how the exact solution turns over into one corresponding to classical trajectories and under which conditions this is possible. The goal of the paper is not to investigate Zener effect in real semiconductors but to use this situation to mathematically justify the method of classical trajectories.

Another issue of this paper is that a new mechanism of enhanced tunneling through static non-one-dimensional barriers is proposed in addition to well known normal tunneling solely described by a trajectory in imaginary time. As shown in the paper, under certain conditions on the barrier shape and the particle energy, the probability of enhanced tunneling is not exponentially small even for non-transparent barriers, in contrast to the case of normal tunneling.

## II PHOTON-ASSISTED TUNNELING

A penetration of a particle through a potential barrier is forbidden in classical mechanics. Only due to quantum effects the probability of passing across a barrier becomes finite and it can be calculated on the basis of WKB approach, which is also called the semiclassical theory. The transition probability through the barrier, shown in Fig. 1, is

$$W\mathrm{exp}\left[A_0(E)\right]$$
(1)
where

$$A_0(E)=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\sqrt{2m\left[V(x)E\right]}$$
(2)
is the classical action measured in units of $`\mathrm{}`$. The integration goes under the barrier between two classical turning points where $`V(x)=E`$. One can use the general estimate $`A_0V/\mathrm{}\omega `$, where $`V`$ is the barrier height and $`\omega `$ is the frequency of classical oscillations in the potential well. A semiclassical barrier relates to a big value $`V/\mathrm{}\omega 1`$.

What happens when the static potential barrier $`V(x)`$ is acted by a weak nonstationary electric field $`(t)`$? In this case there are two possibilities for barrier penetration: (i) the conventional tunneling, which is not affected by $`(t)`$, shown by the dashed line in Fig. 2(a), and (ii) an absorption of the quantum $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the field $`(t)`$ and subsequent tunneling with the new energy $`E+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The latter process is called photon-assisted tunneling. The total probability of penetration across the barrier can be schematically written as a sum of two probabilities

$$W\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{V}{\mathrm{}\omega }\right)+\left(\frac{a_\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{}}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{V\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{}\omega }\right)$$
(3)
where $`_\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the Fourier component of the field $`(t)`$ and the length $`a`$ is a typical barrier extension in space. The second term in Eq. (3) relates to photon-assisted tunneling and it is a product of probabilities of two quantum mechanical processes: absorption of the quantum $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and tunneling through the reduced barrier $`V\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Since in quantum mechanics one should add amplitudes but not probabilities, Eq. (3) is rather schematic and serves for general illustration only. For example, the accurate perturbation theory starts with a linear $``$-term. When the frequency is high $`\mathrm{\Omega }>\omega `$, the second dominates at sufficiently small nonstationary field $`(a_\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{})^2>\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )`$. This is a feature of tunneling processes since, normally, a nonstationary field dominates at bigger amplitudes $`(a_\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{})^2>1`$. When the second term in Eq. (3) exceeds the first one, further orders of perturbation theory should be accounted which correspond to the multiple absorption, shown in Fig. 2(b).

Let us specify a shape of a field pulse in the form

$$(t)=\frac{}{\left(1+t^2/\theta ^2\right)^3}$$
(4)
with the Fourier component $`_\mathrm{\Omega }\theta \mathrm{exp}(\theta |\mathrm{\Omega }|)`$. In this case, in addition to the almost steady flux from the barrier, an outgoing wave packet (of the maximum amplitude $`\sqrt{W}`$) is created which carries away a certain particle density. The probability of the transition through the process of absorption of $`N`$ quanta and subsequent tunneling with the higher energy $`E+N\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$, shown in Fig. 2(b), can be estimated as

$$w\left(\frac{a_\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{}}\right)^{2N}\mathrm{exp}\left[A_0(E+N\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega })\right]=\left(\frac{\pi }{\mathrm{}}\theta a\right)^{2N}\mathrm{exp}(A)$$
(5)
where

$$A=\frac{2\theta }{\mathrm{}}\delta E+A_0(E+\delta E)$$
(6)
Here the total energy transfer $`\delta E=N\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is introduced ($`\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$). The maximum squared amplitude $`W`$ of the outgoing packet is associated with a maximum value of $`w`$ and is determined by the extreme $`\delta E`$ to get a minimum of $`A`$. This results in the condition $`A(E+\delta E)/\delta E=0`$. An existence of such a minimum is possible if growing up of small $`\delta E`$ reduces $`A`$, that is, under the condition $`2\theta <\mathrm{}A_0(E)E`$ of sufficiently short pulses. In other words, sufficiently short and not very small pulses (however, still much smaller than the static barrier field) strongly enhance tunneling by photon assistance.

In principal, this type of treatment of nonstationary tunneling is reasonable since a maximum of the outgoing packet should relate to some extreme condition. Nevertheless, the approach (5) is schematic since a quantum interference between absorption and tunneling is neglected. What is a “scientific” way to account precisely a nonstationary field in tunneling? We go towards this in III.

## III TRAJECTORIES IN IMAGINARY TIME

According to Feynman , when the phase of a wave function is big, it can be expressed through classical trajectories of the particle. But in our case there are no conventional trajectories since a classical motion is forbidden under a barrier. Suppose a classical particle to move in the region to the right of the classical turning point $`x_T`$ in Fig. 1 and to reach this point at $`t=0`$. Then, close to the point $`x_T`$, $`x(t)=x_T+ct^2`$ ($`c>0`$) and there is no a barrier penetration as at all times $`x(t)>x_T`$. Nevertheless, if $`t`$ is formally imaginary, $`t=i\tau `$, the penetration becomes possible since $`x(i\tau )=x_Tc\tau ^2`$ is less then $`x_T`$. Therefore, one can use classical trajectories in imaginary time to apply Feynman’s method to tunneling. In the absence of a nonstationary field a classical trajectory satisfies Newton’s equation in imaginary time

$$m\frac{^2x}{\tau ^2}=\frac{V(x)}{x}$$
(7)
where $`V(x)`$ is the static barrier in Fig. 1. The classical turning point $`x_T`$ in Fig. 1 is reached at $`\tau =0`$ with the initial condition $`x/\tau =0`$. The classical trajectory $`x=x(\tau )`$ can be considered as a change of variables $`x\tau `$ in the WKB exponent (2) when it becomes of the form

$$A_0=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}𝑑\tau \left[\frac{m}{2}\left(\frac{x}{\tau }\right)^2+V(x)E\right]$$
(8)
So, in the absence of a non-stationary field, use of classical trajectories in imaginary time is obvious and it is simply reduced to a change of variable.

Is it possible to extend the method of classical trajectories in tunneling to a non-stationary case?

Suppose some pulse of an external field, for example (4), acts on a tunneling particle. At the point $`x_T`$, besides an almost constant background, there is a wave packet of the outgoing particles shown in Fig. 3. If the method of classical trajectories is applicable, the maximum of the squared amplitude of the outgoing packet

$$W\mathrm{exp}(A)$$
(9)
should correspond, with the exponential accuracy, to the classical action

$$A=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}_0^{\tau _0}𝑑\tau \left[\frac{m}{2}\left(\frac{x}{\tau }\right)^2+V(x)x(i\tau )E\right]$$
(10)
since a classical trajectory relates to an extreme value of the action. The classical trajectory should satisfy Newton’s equation

$$m\frac{^2x}{\tau ^2}\frac{V(x)}{x}=(i\tau )$$
(11)
with the conditions

$$\frac{x}{\tau }|_{\tau =0}=0;x(i\tau _0)=0$$
(12)
We suppose the potential well to be narrow and localized close to $`x=0`$ as in Fig. 1. The under-barrier “time” $`\tau _0`$ is expressed through the particle energy $`E`$ in the well

$$E=\frac{m}{2}\left(\frac{x}{\tau }\right)_{\tau _0}^2+V(0)$$
(13)
which is weakly violated by a small non-stationary field. Certain semiclassical conditions (not extremely small and sufficiently slow varying $`(t)`$) should be fulfilled.

Eqs. (9-13) constitute the method of classical trajectories in tunneling under non-stationary conditions. This method relates to calculation solely of the maximum in time $`W_{max}`$ of the probability $`W(t)`$ of outgoing particles. In contrast to a static barrier, the method of classical trajectories is not trivial in application to a nonstationary case. This can be seen from that the non-stationary field of the type $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t`$ in imaginary time becomes proportional to $`\mathrm{cosh}\mathrm{\Omega }\tau `$ and may be very big. The same relates to the field (4) which is singular in imaginary time. This means, formally, that arbitrary weak amplitude $``$ of a nonstationary field may produce a big effect. The arguments in II also show an increase of an effective $``$ in tunneling, but it is clear physically that an effect of an extremely small nonstationary field is negligible and the method of classical trajectories should not work in this case. As one can see, the method of classical trajectories is delicate and requires an accurate justification.

In the papers  for the certain particular potential well and nonstationary pulses the wave function has been found in the form of expansion with respect to powers of $`\mathrm{}`$

$$\psi (x,t)=\left[a(x,t)+\mathrm{}b(x,t)+\mathrm{}\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}S(x,t)\right]$$
(14)
where $`S`$ is the classical action. The semiclassical formalism, developed in , confirms the method of classical trajectories and coincides with the general scheme (9-13). Nevertheless, it would be extremely instructive to find any exactly solvable case of tunneling under nonstationary conditions in order to see how the method of classical trajectories follows not from a semiclassical formalism but from an exact mathematical solution. In IV this program is completed.

## IV EXACT SOLUTION OF A TUNNELING PROBLEM UNDER NONSTATIONARY CONDITIONS

Let us consider an one dimensional two band semiconductor in an external homogeneous electric field $`_0+(t)`$, where $`_0`$ is the static component. The Schrödinger equation has the form

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{\psi }{t}=\frac{\epsilon _g}{2}\sqrt{1+\left(\frac{2c}{\epsilon _g}\widehat{p}\right)^2}\psi \left[_0+(t)\right]\psi $$
(15)
where $`\widehat{p}=i\mathrm{}/x`$, $`\epsilon _g`$ is the energy gap, and $`c`$ is the velocity at big momentum. The square root in Eq. (15) may have two signs according to two energy bands. In a static electric field $`_0`$ the inter-band quantum tunneling is possible which is called Zener breakdown . The incident flux of particles from left to the right in Fig. 4 is mainly reflected back from the tilted energy gap but a small fraction penetrates the other band and goes to $`+\mathrm{}`$ with the probability

$$W_0=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi \epsilon _gt_0}{2\mathrm{}}\right)$$
(16)
where $`t_0=a/c`$ and $`2a=\epsilon _g/_0`$ is the tunneling length in Fig. 4. Eq. (16) holds under the semiclassical condition

$$\mathrm{}\epsilon _gt_0$$
(17)
The peculiarity of this problem is that it can be solved exactly with a nonstationary field by making the Fourier transformation with respect to $`x`$. In the new variables, momentum $`q`$ and time $`t`$, the Schrödinger equation (15) is of the first order with respect to derivatives $`/q`$ and $`/t`$ and can be solved by the method of characteristics. If to measure the coordinate in units of $`a`$ and time in units of $`t_0`$, the solution of Eq. (15) has the form

$$\psi (x,t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dq}{2\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i\epsilon _gt_0}{2\mathrm{}}\left[qxF_t(q)\right]\right\}$$
(18)
where

$$F_t(q)=_{\mathrm{}}^q𝑑uf_t(u,q);f_t(u,q)=\sqrt{1+\left[u+_0^{uq}𝑑sh(s+t)\right]^2}$$
(19)
and $`h(t)=(t)/_0`$. Below we consider the case when the nonstationary field is much less compared to the static value

$$(t)_0$$
(20)
If $`(t)`$ is an analytical function of $`t`$, $`F_t(q)`$ is an analytical function of the complex argument $`q`$ and it has only two branch points at $`q=\pm i`$. According to this, Eqs. (18-19) can be written through the complex paths

$$\psi (x,t)=_C\frac{dq}{2\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i\epsilon _gt_0}{2\mathrm{}}\left[qxF_t(q)\right]\right\};F_t(q)=_{Cq}𝑑uf_t(u,q)$$
(21)
where the contour $`C`$ on the complex plane of $`q`$ and the contour $`C_q`$ on the complex plane of $`u`$ are shown in Fig. 5. Two cuts are denoted in Fig. 5(a) by solid lines and the regular branch of the function $`F_t(q)`$ is chosen in order to get the limit

$$F_t(q)=_{\mathrm{}}^q𝑑u|f_t(u,q)|;q\mathrm{}$$
(22)
The integral (22) is divergent and has to be cut off at the lower limit by a big negative value which sets an irrelevant constant phase shift. Under the semiclassical condition (17) the $`q`$-integration in Eq. (21) goes mainly in the vicinity of the saddle point(s) determined by the equation

$$x=\frac{}{q}F_t(q)$$
(23)
Suppose the nonstationary field $`(t)0`$ at $`t\mathrm{}`$ when the particle energy is zero and the particle goes to the tilted energy gap in Fig. 4 from the left. For $`x`$ to the left of the point $`a`$ in Fig. 4 ($`x<1`$ in the dimensionless units used) an influence of the nonstationary field under the condition (20) is small and two saddle points $`q=\pm \sqrt{x^21}`$ are shown in Fig. 6(a). They correspond to the incident and the reflected de Broglie waves. Since the tunneling probability is small, at $`x<1`$ the wave function can be shown to have the form

$$\psi (x,t)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\epsilon _gt_0}{4\mathrm{}}x^2\frac{\pi }{4}\right)$$
(24)
In the classically allowed regions, to the left and to the right of the tilted gap, the classical trajectory $`x_{cl}(t)`$ (the equation, it satisfies, is written below) is weakly violated by the non-stationary field under the condition (20)

$$x_{cl}(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sqrt{1+t^2};\hfill & t<0\hfill \\ x_{exit}+\sqrt{1+t^2}1;\hfill & t>0\hfill \end{array}$$
(25)
excepting that $`x_{exit}1`$ now. The energy of the incident particle is zero and the energy after exit from the tilted gap conserves and equals $`E_{exit}=(1x_{exit})\epsilon _g/2`$.

For each $`x`$ and $`t`$ the saddle point condition (23) determines a certain $`q`$. In the absence of a nonstationary field the amplitude of the outgoing wave is almost stationary. Under action of a pulse there is an additional outgoing wave packet at $`t>0`$ which goes to the right and keeps the constant maximum amplitude (if to neglect small quantum effects of smearing) at the classical trajectory (25). We are interested to find this maximum amplitude of the outgoing packet since it defines, with the exponential accuracy, a total number of particles passing the barrier. With $`x=x_{cl}(t)`$ the saddle point condition (23) is satisfied by $`q=t`$ since $`h(t)`$ is small for real $`t`$. In order to reach the saddle point at positive $`x`$, one should deform the contour $`C`$ as shown in Fig. 6(b). This could be done with no problems since $`F_t(q)`$ has only the branch point at $`q=i`$ in the upper half plane. The main contribution to the $`q`$-integration over the bent contour $`C`$ comes from the saddle point, shown in Fig. 6(b). The saddle point condition (23) now reads

$$x_{exit}=12_0^{\tau _0}𝑑\tau \frac{\tau +_0^\tau 𝑑\tau _1h(i\tau _1)}{\sqrt{1\left[\tau +_0^\tau 𝑑\tau _1h(i\tau _1)\right]^2}}h(i\tau )$$
(26)
The nonstationary field is supposed to be symmetric $`(t)=(t)`$, as the field (4), so that $`(i\tau )`$ is real. $`\tau _0`$ is a smallest positive root of the equation

$$\left[\tau _0+_0^{\tau _0}𝑑\tau h(i\tau )\right]^2=1$$
(27)
and can be called the tunneling time. If to define the transition probability $`W`$ as a square of the ratio of the maximum amplitude of the outgoing packet and the amplitude of the incident wave, Eq. (18) gives with the exponential accuracy

$$W\mathrm{exp}\left(A\right)$$
(28)
where

$$A=\frac{2\epsilon _gt_0}{\mathrm{}}_0^{\tau _0}𝑑\tau \sqrt{1\left[\tau +_0^\tau 𝑑\tau _1h(i\tau _1)\right]^2}$$
(29)
The action $`A`$ is collected due to the $`q`$-integration in the narrow vicinity of the right-hand-side saddle in Fig. 6(b) where $`q`$ is real and positive. For such $`q`$ the contour $`C_q`$ in Fig. 5(b) goes around the branch point $`u=i\tau _0`$ and leads to the relation (29). Without a non-stationary field Eqs. (28) and (29) give the static result (16).

Using of the above method of saddle point means that the length $`\delta q\sqrt{\mathrm{}/\epsilon _gt_0}`$ of the steepest descent integration should be sufficiently short compared to the typical scale of the problem ($`(\tau \theta )/t_0`$ in dimension units) which can be estimated from the relation $`𝑑\tau h(i\tau )1`$. For the pulse (4) the condition reads

$$\frac{\mathrm{}}{\epsilon _gt_0}\left(\frac{\theta }{t_0}\right)^3\frac{}{_0}$$
(30)
In presence of a nonstationary field, the semiclassical condition (17) should be supplemented by the additional semiclassical condition (30). According to it, the nonstationary field $``$ and its duration $`\theta `$ should not be too small. Note, that under the semiclassical condition (30) the nonstationary amplitude $``$ can be still smaller than the static field $`_0`$.

In Refs.  the method of classical trajectories was developed for the present problem of inter-band tunneling in presence of a nonstationary field. According to this method, one has to minimize the classical action of a particle with the spectrum, as in (15,) and in a homogeneous electric field

$$S=\frac{\epsilon _gt_0}{2}𝑑t\left\{\sqrt{1\left(\frac{x}{t}\right)^2}+x\left[1+h(t)\right]\right\}$$
(31)
to find a classical trajectory. It satisfies the equation

$$\frac{x_{cl}(t)}{t}=\frac{t+_0^t𝑑sh(s)}{\sqrt{1+\left[t+_0^t𝑑sh(s)\right]^2}}$$
(32)
The classical trajectory starts at $`t=0`$ at the point $`x=x_{exit}`$ in Fig. 4. At the “moment” $`i\tau _0`$ it reaches some point inside the gap where two branches merge and, turning on the opposite side of the cut, it comes at $`t=0`$ in the point $`x=a`$. Within the formalism, developed in Refs. , in order to obtain a tunneling probability, one should substitute the classical trajectory into the action (31) and to integrate over the branch point $`i\tau _0`$. This procedure leads to the result (29).

For the nonstationary pulse (4) under the condition (20), the tunneling time $`\tau _01`$ at $`t_0<\theta `$ and $`\tau _0\theta /t_0`$ at $`\theta <t_0`$. The action (29) becomes of the form

$$A=\frac{\epsilon _gt_0}{\mathrm{}}\{\begin{array}{cc}\pi /2;\hfill & t_0<\theta \hfill \\ \mathrm{arcsin}\left(\theta /t_0\right)+\left(\theta /t_0\right)\sqrt{1\left(\theta /t_0\right)^2};\hfill & \theta <t_0\hfill \end{array}$$
(33)
This expression weakly depends on $``$ under the semiclassical condition (30) since the role of the nonstationary field (4), due to its singularity in imaginary time, is only to set the new tunneling time $`\tau _0`$. Obtained results for inter-band tunneling under nonstationary conditions may be interpreted as positive (positive energy transfer) photon-assisted tunneling shown in Fig. 4. In this problem cannot be such phenomenon as Euclidean resonance , associated with a negative energy transfer.

Analogously one can consider the monochromatic $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Omega }t`$  and the Gaussian $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Omega }^2t^2)`$ nonstationary fields which become exponentially big in imaginary time and to establish how much they can grow within the formalism of classical trajectories.

One can conclude now, that for inter-band tunneling in a nonstationary field under semiclassical conditions the method of classical trajectories follows from the exact analytical solution. The bridge between exact theory and classical trajectories enables in problems of tunneling to treat a nonstationary field in complex time.

## V A NEW ENHANCED TUNNELING THROUGH STATIC BARRIERS

Tunneling through one-dimensional static barrier is a well known problem described in almost every text book on quantum mechanics and the tunneling rate, with exponential accuracy, is given by WKB formulas (1) and (2). Tunneling through a two- or many-dimensional potential barrier was considered in a variety of publications . The condition $`V(\stackrel{}{r})=E_0`$, where $`E_0`$ is the total energy, determines certain surfaces in the coordinate space. For a two-dimensional case it is shown in Fig. 7. Tunneling probability from the classically allowed region $`A`$ to another such region $`B`$ is given by Eq. (1) where the exponent

$$A_0(AB)=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}_0^{\tau _0}𝑑\tau \left[\frac{m}{2}\left(\frac{\stackrel{}{r}}{\tau }\right)^2+V(\stackrel{}{r})E_0\right]$$
(34)
is expressed through the classical trajectory $`\stackrel{}{r}(\tau )`$ satisfying Newton’s equation in imaginary time

$$m\frac{^2\stackrel{}{r}}{\tau ^2}=\frac{V(\stackrel{}{r})}{\stackrel{}{r}}$$
(35)
The trajectory connects different surfaces, being perpendicular to them at the connected points, terminates at the border of $`B`$ at $`t=0`$, and starts at the border of $`A`$ at $`t=i\tau _0`$. The time $`\tau _0`$ is defined by the total energy $`E_0`$.

The above general scheme is applicable to a calculation of tunneling rate regardless of dimensionality of the problem (we do not consider a possibility of caustics between $`A`$ and $`B`$). Nevertheless, when the dimensionality is bigger than one, another way may exist to tunnel through a static potential barrier. This way differs from the normal scheme and may result in an enhanced tunneling rate. Any tunneling process obeys quantum mechanical rules: a tunneling particle at each point emits partial de Broglie waves which interfere and produce a final outgoing wave. This wave is exponentially small for semiclassical one-dimensional barriers. In two- or multi-dimensional case the tunneling motion can be influenced by other (non-tunneling) motions leading to different conditions of interference. As a result, the outgoing wave may be proportional to the enhanced exponent, which is much bigger than normal one or even of the order of unity. The phenomenon of enhanced tunneling is considered below.

### A Tunneling in a quantum wire

The mechanism of enhanced tunneling through a static barrier can be shown in the case of a long and narrow quantum wire when the radial motion ($`x`$-direction) is strongly quantized but the motion along the axis ($`y`$-direction) is almost classical. We do nod discuss a detailed link to real quantum wires since the goal is solely to demonstrate a new mechanism of tunneling through static barriers. To model this situation, suppose the particle to move in the two-dimensional potential $`V_x(x)+V_y(y)`$ plotted in Fig. 8. The particle can tunnel from the energy level $`E`$ in the radial direction. In two dimensions the potential energy is shown in Fig. 9. The particle tunnel from the region of small $`x`$ to the region of big $`x`$. When the total potential energy is simply a sum of $`x`$-dependent and $`y`$-dependent potentials, variables $`x`$ and $`y`$ are separated and tunneling along $`x`$-direction occurs as in a one-dimensional case.

### B Mapping of the stationary problem onto dynamical pulses

If to add some “interaction” potential $`V_{int}(x,y)`$ to the system, the total potential

$$V(x,y)=V_x(x)+V_y(y)+V_{int}(x,y)$$
(36)
is not reduced to a sum of $`x`$\- and $`y`$-term and motions in the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-direction are no more independent. The both barriers in Fig. 8 are weakly penetrated and, in the first approximation, the particle occupies the region of $`xx_0`$ and positive $`y`$ in Fig. 9 with incident and reflected fluxes along $`y`$-direction as shown in Fig. 8(b). This is equivalent to the problem of two one-dimensional particles with the interaction $`V_{int}(x,y)`$ when one particle in a well is acted by a steady flux of incident particles. This is analogous to the situation in nuclear physics when an incident steady flux of protons acts on the alpha particle occupied some energy level inside the nuclear potential well . This nuclear problem of excitation of alpha particle can be considered by two methods: (i) by a solution of the Schrödinger equation for alpha particle and proton in the static potential or (ii) by a solution of the Schrödinger equation for alpha particle in a nonstationary potential created by the classically moved proton which reflects by nuclear Coulomb forces. The both ways lead to the same small exponent in the semiclassical probability. The second method is more convenient since the excitation of a higher level of alpha particle can be considered as one driven by a nonstationary force, acting during a finite time . So, with exponential accuracy, the steady problem of decay of a metastable state under an incident flux can be mapped onto dynamical pulses.

Under conditions, when the motion in the $`y`$-direction is weakly violated by the motion in the $`x`$-direction, the total process can be considered as one-dimensional tunneling in the nonstationary potential $`V_x(x)+V_{int}[x,y(t)]`$, where $`y(t)`$ is a classical trajectory in the static potential $`V_y(y)`$, shown in Fig. 8(b). According to this, besides normal tunneling “0” in Fig. 8(a), corresponding to absence of the pulse, there is also the process “1” related (in the language of dynamical pulses) to the under-barrier photon-assisted tunneling which is similar to Fig. 4. Since a photon-assistance increases tunneling probability, the process “1” relates to the phenomenon of enhanced tunneling. In the language of static potential, one can say that tunneling along the radius is assisted by the motion along the axis.

This mapping is mentioned only for interpretation of enhanced tunneling “1” by means the language of dynamical pulses. In V C enhanced tunneling is considered on the basis of a static barrier.

### C Probability of the enhanced tunneling

The condition $`V(x,y)=E_0`$ gives the curve shown in Fig. 10. To calculate a probability of enhanced tunneling “1”, one should account the fact that in semiclassical limit the phase $`S/\mathrm{}`$ of the wave function $`\psi (x,y)\mathrm{exp}[iS(x,y)/\mathrm{}]`$ is big. The function $`S(x,y)`$ can be found from Scrödinger equation as the main term in the expansion of the type (14). For normal tunneling “0”, $`S(x,y)`$ coincides with the classical action, varies smoothly between the regions $`A`$ and $`B`$, and its extreme value relates to the classical trajectory denoted by the dashed curve in Fig. 10. For enhanced tunneling “1” the behavior of $`S(x,y)`$ is much more complicated, since there are reconnection among different branches of $`S`$. On each branch the function $`S(x,y)`$ coincides with some classical action according to findings of Refs. .

Fortunately, to find a tunneling probability it is not necessary to know $`\psi (x,y)`$ at all $`x`$ and $`y`$. It is sufficient to connect phases of the wave function between certain points at the borders of $`A`$ and $`B`$ using some formal method. Such formal method for the process “1” (enhanced tunneling) consists of two steps: a connection $`Af`$ and a connection $`fB`$ (Fig. 10). For the first step, one can consider the vertical line at $`x=x_0`$ connecting the border of $`A`$ and some point $`f`$ in Fig. 10, where $`\psi \mathrm{exp}(i\sigma /\mathrm{})`$ is expressed through the certain branch $`\sigma `$ of the classical action, which satisfies the equation of Hamilton-Jacobi

$$\frac{1}{2m}\left(\frac{\sigma }{x}\right)^2+\frac{1}{2m}\left(\frac{\sigma }{y}\right)^2+V(x,y)=E_0$$
(37)
At $`x>x_0`$ the potentials $`V_x(x)`$, $`V_y(y)`$, and $`V_{int}(x,y)`$ are smooth. Since the potential $`V_x(x)`$ is abrupt at $`x=x_0`$, existence of the quantum level $`E`$ in the well results in the following semiclassical condition inside the barrier in Fig. 8(a), when $`x`$ tends to $`x_0`$ from the right,

$$\frac{1}{2m}\left(\frac{\sigma }{x}\right)^2|_{x_0}+V_x(x_0)=E$$
(38)
The total energy is $`E_0=E+\epsilon `$, where $`\epsilon `$ is the energy of the classical motion along the well. The $`y`$-dependence of the action at $`x=x_0`$ can be easily found from Eqs. (37) and (38) in the WKB form of the one-dimensional motion along the well. The phase at the point $`f`$ (relative to $`A`$) in Fig. 10 is

$$\frac{\sigma }{\mathrm{}}=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}_{y_0}^{y_1}𝑑y\sqrt{2m\left[V_y(y)+V_{int}(x_0,y)\epsilon \right]}$$
(39)
where $`y_0`$ and $`y_1`$ are determined by zero of the square root in Eq. (39) at $`f`$ and $`A`$ respectively. The position of the point $`f`$, defined by the conditions $`x=x_0`$ and $`y=y_0`$, is not flexible and depends only on the energy $`\epsilon `$, since the quantum level $`E`$ is strictly determined by the potential in Fig. 8(a). The same relates to the phase $`\sigma /\mathrm{}`$ at the point $`f`$ (relative to $`A`$). The value of $`\sigma `$, given by Eq. (39), is extreme with respect to variation of positions of the ends of the line $`x=x_0`$ in Fig. 10.

As the second step, the point $`f`$ can be connected to the region $`B`$ by the classical trajectory which provides an extreme of the phase of $`B`$ (relative to $`f`$) and is based on the expression $`A_0(fB)`$, as Eq. (34), but the trajectory connects now the regions $`f`$ and $`B`$. The rate of enhanced tunneling “1” $`\mathrm{exp}(A_1)`$ is given by the total phase difference and reads

$$A_1=A_0(fB)\frac{2i\sigma }{\mathrm{}}$$
(40)
where $`\sigma `$ is defined by Eq. (39). As soon as normal tunneling is described solely by a classical trajectory (34)-(35), enhanced tunneling, according to Eq. (40), requires more complicated description. The total tunneling probability should be estimated as

$$W\mathrm{max}\{\mathrm{exp}(A_0);\mathrm{exp}(A_1)\}$$
(41)
To calculate $`A_0`$ (normal) and $`A_1`$ (enhanced) one should specify the potential energy in the form (36) and use Eqs. (34), (35), (39), and (40).

The second term in Eq. (40), which is real and negative, works versus the big first term representing the double tunneling through the barriers in Figs. 8(a) and 8(b). The second term in Eq. (40) can play a crucial role in reduction of $`A_1`$. Enhanced tunneling “1” may be interpreted as a cooperative motion along a trajectory in the $`x`$-direction and along a bounce (forth and back) in the $`y`$-direction. One should emphasize again, that the above semiclassical method gives only the formal calculation of the tunneling probability with exponential accuracy, but it does not relate to a real behavior of the wave function $`\psi (x,y)`$. For example, the formal density at the point $`f`$ can be big, the real wave function drops exponentially in that region.

## VI DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

There are two issues in this paper.

The first one is that the problem of inter-band tunneling in a semiconductor (Zener breakdown) in a nonstationary and homogeneous electric field is solved exactly. On the basis of the exact analytical solution the formation of an approximation of classical trajectories is studied. This semiclassical formalism is very effective in tunneling under nonstationary conditions since it allows to reduce the problem to a solution of the Newton equation in complex time. The semiclassical approach, obtained from the exact solution, is of the same type as in other problems of nonstationary tunneling which do not allow exact solutions, for example, decay of a metastable state, penetration through a potential barrier, and over-barrier reflection.

The second issue relates to different types of tunneling through a static potential barrier if dimensionality of the problem is bigger than one. A multi-dimensional case has an essential feature which differs it from one-dimensional problem. Namely, a tunneling coordinate $`(x)`$ can be influenced by non-tunneling one $`(y)`$ resulting in a different condition of interference of emitted partial waves during tunneling through the potential $`V(x,y)`$. A multi-dimensional tunneling can be interpreted as one-dimensional but in the nonstationary potential $`V[x,y(t)]`$, where $`y(t)`$ is the classical non-tunneling motion. This mapping onto dynamical problem enables to establish different types of tunneling.

As well known, there is normal tunneling through a multi-dimensional barrier related simply to a classical trajectory in imaginary time and connected two classically allowed regions. This mechanism was always employed by authors in consideration of multi-dimensional tunneling. Normal tunneling corresponds to the case when the tunneling particle does not absorb quanta of the nonstationary field.

There is also a process when particle absorbs quanta (photons) from the nonstationary potential $`V[x,y(t)]`$. This is a photon-assisted tunneling with an enhanced probability. In the language of the static potential barrier, this process corresponds to enhanced tunneling. This is a new mechanism of quantum tunneling through a static multi-dimensional barrier. Depending on shape, sign, and value of the potential $`V(x,y)`$, two types of enhanced tunneling are possible: (i) with absorption of energy by the tunneling motion (positive assistance) or (ii) with emisssion of energy (negative assistance). The positive assistance was considered in Ref.  and in this paper for Zener breakdown. The negative assistance was considered in Ref. . It is remarkable that the method of calculation of probability of enhanced tunneling, proposed in this paper, is applicable equally to both positive and negative assistance.

As it was found in Ref.  for tunneling through a nonstationary barrier, the enhanced tunneling probability may be not exponentially small under conditions of negative assistance. This phenomenon is called Euclidean resonance which results from influence of nonstationary field on interference of emitted partial waves during tunneling. Euclidean resonance can also take place in tunneling through a static non-one-dimensional barrier. To get this phenomenon, one should adapt barrier parameters and the particle energy to reach the condition $`A_1=0`$ in Eq. (40), as in the case of a nonstationary barrier . The above theory is valid if $`\mathrm{exp}(A_1)1`$ and when this condition breaks down one should use a formalism generic with the multi-instanton approach. Nevertheless, the presented theory, as any other approach, can be approximately extended up to the limit of its validity $`\mathrm{exp}(A_1)1`$ wich relates to Euclidean resonance.

Enhanced tunneling may result in a dramatic increase of a tunneling rate. For example, for an almost classical barrier, according to the normal mechanism, the tunneling probability is calculated to be $`10^{100}`$, but enhanced tunneling, under conditions of Euclidean resonance, results in the probability of $`10^2`$. Euclidean resonance is a phase phenomenon and any effect of dephasing (friction, for example) may destroy it. To avoid this destruction, the attenuation time due to friction should be bigger compared to the under-barrier time.

In conclusion, a new mechanism of enhanced tunneling through static non-one-dimensional barriers is established in addition to well known normal tunneling. Under certain conditions on shape of an almost classical barrier and particle energy, the probability of quantum tunneling through it may be not exponentially small.

###### Acknowledgements.

I am grateful to V. Gudkov for valuable discussions.


text:
# Low-energy operators in effective theories

## I Introduction

The construction of effective interactions for use in shell-model studies of nuclear structure has enjoyed a resurgence due in part to the development of modern effective-field theories Lep97 ; Bea00 . Further, tremendous advances in raw computational power and numerical techniques have enabled the consistent and systematic implementation Nav00a ; Nav00b ; Fay01  of 25-year-old approaches based on the so-called similarity-transformations methods Kre74 ; Suz80 ; Suz82 ; Suz83 . Such implementations bypass most of the recent criticism levied on frequently employed shell-model approaches that rely on effective interactions that do not follow in any systematic way from a realistic nucleon-nucleon ($`NN`$) interactionsHax99 ; Hax01 . Indeed, similarity-transformations methods indicate how bare interactions and operators should be modified in a systematic way to account for the inevitable effects of truncations.

Earlier work by two of us (JP and JRS) on low-dimensional quantum magnets Pie96 ; Pie98a ; Pie98b ; Pie98c ; Pie99  made us familiar with a variety of theoretical approaches that have been recently adapted to the nuclear many-body problem Mue02 . In that work it was shown how to combine similarity-transformation methods, specifically the COntractor REnormalization (CORE) approach of Morningstar and WeinsteinMor94 ; Mor96 , with effective interactions methods, such as those discussed by LepageLep97 . In particular, accurate predictions for the ground-state energy of the three-body system were made with relatively little computational effort when both techniques were used in a complementary fashion. As discussed in other recent publications Bog01 , these similarity transformation methods may be understood in the context of effective theories, which in turn rely on renormalization-group techniques Bir99 .

What it is not at all clear (at least to us) in effective-theory approaches, is how to modify operators in a manner consistent to the modifications of the underlying Hamiltonian. The need for consistently modified operators must be emphasized. Parametrized operators are often added to improve quantitative agreement with data, but their origin is left unclear. Even in approaches based on similarity transformations where the modification to operators is well delineated, it remains common practice to employ bare (rather than renormalized) operators. In this work we adopt some modern concepts of low-energy Effective Theories (ET’s) in the hope of improving some of these shortcomings. The basic assumption of ET’s is that the complicated, and likely unknown, short-distance details of a theory are hidden from a long-wavelength probe. It should then be possible to modify the corresponding portion of the potential leaving its low energy properties intact. In order to achieve this, the low-energy properties must be known in advance either from experiment or, as in the case of this study, from solving the bare theory exactly at low energy. As has been observed by many authors Bed02 ; Bar02 , ET’s for the $`NN`$ interaction reproduce the effective range theory of many decades ago. Part of the inspiration for the operator methods reported here arose from an especially simple derivation of effective-range theory which appears in the texts by Schiff and Taylor Sch68 ; Tay72 .

The paper has been organized as follows. In Sec. II a simple derivation of the effective-range expansion in one spatial dimension is presented. Next, a prescription for the renormalization of effective operators that is consistent with the construction of the effective potential is introduced. In Sec. III expectation values for various effective operators are computed and are then compared to those obtained in the bare (exact) theory. Finally, conclusions and some ideas for the future are discussed in Sec. IV.

## II Formalism

The aim of this section is to adapt a textbook derivation of the effective-range formula in three spatial dimensions Sch68 ; Tay72  to the one-dimensional problem considered here. These ideas are then used for the construction of an effective interaction that reproduces the scattering length and effective range of the exact (i.e., bare) theory. Finally, an approach is proposed for the renormalization of operators in a manner which is consistent with the construction of the effective interaction.

### II.1 Effective-range formula

To arrive at the effective-range formula we proceed along the lines of Schiff and Taylor Sch68 ; Tay72 , adapting their derivation to the one-dimensional case considered here. The even-parity solution of the scattering problem satisfies the time-independent Schrödinger equation

$$\left[\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+k^2U(x)\right]\psi _k(x)=0\left(k^22\mu E\mathrm{and}U(x)2\mu V(x)\right),$$
(1)
subject to the following boundary conditions:

$`\underset{x0}{lim}\psi _k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`1+𝒪(x^2),`$ (2a)
$`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}\psi _k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _k(x)\mathrm{cos}(kx)\mathrm{tan}\delta (k)\mathrm{sin}(kx)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\left(kx+\delta (k)\right)}{\mathrm{cos}\delta (k)}}.`$ (2b)
Note that $`\varphi _k(x)`$ denotes the solution of the free Schrödinger ($`U(x)0`$) equation that coincides with $`\psi _k(x)`$ at large $`x`$. It then follows immediately from Schrödinger’s equation that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW(\psi _k,\psi _0)}{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`k^2\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x),`$ (3a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dW(\varphi _k,\varphi _0)}{dx}}`$ $`=`$ $`k^2\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x),`$ (3b)
where the Wronskian of $`f`$ and $`g`$ is defined as

$$W(f,g)(x)\left|\begin{array}{cc}f(x)& g(x)\\ f^{}(x)& g^{}(x)\end{array}\right|=\left[f(x)g^{}(x)f^{}(x)g(x)\right].$$
(4)
Upon integrating the difference of Eqs. (3) one obtains

$$\left[W(\varphi _k,\varphi _0)(x)W(\psi _k,\psi _0)(x)\right]_0^{\mathrm{}}=k^2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x)\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x)\right).$$
(5)
The contribution from the upper limit of the integral to the left-hand side of the equation vanishes, as $`\psi _k(x)=\varphi _k(x)`$ at large distances. Further, as the derivative of the exact scattering solution vanishes at $`x=0`$ \[see Eq. (2a)\] the Wronskian $`W(\psi _k,\psi _0)`$ vanishes as well. This yields

$$W(\varphi _k,\varphi _0)(x=0)=\left[\varphi _k(0)\varphi _0^{}(0)\varphi _k^{}(0)\varphi _0(0)\right]=k^2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x)\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x)\right),$$
(6)
which in turn generates the well known effective-range formula

$$k\mathrm{tan}\delta (k)=\frac{1}{a_0}k^2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x)\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x)\right)=\frac{1}{a_0}\frac{r_0}{2}k^2+𝒪(k^4).$$
(7)
Note that the (even-parity) scattering length and effective range parameters have been defined as

$$a_0^1=\underset{k0}{lim}k\mathrm{tan}\delta (k),r_0=2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _0^2(x)\varphi _0^2(x)\right).$$
(8)
### II.2 Effective Potential

The purpose of this section is to summarize briefly the main points from Ref. Mue02  which will, in turn, motivate our proposed method for constructing effective operators. To start, a bare one-dimensional $`NN`$ interaction with the same pathologies as a realistic interaction is assumed. That is, the bare potential is given by the sum of a strong short-range repulsive and a medium-range attractive exponentials:

$$V(x)=V_\mathrm{s}e^{m_\mathrm{s}|x|}+V_\mathrm{v}e^{m_\mathrm{v}|x|}.$$
(9)
The two masses were chosen to be equal to $`m_\mathrm{s}=400`$ MeV and $`m_\mathrm{v}=783`$ MeV, respectively, while the strengths of the potentials ($`V_\mathrm{s}=506`$ MeV and $`V_\mathrm{v}=+1142.49`$ MeV) were chosen to give a binding energy and point root-mean-square (rms) radius for the symmetric (“deuteron”) state of $`E_\mathrm{b}=2.2245`$ MeV and $`r_{\mathrm{rms}}=1.875`$ fm, respectively.

Employing an option originally suggested by LepageLep97 , and later adapted by Steele and Furnstahl Ste98 ; Ste99  to treat the $`NN`$ interaction, we propose a gaussian cutoff for the effective potential of the form

$$V_{\mathrm{eff}}(x)=\frac{1}{a}\left(c+d\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}+e\frac{^4}{\xi ^4}+\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2);\xi x/a.$$
(10)
The parameters of the effective potential ($`c`$, $`d`$, $`e,\mathrm{}`$) are fixed to reproduce the low-energy scattering phase shifts. That is, one adjusts the parameters until the following equation is satisfied:

$`k\mathrm{tan}\delta (k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_0}}k^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x)\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x)\right)`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a_0}}k^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\psi _0^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\varphi _k(x)\varphi _0(x)\right),`$ (12)
where $`\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)`$ is a scattering solution of Eq. (1) with $`V(x)`$ replaced with $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}(x)`$. Note that as in Ref. Mue02 , the gaussian cutoff parameter has been fixed at $`a=1.16`$ fm. The above condition may be rewritten in the following convenient form:

$$\delta (k;c,d,\mathrm{})_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k(x)\psi _0(x)\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\psi _0^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)0.$$
(13)
Evidently, it is neither demanded nor expected that Eq. (13) be satisfied for arbitrary large values of $`k`$. Rather, one follows a hierarchical scheme, based on power counting, that assures that observables in the bare and effective theory be indistinguishable at low energies. It should be emphasized that the specific form of the potential is somewhat arbitrary, as the short-range structure of the theory becomes encoded in the effective parameters.

As a simple illustration of this procedure we display in Fig. 1 bare (solid line) and effective (dashed line) $`NN`$ potentials. The bare potential, with its characteristic short-range structure, yields a scattering length of $`a_0=5.247`$ fm and an effective range of $`r_0=1.521`$ fm, respectively. The calculation of low-energy phase shifts is repeated using the effective potential \[Eq. (10)\] with its two parameters ($`c`$ and $`d`$) adjusted to reproduce the exact effective-range expansion to order $`k^2`$. The resulting parameters ($`c=0.039`$ and $`d=0.160`$) are natural and yield a smooth effective potential which as far as the low-energy properties of the theory are concerned, is practically indistinguishable from the bare potential. Indeed, bulk properties of the ground-state (henceforth referred to as the “deuteron”) are predicted to be identical to those obtained in the bare theory. This in spite of the vastly different short-range structure of the wavefunctions (see inset in Fig. 1).

### II.3 Effective Operators

One of the main criticisms levied on traditional shell-model approaches is the lack of consistency between the construction of the effective potential and the renormalization (if any) of the bare operators Hax99 ; Hax01 . While important steps have been taken to correct this inconsistency, both in the area of low-dimensional quantum magnets Pie98b  and nuclear structure Nav00b , these are in the very early stages. Further, it is unknown how to construct effective operators that are consistent with both the effective theory and similarity-transformation based approaches.

In this contribution we propose an approach for the modification of operators that is consistent, indeed mimics, the construction of the effective potential. We assume that the momentum dependence of matrix elements of (simple) single-particle operators may be accounted for by an expansion in powers of $`k^2`$ having the same form as the effective-range formula \[Eq. (7)\]. To do so, one demands that matrix elements of effective operators ($`𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) with scattering-wave solutions of the effective potential ($`\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}`$) possess the same momentum dependence as those using the bare operators with the exact wavefunctions. In analogy with the definition of the effective potential \[Eq. (10)\], we parametrize the effective operators via

$$𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}(x;c,d,\mathrm{})=𝒪(x)\left[1+\left(c+d\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2)\right].$$
(14)
This parameterization affects only the short-range behavior of the operator just as using the effective potential modifies only the short-range structure of the wavefunction. The parameters $`c`$, $`d`$, $`\mathrm{}`$ (as before) are tuned to the low-$`k^2`$ behavior of the exact matrix elements. To be more specific about our procedure, we fit—in complete analogy to Eq. (13)—the parameters of the effective operator by requiring that

$$\delta 𝒪(k;c,d,\mathrm{})_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k(x)𝒪(x)\psi _{k=0}(x)\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}(x;c,d,\mathrm{})\psi _{k=0}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)=0.$$
(15)
The integral in this expression is convergent as the effective theory demands that

$`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)=\psi _k(x),`$ (16a)
$`\underset{x\mathrm{}}{lim}𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}(x;c,d,\mathrm{})=𝒪(x).`$ (16b)
However, to insure that each term separately is convergent, we add and subtract the following term:

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\varphi _k(x)𝒪(x)\varphi _{k=0}(x)\right),$$
(17)
where we recall that $`\varphi _k(x)`$ is the free solution of the 1D scattering problem \[see Eq. (2b)\].

To extract the parameters of the effective operator we now fit—in the spirit of the effective-range expansion—the low-energy matrix elements of the bare operator between bare scattering wavefunctions according to

$$𝒪_{\mathrm{BB}}(k)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k(x)𝒪(x)\psi _{k=0}(x)\varphi _k(x)𝒪(x)\varphi _{k=0}(x)\right)=\alpha +\beta k^2+\mathrm{}$$
(18)
The parameters fixing the effective operators are then adjusted so that the above expansion is recovered. That is,

$$𝒪_{\mathrm{EE}}(k)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\left(\psi _k^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}(x;b,c,\mathrm{})\psi _{k=0}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\varphi _k(x)𝒪(x)\varphi _{k=0}(x)\right)=\alpha +\beta k^2+\mathrm{}$$
(19)
Note that when $`𝒪(x)=𝒪_{\mathrm{eff}}=1`$ one recovers the effective-range expansion.

## III Results

In this section we compute matrix elements of various operators using three different schemes. The first scheme uses bare operators with bare wavefunctions (we label these calculations as “B+B”); these should be regarded as “exact” answers. Second, we compute matrix elements in an approximation (labeled as “B+E”) that uses effective wavefunctions but retains bare operators. As we show below, for operators insensitive to short-range physics this inconsistency introduces small discrepancies. However, the more important the short-range physics, the greater the lack of accord. Finally, we perform calculations in a consistent low-energy approximation (“E+E”) that employs both effective wavefunctions and effective operators. Showing that these calculations are in excellent agreement with the exact (B+B) answers represents the central result of the present work.

Because of its simplicity, a natural place to start testing the proposed approach is the calculation of the root-mean-square radius of the deuteron, which is given by

$$x^2_{BB}\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=1}{\overset{2}{}}\left(x_nx_{\mathrm{cm}}\right)^2=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x^2}{4}\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^2(x)=(1.87977)^2\mathrm{fm}^2.$$
(20)
The corresponding calculation in the effective theory requires a renormalization of the bare operator. To do so we follow the prescription outlined in the preceding section \[see Eqs. (18) and (19)\] to obtain

$$x_{\mathrm{eff}}^2=x^2\left[1+\left(c+d\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}\right)\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2)\right](c=1.520,d=0.305).$$
(21)
In this manner the root-mean-square radius predicted by the effective theory becomes

$$x^2_{\mathrm{EE}}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x_{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{4}\left(\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)^2=(1.87988)^2\mathrm{fm}^2.$$
(22)
This represents a discrepancy of about $`1`$ part in $`10^4`$. While this result is gratifying and lends some credibiliity to the approach, it hardly qualifies as a stringent test of the formalism. Although both the effective operator and the ground-state wavefunction are modified at short distances (see Fig. 1 and 2) the operator itself has so little support at short distances that the two integrands \[Eqs. (20) and (22)\] become practically indistinguishable from each other (see inset on Fig. 2). Indeed, an acceptable result is obtained even when the operator is not properly renormalized:

$$x^2_{\mathrm{BE}}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x^2}{4}\left(\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)^2=(1.87834)^2\mathrm{fm}^2.$$
(23)
A more sensitive test of the approach is provided by the elastic form factor of the deuteron, which in our simple one dimensional model reduces to the following expression:

$$F_{\mathrm{el}}(q)=|\rho (q)|^2,\rho (q)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{qx}{2}\right)\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^2(x)=1\frac{q^2}{2}x^2+𝒪(q^4).$$
(24)
The corresponding expressions in the B+E and E+E approximations are given by

$`\rho (q)_{\mathrm{BE}}={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{qx}{2}}\right)\left(\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)^2,`$ (25a)
$`\rho (q)_{\mathrm{EE}}={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x\left[\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{qx}{2}}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{eff}}\left(\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^{\mathrm{eff}}(x)\right)^2,`$ (25b)
with the effective operator renormalized at short-distances as detailed above. That is,

$$\left[\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{qx}{2}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{qx}{2}\right)\left[1+\left(c(q)+d(q)\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}\right)\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2)\right],$$
(26)
The renormalization procedure is illustrated in Fig. 3 at the single momentum-transfer value of $`q=2\mathrm{fm}^1`$. It is important to note that the renormalization coefficients ($`c`$ and $`d`$) must be tuned at each value of the momentum transfer $`q`$. The solid line in the figure displays an effective-range-like expansion for the bare operator $`𝒪(x)=\mathrm{cos}(qx/2)`$ \[as described in Eq. (18), with the slope and intercept clearly indicated in the figure (note that for clarity the plots are normalized to one at $`k^2=0`$). It becomes immediately evident that the predicted low-energy behavior of the exact theory can not be reproduced without a proper renormalization of the operator. Indeed, the B+E calculation predicts the wrong momentum dependence; the sign of the slope is wrong! In contrast, it becomes a simple matter to tune the parameters of the effective operator to reproduce exactly the low-energy behavior of the exact theory (dashed line).

Having corrected the short-distance structure of the operator one proceeds to compute the elastic form factor of the deuteron, which now is a prediction of the effective theory. The structure of the form factor (again at $`q=2\mathrm{fm}^1`$) is shown in Fig. 4. The main panel shows bare (i.e., $`\mathrm{cos}(x)`$) and effective operators, displayed as solid and dashed lines, respectively. Both the effective deuteron wavefunction (inset on Fig. 1) and the effective operator differ considerably from their bare counterparts at short distances—and so is the product of the (square of the) wavefunction times the operator (inset on Fig. 4). Yet the area under the curve—whose square is proportional to the elastic form factor—is essentially unchanged. For comparison, the exact (B+B) and effective (E+E) theories yield values of $`F_{\mathrm{el}}=0.02019`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{el}}=0.02012`$, respectively. In contrast, a (B+E) calculation with an effective wavefunction—but still employing a bare operator—results in a discrepancy of nearly 20% ($`F_{\mathrm{el}}=0.017062`$).

We conclude the discussion of the elastic form factor of the deuteron by displaying in Fig. 5 its momentum-transfer dependence up to $`q=5\mathrm{fm}^1`$. Recall that effective parameters must be tuned for every value of $`q`$. It is evident from the figure that the renormalization of the operator at high-momentum transfers is essential, as it is at high $`q`$ that the short-distance structure of the wavefunction (and of the potential) is being probed. Failing to correct the operator results in a rather poor representation of the elastic form factor for $`q2\mathrm{fm}^1`$ (squares).

For completeness, and as a further stringent test of the formalism, we compute ground-state observables for an operator with the most extreme short-range structure possible: the Dirac delta function. In the bare theory the ground-state expectation value is simply given by the square of the deuteron wavefunction at the origin. That is,

$$\delta (x)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\delta (x)\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^2(x)=\psi _{\mathrm{gs}}^2(0)=0.01521\mathrm{fm}^1.$$
(27)
As the sharp features of the bare potential are no longer present in the effective potential, the effective deuteron wavefunction at short distances is considerably larger than the bare wavefunction (see Fig. 1). As a result, a (B+E) calculation using an effective wavefunction but a bare delta-function operator grossly overestimates the result: $`\delta (x)_{BE}=0.04981\mathrm{fm}^1`$. Instead, by following the renormalization procedure outlined above, one obtains an effective Dirac delta-function operator,

$$\delta _{\mathrm{eff}}(x)=\frac{1}{a}\left(c+d\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}\right)\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2)(c=0.250,d=0.035),$$
(28)
that yields a ground-state expectation value of $`\delta (x)_{EE}=0.01523\mathrm{fm}^1`$. This result deviates from the exact value by less than one part in a thousand.

In Table 1 we have listed (for completeness) some of the results presented previously in graphical form. The operators appearing in this table are listed in order of the importance of their short-range components. For example, the root-mean-square radius of the deuteron depends little on the short-range structure of the wavefunction while the Dirac $`\delta `$-function operator depends exclusively on it. For each operator, we show the two effective coefficients $`c`$ and $`d`$ determined by the fitting procedure outlined above. All these are dimensionless quantities and it is gratifying that they are all of order one in keeping with the priciple of “naturalness” Kolck . We note that in some cases failing to renormalize the operator (B+E) leads to discrepancies that are as large as 50% or even 100%. In contrast, calculations using effective wavefunctions and effective operators (E+E) show excellent agreement with B+B calculations regardless of the short-range structure of the operator. We stress that all these are predictions of the effective theory, as the tuning of parameters is done in the scattering sector. In particular, it is satisfying that the elastic form factor of the deuteron at $`q=0`$ deviates from unity by less than 2 parts in a thousand. We emphasize that such precise agreement is non-trivial; indeed, it reflects the soundness of our method.

## IV Conclusions

While the field of nuclear structure has benefited from recent advances in numerical algorithms and sheer computational power, the shell-model problem, in its purest form, remains intractable. As a result, an important part of the nuclear-structure program for many years has focused on the construction of effective interactions for use in shell-model calculations. Two of the most promising approaches are based on the so-called similarity transformation methods (in its many varieties) and on effective-field-theory techniques. The main tenet underlying both approaches is that the short-distance structure of a theory (which is complicated and at present unknown) are hidden to a long-wavelength probe. It should then be possible to “soften” the corresponding short-range portion of the potential while leaving all low-energy properties of the theory intact, thereby providing a significantly more tractible – from a computational point of view – interaction.

The main focus of the present paper is the determination of single-particle operators which can be employed consistently in conjunction with wavefunctions obtained using effective interactions. As observed by many authors, such consistency is essential to the correct implementation of effective theories. For computational simplicity we adopted a one-dimensional $`NN`$ interaction, that nevertheless incorporates the well-known pathologies of a realistic $`NN`$ potential. The central result of this work is the proposal and implementation of a single underlying approach for the construction of both effective interactions and effective operators. The construction of the effective interaction follows a well-known approach that is based on a textbook derivation of the effective-range expansion. What is not well known (at least to us) is that the same approach may be generalized to effective operators.

Results from such an implementation are very gratifying, as evinced from a variety of calculations of ground-state observables. For those observables insensitive to the short-range structure of the potential, such as the root-mean-square radius of the deuteron, the renormalization of the bare operator, while required by consistency, is of little numerical consequence. Yet, failing to properly renormalized operators sensitive to short-range physics, such as the elastic form factor of the deuteron at high-momentum transfers, can yield discrepancies as large as 200%. The consistent renormalization procedure advocated here yields in all cases errors of less than 1%.

We conclude with a short comment on future work. The results presented here are encouraging and lend validity to the proposed approach, which is currently being extended to the three-body system. Different algorithms are being employed to solve for the ground-state of the three-body system and in all cases, perhaps not surprisingly, better convergence properties are obtained with the effective rather than with the bare interaction. The results obtained here also constitute a promising first step toward our ultimate goal of combining similarity-transformation methods with effective interactions. The effective interactions and operators obtained here—with their sharp short-range features no longer present—could provide a more suitable starting point for the numerically-intensive approaches based on similarity transformations. Finally, the method proposed here will have to be extended to three-spatial dimensions. Other than numerical complexity, we do not foresee other serious challenges. Indeed, the approach presented here for the construction of effective interactions (whose three-dimensional derivation may be found in several textbooks) had to be adapted to one spatial dimension. In summary, a novel approach for the renormalization of operators in a manner consistent with the construction of the effective potential has been proposed and implemented with considerable success. The results obtained here are gratifying and suggest how in the future effective theories may be profitably combined with more traditional methods to tackle the nuclear many-body problem.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts DE-FG05-92ER40750 and DE-FG03-93ER40774.