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# Ising transition driven by frustration in a 2D classical model with SU(2) symmetry

## Abstract

We study the thermal properties of the classical antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with both nearest ($`J_1`$) and next-nearest ($`J_2`$) exchange couplings on the square lattice by extensive Monte Carlo simulations. We show that, for $`J_2/J_1>1/2`$, thermal fluctuations give rise to an effective $`Z_2`$ symmetry leading to a finite-temperature phase transition. We provide strong numerical evidence that this transition is in the 2D Ising universality class, and that $`T_c0`$ with an infinite slope when $`J_2/J_11/2`$.

Since the milestone papers by Hohenberg and by Mermin and Wagner, mermin  it is known that in two-dimensional systems a continuous symmetry cannot be broken at any finite temperature, and only systems with a discrete symmetry can show a finite-temperature phase transition. In this regard, a proposal by Chandra, Coleman and Larkin (CCL) chandra  opened a new route to finite-temperature phase transitions in systems with a continuous spin-rotational invariance: CCL argued that the presence of frustrating interactions can induce non-trivial discrete degrees of freedom, that may undergo a phase transition at low temperatures. In particular, in Ref. chandra, , the authors considered the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with both nearest ($`J_1`$) and next-nearest neighbor ($`J_2`$) couplings:

$$\widehat{}=J{}_{1}{}^{}\underset{n.n.}{}\widehat{𝐒}_i\widehat{𝐒}_j+J{}_{2}{}^{}\underset{n.n.n.}{}\widehat{𝐒}_i\widehat{𝐒}_j,$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{𝐒}_i`$ are spin $`S`$ operators on a periodic square lattice with $`N=L\times L`$ sites. For $`J_2/J_1<1/2`$, the classical ground state has antiferromagnetic Néel order with pitch vector $`𝐐=(\pi ,\pi )`$, while for $`J_2/J_1>1/2`$, the classical ground state consists of two independent sublattices with antiferromagnetic order. doucot  The ground state energy does not depend on the relative orientations between the magnetizations of the two sublattices, and the ground state has an SU(2)$`\times `$SU(2) symmetry. Following Henley’s analysis of the XY case, henley  CCL showed that both quantum and thermal fluctuations are expected to lift this degeneracy by an order by disorder mechanism villain  and to select two collinear states which are the helical states with pitch vectors $`𝐐=(0,\pi )`$ and $`(\pi ,0)`$ respectively, reducing the symmetry to SU(2)$`\times Z_2`$. CCL further argued that the $`Z_2`$ symmetry should give rise to an Ising phase transition at finite temperature and provided an estimate of the transition temperature.

The interest in this model raised recently with the discovery of two vanadates which can be considered as prototypes of the $`J_1J_2`$ model in the collinear region: $`\mathrm{Li}_2\mathrm{VOSiO}_4`$ and $`\mathrm{Li}_2\mathrm{VOGeO}_4`$millet ; carretta  Indeed, although the value of $`J_2/J_1`$ is not exactly known, carretta ; rosner ; misguich  all estimates indicate that $`J_2J_1`$. In particular, NMR and muon spin rotation magnetization in $`\mathrm{Li}_2\mathrm{VOSiO}_4`$ provide clear evidence for the presence of a phase transition to a collinear order at $`T_c2.8K`$. While several additional ingredients, like inter-layer coupling and lattice distortion, becca  are probably involved in the transition, the basic explanation relies on the presence of the Ising transition predicted by CCL.

However, CCL’s predictions have been challenged by a number of numerical studies. Using Monte Carlo simulations, Loison and Simon loison  reported the presence of two phase transitions for the $`XY`$ version of the classical model for $`J_2/J_1>0.5`$: A Kosterliz-Thouless transition, as expected for $`XY`$ models, followed by a transition which is continuous but does not seem to be in the Ising universality class since their estimates of the critical exponents depend on the ratio $`J_2/J_1`$. More recently, the S=1/2 Heisenberg case has been investigated by Singh and collaborators singh  using a combination of series expansion methods and linear spin-wave theory. They show that, if there is a phase transition, it can only occur at temperatures much lower than that predicted by CCL for S=1/2, and they argue that $`T_c`$ is actually equal to zero.

In this Letter, we show, on the basis of extensive Monte Carlo simulations, that the classical limit of the model of Eq. (1), where spins are classical vectors of length 1, indeed undergoes a continuous phase transition at a finite temperature, that the critical exponents agree with the Ising universality class, and that, modulo minor adjustments of CCL’s estimate, $`T_c`$ is in good quantitative agreement with CCL’s prediction in the range $`J_1<J_2`$ where their approximation is expected to be valid. However, contrary to CCL’s prediction, we show that $`T_c`$ goes continuously to zero when $`J_2/J_11/2`$, and we argue that this is due to a competition between Néel and collinear order at finite temperature in this parameter range.

Starting from the original spin variables $`\widehat{𝐒}_i`$, we construct the Ising-like variable of the dual lattice:

$$\sigma _\alpha =\frac{(\widehat{𝐒}_i\widehat{𝐒}_k)(\widehat{𝐒}_j\widehat{𝐒}_l)}{|(\widehat{𝐒}_i\widehat{𝐒}_k)(\widehat{𝐒}_j\widehat{𝐒}_l)|},$$
(2)
where $`(i,j,k,l)`$ are the corners with diagonal $`(i,k)`$ and $`(j,l)`$ of the plaquette centered at the site $`\alpha `$ of the dual lattice. The two collinear states with $`𝐐=(\pi ,0)`$ and $`𝐐=(0,\pi )`$ have $`\sigma _\alpha =\pm 1`$. It is important to stress that the normalization term does not affect the critical properties of the model. It is only introduced to have a normalized variable. The Ising-like order parameter is defined as $`M_\sigma =(1/N)_\alpha \sigma _\alpha `$.

We have performed classical Monte Carlo simulations using both local and global algorithms as well as more recent broad histogram methods brazilian  (details will be given elsewhere cedric ) to calculate the temperature and size dependence of several quantities including the Binder cumulant, the susceptibility and the correlation length associated to $`M_\sigma `$, as well as the specific heat, for sizes up to $`200\times 200`$ and for several values of $`J_2/J_1`$ between 1/2 and 2. For reasons discussed below the critical behaviour is easier to detect for small values of $`J_2/J_1`$, and we first concentrate on $`J_2/J_1=0.55`$.

As a first hint of a phase transition, we report the temperature dependence of the susceptibility defined by $`\chi =(N/T)(M_\sigma ^2|M_\sigma |^2)`$ for different sizes \[see Fig. 1(a)\]. If there is a phase transition, this susceptibility is expected to diverge at $`T_c`$ in the thermodynamic limit, and indeed, the development of a peak around $`T/J_1=0.2`$ upon increasing the system size is clearly visible. To get a precise estimate of $`T_c`$, we have calculated Binder’s fourth cumulant of the order parameter defined by: $`U_4(T)=1M_\sigma ^4/3M_\sigma ^2^2`$. This cumulant should go to 2/3 below $`T_c`$ and to zero above $`T_c`$ when the size increases, and the finite-size estimates are expected to cross around $`T_c`$. Binder cumulants for different sizes are reported in Fig. 1(b), and they indeed cross around $`T/J_10.197`$. In Fig. 1(c), we report $`U_4(T)`$ as a function of $`1/L`$ for several temperatures around $`0.197`$. Excluding temperatures for which $`U_4`$ clearly increases or decreases with $`1/L`$ leads to the remarkably precise estimate $`T_c/J_1=0.1970(2)`$.

To identify the universality class of the phase transition, we have looked at the finite-size scaling of several quantities. The critical exponents $`\nu `$ and $`\gamma `$ can be extracted from the dependence of the peak position of the susceptibility $`T_c(L)=T_c+a\times L^{1/\nu }`$ and from its value $`\chi (L,T_c)L^{\gamma /\nu }`$ as a function of $`L`$. Using the value of $`T_c`$ deduced from Binder’s cumulant, the fits lead to $`\nu =1.0(1)`$ and $`\gamma /\nu =1.76(2)`$. A more precise estimate of the exponent $`\nu `$ can be obtained from the temperature dependence of the second-moment correlation length $`\xi `$ olsson , extracted from the Fourier components of the correlation functions of the Ising-like variable (2). By considering only values such that $`\xi L/6`$, where the finite-size effects are found to be negligible, it is possible to have a very accurate value of the critical exponent from the fact that, for $`TT_c`$, $`\xi ^1=A(TT_c)^\nu `$. In Fig. 2, we report the behavior of the correlation length $`\xi `$ as a function of the temperature. By performing a three-parameter fit (for $`A`$, $`T_c`$ and $`\nu `$) we obtain $`T_c/J_1=0.1965(5)`$ and $`\nu =1.00(3)`$. This value of $`T_c`$ is compatible with the estimation given by Binder’s cumulant.

These exponents agree with those of the Ising universality class in 2D ($`\nu =1`$ and $`\gamma =7/4`$). A cross-check for this universality class comes from the measure of the critical exponent $`\alpha `$, related to the divergence of the specific heat per site, $`C_{\mathrm{max}}(L)L^{\alpha /\nu }`$. Indeed, the value of $`\alpha `$ is the fingerprint for the 2D Ising universality class, for which we have $`\alpha =0`$ and a logarithmic divergence of the specific heat as a function of $`L`$. In Fig. 3, we show the results for the specific heat per site. We have obtained a very accurate fit of the maximum of the specific heat per site as a function of $`L`$ with the known expression for the leading finite-size corrections of the 2D Ising model, ferdinand  $`C_{\mathrm{max}}(L)=a_0+a_1\mathrm{log}(L)+a_2/L`$, with $`a_0`$, $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ fitting parameters, while a power law is clearly inadequate. These results are consistent with $`\alpha =0`$.

Finally, if the phase transition is indeed Ising, Binder’s cumulant at $`T_c`$ should reach the universal value $`U_4(T_c)0.6107`$ in the thermodynamic limit. u4univ  The non-montonous behaviour of Binder’s cumulant with the size prevents a precise extrapolation, but this value is not incompatible with our numerical data \[see Fig. 1(c)\].

Altogether, these results show unambiguously that a phase transition occurs for $`J_2/J_1=0.55`$ at $`T_c=0.1970(2)`$ and give strong evidence in favour of 2D Ising universality class, in agreement with CCL’s prediction. The same analysis can be repeated for different values of the frustrating ratio $`J_2/J_1`$, and the complete phase diagram is shown in Fig. 4, where we report $`T_c`$ as a function of $`J_2/J_1`$. While the critical behaviour is everywhere consistent with Ising, it turns out that finite-size effects become more and more severe upon increasing $`J_2/J_1`$, preventing a meaningful determination of $`T_c`$ with available cluster sizes beyond $`J_2/J_12`$. Indeed, for large ratios $`J_2/J_1`$, physical quantities such as the susceptibility and the specific heat only exhibit broad peaks while the mean value of the order parameter goes very smoothly to zero, a behaviour typical of strong finite-size effects. This we believe can be traced back to the width of the domain walls between domains with $`𝐐=(\pi ,0)`$ and $`𝐐=(0,\pi )`$, which we have estimated by studying systems with fixed boundary conditions. Details will be presented elsewhere, cedric  but the width increases very fast with $`J_2/J_1`$, starting around 10 lattice spacings for $`J_2/J_11/2`$, and already reaching values of the order of 40 lattice spacings for $`J_2/J_11.5`$. Since cluster sizes should be significantly larger than the width of the domain walls to observe the critical behaviour, we are not able to go beyond $`J_2/J_12`$.

Let us now discuss the dependence of $`T_c`$ upon $`J_2/J_1`$ (see Fig. 4). Two regimes can clearly be identified: (i) A large $`J_2`$ regime ($`J_2/J_1>1`$) where $`T_c/J_1`$ scales more or less linearly with $`J_2/J_1`$; (ii) A smaller $`J_2`$ regime defined by $`(J_2/J_11/2)1`$ where $`T_c`$ vanishes with an infinite slope as $`J_2/J_11/2`$. For $`J_2/J_11/2`$, this disagrees with CCL’s prediction that $`T_c/J_2`$ reaches its maximum when $`J_2/J_11/2`$. However, since their approach is based on an expansion in $`J_1/J_2`$, this is not a final blow, and CCL’s predictions should be tested in the large $`J_2`$ regime, where the approximations are better controlled. CCL’s central criterion for estimating $`T_c`$ is the equation $`T_cE(T_c)(\xi _N(T_c)/a)^2`$, where $`E(T_c)`$ is the energy barrier to go from one domain to the other through the intermediate canted state where sublattice staggered magnetizations are perpendicular, and $`\xi _N(T)`$ is the Néel correlation length of each sublattice. To get a quantitative estimate of $`T_c`$ based on this approach, we have solved this equation using the exactly known temperature dependence of $`\xi _N(T)`$ for the classical antiferromagnet caracciolo  and a corrected expression for $`E(T)`$note  This leads to $`T_c=0.768J_2/(1+0.135\mathrm{ln}(J_2/J_1))`$. The best way to check this approach would be to detect the logarithmic correction, but unfortunately this would require to go to temperatures much larger than what we can reach, and in the temperature range available to our simulations, CCL’s prediction reduces to $`T_c0.77J_2`$. This prediction is in good agreement with our results: In the large $`J_2`$ regime, $`T_c`$ indeed scales linearly with $`J_2`$, within error bars our high $`J_2`$ data extrapolate to 0 at $`J_2=0`$, and the slope is equal to 0.55. Note that the slight difference in slopes is not significant since including a constant factor in front of $`E(T_c)`$ in the self-consistent equation for $`T_c`$ would change the slope. So altogether we believe that the present results support CCL’s prediction when $`J_2/J_1`$ is not too close to 1/2. In that respect, we note that a similar estimate of $`T_c`$ can be performed on the basis of CCL’s criterion for S=1/2 using recent estimates of $`\xi _N(T)`$ for the S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice, kim  which leads to $`T_c=0.496J_2/(1+0.78\mathrm{ln}(J_2/J_1))`$. These estimates are considerably lower than those used in Ref. singh, , and with these new estimates we believe that a phase transition cannot be excluded on the basis of the numerical results of Ref. singh, . In fact, although the precise values of $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ in LiVOSiO4 are still a matter of discussion, carretta ; rosner ; misguich  we note that the order of magnitude of these new estimates is consistent with the experimental results of Ref. carretta, .

Finally, let us discuss the behaviour of $`T_c`$ close to $`J_2/J_1=1/2`$. The disagreement with CCL suggests that one ingredient is missing in that range. In fact, we found that the fluctuations have a clear Néel character when $`J_2/J_11/2`$, implying that, although the collinear phase is energetically favoured at zero temperature when $`J_2/J_1>1/2`$, thermal fluctuations favour the Néel state, as quantum fluctuations indeed do. mila  We then expect a crossover to take place between a high-temperature Néel phase and a low temperature collinear phase. To estimate the crossover temperature, we start from the low-temperature expansion of the free energy per site for classical spins which reads, when only quadratic modes are thermodynamically relevant,

$$f=e_0T\mathrm{ln}T\left(\frac{1}{N}\underset{q}{}\mathrm{ln}\omega _q\right)T+a_2T^2+\mathrm{},$$

where $`e_0`$ is the ground-state energy per site and $`\omega _q`$ are the frequencies of the quadratic modes. For the present purpose, the coefficients of this expansion should be determined in the limit $`J_2/J_11/2`$ from below and above for the Néel and collinear states respectively, and the cross-over temperature $`T_0`$ is determined by $`f_{\mathrm{Neel}}=f_{\mathrm{col}}`$. It turns out that, in the limit $`J_2/J_11/2`$, $`_q\mathrm{ln}\omega _q`$ has the same value for the Néel and collinear phases, so that the linear term drops from this equation, leading to $`T_0(J_2/J_11/2)^{1/2}`$ since $`e_0^{\mathrm{Neel}}=2J_1+2J_2`$ and $`e_0^{\mathrm{coll}}=2J_2`$.\[note2, \] Now, the Ising transition can only occur below $`T_0`$ since the system should already have short-range collinear fluctuations. Then, when the intrinsic temperature scale of the Ising transition as determined by CCL is larger than $`T_0`$, we expect the transition temperature to be of the order of $`T_0`$. This argument thus predicts that, as $`J_2/J_11/2`$, $`T_c`$ should vanish with an infinite slope and with an exponent equal to 1/2.\[note2, \] This is in qualitative agreement with our numerical data, which clearly indicate that the slope is infinite, and are consistent with an exponent in the range $`0.30.5`$. Large scale numerical simulations are in progress to try to refine this estimate.

In conclusion, we have established the presence of a finite-temperature phase transition in the classical $`J_1J_2`$ Heisenberg model on a square lattice when $`J_2/J_1>1/2`$, we have provided strong arguments in favour of Ising universality class, and we have determined $`T_c`$ as a function of $`J_2/J_1`$ with high accuracy, showing in particular that it vanishes with an infinite slope when $`J_2/J_11/2`$. These results, together with revised estimates of $`T_c`$ in the S=1/2 case following CCL, are expected to set the stage for further theoretical and experimental investigations.

We acknowledge useful discussions with S. Sachdev and M. Zhitomirsky, and we are grateful to P. Coleman for giving us some information on unpublished material related to Ref. chandra, . This work was supported by NSF under Grant No.DMR02-11166 (L.C.), INFM (F.B.), MaNEP (M.E.) and by the Swiss National Fund (C.W. and F.M.). G.M. acknowledges the hospitality of IRRMA.


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# The 2MASS Wide-Field T Dwarf Search. II. Discovery of Three T Dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere

## 1 Introduction

T dwarfs are substellar objects whose near-infrared spectra exhibit characteristic signatures of H2O and CH4 (Burgasser et al., 2002; Geballe et al., 2002). They comprise the coolest class of brown dwarfs currently known, with effective temperatures Teff $``$ 1300–1500 K (Burgasser et al., 2002; Dahn et al., 2002, and references therein). Their atmospheric properties are therefore quite similar to class III and IV extra-solar giant planets (EGPS; Sudarsky, Burrows, & Pinto 2000), but are more easily studied without the obscuration of a bright host star. Indeed, EGP atmospheric models have advanced in parallel with isolated brown dwarf models, as the latter differ only in the absence of an external radiating source (Seager & Sasselov, 1998, 2000; Sudarsky, Burrows, & Pinto, 2000; Baraffe et al., 2003). The observed properties of T dwarfs have served to constrain these models. The currently known collection of nearby T dwarfs are also useful for studies of the substellar population in the Solar Neighborhood and the substellar initial mass function (Burgasser, 2001). Finally, as these objects do not significantly process their initial Hydrogen supply to heavier metals111Exhaustive Deuterium and Lithium burning occur in Solar metallicity brown dwarfs more massive than 0.013 and 0.065 M, respectively (Burrows et al., 2001)., they may be used as a tracer population of the chemical history of the Galaxy, as long as temperature, gravity, and metallicity diagnostics can be disentangled.

We have initiated a wide-field search for T dwarfs in the Two Micron All Sky Survey (Skrutskie et al., 1997, hereafter 2MASS), as described in Burgasser et al. (2003b, hereafter Paper I). 2MASS, which covers the entire sky, is an ideal survey for finding T dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood, as the spectral energy distributions of these objects peak in the J, H, and Ks photometric bands sampled by the survey. The optical/near-infrared colors of T dwarfs are also extremely red ($`RJ9`$; Golimowski et al. 1998); hence, photographic plate surveys, which also cover the whole sky, cannot detect T dwarfs much farther than a few parsecs from the Sun (Scholz et al., 2003). 2MASS is particularly useful for finding T dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere, as it is more sensitive than the Deep Near-Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky (Epchtein et al., 1997), and there is as yet no equivalent to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (York et al., 2000, hereafter SDSS) at southern latitudes.

In this article, we present the discovery of three new T dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere, 2MASS 0348$``$6022, 2MASS 0516$``$0445, and 2MASS 2228$``$4310222Throughout the text, we adopt shorthand notation for 2MASS and SDSS sources, 2MASS/SDSS hhmm$`\pm `$ddmm. Full designations are listed in Tables 1–3.. In $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 2 we review the identification of these T dwarfs through confirmation imaging and spectroscopic observations obtained using the Ohio State InfraRed Imager/Spectrometer (Depoy et al., 1993, hereafter OSIRIS), mounted on the CTIO 4m Blanco Telescope. In $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 3, we analyze the spectra of these and three other previously identified T dwarfs, 2MASS 0243$``$2453, 2MASS 0415$``$0935, and SDSS 0423$``$0414 (Burgasser et al., 2002; Geballe et al., 2002), also observed with OSIRIS. Including the latter sources into a suite of spectral standards, we classify the new T dwarfs and estimate their spectrophotometric distances. We also examine the kinematics of the three discoveries. Results are summarized in $`\mathrm{\S }`$ 4.

## 2 Observations of T Dwarf Candidates

### 2.1 Imaging Observations

Selection of T dwarf candidates from the 2MASS Working Point Source Database (WPSD) are discussed in detail in Paper I. Our color constraints – $`JH0.3`$ or $`HK_s0`$, and no optical counterpart in the USNO A2.0 catalogue (Monet et al., 1998) or visible on Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) plates – result in some contamination by asteroids, as discussed in Burgasser et al. (2002). We specifically exclude objects associated with known minor planets in the 2MASS catalog, but uncatalogued ones are likely to be present. To eliminate these sources, we imaged a subset of our candidate pool with OSIRIS in the J-band during 20–24 September 2002 (UT). Conditions during this period ranged from clear and dry (20 and 24 September) to light cirrus and clouds (21–23 September), and seeing was poor ($`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$) on 20 and 23 September but excellent ($`1\mathrm{}`$) on the remaining nights. Pairs of 15 sec integrations were obtained for each object, dithered 10–20$`\mathrm{}`$ between exposures. The sensitivity of these images was verified to be greater than that of the 2MASS survey, which has a J-band S/N = 10 completeness limit of 15.8 (Cutri et al., 2003), implying that any stationary sources should have been recovered.

As in Burgasser et al. (2002), a number of sources were not seen in the OSIRIS images; these are listed in Table 1, with updated designations and photometry from the 2MASS All Sky Data Release (Cutri et al., 2003, hereafter, 2MASS ADR). A few sources were identified as unflagged image artifacts arising from electronic feedback in the quadrant readout of the 2MASS NICMOS3 detectors (“star echo”; see sect. IV.7 in Cutri et al. 2003). Eleven sources were subsequently identified as known minor planets by searching a $`30\mathrm{}\times 30\mathrm{}`$ region around the positions of each unconfirmed source at the corresponding epoch of observation in the Small Body catalog maintained by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Dynamics Group333Asteroid identifications were made using the Small-Body Search Tool, http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/sb{\_}search.. We note that about half of these 2MASS asteroid detections precede their discovery. It is logical, therefore, that most of the remaining unconfirmed sources are uncatalogued minor planets, given that their near-infrared colors closely match those of known asteroids (Sykes et al., 2002) and that they are generally found at low ecliptic latitudes. Curiously, a handful of these probable minor planets are found at relatively high ecliptic latitudes, $`25\mathrm{°}\beta 40\mathrm{°}`$. We cannot rule out the possibility of any of these sources being eruptive or otherwise variable events.

### 2.2 Spectroscopic Observations

For sources that reappeared in the OSIRIS images, we obtained spectra during the same run using the OSIRIS cross-dispersed gratings. Use of the single diffraction grating blazed at 6.6 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ with the 120 lines mm-1 grating and f/2.8 camera provides simultaneous, moderate resolution ($`\lambda `$/$`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$ $``$ 1200) spectroscopy from 1.2–2.35 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ in four orders: J (5rd and 6th), H (4th), and K (3th). Resolution on the 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$403 pixel-1 chip ranges from 4.4 to 8.8 Å pixel-1.

Table 2 summarizes the observations, which also included three known T dwarfs: 2MASS 0243$``$2453, 2MASS 0415$``$0935, and SDSS 0423$``$0414 (Burgasser et al., 2002; Geballe et al., 2002). Targets were acquired in imaging mode and placed into a 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 $`\times `$ 30$`\mathrm{}`$ slit. Observations were made in sets of 5 exposures dithered 4–5$`\mathrm{}`$ along the slit, with individual integrations of 300 sec per exposure. B and A dwarf stars, chosen for their lack of metal lines at moderate resolution, were observed near the target objects for flux calibration and telluric corrections. Spectral lamps reflected off of the 4m dome spot were observed each night for pixel response calibration, and a series of dark frames with identical exposure times as the spectral flats were also obtained to remove detector bias.

Data reduction consisted of initially trimming the science images to eliminate vignetted regions; dividing by a normalized, dark-subtracted flat field (constructed from a median combination of the spectral lamp and bias exposures); and correcting for bad pixels by interpolation, using a mask created from flat-field and bias frames. Images were then pairwise subtracted to eliminate sky background and dark current. Curvature of the dispersion lines was determined by tracing the spectra of the standard stars, and this trace was used as a template for the target spectra. Both standard and object spectra were extracted by summing 8–12 columns (depending on seeing conditions) along each row after subtracting off the median background in that row. Individual spectra from each order were then scaled by a multiplicative factor and combined by averaging, rejecting 3$`\sigma `$ outliers in each spectral bin. Wavelength calibration was done with the telluric OH lines, using identifications from Olivia & Origlia (1992). A telluric correction was computed for each target/standard pair by interpolating over H2O absorption features in the standard star spectra and ratioing these spectra with the uncorrected standard spectra. A smoothed flux correction was then calculated by interpolating over Hydrogen Paschen and Brackett lines in the telluric-corrected standard spectra and multiplying by the appropriate blackbody (Tokunaga, 2000). Finally, the flux-calibrated spectral orders were combined by first scaling each order to match overlap regions (typically 1.28–1.30, 1.53–1.55, and 1.95–1.97 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$), and then correcting the combined spectra to 2MASS H-band magnitudes. Note that the overlap between the H- and K-band orders falls within the 1.9 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ H2O band; because of this, we generally applied the same scaling corrections to both orders.

The majority of sources observed appear to be late-type (KM) background stars based on the presence of weak H2O absorption and relatively featureless H-band spectra. This is consistent with their positions on the near-infrared color-color diagram in Figure 1 (which plots revised photometry from the 2MASS ADR444The ADR colors for many of our candidates are outside of our original search constraints, which are based on 2MASS WPSD data. These differences are due to the improved photometric calibration of 2MASS J-band data in the ADR, which compensates for short (hourly) variations in telluric opacity that influence the broad J-band filter employed in this survey. See Cutri et al. (2003) for further details.), within the substantial color uncertainties; c.f., the M dwarf and giant tracks of Bessell & Brett (1988). Furthermore, their faint magnitudes (15.5 $``$ $`J`$ $``$ 16) imply optical/near-infrared color limits ($`RJ>`$ 4–5, based on no detection in DSS photographic plates; Reid et al. 1991) consistent with late-type stars. In some cases these identifications were confirmed spectroscopically by comparison to near-infrared data of known M dwarfs obtained in prior OSIRIS campaigns (Burgasser et al., 2002). None of the brighter background objects appear to be L dwarfs based on similar comparisons. Adequate spectral comparison for many of the spectra was not possible, however, due to low signal-to-noise ratio data ($``$ 5-10 at J-band in the worst cases), although it is clear that these faint objects are not T dwarfs. We forego detailed classification of background sources as it is beyond the scope of this paper, and identify them simply as late-type stars. We do, however, identify one candidate, 2MASS 2005$``$1056, as LHS 483, a DC9 white dwarf (McCook & Sion, 1999, and references therein) with substantial proper motion ($`\mu `$ = 1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$08 yr-1; Luyten 1979). This object was not initially recognized as a background proper motion star because of the small epoch difference between the available DSS plates (2.1 yrs555We note that Bakos, Sahu, & Németh (2002) derive $`\mu =6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}82`$ yr-1 for LHS 483 but cite the value as highly uncertain because of the small DSS epoch difference. From our imaging observations and 2MASS data (see $`\mathrm{\S }`$3.4) we derive $`\mu =0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}98\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}03`$ yr-1, roughly consistent with Luyten’s measurement.). A second source, 2MASS 0533$``$0633, appears to be a reddened, mid- to late-type M dwarf based on its somewhat stronger H2O bands, weak 1.23 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ FeH absorption, 1.25 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ K I doublet lines, and red near-infrared spectral slope. This source is also aligned with a small molecular clump just south of the Orion Nebular Cloud (Bally et al., 1987; Carpenter, 2001, ONC). Its late-type dwarf spectrum and proximity to the 1–2 Myr ONC star-forming region (Hillenbrand, 1997) suggests that it could be a young brown dwarf.

## 3 New T Dwarfs

### 3.1 Spectral Analysis

We spectroscopically confirm three objects as T dwarfs: 2MASS 0348$``$6022, 2MASS 0516$``$0445, and 2MASS 2228$``$4310. Astrometric and photometric properties are listed in Table 3, and 2MASS and DSS images of each source (5$`\mathrm{}`$$`\times `$5$`\mathrm{}`$ field) are shown in Figure 2. Calibrated spectral data are shown in Figure 3, along with data for 2MASS 0243$``$2453, 2MASS 0415$``$0935, and SDSS 0423$``$0414. Note that data for 2MASS 0348$``$6022 and 2MASS 0516$``$0445 have been combined from multiple nights to improve signal-to-noise. All six T dwarfs show distinct CH4 bands at 1.1, 1.3 (blue and red slopes of the 1.27 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ J-band peak), 1.6, and 2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$; H2O bands at 1.3 and 1.7 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$; and K I absorption lines at 1.2432 and 1.2522 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$. The spectrum of SDSS 0423$``$0414 shows some indication of CO absorption at 2.3 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$. The strength of the CH4 and H2O bands in the three new discoveries are consistent with late-type T dwarfs (Burgasser et al., 2002; Geballe et al., 2002).

Figure 4 displays the 1.19 to 1.33 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ region of the spectra in Figure 3, highlighting the 1.2432/1.2522 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ K I doublet lines. These lines are prominent in early- and mid-type T dwarf spectra (as well as late-type M and L dwarfs), peaking in strength around spectral type T5–T5.5, then fading in the later dwarfs (Burgasser et al., 2002). We measured pseudo-equivalent widths666The presence of overlying opacity throughout the near-infrared prevents the measurement of “true continuum” for computing equivalent widths; hence, the reported measurements are relative to the local, or “pseudo”-continuum. (pEWs) for these lines by integrating over the line profiles; see Burgasser et al. (2002). Results are listed in Table 4. Values decrease monotonically from roughly 12 to 4 Å for the 1.2432 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ line and 16 to 6.5 Å for the 1.2522 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ line over spectral types T5.5 to T7, consistent with previously observed trends. Upper pEW limits of roughly 2 Å are found for the K I lines of the latest-type T dwarf 2MASS 0415$``$0935.

### 3.2 Classification

We derived spectral types for the three discoveries using the classification scheme of Burgasser et al. (2002). The top of Table 5 lists spectral ratio values of observed T dwarf standards, including new measurements for SDSS 0423$``$0414, 2MASS 0243$``$2453, and 2MASS 0415$``$0935 (our T0, T6, and T8 standards, respectively), and measurements using OSIRIS data for SDSS 1254$``$0122 (Leggett et al., 2000, T2), 2MASS 0559$``$0414 (Burgasser et al., 2000b, T5), and 2MASS 0727+1710 (Burgasser et al., 2002, T7) from Burgasser et al. (2002). We make use of the H2O-B, CH4-A, and CH4-B indices only, due to the wavelength limits of the spectral data (obviating the the H2O-A index), poor signal-to-noise at K-band (obviating the CH4-C, and 2.11/2.07 indices) and possible uncertainties in the individual band calibration (obviating the H/J and K/J color indices). As can be seen in Table 5, the three remaining indices are monotonic with spectral type for the standards.

Spectral ratios of our discoveries are listed at the bottom of Table 5. For each ratio, we assigned a whole or half subtype based on the closest match to the standard values. Final subtypes were derived from the average of these individual ratio types, which for each object differ by less than $`\pm `$1 subclass. Furthermore, individual spectra for 2MASS 0348$``$6022 and 2MASS 0516$``$0445 obtained on separate nights yield identical types within $`\pm `$0.5 subclasses. Therefore, we assert that our classifications are accurate to within 0.5 subclasses despite the limited suite of spectral ratios employed. Derived spectral types are T7 for 2MASS 0348$``$6022, T5.5 for 2MASS 0516$``$0445, and T6.5 for 2MASS 2228$``$4310. These mid- to late-type classifications are consistent with their relatively blue near-infrared colors.

### 3.3 Distance Estimates

Distance estimates for our new discoveries can be made using their spectral types, 2MASS photometry, and the absolute magnitudes of T dwarfs with measured parallaxes. We first compared 2MASS MJ, MH, and M$`_{K_s}`$ versus spectral type (SpT) for T dwarfs typed T5 and later using parallax data from Dahn et al. (2002); Tinney, Burgasser, & Kirkpatrick (2003); and F. Vrba (2002, private communication). Excluding the known binaries 2MASS 1225$``$2739AB and 2MASS 1534$``$2952AB (Burgasser et al., 2003c) and Gliese 229B (Nakajima et al. 1995; not detected by 2MASS), we derive the following linear relations over the range T5 to T8:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill M_J& =& (10.00\pm 0.12)+(0.84\pm 0.02)\times \mathrm{SpT}\hfill \\ \hfill M_H& =& (9.60\pm 0.18)+(0.88\pm 0.03)\times \mathrm{SpT}\hfill \\ \hfill M_{K_s}& =& (8.7\pm 0.3)+(0.98\pm 0.05)\times \mathrm{SpT},\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where SpT(T5) = 5, SpT(T8) = 8, etc. Based on these relations, we derived distance estimates for each source in each band assuming spectral type uncertainties of $`\pm `$0.5 subclasses. The mean distances and standard deviations are 9$`\pm `$4, 34$`\pm `$13, and 12$`\pm `$4 pc for 2MASS 0348$``$6022, 2MASS 0516$``$0445, and 2MASS 2228$``$4310, respectively. It is not surprising that the first object, which has the latest classification and brightest apparent magnitudes, is likely to be less than 10 pc from the Sun, unless it is an unresolved multiple system. However, parallax observations are required to verify these rather uncertain estimates.

### 3.4 Proper Motions

Proper motions for the T dwarf discoveries were measured between the 2MASS and follow-up OSIRIS images following the technique of Burgasser et al. (2003a). First, astrometric calibrations of each OSIRIS field, of the form

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \alpha & =& \alpha _o+Ax+By\hfill \\ \hfill \delta & =& \delta _o+Cx+Dy,\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
($`x`$ and $`y`$ are pixel coordinates on the OSIRIS images) were made by linear regression using the 2MASS coordinates of 6–8 background sources within 2$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$5 of each T dwarf. Background sources were verified to show consistent positions between the two epochs (which span 3.1–4.1 yr) to within three times the astrometric fit uncertainties, roughly 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$05–0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$1. Positions for the T dwarfs on the OSIRIS images were then calculated and compared to the original 2MASS coordinates.

Results are listed in Table 3. As expected from their relative proximity, all of these sources have statistically significant proper motions. Their tangential velocities ($`V_t`$) are relatively modest, however, ranging from 17 to 55 km s-1. These values are similar to the median for disk dwarfs (39 km s-1; Reid & Hawley 2000) and comparable to or less than the median for field late-type M and L dwarfs (22 km s-1; Gizis et al. 2000). Hence, the kinematics of these three T dwarfs are consistent with, but not restricted to, membership in the Galactic disk.

## 4 Summary

We have identified three new southern T dwarfs using the 2MASS survey. These objects are important additions to the sample of nearby stars and brown dwarfs; indeed, one object, if it is single, is likely to be closer than 10 pc from the Sun. Spectroscopic observations yield classifications ranging from T5.5 to T7, and measured K I pEWs support the observed trend of decreasing line strength with spectral type for mid- to late-type T dwarfs. All three objects have small to moderate proper motions and tangential velocities, consistent with membership in the Galactic disk. With roughly 70% of the Southern Hemisphere portion of our 2MASS T Dwarf search sample now completed and 13 T dwarfs so far identified (Burgasser et al., 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2002), we expect to uncover another 5–6 mid- to late-type T dwarfs over the remaining portion of this part of the sky to $`J=16`$.

We thank our Telescope Operator Sergio Pizarro and Support Scientist Nicole van der Bliek for their assistance at the telescope, and Kelle Cruz for her presence during the observations. We also thank our anonymous referee for her/his rapid and thorough examination of our submitted manuscript. A. J. B. acknowledges support by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-01137.01 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. AAO and SERC images were obtained from the Digitized Sky Survey image server maintained by the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre, which is operated by the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada. This publication makes use of data from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. 2MASS data were obtained through the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


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# Low-𝑄 scaling, duality, and the EMC effect

## I Introduction

Extensive measurements of inclusive lepton-nucleus scattering have been performed in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) kinematics. In DIS kinematics, where both the four-momentum transfer, $`Q`$, and the energy transfer, $`\nu `$, are sufficiently large, the extracted structure function exhibits scaling, i.e. is independent of $`Q^2`$ except for the well understood logarithmic QCD scaling violations. In this region, the structure function is interpreted as an incoherent sum of quark distribution functions, describing the motion of the quarks within the target.

Such measurements have unambiguously shown that the nuclear structure functions deviate from the proton and neutron structure functions. Such modifications, termed the EMC effect after the first experiment to observe them Aubert et al. (1983), demonstrate that the nuclear quark distribution function is not just the sum of the proton and neutron quark distributions. Within two years of the first observation, hundreds of papers were published on the topic. After 20 years of experimental and theoretical investigation, the effect still remains a mystery. For detailed reviews of the data and models of the EMC effect, see Refs. Arneodo (1994); Geesaman et al. (1995)

Existing measurements of the EMC effect indicate little $`Q^2`$ dependence, and an $`A`$ dependence in the magnitude, but not the overall form, of the structure function modification in nuclei. The nature of the modifications in nuclei depends primarily on Bjorken-$`x`$, $`x=Q^2/2M\nu `$, where in the parton model $`x`$ is interpreted as the momentum fraction of the struck quark, and the nuclear effects are divided into four distinct regions. In the shadowing region, $`x<0.1`$, the structure function is decreased in nuclei relative to the expectation for free nucleons. In the anti-shadowing region, $`0.1<x<0.3`$, the structure function shows a small nuclear enhancement. For $`0.3<x<0.7`$, referred to as the EMC effect region, the nuclear structure function shows significant depletion. Finally, there is a dramatic enhancement as $`x`$ increases further, resulting from the increased Fermi motion of the nucleons in heavier nuclei.

Explanations of the EMC effect are hampered by the lack of a single description that can account for the nuclear dependence of the quark distributions in all of these kinematic regimes. Here, we will limit ourselves to $`x>0.3`$, the region where valence quarks dominate. Even in this limited region, there is not a single explanation that can completely account for the observed nuclear structure function modifications. If the nuclear structure function in this region is expressed as a convolution of proton and neutron structure functions, there are two alternative approaches used to describe the observed medium effect: (1) incorporating nuclear physics effects that modify the energy-momentum behavior of the bound proton with respect to the free proton, or (2) incorporating changes to the internal structure of the bound proton. It has been argued, most recently in Smith and Miller (2002), that the binding of nucleons alone can not explain the EMC effect. In addition, several attempts to explain the EMC effect in terms of explicit mesonic components appear to be ruled out due to limits set by Drell-Yan measurements Alde et al. (1990). Hence, the EMC effect may be best described in terms of modifications to the internal structure of the nucleon when in the nuclear environment.

We note that while the EMC effect has been mapped out over a large range of $`x`$, $`Q^2`$, and $`A`$, information is still rather limited in some regions. There are limited data on light nuclei ($`A<9`$), and almost no data in the DIS regime at extremely large $`x`$, where the quark distributions in nuclei are enhanced due to the effects of binding and Fermi motion. Since binding and Fermi motion impact the EMC ratios for all $`x`$ values, it is important to be able to constrain these effects in a region where other, more exotic, explanations are not expected to contribute. It should be possible to learn more about the EMC effect at large $`x`$ by taking advantage of the extended scaling of structure functions in nuclei Filippone et al. (1992); Arrington et al. (2001). In this paper, we attempt to quantify the deviations from perturbative scaling at large $`x`$, with the goal of improving measurements of the structure functions and the EMC ratios at large $`x`$.

## II Scaling of the nuclear structure function

Inspired by a recent series of electron scattering experiments in Hall C at Jefferson Lab, we revisit the issues of scaling in nuclear structure functions and the EMC effect. The Hall C data are at lower invariant mass $`W`$, $`W^2=M_p^2+2M_p\nu (1x)`$, and therefore higher $`x`$, than data thus far used to investigate the EMC effect. Most notably, these new data are in the resonance region, $`W^2<4`$ GeV2. In the DIS region, $`W^2>4`$ GeV2, the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the structure functions is predicted by perturbative QCD (pQCD), while additional scaling violations, target mass corrections and higher twist effects, occur at lower $`Q^2`$ and $`W^2`$ values. Thus, data in the resonance region would not naively be expected to manifest the same EMC effect as data in the deep inelastic scaling regime. The effect of the nuclear medium on resonance excitations seems non-trivial, and may involve much more than just the modification of quark distributions observed in DIS scattering from nuclei.

However, while resonance production may show different effects from the nuclear environment, there are also indications that there is a deeper connection between inclusive scattering in the resonance region and in the DIS limit. This connection has been a subject of interest for nearly three decades since quark-hadron duality ideas, which successfully described hadron-hadron scattering, were first extended to electroproduction. In the latter, Bloom and Gilman Bloom and Gilman (1971) showed that it was possible to equate the proton resonance region structure function $`F_2(\nu ,Q^2)`$ at low $`Q^2`$ to the DIS structure function $`F_2(x)`$ in the high-$`Q^2`$ scaling regime, where $`F_2`$ is simply the incoherent sum of the quark distribution functions. For electron-proton scattering, the resonance structure functions have been demonstrated to be equivalent on average to the DIS scaling strength for all of the spin averaged structure functions ($`F_1`$, $`F_2`$, $`F_L`$Niculescu et al. (2000a); Liang et al. (2004), and for some spin dependent ones ($`A_1`$Airapetian et al. (2003) (for a review of duality measurements, see Melnitchouk et al. (2005)).

The goal of this paper is to quantify quark-hadron duality in nuclear structure functions and to determine to what extent this can be utilized to access poorly understood kinematic regimes. While the measurements of duality from hydrogen indicate that the resonance structure function are on average equivalent to the DIS structure functions, it has been observed that in nuclei, this averaging is performed by the Fermi motion of the nucleons, and so the resonance region structure functions yield the DIS limit without any additional averaging Filippone et al. (1992); Arrington et al. (2001).

Figure 1 shows the structure functions for hydrogen Niculescu et al. (2000a), deuterium Niculescu et al. (2000b), and iron Arrington et al. (2001), compared to structure functions from MRST Martin et al. (2003) and NMC Arneodo et al. (1995) parameterizations. Each set of symbols represents data in a different $`Q^2`$ range, with the highest $`Q^2`$ curves covering the highest $`\xi `$ values. Note that the data are plotted as a function of the Nachtmann variable, $`\xi =2x/(1+\sqrt{1+4M^2x^2/Q^2})`$, rather than $`x`$. In the limit of large $`Q^2`$, $`\xi x`$, and so $`\xi `$ can also be used to represent the quark momentum in the Bjorken limit. At finite $`Q^2`$, the use of $`\xi `$ reduces scaling violations related to target mass corrections Georgi and Politzer (1976). The difference between $`\xi `$ and $`x`$ is often ignored in high energy scattering or at low $`x`$, but cannot be ignored at large $`x`$ or low $`Q^2`$. The goal is to examine $`\xi `$-scaling to look for any significant scaling violations beyond the known effects of perturbative evolution and target mass corrections. Examining the scaling in terms of $`\xi `$ instead of $`x`$ is only an approximate way of applying target mass corrections, but it is a reasonable approximation to a more exact correction Georgi and Politzer (1976) in the case of the proton, and the appropriate prescription for target mass corrections in nuclei is not as well defined.

The transition from scaling on average in the proton to true scaling for nuclei is clearly visible. There is significant resonance structure visible in hydrogen, but on average the structure function reproduces the scaling curve to better than 2% globally and 5% locally around each resonance for $`Q^2>1`$ GeV2 Niculescu et al. (2000a). For deuterium, Fermi motion and other medium effects broaden the resonances to the point where only the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance has a clear peak, and the data at higher $`W^2`$ values, while still in the resonance region, is indistinguishable from the scaling curve except at the lowest $`Q^2`$ values. For the iron data, taken at somewhat higher $`Q^2`$ values, even the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is no longer prominent, and deviations from pQCD predictions are small, and limited to the tail of the quasielastic peak.

We can study the quality of scaling in the resonance region more directly by examining the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the structure function at fixed $`\xi `$. Figure 2 shows the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the structure function for several values of $`\xi `$. Above $`W^2=4`$ GeV2, the data are in the DIS region and the $`Q^2`$ dependence is consistent with the logarithmic $`Q^2`$ dependence from QCD evolution (dashed lines). Even at lower $`W^2`$, where the data are in the resonance region, scaling violations are small. Above $`Q^2=3`$ GeV2, the data deviate from the logarithmic $`Q^2`$ dependence by $`<10\%`$, even down to $`W^2=2`$ GeV2. Data on heavier nuclei show a similar extended scaling in the resonance region, as seen in Fig. 3 of Ref. Arrington et al. (2001), although the largest scaling violations (in the vicinity of the quasielastic peak) are smaller, due to the increased Fermi smearing.

Analyses of duality for the proton Armstrong et al. (2001) and for nuclei Ricco et al. (1998); Niculescu et al. (2005) show that the moments of the structure function, $`M_n=x^{n2}F_2(x,Q^2)𝑑x`$ is the $`n`$th moment, follow perturbative QCD evolution down to $`Q^22`$ GeV2 for the proton and to even lower values, $`Q^2<1`$ GeV2, for nuclei. The fact that the moments follow the perturbative behavior is consistent with the observation that the structure function in Figs. 1 and 2 are, on average, in agreement with the perturbative structure function.

The data indicate relatively small deviations from pQCD for $`Q^2>3`$ GeV2 at all values of $`\xi `$ measured. These deviations decrease as $`Q^2`$ increases, making the nuclear structure functions at large $`\xi `$ consistent with the perturbative dependence even at values of $`W^2`$ well below the typically DIS limit. The limited kinematics coverage of the existing data make it difficult to precisely map out deviations from perturbative evolution. There is a large gap in $`Q^2`$ between the JLab data shown here and the SLAC measurements at large $`Q^2`$. The situation will be improved by the recently completed measurements from JLab experiments E03-103 and E00-116 Arrington et al. ; Keppel et al. , which will provide more complete $`\xi `$ coverage over a wide range in $`Q^2`$. In the meantime, Fig. 2 indicates that for $`Q^2>3`$–4 GeV2, one can relax the usual DIS requirement that $`W^2>4`$ GeV2, and the structure functions measured in the resonance region will still provide a good approximation to the DIS structure functions.

Even with the uncertainties arising from possible higher twist contributions, data at large $`\xi `$ can significantly improve our knowledge of the high-$`\xi `$ nuclear structure functions. There is very little DIS data for $`\xi >0.8`$, and no existing facility has the combination of energy and luminosity necessary to make precise measurements of in this regime, which requires $`Q^2>15`$(36) GeV2 for $`\xi >0.8`$(0.9). If we can set reasonable limits on scaling violations at fixed $`\xi `$ due to possible higher twist contributions, we can provide useful data in this region where the few existing measurements of the EMC effect have 10–20% uncertainties.

## III Structure function ratios

Because of the difficulty in making precise measurements in the DIS region at large $`\xi `$, existing measurements of the EMC effect in this region are very poor. At large $`\xi `$, the EMC effect should be dominated by binding effects and Fermi motion. Constraining these effects will allow a better separation of these “conventional” nuclear effects, which are important at all $`\xi `$ values, from more exotic effects that have been used to explain the EMC effect at lower $`\xi `$.

We can examine the EMC effect in the resonance region using recent measurements Arrington et al. (2001) of inclusive scattering from deuterium, carbon, iron, and gold. For these data, we take the cross section ratio of iron to deuterium in the resonance region for the highest $`Q^2`$ measured ($`Q^24`$ GeV2), requiring $`W^2>1.2`$ GeV2 to exclude the region very close to the quasielastic peak.

There are small differences between the analyses of the SLAC and JLab data which had to be addressed to make a precise comparison. First, the SLAC and BCDMS ratios were extracted as a function of $`x`$ rather than $`\xi `$. Because the conversion from $`x`$ to $`\xi `$ depends on $`Q^2`$, we can only compare ratios extracted at fixed $`Q^2`$ values. Thus, for E139 we use the “coarse-binned” ratios, evaluated at fixed $`Q^2`$, rather than “fine” $`x`$ binning, which were averaged over the full $`Q^2`$ range of the experiment. Coulomb corrections were applied in the analysis of the JLab data Arrington et al. (1999), but not the SLAC data. The SLAC data shown here include Coulomb corrections, determined by applying an offset to the incoming and outgoing electron energy at the reaction vertex Arrington et al. (1999), due to the Coulomb field of the nucleus. The correction factor is $`<`$0.5% for carbon, and (1.5–2.5)% for gold. The JLab and SLAC ratios are corrected for neutron excess, assuming $`\sigma _n/\sigma _p=(10.8\xi )`$.

Figure 3 shows the cross section ratio of heavy nuclei to deuterium for the previous SLAC E139 Gomez et al. (1994), E87 Bodek et al. (1983) and BCDMS Benvenuti et al. (1987) DIS measurements, and for the JLab E89-008 Arrington et al. (1999, 2001) data in the resonance region. The size and $`\xi `$ dependence of nuclear modifications in the JLab data agrees with the higher $`Q^2`$, $`W^2`$ data for all targets. Table 1 shows the ratios extracted from the JLab data.

The agreement of the resonance region data with the DIS measurement of the EMC effect, which directly measures the modification of quark distributions in nuclei, is quite striking. There is no a priori reason to expect that the nuclear effects in resonance production would be similar to the effects in scattering from quarks. However, it can be viewed as a natural consequence of the quantitative success of quark-hadron duality Niculescu et al. (2000a); Melnitchouk et al. (2005). As seen in Fig. 1, the structure functions for nuclei show little deviation from pQCD, except in the region of the quasielastic peak (and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance at low $`Q^2`$). As $`Q^2`$ increases, the deviations from pQCD decrease as quasielastic scattering contributes a smaller fraction of the cross section. In retrospect, given the lack of significant higher twist contributions, combined with the fact that any $`A`$-independent scaling violations will cancel in the ratio, it is perhaps not surprising that the resonance EMC ratios are in agreement with the DIS measurements.

While it is difficult to precisely quantify the higher twist contributions with the present data, we can estimate their effect by looking at low $`W^2`$ and $`Q^2`$, where the higher twist contributions are much larger. At $`Q^22`$ GeV2 and $`W^2M_\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, the scaling violations (beyond target mass corrections) for deuterium are as large as 50%, as seen in Fig. 1. However, if one takes the iron and deuterium data from Ref. Arrington et al. (2001), averages the structure function over the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ region and then forms the EMC ratio, the result differs from the ratio in the DIS region by less than 10%. The decrease in the effect of higher twist contributions is a combination of the fact that the contribution are reduced when averaged over an adequate region in $`W^2`$ Niculescu et al. (2000a); Melnitchouk et al. (2005), and cancellation between the higher twist contributions in deuterium and iron. The same procedure yields 2–3% deviations from the EMC ratio if one looks in the region of the $`S_{11}`$ or $`P_{15}`$ resonances, where the scaling violations in the individual structure functions are smaller to begin with.

For the ratios in Fig. 3, we expect even smaller higher twist effects because the data is nearly a factor of two higher in $`Q^2`$ and is above the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ except for the very highest $`\xi `$ points. At higher $`Q^2`$, the higher twist contributions in the individual structure functions become smaller, while averaging over the resonance region becomes less important as the resonances become less prominent. Thus, we expect that higher twist contributions for these data will be smaller than the the 2–3% effect ($`<`$10% near the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) observed on the EMC ratio at $`Q^22`$ GeV2. If so, the higher twist corrections will be small or negligible compared to the large statistical uncertainty in previous measurements, and this data can be used to improve our knowledge of the EMC effect at large $`\xi `$.

## IV The EMC effect at large $`x`$ ($`\xi `$)

A careful examination of the crossover point at large $`\xi `$, where the ratio $`(\sigma _A/\sigma _D)_{is}`$ becomes larger than unity, reveals that this appears to occurs at larger $`\xi `$ for heavy nuclei than for light nuclei. This behavior is consistent with the SLAC data, but the large-$`\xi `$ coverage of the previous measurements was insufficient to make a clear statement about the crossover point. This observation contradicts the argument that the dramatic enhancement at large $`\xi `$ is simply due to increased Fermi motion in heavy nuclei relative to deuterium. In this simple picture, the slight increase in Fermi motion as one goes to heavier nuclei would lead to an earlier onset of this enhancement. While the Coulomb corrections and neutron excess corrections do affect the $`A`$ dependence, the uncertainties on these corrections are not large enough to explain the observed differences between carbon and heavier nuclei.

Within the convolution formula of proton and neutron structure functions, this crossover comes about due to counteracting contributions at large $`\xi `$ of the average nucleon binding energy and average kinetic energy Kulagin et al. (1994), and is hardly expected to change for $`A>`$ 10. More detailed calculations have been done to determine the effect of binding and Fermi motion, but except for calculations of 3,4He, most of these calculations were performed for a Fermi gas model or for infinite nuclear matter, with the density varied to approximate the finite nuclei. These calculations do not show any significant change in the $`\xi `$ dependence for heavy ($`A>10`$) nuclei. Because of the lack of precise data at large $`x`$, especially with respect to the $`A`$-dependence, realistic models of the nuclear structure were generally not considered to be necessary.

The effect we observe was predicted in a calculation by Gross and Liuti Gross and Liuti (1992) using a manifestly covariant form of the convolution formula. The most significant difference was an additional binding correction due to the explicit dependence of the bound nucleon structure function on the momentum of the bound nucleon. Their calculation predicts a shift in the high-$`\xi `$ crossover point between carbon and iron, somewhat larger than is observed in the data. Another calculation including $`A`$-dependent nuclear spectral functions Marco et al. (1996) also gave an $`A`$-dependent crossover point at large $`\xi `$. However, this calculation had the crossover point moving to lower $`\xi `$ values for heavier nuclei.

Other models of the EMC effect have looked at physics beyond Fermi motion and binding. As with the binding models, they generally did not attempt to reproduce the detailed $`A`$-dependence, and instead evaluated the EMC effect for nuclear matter as a function of density. Most of these models were designed to describe the excess strength at lower $`\xi `$, and in general they do not significantly impact the structure function at large $`\xi `$. Thus, the addition of improved EMC ratio measurements at large $`\xi `$ and the observation of an $`A`$ dependence to the high-$`\xi `$ behavior is most important in constraining the portion of the EMC effect that is related to binding. One can see from the calculations shown in Fig. 3 that the effects of binding and Fermi motion are important over the entire $`\xi `$ region, and not just at the largest $`\xi `$ values. These conventional nuclear effects must be well constrained to establish a reliable baseline before one can isolate any additional nuclear modification at lower $`x`$ values that might require a more exotic explanation. Improved data at large $`\xi `$ and for a variety of nuclei should allow for tests of the prescriptions chosen for binding and Fermi motion, and thus provide a more reliable baseline for models of the EMC effect.

The modified $`x`$ dependence in carbon also appears to contradict the conclusions of a recent effective field theory calculation of the EMC effect that predicts factorization of the $`A`$ and $`x`$ dependence, and thus the universality of the $`x`$ dependence Chen and Detmold (2005). The change in the high-$`x`$ crossover in the present data is small, but a recent measurement of the EMC effect for 3He and 4He Arrington et al.  will provide a more sensitive test of the universality of the $`x`$ dependence.

## V Conclusions

This analysis provides not only an increase in the $`\xi `$ range of the measurements of nuclear structure functions, but also the first observation of an $`A`$ dependence of the high-$`\xi `$ behavior of the EMC effect. Measurements utilizing higher energy beams will extend measurements of the EMC effect to even larger $`\xi `$ values. Based on the results shown here, the uncertainties on extracting the EMC effect at large $`\xi `$ due to higher twist contributions will be small, if not negligible, compared to the uncertainties of existing data. A recent measurement at Jefferson Lab Arrington et al.  will extend measurements of the EMC effect to larger $`\xi `$ values and to light nuclei, where few-body calculations can be performed with significantly smaller uncertainties coming from uncertainties in the nuclear structure. The calculations of Ref. Gross and Liuti (1992) predict that the high-$`\xi `$ crossover point in carbon occurs at lower $`\xi `$ than in heavier nuclei, as was observed in the data. However, they predict a crossover at much larger $`\xi `$ for 4He. Similarly, Ref. Burov et al. (1999) also predicts a different high-$`\xi `$ behavior in 4He than in heavy nuclei, and in addition predicts a significant difference between 3He and 4He.

Similar investigations of duality and scaling in polarized and separated structure functions are underway Christy et al. ; Jones et al. ; Chen et al. . If duality in these processes is quantitatively as successful as in this case, this will have a similar impact on our ability to measure high-$`\xi `$ polarized structure functions.

In conclusion, we present the first extraction of the nuclear dependence of the inclusive structure function in the resonance region. The data are in agreement with previous measurements of the nuclear dependence of the quark distributions in DIS scattering measurements of the EMC effect. This surprising result can be understood in terms of quark-hadron duality, where the structure function in the resonance regime is shown to have the same perturbative QCD behavior as in the DIS regime. These data expand the $`\xi `$ and $`Q^2`$ range of such measurements, and provide the first new measurement of the EMC effect for a decade. They also indicate the possibility for dramatic improvements in both the $`\xi `$ and $`A`$ range in future measurements, using the higher beam energies currently available at Jefferson Lab.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by DOE Grants W-31-109-ENG-38 and DE-FG02-95ER40901, and NSF Grant 0099540. We thank Simonetta Liuti for providing updated calculations, and Dave Gaskell for useful discussions.