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# Double polarization asymmetry as a possible filter for Θ⁺’s parity

## Abstract

We present an analysis of the Beam-Target double polarization asymmetry for the photoproduction of $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ in $`\gamma n\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^{}`$. We show that this quantity can serve as a filter for the determination of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s spin-parity assignment near threshold. It is highly selective between $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$ configurations due to dynamical reasons.

PACS numbers: 13.40.-f, 13.88.+e, 13.75.Jz

The newly-discovered exotic $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, with strangeness $`S=+1`$, has stimulated a great number of theoretical discussions during the past few months. Although more experimental data are strongly recommended to confirm its properties, the significance of this discovery is that, for the first time, the existence of unconventional baryons is more than a purely theoretical prediction. So far, several experimental groups have seen this narrow state independently spring-8 ; diana ; clas ; saphir ; clas-2 , while another state ($`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$) was also reported by NA49 Collaboration recently na49 .

Concerning the nature of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, its rather-low mass (1.535 GeV) and narrow width ($`<25`$ MeV) makes it an attractive candidate for the SU(3) Skyrme model predicted $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}`$ multiplets skyrme ; dpp . On the other hand, the existence of such an $`S=+1`$ baryon does not rule out the conventional quark model, where baryons can be classified perfectly into $`\mathrm{𝟖}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$ and a singlet $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$. Therefore, if an extra quark pair is present, e.g. a $`u\overline{s}`$ within a neutron ($`udd`$) or a $`d\overline{s}`$ within a proton ($`uud`$), a $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ of pentaquark $`uudd\overline{s}`$ can be constructed. However, such a treatment implies the extension of the SU(3) flavor space. For instance, multiplets of anti-decuplet $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}`$, 27-plet 27, and 35-plet 35, are possible, and will lead to different predictions in comparison with the Skyrme model.

The spin and parity of the exotic $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ baryon turns out to be an essential issue for understanding the underlying dynamics. A series of theoretical studies exploring the underlying dynamics have been carried out, for instance, in the Skyrme model bfk ; prasza-1 ; praszalowicz ; cohen ; ikor ; cohen-2 ; wu-ma , quark models gao-ma ; JW ; k-l ; s-r ; caps ; carlson ; cheung ; glozman ; jm ; hzyz ; okl ; dp ; bijker ; l-h-d-c-z , and other phenomenologies kk ; gk , which rely crucially on the phenomenological assumptions for the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s quantum numbers. QCD sum rule studies zhu ; mnnrl ; sdo ; h-d-c-z , and lattice QCD calculations sasaki ; cfkk  are also reported. This situation suggests explicit experimental confirmation of the quantum numbers of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ is not only important for establishing its status on a fundamental basis kishimoto ; juengst , but also important for any progress in understanding its nature, and the existence of its other partners close1 ; d-c .

A number of theoretical studies of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ in meson photoproduction and meson-nucleon scattering were made recently concentrating on cross section predictions pr ; hyodo ; nam ; liu-ko ; oh ; yu . However, due to the lack of knowledge about the underlying reaction mechanism, such studies of the reaction cross sections are strongly model-dependent. For instance, the total width of $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ still has large uncertainties and could be much narrower asw ; aasw ; nussinov ; gothe ; hk ; cckn , and the role played by $`K^{}`$ exchange, as well as other s\- and u-channel processes are unknown. Also, in a phenomenological approach the energy dependence of the couplings is generally introduced into the model via empirical form factors, which will bring further uncertainties. Taking this into account, there are advantages with polarization observables (e.g. ambiguities arising from the unknown form factors can be partially avoided). In association with the cross section studies, supplementary information about the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ can be obtained zhao-theta ; nakayama ; okl-2 . We also note that an interesting method to determine the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s parity was recently proposed in Ref. thh , and further detailed in Ref. hanhart .

In this letter, we will show that one of the beam-target (BT) double-polarization-asymmetry observables will be more selective to the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s parity. It is very likely that the BT asymmetry would serve as a parity filter for the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ near its production threshold. We will concentrate on the spin-parities of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ of $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$, while some discussions will be devoted to the possible $`3/2`$ partner.

For a positive parity $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ ($`1/2^+`$), a pseudovector effective Lagrangian is introduced for the $`\mathrm{\Theta }NK`$ coupling zhao-theta . In $`\gamma nK^{}\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, four transition amplitudes labelled by the Mandelstam variables will contribute in the Born approximation limit as shown by diagrams in Fig. 1: the contact term, t-channel kaon exchange, s-channel nucleon exchange and u-channel $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ exchange. The transition can be expressed as:

$$_{fi}=M^c+M^t+M^s+M^u,$$
(1)
where the four amplitudes are given by

$`M^c`$ $`=`$ $`ie_0g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5A^\mu NK,`$
$`M^t`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ie_0g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}}{tM_K^2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5(qk)^\mu (2qk)_\nu A^\nu NK,`$
$`M^s`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5^\mu K{\displaystyle \frac{[\gamma (k+P_i)+M_n]}{sM_n^2}}\left[e_n\gamma _\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{i\kappa _n}{2M_n}}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }k^\beta \right]A^\alpha N,`$
$`M^u`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\left[e_\theta \gamma _\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{i\kappa _\theta }{2M_\mathrm{\Theta }}}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }k^\beta \right]A^\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{[\gamma (P_fk)+M_\mathrm{\Theta }]}{uM_\mathrm{\Theta }^2}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5^\mu KN,`$ (2)
where $`e_0`$ is the positive unit charge. The symbols, $`N`$ and $`A`$ denote the initial neutron and photon fields, while $`\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}`$ and $`K`$ denote the final state $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ and kaon. In the s-channel the vector coupling vanishes since $`e_n=0`$. We define the coupling constant $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}g_AM_n/f_\theta `$ with the axial vector coupling $`g_A=5/3`$, while the decay constant is given by:

$$f_\theta =g_A\left(1\frac{p_0}{E_n+M_n}\right)\left[\frac{|𝐩^{}|^3(E_n+M_n)}{4\pi M_\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^+n}}\right]^{1/2},$$
(3)
where $`𝐩^{}`$ and $`p_0`$ are momentum and energy of the kaon in the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ rest frame, and $`E_n`$ is the energy of the neutron. We adopt $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}=2.96`$ corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^+n}=10`$ MeV in the calculations. The $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s magnetic moment $`\mu _\theta =0.13(e_0/2M_\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is estimated in Ref. zhao-theta  based on the the diquark model of Jaffe and Wilczek JW , which is consistent with the detailed model studies of Refs. h-d-c-z ; l-h-d-c-z  and an estimate in Ref. nam .

The $`K^{}`$ exchange is also considered in this work. The effective Lagrangian for $`K^{}K\gamma `$ is given by

$$_{K^{}K\gamma }=\frac{ie_0g_{K^{}K\gamma }}{M_K}ϵ_{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }^\alpha A^\beta ^\gamma V^\delta K+\text{H.c.},$$
(4)
where $`V^\delta `$ denotes the $`K^{}`$ field; $`g_{K^{}K\gamma }=0.744`$ is determined by the $`K^\pm `$ decay width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{K^\pm K^\pm \gamma }=50`$ keV pdg2000 .

The $`K^{}N\mathrm{\Theta }`$ interaction is given by

$$_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}=g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}(\gamma _\mu +\frac{\kappa _\theta ^{}}{2M_\mathrm{\Theta }}\sigma _{\mu \nu }^\nu )V^\mu N+\text{H.c.},$$
(5)
where $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}`$ and $`\kappa _\theta ^{}`$ denote the vector and tensor couplings, respectively. So far, there is no experimental information about these two couplings. A reasonable assumption based on an analogue to vector meson exchange in pseudoscalar meson production is that $`|g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}|=|g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}|`$. For the tensor coupling, we assume $`|\kappa _\theta ^{}|=|\kappa _\rho |=3.71`$, the same as $`\rho NN`$ tensor coupling but with an arbitary phase. Therefore, four sets of different phases are possible.

For $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ of $`1/2^{}`$, the effective Lagrangian for the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+nK`$ system conserves parity and is gauge invariant. This suggests that the electromagnetic interaction will not contribute to the contact term, which can be also seen in the leading term of the nonrelativistic expansion, where the derivative operator is absent. The Born approximation therefore includes three transitions (Fig. 2b, c and d): The invariant amplitude can be written as

$$_{fi}=M^t+M^s+M^u,$$
(6)
where the three transitions are given by

$`M^t`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e_0g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}}{tM_K^2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}(2qk)_\mu A^\mu N,`$
$`M^s`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}K{\displaystyle \frac{[\gamma (k+P_i)+M_n]}{sM_n^2}}\left[e_n\gamma _\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{i\kappa _n}{2M_n}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }k^\nu \right]A^\mu N,`$
$`M^u`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\left[e_\theta \gamma _\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{i\kappa _\theta }{2M_\mathrm{\Theta }}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }k^\nu \right]A^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{[\gamma (P_fk)+M_\mathrm{\Theta }]}{uM_\mathrm{\Theta }^2}}NK,`$ (7)
where the coupling constant $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}=[4\pi M_\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^+n}/|𝐩^{}|(E_n+M_n)]^{1/2}`$ has a value of 0.61 corresponding to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^+n}=10`$ MeV considered in this work.

If $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ has spin-parity $`1/2^{}`$, one may simply estimate its magnetic moment as the sum of $`(u\overline{s})`$ and $`(udd)`$ clusters, since the relative orbital angular momentum is zero. Assuming these two clusters are both color singlet, the total magnetic moment of this system can be written as

$$\mu _\theta =\left(\frac{2e_0}{6m_u}+\frac{e_0}{6m_s}\right)\frac{e_0}{3m_u}=\frac{e_0}{6m_s},$$
(8)
which leads to a small anomalous magnetic moment (since $`3m_sM_\mathrm{\Theta }`$). However, since such a simple picture may not be sufficient, we also include $`\kappa _\theta =\pm \kappa _p=\pm 1.79`$ to make a sensitivity test.

We also include $`K^{}`$ exchange in the $`1/2^{}`$ production, in which the $`K^{}N\mathrm{\Theta }`$ interaction is given by

$$_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}=g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}\gamma _5(\gamma _\mu +\frac{\kappa _\theta ^{}}{2M_\mathrm{\Theta }}\sigma _{\mu \nu }^\nu )V^\mu N+\text{H.c.}.$$
(9)
As in the $`1/2^+`$ case, we assume $`|g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK^{}}|=|g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}|=0.61`$. In the calculation we choose, somewhat arbitrarily, the anomalous magnetic moment $`|\kappa _\theta ^{}|=0.37`$, which is one order of magnitude smaller than that in the production of $`1/2^+`$. Of course, we could have chosen it to be in the same ratio as that of $`g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}`$ in the two cases (about a factor of 5). However, the precise value of $`|\kappa _\theta ^{}|`$ does not alter the overall conclusions of this paper regarding the qualititative features of the BT asymmetry near threshold.

In the helicity frame, the transition amplitude can be written as:

$$T_{\lambda _\theta ,\lambda _\gamma \lambda _N}\mathrm{\Theta }^+,\lambda _\theta ,𝐏_\theta ;K^{},\lambda _0,𝐪|\widehat{T}|n,\lambda _N,𝐏_i;\gamma ,\lambda _\gamma ,𝐤,$$
(10)
where $`\lambda _\gamma =\pm 1`$, $`\lambda _N\pm 1/2`$, $`\lambda _0=0`$, and $`\lambda _\theta `$ are helicities of photon, neutron, $`K^{}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, respectively. Following the convention of Ref. walker , we define the four independent helicity as:

$`H_1`$ $`=`$ $`T_{\frac{1}{2},1\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`H_2`$ $`=`$ $`T_{\frac{1}{2},1\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`H_3`$ $`=`$ $`T_{\frac{1}{2},1\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`H_4`$ $`=`$ $`T_{\frac{1}{2},1\frac{1}{2}}.`$ (11)
The BT polarization asymmetry is defined as the ratio between the polarized cross section and unpolarized one in terms of the total c.m. scattering angle $`\theta _{c.m.}`$ (the angle between $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐪`$). Analytically, it can be related to the density matrix elements for $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^+n`$. We are interested in the observable that has the photon circularly polarized along the photon moment direction $`\widehat{z}`$ and the neutron transversely polarized along the $`\widehat{y}`$-axis perpendicular to the reaction plane. The $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ decay density matrix element is defined as

$$\rho _{\lambda _\theta \lambda _\theta ^{}}^{BT}=\frac{1}{2N}\underset{\lambda _\gamma ,\lambda _N}{}\lambda _\gamma T_{\lambda _\theta ,\lambda _\gamma \lambda _N}T_{\lambda _\theta ^{},\lambda _\gamma \lambda _N}^{},$$
(12)
where, $`N=\frac{1}{2}_{\lambda _\theta ,\lambda _\gamma ,\lambda _N}|T_{\lambda _\theta ,\lambda _\gamma \lambda _N}|^2`$ is the normalization factor. Because of parity conservation and the requirement of Hermiticity, only two elements are independent:

$`\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT},`$
$`\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT},\text{with}\text{Re}\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT}=\text{Re}\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT}=0.`$ (13)
This leads to an expression for the BT asymmetry,

$$𝒟_{xz}=\frac{\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^{BT}}{\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^0}=\frac{1}{N}\text{Re}\{H_1H_2^{}+H_3H_4^{}\},$$
(14)
where $`\rho _{\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}}^0`$ is the unpolarized density matrix element, and the subscript $`xz`$ denotes the polarization direction of the the initial neutron target along $`x`$-axis in the production plane and the incident photon along the $`z`$-axis.

The expression of BT asymmetry for $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$ is the same. But the underlying dynamics will be determined by the parities, and leads to different behaviors of $`𝒟_{xz}`$. For the production of $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$ respectively, we will show that analytical features due to the dynamics arise from the BT asymmetry, and turn out to be quite different for the two parity cases.

For $`1/2^+`$, the transition amplitudes can be expressed in terms of the CGLN amplitudes CGLN :

$$\mathrm{\Theta }^+,\lambda _\theta ,𝐏_\theta ;K^{},\lambda _0,𝐪|\widehat{T}|n,\lambda _N,𝐏_i;\gamma ,\lambda _\gamma ,𝐤=\lambda _\theta |𝐉\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma |\lambda _N,$$
(15)
where the operator $`𝐉\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma `$ has a form:

$$𝐉\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma =if_1𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +f_2\frac{1}{|𝐪||𝐤|}𝝈𝐪𝝈(𝐤\times \mathit{ϵ}_\gamma )+if_3\frac{1}{|𝐪||𝐤|}𝝈\mathrm{𝐤𝐪}\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +if_4\frac{1}{|𝐪|^2}𝝈\mathrm{𝐪𝐪}\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma .$$
(16)
The coefficients $`f_{1,2,3,4}`$ are functions of energies, momenta, and scattering angle $`\theta _{c.m.}`$, and contain information on dynamics. They provide an alternative expression for the BT asymmetry:

$$𝒟_{xz}=\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}\text{Re}\{f_1f_3^{}f_2f_4^{}+\mathrm{cos}\theta _{c.m.}(f_1f_4^{}f_2f_3^{})\}.$$
(17)
Note that the above expression is the same as Eq. (B8) of Ref. fasano92 .

Near threshold, useful analytical information can be obtained. It is well-established that the contact and t-channel terms are the leading contributions. In particular, the Kroll-Ruderman term ($`f_1`$), is dominant in the transition. Compared to $`f_3`$, amplitude $`f_4`$ is relatively suppressed by a further power on the (small) final-state three momentum $`|𝐪|`$. Amplitude $`f_2`$ is also relatively suppressed in comparison with $`f_3`$ as it comes from the magnetic transition. Therefore, $`f_1f_4^{}`$ and $`f_2f_3^{}`$ will both be relatively suppressed in comparison with $`f_1f_3^{}`$ and further suppressed by $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{c.m.}`$ in the middle angles. Thus, the behaviour of $`𝒟_{xz}`$ near threshold can be approximated by

$$𝒟_{xz}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}\text{Re}\{f_1f_3^{}\}.$$
(18)
Since the CGLN amplitudes only depend weakly on the scattering angle $`\theta _{c.m.}`$ (via the Mandelstam variables), this approximation implies a $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ behavior of $`𝒟_{xz}`$, and the sign of $`𝒟_{xz}`$ is determined by the product.

In Fig. 2, as shown by the curves from full calculations at $`W=2.1`$ GeV, a clear $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ behaviour appears in the BT asymmetry. Although the sign change of the $`K^{}`$ exchange results in a quite significant change to the asymmetry values, the curves nevertheless confirm the dominance of the $`f_1f_3^{}`$ term in Eq. (17). This result is by no means trivial. It suggests that although the $`K^{}`$ exchange might produce significantly different predictions for the cross sections zhao-theta , the BT asymmetry will tend to behave predominantly as $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ with its sign determined by $`f_1f_3^{}`$. Such a feature can be regarded as a signature of $`1/2^+`$ spin-parity for the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$.

It is natural to expect that such a behavior should not hold at higher energies, where other mechanisms may contribute, and $`f_1`$ and $`f_3`$ will no longer be the leading terms. As shown by the asymmetries for different $`K^{}`$ exchange phases at $`W=2.5`$ GeV, structures deviating from $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ arise. In particular, comparing the dashed curve in Fig. 2 (b) and the dotted one in Fig. 2(d) with the solid curve for the exclusive Born terms, the structures reflect the strong interference from the $`K^{}`$ exchange via the $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{c.m.}(f_1f_4^{}f_2f_3^{})`$ term in Eq. (17).

Similar analysis can be applied to the production of $`1/2^{}`$. In general, the transition amplitude can be arranged in a way similar to the CGLN amplitude:

$$𝐉\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma =iC_1\frac{1}{|𝐤|}𝝈(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times 𝐤)+C_2\frac{1}{|𝐪|}𝝈𝐪𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +iC_3\frac{1}{|𝐪||𝐤|^2}𝝈\mathrm{𝐤𝐪}(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times 𝐤)+iC_4\frac{1}{|𝐪|^2|𝐤|}𝝈\mathrm{𝐪𝐪}(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times 𝐤),$$
(19)
where coefficients $`C_{1,2,3,4}`$ are functions of energies, momenta and scattering angle, and contain dynamical information on the transitions. Restricted to the kinematics near threshold, a term proportional to $`𝐪\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma 𝝈(𝐤\times 𝐪)`$ in the u-channel is neglected since it comes from a higher order contribution. An advantage of this formulation is that one can express the above in parallel to the CGLN amplitudes. Since $`(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times \widehat{𝐤})=i\lambda _\gamma \mathit{ϵ}_\gamma `$, one can replace vector $`(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times \widehat{𝐤})`$ with $`i\lambda _\gamma \mathit{ϵ}_\gamma `$, and rewite the operator as

$$𝐉\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma =i\lambda _\gamma \left[iC_1𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +C_2\frac{1}{|𝐪||𝐤|}𝝈𝐪𝝈(𝐤\times \mathit{ϵ}_\gamma )+iC_3\frac{1}{|𝐪||𝐤|}𝝈\mathrm{𝐤𝐪}\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +iC_4\frac{1}{|𝐪|^2}𝝈\mathrm{𝐪𝐪}\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \right],$$
(20)
which has exactly the same form as Eq. 16 apart from an overall phase factor from the photon polarization $`i\lambda _\gamma `$. It also suggests that the BT asymmetry for $`1/2^{}`$ in terms of those coefficients has the same form as Eq. 17:

$$𝒟_{xz}=\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}\text{Re}\{C_1C_3^{}C_2C_4^{}+\mathrm{cos}\theta _{c.m.}(C_1C_4^{}C_2C_3^{})\},$$
(21)
which is indeed the case. Quite remarkably, the behaviour of $`𝒟_{xz}`$ due to these two different parities now becomes more transparent since the role played by the dynamics has been isolated out.

Note that since $`𝒟_{xz}`$ is roughly proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$, it will vanish at $`\theta _{c.m.}=0^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$, and any sign change will reflect the competition among the $`C`$ coefficients due to the dynamics.

The most important difference between the $`1/2^{}`$ and $`1/2^+`$ cases is that the role of $`C_1`$ may not be as significant as $`f_1`$ in the production of $`1/2^+`$. In the Born approximation limit, the term of $`C_1`$, though dominant, comes from the s\- and u-channel, which differs from the Kroll-Ruderman contribution from the contact term in $`1/2^+`$ production. As a result, a relative suppression from the baryon propagator is expected when the energy increases. One thus may conjecture that other mechanisms, such as $`K^{}`$ exchange, may easily compete with the Born contribution and produce sign changes to the asymmetries above threshold.

However, as shown by the solid curve at $`W=2.1`$ GeV in Fig. 3, the BT asymmetry in the Born limit exhibits a $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ behavior, which suggests the dominance of either $`C_1C_3^{}`$ or $`C_2C_4^{}`$ near threshold, and the $`\text{Re}\{\mathrm{cos}\theta _{c.m.}(C_1C_4^{}C_2C_3^{})\}`$ term should not be important. The inclusion of the $`K^{}`$ exchange certainly does not change this situation as shown by the dashed and dotted curves at $`W=2.1`$ GeV. In particular, an absolute sign difference, unlikely to be accidental, appears between these two parities, and needs to be understood.

First, let us try to understand the behavior of $`𝒟_{xz}`$ in $`1/2^+`$ production. As mentioned previously, the BT asymmetry for $`1/2^+`$ is controlled by $`f_1f_3^{}`$ in the Born terms. A detailed analysis gives the leading term of this combination:

$$f_1f_3^{}e_0^2g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}^2\frac{2}{uM_\mathrm{\Theta }^2}_c(k,q)_u(k,q),$$
(22)
where $`f_1`$ is dominated by the Kroll-Ruderman term and $`f_3`$ by the electric coupling in the u-channel. It is worth noting that the s-channel will not contribute to $`f_3`$, and the magnetic coupling in the u-channel is relatively suppressed. These features fix the sign of $`𝒟_{xz}`$, and underline the dominance of $`f_1f_3^{}`$ a dynamical consequence. $`_c(k,q)`$ and $`_u(k,q)`$ are form factors for the contact and u-channel, and are treated the same in this approach. This assumption may bring in uncertainties at high energies, but should be a reasonable one near threshold.

For the production of $`1/2^{}`$, we found that the $`C_1C_3^{}`$ term plays a dominant role in the asymmetry. A detailed analysis shows that the dominant contribution to $`C_1`$ is from the s-channel, while the contribution from the u-channel is strongly suppressed by the limited kinematics. A very important property arising from the $`C_3`$ term is that it will be dominated by the t-channel kaon exchange via the decomposition $`𝐪\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma =𝝈𝐪𝝈\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma +i𝝈(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times \widehat{𝐤})𝐪\widehat{𝐤}i𝝈\widehat{𝐤}𝐪(\mathit{ϵ}_\gamma \times \widehat{𝐤})`$. Therefore, we have

$$C_1C_3^{}e_0^2g_{\mathrm{\Theta }NK}^2\frac{\kappa _n}{2M_n}\frac{2|𝐤||𝐪|}{(WM_n)(tM_K^2)}_t(k,q)_s(k,q),$$
(23)
which will be negative since $`\kappa _n=1.91`$. In comparison with Eq. 22, it gives a dynamical reason for the sign difference between the two parities. Also, note that $`_t(k,q)`$ and $`_s(k,q)`$ are form factors for the t\- and s-channels, which is a further indication of the very different characteristic dynamics of these two parity cases probed by the double polarization asymmetry.

The dominance of $`C_1C_3^{}`$ near threshold implies that the BT asymmetry $`𝒟_{xz}`$ is not sensitive to the magnetic moment of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, since the u-channel contribution from the anomalous magnetic moment of $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$ to $`C_3`$ is much smaller than the t-channel. We indeed see this by considering $`\kappa _\theta =\pm 1.91`$, which does not change the sign or basic features of $`𝒟_{xz}`$.

The dominance of $`C_1C_3^{}`$ near threshold also holds even when $`K^{}`$ exchange included. As shown by the dashed and dotted curves in Fig. 3 at $`W=2.1`$ GeV, $`K^{}`$ exchange introduces significant interference into the asymmetries, which does not, however, change the dominant $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _{c.m.}`$ behaviour. The explicit different signs of the BT asymmetry in the two cases, clearly distinguishes $`1/2^{}`$ from $`1/2^+`$ parities near threshold.

Such a feature is undoubtedly remarkable, and experimentally sensible. Recall that a strong $`K^{}`$ coupling could lead to a significant enhancement of the cross sections hyodo ; nam ; liu-ko ; oh ; zhao-theta  for the production of $`1/2^{}`$. As a result, a single measurement of the cross section may not be sufficient for the determination of the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$’s parity. It turns out that the BT polarization asymmetry $`𝒟_{xz}`$ is able to picked out the most distinct dynamical differences between $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$, and distinguish these two parities in a measurement near threshold.

It is worth noting that a similar behaviour of the Born terms also exists in the polarized beam asymmetry between these two parities zhao-theta . However, the differences picked out by this single polarization asymmetry turn out not to be as marked as in the double polarization. Near threshold, although the Born terms will lead to differently signed asymmetries for $`1/2^+`$ and $`1/2^{}`$ zhao-theta , they will destructively interfere with other mechanisms, such as the $`K^{}`$ exchange, and lose their characteristic feature.

In summary, we have analyzed the double polarization asymmetry, $`𝒟_{xz}`$, in $`\gamma n\mathrm{\Theta }^+K^{}`$, and showed it to be a useful filter for determining the parity of $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$, provided its spin-parity is either $`1/2^+`$ or $`1/2^{}`$. Due to dynamical reasons, asymmetry $`𝒟_{xz}`$ near threshold would exhibit a similar behaviour but opposite sign. The advantage of studying polarization observables is that uncertainties arising from the unknown form factors can be partially avoided in a phenomenology. Therefore, although better knowledge of the form factors will improve the quantitative predictions, it should not change the threshold behaviour of $`𝒟_{xz}`$ dramatically. However, special caution should be given to the roles played by a possible spin-$`3/2`$ partner in the u-channel, as well as s-channel nucleon resonances. In particular, as studied by Dudek and Close d-c , the spin-3/2 partner may have a mass close to the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^+`$. Thus, a significant contribution from the spin-3/2 pentaquark state may be possible. Its impact on the BT asymmetry needs to be investigated. In brief, due to the lack of knowledge in this area, any results for the BT asymmetry would be extremely important for progress in gaining insights into the nature of pentaquark states and dynamics for their productions. Experimental facilities at Spring-8, JLab, ELSA, and ESRF should have access to the BT asymmetry observable.

The authors thank Frank E. Close for many useful discussions. This work is supported by grants from the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant No. GR/R78633/01).


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# A Disk Shadow Around the Young Star ASR 41 in NGC 1333

## 1 Introduction

Young low-mass stars form by accretion of material through a disk, a process accompanied by outflow activity. When most of the nascent envelope has been dispersed in the later phases of star formation, a bipolar reflection nebula can be seen in the near infrared if the object is observed in the plane of the disk. Under this condition the star is obscured from direct view and therefore the total near-infrared flux is dominated by the scattered light from material above and below the disk plane. Many examples of such edge-on disks have been found recently. Most of the disks in those objects have radii inferred from the optical or near-infrared morphology that are of the order of magnitude of our solar system (i. e., $``$ 100 AU). The prototypical HH 30 IRS (Burrows et al., 1996) has a radius of $``$ 250 AU, IRAS 04302+2247 (Lucas & Roche, 1998) has a measured radius of $``$ 200 AU in the near infrared, while the secondary component in the HK Tauri system (Stapelfeldt et al., 1998) has $``$ 105 AU radius. The objects in the Taurus star forming region (Padgett et al., 1999) range in radius from 300 to 500 AU and the object found by Monin & Bouvier (2000) has about 60 AU radius. In the Ophiuchus star forming region Brandner et al. (2000) found $``$150AU disk radii, while Grosso et al. (2003) report a 300 AU radius and LkH$`\alpha `$263C (Jayawardhana et al., 2002) has $``$ 150 AU radius.

Increasingly sophisticated models for these objects have been developed that treat multiple scattering, absorption and radiative transfer by dust grains. These models reproduce many of the observed features (Whitney & Hartmann, 1992, 1993; Wood et al., 1998, 2001; Whitney et al., 2003; Wolf, Padgett, & Stapelfeldt, 2003), constrain the density distribution around the central star, and give information about the inclination of the disk.

In the course of a near-infrared study of the star forming region NGC 1333 in the Per OB2 complex, we found the young star ASR 41 (Aspin, Sandell, & Russel, 1994) to show the morphology of an edge-on disk object with two exceptionally large scattering lobes. The edge-on disk structure of ASR 41 has been independently discovered by Elston et al. (2003) as part of their survey of giant molecular clouds. We assume NGC 1333 to be at the same distance of 316 pc that Herbig (1998) determined for the IC 348 cluster since they are both located in the same Per OB2 molecular cloud complex.

In this paper we present optical and infrared images of ASR 41 in combination with advanced scattering and radiative transfer models, and we argue that the unusual size of this object (radius $``$ 3000 AU) is not indicative of the true extent of the disk, but rather is a projection effect of the shadow of a much smaller disk into the surrounding dusty molecular cloud material.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

The NGC 1333 region was imaged with the QUIRC camera (Hodapp et al., 1996) at the UH 2.2m telescope, on the nights of Jan. 8 and 9, 2003 (UT), with the intent of surveying this region for substellar mass objects. The night was photometric, and observations in the J, H, and K “Mauna Kea Observatories” (MKO) filter set (Tokunaga, Simons, & Vacca, 2002) were obtained. The frames containing ASR 41 were part of a larger mosaic. The area surrounding ASR 41 was covered by 30 individual frames in each filter, the integration times were 150 s in J, 100 s in H, and 50 s in K, for total integration times of 4500 s in J, 3000 s in H, and 1500 s in K. Photometric calibration is based on the UKIRT standard FS111. A difficulty is posed by the bright sources and extended emission in this and all neighboring fields. The median filtering procedure to establish the sky frames leaves small residuals at the location of the bright sources, and contains large-scale gradients due to the presence of extended emission. The faint outer wings of the extended flux surrounding ASR 41 are therefore subject to artifacts from poor sky subtraction.

The H$`\alpha `$ (6569Å/80Å), \[SII\] (6730Å/80Å), and I-band (8220Å/1930Å) images were obtained Oct. 13 and 14, 2001, using the 4 m Mayall telescope at NOAO with the MOSAIC CCD camera at a scale 0.26$`\mathrm{"}`$/pix (Getman et al., 2002). I-band photometry of ASR 41 is based on the I-band magnitudes of neighboring stars given by Getman et al. (2002). Images taken earlier (Oct. 29, 1997) with the same equipment were used to measure the proper motion of the newly discovered Herbig-Haro object HH 727.

## 3 Results and Discussion

Fig. 1 shows the K-band image of ASR 41 and its surroundings, including the Herbig-Haro object HH 727, while Fig. 2 shows ASR 41 (and HH 727 as an insert) in the H$`\alpha `$, \[SII\], I, J, H, and K bands. Going from the shortest wavelength covered here (H$`\alpha `$) to the J band, the morphology of ASR 41 changes dramatically. At H$`\alpha `$ ASR 41 appears as a faint patch of nebulosity with a faint condensation at its center. At \[SII\], the central source appears brighter and the extended emission begins to show the “hourglass” shape of a bipolar nebula. The I band begins to show the bifurcation of the extended emission, albeit less pronounced than at the longer near-infrared wavelengths. The dark band at an angle of about 137, bifurcating the reflection nebulosity associated with ASR 41, is most prominent from the J to the K band. The reflection nebula can be traced out to about 10$`\mathrm{}`$ from the center ($``$ 3000 AU) before it gets confused with artifacts from the sky subtraction process. The linear size of the scattering region therefore is about 10 to 20 times larger than in the typical edge-on disk systems listed in the Introduction. Either, ASR 41 is a unique object surrounded by a huge extended disk or the dark band is the shadow of a much smaller (and typical) disk which is projected into the dusty material surrounding the object, as is strongly suggested by the wavelength dependence of its morphology. If the dark band were caused in its full extent by absorption in an edge-on dust disk in front of the scattering region, one would expect the dark bifurcating band to be more pronounced at shorter wavelengths. This is clearly not the case. Rather, our images suggest that the dark band is the shadow of a much smaller disk, projected into the surrounding dusty medium. The transition from single scattering at longer wavelengths, which preserves the shadow, to multiple scattering at shorter wavelengths, which fills in the shadow, occurs at wavelengths around 1$`\mu `$m.

Within the dark band, a central object is clearly visible at all wavelengths from \[SII\] to the K band. This central object has a FWHM of 0.69$`\mathrm{}`$ in the K band, while the average FWHM of five other stars in Fig. 1 is 0.61$`\pm `$0.01$`\mathrm{}`$. The central object is thus marginally different from a star; reflection nebulosity is contributing to its FWHM. Its position was measured in the J-band relative to 4 stars in the USNO-B catalog (Monet et al., 2003) to be 3h 28m 51s.3 +31 17$`\mathrm{}`$ 40$`\mathrm{}`$ (J2000), with estimated errors of $``$ 0.25$`\mathrm{}`$ for the absolute coordinates. Astrometry of the central object in the \[SII\] image, using a larger set of USNO-B catalog stars than in the case of the infrared image, showed that it has the same coordinates as the corresponding object in the J-band image within the relative errors of $``$ $`\pm `$0.14$`\mathrm{}`$. We don’t see evidence for the wavelength dependent position of the central brightness peak that is often found in cometary or bipolar nebulae associated with Class I objects that are dominated by the absorption by a large and massive disk, e.g., (Hodapp et al., 1988).

The central source has magnitudes in an 1.5$`\mathrm{}`$$`\times `$1.5$`\mathrm{}`$ box centered on the central object of I= 20.2, J= 17.4, H= 16.1, K= 15.3. The central source has a color of H-K = 0.73 and J-H = 1.36 while the color of the reflection nebulosity is bluer: We have taken measurements in 1.5$`\mathrm{}`$$`\times `$1.5$`\mathrm{}`$ boxes at two additional positions to the north-east of the central star, i. e., in the reflection nebula, as indicated in Fig. 2. In the additional box closer to the central object, we measured H-K = 0.24 and J-H = 1.05, in the box farther to the north east we measure H-K = 0.34 and J-H = 1.15, with estimated errors in these colors of $``$ $`\pm `$0.05 mags. This is consistent with the flux from the central star and possibly the innermost parts of the reflection nebula being reddened by absorption in the small disk, and the flux in the extended reflection nebula being bluer, possibly because of preferential scattering by small dust particles.

ASR 41 is not associated with a strong sub-mm source. The object lies just at the southern tip of a ridge of extended 850$`\mu `$m emission associated with the HH 12 complex (Sandell & Knee, 2001), but it is not detectable as an individual point source in their map. From the fact that even the lowest contour (75 mJy/beam) of their map is not significantly distorted at the position of ASR 41, we estimate an upper limit to its 850$`\mu `$m flux of 200 mJy. This implies that the total mass of dust involved in the scattering of light from the central source, and the mass of the disk around the central star, must be relatively small. This point will be discussed in more detail in Section 4.

To the south-west of ASR 41, a faint extended object at 3h 28m 48s.1 +31 17$`\mathrm{}`$ 10$`\mathrm{}`$ (J2000) is most prominent in H$`\alpha `$ and \[SII\] and faintly visible in K (Fig. 2, inserts). This is the photometric signature of a low excitation Herbig-Haro object without significant \[FeII\] emission in the H band (Reipurth & Bally, 2001). The object has therefore been named HH 727. Proper motion measurements on the \[SII\] images from 1997 and 2001 show a small (about 1 pixel) shift of the photocenter of the HH knot towards the south west (PA = 215 $`\pm `$ 15). The shift corresponds to $``$ 100 km/s in the general direction away from ASR 41, roughly perpendicular to the plane of the bifurcating disk. While more precise measurements are clearly desirable, this strongly suggests that the HH object is physically associated with ASR 41.

## 4 Modeling of the ASR 41 Disk Shadow

We have computed detailed models for ASR 41 using a Monte Carlo scattered light code (Whitney & Hartmann, 1992), (Whitney & Hartmann, 1993); updated in (Whitney et al., 2003). The models contain a number of simplifying assumptions, in particular about the grain properties, and therefore cannot be expected to reproduce all features of the observations. The main purpose of the modeling is to demonstrate that the object can be explained well within the current paradigm of star formation. The models discussed here are based on the assumption that ASR 41 is essentially a Class II T-Tauri star surrounded by a disk of roughly the size of our solar system (r $``$ 100 AU), i.e., very similar to other edge-on disk systems.

The two models differ in the assumptions about the distribution of the scattering dust surrounding the central star and its protoplanetary disk. Two types of models were considered: disk plus constant density cloud (the “disk + cloud model”) and disk plus infalling envelope (the “disk + envelope model”). Both reproduce the dark band as the shadow of a smaller disk.

The geometry usually used to model young bipolar nebulae is an infalling envelope model, with the infall rate adjusted to model objects in different evolutionary classes (Whitney & Hartmann, 1993; Whitney et al., 2003). For ASR 41, the infall rate is constraint by the upper limit for the sub-mm flux. The “disk + envelope model” in Fig. 3 uses an outer disk radius of 200 AU, a disk mass of 0.06 M, an outer envelope radius of 7000 AU, and an infall rate of 3.5$`\times `$10-6M/yr that is similar to the rate used in other successful models of young stellar objects (Whitney & Hartmann, 1993). The infalling envelope has the density distribution of the free-fall models of Ulrich (1976) and Cassen & Moosman (1981). This model reproduces the basic features of the observations, but shows a steeper intensity gradient with distance from the illuminating object than was observed. It predicts a 850$`\mu `$m flux of 71 mJy, consistent with the sub-mm upper limit.

The other model is based on the assumption outlined in qualitative form earlier that ASR 41 consists of a typical small edge-on disk object and a surrounding scattering cloud of uniform density into which the disk shadow gets projected. For this model, the density of the surrounding scattering material was adjusted so that single scattering dominates, which preserves the shadow effect and also coincidentally keeps the sub-mm flux within the observed upper limit. The “cloud model” uses a disk radius of 100 AU and a mass of 0.005 M, for the best fit to the K-band data, the cloud itself is assumed to have a radius of 10000 AU. Our “disk + cloud model” assumes a cloud density of 2$`\times `$10-20 gcm-3, that is within the range of typical densities in large molecular clouds. This model produces a 850$`\mu `$m flux of 40mJy, well below the sub-mm flux limit. Increasing both the cloud density and disk mass by an order of magnitude leads to slightly better fits to the near-infrared fluxes, but predicts a 850$`\mu `$m flux of 234mJy, i. e., above the flux limit.

Fig. 3 shows the K-band image of ASR 41 (top, rotated to have the polar axis vertical for comparison with the models), and the two model flux distributions. Some noise was added to the model images to make them more visually comparable to the real image. The ”disk + envelope” model is successful at matching the photometry, but morphologically, the flux is falling off too rapidly with distance from the central source due to the density distribution in the envelope. The “disk + cloud model” matches the near-infrared morphology better, including the large extent of the reflection nebulosity.

Both model fits to the observed photometry indicate inclinations of about 80, even though the match to the observed morphology, in particular the difference in flux from the two lobes could probably be improved by assuming somewhat lower inclinations. These problem our models have with precisely matching the near-infrared photometry and morphology of the object point to shortcomings in the dust model used here. Our code is currently limited to one dust model throughout, and given the extent of the object an interstellar grain model was chosen. This is a good approximation for the particles expected in a thin molecular cloud, but may not be a good model for the grains in a much denser, proto-planetary dust disk in the close vicinity of a young star, e.g. (Beckwith et al., 1990; Wood et al., 2002). Due to the obvious simplifications in our model, they are not suitable to derive the luminosity or detailed information about the evolutionary state of the star at the center of ASR 41.

## 5 Summary

We have presented images of the young stellar object ASR 41 in NGC 1333 at wavelengths ranging from H$`\alpha `$ to the K-band. The bipolar nebula seen at the longer of these wavelengths is much larger than typical edge-on disk systems but can be understood as the shadow of a smaller disk being projected into the dusty material of the surrounding molecular cloud. Detailed model calculations of the scattering and radiative transfer in this object have been presented. These models show that the morphological features and the near-infrared fluxes can be modeled by a small, low-mass disk and surrounding scattering medium without violating the upper limit on the sub-mm flux. ASR 41 is, most likely, a Class II T Tauri star with a disk of roughly the size of our solar system, and overall similar to other edge-on-disk objects. It is distinguished from those objects by the scattering of the disk shadow in the surrounding dusty molecular material.

NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.


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# Dynamics of drag and force distributions for projectile impact in a granular medium

## Abstract

Our experiments and molecular dynamics simulations on a projectile penetrating a two-dimensional granular medium reveal that the mean deceleration of the projectile is constant and proportional to the impact velocity. Thus, the time taken for a projectile to decelerate to a stop is independent of its impact velocity. The simulations show that the probability distribution function of forces on grains is time-independent during a projectile’s deceleration in the medium. At all times the force distribution function decreases exponentially for large forces.

Craters on the earth and moon are similar to craters formed in laboratory experiments at much lower energies by using projectiles and explosives Roddy et al. (1977); Mizutani et al. (1983); Melosh (1989). In laboratory experiments at large impact energies, narrow jets have been observed to rise even higher than the initial height of the projectile Thoroddsen and Shen (2001); Mikkelsen et al. (2002). Recent experiments have determined how the shape, depth, and width of craters formed in granular media depend on the energy of the impact projectile Uehara et al. (2003); Walsh et al. (2003), but there is little known about the dynamics of a projectile during crater formation.

We have studied the time evolution of projectile motion. Our experiments and molecular dynamics simulations on a two-dimensional granular medium yield the time dependence of the drag force on projectiles. Simulations for the same conditions are in accord with the experiment and also yield the time evolution of the forces on all of the particles; hence, we can study the time dependence of the force probability distribution function at different stages of the projectile motion.

Our observations and simulations reveal three distinct regimes of the motion, as illustrated in Fig. 1: impact, where the projectile first hits the granular medium; penetration, where a transient crater forms and grains in front of the projectile are fluidized; collapse, where the projectile has almost stopped and the deep transient crater collapses, forming a static crater that remains visible on the surface.

Methods — In the experiment, a projectile of diameter $`D=4.46`$ cm and mass $`32.2`$ g was dropped into a bed of small particles (cylinders) contained between two glass plates with a separation $`1.1`$ times the length of the cylinders. The initial projectile heights $`h`$ ($`h<80`$ cm) correspond to impact velocities up to $`400`$ cm/s. To reduce crystallization, two sizes of small particles were used: 12600 particles (84% of the total number) had diameter $`d_1=0.456`$ cm (mass $`m_1=0.049`$ g) and 2400 particles had diameter $`d_2=0.635`$ cm (mass $`m_2=0.097`$ g). To obtain a uniform granular bed with a reproducible area fraction before each drop of the projectile, the bed was fluidized with air flow that was slowly reduced to zero, yielding the same bed height (65$`d_1`$) and area fraction ($`81\pm 2`$%) for each projectile drop. The bed width was 225$`d_1`$. The position of the projectile, $`y(t)`$, defined as the distance between the bottom of the projectile and the initial height of the bed, was determined with a high speed camera and a center of mass particle tracking algorithm Crocker and Grier (1995).

We modelled the system with a soft-core molecular dynamics (MD) simulation that used $`15,000`$ disks that had the same sizes and area fraction as the experiment. Any two disks (one of which can be the projectile) exert the following normal and tangential forces on one another:

$`\stackrel{}{F}_n=\left[k\delta +m_r\gamma _n|\stackrel{}{v}_n|\theta (\stackrel{}{v}_n)\right]\widehat{n}`$ (1)
$`\stackrel{}{F}_s=\mathrm{min}[m_r\gamma _s|\stackrel{}{v}_s|,\mu |\stackrel{}{F}_n|]\widehat{s},`$ (2)
where $`\delta `$ is the length of overlap Buchholtz and Pöschel (1998); Brilliantov et al. (1996), and $`\stackrel{}{v}_n`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}_s`$ are the normal and tangential components of the surface velocity ($`\widehat{n}`$ and $`\widehat{s}`$ are unit vectors parallel to $`\stackrel{}{v}_n`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}_s`$). The four parameters of the model were found empirically for one impact velocity and the same parameters were used for all other simulations: $`k=3.2\times 10^3`$ kg s-2 ft (1); Silbert et al. (2001); Rapaport (2002); Landry et al. (2003) is proportional to Young’s modulus, $`\gamma _n=10^4`$ s-1 and $`\gamma _s=8\times 10^3`$ s-1 are viscoelastic constants, and $`\mu =0.28`$ is the static friction coefficient. $`m_r`$ is the reduced mass ($`m_r^1=m_A^1+m_B^1`$ for two particles A and B). The Heaviside function $`\theta `$ in $`\stackrel{}{F}_n`$ models an elastic-plastic interaction (e.g., see Fig. 8 of Labous et al. (1997)); the use of the Heaviside function distinguishes our force model from previous soft-core MD simulations Buchholtz and Pöschel (1998); Landry et al. (2003). Simulations with a more realistic form for $`\stackrel{}{F}_s`$ Cundall and Strack (1979) yielded results not significantly different from our simple form, which is computationally more efficient. A comparison of the simulation output using time steps shorter than $`1`$ $`\mu `$s did not yield different results; a $`1`$ $`\mu `$s time step was used in the results presented here.

Results — The simulation results agree remarkably well with the laboratory observations, as Fig. 2 illustrates. Both experiment and simulation reveal that the time taken for a projectile to slow to a stop in the granular medium is independent of its velocity at impact. The large deceleration of the projectile at impact (see Fig. 3) is similar to that of a projectile incident on a liquid. However, in contrast to the behavior of a projectile in a fluid Glaheen and McMahon (1996), in the granular medium there is a long penetration region in which the projectile’s average acceleration is constant: $`y(t)`$ is described by a parabola (Fig. 2(a)), so $`v_y(t)`$ decreases linearly in time (Fig. 2(b)). Further, the acceleration is proportional to the impact velocity, as the inset in Fig. 2(b) illustrates: $`a_y=\alpha v_0g`$, where the slope of the line gives $`\alpha =0.0064\pm 0.0001`$ s/cm. Thus, the projectile slows almost to a stop in a time $`t=1/\alpha g0.15`$ s, independent of $`v_0`$. The projectile does not immediately come to a complete stop; rather it then moves very slowly downward over the next few seconds as the particles in the bed make small rearrangements in response to the collapse of the transient crater.

The drag force on the projectile, while constant on the average, exhibits large fluctuations, which have a $`f^2`$ spectrum (Fig. 3).

The simulation determines all of the forces on each particle at every instance of time. Every force exerted by a particle on the projectile during a short portion of its travel is shown in Fig. 4. At each point in the projectile’s trajectory only a few particles exert a significant force on the projectile. Each peak in the magnitude of the force between an individual particle and the projectile in Fig. 4 corresponds to a maximum force felt by the first particle in a force chain Albert et al. (2000) that extends downward. Each force chain consists of a string of particles in contact. The sum of the magnitudes of forces felt by each particle in this chain is much greater than the average for the particles in the bed, as can be seen in Fig. 1 (simulation), where dark chains of particles extend downward from the projectile into the particle bed.

Results for the probability distribution $`P(F,t)`$ of all normal forces between particles located in front of the projectile in a semicircular region of radius $`1.5D`$ centered at the bottom-most point of the projectile are shown in Fig. 5. The distribution $`P(F,t)`$ changes with time during impact but is time invariant during penetration: Fig. 5 shows the same distribution at times $`t_2`$ and $`t_3`$, which are respectively early and late in the penetration regime. The presence of an inflection point $`F^{}`$ in $`P(F,t)`$ marks the beginning of exponential decay for large $`F`$. The cross-over to an exponential distribution at $`F^{}`$ increases linearly with $`v_0`$, as shown in the inset of Fig. 5. After the projectile has almost stopped, the distribution is similar to that found in previous studies of equilibrium Blair et al. (2001) and near equilibrium Howell et al. (1999) force distributions .

Discussion — Our experiments and simulations show that the mean drag force on a projectile dropped into a granular medium is constant during most of the projectile’s trajectory, and this drag force is proportional to the projectile’s impact velocity. In our experiments inertia plays a major role. Interestingly, previous experiments with low constant velocities and negligible inertial effects also yielded a constant drag force in a granular mediumAlbert et al. (1999).

Since the deceleration of the projectile is proportional to the impact velocity (see inset Fig. 2(b)), the projectile penetration depth is also proportional to the impact velocity. While our results are for a two-dimensional system, the linear dependence of the penetration depth on impact velocity has recently also been observed for projectile impact in a three-dimensional granular medium de Bruyn and Walsh (2003).

The drag force on our projectile fluctuates strongly, as found also for cylinders dragged at small constant velocities in experiments ($`v0.1`$ cm/s) Albert et al. (1999) and simulations ($`v2`$ cm/s)Nouguier et al. (2000); ft (2); Buchholtz and Pöschel (1998). The power spectrum of the force fluctuations has a $`f^2`$ dependence, as observed in measurements of fluctuations of the stress on a slowly sheared two-dimensional granular medium Miller et al. (1996) and in measurements of the torque on a torsional pendulum in contact with a vibrofluidized granular bed D’Anna and Gremaud (2001). The $`f^2`$ dependence is explained by assuming random jumps in the drag force Miller et al. (1996). In our experiment these jumps originate from the variation of the forces exerted by the grains in contact with the projectile (Fig. 4).

Finally, our simulations have yielded the normal contact forces for all particles in the bed. The distribution function for the forces on the particles in front of the projectile rapidly evolves immediately after the projectile makes contact with the bed, and then the distribution becomes stationary as the projectile penetrates the bed. This stationary distribution decays exponentially beyond an inflection point at $`F^{}`$ whose value is linearly proportional to the impact velocity. This is the first determination of the force distribution for a granular medium for an accelerating particle. During impact, our force distribution is different from that measured for static beds Blair et al. (2001), where the force distribution decayed exponentially at all times, as predicted by the $`q`$-model Coppersmith et al. (1995).

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank John de Bruyn and W. D. McCormick for their helpful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Engineering Research Program of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the U. S. Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-FG03-93ER14312), the Texas Advanced Research Program, and the Office of Naval Research Quantum Optics Initiative. M.P.C. gratefully acknowledges support of the Italian-Fulbright commission.


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# Influence of the surface termination to the point imaging by a photonic crystal slab with negative refraction

## I References

## II Figure captions

Figure 1: (Color Online) Schematic diagram for an imaging system formed by a photonic crystal slab. The position of the surface termination is denoted by $`\delta x`$.

Figure 2: (Color Online) The snapshots of the electric field of a point source and its image formed by a photonic crystal slab with surface termination of (a)$`\delta x=0`$; (b)$`\delta x=0.2a`$.

Figure 3: (Color Online) Transfer functions of of a photonic crystal slab (as an imaging system) for different surface terminations. $`(a)\delta x=0;(b)\delta x=0.1a;(c)\delta x=0.2a;(d)\delta x=0.3a`$.

Figure 4: The surface mode (solid line) of the photonic crystal for the termination factor $`\delta x=0.2a`$. The shaded regions are the photonic band structures projected along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }K`$ direction.


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# Spatial Variations of Galaxy Number Counts in the SDSS I.: Extinction, Large-Scale Structure and Photometric Homogeneity

## 1 Introduction

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000) is conducting photometric and spectroscopic surveys over about $`\pi `$ steradians of the sky, producing a homogeneous data base of galaxies and other astronomical objects with accurate astrometric calibrations (Pier et al. 2002). The data published as Data Release 1 (DR1; Abazajian et al. 2003; see also http://www.sdss.org/dr1/index.html) comprise 2196 sq. deg. of sky, which is about 25% of the survey goal. One of the most important features of the SDSS is its homogeneous photometry by virtue of a large format mosaic CCD camera (Gunn et al. 1998), and real-time calibration of the photometry using a 50 cm Photometric Telescope (Hogg et al. 2001).

In this paper we study the spatial variation of galaxy number counts observed in the photometric survey of the SDSS. The causes of the spatial variation are (i) spatial variation of extinction due to the dust in the Galaxy, (ii) large-scale structure of the Universe, and (iii) errors of photometric calibrations, especially those for stripe to stripe (or segments of stripes), since the observations are carried out along great circle scans (York et al. 2000). The prime motivation of the present work is to investigate (iii), but to acomplish this goal it is necessary to remove the effects of (i) and (ii), both which have fundamental scientific significance.

The most modern map of Galactic reddening over the sky is that of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998; SFD), which was produced by merging the COBE/DIRBE and IRAS/ISSA FIR maps. The extinction curve is given by $`A_\lambda =k(\lambda )E(BV)`$, where $`E(BV)`$ is the reddening. An important aspect of our study is to examine whether $`A_\lambda `$ correctly describes extinction due to Galactic dust. The most model-independent test for the extinction correction can be made with galaxy number counts (e.g., Burstein & Heiles 1982). For this test, it is desirable to work with galaxy number counts as faint as possible, so that the galaxy density is sufficiently high and the distribution of galaxies is sufficiently smooth that large-scale clustering effects are small. We choose the range of magnitude as $`r=18.520.5`$ mag (median redshift is 0.25), which is reasonably faint, yet photometric measurements are made at a high signal to noise ratio and the star-galaxy classification is hardly affected by the variation of seeing in the photometric survey in the SDSS.

Even at this faint magnitude we expect the effect of large-scale clustering to be appreciable. The importance of the effect, however, can be predicted from the angular two-point correlation function (Connolly et al. 2002).

The spatial variations in galaxy number counts that remain after subtraction of Galactic extinction and large-scale structure may be ascribed to variations of the photometric calibration, which is made stripe by stripe, or its segments when the scan of the stripe was obtained over several nights. The challenge is to separate these three effects, which we shall consider in this paper.

## 2 Galactic extinction

We show in Table 1 the data used in the present analysis. Stripes #9$``$12 are the northern equatorial stripe (#10) and neighbouring stripes, #82 is the southern equatorial stripe, #76 and #86 are stripes in the southern sky, and the others are stripes in the northern hemisphere. The total area is 2196 sq. deg. We use the data processed with the photometric pipeline version v5.3, as given in DR1. We refer to Strauss et al. (2002) for the selection of galaxies from the photometric catalogue. The galaxy catalogue thus produced contains a small fraction of fake objects at bright magnitude $`r^{}<16`$, but the contamination becomes negligible for fainter magnitudes which are considered in this paper; see Yasuda et al. (2001).

A survey stripe is 2.52 deg wide; scans can be up to 120 deg in length, and the stripe consists of a pair of TDI scan operations \[denoted by (N,S) in Table 1\] to fill the gaps between CCD chips. The imaging is made with the SDSS $`ugriz`$ filters (Fukugita et al. 1996). We work primarily with the $`r`$ band data. We divide the stripe into square regions of 2.5 deg2 along the stripes, and count galaxies contained in these square regions. The number of galaxies with $`18.5r20.5`$ mag contained in a square is approximately 11700; therefore the Poisson noise is about 0.4% (the corresponding magnitude offset, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m0.004`$ mag, is negligible for this work).

We first derive the differential number count $`\overline{N}(m)`$ from the entire sample employing the reddening map of SFD and the default standard extinction law (explained below). We then calculate the number count for each $`2.5^{}`$ square region without applying the extinction correction, and using the reference count curve $`\overline{N}(m+\mathrm{\Delta }m)`$ with magnitude offset $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$, we fit it to the four data points in the range $`r=18.520.5`$ mag devided into 0.5 mag bins by adjusting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ with a chi-squares fit.

We show in Figure 1 $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ versus Galactic extinction, $`A_r^{\mathrm{SFD}}`$, calculated from the reddening map of SFD assuming $`k(r)=A_r/E(BV)=2.75`$ from the standard extinction curve (SFD; O’Donnell 1994; see also Cardelli, Clayton & Mathis 1989; Fitzpatrick 1999) and calculating the mean of extinction over the $`(2.5^{})^2`$ region. The individual data points and their binned mean in $`A_r^{\mathrm{SFD}}`$ are plotted. The error bars show the rms scatter. Although the scatter is significant, there is a clear trend that the mean of $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ and $`A_r`$ are nearly identical, showing that the observed variation of galaxy counts is primarily due to Galactic extinction. Hence we may identify $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=A_r^{\mathrm{counts}}`$. Unfortunately, the scatter is so large compared to the fitting range of the abscissa that it is not possible to perform a two-parameter fit. So we first fit the data (using all data points) to determine the slope, enforcing that the curve passes through the origin (as the plot indicates), and then vary the constant while the slope is fixed. The fit yields $`k(r^{})^{\mathrm{counts}}=A_r^{\mathrm{counts}}/E(BV)=2.64\pm 0.11`$ and the zero point that gives $`\chi ^2`$ minimum is 0.007$`\pm `$0.005. The constant term is sufficiently small that it can be ignored. The measured slope verifies the $`k(r)`$ from the standard extinction law together with the reddening map of SFD to an accuracy of 5%. The rms scatter around the line is 0.096 mag.

A similar analysis is made for the $`u`$, $`g`$, $`i`$ and $`z`$ colour bands. We selected the magnitude ranges of 18.5$``$20.5 for $`u`$ and $`g`$, 18.0$``$20.0 for $`i`$ and 17.5$``$19.5 for $`z`$. The resulting plots are presented in Figure 2. The slope of the $`\chi ^2`$ fits and the dispersion around the curves as normalised by $`k(\lambda )`$ are summarised in Table 2. For all colour bands $`k(\lambda )^{\mathrm{counts}}`$ does not deviate from $`k(\lambda )`$ by more than $``$5%. Note, however, that our test is limited to the sky with small reddening of $`E(BV)<0.15`$ (the SDSS is designed to avoid high extinction fields; see York et al. 2000).

We may use $`k(\lambda )^{\mathrm{counts}}`$ to derive a constraint on the $`R=A_V/E(BV)`$ parameter that represents total-to-selective extinction. The extinction curves of Cardelli et al. (1989) and their updates given by O’Donnell (1994) contain the parameter $`R`$ \[$`R=k(V)`$\] which is related to the greyness of the dust. Using O’Donnell’s extinction curve, which is given by the form $`A_\lambda /A_V=a_\lambda +b_\lambda /R`$ with $`a_\lambda `$ and $`b_\lambda `$ functions of $`\lambda `$, we can derive constraint on $`R`$, for example $`R=2.98\pm 0.23`$ from the $`r`$-band. The constraints on $`R`$ from other colour bands are given in Table 2. All constraints are consistent with $`R=2.8`$ to 3.2.

Before we discuss the issue of the scatter around the relation, we examine the reddening in the colour of galaxies for a consistency check. Figure 3 shows $`gr`$ colour of galaxies at the fifth percentile from the reddest as a function of $`E(BV)`$ predicted by SFD. The trend of reddening against $`E(BV)`$ is evident. The binned data points agree with the line $`gr=1.04E(BV)+`$const., which is expected from the standard reddening law.

A further consistency test is given in Figure 4, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_g\mathrm{\Delta }m_r`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_g\mathrm{\Delta }m_r=(A_gA_r)^{\mathrm{count}}`$), which is derived from the extinction detected in the number count data, is plotted against $`E(gr)^{\mathrm{galaxy}\mathrm{colour}}=(gr)_{\mathrm{red}5\%}(gr)_{\mathrm{red}5\%}|_{E(BV)=0}`$ calculated from Fugure 3. The plot is consistent with $`(A_gA_r)^{\mathrm{count}}=E(gr)^{\mathrm{galaxy}\mathrm{colour}}`$ (indicated by the dotted line), although the scatter is large and we see some data points that are scattered into the negative regions. Note that this figure shows a consistency of reddeing and extinction derived solely using the galaxy data, independent from the external data of $`E(BV)`$ from Galactic far infra-red emission.

## 3 Spatial variations from large-scale structure

The rms scatter observed in the previous section is larger, by an order of magnitude, than that expected from the Poisson noise. To investigate whether the scatter is due to large-scale clustering of galaxies, we study the variation of galaxy counts in the $`r`$ band varying area sizes of sky regions.

We define circles with radii $`r=1.25^{}`$ along the stripes, and decrease the radius keeping the centres of the circles fixed111We prefer to use circles rather than squares for the simplicity to interpret the data in terms of angular correlation functions.. We count numbers of galaxies with $`r=18.520.5`$ grouped into four 0.5 mag bins contained in those circular areas after applying an extinction correction according to the SFD map \[assuming $`k(r)=2.75`$\], and then calculate the corresponding magnitude offset $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$ in the same way as above.

The rms scatter, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$, thus obtained is plotted as a function the area $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\pi r^2`$ in Figure 5. The error bars show the Poisson statistics. The rightmost point (open square) refers to the scatter observed in 2.5 deg square (6.25 sq. deg) which was seen in the previous section. We also added one more point for 3 sq. deg (open square) for comparison. (The data for square areas give values about $``$3% smaller than those for circular regions having the same area, as expected from the angular correlation function; see below.) The size of $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$ is larger than the Poisson noise at least by an order of magnitude. To study whether $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$, which increases as the area size decreases, can be attributed to the effect of large-scale clustering, we calculate the expectation from the empirical angular two-point correlation function $`w(\theta )`$. The fluctuations of the number of galaxies observed in area $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are given by

$$(N\nu \mathrm{\Omega })^2=\nu \mathrm{\Omega }+\nu ^2_\mathrm{\Omega }𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_1𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_2w(\theta _{12}),$$
(1)
where $`\nu `$ is the number of galaxies per unit solid angle. The rms of the count $`\delta N/\overline{N}=(N\nu \mathrm{\Omega })^2^{1/2}/\nu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ is translated to $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ using $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=\left(dN/dm\right)^1\mathrm{\Delta }N=(\alpha \mathrm{ln}10)^1\mathrm{\Delta }N/N`$ where $`\alpha 0.42`$ is the empirical slope of the count, $`N10^{\alpha m}`$, at the relevant magnitude range.

The angular correlation function estimated by Connolly et al. (2002) from the analysis for the northern equatorial stripe of the SDSS is

$$w(\theta )=A_w\theta ^{1\gamma },$$
(2)
where $`1\gamma =0.722\pm 0.031`$ and $`\mathrm{log}A_w=2.13\pm 0.13`$ for $`r^{}=1920`$ mag with the preliminary photometric calibration (Smith et al. 2002; Stoughton et al. 2002). This angular correlation function is consistent, within the errors, with earlier analyses (Stevenson et al. 1985; Maddox, Efstathiou & Sutherland 1990; Couch, Jurcevic & Boyle 1993). Connolly et al. could show the power law only for $`\theta <1^{}`$. Maddox et al., showed that the correlation function shows a break at around 2-2.5 from thier APM data. We, therefore, model the angular correlation function by a two-power law that breaks at 2, with the second power slope $`1\gamma 2.1`$ consistent with the APM result.

Figure 5 shows that the rms scatter of galaxy number counts in different parts of the sky after correcting for Galactic extinction is consistent with that which is expected from the angular two-point correlation function integrated over circular areas. This means that a significant scatter around the extinction fits of Figures 1 and 2 is produced by large-scale clustering of galaxies.

## 4 Homogeneity of the SDSS photometric calibration

We now investigate the residual spatial variation of galaxy number counts integrated over segments of the stripes (some of the runs are merged) given in Table 1. Figure 6 shows the offset after the extinction correction $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$ calculated from the galaxy counts for specific segments of the stripes relative to the reference count. The error bars represent the standard deviation expected from the two-power model of the angular correlation function with a cut-off at $`\theta =5^{}`$ in the integral (1) over the rectangular region of the segment.

The figure shows that the mean still scatters by $`\pm 0.04`$ mag, but the majority of the data are consistent with zero if we consider the variation expected from large-scale clustering, i.e., 19 out of 32 data points are within 1 $`\sigma `$, and the maximum deviation is 1.6 $`\sigma `$. This implies a null detection of photometric calibration errors. We may make this statement more quantitative by applying the statistics in the following way. We estimate the likelihood that the observed $`(\mathrm{\Delta }m)_c`$ distribution is consistent with the Gaussian distribution of the dispersion $`\sigma _{\mathrm{eff}}=\sqrt{\sigma ^2+(\delta m)^2}`$, where $`\delta m`$ represents the error, other than that from large-scale structure, that increases the dispersion. We then calculate the probability as a function of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{eff}}`$, and find that the probablity of the observed distribution being consistent with the Gaussian at 68% confidence level (1 $`\sigma `$) only when $`\delta m<0.019`$ mag. This is taken as the upper limit on the error from photometry. This error meets the design requirement of the SDSS photometry; the global variation of the calibration error is no more than random errors of photometry.

We do not carry out similar analyses for other colour bands, since the evaluation of the angular two-point correlation is only available in the $`r`$ bands. Table 2 displays the continuous increase of the rms scatter from the $`z`$ to the $`u`$ band. Since it is known that the photometric accuracy of the $`g`$, $`r`$, and $`i`$ bands are comparable (DR1), we would ascribe this increase to increasingly stronger large-scale correlation in bluer bands. For the $`u`$ band, random photometric errors ($`0.04`$ mag) may also contribute to the rms scatter, but they are smaller than the increase of the rms scatter we observed from the $`g`$ to the $`u`$ band.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that the spatial variation of galaxy number counts are understood as the sum of Galactic extinction and large-scale clustering of galaxies. The analysis verified the validity of the SFD extinction map and the standard extinction law from $`u`$ to $`z`$ band within 5% in regions of small reddening $`E(BV)<0.15`$. We find that the $`R`$ parameter lies in the range 2.8$``$3.2 for the extinction curve of O’Donnell (1994). Finally we do not detect systematic errors in the global SDSS photometric calibration at least those in excess of 0.02 mag from run to run.

Funding for the creation and distribution of the SDSS Archive has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute für Astronomie, the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, New Mexico State University, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. MF is supported in part by the Grant in Aid of the Japanese Ministry of Education.