text:
# Low-energy X-ray standards from hydrogenlike pionic atoms

(September 2, 2003)

## Abstract

We demonstrate the first step of a complete program, which consists in establishing an X-ray energy standard scale with the use of few-body atoms, in the few keV range. Light pionic and muonic atoms as well as one and two-electron ions from Electron-Cyclotron Ion sources are used. The transition energies are calculable from quantum electrodynamics, meaning that only a very limited subset need be measured and compared with theory, while providing a large number of standard lines. Here we show that circular transitions in pionic neon atoms, completely stripped from their electrons, reveal spectral lines which are narrow, symmetric and well reproducible. We use these lines for the energy determination of transition energies in complex electronic systems, like the K$`\alpha _{1,2}`$ transitions in metallic Ti, which may serve as secondary standard.

Accurate (below 1 ppm) and *reproducible* X-ray wavelength standards with reasonably dense set of lines would be very valuable for the most widespread application of X-rays: the determination of crystal lattice parameters with diffractometric methods (see e.g., Ref. Härtwig et al. (1991) and references therein.) Other practical applications are found, like the energy calibration of synchrotron radiation beams, monochromators and spectrometers and the determination of the response function of X-ray spectrometers and diffractometers. X-ray standards can thus be useful in many areas of modern science like crystallography, solid state, molecular, atomic and particle physics, chemistry, and biochemistry.

A recent experiment used the 57Fe Mössbauer radiation, excited by synchrotron radiation, improved the energy (wavelength) standard for the energy region of 14 keV by two orders of magnitude in accuracy from 10 ppm to 0.2 ppm Shvyd’ko et al. (2000). This attempt, while very promising, is very difficult to extend to lower energies, where electron conversion would dramatically reduce the nuclear fluorescence. In the absence of an appropriate excitation source, such as synchroton radiation, this would require unrealistically high source activities with the additional requirement of a sufficiently long life time of the parent isotope. In addition self-absorption of low energy X-rays in the source is very strong. The X-rays can thus only originate from the surface layer, which leads to an upper bound to the maximum effective activity that can be reached by increasing the amount radioactive material. Finally, all these transitions are orders of magnitude narrower than crystal spectrometers resolution. For some applications the extreme narrowness of $`\gamma `$ lines is of no use while limiting severely their intensity.

The most widely used X-ray energy standards, at present time, are made by exciting inner-shell transitions in atoms with either electrons or photons. In a number of cases their energies are given with precision close to 1 ppm Deslattes et al. (2003), which does not necessarily mean that these standards can be used to such an accuracy. For X-rays originating from inner-shell transitions in multi-electron systems, the center of gravity of the line cannot be attributed unambiguously to a physical transition. Shake-off processes (which create additional vacancies) and open outer shells lead to numerous satellite transitions very close in energy to the diagram line, which cannot be resolved and produce asymmetric line shapes. Moreover, the line shape of transitions in multielectronic systems depends also on the excitation mechanism used to create the inner-shell vacancies. For example the evolution of the K ($`1s^1`$) Argon spectrum has been studied as function of excitation energy Deslattes et al. (1982, 1983), and dramatic qualitative changes were observed. The chemical environment of the atom also plays a strong role as can be seen from the comparison between solids, metallic vapors and theoretical X-ray absorption edges energies Deslattes et al. (2003); Indelicato et al. (1998); Kawai et al. (1990). This problem also affects transition energies, particularly when they involve M2,3 and N2,3 shells.

An inherent problem with current standard X-ray lines is their natural width, which is typically more than 10 times larger than the resolution of the best X-ray spectrometers. Hence, fluorescence radiation is unsuitable to determine the response function of the apparatus.

As an alternative and more general approach to both $`\gamma `$-rays or natural X-rays, we thus propose to profit from recent developments in exotic-atoms research and in heavy-ions sources, and to use two- and three-body systems as photon emitters in the few keV range. In contrast to $`\gamma `$-rays, electronic, muonic and pionic atoms would provide a dense set of lines, that can be supplemented by an even denser set if one can use antiprotonic atoms with beam intensities comparable to LEAR at CERN Gotta et al. (1999). Our program consists first in doing relative energy measurements of transitions in one and two-electron ions, emitted by the plasma of Electron-Cyclotron Ion Sources (ECRIS), of circular transitions in fully stripped pionic atoms and of X-rays from solid fluorescence targets. Modern, commercial, permanent-magnet ECRIS are small and relatively economical to operate, and could be available in a large number of places to provide reference lines.

This relative energy scale will then be tied to a few, very bright lines, the energy of which will be measured absolutely, with either a double-flat crystal instrument, or a backscattering spectrometer as in Shvyd’ko et al. (2000) obtained from a Electron-Cyclotron Ion Trap (ECRIT), a device derived from the ECRIS, and optimized for increasing the trapping time of the ions Biri et al. (2000), and thus the production of X-rays from highly-charged ions. Intense M1 radiation from the $`1s2s^1S_01s^2`$ transition in helium-like Argon has been observed both in conventional ECRIS Douysset et al. (2000) and in the first run of the PSI ECRIT in 2002 Anagnostopoulos et al. (2003). The ions energy in such a device ranges from $`0.5`$ eV to 6 eV depending on the injected RF powerBernard (1996), giving rise to a Doppler broadening in the 5 to 18 ppm, i.e., 0.07 to 0.28 eV for Ar. This allows for measurements well below 1 ppm, and corresponds also to the expected accuracy (typically 1 meV) of theory for one electron ions in this range of $`Z`$. Different energy ranges and diffraction orders can be connected by exploiting the Yrast structure of the exotic-atom cascade, which leads to a strong population of circular states, thus favoring transitions with a change of the principal quantum number $`n`$ by 1. Hence, successive transitions in the same atom connect different energy scales in ratios $`\left(1/(n+1)^21/n^2\right)/\left(1/n^21/(n1)^2\right)`$, which are roughly of the order of 0.5 for $`n`$ around 5. For instance, $`\pi `$Ne provides the photon energies of 2.7, 4.5 and 8.3 keV corresponding respectively to the $`76`$, $`65`$ and $`54`$ transitions. With such a comparison method one can transfer energy standards between orders without problems due to changes in index of refraction.

The present program has several advantages. First, once a set of lines has been measured and compared to a given accuracy to quantum-electrodynamics (QED) calculations, other lines from the same source or from neighboring elements can be used as standards without the need of a direct measurement. Transition energies of these simple system can probably be calculated nowadays from first principle to better than 1 meV, benefiting from high-accuracy tests of QED in hydrogen de Beauvoir et al. (2000). This is even true for hadronic atoms, if one uses circular transitions, which are not affected by strong interaction. Only particle masses (very well known except for pion), the fine structure constant and the Rydberg constant are needed. Over time the precision of the calculation can be improved by systematically including contributions from higher-order Feynman diagrams. The quality of the calculation can be checked by comparing to the directly measured lines energies as well as to all the relatively measured ones which are directly connected to the direct measurements.

Second, the natural line widths of these transitions, while not as small as $`\gamma `$-ray line, are three orders of magnitude narrower than the ones of multielectronic systems.

Finally, the combination of the exotic-atom and electronic X-ray sources can provide a powerful tool for establishing high-quality X-ray energy standards. As an example, the $`5g4f`$ transition in $`\pi `$C, the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ in hydrogenlike Cl and the K$`\alpha `$ fluorescence line in singly ionized Ar, degenerate in energy by few eV, can be easily related by the method presented here.

In the present letter, we present the measurement, with a crystal spectrometer of the characteristic X-radiation from hydrogenlike pionic atoms. We use these transitions as energy standards for the energy determination of the transition energies in a complex electronic systems, the K$`\alpha _{1,2}`$ transitions in Ti. In this way we intend to show that the pionic transition is in good agreement with a reasonably well measured K$`\alpha _{1,2}`$ transition. Copper would have made a better case, but the present world average for the pion mass involve the Cu K$`\alpha `$ doublet. This issue will however be solved when the final value for the pion to muon mass ratio is released Nelms et al. (2002).

For this experiment we used the cyclotron trap II Simons (1993) attached to the $`\pi `$E5 pion line at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI, Switzerland). In this device a 112 MeV/c pion beam is decelerated in a magnetic field using a suitable set of degrader foils. Such a set-up allows the use of dilute targets like gases. Typically $`4\times 10^8`$ $`\pi ^{}`$/s are injected in the trap for 1 mA proton current. The target consists of a cylinder of 60 mm diameter and 26 cm length, with 50 $`\mu `$m-thick kapton walls. The pressure in the target was around 1 bar, leading to typically $`1.7\times 10^6`$ $`\pi ^{}`$/s stops in the gas.

For light elements ($`Z10`$) the cascade that follows leads quickly to the formation of an hydrogenlike exotic atom in a circular state. All the electrons are ejected by Auger effect in the early stage of the cascade, in a process similar to internal conversion in nuclei, because of the large mass of the pion ($`273\times m_e^{}`$). Accordingly transition energies are 273 times larger than electronic ones between states of identical quantum numbers. Because the atoms are formed in a low-pressure gas the time it takes to recapture electrons from molecules in the gas is much longer than the pionic atom lifetime, hence, the exotic atoms stay in an hydrogenlike state for the rest of the atomic cascade. It has been shown that less than 2 % of the X-ray observed are affected by the presence of an extra electron Lenz et al. (1998). When using solid targets the undefined status of the electron shell is the principal limitation in high-precision experiments using exotic-atom X-rays Jeckelmann et al. (1994).

X-rays emitted by the exotic atoms at the center of the trap are analyzed using a Johann-type Bragg spectrometer that was developed for applications requiring very high luminosity and excellent resolution in noisy environments, in the 1.7 to 10 keV range. It was equipped with a spherically bent Si(220) crystal having a radius of curvature of 2.9854 m. A detailed description of the apparatus is given in Lenz et al. (1998); Gotta et al. (1999); Anagnostopoulos et al. (1999) .

For this proof-of-principle measurement we relate the energy of the $`6h5g`$ transition in pionic neon to energy of the K$`\alpha _{1,2}`$ transitions of Ti. The Ti K$`\alpha _1`$ differs only by a fraction of an eV from the strong $`6h5g`$ transition in $`\pi ^{20}`$Ne. Hence, the measurement could be performed by exchanging only the neon-filled target cell with a $`30\times 20`$ mm2 plate of metallic Ti, without any other change of the experimental set-up. The fluorescence X-rays were excited by means of an X-ray tube with a Cr-anode. The consecutively recorded $`\pi `$Ne and Ti spectra are shown in Fig. 1.

The pionic transition energies are calculated from the world average pion mass $`m_\pi =139.57018\pm 0.00035`$ MeV as given by the particle data group Groom et al. (2000) and fundamental constants Mohr and Taylor (2000) with the Klein-Gordon equation for a spherical nuclear charge distribution (to improve numerical stability although direct effect on energy is small). They include the Uehling potential for vacuum polarization to all order, the Källèn and Sabry as well as the Wichman and Kroll correction, and include nuclear recoil and relativistic recoil. The nuclear masses for 20Ne and 22 Ne are deduced from atomic masses in DiFilippo et al. (1994) and Audi and Wapstra (1995) respectively, by subtracting the mass of the 10 missing electrons. These energies can be calculated with high precision since the strong interaction plays no role for such high-lying circular states. We obtain 4509.894 eV and 4512.948 eV for the $`6h5g`$ transition in $`\pi ^{22}`$Ne and $`\pi ^{20}`$Ne, respectively. There is an uncertainty of 11 meV on these energy values which originates exclusively from the pion mass.

The natural width of the $`\pi `$Ne $`6h5g`$ transition is 12 meV. The fact that the calibration line is almost a $`\delta `$ function allows for precise determination of the spectrometer response function. The measured instrumental response function width of 440$`\pm `$20 meV is close to the theoretical limit of 330 meV as predicted from the Monte-Carlo simulations for the chosen geometry. The $`\pi `$Ne line shape is fitted sufficiently well by using Gaussian line profiles.

To deduce the Ti K$`\alpha `$ line shape we fitted a sum of six Voigt profiles, following Anagnostopoulos et al. (1999) using the Gaussian response function obtained from the $`\pi `$Ne spectrum. The peak positions, K$`\alpha _{1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}^0`$, are obtained from the zeros of the derivative of the fitted function. The spectrometer dispersion, necessary to transform the position information of the detector to energy, is obtained in a self-consistent way from the $`\pi `$Ne spectrum itself (Fig. 1). For the very small energy difference, for the case of $`\pi `$Ne $`65`$ and Ti K$`\alpha `$, the energy-dependent corrections originating from the imaging properties of crystal spectrometer (refraction index, crystal bending and size, rocking curve ) are almost invariable and cancel out.

The results are displayed in Table 1, together with presently known values. The experimental error in the energy of the K$`\alpha _1`$ line is practically given by the statistical uncertainty on the K$`\alpha _1`$ and $`\pi ^{20}`$Ne $`6h5g`$ lines. In the case of the K$`\alpha _2`$ line the error is dominated by the uncertainty on the dispersion value, which is due to the limited statistics of the $`\pi ^{22}`$Ne $`6h5g`$ transition. Both contributions could be drastically reduced by increasing the statistics of the measurement.

Narrow transitions from exotic atoms allow to characterize very precisely the response function of a curved crystal set-up. For the described experiment the accuracy of the extracted natural widths of the electronic systems (Table 1) reaches the one obtained with ultimate resolution devices like double-flat crystal spectrometers Kawai et al. (1990); Salem and Lee (1976).

In the present letter we have demonstrated that narrow lines from hydrogenlike pionic atoms are able to serve as energy standards in the few keV range. By using this method the energy uncertainty is limited primarily by the knowledge of the charged pion mass, whenever transitions close in energy can be found. We have proven that an hydrogenic pionic line, the energy of which has been calculated from QED can be used to establish the energy of a previously well measured line with comparable accuracy. A research program is underway to improve on the precision of the pion mass to the order of about 1 ppm Nelms et al. (2002). An alternative is to use muonic transitions as the muon mass is known to 0.05 ppm Groom et al. (2000). However, intensities achievable are about two orders of magnitude smaller than in the case of pionic atoms. Much higher intensity will be available from X-ray sources like the super-conducting Electron-Cyclotron Ion Trap (ECRIT) developed at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in which few-electron atoms up to hydrogenlike systems are produced Biri et al. (2000). Such electronic two-body systems will be used as calculable energy standards in the same way as exotic atoms.

In a separate experiment we have recently used the technique presented here to measure the energy of the Sc K$`\alpha `$ lines, which are known only from interpolation Bearden (1967), with an accuracy improved by a factor of 12 Anagnostopoulos et al. .

By using X-ray lines, both from hydrogenlike exotic and electronic atoms a relative energy scale is established that can easily range up to 30 keV. Around 60 lines will be available if electronic, pionic and muonic atoms are used, hundred more if antiprotonic atoms are available. The energy of these lines will depend only on the fine structure constant $`\alpha `$, and on the pion, muon and electron mass, and they can also be connected to low-energy $`\gamma `$-ray standards.

Laboratoire Kastler Brossel is Unité Mixte de Recherche du CNRS n 8552, of the Physics Department of École Normale Supérieure and Université Pierre et Marie Curie.


format: text

text:
# Meson-Meson Interactions and Resonances in the ’t Hooft Model

## I Introduction

At low energies, systems which are due to, or interact through, the strong nuclear interaction may be described by effective field theories, examples of which are Quantum Hadrodynamics (QHD) Walecka  and Chiral Perturbation Theory gary ), or simple constituent quark models Isgur . With more or less phenomenological content, those frameworks are in general very successful, but there are still questions not completely answered.

For instance, whether the nature of the broad $`\sigma `$ meson corresponds truly to a simple quark structure, or to a resonance in the meson-meson dynamics, or to an unusual quark structure as a meson-glueball combination, or even to some combination of these, is still an open issue. Models of QCD did not yet resolve this question quantitatively. In general for the light scalar mesons, arguments have been advanced for the importance of a $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ component Close  at short distances, compatible with a dominant meson-meson component at large distances. A very recent lattice calculation Jaffe  also indicates that a $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ bound state may exist, just below threshold in the non-exotic channel of pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar s-wave scattering.

In this work we apply the ’t Hooft model thooft , a formulation of QCD in 1+1 dimensions and in the large $`N_c`$ limit, to the meson-meson scattering process. The ’t Hooft model has no physical gluons, thus it includes no glueballs. Furthermore, due to the large $`N_c`$ limit, quark exchange dominates gluon exchange and only a finite number of diagrams contribute. Since the finite sum of regular contributing diagrams is unable to produce a pole at real energies, no meson-meson bound states can be produced.

However, while meson-meson bound states are excluded in this framework, complex energy resonant states should still be possible. It is the purpose of this paper to calculate the meson-meson scattering amplitude based on meson-$`q\overline{q}`$ vertex functions obtained in the ’t Hooft model, and to look for low-lying resonances. As we will show, the ’t Hooft model indeed supports the existence of meson-meson resonances, suggesting the relevance of the $`q\overline{q}q\overline{q}`$ structure for the light scalar mesons.

A calculation of $`\pi \pi `$ forward and backward scattering in the Dyson-Schwinger, Bethe-Salpeter approach and in the rainbow-ladder approximation was presented in Ref. Cotanch . It uses an effective $`q\overline{q}`$ interaction and incorporates features of QCD. Based on this approach, a scalar meson emerges as a resonance in $`\pi \pi `$ scattering. However, the calculation is performed using the Euclidian metric. In our work, while simplifying the problem by working in 1+1 dimensions, we use the Minkowski metric througout.

Clearly, a model in 1+1 dimensions is limited in its scope, and one has to be very cautious when comparing its results to phenomena in the real world. Nevertheless, for kinematic conditions of scattering processes with a negligible component of the momentum transfer in the transverse direction, we may conjecture that the ’t Hooft model, and thus the calculation presented here, has the main features of realistic microscopic QCD, and that its results are valid at least qualitatively.

Section II reviews the model and introduces the calculational framework. Section III presents the input for the description of the meson-meson scattering transition amplitude. Section IV shows the results, and section V presents the conclusions.

## II Formalism

### II.1  The ‘t Hooft model and the choice of gauge

This work models the meson-meson interaction using the ’t Hooft model. Here we review briefly the dynamics of this model by starting with the corresponding Lagrangian. Subsequently, we write the equations that we solved for the one body (quark propagator) and two body (quark-antiquark bound state) problems.

The QCD Lagrangian is

$$=\frac{1}{4}Tr\left[G^{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }\right]+\overline{q}\left(iD_\mu \gamma ^\mu m_0\right)q,$$
(1)
with the notation

$`A^\mu =`$ $`A_a^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _a}{2}},`$
$`G_{\mu \nu }=`$ $`_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu +i\alpha [A_\mu ,A_\nu ],`$
$`D_\mu =`$ $`_\mu +i\alpha A_\mu ,`$ (2)
where $`A_a^\mu `$ are the gluon fields with the Lorentz index $`\mu `$ and the color index $`a`$, the $`\lambda _a`$’s are the generators of the $`SU(N)`$ color group, $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ is the field tensor, $`q`$ is the quark field, $`m_0`$ is the bare quark mass and $`\alpha `$ is the quark-gluon coupling strength. Following ’t Hooft thooft , the coupling strength $`\alpha `$ depends on the number of colors in the following way:

$$\alpha =\frac{g}{\sqrt{N_c}}.$$
(3)
Introducing for an arbitrary two-vector $`b`$ the light cone variables:

$`b_+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(b^0+b^1),`$
$`b_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(b^0b^1),`$ (4)
the scalar product of any two vectors $`a`$ and $`b`$ becomes $`a_+b_{}+a_{}b_+`$, and the derivatives correspond to

$`_{}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_+}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(^0^1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}({\displaystyle \frac{}{x^0}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x^1}}),`$
$`_+=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_+}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(^0+^1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}({\displaystyle \frac{}{x^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{x^1}}).`$ (5)
In the same way, the $`+`$ and $``$ components of the $`\gamma `$ matrices are defined. The anticommutation relations read

$`\{\gamma _{},\gamma _{}\}=\{\gamma _+,\gamma _+\}=0,`$
$`\{\gamma _+,\gamma _{}\}=2.`$ (6)
In the light cone variables, the nonvanishing components of the field strength tensor are

$$G_+=G_+=_+A_{}_{}A_++i\alpha [A_{},A_+],$$
(7)
so that the free gauge field Lagrangian becomes

$$_{free}=\frac{1}{2}G_+^2.$$
(8)
We choose to work in the light cone gauge, $`A_{}=0`$, so that the commutator contained in the field tensor $`G_+`$ disappears. Moreover, since we consider only two dimensions, we do not have any physical gluonic degrees of freedom. In addition, because of the gauge condition, there is only one degree of freedom left. Consequently, the gluonic field is not a dynamical variable and does not couple to ghosts any longer.

In this parametrization the Lagrangian (1) becomes

$$=\frac{1}{2}Tr\left[(_{}A_+)^2\right]+\overline{q}\left(i_+\gamma _{}+i_{}\gamma _+\alpha \gamma _{}A_+m_0\right)q.$$
(9)
Before quantizing the theory given by this Lagrangian, we calculate the gluonic field. The equation of motion related to this field is

$$(\frac{}{x_+})^2A_+=\alpha \overline{q}\gamma _{}q.$$
(10)
The solution of Eq. (10) is

$$A_+(x_+,x_{})=\alpha 𝑑y_+\overline{q}(y_+,x_{})\gamma _{}q(y_+,x_{})𝒢(y_+x_+),$$
(11)
where the Green’s function $`𝒢`$ is given by

$$𝒢(y_+x_+)=|y_+x_+|+c_1(y_+x_+)+c_2.$$
(12)
The coefficients $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ are free parameters. This means that the gauge condition did not eliminate all the redundant degrees of freedom, just as the Coulomb or Lorentz gauge do not determine uniquely the photon propagator in QED (Gribov ambiguity). We can therefore set the coefficients $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ equal to zero in order to simplify our calculations.

The Fourier transform of the Green’s function (12) gives the gluon “propagator”, or more precisely the momentum dependence of the effective quark-quark interaction:

$$D(k)=D(k_{})=\frac{1}{k_{}^2}\delta (k_{})𝒫_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\mathrm{}_{}}{\mathrm{}_{}^2}.$$
(13)
The second term in Eq. (13) was first considered by Gross and Milana GROSS1 , in the different context of a quasi-potential two-body equation for the quark-antiquark system. It makes the potential $`A_+`$ finite everywhere.

From this point we proceed to solve the one body equation for the quark propagator.

### II.2 Quark Dyson-Schwinger equation

The (undressed) fermion propagator is

$$S_0(k)=\frac{k_{}\gamma _++k_+\gamma _{}+m_0}{2k_+k_{}m_0^2+iϵ},$$
(14)
and the quark-gluon interaction is

$$i𝒱=i\alpha \gamma _{}.$$
(15)
We determine the dressed single quark propagator $`S(p)`$ using the (one body) Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSE),

$`S(p)=S_0(p)+ig^2S(p)\left[𝒫{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}D(kp)\gamma _{}S(k)\gamma _{}}\right]S_0(p),`$ (16)
which we show also graphically in Fig. 1.

Since for every internal loop there is a factor of $`\alpha ^2=g^2/N_c`$, and a multiplicative factor of $`N_c`$, the color dependence disappears. The vertex corrections and the quark-gluon vertices do not have a multiplicative factor, being supressed in the large $`N_c`$ limit. Therefore, in this limit the rainbow approximation (undressed vertices and the absence of the quark loops from the gluon propagator) is justified thooft .

In Eq. (16) $`d^2k=dk_{}dk_+`$, and since $`D(k)`$ does not depend on $`k_+`$, the principal part $`𝒫d^2k`$ does not depend on $`p_+`$. This allows the following parametrization of the full quark propagator,

$$S(p)=\frac{p_{}\gamma _++\left(p_+\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_{})}{2}\right)\gamma _{}+m_0}{2p_{}\left(p_+\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_{})}{2}\right)m_0^2+iϵ},$$
(17)
where the self-energy contribution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, originated by $`𝒫d^2k`$, depends only on $`k_{}`$:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_{})=\frac{4g^2}{(2\pi )^2i}𝒫𝑑k_{}𝑑k_+D(k_{}p_{})\frac{k_{}}{2k_{}k_+k_{}\mathrm{\Sigma }(k_{})m_0^2+iϵ}.$$
(18)
Performing the $`k_+`$ integral first one obtains

$$𝑑k_+\frac{k_{}}{2k_{}k_+k_{}\mathrm{\Sigma }(k_{})m_0^2+iϵ}=\frac{i\pi }{2}\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}).$$
(19)
Substituting this result back into Eq. (18) one finds that

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_{})=\frac{g^2}{2\pi p_{}}𝒫𝑑k_{}D(k_{}p_{})\mathrm{sgn}(p_{}).$$
(20)
Using Eq. (13) for $`D(k_{}p_{})`$ and performing the integral we get

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_{})=\frac{g^2}{\pi p_{}}.$$
(21)
This, in combination with Eq. (17) results in

$$S(p)=\frac{(p_++\frac{g^2}{2p_{}\pi })\gamma _{}+p_{}\gamma _++m_0}{2p_+p_{}(m_0^2\frac{g^2}{\pi }iϵ)}.$$
(22)
Note that the masspole has been shifted:

$$m_0^2m^2=m_0^2\frac{g^2}{\pi }.$$
(23)
Having obtained the dressed propagator, we are ready to proceed to the next stage, namely the calculation of the $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ bound state.

### II.3 Two-body bound states

In the following, we label the dressed quark mass by $`m_1`$. As for the antiquark (which might have a different flavor), we label its dressed mass by $`m_2`$. The total momentum of the bound state is denoted by $`r`$ and the momentum of the quark by $`p`$. The momentum of the antiquark is then $`rp`$.

The bound state wave function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,r)`$ is given by the Bethe-Salpeter equation (also shown graphically in Fig. 2),

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,r)=ig^2𝒫\frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}D(k_{})\gamma _{}S_2(p+kr)\mathrm{\Gamma }(p+k,r)S_1(p+k)\gamma _{},$$
(24)
where $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ are the quark- and the antiquark propagators, respectively.

With the substitution $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,r)=\gamma _{}\psi (p,r)`$ thooft  Eq. (24) becomes

$$\psi (p,r)=i(2g)^2𝒫\frac{d^2k}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{D(k_{})(p+k)_{}(p+kr)_{}\psi (p+k,r)}{\left[(p+k)^2m_1^2\right]\left[(p+kr)^2m_2^2\right]}.$$
(25)
The equal $`x_{}`$ wave function is defined in the following fashion:

$$\phi (p_{},r_{})=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑p_+\frac{p_{}(pr)_{}\psi (p,r)}{(p^2m_1^2)\left[(pr)^2m_2^2\right]}.$$
(26)
By substituting this into Eq. (25) one gets

$$\psi (p,r)=\frac{g^2}{i\pi ^2}𝒫𝑑k_{}D(k_{})\phi (p_{}+k_{},r_{}).$$
(27)
Note that $`\psi (p,r)`$ does not depend on $`p_+`$. Multiplying both sides of the former equation by $`[p_{}(pr)_{}]/[(p^2m_1^2)((pr)^2m_2^2)]`$ and integrating over $`p_+`$ we consider the two poles in the complex $`p_+`$-plane, namely $`k_1=\frac{m_1^2}{2p_{}}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(p_{})`$ and $`k_2=\frac{m_2^2}{2(p_{}r_{})}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(p_{}r_{})`$. If both of them are in the same half plane the integral over $`p_+`$ is zero, because the sum of the two residues is zero. If the first pole is in the upper half-plane and the second one is in the lower half-plane (which means that $`p_{}<0`$ and $`p_{}r_{}>0`$) the integral is $`2\pi i/(k_1k_2)=2\pi i\theta (p_{})\theta (p_{}r_{})/(k_1k_2)`$. If the second pole is in the upper half-plane and the first one is in the lower half plane the integral is $`2\pi i\theta (p_{})\theta (p_{}+r_{})/(k_1k_2)`$. Combining these two cases one obtains

$$\phi (p,r)=\frac{\pi i}{2}\frac{\theta (p_{})\theta (p_{}r_{})\theta (p_{})\theta (r_{}p_{})}{\frac{m_1^2}{2p_{}}\frac{m_2^2}{2(p_{}r_{})}r_+}\psi (p,r).$$
(28)
Whenever the combination of the $`\theta `$ functions does not vanish, it is easy to invert this relation:

$$\psi (p,r)=\frac{2}{\pi i}\left(\theta (p_{})\theta (p_{}r_{})\theta (p_{})\theta (r_{}p_{})\right)\left(\frac{m_1^2}{2p_{}}\frac{m_2^2}{2(p_{}r_{})}r_+\right)\phi (p,r).$$
(29)
Whenever this condition does not stand, we have to use Eq. (27) to compute $`\psi `$ from $`\phi `$. Note that $`\phi `$ has been normalized to $`1/\sqrt{N_c}`$ in order to get the correct charge normalization.

In order to determine $`\phi `$, we transform Eq. (26) into a form suitable for a numerical calculation. The $`\theta `$ functions limit the range of $`p_{}`$ to $`0<p_{}<r_{}`$, and for real particles only positive values for $`r_+`$ must be considered. After some algebraic manipulations, Eq. (28) becomes

$$\mu ^2\phi (x,r)=\left(\frac{\alpha _1}{x}+\frac{\alpha _2}{1x}\right)\phi (x,r)𝒫_0^1𝑑y\frac{\phi (y,r)\phi (x,r)}{(yx)^2},$$
(30)
where the following notation was introduced:

$$\mu ^2=\frac{2\pi r_+r_{}}{g^2},\alpha _1=\frac{\pi m_1^2}{g^2},\alpha _2=\frac{\pi m_2^2}{g^2},x=\frac{p_{}}{r_{}},y=\frac{k_{}}{r_{}}.$$
(31)
We solve the integral equation (30) numerically. The wave function is expanded in cubic splines (since the wave function $`\phi `$ is defined only in the range between $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$, the boundary condition that they vanish at the limits of this interval is imposed). The resulting linear matrix equation for the expansion coefficients was solved with standard eigenvalue routines.

In the limit $`m_{01}=m_{02}=0`$, Eq. (30) yields a ground state of zero mass, and thus is consistent with chiral symmetry. To generate a solution that is related to the pion in the real world, we searched for a bound state solution of Eq. (30) with a mass of $`140`$ MeV. To obtain such a solution, we varied the bare mass $`m_{01}`$ of one of the quarks. For simplicity, the second quark mass $`m_{02}`$ was not taken as an independent free model parameter but determined by assuming a fixed mass ratio $`\frac{m_{01}}{m_{02}}=3/4`$, which lies within the accepted range between $`0.2`$ and $`0.8`$ PDG . The coupling parameter $`g`$ and the dressed masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ were adjusted accordingly, through Eqs.(30), (31) and (23).

We represent in Fig. 3 the values of the bare quark mass $`m_{01}`$, as a function of the coupling strength $`g`$, which generate a bound state with a mass of $`140`$ MeV.

The bare masses are found to depend linearly on $`g`$. The slope and the $`y`$-axis intercept of the numerical straight line on Fig. 3 are easily determined through a fit, with the result

$$m_{01}=60.570.178g\mathrm{MeV}.$$
(32)
With the help of Eq. (23) we can also predict the dependence of the dressed masses on $`g`$ from the curves for the bare masses. Therefore, in the ’t Hooft model the dressed masses are given as the following functions of $`g`$:

$`m_1^2`$ $`=`$ $`(60.570.178g)^2{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{MeV}^2`$
$`m_2^2`$ $`=`$ $`(80.760.24g)^2{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{MeV}^2.`$ (33)
We can also determine the largest value of $`g`$, such that each dressed mass is physical, i.e., not imaginary. For the first flavor this happens at $`g=81.64`$ MeV, while for the second flavor at $`g=100.8`$ MeV. The first value is therefore the largest possible for $`g`$, such the ’t Hooft model may support a constituent quark model interpretation, where the dressed masses correspond to constituent quark masses.

## III Meson-meson scattering

In this section we consider the meson-meson elastic scattering amplitude. We continue to assume two different flavors for the quarks, whose dressed masses are $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, and we consider the lowest $`q\overline{q}`$ bound state only.

The diagrams that dominate in the large $`N_c`$ limit are the quark exchange box diagram, represented in Fig. 4, and the quark exchange crossbox diagram, represented in Fig. 5. In the center of mass system, the momenta of the ingoing mesons are $`P=(P^0,P^1)=(\sqrt{\mu ^2+p^2},p)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{P}=(\stackrel{~}{P}^0,\stackrel{~}{P}^1)=(\sqrt{\mu ^2+p^2},p)`$, where $`\mu `$ is the mass of the meson and $`p`$ the relative momentum. The outgoing particles then have the same (but interchanged) momenta.

Both diagrams are symmetrized in terms of the outgoing states. Similar diagrams which are obtained from the former ones by interchanging $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ in the intermediate state are also considered. There are a total of eight diagrams which were calculated. When there is only one quark flavor, one does not need to interchange the two masses and there are only four diagrams. The sum of these diagrams is proportional to $`1/N_c`$.

As for the gluon exchange diagrams, such as in Fig. 6, they are suppressed in the large $`N_c`$ limit by a factor of $`1/N_c`$ compared to the quark exchange terms.

Since the vertex function is independent of the $`+`$ component of the relative momentum, the momentum integral in the loops of Figs. 4 and 5 is simplified: we can first integrate the propagator products over $`k_+`$ analytically, and then perform numerically the second integration over $`k_{}`$, which includes now the vertex functions.

As an illustrative example, we demonstrate the calculation of the box diagram (Fig. 4) in greater detail.

The corresponding scattering amplitude is

$`_{\mathrm{box}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k_{}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑k_+\psi (k,P)\psi (k,\stackrel{~}{P})\psi (P+\stackrel{~}{P}k,P)\psi (kP\stackrel{~}{P},\stackrel{~}{P})`$ (34)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_+\frac{m_1^2}{2k_{}}+iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_+\stackrel{~}{P}_{}\frac{m_2^2}{2(k_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}+iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_+P_+\stackrel{~}{P}_+\frac{m_1^2}{2(k_{}P_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}+iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}P_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_+P_+\frac{m_2^2}{2(k_{}P_{})}+iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}P_{})}}.`$
The propagators have four poles:

$`k_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_1^2}{2k_{}}}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}),`$
$`k_2`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{P}_++{\displaystyle \frac{m_2^2}{2(k_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{}),`$
$`k_3`$ $`=`$ $`P_++\stackrel{~}{P}_++{\displaystyle \frac{m_1^2}{2(k_{}P_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{})}}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}P_{}\stackrel{~}{P}_{}),`$
$`k_4`$ $`=`$ $`P_++{\displaystyle \frac{m_2^2}{2(k_{}P_{})}}iϵ\mathrm{sgn}(k_{}P_{}).`$ (35)
In order to perform the $`k_+`$ integration, one needs to close the contour in the complex plane and consider the residues of all poles inside the contour. There are $`16`$ different possible combinations of signs of the imaginary parts of the poles. Some of these cases can be excluded, because they correspond to values of $`k_{}`$ which make the $`k_+`$ integral vanish.

For instance, a pole $`k_1`$ in the upper half plane implies that the pole $`k_2`$ cannot be in the lower half-plane, otherwise one would have $`k_{}>\stackrel{~}{P}_{}=(\sqrt{\mu ^2+p^2}+p)/\sqrt{2}>0`$, in contradiction with the initial hypothesis $`k_{}<0`$. Likewise the poles $`k_3`$ and $`k_4`$ cannot be in the lower half-plane either. Therefore, if $`k_1`$ is in the upper half-plane, the other 3 poles are also in the upper half plane. This would imply the $`k_+`$ integral to vanish, since one may close the contour below the $`k_+`$ axis. Therefore we can exclude the case when $`k_1`$ is in the upper half plane.

After a detailed analysis one finds that there are only three cases that have a non-vanishing contribution to the integral: (i) only $`k_3`$ is in the upper half plane, (ii) the poles $`k_2`$ and $`k_3`$ are in the upper half plane, (iii) only $`k_1`$ is in the lower half plane. As for case (i), it implies $`k_{}>\stackrel{~}{P}_{}`$ and $`k_{}<P_{}+\stackrel{~}{P}_{}`$. Under these circumstances, $`\psi (P+\stackrel{~}{P}k,P)=\frac{2}{\pi i}(k_3k_2)|_{ϵ=0}\phi ((P+\stackrel{~}{P}k)_{}/P_{})`$ and $`\psi (kP\stackrel{~}{P},\stackrel{~}{P})=\frac{2}{\pi i}(k_2k_1)|_{ϵ=0}\phi ((P+\stackrel{~}{P}k)_{}/\stackrel{~}{P}_{})`$, due to Eq. (29), while the other vertex functions have to be evaluated using Eq. (27). The contribution from case (i) becomes

$`_{\mathrm{box}}|_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi i\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}\right)^2{\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{P}_{}}^{\stackrel{~}{P}_{}+P_{}}}𝑑k_{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k_3k_4)|_{ϵ=0}}}`$
$`\times `$ $`\phi ({\displaystyle \frac{(P+\stackrel{~}{P}k)_{}}{P_{}}})\phi ({\displaystyle \frac{(P+\stackrel{~}{P}k)_{}}{\stackrel{~}{P}_{}}})\psi (k,P)\psi (k,\stackrel{~}{P}).`$ (36)
This integral is computed numerically. We treat the other two cases in a similar fashion.

We note that the amplitude of Eq. (36) vanishes in the chiral limit, which supports that the ground state solution for the $`q\overline{q}`$ system has features of the pion. Indeed, since in the chiral limit Eq. (30) gives $`\mu =0`$, one has $`P_{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\sqrt{\mu ^2+p^2}p)=0`$, implying that the two integration limits in (36) coincide, and therefore the amplitude vanishes. The same can be shown for the other terms of the amplitude not explicitly written here.

It is worth mentioning that we implemented stability tests of the numerical results against the number of gridpoints, the number of splines and the singularity regulator $`ϵ`$ (the $`k_+`$ integral of the propagators is singular). These checks proceeded by imposing the following criteria: doubling each of the mentioned parameters, the relative change in the results should be less than 1% . Convergence is typically obtained for 440 gridpoints, 40 splines and $`ϵ=10^2`$.

## IV Results

The numerical calculation of the meson-meson scattering amplitude (section III) starts with the evaluation of the two-body quark-antiquark wavefunction from the Bethe-Salpeter equation (section II.3). In turn, this demands as input the bare quark masses and the quark-gluon coupling constant $`g`$ (section II.2).

We constructed four representative models which correspond to four different choices of the quark-gluon coupling constant and bare quark masses. They are subjected to the constraint that the bound state mass of the $`q\overline{q}`$ system is the pion mass $`m_\pi `$=140 MeV.

The parameters defining the four models are shown in Table 1. The organization principle for these models is that, going from model I to model IV, the quark-gluon coupling constant increases and the quark masses decrease.

In models I and II, the sum of the dressed quark masses is close to the real pion mass. Consequently, they can be interpreted as constituent quark masses in a constituent quark model for the “pion”, generated by QCD within the ’t Hooft model assumptions. However, this correspondence breaks down for large couplings, as seen for the model considered next.

In model III, the value of the coupling $`g`$ is chosen slightly below the maximum value determined in section 2 for a constituent quark model interpretation, while in model IV that maximum value is exceeded substantially. In this last case, the dressed masses are imaginary and thus not physical.

Not surprisingly, the bare quark masses differ from the up and down current quark masses of QCD for all models. This is a known artifact of the ’t Hooft model: from Eq. (23) one can see that the mass shift due to the dressing decreases the quark mass, instead of increasing it as in 3+1 dimensional QCD.

Figure 7 shows the obtained Bethe-Salpeter $`q\overline{q}`$ wave functions for each model. Clearly, the description of the quark-gluon vertices varies considerably. The wave functions are strongly peaked around $`x`$ close to 0.4 for small values of $`g`$, while for larger $`g`$ they become broader and more and more constant. This behavior can be easily understood: larger values of $`g`$ cause stronger attraction between quark and antiquark, leading to a tighter bound state and therefore a more spread out wave function in momentum space.

As described in the previous section, for each of these models we calculated the meson-meson scattering amplitude, the squares of which are displayed in Fig. 8. Since we are primarily interested in their structure, the amplitudes have been scaled such that the maximum of their absolute squares are equal to 1. In all four cases, we find a resonance structure close to threshold.

This feature could be a sign for the existence of a $`q^2\overline{q}^2`$ bound state, for which the lattice calculations of Ref. Jaffe  found indications. We remind the reader that working in perturbation theory we cannot generate a bound state directly, but it would be interesting to see if in a non-perturbative extension of our calculation, such a bound state would also emerge from the ’t Hooft model.

On the other hand, the experimentally observed resonances have energies well above threshold. It may be necessary to include gluon exchange (not considered in our calculation) and higher order quark exchange terms in the expansion in powers of $`1/N_c`$ in order to achieve a description resembling more closely the real world.

In order to determine approximately the position and width of the resonance, we compare the ’t Hooft model amplitudes to a simple resonance model. We calculate the amplitude for an intermediate s-channel resonance at tree level, the absolute square of which is

$$||^2=\stackrel{~}{g}^4\frac{1}{(sm_r^2)^2+m_i^4},$$
(37)
where $`m_r^2`$ and $`m_i^2`$ are the real part and the imaginary part of the square of the resonance mass, respectively, and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ is the effective meson-meson-“$`\sigma `$” coupling constant. We then fit the parameters of this simple model to best reproduce the ’t Hooft model results.

In the non-relativistic limit, (37) becomes

$$||^2\stackrel{~}{g}^4\frac{\frac{1}{4E_R^2}}{(EE_R)^2+\frac{m_i^4}{4E_R^2}}.$$
(38)
We can compare (38) with the well-known Breit-Wigner form,

$$||^2\overline{g}^4\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4}{(EE_R)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4},$$
(39)
where $`E_R`$ is the resonance energy, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is its width, and $`\overline{g}`$ the corresponding coupling strength, and simply read off the relations $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2=m_i^4/m_r^2`$ and $`E_R=m_r`$.

The parameters obtained in this way for all models are also displayed in Table 1. We verified in an independent fit directly to the Breit-Wigner form (39) that the parameters are not significantly altered in the non-relativistic limit. For comparison, the mass of the “real” sigma resonance is considered to be in the range of 400–1200 MeV, while its width lies in the interval 600–1000 MeV PDG . Clearly, one should not demand too much from the ’t Hooft model with its simplifying assumptions. However, we consider it a significant finding that it predicts a low energy resonance at all, based solely on the leading-order quark exchange diagrams.

In all four cases, the resonance is located very close to threshold, and it is very narrow. The width increases slowly with increasing quark-gluon coupling strength. On the other hand, the resonance position remains more or less unchanged as long as we restrict ourselves to models with real dressed masses (models I to III). Only for model IV, whose coupling constant is considerably larger, the resonance moves away from threshold to about 300 MeV.

One might have expected the resonance energy to increase smoothly and in a more pronounced manner with the quark-gluon coupling strength $`g`$. However, one has to keep in mind that the included quark-exchange processes do not directly depend on $`g`$, but only indirectly through changes of the vertex functions and of the dressed quark masses that appear in the quark propagators. Owing to the already mentioned peculiar feature of the ’t Hooft model that dressed quark masses decrease with increasing coupling strength $`g`$, the latter tend to decrease the resonance energy. Moreover, while a larger $`g`$ implies an effectively stronger attraction between the two mesons – once they overlap – through the stronger quark-quark attraction, the very probability of this overlap drops in turn, because the spatial size of the mesons decreases. These effects seems to counterbalance each other to a large extent, leaving the resonance position more or less unchanged.

Similarly, that the width of the meson-meson resonance increases with $`g`$ is also a consequence of the contraction of the mesons caused by the stronger quark-antiquark attraction. This shrinking in size leads to a larger spreading of the meson-$`q\overline{q}`$ vertex function in momentum space (see Fig. 7), which in turn contributes to the overlap integrals in the included Feynman diagrams in a wider momentum range, thereby broadening the resonance.

Finally, we should mention that our principal finding – the existence of a narrow low-lying resonance in our calculations – does not depend on the particular value chosen as a constraint for the $`q\overline{q}`$ bound-state mass. If we use, instead of 140 MeV, a much larger or a much smaller value, we find again a narrow resonance close to threshold.

## V Conclusions

We calculated various models for quark-antiquark vertex functions within the ’t Hooft model by solving the corresponding $`q\overline{q}`$ Bethe-Salpeter equation. In all cases, the bare quark masses and the quark-gluon coupling constants were tuned such that the mass of the $`q\overline{q}`$ bound state coincides with the pion mass.

We found that, within a limited range of coupling constants and bare quark masses, one obtains $`q\overline{q}`$ bound states with the features of a constituent quark model, i. e., where the meson mass is approximately equal to the sum of the dressed quark masses. On the other hand, for larger values of the quark-gluon coupling constant this constituent quark picture is no longer sustained.

We used the calculated Bethe-Salpeter wave functions to derive meson-meson (“pion-pion”) scattering amplitudes within the ’t Hooft model. They are calculated from the leading-order quark-exchange diagrams. These QCD-based meson-meson amplitudes exhibit a resonance structure close to threshold in all considered cases. We extracted an effective mass and width of this “sigma-like” resonance by comparison with a simple s-channel resonance model where “pions” and “sigmas” instead of quarks are the effective degrees of freedom.

The extracted values are not meant to be completely realistic in the sense that they should reproduce the experimental data, since the ’t Hooft model is QCD only under simplifying assumptions. However, the results of this calculation demonstrate that the ’t Hooft model can accomodate a resonance for the four-quark system, already in the leading-order quark-exchange processes. In those exchange mechanisms, the diquark correlation, given by the quark-antiquark vertex function, plays an important role in determining the energy dependence of the meson-meson scattering amplitude.

The fact that in our ’t Hooft model calculations a narrow resonance lies close to threshold, while the broader sigma resonance is supposed to be located at higher energy, is indicative to the limitations of the ’t Hooft model. It also hints at the importance of higher-order quark exchange processes as well as of gluon exchange contributions (higher order terms in the $`1/N_c`$ expansion), which should be investigated in future work.

## VI Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal, and FEDER, under grant number SFRH/BPD/5661/2001 (Z.B.), CERN/FIS/43709/2001 and POCTI/FNU/40834/2001 (M.T.P and A.S.).