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# Effect of neutron composition and excitation energy of primary fragments on isospin observables in multifragmentation

## I Introduction

Recently, the importance of the isospin degree of freedom in obtaining information regarding charge equilibration and the symmetry dependent terms of the nuclear equation of state has prompted measurements of the isotopic distributions of emitted particles in multifragmentation process Xu et al. (2000); Milazzo (2000); Tsang et al. (2001a, b, 2002); Yennello et al. (1994); Johnston et al. (1996, 1997); Rowland et al. (2003). These particles, when emitted, have a broad range of isospin content and carry important information regarding the evolution of the isospin (N/Z) degree of freedom. In multifragmentation, the system quickly expands into the vacuum and decays into hot primary fragments. These hot fragments, despite their short life, carry a significant amount of information about the early stages of the reaction. The surface properties of the primary fragments may provide information about the critical temperature of nuclear matter Ogul and Botvina (2002); Karnaukhov et al. (2003), whereas their isospin is related to the symmetry term in the fragment (nuclear liquid) phase Botvina et al. (2002); Ono et al. (2003). Similar hot nuclei are also produced in physical processes, such as the collapse of massive stars following supernova II explosions Bethe (1990), where they can live for a long time in equilibrium with the surrounding nuclear matter.

Experimentally, the observed fragments result from the secondary decay of the hot primary fragments. The secondary decay smears out some of the relevant information making it difficult to study any isospin effect that would have been present before the secondary decay. It is important to verify the extent to which isospin information is preserved in the experimentally measured fragment observables. Therefore, a self-consistent theoretical calculation of primary and secondary fragments, which includes a comparison to many experimental observables, is necessary. Also, the secondary de-excitation process proceeds in physical conditions different from the standard de-excitation of a compound nucleus at low excitation energies: the primary fragments are in the Coulomb field of other fragments. The structure of their excited levels can thus be different. These difficulties regarding the secondary de-excitation can be overcome by comparing the same observables in two similar reactions that differ mainly in isospin asymmetry (see e.g.Xu et al. (2000)). Such an observable can also be constructed from the model calculation and compared with experimental results. In a previous study Shetty et al. (2003), assuming statistical equilibrium in an excited nuclear system, reduced (’free’) neutron ($`\rho _n`$) and proton ($`\rho _p`$) densities were obtained from the measured isotope and isotone yield ratios. It was shown that $`\rho _n`$ and $`\rho _p`$ depend significantly on the beam energy, and therefore, may carry information about evolution of fragment isospin with excitation energy. In this work, we show that the secondary decay decreases the asymmetry in the reduced neutron and proton densities and that this effect is larger for system with higher isospin. The decay, however, still preserves the sensitivity of the neutron content of fragments toward the excitation energy and N/Z of the total system. The observed asymmetry can be well accounted for by the statistical multifragmentation model (SMM) Bondorf et al. (1995).

## II Experiment

The measurements were performed at the Cyclotron Institute of Texas A$`\&`$M University (TAMU) using beams provided by the K500 Superconducting Cyclotron. Isotopically pure beams of 58Ni and 58Fe at 30, 40 and 47 MeV/nucleon were bombarded on self-supporting 58Ni (1.75 mg/cm2) and 58Fe (2.3 mg/cm2) targets. Six discrete particle telescopes placed inside a scattering chamber and centered at laboratory angles of 10, 44, 72, 100, 128 and 148, were used to measure fragments from the reactions. Each telescope consisted of a gas ionization chamber (IC) followed by a pair of silicon detectors (Si-Si) and a CsI scintillator detector, providing three distinct detector pairs (IC-Si, Si-Si, and Si-CsI) for fragment identification. Further details of the experimental setup and analysis can be found in refs. Shetty et al. (2003); Ramakrishnan et al. (1998). The present study is carried out for fragments detected at 44 degrees in the laboratory system, which corresponds to the center of mass angle $`90`$ degrees. The fragments detected at this angle originate predominantly from central events. Analysis with QMD+SMM model carried out in Ref. Ramakrishnan et al. (1998) supports this conclusion. Nevertheless, a possible admixture of the projectile/target fragmentation processes will be accounted in the following analysis.

## III Ratios of reduced nucleon densities

In the Grand-Canonical approach for the multifragmentation process (see e.g. Bondorf et al. (1995); Randrup and Koonin (1981); Albergo et al. (1985); Botvina et al. (1987)), the yield for an isotope with neutron number, N, and proton number, Z (the mass number A = N + Z), can be written as

$$Y(N,Z)V\rho _n^N\rho _p^ZZ_{N,Z}(T)A^{3/2}e^{B(N,Z)/T}$$
(1)
where V is the volume of the system, $`\rho _n`$ $``$ e$`^{\mu _n/T}`$ and $`\rho _p`$ $``$ e$`^{\mu _p/T}`$ are the primary ’free’ neutron and proton densities, respectively. $`\mu _n`$ and $`\mu _p`$ are the neutron and proton chemical potentials. $`Z_{N,Z}(T)`$ is the intrinsic partition function of the excited fragment. $`B(N,Z)`$ is the ground state binding energy of the corresponding fragment, and $`T`$ is the temperature. In the above formula, the effect of the Coulomb interaction on fragment yields is disregarded. In addition, nuclear systems are finite, and this fact influences the fragment yields, especially at low excitation energies Bondorf et al. (1995). By introducing $`\rho _n`$ and $`\rho _p`$ the actual isotope yields are reduced to the approximation appropriate for the thermodynamical limit at high excitation energies Bondorf et al. (1995), and hence referred to as the ’reduced’ densities.

By taking ratios of isotope yields of two different systems, one can essentially decrease the uncertainties in the individual isotope yields which exist both in experimental measurements and their theoretical descriptions. In this way, the study of the isotopic composition of the fragments can be reduced to determine the relative neutron and proton densities obtained from the ratios of measured isotopes. The expression for the relative neutron density is

$$\frac{Y(N+k,Z)/Y^{Ni}(N+k,Z)}{Y(N,Z)/Y^{Ni}(N,Z)}=\mathbf{\left(}\frac{\rho _n}{\rho _n^{Ni}}\mathbf{\right)}^N,$$
(2)
where $`k`$ corresponds to the different isotopes used to determine the double ratio, and $`Y^{Ni}`$ is the yield for the Ni + Ni reaction. A similar expression for the relative proton density can also be defined. Fig. 1 shows the average ratios of reduced neutron and proton densities as a function of the beam energy for Fe + Ni and Fe + Fe systems. The different symbols in the figure correspond to densities obtained for $`k`$ = 1, $`k`$ = 2 and $`k`$ = 3. One observes a steady decrease in the neutron density and a rise in the proton density with increasing beam energy for the Fe + Ni system. The effect is stronger for Fe + Fe system, having higher N/Z.

## IV Evaluation of parameters of the thermal sources

In order to compare the results of Fig.1 with the statistical multifragmentation model, the initial parameters of the thermal source, such as the mass (A), charge (Z) and excitation energy ($`E^{}`$), were evaluated by performing a dynamical BNV calculation Baran et al. (2002). For example, for Fe + Ni central collisions the parameters obtained for the three beam energies were $`E_s^{}`$ 5, 7 and 9.4 MeV/nucleon, $`A_s`$ 111 , $`Z_s`$ 52. In all cases the N/Z ratios of the sources are approximately the same as in interacting nuclei. These results were obtained

at a time around 40-50 fm/c after the projectile fuses with the target nuclei, and the quadrupole moment of the nucleon coordinates (used for identification of the deformation of the system) approaches zero. We mention that in the calculations, the form of single sources oscillates and they do not undergo dynamical disintegration into fragments. Consequently, there is no dynamical flow produced in these reactions.

Alternatively, the thermal source parameters can also be estimated from other experimental data. For example, in Ref. Hudan et al. (2003), for nearly symmetric central collisions of Xe + Sn, excitation energies of $`E^{}`$ 5 MeV/nucleon at 32 MeV/nucleon, and $`E^{}`$ 7 MeV/nucleon at 50 MeV/nucleon were obtained. It was shown in this work that the SMM describes the disassembly of these nuclear systems into fragments quite well, and reproduces the excitation energies of the observed primary fragments. However, in this case of heavy systems a radial flow of $``$ 2 MeV/nucleon was identified at 50 MeV/nucleon beam energy. In the present case, the systems are nearly twice as small and more stable with respect to excitation and flow. As supported by experimental observations (see e.g. Hong et al. (1998)), small systems produced in central collisions accumulate smaller radial flow than the large systems, consequently, a larger part of their available energy can be transformed into thermal excitation.

## V SMM calculation

The SMM calculation was performed for different sources in order to cover the uncertainties of the thermal source parameters. In particular, we selected ‘complete fusion’ sources: $`A_s`$ = 116, with $`Z_s`$ = 52, 54, and 56, at excitation energies of

$`E_s^{}`$ = 6, 8, and 10 MeV/nucleon. In order to account for a possible loss of nucleons during pre-equilibrium emission, and investigate the sensitivity of the results toward the source size, we have also considered the sources $`A_s`$ = 58, with $`Z_s`$ = 26, 27, and 28. The small sources can also simulate the effects of a two source admixture that leads to the observable isospin characteristics. We have used the standard parameters for the SMM calculations, where the freeze-out density is taken as 1/3 of the normal nuclear density. This parametrization, together with the adopted secondary de-excitation procedure Botvina et al. (1987), provide a reasonably good description of the experimental data, including the isotope production (see e.g. Milazzo (2000); Botvina et al. (1995); Winchester et al. (2001)). We believe that our analysis of the reduced neutron and proton densities is not very sensitive to the previously mentioned difficulties related to the treatment of secondary de-excitation processes: Since these densities are obtained by averaging over a large number of isotopes, the results are not affected by the rare isotopes which are produced with small probabilities.

In Fig. 2 we show the mean characteristics of the hot primary fragments produced after disintegration of the thermal sources in the freeze-out volume. We show their relative yields, internal excitation energies and N/Z ratios. Even at the lowest $`E_s^{}`$ the systems undergo intensive multifragmentation, characterized by an exponential-like mass distribution. As expected, with increasing excitation the sources break-up into smaller fragments. At $`E_s^{}`$ = 6 AMeV the internal excitations of the fragments are around 3 MeV/nucleon, and they increase slightly with their masses. This trend exists because the microcanonical calculation conserves energy: the channels with production of large fragments have smaller Q-values, and, consequently, higher temperatures. In case of canonical calculations, when the temperature is the same for all channels, the internal excitation energies per nucleon would be nearly the same for all fragments having the same level density structure. With increasing $`E_s^{}`$ the internal excitation of fragments increases by $``$1.5 MeV/nucleon. By comparing the sources with different neutron content, we see that the main difference is in the N/Z ratios of primary fragments. However, these N/Z ratios change only slightly with the excitation energies. They are mainly determined by the N/Z of the sources (actually they are only slightly less than the sources’ ratios), and they demonstrate a well-known statistical trend: The N/Z of fragments increases with their mass number Botvina and Mishustin (2001), which can be explained by the Bethe-Weizsaecker formula. Most of the neutrons of the system are accumulated in the hot fragments, the share of free primary neutrons is rather small. However, if we take the difference between the N/Z of fragments in neutron rich and neutron poor sources, we see that it becomes slightly less for the high $`E_s^{}`$. In particular, the difference of $`(N/Z)_{52}(N/Z)_{56}`$ taken between the cases of $`E_s^{}`$ = 6 and 10 AMeV and averaged for fragments with $`A`$ = 6-20, is 0.0051, i.e., the share of free neutrons increases a little bit with the excitation energy.

The secondary de-excitation of hot fragments changes their properties. Fig. 3 shows the N/Z ratios and relative yields obtained for the final cold fragments. Both masses and neutron content of fragments decrease considerably. The decrease in the N/Z ratio is due to higher neutron evaporation probability compared to those for the protons. The N/Z of light fragments vary with $`Z`$, reflecting their shell structure. However, as one can see from the middle panel, the qualitative difference between the N/Z ratios of hot fragments produced by sources with different isospin at the same excitation preserves after the secondary de-excitation, though it becomes smaller. Moreover, one can see that the solid and dotted lines in the middle panel are more distinguished than in the Fig. 2. The average difference between the cases with the two excitations increases up to 0.0168 for the fragments A = 6-20. This means that the difference of the N/Z of fragments produced in neutron rich and neutron poor sources decreases more for the high excitation energy, as a result of more intensive secondary de-excitation.

## VI Comparison of the relative densities with SMM calculation

We now compare the measured relative reduced neutron and proton densities for the Fe + Ni and Fe + Fe systems with the calculation. The properties of fragments discussed above are manifested in the evolution of these densities. Fig. 4 shows the relative densities plotted as a function of excitation energy of the source undergoing fragmentation. The excitation energies were obtained from the BNV calculations carried out for various beam energies. The error bars for the excitation energies corresponds to the two different equation of state used in the BNV calculation, namely, the asy-stiff and the asy-soft equation of state. The regions between solid lines shown in Fig. 4 are the SMM calculation of the densities obtained from the secondary fragment distribution. The regions between dotted lines correspond to the densities calculated from the primary fragment distribution. The width of the two regions represents the measure of sensitivity of the calculation to the assumed source size, i.e. for the sources with $`A_s`$ = 58 and $`A_s`$ = 116. The SMM calculations fit the experimental trends quite well, demonstrating a smooth decrease in $`\rho _n/\rho _n^{Ni}`$ with increasing excitation energy.

Both large- and small-size sources show very similar behavior indicating that the uncertainty of the source size does not influence the overall trends.

The calculation suggests the following interpretation of the data. The main difference in the relative densities is obviously caused by the difference of the N/Z of the sources. It is largest for the Fe + Fe case. The important observation is the decreasing of this difference with the excitation energy, demonstrated in Shetty et al. (2003). In fact two effects contribute to it. The first one is a small decreasing of the difference between the N/Z ratios of primary fragments produced by the neutron-rich and neutron-poor sources with the excitation energy. This is because for high $`E_s^{}`$ more neutron rich primary fragments are produced, however, if the small clusters are already neutron rich, free neutrons are predicted. Nevertheless, the secondary de-excitation is very important, since it changes drastically the N/Z of fragments. In the case of a larger internal excitation of fragments, the secondary decay produces more similar cold fragments, despite the difference in their initial N/Z ratios. This leads to decreasing of $`\rho _n/\rho _n^{Ni}`$ (and the corresponding increasing $`\rho _p/\rho _p^{Ni}`$), observed in the experiment.

## VII Conclusion

We have explained the observed evolution of the fragment isospin with the excitation energy in the framework of the SMM. This is consistent with the following picture of the reaction: The primary fragments produced at the freeze-out density in the central collisions are excited and usually contain more neutrons than observed in cold fragments. Moreover, their N/Z ratio is only slightly less than the N/Z ratio of the excited nuclear systems. In our cases, the internal excitation energy of the primary fragments increases with the total excitation energy of the system. Therefore, the secondary de-excitation of fragments becomes more efficient in removing neutrons from fragments, and, the difference of the primary N/Z ratios disappears gradually with excitation energy, for the final cold fragments. However, these characteristics of primary fragments (their internal excitation energies and N/Z ratios), and the observed isospin evolution, are obtained for very high excitation energies, when the initial compound nucleus dissociates completely into small fragments. The isospin of fragments produced at energies near the multifragmentation threshold may behave differently Botvina and Mishustin (2001). We believe that the present results demonstrate that the properties of hot fragments can be effectively estimated by investigating general trends of cold fragments versus the excitation energy and the neutron richness of the sources.

## VIII Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the staff of the Texas A$`\&`$M Cyclotron facility for the excellent beam quality. This work was supported in part by the Robert A. Welch Foundation through grant No. A-1266, and the Department of Energy through grant No. DE-FG03-93ER40773. One of the authors (ASB) thanks Cyclotron Institute TAMU for hospitality and support.


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# Inaccurate use of asymptotic formulas

## Abstract

The asymptotic form of the plane wave decomposition into spherical waves, which is used to express the scattering amplitude in terms of phase shifts, is incorrect. We explain why and show how to circumvent the mathematical inconsistency.

In quantum mechanics the following plane wave decomposition into spherical waves is used

$$e^{i𝐤𝐫}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}i^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })j_l(kr),$$
(1)
where $`𝐤𝐫=kr\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }`$, $`P_l`$ is the $`l`$th Legendre polynomial, and $`j_l`$ is the $`l`$th spherical Bessel function. Because we are interested in the large distance behavior of the wave function in scattering theory, we need the asymptotic form of the spherical function

$$j_l(kr)\frac{\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2)}{kr},$$
(2)
and we rewrite Eq. (1) as

$$e^{i𝐤𝐫}\stackrel{\mathrm{?}}{}\frac{1}{kr}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}i^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2).$$
(3)
Equation (3) is given in numerous textbooks on quantum mechanics, including SchiffSchiff  and Landau and Lifshitz.LL  Astonishingly, the expression (3) is meaningless, and for this reason we put the question mark over the approximate equality. The series is not only divergent, but it cannot even be treated as an asymptotic expansion of the function $`e^{i𝐤𝐫}`$ at large distances.

To see how badly the series (3) diverges, we consider the special case $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }=1`$. Then, $`P_l(1)=1`$, and after a simple calculation we obtain

$`e^{ikr}`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{?}}{}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(kr)}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2l+1)\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi l/2)i{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}(kr)}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2l+1)\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi l/2)`$ (4a)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(kr)}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(4n+1)i{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}(kr)}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(4n+3).`$ (4b)
According to Eq. (4), both the real and imaginary parts of $`e^{ikr}`$ contain a divergent series, for any value of $`r`$.

However, we often consider asymptotic series that are divergent, but still correctly represent certain functions. The infinite series $`a_0(x)+a_1(x)+a_2(x)+\mathrm{}`$ is the asymptotic expansion of the function $`f(x)`$ at $`x_0`$ (which can be infinite) ifCopson

$$\frac{1}{a_n(x)}\left(f(x)\underset{l=0}{\overset{n}{}}a_l(x)\right)0\text{for}xx_0.$$
(5)
Equivalently, the series is asymptotic if

$$\frac{a_{l+1}(x)}{a_l(x)}0\text{for}xx_0.$$
(6)
Due to the definition (5), any finite subseries of an asymptotic series approximates the function $`f(x)`$ and the approximation becomes better and better as $`xx_0`$. However, the series (3) does not satisfy the condition (6), and consequently, it cannot be treated as an asymptotic expansion of $`e^{i𝐤𝐫}`$ at large distances.

What is wrong with the expansion (3)? It appears that the approximate formula (2) requires that

$$kr\frac{1}{2}l(l+1).$$
(7)
For completeness, we derive this condition here, and find not only the first but also the second term of the $`1/z`$ expansion of $`j_l(z)`$. It is well known (see, for example, Ref. Korn, ) that the spherical Bessel functions can be written as

$$j_l(z)=z^l\left(\frac{1}{z}\frac{d}{dz}\right)^l\frac{\mathrm{sin}z}{z}.$$
(8)
If we use Eq. (8) and the recursion formula,

$$j_{l+1}(z)=z^l\frac{d}{dz}\left(\frac{1}{z^l}j_l(z)\right),$$
(9)
we can easily prove by induction that

$$j_l(z)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(z\pi l/2)}{z}+\frac{1}{2}l(l+1)\frac{\mathrm{cos}(z\pi l/2)}{z^2}+𝒪(\frac{1}{z^3}).$$
(10)
If we compare the two terms of the expansion (10), we find that the approximation (2) holds if the condition (7) is satisfied. When we perform the summation in Eq. (3), we find that the terms for sufficiently large $`l`$ violate the requirement (7), and effectively destroy even the approximate equality.

Although the decomposition (3) is incorrect, the results obtained by means of it are usually correct. Obviously, the famous formula, that expresses the scattering amplitude via the phase shifts, is correct. However, it is of interest to see why the derivation works. Therefore, we first discuss the standard procedure, which can be found, for example, in Refs. Schiff,  and LL, , and then we show how to avoid the mathematical inconsistency.

By assuming azimuthal symmetry, the scattered wave function is

$$\varphi _𝐤(𝐫)=\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_li^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })R_l(r),$$
(11)
where the $`R_l`$ are the radial wave functions and the $`A_l`$ are coefficients to be determined. If we assume that the asymptotics of the radial functions are

$$R_l(r)\frac{\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2+\delta _l)}{kr},$$
(12)
where $`\delta _l`$ denotes the $`l`$th phase-shift, we can rewrite Eq. (11) as

$$\varphi _𝐤(𝐫)\stackrel{\mathrm{?}}{}\frac{1}{kr}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_li^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2+\delta _l).$$
(13)
We still put the question mark over the equalities that are mathematically inappropriate.

Now, we compare the wave function (13) with the expected asymptotic form of the scattered wave function

$$\varphi _𝐤(𝐫)=e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐫}}+f(\mathrm{\Theta })\frac{e^{ikr}}{r},$$
(14)
where $`f(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is the scattering amplitude. If we use the plane-wave decomposition (3), we find the equation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}A_li^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2+\delta _l)`$
$`\stackrel{\mathrm{?}}{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kr}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}i^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2)+f(\mathrm{\Theta }){\displaystyle \frac{e^{ikr}}{r}}.`$ (15)
If we equate the terms proportional to $`e^{ikr}`$, we find that $`A_l=e^{i\delta _l}`$, which when substituted into the terms proportional to $`e^{ikr}`$, provides the well known result

$$f(\mathrm{\Theta })=\frac{1}{2ik}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\left[e^{2i\delta _l}1\right].$$
(16)
We obtained the relation (16) using the mathematically meaningless equations (3), (13), and (Inaccurate use of asymptotic formulas). Next, we show how to derive Eq. (16) avoiding the inconsistency.

Again we start with the wave function in the form (11), and we use the asymptotics of the radial wave function (12), but only for fixed values of $`l`$. For this reason we calculate the projection

$$_1^{+1}d(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\varphi _𝐤(𝐫)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })=2i^lA_lR_l(r),$$
(17)
where we have taken into account that the Legendre polynomials are orthogonal

$$_1^{+1}d(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })P_l^{}(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })=\frac{2}{2l+1}\delta ^{ll^{}}.$$
(18)
We decompose the scattering amplitude,

$$f(\mathrm{\Theta })=\frac{1}{2ik}\underset{l=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_li^l(2l+1)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }),$$
(19)
and we project the scattered wave function (14) as

$$_1^{+1}d(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })\left(e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐫}}+f(\mathrm{\Theta })\frac{e^{ikr}}{r}\right)P_l(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })=2i^l\left(j_l(kr)+C_l\frac{e^{ikr}}{r}\right).$$
(20)
Next, we equate the asymptotic forms of the projections (17) and (20), and thus, instead of Eq. (Inaccurate use of asymptotic formulas), we obtain

$$A_l\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2+\delta _l)=\mathrm{sin}(kr\pi l/2)+C_lk\frac{e^{ikr}}{r}.$$
(21)
We compare the terms proportional to $`e^{ikr}`$ and $`e^{ikr}`$, respectively, and find that $`A_l=e^{i\delta _l}`$ and

$$C_l=\frac{1}{2ik}e^{i\pi l/2}\left[e^{2i\delta _l}1\right],$$
(22)
which, due to Eq. (19), again provides the correct result (16).

Although the problem discussed here looks pure academic it was discovered in the course of concrete calculations. To simplify the calculation of a correlation function where the scattering wave function enters, we used the form (13) with $`A_l=e^{i\delta _l}`$ as is given in many books. We were interested in the complete sum of partial waves, and we used Eq. (13) instead of Eq. (14) to exploit the orthogonality of Legendre polynomials. Needless to say the calculation went wrong, showing that the asymptotic expressions must be treated very carefully.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are very grateful to Konrad Bajer and Iwo Białynicki-Birula for correspondence and stimulating criticism.


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# Evolution of the Hall Coefficient and the Peculiar Electronic Structure of the Cuprate Superconductors

## Abstract

Although the Hall coefficient $`R_H`$ is an informative transport property of metals and semiconductors, its meaning in the cuprate superconductors has been ambiguous because of its unusual characteristics. Here we show that a systematic study of $`R_H`$ in La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals over a wide doping range establishes a qualitative understanding of its peculiar evolution, which turns out to reflect a two-component nature of the electronic structure caused by an unusual development of the Fermi surface recently uncovered by photoemission experiments.

During the past 17 years after the high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity was discovered in cuprates, virtually all measurable properties of their “normal state”, the state in the absence of superconductivity, have been studied to understand the stage for novel superconductivity. However, there is yet no established picture for even such basic properties as the resistivity and the Hall coefficient Orenstein , not to mention other more elaborate properties. The Hall coefficient $`R_H`$ of conventional metals is independent of temperature and signifies the Fermi surface (FS) topology and carrier density, but in cuprates $`R_H`$ shows strong, sometimes peaked, temperature dependences as well as a complicated doping dependence. An advance in understanding came when Chien, Wang and Ong found Chien  that the cotangent of the Hall angle, $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ (which is the ratio of the in-plane resistivity $`\rho _{ab}`$ to the Hall resistivity $`\rho _H`$), approximately shows a simple linear-in-$`T^2`$ behavior, which suggests the existence of a quasiparticle-relaxation rate that changes as $`T^2`$. However, while it appears that the Hall problem in cuprates can be simplified when analyzed in terms of $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$, it was argued by Ong and Anderson OngAnderson  that $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ is after all a derived quantity and the central anomaly resides in the directly measured quantities $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`R_H`$.

In this Letter, we address the notoriously difficult problem of the Hall effect with the recent knowledge on the physics of lightly-doped cuprates and the peculiar evolution of the FS recently elucidated by the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments Ino ; Yoshida . We first show that the behavior of $`R_H`$ and $`\rho _{ab}`$ in the lightly-doped cuprates mimics rather well the behavior of a conventional Fermi liquid, and discuss that this behavior signifies the physics on the “Fermi arc”, a small portion of the FS near the Brillouin-zone diagonals. We then discuss that the peculiar hole-doping dependence and the temperature dependence of $`R_H`$ reflect a gradual participation of the “flatband” near $`(\pi ,0)`$ of the Brillouin zone, which brings about a sort of two-band nature to the transport. The measurements of $`R_H`$ and $`\rho _{ab}`$ using a standard six-probe method are done on high-quality single crystals of La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) and YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO), the details of which have been described elsewhere mobility .

In slightly hole-doped LSCO and YBCO, which are usually considered to be antiferromagnetic insulators, it was demonstrated mobility  that the charge transport shows a surprisingly metallic behavior with a hole mobility comparable to that of optimally-doped superconductors at moderate temperatures. Detailed ARPES measurements were subsequently performed on lightly-doped LSCO Yoshida  and YBCO Yagi , which revealed that only patches of FS, called “Fermi arcs” Norman , are observed at the zone-diagonals, where quasiparticle-like peaks were detected in harmony with the transport results. The ARPES results indicate that, for some reason, a significant fraction of the large FS (that is observed in optimally-doped cuprates Shen ) is destroyed and the remaining small portion is responsible for the metallic transport. Thus, by looking at the transport properties of the lightly-doped cuprates, one can gain insight into the physics of the Fermi arc, whose origin is currently under debate Chakravarty .

Figs. 1(a) and 1(b) show an example of the behavior of $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`R_H(T)`$ in a lightly-doped cuprate: here the data are for YBCO with $`y`$ = 6.30 (hole doping of about 3% per Cu mobility ), which is an antiferromagnet with the Néel temperature of 230 K Ando . As we have reported previously mobility ; MOS , $`R_H`$ is virtually $`T`$-independent (as in conventional metals) at moderate temperatures in the lightly-doped samples; as a result, $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ have the same $`T`$ dependence \[see Figs. 1(c) and 1(d)\], which, intriguingly, is most consistent with $`T^2`$ and not with $`T`$. This implies that the relaxation rate of the “quasiparticles” on the Fermi arc changes as $`T^2`$, which incidentally is the same as the behavior of conventional Fermi liquids. Note that the low-temperature upturn in $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`R_H`$ is due to localization effects anisotropy , which just obscure the intrinsic low-temperature behavior of the system.

We found that the $`T`$ dependence of $`\rho _{ab}`$ is consistent with $`T^2`$ not only in lightly-doped YBCO but also in lightly-doped LSCO, as shown in Fig. 2(a) for $`x`$ = 0.02; however, it should be noted that the temperature range for the $`T^2`$ law is a bit narrow \[Fig. 2(a) shows the data up to 250 K\] and $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ deviates downwardly from the $`T^2`$ dependence at high temperatures. As is shown for $`x`$ = 0.08 \[Fig. 2(b)\], the deviation tends to start from lower temperature at larger $`x`$. One possible way to interpret this deviation is to ascribe it to an increase in the density of states at the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ with increasing $`T`$, that happens, for example, when a gap is filled in with $`T`$. In fact, the band structure of LSCO elucidated by ARPES Ino ; Yoshida  suggests such a possibility: In lightly-doped LSCO a “flatband” \[located near $`(\pi ,0)`$ of the Brillouin zone\] lies below $`E_F`$ and this band gradually moves up to $`E_F`$ with increasing doping; therefore, if thermal activation causes some holes to reside on the “flatband” and to contribute to the conductivity, the high-temperature deviation from the $`T^2`$ behavior and its doping dependence can be understood, at least qualitatively.

The systematics of $`R_H(T)`$ and $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H(T)`$ of LSCO for a very wide range of doping ($`x`$ = 0.02 – 0.25) is shown in Fig. 3. Let us first compare the robustness of the $`T^2`$ behavior in $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ to that in $`\rho _{ab}`$: One can see in Fig. 3(b) that $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ for both $`x`$ = 0.02 and 0.08, where the behavior of $`\rho _{ab}`$ was discussed, shows no high-temperature deviation from the $`T^2`$ behavior up to 300 K. This contrast between $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H(T)`$ regarding the robustness of the $`T^2`$ law is qualitatively understandable if both $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`R_H`$ reflect a change in the effective carrier density $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ due to the temperature-dependent participation of the flatband, since such a change tends to be cancelled in $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$; remember, $`H\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ is equal to the inverse Hall mobility and, thus, would normally be free from a change in the carrier density. This observation suggests that the relative simplicity in the behavior of $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ comes from its lack of a direct dependence on $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, while both $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`R_H`$ depend directly on $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$.

Thus, our data are most consistent with an emerging picture that a Fermi-liquid-like transport results from the “quasiparticles” on the Fermi arcs in lightly hole-doped cuprates, and the rest of the FS starts to contribute to the transport at higher doping and/or temperature. It should be noted, however, that there cannot be a real “Fermi liquid” on the Fermi arcs, because the large magnitude of $`\rho _{ab}`$ in the lightly-doped cuprates would indicate that the mean free path of the electrons at $`E_F`$ is shorter than their de Broglie wavelength mobility , which is impossible in a Fermi liquid; it was proposed that some self-organized inhomogeneity in the real space (such as charge stripes Carlson ) would offer a resolution to this apparent puzzle mobility . Also note that the patchy Fermi arcs which do not enclose a well-defined area cannot host a Fermi liquid. Therefore, the lightly-doped cuprates are peculiar in that what appears to be conventional Fermi-liquid-like behavior characterizes the system which cannot really be a Fermi liquid.

In passing, we note that in Fig. 3(c) the $`T^2`$ law of $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ holds very well up to optimum doping ($`x0.16`$), but gradually breaks down when samples are overdoped; this observation confirms the trend previously noted by Hwang et al. Hwang  for polycrystalline samples. It is tempting to associate this change in the behavior of $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ to the putative quantum phase transition Orenstein  at optimum doping in LSCO, for which other transport properties also give indirect evidence Boebinger ; Sun . Interestingly, similar change in the power-law behavior of $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ has been observed to occur above $`p1/8`$ ($`p`$ is the hole doping per Cu) in Bi2Sr2-xLaxCuO6+δ Murayama , where the transition between “metal” and “insulator” under 60 T was found to lie also at $`p1/8`$ Ono . It has been discussed that these crossover phenomena and some of the non-universalities may be attributed to competing orders Orenstein ; Yeh ; in this regard, it is useful to mention that the asymmetries between hole-doped and electron-doped cuprates may also be due to some sort of competing orders Yeh .

Next we discuss the evolution of $`R_H`$ with doping in more detail. It is instructive to plot $`eR_Hx/V`$ vs. $`T`$ for various dopings ($`e`$ is electron charge and $`V`$ is unit volume per Cu); note that $`eR_Hx/V`$ should be 1 if $`R_H`$ simply signifies the nominal hole density, $`x/V`$. Fig. 4(a) shows such a plot for LSCO at representative dopings. One can see that $`eR_Hx/V`$ is actually 1 at around 100 K for $`x`$ = 0.02 – 0.07, but it tends to decrease from 1 with increasing temperature and this decrease starts from lower temperature as $`x`$ becomes larger. This behavior suggests that on the Fermi arcs \[Fig. 4(b)\], which appear to govern the transport in these lightly-doped samples at $``$100 K, the carrier density is exactly equal to the nominal density of doped holes. As $`x`$ is increased above 0.07, $`eR_Hx/V`$ becomes smaller and never reaches 1; this trend is most likely related to the evolution of the “flatband” that we already mentioned, because this band touches $`E_F`$ for $`x0.10`$ Ino . Therefore, it appears that the magnitude of $`R_H`$ actually reflects the effective carrier density which becomes larger than the nominal hole density when the flatband starts to participate in the physics near $`E_F`$ in addition to the Fermi arcs as doping and/or temperature is increased.

To further investigate the effect of temperature, we have measured $`R_H`$ for $`x`$ = 0.02 up to 900 K, and the resulting data \[Fig. 4(c)\] turn out to be surprisingly informative: they suggest that even at such low doping as $`x`$ = 0.02 the flatband starts to participate in the Hall response above 300 K, which implies that the $`𝐤`$-space patchiness melts away with thermal fluctuations and a full Fermi surface is eventually restored. Also informative is the behavior of $`R_H`$ in our most overdoped sample, $`x`$ = 0.25, where $`R_H`$ is essentially $`T`$ independent down to $``$150 K. For overdoped LSCO, ARPES found Ino  that the FS is “electron like” with the shape depicted in Fig. 4(d); since this FS contains both positive- and negative-curvature parts, even within the conventional Boltzmann transport theory the value of $`R_H`$ is determined by a rather complicated balance between the contributions from the two parts Ong . Remember that the positive (negative) curvature of the FS results in hole (electron) like Hall response. Therefore, one can interpret that the $`T`$-independent part of $`R_H`$ for $`x`$ = 0.25 is actually determined by the shape of the FS in a classical way, while the low-temperature upturn can be due to a development of the pseudogap Hwang  and/or some anisotropy in the relaxation rate on the FS Ong . This interpretation also naturally explains the sign change in the high-temperature value of $`R_H`$ in further overdoped samples Hwang , for which ARPES showed that the positive-curvature part of the FS is gradually diminished Ino , making electron-like Hall response to become dominant. Note that the precise $`T`$-dependence of $`R_H`$ for a given $`x`$ is likely to be governed both by the participation of the flatband and by the anisotropic relaxation rate in a complicated way, which is probably the reason why the Hall effect in the cuprates has been so difficult to be understood.

One may notice that a natural extension of the present argument would be that the $`T`$-linear resistivity usually observed near optimum doping may not necessarily be a sign of a $`T`$-linear relaxation rate, because $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ may be changing with $`T`$. To address this issue, we show data for $`\rho _{ab}`$, $`R_H`$, and $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ of LSCO at $`x`$ = 0.14 up to 900 K in Fig. 5. One can see that $`R_H`$ tends to saturate at high $`T`$ (as it happens for $`x`$ = 0.25) and the $`T^2`$ law in $`\mathrm{cot}\mathrm{\Theta }_H`$ breaks down above $``$400 K, both of which suggest that there is an electronic crossover with increasing temperature (this can be the pseudogap crossover, see Ref. Hwang ). Therefore, while the $`T`$-linear resistivity is indeed observed up to 900 K \[Fig. 5(a)\], it is not very likely that $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ stays constant and the relaxation rate is $`T`$-linear up to 900 K. It is worthwhile to mention that the question of whether $`n_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is changing with temperature or just the relaxation rate is changing is similar to the question regarding the interpretation of the optical conductivity $`\sigma _1(\omega )`$ of cuprates optics ; namely, the peculiar $`\omega `$ dependence of $`\sigma _1`$ can be interpreted either with a two-component model (simple Drude + mid-infrared resonance) or with an extended Drude model (where the relaxation rate changes with $`\omega `$). The former allows more electrons to respond to the electric field at higher energy, which bears similarities to our “two-band” picture (“Fermi arc” + “flatband”) for the dc transport.

Thus, although the detailed situation at optimum doping needs further clarification, the present results demonstrate that the physics of the normal state is phenomenologically simple in the two extremes, lightly-doped regime and the heavily-overdoped regime; in particular, $`R_H`$ has a classical meaning in these two extremes at moderate temperatures. The evolution from one to the other is a transition in the $`𝐤`$ space from the “Fermi arc” to a closed Fermi surface (patchiness to continuity), upon which the “flat-band” appears to provide additional carriers and play a crucial role. Interestingly, increasing temperature also causes the same transition from patchiness to continuity. If the peculiar transport properties in the lightly-doped cuprates are inherently related to a self-organized inhomogeneity in the real space Kivelson  as some resent observations seem to indicate mobility ; Ando ; anisotropy ; MR , the patchiness in the $`𝐤`$ space is likely to be the other side of the same coin. Therefore, a key to understanding the cuprates probably lies in the dual transition from patchiness to continuity in the $`𝐤`$ space and from inhomogeneity to homogeneity in the real space.

We thank D. N. Basov, A. Fujimori, S. A. Kivelson, A. N. Lavrov, and N. Nagaosa for helpful discussions.


text:
# Bounds on discriminants with one class per genus

## 1 Introduction

Let $`d<0`$ be the discriminant of the complex quadratic field $`(\sqrt{d})`$ with ideal class group $`𝒞(d)`$ and class number $`h(d)=\mathrm{}𝒞(d)`$. Recall the corresponding reduced quadratic forms are subdivided into precisely $`2^{g1}`$ genera where $`g`$ is the number of primary discriminants dividing $`d`$.

The discriminants with one class per genus are of particular interest. The class group for such a discriminant is completely determined

$$𝒞(d)(/2)^{g1}$$

and the class number is $`h(d)=2^{g1}`$.

Discriminants with one class per genus which are congruent to $`0`$ modulo $`4`$ are Euler’s Idoneal (or convenient) numbers which he used in the computation of large primes. There are $`65`$ known examples of such discriminants \[2, p.59-63\].

In \[4, p.118\] Weinberger showed there to be at most one more. Assuming GRH for $`L(s,\chi )`$, Weinberger also proved there are no discriminants with one class per genus besides the $`65`$ known examples. (A $`66`$th would thus contradict GRH.) He did this using the bound

$$L(1,\chi )>\frac{.655}{e}\frac{1}{\mathrm{log}d}$$
(1.1)
given by T. Tatuzawa in .

In \[1, p.263\] B. Conrey and H. Iwaniec assume a weaker condition on the *spacing* between zeros on the critical line to obtain other bounds on the class number, such as

$$L(1,\chi )\frac{1}{(\mathrm{log}d)^{18}}.$$
(1.2)
This bound is not as sharp as Tatuzawa’s. However, no assumptions regarding the GRH are required. On the contrary, zeros off the critical line are permitted so long as the zeros on the line satisfy the proper spacing criteria. In this note we will use Conrey and Iwaniec’s bound to prove a result analogous to Weinberger’s concerning discriminants with one class per genus.

## 2 Results of Conrey-Iwaniec

Let $`L(s,\psi )=_𝔞\psi (𝔞)(N𝔞)^s`$ be the L-function associated with the class group character $`\psi \widehat{𝒞}(d)`$, where $`𝔞`$ runs over the non-zero integral ideals of $`(\sqrt{d})`$. For any zero $`\rho =\frac{1}{2}+i\gamma `$ of $`L(s,\psi )`$ on the critical line, let $`\rho ^{}=\frac{1}{2}+i\gamma ^{}`$ denote the zero on the critical line closest to $`\rho `$. One can show that the number of zeros of $`L(s,\psi )`$ in the rectangle $`s=\sigma +it`$ with $`0\sigma 1`$, $`0<tT`$ satisfies

$$N(T,\psi )=\frac{T}{\pi }\mathrm{log}\frac{T\sqrt{d}}{2\pi }\frac{T}{\pi }+O(\mathrm{log}dT).$$

Assuming GRH for $`L(s,\psi )`$, this implies that the average gap between consecutive zeros $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ is about $`\pi /\mathrm{log}\gamma `$ \[1, p.263\].

Conrey and Iwaniec prove that if the gap is somewhat smaller than the average gap for sufficiently many pairs of zeros (no Riemann hypothesis is required), then $`h(d)\sqrt{d}(\mathrm{log}d)^A`$ for some constant $`A0`$.

For $`0<\alpha 1`$ and $`T0`$, define

$$D(\alpha ,T):=\mathrm{}\{\rho :2\gamma T,|\gamma \gamma ^{}|\frac{\pi (1\alpha )}{\mathrm{log}\gamma }\}.$$
(2.1)
Then $`D(\alpha ,T)`$ measures the number of consecutive zeros with smaller than average gaps. Note they do not count zeros off the critical line, but do allow them to exist.

Let $`L(s,\chi )=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\chi (n)n^s`$ be the L-series for the real character $`\chi `$ of conductor $`d`$. In Theorem $`1.1`$ of , Conrey and Iwaniec prove

###### Theorem 2.1.

Let $`A0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}T(\mathrm{log}d)^{A+6}`$. Suppose

$$D(\alpha ,T)\frac{cT(\mathrm{log}T)}{\alpha (\mathrm{log}d)^A}$$
(2.2)
for some $`0<\alpha 1`$, where $`c`$ is a large absolute constant. Then

$$L(1,\chi )(\mathrm{log}T)^2(\mathrm{log}d)^{2A6}.$$
(2.3)
This theorem gives a remarkable connection between clustering of zeros on the critical line and the class number.

## 3 Theorem

Analogous to Weinberger’s assumption of GRH, we assume the weaker condition (2.1) to get a bound on $`h(d)`$. For a fixed $`d<0`$ as in the previous section, we choose $`A=0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}T=(\mathrm{log}d)^6`$ which under the assumption of $`(2.2)`$ and Theorem 2.1 implies

$$L(1,\chi )\frac{1}{(\mathrm{log}d)^{18}}.$$
(3.1)
This is the best possible bound that can be obtained from Theorem 2.1. With this in mind we prove the following theorem:

###### Theorem 3.1.

Let $`d_g`$ denote the product of the first $`g`$ primes. Suppose $`L(1,\chi )(\mathrm{log}d)^{18}`$ for a fundamental discriminant $`d`$. If $`d`$ has one class per genus then $`dd_{66}1.910^{130}`$.

###### Remark 3.2.

Assuming all fundamental discriminants satisfy this bound implies there are no discriminants with one class per genus beyond $`d_{66}`$.

###### Proof.

By way of contradiction, assume $`d>d_{66}`$ with one class per genus.

From the analytic class number formula and our hypothesis, we have

$$h(d)\frac{\sqrt{d}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}d)^{18}}.$$

The derivative of $`f(x):=\frac{\sqrt{x}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}x)^{18}}`$ is $`f^{}(x)=\frac{\mathrm{log}x36}{2\pi \sqrt{x}(\mathrm{log}x)^{19}}`$ which is zero only at $`x=e^{36}`$ and positive to its right. Hence $`f(x)`$ is an increasing function for $`xe^{36}`$.
We get

$`2^{g1}`$ $`=`$ $`h(d)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}d)^{18}}}`$
$`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d_{66}}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}d_{66})^{18}}}`$
$`>`$ $`1.110^{20}.`$
This implies $`g`$ must be at least $`68`$ since $`2^{66}<1.110^{20}<2^{67}`$ and $`2^{g1}`$ is an increasing function in $`g`$.

In particular we may assume $`g>66`$. This gives us the inequality

$$dd_g>d_{66}331^{g66}$$
(3.2)
where $`331`$ is the $`67`$th prime.

Using this inequality we have

$`2^{g1}=h(d)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}d)^{18}}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d_g}}{\pi (\mathrm{log}d_g)^{18}}}`$
$`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d_{66}}331^{g66/2}}{\pi [\mathrm{log}d_{66}+(g66)\mathrm{log}331]^{18}}}.`$
Multiplying through by $`2^{66g}`$ gives us

$$2^{65}>\frac{\sqrt{d_{66}}9^{g66}}{\pi [\mathrm{log}d_{66}+(g66)\mathrm{log}331]^{18}}.$$
(3.3)
Again letting

$$r(x):=\frac{9^x}{[\mathrm{log}d_{66}+x\mathrm{log}331]^{18}}$$

we see

$$r^{}(x)=\frac{554.79^x+x9^x\mathrm{log}9\mathrm{log}331}{[300+x\mathrm{log}331]^{19}}$$

is positive for $`x0`$. Hence the right hand side of (3.3) is increasing for $`g>66`$ and so we can substitute $`g=67`$ into (3.3) to obtain

$`2^{65}`$ $`>`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{d_{66}}9}{\pi [\mathrm{log}d_{66}+\mathrm{log}331]^{18}}}`$
$`>`$ $`7.210^{20}.`$
But $`2^{65}3.710^{19}<7.210^{20}`$, a contradiction.

Other values for $`A`$ and $`T`$ can be chosen to obtain similar results. Conrey and Iwaniec consider the case $`A=12`$ and $`\mathrm{log}T=(\mathrm{log}d)^{18}`$ in Theorem 2.1 to get

$$L(1,\chi )\frac{1}{(\mathrm{log}d)^{66}}.$$

With this lower bound a similar proof used for Theorem 3.1 shows that there are no discriminants $`d`$ with one class per genus for $`d>d_{207}2.410^{534}`$.

We can also consider the case when $`\psi =1`$ is the trivial class group character. Here the Riemann zeta function appears as a factor of our Hecke L-function

$$L(s,\psi )=\zeta (s)L(s,\chi ).$$

In this case Conrey and Iwaniec put a condition on the spacing of the zeros of $`\zeta (s)`$ (independent of $`d`$) and use a more general version of Theorem 2.1 to get

$$L(1,\chi )\frac{1}{(\mathrm{log}d)^{74}}$$

\[1, p.309\]. With this bound the method of Theorem 3.1 proves there are no discriminants with one class per genus for $`d>d_{230}2.910^{606}`$.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Sterile neutrinos closely degenerate with active neutrinos may have, if they exist, escaped detection in the laboratory and astrophysical experiments performed so far. They can, however, reveal themselves through measurable oscillation effects in astronomical-scale baselines . They may affect the relative fluxes of the active neutrinos at the Earth if the mass-squared difference obey $`\delta m^2E/L`$, where $`L`$ is the distance to the source and $`E`$ is the energy of neutrinos. With ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) neutrinos one can reach the sensitivity of $`\delta m^210^{18}`$ eV2 in the future neutrino telescopes like the ICECUBE . It should be emphazised that the mass-squared differences below $`\delta m^210^{11}`$ eV2 cannot be probed in solar neutrino, atmospheric neutrino or laboratory experiments. The most stringent present constraint on the active-sterile neutrino mixing comes from cosmology , $`|\delta m^2|\mathrm{sin}^22\phi <5\times 10^8`$ eV2. (These cosmological bounds may be avoided in the case of large lepton number asymmetries in the early universe ). It is generally thought that neutrinos are produced in UHECR sources via a pion-muon decay chain, which yields the flux ratios $`F_e^0:F_\mu ^0:F_\tau ^0=1:2:0`$, where $`F_\alpha ^0`$ is the the flux of the neutrino flavour $`\nu _\alpha `$. If one considers only the active neutrinos $`\nu _e,\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$ and takes into account their "bi-large" mixing behaviour, observed in the solar and atmospheric neutrino measurements, the flavour ratios of neutrinos at the Earth are predicted to be $`F_e:F_\mu :F_\tau =1:1:1`$ . In  we found that active-sterile mixings with a tiny $`\delta m^2`$ can change these ratios at the level of tens of percents. The effects of this size should be easily detected in the future experiments.

In the present paper we shall extend our analysis of the degenerate active-sterile mixing to supernova neutrinos. As far as oscillations are concerned, the situation is for supernova neutrinos quite different from that for the UHECR neutrinos. In the case of UHECR neutrinos, the vacuum oscillations play a central role while for the supernova neutrinos matter effects are decisive and vacuum oscillations have usually no effects. In the case of supernova neutrinos the energy is also much lower, so they could be studied with experiments like HyperK and UNO.

In the dense core of the supernova the neutrino Hamiltonian is extremely matter dominated. The interaction eigenstates, in which neutrinos are produced in various weak interaction processes in the core, coincide in a good accuracy with the eigenstates of this Hamiltonian. In transit through the envelope to the surface of the star, the flavour composition of these eigenstates changes. Neutrinos also pass through the MSW resonance regions corresponding to the solar and atmospheric oscillation scales, which may affect their behaviour. When leaving the star, neutrinos are in mass eigenstates that consist of different flavours according to the mixing pattern they have in vacuum, and they will propagate as those states to the Earth without further oscillations. Consequently, if sterile neutrinos exist and if they mix with the active neutrinos, they will be present in the mass eigenstates entering the Earth. They will thereby affect the fluxes of the active neutrinos measured in neutrino detectors.

There is an interesting possibility that one or more of the degenerate active-sterile neutrino pairs encounter a resonant mixing in the outer skirts of the envelope of the star. This is possible if that pair has $`|\delta m^2|10^{11}\mathrm{eV}^2`$, which corresponds to the oscillation length of the order of the giant progenitor star radius. Whether or not such a resonant mixing really occurs depends on how well the adiabaticity conditions are met in the resonance region, which in turn depends on the details of the density profile of the envelope in its outer skirts. If it does occur, it may change the flux ratios of neutrinos and antineutrinos dramatically, in particular if the active-sterile vacuum mixing angle is small.

## 2 A sterile mixing scenario

In the three-flavour framework the flavour fields $`\nu _e,\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\tau `$ and the mass eigenfields $`\widehat{\nu }_1,\widehat{\nu }_2`$, $`\widehat{\nu }_3`$ are related to each other through $`\nu _l=U_{li}\widehat{\nu }_i`$ , where $`U`$ is a mixing matrix, in the following parametrized as

$$U=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}c_{12}c_{13}& s_{12}c_{13}& s_{13}\\ s_{12}c_{23}c_{12}s_{23}s_{13}& c_{12}c_{23}s_{12}s_{23}s_{13}& s_{23}c_{13}\\ s_{12}s_{23}c_{12}c_{23}s_{13}& c_{12}s_{23}s_{12}c_{23}s_{13}& c_{23}c_{13}\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`c_{jk}=\mathrm{cos}\theta _{jk}`$ and $`s_{jk}=\mathrm{sin}\theta _{jk}`$ (we neglect the possible CP violation). The solar neutrino data, together with the recent KamLAND reactor data , indicate the mixing angle $`\theta _{12}`$ to be bounded into the range $`0.50<\theta _{12}<0.67`$ , . On the other hand, observations of atmospheric neutrinos are consistent with maximal mixing between the mass eigenstates $`\nu _2`$ and $`\nu _3`$, their mixing angle being within the range $`0.64<\theta _{23}<0.96`$ , . The third mixing angle, $`\theta _{13}`$, is bounded by the results of CHOOZ  and Palo Verde  to small values, $`0\theta _{13}0.1`$.

Let us now assume that there exists three sterile neutrinos $`\nu _{s1}`$, $`\nu _{s2}`$ and $`\nu _{s3}`$, which mix pairwise with the states $`\widehat{\nu }_1`$, $`\widehat{\nu }_2`$ and $`\widehat{\nu }_3`$. We denote the new mass eigenstates that result from this mixing as follows ($`i=1,2,3`$):

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \nu _i& =\mathrm{cos}\phi _i\widehat{\nu _i}\mathrm{sin}\phi _i\nu _{si},\hfill \\ \hfill \nu _i^{}& =\mathrm{sin}\phi _i\widehat{\nu _i}+\mathrm{cos}\phi _i\nu _{si}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
The antineutrino states are defined similarly. We assume that the mass difference of the states $`\nu _i`$ and $`\nu _i^{}`$ is so small that in the processes, like particle decays, which are measured in laboratory experiments, these two states are not distinguished but appear as a single state with couplings equal to those of the active state $`\widehat{\nu }_i`$. There are models where degenerate neutrino pairs may naturally appear, see e.g. . It should be emphasized that in some of these models like in the well-known Pseudo-Dirac model, the mixing angles are naturally close to their maximal value of $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$.

In the presence of the sterile neutrinos, the neutrino mixing matrix (1) is modified to the form

$$U^{(6)}=\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}\mathrm{cos}\phi _1U_{e1}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _2U_{e2}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _3U_{e3}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _1U_{e1}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _2U_{e2}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _3U_{e3}\\ \mathrm{cos}\phi _1U_{\mu 1}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _2U_{\mu 2}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _3U_{\mu 3}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _1U_{\mu 1}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _2U_{\mu 2}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _3U_{\mu 3}\\ \mathrm{cos}\phi _1U_{\tau 1}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _2U_{\tau 2}& \mathrm{cos}\phi _3U_{\tau 3}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _1U_{\tau 1}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _2U_{\tau 2}& \mathrm{sin}\phi _3U_{\tau 3}\\ \mathrm{sin}\phi _1& 0& 0& \mathrm{cos}\phi _1& 0& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{sin}\phi _2& 0& 0& \mathrm{cos}\phi _2& 0\\ 0& 0& \mathrm{sin}\phi _3& 0& 0& \mathrm{cos}\phi _3\end{array}\right).$$
(3)
Obviously, this is just one possible way to realizise the mixing between three active and three sterile neutrinos, not the most general case.

## 3 Fluxes of supernova neutrinos

We shall now study the effects of the sterile neutrinos on the fluxes of supernova neutrinos. As mentioned, for supernova neutrinos matter effects play the main role, in contrast with the case of UHECR neutrinos, where vacuum oscillations are important. Because of the effects of matter, the flavour composition of the supernova neutrino flux observed at the Earth differs from that in the production region (see, e.g. ).

The neutrinos and antineutrinos may undergo matter enhanced MSW transitions inside the star if $`\delta m^210^4`$ eV2. In the case of three active neutrinos there are two possible MSW-resonance regions, at the densities

$`\rho _\mathrm{H}10^310^4\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{cm}^3,\rho _\mathrm{L}1030\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{cm}^3.`$ (4)
The subscript H refers to the so-called high-resonance region, which corresponds to the atmospheric neutrino oscillation ($`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2=2.6\times 10^3`$ eV2, $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{\mathrm{atm}}=0.52`$ ), and the subscript L refers to the low-resonance region, which corresponds to the large mixing angle (LMA) solar neutrino oscillations ($`\delta m_{}^2=6.9\times 10^5`$ eV2 and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{}=0.43`$ ). In the case of the normal mass hierarchy ($`m_1m_2m_3`$) both resonances occur for neutrinos, whereas in the case of the inverse mass hierarchy ($`m_3m_1m_2`$) the high-resonance occurs for antineutrinos and low-resonance for neutrinos. If the system is not fully adiabatic, the MSW effect is not complete but a level crossing from one matter eigenstate to another will occur in the resonance region. The level crossing probability, the so-called Landau-Zener probability, is given in .

The matter effects depend on the density profile of the progenitor star. It can be shown (e.g. ) that propagation through the low-resonance region, determined by the solar neutrino parameters, is adiabatic, i.e. the Landau-Zener probability for it is $`P_\mathrm{L}=0`$. For the high-resonance one can distinguish three cases, defined by the values of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}`$ and neutrino energy and differing in the values of the Landau-Zener probability ($`P_H`$) :

1. Adiabaticity breaking region: $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}10^6\times (E/10\mathrm{MeV})^{2/3}`$, where $`P_\mathrm{H}1`$;
2. Transition region: $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}(10^610^4)\times (E/10\mathrm{MeV})^{2/3}`$, where $`0P_\mathrm{H}1`$;
3. Adiabatic region: $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}10^4\times (E/10\mathrm{MeV})^{2/3}`$, where $`P_\mathrm{H}0`$.

In the adiabaticity breaking region the H-resonance has no effect to the evolution of the neutrino states, whereas in the adiabatic region a full conversion will occur. For simplicity, we will concentrate in what follows on these two extreme cases 1 and 3, omitting the transition region case 2.

In the standard case of three active neutrinos with the normal mass hierarchy the fluxes of the mass eigenstates leaving the star and entering the Earth later on, which we denote by $`F=(F_1,F_2,F_3)`$, are obtained from the production fluxes of the flavour eigenstate in the supernova core, denoted by $`F^0=(F_e^0,F_\mu ^0,F_\tau ^0)`$, through

$$F=PF^0,$$
(5)
where the matrix

$$P=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}P_HP_L& 1P_L& (1P_H)P_L\\ P_H(1P_L)& P_L& (1P_H)(1P_L)\\ (1P_H)& 0& P_H\end{array}\right),$$
(6)
describes the conversion probability inside the star. The fluxes of different flavour eigenstate neutrinos $`\nu _\alpha `$ at the Earth are then given by

$$F_\alpha ^{SM}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}|U_{\alpha i}|^2F_i.$$
(7)
Let us now consider the situation in the case of three additional sterile neutrinos. Sterile neutrinos are not produced in the weak interaction processes taking place in the core of a supernova. Therefore, the fluxes of the mass eigenstates on the surface of the supernova are, like in the standard case, determined by the production rates of the active neutrinos in the core. Nevertheless, during the propagation of neutrinos through the envelope of the supernova, sterile components $`\nu _{s1},\nu _{s2},\nu _{s3}`$ are developed as a result of the active-sterile mixing, that is, active-to-sterile transitions take place. The flavour composition of the neutrino flux on the surface and at the Earth is given by

$$F_\alpha =\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}|U_{\alpha i}^{(6)}|^2F_i=\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{cos}^2\phi _i|U_{\alpha i}|^2F_i+\underset{i^{}=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{sin}^2\phi _i^{}|U_{\alpha i^{}}|^2F_i^{}$$
(8)
where $`\alpha =e,\mu ,\tau ,s1,s2,s3`$ and $`F_i`$’s are given in Eq. (5) instead that $`P`$ is now six-dimensional and $`F^0=(F_e^0,F_\mu ^0,F_\tau ^0,0,0,0)`$. If the active-sterile mixing angles $`\phi _i`$ are all equal, the relative fluxes of different flavours, $`F_\alpha `$, do not differ from those of the standard case, $`F_\alpha ^{SM}`$. In particular, this is true in the case where all the mixing angles $`\phi _i`$ are close to their maximal value of $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$, as predicted by some models.

In the case of the normal mass hierarchy, antineutrinos do not encounter MSW resonant conversions, and they end up to different mass eigenstates than the corresponding neutrinos. The counterpart of the matrix $`P`$ for antineutrinos is a unit matrix. Hence the active-sterile neutrino mixing affects antineutrinos and neutrinos differently, and consequently the ratio $`F_\alpha /F_{\overline{\alpha }}`$ generally differs from its value in the nonsterile case.

In the case of the inverted mass hierarchy, the high-resonance is encountered by antineutrinos and the low-resonance by neutrinos. Obviously, the fluxes of neutrino mass eigenstates on the surface of the star are obtained from Eq. (5) by setting $`P_H=1`$. It is also straightforward to see that the antineutrino counterpart of the matrix $`P`$ given in Eq. (6), denoted by $`\overline{P}`$, is obtained in the inverted mass hierarchy case from the matrix $`P`$ by replacing $`P_H`$ with $`\overline{P}_H`$ (actually $`P_H=\overline{P}_H`$ ) and $`P_L`$ with $`1\overline{P}_L`$ . The fluxes of the active antineutrinos at the Earth are then given by

$$\overline{F}_\alpha =\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{cos}^2\phi _i|U_{\alpha i}|^2\overline{F}_i+\underset{i^{}=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{sin}^2\phi _i^{}|U_{\alpha i^{}}|^2\overline{F}_i^{}$$
(9)
where $`\overline{F}^0=(\overline{F}_e^0,\overline{F}_\mu ^0,\overline{F}_\tau ^0,0,0,0)`$ are the fluxes of antineutrino flavours in the production region and $`\overline{F}_i^{}`$s on the right-hand side are obtained by

$$\overline{F}=\overline{P}\overline{F}^0.$$
(10)
Although the low-resonance point itself does not appear in the antineutrino sector, a conversion effect is possible at the low-density region, and $`\overline{P}_L`$ takes into account the adiabaticity of this transition . In our calculations we will assume $`\overline{P}_L`$=0.

## 4 Results

In the following we shall present numerical estimates for the flux ratios of supernova neutrinos at the Earth in the case of degenerate sterile neutrinos, and compare them with the corresponding results in the standard, nonsterile case. We allow the ordinary mixing angles $`\theta _{ij}`$ vary in their phenomenologically allowed regions quoted in Section 2. The active-sterile mixing angles $`\phi _i`$ are allowed to vary arbitrarily in the range from $`\phi _i=0`$ (no mixing) to $`\phi _i=\pi /4`$ (maximal mixing).

There exists a considerable uncertainty concerning the initial fluxes of neutrino flavours in the production region in the core of the supernova. The value of the ratio $`F_e^0:F_{\overline{e}}^0:F_x^0`$, where $`F_x^0=F_\mu ^0=F_{\overline{\mu }}^0=F_\tau ^0=F_{\overline{\tau }}^0`$, varies according to the model one uses . Traditionally these fluxes are supposed to be equal, i.e. $`F_e^0:F_{\overline{e}}^0:F_x^0=1:1:1`$, which is one reference value we will use in our analysis. According to recent detailed studies of microprocesses taking place in supernova core, the flux ratios may considerably differ from this simple assumption. From the results of  we obtain, after integrating over the energy spectrum, the ratios $`F_e^0:F_{\overline{e}}^0:F_x^0=4:3:2`$, which we will use in the following.

Let us first assume that no active-sterile matter conversion takes place in the outer skirts of the star. The opposite case will be considered in the end of this chapter. We compute the flux ratios $`F_e/F_a`$, $`F_e/F_{\overline{e}}`$, and $`F_{\overline{e}}/F_a`$, where $`F_a`$ is the sum of the fluxes of active neutrinos other than $`\nu _e`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_e`$. The results are shown in tables 1 and 2. In table 1 we have compared the values of relative fluxes with and without active-sterile vacuum mixing, for the normal and inverted mass hierarchy and for an adiabatic and non-adiabatic conversion at the high-resonance. We see immediately, that in the case of non-adiabatic transition in the high-resonance the ratios are independent of the mass hierarchy. This is in agreement with the conclusion of , that for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{13}<10^6`$ the observation of supernova neutrinos are insensitive to the mass hierarchy. In adiabatic case, the relative amount of electon neutrinos is larger for the inverted hierarchy. The mixing with sterile neutrinos widens the range of the possible values of the flux ratios in all cases. With equal initial fluxes the situation is more simple, as shown in table 2, in the sense that the ratios are independent of the neutrino mass hierarchy and the adiabaticity of the MSW conversions. Also in this case the active-sterile mixings considerably widen the range of the possible flux ratios.

In a summary, the effect of the active-sterile mixing is in general less striking for the supernova neutrinos than what we found in our previous study  it to be for the UHECR neutrinos. The relative flux of the electron antineutrino can, however, differ from its nonsterile value as much as 50 % if the active-sterile mixing angles $`\phi _i`$ for different degenerate pairs differ suitably from each other. The basic reason for this is that the electron neutrino and antineutrino end up to different mass states in the surface of the star, so that their fluxes are sensitive to different active-sterile mixing angles.

So far we have assumed that the MSW conversions between the active and sterile states do not occur, in other words, the transitions between the mass states $`\nu _i=\mathrm{cos}\phi _i\widehat{\nu _i}\mathrm{sin}\phi _i\nu _{si}`$ and $`\nu _i^{}=\mathrm{sin}\phi _i\widehat{\nu _i}+\mathrm{cos}\phi _i\nu _{si}`$ are non-adiabatic. The adiabaticity depends on the profile of the envelope at the resonance region, as well as on the mixing angles $`\phi _i`$ and the mass-squared difference $`m_i^2m_i^2`$. In order to get a feeling of what may happen, we have studied, utilizing the analysis of ref. , a case of mixing of one degenerate active-sterile neutrino pair more closely, and we have found that for $`m_i^2m_i^210^{11}\mathrm{eV}^2`$ the transition is highly non-adiabatic for mixing angles up to about $`35^0`$ and adiabatic only in the case of nearly maximal mixing. For larger mass-squared differencies adiabaticity can be reached with smaller mixing angles. In general there will be a range in the parameter values, where the transiton is partially adiabatic. Obviously, our analysis does not make full justice to the problem, but it does convince us that the sterile mixing of the sort we have been looking at may have detectable effects.

Let us now assume that these transitions are fully adiabatic and the transitions $`\nu _i\nu _i^{}`$ do take place. In the case the mixing angle $`\phi _i`$ is close to maximal this would not have any influence on the fluxes of the active neutrinos. In contrast, if the mixing angle $`\phi _i`$ is small, the transition would mean a conversion of a predominantly active neutrino state into a predominantly sterile state, which would diminish the observable flux of supernova neutrinos at the Earth. The mixing angle $`\phi _i`$ cannot be, however, arbitrarily small, since for very small angles the transition would not be adiabatic (unless the mass-squared difference is large). Large effects are anyway possible, and if the mixing angles of different degenerate pairs differ from each other, the flux ratios may change dramatically. This can be seen in Table 3, where the flux ratios are presented for the case of the normal mass hierarchy and assuming adiabatic $`\nu _i\nu _i^{}`$ transitions. The mixing angle $`\phi _i`$ is allowed to vary in the range $`5^045^0`$. The relative flux of the electron neutrino can substatially decrease as a result of these conversions.

In considering the significance of the effects discussed above one should also consider the anticipated accuracy of the experimental determination of the supernova neutrino fluxes. For example, in the SNO detector, for a typical supernova in the Galaxy with a distance of 10 kpc, the relative uncertainty of the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ and $`\nu _a`$ fluxies is about 5 % and that of the $`\nu _e`$ flux about 10 % . Consequently, the uncertainties of the determination of the flux ratios are roughly 5 % for $`F_{\overline{e}}/F_a`$ and roughly 10 %-15 % for $`F_e/F_a`$ and $`F_e/F_{\overline{e}}`$. In the Super-Kamiokande detector the $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ flux can be determined more accurately, with the uncertainty of about 1 % (corresponding to about observed 10 000 events). The accuracy of the $`\nu _a`$ flux determination is estimated to be about 4 % (about 700 events) . The $`\nu _e`$ flux is, in contrast, quite hard to determine at the Super-K. While noting that the effects of the active-sterile mixing we have discussed would be detectable in these detectors, we must stress the importance of developing methods of an accurate determination of the flux of electron neutrinos in future neutrino experiments.

## 5 Summary

We have investigated how supernova neutrino fluxes are affected by the existence of sterile neutrinos closely degenerate with active neutrinos. Sterile neutrinos are not produced in the core of a supernova, but in the matter eigenstates entering the surface of the supernova envelope sterile components are developed. We have used two sets of initial fluxes of neutrinos in the production region, $`F_e^0:F_{\overline{e}}^0:F_x^0=1:1:1`$, and $`F_e^0:F_{\overline{e}}^0:F_x^0=4:3:2`$. Matter effects were taken into account and we have explored both normal and inverted mass hierarchies. The effects caused by the degenerate sterile neutrinos will be detectable in future neutrino experiments. Particularly large effects are possible for the electron antineutrino flux.

It is possible, at least in principle, that the degenerate mass eigenstate pairs encounter a MSW resonance conversion in the outer skirts of the supernova envelope. This may dramatically change the relative fluxes of the neutrinos interacting in detectors. If the active-sterile mixing angles is small, a transition from a predominantly active state to a predominantly sterile state will occur, which can diminish e.g. the electron neutrino flux a lot.

## 6 Acknowledgements

One of us (PK) is grateful to the Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä for hospitality, and another one (JR) acknowledges the hospitality of NORDITA. This work has been supported by the Academy of Finland under the contract no. 40677.


text:
# Comment on Phys.Rev.Lett.’s paper: ”Low temperature Electron Spin Resonance of the Kondo Ion in a heavy fermion metal YbRh2Si2”

The first successful Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) studies on single crystalline heavy fermion metallic compound YbRh2Si2, recently reported by Sichelschmidt et al. 1 , has allowed for an unambiguous observation of the localized $`f`$ states in this Kondo compound.

By this Comment 2  we would like to congratulate Prof. F. Steglich and his group for the first successful Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) on a heavy-fermion metallic compound at temperatures much below the Kondo temperature. ESR has been usually performed on a diluted ionic system - they have managed to observe it on the paramagnetic ion being the full part of a metallic solid. We fully agree with the interpretation of Ref. 1  that the revealed localized state is associated with the Kramers doublet of the Yb3+ configuration, to be more specific - with the 4$`f^{13}`$ configuration of the Yb atoms.

Here we would like to report that the observed highly anisotropic $`g`$ tensor with $`g_{}`$ = 3.561 and $`g_{}`$ = 0.17 can be perfectly described by crystal-field (CEF) interactions allowing for a small off-tetragonal orthorhombic distortion. In the uniaxial CEF, whatever lower symmetry can be, there are only 4 Kramers doublets and in the tetragonal symmetry the ground state can be only a state $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^1`$ or $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$.

The perfect reproduction of the ESR results, $`g_{}`$= 3.561 (with $`g_L`$ = 8/7 it corresponds to $`J_{}`$ = $`\pm 1.56`$) and $`g_{}`$ = 0.17 ($`J_{}`$ = $`\pm 0.08`$) is obtained for the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$ ground state for parameters: $`B_2^0`$= +14 K, $`B_4^0`$ = +60 mK, $`B_6^0`$ = -0.5 mK, $`B_4^4`$ = -2.30 K and $`B_6^4`$=-10 mK with a small local orthorhombic distortion $`B_2^2`$ = +0.22 K. These parameters yield the ground doublet:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$ = 0.803 $`|\pm 3/2>`$ \+ 0.595 $`|5/2>`$ \- 0.026 $`|1/2>`$ \- 0.008 $`|\pm 7/2>`$

that is characterized by $`J_{}`$ = $`\pm 1.560`$, $`J_{}`$ = $`\pm 0.081`$ and the quadrupolar operator value $`Q_f`$ = $`3J_z^2`$ \- J(J+1) of -4.7. The excited states are at 85 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^1`$ with $`Q_f`$ = -13.8), 485 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^2`$) and 688 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^2`$). The admixture of last two small terms is an effect of the local orthorhombic distortion.

In case of the ground state $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^1`$ the perfect reproduction of the experimental ESR results can be attained by:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^1`$ = 0.944 $`|\pm 1/2>`$ \+ 0.322 $`|7/2>`$ \- 0.052 $`|3/2>`$ \- 0.046 $`|\pm 5/2>`$

that yields $`J_{}`$ =$`\pm 1.562`$, $`J_{}`$ = $`\pm 0.083`$ and $`Q_f`$ of -11.2 This state can be obtained as the ground state by tetragonal CEF interactions $`B_2^0`$ = +8 K, $`B_4^0`$ = -60 mK, $`B_6^0`$ = +6 mK, $`B_4^4`$ = -1.78 K, $`B_6^4`$ = - 5 mK with $`B_2^2`$ = +0.475 K, for instance. For these parameters the excited states are at 74 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$ with $`Q_f`$ = -3.4), 430 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^2`$) and 437 K ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^2`$). This state is less probable in comparison to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$ ground state as it gives too small anisotropy of the paramagnetic susceptibility $`\chi (T)`$.

The electronic structure with the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7^1`$ ground state is very plausible, though we do not think that it is the final one. For it thermodynamical properties have to be more carefully analyzed, the best would be the direct inelastic-neutron-scattering experiment. However, apart of the $`g`$ tensor the shown parameters reproduce the overall temperature dependence of the paramagnetic susceptibility $`\chi (T)`$ and its huge anisotropy, presented in Fig. 1a of Ref. 3 , the preference for the magnetic ordering with moments perpendicular to the c axis, the magnetization curve for external magnetic fields up to 60 T applied along the tetragonal c axis (Fig. 1b of Ref. 3  \- the magnetization at 2 K and at 60 T amounts to 0.85 $`\mu _B`$). The derived electronic structure predicts a Schottky-type contribution to the specific heat with a maximum of 3.62 J/Kmol at about T = 40 K, superimposed on the lattice heat, and the anomalous temperature dependence of quadrupolar interactions. The excited doublet has much larger value of $`Q_f`$ (in the absolute value) so with increasing temperature quadrupolar interactions, observed by means of the Mossbauer spectroscopy, should pass a maximum as it was discussed in Ref. 4 . Such the maximum is rather not expected in case of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6^1`$ ground state. A maximum in $`Q_f(T)`$ has been observed in some Yb compounds 5 .

We do not think that the present set of CEF parameters is the final one. There is a plenty of sets that produce the shown ground-state eigenfunction (the simplest can be obtained by multiplication by a constant positive value) but surely the got set substantially confines the searching area of CEF parameters. We would like to express our big surprise that, despite of a persistent advocating by last 12 years for the localized picture for the heavy-fermion phenomena, so well-defined and so extremely thin atomic-scale energy levels exist in a metallic compound YbRh2Si2 though we have observed extremely thin energy levels in conventional rare-earth intermetallics 6 ; 7  and in a 3$`d`$ Mott insulator 8 .

In short, we welcome with the great pleasure the ESR results of Prof. F. Steglich group on heavy fermion metal YbRh2Si2 and we wish subsequent successful experiments on other Yb compounds. We fully agree with the F. Steglich’s interpretation claiming the existence of the localized $`f`$ electrons below Kondo temperature - this interpretation concurs with our long lasting claim that the evaluation of CEF interactions is indispensable for the physically adequate description of heavy-fermion compounds. We have derived CEF parameters of the tetragonal symmetry with a small orthorhombic distortion that perfectly reproduce the ESR values ($`g_{}`$ = 3.561 and $`g_{}`$ = 0.17) as well as provide good reproduction of thermodynamical properties. The obtained parameters are surely not final as searching for a consistent set of CEF parameters is like a large puzzle but the discussion of heavy-fermion compounds within the same atomistic approach 7 ; 9  as conventional rare-earth compounds, where localized and band electrons coexist, is very plausible from the unification point of view. Also from a methodological point of view - the electronic structure and the importance of local distortions can be further experimentally verified. Finally, let express our feeling that the paper of Ref. 1  will be the turning point in the heavy-fermion subject.


text:
# Quasar jet emission model applied to the microquasar GRS 1915+105

## 1 Introduction

Microquasars are high-energy binary systems exhibiting jets with apparent superluminal motion suggesting that they are the miniature replicates in our Galaxy of the distant quasars (Mirabel & Rodriguez 1998). GRS 1915+105 was the first microquasar discovered (Mirabel & Rodriguez 1994) and can be considered as an archetypical object of its class. Its radio emission can be divided into three distinct states: a plateau jet, pre- and post-plateau flares and radio oscillation events (Klein-Wolt et al. 2002). The flares are the most powerful events. Their emission arises from two emitting blobs observed to move relativistically in opposite directions up to about 3000 AU from the core (Fender et al. 1999). This has been interpreted as evidence for pairs of plasma clouds symmetrically ejected on both sides of the accretion disc (Rodríguez & Mirabel 1999). This plasmoid ejection model is also used to explain the less powerful oscillation events arising in a shorter jet extending only up to $``$ 30–50 AU (Dhawan et al. 2000). This interpretation is supported by the observation of simultaneous X-ray dips, suggesting that material from the disappearing inner accretion disc is ejected from the black hole vicinity (Belloni et al. 1997a, b; Mirabel et al. 1998; Eikenberry et al. 1998).

Observational evidence for this phenomenon has recently also been obtained for the active galaxy 3C 120 (Marscher et al. 2002). This discovery, by strengthening the analogy between galactic and extragalactic objects, rises the question on the true nature of the synchrotron emitting material. Is the microquasar plasmoid model or the quasar shock wave model the correct interpretation ? Atoyan & Aharonian (1999) showed that expanding clouds of relativistic plasma cannot describe the observations unless there is an in situ electron acceleration process. An alternative model of a variable continuous jet also fails to explain the observed flux oscillations in GRS 1915+105 as it leads to unphysically large electron densities (Collins et al. 2003). There is therefore growing evidence that the emitting electrons must be reaccelerated along the jet, as it is the case in a shock wave mechanism (Kaiser et al. 2000).

To further test the shock wave interpretation, we apply here to GRS 1915+105 the same model used to describe the long-term variability behaviour of 3C 273 from submillimeter to radio wavelengths (Türler et al. 2000). This model derived from the model of Marscher & Gear (1985) describes analytically the evolution of synchrotron emission resulting from a shock wave moving down a relativistic jet. Compared to the model of van der Laan (1966) for an expanding plasma cloud it has the advantage to include the effects of both synchrotron and inverse-Compton energy losses.

## 2 Data and Model

The data we use here are the radio oscillation events of GRS 1915+105 measured on 15 May 1997 (Mirabel et al. 1998; Dhawan et al. 2000). The Very Large Array (VLA) observations have the advantage to be very well sampled at three different radio wavelengths (see Fig 1). The data start with a flux decrease followed by successive outbursts spaced by typically 1–2 hours. These oscillation events are interpreted as ejections in a small jet that was observed simultaneously by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) (see Dhawan et al. 2000, Fig. 9). Their evolution from short to long wavelengths is reminiscent of the observed behaviour of the bright quasar 3C 273 on a time scale of years (Türler et al. 2000).

Additional data from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in the $`2.2\mu `$m infrared band show a flux enhancement which is very likely the synchrotron precursor of the last radio outburst (Mirabel et al. 1998). The simultaneous X-ray measurements by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) in the 2–60 keV band present two flares apparently associated with two consecutive radio outbursts. This X-ray behaviour is indeed quite different from the light curve observed on 9 September 1997 which displays very rapid oscillations followed by a clear X-ray dip (Mirabel et al. 1998). A possible interpretation of this difference is that the X-ray flares of 15 May 1997 are not emitted by the accretion disc, but arise in the jet because of inverse-Compton scattering of synchrotron photons.

The Marscher & Gear (1985) shock model assumes a steady relativistic jet flow that can be disturbed by any increase of the pressure of the jet plasma or of its bulk velocity. If this disturbance is related to the accretion disc, it is likely to be symmetric in both jets. Starting as a sound wave, the disturbance will become supersonic at some point because of the decreasing pressure along the jet. The resulting shock wave will propagate down the jet and accelerate particles crossing the shock front. Accelerated electrons will then emit synchrotron radiation in the increased magnetic field of the compressed plasma behind the shock front. The evolution of the emitted spectrum depends on the dominant energy loss mechanism of the electrons. Just after the onset of the shock, inverse-Compton radiation is likely to be dominant, then synchrotron losses should become more important and finally adiabatic expansion, due to the widening of the jet, will dominate the energy losses. As a consequence, the turnover of the self-absorbed synchrotron spectrum will move from high to low frequencies following a characteristic three-stage path (see Fig. 2).

## 3 Method

To apply the model outlined above to the observed variability of GRS 1915+105 we use a methodology similar to the one used previously for 3C 273 (Türler et al. 2000). There are however several modifications mainly implied by the specificity of GRS 1915+105, but including also some more general improvements. An important difference between the modelling of 3C 273 and GRS 1915+105 is that for the latter the emission from the receding jet is well observed (Mirabel & Rodriguez 1994; Fender et al. 1999; Rodríguez & Mirabel 1999) and thus cannot be neglected. We take this into account by modelling each outburst as being the sum of twin outbursts, one arising in the approaching jet and the other in the receding jet. The observed emission from the two opposite jets is however different due to orientation and relativistic effects. We model this by two parameters, one being the ratio between the Doppler factors of the emitting material in the two jets and the second being the observed delay between the onset of the twin outbursts. In addition, the angle of $`66\mathrm{°}`$ between the jet axis and the line of sight (Fender et al. 1999) is such that the shock is likely to be viewed sideways for the approaching jet and from behind for the receding jet (Marscher et al. 1992). This was taken into account in the modelling and results in a different observed evolution of the two jets (see Fig. 2).

To define the specificity of each outburst, we allow to vary from one event to the other only two out of the three parameters we used for 3C 273 (Türler et al. 2000). These two parameters are the normalization $`K_{\mathrm{on}}`$ of the electron energy distribution ($`N(E)=KE^s`$) and the magnetic field strength $`B_{\mathrm{on}}`$ at the onset of the shock. The bulk Doppler factor $`𝒟_{\mathrm{on}}`$ of the emitting material is assumed here to remain constant. Another simplification is that there does not seem to be a constant radio emission component in GRS 1915+105 similar to the hot spot at the far end of 3C 273’s jet. Furthermore, the start of the radio light curves of GRS 1915+105 can be simply modelled by the final decay of an outburst with average properties.

To have a more realistic model we replaced by progressive transitions the low- and high-frequency breaks of the synchrotron spectrum (see Türler et al. 2000, Fig. 2) and we smoothed out the sharp edges of the three-stage evolution. The normalization of the synchrotron spectrum was redefined as the extrapolation of the optically thin slope, as in the original Marscher & Gear (1985) model. Finally, we introduced a new parameter to allow the frequency ratio $`\nu _\mathrm{h}/\nu _\mathrm{m}`$ of the low frequency break to the turnover of the spectrum to vary with time. This allows to describe a synchrotron source which is first inhomogeneous and becomes progressively homogeneous near the transition to the final adiabatic expansion stage, as it seems to be the case in GRS 1915+105 (see Fig. 2a, b).

The model presented here has a total of 34 free parameters. 13 parameters are used to describe completely the shape and the evolution of the synchrotron spectrum for an average outburst in the approaching and the receding jets. The remaining 21 parameters are used to define the start times and the specificity of each distinct event. This model is the simplest jet model reproducing well the observations. It assumes a constant Doppler factor along the jet and a linear decrease $`BR^1`$ of the magnetic field $`B`$ with the jet half-width $`R`$, as expected if $`B`$ is perpendicular to the jet axis (Begelman et al. 1984). The model parameters are constrained by a simultaneous least-square fit to the 795 radio and infrared measurements of Fig. 1. This is achieved by many iterative fits of small subsets of the 34 parameters. The overall fit is shown in Fig. 1. Although the adjustment is not perfect (reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 6.4), the shape of the light curves is very well reproduced by the model.

## 4 Results and Discussion

The overall evolution of an average outburst in GRS 1915+105 as derived from the observations of 15 May 1997 is shown in Fig. 2a, c for the approaching jet and in Fig. 2b, d for the receding jet. The outburst is assumed to be intrinsically the same in both jets, but the observed evolution is different because of orientation effects. The different viewing angle changes the normalization, as well as the slopes of the three-stage evolution. The first effect is due to a different relativistic Doppler factor, while the second is due to the assumption that the approaching shock wave is viewed sideways, while the receding one is viewed from behind.

The model parameters describing the jet properties suggest that the jet when observed was rather dissipative and this could explain why it did not propagate very far (Dhawan et al. 2000). A first indication for this is the non-linear increase of the radius $`RL^r`$ of the jet opening with distance $`L`$ along the jet. The best fit value of $`r=1.52`$ accounts for the rapid change of the spectral turnover frequency with time (see Fig. 2c, d). It suggests that the inner jet of GRS 1915+105 is more like a trumpet than a cone. This shape could result from a pressure gradient of the material surrounding the jet or from diverging external magnetic field lines channeling the jet plasma. Alternatively, it might be the signature of a decelerating jet flow. To test this hypothesis, we relax the constraint of a constant Doppler factor along the jet. This results in a model with a slight tendency towards deceleration, but the improvement of the fit is not significant due to the lack of further infrared or submillimeter observations. There are however other indications suggesting a dissipative jet flow. In particular the fact that the obtained value of $`s=2.02`$ for the index of the electron energy distribution $`N(E)=KE^s`$ is close to 2. This means that there is roughly as much total energy carried by high-energy electrons than by low-energy electrons. For $`s<2`$, the strong radiative losses of the dominant high-energy electrons would lead to a substantial pressure decrease along the jet and prevent the shock to propagate far (Marscher & Gear 1985). That such radiative losses are not negligible is also suggested by the slightly steeper decrease ($`k=3.10`$) of the normalization $`KR^k`$ of the electron energy distribution than expected if the jet flow was really adiabatic ($`k=2(s+2)/3=2.68`$).

From the ratio of the relativistic Doppler factors in the receding and the approaching jet, we can derive the bulk speed of the emitting region. We obtain a ratio of $`0.61`$, which corresponds, by assuming an angle of $`66\mathrm{°}`$ between the jet axis and the line of sight (Fender et al. 1999), to a speed of $`0.60c`$, $`c`$ being the speed of light. This mildly relativistic value contrasts with the speeds exceeding $`0.9c`$ derived for the giant eruptions (Fender et al. 1999; Rodríguez & Mirabel 1999), but is compatible with the hypothesis of a shock viewed sideways in the approaching jet provided that the jet opening half-angle is of $`13\mathrm{°}`$ at least (Marscher et al. 1992). We can also estimate the distance from the black hole at which the shock wave forms based on the time interval between the onset of the outburst in the two jets. This interval is found to be $`400`$ s and corresponds to a distance from the black hole measured along the jet of $`\mathrm{1.47\hspace{0.17em}10}^{13}`$ cm, by assuming the same orientation as above. This is roughly 1 AU and is only about twice the separation of the binary system (Greiner et al. 2001).

Concerning the specificity of individual events, represented by the points in Fig. 2, we note that they do mostly differ in intensity from the average outburst. According to the model, this is due to changes of the normalization $`K_{\mathrm{on}}`$ of the electron energy distribution at the onset of the shock. The effect of significant changes of the magnetic field strength $`B_{\mathrm{on}}`$ from one event to the other would lead to a clear scatter of the points along the frequency axis, which is not observed (see Fig. 2a, b). The fact that the specificity of individual outbursts is mainly due to differences in the normalization $`K_{\mathrm{on}}`$ of the electron energy distribution is to be expected if the outbursts are due to an increased injection rate at the base of the jet. This finding therefore supports the idea that the shock waves forming in the jet of GRS 1915+105 are the result of instabilities in the inner accretion disc.

It is difficult to assess whether a scaled-up version of the shock model presented here could apply to the giant eruptions of GRS 1915+105. Their radio light curve with its very fast rise compared to its slow decay (Dhawan et al. 2000) resembles the infrared model light curve for the approaching jet, but expanded about 1000 times in duration and 100 times in amplitude. The optically thin synchrotron spectrum observed in the radio during the decay of major eruptions has also roughly the same slope than the infrared spectrum deduced here. This analogy suggests that giant eruptions could be qualitatively similar events than those studied here, but with physical conditions such that their emission is shifted by orders of magnitude towards lower frequencies, longer time scales and enhanced fluxes.

## 5 Conclusion

This work shows that the microquasar GRS 1915+105 has, at least during some epochs, a variability behaviour similar to the quasar 3C 273, which can be modelled by shock waves propagating in a relativistic jet. This analogy suggests that the physical nature of relativistic jets and their emission is not dependent on the mass of the black hole at the origin of the ejection. The study of jets in both quasars and microquasars is therefore complementary. While quasars are bright and their jet structure is relatively well resolved, microquasars have the advantage of shorter variability time scales and of a less relativistic flow allowing us to observe also their counter-jet emission. The ability shown here to constrain jet emission models by multi-wavelength observations opens new perspectives for studying relativistic jets in quasars, microquasars and tentatively even in gamma-ray bursts.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank V. Dhawan for kindly providing use the VLBA data. Y.F. acknowledges financial support from the CNES.