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# Semiclassical Foundation of Universality in Quantum Chaos

## Abstract

We sketch the semiclassical core of a proof of the so-called Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit conjecture: A dynamical system with full classical chaos has a quantum energy spectrum with universal fluctuations on the scale of the mean level spacing. We show how in the semiclassical limit all system specific properties fade away, leaving only ergodicity, hyperbolicity, and combinatorics as agents determining the contributions of pairs of classical periodic orbits to the quantum spectral form factor. The small-time form factor is thus reproduced semiclassically. Bridges between classical orbits and (the non-linear sigma model of) quantum field theory are built by revealing the contributing orbit pairs as topologically equivalent to Feynman diagrams.

Fully chaotic dynamics enjoy ergodicity and thus visit everywhere in the accessible space with uniform likelihood, over long periods of time. Even long periodic orbits bring about such uniform coverage. Moreover, classical ergodicity provides quantum chaos with universal characteristics.

Given chaos, quantum energy levels are correlated within local few-level clusters but become statistically independent as their distance grows much larger than the mean level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The decay of correlations on the scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is empirically found system independent, within universality classes distinguished by presence or absence of time-reversal ($`𝒯`$) invariance gospel ; bible . The corresponding universal long-time characteristics act on the Heisenberg scale $`T_H=2\pi \mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, with $`\mathrm{}`$ Planck’s constant.

Universal spectral fluctuations were conjectured as a manifestation of quantum chaos two decades ago BGS . Now, the semiclassical core of a proof can be given. Based on Gutzwiller’s periodic-orbit theory Gutzi , our progress comes with two surprises: one lies in its simplicity, the other in the appearance of interesting mathematics (non-trivial properties of permutations). Moreover, the often disputed intimate relation between periodic orbits and quantum field theory is confirmed for good. We thus expect the underlying ideas to radiate beyond spectral fluctuations, like to transport and localization.

Technically speaking, we want to show that each completely hyberbolic classical dynamics has a quantum energy spectrum with the same fluctuations as a random- matrix caricature $`H_{\mathrm{RMT}}`$ of its Hamiltonian, even though that caricature has nothing in common with the Hamiltonian but symmetry (absence or presence of $`𝒯`$ invariance). The theory of random matrices (RMT) gospel ; bible ; Mehta , developed by Wigner and Dyson to account for fluctuations in nuclear spectra yields analytic results for correlators of the level density $`\rho (E)`$, by averaging over suitable ensembles of random matrices. Simplest is the two-point correlator $`\overline{\rho (E)\rho (E^{})}\overline{\rho (E)}\overline{\rho (E^{})}`$, where the overlines denote ensemble average. Its Fourier transform with respect to the energy difference $`EE^{}`$, called spectral form factor $`K(\tau )`$, is predicted by RMT for systems without time reversal invariance (unitary class) and with that symmetry (orthogonal class) as

$$K_{\mathrm{uni}}(\tau )=\tau ,K_{\mathrm{orth}}(\tau )=2\tau \tau \mathrm{ln}(1+2\tau ),$$
(1)
respectively; here $`\tau `$ is a time measured in units of the Heisenberg time $`T_H`$ ranging in $`0\tau 1`$. Note that the “orthogonal” form factor admits the expansion $`K(\tau )=2\tau 2\tau ^2+2\tau ^3\mathrm{}`$ which converges for $`0\tau \frac{1}{2}`$. Leaving larger times for future work we propose to show fidelity of individual chaotic dynamics to (1).

Of the many ways of doing RMT averages yielding (1), the quantum field-theoretical non-linear sigma model sigma ; Efe  deserves special mention since it yields a $`\tau `$ expansion of the form factor equivalent to the semiclassical expansion to be developed here. The model points to analogies between hyperbolic dynamics and the motion of electrons in disordered media. In fact, the equivalence of semiclassical and field-theoretic expansions was first suggested in the context of disordered metals disorder .

Our starting point is Gutzwiller’s representation of the level density of a hyperbolic system by a sum over its classical periodic orbits, $`\rho (E)\mathrm{Re}_\gamma A_\gamma \mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}S_\gamma /\mathrm{}}`$, with $`S_\gamma (E)`$ the action and $`A_\gamma `$ the (dimensionless) stability amplitude of the $`\gamma `$th orbit. The form factor $`K(\tau )`$ is the double sum

$$K_{\mathrm{po}}(\tau )=\underset{\gamma ,\gamma ^{}}{}A_\gamma A_\gamma ^{}^{}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(S_\gamma S_\gamma ^{})/\mathrm{}}\delta \left(\tau \frac{T_\gamma +T_\gamma ^{}}{2T_H}\right)$$
(2)
with $`T_\gamma (E)`$ the period of $`\gamma `$; the angular brackets demand averages over the energy and over a time interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }TT_H`$. We aim at evaluating the periodic-orbit sum (2) in the semiclassical limit $`\mathrm{}0,T_\gamma \mathrm{}`$ with $`T_\gamma /T_H=\mathrm{const}`$. That limit and the averages indicated eliminate noise due to orbits with $`|S_\gamma S_\gamma ^{}|\mathrm{}`$ and purge $`K(\tau )`$ of system specific features.

For the formal double sum in (2) to converge to the RMT prediction (1), it must be structured into contributions from families of orbit pairs, such that each term of the $`\tau `$ expansion of $`K(\tau )`$ comes from a specific set of families. The simplest family contains the diagonal pairs $`\{\gamma ,\gamma \}`$ and, given time reversal invariance, $`\{\gamma ,𝒯\gamma \}`$, where $`𝒯\gamma `$ is the time reverse of $`\gamma `$; it yields Berry’s Berry  “diagonal approximation” $`K_{\mathrm{po}}^{(1)}=\kappa \tau `$ where $`\kappa =1`$ without and $`\kappa =2`$ with $`𝒯`$ invariance, due to the doubling of pairs in the latter case. It is here, when summing over the “diagonal pairs” that we first meet the ergodicity of long periodic orbits, through Hannay’s and Ozorio de Almeida’s (HOdA) HOdA  sum rule $`_\gamma |A_\gamma |^2\delta (\tau \frac{T_\gamma }{T_H})=\tau `$. In a paradigmatic breakthrough, Sieber and Richter SR  gave the family responsible for the $`\tau ^2`$ term of $`𝒯`$ invariant dynamics; it is on the basis of their insight that we could find and account for all other families.

We first turn to the unitary class and propose to demonstrate that all families of orbit pairs individually contributing to higher orders $`\tau ^n`$ collectively cancel for $`n>1`$. To ease our task we assume two freedoms.

Long orbits have lots of close self-encounters. We speak of an $`l`$-encounter when $`l`$ orbit stretches get and stay close for as long as their chaotic, i.e. exponential divergence permits (see Fig. 1). Since the closest approaches discernible quantum mechanically have an action scale $`\mathrm{}`$ we expect relevant encounter durations $`t_{\mathrm{enc}}`$ of the order of the Ehrenfest time $`T_E\lambda ^1\mathrm{ln}\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}`$, with $`\lambda `$ the Lyapounov rate of divergence. Departing from and ending on the $`2l`$ “ports” of an $`l`$-encounter are $`l`$ “loops” with durations of the order of the period $`T`$ and thus of the Heisenberg time $`T_H=2\pi \mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi \mathrm{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the volume of the energy shell. Different encounters must be considered as separate: overlap of any two would yield a single one with more internal stretches. More generally, an orbit must leave an encounter before reentering it or another one after traversing an outside loop.

Self-encounters lead us from an orbit $`\gamma `$ to partners $`\gamma ^{}`$. Two orbits in a pair $`\{\gamma ,\gamma ^{}\}`$ are practically indistinguishable in the loops outside encounters; they only differ within comparatively short encounters, by their connections of the outside loops. The action difference $`S_\gamma S_\gamma ^{}`$ can thus be of order $`\mathrm{}`$. Reshuffling intraencounter connections of $`\gamma `$ either yields a partner orbit $`\gamma ^{}`$ or a pseudo-orbit decomposing into shorter orbits; pseudo-orbits, Fig. 2, are not admitted to the Gutzwiller sum (2).

Calling $`v_l`$ the number of $`l`$-encounters ($`l2`$) within which $`\gamma `$ and $`\gamma ^{}`$ differ by connections of the coinciding outside loops we write $`V=_lv_l`$ for the total number of such encounters and $`L=_llv_l`$ for the number of orbit stretches within encounters (equalling the number of loops outside). We shall see that the families of orbit pairs with fixed $`n=LV+1`$ exclusively contribute to $`\tau ^n`$ in $`K(\tau )`$. To calculate those contributions and check that they sum up to zero for $`n>1`$ in the absence of $`𝒯`$ invariance, first we must understand the phase-space structure of self-encounters and, second, the combinatorics of counting proper partners must be mastered.

We begin with a closer analysis of self-encounters cube . Drawing a Poincaré section, two dimensional for two-freedom systems, through an $`l`$-encounter we see the $`l`$ orbit stretches of, say, $`\gamma `$ pierce through that section in $`l`$ points $`x_i=(u_i,s_i),i=1\mathrm{}l`$; one of these can be chosen as the origin of coordinate axes spanned by the unstable and stable manifolds of $`\gamma `$ through $`x_1=(0,0)`$. For an encounter to be close we require $`|u_i|,|s_i|c`$, with the bound $`c`$ small enough for the motion along the $`l`$ orbit stretches to allow for mutually linearized treatment. The $`l1`$ piercings $`x_i0`$ uniquely determine (i) the duration $`t_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}(u,s)`$ of an $`l`$-encounter as a (logarithmic) function of the $`u_i,s_i`$ cube , (ii) the piercings of the partner orbit(s), and (iii) the contribution to the action difference $`S_\gamma S_\gamma ^{}`$. There is a canonical transformation $`u,s\stackrel{~}{u},\stackrel{~}{s}`$ diagonalizing the action difference to $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}=_{i=2}^l\stackrel{~}{u}_i\stackrel{~}{s}_i`$. Both $`t_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ are canonical invariants.

We may characterize a set of encounters by a vector $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ whose components are the numbers $`v_l`$ of $`l`$-encounters. We define a (weighted) number $`w(u,s)d^{LV}ud^{LV}s`$ of encounter sets with fixed vector $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ and temporal order of the $`L`$ visits of the $`V`$ encounters inside an orbit of period $`T`$; it contains a factor for each encounter involved, the fraction of its duration which the corresponding unstable and stable components spend in the intervals $`[u_i,u_i+du_i]`$ and $`[s_i,s_i+ds_i]`$. That number is determined by ergodicity as follows. A piercing of $`\gamma `$ through a section will be found with the uniform probability $`dt_iduds/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in a time interval $`[t_i,t_i+dt_i]`$ and in the area element $`[u,u+du]\times [s,s+ds]`$. We integrate the product of $`LV`$ such probabilities over the $`L`$ times $`t_i`$, here $`t_1[0,T]`$ while we restrict the $`L1`$ other $`t_i`$ to (i) a specific order in the interval $`[t_1,t_1+T]`$ and (ii) by minimal separations (due to the ban of encounter overlap). To get the dimensionless weight $`w(u,s)d^{LV}ud^{LV}s`$ we divide the $`L`$-fold integral by the product $`t_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ of durations of the $`V`$ encounters cube ,

$$w(u,s)=\frac{T\left(Tlt_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}\right)^{L1}}{\mathrm{\Omega }^{LV}(L1)!t_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}};$$
(3)
here, the restrictions mentioned in effect reduce the interval accessible to $`L1`$ integration variables by the cumulative duration $`t_{\mathrm{excl}}=lt_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ of the $`L`$ intra-encounter stretches. We note that the contribution $`lt_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ of each $`l`$-encounter to $`t_{\mathrm{excl}}`$ depends on the $`l1`$ points of piercing $`x=(u,s)0`$ of $`\gamma `$ through the pertinent section. We shall see below that the non-vanishing duration $`t_{\mathrm{excl}}`$ is, even though a small correction to the period $`T`$ in $`w(u,s)`$, of decisive importance for spectral universality.

Remarkably, $`w(u,s)`$ results as independent of the order of the $`L`$ passages of $`\gamma `$ through the $`V`$ self-encounters. We can therefore proceed to the number of self-encounters with fixed $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ and $`u,s`$ irrespective of the order of visits, $`N(\stackrel{}{v})w(u,s)`$, by accounting for a multiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$.

The number $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$ brings up a combinatorial problem with a shade of topology mixed in (partner orbits must be connected), decoupled from the phase-space considerations yielding $`w(u,s)`$. When stating that $`\gamma `$ and $`\gamma ^{}`$ differ in $`v_l`$ $`l`$-encounters, $`l=2,3,\mathrm{}`$ we leave open (i) the order in which the $`L`$ encounter stretches are passed (in particular, which is the first) and (ii) how the intraencounter connections of $`\gamma `$ are reshuffled in $`\gamma ^{}`$. The number of possibilities left is $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$; we can determine it by running through all different orderings of visits as well as through all intraencounter connections other than the one realized by $`\gamma `$ and checking, in each case, whether an orbit or a pseudo-orbit results. For only a few $`v_l`$ non-zero, $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$ is easily found with paper, pencil and patience. For general $`\stackrel{}{v}`$, the permutation problem at issue can be attacked recursively as discussed in the technical note below.

With the help of the weight $`N(\stackrel{}{v})w(u,s)`$ we replace the sum over orbit pairs in (2) as $`_{\gamma \gamma ^{}}_\gamma _\stackrel{}{v}N(\stackrel{}{v})d^{LV}ud^{LV}sw(u,s)L^1`$. The number of loops $`L`$ had to be divided out here, since the $`L`$ choices of one intra-encounter stretch as the first yield the same partner orbit. The summand simplifies as $`A_\gamma A_\gamma ^{}^{}|A_\gamma |^2,T_\gamma +T_\gamma ^{}2T_\gamma `$ since in contrast to the action difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ the prefactors and periods suffer no relative discrimination by a small quantum unit. We may also invoke the HOdA sum rule already met above, to do the sum over $`\gamma `$, and thus find the form factor as

$$\frac{K(\tau )\tau }{\tau }=\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{}N(\stackrel{}{v})_c^cd^{LV}ud^{LV}s\frac{w(u,s)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\mathrm{\Delta }S/\mathrm{}}}{L}.$$
(4)
Only a single term of the multinomial expansion of $`(Tt_{\mathrm{excl}})^{L1}`$ in $`w(u,s)`$ survives the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, the one which cancels the denominator $`t_{\mathrm{enc}}^{(l)}`$ and comes with the factor $`(T/\mathrm{\Omega })^{LV}`$; all other terms vanish, either because they involve too low orders in the period $`T`$ and thus extra factors $`\mathrm{}`$ besides a power of $`T/T_H`$ or because they oscillate rapidly and are annulled by averaging over a small time window. The remaining integral becomes elementary after the canonical transformation diagonalizing $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, $`_c^cd^{LV}ud^{LV}s\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Delta }S/\mathrm{}}=(\mathrm{}_c^c𝑑u𝑑s\mathrm{e}^{ius/\mathrm{}})^{LV}(2\pi \mathrm{})^{LV}`$. Writing $`(T2\pi \mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Omega })^{LV}=\tau ^{LV}`$ we get the series $`K(\tau )=\tau +_{n=2}^{\mathrm{}}K_n\tau ^n`$ with the coefficient

$$K_n=\frac{1}{(n2)!}\underset{\stackrel{}{v}}{\overset{(n=LV+1)}{}}N(\stackrel{}{v})\frac{(1)^V_ll^{v_l}}{L}.$$
(5)
governed by ergodicity, combinatorics and topology, given the existence of sets of separated close self-encounters.

The vanishing of the foregoing sum over families of partner orbits is a property of the permutation group which to the best of our knowledge was never noticed before. We sketch the surprisingly simple proof of $`K_n=0`$ for $`n>0`$, based on a recursion scheme for $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$, in the technical note below. Universal spectral fluctuations are thus established for dynamics without $`𝒯`$ invariance.

The orthogonal class of $`𝒯`$ invariant dynamics can be treated similarly. We must generalize the notion of self-encounters to include orbit stretches close to the others up to time reversal. Configuration-space pictures prove useful: an orbit stretch may be depicted by an arrow $`\text{}`$. While all $`l`$-encounters admitted in the unitary case involve $`l`$ parallel such arrows (like $`\text{}`$ or $`\text{}`$) we now face, in addition, arrows with opposite directions (like $`\text{}`$ or $`\text{}`$). Likewise, loops in between self-encounters of an orbit $`\gamma `$ appear nearly unchanged in partner(s) $`\gamma ^{}`$, except that the senses of traversal may be opposite.

The multiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$ of encounter “classes” $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ leads to a permutation problem slightly more complicated than in the unitary case. Again, all classes with fixed $`n=LV+1`$ contribute to $`\tau ^n`$. The results (4) and (5) reappear with an additional factor 2 due to the fact that with $`\gamma ^{}`$ a partner so is $`𝒯\gamma ^{}`$. As discussed in the technical note, a recursion relation arises for $`K_n`$ which yields the random-matrix form factor for the orthogonal universality class, $`K_{\mathrm{orth}}=2\tau +_{n2}\frac{(2)^{n1}}{n1}\tau ^n`$. We would like to underscore that in establishing both the unitary and the orthogonal form factor as universal we have accounted for all orbit pairs whose members differ by nothing but the way almost coinciding (up to time reversal) loops are connected within close self-encounters.

The $`\tau `$ expansion of $`K_{\mathrm{orth}}`$ converges for $`0\tau \frac{1}{2}`$. The summed up logarithm remains valid, by analytic continuation, up to the next singularity. Neither the locus of that singularity ($`\tau =1`$) nor the form factor for $`\tau >1`$ can be found within the $`\tau `$ expansion. We underscore once more ergodicity and hyperbolicity as our basic assumptions; in addition, strong action degeneracies as for dynamics with Hecke symmetries must be excluded Bog .

We must discuss the relation of our semiclassical work to the so-called zero dimensional sigma model of quantum field theory sigma ; Efe ; bible . The relevance of the sigma model for us lies in similarities of its perturbative implementation to our semiclassical expansion. A perturbative evaluation of the sigma model involves Wick’s theorem which can be shown to entail a recursive reduction scheme equivalent to the topological and combinatorial problem yielding our multiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$. Moreover, our orbit pairs correspond to the Feynman diagrams depicting terms of the perturbative treatment of the sigma model, with our $`l`$-encounters and the outside loops the analogs of vertices (with $`2l`$ ports) and propagator lines, respectively. Order by order in $`\tau `$, our families of orbit pairs are equivalent to the Feynman diagrams of the sigma model disorder .

Technical note: We want to set up the permutation problem yielding the mutiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$, first for the unitary case. To that end, starting from an arbitrary orbit stretch in some encounter we number the $`L`$ stretches in the order of visits by $`\gamma `$. More precisely, we denote entrance ports of encounters by $`1,2,\mathrm{},L`$ and exit ports by $`1^{},2^{},\mathrm{},L^{}`$, such that the $`k`$-th stretch of $`\gamma `$ connects ports $`k`$ and $`k^{}`$. In a partner orbit $`\gamma ^{}`$ of $`\gamma `$ port $`k`$ is connected to a port $`j_k^{}k^{}`$. The $`L`$ intra-encounter stretches of $`\gamma `$ thus correspond to the trivial permutation $`P_E^\gamma =\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1}{1^{}}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2}{2^{}}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{}}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{L}{L^{}}\right)`$ while a partner $`\gamma ^{}`$ will have intra-encounter connections according to $`P_E=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1,\mathrm{}L}{j_1^{},\mathrm{}j_L^{}}\right)P_E^\gamma `$. Since reconnections take place only within encounters, $`P_E`$ must be composed of $`v_l`$ cycles of length $`l,l=2,3\mathrm{}`$. (Mathematically speaking, $`P_E`$ must belong to the conjugacy class $`2^{v_2}3^{v_3}\mathrm{}l^{v_l}`$ of the group of permutations of $`L`$ objects corresponding to the cycles defined by the vector $`\stackrel{}{v}`$.)

The loops common to $`\gamma `$ and its partners $`\gamma ^{}`$ are associated with the permutation $`P_L=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1^{}}{2}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2^{}}{3}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{}}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{L^{}}{1}\right)`$. The whole of $`\gamma `$ is represented by the product $`P_E^\gamma P_L=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{1}{2}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2}{3}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{}}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{L}{1}\right)`$ and that product is a single-cycle permutation since $`\gamma `$ is a single orbit, rather than a decomposing pseudo-orbit. Moreover, the product $`P_EP_L`$ describes a connected partner $`\gamma ^{}`$ rather than a decomposing pseudo-orbit if and only if it is single-cycle as well. The multiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$ is thus found by running $`P_E`$ through all possibilities and counting only those for which $`P_EP_L`$ is single-cycle.

In the orthogonal case there are $`2^{l1}`$ distinct orientations of the stretches of an $`l`$-encounter. After combining oriented loops with reconnections of encounter stretches we must again check connectivity.

We have established a general recursion relation for the multiplicity $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$, both in the unitary and the orthogonal case, by following the change of $`N(\stackrel{}{v})`$ as (i) two encounters unite ($`v_lv_l1,v_l^{}v_l^{}1,v_{l+l^{}1}v_{l+l^{}1}+1`$, in short $`\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{v}^{[l,l^{}]}`$), (ii) as an encounter splits into two and (iii) as an $`l`$-encounter becomes an $`(l1)`$-encounter by uniting two of its orbit stretches. The relations are best written for $`\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v})N(\stackrel{}{v})(1)^V_ll^{v_l}[L(n2)!]^1`$; note that $`K_n=_\stackrel{}{v}^{(LV=n1)}\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v})`$.

In the unitary case we only need the special variant of the general recursion relation concerning 2-encounters merging with $`l`$-encounters, where the recursion reads $`v_2\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v})+_{l2}l(v_{l+1}+1)\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v}^{[l,2]})=0`$. Summing over $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ with fixed $`n=LV+1`$ we obtain $`_\stackrel{}{v}^{(n=LV+1)}\left[v_2\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v})+_{l2}l(v_{l+1}+1)\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v}^{[l,2]})\right]=0`$. In the foregoing double sum we can replace $`\stackrel{}{v}^{[l,2]}\stackrel{}{v}`$ and thus $`v_{l+1}+1v_{l+1}`$. The sum now runs over all $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ with $`v_{l+1}>0`$; however, the latter restriction is immaterial due to the factor $`v_{l+1}`$ in the summand. We thus obtain $`_\stackrel{}{v}^{(n=LV+1)}\left[v_2+_{l2}lv_{l+1}\right]\stackrel{~}{N}(\stackrel{}{v})=0`$; here, the term in the square bracket equals $`n1`$. The resulting identity $`(n1)K_n=0`$ implies $`K_n=0`$ for $`n>1`$.

In the orthogonal case we need two special cases of the general recursion relation, to account separately for “disappearance” of 2-encounters and 3-encounters. A suitable linear combination yields $`K_{n+1}=\frac{2(n1)}{n}K_n`$; the latter recursion gives the random-matrix form factor.

Financial support by the SFB/TR12 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is gratefully acknowledged. We have enjoyed discussions with Jürgen Müller, Dominique Spehner and Martin Zirnbauer.


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# Detection of polarization from the 𝐸⁴Π-𝐴⁴Π system of FeH in sunspot spectra

## 1 Introduction

FeH constitutes one of the most important opacity contributors in late-type dwarfs, in the red and near-infrared between 0.7 $`\mu `$m and 1.3 $`\mu `$m. It was however detected in the atmospheres of late M dwarfs much later than many of the other hydrides formed with less abundant atomic species. This is probably due to the fact that the FeH spectrum is very complicated, arising from quartet and sextet terms (Langhoff & Bauschlicher 1990). Although some bands are in the optical and blue part of the spectrum, the crowding of atomic lines makes it difficult to distinguish FeH bands. For this reason, the most studied FeH electronic system is that produced by the transition $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This band system, widely used in studies of late-type dwarfs, produces a conspicuous absorption near 1 $`\mu `$m. A theoretical analysis of this band system has been performed by Phillips et al (1987) with the assignation of quantum numbers to many of the observed lines of the $`v=00`$ band.

In a recent study of the infrared intensity spectrum of sunspots, Wallace & Hinkle (2001) identified almost 70 lines between 1.58 $`\mu `$m and 1.755 $`\mu `$m common to both the sunspot spectrum and a furnace laboratory spectrum of FeH . They tentatively associated these lines to the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ system based on the theoretical work of Langhoff & Bauschlicher (1990). These authors predicted this band system to be around 2 times weaker than the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ system, even though the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is one of the strongest bands of the quartet system in FeH. Later, Cushing et al (2003) compared the near-infrared spectrum of four late-type dwarfs with the laboratory FeH spectrum, finding 34 features that dominate in the $`H`$-band spectra. They associated some of these features to the $`v=00`$ $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ band of FeH. They found a very similar behavior of this band and the other IR bands of FeH when observing stars of different spectral types, thus reinforcing that these features belong to FeH.

There are almost no studies of the polarization properties of FeH lines. A first attempt has been carried out by Berdyugina et al (2001) and by Berdyugina & Solanki (2002) for lines of the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ system, assuming that the angular momentum coupling is that given by Hund’s case (a) (see Herzberg 1950). These authors were forced to use Hund’s case (a) coupling because no estimation of the spin-orbit coupling constants of the electronic states of the transition are available. In view of the effective Landé factors, they concluded that the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ band system of FeH might be of interest for the investigation of the magnetic properties of solar and stellar atmospheres.

In this letter, we present the first full Stokes observations of FeH in the near infrared, showing that the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ band system must be in intermediate coupling between Hund’s cases (a) and (b). To our knowledge, this is the first time polarization signals in FeH are observationally detected in sunspots.

## 2 Observations

The observations were carried out on June 7, 2002 with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter (TIP; see Martínez Pillet et al 1999) mounted on the German Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) at the Observatorio del Teide (Spain). The observed sunspot was located out of the solar disk center, at $`\mu =0.68`$ (being $`\mu `$ the cosine of the heliocentric angle), so that linear polarization signals may be expected. The total size of the umbra was $``$18”. The presence of a light bridge crossing the sunspot umbra led us to select only those points within the umbra whose polarization properties are not contaminated by the presence of the light bridge. Interestingly, the depth of the observed FeH intensity profiles is reduced close to the light bridge, possibly due to the dissociation of the FeH molecules caused by a temperature increase. Similarly, we also found a smaller amplitude in the Stokes $`V`$ spectrum.

The spectral resolution of the observation was $``$26 mÅ with a total wavelength coverage of $``$7 Å. In order to investigate the polarization properties of FeH lines, we performed three scannings with a step of 0.4” for different spectral regions and three time series with the slit crossing the center of the umbra. The integration time for each position in the scannings was 1 second, while the total integration time for the time series was between 5 and 10 minutes. Although the detection of the FeH features is obtained also in the 1 second integrations, we have used the temporally averaged Stokes profiles because they have better signal-to-noise ratio. The typical noise level is $`10^4`$ of the continuum intensity.

As shown below in Fig. 4, the observed FeH lines, apart from producing conspicuous antisymmetric $`V`$ signals, also show perfectly detectable symmetric Stokes $`Q`$ and $`U`$ profiles. However, in this first paper we will only focus on Stokes $`V`$.

## 3 The Zeeman effect in FeH

Since no perturbation analysis has been performed for any of the electronic states of FeH, no spin-orbit coupling constants are available. This makes it necessary to treat the lines of both the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ system in any of the limiting Hund’s coupling cases. However, according to Berdyugina & Solanki (2002), the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ system is known to be in intermediate coupling between (a) and (b) and strong deviations of the effective Landé factor $`\overline{g}`$ for the lines of the P and R branches are expected from that given by Hund’s case (a). In particular, $`\overline{g}`$ for the lines of the P and R branches will increase as $`J`$ increases. This increase in the Zeeman sensitivity has been observed by Wallace et al (1999) in the intensity spectrum of sunspots associated to an increase in the broadening of the high $`J`$ lines. A similar behavior is expected for the lines of the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ band. Wallace & Hinkle (2001) apparently detected such a behavior from the line splitting in the intensity spectrum. They found many FeH lines which appear undoubled but a set of seven lines around 15930 Å which present a splitting, probably caused by the Zeeman effect since it increases with the field strength in sunspots.

For those electronic levels with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }0`$, the spin-orbit coupling constants are usually large (see Huber & Herzberg 2003). Therefore, the energy separation associated to the multiplet splitting is expected to be large. We also expect the spin-orbit coupling to be large enough so that the field at which the transition to the Paschen-Back regime occurs is larger than the typical field strength of sunspots. In fact, this is the case with all the molecules studied by Berdyugina & Solanki (2002) presenting $`\mathrm{\Lambda }0`$. If the FeH lines that belong to the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ system are indeed in the Zeeman regime, we expect Stokes profiles similar to those of a normal Zeeman triplet. This is in fact confirmed by the observations.

The effective Landé factors calculated in Hund’s case (a) coupling for the Q branch lines of the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ band are shown in Fig. 1. The effective Landé factor ($`\overline{g}`$) can be obtained easily from Herzberg’s (1950) formulae for the Landé factors of the lower and upper levels. Since such Q-branch lines result from transitions between electronic levels with the same quantum numbers, $`\overline{g}`$ can be written simply as

$$\overline{g}=\frac{(\mathrm{\Lambda }+2\mathrm{\Sigma })(\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Sigma })}{J(J+1)},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=3/2,1/2,1/2,3/2`$. We point out that $`\overline{g}=0`$ for the lines of the P and R branches and that the lines between levels with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Sigma }=1/2`$ are insensitive to the magnetic field. The rest of the spectral lines belonging to transitions between low $`J`$ levels seem to be as sensitive to the magnetic field as those of the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ system studied by Berdyugina & Solanki (2002). It is very important to note that all the values of $`\overline{g}`$ are non-negative, contrary to what happens for the $`F^4\mathrm{\Delta }X^4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ system. We also show in Fig. 1 the effective Landé factor obtained for the lines of the main Q branch using Hund’s case (b) coupling. Note that in this coupling case $`\overline{g}`$ can take positive and negative values. The same is valid for the lines of the P and R branches.

Although little magnetic field diagnostics can be presently done with these lines given the lack of precise spectroscopic data, we have used the observed polarization signals in order to obtain a first insight into the potential diagnostic interest of these FeH lines.

## 4 Discussion

We have observed three spectral regions. A region around 16605 Å, another one around 16110 Å, and a third one around 16575 Å. The observation of the first region was motivated by the presence of two vibration-rotation OH lines of the $`X^2\mathrm{\Pi }`$ level, similar to those observed by Harvey (1985). Because the spectroscopic constants of OH are known, these lines can be used to obtain information about the magnetic field in sunspots. To this end, as shown in Fig. 2, we have performed LTE syntheses in the hot umbra model of Collados et al (1994) finding that a constant vertical magnetic field of 1800 G pointing radially outwards leads to a fairly good fit to the observed Stokes profiles in the OH lines111The LTE synthesis in the cool umbra model of Collados et al (1994) presents OH line absorptions much deeper than the observations.. The Zeeman patterns for the OH lines have been obtained applying the theory developed by Schadee (1978), thus they do not depend on any assumption about the coupling. We point out that since the OH lines are stronger than the FeH lines, a magnetic strength of 1800 G gives only a lower limit to the strength of the field in the deeper regions of the sunspot umbra where the FeH polarization is originated. Assuming a typical gradient of 5 G km-1 (Collados et al 1994), we estimate that the magnetic field in the formation region of the FeH lines may be about 600 G higher than in the OH formation region. For this reason, we have assumed $`\mathrm{B}2400`$ G in the following estimations of the effective Landé factors of the observed FeH lines.

In order to obtain information about the approximate value of the effective Landé factor of the FeH lines, we have applied two different techniques. The first one assumes that the line is formed under the weak field (WF) approximation (e.g. Landi Degl’Innocenti 1992). Molecular lines usually have small effective Landé factors except for lines that arise between levels with very small values of $`J`$ (see Herzberg 1950; Landau & Lifshitz 1982). Since the Zeeman splitting in the IR is relatively large, and assuming typical thermal and microturbulent velocities, the weak field approximation is valid for $`\overline{g}B1000`$ G, which is somewhat restrictive for some of our FeH lines. The second technique assumes that the line is formed in the strong field (SF) regime so that peak separation in Stokes $`V`$ is indicative of the separation of the $`\sigma `$ components when they are fully split. Since the lines are not in any of these limiting regimes, the correct effective Landé factors will be between the values obtained via the two techniques (assuming that our estimation of the sunspot magnetic field strength is sufficiently afortunate).

Fig. 3 shows two FeH lines at 16108 Å, one of which produces a clear circular polarization signal, while the other is apparently insensitive to the Zeeman effect. We show in the same figure the fit obtained to the line at 16108.3 Å by plotting the derivative of the intensity spectrum multiplied by the scaling factor using $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{WF}}=0.09`$, which represents an approximation to the effective Landé factor of this line. Note that the fit of the magnetic sensitive line is strikingly good for this combination of field strength and $`\overline{g}`$. From the previous fit, we can infer that the strong field regime has not been reached, since the separation of both Stokes $`V`$ lobes are correctly obtained with the weak field formula. This is reinforced by the low value obtained for $`\overline{g}`$. In the strong field regime, we obtain $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{SF}}0.24`$.

The FeH line at 16107.8 Å may be assumed to have $`\overline{g}0`$, in principle, since at first sight there seems to be no significant signal in Fig. 3. However, a closer inspection indicates that a very small $`V`$ signal with $`\overline{g}<0`$ seems to be present in our observations. This may constitute a first indication that deviations from Hund’s case (a) are expected for these lines. Another but much stronger indication will be discussed below.

Fig. 4 shows three FeH lines around 16575 Å which have been detected previously in intensity by Wallace & Hinkle (2001). These lines are quite weak in the sunspot intensity spectrum and it has been a bit difficult to apply the weak-field approximation since the derivative of the intensity profile turns out to be very noisy. We have obtained $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{WF}}0.38`$ for the line at 16571.5 Å and $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{WF}}0.38`$ for the line at 16576.8 Å. According to the results shown in Fig. 1, a negative $`\overline{g}`$ is not possible in Hund’s case (a) coupling. This constitutes our strongest proof that this band of FeH is in the intermediate coupling case between Hund’s cases (a) and (b). The coupling constants and the line identifications have to be obtained in case the lines of this band are to be used as tools for diagnosing magnetic properties of the coolest regions of sunspot atmospheres or magnetic fields on cool dwarfs. The line at 16575 Å seems to be a blend of some FeH lines at slightly different wavelengths due to the intricate structure of Stokes $`V`$ with apparent cancellations among them. The linear polarization signal is shown in the lower panel of Fig. 4. Note that all the FeH lines produce conspicuous Stokes $`Q`$ and $`U`$ features with an amplitude of around 1%. If we assume that the lines are in the strong field regime, we obtain $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{SF}}0.39`$ for the line at 16571.5 Å and $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{SF}}0.28`$ for the line at 16576.8 Å from the peak separation in Stokes $`V`$.

Our previous results can be compared with the effective Landé factor obtained from the fully split FeH lines in the atlas of the umbral spectrum of Wallace & Livingston (1992). For a field of 3500 G obtained from the fully split V i line at 16570.5 Å whose effective Landé factor is $`\overline{g}=0.7`$, one obtains $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{SF}}0.27`$ and $`\overline{g}_{\mathrm{SF}}0.19`$ for the lines at 16571.5 and 16576.8 Å respectively. Comparing with the results obtained directly from our spectropolarimetric observations, we verify that in the sunspot we observed we are in the intermediate field regime.

## 5 Conclusions

We have shown observational evidence that the lines of the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ electronic system of FeH present circular and linear polarization signals that are produced by the Zeeman effect. We have estimated the magnetic field strength with the help of two OH lines and inferred the effective Landé factors of the FeH transitions using either the weak-field or the strong-field approximations. We have shown that the $`E^4\mathrm{\Pi }A^4\mathrm{\Pi }`$ band of FeH presents lines with negative effective Landé factors, which is impossible under Hund’s case (a) coupling. Therefore, we conclude that this molecular band system must be in intermediate angular momentum coupling between Hund’s cases (a) and (b). The FeH lines studied here are potentially interesting for empirical investigations of the physical conditions in the lower atmosphere of sunspots and of the magnetism of late-type dwarfs. To this end, theoretical and/or laboratory investigations of this FeH molecular system are urgently needed.

We are grateful to Svetlana Berdyugina for suggesting useful improvements to the original version of this letter. Thanks are also due to Egidio Landi Degl’Innocenti for his careful reading of our paper. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministero de Ciencia y Tecnología through project AYA2001-1649.


text:
# Recombination of Shower Partons at High 𝑝_𝑇 in Heavy-Ion Collisions

## I Introduction

In the production of hadrons at high $`p_T`$ in heavy-ion collisions there are by now three theoretical collaborations that have shown the importance of quark recombination hy ; gr ; fr . While there are some differences among the three approaches, they all agree in the basics and in the successful interpretation of the experimental data, among which the most outstanding ones are the $`p/\pi `$ ratio being around 1 in the $`3<p_T<4`$ GeV range ppi  and the scaling law of elliptic flow in the number of constituents v2 ; sor . The differences concern mostly with the treatment of hadronization in the $`4<p_T<8`$ GeV range. In this paper we show how the particles produced in that range arise from the recombination of the thermal partons and the shower partons created by hard partons at high $`p_T`$. The determination of the shower parton distributions (SPD) has recently been achieved by studying the fragmentation functions (FF) in the framework of the recombination model hy2 . This paper contains the first application of the SPD outside the realm of parton fragmentation. As a consequence we find a new component that stands between the recombination of soft thermal partons at lower $`p_T`$ and the fragmentation of hard partons at higher $`p_T`$ fr , and is also different from the direct recombination of soft and hard partons gr .

In hy  we have avoided the need to specify the origin of the partons before recombination in order to be independent of the models describing the early and intermediate phases of the evolution in heavy-ion collisions. We use the measured pion spectra to infer the quark and antiquark distributions just before hadronization, and then use those distributions to determine the proton spectrum. In that way the calculated $`p/\pi `$ ratio is a direct consequence of the recombination model with essentially no dependence on the other aspects of the dynamics such as the separation into soft and hard components. In this paper we do enter into the origins of the partons. The main difference between our approach and the conventional treatment of particle production at high $`p_T`$ is that we do not use FF to represent the hadronization of hard partons produced at higher $`p_T`$. In our view all hadrons are produced by recombination at any $`p_T`$. FF’s are phenomenological functions that do not specify the hadronization mechanism. Although string models can be useful in the description of hadronization of a pair of $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}`$ receding from each other after being created in vacuum in, for example, $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, they cannot be applied to heavy-ion collisions where the abundance of color charges renders invalid any notion of stretched color flux tubes between pairs of partons produced in hard collisions ht . In the absence of such models to give a conceptual basis for fragmentation, it is necessary to find a meaningful hadronization scheme for hard partons at high $`p_T`$.

Our view is that a hard parton creates a shower of partons that recombine subsequently to form hadrons. Although the branching process of gluon radiation and pair creation that eventually lead to shower partons at low virtuality cannot be calculated, the distributions of the shower partons can nevertheless be determined from known FF’s in the framework of the recombination model, analogous to how the $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}`$ distributions are determined from the experimental distribution $`dN/p_Tdp_T`$ of pions, as done in hy . In hy2  a variety of SPD’s are given as functions of the momentum fractions of the shower partons. In principle, there should be dependences on $`Q^2`$; however, for use in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC, the SPD’s given in hy2  for $`Q^2=100`$ GeV2 is adequate, since the dependence on $`Q^2`$ is not severe.

With the SPD’s at hand, we can now consider their role in heavy-ion collisions. Hard scattering of partons gives rise to partons with high $`p_T`$, which undergo energy degradation as they traverse the dense medium wa ; gy . Instead of tracing the spatial coordinates of the hard partons, we shall use an effective parameter $`\xi `$ to describe the average fraction of partons that escape the dense medium and are able to hadronize outside. The value of $`\xi `$ will be determined phenomenologically, and will represent an independent check on the degree of jet quenching jq . A more important issue is the $`p_T`$ dependences of the hadrons detected and the origins of the partons that contribute to the formation of those hadrons at different regions of $`p_T`$. The recombination of thermal and shower partons will be shown to be important with the consequence that the structure of jets produced in heavy-ion collisions is different from that produced in $`pp`$ collisions. That difference will manifest itself in the correlation between particles in the same jet.

The recombination of two shower partons in the same jet is the same as the usual fragmentation of hard partons and becomes important at higher $`p_T`$. The recombination of two shower partons arising from two neighboring hard partons is also possible, but will not become important until the collision energy is very high, e.g., at LHC.

In what follows the production of mesons (pions and kaons) will be considered first, and then the baryons (specifically proton). Same-side correlation will be discussed, but only qualitatively to explain some apparent puzzle in the data.

## II Meson Production by Recombination

### II.1 General considerations

In an overview of a heavy-ion collision we can divide the process into two stages: (1) the initial evolutionary phase, and (2) the final hadronization phase. Our concern in this paper is mainly on the latter phase, although what partons recombine depends on the former. A proper formulation of the formation of a dense medium must be done in full 3D-space and time, but to describe hadronization at large transverse momentum can be much simpler. Since the spatial volume in which recombination can occur is small, any two partons that are not collinear cannot recombine. Thus collinear parton momenta in 1D are all that we need to consider for the production of a particle with a particular momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$. The spatial extension along that direction is also constrained to the size of the hadron, so an integration of the remaining spatial variable results in a momentum-space description in which the parton momenta should reflect the wave function in momentum-space representation of the produced hadron. We can therefore formulate the recombination process in the 1D momentum space only. Starting with $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ we investigate the partons that can recombine to form the particle at that $`\stackrel{}{p}`$. Of course, by not starting with a 3D space from the outset, we cannot calculate the density and expansion properties of the soft thermal partons, which will have to be introduced phenomenologically. A more elaborate formulation can be given in terms of Wigner functions in 6D coordinate-momentum space gr ; fr . Such formulations do provide a more complete picture of the collision process with the added advantage of being able to specify the soft component dynamically. It should be emphasized that whereas the recombination process is considered by us in 1D, it does not mean that the formalism is insensitive to the realistic problem of heavy-ion collisions and the 3D nature of the colliding nuclei. We shall return to this point when we discuss centrality dependence. As far as the hadronization part of the problem is concerned, our formulation in the 1D momentum space is consistent with the result of the formulation in 6D coordinate-momentum space after integration over the other 5 variables.

In our present problem of heavy-ion collisions we shall consider particle production in the transverse plane at rapidity $`y=0`$ only. Although the transverse plane is 2-dimensional, we shall consider only the direction in which a hadron is detected so that all partons relevant to the formation of such a particle move in the same direction. Thus it is unnecessary to carry the subscript $`T`$ on all our momentum labels to denote “transverse.” The invariant phase space element is therefore $`dp/p^0`$, which we shall approximate by $`dp/p`$ for relativistic particles.

In the recombination model hw  the invariant inclusive distribution for a produced meson with momentum $`p`$ is

$`p{\displaystyle \frac{dN_M}{dp}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_1}{p_1}\frac{dp_2}{p_2}F_{q\overline{q}^{}}(p_1,p_2)R_M(p_1,p_2,p)},`$ (1)
where $`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}(p_1,p_2)`$ is the joint distribution of a quark $`q`$ at $`p_1`$ and an antiquark $`\overline{q}^{}`$ at $`p_2`$, and $`R_M(p_1,p_2,p)`$ is the recombination function (RF) for $`q\overline{q}^{}M`$. For central collisions it is immaterial which direction $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ points. Although we only consider $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ in the transverse plane here, Eq. (1) has been used in the longitudinal direction in hw ; hy3 , where the RF is specified. It is

$`R_M(p_1,p_2,p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{B(a+1,b+1)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{p}}\right)^{a+1}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{p}}\right)^{b+1}`$ (2)
$`\delta \left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{p}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{p}}1\right),`$
where $`B(m,n)`$ is the beta function. For pion it is shown in hy3  from the analysis of Drell-Yan production data in pion-initiated process su  in the framework of the valon model hw  that $`a=b=0`$. Thus we have explicitly

$`R_\pi (p_1,p_2,p)={\displaystyle \frac{p_1p_2}{p^2}}\delta \left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{p}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{p}}1\right),`$ (3)
The statistical factor for the recombination process is 1 hy . For kaon it follows from the constituent quark masses of the valons and kaon-initiated inclusive production hy3  that $`a=1`$ and $`b=2`$.

The $`\delta `$-function in Eq. (2) guarantees the conservation of momentum in the recombination process. $`R_M`$ is an invariant distribution that is related to the non-invariant probability density $`G_M(y_1,y_2)`$ of finding the two valons in $`M`$ with momentum fractions $`y_1`$ and $`y_2`$ by

$`R_M(p_1,p_2,p)=y_1y_2G_M(y_1y_2),y_i=p_i/p.`$ (4)
Thus for pion $`G_\pi (y_1y_2)`$ is a constant, apart from the $`\delta `$-function. It means that in the momentum space the wave function of pion in terms of the valons is very broad, corresponding to the pion being a tightly bound state of its constituent quarks. That is not the case for kaon. The broadness of $`G_\pi (x_1x_2)`$ is an important reason why the thermal-shower recombination in the formation of pions makes a dominant contribution in the intermediate $`p_T`$ range, as we shall see below.

It should be noted that $`R_\pi `$ given in Eq. (3) differs from the RF given in hy , where our formulation of the high-$`p_T`$ problem is in the 2D transverse plane. Even the dimension of $`R_\pi `$ in hy  is equivalently $`p_T^2`$, whereas it is dimensionless in Eq. (3). Thus caution should be exercised in relating our treatment here to that in hy .

It is important to recognize that the RF describes the probability of recombination of quarks (and antiquarks). In the recombination model the gluons are not regarded as partons that can directly hadronize hw ; hy3 . They hadronize through the $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}`$ channels by conversion to $`q\overline{q}`$ pairs. Thus $`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}`$ in Eq. (1) must include all the $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}^{}`$ generated by gluon conversion for the purpose of hadronization through the use of $`R_M`$ in Eq. (1). The sea is therefore saturated by complete conversion from the gluons, a procedure that leads to the correct inclusive cross section for the hadronic production of pions, both in normalization hw  and in the momentum distribution hw ; hy3 . The saturation of the sea of $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}^{}`$ makes possible that the momenta of the gluons (which carry roughly half of the momentum of each nucleon) can be properly accounted for in the produced hadrons in any hadronic or nuclear collision. This procedure of saturating the sea is also followed implicitly in hy2  for the determination of the shower partons in the fragmentation of an initiating parton. We also note that the conversion of gluons to quark pairs increases the number of degrees of freedom of all the partons in the medium and thereby overcomes the decrease of entropy that one might otherwise conclude by focussing on individual recombination processes.

Lastly, we mention that soft gluon emission and absorption are always possible in a recombination process; in fact, that is how color mutation can take place for a $`q\overline{q}^{}`$ pair to become colorless, while the partons dress themselves to become valons before forming a meson. Such soft processes do not change the momenta of valons and therefore do not influence the momentum consideration in Eq. (2). We do not consider quark-antiquark-gluon recombination with large momentum fraction for the gluon because the valon representation is complete. That is precisely the reason why the valon model was constructed in the beginning to describe hadron structure on the one hand as well as the recombination function (for the time-reversed process) on the other hw .

### II.2 Pion distribution

Restricting our attention to pion production for now, we obtain from Eqs. (1) and (3)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_\pi }{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^3}}{\displaystyle _0^p}𝑑p_1F_{q\overline{q}^{}}(p_1,pp_1),`$ (5)
which clearly exhibits the simple dependence of the pion spectrum on the momentum distributions of the $`q`$ and $`\overline{q}^{}`$ that recombine. It should be recognized that, since we work in 1D, $`dN_\pi /pdp`$ in Eq. (5) is actually the number density of pions in $`p_Tdp_Tdyd\varphi `$ evaluated at $`y=0`$. With the assumption that it is independent of $`\varphi `$ in central collisions, what we denote as $`dN_\pi /pdp`$ is equivalent to the experimental $`dN/(2\pi p_Tdp_T)`$, where the number $`N`$ refers to the integrated result over all $`\varphi `$ so that when divided by $`2\pi `$ the average density in 2D is the same as what we calculate in 1D.

Note that in Eq. (5) $`p_1`$ is integrated over a wide range due to the broadness of the RF. There are two components of parton sources that contribute to $`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}`$. One is thermal $`(𝒯)`$ and the other shower $`(𝒮)`$. Before giving the specifics of what they are, let us first express $`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}`$ in terms of them in a schematic way:

$`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}=𝒯𝒯+𝒯𝒮+(𝒮𝒮)_1+(𝒮𝒮)_2.`$ (6)
All four terms make contributions at all $`p_T`$, although each is important in only restricted regions of $`p_T`$. $`(𝒮𝒮)_1`$ denotes two shower partons arising from one hard parton (hence within one jet), and can be related through the use of $`R`$ to the usual fragmentation that is described by the $`D`$ function. $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ denotes two shower partons that are from two separate but nearby hard partons, and are therefore associated with two overlapping jets. $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ is not expected to be important unless the density of hard partons is extremely high, such as that possibly at LHC. For brevity, we shall write $`(𝒮𝒮)_1`$ simply as $`𝒮𝒮`$, when no confusion is likely to arise. $`𝒯𝒯`$ signifies two thermal partons whose recombination yields the thermal hadrons, usually referred to as the soft component. $`𝒯𝒮`$ denotes thermal-shower pairing and is the new component that has never been considered before. It turns out to be important in the $`3<p_T<8`$ GeV range. We emphasize that the $`𝒯𝒮`$ term would be absent if we do not treat the fragmentation of a hard parton as the recombination of shower partons as done in hy2 . It is now evident that by considering $`𝒮`$ as the showering effect of hard partons all hadrons are produced by recombination, as is made explicit by Eqs. (5) and (6) in the case of pions. Let us now specify what $`𝒯`$ and $`𝒮`$ represent.

#### II.2.1 Thermal component

$`𝒯`$ is the thermal component including hydrodynamical flow. It is not our intention to derive soft parton distribution from hydrodynamics. We shall simply assume what is necessary to give rise to the observed distribution of pions for $`p_T<2`$ GeV. Since the observed $`dN_\pi /pdp`$ at low $`p`$ is exponential, the necessary invariant parton distribution for the thermal component is

$`𝒯(p_1)=p_1{\displaystyle \frac{dN_q^{\mathrm{th}}}{dp_1}}=Cp_1\mathrm{exp}(p_1/T),`$ (7)
where $`T`$ is the inverse slope enhanced by flow. $`C`$ is the normalization factor to be adjusted to fit the pion data at low $`p`$, and has the dimension $`[\mathrm{momentum}]^1`$. For noncentral collisions, which we do not consider in this paper, $`C`$ would depend on centrality. We assume that the thermal partons are uncorrelated, except in special circumstances, so that we may write $`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}^{\mathrm{th}}`$ in the factorizable form

$`F_{q\overline{q}^{}}^{\mathrm{th}}(p_1,p_2)=𝒯(p_1)𝒯(p_2)=C^2p_1p_2\mathrm{exp}[(p_1+p_2)/T].`$ (8)
Substituting this into Eq. (5) yields for the thermal component of the pion distribution

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_\pi ^{\mathrm{th}}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{C^2}{6}}\mathrm{exp}(p/T),`$ (9)
which is the exponential form aimed for. To fit the data the parameters are

$`C=23.2\mathrm{GeV}^1,T=0.317\mathrm{GeV},`$ (10)
as we shall see below.

#### II.2.2 Shower partons

Next we consider the shower distribution. In a heavy-ion collision let the parton $`i`$ be scattered into the transverse plane at rapidity $`y=0`$ with probability $`f_i(k)`$, i.e.,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_i^{\mathrm{hard}}}{kdkdy}}|_{y=0}=f_i(k)`$ (11)
where $`k`$ is the transverse momenta of the parton. We shall use the parametrization of $`f_i(k)`$ given in Ref. sr , obtained for the study of dilepton production in central collision of gold nuclei at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV. Due to energy loss of the partons in the dense medium, not all partons emerge from the reaction zone to hadronize outside. Only a fraction of them do, and we shall use $`\xi `$ to represent the effective fraction after averaging over all central events such that $`\xi f_i(k)`$ denotes the number of unquenched partons with momentum $`k`$ that are to hadronize. Note that we do not refer to them as jets, since the notion of jets presupposes that a hard parton fragments into a jet of hadrons. That supposition is, of course, just what we want to avoid. We regard $`\xi `$ as an effective fraction because we do not consider its dependence on $`k`$ and do not delve into the space-time properties of the hard scattering and subsequent evolution. The value of $`\xi `$ will be determined phenomenologically, and be regarded as an empirical quantification of the degree of energy loss.

The hard parton $`i`$ at momentum $`k`$ creates a parton shower. Since there are various types of shower partons for each type of initiating parton $`i`$, let us use $`S_i^j`$ to denote the matrix of SPD’s for $`ij`$. Although $`i`$ can be $`u`$, $`d`$, $`s`$, $`\overline{u}`$, $`\overline{d}`$, $`\overline{s}`$ and $`g`$, $`j`$ is allowed to be quark and antiquarks, but not gluon. The role of gluons in the recombination process has already been discussed earlier at the end of Sec. II-A. The sea partons in the shower are saturated by gluon conversion. In the notation of hy2  we use $`K_{NS}`$ to denote the valence quark in the shower, $`L(L_s)`$ the light (strange) sea quarks in a quark-initiated shower, and $`G(G_s)`$ the light (strange) sea quarks in a gluon-initiated shower. Thus the shower matrix $`S_i^j`$ has the form

$$S_i^j=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}K& L& L_s\\ L& K& L_s\\ L& L& K_s\\ G& G& G_s\end{array}\right),i=u,d,s,g,j=u,d,s,$$
(12)
where $`K=K_{NS}+L`$ and $`K_s=K_{NS}+L_s`$. The anti-quarks $`\overline{u}`$, $`\overline{d}`$ and $`\overline{s}`$ have the same structure, and are related to $`u`$, $`d`$, $`s`$ as sea, and vice-versa. The parametrizations for these SPD’s have been completely determined in hy2  as functions of the momentum fraction $`z`$ of parton $`j`$ in parton $`i`$. Note that in Eq. (12) there is no fourth column corresponding to gluons in the shower. The determination of the five essential SPD’s is carried out on the condition of no shower gluons so that all hadrons specified by the fragmentation functions are formed by $`q\overline{q}^{}`$ recombination without gluons. The underlying physics for this has already been discussed in the last two paragraphs of Sec. II.A.

The distribution of shower parton $`j`$ with transverse momentum $`p_1`$ in central heavy-ion collisions is then

$`𝒮(p_1)=\xi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle _{k_0}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑kkf_i(k)S_i^j(p_1/k),`$ (13)
where $`p_1`$ and $`k`$ are collinear. Since the input on hard parton distribution $`f_i(k)`$ cannot be valid at low $`k`$, we shall consider the above integral only for $`k>k_0`$, for which we set the minimum at $`k_0=3`$ GeV. In practice we cut off the upper limit of integration at 20 GeV.

#### II.2.3 Thermal-shower recombination

With the shower partons specified we can now combine them with the thermal partons to describe the $`𝒯𝒮`$ term in Eq. (6). We have

$$𝒯(p_1)𝒮(p_2)=\xi Cp_1e^{p_1/T}\underset{i}{}𝑑kkf_i(k)S_i^j(p_2/k),$$
(14)
where the distributions of thermal light quarks are assumed to be flavor independent and the appropriate one is implied to pair off with $`j`$ to form the meson under consideration. The contribution to the pion spectrum from thermal-shower recombination is then, using Eq. (5),

$$\frac{dN_\pi ^{𝒯𝒮}}{pdp}=\frac{1}{p^3}_0^p𝑑p_1𝒯(p_1)𝒮(pp_1),$$
(15)
where a sum over $`j`$ is implied to match the flavors of the valence quarks of the detected pion. Only the overall normalization of this term depends on $`\xi `$. The $`p`$ dependence is our prediction, which is used to fit the data and thereby determine $`\xi `$.

#### II.2.4 Shower-shower recombination

For two shower partons in the same jet we have

$`(𝒮𝒮)_1(p_1,p_2)=\xi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑kkf_i(k)\{S_i^j\left(\frac{p_1}{k}\right),S_i^j^{}\left(\frac{p_2}{kp_1}\right)\}},`$ (16)
where the curly brackets signify the symmetrization of the leading parton momentum fraction

$`\{S_i^j(z_1),S_i^j^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{z_2}{1z_1}}\right)\}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[S_i^j(z_1)S_i^j^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{z_2}{1z_1}}\right)+S_i^j\left({\displaystyle \frac{z_1}{1z_2}}\right)S_i^j^{}(z_2)\right].`$ (17)
We have shown in hy2  that the SPD’s can be determined from the recombination formula for the fragmentation function

$`xD_i^M(x)={\displaystyle \frac{dx_1}{x_1}\frac{dx_2}{x_2}\{S_i^j(x_1),S_i^j^{}\left(\frac{x_2}{1x_1}\right)\}R_M(x_1,x_2,x)}.`$ (18)
A sum over $`j`$ and $`j^{}`$ is implied in consort with the $`j`$ and $`j^{}`$ labels hidden in the RF that are relevant for $`M`$. The substitution of Eq. (16) for the $`(𝒮𝒮)_1`$ term in Eq. (6) into Eq. (1) clearly yields

$`p{\displaystyle \frac{dN_M^{\mathrm{frag}}}{dp}}=\xi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑kkf_i(k)\frac{p}{k}D_i^M\left(\frac{p}{k}\right)},`$ (19)
which is the usual formula for the production of a meson at high $`p_T`$ in the fragmentation model, except for the presence of $`\xi `$ here for reasons that have already been discussed above.

There is finally the possibility of recombination of two shower partons from two different but partially overlapping showers. The corresponding $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ term in Eq. (6) should then be

$`(𝒮𝒮)_2(p_1,p_2)=\delta _{y\varphi }\xi ^2{\displaystyle \underset{i,i^{}}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑k𝑑k^{}kk^{}f_i(k)f_i^{}(k^{})S_i^j\left(\frac{p_1}{k}\right)S_i^{}^j^{}\left(\frac{p_2}{k^{}}\right)},`$ (20)
where a multiplicative factor $`\delta _{y\varphi }`$ is included to reflect the probability of overlap in $`y`$ and $`\varphi `$ of the two showers in order for collinear recombination of the partons $`j`$ and $`j^{}`$ to take place. The value of $`\delta _{y\varphi }`$ can be estimated by studying the size of the jet cone, and is expected to be small. Thus this mode of recombination is not likely to be important at RHIC. However, at very high energy, such as at LHC, where $`f_i(k)`$ is orders of magnitude higher, the $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ term may well become significant.

#### II.2.5 Result on the pion spectrum

Collecting all the pieces of Eq. (6) together and substituting them in Eq. (5), we obtain the four contributions to the pion spectrum. The parameters $`C`$ and $`T`$ in Eq. (10) are determined by fitting the low-$`p_T`$ data. Ignoring the $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ contribution on the basis that $`\delta _{y\varphi }`$ is very small, there is only one parameter, $`\xi `$, to adjust to fit the data for $`p_T>2`$ GeV. The result is shown in Fig. 1. With the value

$`\xi =0.07`$ (21)
the fit of the $`\pi ^0`$ data from PHENIX ph  on central Au-Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV is excellent up to $`p_T10`$ GeV. Note that in the region $`3<p_T<8`$ GeV, the dominant contribution is from thermal-shower recombination (line with crosses). The conventional jet fragmentation is from shower-shower recombination in one jet (line with circles); it becomes more important than the $`𝒯𝒮`$ contribution only for $`p_T>9`$ GeV. To show the relative size of the $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ recombination from 2 jets, we assume $`\delta _{y\varphi }=0.01`$ (a very rough estimate) just to put its contribution on the figure. It is indicated by the line with squares, which is much lower than all others.

The result that thermal-shower dominates over shower-shower (1-jet) recombination for $`p_T<8`$ GeV is our main finding in this work. It shows the importance of considering the interaction between the thermal partons and the partons created by hard scattering. That interaction becomes particularly significant at the hadronization scale where recombination occurs.

One way to see why $`𝒯𝒮`$ is greater than $`𝒮𝒮`$ in their contributions to Eq. (1) via (6) is to examine their sum in the following form

$`𝒯𝒮+𝒮𝒮=\xi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑kkf_i(k)S_i^j^{}\left(\frac{p_2}{k}\right)\left[Cp_1e^{p_1/T}+S_i^j\left(\frac{p_1}{kp_2}\right)\right]},`$ (22)
putting aside the other symmetrizing term in $`𝒮𝒮`$ without any impediment to our argument. The first (thermal) term inside the square bracket is much larger than the second (shower) term when $`p_1`$ is small (but not infinitesimal), which is a region of $`p_1`$ that is relevant for the soft parton to recombine with a shower parton at $`p_2>3`$ GeV only if $`R_\pi (p_1,p_2,p)`$ is broad enough to encompass both. This linking between soft and semi-hard partons not only enhances the spectrum over simple fragmentation, but also modifies the structure of what is usually regarded as minijet. Since there are no thermal soft partons in $`pp`$ collisions, the pion distribution at intermediate and high $`p_T`$ in $`pp`$ collisions must differ from that in $`AA`$ collisions. Furthermore, the same-side correlations in the two cases are necessarily different, as we shall discuss in Sec. 4.

#### II.2.6 Dependence on the recombination function

To see how the thermal-shower recombination depends on the broadness of RF, consider the general form of the valon distribution

$`G(y_1,y_2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{B(a+1,a+1)}}(y_1y_2)^a\delta (y_1+y_21).`$ (23)
Equations (3) and (4) follow from Eq. (23) for $`a=0`$. If $`a`$ were larger, as one would expect for the $`\rho `$ meson (since small $`a`$ corresponds to a tightly bound state), then the valon distribution would be more sharply peaked at $`y_1=y_2=1/2`$. In that case the recombination of a thermal parton at low $`p_1`$ and a shower parton at intermediate $`p_2`$ is suppressed. To make this point transparent, we show in Fig. 2(a) several possible widths of a single-valon distribution $`G(y)`$ obtained from $`G(y_1,y_2)`$ by one integration, i.e.,

$`G(y)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{B(a+1,a+1)}}[y(1y)]^a,`$ (24)
which is normalized to 1 by one more integration. The corresponding RF is given by Eqs. (4) and (23). When we use that RF in Eq. (1) and calculate the distribution $`dN/pdp`$ with only the $`𝒯𝒮`$ contribution to $`F_{q\overline{q}}`$ taken into account, the result is shown in Fig. 2(b) for $`a=0,1,2,5`$. It is evident that the recombination of thermal-shower partons is significantly suppressed at high $`p_T`$ when $`a`$ is large, and becomes negligible when $`R(p_1,p_2,p)`$ tends toward being proportional to $`\delta (p_1p/2)\delta (p_2p/2)`$.

### II.3 Energy loss

In the absence of a space-time study of the problem that includes the locations where hard collisions occur, it is not possible to consider the medium effect on each and every hard parton that traverses the medium. We have used the parameter $`\xi `$ to represent the overall effect after averaging over all events in central collisions. The value $`\xi =0.07`$ given in Eq. (21) is a quantity deduced from fitting the pion spectrum. It clearly indicates that not all hard partons created in a heavy-ion collisions can get out of the dense medium to hadronize. As suggested by the STAR data star , only those near the surface can escape the quenching effect. Our result on the value of $`\xi `$ seems low by comparison to the nuclear modification factor $`R_{AA}(p_T)`$, which is roughly 0.2 for $`p_T>6`$ GeV in central Au-Au collisions. To understand their difference, let us examine what they measure respectively.

$`R_{AA}(p_T)`$ is defined by the ratio

$$R_{AA}(p_T)=\frac{dN/p_Tdp_T(AA)}{N_{coll}dN/p_Tdp_T(pp)},$$
(25)
where $`N_{coll}`$ is the average number of binary collisions. In the denominator the production of particles at high $`p_T`$ in $`pp`$ collisions can be well described by the fragmentation of hard partons. However, we have seen that the usual fragmentation corresponds to the shower-shower recombination in 1-jet, which is not the important part of hadronization in $`AA`$ collisions for $`3<p_T<8`$ GeV. The suppression factor $`\xi `$ may, in the spirit of Eq. (25), be written in the schematic form

$$\xi =\frac{dN/p_Tdp_T(AA)}{𝒯\widehat{𝒮}R(AA)},$$
(26)
where $`\widehat{𝒮}`$ is the shower component expressed in Eq. (13), but without the $`\xi `$ factor. The angular brackets denote an average over all $`p_T`$ . The denominator is the thermal-shower recombination in $`AA`$ collisions, if all hard partons get out of the medium to hadronize. It is then clear why $`\xi `$ is smaller than $`R_{AA}`$. It should not only account for the suppressed number of hard partons in the numerator that get out from the dense medium to hadronize (which $`R_{AA}`$ does also), but is also made smaller by the denominator where the $`𝒯\widehat{𝒮}`$ recombination is larger than the scaled contribution from $`pp`$ collisions.

Another way to exhibit the effect of energy loss on our result is to calculate $`R_{AA}(p_T)`$ directly from our pion distribution, assuming that the pions dominate over all other particles. That assumption is invalid for $`p_T<4`$ GeV, since the production of proton is known to be roughly equal to that of pion in the $`3<p_T<4`$ GeV region. Nevertheless, it is illuminating to see what the pion component gives (call it $`R_{AA}^\pi `$) relative to the experimental $`R_{AA}`$ for $`p_T>4`$ GeV. Since $`𝒮𝒮`$ recombination is just the fragmentation component in $`AA`$ collisions as stated in Eq. (19), we can obtain $`N_{\mathrm{coll}}dN_\pi /p_Tdp_T(pp)`$ simply by omitting the factor $`\xi `$ from $`dN_\pi ^{𝒮𝒮}/pdp`$. That is, we have

$`R_{AA}^\pi (p)={\displaystyle \frac{dN_\pi /pdp}{\xi ^1dN_\pi ^{𝒮𝒮}/pdp}},`$ (27)
where the numerator corresponds to the solid line in Fig. 1 and $`dN_\pi ^{𝒮𝒮}/pdp`$ corresponds to the line with open circles in the same figure. The result for $`R_{AA}^\pi `$ is shown in Fig. 3 by the solid line, which is in reasonable agreement with the data on $`R_{AA}`$ st2  that is not limited to the pions. It is now clear that the ratio of those two lines is equal to the ratio $`R_{AA}^\pi /\xi `$, which in turn is approximately equal to $`R_{AA}/\xi `$. Since the thermal-thermal recombination is negligible for $`p_T>4`$ GeV, the ratio $`(dN_\pi /pdp)/(dN_\pi ^{𝒮𝒮}/pdp)`$ is essentially independent of $`\xi `$. Thus $`R_{AA}^\pi /\xi `$ is roughly independent of energy loss and therefore of centrality.

It is worth remarking on how the nuclear-size effect enters into our one-dimensional treatment of the hadronization process. We emphasize that hadronization occurs outside the volume of dense matter and along the direction of the detected particle. The 3D nuclear-size effect influences the properties of the partons before they enter into the interaction region for hadronization, and is therefore not explicitly present in the recombination formula. The recombining partons are either the soft thermal ones or the semi-hard shower partons. Centrality obviously affects the magnitude of the thermal source, i.e., $`C`$, and the degree of energy loss, i.e., $`\xi `$. We have made preliminary study of the centrality dependence of $`dN_\pi /pdp`$ and found agreement with the data by appropriate adjustment of $`C`$ and $`\xi `$ in essentially the same way as we have done in this paper for the most central collisions. We mention this only to point out that the 1D description of recombination does not preclude the possibility of accounting for the nuclear-size effect, which is manifestly 3D, but occurs prior to the hadronization process.

The suppression factor $`\xi `$, as expressed in Eq. (26), cannot be measured directly. There is, however, a measurable quantity that is closely related to $`\xi `$. Since only the hard partons that are created near the surface of the collision region can get out, most jets detected in $`AA`$ collisions do not have a partner in the opposite direction. That does not mean the non-existence of back-to-back jets. A pair of hard partons that are created near the edge, but directed at around $`90^{}`$ relative to the radial position of creation measured from the center, and yet remain in the transverse plane (i.e., roughly tangent to the cylinder), do not go through the bulk of the medium. Those two hard partons can then lead to back-to-back jets that are detectable. It is then of interest to measure the total number of events that contain back-to-back jets. Let $`R_{jj/j}(\overline{p}_T)`$ be the ratio of events with back-to-back jets to the total number of events containing any jets, where $`\overline{p}_T`$ is the minimum value of $`p_T`$ that any particle must have to be counted as part of a jet. Thus, for example, for $`\overline{p}_T=5`$ GeV, $`R_{jj/j}(\overline{p}_T)`$ refers to the fraction of events containing two particles with $`p_T>5`$ GeV in opposite directions out of all events with any particle having $`p_T>5`$ GeV. $`R_{jj/j}(\overline{p}_T)`$ is then a measure of the fraction of space near the surface that can give rise to particles at high $`p_T`$ through thermal-shower recombination. It can have dependence on centrality. The precise relationship between $`\xi `$ and $`R_{jj/j}`$ is a separate problem worthy of detailed investigation, especially if the experimental determination of $`R_{jj/j}`$ is forthcoming.

In a Monte Carlo calculation, such as that employed in gr , where space-time trajectories of the hard partons are tracked, it is possible to compute the parton momenta after energy losses are taken into account. Those emergent partons then generate shower partons whose recombination with thermal partons presumably results in a yield that can check the value of our mean suppression factor $`\xi `$. In our treatment in the momentum space only, we determine $`\xi `$ by fitting the pion data, but once fixed the relative magnitude between $`𝒯𝒮`$ and $`𝒮𝒮`$ is also fixed. Moreover, there is no more freedom in the determination of the inclusive distribution of other particles, such as kaon and proton.

### II.4 Kaon production

For the production of kaon the RF has the explicit form that follows from Eq. (2) with $`a=1`$ and $`b=2`$ hy3

$$R_K(p_1,p_2,p)=12\frac{p_1^2p_2^3}{p^4}\delta (p_1+p_2p).$$
(28)
Using this in Eq. (1) yields for $`K^+`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{K^+}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{12}{p^6}}{\displaystyle _0^p}𝑑p_1p_1(pp_1)^2F_{u\overline{s}}(p_1,pp_1).`$ (29)
Note that because the kaon is not as tightly bound as pion, the RF is not as broad as that for pion, with the consequence that the factor $`p_1(pp_1)^2`$ in the integrand forces the $`u`$ and $`\overline{s}`$ quarks to have closer momenta than those in Eq. (1).

There are four terms for $`F_{u\overline{s}}`$ as in Eq. (6). The calculational procedure is basically the same as for pion. A slight complication arises from the strange quark being different from the light quarks. In the thermal component we shall simply attach a multiplicative factor $`\lambda _s`$ for the $`s`$ sector

$`𝒯_s=\lambda _s𝒯,`$ (30)
where we set $`\lambda _s`$ to be the Wròblewski factor at $`\lambda _s=0.5`$ brs . The thermal-shower recombination now has two terms

$`𝒯(p_1)𝒮_s(p_2)+𝒮(p_1)𝒯_s(p_2)=\xi C{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑kkf_i(k)\left[p_1e^{p_1/T}S_i^{\overline{s}}\left(\frac{p_2}{k}\right)+\lambda _sp_2e^{p_2/T}S_i^u\left(\frac{p_1}{k}\right)\right]}.`$ (31)
The $`(𝒮𝒮)_1`$ and $`(𝒮𝒮)_2`$ contributions are as expressed in Eqs. (16) and (20), respectively, with $`\{j,j^{}\}`$ identified as $`\{u,\overline{s}\}`$.

The four contributions to the kaon spectrum are shown in Fig. 4. No adjustable parameter has been used beyond what has already been determined in the previous section. The agreement between the sum (solid line) and the data is evidently very good. The data are for $`K_s^0`$ at 0-5% centrality and extend to $`p_T6`$ GeV st3 , farther than for $`K^+`$ ppi ; star3 . As in the case of pions the thermal-shower recombination is more important than both thermal-thermal and shower-shower (1-jet) for $`3<p_T<8`$ GeV. As in Fig. 1 the shower-shower (2-jet) curve is shown for $`\delta _{y\varphi }=0.01`$ and is negligible. There are some small differences in the various components of the pion and kaon spectra, but on the whole the two are basically similar.

## III Baryon Production by Recombination

### III.1 General considerations

The extension of the treatment in the preceding section to baryon production is conceptually straightforward. The generalization of Eq. (1) is clearly

$`p{\displaystyle \frac{dN_B}{dp}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_1}{p_1}\frac{dp_2}{p_2}\frac{dp_3}{p_3}F(p_1,p_2,p_3)R_B(p_1,p_2,p_3,p)},`$ (32)
where $`F(p_1,p_2,p_3)`$ is the joint distribution of three relevant quarks to form the baryon $`B`$. The RF is related to the non-invariant valon distribution by

$`R_B(p_1,p_2,p_3,p)=g_{st}y_1y_2y_3G_B(y_1,y_2,y_3),y_i=p_i/p,`$ (33)
where $`g_{st}`$ is a statistical factor, and $`G_B(y_1,y_2,y_3)`$ has the general form

$`G_B(y_1,y_2,y_3)=g_By_1^\alpha y_2^\beta y_3^\gamma \delta (y_1+y_2+y_31),`$ (34)
$`g_B=[B(\alpha +1,\beta +\gamma +2)B(\beta +1,\gamma +1)]^1.`$ (35)
For proton, $`y_1`$ and $`y_2`$ refer to the momentum fractions of the $`U`$ valons, and $`y_3`$ to that of the $`D`$ valon. The exponents $`\alpha ,\beta ,`$ and $`\gamma `$ have been determined in hy4  to be

$`\alpha =\beta =1.75,\gamma =1.05`$ (36)
from parton distribution functions of the proton. Note that although the $`U`$ and $`D`$ valons have the same constituent quark masses, they have different average momentum fractions calculable from Eq. (34) hy4

$`y_U=0.3644,y_D=0.2712,`$ (37)
which satisfies the sum rule

$`2y_U+y_D=1.`$ (38)
For hyperons, the lack of information about their parton distribution functions deprives us of any such detail knowledge of their valon distributions, and consequently of their RF’s. Nevertheless, on the basis that the constituent quarks in all baryons are not tightly bound, we expect the exponents $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ for hyperons to be also in the range between 1 and 2.

The 3-quark distribution now has more terms in the various possible contributions from the thermal and shower partons. Schematically, it takes the form

$`F_{qq^{}q^{\prime \prime }}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒯𝒯𝒯+𝒯𝒯𝒮+𝒯(𝒮𝒮)_1+(𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1`$ (39)
$`+𝒯(𝒮𝒮)_2+(𝒮(𝒮𝒮)_1)_2+(𝒮𝒮𝒮)_3.`$
They are arranged in increasing order of the number of hard partons involved: the first term has none, the next three one, the following two two, and the last term three. We shall consider only the first four terms, since they involve thermal partons and the shower of only one hard parton. The fifth term involves partons from two overlapping jets, and is ignored at RHIC energy despite the enhancement by $`𝒯`$.

### III.2 Proton production

Let us focus our attention on proton production at high $`p_T`$. As before, we omit the subscript $`T`$ in referring to momenta in the transverse plane, and obtain from Eqs. (32)-(35)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_p}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{g_pg_{st}}{p^{2\alpha +\gamma +4}}}{\displaystyle _0^p}𝑑p_1{\displaystyle _0^{pp_1}}𝑑p_2(p_1p_2)^\alpha (pp_1p_2)^\gamma F(p_1,p_2,pp_1p_2).`$ (40)
The $`𝒯𝒯𝒯`$ contribution can be computed analytically. Using Eq. (7) for each $`𝒯`$, we obtain for the thermal spectrum

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_p^{\mathrm{th}}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{C^3}{6}}pe^{p/T}{\displaystyle \frac{B(\alpha +2,\gamma +2)B(\alpha +2,\alpha +\gamma +4)}{B(\alpha +1,\gamma +1)B(\alpha +1,\alpha +\gamma +2)}},`$ (41)
where $`C`$ and $`T`$ are given in Eq. (10), and $`\alpha ,\gamma `$ in (36). The statistical factor $`g_{st}`$ is 1/6 when the spin-flavor consideration is taken into account hy . Equation (41) is not reliable at very small $`p`$, since the proton mass effect invalidates our essentially scale-invariant formulation for relativistic particles. Furthermore, at small $`p_T`$ the problem becomes 3D, so our treatment should be modified accordingly.

The $`𝒯𝒯𝒮`$ contribution is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_p^{𝒯𝒯𝒮}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{g_pC^2\xi }{6p^{2\alpha +\gamma +4}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_1𝑑p_2(p_1p_2)^{\alpha +1}(pp_1p_2)^{\gamma +1}\underset{i}{}𝑑kkf_i(k)U_i(k,p_1,p_2,p)},`$ (42)
where

$`U_i(k,p_1,p_2,p)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_1}}e^{(pp_1)/T}S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{k}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_2}}e^{(pp_2)/T}S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{k}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{pp_1p_2}}e^{(p_1+p_2)/T}S_i^d\left({\displaystyle \frac{pp_1p_2}{k}}\right).`$ (43)
The $`𝒯𝒮𝒮`$ contribution is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_p^{𝒯𝒮𝒮}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{g_pC\xi }{6p^{2\alpha +\gamma +4}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑p_1𝑑p_2(p_1p_2)^\alpha (pp_1p_2)^\gamma \underset{i}{}𝑑kkf_i(k)V_i(k,p_1,p_2,p)},`$ (44)
where

$`V_i(k,p_1,p_2,p)`$ $`=`$ $`p_1e^{p_1/T}\{S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{k}}\right),S_i^d\left({\displaystyle \frac{pp_1p_2}{kp_2}}\right)\}+p_2e^{p_2/T}\{S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{k}}\right),S_i^d\left({\displaystyle \frac{pp_1p_2}{kp_1}}\right)\}`$ (45)
$`+`$ $`(pp_1p_2)e^{(pp_1p_2)/T}\{S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_1}{k}}\right),S_i^u\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_2}{kp_1}}\right)\}.`$
The curly brackets in Eq. (45) denote symmetrization as in Eq. (17). Finally, we also have $`𝒮𝒮𝒮`$ which is simply related to the fragmentation of a hard parton into proton. The latter has already been studied in hy2 . The corresponding FF, $`D_i^p(z)`$, can be used here as in Eq. (19) to give

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_p^{𝒮𝒮𝒮}}{pdp}}={\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{p}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑kf_i(k)D_i^p\left(\frac{p}{k}\right)}.`$ (46)
The result of our calculation for the four types of contributions are shown separately in Fig. 5. Their sum is shown as solid line, and agrees well with the data from PHENIX in Au-Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200`$ GeV for 0-5% centrality ppi . We emphasize that there are no free parameters to adjust to achieve the good agreement. The result below $`p_T=2`$ GeV is not compared with data, since the proton mass effect becomes important there and invalidates our scale-invariant formulation. All three contributions that involve thermal partons have about the same strength at $`p_T4`$ GeV. What dominates at higher $`p_T`$ is the $`𝒯𝒮𝒮`$ component until $`p_T>9`$ GeV where the $`𝒮𝒮𝒮`$ component takes over. The data available now are only for $`p_T`$ up to 4.2 GeV and therefore cannot check our prediction in detail. At this point we can only conclude that the departure from the exponential behavior in the data for $`p_T>3.5`$ GeV is well accounted for by the two types of thermal-shower recombination, but not by direct hard-parton fragmentation. That may be regarded as empirical support for the role of thermal-shower recombination.

Having obtained both the proton spectrum here and the pion spectrum in Sec. 2, we can now calculate the $`p/\pi `$ ratio and compare it to the data. Since the calculated result shown in Fig. 5 is only for $`p_T2`$ GeV/c due to our neglect of the proton mass $`m_p`$ in our formulation, the $`p/\pi `$ ratio that is represented by the solid line in Fig. 6 is not shown for $`p_T<2`$ GeV/c. It has the broad feature that the ratio is greater than 1 at $`p_T3`$ GeV/c. For low $`p_T`$ where the proton mass effect is important we adopt the Ansatz by replacing the factor $`p^{(2\alpha +\gamma )}`$ in Eq. (40), which arises from $`G_B`$ in Eq. (34), by $`m_T^{(2\alpha +\gamma )}`$, where $`m_T=(m_p^2+p^2)^{1/2}`$. The result is shown as dashed line in Fig. 6 and exhibits excellent agreement with the data ppi ; adl . It should be noted that the amendment is at best kinematical, since no dynamical effect at low $`p_T`$ has been considered. What is noteworthy is that the maximum exceeds 1 at the peak, which is the anomaly that the fragmentation model cannot explain. The slow decrease of the ratio as $`p_T`$ increases is a prediction of our model that can be checked by future data at $`p_T>3`$ GeV/c.

## IV Same-side correlation

We have stated that because of the thermal-shower recombination the structure of jets in $`AA`$ collisions must be different from that in $`pp`$ collisions. One way to probe that difference is to study same-side correlation of particles. In hy2  we have calculated the 2-pion correlated distribution in a $`u`$-quark initiated jet. That type of calculation can be incorporated into the study of same-side correlation in $`pp`$ collisions by integrating over hard-parton momentum and summing over all types of hard partons. For $`AA`$ collisions one would consider $`2q`$ and 2$`\overline{q}`$ from thermal and shower partons and then recombine them to form two pions. Quantitative computation of the process will not be attempted here. Instead, we make some qualitative remarks in light of some data from RHIC that has some relevance.

In star  a quantity $`I_{AA}`$ is defined to be the ratio of all charged particles (above a modeled background) within a range of azimuthal angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ around the trigger particle in Au-Au collisions to the same quantity (without background) in $`pp`$ collisions. If there is no medium effect and if jets in $`AA`$ and $`pp`$ collisions are the same, then $`I_{AA}`$ should be 1. It is found in star  that if the trigger momentum is in the range $`4<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}<6`$ GeV, the value of $`I_{AA}`$ in central collisions is consistent with 1, though being more like 1.1. However, for $`3<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}<4`$ GeV, $`I_{AA}`$ is significantly higher, roughly 1.5 for $`N_{\mathrm{part}}`$ from 150 to 350. The former case for higher $`p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}`$ has been regarded as evidence that the nearside azimuthal peaks in $`AA`$ and $`pp`$ collisions are similar star ; star2 , but no explanation is given for the discrepancy when $`p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}`$ is lower. The azimuthal distribution of the nearside particles is not shown in star ; star2  for $`3<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}<4`$ GeV. It is also not clear for that case whether the particles associated with the trigger are integrated over the range $`2<p_T<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}`$ only, as it is stated explicitly for the case of $`4<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}<6`$ GeV star2 .

In our view there is no reason why $`I_{AA}`$ should be equal to 1 for the same-side particles. Indeed, we regard the value $`I_{AA}1.5`$ for $`3<p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}<4`$ GeV to be an evidence in support of the enhancement due to thermal-shower recombination. The question that we should address is why $`I_{AA}`$ is lower at higher $`p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}`$.

Although our formalism does not facilitate the calculation of the azimuthal distribution, we can regard the integral over $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ under the same-side peak that enters the determination of $`I_{AA}`$ as being roughly equal to an appropriate integral of the two-particle distribution $`dN/dP_1dP_2`$ over $`P_2`$, with $`P_1`$ being assigned the role of the trigger momentum. Despite our restriction to collinear momenta, the integral $`𝑑P_2`$ accounts for all associated particles, as does $`𝑑\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ in the data analysis by STAR star . In our approach we have a hard parton at $`k`$ creating a shower in which two partons at $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ combine separately with two thermal partons at $`p_1^{}`$ and $`p_2^{}`$ to form two pions at $`P_1=p_1+p_1^{}`$ and $`P_2=p_2+p_2^{}`$. The distribution is

$`P_1P_2{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{\pi \pi }}{dP_1dP_2}}={\displaystyle \frac{dp_1}{p_1}\frac{dp_2}{p_2}\frac{dp_1^{}}{p_1^{}}\frac{dp_2^{}}{p_2^{}}(𝒮𝒮)_1(p_1,p_2)𝒯(p_1^{})𝒯(p_2^{})R_\pi (p_1,p_1^{},P_1)R_\pi (p_2,p_2^{},P_2)}.`$ (47)
For $`pp`$ collisions the thermal partons are replaced by other shower partons initiated by the same hard parton that produces the ones at $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$, i.e., in Eq. (47) we make the replacement

$`(𝒮𝒮)_1(p_1,p_2)𝒯(p_1^{})𝒯(p_2^{})(𝒮𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1(p_1,p_2,p_1^{},p_2^{})/\xi ,`$ (48)
where $`(𝒮𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1`$ is a generalization of $`(𝒮𝒮)_1`$ in Eq. (16) to 4 shower partons.

We now see that in $`pp`$ collisions when the trigger momentum, $`P_1`$, is high, it forces $`p_1`$ or $`p_1^{}`$ in $`(𝒮𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1(p_1,p_2,p_1^{},p_2^{})`$ to be high, with the consequence that $`p_2`$ and $`p_2^{}`$ must be low. Shower partons $`S_i^j(z)`$ at small momentum fraction $`z`$ are known to have high density. They are shown in Fig. 2 of Ref. hy2 . Indeed, the 2-pion distribution in a hard parton based on $`(𝒮𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1`$ has been calculated in hy2 , where it is shown that the distribution for the momentum fraction $`X_2=P_2/k`$ of the (non-trigger) second particle becomes very high at low $`X_2`$. The high density at low $`p_2^{}`$ renders $`(𝒮𝒮𝒮𝒮)_1`$ to be of the same order as $`𝒯(p_2^{})`$ in $`AA`$ collision, resulting in an increase of the $`\pi \pi `$ distribution in $`pp`$ collisions. For that reason $`I_{AA}`$ is lower (near 1) at higher $`p_T^{\mathrm{trig}}`$. In other words, since $`I_{AA}`$ is dominated by the large number of particles in the low $`p_T`$ range in the jets, it masks the differences in the structures of the jets (at intermediate and high $`p_T`$) produced in nuclear and hadronic collisions.

The drawback in using $`I_{AA}`$ as a measure of same-side correlation is that it involves integrations in both $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$ and $`P_2`$, a procedure that is likely to suppress the distinctive features of thermal-shower recombination. It is recommended that the momenta of all particles in a jet are projected along the trigger momentum, $`P_1`$, and then the distribution in those projected momenta, $`P_2`$, is determined for several values of $`P_1`$.

## V Conclusion

By showing the importance of considering shower partons created by hard partons, we have called into question the conventional paradigm in particle production at high $`p_T`$ in heavy-ion collisions. The usual approach is to regard such particles as the products of parton fragmentation. We have shown that all particles are the result of parton recombination, including but not limited to the ones usually regarded as fragments. The important input that makes feasible our approach based entirely on recombination is the shower parton distributions derived in Ref. hy2 . Those distributions are determined by analyzing the fragmentation functions for parton-initiated jets in the recombination model. Once they are known, it is conceptually unavoidable to consider the recombination of thermal and shower partons in heavy-ion collisions. The result of such subprocesses turns out to be very important in the $`3<p_T<8`$ GeV range, as we have shown. The usual subprocesses of hard scattering followed by fragmentation are found to be unimportant until higher $`p_T`$. That results in a paradigm shift that has far reaching consequences.

The phenomenon of energy loss of partons traversing dense medium can be related to experimental observables only by means of some valid model of hadronization that connects the partons to hadrons. If fragmentation is not important in the region of $`p_T`$ under investigation, then serious modification of the quantitative implications of jet quenching must be considered, since the content of a jet has been altered from that produced in $`pp`$ collisions. What such a modification should be has not been studied in this paper. We have only used an effective parameter $`\xi `$ to account for the fact that not all hard partons can get out of the dense medium to hadronize. We admit that such a method of treating energy loss is very rudimentary in this first attempt to study the effects of shower partons. Yet we have found consistency in being able to reproduce the spectra of pion, kaon, and proton. A more detailed investigation that tracks the space-time history of the produced partons would require an evolution code that is beyond the scope of this paper.

Particles that are formed by thermal-shower recombination are part of a jet produced in heavy-ion collisions but are not present in jets in $`pp`$ collisions. Thus the structures of jets produced in $`AA`$ and $`pp`$ collisions are different. To find evidences for such differences is of paramount importance in both experimental and theoretical work to follow. The ratio $`I_{AA}`$ discussed in Sec. 4 on same-side correlation reveals a limited glimpse of that difference. We have suggested that the measurement of 2-particle inclusive distribution at high $`p_T`$ would provide a more accurate description of the jet structure and can be used to check the prediction that can be made in our framework.

At this point the single-particle spectra that we have considered provide sufficient encouragement from the agreement with existing data to suggest that the recombination approach has captured the essence of hadronization at any $`p_T`$ and that shower partons play an important role in the process. More data at higher $`p_T`$ and on other species will give more stringent tests that the recombination model must pass in order to establish the solidity required for a reliable mechanism of hadronization.

## Acknowledgment

We thank the participants of the Mini-Workshop on Quark Recombination for their helpful comments, especially V. Greco, C. M. Ko and B. Mueller. This work was supported, in part, by the U. S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG03-96ER40972 and by the Ministry of Education of China under Grant No. 03113.