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# 1. Introduction

## 1. Introduction

Since the fifties the system of neutral kaons has provided us with a unique laboratory to investigate the superposition principle, interference effects and CP violation , . CP violation was first measured in  long ago, in the mixing of the neutral kaons, the so called indirect CP violation, whereas it was not until recently that direct violation, in the decay amplitudes to two pions, was experimentally established (see , , ). There are at present a few dedicated experiments in project to make precision measurements of the CP breaking parameters , , . The analysis of their data may require to take properly into account the effects of decoherence due to entanglement of the neutral kaon system with the environment in which it evolves, which entails a pure kaon state to convert into a mixed one. We consider the evolution of neutral kaons in the presence of matter, in an environment that is not the perfect vacuum, which generates departures from hamiltonian dynamics in the kaon sub-system. These are effects that exist in addition to the weak interactions and are dominated by the strong interactions of the kaons with the environment: they lead to an effective breaking of charge conjugation, because the environment is made of matter, not of anti-matter; and to an effective breaking of time-reversal invariance associated to the large number of degrees of freedom in the environment that leads to irreversibility.

Similar analysis can be found in the literature , , , . There, the motivation is to study decoherence effects that come from quantum gravity. Ours is the interaction with the environment that is not the vacuum .

In section 2 we explain how the propagation in an environment being projected to the kaon system is described by a Lindblad master equation  which characterizes the departure from hamiltonian evolution; we introduce a criterion to quantify decoherence and build a phenomenological model based on a stochastic re-scattering of kaons in a dense matter induced by strong interactions. In section 3 we restrict the general analysis to a two-component $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ system and estimate coefficients of both effective hamiltonian and Lindblad interaction. In particular we conjecture that the decoherent part may be equally important for both hamiltonian and Lindblad piece. In section 4 we analyze the interplay between the weak interaction and matter effects and propose the observables suitable to disentangle the parameter responsible for CPT violation in matter $`\delta _K`$, the characteristic of indirect CP violation in vacuum $`ϵ`$, and the decoherence parameter $`x_{33}`$. In the appendix we propose a toy model of two level environment to explain how the Lindblad interaction comes about, in the Markovian approximation.

The neutral kaon evolution in the vacuum is analyzed with the Schrödinger equation

$$i\dot{\rho }(t)=H_w\rho (t)\rho (t)H_w^{},$$
(1)
where $`H_w`$ is the LOY  effective hamiltonian $`H_w=_{I=S,L}\lambda _I|K\stackrel{~}{K}_I|`$, which is not hermitean and its eigenstates $`\lambda _I=m_I\frac{i}{2}\gamma _I`$ possess a non-vanishing imaginary part of their decay rates. $`S,L`$ stand for the short and long components, and $`|\stackrel{~}{K}_I`$ are such that $`\stackrel{~}{K}_I|K_J=\delta _{IJ}`$. Recall  that $`m_Sm_L500MeV`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=m_Lm_S=3.5\times 10^{12}MeV`$, $`\gamma _S=7.3\times 10^{12}MeV`$ and $`\gamma _L=1.3\times 10^{14}MeV`$.

The $`|K_I`$ have diagonal evolution $`|K_I(t)=e^{i\lambda _It}|K_I(0)`$. In terms of the CP eigenstates

$$|K_S=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+|ϵ_S|^2}}\left(|K_1+ϵ_S|K_2\right),|K_L=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+|ϵ_L|^2}}\left(|K_2+ϵ_L|K_1\right);$$
(2)
they reduce to the CP eigenstates $`|K_1=\frac{1}{2}\left(|K^0+|\overline{K}^0\right)`$, $`|K_2=\frac{1}{2}\left(|K^0|\overline{K}^0\right)`$, if CP is conserved.

At this point we recall that CPT conservation requires $`ϵ_S=ϵ_L`$; T invariance, $`ϵ_S+ϵ_L=0`$; and CP, $`ϵ_S=ϵ_L=0`$.

Indirect CP violation has been measured ,

$$ϵ2.3\times 10^3e^{i\pi /4},$$
(3)
(CPT conservation is assumed, $`ϵ_S=ϵ_Lϵ`$.) Direct CP violation has also been measured ,

$$ϵ^{}/ϵ2\times 10^3,$$
(4)
where

$$\frac{A(K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{})}{A(K_S\pi ^+\pi ^{})}ϵ_L+ϵ^{},\frac{A(K_L\pi ^0\pi ^0)}{A(K_S\pi ^0\pi ^0)}ϵ_L2ϵ^{},ϵ_L=ϵ.$$

## 2. Propagation in environment

The propagation in an environment is dominated by the strong interactions, and we postpone to the next section the inclusion of weak interactions. The evolution of the total system \[Kaon + (Large) Environment\] is unitary, with the time evolution operator given by $`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(iH_{Total}t)`$; whereas the dynamics of the kaon sub-system alone is obtained by tracing out the environment degrees of freedom:

$$\rho _K(t)=\mathrm{Tr}_{ENV}\left(U(t)\rho _{K+ENV}(0)U^{}(t)\right).$$
(5)
This gives a complicated evolution for $`\rho _K`$, even if the initial conditions are a direct product $`\rho _{K+ENV}(0)=\rho _K(0)\rho _{ENV}(0)`$. However, when the interaction is tiny (e.g., as in the case of a diluted environment) the dynamics of $`\rho _K`$ becomes approximately free from memory effects  (Markovian), and it is dictated by a Lindblad master equation  of the form

$$\dot{\rho }=i\left(H_{eff}\rho (t)\rho (t)H_{eff}^{}\right)+L[\rho ],$$
(6)
where

$$L[\rho ]=\underset{j}{}\left(A_j\rho A_j^{}\frac{1}{2}\rho A_j^{}A_j\frac{1}{2}A_j^{}A_j\rho \right),$$
(7)
with the effective hamiltonian being in general non-hermitian. (Henceforth $`\rho `$ stands for $`\rho _K`$). Memory effects are being neglected. (see a toy model in the appendix). Notice that the new piece is linear in $`\rho `$ but quadratic in the unspecified operators $`A_j`$: the Lindblad equation encodes a new dynamics that is not purely hamiltonian. The new term may entail decoherence by making pure states evolve into mixed states. Since the opposite process does not occur, i.e, no mixed state evolves to a pure one, we demand that the von Neumann entropy $`\rho \mathrm{log}\rho `$ should not increase, under evolution with the new piece only.

At this point we introduce a criterion to quantify decoherence. In its time evolution, there are two distinct effects that will affect the density matrix, namely the loss of quantum coherence, due to entanglement with the medium, and probability depletion, due to decay of the initial states which decreases $`\text{tr}\left(\rho \right)`$. It is natural to introduce a new variable $`\overline{\rho }`$ through the relation $`\rho =\overline{\rho }\text{tr}\left(\rho \right)`$, so that $`\text{tr}\left(\overline{\rho }\right)=1`$ remains normalized to unity. Notice that this conditional $`\overline{\rho }`$ matrix verifies the following closed evolution equation

$$\dot{\overline{\rho }}=i(H_{eff}\overline{\rho }\overline{\rho }H_{eff}^{})+L[\overline{\rho }]2\text{tr}\left(\overline{\rho }\mathrm{Im}H_{eff}\right)\overline{\rho }.$$

In terms of $`\overline{\rho }`$ we propose the quantity $`d2\mathrm{det}\overline{\rho }=(1\text{tr}\left(\overline{\rho }^2\right))0`$ as an order parameter for decoherence: only pure states have $`d=0`$. This parameter represents a linear entropy for the conditional $`\overline{\rho }`$ matrix .

Let us consider the particle scattering in a dense matter and derive an average description of its propagation for a relatively large, macroscopic time of flight. First we introduce the elementary evolution of the density matrix $`\rho `$ induced by the scattering matrices $`S_j`$ and assume a stochastic property of the medium, effectively described by the classical probabilities $`r_j`$:

$$\rho (\tau +\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )=\underset{j}{}r_jS_j\rho (\tau )S_j^{}.$$
(8)
We suppose that all possible scattering processes are included and the description is complete so that

$$\underset{j}{}r_j=1.$$
(9)
Thus for the unitary (elastic) evolution, $`S_j^1=S_j^{}`$ one obtains the conservation of probability:

$$\text{tr}\left(\rho (\tau +\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )\right)=\text{tr}\left(\rho (\tau )\right)=1.$$
(10)
Further on a certain inelasticity of scattering can be taken into account by $`S_j^1S_j^{}`$ and $`S_jS_j^{}<1`$.

In order to implement the smooth average evolution the time intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ should be chosen of macroscopic size $`l`$ which is much larger than the size of a cristal link or a distance between molecules in a gas or a liquid. Therefore $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau l/vR_{int}/v`$ for a given particle velocity $`v`$ and a radius of strong interaction $`R_{int}`$.

Let us introduce the scattering amplitudes $`S_j=I+iT_j`$. Then the one-step evolution can be characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho \rho (\tau +\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )\rho (\tau )`$ in a differential form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\rho }{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`i\left(H_{eff}\rho \rho H_{eff}^{}\right)+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }}\left(T_j\rho T_j^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(T_jT_j^{}\rho +\rho T_jT_j^{})\right)`$ (11)
which represents a Lindblad equation for a coarse-grained time evolution. Herein the effective hamiltonian is given by

$$H_{eff}=\underset{j}{}\frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }\left(T_j+\frac{i}{2}T_jT_j^{}\right).$$
(12)
This definition leads to the hermitian hamiltonian in the elastic case ($`T_jT_j^{}=2\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{T}_\mathrm{j}`$, a relation from unitarity)

$$H_{eff}=\underset{j}{}\frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }\text{Re}T_j=H_{eff}^{}.$$
(13)
Respectively in (6) the Lindblad matrices are $`A_j=\sqrt{\frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }}T_j`$.

We see that the unitary evolution in a time-slicing approximation is generated not only by a hermitian hamiltonian $`H_{eff}`$ but also by the unavoidable Lindblad interaction which does not necessarily entail the decoherence effects. The latter ones arise only if the medium is stochastic with $`r_j1`$.

## 3. Kaons in a medium

The operators $`A_j`$ are governed by the strong interactions and the properties of the medium. As to the hamiltonian we have to sum up the contributions that come from the original evolution in the vacuum (weak interaction (1)) plus the rescattering effects already contained in (12) $`H=H_w+H_{eff}`$: therefore the constants $`ϵ_L`$, $`ϵ_S`$ are called $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ_L}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ_S}`$ and contain the effects due to evolution in a medium of matter. Since strong interactions conserve strangeness, which in the absence of the weak interactions would become a superselection quantum number, we further demand that any density matrix, at large times, should end up as a mixture of $`|K^0`$ and $`|\overline{K}^0`$. The most general parametrization that satisfies the above considerations leads, for the two state neutral kaon system, to a non-hamiltonian contribution in (6)

$$\stackrel{~}{L}(\rho )=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& s_1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& s_{22}& s_{23}\\ 0& 0& s_{23}& s_{33}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\rho ^0\\ \rho ^1\\ \rho ^2\\ \rho ^3\end{array}\right).$$
(14)
where in the CP eigenbasis $`\rho \frac{1}{2}(\rho ^0I+\stackrel{}{\rho }\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ (see (2)). We have included a piece in $`\stackrel{~}{H}_{eff}`$ from $`L[\rho ]`$ which is of hamiltonian form and left in $`\stackrel{~}{L}[\rho ]`$ the genuine non-hamiltonian part.

The matrix $`s_{ij}`$ is symmetric, $`s_1,s_{22},s_{33}>0`$. They also verify the relations , providing the complete positivity,

$$s_1s_{22}+s_{33},s_{33}^2(s_1s_{22})^2,$$

$$s_{22}s_1+s_{33},s_{22}^2(s_1s_{33})^2,$$

$$s_{33}s_1+s_{22},s_1^2(s_{22}s_{33})^2.$$

Now let us find the structure of the evolution equations for the two-level system of kaons $`(K_0,\overline{K}_0)`$. The conservation of strangeness implies that the $`S`$-matrices take the following form

$$S_j=\left(\begin{array}{cc}s_j& 0\\ 0& \overline{s}_j\end{array}\right)=s_j^{(+)}I+s_j^{()}\sigma _3,$$
(15)
where $`s_j^{(\pm )}\frac{1}{2}(s_j\pm \overline{s}_j)`$. Respectively,

$$t_j^{(\pm )}\frac{1}{2}(t_j\pm \overline{t}_j);T_j=t_j^{(+)}I+t_j^{()}\sigma _3.$$
(16)
Accordingly the effective hamiltonian and the Lindblad interaction look as follows:

$`\stackrel{~}{H}_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`t_++{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}(t_{++}+t_{})+\sigma _3(t_{}+it_+),`$
$`\stackrel{~}{L}[\rho ]`$ $`=`$ $`t_{}(\sigma _3\rho \sigma _3\rho ),`$ (17)
we used the following notations,

$`t_\pm `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }}t_j^{(\pm )};`$
$`t_{\pm ,\pm }`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{r_j}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }}t_j^{(\pm )}\left(t_j^{(\pm )}\right)^{},t_{+,}=t_{,+}^{}.`$ (18)
Thus, in our approach $`s_{22}=s_{33}=2t_{}`$, $`s_1=s_{23}=0`$. There are other ,  models where these cofficients do not obey this constraints, when the effects are induced by quantum gravity.

Let’s adopt the model of two-component evolution with $`r_1=1r_2,r_2=O(\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )1`$. Respectively we suppose that $`|t_1||t_2|`$. Then the coherent part is dominantly described by $`t_1`$ and its nontrivial contribution to the non-hamiltonian evolution (17) can be estimated as follows:

$$L_1\frac{r_1}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }|t_1^{()}|^2\left|\text{tr}\left(\sigma _3\stackrel{~}{H}_{eff}\right)\right|^2\mathrm{\Delta }\tau (\mathrm{\Delta }m)^210^2\mathrm{\Delta }\tau ,$$
(19)
where we have used the Good-Kabir theory for the coherent regeneration  in which the forward scattering is dominating:

$$t_\pm \frac{2\pi \nu }{m_K}f^{(\pm )},|t_\pm |\mathrm{\Delta }m10^1$$
(20)
with the forward scattering amplitudes $`f_j^{(\pm )}f_K\pm \overline{f}_K`$, $`\nu `$ standing for the particle density per unit volume and $`m_K`$ being a kaon mass.

One can further estimate $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau `$ taking into account that the optical picture arises at macroscopic distances, say $`l10^4cm`$ as a collective effect of many scatterers. Then $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =l/vl,`$ for relativistic kaons ($`v1`$) which entails $`\mathrm{\Delta }m\mathrm{\Delta }\tau 10^5`$ and therefore $`L_1\mathrm{\Delta }m\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$. This estimate can be considered as an upper bound for the deviation from a hamiltonian evolution due to averaging in time. It proves it to be difficult to observe these coherent effects.

On the other hand, the second, decoherent part may equally contribute both in the effective hamiltonian and in the Lindblad coefficients. Indeed, if $`r_2=O(\mathrm{\Delta }\tau )1`$ but $`|t_1||t_2|`$ (impurities of heavy nuclei or density clusters) one may expect that $`|t_1^{()}|r_2|t_2^{()}|`$ and further on

$$L_2\frac{r_2}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }|t_2^{()}|^2\frac{r_2}{\mathrm{\Delta }\tau }|t_2^{()}|L_1$$

Thus the decoherent part of the Lindblad may be well observable. We nevertheless take here a conservative estimation for the Lindblad coefficients to be of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }m\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_L^2`$.

## 4. Decay probabilities

The complete hamiltonian of (17) contains two pieces: the first, proportional to the identity, affects the mass and the decay rates by a shift of a same amount; the second piece, proportional to $`\sigma _3`$, modifies the mixing parameters to $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_L=ϵ_{vac}+\delta _L`$, $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_S=ϵ_{vac}\delta _L`$, leaving the masses and decay rates unaffected to leading order in the perturbation. Here $`\delta _L`$ is the parameter that measures the CPT breaking due to matter effects, which is $`O(10^2)`$ in a dense matter . In principle, $`\delta `$ can be measured (see ).

The decoherence effects encoded in the Lindblad interaction modify the evolution parameters as follows

$$\overline{\gamma }_L=\gamma _L+\frac{s_{33}}{2},\overline{\gamma }_S=\gamma _S+\frac{s_{33}}{2},\gamma =\gamma _S+\gamma _L+s_{22}=\overline{\gamma }_L+\overline{\gamma }_S$$

$$x_{33}=\frac{s_{33}}{2\gamma _S},x=\frac{s_{22}}{2\mathrm{\Delta }m}=2x_{33},$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda \lambda _L\lambda _S=(m_Lm_S)+\frac{i}{2}(\gamma _S\gamma _L),$$

where both $`m_Lm_S,\gamma _S\gamma _L0`$. Herein the masses $`m_{L,S}`$ and decay constants $`\gamma _{L,S}`$ take their values in the medium.

The following combinations of probabilities are of interest to us, because if the time dependence could be measured and the different time behaviours disentangled, they would provide information on the effects that we are trying to uncover. To first order in perturbation theory we find

$$P(K^0K^0)P(\overline{K}^0\overline{K}^0)=2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\delta _Ke^{\overline{\gamma }_Lt}2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\delta _Ke^{\overline{\gamma }_St}+4\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}\delta _K\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)e^{\frac{1}{2}\gamma t}.$$
(21)
(21) does not depend on $`x_{33}`$. It allows to measure both $`\mathrm{Re}\delta _\mathrm{K}`$ and $`\mathrm{Im}\delta _\mathrm{K}`$ CPT breaking parameters.

$`P(K^0\overline{K}^0)P(\overline{K}^0K^0)`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}ϵe^{\overline{\gamma }_Lt}2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}ϵe^{\overline{\gamma }_St}+4\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}ϵ\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)e^{\frac{1}{2}\gamma t}.`$ (22)
The coefficient of this combination of probabilities does not depend on the medium and would allow to extract $`\mathrm{Re}ϵ`$.

The following sum singles out the parameters $`x_{33}`$ and $`x`$ and washes out the vacuum effects,

$`P(K^0K^0)+P(\overline{K}^0\overline{K}^0)`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+x_{33})e^{\overline{\gamma }_Lt}+({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}x_{33})e^{\overline{\gamma }_St}`$ (23)
$`+`$ $`\left(\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)+x\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }mt)\right)e^{\frac{1}{2}\gamma t}.`$
Thus we see that from observation of modulated oscillations we could in principle extract both the CPT violating and the decoherence parameters from the experiment.

Finally, we consider the decays into two pion states from which $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ has been recently measured through the double ratio

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{})/\mathrm{\Gamma }(K_S\pi ^+\pi ^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(K_L\pi ^0\pi ^0)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(K_S\pi ^0\pi ^0)}.$$

In presence of matter, in the large time regime where only the long component survives, we obtain for it (compare with  for the case of quantum gravity).

$$1+6\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\left(\frac{ϵ^{}}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_\mathrm{L}}\right)\frac{|\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_\mathrm{L}|^2}{|\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_\mathrm{L}|^2+\mathrm{x}_{33}}.$$

Here we have used the definitions in (4) replacing $`K_S`$, $`K_L`$ and $`ϵ_L`$ bu $`K_S^{}`$, $`K_L^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_L`$; $`K_L^{}`$, $`K_S^{}`$ stand for the short and long components inside matter. Since $`x_{33}`$ is positive, we see that the effect of entanglement with the environment would decrease the signal for $`ϵ^{}`$, i.e., it would be bigger than measured. $`ϵ^{}`$ has been measured in the vacuum whereas $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_L`$ can be measured as well in the experiment. These decay modes thus provide also a way to determine $`x_{33}`$.

## 5. Conclusions

We draw the attention to effects of interaction with the environment in neutral kaon envolution, that maybe of relevance in the analysis of the CP breaking parameters, made from more complete and precise data that will be available soon, in the future . The Lindblad master equation provides a universal form that incorporates the tiny corrections of non-hamiltonian evolution. On the other hand, decoherence represents a remarkable quantum phenomenon by itself. Thus we propose to share the experimental time for measurements of the decoherence parameter $`x_{33}`$ in the medium, which we believe can be done by observation of time evolution.

## 6. Acknowledgments

This work was supported by EU Network EURODA$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$NE, CICYT grant AEN98-0431 and CIRIT grant 2000SRG 00026, by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Program PIV 1999) and by RFFI grant.

## 7. Appendix

In order to interpret the Lindblad piece of the evolution equation let us consider a simplified model of environment which consists only of two levels $`|E`$, $`|E^{}`$, with energies $`E^{}>E`$.

The interaction kaon-environment is dominantly strong; it is dim, though, if the medium is diluted and the kaons are not too energetic. (We neglect the weak interaction of the kaons with the medium). The total hamiltonian has several terms : $`H=H_0+R+V`$. $`H_0=M_0II_{env}`$, $`R=I(E|EE|+E^{}|E^{}E^{}|)`$. $`V`$ contains the interaction of the kaons with the environment; we do not include matrix elements that induce transitions like $`|K_0,E|K_0,E`$, etc, diagonal in the kaons and in the medium. Having ordered the basis as $`|K_0,E`$, $`|\overline{K}_0,E`$, $`|K_0,E^{}`$, $`|\overline{K}_0,E^{}`$, $`V`$ reads

$$V=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\text{0}& \mathrm{\Delta }^{}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }& \text{0}\end{array}\right),$$

where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix. The evolution equation

$$i\dot{\rho }(t)=[H,\rho (t)],$$

reads

$$i\dot{\rho }_I(t)=[V_I(t),\rho _I(t)],$$

where

$$\rho _I(t)=e^{i(H_0+R)t}\rho (t)e^{i(H_0+R)t}$$

$$V_I(t)=e^{i(H_0+R)t}Ve^{i(H_0+R)t}=e^{iRt}Ve^{iRt}.$$

The differential equation is equivalent to

$$\rho _I(t)=\rho _I(0)i_0^t𝑑u[V_I(u),\rho _I(u)],$$

which leads to

$$i\dot{\rho }_I(t)=[V_I(t),\rho _I(0)]i_0^t𝑑u[V_I(t),[V_I(u),\rho _I(u)]].$$

Now we make the Markovian approximation, valid when the domain of integration that gives the dominant contribution is $`ut`$, so that the replacement $`\rho _I(u)\rho _I(t)`$ is allowed. It amounts to neglecting memory effects. Furthermore we assume that the initial conditions factorize $`\rho _I(0)=\sigma (0)\rho _{env}`$, with a static environment $`\rho _{env}=p|EE|+p^{}|E^{}E^{}|`$.

We want to obtain an equation that takes into account the effects of the environment effectively, after having traced over the environment degrees of freedom: $`\mathrm{tr}_{env}\rho _I(t)\sigma (t)`$.

Given that if $`V=0`$, $`\rho _I(t)=\sigma (t)\rho _{env}`$, we expect $`\rho _I(t)=\sigma (t)\rho _{env}+O(V)`$. Also, $`\mathrm{tr}_{env}(V_I(t)\rho _I(0))=\mathrm{tr}_{env}(\rho _I(0)V_I(t))=0`$.

Finally, we obtain

$$i\dot{\sigma }(t)\mathrm{Re}\mathrm{f}(\mathrm{t})[\mathrm{p}^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\mathrm{\Delta },\sigma (\mathrm{t})]+$$

$$+i\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{f}(\mathrm{t})\left(\mathrm{p}(2\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }^{}\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma )+\mathrm{p}^{}(2\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }\sigma \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\sigma )\right),$$

where

$$f(t)=\frac{e^{i(E^{}E)t}1}{E^{}E},$$

and we have only kept terms up to $`O(V^2)`$ included. The first term gives a correction to hamiltonian evolution and the second is a Lindblad like piece. Since our model contains only two levels for the environment these contributions depend on time, through the function $`f(t)`$. It is only in the situation that the environment has a continuum spectrum of energies that the limit of large t gives, in the sense of distributions

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{f}(\mathrm{t})\pi \delta (\mathrm{E}^{}\mathrm{E});$$

it only contributes when there is a nonzero density of environment states, degenerate with the initial state.

The Lindblad operators are the matrix elements $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and their conjugates that, under evolution, would produce entanglement of the kaons with the environment. It also depends on the energy distribution in the environment.


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# Obstructions to dimensional reduction in hot QCD

## 1 Dimensional reduction

Finite temperature field theory in its Euclidean formulation exists on an infinite spatial volume but a finite (Euclidean) temporal extent of $`1/T`$. As a result, the Fourier modes of gluon fields have a countably infinite set of momentum components in this direction— $`k_0=2\pi nT`$ for $`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$. One might be able to integrate over the non-zero modes to find a Wilsonian effective theory at at distances larger than $`1/T`$ . The matching of correlation functions in the two theories must be performed at a momentum scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T𝒪(T)`$ . Consistency in applying perturbation theory then demands that $`\alpha _S(\mathrm{\Lambda }_T)1`$. After matching correlation functions in the two theories, the low-energy effective theory must have exactly the same physics as the full 4-d theory— the same correlation functions, the same long distance screening behaviour, and so on .

This procedure works extremely well in scalar $`\varphi ^4`$ theories . It works for the gauge-Higgs system that describes the dynamics of the electro-weak theory near its finite temperature phase transition . It has also been tested for $`SU(2)`$ pure gauge theory at $`T2T_c`$. The spectrum of screening masses in $`SU(2)`$ has been extracted from correlation functions of local operators built from gluon fields . The perturbatively determined dimensionally reduced (DR) theory has also been simulated numerically and its screening masses have been determined . The lowest screening mass (longest screening length) belongs to the thermal scalar sector (see  for the group theory). At $`2T_c`$ we find

$$\frac{\mu (0_+)}{T}=\{\begin{array}{cc}2.9\pm 0.2\hfill & \text{(4-d theory),}\hfill \\ 2.86\pm 0.03\hfill & \text{(DR theory).}\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
Thus, at length scales of about $`1/3T`$ and more, the DR theory gives a good description of the physics of the 4-d theory.

## 2 Limits of DR and puzzles

How does DR fare at distances less than $`1/\mu (0_+)`$? To answer this we look at the next higher screening masses in the two theories. Some notation will be useful— screening masses describe propagation from one two-dimensional slice of space to another . As a result, they are labelled, not by the angular momentum $`J`$ of 3-d, but by its two dimensional analogue, $`J_z`$, the projection along the normal to the 2-d slices of space. For every even $`J`$, the $`J_z=0`$ states are the thermal scalar $`0_+`$, and the $`J_z=0`$ of odd $`J`$ are the thermal quasi-scalar $`0_{}`$. The $`J_z=\pm 1`$ states make the real two-dimensional irrep, the thermal $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$. Similarly the $`J_z=\pm 2`$ make up the thermal $`\mathrm{𝟐}`$. Measurements  showed that $`\mu (0_+)<\mu (0_{})<\mu (\mathrm{𝟏})\mu (\mathrm{𝟐})`$. So, the question is about the comparison of the higher screening masses in the 4-d and DR theories.

In Figure 1 a comparison of the 4-d and DR theories is shown. Notice the following points—

1. In the 4-d simulations, finite volume effects are under good control. The finite volume measurements extrapolate smoothly to the infinite volume limit.
2. Lattice spacing effects are under reasonable control, since the error ellipses for lattice spacings of $`1/8T_c`$ and $`1/12T_c`$ overlap significantly.
3. The 4-D theory lies many standard deviations away from the DR theory by this measure.

In the light of the previous discussion, this mismatch is not unexpected, since the 4-d and DR theories are matched at $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T=2\pi T`$, and the higher screening masses all lie rather close to this scale. However, we have gained a quantitative bound to the length scale at which DR fails in the pure gauge theory— DR cannot describe physics at length scales of $`1/\mu (0_{})`$ or shorter.

This, in fact, is a puzzle. Recall that we have labelled states by the dimensionally reduced symmetry group. The very fact that this symmetry is obeyed even by the higher states shows that some version of DR occurs in the theory, although it cannot be obtained by perturbative matching.

## 3 Including fermions

Even if the weaker form of perturbative DR works, then inclusion of Fermions involves no new problems. Fermion modes are antisymmetric in the Euclidean time direction and hence have $`k_0=\pi (2n+1)T`$. There are no zero modes and Fermions can be entirely integrated out. As a result, there are no Fermion remnants in the long-distance theory— every correlation function involving Fermion field operators is integrated out of the DR theory. The only traces of Fermions are subtle: they influence the dimensionful couplings in the long-distance effective theory. A simulation of QCD with four flavours of dynamical fermions shows that this picture breaks down completely at $`T`$ 1–3 $`T_c`$ .

We have simulated QCD on lattices of various sizes at temperatures of $`3T_c/2`$, $`2T_c`$ and $`3T_c`$ and collected statistics over 1000–2000 mutually uncorrelated configurations. Simulation details can be found elsewhere . Over these configurations of thermal gauge fields, we have constructed correlators from quark-anti-quark operators. The corresponding screening masses we call meson-like. We have used operators corresponding to the $`T=0`$ $`\pi `$ and $`\sigma `$ and the vector and pseudo-vector mesons. All of these give non-trivial correlations in the $`0_+`$ state. The $`\pi `$ and $`\sigma `$-like screening masses are equal within our statistics as are the vector and pseudo-vector $`0_+`$ screening masses. However, these two sets of $`0_+`$ screening masses are not equal to each other. The $`\pi `$-like screening mass, $`\mu _\pi (0_+)`$ is smaller. Measurements on various lattice sizes (Figure 2) show the lack of finite volume effects.

We also measured the $`0_+`$ screening mass in the glue sector of the theory, $`\mu _g(0_+)`$, and found that $`\mu _\pi (0_+)<\mu _g(0_+)`$ for $`T<3T_c`$ (Figure 3). This is a direct obstacle to DR at $`T<3T_c`$: since the DR theory does not admit any Fermion operators, it is ineffective in describing the true long-distance physics of the QCD plasma, which arises in the Fermion sector.

Actually the Fermionic roadblock to DR is even wider. In a free-Fermion theory, the meson-like screening correlators would decay at long distances with an effective mass of $`2\pi T`$. $`𝒪(a^2)`$ lattice artifacts would change this numerical value at the lattice spacing, $`a`$, that we work at into the lower number indicated in Figure 3 . This is the value $`\mu _\pi (0_+)`$ must have if perturbation theory were to be reliable at the scale of $`\mu _\pi (0_+)`$.

Why do we want perturbation theory to work at the scale of $`\mu _\pi (0_+)`$? Simply because we must set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T<\mu _\pi (0_+)`$ to integrate out the meson-like screening mass. If we are to use perturbative methods for this, then we must expect that the expansion in $`\alpha _s(\mathrm{\Lambda }_T)`$ captures the physics at this scale completely. In particular, it must also be able to reproduce the deviation of $`\mu _\pi (0_+)`$ from its free-field value. This cannot be done consistently within perturbation theory unless $`\mu _\pi (0_+)2\pi T`$. Hence, this less obvious roadblock to DR.

We have tried various 2 parameter fits to our three data points to see at what $`T`$ we get $`\mu _\pi (0_+)2\pi T`$. The envelope of these fits are given by the two curves shown in Figure 3. This purely phenomenological approach tells us that the obstruction to DR would persist up to $`T10T_c`$ or greater. It would, of course, be best to simulate the theory at such temperatures. However, to avoid finite volume effects with $`N_t=4`$ one would then have to take spatial sizes greater than $`40^3`$ lattice units. Such a computation with dynamical fermions is prohibitively difficult at present.

## 4 Other phenomena

Recently, screening masses have been computed in a DR theory obtained by perturbative matching to QCD with dynamical Fermions . Knowing of the problems with this DR theory, it is nevertheless interesting to ask what it predicts for the screening masses in the glue sector, and how it compares with data from the 4-d theory. The temperatures in  have been specified in units of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$ whereas those in  are in units of $`T_c`$. The quantitative connection between these units is made possible by a recent determination  of the ratio $`T_c/\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}=1.07\pm 0.05`$ for 4-flavour QCD at the quark masses used in . At $`T=2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$ we find

$$\frac{\mu _g(0_+)}{T}=\{\begin{array}{cc}4.04\pm 0.05\hfill & \text{(4-d theory),}\hfill \\ 4.87\pm 0.07\hfill & \text{(DR theory).}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
There is a statistically significant mismatch between these two numbers, as we might now expect. The number quoted above for the 4-d theory is at $`T=2T_c=(2.14\pm 0.10)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$. Moving to $`T=2\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$ would mean lowering the temperature. As seen in Figure 3, this would lower $`\mu _g(0_+)`$ slightly, making the discrepancy slightly worse.

The test can be pushed further in terms of the ratios of screening masses, as shown in Figure 4. In the DR theory all the masses have been extracted. In the 4-d theory a preliminary measurement of the glue sector $`\mu (\mathrm{𝟐})`$ has been made, and the ratio $`\mu (\mathrm{𝟐})/\mu (0_+)`$ is shown as the horizontal band. The mismatch between the DR and 4-d theories is obvious.

## 5 Conclusions

Dimensional reduction with perturbative matching of the DR theory to the full 4-d finite temperature theory seems to work extremely well in many cases. For 4-d $`SU(2)`$ pure gauge theory it works superbly at the scale of the longest screening length, but fails at the scale of the next screening length. This is expected if we consider DR as a Wilsonian effective theory at the scale of the longest screening length. However, for QCD with Fermions at $`T3T_c`$ it fails in all respects— it does not contain the Fermion composite states which give the longest correlation length, it gives wrong results for the longest gluon screening length, and it does not correctly reproduce the ratios of gluon screening lengths. At higher temperatures, upto about $`10T_c`$, arguments given here lead us to believe that it would be impossible to construct this effective theory in QCD through a perturbative matching of correlation functions.


text:
# Inclusive 𝜋⁰and 𝐾_𝑆⁰ in 𝛾𝛾 reactions at L3

## Introduction

Two-photon collisions are the main source of hadrons at LEP via the process $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ hadrons . In the Vector Dominance Model (VDM), each photon can fluctuate into a vector meson with the same quantum numbers as the photon, thus initiating a strong interaction process with characteristics similar to hadron$``$hadron interactions. This process dominates in the ”soft” region, where hadrons are produced with a low transverse momentum $`p_T`$. Hadrons with high $`p_T`$ are produced by the QED direct process, $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}q\overline{q}`$, or by QCD processes originating from the hadronic content of the photon. Depending on wether one or two photons fluctuate into a hadronic system, the QCD processes are called single$``$resolved or double$``$resolved respectively. In two-photon interactions, QCD calculations are available for single particle inclusive production at Next-to-leading order (NLO) kniehl .

In this paper the inclusive $`\pi ^0`$production and the inclusive $`K_S^0`$ production from quasi$``$real photons are measured. The center-of-mass energy of the two interacting photons, $`W_{\gamma \gamma }`$, is greater than 5 GeV for $`\pi ^0`$and greater than 10 GeV for $`K_S^0`$. The $`\pi ^0`$ is measured in the transverse momentum range $`0.2p_T7.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ and in the pseudo$``$rapidity interval $`.5\eta .5`$, with $`\eta =\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{tan}\theta /2)`$. The angle $`\theta `$ is the polar angle of the $`\pi ^0`$, relative to the beam axis. The $`K_S^0`$is measured in the range $`0.2p_T4\mathrm{GeV}`$ and $`1.5\eta 1.5`$

The differential cross sections are compared to the Monte Carlo models PHOJET Engel  and PYTHIA PYTHIA  and to analytical NLO QCD calculations kniehl .

## Event selection

The data used for this analysis were collected by the L3 detector L3  in 1998 and 1999 at beam energies from 189 GeV to 202 GeV, with an average energy value of 194 GeV. The integrated luminosity is 414 $`\mathrm{pb}^1`$.

The $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ hadrons processes are simulated with the PHOJET111PHOJET version1.05c and PYTHIA222PYTHIA version 5.718 and JETSET version 7.408 event generators. For the background the annihilation processes $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ hadrons($`\gamma `$), ZZ($`\gamma `$), Zee($`\gamma `$), We$`\nu `$($`\gamma `$) are simulated with PYTHIA PYTHIA ; KORALZ KORALZ  is used for $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}(\gamma )`$ and KORALW KORALW  for $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{W}^+\mathrm{W}^{}`$. For the $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ channel the generator DIAG36 DIAG36  is used. The events are simulated in the L3 detector using the GEANT GEANT  and GEISHA GEISHA  programs and passed through the same reconstruction program as the data.

The selection of $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ hadrons events is based on information from the central tracking detectors and from the electromagnetic (BGO) and hadronic calorimeters. The following cuts are applied:

1. To reject annihilation events, the total energy in the calorimeters is required to be less than 40 % of the center-of-mass energy.
2. To exclude radiative events of the type $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\gamma \mathrm{Z}\gamma \mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}`$, the total energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter must be lower than 50 GeV.
3. Hadronic events are selected with at least 6 particles in the detector. These particles can be charged tracks or isolated clusters in the calorimeters.
4. Quasi$``$real two-photon interactions are selected by excluding events with a cluster of energy greater than 70 GeV and polar angle greater than 33 mrad.
5. Beam-gas and beam-wall events are suppressed by the requirement that at least 500 MeV must be deposited in the electromagnetic calorimeter.
6. The analysis is limited to events with a visible hadronic mass $`W_{\mathrm{vis}}`$$`>5\mathrm{GeV}`$ , to allow comparisons with the Monte Carlo generators which generate events with $`W_{\gamma \gamma }`$$`>3\mathrm{GeV}`$. $`W_{\mathrm{vis}}`$, is the effective mass of the hadronic system, calculated from the four-momentum vector of all the measured particles333All particles are considered to be pions, except for isolated clusters in the electromagnetic calorimeter which are considered to be photons..

After these cuts, the background ($``$ 1 %) is due to $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ hadrons and $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ events.

Inclusive $`\pi ^0`$ production is studied via the $`\pi ^0`$ decay into two resolved photons. A photon is defined as an electromagnetic cluster formed by the energy deposited in at least 2 BGO crystals, with energy greater than 100 MeV and separated by more than 200 mrad from the closest track. The number of photons detected is required to be at least 2 but not more than 20.

Almost 2 $`10^6`$ events are selected, leading to more than 8 $`10^7`$ two photon combinations. The distribution of the mass of the reconstructed $`\gamma \gamma `$ system shows a narrow $`\pi ^0`$ peak. A fit of this peak with a gaussian function over a Chebyshev polynomial background gives a resolution of 7.29 $`\pm `$ 0.03 MeV.

Inclusive $`K_S^0`$ production is studied via the $`K_S^0`$decay into $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$. The distance, in the transverse plane, between the secondary vertex and the $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ interaction point is required to be greater than 3 mm. The angle between the flight direction of the $`K_S^0`$candidate (taken as that of the line between the interaction point and the secondary vertex in the transverse plane) and the total transverse momentum vector of the two outgoing tracks must be less than 0.075 rad. After this cut, around 5 $`10^5`$ events are selected. A fit of the $`K_S^0`$ peak gives a resolution of 10 $`\pm `$ 1 MeV.

## Data analysis

To evaluate the number of $`\pi ^0`$s or $`K_s^0`$s, on each bin of $`p_T`$ and $`|\eta |`$, a fit is performed using a gaussian for the signal and a Chebyshev polynomial parametrisation of the background. In the $`\pi ^0`$case, to estimate the uncertainty on the background subtraction a side-band background subtraction is also performed. A three sigma region, ”the signal region”, is defined around the $`\pi ^0`$peak. Two ”background regions” are defined on each side of the signal region with the same width. The average number of $`\gamma \gamma `$ combinations in the background regions is subtracted from the number of combinations in the signal region. Both methods give consistent results.

The reconstruction efficiency is evaluated using the two Monte-Carlo generators: PHOJET and PYTHIA. The kinematic limits of the cross section measurement are defined by imposing, at the generator level, $`W_{\gamma \gamma }5\mathrm{GeV}`$ for $`\pi ^0`$and $`W_{\gamma \gamma }10\mathrm{GeV}`$ for $`K_S^0`$. The virtuality of the photon is limited to $`Q^21\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ in PYTHIA, in PHOJET, a limit $`Q^23\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ for $`\pi ^0`$and $`Q^28\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ for $`K_S^0`$ is imposed. We have verified with PHOJET that the results do not depend on the $`Q^2`$ cutoff. The number of $`\pi ^0`$/ $`K_S^0`$ reconstructed is obtained with the same procedure used for the data. As the two generators reproduce equally well the experimental distributions l3tot , a weighted average of the two is used to correct the data.

The level$``$1 trigger efficiency is evaluated by comparing the response of two independent triggers: the energy trigger etrig  and the track trigger tracktrig . The efficiency is 90$``$95 %, varying with the data taking conditions during the year. The efficiencies of higher level triggers, calculated using prescaled events, vary from 85% at low $`p_T`$ to 100% at high $`p_T`$.

The main uncertainty on the measured cross sections comes from the choice of Monte Carlo generator used to calculate the reconstruction efficiency and from the background estimation. Half of the difference between the two generators and between the two estimations of the background are taken as systematic errors. The uncertainties due to cut variations are negligible.

Statistical and systematic errors are added in quadrature in the following. All the results are preliminary.

## Results

The differential cross sections $`d\sigma /dp_T`$are shown in fig.1. Exponential fits $`e^{p_T/<p_T>}`$ for $`0.2\mathrm{GeV}<\mathrm{p}_\mathrm{T}<1.0\mathrm{GeV}`$ reproduce well the data with $`<p_T>=233\pm 1\mathrm{MeV}`$ for $`\pi ^0`$and $`<p_T>=357\pm 9\mathrm{MeV}`$ for $`K_S^0`$. This behaviour is characteristic of hadrons produced by soft interactions and the fitted values of $`<p_T>`$ are similar to the one obtained in hadron$``$hadron or photon$``$hadron collisions perl .

Due to the existence of the direct process and of hard QCD interactions, $`\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}`$ collisions start to exhibit a higher cross section at $`p_T`$ values greater than $`1.5\mathrm{GeV}`$. In fig.2 and 3 the $`d\sigma /dp_T`$and $`d\sigma /d|\eta |`$differential cross sections are compared to analytical NLO QCD predictions kniehl . For this calculation, the flux of quasi$``$real photons is obtained using the Equivalent Photon Approximation, taking into account both transverse and longitudinal virtual photons. The interacting particles can be photons or partons from the $`\gamma q\overline{q}`$ quantum fluctuation, which evolves, via the Altarelli-Parisi equation, into quarks and gluons. The Gordon and Storrow gordon  parton density functions are used. All elementary $`22`$ and $`23`$ processes are considered. The renormalization scale, the factorisation scale and the fragmentation scale are taken to be equal: $`\mu =M=M_F=\xi p_T`$. The uncertainty in the NLO calculation is estimated by varying the value of $`\xi `$ from 0.5 to 2.0.

The measured cross sections are one order of magnitude above the direct process predictions. In the $`\pi ^0`$case, for $`p_T`$$`>2\mathrm{GeV}`$, the data are also higher than the predictions of NLO QCD calculations.

The cross sections are also compared to Monte Carlo predictions in fig.4. The high $`p_T`$ region is better reproduced by PYTHIA than by PHOJET in the $`\pi ^0`$case. For the $`K_S^0`$both Monte-Carlos reproduce quite well the data.

The differential cross sections, calculated for $`W_{\gamma \gamma }>10\mathrm{GeV}`$, are compared to OPAL results opal  in fig.5. OPAL measured the inclusive production of charged hadrons (mainly $`\pi ^\pm `$) and of $`K_S^0`$ in the range $`|\eta |<`$ 1.5. The experiments agree within the experimental errors.

## Conclusions

This analysis is the first study of inclusive $`\pi ^0`$ production in two photon collisions at LEP. At low $`p_T`$, the differential cross sections $`d\sigma /dp_T`$of $`\pi ^0`$and $`K_S^0`$ production follow an exponential law similar to that previous observed in hadron-hadron and hadron-photon collisions. At higher $`p_T`$, the contributions of $`\gamma \gamma q\overline{q}`$ and hard QCD processes are clearly visible. The agreement with previous measurement is very good, but there is only a qualitative agreement with the predictions of LO Monte Carlo and NLO QCD calculations.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank B.A. Kniehl for providing us the predictions of NLO QCD calculations and L. Gordon for very useful discussions.

Thanks a lot also to A. Finch and all the Photon 2000 team for the kindness and efficiency of the organization.

Many thanks, of course, to S. Braccini for providing me the $`K_S^0`$results.


text: # Figures


text:
# Coherent time evolution of highly excited Rydberg states in pulsed electric field: Opening a stringent way to selectively field-ionize the highly excited states

## Abstract

Coherent time evolution of highly excited Rydberg states in Rb (98 $``$ $`n`$ $``$ 150) under pulsed electric field in high slew-rate regime was investigated with the field ionization detection. The electric field necessary to ionize the Rydberg states was found to take discrete values successively depending on the slew rate. Specifically the slew-rate dependence of the ionization field varies with the quantum defect value of the states, i.e. with the energy position of the states relative to the adjacent manifold. This discrete transitional behavior of the ionization field observed for the first time is considered to be a manifestation of the strong coherence effect in the time evolution of the Rydberg states in pulsed electric field and opens a new effective way to stringently select a low-$`\mathrm{}`$ state from the nearby states by field ionization.

preprint: CARRACK/2000-03

Highly excited Rydberg states  in the ramped electric field is one of the most interesting systems which provide ideal and versatile situations for investigating the coherence effects in the time evolution of a quantum system with many potential-energy curves crossing one another. In spite of this interesting feature and also of the potential applicability to the wide area of fundamental physics including cavity QED and quantum computation , the Rydberg states with high principal quantum number $`n`$ 80 have not been investigated in detail, partly because of the difficulty in selectively detecting a particular state from many close-lying states; in such highly excited states, the field ionization process generally occurs both through the non-adiabatic and adiabatic transitions, resulting multiple ionization thresholds and the selective detection of a particular state becomes increasingly more difficult.

The purpose of this Letter is to present the experimental results on the field ionization of the Rydberg states with $`n=98150`$. It was observed for the first time that in high slew rate regime in the applied pulsed electric field, the field ionization process has single threshold value: Specifically the ionization electric field takes discrete values successively with increasing slew rate, and this dependence varies with the position of the states relative to the adjacent manifold. This transitional behavior in the field ionization shows regular dependence on the principal quantum number $`n`$, thus indicating that this behavior is quite general and applicable to a wide range of higher-lying Rydberg states. Since the differences in the field ionization values were found to be large enough, i.e. 300 % for the 111$`p_{3/2}`$ and 111$`s_{1/2}`$ states, it is possible to stringently select a low-$`\mathrm{}`$ state from the close-lying states by field ionization. From these characteristic behaviors, it is strongly suggested that the coherence in the time evolution under the pulsed electric field plays decisive role to the behavior of the field ionization.

The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. Thermal Rb atoms in the ground-state atomic beam are passed through a laser excitation region and then the field ionization region, which are about 40 mm apart each other. The whole volume of the excitation and the field ionization regions is surrounded with three pairs of planer copper electrodes to compensate the stray field in three axes and also to apply the pulsed electric field for the ionization. The selective field ionization (sfi) electrodes consist of two parallel plates of 120 mm length, in one of which a fine copper-mesh grid was incorporated into the area of 20 $`\times `$ 20 mm2, thus allowing to pass and detect the field ionized electrons with a channel electron multiplier.

The sfi electrodes and the laser interaction region were attached to a cold finger in a cryostat, thus the temperature can be varied from room temperature down to lower temperature with liquid N2 and He.

Two-step cw-laser excitation was adopted to excite the Rydberg $`nj`$ states from the 5$`s_{1/2}`$ ground state of 85Rb through the 5$`p_{3/2}`$ second excited state. A diode laser (780 nm for the first step) and a dye laser of coumarin 102 excited by a Kr ion-laser (479 nm for the second step) were used. The main reason to use the cw lasers to excite the Rydberg states instead of the usually adopted pulsed lasers is that we want to use this field ionization scheme for the selective ionization of highly excited Rydberg states in a $`\mathrm{𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑜𝑢𝑠}`$ mode as discussed later.

The pulse shape applied for the field ionization is shown also in Fig. 1. The pulse sequence was produced with a waveform generator NI5411 and the field ionization signals were detected and analyzed with the LabVIEW data acquisition system on a pc computer. Repetition rate of the pulse was kept to 5 kHz so that the detection efficiency of the Rydberg states is optimum for the atoms with velocity of 350 m/s . The ionization mainly occurs at the steep rise of the pulse during the time $`t_f`$, but the peak field can be kept for a time $`t_h`$ (holding time) to ionize also the states with longer life time than $`t_f`$ under the electric field. This point will be discussed later.

During the course of the present experiment, stray field of $``$ 80 mV/cm was found to appear in the interaction region. By applying suitable compensation potentials in three axes, the stray field was reduced to less than 10 mV/cm. In this stray field, the $`p`$ state with $`n`$ less than 120 is well separated from the adjacent manifold levels. The effect of the mixing of the low-$`\mathrm{}`$ states to the neighboring levels on the field ionization behavior is discussed later.

In Fig. 2 shown are field ionization spectra of 111$`s_{1/2}`$ and 111$`p_{3/2}`$ states  as a function of the applied electric field $`F=v_f/l`$ ($`l`$ is the distance of the sfi electrode), which were measured by varying the slew rate $`S=F/t_f`$. Here the slow component of the pulsed field $`v_s`$ was set to zero.

In these spectra, only one prominent peak was found as the threshold electric field. Remarkably the sfi field value at the peak changes to a smaller value with increasing slew rate at a particular slew rate. Moreover the sfi fields for the $`s`$ and $`p`$ states are quite different from each other at the same slew rate. For example, the electric field necessary to ionize the 111$`p_{3/2}`$ state at the slew rate of 11 V/(cm$`\mu `$s) is 1.7 V/cm, while the value is 5.2 V/cm for the 111$`s_{1/2}`$ state, more than 300 % difference (see the spectrum $`d`$ in Fig.2).

It should also be noted here that the transitional behavior in the 109$`d`$ state (not shown in Fig. 2 to avoid complexity) is the same as in the $`s_{1/2}`$ state. This means that the transitional behavior depends on the position of the states relative to the adjacent manifold: As seen from the relevant Stark energy-field diagramin in Fig. 3, the $`\mathrm{𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟}\mathrm{𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑑}`$  $`p`$ state shows different transitional behavior from the $`\mathrm{𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟}\mathrm{𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑑}`$ $`s`$ and $`d`$ states.

In Fig.4 shown is the effective principal-quantum-number $`n^{}`$ dependence of the critical slew rate $`S_c`$ and the ionization electric fields $`F_c`$ for the $`s`$ and $`p`$ states. Here the critical slew rate $`S_c`$ is defined as the value at which the transition of the sfi field just starts to a new value. Also the sfi field corresponds to the peak position of the ionization signal. These values vary quite regularly with $`n^{}`$ ranging from 95 to 147; approximately $`F_c(n^{})^{4.0}`$ for both the $`p`$ and $`s`$ states, while $`S_c(n^{})^{4.0}`$ for the $`p`$ state and $`S_c(n^{})^{2.8}`$ for the $`s`$ state.

These results indicate that this transitional behavior is quite general for a wide range of $`n`$ and thus can be applicable to selectively ionize the $`s`$ and $`p`$ states for a wide range of higher excited states. The difference in the ionization field is $``$ 300 % for the $`s`$ and $`p`$ states, quite large compared to the case of adiabatic transition in which the difference would be only 5 % for the states at $`n110`$.

Related to the selectivity in the Rydberg states, it should be noted that there observed some sfi signals at the lower field region (1.0 $``$ 2.4 V/cm) in the sfi spectrum of $`s`$ state: The signal peak at this portion changed discretely with slew rate as in the same manner as of the $`p`$ state. This part of signal counts is due to the effect of blackbody radiations which induce the transition from the initial $`s`$ state to the $`p`$ state. In fact the counts at this portion measured by varying the temperature of the excitation-detection region from 120 K to 40 K was found to depend linearly on the temperature as expected. The observed transition rate to the $`p`$ state is in roughly agreement in its absolute values and in good agreement in its temperature dependence with the theoretical predictions. This agreement indicates also that the selectivity of the excited states with the field ionization method in the pulsed electric field regime is quite good even at such highly excited region. The detailed discussion on the $`s`$ to $`p`$ transitions and the effect of blackbody radiations will be reported elsewhere.

The above results were all obtained without the slow component $`v_s`$ of the pulsed field. Switching on this value, the transitional behavior of the $`s`$ state remains the same, while that of the $`p`$ state changes drastically as in the following: When the applied slow component field with its slew rate less than 1 mV/(cm$`\mu `$s) exceeds the first anti-crossing field ($``$ 75 mV/cm for the 111$`p_{3/2}`$ state, see Fig. 3), the transitional behavior changes abruptly, becoming the same as of the $`s`$ state. This means that once the first anti-crossing is traversed adiabatically and the state is mixed with the adjacent manifold levels, then the following sfi behavior for the $`p`$ state under the high slew rate regime changes completely, resulting no difference in their behavior between the states of opposite positions to the adjacent manifold.

These experimental results, especially the transitional behavior, are in general not in agreement with simple predictions from the incoherent contributions of adiabatic and non-adiabatic transition processes: The experimental sfi spectra have only one prominent peak and this peak field does neither correspond exactly to the expected position from the purely adiabatic (paths 2 or 3 in Fig. 3), nor diabatic transitions (paths 1 or 4) leading to the reddest or bluest trajectory in the adjacent manifold; the expected fields for these paths (1 to 4) in $`n`$ = 108 (corresponding to the adjacent manifold of 111$`s`$ and 111$`p`$ states from the quantum defect values in Rb) are 1.8, 2.4, 2.4, and 4.2 V/cm respectively, which should be compared to the observed field values of 1.7 and 5.2 V/cm for the $`p`$ and $`s`$ states, respectively. More importantly, these spectra show very clear slew rate dependence as described above which can not be explained from a simple incoherent process.

Recently Harmin  examined coherent time evolution on a grid of Landau-Zener anti-crossing under a linear ramped electric field in which each manifold levels are treated as linear in time, parallel, and equally spaced and infinite number. The time development of an initially populated state is then governed by two level Landau-Zener (LZ) transitions at avoided crossings and adiabatic evolution between them. The key parameters in this model study are 1)the LZ transition probabilities $`D`$ for making a non-adiabatic transition process at the anti-crossing traversals and 2) the dynamical phase unit $`\phi `$. The phase unit $`\phi `$ is the area covered by the pair of the adjacent up- and down-going levels . The overall difference in phase advance $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }`$ for two paths from zero to the ionization field is equal to the sum of the phase units $`\phi `$ in the whole area covered by the two paths. In the actual Stark energy-field grid system, the phase units $`\phi _i`$ are not a constant but vary with respective anti-crossings. These parameters $`D`$ and $`\phi `$ are estimated approximately by $`D=[\mathrm{exp}(\pi \stackrel{~}{\mu }^2\phi )]^2,\phi (3\dot{F}n^{10})^1`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ is an average low-$`\mathrm{}`$ quantum defect and $`\dot{F}`$ is the slew rate of the applied electric field $`F`$.

The probability $`D`$ increases monotonically with increasing slew rate, while the overall difference in phase advance $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }`$ of the state wave function through the grid is effective in modulo 2$`\pi `$ and strongly affects the coherent nature of the process through the interference between many states populated along the way of traversals in the applied electric field .

In the present experimental setup with slew rate $``$ 20 V/(cm$`\mu `$s) at $`n`$ 100, the probability of non-adiabatic transition $`D`$ is quite high, reaching $`99.8\%`$ from the above estimation so that our case corresponds to the non-adiabatic limit in Harmin’s treatment in a good approximation.

Taking into account the quantum defect values of low $`\mathrm{}`$ states, estimated phase unit $`\phi `$ varies from $`10^2`$ to $`10^3`$ with increasing electric field. The number of avoided crossings traversed between zero field and the field ionization region in Rb is estimated to be $`N_{blue}900\left(\frac{n}{100}\right)^2,N_{red}1150\left(\frac{n}{100}\right)^2`$ for the up- (bluest) and down- (reddest) going trajectories, respectively. At the region of $`n110`$, this number of anti-crossing traversals suggests that the phase advance is over $`2\pi `$ at some field value. When this resonance condition is fulfilled, the constructive interference between the many number of Stark states along the advance of the pulsed electric field may result in one prominent peak in the sfi field. In Harmin’s analysis , the population of the states under the electric field was found to make a series of resonances in a form of $`\mathrm{𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑠}`$ along the up- or down-going directions of the initially excited state at zero field.

This general feature in the non-adiabatic limit seems to be satisfied experimentally, since a discrete sequence of sfi threshold field was found, depending on the slew rate. However there is a significant difference in the experimental observations compared to the model calculation in that the observed sfi field values for both of the $`s`$ and $`p`$ states decrease with increasing slew rate. Contrary to this observation, the model calculation predicts that with increasing slew rate, the most populated state approaches to the limiting trajectory in the manifold, i.e. to the bluest state for the up-going initial state or the reddest state for the down-going initial state, depending on the direction (up- or down-going) of the initial state. This suggests thus that the sfi threshold field for the $`s`$ and $`d`$ states in Rb should increase with increasing slew rate, in disagreement with the experimental results.

Finally we note that the sfi spectra observed with the holding time $`t_h`$ extended up to 500 $`\mu `$s showed no distinguishable difference from those taken with the short holding time of 1$`\mu `$s, indicating all the states ionized have decay lifetime shorter than 1 $`\mu `$s in the electric field. Also we observed no significant sfi-signals over 10 V/cm in the spectra measured. The decay rate of the blue states in the electric field by the tunneling process, estimated from the hydrogenic approximation, is much higher than 2$`\times 10^3`$ s-1. Therefore the ionization process for the states along the blue lines is not due to the tunneling process but of autoionization-like one due to their mixing to the red continuum, even though such coupling becoming weaker as $`n`$ increases .

In conclusion, we observed for the first time a discrete transition of the threshold sfi field with slew rate in the highly excited Rydberg states in Rb, the behavior of which depends also on the position of the low $`\mathrm{}`$ states relative to the adjacent manifold. The experimental results strongly suggest that the coherent interference effect in the time evolution on the grid of anti-crossings under the pulsed electric field plays decisive role for the occurrence of such transitional behavior.

The transitional behavior observed here brings us a new powerful method to selectively field-ionize the low $`\mathrm{}`$ states from the many close-lying states, thus opening a new way to apply the highly excited Rydberg states to fundamental physics research. One of the example of such applications is to search for dark matter axions with a Rydberg-atom cavity detector . In this kind of search experiment, it is essential to do the experiment in a continuous way so as to keep the detection efficiency as high as possible. It is thus inevitable to use cw lasers to excite the Rydberg atoms continuously which is the main reason for developing the present experimental setup.

The authors would like to thank Akira Masaike for his continuous encouragement throughout this work. This research was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research (No.09102010) by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture, Japan.


text:
# Constraints on the redshift of reionization from CMB data

## 1 Introduction

In CDM cosmologies the first baryonic objects form at redshifts as high as 50 (see, e.g., Haiman et al. 1996 and references therein). At some lower redshift $`z_{\text{re}}`$ the formation of these and subsequent baryonic objects leads to the reionization of the universe by the combined effects of the fairly hard UV radiation from AGNs and the softer UV radiation from young, star-bursting galaxies and possibly also from a population of early, more uniformly distributed stars (the putative population III stars). Typical estimates of $`z_{\text{re}}`$ for CDM models lie in the range $`z_{\text{re}}1020`$ (Haiman & Loeb, 1998).

Recently, various problems with CDM on galactic scales have lead to the proposal that dark matter is “warm” rather than “cold” (Moore et al. 1999; Hogan 1999; Sommer-Larsen & Dolgov 1999 and references therein). In WDM models the redshift of formation of the first baryonic objects is smaller than for CDM and increasingly so with decreasing WDM particle mass. It obviously still provides an upper limit to the redshift of reionization. Observational lower limits on the redshift of reionization can therefore be used to place lower limits to the mass of the putative warm dark matter particles.

Spectral observations of quasars at $`z5`$ show evidence for a relatively early epoch of reionization. The lack of complete absorption shortward of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line (the so-called Gunn-Peterson effect; Gunn & Peterson 1965) implies $`z_{\text{re}}45`$, possibly even $`z_{\text{re}}>5.8`$ (Fan et al., 2000).

Constraints on $`z_{\text{re}}`$ can also be obtained from data on anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation (Griffiths et al., 1999). Compton scattering of CMB photons on free electrons leads to the suppression of the primary anisotropies on small and intermediate angular scales and hence a characteristic change of the angular power-spectrum $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$.

So far the CMB data have been used to place upper limits on the redshift of reionization $`z_{\text{re}}30`$ (Griffiths et al., 1999). In this Letter we use the Maxima-1 and combined Boomerang and Maxima-1 data (Hanany et al., 2000; Jaffe et al., 2000) to place astrophysically interesting upper and lower limits on $`z_{\text{re}}`$. The Letter is organized as follows: In Section 2, we motivate the choice of a number of cosmological parameters prior to analyzing the CMB data. Section 3 briefly explains our method of analysis, the results of which are summarized in Section 4. Section 5 discusses those results and provides an outlook.

## 2 Cosmological parameters

Apart from the redshift of reionization that we are interested in, a cosmological model is specified by a number of other parameters. Unfortunately, today’s CMB measurements alone still provide rather broad constraints on them when they are jointly taken into account (an extreme example of the astonishing consequences can be found in Figure 1 of Tegmark et al. 2000). To obtain meaningful results, one has to use other observational data, or one’s own prejudice, to fix some of the parameters beforehand.

To begin with, we have to specify what sort of energy is present in the Universe. Usually, one takes into account five different kinds, namely vacuum energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, space curvature $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{k}`$, baryonic matter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}`$, hot dark matter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{HDM}}`$, and cold dark matter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{CDM}}`$, where the values denoted by $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are the energy densities of the respective type relative to the critical density. On the basis of standard inflationary theory we assume that there is no space curvature, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{k}=0`$, and also that the initial power spectrum is scale invariant and no tensor modes are present (see, however, the discussion in Section 5). Furthermore, dark matter shall be cold or warm, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{HDM}}=0`$, since the effect of massive neutrinos will be negligible on the angular power spectrum of the CMB (Dodelson et al., 1996) – but see below. Obviously, this means that only three types of energy remain in the Universe. They are linked via the relation $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{CDM}}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=1`$.

The density in baryons $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}`$ can be constrained rather nicely using Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). Taking into account a broad range of recent measurements (Tytler et al., 2000), it seems reasonable to set the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2`$ to $`0.019\pm 0.002`$, where $`h`$ denotes the Hubble constant measured in units of 100 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$.

Furthermore, measurements on bright X-ray clusters (Ettori & Fabian, 1999) provide a robust estimate of the baryonic fraction $`f_\mathrm{b}`$, the ratio of gas to total matter in clusters. Both observations (Bahcall et al., 1995) and simulations (White et al., 1993; Evrard, 2000) suggest that this is more or less equal to the fraction of baryons versus all matter in the whole Universe. Translated into our cosmological parameters, we have

$$f_\mathrm{b}=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{CDM}}}=(0.069\pm 0.012)h^{3/2}+0.04.$$
(1)
Finally, the Hubble constant is taken to be $`h=0.65\pm 0.10`$, as a plausible compromise between various recent estimates (Perlmutter et al. 1999; Mould et al. 2000; Reese et al. 2000; Patel et al. 2000; Freedman 2000 and references therein).

The possible contribution to the dark matter density from massive neutrinos with free-streaming mass scale much larger than the mass of large clusters of galaxies would not be accounted for by this method. Because of the small mass of such neutrinos ($`1\text{eV}`$), the contribution to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{DM}}`$ can be neglected. That $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\text{HDM}}1`$ is also a possible interpretation of the Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino data, as discussed by Tegmark et al. (2000).

## 3 Method

Recently, Hanany et al. (2000) published a measurement of the power spectrum of the CMB from a highly resolved patch of the sky. We use their published data throughout. We have also used the combined Boomerang and Maxima data of Jaffe et al. (2000) for our analysis and have obtained results very similar to the ones presented here.

The measured CMB data consists of ten estimates of the power spectrum $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ averaged over a certain $`\mathrm{}`$ range. In order to compare the measured CMB data to a given cosmological model, we first calculate a numerical spectrum with CMBFAST (Seljak & Zaldarriaga, 1996). The model spectrum is then binned in the same way as the observed data, and the resulting averages compared to the data by calculating $`\chi ^2`$. For measurements following Gaussian statistics, we have

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i=1}{\overset{10}{}}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_i^{\text{(data)}}\mathrm{\Delta }_i^{\text{(model)}}}{\sigma _i}\right)^2,$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i^{\text{(data)}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i^{\text{(model)}}`$ denote the average power in the $`i`$th bin for the Maxima data and the given model, respectively, and $`\sigma _i`$ is the measurement error of the data point. Actually, the probability distribution function of power spectrum measurements is slightly skewed in comparison to a Gaussian, so we correct for this effect with the offset lognormal method by Knox et al. (1998); Bond et al. (2000).

Assuming that the individual power measurements are independent, a confidence level of 68% corresponds to a $`\chi ^2`$ of less than 11.5, while a $`\chi ^2`$ of 18.3 or more allows to reject a model at the 95% confidence level. Therefore, we always show the contours of these $`\chi ^2`$ values below. To put it simply, we ask the question “Which models fit well?”

Normally, however, one does not perform this simple $`\chi ^2`$ analysis. Instead, errors are assigned to fitted parameters by maximum likelihood. Most importantly, this means that the error is determined in comparison to the best fit, and will in general be smaller. Again, one can summarize this approach in a simple question: “Which model fits best?”

## 4 Results

When we apply all the constraints mentioned in Section 2, the only cosmological parameter that remains free is actually the redshift of reionization $`z_{\text{re}}`$. From the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis, we obtain a confidence interval of $`18<z_{\text{re}}<25`$ at a level of 68% and a range of $`16<z_{\text{re}}<29`$ at 95% confidence. Figure 1 compares the data themselves and the model that provides the best fit. This fit is clearly acceptable, having a $`\chi ^2`$ of 8.3 for ten degrees of freedom.

As explained above, we use various observational constraints on cosmological parameters. To illustrate the effect of errors in their measurement on our results, we subsequently omit each of them in turn. This means that we have a second free parameter, in addition to the redshift of reionization.

In order to illustrate the methodical point made in Section 3, in Figures 2, 3, and 4 we also show the confidence regions obtained from maximum likelihood analysis. It is interesting to see how much smaller they are compared to the regions obtained from the $`\chi ^2`$ values. We interpret this as an indication that one should be cautious and use the larger regions, in order to not rule out perfectly valid models.

Figure 2 and Figure 3 display the constraints on the redshift of reionization obtained when the baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2`$ and the baryon fraction $`f_\mathrm{b}`$, respectively, are allowed to vary. Of course, this variation somewhat broadens the allowed redshift range. However, the change is not very large, in either case the lower bounds on $`z_{\text{re}}`$ go down to $`17`$ and $`13`$ for the 68% and 95% confidence level, respectively.

The situation changes somewhat when we let the Hubble constant vary around the adopted value of $`h=0.65`$. Figure 4 shows the results. Despite the rather large uncertainty of $`h`$, we can still constrain $`z_{\text{re}}`$: Unless $`h>0.75`$, which seems unlikely when combining various methods of Hubble parameter estimation, we can conclude that $`8<z_{\text{re}}<32`$ at the $`2\sigma `$-level, and at the $`1\sigma `$-level we find that $`15<z_{\text{re}}<27`$.

## 5 Discussion and Outlook

We have used the Maxima measurements of the angular power spectrum of the CMB to constrain the redshift of reionization $`z_{\text{re}}`$. We found that astrophysically interesting bounds can be found when one constrains the allowed range of cosmological parameters with other observations, including Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and X-ray cluster data. Even when the possible uncertainties of these parameters were taken into account, we still obtained a robust estimate $`8<z_{\text{re}}<32`$ at the 95% confidence level, unless $`h>0.75`$. The implications of this result for structure formation theory and the mass of the putative warm dark matter particle will be discussed in a forthcoming paper.

One caveat is our omission of the possible contribution from tensor modes: tensor modes (gravity waves) contribute extra power on super-degree scales ($`\mathrm{}<100`$), so that when the total power (scalar and tensor modes) is normalized at low $`\mathrm{}`$, the scalar modes become lower and thus the high-$`\mathrm{}`$ power looks suppressed. That effect is similar to that of reionization, but fortunately this degeneracy can be broken with future observations of the polarization angular power spectrum. For an electron scattering optical depth of $`\tau =0.1`$ – corresponding to $`z_{\text{re}}13`$ for standard cosmological parameters – the polarization signal should be easily detectable by the MAP and Planck missions (Bennett et al., 1995; Bersanelli et al., 1996), and possibly also the forthcoming new Maxima and Boomerang missions.

## Acknowledgments

We have benefited from discussions with Per Rex Christensen, Gus Evrard, Pavel Naselsky, and Joe Silk. This work was supported by Danmarks Grundforskningsfond through its support for TAC.