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# UTCCP-P-94 Oct. 2000 Full QCD Light Hadron Spectrum and Quark Masses: Final Results from CP-PACStalk presented by R. Burkhalter

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Recent progress in lattice calculations of the quenched light hadron spectrum  has demonstrated clearly that effects of dynamical sea quarks have to be included for a precision comparison with the experimental spectrum. As a first step towards the real world we have pursued a systematic calculation in two-flavor QCD over the last 3 years . In this article we present a summary of the final results on the light hadron spectrum and quark masses from this calculation.

In order to deal with the increased demand in computer time for full QCD we have used an RG-improved gauge action and a tadpole-improved SW clover quark action, which allows us to simulate at coarse lattices in the range $`a=0.22`$–0.11 fm . Since Lattice’99  we have doubled the statistics at the smallest lattice spacing on a $`24^3\times 48`$ lattice, with which we have reached our planned target of three lattice spacings, each with a similar amount of statistics at each simulated sea quark mass. The final parameters of our simulations are summarized in Table 1.

We have also made a set of simulations in quenched QCD using the same improved actions in the same range of lattice spacings and with a similar range of quark masses. This allows us to compare in detail spectrum results in full and quenched QCD and to make an independent confirmation of the findings in quenched QCD in Ref. . Parameters of quenched simulations are summarized in Table 2.

## 2 SEA QUARK EFFECTS IN THE LIGHT HADRON SPECTRUM

A novel feature in the spectrum analysis with two-flavor QCD is the dependence of hadron masses on both the sea and the valence quark mass. We take this into account by a combined quadratic ansatz. For vector mesons and decuplet baryons the formula has the form,

$`m_{V,D}`$ $`=`$ $`A+B_s\mu _{sea}+B_v\mu _{val}`$ (1)
$`+C_s\mu _{sea}^2+C_v\mu _{val}^2+C_{sv}\mu _{sea}\mu _{val},`$
where $`\mu _{val}`$ represents the mass squared $`m_{PS}^2`$ of a pseudo scalar meson made of a valence quark-antiquark pair and $`\mu _{sea}`$ stands for a $`PS`$ meson made of sea quarks. Since octet baryon masses are not functions of the average valence quark mass we use a more complicated formula with 12 parameters. For quenched results with improved actions terms in $`\mu _{sea}`$ are dropped and we find that vector meson and decuplet baryon masses are well described by a linear ansatz in $`\mu _{val}`$. Physical masses in full QCD are obtained from Eq. 1 at $`\mu _{sea}=\mu _{ud}`$ and $`\mu _{val}=\mu _{ud}`$ or $`\mu _s`$, which are fixed using $`\pi `$, $`\rho `$ and either $`K`$ or $`\varphi `$ meson masses as input.

Since our simulations with improved action employ a mean-field clover coefficient $`c_{SW}=P^{3/4}`$ for the quark action, the leading scaling violation is $`O(g^2a)`$. Here $`g^2`$ is the renormalized coupling $`g_{\overline{MS}}^2(\mu )`$ , evaluated at a fixed scale $`\mu `$. Higher order contributions consist of terms of $`O(g^4a\mathrm{log}(a))`$, $`O(a^2)`$ etc. However, the number and range of lattice spacings restrict our choice of fitting form to the leading scaling violation term, linear in $`a`$, which we apply for extrapolations to the continuum limit both in quenched and full QCD.

Our main results for the meson spectrum are given in Fig. 1 where $`\varphi `$ and $`K^{}`$ meson masses obtained with $`K`$-input are plotted. The new quenched results with the improved action nicely confirm the finding with the standard action in Ref.  that the quenched QCD prediction for the $`\varphi `$ and $`K^{}`$ masses is smaller by about 4% than experiment. On the other hand, the two-flavor results exhibit a larger slope than those of quenched QCD, and the values linearly extrapolated to the continuum limit lie within 1% of the experimental values.

We find this result to be a clear evidence of the importance of sea quark effects. The observed trend that the meson hyperfine splitting is enlarged by such effects is consistent with a qualitative view that the spin-spin coupling in quenched QCD is reduced compared to full QCD due to a faster running of the quenched QCD coupling constant with scale.

Our baryon mass results are collected in Fig. 2. Starting with quenched QCD, our new results with the improved action show sizable statistical fluctuations. With ten points of data, however, one observes a trend that the magnitude of scaling violation is smaller than for the standard action. Linearly extrapolating to the continuum limit, the spectrum for octet and decuplet baryons is consistent between the two actions.

A worry with the baryon spectrum is possible finite-size effects. As we see from Table 2, however, the spatial size mostly lies in the range $`La2.8`$-3.5 fm, and only in two cases goes down to $`La2.72.6`$ fm. Finite-size effects are suppressed in quenched QCD due to $`Z(3)`$ symmetry. Past studies also indicate that $`La3`$ fm is sufficient to contain the magnitude of finite-size effects for baryons within a few % level. We therefore consider that our quenched baryon results do no suffer seriously from finite-size contaminations.

Clear conclusions are difficult to draw for two-flavor results. Since quenched results are generally smaller than experiment, we expect sea quark effects to push up the baryon masses. While this is a general trend observed in our data, the nucleon and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ masses turn out higher than experiment, whereas a better agreement is seen for heavier strange baryons.

Finite-size effects are severer in full QCD with dynamical sea quarks since suppression due to $`Z(3)`$ symmetry is no longer effective. It is probable that the spatial size of 2.5 fm in full QCD, which is smaller than the smallest quenched lattice, is too small to avoid finite-size effects for baryons, especially those made of light up and down quarks. Further studies on larger spatial sizes are needed to convincingly demonstrate sea quark effects in the baryon mass spectrum.

## 3 LIGHT QUARK MASSES

The light quark masses are fundamental parameters of Nature which can only be determined by hadron spectrum calculations. In Table 3 we present our two-flavor results for up-down and strange quark masses in the $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme at $`\mu =2`$ GeV, and compare them with quenched results. These results have been published in Ref. . The quenched results, which are consistent between the two types of actions, overestimate the quark mass by about 25% compared to two-flavor QCD. Furthermore, a discrepancy in the strange quark mass in quenched QCD depending on the experimental input is reduced to a level well contained in the error of about 10%. Both these features demonstrate a significant improvement in the determination of light quark masses through inclusion of two flavors of dynamical quarks.

Our results are obtained from analyses of two definitions of quark mass, one derived from the axial Ward identity $`_\mu A_\mu (x)=2am_q^{\mathrm{AWI}}P(x)`$, and another $`m_q^{\mathrm{VWI}}=(1/\kappa 1/\kappa _c)/2a`$ derived from the vector Ward identity. For the latter, two choices for $`\kappa _c`$, either the one in full QCD or in partially quenched chiral limit, are examined. In Fig. 3 we illustrate the continuum extrapolation for the strange quark mass. Lines show a linear fit assuming a common value in the continuum limit, which we take to be our central value.

A crucial point is the estimation of systematic errors, which arise from (i) chiral extrapolation, (ii) renormalization factor, and (iii) continuum extrapolation. We estimate the error from (iii) by making linear fits separately to each definition of quark mass and taking the spread of results. The error due to chiral extrapolation (ii) is estimated by replacing quadratic terms in Eq. 1 by terms with power $`3/2`$ which also appear in chiral perturbation theory and by introducing cubic terms in fits of pseudo scalar mesons.

For the renormalization factors relating the lattice quark mass to the $`\overline{MS}`$ mass in the continuum, we employ the perturbative values at one loop given by $`Z_m=1+0.0400g_{\overline{MS}}^2(\mu )`$ for VWI quark mass and $`Z_A/Z_P=1+0.0308g_{\overline{MS}}^2(\mu )`$ for AWI quark mass. These expressions show that the magnitude of one-loop corrections is about 10%. One loop corrections in improvement coefficients have a similar size. To estimate further corrections from higher order terms, we compare results for two definitions of the mean-field improved coupling constant: $`g_{\overline{MS}}^2(1/a)=(3.648W_{1\times 1}2.648W_{1\times 2})\beta /60.1006+0.03149N_f`$, appropriate for the RG-improved gluon action and alternatively $`g_{\overline{MS}}^2(1/a)=W_{1\times 1}\beta /6+0.2402+0.03149N_f`$. For the matching scale we use the two values $`\mu =1/a`$ and $`\mu =\pi /a`$.

The systematic errors estimated as above are listed in Table 4. We calculate the total error by adding them by quadrature.

## 4 CONCLUSIONS

Our first systematic study of $`N_f=2`$ full QCD clearly showed the existence of sea quark effects in the meson spectrum and quark masses. Further progress can be expected in the near future from calculations with larger lattices, smaller quark masses and, most importantly, inclusion of dynamical strange quark.

This work is supported in part by Grants-in-Aid of the Ministry of Education (Nos. 10640246, 10640248, 10740107, 11640250, 11640294, 11740162, 12014202, 12304011, 12640253, 12740133). AAK and TM are supported by JSPS Research for the Future Program (No. JSPS-RFTF 97P01102). SE, TK, KN and HPS are JSPS Research Fellows.


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# BVRI Surface Photometry of (S+S) Binary Galaxies

## 1. Introduction

Most statistical investigations of the properties of interacting galaxies focus on the most spectacular cases and thus they are affected by strong observational biases. The samples have often been selected on basis of strongly peculiar morphologies and/or high surface brightness. In this way, systems with a highly stimulated interstellar medium and increased star formation rates have been favoured. However, some investigations (eg., Kennicutt 1998; Márquez & Moles 1996) have noted the problem and have made a special effort to deal with homogeneous samples of interacting galaxies coupled with well-matched comparison objects (isolated undisturbed galaxies). These studies provide us with a more clear understanding about the connection between gravitational interactions, star formation and photometric properties in the disks of the intervening galaxies.

We have initiated an observational program to study the photometrical properties of a sample of disk–disk (S+S) systems with a wide range of separations, morphological distortions and presumably different stages of interactions. The use of a well defined isolation criterion in the selected pairs renders our study as “clean” as possible in the sense that only intrinsic properties of the individual galaxies and the effects of their mutual interactions should affect the observed photometrical properties.

In Figure 1, we present the mean surface brightness and colour profiles for the galaxy pair KPG64. This is only an example of the data we can obtain from our images. The morphologies and global photometric properties of the whole sample are being analysed for further publication (Hernández Toledo & Puerari, in preparation).

The observations discussed here are part of our broad-band BVRI photometric program on binary systems which is being carried out at the two Mexican Optical Observatories: The Observatorio Astronómico Guillermo Haro in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico and the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional in San Pedro Martir, Baja California, Mexico.

### Acknowledgments.

HHT and IP were fortunate enough to have participated in this meeting and want to thank the organizers.

## References

Karachentsev, I. D. 1972, Comm. Spec. Ap. Obs. USSR, 7, 1

Kennicutt, R. 1998 in Galaxies: Interactions and Induced Star Formation. Saas-Fee Advanced Course 26. ed. R. Kennicutt, F. Schweizer & J. E. Barnes (Springer)

Márquez, I., Moles, M. 1996, A&AS 120, 1


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# Crossover behavior for long reptating polymers

## Abstract

We analyze the Rubinstein-Duke model for polymer reptation by means of density matrix renormalization techniques. We find a crossover behavior for a series of quantities as function of the polymer length. The crossover length may become very large if the mobility of end groups is small compared to that of the internal reptons. Our results offer an explanation to a controversy between theory, experiments and simulations on the leading and subleading scaling behavior of the polymer renewal time and diffusion constant.

The study of the dynamical properties of polymers is a field of great interest, because of important applications ranging from material science to biophysics. The process of reptation, i.e. the motion of a polymer along its own contour by the diffusion of stored length, is generally believed to be one of the most important mechanisms for polymer dynamics . The simplest model for reptation is that introduced by Rubinstein  and later extended by Duke  to include the effect of a driving field. In spite of its simplicity the Rubinstein–Duke (RD) model contains the essential physics of reptation and compares well with experiments . As very little exact results are available for the model one has to rely on numerical techniques to investigate its properties.

In this Letter we present results on the scaling behavior of the polymer renewal time and diffusion constant, which are obtained by the Density–Matrix Renormalization–Group (DMRG) technique . DMRG allows to compute stationary state properties for rather long polymers with unprecedented accuracy. We find a crossover behavior with two different regimes: for an intermediate range of lengths various quantities scale as a function of the polymer length with effective exponents that differ from the asymptotic ones. We also show that by tuning an appropriate parameter it is possible to increase or decrease considerably the crossover length, i.e. the characteristic length which separates the two regimes. The findings help to clarify controversial results between theory, simulations and experiments for the renewal time and diffusion constant. Crossover behavior for single polymer reptation has been suggested earlier on various occasions . Our results are an articulation and proof of these suggestions. Moreover they enable us to pinpoint the crossover region precisely and to estimate the effective exponents for arbitrarily long polymers.

We consider here a $`d`$-dimensional version of the RD model on a hypercubic lattice (see Fig.1(a)). The polymer is divided in $`N`$ segments, or reptons, of the size of the order of the persistence length and each lattice site can accommodate an unlimited number of them. It is convenient to introduce a small driving external field $`\epsilon `$, applied in a direction tilted by $`45^{}`$ degrees with respect of the axes of the lattice: following previous work  we assign a rate $`B=\mathrm{exp}(\epsilon /2)`$ for moves of reptons in the direction of the field, while moves in the opposite direction occur with a rate $`B^1`$. Here $`\epsilon `$ is a dimensionless unit for the strength of the driving field. We focus here on the properties in the limiting regime of small $`\epsilon `$, although the DMRG technique is not restricted to this regime.

The stationary state properties of the system can be derived from the solution of the Master equation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dP(y,t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{y^{}}{}}\left[W(y|y^{})P(y^{},t)W(y^{}|y)P(y,t)\right]`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{y^{}}{}}H_{yy^{}}P(y^{},t)`$ (2)
in the limit $`t\mathrm{}`$. Here $`P(y,t)`$ indicates the probability of finding the polymer in a configuration $`y`$ at time $`t`$ and $`W(y^{}|y)`$ is a transition rate per unit of time from a configuration $`y`$ to a configuration $`y^{}`$. The matrix $`H`$ contains both the gain and loss terms and is stochastic in the sense that the sum over all columns vanishes, as required from the conservation of probability.

Since the transition probabilities depend only on the projected coordinate along the field direction the RD model becomes essentially one dimensional (see Fig.1(b)). The relative coordinates between neighboring reptons can assume only three values $`y=\{1,0,+1\}`$, therefore for a chain of $`N`$ reptons there are $`3^{N1}`$ possible configurations. One should distinguish between moves for internal and end reptons. In terms of the $`y`$ coordinates the moves are: (a) Exchange of $`0`$’s and $`1`$’s for internal reptons, i.e. $`\pm 1,00,\pm 1`$, (b) end repton contractions $`\pm 10`$ and (c) end repton stretchings $`0\pm 1`$.

The only effect of the dimensionality appears on the rates for the moves (c), which are $`dB`$ ($`dB^1`$) for moves in the direction of (opposite to) the field, as the end repton can move to $`d`$ unoccupied new sites (here dimension stands basically for the lattice coordination number ). Rates for the moves of type (a) and (b) are not affected by $`d`$. In general the dimensionality is believed to have no influence on the dependence of the properties on N, as far as the exponents of the asymptotic behavior are concerned. On a quantitave level, as we shall see, the influence of $`d`$ is however large. Higher dimensions stretch the polymer by giving a larger rate to the stretching processes (c). Not only integer values of $`d`$ are physically relevant, since the dimension enters in the RD model as the ratio between end–point stretching and end–point contraction. This allows to consider also values $`d<1`$. The limit of small $`d`$ corresponds to the case where the motions of type (c) are suppressed. We will show that $`d`$ strongly influences the crossover behavior and the appearance of effective exponents.

In principle a direct numerical diagonalization of the matrix $`H`$ yields, for instance, the polymer drift velocity and the relaxation time . In practice such calculations are restricted to polymers of rather short lengths ($`N20`$ ) as the dimensionality of the configurational space grows exponentially with the number of reptons $`N`$. This problem can be overcome by the DMRG technique  that we apply here to the RD model. DMRG has been used for quite some time now and it is known for its accuracy and for the possibility of treating large systems using an efficient truncated basis set. Although originally introduced for hermitian matrices , the DMRG method has also been applied to a series of non-hermitian problems . In the latter case the results are known to be less accurate than in the hermitian case, however since we are primarily interested on the small field limit the matrices to be diagonalized are only weakly non-hermitian, therefore DMRG is expected to perform well in this case.

Renewal time – We set first $`\epsilon =0`$. In this limit the matrix $`H`$ is symmetric since moves in the direction and opposite to the field are equally probable. The longest relaxation time $`\tau `$, also known as polymer renewal time, is a quantity also accessible to experiments since it is related to viscosity. Theoretical arguments predict a scaling behavior as function of the chain length of the type $`\tau N^z`$, with $`z=3`$ . Various experiments yielded numerical values of the exponents systematically higher $`z3.23.4`$ (see, for instance,  and references therein). This apparent disagreement has generated some discussions in the past years and quite some effort has been devoted to reconcile theory with experiments. Doi  argued that the discrepancy is due to finite size effects and proposed the following expression

$$\tau N^3\left[1\sqrt{\frac{N_0}{N}}\right]^2,$$
(3)
with $`N_0`$ a characteristic length such that only for $`NN_0`$ the right asymptotic behavior can be observed. Rubinstein  showed that a numerical calculation in the RD model (for chains up to $`N100`$ reptons) yielded $`\tau N^{3.4}`$, however the asymptotic behavior $`N^3`$ was not observed.

The renewal time is the inverse gap of the matrix $`H`$, a quantity which is easily accessible in the DMRG calculation. To estimate the exponent $`z`$ we considered:

$$z_N=\frac{\mathrm{ln}\tau _{N+1}\mathrm{ln}\tau _{N1}}{\mathrm{ln}(N+1)\mathrm{ln}(N1)}$$
(4)
which converges to $`z`$ in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$.

In Fig. 2(a) we show $`z_N`$ for $`d=1`$, $`2`$, $`3`$ plotted as a function of $`1/\sqrt{N}`$ since this type of correction-to-scaling term is predicted by Eq.3. Using a cubic fit in powers of $`1/\sqrt{N}`$ we find $`z=3.00(2)`$ for $`d=3`$, $`z=3.002(4)`$ for $`d=2`$ and $`z=2.99(1)`$ for $`d=1`$, in agreement with the theoretical arguments leading to a renewal time scaling as $`\tau N^3`$ . Figure 2(a) shows also the fitting curve for $`d=3`$ (dashed) and the prediction from Doi’s theory obtained by substituting Eq.(3) into Eq.(4) (dot-dashed). The latter compares very well with our data in the region of large N, but fails to reproduce the change of curvature in $`z_N`$, which is characteristic for the DMRG results.

While in the case $`d=2`$, $`3`$ the asymptotic value is approached monotonically from above, for $`d=1`$ $`z_N`$ shows a non-monotonic behavior. In a plot of $`\mathrm{ln}\tau _N`$ vs. $`\mathrm{ln}N`$ the maximum of $`z_N`$ corresponds to an inflection point, where curvature is absent. Therefore in a range of lengths around the maximum the numerical data would be fitted rather well by an effective exponent $`z_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{max}_Nz_N`$. This is particularly true in the case of data affected by small, but non-negligible error bars, as it happens in experiments or in computer simulations. A monotonic behavior is less harmful since in a $`\mathrm{ln}\tau _N`$ vs. $`\mathrm{ln}N`$ plot one should be able to distinguish always a non-vanishing curvature, although it may happen that the data are well fitted with effective powers in a range of values of $`N`$ also in that case. We refer to the non-monotonic behavior as to a crossover effect. To investigate it more into details we considered also $`d<1`$ (see Fig. 2(b)). For $`d=0.5`$ and $`d=0.25`$ again the data show a non-monotonic behavior in $`N`$ and the turning point shifts to larger $`N`$, i.e. crossover effects are more pronounced. For $`d=0.1`$, the smallest value considered here, and for the range of $`N`$ investigated, $`z_N`$ increases monotonically. Assuming that the asymptotic exponents do not depend on $`d`$, the turning point will be reached with much longer polymers than those considered here. It is also important to point out that the values for the effective exponent that we estimate from our data $`z_{\mathrm{eff}}3.23.4`$ are exactly in the range of values which are found experimentally in measures of viscosity . Therefore our results strongly support the idea that the differences between theory and experiments are due to a crossover effect, as pointed out by some authors in the past . The advantage of the DMRG calculations is here that they provide clear information of both the asymptotic and non-asymptotic regions. Moreover, in the case of $`d`$ small, we find a range of lengths for which the renewal time scales with a local exponent smaller than 3 (see Fig. 2(b)). The crossover to the asymptotic regime where $`z=3`$ is approached from above (as in Eq. 3) occurs only for extremely long polymers. We are not aware of any experiments showing this type of behavior; possible candidates could be concentrated polymer solutions with bulky endgroups in such a way that endpoint strechings are suppressed.

Diffusion constant – Crossover behavior appears also in other quantities, as for instance in the scaling of the diffusion constant $`D(N)`$ as function of the polymer length $`N`$. We calculated $`D(N)`$ by applying a small field $`\epsilon `$ and using the Nernst–Einstein relation

$$D=\underset{\epsilon 0}{lim}\frac{v}{N\epsilon }.$$
(5)
For the scaling behavior of $`D(N)`$ one expects

$$D(N)=\frac{1}{AN^2}\left(1+\frac{B}{N^\gamma }\right)$$
(6)
where the leading term $`N^2`$ is by now well-understood  and it is considered to be experimentally verified . In the RD model also the prefactor happens to be known exactly : $`A=2d+1`$. The next to leading order term has been investigated as well. By relating the diffusion constant to the renewal time it was predicted  that the correction term would be anomalous, i.e. $`\gamma =1/2`$. This prediction is also supported by other theoretical arguments . On the other side accurate Monte Carlo simulation results, done for $`d=1`$, could be best fitted with a power $`\gamma 2/3`$ both for the RD model  and also for another model of polymer reptation . This issue is still unresolved. An exponent $`2/3`$ is somewhat surprising since, as also seen above for the gap one naturally expects $`N^{1/2}`$ corrections.

In Fig. 3 we show a plot of $`g_N=D(N)N^21/A`$ as function of $`N`$ on a log-log scale for $`d=1`$. The figure shows results from exact diagonalization for small lattices, Monte Carlo simulations  and DMRG results which we extended up to $`N=57`$. DMRG data are in good agreement with those obtained from other methods and follow rather nicely a slope $`2/3`$ in the plot. Only a very close inspection of the region of large-$`N`$ systems reveals (see inset) that this slope is not the correct asymptotic one. Similar to the gap, this can be best seen from the discrete derivative

$$\gamma _N=\frac{\mathrm{ln}g_{N+1}\mathrm{ln}g_{N1}}{\mathrm{ln}(N+1)\mathrm{ln}(N1)}.$$
(7)
A plot of $`\gamma _N`$ vs. $`1/\sqrt{N}`$ is shown in Fig. 4 for $`d=1`$, $`2`$ and $`3`$. As for the gap, we note a non-monotonic behavior for $`d=1`$, where the maximum of $`\gamma _N`$ is found at about $`0.68`$, i.e. very close to the power $`\gamma =2/3`$. However for sufficiently large $`N`$, $`\gamma _N`$ clearly deviates from $`2/3`$ to smaller values. For $`d=2`$ and $`3`$, $`\gamma _N`$ is monotonic in $`N`$.

Like for the renewal time exponent $`z_N`$, we fit $`\gamma _N`$ with a cubic curve containing powers of $`1/\sqrt{N}`$

$$\gamma _N=\gamma +\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{\alpha _i}{N^{i/2}},$$
(8)
where $`\gamma `$ and $`\alpha _i`$ are fitting parameters. Extrapolations yield $`\gamma =0.51(1)`$ ($`d=3`$), $`\gamma =0.51(1)`$ ($`d=2`$) and $`\gamma =0.48(3)`$ ($`d=1`$). These results strongly support a correction term with $`\gamma =1/2`$.

In conclusion, the above results show that DRMG is powerful technique to investigate the properties of a reptating polymer. In this Letter we have restricted ourselves to two aspects: the renewal time and the diffusion coefficient, since these quantities have been mostly debated in the past. The DMRG calculations also yield a host of detailed information about the structure of the reptating polymer. In a forthcoming publication we will present data on the drift velocity for larger values of $`\epsilon `$ and on structural properties of the chain such as the averages $`y_i`$ and $`y_iy_{i+1}`$, where $`i`$ labels the position along the chain. Here we have shown that the large finite size corrections, characteristic for the reptation process, manifest themselves as effective exponents for the asymptotic behavior of the renewal time and the diffusion coefficient. The accurate values for a large set of lengths $`N`$ make it possible to determine the corrections to scaling with great precision. In this way we find a natural reconciliation of the fairly strong theoretical arguments for a renewal time exponent $`z=3`$ and the equally pertinent experimental findings of values around $`z3.23.4`$. Our analysis also shows that log–log plots to determine exponents are hazardous when such large corrections to scaling are present. In particular when the effective exponent shows a stationary point as function of $`N`$, it shows up as an inflection point which can be easily mistaken for the asymptotic region in case of insufficient data. On the other hand the method of differential exponents is a very accurate indicator of the asymptotic behavior. However differential exponents require precision data for many values of the length $`N`$, which neither in Monte Carlo simulations nor in experimental measurements are feasible.

We are grateful to G.T. Barkema for helpful discussions.


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# QCD at the Tevatron: Jets and Fragmentation

## 1 Introduction

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) describes the inelastic scattering between a proton and an antiproton as a hard collision between their constituents or partons: quarks or gluons. After the collision, the outgoing partons hadronize into streams of particles called jets. At the Tevatron energies, ($`\sqrt{s}`$=1800 GeV and $`\sqrt{s}`$=630 GeV), jet production is the dominant process. During the period 1992-1996, the DØ and CDF experiments accumulated almost 100 pb<sup>-1</sup> of data and performed the most accurate jet production measurements up to this date. Among the results published in that period and subsequent years, we can cite inclusive jet cross sections, dijet angular distributions, and dijet mass cross sections . At the same time, predictions for jet production rates have improved in the early nineties with next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations  and more accurate parton distribution functions (pdf) . The high center-of-mass energy at the Tevatron and the unprecedented accuracy of the measurements, together with the NLO-QCD theoretical predictions derived during the last decade, have improved our understanding of QCD, our knowledge of the proton structure, and pushed the limit to the scale associated with quark compositeness.

In this paper, we include a summary of some of the most significant jet results published by CDF and DØ as well as their most recent preliminary measurements. Jet cross sections in forward pseudorapidity regions, cross sections of dijets separated by large pseudorapidity intervals, and subjet and particle multiplicity measurements provide information on parton distribution functions, probe BFKL dynamics, explore the jet structure, and study the hadronization process. In the first sections, we describe how jets are selected, reconstructed and calibrated at DØ and CDF. They are followed by sections on each measurement and the conclusion.

## 2 Jet Reconstruction and Data Selection

For most of the analyses presented here jets are reconstructed using an iterative fixed cone algorithm with a cone radius of $``$=0.7 in $`\eta `$$`\varphi `$ space , (pseudorapidity is defined as $`\eta =\mathrm{ln}[\mathrm{tan}\frac{\theta }{2}]`$). This algorithm is applied to calorimeter towers without making use of tracking information, except for the determination of the interaction vertex. The DØ subjet multiplicity measurement uses a $`K_T`$ algorithm  on calorimeter towers, with a resolution parameter $`𝒟`$=1 (see Ref. .) The CDF particle multiplicity results use fixed cone algorithms with different cone sizes, based on particle information at the tracking level.

The offline data selection procedure eliminates background caused by electrons, photons, noise, or cosmic rays. In the case of DØ it follows the methods described in Refs. .

## 3 Energy Corrections

The jet energy scale correction, described by DØ in Ref. , removes instrumentation effects associated with calorimeter response, showering, and noise, as well as the contribution from spectator partons (underlying event).

The DØ energy scale correction corrects the jet $`E_T`$ from their reconstructed value to their “true” $`E_T`$ on average (energy of a jet defined from final state hadrons). An unsmearing correction is applied later to remove the effect of a finite $`E_T`$ resolution . CDF corrects both for scale and resolutions using a Monte Carlo simulation tuned to represent the data.

## 4 The Inclusive Jet Cross Section at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 1800 GeV

The inclusive jet cross section is measured by both the DØ (in $`|\eta |<0.5`$ and $`0.1<|\eta |<0.7`$) and the CDF experiments (in $`0.1<|\eta |<0.7`$). It is defined as:

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{dE_Td\eta }=\frac{N_i}{_iϵ_i\delta E_T\mathrm{\Delta }\eta }$$
(1)
where $`N_i`$ is the number of accepted jets in $`E_T`$ bin $`i`$ of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_T`$, $`_i`$ is the integrated luminosity, $`ϵ_i`$ is the efficiency of the trigger, vertex selection, and the jet quality cuts, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$ is the width of the pseudorapidity bin.

Figure 1 shows the various uncertainties for the DØ ($`|\eta |<0.5`$) cross section. The second outermost curve shows the error on the energy scale which varies from $`8\%`$ at low $`E_T`$ to $`30\%`$ at 450 GeV and dominates the total error. Most of the systematic uncertainties of the inclusive jet cross section are highly correlated as a function of $`E_T`$.

Figure 2 show the fractional difference between the data, $`D`$, and a jetrad theoretical prediction, $`T`$, normalized by the prediction, ($`(DT)/T`$), for $`|\eta |<0.5`$. The jetrad prediction was generated with $`\mu =0.5E_{Tmax}`$, $`_{\mathrm{sep}}=1.3`$ and several different choices of pdf. The error bars represent statistical errors only. The outer bands represent the total cross section error excluding the $`5.0\%`$ luminosity uncertainty. Given the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the predictions are in agreement with the data; in particular, the data above $`E_T=350`$ GeV show no indication of an excess relative to QCD.

The data and theory can be compared quantitatively with a $`\chi ^2`$ test incorporating the uncertainty covariance matrix. The $`\chi ^2`$ is given by:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{i,j}{}\delta _iV_{ij}^1\delta _j$$
(2)
where $`\delta _i`$ is the difference between the data and theory for a given $`E_T`$ bin, and $`V_{ij}`$ is element $`i,j`$ of the covariance matrix:

$$V_{ij}=\rho _{ij}\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _i\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _j.$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ is the sum of the systematic error and the statistical error added in quadrature if $`i=j`$ and the systematic error if $`ij`$, and $`\rho _{ij}`$ is the correlation between the systematic uncertainties of $`E_T`$ bins.

All but one of the jetrad predictions adequately describe the $`|\eta |0.5`$ and $`0.1|\eta |0.7`$ (shown in Figure 3) cross sections (probabilities for $`\chi ^2`$ to exceed the calculated value are between $`10\%`$ and $`86\%`$). The prediction using CTEQ4HJ and $`\mu =0.5E`$ produces the highest probability for both measurements. The prediction with the MRSTGD pdf has a probability of agreement with the data of $`0.3\%`$, and is incompatible with the data.

The top panel in Fig. 3 shows $`(DT)/T`$ for the DØ data in the $`0.1|\eta |0.7`$ region relative to a jetrad calculation using the CTEQ4HJ pdf, $`\mu =0.5E_{Tmax}`$, and $`_{\mathrm{sep}}=2.0`$. Also included is the published CDF measurement from the 1992-93 Tevatron running period  relative to the same jetrad prediction. The CDF measurement shows an excess with respect to the theory at high $`E_T`$, which can be accommodated by adjusting the gluon pdf (CTEQ4HJ set). If we include the systematic uncertainties of the two experiments (CDF’s uncertainties in Ref.  ) in a covariance matrix, the $`\chi ^2`$ is 30.8 for 24 degrees of freedom (probability of $`16\%`$), representing acceptable agreement between DØ and CDF.

## 5 Inclusive Jet Cross Section at $`\sqrt{s}`$= 630 GeV

Figure 4 shows the fractional difference between the DØ data and several jetrad predictions given different choices of renormalization scale and pdf. These NLO QCD predictions are in reasonable agreement with the data. The data and predictions are compared quantitatively with a $`\chi ^2`$ test. All but two of the jetrad predictions adequately describe the cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=630`$ GeV (the probabilities for $`\chi ^2`$ to exceed the calculated values are between $`10\%`$ and $`74\%`$). The prediction using MRSTGU and $`\mu =0.5E_{Tmax}`$ produces the highest probability. The prediction with MRSTGD pdf and $`\mu =0.5E_{Tmax}`$, and CTEQ3M pdf and $`\mu =2E_{Tmax}`$ are ruled out by the DØ measurement (agreement probability $`0.4\%`$).

## 6 The Ratio of Jet Cross Sections

The dimensionless inclusive jet cross section is given by

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{CM}}=\frac{E_T^3}{2\pi }\frac{d^2\sigma }{dE_Td\eta },$$
(4)
where $`d^2\sigma /dE_Td\eta `$ is given by Eq. 1, and $`x`$ is the center-of-mass energy. A naive parton model with no $`Q^2`$ dependence of the pdfs, and therefore no running of $`\alpha _s`$, predicts this cross section ratio to be unity, that is independent of the center-of-mass energy of the $`\overline{p}p`$ system. The observable is nearly insensitive to the choice of parton distribution functions. It is, therefore, a more stringent test of QCD matrix elements.

DØ has measured the ratio of inclusive jet cross sections in the central pseudorapidity bin ($`|\eta |<`$0.5) . This quantity is calculated in bins of identical $`x_T`$:

$$R\left(x_T\right)=\frac{\sigma _{630}\left(x_T\right)}{\sigma _{1800}\left(x_T\right)}.$$
(5)
The inclusive jet cross section errors are highly correlated as a function of $`E_T`$ and center-of-mass energy and will cancel in the ratio. The energy scale uncertainty dominates the total error in the ratio too.

Figure 5 shows the ratios of cross sections with jetrad predictions using different pdfs. The measured ratios lie approximately $`10\%`$ below the theoretical predictions, which have an uncertainty of about $`10\%`$. The $`\chi ^2`$ values lie in the range 15.1–24 for 20 degrees of freedom (corresponding to probabilities in the range $`28\%`$ to $`77\%`$). The best agreement occurs for extreme choices of renormalization scales ($`\mu =0.25,2E_{Tmax}`$).

In general, the NLO-QCD predictions yield satisfactory agreement with the DØ data for standard choices of renormalization scale or pdfs. In terms of the normalization, however, the absolute values of the standard predictions lie consistently and significantly higher than the data.

CDF has also measured the ratio of central jet cross sections. Figure 6 shows a preliminary result by CDF compared with NLO-QCD predictions (and the DØ measurement). Although the data and the theory agree in shape at high $`x_T`$, there is a significant deviation at low values.

## 7 The Forward Jet Cross Sections at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 1800 GeV

DØ has performed preliminary measurements of forward jet cross sections up to pseudorapidities of $`|\eta |=3`$. These measurements allow to reach regions in (x,$`Q^2`$) space previously unexplored. Figure 7 shows a comparison of the measured cross sections in five different $`\eta `$ bins with the jetrad prediction (CTEQ4HJ or MRST, and $`\mu =E_{Tmax}/2`$). Within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the measurement and the calculation are in good agreement. $`\chi ^2`$ studies are underway for a quantitative statement.

## 8 The Ratio of Dijet Mass Spectrums at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 1800 GeV

The dijet mass spectrum is calculated using the relation:

$$\kappa \frac{d^3\sigma }{dM_{JJ}d\eta _1d\eta _2}=\frac{N_i}{_iϵ_i\mathrm{\Delta }M_{JJ}\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _1\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _2},$$
(6)
where $`N_i`$ is the number of events in mass bin $`i`$; $`_i`$ is the integrated luminosity; $`ϵ_i`$ is the efficiency of the trigger, vertex selection, and the jet quality cuts; $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{JJ}`$ is the width of the mass bin; and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _{1,2}`$ are the widths of the pseudorapidity bin At DØ the cross section is measured for the pseudorapidity bin $`|\eta _{jet}|<1.0`$ . The systematic errors are dominated by the uncertainties due to the jet energy scale, which are 7$`\%`$ (30$`\%`$) for the 209 (873) GeV mass bins.

The dijet mass cross section measurement was then repeated for $`|\eta _{jet}|<0.5`$, and $`0.5<|\eta _{jet}|<1.0`$ and their ratio was determined. A large fraction of the total error cancels, as well as the uncertainty in the theoretical prediction of the ratio which is less than $`3\%`$ due to the choice of pdf, and $`6\%`$ from the choice of renormalization and factorization scale (excluding $`\mu =0.25E_{Tmax}`$). By taking the ratio $`\kappa \left(|\eta _{jet}|<0.5\right)/\kappa \left(0.5<|\eta _{jet}|<1.0\right)`$ the systematic uncertainties decrease to less than 10$`\%`$.

Given the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the prediction can be regarded as in good agreement with the data (see Fig. 8). The data are also in agreement, within the uncertainties, with the cross section measured by CDF .

All choices of pdfs and renormalization scales are in good agreement with the data ($`\chi ^2`$) test, except for $`\mu =0.25E_{Tmax}`$ which is excluded by the data.

The ratio of the mass spectra is used to place limits on quark compositeness. The pythia event generator is used to simulate the effect of compositeness by taking the ratio of these LO predictions with compositeness, to the LO with no compositeness, and scaling with this factor the jetrad NLO prediction (shown in Fig. 8).

The DØ data shows no evidence of compositeness. The dijet mass spectrum rules out quark compositeness models at the 95$`\%`$ confidence level where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{LL}^+`$ is below 2.7 TeV and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{LL}^{}`$ is below 2.4 TeV.

## 9 The Triple Differential Jet Cross Sections at $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 1800 GeV

Both CDF and DØ have performed preliminary measurements of triple differential jet cross sections. This observable is defined only in terms of the two leading jets of the event, to provide information on pdfs. In particular, the Tevatron probes high $`Q^2`$ and $`x`$ values previously unreachable.

CDF defines the triple differential jet cross section as $`\frac{d^3\sigma }{dE_{T1}d\eta _1d\eta 2}`$, where $`E_{T1}`$ is the transverse energy of a central jet in the event, and $`\eta _1`$, $`\eta 2`$ are the pseudorapidities of the central and forward jets, respectively. This quantity is measured as a function of the transverse energy of the central jet for different $`\eta _2`$ bins up to $`|\eta |`$=3.

DØ measures $`\frac{d^3\sigma }{dE_Td\eta _1d\eta 2}`$ versus $`E_T`$, where $`E_T`$ is the transverse energy of the central or the forward jet (the event enters twice in the measurement). This quantity is measured for different $`\eta _2`$ bins up to $`|\eta |`$=2. The main difference between the CDF and DØ observables is that DØ measures the $`E_T`$ of both jets and CDF measures only the $`E_T`$ of the central jet.

Figures 910 show the DØ measurement in different $`\eta _2`$ bins for the two leading jets (central and forward) in the same pseudorapidity side (sign of $`\eta _1`$ same as sign of $`\eta _2`$), and opposite sides. Each configuration is adequate for learning about different pdfs in different regions of $`(x,Q^2)`$ space. For example, two forward jets in the same side are associated with one incoming parton with high x and the other with low x. Figure 11 shows the CDF result for different $`\eta _2`$ bins, independently of the relative sign of $`\eta _1`$ and $`\eta _2`$.

Qualitatively, there is good agreement between data and theory. Both experiments are currently working on quantitative studies.

## 10 Dijet Cross Sections at Large $`\eta `$ Intervals

At high center-of-mass energies, $`\sqrt{s}`$, and for momentum transfers, $`Q`$, fixed and $`\sqrt{s}`$, the radiative corrections to the parton-parton scattering contain large logarithms $`\mathrm{ln}(s/Q^2)`$, which need to be summed to all orders in $`\alpha _s`$. This summation is accomplished by the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) equation .

Inclusive dijet production provides an ideal possible signature of BFKL dynamics. For large values of the jet longitudinal momentum fraction, $`x_j`$, the large logarithms $`\mathrm{ln}(s/Q^2)`$ result in large $`\mathrm{ln}(\widehat{s}/Q^2)`$ (where $`\sqrt{\widehat{s}}`$ is the partonic center-of-mass energy) which factorize in the partonic dijet cross section, $`\widehat{\sigma }`$. The $`\mathrm{ln}(\widehat{s}/Q^2)`$ terms are of the order of the pseudorapidity interval, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$, between the two jets  ($`\eta =\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{tan}(\theta /2))`$, where $`\theta `$ is the polar angle of the jet relative to the proton beam).

DØ performed a measurement of the dijet cross section at two different center-of-mass energies, $`\sqrt{s_A}=1800`$ GeV and $`\sqrt{s_B}=630`$ GeV, using the DØ detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The kinematics of the event is reconstructed using the most forward/backward jets, and the cross section is measured as a function of $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$ and $`Q^2`$ at each center-of-mass energy. The ratio of the cross sections is then determined at the same values of $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$ and $`Q^2`$ between the two energies. This eliminates the dependence of the cross section on the pdf’s and reduces the ratio to that of the partonic cross sections. It can be shown  that the latter is a function only of the pseudorapidity separations between the two jets ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$’s):

$$R=\frac{\widehat{\sigma }(\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _A)}{\widehat{\sigma }(\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _B)}=\frac{e^{(\alpha _{BFKL}1)(\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _A\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _B)}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _A/\mathrm{\Delta }\eta _B}}.$$
(7)
In other words, variation of $`\sqrt{s}`$, while keeping $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$ and $`Q^2`$ fixed, is equivalent to variation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$, which directly probes the BFKL dynamics.

Several theoretical predictions can be compared to the DØ measurement. Leading Order QCD predicts the ratio of the cross sections to fall asymptotically toward unity. The herwig  Monte Carlo provides a more realistic prediction. It calculates the exact $`22`$ subprocess including initial and final state radiation and angular ordering of the emitted partons. The LLA BFKL intercept for $`\alpha _s(20\mathrm{GeV})=0.17`$  is equal to 1.45. The Next-to-Leading Logarithmic  are not as yet available.

The ratio of cross sections is shown in Fig. 12 as a function of the mean pseudorapidity interval at 630 GeV. It is evident that the growth of the dijet cross section with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$ is stronger in the data than in any theoretical model which was considered. Namely, the measured ratio is higher by 4 standard deviations than the LO prediction, 3 deviations than the herwig prediction, and 2.3 deviations than the LLA BFKL one.

## 11 Subjet Multiplicities

A jet is typically associated with the energy and momentum of each final state parton. Experimentally, however, it is a cluster of energy in the calorimeter. QCD predicts that gluons radiate more than quarks. Asymptotically, the ratio of objects within gluon jets to quark jets is expected to be in the ratio of their color charges $`C_A/C_F=9/4`$.

DØ performed a preliminary measurement of subjet multiplicities in quark and gluon jets, as well as the ratio of the means of these two quantities. For this analysis, jets are reconstructed using the $`K_T`$ algorithm  with a resolution parameter $`𝒟`$=1 (see Ref. ).

$`M`$ is the subjet multiplicity in a mixed sample of quark and gluon jets. It may be written as a linear combination of subjet multiplicity in gluon and quark jets:

$$M=fM_g+(1f)M_q$$
(8)
The coefficients are the fractions of gluon and quark jets in the sample, $`f`$ and $`(1f)`$, respectively. Consider Eq. (8) for two samples of jets in the same kinematic range, one at $`\sqrt{s}=1800`$ (gluon dominated) and the other at 630 GeV (quark dominated), assuming $`M_g`$ and $`M_q`$ are independent of $`\sqrt{s}`$. The solutions are

$$M_q=\frac{f^{1800}M^{630}f^{630}M^{1800}}{f^{1800}f^{630}}$$
(9)
$$M_g=\frac{\left(1f^{630}\right)M^{1800}\left(1f^{1800}\right)M^{630}}{f^{1800}f^{630}}$$
(10)
where $`M^{1800}`$ and $`M^{630}`$ are the experimental measurements in the mixed jet samples at $`\sqrt{s}=1800`$ and 630 GeV, and $`f^{1800}`$ and $`f^{630}`$ are the gluon jet fractions in the two samples. The method relies on knowledge of the two gluon jet fractions.

Figure 13 shows that the subjet multiplicity is clearly larger for gluon jets compared to quark jets. The gluon jet fractions are the largest source of systematic error. The measured ratio and its total uncertainty are: $`R=\frac{M_g1}{M_q1}=1.91\pm 0.04(\mathrm{stat})_{0.19}^{+0.23}(\mathrm{sys})`$. The ratio is well described by the HERWIG parton shower Monte Carlo, and is only slightly smaller than the naive QCD prediction 9/4.

## 12 Particle Multiplicities

Perturbative QCD calculations, carried out in the framework of the Modified Leading Log Approximation  (MLLA), complemented with the Local Parton-Hadron Duality Hypothesis  (LPHD), predict the shape of the momentum distribution, as well as the total inclusive multiplicity, of particles in jets. The MLLA is an asymptotic calculation, which proves to be infrared stable, in the sense that the model cutoff parameter $`Q_{eff}`$ can be safely pushed down to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. LPHD is responsible for the hadronization stage and implies that hadronization is local and happens at the end of the parton shower development. In its simplest interpretation, the model has one parameter $`K_{LPHD}`$, the rate of parton-to-hadron conversion:

$$N_{hadrons}=K_{LPHD}\times N_{partons}.$$
(11)
In MLLA, momentum distributions and multiplicities in quark and gluon jets in a restricted cone of size $`\theta `$ around the jet axis are functions of $`E_{jet}\theta /Q_{eff}`$  and differ by a factor $`r`$:

$$N^{qjet}(\xi )=\frac{1}{r}N^{gjet}(\xi )$$

$$\xi =\mathrm{log}\frac{1}{x},x=p_{track}/E_{jet}$$
(12)
Jets at the Tevatron are a mixture of quark and gluon jets. Therefore,

$$N_{hadrons}^{charged}(\xi )=$$

$$K_{LPHD}^{charged}(ϵ_g+(1ϵ_g)\frac{1}{r})F^{nMLLA}N_{part}^{qjet}(\xi )=$$

$$KN_{part}^{qjet}(\xi )$$
(13)
where $`ϵ_g`$ is the fraction of gluon jets in the events, the factor of $`1/r`$ reflects the difference between gluon and quark jets, and, finally, the factor $`F^{nMLLA}`$ accounts for the next-to MLLA corrections to the gluon spectrum. Theoretical calculations  predict somewhat different values of $`F^{nMLLA}`$, but all agree that $`F^{nMLLA}`$ has almost no dependence on the jet energy in the region relevant to this analysis. The average of the results above was chosen and the difference between predictions was used as a theoretical error: $`F^{nMLLA}`$=1.3$`\pm `$0.2. The same papers predict the value of $`r`$ to be between 1.5 and 1.8.

### 12.1 The Dijet Data Analysis

CDF data collected during the 1993-1995 running period was used for this analysis. Events with two jets well balanced in transverse energy were selected. Both jets were required to be in the central region. Tracks were counted in restricted cones of sizes 0.28,0.36 and 0.47 around the jet axis.

Analysis of the fitted parameter K allows an extraction of both $`K_{LPHD}`$ and r. According to Eq. 13, the dependence is linear. Figure 14, shows 9 values of K (corresponding to 9 dijet masses for the largest cone-size 0.47) vs the gluon jet fraction (extracted using Herwig 5.6) in the events from respective dijet mass bins, as well as the results of the fit for $`K_{LPHD}`$ and $`r`$. The same parameters can be extracted from the inclusive multiplicity using an integrated version of Eq. 13. In this case, the extracted parameters will only rely on the total multiplicity and not on the exact shape of the distribution. Figure 15 shows the fit of data with MLLA predictions as well as the fitted parameters $`K_{LPHD}`$ and $`r`$. It is remarkable that the two results are in such a good agreement.

### 12.2 Model-Independent Measurement

The multiplicity in dijet and $`\gamma `$-jet events is compared (data selection was similar) to extract model-independent measurement of r. These samples have very different fraction of gluon jets for the jet energies 40-60 GeV (roughly 60% for dijets and 12% for $`\gamma `$-jet, according to Herwig 5.6). The multiplicities measured for each of the samples and a knowledge of the gluon jet fractions allowed to extract $`r`$. Figure 16 shows the measured r as a function of the jet energy. The result for $`r`$ is 1.75$`\pm `$0.11$`\pm `$0.15 in perfect agreement with MLLA result.

## 13 Conclusions

The 1992-1996 collider run at Fermilab represented a major step in the testing of QCD. The DØ and CDF experiments measured jet cross sections with unprecedented accuracy, extended the energy reach to $``$450 GeV, and set a new limit of 2.4-2.7 TeV for the quark compositeness scale. In general, and within experimental and theoretical uncertainties, QCD is in good agreement with the data. Measurements on jet structure and fragmentation were also performed and yielded agreement with QCD; they support the perturbative nature of jet fragmentation. The upcoming run at the Tevatron, scheduled to start in March 2001, will extend the energy frontier even further ($`\sqrt{s}`$=2 TeV) and collect at least 20 times more data, allowing precision measurements of QCD in kinematic regions previously unexplored.


text:
# REFERENCES

\[ Comment on “Dimensional and dynamical aspects of the Casimir effect: understanding the reality and significance of vacuum energy”
\]

In  Milton has presented a brief review of some interesting aspects of the theory of the Casimir effect. This comment is aimed at correcting some imprecise statements in that work with respect to the relevance of the Casimir effect for explaining the phenomenon of sonoluminescence. In particular,  makes three assertions with which we strongly disagree

1. That all of the Casimir-based explanations of sonoluminescence rely on static Casimir effect calculations.
2. That the proposal by Liberati *et al.*  is based on the same mechanism as used by Schwinger  (photon production from the quantum vacuum generated by the rapid movement of the bubble boundary).
3. That the “temperature” of the photons emitted in sonoluminescence can be identified with the Unruh temperature estimated from the acceleration of the dielectric boundary.

Let us explain the motivation behind our comments:

Relevance of the static Casimir effect: There are at least three models which apply the *dynamical* Casimir effect (particle production from the quantum vacuum by a time-varying external field) to the problem of sonoluminescence. In particular Eberlein , Schützhold *et al.* , and the main part of the present authors’ work  make explicit use of such a framework (although the “external field” driving the particle creation is not the same in all of these models). It is then hard to agree with the claims made in  that “the dynamical Casimir effect remains largely unknown” and that “Schwinger and his followers had to rely on the known results for the Casimir effect with static boundary conditions”.

Schwinger vs. Liberati et al. proposal: The proposal by Liberati et al.  cited in section 4 of  is not at all coincident with the Schwinger proposal . Neither do the objections raised by Milton to the latter proposal apply straightforwardly to the former. In particular, it is not true that we proposed a model based on the instantaneous collapse of a bubble: Such a calculation is performed in  as a check of Schwinger’s proposal. It is there clearly shown that, although correct in principle, Schwinger’s mechanism cannot be applied to sonoluminescence due to the extremely short timescales (femtoseconds) required for the collapse. It is not the femtosecond scale in itself that is unphysical (*e.g.* femtosecond lasers are now well established technology), simply that the known timescale for collapse of the sonoluminescent bubble is not so short.

In view of this, we proposed a modified mechanism where particle production from the QED vacuum is due to a sudden change in the refractive index of the gas. In our model the bubble radius is taken to be at its minimum (its changes are presumably non-relativistic even near to the end of the collapse), whereas the refractive index of the gas inside the bubble is assumed to be changing rapidly. In  we calculated the number and the energy of the photons that can be produced by a time-dependent refractive index of the gas at fixed bubble radius. We also demonstrated that a timescale up to the order of picoseconds could be sufficient to explain the observed emission (depending on the initial and final values of the refractive index), thus we are allowed to avoid any superluminal propagation of signal inside the bubble. The semi-static approximation (instantaneous change in the bubble refractive index), which Milton seems to view as pre-eminent, instead appears only in  and then only as a consistency check used to extend and confirm the results of the companion paper  to the case in which finite volume effects are taken into account.

Unruh temperature: A fundamental point is central to all of the vacuum-based explanations of sonoluminescence: In these models nothing inside the bubble reaches the physical temperature of thousands of Kelvin. A thermal spectrum (even one at very large temperature) can be *simulated* by particle states generated by the dynamical Casimir effect, as is well-known and explained in an extensive literature (*e.g.* see  and references therein). Such a simulation of thermality requires a particular regime  and is thus *n*ot generic. \[Notice that it is controversial whether a truly thermal spectrum is actually detected at all in sonoluminescence.\] Moreover the Unruh temperature $`T=a/2\pi `$ is pertinent to the case of the response in a Minkowski vacuum of a detector endowed with uniform acceleration $`a`$ . It appears very hard to apply this situation to a collapsing bubble (even in the case where one uses the moving bubble boundary as the external field driving quantum particle creation ).

In view of the above facts, to require the Unruh temperature to be several thousand Kelvin, and from this to deduce the necessary timescale for the bubble collapse, is simply an incorrect procedure. The fact that following such a procedure Milton arrives at a result in agreement with our conclusions presented in  is mainly due to a common feature of all of the dynamical Casimir effects: the typical timescale required for the change of the external field is roughly inversely proportional to the typical frequency of the particles which one wants to produce. In order to justify a spectrum peaked at frequencies of the order of the Petahertz (which in sonoluminescence is often interpreted as a thermal spectrum at several thousand Kelvin) one apparently needs timescales of about one femtosecond. The reason why this does not apply to our model is that the typical frequencies of the particles produced by a time-varying refractive index are not just determined by the inverse of the typical timescale of this variation but also by the initial and final values of the refractive index.

In conclusion we hope that this “comment” will serve to remind people that the Casimir-based explanation of sonoluminescence cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is possible that experiments will ultimately disprove the dynamical Casimir effect based explanation for sonoluminescence, but this will not happen on the basis of the arguments proposed in .

Stefano Liberati
SISSA/ISAS
Via Beirut 2-4, 34014 Trieste.
e-mail: liberati@sissa.it

Francesco Belgiorno
Università di Milano,
Via Celoria 16, 20133 Milano.
e-mail: belgiorno@mi.infn.it

Matt Visser
Washington University in Saint Louis
Saint Louis, Missouri 63130-4899
e-mail: visser@kiwi.wustl.edu


text:
# The critical velocity effect as a cause for the H𝛼 emission from the Magellanic stream

## 1 Introduction

The Magellanic Stream (MS) consists of a narrow band of high-velocity neutral hydrogen gas (HI) which stretches over almost 100o on the sky, trailing the Magellanic Clouds in their orbit around the Milky Way (Mathewson, Cleary & Murray 1974; Mirabel, Cohen & Davies 1979). The Stream was observed at 21 cm. Thereby a chain of clouds connected by a gas of lower density was identified. The clouds have been labeled MS I through MS VI (Mathewson, Schwarz & Murray 1977). They are characterized by a high density concentration with a relatively sharp gradient on the leading edge, which is defined by the direction of the proper motion of the Large Magellanic Cloud (Jones, Klemola & Lin 1994). The Stream has no known stellar component (Mathewson et al. 1979) and its distance to the Milky Way is unknown, although its leading end (MS I) connects to the Magellanic Clouds and is presumably located at a distance of 50- 60 kpc. Moore and Davis (1994) estimate the distance of the tip of the Stream (MS VI) to be 20 kpc, whereas Gardiner, Sawa & Fujimoto (1994) give a distance value of 60 kpc.

Bregman (1979) considered the MS as the hydrodynamic result of the tidal interaction between the Magellanic Clouds and the gaseous halo of the Milky Way (Murai & Fujimoto 1980; Lin & Lynden-Bell 1982). This tidal scenario is supported by an extension to the model (Moore & Davis 1994) which was able to reproduce the kinematics of the Stream by including the stripping associated with an extended ionized disk and drag due to a diffuse halo. Nevertheless, the models for the origin of the MS remain controversial (Wakker & van Woerden 1997; Murali 2000), so that the inferences about halo gas properties are correspondingly uncertain.

What do we know from observations about the characteristic values for the density and temperature of the MS?

The northern part of the MS (MS III - MS MVI) has been surveyed with high sensitivity by Mirabel, Cohen & Davies (1979) in order to study the small scale structure. Five regions were investigated, which are characterized by narrow filaments running parallel to the main direction of the Stream, and small cloud-like concentrations. These clouds have typical masses of 15 $`D^2M_{}`$ (here D is their distance in kpc). The authors conclude that the clouds appear to be unstable over the lifetime of the Stream as a whole and some external confinement mechanism seems to be necessary to preserve the observed small scale structure. This could be provided by a hot plasma of density $`410^4\mathrm{cm}^3`$ at a temperature of $`10^6`$K.

Weiner & Williams (1996) detected faint H$`\alpha `$-emission from several points of the MS, i.e. the leading edges of the HI clouds MS II, MS III and MS IV. The emission is strongest (emission measures EM: 0.5-1 $`\mathrm{cm}^6`$ pc) on the sharp leading-edge density gradient. They suggest that ram pressure from the halo gas plays an important role in stripping the Stream out of the Magellanic Clouds and they suggest the existence of a relatively dense ($`n_H10^4\mathrm{cm}^3`$) and almost fully ionized gas with a temperature of $`1.7\times 10^6`$K in the Galactic halo at a radius of 50 kpc.

Weiner and Williams (1996) rule out photoionization as a cause for the H$`\alpha `$-emission. They argue that the HI column densities in all observed fields are optically thick to ionizing radiation which means that any uniform ionizing flux should produce ionization rates and H$`\alpha `$ emission which are roughly constant from field to field, which is not observed. The low number of required UV-photons ($`10^{48}\mathrm{s}^1`$) could, in principle, be provided by a few OB stars located $`100`$ pc away from the observed field. However, such stars that would be easily detectable by the associated luminous HII-region are not observed.

Murali (2000) recently discussed some theoretical implications. He reexamined the interaction of the MS with the surrounding medium at large distances in the halo of the Galaxy. He was able to show that heating dominates over drag forces. Due to their high relative velocities ($`200`$ km $`\mathrm{s}^1`$) the HI-clouds should evaporate if the density of the halo was too high. Thus, he concluded a limit for the halo density at 50 kpc to be less than $`10^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

The strength and orientation of the magnetic field in the halo of our Galaxy is still a matter of debate (e.g. Vallee 1998). According to Beuermann, Kanbach & Berkhuijsen (1985) the scale height of the field is $`6`$kpc. The distance of the MS is several tens of kpc. Given a disk magnetic field of about $`6\mu `$G and taking into account local field compression by the MS clouds the magnetic field in the MS is expected to be of the order of several $`\mu `$G. Amplifications of magnetic fields by infalling gas clouds is well-known from high velocity clouds (e.g. Crutcher 1999; Vallee 1998).

The interaction of the high velocity clouds (HVC) of the MS and the medium of the galactic halo is an example for the interaction of a fully ionized plasma and a cold weakly ionized gas. Such a situation has been considered by Alfvén (1954) in connection with his model for the origin of the solar system. He proposed that when a neutral gas streams through a plasma across magnetic field lines at a velocity that exceeds a certain value $`v_c`$ a discharge like process can occur in which the neutral gas component is rapidly ionized. The critical velocity is proportional to the ionization potential and inversely proportional to the square root of the mass of the neutral atom. This effect is usually considered in the context of plasmas in which the ion-neutral collision rate is negligible. This is exactly the case in the interaction regions of the MS HI-clouds and the galactic halo. Given the problematic issue of lacking ionization sources for the H$`\alpha `$, the critical velocity effect (CVE) presents an interesting fundamental plasma process that is capable of providing the required ionization. The CVE occurs when a neutral gas streams through a plasma across magnetic field lines with a velocity that exceeds a critical value measured by the ionization potential of the neutrals. The kinetic energy of the flow is partly converted to heating the electrons which can efficiently ionize the neutral gas component.

It is the aim of our contribution to discuss the CVE in the astrophysical system MS-Galactic halo as an alternative ionization mechanism far away from standard ionization sources like stars.

In Sect. 2 we review the basic conditions for the CVE to work. We give limits for the magnetic field strength, neutral gas, plasma density, and plasma temperature. Sect. 3 presents the application to the ionization of the MS cloudlets, followed by Sect. 4 which contains the discussion and some conclusions, in particular, on the general applicability of the CVE-process in astrophysical plasma-neutral gas interactions.

## 2 The Critical Velocity Effect

The interaction of a plasma and a neutral gas in the presence of a magnetic field can result in the ionization of the neutral component if the relative velocity component across the magnetic field $`v_{rel}`$ exceeds a critical value

$$v_{rel}>v_c=ϵ^1\left(\frac{2e\mathrm{\Phi }}{m_n}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(1)
where $`e`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, and $`m_n`$ denote the elementary charge, the ionization potential of the neutrals, and the neutral mass. This is the so-called critical velocity effect (CVE) (Alfvén 1954; Raadu 1978, 1981; Petelski 1981). The efficiency is parameterized by $`ϵ`$. Formisano et al. (1982) have shown on the basis of quasilinear calculations that the efficiency can drop to $`ϵ0.025`$ if the ionized neutrals, i.e. the newly born ions, have sufficient time to isotropize in the form of a ring-like velocity distribution in the plane perpendicular to the magnetic field. The rather poor efficiency, or equivalently, the necessary very high relative velocities, can be avoided for two cases. First, if the ionization frequency is much higher than the ion plasma frequency (Formisano et al. 1982), and second, if the growth rate of the excited lower-hybrid drift instability $`\gamma _{lhd}`$ that heats the ionizing electrons is sufficiently high (Brenning 1985), i.e. $`\gamma _{lhd}\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ ( $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i=eB/m_ic`$ is the ion gyro frequency; $`e`$, $`B`$, $`m_i`$, and $`c`$ denote the elementary charge, the magnetic field strength, the ion mass, and the speed of light, respectively). The first alternative is not of interest in the present context and, in fact, should only be of importance in dense laboratory plasmas. The latter condition can be written as (cf. Brenning 1985)

$$\left(\frac{m_e}{m_n}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\frac{\omega _e}{\mathrm{\Omega }_e}<\frac{c}{v_{rel}}\left(\frac{m_e(1+\beta _e)}{m_i}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$$
(2)
where $`\omega _e=(4\pi n_ee^2/m_e)^{1/2}`$ ($`n_e`$ is the electron particle density) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_e=eB/m_ec`$ denote the electron plasma and gyro frequencies and $`\beta _e=8\pi n_ekT_e/B^2`$ ($`k`$ and $`T_e`$ are the Boltzmann constant and the electron temperature) is the electron plasma beta. For high-$`\beta `$ plasmas efficient ionization is possible for electron temperatures $`kT_e>\frac{1}{2}m_iv_{rel}^2`$. For low-$`\beta `$ plasmas the relative flow velocity $`v_{rel}`$ has to be sub-Alfvénic, $`v_{rel}<v_A=B/(4\pi n_im_i)^{1/2}`$, due to the second inequality. Here and in the following we assume quasineutrality $`n_e=n_i=n`$. In the low-$`\beta `$ case Eq.(2) can be reformulated

$$7\mathrm{G}^1\mathrm{cm}^{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{n^{\frac{1}{2}}}{B}<7\frac{c}{v_{rel}}\mathrm{G}^1\mathrm{cm}^{\frac{3}{2}},$$
(3)
if we choose the ion and neutral masses equal to the proton mass, i.e. we deal with a partially ionized hydrogen plasma, or

$$v_Ac<\frac{v_A}{v_{rel}}c.$$
(4)
Fig. 1 illustrates the constraints for the magnetic field strength and the particle density that guarantee efficient heating for $`v_{rel}=10^2c`$ and for $`v_{rel}=10^4c`$, for example. In the first case, the region between the solid line and the dotted one represents the combinations of particle density and magnetic field that allows for the CVE to operate efficiently. In the latter case ($`v_{rel}=10^4c`$), the same holds for the region between the solid line and the dashed one.

Up to now we concentrated on the hydrogen component which is dominant in the interstellar and intergalactic medium. In the context of the ’missing ionized helium’ puzzle (Domgörgen 1997; Reynolds & Tufte 1995), it is of interest to discuss the influence of the CVE on the helium component. In fact, the critical velocity (Eq. 1) for the onset of the CVE is reduced by the factor $`\sqrt{(24.6/13.7)/4}0.67`$ as compared to the pure hydrogen case. However, the efficiency of the ionization is drastically reduced for two reasons. First, the resonant heating of the ionizing electrons depends on the growth rate of the modified two-stream instability which scales as the ion plasma frequency $`\omega _i`$. This frequency is much smaller for the heavier and much rarer helium component than for the hydrogen one. Consequently, the helium ions are expected to isotropize very fast and thus, cannot be ionized efficiently, i.e. $`ϵ0.025`$, (see discussion by Raadu 1978; Formisano et al. 1982; Brenning 1985); Second, ionization is possible only, if the Townsend criterion $`\nu _{ion}>\tau _{ei}^1`$ if fulfilled where $`\nu _{ion}`$ and $`\tau _{ei}`$ are the ionization frequency and the time an electron has to ionize an ion. Thus, the neutral gas density has to exceed a critical value $`n_n>n_c=[\tau _{ei}\sigma _{ion}(E_e)\sqrt{2E_e/m_e}]^1`$ (where $`E_e`$ is the average energy of a single ionizing electron and $`\sigma _{ion}`$ is the ionization cross section). Whereas the ionization cross section for hydrogen and helium do not differ that much (see Mitchner & Kruger 1973) for our applications the particle density $`n_n`$ of the neutral helium is much lower than the one of HI.

## 3 Ionization of the Cloudlets in the Magellanic Stream

In the context of HVC’s in the Galactic halo the CVE should work very efficiently. Concerning the high-velocity cloudlets in the MS, e.g. MS I-VI, several authors have established a set of values for the relevant plasma parameters as the particle density $`n`$, temperature $`T`$, and magnetic field strength $`B`$. Doppler measurements of H$`\alpha `$-emission lines show typical velocities $`v^{HVC}`$ of the cloudlets in the range of $`110\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1220\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Weiner & Williams 1996; Murali 2000) for the central part of the MS and up to $`350\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for cloudlets at the tip of the Stream (Mirabel et al. 1979). The cloudlets show a rather low temperature of $`T_\mathrm{n}^{HVC}10^4\mathrm{K}`$ in a hot ambient halo gas at a temperature of $`T_\mathrm{e}^{halo}210^6\mathrm{K}`$ (Weiner & Williams 1996). The particle density of the HVC’s lies around $`n^{HVC}510^2\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (Cohen 1982). However, the particle density of the ambient halo gas cannot be determined so easily. Direct measurements of the halo density are not possible so far since only column densities can be measured and the problem of the exact distance of the MS still remains unsolved. The only way to get an estimate of the halo density consists in the deduction of the density via the use of hydrodynamic models for the HVC’s. From a rather simple drag model Weiner and Williams deduce a halo density of the order $`n^{halo}10^4\mathrm{cm}^3`$ while Murali finds a maximum value of $`10^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$ from lifetime considerations. The latter value, however, does not seem very likely considering the fact that the particle density of the intergalactic medium already shows a minimum value of $`10^6\mathrm{cm}^3`$. By assuming a pressure equilibrium between the cloudlets and the ambient halo gas, Mirabel et al. find particle densities between $`710^5\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and $`710^4\mathrm{cm}^3`$ depending on the distance of the MS.
The above data are shown as single data points in Fig. 1 assuming a magnetic field strength in the halo of $`B^{halo}3\mu \mathrm{G}`$ (Beuermann et al. 1985). For the mentioned halo plasma parameters the electron plasma beta $`\beta _\mathrm{e}`$ is much smaller than unity such that equation (3) holds. The two dash-dotted lines in Fig. 1 mark the lower boundaries of the regions of efficient electron heating for the cases $`v_{\mathrm{rel}}=350\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (upper line) and $`v_{\mathrm{rel}}=220\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (lower line). Obviously, the conditions for the onset of ionization of the HVC’s boundaries caused by the CVE are satisfied for all data points shown in the figure (see Eqs. 1 and 2).
Consequently, ionospheres similar to the ionospheric layers around planets and comets form around the HVC’s. Due to these ionospheres more or less sharp boundaries form. Since the magnetic field is frozen in the halo plasma, it will be draped around the HVC’s during their motion through the halo plasma. The convecting magnetic field generates currents in the conducting ionospheres that keep the field from penetrating through the clouds, at least initially. Depending on the conductivity and possibly local changes of the halo field direction some parts of the field may eventually diffuse into the clouds. In any case a more or less perfect magnetic cavity is created. The draped field lines form a magnetic barrier. The magnetic field strength in such a magnetic barrier may well exceed the value of $`10\mu \mathrm{G}`$ as can be deduced from ram pressure equilibrium models (Kahn 1997). Closer to the centers of the HVC’s ionopauses form where the internal ionospheric pressures balance the incident pressure of the halo. Beyond the magnetic barrier even a collisionless bow shock may develop if the velocities of the HVC’s exceed the local halo magnetosonic velocity. The described scenario for the formation of boundary layers around HVC’s is illustrated in Fig.2. It should be noted that the whole scenario resembles very much the well studied interaction of the solar wind with unmagnetized planets (Luhmann 1986; Luhmann et al. 1990) and comets (Formisano et al. 1982; McComas et al. 1987; Flammer et al. 1997).

The Townsend condition for the production of secondary electrons that in course are heated and ionize the neutral gas further defines a maximum radius for the ionization region, the so-called CVE-radius:

$$R_{\mathrm{CVE}}1/n^{HVC}\sigma _{\mathrm{ion}}10^3\mathrm{pc}$$
(5)
where $`\sigma _{\mathrm{ion}}10^{15}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ is the ionization cross section (compare Flammer et al. 1997).
The given CVE-radius is very small compared to the the typical size of the cloudlets in the MS which is of the order of $`1\mathrm{kpc}`$ (Weiner & Williams 1996). This means that newly created ions at the cloud temperature should mainly be found in a boundary layer around the HVC. This however is consistent with observations of localized H$`\alpha `$-emission at the leading edges of the clouds (Weiner & Williams 1996).
Furthermore, the cloudlets should be stable against full ionization by a Townsend discharge.
Diffuse H$`\alpha `$-emission from the inner parts of HVC’s is then due to remnants of the ionization front at earlier times.

It is worth mentioning that the CVE also results in a braking of the cold HVC’s. The ionized boundaries interact with the magnetic field of the halo that is mainly directed parallel to the Galactic plane. The clouds are slowed down while the newly formed ions are accelerated. The overall effect consists in a slowing down of the ionization front. Ultraviolet absorption observations hint at a deceleration of the HVC’s as they approach the Galactic disk (Benjamin 1999; Danly 1989).

## 4 Discussion

In our paper we discussed the critical velocity effect as a possible explanation for the observed H$`\alpha `$ emission at the leading edges of cold cloudlets in the MS. For suitable parameter regimes this effect can yield a rapid ionization of neutral gas streaming through a magnetized plasma.

Our work has been motivated by intensive studies of the CVE with respect to observed ionization phenomena in laboratory and space plasmas. In laboratory plasmas ionization caused by the CVE has been clearly identified in numerous experiments (e.g. Fahleson 1961; Danielsson & Brenning 1975; Piel et al. 1980). The conditions, however, under which the CVE becomes sufficiently efficient in space plasmas are still under debate.

Ionization due to the CVE has been clearly identified in context with a space experiment where an artificial cloud of barium was released in the Earth’s magnetosphere (Haerendel 1982). Besides, ion production in the Io plasma torus around Jupiter and ionization in Io’s ionosphere are interpreted as the consequences of the CVE (Cloutier et al. 1978; Galeev & Chabibrachmanov 1983).

Further ionization phenomena in space which are discussed to be the consequence of the CVE are the space shuttle glow (Papadopoulos 1984) and, especially, ionization in cometary environments due to the interaction between neutral gas sublimented from the cometary nuclei and the magnetized solar wind plasma (Formisano et al. 1982).

All these examples yielding evidence for the importance of the CVE refer to plasma - neutral gas interactions in laboratory and space plasmas which differ from a large scale astrophysical system like the MS in several aspects. However, the presented first quantitative studies of the CVE considering parameter regimes being typical for cloudlets in the MS strongly indicate that the CVE can yield an efficient ionization of the neutral gas at the boundaries of cold cloudlets in the halo plasma.

Thus, our kinematical studies have shown that the CVE has to be considered as a possible explanation for the observed H$`\alpha `$ emissions. To get deeper insight into the question of to what extent the CVE can contribute to the ionization of halo clouds detailed dynamical multifluid studies are required.

Acknowledgments. This work has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the grant LE 1039/5-1.