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# NLTE effects on oxygen lines

## 1 Introduction

The approximation of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) is commonly used in the analysis of stellar spectra. It simplifies the computation of atomic and molecular level populations immensely by postulating Saha-Boltzmann equilibria, thus defining the state of the gas as a function of only temperature, pressure, and chemical composition. The solution of the equation of radiative transfer for the frequencies of interest is then straightforward. The implied assumption that the radiation field does not influence the properties of the gas is, however, not realistic. Thus we must question the validity of LTE and investigate the NLTE problem of spectral-line formation. This will here for most of the time be taken to mean the solution of the coupled equations of statistical equilibrium and radiative transfer for a trace species in a stellar photosphere. NLTE effects are then simply errors caused by the LTE approximation.

When discussing the NLTE effects on a spectral line, it is often clarifying to separate between effects on the line opacity and on the line source function. The line-opacity effect is described with the NLTE departure coefficient of the atomic population of the lower energy level involved in the transition: $`b_i=n_l/n_l^{LTE}`$. The departures from LTE of the line source function is described by its ratio to the local Planckian, $`S_\mathrm{L}/B_\nu (T)`$.

In the following, NLTE effects on lines used for oxygen-abundance determinations in unevolved or moderately evolved stars of approximately solar effective temperatures will be discussed. The discussion focuses only on departures from LTE, thus disregarding for a moment all other relevant uncertainties like missing background opacities, observational errors, stellar parameters, effects of granulation, line-damping treatment, etc.

## 2 \[O I\] lines

The forbidden lines of oxygen, at 630 nm and 636 nm have not been claimed to be subject to any NLTE effects in cool stars. A typical NLTE calculation shows them to be exceedingly close to LTE both in line opacity and line source function.

The LTE value of the line opacity is due to the fact that the lower levels of these transitions belong to the ground term of neutral oxygen. Virtually all free oxygen atoms will be in that state because of the lack of excited levels of low energy and the high ionisation potential. (The amount of oxygen tied up in molecules is not enough to allow any departures from LTE in the molecular equilibrium to have an impact.) Thus, exceedingly large departures from LTE would have to be present to influence the line opacities significantly. Note that the ionisation equilibrium of oxygen is coupled to that of hydrogen via charge-exchange collisions due to the close correspondence of the ionisation potentials of these two atoms. This means that if NLTE effects would be significant, the problem would be a hydrogen problem rather than an oxygen one.

No departure of the line source function from the local Planckian is expected or seen in any computational results. This is because the lines are forbidden and weak with collisional rates dominating very much over radiative rates, and the upper level involved is collisionally excited.

## 3 O I lines

The neutral oxygen triplet lines at 777 nm – called just the triplet hereafter for brevity – are well-known for being affected by NLTE effects, especially in early stars. For solar-type stars, the picture is a bit more unclear since the quantitative predictions have had problems when confronted with solar observations. There are of course other permitted optical lines that have been used for abundance analysis. They are, however, mostly weaker and thus less useful than the triplet at lower abundances. The NLTE effects on those lines are similar in mechanism though lesser in magnitude than those affecting the triplet.

### 3.1 Expected behaviour of the triplet

Figure 1 shows the theoretical behaviour of the strongest triplet line in a solar photospheric model. (Computed without any contribution of inelastic collisions with neutral hydrogen atoms – a problematic process discussed below.) We see that the line opacity stays close to its LTE value because the departure coefficient for the line’s lower level ($`n_l/n_l^{LTE}`$) $`1`$. The line source function ($`S_\mathrm{L}`$) shows a significant departure from LTE as it dips below the Planckian, thus producing a line that is stronger than it would be in LTE.

The line source function behaves like that of the text-book two-level atom without continuum (e.g. Mihalas, 1978, Chap. 11),

$$S_\mathrm{L}=(1\epsilon )\overline{J_\nu }+\epsilon B_\nu (T),$$

where $`\epsilon `$ measures the destruction probability of line photons by collisional deexcitation. It is the photon losses that cause $`S_\mathrm{L}`$ to fall below Planckian and scattering in the line makes this effect go further inwards than the monochromatic optical depth in the line would imply. The effect grows stronger with increased abundance as the line strength increases. But it does not generally go to zero as the abundance decreases since $`J_\nu <B_\nu (T)`$ in the infrared continuum.

By constructing curves of growth from the LTE and the NLTE equivalent widths, one can compute NLTE abundance corrections, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon _\mathrm{O}^{NLTE}=\epsilon _\mathrm{O}^{NLTE}\epsilon _\mathrm{O}^{LTE}`$, that can be added to abundances derived under the LTE assumption. These will always be negative, meaning that an LTE analysis will always overestimate the oxygen abundance. Figure 2 shows these corrections computed from the results of Fig. 1. For solar-type stars, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\epsilon _\mathrm{O}^{NLTE}`$ varies from 0 up to $`0.5`$ dex (e.g., Kiselman, 1991; Takeda, 1994), getting more significant with increased effective temperature and decreased surface gravity. No strong monotonous dependence on metallicity has been predicted that would be able to seriously change the slopes in \[O/Fe\] plots or remove the discrepancies between the trends from different oxygen-abundance indicators.

The two-level-atom behaviour is good for us because it makes it easier to analyse and understand the results physically. It also assures us that it is the processes in the line transition itself that are important – high-lying levels, photoionising radiation fields, and other things problematic to model do not matter. This also allows simplification in, for example, work on 3D radiative transfer (Kiselman & Nordlund, 1995). Note that the effect has nothing to do with the lines being of high excitation energy or that their lower level is metastable. This is just the natural behaviour of reasonably strong lines in the infrared with two-level-atom like behaviour and LTE-like opacity.

There is a limit to this two-level regime, however. Note that the departure coefficient of the lower level in Fig. 1 is not exactly equal to one. If the effective temperature is increased, we will eventually get a significant departure from LTE of the line opacity. The result will then depend on the rest of the atomic model and the interpretation of the results will be less straightforward. An important ingredient is probably the recombination flow from higher levels (Eriksson & Toft, 1979), but this transition to more complicate behaviour has not been analysed well yet.

### 3.2 Confrontation of theory with solar observations

Altrock (1968) investigated the centre-to-limb behaviour of the triplet in the sun and found that this was not consistent with the triplet being formed in LTE in that the line strengths do not fall off as quickly close to the limb. Sedlmayr (1974) could reproduce the solar observations well with an NLTE analysis. But then the accepted oxygen abundance from other spectral features increased and a discrepancy was noted (Sneden et al., 1979) and persisted (Kiselman, 1991). Kiselman (1993) found it impossible to reconcile observations with any reasonable one-dimensional photospheric model and an oxygen abundance $`\epsilon _\mathrm{O}=\mathrm{lg}\frac{N_O}{N_H}+128.9`$, leaving granulation effects as the only possibility. However Kiselman & Nordlund (1995) found from 3D NLTE modelling in hydrodynamic granulation simulations that the effects on line strength and $`\mu `$ dependence could not significantly alleviate the situation.

This solar discrepancy may not be the most dramatic problem we have in astronomy – it is probably, after all, solved by allowing an abundance below $`8.9`$ (e.g. Reetz, 1998) – but it illustrates the uncertainties surrounding spectral-line formation and their coupling to solar abundances. Indeed, the oxygen triplet lines should be among the easiest to model among solar lines affected by departures from LTE.

### 3.3 The problem of hydrogen collisions

Given the two-level nature of the triplet in solar-type stars, the most problematic atomic quantity is, as usual in NLTE work, collisional cross sections. While electron collisions are always uncertain, this is even more so for collisions involving neutral hydrogen atoms – the case of the oxygen triplet illustrates the effect of this uncertainty clearly.

Collisional excitation by atoms in cool-star NLTE work were introduced by Steenbock & Holweger (1984). They generalised the estimates of Drawin (1968, 1969), which related to collision between like atoms, to inelastic collisions between hydrogen atoms and other species. These results have been used by many authors. Lambert (1993) reviewed these formalisms and suggested a reasonable improvement to them which, however, does not seem to have taken on.

The formulæ based on Drawin’s work can only be regarded as order of magnitude estimates, and perhaps not even that. Many authors have tried to get better estimates by multiplying the rates of Steenbock & Holweger (1984) with a factor $`x`$ determined by some empirical fitting. Tomkin et al. (1992) fitted the triplet lines to the solar spectrum assuming $`\epsilon _\mathrm{O}=8.92`$. This resulted in large collisional rates almost producing LTE. Takeda (1995) made a multiparameter fit of solar line profiles resulting in a scaling factor of $`x=1.0`$, thus confirming the Steenbock & Holweger (1984) formulaæ. King & Boesgaard (1995) confirmed that the solar centre-to-limb behaviour of the triplet was not consistent with LTE. Reetz (1998, 1999) used the $`\mu `$ dependence and profiles of solar lines to find that the hydrogen collisions were negligible ($`x=0.0`$). The same result came from his effort to minimise the difference between the abundances derived from the individual triplet lines for a set of stars of different effective temperatures. Gratton et al. (1999) found that $`x=3.2`$ gave consistent abundances for different oxygen lines in RR Lyræ stars. Among other recent work that can be mentioned, Mishenina et al. (2000) chose $`x=1/3`$ – probably because the use of that factor in the work on Fe in Pollux by Steenbock (1985).

Apparently the attempts to determine empirical cross sections are very model dependent, and it seems hard to avoid all other uncertainties related to stellar modelling and parameters – notably effective temperatures – to bias the procedure. If one therefore discards the extrasolar evidence and that depending on certain values of the solar oxygen abundance, it seems that the solar centre-to-limb behaviour is still a rather strong argument that hydrogen collisions are not very significant and that they definitely cannot induce LTE.

Circumstantial evidence comes from studies of other lines. There is now a detailed quantum mechanical calculation of the hydrogen excitation cross section of the Na D lines (Belyayev et al., 1999). This shows a cross section that is $`10^210^4`$ of the Drawin-style prediction. See also Caccin et al. (1993).

In the time since the Kiel group pointed out inelastic collisions with hydrogen atoms as potentially very important in cool-star NLTE work, many large and expensive telescopes and spectrographs have gone from visionary ideas to first light. But our knowledge about these collisional rates – so important for interpreting some of the results of these technological wonders – has not advanced very much.

## 4 Molecular lines

We do not know much about the NLTE formation of molecular lines. Hinkle & Lambert (1975) estimated that the vib-rot levels among the electronic ground state of diatomic molecules in the solar photosphere should be in Boltzmann equilibrium but that departures from LTE could be expected in the line source functions of electronic transitions. For weak ultraviolet lines (think OH in metal-poor stars here) this could mean that the lines get weaker for a given abundance than LTE predicts and thus LTE abundances are underestimates. When the lines are strong, the effect could go the other way.

Another matter is the chemical equilibrium itself, where photodissociation could play a role in causing departures from LTE. It could even be that statistical equilibrium is not reached in the few minutes that the upwelling gas in a granule spends in and above the photosphere before falling back beneath the visible surface again. Uitenbroek (2000) has compared observed CO lines with simulations and suggests that this effect is really seen. If so, all modelling assuming statistical equilibrium will derive too low abundances.

There could thus be NLTE effects in the line radiative transfer which require collisional cross sections for modelling, NLTE effects in the statistical equilibrium of molecular abundances which require modelling of photodissociation, and maybe even dynamic modelling of molecular formation is required to properly model the formation of CO and OH lines.

## 5 Conclusions

For those in quest of accurate oxygen abundances of solar-type stars, it should be noted that:

* NLTE effects are utterly unimportant for the forbidden oxygen lines.
* The 777 nm triplet lines are not formed in LTE. NLTE effects will not change the slopes in the \[O/Fe\]–\[Fe/H\] diagrams very much, but they will surely influence the error bars because of the uncertainties in the collisional cross sections.
* The NLTE effects on the triplet are always expected to be negative. Thus LTE results define an extreme on the possible range of abundances, not a conservative mean hypothesis.
* NLTE effects on molecular lines should be investigated.

Martin Asplund is thanked for stimulating discussions as well as for comments on the manuscript.


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# Interactions, Currents, and the Structure of Few-Nucleon Systems

## 1 Introduction

Few-nucleon systems provide a unique opportunity for testing the simple, traditional picture of the nucleus as a system of point-like nucleons interacting among themselves via effective many-body potentials, and with external electro-weak probes via effective many-body currents. Through advances in computational techniques and facilities, the last few years have witnessed dramatic progress in numerically exact studies of the structure and dynamics of systems with mass number $`A8`$, including energy spectra of low-lying states, momentum distributions and cluster amplitudes, elastic and inelastic electromagnetic form factors, $`\beta `$-decays, radiative and weak capture reactions at low energies, inclusive response to hadronic and electro-weak probes at intermediate energies.

In the present talk, I will review the “nuclear standard model”outlined above, and present the extent to which it is successful in predicting some of the nuclear properties alluded to earlier. Of course, given the limited time, some of the theoretical and experimental developments will be treated cursorily. Nevertheless, I still hope to be able to convey a broad view of the intriguing and important studies in few-nucleon physics today.

## 2 Potentials and Energy Spectra

The Hamiltonian in the nuclear standard model is written as

$$H=\underset{i}{}K_i+\underset{i<j}{}v_{ij}+\underset{i<j<k}{}V_{ijk},$$
(1)
where the kinetic energy operator $`K_i`$ has charge-independent and charge-symmetry-breaking components due to the difference in proton and neutron masses, and $`v_{ij}`$ and $`V_{ijk}`$ are two- and three-nucleon potentials.

The two-nucleon potential consists of a long range part due to pion exchange, and a short-range part parameterized either in terms of heavy meson exchanges as, for example, in the Bonn potential , or via suitable operators and strength functions, as in the Argonne $`v_{18}`$ (AV18) potential . The short-range terms in these potentials are then constrained to fit $`pp`$ and $`np`$ scattering data up to energies of $``$ 350 MeV in the laboratory, and the deuteron binding energy. The modern models mentioned above provide fits to the Nijmegen data-base  characterized by $`\chi ^2`$ per datum very close to one, and should therefore be viewed as phase-equivalent. The AV18 model is most widely used; it has the form

$`v_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`v_{ij}^\pi +v_{ij}^R`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{p=1,18}{}}v^p(r_{ij})O_{ij}^p,`$
where the first fourteen operators are isoscalar,

$$O_{ij}^{p=114}=[1,\sigma _i\sigma _j,S_{ij},(𝐋𝐒)_{ij},𝐋^2,𝐋^2\sigma _i\sigma _j,(𝐋𝐒)_{ij}^2][1,\tau _i\tau _j],$$
(3)
while the last four isospin-symmetry-breaking operators have isovector and isotensor character,

$$O_{ij}^{p=1518}=T_{ij},\sigma _i\sigma _jT_{ij},S_{ij}T_{ij},(\tau _i+\tau _j)_z.$$
(4)
Here $`S_{ij}`$ is the tensor operator, and $`T_{ij}`$ is defined as $`T_{ij}=3\tau _{iz}\tau _{jz}\tau _i\tau _j`$. Unique among the modern potentials, the AV18 includes a fairly complete treatment of the electromagnetic interaction, since it retains, in addition to the leading Coulomb term, also contributions from magnetic moment interactions, vacuum polarization and two-photon exchange corrections. These terms, while typically very small (for example, in the deuteron the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction gives 18 keV extra repulsion ), need to be taken into account when very accurate predictions are required, as in the case, for example, of studies of energy differences of isomultiplet states , or the cross section for proton weak capture on proton at keV energies .

It is now well established that two-nucleon potentials alone underbind nuclei : for example, the AV18 and Bonn models give , in numerically exact calculations, binding energies of 24.28 MeV and 26.26 MeV respectively, which should be compared to the experimental value of 28.3 MeV. Moreover, 6Li and 7Li are unstable against breakup into $`\alpha `$$`d`$ and $`\alpha `$$`t`$ clusters, respectively, and that energy differences are not, in general, well predicted, when only two-nucleon potentials are retained in the Hamiltonian.

Important components of the three-nucleon potential arise from the internal structure of the nucleon. Since all degrees of freedom other than the nucleon have been integrated out, the presence of virtual $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonances, for example, induces three-nucleon potentials. They are written as

$$V_{ijk}=V_{ijk}^{2\pi }+V_{ijk}^R,$$
(5)
where $`V^{2\pi }`$ is the “long-range”term, resulting from the intermediate excitation of a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with pion exchanges involving the other two nucleons, known as the Fujita-Miyazawa term . This term is present in all models, such as the Tucson-Melbourne potential  or the series of Urbana models . The Urbana models parameterize $`V^R`$ as

$$V^R=A^R\underset{\mathrm{cyclic}ijk}{}T_\pi ^2(r_{ij})T_\pi ^2(r_{jk}),$$
(6)
where $`T_\pi (r)`$ is the strength function of the pion-exchange tensor interaction. This term is meant to simulate the dispersive effects that are required when integrating out $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ degrees of freedom. The strengths of the Fujita-Miyazawa and dispersive terms are then determined, in the Urbana models, by fitting the triton binding energy and the saturation density of nuclear matter.

The Hamiltonian consisting of the AV18 two-nucleon and Urbana-IX three-nucleon potentials (AV18/UIX) predicts reasonably well the low-lying energy spectra of systems with $`A8`$ nucleons in “exact”Green’s function Monte Carlo calculations . The experimental binding energies of the $`\alpha `$ particle is exactly reproduced, while those of the $`A`$=6–8 systems are underpredicted by a few percent. This underbinding becomes (relatively) more and more severe as the neutron-proton asymmetry increases. An additional failure of this Hamiltonian model is the underprediction of spin-orbit splittings in the excitation spectra of these light systems. These failures have in fact led to the development of new three-nucleon interaction models . These newly developed models, denoted as Illinois models, incorporate the Fujita-Miyazawa and dispersive terms discussed above, but include in addition multipion exchange terms involving excitation of one or two $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$’s, so-called pion-ring diagrams, as well as the terms arising from S-wave pion rescattering, required by chiral symmetry.

## 3 The Nuclear Electromagnetic Current

The nuclear current operator consists of one- and many-body terms that operate on the nucleon degrees of freedom:

$$𝐣(𝐪)=\underset{i}{}𝐣_i^{(1)}(𝐪)+\underset{i<j}{}𝐣_{ij}^{(2)}(𝐪)+\underset{i<j<k}{}𝐣_{ijk}^{(3)}(𝐪),$$
(7)
where $`𝐪`$ is the momentum transfer, and the one-body operator $`𝐣_i^{(1)}`$ has the standard expression in terms of single-nucleon convection and magnetization currents. The two-body current operator has “model-independent”and “model-dependent”components (for a review, see Ref. ). The model-independent terms are obtained from the charge-independent part of the AV18, and by construction satisfy current conservation with this interaction. The leading operator is the isovector “$`\pi `$-like”current obtained from the isospin-dependent spin-spin and tensor interactions. The latter also generate an isovector “$`\rho `$-like ”current, while additional model-independent isoscalar and isovector currents arise from the central and momentum-dependent interactions. These currents are short-ranged and numerically far less important than the $`\pi `$-like current. Finally, models for three-body currents have been derived in Ref. , however the associated contributions have been found to be very small in studies of the magnetic structure of the trinucleons .

The model-dependent currents are purely transverse and therefore cannot be directly linked to the underlying two-nucleon interaction. Among them, those associated with the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-isobar are the most important ones in the momentum-transfer regime being discussed here. These currents are treated within the transition-correlation-operator (TCO) scheme , a scaled-down approach to a full $`N`$+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ coupled-channel treatment. In the TCO scheme, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ degrees of freedom are explicitly included in the nuclear wave functions by writing

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{N+\mathrm{\Delta }}=\left[𝒮\underset{i<j}{}\left(1+U_{ij}^{TR}\right)\right]\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the purely nucleonic component, $`𝒮`$ is the symmetrizer and the transition correlations $`U_{ij}^{TR}`$ are short-range operators, that convert $`NN`$ pairs into $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }`$ pairs. In the results reported here, the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is taken from CHH solutions of the AV18/UIX Hamiltonian with nucleons only interactions, while the $`U_{ij}^{TR}`$ is obtained from two-body bound and low-energy scattering state solutions of the full $`N`$-$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ coupled-channel problem. Both $`\gamma N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $`M_1`$ couplings are considered with their values, $`\mu _{\gamma N\mathrm{\Delta }}=3`$ n.m. and $`\mu _{\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }}=4.35`$ n.m., obtained from data .

## 4 The $`p`$$`d`$ Radiative Capture

There are now available many high-quality data, including differential cross sections, vector and tensor analyzing powers, and photon polarization coefficients, on the $`pd`$ radiative capture at c.m. energies ranging from 0 to 2 MeV . These data indicate that the reaction proceeds predominantly through S- and P-wave capture. The aim here is to verify the extent to which they can be described satisfactorily by a calculation based on a realistic Hamiltonian (the AV18/UIX model) and a current operator constructed consistently with the two- and three-nucleon interactions .

The predicted angular distributions of the differential cross section $`\sigma (\theta )`$, vector and tensor analyzing powers $`A_y(\theta )`$ and $`T_{20}(\theta )`$, and photon linear polarization coefficient $`P_\gamma (\theta )`$ are compared with the TUNL data below 50 keV from Refs.  in Fig 1. The agreement between the full theory, including many-body current contributions, and experiment is generally good. However, a closer inspection of the figure reveals the presence of significative discrepancies between theory and experiment in the small angle behavior of $`\sigma (\theta )`$ and $`T_{20}(\theta )`$, as well as in the $`S`$-factor below 40 keV . The S-wave capture proceeds mostly through the $`M_1`$ transitions connecting the doublet and quartet $`pd`$ states to 3He–the associated reduced matrix elements (RMEs) are denoted by $`m_2`$ and $`m_4`$, respectively. The situation for P-wave capture is more complex, although at energies below 50 keV it is dominated by the $`E_1`$ transitions from the doublet and quartet $`pd`$ states having channel spin $`S`$=1/2, whose RMEs I denote as $`p_2`$ and $`p_4`$. The $`E_1`$ transitions involving the channel spin $`S=3/2`$ states, while smaller, do play an important role in $`T_{20}(\theta )`$.

The TUNL  and Wisconsin  groups have determined the leading $`M_1`$ and $`E_1`$ RMEs via fits to the measured observables. The results of this fitting procedure are compared with the calculated RMEs in Table 1. The phase of each RME is simply related to the elastic $`pd`$ phase shift , which at these low energies is essentially the Coulomb phase shift. As can be seen from Table 1, the most significant differences between theoretical and experimental RMEs are found for $`|p_4|`$. The theoretical overprediction of $`p_4`$ is the cause of the discrepancies mentioned above in the low-energy ($`50`$ keV) $`S`$-factor and small angle $`\sigma (\theta )`$.

It is interesting to analyze the ratio $`r_{E1}|p_4/p_2|^2`$. Theory gives $`r_{E1}1`$, while from the fit it results that $`r_{E1}0.74\pm 0.04`$. It is important to stress that the calculation of these RMEs is not influenced by uncertainties in the two-body currents, since their values are entirely given by the long-wavelength form of the $`E_1`$ operator (Siegert’s theorem), which has no spin-dependence (for a thorough discussion of the validity of the long-wavelength approximation in $`E_1`$ transitions, particularly suppressed ones, see Ref. ). It is therefore of interest to examine more closely the origin of the above discrepancy. If the interactions between the $`p`$ and $`d`$ clusters are switched off, the relation $`r_{E1}1`$ then simply follows from angular momentum algebra. Deviations of this ratio from one are therefore to be ascribed to differences induced by the interactions in the $`S`$=1/2 doublet and quartet wave functions. The AV18/UIX interactions in these channels do not change the ratio above significantly. It should be emphasized that the studies carried out up until now ignore, in the continuum states, the effects arising from electromagnetic interactions beyond the static Coulomb interaction between protons. It is not clear whether the inclusion of these long-range interactions, in particular their spin-orbit component, could explain the splitting between the $`p_2`$ and $`p_4`$ RMEs observed at very low energy. This discrepancy seems to disappear at 2 MeV .

Finally, the doublet $`m_2`$ RME is underpredicted by theory at the 5 % level. On the other hand, the cross section for $`n`$$`d`$ capture at thermal neutron energy is calculated to be 578 $`\mu `$b with the AV18/UIX model, which is 15 % larger than the experimental value (508$`\pm `$15) $`\mu `$. Of course, $`M_1`$ transitions, particularly doublet ones, are significantly influenced by many-body current contributions. Indeed, an analysis of the isoscalar ($`\mu _S`$) and isovector ($`\mu _V`$) magnetic moments of the trinucleons  suggests that the present model for the isoscalar two-body currents, constructed from the AV18 spin-orbit and quadratic-momentum dependent interactions, tends to overestimate $`\mu _S`$ by about 5 %. The experimental value for $`\mu _V`$, however, is almost perfectly reproduced. It appears that the present model for two-body currents needs to be improved.

## 5 The Nuclear Weak Current and the $`p^3`$He Weak Capture

The nuclear weak current and charge operators consist of vector and axial-vector parts, with corresponding one- and many-body components. The weak vector current and charge are constructed from the corresponding (isovector) electromagnetic terms, in accordance with the conserved-vector-current hypothesis, and thus have  “model-independent”and “model-dependent”components. The former are determined by the interactions, the latter include the transverse currents associated with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation.

The leading many-body terms in the axial current, in contrast to the case of the weak vector (or electromagnetic) current, are those due to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation, which are treated within the TCO scheme, discussed above. The axial charge operator includes the long-range pion-exchange term , required by low-energy theorems and the partially-conserved-axial-current relation, as well as the (expected) leading short-range terms constructed from the central and spin-orbit components of the nucleon-nucleon interaction .

The largest model dependence is in the weak axial current. The $`N`$$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ axial coupling constant $`g_A^{}`$ is not well known. In the quark-model, it is related to the axial coupling constant of the nucleon by the relations $`g_A^{}=(6\sqrt{2}/5)g_A`$. This value has often been used in the literature in the calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-induced axial current contributions to weak transitions. However, given the uncertainties inherent to quark-model predictions, a more reliable estimate for $`g_A^{}`$ is obtained by determining its value phenomenologically. It is well established by now  that one-body axial currents lead to a $``$ 4 % underprediction of the measured Gamow-Teller matrix element in tritium $`\beta `$-decay. This small 4 % discrepancy can then be used to determine $`g_A^{}`$ . While this procedure is inherently model dependent, its actual model dependence is in fact very weak, as has been shown in Ref. .

The calculated values for the astrophysical $`S`$-factor in the energy range 0–10 keV are listed in Table 2 . Inspection of the table shows that: (i) the energy dependence is rather weak, the value at $`10`$ keV is only about 4 % larger than that at $`0`$ keV; (ii) the P-wave capture states are found to be important, contributing about 40 % of the calculated $`S`$-factor. However, the contributions from D-wave channels are expected to be very small, as explicitly verified in 3D1 capture. (iii) The many-body axial currents associated with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation play a crucial role in the (dominant) 3S1 capture, where they reduce the $`S`$-factor by more than a factor of four; thus the destructive interference between the one- and many-body current contributions, obtained in Ref. , is confirmed in the study of Ref. , based on more accurate wave functions. The (suppressed) one-body contribution comes mostly from transitions involving the D-state components of the 3He and 4He wave functions, while the many-body contributions are predominantly due to transitions connecting the S-state in 3He to the D-state in 4He, or viceversa.

The chief conclusion of Ref.  is that the $`hep`$ $`S`$-factor is predicted to be $``$ 4.5 times larger than the value adopted in the standard solar model (SSM) . This enhancement, while very significant, is smaller than that first suggested in Ref. . Even though this result is inherently model dependent, it is unlikely that the model dependence is large enough to accommodate a drastic increase in the value obtained here. Indeed, calculations using Hamiltonians based on the AV18 two-nucleon interaction only and the older AV14/UVIII two- and three-nucleon interactions  predict zero energy $`S`$-factor values of $`12.1\times 10^{20}`$ keV b and $`10.2\times 10^{20}`$ keV b, respectively. It should be stressed, however, that the AV18 model, in contrast to the AV14/UVIII, does not reproduce the experimental binding energies and low-energy scattering parameters of the three- and four-nucleon systems. The AV14/UVIII prediction is only 6 % larger than the AV18/UIX zero-energy result. This 6 % variation should provide a fairly realistic estimate of the theoretical uncertainty due to the model dependence. The precise calculation of the $`S`$-factor and the consequent absolute prediction for the $`hep`$ neutrino flux should allow much greater discrimination among proposed solar neutrino oscillation solutions .

## 6 Conclusions and Acknowledgments

Improvements in the modeling of two- and three-nucleon interactions and nuclear electro-weak currents, and the significant progress made in the last few years in the description of bound and continuum wave functions, make it now possible to perform first-principle calculations of interesting nuclear properties of light nuclei. Experimentally known electromagnetic and weak transitions of systems in the mass range $`2A8`$ provide powerful constraints on models of nuclear currents.

I wish to thank J. Carlson, A. Kievsky, L.E. Marcucci, V.R. Pandharipande, S.C. Pieper, D.O. Riska, S. Rosati, M. Viviani, and R.B. Wiringa for their many important contributions to the work reported here. This work was supported by DOE contract DE-AC05-84ER40150 under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.


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# References

Skyrme introduced in the sixties a very original idea which nowadays is widely used in Physics and Mathematics, that the classical soliton solutions of a given field theory may correspond to particles in its quantum spectrum. He proposed a theory, now called Skyrme model , to describe the low energy interactions of hadrons, where the nucleons are interpreted as topological solitons. The model found applications not only in Nuclear Physics, but also in Particle and Condensed Matter Physics . The theory received a boost in the eighties when it was shown to correspond indeed to the low energy limit of QCD for large $`N_c`$ . The soliton solutions have been calculated by numerical methods  and there is now a vast amount of evidence that Skyrme’s first spherical Ansatz (the hedgehog) does lead to the solutions of unit topological charge. The generalizations of that Ansatz based on rational maps lead to good approximations of the minimal energy solutions . Such Ansätze are inspired in the BPS monopoles by sharing its symmetries and instanton methods. But unlike the well understood instantons, one easily shows that in three space dimensions skyrmions cannot saturate self-duality bounds. The non-existence of a BPS type sector is perhaps one of the factors preventing the development of exact methods for the Skyrme model. In this letter we propose a way of addressing such problems by showing that there exist a submodel in the Skyrme theory possessing an infinite number of local conserved currents. They form in fact a continuous set of currents since they are parametrized by special functionals of the fields. The submodel is constructed by imposing Lorentz invariant constraints following the methods of  for studying integrable theories in any dimension. The constraints explore a suitable decomposition of the $`SU(2)`$ group elements where the Skyrme’s fields are a complex scalar field $`u`$ parametrizing the symmetric space $`SU(2)/U(1)`$ and a real scalar field $`\zeta `$ parametrizing the $`U(1)`$ subgroup. It turns out that, in the static case, particular solutions to the constraints are obtained by taking $`\zeta `$ to depend only upon the radial variable $`r`$, and $`u`$ to be a meromorphic function of a complex variable $`z`$, built out of the two angles of the spherical polar coordinates. The original Skyrme hedgehog Ansätze for topological charges $`\pm 1`$ fall into such class of configurations and so solve our constraints. We proof that they solve indeed our submodel equations of motion. The candidates for higher charges solutions were constructed numerically in , and it would be very interesting to verify if they satisfy our constraint. We point out that the existence of such submodel containing the Skyrme’s hedgehog and possessing an infinite number of conservation laws is highly non-trivial. It became possible now, about forty years after Skyrme’s original paper, due to the recent developments on the study of integrable theories in higher dimensions .

Another interesting point is that the generalizations to higher charges of the original Skyrme’s hedgehog obtained through the rational map Ansätze are particular solutions of our constraints. We show that such configurations can not be solutions of Skyrme’s model. However, since they provide approximations to the numerical candidates to true solutions , our constraints may give hints on how to correct them to obtain of a new Ansätze for higher charges solutions.

In any case, our results establish an interesting connection between soliton solutions and infinite number of conservation laws in $`3+1`$ field theory of great interest in Physics. Similar results have already been found for the Skyrme-Faddeev model  and other related $`(3+1)`$-dimensional theories defined on $`S^2`$ , as well as in theories defined on homogenous spaces like $`CP^N`$ and chiral models .

The Lagrangian density for the Skyrme model, with the pion mass set to zero, can be written as 111We are using the space-time metric $`ds^2=\left(dt\right)^2\left(d\stackrel{}{x}\right)^2`$, and so the relative signs in the Lagrangian are set by the positivity of the energy. :

$$L=\frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}tr\left(U^{}_\mu UU^{}^\mu U\right)\frac{1}{32e^2}tr[U^{}_\mu U,U^{}_\nu U]^2$$
(1)
where $`f_\pi `$ and $`e`$ are phenomenological constants, and $`U`$ is a $`SU(2)`$ unitary matrix. The equations of motion derived from this Lagrangian are:

$$^\mu J_\mu =0;\mathrm{with}J_\mu U^{}_\mu U\lambda [U^{}^\nu U,[U^{}_\mu U,U^{}_\nu U]]$$
(2)
where $`\lambda =\frac{1}{4e^2f_\pi ^2}`$.

We shall use a special parametrization of the fields of Skyrme model which leads quite naturally to a submodel possessing an infinite number of conservation laws and containing the unit charge soliton solutions. Denote $`Ue^{i\zeta _j\tau _j}`$, where $`\tau _j`$, $`j=1,2,3`$, are the Pauli matrices. Then one gets that

$$U=e^{i\zeta T}=\text{1}\text{l}\mathrm{cos}\zeta +iT\mathrm{sin}\zeta $$
(3)
where $`\zeta \sqrt{\zeta _1^2+\zeta _2^2+\zeta _3^2}`$, and

$`T{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+u^2}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}u^21& 2iu\\ 2iu^{}& 1u^2\end{array}\right)`$ (6)
The complex field $`u`$ is obtained by making the stereographic projection of the unit vector $`\zeta _i/\zeta `$, as

$$\frac{\stackrel{}{\zeta }}{\zeta }\frac{1}{1+u^2}(i\left(uu^{}\right),u+u^{},u^21)$$
(7)
The matrix $`T`$ is conjugated to $`\tau _3=\mathrm{diag}(1,1)`$ as

$`T=W^{}\tau _3W;W{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1+u^2}}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& iu\\ iu^{}& 1\end{array}\right)`$ (10)
and consequently we get the decomposition of the $`SU(2)`$ group elements

$$U=W^{}e^{i\zeta \tau _3}W$$
(11)
Therefore,

$$U^{}_\mu U=W^{}\left(i_\mu \zeta \tau _3+\frac{2\mathrm{sin}\zeta }{1+u^2}\left(e^{i\zeta }_\mu u\tau _+e^{i\zeta }_\mu u^{}\tau _{}\right)\right)W$$
(12)
with $`\tau _\pm =\left(\tau _1\pm i\tau _2\right)/2`$. Denoting $`J_\mu W^{}B_\mu W`$, it follows that Skyrme’s equations of motion are then written as

$$D^\mu B_\mu =^\mu B_\mu +[A^\mu ,B_\mu ]=0$$
(13)
with

$`A_\mu `$ $``$ $`_\mu WW^{}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+u^2}}\left(i_\mu u\tau _+i_\mu u^{}\tau _{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(u_\mu u^{}u^{}_\mu u\right)\tau _3\right)`$
$`B_\mu `$ $``$ $`iR_\mu \tau _3+{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}\zeta }{1+u^2}}\left(e^{i\zeta }S_\mu \tau _+e^{i\zeta }S_\mu ^{}\tau _{}\right)`$ (15)
where

$`R_\mu `$ $``$ $`_\mu \zeta 8\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}}\left(N_\mu +N_\mu ^{}\right)`$
$`S_\mu `$ $``$ $`_\mu u+4\lambda \left(M_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}}K_\mu \right)`$ (16)
and

$`K_\mu `$ $``$ $`\left(^\nu u_\nu u^{}\right)_\mu u\left(_\nu u\right)^2_\mu u^{}`$
$`M_\mu `$ $``$ $`\left(^\nu u_\nu \zeta \right)_\mu \zeta \left(_\nu \zeta \right)^2_\mu u`$
$`N_\mu `$ $``$ $`\left(^\nu u_\nu u^{}\right)_\mu \zeta \left(_\nu \zeta ^\nu u\right)_\mu u^{}`$ (17)
Notice that $`B_\mu `$ has a vanishing covariant divergence w.r.t. a flat connection $`A_\mu `$. It has been shown in  that this corresponds to a local zero curvature condition generalizing to higher dimensions the well known two dimensional Lax-Zakharov-Shabat equation. An important point of the formalism in  is that $`B_\mu `$ should transform under some representation of the algebra defined by $`A_\mu `$. In fact, the number of conserved currents is equal to the dimension of the representation. The Skyrme model has three conserved currents and the representation relevant is the triplet. Indeed, (15) lies in the adjoint of $`SU(2)`$. There is a systematic algebraic procedure  to find additional conditions for the construction to hold true in an infinite number of representations. However one can directly obtain a submodel of the Skyrme theory with an infinite number of local conserved currents by imposing the following constraints222These constraints will suppress the higher spin terms in the commutator in (13) when extending the representation where $`B_\mu `$ lies, beyond the triplet.

$$S_\mu ^\mu u=0;R_\mu ^\mu u=0$$
(18)
and their complex conjugates. Using (17) one notices that $`K_\mu ^\mu \zeta =N_\mu ^{}^\mu u`$, $`M_\mu ^\mu \zeta =0`$, and $`N_\mu ^\mu u=0`$333Other useful relations are: $`K_\mu ^\mu u=0`$, $`M_\mu ^\mu u^{}+N_\mu ^\mu \zeta =0`$. Consequently the second constraint in (18) can also be written as

$$S_\mu ^\mu \zeta =0$$
(19)
By substituting the constraints into (13), or equivalently (2), one finds the equations of motion for the submodel to be

$$^\mu S_\mu =0;^\mu R_\mu =\frac{4\mathrm{sin}\zeta \mathrm{cos}\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}\left(S_\mu ^\mu u^{}\right)$$
(20)
where we have used the fact that $`S_\mu ^\mu u^{}=S_\mu ^{}^\mu u`$.

The construction of an infinite number of conserved currents is now quite simple. Consider the quantity

$$𝒥_\mu G_1(\zeta ,u,u^{})S_\mu +G_2(\zeta ,u,u^{})S_\mu ^{}+G_3(u,u^{})R_\mu $$
(21)
with $`G_i`$ being arbitrary functionals of the fields as shown in (21), but not of their derivatives. Using (18), (19) and (20) one gets

$$^\mu 𝒥_\mu =\left(\frac{\delta G_1}{\delta u^{}}+\frac{\delta G_2}{\delta u}+\frac{4\mathrm{sin}\zeta \mathrm{cos}\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}G_3\right)\left(S_\mu ^\mu u^{}\right)$$
(22)
Therefore, by choosing the functionals such that

$$\frac{\delta G_1}{\delta u^{}}+\frac{\delta G_2}{\delta u}+\frac{4\mathrm{sin}\zeta \mathrm{cos}\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}G_3=0$$
(23)
one gets that $`𝒥_\mu `$ is conserved. There are basically two classes of conserved currents. The first one corresponds to the choice $`G_1=\frac{\delta G}{\delta u}`$, $`G_2=\frac{\delta G}{\delta u^{}}`$ and $`G_3=0`$, leading to the currents

$$𝒥_\mu ^G=\frac{\delta G}{\delta u}S_\mu \frac{\delta G}{\delta u^{}}S_\mu ^{}$$
(24)
with $`G`$ being an arbitrary functional of $`\zeta `$, $`u`$ and $`u^{}`$, but not of their derivatives. The second class corresponds to the choice $`G_a=4\mathrm{sin}\zeta \mathrm{cos}\zeta H_a(u,u^{})`$, with $`a=1,2`$, and $`G_3=\left(1+u^2\right)^2\left(\frac{\delta H_1}{\delta u^{}}+\frac{\delta H_2}{\delta u}\right)`$, leading to the currents

$$𝒥_\mu ^{(H_1,H_2)}=4\mathrm{sin}\zeta \mathrm{cos}\zeta \left(H_1S_\mu +H_2S_\mu ^{}\right)\left(1+u^2\right)^2\left(\frac{\delta H_1}{\delta u^{}}+\frac{\delta H_2}{\delta u}\right)R_\mu $$
(25)
with $`H_a`$ being arbitrary functionals of $`u`$ and $`u^{}`$, but not of their derivatives. The three Noether currents $`J_\mu `$ in (2) are linear combinations of currents belonging to the two classes (24) and (25).

In terms of the fields, the first constraint in (18), namely $`S_\mu ^\mu u=0`$, reads

$$\left(_\mu u\right)^2=4\lambda \frac{\left(_\mu u^\mu \zeta \right)^2}{14\lambda \left(_\nu \zeta \right)^2}$$
(26)
and the second constraint in (18), after $`\left(_\mu u\right)^2`$ is eliminated using (26), reads

$$\left(_\mu u^\mu \zeta \right)\left(18\lambda \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}\left(_\nu u^\nu u^{}+4\lambda \frac{\left(_\nu u^\nu \zeta \right)\left(_\rho u^{}^\rho \zeta \right)}{14\lambda \left(_\sigma \zeta \right)^2}\right)\right)=0$$
(27)
Therefore, the conditions

$$\left(^\mu u\right)^2=0;^\mu \zeta _\mu u=0$$
(28)
are sufficient for the constraints (18) to be satisfied. In the static case however, the conditions (28) are equivalent to the constraints (26) and (27). Indeed, one can easily show, using the real part of (26), that for fields not depending upon time

$`1`$ $``$ $`8\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}}\left(_\nu u^\nu u^{}+4\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\left(_\nu u^\nu \zeta \right)\left(_\rho u^{}^\rho \zeta \right)}{14\lambda \left(_\sigma \zeta \right)^2}}\right)=`$
$`1`$ $`+`$ $`16\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta \left(\stackrel{}{}u_1\right)^2}{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\left(\stackrel{}{}u_1\stackrel{}{}\zeta \right)^2}{\left(\stackrel{}{}u_1\right)^2\left(\stackrel{}{}\zeta \right)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\lambda \left(\stackrel{}{}\zeta \right)^2}{1+4\lambda \left(\stackrel{}{}\zeta \right)^2}}\right)1`$ (29)
where we have denoted $`u=u_1+iu_2`$, and $`\stackrel{}{}f`$ denotes the spatial gradient of $`f`$. Consequently, the constraints (26) and (27) can only be satisfied if

$$\stackrel{}{}u\stackrel{}{}u=0;\stackrel{}{}u\stackrel{}{}\zeta =0$$
(30)
Notice that the conditions (30) can be easily solved by an Ansatz which contains as a particular case the rational map Ansatz used to approximate the soliton solutions . We denote the three Cartesian space coordinates as $`x_i`$, $`i=1,2,3`$, and the radial variable as $`r\sqrt{x_1^2+x_2^2+x_3^2}`$. We shall use the stereographic projection to parametrize the points on a sphere of radius $`r`$ by a complex coordinate $`z`$. So we define

$$\frac{\stackrel{}{x}}{r}\frac{1}{1+z^2}(i\left(zz^{}\right),z+z^{},z^21)$$
(31)
The metric is then given by

$$ds^2=\left(dr\right)^2+\frac{4r^2}{\left(1+z^2\right)^2}dzdz^{}$$
(32)
We consider time independent solutions such that

$$\zeta =\zeta \left(r\right)u=u\left(z\right)u^{}=u^{}\left(z^{}\right)$$
(33)
Then due to the metric (32), it follows that (30), and consequently the constraints (18), are satisfied.

Let us now analyze the configurations (33) that satisfy the equations of motion (20) of the submodel. Substituting (33) into (16) one finds that

$`S_0=S_r=S_z^{}=0;S_z=\left(1+4\lambda \left(\left(_r\zeta \right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{r^2}}\beta \right)\right)_zu`$ (34)
where

$$\beta \frac{\left(1+z^2\right)^2}{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}_zu_z^{}u^{}$$
(35)
Then the first equation in (20) and its complex conjugate imply that

$$_z\beta =_z^{}\beta =0$$
(36)
Since by definition, $`\beta `$ is not a function of $`r`$, it follows that $`\beta =\mathrm{constant}`$. The second equation in (20) gives the equation for the profile function $`\zeta `$ as

$$\left(1+8\lambda \beta \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{r^2}\right)\zeta ^{\prime \prime }+4\lambda \beta \frac{\mathrm{sin}2\zeta }{r^2}\left(\zeta ^{}\right)^2+\frac{2}{r}\zeta ^{}\beta \frac{\mathrm{sin}2\zeta }{r^2}4\lambda \beta ^2\frac{\mathrm{sin}2\zeta \mathrm{sin}^2\zeta }{r^4}=0$$
(37)
Notice that due to (33) and (35) we can write

$$\frac{2idz^{}dz}{\left(1+z^2\right)^2}\beta =\frac{2idu^{}du}{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}$$
(38)
and so it follows that $`\beta `$ is the pull-back of the area form on the target sphere of the map $`zu`$. Therefore, the topological charge becomes

$$Q=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}\frac{2idu^{}dud\zeta }{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}=\frac{\beta }{4\pi ^2}\frac{2idz^{}dzdr}{\left(1+z^2\right)^2}\zeta ^{}=\beta \frac{\zeta \left(0\right)\zeta \left(\mathrm{}\right)}{\pi }$$
(39)
For the hedgehog solution $`u=z`$, and so $`\beta =1`$, the equation (37) becomes the well known ODE for the original Skyrme profile function. With the standard boundary conditions $`\zeta (\mathrm{})=0`$ and $`\zeta (0)=\pi `$, one then gets $`Q=1`$. In order to get the solution with $`Q=1`$ one has to interchange $`z`$ by $`z^{}`$ in (33) and take $`u=z^{}`$. Consequently, the Skyrmions with charges $`Q=\pm 1`$ are solutions of our submodel.

The question now is if there are other holomorphic solutions within the Ansatz (33). The answer is that only those configurations given by

$$u=\frac{az+b}{cz+d}adbc=1$$
(40)
lead to solutions, and therefore one obtains through (33) solutions of charge $`Q=\pm 1`$ only. Notice that (40) correspond to rotations of the solution $`u=z`$. The simplest way to prove it is to observe that the map $`zu`$ provided by the configuration implies that the metric on the two spheres are related by

$$\frac{dudu^{}}{\left(1+u^2\right)^2}=\beta \frac{dzdz^{}}{\left(1+z^2\right)^2}$$
(41)
But the only maps satisfying that are the modular transformations (40) which imply that $`\beta =1`$. Notice that the rational map Ansatz $`u=\frac{p\left(z\right)}{q\left(z\right)}`$, with $`p`$ and $`q`$ being polinomials in $`z`$ with degree higher than one, are particular cases of (33). Consequently they can not lead to exact solutions of the Skyrme model, even though they constitute good approximations to the minimal energy numerical configurations . It would be very interesting to check if the numerical higher charge solutions in  satisfy the static constraints (30), which has a much simpler form than the full constraints (18) since they do not involve the scale determined by the coupling constant $`\lambda `$. A positive outcome of such check would encourage the use of those constraints in the construction of new Ansätze for the higher charge solutions.

In conclusion, we have identified an integrable submodel containing the Skyrmions of charges $`Q=\pm 1`$, showing that they are the only solutions within the meromorphic Ansatz (33). The submodel, which is defined by the constraints (18) and equations of motion (20), possesses the infinite set of local conserved currents given by (24)-(25). That is our main result since it unravels an infinite symmetry inside the Skyrme model which opens ways to the construction of exact methods.

Acknowledgments. JSG gratefully acknowledges Fapesp (Proj. Temático 98/16315-9) for financial support and IFT/UNESP for hospitality. LAF is very grateful to the Dept. of Physics of Univ. Santiago de Compostela for the hospitality and acknowledges the financial support through the Spanish CICYT AEN99-0589 grant. We are grateful to O. Alvarez and P.M. Sutcliffe for discussions.


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# FUSE Observations of the Hottest DA White Dwarfs

## 1. Introduction

Very few true white dwarfs are known to have effective temperatures above $`70000`$K and, therefore, the proposed direct evolutionary link between H-rich CSPN and white dwarfs has hardly been explored. The discovery of several very hot DA white dwarfs with temperatures in excess of 70000K (e.g. REJ1738+665 - 90000K, Barstow et al. 1994; EGB1 - 100000K, Napiwotzki & Schönberner 1993; WDHS1 - 100000 to 160000K, Liebert, Bergeron & Tweedy 1994), through various observational programmes, provides an opportunity to study this upper range of the DA cooling sequence.

While Balmer line analyses (including the effect of metals) provide important measurements of the DA temperature scale, there remains a serious problem in their use to study the hottest DA stars. At effective temperatures in excess of $`50000`$K, the photospheric hydrogen is almost completely ionized. Hence, the populations of the levels involved in the Balmer line transitions are severely depleted and the observed line strengths extremely weak. As a result, at high temperatures, the values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ become increasingly poorly determined. The use of the Lyman series lines has provided an additional tool to determine $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and log g but only a limited number of observations have been available from the ORFEUS and Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) missions (e.g. Dupuis et al. 1998; Finley et al. 1997).

The availability of the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), covering the $`9001200`$Å wavelength range, presents us with an opportunity of obtaining many more Lyman series spectra for white dwarfs. We present FUSE observations of the very hot DA white dwarfs PG1342+444 and REJ0558$``$376, comparing the Balmer and Lyman series measurements of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. An important result is the first detection of photospheric OVI lines in the atmosphere of a DA white dwarf.

## 2. Far UV spectroscopy with FUSE

### 2.1. Observations and data reduction

The FUSE mission was placed in low Earth orbit on 1999 June 24. After several months of in-orbit checkout and calibration activities, science observations began during 1999 December. An overview of the FUSE mission has been given by Moos et al. (2000) and the spectrograph performance is described in detail by Sahnow et al. (2000). Further useful information is included in the FUSE Observer’s Guide (Oegerle et al. 1998) which can be found on the FUSE website (http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu) along with other technical documentation.

Several problems have been encountered during early in-orbit operations of the FUSE satellite which need to be taken account of in the data reduction process. Maintaining the coalignment of the individual spectral channels has been difficult, probably due to thermal effects. Sometimes, a target may completely miss the aperture of one or more channels, while being well-centred in the others. In addition, even if the channels are well-aligned at the beginning of an observation, the target may subquently drift out of any of the apertures. There are also several effects associated with the detectors and electronics, including deadspots and fixed-pattern efficiency variations. Potentially, these can lead to spurious absorption features in the processed data if they cut the dispersed spectrum at any point.

The FUSE observations of PG 1342+444 and RE J0558$``$376 were obtained during 2000 January 11/12 and 1999 December 10 respectively. Inspection of the combined FUSE spectra of each star shows the expected flux levels but reveals some discontinuities in the flux matching particular channel wavelength ranges. This indicates that in some channels the actual exposure time achieved does not match the nominal value, possibly arising from the source drifting out of the science aperture. Consequently, we examined each individual extracted and calibrated spectrum and developed our own approach to combining the various exposures and channels based on an assessment of the data quality. Since, the nominal wavelength binning ($`0.006`$Å) oversamples the true resolution by a factor of 2-3, all the spectra were re-binned to 0.02Å pixels for analysis. Barstow et al. (2000, in preparation) describe our procedure in much more detail.

Figure 1 shows the final merged spectra constructed from the best exposures in each spectral channel. A broad dip in the region above $`1160`$Å can be seen in each case, caused by a region of low instrumental efficiency known as the “worm” and which is not currently taken into account in the flux calibration. The short wavelength region (SiC channel) of the RE J0558$``$276 spectrum, below 990Å, is considerably noisier than the longer wavelength (LiF channel) data due to periods when the source drifted out of the SiC aperture during the exposure or was missed completely during acquisition of the target. A number of apparent emission features seen in PG 1342+444 are not stellar features but arise from geocoronal emission.

### 2.2. Detection of photospheric and interstellar features in FUSE spectra

It is not surprising that absorption lines from both the local ISM and the photosphere of the stellar sources are seen in the FUSE spectra. Such features have already been reported in the ORFEUS spectra of G191-B2B and RE J0457$``$281 (Vennes et al. 1996), including the detection of S and P, which are not seen in any other wavebands. However, ORFEUS was only able to observed a handful of WDs in its limited duration mission. With a planned mission lifetime of at least 2 years and a superior spectral resolution ($`\lambda /\delta \lambda =20,000\mathrm{cf}5,000`$), FUSE will provide a more comprehensive study of hot WDs and is capable of detecting weaker features.

The compressed wavelength scale of Figure 1 renders invisible all but the strongest absorption features. However, closer examination reveals many absorption lines. For example, the 1120 to 1130 region of the PG 1342+444 spectrum shows photospheric SiIV and PV together with interstellar CI and FeII (figure 2). These same species are seen in RE J0558$``$371, while photospheric CIV, SVI and FeVI are also detected in both objects.

Possibly the most interesting result is the presence of the OVI resonance absorption lines at 1031.912Å and 1037.613Å in both stars (figure 2), the first detection of OVI in any H-rich WD. This results also represents the first observation of these resonance features in any WD. Such a high oxygen ionization state is typically associated with the very hot PG1159 stars, being detected at optical wavelengths in those objects (e.g. Werner, Heber, & Hunger 1991). Hence, its appearance in a DA spectrum might appear to be something of a surprise since, at $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ 70,000K, PG 1342+444 and RE J0558$``$371 are considerably cooler. Nevertheless, the presence of OVI features is predicted by the model atmosphere calculations. Interestingly, OVI was not detected in the ORFEUS spectra of the cooler objects G191-B2B and RE J0457$``$281. Table 1 lists the photospheric abundances of all elements detected in the FUSE spectral range, determined using the latest non-LTE model calculations, and compares these with values measured from ORFEUS data for G191-B2B.

## 3. Determination of Temperature and Gravity

To measure the values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and log g from the Lyman lines visible in the FUSE spectra, we have adapted the standard technique we have used previously for Balmer line studies (e.g. Barstow et al. 1997b). All the lines ($`\beta ,\gamma ,\delta ,ϵ`$) included are fit simultaneously and an independent normalisation constant was applied to each, ensuring that the result was independent of the local slope of the continuum and reducing the effect of any systematic errors in the flux calibration of the spectra. We summarise the results of the Lyman line analyses in Table 2 and compare these with new Balmer line studies, utilising the same non-LTE heavy element-rich models, and earlier Balmer line work based on pure H atmospheres.

## 4. Discussion

As has been reported for cooler hot DA WDs (Barstow, Hubeny and Holberg 1998), the values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ measured with fully line blanketed, heavy element-rich, non-LTE model atmospheres are significantly lower than those reported for pure H analyses. Hence, we must conclude that, overall, the temperature scale of the very hottest white dwarfs such as PG 1342+444 and RE J0558$``$371 is lower than currently believed. Since these stars, together with other objects in our FUSE programme, were selected on the basis of their location in the temperature range between the hot DAs, such as G191-B2B, and the CPN, this result seems to reopen a gap between the CPN and the white dwarf cooling sequence. However, no CPN have yet been subjected to the same kind of analysis as that applied to these hot DAs. It seems likely that a similar reduction in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ will be found when such an analysis is carried out.

It is interesting to note that, the uncertainties in the values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ determined from the Lyman line work are lower than for the Balmer lines. This probably arises from the fact that the Balmer lines become increasingly weak at these high temperatures, whereas the Lyman lines are much less affected by this problem. The respective Lyman and Balmer line measurements are in good agreement for RE J0558$``$371 but there is a 10000K inconsistency between the two PG 1342+444 results. At the moment, this is difficult to explain as there are few examples of similar analyses with which to compare these results. The relative behaviour of Lyman and Balmer lines can be influenced by assumptions built into the model atmosphere calculations, although in this case we might expect to see differences for all stars. Alternatively, there may be signficant interstellar H opacity in PG 1342+444 which has not been properly accounted for in the analysis. Such material would increase the strength of the Lyman lines, leading to a lower value of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$.

## 5. Conclusion

We have presented observations of some of the hottest known white dwarfs made with the FUSE spectrometer. Detection of photospheric CIV, SiIV, OVI, PV, SVI and FeVI absorption lines allows us to estimate the abundances of these elements, the first such measurements reported for DA WDs at these high temperatures. The observed abundances are similar to those found in the somewhat cooler star G191-B2B ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$$`54000`$K). However, PG 1342+444 seems to have a large excess of C when compared to both REJ 0558$``$371 and G191-B2B. The OVI resonance lines are uniquely present in the FUSE wavelength range, and their detection in the PG 1342+444 and RE J0558$``$371 spectra is the first such report for any hot white dwarf.

The Balmer and Lyman line studies yield values of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ lower than reported for pure H Balmer line studies, as might be expected. The inconsistency between the PG 1342+444 Lyman and Balmer results sn an issue that requires further investigation. Forthcoming observations of the remaining targets in our sample will help examine whether or not the discrepancy originates in the model atmosphere calculations or arises from systematic effects due to interstellar absorption, or in the FUSE spectrometer calibration.

## Acknowledgements

The work reported in the papers was based on observations made with the FUSE observatory, operated on behalf of NASA by Johns Hopkins University. MAB, MRB and NPB were supported by PPARC, UK.

## References

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Finley, D.S., Koester, D., Kruk, J.W., Kimble, R.A., and Allard, N.F., 1997, in Proc 10th European Workshop on White Dwarfs, eds. J. Isern, M. Hernanz & E. Garcia-Berro (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 245.

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# Breakdown of the Internet under intentional attack

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the National Science Foundation for support, under grant PHY-9820569 (D.b.-A.).


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# Comment on “Intermittent Synchronization in a Pair of Coupled Chaotic Pendula”

In a recent Letter, Baker, Blackburn and Smith baker  reported that permanent synchronization of a pair of unidirectionally coupled identical chaotic pendula does not occur except as a numerical artifact arising from finite computational precisions. Baker et al. showed that the synchronization of a pair of unidirectionally coupled pendula is always intermittent, for any value of coupling coefficient $`c`$, by using their numerical and analytical tests. This was also found to be true in the case of coupled Duffing oscillators baker . However, on careful numerical analysis using Conditional Lyapunov Exponents (CLEs), we find that there exists some specific range of $`c`$ values for which persistent synchronization can occur for these systems.

The main point of this comment is to clarify the conditions under which coupled chaotic systems can exhibit permanent synchronization. According to Pecora and Carrollpecora , the master and slave systems will perfectly synchronize only if the sub-Lyapunov exponents or CLEs are all negative. The two analytic criteria mentioned in Ref. baker  for asymptotic stability are, (i) the largest eigenvalue of the Jacobian matrix corresponding to the flow evaluated on the synchronization manifold must always be negative and (ii) existence of a suitable Lyapunov function. However, it is not possible, in general, to show analytically the above two criteria are uniformly obeyed for all $`c`$ values for most of the chaotic systems, as shown in the case of coupled pendula (cf. Eqs. (9) and (11) of Ref. baker ). In such cases, it is always possible to compute the Lyapunov exponents of the coupled system for a range of $`c`$ values and show that the CLEs take large negative values for permanent synchronization.

We have computed the Lyapunov exponents for the coupled pendula and the Duffing oscillators using the standard Wolf et al. algorithm. For numerical simulations we have used the same parameter values as in Ref. baker  and used $`5000`$ drive cycles for calculations after leaving $`5000`$ drive cycles as transient. Figure 1(a) shows the variation of CLE as a function of $`c`$ for the coupled pendula and it takes negative values for $`0.796c<1.0`$ only. The CLE value for $`c=0.79`$ is $`+0.00320`$ ($`10^3`$), for which synchronization can not occur and hence the observed intermittent synchronization (cf. Fig. 1 in Ref. baker ) is a computer artifact. However, we find that for $`c=0.932`$, the CLE value becomes the lowest ($`0.06825`$) and is a large negative value for which intermittent synchronization is absent as shown in Fig. 1(b). This has been verified upto $`2\times 10^6`$ drive cycles with the addition of tiny noise levels showing that permanent synchronization does occur. The same phenomenon persists over a range of $`c`$ values close to $`0.932`$.

Similar arguments hold good for the coupled Duffing oscillator also and the results are shown in Figs. 1(c) and (d). The CLE takes small negative values close to zero ($`10^3`$) for $`c(1.48,1.64)`$ where synchronization is intermittent and numerical artifact arises in this range also. The CLE value for $`c=1.5`$ is $`0.00562`$ and hence the observed hard locking becomes intermittent with the addition of noise in the $`8`$-th digit (cf. Fig. 4 in Ref. baker ). In addition, there exists another range of $`c`$ values, $`2.74c3.84`$ where the CLEs are negative (cf. Fig. 1(c)). We find that for $`c=3.06`$, the CLE takes the lowest value of $`0.05967`$ (large negative value) for which persistent synchronization occurs and the intermittent synchronization is absent (cf. Fig. 1(d)). Again the same phenomenon persists over a range of $`c`$ values close to $`3.06`$.

In summary, the main aim of our comment is to emphasize that the conditional Lyapunov exponents play an important role in distinguishing between intermittent and persistent synchronization, when it is not possible to show analytically the criteria for asymptotic stability are uniformly obeyed. We find that intermittent synchronization can occur when CLEs are very small positive or negative values close to zero while persistent synchronization occurs when CLEs become sufficiently large negative values.

This work was supported by DST, Govt. of India (M.L. and S.P.), DAE-NBHM (M.L.) and CSIR (P.M.).


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# Magnetic Field Induced Low-Energy Spin Excitations in YBa2Cu4O8 Measured by High Field Gd3+ ESR

## Abstract

We have measured the spin susceptibility of the underdoped high temperature superconductor, YBa2Cu4O8 by Gd3+ electron spin resonance in single crystals and aligned powders at several magnetic fields between $`3`$ and $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$. At low temperatures and high fields, the spin susceptibility of the CuO2 planes is enhanced slightly in the $`Bc`$ orientation with respect to the $`Bc`$ orientation. The enhancement in an applied field of $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ ($`0.15H_{c2}`$) at $`16\mathrm{K}`$ ($`0.2T_c`$) is approximately 10 percent of the susceptibility measured at $`T_c`$. Such a small magnitude suggests that the second critical field of superconductivity, $`H_{c2}100\mathrm{T}`$, would not suppress the pseudogap. This work demonstrates the potential of high field ESR in single crystals for studying high $`T_c`$ superconductors.

The structure of vortex lines in high temperature superconductors (HTSCs) may shed light on the microscopic mechanism of superconductivity. The earliest $`d`$-wave pairing theories implied that the zero temperature spin susceptibility should scale with magnetic field as $`(B/H_{c2})^{1/2}`$ in contrast to the linear dependence in an $`s`$-wave superconductor. A rigorous solution of the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations in the mixed state reveals that quasiparticles in $`d`$-wave superconductors are not bound to vortices, and predict a space averaged density of states (DOS) $`N(0)(B/H_{c2})^\gamma `$, where $`0.4\gamma 1`$ depending on the temperature and the model used . A number of experiments were targeted at the field dependence of the DOS in YBa2Cu3O7-δ. Scanning tunneling microscopy resolves the DOS at and around vortices, but is unsuitable to measure the total DOS. Bulk experiments on nearly optimally doped YBa2Cu3O7-δ include heat capacity, infrared transmission, thermal conductivity, and high field muon spin rotation. Most of these experiments, together with early NMR on planar copper and oxygen, indicated some increase in the DOS with magnetic field but were inconclusive about its magnitude.

Underdoped HTSCs—which also possess a pseudogap in the normal state—are of special interest, as it is unclear how the pseudogap is related to the $`d`$-wave superconducting gap. An indication whether high magnetic fields suppress the pseudogap or not may contribute to understanding its nature. Also, most theoretical calculations of the quasiparticle spectra in HTSCs depend on the assumption that Landau’s theory of the Fermi-liquid is applicable below $`T_c`$, which is still to be justified by experiments. A recent 63Cu NMR study on YBa2Cu4O8 at high fields reports a sizeable field induced DOS for $`B`$ in the $`(a,b)`$ plane, implying a large enhancement for $`Bc`$. In contrast, we show that for $`Bc`$ the DOS enhancement is small and incompatible with a suppression of the pseudogap at $`B=H_{c2}`$.

In this Letter, we report the spin susceptibility of YBa2Cu4O8 obtained by high field electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy of Gd3+ in Gd:YBa2Cu4O8. Gd3+ is a non-perturbing probe of the CuO2 spin polarization. We search for low-energy spin excitations induced by high magnetic fields in the superconducting phase. Our goal is to determine the field dependence of the anisotropy of the susceptibility, $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c\chi _\mathrm{s}^{ab}`$, from the Gd3+ ESR shift. The anisotropy is a measure of the magnetic field induced DOS along $`c`$ since $`H_{c2}`$ in the $`(a,b)`$ plane is several times larger than in the $`c`$ direction. We measure both oriented powder (OP) and untwinned single crystal (SX) samples at several temperatures, frequencies, and magnetic field orientations. SX data are used to determine the zero field splitting (ZFS) parameters in the spin Hamiltonian of Gd3+ in Gd:YBa2Cu4O8 with precision. This allows us to model powder spectra and measure shifts in the OP sample in both $`Bc`$ and $`Bc`$ orientations with high accuracy. Diamagnetic effects inhibit SX measurements at low temperatures.

The experiments were carried out on the high field ESR spectrometers in Budapest and Grenoble. In Budapest, a quartz oscillator stabilized Gunn-diode was used as a mm-wave source at $`f`$=75, 150, and $`225\mathrm{GHz}`$. In Grenoble, we used the same setup with a Gunn-oscillator at 95, 190, and 285$`\mathrm{GHz}`$ and an optically pumped far infrared laser at 349 and $`429\mathrm{GHz}`$, and a sweepable 17 Tesla NMR magnet. The frequency of $`429\mathrm{GHz}`$ corresponds to $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ central Gd3+ resonance field. The radiation is transmitted through the sample in an oversized waveguide and no cavity is used. We detect the derivative of the absorption with respect to magnetic field. The magnetic field is calibrated by a reference sample, BDPA , at each sweep. The powder sample Gd:YBa2Cu4O8 was sintered by a standard solid state reaction, with 1% of Y substituted by Gd. The powder with a characteristic grain size of $`5\mu \mathrm{m}`$ was mixed with epoxy resin, and aligned in a magnetic field. SX samples of typical dimensions $`1\times 1\times 0.2\mathrm{mm}^3`$ were grown by self-flux method at $`1100^{}\mathrm{C}`$ in $`600\mathrm{atm}`$ of O2. $`T_c=80\mathrm{K}`$ in both the SX and the OP samples.

The exchange induced shift of the Gd3+ ESR lines is similar to the 89Y NMR Knight shift and yields the spin susceptibility of the CuO2 planes. We define the Gd3+ ESR shift, in analogy with the NMR notation as

$${}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }(B_0,T)=(B_m^\alpha (B_0,T)B_0)/B_0$$
(1)
with $`B_0=hf/g_0\mu _B`$, where $`f`$ is the microwave frequency and the arbitrary zero of $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K`$ is defined by $`g_0=1.9901`$. $`B_m^\alpha `$ is the measured resonance field as deduced from the measured positions of the Gd3+ lines (after correcting for the ZFS, i.e., $`B_m^\alpha `$ would be the resonance field of a similar probe with no ZFS). Then

$${}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }(B_0,T)=K_0^\alpha +{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A\chi _\mathrm{s}^\alpha (B_0,T)B_{\mathrm{dia}}^\alpha (B_0,T)/B_0,$$
(2)
where $`K_0^\alpha =(g_{\mathrm{Gd}}^\alpha g_0)/g_0`$ plays the role of the NMR chemical shift. We denote by $`g_{\mathrm{Gd}}^\alpha `$ the “pure” $`g`$-factor of Gd3+ in Gd:YBa2Cu4O8 from which the exchange with the CuO2 spins is eliminated. $`g_{\mathrm{Gd}}^\alpha `$ (thus $`K_0^\alpha `$) is independent of magnetic field and temperature, and its anisotropy is small. The spin susceptibility of the CuO2 planes is defined by $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^\alpha (B,T)=M_\mathrm{s}^\alpha (B,T)/B`$ where $`M_\mathrm{s}^\alpha `$ is the CuO2 spin magnetization. The Gd3+ shift due to the electronic exchange interaction between Gd3+ and CuO2 is linked to the susceptibility through the constant $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A15\mathrm{mole}/\mathrm{emu}`$ (in analogy with the NMR hyperfine constant). We neglect the anisotropy of $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A`$, since a comparison of the anisotropy of the shifts in the normal state YBa2Cu3O7 and antiferromagnetic YBa2Cu3O6 shows that the anisotropy of the product $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A\chi _\mathrm{s}^\alpha `$ is approximately 5%. $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^\alpha `$ is the bulk demagnetizing field of the supercurrents in the crystallites. In this work we shall estimate the vortex contribution to $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ at high magnetic fields from $`\mathrm{\Delta }B/B_0=({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{c}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{ab})(K_0^cK_0^{ab})={}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A(\chi _\mathrm{s}^c\chi _\mathrm{s}^{ab})(B_{\mathrm{dia}}^cB_{\mathrm{dia}}^{ab})/B_0`$. Here $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }`$ is measured directly (Eq. (1)), and $`K_0^cK_0^{ab}`$ is determined from the high field data at high temperatures. Unlike the <sup>89</sup>Y case, $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^\alpha `$ is not prohibitively large since $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}A`$ is ten times greater than the <sup>89</sup>Y hyperfine constant, $`{}_{}{}^{89}A`$.

The temperature independent ZFS parameters of the nearly pure S state $`S=7/2`$ Gd3+ ion were obtained from the SX data. The ZFS of Gd3+ is smaller than the Zeeman splitting in the fields employed and the spectrum consists of the 7 allowed fine structure transitions, whose relative positions depend little on the ESR frequency but are sensitive to the orientation of the sample with respect to magnetic field. Spectra of single crystals were recorded in the temperature range 30–$`70\mathrm{K}`$. Fig. 1(a) shows the 225 GHz spectra of an untwinned SX with magnetic field along the three crystalline axes at $`40\mathrm{K}`$. The principal axes of the spin Hamiltonian of the Gd3+ in its orthorhombic environment coincide with the crystalline axes. At $`40\mathrm{K}`$ Gd3+ ESR lines are narrow and about the same width for all transitions showing that there are no strains or inhomogeneities in the high quality crystals. Although the small microwave penetration depth necessitates a few hours of averaging for each spectrum, the potential to use Gd3+ ESR in small single crystals is clear, e.g., to measure internal fields around impurity atoms. The use of resonant cavities renders conventional X-band ESR spectrometers unsuitable to study the superconducting state. Although there are several reports on Gd3+ ESR in perovskites, we do not know of any other report on the ESR of HTSC single crystals below $`T_c`$. Measuring the positions of the lines with magnetic fields in several orientations and at three frequencies allows us to fit the ZFS parameters of Gd3+. Details of the spin Hamiltonian in a similar compound, YBa2Cu3O6+x, were published elsewhere. The spin Hamiltonian describes the SX spectra well, the difference between the calculated and measured line positions is always less than the line width. The simulated line positions as a function of orientation used for evaluating the OP spectra are indicated in Fig. 1(b).

Once the ZFS parameters are obtained from the SX, the Gd3+ shifts, $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }(B,T)`$, may be deduced with high accuracy from the OP spectra. To obtain the increase of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ with magnetic field we use $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }`$ measured at several $`T`$ and $`B`$ in both $`\alpha =c`$ and $`ab`$ directions as shown in Fig. 2. These data are uncorrected for reversible diamagnetic fields, while a small irreversibility in $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^\alpha `$ at low $`T`$ and low $`B`$ is eliminated by averaging $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{\alpha }`$ of spectra taken with field swept up and down at the same temperature. At low $`T`$ and high $`B`$ the central lines fade away, we could therefore measure the shift in $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ reliably only above $`15\mathrm{K}`$. The dependence of the normalized shift on the resonance frequency (Fig. 2) is in a large part caused by diamagnetic shielding. However, as shown below, in the $`c`$ direction at high fields there is also some contribution from the vortex spin susceptibility.

We assume that only $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ has a measurable field dependence at the fields employed, and that of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^{ab}`$ may be neglected. This is consistent with our main result below that the field dependence of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ is weak, since even if there is some field dependence of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^{ab}`$, it is significantly smaller than that of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$, because of the much higher $`H_{c2}^{(ab)}`$. Diamagnetic corrections to $`B_m^{ab}`$ are also smaller than to $`B_m^c`$ as $`\lambda _c\lambda _{ab}`$ holds for the penetration depths. The measured field dependence of $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{ab}`$ is weak (Fig. 2(b)), and at $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ we neglect the diamagnetic correction. At $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ the raw $`ab`$ data are already a good approximation of the spin susceptibility. Indeed, the shift at $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ decreases with temperature at low $`T`$ and the slope is close to that expected for a pure $`d`$-wave superconductor. In the weak coupling limit the low temperature slope of the susceptibility of a $`d`$-wave superconductor with $`T_c=80\mathrm{K}`$ corresponds to a $`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K`$ shift of $`10\mathrm{ppm}/\mathrm{K}`$.

Diamagnetic corrections are not negligible for lower fields and in the $`c`$ direction, and we estimate the field dependence of $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^c`$ from classical expressions and recent numerical results. Above the vortex lattice melting temperature the magnetic field inhomogeneity due to vortices is motionally averaged and $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^c`$ equals the bulk demagnetization, which is roughly proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(H_{c2}/B)`$. Therefore one expects a 15–30% reduction in $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}^c`$ from $`8`$ to $`15\mathrm{T}`$. Our bulk susceptibility measurements on the OP sample agree with such a reduction. A shift, $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_{\mathrm{saddle}}`$, in addition to demagnetization appears when the vortex lattice freezes, because the magnetic field distribution is asymmetric and peaked at the saddle point, which is different from the average field. For zero superconducting coherence length, $`\xi _{ab}=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_{\mathrm{saddle}}^{(0)}0.037\mathrm{\Phi }_0/\lambda _{ab}^23\mathrm{mT}`$ in a triangular vortex lattice with $`\lambda _{ab}=160\mathrm{nm}`$. However, numerical studies show that already in fields where the distance between vortices is much larger than $`\xi _{ab}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_{\mathrm{saddle}}`$ is reduced significantly. Corti et al. found a $`3\mathrm{mT}`$ field distribution due to vortices in a YBa2Cu4O8 aligned powder for $`Bc`$ at $`9.4\mathrm{T}`$ below $`10\mathrm{K}`$, and the corresponding shift is expected to be a fraction of this value.

Now we estimate the increase of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ at $`B=15.4\mathrm{T}`$ and $`T=16\mathrm{K}`$, the lowest temperature where experimental uncertainties are small at all fields. Fig. 3 shows $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{c}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}K_{}^{ab})B_0(K_0^cK_0^{ab})B_0`$, the anisotropy of the shifts as a function of field. In $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ the anisotropy of $`K_0^\alpha `$ is taken into account but it is uncorrected for reversible diamagnetic effects. The anisotropy of the “chemical shift” $`K_0^cK_0^{ab}=500\pm 70\mathrm{ppm}`$ was measured from the $`B_0=15.4\mathrm{T}`$ data at $`0.9T_c`$. Above this temperature a Korringa-like relaxational broadening of the Gd3+ lines reduces precision. This value of $`K_0^cK_0^{ab}`$ is consistent with what is found in the YBa2Cu3O6+x family. Fig. 3 shows that there is a small field dependent contribution to $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c(B_0,T)\chi _\mathrm{s}^{ab}(B_0,T)=(\mathrm{\Delta }BB_{\mathrm{dia}}^c(B_0,T))/{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{Gd}}AB_0`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }B`$ varies little with field, at higher fields it is constant or increases slightly. In Fig. 3 we illustrate the variation of the reversible diamagnetic shift using $`M_{\mathrm{dia}}(B)=M_{\mathrm{dia},0}\mathrm{ln}(H_{c2}/B)`$, assuming $`H_{c2}=100\mathrm{T}`$ and that the field dependence of $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c`$ is negligible below $`3\mathrm{T}`$, i.e., we slightly overestimate $`B_{\mathrm{dia}}`$. At $`15.4\mathrm{T}`$ the shift anisotropy is $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=4.5\pm 1.5\mathrm{mT}`$, while $`M_{\mathrm{dia}}2.3\mathrm{mT}`$. As seen in Fig. 3, the vortex contribution to $`\chi _\mathrm{s}^c(B_0=15.4\mathrm{T},T=16\mathrm{K})`$ is of the order of 10% of the normal state spin susceptibility at $`T_c`$.

According to the semiclassical scaling relations for the spin susceptibility derived by Kopnin and Volovik, and the more sophisticated study of Ichioka et al., in a $`d`$-wave superconductor $`\chi _\mathrm{s}(B/H_{c2})^\gamma `$ with $`\gamma =0.4`$ in the low temperature regime, and $`\gamma 1`$ in the low field regime. We are close to the crossover, $`15.4\mathrm{T}/H_{c2}16\mathrm{K}/T_c`$, but whatever $`\gamma `$ is in our case, the 10% enhancement implies that the spin susceptibility of the underdoped YBa2Cu4O8 below $`T_c`$ is restored to $`\chi _\mathrm{s}(T_c)`$ at maximum in a magnetic field of $`H_{c2}`$. Thus the pseudogap is little affected by magnetic fields that suppress superconductivity. Nowadays the most popular approach to explain the microscopic origin of the pseudogap is that it is associated with superconducting fluctuations above $`T_c`$. In a naive picture, in which the normal state spin gap were due to incoherent Cooper pairs, breaking of the pairs by a magnetic field would restore the spin susceptibility to the value measured at $`TT_c`$, which is approximately 3 times as much as $`\chi _\mathrm{s}(T_c)`$. Our result differs from that of Zheng et al. since they find an enhancement of the spin susceptibility with $`B`$ in the $`(a,b)`$ plane of similar magnitude as we do for $`Bc`$.

In conclusion we found that at $`TT_c`$ an applied field of $`0.15H_{c2}`$ enhanced the spin susceptibility of the underdoped YBa2Cu4O8 by only $`3`$% ($`10\%`$) of its normal state susceptibility measured at room temperature (at $`T_c`$). This suggests that even an applied field of $`H_{c2}`$ would not destroy the pseudogap.

We are indebted to J. R. Cooper for the static susceptibility measurements, and I. Tüttő for useful discussions. Support from the US-NSF-STCS (DMR-91-20000) and the Hungarian state grants OTKA 029150 and AKP 97-39-22 is acknowledged.