text:
# 1 Kinematics of the coherent hard dijet production 𝜋→2jets. The hard scattering amplitude 𝑇_𝐻 contains at least one hard gluon exchange.

1.  It has been conjectured a long time ago  that pion diffraction dissociation on a heavy nucleus $`\pi AXA`$ is sensitive to small transverse size configurations of pion constituents. It was later argued  that selecting a specific hadronic final state that consists of a pair of (quark) jets with large transverse momentum $`q_1q_2`$ one can obtain important insight into the pion structure as it turns out that the longitudinal momentum fraction distribution of the jets follows that of the pion valence parton constituents. A measurement of hard dijet coherent production on nuclei presents, therefore, the exciting possibility of a direct measurement of the pion distribution amplitude and provides striking evidence  that this distribution is close to its asymptotic form.

From the theoretical point of view, the principal question is whether the relevant transverse size of the pion $`r_{}`$ (alias the scale of the pion distribution amplitude $`\mu =1/r_{}`$) is determined by the color transparency condition $`\mu A^{1/3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ or whether it is of the order of the transverse momenta of the jets $`\mu q_{}`$. In the latter case one could envisage a factorization formula for the amplitude of hard dijet coherent production of the type (cf. Fig. 1)

$$_{\pi 2\mathrm{jets}}=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^{}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑x_1\varphi _\pi (z^{},\mu _F^2)T_H(z^{},x_1,\mu _F^2)F_\zeta ^g(x_1,\mu _F^2).$$
(1)
Here $`\varphi _\pi (z^{},\mu _F^2)`$ is the pion distribution amplitude, and $`F_\zeta ^g(x_1,\mu _F^2)`$ is the non-forward (skewed) gluon distribution  in the target nucleon or nucleus; $`x_1`$ and $`x_2=x_1\zeta `$ are the momentum fractions of the emitted and the absorbed gluons, respectively. (The asymmetry parameter $`\zeta `$ is fixed by the process kinematics, see below.) $`T_H(z^{},x_1,\mu _F^2)`$ is the hard scattering amplitude and $`\mu _F`$ is the (collinear) factorization scale.

To the best of our knowledge, this question has never been studied. As a first step in this direction, in this letter we present an explicit calculation of the leading-order contribution to the imaginary part of $`T_H(z^{},x_1,\mu _F^2)`$ corresponding to a single hard gluon exchange. Since we are not interested in the color transparency phenomena, we restrict ourselves to scattering from a single nucleon. We will find that the structure of the hard gluon exchange is such that it generates an enhancement by a logarithm of the energy in the region $`z^{}z`$ where $`z`$ is the energy fraction carried by the (quark) jet. If only this logarithmic contribution is retained, the longitudinal momentum distribution of the jets indeed follows the shape of the pion distribution amplitude . The hard gluon exchange can in this case be considered as a part of the unintegrated gluon distribution, as advocated in . Beyond the leading logarithms (in energy) this proportionality does no longer hold. Moreover, the collinear factorization (1) appears to be broken by the end-point singularities. Remarkably enough, the longitudinal momentum distribution of the jets for the non-factorizable contribution is calculable, and turns out to be the same as for the factorizable contribution with the asymptotic pion distribution amplitude.

2.  The kinematics of the process is shown in Fig. 1. For definiteness, we consider pion scattering from a nucleon target.

The momenta of the incoming pion, incoming nucleon and the outgoing nucleon are $`p_1,p_2`$ and $`p_2^{}`$, respectively. The pion and the nucleon masses are both neglected, $`p_1^2=0`$, $`p_2^2=(p_2^{})^2=0`$. We denote the momenta of the outgoing quark and antiquark (jets) as $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$, respectively. They are on the mass shell, $`q_1^2=q_2^2=0`$. We will use the Sudakov decomposition of 4-vectors with respect to the momenta of the incoming particles $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$. For instance, the jet momenta are decomposed according to

$$q_1=zp_1+\frac{q_1^2}{zs}p_2+q_1,q_2=\overline{z}p_1+\frac{q_2^2}{\overline{z}s}p_2+q_2$$
(2)
such that $`z`$ is the longitudinal momentum fraction of the quark jet in the lab frame. We will often use the shorthand notation: $`\overline{u}(1u)`$ for any longitudinal momentum fraction $`u`$. The Dirac spinors for the quark and the antiquark are denoted by $`\overline{u}(q_1)`$ and $`v(q_2)`$.

We are interested in the forward limit, when the transferred momentum $`t=(p_2p_2^{})^2`$ is equal to zero***If the target mass $`m`$ is taken into account, the momentum transfer $`t=(p_2p_2^{})^2`$ contains a non-vanishing longitudinal contribution and is constrained from below by $`|t|t_0`$, where $`t_0=(m^2M^4)/(sm^2)^2`$, $`M^2`$ being the invariant mass of the dijet., and the transverse momenta of jets compensate each other $`q_1q_{}`$, $`q_2q_{}`$. In this kinematics the invariant mass of the produced $`q\overline{q}`$ pair is equal to $`M^2=q_{}^2/z\overline{z}`$. The invariant c.m. energy $`s=(p_1+p_2)^2=2p_1p_2`$ is taken to be much larger than the transverse jet momentum $`q_{}`$. In what follows we neglect contributions to the amplitude that are suppressed by powers of $`1/s`$.

The general scheme of the calculation can be explained as follows. Since the hard scattering amplitude $`T_H(z^{},x_1,\mu _F^2)`$, by assumption, does not depend on the target, we choose to consider the hard dijet production from a quark, $`\pi q(\overline{q}q)q`$. We replace the pion by a collinear $`\overline{q}q`$ pair with the momenta $`z^{}p_1`$ and $`\overline{z}^{}p_1`$, respectively. The probability amplitude to find a particular value of the momentum fraction $`z^{}`$ is given by the pion distribution amplitude defined as

$$0|\overline{d}(y)\gamma _\mu \gamma _5u(y)|\pi ^+(p)_{y^20}=ip_\mu f_\pi \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^{}e^{i(2z^{}1)(py)}\varphi _\pi (z^{}),$$
(3)
where $`f_\pi 131`$ MeV is the pion decay constant. Light-cone dominance for the $`t`$-channel gluon emission is not assumed from the beginning, but has to follow from the calculation in order that the result can be interpreted in the sense of the factorization formula (1). To this end, the gluon transverse momentum $`k_{}`$ is kept nonzero and we show that the amplitude in question contains a collinear logarithm $`\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2/\mu _F^2`$ coming from the integration region $`\mu _F^2k_{}^2q_{}^2`$. This property allows to calculate the upper part of the diagrams represented schematically in Fig. 1 assuming that $`k_{}^2q_{}^2`$ i.e. in the light-cone limit. In the last step, the collinear logarithm is interpreted as a contribution to the gluon distribution in the target and the (perturbative) non-forward gluon distribution of the quark is substituted by the (nonperturbative) non-forward gluon distribution in the nucleon.

In this letter we calculate the imaginary part of the amplitude. The real part can in principle be restored from the imaginary part using dispersion relations. One rationale for this procedure is that at high energies the scattering amplitudes corresponding to Pomeron exchange are dominated by their imaginary parts. The second rationale is simplicity: the corresponding cut diagrams (see Fig. 2 for examples) are built of tree-level on-shell scattering amplitudes and their form is strongly constrained by gauge invariance, see below.

The existing cut diagrams can be grouped into the four gauge-invariant contributions shown in Fig. 3a–d,

which differ by the position of the hard gluon that provides the large momentum transfer to the jets. The corresponding contributions to the amplitude will be denoted as $`_{(a)}`$, $`_{(b)}`$, $`_{(c)}`$ and $`_{(d)}`$. For example, in Fig. 3a it is assumed that the hard gluon exchange appears to the left of the cut. This contribution is given by the sum of 10 Feynman diagrams one of which is shown in Fig. 2a. Similarly, the contribution in Fig. 3b is given by the sum of 10 diagrams with the hard gluon exchange appearing to the right of the cut; a typical diagram is shown in Fig. 2c. The two remaining contributions in Fig. 3c and Fig. 3d take into account the possibility of real gluon emission in the intermediate state. The filled circles stand for the effective vertices describing the gluon radiation, see Fig. 4. Each of the two contributions in Fig. 3c,d corresponds to a sum of 9 different Feynman diagrams, see Fig. 2b for an example.

We use Feynman gauge and perform the usual substitution

$$g_{\mu \nu }\frac{p_2^\mu p_1^\nu }{(p_1p_2)}$$
(4)
in the propagators of $`t`$channel gluons. This is correct up to terms $`1/s`$ which is sufficient for our purposes. The $`t`$channel gluon momenta are expanded according to

$`k_1^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _1p_1^\mu +x_1p_2^\mu +k_{}^\mu ,`$
$`k_2^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\alpha _2p_1^\mu +x_2p_2^\mu +k_{}^\mu .`$ (5)
As is easily checked by inspection, in any cut diagram two internal lines are on the mass shell. The corresponding two on-shellness conditions fix $`\alpha _1`$ and $`x_1`$ and relate the variables $`z^{}`$ and $`x_1`$ to one other. In addition, $`\alpha _2`$ and $`x_2`$ are fixed by the energy–momentum conservation. Since $`\alpha _{(1,2)}`$ and $`x_{(1,2)}`$ are all of the order of $`1/s`$, the $`1/k_{1,2}^2`$ factors in the propagators of the $`t`$channel gluons can be approximated by $`k_{(1,2)}^2=\alpha _{(1,2)}x_{(1,2)}sk_{}^2=k_{}^2+𝒪(1/s)`$. Using the on-shellness conditions for the contributions in Fig. 3a and Fig. 3b one obtains $`x_1=\zeta `$, $`x_2=0`$, for any $`z^{}`$. For Fig. 3d one finds $`x_1=\zeta z^{}\overline{z}/(z^{}z)`$, $`x_2=\zeta z\overline{z}^{}/(z^{}z)`$ and $`z^{}>z`$, where the last condition ensures that the energy of the cut gluon is positive. Finally, for the set of cut-diagrams corresponding to Fig. 3c we obtain $`x_1=\zeta z\overline{z}^{}/(zz^{})`$, $`x_2=\zeta z^{}\overline{z}/(zz^{})`$ and $`z>z^{}`$.

After the on-shellness conditions are used, a single integration over the gluons transverse momentum $`k_{}`$ remains:

$$\mathrm{Im}\frac{d^2k_{}}{(k_{}^2)^2}J_{up}(k_{},q_{})J_{down}(k_{},q_{}),$$
(6)
where $`k_{}^4`$ comes from the product of the two gluon propagators. $`J_{up}`$ and $`J_{down}`$ are dubbed impact factors and stand for the upper and the lower parts of the diagrams Fig. 2a–d (connected by the two-gluon exchange). The representation (6) is well known  from QED scattering at high energies.

Properties of the impact-factors $`J_{up}`$ and $`J_{down}`$ as a functions of $`k_{}`$ at $`k_{}0`$ are of crucial importance. Since $`J_{down}`$ is the impact-factor of a point-like target quark, $`J_{down}(k_{},q_{})const`$. On the other hand, $`J_{up}(k_{},q_{})`$ stands for the scattering of the colorless $`q\overline{q}`$ (Fig. 3a–b) or $`q\overline{q}G`$ (Fig. 3c–d) state having a transverse size $`1/q_{}`$ and has to vanish at small $`k_{}q_{}`$, $`J_{up}(k_{},q_{})k_{}^2`$, as a consequence of the color neutrality of the quark-antiquark pair: A gluon with a large wave length $`1/k_{}`$ cannot resolve a color dipole of the small size $`1/q_{}`$. Since in our case there are two gluons, $`J_{up}`$ is proportional to the product $`k_{}k_{}=k_{}^2`$The $`𝒪(k_{}^2)`$ behavior can be traced to the gauge invariance of the amplitude, see  for the details.. In the opposite limit of large transferred momenta, $`k_{}q_{}`$, the two $`t`$channel gluons are forced to couple to the same parton (quark or gluon) in the upper block in Fig. 3a–d. It follows that at large $`k_{}`$ $`J_{up}(k_{},q_{})const`$.

Taking into account the above properties of the impact-factors we conclude that the transverse momentum integration in (6) diverges logarithmically at small $`k_{}`$ and the integral can be estimated as $`^{q_{}^2}𝑑k_{}^2/k_{}^2\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2`$, as expected. The region of $`k_{}^2>q_{}^2`$ does not produce the large logarithm and can be neglected. Note that the correct small $`k_{}`$ behavior of the impact factors is only recovered in the sum of cut diagrams for the gauge invariant amplitudes $`_{(a)}`$, $`_{(b)}`$, $`_{(c)}`$ and $`_{(d)}`$, but not for each diagram separately.

In addition to the diagrams discussed so far, the amplitude $`\pi q(\overline{q}q)q`$ receives a contribution from the three-gluon exchange in the t-channel. Such terms can be viewed as belonging to the cut diagrams shown in Fig. 3a in which the hard gluon in the blob is attached to the bottom quark line. We have checked that this extra contribution does not contain the large collinear logarithm $`\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2`$ and therefore we neglect it.

3.  To start with, consider the calculation of $`_{(d)}`$. Let $`l^\mu =\alpha _lp_1^\mu +x_lp_2^\mu +l_{}^\mu `$ be the momentum of the (real) gluon in the intermediate state and let $`e^\mu (l)`$ be one of the two physical polarization vectors. The two conditions $`(ep_2)=0`$ and $`(el)=0`$ fix the gauge and result in $`e^\mu (l)=e_{}^\mu +2p_2^\mu \left(e_{}l_{}\right)/(\alpha _ls)`$.

The effective vertex corresponding to the sum of the three diagrams in Fig. 4 has the form

$$i\frac{g^2z(z^{}z)}{q_{}^2z^{}}\left[\frac{1}{z^{}}\left(t^lt^a\right)_{ij}\frac{1}{z}\left(t^at^l\right)_{ij}\right]\overline{u}(q_1)[\overline{)}b\overline{)}e_{}2\frac{z}{z^{}z}(e_{}b)]\frac{\overline{)}p_2}{s}u(z^{}p_1).$$
(7)
Here $`t^l`$ and $`t^a`$ are the $`SU(3)`$ generators. The color indices $`l`$ and $`a`$ belong to the emitted gluon and the $`t`$channel gluon, respectively. We have also introduced an auxiliary two-dimensional vector $`b^\mu `$ defined as:

$$b^\mu =k_{}^\mu 2\frac{(k_{}q_{})}{q_{}^2}q_{}^\mu ,b^2=k_{}^2.$$
(8)
Note that the effective vertex, in the limit of small $`k_{}`$, is proportional to $`bk_{}`$. The constant terms cancel in the gauge invariant sum of the diagrams in Fig. 4.

The second effective vertex in Fig. 3d has a similar form. Combining both of them and performing the sum over the polarizations of the emitted gluon we obtain the impact-factor $`J_{up}^{(d)}`$. Since each effective vertex is proportional to $`k_{}`$, it follows that $`J_{up}^{(d)}k_{}^2`$, as expected. The result for the amplitude $`_{(d)}`$ is obtained using the representation in (6). The calculation of $`_{(c)}`$ is very similar. The result for their sum reads:

$`_{(c)}+_{(d)}=DC_F^2{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{dk_{}^2}{k_{}^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}dz^{}\varphi _\pi (z^{})({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}+1)\times `$ (9)
$`\times `$ $`\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}+1\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(N_c^21)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{z^{}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{\overline{z}^{}}}\right)\right]\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(z^{}z)}{(z^{}z)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(zz^{})}{(zz^{})}}\right],`$
where

$$D=isf_\pi \alpha _s^3\frac{4\pi ^2}{N_c^2q_{}^4}\overline{u}(q_1)\gamma _5\frac{\overline{)}p_2}{s}v(q_2)\delta _{ij}\delta _{cc^{}},$$
(10)
and $`C_F=(N_c^21)/2N_c`$. The color indices $`(i,j)`$ correspond to the produced quark-antiquark pair (jets) and $`(c,c^{})`$ stand for the color indices of the target quark in the initial and the final state. The contributions $`\mathrm{\Theta }(z^{}z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(zz^{})`$ belong to $`_{(d)}`$ and $`_{(c)}`$, respectively.

For the cut diagrams in Fig. 3a and Fig. 3b we present the final results:

$`_{(a)}`$ $`=`$ $`DC_F^2{\displaystyle \frac{dk_{}^2}{k_{}^2}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^{}\varphi _\pi (z^{})\left(\frac{\overline{z}}{z^{}}+\frac{z}{\overline{z}^{}}\right)},`$
$`_{(b)}`$ $`=`$ $`DC_F^2{\displaystyle \frac{dk_{}^2}{k_{}^2}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^{}\frac{\varphi _\pi (z^{})}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}\left[z\overline{z}\left(\frac{\overline{z}}{z^{}}+\frac{z}{\overline{z}^{}}\right)+\frac{1}{(N^21)}\left(\frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}+1\right)\right]}.`$ (11)
The transverse momentum integrals $`𝑑k_{}^2/k_{}^2\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2`$ in (9) and (S0.Ex3) can be identified with the (perturbative) non-forward gluon distributions of a quark:

$$\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }C_F\frac{dk_{}^2}{k_{}^2}=\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }C_F\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2{}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{g}(x).$$
(12)
To justify this substitution, note that $`{}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{g}(x)`$ can be calculated to first order in perturbation theory from the evolution equation In our calculation $`F_\zeta (x)`$ enters in the DGLAP region $`x\zeta `$ only, see  for more details.

$`q_{}^2{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dq_{}^2}}{}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{g}(x,q_{}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{x}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑zP_\zeta ^{gq}(x,z){}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{q}(z,q_{}^2),`$
$`P_\zeta ^{gq}(x,z)`$ $`=`$ $`C_F\left[\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{x}{z}}\right)\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{x\zeta }{z\zeta }}\right)+1\right].`$ (13)
Using $`{}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{q}(z)=\delta (1z)`$ and taking into account that in the high-energy region $`\zeta ,x1`$ the quark-gluon kernel simplifies to $`P_\zeta ^{gq}(x,1)=2C_F`$, we arrive at the substitution rule in Eq. (12). The final step is to replace $`{}_{q}{}^{}F_{\zeta }^{g}(x)`$ by the (nonperturbative) non-forward gluon distribution in the nucleon which is a nontrivial function of the parameters :

$$N(p^{})|y_\mu y_\nu G_{\mu \alpha }^a(0)G_{\alpha \nu }^a(y)|N(p)_{y^20}=\overline{u}(p^{})\overline{)}yu(p)\frac{(yp)}{2}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑x\left[e^{ix(py)}+e^{i(x\zeta )(py)}\right]F_\zeta ^g(x).$$
(14)
Here $`G_{\mu \nu }^a`$ is the gluon field strength tensor. $`u(p)`$ and $`\overline{u}(p^{})`$ are the spinors of the initial and final nucleons.

Our final result for the imaginary part of the amplitude for dijet production from a nucleon reads

$$\mathrm{Im}=isf_\pi \alpha _s^2\frac{4\pi ^3}{N_c^2q_{}^4}\overline{u}(q_1)\gamma _5\frac{\overline{)}p_2}{s}v(q_2)\delta _{ij}$$
(15)
with

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}dz^{}\varphi _\pi (z^{},\mu ^2)\{[C_F({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}1)({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{z^{}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{z}{\overline{z}^{}}})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N_cz^{}\overline{z}^{}}}({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}+1)]F_\zeta (\zeta ,\mu ^2)`$ (16)
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}+1\right)\left[C_F\left({\displaystyle \frac{z\overline{z}}{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}}+1\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N_c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{z}{z^{}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}}{\overline{z}^{}}}\right)\right]`$
$`\times [{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(z^{}z)}{(z^{}z)}}F_\zeta ({\displaystyle \frac{\zeta z^{}\overline{z}}{z^{}z}},\mu ^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(zz^{})}{(zz^{})}}F_\zeta ({\displaystyle \frac{\zeta \overline{z}^{}z}{zz^{}}},\mu ^2)]\}`$
The differential cross section summed over the polarizations and the color of quark jets is given by

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\pi 2\mathrm{jets}}}{dq_{}^2dtdz}=\frac{\alpha _s^4f_\pi ^2\pi ^3}{8N_c^3q_{}^8}||^2.$$
(17)
The factorization scale $`\mu ^2`$ has to be of order of the transverse momentum of the exchanged gluon. The expression in Eq. (16) presents the main result of this paper.

4. The integrand in (16) is singular at $`z^{}=z`$, i.e. when the longitudinal momentum fraction carried by the quark coincides with that of the quark jet in the final state, and at the end-points of the integration region $`z^{}0`$ and $`z^{}1`$. Let us discuss the contributions from these regions in some detail.

The singularity at $`z^{}=z`$ is present in the contributions in Fig. 3c,d which include real gluon emission in the intermediate state. The logarithmic integral $`𝑑z^{}/|zz^{}|\mathrm{ln}s`$ is nothing but the usual energy logarithm that accompanies each extra gluon in the gluon ladder. Its appearance is due to the fact the the gluon in Fig. 3c,d can be emitted in a broad rapidity interval and is not constrained to the pion fragmentation region. To logarithmic accuracy we can simplify the integrand in (16) by assuming $`z^{}=z`$ everywhere except for the diverging denominators and the argument of the gluon distribution, to get

$$|_{z^{}z}=4N_c\varphi _\pi (z)\underset{z}{\overset{1}{}}\frac{dz^{}}{z^{}z}F_\zeta (\zeta \frac{z^{}\overline{z}}{z^{}z},q_{}^2)4N_c\varphi _\pi (z)\underset{\zeta }{\overset{1}{}}\frac{dy}{y}F_\zeta (y,q_{}^2).$$
(18)
For a flat gluon distribution $`F_\zeta (y)\mathrm{const}`$ at $`y0`$, and the integration gives $`\mathrm{const}\mathrm{ln}1/\zeta `$ which is the above mentioned logarithm. Note that the color factors combine to produce $`C_A=N_c`$ signaling that the relevant Feynman diagrams in Fig. 3c,d are those with a three-gluon coupling. Moreover, the factor $`2N_c/y`$ appearing in (18) can be interpreted as the relevant limit of the DGLAP splitting function

$$q_{}^2\frac{}{q_{}^2}F_\zeta (x=\zeta ,q_{}^2)=\frac{\alpha _s}{2\pi }\underset{\zeta }{\overset{1}{}}𝑑yP_\zeta ^{gg}(\zeta ,y)F_\zeta (y,q_{}^2)\frac{\alpha _s}{2\pi }\underset{\zeta }{\overset{1}{}}𝑑y\frac{2N_c}{y}F_\zeta (y,q_{}^2).$$
(19)
The quantity on the l.h.s. of (19) defines what can be called the unintegrated non-forward gluon distribution and the physical meaning of Eqs. (18) and (19) is that in the region $`z^{}z`$ hard gluon exchange can be viewed as a large transverse momentum part of the gluon distribution in the proton, cf. . This contribution is proportional to the pion distribution amplitude $`\varphi _\pi (z,q_{}^2)`$ and contains the enhancement factor $`\mathrm{ln}1/\zeta \mathrm{ln}s/q_{}^2`$.

Next, consider the contribution to the imaginary part of the amplitude of the dijet production coming from the end-points $`z^{}0`$ and $`z^{}1`$. Summing both of them and using the symmetry of the pion distribution amplitude we obtain

$$|_{\mathrm{end}\mathrm{points}}=\left(N_c+\frac{1}{N_c}\right)z\overline{z}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑z^{}\frac{\varphi _\pi (z^{},\mu ^2)}{\overline{z}^2}F_\zeta (\zeta ,\mu ^2).$$
(20)
Since $`\varphi _\pi (z^{})z^{}`$ at $`z^{}0`$, the integral over $`z^{}`$ diverges logarithmically. This divergence indicates that the collinear factorization conjectured in (1) is generally not valid. Remarkably, the divergent integral containing the pion distribution amplitude is just a constant and does not involve any $`z`$-dependence. Therefore, the longitudinal momentum distribution of the jets in the nonfactorizable contribution is calculable and, as it turns out, has the shape of the asymptotic pion distribution amplitude $`\varphi _\pi ^{\mathrm{as}}(z)=6z\overline{z}`$. The corresponding physical process is the following. The limit $`z^{}1`$ corresponds to a kinematics in which the quark carries the entire momentum of the pion. The fast quark radiates a hard gluon which carries the fraction $`(1z)`$ of quark momentum. This radiation is perturbative and is described by the effective vertex (7) at $`z^{}=1`$. At the final step the hard gluon transfers its entire longitudinal and transverse momentum to the quark jet, and emits a soft antiquark which interacts nonperturbatively with the target proton and the pion remnant. The technical reason for the singularity at $`z^{}1`$ can be traced to the quark propagator whose denominator has the form $`1/[q_{}^2\overline{z}^{}_{}{}^{}2/(\overline{z}(\overline{z}\overline{z}^{}))2\overline{z}^{}(k_{}q_{})/(\overline{z}\overline{z}^{})+k_{}^2(1+\overline{z}^{}/(\overline{z}\overline{z}^{}))+iϵ]`$, where $`k_{}`$ is the transverse momentum of the $`t`$-channel gluon. In order to extract the leading small-$`k_{}`$ behavior corresponding to the logarithmic collinear divergence we expand this denominator at small $`k_{}`$. The leading term in this expansion cancels in the gauge invariant sum of diagrams, and the second term (linear in $`k_{}`$ ) plus similar terms from the nominator produce $`1/(1z^{})^2`$. It follows that the divergent logarithm in $`\varphi _\pi (z^{})/\overline{z}^2`$ is of the form $`\mathrm{ln}q_{}^2/\mu _{\mathrm{IR}}^2`$ where $`\mu _{\mathrm{IR}}`$ is related to the average transverse momentum of the quarks inside the pion. It is possible that in the case of scattering from a heavy nucleus $`\mu _{\mathrm{IR}}`$ may grow as $`A^{1/3}`$ because of color filtering. A detailed discussion of this effect goes beyond the tasks of this letter.

5. In order to make an estimate we assume that skewedness does not affect significantly the $`x`$ dependence and adopt the following simple model for the non-forward gluon distribution:

$$F_\zeta (x,\mu )=F_\zeta (\zeta ,\mu )\left(\frac{\zeta }{x}\right)^\mathrm{\Delta }$$
(21)
with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.3`$ . We further notice that at high energies, or at small $`\zeta `$, there exists a mechanism which effectively suppresses the nonperturbative end-point contributions, or, better to say, enhances the factorizable contributions in comparison to the end-point ones. It is known that in the region of small $`x`$ the scale dependence of the gluon density $`g(x,\mu ^2)`$ is quite large and can be parametrized by the effective exponent $`\gamma `$: $`g(x,\mu ^2)=g(x,\mu _0^2)(\mu ^2/\mu _0^2)^\gamma `$. We take $`\gamma =0.3`$  and assume the same scale dependence for the non-forward distribution:

$$F_\zeta (\zeta ,\mu ^2)=F_\zeta (\zeta ,\mu _0^2)\left(\frac{\mu ^2}{\mu _0^2}\right)^\gamma .$$
(22)
It follows that the contributions coming from larger scales (alias smaller transverse distances) are enhanced in comparison with the contributions coming from smaller scales (larger transverse distances). The typical virtualities of the quark and gluon propagators in the hard subprocess are $`q_{}^2`$ when $`z^{}z`$. They decrease when $`z^{}`$ is close to the end points: $`(z^{}/z)q_{}^2`$ at $`z^{}0`$ and $`(\overline{z}^{}/\overline{z})q_{}^2`$ at $`z^{}1`$, as the reminder that the soft contribution originates from large transverse distances. Therefore, it is natural to choose as the factorization scale:

$$\mu ^2=q_{}^2\frac{z^{}\overline{z}^{}}{z\overline{z}}.$$
(23)
With this choice we observe that the end-point singularities (formally) disappear.

The longitudinal momentum fraction dependence of the jets calculated using the expression in (16) and the model for the nonforward gluon distribution in (21), (22) is shown in Fig. 5 for two different choices of the pion distribution amplitude: $`\varphi _\pi ^{\mathrm{as}}(z)=6z\overline{z}`$ and $`\varphi _\pi ^{\mathrm{CZ}}(z)=30z\overline{z}(2z1)^2`$ . For this plot we have taken $`s=1000`$ GeV2 and $`q_{}=2`$ GeV which roughly corresponds to the kinematics of the E791 experiment . The overall normalization is arbitrary. Notice that the Chernyak-Zhitnitsky (CZ) ansatz for the pion distribution amplitude leads to a much larger (integrated) cross section than the asymptotic distribution§§§The calculation shown in Fig. 5 serves the illustrative purposes only. In the data analysis one has to take into account that the CZ model  is formulated at a low scale and has to be evolved to $`\mu q_{}`$ for a meaningful comparison. . This signals that the leading logarithmic approximation in Eq. (18) is not sufficient and regions of integration in (16) other than $`zz^{}`$ play an important rôle.

One sees that the sensitivity to the shape of the pion distribution amplitude remains, although there is no direct proportionality as it was assumed in .

To summarize, in this letter we have calculated the hard gluon exchange contribution to the imaginary part of the amplitude of pion diffraction dissociation to two jets with large transverse momenta. The answer is given in Eqs. (16), (17) and its main feature is that the jet longitudinal momentum distribution is not simply proportional to the pion distribution amplitude. The actual dependence is rather elaborate and it has to be taken into account in the data analysis. Our result can be improved by calculating the quark contribution which may be important in the energy range of the E791 experiment and by elaborating on possible nuclear effects that were not taken into account in the present study.

Acknowledgments

V.B. is grateful to A. Radyushkin for a discussion and critical remarks. L.Sz. and D.I. were supported by the DFG and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, respectively. V.B. acknowledges warm hospitality at the Instutute of Nuclear Theory where this work was finalized.

Note added

Our result in Eq. (16) does not agree with an independent calculation  using a different method where the light-cone dominance was assumed from the beginning. We plan to investigate the reasons for this disagreement in a separate publication.


format: text

text:
# Elastic electron–deuteron scattering in chiral effective field theory

## Abstract

We calculate elastic electron–deuteron scattering in a chiral effective field theory approach for few–nucleon systems based on a modified Weinberg power counting. We construct the current operators and the deuteron wave function at next-to-leading (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading (NNLO) order simultaneously within a projection formalism. The leading order comprises the impulse approximation of photons coupling to point-like nucleons with an anomalous magnetic moment. At NLO, we include renormalizations of the single nucleon operators. To this order, no unknown parameters enter. At NNLO, one four–nucleon–photon operator appears. Its strength can be determined from the deuteron magnetic moment. We obtain not only a satisfactory description of the deuteron structure functions and form factors measured in electron–deuteron scattering but also find a good convergence for these observables.

PACS: 13.40.Gp, 13.75.Cs, 12.39.Fe

Keywords: Electron–deuteron scattering, chiral effective field theory

FZJ-IKP(TH)-2001-06

, thanks: Email: m.walzl@fz-juelich.de thanks: Email: u.meissner@fz-juelich.de

1. A new era of nuclear physics calculations was started by Weinberg  applying effective field theory (EFT) methods and chiral Lagrangians to systems of two and more nucleons. Although there are still some (minor) conceptual problems in the precise formulation of nuclear effective field theory, it is by now established that at very low energies, one can perform very accurate calculations using a theory of non–relativistic nucleons, whose interactions are given in terms of A-nucleon terms (A$`=4,6,\mathrm{}`$) with the pions integrated out, the so–called pionless theory. Going to higher energies, the inclusion of pions becomes of prime importance and it has been shown that Weinberg’s original proposal of constructing an irreducible N–nucleon (N$`=2,3,\mathrm{}`$) potential and iterating it in a Schrödinger (Lippmann-Schwinger) equation can give a precise description of nucleon–nucleon (NN) scattering as well as static and dynamic properties of three- and four-nucleon systems, see e.g. . The more elegant formulation of Kaplan, Savage and Wise (KSW) , which allows for power counting on the level of the scattering amplitudes, suffers in its present formulation from the incorrect description of the tensor force, as reflected in the non–convergence of the triplet partial waves in $`np`$ scattering, see . For a much more detailed discussion of the concepts and applications of nuclear EFT, we refer to the recent reviews . Of course, many results found in nuclear effective field theory have previously been obtained in more conventional meson-exchange approaches . These, however, cannot be formulated in a truly systematic fashion and cannot be linked simply to the symmetries of QCD, as it is the case of the chiral effective field theory employed here#1#1#1An illustrative example are isoscalar two–meson–exchange currents. While in EFT these have to be small simply due to power counting arguments, in conventional meson–exchange models such type of suppression can only be found after often tedious calculations, see e.g. ..

In this letter, we will consider elastic electron–deuteron scattering based on a Hamiltonian approach to Weinberg’s formulation as developed in . The central object will be the (unpolarized) scattering cross section, which in case of the deuteron is given in terms of two structure functions,

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\left(\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)_{\mathrm{Mott}}\left[A(q^2)+B(q^2)\mathrm{tan}\frac{\theta }{2}\right],$$
(1)
with $`q^2=Q^2<0`$ the invariant momentum transfer squared and $`\theta `$ is the scattering angle in the centre-of-mass frame. Furthermore, we have separated the QED (Mott) cross section. Alternatively, one can parameterize the response of the deuteron to an external vector current in terms of three form factors, $`F_C`$ (charge), $`F_M`$ (magnetic) and $`F_Q`$ (quadrupole). These latter three have been the subject of a detailed study in , which employed external wave functions sewed to the leading order interaction kernel#2#2#2Earlier related work was performed by Rho and collaborators , who worked out the current operators to next–to–next–to–leading order (NNLO) and studied in particular deuteron disintegration.. Our approach is similar, only that we construct the current operators and the wave functions simultaneously from the same Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we wish to study the interplay of nuclear and nucleon dynamics beyond the accuracy than it was done in . In addition, we will be able to compare our results directly with the pioneering perturbative calculation of , which certainly can be considered a cornerstone in the development of nuclear effective field theory. Finally, this study is to be understood as the first step in a systematic investigation of the electromagnetic properties of light nuclei. Since much is known about the deuteron from the experimental and the theoretical side, such an investigation is clearly needed. More precisely, the deuteron is a very special nucleus due to its small binding energy, it thus can be well described by iterated one–pion–exchange and some short range physics, as it is done in conventional nuclear physics since a long time and has been perfected to high precision. The approach presented here is similar but also differs because corrections can be calculated in a controlled and systematic fashion. This becomes more important if one goes to more densely bound systems. For a more detailed discussion about the usefulness of EFT in the description of deuteron dynamics and the relation to conventional approaches, we refer to .

2. First, we briefly explain the central ideas underlying our calculations. One starts from an effective chiral Lagrangian of pions and nucleons, including in particular local four–nucleon interactions which describe the short range part of the nuclear force, symbolically

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=_{\pi \pi }+_{\pi N}+_{NN},$$
(2)
where each of the terms admits an expansion in small momenta and quark (meson) masses. To a given order, one has to include all terms consistent with chiral symmetry, parity, charge conjugation and so on. From the effective Lagrangian, one derives the two–nucleon potential. This is based on a modified Weinberg counting, which is applied to the two–nucleon potential to a certain order in small momenta and pion masses,

$$V(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{})=\underset{i}{}V^{(i)}(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{}),$$
(3)
with $`\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{}`$ the nucleon centre-of-mass momenta and the superscript $`i`$ gives the (non–negative) chiral dimension. The power counting underlying this potential is based on the considerations presented in . To leading order (LO), this potential is the sum of one–pion exchange (OPE) (with point-like coupling) and of two four–nucleon contact interactions without derivatives. The low–energy constants (LECs) accompanying these terms have to be determined by a fit to some data, like e.g. the two S-wave phase shifts in the low–energy region (for $`np`$). At next–to–leading order (NLO), one has corrections to the OPE, the leading order two–pion exchange graphs and seven dimension two four–nucleon terms with unknown LECs (for the $`np`$ system). Finally, at NNLO, one has further corrections in the one– and two–pion exchange graphs including dimension two pion–nucleon operators. The corresponding LECs can be determined from the chiral perturbation theory (CHPT) analysis of pion–nucleon scattering (for details, see ). The existence of shallow nuclear bound states (and large scattering lengths) forces one to perform an additional nonperturbative resummation. This is done here by obtaining the bound and scattering states from the solution of a regularized Lippmann–Schwinger equation. The potential has to be understood as regularized, as dictated by the EFT approach employed here, i.e. $`V(p,p^{})f_R(p)V(p,p^{})f_R(p^{})`$, where $`f_R(p)`$ is a regulator function chosen in harmony with the underlying symmetries. Within a certain range of cut–off values, the physics should be independent of its precise form and value. This range increases as one goes to higher orders, as demonstrated explicitly for the $`np`$ case in .

3. A powerful method to simultaneously construct wave functions and current operators was invented long time ago by Okubo and others . The extension to meson–exchange currents in few–nucleon systems was pioneered by Gari and Hyuga . As mentioned before, in  it was shown how this method could be extended to chiral effective Hamiltonians based on Weinberg’s power counting. The corresponding electromagnetic current, denoted by $`j_\mu `$ throughout, can now be obtained in two ways. One can either gauge the effective Hamiltonian or calculate directly the effective current from the relation

$$\psi _j|j_\mu |\psi _i=\varphi _j|j_\mu ^{\mathrm{eff}}|\varphi _i,$$
(4)
with $`|\varphi `$ the projected low–energy state, $`|\psi =(1+A)(\eta (1+A^{}A)^{1/2}\eta )|\varphi `$. Here, $`\eta `$ is the projector onto the Fock space with two nucleons and no pions and the operator $`A`$ can be obtained recursively from demanding that the wave function orthogonal to $`\eta |\psi `$ decouples. The effective current takes the form

$$j_\mu ^{\mathrm{eff}}=\eta (1+A^{}A)^{1/2}(1+A^{})j_\mu (1+A)(1+A^{}A)^{1/2}\eta .$$
(5)
We mention in passing that in this approach one has to include so–called wave function reorthonormalization diagrams, see e.g.  for the two–nucleon potential. Their contribution to the effective current is completely cancelled by the two-body recoil current (in the non-relativistic limit) . Before giving the explicit form of the effective current, it is important to formulate the power counting in the presence of external electroweak fields, first worked out by Rho . Denoting by $`Q`$ a small external momentum or a pion mass, any QCD matrix-element (in the presence of external fields) takes the form

$$=Q^\nu f(\frac{Q}{\mu },g)$$
(6)
where $`\mu `$ is some regularization scale, $`g`$ denotes a collection of coupling (low–energy) constants and $`f`$ is a function of order one. The counting index is given by

$$\nu =12C+2L+\underset{i}{}\overline{\nu }_i,\overline{\nu }_i=d_i+\frac{n_i}{2}+e_i2,$$
(7)
with $`C`$ the number of connected pieces in the diagram under consideration, $`L`$ the number of (pion) loops, and $`\overline{\nu }_i`$ is the vertex dimension. The latter depends on the number of derivatives/pion mass insertions $`(d_i)`$, the number of nucleon fields $`(n_i`$) and the number of external fields ($`e_i)`$, in our case insertions of the electromagnetic current. Chiral symmetry demands that the counting index is bounded from below, as verified by eq.(7). The terms with $`C=2`$ are called one–body terms in the nuclear physics language. They subsume all interactions of the photon with either the neutron or the proton (this is also called the impulse approximation). For $`C=1`$, obviously both nucleons are involved in the interaction, thus one talks of two–body terms (in Weinberg’s language, these terms are denoted as three–body interactions). From eq.(7), one quickly establishes that the lowest order terms are of the one–body type and have $`\nu =3`$ (electric photon coupling) and $`\nu =2`$ (magnetic coupling). These comprise the coupling of a photon to point–like nucleons with an anomalous magnetic moment and define the leading order. At NLO (and NNLO), we have further one–body terms, which are the usual leading one–loop (third order) chiral perturbation theory corrections to the nucleon form factors, see . In addition, we have the leading two–body operators, the celebrated meson–exchange (seagull and pionic) currents. Using the leading order vertices as given below, these do not contribute to elastic e-d scattering (as it is well known). Also, based on this counting, one has no local four–nucleon–photon interactions at NLO. The first correction, which is not of one–body nature, does appear at NNLO, it is the magnetic four–nucleon–photon interaction of . At that order, one has also one–body corrections proportional to the magnetic radii of the proton and the neutron. We should point out one subtlety with the power counting here. In terms of the wave functions, the current operators at NLO and NNLO are only sensitive to the NLO wave functions, which can be simply understood from the fact that gauging the corresponding operators in the potential does lead to even higher orders in the current. Therefore, the results for the electric and the quadrupole form factor at NLO and NNLO will coincide, and we denote them as (N)NLO. Formally, one could therefore subsume what we call NLO and NNLO here simply as NLO, similar to the two orders making up the LO (impulse) contribution. Since this has not be done in the existing literature, see e.g. ref. , we refrain from doing so too.

We now discuss the effective interaction Hamiltonians including the photon field, expressed in terms of the gauge potential $`A_\mu `$ and the field strength tensor $`F_{\mu \nu }`$. From these, the effective current follows. Gauging the free and the interaction Hamiltonians, $`_0`$ and $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$, respectively, gives (we only show the terms that involve the photon field, all other terms to the order we are working are given e.g. in ),

$`_0^{\mathrm{em}}`$ $`=`$ $`N^{}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{e}_N}{m_N}}A_i^i+\widehat{e}_NA^0+{\displaystyle \frac{e\kappa _s}{2m_N}}\sigma _iϵ^{ijk}F_{ik}+\mathrm{}\right)N`$ (8)
$`+\left(\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\pi _a\right)i\widehat{e}_\pi A^0\pi ^a\right)\left(\left(_i\pi _a\right)i\widehat{e}_\pi A^i\pi ^a\right),`$
$`_{\mathrm{int}}^{\mathrm{em}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_A}{2F_\pi }}N^{}\tau _a\sigma _i(i\widehat{e}_\pi A^i)\pi ^aNeL_2(N^{}\sigma _iϵ^{ijk}F_{ik}N)(N^{}N),`$ (9)
with $`\widehat{e}_N`$ and $`\widehat{e}_\pi `$ the nucleon and pion charge matrix, respectively, and $`m_N`$ is the nucleon mass. We omit terms of higher order in the electromagnetic coupling since they are not relevant here. Throughout, we work in the Coulomb gauge $`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{A}=0`$. For the gauged free nucleon Hamiltonian, we have only given the leading order (dimension one) electric coupling and the (dimension two) magnetic one, with $`\kappa _s`$ the isoscalar anomalous magnetic moment of the nucleon, $`(\kappa _p+\kappa _n)/2=\kappa _s`$. These two interactions lead to the terms with $`\nu =3`$ and $`2`$ as discussed before. The dimension three terms contributing to the one–body currents at $`\nu =1`$ can be found in . The pion–photon–nucleon interaction in eq.(9) is nothing but the celebrated Kroll-Ruderman term, with $`g_A`$ the axial vector coupling measured in neutron $`\beta `$–decay and $`F_\pi `$ the weak pion decay constant. As noted before, employing these Hamiltonians, the leading exchange currents are proportional to $`\stackrel{}{\tau }_1\times \stackrel{}{\tau }_2`$ (where $`\stackrel{}{\tau }_i`$ is the isospin operator of nucleon $`i`$) and thus vanish for isoscalar transitions as it is the case for e-d scattering. The leading isoscalar exchange current appears only at N3LO, because the only possible NNLO term would consist of a dimension two correction to the Kroll-Ruderman vertex. This operator has the structure $`\sigma _iϵ^iv_\mu q^\mu (\tau ^a+\delta ^{a3})`$ (see app. A of ) and thus generates only an isovector operator. At N3LO, we have contributions from two–pion–exchange diagrams with one $`\gamma \pi \pi \overline{N}N`$–vertex (football and triangle graphs) together with dimension three corrections to the pion-nucleon-photon vertex. The last term in eq.(9), first considered in , is a magnetic photon four–nucleon contact interaction, its strength can not be determined from np scattering but can be obtained from a fit to the deuteron magnetic moment. We note that there is also a NNLO single nucleon correction due to the magnetic radius. We stress that such power counting arguments have already been given in .

4. We now turn to the response of the deuteron to an external electromagnetic field. Consider a deuteron state with four–momentum $`p_\mu `$ and polarization vector $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}^\mu `$, subject to the condition $`p_\mu \stackrel{}{ϵ}^\mu =0`$. In the deuteron rest frame, one conventionally selects $`ϵ_i^\mu =\delta _i^\mu `$ and the corresponding deuteron states are denoted by $`|\stackrel{}{p},i`$. In terms of these and to leading order in the non-relativistic expansion, the matrix element of the electromagnetic current is given in terms of the charge, magnetic and quadrupole form factors,

$`\stackrel{}{p}^{},i|j_0|\stackrel{}{p},j`$ $`=`$ $`e\left[F_C(Q^2)\delta _{ij}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_d^2}}F_Q(Q^2)\left(\stackrel{}{q}_i\stackrel{}{q}_j{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\stackrel{}{q}^2\delta _{ij}\right)\right],`$
$`\stackrel{}{p}^{},i|j_k|\stackrel{}{p},j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2m_d}}[F_C(Q^2)\delta _{ij}(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{p}^{})_k+F_M(Q^2)(\delta _{jk}\stackrel{}{q}_i\delta _{ik}\stackrel{}{q}_j)`$ (10)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_d^2}}F_Q(Q^2)(\stackrel{}{q}_i\stackrel{}{q}_j{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\stackrel{}{q}^2\delta _{ij})(\stackrel{}{p}+\stackrel{}{p}^{})_k],`$
with $`\stackrel{}{q}=\stackrel{}{p}^{}\stackrel{}{p}`$, $`Q=|\stackrel{}{q}|`$ and $`m_d`$ is the deuteron mass. These form factors are dimensionless and normalized to the charge, the magnetic moment, $`\mu _d`$, and the quadrupole moment, $`Q_d`$, of the deuteron, i.e. $`F_C(0)=1`$, $`(e/2m_d)F_M(0)=\mu _d`$ and $`(1/m_d^2)F_Q(0)=Q_d`$, with $`\mu _d=0.85741(e/2m_N)`$ and $`Q_d=0.2859`$fm2. The structure functions $`A(Q^2)`$ and $`B(Q^2)`$ defined in eq.(1) are given in terms of these form factors via

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`F_C^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\eta F_M^2+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{9}}\eta ^2F_Q^2,`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\eta (1+\eta )F_M^2.`$ (11)
Here, $`\eta =Q^2/4m_d^2`$. To disentangle these three form factors, one measurement involving polarization is necessary. The analyzing power $`t_{20}`$ has become the observable of choice to do that. Since it depends on $`Q^2`$ and the scattering angle $`\theta `$, one also uses the quantity $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{20}`$,

$$\stackrel{~}{t}_{20}=\frac{\frac{8}{3}\eta F_C(Q^2)F_Q(Q^2)+\frac{8}{9}\eta ^2F_Q^2(Q^2)}{\sqrt{2}\left[F_C^2(Q^2)+\frac{8}{9}\eta ^2F_Q^2(Q^2)\right]},$$
(12)
which only depends on the momentum transfer squared and is independent of the magnetic form factor. Note, however, that $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{20}`$ is not directly measurable (for a detailed discussion, we refer to the recent review ).

5. We first consider the structure functions $`A`$ and $`B`$ which can be obtained directly from elastic e-d scattering. Since from the study of the nucleon form factors in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory it is known that the third order result for the isoscalar form factor starts to deviate from the data at $`Q^20.2`$GeV2, we will limit our range of $`Q`$ from 0 to 400$`\mathrm{}`$500 MeV. We work out the matrix elements from eqs.(Elastic electron–deuteron scattering  in chiral effective field theory) and construct the structure functions by use of eqs.(Elastic electron–deuteron scattering  in chiral effective field theory) without any approximation. This is different from , where the kinematical factors like e.g. $`\eta `$ where also included in the power counting and thus in their case there can be no contribution from $`F_Q(Q^2)`$ to $`A(Q^2)`$ at NLO. Throughout, we work with an exponential regulator $`f_R(p)=\mathrm{exp}(p^4/\mathrm{\Lambda }^4)`$ with a cut–off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=600`$MeV (similar to what was done in the simultaneous fit to $`np`$ and $`pp`$ scattering phases, see ). None of the results presented here depends notably on the cut–off within its allowed bounds. For completeness, we give the corresponding LECs. At LO, we have $`\stackrel{~}{C}_{3S1}=0.042710^4`$GeV-2 and at NLO, we get $`\stackrel{~}{C}_{3S1}=0.036810^4`$GeV-2, $`C_{3S1}=0.18610^4`$GeV-4 and $`C_{3S13D1}=0.19010^4`$GeV-4. These numbers are in good agreement with what has been found before using such type of regulator, see e.g. ref. .

Let us discuss $`A(Q^2)`$ as given in fig. 1. Note that we plot the structure function versus $`Q\sqrt{Q^2}`$ (not versus $`Q^2`$) to facilitate the comparison with ref. . The leading order curve already gives a fair description of the data, the NLO and NNLO result is visibly improved but still above the data. Note that the difference between NLO and NNLO stems from a Foldy–type contribution proportional to the magnetic radius, which is very small, and an induced contribution from the magnetic photon–four–nucleon interaction. Both of these are small and further suppressed by a factor of $`\eta `$, so that the difference between the two curves can not be seen on the scale of fig. 1. Since there is no exchange current contribution, the improvement going from LO to NLO is due to the single nucleon radius terms which appear at this order. This can be seen by considering the LO wave function together with the NLO current operators. At yet higher orders, however, there should be some further improvement due to the wave functions as shown in . One should consider such a sensitivity to single nucleon observables not as an unwanted complication but rather conclude that indeed isoscalar quantities (alas neutron properties) can be inferred from nuclear targets with some precision. We consider this interplay of chiral nucleon dynamics and nuclear EFT as one of the important ingredients in the whole approach. Note further that our (N)NLO result is similar to the one of . It should also be noted that for the range of momentum transfer considered here, the NLO corrections are sizeably smaller than in the KSW calculation, pointing towards a better convergence.

Next, we turn our attention to $`B(Q^2)`$, which is essentially the response to the magnetic photon, see fig. 2. Again, the LO result is visibly better than the one obtained in , whereas the NLO curves are comparable. However, in contrast to the work of , our prediction for $`B(Q^2)`$ is parameter–free, whereas the one in the KSW scheme has one free parameter from the four–nucleon–photon interaction (due to the different counting). Also, the NLO correction is fairly small for the momentum range considered here, indicating convergence. At NNLO, we have to pin down the LEC $`L_2`$ of the magnetic photon four–nucleon interaction, which is done by fitting the magnetic moment of the deuteron. The resulting curve for $`B(Q^2)`$ is further improved, see fig. 2.

Next, we discuss the charge, magnetic and quadrupole form factors. The corresponding normalizations (static properties) are collected in table 1 for LO and NLO. The only difference at NNLO is the magnetic moment, which is exactly reproduced (since it is used as input to fix $`L_2`$). The corresponding value for the the LEC $`L_2`$ is $`L_2=2.6810^2`$GeV-2, which is rather small. This can be traced back to the fact that the NLO result for $`\mu _d`$ is already within 1% of the empirical value. Note that in contrast to what was done in ref., we have fine tuned the LECs in the deuteron channel to reproduce the binding energy to four digits. The only difference at NNLO to NLO is the magnetic moment, therefore the NNLO numbers are not given. Notice that with the fine tuned binding energy, the prediction for the quadrupole moment is visibly improved as compared to ref.  and closer to the data than in all modern high–precision potentials.

In all cases, the NLO/NNLO corrections are small and one finds a decent description of the three form factors, see fig. 3. The largest discrepancies at higher momentum transfers are found in the charge form factor, as reflected in the results for $`A(Q^2)`$ shown above. Similar results have been obtained in , however, a direct comparison with data was not given in that paper.

From the electric and the quadrupole form factor, we can construct $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{20}`$, as shown in fig. 4. Again, the deviations of our LO and (N)NLO predictions for $`F_C(Q^2)`$ from the data are responsible for the too small magnitude of $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{20}`$ at $`Q0.4`$GeV.

6. We have analyzed electron–deuteron scattering in the framework of a chiral effective field theory for few–nucleon systems at next–to–leading and next–to–next–to–leading order. At NLO, no meson–exchange currents or four–nucleon–photon operators contribute. At NNLO, only one magnetic photon–four–nucleon operator appears, the corresponding coupling constant can be determined from a fit to the deuteron magnetic moment. As stressed, the NLO and NNLO predictions for the electric and the quadrupole form factors coincide at NLO and NNLO because one is not yet sensitive to the NNLO wave function corrections. In particular, we have discussed the interplay between the single nucleon dynamics as encoded in the nucleon form factors and the nuclear dynamics. As already stressed in , the accuracy of the description of the nucleon form factors limits the applicability of the effective field theory approach to the deuteron structure to momentum transfer of about $`Q0.4`$ GeV. Thus an improved description of these single nucleon observables has to be obtained to extend these considerations consistently to higher photon virtualities. For a step in this directions, see . We stress again that we consider it important to consistently describe the single as well as the few–nucleon sector. The results presented here extend the ones of  to the first non–trivial order for the single nucleon form factors, i.e. are sensitive to the structure of the nucleon. Obviously, as next steps one has to consider N3LO corrections to the process discussed here (since only at that order sufficiently many additional contributions appear, like e.g. meson–exchange currents) as well as electron scattering of three- and four–body systems, using the wave functions of .

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Manfred Gari for a useful discussion, Ingo Sick for providing us with the e-d scattering data and his analysis of these and Rocco Schiavilla for supplying his data base. We thank Daniel Phillips for some clarifying remarks on the work presented in  and Bastian Kubis for comments and a careful reading of the manuscript.


text:
# Casimir scaling in a dual superconducting scenario of confinement

## I Introduction

The observation of Casimir scaling is an important argument in any discussion of the virtues of different QCD vacuum models as far as the respective confinement mechanism is concerned. Taken literally, the Casimir scaling suggests that the potential at intermediate distances between static charges in different representation are proportional to the eigenvalues $`C^{(2)}(D)`$ of the quadratic Casimir operator $`T^aT^a`$ in the respective $`D`$ dimensional representation, such that $`F_{D_1}(r)/F_{D_2}(r)=C^{(2)}(D_1)/C^{(2)}(D_2)`$ at all distances. This property is obvious only for the one-gluon exchange component of the static force. Although there is no asymptotically linearly rising potential for the higher representations, at intermediate distances a string tension can be defined which enters $`F_D(r)`$ as a constant part. The first lattice indications for the Casimir scaling appeared in the eighties . At that time this observation was a challenge for the bag model . For example, the ratio of string tensions of adjoint to fundamental charges in SU(3) gauge theory, respectively, would be $`\sigma _{\mathrm{a}dj}/\sigma _{\mathrm{f}und}=9/4=2.25`$.

Recently, as a contribution to the discussion of competing confinement mechanisms, Ref.  appeared where the string tensions of the fundamental and higher representations have been calculated in pure SU(3) lattice gauge theory, and the ratio was obtained nearly equal to 2, already rather close to 9/4. In Ref.  Bali has studied the ratios of entire interaction potentials (including Coulomb and constant terms in addition to the linear term) also for quenched SU(3) gauge theory, and in the case of adjoint and fundamental charges the ratio turned out to be very close to 9/4. All detailed (microscopic) mechanisms of confinement find it hard to explain the Casimir scaling, while it appears more natural from the point of view of the semi-phenomenological Stochastic Vacuum Model . If the confinement mechanism is described by center vortices, approximate Casimir scaling for the potential can be achieved by introducing a finite thickness of the vortex, as demonstrated for the case of SU(2) lattice gauge theory , although the original center vortex picture gives a strictly vanishing potential for pairs of charges which transform trivially under $`Z_N`$ center of the gauge group.

For the dual superconductor scenario of confinement , practically realized in the form of the dual Ginzburg-Landau (DGL) theory , one tends to believe that it would be difficult to accommodate Casimir scaling in this framework. Indeed, in the Abelian projection scheme  for SU(3) gluodynamics the long range forces are transmitted only by “diagonal gluons” which couple to charges only via $`T^3`$ and $`T^8`$. This makes it hard to understand why the Casimir scaling should hold in Abelian projected gluodynamics. For example for the ratio between adjoint and fundamental forces one would naively expect the Abelian ratio equal to 3. As far as the derivation of the DGL theory is based on the Abelian projected gluodynamics, this seems to be unavoidable in the DGL theory, too. However, in a lattice investigation for SU(2) Abelian projected gluodynamics, Poulis  has found the ratio between the string tensions of the adjoint and fundamental representations, somewhere between the Abelian and Casimir scaling. This result is encouraging for the Abelian projected models to be able to provide the Casimir scaling. The case of SU(2) gluodynamics has been considered in Ref.  in the context of an extended effective theory. It is discussed there that in the London limit Casimir scaling can be expected to hold. In this paper we examine straightforwardly the DGL theory for SU(3) gluodynamics with respect to the string tensions for various external charges without further modifications.

Considering the DGL theory just at a phenomenological level, it might be natural to restrict its application to mesonic , baryonic , glueball  and perhaps to exotic states, and it would seem inappropriate to apply it to the so-called gluelump bound states made of infinitely heavy adjoint charges. However, because of the current interest in this issue, it is interesting to discuss how this kind of string would be represented within the DGL theory, and then to answer the question whether the Casimir scaling poses really a problem or not.

In this paper we compute the string tensions of flux tubes which are originating from various dimensions of representation of color charge within the DGL theory. For this purpose we adopt the manifestly Weyl symmetric approach , which will turn out to be very useful for classifying the flux tube in various representations. Finally, based on these results as a function of the mass ratio between dual gauge bosons and monopoles, we would like to discuss how good the Casimir scaling can be accomplished within the DGL theory.

## II Weyl symmetric formulation of the DGL theory

The DGL Lagrangian  is given by Throughout this paper, we use the following notations: Latin indices $`i`$, $`j`$ express the labels 1,2,3, which are not to be summed over unless explicitly stated. Boldface letters, which appear later, denote three-vectors.

$`_{\mathrm{DGL}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left((\stackrel{}{B})_{\mu \nu }+e\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mu \nu }\right)^2`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left[\left|\left(_\mu +ig\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i\stackrel{}{B}_\mu \right)\chi _i\right|^2\lambda \left(\left|\chi _i\right|^2v^2\right)^2\right],`$
where $`\stackrel{}{B}_\mu `$ and $`\chi _i`$ denote the dual gauge field with two components $`(B_\mu ^3,B_\mu ^8)`$ and the complex scalar monopole field, respectively. The quark current $`\stackrel{}{j}_\mu =\overline{q}\gamma _\mu \stackrel{}{H}q`$, where $`\stackrel{}{H}=(T_3,T_8)`$, is represented by the boundary of a nonlocal string term $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mu \nu }`$, which expresses the color-electric Dirac string singularity through the modified dual Bianchi identity $`^\nu {}_{}{}^{}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mu \nu }^{}=\stackrel{}{j}_\mu `$. Note that $`(\stackrel{}{B})_{\mu \nu }_\mu \stackrel{}{B}_\nu _\nu \stackrel{}{B}_\mu `$ satisfies $`^\nu {}_{}{}^{}(\stackrel{}{B})_{\mu \nu }^{}=0`$. Since the diagonal component of the matrix $`\stackrel{}{H}`$ gives the weight vector of the SU(3) algebra $`\stackrel{}{w}_j`$ ($`j=1,2,3`$), where $`\stackrel{}{w}_1=(1/2,\sqrt{3}/6),\stackrel{}{w}_2=(1/2,\sqrt{3}/6),\stackrel{}{w}_3=(0,1/\sqrt{3})`$, one can define the color-electric charges of the quarks as $`\stackrel{}{Q}_j^{(e)}e\stackrel{}{w}_j`$. Here, $`j=1,2,3`$ correspond to the color-electric charges, red ($`R`$), blue ($`B`$), and green ($`G`$). Accordingly we can write the nonlocal term as $`e\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mu \nu }=e\stackrel{}{w}_j\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$. On the other hand, the root vectors of the SU(3) algebra $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i`$ are used to define the color-magnetic charges of the monopole field as $`Q_i^{(m)}g\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$), where $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}_1=(1/2,\sqrt{3}/2),\stackrel{}{ϵ}_2=(1/2,\sqrt{3}/2),\stackrel{}{ϵ}_3=(1,0)`$. Both color-electric and color-magnetic charges satisfy the extended Dirac quantization condition $`\stackrel{}{Q}_i^{(m)}\stackrel{}{Q}_j^{(e)}=2\pi m_{ij}`$ ($`eg=4\pi `$). Here $`m_{ij}`$ is an integer following the definition

$$m_{ij}=2\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i\stackrel{}{w}_j=\underset{k=1}{\overset{3}{}}ϵ_{ijk}=\{0,1,1\},$$
(3)
where $`ϵ_{ijk}`$ is the 3rd-rank antisymmetric tensor. Typical mass scales in the DGL theory are the mass of the dual gauge field $`m_B=\sqrt{3}gv`$ and of the monopole field $`m_\chi =2\sqrt{\lambda }v`$. Their ratio, the so-called Ginzburg-Landau (GL) parameter $`\kappa m_\chi /m_B`$, characterizes the type of dual “superconductivity” of the vacuum. Like in real superconductive materials, the properties of the vacuum might be very different depending on the actual value of $`\kappa `$.

We make the Weyl symmetry of the DGL theory (2) manifest, with the help of an extended dual gauge field , defined by

$`B_{i\mu }g\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i\stackrel{}{B}_\mu .(i=1,2,3)`$ (4)
Here, a constraint $`_{i=1}^3B_{i\mu }=0`$ appears, since $`_{i=1}^3\stackrel{}{ϵ}_i=0`$. The DGL Lagrangian (2) is now written as

$`_{\mathrm{DGL}}={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g_m^2}}{}_{}{}^{}F_{i\mu \nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+\left|\left(_\mu +iB_{i\mu }\right)\chi _i\right|^2\lambda \left(\left|\chi _i\right|^2v^2\right)^2\right],`$ (5)
$`{}_{}{}^{}F_{i\mu \nu }^{}(B_i)_{\mu \nu }+2\pi {\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}m_{ij}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)},`$ (6)
where the dual gauge coupling $`g`$ is scaled as

$$g_m\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}g.$$
(7)
The factor $`2\pi `$ in front of the Dirac string term is derived from the Dirac quantization condition. Clearly, the expression (5) is manifestly Weyl symmetric since all indices $`i`$ and $`j`$ are summed over. Apparently the dual gauge symmetry is extended to \[U(1)\]3, achieved by a set of transformation

$`\chi _i\chi _ie^{if_i},\chi _i^{}\chi _i^{}e^{if_i},`$ (8)
$`B_{i\mu }^{\mathrm{reg}}B_{i\mu }^{\mathrm{reg}}_\mu f_i,(i=1,2,3).`$ (9)
However, the number of gauge degrees of freedom is not enlarged because of the constraint $`_{i=1}^3B_{i\mu }=0`$.

In what follows we investigate the flux-tube solutions related to a separated quark and antiquark pair and related to analogous states (with higher representation charges) within the DGL theory. In order to find such solutions it is useful to dispose the behavior of the dual gauge field, which can be achieved by the decomposition of the dual gauge field into two parts, the regular (no Dirac string) part and the singular (Dirac string) part ,

$$B_{i\mu }B_{i\mu }^{\mathrm{reg}}+\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}m_{ij}B_{j\mu }^{\mathrm{sing}}(i=1,2,3),$$
(10)
where the singular part is determined so as to define the color-electric charge density $`C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$ as

$$(B_j^{\mathrm{sing}})_{\mu \nu }+2\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}=2\pi C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)},(j=1,2,3).$$
(11)
The explicit form of $`C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$ is given by

$$C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}(x)=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}d^4y\frac{1}{|xy|^2}{}_{}{}^{}(j_j^{(e)}(y))_{\mu \nu }^{},$$
(12)
where $`j_{j\mu }^{(e)}=^\nu {}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$. Note that if there is no quark source, we do not need to have a singular part $`B_{j\mu }^{\mathrm{sing}}`$. Thus, the dual field strength tensor is rewritten as

$${}_{}{}^{}F_{i\mu \nu }^{}=(B_i^{\mathrm{reg}})_{\mu \nu }+2\pi \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}m_{ij}C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}.$$
(13)
In the static $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ system, $`C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$ turns out to be the Coulombic color-electric field originating from the color-electric charge.

## III The string tension of the flux tube

Let us now consider an idealized system, an infinitely long flux tube with cylindrical and translational symmetry. In this case, the terms related to $`C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$ can be neglected since they are relevant only for short separation of quark and antiquark. One finds that the integration of square of $`C_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$ gives the Coulomb energy including the self-energy of the color-electric charge. Correspondingly, now we only pay attention to the energy per length (string tension) of the flux tube which has the terminating charges at infinity. In order to classify the types of the flux tube, we use a notation analogous to the $`q`$-$`\overline{q}`$ system. The fields depend only on the radial coordinate $`r`$ as

$$\varphi _i=\varphi _i(r),𝑩_i^{\mathrm{reg}}=B_i^{\mathrm{reg}}(r)𝒆_\phi \frac{\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}(r)}{r}𝒆_\phi ,$$
(14)
where $`\varphi _i(r)`$ is the modulus of the monopole field $`\chi _i=\varphi _i\mathrm{exp}(i\eta _i)`$, and $`\phi `$ denotes the azimuthal angle. Note that the phase of the monopole field is now assumed to be regular $`[_\mu ,_\nu ]\eta _i=0`$, which is absorbed into the regular part of the dual gauge field by the replacement $`B_i^{\mathrm{reg}}+_\mu \eta _iB_i^{\mathrm{reg}}`$. If $`[_\mu ,_\nu ]\eta _i0`$, this produces the closed color-electric Dirac string singularity . Putting the quark at $`z=\mathrm{}`$ and antiquark at $`z=\mathrm{}`$ (this leads to the factor minus in $`𝑩_i^{\mathrm{sing}}`$), the solution of (11) is easily found to be

$$𝑩_i^{\mathrm{sing}}=\frac{n_i^{(m)}}{r}𝒆_\phi .$$
(15)
Here $`n_i^{(m)}`$ is an integer corresponding to the number of color-electric Dirac strings in the dual gauge field within the Weyl symmetric representation, which is expressed by the relation

$$n_i^{(m)}\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}m_{ij}n_j^{(e)}.$$
(16)
Here $`n_j^{(e)}`$ is the modulo $`2\pi `$ of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j\mu \nu }^{(e)}`$, the number of $`j`$-type color-electric charges attached to both ends of the flux tube. Various dimensions of the representation of charges in SU(3) group and corresponding winding numbers are classified in Table. I. For instance, the fundamental representation ($`D=\mathrm{𝟑}`$) has three different charges $`R`$, $`B`$, and $`G`$. These charges have the numbers $`(n_1^{(e)},n_2^{(e)},n_3^{(e)})=(1,0,0)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$, and $`(0,0,1)`$, which are also written by using the expression (16) as $`(n_1^{(m)},n_2^{(m)},n_3^{(m)})=(0,1,1)`$, $`(1,0,1)`$, and $`(1,1,0)`$, respectively. These rules hold similarly for the higher dimension of the representation. However one should take into account the relation $`RB=\overline{G}`$, $`BG=\overline{R}`$, $`GR=\overline{B}`$ and $`RBG=0`$ following the definition of the fundamental color-electric charge with the weight vectors of the SU(3) algebra. Making use of these, some of the charges classified in the higher dimension of the representation are reduced into that of the lower ones.

Then, the field equations are the following

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}}{dr^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}}{dr}}2g_\mathrm{m}^2\left(\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}n_i^{(m)}\right)\varphi _i^2=0,`$ (17)
(18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\varphi _i}{dr^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _i}{dr}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}n_i^{(m)}}{r}}\right)^2\varphi _i2\lambda \varphi _i(\varphi _i^2v^2)=0.`$ (19)
The string tension is the energy of the flux tube per unit length,

$`\sigma _D`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}rdr[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_\mathrm{m}^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}}{dr}}\right)^2+\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _i}{dr}}\right)^2`$ (21)
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}n_i^{(m)}}{r}}\right)^2\varphi _i^2+\lambda (\varphi _i^2v^2)^2],`$
To make the energy of the system finite, we have to postulate the boundary conditions:

$`\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}=0,\varphi _i=\{\begin{array}{cc}0& \left(n_i^{(m)}0\right)\\ v& \left(n_i^{(m)}=0\right)\end{array}\mathrm{as}r0,`$ (24)
$`\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}=n_i^{(m)},\varphi _i=v\mathrm{as}r\mathrm{}.`$ (25)
For an analytical evaluation of the string tension, it is useful to rewrite the expression (21) in the form ,

$`\sigma _D`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi v^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left|n_i^{(m)}\right|+2\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}rdr[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g_\mathrm{m}^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}}{dr}}\pm g_\mathrm{m}^2(\varphi _i^2v^2))^2`$ (27)
$`+({\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _i}{dr}}\pm (\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}n_i^{(m)}){\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _i}{r}})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(2\lambda g_\mathrm{m}^2)(\varphi _i^2v^2)^2].`$
From this expression we find that in the Bogomol’nyi limit ,

$$g_\mathrm{m}^2=2\lambda ,\mathrm{or}3g^2=4\lambda ,$$
(28)
which corresponds to $`\kappa =m_\chi /m_B=1`$, a considerable simplification occurs. The vacuum is separated into two types at this Bogomol’nyi point, type-I ($`\kappa <1`$) and type-II ($`\kappa >1`$) in analogy to the superconducting material. In the Bogomol’nyi limit one gets the saturated string tension,

$$\sigma _D=2\pi v^2\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left|n_i^{(m)}\right|.$$
(29)
One finds that the string tension for the fundamental representation becomes $`\sigma _3=4\pi v^2`$ since $`_{i=1}^3\left|n_i^{(m)}\right|=2`$. In this special case, the profiles of the dual gauge field and the monopole field are determined by the first-order differential equations,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}}{dr}}\pm g_\mathrm{m}^2(\varphi _i^2v^2)=0,`$ (30)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi _i}{dr}}\pm \left(\stackrel{~}{B}_i^{\mathrm{reg}}n_i^{(m)}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _i}{r}}=0.`$ (31)
These field equations reproduce the second-order differential equations (17) and (19) when the relation (28) is fulfilled. Note that the procedure to find the Bogomol’nyi limit is an extension of the method used for the U(1) Abelian Higgs model  to the U(1)$`\times `$U(1) DGL theory corresponding to SU(3) gluodynamics in Abelian projection.

Finally, let us compute the ratio of the string tension between the higher and fundamental representations. In the Bogomol’nyi limit, this can be done easily by using the expression (29). For the ratio between $`D=\mathrm{𝟖}`$ and $`D=\mathrm{𝟑}`$, we get $`d_8\sigma _8/\sigma _3=(2\pi v^2\times 4)/(2\pi v^2\times 2)=2`$. In general, one can recognize a simple rule

$$d_D\frac{\sigma _D}{\sigma _3}=p+q.$$
(32)
Here $`p+q`$ is the sum of weight factors in the SU(3) representation, which physically corresponds to the number of the color-electric Dirac string inside the flux tube in the framework of the DGL theory. In the type-I ($`\kappa <1`$) or type-II ($`\kappa >1`$) parameter range, we have to calculate the expression (21) by solving the field equations (17) and (19) numerically. The corresponding numerical results are shown in Figs. 1$``$3. In Fig. 1 we show the values of $`d_8`$ and $`d_6`$ corresponding to $`p+q=2`$ as a function of the GL parameter. Similarly, in Figs. 2 and 3, the ratios $`d_D`$ classified in the representation $`p+q=3`$ and $`p+q=4`$ are shown, respectively. The dotted line denotes the ratio of the quadratic Casimir charges: $`C^{(2)}(D)/C^{(2)}(F=\mathrm{𝟑})=2.25`$, $`2.5`$, $`4`$, $`4.5`$, $`6`$, $`6.25`$, $`7`$ for the dimensions $`D=\mathrm{𝟖}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟔}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}𝐚`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟒}`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}𝐬`$, respectively. Of course, at $`\kappa =1`$ the analytical results (32) are realized, and all ratios increase monotonously with the GL parameter $`\kappa `$. It is interesting to note that the Casimir scaling is accomplished only in the type-II region, for $`\kappa =59`$, depending on the Casimir ratio for a particular representation. It seems that the DGL theory in its present shape can not describe the Casimir scaling for all representations simultaneously, with a unique value of $`\kappa `$. Some additional terms will be necessary to slightly modify the influence of $`\kappa `$ on the energy of the flux tube solutions corresponding to various external charges.

## IV Summary and discussion

We have studied the string tension of flux tubes associated with static charges in higher SU(3) representations within the dual Ginzburg-Landau theory in a manifestly Weyl symmetric approach. We have found that the ratio of the string tension between higher and fundamental representations, $`d_D\sigma _D/\sigma _F`$, depends only on the ratio between the monopole mass $`m_\chi `$ and the mass of the dual gauge boson $`m_B`$, the Ginzburg-Landau parameter $`\kappa =m_\chi /m_B`$. We have pointed out that the ratios $`d_D`$ have a simple form in the case of the Bogomol’nyi limit in terms of the number of color-electric Dirac strings inside the flux tube. We have numerically determined the ratios in the type-I ($`\kappa <1`$) and type-II ($`\kappa >1`$) parameter ranges and found them monotonically rising with $`\kappa `$. In principle, such deviation of the ratio from the number of color-electric Dirac string can be understood as the effect of the flux-tube interaction. In the type-II parameter range, in the interval $`\kappa =59`$, the Casimir scaling is approximately reproduced for all representations $`D`$ studied in the present paper. This shows that it was premature to say that the the dual superconducting scenario of confinement is in plain contradiction with the Casimir scaling.

## Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge fruitful discussions with M. Takayama. E.-M.I. is grateful for the support by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of Japan (Monbu-Kagaku-sho). T.S. acknowledges the financial support from JSPS Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research (B) No. 10440073 and No. 11695029.