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# Introduction

## Introduction

Current physics is faced with the fundamental problem of constructing a unified physical theory. The problem boils down to the unification of quantum theory and general relativity, which would have resulted in quantum theory of gravitation, or quantum gravity. The effort to construct quantum gravity has been bent, for the most part, on quantizing spacetime structure, in particular metric. Meanwhile, taking account of the indeterministic aspect of the quantum treatment of matter, which manifests itself in quantum jumps, essentially affects classical spacetime structure and the Einstein equation. The reasoning is as follows.

In the classical description of spacetime and quantum treatment of matter, which is known as semiclassical gravity, the Einstein equation reads $`G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }=8\pi \varkappa T_{\mu \nu }`$, $`T_{\mu \nu }=(\mathrm{\Psi },\widehat{T}_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Psi })`$, where $`G`$ is the Einstein tensor, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant, $`g`$ is metric, $`\varkappa `$ is the gravitational constant, $`\widehat{T}`$ is the energy-momentum tensor operator, and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a state vector. Quantum jumps of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ have as a consequence jumps of $`T_{\mu \nu }`$, which implies those of $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }`$. The components $`G_{ij}(i,j=1,2,3)`$ involve the second time derivatives $`\ddot{g}_{ij}g_{ij,00}`$ of the metric components $`g_{ij}`$ . Therefore the six equations $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{ij}=8\pi \varkappa T_{ij}`$ may remain unchanged: Jumps of $`T_{ik}`$ will result in those of $`\ddot{g}_{ij}`$, which is physically appropriate. A completely different type of situation occurs in the four equations $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{0\mu }=8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu }`$. The only time derivatives of metric involved in the components $`G_{0\mu }`$ are $`\dot{g}_{ij}`$, which should be continuous, let alone $`g_{\mu \nu }`$. Therefore the four equations are violated by jumps of $`T_{0\mu }`$ and must be extended. An apparent approach to the problem is to write $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{0\mu }=8\pi \varkappa (T_{0\mu }+P_{0\mu })`$ where $`P_{0\mu }`$ are to compensate for the jumps of $`T_{0\mu }`$. We shall treat the quantities $`P_{0\mu }`$ as the components of the pseudomatter energy-momentum tensor.

There immediately arises the uniqueness problem: In order that introducing $`P_{0\mu }`$ make sense, the separations of tensors into $`(0\mu )`$ and $`(ij)`$ components should be unique. This implies the existence of a distinguished universal time. It is the quantum jumps that provide the existence of such a time. A quantum jump gives rise to a set of simultaneous events—jumps of $`\ddot{g}`$. These events allow for synchronizing clocks and thereby furnishing universal time. It is natural to identify cosmological time with quantum-jump universal time. Thus cosmological time is defined on the level of fundamental physical laws—in contrast to the phenomenological approach in classical cosmology.

Universal time gives rise to the product structure of spacetime manifold, $`M=T\times S`$ where $`T`$ is cosmological time and $`S`$ is cosmological space, and a particular synchronous reference frame— cosmological reference frame.

There remains the problem of pseudomatter dynamics, i.e., the time dependence of the quantities $`P_{0\mu }`$. The latter is determined by the dynamics of the tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$.

The foregoing results in the indeterministic Einstein equation: $`G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }=S_{\mu \nu },S_{\mu \nu }=T_{\mu \nu }+P_{\mu \nu }`$, $`S`$ stands for source, $`T`$ relates to matter and $`P`$ to pseudomatter, respectively; in the cosmological reference frame $`P_{ij}=0`$.

Pseudomatter manifests itself only in gravitational effects, representing therefore an absolutely dark ”matter”.

The application of the indeterministic Einstein equation to the Robertson-Walker spacetime results in that the source density is $`\rho _s=\rho _m+\rho _{ps}`$ where $`m`$ relates to matter and $`ps`$ to pseudomatter, respectively, in accordance with which the parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\rho /\rho _{cr}`$ equals $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s=\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_{ps}`$.

## 1 Quantum jumps and violation of the Einstein equation

We adopt the classical description of spacetime and quantum treatment of matter. The Einstein equation takes the form:

$$G\mathrm{\Lambda }g=8\pi \varkappa T$$
(1.1)
$$T=(\mathrm{\Psi },\widehat{T}\mathrm{\Psi })$$
(1.2)
where $`G`$ is the Einstein tensor, $`g`$ is metric, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant, $`\varkappa `$ is the gravitational constant, $`\widehat{T}`$ is the energy-momentum tensor operator, and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a state vector. An essential aspect of this treatment is quantum indeterminism, which manifests itself in jumps of the state vector:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{before}\mathrm{jump}}\mathrm{\Psi }^<\mathrm{\Psi }^>\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{after}\mathrm{jump}}$$
(1.3)
A jump of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ results in that of $`T`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T=(\mathrm{\Psi }^>,\widehat{T}\mathrm{\Psi }^>)(\mathrm{\Psi }^<,\widehat{T}\mathrm{\Psi }^<)$$
(1.4)
under the assumption that $`\widehat{T}`$ is continuous. Discontinuity of $`T`$ causes a violation of the Einstein equation (1.1). Let us consider the violation in detail. Write down equations (1.1), (1.2), and (1.4) in components:

$$G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }=8\pi \varkappa T_{\mu \nu },T_{\mu \nu }=(\mathrm{\Psi },\widehat{T}_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Psi })$$
(1.5)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mu \nu }=(\mathrm{\Psi }^>,\widehat{T}_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Psi }^>)(\mathrm{\Psi }^<,\widehat{T}_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Psi }^<)$$
(1.6)
Let a jump of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ occur at $`x^0=t=t_{\mathrm{jump}}`$. We put

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^<=\mathrm{\Psi }(t_{\mathrm{jump}}),\mathrm{\Psi }^>=\mathrm{\Psi }(t_{\mathrm{jump}}+0)$$
(1.7)
so that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mu \nu }(t_{\mathrm{jump}},\stackrel{}{x})=T_{\mu \nu }(t_{\mathrm{jump}}+0,\stackrel{}{x})T_{\mu \nu }(t_{\mathrm{jump}},\stackrel{}{x}),\stackrel{}{x}=(x^i),i=1,2,3$$
(1.8)
The components $`G_{ij}(i,j=1,2,3)`$ of the Einstein tensor involve the second time derivatives

$$\ddot{g}_{ij}g_{ij,00}$$
(1.9)
of the metric tensor components $`g_{ij}`$ . This makes it possible to retain the six equations

$$G_{ij}\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{ij}=8\pi \varkappa T_{ij}$$
(1.10)
unchanged. Jumps of the $`T_{ij}`$ will result in those of the $`\ddot{g}_{ij}`$, which is quite conceivable from the physical point of view: A jump of force results in a jump of acceleration. As to the four equations

$$G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }=8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu }$$
(1.11)
the situation is completely different. The components $`G_{0\mu }`$ of the Einstein tensor involve no second time derivatives of metric tensor components; the only time derivatives of metric involved in $`G_{0\mu }`$ are $`\dot{g}_{ij}`$. The latter should be continuous, not to mention $`g_{\mu \nu }`$. Thus the violation of the four equations (1.11) is intolerable and they must be extended.

## 2 Introducing pseudomatter

An apparent approach to the improvement of equations (1.11) is to write

$$G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }=8\pi \varkappa (T_{0\mu }+P_{0\mu }),\mu =0,1,2,3$$
(2.1)
in which the terms $`P_{0\mu }`$ are to compensate for the jumps of $`T_{0\mu }`$. Dynamical equations are (1.10), whereas (1.11) play the role of integrals of motion, so that introducing the terms $`P_{0\mu }`$ into (2.1) is quite justified. We treat the quantities $`P_{0\mu }`$ as the components of the energy-momentum tensor relating to pseudomatter.

## 3 The problem of uniqueness of pseudomatter

There immediately arises the uniqueness problem. In order that the above procedure of introducing the terms $`P_{0\mu }`$ make sense, the separation of the tensors in question into $`(0\mu )`$ and $`(ij)`$ parts needs to be unique. This, in its turn, implies the existence of a distinguished $`x^0`$ coordinate, or a universal time. Cosmological time, i.e., universal time of the standard model of cosmology cannot be taken for this purpose, for it is introduced phenomenologically rather than on the basis of fundamental physical laws .

## 4 Quantum-jump universal time

It is quantum jumps that appear again, this time to provide a universal time. A quantum jump of the state vector gives rise to a set of events—jumps of $`\ddot{g}`$. These events are, by definition, simultaneous, which allows for synchronizing clocks and thereby furnishing the universal time. It is natural to identify phenomenological cosmological time with the quantum-jump universal time. Now cosmological time is defined on the level of fundamental physical laws.

In special relativity the concept of simultaneity in connection with quantum jumps makes no operationalistic sense. Taking gravity into account endows the concept with an operationalistic content.

## 5 Spacetime structure

Universal time gives rise to a family of sets of simultaneous events, thereby endowing spacetime with a fiber structure. The metric compatible with this structure, i.e., admitting synchronization of clocks, is of the form

$$ds^2=g_{00}(dx^0)^2+g_{ij}dx^idx^j$$
(5.1)
or, with

$$dt=g_{00}dx^0,t=t(x^0,\stackrel{}{x})=g_{00}(x^0,\stackrel{}{x})𝑑x^0$$
(5.2)
$$ds^2=dt^2+g_{ij}dx^idx^j,g_{ij}=g_{ij}(t,\stackrel{}{x})$$
(5.3)
which relates to a synchronous reference frame. The latter, in its turn, implies the product spacetime manifold:

$$M=M^4=T\times S,Mp=(t,s),tT,\mathrm{}atb\mathrm{},sS$$
(5.4)
The one-dimensional manifold $`T`$ is universal cosmological time, the three-dimensional manifold $`S`$ is cosmological space. By (5.4), the tangent space $`M_p`$ at a point $`pM`$ is

$$M_p=T_tS_s,p=(t,s)$$
(5.5)
and, in view of (5.3),

$$T_tS_s$$
(5.6)
Thus, quantum jumps give rise to the product spacetime (5.4) and a particular synchronous reference frame

$$p=(t,s)(t,\stackrel{}{x})$$
(5.7)
The latter may be called cosmological reference frame and considered as a canonical synchronous reference frame.

In the coordinate-free representation, the metric (5.3) reads

$$g=dtdth_t,h_tg_{ij}(t,\stackrel{}{x})dx^idx^j$$
(5.8)
in which $`h_t`$ is a Riemannian metric tensor on $`S`$ depending on $`t`$.

## 6 Pseudomatter dynamics

In order for equations (2.1) not to be merely a definition of the quantities $`P_{0\mu }`$:

$$P_{0\mu }\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa }(G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu })T_{0\mu }$$
(6.1)
pseudomatter dynamics, i.e., time evolution of these quantities should be determined independently of the dynamics for the right-hand side of (6.1).

We have

$$G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }=8\pi \varkappa S_{\mu \nu },S_{\mu \nu }=S_{\nu \mu }$$
(6.2)
where $`S`$ stands for source (and has nothing to do with the $`S`$ in (5.4)). In the canonical synchronous reference frame, which will be used henceforth,

$$S_{ij}=T_{ij},S_{0\mu }=T_{0\mu }+P_{0\mu },P_{ij}=0$$
(6.3)
and

$$g_{0i}=0,g_{00}=1$$
(6.4)
From (6.2) follows

$$S_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}=0$$
(6.5)
For any symmetric tensor $`Y^{\mu \nu }=Y^{\nu \mu }`$

$$Y_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}\sqrt{g}=(Y_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }\sqrt{g})_{,\nu }(1/2)g_{\alpha \beta ,\mu }Y^{\alpha \beta }\sqrt{g},g=\mathrm{det}(g_{\mu \nu })$$
(6.6)
holds . We find from (6.5), (6.6), (6.4), and (5.3)

$$(S_\mu {}_{}{}^{0}\sqrt{g})_{,0}=(1/2)g_{kl,\mu }T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(S_\mu {}_{}{}^{j}\sqrt{g})_{,j}$$
(6.7)
whence

$$S_\mu {}_{}{}^{0}\sqrt{g}=_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{(1/2)g_{kl,\mu }T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(S_\mu {}_{}{}^{j}\sqrt{g})_{,j}\}+f_\mu (\stackrel{}{x})$$
(6.8)
Thus

$$S_{0\mu }(t,\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g(t,\stackrel{}{x})}}[F_\mu (t,\stackrel{}{x})+f_\mu (\stackrel{}{x})]$$
(6.9)
or, for brevity,

$$S_{0\mu }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}[F_\mu +f_\mu ]$$
(6.10)
where

$$F_\mu =_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{(1/2)g_{kl,\mu }T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(S_\mu {}_{}{}^{j}\sqrt{g})_{,j}\}$$
(6.11)
so that, in view of (6.3), (6.4),

$$F_i=_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{(1/2)g_{kl,i}T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(T_i{}_{}{}^{j}\sqrt{g})_{,j}\}$$
(6.12)
$$\begin{array}{c}F_0=_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{(1/2)g_{kl,0}T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(g^{ji}S_{0i}\sqrt{g})_{,j}\}\hfill \\ =_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{(1/2)g_{kl,0}T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(g^{ji}[F_i+f_i])_{,j}\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(6.13)
As to initial conditions, we have

$$F_\mu (t_0)=0$$
(6.14)
so that

$$f_\mu =f_\mu (\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa }[\sqrt{g}(G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu })](t_0,\stackrel{}{x})$$
(6.15)
In view of (6.3), the dynamics of $`P_{0\mu }`$ reduces to that of $`S_{0\mu }`$. The latter is described by equations (6.10), (6.12), (6.13), and (6.15).

Let us explicitly introduce jumps $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0\mu }`$ into consideration. It follows from (6.6) that

$$(1/2)g_{kl,\mu }T^{kl}\sqrt{g}(T_\mu {}_{}{}^{j}\sqrt{g})_{,j}=(T_\mu {}_{}{}^{0}\sqrt{g})_{,0}T_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}\sqrt{g}$$
(6.16)
Now we find from (6.12)

$$F_i=\sqrt{g}T_{0i}[\sqrt{g}T_{0i}](t_0)\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0i}](t_k)_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}T_i{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}\sqrt{g}$$
(6.17)
and from (6.13), (6.10), (6.17), and (6.15)

$$\begin{array}{c}F_0=\sqrt{g}T_{00}[\sqrt{g}T_{00}](t_0)\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{00}](t_k)_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}T_0{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}\sqrt{g}\hfill \\ _{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\left(g^{ji}\left\{\left[\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa }G_{0i}T_{0i}\right)\right](t_0)\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0i}](t_k)_{t_0}^t^{}𝑑t^{\prime \prime }T_i{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}\sqrt{g}\right\}\right)_{,j}\hfill \end{array}$$
(6.18)
Thus we obtain from (6.3), (6.10), (6.17), (6.18), and (6.15)

$$\begin{array}{c}P_{0\mu }=\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa \sqrt{g}}[\sqrt{g}(G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu })](t_0)\hfill \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left\{_{t_0}^tdt^{}\sqrt{g}T_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}+\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0\mu }](t_k)\right\}\hfill \\ \frac{g_{0\mu }}{8\pi \varkappa \sqrt{g}}_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{g^{ji}[\sqrt{g}(G_{0i}8\pi \varkappa T_{0i})](t_0)\}_{,j}\hfill \\ +\frac{g_{0\mu }}{\sqrt{g}}_{t_0}^tdt^{}\left\{g^{ji}\left(_{t_0}^t^{}dt^{\prime \prime }\sqrt{g}T_i{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}+\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0i}](t_k)\right)\right\}_{,j}\hfill \end{array}$$
(6.19)
This explicitly describes pseudomatter dynamics.

Note that the components $`P_{ij}`$ cannot be introduced, for there are only four pseudomatter dynamics equations (6.5) and they determine the components $`P_{0\mu }`$.

## 7 The indeterministic Einstein equation

We have obtained the indeterministic Einstein equation

$$G\mathrm{\Lambda }g=8\pi \varkappa S$$
(7.1)
In canonical synchronous reference frame it reads:

$$G_{ij}\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{ij}=8\pi \varkappa T_{ij}$$
(7.2)
and (2.1) with $`P_{0\mu }`$ (6.19), i.e.,

$$\begin{array}{c}G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu }\hfill \\ +\frac{8\pi \varkappa }{\sqrt{g}}\left\{_{t_0}^tdt^{}\sqrt{g}T_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}+\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0\mu }](t_k)\right\}\hfill \\ +\frac{g_{0\mu }}{\sqrt{g}}_{t_0}^t𝑑t^{}\{g^{ji}[\sqrt{g}(G_{0i}8\pi \varkappa T_{0i})](t_0)\}_{,j}\hfill \\ \frac{8\pi \varkappa g_{0\mu }}{\sqrt{g}}_{t_0}^tdt^{}\left\{g^{ji}\left(_{t_0}^t^{}dt^{\prime \prime }\sqrt{g}T_i{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}+\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0i}](t_k)\right)\right\}_{,j}\hfill \\ =\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}[\sqrt{g}(G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu })](t_0)\hfill \end{array}$$
(7.3)
Six equations (7.2) are dynamical ones whereas four equations (7.3) play the role of integrals of motion.

A complete system of dynamical equations should include an equation for the state vector $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$.

Initial conditions at $`t=t_0`$ are given by

$$g_{ij}(t_0,\stackrel{}{x}),\dot{g}_{ij}(t_0,\stackrel{}{x}),\mathrm{\Psi }_{t_0}$$
(7.4)
The classical Einstein equations (1.11) are obtained by putting

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{0\mu }=0,T_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}=0,[G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }8\pi \varkappa T_{0\mu }](t_0)=0$$
(7.5)
in (7.3). In order that the complete system (1.10), (1.11) be fulfilled in all reference frames, the condition

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{ij}=0$$
(7.6)
must hold as well.

## 8 Pseudomatter as an absolutely dark “matter”

There exists the well known problem of dark matter . There is no interaction between pseudomatter and matter, except that they interact through gravity. Thus pseudomatter manifests itself only in gravitational effects and may therefore be regarded as an absolutely dark “matter”.

## 9 Pseudomatter in the Robertson-Walker spacetime

Let us consider $`P_{0\mu }`$ (6.19) in the case of the Robertson-Walker spacetime. In this case

$$G_{0i}=0,T_{0i}=0$$
(9.1)
so that (7.3) for $`\mu =i`$ results in

$$T_i{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}=0$$
(9.2)
Thus

$$P_{0i}=0$$
(9.3)
$$\begin{array}{c}P_{00}=\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa \sqrt{g}}[\sqrt{g}(G_{00}\mathrm{\Lambda }8\pi \varkappa T_{00})](t_0)\hfill \\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left\{_{t_0}^tdt^{}\sqrt{g}T_0{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}+\underset{t_0t_k<t}{}[\sqrt{g}\mathrm{\Delta }T_{00}](t_k)\right\}\hfill \end{array}$$
(9.4)
Next we assume that matter energy $`E`$ is continuous:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E(t_k)=0$$
(9.5)
then

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{00}(t_k)=0$$
(9.6)
In view of (9.2) we put

$$T_0{}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}=0$$
(9.7)
so that

$$T_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }{}_{;\nu }{}^{}=0$$
(9.8)
Now (9.4) reduces to

$$P_{00}=\frac{1}{8\pi \varkappa }\frac{\sqrt{g(t_0)}}{\sqrt{g}}[G_{00}\mathrm{\Lambda }8\pi \varkappa T_{00}](t_0)$$
(9.9)
We have

$$\frac{\sqrt{g(t_0)}}{\sqrt{g}}=\frac{R^3(t_0)}{R^3(t)}$$
(9.10)
where $`R`$ is the radius of the universe.

Thus the pseudomatter density

$$\rho _{ps}=\rho _{ps}(t)=P_{00}=\frac{[R^3(G_{00}\lambda 8\pi \varkappa \rho _m)](t_0)}{8\pi \varkappa }\frac{1}{R^3(t)}\frac{1}{R^3(t)}$$
(9.11)
where

$$\rho _m=T_{00}$$
(9.12)
is the matter density. The source density is

$$\rho _s=\rho _m+\rho _{ps}$$
(9.13)
in accordance with which, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\rho /\rho _{cr}`$ is equal to

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_s=\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_{ps}$$
(9.14)
These results match those of .

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Alex A. Lisyansky for support and Stefan V. Mashkevich for helpful discussion.


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# Longitudinal and transversal piezoresistive response of granular metals

## I introduction

Granular metals are composite materials where a conducting phase made of metallic particles or clusters with mean sizes ranging from about 10 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ to 200 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ or more is randomly dispersed into an insulating glassy material. Depending on the nature of the insulating and conducting phases, their relative concentrations and the typical size of the metallic granules, these materials show a quite rich phenomenology and peculiar properties such as metal-insulator transitions, giant Hall effect, and variable-range hopping type of transport at low temperatures for insulating samples.

The main ingredients governing most of the granular metal properties are the concentration $`x`$ of metal in the composite, the activation energy $`E_c`$ and the tunneling parameter $`K=2d/\xi `$, where $`d`$ is the tunneling distance and $`\xi `$ is the localization length. By varing $`x`$, the composite undergoes a metal-insulator transition at a critical value $`x_c`$ which can be interpeted as the percolation thresold. For $`x>x_c`$, connected metallic grains form a macroscopic cluster which extends over the whole sample and current can flow easily from one end to another when a voltage difference is applied. In this regime,transport has a metallic character identified by a positive temperature coefficient of resistivity (TCR). When $`x<x_c`$, transport is dominated by tunneling and the resistivity increases as the temperature is lowered (so TCR is negative). In this regime, the activation energy $`E_c`$ plays a fundamental role since it defines the scale of energy an electron should overcome to successfully tunnel from one grain to another. It is this parameter that can give rise, together with $`K`$, to variable-range hopping type of transport at sufficiently low temperatures.

The experimental determination of $`x_c`$ is however not as clear cut as the above discussion seems to suggest. For granular metals with low values of $`E_c`$ and $`x`$ close to the percolative thresold, TCR can change sign as the temperature is varied in such a way that $`\mathrm{TCR}<0`$ for $`T<T^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{TCR}>0`$ for $`T>T^{}`$, where $`T^{}`$ is some temperature characteristic of the material. As pointed out in Ref., the nonmonotonic behavior of TCR makes the determination of $`x_c`$ ambiguous and alternative methods should be developed.

In this paper we study the piezoresistive response of granular metals and show how its anisotropy is strictly related to the vicinity to the percolation critical point. Piezoresistance, i.e., the variation of resistance $`R`$ or conductance $`G`$ upon an applied strain field $`\epsilon `$, is an effect common also in bulk metals. If we consider an isotropic conducting material having bulk resistivity $`\rho `$, length $`l`$, and cross-sectional area $`A`$, then the resistance $`R`$ is given by:

$$R=\frac{\rho l}{A}.$$
(1)
The fractional change of $`R`$, $`\delta R/R`$, due to a strain $`\epsilon =\delta l/l`$ is given by:

$$\frac{\delta R}{R}=\frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }+\frac{\delta l}{l}\frac{\delta A}{A}.$$
(2)
If $`\nu `$ is the Poisson’s ratio of the conductor, then it is possible to show that $`\delta A/A=2\nu \epsilon `$ so that:

$$\mathrm{GF}=\frac{\delta \rho }{\epsilon \rho }+(1+2\nu ),$$
(3)
where we have defined the total piezoresistive gauge factor $`\mathrm{GF}=\delta R/\epsilon R`$. It is clear that the total piezoresistive response is made of an intrinsic, $`\delta \rho /\epsilon \rho `$, and a geometric, $`1+2\nu `$, component. For bulk metals, GF is about 2 and, since $`\nu `$ is usually between 0.2 and 0.4, the geometrical effect is in this case more important than the intrinsic one.

A different situation is encountered instead in the so-called thick-film resistors, a particular class of granular metals typically made of RuO2, IrO2, or Bi2Ru2O7 granules embedded in a glassy matrix, for which GF values as large as $`30`$ has been reported, so that the intrinsic piezoresistive effect is much larger than the geometrical one. Such high strain-sensitivity resistances have been exploited to manufacture piezoresistive sensor devices successfully used for pressure and force measurements. Due to their commercial applications, thick-film resistors are the granular materials for which the piezoresistive effect has been studied best and it is thought that inter-grain tunneling processes are responsible for their GF values. To illustrate this point, consider for example the conductance $`g`$ of a simple tunneling process between two metallic grains: $`g\mathrm{exp}(K)`$. Under an applied strain, the tunneling distance $`d`$ is changed to $`d+\delta d=d(1+\epsilon )`$ where $`\epsilon =\delta d/d`$ is the strain. This modifies the tunneling parameter, $`KK+\delta K=K(1+\epsilon )`$ and consequently the conductance $`g`$. The effect on $`g`$ can be substantial because of its exponential dependence and, in principle, it can easily overwhelm the geometrical piezoresistive effect.

Of course, this tunneling mechanism of strain dependence should hold true also for other granular metals than the thick-film resistors as long as tunneling is an important element in transport properties. However the magnitude of the intrinsic piezoresistive effect depends on several factors such as elastic heterogeneity, diffusion of the metallic phase into the glass etc..

In this paper, we point out that a factor affecting in an important way the piezoresistive response is the degree of tortuosity the current has in flowing through a sample of granular metal. As an example, consider Fig. 1 where we report the results of a Monte Carlo calculation of a two dimensional bond-percolation resistor-network model. In the network, a fraction $`p`$ of bonds distributed at random has a finite conductance $`g`$, while the remaining fraction $`1p`$ has zero conductance. When all bonds of the network are conducting ($`p=1`$, Fig. 1a), the current flows along the direction of the applied voltage difference, that is the $`x`$ direction. For $`p<1`$ the missing bonds force the current to aquire nonzero components also along the direction perpendicular to the applied field (the $`y`$ direction) as shown in Fig. 1b where $`p=0.8`$. For values of $`p`$ close to the percolation thresold $`p_c`$ ($`p_c=0.5`$ for a simple square lattice), the tortuosity of the current flow is so developed that the contributions of components parallel and perpendicular to the applied voltage drop become comparable. This is clearly shown in Fig. 1c where the current flow is calculated for $`p=0.55`$.

How the tortuosity of the current flow affects the piezoresistive response, or better its anisotropy, is qualitatively described as follows. Immagine that each single bond in the direction $`x`$ of the applied field is slightly stretched so that its conductance becomes $`g_x=g+g_x^{}\epsilon `$, where $`\epsilon `$ is the strain. For simplicity, we keep the bonds along the direction perpendicular to the field unchanged: $`g_y=g`$. The variation of the total conductance in this situation leads to the longitudinal piezoresistive response (applied strain parallel to the applied field). Such longitudinal response is nonzero for all the three cases depicted in Fig. 1 since there are always nonzero components of the current along the direction of the applied strain. Consider now the transversal piezoresistive response for which the strain is applied along the direction $`y`$ perpendicular to the field, i.e., $`g_y=g+g_y^{}\epsilon `$ and $`g_x=g`$. Contrary to the longitudinal case, for $`p=1`$ there are no components of the current along the $`y`$ direction and the total conductance is therefore unaffected by the applied strain. In this case the transersal piezoresistive response is zero. However, for $`p<1`$ current starts to flow also along the $`y`$ direction and becomes affected by the strain induced variation of $`g_y`$ leading to a nonzero piezoristance effect. Since close to the percolation thresold the components of the current along the $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions are comparable (Fig. 1c), it is expected that in this case the longitudinal and the transversal piezoresistive responses have similar values.

From the above qualitative discussion, we argue that away from the percolation thresold the piezoresistive response is highly anisotropic with the longitudinal component much larger than the transversal one, while close to the percolative critical point the two components becomes comparable, leading to an isotropic piezoresistive response. By using Monte Carlo calculations and results from the effective medium theory we show in the following that for resistor network models this conclusion holds true and that actually the longitudinal and the transversal piezoresistive responses are equal at the percolation thresold. Hence, a measurement of the piezoresistive anisotropy could be an alternative way to determine the critical concentration $`x_c`$ of the conducting phase in granular metals.

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we introduce the model and, by using the effective medium theory, provide analytical formulas for the longitudinal and transversal piezoresistive responses. In Sec. III we report our Monte Carlo calculations and compare them with the analytical formulas of the effective medium theory. The last section is devoted to a discussion and to the conclusions.

## II Effective medium theory

In this section, we evaluate the piezoresistive response of a resistor network model by using a generalized effective medium theory. Before entering the details of our model, let us first introduce an operative definition of the piezoresistive effect and the different gauge factors. In Fig. 2 we show a schematic apparatus for the measurement of the piezoresistive response. The sample is placed on top of a cantilever bar clamped at one end, and a force $`F`$ acts downward on the opposite end. We assume that in the absence of the force, transport is isotropic with conductance $`G`$. When $`F0`$, a tensile stress is built on the upper surface of the cantilever and a strain $`\epsilon _{xx}=\epsilon `$ is transfered to the sample. This strain is directed along the main axis of the cantilever which we choose to be directed along the $`x`$ direction. If the thickness of the cantilever is sufficiently small compared to its width, the strain along $`y`$ can in first approximation be neglected. If we assume that the strain field is completely transfered to the sample (which is a good approximation as long as the linear dimensions of the sample are much smaller than those of the cantilever), then the strain field acting on the granular metal is: $`\epsilon _{xx}=\epsilon `$, $`\epsilon _{yy}=0`$, and $`\epsilon _{zz}=\epsilon \nu /(1\nu )`$, where $`\nu `$ is the Poisson ratio of the material. By referring to Fig. 2, the longitudinal piezoresistive response is obtained by setting a potential difference between points a and b, and the total conductance up to the linear term in the strain is:

$$G_x=G+\delta G_x=G(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}),$$
(4)
where we have defined the longitudinal gauge factor:

$$\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=\frac{\delta G_x}{\epsilon G}.$$
(5)
When the potential difference is applied between points c and d of Fig. 2, that is perpendicular to the strain in the $`x`$ direction, the conductance can be expressed as $`G_y=G(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T})`$, where $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ is the transversal gauge factor:

$$\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=\frac{\delta G_y}{\epsilon G}.$$
(6)
Although $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ are the most used parameters, there is also a vertical gauge factor obtained applying a voltage difference between the upper and lower surfaces of the sample: $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}=\delta G_z/\epsilon G`$.

Let us describe now our resistor network model. We consider a three dimensional simple cubic network where a bond has either a finite conductance $`g`$ with probability $`p`$ or zero conductance with probability $`1p`$. We limit ourselves to the case in which the activation energy $`E_c`$ is sufficiently low and the temperature sufficiently high to approximate $`g`$ by a tunneling exponential. Furthermore, we allow a certain distribution in the tunneling distance in such a way that $`g=g_0\mathrm{exp}[K\mathrm{\Delta }K(p^{}1/2)]`$, where $`g_0`$ is a prefactor, $`p^{}`$ is a random variable uniformly distributed between $`0`$ and $`1`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ can assume values between zero (single tunneling distance) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=2K`$. For this latter case therefore the tunneling exponent is continuously distributed between $`0`$ and $`K_{\mathrm{max}}=2K`$.

The probability distribution $`\rho (g)`$ of the conductance value of a bond is:

$$\rho (g)=\frac{p}{\mathrm{\Delta }Kg}\mathrm{\Theta }\left[g_0e^{K+\mathrm{\Delta }K/2}g\right]\mathrm{\Theta }\left[gg_0e^{K\mathrm{\Delta }K/2}\right]+(1p)\delta (g),$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the Heaviside step function. For a simple cubic network, the effective medium equation reads:

$$𝑑g\rho (g)\frac{\overline{g}g}{g+2\overline{g}}=0,$$
(8)
which, by using Eq.(7), leads to the following expression for the effective macroscopic conductance $`\overline{g}`$:

$$\overline{g}=g_0\frac{e^K}{2}\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{3p1}{6p}\mathrm{\Delta }K\right)/\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{6p}\right).$$
(9)
As expected by the effective medium approximation, $`\overline{g}`$ vanishes for $`p=\overline{p}_c=1/3`$, which could be interpreted as the effective field metal-insulator transition point.

Now, Let us consider how the effective medium theory should be generalized to describe the effects of applied strain fields. To simplify the problem, we make the assumption that the strains are oriented along the directions of the bonds in the simple cubic network. Hence, in the presence of the strain field, the conductances become $`g_x`$, $`g_y`$, and $`g_z`$ according to whether their corresponding conducting bonds are oriented towards to the $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ directions, respectively. The probability distribution $`\rho _i(g)`$ of a bond in the $`i`$ direction ($`i=x,y,z`$) is then equal to Eq.(7) where $`K`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ are replaced by $`K_i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_i`$, respectively. Therefore, if $`\epsilon _{ii}=\delta d_i/d_i`$ is the strain along the $`i`$ direction, $`K_i=K(1+\epsilon _{ii})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_i=\mathrm{\Delta }K(1+\epsilon _{ii})`$. Within this model we have made the assumption that the strain field does not affect sensibly the prefactor $`g_0`$ and from now on we set it equal to unity. The strain-induced anisotropy leads to a system of three coupled effective medium equations for the three macroscopic conductances $`\overline{g}_i`$:

$$𝑑g\rho _i(g)\frac{\overline{g}_ig}{g+S_i}=\frac{\overline{g}_i}{S_i}+p\frac{\overline{g}_i+S_i}{S_i\mathrm{\Delta }K_i}\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{S_i+e^{(K_i+\mathrm{\Delta }K_i/2)}}{S_i+e^{(K_i\mathrm{\Delta }K_i/2)}}\right]=0;i=x,y,z,$$
(10)
where, by following the work of Bernasconi, $`S_i=1/R_i\overline{g}_i`$ and $`R_i`$ is the total resistance between two neighboring nodes in $`i`$ direction for the effective lattice. For the $`x`$ component, $`R_x`$ reads:

$$R_x=\frac{1}{\pi ^3}_0^\pi _0^\pi _0^\pi 𝑑x^{}𝑑y^{}𝑑z^{}\frac{1\mathrm{cos}(x^{})}{\overline{g}_x[1\mathrm{cos}(x^{})]+\overline{g}_y[1\mathrm{cos}(y^{})]+\overline{g}_z[1\mathrm{cos}(z^{})]},$$
(11)
and $`R_y`$ and $`R_z`$ are obtained from (11) by replacing in the numerator $`\mathrm{cos}(x^{})`$ with $`\mathrm{cos}(y^{})`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}(z^{})`$, respectively. For general values of the $`\overline{g}_i`$, the integrals $`R_i`$ can be evaluated only numerically. However, we are interested in the piezoresistive effect which is just the linear response to an applied strain field so that, to our purposes, it is sufficient to evaluate the integrals $`R_i`$ at the first order in the strain. As we show below this procedure permits an analytical solution of the anisotropic effective field equations.

Let us replace in Eq.(11) the effective conductances $`\overline{g}_i`$ with $`\overline{g}_x=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L})`$, $`\overline{g}_y=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T})`$, and $`\overline{g}_z=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z})`$, where, by following the definitions given above, we have identified the gauge factors for the effective conductances by:

$$\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=\frac{\delta \overline{g}_x}{\epsilon \overline{g}};\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=\frac{\delta \overline{g}_y}{\epsilon \overline{g}};\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}=\frac{\delta \overline{g}_z}{\epsilon \overline{g}},$$
(12)
As shown in the Appendix, up to order $`\epsilon `$, $`R_x`$ reduces to:

$$R_x=\frac{1}{3\overline{g}}+\frac{1\xi }{3\overline{g}}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}\epsilon +\frac{\xi }{6\overline{g}}\left(\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}+\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}\right)\epsilon ,$$
(13)
where $`\xi 0.5264`$. Similarly, we obtain for $`R_y`$ and $`R_z`$:

$`R_y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\overline{g}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1\xi }{3\overline{g}}}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}\epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{6\overline{g}}}\left(\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}+\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}\right)\epsilon ,`$ (14)
$`R_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\overline{g}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1\xi }{3\overline{g}}}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}\epsilon +{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{6\overline{g}}}\left(\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}+\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}\right)\epsilon .`$ (15)
By substituting Eqs.(13-15) into Eq.(10), and equating to zero the term linear in $`\epsilon `$, we obtain three linear equations for the three gauge factors. After some algebra, we obtain for the longitudinal and transversal components:

$$\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=\frac{[3p\mathrm{\Delta }KX6KpY\mathrm{\Delta }K][(12\nu )\xi (9pY\mathrm{\Delta }K)12pY(1\nu )]}{18pY(1\nu )[(49\xi )pY+\xi \mathrm{\Delta }K]},$$
(16)
$$\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=\frac{\xi [9pY\mathrm{\Delta }K][3p\mathrm{\Delta }KX6KpY\mathrm{\Delta }K](12\nu )}{18pY(1\nu )[(49\xi )pY+\xi \mathrm{\Delta }K]},$$
(17)
where:

$`X`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{6p}\right)\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{3p1}{6p}\mathrm{\Delta }K\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{2}\right)}}`$ (18)
$`Y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{6p}\right)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{3p1}{6p}\mathrm{\Delta }K\right)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{2}\right)}}.`$ (19)
We show in the next section how $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ behave for different values of $`p`$, $`K`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ in comparison with Monte Carlo numerical calculations. Before doing so, we stress here the main result of the effective medium theory, namely, that $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ are generally different unless $`p=\overline{p}_c=1/3`$. In fact, from Eqs.(16-19) we obtain:

$$\underset{p1/3}{lim}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=\underset{p1/3}{lim}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=\frac{12\nu }{6(1\nu )}\left[\mathrm{\Delta }K\mathrm{coth}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }K}{2}\right)+2(K1)\right].$$
(20)
The effective medium theory therefore confirms the qualitative arguments discussed in the introduction and, as we shall see in the next section, it captures the essential physics governing piezoresistive anisotropy. It is also worth stressing that, at $`p=1/3`$, $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ independently of the particular strain field used.

## III Numerical calculations

In this section we compare the results of the effective medium theory, Eqs.(16-19), with numerical calculations of a three dimensional random resistor network model. In our Monte Carlo calculations, we have considered cubic networks with number of nodes up to $`30\times 30\times 30`$ and bond conductances as described in the last section. The total conductance has been obtained by solving numerically the Kirchoff equations for all nodes in the network, and periodic boundary conditions have been imposed to the sides of the network where no voltage difference is applied. The different gauge factors have been obtained by calculating, for a fixed configuration of resistors, the difference in conductances when $`\epsilon =0`$ and $`\epsilon =0.001`$. The results have been then averaged over a minimum of 30 to a maximum of 100 different runs.

In Fig. 3 we show the results of Monte Carlo calculations (symbols) and effective medium theory (lines) for the limiting case for which there is no distribution in tunneling probabilities ($`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$). In this limit, the effective medium formulas (16-19) simplify considerably:

$`\underset{\mathrm{\Delta }K0}{lim}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ $`=`$ $`K{\displaystyle \frac{3\xi (1p)(12\nu )4(13p)(1\nu )}{(1\nu )[9\xi (1p)4(13p)]}},`$ (21)
$`\underset{\mathrm{\Delta }K0}{lim}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ $`=`$ $`K{\displaystyle \frac{3\xi (1p)(12\nu )}{(1\nu )[9\xi (1p)4(13p)]}}.`$ (22)
The results of Fig. 3 confirm the qualitative analysis made in the introduction (see also Fig. 1). Namely, for $`p=1`$ the current flows exclusively along paths parallel to the direction $`x`$ of the applied field leading to a non zero longitudinal piezoresistive effect ($`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}=K`$) and a vanishing transversal response ($`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=0`$). For $`p<1`$, the missing bonds force the current to flow also along directions perpendicular to $`x`$. In this case, the piezoresistive response acquires a transversal component while the longitudinal one is lowered. Note that the analytical and numerical results agree quite well for bond probabilities larger than $`p0.6`$ while for lower values of $`p`$ the effective medium results start to deviate from the Monte Carlo data. This is of course due the increased inaccuracy of the effective medium theory as the percolation thresold is approached. However, at the critical bond probability ($`p_c0.25`$ for simple cubic lattice, and $`\overline{p}_c=1/3`$ for the corrsponding effective medium approximation) both the Monte Carlo data and the analytical results predict equal longitudinal and transversal responses. Finally, note that for $`\nu =0.5`$, $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ remains equal to zero also for $`p<1`$. This is due to the fact that, for this value of the Poisson ratio and our assumption on the applied strain field, one has $`\epsilon _{zz}=\epsilon `$, therefore the bonds in the $`z`$ direction are contracted of the same amount as the bonds in the $`x`$ direction are stretched.

The results of Fig. 3 show clearly how piezoresistive isotropy is related to the vicinity to the percolation thresold. Another limiting situation is the one depicted in Fig. 4 where all bonds are present ($`p=1`$) but with a finite ditribution of tunneling probability. Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ is varied between $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=2K`$, $`K`$ has been fixed equal to $`4`$ and $`\nu =0`$, $`0.3`$, and $`0.5`$. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$ we recover the limit $`p=1`$ of Fig. 3, while for finite values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ the distribution of different tunneling probabilities induces tortuosity in the current flow which is reflected in a reduction of $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ and an enhancement of $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$. As before, the limit $`\nu =0.5`$ has the peculiarity of having $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}=0`$ independently of the current tortuosity. Note that, since for $`K=4`$ and $`p=1`$ the system is far away from the percolation thresold, effective medium theory agrees excellently well with the Monte Carlo calculations. This agreement becomes however less satisfactory as the distribution width increases as shown in Fig. 5 where results are reported for $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$, $`K`$, $`2K`$ as a function $`K`$ for $`p=1`$. High values of tunneling distribution widths increase the fluctuactions of bond conductances reducing the validity of the effective medium approximation.

Having analyzed two representative cases ($`p1`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$, and $`p=1`$ with $`\mathrm{\Delta }K0`$) we show in Fig. 6 the results for both $`p1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }K0`$ with $`K=4`$ and $`\nu =0.3`$. The difference between the longitudinal and transversal piezoresistive effects decreases as the bond conductance fluctuations increases whatever is the origin of such fluctuations (missing bonds or finite distribution of bond conductances). Note that, contrary to the other cases, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=8`$ $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ increases as $`p`$ decreases. From the effective medium formulas it is found that this feature persists also for higher $`K`$ values if $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ is somewhat larger than $`K`$. However it is difficult to test this tendency with our Monte Carlo calculations.since we have employed the relaxation method for which large values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ seriously slow the convergency of the recursive algorithm.

The effect of bond fluctuations on the piezoresistive anisotropy is more clearly shown in Fig. 7 where we plot, for the Monte Carlo data of Fig. 6, the quantity $`\chi `$ defined as:

$$\chi =\frac{\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}}{\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}},$$
(23)
which measures the degree of anisotropy of the piezoresistive response. For a fixed value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$, $`\chi `$ decreases as $`pp_c`$ from above, and it is expected to vanish at $`p=p_c`$. $`\chi `$ decreases also at fixed $`p`$ as $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ is made larger. We believe that $`\chi `$, because of its high-$`p`$ sensitivity for $`pp_c`$, could be a useful practical way to measure the proximity of a granular metal to its percolation critical point.

## IV Discussion and conclusions

The results shown in the previous section clearly indicate how the anisotropy of the piezoresistive effect depends on the vicinity to the percolation thresold. We have interpreted the reduction of anisotropy as due to the increasing of bond conductance fluctuations as $`pp_c`$ from above. Although our results are quite general, their application to real granular metals needs some additional comments.

In our bond percolation model, we have assumed that the external strain fields are applied along the directions of the bonds in the network. However, in a more realistic situation the bond directions should be considered as random. In a practical calculation this could be achieved by considering an ensemble of ordered networks with different orientations with respect to the applied strain fields. The average over such an ensemble should be a satisfying description of a realistic case. What we expect, and bond-average effective medium results (not reported here) confirm, is that even for $`\mathrm{\Delta }K=0`$ and $`p=1`$, the anisotropy parameter $`\chi `$, Eq.(23), is less than one. This is due to the random bond orientation which contribute, even if the network have strictly equal bond conductances, to a lowering of the piezoresistive anisotropy. However, also in this case, the reduction of $`\chi `$ as $`p`$ is lowered (or $`\mathrm{\Delta }K`$ is enhanced) and the limit $`\chi =0`$ for $`pp_c`$ remain valid.

Another effect which has been ignored in the present analysis is the possibility of having elastic heterogeneity within the granular metal. A large difference between the elastic constants of the metallic and insulating phases can give rise to important fluctuations in the local strain fields. Since the microscopic tunneling processes are affected by the local rather than the macroscopical strain values, the elastic heterogeneity can influence the piezoresistive response in an important way. This is actually what is expected in thick-film resistors where very stiff metallic granules are embedded in a relatively elastically soft insulating glass. This large elastic heterogeneity could be at the origin of the large values of piezoresistive responses actually observed for this class of granular materials. We expect however that the inclusion of this effect should influence the absolute values of $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}`$ but leave the anisotropy parameter $`\chi `$ relatively unaffected.

## A

In this appendix we report the evaluation of the integrals $`R_x`$, $`R_y`$, and $`R_z`$ up to the linear term in the strain $`\epsilon `$. Let us consider first $`R_x`$, Eq.(11), and substitute the effective conductances $`\overline{g}_i`$, $`i=x,y,z`$, with $`\overline{g}_x=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L})`$, $`\overline{g}_y=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T})`$, and $`\overline{g}_z=\overline{g}(1\epsilon \mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z})`$, where the gauge factors are defined in Eq.(12). Hence, up to the term linear in $`\epsilon `$ we obtain:

$$R_x=\frac{a}{\overline{g}}+\frac{b}{\overline{g}}\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{L}\epsilon +\frac{c}{\overline{g}}\left(\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{T}+\mathrm{GF}_\mathrm{Z}\right)\epsilon ,$$
(A1)
where

$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑x^{}𝑑y^{}𝑑z^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{cos}(x^{})}{3\mathrm{cos}(x^{})\mathrm{cos}(y^{})\mathrm{cos}(z^{})}},`$ (A2)
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑x^{}𝑑y^{}𝑑z^{}{\displaystyle \frac{[1\mathrm{cos}(x^{})]^2}{[3\mathrm{cos}(x^{})\mathrm{cos}(y^{})\mathrm{cos}(z^{})]^2}},`$ (A3)
$`c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑x^{}𝑑y^{}𝑑z^{}{\displaystyle \frac{[1\mathrm{cos}(x^{})][1\mathrm{cos}(y^{})]]}{[3\mathrm{cos}(x^{})\mathrm{cos}(y^{})\mathrm{cos}(z^{})]^2}}.`$ (A4)
It is easy to show that $`b+2c=a`$ and $`a=1/3`$. Moreover $`b`$ can be rewritten as $`b=a\xi /3`$ where:

$$\xi =\frac{1}{\pi ^3}_0^\pi _0^\pi _0^\pi 𝑑x^{}𝑑y^{}𝑑z^{}\frac{1}{3\mathrm{cos}(x^{})\mathrm{cos}(y^{})\mathrm{cos}(z^{})}.$$
(A5)
Form Ref., we have:

$$\xi =\frac{4}{\pi ^2}[18+12\sqrt{2}10\sqrt{3}7\sqrt{6}]𝐊[(2\sqrt{3})(\sqrt{3}\sqrt{2})]^20.5264,$$
(A6)
where $`𝐊`$ is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. Equation (13) is obtained by substituting $`a=1/3`$, $`b=(1\xi )/3`$, and $`c=\xi /6`$ into Eq.(A1).


text:
# Coulomb Distortion Effects for Electron or Positron Induced (𝑒,𝑒') Reactions in the Quasielastic Region

## I Introduction

A persistant problem in using electron scattering for investigating nuclear structure and nuclear properties, especially in the quasielastic region, is the large static Coulomb field of medium and heavy nuclei. The presence of the static Coulomb potential (of order $`25`$ MeV at the surface of the $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ nucleus) invalidates one of the primary attributes of electron scattering as usually presented. Namely that in the electron plane-wave Born approximation, the cross section can be written as a sum of terms each with a characteristic dependence on electron kinematics and containing various bi-linear products of the Fourier transform of charge and current matrix elements. That is, various structure functions for the process can be extracted from the measured data by so-called Rosenbluth separation methods. The trouble with this picture is that when Coulomb distortion of the electron (or positron) wavefunctions arising from the static Coulomb field of the target nucleus is included exactly by partial wave methods, the structure functions can no longer be extracted from the cross section, even in principle.

In the early 90’s, Coulomb distortion for the reactions $`(e,e^{})`$ and $`(e,e^{}p)`$ in quasielastic kinematics was treated exactly by the Ohio University group using partial wave expansions of the electron wavefunctions. Such partial wave treatments are referred to as the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) since the static Coulomb distortion is included exactly by numerically solving the radial Dirac equation containing the Coulomb potential for a finite nuclear charge distribution to obtain the distorted electron wave functions. While this calculation permits the comparison of nuclear models to measured cross sections and provides an invaluable check on various approximate techniques of including Coulomb distortion effects, it is numerically challenging and computation time increases rapidly with higher incident electron energy. Furthermore, the initial computer codes did not include the option of calculating positron induced reactions in an obvious manner although only the sign of the Coulomb distortion term in the Dirac equation needed to be changed. And, as noted above, it was not possible to separate the cross section into various terms containing the structure functions and develop insights into the role of various terms in the transition charge and current distributions.

In our DWBA investigations of $`(e,e^{})`$ and $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions in the quasielastic region, we used a relativistic treatment based on the $`\sigma \omega `$ model for the nucleons involved. In particular, for the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ reaction we use a relativistic Hartree single particle model for a bound state and a relativistic optical model for an outgoing proton combined with the free space relativistic current operator $`J^\mu =\gamma ^\mu +i\frac{\kappa }{2M}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }_\nu `$. For the $`(e,e^{})`$ case we solve for the continuum nucleon wavefunctions using the real bound state potential so as to maintain current conservation. Using these models, we compared our DWBA calculations with experimental data measured at various laboratories for $`(e,e^{})`$, and for $`(e,e^{}p)`$  and have found excellent agreement with the data. We concluded that the relativistic nuclear models are in excellent agreement with the measured data and note that we do not need to invoke meson exchange effects and other two-body terms in the current that are necessary in a Schrödinger description that uses a non-relativistic reduction of the free current operator . However, other investigators use other nuclear models and our elaborate DWBA code can not be easily modified to include different transition currents.

To avoid the numerical difficulties associated with DWBA analyses at higher electron energies and to look for a way to still define structure functions, our group  developed an approximate treatment of the Coulomb distortion based on the work of Knoll and the work of Lenz and Rosenfelder. We were able to greatly improve some previous attempts along this line where various additional approximations were made which turned out not to be valid. The essence of the approximation is to calculate the four potential $`A_\mu `$ arising from the lepton four current in the presence of the static Coulomb field of the nucleus. This is possible for momentum transfers greater than approximately $`300`$ MeV/c in a limited spatial region which we take to be of order $`3R`$ where $`R`$ is the nuclear charge radius. The Coulomb distortion is included in the four potential $`A_\mu `$ by the elastic scattering lepton phase shifts and by letting the magnitude of the lepton momentum include the effect of the static Coulomb potential. This last step leads to an $`r`$-dependent momentum. A key result of our approximation method is that the separation of the cross section into a “longitudinal” term and a “transverse” term is still possible.

We compared our approximate treatment of Coulomb distortion (which we will designate as approximate DW) to the exact DWBA results for the reaction $`(e,e^{}p)`$ and found good agreement (at about the 1-2$`\%`$ level) near the peaks of cross sections even for heavy nuclei such as $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$. With an improved parametrization of the elastic scattering electron phase shifts , we achieve quite good agreement away from the peaks in the cross sections. Using this approximate DW treatment of Coulomb distortions for the inclusive $`(e,e^{})`$ reaction in much more difficult numerically since the direction of the outgoing nucleon has to be integrated over, and all the nucleons in the nucleus have to be knocked out. Therefore, we sought even more severe approximations in order to obtain a simple ad-hoc method of calculating the structure functions for $`(e,e^{})`$ reactions. In our earlier work, we found it necessary to use different ad-hoc procedures for the longitudinal and transverse terms, although our investigation of the ad-hoc procedure for the longitudinal terms was hindered by the fact that the longtitudinal contributions to the total cross section are usually considerably less than $`50\%`$ and thus we did not have great sensitivity to the Coulomb corrections for the longitudinal structure function. In this paper we will use a simple non-relativistic toy model to calculate the Coulomb corrections to the longitudinal structure function with our approximate DW methods that we applied to $`(e,e^{}p)`$ and then investigate the ad-hoc treatment of the longitudinal structure function which is a key ingredient in investigating the Coulomb sum rule. After developing an improved ad-hoc procedure using our toy model we compare it the the full DWBA calculation which we have now extended to include positron induced reactions.

## II Approximate Treatment of Coulomb Distortion

Our approximate method of including the static Coulomb distortion in the electron wavefunctions is to write the wave functions in a plane-wave-like form;

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^\pm (𝐫)=\frac{p^{}(r)}{p}e^{\pm i\delta (𝐋^2)}e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }}e^{i𝐩^{}(r)𝐫}u_p,$$
(1)
where the phase factor $`\delta (𝐋^2)`$ is a function of the square of the orbital angular momentum, $`u_p`$ denotes the Dirac spinor, and the local effective momentum $`𝐩^{}(𝐫)`$ is given in terms of the Coulomb potential of the target nucleus by

$$𝐩^{}(𝐫)=\left(p\frac{1}{r}_0^rV(r)𝑑r\right)\widehat{𝐩}.$$
(2)
The $`adhoc`$ term $`\mathrm{\Delta }=a[\widehat{𝐩}^{}(r)\widehat{r}]𝐋^2`$ denotes a small higher order correction to the electron wave number which we have written in terms of the parameter $`a=\alpha Z(\frac{16MeV/c}{p})^2`$. The value of 16 MeV/c was determined by comparison with the exact radial wave functions in a partial wave expansion. We have examined the positron case ($`ZZ`$) and find that this parametrization works equally well when compared to the exact radial positron wave functions.

We calculate the elastic scattering phases and fit them to a function of the square of the Dirac quantum number $`\kappa `$ used to label the phase shifts. We then replace the discrete values of $`\kappa ^2`$ with the total angular momentum operator $`𝐉^2`$ which we subsequently replace by the orbital angular momentum operator $`𝐋^2`$ since the low $`\kappa `$ terms where the difference between $`j`$ and $`l`$ is significant contribute very little to the cross section. Finally we replace the angular momentum operator squared by its classical value $`(𝐫\times 𝐩)^2`$. The removal of any spin dependence apart from what is in the Dirac spinor $`u_p`$ is crucial for writing the cross section as the sum of a longitudinal and a transverse contribution.

Initially  we fitted the phases $`\delta _\kappa `$ to a quadratic function of $`\kappa ^2`$ which worked reasonably well for lower electron energies, but with the prospect of new higher energy electron accelerators, we needed a fit to the phases that will work at higher energies. In addition, we wanted to avoid calculating all of the elastic phase shifts, particularly the very high $`\kappa `$ values. We decided to make use of the fact that the higher $`\kappa `$ phase shifts approach the point Coulomb phases which have a simple analytical form at high energy. The low $`\kappa `$ phases, corresponding to orbitals which penetrate the nucleus, are linear in $`\kappa ^2`$ which was the basis or our initial parametrization. The difficult phases to fit correspond to $`\kappa `$ values of order $`pR`$ which, from a classical point of view, correspond to scattering from the nuclear surface region and are known to make large contributions to the cross section. We were able to find a parametrization of the elastic scattering phases shifts in terms of $`\kappa ^2`$ which has the correct large $`\kappa ^2`$ behaviour and becomes linear in $`\kappa ^2`$ at low angular momentum, and since we have the correct large $`\kappa `$ behaviour, we need only calculate the exact scattering phase shifts for $`\kappa `$ values up to order $`pr`$. After some investigation , we found that the following parametrization of elastic scattering phase shift describes the exact phase shifts very well:

$$\delta (\kappa )=[a_0+a_2\frac{\kappa ^2}{(pR)^2}]e^{\frac{1.4\kappa ^2}{(pR)^2}}\frac{\alpha Z}{2}(1e^{\frac{\kappa ^2}{(pR)^2}})\times \mathrm{ln}(1+\kappa ^2)$$
(3)
where $`p`$ is the electron momentum and we take the nuclear radius to be given by $`R=1.2A^{1/3}0.86/A^{1/3}`$. We fit the two constants $`a_0`$ and $`a_2`$ to two of the elastic scattering phase shifts ($`\kappa =1`$ and $`\kappa =Int(pR)+5`$). To a very good approximation, $`a_0=\delta (1)`$ and $`a_2=4\delta (Int(pR)+5)+\alpha Zln(2pR)`$, where $`Int(pR)`$ replaces $`pR`$ by the integer just less than $`pR`$. Note that this parametrization only requires the value of the exact scattering phase shift for $`\kappa =1`$ and $`\kappa =Int(pR)+5`$. For this paper we have confirmed that this same parametrization works equally well for the positron phase shifts.

Using the new phase shift parametrization and the local effective momentum approximation, we construct plane-wave-like wave functions for the incoming and outgoing electrons. Since the only spinor dependence is in the Dirac spinor all of the Dirac algebra goes through as usual and we end up with a Møller-like potential given by,

$$A_\mu ^{appro.DW}(𝐫)=\frac{4\pi e}{q^2\omega ^2}e^{i[\delta _i((𝐫\times 𝐩_i^{}(r))^2)+\delta _f((𝐫\times 𝐩_f^{}(r))^2)]}e^{i(\mathrm{\Delta }_i\mathrm{\Delta }_f)}e^{i𝐪^{}(r)𝐫}\overline{u}_f\gamma _\mu u_i$$
(4)
where the phase shift parametrization is given in Eq. 3 with $`\kappa ^2`$ being replaced by $`(𝐫\times 𝐩)^2`$, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is given following Eq. 2, and the $`r`$-dependent momentum transfer is given by $`𝐪^{}(r)=𝐩_i^{}(r)𝐩_f^{}(r)`$.

With this approximate DW four potential $`A_\mu `$ it is straightforward to calculate the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ cross sections and modified structure functions. We showed  that using this new phase shift(see  for details) we can reproduce the full DWBA cross sections for $`(e,e^{}p)`$ from medium and heavy nuclei very well.

## III Application to the Inclusive Process

In the plane wave Born approximation (PWBA), where electrons or positrons are described as Dirac plane waves, the cross section for inclusive quasielastic $`(e,e^{})`$ processes can be written simply as

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_ed\omega }=\sigma _M\{\frac{q_\mu ^4}{q^4}S_L(q,w)+[\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\theta _e}{2}\frac{q_\mu ^2}{2q^2}]S_T(q,w)\}$$
(5)
where $`q_\mu ^2=\omega ^2𝐪^2`$ is the four-momentum transfer, $`\sigma _M`$ is the Mott cross section given by $`\sigma _M=(\frac{\alpha }{2E})^2\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}{\mathrm{sin}^4\frac{\theta }{2}}`$, and $`S_L`$ and $`S_T`$ are the longitudinal and transverse structure functions which depend only on the momentum transfer $`q`$ and the energy transfer $`\omega `$. As is well known, by keeping the momentum and energy transfers fixed while varying the electron energy $`E`$ and scattering angle $`\theta _e`$, it is possible to extract the two structure functions with two measurements. As we will summarize below, our approximate treatment of Coulomb distortions still permit Rosenbluth-like separations but with Coulomb corrections which require the use of models.

For the inclusive cross section $`(e,e^{})`$, the longitudinal and transverse structure functions in Eq. (5) are bi-linear products of the Fourier transform of the components of the nuclear transition current density integrated over outgoing nucleon angles. Explicitly, the structure functions for knocking out nucleons from a shell with angular momentum $`j_b`$ are given by

$`S_L(q,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu _bs_p}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _p}{2(2j_b+1)}}{\displaystyle N_0^2𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_p}`$ (6)
$`S_T(q,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mu _bs_p}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _p}{2(2j_b+1)}}{\displaystyle (N_x^2+N_y^2)𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_p}`$ (7)
where the nucleon density of states $`\rho _p=\frac{pE_p}{(2\pi )^2}`$, the $`z`$-axis is taken to be along $`𝐪`$, and $`\mu _b`$ and $`s_p`$ are the z-components of the angular momentum of the bound and continuum state particles. The Fourier transfer of the nuclear current $`J^\mu (𝐫)`$ is simply,

$$N^\mu =J^\mu (𝐫)e^{ı𝐪𝐫}d^3r.$$
(8)
ans the continuity equation has been used to eliminate the $`z`$-component ($`N_z`$) via the equation $`N_z=\frac{\omega }{q}N_0`$.

When we use our approximate Møller potential given in Eq. (4) , we also can separate the cross section into longitudinal and tranverse components since as noted previously, it the Dirac spinor structure that leads to this result. However, when we use the approximate electron four potential along with current conservation to eliminate the z-component of the current we run into a problem since the momentum transfer $`𝐪^{}`$ depends on r both in magnitude and direction. In addition, the phase factors depend on $`𝐫`$. To avoid generating additional terms we assume the direction of $`𝐪^{}(r)`$ is along the asymptotic momentum transfer $`𝐪`$ which defines the $`\widehat{z}`$-axis, and neglect the dependence on $`𝐫`$ in the phases and in $`𝐪^{}(r)`$, when taking the divergence of $`𝐍`$. With this further approximation, current conservation implies $`\omega N_0+𝐪^{}(r)𝐍=0`$. Using these results, approximate the cross section for the inclusive reaction $`(e,e^{})`$ can be written as

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_ed\omega }=\sigma _M\{\frac{q_\mu ^4}{q^4}S_L^{^{}}(q,w)+[\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\theta _e}{2}\frac{q_\mu ^2}{2q^2}]S_T^{^{}}(q,w)\}$$
(9)
and the transform of the transition nuclear current elements which appears in $`S_L`$ and $`S_T`$ are given by

$`N_0^{appro.DW}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle (\frac{q_\mu ^{}(r)}{q_\mu })^2(\frac{q}{q^{}(r)})^2e^{i\delta _f([𝐫\times 𝐩_i^{}(r)]^2)}e^{i\delta _f([𝐫\times 𝐩_f^{}(r)]^2)}e^{i(\mathrm{\Delta }_i\mathrm{\Delta }_f)}e^{i𝐪^{}(r)𝐫}J_0(𝐫)d^3r}`$ (10)
$`𝐍_T^{appro.DW}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle e^{i\delta _i([𝐫\times 𝐩_i^{}(r)]^2)}e^{i\delta _f([𝐫\times 𝐩_f^{}(r)]^2)}e^{i(\mathrm{\Delta }_i\mathrm{\Delta }_f)}e^{ı𝐪^{}(r)𝐫}𝐉_T(𝐫)d^3r}`$ (11)
Due to the angular dependence in the phase factors in Eqs. (10) and (11), a multipole expansion of the approximate potential is not practical. Thus, $`N_0^{appro.DW}`$ and $`𝐍_T^{appro.DW}`$ have to be evaluated by carrying out a 3-dimensional numerical integration. As we have shown for the $`(e,e^{}p)`$ case , this numerical integration reproduces the exact DWBA results very well. However, since the inclusive reaction $`(e,e^{})`$ requires a sum over all occupied neutron and proton shells and a further integration over the directions of the outgoing nucleon, numerical integration is very time consuming. In order to have a more practical procedure we examine additional approximations that will allow the integration over the angular coordinates in Eqs. (10) and (11) to be done analytically.

We created such an ad-hoc procedure in a previous paper , but we were comparing our ad-hoc procedures to the exact DWBA calculation which was largely dominated by the transverse terms. Hence, our ad-hoc procedures for the longitudinal term were not very well determined. In addition, our full DWBA calculation was only set up for electrons, so we could not check the ad-hoc approximation for positrons. In order to address this matter, we created a simple toy model which assumes harmonic oscillator bound state protons and takes the outgoing continuum proton wavefunction to be a plane wave. Using this simple model to calculate the transition charge distributions allows us to calculate the longitudinal contribution to the cross section using the approximate DW expression for $`N_0`$ of Eq. (10) and to compare this result to various ad-hoc proscriptions. Based on this investigation, coupled with our previous investigation of the transverse contributions which dominate the cross section at large electron scattering angles, we propose the following ad-hoc expressions for the longitudinal and transverse structure functions:

$`N_0^{adhoc}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle (\frac{q_\mu ^{}(r)}{q_\mu })^2(\frac{q}{q^{}(r)})^2e^{i<\delta (\kappa _i^2)+\delta (\kappa _f^2)>}e^{i𝐪^{}(r)𝐫}J_0(𝐫)d^3r}`$ (12)
$`𝐍_T^{adhoc}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}(0)}{p_i}}){\displaystyle e^{i𝐪^{}(r)𝐫}𝐉_T(𝐫)d^3r}.`$ (13)
where $`<\delta (\kappa _{i,f}^2)>`$ denotes an average over the angles of the vector $`𝐫`$. That is, $`<\kappa _{i,f}^2>=<(𝐫\times 𝐩_{i,f})^2>=r^2p_{i,f}^2(3cos^2\theta _{p_{i,f}})/4`$. Note that under this averaging, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ term goes to zero. This removes the angular dependence in the phase factors, and thus permits a multipole treatment of the matrix element as usual.

In the following figures for the longitudinal parts of the cross sections based on our simple model we will compare our new recommended longitudinal ad-hoc result given in Eq. (12) to the result calculated by the full three-dimensional integration of Eq. (10) and to our previous ad-hoc results called LEMA which we give below for convenience:

$`N_0^{LEMA^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{p_i^{}(0)}{p_i}}{\displaystyle }e^{i𝐪^{\prime \prime }(r)𝐫}J_0(𝐫)d^3r`$ (14)
where $`𝐪^{\prime \prime }=𝐩_i^{\prime \prime }(r)𝐩_f^{\prime \prime }(r)`$, $`p^{\prime \prime }(r)=p\frac{\lambda }{r}_0^rV(r^{})𝑑r^{}`$ and the factor $`\lambda `$, which depends on the energy transfer $`\omega `$, is given by $`\lambda =(\omega /\omega _o)^2`$ with $`\omega _o=\frac{q^2}{1.4M}`$.

Clearly $`N_0^{adhoc}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝐍}_T^{adhoc}`$ represent a modified Fourier transform of the nuclear transition current. For comparison purposes, the approximation known as the EMA replaces $`𝐪^{}(r)`$ with $`𝐪^{}(0)`$ wherever it appears in Eqs. (10) and (11) for $`N_0`$ and $`N_T`$ and the phases are neglected as usual. We find that for light nuclei the EMA is adequate, but it leads to large errors for nuclei as heavy as $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$.

In Fig. 1 we compare the two approximate calculations with the DW approximation for the longitudinal contribution to the cross section for knocking protons out of various shells at a forward angle in $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ by electrons or positrons. Note that while we use harmonic oscillator wavefunctions for all orbitals, we do use the binding energies of the orbitals that correspond to the values we find for our relativistic $`\sigma \omega `$ model for $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$. While the ad-hoc result is not in perfect agreement with the full DW result, it clearly is in better agreement that the LEMA result and, for cases where the electron incident and final energy exceed 300 MeV is in reasonable agreement, particularly near the maxima. Note that the positron results are not very sensitive to which approximation is used.

In Fig. 2 we show similar results at a backward angle. We note that our ad-hoc DWBA results for positrons tend to be in much better agreement with the DW result than the electron case. We again find that our new ad-hoc approximation for the longitudinal contribution is considerably better that our previous LEMA result. We note that while the agreement between our ad-hoc calculation and the DW calculation for knocking out protons from individual orbitals is not excellent, the discrepancies do not seem have a systematic tendency to be either low or high and we have reason to hope that when all the orbitals are added together as in the case of $`(e,e^{})`$ reactions from nuclei that these discrepancies will tend to average out.

## IV Comparison to experiment and conclusions

Based of our investigation of this simple toy model, we adopt our new ad-hoc model for the longitudinal structure functions and return to our full nuclear model for investigating Coulomb corrections for $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb(e,e^{})`$ in the quasielastic region where the lepton can be electrons or positrons. Our first step is to re-examine our full DWBA calculation  and modify the code for the case of positrons. We were successful in doing this and can now compare the full DWBA calculation for electrons and positrons based on a realistic relativisitic nuclear model to our ad-hoc treatment of Coulomb corrections which still permit a separation into longitudinal and transverse terms.

In Fig. 3 we compare the full DWBA calculation to the ad-hoc result and the electron plane wave result (PWBA) for electrons with incident energy of $`E_i=310`$ MeV and scattering angle of $`\theta =143^o`$. Note that this comparison is only a test of the our ad-hoc transverse treatment which is unchanged from our previous work since the longitudinal contribution at such a large angle is at the few percent level. The agreement of the ”plane-wave-like” ad-hoc calculation with the full DWBA result is quite good, even though the outgoing electron energy is well below $`300`$ MeV.

In Fig. 4, we perform a similar comparison for the case of positrons with incident energy of $`E_i=485`$ MeV and scattering angle $`\theta =60^o`$. Again, the agreement is quite good, and unlike the backward angle scattering case, the longitudinal response contributes about 40% of the cross section.

We have examined a number of other cases, and the agreement shown in Figs. 3 and 4 is characteristic at these energies. As the lepton energies increase, the ad-hoc approximation improves since the Coulomb distortion effects become smaller. We did notice in our investigations a general tendency that Coulomb distortion effects for positrons tend to be smaller than Coulomb distortion effects for electrons. This corresponds to an observation made many years ago when looking at inelastic lepton scattering from nuclei , where we noted that Coulomb distortion for positrons tends to saturate. As electrons pass near the nucleus, the attactive Coulomb interaction pulls them into regions of stronger potential which increases the Coulomb distortion effects, while positrons are pushed away from the region with a stronger potential.

With our capability of examining Coulomb distortion of both positrons and leptons with the full DWBA calculation and with our improved ad-hoc procedure we can compare our model predictions to experiment. In Fig. 5, we compare our model calculations with Coulomb distortion included exactly and with our ad-hoc method for quasielastic scattering of electrons of energy $`383`$ MeV and positrons of energy $`420`$ MeV both at a scattering angle of $`\theta =60^o`$ from $`{}_{}{}^{208}Pb`$ to the experimental data from Saclay . Note that in this and the following figure, we are plotting the total structure function $`S_{total}=\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }_f}/\sigma _M(E_i)`$.

We first note that our ad-hoc and exact DWBA results are in reasonable agreement although the lepton energy is somewhat low for our approximate result, and further that the positron and electron total structure functions have approximately the same shape as a function of the energy transfer $`\omega `$. However, they do not have the same magnitude as do the data from Saclay. The positron theory result is in reasonable agreement with the experimental data, but the electron result is approximately 15%-20% larger than the data.

In Fig. 6 we make a similar comparison except that now the scattering angle is $`\theta =143^o`$, and the electron incident energy is $`224`$ MeV while the positron incident energy is $`262`$ MeV. Again, when $`S_{total}`$ is plotted the positron and electron shapes as a function of energy transfer $`\omega `$ are very similar, but again, unlike the experimental data, the magnitudes are quite different. At this backward scattering angle case, our electron result (DWBA) is in quite good agreement with the data. At these much lower energies, clearly our ad-hoc approximation is beginning to fail, particularly for the electron case.

There is considerable interest in extracting the longitudinal contributions from $`(e,e^{})`$ reactions from medium and heavy nuclei in order to investigate the Coulomb sum rule. Clearly, Coulomb distortion effects have to be handled properly. Our results indicate that we could use a Rosenbluth-like procedure in order to separate our “longitudinal” and “transverse” contributions to the cross section. However, these contributions depend on a modified (by Coulomb distortion) Fourier transform of the transition charge and current distributions. It is necessary to use a nuclear model to extract the longitudinal and/or tranverse structure functions from the data. It is not clear to us that a Rosenbluth-like procedure is the best way to proceed, since our ad-hoc procedure is not accurate in the wings of the cross section distributions and in many cases, some of the Rosenbluth points fall on either the low $`\omega `$ or high $`\omega `$ side of the quasielastic peak. It seems that a better procedure might be to choose some semi-realistic nuclear model for the process in question. Use Eqs. (12) and (13) to calculate the structure functions and then fit the calculations to the available data using a least squares procedure to determine nomalization factors $`N_L`$ and $`N_T`$ in front of the appropriate terms. The nuclear model should have the overall correct spatial and kinematic dependence, but the longitudinal or transverse strength will be determined by fitting these normalization factors. Once these factors are determined, one can use the same nuclear model weighted with these factors to calcuate the plane wave structure functions, thereby having “measured” the nuclear longitudinal and transverse response.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. FG02-87ER40370 and the Korean Ministry of Education through BK21 Physics Research Division. We thank Professor Morgenstern for providing us the Saclay data files.