text:
# High Energy QCD and the Large 𝑁_𝑐 Limit

## 1 The BFKL Equation

One of the most important problems in QCD is the problem of understanding its high energy asymptotics. High energy QCD has direct relevance to the scattering data produced at the accelerators worldwide allowing for experimental verification of theoretical attempts to understand QCD dynamics. In addition to that gluonic fields in this extreme regime of high energies become very strong making the underlying description of QCD processes non-perturbative, while leaving the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ small. Therefore understanding the gluon dynamics and correct degrees of freedom of QCD at high energies is possible and may shed some light on the non-perturbative dynamics of the theory.

Let us consider a scattering of two heavy quarkonia (quark–antiquark states), or, equivalently, scattering of two virtual photons with large virtualities $`Q_1^2`$ and $`Q_2^2`$, each of which splits into a quark–antiquark pair. Large virtualities or large masses of the quarkonia insure that the strong coupling constant is small, $`\alpha _s(Q_1^2)\alpha _s(Q_2^2)1`$, allowing us to use perturbative expansion.

At the lowest order in $`\alpha _s`$ the simplest model of high energy interaction between the two quarkonia is given by a two gluon exchange in the forward amplitude. The corresponding total cross section of onium–onium scattering is independent of energy at very high energies and could be written as

$$\sigma s^0,$$
(1)
where $`s`$ is the center of mass energy of the system. This model of high energy interactions is known as Low-Nussinov pomeron. It demonstrates that exchanging two vector particles (gluons) between the onia gives a non-vanishing cross section at high energy, while using scalars or fermions (with non-derivative couplings) would give a cross section that decreases with energy.

However, at the high energies achievable by the modern days accelerators the hadronic cross sections are not constant. They tend to increase as powers of center of mass energy of the system

$$\sigma s^\mathrm{\Delta }$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a number called pomeron intercept. The rise of partonic structure functions with energy could be described by the DGLAP evolution equation. Nevertheless the DGLAP equation does not yield us with a power of energy growth of the cross sections. The only way to obtain a cross section in perturbative QCD that grows as a power of energy is given by the BFKL evolution equation.

The BFKL equation  resums ladder diagrams in the forward onium–onium scattering amplitude of the type shown in Fig. 1. The light cone momenta components of the $`s`$-channel gluons are ordered (Regge kinematics) such that

$$p_+k_{1+}k_{2+}\mathrm{}k_{N+}p_+^{}$$
(3)
and

$$p_{}k_1k_2\mathrm{}k_Np_{}^{}$$
(4)
while there is no restrictions on their transverse momenta which remain of the same order throughout the ladder

$$Q_1k_1k_2\mathrm{}k_NQ_2.$$
(5)
Each $`s`$-channel gluon in the ladder brings in an extra power of the coupling constant $`\alpha _s1`$. The integration over the longitudinal phase space of each gluon gives a term proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}s1`$. Combining the two factors we see that each extra $`s`$-channel gluon introduces a factor of $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}s\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$. Thus, by resumming ladders of the type shown in Fig. 1 the BFKL equation resums all powers of the effective parameter $`\alpha _s\mathrm{ln}s`$.

By drawing a ladder in Fig. 1 we are oversimplifying the problem. The triple gluon vertices in the ladder are not the usual QCD triple gluon vertices. These are the so-called effective Lipatov vertices and have to be calculated by analyzing several gluon emission diagrams, though in certain gauges they do correspond to the usual triple gluon vertices. The gluon propagators in the t-channel are also not just the usual gluon propagators. They include virtual (reggeization) corrections to the ladder which modify the gluon propagators. The resulting reggeized gluons are denoted by thick lines in Fig. 1, each line representing a summation of the whole ladder of Fig. 1 in the color octet channel.

The BFKL equation could be written for onium-onium scattering amplitude $`f(Q_1,Q_2,Y)`$ as

$$\frac{f(\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{l}^{},Y)}{Y}=d^2kK_{BFKL}(\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{k})f(\underset{¯}{k},\underset{¯}{l}^{},Y)$$
(6)
where $`Y=\mathrm{ln}(s/Q_1Q_2)`$ is the rapidity variable and $`K_{BFKL}`$ is the kernel of the equation. Defining the Laplace-transformed amplitude as

$$f_\omega (\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{l}^{})=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑Ye^{\omega Y}f(\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{l}^{},Y)$$
(7)
Eq. (6) could be rewritten as

$$\omega f_\omega (\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{l}^{})=\delta ^2(\underset{¯}{l}\underset{¯}{l}^{})+\frac{\alpha N_c}{\pi ^2}\frac{d^2k}{(\underset{¯}{k}\underset{¯}{l})^2}\left[f_\omega (\underset{¯}{k},\underset{¯}{l}^{})\frac{l^2f_\omega (\underset{¯}{l},\underset{¯}{l}^{})}{k^2+(\underset{¯}{k}\underset{¯}{l})^2}\right].$$
(8)
The solution of Eq. (8) in the saddle point approximation at large $`Y`$ yields the scattering amplitude

$$f(Q_1,Q_2,Y)=\frac{1}{2\pi Q_1Q_2\sqrt{4\pi DY}}e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\mathrm{ln}^2Q_1/Q_2}{4DY}\right]$$
(9)
with $`D=\frac{7\alpha _s}{2\pi }N_c\zeta (3)`$ and $`\alpha _P1=\frac{4\alpha _sN_c}{\pi }\mathrm{ln}2`$. At very high energy the solution given by Eq. (9) grows as a power of energy since

$$e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}s^{\alpha _P1}.$$
(10)
Therefore the BFKL equation seems to be a natural candidate for the phenomenological pomeron as observed in high energy scattering experiments. It is beyond the scope of this talk to address the issue of how well the BFKL equation describes the data. We just note that the numerical value of the obtained pomeron intercept $`\alpha _P1=\frac{4\alpha _sN_c}{\pi }\mathrm{ln}2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2.6}\alpha _s\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.8}`$ is higher than the experimental value of $`0.20.3`$ observed in deep inelastic scattering experiments. The inclusion of next-to-leading order correction to BFKL kernel makes the intercept negative for all reasonable values of $`\alpha _s`$ , though this problem is likely to be due to collinear singularities and should be cured at higher orders in $`\alpha _s`$  resulting in a slightly lower but still positive value of the intercept which is closer to experimental data. The BFKL equation as described here is applicable only to the scattering of perturbative (small) objects like heavy quarkonia and can not be applied to the total cross section in, say, proton–proton collisions, where (in the single ladder approximation) there is no hard scale which would justify the small coupling approach.

However, the BFKL equation poses some important questions even in the case of heavy onium-onium scattering and at the leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ in the kernel.

(i) The power of energy growth of the total cross section (Eq. (10)) violates Froissart unitarity bound, which states that the growth of the total cross sections with energy at asymptotically high energies is bounded by

$$\sigma \frac{const}{m_\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}^2s$$
(11)
with $`m_\pi `$ the pion’s mass. (For a good pedagogical derivation of Froissart bound I refer the readers to .) That means some new effects should modify the BFKL equation at very large $`s`$ to make the resulting amplitude unitary.

(ii) The solution of Eq. (9) includes a diffusion term. To see this let us consider a half of the ladder, from one of the onia to some intermediate gluon in the middle of the ladder carrying momentum $`k_{}`$ and rapidity $`Y/2`$. Applying Eq. (9) to that half-ladder we see that it includes a term

$$\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\mathrm{ln}^2k_{}/Q}{2DY}\right].$$
(12)
This term is responsible for diffusion of the transverse momenta from the initial perturbative scale $`Q`$ both into infrared and ultraviolet. The width of the diffusion grows with rapidity $`Y`$. Thus no matter how large the starting scale $`Q`$ is at certain very high energy the momentum of some gluons in the middle of the ladder would become of the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ invalidating further application of BFKL evolution. Again this hints that the BFKL equation should be modified at higher energies to avoid this problem.

## 2 Multiple Reggeon Exchanges

The BFKL ladder in Fig. 1 can be viewed as two reggeized gluons (reggeons) propagating in the $`t`$-channel. It has been conjectured that unitarity of the total cross section could be restored if one resums all diagrams with multiple reggeon exchanges . Instead of summing the ladder in Fig. 1 one has to analyze all the diagrams of the type shown in Fig. 2. There one can exchange any number of reggeons in the $`t`$-channel. Each pair of reggeons may interact via $`s`$-channel gluon exchanges leading to BFKL-type contributions. To complete the picture one should also include the diagrams where the number of reggeons varies in the $`t`$-channel, that is the diagrams containing vertices of $`n`$ reggeons going into $`m`$ reggeons for any $`n`$ and $`m`$. This is beyond the scope of this talk. We are going to concentrate on the diagrams where the number of reggeons is constant.

The $`n`$-reggeon exchange diagrams were first resummed by Matinyan and Sedarkyan  for the scalar $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. For $`n`$-reggeon exchange amplitude one can write down an equation similar to Eq. (6). However there are many more contributions to the kernel than in the $`2`$-reggeon case considered above. Since at each step in rapidity any two out of $`n`$ reggeons can interact one expects $`n(n1)/2`$ contributions to the kernel of the integral equation. Each contribution comes in with the same integral kernel acting on a different pair of reggeons. Assuming for simplicity that all these kernels are approximately the same we can write the following equation for $`n`$-reggeon amplitude $`_n`$ at large $`n`$

$$\frac{_n}{Y}n^2K_n.$$
(13)
The solution of Eq. (13) scales as

$$_n(Y)e^{(2n+\text{const}n^2)Y}s^{2n+\text{const}n^2},$$
(14)
where the term $`2n`$ in the power results from the fact that we are dealing with $`n`$ scalar particles in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. The total cross section would be given by the sum of $`n`$-reggeon amplitudes

$$\sigma \underset{n}{}_n\underset{n}{}c_ns^{2n+\text{const}n^2},$$
(15)
which is not likely to converge! ($`c_n`$’s are some coefficients which may depend on $`s`$ at most logarithmically.) This result indicates that multiple reggeon exchanges in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory not only fail to unitarize the total cross section, but rather make the series highly divergent. It is believed that the problem is associated to the fact that $`\varphi ^3`$ theory has no stable vacuum and is typical only to $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. Nevertheless one might and should get worried about similar phenomenon happening in QCD.

To demonstrate that the catastrophe which happened in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory is actually avoided in QCD one has to invoke the ’t Hooft large $`N_c`$ limit  which is the central topic of this conference. In the large $`N_c`$ limit the diagrams in Fig. 2 drastically simplify: only the planar graphs survive. Thus the topology of the interaction takes form of a cylinder with the reggeons forming the walls of the cylinder and only the interactions of the nearest neighbor reggeons are allowed, as depicted in Fig. 3. There the $`i`$th reggeon may interact only with the $`i1`$st and $`i+1`$st reggeons, and the $`1`$st reggeon interacts with the $`n`$th and the $`2`$nd reggeons. The two reggeon case (the pomeron of Fig. 1) corresponds to the simplest cylinder topology case with reggeons and $`s`$-channel gluons “living” on the walls of a cylinder. If we add one more reggeon we would obtain the three reggeon case (odderon) which also has a cylindrical topology as shown in Fig. 3.

With only the nearest neighbor interactions between the reggeons allowed the kernel of the integral equation resumming the diagrams shown in Fig. 3 receives only $`n`$ contributions, which is very different from $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. Making the same assumption as for $`\varphi ^3`$ theory we see that Eq. (13) for large-$`N_c`$ QCD becomes

$$\frac{_n}{Y}nK_n$$
(16)
leading to

$$_n(Y)e^{\text{const}nY}s^{\text{const}n}.$$
(17)
Now the total cross section similar to Eq. (15) is

$$\sigma \underset{n}{}_n\underset{n}{}d_ns^{\text{const}n},$$
(18)
with $`d_n`$’s some coefficients with weak dependence on $`s`$. The series in Eq. (18) could be convergent and therefore large-$`N_c`$ QCD avoids the catastrophe of $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. One expects that the problem would not reappear for the real life case of three colors. We have to advise the reader to understand Eq. (17) only as an upper bound on the $`n`$ reggeon amplitudes but not as an exact answer.

A careful QCD analysis of the reggeon cylinder graphs of the type shown in Fig. 3 demonstrates that a reggeon system is equivalent to a one dimensional XXX Heisenberg spin chain for spin $`S=0`$ and is thus an exactly solvable model . That facilitates the analysis of the $`n`$-reggeon diagrams allowing to quantitatively understand their high energy behavior.

An important question for the total cross section is whether the leading-$`N_c`$ $`2n`$-reggeon diagram gives an amplitude which grows with energy faster than the subleading in $`N_c`$ $`n`$-pomeron diagram. Naturally the $`n`$-pomeron diagram should scale as $`s^{n(\alpha _P1)}`$. In the recent paper by Korchemsky et al it has been shown that the $`n`$ reggeon amplitude seem to scale as $`_ns^{\text{const}/n}`$. Thus at very high energies multiple reggeon exchange diagrams grow much slower than multiple pomeron exchange diagrams and the former could be neglected compared to the latter. We refer the interested readers to the contribution of G. Korchemsky in these proceedings .

## 3 Multiple Pomeron Exchanges

### 3.1 General Physical Picture

As could be seen from the discussion in the previous section an exchange of a single BFKL pomeron brings in a parametrical factor of $`\alpha _s^2e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$, where $`e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$ comes from the amplitude in Eq. (9) and the factor of $`\alpha _s^2`$ comes from connecting the reggeons in the ladder to the onia. The BFKL equation resums powers of $`(\alpha _P1)Y\alpha _sY`$ and therefore gives a large contribution when

$$Y_{LO}\frac{1}{\alpha _s}.$$
(19)
What happens as we increase the energy/rapidity? It is possible that multiple pomeron exchanges would start playing a bigger role in the scattering. To estimate when this happens we have to equate single ($`\alpha _s^2e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$) and double ($`\alpha _s^4e^{2(\alpha _P1)Y}`$) pomeron contributions, effectively requiring that $`\alpha _s^2e^{(\alpha _P1)Y_U}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$. As was argued by Mueller in  multiple pomeron exchanges become important at the values of rapidity of the order of

$$Y_U\frac{1}{\alpha _P1}\mathrm{ln}\frac{1}{\alpha _s^2}.$$
(20)
After completion of the calculation of the next–to–leading order corrections to the kernel of the BFKL equation (NLO BFKL) by Fadin and Lipatov , and, independently, by Camici and Ciafaloni , it was shown in  that due to the running coupling effects these corrections become important at the rapidities of the order of

$$Y_{NLO}\frac{1}{\alpha _s^{5/3}}.$$
(21)
One can see that $`Y_{LO}Y_UY_{NLO}`$ for parametrically small $`\alpha _s`$. That implies that the center of mass energy at which the multiple pomeron exchanges become important is much smaller, and, therefore, is easier to achieve, than the energy at which NLO corrections start playing an important role. That is multiple pomeron exchanges are probably more relevant than NLO BFKL to the description of current experiments. Also multiple pomeron exchanges are much more likely to unitarize the total hadronic cross section. Here we are going to present a solution to the problem of resummation of multiple pomeron exchanges and show how the BFKL pomeron unitarizes following.

We will consider deep inelastic scattering (DIS) of a virtual photon on a hadron or nucleus and will resum all multiple pomeron exchanges contributing to the total DIS cross section in the leading longitudinal logarithmic approximation in the large $`N_c`$ limit. The first step in that direction in perturbative QCD was a conjecture by Gribov, Levin and Ryskin (GLR) of an equation describing the fusion of two pomeron ladders into one, which was proven in the double logarithmic limit by Mueller and Qiu. The resulting equation resums all pomeron “fan” diagrams (see Fig. 4) in the double logarithmic approximation. An extensive work on resumming the multiple pomeron exchanges in the gluon distribution function in the leading $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)`$ approximation (i.e. without taking the double logarithmic limit) both in the framework of effective field theories and employing alternative approaches has been pursued in .

Let us consider a deep inelastic scattering (DIS) of a virtual photon on a hadron or nucleus. An incoming photon splits into a quark–antiquark pair and then the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair rescatters on the target hadron or nucleus. In the rest frame of the hadron all QCD evolution should be included in the wave function of the incoming photon. That way the incoming photon develops a cascade of gluons, which then scatter on the hadron at rest. We want to calculate this gluon cascade in the leading longitudinal logarithmic ($`\mathrm{ln}1/x`$) approximation and in the large $`N_c`$ limit. This is exactly the type of cascade described by Mueller’s dipole model. In the large $`N_c`$ limit the incoming gluon develops a system of color dipoles and each of them independently rescatters on the hadron or nucleus. The forward amplitude of the process is shown in Fig. 5. The double lines in Fig. 5 correspond to gluons in large $`N_c`$ approximation being represented as consisting of a quark and an antiquark of different colors. The color dipoles are formed by a quark from one gluon and an antiquark from another gluon. In Fig. 5 each dipole, that was developed through the QCD evolution, later interacts with the hadron or nucleus by a series of Glauber–type multiple rescatterings on the sources of color charge. The assumption about the type of interaction of the dipoles with the hadron is not important for the evolution. It could also be just two gluon exchanges. The important assumption is that each dipole interacts with the target independently of the other dipoles, which is done in the spirit of the large $`N_c`$ limit and is valid for a model of a large dilute target nucleus.

For the case of a dilute target independent dipole interactions with the target proton or nucleus are enhanced by some factors of the number of sources of color charge in the proton or nucleus compared to the case when several dipoles interact with the same parton in the proton or the same nucleon in the nucleus. This allowed us to assume that the dipoles interact with the proton or nucleus independently. In case of a nucleus one actually has the atomic number $`A`$ as a parameter leading powers in which justify this approximation. The summation of these contributions corresponds to summation of the pomeron “fan” diagrams of Fig. 4. In general there is another class of diagrams, which we will call pomeron loop diagrams. In a pomeron loop diagram a pomeron first splits into two pomerons, just like in the fan diagram, but then the two pomerons merge back into one pomeron. The graphs containing pomerons not only splitting, but also merging together will be referred to as pomeron loop diagrams. In a dilute proton or nucleus these pomeron loop diagrams could be considered small, since they would be suppressed by powers of color charge density ($`A`$). At very high energies this approximation becomes not very well justified even in the dilute target case. Contribution of each additional pomeron in a fan diagram on a hadron is parametrically of the order of $`\alpha _s^2A^{1/3}e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$ which is large at the rapidities of the order of $`Y_U`$ given by Eq. (20). The contribution of an extra pomeron in a pomeron loop diagram is of the order of $`\alpha _s^2e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$, which is not enhanced by powers of $`A`$ and is, therefore, suppressed in the dilute nucleus case. However, one can easily see that at extremely high energies, when $`\alpha _s^2e^{(\alpha _P1)Y}`$ becomes greater than one, pomeron loop diagrams become important, still being smaller than the fan diagrams. Resummation of pomeron loop diagrams in a dipole wave function seems to be a very hard technical problem, possibly involving NLO BFKL or, even, next-to-next-to-leading order BFKL kernel calculations. Nevertheless, it is the author’s belief that while being crucial for onium–onium scattering the pomeron loop diagrams are not going to significantly change the high energy behavior of the DIS structure functions.

### 3.2 Nonlinear Evolution Equation

We start by considering a deep inelastic scattering process. The incoming virtual photon with a large $`q_+`$ component of the momentum splits into a quark–antiquark pair which then interacts with the target at rest. We model the interaction by no more than two gluon exchanges between each source of color charge and the quark–antiquark pair. This is done in the spirit of the quasi–classical approximation used previously in . The interactions are taken in the eikonal approximation. Then, as could be shown in general, i.e., including the leading logarithmic QCD evolution, the total cross–section, and, therefore, the $`F_2`$ structure function of the nucleus can be rewritten as a product of the square of the virtual photon’s wave function and the propagator of the quark–antiquark pair through the proton. The expression reads

$$F_2(x,Q^2)=\frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{EM}}\frac{d^2𝐱_{01}dz}{2\pi }[\mathrm{\Phi }_T(𝐱_{01},z)+\mathrm{\Phi }_L(𝐱_{01},z)]d^2b_0N(𝐱_{01},𝐛_0,Y),$$
(22)
where the incoming photon with virtuality $`Q`$ splits into a quark–antiquark pair with the transverse coordinates of the quark and antiquark being $`\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_1`$ correspondingly, such that $`𝐱_{10}=\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_1\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_0`$. The coordinate of the center of the pair is given by $`𝐛_0=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_1+\stackrel{~}{𝐱}_0)`$. The square of the light cone wave function of $`q\overline{q}`$ fluctuations of a virtual photon is denoted by $`\mathrm{\Phi }_T(𝐱_{01},z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(𝐱_{01},z)`$ for transverse and longitudinal photons correspondingly, with $`z`$ being the fraction of the photon’s longitudinal momentum carried by the quark. $`\mathrm{\Phi }_T(𝐱_{01},z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(𝐱_{01},z)`$ are known functions and could be found in the literature.

The quantity $`N(𝐱_{01},𝐛_0,Y)`$ has the meaning of the forward scattering amplitude of the quark–antiquark pair on a nucleus. At the lowest (classical) order not including the QCD evolution in rapidity it is given by

$$N(𝐱_{01},𝐛_0,0)=\gamma (𝐱_{01},𝐛_0)\left\{1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\alpha _s\pi ^2}{2N_cS_{}}𝐱_{01}^2AxG(x,1/𝐱_{01}^2)\right]\right\}.$$
(23)
$`\gamma (𝐱_{01},𝐛_0)`$ is the propagator of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair through the hadron or nucleus. The propagator could be easily calculated, similarly to , giving the Glauber multiple rescattering formula (23). Throughout the talk we assume for simplicity that the target nucleus is a cylinder, which appears as a circle of radius $`R`$ in the transverse direction and has a constant length $`2R`$ along the longitudinal $`z`$ direction. Therefore its transverse cross–sectional area is $`S_{}=\pi R^2`$. In formula (23) $`\alpha _s`$ is the strong coupling constant and $`xG(x,1/𝐱_{01}^2)`$ is the gluon distribution of a nucleon in the nucleus, taken at the lowest order in $`\alpha _s`$, similarly to .

Eq. (23) resums all Glauber type multiple rescatterings of a $`q\overline{q}`$ pair on a target nucleus. As was mentioned before, since each interaction of the pair with a source of color charge in the nucleus is restricted to the two gluon exchange, the formula (23) effectively sums up all the powers of the parameter $`\alpha _s^2A^{1/3}`$. (Since $`xGC_F`$ there is no $`N_c`$ present in the expansion in the large-$`N_c`$ limit.) Therefore this interaction of course is subleading in $`N_c`$ as is true for any hadronic interactions.

Since the target is at rest in order to include the QCD evolution of $`F_2`$ structure function, we have to develop the soft gluon wave function of the incoming virtual photon. In the leading longitudinal logarithmic approximation ($`\mathrm{ln}1/x`$) the evolution of the wave function is realized through successive emissions of small–$`x`$ gluons. The $`q\overline{q}`$ pair develops a cascade of gluons, which then scatter on the hadron. In order to describe the soft gluon cascade we will take the limit of a large number of colors, $`N_c\mathrm{}`$. Then, this leading logarithmic soft gluon wavefunction will become equivalent to the dipole wave function, introduced by Mueller in . The physical picture becomes straightforward. The $`q\overline{q}`$ pair develops a system of dipoles (dipole wave function), and each of the dipoles independently scatters on the target hadron or nucleus (see Fig. 5). Since the target is assumed to have many sources of color charge in it we may approximate the interaction of a dipole (quark–antiquark pair) with it by $`\gamma (𝐱,𝐛)`$ given by Eq. (23), with $`𝐱`$ and $`𝐛`$ being the dipole’s transverse separation and impact parameter. That means that each of the dipoles interacts with several sources of color charge (Glauber rescattering) in the nucleus independent of other dipoles.

To construct the dipole wave function we will heavily rely on the techniques developed in . We have to resum a gluonic cascade in the large-$`N_c`$ limit. Denoting the cascade by a blob we can write down an equation which is illustrated in Fig. 6. As usual for the large $`N_c`$ limit the double line denotes a gluon. The original $`q\overline{q}`$ pair may have no evolution in it, i.e., the cascade could be empty, as illustrated by the first term on the right hand side of Fig. 6. In one step of the evolution in rapidity a gluon is emitted in a dipole, splitting the parent dipole into two dipoles. Each of the produced dipoles is nonlocal: it consists of a quark (antiquark) from the original quark–antiquark pair and an antiquark (quark) component of the emitted gluon. The consecutive gluon evolution can continue in either of the two dipoles. This is depicted in the second term on the right hand side of Fig. 6. This procedure gives us a self-consistent equation resumming the gluon cascade.

Substituting $`1N(𝐱_{01},𝐛_0,Y)`$ instead of the blob symbolizing the gluon cascade and including virtual corrections one obtains the following equation

$`N(𝐱_{01},𝐛_0,Y)=\gamma (𝐱_{01},𝐛_0)\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha _sC_F}{\pi }}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_{01}}{\rho }}\right)Y\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^Y}𝑑y\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha _sC_F}{\pi }}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_{01}}{\rho }}\right)(Yy)\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle _\rho }d^2\stackrel{~}{x}_2{\displaystyle \frac{x_{01}^2}{x_{02}^2x_{12}^2}}[2N(𝐱_{02},𝐛_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝐱_{12},y)`$
$`N(𝐱_{02},𝐛_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝐱_{12},y)N(𝐱_{12},𝐛_0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝐱_{20},y)].`$ (24)
Equation (24), together with Eq. (22), provide us with the leading logarithmic evolution of the $`F_2`$ structure function of a hadron including all multiple pomeron exchanges in the large–$`N_c`$ limit. Note that while the evolution is leading in $`N_c`$ the interactions ($`\gamma `$) are not, so that Eq. (24) could be viewed as resumming powers of $`\alpha _s^2A^{1/3}e^{\alpha _sN_cY}`$.

Similar evolution equation was obtained by Balitsky in  using an effective lagrangian approach to high energy QCD. The evolution equations obtained in  reduce to a closed single equation only in the large-$`N_c`$ limit. Similar results have been obtained in .

### 3.3 Solution of the Nonlinear Evolution Equation

To understand the qualitative features of the integral equation (24) it is convenient to rewrite it in the differential form. Assuming that the typical size of the dipole wave function $`x_{}R`$, where $`R`$ is the proton’s radius, we can rewrite Eq. (24) as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{N(𝐱_{01},Y)}{Y}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _sC_F}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _\rho }d^2x_2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{x_{01}^2}{x_{02}^2x_{12}^2}}2\pi \delta ^2(𝐱_{01}𝐱_{02})\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_{01}}{\rho }}\right)\right]N(𝐱_{02},Y)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sC_F}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x_2\frac{x_{01}^2}{x_{02}^2x_{12}^2}N(𝐱_{02},Y)N(𝐱_{12},Y)}.`$ (25)
Performing a Fourier transform

$`N(x_{},Y)=x_{}^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k}{2\pi }e^{i𝐤𝐱}\stackrel{~}{N}(k,Y)}=x_{}^2{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑kkJ_0(kx_{})\stackrel{~}{N}(k,Y).`$ (26)
we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{N}(k,Y)}{Y}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _sN_c}{\pi }}\chi \left({\displaystyle \frac{}{\mathrm{ln}k}}\right)\stackrel{~}{N}(k,Y){\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _sN_c}{\pi }}\stackrel{~}{N}^2(k,Y),`$ (27)
where

$$\chi (\lambda )=\psi (1)\frac{1}{2}\psi \left(1\frac{\lambda }{2}\right)\frac{1}{2}\psi \left(\frac{\lambda }{2}\right)$$
(28)
is the eigenvalue of the BFKL kernel  with $`\psi (\lambda )=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(\lambda )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\lambda )`$. In Eq. (27) the function $`\chi (\lambda )`$ is taken as a differential operator with $`\lambda =/\mathrm{ln}k`$ acting on $`\stackrel{~}{N}(k,Y)`$. We also put $`N_c/2`$ instead of $`C_F`$ everywhere in the spirit of the large $`N_c`$ approximation. The details of obtaining Eq. (27) from Eq. (25) could be found in .

Now the physical meaning of the evolution given by Eq. (24) becomes manifest. The linear part of Eq. (27) is just the familiar BFKL equation, giving a cross section growing as a power of energy. When energy is not too large and $`N`$ is small the quadratic term could be neglected and the linear evolution is all that remains. However as the energy increases the evolution driven by BFKL would make $`N`$ large, making the quadratic term in Eq. (27) important. The quadratic term would introduce damping effects, similar to GLR-MQ equation, slowing down the growth of the cross section and possibly unitarizing it.

Eq. (24) has been solved both analytically by approximate methods  and numerically. The result for DIS cross sections is qualitatively illustrated in Fig. 7. The cross section starts growing as a power of energy and then saturates to a much slower (logarithmic) growth. Thus Eq. (24) resolves the problem of unitarization of BFKL pomeron (i) posed in Sect. 1.

Does Eq. (24) answer the second question (ii) posed in Sect. 1? Let us first note that Eq. (24) produces a large momentum scale which grows with energy as predicted within the framework of McLerran-Venugopalan model. To see this let us write down the solution to Eq. (27) in the limit of moderate energies (where the equation is still mostly linear):

$$\stackrel{~}{N}_1(k,Y)=C\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{k}\frac{\mathrm{exp}[(\alpha _P1)Y]}{\sqrt{14\alpha _sN_c\zeta (3)Y}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi }{14\alpha _sN_c\zeta (3)Y}\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{k}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right),$$
(29)
where $`C`$ is some overall normalization constant and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the momentum scale inherent to the initial distribution given by Eq. (23) (in fact it is the classical saturation scale given by McLerran-Venugopalan model). At very high energy the amplitude $`N`$ saturates to a constant: $`N1`$ as $`Y\mathrm{}`$. In momentum space this corresponds to

$$\stackrel{~}{N}_{sat}(k,Y)=\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q_s}{k}.$$
(30)
Logarithm is a slowly varying function compared to exponent and to estimate at what momentum scale the transition to saturation takes place we can just equate the amplitude in Eq. (29) to one. Omitting all slowly varying with $`Y`$ prefactors we obtain an estimate of the the saturation scale

$$Q_s(Y)\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{\mathrm{exp}[(\alpha _P1)Y]}{\sqrt{14\alpha _sN_c\zeta (3)Y}}.$$
(31)
One can see from Eq. (31) that as energy increases the saturation scale increases too.

Numerical simulation demonstrated a very interesting behavior of the solution of Eq. (24), which is drastically different from the solution of BFKL. Let us remind the readers that in Sect. 1 based on Eq. (12) we observed that with increasing energy the momentum of gluons given by the solution to BFKL equation diffuses around some initial external perturbative scale $`Q`$ with the diffusion width increasing with $`Y`$. That was potentially dangerous since the diffusion cone would eventually get into the non-perturbative region. The solution of Eq. (24) produces a very different distribution of transverse momenta of the gluons: the width of the diffusion cone seems to be independent of energy while the center of the distribution is given by the saturation scale $`Q_s(Y)`$ which increases with $`Y`$ (see Eq. (31)). Thus the distribution never gets into the dangerous infrared region. Therefore Eq. (24) appears to solve the problem (ii) posed in Sect. 1 of the sensitivity of the cross sections given by BFKL evolution to the non-perturbative infrared region.

## 4 “Phase Diagram” of High Energy QCD

To summarize the results of the previous Section we present the “phase diagram” of high energy QCD depicted in Fig. 8.

The majority of the HERA data shows that the proton’s structure functions at large photon’s virtuality $`Q^2`$ and not very small Bjorken $`xQ^2/s`$ can be described by the DGLAP evolution equation , which is a linear equation. It is convenient to present different properties of hadronic structure functions in terms of a “phase diagram” in $`Q^2`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}1/x`$ plane (see Fig. 8). The DGLAP physics corresponds to the lower right section of the plane, where $`Q^2`$ is large and $`x`$ is not too small. As one goes towards smaller $`x`$ in the same region of $`Q^2`$ the hadronic structure functions rise. Most of the data in that region can be explained in terms of either small-$`x`$ limit of DGLAP equation or, alternatively and more interestingly, by the BFKL equation, which is also a linear equation but could be responsible for evolving the system towards a higher gluonic density regime. However, the DIS cross sections can not rise forever as powers of center of mass energy $`s`$. This would violate unitarity and pose other problems discussed in Sect. 1. That means that at some very small $`x`$ the hadronic structure functions have to undergo a significant qualitative change of behavior, becoming a much slower varying functions of $`x`$. The slow down of the growth of hadronic structure functions is usually associated with non-linear effects in the quark and gluon dynamics, such as parton recombination, which eventually balances the parton splitting process as we have seen in the previous Section. The partons in the hadronic wave function reach the state of saturation. The region of saturation of the structure functions is represented in yellow in Fig. 8. The scale $`Q^2`$ corresponding to the transition to the saturation region is different for different values of Bjorken $`x`$, increasing with decreasing $`x`$ (increasing energy $`s`$). This scale is the saturation scale $`Q_s^2(Y=\mathrm{ln}1/x)`$ given by Eq. (31). If $`Q_s^2(x)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2`$ than the coupling constant inside the saturation region would still be small allowing us to perform analytical calculations inside of the saturation region by employing Eq. (24).

It is possible that the recent experimental data obtained at HERA  contains evidence of saturation transition in DIS on a proton at $`x10^310^4`$ and $`Q^224GeV^2`$, providing an experimental confirmation of the theoretical ideas presented above.

## 5 Open Questions

Several question are still open in the field of saturation physics. Here are some of the questions related to total cross sections:

1. The large $`N_c`$ limit was instrumental in deriving Eq. (24). Beyond it the systems of evolution equations in the existing approaches do not seem to close. Thus the question remains: can one describe the high energy asymptotics of QCD beyond the large-$`N_c`$ limit?

2. NLO BFKL corrections seem to be very large and negative, posing several open questions for the linear evolution equation. Would these problems be cured if one calculates the NLO correction to the full nonlinear evolution? Nonlinear effects become important before the NLO effects and may modify the NLO corrections. Work on this project is under way.

3. Finally in this talk we have demonstrated how unitarization happens in DIS cross sections via summation of fan diagrams of Fig. 4. This mechanism would not work for onium-onium scattering cross section, even though a large $`Q_s`$ should exist in the problem. One has to resum the pomeron loop diagrams in order to understand the unitarization of onium–onium cross section (and, correspondingly, the proton-proton cross section). Resummation of pomeron loops is still an important open question in high energy physics.

## Acknowledgements

I thank the organizers of The Phenomenology of Large $`N_c`$ QCD workshop for such an interesting and timely meeting. This work has been supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG03-97ER41014 and by the BSF grant $`\mathrm{\#}`$ 9800276 with Israeli Science Foundation, founded by the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities.


format: text

text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The data of E781 experiment (FNAL) on spectra of charmed baryons as well as the asymmetries between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}A`$, $`\pi ^{}A`$ and pA interactions at $`p_L=600GeV/c`$ have recently amplified the results of WA89 experiment  (CERN) at $`p_L=340GeV/c`$ and E791 experiment (FNAL) at $`p_L=500GeV/c`$. The data of these experiments on charmed meson spectra and asymmetries have been already considered in the recent paper  from the point of view of Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM) in order to understand the influence of quark composition of beam particle on the shape of production spectra of heavy flavored particles.

The difference in $`x`$ spectra ($`x=x_F=2p_{II}/\sqrt{s}`$) of leading and nonleading particles has been explained successfully by several theoretical models as an effect of interplay between the quark contents of the projectile and of the produced hadron.

Most advanced QCD models  have to take into account so called ”intrinsic charm” (IC) in order to decribe the high value of asymmetry between the $`x`$-spectra of charmed particles and antiparticles in the fragmentation region, $`x`$1. In QGSM  and other models  with elaborated concepts of fragmentation functions (FF), there is no necessity of such assumption, because the specifically written FF give the asymmetries rising with $`x`$. Some amount of IC can only suppress the asymmetry, as it was shown in previous calculations .

It should be noticed that there is a large difference between leading effects in charmed meson spectra and those effects in charmed baryon spectra. Leading $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ baryon in proton-proton interaction might be produced by the ”leading” fragmentation of proton $`ud`$-diquark bringing the large fraction of proton momentum that gives an important enchancement of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ spectra over the spectra of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ . We are suggesting here to consider the spectra in full $`x`$ region: $`1<x<1`$, so that the left side of plots always corresponds to target proton fragmentation. For example, in the case of hyperon-proton interactions the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ spectra will have two different ”wings”: left one at the negative $`x`$’s shows the high asymmetry towards $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ spectra due to the leading fragmentation of target proton, the other one in the positive $`x`$ region should have a bit lower asymmetry because the fragmentation of hyperon diquarks is supposed to have not that strongly leading character  as proton $`ud`$-diquark fragmentation.

The asymmetry between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ spectra in pion-proton interaction should be equal zero in the region of pion fragmentation because pion can have the valent quark (antiquark) in common as with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ as with $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$, so both spectra will provide a leading character and be equal.

## 2 Valence Quark Distributions in QGSM.

The inclusive production cross section of hadrons of type H is written as a sum over n-Pomeron cylinder diagrams:

$$f_1=x\frac{d\sigma ^H}{dx}(s,x)=E\frac{d^3\sigma ^H}{d^3p}d^2p_{}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\sigma _n\left(s\right)\phi _n^H(s,x).$$
(1)
Here, the function $`\phi _n^H(s,x)`$ is a particle distribution in the configuration of n cut cylinders and $`\sigma _n`$ is the probability of this process. The cross sections $`\sigma _n`$ depend on parameter of the supercritical Pomeron $`\mathrm{\Delta }_P`$, which is equal in our model to 0,12 .

The distribution functions of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ in case of $`\pi ^{}p`$ collisions are given by:

$`\phi _n^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}(s,x)=a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}[F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+`$ (2)
$`2(n1)F_{q_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{\overline{q}_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)]+a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}(x_{}),`$
where $`a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}`$ is the central (vacuum) density parameter of charmed baryon production and $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ is the fragmentation parameter of proton target diquark. In the case of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ production in proton fragmentation the diquark fragmentation plays an important role, this diquark part of distribution should be written separately. So the distribution for $`pp`$ collision will include two diquark parts, as for positive $`x`$ as for negative:

$`\phi _n^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}(s,x)=a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)+a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}[F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{0qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+`$ (3)
$`F_{0qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+2(n1)F_{q_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{\overline{q}_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)],`$
where $`F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)`$ is the distribution at the leading fragmentation of diquarks, while $`F_{0qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)`$ is the ordinary part of fragmentation written with the central density parameter $`a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}`$.

The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ distribution functions in case of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}p`$ collisions includes also the additional diquark parts:

$`\phi _n^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}(s,x)=a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)+a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}F_{1qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+`$ (4)
$`a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left[F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+2\left(n1\right)F_{q_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)F_{\overline{q}_{sea}}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)\right],`$
where $`a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}`$ and $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ are the same density parameters as in eqs.(2) and (3).

The particle distribution on each side of chain can be built on the account of quark contents of beam particle ($`x_+=\left(x+\sqrt{x^2+x_{}^2}\right)/2`$, $`x_{}=2\sqrt{m_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}^2+\overline{p_{}^2}}/\sqrt{s}`$) and of target particle ($`x_{}=\left(x\sqrt{x^2+x_{}^2}\right)/2`$). They are in a case of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}p`$ collisions:

$`F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}F_s^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_d^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right),`$
$`F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}F_{dd}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x^+\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_{ds}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_+\right),`$ (5)
$`F_q^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}F_d^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_u^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right),`$
$`F_{qq}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}F_{uu}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}F_{ud}^{\left(n\right)}\left(x_{}\right).`$
Each $`F_i\left(x_\pm \right)`$ ($`i=s,u,d,ud,dd,ds`$…) is constructed as the convolution:

$$F_i\left(x_\pm \right)=_{x_\pm }^1f_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}^i\left(x_1\right)\frac{x_\pm }{x_1}𝒟_i^H\left(\frac{x_\pm }{x_1}\right)𝑑x_1,$$
(6)
where $`f^i\left(x_1\right)`$ is a structure function of i-th quark ( diquark or antiquark) which has a fraction of energy $`x_1`$ in the interacting hadron and $`𝒟_i^H\left(z\right)`$ is a fragmentation function of this quark into the considered type of produced hadrons H.

The structure functions of quarks in interacting proton, hyperon, or pion beams have already been described in the previous papers . In the case of hyperon beam they depend on the parameter of the Regge trajectory of $`\phi `$-mesons ($`s\overline{s}`$) because of s-quark contained in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ ($`\alpha _\phi `$(0)=0).

## 3 Diquark Fragmentation Function and String Junction Transfer

The fragmentation functions of diquark and quark chains into charmed baryons or antibaryons are based on the rules written in .

The $`ud`$\- and $`dd`$-diquark fragmentation function includes the constant $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ which could be interpreted as ”leading” parameter, but the value of $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ is fixed due to the baryon number sum rule and should be approximately equal to the value taken for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ spectra in our previous calculations :

$$𝒟_{dd}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)=\frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}z^{2\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)},$$
(7)
where the term $`z^{2\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)}`$ means the probability for initial diquark to have z close to 0; the intercepts of Regge trajectories, $`\alpha _R\left(0\right)`$, $`\alpha _N\left(0\right)`$ and $`\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)`$ are taken of the same values as in , 0.5, -0.5 and -2.0 correspondingly. The $`\lambda `$ parameter is an remnant of transverse momenta dependence, it is equal to 0,5 here ( for more information see the early publications ).

It is important here to keep in mind the possibility to create the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ baryon only on the base of string junction taken from interacting proton or $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$. The string junction brings the positive baryon number in baryons and the negative one in antibaryons. In the proton and hyperon reactions we have diquarks, so only positive baryon number should be transfered. The fragmentation function of string junction that can be transfered to region $`z>0`$ is of the similar form as diquark FF written above, eq. (7) :

$$𝒟_{SJ}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)=\frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}z^{1\alpha _{SJ}\left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)},$$
(8)
where $`\alpha _{SJ}\left(0\right)`$ is the intercept of string junction Regge trajectory. We are not discussing here the two possible values of string junction intercept: 0,5  and 1,0  just taking it equal to 0,5. This choice of the intercept is a reson of the target proton string junction going easier into the region of opposite z than the diquark, as it is seen from the comparison of $`z0`$ asymptotics in the last formulas. It will become significant when we study the baryon spectra in pion interactions. The full list of fragmentation functions of diquarks and of string junction into charmed baryons is presented in Appendix.

The main difference between the concepts of asymmetry for D-meson production  and for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ production is the difference between the forms of leading fragmentation functions. The parameter $`a_1`$, which was taken for the leading fragmentation of valence quark into D-mesons ( see ), is the ratio of leading D-meson density in fragmentation region, $`z1`$, to the density in the central region, $`z0`$. The $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$ parameter is an absolute fraction of the energy of diquark that is brought by produced $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$. But both parameters reflect actually the same idea of high density of leading hadrons near the fragmentation region ($`z1`$) of those quarks (diquarks) of beam particle which can go into content of this leading hadron. This phenomenon was also named a ”beam drag” effect in some publications.

## 4 Sea Quark Fragmentation Functions

The main peculiarity of QGSM is the multiple pomeron exchanges  those are taken into account at the calculations of the spectra of multipartile production, eg.(1). In this case the 2(n-1) quark-antiquark chains are connected to paired sea quark-antiquarks of the beam and target particles.

The structure functions of sea quark pairs can be written in the same way as the valence quark distributions. The structure function of $`d`$-quark in hyperon, for example, is the following:

$`f_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}^d\left(x_1\right)`$ $`=`$ $`C_{d,\overline{d}}^{\left(n\right)}x_1^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)}\left(1x_1\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+\left(\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\phi \left(0\right)\right)+n1+2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)}.`$ (9)
Here, sea quarks and antiquarks have an additional power term $`2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)`$ corresponding to the quark distribution of two pomeron diagram that is including one sea quark pair.

The fragmentation functions of light $`u,d`$ sea quark fragmentation into $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ as well as $`\overline{u},\overline{d}`$ quark into $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ are easily built from valence quark fragmentation functions. They are also written in the Appendix.

## 5 Spectra and Asymmetry of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$/$`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ in $`\pi ^{}p`$ collisions

The asymmetry between the spectra of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ measured in $`\pi ^{}A`$ collisions at $`p_L`$= 600 GeV/c  is shown in Fig.1 a). The nonzero asymmetry in the region of pion fragmentation is described on the base of baryon string junction transfer from the proton fragmentation region (see section 3).

The asymmetry is defined as:

$$A\left(x\right)=\frac{dN^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}/dxdN^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}/dx}{dN^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}/dx+dN^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}/dx},$$
(10)
Here $`dN^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}/dx`$ and $`dN^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}/dx`$ are the event distributions measured in the experiment .

The invariant distributions $`xdN/dx`$ of charmed baryons and antibaryons obtained in pion interactions in E781 experiment are shown in Fig.1 b) with the QGSM curves calculated for pion fragmentation (the side of positive $`x`$) and for proton fragmentation (the side of negative $`x`$). The ratio between the values of $`xdN/dx`$($`p\mathrm{\Lambda }_c,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$) and $`xdN/dx`$($`\pi ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$)depends on the ratio of cross sections of these two reactions. The absolute values of cross sections are not measured in the present experiment, so the left side of experimental plot in Fig.1 b) can be shifted towards the right side by the arbitrary factor, and we did it here in order to make a better description.

## 6 The Spectra and Asymmetry of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$/$`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}p`$ collisions

The asymmetry between the spectra of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ measured in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}A`$ collisions at $`p_L`$= 600 GeV/c is shown in Fig.2 a). Asymmetry is high in both sides of graph because the diquark fragmentation takes place for the beam and the target particles.

The invariant distributions $`xdN/dx`$ of charmed baryons and antibaryons obtained in hyperon interactions in E781 experiment are shown in Fig.2 b) with the QGSM curves calculated as for hyperon fragmentation (the side of positive $`x`$) as for proton fragmentation (the side of negative $`x`$). The ratio between the values of $`xdN/dx`$($`p\mathrm{\Lambda }_c,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$) and $`xdN/dx`$($`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c,\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$)depends on the ratio of cross sections of this two reactions. The left side of experimental plot is shifted toward the right side by the arbitrary factor for the better description as we did in the case of pion reaction.

The complete calculations carried out with the fragmentation function written for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ production give the good description of data with the value of parameter $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$=0,006.

## 7 Conclusions

In this paper we have examined the data on charm baryon production in proton, pion and hyperon beam interactions with the fixed target at $`p_L=600GeV/c`$ in the E781 experiment. The following new ideas about $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ spectra and asymmetries are to be mentioned here as the outcome of the QGSM study:

a)the features of baryon charge transfer by the string junction of the target proton are disclosed in the nonzero baryon/antibaryon asymmetry in the pion beam fragmentation region although we did not intend here to distinguish between two values of $`\alpha _{SJ}\left(0\right)`$;

b)$`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ spectra in the proton and hyperon beam interactions can be described with the same leading fragmentation parameter, $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$=0,006;

c)the asymmetry is not a proper quantity to study the bechavior of baryon spectra in the region of $`x`$ close to 1; though the baryon/antibaryon asymmetry for $`\pi p`$ reaction shows the good agreement with QGSM curves, the spectra of charmed baryons require more detailed description in pion fragmentation region;

d)there is no necessity to involve the intrinsic charm into the calculations of charmed baryon spectra at the up-to-date level of experimental data.

Author would like to express her grattitude to Prof.A.B.Kaidalov, Dr. M.Iori, Dr. F.Garcia and Dr.S.Baranov for the numerous discussions. This work was supported by NATO grant PST.CLG.977021.

## 8 Appendix

The concept of quark chain fragmentation function has been manifested in . The production of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ as well as $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ ($`𝒟_{0ud}^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)`$ etc.) takes place in the central region ($`z`$=0) of quark-antiquark chain with the constant density parameter $`a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}`$= 4,0$`10^4`$. The fragmentation functions of projectile diquarks into $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ ($`𝒟_{1ud}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)`$ and the similar) require the specific parameter $`a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}`$=0,006. Departing from these statements the full set of FF that is necessary for the calculation of spectra of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c`$ is written as following:

$`𝒟_u^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_d^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+\lambda +\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{\overline{u}}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_u^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+\lambda +\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)},`$
$`𝒟_s^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+\lambda +\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)+\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\varphi \left(0\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{1ud}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}}z^{1+\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda },`$ (A.1)
$`𝒟_{1dd}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}}z^{2\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{1ds}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{2a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}}z^{2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+3\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\varphi \left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2\left(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)\right)+\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\varphi \left(0\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{SJ}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}}{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}z}}z^{1\alpha _{SJ}\left(0\right)}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2(1\alpha _R\left(0\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{0uu}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_{0dd}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +4\left(1\alpha _N\left(0\right)\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{0ds}^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +4\left(1\alpha _N\left(0\right)\right)+\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\varphi \left(0\right)}.`$
$`𝒟_d^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_u^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right)+\alpha _R\left(0\right)\alpha _\psi \left(0\right)+\lambda +2\left(1\alpha _N\left(0\right)\right)},`$
$`𝒟_{\overline{u}}^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_u^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right),`$
$`𝒟_s^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_s^{\mathrm{\Lambda }_c}\left(z\right),`$ (A.2)
$`𝒟_{0ud}^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)=𝒟_{0dd}^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right))+\lambda +2(1\alpha _N\left(0\right))+\alpha _R(0)\alpha _\psi (0)},`$
$`𝒟_{0ds}^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}\left(z\right)={\displaystyle \frac{a_0^{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c}}{z}}\left(1z\right)^{\alpha _R\left(0\right)2\alpha _N\left(0\right))+\lambda +2(1\alpha _N\left(0\right))+\alpha _R(0)\alpha _\psi (0)+\alpha _R(0)\alpha _\varphi (0)}.`$


text:
# Electron spin relaxation by nuclei in semiconductor quantum dots

## I Introduction

The long electron spin dephasing time (hundred nanoseconds) recently reported  suggests using the spin of an electron localized in a quantum dot (QD) as the realization of a quantum bit, and electron doped quantum dots as the basic material for implementing a solid state based quantum computer . Room temperature operation, which is usually a primary requirement in microelectronics, is of secondary importance for quantum computers relative to that of finding a material for their physical realization. Rather, operating now at low temperature, where the localized electron has a long spin coherence time, is an essential condition for quantum computing and spin memory storage. The dominant electron spin relaxation mechanism in bulk is connected with the spin-orbit interaction of carriers (see Ref.), but is strongly suppressed for localized carriers . Spin relaxation due to the electron hole exchange interaction plays an important role during the time of nonequilibrium carrier relaxation , but does not effect localized electron spin relaxation afterword. Dephasing of the electron in QD ground states via two phonon real transitions to, or virtual transitions through, excited states (Urbach or Raman two phonon processes ) is also suppressed at low temperatures . As a result electron spin relaxation via interaction with nuclei becomes the dominant relaxation mechanism for localized electrons at low temperatures.

The interaction of localized electrons with nuclei was studied early on for electrons localized at donors in bulk (see for example ). There, the electron interacts with a large number of nuclei and feels the hyperfine magnetic field of the nuclei located in the region where electron is localized; this is also true for QD localized electrons. However, the correlation time of the electron-nucleus interaction of donor localized electrons is limited by the time of shallow donor ionization, and tunnel jumps between the donors, $`\tau _c`$. Usually this time is much shorter than the period of the electron spin precession, $`\omega _f^1`$, in the hyperfine field of the nuclei. For quantum computation and spin storage, however, it is important to have a large value of $`\tau _c`$, and we are interested in the opposite limit: $`\omega _f\tau _c1`$. This is realized in QDs at sufficiently low temperatures.

In this paper we consider the electron spin relaxation via its interaction with the spins of the nuclei in QDs in the absence and the presence of an external magnetic field. The process is facilitated by the disparity of the characteristic time scales of the three processes that determine the relaxation: the period of the electron precession in the frozen fluctuation of the hyperfine field of the nuclei, the period of the nuclear spin precession in the hyperfine field of the electron, and the nuclear spin relaxation time in the dipole-dipole field of its nuclear neighbors. Estimates of these time scales can be made for the case of GaAs, whose hyperfine constants are well k own. For QDs containing 105 nuclei they are found to be: $`1`$ ns, $`1`$$`\mu `$s and $`100`$$`\mu `$s, respectively. Therefore, as a first step, we can describe the electron spin relaxation as a precession in the quasi-stationary frozen fluctuation of the hyperfine field of the nuclear spins. We can than examine the additional electron spin relaxation arising from the slowly varying nuclear hyperfine fields. The nuclear dipole-dipole interaction does not conserve the total nuclear spin; the third time scale provides a natural limit on the coherence of the electron-nuclei spin system. However many other relaxation mechanisms are important at this long time scale, therefore and we will not consider the effect of the nuclear dipole-dipole interactions on the electron spin relaxation. A spin dephasing time ($`T_2^{}`$) calculated for an ensemble of QDs is in a good agreement with avaliable experimental data.

The paper is organized as follows: The hyperfine interaction of an electron with the nuclei and the hyperfine nuclear magnetic fields acting on the electron are considered in section II. The electron spin relaxation times in the absence and in the presence of an external magnetic field are calculated in sections III and IV respectively. In section V we compare our theoretical results with experimental data.

## II Hyperfine interaction of a localized electron with nuclei. The Frozen Fluctuation of the nuclear hyperfine field in quantum dots.

The electron spin relaxation due to the nuclear spins is determined by their hyperfine Fermi contact interaction. The Hamiltonian of this interaction can be written :

$$\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{cont}}=\frac{16\pi }{3}\mu _B\underset{j}{}\frac{\mu _j}{I_j}(\widehat{𝑺}\mathbf{}\widehat{𝑰}_j)\delta (𝒓𝑹_j),$$
(1)
where $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton, $`\widehat{𝑺}`$ and $`𝒓`$ are the spin and position of the electron, $`\mu _j`$, $`\widehat{𝑰}`$j and $`𝑹`$j are the magnetic moment, spin and position of the $`j`$-th nucleus, and the sum goes over all the nuclei in the lattice. For localized electrons the distance between their energy levels is much larger than the energy of the hyperfine interaction with the nuclei. As a result this spin-spin interaction can be described by the Hamiltonian:

$$\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{hf}}=\frac{v_0}{2}\underset{j}{}A^j|\psi (𝑹_j)|^2\left(\widehat{I}_z^j\widehat{\sigma }_z+\widehat{I}_x^j\widehat{\sigma }_x+\widehat{I}_y^j\widehat{\sigma }_y\right),$$
(2)
which is obtained from first order perturbation theory. Here $`v_0`$ is the volume of the unit cell, $`\psi (𝑹_j)`$ is the electron envelope wave function at the $`j`$-th nucleus, $`\widehat{I}_\alpha `$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }_\alpha `$ are the spin projections on the coordinate axes $`\alpha =x,y,z`$, and $`A^j=(16\pi \mu _B\mu _j/3I^j)|u_c(𝑹_j)|^2`$, where $`u_c(𝑹_j)`$ is the electron Bloch function at the nucleus. In GaAs, the sum of $`A^j`$ over all the nuclei in the unit cell $`A=_jA^j90`$$`\mu `$eV . We can neglect the interaction of holes with the nuclei because the hole Bloch functions vanish at the nuclear positions. In addition, we neglect, for now, the nuclear dipole-dipole interactions, which do not conserve the total spin of the electron-nuclear system. They become important only at times longer than 10-4 s.

The effective nuclear hyperfine magnetic field, $`𝑩_N`$, acting on a localized electron spin can be obtained from Eq.2 taking the expectation of the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{hf}}`$ over the ensemble of nuclear wave functions. It is the sum of contributions from a large number of nuclei:

$$𝑩_N=\frac{\nu _0}{\mu _Bg_e}\underset{j}{}A^j|\psi (𝑹_j)|^2\widehat{𝑰}^j_N$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{}_N`$ denotes a quantum mechanical average over the ensemble of nuclear wave functions and $`g_e`$ is the electron $`g`$-factor. We should note that the precession frequency of the electron in the hyperfine field of all the nuclei is much greater then the precession frequency of a nucleus in the hyperfine field of the electron. That is, the electron sees a snapshot of the ”frozen fluctuation” of the nuclear field. The magnitude and direction of this field are randomly distributed, and described by a Gaussian probability density distribution function:

$$W(𝑩_N)=\frac{1}{\pi ^{3/2}\mathrm{\Delta }_B^3}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(𝑩_N)^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2}\right],$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_B`$ is the dispersion of the nuclear hyperfine field distribution,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2=\frac{2}{3}(𝑩_N)^2=\frac{2}{3}\underset{j}{}I^j(I^j+1)(a_j)^2,$$
(5)
where

$$a_j=(v_0/\mu _Bg_e)A^j|\psi (𝑹_j)|^2$$
(6)
is the magnetic field of a single nuclear spin acting on the electron, and we assumed that the nuclear spin directions are independent of each other. All nuclei in GaAs have the same spin $`I^j=I=3/2`$. Replacing the sum over unit cells by an integration we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2=\frac{2I(I+1)}{3}\frac{\underset{j}{}(A^j)^2}{(\mu _Bg_e)^2}\frac{v_0}{V_\mathrm{L}}=\frac{16I(I+1)}{3N_L}\frac{\underset{j}{}(A^j)^2}{(\mu _Bg_e)^2},$$
(7)
where the sum in this equation goes over only those nuclei in a unit cell,

$$V_\mathrm{L}=(d^3r\psi ^4(𝒓))^1\mathrm{and}N_L=8V_L/v_0$$
(8)
is the number of nuclei in the volume, $`V_\mathrm{L}`$, that effectively determine the electron precession frequency. In GaAs, the sum $`_j(A^j)^21.210^3`$ meV2. The volume, $`V_\mathrm{L}`$, is on the order of the volume of the electron localization.

## III Electron spin relaxation in zero external magnetic field

### A Electron spin dephasing in the frozen fluctuations of the nuclear field

Let us consider an ensemble of identical QDs in which we simultaneously (at time $`t=0`$) create electrons all having the same spin orientation (They can be created, for example, by circularly polarized light). The nuclear spins in the QDs of this ensemble are randomly oriented, the nuclear hyperfine fields in the dots differ from one another and, therefore, have a different effect on the initial electron spin, $`𝑺_0`$, in each dot. We will consider the time dependence of the ensemble average electron spin relaxation for times small relative to the period of the nuclear precession in the hyperfine field of the electron. Each electron spin will be moving in the frozen fluctuation of the nuclear hyperfine magnetic field, $`𝑩_N`$, (see Eq.3) in its own QD. These fields, however, are randomly distributed among the dots of the ensemble. Therefore, even though each electron spin will precess in a coherent fashion in the frozen hyperfine field of its own dot, the ensemble average spin polarization will decrease.

The equation of motion of the spin $`S`$ in a fixed magnetic field, $`B`$, is given by:

$`𝑺(t)`$ $`=`$ $`(𝑺_0𝒏)𝒏+\{𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒏)𝒏\}\mathrm{cos}\omega t`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`[\{𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒏)𝒏\}\times 𝒏]\mathrm{sin}\omega t,`$ (10)
where $`𝑺_0`$ is the initial spin, $`𝒏=𝑩/B`$ is a unit vector in the direction of the magnetic field, and $`\omega =\mu _Bg_eB/\mathrm{}`$ is the Larmor frequency of the electron precession in this field. The equation also describes the coherent electron spin precession in a single QD due to the magnetic field, $`𝑩_N`$, of the frozen fluctuation of the nuclei ($`𝒏=𝑩_N/B_N`$, and $`\omega =\mu _Bg_eB_N/\mathrm{}`$). Averaging Eq.(10) over the magnetic field distribution of Eq.(4), we obtain the time dependence of the ensemble averaged electron spin polarization:

$$𝑺(t)=\frac{𝑺_0}{3}\left\{1+2\left[12\left(\frac{t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)^2\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)^2\right]\right\}.$$
(11)
The same time dependence describes the electron spin polarization of a single quantum dot averaged over a large number of measurements. Here

$$T_\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{\mathrm{}}{\mu _Bg_e\mathrm{\Delta }_B}=\mathrm{}\sqrt{\frac{3N_\mathrm{L}}{16_jI^j(I^j+1)(A^j)^2}}$$
(12)
is the ensemble dephasing time which arises from the random electron precession frequencies in the randomly distributed frozen fluctuation of the nuclear hyperfine field in the dots. This time is on the order of $`1`$ ns for GaAs quantum dots with $`10^5`$ nuclei. The spin dephasing time is proportional to $`\sqrt{V_\mathrm{L}}`$. One can see that the average electron polarization relaxes to 10% of its original value after a time equal to the dephasing time and then increases to a steady state value of 33% of its initial polarization.

### B Electron spin dephasing as a result of variations of the nuclear field direction

A localized electron interacts with a large number of nuclei, $`N_L1`$. The interaction of the electron spin with a single nucleus is $`\sqrt{N_L}`$ times weaker than its interaction with the effective magnetic field of the frozen nuclear fluctuation. Changing the direction of a single nuclear spin only weakly perturbs the electron spin motion. The precession of the electron in the macroscopic fluctuation of the nuclear spins is $`\sqrt{N_L}`$ times faster than the precession of a nucleus in the hyperfine field of an electron, i.e., the nuclear precession period $`T_NT_\mathrm{\Delta }\sqrt{N_L}`$. Since an electron in a QD precesses so rapidly around the nuclear magnetic field $`𝑩_N`$, the nuclei only see the long time average of the hyperfine field of the electron, which is directed along $`𝑩_N`$. Note, that components of the nuclear field perpendicular to $`𝑩_N`$ cancel each other out. Now, however, each nucleus, in turn, precesses about this direction with a different precession rate that is proportional to the square of the electron wave function at their respective nuclear positions. This variation in the precession rates leads to a non-vanishing slow time varying change in the frozen fluctuation of the hyperfine magnetic field of the nuclei, $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝑩_N_j\left(A^j|\psi (𝑹_j)|^2\right)^2\widehat{𝑰}^j\times 𝑩_N_N`$, that is perpendicular to $`𝑩_N`$. These random changes in the nuclear magnetic field result in an additional relaxation of the electron spin polarization.

Equation (11) describes the time dependence of the electron spin relaxation in the frozen fluctuation of the nuclear hyperfine fields for times much less than $`T_N`$. To include the effect of the time dependent changes in the nuclear fields, we need to examine the ensemble average of Eq.(10) at a much later time than is considered in Eq.(11). Consider the ensemble average of Eq.(10), but now at times for which the nuclear fields are time dependent. In addition, we average this quantity over a time interval large compared to the period of the electron precession but small compared to the time at which the ensemble average is taken. This leads to:

$$𝑺\text{(t)}=𝒏(t)(𝒏(t)𝑺(t))=\frac{𝑩_N(t)(𝑩_N(t)𝑺(t))}{B_N^2(t)}.$$
(13)
In this equation $`(𝑩_N(t)𝑺(t))`$ is the energy of the electron-nucleus spin system, which does not depend on time and is equal to $`(𝑩_N(0)𝑺(0))`$. Nor does $`B_N^2`$ change its value, because $`d𝑩_N/dt𝑩_N`$. As a result,

$$𝑺(t)=\frac{𝑩_N(t)(𝑩_N(0)𝑺(0))}{B_N^2(0)}.$$
(14)
The rotational symmetry of the Hamiltonian Eq.2 leads to $`𝑩_N(t)_\alpha 𝑩_N(0)_\beta =\delta _{\alpha ,\beta }𝐁_N(t)_x𝐁_N(0)_x=(\delta _{\alpha ,\beta }/3)(𝑩_N(t)𝑩_N(0))`$. This allows us to write Eq.14 as

$$𝑺(t)=\frac{(𝑩_N(t)𝑩_N(0))}{B_N^2(0)}\frac{𝑺(0)}{3}.$$
(15)
We see again that $`𝑺(t)`$ is directed along $`𝑺(0)`$, which is the only physically defined direction in the ensemble. This equation describes the time dependence of the electron spin relaxation at times large compared to $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and is limited only by the characteristic time scale of the dipole-dipole interactions. One can see that at times $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }<t<T_N`$ Eq.(15) gives the same result as Eq.(11).

The variation of nuclear magnetic field direction in the time dependent correlation, in Eq.(15), is limited by the conservation of the total spin angular momentum of the electron-nucleus spin system , $`\widehat{𝑭}=\widehat{𝑺}+_j\widehat{𝑰}^j`$. The conservation of $`\widehat{𝑭}`$ at times shorter than the nuclear dipole-dipole relaxation time follows from the fact that $`\widehat{𝑭}`$ commutes with the Hamiltonian of t e electron-nucleus spin system Eq.(2). The total nuclear spin is, then, effectively conserved since: $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }=_j𝑰_j=𝑭𝑺𝑭`$ because $`FS`$ . The latter follows from the fact that the dispersion of $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ increases with the number of nuclei in each QD and the average value of $`|𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }|1`$.

If the electron wave function were constant in the localization region and zero outside (the so called ”box model” ) the nuclear magnetic field, $`𝑩_N`$, would be proportional to the total nuclei spin, $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and would also be conserved. From Eq.(15) the nuclear spin precession would not then lead to any additional spin relaxation in this model, and $`𝑺(t)=𝑺_0/3`$. However, in real QDs the amplitude of the electron wave function at the nuclei in the localization region does depend on their position. The nuclear field is not uniquely determined by the value and direction of the total nuclear spin; a distribution of values of $`𝑩_N`$ are possible for the same value of $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The total nuclear spin, $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, can be distributed in different ways among the nuclei as a result of their interaction with the electron.

The determination of the correlation, Eq.(15) at all times is beyond the scope of this paper. We will evaluate it only in the limit $`tT_N`$, where the $`𝑩_N(t)`$ are randomly distributed. The joint distribution function of the nuclear fields and total nuclear spin can be written as the product of the total nuclear spin distribution function and the conditional probability distribution of nuclear fields given a certain value of the total nuclear spin:

$$W(𝑩_N,𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })=W_I(𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })w(𝑩_N|𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }).$$
(16)
Both of these latter distributions have a Gaussian form :

$$W_I(𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })=\frac{1}{\pi ^{3/2}\mathrm{\Delta }_I^3}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_I^2}\right],$$
(17)
and

$$w(𝑩_N|𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })=\frac{1}{\pi ^{3/2}\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}3}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(𝑩_Na𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma })^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2}\right],$$
(18)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I^2=2NI(I+1)/3`$ is the dispersion of the total nuclear spin distribution, and $`N`$ is the number of nuclei which are in statistical equilibrium with the localized electron (see Appendix). This number is approximately equal to the number of nuclei in the dot. The conditional distribution of the random hyperfine fields, given a value $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ for the total nuclear spin, is shifted from zero to the field due to the weighed total nuclei spin, $`a𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, where $`a=(_j^Na_j)/N=A/(\mu _Bg_eN)`$. The dispersion of this distribution, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2=\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2a^2\mathrm{\Delta }_I^2`$, is determined by integrating Eq.18 with distribution Eq.(17) over all $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and comparing it with Eq.(4). Clearly $`\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2<\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2`$, because the latter also includes the dispersion of the random distribution of the total nuclear spin.

In general, to calculate the correlation between the direction of the hyperfine nuclear field at two times, $`𝒏_0=𝑩_N(0)/B_N(0)`$, and $`𝒏(t)=𝑩_N(t)/B_N(t)`$, (see Eq.(15)), we have to find the angular distribution of the magnetic field $`𝑩_N(t)`$ given a certain value both of the total nuclear spin $`𝑰`$ and the magnetic field magnitude, $`B_N=|𝑩_N|`$. This conditional distribution function is written:

$$F(𝒏|B_N,𝑰)=\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[(B_N𝒏a𝑰)^2/\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2\right]}{𝑑𝛀(𝒏)\mathrm{exp}\left[(B_N𝒏a𝑰)^2/\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2\right]},$$
(19)
Using distributions of Eqs.(4,17,19) we find the correlation Eq.(15)

$`\gamma =(𝒏𝒏_0)`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle (𝒏𝒏_0)F(𝒏|B_N,𝑰)w(𝑩_N|𝑰)W_I(𝑰)d^3B_N𝑑𝛀(𝒏)d^3I}.`$ (21)
This gives us the long time ($`tT_N`$) electron spin polarization (Eq.(15). Straightforward calculation gives:

$`\gamma (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi x^3}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑y{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle \frac{[2y\mathrm{cosh}(2y)\mathrm{sinh}(2y)]^2}{yz\mathrm{sinh}(2y)}}`$ (23)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^2}}\right)z^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{y}{z}}\right)^2\right],`$ (24)
where

$$x=\frac{a^2\mathrm{\Delta }_I^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_B^{}_{}{}^{}2}=\frac{a^2}{a^2a^2}$$
(25)
is the relative dispersion of the hyperfine magnetic field of the localized electron acting on nuclei and $`a^2=\mathrm{\Delta }_B^2/\mathrm{\Delta }_I^2`$. If all the nuclei in the unit cell have the same hyperfine constant $`x=N_L/(NN_L)`$.

In Fig. 1. we show $`\gamma `$ as function of $`a^2/a^2N_L/N`$. In the limit of large $`x`$, where the number of nuclei contributing to the field, $`𝑩_N`$, is close to the number of nuclei whose total nuclear spin is conserved, $`\gamma (x)1`$. This case is realized in the ”box model” and also at short times $`t<T_N`$. The number of nuclei that are included in the electron-nucleus spin system of the Hamiltonian Eq.(2), and whose total spin is conserved, increases with time, which in turn decreases $`\gamma `$. However this only holds for $`t<T_{dd}`$ the dipole-dipole nuclear spin relaxation time in the dipole field of its neighbors. For spherical QDs with 105 nuclei confined in an infinite potential barrier (note that $`N_LN_{\mathrm{tot}}/2.8`$, where $`N_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is the total number of nuclei in the QD), our approach is valid for the time interval $`10T_N<t<100T_N`$ (see Appendix). The calculation in this model shows that the number of nuclei that need be included at $`tT_{dd}`$ is $`2.1N_L`$ ($`\gamma 0.4`$) and does not reach its maximum value $`N2.8N_L`$.

It is important to note that non vanishing average spin polarization at time $`tT_N`$ ($`\gamma 0`$) means that there is a significant probability that an ensemble of electron-nucleus spin systems retains its initial spin state.

## IV Spin decoherence in a strong external magnetic field.

A strong external magnetic field, $`B`$, ($`BB_N`$) significantly changes the process of electron spin relaxation. In this large field the Zeeman splitting of the electron spin levels is larger than their inhomogeneous broadening in the hyperfine nuclear magnetic field. The total magnetic field acting on the electron is now effectively directed along the external magnetic field. The nuclear hyperfine fields only perturb the precession frequency of the electron spin about the external magnetic field direction.

Consider, now, the effect of a strong external magnetic field on the electron spin polarization. The motion of the spin in the total magnetic field is again described by Eq. (10) where, now, $`𝒏=(𝑩+𝑩_N)/|𝑩+𝑩_N|`$. Averaging Eq. (10) over the ensemble, using the distribution of nuclear magnetic fields in Eq.(4), we obtain:

$`𝑺(t)`$ $`=`$ $`R_{}(t)(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃+R_{}^0(t)[𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃]`$ (26)
$`+`$ $`R_{}^1(t)[(𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃)\times 𝒃],`$ (27)
where

$`R_{}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`R_{}^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{\Delta }R_{}(t),`$ (28)
$`R_{}^0(t)`$ $`=`$ $`R_{}^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{\Delta }R_{}^0(t),`$ (29)
and $`𝒃=𝑩/B`$ is a unit vector along the external magnetic field,

$$R_{}^{\mathrm{}}=\frac{[B+(𝑩_N𝒃)]^2}{|𝑩+𝑩_N|^2}=12R_{}^{\mathrm{}},$$
(30)
and

$`R_{}^{\mathrm{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_N^2(𝑩_N𝒃)^2}{|𝑩+𝑩_L|^2}}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{y\mathrm{exp}(z^2y)}{(\beta +z)^2+y}}`$ (32)
is the value of $`𝐒(t)`$ in the long time limit $`tT_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and $`\beta =B/\mathrm{\Delta }_B`$. The time dependent components are given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }R_{}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{y\mathrm{exp}(z^2y)}{(\beta +z)^2+y}}`$ (33)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{cos}\left[\sqrt{(\beta +z)^2+y}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right],`$ (34)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }R_{}^0(t)`$ $`=`$ $`E(t){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R_{}(t)}{2}},`$ (35)
where

$$E(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{t}{2T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)^2\right]\left[\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\beta t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)\frac{t}{2\beta T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\beta t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)\right],$$
(36)
and

$`R_{}^1(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑y{\displaystyle \frac{[(\beta +z)^3+zy]exp(z^2y)}{[(\beta +z)^2+y]^{3/2}}}`$ (37)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{sin}\left[\sqrt{(\beta +z)^2+y}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{T_\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right].`$ (38)
Equation (27) simplifies considerably for strong magnetic fields. Calculation of the coefficients in Eqs. (30,32,35) in the limit $`\beta 1`$ gives:

$`𝑺(t)`$ (40)
$`\left\{1{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega _Bt\right)}{\beta ^2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{t}{2T_\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)^2\right]\right\}(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃`$
$`+`$ $`\{[\mathrm{cos}(\omega _Bt)+{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{cos}\left(\omega _Bt\right)}{2\beta ^2}}][𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃]`$ (41)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{sin}(\omega _Bt)[(𝑺_0(𝑺_0𝒃)𝒃)\times 𝒃]\left\}\mathrm{exp}\right[\left({\displaystyle \frac{t}{2T_\mathrm{\Delta }}}\right)^2].`$ (42)
One can see that in strong magnetic fields, $`B\mathrm{\Delta }_B`$ the component of spin along $`𝑩`$ is conserved, while its two transverse components precess with a frequency $`\omega _B=\mu _Bg_eB/\mathrm{}`$, and decay as a result of the inhomogeneous broadening of the levels in the random magnetic field of nuclei, respectively . The dephasing arises from the dispersion of the nuclear field along the external magnetic field, which leads to an inhomogeneous dispersion of the electron precession frequency. The perpendicular components of the nuclear magnetic field change the direction of the precession axis by a small angle of $`B_N/B`$ and lead to a dephasing rate that is $`(B_N/B)^2`$ smaller than that due to the dispersion of the nuclear field along the external field. This result is consistent with the small ratio of the lifetime broadening to the secular broadening describing the transverse relaxation time $`T_2`$ in strong magnetic fields (see e.g. Ref. ).

Figure 2 shows the time dependence of the various components of $`𝑺(t)`$ which occur in Eq.(27). The both longitudinal and transverse components of the electron spin polarization tend to a steady state value after several oscillations. The number of oscillations grows with increasing a magnetic field. Increasing the magnetic field also changes the steady state value of the longitudinal component $`R_{}(\mathrm{})`$ (from 1/3 to 1) and the transverse component $`R_{}^0(\mathrm{})`$ (from 1/3 to 0), while the steady state value of $`R_{}^1(\mathrm{})`$ is zero for all values of $`B`$. In a strong magnetic field when the nuclear spin relaxation mechanism of the longitudinal spin polarization is suppressed phonons can again play an important role (see ref. ).

The important characteristic measured in steady state experiments, such as Hanle effect measurements (e.g., see ), is the average electron polarization for its lifetime, $`(1/\tau )S(t)\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )𝑑t`$, where $`\tau `$ is the lifetime of the localized electrons. Comparison with Eq.(27) shows that this average polarization is characterized by:

$`\rho _{}(\beta ,\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}R_{}(t)\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )𝑑t,`$ (43)
$`\rho _{}^{0,1}(\beta ,\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}R_{}^{0,1}(t)\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )𝑑t.`$ (44)
The dependence of these respective terms on the magnetic field is shown in Fig. 3 for different values of the electron lifetime.

Equation (27), as is Eq.(11), is derived assuming a time independent frozen fluctuation of the nuclear field acting on the electrons. In zero external magnetic field, this no longer holds at longer times such that we must take into account the nuclear spin precession in the inhomogeneous hyperfine field of the electron. Nuclear spins precessing at different rates about the average electron spin direction create a time dependent hyperfine field with components perpendicular to the original direction of the frozen fluctuation. As a result the average electron spin projection follows the new direction of the slowly varying nuclei field. The characteristic time of this slow process is determined by the dispersion of the nuclear spin precession frequency in the inhomogeneous field of the electron $`T_N^1(\mu _Bg_e/\mathrm{})\sqrt{a^2a^2}(\mu _Bg_e/\mathrm{})\sqrt{a^2}`$. This second regime of spin relaxation begins when $`tT_N`$.

In a strong external magnetic field $`B\mathrm{\Delta }_B`$, the average electron spin is directed along this strong field, independent of the nuclear hyperfine fields ($`B_NB`$). Although the nuclei precess with different frequencies in the inhomogeneous electron field, the electron is effected only by the component of the nuclear field along the external field. As a result the nuclear magnetic field acting on the electron spin is frozen for times much longer than $`T_N`$. Thus a frozen fluctuation model of the nuclear hyperfine field is valid when describing the dephasing dynamics of the electron spin polarization in an ensemble of quantum dots in strong magnetic fields. As we mentioned above this consideration is limited by a low enough temperature and the time scale of the nuclear dipole-dipole interaction.

In each QD, the motion of the electron spin in the hyperfine field of the frozen fluctuation of the nuclei is coherent. The dephasing is a result of inhomogeneous broadening of the electron spin levels in the ensemble of quantum dots. This makes it possible to recover the transverse electron spin polarization using the spin echo technique , which also can be used for quantum computation .

## V Discussion

We have determined the time dependence of the electron spin relaxation rate arising from its interaction with nuclear spins for an ensemble of QDs, or equivalently, averaged over a large number of successive measurements of a single dot. This gives us the value of $`T_2^{}`$ usually measured in ensemble experiments.

The electron spin relaxation time was studied in three types of QDs: GaAs natural quantum dots, which are island-like dots formed by a fluctuation of the GaAs quantum well thickness ; self organized InAs QDs , and nanocrystal CdSe QDs . We can estimate the value of $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for each of these dots. In GaAs natural QDs, using values of $`A^j`$ from Ref. and Eq.(6), and taking the dot to contain $`10^5`$ nuclei, Eq.(11) gives $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }1.0`$ ns The values of $`A^j`$ are not experimentally determined for InAs. Assuming that compound ionicity does not significantly vary among the semiconductors GaAs, InSb and InAs, we take the hyperfine constants, $`A^j`$, for As and In ions from  and : $`A_{As}^j=47\mu `$eV and $`A_{In}^j=56\mu `$eV, respectively. The large value of the In nuclear spin, $`I=9/2`$, strongly effects the magnitude of the hyperfine interaction in InAs, and shortens the spin dephasing time. To estimate this time we need to know the number of nuclei in the electron localization volume. In the self organized QDs, where the electron wave function strongly depends on the QD shape and barrier height, we used the geometrical volume of the dot to determine the number of nuclei, $`N_L`$, in Eq.(7). The QDs studied in  contain 1000-4000 nuclei . This leads to electron spin relaxation times on the order of 50-100 ps, which is close to the value of $`gT_2^{}`$ measured in these dots. The hyperfine interaction constants in CdSe are also not experimentally determined. In this material only a fraction of the nuclei (25 % of the Cd ions) have a magnetic moment and these have spin $`I=1/2`$. As a result, the electron spin interaction with the nuclei in these QDs is weak. We shall take for the hyperfine constant in CdSe half that of $`Cd^{111}`$ , assuming completely covalent bonding in this material. This leads to $`A_{Cd}^j=12\mu `$eV. Taking the CdSe lattice constant $`a_04.2`$Å  we calculate $`N_L=3,500`$ for the ground 1S electron state in spherical nanocrystals with a radius 28Å. Only 1/8 of these nuclei contribute to dephasing. This leads to $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }1.6`$ ns, which is consistent with the experimental measurement $`T_2^{}=2.5`$ ns

In conclusion, we developed a theory of electron spin relaxation in QDs arising from their hyperfine interaction with the QD nuclei. The relaxation is determined by three physical processes: (i) – the precession of the electron spin in the hyperfine field of the frozen fluctuation of the nuclear spins; (ii) – the precession of the nuclear spins in the hyperfine field of the electron; and (iii) – the precession of a nuclear spin in the dipole field of its neighbors. These processes have three disparate characteristic times. For GaAs QDs with $`10^5`$ nuclei, they are $`1`$ ns, $`300`$ ns, and $`100\mu `$s, respectively. The last of these times is so long that many other electron spin relaxation mechanisms can be more important on this time scale. An external magnetic field suppresses the relaxation of the spin component along the magnetic field. The transverse components of the electron spin polarization relax completely in a time on the order of the electron precession period in the field of the frozen nuclear fluctuation. Comparison with experimental data shows that the hyperfine interaction with nuclei is the dominant mechanism of electron spin relaxation in QDs.

Acknowledgments. All the authors thank the DARPA/Spin program for financial support, Al.L.E. and M.R. were supported by the Office of Naval Research, and I. A. Merkulov received support from CRDF and RFBI grants.

## Appendix: The Number of nuclei interacting with a localized electron in a QD

The number of nuclei, $`N`$, ”interacting” with a localized electron and forming an electron-nuclear system in thermodynamic equilibrium is generally a time dependent quantity. Formally, the electron interacts at all times with all those nuclei of the crystal lattice sites where its wave function is nonzero. However, the strength of this interaction decreases with the distance from the QD center as the square of the electron wave function, and the random magnetic field $`𝑩_N`$, which determines the electron spin precession is determined only by the relatively small number of nuclei, $`N_L`$, in the”effective” volume of the electron localization $`V_L`$ (see Eq.8). This volume (or alternatively $`N_L`$) completely determines the electron spin relaxation at short times $`t<T_N`$ during which nuclear spins, and, therefore, the corresponding field $`𝑩_N`$ do not change their directions.

The precession of the nuclear spins in the hyperfine field of the electron causes time dependent changes in $`𝑩_N`$. This time dependent $`𝑩_N(t)`$ in each dot is determined by a macroscopic number of initial conditions. The correlation $`𝑩_N(t)`$$`𝑩_N(0)`$ (see Eq.14) is now an important characteristic of an ensemble of quantum dots. The ensemble of localized electrons completely loses its memory of the initial spin polarization if this correlation is zero. Although $`𝑩_N(t)`$$`𝑩_N(0)`$ can be calculated for any time, $`t`$, in principle, in the long time limit $`tT_N`$, when the values of $`𝑩_N(t)`$ are randomly distributed, one can find this correlation using statistical physics techniques.

Let us separate the nuclei interacting with a localized electron during a time $`t`$ into two groups: (1) those nuclei whose spin rotates through an angle $`\omega _it1`$ and (2) those whose spin rotates through an angle $`\omega _it1`$, where $`\omega _i`$ is the precession frequency of the nuclear spin in the hyperfine field of the localized electron. The second group can be considered as nuclei that ”do not interact” with the electron. For times $`tT_N`$ the first group automatically includes the $`N_L`$ nuclei that determines the field $`𝑩_N`$. The number of nuclei $`N(t)`$ ”interacting” with the electron, and thus belong to the first group, increases with time and determines $`𝑩_N(t)`$, whose variation is restricted by conservation of the total spin of the electron-nuclear spin system. Randomness of the distribution of the $`N(t)`$ nuclear spins limited by the conservation of $`B_N`$ and $`𝑰_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the one major assumption of this statistical model.

For nuclei that interact strongly through the ”indirect” hyperfine interaction, i.e. nuclei whose spins rotate through an angle $`\omega _it1`$ in the electron hyperfine field, this assumption is justified. The error in the statistical approach is connected with the border nuclei for which $`\omega _it1`$. These nuclei strongly interact with the electron, but, on the other hand, they still ”remember” their initial direction at $`t=0`$. The number of such nuclei is on the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }NtN/t`$. As a result the relative error of our estimate is $`\delta N=\mathrm{\Delta }N(t)/N(t)(t/N)N/t`$.

The time dependence of $`N(t)/N_L`$ and $`\delta N`$ in spherical QDs with an infinite barrier is shown in Fig.4. The time is measured in the unit of $`T_N^0(32/\pi )(\mathrm{}/A)(a^3/v_0)`$, the nuclear precession time at the center of the QD, where $`a`$ is the QD radius. In GaAs QDs with $`10^5`$ nuclei, this time is on the order of microseconds. One sees that $`N<N_L`$ for $`t<10T_N^0`$. In this time period $`\delta N1`$ and our statistical approach is not valid. However $`N(t)`$ increases and $`\delta N(t)`$ decreases rapidly with time, and $`\delta N0.25`$ at $`t20T_N^0`$. After this time the nuclei which give the main contribution to the magnetic field, $`\text{B}_N`$, acting on the electron are in statistical equilibrium. This allows us to use Eq.(24).