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# Odd-even binding effect from random two-body interactions

## I Introduction

Interacting finite fermionic systems such as atomic nuclei, metallic clusters, and small metallic grains display an odd-even staggering in ground-state energies, i.e., the binding energy of an even-number system is larger than the arithmetic mean of its odd-number neighbors. There are two well-known mechanisms that can give rise to this staggering, namely the Kramers degeneracy in the mean-field Hamiltonian and the BCS mechanism arising from an attractive effective interaction. In nuclei, the BCS pairing mechanism resulting from a residual nucleon-nucleon interaction is dominant, but the mean-field or orbital energy effect may also be significant in the lighter nuclei. Surprisingly, many basic phenemona normally associated with pairing can also arise from random interactions. The behavior of random-interaction ensembles has mostly been studied in a nuclear physics context  but there has also been some study of spectra in the context of small metallic grains.

In the case of metallic clusters of fewer than a hundred atoms, the orbital energy effect is rather strong and staggering is seen for species that do not exhibit superconductivity. This effect can be easily understood using a jellium model or density functional theory. On the other hand, the staggering effect seen in Ref.  may have some contribution from the BCS pairing mechanism. A number of theoretical studies have been made  using techniques applicable to large finite systems . Taking a uniform mean-field spectrum and an attractive pairing interaction with constant coupling, one observes a smooth crossover from BCS superconductivity in the bulk to the few-electron regime. For small systems, the gap is of the size of the mean level spacing and thus ceases to be an indicator for pairing. Nevertheless, strong pairing correlations and odd-even staggering persist as the system size decreases.

In a grain with irregular boundaries, one expects that the electron orbitals will have a chaotic character and therefore the interaction will have a random as well as a regular part. In this paper we will introduce such an interaction and study its typical effects on the binding systematics. Our Hamiltonian thus includes attractive and repulsive pairing interactions as well as more general two-body interactions. The assumption of randomness is motivated as follows: For nuclei it is well known that the residual interaction leads to fluctuation properties in wave functions and energy levels that are similar to those of random matrices taken from the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble . In the case of small metallic grains or quantum dots, one may assume that their irregular shape leads to chaoticity in the single-particle wave functions . This in turn causes randomness in those two-body matrix elements that link four different orbitals with each other. Matrix elements between pairs of orbitals that are related by time-reversal symmetry need not necessarily be random, and these determine the “coherent” terms of the interaction.

A realistic Hamiltonian for quantum dots or small metallic grains would thus conserve total spin and include spin-independent one-body terms, random two-body interactions, and coherent interactions that are non-random but have attractive and repulsive components. The most general Hamiltonian to study generic properties when all these features are included may be written as

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,\sigma }{}}\epsilon _ic_{i\sigma }^{}c_{i\sigma }+{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}(u+u_i^{})c_i^{}c_i^{}c_ic_i`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma _1\sigma _2\sigma _3\sigma _4}{}}[(w_0+w_{0,ij}^{})\sigma _1|\sigma _2\sigma _3|\sigma _4`$ (3)
$`+(w_1+w_{1,ij}^{})\sigma _1|\stackrel{}{\sigma }|\sigma _2\sigma _3|\stackrel{}{\sigma }|\sigma _4]c^{}_{i\sigma _1}c^{}_{j\sigma _2}c_{j\sigma _3}c_{i\sigma _4}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}(g+g_{ij}^{})c_i^{}c_i^{}c_jc_j`$ (4)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ijkl}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma _1\sigma _2\sigma _3\sigma _4}{}}[v_{0,ijkl}\sigma _1|\sigma _2\sigma _3|\sigma _4`$ (6)
$`+v_{1,ijkl}\sigma _1|\stackrel{}{\sigma }|\sigma _2\sigma _3|\stackrel{}{\sigma }|\sigma _4]c^{}_{i\sigma _1}c^{}_{j\sigma _2}c_{k\sigma _3}c_{l\sigma _4}.`$
Here the coherent parts of the interaction are represented by the terms with coefficients $`u`$, $`w_s`$, and $`g`$. The fluctuating parts of the interaction are represented by the terms containing $`u^{}`$, $`w_s^{}`$, $`g^{}`$, and $`v_s`$. These fluctuating parts are typically taken from ensembles with a Gaussian distribution; they are thus characterized by the width of the Gaussian. The single-particle term $`\epsilon _i`$ sets the energy scale and may often be taken to give a uniform spacing of levels without loss of generality. This full Hamiltonian is difficult to study due to its many parameters. There have been many studies in the limit in which fluctuation effects are only included in the single-particle Hamiltonian $`\epsilon _i`$. We consider a very different limit, neglecting the coherent terms in the interaction and assuming the $`v_s`$ term to dominate the fluctuating parts. Properties of such random two-body interaction ensembles have been studied extensively in nuclear physics.

When the Hamiltonian of the nuclear shell model was modeled in this way, it was found that the spectral properties were quite regular for the ground states. As examples we mention $`J^P=0^+`$ ground-state dominance in shell model calculations with random interactions , band structure in interacting boson models with random couplings , structure in ground-state wave functions of two-body random ensembles , and an odd-even binding effect in filling a large shell. In the context of quantum dots, the random two-body interactions were found strongly to favor singlet ground-state spins . Recently, this structure has been investigated using the group symmetry of the random Hamiltonians . These findings suggest that the structure of interacting many-body systems is to some extent already determined by the rank of the interaction alone, and one does not need all the details of the interaction. We will show that odd-even staggering also fits into this picture and is not solely a consequence of an attractive pairing force.

This paper is organized as follows. In Section II we introduce the Hamiltonian and discuss the odd-even effects arising from the one-body part alone. Section III contains analytical results for the odd-even staggering due to a random two-body interaction (some technical details of this analytical analysis are included in an Appendix). The crossover between the mean-field regime and the regime of strong interactions is numerically investigated in Section IV. The effects of breaking time-reversal symmetry are studied in Section V. Finally, we give a summary.

## II Hamiltonian and staggering indicator

As discussed in the introduction, we will consider ensembles of Hamiltonians including only a single-particle energy and a random two-body interaction. We write this in the form

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\epsilon _i(c_i^{}c_i+c_i^{}c_i)`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`C_0{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,\alpha ^{}\mathrm{spin}0\mathrm{pairs}}{}}v_{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}A_\alpha ^{}A_\alpha ^{}`$ (8)
$`+`$ $`C_1{\displaystyle \underset{\beta ,\beta ^{}\mathrm{spin}1\mathrm{pairs}}{}}v_{1\beta \beta ^{}}A_\beta ^{}A_\beta ^{}.`$ (9)
The first term represents the mean-field contribution, where $`\epsilon _i`$ is the single-particle energy associated with orbital $`i`$, and $`c_i`$, $`c_i`$ are the one-particle annihilation operators for that orbital. As usual, we assume an ordering $`\epsilon _i\epsilon _{i+1}`$. The second and third terms represent the interaction for pairs having spin $`S`$ equal to 0 and 1, respectively. The operators $`A_\alpha `$ in the second term are spin-singlet two-particle annihilation operators $`A_\alpha =(c_ic_jc_ic_j)/\sqrt{2(1+\delta _{ij})}`$ with $`\alpha `$ standing for the set of orbital pairs $`ij`$. The $`A_\beta `$ in the third line are similarly defined for spin-triplet pairs.

The randomness assumption tells us that there is no preferred basis within either the $`S=0`$ or $`S=1`$ sector of two-body states. The couplings $`v_{s\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ then should be taken from the Gaussian orthogonal random-matrix ensemble (GOE). We fix the variance of the $`v_s`$ to be unity for off-diagonal elements. The GOE then satisfies

$$v_{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}^2=1+\delta _{\alpha \alpha ^{}},$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ indicates an ensemble average and similarly for $`v_{1\beta \beta ^{}}`$. We are concentrating for now on the case of time-reversal symmetry, so the matrices $`v_0`$ and $`v_1`$ are real and symmetric. The case of broken time-reversal symmetry in the presence of a magnetic field will be considered in Section V.

The prefactors $`C_0`$ and $`C_1`$ allow us to consider arbitrary strengths of the spin-0 and spin-1 couplings relative to each other and relative to the single-particle level spacing. As we will see below, several qualitatively different regimes for ground-state staggering are possible within this simple random model, depending on the values $`C_0`$ and $`C_1`$ as well as on particle density.

Let us denote the ground-state energy of the $`N`$-body system as $`E(N)`$. A useful staggering indicator is the empirical pairing gap

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(N)\frac{1}{2}[E(N+1)2E(N)+E(N1)].$$
(11)
This three-point observable is essentially the “curvature” or second derivative of the binding energy with respect to particle number $`N`$. Positive (negative) $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ indicates that the binding energy of the $`N`$-body system is larger (smaller) than the arithmetic mean of the binding energies of its neighbors. We have an odd-even staggering whenever $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ staggers with $`N`$.

It is instructive to consider the trivial case where residual interactions are negligible, i.e., $`C_0=C_1=0`$. Then the $`N`$particle ground-state energy is given by $`E(N)=2_{i=1}^{N/2}\epsilon _i`$ for $`N`$ even and $`E(N)=E(N1)+\epsilon _{(N+1)/2}`$ for $`N`$ odd. Here $`N`$ may range between $`0`$ and $`2M`$, where $`M`$ is the number of available orbitals. One obtains for the empirical pairing gap

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(\epsilon _{(N/2)+1}\epsilon _{N/2})/20\hfill & \text{for }N\text{ even,}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{for }N\text{ odd.}\hfill \end{array}`$ (14)
Thus, there is a trivial odd-even staggering due to the mean-field alone. In what follows we will mainly be interested in the effects of interactions, and in the effects of adding a magnetic field. For odd-number systems, a nonzero value of the empirical pairing gap must be due to interactions, and this allows one easily to discriminate mean-field effects from interactions. Such a discrimination is more difficult for even-number systems and has recently been studied in mean-field plus pairing Hamiltonians . We will see in Section IV how mean-field effects can be distinguished from staggering caused by complex (or random) interactions. Note that an electric charging energy $`E_{\mathrm{charge}}=cN(N1)`$ leads only to a $`N`$-independent constant shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)\mathrm{\Delta }(N)+c`$ and can therefore be neglected.

## III Effects from random two-body interactions

We now imagine the opposite situation from that of the previous section, i.e., we consider the regime $`\epsilon _i=0`$ where mean-field effects are negligibly weak compared with the random two-body interaction. In this limit one might assume that all odd-even effects should disappear. Surprisingly, this turns out not to be the case. Instead, we find persistent odd-even staggering arising only from the random two-body interactions; stronger binding energies for even-$`N`$ systems are typically obtained in numerical simulations.

To understand this result analytically, we first note that the spectral density of a system with two-body interactions approaches a Gaussian shape in the many-body limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ . The ground-state energies for different particle number or spin sectors are then largely determined by the widths $`\sqrt{\mathrm{Tr}H^2}`$ of the corresponding Gaussians, scaling as

$$Eb\sqrt{\mathrm{Tr}H^2},$$
(15)
where it is assumed without loss of generality that $`\mathrm{Tr}H=0`$. The prefactor $`b`$ depends of course on the details of the deviations of the spectral shape from an exact Gaussian form, since these deviations cut off the tails of the Gaussian. Following an analysis along the lines of Ref. , where the spectral shape is expanded in terms of Hermite polynomials, and then estimating the coefficients of these polynomials, one may conjecture that the prefactor $`b`$ should scale as $`\mathrm{log}N`$ with the number of particles in the system. In any case, for our purposes it is sufficient that this prefactor varies smoothly with $`N`$ without significant staggering, which is confirmed by numerical simulations. Eq. (15) is known to provide a good qualitative explanation for some observed behavior of low-lying spectra, even for moderate numbers of particles where the Gaussian approximation is far from valid. For example, a comparison of $`\mathrm{Tr}H^2`$ for different spin sectors helps to explain $`J=0`$ total spin dominance among the ground states of random interacting many-body systems .

### A Dilute limit

Applying this approach to the present problem, we need then to understand how $`\mathrm{Tr}H^2`$ depends on the number of particles and other parameters of the system. For simplicity, we consider first the dilute limit $`NM`$ with a pure $`S=0`$ two-body coupling ($`C_1=0`$).

From previous work, it is known that for even $`N`$ the ground state comes always from the sector of total spin $`J=0`$. In the dilute limit, a typical basis state in this sector has the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{J=0}=2^{N/2}\underset{z=1}{\overset{N/2}{}}(a_{i_z}^{}a_{j_z}^{}a_{i_z}^{}a_{j_z}^{})|0,$$
(16)
where the $`N`$ orbitals $`i_z`$, $`j_z`$ are all distinct. One easily checks that the number of $`S=0`$ pairs in this state is $`(N^2+2N)/8`$, since the particles on orbitals $`i_z`$ and $`j_z`$ for a given $`z`$ are in an $`S=0`$ combination by construction, while the remaining $`(N^22N)/2`$ pairs have a probability $`1/4`$ of being in a singlet combination. Any of these $`S=0`$ pairs, labeled by $`\alpha ^{}`$ in Eq. (9), may be annihilated by the $`C_0`$ term in the Hamiltonian. Another $`S=0`$ pair, $`\alpha `$, must then be created; there are $`M^2/2`$ choices for $`\alpha `$ in the dilute limit. Thus, simply by counting the number of terms in the $`C_0`$ part of the Hamiltonian in Eq. (9) that may act on a total spin $`J=0`$ basis state we find

$$\mathrm{Tr}_{(\mathrm{even}NM)}H^2=C_0^2\frac{M^2(N^2+2N)}{8}$$
(17)
for $`N`$ even and $`NM`$.

Similarly, for odd $`N`$ the preferred many-body ground state has total spin $`J=1/2`$. The typical basis state has the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{J=1/2}=2^{N/2}a_k^{}\underset{z=1}{\overset{N/2}{}}(a_{i_z}^{}a_{j_z}^{}a_{i_z}^{}a_{j_z}^{})|0,$$
(18)
where we take $`J_z=+1/2`$ without loss of generality, and the indices $`i_z`$, $`j_z`$, and $`k`$ are all distinct. This state contains only $`(N^2+2N3)`$ singlet pairs, resulting in

$$\mathrm{Tr}_{(\mathrm{odd}NM)}H^2=C_0^2\frac{M^2(N^2+2N3)}{8}.$$
(19)
The $`O(1/N^2)`$ difference in the widths explains the odd-even staggering in ground-state energies. Intuitively, the result is easy to understand: the ground state of the odd-$`N`$ system is forced to have a slightly higher total spin, resulting in a slightly smaller fraction of spin-$`0`$ pairs and consequently a smaller effect of the $`C_0`$ term in the Hamiltonian. This in the end is what leads to weaker binding for the odd-$`N`$ system.

The above analysis also gives a quantitative prediction for the size of the staggering effect. Assuming in accordance with Eq. (15) that the ratio of ground-state energies is proportional to the ratio of the widths, we find

$$|E_{\mathrm{even}N}|=|E_{oddN}|\left(1+\frac{3}{2N^2}\right)$$
(20)
for large $`N`$ in the dilute limit and therefore

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{C_0}=(1)^N\frac{3}{2N^2}|E(N)|$$
(21)
to leading order. We may compare this with the size of the pairing gap for the mean-field dominated system. In the previous section, we saw that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)=\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ on average for $`N`$ even, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the mean level spacing of the single-particle spectrum. This can be normalized, however, in units of the binding energy. This binding energy, i.e., half the many-body spectral width, is $`|E|MN\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ in the mean-field case. So the average pairing gap has the size

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{\mathrm{mean}\mathrm{field}}=\frac{1}{MN}|E(N)|$$
(22)
for even $`N`$, which surprisingly is smaller than the pure interaction-induced pairing gap in the dilute limit $`NM`$.

At finite particle density $`\rho =2N/M`$, mean-field-induced and interaction-induced stagger are of comparable size, a characteristic difference being the vanishing of the pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ for odd $`N`$ in the mean-field case, Eq. (14), which is absent for the pure interacting theory. In addition, in the presence of fluctuations in the single-particle spectrum, mean-field induced $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ will itself fluctuate between successive even values of $`N`$, while interaction-induced stagger is predicted to be smooth. These analytic predictions will be verified numerically in Sec. IV below.

### B General results for finite density

The above derivation, though strictly valid only in the dilute limit, in fact provides a correct intuitive explanation of the stagger at any density for a pure $`S=0`$ two-body interaction. Handling the $`S=1`$ interaction requires more care, since the qualitative behavior will depend strongly on the density $`\rho `$. We therefore need the exact expressions for $`\mathrm{Tr}H^2`$ in various particle number and spin sectors. These expressions may be straightforwardly, though perhaps rather tediously, obtained by applying the original Hamiltonian, Eq. (9), to various basis states and evaluating the norm.

The full results are presented in the Appendix. There we find that for a pure singlet random interaction, the prediction of Eq. (21) for the size of the staggering, obtained above only in the dilute limit, is in fact confirmed as a lower bound for arbitrary densities in the many-body limit $`N\mathrm{}`$:

$$(1)^N\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{C_0}\frac{3}{2N^2}|E(N)|.$$
(23)
The situation is more complex for a pure triplet coupling ($`C_0=0`$), since here the ground state may be a state of either minimal or maximal spin. In this case we see using formulas given explicitly in the Appendix that a critical density $`\rho _{crit}`$ exists below which there is no staggering, while above which interaction-induced staggering of order $`|E(N)|/N^2`$ appears, just as in the singlet case. As the singlet coupling is turned on, $`\rho _{crit}`$ decreases, reaching $`0`$ at $`C_0=C_1`$. Thus, odd-even staggering with stronger binding for even-$`N`$ systems is predicted to be a very general consequence of random two-body interactions, present for pure-singlet and pure-triplet interactions as well as in the intermediate case.

## IV Crossover between Mean-Field regime and strong Two-Body Interactions

The analytical results of the previous sections were obtained for pure one-body or pure two-body interactions. In this section we will study the odd-even staggering for the full Hamiltonian (9) numerically. To this purpose we draw the random matrices $`v_0`$ and $`v_1`$ in Eq. (9) from the GOE and compute the ground-state energies of Hamiltonian of Eq. (9) for several particle numbers $`N`$. This procedure is repeated many times for each $`N`$ to obtain ensemble-averaged values for the ground state energies $`E(N)`$ and the empirical pairing gap defined in Eq. (11). In what follows we set the number of single-particle orbitals to $`M=10`$, and obtain ensemble averages from 200 runs. The largest matrices of the ensemble have dimension $`63504`$; their ground states are computed using the sparse matrix solver Arpack .

We have to assign values to the single-particle energies $`\epsilon _i`$ of the mean field and to the coupling constants $`C_0`$ and $`C_1`$ of the two-body interactions. We assume a mean-field spectrum with level spacings $`\epsilon _{i+1}\epsilon _i`$ that are Wigner-distributed. This is consistent with the assumption that our quantum dot or metallic grain has irregular shape. To study the transition, we multiply the single-particle energies with a factor $`\mathrm{cos}\phi `$ and set the spin-0 coupling $`C_0(\phi )=\mathrm{sin}\phi `$. Here $`\phi `$ is in the range $`\phi [0,\pi /2]`$ and thus parameterizes the transition from the mean field to the regime of strong interactions. The spin-1 coupling $`C_1`$ is set to zero. Figure 1 shows the empirical pairing gap (11) as a function of particle number $`N`$ for parameter values $`\varphi =0,\pi /12,\pi /2`$.

We see from Figure 1 that the odd-even staggering persists throughout this transition. In the absence of the mean field ($`\varphi =\pi /2`$), the staggering decreases slowly with increasing $`N`$ and then increases again very close to the maximal filling, when the number of holes becomes small and $`\rho `$ approaches unity in Eq. (46). Its envelope depends smoothly on $`N`$ if only even or only odd values of $`N`$ are considered. These qualitative results are fully consistent with the analytical predictions obtained in Sec. III and in the Appendix. The absence of such a smooth envelope thus indicates that the staggering is instead dominated by mean-field effects, as in the $`\phi =0`$ line in Figure 1. Similar observations have been made for pairing-plus-quadrupole in Ref.. Note that the random interactions drive the empirical pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)`$ to negative values for odd $`N`$; in this sense the staggering is more pronounced in the presence of interactions than in the mean-field regime. Note also that the magnitude of the staggering itself contains only little information since the transition from the noninteracting to the interacting Hamiltonian does not correspond to a transition in a physical system.

We repeat these calculations in Fig. 2 for the case of vanishing spin-0 coupling, $`C_0=0`$, and set the spin-1 coupling to $`C_1(\phi )=\mathrm{sin}\phi `$. Again, odd-even staggering persists throughout the transition. In the regime of strong interactions the magnitude of the empirical pairing gap increases with increasing $`N`$ for even $`N`$. The situation is reversed for odd values of $`N`$. Leaving out very small systems ($`N=3`$), the envelopes for even and odd $`N`$ are still smooth enough to discriminate mean-field effects from interaction-induced pairing.

Finally, we consider the case of equally strong spin-0 and spin-1 couplings and set $`C_0(\phi )=C_1(\phi )=\mathrm{sin}\phi `$. Figure 3 shows that this case is qualitatively similar to the case of pure spin-1 coupling, since triplet pairs outnumber singlet pairs by a 3:1 ratio in the large-$`N`$ limit. Again, the interaction-induced staggering exhibits a smooth envelope and can therefore clearly be distinguished from mean-field effects.

## V Magnetic Field Effects

BCS-like pairing results from strong correlations between fermions in time-reversed orbitals. Thus, these correlations can be destroyed by a sufficiently strong breaking of time-reversal symmetry. Examples of this well-known phenomenon are the breakdown of electronic superconductivity in the presence of sufficiently strong magnetic fields and the reduction of pairing correlations in rapidly rotating and deformed nuclei. In this section we want to study how breaking time-reversal symmetry affects the odd-even staggering in systems with a random two-body interaction. Having metallic grains in mind we thus consider the effect of a magnetic field. To be definite, we take a uniform $`B`$-field in the $`z`$-direction. This leads to Zeeman splitting and adds the following one-body term to the Hamiltonian

$$H_B=\mu B\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}\left(c_i^{}c_ic_i^{}c_i\right),$$
(24)
which also breaks rotational symmetry, i.e., only the projection of the total spin $`J_z`$ remains conserved. Here, $`\mu `$ is an appropriate constant. A second effect consists of the modification of the random two-body interaction. Provided the time-reversal symmetry breaking induces splittings that are larger than the mean level spacing, the random matrices $`v_{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ and $`v_{1\beta \beta ^{}}`$ in the Hamiltonian (9) have to be drawn from the Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE). Accordingly, Eq. (10) for the $`S=0`$ matrix $`v_{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ and the corresponding formula for the $`S=1`$ matrix $`v_{1\beta \beta ^{}}`$ have to be replaced by

$$|v_{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}|^2=|v_{1\beta \beta ^{}}|^2=1.$$
(25)
This reduces the variance of the diagonal matrix elements by a factor of two when compared to the GOE. Considering the random two-body interaction alone, this effect introduces only small corrections of order $`1/N^2`$ to the results presented in the previous sections and in the Appendix.

Let us consider the trivial case where residual interactions can be neglected. The $`B`$-dependent pairing gap then becomes

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(N,B)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2}\left(\epsilon _{N/2+1}\epsilon _{N/2}\right)\mu B\hfill & \text{for }N\text{ even,}\hfill \\ \mu B\hfill & \text{for }N\text{ odd.}\hfill \end{array}`$ (28)
The odd-even staggering thus decreases with increasing magnetic field and disappears when the Zeeman splitting $`2\mu B`$ equals half the mean level spacing $`\epsilon _{i+1}\epsilon _i`$. Note that Eq. (28) ceases to be applicable for stronger magnetic fields. In the limit of very large $`B`$-fields, the ground state becomes spin polarized (i.e., has maximal spin $`J=N/2`$) and any odd-even staggering disappears. Note also that a breaking of time-reversal symmetry leads to a positive pairing gap at odd $`N`$ and can thereby easily be distinguished from the effects of interactions.

We now include again the random two-body interactions and compute the empirical pairing gap as the magnetic field is switched on. The number of single-particle orbitals is $`M=6`$. At vanishing magnetic field we assume an equidistant mean-field spectrum with unit spacing. The two-body random interactions have fixed couplings $`C_0=C_1=1/10`$. We add the Zeeman Hamiltonian (24) to the system and increase the Zeeman splitting $`2\mu B`$ from zero to its maximal value $`\epsilon _{i+1}\epsilon _i/2`$. Simultaneously, the variance of the imaginary part of the random matrix elements is increased from zero to one, being held proportional to the Zeeman splitting. Figure 4 shows that the odd-even staggering decreases with increasing Zeeman splitting. The remaining staggering is due to the interactions, which are relatively weak in this example; the transition from the GOE to the GUE in the random two-body matrix is very mild. For strong two-body interactions the odd-even staggering remains strong when time-reversal symmetry is broken. Thus, the breaking of time-reversal invariance has only mild effects on the ground-state structure in strongly interacting systems. This finding is consistent with a recent study of time-reversal symmetry breaking in the nuclear shell model with random two-body interactions .

## VI Summary

We have shown analytically and numerically that random two-body interactions cause an odd-even staggering in interacting few-fermion systems such as small metallic grains or quantum dots. Interactions tend to smooth out the odd-$`N`$ and even-$`N`$ dependence of the pairing gaps and can thereby be discriminated from the non-smooth mean-field staggering. As expected, the breaking of time reversal symmetry leads to a decrease of the odd-even staggering; this trend can however be countered by sufficiently strong two-body interactions.

## Acknowledgments

This research used resources of the Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). T. P. acknowledges support as a Wigner Fellow and staff member at ORNL, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. L. K. and G. F. B. are likewise supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, under Grant DE-FG03-00ER41132.

##

The derivation of interaction-induced staggering in Section III was obtained in the dilute limit $`NM`$. For general values of $`N`$ and $`M`$ and couplings $`C_0`$ and $`C_1`$, a straightforward counting procedure results in the exact expressions

$`\mathrm{Tr}`$ <sub>J=0</sub> $`H^2={\displaystyle \frac{C_0^2+3C_1^2}{64}}N^2(2MN)^2`$ (29)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{16}}[C_0^2(2M^2+MNN^2)`$ (31)
$`3C_1^2(2M^27MN+3N^2)]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{16}}[C_0^2(6M+N2Nd(1d))`$ (33)
$`3C_1^2(10M13N2Nd(1+d))]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{16}}\left[8C_0^224C_1^2(2+d)\right]`$ (34)
$`\mathrm{Tr}`$ <sub>J=1/2</sub> $`H^2={\displaystyle \frac{C_0^2+3C_1^2}{64}}N^2(2MN)^2`$ (35)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{16}}[C_0^2(2M^2+MNN^2)`$ (37)
$`3C_1^2(2M^27MN+3N^2)]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}[C_0^2(3M^2+9MNN^2/2)`$ (39)
$`+3C_1^2(M^215MN+31N^2/2+2N^2d(1+d))]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}[C_0^2(9M+11N2Nd)`$ (40)
$`+`$ $`3C_1^2(9M31N8Nd)]`$ (41)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{64}}[13C_0^2+73C_1^2]`$ (42)
$`\mathrm{Tr}`$ <sub>J=N/2</sub> $`H^2={\displaystyle \frac{C_1^2}{4}}[N^2(MN)^2N(M^25MN+4N^2)`$ (43)
$`+`$ $`N(7N3M)4N]`$ (44)
In each of the three above expressions for minimal and maximal spin states, terms are ordered by their relative importance in the many-body limit at finite density, i.e., in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ with $`\rho N/2M=const`$. The leading term is $`O(N^4)`$ in the many-body limit, and this leading term is seen to be manifestly symmetric under particle-hole exchange $`N2MN`$ for the minimal-spin states (of course the maximal spin states $`J=N/2`$ exist only for $`NM`$). At subleading order, the symmetry is broken due to anticommutation relations between the creation and annihilation operators in Eq. (9). At both leading and first subleading order, $`\mathrm{Tr}H^2`$ is clearly identical for the $`J=0`$ and $`J=1/2`$ states, indicating that the staggering can occur only at $`O(1/N^2)`$, entirely consistent with our dilute analysis in Section III. It is also at this second subleading order that we first encounter the dimensionless quantity $`d`$, which we did not need to consider in the dilute approximation. $`d`$, taking values $`0d1`$, represents the fraction of particles in the basis state that live on doubly occupied orbitals.

As discussed above, for a pure $`S=0`$ coupling ($`C_1`$ vanishing), ground states come always from the sector of minimal spin, and thus we are led to consider the quantity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Tr}_{S=0}H^2\mathrm{Tr}_{S=1/2}H^2}{\mathrm{Tr}_{S=1/2}H^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{36\rho (1\rho )8\rho ^2d(1d)}{N^2(1\rho )^2}}`$ (45)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2N^2}},`$ (46)
where terms of higher order in the $`1/N`$ expansion have been dropped, and the last inequality is easily checked for all possible values of filling fraction $`\rho `$ and double occupancy fraction $`d`$. Thus, our original estimate, Eq. (21), obtained using the dilute approximation, is confirmed as a lower bound to the amount of predicted pairing gap,

$$(1)^N\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{C_0}\frac{3}{2N^2}|E(N)|.$$
(47)
The situation is more complex for a pure $`S=1`$ coupling ($`C_0=0`$), since here the ground state may be a state of either minimal or maximal spin, depending on the density $`\rho `$. Comparing Eqs. (34,42) with Eq. (44) at leading order in the many-body limit, we see easily that $`J=N/2`$ is preferred at very low density, $`\rho <\rho _{crit}=(52\sqrt{3})/130.118`$, but as density increases a transition should occur to ground states of minimal spin. The preference for maximal spin at low density is obvious, since high-spin states clearly maximize the fraction of particle pairs with aligned spins ($`S=1`$ instead of $`S=0`$). On the other hand, the physical reason for the transition to minimal-spin ground states even with a pure $`S=1`$ coupling for $`\rho >\rho _{crit}`$ is that at high enough density there are relatively few other high-spin states that a given high-spin state can couple to.

The relevant result for our purpose here is that at low densities there is no predicted stagger in the many-body limit, in accordance with Eq. (44), but for $`\rho >\rho _{crit}`$ minimal-spin states again become dominant. A calculation completely analogous to the one in Eq. (46) tells us that once again the pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is positive (negative) for even (odd) $`N`$ and proportional to $`1/N^2`$ times the magnitude of the binding energy. Thus,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{C_1}`$ $`=`$ $`0(\rho <\rho _{crit})`$ (48)
$`(1)^N\mathrm{\Delta }(N)_{C_1}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{0.027}{N^2}}|E(N)|(\rho >\rho _{crit})`$ (49)
The above analysis generalizes easily to the generic case where the two coefficients $`C_0`$ and $`C_1`$ are both nonzero. For $`C_0>C_1`$, ground states are always expected to come from the minimal-spin sector, leading to positive pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ proportional to $`1/N^2`$ times the binding energy. For $`C_1>C_0`$, on the other hand, there will be a transition between no pairing gap at low density to positive pairing gap at higher density, the critical density $`\rho _{crit}`$ approaching $`0.118`$ for $`C_1C_0`$ and approaching $`0`$ at $`C_0=C_1`$.


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# The Neutral Decay Modes of the Eta-Meson11footnote 1Contribution to the Eta Physics Handbook, Workshop on Eta Physics, Uppsala 2001

## 1 Introduction

The $`\eta `$ meson has the interesting feature that all its possible strong decays are forbidden in lowest order: $`\eta \to ̸2\pi `$ and $`\eta \to ̸4\pi ^0`$ by $`P`$ and $`CP`$ invariance, $`\eta \to ̸3\pi `$ because of $`G`$-parity conservation as well as isospin and charge symmetry invariance. First order electromagnetic $`\eta `$ decays are forbidden as well: $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma `$ by conservation of angular momentum, $`\eta 2\pi ^0\gamma `$ and $`\eta 3\pi ^0\gamma `$ by *C* invariance. Only $`\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\gamma `$ occurs, but at a suppressed rate because it involves the anomaly. The first allowed decay is the second-order electromagnetic transition $`\eta 2\gamma `$.

The width of the $`\eta `$ is about 1.3 keV; this is 5 orders of magnitude smaller than a typical strong decay, such as the $`\rho `$ meson. This feature makes $`\eta `$ decays $`10^5`$ times more sensitive than $`\rho `$ or $`\omega `$ decays at a comparable branching ratio for testing invariances.

The physical $`\eta `$ is a mixture of the pseudoscalar SU(3) octet ($`\eta _8`$) and singlet ($`\eta _0`$) parametrized by the mixing angle $`\theta `$:

$`|\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta |\eta _8\mathrm{sin}\theta |\eta _0`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\sqrt{6}\mathrm{cos}\theta |\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d2\overline{s}s{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\sqrt{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta |\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d+\overline{s}s`$
The value for $`\theta `$ is $`(20\pm 2)^{}`$. If we choose $`\theta =19.5^{}`$, we have the following remarkable makeup of the physical $`\eta `$:

$$|\eta =\frac{1}{3}\sqrt{3}|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d\overline{s}s,$$

which means that the $`\eta `$ is an eigenstate of the $`I`$, $`U`$, and $`V`$ operators of SU(3). We also have $`|\eta ^{}=\mathrm{sin}\theta |\eta _8+\mathrm{cos}\theta |\eta _0=\frac{1}{6}\sqrt{6}|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d+2\overline{s}s`$. In the limit $`u=dq`$, we have $`\eta ^{}=\frac{1}{3}\sqrt{6}|\overline{q}q+\overline{s}s`$. The $`\eta ^{}`$ is an eigenstate of the operator that interchanges the $`s`$ and the $`q`$ quarks.

There are more than 14 different neutral $`\eta `$ decays (see Table 6 at the end). They make up (71.6 $`\pm `$ 0.4)% of all $`\eta `$ decays .

## 2 $`\eta 2\gamma `$

The largest branching ratio of the $`\eta `$ is into two photons:

$$BR(\eta 2\gamma )=(39.5\pm 0.2\pm 0.3)\%.$$
(1)
It was measured in a dedicated experiment  carried out at SACLAY with the SPES II $`\eta `$ “factory” using the $`pd^3`$He$`\eta `$ production reaction.

The decay rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )`$ has been determined by two means. The first one is the QED process $`e^+e^{}e^+e^{}\gamma ^{}\gamma ^{}e^+e^{}\eta e^+e^{}2\gamma `$ (see Fig. 1a).

The calculation of the rate is believed to be well-understood and the uncertainty due to the virtual photon form factor is small . The results of four experiments  are given in Table 1. They are mutually consistent; the average value is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )=0.510\pm 0.026\mathrm{keV}.$$
(2)
There are 2 older measurements of very limited statistics  which we are not using. Finally, there is a different type of measurement based on the Primakoff effect , $`\gamma A\gamma \gamma A`$ (see Fig. 1b), which gives

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )=0.324\pm 0.046\mathrm{keV}.$$
(3)
This experiment suffers from uncertainties in the dependence of the Primakoff form factor on the momentum transfer and production angle, and on the systematic error in the phase of the interference term. Because the difference between the Primakoff and the QED process is $`4\sigma `$ and the four QED measurements are consistent with one another and have fewer theoretical uncertainties, we recommend using the value of Eq. 2 rather than the average of both methods as done by the Particle Data Group . Combining Eqs. 1 and 2, we obtain for the total $`\eta `$ decay rate

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta all)=1.29\pm 0.07\mathrm{keV},$$
(4)
which is 11% larger than the PDG value.

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )`$ can be calculated in different ways. The order of magnitude is readily obtained by scaling the positronium decay rate treating $`\eta 2\gamma `$ as the electromagnetic annihilation of a constituent quark and its antiquark (see Fig. 2a), thus

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )=\left(\frac{m(\eta )}{m(e^+e^{})}\right)^3\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑟}.2\gamma )=0.81\mathrm{keV},$$
(5)
which agrees to a factor of 1.6 with the measured value. For comparison, note that this scaling law gives $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi ^02\gamma )=12`$ eV, which is 1.5 times the measured result. This calculation gives $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta ^{}2\gamma )=4.3`$ keV, also in good agreement with the measurement.

It was a stunning surprise when Sutherland  and Veltman  showed that in the limit of massless quarks, the 2$`\gamma `$ decay of $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$ is forbidden. This embarrassing situation — after all, the dominant decay of both the $`\pi ^0`$ and the $`\eta `$ is into 2 photons — turned into a triumph when Adler  and Bell and Jackiw  figured out how all is saved by the QCD anomaly. The triangle graph (see Fig. 2b) results in the prediction

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi ^02\gamma )\left(\frac{m_\eta }{m_\pi }\right)^3\times \varphi ,$$
(6)
where

$$\varphi =\sqrt{18}\left[\frac{F_\pi }{F_8}\mathrm{cos}\theta (Q_u^2+Q_d^22Q_s^2)\sqrt{2}\frac{F_\pi }{F_0}\mathrm{sin}\theta (Q_u^2+Q_d^2+Q_s^2)\right]^2,$$

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=\alpha ^2m_\pi ^3N_c^2(Q_u^2Q_d^2)^2/32\pi ^3F_\pi ^2.$$

The last equation gives a value of 7.6 eV for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )`$, in agreement with the measurement of ($`7.9\pm 0.7`$) eV. Using $`F_8=1.3F_\pi `$, $`F_0=(1.05\pm 0.04)F_\pi `$, and $`\theta =19.5^{}`$, we obtain $`\varphi =1.3\pm 0.2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )=0.66`$ keV, which is close to the experimental value (Eq. 2). A more sophisticated handling of the octet-singlet mixing that involves two mixing angles is available in the literature .

These results have been hailed as experimental verification that the number of colors, $`N_c`$, is 3. On detailed inspection this is not quite so as discussed in Ref. . The branching ratio for $`\eta 2\gamma `$ plays a pivotal role in experimental eta physics, as it is used in the determination of the $`\eta `$ flux in many experiments. It appears prudent therefore to have a new measurement of $`BR(\eta 2\gamma )`$, preferably with a $`4\pi `$ acceptance photon detector.

## 3 $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$

The second largest $`\eta `$ decay mode is $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$. The PDG recommends the value $`BR(\eta 3\pi ^0)=(32.24\pm 0.29)\%`$. This value was determined principally by GAMS-2000  who reported that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\gamma )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(neutrals)=0.549\pm 0.004`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\pi ^0)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(neutrals)=0.450\pm 0.004`$, resulting in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(3\pi ^0)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\gamma )=0.820\pm 0.009.`$ This agrees with the average of 3 direct measurements; the PDG quotes $`0.825\pm 0.011`$ for the ratio.

The decay mode of the $`\eta `$ into 3 pions violates isospin invariance. This $`\eta `$ decay occurs because of the $`u`$-$`d`$ quark mass difference, which can be seen as follows. The Lagrangian of QCD, $`_{QCD}`$, can be divided into two parts:

$$_{QCD}=_0+_m,$$

where

$$_0=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^{(a)}F^{(a)\mu \nu }+i\underset{q}{}\overline{\psi }_q^i\gamma ^\mu (D_\mu )_{ij}\psi _q^j,$$

$$F_{\mu \nu }^{(a)}=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^a+g_sf_{abc}A_\mu ^bA_\nu ^c,$$

$$(D_\mu )_{ij}=\delta _{ij}_\mu ig_s\underset{a}{}\frac{\lambda _{i,j}^a}{2}A_\mu ^a,$$

$`A`$ is the gluon field, $`\psi _q`$ is the quark field, $`g_s`$ is the strong coupling factor, and $`f_{abc}`$ is the SU(3) structure constant. Thus, $`_0`$ depends only on the quark and gluon fields and their derivatives, and is the same for all quarks. This is called the flavor symmetry of (massless) QCD, and isospin symmetry is flavor symmetry applied to the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks. The flavor symmetry is broken by the quark-mass term,

$$_m=\underset{q}{}m_q\overline{\psi }_q^i\psi _{q_i}.$$

Thus we obtain the following expression for $`\pi ^0`$-$`\eta `$ mixing:

$`\pi |H_m|\eta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sqrt{2}(\overline{u}u\overline{d}d)|\overline{u}m_uu+\overline{d}m_dd|{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\sqrt{3}(\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d\overline{s}s)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\sqrt{6}(m_um_d),`$
where we have used the value $`\theta =19.5^{}`$ for the SU(3) octet-singlet mixing angle. $`\eta 3\pi `$ is *not* an electromagnetic decay as is sometimes stated in the older literature; it is a *limited* strong decay, which depends only on $`_m`$ and not on $`_0`$. We also have $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 3\pi )(m_um_d)^2`$; it is one of the best ways to determine the $`u`$-$`d`$ quark mass difference. A related way is via the ratio $`r=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 3\pi ^0)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)`$ .

An interesting parameter to investigate is the slope in the Dalitz plot for $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$. In lowest order the Dalitz plot should be uniform because of the identical final state particles. However, the $`\pi \pi `$ interaction is strong and strongly energy dependent, which results in a tiny nonuniformity of the Dalitz plot. To incorporate the fact that there are 3 identical $`\pi ^0`$’s in the final state, we use a symmetrized Dalitz plot as illustrated in Fig. 3.

The deviation of the shape from a circle is the result of the use of relativistic kinematics. The experimental Dalitz plot density should be uniform in concentric circles around the center. A suitable variable to transform from the two-dimensional to a one-dimensional distribution is $`z`$:

$$z=6\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}(E_im_\eta /3)^2/(m_\eta m_{\pi ^0})^2=\rho ^2/\rho _{max}^2,$$

where $`E_i`$ is the energy of the $`i`$th pion in the $`\eta `$ rest frame and $`\rho `$ is the distance from the center of the Dalitz plot. The variable $`z`$ varies from $`z=0`$, when all three $`\pi ^0`$’s have the same energy of $`m_\eta /3`$, to $`z=1`$, when one $`\pi ^0`$ is at rest.

The most accurate result comes from the very recent measurement by the Crystal Ball Collaboration  yielding $`\alpha =0.031(4)`$. The world data is summarized in Table 2.

Predictions based on chiral perturbation theory made by Kambor *et al.* , who used a dispersion calculation in which rescattering effects are treated to all orders, give values for $`\alpha `$ in the range $`(0.0140.007)`$. There is agreement with experiment in the sign but not in the magnitude. B. Holstein  has suggested the addition of a new dynamical input.

For comparison note that the slope parameter in $`K_L`$ decay is $`2\alpha =(6.1\pm 0.9\pm 0.5)\times 10^3`$ ; it agrees in sign as expected but it is much smaller, presumably because there is $`\frac{1}{3}`$ less energy released than in $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ decay. It will be of interest to make a slope measurement of $`\eta ^{}3\pi ^0`$, where the energy release is sufficiently large to see the effects of a major $`\pi \pi `$ resonance.

## 4 $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$

The smallest measured branching ratio of the neutral $`\eta `$ decays is of the doubly radiative transition $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$. At first glance one might expect the BR to be just slightly smaller than $`\eta 2\gamma `$ because of the reduced phase space. In reality the decay rate is suppressed because of the chiral symmetry of the $`_0`$ term of $`_{QCD}`$. In terms of the momentum expansion used in chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi `$PTh), the leading $`O(p^2)`$ term is absent for massless quarks; the $`O(p^4)`$ term is very small because there is no direct photon coupling to the $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\eta `$. Thus, the decay $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ is a (unique) test of the $`O(p^6)`$ terms of $`\chi `$PTh. Various theoretical estimates are given in Table 3.

The only sufficiently sensitive published result is by GAMS-2000 . Their result, $`BR(\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=7.1\pm 1.7\times 10^4`$, is based on a signal of 38 events. It is larger than every prediction based on $`\chi `$PTh. The preliminary result of the CB experiment  based on 500 events is $`BR(\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=(3.2\pm 0.9)\times 10^4.`$ Together with Eq. 4, this yields $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=0.42\pm 0.14\mathrm{eV}`$, which is well within the range of the theoretical predictions. It will be of considerable interest to measure the Dalitz plot of this decay. Again, a comparison with $`K_L\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ is interesting.

## 5 $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$

The two pion, doubly radiative decay, $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$, is driven by the Wess-Zumino anomaly, and therefore is expected  to have a very small branching ratio. It provides another, though difficult case for testing the higher order terms in $`\chi `$PTh. The original interest in $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ was focused on providing important limits on the coupling of new, relatively light neutral gauge bosons, useful already at the level of $`BR\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$, as discussed e.g. by D. Wyler . The decay amplitude can be divided into two components:

$$A(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )=A_R\pm A_{NR}.$$
(8)
The first component, $`A_R`$, is of the resonance-type. It is proportional to the on-shell amplitudes for $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ and $`\pi ^02\gamma `$. Besides being maximized at the kinematics for $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$, it has a limited value over the entire phase space. The non-resonant amplitude, $`A_{NR}`$, can be evaluated in $`\chi `$PTh . For $`s_{\gamma \gamma }>0.23m_\eta ^2`$, where $`s_{\gamma \gamma }`$ is the square of the $`\gamma \gamma `$ invariant mass, the non-resonant contribution is larger than the resonance by more than a factor of two . For an energy cut $`\delta m`$ of 20 MeV, a tree-level analysis  gives

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )6\times 10^7.$$
(9)
Extending the calculation to one loop , one obtains

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )8\times 10^8.$$
(10)
Experimentally it is very difficult to measure the decay $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ because of the background coming from $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0`$. The first, very modest, upper limit has been obtained very recently by the Crystal Ball Collaboration :

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma \gamma )<3.1\times 10^3$$
(11)
with a CL of 90%.

## 6 $`\eta 4\gamma `$

The four photon decay of the neutral pseudoscalar mesons is allowed, and like the two photon decay, is driven by the anomaly described by the Wess-Zumino-Witten term . To this should be added the $`O(p^2)`$ terms in the non-anomalous sector . Based on the coupling strength alone, one has $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 4\gamma )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 2\gamma )<(\alpha /\pi )^210^5`$. In realistic models the decay $`\eta 4\gamma `$ is going to be much smaller because the lowest orbital angular momentum states are forbidden by the requirements of gauge invariance and PCAC . The centrifugal barriers of the higher states inhibit the $`\eta 4\gamma `$ decay by extra powers of $`(kR)`$ where $`k`$ is the photon momentum and $`R`$ is the interaction radius. Thus far no theoretical estimate or experimental search has been reported.

For the related case of $`\pi ^04\gamma `$ there are some estimates. A Vector-Meson-Dominance-with-PCAC calculation  gives $`BR(\pi ^04\gamma )10^{16}`$, while a $`\chi `$PTh evaluation  yields $`7.1\times 10^{18}`$. The purely electromagnetic photon-splitting term alone yields $`BR(\pi ^04\gamma )3\times 10^{11}`$ (see Ref. ). The experimental upper limit  is $`BR(\pi ^04\gamma )<2\times 10^8`$ at 90% CL.

## 7 Search for New Physics

The Standard Model (SM) of the electroweak interactions has been phenomenally successful in giving a quantitative account of the various electroweak interactions. There is no evidence thus far for any failure. Yet the SM is not considered to be a theory. It needs 17 input parameters, not counting the neutrino sector. It does not explain such basic features as the existence of three families of fundamental fermions, the absence of the charge conjugates of the left-handed neutrinos and right-handed antineutrinos, the generation of widely different masses of the charged leptons, the origin of *CP* violation, etc. It is generally expected that the SM breaks down somewhere. A good place to look for New Physics appears to be the limit of validity of the basic symmetries of charge conjugation $`(C)`$, parity $`(P)`$, and time reversal $`(T)`$, as well as $`CP`$ and $`CPT`$ in the different interactions.

If the $`CPT`$ theorem holds, there are four distinct classes of the violations of $`C,P`$, and $`T`$ (see Table 4).

A particularly stringent limit on simultaneous $`P`$ and $`T`$ violation, class 3 of table 4, is obtained from the smallness of the limit on the electric dipole moment of the neutron. Yet, all classes, even $`\mathrm{\#}`$3, need better limits, in particular of electrostrong interactions of the quarks. If $`CPT`$ is not valid there are 7 main classes of $`C`$, $`P`$, $`T`$, and $`CPT`$ violations (see Table 5).

$`CPT`$ invariance is a fundamental theorem in quantum field theory, which results from locality and Lorentz invariance. Its validity in the context of quantum gravity is questionable . String theory is intrinsically non-local, which could lead to a violation of $`CPT`$. Instantons give rise to charge-non-conserving transitions on the world sheet, and hence to $`CPT`$ violations. Thus, the extent of the validity of $`CPT`$ invariance must rest on experimental evidence which is either dynamic, such as in $`K^0`$ and $`\eta `$ decay, or static, such as the equality of masses, half lives, magnetic moments, etc., of particles and their antiparticles. The most precise static test is $`|m_{K^0}m_{\overline{K^0}}|/m(\mathrm{ave}.)<10^{18}\text{[1]}`$. Testing *CPT* is extremely difficult in dynamic cases. The decay $`\eta \pi ^0\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ provides a special opportunity. The decay spectrum must be even in $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi `$, where $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the $`\pi ^0`$ and the $`\mu ^+`$ in the rest frame of the muon pair .

## 8 $`CP`$ Violation

$`CP`$ symmetry means that the interaction of a set of left-handed particles is identical to the interaction of the complimentary set of right-handed antiparticles. The discovery of a 0.2% $`CP`$ violation in 1964 came as a great surprise. At the time of the discovery there were no theoretical models for $`CP`$ violations, and the experimental upper limit for $`K_L2\pi `$ was 0.3%! The origin of $`CP`$ violation is still a mystery. There is widespread anticipation that detailed studies of $`CP`$ violation may lead us to “New Physics” that goes beyond the Standard Model (SM). In the context of the SM, $`CP`$ violation is described by the phase in the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa quark-mixing matrix that is related to the existence of six quark flavors grouped into 3 families. $`CP`$ violation shows up in family-changing interactions, while in family-conserving cases $`CP`$ violation is unobservably small. The last consequence needs experimental verification which is lacking thus far. Of the 30 tests of $`CP`$ listed in the Review of Particle Physics  only four are in this category: the $`2\pi `$ decays of the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ which at the present level are tests of $`P`$ as well as $`CP`$.

Doable tests of $`CP`$ invariance are hard to find for lack of particles or states which are eigenstates of the $`CP`$ operator and have family-conserving interactions. There are several speculative ideas about unconventional $`CP`$ violation such as spontaneous $`CP`$ violation in the extended Higgs sector but they are hardly compelling.

## 9 $`\eta \pi \pi `$

The strong decay $`\eta 2\pi `$ is forbidden by $`CP`$ and *P* invariance. An $`\eta `$ can decay via the weak interaction; at the level of $`10^7`$, parity is not conserved any longer and for $`BR\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$, $`\eta 2\pi `$ becomes a real test of $`CP`$ invariance. There is considerable evidence that parity is conserved in purely strong and electromagnetic interactions. Strong-electroweak interference can produce a violation of *P* in carefully chosen processes, usually at a small level which is of order $`10^6`$.

The current experimental limits on the $`2\pi `$ decay of the $`\eta `$ are:

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0)<4.3\times 10^4\text{[1]}.$$
(12)
$$BR(\eta \pi ^+\pi ^{})<3.3\times 10^4\text{[1]}.$$
(13)
Both limits have been obtained at a $`\varphi `$ factory where $`\eta `$’s are produced in the decay $`\varphi \eta \gamma `$ ($`BR=1.2\%`$).

There are no $`\eta `$ beams, as the $`\eta `$ lifetime is too short. The $`\eta `$’s come from baryon decays, in particular from the $`N(1535)\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(1670)\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ resonances, and from meson decays, observed e.g. in $`\varphi `$ decay or in $`\overline{p}p`$ annihilation. In all cases there is plenty of $`2\pi `$ production; it is comparable to $`\eta `$ production. Thus, it is a real experimental challenge to push the $`\eta 2\pi `$ limit down below the $`10^7`$ level.

As indicated earlier, since $`\eta 2\pi `$ is a flavor-conserving interaction the expected $`BR`$ in the SM is small. A recent calculation yielded $`BR(\eta 2\pi )<3\times 10^{17}`$ . The discovery of a much larger decay rate would be a sign for the existence of a nonconventional $`CP`$ violating mechanism.

## 10 $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$, a new test of $`CP`$

The upper limit for the $`CP`$ test $`\eta 2\pi `$ is hard to improve appreciably with currently available setups because of the sizeable $`2\pi `$ background in every $`\eta `$ production reaction. It is thus of interest to find another test. A novel possibility is $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$ which is forbidden by $`CP`$ and $`P`$. For $`\eta `$’s produced in the reaction $`\pi ^{}p\eta n`$ near threshold there is no known background to $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$. The chief drawback is the smallness of the final state phase space for $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$ compared to $`\eta 2\pi ^0`$.

The Crystal Ball Collaboration has recently produced the first upper limit :

$$BR(\eta 4\pi ^0)<6.9\times 10^7.$$
(14)
Together with Eq. 4, this gives $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 4\pi ^0)<8.9\times 10^4`$ eV. No events were found in a sample of $`3\times 10^7`$ $`\eta `$ decays produced near threshold in $`\pi ^{}p\eta n`$ close to threshold. To evaluate the sensitivity of this test, note that the $`\eta `$ meson is an eigenstate of the $`CP`$ operator. This allows for a comparison with a related but $`CP`$-allowed decay. The decay of a hypothetical $`\eta `$ meson, the $`\eta _{hyp}`$, with $`J^{PC}=0^{++}`$ into $`4\pi ^0`$ is allowed. As $`\eta _{hyp}`$ does not exist, we can instead use $`f_0(1500)4\pi ^0`$. The $`f_0`$ has the same quantum numbers as the $`\eta `$ except positive parity. The experimental value for the partial width is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(f_04\pi ^0)=33`$ MeV. The ratio of the phase space compared to $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$ is  $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\eta 4\pi ^0)/\mathrm{\Phi }(f_04\pi ^0)=`$ $`4.7\times 10^8`$, so we might expect $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta _{hyp}4\pi ^0)1.6\mathrm{eV}`$. Thus, the $`CP`$-violating amplitude for $`\eta 4\pi ^0`$ compared to a comparable, allowed decay is

$$A_{\overline{cp}}/A_{cp}<\left[\frac{8.9\times 10^4\mathrm{eV}}{1.6\mathrm{eV}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}=2.3\times 10^2$$
(15)
at 90% CL.

## 11 Charge Conjugation

$`C`$ invariance, or charge conjugation symmetry, is the invariance of a system to the interchange of the colored quarks with their antiquarks of anticolor, the charged leptons with their antileptons, the left(right)-handed neutrinos with the left(right)-handed antineutrinos, and vice versa. According to QED and QCD, $`C`$ invariance holds for all purely electromagnetic and all strong interactions, but the experimental limits are not impressive. The Review of Particle Physics  lists “all weak and electromagnetic decays whose observation would violate conservation laws.” Seventeen tests of $`C`$ invariance are listed: eight involve decays of the $`\eta `$, six of the $`\eta ^{}`$, two of the $`\omega `$ and one of the $`\pi ^0`$. None has yielded a significant limit thus far . Neither has the Pais test  which is the equality of any pair of $`C`$-symmetric reactions. Presented in ratio form, there is $`R_1=\sigma (\overline{p}pK^+X^{})/\sigma (\overline{p}pK^{}X^+)`$ and $`R_2=\sigma (\overline{p}p\pi ^+Y^{})/\sigma (\overline{p}p\pi ^{}Y^+)`$. The experimental data are $`(R_11)<2\times 10^2`$ and $`(R_21)<1\times 10^2`$ , which are not sufficiently precise for a useful analysis. The paucity of tests of $`C`$-invariance is related to the small number of eigenstates of the $`C`$-operator: only flavorless mesons such as $`\eta `$, $`\eta ^{}`$, and self-conjugate systems like $`(p\overline{p}),(e^+e^{})`$, and $`(K^0\overline{K^0})`$ qualify.

According to Stuckelberg and Feynman, an antiparticle may be viewed as an ordinary particle that goes backward in time. This shows that the $`C`$, $`P`$, and $`T`$ symmetries are interwoven. $`C`$ reverses the sign of all additive quantum numbers of a particle but leaves its spin unaffected. Thus the $`C`$ operator turns a left-handed neutrino into a left-handed antineutrino. The neutrinos studied in the lab all turn out to be left-handed and the antineutrinos right-handed, which means that there is full $`C`$ violation of the weak interactions. The SM does not explain this; it merely is part of the input of the SM, namely it is assumed that all basic fermions come as left-handed doublets and right-handed singlets. This blatant asymmetry provides a strong impetus for making better experimental tests of the validity of $`C`$ invariance.

Another argument which has kindled the interest in $`C`$ is the experimental observations of the abundance of matter over antimatter in the universe, as well as photons over baryons: $`n_B/n_\gamma <10^{10}`$ . In big-bang models of cosmology one naïvely expects the same abundance of matter and antimatter. The known $`CP`$ violation is insufficient for explaining the experimental baryon/antibaryon asymmetry.

Finally, recent neutrino experiments have provided tantalizing hints of possible neutrino mixing and of a finite neutrino masses .

## 12 $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$, a new Test of $`C`$ Invariance

The eta meson has the charge conjugation eigenvalue $`C=+1`$, and the $`\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ system with $`J^P=0^{}`$ has $`C=1`$. Thus, the decay $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ is strictly forbidden by $`C`$ invariance. This decay would be an isoscalar electromagnetic interaction of hadrons. It has been suggested that there may exist an isotensor electromagnetic interaction with a $`C`$-violating component . The decay $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ provides an opportunity to search for such an exotic interaction; it would be a clear signal for New Physics.

No searches for $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ have been reported in the literature. A preliminary upper limit has been obtained using the Crystal Ball detector  from a sample of $`1.9\times 10^7`$ $`\eta `$’s. Candidate events in the signal region are predominantly $`(85\%)`$ due to $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ decay with overlapping photon showers; the rest are due to $`2\pi ^0`$ production with a split-off photon. The net yield is no events resulting in

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma )<5\times 10^4\mathrm{at}\mathrm{the}90\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.$$
(16)
This corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma )<0.6\mathrm{eV}`$. To evaluate the sensitivity of this new result, we compare the upper limit with that of a $`C`$-allowed decay. In the absence of information on $`f_0\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ — the $`f_0`$ is the preferred comparison state since it has $`I^G(J^{PC})=0^+(0^{++})`$ — we use $`\rho \pi ^+\pi ^{}\gamma `$, with $`BR=1.0\times 10^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho =151\mathrm{MeV}`$. In $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ decay the $`2\pi ^0`$ must be in a relative d-state. This implies that the decay goes by a magnetic quadrupole transition rather than a dipole as $`\rho \pi ^+\pi ^{}\gamma `$ does, and we must include a reduction factor of order $`(kR)^4`$ (see Section 6); we estimate this factor to be $`(\frac{1}{2})^4=0.06`$ at worst. After small adjustments for the difference in phase space and the Clebsch-Gordan factor, we find that a $`C`$-allowed decay has an expected decay width of $`2\times 10^3`$ eV. This value is in reasonable agreement with two other estimates; the first is based on the allowed decay $`\rho 2\pi `$ and the other on the suppressed decay $`\varphi \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma .`$ The sensitivity of the CB upper limit for $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma `$ is

$$A_{\mathit{}}/A_C<\left[\frac{0.6\mathrm{eV}}{2\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}=1.7\times 10^2.$$
(17)
We are not aware of a more precise test of $`C`$ invariance of an isoscalar interaction.

## 13 $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma ,`$ a test of C Invariance

The radiative decay $`\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma ,`$ is strictly forbidden by charge-conjugation invariance. No search for it has been published thus far. There are seven photons in the final state, which explains the need for a $`4\pi `$ acceptance detector. The background is mainly from $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ with either a split-off or an old photon shower from a previous interaction.

Recently a preliminary result, an upper limit, has been obtained using the Crystal Ball detector in an AGS experiment :

$$BR(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma )<7\times 10^5,$$
(18)
which corresponds to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \pi ^0\pi ^0\pi ^0\gamma )<9.0\times 10^2\mathrm{eV},\mathrm{at}\mathrm{the}90\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.$$
(19)
This is a test of an isovector electromagnetic interaction of hadrons. The sensitivity of this test has been evaluated using a similar approach as was used in the previous section. Starting from the strong decay of the $`\omega `$-meson, $`J^P=1^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\omega \pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0)=7.5`$ MeV. We estimate the unknown radiative decay to be $`\alpha `$ times the strong decay width. Including an adjustment factor for the difference in phase space and the spin average weight factor  we obtain for an allowed $`3\pi ^0\gamma `$ decay rate (if $`C`$ invariance did not exist) $`6.8\times 10^3`$ eV. The upper limit for a $`C`$-violating amplitude is thus

$$A_{\mathit{}}/A_C\left[\frac{9\times 10^2\mathrm{eV}}{6.8\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}=3.6\times 10^3.$$
(20)
This is the best upper limit for an isovector electromagnetic transition.

## 14 $`\eta 3\gamma `$

The decay of a neutral, flavorless, $`C=+1`$, pseudoscalar meson into three photons is forbidden rigorously by $`C`$-invariance. The 3$`\gamma `$ decay should be small as it is a third order electromagnetic interaction and $`\alpha ^3=4\times 10^7`$. The rate is further suppressed by substantial factors coming from phase space and angular momentum barrier considerations . The decay $`\eta 3\gamma `$ can be isoscalar or isovector and even the hypothetical isotensor interaction. The Particle Data Group  lists the upper limit for the $`\eta 3\gamma `$ branching ratio as $`5\times 10^4`$.

The Crystal Ball experiment at the AGS has produced a new, still preliminary result which is

$$BR(\eta 3\gamma )<1.8\times 10^5$$
(21)
at the 90% C.L. Using Eq. 4, this corresponds to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta 3\gamma )<2.3\times 10^2\mathrm{eV}.$$
(22)
The largest background in this experiment is from $`\eta 3\pi ^0`$ decay when photon showers overlap in the detector. The background from $`\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ with two overlapping photon showers is at the percent level, because $`BR(\eta \pi ^0\gamma \gamma )`$ is only $`3\times 10^4`$ (see Section 4). The background from $`\eta 2\gamma `$ with a split-off is totally suppressed in our analysis.

There is no straightforward way to assess the sensitivity of the $`\eta 3\gamma `$ process analogous to the one used in the preceeding two sections. The triplet positronium state decays into $`3\gamma `$ but it has $`J^{PC}=1^{}`$, which is not quite suitable for the task at hand.

The decay $`\eta 3\gamma `$ can take place by the allowed, $`C`$-violating, $`CP`$ conserving weak interaction of the SM denoted by $`BR(\eta 3\gamma )_w`$. Using a quark-loop model Dicus  has obtained

$$BR(\pi ^03\gamma )_w=(1.2\times 10^5)\frac{\alpha }{(2\pi )^5}G^2m_\pi ^4\left(\frac{m_\pi }{m}\right)^8,$$
(23)
where $`G`$ is the Fermi constant and $`m`$ is an effective quark mass. Choosing $`m>(1/7)m_N`$ this yields

$$BR(\pi ^03\gamma )<6\times 10^{19}.$$
(24)
A similar expression for the allowed weak decay of the $`\eta `$ yields for $`m>(1/5)m_N`$ the limit

$$BR(\eta 3\gamma )_\omega <3\times 10^{12}.$$
(25)
$`\eta 3\gamma `$ decay due to a $`CP`$-violating new interaction is not likely. P. Herczeg  has shown that in renormalizable gauge models with elementary quarks the flavor conserving nonleptonic interactions of the quarks do not contain in first order a $`P`$-conserving $`CP`$-violating component. The $`CP`$-violating contributions to $`BR(\eta 3\gamma )`$ in such models are therefore negliable relative to $`BR(\eta 3\gamma )_\omega `$. P. Herczeg  has considered the existence of a flavor conserving $`C`$\- and $`CP`$-violating interaction $`(\overline{H})`$. Using the stringent limits imposed by the upper limit of an electric dipole moment of the neutron, he obtains

$$B(\eta 3\gamma )_{\overline{H}}<10^{19}.$$
(26)
It is of interest to compare the relative sensitivity of the decay rates of the three lightest pseudoscalar mesons into 3$`\gamma `$. The simplest effective Hamiltonian for a $`0^{}`$ meson decaying into 3$`\gamma `$ contains seven derivatives , consequently,

$$BRm_0^{}^{12}\mathrm{\Gamma }(0^{}all).$$
(27)
This results in the following sensitivity comparison

$$BR(\eta 3\gamma ):BR(\pi ^03\gamma ):BR(\eta ^{}3\gamma )=1:10^5:5.$$
(28)
Thus, even though the experimental limit for $`BR(\pi ^03\gamma )<3\times 10^8`$ is small, it is 100 times less sensitive than the experimental upper limit for $`\eta 3\gamma `$ given in Eq. 21. On the other hand, $`BR(\eta ^{}3\gamma )<1\times 10^4`$ quoted in Ref.  is a comparable test of $`C`$.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in quantum field theory over noncommutative spaces in part because of the connection to string theories. Noncommutative $`CP`$-violating effects are now being estimated. They may actually dominate over the SM contribution .

Grosse and Liao  have shown that a generalization of the anomalous $`\pi ^02\gamma `$ interaction can induce a $`C`$-violating $`\pi ^03\gamma `$ amplitude in noncommutative quantum electrodynamics. The prediction for $`BR(\pi ^03\gamma )=6\times 10^{21}`$ is still far from the experimentally reachable level but it shows that there are new options. It will be interesting to see what noncommutative field theory will predict for $`\eta 3\gamma `$.

## 15 Weak Neutral $`\eta `$ Decays

Most of $`\eta `$ physics is focused on the investigations of the strong and electromagnetic interaction of confined $`q\overline{q}`$’s. It is appropriate to note that weak $`\eta `$ decay could occur already at a BR level of $`10^7`$. The opportunity to actually observe a “standard” weak $`\eta `$ decay is rather slim because of various suppression factors and the fact that the $`\eta `$ is a neutral meson which eliminates charged weak leptonic decays. As a result the permitted weak $`\eta `$ decays in the standard model are expected to occur at the level $`10^{13}`$ and below . This situation makes rare $`\eta `$ decays a fair hunting ground for searching for new interactions which are mediated by new particles such as leptoquarks which are not subject to the constraints of the ordinary weak interactions.

Recent new experimental data from neutrino detectors, in particular Super-Kamiokande  and SNO  are being interpreted as evidence for neutrino oscillations. One or more neutrinos are expected to have a mass. These new developments are enhancing the interest in very rare $`\eta `$ decays which involve neutrinos. Weak semileptonic $`\eta `$ decays are forbidden by $`G`$-parity conservation. They can occur by second class weak currents and are much suppressed . This leaves us with double neutrino decays which experimentally look like $`\eta \mathrm{𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔}`$. They can only be investigated indirectly. The present upper limit for $`\eta \mathrm{𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔}`$ is a paltry 2.8% at the 90% C.L.  The experiment used an enhanced $`\eta `$ source based on the Jacobian-peak method and clean tagged $`\eta `$’s as well as the determination of all $`\eta `$ decay modes. The limit deserves to be improved using a good $`4\pi `$-acceptance detector.

There are three categories of $`\eta `$ decay into two neutrinos. The first category consists of decays which are allowed by lepton number conservation, $`\nu _e\overline{\nu _e}`$, $`\nu _\mu \overline{\nu _\mu }`$ and $`\nu _\tau \overline{\nu _\tau }`$. They can only occur if neutrino states of both chiralities exist, and imply New Physics which goes beyond the minimal SM. When neutrinos have mass the branching ratio is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \nu \overline{\nu })4\times 10^9(m_\nu /m_\eta )^2.$$
(29)
Even the $`\tau `$\- neutrino which has the poorest limit on its mass, $`m_{\nu _\tau }<18`$ MeV, still gives a discouragingly small $`\eta `$ decay branching ratio, $`<4\times 10^{12}`$.

The second category contains the lepton-family violating but lepton-number conserving $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ final states such as $`\nu _e\overline{\nu _\mu }`$, $`\overline{\nu _e}\nu _\mu `$, $`\nu _\mu \overline{\nu _\tau }`$, etc. This is of special interest in view of the new data on neutrino oscillations.

In the third category are the decays which violate lepton number by two, such as $`\eta `$ decay into $`\nu _e\nu _e`$, $`\nu _\mu \nu _e`$, etc. They may be generated by certain classes of leptoquarks. D. Wyler  has discussed bounds on the masses of various types of leptoquarks, B- photons, and other exotics, based on the upper limits for different leptonic and semileptonic pseudoscalar meson decays. He finds

$$BR(\eta \nu \nu )10^6(G_{lq}^2/G_F^2)$$
(30)
where $`G_{lq}`$ is the coupling strength of the leptoquark and $`G_F`$ the weak coupling strength. With $`G_F(300\mathrm{GeV})^2`$, we can relate the upper limit of rare eta decays to the mass $`M_{lq}`$ and relevant coupling constant $`G_{lq}`$ for instance

$$M_{lq}>G_{lq}(300\mathrm{GeV})/33[BR(\eta \nu \overline{\nu })]^{1/4}.$$
(31)
The helicity suppression which hampers $`\eta \nu \overline{\nu }`$ decays by the factor $`(m_\nu /m_\eta )^2`$ does not apply to $`\eta \nu \overline{\nu }\gamma `$ because the spin of the photon allows the $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ pair to have angular momentum $`J=1`$. The expected BR is still very low. Arnellos *et al.*  find using the standard quark model

$$BR(\eta \nu \overline{\nu }\gamma )2\times 10^{15}.$$
(32)
The weak decay $`\eta \pi ^0\nu \overline{\nu }`$ has been discussed briefly by P. Herczeg . In the SM it is a second class weak interaction with $`BR10^{13}`$. Beyond the SM $`\eta \pi ^0\nu \overline{\nu }`$ could proceed via an interaction which couples neutrinos to a scalar quark current. The branching ratio is not expected to be larger than $`10^9`$ .

The largest predicted weak decay of the $`\eta ^{}`$ is $`\eta ^{}K\pi `$, which could be in the range $`BR10^9`$ .

## 16 Summary

The different neutral $`\eta `$ decay modes are listed in Table 6 together with the experimental branching ratio or upper limit as well as the chief physics interest. The list shows tests of $`C`$ and $`CP`$ invariance and chiral perturbation theory. The rare and forbidden $`\eta `$ decays are useful for placing limits on several proposed modifications of the Standard Model and on manifestations of New Physics.