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# The 3 𝜇m spectrum of R Doradus observed with the ISO-SWSBased on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA. The SWS is a joint project of SRON and MPE.

## 1 Introduction

R Doradus is one of the brightest stars in the infrared. Its flux distribution peaks in the 1 $`\mu `$m range, the spectral type being M8III111http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/. R Dor is classified as a semi-regular variable \[SRb; Kholopov (1988)\], or more precisely a red SRV \[for a definition, see Kerschbaum & Hron (1992)\], but is closely related to the Mira variables in the sense that it probably lies near the edge of a Mira instability strip (Bedding et al., 1997). R Dor has, however, a longer period than expected for SRVs, but this fact could be due to irregularities in the periods (Kerschbaum & Hron, 1992) or could be telling us that SRVs with long periods represent a sub-group of Mira stars (Bedding et al., 1998).

Semi-regular variables are most likely evolved stars on the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) in the HR diagram, see for example Habing (1996). AGB stars are low-initial-mass stars with electron-degenerate, carbon-oxygen cores on their way from the main sequence towards the white-dwarf/planetary-nebula phase. Approximately 95% of all stars will eventually pass this stage of evolution (Habing, 1996). In general, there seems to be an evolutionary sequence on the AGB from the blue SRVs to the long-period Mira stars, passing through the red SRV phase (Kerschbaum & Hron, 1992; Lebzelter & Hron, 1999). The blue SRVs are supposed to be on the early AGB, the red SRVs are suggested to be experiencing the first thermal pulses, and finally the Miras are associated with the thermal pulses and are supposed to be pulsating in the fundamental mode, showing large amplitudes in the visual brightness.

A key feature of AGB stars is their massive but slow stellar winds, creating an extensive circumstellar envelope. AGB stars and their circumstellar envelopes in general present spherical symmetry \[see for example Olofsson (1996)\]. In combination with the thermal pulses and the subsequent third dredge-up, which drags up newly synthesised elements into the atmosphere, the wind causes an enrichment of the interstellar medium in elements synthesised in the AGB star, thus making these stars important actors in the chemical evolution of galaxies \[see for example Gustafsson & Ryde (2000)\]. R Dor has a mass-loss rate of $`7\times 10^8\text{M}\text{}\text{ yr}\text{-1}`$, which is at the lower end of what is typical for AGB stars, and a wind velocity of $`6\text{km\hspace{0.17em}s}\text{-1}`$ (Loup et al., 1993). R Dor shows some circumstellar dust emission \[see discussions in Bedding et al. (1998) and Kerschbaum & Hron (1992)\] and also molecular circumstellar emission from regions close to the star \[see for example Ryde et al. (1999)\].

Thanks to the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), launched in 1995, it has become possible to study the atmospheres of red giants in detail at low and medium resolution, also at wavelengths obscured by the Earth’s atmosphere, for example the interesting region between the K- and L-bands studied here.

Here we present the $`2.60`$$`3.66\mu \text{m}`$ medium-resolution (R$`2500`$) spectrum of R Dor, observed by the ISO-SWS, and model it by generating a synthetic spectrum from the photosphere only. This results in a good agreement. The photosphere is modeled with the latest version of the marcs model photosphere code, generating hydrostatic photospheres. The study of infrared (IR) spectra of red giants provides a test of the adequacy of hydrostatic model photospheres, their input data and their constraints, for the modeling of red giants.

In their unmasking of the warm molecular-envelopes surrounding AGB stars Tsuji et al. (1997) model the $`3\mu \text{m}`$ spectrum of the M6 giant g Her and the M7 giant SW Vir observed by the Short-Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) on board ISO. Markwick & Millar (2000) model the same wavelength region of ISO-SWS observations of the Mira star R Cas (M7III). They suggest that the absorption spectrum originates from the inner regions of the circumstellar envelope, and model it with two circumstellar components, one warm and one cold.

## 2 Observations

The spectrum of R Dor was observed with the SWS (de Graauw et al., 1996) on board ISO (Kessler et al., 1996). The spectrometer was used in the grating scan mode (SWS06), which provides a resolution of $`\mathrm{R}2000`$$`2500`$, depending on the wavelength in the observed region.

The 44 minutes of observations were performed on the 23rd June 1997 during ISO revolution number 585. The reductions were made using the pipeline, basic reduction package OLP (version 9.5) and the ISO Spectral Analysis Package (ISAP version 2.0). The pipeline processing of the data, such as the flux calibration, is described in the ISO-SWS Handbook. The accuracy of the calibration of the absolute flux is better than 7% ($`1\sigma `$).

We also observed a low-resolution spectrum from $`2.4\mu \text{m}`$ to $`45\mu \text{m}`$ of R Dor with the ISO-SWS (in the SWS01 mode) on 27th June 1997 (orbit number 589). Also here, the reductions were made using OLP version 9.5 and ISAP version 2.0. Our SWS06 and SWS01 spectra of R Dor were thus observed within 4 days of each other. The variation in the spectra due to the periodic variations in the star can therefore safely be ignored, R Dor having a period of 338 days (Kholopov, 1988). The SWS01 observation, in the wavelength region of our SWS06 observation, is composed of two sub-spectra; bands 1B and 1D. These two sub-spectra could be merged into one spectrum directly.

Due to the way the spectrometer works in the SWS06 mode, our region was observed in five spectral bands: $`2.60`$$`3.02\mu \text{m}`$, $`3.02`$$`3.08\mu \text{m}`$, $`3.08`$$`3.19\mu \text{m}`$, $`3.19`$$`3.50\mu \text{m}`$, and $`3.52`$$`3.66\mu \text{m}`$ \[for details, see the ISO Handbook (de Graauw et al., 2000)\]. There are mismatches in the fluxes between these bands due to uncertainties in the detector gains in every band. Furthermore, the overlap between the bands is small. Therefore, in order to align the five bands, we used the low-resolution SWS01 spectrum, convolved to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.1\mu \text{m}`$ or a resolution of R$`30`$, to outline the spectral shape of the region we observed. In this way we are able to scale the different bands of the SWS06 observation with correct factors in order to merge the bands into one spectrum. The flux levels of the bands observed, lie within a factor of 1.04 of each other. As a check, after having merged the SWS06 sub-spectra, we also convolved the merged spectrum to R$`30`$, which resulted in the same shape as the SWS01 observation convolved to R$`30`$. This indicates that we were successful in merging the five sub-spectra into one spectrum over the entire region and that we can rely on the overall shape of the observed spectrum.

In Figs. 1 and 2 we show the observed ISO spectra. The resolution of the five bands are $`\mathrm{R}=\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}300}`$, $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}500}`$, $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}000}`$, $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}500}`$, and $`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}000}`$, respectively (de Graauw et al., 2000).

## 3 Model photospheres and the generation of synthetic spectra

For the purpose of analysing our observations, synthetic spectra have been generated (Ryde et al., 1998) using model photospheres from the new grid of spherically-symmetric model photospheres of M giants, which is currently being calculated with the latest version of the marcs code. This version is the final major update (of the code and its input data) in the suite of marcs model-photosphere programs first developed by Gustafsson et al. (1975) and further improved in several steps, e.g. by Plez et al. (1992), Jørgensen et al. (1992), and Edvardsson et al. (1993).

These hydrostatic, spherical model photospheres are computed on the assumptions of Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE), homogeneity and the conservation of the total flux (radiative plus convective; the convective flux being computed using the mixing length formulation). The radiative field used in the model generation, is calculated with absorption from atoms and molecules by opacity sampling in approximately 84 000 wavelength points over the entire, relevant wavelength range considered for the star ($`2300\text{Å}`$$`20\mu \text{m}`$).

Data on the absorption by atomic species are collected from the VALD database (Piskunov et al., 1995) and Kurucz (1995, private communication). The opacity of CO, CN, CH, OH, NH, TiO, VO, ZrO, H2O, FeH, CaH, C2, MgH, SiH, and SiO are included and up-to-date dissociation energies and partition functions are used. The continuous absorption as well as the new models will be fully described in a series of forth-coming papers in A&A (Gustafsson et al., Jørgensen et al., and Plez et al., all in preparation). The new models were used by, among others, Decin et al. (2000) in their modeling of the K5III-giant $`\alpha `$ Tau.

Using the computed model photospheres we calculated synthetic spectra by solving the radiative transfer at a high wavelength resolution in a spherical geometry through the model photospheres. Using extensive line lists (consisting of wavelengths, excitation energies of the lower state of the transition, and line strengths in the form of oscillator strengths), we produce synthetic spectra of wavelength regions around the water vapour bands ($`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _3`$) at 2.60–3.66 $`\mu `$m. The line lists included in the generation of the synthetic spectra are H2O (Partridge & Schwencke, 1997) (including all lines stronger than given by the condition $`\mathrm{gf}\times 10^{\chi \theta }/\mathrm{max}(\mathrm{gf}\times 10^{\chi \theta })>10^5`$, where $`\theta =5040/3050`$ and $`\chi `$ is the excitation energy in eV, leading to more than 2 million lines) , CO (Goorvitch, 1994), SiO (Langhoff & Bauschlicher, 1993), CH (Jørgensen et al., 1996), CN (Jørgensen & Larsson, 1990, and Plez 1998, private communications), OH (Goldman et al., 1998), and C2 (Querci et al. 1971 and Jørgensen, 2001, private communications). The accuracy and the completeness of these line lists are discussed in Decin (2000). We have also included CO2 with data from the Hitran database (Rothman et al., 1987, 1992) and the Hitemp database (Rothman et al. in preparation).

In the generation of synthetic spectra, we calculate the radiative transfer for points in the spectrum separated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 1\text{km\hspace{0.17em}s}\text{-1}`$ (corresponding to a resolution of $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda \mathrm{330\hspace{0.17em}000}`$) even though the final resolution is much less. With a microturbulence of $`\xi 2\text{km\hspace{0.17em}s}\text{-1}`$ in the model photosphere, this means that we are sure of sampling all lines in our database in the generation of the synthetic spectrum. This is an important point since a statistical approach, by only taking fewer, opacity-sampled points, will give an uncertainty in the synthesised spectrum; There will be noticeable differences in the synthesised spectra calculated with different sets of points, unless one chooses the spacing between the points smaller than the physical width of the line broadening. This is especially important when dealing with molecular bands, since the separation between lines differs greatly with wavelength depending on whether the lines are close to a band head or not. For example, by choosing random points in the spectrum, at which the radiative transfer is calculated for the synthetic spectrum, with a larger separation than we have chosen, one will tend to overestimate the absorption at band heads (or in regions with a high line density) and underestimate it far from band heads (or in regions with a low line density).

The emergent model spectra are subsequently convolved with a Gaussian in the same manner and with the same resolution as the observed bands. This will allow a comparison with ISO observations.

## 4 Procedure and results

In order to model the observations and to find a good fit, we have calculated a grid of synthetic spectra, allowing the effective temperature ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$) and the surface gravity ($`\mathrm{log}g`$) of the models they are based on, to vary by increments of 50 K and 0.5 dex, respectively.

First, the over-all spectral shape was matched. This was done by convolving the observations and the models to a resolution of $`R60`$. The wavelength coverage of $`2.6`$$`3.7\mu \text{m}`$ is quite large and we find that especially the ‘low-frequency’ spectral shape, in particular the slope, at $`3.1`$$`3.7\mu \text{m}`$ is sensitive to the effective temperature. This fact confines the possible range of effective temperatures. Subsequently, the molecular features, both their relative strengths and their amplitude are fitted visually. We find that we are able to fit our observations well, both the over-all shape and the molecular features, of the $`3\mu \text{m}`$ region, for the phase at which the observations were made, with a synthetic spectrum based on a model photosphere of a temperature of $`3000\text{K}`$ and a surface gravity of $`\mathrm{log}g=0(\mathrm{cgs})`$, see Figs. 1 and 2. We point out that since the spectral region covered is sufficiently large we can fit both the general shape, or slope, of the spectrum as well as the molecular features themselves. However, we are not able to fit the flux level at the beginning of our observed region, at $`2.6`$$`3.8\mu \text{m}`$. There is a discrepancy here and this will be discussed in Sect. 5. We also performed a more formal $`\chi ^2`$ fitting with the same result. We determined the correct multiplicative factor to multiply the modeled fluxes by (in order to account for the distance to the star), to be able to compare them with the observations, by minimising the $`\chi ^2`$ for every model in our grid. The parameters of the model giving the lowest overall $`\chi ^2`$ are also $`3000\text{K}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g=0`$.

Actually, a synthetic spectrum calculated on the basis of a model photosphere with an effective temperature of $`3100\text{K}`$ fits some of the molecular features of the observed range better (though only marginally) than does the $`3000\text{K}`$ model, but this synthetic spectrum is then too steep in the long-wavelength region and the overall strength of the water bands is too weak, as is shown in Fig. 3. The uppermost spectrum in the figure shows the observations with the SWS01 observation as a back bone to outline the spectrum. The three spectra below are synthetic spectra based on model atmospheres of temperatures of $`3100\text{K}`$, $`3000\text{K}`$, and $`2900\text{K}`$. The low-resolution SWS01 observation is repeated for the three synthetic spectra. The overall shape of the hottest model is too steep, reflecting weaker water bands. The reverse is true for the coldest model. These facts may provide us with an estimate of the uncertainties in the temperature. Thus, with a conservative estimate of the uncertainties we arrive at a determination of the temperature of $`3000\pm 100\text{K}`$ for R Doradus.

The surface gravity ($`\mathrm{log}g`$) is also a fundamental parameter, and is varied together with the effective temperature in the search for the best model, but the spectra are not as sensitive to this parameter as to the effective temperature. For the grid of synthetic spectra that we have generated, we chose an increment of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}g=0.5(\mathrm{cgs})`$. A change in surface gravity changes the relative strengths and details of the molecular features. We have chosen $`\mathrm{log}g=0`$ as our best model but the uncertainty is quite large due to the low sensitivity of this parameter. Based on the fits, we estimate the limits of the surface gravity to be $`\delta \mathrm{log}g=\pm 1`$ (cgs). For a given surface gravity the stellar mass does not greatly change the spectral features or the spectral shape (typically by a few percent for a change in mass by a factor of 3).

Also, the metallicity of the star has an influence on the spectrum. This was also found by Decin et al. (2000) in their study of the red giant $`\alpha `$ Tau. We find that a decrease of the metallicity by $`0.15\text{dex}`$ affects the absolute flux level and the relative slope of the spectrum but only beyond $`3.3\mu \text{m}`$. The molecular features hardly change. The slope of the spectrum is changed in such away that for a given effective temperature the slope decreases slightly for a lower metallicity.

In addition to the observed spectrum, Figs. 1 and 2 show our synthetic ones calculated with a hydrostatic model photosphere of an effective temperature of 3 000 K and a surface gravity of $`\mathrm{log}g=0`$. The stellar mass is assumed to be 1 solar mass and the chemical composition is assumed to be solar (Feast et al., 1999). For a metallicity of \[Fe/H\]$`=0.15`$ the temperature of the model that best fits the data is T$`{}_{\mathrm{eff}}{}^{}=3050\text{K}`$. In the figures of the spectra, the fluxes are plotted on a logarithmic scale. The uncertainties in the absolute ISO fluxes originate from uncertainties in the gain factors of the different detectors (i.e. observed bands) and not from the levels of dark current of the bands. Allowing for these uncertainties and the distance to the star, which has to be taken into account when comparing stellar and model fluxes, the fluxes will differ only by a multiplicative factor. A plot of the logarithm of the fluxes allows a direct comparison with only an additive shift between them. The amplitude of the spectral features can be compared directly.

In Fig. 4, spectra including the contributions of only one molecule at a time, are shown. The relative importance of the H2O, OH, CO, and SiO molecules contributing to the spectral features in the observed region is displayed. The total synthetic spectrum is also shown in the figure, and the SiO and the OH spectra are shifted for clarity. CO2 does not contribute significantly; the two vibration-rotational bands in this region are centered at $`2.69\mu \text{m}`$ and $`2.77\mu \text{m}`$ (Herzberg, 1966), but these are only 2% deep as a maximum in our synthetic spectrum. The other molecules included in the spectral synthesis, i.e. CH, CN, and C2, do not contribute to the spectrum at all. All spectra are convolved with a Gaussian profile with a width of $`300\text{km\hspace{0.17em}s}\text{-1}`$, in order to provide a good overview of the spectrum. As can be seen, the main features are due to water vapour. It is the signatures of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _1=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _3=1`$ modes of the rotational-vibrational bands of H2O. These modes are due to symmetric and antisymmetric stretching of the water molecule. The first overtone vibration-rotational band of the CO molecule starts contributing at $`3.0\mu \text{m}`$ and increases toward shorter wavelengths. Several strong OH bands show their signatures in the synthesised spectrum including all molecules, especially at longer wavelengths ($`3.3`$$`3.7\mu \text{m}`$). These OH signatures can also be seen in the observed spectrum. The dashed line shows the continuum of the spectrum.

The partial pressure of water vapour in the model photosphere follows the gas pressure from the surface in to regions where the temperature has reached approximately 4000 K, with values of P(H2O)/Pg$`3\times 10^3`$. Further in, the partial pressure of water vapour decreases rapidly due to the dissociation of the molecule.

## 5 Discussion

The physical structure of AGB stars are certainly variable to different extents. In order to model the atmospheres of these variable stars in a proper physical manner one needs to take the time dependence into account; this is increasingly important in the infrared wavelength range where the light originates from the outermost layers. The resulting dynamic effects could affect the density and temperature structures of the outer photosphere and therefore affect the line formation. For dynamic models of variable stars see, among others, Höfner & Dorfi (1997) and Bessell et al. (1996). The partial pressures of molecules in the outer photosphere may vary greatly over a pulsation period. However, the fact that R Dor shows only a modest variability of $`\delta \mathrm{V}1.5\text{mag}`$ (the AAVSO International Database; J. A. Mattei 2001, private communication) suggests the feasibility of an attempt to model the stellar photosphere of this red giant with a hydrostatic model, as opposed to a dynamic model which takes into account time variations of the photospheric structure.

### 5.1 The hydrostatic modeling

In the hydrostatic modeling of M giants, there are several concerns to be addressed, which could potentially be important and explain discrepancies between observations and their modeling.

For example, the main source of continuous opacity in red giants in the IR spectral region is due to H- free-free processes, a source of opacity that increases with wavelength. Therefore, IR lines are formed far out in the photosphere, where the assumptions made in the calculation of the model photosphere may be invalid. The outer atmospheres of M giants are very tenuous and the densities are low in the line-forming regions. One should therefore also be aware of the possibility of uncertainties due to NLTE effects affecting the lines.

Furthermore, the input data regarding molecular lines (line positions, excitation energies, and line strengths) and the completeness of the data, i.e. whether all relevant molecular bands are taken into account or not, are a concern. This is especially important for water vapour since it dominates the spectrum. Even bands far from the wavelength band considered, can contribute significantly to the synthetic spectrum through a large number of weak lines. Therefore, the inclusion of a relevant number of lines, including weak ones, is important (see also Jørgensen et al., 2001). Jones et al. (2001) discuss the completeness of the line list of water vapour by Partridge & Schwencke (1997), which is used here. They find a good match between their observations of M dwarfs and synthetic spectra based on the Partridge & Schwenke line list, indicating its relevance for studies of M stars.

Finally, the relative extension ($`d=\mathrm{\Delta }r_{\mathrm{atm}}/R_{}`$) of the photosphere, which is typically approximately $`10\%`$, means that sphericity effects could be important both in the calculation of the photospheric structure and in the radiative transfer, which generates a synthetic spectrum. Indeed, we calculate our model photospheres and synthetic spectra in spherical geometry as opposed to plane-parallel geometry normally used for dwarf-star models.

In spite of all the approximations made, the synthetic spectrum presented here reproduces the ISO-SWS observations reasonably well in the region of $`2.8`$$`3.66\mu \text{m}`$, also keeping in mind the uncertainties in the observational data and in the reductions of the data. A direct comparison is presented in Fig. 5. The low-resolution SWS01 observation used to align the different medium-resolution SWS06 observations (see page 1) is also shown in the figure, as is the ratio of the observed and the modeled spectra. The negative spike in the ratio close to $`3\mu \text{m}`$ probably shows an inaccuracy in the line list used. Thus, the use a hydrostatic model photosphere for the synthesis of the photospheric spectrum of this spectral region, seems to be quite adequate for the red, semi-regular variable R Doradus. This is certainly not the case for the more variable Mira stars \[see for example Aringer et al. (2001)\].

### 5.2 The discrepancy at $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$

However, at the beginning of our interval, at $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$, we find a discrepancy of the over-all spectral shape, between our model and the ISO observations, see Fig. 5. We have not identified the cause of this, but we will discuss a few points in connection with this discrepancy, which reflect the approximations and shortcomings in the modeling.

First, the relevant absorption band of water vapour in the wavelength region we are considering here has its maximum at $`2.65\mu \text{m}`$ (Jørgensen et al., 2001; Jones et al., 2001). Therefore, one would expect the lines at these wavelengths to be formed far out in the photosphere and one might be concerned as to whether the extension of the model photosphere is large enough to encompass this line-forming region properly. In our models the water vapour lines in the $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$ region are indeed formed furthest out, with the strongest lines formed at an optical depth of approximately $`\mathrm{log}\tau _{\mathrm{Ross}}=4.8`$ ($`\mathrm{log}\tau _{\mathrm{Ross}}`$ is the standard optical depth calculated by using the Rosseland mean extinction coefficient). However, our photospheric model is calculated out to $`\mathrm{log}\tau _{\mathrm{Ross}}=5.6`$ which means that the strongest of the water vapour lines are formed within our photosphere and not on the outer boundary of the model. As a check, we also calculated a model extending to $`\mathrm{log}\tau _{\mathrm{Ross}}=6.2`$, showing no noticeable differences in the calculated spectra. Still, the further out in the photosphere, the less likely are the assumptions made in the calculations valid. Thus, the discrepancy could have its origin in a too warm temperature structure in the outermost layers. Furthermore, the model is calculated in LTE and no line scattering is considered. Line scattering could yield a larger absorption in the water lines. Neither should one rule out dynamic effects here.

Second, some problems may exist concerning the input data; the line list calculations could be wrong just here, for instance due to missing bands, but this is not likely \[see the discussion in Jones et al. (2001)\].

Third, there is certainly an extended atmosphere beyond the photosphere of AGB stars, which could affect their spectra in the infrared. The mass loss from the star creates a circumstellar envelope which can extend far out. Also, it is seen in dynamic model atmospheres of, for example, carbon-rich Mira stars, that the photospheres could extend far out due to pulsations and shocks (Höfner & Dorfi, 1997). (These basic features of dynamic model photospheres are certainly valid also for oxygen-rich Mira stars.) Densities at a few stellar radii from the star can be an order of magnitude higher than the ones given by the equation of continuity in the stellar wind. Thus, the discrepancy could perhaps be explained by an additional absorption from an extended atmosphere. A discrepancy similar to the one we find between our modeled and observed spectra at $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$, was also found by Tsuji et al. (1997, 1998) in their analysis of the spectrum of the M7 giant SW Vir. They attributed this to an excess absorption of warm water-vapour of non-photospheric origin. In order to explain several differences between models and infrared observations, Tsuji and collaborators (see for example Tsuji et al., 1997, 1998; Tsuji, 2000a, b; Yamamura et al., 1999) have introduced the idea of a new, non-expanding, warm envelope situated further out than the photosphere but distinct from the cool, expanding circumstellar-envelope, at a distance of a few stellar radii from the star. The origin of the envelope is neither theoretically expected nor has it as yet received a theoretical explanation, but seems to be a common feature of M supergiants and M giants in general (Tsuji et al., 1998; Matsuura et al., 1999). This new envelope is shown to contain water vapour at temperatures of $`1000`$$`2000\text{K}`$ (Tsuji et al., 1997), resulting in non-photospheric signatures in IR spectra of M giants. This view was recently corroborated by ISO observations of the $`6.3\mu \text{m}`$ bands of water vapour in early M giants, stars not expected to show signatures of water vapour (Tsuji, 2001). Thus, the discrepancy between our modeled and observed spectra at $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$ could be a result of an extra absorption component due to a non-expanding, warm envelope. We are in the process of modeling such a region (Ryde et al., in preparation). It is tempting to suggest in this scenario, that a star with a sufficiently low mass-loss rate will not be able to accelerate a wind from the stellar surface to velocities above the velocity of escape, but instead accumulates material ”close” to the star where it could form a relatively dense, warm layer including $`\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}`$.

### 5.3 The derived effective temperature of R Dor

Our derived effective temperature of $`3000\pm 100\text{K}`$, which is based on the ISO spectrum of the $`2.60`$$`3.66\mu \text{m}`$ region, is somewhat higher than values found in the literature. For example, Bedding et al. (1997) estimate an effective temperature of $`2740\pm 190\text{K}`$ from measurements of the angular diameter and the apparent flux of R Doradus. As is discussed by these authors, other indirect estimates of the effective temperature in the literature yield even lower temperatures. We note that, given the inferred radius of $`R=370\pm 50R_{}`$ of Bedding et al. (1997), our temperature would yield a luminosity more characteristic of a supergiant. However, we also note that Fluks et al. (1994), who derive effective temperatures for all M-spectral sub-types of the MK classification based on spectroscopic observations of M giants in the solar neighbourhood, find an $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}=3126\text{K}`$ for the M7 class. They classify R Dor as an M7 giant and they derive an effective temperature of $`2890\text{K}`$ for the M8 class.

Several possible reasons exist for the slightly higher temperature deduced in this paper as compared to most of the literature values. First, as was pointed out by Bedding et al. (1997), there may be inadequacies in indirect methods of determining effective temperatures from the colours of red stars. Second, Jones et al. (2001), in their fit of ISO spectra of M dwarfs with synthetic spectra based on the line list of Partridge & Schwencke (1997), also find effective temperatures systematically higher than those found in the literature, which are obviously based on several different methods. They suggest that an explanation of this could be the non-physical line splittings of the Partridge & Schwencke (1997) line list, which lead to too strong water vapour transitions for a given temperature. This would lead to a slightly higher effective temperature for a synthetic fit of a stellar spectrum. Third, R Dor is intrinsically variable, albeit with a small amplitude. As has been discussed in, for example, Aringer (2000), low-resolution ISO-SWS spectra of oxygen-rich, semi-regular variables on the AGB can be modeled with a sequence of hydrostatic models of different effective temperatures over the period of the star. Thus, one would indeed expect slightly different effective temperatures to be determined at different phases of the pulsation.

## 6 Conclusion

We have attempted to synthesis an observed spectral region, covering $`1.06\mu \text{m}`$ of the spectrum around $`3\mu \text{m}`$ of the red giant R Doradus at a spectral resolution of $`\mathrm{R}\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}000}`$$`\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}500}`$. The synthesised spectrum is based on a marcs hydrostatic model-photosphere. We are successful in reproducing the $`2.80`$$`3.66\mu \text{m}`$ region, but encounter a discrepancy in the beginning of the spectral region of our observations; $`2.6`$$`2.8\mu \text{m}`$. We have discussed possible explanations of this discrepancy, but have not identified the cause.

The good agreement with the medium-resolution ISO-SWS06 observations, apart from the region with the strongest water bands, suggests the adequacy of using a hydrostatic model photosphere for this particular star, and the completeness and correctness of our input data in the form of the molecular opacity for the calculation of the spectrum. Given all the possible failures of the model to correctly describe the physical picture of the outer photospheres of red giants, the agreement is promising. It shows once again the accuracy and the strength of the new marcs code also in the infrared wavelength region. Thus, the modeling of moderately varying red giants, such as semi-regular variables, in the near-infrared region with hydrostatic model photospheres may be a reasonable approximation. Note, however, that for the very variable Mira stars in general, hydrostatic model atmospheres certainly fail to reproduce observed spectra \[see, for example, Aringer et al. (2001)\]. Attention should also always be given to the extended atmospheres of these stars, which could affect the spectra and especially so in the infrared wavelength region. This extended atmosphere is a possible reason for the discrepancy in the $`2.62.8\mu \text{m}`$ region.

The spectral signatures in the spectrum presented here are mostly due to photospheric water vapour but several photospheric CO and OH bands are also identified. The spectral region is found to be very temperature sensitive, leading us to an estimate of the effective temperature of the star of $`(3000\pm 100)\text{K}`$. The best-fit synthetic spectrum was based on a model photosphere of a surface gravity of $`\mathrm{log}g=0\pm 1`$ (cgs). The temperature found here is slightly higher than the ones reported in the literature. A possible reason for this is a problem with the water vapour line list of Partridge & Schwencke (1997), as suggested by Jones et al. (2001).

###### Acknowledgements.

We should like to thank Professors Bengt Gustafsson and David L. Lambert for inspiration and enlightening discussions and the referee for valuable comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the P.E. Lindahl Foundation Fund of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education.


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# Magneto-optical properties of charged excitons in quantum dots

## Abstract

We present both experimental and theoretical results on the influence of a magnetic field on excitons in semiconductor quantum dots. We find a pronounced difference between the strong and weak confinement regimes. For weak confinement, the excitonic diamagnetic shift is strongly dependent on surplus charge, corresponding to a reversal in sign of the conventional diamagnetic shift for neutral excitons. In this limit, we argue that the optical properties of excitons with two or more extra electrons are fundamentally different to those of the neutral exciton and trion.

A semiconductor quantum dot (QD) represents an ideal model system for the investigation of quantum mechanical electron-electron interactions. This is because Coulomb blockade allows electrons to be added or removed one by one simply with a gate electrode . As a result, the electrical , optical - and magnetic properties  are tunable. An exciton complex consists of a hole bound to the electrons in a QD. The spatial extent of the excitonic wave function reflects the joint effects of the QDs confinement potential and the Coulomb interactions and can be probed by applying a magnetic field, $`B`$. For neutral excitons, the exciton energy increases quadratically with $`B`$, the so-called diamagnetic shift, with a curvature proportional to the area of the wave function . However, the behavior of charged excitons is less well-known and potentially much more interesting because of the more elaborate Coulomb interactions.

Here, we address both experimentally and theoretically the effect of electron charging on the excitonic diamagnetic shift. We show that each additional charge leads to a new paramagnetic contribution. Unlike paramagnetism in solids and atoms, we propose that the QD paramagnetism is a signature of strong Coulomb interactions. The multiply-charged exciton complexes we investigate are not stable in either homogeneous bulk semiconductors or quantum wells and so by turning to QDs we have entered a new regime where the Coulomb interactions can dominate the response to a magnetic field. To analyse this case, we introduce the concept of Wigner molecules for charged excitons.

For the experiments, we used self-assembled InAs QDs where it is well known that excitons recombine efficiently through photon emission  and that their charge can be controlled electrostatically . The InAs QDs are grown by molecular beam epitaxy and are embedded 25 nm above a highly doped GaAs layer, the back contact, and 150 nm below a Schottky gate on the surface. The QDs are grown in the Stranski-Krastanow mode, giving at our growth temperature 520 oC lens-shaped QDs. We then deposit 1 nm of GaAs before annealing the sample at the growth temperature for 1 min . Ensemble photoluminescence (PL) experiments show that the annealing step produces a multi modal distribution of dots: there are two dominant PL bands, one centred at 1.31 eV (the red-band) and one at 1.34 eV (the blue band). We exploit this property here as it allows us to study the effects of different confinement strengths within the same sample. In order to excite the PL, we generate carriers in the wetting layer with a 822 nm laser diode. We measure the PL from single quantum dots by processing 300 nm diameter apertures in the otherwise opaque metal gate, collecting the PL with a confocal microscope at 4.2 K and up to $`B=9`$ T. In all the experiments, the pump intensity was low enough that emission from biexcitons was undetectable.

The basic experiment is to measure the PL energy as a function of gate voltage, $`V_g`$, and magnetic field. We observe a red-shift in the PL whenever a single electron tunnels from the back contact into the QD, and from the Coulomb blockade plateau in the PL we can determine the charge of the exciton . The QDs emitting near 1.26 eV on the red side of the ensemble PL acquire one extra electron at $`V_g0.65`$ V and can be filled with as many as 3 electrons before the charge spills out into the wetting layer. For the QDs emitting near 1.37 eV on the blue side of the ensemble PL, the confinement potential is substantially weaker such that the charging threshold moves to $`V_g0.15`$ V, and only one extra electron can be added.

A typical $`B`$-dependence of the PL is shown in Fig. 1. The PL line splits into two in magnetic field through the Zeeman effect. The splitting is 120 $`\mu `$eV/T, varying by $`\pm 30`$ $`\mu `$eV from dot to dot, without any measurable dependence on excitonic charge. In order to analyse the overall up-shift of the PL in $`B`$, we plot the upper (lower) branch against positive (negative) $`B`$-values. Such a representation reveals the quadratic dependence of the PL peak shift: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{PL}=g_{ex}\mu _BB/2+\alpha B^2`$ where $`g_{ex}`$ is the Landé factor and $`\mu _B`$ the Bohr magneton. We focus on $`\alpha `$ which we have measured for about 20 different QDs.

Fig. 2 shows the PL dispersion of two different QDs, one from the red-band of the ensemble PL, and one from the blue-band, for different excitonic charges. The red-band QD has $`\alpha =10\pm 1`$ $`\mu `$eV/T2, independent of the excitonic charge, and we find that this is the case for all the investigated dots in the red-band. In very clear contrast however, the dots in the blue-band have the remarkable property that the diamagnetic shift reduces with the addition of one electron. An example is shown in Fig. 2 where the neutral exciton has $`\alpha =16.6`$ $`\mu `$eV/T2, the singly charged exciton 8.7 $`\mu `$eV/T2. In other words, the extra electron makes a paramagnetic contribution of $`\alpha =7.9`$ $`\mu `$eV/T2 to the overall diamagnetism. We argue in the following that the paramagnetism is a consequence of Coulomb interactions in the QD.

In order to understand these experimental results, we present generic calculations in two different limits, strong and weak confinement. The aim is to achieve a qualitative understanding of the experimental results. A complete quantitative agreement is probably only possible using the exact confinement potentials which are generally unknown for self-assembled QDs and it is not our purpose to explore this issue here. Importantly, we reach some wide-ranging conclusions which are independent of the form of the potential. For simplicity, we take a two-dimensional (2d) parabolic potential for both electrons (e) and holes (h) of the type $`V_{e(h)}=m_{e(h)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{e(h)}^2r^2/2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{e(h)}`$ are the single particle frequencies, $`m_{e(h)}`$ the effective masses, and $`r`$ is the spatial in-plane coordinate . In the strong confinement regime, the single particle energies dominate over the Coulomb energies, such that the Coulomb energies can be treated as a perturbation . The diamagnetic shift of the $`n`$-times negatively charged exciton Xn- is proportional to $`B^2`$ in the limit where the electron (hole) cyclotron frequencies $`\omega _{e(h)}^{cr}=eB/m_{e(h)}\mathrm{\Omega }_{e(h)}`$. The results for $`\alpha `$ are plotted in Fig. 3 showing how $`\alpha `$ depends on excess charge, with the changes becoming more important as the confinement weakens. However, typical confinement energies for strongly confined InAs quantum dots are $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_e30`$ to 50 meV for which the $`\alpha `$’s for the X0, X1- and X2- excitons differ by only $`10`$ %. The magnitude of this effect is comparable to our experimental resolution in $`\alpha `$. The diamagnetic shift of the red-band QDs are therefore consistent with the predictions of theory in the strong confinement limit.

In the other regime, weak confinement, the Coulomb energies dominate over the single particle energies. The magnetic shifts of a freely moving X0 and X1- were treated in ref.s . It was found that the X1- has a negative magnetic dispersion, arising from the cyclotron motion: the electron mass in the final state is much less than the trion mass in the initial state. Experimentally, a weak paramagnetic dispersion for the X1- in a quantum well has been observed in fields of about 1 T . We now consider the case of an X1- in a parabolic confinement potential. The effective potential is $`2V_e+V_h`$ and so the center of mass motion of a trion is described by a harmonic wave function with radial and angular quantum numbers, both of which are 0 in the ground state. Using the single particle Fock-Darwin spectrum, we determine the X1- exciton energy to be $`E^1=E_{tr}+\mathrm{}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_{tr}\mathrm{\Omega }_e(2N+1)\right]`$, where $`E_{tr}`$ is the free 2d trion energy, $`N`$ is the radial quantum number of the electron left in the final state, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{tr}^2=(2m_e\mathrm{\Omega }_e^2+m_h\mathrm{\Omega }_h^2)/(2m_e+m_h)`$. The interband selection rule on the envelope function dictates that the final state after photon emission should also have a zero angular momentum. Based on this, we find a $`B^2`$-dispersion of the PL emission energies with $`\alpha _N^1=(\mathrm{}e^2/8)\left[1/m_{tr}^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{tr}(1+2N)/m_e^2\mathrm{\Omega }_e\right]`$, which is negative for all $`N`$ because of the inequality $`m_{tr}m_e`$. The physical reason for $`\alpha _N^1<0`$ is that the final state is more extended than the initial state. The magnetic field dispersion for $`N=0`$ is shown in the left panel to Fig. 4. The intensity of the PL emission lines depends on an overlap integral of the trion and electron wave functions. With increasing radial quantum number $`N`$, the overlap and hence PL intensity decrease rapidly (right panel, Fig. 4). The lines with $`N>0`$ originate from a shake-up process in which the final state is an excited electron state. Such processes have already been investigated in the tunneling  and PL spectroscopy of 2d systems .

Experimentally, the diamagnetic curvature of X1- in a blue-band QD is much smaller than that of X0, but the dispersion is not paramagnetic. Also, we do not observe the shake-up peaks. Our explanation is that the blue-band QDs are in an intermediate regime. Interpolating between the two limits of our theory, in the intermediate regime the shake-up peaks will be weak and the diamagnetic contribution small and positive, giving us qualitative agreement with the experiment.

In the weak confinement regime, there are pronounced changes on going from the X0 to the X1-: the appearance of paramagnetism and shake-up peaks. We find further changes on going from X1- to X2-. The X2- can be viewed as an electron plus a trion, namely a Wigner molecule . In order to determine the classical coordinates of the trion and the electron, we minimized the classical energy of the Wigner molecule. The result is that the classical distance $`d_e^i`$ of the electron to the dot center is a factor $`\beta =m_{tr}\mathrm{\Omega }_{tr}^2/m_e\mathrm{\Omega }_e^2`$ larger than $`d_{tr}^i`$, the corresponding distance for the center of mass of the trion. This is because the trion confinement potential $`V_{tr}`$ is stronger than the electron confinement potential $`V_e`$. In a similar way, we determined the classical configuration of the two electrons left in the final state after photon emission. Their classical coordinate $`d_e^f`$ in the ground state obeys $`d_e^i>d_e^f>d_{tr}^i`$ as seen in Fig. 4. The wave functions of the initial and final states are peaked at the classical coordinates and decay exponentially along the radial axis away from their peak positions. Since $`\beta 1`$, the classical coordinates for the initial and final states are different. This gives a reduction in the PL intensity, but there is still a significant oscillator strength because the wave functions of the final excited states extend far enough. An example is shown in Fig. 4. This is the origin of the shake-up process in the PL of QDs. To determine the magnetic dispersion of the PL, we modeled the initial ground state as a Wigner molecule and computed numerically all the final states of two electrons. The total energy of the initial state includes the classical energy, the rotation energy and the quantization in the self-consistent local potential minima, but neglects exchange effects within the Wigner molecule. $`\alpha ^2`$ is estimated from the distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }d|d_{tr}^id_e^f||d_e^id_e^f|`$. The final state of the most intense PL line has a radial extent comparable to $`\mathrm{\Delta }d`$ since it corresponds to the maximum overlap with the initial state. From the diamagnetic shift of the final state which is $`(e^2B^2/8m_e)\mathrm{\Delta }d^2`$, we determine an approximate paramagnetic shift $`(e^2B^2l_e^2/8m_e)(l_e/a_o^{})^{2/3}`$ for the most intense PL line. Here $`l_e=(\mathrm{}/m_e\mathrm{\Omega }_e)^{1/2}`$, the electron zero-point motion, and $`a_o^{}`$ is the Bohr radius. Assuming $`m_em_{tr}`$ we see that the curvature of this X2- dispersion is about a factor $`(l_e/a_o^{})^{2/3}`$ larger than that of X1- since in the weak confinement regime $`l_ea_o^{}`$. This is shown in Fig. 4. Note that the jumps in the PL energy for X2- originate from changes in the angular momentum in the ground state, as in a two-electron quantum dot . The prediction for X2- in the weak confinement limit is that shake-up processes dominate the PL, and that there is a large, Coulomb-induced paramagnetic dispersion. Similar arguments apply also to more highly charged excitons, as shown for X3- in Fig. 4 (middle panel).

In conclusion, we report measurements of the diamagnetic shift of charged excitons in quantum dots spanning the strong to intermediate confinement regimes. In the strong confinement regime, the diamagnetic shift is small, and independent of charge. In the intermediate regime, the diamagnetic shift of a neutral exciton is larger, but there is a significant decrease with the addition of a single electron. Theoretical models are developed to understand these results, and we extend the theory to the case of weakly confined doubly charged excitons where we predict pronounced Coulomb interactions, leading to an unusual paramagnetic behavior and to strong shake-up processes in the emission. While these predictions pertain to low fields for InAs QDs ($`B2`$ T), they apply to higher fields for II-VI materials where the trion is more strongly bound . The novelty of these results is based on the fact that highly charged excitons do not exist in bulk semiconductors and quantum wells.

We acknowledge S. Ulloa for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the DFG under SFB348 and EPSRC. One of us, A.O.G., acknowledges financial support from the Rufus Putnam Visiting Professorship and the Volkswagen Foundation.


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# MKPH-T-02-01 The 𝜂-3𝑁 problem with separable interactions *footnote **footnote *Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 443)

## I Introduction

In the last ten years the interaction of $`\eta `$-mesons with few-nucleon systems has attracted considerable interest, and quite a large amount of research has been carried out both on the experimental as well as on the theoretical side. The major aim of this activity is to obtain a well-defined conceptual picture of the low-energy $`\eta `$-nuclear interaction which then may serve to clarify the foundation of the more fundamental $`\eta N`$ problem.

Of special interest is the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$-system, for which exactly soluble models are available. At the same time it encloses a much wider range of phenomena than the more simple $`\eta NN`$ case. In this context we would also like to mention several precise experimental investigations of $`\eta `$-production on three-body nuclei performed during the last decade . Previous theoretical studies in this area were restricted to various approximations in treating the few-particle aspects of this problem. As an earlier nonperturbative calculation, we would like to refer to the optical model approach of , whose purpose was to estimate qualitatively the possible formation of bound $`\eta `$-meson states with the lightest nuclei. More refined calculations were presented in , where the authors were able to sum the multiple scattering series for the $`\eta `$-3H amplitude, including several important corrections to the trivial optical limit. Another result reported in  were obtained within the so-called finite-rank-approximation (FRA) which has recently been applied also to the $`\eta `$-production from three-body nuclei . The crucial point of this model is the neglect of target excitations during the interaction with the $`\eta `$-meson. Clearly this assumption allows one to avoid the complications associated with the direct solution of the four-body dynamical equations. Concerning the present study, we were guided by the idea that the approximations used in many-body physics, such as the optical model or adiabatic treatment of the target, may fail when few-particle systems are studied. Especially, this seems to be true for small kinetic energies, where the unitarity conditions of the scattering matrix, nucleon recoil and other effects become significant. Their neglect, tolerated in various many-body approaches, may affect drastically the quality of the few-body results. Therefore, the present work is intended to solve the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$-problem without making any such not well controlled approximations.

The basis of our calculation is the four-body formalism in momentum space. Although a variety of methods for solving the n-particle problem has been proposed in the literature, the Faddeev-Yakubovsky theory  and the one of Alt, Grassberger and Sandhas (AGS)  are most convenient and preferred for practical applications. Adopting the separable representation for the driving two-body potentials as well as for the subamplitudes appearing in the (1+3)- and (2+2)-partitions of the four-body system, both approaches lead to the same set of effective two-body equations . As is well known, the separable approximation of the integral kernels permits one to represent the dynamical equations in terms of particle exchange diagrams. Due to this tractability and its relatively simple numerical realization, this method has received wide acceptance in few-body physics. Thus at present, a feasible formalism of four-particle theory has been extensively developed, despite the much more complex structure of the corresponding equations compared to the three-body case. After the work of Tjon  impressive results have been obtained in recent years for the four-nucleon low-energy interaction (see e.g.  and references therein), as well as for pion absorption on three-nucleon systems . With respect to other techniques we would like to refer to recent work in  and .

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we outline briefly the formal aspects concerning the application of the four-body formalism to the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ system within the quasiparticle approach. Besides the basic equations we introduce here the two- and three-body ingredients of the model. Our results for $`\eta `$-3H elastic scattering are presented in Sect. III, and conclusions are drawn in the last section. Details are given in two appendices.

## II Application of the four-body formalism to the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ system

The separable method is well known to allow one to reduce the $`n`$-body problem to an in general simpler $`(n1)`$-body case, where one of the constituents appears as a quasiparticle, i.e., a two-body bound, virtual or resonance state. In particular, the three-body equations for the (3$``$3) transition amplitudes are exactly reduced to effective two-particle equations of Lippmann-Schwinger type. Their kernels contain the off-energy-shell (2$``$2) amplitudes for all two-body subsystems. In an analogous manner, the four-body scattering kernels can be expressed in terms of subamplitudes stemming from the decomposition of the four-body system into the partitions (1+3) and (2+2). Therefore, approximating these subamplitudes once more by a separable ansatz we can again reduce the four-body problem to an effective quasiparticle two-body one. The formal details of this two-step reduction scheme may be found in Refs. . Here we restrict ourselves to a brief description of the resulting quasi-two-body equations as applied to the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ system.

### A The four-body $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ equations

Since our formalism does not include Coulomb forces, we will consider for definiteness the $`\eta `$-3H interaction throughout this paper. All appropriate states are assumed to be properly antisymmetrized with respect to the nucleons. The corresponding antisymmetrization procedure is outlined in Appendix A. Then we are led to the following three channels, corresponding to three possible two-quasiparticle partitions of the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ system

$$(1):\eta +(3N),(2):N+(\eta NN),(3):(N\eta )+(NN).$$
(1)
We only need the amplitudes connecting the initial asymptotic state, consisting of the $`3N`$ bound state (3H) and a free $`\eta `$-meson, with all three channels listed in (1). They obey a set of three coupled integral equations (see Appendix A), whose structure is represented by the following matrix equation

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}X_1\\ X_2\\ X_3\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ Z_{21}\\ Z_{31}\end{array}\right)+\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& Z_{12}& Z_{13}\\ Z_{21}& Z_{22}& Z_{23}\\ Z_{31}& Z_{32}& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\mathrm{\Theta }_1& & & \\ & \mathrm{\Theta }_2& & \\ & & \mathrm{\Theta }_3& \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}X_1\\ X_2\\ X_3\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
Here the index $`\alpha `$=1, 2, 3 stands for the channel $`(\alpha )`$ from (1). The amplitude $`X_\alpha `$ describes the transition $`(1)(\alpha )`$. The effective potentialsFollowing the work  we explore the formal analogy with the Lippmann-Schwinger equation and use for the driving terms $`Z_{\alpha \beta }`$ the suggestive term “potential”. $`Z_{\alpha \beta }`$ are expressed in terms of the form factors, generated by the separable representation of the subamplitudes appearing in the channels (1).

Because here we consider only low energy scattering, we take into account only the dominant $`s`$-wave part of the interaction in the two-body subsystems and thus only $`s`$-waves in the three- and four-particle states. Therefore, the matrix elements are diagonal with respect to the total spin $`S`$. For the elastic $`\eta `$-3H scattering we need to consider only those states where the spins and isospins of all nucleons are coupled to $`S=T=1/2`$. In all expressions to follow we drop the index $`L=0`$. The explicit analytical form of the potentials $`Z_{\alpha \beta }`$, taking into account the spin-isospin degrees of freedom, is given in the Appendix B. In a more detailed notation the system (2) reads

$`X_{\alpha ;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`(1\delta _{\alpha 1})Z_{\alpha 1;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ (4)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\beta =1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left(1\delta _{\alpha \beta }(1\delta _{\alpha 2})\right){\displaystyle \underset{n^{\prime \prime }s^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}Z_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{\prime \prime }}^{(ss^{\prime \prime })}(p,p^{\prime \prime },E)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }}(_\beta )X_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }n^{}}^{(s^{\prime \prime }s^{})}(p^{\prime \prime },p^{},E){\displaystyle \frac{p^{\prime \prime 2}dp}{2\pi ^2}}.`$
The index $`s=(0,1)`$ in the above equations corresponds to the total spin of the given $`NN`$ pair. Clearly, due to the pseudoscalar-isoscalar nature of the $`\eta `$-meson, the value of $`s`$ fixes uniquely the spin structure of the overall 4-body state with total spin $`S`$=1/2. In view of the limitation of the two-body interaction to the dominant $`s`$-wave part, the isospin $`t`$ of a $`NN`$ pair is fixed by its spin $`s`$ through the condition $`s+t=1`$. The subenergies $`_\beta `$ in (4) are defined as

$$_\beta =E\frac{p^{\prime \prime 2}}{2M_\beta },(\beta =1,2,3),$$
(5)
with reduced masses

$$M_1=\frac{3M_Nm_\eta }{3M_N+m_\eta },M_2=\frac{M_N(2M_N+m_\eta )}{3M_N+m_\eta },M_3=\frac{2M_N(M_N+m_\eta )}{3M_N+m_\eta }.$$
(6)
A graphical representation of the system (4) is shown in Figs. 1 and 2.

The structure of (2) allows one to eliminate the channel (1) yielding an equivalent set of only two coupled equations for the amplitudes $`X_2`$ and $`X_3`$. In detail, one has for $`\alpha \{2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}\}`$

$`X_{\alpha ;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{\alpha 1;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)+{\displaystyle \underset{\beta =2,3}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{n^{\prime \prime }s^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\stackrel{~}{Z}_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{\prime \prime }}^{(ss^{\prime \prime })}(p,p^{\prime \prime },E)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }}(_\beta )X_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }n^{}}^{(s^{\prime \prime }s^{})}(p^{\prime \prime },p^{},E){\displaystyle \frac{p^{\prime \prime 2}dp}{2\pi ^2}},`$ (7)
where the new effective potentials are given by ($`\alpha ,\beta \{2,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}\}`$)

$`\stackrel{~}{Z}_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1\delta _{\alpha \beta }(1\delta _{\alpha 2})\right)Z_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ (9)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n^{\prime \prime }s^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}Z_{\alpha 1;nn^{\prime \prime }}^{(ss^{\prime \prime })}(p,p^{\prime \prime },E)\mathrm{\Theta }_{1;n^{\prime \prime }}(_1)Z_{1\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }n^{}}^{(s^{\prime \prime }s^{})}(p^{\prime \prime },p^{},E){\displaystyle \frac{p^{\prime \prime 2}dp^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2}}.`$
After solving the system (7), the amplitude $`X_1`$ is obtained from

$`X_{1;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\beta =2,3}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{n^{\prime \prime }s^{\prime \prime }}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}Z_{1\beta ;nn^{\prime \prime }}^{(ss^{\prime \prime })}(p,p^{\prime \prime },E)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }}(_\beta )X_{\beta ;n^{\prime \prime }n^{}}^{(s^{\prime \prime }s^{})}(p^{\prime \prime },p^{},E){\displaystyle \frac{p^{\prime \prime 2}dp}{2\pi ^2}}.`$ (10)
The set of equations (7) is more suitable for the numerical solution than (4), since in the former case the integration over the triton pole in the propagator $`\mathrm{\Theta }_1`$ may be carried out independently from the procedure of solving the system (7) itself. Thus the kernels in (7) are smooth functions of the integration variable, and the equations may be solved by direct matrix inversion. We recall that below the triton break-up threshold we are dealing with only nonsingular potentials $`Z_{\alpha \beta }`$.

### B The subamplitudes

The key ingredient of the quasiparticle method , leading to the equations of the type (4), is the separable representation of the off-shell scattering amplitudes for the two- and three-body subsystems, appearing in the (2+2)- and (1+3)-partitions. In our case, the two types of two-body subsystems involved are $`NN`$ and $`\eta N`$, denoted in the following by “$`d`$” and “$`N^{}`$”, respectively. For the corresponding scattering matrices we adopt the simplest rank-one separable form. In detail, we use for the $`NN`$ interaction

$$t_d^{(s)}(q,q^{},z)=g_d^{(s)}(q)\tau _d^{(s)}(z)g_d^{(s)}(q^{}),$$
(11)
with

$$\tau _d^{(s)}(z)=\frac{1}{2M_N}\left[1\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{[g_d^{(s)}(q)]^2}{zM_Nq^2}q^2𝑑q\right]^1.$$
(12)
Here the upper index $`(s)`$ stands for the singlet $`(s=0)`$ and triplet $`(s=1)`$ $`NN`$ states. For the form factors $`g_d^{(s)}(q)`$ we use the simplest parameterization

$$g_d^{(s)}(q)=g_d^{(s)}\frac{\beta _s^2}{\beta _s^2+q^2}.$$
(13)
Analogously, we choose in the $`\eta N`$ channel

$$t_N^{}(q,q^{},z)=g_N^{}^\eta (q)\tau _N^{}(z)g_N^{}^\eta (q^{}),$$
(14)
with

$$\tau _N^{}(z)=\left[z+M_N+m_\eta M_0\mathrm{\Sigma }_\eta (z)\mathrm{\Sigma }_\pi (z)\right]^1,$$
(15)
where

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_\rho (z)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{[g_N^{}^\rho (q)]^2}{z+m_\eta m_\rho \frac{q^2}{2\mu _{\rho N}}+iϵ}\frac{q^2dq}{2\pi ^2},$$
(16)
and

$$g_N^{}^\rho (q)=g_N^{}^\rho \frac{\beta _\rho ^2}{\beta _\rho ^2+q^2},\mu _{\rho N}=\frac{M_Nm_\rho }{M_N+m_\rho },\rho \{\pi ,\eta \}.$$
(17)
The parameters appearing in (13), (15) and (17) are summarized in Table I. Those for the $`NN`$ interaction were taken from the low-energy $`NN`$ fit presented in , and the $`\eta N`$-parameters are chosen as to reproduce the scattering length $`a_{\eta N}=(0.75+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.27})`$ fm which agrees with the most recent results . However, our parameterization gives a different value for the effective range parameter $`r_0=(1.95+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.07})`$ fm compared to $`r_0=(1.5+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.24})`$ fm of . Unfortunately, we are not able to fit both values $`a_{\eta N}`$ and $`r_0`$ simultaneously, which is of course the price one has to pay for using the simplest separable ansatz (11). When comparing our predictions with those of  we use also other sets of $`\eta N`$-parameters chosen in such a way that they lead in each case to the corresponding value of $`a_{\eta N}`$ used there (see Table III).

Turning now to the general scheme, we have to introduce also the separable representation for the three-body subamplitudes, which will then serve as a necessary input for the four-body calculation. For this purpose we apply the Hilbert-Schmidt expansion. The main formal aspects of the procedure can be found e.g. in .

The three-nucleon $`s`$-wave doublet amplitudes $`U_{1;ss^{}}`$, appearing in the channel (1) obey the equation (see e.g. )

$$U_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)=V_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)+\underset{s^{\prime \prime }=0,1}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_{1;ss^{\prime \prime }}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _d^{(s^{\prime \prime })}\left(\frac{3q^{\prime \prime 2}}{4M_N}\right)U_{1;s^{\prime \prime }s^{}}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},)\frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}dq^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2},s,s^{}=0,1.$$
(18)
The effective potentials are defined in terms of the form factors $`g_d(k)`$ of the two-nucleon amplitude (11) as

$$V_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ss^{}}}{2}\underset{1}{\overset{+1}{}}\frac{g_d^{(s)}(|\stackrel{}{q}^{}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{q}|)g_d^{(s^{})}(|\stackrel{}{q}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{q}^{}|)}{\frac{q^2}{M_N}\frac{q^2}{M_N}\frac{\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{q}^{}}{M_N}}d(\widehat{q}\widehat{q}^{}),s,s^{}=0,1,$$
(19)
where $``$ denotes the total c.m. kinetic energy in the three nucleon system, and the matrix of the spin-isospin coefficients is given by

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{1}{2}& \hfill \frac{3}{2}\\ & \\ \hfill \frac{3}{2}& \hfill \frac{1}{2}\end{array}\right).$$
(20)
The Hilbert-Schmidt expansion for the driving term $`V_{1;ss^{}}`$ reads

$$V_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)=\underset{n}{}\lambda _n()u_n^{(s)}(q,)u_n^{(s^{})}(q^{},),$$
(21)
where the functions $`u_n^{(s)}(q,)`$ are taken as the eigenfunctions of the kernel of equation (18) with the eigenvalues $`\lambda _n`$, i.e.

$$u_n^{(s)}(q,)=\frac{1}{\lambda _n()}\underset{s^{}=0,1}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)\tau _d^{(s^{})}\left(\frac{3q^2}{4M_N}\right)u_n^{(s^{})}(q^{},)\frac{q^2dq^{}}{2\pi ^2},s=0,1.$$
(22)
They are normalized according to

$$\underset{s=0,1}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_n^{(s)}(q,)\tau _d^{(s)}\left(\frac{3q^2}{4M_N}\right)u_n^{}^{(s)}(q,)\frac{q^2dq}{2\pi ^2}=\delta _{nn^{}}.$$
(23)
The separable form of the amplitude can easily be found

$$U_{1;ss^{}}(q,q^{},)=\underset{n}{}u_n^{(s)}(q,)\mathrm{\Theta }_{1;n}()u_n^{(s^{})}(q^{},),\mathrm{\Theta }_{1;n}()=\frac{\lambda _n()}{\lambda _n()1}.$$
(24)
The amplitudes for the $`\eta NN`$ scattering, related to the channel (2) and denoted in the following by $`\overline{U}_{2;ij}`$ with $`i,j\{d,N^{}\}`$, are coupled into two independent sets corresponding to two possible spin-isospin $`\eta NN`$ $`s`$-wave states $`(S;T)=(0;1)`$ and $`(1;0)`$, denoted by an upper index $`(s)`$ with $`s\{0,1\}`$, each of the form

$`\overline{U}_{2;dd}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}V_{2;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _N^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}}{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_N^{}}}\right)\overline{U}_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},){\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}dq^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2}},`$ (25)
$`\overline{U}_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)`$ $`=`$ $`V_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)+{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}[V_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _d^{(s)}({\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}}{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_d}})\overline{U}_{2;dd}^{(s)}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},)`$ (27)
$`+V_{2;N^{}N^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _N^{}({\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}}{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_N^{}}})\overline{U}_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},)]{\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}dq^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2}}.`$
The reduced masses appearing in (25) are defined by

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }_N^{}=\frac{M_N(M_N+m_\eta )}{2M_N+m_\eta },\stackrel{~}{\mu }_d=\frac{2M_Nm_\eta }{2M_N+m_\eta }.$$
(28)
The corresponding effective potentials are

$`V_{2;dd}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=0,`$ (29)
$`V_{2;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_d^{(s)}(|\stackrel{}{q}^{}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{q}|)g_N^{}^\eta (|\stackrel{}{q}+\frac{\mu _{\eta N}}{M_N}\stackrel{}{q}^{}|)}{\frac{q^2}{M_N}\frac{q^2}{2\mu _{\eta N}}\frac{\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{q}^{}}{M_N}}}d(\widehat{q}\widehat{q}^{}),`$ (30)
$`V_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=V_{2;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q^{},q,),`$ (31)
$`V_{2;N^{}N^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{1}{\overset{+1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_N^{}^\eta (|\stackrel{}{q}^{}+\frac{\mu _{\eta N}}{M_N}\stackrel{}{q}|)g_N^{}^\eta (|\stackrel{}{q}+\frac{\mu _{\eta N}}{M_N}\stackrel{}{q}^{}|)}{\frac{q^2}{M_N}\frac{q^2}{2\mu _{\eta N}}\frac{\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{q}^{}}{m_\eta }}}d(\widehat{q}\widehat{q}^{}),`$ (32)
where $``$ is the total c.m. kinetic energy of the $`\eta NN`$ system. The properly antisymmetrized amplitudes for $`\eta NN`$ scattering are expressed in terms of $`\overline{U}_{2;ij}^{(s)}`$ as (see )

$$U_{2;dd}^{(s)}=\overline{U}_{2;dd}^{(s)},U_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\overline{U}_{2;N^{}d}^{(s)},s=0,1.$$
(33)
Analogously to (24) we have $`(i,j\{d,N^{}\})`$

$$U_{2;ij}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=\underset{n}{}v_{i;n}^{(s)}(q,)\mathrm{\Theta }_{2;n}^{(s)}()v_{j;n}^{(s)}(q^{},),\mathrm{\Theta }_{2;n}^{(s)}()=\frac{\eta _n^{(s)}()}{\eta _n^{(s)}()1},$$
(34)
where the form factors $`v_{i;n}^{(s)}`$ obey the homogeneous equation

$$v_{i;n}^{(s)}(q,)=\frac{1}{\eta _n^{(s)}()}\underset{j=d,N^{}}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_{2;ij}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)\tau _j^{(s)}\left(\frac{q^{}_{}{}^{}2}{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_j}\right)v_{j;n}^{(s)}(q^{},)\frac{q^2dq^{}}{2\pi ^2},s=0,1.$$
(35)
Here, of course, one has $`\tau _N^{}^{(s)}=\tau _N^{}`$ $`(s=0,1)`$, and the eigenfunctions are normalized as

$$\underset{i=d,N^{}}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}v_{i;n}^{(s)}(q,)\tau _i^{(s)}\left(\frac{q^2}{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_i}\right)v_{i;n^{}}^{(s)}(q,)\frac{q^2dq}{2\pi ^2}=\delta _{nn^{}}.$$
(36)
In the actual calculation we have neglected any $`\pi NN`$ states. Their inclusion would imply an increase in the number of channels in the final equations as well as adoption of relativistic kinematics which would lead to much more complex formalism. On the other hand due to its small mass, the pion is expected to give only minor corrections to low-energy $`\eta `$-nucleus scattering .

Apart from the genuine three particle scattering amplitudes, we also need as input the effective amplitudes, denoted here by $`U_{3;ij}^{(s)}`$, which describe two independent pairs of interacting particles in the channel (3). The corresponding equations read in our case

$`U_{3;dd}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}V_{3;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _N^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}}{2\nu _N^{}}}\right)V_{3;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},){\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}dq^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2}},`$ (37)
$`U_{3;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)`$ $`=`$ $`V_{3;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)+{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}V_{3;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{\prime \prime },)\tau _d^{(s)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}}{2\nu _d}}\right)U_{3;dd}^{(s)}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{},){\displaystyle \frac{q^{\prime \prime 2}dq^{\prime \prime }}{2\pi ^2}},`$ (38)
where $``$ is the sum of the internal energies in the $`NN`$ and $`\eta N`$ subsystems. In the expressions (37) the notations $`\nu _d=\mu _{\eta N}`$ and $`\nu _N^{}=M_N/2`$ are used. The effective potentials are

$`V_{3;dd}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=0,`$ (39)
$`V_{3;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)={\displaystyle \frac{g_d^{(s)}(q^{})g_N^{}^\eta (q)}{\frac{q^2}{2\mu _{\eta N}}\frac{q^2}{M_N}}},`$ (40)
$`V_{3;N^{}d}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=V_{3;dN^{}}^{(s)}(q^{},q,),`$ (41)
$`V_{3;N^{}N^{}}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=0.`$ (42)
Analogously to the treatment above, we introduce the form factors $`w_{i;n}^{(s)}`$ ($`i\{d,N^{}\}`$) as the eigenfunctions of the Lippmann-Schwinger kernel

$$w_{i;n}^{(s)}(q,)=\frac{1}{\xi _n^{(s)}()}\underset{j=d,N^{}}{}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_{3;ij}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)\tau _j^{(s)}\left(\frac{q^2}{2\nu _j}\right)w_{j;n}^{(s)}(q^{},)\frac{q^2dq^{}}{2\pi ^2},i,j\{d,N^{}\},$$
(43)
with an orthogonality condition analogous to (36). Then the separable form of the transition matrices is generated by the Hilbert-Schmidt expansion

$$U_{3;ij}^{(s)}(q,q^{},)=\underset{n}{}w_{i;n}^{(s)}(q,)\mathrm{\Theta }_{3;n}^{(s)}()w_{j;n}^{(s)}(q^{},),\mathrm{\Theta }_{3;n}^{(s)}()=\frac{\xi _n^{(s)}()}{\xi _n^{(s)}()1}.$$
(44)
In the spirit of the terminology, adopted for the separable approach, we may interpret the function $`w_{i;n}`$ as the form factor of the two-particle “bound state” $`j`$ when the other two particles are in the “bound state” $`i`$.

In Figs. 3 through 5 we present the leading eigenvalues $`\lambda _n()`$ and the real parts of $`\eta _n^{(s)}()`$ and $`\xi _n^{(s)}()`$. Several comments are in order:

1) The validity of separable expansion above is strongly limited to the energy region below the triton break-up threshold 3$`n+d`$, i.e., to energies $`<\epsilon _d`$, where $`\epsilon _d2.22`$ MeV denotes the deuteron binding energy. Above this region ($`\epsilon _d`$), due to the singularities appearing in the propagators as well as in the potentials, the kernels of the equations become noncompact, and the Hilbert-Schmidt expansion loses its meaning. Therefore we shall restrict our consideration to the region below the triton break-up threshold.

2) The eigenvalue $`\lambda _1^{(1)}`$ goes through unity at the energy $`=_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}13`$ MeV, which is essentially lower than the experimental value of the triton binding energy $`_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}^{\mathrm{exp}}8.5`$ MeV. This disagreement is a consequence of using the extremely simple Yamaguchi $`NN`$ scattering matrix (11). Although this ansatz fits low-energy $`NN`$ scattering, it has too long a tail into the high-momentum region and, therefore, predicts too much binding for the three-nucleon system.

3) The modulus of the eigenvalues $`\lambda _i`$ and $`\lambda _{i+1}`$ are close to each other. Therefore, one can expect, that the leading terms in the expansion (24) will cancel each other to a large extent, which may lead to a relatively slow convergence rate of the sum. In order to demonstrate how well a finite sum (24) may represent the exact amplitude, we show in Fig. 3 the ratio of the Schmidt norms

$$R_n()=\frac{𝒪_n}{𝒪},$$
(45)
of the operators

$$𝒪=\sqrt{\tau _d^{(1)}}V_{11}^N\sqrt{\tau _d^{(1)}},𝒪_n=\sqrt{\tau _d^{(1)}}(V_{11}^NV_{11,n}^N)\sqrt{\tau _d^{(1)}},$$
(46)
where $`V_{11,n}^N`$ is given by the sum (21) containing only the first $`n`$ terms. We see that the rate of convergence is not very impressive but appears to be sufficient for the practical calculation. Already in the region close to the two-body threshold ($`=\epsilon _{n,d}`$) the six leading terms in (21) accumulate more than 95 % of the Schmidt norm of $`𝒪`$. The same is valid for the $`\eta NN`$ case and especially for the $`(\eta N)+(NN)`$ channel as may be seen from Figs. 4 and 5.

The triton wave function was extracted from the pole of the $`3N`$ scattering amplitude. In the present calculation we have restricted ourselves to the principal, spatially completely symmetric $`s`$-wave part, which in the usual notation (see e.g. ) reads

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}=\xi ^a\mathrm{\Psi }^s(\stackrel{}{p}_1,\stackrel{}{p}_2,\stackrel{}{p}_3),$$
(47)
where $`\xi ^a`$ denotes the completely antisymmetric spin-isospin part, given by

$$\xi ^a=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\chi ^{(0)}\zeta ^{(1)}\chi ^{(1)}\zeta ^{(0)}).$$
(48)
The spin function $`\chi ^{(s)}`$ ($`s=0,1`$) describes a three-nucleon spin=1/2 state which is obtained by coupling first the spins of two nucleons to a spin $`s`$ and then by coupling $`s`$ with the spin of the third nucleon to a total spin 1/2. The isospin function $`\zeta ^{(t)}`$ ($`t=0,1`$) is constructed in the same manner.

The spatial part $`\mathrm{\Psi }^s`$, completely symmetrical with respect to the nucleon momenta, is given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^s(\stackrel{}{p}_1,\stackrel{}{p}_2,\stackrel{}{p}_3)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(1+P_{13}+P_{23})\psi (k_{12},q_3).$$
(49)
Here, $`k_{12}`$ and $`q_3`$ are the usual Jacobi momenta for the tree (1+2)+3. The function $`\psi (k,q)`$ can be expressed within our formalism in terms of the eigenfunctions (22) as follows

$$\psi (k,q)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(u^{(0)}(k,q)u^{(1)}(k,q)\right),$$
(50)
with

$$u^{(s)}(k,q)=Ng_d^{(s)}(k)\tau _d^{(s)}\left(_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}3q^2/4M_N\right)\frac{u_1^{(s)}(q,_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}})}{_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}3q^2/4M_Nk^2/M_N}.$$
(51)
The normalization factor $`N`$ is taken from the residue of the $`3N`$ scattering matrix (7) at $`=_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}`$, and one finds

$$N^2=\left[\frac{d\lambda _1}{d}\right]_{_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{H}}}.$$
(52)
The elastic $`\eta `$-3H scattering amplitude $`F_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}(p)`$ is then expressed in terms of the amplitudes $`X_{1;11}^{(ss^{})}`$, taken on the energy shell,

$$F_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}(p)=\frac{\mu _{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}}{2\pi }\left(X_{1;11}^{(00)}(p,p,E)+X_{1;11}^{(11)}(p,p,E)2X_{1;11}^{(10)}(p,p,E)\right)$$
(53)
with $`p=\sqrt{2\mu _{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}E}`$ and $`\mu _{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}`$ being the $`\eta `$-3H reduced mass. One should note that in the calculation of the amplitudes $`X_1`$ entering (53), the driving terms $`Z_{1i}`$ and $`Z_{i1}`$ ($`i=2,3`$) in (7) and (10) were redefined in view of the approximation (47) (see Appendix B).

## III Results and discussion

In Table II we present our results for the $`\eta `$-3H scattering length obtained by keeping a finite number of terms in the Hilbert-Schmidt expansion of the amplitudes (24), (34) and (44). One can see, that the rate of convergence of $`a_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}`$ is approximately the same as that for the integral kernels discussed in the previous sections (see Figs. 3, 4 and 5). The choice $`n_1=4,n_2=n_3=6`$ provides rather satisfactory accuracy. Our result obtained with the $`\eta N`$-input corresponding to $`a_{\eta N}=(0.75+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.27})`$ fm  is

$$a_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}=(4.2+i\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5.7})\text{fm}.$$
(54)
Firstly we note that the scattering length is rather large, which may be explained as a consequence of the virtual state (the real part of the scattering length is positive) generated by the strong attraction of the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ interaction. The large magnitude of $`a_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}`$ indicates that the corresponding pole of the scattering amplitude $`F_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}(p)`$ lies near the elastic scattering threshold. Turning to the region of positive energies, we present in Fig. 6 the total cross section for elastic $`\eta `$-3H scattering. Here the virtual $`\eta `$-3H state manifests itself in a strong enhancement of $`\sigma (E)`$ when $`E`$ approaches the threshold value. It would appear natural that this effect is really observed, e.g., in $`\eta `$-production in $`pd`$-collisions .

As already mentioned, we compare in Table III our predictions on the $`\eta `$-3H scattering length with those of  using an $`\eta N`$-interaction which reproduces the $`a_{\eta N}`$ scattering length of . One must note a rather strong difference of the results, especially for the real part of $`a_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}`$. Apparently, the latter must be very sensitive to the position of the pole in the amplitude as it lies close to zero energy. Very rough agreement may be noticed with . But there is a tendency of our prediction to give a larger value of $`\mathrm{}ea_{\eta ^3\mathrm{H}}`$, which is probably due to the difference in the $`\eta N`$ range parameter $`r_0`$ noted in the beginning of Sect. II B.

As to the question about the existence of a quasibound state, which an $`\eta `$-meson can form with the lightest nuclei , we see that within our model the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ interaction is not strong enough in order to bind the $`\eta `$-3H system. This conclusion does not support the results of the FRA-model  or those of the optical model  where an $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ bound state appears already for rather modest values of the $`\eta N`$ scattering length. It should also be remembered that our calculations are based on the rank-one separable $`NN`$ potential which is known to overestimate the attraction in the three-nucleon system. Therefore, we expect that the use of more refined $`NN`$ models will most likely reduce the probability for binding the $`\eta `$-3H-system.

## IV Conclusion

In the present paper, the four-body scattering formalism has been applied to study the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ interaction in the energy region very close to the $`\eta `$-3H elastic scattering threshold. The calculational scheme, which formally allows an exact solution, is based on the separable approximation of the appropriate integral kernels. The validity of this approach is justified by the fact that the driving $`NN`$ and $`\eta N`$ interactions are governed mainly by the $`S`$-matrix poles, lying in each case near the low-energy region. Therefore, the separable potentials, giving the correct structure of the amplitude close to the poles, are expected to provide an adequate approximation. In the present paper we have realized one of the possible schemes for solving the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ four-body problem. To test its applicability, we have investigated the Hilbert-Schmidt procedure for constructing a separable representation of finite rank of the four-body kernels. The examination of their Schmidt norms shows that the rate of convergence by increasing the rank is not very fast, but satisfactory for practical purposes. Keeping 6 to 8 terms in the separable expansion, we have obtained a rather good precision. The same conclusion is valid for the calculation of the $`\eta `$-3H scattering length. At the same time we would like to point out that the present calculation suffers from the oversimplification of the $`NN`$ interaction, for which the rank-one Yamaguchi potential has been used. Of course, this shortcoming can be cured by using a more sophisticated separable approximation for the $`NN`$ scattering matrix, requiring only more computational efforts. Thus, our results may be considered as a starting point for more realistic calculations.

## Appendix A

In this appendix the transition amplitudes for $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ scattering are defined with due consideration of the Pauli principle for nucleons. We begin with the two-body equations resulting from the quasiparticle approach to the four-body problem

$$X_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{},E)=Z_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{},E)+\underset{\gamma \alpha }{}\underset{n^{\prime \prime }}{}Z_{\alpha \gamma ;nn^{\prime \prime }}(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{\prime \prime },E)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\gamma n^{\prime \prime }}(E)X_{\gamma \beta ;n^{\prime \prime }n^{}}(\stackrel{}{p}^{\prime \prime },\stackrel{}{p}^{},E)\frac{d^3p^{\prime \prime }}{(2\pi )^3}.$$
(A1)
Here the effective potentials

$$Z_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}(\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{p}^{},E)=\underset{i}{}u_{i;n}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q},)\tau _i(z)u_{i;n^{}}^\beta (\stackrel{}{q}^{},^{})$$
(A2)
are represented by the particle exchange diagrams (see e.g. Fig. 2). They include the propagator $`\tau _i(z)`$ of the quasiparticle “$`i`$” depending on the two-body subenergy

$$z=E\frac{p^2}{2M_\alpha }\frac{p^2}{2M_\beta }\frac{\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{p}^{}}{m_k},$$
(A3)
where $`M_\alpha `$ denotes the reduced mass in the two-particle channel $`\alpha `$. The form factors $`u_{i;n}^\alpha `$ are generated by the separable expansion of the subamplitudes in the (1+3)- and (2+2)-partitions

$$U_{ij}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q},\stackrel{}{q}^{},)=\underset{n}{}u_{i;n}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q},)\mathrm{\Theta }_{\alpha n}()u_{j;n}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q}^{},).$$
(A4)
In the case $`\alpha `$ = (1+3) the functions $`U_{ij}^\alpha (\stackrel{}{q},\stackrel{}{q}^{},)`$ are the familiar Lovelace amplitudes appearing within the pure separable approach to the three-body scattering . For $`\alpha `$ = (2+2) these functions describe two independently propagating pairs of particles, each treated as a quasiparticle. In (A2) the energies $``$ and $`^{}`$ in the subsystems $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, respectively, are defined by

$$=E\frac{p^2}{2M_\alpha }\text{and}^{}=E\frac{p^2}{2M_\beta }.$$
(A5)
The momenta $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{q}^{}`$ in (A2) are of course functions of $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}^{}`$

$$\stackrel{}{q}=\stackrel{}{p}^{}+\frac{M_\alpha }{m_k}\stackrel{}{p},\stackrel{}{q}^{}=\stackrel{}{p}+\frac{M_\beta }{m_k}\stackrel{}{p}^{},$$
(A6)
where $`m_k`$ is the mass of the exchanged particle (or quasiparticle). After a partial wave decomposition, the equations (A1) are reduced to a set of integral equations in one variable, being thus manageable for practical purposes.

Turning to the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ system we will firstly define the notation. The set of channels, we are interested in, is given by (1). In what follows, we do not consider the explicit structure of the equations, connected with the separable expansion of the basic subamplitudes (index “$`n`$” in (A4)) and drop also the spin-isospin indices. It is convenient to order the nucleons always cyclically, since in this case we have not to trace the sign, when changing from one state to another. Denoting the nucleons as particles 1, 2 and 3, we consider the following 7 states which contribute

| (i) | one state in channel 1: | $`|\eta (123)`$, denoted as 1 , |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  |  |  |
| (ii) | three states in channel 2: | $`|1(\eta 23)`$$`|2(\eta 31)`$$`|3(\eta 12)`$, denoted as $`2_i`$ with $`i=1,2,3`$ , |
|  |  |  |
| (iii) | three states in channel 3: | $`|(1\eta )(23)`$$`|(2\eta )(31)`$$`|(3\eta )(12)`$, denoted as $`3_i`$ with $`i=1,2,3`$ . |

Here we assume that the wave functions of the subsystems containing two and three nucleons are already antisymmetrized. For the present purpose we are interested in those amplitudes, which describe the transitions from channel 1 to the channels $`1`$, $`2_i`$ and $`3_i`$. They will be denoted respectively as $`X_1`$, $`X_{\alpha _i}`$ with $`i=1,2,3`$. Then using the separable approximation for the amplitudes (24), (34) and (44), the equations (A1) take the form

$`X_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}Z_{1;2_j}\mathrm{\Theta }_{2_j}X_{2_j}+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}Z_{1;3_j}\mathrm{\Theta }_{3_j}X_{3_j},`$ (A7)
$`X_{2_i}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{2_i;1}+Z_{2_i;1}\mathrm{\Theta }_1X_1+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}(1\delta _{ij})Z_{2_i;2_j}\mathrm{\Theta }_{2_j}X_{2_j}+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}Z_{2_i;3_j}\mathrm{\Theta }_{3_j}X_{3_j},`$ (A8)
$`X_{3_i}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{3_i;1}+Z_{3_i;1}\mathrm{\Theta }_1X_1+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}Z_{3_i;2_j}\mathrm{\Theta }_{2_j}X_{2_j},`$ (A9)
where $`i=1,2,3`$. The meaning of the driving terms $`Z_{\alpha _i\beta _j}`$ is explained schematically by the diagrammatical representation in Fig. 2. Their analytical expressions are given in Appendix B. The terms $`Z_{2_i;3_j}`$ and $`Z_{3_i;2_j}`$ have different structures for $`i=j`$ and for $`ij`$ and therefore are written down separately.

The wave functions of different states belonging to the same channel may be obtained from each other by cyclic permutation of the nucleon coordinates. This fact allows one to obtain various relations between the transition amplitudes $`Z_{\alpha _i;\beta _j}`$. For example, we have by cyclic permutation

$$Z_{2_1;2_2}=1(\eta 23)|Z|2(\eta 31)=2(\eta 31)|Z|3(\eta 12)=Z_{2_2;2_3}.$$
(A10)
Repeating the procedure, one finds the general relation for $`ij`$

$$Z_{2_i;2_j}=Z_{2_1;2_2}.$$
(A11)
In the same manner and by applying a combination of a cyclic permutation with a permutation within an antisymmetrized $`NN`$-state, one obtains for the transition $`23`$ the general relations

$`Z_{2_i;3_i}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{2_1;3_1},`$ (A12)
$`Z_{2_i;3_j}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{2_1;3_2}\text{for }ij.`$ (A13)
Then, taking into account the obvious identities

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{\alpha _1}=\mathrm{\Theta }_{\alpha _2}=\mathrm{\Theta }_{\alpha _3}\mathrm{\Theta }_\alpha ,(\alpha =2,3)$$
(A14)
and defining the properly antisymmetrized amplitudes in the channels 1 to 3 by

$$X_1^a=X_1,X_\alpha ^a=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}X_{\alpha _i},\text{for }\alpha =2,3,$$
(A15)
we arrive at the following set of equations

$`X_1^a`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}Z_{1;2_1}\mathrm{\Theta }_2X_2^a+\sqrt{3}Z_{1;3_1}\mathrm{\Theta }_3X_3^a,`$ (A16)
$`X_2^a`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}Z_{2_1;1}+\sqrt{3}Z_{2_1;1}\mathrm{\Theta }_1X_1^a+2Z_{2_1;2_2}\mathrm{\Theta }_2X_2^a+(2Z_{2_1;3_2}+Z_{2_1;3_1})\mathrm{\Theta }_3X_3^a,`$ (A17)
$`X_3^a`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{3}Z_{3_1;1}+\sqrt{3}Z_{3_1;1}\mathrm{\Theta }_1X_1^a+(2Z_{3_1;2_2}+Z_{3_1;2_1})\mathrm{\Theta }_2X_2^a.`$ (A18)
The last step we have to make is to change from the driving terms $`Z_{\alpha _i;\beta _j}`$ to the terms, which couple the antisymmetrized states

$$Z_{12}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}\eta (123)|Z|\widehat{P}1(\eta 23)=\eta (123)|Z|1(\eta 23)=Z_{1;2_1}.$$
(A19)
Here $`\widehat{P}`$ stands for the cyclic permutations of the nucleon labels according to

$$|\widehat{P}i(\eta jk)=|i(\eta jk)+|j(\eta ki)+|k(\eta ij).$$
(A20)
In a similar manner we obtain

$`Z_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\widehat{P}1(\eta 23)|Z|\widehat{P}1(\eta 23)=2Z_{2_1;2_2},`$ (A21)
$`Z_{21}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{2_1;1},`$ (A22)
$`Z_{13}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}\eta (123)|Z|\widehat{P}(1\eta )(23)=Z_{1;3_1},`$ (A23)
$`Z_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\widehat{P}1(\eta 23)|Z|\widehat{P}(1\eta )(23)=2Z_{2_1;3_2}+Z_{2_1;3_1},`$ (A24)
$`Z_{31}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{3_1;1},`$ (A25)
$`Z_{32}`$ $`=`$ $`2Z_{3_1;2_2}+Z_{3_1;2_1}.`$ (A26)
Substituting (A21) into (A16), we end up with the system (2).

## Appendix B

In this appendix we list the explicit expressions for the driving terms, appearing in the separable-potential approach to the $`\eta `$-$`3N`$ problem. As was mentioned already, we consider only $`s`$-wave orbitals in all subsystems. Therefore the spin algebra may be done independently. The corresponding spin-isospin coefficients $`\delta _{ss^{}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ss^{}}`$ are found by applying the usual angular momentum recoupling schemes (see e.g. ). All driving terms have the same general functional form

$$\stackrel{~}{Z}_{\alpha \beta ;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{ss^{}}}{2}\underset{1}{\overset{+1}{}}\stackrel{~}{u}_n^{(s)}(q,\frac{p^2}{2M_\alpha })\stackrel{~}{\tau }(Ef(p,p^{}))\stackrel{~}{v}_n^{(s)}(q^{},^{}\frac{p^2}{2M_\beta })d(\widehat{p}\widehat{p}^{}).$$
(B1)
We list in Table IV for each driving term the corresponding assignments for the various symbols appearing in (B1), where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ss^{}}`$ is defined by

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{1}{4}& \hfill \frac{3}{4}\\ & \\ \hfill \frac{3}{4}& \hfill \frac{1}{4}\end{array}\right).`$ (B5)
The coefficient 2 in the terms $`Z_{22}`$ and $`Z_{23}^2`$ stems from the identity of the nucleons, as described in Appendix A. The reduced masses are defined in (6), (17) and (28). Furthermore, one should note that we have split $`Z_{23}`$ into two terms

$`Z_{23}=Z_{23}^1+Z_{23}^2.`$ (B6)
The remaining driving terms are obtained from

$`Z_{21;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{12;n^{}n}^{(s^{}s)}(p^{},p,E),`$ (B7)
$`Z_{31;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{13;n^{}n}^{(s^{}s)}(p^{},p,E),`$ (B8)
$`Z_{32;nn^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{23;n^{}n}^{(s^{}s)}(p^{},p,E).`$ (B9)
In accordance with the approximation (47) for the target wave function, we redefine the driving terms $`Z_{21}`$ and $`Z_{31}`$ in (7) as well as the terms $`Z_{12}`$ and $`Z_{13}`$ in (10). Instead of them, we introduce effective potentials which are symmetrized over the singlet and triplet $`NN`$-states in the triton

$$Z_{12;1n^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)\overline{Z}_{12;1n^{}}^{(ss^{})}(p,p^{},E)=\frac{1}{2}\left(Z_{12;1n^{}}^{(00)}(p,p^{},E)Z_{12;1n^{}}^{(11)}(p,p^{},E)\right).$$
(B10)
The other terms $`\overline{Z}_{21;n^{}1}^{(ss^{})}`$, $`\overline{Z}_{13;1n^{}}^{(ss^{})}`$, and $`\overline{Z}_{31;n^{}1}^{(ss^{})}`$ are defined by analogous relations.