text:
# Lack of energy equipartition in homogeneous heated binary granular mixtures

## I Introduction

Experimental and theoretical studies of rapid granular flows Jaeger  have hitherto mostly focused on assemblies of identical particles, either freely cooling when the energy loss due to inter-particle collisions is not compensated for, or driven in a non-equilibrium stationary state by various energy injection mechanisms. Recently however, interest has grown for the more complicated case of polydisperse systems Duparcmeur ; garzo ; Huilin ; losert ; Wildman ; menon ; Clelland ; MontaneroShear ; MontaneroHCS . Theoretical investigations into the homogeneous cooling stage of a binary mixture Duparcmeur ; garzo  have shown that the two components have different granular temperatures (i.e. kinetic energies), even if their cooling rates are equal. Such a result, confirmed by detailed Monte Carlo simulations MontaneroHCS  is also obtained when the system is sheared MontaneroShear ; Clelland , heated by the contact with an elastic granular gas maintained at fixed temperature $`T`$ biben , or within the Maxwell model framework puglisi2 . Similarly, a tracer particle undergoing inelastic collisions with an equilibrium fluid at temperature $`T`$ reaches a granular temperature lower than $`T`$ martin .

This violation of equipartition in a mixture, although in sharp contrast with the behaviour of molecular gases at equilibrium, is not unexpected: the terminology “granular temperature” for the kinetic energy of a granular gas has been coined from the equivalence of temperature and kinetic energy in an elastic gas, but does not have any thermodynamical status in out-of-equilibrium systems like inelastic granular gases.

In recent experiments, the granular temperatures have been measured for binary mixtures, both in 3D vibro-fluidized granular beds Wildman  and in 2D strongly vibrated granular gases menon . Both studies reported a clear violation of equipartition with a temperature ratio quite insensitive to the relative densities of the two species.

The present article aims at providing a simple theoretical framework where the temperature ratio is readily obtained in a non-equilibrium steady state (NESS). This allows to investigate the influence of many parameters which can be difficult to tune experimentally, such as the masses, sizes, densities and inelasticities of the beads. We consider analytically a heated binary mixture in the framework of the homogeneous non-linear (Enskog-)Boltzmann equation for smooth inelastic hard spheres. Similarly to the case of free cooling described in garzo  and restricting to Gaussian velocity distributions, we derive in section II equations for the granular temperatures of the mixture components, which are easily solved numerically. The corresponding temperature ratio is in excellent agreement with existing numerical work biben . In section III, we consider the NESS sustained by heating through random kicks (“stochastic thermostat” approach), a mechanism which has focused some attention recently for one-component (monodisperse) systems Williams ; Puglisi ; twan ; Pre1 ; Montanero ; Cafiero ; Moon ; Pre2 ; Garzo . Although finding an energy injection mechanism of experimental relevance is a difficult issue, we expect the approach proposed here to elucidate the basic trends of grain behaviour when varying the controlling parameters. Moreover, as will be shown below, the temperature ratio we obtain provides a reasonable zeroth order approximation to compare with the experiments reported in Wildman ; menon .

## II Kinetic theory

We consider the model of smooth inelastic hard spheres (IHS) undergoing binary, momentum conserving, inelastic collisions, in the framework of the homogeneous non-linear Enskog equation. The system is a mixture of two types of IHS, with masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, diameters $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$. Three types of collisions may occur so that the mixture is also characterized by three different restitution coefficients: $`\alpha _{11}`$, $`\alpha _{22}`$, and $`\alpha _{12}=\alpha _{21}`$.

The velocity distributions in the homogeneous state $`f_1(𝒗,t)`$, $`f_2(𝒗,t)`$, obey the following kinetic equations:

$$_tf_i(𝒗_\mathrm{𝟏},t)=\underset{j}{}J_{ij}[𝒗_\mathrm{𝟏}|f_i,f_j]+f_i$$
(1)
where the $`J_{ij}`$ describe the effect of dissipative inter-particle collisions, and $`f_i`$ represents an external forcing which injects energy into the system, allowing it to reach a non-equilibrium steady state. The kernels $`J_{ij}`$ for collisions between a particle of type $`i`$ and a particle of type $`j`$ are given, in dimension $`d`$, by

$$J_{ij}[𝒗_\mathrm{𝟏}|f_i,f_j]=\chi _{ij}\sigma _{ij}^{d1}𝑑𝒗_2^{}𝑑\widehat{𝝈}(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})\left(\frac{1}{\alpha _{ij}^2}f_i(𝒗_1^{})f_j(𝒗_2^{})f_i(𝒗_1)f_j(𝒗_2)\right).$$
(2)
where the $`\chi _{ij}`$ are the pair distribution functions at contact (a priori unknown, but becoming close to 1 in the limit of low densities); $`\widehat{𝝈}`$ is a unit vector directed from the center of the particle of type $`i`$ to the center of particle $`j`$ \[separated at contact by $`\sigma _{ij}=(\sigma _i+\sigma _j)/2`$\], and the prime on the integral is a shortcut for $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})`$. Moreover, $`𝒗_{12}=𝒗_1𝒗_2`$, and the pre-collisional velocities $`𝒗_1^{}`$ and $`𝒗_2^{}`$ are given in terms of the post-collisional velocities $`𝒗_1`$ and $`𝒗_2`$ by:

$`𝒗_1^{}=𝒗_1\mu _{ji}(1+\alpha _{ij}^1)(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})\widehat{𝝈}`$ (3)
$`𝒗_2^{}=𝒗_2+\mu _{ij}(1+\alpha _{ij}^1)(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})\widehat{𝝈}`$ (4)
where $`\mu _{ij}=m_i/(m_i+m_j)`$, so that momentum is conserved but energy dissipated.

The partial granular temperatures are defined from the kinetic energies by

$$\frac{n_id}{2}T_i(t)=𝑑𝒗\frac{m_iv^2}{2}f_i(𝒗,t),$$
(5)
$`n_i=𝑑𝒗f_i(𝒗,t)`$ being the number density of particles of type $`i`$ with a total temperature of the mixture

$$T=\frac{1}{n_1+n_2}\underset{i}{}n_iT_i.$$
(6)
From (1), the evolution equation for the temperatures reads

$$_tT_i=\frac{m_i}{n_id}\underset{j}{}𝑑𝒗v^2J_{ij}[𝒗|f_i,f_j]+𝒯_i,$$
(7)
where $`𝒯_i`$ describes the effect of the forcing (source) term $`f_i`$. It is possible to integrate over $`\widehat{𝝈}`$ (see calculations in the appendix, and also garzo ) to obtain, without any further approximation at this stage:

$`_tT_i`$ $`=`$ $`𝒯_i{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _3m_i\chi _{ii}\sigma _{ii}^{d1}(1\alpha _{ii}^2)}{4n_id}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒗_1𝑑𝒗_2v_{12}^3f_i(𝒗_1)f_i(𝒗_2)}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _3m_i\chi _{ij}\sigma _{ij}^{d1}}{n_id}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝒗_1𝑑𝒗_2f_i(𝒗_1)f_j(𝒗_2)\left[\mu _{ji}^2(1\alpha _{ij}^2)v_{12}^3+2\mu _{ji}(1+\alpha _{ij})v_{12}(𝒗_{12}𝑽_{ij})\right]}`$
with $`\beta _3=\pi ^{(d1)/2}/\mathrm{\Gamma }[(d+3)/2]`$, $`𝑽_{ij}=\mu _{ij}𝒗_1+\mu _{ji}𝒗_2`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the Euler function.

Since the system reaches a stationary state where the forcing term balances the dissipation due to collisions (the forcing and dissipative terms in (8) generically involve different powers of the temperatures so that its right-hand-side admits a “physical” root), we can write $`_tT_i=0`$. It is moreover convenient to scale the velocities with the thermal velocities $`v_{0,i}=\sqrt{2T_i/m_i}`$, and introduce the functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$ such that

$$f_i(v)=\frac{n_i}{v_{0,i}^d}\mathrm{\Phi }_i\left(\frac{v}{v_{0,i}}\right).$$
(9)
Equation (8) may then be cast into an equation for the rescaled velocity distributions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$; no further step can however be taken without some approximations on the unknown distributions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$. It is convenient to study the deviations of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$ from the Gaussian $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i^0(c)`$ through an expansion in Sonine polynomials Landau . In single component heated systems, the deviation from a Gaussian remains small, especially for experimentally relevant values of the restitution coefficient twan ; Montanero ; Moon ; Pre2 . We will here limit our treatment to the Gaussian approximation $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i(c)=\mathrm{\Phi }_i^0(c)=\pi ^{d/2}\mathrm{exp}(c^2)`$ (lowest order Sonine expansion). It would of course be possible to go further in a systematic and controlled way, as in garzo , but we will see by comparison of our approximate analytical calculations with Monte Carlo simulations that, at least in the cases we consider, the Gaussian approximation provides reliable results.

Assuming Gaussian velocity distributions, it is now possible to carry out the remaining integrations in (8); the calculations are straightforward and some technical details may be found in the appendix of garzo . We only give the resulting equations for the granular temperatures $`T_i`$ in the NESS:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)}{m_i\pi ^{(d1)/2}}}𝒯_i`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _{ii}\sigma _{ii}^{d1}n_i{\displaystyle \frac{2(1\alpha _{ii}^2)}{m_i^{3/2}}}T_i^{3/2}+\chi _{ij}\sigma _{ij}^{d1}n_j\mu _{ji}[\mu _{ji}(1\alpha _{ij}^2)({\displaystyle \frac{2T_i}{m_i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2T_j}{m_j}})`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`4(1+\alpha _{ij}){\displaystyle \frac{T_iT_j}{m_1+m_2}}\left]\right({\displaystyle \frac{2T_i}{m_i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2T_j}{m_j}})^{1/2}.`$
These equations still depend on the particular heating mechanism through the term $`𝒯_i`$; once the latter has been specified, two equations are obtained for $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$; they are easy to implement and solve numerically varying the various controlling parameters.

Before turning to the heating provided by a stochastic thermostat \[which amounts to $`(𝒯_i)/m_i=\text{constant}`$\], we consider three particular limiting cases.

####

In the tracer limit martin , i.e. $`n_10`$, without any forcing term, $`T_2`$ is imposed and only the equation for $`T_1`$ is considered. As already noted in garzo , the result for $`\gamma =T_1/T_2`$ obtained in martin

$$\gamma =\frac{1+\alpha _{12}}{2+\frac{m_2}{m_1}(1\alpha _{12})}$$
(11)
is easily recovered, irrespective of dimension.

####

Another possibility to obtain a NESS for IHS has been proposed in biben : the temperature $`T_2=T`$ of one population is imposed, with a corresponding Gaussian velocity distribution, and elastic collisions between particles of type $`2`$ as well as for $`12`$ collisions: $`\alpha _{22}=\alpha _{12}=1`$. Energy is consequently injected into the inelastic population $`1`$ (with restitution coefficient $`\alpha _{11}=\alpha <1`$), without the need for any other forcing term. In biben , high precision numerical results were obtained for the distribution function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$, and temperature $`T_1`$ (the system is three-dimensional, and $`\chi _{ij}=1`$), by an iterative numerical resolution of the Boltzmann equation. Imposing $`T_1=0`$ in (10), it is straightforward to obtain a third order polynomial equation for $`\gamma =T_1/T_2`$ (this quantity is necessarily smaller than 1)

$$\frac{ϵ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2}{32}\left(\frac{m_1}{m_2}+\frac{m_2}{m_1}+2\right)^2\gamma ^3=(1\gamma )^2\left(\gamma +\frac{m_1}{m_2}\right)\text{where}ϵ=\frac{4n_1}{n_2(1+\sigma _2/\sigma _1)^2}.$$
(12)
In Fig. 1, the solution of equation (12) is compared to the results reported in biben . The agreement is excellent, which may be traced back to the analysis of biben , showing that the distribution function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ is very close to a Gaussian, although mathematically different (on the other hand and by definition of the model, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ is strictly speaking a Gaussian). The slight discrepancy obtained at low $`\alpha `$ for $`m_1=m_2`$ corresponds to values of the parameters for which the deviation of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ from a Gaussian is stronger.

####

Finally, a forcing term $`f_i(𝒗)=\zeta \frac{}{𝒗}[𝒗f(𝒗)]`$, which provides an Enskog-Boltzmann equation formally equivalent to the free cooling case (see e.g. Montanero ), leads back to the results of garzo  obtained in this situation: the term $`𝒯_i`$ is indeed proportional to $`T_i`$, so that writing $`_tT_i=0`$ in (8) yields the same equation for $`\gamma `$ as equating the two cooling rates $`_tT_i/T_i`$ when $`𝒯_i=0`$.

## III The stochastic thermostat

In this section, we consider the situation of energy supply through random kicks Williams ; Puglisi ; twan ; Pre1 ; Montanero ; Cafiero ; Moon ; Pre2 ; Garzo : the particles are submitted between collisions to an uncorrelated white noise (e.g. Gaussian). The equation of motion for a particle is then

$$m_i\frac{d𝒗}{dt}=𝑭_i+m_i\widehat{𝝃}_i$$
(13)
where $`𝑭_i`$ is the force due to inelastic collisions, and $`\xi _{i\alpha }(t)\xi _{j\beta }(t^{})=\xi _0^2\delta _{ij}\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta (tt^{})`$, where Greek indices refer to Cartesian coordinates. The associated forcing term in the Enskog equation is

$$f=\frac{\xi _0^2}{2}\left(\frac{}{𝒗}\right)^2f(𝒗,t),$$

so that $`𝒯_i=m_i\xi _0^2`$. We do not claim that the forcing term considered here is the most suited to describe vibro-fluidized beds, but it mimics an important effect of energy injection by a moving piston: in experiments, particles undergoing collisions with the piston (of large mass) gain a velocity that is decorrelated from their masses, so that more kinetic energy is injected into the population of large mass.

The corresponding equation for $`\gamma =T_1/T_2`$ reads:

$`\chi _{11}\sigma _{11}^{d1}(1\alpha _{11}^2){\displaystyle \frac{n_1}{n_2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_2}{m_1}}\right)^{3/2}\gamma ^{3/2}+\sqrt{2}\chi _{12}\sigma _{12}^{d1}[(1\alpha _{12}^2)(\mu _{21}^2{\displaystyle \frac{n_1}{n_2}}\mu _{12}^2)(1+{\displaystyle \frac{m_2}{m_1}}\gamma )^{3/2}`$ (14)
$`+`$ $`2\mu _{21}(1+\alpha _{12})(\mu _{21}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_1}{n_2}}\mu _{12})(1+{\displaystyle \frac{m_2}{m_1}}\gamma )^{1/2}(\gamma 1)]=\chi _{22}\sigma _{22}^{d1}(1\alpha _{22}^2).`$
The temperature ratio $`\gamma `$ therefore depends in a non-trivial way on the ratios of masses, densities and diameters, and also on the inelasticities $`\alpha _{ij}`$ and pair correlation functions $`\chi _{ij}`$. It may be checked that in the limit of vanishing inelasticities, $`\gamma 1`$ as it should. Moreover, for mechanically equivalent particles (i.e. $`m_1=m_2`$, $`\sigma _1=\sigma _2`$ and $`\alpha _{11}=\alpha _{22}=\alpha _{12}`$), we should also recover equipartition ($`\gamma =1`$) irrespective of densities. This is the case in the Boltzmann limit (low densities where all pair correlation functions $`\chi _{ij}1`$). At arbitrary packing fraction, the various approximation for the $`\chi _{ij}`$ that may be found in the literature Lee ; Santos  are such that $`\chi _{ij}`$ no longer depends on $`i`$ and $`j`$ when $`\sigma _1=\sigma _2`$, so that equipartition holds for mechanically equivalent particles.

Since equation (14) relies on a Gaussian approximation for $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i`$, we have compared our approach to the results of Monte Carlo simulations (the so-called DSMC technique Bird ) where the non-linear Boltzmann equation is solved numerically for both species. As we solve numerically the homogeneous Boltzmann equation, the phenomena of segregation or clustering are explicitly discarded.

In the following sections, we will study more precisely some cases that could have experimental relevance, and for the sake of simplicity, we considered $`\chi _{ij}=1`$. All the results are given for the three dimensional case; note however that for $`\sigma _1=\sigma _2`$ the temperature ratio becomes $`d`$-independent.

### III.1 Equal inelasticities: $`\alpha _{ij}=\alpha `$

We first consider the case of equal restitution coefficients ($`\alpha _{ij}=\alpha `$), for materials having similar elastic properties. The dependence of $`\gamma `$ on the mass and number density ratios, for equal sizes, is shown in Figure 2. Excellent agreement is found between DSMC simulations (symbols) and the solution of equation (14). It turns out indeed that the velocity distributions measured in Monte Carlo simulations are very close to Gaussians. As may be expected, $`\gamma `$ is a decreasing function of $`m_2/m_1`$. The density dependence is relatively weak (the temperature ratio slightly increases when $`n_2/n_1`$ increases by an order of magnitude).

We have also considered two types of beads of the same material, i.e. the same restitution coefficient $`\alpha _{11}=\alpha _{22}=\alpha _{12}`$ and same mass density $`\rho `$: the ratio of masses $`m_2/m_1`$ is then equal to $`(\sigma _2/\sigma _1)^3`$ for three-dimensional beads. Figure 3 shows a strong influence of the size ratio, for two experimentally relevant values of $`\alpha `$: $`\gamma `$ decreases very strongly as soon as $`\sigma _2`$ is two or three times $`\sigma _1`$. Once again, the number density ratio has a relatively small incidence on $`\gamma `$. It is interesting to disentangle the effects of $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1`$ and $`m_2/m_1`$, by varying one parameter alone, the other being kept constant. It appears that the leading effect in the decrease of $`\gamma `$ observed in Figure 3 is ascribable to a change in mass ratio, and not in size: the results obtained at $`\sigma _1=\sigma _2`$ varying $`m_2/m_1`$ are close to those reported in Fig. 3, but surprisingly give a lower $`\gamma `$ (e.g. the results displayed in Figure 3 for $`\alpha =0.9`$ and equal densities are $`\gamma =0.66`$ and $`0.38`$ for $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1=2`$ and $`3`$ respectively, whereas with $`\sigma _1=\sigma _2`$, we obtain $`\gamma =0.59`$ for $`m_2/m_1=2^3`$ and $`\gamma =0.29`$ for $`m_2/m_1=3^3`$).

### III.2 Comparison with experiments

For glass spheres with size ratio $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1=1.25`$, Wildman and Parker have measured a temperature ratio $`\gamma =T_1/T_2`$ in the range 0.75-0.8 Wildman , with a weak dependence on densities (except may be in the limit of large grains predominance where $`n_2n_1`$). Estimating the relevant restitution coefficient to be $`\alpha 0.9`$ Wildman , we obtain from Eq. (14) $`\gamma 0.9`$ (see also Fig. 3), with also a weak dependence on $`n_2/n_1`$. It is however noteworthy that this weak dependence is opposite to that observed experimentally: when the proportion of large grains is increased, we obtain an increase of $`\gamma `$. For comparison, the temperature ratio obtained for the same parameters in the homogeneous cooling stage garzo  is $`\gamma 0.96`$ and the authors of Wildman  proposed a simplified theory for which $`\gamma `$ is in the range 0.4-0.7.

The results obtained by Feitosa and Menon menon  confirm the very weak influence of $`n_2/n_1`$ when the grains (of equal size) are made of two different materials. For a mixture glass/aluminum with mass ratio $`m_2/m_1=1.09`$, $`\gamma `$ is measured very close to 1, whereas for a more asymmetric mixture of glass and brass with $`m_2/m_13.6`$, $`\gamma 0.7`$. Making use of equation (14) with schematic inelasticities $`\alpha _{11}=\alpha _{12}=\alpha _{22}=0.85`$, we obtain $`\gamma =0.98`$ for $`m_2/m_1=1.09`$ and $`\gamma =0.7`$ for $`m_2/m_1=3.6`$. In the free cooling regime, the corresponding ratios are 0.99 and 0.82. These results are displayed in Fig. 4.

Other results are given in Figures 5 and 6, where the partial inelasticities are not taken equal, but are given values that we expect to be of experimental relevance: the experimental data of menon  are therefore also reported in Fig. 5(b). In Fig. 5, the sizes of the particles are taken equal and the mass ratio changes, while Fig. 6 displays the influence of the size ratio when the density ratios are fixed.

The situation reported in menon  corresponds to that of the Figures 5b and 6b, where the heavier grains are also the more dissipative. As may be observed in Fig. 5b, a variation of $`n_1/n_2`$ from 1/3 to 3 leaves $`\gamma `$ roughly unaffected for $`m_2/m_13`$.

It may be noted that $`\gamma `$ is not bounded from above by 1, and values slightly above 1 are obtained even when $`m_2>m_1`$ by conveniently choosing the inelasticities (or, at fixed inelasticities and densities, by conveniently choosing the sizes). $`\gamma `$ in nevertheless generically smaller than $`1`$ for $`m_2>m_1`$: the heavier particles have a larger kinetic energy.

## IV Conclusion

We have considered heated binary granular mixtures from the point of view of kinetic theory. As in the free cooling case, and in agreement with recent experimental data, the granular temperatures of the components of the mixture differ. This finding is not surprising in a non-equilibrium system, where the“temperature” does not have any thermodynamical relevance.

Using a mean-field approach with the assumption of isotropic Gaussian velocity distributions, we have derived an equation for the temperature ratio $`\gamma `$ that may be adapted for various kinds of heating mechanisms, and easily solved once the controlling parameters have been chosen. In particular, the values obtained within the stochastic thermostat framework are compatible with those measured in the experiments reported in Wildman ; menon . Even if a quantitative comparison with experiments is somehow pointless given the simplicity of our approach, similar trends are observed. For example, the heavier particles carry generically more kinetic energy than the lighter ones, the ratio being insensitive to the relative number fraction of both species. It also appears that the breakdown of energy equipartition is all the more pronounced as the mass ratio is increased, the size ratio playing only a minor role.

Acknowledgments: We would like to thank T. Biben, R.D. Wildman and C.M. Hrenya for communicating their results prior to publication.

## Appendix

In this appendix we show how to perform the integrals over $`\widehat{𝝈}`$, in order to obtain equation (8). We start from the identity

$$𝑑𝒗v^2J_{ij}[𝒗|f_i,f_j]=\chi _{ij}\sigma _{ij}^{d1}𝑑𝒗_1𝑑𝒗_2^{}𝑑\widehat{𝝈}(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})f_i(𝒗_1)f_j(𝒗_2)(v_1^{\prime \prime 2}v_1^2),$$
(15)
with $`𝒗_1^{\prime \prime }=𝒗_\mathrm{𝟏}\mu _{ji}(1+\alpha _{ij})(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})\widehat{𝝈}`$, i.e. where

$$v_1^{\prime \prime 2}v_1^2=\mu _{ji}^2(1+\alpha _{ij})^2(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})^22\mu _{ji}(1+\alpha _{ij})(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_1).$$

Using the unit vector $`\widehat{𝒄}_{12}=𝒗_{12}/v_{12}`$, and the known integrals $`\beta _n=^{}𝑑\widehat{𝝈}(\widehat{𝝈}𝒄_{12})^n`$ (see e.g. twan ), the first term is readily computed and yields:

$$\beta _3\chi _{ij}\sigma _{ij}^{d1}\mu _{ji}^2(1+\alpha _{ij})^2𝑑𝒗_1𝑑𝒗_2f_i(𝒗_1)f_j(𝒗_2)v_{12}^3.$$
(16)
To compute the term containing $`(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_1)`$, we choose one of the unit vectors to be along $`𝒗_{12}`$, and decompose:

$$𝒗_{12}=v_{12}\widehat{𝒆}_1,𝒗_1=\frac{𝒗_1𝒗_{12}}{v_{12}}\widehat{𝒆}_1+𝒗_1^{},\widehat{𝝈}=\frac{\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12}}{v_{12}}\widehat{𝒆}_1+\widehat{𝝈}^{}.$$
(17)
$`(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_1)`$ is then written as

$$\frac{(𝒗_1𝒗_{12})(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})}{v_{12}^2}+\widehat{𝝈}^{}𝒗_1^{},$$

and the term $`\widehat{𝝈}^{}𝒗_1^{}`$ gives a vanishing contribution in the integral over $`\widehat{𝝈}`$ for symmetry reasons. We are therefore left with

$$^{}𝑑\widehat{𝝈}\frac{(𝒗_1𝒗_{12})(\widehat{𝝈}𝒗_{12})^3}{v_{12}^2}=v_{12}\beta _3(𝒗_1𝒗_{12}).$$

Rearranging terms and writing $`𝒗_1=\mu _{ji}𝒗_{12}+\mu _{ij}𝒗_1+\mu _{ji}𝒗_2=\mu _{ji}𝒗_{12}+𝑽_{ij}`$, one finally obtains equation (8).


format: text

text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The Adler-Kostant-Symes (AKS) construction associates Hamiltonian systems that are in many cases integrable with certain Lie algebraic data . As found by Reyman and Semenov-Tian-Shansky , these systems may be viewed as symmetry reductions of corresponding Hamiltonian systems on cotangent bundles of Lie groups generated by Hamiltonians invariant under left and right translations. An advantage of such a viewpoint is that it leads to a natural regularization of some AKS systems whose Hamiltonian vector field is incomplete .

The aim of this paper is to provide a Lagrangian description for an important subclass of the AKS systems. Our construction requires the underlying Lie algebra to be self-dual and a further technical condition must hold. These conditions are satisfied, for example, in the case of the open Toda lattices and their generalizations that are among the most studied integrable systems. The conformal Toda field theories were treated in a similar Lagrangian manner in , which actually served as the starting point for the present work. Our Lagrangian may be used in the future to perform a path integral quantization of the AKS systems, and it may permit interesting generalizations in the field theoretical case in analogy with the Toda systems.

Let $`G`$ be a connected real Lie group whose Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ is equipped111For the structure of such ‘self-dual’ Lie algebras, see e.g. . with a nondegenerate, symmetric, $`G`$-invariant bilinear form $`,`$. Identify $`𝒢^{}`$ with $`𝒢`$ by means of the ‘scalar product’ $`,`$. Suppose that $`𝒜,𝒢`$ are Lie subalgebras in such a way that as a vector space

$$𝒢=𝒜+.$$
(1.1)
This induces the decomposition

$$𝒢=𝒜^{}+^{},$$
(1.2)
which gives rise to the further identifications $`𝒜^{}^{}`$ and $`^{}𝒜^{}`$. We denote by $`\pi _𝒜`$, $`\pi _{}`$ and by $`\pi _𝒜^{}`$, $`\pi _{^{}}`$ the projection operators on $`𝒢`$ associated with these decompositions. Let $`A,BG`$ be the connected Lie subgroups corresponding to $`𝒜,`$ and fix elements $`\mu 𝒜^{}`$ and $`\nu ^{}`$. The phase space of the AKS system of our interest, designated as $`_{\mu ,\nu }`$, consists of those elements $`𝒳𝒢`$ that have the following form:

$$𝒳=𝒳_𝒜^{}+𝒳_{^{}}\text{with}𝒳_𝒜^{}𝒪_A^{}(\mu ),𝒳_{^{}}𝒪_B^+(\nu ),$$
(1.3)
where

$$𝒪_A^{}(\mu )=\{\pi _{^{}}(g\mu g^1)|gA\},𝒪_B^+(\nu )=\{\pi _𝒜^{}(g\nu g^1)|gB\}$$
(1.4)
are the coadjoint orbits of $`A`$ and $`B`$ through $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$, respectively. The plus/minus superscripts indicate that these orbits are equipped with opposite Lie-Poisson brackets. In the AKS construction the Poisson brackets, denoted here by $`\{,\}_{}`$, are postulated to be

$`\{𝒳_𝒜^{},\xi ,𝒳_𝒜^{},\xi ^{}\}_{}=𝒳_𝒜^{},[\xi ,\xi ^{}],\xi ,\xi ^{}𝒜,`$
$`\{𝒳_{^{}},\eta ,𝒳_{^{}},\eta ^{}\}_{}=𝒳_{^{}},[\eta ,\eta ^{}],\eta ,\eta ^{},`$
$`\{𝒳_𝒜^{},\xi ,𝒳_{^{}},\eta \}_{}=0.`$ (1.5)
The main point is that the $`G`$-invariant functions on $`𝒢^{}`$ yield a commuting family with respect to $`\{,\}_{}`$ and generate Hamiltonian systems on $`_{\mu ,\nu }`$ that are often integrable in the Liouville sense . In our case a distinguished $`G`$-invariant Hamiltonian is furnished by

$$H(𝒳):=\frac{1}{2}𝒳,𝒳.$$
(1.6)
The evolution equation associated with the Hamiltonian system $`(_{\mu ,\nu },\{,\}_{},H)`$ reads as

$$\dot{𝒳}=\{𝒳,H\}_{}=[\pi _𝒜(𝒳),𝒳]=[\pi _{}(𝒳),𝒳].$$
(1.7)
In this paper we present a Lagrangian model of the system given by $`(_{\mu ,\nu },\{,\}_{},H)`$. The equivalence of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian descriptions is established at the level of the equations of motion in section 2. Then the Poisson bracket aspect is dealt with by applying the Dirac algorithm  to the Lagrangian in section 3. Examples are contained in section 4. In addition to the above-mentioned data, our construction relies on the existence of an open submanifold $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}G`$ which is diffeomorphic to $`A\times B`$ by the map $`A\times B(g_A,g_B)g_Ag_B`$. A typical example, related to Toda type systems, for which this condition is satisfied is $`𝒜=𝒢_{>0}`$ and $`=𝒢_0`$ for some integral gradation $`𝒢=_{n𝐙}𝒢_n`$ of a semisimple Lie algebra $`𝒢`$.

A remark is in order here concerning our notations. Throughout the paper, we pretend that $`G`$ is a matrix group to simplify notations. This is not a real restriction in any sense since one can rewrite all equations in a more general notation. For instance, $`\pi _{^{}}(g\mu g^1)`$ in (1.4) would then be replaced by $`(\mathrm{A}d_A^{}g)(\mu )`$ to denote the coadjoint action of $`gA`$ on $`\mu 𝒜^{}`$ and so on.

## 2 The AKS system as a gauge theory

Motivated by the work on Toda theories , we propose to consider the following Lagrangian:

$`L(g,\dot{g},\alpha ,\beta ):={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{g}g^1,\dot{g}g^1+\alpha ,\dot{g}g^1\mu +\beta ,g^1\dot{g}\nu `$
$`+\alpha ,g\beta g^1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha ,\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ,\beta .`$ (2.1)
Here $`gG`$, $`\dot{g}T_gG`$ and $`\alpha 𝒜`$, $`\beta `$. The first term is the Lagrangian of a free particle moving on the group manifold $`G`$. The variables $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ act essentially as Lagrange multipliers that impose the constraints that appear in the Hamiltonian reduction treatment  of the AKS system. The terms in the second line are chosen so as to equip the Lagrangian with the gauge symmetry that we describe next.

The little groups of the constants $`\mu 𝒜^{}`$ and $`\nu ^{}`$ are given by

$$A_\mu =\{aA|\pi _{^{}}(a\mu a^1)=\mu \},B_\nu =\{bB|\pi _𝒜^{}(b\nu b^1)=\nu \}.$$
(2.2)
We associate a gauge transformation with any curve $`a(t)A_\mu `$, $`b(t)B_\nu `$ by letting any curve $`(g(t),\alpha (t),\beta (t))`$ in the configuration space of our Lagrangian system transform as

$`g(t)a(t)g(t)b^1(t)`$
$`\alpha (t)a(t)\alpha (t)a^1(t)\dot{a}(t)a^1(t)`$
$`\beta (t)b(t)\beta (t)b^1(t)+\dot{b}(t)b^1(t).`$ (2.3)
One can check that $`L`$ changes by a total time derivative under these transformations for any $`(a(t),b(t))A_\mu \times B_\nu `$, and $`A_\mu \times B_\nu A\times B`$ is the maximal subgroup with this property.

For the further analysis it is convenient to introduce the quantities $`J^l`$ and $`J^r`$ by

$$J^r:=\dot{g}g^1+g\beta g^1+\alpha ,J^l:=g^1J^rg=g^1\dot{g}+g^1\alpha g+\beta .$$
(2.4)
Under (2.3) their gauge transformation properties are

$$J^r(t)a(t)J^r(t)a^1(t),J^l(t)b(t)J^l(t)b^1(t).$$
(2.5)
The Euler-Lagrange equations of $`L`$ obtained by varying $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, respectively, are

$$\pi _{^{}}(J^r)=\mu \text{and}\pi _𝒜^{}(J^l)=\nu .$$
(2.6)
The equations that result by varying $`g`$ are encoded by either of the following two relations:

$$\dot{J}^r=[J^r,\alpha ]\text{and}\dot{J}^l=[\beta ,J^l],$$
(2.7)
which are actually equivalent among each other. It can be verified that the gauge transformations (2.3) map any solution of (2.6), (2.7) into another solution.

We remark that the derivation of (2.7) is very easy in the case for which $`𝒢=gl_n`$ and $`X,Y=\mathrm{t}r(XY)`$, since in this case one can parametrize $`gGL_n`$ by its matrix elements. In general one derives the Euler-Lagrange equations by using some arbitrary local coordinates on $`G`$, and then rewrites those equations in the coordinate independent form (2.7).

By assumption, there exists an open submanifold $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}G`$ diffeomorphic to $`A\times B`$ by the factorization map

$$A\times B(g_A,g_B)g_Ag_B\stackrel{ˇ}{G}.$$
(2.8)
From now on we restrict222It may happen that $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}=G`$, examples are mentioned in section 4. $`g`$ to belong to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}`$. By using the decomposition $`g=g_Ag_B`$, the first line of the transformation rule (2.3) becomes

$$g_A(t)a(t)g_A(t),g_B(t)g_B(t)b^1(t).$$
(2.9)
If $`g\stackrel{ˇ}{G}`$, we can define the gauge invariant quantity

$$X:=g_A^1J^rg_A=g_BJ^lg_B^1.$$
(2.10)
We next show that $`X`$ satisfies the evolution equation (1.7) of the AKS system.

First, notice that by using the Euler-Lagrange equations (2.6) $`X`$ can be written as

$$X=\pi _{^{}}(g_A^1\mu g_A)+\pi _𝒜^{}(g_B\nu g_B^1).$$
(2.11)
This follows from $`\pi _{^{}}(X)=\pi _{^{}}(g_A^1J^rg_A)`$ by inserting that $`J^r=\mu +\pi _𝒜^{}(J^r)`$ where the second term does not contribute since $`g_A^1𝒜^{}g_A𝒜^{}`$; $`\pi _𝒜^{}(X)`$ is determined similarly. Upon comparison with (1.3), we see that $`X(t)`$ belongs to the AKS phase space $`_{\mu ,\nu }`$. Second, let us show that (2.7) implies

$$\dot{X}=[\pi _𝒜(X),X].$$
(2.12)
For this note from (2.10) that

$$\pi _𝒜(X)=g_A^1\dot{g}_A+g_A^1\alpha g_A,\pi _{}(X)=\dot{g}_Bg_B^1+g_B\beta g_B^1.$$
(2.13)
By using the first equation in (2.7) we obtain

$$\dot{X}=\frac{d}{dt}(g_A^1J^rg_A)=g_A^1\dot{J}^rg_A[g_A^1\dot{g}_A,X]=[g_A^1\alpha g_A,X][g_A^1\dot{g}_A,X],$$
(2.14)
which gives (2.12) on account of (2.13). A similar calculation using $`X=g_BJ^lg_B^1`$ and the second relation in (2.7) yields $`\dot{X}=[\pi _{}(X),X]`$, which is plainly equivalent to (2.12).

In conclusion, we have shown that if $`g(t)\stackrel{ˇ}{G}`$ and $`(g(t),\alpha (t),\beta (t))`$ satisfies the Euler-Lagrange equations of $`L`$ in (2.1), then the gauge invariant function $`X(t)`$ belongs to $`_{\mu ,\nu }`$ and satisfies the same evolution equation as defined by the AKS system $`(_{\mu ,\nu },\{,\}_{},H)`$. Next we explain that the Lagrangian $`L`$ encodes the Hamiltonian structure of the system as well.

## 3 Dirac analysis of the Lagrangian

The Lagrangian $`L`$ (2.1) is singular since it does not depend on the velocities of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$. Thus one has to apply the Dirac algorithm  to associate a Hamiltonian system with $`L`$. In this manner we below recover the AKS system.

The phase space corresponding to the configuration space $`G\times 𝒜\times `$ of our Lagrangian system is the cotangent bundle $`:=T^{}G\times T^{}𝒜\times T^{}`$. By identifying $`T^{}G`$ with $`G\times 𝒢^{}`$ with the aid of right translations on $`G`$ and using as earlier that $`𝒢^{}𝒢`$, we have

$$=G\times 𝒢\times 𝒜\times 𝒜^{}\times \times ^{}=\{(g,𝒥^r,\alpha ,\pi _\alpha ,\beta ,\pi _\beta )\}.$$
(3.1)
Let $`\{\theta _a\}`$ denote a basis of $`𝒢`$ with dual basis $`\{\theta ^a\}`$. $`\{\theta _a\}`$ can be chosen as $`\{\theta _a\}=\{\xi _m\}\{\eta _r\}`$, where $`\{\xi _m\}`$ and $`\{\eta _r\}`$ are bases of $`𝒜`$ and $``$, respectively. Then $`\{\theta ^a\}=\{\xi ^m\}\{\eta ^r\}`$, where $`\{\xi ^m\}`$ is a basis of $`𝒜^{}^{}`$ and $`\{\eta ^r\}`$ is a basis of $`^{}𝒜^{}`$. Now the fundamental Poisson brackets on $``$ are given by

$`\{g,𝒥^r,\theta _a\}=\theta _ag`$
$`\{𝒥^r,\theta _a,𝒥^r,\theta _b\}=𝒥^r,[\theta _a,\theta _b]`$
$`\{\alpha ,\xi ^m,\pi _\alpha ,\xi _n\}=\delta _n^m`$
$`\{\beta ,\eta ^r,\pi _\beta ,\eta _s\}=\delta _s^r.`$ (3.2)
The other Poisson brackets between $`g`$, $`𝒥^r`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\pi _\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ and $`\pi _\beta `$ vanish. We introduce

$$𝒥^l:=g^1𝒥^rg,$$
(3.3)
and note that it has the Poisson brackets

$`\{g,𝒥^l,\theta _a\}=g\theta _a`$
$`\{𝒥^l,\theta _a,𝒥^l,\theta _b\}=𝒥^l,[\theta _a,\theta _b]`$
$`\{𝒥^r,\theta _a,𝒥^l,\theta _b\}=0.`$ (3.4)
If $`q^i`$ denotes local coordinates on some $`UG`$ and $`q^i,p_j`$ are the corresponding canonical coordinates on $`T^{}UT^{}G`$, then on $`T^{}U`$ we have

$$𝒥^r(q,p)=^1(q)_a^ip_i\theta ^a\text{and}𝒥^l(q,p)=^1(q)_a^ip_i\theta ^a,$$
(3.5)
where $`^1`$ and $`^1`$ are the inverse matrices to $``$ and $``$ defined by

$$\frac{g(q)}{q^i}g^1(q)=(q)_i^a\theta _a\text{and}g^1(q)\frac{g(q)}{q^i}=(q)_i^a\theta _a.$$
(3.6)
The local Poisson brackets $`\{q^i,p_j\}=\delta _j^i`$ on $`T^{}U`$ are equivalent to the Poisson brackets of $`g`$, $`𝒥^r`$ and $`𝒥^l`$ in (3.2), (3.4).

Later we shall restrict ourselves to the open submanifold $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}=T^{}\stackrel{ˇ}{G}\times T^{}𝒜\times T^{}`$, where the factorization $`g=g_Ag_B`$ is valid (2.8). We use also the decompositions

$$𝒥^r=𝒥_𝒜^{}^r+𝒥_{^{}}^r,𝒥^l=𝒥_𝒜^{}^l+𝒥_{^{}}^l,$$
(3.7)
where $`𝒥_𝒜^{}^r=\pi _{^{}}(𝒥^r)`$, $`𝒥_{^{}}^r=\pi _𝒜^{}(𝒥^r)`$ and similarly for $`𝒥^l`$. On $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ we thus obtain,

$`\{g_A,𝒥_𝒜^{}^r,\xi _m\}=\xi _mg_A`$
$`\{g_B,𝒥_𝒜^{}^r,\xi _m\}=0`$
$`\{g_B,𝒥_{^{}}^l,\eta _r\}=g_B\eta _r`$
$`\{g_A,𝒥_{^{}}^l,\eta _r\}=0.`$ (3.8)
Now we apply the Dirac algorithm to the Lagrangian $`L`$ in (2.1). This will lead to a Hamiltonian system on $``$ with constraints. In fact, in the first step we obtain the primary Hamiltonian

$$H_P=\frac{1}{2}𝒥^r,𝒥^r+\alpha ,\mu 𝒥_𝒜^{}^r+\beta ,\nu 𝒥_{^{}}^l+v_\alpha ,\pi _\alpha +v_\beta ,\pi _\beta $$
(3.9)
together with the primary constraints

$$\pi _\alpha =0\text{and}\pi _\beta =0.$$
(3.10)
In addition to being a function on $``$, the Hamiltonian $`H_P`$ contains $`v_\alpha 𝒜`$ and $`v_\beta `$, which are to be regarded as arbitrary parameters. We note that $`H_P`$ is derived from the relation

$$H_P=p_i\dot{q}^i+v_\alpha ,\pi _\alpha +v_\beta ,\pi _\beta L\text{with}p_i=\frac{L}{\dot{q}^i},$$
(3.11)
if we restrict to some coordinate neighbourhood $`UG`$. Incidentally, by substituting the explicit formula

$$p_i=\frac{g(q)}{q^i}g^1(q),\alpha +g(q)\beta g^1(q)+\dot{g}(q)g^1(q)$$
(3.12)
into the definition (3.5), $`𝒥^r`$ and $`𝒥^l`$ get converted into $`J^r`$ and $`J^l`$ as defined in (2.4). The primary constraints express the fact that $`L`$ (2.1) does not depend on the velocities of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$.

According to Dirac , we next have to apply a consistency analysis to the system $`(,\{,\},H_P)`$ to obtain a constrained manifold $`_c`$ which is preserved by the Hamiltonian vector field generated by $`H_P`$. By computing the Poisson brackets $`\{\pi _\alpha ,H_P\}`$ and $`\{\pi _\beta ,H_P\}`$ and noting that these must vanish upon restriction to $`_c`$, we get the secondary constraints:

$$𝒥_𝒜^{}^r\mu =0\text{and}𝒥_{^{}}^l\nu =0.$$
(3.13)
The derivatives of these constraints also must vanish along the restriction of the Hamiltonian vector field of $`H_P`$ to $`_c`$. It is not difficult to see that this requirement leads to the conditions that $`\alpha 𝒜_\mu `$ and $`\beta _\nu `$, where $`𝒜_\mu `$ and $`_\nu `$ are the Lie algebras of the little groups $`A_\mu `$ and $`B_\nu `$ defined in (2.2), respectively. This means that we must impose the further secondary constraints

$$\alpha ,\rho =0\rho 𝒜_\mu ^{}^{}\text{and}\beta ,\sigma =0\sigma _\mu ^{}𝒜^{}.$$
(3.14)
(For any subspace $`W𝒢`$, $`W^{}𝒢`$ consists of those $`\zeta 𝒢`$ for which $`\zeta ,w=0`$ holds $`wW`$.) It is clear that these constraints will be preserved by the flow generated by the Hamiltonian vector field of $`H_P`$, if we choose the so far arbitrary parameters $`v_\alpha `$ and $`v_\beta `$ so as to satisfy

$$v_\alpha 𝒜_\mu \text{and}v_\beta _\nu .$$
(3.15)
The consistency analysis stops at this point. To summarize, we have arrived at the submanifold $`_c`$ defined by imposing the constraints given by (3.10), (3.13) and (3.14). The restriction of the Hamiltonian vector field of $`H_P`$ to $`_c`$ is tangent to $`_c`$ due to these constraints together with the restriction (3.15).

To continue the Dirac procedure, we have to select the first class constraints and then find the gauge invariant quantities. Recall that a constraint $`\varphi =0`$ is first class if the Hamiltonian vector field $`V_\varphi `$, given by $`V_\varphi [f]=\{f,\varphi \}`$ for any $`fC^{\mathrm{}}()`$, is tangent to $`_c`$. A function $`F`$ on $`_c`$ is gauge invariant if its derivative is zero with respect to $`V_\varphi |_c`$ for all first class constraints $`\varphi `$. In our case it is not difficult to see that the first class constraints are

$$\pi _\alpha ,\xi =0,\pi _\beta ,\eta =0,\xi 𝒜_\mu ,\eta _\nu ,$$
(3.16)
and

$$𝒥_𝒜^{}^r\mu ,\xi =0,𝒥_{^{}}^l\nu ,\eta =0,\xi 𝒜_\mu ,\eta _\nu .$$
(3.17)
The momentum constraints (3.16) correspond to the gauge transformations

$$(g,𝒥^r,\alpha ,\pi _\alpha ,\beta ,\pi _\beta )(g,𝒥^r,\alpha +\xi ,\pi _\alpha ,\beta +\eta ,\pi _\beta )\text{with some}\xi 𝒜_\mu ,\eta _\nu ,$$
(3.18)
while the gauge transformations generated by the constraints in (3.17) operate as

$$(g,𝒥^r,\alpha ,\pi _\alpha ,\beta ,\pi _\beta )(agb^1,a𝒥^ra^1,\alpha ,\pi _\alpha ,\beta ,\pi _\beta )\text{with some}aA_\mu ,bB_\nu .$$
(3.19)
As a consequence,

$$𝒥^lb𝒥^lb^1.$$
(3.20)
The translations in (3.18) define an action of the abelian group $`𝒜_\mu \times _\nu `$ on $``$, where the group structure is given by the obvious addition, and (3.19) yields an action of the group $`A_\mu \times B_\nu `$ on $``$. Of course, these gauge transformations map $`_c`$ to $`_c`$.

In analogy to section 2, we now restrict ourselves to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ where the factorization

$$g=g_Ag_B\text{with}g_AA,g_BB$$
(3.21)
is valid. The gauge transformations map $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$, and thus $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c:=_c\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ is also mapped to itself. On $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ we have

$$(g_A,g_B)(ag_A,g_Bb^1)$$
(3.22)
under the gauge transformations (3.19). It follows that the function $`\stackrel{~}{𝒳}:\stackrel{ˇ}{}𝒢`$ given by

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒳}:=g_A^1𝒥^rg_A=g_B𝒥^lg_B^1$$
(3.23)
is gauge invariant. The formula of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒳}`$ can be rewritten as

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒳}=\stackrel{~}{𝒳}_𝒜^{}+\stackrel{~}{𝒳}_{^{}},\stackrel{~}{𝒳}_𝒜^{}=\pi _{^{}}(g_A^1𝒥_𝒜^{}^rg_A),\stackrel{~}{𝒳}_{^{}}=\pi _𝒜^{}(g_B𝒥_{^{}}^lg_B^1).$$
(3.24)
Defining the function $`𝒳:\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c𝒢`$ by $`𝒳:=\stackrel{~}{𝒳}|\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$, we obtain

$$𝒳=\pi _{^{}}(g_A^1\mu g_A)+\pi _𝒜^{}(g_B\nu g_B^1).$$
(3.25)
The components of $`𝒳`$ form a complete set among the gauge invariant functions on $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$. In fact, $`𝒳`$ parametrizes the space of the gauge orbits in $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$, since this space can be naturally identified with the double coset space

$$A_\mu \backslash \stackrel{ˇ}{G}/B_\nu A_\mu \backslash A\times B/B_\nu 𝒪_A(\mu )+𝒪_B(\nu )𝒢,$$
(3.26)
where $`𝒪_A(\mu )`$ and $`𝒪_B(\nu )`$ appear (1.4). We obtain this identification by using that $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ can be set to zero by the gauge transformations in (3.18), and that on $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$ $`𝒥^r`$ is uniquely determined by $`g`$ as $`𝒥^r=g_A𝒳g_A^1`$.

The Dirac brackets of the components of $`𝒳`$, which encode a Poisson structure $`\{,\}^{}`$ on the above space of orbits, can be found by restricting the Poisson brackets of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒳}`$ to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$:

$$\{𝒳,\theta ,𝒳,\theta ^{}\}^{}=\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\theta ,\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\theta ^{}\}|\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c\theta ,\theta ^{}𝒢.$$
(3.27)
This relation follows from the standard formula of the Dirac bracket  since $`𝒳=\stackrel{~}{𝒳}|\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒳}`$ have zero Poisson brackets on $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$ with all (not only the first class) constraints that define $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c\stackrel{ˇ}{}`$. To calculate the right hand side of (3.27), notice that

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\xi =g_A^1𝒥_𝒜^{}^rg_A,\xi \xi 𝒜,\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\eta =g_B𝒥_{^{}}^lg_B^1,\eta \eta .$$
(3.28)
By using this, (3.2), (3.4) and (3.8) easily lead to the relations

$`\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\xi ,\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\xi ^{}\}=\stackrel{~}{𝒳},[\xi ,\xi ^{}],\xi ,\xi ^{}𝒜,`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\eta ,\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\eta ^{}\}=\stackrel{~}{𝒳},[\eta ,\eta ^{}],\eta ,\eta ^{},`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\xi ,\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\eta \}=0.`$ (3.29)
Thus (3.27) implies that the Dirac brackets $`\{,\}^{}`$ of the components of $`𝒳`$ are identical to the Poisson brackets $`\{,\}_{}`$ (1.5) that appear in the definition of the AKS system. To identify also the respective Hamiltonians, we note that

$$\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},H_P\}=\{\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\stackrel{~}{𝒳}\}\text{on}\stackrel{ˇ}{}.$$
(3.30)
Indeed, the last four terms in $`H_P`$ (3.9) have zero Poisson brackets with $`\stackrel{~}{𝒳}`$ and $`𝒥^r,𝒥^r=\stackrel{~}{𝒳},\stackrel{~}{𝒳}`$. We conclude from (3.30) that the Hamiltonian

$$H(𝒳)=\frac{1}{2}𝒳,𝒳$$
(3.31)
generates the time evolution of the gauge invariant functions on $`\stackrel{ˇ}{}_c`$ through the Dirac bracket.

In general, the outcome of the Dirac algorithm can be viewed as an effective Hamiltonian system on a reduced phase space. The above considerations show that (with the restriction to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}G`$) the effective Hamiltonian system that belongs to the Lagrangian $`L`$ in (2.1) is the AKS system described in the introduction.

We remark that if $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}G`$ is a proper submanifold but the restriction to $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}`$ is not imposed, or the unique factorization appearing in (2.8) is not valid globally on $`A\times B`$, then the application of the Dirac algorithm to the Lagrangian (2.1) leads to the same Hamiltonian system that results also by the corresponding Hamiltonian reduction of $`T^{}G`$ considered in .

## 4 Conclusion

The construction described in this paper yields an interpretation of certain AKS systems as Lagrangian gauge theories. This interpretation is available if the Hamiltonian is the quadratic form of a scalar product on a self-dual Lie algebra and the factorization in (2.8) exists.

There are many examples (see ) to which our construction is applicable. The most familiar case is that of $`𝒢=sl(n,𝐑)`$ with $`𝒜`$ and $``$ being the strictly upper-triangular subalgebra and the lower-triangular Borel subalgebra, respectively. In this case $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}`$ consists of the Gauss-decomposable elements of $`SL(n,𝐑)`$. These data can be generalized by replacing $`sl(n,𝐑)`$ with the normal real form of a simple Lie algebra, and by using any integral gradation to define a triangular decomposition of $`𝒢`$. Another well known example is furnished by taking $`𝒜=so(n,𝐑)sl(n,𝐑)=𝒢`$ and $``$ the Borel subalgebra as before. This example generalizes to any simple Lie algebra, too, and in the so-obtained cases $`\stackrel{ˇ}{G}=G`$ due to the global nature of the Iwasawa decomposition. The open Toda lattices and their various generalizations appear among the AKS systems associated with the aforementioned Lie algebraic data. Further examples can be found, for instance, by using the theory of Drinfeld doubles.

Our definition of the Lagrangian (2.1) was motivated by the ‘point particle version’ of the gauged WZNW model  that provides a Lagrangian realization of the Hamiltonian reduction of the WZNW model to a conformal Toda field theory. Since the Lagrangian (2.1) is not restricted to Toda systems, it could be interesting to search for new gauged WZNW models that would yield field theoretical generalizations of the AKS systems treated in this paper.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) under T034170, T030099, T029802 and M036804.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

It is well known that, the neutrinos play a very significant role in many phenomena in nature -. In spite of their importance, however, numerous questions concerning their properties , their roles in the solar-neutrino puzzle , the atmospheric neutrino anomaly and the dark matter problem , their oscillation-characteristics , etc., remain still unanswered. During the last decades, several ideas have been proposed to explain the surprising behavior of neutrinos, but only a few of them have been verified. Among others, this is due to the fact that the neutrinos interact with matter only by means of the weak interactions. The goal of the extensive experimental and theoretical investigations related to neutrinos in nuclear physics, particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, is to shed light on the above open issues.

Among the probes which involve neutrinos, the neutrino-nucleus interaction possess a prominent position -. Thus, the study of neutrino scattering with nuclei is a good way to detect or distinguish neutrinos of different flavor and explore the basic structure of the weak interactions. Also, specific neutrino-induced transitions between discrete nuclear states with good quantum numbers of spin, isospin and parity allows us to study the structure of the weak hadronic currents. Furthermore, terrestrial experiments performed to detect astrophysical neutrinos (solar neutrinos, etc.) as well as neutrino-induced nucleosynthesis interpreted through several neutrino-nucleus interaction theories, constitute good sources of explanation for neutrino properties -.

There are four categories of neutrino–nucleus processes: the two types of charged-current (CC) reactions of neutrinos and antineutrinos and the two types of neutral-current (NC) ones. In the charged-current reactions a neutrino $`\nu _l`$ (antineutrino $`\overline{\nu }_l`$) with $`l=e,\mu ,\tau `$, transforms one neutron (proton) of a nucleus to a proton (neutron), and a charged lepton $`l^{}`$ (anti-lepton $`l^+`$) is emitted as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \nu _l+{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}& & {}_{Z+1}{}^{}A_{N1}^{}+l^{},\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{\nu }_l+{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}& & {}_{Z1}{}^{}A_{N+1}^{}+l^+.\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
These reactions are also called neutrino (anti-neutrino) capture, since they can be considered as the reverse processes of lepton-capture. They are mediated by exchange of heavy $`W^\pm `$ bosons according to the (lowest order) Feynman diagram shown in Fig. 1(a). In neutral-current reactions (neutrino scattering) the neutrinos (anti-neutrinos) interact via the exchange of neutral $`Z^0`$ bosons \[see Fig. 1(b)\] with a nucleus as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \nu +{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}& & {}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}+\nu ^{},\hfill \\ \hfill \overline{\nu }+{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}& & {}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}+\overline{\nu }^{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
where $`\nu `$ ($`\overline{\nu }`$) denote neutrinos (anti-neutrinos) of any flavor. The neutrino-nucleus reactions leave the final nucleus mostly in an excited state lying below particle-emission thresholds (semi-inclusive processes) . The transitions to energy-levels higher than the particle-bound states usually decay by particle emission and, thus, they supply light particles that can cause further nuclear reactions .

Theoretically, the various neutrino-nucleus transition rates are calculated by following detailed prescriptions such those described in Refs. - (for a review on these methods see ). From the nuclear structure viewpoint the main task is the evaluation of the matrix elements of multipole operators between the initial and final nuclear many-body states -. In Ref. , by exploiting the multipole decomposition of the hadronic currents, we have constructed a general closed formalism which gives all types of the radial matrix elements required for the description of any electromagnetic and weak process in nuclei. This method uses harmonic oscillator single-particle basis and allows the easy calculation of the basic radial matrix elements by means of analytic formulas.

In the present work, we proceed a step further and extend the method of Ref.  so as to provide similar expressions for the reduced matrix elements of any basic single-particle tensor operator entering the neutrino-nucleus cross-sections -. As we shall see, the advantage of this method lies in the separation of the geometrical coefficients from the kinematical parameters of the reaction in question. In this way, the transition matrix elements for every value of the momentum transfer q can be evaluated in a direct way. We apply this formalism in order to determine the needed matrix elements for nuclei in the region of $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ isotope, which is considered a promising target for detection of solar and supernova neutrinos  as well as for detection of cold dark matter candidates .

In the remainder of the paper, after a brief review of the relevant expressions involved in the formal description of the neutrino-nucleus cross sections and the multipole decomposition treatment of the hadronic currents (Sect. 2), we proceed with the derivation of closed analytic formulas for the basic single-particle reduced matrix elements (Sect. 3). As an application we calculate the transition matrix elements in the case of the charged-current neutrino-nucleus reaction $`{}_{}{}^{127}I(\nu _l,l^{})^{127}Xe^{}`$ (Sect. 4). Finally, our conclusions are summarized in Sect. 5.

## 2 Weak interaction Hamiltonian of neutrino–nucleus reactions

The effective Hamiltonian, describing the weak interaction of nuclei with neutrinos at low energies compared to the electroweak scale, can be written in current–current form as

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G}{\sqrt{2}}}(j_\lambda ^{()}J^{\lambda (+)}+j_\lambda ^{(0)}J^{\lambda (0)}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.),`$ (3)
($`G`$ denotes the weak interaction coupling constant) where $`j_\lambda ^{(c)}`$ and $`J^{\lambda (c)}`$ with $`c=,+,0`$, denote the leptonic and hadronic currents, respectively. For the definition of the leptonic current see e.g. Ref. . The expressions for the hadronic currents, since nucleons are extended objects and Lorentz covariance should be fulfilled, reads

$`J_\lambda ^{(c)}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_N[g_1^V\gamma _\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2M}}g_2^V\sigma _{\lambda \nu }q^\nu +g_3^Vq_\lambda `$ (4)
$`+`$ $`g_1^A\gamma _\lambda \gamma _5+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2M}}g_2^A\sigma _{\lambda \nu }q^\nu \gamma _5+g_3^Aq_\lambda \gamma _5]\tau _c\mathrm{\Psi }_N,`$
($`\mathrm{\Psi }_N`$ represent the nucleon isospin doublet) where the weak nucleon form factors $`g_i^V`$, $`g_i^A`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) are complex scalar functions of the momentum transfer $`q^2`$. The $`g_i^V`$ are fixed by the conserved vector-current theory (CVC) stating that the isovector part of the electromagnetic current and the charge raising and lowering parts of the weak vector current form an isospin triplet of conserved currents . For the axial form factors $`g_i^A`$, charge symmetry properties and T-invariance of the hadronic current require that $`g_2^A=0`$. Furthermore, the $`g_3^Aq_\lambda \gamma _5`$ term gives contributions proportional to the mass of the outgoing lepton, and can therefore be neglected in the extreme relativistic limit . Thus, one arrives at the expressions

$`J_\lambda ^{(+)}=\overline{\psi }_N\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(F_1^pF_1^n)\gamma _\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4M}}(F_2^pF_2^n)\sigma _{\lambda \nu }q^\nu +G_A\gamma _\lambda \gamma _5\right\}\tau _c\mathrm{\Psi }_N,`$ (5)
$`J_\lambda ^{(0)}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\psi }_N\left\{F_1^Z\gamma _\lambda +F_2^Z{\displaystyle \frac{i\sigma _{\lambda \nu }q^\nu }{2M}}+G_A\gamma _\lambda \gamma _5\right\}\psi _N,`$ (6)
($`J_\lambda ^{()}`$ is the Hermitian conjugate of $`J_\lambda ^{(+)}`$). Here $`G_A=\frac{1}{2}G_A^3\tau _\mathrm{𝟎}`$ ($`\tau _0=+1`$ for protons and $`\tau _0=1`$ for neutrons) and $`F_{1,2}^p`$, $`F_{1,2}^n`$ denote the charge and electromagnetic form factors of proton and neutron (within the nucleus), respectively. These form factors are discussed in Refs. .

### 2.1 The formalism for neutrino–nucleus cross sections

By utilizing the neutrino–nucleus weak interaction Hamiltonian discussed before, the neutrino scattering cross sections can reliably be calculated within the first-order Born approximation. If we assume that the initial $`|i`$ and final $`|f`$ nuclear states have well-defined spins and parities, a multipole analysis of the weak (nuclear-level) hadronic current can be performed  (see below Sect. 2.2). This has been carried out in close analogy to electron scattering from nuclei  within a unified analysis of charge-changing semi-leptonic weak interactions in nuclei.

The differential (with respect to energy and scattering direction) neutrino–nucleus scattering cross-section is written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}^2\sigma _{if}}{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{d}\omega }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{|𝐤_f|ϵ_f}{(2J_i+1)}}F(Z,ϵ_f)\left({\displaystyle \underset{J=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sigma _{CL}^J+{\displaystyle \underset{J=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sigma _T^J\right),`$ (7)
where $`\omega =ϵ_iϵ_f`$ is the excitation energy of the nucleus, and $`ϵ_i`$, $`ϵ_f`$, $`𝐤_f`$ denote the energy of the incoming neutrino and energy and momentum of the outgoing lepton, respectively. The summations in Eq. (7) contain the contributions of the Coulomb ($`\widehat{}_J`$), longitudinal ($`\widehat{}_J`$), transverse electric ($`\widehat{𝒯}_J^{el}`$) and transverse magnetic ($`\widehat{𝒯}_J^{mag}`$) operators stemming from the multipole expansion of the weak hadronic current. The operators $`\widehat{}_J`$, $`\widehat{}_J`$, $`\widehat{𝒯}_J^{el}`$ and $`\widehat{𝒯}_J^{mag}`$ contain both polar-vector and axial-vector parts of which the contributions are written as

$`\sigma _{CL}^J`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }\right)|J_f||\widehat{}_J(q)||J_i|^2+\left(1+a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }2b\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Phi }\right)|J_f||\widehat{}_J(q)||J_i|^2`$ (8)
$`+`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{q}}\left(1+a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }\right)+d\right]2\mathrm{}eJ_f\widehat{}_J(q)J_iJ_f\widehat{}_J(q)J_i^{},`$
$`\sigma _T^J`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }+b\mathrm{sin}^2\mathrm{\Phi }\right)\left[|J_f||\widehat{𝒯}_J^{mag}(q)||J_i|^2+|J_f||\widehat{𝒯}_J^{el}(q)||J_i|^2\right]`$ (9)
$``$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{(ϵ_i+ϵ_f)}{q}}\left(1a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }\right)d]2\mathrm{}eJ_f\widehat{𝒯}_J^{mag}(q)J_iJ_f\widehat{𝒯}_J^{el}(q)J_i^{},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ denotes the scattering angle of the outgoing lepton and $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`d`$ are given by

$$a=\frac{|𝐤_f|}{ϵ_f}=\left[1\left(\frac{m_fc^2}{ϵ_f}\right)^2\right]^{\frac{1}{2}},b=\frac{ϵ_iϵ_fa^2}{q^2},d=\frac{\left(m_fc^2\right)^2}{qϵ_f},$$
(10)
($`m_f`$ is the mass of the outgoing lepton). The magnitude of the three-momentum transfer $`q`$ is given by

$`q`$ $`=`$ $`|𝐪|=\left[\omega ^2+2ϵ_iϵ_f\left(1a\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Phi }\right)\left(m_fc^2\right)^2\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$ (11)
Notice that the interference term between vector and axial vector current in Eq. (9) has a negative (positive) sign for neutrino (antineutrino) scattering due to their different helicities.

The well-known Fermi function $`F(Z,ϵ_f)`$ takes into account the Coulomb–final-state interaction between nucleus and final lepton (case of charged-current reactions only).

### 2.2  Multipole–decomposition operators

The standard multipole expansion procedure , applied on the matrix elements of hadronic current $`\widehat{J}_\mu (𝐫)=(\widehat{\rho },\widehat{𝐉})`$, where $`\widehat{\rho }(𝐫)`$ the density and $`\widehat{𝐉}(𝐫)`$ the three-current operators, leads to spherical tensor operators which are given in terms of the projection functions

$$M_M^J(q𝐫)=\delta _{LJ}j_L(qr)Y_M^L(\widehat{r}),$$
(12)
$$𝐌_M^{(L1)J}(q𝐫)=j_L(qr)𝐘_M^{(L1)J}(\widehat{r}).$$
(13)
Here $`j_L(r)`$ stands for the spherical Bessel functions, $`Y_M^L(\widehat{r})`$ are the spherical Harmonics and $`𝐘_M^{(L,1)J}(\widehat{r})`$ are the vector spherical Harmonics. In the case of the polar-vector current $`\widehat{J}_\lambda `$, the multipole decomposition gives the operators $`\widehat{M}_{JM}^{coul}`$, $`\widehat{L}_{JM}`$, $`\widehat{T}_{JM}^{el}`$ and $`\widehat{T}_{JM}^{mag}`$. The first three operators have parity $`()^J`$ (normal parity operators), while the parity of $`\widehat{T}_J^{mag}`$ is $`()^{J+1}`$ (abnormal parity operator). In the case of axial-vector current $`\widehat{J}_\lambda ^5`$ we obtain the operators $`\widehat{M}_{JM}^{Coul5}`$, $`\widehat{L}_{JM}^5`$, $`\widehat{T}_{JM}^{el5}`$ and $`\widehat{T}_{JM}^{mag5}`$. The first three axial-vector multipoles have parity $`()^{J+1}`$ while $`\widehat{T}_J^{mag5}`$ is a normal parity operator.

For a conserved vector current (CVC) like the electromagnetic, $`\widehat{L}_{JM_J}(q)=(q_0/q)\widehat{M}_{JM_J}^{Coul}(q)`$, where $`q_0`$ represent the time component of the four-momentum transfer, $`q_\mu =(q_0,𝐪`$). In this case, the number of independent operators resulting from the decomposition procedure is reduced to seven. In fact, the matrix elements of these seven basic operators involve isospin dependent form factors $`F_X^{(T)}(q^2)`$ (see Eqs. (5), (6) and Ref. ). For this reason, we define seven new operators as

$`T_1^{JM}M_M^J(q𝐫)=\delta _{LJ}j_L(\rho )Y_M^L(\widehat{r}),`$ (14)
$`T_2^{JM}\mathrm{\Sigma }_M^J(q𝐫)=𝐌_M^{JJ}𝝈,`$ (15)
$`T_3^{JM}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{}{}_{M}{}^{J}(q𝐫)=i\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q}}\times 𝐌_M^{JJ}(q𝐫)\right\}𝝈,`$ (16)
$`T_4^{JM}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{\prime \prime }{}_{M}{}^{J}(q𝐫)=\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q}}M_M^J(q𝐫)\right\}𝝈,`$ (17)
$`T_5^{JM}\mathrm{\Delta }_M^J(q𝐫)=𝐌_M^{JJ}(q𝐫){\displaystyle \frac{1}{q}},`$ (18)
$`T_6^{JM}\mathrm{\Delta }_{}^{}{}_{M}{}^{J}(q𝐫)=i\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q}}\times 𝐌_M^{JJ}(q𝐫)\right\},`$ (19)
$`T_7^{JM}\mathrm{\Omega }_M^J(q𝐫)=M_M^J(q𝐫)𝝈{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q}}.`$ (20)
Using properties of the nabla operator ($``$), Eqs. (16), (17) and (19) can be rewritten as

$$T_3^{JM}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{}{}_{M}{}^{J}=[J]^1\left\{J^{1/2}𝐌_M^{J+1J}+(J+1)^{1/2}𝐌_M^{J1J}\right\}𝝈,$$
(21)
$$T_4^{JM}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{\prime \prime }{}_{M}{}^{J}=[J]^1\left\{(J+1)^{1/2}𝐌_M^{J+1J}+J^{1/2}𝐌_{J1J}^M\right\}𝝈,$$
(22)
$$T_6^{JM}\mathrm{\Delta }_{}^{}{}_{M}{}^{J}=[J]^1\left\{J^{1/2}𝐌_M^{J+1J}+(J+1)^{1/2}𝐌_M^{J1J}\right\}\frac{1}{q},$$
(23)
(throughout this work we use the common symbol $`[J]=(2J+1)^{1/2}`$).

Many quantities describing the semi-leptonic electroweak processes in nuclei, including, of course, the neutrino-nucleus reactions, are expressed (to a good approximation) in terms of single-particle nuclear matrix elements of the one-body operators $`T_i^{JM}`$, i=1,2,…7 . By applying the Wigner-Eckart theorem, these matrix elements are written in terms of the following four reduced matrix elements: $`j_1M^Jj_2`$, $`j_1𝐌^{LJ}𝝈j_2`$, $`j_1𝐌^{LJ}(/q)j_2`$ and $`j_1M^L𝝈(/q)j_2`$. In the next section, we will use harmonic oscillator basis in order to find simplified expressions for these reduced matrix elements.

## 3 The Single-particle reduced matrix elements

By applying the re-coupling relations and using the formalism of Ref. , the reduced matrix elements of the operators $`𝒯_i^J`$, $`i=1,2,\mathrm{}7`$, can be written in the compact forms shown below.

1. For the operators $`M_M^J𝒪_1^{JM}`$ and $`𝐌_M^{LJ}𝝈𝒪_2^{JM}`$ the reduced matrix elements $`j_1𝒪_i^Jj_2`$, have previously been written as

$$j_1𝒪_i^{(L,S_i)J}j_2=(l_1Ll_2)𝒰_{LS_i}^Jn_1l_1|j_L(\rho )|n_2l_2,i=1,2,$$
(24)
(with $`S_1=0`$ and $`S_2=1`$) where the symbols $`(l_1Ll_2)`$ and $`𝒰_{LS}^J`$ contain the 3-j and 9-j symbols, respectively (see Ref. ).

2. The reduced matrix elements of $`j_1𝐌^{LJ}(q𝐫)(/q)j_2`$, after some manipulation can be cast in the form

$$j_1𝐌^{LJ}(q𝐫)\frac{1}{q}j_2=\underset{\alpha }{}𝒜_L^\alpha (j_1j_2;J)n_1l_1|\theta _L^\alpha (\rho )|n_2l_2,\alpha =\pm ,$$
(25)
where

$`𝒜_L^\pm (j_1j_2;J)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm ()^{l_1+L+j_2+1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2l_2+11}{2}}\right)^{1/2}[j_1][j_2][J](l_1Ll_21)`$ (26)
$`\times 𝒲_6(l_1,j_1,1/2,j_2,l_2,J)𝒲_6(L,1,J,l_2,l_1,l_21).`$
Here $`𝒲_6`$ represent the common 6-j symbol.

3. Similarly, for the reduced matrix element of $`j_1M^J(q𝐫)𝝈(/q)j_2`$ we can write

$$j_1M^J(q𝐫)𝝈\frac{1}{q}j_2=\underset{\alpha }{}_L^\alpha (j_1j_2;J)n_1l_1|\theta _J^\alpha (\rho )|n_2l_2,\alpha =\pm ,$$
(27)
where

$`_L^\pm (j_1j_2;J)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \delta _{j_2,l_21/2}[j_1][j_2](l_1J2j_2l_2)𝒲_6(l_1,j_1,1/2,j_2,2j_2l_2,J).`$ (28)
From Eqs. (24), (25) and (27) we notice that all basic single-particle reduced matrix elements required for our purposes rely on the following three types of radial integrals:

$$n_1l_1|\theta _l^\alpha (\rho )|n_2l_2𝑑rr^2R_{n_1l_1}^{}(r)\theta _l^\alpha (\rho )R_{n_2l_2}(r),\alpha =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\pm ,$$
(29)
with

$$\theta _l^0(\rho )=j_l(\rho ),$$
(30)
$$\theta _l^\pm (\rho )=j_l(\rho )\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }\pm \frac{2l_2+1\pm 1}{2\rho }\right).$$
(31)
The argument $`\rho `$ in Eqs. (31) is equal to $`\rho =qr`$.

By inserting in Eqs. (24), (25) and (27), the expressions for the radial matrix elements found in Ref.  (see Appendix A) and manipulating properly the appearing summations, we can write the four types of reduced matrix elements entering the basic operators (14)-(20) in closed forms, as follows:

1. For the Fermi- (S=0) and Gamow–Teller-type (S=1) operators $`𝒪_i^{(L,S_i)J}`$, we have

$$j_1𝒪_i^{(L,S_i)J}j_2=e^yy^{L/2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}E_\mu ^i(L)y^\mu ,$$
(32)
$$y=(qb/2)^2,$$
(33)
with $`S_1=0`$ and $`S_2=1`$, and where

$$E_\mu ^i(L)=(l_1Ll_2)𝒰_{LS_i}^J\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2l_2)i=1,2.$$
(34)
2. The reduced matrix element $`j_1𝐌^{LJ}(q𝐫)(/q)j_2`$ take the form

$$j_1𝐌^{LJ}(q𝐫)\frac{1}{q}j_2=e^yy^{(L1)/2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}E_\mu ^3(L)y^\mu ,$$
(35)
with

$$E_\mu ^3(L)=𝒜_L^{}\zeta _\mu ^{}(L)+𝒜_L^+\zeta _\mu ^+(L).$$
(36)
3. Similarly for $`j_1M^L(q𝐫)𝝈\frac{1}{q}j_2`$ we derive the formula

$$j_1M^L(q𝐫)𝝈\frac{1}{q}j_2=e^yy^{(L1)/2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}E_\mu ^4(L)y^\mu ,$$
(37)
where

$$E_\mu ^4(L)=_L^{}\zeta _\mu ^{}(L)+_L^+\zeta _\mu ^+(L).$$
(38)
The coefficients $`\epsilon _\mu ^L`$ and $`\zeta _\mu ^\pm (L)`$ are defined in Ref.  (see also Appendix A).

Having available the formalism of Eqs. (32), (35) and (37), we can straightforwardly deduce closed analytic formulas for the reduced matrix elements of the seven basic operators Eqs. (14)-(20). All these fundamental matrix elements can be cast in the compact form

$$j_1T^Jj_2=e^yy^{\beta /2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}𝒫_\mu ^Jy^\mu ,$$
(39)
where

$$n_{max}=(N_1+N_2\beta )/2.$$
(40)
The coefficients $`𝒫_\mu ^J`$ for each specific case are listed in Table 1. The integer $`\beta `$ of Eqs. (39) and (40) is also quoted in this Table. As can be seen from Table 1, the coefficients $`𝒫_\mu ^J`$ are simply related to the numbers $`E_\mu ^i(L)`$, $`i=1,2,3,4`$, given in Eqs. (34), (36) and (38). The coefficients $`𝒫_0^\mu `$ are much simpler compared to those corresponding to $`\mu >0`$.

We should remark that, upon mutual interchanging $`n_1(l_11/2)j_1`$ with $`n_2(l_21/2)j_2`$ in Eq. (39), the following relation holds:

$$j_2T^J(q𝐫)j_1=()^\lambda j_1T^J(q𝐫)j_2,$$
(41)
where $`\lambda =j_1j_2`$ for the operators M, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }`$, and $`\lambda =j_1+j_2`$ for the operators $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (our phase convention for the matrix elements in Eq. (41) is the same with that of Ref. ). The operator $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ does not have a simple phase symmetry under the above interchange, $`j_1j_2`$, and, for this reason, one traditionally defines the operator

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{}^{}{}_{M}{}^{J}\mathrm{\Omega }_M^J+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{}^{\prime \prime }{}_{M}{}^{J},$$
(42)
for which, on applying Eq. (41), one must put $`\lambda =j_1+j_2`$. The matrix elements of the operator $`\mathrm{\Omega }^J`$ are also given by Eq. (39) but now the coefficients $`𝒫_\mu ^J`$ are (see Table 1)

$$𝒫_\mu ^J=E_\mu ^4(J)+\frac{1}{2}\left\{J^{1/2}E_\mu ^2(J1)+(J+1)^{1/2}E_{\mu 1}^2(J+1)\right\}.$$
(43)
Before presenting some applications on the above formalism, it should be noted that, the explicit and general expressions of Eq. (39) hold for every combination of the single-particle levels $`(n_1l_1)j_1`$, $`(n_2l_2)j_2`$. For the determination of the involved polynomials it suffices the evaluation of the geometrical momentum independent coefficients $`𝒫_\mu ^J`$ (see Table 1). These closed formulas have been derived by inverting properly the multiple summations involved in the corresponding matrix elements (see Ref. ), so as the final summation is performed over the major harmonic oscillator quantum number $`N=2n+l`$. It is worth remarking that such a compact formalism provides a very useful insight to those authors who wish to adopt a phenomenological approach and fit the nuclear transition strengths for many semi-leptonic processes in nuclei .

## 4 Discussion, analysis and results

Our primary aim in the present paper, is to deal with the improvement of the formalism for the neutrino-nucleus reaction cross sections. We shall focus our discussion on those reactions that pertain to the terrestrial observation of astrophysical neutrinos and especially on exclusive transitions leading to a definite final state in neutrino-induced processes which have attracted considerable interest in the past few years . A special category of such processes is the one occurring in the radiochemical experiments leading to excited states below particle emission thresholds, i.e. to the particle-bound states (semi-inclusive processes). As an example of this category, the reaction $`\nu _l+^{127}I^{127}Xe^{}+l^{}`$ is discussed in some detail below.

As it is known, solar or supernova neutrinos, incident on an iodine liquid target, could produce the noble gas $`{}_{}{}^{127}Xe`$ which can be recovered and counted as in the $`{}_{}{}^{37}Cl`$ (radiochemical) experiment. This suggests that, the reaction

$$\nu _l+^{127}I^{127}Xe^{}+l^{}$$
(44)
may be a promising radiochemical-type detector for $`{}_{}{}^{7}Be`$ or $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrinos . In the above reaction, the ground state to ground state ($`g.s.g.s.`$) transition $`\frac{5}{2}^+\frac{1}{2}^{}`$, is forbidden, so that, the first allowed one is the $`\frac{5}{2}^+\frac{3}{2}^+`$ leading to the lowest excitation (at 124.6 KeV) of $`{}_{}{}^{127}Xe`$ isotope.

On the theoretical nuclear physics side, the many-body nuclear wave-functions for heavy odd-A nuclei with relatively high half-integer (ground state) spins, cannot be easily constructed within the context of shell model or random phase approximation methods. The medium heavy nuclei $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{127}Xe`$ which enter the reaction (44) are isotopes of this sort. For this reason, the wave-functions involved in the cross sections of process (44) are currently calculated  within the framework of the microscopic quasiparticle-phonon model. This model, has recently been used for reliable descriptions of other similar processes .

In the quasi-particle phonon (QPM) model , the wave functions of odd-mass spherical nuclei are expressed in the form of expansions in a phonon-basis. Thus, the main idea of the model is to construct this phonon-basis, whereby phonons are defined as solutions of the quasi-particle random phase approximation . The goal of the model is to be able to describe the interplay between collective and single-particle degrees of freedom of low-lying excited states. The effective Hamiltonian in the QPM is written as

$$H_{eff}=H_{sp}+H_{pair}+H_m+H_{sm},$$
(45)
where $`H_{sp}`$ is the single-particle Hamiltonian, $`H_{pair}`$ represents the monopole pairing interaction in the particle-hole (p-h) channel, $`H_m`$ is the separable multipole interaction in the p-h channel, and $`H_{sm}`$ is the separable spin-multipole interaction in the p-h channel.

To calculate the spectrum of the needed excited states for the nuclei $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{127}Xe`$, the effective Hamiltonian Eq. (45) must be transformed in such a way that, instead of the nucleon degrees of freedom, other simple modes of excitation would be present. These simple modes are Bogolubov’s quasiparticles and phonons (that is why the model has been called quasiparticle-phonon model). The required procedure for these transformations is described in detail in Ref. .

In the case of the neutral-current neutrino-$`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ scattering, one needs either the $`g.sg.s.`$ transition (coherent process) of $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$, i.e. $`\frac{5}{2}^+\frac{5}{2}^+`$, or the transitions going from the ground state of $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ to its low-lying (particle-bound) states. In general, under the assumptions discussed in the Introduction, any partial cross section is written in terms of the square of the matrix elements of tensor multipole operators (see Sect. 2) of the form

$$fT^J(q𝐫)i=\underset{j_1,j_2}{}j_1T^J(q𝐫)j_2D(j_1,j_2;J).$$
(46)
where $`j_1,j_2`$ run over the configurations of the chosen model space which couple to a given J. The functions $`D(j_1,j_2;J)`$ are the one-body transition densities which in our case are provided by the quasiparticle-phonon model. The chosen model space in  consists of the oscillator major shells with $`N=35`$ plus the intruder $`0i_{13/2}`$ from the $`N=6`$ major shell.

The single-particle reduced matrix elements $`j_1T^J(q𝐫)j_2`$ are evaluated by the expression (39). In Tables 2-4 we quote some coefficients $`𝒫_\mu ^J`$ needed to determine the reduced matrix elements for the normal-parity operators $`M^J,\mathrm{\Sigma }^J,\mathrm{\Delta }^J`$ (see Sec. 2.2) by using Table 1 and Eq. (39). Due to space limitations, in these Tables we list the coefficients for configuration only of the type $`\frac{5}{2}^+\frac{3}{2}^+`$ (for others the reader is referred to Refs. ). As can be seen from Tables 2-4, the coefficients of the polynomials involved in Eq. (46) are very simple and readily calculable numbers a fact that illustrates the advantage of the formalism presented in Sect. 2-3.

At this point it is worth remarking that, regarding the neutrino energies $`E_\nu `$ one is interested in, two main treatments can be followed: (i) Include in Eq. (46) the momentum dependence of the multipole operators Eqs. (14)-(20), and (ii) Reduce the multipole operators to their $`q0`$ limit (long wave-length approximation) . It should be mentioned that, according to their energies the neutrinos are classified in low-energy, $`E_\nu 20MeV`$ (solar neutrinos, low-energy supernova neutrinos), medium-energy, $`20MeVE_\nu 50MeV`$ (high energy supernova neutrinos) and high-energy, $`50MeVE_\nu 12GeV`$ (solar flare-, atmospheric-neutrinos). In our formalism developed in the present work, we keep the exact momentum dependence of the operators, since the momentum transfer and the neutrino-energies involved in the reaction (45) may, sometimes, be rather high.

Before closing, it is worth mentioning that, the $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ nucleus constitutes a promising detector also for cold dark matter candidates . This probe relies on the (elastic) scattering of a cold-dark-matter candidate off the nucleus $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$ and requires the calculation of the low-lying excited states of $`{}_{}{}^{127}I`$. Roughly speaking, in the latter case the required reduced matrix elements are, in general, similar to those of the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{127}I(\nu ,\nu ^{})^{127}I^{}`$, i.e. the neutral-current neutrino-scattering. A thorough discussion of this topic (including calculations for other similar processes) using the above formalism will be done elsewhere .

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

In the present work, we have focused on the theoretical description of exclusive transitions in neutrino-nucleus reactions. Assuming that, the initial and final nuclear states involved have well-defined spin, isospin and parity, and using the decomposition of the hadronic currents into tensor multipole operators, we derived closed analytic formulas for the matrix elements of the principal one-body operators entering the relevant transition strengths. By employing harmonic oscillator basis, these matrix elements have been written as products of an exponential times simple polynomials of even powers in the momentum transfer q. The coefficients of the polynomials are, in general, simple and readily calculable numbers as it becomes evident from Tables 2-4.

The advantage of the above formalism has been illustrated, in the case of the lowest transition $`\frac{5}{2}^+\frac{3}{2}^+`$ of the currently interesting charged-current reaction $`{}_{}{}^{127}I(\nu _l,l^{})^{127}Xe^{}`$. The partial rates of this process are currently evaluated in the framework of the microscopic quasi-particle phonon model employing for the single-particle reduced matrix elements our present expressions. This formalism, in the cases when a phenomenological approach is adopted, offers the possibility one to make fits for the nuclear transition strengths in many semi-leptonic processes in nuclei.

## 6 Acknowledgements

This work has been supported in part by the Research Committee of the University of Ioannina.

Appendix A

The radial integrals of Eq. (29) in the case when harmonic oscillator basis is used can take the following compact expressions (see Ref. ):

(i) For the operator $`\theta _L^0(\rho )`$ we found

$$n_1l_1|j_L(\rho )|n_2l_2=e^yy^{L/2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}\epsilon _\mu ^Ly^\mu ,y=(qb/2)^2,$$
(47)
$$n_{max}=(N_1+N_2L)/2,$$

where $`N_i=2n_i+l_i`$ and the coefficients $`\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2l_2)`$ are given by

$$\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2l_2)=C\frac{\pi ^{1/2}}{2}\underset{m_1=\varphi }{\overset{n_1}{}}\underset{m_2=\sigma }{\overset{n_2}{}}n!\mathrm{\Lambda }_{m_1}(n_1l_1)\mathrm{\Lambda }_{m_2}(n_2l_2)\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mu (nL),$$
(48)
with

$$n=m_1+m_2+(l_1+l_2L)/2.$$

In Eq. (48) $`C=b^3N_{n_1l_1}N_{n_2l_2}/2`$ while the other symbols are explained in Ref. .

(ii) The radial matrix elements for the operators $`\theta _L^\pm `$ are given by

$$n_1l_1|\theta _L^\pm |n_2l_2=e^yy^{(L1)/2}\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n_{max}}{}}\zeta _\mu ^\pm (L)y^\mu ,$$
(49)
where

$$\zeta _\mu ^{}(L)=\frac{1}{2}\{\begin{array}{cc}(n_2+l_2+3/2)^{1/2}\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2l_2+1)+n_2^{1/2}\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_21l_2+1),\hfill & 0\mu <n_{max}\hfill \\ (n_2+l_2+3/2)^{1/2}\epsilon _{n_{max}}^L(n_1l_1n_2l_2+1),\mu =n_{max}\hfill & \end{array}$$
(50)
$$\zeta _\mu ^+(L)=\frac{1}{2}\{\begin{array}{cc}(n_2+l_2+1/2)^{1/2}\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2l_21)+(n_2+1)^{1/2}\epsilon _\mu ^L(n_1l_1n_2+1l_21),\hfill & 0\mu <n_{max}\hfill \\ (n_2+1)^{1/2}\epsilon _{n_{max}}^L(n_1l_1n_2+1l_21),\mu =n_{max}\hfill & \end{array}$$
(51)
and

$$n_{max}=(N_1+N_2L+1)/2.$$

The coefficients $`\epsilon _\mu ^L`$ and $`\zeta _\mu ^\pm `$ are calculated using simple codes.

Figure Caption

Feynman-diagram of lowest order for: (a) the CC neutrino-nucleus reactions $`\nu _l+{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}{}_{Z+1}{}^{}A_{N1}^{}+l^{}`$, and (b) the NC neutrino-nucleus processes $`\nu +{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}{}_{Z}{}^{}A_{N}^{}+\nu ^{}`$. The diagrams which correspond to the anti-neutrino reactions are similar.