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# Likelihood Analysis of Cosmic Shear on Simulated and VIRMOS-DESCART DataBased on observations obtained at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), which is operated by the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC), the Institut des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU) of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the University of Hawaii (UH), and at the European Southern Observatory telescopes Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the New Technology Telescope (NTT).

## 1 Introduction

In the standard cosmological picture, the structures in the Universe grow from the gravitational collapse of initial Gaussian density perturbations. The properties of mass distribution at low redshift are expected to express the latest and one of the most explicit footprint of the formation process, so their description from cosmological surveys can be challenged against theoretical predictions resulting from this paradigm. For example, a direct observation of the mass distribution in structures is believed to be an unequivocal test of cosmological scenario of structure formation. If so, the weak gravitational lensing produced on distant galaxies by large scale structures is a direct probe of dark matter, regardless the light distribution. It is therefore a robust technique to challenge the current cosmological models. In particular, it can reliably probe small angular scale and look into the transition to the quasi-linear and non-linear regimes, where comparison between observations and cosmological models are still difficult.

The cosmological origin of the coherent distortion fields detected in cosmic shear surveys is now firmly established (Bacon et al., 2000; Haemmerle et al., 2001; Hoekstra et al., 2002; Kaiser et al., 2000; Maoli et al., 2001; Pen et al., 2001; Rhodes et al., 2001; Van Waerbeke et al., 2000, 2001b; Wittman et al., 2000). Van Waerbeke et al. (2001b) have shown that the measurements provided by different statistical estimators of distortion signal are consistent with the gravitational lensing hypothesis with a high confidence level, so that present-day data can already constrain cosmological parameters. Their joint estimate of the mass density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and the power spectrum normalization $`\sigma _8`$ led to consistent results with the cluster abundance constraints (Pierpaoli et al., 2001) and confirmed earlier tentative obtained by Maoli et al. (2001) and Rhodes et al. (2001) using ESO-VLT/CFHT and HST data respectively. A recent measurement done on a shallow survey (therefore very different in depth) confirmed also this agreement (Hoekstra et al., 2001, 2002).

So far, the cosmological parameter estimation from cosmic shear relied on prior knowledge of the slope of the mass power spectrum $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and/or the mean redshift $`\overline{z}_s`$ of the lensed galaxy population. In fact, the statistical properties of cosmic shear depends significantly on these quantities (Kaiser, 1992; Bernardeau et al., 1997; Jain & Seljak, 1997), so any prior on these parameters may have a serious impact on the cosmological parameter estimation. For instance changing the shape of the power spectrum in either direction would favor low or high matter densities, by changing the normalization accordingly. This ambiguity expresses a degeneracy between the normalization and the mass density, which depends on the choice of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (Van Waerbeke et al., 2001b). Jain & Seljak (1997) addressed this issue by pointing out that a measurement of the cosmic shear in both linear and non-linear scales could break the degeneracy, so that one in principle recover simultaneously $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ from the shear variance alone. Unfortunately, the redshift of the sources is also a strongly degenerate parameter with $`\sigma _8`$, which definitely hampers shear variance analysis to provide unequivocal discrimination of cosmological models. In fact, stringent constraints on the cosmological parameters from the shear variance are possible only with an accurate knowledge of the source redshifts and a measurement which extends over a large range of scales.

In this paper we carry out a full maximum likelihood analysis of cosmic shear data over the four parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, $`\sigma _8`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and $`\overline{z}_s`$ for flat and open cosmologies. Using both simulations and observations, we study slices and projections in this parameter space and discuss the reliability of cosmological constraints which are based on catalogues having similar size and depth as current cosmic shear surveys. In particular we give an estimate of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ by marginalizing over the power spectrum shape and sources redshifts. The improvement of our knowledge of the source redshift is crucial to gain better accuracy for the other parameters. In this work we use photometric redshifts 111derived from other data sets to put priors on the source redshift distribution.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a brief summary of some theoretical concepts and introduces the shear estimators used throughout the paper. Section 3 describes the data and how shear quantities were obtained from the survey catalogue. The likelihood method and the details of the priors are presented in Section 4. Section 5 shows and discusses the results on the parameter estimates on both simulated and real surveys. Finally, conclusions are presented in Section 6.

## 2 Theory

Following the notation in Schneider et al. (1998), we define the power spectrum of the convergence as

$`P_\kappa (k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9}{4}}\mathrm{\Omega }_0^2{\displaystyle _0^{w_H}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}w}{a^2(w)}}P_{3D}({\displaystyle \frac{k}{f_K(w)}};w)\times `$ (1)
$`\left[{\displaystyle _w^{w_H}}dw^{}n(w^{}){\displaystyle \frac{f_K(w^{}w)}{f_K(w^{})}}\right]^2,`$
where $`f_K(w)`$ is the comoving angular diameter distance out to a distance $`w`$ ($`w_H`$ is the horizon distance), and $`n(w(z))`$ is the redshift distribution of the sources given in Eq.(12). $`P_{3D}(k)`$ is the non-linear mass power spectrum computed according to Peacock & Dodds (1996), and $`k`$ is the 2-dimensional wave vector perpendicular to the line-of-sight. The top-hat shear variance (smoothing window of radius $`\theta _c`$) and the shear correlation function can be written as

$$\gamma ^2=\frac{2}{\pi \theta _c^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}k}{k}P_\kappa (k)[J_1(k\theta _c)]^2,$$
(2)
$$\gamma \gamma _\theta =\frac{1}{2\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}dkkP_\kappa (k)J_0(k\theta ).$$
(3)
Because the weak distortion field can be generated by non-lensing mechanisms, it is important to measure separately the $`E`$ and $`B`$ components of the shear. These modes were introduced initially to test for the gravitational origin of the lensing signal (Crittenden et al., 2000) since a potential gravitational field is expected to produce only curl-free shear patterns ($`E`$ mode). Any measurable $`B`$ mode should be interpreted as a measurement of residual systematic in the data (Point Spread Function correction, intrinsic alignment or anything else) and must be removed from the weak lensing signal prior to cosmological interpretation of cosmic shear data.

The extraction of both modes is not trivial. The $`E`$ and $`B`$-modes decompositions of the top-hat shear variance, and of the shear correlation function given in Eq.(2,3) are only defined up to a integration constant (see Crittenden et al., 2000; Pen et al., 2001). This constant depends on the extrapolated cosmic shear signal either at small ($`<30`$ arc-seconds) or large ($`>1`$ degree) scales. These boundary conditions turn out to be a severe limitation which hampers reliable derivations of both modes from our present-day data because we do not cover yet very large angular scales and we still suffer from systematics on very small scales which are not well understood. As pointed out by Pen et al. (2001), the only unambiguous $`E`$ and $`B`$ mode decomposition is carried out by the aperture mass, $`M_{ap}`$:

$$M_{\mathrm{ap}}=_{\theta <\theta _c}\mathrm{d}^2\theta \kappa (\theta )U(\theta ),$$
(4)
where $`\kappa (\theta )`$ is the convergence field, and $`U(\theta )`$ is the zero mass aperture window (Schneider et al., 1998):

$$U(\theta )=\frac{9}{\pi \theta _c^2}\left(1\frac{\theta ^2}{\theta _c^2}\right)\left(\frac{1}{3}\frac{\theta ^2}{\theta _c^2}\right).$$
(5)
This estimator was introduced in Kaiser et al. (1994) to study clusters of galaxies, but it also has an important potential for cosmic shear analysis (Schneider et al., 1998).

$`M_{\mathrm{ap}}^2`$ can be calculated directly from the shear $`\gamma `$ without the need for a mass reconstruction. It can be rewritten as a function of the shear if we express $`\gamma =(\gamma _t,\gamma _r)`$ in the local frame of the line connecting the aperture center to the galaxy. $`M_{\mathrm{ap}}`$ can therefore be expressed as function of $`\gamma _t`$ only (Miralda-Escude, 1991; Kaiser, 1992):

$$M_{\mathrm{ap}}=_{\theta <\theta _c}\mathrm{d}^2\theta \gamma _t(\theta )Q(\theta ),$$
(6)
where the filter $`Q(\theta )`$ is given from $`U(\theta )`$:

$$Q(\theta )=\frac{2}{\theta ^2}_0^\theta d\theta ^{}\theta ^{}U(\theta ^{})U(\theta )$$
(7)
The aperture mass variance is related to the convergence power spectrum (Eq.1)by:

$$M_{\mathrm{ap}}^2=\frac{288}{\pi \theta _c^4}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{d}k}{k^3}P_\kappa (k)[J_4(k\theta _c)]^2.$$
(8)
The $`B`$-mode is obtained by replacing $`\gamma _t`$ with $`\gamma _r`$ in Eq.(6). Although this estimator is robust and does not depend on an unknown integration constant, it is less sensitive to cosmological parameters than the top-hat variance or the shear correlation functions (Van Waerbeke et al., 2001b).

## 3 Measurements

We use the observations done within the VIRMOS-DESCART project 222http://terapix.iap.fr/DESCART by the VIRMOS 333http://www.astrsp-mrs.fr imaging and spectroscopic survey. The data cover an effective area of 8.5 sq.deg. in the I-band, with a limiting magnitude $`m_{I_{AB}}=24.5`$. Technical details of the data set are given in Van Waerbeke et al. (2001b). We applied a bright magnitude cut at $`m_I=21`$ in order to exclude the foreground objects from the source galaxies. The shape of the galaxies are measured and analyzed as described in this paper, to which we refer for technical details.

The location of the $`i`$-th galaxy is given by $`\theta _i`$, the ellipticity by $`𝐞(\theta _i)=(e_1,e_2)`$, and its weight $`w_i`$. The ellipticity is an unbiased estimate of the shear $`\gamma (\theta _i)`$. The quantity measured on the data are the binned tangential and radial shear correlation functions. They are given by a sum over galaxy pairs $`(\theta _i,\theta _j)`$

$`\xi _{tt}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}w_iw_je_t(\theta _i)e_t(\theta _j)}{{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}w_iw_j}}`$
$`\xi _{rr}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}w_iw_je_r(\theta _i)e_r(\theta _j)}{{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}w_iw_j}},`$ (9)
where $`r=|\theta _i\theta _j|`$, and $`(e_t,e_r)`$ are the tangential and radial ellipticities defined in the frame of the line connecting a pair of galaxies.

From Eq.(9), we define $`\xi _+(r)`$ and $`\xi _{}(r)`$ which are respectively the sum and the difference of the two correlation functions:

$$\xi _+(r)=\xi _{tt}(r)+\xi _{rr}(r);\xi _{}(r)=\xi _{tt}(r)\xi _{rr}(r).$$
(10)
Both $`\xi _+(r)`$ and $`\xi _{}(r)`$ are computed from a summation of the correlation function defined in Eq.(10), while the $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes aperture mass are derived by integration of the correlation functions with an appropriate window (see Crittenden et al. (2000) for general derivations and Pen et al. (2001) for a practical application to our filter).

The $`E`$ mode aperture mass is

$$M_{\mathrm{ap}}^2=\pi _0^{2\theta _c}r𝑑r𝒲(r)\xi _+(r)+\pi _0^{2\theta _c}r𝑑r\stackrel{~}{𝒲}(r)\xi _{}(r),$$
(11)
where $`𝒲(r)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒲}(r)`$ are given in Crittenden et al. (2000)444 Useful expressions using similar formalism as this work can be found in Schneider et al. (2001). The $`B`$-mode is obtained by changing the sign of the second term in Eq.(11) (which is equivalent to the $`45`$ degrees rotation test, or else $`\gamma _t\gamma _r`$).

Figure 1 shows the $`E`$ mode (top) and $`B`$ mode (bottom) measured in our galaxy sample. Using the $`B`$-mode measurement, we found the source of the residual systematics at $`34^{}`$ reported by Van Waerbeke et al. (2001b) and Pen et al. (2001): it was caused by the third order polynomial fit to the PSF, which produced wings at the edge of the CCDs. A second order fitting removed most of the unwanted $`B`$ mode contribution without spoiling the $`E`$ mode signal. As shown in Figure 1, the residual systematics are consistent with zero up to 10 arc-minutes and remains flat over the whole angular scale explored by the data. Clearly, the signal is dominated by the $`E`$ mode contribution at least up to 25 arc-minutes. This demonstrates that signal produced by intrinsic alignment of galaxies is not detected at this level.

## 4 Parameter Estimation

### 4.1 Redshift distribution of galaxies in the VIRMOS-DESCART data

We estimated the redshift distribution of our catalogue from a combination of the Hubble Deep Fields North and South data (Fernández-Soto et al., 1999; Chen et al., 1998) and VLT observations of the cluster MS1008-1224. Both HDF and MS1008-1224 observations are much deeper than the cosmic shear sample of galaxies considered in this work, so that magnitude measurements and photometric redshift estimates up to $`I_{AB}=24.5`$ are based on reliable data with high signal-to-noise ratio.

The VLT MS1008-1224 galaxy sample comprises deep $`UBVRI`$ observations, carried out by the Science Verification Team (SVT) at ESO/VLT with the FORS1 and FORS2 instruments (Appenzeller et al., 1998) and deep $`J`$ and $`K`$ data obtained at the ESO/NTT with SOFI (Program 66.A-0316(A); PI Mellier). The extension of early deep SVT observations to U band with FORS2 and more recently to near infrared with SOFI, which has similar field of view as FORS (5.5 arc-minutes against 6.8 arc-minutes), allow us to considerably improve the accuracy of photometric-redshifts of foreground, cluster and background galaxies over the whole field. As compared to HDF the VLT/NTT observations are not as deep, but they provide a much larger sample of galaxies because they cover of field of view 15 times larger than HDF. In total, 920 galaxies having $`I_{AB}24.5`$ and $`UBVRIJK`$ data have been added to HDF data.

The deep $`UBVRI`$ data are described at the ESO site555http://www.hq.eso.org/science/ut1sv  and in Athreya et al. (2002). A complete description of the new $`J`$ and $`K`$ band data will be presented elsewhere (Gavazzi & et al., 2002). In brief, the exposure times of NTT/SOFI $`J`$ and $`K`$ bands were 5h30 and 6h respectively. The completeness limits are $`J=23.`$ and $`K=22.`$ and both $`J`$ and $`K`$ complete samples encompasses more than 90% of the $`I_{AB}24.5`$ galaxies. Hence, most galaxies used for determining the photo-$`z`$ distribution of galaxies up to $`I_{AB}24.5`$ have reliable $`J`$ and $`K`$ photometric measurements to secure a collection of redshift on a very large sample of galaxies, which covers a broad magnitude range homogeneously spread over the whole field. The presence of the lensing cluster ($`z=0.306`$) in the field only affects the redshift range $`0.26<z<0.36`$. These data have been removed from the sample and the redshift distribution interpolated in this redshift range. The magnification bias may also change the redshift distribution of galaxies inside the very center of the cluster where the gravitational depletion is significant (see Athreya et al., 2002). We therefore also removed the central part ($`R<40`$ arc-second) of the cluster from the sample. Since this region is also the most contaminated by the brightest cluster members, the depletion itself turns out to have no impact of the galaxy selection criterion.

The photometric redshifts ($`z_{phot}`$) were measured using the fitting algorithm $`hyperz`$ developed by Bolzonella et al. (2000). Each $`z_{phot}`$ is inferred by comparing the spectral energy distribution of galaxies, as sampled by their $`UBVRIJK`$ photometric flux, to a set of spectral templates representative of common late and early type galaxies which are followed with look-back time according to Bruzual & Charlot’s evolution models (GISSEL98; Bruzual & Charlot, 1993). The validation of $`hyperz`$ is discussed at length in Bolzonella et al. (2000). It has been conclusively gauged against spectroscopic redshift on MS1008-1224 data by Athreya et al. (2002). Details on photometric redshift techniques can be found in those papers.

The compiled photometric distribution is shown on Fig.2. For the purpose of marginalization we parameterize this distribution with the following normalized function:

$$n(z)=\frac{\beta }{z_s\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1+\alpha }{\beta }\right)}\left(\frac{z}{z_s}\right)^\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{z}{z_s}\right)^\beta \right],$$
(12)
where $`\alpha =2`$ and $`\beta =1.2`$. For these values of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, the mean redshift is $`\overline{z}_s2.1z_s`$ and the median redshift is $`1.9z_s`$. We allowed $`z_s`$ to vary from $`0.24`$ to $`0.64`$, which corresponds to a mean redshift varying from $`0.5`$ to $`1.32`$. These two extreme models are shown on Fig.2: they are clearly conservative bounds on the redshift distribution in the data. The curve on Fig.2 shows the best fit model, with $`z_s=0.44`$ ($`\overline{z}_s=0.9`$).

### 4.2 Maximum Likelihood

The dominant cosmological parameters for the 2-point cosmic shear statistics are the mean mass density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, the power spectrum normalization $`\sigma _8`$, the shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the redshift of the sources (see Bernardeau et al., 1997; Jain & Seljak, 1997; van Waerbeke et al., 1999) Our parameter space has therefore four dimensions, but we truncate the exploration volume inside a realistic range defined as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M[0.1,1]`$, $`\sigma _8[0.3,1.6]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[0.05,0.7]`$ with a sampling of $`10\times 14\times 14`$. For the analysis of the VIRMOS-DESCART data, the redshift of sources is parameterized by Eq.(12) with $`z_s[0.24,0.64]`$ and a sampling of $`9`$. For the simulations, the sources are placed at redshift unity, therefore in the maximum likelihood analysis we assumed we knew the shape (Dirac distribution), but we allowed the redshift $`z_s`$ to vary between $`0.7`$ and $`1.2`$ (sampling of $`6`$). In fact we found that the real shape of the source distribution does not matter, but the agreement with the mean redshift does. This parameter range box ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`\sigma _8`$, $`z_s`$) defines what we call the default prior box. The model predictions are then interpolated with an oversampling seven times better in each dimension.

Let $`d_i`$ be the data vector (i.e. the aperture mass $`M_{\mathrm{ap}}^2`$ for different scales $`\theta _i`$), and $`m_i(\mathrm{\Omega }_M,\sigma _8,\mathrm{\Gamma },z_s)`$ the model predictions. The likelihood function of the data is

$$=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^n|𝐂|^{1/2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[(d_im_i)𝐂^1(d_im_i)^T\right],$$
(13)
where $`n=10`$ is the number of scales and $`𝐂`$ is the $`10\times 10`$ covariance matrix,

$$C_{ij}=(d_im_i)^T(d_jm_j).$$
(14)
$`𝐂`$ can be decomposed as $`𝐂=𝐂_n+𝐂_s+𝐂_b`$, where $`𝐂_n`$ is the statistical noise, $`𝐂_s`$ the cosmic variance covariance matrix and $`𝐂_b`$ the residual bias. $`𝐂_n`$ has been measured in Pen et al. (2001), so we just reproduce here its general behavior: the top panel on figure 3 shows the cross-correlation coefficient for $`2`$, $`10`$, and $`35`$ arc-min with the other scales.

In order to account for residual systematics, we decided to add quadratically the residual $`B`$ mode (see the bottom panel in Figure 1) to the error of the signal. Given that there is no clearly identified scheme to deal with the residual systematics yet, this appears to be the safest and most conservative attitude. The diagonal part of the bias correlation matrix $`𝐂_b`$ is therefore given by the $`B`$ mode signal, and the off-diagonal terms follow the same correlation properties as the $`E`$ mode (the $`E`$ and $`B`$ covariance matrices for the statistical noise are actually identical).
The cosmic variance covariance matrix $`𝐂_s`$ is trickier to estimate. Assuming the field is Gaussian is too simplistic, since the observed scales are within the non-linear and weakly non-linear regimes, so in principle a complete description of non-Gaussian contributions to the error budget cannot be carried out without detailed cosmological simulations. In order to avoid this heavy procedure, we focused instead on a simpler alternative based on non-linear perturbation theory. It was pointed out in Scoccimarro et al. (1999) that, for the convergence power spectrum, the ratio of the Gaussian to Non-Gaussian errors is almost independent of scale, and close to $`1`$ for any cosmology. We investigated whether this statement could be also valid in real space, using three ray-tracing simulations for three different cosmological models (Jain et al., 2000).

Figure 4 shows this ratio for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM, $`\tau `$CDM and OCDM. For scales larger than $`3`$ arcmin., it is indeed nearly independent of cosmology. At smaller scales the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model has a larger cosmic variance, but this is not important, since below a few arcminutes statistical noise dominates (see Figure 9). Therefore, although the result in Scoccimarro et al. (1999) is clearly not valid for very small scales, it is still weakly sensitive to cosmology. We then approximated $`𝐂_s`$ in the following way: we compute the Gaussian cosmic variance for each model, then we convert it to a non-Gaussian cosmic variance using the average kurtosis in Figure 4. The cross-correlation coefficient is taken from the ray-tracing simulations. The different scales are rather correlated, as shown on Figure 3 (bottom panel). As we shall see in Figure 9, even a wrong estimate of the cosmic variance by a factor of two has no consequences on our parameter estimate, given that the errors are dominated by $`𝐂_n`$ and $`𝐂_b`$.

## 5 Applications

We now apply the likelihood analysis to simulated sky images and to the VIRMOS-DESCART data.

### 5.1 Mock catalogues

The mock catalogues are generated from simulated sky images following the procedure described in (Erben et al., 2001) a simulated catalogue of galaxies is first lensed and then used to generate a CCD image of the sky. But instead of having a constant shear amplitude on each field, the distortion of galaxies is introduced using ray-tracing simulations (Jain et al., 2000)

As for real sky surveys, the mock catalogues contain the following features

* galaxy intrinsic shape fluctuations;
* masks;
* noise from galaxy shape measurements and systematics from PSF corrections ,

and the simulated images reproduce similar observational conditions as real data (PSF anisotropy, limiting magnitude, luminosity functions, galaxy and star number densities, intrinsic ellipticity…). The simulated galaxies are then analyzed exactly in the same way as real data, following the procedure described in (Van Waerbeke et al., 2000, 2001b)

We used two ray-tracing simulations from Jain et al. (2000): one is OCDM, as described in Section 3, and the other is a $`\tau `$CDM with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.21`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$. For each simulation we produced $`11`$ square degrees of simulated sky images containing roughly $`30`$ galaxies per arcmin2, with a pixel size of $`0.2`$ arcsec. Figure 5 compare the star anisotropy between the simulated fields (solid line) and the data (dashed line). The likelihood function is computed for 11760 models ($`10\times 14\times 14\times 6`$). Figure 6 shows the results for the maximum likelihood analysis of these two simulation sets. We clearly converge to the right cosmological model, which validates our likelihood approach for the data (see Section 5.2). However, we should point out here that the likelihood method assumes that our theoretical predictions are accurate compared to the precision of the measurements. Our simulations shows this is unfortunately not necessarily the case with today’s lensing data sets. For instance, it was shown in Van Waerbeke et al. (2001a) (Figure 2), that the non-linear predictions fails badly for the aperture mass with a $`\tau `$CDM model. This failure should not be a surprise: it was already noticed in the projected power spectrum in Jain et al. (2000) (Figure 8), and even the VIRGO simulations (see Jenkins et al., 1998, Figure 7) already noticed a mismatch between the 3D non-linear predictions and the measured power spectrum. In the case of our $`\tau `$CDM simulation, the potential problem is an overestimate of the power spectrum normalization $`\sigma _8`$. This is illustrated in Figure 7 where we compare the measured power to the Peacock & Dodds prediction for that model. With a smaller statistical error and/or residual bias and cosmic variance, the true model with $`\sigma _8=0.6`$ will become excluded from our $`3\sigma `$ contours in the right panel of figure 6. In fact a maximum likelihood analysis on the noise free catalogue would give $`\sigma _8=0.8`$, that is $`20\%`$ larger than the true $`\sigma _8`$, which corresponds to the lack of power in the predicted non-linear signal. We will get back to a more detailed discussion in Section 6 about this problem.

### 5.2 VIRMOS-DESCART data

We first consider flat cosmologies, since this is the class of models currently favored by the cosmic microwave background measurements (de Bernardis et al., 2000), but alternative open universes are also investigated. In either case, the likelihood function is computed for 17640 ($`10\times 14\times 14\times 9`$) models using Eq.(8), as a function of angular scale, and for a regular spacing in the default prior box.

Figure 8 shows the four parameters constraints for different priors and marginalized parameters for the flat cosmology. The dashed lines shows the $`68\%`$, $`95\%`$ and $`99.9\%`$ contours when the default prior is applied for the two remaining parameters. We cannot extract strong constraints in that case, but the right panel shows an interesting tendency between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`z_s`$: a flat power spectrum (large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) can account for an underestimated source redshift. The thick solid curves shows the same contours with a stronger prior: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`z_s`$ are marginalized over $`[0.1,0.4]`$ and $`[0.39,0.54]`$ for the left panel, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ are marginalized over $`[0.1,0.4]`$ and $`[0.7,1.3]`$ for the right panel. We obtain the following constraint from the left panel:

$$\sigma _8=\left(0.57\pm 0.04\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_M^{\left(0.240.18\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.49},$$
(15)
for the $`68\%`$ level and

$$\sigma _8=\left(0.58\pm 0.13\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_M^{\left(0.2050.025\right)\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.48}$$
(16)
for the $`95\%`$ contour. Constraints on the mass power spectrum can be obtained from the right panel if one assume that photometric redshifts provide the exact redshift distribution (which is given by $`z_s=0.44`$). In that case we have $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[0.12,0.38]`$.

Figure 9 shows the aperture mass measurements with all the models inside the $`68\%`$ contours as the shaded area. The error bars show the contribution the three errors as a function of scale. Each set of errors shows 3 bars, which from left to right are: statistical noise, bias added, cosmic variance added. We see that the statistical noise dominates at small scale, while the systematic residuals dominate at larger scales, the cosmic variance is never an important contribution.

It is interesting at this stage to compare our results with measurements from other surveys. A comparison with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraints reveals that weak lensing will be helpfull to break the degeneracy between $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Recently, Lahav et al. (2001) have shown CMB estimation of these two parameters, assuming that the Hubble constant is a Gaussian variable centered at $`h=0.7`$ with an r.m.s. of $`0.07`$, and fixing other parameters (primordial spectral index $`n=1`$, baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.02`$ and reionization depth $`\tau =0`$). Their results are shown as the solid lines on Figure 11. An overlay of our constraints on the same plot (dashed lines) show that a combination of CMB and lensing would favorise low density models ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.30.4`$) and rather low normalisation ($`\sigma _80.70.8`$). This plot reveals that the lensing constraints are almost orthogonal to the CMB constraints. As explained in Lahav et al. (2001), a weaker prior on $`h`$ would extend the CMB contours and restore the degeneracy between $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\sigma _8`$, making $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$ a viable solution again. But we see that lensing rules out such a solution because $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M1`$ with $`\sigma _8>0.8`$ is excluded. Given that CMB alone predicts a flat Universe, the inconsistency between CMB and lensing for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$ should be interpreted as in favor of a non-zero cosmological constant. The fact that CMB and lensing have oposite constraints in the ($`\sigma _8`$,$`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$) parameter space make them indeed very complementary. A complete analysis which take into account the marginalization over the other parameters (baryon density, $`\tau `$, etc…) is under way. However, we should note the agreement between our results and the combined CMB+2dF contraints (Lahav et al., 2001, Figure 5).

We should also compare our results more closely to the cluster normalization constraints, since those two methods are expected to probe a similar combination of $`\sigma _8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Figure 10 shows our results and those obtained from cluster measurements. As it was claimed before (Maoli et al., 2001; Van Waerbeke et al., 2001b; Rhodes et al., 2001), a joint estimate of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ from weak lensing is consistent with the former cluster abundance estimates (Pen, 1998; Pierpaoli et al., 2001). Recently, these estimates were revisited but the new results are puzzling (see Figure 10): whereas Seljak (2001) is marginaly consistent with our constraints, on the other hand, Viana et al. (2001) is significantly lower. Pen (1998) performed direct hydrodynamic simulations to predict the cluster X-ray temperature function for various cosmological models. This bypasses the difficult mass ladder, of converting N-body or Press-Schechter mass functions into a temperature function, and/or accounting for scatters in the relation, and the results are in good agreement with the cosmic shear constraints. However, some effects that may still not be accounted for in simulations include non-gravitational feedback from galaxies, magnetic fields, thermal conduction, which may all limit the intrinsic accuracy of cluster normalizations. We will not enter into the debate between the cluster estimates here, but if the low normalization is confirmed, this discrepancy might be an important finding: it might be an indication of the inaccuracy of the non-linear predictions, as shown in Section 5.1.

The maximum likelihood analysis was also carried out for open cosmologies. The probability contours shown in Figure 12 summarize the results which are indeed similar to the flat case. However, low density ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M<0.2`$), open universes, seem more difficult to reconcile with the data than flat models. This contradiction between observations and low density open universe results mostly from the small scale measurement of $`M_{ap}^2`$ (Figure 9). Indeed, low density open universes predict too much power at small scale as compared to what can be allowed from the amplitude of $`M_{ap}^2`$ on scale of about one arc-minute. This clear difference between open and flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universes was already pointed out by Schneider et al. (1998) (Fig. 3) but this is the first time that it manifests on real data.

Finally, although uncertainties are still large enough to leave room for a large sample of models, it is interesting to show how cosmic shear data can be used jointly with several independent surveys (not only CMB). Because weak lensing analyses probe dark matter in a direct way, cosmic shear are the best suited surveys to constrain $`\sigma _8`$. It is then relevant to only focus on this parameter, using values of other cosmological parameters as they are derived from external data sets. Assuming the mean redshift of sources is $`z_s=0.9`$ and $`h=0.7\pm 0.1`$ (Freedman et al., 2001, from the HST Key Project), a flat universe (from CMB data) with a baryon fraction inferred from BBN and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2\pm 0.05`$ (Szalay et al., 2002, from the SDSS redshift survey), we then have $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.3\pm 0.1`$. In that case, the VIRMOS-DESCART cosmic shear survey provide $`\sigma _8=0.98\pm 0.06`$, in good agreement with other independent methods. As compared to the join CMB-cosmic shear alone discussed previously, the normalisation is higher. This is mainly due to the low $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ (i.e. high $`\sigma _8`$) combined with a strong prior on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (inferred from the galaxy redshift survey) and on the source redshift.

## 6 Conclusion

We explored a 4-dimensional parameter space using the most recent cosmic shear data. We included all possible sources of error: statistical noise, cosmic variance and residual systematics. We obtained constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, the power spectrum slope $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, its normalization $`\sigma _8`$ and the redshift of the sources $`z_s`$. We marginalized over $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`z_s`$. Both the marginalization, and the inclusion of all the sources of error, make our results for $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_M,\sigma _8)`$ robust. We pointed out the complementarity between cosmic shear and CMB measurements for breaking the degeneracy among $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\sigma _8`$, and the good agreement with CMB and CMB+2dF constraints. However, our results are only in marginal agreement with the latest cluster abundance constraints, which give a lower normalization $`\sigma _80.7`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.3`$. If this discrepancy is confirmed in either measurements, this could be interpreted as an indication that the lensing non-linear prediction is not accurate enough given the already small size of cosmic shear errors. This interpretation is supported by ray-tracing simulations in a $`\tau `$CDM model, and more generaly by a comparison of the VIRGO simulations with the Peacock & Dodds non-linear prescription. It was claimed a $`15\%`$ accuracy in their original paper (Peacock & Dodds, 1996), although it might be a bit more for some cosmological models (Jenkins et al., 1998). This is clearly the maximum uncertainty we can tolerate with today’s lensing measurements, and it will be insufficient for forthcoming surveys. This potential problem suggests three paths for improvements:

1. Ray-tracing simulations should be used more intensively to test non-linear schemes. So far, simple ray-tracing have been performed, by putting all the sources at a single redshift ($`z_s=1`$), although in principle we should expect a redshift dependence of the non-linear predictions failure (because different physical scales are probes for a varying redshift, for a fixed angular scale).
2. Progress on the theory side should be done. There might be some hope by reviving the halo models which give predictions close, but not identical, to Peacock & Dodds (like the peakpatch approach, Bond, priv. comm.).
3. Ultimately, cosmic shear observations will lead to a measurement of the 3D mass power spectrum in non-parametric way, and therefore solve all the problems associated with non-linear modeling. This is possible only if the cosmological parameters are determined by other means. For instance, the linear mass power spectrum and cosmological parameters measurement at large scales using combined (or not) lensing data with cosmic microwave background, X-rays, could be obtained, and used to deconvolve the non-linear power spectrum. This means that we will be able to deconvolve the projected mass power spectrum measured from cosmic shear observations and recover the true 3D power spectrum. This is a work in progress, in which we are trying to recover the galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-mass correlations as well, using tomography techniques (Hu, 1999).

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Dmitri Pogosyan and Carlo Contaldi for useful discussions maximum likelihood techniques and Peter Schneider and Henk Hoekstra for discussions and comments on the manuscript. Discussions with Roman Scoccimarro on the Peacock & Dodds prescription were also very useful. We thank the VIRMOS and Terapix teams who got and processed the VIRMOS-DESCART data. This work was supported by the TMR Network “Gravitational Lensing: New Constraints on Cosmology and the Distribution of Dark Matter” of the EC under contract No. ERBFMRX-CT97-0172. YM thanks CITA for hospitality.


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# A model for time-dependent cosmological constant and its consistency with the present Friedmann universe

## I Introduction

The idea of a varying cosmological constant is not new but has been systematically examined in the last two decades Overduin . In particular, with the advent of the inflation mechanism and with the difficulties related to the graceful exit problem Kaloper , various authors were forced to consider $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as ground state of a scalar theory Ellis . However, we may say that the first concrete mechanism for a varying $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ was proposed by Dolgov Dolgov  based on a nominimally coupled scalar field. A sequence of other papers come afterwards, but all of them also based on scalar fields Ozer .

In a previous work Novello  we have presented a different model for a time dependent cosmological “constant” based on gauge fields where its origin was related to a possible quantum scenario of the initial evolution of the universe. This was achieved by showing that the chiral gauge anomaly could be conveniently adapted in order to generate a cosmological constant. In this way, the presence of this term today would be a reminiscence of that initial quantum behavior of the universe.

In the present paper, we are going to consider a particular scenario where the geometry is initially Bianchi-like (spatially homogeneous but anisotropic) Belinsky . We show that the evolution obtained from the Einstein equations in the presence of the cosmological term (as well as the Maxwell one) leads to an asymptotic solution that is compatible with the Friedmann universe Weinberg ; Novello2 .

Our paper is organized as follow. In Sec. II we review the general features of the model. The application is done in Sec. III. In Sec. IV we deal with the solution of the particular Einstein equations. We left Sec. V for some concluding remarks and introduce an Appendix to show some details of the calculations.

## II Review of the model

Let us consider an action with the following general form Novello

$$S_\mathrm{\Lambda }=d^4x\sqrt{g}Y(𝒢)$$
(2.1)
where $`g`$ is the determinant of the metric tensor and $`Y`$ is some function of an invariant quantity $`𝒢`$ which is constructed in terms of a gauge field strength $`G_{\mu \nu }^\mathrm{a}`$ and its dual $`{}_{}{}^{}G_{\mu \nu }^{\mathrm{a}}=\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }G^{\mathrm{a}\rho \lambda }`$ as

$$𝒢=^{}G^{a\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }^a$$
(2.2)
We are using the following definition for $`\eta _{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }`$

$$\eta _{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }=\sqrt{g}ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }$$
(2.3)
Consequently,

$$\eta ^{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }$$
(2.4)
where $`ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }`$ and $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }`$ are the usual Levi-Civita tensor densities ($`ϵ_{0123}=1`$).

The variation of $`S_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with respect the metric tensor leads to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4x\left(\frac{\delta \sqrt{g}}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}Y+\sqrt{g}\frac{dY}{d𝒢}\frac{\delta 𝒢}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\right)}`$ (2.5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^4x\left(\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{g}g_{\mu \nu }Y+\sqrt{g}\frac{dY}{d𝒢}\frac{1}{2}𝒢g_{\mu \nu }\right)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{dY}{d𝒢}𝒢Y\right)g_{\mu \nu }}`$
We then observe that the action $`S_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ contributes to the energy-momentum tensor with a term that is proportional to the metric tensor. This is interpreted in the Einstein General Relativity theory as a spacetime dependent cosmological constant,

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{dY}{d𝒢}𝒢Y$$
(2.6)
For a question of simplicity, we shall consider the field strength of the Maxwell electromagnetic theory, where there is a natural realization of this model coming from the chiral gauge anomaly. For instance, from the path integral formalism of quantum matter and gauge fields in a classical curved background one obtains to the following effective actionBirrell ; Novello3

$`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\alpha (x)\eta ^{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\rho \lambda }}`$ (2.7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\alpha (x)𝒢}`$
where $`\theta `$ is a constant and $`\alpha (x)`$ is the gauge parameter related to the chiral gauge transformation.

The manner in which the effective action above is presented it is not appopriated to be directly related to $`S_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. This is so because since it is linear in $`𝒢`$ and cannot generate a cosmological term $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, as can be verified in Eq. (2.6). However, this problem can be circumvented by conveniently taking the generic function $`\alpha (x)`$ of the action (2.7) as $`𝒢^p`$, where $`p`$ is, at first, any rational number 111The way of circumventing this problem here is slightly different of the original paper Novello . There, we have redefined the gauge field in order to incorporate a nonlinearity of $`𝒢`$.. In this way, the cosmological action $`S_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ turns to be

$$S_\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{\theta }{4}d^4x\sqrt{g}𝒢^{p+1}$$
(2.8)
We observe that for $`p=1`$ we have an actual cosmological constant in the Einstein equation.

The next natural step is to consider this idea in some cosmological model in order to see the way that the cosmological term, coming from Eq. (2.8), modifies the dynamics of the Einstein equation.

## III Application of the model

Let us start from the general action

$`S={\displaystyle }d^4x\sqrt{g}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa }}R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\theta (F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu })^{p+1}`$
$`+i\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu (_\mu ieA_\mu )\psi ]`$ (3.1)
The equations of motion $`\delta S/\delta g^{\mu \nu }=0`$, $`\delta S/\delta A^\mu =0`$, and $`\delta S/\delta \psi =0`$ lead respectively to

$`G_{\mu \nu }=F_{\mu \alpha }F_\nu ^\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}g_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta }`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{p\theta }{2}}g_{\mu \nu }(F_{\alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta })^{p+1}+T_{\mu \nu }^\psi `$ (3.2)
$`F_{;\nu }^{\mu \nu }(p+1)\theta \left[(F_{\alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta })^p\right]_{,\nu }F^{\mu \nu }`$
$`=e\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu \psi `$ (3.3)
$`\gamma ^\mu \left(_\mu ieA_\mu \right)\psi =0`$ (3.4)
where $`G_{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R`$ is the Einstein tensor and the constant $`\kappa `$ of (3.1) was taken $`1`$. In the obtainment of Eq. (3.3) it was used the (Bianchi) identity

$$F_{;\nu }^{\mu \nu }=0$$
(3.5)
We shall consider that $`F^{\mu \nu }=F^{\mu \nu }(t)`$. So, taking $`\nu =0`$ in Eq. (3.3), as well as $`\mu =0`$, we get

$`\overline{\psi }\gamma ^0\psi =\psi ^{}\psi =0`$ (3.6)
$``$ $`\psi =0`$
From Eq. (3.5) we also have that only $`F^{i0}`$ can be obtained. Using the Bianchi-like metric

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)dx^2b^2(t)(dy^2+dz^2)$$
(3.7)
and just taking that $`F^{10}0`$, we have

$`F_{;0}^{01}=0`$ (3.8)
$``$ $`\sqrt{g}F_{;0}^{01}=0`$
$``$ $`\left(\sqrt{g}F^{01}\right)_{,0}=0`$
$``$ $`\sqrt{g}F^{01}=constant`$
$``$ $`F^{01}={\displaystyle \frac{B_0}{ab^2}}`$
where, in the last step, the constant was identified as $`B_0`$ and we have used the metric given by (3.7). From this result and using Eq. (2.4) we directly infer that

$$F_{23}=B_0$$
(3.9)
However, the solution for $`F^{10}`$ depends on $`p`$. In fact, taking $`\nu =0`$ and $`\mu =1`$ in Eq. (3.3) and using the results given by (3.6) and (3.8), we obtain

$$ab^2F^{10}+(p+1)\theta B_0^{p+1}\left(\frac{2aF^{10}}{b^2}\right)^p=E_0$$
(3.10)
where $`E_0`$ was chosen to identify the constant that appears in the solution of the corresponding differential equation.

Our goal from now on is to look for if there exists some value of $`p`$ that renders a consistent solution for the Einstein equations (3.2) having in mind the Friedmann behavior of the present universe. This will be the subject of next section. We conclude the present section by emphasizing the importance of the Maxwell term, $`\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }`$, into the initial action (3.1). Without it, the only possible solution of (3.3) would just be an actually constant. Indeed, taking $`\psi =0`$ and $`\nu =0`$ in Eq. (3.3), we get

$$F_{;0}^{i0}(p+1)\theta \left[(F_{\alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta })^p\right]_{,0}F^{i0}=0$$
(3.11)
where the first term of the expression above comes from the Maxwell term. We then observe that without it we would obtain that $`(F_{\alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta })^p`$ should be a constant for $`p1`$ \[for $`p=1`$, the cosmological term is also a constant according to(2.8)\].

## IV Particular solution of the Einstein equation

We have seen that to avoid an actual cosmological constant and the trivial case without any cosmological term, $`p`$ cannot have the values zero and minus one, respectively (and the Maxwell term has to be present in the Lagrangian). In order to have a general view of the physical behavior of the Einstein solution with the value of $`p`$, let us initially choose $`p=1`$. This corresponds to one of the simplest solution of Eq. (3.10), that is

$$F^{10}=\frac{E_0b^2}{a(b^4+4\theta B_0^2)}$$
(4.1)
Combining this result with the ones given by (3.6), (3.8), and (3.9), we obtain that the Einstein equation (3.2) leads to

$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{E_0^2b^4}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}\right]`$ (4.2)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2\theta E_0^2B_0^2}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}`$
$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{E_0^2b^4}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}\right]`$ (4.3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\theta E_0^2B_0^2}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{E_0^2b^4}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}\right]`$ (4.4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\theta E_0^2B_0^2}{(b^4+2\theta B_0)^2}}`$
We observe that the term related to the cosmological constant has a behavior of $`b^8`$ when $`b`$ goes to infinity (the behavior of the radiation term is with $`b^4`$). Consequently, the cosmological term should disappear before the radiation era, what is not consistent with the Friedmann universe, where $`a=b`$ (notice that it is the Maxwell term which does not permit to have $`a=b`$ in the last two equations).

From the above results, it is not difficult to conclude that possible values of $`p`$ that should be compatible with this asymptotic behavior must stay between zero and minus one. However, for these values of $`p`$, the solution of Eq. (3.10) is not so direct as in the previous case. For example, taking $`p=1/2`$, where Eq. (3.10) becomes a cubic equation with one real root that is given by (see Appendix A)

$$F^{10}=\frac{B_0}{2a}\left(\frac{\theta }{2bB_0}\right)^{\frac{2}{3}}\left\{\left[1\left(1\frac{32E_0^3}{27\theta ^2B_0b^4}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\right]^{\frac{1}{3}}+\left[1+\left(1\frac{32E_0^3}{27\theta ^2B_0b^4}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\right]^{\frac{1}{3}}\right\}^2$$
(4.5)
For $`\theta 0`$, the terms $`32E_0^3/27\theta ^2b^4B_0`$ is $`1`$ as $`b\mathrm{}`$. Making appropriate expansions in the above relation, we obtain the following asymptotic and simpler solution for $`F^{10}`$,

$$F^{10}=\frac{1}{2a}\left(\frac{\theta ^2B_0}{b^2}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}$$
(4.6)
With this approximation, the Einstein equations read

$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\right]`$ (4.7)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4\sqrt{2}b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}`$
$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\right]`$ (4.8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4\sqrt{2}b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{b^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\right]`$ (4.9)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{4\sqrt{2}b}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta B_0^2}{b}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}`$
Now, the cosmological term behaves as $`b^{\frac{4}{3}}`$, that decay slower than the previous $`b^4`$ of the radiation term. However, there is also a term with the behavior of $`b^{\frac{4}{3}}`$ in the Maxwell counterpart and this last term avoids the obtainment of a Friedmann behavior we are looking for.

From this analysis, we see that the solution of (3.10) leads to a behavior for the cosmological term that is lower than $`b^4`$ for $`1<p<0`$. However, there is also a term with this behavior in the Maxwell counterpart. What may happen is that, depending on the value of $`p`$, one term may dominate relatively to the other. To see if this actually occurs we need to know the solution of (3.10) for a general $`p`$ (between zero and minus one). Of course, this is not an easy task. However, we observe that the asymptotic solution for $`F^{10}`$ given by (4.6) could have been directly inferred from (3.10) by discarding the constant term $`E_0`$. It is then easily seen that any asymptotic solution for any $`p`$ between zero and minus one can be obtained in the same way. The result is

$$F^{10}=\frac{1}{2a}\left[2(1+p)\theta \left(\frac{B_0}{b^2}\right)^{1+p}\right]^{\frac{1}{1p}}$$
(4.10)
which is in agreement with (4.6) if one takes $`p=1/2`$. We should not worry about the minus sign inside the $`\frac{1}{1p}`$-root of equation above because $`F^{10}`$ always appears squared in the calculations of significant quantities. Now, the obtainment of the Einstein equations is just a matter of algebraic work. The result is (we conveniently put the two terms with the same behavior for higher $`b`$ together)

$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2={\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{2b^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p2^p}{1+p}}+1\right)\left[2^{\frac{3p1}{2}}(1+p)\theta \left({\displaystyle \frac{B_0}{b^2}}\right)^{1+p}\right]^{\frac{2}{1p}}`$ (4.11)
$`2{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2={\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{2b^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p2^p}{1+p}}+1\right)\left[2^{\frac{3p1}{2}}(1+p)\theta \left({\displaystyle \frac{B_0}{b^2}}\right)^{1+p}\right]^{\frac{2}{1p}}`$ (4.12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}\dot{b}}{ab}}={\displaystyle \frac{B_0^2}{2b^4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p2^p}{1+p}}1\right)\left[2^{\frac{3p1}{2}}(1+p)\theta \left({\displaystyle \frac{B_0}{b^2}}\right)^{1+p}\right]^{\frac{2}{1p}}`$ (4.13)
where in the terms that appear $`(\frac{p2^p}{1+p}+1)`$ or $`(\frac{p2^p}{1+p}1)`$, the first part comes from the cosmological term and the other one from the Maxwell counterpart. We then observe that as $`p`$ is closed to minus one the cosmological term is more and more dominant and, consequently, the solution tends more and more to the Friedmann scenario. In the limit case of $`p=1`$, the Maxwell term disappears, and just remains an actual cosmological constant as it had already been pointed out in the beginning.

## V Conclusion

In this paper we have analyzed further the recent proposalNovello  of a cosmological scenario in which the cosmological “constant” is spacetime dependent and whose origin is related to a primordial era, supposed dominated by quantum effects.

In order to see if this model is actually compatible with the observable universe, where the anisotropy rate is considerable low \[like Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRD)\], we leave a parameter free ($`p`$) in the theory. We conclude that it can vary from minus one to zero, where these limits mean an actual cosmological constant and no cosmological term, respectively. We have show that as $`p`$ is closed to minus one as the solution is compatible with the Friedmann scenario.

A next natural step in this research line is to look for the solution of the Einstein equations (4.11) - (4.13). We are presently work in this problem and possible results shall be reported elsewhere Novello4 .

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq (Brazilian Research Agency). One of us, J.B.-N. has also the support of PRONEX 66.2002/1998-9.

## Appendix A Solution of (3.10) for p=-1/2

The Eq. (3.10) for $`p=1/2`$ reads

$$ab^2F^{10}+\frac{\theta b}{2}\sqrt{\frac{B_0}{2aF^{10}}}=E_0$$
(A.1)
This expression can be written in a cubic equation whose general form is

$$u^3+a_1u^2+a_2u+a_3=0$$
(A.2)
where

$`u`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2aF^{10}}{B_0}}}`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2E_0}{B_0b^2}}`$
$`a_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{B_0b}}`$ (A.3)
From the discriminant relation

$$D=Q^3+R^2$$
(A.4)
where

$`Q={\displaystyle \frac{3a_2a_1^2}{9}}={\displaystyle \frac{2E_0}{3B_0b^2}}`$ (A.5)
$`R={\displaystyle \frac{9a_1a_227a_32a_1^3}{54}}={\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2B_0b}}`$ (A.6)
we obtain

$$D=\frac{8E_0^3}{27B_0^3b^6}+\frac{\theta ^2}{4B_0^2b^2}$$
(A.7)
We observe that in the region for higher $`b`$, $`D`$ is positive (for $`\theta 0`$). Consequently, just one root is real for this region and it is given by

$$u=S+T\frac{a_1}{3}$$
(A.8)
where

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt[3]{R+\sqrt{D}}`$
$`T`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt[3]{R\sqrt{D}}`$ (A.9)
The combination of (A.6) - (A.9) leads to the solution given by (4.5).


text:
# Electroproduction of Charmonia off Nuclei

## 1 Introduction

In contrast to hadro-production of charmonia, where the elementary production vertex is still debated, electro(photo)production of charmonia seems well understood: the $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation of the incoming real or virtual photon interacts with the target (proton or nucleus) via the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ and the result is projected on the wave function of the observed hadron. In the $`\gamma ^{}p\mathrm{\Psi }p`$ reaction only the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ and the wave function of the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ enter ($`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ stands for $`J/\psi `$ or $`\psi ^{}`$). In comparing calculations with experiment (which fortunately are rather precise and cover a wide range of values $`s`$ and $`Q^2`$ of the incoming $`\gamma ^{}`$), various parameterizations of the dipole cross section and the wave function have been successfully tested . In the exclusive electroproduction of charmonia $`\gamma ^{}A\mathrm{\Psi }X`$, where $`X=A`$ (coherent) or $`X=A^{}`$ (incoherent, where $`A^{}`$ is an exited state of the $`A`$-nucleon system) new phenomena are to be expected: color filtering, i.e. inelastic interactions of the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair on its way through the nucleus is expected to lead to a suppression of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production relative to $`A\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p\mathrm{\Psi }p}`$. Since the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ also depends on the gluon distribution in the target ($`p`$ of $`A`$), nuclear shadowing of the gluon distribution is expected to reduce $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ in a nuclear reaction relative to the one on the proton. Production of a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair in a nucleus and its absorption are also determined by the values of the coherence length $`l_c`$ and the formation length $`l_f`$.

Explicit calculations have already been performed in  in the approximation of a short coherence (or production) length, when one can treat the creation of the colorless $`c\overline{c}`$ pair as instantaneous,

$$l_c=\frac{2\nu }{M_{c\overline{c}}^2}\frac{2\nu }{M_{J/\psi }^2}R_A,$$
(1)
where $`\nu `$ is the energy of the virtual photon in the rest frame of the nucleus. At the same time, the formation length may be long, comparable with the nuclear radius $`R_A`$,

$$l_f=\frac{2\nu }{M_\psi ^{}^2M_{J/\psi }^2}R_A.$$
(2)
In  the wave function formation is described by means of the light-cone Green function approach summing up all possible paths of the $`c\overline{c}`$ in the nucleus. The result has been unexpected. Contrary to naive expectation, based on the larger size of the $`\psi ^{}`$ compared to $`J/\psi `$, it has been found that $`\psi ^{}`$ is not more strongly absorbed than the $`J/\psi `$, but may even be enhanced by the nuclear medium. This is interpreted as an effect of filtering which is easy to understand in the limit of long coherence length, $`l_fR_A`$, when the ratio of cross sections on nuclear and nucleon targets take the simple form. Indeed, the production rate of $`\psi ^{}`$ on a proton target is small due to strong cancellations in the projection of the produced $`c\overline{c}`$ wave packet onto the radial wave function of the $`\psi ^{}`$ which has a node. After propagation through nuclear matter the transverse size of a $`c\overline{c}`$ wave packet is squeezed by absorption and the projection of the $`\psi ^{}`$ wave function is enhanced since the effect of the node is reduced.

However, the quantitative predictions of  are not trustable since the calculations have been oversimplified and quite some progress has been made on the form of the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ and the light cone wave functions for the charmonia. Therefore we take the problem up again and provide more realistic calculations for nuclear effects in exclusive electroproduction of charmonia off nuclei relying on the successful parameter free calculations which have been performed recently by the authors  for elastic virtual photoproduction of charmonia, $`\gamma ^{}p\mathrm{\Psi }p`$. Since the present paper is a direct follow up of  we do not repeat all definitions and notations, but rather request the reader to consult  for more details.

Whenever one deals with high-energy reactions on nuclei, one cannot avoid another problem of great importance: gluon shadowing. At small values of $`x`$, gluon clouds overlap in longitudinal direction and may fuse. As a result, the gluon density per one nucleon in a nucleus is expected to be reduced compared to a free proton. Parton shadowing, which leads to an additional nuclear suppression in various hard reactions (DIS, DY, heavy flavor, high-$`p_T`$ hadrons, etc.) may be especially strong for exclusive vector meson production like charmonium production which needs at least two gluon exchange. Unfortunately, we have no experimental information for gluon shadowing in nuclei so far, and we have to rely on the available theoretical estimates .

In the present paper we work in the approximation of long coherence time $`l_cR_A`$ since calculations can be done with great confidence. Only recently  the light-cone (LC) dipole approach has been generalized also for the case of a finite coherence length, relevant for the vast majority of available data. However, because of technical difficulties those calculations employ the $`r_T^2`$ shape of the dipole cross section. It is still a challenge to perform calculations with a realistic dipole cross section for the regime of finite coherence length. Nevertheless, we make corrections for finite values of $`l_c`$ employing the approximation suggested in .

The predictions in this paper are meant as a realistic basis for the planning of future experiments for electron-nucleus collisions at high energies like in the eRHIC project. It would be highly desirable to have good data in order to test the assumptions and ingredients which have entered the calculation and which are important aspects of modern strong interaction many-body physics. Furthermore, progress in the understanding of charmonium electroproduction will also have important consequences for hadroproduction.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces some notations and the most important definitions and expressions. Then the integrated cross sections for coherent and incoherent charmonia production are calculated as function of $`s`$ and $`Q^2`$ of the virtual photon and the results are presented as a ratio to $`A`$-times the cross sections on a proton. In the following two sections, two important modifications are introduced. The effect of gluon shadowing in the dipole cross section (Section 3) and the case of finite values of $`l_c`$ ($`l_cR_A`$) (Section 4). Appendix A describes some very useful calculational procedures, which considerably increase the accuracy and the speed of numerical calculations.

## 2  Shadowing and absorption for $`𝒄\overline{𝒄}`$ pairs in nuclei

Exclusive charmonium production off nuclei, $`\gamma ^{}A\mathrm{\Psi }X`$ is called coherent, when the nucleus remains intact, i.e. $`X=A`$, or incoherent, when $`X`$ is an excited nuclear state which contains nucleons and nuclear fragments but no other hadrons. The cross sections depend on the polarization $`ϵ`$ of the virtual photon (in all figures below we will imply $`ϵ=1`$),

$$\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)=\sigma ^{\gamma _T^{}A}(s,Q^2)+ϵ\sigma ^{\gamma _L^{}A}(s,Q^2),$$
(3)
where the indexes $`T,L`$ correspond to transversely or longitudinally polarized photons, respectively.

The cross section for exclusive production of charmonia off a nucleon target integrated over momentum transfer  is given by

$$\sigma _{inc}^{\gamma _{T,L}^{}N}(s,Q^2)=\left|\mathrm{\Psi }\left|\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)\right|\gamma _{c\overline{c}}^{T,L}\right|^2,$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r}_T,\alpha )`$ is the charmonium LC wave function which depends on the transverse $`c\overline{c}`$ separation $`\stackrel{}{r}_T`$ and on the relative sharing $`\alpha `$ of longitudinal momentum . Both variables are involved in the integration in the matrix element Eq. (4). $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r}_T,\alpha )`$ is obtained by means of a Lorentz boost applied the solutions of the Schrödinger equation. This procedure involves the Melosh spin rotation  which produces sizable effects.

In Eq. (4) $`\gamma _{c\overline{c}}^{T,L}(\stackrel{}{r}_T,\alpha ,Q^2)`$ is the LC wave function of the $`c\overline{c}`$ Fock component of the photon. It depends on the photon virtuality $`Q^2`$. One can find the details in Ref.  including the effects of a nonperturbative $`q\overline{q}`$ interaction.

The cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)`$ describes the interaction of a colorless quark-antiquark dipole of separation $`r_T`$ and c.m. energy squared $`s`$ with a nucleon. At small values of $`r_T`$ the energy dependence should come in the combination $`x1/(r_T^2s)`$ in order to respect Bjorken scaling. A simple parameterization of $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,x)`$ suggested in  (GBW) well describes the data for $`F_2^p(x,Q^2)`$ at small $`x`$ and high $`Q^2`$. At low $`Q^2`$, however, the energy variable $`s`$ is more appropriate. A parameterization for $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)`$ suggested in  (KST) describes DIS data only up to $`Q^210\text{GeV}^2`$ which is a scale relevant for charmonia. Since we cannot see why one parameterization should be better than the other, we calculate results for both parameterizations as has been done in .

The cross sections for coherent and incoherent production on nuclei will be derived under various conditions imposed by the coherence length Eq. (1). At high energies the coherence length Eq. (1) may substantially exceed the nuclear radius. In this case the transverse size of the $`c\overline{c}`$ wave packet is “frozen” by Lorentz time dilation, i.e. it does not fluctuate during propagation through the nucleus, and the expressions for the cross sections, incoherent ($`inc`$) or coherent ($`coh`$), are particularly simple ,

$`\sigma _{inc}^{\gamma _{T,L}^{}A}(s,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2bT_A(b)\left|\mathrm{\Psi }\left|\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)T_A(b)\right]\right|\gamma _{c\overline{c}}^{T,L}\right|^2}`$ (5)
$`\sigma _{coh}^{\gamma _{T,L}^{}A}(s,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2b\left|\mathrm{\Psi }\left|1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)T_A(b)\right]\right|\gamma _{c\overline{c}}^{T,L}\right|^2}.`$ (6)
Here $`T_A(b)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\rho _A(b,z)`$ is the nuclear thickness function given by the integral of the nuclear density along the trajectory at a given impact parameter $`b`$.

In Eqs. (5) and (6) we also include a small correction due to the real part of the $`\gamma ^{}N\mathrm{\Psi }N`$ amplitude via replacement

$$\sigma _{q\overline{q}}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}\left(1\frac{i\pi }{2}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}}{\mathrm{ln}s}\right).$$
(7)
As it is common practice we express nuclear cross sections for incoherent and coherent production in the form of the ratio,

$$R_\mathrm{\Psi }(s,Q^2)=\frac{\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)}{A\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}N}(s,Q^2)},$$
(8)
where the numerator stands for the expressions Eqs. (5) and (6) for incoherent and coherent cross sections, respectively. The details of the technically rather complicated numerical calculations of the integrals in Eqs. (5) and (6) can be found in Appendix A.

The ratio Eq. (8) for incoherent electroproduction of $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 1 as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$. We use the GBW  and KST  parameterizations for the dipole cross section and show the results by solid and dashed curves, respectively. Differences are at most $`1020\%`$.

Analyzing the results shown in Fig. 1, we observe that nuclear suppression of $`J/\psi `$ production becomes stronger with energy. This is an obvious consequence of the energy dependence of $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)`$, which rises with energy (see in Ref. ). For $`\psi ^{}`$ the suppression is rather similar as for $`J/\psi `$. In particular we do not see any considerable nuclear enhancement of $`\psi ^{}`$ which has been found earlier , where the oversimplified form of the dipole cross section, $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)r_T^2`$ and the oscillator form of the wave function had been used. Such a form of the cross section enhances the compensation between large and small distances in the wave function of $`\psi ^{}`$ in the process $`\gamma ^{}p\psi ^{}p`$. Therefore, the color filtering effect which emphasizes the small distance part of the wave function leads to a strong enhancement of the $`\psi ^{}`$ production rate. This is why using the more realistic $`r_T`$-dependence of $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)`$ leveling off at large $`r_T`$ leads to a weaker enhancement of the $`\psi ^{}`$. This effect becomes even more pronounced at higher energies since the dipole cross section saturates starting at a value $`r_Tr_0(s)`$ where $`r_0(s)`$ decreases with energy. This observation probably explains why the $`\psi ^{}`$ is less enhanced at higher energies as one can see from Fig. 1.

Note that the “frozen” approximation is valid only for $`l_cR_A`$ and can be used only at $`\sqrt{s}>2030\text{GeV}`$. Therefore, the low-energy part of the curves depicted in Fig. 1 should be corrected for the effects related to the finiteness of $`l_c`$. This will be done in Section 4.

One can change the effect of color filtering in nuclei in a controlled way by increasing the photon virtuality $`Q^2`$ thereby squeezing the transverse size of the $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation in the photon. For a narrower $`c\overline{c}`$ pair the cancellation which is caused by the node in the radial wave function of $`\psi ^{}`$ should be less effective. One expects that the $`\psi ^{}`$ to $`J/\psi `$ ratio on a proton target increases with $`Q^2`$, as is observed both in experiment and calculation (Fig. 9 of ). Fig. 2 shows the result for nuclear targets: for large values of $`Q^2`$ ratios $`R_{J/\psi }^{inc}`$ and $`R_\psi ^{}^{inc}`$ become very similar. This effect has also been observed in the E665 experiment  for exclusive production of $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ off nuclei at high energies.

Nuclear effects for $`\psi ^{}`$ production shown in Fig. 2 demonstrate an even more peculiar $`Q^2`$ dependence. The overlap of the produced $`c\overline{c}`$ state and the $`\psi ^{}`$ wave function rises with $`Q^2`$ both in the numerator and denominator of the ratio Eq. (8) due to the node effect. However, the nuclear filtering for large size $`c\overline{c}`$ pairs is especially strong at small $`Q^2`$, hence the $`Q^2`$ squeezing does not affect the numerator as much as the denominator. This is why the ratio $`R_\psi ^{}^{inc}(Q^2)`$ can be a falling function at small $`Q^2`$. At high $`Q^2`$, however, the size of the $`c\overline{c}`$ is so small that color filtering is not an important effect any more, while the nucleus becomes more transparent eventually causing $`R_\psi ^{}^{inc}(Q^2)`$ to rise.

Cross sections for coherent production of charmonia on nuclei are calculated analogously using Eq. (6). The results for the energy dependence are depicted in Fig. 3 and for the $`Q^2`$ dependence in Fig. 4.

It is not a surprise that the ratios exceed one. In the absence of $`c\overline{c}`$ attenuation the forward coherent production would be proportional to $`A^2`$, while integrated over momentum transfer, the one depicted in Fig. 3, behaves as $`A^{4/3}`$. It is a result of our definition Eq. (8) that $`R_\mathrm{\Psi }^{coh}`$ exceeds one. To avoid this artifact one may redefine the ratio for coherent processes as,

$$\stackrel{~}{R}_\mathrm{\Psi }^{coh}(s,Q^2)=\frac{\sigma _{coh}^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)}{AT_A\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}16}\pi B^{\gamma ^{}N}\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}N}(s,Q^2)}=\frac{R_\mathrm{\Psi }^{coh}(s,Q^2)}{T_A\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}16}\pi B^{\gamma ^{}N}},$$
(9)
where $`B^{\gamma ^{}N}`$ is the slope of the $`\gamma ^{}N\mathrm{\Psi }N`$ differential cross section and

$$T_A=\frac{1}{A}d^2bT_A^2(b)$$
(10)
is the mean nuclear thickness. This ratio approaches one when nuclear effects disappear. Nevertheless, we will follow the usual definition Eq. (8) which is widely used for the presentation of data.

We can also predict the dependence on the momentum transfer $`\stackrel{}{k}_T`$ for the charmonium electroproduction on nuclei. In the case of incoherent production this dependence is the same as for production on free nucleons. However, in coherent production the nuclear formfactor comes into play and one has

$$\frac{d\sigma _{coh}^{\gamma _{T,L}^{}A}(s,Q^2)}{d^2k_T}=\left|d^2be^{i\stackrel{}{k}_T\stackrel{}{b}}\mathrm{\Psi }\left|1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)T_A(b)\right]\right|\gamma _{c\overline{c}}^{T,L}\right|^2.$$
(11)
In Fig. 5 we plot the ratios of total distributions (sum of $`T`$ and $`L`$ components Eq. (11) in the form of Eq. (3) normalized at $`Q^2=0`$ and $`k_T=0`$),

$$(s,Q^2,k_T)=\frac{d\sigma _{coh}^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)}{d^2k_T}/\frac{d\sigma _{coh}^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2=0)}{d^2k_T}|_{k_T=0}$$
(12)
as functions of $`k_T`$ at $`s=4000\text{GeV}^2`$ for different virtualities $`Q`$ of the photon.

We see that the $`k_T`$ dependences are rather similar for $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$. The shape of the distribution is governed mainly by the nuclear geometry (and not by the size of the (small) charmonium). The calculated curves show the familiar diffraction pattern known from elastic scattering on nuclei.

## 3 Gluon shadowing

The gluon density in nuclei at small Bjorken $`x`$ is expected to be suppressed compared to a free nucleon due to interferences. This phenomenon called gluon shadowing renormalizes the dipole cross section,

$$\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,x)\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,x)R_G(x,Q^2,b).$$
(13)
where the factor $`R_G(x,Q^2,b)`$ is the ratio of the gluon density at $`x`$ and $`Q^2`$ in a nucleon of a nucleus to the gluon density in a free nucleon. No data are available so far which could provide direct information about gluon shadowing. Currently it can be evaluated only theoretically. In what follows we employ the technique developed in .

The interpretation of the phenomenon of gluon shadowing depends very much on the reference frame. It looks like glue-glue fusion in the infinite momentum frame of the nucleus: although the nucleus is Lorentz contracted, the bound nucleons are still well separated since they contract too. However, the gluon clouds of the nucleons are contracted less since they have a smaller momentum fraction $`x`$. Therefore, they do overlap and interact at small $`x`$, and gluons originating from different nucleons can fuse leading to a reduction of the gluon density.

Although observables must be Lorentz invariant, the space-time interpretation of shadowing looks very different in the rest frame of the nucleus. Here it comes as a result of eikonalization of higher Fock components of the incident particles. Indeed, the nuclear effect included via eikonalization into Eqs. (5)-(6) corresponds to the lowest $`c\overline{c}`$ Fock component of the photon. These expressions do not include any correction for gluon shadowing, but rather correspond to shadowing of sea quarks in nuclei, analogous to what is measured in deep-inelastic scattering. Although the phenomenological dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(x,Q^2)`$ includes all possible effects of gluon radiation, the eikonal expressions Eqs. (5)-(6) assume that none of the radiated gluons takes part in multiple interaction in the nucleus. The leading order correction corresponding to gluon shadowing comes from eikonalization of the next Fock component which contains the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair plus a gluon. One can trace on Feynman graphs that this is exactly the same mechanism of gluon shadowing as glue-glue fusion in a different reference frame.

Note that Eqs. (5)-(6) assume that for the coherence length $`l_cR_A`$. Even if this condition is satisfied for a $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation, it can be broken for the $`c\overline{c}G`$ component which is heavier. Indeed, it was found in  that the coherence length for gluon shadowing as about an order of magnitude shorter than the one for shadowing of sea quarks. Therefore, one should not rely on the long coherence length approximation used in (5)-(6), but take into account the finiteness of $`l_c^G`$. This can be done by using the light-cone Green function approach developed in .

The factor $`R_G(x,Q^2,b)`$ has the form,

$$R_G(x,Q^2,b)=1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (\gamma ^{}A)}{A\sigma (\gamma ^{}N)},$$
(14)
where $`\sigma (\gamma ^{}N)`$ is the part of the total $`\gamma ^{}N`$ cross section related to a $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation in the photon,

$$\sigma (\gamma ^{}N)=d^2r_T\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\alpha \left|\mathrm{\Psi }_{c\overline{c}}^\gamma ^{}(r_T,\alpha ,Q^2)\right|^2\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,x).$$
(15)
Here $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{c\overline{c}}^\gamma ^{}(r_T,\alpha ,Q^2)`$ is the light-cone wave function of the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair with transverse separation $`\stackrel{}{r}_T`$ and relative sharing of the longitudinal momentum $`\alpha `$ and $`1\alpha `$ (see details in ). The numerator $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (\gamma ^{}A)`$ in (14) reads ,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (\gamma ^{}A)`$ $`=`$ $`8\pi \mathrm{Re}{\displaystyle d^2b𝑑M^2\frac{d^2\sigma (\gamma ^{}Nc\overline{c}GN)}{dM^2dq_T^2}}|_{q_T=0}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z_1{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z_2\mathrm{\Theta }(z_2z_1)\rho _A(b,z_1)\rho _A(b,z_2)\mathrm{exp}\left[iq_L(z_2z_1)\right].`$
Here the invariant mass squared of the $`c\overline{c}G`$ system reads,

$$M^2=\underset{i}{}\frac{m_i^2+k_i^2}{\alpha _i},$$
(17)
where the sum is taken over partons ($`c\overline{c}G`$) having mass $`m_i`$, transverse momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ and fraction $`\alpha _i`$ of the full momentum. The $`c\overline{c}G`$ system is produced diffractively as an intermediate state in a double interaction in the nucleus. $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$ are the longitudinal coordinates of the nucleons $`N_1`$ and $`N_2`$, respectively, participating in the diffractive transition $`\gamma ^{}N_1c\overline{c}GN_1`$ and back $`c\overline{c}GN_2\gamma ^{}N_2`$. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ is controlled by the longitudinal momentum transfer

$$q_L=\frac{Q^2+M^2}{2\nu },$$
(18)
which is related to the gluonic coherence length $`l_c^G=1/q_L`$.

The propagation and interaction of the $`c\overline{c}G`$ system in the nuclear medium between the points $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$ is described by the Green function $`G_{c\overline{c}G}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{\rho }_1z_1)`$, where $`\stackrel{}{r}_{1,2}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\rho }_{1,2}`$ are the transverse separations between the $`c`$ and $`\overline{c}`$ and between the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair and gluon at the point $`z_1`$ and destination $`z_2`$ respectively. Then the Fourier transform of the diffractive cross section in (3)

$$8\pi 𝑑M_X^2\frac{d^2\sigma (\gamma ^{}NXN)}{dM_X^2dq_T^2}|_{q_T=0}\mathrm{cos}\left[q_L(z_2z_1)\right]$$
(19)
can be represented in the form,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Re}{\displaystyle d^2r_2d^2\rho _2d^2r_1d^2\rho _1𝑑\alpha _qd\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _G)}`$ (20)
$`\times F_{\gamma ^{}c\overline{c}G}^{}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,\alpha _q,\alpha _G)G_{c\overline{c}G}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1)F_{\gamma ^{}c\overline{c}G}(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,\alpha _q,\alpha _G).`$
Assuming that the momentum fraction taken by the gluon is small, $`\alpha 1`$, and neglecting the $`c\overline{c}`$ separation $`r\rho `$ we arrive at a factorized form of the three-body Green function,

$$G_{c\overline{c}G}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{r}_1,\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1)G_{c\overline{c}}(\stackrel{}{r}_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{r}_1,z_1)G_{GG}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1),$$
(21)
where $`G_{GG}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1)`$ describes propagation of the $`GG`$ dipole (in fact the color-octet $`c\overline{c}`$ and gluon) in the nuclear medium. This Green function satisfies the two dimensional Schrödinger equation which includes the glue-glue nonperturbative interaction via the light-cone potential $`V(\stackrel{}{\rho },z)`$, as well as interaction with the nuclear medium.

$$i\frac{d}{dz_2}G_{GG}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1)=\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2)}{2\nu \alpha _G(1\alpha _G)}+V(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2)\right]G_{GG}(\stackrel{}{\rho }_2,z_2;\stackrel{}{\rho }_1,z_1),$$
(22)
where

$$2\mathrm{Im}V(\stackrel{}{\rho },z)=\sigma _{GG}(\stackrel{}{\rho })\rho _A(b,z),$$
(23)
and the glue-glue dipole cross section is related to the $`q\overline{q}`$ one by the relation,

$$\sigma _{GG}(r,x)=\frac{9}{4}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r,x).$$
(24)
Following  we assume that the real part of the potential has a form

$$\mathrm{Re}V(\stackrel{}{\rho },z)=\frac{b_0^4\rho ^2}{2\nu \alpha _G(1\alpha _G)}.$$
(25)
The parameter $`b_0=0.65\text{GeV}`$ was fixed by the data on diffractive gluon radiation (the triple-Pomeron contribution in terms of Regge approach) which is an essential part of Gribov’s inelastic shadowing . The well known smallness of such a diffractive cross section explains why $`b_0`$ is so large, leading to a rather weak gluon shadowing. In other words, this strong interaction squeezes the glue-glue wave packet resulting in small nuclear attenuation due to color transparency.

In order to get an analytical solution of Eq. (23) we assume that $`\sigma _{GG}(r,s)C_{GG}(s)r^2`$, with $`C_{GG}(s)=d\sigma _{GG}(r,s)/dr^2|_{r=0}`$. We also use the approximation of constant nuclear density $`\rho _A(r)=\rho _0\mathrm{\Theta }(R_Ar)`$ which is rather accurate for heavy nuclei. Correspondingly $`T_A(b)=\rho _0L(b)`$, where $`L(b)=2\sqrt{R_A^2b^2}`$.

With these simplifications we can perform integration over $`z_2`$ in (3) and the gluon shadowing correction takes the form,

$$1R_G(x,Q^2)=\rho _0^2\frac{d^2b}{T_A(b)}\underset{0}{\overset{L(b)}{}}𝑑z\left(L(b)z\right)W(x,Q^2,b,z),$$
(26)
where $`W(x,Q^2,b,z)`$ reads ,

$`W(x,Q^2,b,z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\alpha _s(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)}{3\pi C_{qq}(x)}}{\displaystyle \underset{x}{\overset{x_{\text{max}}}{}}}d\alpha _G{\displaystyle \frac{C_{GG}^2(\stackrel{~}{x},Q^2,b)}{\alpha _G\stackrel{~}{b}^2}}\text{Re}\{\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }z}{2t}})`$ (27)
$`\times `$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{t}{w}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right)}{t}}\mathrm{ln}(1{\displaystyle \frac{t^2}{u^2}})+{\displaystyle \frac{2t^3}{uw^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t\mathrm{sinh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right)}{w^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4t^3}{w^3}}]\},`$
$`\alpha _s(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{9\mathrm{ln}\left[\left(Q^2+0.25\text{GeV}^2\right)/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\right]}},`$ (28)
$`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{min}(x/\alpha _G,x_{\text{max}}),`$ (29)
$`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2`$ $`=`$ $`Q^2+M_\mathrm{\Psi }^2,`$ (30)
$`\stackrel{~}{b}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{b}_0^2+\alpha _G\stackrel{~}{Q}^2,`$ (31)
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{b}^4i\alpha _G(1\alpha _G)\nu \rho _0C_{GG}(\stackrel{~}{x},b)},`$ (32)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $`=`$ $`iB/\left(\alpha _G(1\alpha _G)\nu \right),`$ (33)
$`t`$ $`=`$ $`B/\stackrel{~}{b}^2,`$ (34)
$`u`$ $`=`$ $`t\mathrm{cosh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right)+\mathrm{sinh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right),`$ (35)
$`w`$ $`=`$ $`(1+t^2)\mathrm{sinh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right)+2t\mathrm{cosh}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }z\right).`$ (36)
Here $`x_{\text{max}}=0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=200\text{MeV}`$. The factor $`C_{GG}(x,Q^2,b)`$ is determined by the condition of equivalent descriptions in the limit $`l_c^GR_A`$ using the realistic parameterization for $`\sigma _{GG}(r_T)`$ and its simplified form $`\sigma _{GG}(r_T)=C_{GG}r_T^2`$,

$$C_{GG}(x,Q^2,b)r_T^2T_A(b)=\frac{9}{4}\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(x,r_T)R_G(x,Q^2,b)T_A(b).$$
(37)
Here

$$f(r_T)\frac{d^2\stackrel{}{r}_T|\mathrm{\Psi }_{qG}(r_T)|_{\text{eff}}^2\left(1e^{\frac{1}{2}f(r_T)}\right)}{d^2\stackrel{}{r}_T|\mathrm{\Psi }_{qG}(r_T)|_{\text{eff}}^2f(r_T)},$$
(38)
and the nonperturbative light-cone wave function of the $`GG`$ (in fact $`c\overline{c}`$ and $`G`$) dipole,

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{GG}(r_T)|_{\text{eff}}^2\frac{e^{b_0^2r_T^2}}{r_T^2}.$$
(39)
Obtaining the gluon shadowing factor $`R_G(b)`$ one can relate it to the corresponding value $`T_A(b)`$. This gives $`R_G`$ as a function of thickness $`T_A`$, $`R_G(T_A)`$. This function is then used in calculations where $`T_A(b)`$ is obtained with the realistic Woods-Saxon nucleus density.

Fig. 6 shows the ratios of cross sections calculated with and without gluon shadowing

$$S_G(s,Q^2)=\frac{\sigma _G^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)}{\sigma ^{\gamma ^{}A}(s,Q^2)}$$
(40)
for incoherent and coherent exclusive charmonium electroproduction.

We see that the onset of gluon shadowing happens at a c.m. energy of few tens GeV. This is controlled by the nuclear formfactor which depends on the longitudinal momentum transfer $`q_c=1/l_c^G`$. It was found in  that the coherence length for gluon shadowing is rather short,

$$l_c^G\frac{1}{10xm_N},$$
(41)
where $`x`$ in our case should be an effective one, $`x=(Q^2+M_\mathrm{\Psi }^2)/2\nu `$. The onset of shadowing should be expected at $`q_c^23/(R_A^{ch})^2`$ corresponding to

$$s_G10m_NR_A^{ch}(Q^2+M_\mathrm{\Psi }^2)/\sqrt{3},$$
(42)
where $`(R_A^{ch})^2`$ is the mean square of the nuclear charge radius. This estimate is in a good agreement with Fig. 6. Remarkably, the onset of shadowing is delayed with rising nuclear radius and $`Q^2`$.

Fig. 7 shows the effect of shadowing for the $`k_T`$ dependence of the coherent photoproduction. As one can see these corrections are quite small for $`Q^2=0`$ (and even smaller with increasing $`Q^2`$, see Eqs. (26) and (27)).

## 4 Finite coherence length.

A strictly quantum-mechanical treatment of a fluctuating $`q\overline{q}`$ pair propagating through an absorptive medium based on the LC Green function approach has been suggested recently in . However, an analytical solution for the LC Green function is known only for the simplest form of the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)r_T^2`$. With a realistic form of $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)`$ it is possible only to solve this problem numerically, what is still a challenge. Here we use the approximation suggested in  to evaluate the corrections arising from the finiteness of $`l_c=2\nu /M_\mathrm{\Psi }^2`$ by multiplying the cross sections for incoherent and coherent production evaluated for $`l_c\mathrm{}`$ by a kind of formfactor $`F^{inc}`$ and $`F^{coh}`$ respectively:

$`\sigma ^{\gamma A\mathrm{\Psi }X}(s,Q^2)`$ $``$ $`\sigma ^{\gamma A\mathrm{\Psi }X}(s,Q^2)F^{inc}(s,l_c(s,Q^2)),`$ (43)
$`\sigma ^{\gamma A\mathrm{\Psi }A}(s,Q^2)`$ $``$ $`\sigma ^{\gamma A\mathrm{\Psi }A}(s,Q^2)F^{coh}(s,l_c(s,Q^2)),`$ (44)
where

$`F^{inc}(s,l_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝒃\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑z\rho _A(𝒃,z)\left|F_1(s,𝒃,z)F_2(s,𝒃,z,l_c)\right|^2/(\mathrm{})}|_{l_c=\mathrm{}},`$ (45)
$`F^{coh}(s,l_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2𝒃\left|\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑z\rho _A(𝒃,z)F_1(s,𝒃,z)e^{iz/l_c}\right|^2/(\mathrm{})}|_{l_c=\mathrm{}},`$ (46)
$`F_1(s,𝒃,z)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _{\mathrm{\Psi }N}(s){\displaystyle \underset{z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑z^{}\rho _A(𝒃,z^{})\right),`$ (47)
$`F_2(s,𝒃,z,l_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _{\mathrm{\Psi }N}(s){\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{z}{}}}𝑑z^{}\rho _A(𝒃,z^{})F_1(𝒃,z^{})e^{i(zz^{})/l_c}.`$ (48)
For the charmonium nucleon total cross section $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Psi }N}(s)`$ we use our previous results , essentially the expectation value of the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T,s)`$ taken between the LC wave functions for the charmonia. The “formfactors” $`F^{inc}`$ for incoherent $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ production are depicted in Fig. 8.

The observed nontrivial energy dependence is easy to interpret. At low energies $`l_cR_A`$ and the photon propagates without any attenuation inside the nucleus where it develops for a short time $`t_c`$ a $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation which momentarily interacts to get on mass shell. The produced $`c\overline{c}`$ pair attenuates along the path whose length is a half of the nuclear thickness on the average. On the other hand, at high energies $`l_cR_A`$ and the $`c\overline{c}`$ fluctuation is developed long before its interaction with the nucleus. As a result, it propagates through the whole nucleus and the mean path length is twice as long as at low energies. This is why the nuclear transparency drops when going from the regimes of short to long $`l_c`$.

One can simplify expression (45) assuming $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Psi }N}T_A(b)1`$ which is a rather accurate approximation for $`J/\psi `$. Then one can expand the exponentials in (47)-(48) and obtain ,

$$F_{J/\psi }^{inc}(s)=\frac{1\frac{1}{2}\left[1+F_A^2(q_c)\right]\sigma _{J/\psi N}(s)T_A}{1\sigma _{J/\psi N}(s)T_A}.$$
(49)
Here

$$F_A^2(q)=\frac{1}{T_A}d^2b\left|\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑z\rho _A(b,z)e^{iqz}\right|^2$$
(50)
is the so called longitudinal nuclear formfactor.

At low energies, $`q_c1/l_c1/R_A`$, the formfactor $`F_A^2(q_c)=0`$ and both the numerator and denominator in (49) decrease with energy due to the rising $`\sigma _{J/\psi N}(s)`$, but the denominator does it faster. This is why the ratio Eq. (49) rises with energy unless it drops due to the rise of the formfactor $`F_A^2(q_c)0`$. The transition energy regime is related to the variation of the formfactor between 0 and 1, i.e. at

$$s_{c\overline{c}}m_N(M_{J/\psi }^2+Q^2)R_A^{ch}/\sqrt{3}=\frac{1}{10}s_G.$$
(51)
This energy increases with $`Q^2`$ and nuclear radius in accordance with Fig. 8.

Note that the Glauber approximation used to calculate $`F^{inc}`$ is rather good for $`J/\psi `$, but not for $`\psi ^{}`$. One could improve it applying the rigorous description based on the light-cone Green function formalism developed in  for exclusive production of vector mesons. However, it was done only for the unrealistic form of the dipole cross sections $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}r_T^2`$ and for an oscillatory wave function of the vector meson. It is still a challenge to make this approach realistic.

The results for the energy dependence of the formfactor $`F^{coh}`$ for coherent scattering are shown on Fig. 9. In the limit of low energies $`l_c0`$ the strongly oscillating exponential phase factor in (46) makes the integral very small and thus $`F_{J/\psi }^{coh}0`$. Then the cross section rises with $`l_c`$ unless it saturates at $`l_cR_A`$ when the phase factor becomes constant. Apparently, this transition region is shifted to higher energies for larger $`Q^2`$ and nuclear radius as is confirmed by the curves in Fig. 9.

## 5 Final results and conclusions

Combining the results of the previous sections (i.e. including finite coherence length and gluon shadowing) we obtain the final results for ratios the $`R_{J/\psi }`$ and $`R_\psi ^{}`$. Figs. 10 and 11 show the $`s`$ and $`Q^2`$ dependences for incoherent and Figs. 12 and 13 for coherent production of charmonia.

We summarize, in this paper we provide predictions for nuclear effects in exclusive electroproduction of charmonia on nuclei with realistic light-cone wave functions of charmonia and with dipole cross sections which have been already tested in a calculation of elastic charmonium electroproduction off protons. Such calculations still can be performed only at rather high energies where the coherence length exceeds the nuclear size ($`l_cR_A`$). At these energies gluon shadowing which is absent at lower energies ($`l_cR_A`$) becomes an important and sometimes the dominant effect. Since no reliable experimental information about gluon shadowing is available so far, we have performed calculations of this effect employing the same light-cone dipole approach. We found sizable, but not large corrections (10-20%) which, however, keep rising with energy. It turns out that the magnitude of gluon shadowing is suppressed by a nonperturbative interaction of the light-cone gluons which is well fixed by data on large mass diffraction. The effects related to finiteness of the coherence length at somewhat lower energies were estimated too.

We have calculated both coherent and incoherent cross sections as function of energy, $`Q^2`$ and momentum transfer. Our predictions can be tested in future experiments at high energies with electron-nuclear colliders (eRHIC). It also can be produced in peripheral heavy ion collisions (RHIC, LHC), and our predictions will be published elsewhere.

Acknowledgment: The authors gratefully acknowledge the partial support by a grant from the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt (grant no. GSI-OR-SCH) and by the Federal Ministry BMBF (grant no. 06 HD 954). We are grateful to Jan Nemchik who read the manuscript and made many valuable comments.

## Appendix A Resummation expressions

Matrix elements of the dipole cross section $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ for the charmonia production including the effects of spin rotation were calculated in  for the specific form of the $`r_T`$ dependence provided by the KST and GBW parameterizations:

$$\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)=\sigma _0\left[1\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{r_T^2}{r_0^2}\right)\right].$$
(A.1)
In the nuclear case one needs to calculate matrix elements of the operators with $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}`$ in the exponent. For incoherent and coherent scattering one can use Taylor expansion, for example:

$`\sigma e^{c\sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma c\sigma ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{c^2\sigma ^3}{2}}+\mathrm{}=<\sigma >(1cf_1+{\displaystyle \frac{c^2f_2}{2}}+\mathrm{}),`$ (A.2)
$`1e^{c\sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`c\sigma {\displaystyle \frac{c^2\sigma ^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{c^3\sigma ^3}{6}}+\mathrm{}=c<\sigma >\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{cf_1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{c^2f_2}{6}}+\mathrm{}\right),`$ (A.3)
where $`f_n<\sigma ^{n+1}>/<\sigma >`$ and $`c`$ doesn’t depend on initial and final states. So matrix elements of powers $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}^{}{}_{}{}^{n}`$ have to be calculated. The form (A.1) allows to express any power of $`\sigma _{q\overline{q}}(r_T)`$ as a sum of exponentials $`\mathrm{exp}\left(r_T^2/r_0^2\right)`$ with reduced $`r_0^2r_0^2/m`$, i.e. $`<\sigma ^n>`$ can be expressed in terms of $`<\sigma >`$ with reduced $`r_0^2`$.

The rate of convergence of such series slows down with increasing $`\sigma `$ (larger $`s`$) and increasing nuclear thickness ($`cT_A(b)`$). In our calculations we used a more efficient expansion, which contains matrix elements $`<\sigma ^n>`$ in the exponent. This form can be obtained when applying the identity

$$1+x=e^{\mathrm{log}(1+x)}=\mathrm{exp}\left(x\frac{x^2}{2}+\frac{x^3}{3}+\mathrm{}\right)$$
(A.4)
to (A.2) (with $`x=cf_1+\mathrm{}`$) and (A.3) (with $`x=cf_1/2+\mathrm{}`$). As a result one can get

$`\sigma e^{c\sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`<\sigma >\mathrm{exp}\left(cf_1+{\displaystyle \frac{c^2}{2}}\left(f_2f_1^2\right)+\mathrm{}\right),`$ (A.5)
$`1e^{c\sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`c<\sigma >\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{cf_1}{2}}+c^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{f_2}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{f_1^2}{8}}\right)+\mathrm{}\right),`$ (A.6)
which converges noticeable faster. Fig. 14 shows that while one needs about six terms ($`n=6`$) to obtain an accurate result using Taylor expansion (A.2), one has already satisfactory results for $`n=2`$ in the method, where one resums in the exponent.