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# Introduction

## Introduction

Quantum jumps constitute the subject matter of the probabilistic aspect of quantum physics. A standard method for attacking the problem of quantum jumps has its basis in a unitary dynamics and the concept of decoherence, i.e., a transformation of a pure state into a mixed one. Such an approach can be traced back to the very advent of quantum theory . There exists a voluminous literature on that approach. But it is impossible to construct an internally consistent dynamics of quantum jumps on the aforementioned basis, for unitary time evolution allows no decoherence.

In his lectures on gravitation , Feynman pointed out: “It is still possible that quantum theory does not absolutely guarantee that gravity has to be quantized… If there were some mechanism by which the phase evolution had a little bit of smearing in it, so it was not absolutely precise, then our amplitudes would become probabilities… But surely, if the phases did have this built-in smearing, there might be some consequences to be associated with this smearing. If one such consequence were to be the existence of gravitation itself, then there would be no quantum theory of gravitation… we should always keep in mind the possibility that quantum mechanics may fail, since it has certain difficulties with the philosophical prejudices that we have about measurement and observation.”

Not quantizing gravity leads to semiclassical theory of gravitation. In the conventional treatment of semiclassical gravity, time evolution of a state vector $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ of the matter of the universe is given by the Schrödinger equation $`d\mathrm{\Psi }/dt=\mathrm{i}H_t\mathrm{\Psi }`$, where the Hamiltonian $`H_t`$ depends on time through metric $`g`$. This time evolution, however, is unitary, which gives no way of constructing a consistent quantum jump dynamics.

But Feynman’s considerations perceived in a broad sense imply that semiclassical gravity would be justified if it enabled us to construct an internally consistent quantum jump dynamics.

Along these lines, crucial is the following observation: Experience leads us to conclude that a closed system is for all time in a stationary state, i.e., in a state with a determinate value of energy. The universe is a closed system, so its energy should have a determinate value. That is the principle of cosmic energy determinacy. As the Hamiltonian $`H_t`$ is time-dependent, the Schrödinger equation would have immediately violated the principle and should be abandoned.

The Hamiltonian is $`H_t=_l\epsilon _l(t)P_l(t)`$ where $`P_l`$ is the projector for a level $`l`$. Denote a state vector by $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and the corresponding state projector by $`P||`$. Let the state belong to a level $`l`$, so that $`H_t\mathrm{\Psi }_t=\epsilon _l(t)\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$. In this case, the state projector will be denoted by $`P^l`$. (Thus, subscript $`l`$ designates a level, and superscript $`l`$ a state belonging to that level.) Now $`H_tP^l(t)=P^l(t)H_t=\epsilon _l(t)P^l(t)`$. For a degenerate level those conditions are insufficient. An equation of motion for $`P^l`$ needs to be introduced. This is the one: $`dP^l/dt=(dP_l/dt)P^l+P^l(dP_l/dt)`$.

As the Hamiltonian depends on time, there are confluence and branch points of energy levels. At branch points, energy determinacy would be violated. It is quantum jumps that prevent the violation. Thus quantum jumps are a reaction against the propensity of the universe dynamics to the violation of energy determinacy.

As to the time $`t`$, it is universal cosmological time, the existence of which is implied by quantum jumps themselves: they give rise to a family of sets of simultaneous events—jumps of $`\ddot{g}^2g/t^2`$.

The approach outlined above has been advanced in ; some results were obtained in \[3-5\]. The aim of this paper is to develop an internally consistent quantum jump dynamics.

## 1 The universe as a physical system

### 1.1 The Einstein equation and quantum jumps

We adopt the classical description of spacetime and quantum treatment of matter. The Einstein equation takes the form of

$$G\mathrm{\Lambda }g=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}$$
(1.1.1)
$$\stackrel{~}{T}=(\mathrm{\Psi },T\mathrm{\Psi })=\mathrm{Tr}\{PT\}$$
(1.1.2)
where $`G`$ is the Einstein tensor, $`g`$ is the metric, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant, $`\kappa `$ is the gravitational constant, $`T`$ is the energy-momentum tensor operator, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a state vector, and

$$P=(\mathrm{\Psi },)\mathrm{\Psi }=||,|=\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{Tr}P=1$$
(1.1.3)
is the corresponding state projector. We abandon the concept of decoherence, so it is reasonable to exploit $`P`$ rather than $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$.

A jump of $`P`$ results in that of $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$. Write down (1.1.1) in components

$$G_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{\mu \nu }=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}_{\mu \nu },\stackrel{~}{T}_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{Tr}\{PT_{\mu \nu }\},\mu ,\nu =0,1,2,3$$
(1.1.4)
The components $`G_{ij}(i,j=1,2,3)`$ of the Einstein tensor involve the second time derivatives

$$\ddot{g}_{ij}g_{ij,00}$$
(1.1.5)
of the metric tensor components $`g_{ij}`$ . That makes it possible to retain the six equations

$$G_{ij}\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{ij}=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}_{ij}$$
(1.1.6)
unchanged. Jumps of the $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{ij}`$ will result in those of the $`\ddot{g}_{ij}`$, which is quite conceivable from the physical point of view: A jump of the force $`\stackrel{~}{T}_{ij}`$ results in a jump of the acceleration $`\ddot{g}_{ij}`$. As to the four equations

$$G_{0\mu }\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{0\mu }=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}_{0\mu }$$
(1.1.7)
the situation is completely different. The components $`G_{0\mu }`$ involve no second time derivatives of the $`g_{\mu \nu }`$; the only time derivatives of metric involved in $`G_{0\mu }`$ are the $`\dot{g}_{ij}`$. The latter should be continuous, not to mention the $`g_{\mu \nu }`$. The violation of the four equations (1.1.7) is intolerable and they must be extended, which has been done in .

### 1.2 Quantum-jump universal time

A quantum jump of the state projector $`P`$ gives rise to a set of events—jumps of $`\ddot{g}`$. These events are, by definition, simultaneous, which allows for synchronizing clocks and thereby furnishing the universal time. It is natural to identify phenomenological cosmological time with the quantum-jump universal time. Thus cosmological time is defined on the level of fundamental physical laws—in contrast to the phenomenological approach in classical cosmology .

In special relativity, the concept of simultaneity in connection with quantum jumps makes no operationalistic sense, which complicates the incorporation of quantum jumps into special relativity. Taking gravity into account endows the concept with an operationalistic content.

### 1.3 Spacetime

The universal cosmological time gives rise to a family of sets of simultaneous events, thereby endowing spacetime with a fiber structure. The metric compatible with this structure, i.e., admitting the synchronization of clocks, is of the form

$$ds^2=g_{00}(dx^0)^2+g_{ij}dx^idx^j$$
(1.3.1)
or with

$$dt=\sqrt{g_{00}}dx^0,t=t(x^0,\stackrel{}{x})=g_{00}^{1/2}(x^0,\stackrel{}{x})𝑑x^0,\stackrel{}{x}=(x^1,x^2,x^3)$$
(1.3.2)
$$ds^2=dt^2+g_{ij}dx^idx^j,g_{ij}=g_{ij}(t,\stackrel{}{x})$$
(1.3.3)
which relates to a synchronous reference frame. The latter, in its turn, implies the product spacetime manifold

$$M=M^4=T\times S,Mp=(t,s),tT,sS$$
(1.3.4)
The one-dimensional manifold $`T`$ is the universal cosmological time, and the three-dimensional manifold $`S`$ is a cosmological space. By (1.3.4), the tangent space $`M_p`$ at a point $`pM`$ is

$$M_p=T_tS_s,p=(t,s)$$
(1.3.5)
and, in view of (1.3.3),

$$T_tS_s$$
(1.3.6)
Thus, quantum jumps give rise to the product spacetime (1.3.4) and a particular synchronous reference frame

$$p=(t,s)(t,\stackrel{}{x})$$
(1.3.7)
The latter may be called cosmological reference frame and regarded as a canonical synchronous reference frame.

In the coordinate-free representation, the metric (1.3.3) reads

$$g=dtdth_t,h_th_{ij}(t,\stackrel{}{x})dx^idx^j,h_{ij}=g_{ij}$$
(1.3.8)
in which $`h_t`$ is a Riemannian metric tensor on $`S`$ depending on $`t`$.

### 1.4 Matter

In what follows, quantities pertaining to matter are: the state projector $`P`$ (1.1.3), the space part of the energy-momentum tensor operator

$$T_{\mathrm{space}}T_{ij}$$
(1.4.1)
and the Hamiltonian

$$H_t=T_{00}(t,\stackrel{}{x})𝑑\stackrel{}{x}$$
(1.4.2)
or in the coordinate-free representation

$$H_t=\mu (ds)T_{\mathrm{time}}(t,s),T_{\mathrm{time}}T_{00}$$
(1.4.3)
## 2 Energy determinacy

### 2.1 The principle of cosmic energy determinacy

The cosmic energy determinacy principle reads: The universe is for all time in a state with a determinate value of energy, i.e., in an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian $`H_t`$. Note that a combination of the energy determinacy and a time-dependent Hamiltonian is analogous to the adiabatic potential method in quantum scattering theory.

### 2.2 Necessary conditions for the state projector

A necessary condition for the state projector $`P`$ that follows from energy determinacy is

$$H_tP(t)=P(t)H_t=\epsilon (t)P(t)$$
(2.2.1)
The spectral decomposition of the Hamiltonian is of the form

$$H_t=\underset{l}{}\epsilon _l(t)P_l(t)$$
(2.2.2)
where $`P_l`$ is the projector for a level $`l`$ with an energy $`\epsilon _l`$. For a nondegenerate level

$$\mathrm{Tr}P_l=1$$
(2.2.3)
for a degenerate one

$$\mathrm{Tr}P_l2$$
(2.2.4)
Let the state belong to a level $`l`$:

$$P=P^l,\mathrm{Tr}P^l=1$$
(2.2.5)
Then (2.2.1) reduces to

$$P_l^{}P^l=P^lP_l^{}=\delta _{ll^{}}P^l$$
(2.2.6)
We call $`P_l`$ a confining projector

$$P_l=P_{\mathrm{con}}$$
(2.2.7)
### 2.3 Extended confinement

For what follows, provision should be made for an extension of the confining projector

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}=\underset{lL_{\mathrm{con}}}{}P_l$$
(2.3.1)
where $`L_{\mathrm{con}}`$ is a set of levels. The confinement condition for $`P`$ takes the form of

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}P=PP_{\mathrm{con}}=P$$
(2.3.2)
## 3 Equations of motion: Confined dynamics

### 3.1 The state of the universe

The state of the universe is defined by metric, its time derivative, and the state projector:

$$\omega =(g,\dot{g},P)(h,\dot{h},P)(h_{ij},\dot{h}_{ij},P)(g_{ij},\dot{g}_{ij},P)$$
(3.1.1)
### 3.2 The equations for metric

The equations for metric are of the form

$$G_{ij}\mathrm{\Lambda }g_{ij}=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}_{ij}$$
(3.2.1)
or in the coordinate-free representation

$$G_{\mathrm{space}}+\mathrm{\Lambda }h=8\pi \kappa \stackrel{~}{T}_{\mathrm{space}}$$
(3.2.2)
We have

$$G_{\mathrm{space}}=G_{\mathrm{space}}[g,\dot{g},\ddot{g}],G_{\mathrm{space}}\mathrm{is}\mathrm{linear}\mathrm{in}\ddot{g}$$
(3.2.3)
from here on we use square brackets to mean a functional. $`T_{\mathrm{space}}`$ does not depend on $`\ddot{g}`$; $`g`$ and $`\dot{g}`$ are continuous in time.

### 3.3 The equation for the state projector: Confinement

In the case of

$$\mathrm{Tr}P_{\mathrm{con}}2$$
(3.3.1)
(specifically when $`P_{\mathrm{con}}=P_l`$ and the level $`l`$ is degenerate), the confinement condition (2.3.2) is insufficient. An equation of motion for $`P`$ should be introduced. From (2.3.2) follows

$$(dP_{\mathrm{con}})P+P_{\mathrm{con}}dP=(dP)P_{\mathrm{con}}+PdP_{\mathrm{con}}=dP$$
(3.3.2)
For any projector $`E`$

$$E(dE)E=0$$
(3.3.3)
holds. With equations (2.3.2) and (3.3.3) we can obtain a solution to (3.3.2) for $`dP`$ of the form

$$dP=PdP_{\mathrm{con}}+(dP_{\mathrm{con}})P$$
(3.3.4)
Thus the equation of motion for $`P`$ is

$$\frac{dP}{dt}=\{\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt},P\}\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt}P+P\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt}$$
(3.3.5)
We assume that the Hamiltonian

$$H=H[g]$$
(3.3.6)
does not depend on $`\dot{g}`$. Then in view of (2.2.2) and (2.3.1)

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}=P_{\mathrm{con}}[g]$$
(3.3.7)
so that

$$\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt}=\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt}[g,\dot{g}]$$
(3.3.8)
does not depend on $`\ddot{g}`$. Thus

$$\frac{dP}{dt}=\{\frac{dP_{\mathrm{con}}}{dt}[g,\dot{g}],P\}$$
(3.3.9)
so that $`dP/dt`$ is given as a functional of the state $`\omega `$ (3.1.1) of the system.

Now

$$\dot{H}=\dot{H}[g,\dot{g}]$$
(3.3.10)
Thus $`H`$ and $`\dot{H}`$ are continuous in time.

## 4 Vertices and tentative dynamics

### 4.1 Vertex

A vertex is a confluence or/and branch point of levels. We assume that the set of vertices has no accumulation points.

Consider an infinitesimal neighborhood of a vertex. For $`t=t_{\mathrm{vertex}}t_{\mathrm{ver}}`$ we have

$$H(t_{\mathrm{ver}})=H_{\mathrm{ver}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})+H_{}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})$$
(4.1.1)
where

$$H_{\mathrm{ver}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})H_{\mathrm{ver}}=\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}P_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.2)
For $`t=t_{\mathrm{ver}}0`$ we have

$$H_{\mathrm{ver}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)H_{\mathrm{ver}}^{},H_{\mathrm{ver}}^+=H_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=H_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.3)
and

$$\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{},\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}^+=\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.4)
Now

$$H_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\epsilon _l^{}P_l^{}$$
(4.1.5)
where

$$\epsilon _l^{}=\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.6)
$$\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}P_l^{}P_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=P_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.7)
Next

$$\dot{H}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}+\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\epsilon _l^{}\dot{P}_l^{}=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}+\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}$$
(4.1.8)
so that

$$\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^+}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^+P_l^++\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}^+=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}+\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}$$
(4.1.9)
Multiplying both sides of (4.1.9) from the left and from the right by $`P_{\mathrm{ver}}`$ and taking into account (4.1.7) we obtain

$$\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^+}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^+(P_{\mathrm{ver}}P_lP_{\mathrm{ver}})^++\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}(P_{\mathrm{ver}}\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}P_{\mathrm{ver}})^+=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}(P_{\mathrm{ver}}P_lP_{\mathrm{ver}})^{}+\epsilon _{\mathrm{ver}}(P_{\mathrm{ver}}\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}P_{\mathrm{ver}})^{}$$
(4.1.10)
In view of (3.3.3), it follows from (4.1.10) and (4.1.9) that

$$\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^+}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^+P_l^+=\underset{l}{\overset{1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}$$
(4.1.11)
and

$$\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}^+=\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}^{}=\dot{P}_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.1.12)
### 4.2 Crossing and tangency

Consider equation (4.1.11). Let

$$\dot{\epsilon }_l^+=\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}\mathrm{and}P_l^+=P_l^{}\mathrm{for}l=1,2,\mathrm{},k,k<\mathrm{min}\{n^{},n^+\}\mathrm{or}k=n^{}=n^+$$
(4.2.1)
We call levels $`l=1,2,\mathrm{},k`$ crossing levels. For them

$$\underset{l}{\overset{1,k}{}}P_l^+=\underset{l}{\overset{1,k}{}}P_l^{}P_{\mathrm{cross}}$$
(4.2.2)
Now

$$\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n^+}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^+P_l^+=\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n^{}}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}$$
(4.2.3)
and

$$\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n^+}{}}P_l^+=\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n^{}}{}}P_l^{}P_{\mathrm{tan}}$$
(4.2.4)
where, in view of what will follow, ‘tan’ stands for tangency, and

$$P_{\mathrm{cross}}+P_{\mathrm{tan}}=P_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.2.5)
Let $`k+1<\mathrm{min}\{n^{},n^+\}`$ and, for the sake of definiteness, $`n^+n^{}`$. From (4.2.3) follows

$$P_l^{}^+\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}P_l^{}P_{l^{\prime \prime }}^+=0,l^{},l^{\prime \prime }\{k+1,\mathrm{},n^+\},l^{\prime \prime }l^{}$$
(4.2.6)
Substituting

$$P_{k+1}^{}=P_{\mathrm{tan}}\underset{l}{\overset{k+2,n^{}}{}}$$
(4.2.7)
into (4.2.6) we obtain

$$\underset{l}{\overset{k+2,n^{}}{}}(\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{})P_l^{}^+P_l^{}P_{l^{\prime \prime }}^+=0,k+2n^{}$$
(4.2.8)
The number of the quantities $`(\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{})`$ is $`[n^{}(k+1)]`$, the number of equations is no less than

$$\frac{(n^{}k)^2(n^{}k)}{2}=\frac{n^{}k}{2}[n^{}(k+1)]n^{}(k+1)$$
(4.2.9)
so that

$$\dot{\epsilon }_l^{}=\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{},l=k+2,\mathrm{},n^{}$$
(4.2.10)
Now

$$\underset{l}{\overset{k+1,n^+}{}}\dot{\epsilon }_l^+P_l^+=\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{}P_{\mathrm{tan}}$$
(4.2.11)
whence

$$\dot{\epsilon }_l^+=\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{},l=k+1,\mathrm{},n^+$$
(4.2.12)
Thus

$$\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^+=\mathrm{}=\dot{\epsilon }_{n^+}^+=\dot{\epsilon }_{k+1}^{}=\mathrm{}=\dot{\epsilon }_n^{}^{}\dot{\epsilon }_{\mathrm{tan}}$$
(4.2.13)
which means tangency of the levels $`lk+1`$.

### 4.3 Tentative vertex dynamics

Let at $`t=t_{\mathrm{ver}}0`$ the state belong to a level $`\overline{l}\{1,2,\mathrm{},n^{}\}`$:

$$P(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)=P^{\overline{l}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)$$
(4.3.1)
Confined dynamics along with energy determinacy imply equations

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)=P_{\overline{l}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0),P_{\mathrm{con}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}+0)=P_{\mathrm{con}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})=P_{\mathrm{ver}}$$
(4.3.2)
That is the tentative vertex dynamics.

## 5 Quantum jumps and their probabilities: <br>Actual dynamics

### 5.1 Energy determinacy and jumps

In the case of branching $`(n^+2)`$, the tentative vertex dynamics would violate energy determinacy. To prevent the violation, quantum jumps must be introduced. Thus we have

$$\begin{array}{c}P(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)=P^{\overline{l}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)\stackrel{\mathrm{jump}}{}P(t_{\mathrm{ver}})=P^l(t_{\mathrm{ver}}+0)=\frac{P_l^+P^{\overline{l}}\left(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0\right)P_l^+}{\mathrm{Tr}\left\{P_l^+P^{\overline{l}}\left(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0\right)\right\}},\hfill \\ \\ \overline{l}\{1,2,\mathrm{},n^{}\},l\{1,2,\mathrm{},n^+\},n^+2\hfill \end{array}$$
(5.1.1)
The state is continuous on the right. For the confining projector, we obtain

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)=P_{\overline{l}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)\stackrel{\mathrm{jump}}{}P_{\mathrm{con}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})=P_l(t_{\mathrm{ver}}+0)$$
(5.1.2)
The set

$$\{P_l^+\}_{l=1}^{n^+}$$
(5.1.3)
is determined by

$$H(t_{\mathrm{ver}}+\tau )=H[g(t_{\mathrm{ver}}+\tau )]\mathrm{for}\tau 0$$
(5.1.4)
i.e., by

$$H[g(t_{\mathrm{ver}})+\dot{g}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})\tau ]\mathrm{for}\tau 0$$
(5.1.5)
which is independent of $`\ddot{g}(t_{\mathrm{ver}})`$ and, therefore, of $`P(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)`$.

### 5.2 Probabilities

The probability of the jump $`\overline{l}l`$ (5.1.1) is

$$w^{\overline{l}l}=\mathrm{Tr}\{P_l^+P^{\overline{l}}(t_{\mathrm{ver}}0)\}$$
(5.2.1)
In the case of crossing there is no jump.

### 5.3 Actual dynamics

The actual dynamics is the level-confined one:

$$P_{\mathrm{con}}=P_l$$
(5.3.1)
It involves quantum jumps. They are a reaction against the propensity of the universe dynamics to the violation of energy determinacy.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Alex A. Lisyansky for support and Stefan V. Mashkevich for helpful discussions.


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# Structure and stability of trapped atomic boson-fermion mixtures

## I Introduction

Since the first realizations of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped dilute atomic gases Inguscio et al. (1999) this lively field of research has generated an amount of impressive experimental results illuminating basic quantum phenomena. Besides the studies using bosonic atoms first results were obtained on the cooling of fermionic atoms to a temperature regime where quantum effects dominate the properties of the gas DeMarco and Jin (1999); Granade et al. (2001). One of the exciting prospects is the observation of a BCS transition of these degenerate Fermi gases to a superfluid state.

Several successful attempts to trap and cool mixtures of a bosonic and a fermionic species were reported. Quantum degeneracy was first reached with mixtures of bosonic $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$ and fermionic $`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ atoms Truscott et al. (2001); Schreck et al. (2001a, b). More recently, experiments to cool mixtures of different atomic elements, i.e. $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ and 6Li Hadzibabic et al. (2001) as well as $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$ and 40K Roati et al. (2002); Goldwin et al. (2002), to ultra-low temperatures succeeded. These boson-fermion mixtures offer unique possibilities to study the effects of quantum statistics directly. Besides their interesting physics these systems can be used as an efficient tool to produce a degenerate single-component (spin-polarized) Fermi gas. Direct evaporative cooling is not applicable in a gas of spin-polarized fermions since $`s`$-wave interactions are suppressed by the Pauli principle. So the Bose gas, which can be cooled evaporatively, is used as a coolant. The fermionic cloud remains in thermal equilibrium with the cold Bose gas through boson-fermion interactions in the region where both clouds overlap. In this way the fermionic species is cooled sympathetically Abeelen et al. (1997). Evidently, the shape of the two density distributions as well as their stability are extremely important for the success of the sympathetic cooling scheme.

In this paper I want to investigate systematically the influence of inter-atomic interactions on the structure and stability of binary boson-fermion mixtures at zero temperature. In extension to the work presented in Roth and Feldmeier (2002) the influence of boson-boson and boson-fermion interactions on the structure of the spatial density distributions and the stability of the system against collapse and phase separation is investigated. All combinations of attractive and repulsive interactions are considered and the implications for present experiments are discussed.

Previous studies of these mixtures mainly rely on the Thomas-Fermi approximation to treat the bosonic component Mølmer (1998); Akdeniz et al. (2002). This restricts the range of applicability significantly; the Thomas-Fermi approximation for the bosonic component is valid only for sufficiently strong repulsive boson-boson interactions and for large boson numbers. Other authors use a variational model, where the bosonic density profile is parameterized by a Gaussian Miyakawa et al. (2001); Amoruso et al. (1999). In many cases this does not provide enough flexibility to describe the density profiles accurately.

To avoid these restrictions from the outset and obtain a model that can be applied for all values of the scattering lengths and for all relevant particle numbers the density of the bosonic component will be obtained from the self-consistent solution of a modified Gross-Pitaevskii equation which is coupled to the fermionic density distribution through the boson-fermion interaction Roth and Feldmeier (2002); Nygaard and Mølmer (1999). The fermionic component is treated in Thomas-Fermi approximation which actually is a very good approximation to describe a degenerate Fermi gas Roth and Feldmeier (2001b, a).

The paper is structured as follows: In Section II the coupled set of differential equations that describes the bosonic and fermionic density distributions is derived and its numerical treatment is discussed. Using this universal tool the generic properties of binary mixtures are investigated in detail in Sections III and IV. Depending on the particle numbers, the boson-boson scattering length, and the boson-fermion scattering length the instability of the mixture against mean-field collapse and spatial component separation is discussed. Finally, in Section V the consequences for the particular boson-fermion mixtures available in present experiments are summarized.

## II Model for dilute boson-fermion mixtures

We aim at the description of ground state properties of a dilute mixture of $`N_\text{B}`$ bosonic and $`N_\text{F}`$ fermionic atoms in an external trapping potential at zero temperature. The atoms can be considered as inert interacting bosonic or fermionic particles, because the energy scales involved are sufficiently small, i.e., internal excitations of the atoms are not relevant.

### II.1 Mean-field approximation and effective Hamiltonian

A simple starting point for the treatment of the quantum mechanical many-body problem of $`N=N_\text{B}+N_\text{F}`$ interacting bosons and fermions is the mean-field approximation. The many-body state that describes the binary mixture can be written as a direct product of a bosonic $`N_\text{B}`$-body state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}`$ and a fermionic $`N_\text{F}`$-body state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_\text{F}`$

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=|\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}|\mathrm{\Psi }_\text{F}.$$
(1)
Within the mean-field approximation each of these states is described by a symmetrized or antisymmetrized product of single-particle states. At zero temperature the bosonic state is a direct product of $`N_\text{B}`$ identical single-particle states $`|\varphi _\text{B}`$

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}=|\varphi _\text{B}\mathrm{}|\varphi _\text{B}$$
(2)
which is symmetric per se. The fermionic state necessarily is a Slater determinant, i.e. an antisymmetrized product of different single-particle states $`|\psi _1,\mathrm{},|\psi _{N_\text{F}}`$,

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_\text{F}=𝑨\left(|\psi _1|\psi _2\mathrm{}|\psi _{N_\text{F}}\right),$$
(3)
where $`𝑨`$ is the antisymmetrization operator.

The mean-field picture is a reasonable starting point as long as correlations induced by the two-body interaction between the constituents are weak. The two-body potential that describes the interaction between the atoms consists of an attractive part at larger particle distances and a strong repulsion at short distances. Especially the short-range repulsion, the so called core, induces strong correlations between the atoms: The probability to find two particles within the range of the core is nearly zero, i.e., the two-body density shows a pronounced hole for particle distances smaller than the radius of the core. Correlations of this kind cannot be described in mean-field approximation.

In order to use the mean-field approximation for the description of the interacting system one has to replace the full atom-atom potential by a suitable effective interaction that contains the relevant physical properties of the the original potential Roth and Feldmeier (2001a). Since the gases we are considering are extremely dilute and cold the particles do not resolve the detailed shape of the potential. Therefore one may replace the interatomic potential by a simple contact interaction for all partial waves. The strengths of the contact terms are adjusted such that the expectation values of the contact interaction in two-body product states reproduce the two-body energy spectrum of the original atom-atom potential. This leads to a closed form of the effective contact interaction for all partial waves which involves only the scattering lengths of the original potential as discussed in detail in Ref. Roth and Feldmeier (2001a).

Using the effective contact interaction one can set up the Hamiltonian of a binary boson-fermion mixture. It consist of a part $`𝑯_\text{B}`$ that involves only the bosonic component, a part $`𝑯_\text{F}`$ which describes only the fermionic component, and a part $`𝑯_{\text{BF}}`$ which represents the interaction between the two species

$$𝑯=𝑯_\text{B}+𝑯_\text{F}+𝑯_{\text{BF}}.$$
(4)
The bosonic part contains the kinetic energy, the external trapping potential $`U_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ experienced by the bosons, and the $`s`$-wave interaction between bosons

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝑯_\text{B}=& \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{\stackrel{}{𝒑}_i^2}{2m_\text{B}}+U_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{𝒙}_i)\right]𝚷_i^\text{B}\hfill \\ & +\frac{4\pi a_{\text{B}0}}{m_\text{B}}\underset{i<j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta ^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{𝒓}_{ij})𝚷_{ij}^{\text{BB}},\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
where $`m_\text{B}`$ is the mass of the bosonic atoms and $`a_{\text{B}0}`$ the $`s`$-wave scattering length of the boson-boson interaction ($`\mathrm{}=1`$ throughout this paper). The formal distinction between bosonic and fermionic atoms is accomplished by projection operators $`𝚷_i^\text{B}`$ and $`𝚷_i^\text{F}`$ onto bosonic and fermionic single-particle states. Accordingly, the two-body projection operators $`𝚷_{ij}^{\text{BB}}`$, $`𝚷_{ij}^{\text{FF}}`$, and $`𝚷_{ij}^{\text{BF}}`$ select pairs of two bosons, pairs of fermions, and boson-fermion pairs, respectively.

The structure of the fermionic part of the Hamiltonian differs from that of the bosonic part: Due to the Pauli principle $`s`$-wave contact interactions between identical fermions do not contribute. The lowest order interaction contribution is therefore the $`p`$-wave contact interaction, which will be included here. The operator of the $`p`$-wave contact interaction is necessarily nonlocal, i.e., it involves the relative momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{𝒒}_{ij}=\frac{1}{2}(\stackrel{}{𝒑}_i\stackrel{}{𝒑}_j)`$ of the interacting particle pair. Thus the fermionic Hamiltonian reads

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝑯_\text{F}=& \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{\stackrel{}{𝒑}_i^2}{2m_\text{F}}+U_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{𝒙}_i)\right]𝚷_i^\text{F}\hfill \\ & +\frac{4\pi a_{\text{F}1}^3}{m_\text{F}}\underset{i<j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\stackrel{}{𝒒}_{ij}\delta ^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{𝒓}_{ij})\stackrel{}{𝒒}_{ij}𝚷_{ij}^{\text{FF}},\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
where $`m_\text{F}`$ is the mass of the fermionic atoms, $`U_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ the respective trapping potential, and $`a_{\text{F}1}`$ the $`p`$-wave scattering length Roth and Feldmeier (2001a).

Finally, for the interaction between bosons and fermions, both, $`s`$-wave and $`p`$-wave terms are present

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝑯_{\text{BF}}=& \frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}0}}{m_{\text{BF}}}\underset{i<j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\delta ^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{𝒓}_{ij})𝚷_{ij}^{\text{BF}}\hfill \\ & +\frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}1}^3}{m_{\text{BF}}}\underset{i<j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\stackrel{}{𝒒}_{ij}\delta ^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{𝒓}_{ij})\stackrel{}{𝒒}_{ij}𝚷_{ij}^{\text{BF}},\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
where $`m_{\text{BF}}=2m_\text{B}m_\text{F}/(m_\text{B}+m_\text{F})`$ is twice the reduced mass of a boson-fermion pair, $`a_{\text{BF}0}`$ is the $`s`$-wave, and $`a_{\text{BF}1}`$ the $`p`$-wave scattering length of the boson-fermion interaction.

In many cases the $`p`$-wave components of the interactions have only a marginal effect because the corresponding $`p`$-wave scattering lengths are small. Nevertheless, one can expect a significant influence of $`p`$-wave interactions on the structure and stability of the mixture provided the value of the $`p`$-wave scattering lengths is in the order of the $`s`$-wave scattering lengths or larger, e.g. in the vicinity of a $`p`$-wave Feshbach resonance Bohn (2000). The strong influence of $`p`$-wave interactions on the properties of purely fermionic systems was discussed in detail in Refs. Roth and Feldmeier (2001b, a).

### II.2 Energy functional

Using the effective Hamiltonian (4) we study the ground state properties of boson-fermion mixtures at zero temperature. I adopt the language of density functional theory and construct, in a first step, an energy functional which connects the energy expectation value of the mixture with the one-body density distributions $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ of the bosons and the fermions, respectively,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }|𝑯|\mathrm{\Psi }E[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]=\mathrm{d}^3x(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(8)
For the construction of the energy functional the different parts of the Hamiltonian (4) are considered separately and the energy density $`(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is decomposed into a purely bosonic part $`_\text{B}`$, a purely fermionic part $`_\text{F}`$, and a part $`_{\text{BF}}`$ that contains the interaction between bosons and fermions

$$(\stackrel{}{x})=_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})+_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})+_{\text{BF}}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(9)
Using the many-body state (2) the calculation of the expectation value of the bosonic part of the Hamiltonian $`𝑯_\text{B}`$ immediately leads to the well known Gross-Pitaevskii energy density Dalfovo et al. (1999)

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})=& \frac{1}{2m_\text{B}}\left|\stackrel{}{}\sqrt{n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})}\right|^2+U_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\frac{2\pi a_{\text{B}0}}{m_\text{B}}n_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
The ground state density distribution $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ of the bosons is connected to the single-particle wave function $`\stackrel{}{x}|\varphi _\text{B}`$ in (2) by

$$n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x})=N_\text{B}\stackrel{}{x}|\varphi _\text{B}^2$$
(11)
which reflects the simple structure of the bosonic part of the many-body state.

For the fermionic part the construction of the associated energy density is not as straight forward. A general treatment of the fermionic many-body problem in mean-field approximation requires the solution of Hartree-Fock equations to obtain the single-particle wave functions Nygaard and Mølmer (1999). For the experimentally realized particle numbers of $`N_\text{F}10^6`$ a self-consistent numerical treatment of these differential equations is not feasible. However, the large particle numbers allow the use of the Thomas-Fermi approximation for the fermionic component Roth and Feldmeier (2001a). It is the lowest order of a semiclassical expansion of the energy density in terms of derivatives of the single-particle density $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ Ring and Schuck (1980). All terms in the energy density that involve gradients or higher order derivatives of the density are neglected. To obtain the energy density in Thomas-Fermi approximation one calculates the energy expectation value of the infinite homogeneous system using a Slater determinant of all momentum eigenstates up to the Fermi momentum $`k_\text{F}`$ with periodic boundary conditions. Next, one replaces the constant density $`n_\text{F}=k_\text{F}^3/(6\pi ^2)`$ therein by a density distribution $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$. This leads to the fermionic contribution to the energy density Roth and Feldmeier (2001a, b)

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})=& \frac{3(6\pi ^2)^{2/3}}{10m_\text{F}}n_\text{F}^{5/3}(\stackrel{}{x})+U_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\frac{(6\pi ^2)^{5/3}a_{\text{F}1}^3}{5\pi m_\text{F}}n_\text{F}^{8/3}(\stackrel{}{x}),\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
where the first term represents the kinetic energy, the second term the external trapping potential, and the third term the $`p`$-wave fermion-fermion interaction.

One can employ the Thomas-Fermi approximation also to calculate the contribution of the boson-fermion interaction to the energy density

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _{\text{BF}}(\stackrel{}{x})=& \frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}0}}{m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\frac{(6\pi ^2)^{5/3}a_{\text{BF}1}^3}{10\pi m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})n_\text{F}^{5/3}(\stackrel{}{x}),\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
where the first term describes the $`s`$-wave and the second term the $`p`$-wave boson-fermion interaction.

Notice that the Thomas-Fermi approximation affects only the contributions to the energy density associated with nonlocal terms of the Hamiltonian, that is the kinetic energy and the $`p`$-wave interactions. For fermion numbers in the order $`N_\text{F}1000`$ one can check explicitly that the Thomas-Fermi approximation is in good agreement with Hartree-Fock type calculations Nygaard and Mølmer (1999). Alternatively one can evaluate the next terms of the semiclassical gradient expansion of the energy density Roth and Feldmeier (2001a). Both checks show that the Thomas-Fermi approximation generally yields a very good description of the fermionic component for $`N_\text{F}1000`$.

Some authors Mølmer (1998); Akdeniz et al. (2002) investigated the structure of boson-fermion mixtures using the Thomas-Fermi approximation also for the bosonic species. Here, however, one encounters the problem that the kinetic energy contribution of the bosons vanishes completely (not so for the kinetic energy of the fermions). This causes two stringent conditions for the applicability of the approximation: (a) the boson-boson interaction has to be repulsive, i.e., systems with vanishing or attractive boson-boson interaction cannot be considered at all. (b) The contribution of the boson-boson interaction to the energy density has to be much larger than the neglected kinetic energy. For the investigation of the phase diagram as presented in the following sections this means a substantial and uncontrolled limitation of the parameter range in which the approximation may be valid Roth and Feldmeier (2002). Therefore, I employ the Thomas-Fermi approximation only for the fermionic component, where it is well suited for all types of interactions, and treat the bosons using the full Gross-Pitaevskii energy density.

### II.3 Euler-Lagrange equations

The second step is the minimization of the total energy $`E[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]`$ by functional variation of the boson and fermion density distribution. The variation shall be performed under the constraint of given numbers of bosons and fermions, $`N_\text{B}`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$. The constraints are implemented by two Lagrange multipliers, i.e. the chemical potentials $`\mu _\text{B}`$ and $`\mu _\text{F}`$, and an unrestricted variation is carried out for the Legendre transformed energy

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill F[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]& =E[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]\mu _\text{B}N[n_\text{B}]\mu _\text{F}N[n_\text{F}]\hfill \\ & =\mathrm{d}^3x(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \end{array}$$
(14)
with a transformed energy density

$$(\stackrel{}{x})=(\stackrel{}{x})\mu _\text{B}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\mu _\text{F}n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(15)
The values of the chemical potentials are chosen (a posteriori) such that the integrals over the boson ($`\xi =\text{B}`$) and the fermion densities ($`\xi =\text{F}`$)

$$N[n_\xi ]=\mathrm{d}^3xn_\xi (\stackrel{}{x})$$
(16)
yield the desired particle numbers $`N_\text{B}`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$, respectively.

A necessary condition for the density distributions $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ to describe a minimum of the transformed energy $`F[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]`$ is given by the Euler-Lagrange equations

$$0=\frac{}{\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}}\stackrel{}{}\frac{}{(\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B})},0=\frac{}{n_\text{F}}\stackrel{}{}\frac{}{(\stackrel{}{}n_\text{F})}.$$
(17)
One can insert the explicit form of $`(\stackrel{}{x})`$, which involves the energy densities (10), (12), and (13), and obtain two coupled equations that determine the ground state densities $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$.

The Euler-Lagrange equation for the boson density reduces to a modified Gross-Pitaevskii equation

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0=[& \frac{1}{2m_\text{B}}\stackrel{}{}^2+U_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\mu _\text{B}+\frac{4\pi a_{\text{B}0}}{m_\text{B}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}0}}{m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})+\frac{(6\pi ^2)^{5/3}a_{\text{BF}1}^3}{10\pi m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{F}^{5/3}(\stackrel{}{x})]\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
In addition to the usual terms describing kinetic energy, trapping potential, chemical potential, and boson-boson interaction one obtains two contributions from the $`s`$\- and $`p`$-wave interaction between bosons and fermions. The bosons thus experience additional mean-field potentials generated by the boson-fermion interactions that depend on different powers of the fermionic density distribution.

For the fermions the Euler-Lagrange equation simplifies to a polynomial equation in $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ because all terms in the energy density that involve the fermion density are local — a direct consequence of the Thomas-Fermi approximation

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0=& \left[U_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})\mu _\text{F}+\frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}0}}{m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\right]\hfill \\ & +\left[\frac{(6\pi ^2)^{2/3}}{2m_\text{F}}+\frac{(6\pi ^2)^{5/3}a_{\text{BF}1}^3}{6\pi m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\right]n_\text{F}^{2/3}(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\left[\frac{8(6\pi ^2)^{5/3}a_{\text{F}1}^3}{15\pi m_\text{F}}\right]n_\text{F}^{5/3}(\stackrel{}{x}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
Again the boson density enters explicitly through the $`s`$\- and $`p`$-wave boson-fermion interaction. The simultaneous solution of Eqs. (18) and (19) yields density profiles that describe a stationary point of the energy functional $`F[n_\text{B},n_\text{F}]`$. In principle one has to check explicitly that these coincide with a minimum of the energy.

### II.4 Numerical treatment

On the basis of the coupled equations (18) and (19) the structure of binary boson-fermion mixtures is studied with special emphasis on the effects and the interplay between the boson-boson and the boson-fermion $`s`$-wave interaction.

In order to reduce the number of physical parameters it is assumed that the $`p`$-wave scattering lengths are small and the corresponding $`p`$-wave terms are neglected. Thus the Euler-Lagrange equations for the boson and fermion density simplify to

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0=[& \frac{1}{2m_\text{B}}\stackrel{}{}^2+U_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\mu _\text{B}+\frac{4\pi a_\text{B}}{m_\text{B}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \\ & +\frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}}}{m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})]\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
for the boson density $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Phi }_\text{B}^2(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and

$$n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{(2m_\text{F})^{3/2}}{6\pi ^2}\left[\mu _\text{F}U_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})\frac{4\pi a_{\text{BF}}}{m_{\text{BF}}}n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})\right]^{3/2}$$
(21)
for the fermion density. The index “0” which marked the $`s`$-wave scattering lengths is omitted here and in the following. Furthermore, we will restrict ourselves to parabolic trapping potentials with spherical symmetry

$$U_\xi (\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{m_\xi \omega _\xi ^2}{2}x^2=\frac{1}{2m_\xi \mathrm{}_\xi ^4}x^2,$$
(22)
where $`\omega _\xi `$ is the oscillator frequency and $`\mathrm{}_\xi =(m_\xi \omega _\xi )^{1/2}`$ is the corresponding oscillator length for the bosonic ($`\xi =\text{B}`$) and fermionic component ($`\xi =\text{F}`$), respectively. In a magnetic trap the trap parameters of the fermionic species can be obtained from those for the bosons by scaling according to the different masses and magnetic moments.

For the numerical treatment it is convenient to express all quantities with the dimension of length in units of the oscillator length $`\mathrm{}_B`$ and energies in units of the oscillator frequency $`\omega _\text{B}`$. Eventually, the physically relevant dimensionless parameters to characterize the mixture are the particle numbers $`N_\text{B}`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$, the ratios of the scattering lengths and the oscillator length $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}_\text{B}`$ and $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}_\text{B}`$, and the ratios of the masses $`m_\text{B}/m_\text{F}`$ and of the oscillator lengths $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}/\mathrm{}_\text{F}`$.

The solution of the coupled equations (20) and (21) is accomplished by an efficient imaginary time propagation algorithm — also known as quantum diffusion algorithm Feagin (1994) — which is embedded in a simple iterative scheme. A basic iteration step consists of two stages: (a) The fermionic density profile $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is calculated from (21) with a chemical potential $`\mu _\text{F}`$ adjusted such that the desired fermion number $`N_\text{F}`$ is reproduced. (b) A single imaginary time step is performed using the mean-fields associated with the fermion density determined before and the boson density of the previous iteration step. The resulting $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is then normalized to the total boson number $`N_\text{B}`$ and used as initialization for the next iteration step. In the beginning of the iteration cycle the boson density is initialized with a Gaussian profile chosen, e.g., according to a variational treatment of the isolated bosonic system.

Typically $`200`$ grid points are used to set up a radial lattice in the region where the bosonic and the fermionic density distributions overlap. The fermionic density profile outside the overlap region (where $`n_\text{B}(\stackrel{}{x})0`$) is described using the analytic form (21). The imaginary time propagation itself is implemented using either a linearized time-evolution operator with a simple three-point discretization of the radial part of the Laplacian or by a split operator technique employing a fast Fourier transformation. The size of a time step is chosen sufficiently small to guarantee the stability of the algorithm and the independence of the results. The convergence of the density profiles is monitored during the evolution.

## III Attractive boson-fermion interactions

In this section generic properties of binary boson-fermion mixture with attractive interactions between the two species ($`a_{\text{BF}}<0`$) are discussed. Recent experiments indicate that mixtures of bosonic $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$ and fermionic $`{}_{}{}^{40}\text{K}`$ atoms belong to this class of interactions Roati et al. (2002); Ferrari et al. (2002); Goldwin et al. (2002).

Throughout this and the following section it is assumed that the masses ($`m=m_\text{B}=m_\text{F}`$) and the oscillator lengths of the trapping potentials ($`\mathrm{}=\mathrm{}_\text{B}=\mathrm{}_\text{F}`$) are identical for both components in order to reduce the parameter manifold to a tractable size.

### III.1 Density profiles

Some of the basic properties of mixtures with attractive boson-fermion interactions become evident from the shape of the density profiles already. Figure 1 shows the radial density profiles for mixtures with $`N_\text{B}=N_\text{F}=10^4`$, $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0`$, and different strengths of the attractive boson-fermion interaction. Already the noninteracting case $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0`$ (solid tlines) reveals a fundamental property of these mixtures: The fermionic density distribution has a much larger spatial extension than a bosonic distribution with the same particle number. This is a direct consequence of the Pauli principle that forces the fermions to occupy “excited” single-particle states of the external potential which have a larger radial extension whereas the bosons in a Bose-Einstein condensate all occupy the ground state of the trap. This manifestation of the so-called Fermi pressure was observed experimentally Truscott et al. (2001).

The inclusion of an attractive boson-fermion interaction leads to an enhancement of the boson and the fermion density within the central overlap region as it is shown by the broken curves in Fig. 1. The bosonic profile narrows and the central density increases moderately. The effect on the fermionic component is more pronounced: within the overlap region the fermion density exhibits a high-density bump on top of the low-density profile. The central fermion density can easily be increased by a factor of four (dotted line in Fig. 1). This structure can be understood by considering the mean-field potential experienced by the fermions: In addition to a shallow trapping potential the boson-fermion attraction generates a tight potential well with the shape of the bosonic density distribution which causes a localized enhancement of the fermion density profile.

The boson-boson interaction has a strong influence on this density enhancement. The presence of a boson-boson repulsion broadens the bosonic distribution and reduces the maximum density significantly. This in turn strongly reduces the enhancement of the fermion density in the overlap region. As is shown in Fig. 2 much stronger boson-fermion attractions are required to generate a similar increase of the fermion density in the presence of repulsive boson-boson interactions. However, the overlap volume is much larger in these cases; thus a larger fraction of the fermions is contained in the high-density region.

### III.2 Simultaneous mean-field collapse

For given particle numbers $`N_\text{B}`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$ and given boson-boson scattering length $`a_\text{B}`$ there exists a maximum strength of the attractive boson-fermion interaction up to which the mixture is stable. Physically this stability limit is governed by the balance between the kinetic energy of bosons and fermions and the mutually attractive mean-field generated by the boson-fermion interaction. If the boson-fermion attraction becomes too strong — likewise if the boson or fermion numbers become too large — the attractive mean-field cannot be stabilized by the kinetic energy anymore and the mixture can lower its energy by increasing the boson and fermion density; both density distributions collapse simultaneously within the overlap region.

In the numerical treatment of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii problem the instability is indicated by a divergence of the central boson and fermion density during the imaginary time propagation. By monitoring the central density one can determine whether the systems is stable or collapses, i.e., whether the density converges or diverges for a given set of parameters $`N_\text{B}`$, $`N_\text{F}`$, $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$, and $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$. To determine the stability limit in presence of attractive boson-fermion interactions it is most useful to vary $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ for fixed values of $`N_\text{B}`$, $`N_\text{F}`$, and $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$ until the onset of instability is reached.

Figure 3 depicts the resulting stability limit in terms of a critical number of bosons $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ as function of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}<0`$ for different $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$. To obtain the curves I determined the limiting value of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ that still allows a stable mixture for a set of boson numbers $`\mathrm{log}_{10}N_B=1.5,\mathrm{},6`$. The maximum strength of the boson-fermion interaction of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0.05`$ shown in the plots corresponds to a scattering length of $`a_{\text{BF}}1000a_{\text{Bohr}}50\text{nm}`$ for a typical trap with $`\mathrm{}=1\mu \text{m}`$.

The full curves in Fig. 3 show the critical boson number for a mixture with vanishing boson-boson interaction ($`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0`$). Already a moderate boson-fermion attraction with $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0.005`$ causes a severe limitation of the boson number to $`N_B2300`$ in the presence of $`N_\text{F}=10^5`$ fermions, as it is shown in panel (b) of Fig. 3.

The boson-boson interaction has a very strong influence on the structure and stability of the mixture. If a weak boson-boson repulsion with a fraction of the strength of the boson-fermion attraction is included the system is stabilized significantly, i.e., the critical number of boson $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ is increased. This is depicted by the broken curves in Fig. 3 which correspond to different strengths $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}>0`$ of the repulsive boson-boson interaction. For the previous example ($`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0.005`$, $`N_\text{F}=10^5`$) a boson-boson repulsion with $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0.001`$ is sufficient to increase the maximum number of bosons in a stable system from $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}2300`$ for $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0`$ to far more than $`10^6`$. Moreover, repulsive boson-boson interactions can cause the absolute stabilization of the mixture against collapse induced by the boson-fermion attraction. That is, for given $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}>0`$ and $`N_\text{F}`$ mixtures with $`|a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}|`$ below a certain limiting strength are stable up to any number of bosons. This can be clearly seen in Fig. 3(a): the broken thick curves exhibit a kink and start to rise vertically at a specific value of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ which depends on $`a_B/\mathrm{}`$ and $`N_F`$. All systems with weaker boson-fermion attraction are stable against collapse for arbitrary $`N_\text{B}`$.

An attractive boson-boson interaction, on the other hand, promotes the collapse of the mixture. It generates an additional attractive contribution to the mean-field experienced by the bosons which seeks to increase the boson density and has to be balanced by the kinetic energy. Due to the boson-fermion attraction the fermionic component in turn feels a stronger mean-field attraction cause by the increased boson density. Therefore the critical boson number $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ is lowered by attractive boson-boson interactions as the thin curves in Fig. 3 show. One has to be aware that the character of the collapse changes if one reduces $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}0`$ for fixed $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}<0`$. For reasonably strong boson-fermion attraction the mutual mean-field couples the boson and fermion density strongly to each other such that both densities collapse simultaneously in the overlap region. If the boson-fermion interaction is reduced this coupling weakens until bosons and fermions decouple for $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0`$. In this case the boson density may still collapse due to the boson-boson attraction; the fermion density, however, is not affected and remains stable (see also Sec. IV.3).

The number of fermions in the system has a rather weak influence on the stability. The three panels in Fig. 3 correspond to (a) $`N_\text{F}=10^4`$, (b) $`N_\text{F}=10^5`$, and (c) $`N_\text{F}=10^6`$. Mainly, the increasing number of fermions $`N_\text{F}`$ enhances the effect of the boson-fermion attraction. Thus the stability limit for a given $`N_\text{B}`$ is shifted towards smaller values of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ if $`N_\text{F}`$ is increased.

## IV Repulsive boson-fermion interactions

In this section the generic properties of boson-fermion mixtures with repulsive interactions between the two species ($`a_{\text{BF}}>0`$) are discussed. All $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ mixtures used in present experiments Truscott et al. (2001); Schreck et al. (2001b, a) belong to this class of interactions.

### IV.1 Density profiles

Obviously a repulsive boson-fermion interaction will tend to reduce the overlap between the two species — in contrary to the attractive boson-fermion interactions discussed in the previous section. Hence the structural transition characteristic for this class of interactions is the spatial separation (or demixing) of the two species Nygaard and Mølmer (1999); Mølmer (1998). Figure 4 shows an example for the influence of repulsive boson-fermion interactions of increasing strength on the density profiles of the mixture. The compact boson distribution in the trap center repels the fermionic cloud from the overlap region. With increasing boson-fermion scattering length $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}>0`$ the fermionic distribution gets more and more depleted until $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x}=0)`$ reaches zero (see the dashed curve in Fig. 4). For even larger $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ the fermions are expelled farther from the trap center and the overlap of both species is reduced continuously. The boson cloud in return is slightly compressed by the outer shell of fermions.

The boson-boson interaction has a very strong influence on the density profiles of bosons and fermions. Similar to the case discussed in Sec. III.1 a repulsive boson-boson interaction reduces the influence of the boson-fermion interaction. Much larger boson-fermion scattering lengths are required to cause phase separation in the presence of repulsive boson-boson interactions. An example with $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0.005`$ is shown in Fig. 5. Because the bosonic distribution is broadened due to the boson-boson repulsion, the fermion density is depleted in a significantly larger volume. A peculiar structure appears for interactions with $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}>0`$: The fermion density is nearly constant within the whole overlap region as the dash-dotted curve in Fig. 5 shows Mølmer (1998).

Depending on the trap geometry the separated phase can exhibit different structures. If the fermionic species experiences a tighter confinement than the bosonic component (requires an appropriate combination of magnetic moments) an inversion of the separated configuration can appear: a central core of fermions surrounded by a thin boson shell which compresses the fermions. In these cases there exists a second structural transition from the fermion-core configuration at smaller $`N_\text{B}`$ to the usual boson-core configuration at large $`N_\text{B}`$. In deformed traps a rich variety of asymmetric configurations are possible, some of these were discussed in Nygaard and Mølmer (1999).

### IV.2 Spatial component separation

In this section the influence of scattering lengths and particle numbers on the transition from overlapping to separated density distributions is quantified. Since the transition is smooth in most cases there is no unique definition for the onset of separation. As a gross criterion for separation I use the fermion density in the trap center and consider those configurations as separated that yield $`n_\text{F}(\stackrel{}{x}=0)=0`$. Clearly, if the boson-fermion repulsion is increased then the overlap of the two density distributions decreases further.

Figure 6 summarizes the findings on the characteristic number of bosons $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ above which the fermion density vanishes in the trap center. The curves correspond to different values of the boson-boson scattering length $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$. For increasing boson-fermion repulsion $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}>0`$ the characteristic boson number $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ drops rapidly. In the case $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0`$ (solid lines) and $`N_\text{F}=10^5`$ a moderate boson-fermion repulsion with $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0.005`$ leads to phase separation if the number of bosons exceeds $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}3300`$.

The inclusion of repulsive boson-boson interactions leads to an interesting modification of the separation behavior. First of all the boson-boson repulsion stabilizes the mixture against phase separation, i.e., $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ increases significantly with increasing $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}>0`$ as the broken curves in Fig. 6 indicate. Moreover, for sufficiently large fermion numbers the boson-boson repulsion causes a qualitative change of the dependence of $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ on the boson-fermion scattering length. An example is shown in Fig. 6(c) for $`N_\text{F}=10^6`$. Around a characteristic value of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$, which increases with increasing $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$, the limiting boson number for separation $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ suddenly drops by one or more orders of magnitude and a steplike structure appears. For values of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ smaller than the characteristic value associated with this step the boson-boson repulsion causes a substantial stabilization of the system against separation. Above the step the influence of the boson-boson repulsion on $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ is weak.

In addition to the particular behavior of $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ the character of the transition changes. One may regard the central fermion density $`n_\text{F}(0)`$ as order parameter; finite values of the order parameter characterize the overlapping phase, a vanishing order parameter indicates separation. In most cases, e.g. for $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0`$, the order parameter decreases continuously with increasing $`N_\text{B}`$, i.e., the central fermion density decreases smoothly until the separated phase with $`n_\text{F}(0)=0`$ is reached. This behavior corresponds to a second order or cross-over transition. However, for sufficiently large $`N_\text{F}`$ and $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$, e.g., $`N_\text{F}=10^6`$ and $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}=0.005`$ \[see dotted curve in Fig. 6(c)\], the order of the phase transition changes. For values of $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ above the step the transition is of first order: With increasing $`N_\text{B}`$ the order parameter decreases slightly until $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ is reached, then it drops discontinuously to zero. For $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ below the value associated with the step the transition is still continuous which implies the existence of a tricritical point at the step.

### IV.3 Collapse of the bosonic component

If the repulsive boson-fermion interaction is supplemented by a boson-boson attraction ($`a_\text{B}<0`$) then a subtle competition between component separation and mean-field collapse occurs.

For vanishing boson-fermion scattering length $`a_{\text{BF}}=0`$ the two species decouple. The bosonic component may undergo a mean-field collapse just like an isolated Bose-Einstein condensate if the boson-boson interaction is attractive. The critical particle number for this collapse of the bosonic component in a decoupled mixture can be parameterized by $`N_{\text{B},a_{\text{BF}}=0}^{\text{cr}}=0.575\mathrm{}/|a_\text{B}|`$. This coincides with the result for the collapse a pure Bose gas Dalfovo et al. (1999); Eleftheriou and Huang (2000) which was basically confirmed by experiment Roberts et al. (2001); Bradley et al. (1997).

One should notice that the character of the collapse induced by a boson-boson attraction differs from that of the collapse cause by an attractive boson-fermion interaction discussed in Sec. III.2. In the latter case the boson-fermion interaction generates a mutual attractive mean-field that acts on both, fermions and bosons, and causes a simultaneous collapse of both density distributions. In the case of a boson-boson attraction only the bosonic component experiences an attractive mean-field and may become unstable. For $`a_{\text{BF}}>0`$ the fermionic density profile will be influenced by a collapse of the bosonic component but it will not collapse itself. The collapse of the bosonic component may, e.g., generate a collective excitation of the fermionic cloud.

Although the collapse for $`a_\text{B}<0`$ concerns the bosonic density alone, the boson-fermion interaction modifies the stability properties significantly. We will concentrate on the case $`a_{\text{BF}}>0`$; the collapse in presence of attractive boson-fermion interactions was discussed in Sec. III.2 already. The black curves in Fig. 7 show the critical number of bosons $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ as function of the boson-boson scattering length $`a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}`$ for different values of the boson-fermion scattering length $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}0`$. The solid lines show the critical boson numbers for the decoupled mixture ($`a_{\text{BF}}=0`$).

The first general observation is that a boson-fermion repulsion *de*stabilizes the bosonic component, i.e., the critical boson number $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ is reduced if $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ or $`N_\text{F}`$ are increased. Physically this can be understood from the structure of the density profiles discussed in Sec. IV.1. Due to the boson-fermion repulsion the outer fermionic cloud tends to compress the compact bosonic core. The boson density and thus the attractive mean-field are enhanced which eventually promotes the collapse of the bosonic component. However, as can be seen from Fig. 7 the boson-fermion scattering length $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}`$ has to be significantly larger than $`|a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}|`$ to have a noticeable effect.

Evidently, component separation due to a boson-fermion repulsion has a large effect on the stability of the mixture with respect to collapse induced by the boson-boson attraction. The gray lines in Fig. 7 indicate the characteristic particle number $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$ for the onset of component separation for interactions with $`a_{\text{BF}}/\mathrm{}=0.01`$ and $`0.02`$. For weak attractive boson-boson interactions separation happens at lower particle numbers than the collapse of the bosonic component, that is $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}>N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$. With increasing strength of the boson-boson attraction the critical particle number for collapse drops rapidly until $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}=N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$. From that point on collapse and separation happen simultaneously, i.e. there is no stable separated configuration anymore. The corresponding curves for $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}`$ shown in Fig. 7 exhibit a kink at this point and proceed towards larger $`|a_\text{B}/\mathrm{}|`$ like a smooth continuation of $`N_\text{B}^{\text{sep}}`$. There, as soon as component separation occurs, the bosonic cloud is compressed and the attractive mean-field due to the boson-boson interaction is amplified to such an extent that the collapse happens immediately.

## V Implications for present experiments

After investigating the generic properties of degenerate boson-fermion mixtures in the previous sections I now want to discuss the specific implications for the mixtures available in present experiments. In this section the mass difference and the different oscillator lengths of the trapping potentials for the two species are included explicitly.

### V.1 $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ mixture I

Quantum degeneracy in a magnetically trapped dilute boson-fermion mixture was first achieved by Truscott *et al.* Truscott et al. (2001) using a mixture of bosonic $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$ atoms in the $`|F=2,m_F=2`$ state and fermionic $`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ with $`|F=3/2,m_F=3/2`$. The same mixture was subsequently used by Schreck *et al.* Schreck et al. (2001b, a). For this particular combination of states the boson-boson interaction is attractive and the boson-fermion interaction repulsive with scattering lengths Abraham et al. (1997)

$$a_\text{B}=1.46\text{nm},a_{\text{BF}}=2.16\text{nm}.$$
(23)
The attractive boson-boson interaction can cause the collapse of the bosonic component and leads to a severe limitation of the number of bosons (see Sec. IV.3). This is a major hindrance for the implementation of an efficient scheme for the sympathetic cooling of the fermionic component. Ideally one would like to have a large bosonic cloud at a very low temperature to act as a coolant for the fermions. The attractive boson-boson interaction, however, restricts the number of particles in the Bose-Einstein condensate and hence sets a lower bound to the temperature of the bosonic cloud. In conclusion the lowest achievable temperature for the fermionic component is also restricted.

The stability limits for this $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ mixture can be visualized by a phase digram in the plane spanned by $`N_\text{F}`$ and $`N_\text{B}`$ as shown in Fig. 8. Each of the curves marks the limit of stability for a different size of the external trapping potential characterized by the oscillator length $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}`$ for the bosonic species. The respective oscillator length $`\mathrm{}_\text{F}`$ for the fermions follows from simple scaling with respect to the different masses and magnetic moments. In the experiment of Truscott *et al.* the mean oscillator length is $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=2.67\mu \text{m}`$ Truscott et al. (2001), whereas Schreck *et al.* used a trap with $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=1.23\mu \text{m}`$ Schreck et al. (2001a). For boson numbers above the stability limit the bosonic component is unstable against mean-field collapse. Narrowing of the trapping potential, i.e. reducing the oscillator length $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}`$, enhances the effect of the interactions.

Obviously the stability of the mixture depends mainly on the boson number $`N_\text{B}`$ and the critical boson number is to a good approximation given by the corresponding value of the pure Bose gas. The fermionic component has essentially no influence on the stability because the boson-fermion interaction is too weak. This is in agreement with the experimental findings Truscott et al. (2001); Schreck et al. (2001b). As discussed in Sec. IV.3 a stronger boson-fermion repulsion would destabilize the mixture anyway.

Notice that the calculations presented here are restricted to isotropic traps. The prolate trap deformation present in most experiments leads to a reduction of the critical particle number compared to a spherical trap with same mean oscillator length. For a pure Bose gas in a trap with $`\omega _z/\omega _r0.1`$ as in the experiment of Truscott *et al.* Truscott et al. (2001) the critical particle number is reduced by typically $`20\%`$ Gammal et al. (2001). For the strongly deformed trap with $`\omega _z/\omega _r0.02`$ used by Schreck *et al.* Schreck et al. (2001a) this reduction is in the order of $`40\%`$.

### V.2 $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ mixture II

The two Lithium isotopes can also be trapped in another combination of angular momentum states as was successfully demonstrated by Schreck *et al.* Schreck et al. (2001a). The relevant $`s`$-wave scattering lengths for a mixture of $`{}_{}{}^{7}\text{Li}`$ in the $`|F=1,m_F=1`$ state and $`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ in $`|F=1/2,m_F=1/2`$ are both positive Abeelen et al. (1997); Schreck et al. (2001a)

$$a_\text{B}=0.27\text{nm},a_{\text{BF}}=2.01\text{nm}.$$
(24)
Therefore this mixture is stable with respect to collapse but may undergo component separation generated by the boson-fermion repulsion (see Sec. IV.2).

The phase diagram of this mixture in the $`N_\text{F}`$-$`N_\text{B}`$-plane is shown in Fig. 9. For values of $`N_\text{B}`$ above the phase boundaries plotted for different oscillator lengths the mixture separates spatially. The onset of separation for the scattering lengths (24) depends in a nontrivial way on the particle numbers and the oscillator length. Especially for tightly confining traps with $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}<0.15\mu \text{m}`$ the phase boundary at large $`N_\text{F}`$ suddenly bends towards smaller boson numbers. As discussed in Sec. IV.2 this structure is associated with a change in the order of the phase transition. At small $`N_\text{F}`$ or for shallow traps the transition is continuous, i.e. the central fermion density continuously goes to zero as $`N_\text{B}`$ is increased. For large $`N_\text{F}`$ and tightly confining traps the transition is of first order, that is the central fermion density jumps to zero if the phase boundary is crossed. This effect is solely caused by the presence of the weak boson-boson repulsion.

We should like to point out that although the boson-boson scattering length is by one order of magnitude smaller than the boson-fermion scattering length it has a strong influence on the phase diagram also for shallow traps and small particle numbers. The gray curve in Fig. 9 shows the phase boundary for $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=1\mu \text{m}`$ without the boson-boson interaction (compare with the black solid curve). The boson-boson repulsion stabilizes the system substantially, i.e. the onset of separation is shifted to much larger particle numbers.

Schreck *et al.* Schreck et al. (2001a) managed to produce such a mixture with $`N_\text{B}10^4`$ and $`N_\text{F}2.5\times 10^4`$ in a trap with mean oscillator length of $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=1.0\mu \text{m}`$ (solid curve in Fig 9). According to our calculations (effects of the trap anisotropy are not included) the bosonic and fermionic density are still overlapping which is consistent with the experimental findings. However, an increase of the boson number by a factor $`10`$ or a reduction of the fermion number to $`N_\text{F}10^3`$ would already lead into the regime of separation.

### V.3 $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{40}\text{K}`$ mixture

A first step towards an ultracold mixture of $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$ and the fermionic $`{}_{}{}^{40}\text{K}`$ was reported by Goldwin *et al.* Goldwin et al. (2002) and recently Roati *et al.* Roati et al. (2002) managed to reach quantum degeneracy. This system is particularly interesting, because it shows a large negative boson-fermion scattering length Ferrari et al. (2002)

$$a_\text{B}=5.25\text{nm},a_{\text{BF}}=13.8\text{nm}.$$
(25)
Thus this mixture can undergo a simultaneous collapse of the bosonic and fermionic density distribution as discussed in Sec. III.2.

Figure 10 shows the corresponding phase diagram in the $`N_\text{F}`$-$`N_\text{B}`$-plane. One might expect that the strong boson-fermion attraction sets a very severe limit to the size of a stable mixture. In principle this expectation is correct as illustrated by the gray solid curve which corresponds to the mere boson-fermion attraction for $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=1\mu \text{m}`$. Without the boson-boson interaction the mixture would collapse if the boson number exceeds $`N_\text{B}^{\text{cr}}300`$.

Fortunately a moderate repulsive boson-boson interaction is present which has a tremendous influence on the phase diagram. First of all the critical boson numbers are increased by roughly four orders of magnitude. Moreover, below a certain fermion number marked by the vertical pieces of the curves in Fig. 10 the mixture is stable up to arbitrary boson numbers; this is the effect of absolute stabilization due to the boson-boson repulsion discussed in Sec. III.2. Thus in a trap with $`\mathrm{}_\text{B}=1\mu \text{m}`$ any combination of boson and fermion numbers up to $`N_\text{B}N_\text{F}10^7`$ would be stable although a strongly attractive boson-fermion interaction is present.

The particular combination of scattering lengths of the $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{40}\text{K}`$ mixture opens interesting perspectives for the implementation of a sympathetic cooling scheme. The strong boson-fermion attraction generates an enhancement of the boson and fermion density in the overlap region which is — due to the boson-boson repulsion — expanded over a large volume (see Fig. 2). Therefore a large fraction of the fermionic cloud overlaps with the bosonic distribution and enables a very efficient inter-species thermalization. At the same time the boson-boson repulsion stabilizes the system against simultaneous collapse for all experimentally relevant particle numbers.

### V.4 $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ mixture

Recently, Hadzibabic *et al.* Hadzibabic et al. (2001) reported the sympathetic cooling of a mixture of $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{6}\text{Li}`$ to quantum degeneracy. To my knowledge there is no data on the inter-species scattering length for this system yet. However, since a stable mixture with large numbers of bosons and fermions ($`N_\text{B}2\times 10^6`$, $`N_\text{F}=1.5\times 10^5`$) was produced one can at least deduce bounds for the boson-fermion scattering length. Assuming $`a_\text{B}=2.75\text{nm}`$ Inouye et al. (1998) one finds that the boson-fermion scattering length must obey $`a_{\text{BF}}>14.6\text{nm}`$ in order to allow a stable mixture in this experiment. Moreover, the linear density profiles of the fermionic cloud shown in Hadzibabic et al. (2001) suggest that the components are not separated. From the minimal requirement that the fermion density in the center is larger than zero one obtains an upper bound $`a_{\text{BF}}<5.1\text{nm}`$ 111The requirement that the fermionic density profile drops monotonically, i.e. does not show a central dip, leads to the more restrictive upper bound $`a_{\text{BF}}<0.69\text{nm}`$.. Notice that these estimates do not account for the effects of the trap anisotropy and the finite temperature present in the experiment.

## VI Conclusions

In summary, I have presented a systematic study of the structure and stability of trapped binary boson-fermion mixtures at zero temperature. The bosonic component is described by a modified Gross-Pitaevskii equation which includes the mean-field interaction with the fermionic component. The fermionic density distribution is obtained within the Thomas-Fermi approximation.

Depending on the strengths of the boson-boson and the boson-fermion interactions, characterized by the $`s`$-wave scattering lengths $`a_\text{B}`$ and $`a_{\text{BF}}`$, respectively, different structural phenomena can be observed:

: The collapse of the bosonic component dominates the phase diagram and sets a severe limitation to the maximum number of bosons in a stable mixture. The boson-fermion interaction has only small influence, however, attractive as well as repulsive boson-fermion interactions promote the collapse of the bosonic component.

: The boson-fermion attraction enhances the density of both species in the overlap region and can cause a simultaneous collapse of the bosonic and the fermionic cloud. A repulsive boson-boson interaction stabilizes the system, i.e. increases the critical particle numbers.

: Repulsive boson-fermion interactions reduce the overlap of the two species and eventually lead to the spatial separation of the components. Again a repulsive boson-boson interaction stabilizes the mixture against separation.

The rich variety of structures generated by the interplay of boson-boson and boson-fermion interactions has important consequences for the experimental realization of sympathetic cooling schemes. As far as the density distributions are concerned efficient sympathetic cooling relies on (a) the mechanical stability of the mixture and (b) a large overlap of the two species.

From this point of view mixtures with repulsive boson-boson interactions ($`a_\text{B}>0`$) are superior since they do not suffer the severe limitation of the boson number imposed by the collapse for $`a_\text{B}<0`$. The boson-fermion cross section and thus the modulus of the boson-fermion scattering length should be sufficiently large to enable efficient inter-species thermalization. For $`a_{\text{BF}}>0`$ this may lead into problems with the separation of the two components, for $`a_{\text{BF}}<0`$ there may be a simultaneous collapse of both clouds. Fortunately, a moderate boson-boson repulsion can stabilize the mixture against both transitions.

Regarding the structure of the density profiles a mixture with $`a_\text{B}>0`$ and $`a_{\text{BF}}<0`$ — like the $`{}_{}{}^{87}\text{Rb}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{40}\text{K}`$ mixture discussed in Sec. V.3 — is especially appealing for the implementation of an efficient sympathetic cooling scheme. It is stabilized against collapse by the boson-boson repulsion and exhibits a large overlap between the species due to an extended boson distribution and a significantly increased fermion density within the overlap volume.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank H. Feldmeier and K. Burnett for stimulating discussions. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).


text:
# Octet magnetic moments and the violation of CGSR in 𝜒QM with configuration mixing

## Abstract

Octet baryon magnetic moments are calculated within $`\chi `$QM, respecting color spin spin forces (Szczepaniak et al., PRL 87, 072001(2001)), incorporating the orbital angular momentum as well as the quark sea contribution through the Cheng and Li mechanism (PRL 80, 2789(1998)). Using configuration mixing generated by color spin spin forces as well as the concept of “effective” quark mass to include the effects of confinement, we are able to get an excellent fit to the octet magnetic moments as well as the violation of Coleman Glashow Sum Rule (CGSR) without any further input except for the ones already used in $`\chi `$QM as well as in NRQM. Specifically, in the case of $`p,\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }^o`$, and violation of CGSR we get a perfect fit whereas in almost all the other cases the results are within 5% of the data.

The EMC measurements  in the deep inelastic scattering had shown that only a small fraction of the proton’s spin is carried by the valence quarks. This “unexpected” conclusion from the point of view of Non Relativistic Quark Model (NRQM), usually referred to as “proton spin crisis”, becomes all the more intriguing when it is realized that NRQM is able to give a reasonably good description of magnetic moments using the assumption that magnetic moments of quarks are proportional to the spin carried by them. Further, this issue regarding spin and magnetic moments becomes all the more difficult to understand when it is realized that the magnetic moments of baryons receive contribution not only from the magnetic moments carried by the valence quarks but also from various complicated effects, such as, orbital excitations , sea quark polarization , effects of the chromodynamic spin-spin forces , effect of the confinement on quark masses , pion cloud contributions , loop corrections , relativistic and exchange current effects , etc. The problem regarding magnetic moments gets further complicated when one realizes that Coleman Glashow Sum Rule (CGSR) , valid in large variety of models , is convincingly violated by the data . If $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG is the deviation from the CGSR, then experimentally $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{CG}=0.49\pm 0.05,`$ clearly depicting the violation of CGSR by ten standard deviations. As $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG=0, in most of the calculations, a reproduction of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG would provide a viable clue for the dynamics of constituents of nucleon.

In this context, it is interesting to note that the Chiral Quark Model ($`\chi `$QM)  with SU(3) symmetry is not only able to give a fair explanation of “proton spin crisis”  but is also able to give a fair account of $`\overline{u}\overline{d}`$ asymmetry  as well as the existence of significant strange quark content $`\overline{s}`$ in the nucleon . Further, $`\chi `$QM with SU(3) symmetry is also able to provide fairly satisfactory explanation for baryon magnetic moments  as well as the absence of polarizations of the antiquark sea in the nucleon  . The predictions of the $`\chi `$QM, particularly in regard to hyperon decay parameters, can be improved if symmetry breaking effects  are taken into account. However, $`\chi `$QM with symmetry breaking, although gives a fairly good description of magnetic moments, is not able to describe $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG. In this regard, it is to be noted that some recent attempts to describe $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG within $`\chi `$QM, resort to additional inputs  over and above the basic premises of $`\chi `$QM.

In a recent interesting work, Cheng and Li  have shown that, within $`\chi `$QM with SU(3) symmetry breaking, a long standing puzzle, “Why the NRQM is able to give a fair description of baryon magnetic moments” can be resolved if one considers the pions acting as Goldstone Bosons also have angular momentum and therefore, contribute to the baryon magnetic moments as well. However, this contribution gets effectively cancelled by the sea quark polarization effect leaving the description of magnetic moments in terms of the valence quarks in accordance with NRQM hypothesis. One can easily examine that the Cheng and Li proposal does not lead to exact cancellation of the sea and orbital part for all the baryons, therefore it needs to be examined in detail for the octet baryon magnetic moments.

Similarly, in a very recent development, Szczepaniak and Swanson  have shown that the constituent quarks undergoing hyperfine chromodynamic spin spin interactions respect chiral symmetry. In view of the fact that $`\chi `$QM incorporates constituent quarks as essential ingredients and NRQM with chromodynamic spin spin forces is known to describe vast amount of spectroscopic data , it therefore becomes interesting to investigate the problem of magnetic moments in $`\chi `$QM with spin spin forces. Infact, it has already been shown recently  that the $`\chi `$QM with spin spin forces ($`\chi `$QMgcm) as well as SU(3) and axial U(1) symmetry breakings improves the predictions of $`\chi `$QM with SU(3) symmetry breaking, however the issue of magnetic moment has not been studied in detail.

One of the difficulty which NRQM has to face is how to include the effects of quark confinement. Pending solutions of QCD in the confinement regime, it has been shown that the effects of confinement can be incorporated in NRQM by considering “effective” quark masses . In the context of magnetic moments this essentially replaces constituent quark masses by “effective” quark masses, specific to a given baryon, and it has been shown to improve the performance of NRQM as far as magnetic moments are concerned .

The purpose of the present communication is to investigate, within $`\chi `$QM, the effects of orbital currents, as advocated by Cheng and Li , sea polarization, chromodynamic spin spin forces, “effective” masses on octet magnetic moments and CGSR. While pursuing this goal, we have kept in mind that the parameters responsible for successes of the $`\chi `$QM as well as the NRQM with chromodynamic spin spin forces are not to be disturbed.

To begin with we consider the essentials of $`\chi `$QM with chromodynamic spin spin forces ($`\chi `$QMgcm) discussed in detail in Ref . In $`\chi `$QM, the basic process is the emission of a Goldstone Boson (GB) which further splits into $`q\overline{q}`$ pair, for example,

$$q_\pm GB^0+q_{}^{^{}}(q\overline{q}^{^{}})+q_{}^{^{}}.$$
(1)
The effective Lagrangian describing interaction between quarks and the octet GB and singlet $`\eta ^{^{}}`$ is $`=g_8\overline{q}\varphi q,`$ where $`g_8`$ is the coupling constant and

$`\varphi =\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{\pi ^o}{\sqrt{2}}+\beta \frac{\eta }{\sqrt{6}}+\zeta \frac{\eta ^{^{}}}{\sqrt{3}}& \pi ^+& \alpha K^+\\ \pi ^{}& \frac{\pi ^o}{\sqrt{2}}+\beta \frac{\eta }{\sqrt{6}}+\zeta \frac{\eta ^{^{}}}{\sqrt{3}}& \alpha K^o\\ \alpha K^{}& \alpha \overline{K}^o& \beta \frac{2\eta }{\sqrt{6}}+\zeta \frac{\eta ^{^{}}}{\sqrt{3}}\end{array}\right).`$

SU(3) symmetry breaking is introduced by considering different quark masses $`m_s>m_{u,d}`$ as well as by considering the masses of GBs to be non-degenerate $`(M_{K,\eta }>M_\pi )`$ , whereas the axial U(1) breaking is introduced by $`M_\eta ^{^{}}>M_{K,\eta }`$ . The parameter $`a(=|g_8|^2`$) denotes the transition probability of chiral fluctuation of the splittings $`u(d)d(u)+\pi ^{+()}`$, whereas $`\alpha ^2a`$, $`\beta ^2a`$ and $`\zeta ^2a`$ denote the probability of transition of $`u(d)s+K^{(0)}`$, $`u(d,s)u(d,s)+\eta `$ and $`u(d,s)u(d,s)+\eta ^{^{}}`$ respectively.

The valence quarks of the $`\chi `$QM undergo chromodynamic spin spin forces as a consequence of which the constituent quark wave functions get “perturbed”. For the present purpose it has been shown  that it is adequate to consider

$$|8,\frac{1}{2}^+=\mathrm{cos}\varphi |56,0^+>_{N=0}+\mathrm{sin}\varphi |70,0^+>_{N=2},$$
(2)
for details of the perturbed wave functions, we refer the readers to .

Using the above wave function along with the orbital and sea contributions, as discussed by Cheng and Li, and the “effective” quark masses, we have carried out the calculations of octet baryon magnetic moments. Including the corrections induced by the spin spin forces and “effective” quark masses, the magnetic moment corresponding to a given baryon(B) can be written as

$$\mu _{total}=\mu _{val}+\mu _{sea}+\mu _{orbit},$$
(3)
where $`\mu _{val}=_{q=u,d,s}\mathrm{\Delta }q_{val}\mu _q`$, $`\mu _{sea}=_{q=u,d,s}\mathrm{\Delta }q_{sea}\mu _q`$, $`\mu _q`$ ($`q=u,d,s`$) is the quark magnetic moment and $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ ($`q=u,d,s`$) represents the net spin polarization and is defined as $`\mathrm{\Delta }q=q_+q_{}+\overline{q}_+\overline{q}_{}.`$

The valence contribution, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{val}`$, can easily be calculated , for example, using Eq (2), for proton we have, $`\mathrm{\Delta }u_{val}=\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi \left[\frac{4}{3}\right]+\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi \left[\frac{2}{3}\right],\mathrm{\Delta }d_{val}=\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi \left[\frac{1}{3}\right]+\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi \left[\frac{1}{3}\right],\mathrm{\Delta }s_{val}=0`$. Similarly one can calculate for other baryons. The sea contribution in the $`\chi `$QM basically comes from the splitting of GB into $`q\overline{q}`$ pair (Eq (1)). The contribution to baryon magnetic moments from the sea can easily be calculated within $`\chi `$QMgcm . For the case of proton it is given as

$`\mathrm{\Delta }u_{sea}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}(7+4\alpha ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\zeta ^2)\right]\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}(5+2\alpha ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\zeta ^2)\right],`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }d_{sea}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}(2\alpha ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\beta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\zeta ^2)\right]\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{a}{3}}(4+\alpha ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\zeta ^2)\right]`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }s_{sea}`$ $`=`$ $`a\alpha ^2.`$ (6)
Similarly one can calculate $`\mathrm{\Delta }q_{sea}`$ and consequent contribution to magnetic moments for other baryons.

Following Cheng and Li , the $`\mu _{orbit}`$ for $`\chi `$QMgcm can easily be evaluated and for proton it is given as

$$\mu _{orbit}=[\frac{4}{3}\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi +\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi ]\left[\mu (u_+)\right]+[\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi +\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi ]\left[\mu (d_+)\right],$$
(7)
where $`\mu (u_+)`$ and $`\mu (d_+)`$ are the orbital moments of $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks and are given as

$`\mu (u_+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{2M_{GB}(M_u+M_{GB})}}\left[3(\alpha ^2+1)M_u^2+({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\beta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\zeta ^2\alpha ^2)M_{GB}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\right]\mu _N,`$ (8)
$`\mu (d_+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a}{4M_{GB}(M_u+M_{GB})}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_u}{M_d}}\left[(32\alpha ^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\beta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\zeta ^2)M_{GB}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}6M_d^2\right]\mu _N,`$ (9)
($`M,M_{GB}`$) are the masses of quark and GB, $`\mu _N`$ is the Bohr magneton. In a similar manner one can calculate the contributions for other baryons.

Before discussing the results, first we discuss the inputs required for numerical calculations. As is evident from the Eqs (3), the different inputs required pertain to $`\chi `$QM, configuration mixing generated by the chromodynamic spin spin forces and the NRQM. To this end, we have used the $`\chi `$QM parameters $`a=0.1`$, $`\alpha =0.4`$ and $`\beta =0.7`$, as used in the case of $`\chi `$QMgcm . However, to fit the violation of the Gottfried Sum Rule  we have used $`\zeta =0.3\beta /2`$ and $`\zeta =0.7\beta /2`$ respectively for the E866 and the NMC data.

The orbital angular moment contributions are characterized by the parameters of $`\chi `$QM as well as the masses of the GBs. In view of the fact that the orbital contributions are dominated by the pion contributions, the contributions of other GBs being much smaller as compared to pionic contributions have been ignored in the numerical calculations. For evaluating the contribution of pions we have used its on mass shell value in accordance with several other similar calculations .

In the absence of any definite guidelines for the constituent quark masses, we have used their most widely accepted values in hadron spectroscopy , for example, $`M_u=M_d=330`$ MeV. The strange quark mass corresponding to a given baryon is fixed from the sum rules implied by the chromodynamic spin spin forces, for example, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N=M_sM_u`$, $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\mathrm{\Sigma })/(\mathrm{\Delta }N)=M_u/M_s`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\mathrm{\Xi })/(\mathrm{\Delta }N)=M_u/M_s`$ respectively fix $`M_s`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ baryons. The above mentioned quark masses and corresponding magnetic moments have to be further corrected by the confinement effects  which are effectively simulated in the present context by considering the quark magnetic moments as $`\mu _d=\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M}{M_B}\right)\mu _N,\mu _s=\frac{M_u}{M_s}\left(1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }M}{M_B}\right)\mu _N,\mu _u=2\mu _d`$, where $`M_B`$ is the mass of the baryon obtained additively from the quark masses and $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ is the mass difference between the experimental value and $`M_B`$.

In Table 1, we have presented the results of our calculations for the octet baryons respectively for E866 and NMC data. From the table, it is evident that with the case of E866 data we are able to get an excellent fit for almost all the baryons. In fact, the fit is almost perfect for $`p,\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^o`$, in the case of $`n,\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ the value is reproduced within 5% of experimental data. Only in the case of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ the deviation is somewhat more than 5%. Besides this we have also been able to get an excellent fit to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG. The fit becomes all the more impressive when it is realized that none of the magnetic moments are used as inputs. The results are equally impressive in the case of NMC data, however the lower values of individual magnetic moments compared to E866 data can be attributed to lower value of $`|\zeta _{E866}|`$ as compared to $`|\zeta _{NMC}|`$.

In the table, we have also mentioned our results without the configuration mixing, primarily to understand the role of configuration mixing. From the table we find that without configuration mixing the results are generally on the higher side which get corrected in the right direction by the inclusion of configuration mixing, for example, the valence contribution of the proton reduces form 3.17 to 2.94 and that of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ from 2.80 to 2.59. It is noted that configuration mixing reduces valence, sea and orbital contributions to the magnetic moments, however in the case of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ the configuration mixing improves the fit by contributing with the right sign. Thus, it seems that for the quark masses, which are able to reproduce hadronic spectroscopy, configuration mixing is important to fit individual magnetic moments.

A closer scrutiny of our results reveals several interesting points. The most interesting point is that the orbital angular momentum contribution and the contribution by sea quarks are fairly substantial, however they appear with the opposite sign in accordance with the conclusion of Cheng and Li . In fact these contributions are delicately balanced so as to improve the overall fit of the magnetic moments without disturbing the successes of $`\chi `$QM. In fact from the table one can easily find out that except for $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, in all other cases the valence+sea contribution contributes to the overall magnetic moments with the right sign. This strongly supports the Cheng and Li dynamics for the constituents of the nucleon. One may wonder how to fit the magnetic moment of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ in the present scheme. As mentioned earlier, there are several other effects such as pion cloud contributions , loop corrections , relativistic and exchange current effects  etc. which also affect the magnetic moments. We believe the inclusion of these effects would perhaps improve the present fit further. In fact a cursory look at  suggests that pion loop corrections would compensate $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ much more compared to other baryons hence providing an almost perfect fit.

It should also be mentioned that the mixing generated by spin spin forces and mass correction induced by confinement effects also play an important role in achieving an overall fit. In fact, it is the mass correction which affects the valence contribution to the magnetic moments with the right magnitudes in getting the right value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG.

To summarize, baryon magnetic moments have been calculated in the $`\chi `$QM, with one gluon exchange generated configuration mixing, by including the contribution of the $`q\overline{q}`$ sea polarization, orbital contribution of the sea as well as the correction induced on quark magnetic moments due to confinement effects. The calculations have been carried out by employing the same parameters which are responsible for the successes of $`\chi `$QM, in explaining the quark and spin distribution functions, as well as those of NRQM responsible for explaining vast amount of spectroscopic data. Apart from getting an excellent fit to the baryon magnetic moments, we are also able to get an almost perfect fit for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$CG. In fact, the fit is almost perfect for $`p,\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^o`$, in the case of $`n,\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ the value is reproduced within 5% of experimental data. Only in the case of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ the deviation is somewhat more than 5%. On closer examination of the results we find configuration mixing, effect of confinement on quarks as well as the orbital and sea polarizations, all play a crucial role in effecting the fit. In fact the mismatch in the orbital and sea polarizations correct the magnetic moments of valence quarks in the right direction in almost all the cases. This strongly supports the Cheng and Li dynamics for the $`\chi `$QM.

The authors would like to thank S.D. Sharma for fruitful discussions. H.D. would like to thank CSIR, Govt. of India, for financial support and the chairman, Department of Physics, for providing facilities to work in the department.