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# Weak pseudo-Hermiticity and antilinear commutantSupported in part by PRIN 2000 ”Sintesi”.

## 1 Introduction

In the last years the study of some non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with a real spectrum, and the conjecture on the connection between the reality of the spectrum and the PT-invariance of these Hamiltonians due to Bender and Boettcher1, have given rise to a growing interest in the literature2. Indeed, the above-mentioned Hamiltonians form a subclass of the class of “pseudo-Hermitian” operators, i.e., those operators which satisfy the equation

$$A^{}=\eta A\eta ^1$$
(1)
with

$$\eta =\eta ^{}.$$
(2)
Pseudo-Hermitian operators were introduced in the early 40’s by Dirac3 and Pauli4 in order to overcome some divergence difficulties in physics by using an indefinite metric associated with $`\eta `$ , and were later resumed by Lee and Wick5 (who firstly, at the best of our knowledge, used the term “pseudo-Hermiticity”). More recently, many interesting properties of such operators have been examined and their spectrum has been suitably characterized.6,7

We aim in the present paper to point out further properties of pseudo-Hermitian operators that are relevant from a physical viewpoint. To this end, we introduce in Sect. II the possibly broader class of weakly pseudo-Hermitian operators, i.e., those operators which satisfy Eq. (1) without any constraint on the (linear, invertible) operator $`\eta `$ , and show that, whenever one considers only diagonalizable operators, this class actually coincides with the class of all the pseudo-Hermitian operators. Hence the condition in Eq. (2) can be dropped when defining (diagonalizable) pseudo-Hermitian operators, which is useful from several viewpoints (in particular, it simplifies checking Eq. (1)). Moreover, we show in Sect. III that a diagonalizable operator $`H`$ is (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian if and only if an antilinear involutory operator exists which commutes with it. This result has a number of relevant consequences; in particular, in every theory which admits a time-reversal invariance, or a CPT-invariance, the Hamiltonian must necessarily be a (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operator. Furthermore, the above result is strictly intertwined with an old theorem8 of group representation theory, according to which a set of operators admits an involutory antilinear mapping that commutes with it if and only if all the operators in the set can assume conjointly a real form in a suitable basis. Indeed, by using this theorem together with the above results, we conclude in Sect. IV that for any diagonalizable (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operator $`H`$ a basis exists in which $`H`$ has a real form. If this basis coincides with the eigenbasis of $`H`$, then $`H`$ also has a real spectrum. Finally, we illustrate our results by means of an example, considering the special case of the complex Morse potential9 in Sect. V.

## 2 The spectra of weakly pseudo-Hermitian operators

As we wrote in the Introduction, we introduce here a new class of operators, whose properties will be studied in the following.

Definition 1. A linear operator $`A`$ is said to be weakly pseudo-Hermitian if a linear, invertible operator $`\eta `$ exists such that

$$\eta A\eta ^1=A^{}.$$
(1)
The above definition generalizes the definition of pseudo-Hermitian operators since we do not assume $`\eta =\eta ^{}`$ as is required in the standard definition of pseudo-Hermitian operators5,6.

As in Refs. 6 and 7, we consider here only diagonalizable operators; moreover, for the sake of simplicity, we consider only discrete spectra (see however Sect. V, where a potential with a continuous spectrum is explicitly studied). Whenever $`H`$ is a diagonalizable operator with a discrete spectrum, a complete biorthonormal eigenbasis $`\{|\psi _n,a,|\varphi _n,a\}`$ exists11, i.e., a basis such that

$$H|\psi _n,a=E_n|\psi _n,a,H^{}|\varphi _n,a=E_n^{}|\varphi _n,a$$
(3)
$$\varphi _m,b|\psi _n,a=\delta _{mn}\delta _{ab}$$
(4)
$$\underset{n}{}\underset{a=1}{\overset{d_n}{}}|\varphi _n,a\psi _n,a|=\underset{n}{}\underset{a=1}{\overset{d_n}{}}|\psi _n,a\varphi _n,a|=\mathrm{𝟏}$$
(5)
where $`d_n`$ denotes the degeneracy of $`E_n`$ , and $`a`$ and $`b`$ are degeneracy labels.

The operator $`H`$ can then be written in the form

$$H=\underset{n}{}\underset{a=1}{\overset{d_n}{}}|\psi _n,aE_n\varphi _n,a|.$$

For the sake of brevity we also write the above basis $`\{|\psi _m,|\varphi _m\}`$ in the following, with an obvious meaning of symbols. Then $`H`$ can also be written in the form

$$H=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mE_m\varphi _m|$$

(where it may occur that $`E_m=E_m^{}`$ even if $`mm^{}`$). Furthermore, if $`\left\{u_m\right\}`$ is any complete, orthonormal basis in our space, we put in the following

$$O=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mu_m|\text{ }$$
(6)
By using Eq. (6), we get

$$O^1=\underset{m}{}|u_m\varphi _m|$$

and

$$O^1HO=\underset{m}{}|u_m\varphi _m\left|\underset{m^{}}{}\right|\psi _m^{}E_m^{}\varphi _m^{}\left|\underset{m^{\prime \prime }}{}\right|\psi _{m^{\prime \prime }}u_{m^{\prime \prime }}|=\underset{m}{}|u_mE_mu_m|.$$

Moreover,

$$(OO^{})H^{}(OO^{})^1=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mE_m^{}\varphi _m|.$$
(7)
We can now state the following proposition, which embodies some results in Ref. 6 on pseudo-Hermitian operators.

Proposition 1. Let $`H`$ be a diagonalizable operator with a discrete spectrum. Then, the following conditions are equivalent:

i) $`H`$ is weakly pseudo-Hermitian;

ii) the eigenvalues of $`H`$ occur in complex conjugate pairs, and for each pair the multiplicities of both the eigenvalues are the same;

iii) $`H`$ is pseudo-Hermitian.

Proof. The implication $`iii)ii)`$ is proven in Prop. 7 of Ref. 6. By observing that only the invertibility of $`\eta `$ is used in this proof, in order to show that $`\eta ^1`$ maps the eigensubspace of $`H^{}`$ associated with $`E_n`$ to that of $`H`$ associated with $`E_n^{}`$ , and both the subspaces have the same dimension, one immediately transforms this proof into a proof of the implication $`i)ii).`$

The implication $`ii)iii)`$ is also proven in Ref. 6. We provide here, however, a somewhat different proof of it, which produces a useful decomposition of $`\eta `$ (see Eq. (11)).

Let us therefore assume that condition $`ii)`$ holds, and use (whenever it is necessary) the subscript ‘0’ to denote real eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenvectors, and the subscript ‘±’ to denote the complex eigenvalues with positive or negative imaginary part, respectively, and the corresponding eigenvectors.

Then, let us consider the involutory operator $`T`$, defined as follows:

$$T|\psi _{n_\pm },a=|\psi _n_{},a\text{ (hence, }T|\psi _{n_0},a=|\psi _{n_0},a\text{)}.$$
(8)
The explicit form of $`T`$ is

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`T({\displaystyle \underset{n_0}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{d_{n_0}}{}}}|\psi _{n_0},a\varphi _{n_0},a\left|+{\displaystyle \underset{n_+}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{d_{n_+}}{}}}\right|\psi _{n_+},a\varphi _{n_+},a\left|+{\displaystyle \underset{n_{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{d_n_{}}{}}}\right|\psi _n_{},a\varphi _n_{},a|)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n_0,a}{}}|\psi _{n_0},a\varphi _{n_0},a|+{\displaystyle \underset{n_+,n_{},a}{}}(|\psi _n_{},a\varphi _{n_+},a|+|\psi _{n_+},a\varphi _n_{},a|).`$
The action of $`T`$ on the bras $`\varphi _{n_\pm },a|`$ easily follows from the expression above:

$$\varphi _{n_\pm },a|T=\varphi _n_{},a|\text{(hence, }\varphi _{n_0},a|T=\varphi _{n_0},a|\text{)}.$$
(9)
Then, by simple calculations, one has

$$THT=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mE_m^{}\varphi _m|,$$
(10)
and finally, comparing Eqs. (7) and (10), it follows

$$THT=(OO^{})H^{}(OO^{})^1,$$

hence condition $`iii)`$ follows at once, with

$$\eta =(OO^{})^1T=\underset{n_0,a}{}|\varphi _{n_0},a\varphi _{n_0},a|+\underset{n_+,n_{},a}{}(|\varphi _{n_+},a\varphi _n_{},a|+|\varphi _n_{},a\varphi _{n_+},a|)=\eta ^{}.$$
(11)
Finally, the proof of the Proposition can be completed by observing that the implication $`iii)i)`$ is obvious. $`\mathrm{}`$

The introduction of the operator $`T`$ on the above proof and the decomposition $`\eta =(OO^{})^1T`$ in Eq. (11) allows one to obtain immediately the characterization of the case of real spectrum. Indeed, noting that $`T=\mathrm{𝟏}`$ if and only if the spectrum of $`H`$ is real, the following statement holds (see also the Theorem in Ref. 7).

Proposition 2. The spectrum of a diagonalizable weakly pseudo-Hermitian (hence, of a diagonalizable pseudo-Hermitian) operator $`H`$ is real if and only if an operator $`\eta `$ exists such that $`\eta =(OO^{})^1.`$

Furthermore, the existence of an Hermitian operator $`\eta `$ whenever $`H`$ is weakly pseudo-Hermitian implies that also in this case one can introduce an Hermitian, indefinite inner product4-6,10 which is invariant under the time translation generated by $`H`$.

## 3 Weakly pseudo-Hermitian operators and antilinear symmetries

In order to discuss properly the next argument, we state the following definition.

Definition 25. Given the biorthonormal basis $`𝔈=\{|\psi _m,|\varphi _m\}`$ in a Hilbert space, we call conjugation associated with it the involutory antilinear operator

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mK\varphi _m|,$$
(12)
where the operator K acts transforming each complex number on the right into its complex conjugate.

Let us discuss now the connection between the (weak) pseudo-Hermiticity condition and the antilinear commutant8 of $`H`$ (i.e., the set of the antilinear, invertible operators which commute with it). This connection was already acknowledged in Ref. 7, where the author shows that, if $`H`$ commutes with an antilinear operator $`A`$, then condition $`ii)`$ of Proposition 1 holds, and that a Hamiltonian with an antilinear symmetry $`A`$ has a real spectrum if and only if the symmetry is exact7(i.e., its eigenvectors are invariant under the action of $`A`$). The latter statement can be rephrased, using Definition 2, by saying that the spectrum of $`H`$ is real if and only if $`[H,\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈]=0`$ .

However, the above results enlighten only partially the key role of the antilinear commutant of $`H`$ . Indeed, the following, more complete proposition holds.

Proposition 3. Let $`H`$ be a diagonalizable operator with a discrete spectrum. Then, the following conditions are equivalent:

i) an antilinear, invertible operator $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ exists such that $`[H,\mathrm{\Omega }]=0`$ ;

ii) $`H`$ is (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian;

iii) an antilinear, involutory operator $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ exists such that $`[H,\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}]=0`$ .

Proof. $`i)ii).`$ Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ exist. Then, the linear operator

$$\eta =(OO^{})^1\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈\mathrm{\Omega }$$

(where $`𝔈`$ is the biorthonormal basis associated with $`H`$, and $`O`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈`$ are defined as in Eqs. (6) and (12), respectively) fulfils the condition stated by Eq. (1), hence $`H`$ is (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian. Indeed,

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈H\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈^1=\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈H\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈=\underset{m}{}|\psi _mE_m^{}\varphi _m|,$$
(13)
so that, recalling Eq. (7),

$$\eta H\eta ^1=(OO^{})^1\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈\mathrm{\Omega }H\mathrm{\Omega }^1\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈(OO^{})=(OO^{})^1\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈H\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈(OO^{})=H^{}.$$

$`ii)iii).`$ If $`H`$ is (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian, the eigenvalues of $`H`$ occur in complex conjugate pairs, and for each pair the multiplicities of both the eigenvalues are the same (Proposition 1). Then, one easily sees, recalling the definition of the operator $`T`$ provided in the proof of Proposition 1 and Eq. (10), that

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈H\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈=THT.$$

Hence the antilinear operator

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈T=\underset{n_0,a}{}|\psi _{n_0,a}K\varphi _{n_0,a}|+\underset{n_+,n_{},a}{}(|\psi _{n_+,a}K\varphi _{n_{},a}|+|\psi _{n_{},a}K\varphi _{n_+,a}|)$$
(14)
commutes with $`H`$. Finally, $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is involutory, (i. e., $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2=\mathrm{𝟏}`$) as one can immediately verify by using the explicit expression of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ in Eq. (14).

$`iii)i).`$Obvious. $`\mathrm{}`$

Proposition 3 has an interesting physical interpretation, as we have emphasized in the Introduction. Indeed, whenever $`H`$ is the Hamiltonian of some physical system, it establishes a link between the properties of $`H`$ (and of its spectrum) and the symmetries of the physical system described by it. For, the time-reversal symmetry is associated, in complex quantum mechanics, with an antilinear operator. Hence, whenever a physical system admits such a symmetry (or else, more generally, it is invariant under the combined action of the time-reversal operator times a linear one) the antilinear commutant of its Hamiltonian must be non-void, hence $`H`$ is a (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operator. Vice versa any (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian admits an antilinear (involutory) symmetry.

Finally, since in the case of real spectrum the operator $`T`$ defined in the proof of Proposition 1 is such that $`T=\mathrm{𝟏}`$ , hence $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\mathrm{\Theta }_𝔈`$ , one obtains the following proposition.

Proposition 4. A diagonalizable, weakly pseudo-Hermitian operator $`H`$ has a real spectrum if and only if it commutes with the conjugation associated with its eigenbasis.

Remark . While we were writing the final version of this paper, some similar results have been obtained by other authors12 (in particular, having in mind the equivalence $`i)iii)`$ in our Proposition 1, Theorem 2 of Ref. 12 essentially states the equivalence $`i)ii)`$ of our Proposition 3). Nevertheless, our presentation is rather different and embodies the new condition $`iii)`$ in Proposition 3, which has a number of interesting consequences, that we are going to explore in the next section.

## 4 Real form of the (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operators

According to Proposition 3, for any (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operator $`H`$, at least one involutory antilinear operator exists which commutes with it. Then, it has been proven elsewhere8 that any involutory antilinear operator $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is a conjugation in some suitable basis; moreover, in the basis associated with $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$, any operator commuting with $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ has a real form.

The proof of this latter statement can be sketched as follows. If we denote by $`S`$ the linear part of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ , i.e., $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}=SK`$ (where $`K`$ is the complex conjugation operator, see Sect. III), then $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}^2=\mathrm{𝟏}`$ implies $`SS^{}=\mathrm{𝟏}`$ and this is possible if and only if an $`U`$ exists such that $`S=UU^1`$. Then $`[H,\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}]=0`$ implies $`HUU^1=UU^1H^{}`$ , hence

$$U^1HU=(U^1H^{}U^{})=(U^1HU)^{}.$$

Referring to the notation introduced in the present paper, let $`𝔉=\{|v_m,|w_m\}`$ be the biorthonormal basis associated, in the above sense, to the conjugation $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ which commutes with $`H`$ (of course, it may be an orthonormal basis which occurs if and only if, for all $`m`$, $`|v_m=|w_m`$ ), and let us consider the matrix elements of $`H`$ in such basis. It is easy to verify that they are real; indeed, on one hand,

$$w_i\left|H\right|v_k=w_i\left|\underset{n}{}\right|\psi _nE_n\varphi _n|v_k$$

and, on the other hand

$$w_i\left|\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}H\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}\right|v_k=w_i\left|\underset{m}{}\right|v_mKw_m\left|\underset{n}{}\right|\psi _nE_n\varphi _n\left|\underset{m^{}}{}\right|v_m^{}Kw_m^{}|v_k=$$

$$\underset{m,m^{},n}{}\delta _{im}Kw_m|\psi _nE_n\varphi _n|v_m^{}K\delta _{m^{},k}=$$

$$v_k\left|\underset{n}{}\right|\varphi _nE_n^{}\psi _n|w_i=\left(w_i\left|\underset{n}{}\right|\psi _nE_n\varphi _n|v_k\right)^{}.$$

Since, trivially, every operator which assumes a real form in some basis $`𝔅`$ commutes with the conjugation associated with $`𝔅`$ , we have thus proven the following proposition.

Proposition 5. An operator $`H`$ is (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian if and only if a basis exists in which it assumes a real form.

The results in Propositions 1, 3 and 5 can be collected together, obtaining a set of six equivalent conditions which can be useful in order to characterize the Hamiltonians that we are considering. In particular, the statement in Proposition 5 can be used to write a (weakly) pseudo-Hermitian operator in a more manageable form (an example of basis transformation which puts a particular Hamiltonian in real form is in the next Section).

## 5 An example: the complex Morse potential

Let us verify the results obtained in the previous sections in the special case of the complex Morse potential9. This was extensively studied, for instance, in Ref. 9 and its spectrum was predicted to be real by means of group theoretic techniques13.

The Morse potential is given by

$$V(x)=(A+iB)^2e^{2x}(A+iB)(2C+1)e^x(A,B,C𝐑).$$
(15)
Putting $`\rho =\sqrt{A^2+B^2},\theta =\mathrm{arctan}\frac{2B}{A},k=2C+1,`$ we get

$$V(x)=\rho ^2e^{2x+i\theta }k\rho e^{x+i\theta /2}.$$
(16)
Following Ref. 9, let us introduce the (Hermitian) operator $`e^{\theta p}(\theta 𝐑,p=i\frac{d}{dx})`$ . Hence, we obtain the following Equation9

$$e^{\theta p}V(x)e^{\theta p}=V(x+i\theta )=V^{}(x).$$
(17)
This equation shows that $`V`$ is a pseudo-Hermitian (but non PT-symmetric) operator. Let us put now $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}=SK=e^{\theta p}K`$ . By using Eq. (17) one gets

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}V=V\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }},$$

which agrees with Proposition 3. Then, a straightforward calculation shows that $`S^{}=e^{\theta p}=S^1`$, hence $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is involutory, which also agrees with Proposition 3. Moreover, one gets by inspection that

$$S=e^{\theta p/2}(e^{\theta p/2})^1=UU^1.$$

Thus, finally,

$$U^1VU=e^{\theta p/2}Ve^{\theta p/2}=V(x+i\theta /2)=\rho ^2e^{2x}k\rho e^x=(U^1VU)^{}$$

which agrees with Proposition 5.

References

1 C. M. Bender and S. Boettcher, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80 (1998) 5243.

2 See, for instance, M. Znojil, ”Should PT symmetric quantum mechanics be interpreted as nonlinear?”, arXiv: quant-ph/0103054 (2001), and references therein.

3 P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. Roy. Soc. A180 (1942) 1.

4 W. Pauli, Rev. Mod.. Phys. 15 (1943) 175.

5 T. D. Lee and G. C. Wick, Nucl. Phys. B9 (1969) 209.

6 A. Mostafazadeh, Journ. Math. Phys. 43 (2002) 205.

7 A. Mostafazadeh, ”Pseudo-Hermiticity versus PT-Symmetry II”, arXiv: math-ph/0110016 (2001).

8 R. Ascoli, C. Garola, L. Solombrino and G. C. Teppati, ”Real versus complex representations and linear-antilinear commutant”, in Enz/Mehra (eds.), Physical Reality and Mathematical Description (D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland, 1974), 239.

9 Z. Ahmed,”Pseudo-Hermiticity of Hamiltonians under imaginary shift of the coordinate: real spectrum of complex potentials”, arXiv: quant-ph/0108016 (2001).

10 G. S.Japaridze, ”Space of state vectors in PT symmetrized quantum mechanics”, arXiv: quant-ph/0104077 (2001) .

11 F. H. M. Faisal and J. V. Moloney, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Phys. 14 (1981) 3603.

12A. Mostafazadeh, ”Pseudo-Hermiticity versus PT-Symmetry III”, arXiv: math-ph/0203005 (2002).

13B. Bagchi and C. Quesne, Phys. Lett. A 273 (2000) 285.


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# References

IFUP–TH/2002–10
Revised version

On the dependence of the gauge–invariant field–strength

correlators in QCD on the shape of the Schwinger string ***Partially supported by MIUR (Italian Ministry of the University and of Scientific and Technological Research) and by the INTAS contract 00–0110.
A. Di Giacomo, E. Meggiolaro
Dipartimento di Fisica,

Università di Pisa,

and INFN, Sezione di Pisa,

I–56100 Pisa, Italy.

Abstract

We study, by numerical simulations on a lattice, the dependence of the gauge–invariant two–point field–strength correlators in QCD on the path used to perform the color parallel transport between the two points.
(PACS code: 12.38.Gc)

1. Introduction

The gauge–invariant two–point correlators of the field strengths in the QCD vacuum are defined as

$$𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)}(x)=g^20|\mathrm{Tr}\left\{G_{\mu \rho }(0)S(0,x|𝒞)G_{\nu \sigma }(x)S^{}(0,x|𝒞)\right\}|0,$$
(1.1)
where $`G_{\mu \rho }=T^aG_{\mu \rho }^a`$ and $`T^a`$ are the matrices of the algebra of the color group SU(3) in the fundamental representation The trace in (1.1) is taken on the color indices.

$$S(0,x|𝒞)\mathrm{P}\mathrm{exp}\left(ig_{0,𝒞}^x𝑑z^\mu A_\mu (z)\right),$$
(1.2)
with $`A_\mu =T^aA_\mu ^a`$, is the Schwinger phase operator needed to parallel–transport the tensor $`G_{\nu \sigma }(x)`$ to the point $`0`$. “P” stands for “path ordering” and $`𝒞`$ is any path from $`0`$ to $`x`$.

Field–strength correlators play an important role in hadron physics. In the spectrum of heavy $`Q\overline{Q}`$ bound states, they govern the effect of the gluon condensate on the level splittings . They are the basic quantities in models of stochastic confinement of color  and in the description of high–energy hadron scattering . In some recent works , these correlators have been semi–classically evaluated in the single–instanton approximation and in the instanton dilute–gas model, so providing useful information about the role of the semiclassical modes in the QCD vacuum.

The correlators (1.1) in principle depend on the choice of the path $`𝒞`$. Usually, in developing the “Stochastic Vacuum Model” (SVM), the path $`𝒞`$ appearing in Eqs. (1.1) and (1.2) is assumed to be the straight line connecting the points $`0`$ and $`x`$. Lattice data , which are the input for these SVM calculations, also refer to the choice of the straight–line parallel transport. With this choice the Schwinger string (1.2) reads:

$$S(0,x)=\mathrm{P}\mathrm{exp}\left(ig_0^1𝑑tx^\mu A_\mu (xt)\right).$$
(1.3)
Then, in the Euclidean region, translational, O(4)– and parity invariance require the correlator (1.1) to be of the following form :

$`𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }(x)=(\delta _{\mu \nu }\delta _{\rho \sigma }\delta _{\mu \sigma }\delta _{\rho \nu })\left[𝒟(x^2)+𝒟_1(x^2)\right]`$ (1.4)
$`+(x_\mu x_\nu \delta _{\rho \sigma }x_\mu x_\sigma \delta _{\rho \nu }+x_\rho x_\sigma \delta _{\mu \nu }x_\rho x_\nu \delta _{\mu \sigma }){\displaystyle \frac{𝒟_1(x^2)}{x^2}},`$
where $`𝒟`$ and $`𝒟_1`$ are invariant functions of $`x^2`$.

The functions $`𝒟(x^2)`$ and $`𝒟_1(x^2)`$ have been directly determined by numerical simulations on a lattice in the quenched (i.e., pure–gauge) theory, with gauge group SU(2) , in the quenched SU(3) theory in the range of physical distances between 0.1 and 1 fm  and also in full QCD, i.e., including the effects of dynamical fermions .

No analysis exists of what happens for a different choice of the path $`𝒞`$ than the straight line, except for qualitative statements that the physics should not strongly depend on the deformations of the path . In this paper we compute the gauge–invariant field–strength correlators for deformed paths (see Fig. 1), in the quenched SU(3) lattice gauge theory, for the benefit of the developments of the SVM.

2. Computations and results

In principle, every choice of a path $`𝒞_{[0,x]}`$ connecting the two points $`0`$ and $`x`$ in the expression (1.2) for the Schwinger string operator will generate a different field–strength correlator, that we have denoted in Eq. (1.1) as $`𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)}(x)`$.

On the lattice we can define a lattice operator $`𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)L}`$, which is proportional to $`𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)}`$ in the continuum limit, when the lattice spacing $`a0`$. Since the lattice analogue of the field strength is the open plaquette $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \rho }(n)`$ (the parallel transport along an elementary square of the lattice lying on the $`\mu \rho `$–plane, starting from the lattice site $`n`$ and coming back to $`n`$), $`𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)L}`$ will be defined as

$$𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)L}(\widehat{d}a)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}\{\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \rho }(n)S(n,n+\widehat{d}a|𝒞)\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \sigma }(n+\widehat{d}a)S^{}(n,n+\widehat{d}a|𝒞)\},$$
(2.1)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ stands for real part and the lattice operator $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \sigma }(n)`$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \sigma }(n)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{\nu \sigma }^{}(n)\mathrm{\Pi }_{\nu \sigma }(n)\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Pi }_{\nu \sigma }^{}(n)\mathrm{\Pi }_{\nu \sigma }(n)].$$
(2.2)
As explained in Refs. , the inclusion of the operator $`\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\nu \sigma }`$ (in place of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\nu \sigma }^{}`$) on the right–hand side of Eq. (2.2) ensures that the disconnected part and the singlet part of the correlator are left out, so that we are indeed taking the correlation of two operators with the exchange of the quantum numbers of a color octet.

The lattice site $`n+\widehat{d}a`$ is the site at a distance $`d`$ lattice spacings from $`n`$, in the direction of a coordinate axis. The Schwinger string $`S(n,n+\widehat{d}a|𝒞)`$ is a parallel transport connecting the point $`n`$ with the point $`n+\widehat{d}a`$ along the path $`𝒞`$.

We have explored the dependence on the path by measuring the correlators for the various paths shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1a shows the straight–line path \[corresponding to the straight–line Schwinger operator in Eq. (1.3)\], which, as explained in the introduction, has already been widely analyzed. Fig. 1b shows our second choice: the transverse size $`\delta `$, in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$, parametrizes the deviation from the straight–line case. We shall label by $`b_\delta `$ the paths in Fig. 1b, for a given value of the transverse size $`\delta `$. If an average is made over the orientation of the staple in the plane orthogonal to $`\widehat{d}`$, the correlator will have the same symmetries (translation, O(4) and parity) as the one in Fig. 1a and the parametrization (1.4) will still apply, with, of course, different functions $`𝒟^{(b_\delta )}`$ and $`𝒟_1^{(b_\delta )}`$. The same considerations also apply to the collection $`c_\delta `$ of paths shown in Fig. 1c, for a given value of the transverse size $`\delta `$, if we average over the orientation of the plane containing the path. We have chosen the inversion point $`p`$ in Fig. 1c just in the middle of the line $`(0,x)`$, i.e., p = x/2, in order to preserve parity invariance. For other choices, i.e., $`p=\alpha x`$ with $`\alpha [0,1]`$ and $`\alpha 1/2`$, one should average between the path with $`p=\alpha x`$ and the path with $`p=(1\alpha )x`$ in order to preserve parity.

In both cases, we define  the two independent functions $`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}(x^2)`$ and $`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}(x^2)`$ as follows. We go to a reference frame in which $`x^\mu `$ is parallel to one of the coordinate axes, say $`\mu =0`$. Then

$`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}𝒟_{0i,0i}^{(𝒞)}(x)=𝒟^{(𝒞)}+𝒟_1^{(𝒞)}+x^2{\displaystyle \frac{𝒟_1^{(𝒞)}}{x^2}},`$
$`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{i<j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}𝒟_{ij,ij}^{(𝒞)}(x)=𝒟^{(𝒞)}+𝒟_1^{(𝒞)},`$ (2.3)
where $`𝒟^{(𝒞)}=𝒟^{(𝒞)}(x^2)`$ and $`𝒟_1^{(𝒞)}=𝒟_1^{(𝒞)}(x^2)`$ are the two invariant functions entering in the parametrization (1.4) for the given collection of paths $`𝒞`$.

In the naïve continuum limit ($`a0`$)

$$𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)L}(\widehat{d}a)\underset{a0}{}a^4𝒟_{\mu \rho ,\nu \sigma }^{(𝒞)}(\widehat{d}a)+𝒪(a^6).$$
(2.4)
Making use of the definition (2.3) we can also write, in the same limit,

$`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)L}(d^2a^2)\underset{a0}{}a^4𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}(d^2a^2)+𝒪(a^6),`$
$`𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)L}(d^2a^2)\underset{a0}{}a^4𝒟_{}^{(𝒞)}(d^2a^2)+𝒪(a^6).`$ (2.5)
In order to remove the lattice artefacts, i.e., the terms $`𝒪(a^6)`$ in Eqs. (2.4) and (2.5), we shall make use of the cooling technique, described in previous papers (see Refs.  and ). Cooling is a local procedure, which affects correlations at distances that grow as the square root of the number of cooling steps, as in a diffusion process. If the distance at which we observe the correlation is sufficiently large, we then expect that lattice artefacts are frozen by cooling long before the correlation is affected: this will produce a plateau in the dependence on the cooling step. Our data are the values of the correlators at the plateau; the error is the typical statistical error at the plateau, plus a systematic error which is estimated as the difference between neighbouring points at the plateau.222In Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5 we have plotted only the points corresponding to a clear plateau in the cooling process. For some points at large distances, our cooling proved to be not long enough to reach the plateau.

We have measured the correlations on a $`16^4`$ lattice at distances ranging from 3 to 8 lattice spacings and at $`\beta =6`$. The value of the lattice spacing $`a`$ in physical units can be extracted from the value of the string tension  and it is $`a0.1`$ fm at our value of $`\beta `$. At this value of $`\beta `$ scaling has been already tested for the case of the straight–line paths in Refs. . The data of Refs.  came from several different values of $`\beta `$ (including also $`\beta =6`$) and two lattice sizes, $`16^4`$ and $`32^4`$. They showed no visible dependence neither on the ultraviolet, nor on the infrared scale. We therefore do not expect significant scaling violations.

The results are shown in Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5, versus the distance $`d`$ in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$. The lines are drawn as an eye–guide. Figs. 2 and 3 refer to the paths in Fig. 1b, for various values of the transverse size $`\delta `$ of the staple. Figs. 4 and 5 give the analogous results for the paths shown in Fig. 1c.

The very result of this paper is the unexpectedly strong dependence of the correlators on the shape of the path. The correlator with the straight–line path (1.3) (see Fig. 1a), has the largest signal (for every distance $`d`$), compared with the two other choices for the path. Every deformation from the straight–line path seems to produce a sharp decrease of the value of the correlator. What seems to be path–independent is the slope of the curves, which look parallel to one another in the linear–log plots of Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5. This means that the correlation length $`\lambda _A`$ defined in Refs.  is approximately path–independent, at least for the classes of paths that we have considered.

In Figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5 the best fit to the data for straight–line Schwinger string of Ref. , Eqs. (2.10) and (2.11), is displayed for comparison (see also Ref. , where a critical comparison among different best fits is performed).

In order to quantitatively test the independence of the correlation length $`\lambda _A`$ on the path $`𝒞`$, we have tried a best fit to the data for $`𝒟_{}=𝒟+𝒟_1`$, at intermediate distances $`5d8`$, i.e., about $`0.5\mathrm{fm}x0.8`$ fm), with the same function used in Ref. , Eq. (2.10):

$$𝒟_{}(x^2)=A_{}\mathrm{e}^{|x|/\lambda _A}+\frac{a_{}}{|x|^4}\mathrm{e}^{|x|/\lambda _a}.$$
(2.6)
Keeping $`\lambda _A`$ fixed to the value of Ref. , Eq. (2.11), i.e., $`\lambda _A=1/182\mathrm{\Lambda }_L`$, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_L4.9`$ MeV is the lattice scale , a good fit results with a reasonable $`\chi ^2/N_{d.o.f.}`$. The path–dependence of the correlator reflects in a rather strong path–dependence of the coefficient $`A_{}`$ of the exponential term. In the range of distances chosen, the second term of Eq. (2.6) is compatible with zero, within the errors. The coefficient $`A_{}`$ changes up to a factor of four, going from $`\delta =0`$ to $`\delta =6`$ for the collection of paths $`b_\delta `$ (Fig. 1b); and it changes up to a factor of two, going from $`\delta =0`$ to $`\delta =6`$ for the collection of paths $`c_\delta `$ (Fig. 1c).

In Ref.  Eq. (2.6) was considered as a split–point regulator of the gluon condensate, which was extracted from the coefficient $`A_{}`$ of the exponential term (see also Ref. ). It is not clear to us how this determination depends on the shape of the path.

Acknowledgements

This work was done using the CRAY T3E of the CINECA Inter University Computing Centre (Bologna, Italy). We would like to thank the CINECA for the kind and highly qualified technical assistance.

Many discussions on this subject with H.G. Dosch, H.J. Pirner and Yu.A. Simonov are warmly acknowledged.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

* The different paths for the Schwinger string $`S`$ that we have considered for our analysis.
* The function $`a^4𝒟_{}^{(b_\delta )}`$ versus the distance $`d`$ in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$. Circles correspond to the straight–line path of Fig. 1a; triangles to Fig. 1b with $`\delta =1`$; squares to Fig. 1b with $`\delta =4`$; diamonds to Fig. 1b with $`\delta =6`$. Lines are drawn as eye–guides. The thick continuum line has been obtained using the parameters of the best fit obtained in Ref. , Eqs. (2.10) and (2.11).
* The function $`a^4𝒟_{}^{(b_\delta )}`$ versus the distance $`d`$ in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$. The symbols are the same as in Fig. 2.
* The function $`a^4𝒟_{}^{(c_\delta )}`$ versus the distance $`d`$ in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$. The symbols are the same as in Fig. 2, except that they now refer to the path of Fig. 1c.
* The function $`a^4𝒟_{}^{(c_\delta )}`$ versus the distance $`d`$ in units of the lattice spacing $`a`$. The symbols are the same as in Fig. 2, except that they now refer to the path of Fig. 1c.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5


text:
# Measurements of Charged Current Reactions of 𝜈_𝜇 on ¹²𝐶

## 1 Introduction

Neutrino-nucleus cross sections are needed for the interpretation of measurements by many low energy neutrino experiments as well as for modeling various astrophysical processes such as supernova explosions. Low-energy neutrino-nucleus cross sections are also of interest because of their role in nuclear structure studies. The cross sections contain contributions from both axial vector and polar vector nuclear currents and thus provide complementary information to that provided by eletromagnetic scattering from the nucleus, which is sensitive only to the nuclear polar vector currents.

Many calculational techniques have been used to determine neutrino-nuclear cross sections. Shell model techniques work best at lower energies where transitions to continuum states are not large. At intermediate energies the Continuum Random Phase Approximation (CRPA) is frequently used, while at still higher energies the Fermi gas model is thought to work well. Experimental measurements are, however, necessary to establish the range of validity of the different calculational techniques.

There are more neutrino cross section measurements for $`{}_{}{}^{12}C`$ than for any other nucleus. Three experiments, E225 at LAMPF, the KARMEN experiment at the ISIS facility of the Rutherford Laboratory and a liquid scintillator neutrino detector (LSND), have measured both the exclusive reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _e,e^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$ and inclusive reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _e,e^{})^{12}N^{}`$ to the other accessible excited states of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$. In these measurements the $`\nu _e`$ flux arises from $`\mu ^+`$ decay at rest with $`E_\nu <52.8`$ MeV. As a result of the low neutrino energy, transitions occur almost entirely to a few low lying states of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$, and over 60$`\%`$ of the total cross section is to the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ ground state. The cross section for producing the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ ground state can be predicted with an accuracy of $`5\%`$ by using model-independent form factors that can be reliably extracted from other measurements. All three experimental measurements of the $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _e,e^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$ cross section agree well with the expected value. Calculation of the inclusive cross section to the excited states of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ is model dependent and is a less certain procedure. The Fermi gas model (FGM) is not reliable in this instance because the low neutrino energy leads to momentum transfers ( $`Q<100`$ MeV/$`c`$ ), much smaller than the Fermi momentum ( 200 MeV/$`c`$ ) in carbon. Thus extensive modeling of the nuclear dynamics is necessary . Final LSND results for this reaction agree with a recent shell model calculation . They are somewhat lower than, but consistent with, a recent CRPA calculation .

Measurements also exist for two processes closely related to $`\nu _e`$ carbon scattering: $`\mu ^{}`$ capture on $`{}_{}{}^{12}C`$ and $`\nu _\mu `$ scattering on carbon using a beam of $`\nu _\mu `$ from $`\pi ^+`$ decay-in-flight. For the $`\nu _e`$ carbon measurement $`\overline{E}_\nu 40`$ MeV, $`\overline{Q}50`$ MeV/$`c`$, and the inclusive cross section is dominated by transitions to low multipoles ($`1^+,1^{},2^{}`$). In contrast, for the $`\nu _\mu `$ carbon measurement $`\overline{E}_\nu 170`$ MeV, $`\overline{Q}200`$ MeV/$`c`$, and excitations occur up to 100 MeV. The $`\mu ^{}`$ capture process, which occurs from the $`S`$ state, is intermediate between these two processes with $`\overline{Q}90`$ MeV/$`c`$. Because these three processes occur at different energies and momentum-transfers they constrain different aspects of theoretical calculations. A challenging test of a theoretical procedure is its ability to predict all three processes. We note that the inclusive cross section is strongly energy and momentum transfer dependent. Thus the flux averaged cross section for the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})^{12}N^{}`$ is approximately 200 times larger than the lower energy cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _e,e^{})^{12}N^{}`$.

The measurement of the inclusive cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ several years ago by LSND attracted substantial interest because a CRPA calculation predicted a cross section almost twice as large as that observed. An improved calculation by the same group together with an improved calculation of the neutrino energy spectrum and flux discussed in Section 2 reduced but did not eliminate the discrepancy with the measured cross section. Recent calculations using the shell model are in better agreement with the measured cross section. In this paper we present final LSND results for the inclusive cross section for $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ and for the exclusive reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$.

## 2 The Neutrino Source

The data reported here were obtained between 1994 and 1998 at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) primarily using neutrinos produced at the A6 proton beam stop. As discussed below some neutrinos were also produced at upstream targets A1 and A2. The neutrino source is described in detail elsewhere.

In 1994 and 1995 the beam stop consisted of a 30-cm water target followed by a 50-cm decay region, isotope production stringers and a copper beam dump as shown in Fig. 1.

The high-intensity 798 MeV proton beam from the linear accelerator generates a large pion flux from the water target. The flux of $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ used for the measurements reported here arise from the decay in flight (DIF) of $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$. For the LANSCE proton beam and beam stop configuration $`\pi ^+`$ production exceeds $`\pi ^{}`$ production by a factor of approximately 8 and even more for high energy pions. Approximately 3.4% of the $`\pi ^+`$ and 5% of the $`\pi ^{}`$ decay in flight. Upstream targets contributed 6% to the DIF neutrino flux. For the 1995 run, the water target was removed for 32% of the 7081 C of beam. For this portion of the run the DIF $`\nu _\mu `$ flux was reduced approximately 50%.

After the 1995 run the beam stop was substantially modified for accelerator production of tritium (APT) tests. The replacement of the water target by a close-packed, high-Z target resulted in reduced $`\pi ^+`$ production largely due to the change in the neutron to proton ratio in the target. The closer packing of materials for the APT stop reduced the fraction of $`\pi ^\pm `$ which decay in flight. The resulting $`\nu _\mu `$ DIF flux per incident proton is only one-half of that obtained with the water target. There were no upstream targets for almost all of the data taken with the APT target in 1996-1998.

The LANSCE beam dump has been used as the neutrino source for previous experiments. These experiments primarily used neutrinos from the decay at rest (DAR) of stopped $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\mu ^+`$. A calibration experiment measured the rate of stopped $`\mu ^+`$ from a low-intensity proton beam incident on an instrumented beam stop. The rate of stopped $`\mu ^+`$ per incident proton was measured as a function of several variables and used to fine-tune a beam dump simulation program. The simulation program could then be used to calculate the flux for any particular beam dump configuration. The calibration experiment determined the DAR flux to $`\pm 7\%`$ for the proton energies and beam stop configurations used at LANSCE. There are greater uncertainties in the DIF fluxes. Uncertainties in the energy spectra of the $`\pi ^\pm `$ which decay in flight lead to uncertainties in both the magnitudes and shapes of the $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ energy spectra. The shapes of the $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ energy spectra are particularly important for the measurement of inclusive cross sections, since these cross sections have a strong energy dependence. We have studied in detail the procedure of Ref.  for calculating the DIF flux and slightly revised it to incorporate more recent $`\pi ^+`$ production results and to remove some slight distortions arising from use of finite bins in the pion production angle. The primary effect is to reduce the $`\nu _\mu `$ flux above 200 MeV.

The largest uncertainties in the DIF flux arise from systematic effects in the calibration experiment (5%), uncertainties in the $`\pi ^+`$ production cross sections used in the simulation (10%) and other systematic effects in the simulation (7%). For the 1994-1995 data the upstream targets introduced a small additional uncertainty in the flux. For 1996-1998 data the geometry of the beam stop configuration was more complicated than that used in 1994-1995. The uncertainty in the DIF flux for neutrinos above muon production threshold is estimated to produce an uncertainty in the measured cross section of 15%. This uncertainty provides the largest source of systematic error for the cross sections presented here.

The LANSCE proton beam typically had a current of 800 $`\mu `$A at the beam stop during the 1994-1995 running period and 1000 $`\mu `$A for 1996-1998. For 1994 and 1995 the energy was approximately 770 MeV at the beam stop due to energy loss in upstream targets, while it was approximately 800 MeV in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

Table 1 shows for each year the calculated $`\nu _\mu `$ flux above the threshold (123.1 MeV) for muon production on carbon and averaged over the LSND detector.

The $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux above threshold (113.1 MeV) for the process $`\overline{\nu }_\mu +p\mu ^++n`$ is also shown. Figure 2 shows the calculated $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ energy spectra.

## 3 The LSND Detector

The detector is located 29.8 m downstream of the proton beam stop at an angle of $`12^{}`$ to the proton beam. Figure 3 shows a side-view of the setup.

Approximately 2000 g/cm2 of shielding above the detector attenuates the hadronic component of cosmic rays to a negligible level. The detector is also well shielded from the beam stop so that beam-associated neutrons are attenuated to a negligible level. Enclosing the detector, except on the bottom, is a highly efficient liquid scintillator veto shield which is essential to reduce contributions from the cosmic ray muon background to a low level. Reference  provides a detailed description of the detector, veto, and data acquisition system (DAQ) which we briefly review here.

The detector is an approximately cylindrical tank containing 167 tons of liquid scintillator and viewed by 1220 uniformly spaced $`8^{\prime \prime }`$ Hamamatsu photomultiplier tubes (PMT) covering $`25\%`$ of the surface inside the tank wall. When the deposited energy in the tank exceeds a threshold of approximately 4 MeV electron-equivalent energy and there are fewer than 4 PMT hits in the veto shield, the digitized time and pulse height of each of these PMTs (and of each of the 292 veto shield PMTs) are recorded. A veto, imposed for 15.2 $`\mu `$s following the firing of $`>5`$ veto PMTs, substantially reduces ($`10^3`$) the large number of background events arising from the decay of cosmic ray muons that stop in the detector. Activity in the detector or veto shield during the 51.2 $`\mu `$s preceding a primary trigger is also recorded, provided there are $`>17`$ detector PMT hits or $`>5`$ veto PMT hits. This activity information is used in the analysis to identify events arising from muon decay. In particular, in this analysis the activity information is used to identify $`\mu ^{}`$ from the reaction $`\nu _\mu +^{12}C\mu ^{}+X`$. For such events the $`e^{}`$ from the subsequent decay $`\mu ^{}e^{}+\nu _\mu +\overline{\nu }_e`$ provides the primary trigger. Activities with $`>3`$ veto PMT hits mostly arise from cosmic ray muons and are rejected in the analysis. It should also be noted that the 15.2 $`\mu `$s veto applies only to the primary trigger and not to the activities preceding a valid trigger. Data after the primary event are recorded for 1 ms with a threshold of 21 PMTs (approximately 0.7 MeV electron-equivalent energy). This low threshold is used for the detection of 2.2 MeV $`\gamma `$ from neutron capture on free protons. Muon events with associated neutrons arise from the processes $`\overline{\nu }_\mu p\mu ^+n`$, $`\overline{\nu }_\mu C\mu ^+nX`$, and $`\nu _\mu C\mu ^{}nX`$.

The detector operates without reference to the beam spill, but the state of the beam is recorded with the event. Approximately 94% of the data is taken between beam spills. This allows an accurate measurement and subtraction of cosmic ray background surviving the event selection criteria.

The detector scintillator consists of mineral oil ($`CH_2`$) in which is dissolved a small concentration (0.031 g/l) of b-PBD. This mixture allows the separation of Čerenkov light and scintillation light and produces about 33 photoelectrons per MeV of electron energy deposited in the oil. The combination of the two sources of light provides direction information for relativistic particles and makes particle identification (PID) possible. Note that the oil consists almost entirely of carbon and hydrogen. Isotopically the carbon is $`1.1\%{}_{}{}^{13}C`$ and $`98.9\%{}_{}{}^{12}C`$. Stopping $`\mu ^{}`$ are captured on $`{}_{}{}^{12}C`$ 8% of the time in the LSND detector. The $`\mu ^\pm `$ which decay are readily identified as muons by the presence of subsequent spatially correlated Michel electrons.

The veto shield encloses the detector on all sides except the bottom. Additional counters were placed below the veto shield after the 1993 run to reduce cosmic ray background entering through the bottom support structure. More counters were added after the 1995 run. The main veto shield consists of a 15-cm layer of liquid scintillator in an external tank and 15 cm of lead shot in an internal tank. This combination of active and passive shielding tags cosmic ray muons that stop in the lead shot. A veto inefficiency $`<10^5`$ is achieved with this detector for incident charged particles.

## 4 Analysis Techniques

In the analysis presented in this paper we require a $`\mu ^\pm `$ followed by a delayed coincidence with a decay $`e^\pm `$. As a result of this coincidence requirement a clean beam excess sample of events can be obtained with relatively loose selection criteria. Furthermore, it is easy to verify that the events in this sample arise from muon decay since the muon lifetime and the decay electron energy spectrum are well known.

Each event is reconstructed using the hit time and pulse height of all hit PMTs in the detector. The present analysis relies on the reconstructed energy, position, and two PID parameters, $`\chi _{tot}^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$, as described later in this section. The parameters $`\chi _{tot}^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ are used to distinguish electron events from events arising from interactions of cosmic ray neutrons in the detector. Fortunately, it is possible to directly measure the response of the detector to electrons and neutrons in the energy range of interest for this analysis by using copious control data samples. We also use a Monte Carlo simulation, LSNDMC, to simulate events in the detector using GEANT.

The response of the detector to electrons was determined from a large, essentially pure sample of electrons (and positrons) from the decay of stopped cosmic ray $`\mu ^\pm `$ in the detector. The known energy spectra for electrons from muon decay was used to determine the absolute energy calibration, including its small variation over the volume of the detector. The energy resolution was determined from the shape of the electron energy spectrum and was found to be 6.6% at the 52.8 MeV end-point.

For relativistic electrons in the LSND detector approximately 65% of the photoelectrons arise from direct or reradiated Čerenkov light and only 35% from scintillator light. For muons, the threshold kinetic energy for Čerenkov radiation in the LSND detector is 39 MeV. For the sample of muons analyzed in this paper only about half are above Čerenkov threshold and none fully relativistic. As a result, the light output per MeV of energy loss for the muons is significantly less than that for relativistic electrons. There is no calibration sample available of low-energy muons with known energies. Thus we rely on the Monte Carlo simulation LSNDMC for muons. We discuss the muon energy scale further in Sections 6 and 7 when we compare observed and expected energy distributions.

There are no tracking devices in the LSND detector. Thus, event positions must be determined solely from the PMT information. The reconstruction process determines an event position by minimizing a function $`\chi _r`$ which is based on the time of each PMT hit corrected for the travel time of light from the assumed event position to the PMT. The procedure used in several previous analyses systematically shifted event positions away from the center of the detector and thus effectively reduced the fiducial volume. The reconstruction procedure has been analyzed in detail and an improved reconstruction procedure was developed which reduces this systematic shift and provides substantially better position resolution. This procedure also provides results which agree well with positions obtained from the event likelihood procedure described in Ref . In the analysis presented in this paper, a fiducial cut is imposed by requiring $`D>35`$ cm, where $`D`$ is the distance between the reconstructed electron position and the surface tangent to the faces of the PMTs. For the muon we require $`D>0`$ cm.

The particle identification procedure is designed to separate particles with velocities well above Čerenkov threshold from particles below Čerenkov threshold. The procedure makes use of the four parameters defined in Refs. . Briefly, $`\chi _r`$ and $`\chi _a`$ are the quantities minimized for the determination of the event position and direction, $`\chi _t`$ is the fraction of PMT hits that occur more than 12 ns after the fitted event time and $`\chi _{tot}`$ is proportional to the product of $`\chi _r`$, $`\chi _a`$ and $`\chi _t`$.

Several previous LSND analyses have used $`\chi _{tot}`$ for particle identification. The distribution of $`\chi _{tot}`$ for electrons, however, has a small variation with electron energy and with the position of the event. Therefore, in this paper, we used a modified variable, $`\chi _{tot}^{}`$, with approximately a mean of zero and sigma of one, independent of the electron energy and positions. We also used the variable, $`\alpha `$, which is based on the event likelihood procedures discussed in Ref. . It is similar to the parameter $`\rho `$ discussed there, which is based on the ratio of Čerenkov to scintillator light. The $`\alpha `$ parameter varies from 0 to 1 and peaks at one for electrons and at 0.3 for neutrons. As discussed in Refs.  and , the combination $`\chi _\alpha =\chi _{tot}^{}+10(1\alpha )`$ provides better separation of electrons, muons, and neutrons than $`\chi _{tot}^{}`$ by itself.

We note that a modest particle identification requirement was imposed in the initial data processing that created the samples analyzed here. The effect of this requirement is also included in the analysis.

Cosmic ray background which remains after all selection criteria have been applied is well measured with the beam-off data and subtracted using the duty ratio, the ratio of beam-on time to beam-off time. The subtraction was performed separately for each year’s data using the measured duty ratio for that year. The ratio averaged over the full data sample was 0.0632. In the present analysis the beam-off background is very small($`<2\%`$) because we require a low energy muon that is well correlated in space and time with a Michel electron.

## 5 Event Selection Criteria

The analysis is designed to select the $`\mu ^{}`$ from the reaction $`\nu _\mu +^{12}C\mu ^{}+X`$ and the subsequent electron from the decay $`\mu ^{}e^{}+\overline{\nu }_e+\nu _\mu `$. In the LSND detector medium 92% of the stopped $`\mu ^{}`$ decay and 8% are captured. The $`\mu ^{}`$ and other particles arising from the charge-changing neutrino interaction produce light that causes an average of 250 PMTs to fire. The detector charge $`Q_\mu `$, measured in photoelectrons, arises mostly from the $`\mu ^{}`$ but includes contributions from other particles produced in the reaction such as protons and $`\gamma `$’s.

Tables 2 and 3 respectively show the selection criteria and corresponding efficiencies for the electron and for the muon.

For events in the decay-in-flight sample the event position is best determined from the reconstructed electron position rather than the reconstructed muon position, especially for events with low-energy muons. Therefore, the fiducial selection is imposed primarily on the electron. The reconstructed electron is required to be a distance $`D>35`$ cm from the surface tangent to the faces of the PMTs. There are $`3.65\times 10^{30}{}_{}{}^{12}C`$ nuclei within this fiducial volume. The fiducial volume efficiency, defined to be the ratio of the number of events reconstructed within the fiducial volume to the actual number within this volume, was determined to be $`0.880\pm 0.055`$. This efficiency is less than one because there is a systematic shift of reconstructed event positions away from the center of the detector, as discussed in Section 4. The muon is required to reconstruct only inside the region $`D>0`$ cm. A lower limit on the electron energy of 18 MeV eliminates the large background from $`{}_{}{}^{12}B`$ $`\beta `$ decay created by the capture of cosmic ray $`\mu ^{}`$ on $`{}_{}{}^{12}C`$. Figure 4 shows the observed electron energy distribution compared with the expected energy distribution of Michel electrons from Monte Carlo simulation.

The distribution of the time, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mu e}`$, between the muon and electron candidates, shown in Fig. 5, agrees well with the 2.03 $`\mu `$s $`\mu ^{}`$ lifetime in mineral oil.

The best fit, also shown, corresponds to a lifetime of $`2.03\pm 0.05\mu `$s. The requirement $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mu ,e}0.7\mu `$s is imposed to insure that the $`\mu `$ and $`e`$ are clearly separated in the trigger and in the readout of the data. The excellent agreement with expectations in Figs. 4 and 5 clearly shows that the events arise from muon decay. There is an 8% loss of events due to $`\mu ^{}`$ capture in the detector medium. Figure 6 shows the spatial separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ between the reconstructed muon and electron positions.

A loose requirement, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r<0.8`$ m, is imposed to minimize the background from accidental $`\mu ,e`$ correlations while retaining high acceptance.

Many of the selection criteria are designed to reduce the cosmic ray background, especially that arising from the decay of cosmic ray muons which stop in the detector. Both the muon and the electron candidates are required to have fewer than 4 PMT hits in the veto and no bottom counter coincidence during the 500 ns event window. The detector PMT faces are 25 cm inside the tank and thus stopping cosmic ray muons must traverse at least 60 cm of oil to reach the fiducial volume. As a result, these muons typically produce a large detector signal. The requirement $`E<`$70 MeV, where $`E`$ is the electron equivalent energy of the muon, eliminates most such background events with almost no loss of acceptance for muons arising from neutrino interactions.

Muons which are misidentified as electrons are removed by requiring that there be no future activity consistent with a Michel electron. Any electron candidate with future activity with fewer than 4 veto PMT hits and more than 50 detector PMT hits within 8.8 $`\mu `$s is rejected.

Frequently, in addition to the candidate muon which satisfies the criteria in Table 3, there are one or more other activities prior to the electron. If an activity is due to a stopping muon, that muon could be the parent of the observed electron. Therefore an event is rejected if, in the 35 $`\mu `$s interval prior to the electron, there is an activity (other than the muon) with $`Q>3000`$ pe or an activity with $`>4`$ PMT hits in the veto and $`>100`$ PMT hits in the detector. We also reject any event with a past activity within 51 $`\mu `$s with $`>5`$ veto PMT hits and $`>500`$ detector PMT hits. A cut is performed during initial data processing on past activities that are spatially correlated with the primary event, within 30 $`\mu `$s of the primary event, and have $`4`$ veto PMT hits.

The acceptances for the past activity and in-time veto cuts are obtained by applying these cuts to a large sample of events triggered with the laser used for detector calibration. These laser events are spread uniformly through the run and thus average over the small variation in run conditions.

Only a loose particle ID requirement, $`\chi _\alpha <4.0`$, was imposed on the electron and none on the muon. A sample of Michel electrons (electrons from the decay of stopped $`\mu ^\pm `$) was analyzed to obtain the acceptance of electrons for the $`\chi _\alpha `$ particle identification cut, as shown in Fig. 7.

The Monte Carlo simulation LSNDMC was used to obtain the PMT hit distributions expected from the various processes that contribute to the inclusive sample and to the exclusive sample with an identified $`\beta `$ decay. Figure 8 compares the observed and expected distribution of PMT hits for muons from inclusive events.

There is excellent agreement, and thus we expect that the simulation provides a reliable estimate of the fraction of events lost because they are below the activity threshold of 18 PMT hits (roughly 4 MeV). For the inclusive sample (exclusive sample) we find that only 1.2%(2.4%) of the events have fewer than 18 PMT hits.

## 6 The Transition to the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ Ground State

For analysis of the exclusive process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$ we also require detection of the $`e^+`$ from the $`\beta `$ decay of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N_{g.s.}^{}`$. Therefore, for these events three particles are detected: the muon, the decay electron and the positron from the $`\beta `$ decay of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N_{g.s.}^{}`$. Table 4 gives the selection criteria and efficiencies for the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ $`\beta `$ decay positron.

These are the same criteria used previously in an analysis of a much larger sample from the analogous process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _e,e^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$. The $`\beta `$ decay has a mean lifetime of 15.9 ms and maximum positron kinetic energy of 16.3 MeV. Figure 9 shows the observed $`\beta `$ decay time distribution compared with the expected 15.9 ms lifetime.

Figure 10 shows the distance between the reconstructed electron and positron positions for the beam-excess sample.

A cut was applied at 70 cm, resulting in an acceptance of $`(99.2\pm 0.8)\%`$. The positron is required to be spatially correlated with the electron rather than the muon because the position of the electron in general is better determined. Following a muon produced by a neutrino interaction, an uncorrelated particle, such as the positron from $`{}_{}{}^{12}B\beta `$ decay, will occasionally satisfy all the positron criteria including the requirements of time (60 ms) and spatial (70 cm) correlation with the electron. The probability of such an accidental coincidence can be precisely measured from the Michel electron sample. The background from this source is also shown in Figs. 9 and 10. The efficiency of 76.0% caused by the 15.2 $`\mu `$s veto and the trigger dead time of 2.3% are the same as for the electron. Positrons with four or more in-time veto hits or any bottom veto coincidence are rejected. The Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate the expected distribution for the positron energy. There was a trigger requirement of 100 PMT hits for 1994 and 75 PMT hits for 1995-1998. The positron was required to have an energy less than 18 MeV. Figure 11 compares the observed and expected positron energy distributions.

Figure 12 compares the observed and expected distributions of muon decay time.

Excited states of $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ decay by prompt proton emission and thus do not feed down to the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ ground state or contribute to the delayed coincidence rate. The form factors required to calculate the cross section are well known from a variety of previous measurements. This cross section and the known $`\nu _\mu `$ flux are used to obtain the expected muon kinetic energy spectrum which is compared with the data in Fig. 13.

As stated in Section 4 the energy calibration for muons (the conversion from photoelectrons to MeV) is obtained from the Monte Carlo simulation LSNDMC. For this ground state reaction, the expected muon energy distribution should be very reliable. Thus the agreement seen in Fig. 13 provides confirmation for the muon energy calibration within the limited statistics.

There are two sources of background. The largest arises from the accidental coincidence of a positron candidate with an event from the inclusive sample of neutrino-induced muons. The probability of an uncorrelated particle satisfying all the positron criteria, including the requirements of time (60 ms) and spatial correlation (70 cm) with the electron, can be precisely measured from a large Michel electron sample. The second background arises from the process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\overline{\nu }_\mu ,\mu ^+)^{12}B_{g.s.}`$, where we detect the $`e^{}`$ from the $`\beta `$ decay of the $`{}_{}{}^{12}B`$ ground state. This background is small primarily because the flux of high-energy $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ is approximately a factor of 10 lower than the corresponding $`\nu _\mu `$ flux and because the $`{}_{}{}^{12}B_{g.s.}^{}`$ lifetime is longer than the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N_{g.s.}^{}`$ lifetime.

Table 5 shows the number of beam excess events, the number of background events, the efficiency, the neutrino flux for $`E_\nu >123.1`$ MeV, and the cross section averaged over the flux.

The efficiency shown includes the efficiency for muons to have more than 17 PMT hits as well as the electron, muon and beta efficiencies given in Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4, respectively. The flux-averaged cross section is $`\sigma =(5.6\pm 0.8\pm 1.0)\times 10^{41}`$ cm2, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The two dominant sources of systematic error are the neutrino flux (15%) discussed in Section 2 and the effective fiducial volume (6%) discussed in Section 4.

For this reaction to the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N`$ ground state it is also straightforward to measure the energy dependence of the cross section. The recoil energy of the nucleus is small and to a very good approximation, $`E_\nu =m_\mu c^2+T_\mu +17.7`$ MeV, where $`m_\mu `$ is the muon mass, $`T_\mu `$ is the kinetic energy of the muon, and 17.7 MeV arises from the $`Q`$ value of the reaction and the nuclear recoil. Figure 14 compares the measured cross section as a function of $`E_\nu `$ with three theoretical calculations obtained from Ref. .

The agreement is reasonable within the limited statistics.

There is little disagreement in the predicted cross section for this exclusive process, as it is fixed by measured values of closely related electroweak transition probabilities. The differences that exist among various calculations result from different models for the dependence of various elements of the transition probability on the momentum transfer. Thus, as shown in Fig. 14, the differences among shell model approaches, an RPA calculation, and an “elementary particle” model all agree for $`E_\nu `$ up to 160 MeV and differ only by about 10% at 250 MeV.

Table 5 also shows three more recent calculations  of the cross section for this exclusive process. The focus of these papers, however, was on obtaining a satisfactory overall description of neutrino reactions on carbon, including the inclusive cross section and of $`\mu ^{}`$ capture.

## 7 The Inclusive Reaction

Most of the inclusive beam-excess events arise from the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$, but approximately 10% are due to other sources. Table 6 shows the number of beam-excess events, the calculated backgrounds, the efficiency, $`\nu _\mu `$ flux, and the flux-averaged cross section for this process.

The efficiency shown includes the efficiency for muons to have more than 17 PMT hits as well as the electron and muon efficiencies given in Tables 2 and 3. The backgrounds arising from the $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ component of the decay-in-flight beam are small, primarily because the high-energy $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux is approximately a factor of 10 lower than the corresponding $`\nu _\mu `$ flux. The largest background arises from the process $`\overline{\nu }_\mu +p\mu ^++n`$. The cross section is well known and the uncertainty in this process is mainly due to the 15% uncertainty in the $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux. A much smaller but less well understood background arises from the process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\overline{\nu }_\mu ,\mu ^+)X`$. Plausibly, as observed for the process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$, the cross section might be expected to be approximately 60% of that given by a recent CRPA calculation. We use this reduced cross section in calculating this background but assign a large error to reflect the uncertainty in the cross section. An even smaller background arises from the 1.1% $`{}_{}{}^{13}C`$ component of the scintillator. For the process $`{}_{}{}^{13}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ we use a Fermi gas model calculation and assign a 50% uncertainty.

The measured flux-averaged cross section for the inclusive reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ is $`\sigma =(10.6\pm 0.3\pm 1.8)\times 10^{40}`$ cm2, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The mean energy of the neutrino flux above threshold is 156 MeV.

Table 6 shows for comparison results of three recent theoretical calculations of the cross section . The shell model calculation of Hayes and Towner  provides the best agreement with our measurement but all three predict a higher cross section than observed. These calculations used the $`\nu _\mu `$ energy distribution calculated by LSND for the 1994 beam stop. The shape of the calculated energy distribution, however, shows only small yearly variations that would produce shifts of a few percent in the expected cross section for the different years. Averaged over all the data the calculated shape is the same as that calculated for 1994.

The systematic error is due almost entirely to the uncertainty in the $`\nu _\mu `$ flux. To determine this value, the inputs to the neutrino beam Monte Carlo program were varied within their estimated uncertainties. The resulting variation in both the magnitude and the shape of the $`\nu _\mu `$ flux above muon production threshold results in a 15% uncertainty in the inclusive cross section.

The beam dump configuration was substantially modified after the 1995 run as discussed in Section 2. The two beam dump geometries are very different. Also the flux for 1994-1995 depends primarily on $`\pi ^+`$ production from water while the flux for 1996-1998 arises primarily from $`\pi ^+`$ production on high-Z materials. The resulting $`\nu _\mu `$ DIF flux per incident proton with the modified configuration was only one-half of that obtained with the water target used in 1994-1995. Thus a comparison of the cross sections measured with the two beam dump configurations provides a check on the systematics of the $`\nu _\mu `$ flux simulation. The cross section measured with the APT beam dump in 1996-1998, ($`9.5\pm 0.4(stat.))\times 10^{40}`$ cm2, was lower than that measured with the water target setup in 1994-1995, ($`11.4\pm 0.4(stat.))\times 10^{40}`$ cm2, by a little more than one standard deviation. The statistical uncertainties of these measurements are small compared to the systematic uncertainties. The systematic errors for the two beam dump configurations are partially correlated but each has an uncorrelated systematic error of about 10%. The cross sections for the two beam dump configurations differ by $`1.9\times 10^{40}`$ cm2 compared to an expected uncertainty of $`1.5\times 10^{40}`$ cm2. Thus results for the two beam dump configurations are consistent within errors.

The spatial distribution of the beam-excess electrons is shown in Fig. 15.

There is a clear enhancement of events at high $`x`$ and high $`y`$ due to the variation of the $`\nu _\mu `$ flux over the detector. The good agreement with expectation shows that this spatial distribution is well modeled by the beam simulation program.

For the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$, the detector charge $`Q_\mu `$, measured in photoelectrons, arises mostly from the $`\mu ^{}`$ but includes contributions from other particles in the reaction such as protons and $`\gamma `$’s. The muon kinetic energy distribution obtained from the $`Q_\mu `$ distribution is shown in Fig. 16.

According to the CRPA calculation , 84.5$`\%`$ (20.4$`\%`$) of the inclusive $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ events have proton ($`\gamma `$) emission from the decay of the N excited states. The average energies of these protons and $`\gamma `$s are estimated to be 9 and 4 MeV. We used the calculation of Ref.  to determine proton and $`\gamma `$ energy distributions and LSNDMC to determine the number of photoelectrons produced. The averaged contribution of these particles to the measured electron equivalent energy of the muons is estimated to be 2.2 MeV. Protons produce less scintillation light than electrons due to saturation effects. The uncertainty in the saturation effect is the primary source of uncertainty in the muon and proton energy determination. The average contribution to $`Q_\mu `$ from particles other than the muon is approximately 12%. The expected muon energy spectrum in Fig. 16 is obtained from a recent CRPA calculation and includes the contribution from particles other than muon. There is reasonable agreement. However, given the uncertainties in the shape of the $`\nu _\mu `$ energy spectrum, in the modeling of the energy from nuclear breakup and in the muon and proton energy calibration, we do not try to extract any information on the energy dependence of the cross section for the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$.

Further information on the inclusive sample can be obtained by measuring the fraction of the events with an associated neutron. The presence of a neutron is established by detection of the $`\gamma `$ ray from the neutron’s capture on a proton in the detector via the reaction $`n+pd+\gamma `$. A detailed discussion on the procedure used to detect these $`\gamma `$’s can be found in Ref. . The distribution of the likelihood ratio $`R`$ for correlated $`\gamma `$’s from neutron capture is very different from that for uncorrelated (accidental) $`\gamma `$’s. The measured $`R`$ distribution for the inclusive sample, shown in Fig. 17, was fit to a mixture of these two possible $`\gamma `$ sources to determine the fraction of events with associated neutrons.

The best fit, also shown in the figure, corresponds to a fraction of events with a neutron of $`(11.6\pm 1.1)`$%, where the error includes systematic uncertainties.

The two largest backgrounds shown in Table 6 arise from the $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ component of the beam, and almost all of these events should have an associated neutron. In contrast, most of the events arising from $`\nu _\mu `$ interactions will not have an associated neutron. A CRPA calculation predicts that 79% of the events from the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\overline{\nu }_\mu ,\mu ^+)X`$ will have an associated neutron compared to only 5.9% for the reaction $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$.

Table 7 shows the measured component with an associated neutron for the beam excess sample and the calculated backgrounds from $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ interactions. The resulting number for the $`\nu _\mu `$ carbon sample ($`1.0\pm 2.4`$%) is lower than the CRPA prediction of 5.9%.

The CRPA prediction is for the $`\nu _\mu `$ spectrum used in our earlier analysis , which is slightly harder than that used in the present analysis as discussed in Section 2. The observed number of events with neutrons also rules out a $`\overline{\nu }_\mu `$ flux much bigger than that calculated by the beam Monte Carlo simulation.

## 8 Conclusions

The exclusive process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})^{12}N_{g.s.}`$ has been measured with a clean sample of $`66.9\pm 9.1`$ events for which the $`\mu ^{}`$, the decay $`e^{}`$, and the $`e^+`$ from the $`\beta `$ decay of the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N_{g.s.}^{}`$ are detected. For this process the theoretical cross section calculations are very reliable. The flux averaged cross section is measured to be $`(5.6\pm 0.8\pm 1.0)\times 10^{41}`$ cm2 in good agreement with theoretical expectations. From comparison of this cross section with the cross section for the inclusive process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ we obtain a flux-averaged branching ratio of $`(5.3\pm 0.8\pm 0.5)\%`$.

The inclusive process $`{}_{}{}^{12}C(\nu _\mu ,\mu ^{})X`$ has also been measured. There are model-dependent uncertainties in the theoretical cross section calculation for this process that are not present for the $`{}_{}{}^{12}N_{g.s.}^{}`$ cross section. The measured flux-averaged cross section, $`(10.6\pm 0.3\pm 1.8)\times 10^{40}`$ cm2, is smaller than theoretical expectations . It is in better agreement with the shell model calculation of Hayes and Towner  than with the CRPA calculation of Kolbe et al. . The mean energy of the neutrino flux above threshold is 156 MeV. The measured distribution of the muon energy (including contributions from other particles such as protons and $`\gamma `$’s) agrees within errors with the CRPA calculation. The fraction of events with associated neutrons was measured to be $`(1.0\pm 2.4)`$%. This is lower than the CRPA calculation of 5.9%.

Acknowledgments This work was conducted under the auspices of the US Department of Energy, supported in part by funds provided by the University of California for the conduct of discretionary research by Los Alamos National Laboratory. This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation. We are particularly grateful for the extra effort that was made by these organizations to provide funds for running the accelerator at the end of the data taking period in 1995. It is pleasing that a number of undergraduate students from participating institutions were able to contribute significantly to the experiment.


text:
# Semiclassical theory of spin-orbit interactions using spin coherent states[2]

## Abstract

We formulate a semiclassical theory for systems with spin-orbit interactions. Using spin coherent states, we start from the path integral in an extended phase space, formulate the classical dynamics of the coupled orbital and spin degrees of freedom, and calculate the ingredients of Gutzwiller’s trace formula for the density of states. For a two-dimensional quantum dot with a spin-orbit interaction of Rashba type, we obtain satisfactory agreement with fully quantum-mechanical calculations. The mode-conversion problem, which arose in an earlier semiclassical approach, has hereby been overcome.

The incorporation of spin degrees of freedom in the semiclassical treatment of quantum systems represents a considerable challenge to the theorist. The periodic orbit theory (POT), initiated by Gutzwiller through his semiclassical trace formula , has been very successful in promoting the research on quantum chaos  and in explaining prominent quantum shell effects occurring in finite fermion systems in many domains of physics (see, e.g., ). The growing interest in “spintronics”, i.e., the spin-polarized transport and spin dynamics in various electronic materials , with the particular scope of developing a spin transistor , make it desirable to formulate also the semiclassical theory including spin.

Littlejohn and Flynn have extended the POT for systems with multi-component wavefunctions and used it for the WKB quantization of spherical systems with spin-orbit interactions . They did not give an explicit trace formula, however, the main obstacle being the problem of “mode conversion” which arises when the spin-orbit interaction in phase space locally becomes zero. Frisk and Guhr  have applied the method of  to deformed cavities and promoted the hypothesis that spin-flips occur at the mode-conversion points through diabatic transitions between the two adiabatic spin-polarized energy surfaces. Bolte and Keppeler  have derived a relativistic trace formula from the Dirac equation and studied nonrelativistic limits, thereby justifying some ad hoc assumptions made in . Their approach works well in the weak-coupling limit where the spin does not affect the orbital motion . It may not be extensible , however, to strong spin-orbit interactions such as that observed in $`p`$-InAs or in InGaAs-InAlAs heterostructures , or also that amongst the nucleons in atomic nuclei . For such systems, the approach presented below provides a semiclassical theory with a larger range of validity.

In this letter, we report on a semiclassical approach that allows for the explicit coupling between spin and orbital dynamics. We use the spin coherent state method and the path integral in an extended phase space to derive classical equations of motion which include the spin degrees of freedom. We then obtain the amplitudes in the semiclassical trace formula for the density of states without encountering the mode-conversion problem.

The path integral for a system with spin in the SU(2) spin coherent state representation originally appeared in a paper by Klauder  as an integral on $`S^2`$. Kuratsuji et al.  have represented it as an integral over paths in the extended complex plane $`\overline{C}^1`$. From the group theoretical point of view, the SU(2) coherent state can be associated with the unitary irreducible representation of the SU(2) group . To present its construction, we follow a recent paper by Kochetov  and his notations. The coherent state $`|z,S`$ for spin $`S`$ is defined by

$`|z;S=(1+|z|^2)^S\mathrm{exp}(z\widehat{s}_+)|S,S,`$ (1)
$`\widehat{s}_{}|S,S=0,`$ (2)
where $`z\overline{C}^1`$ is a complex number, and $`\widehat{s}_\pm =\widehat{s}_1\pm i\widehat{s}_2`$, and $`\widehat{s}_3`$ are the generators of the spin SU(2) algebra:

$$[\widehat{s}_3,\widehat{s}_\pm ]=\pm \widehat{s}_\pm ,[\widehat{s}_+,\widehat{s}_{}]=2\widehat{s}_3.$$
(3)
$`SN/2`$ denotes the representation index.

The irreducibility as well as the existence of the group invariant de Haar measure $`d\mu _S`$ ensures that the resolution of unity holds in the spin coherent state basis:

$`{\displaystyle |z;Sz;S|𝑑\mu _S(z)}=I_{2S+1},`$ (4)
$`d\mu _S(z)={\displaystyle \frac{2S+1}{\pi (1+|z|^2)^2}}d^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}z,`$ (5)
which turns out to be the most important property of spin coherent states that allows for the path integral construction, whereby the measure $`d\mu _S`$ takes account of the curvature of the sphere $`S^2`$. In what follows, we denote $`|z;S`$ simply by $`|z`$ and use $`z=uiv`$ with $`u,vR^1`$.

Let us now consider a quantum Hamiltonian with spin-orbit interaction

$$\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_0(\widehat{𝐪},\widehat{𝐩})+\kappa \mathrm{}\widehat{𝐬}\widehat{𝐂}(\widehat{𝐪},\widehat{𝐩}),$$
(6)
where $`\widehat{𝐬}=(\widehat{s}_1,\widehat{s}_2,\widehat{s}_3)`$. Hereby $`\widehat{𝐂}=(\widehat{C}_1,\widehat{C}_2,\widehat{C}_3)`$ is a vector function of the coordinate and momentum operators $`\widehat{𝐪}`$, $`\widehat{𝐩}`$, and the parameter $`\kappa `$ regulates the strength of the interaction. We make use of Smirnov’s idea  to write

the expression for the respective quantum propagator in terms of a path integral in both the orbital variables $`𝐪,𝐩`$ and the spin coherent state variables $`v,u`$. Imposing periodic boundary conditions on the propagation and thus integrating over closed paths, we arrive at the expression for the partition function (or trace of the propagator):

$$Z(T)=𝒟[𝐪]𝒟[𝐩]𝒟\mu _S[z]\mathrm{exp}\{i[𝐪,𝐩,z;T]/\mathrm{}\},$$
(7)
where $``$ is Hamilton’s principal action function, calculated along closed paths over a time interval $`T`$

$`[𝐪,𝐩,z;T]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^T}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(𝐩\dot{𝐪}𝐪\dot{𝐩})+2S\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{(u\dot{v}v\dot{u})}{(1+|z|^2)}}`$ (9)
$`(𝐪,𝐩,v,u)]dt,`$
and the path integration in (7) is taken over the $`2(d+1)`$-dimensional extended phase space:

$`𝒟[𝐪]𝒟[𝐩]𝒟\mu _S[z]=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dq_j(t_k)dp_j(t_k)}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}d\mu _S(z_k).`$

Hereby the time interval $`T`$ is divided into $`N`$ time steps $`t_k=kT/N`$, and $`z_k=z(t_k)`$. Note that the periodic boundary conditions enable the antisymmetrization of the orbital part of the symplectic 1-form in (9).

The classical phase-space symbol $`(𝐪,𝐩,v,u)`$ of the Hamiltonian (6), appearing in the integrand of (9), is

$$(𝐪,𝐩,v,u)=_0(𝐪,𝐩)+\kappa \mathrm{}S𝐧(v,u)𝐂(𝐪,𝐩),$$
(10)
where $`_0(𝐪,𝐩)`$ and $`𝐂(𝐪,𝐩)`$ are the Wigner symbols of the operators $`\widehat{H}_0`$ and $`\widehat{𝐂}`$, and $`𝐧=(n_1,n_2,n_3)=z|\widehat{𝐬}|z/S`$ is the unit vector of dimensionless classical spin components given in terms of $`u`$ and $`v`$ by $`n_1=2u/(1+|z|^2)`$, $`n_2=2v/(1+|z|^2)`$, and $`n_3=(1|z|^2)/(1+|z|^2)`$.

The path integral (7) receives its largest contributions from the neighborhood of the classical paths along which the principal function $``$ is stationary according to Hamilton’s variational principle $`\delta =0`$. The first variation hereby yields the following equations of motion

$$\dot{v}=\frac{(1+|z|^2)^2}{4\mathrm{}S}\frac{}{u}=\kappa \frac{(1+|z|^2)^2}{4}\frac{𝐧(v,u)}{u}𝐂(𝐪,𝐩),$$

$$\dot{u}=\frac{(1+|z|^2)^2}{4\mathrm{}S}\frac{}{v}=\kappa \frac{(1+|z|^2)^2}{4}\frac{𝐧(v,u)}{v}𝐂(𝐪,𝐩),$$

$$\dot{q}_i=\frac{}{p_i}=\frac{_0}{p_i}+\kappa \mathrm{}S𝐧(v,u)\frac{𝐂(𝐪,𝐩)}{p_i},$$

$$\dot{p}_i=\frac{}{q_i}=\frac{_0}{q_i}\kappa \mathrm{}S𝐧(v,u)\frac{𝐂(𝐪,𝐩)}{q_i},$$
(11)
whose solutions define the classical orbits in the extended phase space. Note the appearance of $`\mathrm{}`$ multiplying $`S`$ everywhere in (11), which reflects the non-classical nature of the spin. The two equations for the spin variables $`v,u`$ are equivalent to $`\dot{𝐧}=\kappa 𝐧\times 𝐂`$, with the constraint $`𝐧^2=1`$. For spin-boson coupling in the Jaynes-Cummings model,

equations analogous to (11) have been derived in .

Sugita  has recently given a re-derivation of Gutzwiller’s trace formula, starting from $`Z(T)`$ whose Fourier-Laplace transform yields the density of states:

$$g(E)=\frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{iET/\mathrm{}}Z(T)𝑑T.$$
(12)
Following the general arguments of Gutzwiller , one may evaluate the integrations in (7) using the stationary phase approximation, which becomes exact in the classical limit $`\mathrm{}`$. The semiclassical approximation of the partition function $`Z(T)`$ then turns into a sum over all classical periodic orbits ($`po`$) with fixed period $`T`$

$$𝒵_{sc}(T)=\underset{po}{}e^{i_{po}/\mathrm{}}𝒟[𝜼\text{ }]\mathrm{exp}\{i_{po}^{(2)}[𝜼\text{ },T]/\mathrm{}\},$$
(13)
where $`_{po}`$ are the principal functions (9), evaluated now along the periodic orbits in the extended phase space. $`_{po}^{(2)}[𝜼\text{ },T]`$ are the second variations

$$_{po}^{(2)}[𝜼\text{ },T]=_0^T[\frac{1}{2}𝜼\text{ }𝒥\dot{𝜼\text{ }}^{(2)}]𝑑t,$$
(14)
where $`𝜼`$  is the following $`2(d+1)`$-dimensional extended phase-space vector of small variations

$`𝜼\text{ }=(𝝀\text{ },\nu ,𝝆\text{ },\xi )=(\delta 𝐪,\delta v{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{\mathrm{}S}}{(1+|z|^2)}},\delta 𝐩,\delta u{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{\mathrm{}S}}{(1+|z|^2)}}),`$

and $`𝒥=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& I\\ I& 0\end{array}\right)`$ is the $`2(d+1)`$-dimensional unit symplectic matrix. $`^{(2)}`$ is the second variation of the classical Hamiltonian, calculated along the periodic orbits:

$`^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}\left[\lambda _i\lambda _j{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{q_iq_j}}+2\lambda _i\rho _j{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{q_ip_j}}+\rho _i\rho _j{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{p_ip_j}}\right]`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{2}}(\nu ^2+\xi ^2)\left(uC_1vC_2+C_3\right)`$ (16)
$`+`$ $`\kappa \sqrt{\mathrm{}S}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+|z|^2)}{2}}\left(\nu {\displaystyle \frac{𝐧}{v}}+\xi {\displaystyle \frac{𝐧}{u}}\right)`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}(\lambda _j{\displaystyle \frac{𝐂}{q_j}}+\rho _j{\displaystyle \frac{𝐂}{p_j}}).`$
After a stationary-phase evaluation of the Fourier integral (12), one finally obtains Gutzwiller’s trace formula in the standard form . What is new here is that all its ingredients are obtained from the dynamics in the extended phase space: the actions $`𝒮_{po}(E)=_{po}`$+$`ET_{po}`$ (at fixed energy $`E`$) and the periods $`T_{po}=dS_{po}/dE`$ of the periodic orbits, the Maslov indices $`\sigma _{po}`$ for which Sugita has given general formulae , and the monodromy matrix $`_{po}`$ defined by $`𝜼\text{ }(T_{po})=_{po}𝜼\text{ }(0)`$ in terms of the solutions of the linearized equations of motion $`\dot{𝜼\text{ }}=𝒥^{(2)}/𝜼\text{ }`$. We refer to a forthcoming extended paper  for the details of our calculations, where we also show that in the weak-coupling limit we obtain the same results as Bolte and Keppeler .

We shall presently illustrate our method by applying it to a simple model Hamiltonian describing a two-dimensional electron gas $`(S=1/2)`$ in a semiconductor heterostructure, laterally confined to a quantum dot, including a spin-orbit interaction of Rashba type

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{(\widehat{p}_x^2+\widehat{p}_y^2)}{2m^{}}+V(x,y)+\kappa \mathrm{}(\sigma _y\widehat{p}_x\sigma _x\widehat{p}_y).$$
(19)
Here $`m^{}`$ is the effective mass of the electron, $`\sigma _i`$ are the Pauli matrices, and the lateral confining potential $`V(x,y)`$ is approximated as a deformed harmonic oscillator

$$V(x,y)=m^{}(\omega _x^2x^2+\omega _y^2y^2)/2.$$
(20)
We use $`\omega _x=1.56\omega _0`$, $`\omega _y=1.23\omega _0`$, and units such that $`\mathrm{}=m^{}`$ $`=\omega _0=1`$ and that $`E`$ and $`\kappa `$ become dimensionless. The spin-orbit coupling strength $`\kappa `$ in (19) depends on the band structure . E.g., for a InGaAs-InAlAs quantum dot with $``$ 100 confined electrons one would obtain a value of $`\kappa 0.25`$. We investigate in the following a situation where $`\kappa `$ is large enough for the spin dynamics to affect the orbital motion. For the examples below we have chosen $`\kappa =0.67`$. The equations of motion (11) were solved numerically.

For a large range of parameters with $`0<\kappa \text{ }<\text{ }0.75`$, we find the following periodic solutions of Eq. (11): 1) two pairs of adiabatic orbits A$`{}_{x}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ and A$`{}_{y}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$, librating along the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes with fully polarized spin $`n_y=\pm 1`$ and $`n_x=\pm 1`$, respectively; 2) two pairs of diabatic orbits, D$`{}_{x1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ and D$`{}_{x2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$, oscillating around A$`{}_{x}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ with $`n_y0`$; and 3) two pairs of diabatic orbits, D$`{}_{y1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ and D$`{}_{y2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$, oscillating around A$`{}_{y}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ with $`n_x0`$. The superscripts ($`\pm `$) of the diabatic orbits denote their senses of rotation. The stabilities of these orbits will be discussed elsewhere . For stronger couplings $`\kappa \text{ }>\text{ }0.75`$ and for energies $`E\text{ }<\text{ }8`$, new orbits bifurcate from the A and D orbits. In these situations, the stability amplitudes will have to be regularized by suitable uniform approximations .

The diabatic orbits obtained in our approach reflect the explicit coupling of the spin and orbital degrees of motion. Such orbits have not been discussed in earlier semiclassical methods. The adiabatic orbits with “frozen spin” correspond to those discussed in  where they could not be used semiclassically, though, because of the mode conversion occurring at their turning points. We repeat that we do not encounter the mode-conversion problem here, and that the stability amplitudes of all orbits can be readily calculated numerically.

In Fig. 1 we present the $`(x,y)`$ shapes of the orbits A$`{}_{x}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$, D$`{}_{x1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$, and D$`{}_{x2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$ (left panels), and the time dependence of their spin components $`n_x`$, $`n_y`$, and $`n_z`$ over one period (right panels), all evaluated at $`E=60`$. (The orbits A$`{}_{y}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$, D$`{}_{y1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$, and D$`{}_{y2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\pm }`$ have analogous shapes concentrated along the $`y`$ axis, and the behavior of their $`n_x`$ and $`n_y`$ components is reversed.) We see that along the diabatic orbits D$`{}_{x1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$ and D$`{}_{x2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$, the spin rotates mainly near the $`(n_x,n_z)`$ plane (with $`n_y0`$) in a non-uniform way. The diabatic

spin-flip hypothesis of  has thus been replaced here by the more sophisticated spin dynamics obtained from the coupled equations of motion (11).

In Fig. 2 we show the oscillating part of the density of states $`\delta g(E)`$, obtained quantum-mechanically (solid line) using exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian (19), and semiclassically (dashed line) using Gutzwiller’s trace formula. Since the periodic orbit sum generally does not converge in systems with mixed classical dynamics, we have convoluted it with a normalized Gaussian, $`\mathrm{exp}\{(E/\gamma )^2\}/\gamma \sqrt{\pi }`$. This brings the sum to convergence , whereby only the orbits with shortest periods contribute, and reflects the prominent gross-shell structure of the quantum spectrum. We have used $`\gamma =0.6`$ where it was sufficient to include the above twelve primitive periodic orbits. We observe a rather good agreement between the semiclassical and quantum-mechanical results. The regular beat-like structure comes about through the interference of the six types of classical orbits which all have frequencies close to either $`\omega _x`$ or $`\omega _y`$.

In summary, we have presented a novel approach to include a non-adiabatic coupling of spin and orbital dynamics into the semiclassical theory of periodic orbits. Our approach overcomes some of the difficulties with earlier approaches, in particular the restriction to purely adiabatic spin motion and the problem of mode conversion. For the simple model of a two-dimensional quantum dot with Rashba spin-orbit interaction, we obtain a satisfactory semiclassical description of the coarse-grained density of states. To study its experimental implications, we are in the process of calculating semiclassically the conductance of this system in response to an external magnetic field .

We should point out that there exists a subtle problem connected with the fact that the measure $`𝒟[𝜼\text{ }]`$ of the path integral over the extended phase-space variations $`𝜼`$  in (13) has the proper normalization only in the large-spin limit. For small spin, like $`S=1/2`$, this calls for an appropriate renormalization scheme . Although the different renormalizations needed for pure spatial motion  and pure spin motion  are known, a valid scheme for the combined spin-orbit dynamics under investigation here is yet to be found. It might lead to extra phase corrections in the semiclassical expressions, as discussed in , and thereby affect the numerical results to some extent.

We acknowledge helpful and critical discussions with O. Zaitsev and encouraging comments by K. Richter.