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# 𝜂-𝜂' Mixing and NLO Power Correction

## I INTRODUCTION

Recently, the next-to-leading order (NLO) power correction has been shown an important role in understanding the exclusive processes $`\gamma ^{}\pi \gamma `$ twy1  and $`\gamma ^{}\pi \pi `$ twy2 . The method for calculating the NLO power correction is called the collinear expansion twy1 ; twy3 ; Ellis:1982wd ; Ellis:1983cd ; Qiu:1990dn . This power expansion method is compatible with PQCD factorization twy1 ; twy2 , which demonstrates the amplitude as convolutions of perturbatively calculable hard scattering amplitudes (the hard function) and nonperturbative hadronic wave functions (the soft function). Furthermore, it is a Feynman diagram approach such that the partonic interpretation for the NLO power correction can be preserved.

The asymptotic limit of the $`\pi \gamma `$ transition form factor to be $`2f_\pi /Q^2`$ with $`f_\pi =93`$ MeV, is about $`15\%`$ higher than the upper end of the CLEO data Gronberg:1998fj . This deviation can be successfully explained by NLO power correction. In addition, NLO power correction can well describe the low energy portion of the CLEO data. Our purpose in this paper is to generalize the approach for the $`\pi \gamma `$ form factor to the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors. The first problem we shall face is that there are many independent degrees of freedom associated with the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ lowest valence Fock states. The $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mesons are admixtures of the $`SU(3)_F`$ octet and singlet states, this counts eight quantities: four wave functions and four related decay constants. The $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mesons can also receive contributions from the $`U(1)_A`$ anomaly to have intrinsic heavy quark and gluon contents. To reduce the number of independent degrees of freedom, we invoke phenomenological constraints and physical assumptions over the wave functions and decay constants.

For the phenomenological constraints, we shall employ the large momentum transfer data for $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ transition form factor Gronberg:1998fj ; Acciarri:1998yx ; Behrend:1991sr ; Aihara:1990nd ; Berger:1984xk , the two-photon decay widths of the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ mesons and the ratio $`R_{J/\psi }`$ of the $`J/\psi \eta \gamma `$ and $`J/\psi \eta ^{}\gamma `$ decay widths. As for the physical assumptions we shall invoke the $`SU(3)_F`$ octet-singlet mixing scheme. In this mixing scheme, both $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ are linear combinations of $`\eta _8`$ and $`\eta _1`$, the octet and singlet states in the $`SU(3)_F`$ representation. The mixing is controlled by the mixing angle. In the one mixing angle scheme, in which the octet and singlet meson states have different decay constants $`f_{\eta _8}`$ and $`f_{\eta _1}`$ and share a common mixing angle $`\theta _8=\theta _1=\theta `$, the mixing angle $`\theta `$ is in range of $`20^{}\theta 10^{}`$ Gilman:1987ax . In recent years, many evidences Leutwyler:1998yr ; Feldmann:1998vc ; Feldmann:1998yc  have indicated that a two mixing angle scheme, in which the octet and singlet mixing angles $`\theta _8`$ and $`\theta _1`$ can take different values, is more general than the one mixing angle scheme. The $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors have been investigated by either one mixing angle scheme Jakob:1996 ; Anisovich:1996hh ; Ametller:1992  or two mixing angle schemeFeldmann:1998vc . We would like to make a more refined analysis for these form factors by including NLO power correction.

In this paper, we shall investigate the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors and the mixing pattern of $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ system by employing PQCD formula with NLO power correction in the standard hard scattering approach. We shall employ the collinear expansion to derive NLO ($`O(Q^4)`$) power correction for $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors in Sec. II. In Sec. III we shall analyze the high momentum transfer data for form factors, the two photon decay widths and the ratio $`R_{J/\psi }`$. The values of the mixing parameters are determined from a $`\chi ^2`$ analysis for the data. Sec. IV is devoted to conclusions.

## II $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors and collinear expansion

Our strategy in calculating the power corrections to the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ meson-photon transition form factor is to invoke the collinear expansion twy1 ; Ellis:1982wd ; Ellis:1983cd ; Qiu:1990dn . For simplicity, we shall first ignore the meson mass effects. That is we choose the momentum of the initial state meson, $`P_1`$, and that of the final state photon, $`P_2`$, as

$`P_1^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(Q,{\displaystyle \frac{M_P^2}{2Q}},0_{})p^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{M_P^2}{2}}n^\mu p^\mu ,`$
$`P_2^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`(0,{\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2}},0_{}){\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{2}}n^\mu ,`$ (1)
such that the virtual photon has momentum $`q=P_2P_1`$ with virtuality $`q^2=Q^2`$ to make PQCD applicable. Vectors $`p`$ and $`n`$ are in the $`+`$ and $``$ directions in the light-cone reference frame and have properties $`p^2=n^2=0`$ and $`pn=1`$. $`M_P`$ denotes the mass of the initial state meson. For the Feynman diagrams displayed in Figs. 1(a) and (b), the amplitudes are written as

$`A(P_1,P_2)={\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\text{Tr}[H(k,P_2,Q^2)\mathrm{\Phi }(k,P_1,Q^2)]}`$ (2)
where the trace is taken over the color and spin indices and the meson DA $`\mathrm{\Phi }(k,P_1,Q^2)`$ has expression for $`P(=\eta ,\eta ^{})`$ meson

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(k,P_1,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}d^4ze^{ikz}0|\overline{q}(0)q(z)|P}.`$ (3)
We assign the loop momentum $`k`$ for the valence antiquark and let it flow into the hard function. The hard function $`H(k,P_2,Q^2)`$ contains two parton photon interaction vertices and one virtual internal parton propagator. The amplitude $`A`$ contains leading, next-to-leading and higher twist contributions. The quantity twist is understood as an effective twist for nonlocal operators and is not exactly the same with the usual twist defined for local operators. The twist has different meanings for the hard and soft functions. For the hard function, the twist is defined as the power of the inverse of the photon virtuality $`Q`$, and, for the soft function, the twist represents the power of the small scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with magnitude of order $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. By employing collinear expansion, we can systematically separate the leading twist (LT) contributions from the next-to-leading twist (NLT) contributions. The LT contributions are from collinear loop momentum $`\widehat{k}=xp`$. It is therefore convenient to parameterize the loop momentum $`k`$ into

$`k^\mu =xp^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{k^2+k_{}^2}{2x}}n^\mu +k_{}^\mu ,`$ (4)
where $`k`$ contains on-shell part

$`k_L^\mu =xp^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^2}{2x}}n^\mu +k_{}^\mu `$ (5)
and off-shell part

$`k_S^\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{2x}}n^\mu .`$ (6)
In the first step, we expand the hard function $`H(k)`$ with respect to $`\widehat{k}`$ as

$`H(k)=H(k=\widehat{k})+{\displaystyle \frac{H(k)}{k^\alpha }}|_{k=\widehat{k}}(k\widehat{k})^\alpha +\mathrm{}`$ (7)
With the help of $`k_L`$ and $`k_S`$, we can factorize the loop parton propagator $`F(k)=i/(/kiϵ)`$ into its long distance part, $`F_L(k)`$, and short distance part (the special propagator defined in Qiu:1990dn ), $`F_S(k)`$, which take expressions

$`F_L(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i/k_L}{k^2iϵ}},F_S(k)={\displaystyle \frac{i/n}{2kniϵ}}.`$ (8)
The propagators $`F_L(k)`$ and $`F_S(k)`$ have different physical meanings. To see this, it is amount to consider their propagations on the light cone. The integrals of $`F_L(k)`$ and $`F_S(k)`$ over $`k^+=kn`$ give

$`f_L(\eta ,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dkn}{(2\pi )}e^{ikn(\eta \lambda )}F_L(k)}\theta (\eta \lambda ),`$
$`f_S(\eta ,\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dkn}{(2\pi )}e^{ikn(\eta \lambda )}F_S(k)}\delta (\eta \lambda ),`$ (9)
where $`\eta `$ and $`\lambda `$ mean the light-cone distances in the $``$ direction. It is obvious that $`F_S(k)`$ is not propagating on the light cone. This means that $`F_S(k)`$ should be included into the hard function. By dimensional counting, $`F_S(k)`$ is of order $`O(Q^1)`$. Therefore, including one $`F_S(k)`$ into the hard function then increases one twist order for the hard function.

There are different effects as $`F_L(k)`$ and $`F_S(k)`$ act on the spin structures of hard function, the terms proportional to $`/p`$ or $`/n`$. As $`F_L(k)`$ acts on $`/p`$, its collinear part vanishes and non-collinear parts are retained

$`F_L(k)/p=F(k)(k\widehat{k})^\alpha (i\gamma _\alpha )F_S(k)/p`$ (10)
where minus sign comes from the anti-particle propagator. The vertex $`i\gamma _\alpha `$ and short distance propagator $`F_S(k)`$ are then absorbed into the hard function. The factor $`(k\widehat{k})^\alpha `$ is included into the soft function to become a coordinate derivative on the quark fields. As $`F_L(k)`$ acts on $`/n`$, its collinear part contributes to leading order. The short distance propagator $`F_S(k)`$ only serves to introduce the interaction term $`\overline{q}/Aq`$ for $`/p`$ vertex, where $`A^\alpha `$ denote the gluon fields. The total effects of $`F_L(k)`$ and $`F_S(k)`$ acting on $`/p`$ are to include one $`i\gamma _\alpha `$ and one $`F_S(k)`$ into the hard function and to absorb the factor $`(k\widehat{k})^\alpha `$ and gauge fields $`A^\alpha `$ into the soft function to become a covariant derivative, $`D^\alpha =i^\alpha gA^\alpha `$ with $`g`$ the strong coupling.

The contributions from the second term of Eq. (7) and from Figs. 1.(c) and (d) are of twist-6 or higher twist and will not be considered in below discussions. The reason is that the possible non-vanishing components of $`\gamma _\alpha `$ in $`H(k)/k^\alpha `$ are $`\alpha =+`$ or $``$, but both vanish as $`H(k)/k^\alpha `$ contract with $`(k\widehat{k})^\alpha `$ or $`0|\overline{q}A^\alpha q|P`$. We substitute the first term of Eq. (7) into the integral with the soft function and apply the identity

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\delta (xkn)}=1`$ (11)
to convert the loop momentum integral into the fraction variable integral. The amplitude then becomes, approximately,

$`A(P_1,P_2){\displaystyle 𝑑x\text{Tr}[H(x)\mathrm{\Phi }(x)]}`$ (12)
which contains LT and NLT contributions. The meson DA $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)`$ has the expression

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{2\pi }}e^{ix\lambda }0|\overline{q}(0)q(\lambda n)|P.`$ (13)
We now discuss how to separate the LT from the NLT contributions for amplitude $`A`$. Due to the fact that the final state photon is real and has transverse polarization, the hard function $`H(x)`$ can have spin structures: $`\gamma _{}/n\gamma _{}`$, $`\gamma _{}/p/n`$ $`\gamma _{}/n/p`$ and $`\gamma _{}/p\gamma _{}`$ where $`\gamma _{}=\gamma ^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha =1,2`$. The first spin structure leads to LT contribution, while the second and third ones result in the NLT contributions. The last spin structure would lead to next-next-to-leading twist contribution and will not be considered below. To calculate the NLT contributions, we need to apply Eq. (10) to extract the contributions from non-collinear loop momentum. As a result, we get the amplitude up to NLT as

$`A{\displaystyle 𝑑x\text{Tr}[H(x)\mathrm{\Phi }(x)]}+{\displaystyle 𝑑x\text{Tr}[H_\alpha (x)w_\alpha ^{}^\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }^\alpha ^{}(x)]}`$ (14)
where the first term of the right hand side of Eq. (14) comes from the Feynman diagrams shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b) and the second term from those diagrams shown in Fig. 2. The tensor $`w_\alpha ^{}^\alpha `$ is defined as $`w_\alpha ^{}^\alpha =g_\alpha ^{}^\alpha p^\alpha n_\alpha ^{}`$. The NLT hard function $`H_\alpha (x)`$ is defined as

$`H_\alpha (x)`$ $`=`$ $`(i\gamma _\alpha ){\displaystyle \frac{i/n}{2x}}H(x)+H(x)(i\gamma _\alpha ){\displaystyle \frac{i/n}{2(1x)}}`$ (15)
and the NLT meson DA $`\mathrm{\Phi }^\alpha (x)`$ has expression

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^\alpha (x)={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x_1{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{2\pi }}e^{i(x_1x)\eta }e^{ix\lambda }0|\overline{q}(0)D^\alpha (\eta n)q(\lambda n)|P.`$ (16)
The factorization of momentum integral is finished. To complete the factorization, we still need to perform the factorizations of the color and spin indices. To separate the color indices, we take the convention that the color factors of the hard function are extracted and absorbed into the soft function. As for the spin indices, we employ the expansion of the soft functions into their spin components

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\varphi ^\mathrm{\Gamma },`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }^\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\varphi ^{\mathrm{\Gamma };\alpha },`$ (17)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ denotes gamma matrix and $`\varphi ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }(;\alpha )}`$ is the related spin component of the distribution amplitude. For a given order of $`1/Q^2`$, we choose the component $`\varphi ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }(;\alpha )}`$ with lowest twist. The determination of the lowest twist $`\varphi ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }(;\alpha )}`$ can be done as follows. Firstly, we notice that the tensor structure of $`\varphi ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }(;\alpha )}`$ can be expressed in terms of $`p`$, $`n`$, $`d_{}^{\alpha \beta }=g^{\alpha \beta }p^\alpha n^\beta `$ and $`ϵ_{}^{\alpha \beta }=ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \lambda }p_\gamma n_\lambda `$. The vectors $`p`$ and $`n`$ have dimensions $`[p]=1`$ and $`[n]=1`$ with respect to the hard scale $`Q`$. Secondly, note that the matrix element for the soft function is written as

$`\mathrm{\Phi }0|\overline{q}q|P,`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }^\alpha 0|\overline{q}D^\alpha q|P.`$ (18)
By the above facts, we can derive a power counting rule as follows. Consider the $`\varphi ^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _B}`$ has the fermion index $`F`$ and the boson index $`B`$. The fermion index $`F`$ arise from the spin index factorization for $`2F`$ fermion lines connecting the soft function and the hard function and the boson index $`B`$ denotes the $`n_D`$ power of momenta in previous collinear expansion and the $`n_G`$ gluon lines as $`B=n_D+n_G`$. We may write

$`\varphi ^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _B}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{\tau _i1}e_i^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _B}\varphi ^i`$ (19)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ denotes a small scale associated with DA. Spin polarizers $`e_i`$ denote the combination of vectors $`p^\mu `$, $`n^\mu `$ and $`\gamma _{}^\mu `$. Variable $`\tau _i`$ represents the twist of DA $`\varphi ^i`$. The restrictions over polarizers $`e_i^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _B}`$ are

$`n_{\alpha _j}e_i^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _j\mathrm{}\alpha _B}=0`$ (20)
which are due to the fact that polarizers $`e_i`$ are always projected by $`w_\alpha ^{}^\alpha `$. The dimension of $`\varphi ^{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _F;\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _B}`$ is determined by dimensional analysis

$`d(\varphi )=3F+B1`$ (21)
By equating the dimensions of both sides of Eq.(19), one can derive the minimum of $`\tau _i`$

$`\tau _i^{\mathrm{min}}=2F+B+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[1(1)^B].`$ (22)
It is obvious from Eq.(22) that there are only finite numbers of fermion lines, gluon lines and derivatives contributes to a given power of $`1/Q^2`$.

We now demonstrate that the collinear expansion is compatible with the conventional approach for proving the PQCD factorization at one loop order of radiative correction. To show this, we consider the radiative correction for $`H(x)`$ as displayed in Fig. 3(a). If the radiative gluon in Fig. 3(a) is collinear with momentum $`l^\alpha =(l^+,l^{},l_{}^i)=(Q,\lambda ^2/Q,\lambda )`$ , where $`\lambda Q`$, the lower virtual antiquark has the momentum $`(kl)(\xi Q,\lambda ^2/Q,\lambda )`$ with $`k=xP_1`$. It is obvious that the virtual antiquark in the collinear region behaves similarly to the loop antiquark in the tree amplitude. The collinear expansion for Fig. 3(a) in the collinear region is the same as the expansion for the tree diagram Fig. 1(a) in the leading configuration. To demonstrate this, we write the integrand for Fig. 3(a) as

$`I_{3a}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{g^2e^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\beta \lambda }(l)}{l^2}\text{Tr}[\gamma _\beta F(l_1)/ϵF(l_3)\gamma ^\mu F(l_2)\gamma _\lambda ]}`$ (23)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^4l}{(2\pi )^4}\text{Tr}[H_{3a}(l)\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(l)]}`$
where we have defined $`l_1=kl,l_2=(P_1k+l)`$, $`l_3=P_2k+l`$,

$`H_{3a}(l)`$ $`=`$ $`ie^2[/ϵF(l_3)\gamma ^\mu ],`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(l)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ig^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\beta \lambda }(l)}{l^2}}[\gamma _\beta F(l_1)F(l_2)\gamma _\lambda ],`$ (24)
and $`F(l_i)=1//l_i`$. We, firstly, expand $`H_{3a}(l)`$

$`H_{3a}(l)=H_{3a}(l=\widehat{l})+{\displaystyle \frac{H_{3a}(l)}{l^\lambda }}|_{l=\widehat{l}}(l\widehat{l})^\lambda `$ (25)
with $`\widehat{l}=(x\xi )P_1`$. Repeating the same considerations for the expansion of the tree amplitude, we can recast $`I_{3a}`$ into

$`I_{3a}={\displaystyle 𝑑\xi [H_0^{(0)}(\xi )\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(\xi )]}+{\displaystyle 𝑑\xi [H_\alpha ^{(0)}(\xi )w_\alpha ^{}^\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}^\alpha ^{}(\xi )]}+\mathrm{},`$ (26)
where

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{(2\pi )}\frac{d^4l}{(2\pi )^4}e^{i\lambda (\xi +xln)}[\frac{ig^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\beta \lambda }(l)}{l^2}\gamma _\beta F(l_1)F(l_2)\gamma _\lambda ]},`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}^\alpha ^{}(\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{(2\pi )}\frac{d^4l}{(2\pi )^4}e^{i\lambda (\xi +xln)}[\frac{ig^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\beta \lambda }(l)}{l^2}\gamma _\beta F(l_1)l^\alpha ^{}F(l_2)\gamma _\lambda ]}.`$ (27)
It is obvious that both $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(\xi )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}^\alpha ^{}(\xi )`$ are collinear divergent for collinear $`l`$. We introduce corresponding soft functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(1)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{(1)}`$ to absorbe $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}(\xi )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{3a}^\alpha ^{}(\xi )`$. The corresponding tree level hard functions are denoted as $`H_0^{(0)}`$ and $`H_1^{(0)}`$, respectively. If the radiative gluons in Fig. 3(a) are soft, i.e. the gluons have momentum $`l=(l^+,l^{},l_{})(\lambda ,\lambda ,\lambda )`$, there are no effects on power expansion. This is because the eikonal approximation up to $`O(1/Q^6)`$ can be applied to factorize the soft gluons from the valence quark propagator. The other two particle reducible diagrams Figs. 3(b) and (c) can be dealt with similarly. It is noted that the double logarithms in Figs. 3(a) to (c) arising from the mixing contributions from the soft and collinear divergences are cancelled each other. In light-cone gauge $`nA=0`$, Figs. 3(d) and (e) in collinear region are more suppressed than Figs. 3(a) to (c) in collinear region by, at least, $`1/Q^2`$. After subtracting the soft contributions (the soft and collinear divergences) from the one loop radiative correction diagrams Figs. 3(a) to (c), we can obtain the one loop corrected hard functions (LO and NLO) $`H_0^{(1)}`$ and $`H_1^{(1)}`$, separately. The analysis for the radiative corrections to $`H_\alpha (x)`$ is simple, since it only involves radiative correction and has no need to consider collinear expansion. The diagrams for the radiative corrections to $`H_\alpha (x)`$ are shown in Fig. 4. As a result, up to first order in radiative and power corrections, we can arrive at the factorized amplitudes as

$`A^{(0)}+A^{(1)}(H_0^{(0)}+H_0^{(1)})(\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(0)}+\mathrm{\Phi }_0^{(1)})+(H_1^{(0)}+H_1^{(1)})(\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{(0)}+\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{(1)})`$ (28)
where the superscript indices $`i(i=0,1)`$ denote the order of radiative correction and the subscript indices $`j(j=0,1)`$ mean the order of power correction. The notation $``$ represents the convolution integral and the trace over the color and spin indices. To prove PQCD factorization, we need to generalize the one loop factorization to arbitrary orders. It can be done straightforwardly twy4 .

For convenience, we may write the amplitude as

$`A(\gamma ^{}P\gamma )=ie^2ϵ_{\mu \alpha \beta \lambda }P_1^\alpha P_2^\beta ϵ^\lambda F_{P\gamma }(Q^2),`$ (29)
where $`ϵ^\lambda `$ denotes the polarization vector of the final state photon. The form factors are expressed in terms of the octet and singlet components

$`F_{P\gamma }(Q^2)={\displaystyle \underset{i=8,1}{}}a_P^{P_i}F_{P_i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ (30)
where the expansion coefficients $`a_P^{P_i},P=\eta ,\eta ^{},i=8,1`$ depend on the mixing scheme (see next section). Due to the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing, we take the octet and singlet states as the basis for our investigation of the form factors. The superscript $`i=8`$ or $`1`$ denote the contributions from octet or singlet current (see below notation). The leading order of $`F_{P_i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ is calculated from Figs.1(a) and (b) and takes expression

$`F_{P_i\gamma }^{\text{LO}}(Q^2)=4C_i{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{P_i}(x)}{Q^2x(1x)}},`$ (31)
where the charge factors are defined as $`C_8=(e_u^2+e_d^22e_s^2)/\sqrt{6}`$ and $`C_1=(e_u^2+e_d^2+e_s^2)/\sqrt{3}`$. The NLO of $`F_{P_i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ is evaluated from Fig.2

$`F_{P_i\gamma }^{\text{NLO}}(Q^2)=16C_i{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{[G_{P_i}(x)+\stackrel{~}{G}_{P_i}(x)(12x)]}{Q^4x(1x)}}.`$ (32)
We have taken the symmetry between the exchange of $`x(1x)`$ for $`\varphi _{P_i}(x)`$, $`G_{P_i}(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{P_i}(x)`$. The relevant DAs are expressed explicitly as follows

$`\varphi _{P_i}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{(2\pi )}}e^{i\lambda x}0|J_5^i(0,\lambda n)|P_i(P_1)`$ (33)
$`G_{P_i}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}ϵ_{}^{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x_1{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{(2\pi )}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{(2\pi )}}e^{i\eta (x_1x)}e^{i\lambda x}0|J_{\alpha \beta }^i(0,\eta n,\lambda n)|P_i(P_1),`$ (34)
$`\stackrel{~}{G}_P^i(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}d_{}^{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x_1{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\lambda }{(2\pi )}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{(2\pi )}}e^{i\eta (x_1x)}e^{i\lambda x}0|J_{\alpha \beta 5}^i(0,\eta n,\lambda n)|P_i(P_1).`$ (35)
where nonlocal currents are defined as

$`J_5^8(0,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _5/nu(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _5/nd(\lambda n)2\overline{s}(0)\gamma _5/ns(\lambda n)],`$
$`J_5^1(0,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _5/nu(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _5/nd(\lambda n)+\overline{s}(0)\gamma _5/ns(\lambda n)],`$
$`J_{\alpha \beta }^8(0,\eta n,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)u(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)d(\lambda n)2\overline{s}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)s(\lambda n)],`$
$`J_{\alpha \beta }^1(0,\eta n,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)u(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)d(\lambda n)+\overline{s}(0)\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)s(\lambda n)],`$
$`J_{\alpha \beta 5}^8(0,\eta n,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)u(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)d(\lambda n)2\overline{s}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)s(\lambda n)],`$
$`J_{\alpha \beta 5}^1(0,\eta n,\lambda n)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}[\overline{u}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)u(\lambda n)+\overline{d}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)d(\lambda n)+\overline{s}(0)\gamma _5\gamma _\alpha D_\beta (\eta n)s(\lambda n)].`$ (36)
Due to the factor $`12x`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{P_i}`$, $`G_{P_i}`$ become dominate. The normalizations of $`\varphi _P^i`$ and $`G_P^i`$ are determined from the leptonic weak decay and the axial anomaly for $`P_i`$ meson, respectively. This is similar to the pion case twy1 .

## III The Mixing Schemes

We employ the $`SU(3)_F`$ octet and singlet states to describe the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ system. The $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ meson states can be described by means of the octet and singlet states $`|\eta _8`$ and $`|\eta _1`$ through the one mixing angle scheme

$`|\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta |\eta _8\mathrm{sin}\theta |\eta _1`$
$`|\eta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta |\eta _8+\mathrm{cos}\theta |\eta _1`$ (37)
where the mixing angle $`\theta `$ controls the relative strength. With the mixing, the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors take expressions

$`F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)\mathrm{sin}\theta F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2),`$
$`F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)+\mathrm{cos}\theta F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2).`$ (38)
To proceed, we also assume that the octet and singlet DAs take asymptotical form. Therefore, we have $`\varphi _{\eta _i}(x)=3f_{\eta _i}x(1x)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`G_{\eta _i}(x)=3\sqrt{2}\pi ^2f_{\eta _i}^3x(1x)`$. The form factors $`F_{\eta _i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ (i=8,1) are simplified by substituting $`\varphi _{\eta _i}(x)`$ and $`G_{\eta _i}(x)`$

$`F_{\eta _i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`4C_i{\displaystyle 𝑑x\frac{1}{x(1x)}[\frac{\varphi _{\eta _i}(x)}{Q^2}4\frac{G_{\eta _i}(x)}{Q^4}]}`$ (39)
$`=`$ $`6\sqrt{2}C_i{\displaystyle \frac{f_{\eta _i}}{Q^2}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi ^2f_{\eta _i}^2}{Q^2}}].`$
Using Eq. (39) into Eq. (III), we may derive the coefficients $`a_P^{P_i}`$ in Eq. (30).

To compare the form factors with the data, we extrapolate the form factors to all orders

$`F_{\eta _i\gamma }(Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{6\sqrt{2}C_if_{\eta _i}}{Q^2+8\pi ^2f_{\eta _i}^2}}.`$ (40)
This formula gives a theoretical support to the approach using the interpolating formula for the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors Feldmann:1998yc .

The decay constants $`f_{\eta _i},i=8,1`$ and the mixing angle $`\theta `$ will be determined by a least $`\chi ^2`$ fit to the transition form factor data above $`1`$ GeV<sup>2</sup> and the two photon decay widths PDG2000

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }[\eta \gamma \gamma ]=(0.46\pm 0.04)\text{keV},\mathrm{\Gamma }[\eta ^{}\gamma \gamma ]=(4.28\pm 0.19)\text{keV}.`$ (41)
The decay rates have theoretical expressions

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }[\eta \gamma \gamma ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9\alpha ^2}{32\pi ^3}}M_\eta ^3\left[{\displaystyle \frac{C_8f_\eta ^{}^1C_1f_\eta ^{}^8}{f_\eta ^{}^1f_\eta ^8f_\eta ^{}^8f_\eta ^1}}\right]^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }[\eta ^{}\gamma \gamma ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9\alpha ^2}{32\pi ^3}}M_\eta ^{}^3\left[{\displaystyle \frac{C_8f_\eta ^1+C_1f_\eta ^8}{f_\eta ^{}^1f_\eta ^8f_\eta ^{}^8f_\eta ^1}}\right]^2,`$ (42)
where decay constants are defined as

$`f_\eta ^8`$ $`=`$ $`f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{cos}\theta ,f_\eta ^1=f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,`$
$`f_\eta ^{}^8`$ $`=`$ $`f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{sin}\theta ,f_\eta ^{}^1=f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{cos}\theta .`$ (43)
The $`\chi ^2`$ fit results are shown as Fit I in Figs. 5 and 6 and in Table. I. It is seen that the Fit I is in good agreement with the data for the form factors. To test the fit parameters, we employ the ratio of the decay rates for $`J/\psi `$ into $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ and $`\eta \gamma `$

$`R_{J/\psi }={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(J/\psi \eta ^{}\gamma )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(J/\psi \eta \gamma )}}=5.0\pm 0.6.`$ (44)
It is usually assumed that the radiative $`J/\psi \eta (\eta ^{})\gamma `$ decays are dominated by nonperturbative gluon matrix elements $`0|G\stackrel{~}{G}|\eta ^{}`$ and $`0|G\stackrel{~}{G}|\eta `$ such that the ratio takes expression Kiselev:1993ms

$`R_{J/\psi }=\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta ^{}^2(f_\eta ^{}^8+\sqrt{2}f_\eta ^{}^1)}{M_\eta ^2(f_\eta ^8+\sqrt{2}f_\eta ^1)}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_\eta ^{}}{p_\eta }}\right)^3`$ (45)
with $`p_P=M_{J/\psi }(1M_P^2/M_{J/\psi }^2)/2`$ being the three momentum of the $`P`$-meson. Our fit result is close to that one obtained from chiral perturbation theory ($`\chi `$PT), except the octet decay constant $`f_{\eta _8}=f_\pi <1.28f_\pi `$,

$`\chi \text{PT}:\theta 20^{}10^{};f_{\eta _8}=1.28f_\pi ;f_{\eta _1}1.1f_\pi .`$ (46)
The octet decay constant $`f_{\eta _8}`$ is calculable by $`\chi `$PT up to one loop approximation

$`f_{\eta _8}[1{\displaystyle \frac{M_K^2}{(4\pi f_\pi )^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_K^2}{(4\pi f_\pi )^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{M_\pi ^2}{(4\pi f_\pi )^2}}]f_\pi =1.28f_\pi .`$ (47)
It is noted that the predict results for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta \gamma \gamma )`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\eta ^{}\gamma \gamma )`$ and $`R_{J/\psi }`$ shown in Table I are close to the experimental values within $`1\sigma `$ accuracy.

Recently, it has been proposed Leutwyler:1998yr ; Feldmann:1998vc ; Feldmann:1998yc  that $`|\eta `$ and $`|\eta ^{}`$ can mix through a two mixing angle scheme as

$`|\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _8|\eta _8\mathrm{sin}\theta _1|\eta _1,`$
$`|\eta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _8|\eta _8+\mathrm{cos}\theta _1|\eta _1,`$ (48)
where $`\theta _i`$ denote the mixing angles. Using this mixing scheme, the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors can be expressed, correspondingly, as

$`F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _8F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)\mathrm{sin}\theta _1F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2),`$
$`F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _8F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)+\mathrm{cos}\theta _1F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2).`$ (49)
The form factors $`F_{\eta _i\gamma }(Q^2)`$ are the same as those in the one mixing angle scheme. We first change the values of $`f_{\eta _i}`$ and $`\theta _i`$ to fit the data. The $`\chi ^2`$ fit result is shown as Fit II in Figs. 5 and 6 and Table. I. From Fit I and Fit II in Table I, it is found that the two mixing angle scheme is better in accuracy than the one mixing angle scheme by 100$`\%`$. This is close to the investigations Leutwyler:1998yr ; Feldmann:1998vc ; Feldmann:1998yc .

A large value of $`f_\eta ^{}^c=\mathrm{cos}\theta _1f_{\eta _c}`$ Halperin:1997as ; Cheng:1997if , which is responsible for the intrinsic charm content of the $`\eta ^{}`$ meson, has been proposed to resolve the large branching ratios Br$`(B\eta ^{}K)`$ and Br$`(BX_s\gamma )`$. We may explore this within our approach by adding intrinsic charm content into our formalism. The effects of the intrinsic charm content are similar to that of the singlet component. That means one can replace $`f_{\eta _1}`$ with $`f_{\eta _c}=f_\eta ^{}^c/\mathrm{cos}\theta _1`$, the decay constant for intrinsic charm for the corresponding singlet terms. That is the part of the form factors from the intrinsic charm taking expression

$`F_{\eta _c\gamma }(Q^2)=4e_c^2{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{x(1x)}\left[\frac{\varphi _{\eta _c}(x)}{Q^2}4\frac{G_{\eta _c}(x)}{Q^4}\right]}`$ (50)
where $`e_c=2/3`$ and the related DAs are $`\varphi _{\eta _c}(x)=3f_{\eta _c}x(1x)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`G_{\eta _c}(x)=3\sqrt{2}\pi ^2f_{\eta _c}^2x(1x)`$. The effects from the large value of the charm quark mass has been absorbed into the twist-4 DA $`G_{\eta _c}(x)`$twy1 . After including the contribution of the intrinsic charm, the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors then become

$`F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _8F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)\mathrm{sin}\theta _1(F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2)+F_{\eta _c\gamma }(Q^2)),`$
$`F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta _8F_{\eta _8\gamma }(Q^2)+\mathrm{cos}\theta _1(F_{\eta _1\gamma }(Q^2)+F_{\eta _c\gamma }(Q^2)).`$ (51)
As the case of the octet and singlet form factors, the extrapolation of $`F_{\eta _c\gamma }(Q^2))`$ to all orders is implied. By observing Eq. (III), form factor $`F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)`$ has a larger dependence of $`f_{\eta _c}`$ than $`F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)`$. We make a least $`\chi ^2`$ fit to the form factor data to determine possible values of $`f_{\eta _c}`$ by keeping other parameters fixed. From Table II, one may see that including the intrinsic charm content can indeed improve the accuracy. This shows that our formalism is consistent in perturbation theory that the higher Fock state can be reasonably added in. As shown below that the allowed value for $`f_{\eta _c}`$ is less than $`f_\pi `$. In literature Halperin:1997as ; Cheng:1997if ; Feldmann:1998vc ; Feldmann:1998yc , $`f_{\eta _c}`$ is proposed in the range $`140`$ MeV $`f_{\eta _c}`$ 15 MeV. To test this, we plot in Fig. 7 the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution for each set of mixing parameters list in Table II over a wide range of $`140`$ MeV $`f_{\eta _c}140`$ MeV. It is seen that the range of $`f_{\eta _c}`$: $`10`$ MeV $`f_{\eta _c}`$ -4 MeV are allowed by the data. Because the value of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _1`$ is close to unity, $`f_\eta ^{}^c`$ is almost equal to $`f_{\eta _c}`$.

From the above analysis, one may see that combining the high energy data and the low energy experiment can result in constraints on the mixing parameters in a very efficient way. We can give a general analysis for the two mixing angle scheme. We shall investigate the $`\chi ^2`$ distributions of the mixing parameters. The procedure of analysis is as followed. We firstly separate the data into two groups. The data for the form factors, the two photon decay rates and the ratio for $`J/\psi `$ radiative decays are denoted as set I while the latter two data are chosen as set II. We then determine the least $`\chi ^2`$ values for sets I and II, respectively. The reason for separating the data into set I and set II is that neither set I nor set II can completely constraint the parameters. The parameters locate in $`1\sigma `$ accuracy of the set I still have large uncertainties and require further restrictions, which can be obtained by the data set II. To be more explicit, we plot the allowable regions for the mixing parameters within $`1\sigma `$ error with respect to those values associated with the minimal $`\chi ^2`$ points. As shown in Figs. 8 and 9, both allowable regions for data set I and II are large while their intersections are rather restricted. The reason for this fact is easily understood. Within the data set I, the experimental errors are shared for high and low energy data. Because the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution can only measure the correlations between the mixing parameters, the hope for constraining each parameters in a independent way can not be obtained and only partial restrictions over the correlations of the parameters can be derived. This can be seen from Figs. 8, in which the $`f_8`$ parameter is not contrained in a reasonable way. To compensate this flaw, we note that the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution of the data set II can intersect with that $`\chi ^2`$ distribution of the data set I. The intersections between two $`\chi ^2`$ distributions can give better constraints on parameters than the data set I or II. One should note that although the data set II is a subset of the data set I, the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution of the data set II is not necessary to be a subset of the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution of the data set I, since the effects of correlations between the parameters are different for two data sets. From the overlapped regions of the data set I and II in $`1\sigma `$ error, we may extract from Figs. 8 and 9 the allowable regions for the mixing parameters. In Fig. 8, we plot the possible allowable ranges for $`f_{\eta _8}`$ and $`f_{\eta _1}`$. It can be observed from Fig. 8 that the overlapped region for $`f_{\eta _8}`$ and $`f_{\eta _1}`$ is quite stringent: $`1.1f_{\eta _8}/f_\pi 1.56`$ and $`1.1f_{\eta _1}/f_\pi 1.22`$. Figure 9 shows the allowable region for $`\theta _1`$ and $`\theta _8`$ from both data set I and set II. The overlapped region indicates that: $`12^{}\theta _16^{}`$ and $`23.6^{}\theta _819^{}`$.

Combining Figs. 8 and 9, we may derive the $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$ limits of the scaled $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors

$`Q^2F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}}[f_{\eta _8}\mathrm{cos}\theta _82\sqrt{2}f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{sin}\theta _1]=(189\pm 46)\text{MeV},`$
$`Q^2F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)|_{Q^2\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{3}}}[f_{\eta _8}\mathrm{sin}\theta _8+2\sqrt{2}f_{\eta _1}\mathrm{cos}\theta _1]=(295\pm 35)\text{MeV}.`$ (52)
The error in the scaled $`\eta \gamma `$ form factor being larger than that of the scaled $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factor is due to the fact that the errors in the data for $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors are shared in our analysis. This is consistent with the concept of $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing.

## IV Conclusions

We have shown that the collinear expansion for $`\gamma ^{}\eta (\eta ^{})\gamma `$ can be systematically performed in compatibility with PQCD factorization. The $`O(Q^4)`$ power corrections for $`F_{\eta \gamma }(Q^2)`$ and $`F_{\eta ^{}\gamma }(Q^2)`$ have been evaluated. The magnitudes of NLO power corrections are determined.

We have made a general analysis for the allowed values for the mixing parameters by combining the high and low energy data. Except of $`f_{\eta _8}`$, the other three parameters $`f_{\eta _1},\theta _{8(1)}`$ can be constrained in a reasonable region. The large error for the fit $`f_{\eta _8}`$ is mainly from the experimental error and can be improved by future experiment with higher accuracy. At present, we would invoke the chiral perturbation theory calculation for $`f_{\eta _8}`$.

We have also shown that the intrinsic charm content of $`\eta ^{}`$ meson has little contributions. Any sizable contribution from the intrinsic charm would lead to large $`\chi ^2`$ value as shown in Fig. 7. Of course, there require further investigations for this point, if more accurate form factors data are available.

So far, we have not considered the finite meson mass effects for the $`\eta \gamma `$ and $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ form factors. At first glance, the meson mass effects can not be safely ignored. Because the values of $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ meson masses are large as $`M_\eta =547`$ MeV and $`M_\eta ^{}=958`$ MeV, power corrections from the mass effects of order $`O(M_P^2/Q^2)`$ and $`O(M_P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/Q^4)`$ are also important. The type of corrections $`O(M_P^2/Q^2)`$ are kinematics. This is similar to the Nachtmann’s correction for deep inelastic scattering Nachtmann:1973mr  and can be negligible. The second type of corrections $`O(M_P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/Q^4)`$ are dynamics and can be argued that they are of twist-6, at least. This is because the associated spin projector is $`/n\gamma _5`$ (cf. the leading spin projector $`/p\gamma _5`$), which will introduce two additional $`F_S`$ propagators into the related hard function. As a result, the dynamical type meson mass corrections are of order $`O(M_P^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^4/Q^6)`$. Of course, a complete analysis for these meson mass effects is important.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported in part by the National Science Council of R.O.C. under the Grant No. NSC89-2811-M-009-0024.


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# Measurement of Day and Night Neutrino Energy Spectra at SNO and Constraints on Neutrino Mixing Parameters

Permanent Address: \]Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Road, London WC1E 7HX, UK Deceased\] Deceased\]

SNO Collaboration

## Abstract

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has measured day and night solar neutrino energy spectra and rates. For charged current events, assuming an undistorted 8B spectrum, the night minus day rate is $`14.0\%\pm 6.3\%_{1.4}^{+1.5}\%`$ of the average rate. If the total flux of active neutrinos is additionally constrained to have no asymmetry, the $`\nu _e`$ asymmetry is found to be $`7.0\%\pm 4.9\%_{1.2}^{+1.3}\%`$. A global solar neutrino analysis in terms of matter-enhanced oscillations of two active flavors strongly favors the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) solution.

The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has provided strong evidence that neutrinos change flavor as they propagate from the core of the Sun Ahmad et al. (2002, 2001), independently of solar model flux predictions. This flavor conversion can be explained by neutrino oscillation models based on flavor mixing. For some values of the mixing parameters, spectral distortions and a measurable dependence on solar zenith angle are expected S. P. Mikheyev and A. Y. Smirnov (1986); A. J. Baltz and J. Weneser (1988); M. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, C. Peña-Garay and A. Y. Smirnov (2001). The latter might be caused by interaction with the matter of the Earth (the MSW effect) and would depend not only on oscillation parameters and neutrino energy, but also on the path length and $`e^{}`$ density through the Earth. This Letter presents SNO’s first measurements of day and night neutrino energy spectra, and constraints on allowed neutrino mixing parameters.

The data reported here were recorded between November 2, 1999 and May 28, 2001 UTC. The total livetimes for day and night are 128.5 and 177.9 days, respectively. The time-averaged inverse-square distance to the Sun $`(\frac{1AU}{R})^2`$ was 1.0002 (day) and 1.0117 (night). During the development of this analysis, the data were partitioned into two sets of approximately equal livetime (split at July 1, 2000), each having substantial day and night components. Analysis procedures were refined during the analysis of Set 1 and fixed before Set 2 was analysed. The latter thus served as an unbiased test. Unless otherwise stated, the analysis presented in this paper is for the combined data set.

The data reduction in Ahmad et al. (2002) was used here. For each event, the number, pattern, and timing of the hit photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) were used to reconstruct effective recoil electron kinetic energy $`T_{\text{eff}}`$, radial position $`R`$, and scattering angle $`\theta _{}`$ with respect to the Sun-Earth direction. The charged current (CC), elastic scattering (ES) and neutral current (NC) reactions each have characteristic probability density functions (pdfs) of $`T_{\text{eff}},R`$, and $`\theta _{}`$. A maximum likelihood fit of the pdfs to the data determined the flux from each of these reactions.

The measured night and day fluxes $`\varphi _N`$ and $`\varphi _D`$ were used to form the asymmetry ratio for each reaction: $`𝒜=2(\varphi _N\varphi _D)/(\varphi _N+\varphi _D)`$. The CC interaction is sensitive only to $`\nu _e`$. The NC interaction is equally sensitive to all active neutrino flavors, so active-only neutrino models predict $`𝒜_{NC}=0`$ ste . The same models allow $`𝒜_{CC}0`$. The ES reaction has additional contributions from $`\nu _{\mu \tau }`$ leading to a reduction in its sensitivity to $`\nu _e`$ asymmetries.

SNO used calibration sources The SNO Collaboration (2000) to constrain variations in detector response bib  that can lead to day-night asymmetries. A 16N source M. Dragowsky et al. (2002), which produces $`6.1`$-MeV gamma rays, revealed a 1.3% per year drift in the energy scale. Due to seasonal variation in day and night livetime, this drift can create an artificial asymmetry. The analysis corrected for this drift and a systematic uncertainty was assigned using worst-case drift models. Gamma rays from the 16N source were also used to constrain directional dependences in SNO’s response.

A set of signals that are continuously present in the detector was used to probe possible diurnal variations in detector response. The detector was triggered at 5 Hz with a pulser, verifying livetime accounting. Muons provide an almost constant signal and, through interactions with D2O, produce secondary neutrons. After applying a cut to remove bursts with high neutron multiplicity, these muon-induced neutrons were used to limit temporal variations in detector response. A more sensitive study focused on a solitary point of high background radioactivity, or “hot spot”, on the upper hemisphere of the SNO acrylic vessel, apparently introduced during construction. Its event rate was stable and sufficient to make an excellent test of diurnal variations. It also provides a sensitive test for changes in reconstruction. A limit of 3.5% on the hot spot rate asymmetry was determined, which because of its steeply falling energy spectrum constrained the day and night energy scales to be the same within 0.3%. An east/west division of the neutrino data based on the Sun’s position should show no rate variations from matter effects. As expected, the CC rates for east and west data were consistent. The rate asymmetries for each test are shown in Fig. 1.

Backgrounds were subtracted separately for day and night as part of the signal extraction. The results were normalized for an Earth-Sun distance of 1 AU, yielding the results in Table 1. Day and night fluxes are given separately for data Sets 1 and 2, and for the combined data. A $`\chi ^2`$ consistency test of the six measured fluxes between Sets 1 and 2 yielded a chance probability of 8%. A similar test done directly on the three asymmetry parameters gave a chance probability of 2%. No systematic has been identified, in either signal or background regions, that would suggest that the differences between Set 1 and Set 2 are other than a statistical fluctuation. For the combined analysis, $`𝒜_{CC}`$ is $`+2.2\sigma `$ from zero, while $`𝒜_{ES}`$ and $`𝒜_{NC}`$ are $`0.9\sigma `$ and $`1.2\sigma `$ from zero, respectively. Note that $`𝒜_{CC}`$ and $`𝒜_{NC}`$ are strongly statistically anti-correlated ($`\rho =0.518`$), while $`𝒜_{CC}`$ and $`𝒜_{ES}`$ ($`\rho =0.161`$) and $`𝒜_{ES}`$ and $`𝒜_{NC}`$ ($`\rho =0.106`$) are moderatedly anti-correlated. Table 3 gives the systematic uncertainties on the asymmetry parameters. The day and night energy spectra for all accepted events are shown in Fig. 2.

Table 3 (a) shows the results for $`𝒜_e`$ derived from the CC day and night rate measurements, i.e., $`𝒜_e=𝒜_{CC}`$. The day and night flavor contents were then extracted by changing variables to $`\varphi _{CC}=\varphi _e`$, $`\varphi _{NC}=\varphi _{tot}=\varphi _e+\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$ and $`\varphi _{ES}=\varphi _e+ϵ\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$, where $`ϵ1/6.48`$ is the ratio of the average ES cross sections above 5 MeV for $`\nu _{\mu \tau }`$ and $`\nu _e`$. Table 3 (b) shows the asymmetries of $`\varphi _e`$ and $`\varphi _{tot}`$ with this additional constraint from the ES rate measurements. This analysis allowed for an asymmetry in the total flux of 8B neutrinos (non-zero $`𝒜_{tot}`$), with the measurements of $`𝒜_e`$ and $`𝒜_{tot}`$ having a strong anti-correlation. Fig. 3 shows the $`𝒜_e`$ vs. $`𝒜_{tot}`$ joint probability contours. Forcing $`𝒜_{tot}=0`$, as predicted by active-only models, yielded the result in Table 3 (c) of $`𝒜_e=7.0\%\pm 4.9\%(\mathrm{stat}.)_{1.2}^{+1.3}\%(\mathrm{sys}.)`$.

The Super-Kamiokande (SK) collaboration measured $`𝒜_{ES}(SK)=3.3\%\pm 2.2\%(\mathrm{stat}.)_{1.2}^{+1.3}\%(\mathrm{sys}.)`$ Fukuda et al. (2001). The ES measurement includes a neutral current component, which reduces the asymmetry for this reaction relative to $`𝒜_e`$ bib . $`𝒜_{ES}(SK)`$ may be converted to an equivalent electron flavor asymmetry using the total neutrino flux measured by SNO, yielding $`𝒜_e(SK)`$ (Table 3 (d)). This value is in good agreement with SNO’s direct measurement of $`𝒜_e`$, as seen in Fig. 3.

SNO’s day and night energy spectra (Fig. 2) have also been used to produce MSW exclusion plots and limits on neutrino flavor mixing parameters. MSW oscillation models bib  between two active flavors were fit to the data. For simplicity, only the energy spectra were used in the fit, and the radial $`R`$ and direction $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{}`$ information was omitted. This procedure preserves most of the ability to discriminate between oscillation solutions. A model was constructed for the expected number of counts in each energy bin by combining the neutrino spectrum Ortiz et al. (2000), the survival probability, and the cross sections Nakamura et al. (2002) with SNO’s response functions bib . For this analysis, the dominant systematics are those for the combined fluxes, as detailed in Refs. Ahmad et al. (2002) and bib , and not the diurnal systematics of Table 3.

There are 3 free parameters in the fit: the total 8B flux $`\varphi _B`$, the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ between the squared masses of the two neutrino mass eigenstates, and the mixing angle $`\theta `$. The flux of higher energy neutrinos from the solar *hep* reaction was fixed at $`9.3\times 10^3`$ cm-2 s-1 J. N. Bahcall, M. H. Pinsonneault and S. Basu (2001). Contours were generated in $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2(c.l.)=4.61(90\%),5.99(95\%),9.21(99\%)`$, and $`11.83(99.73\%)`$. Fig. 4(a) shows allowed mixing parameter regions using only SNO data with no additional experimental constraints or inputs from solar models. By including flux information from the Cl Cleveland et al. (1998) and Ga experiments Abdurashitov et al. (1999, 2002); Altmann et al. (2000); Hampel et al. (1999); Cattadori et al. (2001), the day and night spectra from the SK experiment Fukuda et al. (2001), along with solar model predictions for the more robust $`pp`$, $`pep`$ and 7Be neutrino fluxes J. N. Bahcall, M. H. Pinsonneault and S. Basu (2001), the contours shown in Fig. 4(b) were produced. This global analysis strongly favors the Large Mixing Angle (LMA) region (see Table 4), and $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta `$ values $`<1`$. While the absolute chi-squared per degree of freedom is not particularly large for the LOW solution, the difference between chi-squared values still reflects the extent to which one region of MSW parameter space is favored compared to another. Repeating the global analysis using the total SNO energy spectrum instead of separate day and night spectra gives nearly identical results.

In summary, SNO has measured the day-night asymmetries of the CC, NC, and ES reaction rates. From these results the first direct measurements of the day-night asymmetries in the $`\nu _e`$ flux and the total $`\nu `$ flux from the Sun have been deduced. A global fit to SNO’s day and night energy spectra and data from other solar neutrino experiments strongly favors the LMA solution in a 2-flavor MSW neutrino oscillation analysis.

This research was supported by: Canada: NSERC, Industry Canada, NRC, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, Inco, AECL, Ontario Power Generation; US: Dept. of Energy; UK: PPARC. We thank the SNO technical staff for their strong contributions.


text:
# Local approximation for contour dynamics in effectively two-dimensional ideal electron-magnetohydrodynamic flows

## I Introduction

In this paper we consider a special class of vortical flows in plasma that correspond to the model of ideal electron magnetohydrodynamics (EMHD) (see, e.g., KChYa1990 ; ABEKPSS1998 ; BSZCD1999 ; ACP2000  and references therein about EMHD and its applications). In general, we deal with ideal EMHD-flows that are effectively two-dimensional (2D) and completely determined by a single function of two spatial coordinates and the time, namely with the usual planar flows, with the axisymmetric flows having the only azimuthal component of the magnetic field, and with the flows possessing the helical symmetry of frozen-in lines of the generalized vorticity. Our purpose here is to introduce a simplified analytical description adopted for the case when the function is piecewise constant (such distributions are usually called “patches”), with a typical spatial scale between well separated the electron inertial length and the ion inertial length. In a narrow region near sharp boundary of a “patch” the density of the electric current is high, thus the boundary can be considered as a dissipationless current sheet. From analytical viewpoint, patches are the simplest examples of EMHD-flows with current sheets, in the sense that no other degrees of freedom are present in the system, except the shape of the patch. It is a well known fact that spontaneous formation of current sheets from initially smooth magnetic field configuration is a typical phenomenon in plasma dynamics, and the role of current sheets is very important. That is why it is interesting to investigate the problem of their motion, even in such highly idealized formulation as we do in this work. As an explicit instance of fundamental physical phenomena tightly linked with our analytical study, we can indicate the fast magnetic field penetration into plasmas due to the Hall effect, since in some conditions the ideal EMHD is applicable to describe this phenomenon Fruchtman1991 ; SGFOO1996 . More precisely, we focus on the effect of the electron inertia on the dynamics of a narrow moving front between magnetized and unmagnetized plasma for those special highly symmetric configurations of the generalized vorticity field. It should be noted that on the mentioned scales the magnetic field is similar to the generalized vorticity field almost everywhere except the close vicinity of the sharp patch boundary, where the magnetic field is smoothed on the electron inertial length.

As known, the EMHD model approximately describes the motion of the low-inertial electron component of plasma on sufficiently short scales (below the ion inertial length), while the much heavier ion component may be considered as motionless KChYa1990 . Conditions for electrical quasi-neutrality of the plasma are assumed, which imply that the macroscopic velocity $`𝐯(𝐫,t)`$ of the electron flow should be sufficiently small and also all potential waves and oscillations of the plasma density should not be excited. Only vortical degrees of freedom of the system are relevant in such circumstances. With these conditions, everywhere in the space the concentration $`n(𝐫,t)`$ of electrons is approximately equal to the prescribed concentration $`N(𝐫)`$ of ions, thus the density of flow of the electrons,

$$𝐣(𝐫,t)n(𝐫,t)𝐯(𝐫,t),$$

is almost divergence free, $`\text{div}𝐣0`$. The role of ions is thus reduced simply to compensation of the electric charge of electrons by providing the static neutralizing background. Such flows of the electron fluid create the divergence-free field of electric current density $`e𝐣`$, where $`e`$ is the electron charge. Hence, the quasi-stationary magnetic field

$$𝐁(𝐫,t)=\frac{4\pi e}{c}\text{curl}^1𝐣(𝐫,t)$$
(1)
should be taken into account when considering forces acting upon the electron fluid.

Important for our consideration is that in some cases dissipative effects due to finite resistivity and/or viscosity may be neglected without dramatic loss of accuracy. So we study below the conservative EMHD model. A remarkable feature of the conservative hydrodynamic-type systems is that all of them possess an infinite number of integrals of motion related to a basic physical property of fluids, the relabeling symmetry (see, e.g., ZK97 ; R99 ; KR2000PRE ; R2001PRE  and references therein for a recent discussion). This symmetry manifests itself as the freezing-in property of a divergence-free vector field (the canonical vorticity field)

$$𝛀(𝐫,t)=\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐣}\right),$$
(2)
specified by the Lagrangian functional $`\{n,𝐣\}`$ of a model and evolving with time accordingly to the equation

$$𝛀_t=\text{curl}[𝐯\times 𝛀].$$
(3)
For example, in the usual Eulerian hydrodynamics $`𝛀(𝐫,t)`$ is simply proportional to the velocity curl. As to the ideal EMHD, it is well known fact and we will see it below once more that frozen-in is the field

$`𝛀(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\text{curl }m𝐯(𝐫,t){\displaystyle \frac{e}{c}}𝐁(𝐫,t)`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`\text{curl }m𝐯+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi e^2}{c^2}}\text{curl}^1𝐣,`$
where $`m`$ is the electron mass.

Below we deal with a spatially homogeneous ion background $`N=\text{const}`$, thus the flows of the electron fluid are supposed to be incompressible, $`(𝐯)=0`$. There exist three classes (hereafter referred as $`P,A,H`$) of incompressible ideal EMHD flows having a special symmetry which allows one to describe the vorticity distribution in terms of a single scalar function $`\omega `$ depending on two spatial coordinates and the time. Besides the usual planar flows with

$$𝛀_P=𝐞_z\omega (x,y,t),$$
(5)
these effectively two-dimensional are the axisymmetric flows with zero azimuthal velocity component,

$$𝛀_A=[𝐞_z\times 𝐫]\omega (z,q,t),$$
(6)
where

$$q=(x^2+y^2)/2,$$

and also the flows with the helical symmetry of the frozen-in vortex lines,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_H^z=\omega (x\mathrm{cos}Kz+y\mathrm{sin}Kz,x\mathrm{sin}Kz+y\mathrm{cos}Kz,t),$$
(7)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_H^x=Ky\mathrm{\Omega }_H^z,\mathrm{\Omega }_H^y=Kx\mathrm{\Omega }_H^z,$$
(8)
that are space-periodic along $`z`$-direction with the period $`L^z=2\pi /K`$. What is important, in each of these three cases the evolution of the corresponding $`\omega (u,v,t)`$ is nothing else but only the transport of its level contours by 2D incompressible flows. The general structure of the equations of motion for the function $`\omega (u,v,t)`$ is

$$\omega _t+\mathrm{\Psi }_v\omega _u\mathrm{\Psi }_u\omega _v=0,$$
(9)
with the stream-function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(u,v,t)`$ being specified by the Hamiltonian functional $`_\sigma \{\omega (u,v)\}`$ of the model, depending also on the type of symmetry ($`\sigma =P,A,H`$),

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{\delta _\sigma }{\delta \omega }.$$
(10)
We will see later that the Hamiltonians $`_\sigma \{\omega (u,v)\}`$, corresponding to the ideal EMHD, take the quadratic form

$$_\sigma \{\omega (u,v)\}=\frac{1}{2}\omega (u,v)\widehat{G}_\sigma \omega (u,v)𝑑u𝑑v,$$
(11)
where the nonlocal linear operators $`\widehat{G}_\sigma `$ possess smoothing properties like the usual two-dimensional $`\mathrm{\Delta }^1`$-operator. Therefore the flows with discontinuous piecewise constant distributions of the function $`\omega (u,v)`$ are possible. From Eqs.(9-10) it follows that the shape $`\{u(\xi ,t),v(\xi ,t)\}`$ of boundary of such a patch with $`\omega =\omega _0=\text{const}`$ (here $`\xi `$ is an arbitrary longitudinal parameter), evolves in accordance with the equation

$$u_tv_\xi u_\xi v_t=\frac{1}{\omega _0}\frac{}{\xi }\left[\frac{v_\xi (\delta ^{}/\delta u)u_\xi (\delta ^{}/\delta v)}{u_\xi ^2+v_\xi ^2}\right],$$
(12)
where $`^{}\{u(\xi ),v(\xi )\}`$ is the energy of the patch expressed through its shape. The purpose of this work is to study the motion of the patches in $`(u,v)`$-plane for all three kinds of the geometric symmetry. Wee will extensively use the fact that in EMHD the kernels $`G_\sigma (u_1,v_1;u_2,v_2)`$ of the operators are exponentially small if the distances between $`(u_1,v_1)`$ and $`(u_2,v_2)`$ are much longer than an internal length parameter of the problem, the inertial electron skin depth $`d=(mc^2/4\pi e^2n)^{1/2}`$. For comparatively large patches, this property makes possible to single out the local boundary term in the Hamiltonian, which is responsible for the evolution of the patch shape, while the main area term in the approximate local Hamiltonian only results in a uniform motion of the patch without changing the shape.

## II Canonical formalism for EMHD

For convenience and self-consistency, now we reproduce briefly derivation of the EMHD equations, following the canonical formalism adopted for fluids as described in Refs. R99, ; R2001PRE, . As the start point, let us consider the microscopic Lagrangian of a system of electrically charged point particles that can be written up to the second order on $`v/c`$, as it is given in the famous book by Landau and Lifshitz LL2 ,

$`_{\text{micro}}={\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_a𝐯_a^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ab}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{e_ae_b}{|𝐫_a𝐫_b|}}+{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_a𝐯_a^4}{8c^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4c^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ab}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{e_ae_b}{|𝐫_a𝐫_b|}}\{𝐯_a𝐯_b+(𝐯_a𝐧_{ab})(𝐯_b𝐧_{ab})\},`$ (13)
where $`𝐫_a(t)`$ are the positions of the point charges $`e_a`$, $`𝐯_a(t)\dot{𝐫}_a(t)`$ are their velocities, $`𝐧_{ab}(t)`$ are the unit vectors in the direction between $`e_a`$ and $`e_b`$. The first double sum in Eq.(13) corresponds to the electrostatic interaction, while the second double sum describes the magnetic interaction via quasi-stationary magnetic field. It is very important that for a system with macroscopically large number of particles the magnetic energy can be of the same order (or even larger) as the kinetic energy given by the first ordinary sum in Eq.(13), while the terms of the fourth order on the velocities are often negligible. Generally speaking, a large part of plasma physics is governed by this Lagrangian, at least in the cases when the velocities of particles are non-relativistic and the free electro-magnetic field is not excited significantly. Obviously, different physical problems need different procedures of macroscopic consideration of this system. The most accurate (and the most complicated) would be a kinetic description. However, for our purposes it is sufficient to apply more simple and naive procedure of the hydrodynamical averaging, that gives less accurate description of the system in terms of the concentration $`n(𝐫,t)`$ of electrons and the density $`𝐣(𝐫,t)`$ of their flow, that satisfy the continuity equation

$$\frac{n}{t}+\text{div}𝐣=0.$$
(14)
Neglecting all dissipative processes that take place due to collisions of the particles (though on this step we strongly reduce applicability of the following conservative EMHD model), and considering the ions as macroscopically motionless, we derive from Eq.(13) the following Lagrangian functional of the electron fluid on the given static ion background with the macroscopic concentration $`N(𝐫)`$:

$`_e\{n,𝐣\}={\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫\left[m\frac{𝐣^2}{2n}\epsilon (n)\right]}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐫_1d𝐫_2}{|𝐫_1𝐫_2|}}\{n(𝐫_1)N(𝐫_1)\}\{(n(𝐫_2)N(𝐫_2)\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4c^2}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐫_1d𝐫_2}{|𝐫_1𝐫_2|}}[𝐣(𝐫_1)𝐣(𝐫_2)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐣(𝐫_1)\{𝐫_1𝐫_2\})(𝐣(𝐫_2)\{𝐫_1𝐫_2\})}{|𝐫_1𝐫_2|^2}}],`$ (15)
where the internal energy $`\epsilon (n)`$ of the electron fluid takes into account energy of the thermal disordered motion of electrons and also the microscopic-scale-concentrated part of the electro-magnetic energy. It should be kept in mind that $`\epsilon (n)`$ depends also on the specific entropy but we suppose the flows isentropic.

Since we are interested below in relatively slow vortical motion of the electron fluid, when all possible potential waves and oscillations are not excited significantly, so the quasi-neutrality condition $`nN`$ is well satisfied, it is possible to neglect the second line in the expression (II), as well as variation of $`\epsilon (n)`$. Thus, for the EMHD, which describes this special dynamical limit of the system (II), we have the Lagrangian

$$_n\{𝐣\}=\left[m\frac{𝐣^2}{2n}+\frac{4\pi e^2}{c^2}\frac{(\text{curl}^1𝐣)^2}{2}\right]𝑑𝐫,$$
(16)
where the concentration $`n(𝐫)`$ is a prescribed function, so the density $`𝐣`$ of flow is divergence-free, $`\text{div}𝐣=0.`$

In general, the equation of motion for the divergence-free flux field $`𝐣`$ has the form (compare with R2001PRE )

$$\frac{}{t}\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta \{𝐣\}}{\delta 𝐣}\right)=\text{curl}\left[\frac{𝐣}{n}\times \text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta \{𝐣\}}{\delta 𝐣}\right)\right].$$
(17)
In the particular case for EMHD this yields

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left(\text{curl }{\displaystyle \frac{m𝐣}{n}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi e^2}{c^2}}\text{curl}^1𝐣\right)`$
$`=\text{curl}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{𝐣}{n}}\times \left(\text{curl }{\displaystyle \frac{m𝐣}{n}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi e^2}{c^2}}\text{curl}^1𝐣\right)\right].`$ (18)
One can consider the canonical vorticity field

$$𝛀\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta _n}{\delta 𝐣}\right)$$
(19)
and the Hamiltonian functional

$$\{𝛀\}\left\{\left(\frac{\delta _n}{\delta 𝐣}𝐣\right)𝑑𝐫_n\right\}|_{𝐣=𝐣\{𝛀,n\}}.$$
(20)
Using the relation

$$𝐣=\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝛀}\right),$$
(21)
it is possible to rewrite the equation of motion (17) in the form

$$𝛀_t=\text{curl}\left[\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝛀}\right)\times \frac{𝛀}{n}\right],$$
(22)
that emphasizes the freezing-in property of the canonical vorticity.

Hereafter we consider the case $`n=\text{const}`$ and use dimensionless variables, with all length scales normalized to the ion inertial length. The expression for the EMHD Hamiltonian can be written then in the following form

$$\{𝛀\}=\frac{1}{2}G(|𝐫_1𝐫_2|)(𝛀(𝐫_1)𝛀(𝐫_2))𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2,$$
(23)
with the Green’s function

$$G(r)=\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/\lambda )}{4\pi \lambda ^2r},$$
(24)
where $`\lambda =\sqrt{m/M}`$ is a small parameter, the ratio of the electron inertial length to the ion inertial length. It should be noted that the EMHD model in this simplest form, without taking into account the ion motion, is applicable only on scales below the ion inertial length. A more accurate model differs by another Green’s function in the double integral (23): instead of the expression (24) with effectively finite radius of interaction, one has to use the modified Green’s function, with infinite radius of interaction (see, e.g., physics/0110023  for more detail)

$$\stackrel{~}{G}(r)=\frac{1}{4\pi }\left(\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/\lambda )}{\lambda ^2r}+\frac{1}{r}\right).$$
(25)
However, in this work we deal with the function (24), since our goal is to construct a local approximate model. Thus, a typical size $`L`$ of vortex structures must be in the limits $`\lambda L1`$, in order the contribution to the Hamiltonian from the second term in Eq.(25) to be small in comparison with the contribution from the first one.

## III Long-scale local approximation in contour dynamics

### III.1 Axisymmetric flows

Let us consider effectively 2D flows, for instance, the axisymmetric flows (6). The dynamics of the function $`\omega (z,q,t)`$ is determined by Eqs.(910), where $`_A\{\omega \}=(1/2\pi )\{\omega [𝐞_z\times 𝐫]\}`$. For long-scale flows, the Green’s function (24) in the double integral (23) is almost the same as the $`\delta `$-function. Therefore, large vortex patches like that shown in the Fig.1, with constant $`\omega `$ and sharp boundaries, can be approximately described by a local Hamiltonian broken onto two parts — the bulk energy

$$_A^D=\frac{1}{2}_D𝛀^2r𝑑r𝑑z=\omega _0^2_Dq𝑑q𝑑z,$$

and a ”surface” energy originated by the effect of non-locality near the boundary. In leading order the boundary term can be calculated as if we have locally a 1D configuration with the jump $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\omega _0\sqrt{2q}`$ in the vorticity field. In such a 1D case, the additional energy per unit area of the boundary is simply

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{22}_0^{\mathrm{}}e^{\zeta /\lambda }𝑑\zeta =\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\lambda }{4},$$

that gives the surface energy of the patch in the axisymmetric flows,

$`_A^D={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \omega _0^2}{4}}{\displaystyle _D}r^2r\sqrt{(dz)^2+(dr)^2}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \omega _0^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _D}q\sqrt{2q(dz)^2+(dq)^2}.`$ (26)
Let us for simplicity take $`\omega _0=1`$. Using the explicit expression for the Hamiltonian functional $`_A^{}\{z(\xi ),q(\xi )\}=_A^D+_A^D`$,

$$_A^{}\{z(\xi ),q(\xi )\}=qzq_\xi 𝑑\xi \frac{\lambda }{2}q\sqrt{2qz_\xi ^2+q_\xi ^2}𝑑\xi ,$$
(27)
we obtain from Eq.(12) the following equation of motion, which does not depend on choice of the longitudinal parameter $`\xi `$:

$$z_tq_\xi z_\xi q_t=q_\xi +\lambda \frac{}{\xi }\left[\frac{1}{q_\xi }\frac{}{\xi }\left(\frac{q^2z_\xi }{\sqrt{2qz_\xi ^2+q_\xi ^2}}\right)\right].$$
(28)
This local nonlinear equation is one of the main results of present work. It approximates the nonlocal contour dynamics in axisymmetric EMHD-flows if a typical longitudinal scale $`L`$ (in $`(r,z)`$-plane) of the contour satisfies the condition $`\lambda L1`$.

Now we study stationary moving (along $`z`$-axis) configurations. Let the shape of a patch $`\omega _0=1`$ in axisymmetric flow be given (locally) by the function $`z(q,t)`$ (this implies the fixed choice of the longitudinal parameter in Eq.(28), $`q=\xi `$). Then the corresponding equation of motion is

$$z_t(q)=1+\lambda \frac{^2}{q^2}\left(\frac{q^2z_q}{\sqrt{1+2qz_q^2}}\right).$$
(29)
Let us consider stationary moving solutions, $`z_t=1+2\lambda C`$, where $`C=\text{const}`$. The shape of the boundary in such case is determined by the ordinary differential equation

$$\frac{^2}{q^2}\left(\frac{q^2z_q}{\sqrt{1+2qz_q^2}}\right)=2C,$$
(30)
that can be easily integrated:

$$z=^q𝑑q\frac{(Cq^2+\stackrel{~}{a}q+\stackrel{~}{b})}{\sqrt{q^42q(Cq^2+\stackrel{~}{a}q+\stackrel{~}{b})^2}},$$
(31)
with some constants $`\stackrel{~}{a},\stackrel{~}{b},C`$. To simplify further analysis it is convenient to make the rescaling

$$q\alpha q,z\sqrt{\alpha }z,\alpha =\frac{1}{2C^2}.$$

In these new coordinates the stationary solutions depend only on two parameters,

$$z=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}^q𝑑q\frac{q^2+aq+b}{\sqrt{q^4q(q^2+aq+b)^2}}.$$
(32)
However, in general case the constants $`a`$ and $`b`$ may not take arbitrary values, since the expression under the square root in the denominator must be positive in some range of (positive) $`q`$. Another restriction is that self-intersections of the curves are forbidden.

The parametric $`(a,b)`$-plane is shown in Fig.2. First, there exist $`z`$-periodic configurations that occupy 2D region in the parametric plane and correspond to axisymmetric current channels with a sharp crimped surface. On different pieces of the boundary of that region we have different types of stationary solutions. Partially the boundary is determined by the parametrically given curve (the thick solid line in Fig.2)

$$a(\tau )=2\tau (\tau 3/4),b(\tau )=\tau ^3(\tau 1/2).$$
(33)
If the parameter $`\tau `$ is within the limits $`3/8<\tau <+\mathrm{}`$, then the solutions near the curve look like linear sinusoidal waves with vanishing amplitude. If $`0<\tau <3/8`$, then $`z`$-period of the current channels tends to infinity, and we have highly nonlinear solitary waves. For the third piece of the boundary, where self-touch of the current channels with multi-valued dependences $`q(z)`$ takes place, we do not have a simple analytical expression, however it can be found numerically. Second, besides the infinitely long current channels, there exist finite configurations (cross-sections of magnetic rings). For finite configurations the curves in $`(z,q)`$-plane must be closed, thus in this case the integral (32) between the two corresponding zeros of the denominator must be equal to zero, that gives a relation between $`a`$ and $`b`$ (the numerically calculated separate curve in Fig.2). Though the piece of the parametric curve (33) with $`\mathrm{}<\tau <0`$ corresponds to nothing in the parametric plane, but the line of finite configurations approaches it from below, as $`a0`$.

Examples of appropriate solutions are presented in Fig.3 and Fig.4. Strictly speaking, only the magnetic rings can satisfy the condition $`L1`$. For the infinitely long current channels, applicability of the local model is not so well justified as for the rings.

In the limit, when $`a0`$, the “upper” part of the contour shape is the parabola when being viewed in $`(q,z)`$-plane (the half-circle in $`(r,z)`$-plane),

$$(z^2+r^2)=2.$$

For the rings, the tendency towards this shape is clearly seen in the Fig.4, as $`|a|`$ decreases.

### III.2 Helical flows

Analogously, a patch $`\omega =1`$ in the helical flows can be investigated. For this case the bulk energy is

$`_H^D`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _D}[1+K^2(u^2+v^2)]𝑑u𝑑v`$ (34)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _D}u𝑑v+{\displaystyle \frac{K^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _D}(uv^2+u^3/3)𝑑v,`$
while the boundary energy can be expressed as follows:

$$_H^D=\frac{\lambda }{4}_D[1+K^2𝐰^2]\sqrt{(d𝐰)^2+K^2(𝐰d𝐰)^2}$$
(35)
Here the square root is proportional to the area element of the helical tube surface.

Note that the planar flows (5) are included into this consideration, since they correspond to the case $`K=0`$. The boundary term in that case is simply proportional to the length of the contour that results in the integrable dynamics GP1991 ; GP1992  — the evolution of the boundary curvature $`\kappa (l,t)`$, where $`l`$ is the arc-length along the contour, is determined by the modified KdV equation,

$$\kappa _t=\frac{\lambda }{4}\left(\kappa _{lll}+\frac{3}{2}\kappa ^2\kappa _l\right).$$
(36)
In the case $`K0`$, the term $`_H^D`$ just produces the uniform rotation of the contour with the angular velocity $`\dot{\phi }_0=K^2`$ around the origin. The shape evolution generated by $`_H^D`$ is more convenient for analytical study in the polar coordinates (note the relation $`(u,v)/(q,\phi )=1`$)

$$u=\sqrt{2q}\mathrm{cos}\phi ,v=\sqrt{2q}\mathrm{sin}\phi ,$$
(37)
since the expression for $`_H^D\{\phi (q)\}`$ does not contain $`\phi (q)`$ itself, but only $`_q\phi (q)`$:

$$_H^D=\frac{\lambda }{4}𝑑q[1+2K^2q]\sqrt{1/2q+2q\phi _q^2+K^2}$$
(38)
The equation of motion is

$`\phi _t`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{}{q}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta (_H^D+_H^D)}{\delta \phi }}\right)`$ (39)
$`=K^2{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{q^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2q\phi _q[1+2K^2q]}{\sqrt{1/2q+2q\phi _q^2+K^2}}}\right).`$
For stationary rotation, when $`\phi _t=K^2C\lambda `$,we have

$$\phi (q)=^q\frac{dq}{q}\frac{(Cq^2+Bq+A)\sqrt{1+2K^2q}}{\sqrt{2q(1+2K^2q)^24(Cq^2+Bq+A)^2}}$$
(40)
Here also a right choice of the constants $`A,B,C`$ must satisfy the condition for the curve to be closed and do not have self-intersections (see Fig.5).

## IV Discussion

Thus, a local approximation for a class of effectively 2D flows in the ideal EMHD, based on the Hamiltonian formulation of the problem, has been suggested for the nonlinear contour dynamics. Stationary moving configurations with current sheets have been analytically (in integral form) found within this approximation. They describe propagation of magnetic rings, traveling waves on a crimped surface of current channels, including solitary waves, and rotating helical magnetic structures. Of course, our results are not able to explain all the important phenomena in EMHD. A payment for the relative simplicity of our local models has been the general impossibility to consider in such a manner short-scale ($`\lambda `$) contour perturbations, though their dynamics may have influence on the problem of stability of the stationary moving configurations. Also, the question about evolution of 3D perturbations of the magnetic rings, current channels, and/or helical structures cannot be answered in such very simplified description of the flows by moving curves in a plane. But we believe our approach useful since it develops an insight in qualitative theoretical understanding of such complicated nonlocal theory as the EMHD. For instance, we do not see another simple and compact way how to derive equations of motion for current sheets, analogous to Eqs.(28) and (39).

###### Acknowledgements.

These investigations were supported by the Danish Graduate School in Nonlinear Science and by the INTAS (grant No. 00-00292). The work of V. R. was supported also by RFBR (grant No. 00-01-00929), by the Russian State Program of Support of the Leading Scientific Schools (grant No. 00-15-96007), and by the Science Support Foundation, Russia.


text:
# Resonant tunneling of quantum dot in a microcavity

## Abstract

We propose to measure Purcell effect by observing the current through a semeiconductor quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. An electron and a hole are injected separately into the quantum structure to form an exciton and then recombine radiatively. The stationary current is shown to be altered if one varies the cavity length or the exciton energy gap. Therefore, the Purcell effect can be observed experimentally by measuring the current through the quantum structure. In addition, we also find superradiance of excitons between quantum dots may also be observed in an electrical way.

PACS: 78.67.-n, 42.50.Fx, 73.23.Hk

Recently, much attention has been focused on enhanced spontaneous emission (SE) rate of the quantum dot exciton in a optical microcavity. Historically, the idea of controlling the SE rate by using a cavity was introduced by Purcell1 . Considering the interaction between the atomic dipole and the electromagnetic fields inside a cavity, the SE rate can be expressed as $`(2\pi /\mathrm{})`$ $`\rho _{cav}(\omega )\left|f\left|V\right|i\right|^2`$ , where $`\rho _{cav}(\omega )`$ and$`V`$ are the photon density of states and atom-vacuum field interaction hamiltonian, respectively. For a planar cavity with distance $`L_c`$ between two mirrors, the photon density of states is $`N_c\omega /2\pi c^2`$, where $`N_c`$ is an integer less than $`2L_c/\lambda `$. Thus, by varying the cavity length $`L_c`$, the SE rate can be altered. The enhanced and inhibited SE rate for the atomic system was intensively investigated in the 1980s2 ; 3 ; 4 ; 5  by using atoms passed through a cavity.

Turning to semiconductor systems, the electron-hole pair is naturally a candidate for examining the spontaneous emission. However, as it was well known, the excitons in a three dimensional system will couple with photons to form polaritons–the eigenstate of the combined system consisting of the crystal and the radiation field which does not decay radiatively6 . Thus, in a bulk crystal, the exciton can only decay via impurity, phonon scatterings, or boundary effects. The exciton can render radiative decay in lower dimensional systems such as quantum wells, quantum wires, or quantum dots as a result of broken symmetry. The decay rate of the exciton is superradiant enhanced by a factor of $`\lambda /d`$ in a 1D system7  and ($`\lambda /d)^2`$ for 2D exciton-polariton8 ; 9 , where $`\lambda `$ is the wave length of emitted photon and $`d`$ is the lattice constant of the 1D system or the thin film. In the past decades, the superradiance of excitons in these quantum structures have been investigated intensively10 ; 11 ; 12 ; 13 .

With the advances of modern fabrication technology, it has become possible to fabricate the planar microcavities incorporating quantum wells14  or quantum wires15 . In these systems it is possible to observe the modified spontaneous emission rate of excitons. Similar to its decay-rate counterpart, the frequency shift of a quantum wire exciton should also be modified in a planar microcavity. By using the renormalization procedure proposed by Lee et al.16 , we have recently shown that the frequency shift shows discontinuities at resonant modes17 . Instead of one-dimensional confinement of photon fields, experimentalists are now able to fabricate the quantum dot systems in laterally structured microcavities that exhibit photon confinement in all three dimensions18 ; 19 . Both inhibition and enhancement of the spontaneous emission of quantum dot excitons have been observed20 . However, acceptable experimental data are still not plentiful owing to the difficulty of techniques in observing the enhanced spontaneous emission optically. In this letter, a relatively simple way to observe the enhanced spontaneous emission is proposed to embed the quantum ring or the quantum dot in a microcavity21 . By injecting electron and hole into the quantum dot, a photon is generated by the recombination of the exciton. This process allows one to determine Purcell effect by measuring the current through the quantum dot.

In our model, we consider a quantum dot embedded in a p-i-n junction, which is similar to the device proposed by O. Benson et al21 . The energy-band diagram is shown in Fig.1.

Both the hole and electron reservoirs are assumed to be in thermal equilibrium. For the physical phenomena we are interested in, the fermi level of the p(n)-side hole (electron) is slightly lower (higher) than the hole (electron) subband in the dot. After a hole is injected into the hole subband in the quantum dot, the n-side electron can tunnel into the exciton level because of the Coulomb interaction between the electron and hole. Thus, we may assume three dot states

$`|0`$ $`=`$ $`|0,h`$
$`|U`$ $`=`$ $`|e,h`$
$`|D`$ $`=`$ $`|0,0`$ (1)
,where $`|0,h`$ means there is one hole in the quantum dot, $`|e,h`$ is the exciton state, and $`|0,0`$ represents the ground state with no hole and electron in the quantum dot. One might argue that one can not neglect the state $`|e,0`$ for real device since the tunable variable is the applied voltage. This can be resolved by fabricating a thicker barrier on the electron side so that there is little chance for an electron to tunnel in advance. We can now define the dot-operators $`\stackrel{}{n_U}|UU|,`$ $`\stackrel{}{n_D}|DD|,`$ $`\stackrel{}{p}|UD|,`$ $`\stackrel{}{s_U}|0U|,`$ $`\stackrel{}{s_D}|0D|`$. The total hamiltonian $`H`$ of the system consists of three parts: the dot hamiltonian, the photon bath, and the electron (hole) reservoirs:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_0+H_T+H_V`$
$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _U\stackrel{}{n_U}+\epsilon _D\stackrel{}{n_D}+H_p+H_{res}`$
$`H_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}g(D_kb_k^{}\stackrel{}{p}+D_k^{}b_k\stackrel{}{p}^{})=g(\stackrel{}{p}X+\stackrel{}{p}^{}X^{})`$
$`H_p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\omega _kb_k^{}b_k`$
$`H_V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}(V_𝐪c_𝐪^{}\stackrel{}{s_U}+W_𝐪d_𝐪^{}\stackrel{}{s_D}+c.c.)`$
$`H_{res}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\epsilon _𝐪^Uc_𝐪^{}c_𝐪+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\epsilon _𝐪^Dd_𝐪^{}d_𝐪.`$ (2)
In above equation, $`b_k`$ is the photon operator, $`gD_k`$ is the dipole coupling strength, $`X=_kD_kb_k^{}`$ , and $`c_𝐪`$ and $`d_𝐪`$ denote the electron operators in the left ad right reservoirs, respectively. Here, $`g`$ is a constant with a unit of the tunneling rate. The couplings to the electron and hole reservoirs are given by the standard tunnel hamiltonian $`H_V,`$ where $`V_𝐪`$ and $`W_𝐪`$ couple the channels $`𝐪`$ of the electron and the hole reservoirs. If the couplings to the electron and the hole reservoirs are weak, then it is reasonable to assume that the standard Born-Markov approximation with respect to these couplings is valid. In this case, one can derive a master equation from the exact time-evolution of the system. The equations of motion can be expressed as (cp. )

$`\stackrel{}{n_U}_t\stackrel{}{n_U}_0`$ $`=`$ $`ig{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}\{\stackrel{}{p}_t^{}\stackrel{}{p^{}}_t^{}\}`$
$`+2\mathrm{\Gamma }_U{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}(1\stackrel{}{n_U}_t^{}\stackrel{}{n_D}_t^{})`$
$$\stackrel{}{n_D}_t\stackrel{}{n_D}_0=ig_0^t𝑑t^{}\{\stackrel{}{p}_t^{}\stackrel{}{p^{}}_t^{}\}2\mathrm{\Gamma }_D_0^t𝑑t^{}\stackrel{}{n_D}_t^{}$$

$`\stackrel{}{p}_t\stackrel{}{p_t^0}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}e^{i\epsilon (tt^{})}X_tX_t^{}^{}\stackrel{~}{p}(t^{})_t^{}`$
$`ig{\displaystyle _0^t}dt^{}e^{i\epsilon (tt^{})}\{\stackrel{}{n_U}X_tX_t^{}^{}_t^{}`$
$`\stackrel{}{n_D}X_t^{}^{}X_t_t^{}\}`$
$`\stackrel{}{p^{}}_t\stackrel{}{p_t^0}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D{\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}e^{i\epsilon (tt^{})}\stackrel{~}{p}^{}(t^{})X_t^{}X_t^{}_t^{}`$ (3)
$`+ig{\displaystyle _0^t}dt^{}e^{i\epsilon (tt^{})}\{\stackrel{}{n_U}X_t^{}X_t^{}_t^{}`$
$`\stackrel{}{n_D}X_t^{}X_t^{}_t^{}\}.`$
, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_U`$ $`=2\pi _𝐪V_𝐪^2\delta (\epsilon _U\epsilon _𝐪^U)`$ , $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D=2\pi _𝐪W_𝐪^2\delta (\epsilon _D\epsilon _𝐪^D)`$, and $`\epsilon =\epsilon _U\epsilon _D`$ is the energy gap of the quantum dot exciton. Here, $`\stackrel{~}{p}(t^{})=pe^{i\epsilon t}X_t^{}`$, and $`X_t^{}`$ denotes the time evolution of $`X`$ with $`H_p`$. The expectation value $`\stackrel{}{p^{()}_t^0}`$describes the decay of an initial polarization of the system and plays no role for the stationary current. Therefore, we shall assume the initial expectation value of $`\stackrel{}{p}^{()}`$ vanishes at time $`t=0`$.

As can be seen from Eq. (3), there are terms like $`\stackrel{}{n_U}X_tX_t^{}^{}_t^{}`$ which contain products of dot operators and photon operators. If we are interested in small coupling parameters here, a decoupling of the reduced density matrix $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t^{})`$ can be written as

$$\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t^{})\rho _{ph}^0Tr_{ph}\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t^{}).$$
(4)
By using the above equation, we obtain

$$Tr(\stackrel{~}{\rho }(t^{})\stackrel{}{n_U}X_tX_t^{}^{})\stackrel{}{n_U}_t^{}X_tX_t^{}^{}_0$$
(5)
and correspondingly the other products of operators can be obtained also. For spontaneous emission, the photon bath is assumed to be in equilibrium. The expectation value $`X_tX_t^{}^{}_0C(tt^{})`$ is a function of the time interval only. We can now define the Laplace transformation for real $`z,`$

$`\stackrel{}{C_\epsilon }(z)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑te^{zt}e^{i\epsilon t}C(t)`$
$`\stackrel{}{n_U}(z)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dte^{zt}\stackrel{}{n_U}_t\text{ }etc.,\text{ }z>0`$ (6)
and transform the whole equations of motion into $`z`$-space,

$`n_U(z)`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{g}{z}}(p(z)p^{}(z))+2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_U}{z}}(1/zn_U(z)n_D(z))`$
$`n_D(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{z}}(p(z)p^{}(z))2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_D}{z}}n_D(z)`$ (7)
$`p(z)`$ $`=`$ $`ig\{n_U(z)C_\epsilon (z)n_D(z)C_\epsilon ^{}(z)\}\mathrm{\Gamma }_Dp(z)C_\epsilon (z)`$
$`p^{}(z)`$ $`=`$ $`ig\{n_U(z)C_\epsilon ^{}(z)n_D(z)C_\epsilon (z)\}\mathrm{\Gamma }_Dp^{}(z)C_\epsilon ^{}(z).`$
These equations can then be solved algebraically. The tunnel current $`\widehat{I}`$ can be defined as the change of the occupation of $`\stackrel{}{n_U}`$ and is given by $`\widehat{I}ig(\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{p}^{}),`$ where we have set the electron charge $`e=1`$ for convenience. The time dependence of the expectation value $`\stackrel{}{I}_t`$ can be obtained by solving Eq. (7) and performing the inverse Laplace transformation. For time $`t\mathrm{},`$ the result is

$`\stackrel{}{I}_t\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2g^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_U\mathrm{\Gamma }_DB}{g^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_DB+[g^2B+\mathrm{\Gamma }_D+2\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }_D^2+(\gamma ^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^3]}}`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma +(\gamma ^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_D,`$ (8)
where $`g^2\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`g^2\gamma `$ are the exciton frequency shift and decay rate, respectively. The derivation of the current equation is closely analogous to the spontaneous emission of phonons in double dots22 , in which the correlation functions $`X_tX_t^{}^{}_0`$ is given by the electron-phonon interaction.

Since the stationary current through the quantum dot depends strongly on the decay rate $`\gamma `$, the results of a quantum dot inside a planar microcavity is numerically displayed in Fig. 2. In plotting the figure, the current is in terms of 100 pA, and the cavity length is in units of $`\lambda _0/2`$, where $`\lambda _0`$ is the wavelength of the emitted photon. Furthermore, the tunneling rates, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_U`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D`$, are assumed to be equal to 0.2$`\gamma _0`$ and $`\gamma _0,`$ respectively. Here, a value of 1/1.3ns for the free-space quantum dot decay rate $`\gamma _0`$ is used in our calculations19 . Also, the planar microcavity has a Lorentzian broadening at each resonant modes (with broadening width equals to 1% of each resonant mode)17 . As the cavity length is less than half of the wavelength of the emitted photon, the stationary current is inhibited. This is because the energy of the photon generated by the quantum dot is less than the cut-off frequency of the planar microcavity. Moreover, the current is increased whenever the cavity length is equal to multiple half wavelength of the emitted photon. It represents as the cavity length exceeds some multiple wavelength, it opens up another decay channel abruptly for the quantum dot exciton, and turns out that the current is increased. With the increasing of cavity length, the stationary current becomes less affected by the cavity and gradually approaches to free space limit.

To understand the inhibited current thoroughly, we now fix the cavity length equal to $`\lambda _0/2`$ and vary the exciton energy gap, while the planar microcavity is now assumed to be perfect. The vertical and horizontal units in Fig. 3 are 100 pA and $`2hc/\lambda _0`$, respectively. Here, $`\lambda _0`$ is the wavelength of the photon emitted by the quantum dot exciton in free space. Once again, we observe the suppressed current as the exciton energy gap is tuned below the cut-off frequency. The plateau features in Fig. 3 also comes from the abruptly opened decay channels for the quantum dot exciton. From the experimental point of view, it is not possible to tune either the cavity length or the energy gap for such a wide range. A possible way is to vary the exciton gap around the first discontinuous point $`2hc/\lambda _0`$. Since the discontinuities should smear out for the real microcavity, it is likely to have a peak if one measures the differential conductance $`d\stackrel{}{I}/d\epsilon `$ as a function of energy gap $`\epsilon `$.

Our proposal can also be used to measure the superradiance of quantum dots in an electrical way. Consider now the system containing two quantum dots with a distance $`d`$ as shown in Fig. 4(a). One of the obstacles in measuring the superradiance between the quantum dots comes from the random size of the dots which result in a random distribution of energy gap. This can be overcome by growing two gates above the quantum dots. The energy gap and the orientation of the dipole moments can be controlled well. Analogous to the two-ion system23 , the electron and hole can tunnel into the superradiant or subradiant state. The corresponding decay rate for the two channels is given by

$$\gamma _\pm =\gamma _0(1\pm \frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\pi d/\lambda _0)}{2\pi d/\lambda _0}),$$
(9)
where the two signs $`\pm `$ correspond to the two different relative orientations of the dipole moments of the two dots. Fig. 4(b) shows the stationary currents of the superradiant (solid line) and subradiant (dashed line) channels. The interference effect between the dots is displayed explicitly. In principle, one can incorporate more quantum dots in the system, and many superradiant effects can be examined by the electrical current.

In conclusion, we have proposed a method of detecting the Purcell effect in a semiconductor quantum dot system. By incorporating the InAs quantum dot between a p-i-n junction surrounded by a planar microcavity, the Purcell effect on stationary tunnel current can be examined either by changing the cavity length or by varying the exciton energy gap. Second, it is also possible to observe the superradiant effects between two dots by using present model. The interference features are pointed out and may be observable in a suitably designed experiment.

We would like to thank to Prof. D. A. Rudman and Prof. M. Keller of NIST for helpful discussions. One of authors (Y. N. Chen) also appreciate valuable discussions with P. C. Chen of UCSD. This work is supported partially by the National Science Council, Taiwan under the grant number NSC 90-2112-M-009-026.