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# Short-range interactions in a two-electron system: energy levels and magnetic properties

## I Introduction

The study of mesoscopic systems has proved to be a rich field to investigate explicit manifestations of quantum properties in nanometer and micron scales Mesosc\_review . In such systems, the electron coherence length scales and mean-free paths are in general larger than the typical sample sizes, so that the underlying classical electronic motion plays an important role. The nature of the classical motion, regular, mixed or chaotic, reflects itself on some of the quantum properties of the system, particularly in the energy level distribution. These features have long been studied for non-interacting chaos\_nonint  and weakly interacting systems harold .

In quantum dots, where few electrons are laterally confined kastner , the electron-electron interaction is usually very efficiently shielded by the positively charged fixed ions and other effects, so that the independent electron gas theory can often be used to understand the basic features of the system ullmo ; report ; levy ; prado1 ; prado ; agam ; oppen . However, the residual interaction that survives the shielding can sometimes play important roles. In recent years, much attention has been given to interaction-induced effects in mesoscopic systems bedanov ; peeters ; harold ; creffield1 ; creffield2 ; grigorenko ; akbar . These effects are particularly important in the large-dot regime, where the electron-electron Coulomb interaction overcomes the kinetic energy, forcing the ground-state into a Wigner molecule type of configuration creffield1 .

In mesoscopic systems the electronic interaction is usually not well approximated by a bare long-range Coulomb force, due exactly to screening effects ando . The strength and range of the residual interaction, or the efficiency of the screening, depend on many parameters, like the electron density and size of the dot. It is therefore important to understand the effects of the interaction as a function of its effective intensity and range. In this work we give a contribution in this direction presenting exact results for the problem of two electrons in a square quantum dot interacting via a repulsive finite-range Yukawa type of interaction, $`V(r)=V_0e^{\alpha r}/r`$, and subjected to a uniform and constant magnetic field of strength $`B`$ applied perpendicular to the dot. This model system was inspired by the experimental work of Levy et al levy  where the orbital magnetic susceptibility was measured for an ensemble of square dots containing of the order of a thousand electrons each. Although the independent particle semiclassical theory explained most of the experimental findings ullmo ; report ; levy ; prado1 ; prado ; agam ; oppen , the behavior of the susceptibility with the temperature does not come out correctly in this approach and still puzzles the theorists. The idea that the slow decay of the susceptibility observed experimentally (as opposed to the exponential decay expected from the semiclassical theory), could be due to electron-electron interaction was first investigated in harold  for a weak contact (Dirac delta) type of interaction using perturbation methods. In this article we study the effects of electronic interaction a much simpler system, with only two electrons, but we present exact (numerical) results.

The choice of an Yukawa type of potential allows us to interpolate between the pure Coulomb ($`\alpha =0`$) and short range interactions. Besides, the calculation of the Hamiltonian matrix elements can be reduced to one-dimensional integrals, which can be calculated numerically. This allows us to compute the energy spectrum for the four rotational symmetry classes as a function of the interaction strength $`V_0`$ and range $`1/\alpha `$ for both singlet and triplet states. We also consider these results as a function of a constant magnetic field of strength $`B`$ applied perpendicular to the square. We compute the magnetic susceptibility at finite values of the magnetic field and temperature via the partition function.

Our main results can be summarized as follows: (1) $`V_0`$ introduces avoided crossings between the energy levels within each symmetry class, one of the signatures of quantum chaos; (2) $`\alpha `$ has a very important role in determining the probability profile of the ground state, suppressing in some cases the Wigner molecule type of behavior even for strong interactions; (3) The effect of the interaction on the magnetic susceptibility $`\chi (B)`$ depends on $`\alpha `$. In particular, for large magnetic fields, singlet-triplet oscillations of the ground state level lead to paramagnetic fluctuations on the two-electron susceptibility $`\chi (B)`$, in contrast to the non-interacting diamagnetic susceptibility. The position and intensity of these peaks change with the range of the interaction.; (4) The contribution to the susceptibility induced by interaction at zero magnetic field shows paramagnetic and diamagnetic phases as a function of the temperature. This type of behavior has also been found for weak Dirac delta interactions harold .

This paper is organized as follows: in section II we describe the system in detail. We discuss its symmetry properties and compute the matrix elements of the Hamiltonian. In section III we present numerical results for the energy spectrum and for ground-state electronic density as a function of the strength and range of the interaction. In section IV we consider the magnetic properties of the system and in section V we discuss our results.

## II Hamiltonian and Matrix Elements

We consider a system where two electrons are confined in a square-shaped two dimensional billiard of size $`L`$ interacting via an Yukawa type of potential and subjected to a uniform and constant magnetic field of strength $`B`$ applied perpendicular to the dot. The Hamiltonian is given by

$`H=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m^{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1,2}{}}(p_{xi}+eBy_i/2)^2+(p_{yi}eBx_i/2)^2)`$ (1)
$`+V_{walls}+V_0{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\alpha |\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|}}{|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|}}`$
where $`m^{}`$ is the quasiparticle electron mass and $`V_{walls}`$ is the square well potential. The eigenfunctions of a single particle in this square dot with zero magnetic field are given by a normalized product of sine functions:

$$\phi _{mn}(x,y)=\left(\frac{2}{L}\right)\mathrm{sin}\frac{m\pi }{L}x\mathrm{sin}\frac{n\pi }{L}y$$
(2)
and the eigenenergies are simply

$$E_{mn}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}L^2}\pi ^2(m^2+n^2)$$
(3)
The square billiard is a highly symmetric system. It is invariant under the action of 8 symmetry operations (4 rotations plus 4 reflections) which form the $`𝒞_{4v}`$ symmetry group. When the time-reversal symmetry is broken (e.g. by the application of a magnetic field), the Hamiltonian is no longer invariant under reflections. The group then reduces to $`𝒞_4`$, formed by the four rotations generated by $`\widehat{C}_4`$ (rotation by $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ ). The symmetric eigenfunctions can be written as a linear combination of a particular eigenfunction and its symmetry-related counterparts:

$$\psi (x,y)=\phi (x,y)+\widehat{C_4}\phi (x,y)+\widehat{C_4^2}\phi (x,y)+\widehat{C_4^3}\phi (x,y).$$
(4)
Rotating $`\psi `$ leads to $`\widehat{C_4}\psi =e^{i\theta }\psi `$ with $`(e^{i\theta })^4=1`$. This, in turn, leads to four solutions for $`e^{i\theta }`$, namely $`+1,1,+i`$ and $`i`$. We can thus separate the general eigenfunctions (2) in four “classes” (or representations) using the group’s character table hammermesh , as follows:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \psi _{mn}^{(+1)}(x,y)& =& \{\begin{array}{ccc}\phi _{mn}(x,y)\hfill & & \text{if }n=m\text{ (both odd)}\hfill \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\phi _{mn}(x,y)(\pm )\phi _{nm}(x,y)\right)}\\ & & \text{if }nm\text{ and both odd (even)}\hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ \hfill \psi _{mn}^{(1)}(x,y)& =& \{\begin{array}{ccc}\phi _{mn}(x,y)\hfill & & \text{if }n=m\text{ (both even)}\hfill \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\phi _{mn}(x,y)()\phi _{nm}(x,y)\right)}\\ & & \text{if }nm\text{ and both odd (even)}\hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ \hfill \psi _{mn}^{(+i)}(x,y)& =& \{\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\phi _{mn}(x,y)\hfill & \pm \hfill & i\phi _{nm}(x,y))\hfill \\ & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\text{if }m\text{ even (odd) }n\text{ odd (even)}}\end{array}\hfill \\ \hfill \psi _{mn}^{(i)}(x,y)& =& \{\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\phi _{mn}(x,y)\hfill & \hfill & i\phi _{nm}(x,y))\hfill \\ & \multicolumn{2}{c}{\text{if }m\text{ even (odd) }n\text{ odd (even)}}\end{array}\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
This equation can be written in a more compact form as

$$\psi _l^{(C)}=F_l^{(C)}\left(\phi _l+S_l^{(C)}\phi _{\overline{l}}\right)$$
(6)
where $`l(m,n)`$ and $`\overline{l}(n,m)`$. $`F_l^{(C)}`$ is either $`1`$ or $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$ and $`S_l^{(C)}`$ is $`0`$, $`\pm 1`$ or $`\pm i`$, depending on the symmetry class $`(C)`$ and on $`l`$ (whether $`(m,n)`$ is odd/even and whether $`m=n`$ or $`mn`$).

Finally the two-particle orbital eigenfunctions are symmetrized $`(S)`$ or anti-symmetrized $`(A)`$ combinations of one-particle orbital eigenfunctions:

$`\psi _{l_1l_2}^{(S,A),(C_1C_2)}(\stackrel{}{r_1},\stackrel{}{r_2})=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\psi _{l_1}^{(C_1)}(\stackrel{}{r_1})\psi _{l_2}^{(C_2)}(\stackrel{}{r_2})\pm \psi _{l_1}^{(C_1)}(\stackrel{}{r_2})\psi _{l_2}^{(C_2)}(\stackrel{}{r_1})\right)`$
The orbital eigenfunction is symmetrized if the electrons are in the singlet spin state and anti-symmetrized if they are in the triplet spin state.

The symmetry group of the two-particle system is $`𝒞_4𝒞_4`$ and the eigenfunctions still separate in four symmetry classes. The two-particle ($`2p`$) class is defined by the total phase gained under the action of an element of the $`𝒞_4𝒞_4`$ group ($`E\widehat{C}_4`$, $`\widehat{C}_4\widehat{C}_4`$ and so on). This phase is simply the product of the one-particle ($`1p`$) phases in the representation shown in (5). The $`2p`$ class is thus obtained in a simple manner by “multiplying” the $`1p`$ classes. For instance, two $`1p`$ states of class $`(1)`$ form a $`2p`$ state of class $`(+1)`$ \[pictorically, $`(+1)`$ ”=” $`(1)(1)`$\]. The same happens with a $`1p`$ state of class $`(+i)`$ combined with other from class $`(i)`$. On the other hand, two $`1p`$ $`(+i)`$ states form a $`(1)`$ $`2p`$ state and so on.

### II.1  The screened Coulomb interaction

For the electron-electron interaction we have used an “Yukawa type” short-range screened Coulomb potential

$$V(\stackrel{}{r_1},\stackrel{}{r_2})=\frac{e^2}{4\pi ϵ_0ϵ_r}\frac{e^{\alpha |\stackrel{}{r_1}\stackrel{}{r_2}|}}{|\stackrel{}{r_1}\stackrel{}{r_2}|}$$
(8)
where $`1/\alpha `$ is the interaction range and $`ϵ_r`$ is the dielectric constant of the two-dimensional electron gas (in case of a GaAs 2DEG, $`ϵ_r=10.9`$). The reason for this particular choice of screening is two-fold. First it interpolates between the pure Coulomb case and localized interactions. Also it gives an effective “interaction length” ($`\alpha ^1`$) which is easy to control. Second, the $`1/r`$ dependence is maintained with the screening appearing as an exponential (as opposed to a power of $`1/r`$). This facilitates enormously the calculation of the matrix elements, as we show in the appendix. The range $`\alpha `$ will be considered here as a free parameter.

The Hamiltonian for the two electrons without the magnetic field is given by

$$\widehat{H}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}\left(\frac{1}{2m_i^{}}\stackrel{}{p_i}^2\right)+V(\stackrel{}{r_1},\stackrel{}{r_2}).$$
(9)
Since the kinetic energy (3) scales with $`1/L^2`$ and the interaction scales with $`1/L`$, the electron-electron interaction term dominates over the kinetic term for large $`L`$. Thus, we define an “effective potential strength” $`V_0`$ that grows linearly with the dot size $`L`$:

$$V_0L\frac{e^2}{4\pi ϵ_0ϵ_r}\left(\frac{2m^{}}{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2}\right)$$
(10)
so that we can write the matrix elements of $`\widehat{H}`$ in the non-interacting basis in units of $`(\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2)/(2m^{}L^2)`$:

$$<\psi _{l_1l_2}^{\left(C\right)}\left|\widehat{H}\right|\psi _{l_1l_2}^{\left(C\right)}>=\frac{\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}L^2}\left\{\overline{E}_{l_1l_2}+V_0<\psi _{l_1l_2}^{\left(C\right)}\left|\widehat{V}\left(r/L\right)\right|\psi _{l_1l_2}^{\left(C\right)}>\right\}$$
(11)
where $`\overline{E}_{l_1l_2}=(m_1^2+n_1^2+m_2^2+n_2^2)`$ is the kinetic energy in units of $`(\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2)/(2m^{}L^2)`$. This defines another free parameter, $`V_0`$ (or, equivalently, $`L`$) that controls the relative interaction strength.

The next step is to calculate the matrix elements of the potential in the two-particle eigenfunction basis defined by Eq.(LABEL:psi2p). The repulsive potential does not break the $`𝒞_4𝒞_4`$ rotational symmetry of the Hamiltonian, since it depends only on the distance between the electrons. Therefore, the interaction matrix is block-diagonal in this representation, i.e. the matrix elements

$$V_{l_1l_2l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}}=\psi _{l_1l_2}^{S,A,(\text{Class})}|\widehat{V}|\psi _{l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}}^{S,A,(\text{Class})}$$
(12)
are non-zero only inside the same symmetry block. For totally symmetric (antisymmetric) eigenfunctions $`V_{l_1l_2l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}}`$ breaks into a sum (difference) of the a direct and an exchange term. The general expression for the $`\widehat{V}`$ matriz elements is given in terms of the general one-particle states Eq.(6) as

$$\begin{array}{c}\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill <\psi _1^A\psi _2^B|\widehat{V}|\psi _1^{^{}}^C\psi _2^{^{}}^D>& =& F_1^{(A)}F_2^{(B)}F_3^{(C)}F_4^{(D)}\times \hfill \end{array}\hfill \\ \begin{array}{c}((1+S_1^{(A)}S_2^{(B)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)})<l_1l_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}>+(S_1^{(A)}S_2^{(B)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}+S_2^{^{}}^{(D)})<l_1l_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}\overline{l}_2^{^{}}>\hfill \\ +(S_1^{(A)}S_2^{(B)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)}+S_1^{^{}}^{(C)})<l_1l_2|\widehat{V}|\overline{l}_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}>+(S_1^{(A)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)}+S_2^{(B)})<l_1\overline{l}_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}>\hfill \\ +(S_2^{(B)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)}+S_1^{(A)})<\overline{l}_1l_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}>+(S_1^{(A)}S_2^{(B)}+S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)})<l_1l_2|\widehat{V}|\overline{l}_1^{^{}}\overline{l}_2^{^{}}>\hfill \\ +(S_1^{(A)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}+S_2^{(B)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)})<l_1\overline{l}_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}\overline{l}_2^{^{}}>+(S_2^{(B)}S_1^{^{}}^{(C)}+S_1^{(A)}S_2^{^{}}^{(D)})<\overline{l}_1l_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}\overline{l}_2^{^{}}>).\hfill \end{array}\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
The terms $`<l_1l_2|\widehat{V}|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}>`$ can be written explicitly with help of Eq.(2) as

$$l_1l_2\left|\widehat{V}\right|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}=\frac{16}{L^4}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi m_1x_1}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi n_1y_1}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi m_2x_2}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi n_2y_2}{L}V\left(\left|\stackrel{}{r_2}\stackrel{}{r_1}\right|\right)\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi m_1^{^{}}x_1}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi n_1^{^{}}y_1}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi m_2^{^{}}x_2}{L}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi n_2^{^{}}y_2}{L}d^2\stackrel{}{r_1}d^2\stackrel{}{r_2}$$
(14)
Eq.(13) can be further simplified using the property $`l_1l_2\left|\widehat{V}\right|l_1^{^{}}l_2^{^{}}=\overline{l}_1\overline{l}_2\left|\widehat{V}\right|\overline{l}_1^{^{}}\overline{l}_2^{^{}}`$. The integrals in Eq.(14) can be evaluated by switching to relative polar $`(r,\theta )`$ and center-of-mass coordinates. Thanks to the exponential form of the screening, three of the four integrals in (14) can be done analytically. The remaining integral, over the relative polar angle $`\theta `$, is performed numerically. Most of the direct and exchange elements involve less than 16 integrals. The number is actually $`\frac{16}{2^N}`$ where $`N`$ is the number of one-particle states with $`m=n`$ involved in either one of the two-particle functions. All these facts reduce the number of numerical integrals to be evaluated. The details of this calculation are on Appendix A.

### II.2  The magnetic field

For $`B0`$, there are additional terms in the kinetic matrix element of (1) proportional to $`B`$ and $`B^2`$. These terms lead to integrals combining sine and cosine functions and powers of $`x`$ and $`y`$, which can all be done analytically.

The terms linear in $`B`$ (involving $`\widehat{p}_y`$ and $`\widehat{p}_y`$) contribute imaginary parts to the matrix elements, breaking the degeneracy of the $`(+i)`$ and $`(i)`$ symmetry classes. This is a consequence of the time-reversal symmetry breaking.

## III Effects of interaction: strength and range

In this section, we show the numerical results obtained with the exact diagonalization of the two-particle interacting Hamiltonian without the magnetic field. We discuss the effects of the two independent parameters of our model: the strength $`V_0`$ and the range $`\alpha `$. To change the intensity of the interaction relative to the kinetic energy we need to change $`L`$ (see Eq.(10)). However, changing $`L`$ changes the energy levels even if $`V_0=0`$. Therefore, in order to focus on the changes induced only by the potential, we shall measure the energy in units of $`\frac{\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2}{2m^{}L^2}`$ throughout this section. In these units, the non-interacting eigen-energies are independent of $`L`$; the ground state energy, in particular, is equal to 4.

### III.1 Energy levels

We first consider the effects of the interaction strength $`V_0`$. To increase $`V_0`$ relative to the kinetic energy we need to increase $`L`$. That, however, decreases the effective range of the interaction. To keep the ratio between range and size of the dot fixed, and concentrate on the effects of the potential strength, we shall keep the relative range $`1/(\alpha L)`$ fixed as $`L`$ (or $`V_0`$) is changed. When $`1/(\alpha L)>1`$, the electrons “feel” the presence of each other all over the dot. For $`1/(\alpha L)<1`$, the interaction is more localized and the interaction range reduced.

Figure 1 shows the two-particle energy levels as a function of the interaction strength for different values of $`\alpha L`$. All energy levels are shown, for the four symmetry classes of both singlet and triplet configurations. The first panel shows the Coulomb case, $`\alpha =0`$. The interaction induces singlet-triplet gaps creffield2  and removes several degeneracies in the energy levels. It also promotes level repulsion (“avoided crossings”) within each symmetry class. These are typical of systems with GOE-type level spacing distribution. Although the number of levels does not allow for a precise statistical analysis of the spectrum, the level-spacing histograms (not shown) display a distinctive difference between the non-interacting (Poisson-like) and the interacting (GOE-like) cases. As the relative range decreases ($`\alpha L`$ increases) the levels become less sensitive to $`V_0`$ and the avoided crossings narrow.

### III.2 Ground-state properties

Recent works have investigated the formation of “Wigner molecule” type of ground states in polygonal quantum-dots in the low density limit creffield1 ; grigorenko ; akbar . In this limit, the Coulomb interaction between the electrons dominates over the kinetic energy (the so called “large $`r_s`$” limit) and the ground state electron density shows pronounced peaks near the corners of the polygonal boundary creffield1 .

We have addressed the question of whether the finite-range character of the repulsive potential would change such configuration. The low-density limit can be approached by making $`V_0\mathrm{}`$. However, as discussed above, as the dot size $`L`$ increases, the interaction strength increases but the effective interaction range $`\alpha ^1`$ decreases. Figure 2 shows that, depending on the value of $`\alpha ^1`$, the Wigner molecule state can be suppressed, even for large dots. This figure shows the ground-state electronic density

$$\rho (\stackrel{}{r_1})=|\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\stackrel{}{r_1},\stackrel{}{r_2})|^2𝑑\stackrel{}{r_2}$$
(15)
for $`L=10`$, $`100`$ and $`1000`$ $`nm`$ and $`\alpha ^1=10`$, $`100`$ and $`1000`$ $`nm`$. Each column represents dots with the same width $`L`$ but with different values of $`\alpha `$. Each line has the same value of $`\alpha `$ but different sizes. The product $`\alpha L`$ is constant along the diagonal. Even for the largest dot, with $`1000nm`$, the Wigner molecule state is completely suppressed for $`\alpha L<10`$ (first two plots on the last column). Only when $`\alpha L=1`$ (last plot on the last column) does the electron density show pronunced peaks near the corners.

Figure 3 shows two examples of states with peaks near the corners in the strong interaction limit. We see that, although the electronic density of the two states looks similar, the spatial correlations are very different, reflecting the fact that one of them is a singlet and the other a triplet. Fixing $`𝐫_1`$ at the center of one of the peaks, $`\overline{𝐫}_1=(0.2,0.2)`$, the probability density $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}=\overline{𝐫}_1,𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐})|^2`$ shows two peaks along the diagonal for the singlet state and only one peak on the opposite corner for the triplet state, since $`\psi =0`$ for $`𝐫_1=𝐫_2`$ in this case. The two-particle configuration is shown schematically for both cases.

## IV Effects of the interaction in the magnetic properties

### IV.1 Energy levels

Figure 4 shows the first energy levels as a function of the magnetic field for $`L=200`$ nm and different values of $`\alpha `$. The first plot shows the non-interacting case ($`V_0=0`$), where the singlet and triplet two-particle levels are degenerate. Notice that the symmetry classes $`(+i)`$ and $`(i)`$ are no longer degenerate for $`B0`$. Also, when the electronic interaction is switched on (Figs.4(b) and (c)), the singlet-triplet degeneracy is broken. The combination of these two effects leads to singlet-triplet crossings in the ground state for magnetic fields of the order of a few Tesla. This kind of oscillation has been studied previously both theoretically (for the Coulomb case) wagner ; peeters ; ugajin ; creffield2  and experimentally ashoori ; ashoori2 .

The role of the potential range $`\alpha `$ can also be seen from these figures. In Fig.4(b), where the range is only one tenth of the dot size, the splitting between the $`(+i)`$ and $`(i)`$ classes is still very clear, but the scale of the energy levels is much closer to the non-interacting case. Also, and more importantly, there is only one singlet-triplet crossing in the ground state, as opposed to the three crossings of the Coulomb case. For smaller values of $`\alpha ^1`$ these crossings are completely suppressed.

### IV.2 Partition function and susceptibility

In this subsection we consider the orbital magnetization and magnetic susceptibility of the interacting two-electron system. The partition function $`Z(B,T)=\mathrm{𝑇𝑟}\{e^{\beta \widehat{H}(B)}\}`$ ($`\beta 1/k_BT`$) can be computed from the energy levels. The magnetization $`m(B)`$ and the magnetic susceptibility $`\chi (B)=m(B)/B`$ can be calculated from

$$m(B)=\frac{1}{A}\frac{F}{B}=\frac{1}{\beta A}\frac{\mathrm{log}Z(B,T)}{B},$$
(16)
where $`F`$ is the Helmholtz free energy and $`A=L^2`$.

Figure 5 shows the magnetization $`m(B,T)`$, the susceptibility $`\chi (B,T)`$ and the interaction-induced susceptibility $`\chi ^{int}=\chi \chi ^{(0)}`$ as a function of $`B`$ for $`\alpha =0`$ (Coulomb potential) and $`\alpha ^1=L/10`$ (short-range interaction). $`\chi ^{(0)}`$ is the susceptibility of the non-interacting system. Both $`\chi (B,T)`$ and $`\chi ^{int}(B,T)`$ are expressed in units of the Landau susceptibility $`|\chi _L|=e^2/12\pi m^{}c^2`$ and the temperature is expressed in units of the mean level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

On the average, $`\chi (B,T)`$ is diamagnetic, as in the non-interacting case (see $`\chi ^{(0)}`$ on the inset). However, the exchange-induced singlet-triplet crossings of the ground state level contributes paramagnetic fluctuations of order of $`3\chi _L`$ at low temperatures. As discussed in the previous subsection, these crossings tend to disappear for short range interactions. For $`\alpha L=10`$ only one crossing survives.

For very low temperatures, only the ground state contributes significantly to the partition function and $`FE_0`$. In the region close to the crossing, $`E_0/B`$ is discontinuous with a negative curvature, which explains the paramagnetic peak in $`\chi (B)`$. For higher temperatures, the “anti-crossing” (positive curvature) of the first excited state tends to compensate the ground state crossing and the fluctuations are attenuated.

Figure 6 shows the behavior of the interaction-induced susceptibility at zero magnetic field $`\chi ^{int}(B=0,T)`$ for the Coulomb the and short-range ($`\alpha ^1=L/10`$) potentials and different values of the strength parameter $`V_0`$. The results show paramagnetic and diamagnetic phases as a $`T`$ increases, with a diamagnetic minimum at $`T2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. For low values of $`V_0`$ the susceptibility is again paramagnetic for high $`T`$. This type of behavior has been observed before for weak contact (Dirac delta) type of interactions harold . Our results show that the existence of paramagnetic and diamagnetic phases in $`\chi ^{int}(B=0,T)`$ might be more general, and not so sensitive to the type of interaction.

## V Discussion

This work was motivated in part by the experimental results of Levy et al levy , who measured the magnetic properties of an ensemble of square dots containing a few thousands electrons each in the balistic regime. Our objective in this paper was to understand the effects of the residual electronic interaction in the simplest possible case, i.e., that of only two electrons. We simulated the shielding of the bare Coulomb force by using an exponential type of cut-off, like that of the Yukawa potential. The range of the interaction, $`\alpha `$, was considered as a free parameter. The size of the dot, which controls the relative strength of the potential, $`V_0,`$ with respect to the kinetic energy, acts as a second parameter. Our results show that both $`V_0`$ and $`\alpha `$ are important to determine the properties of the energy spectrum and of the probability profile of the ground state. We showed, in particular, that short range interactions may suppress the appearance of Wigner molecule type of states even for strong interactions ($`V_0`$ large). The range of the interaction also affects the magnetic susceptibility of the system. Short range interactions might inhibit singlet-triplet oscillations of the ground state, suppressing the paramagnetic fluctuations of $`\chi (B)`$. Finally we have shown that the part of the susceptibility induced by the interaction presents paramagnetic and diamagnetic phases as a function of the temperature, in agreement with the results obtained by a pure Dirac delta interaction harold .

It is difficult speculate at this point if our results point to an explanation of the slow decay of the susceptibility with the temperature, as observed experimentally by Levy et al. In a system with many electrons, the ground state energy oscillates as a function of $`B`$ even without electronic interaction. This type of oscillation is only due to the boundary, and is responsible for the paramagnetic susceptibility of the gas. Our results indicate that, besides this “boundary-induced” effects, the electronic interaction is responsible for further oscillations, this time between singlet and triplet states. These “interaction-induced” oscillations also contribute to the susceptibility. In the present case of two electrons this contribution turns out to be larger than that of the non-interacting case. Besides, the curves in Fig. 6 show that $`\chi ^{int}(B=0,T)`$ is sensitive to both $`V_0`$ and $`\alpha `$. The peak of $`\chi ^{int}(B=0,T)`$ at $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$ leads to a slightly slower decay of the overall susceptibility. Although this result might be peculiar of few-particle systems, there are similarities between our findings and those obtained from semiclassical analysis and RPA perturbation theory in the high-density limit harold , such as the diamagnetic minima in $`\chi ^{int}(B=0,T)`$. This might indicate that the interaction indeed plays an important role in behavior of the susceptibility with the temperature, although calculations with more electrons should be conducted to confirm this conjecture.

Acknowledgements

This paper was partly supported by FAPESP, CNPq and Finep. LGGVDS would like to thank Prof. Harold U. Baranger for his contributions and support to the development of this work and acknowledges the hospitality of the Department of Physics at Duke University. We also would like to thank Dennis Ullmo, Gonzalo Usaj and Charles Creffield for helpful discussions and suggestions.

## Appendix A Calculation of the integrals

In order to calculate the matrix element (14) we first notice that the integrand can be decoupled using relative and center-of-mass coordinates. Since the masses are equal (we set $`m_1=m_21`$ for simplicity), we have $`\stackrel{}{r}=\stackrel{}{r_2}\stackrel{}{r_1}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{R}=(\stackrel{}{R_2}+\stackrel{}{R_1})/2`$. When the sine functions are written as a sum of complex exponentials

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{sin}2m\pi x_i& =& _{ϵ_i=1}^1\frac{ϵ_ie^{ϵ_iiM_ix_i}}{2i}\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{sin}2n\pi y_i& =& _{\eta _i=1}^1\frac{\eta _ie^{\eta _iiN_iy_i}}{2i},\hfill \end{array}$$

the integrand in Eq.(14) becomes

$`{\displaystyle \underset{ϵ_i\eta _i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(ϵ_1\mathrm{}ϵ_2^{^{}})(\eta _1\mathrm{}\eta _2^{^{}})}{256}}\times `$
$`\left(e^{i(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)X}e^{i(\beta _1+\beta _2)Y}e^{i(\alpha _2\alpha _1)\frac{x}{2}}e^{i(\beta _2\beta _1)\frac{y}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\alpha r}}{r}}\right)`$
where

$$\begin{array}{c}\alpha _1=\frac{\pi m_1}{L}ϵ_1+\frac{\pi m_1^{^{}}}{L}ϵ_1^{^{}},\alpha _2=\frac{\pi m_2}{L}ϵ_2+\frac{\pi m_2^{^{}}}{L}ϵ_2^{^{}}\hfill \\ \beta _1=\frac{\pi n_1}{L}\eta _1+\frac{\pi n_1^{^{}}}{L}\eta _1^{^{}},\beta _2=\frac{\pi n_2}{L}\eta _1+\frac{\pi n_2^{^{}}}{L}\eta _2^{^{}}\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
The integrals on the Center-of-Mass coordinates can then be readly evaluated, at the cost of working on the complex plane. However, one should note that the limits of integration of $`(x,y)`$ and $`(X,Y)`$ are not independent. In the rest of this development, we will take $`L1`$ for the sake of simplicity. This is equivalent to perform the calculations on a adimensional variable $`\frac{r}{L}`$. In order to consider specific sizes for the dot, one has to include an additional factor of $`L`$ multiplying the whole integral and scale $`\alpha `$ accordingly.

The change of variables $`(x_1,y_1,x_2,y_2)(x,y,X,Y)`$ leads us to four different sets of integration limits (the quadrants on the $`(x,y)`$ plane). Next, we show the calculation of the integral on the first quadrant $`(I_1)`$. The calculation on the other quadrants ($`I_2,I_3,I_4`$) is analogous. The total integral is then $`I=I_1+I_2+I_3+I_4`$. On the first quadrant we have

$`I_1={\displaystyle \underset{ϵ_i\eta _i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(ϵ_1\mathrm{}ϵ_2^{^{}})(\eta _1\mathrm{}\eta _2^{^{}})}{256}}\times `$
$`\left({\displaystyle 𝑑A_1e^{i(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)X}e^{i(\beta _1+\beta _2)Y}e^{i(\alpha _2\alpha _1)\frac{x}{2}}e^{i(\beta _2\beta _1)\frac{y}{2}}\frac{e^{\alpha \sqrt{x^2+y^2}}}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}}\right)`$
where

$$𝑑A_1=_0^1𝑑x_0^1𝑑y_{\frac{x}{2}}^{1\frac{x}{2}}𝑑X_{\frac{y}{2}}^{1\frac{y}{2}}𝑑Y.$$
(20)
After doing the integrals on the center-of-mass coordinates we are left with

$$I_1=\underset{ϵ_i\eta _i}{}\frac{\left(ϵ_1\mathrm{}ϵ_2^{^{}}\right)\left(\eta _1\mathrm{}\eta _2^{^{}}\right)}{256}\left\{_0^1_0^1f(x,y)\frac{e^{\alpha \sqrt{x^2+y^2}}}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}𝑑x𝑑y\right\}$$
(21)
where the exact format of $`f(x,y)`$ depends on whether we have $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)`$ or $`(\beta _1+\beta _2)`$ equal to zero or not. We are going to write it down explicitly in a moment.

A transformation to relative polar coordinates yields:

$$I_1=\underset{ϵ_i\eta _i}{}\frac{\left(ϵ_1\mathrm{}ϵ_2^{^{}}\right)\left(\eta _1\mathrm{}\eta _2^{^{}}\right)}{256}\left\{_0^{\frac{\pi }{2}}_0^{r_1\left(\theta \right)}f(r,\theta )e^{\alpha r}𝑑r𝑑\theta \right\}$$
(22)
where $`r_1(\theta )=1/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ for $`0<\theta <\frac{\pi }{4}`$ and $`r_1(\theta )=1/\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ for $`\frac{\pi }{4}<\theta <\frac{\pi }{2}`$. The integral over $`r`$ can be done analytically and we are left with a set of integrals over $`\theta `$:

$$I_1=\underset{ϵ_i\eta _i}{}\frac{(ϵ_1\mathrm{}ϵ_2^{^{}})(\eta _1\mathrm{}\eta _2^{^{}})}{256}\left\{_0^{\frac{\pi }{2}}F(\theta )𝑑\theta \right\}$$
(23)
As one can see from eq. (LABEL:Ik), the explicit form of $`F(\theta )`$ depends whether $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)`$ and/or $`(\beta _1+\beta _2)`$ are equal to zero or not. We now present the specific form of $`F(\theta )`$ for all different possibilities.

### A.1 $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2),(\beta _1+\beta _2)0`$

$$F(\theta )=\frac{(1)}{(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)(\beta _1+\beta _2)}\left[\frac{e^{(\alpha _1+\alpha _2+\beta _1+\beta _2)}\left(e^{Z_ar_1}1\right)}{Z_a(\theta )}+\frac{\left(e^{Z_br_1}1\right)}{Z_b(\theta )}+\frac{e^{(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)}\left(1e^{Z_cr_1}\right)}{Z_c(\theta )}+\frac{e^{(\beta _1+\beta _2)}\left(1e^{Z_dr_1}\right)}{Z_d(\theta )}\right]$$
(24)
### A.2 $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)=(\beta _1+\beta _2)=0`$

$$F(\theta )=\frac{\left(e^{z_ar_1}1\right)}{z_a(\theta )}\frac{(\mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{sin}\theta )}{z_a^2(\theta )}\left[\left(e^{z_ar_1}(z_ar_11)+1\right)\right]+\frac{(\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sin}\theta )}{z_a^3(\theta )}\left[\left(e^{z_ar_1}(z_a^2r_1^22z_ar_1+2)2\right)\right]$$
(25)
### A.3 $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)=0`$ and $`(\beta _1+\beta _2)0`$

$$F(\theta )=e^{(\beta _1+\beta _2)}\frac{\left(e^{z_br_1}1\right)}{z_b(\theta )}\frac{\left(e^{z_cr_1}1\right)}{z_c(\theta )}\mathrm{cos}\theta \left[e^{(\beta _1+\beta _2)}\frac{\left(e^{z_br_1}(z_br_11)+1\right)}{z_b^2}\frac{\left(e^{z_cr_1}(z_cr_11)+1\right)}{z_c^2}\right]$$
(26)
### A.4 $`(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)0`$ and $`(\beta _1+\beta _2)=0`$

$$F(\theta )=e^{(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)}\frac{\left(e^{z_dr_1}1\right)}{z_d(\theta )}\frac{\left(e^{z_er_1}1\right)}{z_e(\theta )}\mathrm{sin}\theta \left[e^{(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)}\frac{\left(e^{z_dr_1}(z_dr_11)+1\right)}{z_d^2}\frac{\left(e^{z_er_1}(z_er_11)+1\right)}{z_e^2}\right]$$
(27)
where

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill Z_a(\theta )& =& \alpha i\left(\alpha _1\mathrm{cos}\theta +\beta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\hfill \\ \hfill Z_b(\theta )& =& \alpha +i\left(\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta +\beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\hfill \\ \hfill Z_c(\theta )& =& \alpha i\left(\alpha _1\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\hfill \\ \hfill Z_d(\theta )& =& \alpha +i\left(\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\hfill \\ & & \\ \hfill z_a(\theta )& & \alpha +i(\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta +\beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta )\hfill \\ \hfill z_b(\theta )& & \alpha +i(\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta \beta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta )\hfill \\ \hfill z_c(\theta )& & \alpha +i(\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta +\beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta )\hfill \\ \hfill z_d(\theta )& & \alpha +i(\beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta \alpha _1\mathrm{cos}\theta )\hfill \\ \hfill z_e(\theta )& & \alpha +i(\beta _2\mathrm{sin}\theta +\alpha _2\mathrm{cos}\theta )\hfill \end{array}$$

All non-trivial integrals over $`\theta `$ have been performed numerically.

Present address: Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Dept. Física, 13565-905 São Carlos, SP, Brazil. Email: gregorio@df.ufscar.br


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# Astro Particle Physics from Space

## 1  At the beginning it was Astro Particle

This figure shows the conference photo taken at the 1939 Chicago Symposium on Cosmic Rays. Among the partecipants we find a quite exceptional group of physicists: Kohloster, Bethe, Shapiro, Compton, Teller, Eckart, Gouldsmit, Anderson, Oppenheimer, Hess, Wilson, Rossi, Auger, Heisenberg, Weehler and

111Invited Talk at the ESO-CERN-ESA Symposium on Astronomy, Cosmology and Fundamental Physics, March 4-7 2002, Garching, Germany

many other which are the among the fathers of the modern physics, based on Quantum Mechanics, Elementary Particles and Fundamental Forces. Why Cosmic Rays, discovered by Hess nearly 30 years before were, still in 1939, such an interesting topics for these distinguished scientists?

The answer lies in Table 1. In the years preceding 1937 both the first antiparticle (the positron) and the first unstable elementary particles $`(\mu ^\pm )`$ were discovered in Cosmic Rays. Many more particles were to be discovered during the following years analyzing the Cosmic Radiation, making Cosmic Rays symposia very exciting until at least 1953, when experiments at accelerators started to systematically discover new elementary particles while Cosmic Rays experiments suddenly stopped finding them.

If Cosmic Rays have been instrumental to give birth to particle physics during the first half of the past century, starting from the fifties, however, accelerators have been the tools for the experimental triumph of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, including the discovery of the electro-weak bosons at CERN or of the heavy sixth quark at Fermilab.

During the last ten years, however, the rate of discoveries at accelerators seems significantly reduced, possibly because of the limited energy scale which can be tested at existing or future facilities. A growing number of physicists is then turning again to CR with new experimental techniques aiming to extend by orders of magnitude the sensitivities reached by past experiments.

In particular a number of space born experiments have been proposed to measure, with unrivalled accuracy, the composition of primary high energy CR, searching for new phenomena not accessible to present accelerators.

In this paper we will review these experiments and their physics potential.

The paper is organized in two parts. In the first part I will discuss the characteristics of the CR flux, the beam nature gives us, reviewing the status of our knowledge of their energy spectrum and composition. In the second part I will discuss some of the space born experiments planned in the next future which will contribute to the quest for answers to various unsolved questions in Astro Particle physics.

## 2 Understanding Nature’s Beam

The Universe communicate with us by sending to Earth a continuous flow of radiation of different kind. Here we are interested to the high energy part of the spectrum ($`E>O(GeV)`$). Cosmic Rays traditionally refer to the charged component of high the energy particles travelling through the galaxy (Figure 1): in order of abundance $`p80\%,^4He15\%,e^{}:O(1\%),e^+:O(0.1\%),\overline{p}:O(0.01\%)`$). In addition to $`p`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$, there is a composite hadronic component including all other nuclei and long lived isotopes, totalling about a few $`\%`$ of the total CR flux.

There are however two other forms of energetic radiation which are relevant for Astro Particle physics. The first is the high energy part of the electromagnetic spectrum, gamma rays above $`100MeV`$. Their flux is at the level of $`10^5`$ of the CR flux. Gamma rays have an important property that charged CR do not have, namely they travel along straight lines, undisturbed by the magnetic field and reproducing the images of their sources.

The second component are the neutrinos, which would also allow source imaging: at high energy the primary neutrino flux is much lower and steeper with increasing energy than for charged CR, with the exception of the secondary atmospheric component induced by high energy CR hitting the atmosphere. Around $`1GeV`$ the neutrino flux is of the order of the flux of high energy gamma rays, but because of their low cross section, $`\nu ^{}s`$ are much harder to detect.

If we are plan to use this energetic radiation to search for new particles or new effects, we must know the properties of Nature’s beam with the best possible accuracy. Which is our current level on the knowledge of the Cosmic Radiation and what we can expect in the coming future?

## 3 The charged CR component

### 3.1 Charged hadrons

Over the last 40 years the hadronic CR component has been measured systematically, using balloons (mostly), space born (sometimes), and ground based detectors. The most complete information is obtained by particle spectrometers, experiments able to measure directly the CR composition through the determination of the charge, the sign of the charge, the momentum and the velocity of each particle. Often, however, simpler apparatus were used, based on calorimeters, emulsion chambers or Cerenkov detectors: in these cases only partial information were obtained. Until recently the most sophisticated CR spectrometers were flown on balloons operating between 30 and 35 km of height (BESSBESS , MASSMASS , CAPRICECAPRICE , IMAXIMAX ) but in 1998 a large magnetic spectrometer, AMSAMSPR , has been operated in space, providing for the first time a very precise measurement on the composition of primary CR before their entrance in the atmosphere.

The flux of the main CR component, the protons, is known with $`510\%`$ accuracy up to $`200GeV`$, and with $`1030\%`$ accuracy up to $`100TeV`$ (Figure 2) stanev . Helium flux is known with $`10\%`$ accuracy up to $`10GeV`$ but above this energy the measurements are rather poor. Light $`Z>2`$ nuclei have been measured with about $`5\%`$ accuracy only up to $`35GeV`$. It would be important to extend the energy range for precise measurements of hadrons up to about $`10TeV`$ because they are the source of the atmospheric neutrinos used for the determination measurement of the neutrino mass in underground experiments.

For the study of CR composition, precise measurements of some stable isotopes like Deuterium, Boron and Carbon or long-lived isotopes like $`{}_{}{}^{9}Be`$ are particularly important to understand the propagation and trapping mechanisms of CR in our Galaxy. Accurate measurements of $`D`$ are available only up a few $`GV`$ of rigidity (Figure 3) while the knowledge of the cosmologically important ratio $`{}_{}{}^{9}Be/^{10}Be`$ is very poorly known above about hundred $`MV`$ of rigidity.

### 3.2 Antiprotons

Antiprotons are a rare but interesting hadronic component of high energy CR, because they could be produced by exotic sources like antimatter dominated regions or by the decay or annihilation of new particles. Their flux ratio to protons is at the level of $`O(10^4)`$ at kinetic energies around $`1GeV`$. This rate is in agreement with the expectation that $`\overline{p}`$ are produced in high energy CR interactions with the interstellar medium. However in more than 40 years of experiments with balloons, only a few thousands $`\overline{p}`$ have been measured, mostly with energies below $`10GeV`$ (Figure 4). Statistical errors are then quite large, in particular below $`1GeV`$ and above $`10GeV`$: also systematic errors due to uncertainties in the modelling of the propagation in the Interstellar Medium or of the solar modulation are still at the level of $`2030\%`$.

### 3.3 The charged leptons

Due to their lower flux ($`0.5\%`$ for $`e^{}`$ and $`0.05\%`$ for $`e^+`$ around $`1GeV`$) and their steeply falling spectrum, statistical uncertainties on the measurement of the spectra of the two stable leptons are larger; the experimental situation gets very confused above a few $`GeV`$ (Figure 5). Precision measurement of electrons and positrons are important since, being their fluxes quite low and with a strong charge asymmetry, contribution form exotic sources like supersymmetric particles annihilation could distort the $`e^+/e^{}`$ ratio at a level which could detectable by an high precision experimentdiehl .

### 3.4 Future experiments

During the next 5 years our knowledge of the flux and composition of CR will be greatly improved thanks to two space borne spectrometers, PAMELA on a Russian rocket in 2003-2006picozza  and AMS-02 on the International Space Station on 2006-2009battiston . These two experiments will increase the statistical samples of charged CR by a few to several orders of magnitude. AMS-02, in particular, thanks to its strong magnetic field and large geometrical factor, will be able to extend these measurements well in to the $`TeV`$ region, covering a region which is interesting for various physics topics and which today is very poorly known. For a discussion on the improvement expected from AMS-02 on the hadronic CR component see casaus . Space born experiments operating for three years or more are much more accurate that balloon flights lasting only about one day. Long duration balloons experiments lasting for 20 days or more, however, could be competitive, as it is shown in Table 2.

While at high energy the AMS-02 will be the most performing experiment, the Polar BESSsanuki  long duration flights, thanks to BESS large acceptance, will have a good sensitivity to the lower energy part of the CR spectrum and will perform a precise measurement of low energy $`\overline{p}`$. On the other side the space borne PAMELA spectrometer, in spite of its small aperture, is a timely experiment and will have a chance to perform high statistic CR measurements in the period between AMS-01 and AMS-02.

At energies around the knee ($`10^{15}eV=1PeV`$) and above, all measurements come nowadays from large area ground based arrays. At these energies the CR elemental composition can be determined only by modelling the interaction of CR with the atmosphere and it is affected by large uncertainties. To solve this problem a long duration, large acceptance, space borne experiment, ACCESS, has been consideredACCESS  either for deployment on the International Space Station or as a free flyer.

Ground based large area arrays have measured the CR spectrum (not the composition) up to Extreme Energies ($`10^{21}eV=1ZeV`$) and they are at the moment the only experiments able to measure these very rare events. At these energies the flux is so low that eventually it will becomes unpractical to extend the surface or the time of exposure of ground based experiments. The largest experiment of this kind, Augerauger , is being built right now. The next step will, however, to look to the fluorescence induced by the EECR showers from space, as proposed by EUSOscarsi , an experiment planned on the International Space Station and capable to collect 10-50 times more statistics than Auger or by KLYPVEkhrenov  planned on a Russian free flyer.

## 4 The neutral CR component

### 4.1 High energy gamma rays

High energy gamma rays are a rare ($`O(10^5)`$) component of the cosmic radiation which is not traditionally included in a CR review paper. However high energy gamma rays are produced by the same sources producing high energy CR and carry complementary information. They should then be considered when discussing Astro Particle physics, in particular since their study could give important contributions to the understanding the problem of the origin of dark matter. Their energy spectrum could, in fact, be influenced by exotic sources like neutralino annihilations taking place at the center of the galaxy. Most of the high energy gamma rays data have been collected by the EGRET experiment on the CGRO satellite during the $`90^{}s`$. Since the end of the CGRO program ($`19992000`$) there are no experiments measuring high energy gamma rays in space. During the present decade there will be three space borne experiments which will be able to measure high energy gamma rays: AGILEtavani  (2003) a small scientific mission of the Italian Space Agency, AMS-02 on the International Space Station (2006)battistongamma  and GLASTmorselli  (2007). These experiments will be able to cover the region up to $`300GeV`$ competing with ground base Cerenkov detectors which meanwhile will try to lower their threshold below $`50GeV`$.

### 4.2 High energy neutrinos

Neutrinos are a very important part of the Cosmic Radiation. Their spectrum (Figure 6) extend over several orders of magnitudes like for the charged CR component, but is rich of features coming from the various physical process at work.

Neutrinos have a two great advantages and one disadvantage with respect to charged CR:

Advantages:

* 1) they travel on straight lines so neutrino astronomy is a possibility;
* 2) they have a small interaction cross section so they are basically unaffected by the GZKGZK  cutoff and can reach us from the edges of the universe (see Figure 7).

Disadvantage:

* l) they have a small interaction cross section so their detection is problematic, requiring very large volumes of matter.

Many of the neutrinos spectral features have been measured ($`\nu `$ from the sun, from $`SN1987`$, from reactors, from the atmosphere), some may be on the verge of being seen as $`\nu `$’s of galactic originhalzen  while other are expected to exist but are still undetected (relic neutrinos, neutrinos from AGN’s). Some could be produced by exotic sources, like superheavy particles or topological defects. The interest of neutrinos is their capability to escape the GZK cutoff up to extreme energies: they are the only particle that can reach us from the edges of the universe, carrying information about the status of space, time and matter, before the recombination took place (Figure 7).

The main difficulty for neutrino detection is related to the mass required for their detection. The only way to access energies of the order of $`10^{14}eV`$ or above is to use the earth surface layers as targets, like the atmosphere, ice or water. In the case of the atmosphere the fluorescence light emitted by the developing shower could be detected from a space experiment able to monitor a sufficiently large area of our planet. This is the purpose or the EUSOscarsi  experiment on the International Space Station, expected to increase the sensitivity of the Auger array by more than an order of magnitude by the end of the decade.

## 5 Searching for new particles

In this section now briefly discuss the physics potential of the accurate study of the cosmic radiation. An area of clear interest for particle physics is obviously the search of new states of matter or for new particles.

### 5.1 Direct search for nuclear anti-matter

The disappearence of antimatter steigman ; kolb ; peebles  is one of the most intriguing puzzles in our current understanding of the structure of the Universe. Absence of nuclear antimatter from the scale of our galaxy to the scale of the local supercluster is experimentally established at the level of $`1`$ part in $`10^6`$ by direct CR searches and indirect methods like the study of the energy spectrum of the diffuse gamma ray flux. For a genuine antimatter signal one should look to nuclei heavier that $`\overline{p}`$ since secondary $`\overline{p}`$ can be easily produced at the level $`10^4`$ in high energy hadronic interaction of CR with the IM. This probability quickly vanishes with increasing atomic number. For $`\overline{D}`$ the secondary production is at the level of $`10^8`$ or less and already for $`\overline{{}_{}{}^{4}He}`$ it is well below $`10^{12}`$.

This is why the unambiguous observation of a couple of $`\overline{{}_{}{}^{4}He}`$ at the level of one part in a billion or more would have profound implications on our understanding of baryogenesis. During the last 35 years experiments on balloons have pushed the limit on the $`\overline{{}_{}{}^{4}He}`$ at the level of less than about one part in a million (Figure 8). Recently the AMS-01 spectrometer, during a 10 days precursor flight on the Shuttle, has reached the same level of sensitivity. In the coming years PAMELA, first, and AMS-02, later, will eventually reach a sensitivity a thousand time better, reaching rigidities of the order of a TV.

### 5.2 Direct search for strange states of matter

Strangeletswitten  are a stable state of nuclear matter containing a large fraction of strange quarks. Such states could have developed during the cosmological quark-hadron phase transition $`10^5s`$ after the Big Bang or in the high density conditions of compact supernova remnants, which might then be strange stars composed of quark matter rather than neutron stars. These stars could send to space fragments of stable strange nuclear matter during catastrophic events like collisions with other strange stars. These fragment would have variable mass but a peculiar charge to mass ratio. For instance in the case of color-flavor locked strangelets we obtain a charge to mass relation of the type $`Z=0.3A^{2/3}`$. These particles would look like high mass, low mass/charge ratio cosmic rays which could be easily identified in a space born magnetic spectrometer like AMS-02. Figure 9 shows the sensitivity to strangelets expected for AMS-02 after three years on the International Space Stationmadsen .

### 5.3 Indirect search for Dark Matter

The presence at all scales in our universe of a non luminous components of matter, Dark Matter (DM)ellis ; turner , is possibly the most fascinating problem in Astro Particle physics. A viable solution, if not the most viable solutionmasiero  to this problem, is given by the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP), the neutralino ($`\chi `$). Supersymmetry links the existing Standard Model particles to a set of new, heavier, super particles through $`R`$-parity conservation, where $`R`$ is a combination of the particle spin, lepton and baryon numbers, $`R=(1)^{3BL+2S}`$. The conservation of $`R`$-parity requires that the LSP is stable. LEP results suggests that the LSP is heavy ($`m_\chi >45GeV`$)ellisneutralino  and then these particles can be a good DM candidate in the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) scenario.

Unfortunately SUSY is a theory with many parameters still poorly constrained. The LSP (neutralino) can be expressed as superposition of the neutral gauge ($`g`$ and $`W`$) and $`Higgs`$ boson superpartners ($`H_{01},H_{02}`$):

$$\chi =N_{11}B+N_{12}W_3+N_{13}H_{01}+N_{14}H_{02}$$
(1)
The parameters of this superposition define the $`\chi `$ properties, like the mass, the annihilation cross section and branching ratios into detectable particles. These parameters can also be related to the $`\chi `$ cosmological density, which can be constrained in the interesting region $`0.1<\mathrm{\Omega }_{DM}<0.3`$, in agreement with the recent astrophysical resultsdebernardis .

$`\chi `$ annihilation would take place in the most dense regions of our galaxy, e.g. its center or in other existing DM clumps. These regions could be the source of prompt high energy CR without need of an acceleration mechanism. In order to detect these prompt CR we study rare CR components where the effects of the exotic $`\chi `$ contributions would be detectable against backgrounds due to the primary spectrum. Rare CR components like high energy $`\overline{p}`$ellis , $`e^+`$diehl , $`\overline{D}`$donato  and $`\gamma `$bergstrom  have been suggested as potential indirect signatures for cold $`DM`$.

In Figure 5 we give an example of spectral distortions induced by $`\chi `$ annihilations on the $`e^+/(e^++e^{})`$ ratio. Quite interesting is the case of $`\overline{D}`$ production, since it has been suggesteddonato  that a $`\overline{D}`$ signal at kinetic energies below $`1GeV`$ would be a strong indication for $`\chi `$ annihilation. In the case of high energy $`\gamma `$ rays the spectral deformation due to $`\chi `$ annihilation is expected to have a strong spatial dependence, mimicking the DM halo structure which might have more than one clumps in our galaxy. For a subset of SUSY models this flux of HE $`\gamma `$ rays could be detectable by space born experiments (Figure 10).

For many SUSY models the indirect search for $`\chi `$ in CR will be a difficult undertaking: SUSY predictions depends in fact from several parameters and the limited precision in the knowledge of CR composition and spectra will challenge the unambiguous detection of a $`\chi `$ signal. Before the advent of the LHC, however, the physics potential of SUSY searches in space is promisingwilczek ; ellisneutralino . In fact most of the cosmologically relevant SUSY parameter space can be explored by CR experiments. Capability to measure at the same time all type of charged and neutral particles which can be signature of $`\chi `$ annihilation would clearly be an experimental advantage: starting from 2006, the AMS-02 experiment on the ISS will be the only experiment able to precisely measure at the same time all kind of particles related to $`\chi `$ decay. Other experiment will also contribute to this search: PAMELA will contribute by precisely measure the $`\overline{p}`$ component, in particular at low energy, starting in 2003, while GLAST will perform the most precise measurement of the high energy $`\gamma `$ ray halo structure and spectra starting in 2007.

### 5.4 Indirect search for ultraheavy particles

The existence of a measurable flux of Extreme Energies Cosmic Rays above $`10^{19}eV`$, represents a big puzzle in modern Astro Particle physics. The behavior of the GKS cutoff versus energy and particle type shown in Figure 7 suggests that no particle except the $`\nu `$’s can travel for large distances at these energies. Above $`10^{19}eV`$ the volume of the region which can be traversed by hadronic EECR is then dramatically reduced.

One would then expect a steeper spectrum above the GZK cutoff. The experimental results suggest instead a smoother spectrum which would not be possible to explain using conventional physics. Although we are talking only about few dozen events collected by various experiments over several years, their existence challenge standard explanations. One possible scenario is based on EE $`\nu `$ emitted in the decay of extremely heavy particles present in the very early phases of the universe. These particle travel until they reach regions close to us where they do interact with ordinary IS matter and produce EECR which in turn reach our planet where they can be detected. During this decade the advent of space experiments like EUSOscarsi  and KLYPVEkhrenov  will improve by one or two orders of magnitude the sensitivity to EECR of the Auger experiment, hopefully clarifying the present situation.

## 6 Conclusion

One hundred years after their discovery Cosmic Rays have still an important potential for new physics. In order to exploit this potential new, more sensitive experiments are planned which can take advantage of the unique conditions of space for precision measurement of the primary CR flux. During the current decade these experiments might well deliver exciting surprises in Astro Particle physics, on issues like antimatter, dark matter or other exotic states of matter.

## 7 Acknowledgments

This work has been partially supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) under contract ARS-98/47.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The process of $`W`$-pair production in electron–positron colliders is very important for testing the Standard Model (SM) and searching for signals of possible “new physics”; see e.g. Refs. . One of the main goals when investigating this process at present and future $`e^+e^{}`$ experiments is to measure precisely the basic properties of the $`W`$ boson, such as its mass $`M_W`$ and width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$. This process also allows for a study of the triple and quartic gauge-boson couplings at the tree level, where small deviations from the subtle SM gauge cancellations can lead to significant effects on physical observables – these can be signals of “new physics”. On the other hand, the process $`W`$-pair production and decay constitutes a significant background to other processes, in particular to Higgs-boson production .

During the 1996–2000 LEP run, the four LEP2 experiments collected about 10,000 $`W`$-pair events each. This allows a test of the $`W`$-boson physics at the precision level of $`1\%`$ . The main $`WW`$ observables investigated at LEP2 are (1) the total $`WW`$ cross section $`\sigma _{WW}`$, (2) a distribution of the $`W`$ invariant mass, which is used to extract the $`W`$-boson mass $`M_W`$, and (3) a distribution of the $`W`$ production polar angle $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_W`$, which is the most sensitive observable to the triple-gauge-boson couplings (TGCs). The expected experimental accuracies of the final LEP2 data analyses for $`\sigma _{WW}`$, $`M_W`$ and the C- and P-conserving TGC $`\lambda =\lambda _\gamma =\lambda _Z`$ are given in Table 1. In this table we also present requirements for the theoretical precision of these quantities. For the theoretical errors ($`\delta _{th}`$) it is commonly required that they should be smaller than the experimental ones ($`\delta _{ex}`$) by a factor of at least $`2`$.
Table 1:

| Quantity | Final LEP2 $`\delta _{ex}`$ | Required $`\delta _{th}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`\sigma _{WW}`$ | $`1\%`$ | $`0.5\%`$ |
| $`M_W`$ | $`30`$MeV | $`15`$MeV |
| $`\lambda `$ | $`0.01`$ | $`0.005`$ |

The final LEP2 data analyses need theoretical predictions in terms of Monte Carlo event generator(s) (MCEG) that meet these precision requirements.

## 2 Theoretical description of $`W`$-pair production

The basic lowest-order process in which $`W`$ pairs were produced at LEP2 is:

$$e^++e^{}W^++W^{}f_1+\overline{f}_2+f_3+\overline{f}_4.$$
(1)
This can be described by three Feynman diagrams, called CC03: two annihilation diagrams with $`\gamma `$ and $`Z`$ in the $`s`$-channel (this is where the TGCs appear), and a conversion diagram with an electron neutrino in the $`t`$-channel (this contribution dominates at LEP2 energies). And here the first theoretical problem appears. Namely, these three diagrams alone are not gauge-invariant. In order to obtain a gauge-invariant scattering amplitude, one has to include a certain class of singly $`W`$-resonant diagrams. Therefore, the minimal gauge-invariant subset of Feynman diagrams containing $`W`$ pairs is the so-called CC11-class – for more details see e.g. . This leads in practice to the necessity of considering the full $`4f`$-process, i.e. $`e^+e^{}4f`$, which considerably complicates the theoretical description.

The next problem that appears in the theoretical description of this process is the inclusion of a finite $`W`$-boson width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$. This inclusion is necessary to avoid singularities in the scattering amplitude coming from $`W`$-boson propagators. Up to now there is no fully satisfactory approach to deal with this in the general $`4f`$-process. Some simple schemes, such as the “fixed-width scheme” and the “running-width scheme” are known to violate gauge invariance. The schemes that do not violate gauge invariance, such as the “fermion-loop scheme” or the “complex-mass scheme” possess other drawbacks, see e.g. . In practice one commonly uses the “fixed-width scheme”, for which gauge-violating effects are numerically negligible at LEP2 energies .

All the above problems increase dramatically when one goes to $`𝒪(\alpha `$) calculations. At the one-loop level, the number of Feynman diagrams increases to several thousands per $`4f`$-channel (final state)  and the inclusion of the finite $`W`$-boson width gets much more difficult.

One may ask the question: Do we need to go beyond the Born level? So let us briefly discuss the various radiative corrections and their effects on the main LEP2 $`WW`$ measurements.
Pure QED correction:
QED corrections can be divided into a few classes: (1) initial-state radiation (ISR), i.e. photon radiation from incoming beams; (2) Coulomb correction – electromagnetic interaction of slowly moving $`W^+W^{}`$; (3) final-state radiation (FSR), i.e. photon radiation in $`W`$ decays; and (4) non-factorizable (NF) corrections corresponding to interconnections of various stages of the process. They affect the $`WW`$ observables in different ways. The most sizeable numerical effects come from the ISR. For $`\sigma _{WW}`$ they amount to between about $`20\%`$ near the $`WW`$ threshold and about $`5\%`$ at $`E_{CM}=200`$GeV (they depend stronlgy on $`E_{CM}`$). $`M_W`$ is affected at $`10`$MeV, but this may be enhanced by experimental reconstruction effects (kinematic fits, etc.). The TGC $`\lambda `$ is shifted by the ISR by $`0.07`$. The Coulomb correction modifies mainly $`\sigma _{WW}`$ at the level of $`6\%`$ near the $`WW`$ threshold. The FSR influences considerably the $`M_W`$ measurement, at the level of $`10`$$`80`$MeV, which strongly depends on experimental acceptances . The NF corrections affect only $`M_W`$ at the $`1`$$`5`$MeV level, when treated inclusively  (which is a good approximation for LEP2 experimental acceptances).
Electroweak (EW) corrections:
The leading EW corrections connected with an effective scale of the $`W`$-pair production and decay process can be taken into account by using the so-called $`G_\mu `$ scheme. This corresponds to parametrizing the cross section by the Fermi constant $`G_\mu `$ instead of the fine-structure constant $`\alpha `$. Numerically, this changes the overall normalization, i.e. $`\sigma _{WW}`$ by $`15\%`$. Then the $`𝒪(\alpha `$) non-leading (NL) EW corrections amount to $`1`$$`2\%`$ for $`\sigma _{WW}`$ at LEP2 energies. They also affect the TGCs, e.g. $`\lambda `$ at the level of $`0.01`$$`0.02`$.
QCD corrections:
QCD corrections affect normalizations as well as events shapes of the hadronic $`WW`$ channels. They are usually accounted for by including the so-called naive QCD correction, i.e. the normalization factor $`\alpha _s(M_W^2)/\pi 3.8\%`$ for each final-state quark pair and $`2\alpha _s(M_W^2)/3\pi `$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W`$, in the parton-level calculation, while leaving the exclusive QCD effects to be modelled by dedicated MC packages, such as PYTHIA, etc.

All the above effects are necessary in a MCEG for $`W`$-pair production at LEP2. The most difficult are $`𝒪(\alpha `$) NL EW corrections. To date, there exist no complete one-loop calculations, even for the simplest CC11-type channels. Even if such calculations existed, they would probably be very complex and slow in numerical computation. Therefore they would not be useful for MC event generation. These are the reasons why some efficient approximations for the $`WW`$ process are necessary, at least for LEP2.

In the case of $`W`$-pair production, one is interested in the doubly $`W`$-resonant process. Therefore one can make use of another expansion parameter, which is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W2.5\%`$, and apply the so-called pole expansion, i.e. an expansion about the complex pole corresponding to an unstable $`W`$. This is the expansion in increasing powers of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W`$, which corresponds to decreasing powers of the resonance. Then, one usually applies the so-called leading-pole approximation (LPA) in which only the highest-pole (resonant) contributions are retained, i.e. terms $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W)^0`$. For the $`W`$-pair production process this means retaining only double-pole contributions, i.e. applying a double-pole approximation (DPA). In this context LPA means just DPA; however, LPA itself has a more general meaning. The resulting matrix element is gauge-invariant, and the imaginary part of the pole position corresponds to the finite $`W`$-boson width, see e.g. . In general, the LPA is however not sufficient at the Born level, because the error introduced by this approximation can be here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W`$, i.e. $`2.5\%`$. It may also not be sufficient for the leading corrections because of big-log enhancements, i.e. $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W)(\alpha /\pi )\mathrm{log}(Q^2/m^2)`$, where $`Q`$ is some large momentum transfer and $`m`$ is a small fermion mass. Here lower-pole terms might be necessary for the desired experimental precision. In practice, it is usually simpler to take the whole $`e^+e^{}4f`$, including the leading corrections. Then, for the genuine $`𝒪(\alpha `$) NL EW corrections the uncertainty introduced by the LPA is $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }_W/M_W)(\alpha /\pi )<10^4`$, therefore negligible for the LEP2 precision.

The above solutions have been implemented in two MC event generators: RacoonWW  and KoralW&YFSWW3 . These programs are briefly described in the next two sections.

## 3 The MC program RacoonWW

The main features of the program RacoonWW are:

* Matrix elements for all $`e^+e^{}4f`$ and $`e^+e^{}4f\gamma `$ processes in massless-fermion approximation.
* The ISR in the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2`$) leading-log (LL) approximation with soft-photon exponentiation through QED structure functions.
* Coulomb correction for off-shell $`W`$’s.
* The NF virtual corrections in the DPA.
* The virtual $`𝒪(\alpha `$) NL EW corrections in the DPA (for which one-loop calculations of on-shell $`WW`$ production and decay are used).
* Two QCD-inspired methods of treating soft and collinear photon singularities: dipole subtraction and phase-space slicing (to get a proper matching between virtual and real-photon corrections).
* Anomalous Triple and Quartic gauge-boson couplings.
* Multichannel MC algorithm for integration and event generation.

More details can be found in Refs. .

## 4 The MC programs KoralW and YFSWW3

KoralW and YFSWW3 are actually two independent MCEGs, with some specific and some common features, which are listed below.
KoralW specific features:

* The fully massive matrix element for all $`e^+e^{}4f`$ processes (generated by the GRACE System ).
* Two independent efficient multichannel MC algorithms for the full $`4f`$ phase space.

YFSWW3 specific features:

* Multiphoton radiation in the $`WW`$ production stage in the Yennie–Frautschi–Suura (YFS) exponentiation scheme.
* The $`𝒪(\alpha `$) NL EW corrections in the LPA (based on the $`𝒪(\alpha `$) calculations for on-shell $`WW`$ production of Refs. ).

Common features:

* The ISR in the YFS exponentiation scheme up to $`𝒪(\alpha ^3`$) LL with non-zero $`p_T`$ multi-photon radiation.
* Coulomb correction for off-shell $`W`$’s.
* Non-factorizable QED corrections in an inclusive approximation of the “screened-Coulomb” ansatz .
* Anomalous TGCs (three parametrizations).
* The FSR at $`𝒪(\alpha ^2`$) LL generated by PHOTOS  (with non-zero $`p_T`$ photons).
* $`\tau `$ decays done by TAUOLA , quark fragmentation and hadronization managed by JETSET .
* The semi-analytical program KorWan for the $`WW`$ process including leading corrections (for test, fits, etc.).

As can be seen from the above description, KoralW is devoted to the full $`e^+e^{}4f`$ process and it includes the leading corrections, i.e. all except $`𝒪(\alpha `$) NL. YFSWW3, on the other hand, is dedicated to a precision description of the signal $`WW`$ process, i.e. it includes all numerically important radiative corrections to this process treated in the LPA, but does not include the $`4f`$-background contributions. However, thanks to the common features of the two programs, it is easy to correct the predictions of one of them, so that the final results include all the necessary contributions. In fact, the two programs implement special reweighting routines for this purpose. Moreover, we managed to combine the results of the two programs in a real-time execution (event-by-event) using the Unix/Linux named (FIFO) pipe mechanism. This resulted in the so-called Concurrent Monte Carlo (CMC) KoralW&YFSWW3. This CMC works effectively as a single MCEG and provides the description of the $`W`$-pair production process with all contributions/corrections needed for the LEP2 precision – for more details see Ref. .

## 5 Theoretical precision of the main LEP2 $`WW`$ observables

The precision requirements of the theoretical predictions for some of the main LEP2 observables has been shown in Table 1. Any MCEG to be used for the final LEP2 data analysis should satisfy these requirements. Estimating the precision of theoretical calculations is a difficult task, because it requires assessing the size of missing higher-order contributions. In practice, this is done by comparing different calculations (programs), switching on and off various contributions/corrections and looking at the effects for a given observable. In some cases this can be supplemented with a simplified scale-parameter analysis. All such investigations can give a hint on the size of the missing effects in the theoretical description.

The programs RacoonWW and YFSWW3 have been extensively cross-checked and compared for many observables, see e.g. . It has been found that for $`\sigma _{WW}`$ the two programs agree within $`0.3\%`$ over the LEP2 energy range and they describe the LEP2 data very well . From the comparisons between these two programs, the comparisons with other calculations and investigations of various effects, the theoretical precision for $`\sigma _{WW}`$ at LEP2 has been estimated at $`0.5\%`$ . Similar studies, although more involved, were also performed for the $`W`$ mass $`M_W`$ and the TGC $`\lambda `$. In the case of the $`W`$ mass, we performed $`M_W`$ fits using KorWan to the invariant-mass distributions from KoralW&YFSWW3 and RacoonWW, where various effects have been switched on and off. We found, for example, that results of the two programs differ in terms of the fitted $`M_W`$ by $`3`$MeV. We also performed a scale-parameter estimation of the missing effects. From all these studies we estimated the theoretical precision of $`M_W`$ for the above programs at $`5`$MeV. All this is described in detail in Ref. . A similar analysis for the TGC $`\lambda `$ was done in Ref. . In this case the fits of $`\lambda `$ to the $`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }_W`$ distributions were performed using not only KorWan but also dedicated polynomial fitting functions. These fitting functions were constructed using MC-genarated data from KoralW&YFSWW3 and RacoonWW, not only at the parton level but also including the ALEPH detector-simulation effects. Based on these studies, we estimated the theoretical precision for $`\lambda `$ at $`0.005`$.

## 6 Conclusions

There are two independent Monte Carlo programs for the precision predictions of $`W`$-pair production at LEP2: RacoonWW  and KoralW&YFSWW3 . They include the $`4f`$-background contributions as well as all the necessary radiative corrections at the precision level required by LEP2. The agreement between these programs for the main observables is within the required accuracy of the LEP2 experiments. From comparisons between these programs, comparisons with other calculations, and investigations of various effects, we have estimated the theoretical precision ($`\delta _{th}`$) for three of the main LEP2 $`WW`$ observables: $`\delta _{th}\sigma _{WW}0.5\%`$, $`\delta _{th}M_W5`$MeV and $`\delta _{th}\lambda 0.005`$. Comparing this with Table 1, it is clear that this satisfies the LEP2 precision requirements. However, for the future linear colliders (LC) this is not sufficient and further improvements in the theoretical calculations are necessary.