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# Spacetime structure of the global vortex

## I Introduction

The global vortex is a topologically non-trivial vacuum defect solution in $`2+1`$ dimensions (or $`2+1+p`$ dimensions, in which case the vortex is a $`p`$-brane). Derrick’s theorem would normally lead us to expect that there could be no such soliton, however, the vortex evades Derrick’s theorem by having not a finite energy, but a logarithmically divergent one. This divergence naturally means that when the gravitational interactions of the vortex are included, the story becomes rather interesting. At first, it was assumed that the spacetime of a global vortex would be static, like its local Nielsen-Olesen cousin, however, such an assumption led to an exact, but singular metric  outside the core of the vortex. It was rapidly realised that any static global vortex (including those derived from a sigma model) would be singular .

The global vortex is however, one of a family of global defect solutions. The domain wall, which separates regions of discrete vacua, is perhaps the simplest, however, there is also the global monopole  which has a linearly divergent energy and is unstable . Of the three global defects (in four dimensions) only the wall has a finite energy, indeed in more than four dimensions where there are further global $`p`$-brane solutions analogous to the monopole , the wall continues to be the only defect with a finite energy (per unit brane volume). Curiously this lack of finiteness of monopole energy does not lead to gravitational singularities as it does for the vortex, for the global monopole has a well-defined static gravitational field  (as does its higher dimensional descendents ) which is an asymptotically locally flat (ALF) spacetime with a global conical deficit angle.

The gravitational field of the domain wall is well studied (e.g. ), and from the perspective of an observer on the wall is non-static, having a Hubble expansion parallel to the wall. This however is known to be illusory, in the sense that it is the wall itself which is in motion, in a static Minkowski spacetime . The vacuum domain wall is in fact an accelerating bubble, which contracts in from infinite radius, decelerating until it reaches a minimum size, then re-expanding out again to future null infinity. Constant time surfaces are then topologically spherical, and the wall can be viewed as self-compactifying spacetime on a scale roughly of its inverse energy. This picture of course refers to an infinitesimally thin wall, however, the thick topological defect solution has the same geometry, with the scalar field simply following the contours of the bubble .

In the broader context of the global defect family, the singular nature of the static global vortex spacetime was anomalous. The resolution of the puzzle was of course to add time dependence to the vortex metric , which allowed for the existence of a non-singular solution to be demonstrated. This time dependence was of the same nature as that of the vacuum domain wall spacetime, i.e., a Hubble expansion along the length of the vortex, however, the full global spacetime structure of the global vortex and its maximal analytic extension was not explored, and indeed there have been claims that the cosmological event horizon present in the vortex spacetime is unstable to perturbations and becomes singular .

More recently the issue of global defect solutions has acquired a new dimension (quite literally!) as the renaissance of the braneworld scenario has resulted in a search for new exotic compactifications. The braneworld scenario is a compelling picture in which instead of having a Kaluza-Klein compactification of extra dimensions, we have relatively large extra dimensions, but are confined to a four-dimensional submanifold within this larger spacetime. The Randall-Sundrum (RS) scenario  is an example of a particular warped compactification which has many features in common with the more ‘realistic’ string-motivated heterotic M-compactifications . The RS scenario consists of one or two reflection symmetric domain walls at the edge of an anti de Sitter bulk, with only gravity propagating in the bulk. Naturally a wall can only ever give a warped compactification with one extra dimension, and it is interesting to explore warped compactifications of higher codimension.

Warped compactifications with local defects have been explored in a variety of papers , however, these compactifications are often either asymptotically flat in the extra dimensions, or have singularities. The situation with global defect compactifications is slightly different. In vacuum, a static vortex compactification is singular , although analogous to the four dimensional global string, this singularity can be removed either by the addition of time dependence (see the next section), or by adding a negative bulk cosmological constant . Higher co-dimension global defect spacetimes based on the global monopole were considered in , and analogous to the global monopole tend to exhibit global deficit angles. In addition, warped stringy compactifications with Hubble expansion on the brane have been studied in .

The question we are interested in in this paper is the spacetime structure of the global vortex. The presence of an event horizon, as well as the Hubble expansion along the vortex, indicates that something similar to the domain wall spacetime might in fact occur. In  an extension of the vortex spacetime was proposed which glued together a vortex and anti-vortex (V$`\overline{\mathrm{V}}`$) space to form a sphere with the vortex and anti-vortex at antipodal points. It was pointed out in  that this solution could have an alternate interpretation as a vortex around an equatorial circle of an $`S^3`$, just as the higher dimensional global $`p`$-branes can sit on big circles of de-Sitter spheres. However, these two situations are somewhat different; the global $`p`$-brane has an ALF spacetime, so adding a global $`p`$-brane to the already compact de Sitter space is simply a question of embedding. The vortex on the other hand has a strong effect on spacetime far from its core, and so if it lies on any great circle of a compact sphere, then it can only do so by actually self-compactifying spacetime. In this paper, we show that this is indeed what happens, by considering a generalization of the coordinate transformation used in  to explore the cosmological event horizon (CEH). We also show how to extend the metric beyond the CEH, and derive the maximal analytic extension of the global vortex spacetime.

## II The global vortex phase plane

In this section we review and extend the arguments of  for the existence of a global vortex solution in $`p+3`$ dimensions. We will be looking for a topologically nontrivial solution of the field theoretic lagrangian

$$=(_\mu \mathrm{\Phi })^{}^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }\frac{\lambda }{4}(\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }\eta ^2)^2$$
(1)
in an otherwise empty spacetime. By writing

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\eta Xe^{i\chi }$$
(2)
we can reformulate the complex scalar field into two real interacting scalar fields, one of which ($`X`$) is massive, the other ($`\chi `$) being the massless Goldstone boson responsible for the divergent energy of the vortex. In this way, the low energy theory is seen to be equivalent in $`n(=p+3)`$ dimensions to an $`(n2)`$form potential. For example in four dimensions, the $`\chi `$-field is equivalent to a Kalb-Ramond $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ field, and the effective action for the motion of a global string is the bosonic part of the superstring action.

A vortex solution is characterised by the existence of closed loops in space for which the phase of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ winds around $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ as a closed loop is traversed. This in turn implies that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ itself has a zero within that loop, and this is the core of the vortex. From now on, we shall look for a solution describing a vortex with unit winding number i.e., $`\chi =\theta `$, where $`_\theta `$ is some Killing vector of spacetime with closed circular orbits.

The boost symmetry of the energy momentum tensor parallel to the defect means that the most general metric can be written in the form

$$ds^2=e^{2A(r)}H^2g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu dr^2C^2(r)d\theta ^2$$
(3)
where $`\mu ,\nu =0,1\mathrm{}p`$ are the coordinates parallel to the defect, $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is a constant unit-curvature de Sitter metric, and $`H`$ is a constant to be determined which will represent the Hubble parameter of the expansion on the vortex braneworld.

The Einstein equations for the vortex are found to be

$`\left[e^{(p+1)A}C^{}\right]^{}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵe^{(p+1)A}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2X^2}{C}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C(X^21)^2}{2(p+1)}}\right)`$ (5)
$`\left[Ce^{(p+1)A}A^{}\right]^{}CH^2pe^{(p1)A}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵe^{(p+1)A}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C(X^21)^2}{2(p+1)}}\right)`$ (6)
$`(p+1)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p}{2}}(H^2e^{2A}A^2){\displaystyle \frac{A^{}C^{}}{C}}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`ϵX^2+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵX^2}{C^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{4}}(X^21)^2`$ (7)
$`\left[Ce^{(p+1)A}X^{}\right]^{}`$ $`=`$ $`Ce^{(p+1)A}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{X}{C^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}X(X^21)\right]`$ (8)
where we have taken $`\lambda \eta ^2=1`$, and $`ϵ=\frac{\eta ^2}{2}(M_n)^{(p+1)}`$ which represents the gravitational strength of the vortex.

In what follows, unless stated otherwise, we will take the vortex to be weakly (or at least relatively weakly) gravitating, i.e., $`ϵ1`$; we comment on large $`ϵ`$ in section IV. We can then see that $`H`$ is at least $`O(ϵ)`$ and noting that to leading order (8) implies

$$\left[X^2r^2X^2+\frac{r^2}{4}(X^21)^2\right]^{}=\frac{r}{2}(X^21)^2,$$
(9)
we see that outside the core

$`e^{(p+1)A}`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{2}}ϵ\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_c}}\right)+ϵ{\displaystyle _0^{r_c}}rX^2+O(ϵ^2)`$ (11)
$`C^{}`$ $`=`$ $`1ϵ\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{ϵp}{(p+1)}}ϵ\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_c}}\right)+O(ϵ^2)`$ (12)
where $`\mu `$ is the “renormalized” energy per unit length (i.e., ignoring the logarithmically divergent term)

$$\mu =_0^{r_c}\left[rX^2+\frac{X^2}{r}+\frac{r}{4}(X^21)^2\right],$$
(13)
and $`r_c`$ is an effective width of the vortex, of order unity, outside of which $`X1`$. These linearized forms can be used outside the core while $`rr_ce^{1/ϵ}`$.

In  it was shown that a non-singular solution had to asymptote an event horizon, i.e.,

$$e^AH(r_Hr),CC_0(1+O(r_Hr)^2)$$
(14)
as $`rr_H`$, the horizon radius. It is not difficult to show that this remains the case for general $`p`$. A quick integration of (6) then indicates that $`H^2=O(e^{1/ϵ})`$, a rough estimate which will be borne out by the more detailed calculations later in this section.

In order to demonstrate the existence of the vortex, we therefore need to verify the existence of a solution interpolating between the core solution (11,12) and the horizon. To do this, we examine the field equations outside the core, i.e., we set $`X1`$. Writing $`\rho =e^A𝑑r`$, and defining

$$x=p\frac{dA}{d\rho }+\frac{1}{C}\frac{dC}{d\rho };y=\frac{1}{C}\frac{dC}{d\rho }$$
(15)
these field equations can be written as a two dimensional dynamical system

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{d\rho }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{p}}{\displaystyle \frac{(p+1)}{p}}y^2pH^2`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{d\rho }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(p+1)}{p}}x^2{\displaystyle \frac{(p+1)}{p}}y^2p(p+1)H^2xy`$ (18)
with the constraint

$$\frac{2ϵpe^{2A}}{(p+1)C^2}=\left(x^2y^2p^2H^2\right)$$
(19)
The phase plane for this system is characterized by the critical points

$`P_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`H(\pm p,0)`$ (21)
$`Q_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`H(\pm \sqrt{p(p+1)},\pm \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{p}{p+1}}})`$ (22)
and the invariant hyperboloid

$$x^2y^2=p^2H^2.$$
(23)
The critical points $`P_\pm `$ are saddle points while the classification for $`Q_\pm `$ depends on the value of $`p`$: for $`p<7`$, $`Q_+`$/$`Q_{}`$ is a stable/unstable focus while for $`p7`$, $`Q_+`$ is an attractor and $`Q_{}`$ a repeller. Even so, the qualitative shape of the phase plane remains approximately the same irrespective of the value of $`p`$, provided that one re-scales the coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$. The phase space is represented in figure 1 where we have chosen $`p=3`$.

The asymptotic solutions corresponding to the critical points are:

$`P_\pm `$ $`:`$ $`e^{A(r)}\pm H(rr_H),C(r)C_0\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ(rr_H)^2}{(p+2)C_0^2}}\right],rr_H^\pm `$ (25)
$`Q_\pm `$ $`:`$ $`e^{A(r)}\pm Hr\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{p}{p+1}}},C(r)\pm r\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2ϵ}{p+1}}},r\pm \mathrm{}`$ (26)
where $`r_H`$ is the horizon of the defect in the transversal section of the brane. Note however that the solution for $`Q_\pm `$ should be treated with some caution, as this lies outside the physically allowed region of the phase plane as defined by positivity of the constraint (19). However, we will see in the next section that $`Q_\pm `$ is relevant for the analytically continued vortex spacetime outside the CEH.

Now consider the critical point $`P_{}`$. From the constraint (19) we see that this corresponds to the vortex horizon as $`\frac{dC}{d\rho }=e^{2A}=0`$ and $`\frac{dA}{d\rho }=H`$. Therefore a non-singular solution exists for the vortex $`p`$-brane if a trajectory which corresponds to the initial conditions emerging from the core at $`r_c`$ approaches this critical point. Note that $`H`$ is as yet undetermined. From (17) and (18) we see that rescaling $`H`$ simply rescales the phase plane. We therefore determine $`H`$ by the requirement that the nonsingular trajectory must pass through the initial $`(x_c,y_c)`$ determined from the core solution (11,12). This is what we now investigate. We separate the problem into two parts: the behaviour of the trajectories from the core to the $`y`$-axis, and then from the $`y`$-axis to the critical point.

First however, we make some qualitative remarks about the phase plane trajectories. Using the constraint (19) we can rewrite the dynamical system (17)-(18) as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{d\rho }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2ϵe^{2A}}{C^2(p+1)}}y^2`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dy}{d\rho }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2ϵe^{2A}}{C^2}}xy`$ (29)
which shows that $`x`$ is monotonically decreasing along a trajectory, whereas $`y`$ is decreasing only when $`y`$ and $`x`$ are both positive. Thus the trajectories coming from the core (which have $`yx=O(1)`$) cross the $`y`$axis. Once they have crossed to $`x<0`$, either $`y(x=0)`$ is sufficiently large that the trajectories have a turning point and pass to increasing $`y`$, or they hit $`y=0`$. The critical nonsingular trajectory of course asymptotes $`y=0`$ at $`P_{}`$, however the others all pass to $`x,y\mathrm{}`$. This shows why it is important to analyse the crossing of the $`y`$-axis.

In order to characterize the trajectories near the core we use (11) and (12) to see that

$$A^{}\frac{dA}{d\rho }=\frac{ϵ}{(p+1)r_c}+O(ϵ^2)$$
(30)
and hence for trajectories near the core

$$\frac{y}{x}=\left(1+\frac{pA^{}C}{C^{}}\right)^1=1+\frac{pϵ}{(p+1)}+O(ϵ^2)$$
(31)
with

$$y_c=\frac{1}{r_c}$$
(32)
from (19). These give the initial conditions for the integration of the dynamical system at the ‘edge’ of the vortex, $`r_c`$. At next to leading order one gets

$$y=x\left[1+\frac{pϵ}{(p+1)\left(1+ϵ\mathrm{ln}(x/x_c)\right)}\right].$$
(33)
Indeed, while $`x,ypH`$, we may ignore the $`H^2`$ terms in (17,18) which reduces our system to the Cohen-Kaplan (CK) analysis. Hence, writing $`u=u_c_{r_c}^rC𝑑r`$ (so that $`u=0`$ corresponds to the CK singularity and $`u=u_c1/ϵ`$ the edge of the vortex – see ) our solution in this régime is

$`e^{(p+1)A}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{u}{u_c}}`$ (35)
$`C^2`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{u}{u_c}}\right)^{\frac{p}{p+1}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{ϵ(u_c^2u^2)\right\}`$ (36)
where $`\gamma =r_c+O(ϵ)`$ is of order unity and given by integrating out from the core. From these we may read off:

$`x_{CK}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^A}{C}}\left[ϵu{\displaystyle \frac{p}{2(p+1)u}}\right]`$ (38)
$`y_{CK}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^A}{C}}\left[ϵu+{\displaystyle \frac{p}{2(p+1)u}}\right]`$ (39)
Therefore the CK trajectory crosses the $`y`$-axis at

$$y_{CK}=\frac{2}{\gamma ^2}e^{1/2ϵ}e^{\frac{p}{4(p+1)}}\left(\frac{pϵ}{2(p+1)}\right)^{\frac{3p+4}{4(p+1)}}$$
(40)
Provided that this is greater than, or even roughly of the same order as $`pH`$, this will be a good approximation to the actual nonsingular trajectory crossing the $`y`$-axis.

Finally, note that for the actual phase plane trajectories

$$\frac{dy}{dx}=(p+1)\frac{py\left((p+1)yx\right)}{(p+1)y^2+p^2H^2x^2}>(p+1)\frac{py\left((p+1)yx\right)}{(p+1)y^2x^2}=\frac{dy_{CK}}{dx_{CK}}$$
(41)
for $`y>x>0`$. This means that the true trajectories are slightly steeper than the CK trajectories, but as already noted, the deviation is minor while $`yO(pH)`$.

Now let us analyse the behaviour of the trajectory near $`P_{}`$. In the vicinity this non-degenerate critical point, the dynamical system is approximately linear and given by

$`\left[\begin{array}{ccc}& \frac{d\overline{x}}{d\rho }& \\ & & \\ & \frac{d\overline{y}}{d\rho }& \end{array}\right]=H𝐌\left[\begin{array}{ccc}& \overline{x}& \\ & & \\ & \overline{y}& \end{array}\right]`$ (49)
with

$`𝐌=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}2& & 0\\ & & \\ 2(p+1)& & p\end{array}\right]`$ (54)
and where $`\overline{x}=x+pH`$ and $`\overline{y}=y`$, with $`|\overline{x}|,|\overline{y}|pH`$. Calculating the eigenvectors relative to the eigenvalues of the matrix $`𝐌`$ one finds that the nonsingular trajectory approaching $`P_{}`$ is

$$\overline{y}=2\left(\frac{p+1}{p+2}\right)\overline{x}$$
(55)
whereas trajectories with $`\overline{x}=0`$ repel from that point. Note that (55) leads to the asymptotic solutions given in (25).

We would now like to estimate where this nonsingular trajectory crosses the $`y`$-axis. Consider the straight line

$$y=m(x+pH)$$
(56)
for $`x>pH`$. Then, along this line we may use (17,18) to obtain:

$$\frac{dy}{d\rho }m\frac{dx}{d\rho }=\frac{y}{m^2p}\left[(m^21)(m1)(p+1)y+\left(m(p+2)2(p+1)\right)mpH\right]$$
(57)
Thus (remembering that both $`y`$ and $`x`$ are *decreasing* along trajectories) we have:

$$\frac{dy}{dx}\{\begin{array}{cc}m\hfill & \text{for }m\frac{2(p+1)}{(p+2)}\hfill \\ >m\hfill & \text{for }m=1\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(58)
This means that the trajectory passing through $`(0,\frac{2(p+1)}{(p+2)}pH)`$ misses $`P_{}`$, turns around and asymptotes a singular CK trajectory in the upper left hand quadrant of the phase plane. On the other hand, the trajectory passing through $`(0,pH)`$ also misses $`P_{}`$, but crosses $`x=0`$ passing to the lower left hand quadrant (which is also a singularity). Therefore, the nonsingular trajectory crosses the $`y`$ axis in the range $`(pH,\frac{2(p+1)}{(p+2)}pH)`$. Combining this with the fact that the true trajectories are slightly steeper than the CK trajectories, means that we get a very good approximation to $`H`$ by matching the CK trajectory at $`x=0`$ to the critical trajectory (55):

$$H=h(p)ϵ^{\frac{3p+4}{4(p+1)}}e^{1/2ϵ}$$
(59)
where

$$h(p)=\frac{2(p+2)}{\gamma ^2p^2}e^{\frac{p}{4(p+1)}}\left(\frac{p}{2(p+1)}\right)^{\frac{7p+8}{4(p+1)}}$$
(60)
is of order $`O(1/p)`$.

Therefore, we have demonstrated the existence of a nonsingular trajectory corresponding to the exterior spacetime of a global vortex $`p`$-brane with a de-Sitter like expansion parallel to the brane with the Hubble constant of this expansion being very finely tuned to the gravitational strength of the vortex, and given by (59).

## III Global structure and maximal extension

In the previous section we demonstrated the existence of a non-singular solution to the vortex equations, and derived a good approximation to the spacetime within the horizon. This spacetime has the form of (3) with a good approximation to the functions $`A`$ and $`C`$ being given by:

$`e^A`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}(1ϵ\mathrm{ln}r)^{\frac{1}{p+1}}\hfill & r<r_1\hfill \\ H(r_Hr)\hfill & r>r_1\hfill \end{array}`$ (62)
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}(1ϵ\mathrm{ln}r)^{\frac{p}{2(p+1)}}r^{1\frac{ϵ}{2}\mathrm{ln}r}\hfill & r<r_1\hfill \\ C_0\left[1\frac{ϵ}{(p+2)C_0^2}(r_Hr)^2\right]\hfill & r>r_1\hfill \end{array}`$ (63)
where $`(1ϵ\mathrm{ln}r_1)ϵ^{1/2}`$, with $`r_Hr_1+ϵ^{1/2(p+1)}H^1`$ and $`C_0ϵ^{1/2}H^1`$.

Before deriving the maximal extension and global spacetime structure of the vortex $`p`$-brane, it is first instructive to examine de Sitter spacetime in this cylindrical coordinate system. Recall that $`n`$-dimensional de Sitter spacetime can be represented as a hyperboloid in $`(n+1=p+4)`$dimensional flat Minkowski spacetime:

$$𝐗_{p+1}^2T^2+Y^2+Z^2=H^2$$
(64)
where $`H`$ is the Hubble constant for the de Sitter space. Conventionally, one coordinatises the hyperboloid by setting $`T=\mathrm{sinh}t`$ etc., however, to make contact with the form of (3) instead consider the transformation

$`(T,𝐗_{p+1})`$ $`=`$ $`H^1\mathrm{cos}Hr(\mathrm{sinh}t,\mathrm{cosh}t𝐧_{p+1})`$ (66)
$`Y+iZ`$ $`=`$ $`H^1\mathrm{sin}Hre^{i\theta }`$ (67)
(where $`𝐧_{p+1}`$ is the unit vector in $`(p+1)`$ dimensions). This gives the metric

$$ds^2=H^2\mathrm{cos}^2Hr\left[dt^2\mathrm{cosh}^2td\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]dr^2H^2\mathrm{sin}^2Hrd\theta ^2$$
(68)
Note how this metric satisfies the same core boundary conditions on $`A`$ and $`C`$ as the vortex metric, and as $`r\pi /2H`$, we have similar behaviour as the vortex horizon, with $`e^AH(r_Hr)`$, although here $`C_0=H^1`$ rather than the $`ϵ^{1/2}H^1`$ of the vortex horizon.

Clearly this coordinate system does not cover the full hyperboloid as it does not allow $`Y^2+Z^2>H^2`$. For this region we must instead take

$`(T,𝐗_{p+1})`$ $`=`$ $`H^1\mathrm{sinh}H\tau (\mathrm{cosh}\xi ,\mathrm{sinh}\xi 𝐧_{p+1})`$ (70)
$`Y+iZ`$ $`=`$ $`H^1\mathrm{cosh}H\tau e^{i\theta }`$ (71)
giving

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2H^2\mathrm{sinh}^2H\tau \left[d\xi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]H^2\mathrm{cosh}^2H\tau d\theta ^2$$
(72)
as the metric in the region ‘outside’ the event horizon. We therefore see that the horizon is, as expected, simply an artifact of the choice of coordinates, which, by splitting off the $`Y`$ and $`Z`$ directions, take a ‘strip’ of the hyperboloid only and the actual de Sitter spacetime is of course completely regular across the horizon.

Let us now turn to the vortex metric, which, in the neighborhood of the horizon, can be easily shown to be $`(p+2)`$-dimensional Minkowski spacetime times a (rather large) circle. (Take $`T=(r_Hr)\mathrm{sinh}t`$ and $`𝐗_{p+1}=(r_Hr)\mathrm{cosh}t𝐧_{p+1}`$.) We have already remarked on the similarities between this horizon and the horizon of the de Sitter spacetime in cylindrical coordinates, therefore we set

$`(T,𝐗_{p+1})`$ $`=`$ $`H^1e^A(\mathrm{sinh}t,\mathrm{cosh}t𝐧_{p+1})`$ (74)
$`Y+iZ`$ $`=`$ $`C(r)e^{i\theta }`$ (75)
which satisfies

$$𝐗_{p+1}^2T^2+Y^2+Z^2=C^2+H^2e^{2A}.$$
(76)
For our solution, this RHS is very nearly constant: $`C^2+H^2e^{2A}H^2(1+O(ϵ))`$, and in fact even for the rather large value of $`ϵ=0.1`$, changes by only 1 part in a billion. This means that topologically, within its event horizon at least, the vortex spacetime looks to be the same as de Sitter with spherical spatial topology. Metrically, the induced metric on the vortex hyperboloid is

$$ds_{\mathrm{ind}}^2=H^2e^{2A}\left[dt^2\mathrm{cosh}^2td\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]C^2d\theta ^2\left(A^2e^{2A}H^2+C^2\right)dr^2$$
(77)
Because of the presence of $`H^2`$, this appears at first sight to be different to (3), but in fact this term is only significantly different from $`1`$ in the CK régime, $`r<r_1`$. Here $`C^{}1+O(ϵ)`$, and since

$$A^2e^{2A}H^2dr^2=\frac{(𝐗d𝐗TdT)^2}{𝐗^2T^2}=He^A\frac{(𝐗d𝐗TdT)^2}{|𝐗^2T^2|^{1/2}}$$
(78)
(dropping the subscript $`(_{p+1})`$ on $`𝐗`$ for convenience) we can obtain (3) by making a small distortion of the flat metric of the spacetime in which the vortex-hyperboloid lives.

We now need to consider the analytic extension of the vortex metric across the horizon. Note that the vortex fields inside the CEH depend on $`r`$, which is given implicitly via

$$𝐗_{p+1}^2T^2=H^2e^{2A}$$
(79)
i.e., $`X`$, $`A`$, and $`C`$ are constant on spacelike hyperboloids in $`(T,𝐗)`$-spacetime. In this interpretation, the CEH is the lightcone centered on the origin. Therefore, the analytic continuation across the CEH would naturally correspond to the interior of the future (or past) lightcone of the origin, which means we need the vortex and metric functions to depend on $`T^2𝐗^2`$ which is a timelike coordinate. Note that this is *not* the way Nogales and Wang tried to continue across the CEH in , they attempted to keep all fields depending on $`r`$ and took $`r>r_H`$. However, the coordinate transformation in the neighborhood of the CEH shows clearly that $`r>r_H`$ corresponds to $`zz+\pi `$ ($`z`$ being the coordinate along the 1-dimensional vortex), hence this identifies antipodal points on the CEH which renders the spacetime singular. It is likely that this was the singularity they were finding evidence of, for as we shall see, the CEH is simply a coordinate singularity, and does not appear to be a future Cauchy horizon, therefore one would not expect any instabilities there.

Using the de Sitter spacetime as a guide, we therefore look for a time dependent solution of the Goldstone model (with topological winding in the scalar field) by replacing (3) with

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2H^2e^{2A(\tau )}\left[d\xi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]C^2(\tau )d\theta ^2$$
(80)
The Einstein equations for this metric, (setting $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\eta e^{i\theta }`$) give

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}\left[\dot{C}e^{(p+1)A}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2ϵe^{(p+1)A}}{C}}`$ (82)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}\left[Ce^{(p+1)A}\dot{A}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`pH^2Ce^{(p1)A}`$ (83)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{p}{2}}(H^2e^{2A}\dot{A}^2){\displaystyle \frac{\dot{A}\dot{C}}{C}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{(p+1)C^2}}`$ (84)
which are the same as (5-7) with $`ϵϵ`$.

As before, by writing $`\rho =e^A𝑑t`$, we see that these equations of motion give the same two dimensional dynamical system (17,18), but with the constraint (19) now reading

$$\frac{2ϵpe^{2A}}{(p+1)C^2}=\left(x^2y^2p^2H^2\right).$$
(85)
Note the minus sign in the definition of $`\rho `$: this is so that the event horizon corresponds to the critical point

$$x=p\frac{dA}{d\rho }+\frac{1}{C}\frac{dC}{d\rho }=e^A\left[p\frac{dA}{d\tau }+\frac{dC}{d\tau }\right]=pH$$
(86)
as $`e^AH\tau `$ near the horizon.

In other words, whereas the vortex dynamical system corresponded to the central region in the phase plane in between the two branches of the invariant hyperboloid, the spacetime ‘exterior’ to the horizon corresponds to the disconnected regions outside the branches of the invariant hyperboloid. Indeed, since we know the event horizon corresponds to the critical point $`P_{}`$ on the left branch of the invariant hyperboloid, we conclude that the spacetime exterior to the event horizon corresponds to the left part of this phase plane, $`y^2<x^2p^2H^2`$.

The phase plane trajectories on the left of the invariant hyperboloid generically emerge from the focus (or repeller, depending on the value of $`p`$) $`Q_{}`$, and are attracted to the branch of the invariant hyperboloid in the upper left hand part of the phase plane, i.e., the Cohen-Kaplan solution which is singular. There is however one trajectory which terminates on the critical point $`P_{}`$, and this is clearly the trajectory corresponding to the exterior-horizon solution. We can therefore read off the late time solution from (26) as

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2\frac{p\tau ^2}{(p+1)}\left[d\xi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]\frac{2ϵ}{(p+1)}\tau ^2d\theta ^2.$$
(87)
This is a late time inhomogeneous open universe cosmology.

Finally, defining

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`H^1e^A\mathrm{cosh}\xi `$ (89)
$`𝐗_{p+1}`$ $`=`$ $`H^1e^A\mathrm{sinh}\xi 𝐧_{p+1}`$ (90)
$`Z+iY`$ $`=`$ $`C(\tau )e^{i\theta }`$ (91)
now gives

$$ds^2=d\tau ^2\left[H^2\dot{A}^2e^{2A}\dot{C}^2\right]H^2e^{2A}\left[d\xi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\xi d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^2\right]C^2d\theta ^2$$
(92)
Using the phase plane trajectory of the solution, we can see that

$$\left[H^2\dot{A}^2e^{2A}\dot{C}^2\right]=\frac{(xy)^2}{p^2H^2}\frac{2ϵpy^2}{(p+1)(x^2y^2p^2H^2)}$$
(93)
can be bounded by

$$\left(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{p(p+1)}}\right)^2O(ϵ)<\left[H^2\dot{A}^2e^{2A}\dot{C}^2\right]<\frac{p+1}{p}$$
(94)
hence (92) is indeed a good approximation to the true exterior metric (80).

Note however that as a surface in Minkowski IR<sup>p+4</sup>, the vortex departs from the deformed de Sitter-type hyperboloid form that it had within the event horizon, as (89-91) give

$$2ϵ(T^2𝐗_{p+1}^2)p(Y^2+Z^2)=\frac{2ϵe^{2A}}{H^2}pC^20$$
(95)
at late times, which is a timelike hyperboloid, and hence spacetime is asymptotically flat here as required by consistency with (87). A sketch of the vortex hyperboloid in IR<sup>p+4</sup> is shown in figure 2.

To summarize: we have shown that the vortex (like the domain wall) compactifies space on a scale roughly of order $`O(H^1)`$. A $`t=`$constant section has the topology of a $`(p+1)`$-sphere, in which the vortex could be thought of as sitting on a great circle, however, as the $`S^{p+1}`$ is deformed, this picture should be treated with caution. Nonetheless, we can give the vortex the interpretation of an accelerating ring (or $`p`$-sphere) which, like the domain wall, contracts in from infinity then re-expands out. This picture is most easily seen by suppressing the $`\theta `$-direction and using the transformations (74) to $`(T,𝐗_{p+1})`$ coordinates in which the vortex follow the trajectory $`𝐗^2T^2=H^2`$.

## IV Strongly gravitating vortices

An interesting question we can ask is what happens for more strongly gravitating vortices, i.e., for $`ϵ1`$. As $`ϵ`$ becomes larger, the spacetime reacts more and more strongly to the vortex, and the field theory solution departs more and more from the flat space vortex. Meanwhile, $`H`$ is increasing, and the CEH correspondingly moves inwards rather rapidly leaving less distance outside the vortex core. At some point it may well be that the CEH would like to be *inside* the vortex core. If this occurs, then the vortex fields are essentially in their false vacuum state and one might expect that the ‘vortex’ as such disappears and the solution becomes de Sitter, the false vacuum energy of the unbroken vacuum providing the cosmological constant. This is in fact the set-up of the topological inflation model of Linde and Vilenkin .

In the notionally similar case of the domain wall, it is known that in the absence of gravitational back reaction, a kink/antikink pair can be solved exactly on a compact $`S^1`$ in terms of elliptic functions . It turns out that there is a critical radius for the circle below which the kink/antikink pair cannot exist and the only solution is either the false vacuum, or one of the true vacuum choices. Once gravitational back reaction is correctly taken account of  this qualitative result also holds. The gravitational back reaction of the wall introduces a compactification of space at a scale of the inverse gravitational coupling ($`ϵ`$). As $`ϵ`$ grows, this compactification radius shrinks and at some critical gravitational strength, there is no longer enough space for the kink to exist and the only possible solution is the false vacuum (which gives a de Sitter spacetime) or the true vacuum.

Here for the global vortex $`p`$-brane we no longer have explicit solutions<sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>*Local vortices on compact spaces have been studied , however to our knowledge, global vortices on spheres have not., moreover, $`H`$ is determined in a rather indirect way, therefore we do not have as direct an intuition on what happens as $`ϵ`$ increases, nonetheless, in a manner similar to the arguments of , we can in fact give analytic arguments as to the typical value of $`ϵ`$ at which the vortex solution will cease to exist and the only possibilities will be the true vacuum or topological inflation.

There are two ways of limiting the value of $`ϵ`$ at which the vortex ceases to exist. Note that the false vacuum de Sitter (FVDS) solution, $`X1`$ and metric (68) with $`H^2=ϵ/2(p+1)(p+2)`$, is always a solution to the equations of motion (II). The first method, which gives a lower bound to $`ϵ_c`$, is to ask at what value of $`ϵ`$ this FVDS solution becomes unstable to vortex formation. Clearly, if the FVDS solution is unstable to vortex formation, we are below the critical value of $`ϵ`$. The second method looks at the vortex field equation (8). If a vortex spacetime exists, then there will be a solution to this equation (along with the accompanying $`A`$ and $`C`$) which starts with $`X=0`$ at $`r=0`$, and goes to $`X=X_H`$ at $`r=r_H`$, with $`X^{}(r_H)=0`$ required by nonsingularity of the spacetime. This places some demands on the behaviour of the function $`X`$ which cannot be satisfied if $`ϵ`$ is too large. This obviously gives an upper bound on $`ϵ_c`$.

For the first method we need to analyze the perturbation equations of the FVDS solution:

$$\mathrm{}\xi +\frac{\xi }{C^2}\frac{\xi }{2}=0$$
(96)
It is most transparent to use planar coordinates in the vortex worldvolume in (3), i.e., $`H^2g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =dt^2e^{2Ht}dx_p^2`$ in which this perturbation equation takes the form

$$\left[\ddot{\xi }+pH\dot{\xi }\right]\mathrm{sec}^2Hr\xi ^{\prime \prime }\left(H\mathrm{cot}Hr(p+1)H\mathrm{tan}Hr\right)\xi ^{}+(H^2\mathrm{csc}^2Hr\frac{1}{2})\xi =0$$
(97)
This has solution

$$\xi =e^{\nu Ht}\mathrm{sin}Hr\mathrm{cos}^\nu Hr$$
(98)
where

$$\nu =\frac{(p+4)}{2}\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{(p+2)^2+\frac{4}{ϵ}(p+1)(p+2)}$$
(99)
For an instability, we require a perturbation which grows with time, i.e., $`\nu >0`$. Clearly this requires

$$ϵ<\frac{(p+1)(p+2)}{(p+3)}ϵ_c$$
(100)
This gives the lower bound for the critical value $`ϵ_c`$.

For the second method, we now try to look for a vortex-type solution, with $`X^{}(0)>0`$ and $`X^{}`$ tending monotonically to zero at the horizon (we can show this from the equations of motion, but let us simply state it as a property a vortex solution would display). Then, an examination of the equations of motion (II) shows that $`e^A`$ must be monotonically decreasing from $`r=0`$ to $`r_H`$, and $`X^{}(r_H)=0`$. Meanwhile, the value of $`H`$ must be less than the pure FVDS solution, $`H^2ϵ/2(p+1)(p+2)`$.

Taylor expanding the functions around $`r=0`$ ($`X=x_1r+x_3r^3/6`$ etc.) and using (II) gives

$`(p+1)a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p(p+1)H^2}{2}}<{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{2(p+2)}}`$ (102)
$`c_3`$ $`=`$ $`2ϵx_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{2(p+1)}}(p+1)a_2`$ (103)
$`x_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{x_1}{4}}\left(4ϵx_1^2+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{(p+1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}(p+1)a_2\right)`$ (104)
We can therefore deduce that if $`ϵ>3(p+1)/2`$, $`x_3>0`$ and $`2x_3+c_3x_1>0`$. This means that in a neighborhood of the origin, $`X^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`F=X^{}X/C`$ are positive.

Now let us examine what happens as we move towards the horizon. Since $`F(r_H)<0`$, $`F`$ must have a zero on $`(0,r_H)`$ with $`F^{}<0`$ at this point. However,

$$F^{}=\left(\frac{C}{2}\frac{C^{}}{C}\frac{1}{C}\right)F+\frac{X^3}{2}+X^{}\left[(p+1)A^{}\frac{1}{2}C\right]>X^{}G|_{F=0}$$
(105)
where $`G=\left[(p+1)A^{}\frac{1}{2}C\right]`$. However, from (IV) we see that $`G>0`$ near the origin, and indeed

$$G^{}=(p+1)A^2+ϵF\left(X^{}+\frac{X}{C}\right)+\frac{C^{}}{C}G$$
(106)
is clearly positive while $`F`$ and $`G`$ are both positive. Thus $`G>0`$ while $`F>0`$, hence $`F`$ cannot have a zero from (105).

We conclude that for $`ϵ>3(p+1)/2`$ we cannot have a vortex-type solution. The critical value of $`ϵ`$ therefore lies in the range

$$\frac{(p+1)(p+2)}{(p+3)}ϵ_c\frac{3(p+1)}{2}$$
(107)
Since $`p1`$, we see that the value of $`ϵ`$ for which the vortex solution ceases to exist is actually quite high, $`ϵ_c\frac{3}{2}`$ and grows linearly with $`p`$. We expect that the CEH in these cases actually occurs for quite low values of $`X_H`$.

## V Discussion

Since we have shown how the vortex compactifies space on a scale of order $`H^1`$, a natural question to ask is how this feeds back into a possible braneworld type of resolution of the hierarchy problem. Briefly, the braneworld picture (pioneered by Rubakov, Shaposhnikov and Akama ) imagines that our universe is simply a defect or submanifold embedded within a higher dimensional manifold. We are confined to live on this submanifold, but gravity can propagate throughout the full dimensionality of spacetime. Such models can either have a Kaluza-Klein type of picture of gravity , or can limit long range effects of the extra dimensions via warped compactifications (e.g. ). The way such models provide an explanation of the hierarchy between particle and gravitational interaction is via the geometrical volume of the transverse space (or a factor similar to this for the warped compactifications).

The hierarchy generation by a vortex compactification was first explored by Cohen and Kaplan  for their singular exact solution. In fact, if we suppose there is no bulk cosmological constant (as CK did) but that we have our worldvolume Hubble expansion, then we can quite straightforwardly derive the hierarchy factor in our case, for writing the metric in the form

$$ds^2=e^{2A}\stackrel{~}{g}_{\mu \nu }(x)dx^\mu dx^\nu dr^2C^2d\theta ^2$$
(108)
gives

$$M_n^{p+1}\sqrt{g_n}R_nd^n\mathrm{x}2\pi M_n^{p+1}_0^{r_H}Ce^{(p1)A}𝑑r\stackrel{~}{R}\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{g}}d^{p+1}x$$
(109)
which, upon integration of (6) from $`r=0`$ to $`r_H`$ gives

$$M_{(p+1)}^{p1}\frac{\pi ϵM_n^{p+1}}{p(p+1)H^2}M_{Pl}^2=\frac{\pi \eta ^2}{24H^2}$$
(110)
for a vortex compactification of six to four dimensions. Because of the exponential dependence of $`H`$ on $`ϵ`$, it is not difficult to get a large hierarchy between the six and four dimensional Planck masses. Putting $`p=3`$ in (59) and (60), and recalling that in vortex units $`M_nϵ^{1/(p+1)}`$, gives

$$\frac{1}{ϵ}\frac{9}{8}\mathrm{ln}ϵ=4.6\left(16\mathrm{ln}(\frac{M_n}{1\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}})\right)$$
(111)
For a six dimensional Planck scale of 10 TeV, this gives the vortex scale of around 3.6 TeV, for $`M_6100`$TeV, the vortex scale is around 37 TeV.

One interesting feature of this type of compactification is that the vortex worldvolume is not Minkowski flat spacetime, but rather an inflating de Sitter universe. Since we suspect that our universe is in fact asymptoting a mild de Sitter universe , it is tempting to use this Hubble expansion to provide the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$ that we see today. Unfortunately, the Hubble parameter provided by (59), while ‘small’ in vortex units, is simply too large to provide the tiny $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ we see today. However, if we try to construct an admixture of the RS-style warped compactification of  and the Hubble expansion of the pure vacuum vortex, we can obtain a more general solution.

Technically, the addition of a cosmological constant makes the dynamical system phase space three dimensional, however, the CEH remains a critical point, and now two of the three eigenvectors are attractive. This means that there is a two parameter family of solutions approaching this point, therefore given the initial conditions outside the core of the vortex, we are still guaranteed to be able to match this trajectory to one terminating on the critical point by varying $`H`$. We have shown in this paper how one can have a nonsingular solution with no $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ but with a worldvolume Hubble expansion, $`H`$. In  it was shown a nonsingular solution was possible with negative $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ but no $`H`$. Roughly speaking we can therefore find a whole family of solutions with a cosmological constant and Hubble expansion $`H(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ where $`H^{}(\mathrm{\Lambda })>0`$. In principle therefore, by simply de-tuning the flat Randall-Sundrum type compactification of , we can construct a global vortex compactification that both solves the hierarchy problem as well as giving us the required $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ we see today. Unfortunately, as there is nothing either ‘natural’ or generic about this de-tuning, this ‘resolution’ of the cosmological constant problem is only artificial, in that it simply sweeps the problem under the rug of higher dimensions.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Alex Vilenkin for discussions which motivated this work, and subsequent comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Royal Society (RG) and FCT (CS) under the project CERN/FIS/43737/2001.


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# I Introduction

## I Introduction

Previously CLEO has reported the first observation of color-allowed charmful baryonic $`B`$ decays with sizable rates :

$`(\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p})`$ $`=`$ $`(14.5_{3.0}^{+3.4}\pm 2.7)\times 10^4,`$ (1)
$`(\overline{B}^0D^+p\overline{p}\pi ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`(6.5_{1.2}^{+1.3}\pm 1.0)\times 10^4.`$ (2)
This, when combining with the non-observation of the two-body baryonic $`B`$ decays such as $`BN\overline{N}`$ , implies the dominance of multi-body final states in decays of $`B`$ mesons into baryons. Recently, Belle announced a similar measurement for color-suppressed baryonic decay decays at the level of $`10^4`$ :

$`(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})`$ $`=`$ $`(1.20_{0.29}^{+0.33}\pm 0.21)\times 10^4,`$ (3)
$`(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})`$ $`=`$ $`(1.18\pm 0.15\pm 0.16)\times 10^4,`$ (4)
with $`5.6\sigma `$ and $`12\sigma `$ statistical significance respectively. Roughly speaking, the $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ rate is smaller than that of $`D^+n\overline{p}`$ by one order of magnitude.

Another class of charmful baryonic $`B`$ decays is $`\overline{B}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c(\mathrm{\Sigma }_c)\overline{N}X`$. The early CLEO measurement  and the new Belle  and CLEO  results show that the three-body charmful decay $`B^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c\overline{p}\pi ^{}`$ has a magnitude larger than $`\overline{B}^0\mathrm{\Lambda }_c\overline{p}`$. These modes have been theoretically studied in . The recent first observation of the penguin-dominated charmless baryonic decay $`B^{}p\overline{p}K^{}`$ by Belle  clearly indicates that it has a much larger rate than the two-body counterpart $`\overline{B}^0p\overline{p}`$. Theoretically, it has been explained in  why some charmless three-body final states in which baryon-antibaryon pair production is accompanied by a meson have a rate larger than their two-body counterparts.

Under the factorization assumption, the decay amplitude, dominated by the color-allowed external $`W`$-emission, is proportional to $`a_1O_1_{\mathrm{fact}}`$ where $`O_1`$ is a charged current–charged current 4-quark operator, while the decay amplitude, governed by the factorizable color-suppressed internal $`W`$-emission, is described by $`a_2O_2_{\mathrm{fact}}`$ with $`O_2`$ being a neutral current–neutral current 4-quark operator. Since $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$ are color-allowed, while $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$ are color-suppressed, it is naively expected that the measured ratio $`R=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p})/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p})`$ can be used to extract the parameter $`|a_2/a_1|`$, just as in the case of $`\overline{B}^0D^0\pi ^0`$ and $`\overline{B}^0D^+\pi ^{}`$ decays. However, there is one complication here: the factorizable decay amplitude of color-suppressed baryonic $`B`$ decays $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$ involves a three-body hadronic matrix element which is basically unknown. Therefore, one needs to impose further theoretical assumptions in order to extract $`a_2`$ from the color-suppressed baryonic $`B`$ decay modes. The color-favored decays $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$ have been studied in . It turns out that $`D^+/D^+`$ production ratio is predicted to be of order 3. It is thus anticipated that the $`D^0/D^0`$ production ratio in color suppressed decays is also of order 3. However, experimentally the latter is consistent with unitary. This motives us to investigate why $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ has a similar rate as $`D^0p\overline{p}`$.

All $`\overline{B}D^{()}N\overline{N}`$ decays can be described in terms of the pole model; they receive contributions from various intermediate states: vector mesons such as $`\rho ,\omega `$, axial-vector mesons $`a_1(1260)`$, $`f_1(1285)`$, $`f_1(1420)`$, and pseudoscalar mesons $`\pi ,\eta ,\eta ^{}`$. It appears that the decay $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ is very special: it is dominated by the axial-vector meson states, whereas the other modes proceed mainly through the vector meson poles. This enables us to explain the similar rates for $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ and $`D^0p\overline{p}`$.

This paper is organized as follows. We first discuss the color-favored modes $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$ in Sec. 2 and then turn to the color-suppressed ones $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$ in Sec. 3. Discussions and conclusions are presented in Sec. 4.

## II Color-allowed $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$

At the quark level, the color-allowed decays $`\overline{B}^0D^{+()}n\overline{p}`$ proceed through the factorizable external $`W`$-emission and $`W`$-exchange diagrams, and the nonfactorizable internal $`W`$-emission \[see Fig. 1(a)\], while $`\overline{B}^0D^{0()}p\overline{p}`$ via the factorizable internal $`W`$-emission, $`W`$-exchange diagrams and the nonfactorizable internal $`W`$-emission \[see Fig. 2(a)\]. More precisely, their factorizable amplitudes read

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^{+()}n\overline{p})_{\mathrm{fact}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}\{a_1n\overline{p}|(\overline{d}u)|0D^{+()}|(\overline{c}b)|\overline{B}^0`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`a_2D^{+()}n\overline{p}|(\overline{c}u)|00|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0\},`$ (6)
$`A(\overline{B}^0D^{0()}p\overline{p})_{\mathrm{fact}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}\{a_2n\overline{p}|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0D^{0()}|(\overline{c}u)|0`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`a_2D^{0()}p\overline{p}|(\overline{c}u)|00|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0\},`$ (8)
where $`(\overline{q}_1q_2)\overline{q}_1\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)q_2`$, and $`a_1`$, $`a_2`$, which will be specified later, are some renormalization scale and scheme independent parameters . The second term in each decay amplitude of Eq. (5) corresponds to the $`W`$-exchange amplitude, which is not only color but also helicity suppressed. Since the three-body matrix element $`n\overline{p}|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0`$ is basically unknown, we will evaluate the color-suppressed amplitude based on the pole model approximation.

Let us first focus on the decays $`\overline{B}^0D^{+()}n\overline{p}`$. To evaluate their factorizable amplitude, we need to know various haronic matrix elements. The one-body and two-body mesonic matrix elements are given by

$`P(q)|A_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`if_Pq_\mu ,V(p,\epsilon )|V_\mu |0=f_Vm_V\epsilon _\mu ^{},`$ (9)
$`P(p)|V_\mu |B(p_B)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p_{B\mu }+p_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{m_B^2m_P^2}{q^2}}q_\mu \right)F_1^{BP}(q^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{m_B^2m_P^2}{q^2}}q_\mu F_0^{BP}(q^2),`$ (10)
$`V(p,\epsilon )|(VA)_\mu |B(p_B)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{m_B+m_V}}ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\epsilon ^\nu p^\alpha p_B^\beta V^{BV}(q^2)\{(m_B+m_V)\epsilon _\mu ^{}A_1^{BV}(q^2)`$ (11)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}p_B}{m_B+m_V}}(p_B+p)_\mu A_2^{BV}(q^2)`$ (12)
$``$ $`2m_V{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}p_B}{q^2}}q_\mu [A_3^{BV}(q^2)A_0^{BV}(q^2)]\},`$ (13)
where $`q=p_Bp`$, $`F_1(0)=F_0(0)`$, $`A_3(0)=A_0(0)`$, and

$`A_3(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{m_B+m_V}{2m_V}}A_1(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{m_Bm_V}{2m_V}}A_2(q^2).`$ (14)
The two-body baryonic matrix element appearing in Eq. (5) can be parametrized as

$`n(p_n)\overline{p}(p_{\overline{p}})|(VA)_\mu |0`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{u}_n(p_n)\{f_1^{np}(q^2)\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{f_2^{np}(q^2)}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{f_3^{np}(q^2)}{2m_N}}q_\mu `$ (16)
$`[g_1^{np}(q^2)\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{np}(q^2)}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{g_3^{np}(q^2)}{2m_N}}q_\mu ]\gamma _5\}v_{\overline{p}}(p_{\overline{p}}),`$
with $`q=p_p+p_{\overline{p}}`$. Among the six baryonic form factors, the vector form factor $`f_3(q^2)`$ vanishes because of conservation of vector current (CVC), while the absence of the second-class current implies $`g_2(q^2)=0`$. Using CVC, the vector form factors $`f_{1,2}(q^2)`$ can be related to the electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon defined by

$`N(p_1)\overline{N}(p_2)|J_\mu ^{\mathrm{em}}|0=\overline{u}_N(p_1)\left[F_1(q^2)\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{F_2(q^2)}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu \right]v_{\overline{N}}(p_2).`$ (17)
Specifically (see e.g. ),

$`f_{1,2}^{np}(t)=F_{1,2}^p(t)F_{1,2}^n(t),`$ (18)
where $`t=q^2`$.

The experimental data of the nucleon’s e.m. form factors are customarily described in terms of the electric and magnetic Sachs form factors $`G_E^N(t)`$ and $`G_M^N(t)`$ which are related to $`F_1^N`$ and $`F_2^N`$ via

$`G_E^{p,n}(t)=F_1^{p,n}(t)+{\displaystyle \frac{t}{4m_N^2}}F_2^{p,n}(t),G_M^{p,n}(t)=F_1^{p,n}(t)+F_2^{p,n}(t).`$ (19)
A recent phenomenological fit to the experimental data of nucleon form factors has been carried out in  using the following parametrization:

$`|G_M^p(t)|`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_1}{t^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_2}{t^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_3}{t^4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_4}{t^5}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_5}{t^6}}\right)\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{Q_0^2}}\right]^\gamma ,`$ (20)
$`|G_M^n(t)|`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{y_1}{t^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{y_2}{t^3}}\right)\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{Q_0^2}}\right]^\gamma ,`$ (21)
where $`Q_0=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ 300 MeV and $`\gamma =2+\frac{4}{3\beta }=2.148`$ . We will follow  to use the best fit values

$`x_1=420.96\mathrm{GeV}^4,x_2=10485.50\mathrm{GeV}^6,x_3=106390.97\mathrm{GeV}^8,`$ (22)
$`x_4=433916.61\mathrm{GeV}^{10},x_5=613780.15\mathrm{GeV}^{12},`$ (23)
and

$`y_1=236.69\mathrm{GeV}^4,y_2=579.51\mathrm{GeV}^6,`$ (24)
extracted from the neutron data under the assumption $`|G_E^n|=|G_M^n|`$. Note that the form factors given by Eq. (20) do satisfy the constraint from perturbative QCD in the limit of large $`t`$ . Also as stressed in , time-like magnetic form factors are expected to behave like space-like magnetic form factors, i.e. real and positive for the proton, but negative for the neutron.

In terms of the nucleon magnetic and electric form factors, the weak form factors read

$`f_1^{np}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{t}{4m_N^2}G_M^p(t)G_E^p(t)}{t/(4m_N^2)1}}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{t}{4m_N^2}G_M^n(t)G_E^n(t)}{t/(4m_N^2)1}},`$ (25)
$`f_2^{np}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_M^p(t)G_E^p(t)}{t/(4m_N^2)1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{G_M^n(t)G_E^n(t)}{t/(4m_N^2)1}}.`$ (26)
According to perturbative QCD, the weak form factors in the large $`t`$ limit have the asymptotic expressions

$`f_1^{np}(t)G_M^p(t)G_M^n(t),g_1^{np}(t){\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}G_M^p(t)+G_M^n(t).`$ (27)
It is easily seen that this is consistent with the large $`t`$ behavior of $`f_1^{np}`$ given by Eq. (25).

For the axial form factor $`g_1(t)`$, we shall follow  to assume that it has a similar expression as $`G_M^n(t)`$

$`g_1^{np}(t)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{d_1}{t^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{d_2}{t^3}}\right)\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{t}{Q_0^2}}\right]^\gamma ,`$ (28)
where the coefficient $`d_1`$ is related to $`x_1`$ and $`y_1`$ by considering the asymptotic behavior of Sachs form factors $`G_M^p`$ and $`G_M^n`$ \[see Eq. (20)\]

$`d_1={\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}x_1y_1.`$ (29)
As shown in , the induced pseudoscalar form factor $`g_3`$ corresponds to a pion pole contribution to the $`n\overline{p}`$ axial matrix element and it has the form

$`g_3^{np}(t)={\displaystyle \frac{4m_N^2}{tm_\pi ^2}}g_1^{np}(t).`$ (30)
## III Color-suppressed $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$

We next turn to the color-suppressed modes $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$ and assume that the main contributions arise from the factorizable internal $`W`$-emission diagram \[see Fig. 2(a)\]. There are two corresponding pole diagrams as depicted in Fig. 2(b): one with bottom baryon poles $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b(\frac{1}{2}^+)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^{}(\frac{1}{2}^{})`$, and the other with meson poles. The low-lying meson intermediate states are: $`\pi ^0,\eta ,\eta ^{}`$, $`\rho ^0,\omega `$, and $`a_1^0`$ and possibly $`f_1(1285)`$ and $`f_1(1420)`$.

### A Meson pole contributions

The meson pole contribution from Fig. 2 (b) is

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}a_2D^0|(\overline{c}u)|0\{[\pi ^0|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_\pi ^2}}g_{\pi NN}`$ (31)
$`+`$ $`\eta |(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_\eta ^2}}g_{\eta NN}+\eta ^{}|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_\eta ^{}^2}}g_{\eta ^{}NN}]\overline{u}_p\gamma _5v_{\overline{p}}`$ (32)
$`+`$ $`\rho ^0|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_\rho ^2}}\overline{u}_p\epsilon _\rho ^\nu \left(g_1^{\rho NN}\gamma _\nu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\rho NN}}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\nu \lambda }q^\lambda \right)v_{\overline{p}}`$ (33)
$`+`$ $`\omega |(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_\omega ^2}}\overline{u}_p\epsilon _\omega ^\nu \left(g_1^{\omega NN}\gamma _\nu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\omega NN}}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\nu \lambda }q^\lambda \right)v_{\overline{p}}`$ (34)
$`+`$ $`a_1^0|(\overline{d}b)|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{i}{q^2m_{a_1}^2}}g_1^{a_1NN}\overline{u}_p\epsilon /_{a_1}\gamma _5v_{\overline{p}}\},`$ (35)
where $`q=p_Bp_D=p_p+p_{\overline{p}}`$. For simplicity, we have concentrated on the low-lying poles and neglected those contributions from the higher axial vector meson states such as $`f_1(1285)`$ and $`f_1(1420)`$. As we shall see, the vector and tensor coupling constants $`g_1^{\rho NN}`$ and $`g_2^{\rho NN}`$ are related to the vector form factors $`f_1^{np}`$ and $`f_2^{np}`$ respectively, while $`g_1^{a_1NN}`$ and $`g_{\pi NN}`$ are connected to the axial-vector form factors $`g_1^{np}`$ and $`g_3^{np}`$ respectively.

After some manipulation we obtain

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}f_Da_2\{[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(m_B^2m_\pi ^2)F_0^{B\pi }(m_D^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\pi NN}}{q^2m_\pi ^2}}`$ (36)
$`+`$ $`(m_B^2m_\eta ^2)F_0^{B\eta }(m_D^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta NN}}{q^2m_\eta ^2}}+(m_B^2m_\eta ^{}^2)F_0^{B\eta ^{}}(m_D^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta ^{}NN}}{q^2m_\eta ^{}^2}}]\overline{u}_p\gamma _5v_{\overline{p}}`$ (37)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}m_\rho }{q^2m_\rho ^2}}A_0^{B\rho }(m_D^2)\overline{u}_p[(g_1^{\rho NN}+g_2^{\rho NN})p/_B+{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\rho NN}}{2m_N}}(p_pp_{\overline{p}})p_B]v_{\overline{p}}`$ (38)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2m_\omega }{q^2m_\omega ^2}}A_0^{B\omega }(m_D^2)\overline{u}_p[(g_1^{\omega NN}+g_2^{\omega NN})p/_B+{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\omega NN}}{2m_N}}(p_pp_{\overline{p}})p_B]v_{\overline{p}}`$ (39)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}m_{a_1}}{q^2m_{a_1}^2}}V_0^{Ba_1}(m_D^2)g_1^{a_1NN}\overline{u}_p[p/_B+{\displaystyle \frac{p_Bqq/}{m_{a_1}^2}}]\gamma _5v_{\overline{p}}\},`$ (40)
where we have applied the relations $`\overline{u}_pq/v_{\overline{p}}=0`$, $`(p_pp_{\overline{p}})q=0`$ and employed the form factors defined by

$`a_1^{}(p_{a_1})|(\overline{u}b)_{_{VA}}|\overline{B}^0(p_B)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{m_B+m_{a_1}}}ϵ_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\epsilon ^\nu p_{a_1}^\alpha p_B^\beta A^{Ba_1}(q^2)`$ (41)
$``$ $`\{(m_B+m_{a_1})\epsilon _\mu ^{}V_1^{Ba_1}(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}p_B}{m_B+m_{a_1}}}(p_B+p_{a_1})_\mu V_2^{B\rho }(q^2)`$ (42)
$``$ $`2m_{a_1}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon ^{}p_B}{q^2}}q_\mu [V_3^{Ba_1}(q^2)V_0^{Ba_1}(q^2)]\},`$ (43)
with

$`V_3(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{m_B+m_V}{2m_V}}V_1(q^2){\displaystyle \frac{m_Bm_V}{2m_V}}V_2(q^2),`$ (44)
and $`V_3(0)=V_0(0)`$. Note that the pion in the form factor $`F_0^{B\pi }`$ is referred to the charged one, so are the form factors $`A_0^{B\rho }`$ and $`V_0^{Ba_1}`$.

Likewise, the meson pole contribution to $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ reads

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}a_2f_D^{}m_D^{}\{[\sqrt{2}F_1^{B\pi }(m_D^{}^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\pi NN}}{q^2m_\pi ^2}}`$ (45)
$`+`$ $`2F_1^{B\eta }(m_D^{}^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta NN}}{q^2m_\eta ^2}}+2F_1^{B\eta ^{}}(m_D^{}^2){\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta ^{}NN}}{q^2m_\eta ^{}^2}}](\epsilon _D^{}^{}p_B)\overline{u}_p\gamma _5v_{\overline{p}}`$ (46)
$`+`$ $`\rho ^0|\overline{d}\epsilon /_D^{}^{}(1\gamma _5)b|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2m_\rho ^2}}\overline{u}_p\epsilon _\rho ^\mu (g_1^{\rho NN}\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\rho NN}}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu )v_{\overline{p}}`$ (47)
$`+`$ $`\omega |\overline{d}\epsilon /_D^{}^{}(1\gamma _5)b|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2m_\omega ^2}}\overline{u}_p\epsilon _\omega ^\mu (g_1^{\omega NN}\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\omega NN}}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu )v_{\overline{p}}`$ (48)
$`+`$ $`a_1^0|\overline{d}\epsilon /_D^{}^{}(1\gamma _5)b|\overline{B}^0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^2m_{a_1}^2}}\overline{u}_p(g_1^{a_1NN}\epsilon /_{a_1}\gamma _5)v_{\overline{p}}\}.`$ (49)
### B Baryon pole contributions

In addition to the aforementioned meson pole contributions, there also exist baryon pole diagrams, namely, the strong process $`\overline{B}^0\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^{+()}\overline{p}`$ followed by the weak decay $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^{+()}D^0p`$. Due to the large theoretical uncertainties with the $`\frac{1}{2}^{}`$ state $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+`$, we will focus on the $`\frac{1}{2}^+`$ intermediate state and its amplitude is given by

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}f_Da_2g_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+B\overline{p}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p_p+p_D)^2m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}^2}}`$ (50)
$`\times `$ $`\overline{u}_p\{f_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(m_D^2)[2p_Dp_p+p/_D(m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}m_p)]\gamma _5`$ (51)
$`+`$ $`g_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(m_D^2)[2p_Dp_pp/_D(m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}+m_p)]\}v_{\overline{p}},`$ (52)
where we have applied the factorization approximation to the weak decay $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+D^0p`$. Similarly, for $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ we have

$`A(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{cb}V_{ud}^{}f_D^{}m_D^{}a_2g_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+B\overline{p}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(p_p+p_D^{})^2m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}^2}}`$ (53)
$`\times `$ $`\overline{u}_p\epsilon ^\mu \{f_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(m_D^{}^2)[2p_{p\mu }+(m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}m_p)\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu p/_D]\gamma _5`$ (54)
$`+`$ $`g_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(m_D^{}^2)[2p_{p\mu }(m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}+m_p)\gamma _\mu +\gamma _\mu p/_D]\}v_{\overline{p}},`$ (55)
where $`\epsilon _\mu ^{}`$ is the polarization vector of the $`D^{}`$.

The baryon pole contribution is expected to be suppressed relative to the meson pole due to the smallness of the strong coupling of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+B^0\overline{p}`$ .

## IV Calculations and Results

To proceed numerical calculations we first need to know the relevant form factors, decay constants, strong couplings, and the parameters $`a_1`$, $`a_2`$, which will be discussed in more detail below.

### A form factors and decay constants

For the mesonic form factors of $`BP`$ and $`BV`$ transitions we use the Melikhov-Stech (MS) model based on the constituent quark picture  and the Neubert-Rieckert-Stech-Xu (NRSX) model  which takes the Bauer-Stech-Wirbel (BSW) model  results for the form factors at zero momentum transfer but makes a different ansatz for their $`q^2`$ dependence, namely, a dipole behavior is assumed for the form factors $`F_1,A_0,A_2,V`$, motivated by heavy quark symmetry, and a monopole dependence for $`F_0,A_1`$.

For $`Ba_1`$ form factors, there are two existing calculations: one in a quark-meson model  and the other based on the QCD sum rule . The results are quite different, for example, $`V^{Ba_1}(0)`$ computed in the quark-meson model, 1.20 , is larger than the sum-rule prediction, $`0.23\pm 0.05`$ , by a factor of five. We shall see later that $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ is rather sensitive to the form factor $`V_0^{Ba_1}`$. It turns that in order to accommodate the measurement of this decay, this form factor should be around 0.86 which is between the above-mentioned model calculations. In the present paper we shall use the quark-meson model results for the $`Ba_1`$ form factors except that the value of $`V_0^{Ba_1}(0)`$ is replaced by 0.85 rather than 1.20 .

To compute the form factors for $`F_0^{B\eta }`$ and $`F_0^{B\eta ^{}}`$, it is more natural to consider the flavor basis of $`\eta _q`$ and $`\eta _s`$ defined by

$`\eta _q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}),\eta _s=s\overline{s}.`$ (56)
The wave functions of the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ are given by

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\eta \\ \eta ^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\varphi & \mathrm{sin}\varphi \\ \mathrm{sin}\varphi & \mathrm{cos}\varphi \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\eta _q\\ \eta _s\end{array}\right),`$ (57)
where $`\varphi =\theta +\mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{2}`$, and $`\theta `$ is the $`\eta \eta ^{}`$ mixing angle in the octet-singlet basis. The physical form factors then have the simple expressions:

$`F_{0,1}^{B\eta }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\mathrm{cos}\varphi F_{0,1}^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}},`$ $`F_{0,1}^{B\eta ^{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\mathrm{sin}\varphi F_{0,1}^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}^{}}.`$ (58)
Using $`F_0^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}}(0)=0.307`$ and $`F_0^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}^{}}(0)=0.254`$ obtained from  and the mixing angle $`\varphi =39.3^{}`$ (or $`\theta =15.4^{}`$)  we find $`F_0^{B\eta }(0)=0.168`$ and $`F_0^{B\eta ^{}}(0)=0.114`$ in the BSW model and hence the NRSX model. For other form-factor models, we shall apply the relation based on the isospin-quartet symmetry

$`F_{0,1}^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}}=F_{0,1}^{B\eta _{u\overline{u}}^{}}=F_{0,1}^{B\pi }`$ (59)
and Eq. (58) to obtain the physical $`B\eta `$ and $`B\eta ^{}`$ transition form factors. For the MS model we obtain $`F_0^{B\eta }(0)=0.141`$ and $`F_0^{B\eta ^{}}(0)=0.115`$.

For the heavy-light baryonic form factors $`f_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}`$ and $`g_i^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}`$, we will follow  to apply the nonrelativistic quark model to evaluate the weak current-induced baryon form factors at zero recoil in the rest frame of the heavy parent baryon, where the quark model is most trustworthy. Following  we have

$`f_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(q_m^2)=1.703,g_1^{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+p}(q_m^2)=0.166`$ (60)
at zero recoil $`q_m^2=(m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b}m_p)^2`$. Since the calculation for the $`q^2`$ dependence of form factors is beyond the scope of the non-relativistic quark model, we will follow the conventional practice to assume a pole dominance for the form-factor $`q^2`$ behavior:

$`f(q^2)=f(q_m^2)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1q_m^2/m_V^2}{1q^2/m_V^2}}\right)^n,g(q^2)=g(q_m^2)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1q_m^2/m_A^2}{1q^2/m_A^2}}\right)^n,`$ (61)
where $`m_V`$ ($`m_A`$) is the pole mass of the vector (axial-vector) meson with the same quantum number as the current under consideration.

For the decay constants we use $`f_D=200`$ MeV, $`f_D^{}=230`$ MeV and $`f_{a_1}=205`$ MeV.

### B strong couplings

In order to compute the decay rate for $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$ we also need to know the strong couplings $`g_{\pi NN},g_1^{\rho NN},g_2^{\rho NN}`$ and $`g_1^{a_1NN}`$ and their $`q^2`$ dependence. To do this, let us consider the pole contributions to $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$. In the pole model description, the relevant intermediate states are $`\pi ^{},\rho ^{}`$ and $`a_1^{}(1260)`$ as shown in Fig. 1(b). The matrix element $`n\overline{p}|(VA)_\mu |0`$ then reads

$`n\overline{p}|(VA)_\mu |0_{\mathrm{pole}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{u}_n\{{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}f_\rho m_\rho }{q^2m_\rho ^2}}[g_1^{\rho NN}\gamma _\mu +i{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^{\rho NN}}{2m_N}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu ]`$ (62)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}f_{a_1}m_{a_1}}{q^2m_{a_1}^2}}g_1^{a_1NN}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}f_\pi g_{\pi NN}}{q^2m_\pi ^2}}q_\mu \gamma _5\}v_{\overline{p}}.`$ (63)
Comparing this with Eq. (16) we see that the $`\rho ^{}`$ meson is responsible for the vector form factors $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$, $`a_1^{}(1260)`$ for $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$, and $`\pi ^{}`$ for the induced pseudoscalar form factor $`g_3`$. More precisely,

$`g_1^{\rho NN}(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^2m_\rho ^2}{\sqrt{2}f_\rho m_\rho }}f_1^{np}(q^2),g_2^{\rho NN}(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{q^2m_\rho ^2}{\sqrt{2}f_\rho m_\rho }}f_2^{np}(q^2),`$ (64)
$`g_1^{a_1NN}(q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^2m_{a_1}^2}{\sqrt{2}f_{a_1}m_{a_1}}}g_1^{np}(q^2),g_{\pi NN}(q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{(q^2m_\pi ^2)}{2\sqrt{2}f_\pi m_N}}g_3^{np}(q^2).`$ (65)
As for the vector and tensor couplings of the $`\omega `$ meson, a priori they are not necessarily related to those of the $`\rho `$ meson. For simplicity we shall assume that $`g_{1,2}^{\omega NN}(q^2)=g_{1,2}^{\rho NN}(q^2)/\sqrt{2}`$, noting that the $`\rho `$ meson here is referred to the charged one.

As for the strong $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ couplings with nucleons, we shall apply the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}`$ quark-pair creation model  to estimate its strength relative to the pion. This model in which the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair is created from the vacuum with vacuum quantum numbers $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}`$ implies

$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta p\overline{p}}}{g_{\pi p\overline{p}}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_p^{}(124)\mathrm{\Phi }_\eta (35)|\mathrm{\Phi }_p^{}(123)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{vac}}(45)}{\mathrm{\Phi }_p^{}(124)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\pi ^0}(35)|\mathrm{\Phi }_p^{}(123)\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{vac}}(45)}},`$ (66)
where the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$’s are the spin-flavor wave functions and the vacuum wave function has the expression

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{vac}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(u\overline{u}+d\overline{d}+s\overline{s}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(+).`$ (67)
Using the proton wave function

$`p^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}[duu\chi _s+(12)+(13)],`$ (68)
with $`abc\chi _s=(2a^{}b^{}c^{}a^{}b^{}c^{}a^{}b^{}c^{})/\sqrt{6}`$, the $`\pi ^0`$ meson wave function

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\pi ^0}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(u\overline{u}d\overline{d}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(),`$ (69)
and the $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ flavor wave functions given by Eq. (57), we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta NN}}{g_{\pi NN}}}={\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ,{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\eta ^{}NN}}{g_{\pi NN}}}={\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}\mathrm{sin}\varphi .`$ (70)
Strictly speaking, the above relations hold only at low energies. But we shall assume their validity at arbitrary $`q^2`$.

As for the strong coupling $`g_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+\overline{B}^0p}`$, we use the experimental result for $`B^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_c\overline{p}\pi ^{}`$ to fix the absolute coupling strength of $`g_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_b^+\overline{B}^0p}`$ which is in turn related to $`g_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+\overline{B}^0p}`$ via the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{0}^{}`$ quark-pair-creation model . It is found that $`|g_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_b^+\overline{B}^0p}|5`$.

### C $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$

In the naive factorization approach, the parameters $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ are given by $`a_{1,2}=c_{2,1}+c_{1,2}/N_c`$, but this does not include nonfactorizable effects which are especially important for $`a_2`$. Phenomenologically, one can treat $`a_{1,2}`$ as free parameters and extract them from experiment. The experimental measurement of $`BJ/\psi K`$ leads to $`|a_2(J/\psi K)|=0.26\pm 0.02`$ . This seems to be also supported by the study of $`BD\pi `$ decays: Assuming no relative phase between $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$, the result $`a_2𝒪(0.200.30)`$  is inferred from the data of $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}\pi ^{}`$ and $`B^{}D^{()0}\pi ^{}`$. However, the above value of $`a_2`$ leads to too small decay rates for $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}\pi ^0`$ when compared to recent measurements by Belle and CLEO . In order to account for the observation, one needs a larger $`a_2(D\pi )`$ with a non-trivial phase relative to $`a_1`$ .

Using the measurements of CLEO and Belle for $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}\pi ^0`$ , the magnitudes of $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ and their relative phase are extracted in , as exhibited in Table I. We will use the values of $`a_{1,2}(D\pi )`$ to compute the decay rate for $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p},D^0p\overline{p}`$ and $`a_{1,2}(D^{}\pi )`$ for $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p},D^0p\overline{p}`$.

### D Results

In principle, the unknown parameter $`d_2`$ appearing in the form factor $`g_1^{np}(q^2)`$ \[cf. Eq. (28)\] can be fitted to the measured central value of the branching ratio for $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p}`$ as it is theoretically much more clean. However, we find that the decay rate of $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ is dominated by the axial-vector meson poles and hence it is rather sensitive to $`g_1^{np}(t)`$ and hence $`d_2`$. Therefore, we instead fix it by fitting to the measured central value of $`(\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p})=1.18\times 10^4`$. We obtain $`d_2=2070\mathrm{GeV}^6`$ and $`2370\mathrm{GeV}^6`$, respectively, in NRSX and MS form-factor models.

The total decay rate for the process $`\overline{B}(p_B)N(p_1)+\overline{N}(p_2)+D(p_3)`$ is computed by the formula

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32m_B^3}}{\displaystyle |A|^2𝑑m_{12}^2𝑑m_{23}^2},`$ (71)
where $`m_{ij}^2=(p_i+p_j)^2`$ with $`p_3=p_D`$. To compute the branching ratios, we use the $`B`$ meson lifetimes quoted in .

The results are shown in Table II. As stated before, we fit the unknown parameter $`d_2`$ to the measured branching ratio of $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ and then in turn predict other neutral baryonic $`B`$ modes. The baryon pole contributions to $`D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$ are found to be at most of order of $`10^6`$ and hence they are negligible. It is clear from Table II that the predicted rates are consistent with experiment. We see that $`\overline{B}^0D(D^{})N\overline{N}`$ are dominated by the vector current or by vector meson intermediate states,<sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>*As far as the axial vector contribution to the branching ratio is concerned, our result for $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p}`$ is quite different from that given in , though the value of $`d_2`$ is similar. For example, $`_A12.7\times 10^4`$ is obtained in , whereas it is only $`0.6\times 10^4`$ in our case. If $`g_1^{np}`$ is identified with the asymptotic form $`\frac{5}{3}G_M^p+G_M^n`$ in the whole time-like region \[cf. Eq.(27)\], $`_A`$ in our case will be of order only $`8\times 10^6`$, while it can be as large as $`1\times 10^4`$ in . whereas $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ is dominated by the axial-vector intermediate state $`a_1(1260)`$. Note that the ratio $`D^+/D^+`$ is of order 3, while $`D^0/D^0`$ is close to unity.

In Fig. 3 we show the $`n\overline{p}`$ invariant mass distributions $`d/dm_{n\overline{p}}`$ of $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p}`$ and $`\overline{B}^0D^+n\overline{p}`$, where $`m_{n\overline{p}}`$ is the invariant mass of the nucleon pair. Evidently, the spectrum peaks at $`m_{p\overline{p}}2.1\mathrm{GeV}`$, indicating a threshold enhancement for baryon production, that is, a recoil charmed meson is accompanied by a nucleon pair with low invariant mass. This effect is due to the suppression of the baryonic form factors at large $`t`$. Physically, this can be visualized that the quark and anti-quark forming a nucleon pair are moving collinearly and energetically, so that the invariant mass $`m_{p\overline{p}}`$ tends to be small and near threshold.

Also shown in Fig. 4 are the $`p\overline{p}`$ invariant mass distributions of $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ and $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ calculated in the MS model. It is clear that the spectrum of $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ is similar to that of $`D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$. As for the differential rate of $`D^0p\overline{p}`$, it has a hump around $`m_{p\overline{p}}3.0`$ GeV, which is caused by the mass term $`q^\mu q^\nu /m_{a_1}^2`$ in the propagator of the $`a_1`$ meson.The $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ spectrum is somewhat sensitive to the model for form factors. In the NRSX model, the peak appearing at low $`p\overline{p}`$ invariant mass $`2`$ GeV is lower than the hump at $`m_{p\overline{p}}3`$ GeV. This is inconsistent with experiment \[see the data shown Fig. 4(b)\]. We see that the predicted spectrum is consistent with experiment.

## V Conclusions

We have studied the charmful three-body baryonic $`B`$ decays $`\overline{B}D^{()}N\overline{N}`$: the color-allowed modes $`\overline{B}^0D^{()+}n\overline{p}`$ and the color-suppressed ones $`\overline{B}^0D^{()0}p\overline{p}`$. While the $`D^+/D^+`$ production ratio is predicted to be of order 3, it is found that $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ has a similar rate as $`D^0p\overline{p}`$. It is pointed out that $`\overline{B}^0D(D^{})N\overline{N}`$ are dominated by the nucleon vector current or by vector meson intermediate states, whereas $`\overline{B}^0D^0p\overline{p}`$ proceeds predominately via the axial-vector intermediate state $`a_1(1260)`$. The study of the $`N\overline{N}`$ invariant mass distribution in general indicates a threshold baryon pair production, that is, a recoil charmed meson accompanied by a low mass baryon pair except that the spectrum of $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ has a hump at large $`p\overline{p}`$ invariant mass $`m_{p\overline{p}}3.0`$ GeV. The presence of a hump in the $`D^0p\overline{p}`$ spectrum can be tested by the improved experiment in the future.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Council of R.O.C. under Grant Nos. NSC90-2112-M-001-047 and NSC90-2112-M-033-004.