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# Onset of thermal convection in a horizontal layer of granular gas

## I Introduction

Fluidized granular media exhibit a plethora of fascinating pattern-formation phenomena that have been subjects of much recent interest patterngran . In this work we address thermal (buoyancy-driven) granular convection Ramirez ; Wildman ; Sunthar ; Meerson ; Talbot . Being unrelated to the shear or time-dependence introduced by the system boundaries, it resembles the Rayleigh-Bènard convection in classical fluid Chandrasekhar  and its compressible modifications Landau ; Spiegel ; GS ; Gitterman ; CU . In classical fluid convection requires an externally imposed negative temperature gradient, that is a temperature gradient in the direction opposite to gravity. In a vibrofluidized granular medium a negative temperature gradient sets in spontaneously because of the energy loss by inelastic collisions. Convection develops when the absolute value of the temperature gradient is large enough. In the simplest model of inelastic hard spheres that we will use it happens when the inelasticity coefficient $`q=(1r)/2`$ exceeds a critical value depending on the rest of the parameters of the system. Here $`r`$ is the coefficient of normal restitution of particle collisions.

Thermal granular convection was first observed in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of a system of inelastically colliding disks in a two-dimensional (2D) square box Ramirez . The boundaries of the box Ramirez  did not introduce any shear or time-dependence: the system was driven by a stress-free thermalizing base. The top wall was perfectly elastic, while the lateral boundaries were either elastic or periodic. Experiment with a highly fluidized three-dimensional granular flow Wildman  gives strong evidence for thermal convection, though energy loss at the side walls introduces complications Wildman ; Talbot . A clear identification of thermal convection in experiment requires a large aspect ratio in the horizontal direction, so that multiple convection cells can be observed. MD simulations in 2D of a vibrofluidized granular system with a large aspect ratio indeed show multiple convection cells Sunthar .

This work deals with a theory of thermal granular convection in a system with a large aspect ratio. Recently, a continuum model of thermal granular convection has been formulated Meerson  in the framework of the Navier-Stokes granular hydrodynamics. In the dilute limit the Navier-Stokes hydrodynamics (or, more precisely, gasdynamics) is systematically derivable from more fundamental kinetic equations Jenkins ; Brey1 . Like any other hydrodynamic approach, the Navier-Stokes hydrodynamics demands small Knudsen numbers for its validity. In addition, it has been shown that at moderate inelasticities $`q`$ non-hydrodynamic effects (such as the lack of scale separation, the normal stress difference and non-Gaussianity in the particle velocity distribution) may become important Goldhirsch . Therefore, the Navier-Stokes granular hydrodynamics is expected to be accurate quantitatively only for nearly elastic collisions, $`q1`$. Though restrictive, the nearly elastic limit is conceptually important. Also, one can expect some of the results, obtained in this limit, to be still qualitatively valid for larger inelasticities, such as those encountered in experiment.

In Ref. Meerson  the full set of nonlinear hydrodynamic equations for thermal granular convection was solved numerically in a 2D box with aspect ratio 1. It was observed, in qualitative agreement with MD simulations Ramirez , that the static state of the system (a steady state with a zero mean flow) gives way to convection via a supercritical bifurcation, the inelasticity $`q`$ being the control parameter. The present work employs the same hydrodynamic formulation Meerson  to perform a systematic linear stability analysis of the static state. We determine the convection threshold as a function of the scaled parameters of the problem and of the horizontal wave number of small perturbations. This analysis makes it possible to predict the convection threshold and determine the morphology of the convection cells in a system with an arbitrary aspect ratio, including an infinite horizontal layer, a standard setting for convection in classical fluids Chandrasekhar ; Cross . We also formulate a simple necessary (but not sufficient) criterion for thermal granular convection in terms of the Schwarzschild’s criterion, well-known in thermal convection of (compressible) classical fluids Landau . Finally, we take the limit of a zero gravity and establish the connection between thermal convection and a recently discovered phase-separation instability Livne ; Brey ; Khain ; Livne2 ; Argentina ; MPSS .

## II Model and static state

Let a big number of identical smooth hard disks with diameter $`d`$ and mass $`m`$ move and inelastically collide inside an infinite two-dimensional horizontal layer with height $`H`$. The gravity acceleration $`g`$ is in the negative $`y`$ direction. The system is driven by a rapidly vibrating base. We shall model it in a simplified way by prescribing a constant granular temperature $`T_0`$ at $`y=0`$. The top wall is assumed elastic. Hydrodynamics deals with coarse-grained fields: the number density of grains $`n(𝐫,t)`$, granular temperature $`T(𝐫,t)`$ and mean flow velocity $`𝐯(𝐫,t)`$. In the dilute limit, the scaled governing equations are Meerson :

$$dn/dt+n𝐯=0,$$
(1)
$$nd𝐯/dt=𝐏Fn𝐞_y,$$
(2)
$$ndT/dt+nT𝐯=K(T^{1/2}T)KRn^2T^{3/2}.$$
(3)
Here $`d/dt=/t+𝐯`$ is the total derivative, $`𝐏=nT𝐈+(1/2)KT^{1/2}\widehat{𝐃}`$ is the stress tensor, $`𝐃=(1/2)\left(v+(v)^T\right)`$ is the rate of deformation tensor, $`\widehat{𝐃}=𝐃(1/2)\mathrm{tr}(𝐃)𝐈`$ is the deviatoric part of $`𝐃`$, and $`𝐈`$ is the identity tensor. In the dilute limit, the bulk viscosity of the gas is negligible compared to the shear viscosity Jenkins , so only the shear viscosity is taken into account. In addition, we have neglected the small viscous heating term in the heat balance equation (3). The inelastic contribution to the heat flux Brey1  is proportional to $`q`$ and can be safely neglected at small $`q`$. In the 2D geometry, the three scaled parameters entering Eqs. (2) and (3) are the Froude number $`F=mgH/T_0`$, the Knudsen number $`K=2\pi ^{1/2}(dHn)^1`$ and the relative heat loss parameter $`R=8qK^2`$. Furthermore, $`n`$ is the total number of particles per unit length in the horizontal direction, divided by the layer height $`H`$. It will be convenient to use the relative heat loss number $`R`$ instead of $`q`$. In Eqs. (1)-(3), the distance is measured in the units of $`H`$, the time in units of $`H/T_0^{1/2}`$, the density in units of $`n`$, the temperature in units of $`T_0`$, and the velocity in units of $`T_0^{1/2}`$. The Navier-Stokes hydrodynamic model is expected to be valid when the mean free path of the particles is much smaller than any length scale (and the mean collision time is much smaller than any time scale) described hydrodynamically. This implies, in particular, that the Knudsen number should be small: $`K1`$.

The boundary conditions for the temperature are $`T(x,y=0,t)=1`$ at the base and a zero normal component of the heat flux at the upper wall: $`T/y(x,y=1,t)=0`$. For velocities we demand zero normal components and slip (no stress) conditions at the boundaries. The total number of particles in the system is conserved:

$$\underset{L\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2L}_L^L𝑑x_0^1𝑑yn(x,y,t)=1,$$
(4)
where we have introduced the horizontal dimension $`2L`$. The hydrodynamic problem is characterized by the three scaled numbers $`F`$, $`K`$ and $`R`$.

The simplest steady state of the system is the static state: no mean flow. At a nonzero gravity the density $`n_s`$ and temperature $`T_s`$ of the static state depend only on $`y`$, and are described by the equations

$$(n_sT_s)^{}+Fn_s=0\text{and}(T_s^{1/2}T_s^{})^{}Rn_s^2T_s^{3/2}=0,$$
(5)
where the primes denote the $`y`$-derivatives. The boundary conditions are $`T_s(0)=1`$ and $`T_s^{}(1)=0`$, the normalization condition is $`_0^1𝑑yn_s(y)=1.`$ The static state (see Fig. 1) is characterized by two scaled numbers: $`F`$ and $`R`$, and can be found analytically by transforming from the Eulerian coordinate $`y`$ to the Lagrangian mass coordinate $`\mu (y)=_0^yn_s(y^{})𝑑y^{}`$ Meerson . At large enough $`R`$, a density inversion develops: a denser (heavier) gas is located on the top of an under-dense (lighter) gas. This is clearly a destabilizing effect that drives thermal convection. However, this effect is neither sufficient, nor necessary for convection, see below. The actual (necessary and sufficient) criterion should take into account the heat conduction and viscosity that scale like $`K`$ in the governing equations and have a stabilizing role. A small sinusoidal perturbation in the horizontal direction is unstable with respect to convection if the relative heat loss parameter $`R`$ exceeds a critical value that depends on $`F`$, $`K`$ and the horizontal wave number.

## III The linear stability analysis

The linear stability analysis involves linearization of Eqs. (1)-(3) around the static solutions $`n_s(y)`$ and $`T_s(y)`$. The linearized equations are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{n}}{t}}+n_s{\displaystyle \frac{v_x}{x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{y}}(n_sv_y)=0,`$ (6)
$`n_s{\displaystyle \frac{𝐯}{t}}=(n_s\stackrel{~}{T}+T_s\stackrel{~}{n})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}K(T_s^{1/2}\widehat{𝐃})`$
$`F\stackrel{~}{n}𝐞_y,`$ (7)
$`n_s\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{t}}+T_s^{}v_y\right)+n_sT_s𝐯=`$
$`K^2(T_s^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{T})KRn_s^2T_s^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\stackrel{~}{n}}{n_s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3\stackrel{~}{T}}{2T_s}}\right),`$ (8)
where $`\stackrel{~}{n}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ and $`𝐯`$ denote small perturbations. Exploiting the translational symmetry of the static state in the horizontal direction, one can consider a single Fourier mode in $`x`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{n}(x,y,t)=\mathrm{e}^{\gamma t}N(y)\mathrm{cos}k_xx,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{T}(x,y,t)=\mathrm{e}^{\gamma t}\mathrm{\Theta }(y)\mathrm{cos}k_xx,`$
$`v_x(x,y,t)=\mathrm{e}^{\gamma t}u(y)\mathrm{sin}k_xx,`$
$`v_y(x,y,t)=\mathrm{e}^{\gamma t}v(y)\mathrm{cos}k_xx,`$ (9)
where $`\gamma `$ is the scaled growth/decay rate, and $`k_x`$ is the scaled horizontal wave number. Substituting Eq. (9) into Eqs. (6)-(8) and eliminating $`N`$, we obtain three homogeneous ordinary differential equations that can be written as a single equation for the eigenvector $`𝐔(y)=[\mathrm{\Theta }(y),u(y),v(y)]`$, corresponding to the eigenvalue $`\gamma `$:

$$𝐀𝐔^{\prime \prime }+𝐁𝐔^{}+𝐂𝐔=0,$$
(10)
where

$$𝐀=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}Ka_0& 0& 0\\ 0& Ka_0/4& 0\\ 0& 0& Ka_0/4n_sT_s/\gamma \end{array}\right),$$
(11)
$$𝐁=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}2Ka_1& 0& 2KRn_s^2T_s^{3/2}/\gamma n_sT_s\\ 0& Ka_1/4& k_xn_sT_s/\gamma \\ n_s& k_xn_sT_s/\gamma & Ka_1/4T_sn_s^{}/\gamma \end{array}\right),$$
(12)
while the elements of matrix $`𝐂`$ are

$`C_{11}`$ $`=`$ $`Ka_23KRn_s^2a_0/2Kk_x^2a_0+\gamma n_s,`$
$`C_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`2KRn_s^2T_s^{3/2}k_x/\gamma k_xn_sT_s,`$
$`C_{13}`$ $`=`$ $`2KRn_sT_s^{3/2}n_s^{}/\gamma n_sT_s^{},`$
$`C_{21}`$ $`=`$ $`k_xn_s,`$
$`C_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`k_x^2n_sT_s/\gamma +\gamma n_sKk_x^2a_0/4,`$
$`C_{23}`$ $`=`$ $`k_xT_sn_s^{}/\gamma Kk_xa_1/4,`$
$`C_{31}`$ $`=`$ $`n_s^{},`$
$`C_{32}`$ $`=`$ $`Kk_xa_1/4,`$
$`C_{33}`$ $`=`$ $`(T_s^{\prime \prime }n_s+T_s^{}n_s^{})/\gamma +\gamma n_sKk_x^2a_0/4.`$ (13)
We have denoted for brevity $`a_0=T_s^{1/2}(y),a_1=a_0^{}`$ and $`a_2=a_0^{\prime \prime }`$. The boundary conditions for the functions $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, $`u`$ and $`v`$ are the following:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(0)=\mathrm{\Theta }^{}(1)=u^{}(0)=u^{}(1)=v(0)=v(1)=0.$$
(14)
Equation (10) with the boundary conditions (14) define a linear boundary-value problem: there are three boundary conditions at the base and three at the top. A simple numerical procedure (realized in MATLAB) enabled us to avoid the unpleasant shooting in three parameters. The procedure employs the linearity of the problem. We first complement the three boundary conditions at the base by three arbitrary boundary conditions at the base, and compute numerically three independent solutions of Eqs. (10). The general solution can be represented as a linear combination of these three independent solutions that includes three arbitrary coefficients. Demanding that the three remaining boundary conditions at the top be satisfied, we obtain three homogeneous linear algebraic equations for the coefficients. A nontrivial solution requires that the determinant vanish, which yields the eigenvalue $`\gamma `$. Varying $`R`$ at fixed $`F`$, $`K`$ and $`k_x`$, we determine the critical value $`R=R_c`$ for instability from the condition $`\mathrm{Re}\gamma =0`$. We found this algorithm to be accurate and efficient.

In the whole region of the parameter space that we explored we found that $`\mathrm{Im}\gamma =0`$ at the instability onset. Therefore, thermal granular convection does not exhibit overstability and can be analyzed in terms of marginal stability. Figure 2a shows the marginal stability curves versus the horizontal wave number $`k_x`$ at a fixed $`K`$ and two different values of $`F`$ comparison . The curves exhibit minima $`(k_x^{},R_c^{})`$, similarly to the convection in classical fluids Chandrasekhar . Therefore, the convection threshold in the horizontally infinite layer is $`R=R_c^{}`$. Close to the onset, the expected horizontal size of the convection cell is $`2\pi /k_x^{}`$. Figure 3 depicts these convection cells obtained by plotting the field lines of the respective velocity field $`(u(y)\mathrm{sin}k_xx,v(y)\mathrm{cos}k_xx),`$ found numerically. One can see that at small $`F`$ the cells occupy the whole layer of granular gas and are elongated in the horizontal direction. At large $`F`$ the cells are effectively located near the base, and their aspect ratio is close to unity.

Figure 2b corresponds to a zero gravity: $`F=0`$. Here a different symmetry-breaking instability occurs: the one that leads to phase separation Livne ; Brey ; Khain ; Livne2 ; Argentina ; MPSS . When $`R`$ exceeds the marginal stability threshold $`R_c^{}(F=0)`$, the laterally symmetric stripe of enhanced particle density at the top wall becomes unstable and gives way to a 2D steady state. In contrast to the convection, the new steady state with a broken translational symmetry is static: no mean flow. The quantity $`R_c^{}(F=0)`$ can be calculated analytically Khain . In our present notation, it is determined from the algebraic equation $`\mathrm{coth}\mu =\mu `$, where $`\mu =(R_c^{}/2)^{1/2}`$. This yields $`R_c^{}(F=0)=2.8785\mathrm{}`$. The minimum of the marginal stability curve occurs here at $`k_x^{}=0`$, that is for an infinitely long wavelength.

We found that the crossover between the two instabilities is continuous. The dependences of $`R_c^{}`$ and $`k_x^{}`$ on the Froude number $`F`$ are shown in Fig. 4. One can see that the $`R_c^{}(F)`$ dependence is non-monotonic. A stronger gravity is favorable for convection at very small $`F`$ (as Fig. 2a also shows). However, this tendency is reversed at $`F0.16`$, and $`R_c^{}`$ starts to grow with $`F`$ until it saturates at large $`F`$. In its turn, $`k_x^{}`$ goes down monotonically with $`F`$ and vanishes at $`F=0`$. The decrease is quite slow at intermediate $`F`$, but becomes very rapid at very small $`F`$. As the phase separation instability does not exist in classical fluid, this low-$`F`$ behavior is unique for granular fluid.

The large-$`F`$ limit deserves a special attention. Here the granulate is localized at the base. This regime is convenient in experiment, as particle collisions with the top wall (which are in reality inelastic) are avoided. A natural unit of distance in this regime is $`\lambda =T_0/mg`$, while the time should be scaled to $`\lambda /T_0^{1/2}`$. Correspondingly, $`n`$ is defined now as the total number of particles per unit length in the horizontal direction, divided by $`\lambda `$. After rescaling the Froude number $`F`$ drops out of Eqs. (1)-(3) and enters the problem only via the top wall position $`H/\lambda =F`$. For $`F1`$ the top wall can be safely moved to infinity, and $`F`$ drops out of the problem completely. Therefore, at large $`F`$, the convection threshold $`R_c^{}`$ should depend only on $`K`$. Our numerical results fully support this prediction, see Fig. 4. How should $`k_x^{}`$ behave at large $`F`$? Let us reintroduce for a moment the “physical” (dimensional) horizontal wave number $`k_{xph}`$. The scaled critical wave number $`k_x^{}=k_{xph}^{}H=k_{xph}^{}\lambda F`$. As the product $`k_{xph}^{}\lambda `$ is the scaled wave number in the newly rescaled variables, it should be independent of $`F`$ at large $`F`$. Therefore, $`k_x^{}`$ should be proportional to $`F`$. Figure 5 shows that the quantity $`k_x^{}/F`$ indeed approaches a constant (that depends on $`K`$) at large $`F`$.

These results give, for fixed values of $`F`$ and $`K`$, the necessary and sufficient criterion for convection. It is often useful to also have a simpler and easier-to-interpret criterion, even if approximate. A simplified criterion for convection can be obtained by neglecting the viscosity and heat conduction terms in the linearized equations (6)-(8), that is by taking the limit $`K0`$. As the viscosity and heat conduction act against convection, this procedure obviously yields a necessary, but not sufficient, criterion for convection.

Without the dissipative terms, Eqs. (6)-(8) coincide with the linearized equations of ideal hydrodynamics of classical fluid with specified static profiles of temperature $`T_s(y)`$ and density $`n_s(y)`$. Even for this idealized problem, the exact criterion for convection can be obtained only numerically, and the result depends explicitly on the specific profiles $`T_s(y)`$ and $`n_s(y)`$. There is, however, a simple and general limit here in terms of the Schwarzschild’s criterion Landau  that yields a lower bound for the convection threshold. The Schwarzschild’s criterion guarantees that there is no convection if the entropy of the fluid in the static state $`S(n_s,T_s)`$ grows with the height, that is $`S^{}(n_s,T_s)>0`$ for any $`y`$. For the nearly elastic hard sphere model in 2D the granular entropy in the dilute limit is $`S(n,T)=\mathrm{ln}(T/n)`$. \[Importantly, we are not making here any additional assumption: this simple constitutive relation for $`S(n,T)`$ was already used in Eqs. (1)-(3).\] Therefore, the Schwarzschild’s criterion can be rewritten in terms of the static temperature and density profiles and their first derivatives. For a given $`F`$, the static profiles are determined solely by the relative heat loss parameter $`R`$. Therefore, the Schwarzschild’s criterion yields a critical value $`R=R_S(F)`$ so that at $`R<R_S(F)`$ there is no convection. The opposite inequality $`R>R_S(F)`$ yields a necessary (but of course not sufficient) criterion for convection. How to find $`R_S(F)`$? At small enough $`R`$ the spatial derivative of the entropy, $`S^{}(y)`$, is positive at any height $`y0`$. By increasing $`R`$ we observe that, at the critical value $`R=R_S(F)`$, the entropy derivative $`S^{}(y)`$ vanishes at some point $`y`$. It is crucial that this point is always $`y=0`$. Increasing $`R`$ further, we would already have an interval of heights where $`S^{}(y)<0`$. Therefore, the Schwarzschild’s curve $`R_S(F)`$ can be obtained from the condition $`S^{}(y=0)=0`$. This curve, obtained numerically, is shown by the dashed line in Fig. 4. As expected, the exact (necessary and sufficient) convection threshold curve always lies above the Schwarzschild’s curve.

The small-$`F`$ and large-$`F`$ asymptotics of the Schwarzschild’s curve can be obtained analytically. Let us first consider the case of $`F1`$. As will be seen from the result, here $`R1`$ too, and one can represent the steady-state solutions as $`T_s(y)=1+\delta T_s(y)`$, and $`n_s(y)=1+\delta n_s(y)`$, where $`\delta T_s1`$ and $`\delta n_s1`$. Substituting these expressions into Eq. (5) and keeping only the first order quantities, we obtain two very simple linear differential equations. Solving them with the respective boundary and normalization conditions, we obtain $`T_s(y)1Ry+(R/2)y^2`$ and $`n_s(y)1+F/2R/3+(RF)y(R/2)y^2`$. The condition $`S^{}(y=0)=0`$ then yields the desired small-$`F`$ asymptotics: $`R_S(F1)F/2`$.

At $`F1`$, one can conveniently use the analytic solution for the static profiles in the Lagrangian mass coordinate Meerson . In this limit

$$T_s(z)=\frac{I_0^2(z)}{I_0^2(\sqrt{R/2})},n_s(z)=\frac{I_0^2(\sqrt{R/2})z}{\sqrt{R/2}I_0^2(z)},$$
(15)
where $`z=(R/2)^{1/2}(1\mu )`$, and $`I_n(\mathrm{})`$ is the modified Bessel function of the first kind. (Recall that here we rescale the Eulerian coordinate $`y`$ by $`\lambda =T_0/mg`$ and define $`n`$ as the number of particles per unit length in the horizontal direction divided by $`\lambda `$.) Using Eqs. (15), we compute the $`y`$-derivative of the entropy:

$$S^{}=\frac{I_0^2(\sqrt{R/2})}{I_0^3(z)}\left[I_0(z)4zI_1(z)\right].$$
(16)
This expression vanishes when $`I_0(z)4zI_1(z)=0`$ which occurs at $`z=z_{}=0.72977\mathrm{}`$. As $`y=0`$ corresponds to $`\mu =0`$, we immediately obtain $`R_S=2z_{}^2=1.06514\mathrm{}`$. At $`R<R_S`$ we have $`S^{}>0`$ everywhere, so $`R=R_S`$ indeed corresponds to the Schwarzschild’s criterion. The value of $`R_S(F1)=1.06514\mathrm{}`$ shows up as the large-$`F`$ plateau of the Schwarzschild’s curve in Fig. 4.

Now let us return to the exact (necessary and sufficient) criterion for convection, found by solving the full linearized problem numerically. The dependence of the convection threshold $`R_c^{}`$ on the Knudsen number $`K`$ (at a fixed $`F`$) is shown in Fig. 6. $`R_c^{}`$ grows with $`K`$, because the viscosity and heat conduction (both of which scale like $`K`$) tend to suppress convection Meerson . As $`K0`$ the viscosity and heat conduction become negligible. Still, one should expect that the limiting value of the critical heat loss parameter $`R_{K0}(F)=lim_{K0}R_c^{}(F,K)`$ is greater than the Schwarzschild’s lower bound $`R_S(F)`$. This is indeed what is seen in Fig. 6, where the Schwarzschild’s value $`R_S(F=0.1)0.05`$ is shown by the empty circle.

## IV Summary

We performed a linear stability analysis of the static state in a horizontal layer of granular gas driven from below. The hydrodynamic theory Meerson  that we employed in our analysis is expected to be valid when the mean free path of the particles is much smaller than any length scale described hydrodynamically. We have found the convection threshold, in terms of the relative heat loss number $`R`$, versus the two other scaled numbers of the problem: the Froude number $`F`$ and the Knudsen number $`K`$. We have predicted the morphology of convection cells at the onset of convection. As $`F0`$, the convection instability goes over continuously into the phase-separation instability Livne ; Brey ; Khain ; Livne2 ; Argentina ; MPSS . At large $`F`$ the convection threshold depends only on $`K`$. We established a simple connection between thermal granular convection and classical thermal convection of ideal compressible fluid. The connection is given in terms of the Schwarzschild’s criterion, a universal necessary (but not sufficient) condition for thermal convection. A further development of the theory should account for the excluded-volume effects Jenkins . Importantly, the simple Schwarzschild’s criterion will be readily available in the finite-density theory. Indeed, this criterion requires only the knowledge of the static profiles of the granular temperature and density and the constitutive relation for the granular entropy.

## V Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge useful discussions with Igor S. Aranson, John M. Finn, Xiaoyi He, Pavel V. Sasorov and Victor Steinberg. The work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation administered by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.


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# On generation of Abelian magnetic fields in 𝑆𝑈(3) gluodynamics at high temperature

## 1 Introduction

The deconfinement phase transition remains the most topical problem of QCD at finite temperature. Nowadays a general believe is that the formation of the magnetic monopole condensate at low temperature and its evaporation at high temperature are responsible for this phenomenon (see, for instance, the papers  \-  and references therein). This scenario has been investigated either on a lattice  \-  or in a continuum quantum field theory . The present day status of this problem is characterized by the fact that the results obtained by the former method are in agreement with that of the latter one and complement each other, although some discrepancies exist. The most important discrepancy concerns the properties of the high temperature phase. As it is well known from lattice calculations, due to asymptotic freedom at high temperature the deconfining phase is to be a gas of free quarks and gluons - quark-gluon plasma. No other macroscopic parameters except temperature are expected. However, in the continuum calculations in Refs., , ,  the generation of the classical chromomagnetic field of order $`gHg^4T^2`$ was observed. This spontaneously created field is a reflection of infrared dynamics of the non-Abelian gauge fields at finite temperature. In the papers ,  the creation of the field was considered. The field stabilization due to the electrostatic potential (so-called the $`A_0`$ condensate)  and radiation corrections to the charged gluon spectrum  has been investigated for the $`SU(2)`$ gluodynamics. According to the picture derived in these papers the vacuum at high temperature is to be a stable, magnetized state. The noted discrepancy as well as some properties of the vacuum at high temperature have been discussed recently by Meisinger and Ogilvie . To eliminate the classical field in the deconfiming phase these authors have introduced a gluon magnetic mass on heuristic grounds. Then it was observed that to have a zero field at high temperature the value of the magnetic mass substituted into the one-loop effective potential (EP) must be of order $`g^2T`$. However, the spontaneous creation of the chromomagnetic field is mutually related with infrared properties of the non-Abelian gauge fields , that should be taken into consideration. This important aspect of the gauge field dynamics at high temperature needs in a more detailed investigation. Moreover, the correlation corrections accounting for long distance effects should be included to find a consistent picture at high temperature .

In the present paper the restored phase of QCD at high temperature is investigated within an approach including two stages of calculation. First, the consistent EP of the Abelian constant chromomagnetic fields - isotopic , $`H_3`$, and hypercharge, $`H_8`$ taking into consideration the one-loop and the daisy diagrams, which include the gluon magnetic mass insertions, is computed and the field configuration which is spontaneously generated is determined. This potential is real due to the daisies of the charged gluons, which cancel the imaginary part entering the one-loop part of the EP. As it is occurred, a specific combination of both fields is formed. Second, the one-loop polarization operator (PO) of charged gluons in these external fields is calculated. It is averaged over the gluon tree level states in the fields in order to find the radiation corrections to the spectrum. In this way the effective Debye’s and magnetic masses of gluons are derived. Then the vacuum magnetic field strengths are used to check whether or not the charged gluon spectrum (and therefore the magnetized vacuum) at finite temperature is stable. As it is found, this is the case and the non trivial vacuum is favorable at high temperature in the wide interval of temperature above the decofinement transition temperature $`T_d`$. Hence we come to the conclusion that the scenario with the magnetized vacuum generated due to infrared dynamics of gauge fields at high temperature results in a consistent picture. The higher loop corrections can be included perturbatively within an external field problem.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect.2 the charged sector of the $`SU_c(3)`$ gluodynamics is introduced. In Sect.3 the generation of the external chromomagnetic fields is considered and the field strengths are derived. In Sect.4 we calculate the PO in the external Abelian chromomagnetic fields at finite temperature and carry out the high temperature expansion of the one-loop radiation corrections to the Landau levels. The last section is devoted to the discussion of results obtained and possible applications.

## 2 The model

The Lagrangian of $`SU(3)`$ gluodynamics reads

$$L=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^aF_{\mu \nu }^a+L_{gf}+L_{gh},$$
(1)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^agf^{abc}A_\mu ^aA_\nu ^a`$ is the field strength tensor, $`A_\mu ^a`$ is a potential of the gluon field, $`f^{abc}`$ are the $`SU_c(3)`$ structure constants, $`a=1,\mathrm{},8`$. The metric is chosen to be Euclidian to consider the theory at $`T0`$ in the imaginary time formalism. The external chromomagnetic field is introduced by dividing the gluon field $`A_\mu ^a`$ into the sum of the classic background field $`B_\mu ^a`$ and the quantum field $`Q_\mu ^a`$ ,

$$A_\mu ^a=B_\mu ^a+Q_\mu ^a.$$
(2)
We choose the external potential in the form $`B_\mu ^a=\delta ^{a3}B_{3\mu }+\delta ^{a8}B_{8\mu }`$, where $`B_{3\mu }=H_3\delta _{\mu 2}x_1`$ and $`B_{8\mu }=H_8\delta _{\mu 2}x_1`$ correspond to constant chromomagnetic fields directed along the third axis of the Euclidean space and $`a=3`$ and $`a=8`$ of the colour $`SU_c(3)`$-space, respectively: $`F_{\mu \nu }^{aext}=\delta ^{a3}F_{3\mu \nu }+\delta ^{a8}F_{8\mu \nu }`$, $`F_{c12}=F_{c21}=H_c`$, $`c=3,8`$. The gauge fixing term in the Eq.(1) is

$$L_{gf}=\frac{1}{2}(_\mu Q_\mu ^a+gf^{abc}B_\mu ^bQ_\mu ^c)^2$$
(3)
and $`L_{gh}`$ represents the ghost Lagrangian. The components $`Q_\mu ^a`$ with $`a=1,2,4,5,6,7`$ correspond to the charged gluons. It is convenient to introduce the ”charged basis” of fields $`Q_\mu ^a`$ ($`a=1,2,4,5,6,7`$) by the expressions

$$W_{1\mu }^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(Q_\mu ^1\pm iQ_\mu ^2),W_{2\mu }^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(Q_\mu ^4\pm iQ_\mu ^5),W_{3\mu }^\pm =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(Q_\mu ^6\pm iQ_\mu ^7).$$
(4)
After simple algebra, one obtains the Lagrangian of the charged gluons in the form

$`L_{ch.gl.}={\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}W_{r\mu \nu }^+W_{r\mu \nu }^{}(D_\mu ^{}W_{r\mu }^+)(D_\nu W_{r\nu }^{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}c_rg^2W_{r\mu }^+W_{r\nu }^{}W_{r\lambda }^+W_{r\rho }^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }\right)`$
$`+ig(F_{3\mu \nu }+Q_{\mu \nu }^3)W_{1\mu }^+W_{1\nu }^{}+igQ_\mu ^3(W_{1\nu }^+(_\mu W_{1\nu }^{}_\nu W_{1\mu }^{})(h.c.))`$
$`+i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}g(\lambda _+F_{8\mu \nu }+Q_{\mu \nu }^8+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}Q_{\mu \nu }^3)W_{2\mu }^+W_{2\nu }^{}`$
$`+i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}g(Q_\mu ^8+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}Q_\mu ^3)(W_{2\nu }^+(_\mu W_{2\nu }^{}_\nu W_{2\mu }^{})(h.c.))`$
$`+i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}g(\lambda _{}F_{8\mu \nu }+Q_{\mu \nu }^8{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}Q_{\mu \nu }^3)W_{3\mu }^+W_{3\nu }^{}`$
$`+i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}g(Q_\mu ^8{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}}Q_\mu ^3)(W_{3\nu }^+(_\mu W_{3\nu }^{}_\nu W_{3\mu }^{})(h.c.))+L_{gh},`$ (5)
where $`W_{r\mu \nu }^+=D_{r\mu }^{}W_{r\nu }^+D_{r\nu }^{}W_{r\mu }^+`$, $`W_{r\mu \nu }^{}=D_{r\mu }W_{r\nu }^{}D_{r\nu }W_{r\mu }^{}`$, $`D_{r=1\mu }=_\mu +igB_{3\mu }`$, $`D_{r=2,3\mu }=_\mu +i\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\lambda _\pm gB_{8\mu }`$, are covariant derivatives, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }=\delta _{\mu \nu }\delta _{\lambda \rho }\delta _{\mu \lambda }\delta _{\nu \rho }`$,

$$\lambda _\pm =1\pm \frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}\frac{H_3}{H_8},$$

$`c_r=1,\frac{21}{12},\frac{15}{12}`$ for $`r=1,2,3`$, respectively. The Lagrangian (2) is a starting point of our analysis.

## 3 The spontaneous generation of chromomagnetic fields

First, let us investigate the spontaneous vacuum magnetization in the high temperature $`SU_c(3)`$ gluodynamics, charged sector of which is described by the Lagrangian (2). For this purpose we apply the method of the effective Lagrangian.

The effective Lagrangian of constant chromomagnetic fields $`H_3`$ and $`H_8`$ at finite temperature can be written in the form:

$$L_{eff}=L^{(1)}+L^{(ring)}+\mathrm{},$$
(6)
where the first term represents the one-loop contribution of the charged gluons:

$`L^{(1)}={\displaystyle \frac{gH_3}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[\beta ^2G_{r=1}^1(p_3,H_3,T)]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[\beta ^2G_{r=2}^1(p_3,H_3,H_8,T)]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[\beta ^2G_{r=3}^1(p_3,H_3,H_8,T)].`$ (7)
Here $`r`$ marks the index of the charged basis (4), $`G_r`$ is the corresponding propagator of the charged gluons in the external fields $`H_3`$ and $`H_8`$. The second term in Eq. (6) presents the contribution of daisy or ring diagrams of the charged gluons,

$`L_{ch}^{(ring)}={\displaystyle \frac{gH_3}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[1+G_{r=1}(ϵ_n^2,H_3,T)\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(H_3,T,n,\sigma )]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[1+`$
$`+G_{r=2}(ϵ_n^2,H_3,H_8,T)\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2}(H_3,H_8,T,n,\sigma )]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\sigma }{}}\mathrm{ln}[1+`$
$`+G_{r=3}(ϵ_n^2,H_3,H_8,T)\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=3}(H_3,H_8,T,n,\sigma )],`$ (8)
and of neutral gluons,

$`L_{neut}^{(ring)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}[\omega _l^2+\overline{p}^2+\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H_3,H_8,T)]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}[\omega _l^2+\overline{p}^2+\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H_3,H_8,T)].`$ (9)
These expressions include the PO of charged gluons averaged over physical states, which are also dependent on $`H=H_3,H_8`$, the level number $`n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$, the spin projection $`\sigma =\pm 1`$, and the Debye masses of the neutral gluons $`Q_\mu ^3`$$`Q_\mu ^8`$,

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H,T)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{}(k=0,H,T),$$

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H,T)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{\prime \prime }(k=0,H,T),$$

respectively. The averaged values of charged gluon PO taken in the state $`n=0`$ and $`\sigma =+1`$ give the magnetic masses of the transversal modes. The quantities $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H,T)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H,T)`$ are the zero-zero components of the corresponding neutral gluon polarization operators calculated in the external fields $`H=H_3,H_8`$ at finite temperature and taken at zero momentum. The ring contribution to the $`L_{eff}`$ has to be calculated when the vacuum magnetization at non-zero temperature is investigated. These diagrams account for long range correlations at finite temperature .

The detailed evaluations of the one-loop effective Lagrangian in finite-temperature $`SU(2)`$ gluonodynamics have been carried out in Refs.,. Performing them for our case we arrive at the following result for the high-temperature limit of $`L^{(1)}`$:

$`L^{(1)}={\displaystyle \frac{H_3^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{11}{32}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi ^2}}H_3^2\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{T}{\mu }}]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\pi }}(gH_3)^{\frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{3\pi }}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{H_8^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{11}{16}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi ^2}}H_8^2\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{T}{\mu }}]+(\lambda _+^{\frac{3}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{3}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{3\pi }}`$
$`+i[(gH_3)^{\frac{3}{2}}+(\lambda _+^{\frac{3}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{3}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{3}{2}}]{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2\pi }},`$ (10)
where $`T\sqrt{gH_{3,8}}\mu `$, $`\mu `$ is a renormalization point. The imaginary part in the expression (3) signals for the vacuum instability and must be considered carefully. Namely, as it will be shown below, the inclusion of ring diagrams , $`L^{ring}`$, leads to canceling the imaginary parts so that the whole expression $`L_{eff}`$ becomes real. To see this, let us consider the contribution of the ring diagrams which correspond to the unstable modes of the charged gluons:

$`L_{unstable}^{(ring)}={\displaystyle \frac{gH_3}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}[1+(\omega _l^2+p_3^2gH_3)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(H_3,T)]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}[1+(\omega _l^2+p_3^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+gH_8)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2}(H_3,H_8,T)]`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8}{2\pi \beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_3}{2\pi }}\mathrm{ln}[1+(\omega _l^2+p_3^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}gH_8)^1\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=3}(H_3,H_8,T)],`$ (11)
where $`\omega _l=2\pi lT`$, $`l=0,\pm 1,\mathrm{},`$ are the Matsubara frequencies. To obtain (3) one has merely to put $`n=0`$ and $`\sigma =+1`$ in the expression for $`L_{ch}^{ring}`$. An elementary integration gives

$`L_{unstable}^{(ring)}={\displaystyle \frac{gH_3T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(H_3,T)gH_3]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2}(H_3,H_8,T)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+gH_8]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=3}(H_3,H_8,T)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}gH_8]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`i[(gH_3)^{\frac{3}{2}}+(\lambda _+^{\frac{3}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{3}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{3}{2}}]{\displaystyle \frac{T}{2\pi }}.`$ (12)
From Eq.(3) and (3) it is seen that imaginary parts are cancelled out in the total. The final effective Lagrangian $`L_{eff}`$ is real if the relations

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(H_3,T)>gH_3,$$

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2}(H_3,H_8,T)>\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\lambda _+gH_8$$

and

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=3}(H_3,H_8,T)>\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\lambda _{}gH_8$$

hold.

In one-loop order the neutral gluon contribution is a trivial $`H`$\- independent constant which can be omitted. However, these fields are long range states and give $`H`$-dependent effective Lagrangian through the correlation corrections (3) depending on the temperature and external fields. Below, only the longitudinal neutral modes are included because their Debye’s masses are nonzero. The corresponding effective Lagrangian is easily calculated and has the form

$`L_{neut}^{(ring)}={\displaystyle \frac{T^2}{24}}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H_3,H_8,T)+\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H_3,H_8,T)]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{T}{12\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H_3,H_8,T)+\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H_3,H_8,T)]^{\frac{3}{2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32\pi ^2}}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H_3,H_8,T)+\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H_3,H_8,T)]^2`$
$`(\mathrm{log}[4\pi T[\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(H_3,H_8,T)+\mathrm{\Pi }^{\prime \prime }(H_3,H_8,T)]^{\frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\gamma ]).`$ (13)
Evaluating the Debye masses of the neutral gluons $`Q_\mu ^3`$$`Q_\mu ^8`$ gives the following results (see for details ):

$`(m_D^{})^2=\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{}(k=0,H,T)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}g^2T^2{\displaystyle \frac{g^2T}{\pi }}\times `$
$`\times [(gH_3)^{\frac{1}{2}}+(\lambda _+^{\frac{1}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{1}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{1}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{1}{2}}]]`$
$`(m_D^{\prime \prime })^2=\mathrm{\Pi }_{00}^{\prime \prime }(k=0,H,T)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}g^2T^2{\displaystyle \frac{g^2T}{\pi }}(\lambda _+^{\frac{1}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{1}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{1}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$ (14)
Substituting expressions (3) into $`L_{neut}^{(ring)}`$ we obtain the correlation corrections due to neutral gluons:

$$L_{neut}^{(ring)}=\frac{g^2T^3}{24\pi }[(gH_3)^{\frac{1}{2}}+2(\lambda _+^{\frac{1}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{1}{2}})(\frac{3}{2})^{\frac{1}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{1}{2}}],$$
(15)
where the $`H`$-independent terms were skipped. Thus, the vacuum magnetization at high temperature $`T\sqrt{gH_{3,8}}`$ will be investigated within the following effective Lagrangian:

$`L^{(eff)}={\displaystyle \frac{H_3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{H_8}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{11}{32}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi ^2}}H_3^2\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{T}{\mu }}]{\displaystyle \frac{11}{16}}{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\pi ^2}}H_8^2\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{T}{\mu }}]`$
$`+[(gH_3)^{\frac{3}{2}}+(\lambda _+^{\frac{3}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{3}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{3}{2}}]{\displaystyle \frac{T}{3\pi }}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{gH_3T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(H_3,T)gH_3]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2}(H_3,H_8,T)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _+gH_8]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}{\displaystyle \frac{gH_8T}{2\pi }}[\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=3}(H_3,H_8,T)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}}\lambda _{}gH_8]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2T^3}{24\pi }}[(gH_3)^{\frac{1}{2}}+2(\lambda _+^{\frac{1}{2}}+|\lambda _{}|^{\frac{1}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{1}{4}}(gH_8)^{\frac{1}{2}}]+O(g^3).`$ (16)
This expression includes the contributions of $`L^{(1)}`$ as well as $`L_{unstable}^{ring}`$ and $`L_{neut}^{ring}`$. Notice that the quantity $`L_{unstable}^{ring}`$ has the order $`g^{\frac{9}{4}}`$ in coupling constant $`g`$ , whereas the order of $`L_{neut}^{ring}`$ is $`g^{\frac{5}{2}}`$. In other wards, the contribution of the neutral gluons does not play essential role in generation of external fields and this part cannot be taken into account. This is natural on general grounds because the neutral gluon field is stable at the tree and the one-loop levels. So, one has not to expect any role of this sector in the field generation. Thus, in this approximation, $`L^{(eff)}`$ is equal to the effective Lagrangian (3) without the terms in the last line.

Our problem is divided into two separate parts: first, one has to calculate the spontaneously generated fields in the vacuum and, second, to compute $`\mathrm{\Pi }^r(H,T,n,\sigma )`$, which are the average values of the charged gluon PO taken in the tree level states.

To derive the strengths of the generated fields one has to solve the set of the stationary equations:

$$\frac{L^{(eff)}}{H_3}=0,$$

$$\frac{L^{(eff)}}{H_8}=0.$$

There are three nontrivial solutions:

$$H_3=0,H_8=(\frac{3}{2})^{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{g^3T^2}{\pi ^2}$$
(17)
$$H_3=\frac{1}{4}(1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})^2\frac{g^3T^2}{\pi ^2},H_8=0$$
(18)
and

$$H_3=0.2976\frac{g^3T^2}{\pi ^2},H_8=0.9989(\frac{3}{2})^{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{g^3T^2}{\pi ^2}.$$
(19)
The terms of $`L^{eff}`$ that depend on the magnetic masses of the transversal modes are not included in the expressions (17)-(19) because their contributions are of higher order in $`g`$. Note that the latter of these configurations corresponds to the minimum of the EP and we,therefore, conclude that both chromomagnetic fields have to be arised spontaneously at high temperature.

In determining the solutions (17) -(19), the logarithmic terms $`\mathrm{ln}[\frac{T}{\mu }]`$ were omitted as negligibly small. This approximation is appropriate for the region $`TT_d`$, where $`T_d`$ is the deconfinement phase transition temperature. However, in the limit $`T\mathrm{}`$, the logarithmic terms become large and should be accounted for. To analyze the asymptotic region the solutions of the above stationary equations must be rewritten in terms of the effective coupling constant

$$g_{eff}^2(\frac{11}{16\pi ^2}\mathrm{ln}[\frac{T}{\mu }])^1.$$

For this purpose one has merely to eliminate the tree-level terms in the $`L^{(eff)}`$. It turns out that, at $`TT_d`$, the field configuration

$$gH_3=\frac{1}{4}(1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})^2\frac{g_{eff}^4T^2}{\pi ^2},gH_8=0$$
(20)
delivers the global minimum of the EP. That is only the isotopic chromomagnetic field is generated at asymptotically high temperatures. If the temperature decreases, the hypercharge $`H_8`$ field appears below some temperature $`T_0`$, and in the deconfinement region $`T_0>TT_d`$, where the terms $`\mathrm{ln}[\frac{T}{\mu }]`$ are small in comparison with the tree-level ones, both fields are present.

## 4 Gluon polarization operator

The next question that must be answered is whether the obtained in (19) chromomagnetic fields $`H_3`$ and $`H_8`$ are stable. This sufficiently complicate problem requires an explicit calculation of the polarization operator of the charged gluons in the external fields $`H_3`$ and $`H_8`$ .

In the one-loop approximation the PO of the charged gluons is determined by the standard set of diagrams in Fig. 1, where double wavy lines represent the Green function $`G_{r\mu \nu }(x,y)`$ for the charged gluons, dashed double lines represent the Green function $`D(x,y)`$ for the charged ghost fields. Thin wavy and thin dashed lines correspond to the neutral gluon fields $`Q_\mu ^{3,8}`$ and the neutral ghost fields $`C_{3,8}`$, respectively. In the operator form the above Green functions are given by the expressions (in Feynmann’s gauge)

$$G_{r=1\mu \nu }(P)=[P^2+2igF_{3\mu \nu }]^1,$$

$$G_{r=2,3\mu \nu }(P)=[P^2+\sqrt{6}i\lambda _\pm gF_{8\mu \nu }]^1,D(P)=\frac{1}{P^2}.$$

To calculate the PO we make use of the proper time representation and the Schwinger operator formalism . The PO of the charged gluons in a chromomagnetic field at nonzero temperature can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^r=\frac{g^2}{\beta }c_r\underset{k_4}{}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^r(k,P),r=1,2,3,$$
(21)
where

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^r(k,P)`$ $`=`$ $`k^2\{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \alpha ,\rho }G_{r\alpha \beta }(Pk)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \beta ,\rho }+(Pk)_\mu D(Pk)k_\nu +`$
$`+k_\mu D(Pk)(Pk)_\nu +`$
$`+k^2[G_{r\mu \nu }(Pk)2G_{r\nu \mu }(Pk)+\delta _{\mu \nu }G_{r\rho \rho }(Pk)]\},`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \alpha ,\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\mu \alpha }(2Pk)_\rho +\delta _{\alpha \rho }(2kP)_\mu +\delta _{\mu \rho }(P+k)_\alpha ,`$
$`\beta =\frac{1}{T}`$, $`k_4=\frac{2\pi l}{\beta }`$, $`l=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$, $`P_\mu =i_\mu +gB_{3\mu }`$ for $`r=1`$ and $`P_\mu =i_\mu +\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\lambda _\pm gB_{8\mu }`$ for $`r=2,3`$, respectively, the constant $`c_r`$ is defined above. We restrict our consideration to the case of a high temperature limit. In Eq.(21) this limit corresponds to the $`l=0`$ term in the sum over $`k_4`$ . To evaluate the expression for the PO we used the Schwinger proper-time method modified for the case of the high temperature (see Ref.  for details). Thus, the average over the physical states values for the gluon PO and the Debye mass squared of charged gluons can be presented as

$`n,\sigma \mathrm{\Pi }_{ij}^rn,\sigma =\mathrm{\Pi }^r(P_4=0,h_r,T,n,\sigma )=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{8\pi ^{3/2}\beta }}c_r{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{du}{\sqrt{u}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\sqrt{x}}}\left[g_rh_r\mathrm{\Delta }\right]^{1/2}\times `$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left\{(2n+1)[\rho x(1u)]2y(1u)\right\}\mathrm{\Pi }^r(x,u),`$ (22)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}^r(P_4=0,h_r,T,n)={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{8\pi ^{3/2}\beta }}c_r{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{du}{\sqrt{u}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dx}{\sqrt{x}}}[g_rh_r\mathrm{\Delta }]^{1/2}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left\{(2n+1)[\rho x(1u)]\right\}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^r(x,u),`$ (23)
where $`x=g_rh_rus`$, $`y=x\sigma `$, $`\sigma =\pm 1`$, $`h_{r=1}=H_3`$, $`h_{r=2}=\lambda _+H_8`$, $`h_{r=3}=\lambda _{}H_8`$, $`g_{r=1}=g`$, $`g_{r=2,3}=\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}g`$,

$$\mathrm{tanh}\rho =\frac{(1u)\mathrm{sinh}x}{(1u)\mathrm{cosh}x+u\frac{\mathrm{sinh}x}{x}},$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=(1u)^2+2u(1u)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}2x}{2x}+u^2\frac{\mathrm{sinh}^2x}{x^2}.$$

The explicit expressions of the functions $`\mathrm{\Pi }^r(x,u)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^r(x,u)`$ are complicate and have in general the same forms as in the case of $`SU(2)`$ theory considered in . However, for our analysis we need only the asymptotic expressions for $`\mathrm{\Pi }^r(x,u)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^r(x,u)`$ when $`u1`$, and $`x1`$ that corresponds to the high-temperature expansion, $`\frac{gH}{T^2}1`$ (see ). Without loss of generality, the calculations can be carried out in the reference frame $`P_3=0`$. Performing integrations we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,T,n,\sigma =+1)=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{4\pi }}\sqrt{gH_3}T((4n+11.44)+i(10n+7)),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2,3}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,H_8,T,n,\sigma =+1)=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8\pi }}c_{r=2,3}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}\sqrt{\lambda _\pm }\sqrt{gH_8}T((4n+11.44)+i(10n+7)),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=1}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,T,n,\sigma =1)=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{4\pi }}\sqrt{gH_3}T((4n+15.62)+i(2n+9.69)),`$ (24)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{r=2,3}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,H_8,T,n,\sigma =1)=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8\pi }}c_{r=2,3}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}\sqrt{\lambda _\pm }\sqrt{gH_8}T((4n+15.62)+i(2n+9.69)),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}^{r=1}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,T,n)=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g^2T^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{4\pi }}\sqrt{gH_3}T((4n+6)+i(6n+9)),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}^{r=2,3}(P_4=0,P_3=0,H_3,H_8,T,n)=`$
$`=g^2T^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8\pi }}c_{r=2,3}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}})^{\frac{3}{4}}\sqrt{\lambda _\pm }\sqrt{gH_8}T((4n+6)+i(6n+9)).`$
The sign ”+” in expressions (4) should be taken for $`r=2`$ and the sign ”-” corresponds accordingly to $`r=3`$ ($`r`$ is an index of the charged basis (4)). From Eqs. (19) and (4) it is seen that the real parts of the PO are positive in the ground and excited states. The imaginary parts in the expressions $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P_4=0,P_3=0,H,T,n,\sigma )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}`$ occur due to the nonanalyticity of a number of terms in the integrands in the r.h.s. of Eqs. (4),(4) for large $`x\mathrm{}`$. The integration contour that ensures the convergence of integrals with respect to $`x`$ results in the imaginary parts in expressions (4). The imaginary part of the radiation corrections describes the decay of the state owing to transitions to the states with lower energies. The first term in the expression $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}`$ is calculated by performing summation over the discrete frequencies $`k_4`$ and cannot be obtained from Eq.(4). The second one represents the next-to-leading term and is calculated by using a high temperature static limit.

The imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}`$ for $`n=0`$ describes the Landau damping of the ground state plasmon quasi-particles. It is important to note that the imaginary parts entering the $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{44}`$ and the $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P_4=0,P_3=0,H,T,n=0,\sigma =+1)`$ are of the same order of magnitude. Since a spin interaction does not affect the former correction and whereas the tachyonic state in the field is excited just due to the spin interaction of charged gluons, one has to conclude that the non-zero imaginary part of the latter function does not correspond to the instability of the chromomagnetic fields and also describes a usual damping of states at finite temperature. Thus, to verify whether or not the radiation corrections in the external fields stabilize the spectrum at high temperature one should calculate the gluon effective mass squared determined by the real part of the function $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P_4=0,P_3=0,H,T,n=0,\sigma =+1)`$ at one-loop level. If it is positive - the spectrum, and hence the vacuum, is stable.

## 5 Discussion

We investigated the QCD restored phase. As it was found from the EP accounting for the one-loop plus daisy diagrams the vacuum with non-zero Abelian chromomagnetic fields $`H_3`$ and $`H_8`$ is favorable energetically. It is stable due to the magnetic masses of charged gluons which have to be included into consideration when the value of the background fields is estimated. These masses are computed from the gluon one-loop polarization operator in the external fields. As it occurs, the charged gluon spectrum in the fields accounting for the tree plus the one-loop corrections is stable in a wide interval of temperature above the $`T_d`$. Important notice, in the field presence the gluon magnetic mass $`m_{magn.}^2g^2(gH)^{1/2}T`$ is generated in one-loop order, in contrast to what happens in the case of the trivial vacuum where the mass $`m_{magn.}^2g^4T^2`$ is a non-perturbative effect , , . Since the order of the magnetic vacuum field is $`(gH)^{1/2}g^2T`$, the order of the magnetic mass squared is $`g^4T^2`$. That is, the order of the magnetic mass is the same in both calculation methods. Clearly that the former case is also non-perturbative because the field is taken into account exactly through the Green functions. If one accounts for the magnetic field perturbatively, zero result follows . Of course, the stabilization of the gluon spectrum by radiation corrections in the fields is an interesting fact which could not be expected beforehand. It was observed already in $`SU(2)`$ gluodynamics  and here for the $`SU(3)`$ gauge group. One may believe that this is the case for other non-Abelian gauge groups and therefore the stabilization is the reflection of the intrinsic dynamics of fields. Note here that other mechanism of the field stabilization was discussed in Ref. which takes into account the generation of the electrostatic gauge field potential ( $`A_0`$ condensate). But this picture was not investigated consistently since the common generation of the $`A_0`$ and magnetic fields has not been considered. Some aspects of the influence of the $`A_0`$ condensate on magnetic field have been investigated recently in one-loop order in Ref. .

Consider in more detail the values of the gluon magnetic mass determined in different calculations and compare these with the value of the vacuum magnetic field. In recent paper  in $`SU(2)`$ gluodynamics to stabilize the one-loop effective potential the gluon magnetic mass $`m_{magn.}`$ of order $`cg^2T`$ was introduced on heuristic grounds. Then, in particular, it has been found that for $`m_{magn.}0.388g^2T`$ the effective potential has a global minimum at $`H=0`$. Hence it was concluded that a sufficiently heavy magnetic mass leads to the trivial vacuum of the deconfinement phase. This critical value is close to the magnetic masses determined in a number of lattice simulations : 0.505 $`g^2T`$ , 0.360 $`g^2T`$ . It is interesting to compare our result for the magnetic mass identified with the effective mass of gluon $`M_{eff.}^2(H)=11,44\frac{g^2}{4\pi }(gH)^{1/2}TgH`$ and the field $`(gH)^{1/2}=\frac{g^2}{2\pi }T`$ for $`SU(2)`$ sector. Simple estimate gives $`M_{eff.}=0.345g^2T`$ that is close to the value derived by Philipsen. For this values we observed the stabilization of the magnetized vacuum. On the other hand, this value is insufficient to have a zero vacuum field, if the approach of the paper  is adopted. Moreover, if one takes into account the structure of the magnetic mass, $`m_{magn.}^2\sqrt{gH}g^2T`$, there is no possibility to have zero for the generated field. So, we believe that the magnetized vacuum has to be considered seriously not an artificial mathematical fact.

Other important point which we are going to discuss is the influence of higher loop contributions. First we note that the one loop plus daisy graphs account for the long distance contributions and give the main effects. It was realized already in the related problem on the electroweak phase transition in strong magnetic fields , . The results obtained within this EP are in a good agreement with that of found in the nonperturbative approach Refs. ,  ( see also recent survey ). The most important feature of this approximation is that the EP is real at sufficiently high temperatures and therefore the spontaneously generated magnetic fields are stable. We believe that the higher loop corrections will not change qualitatively the results obtained and the results on the stable magnetize vacuum survive. To check our results the resummations on the super daisy level have to be carried out. That is the problem for future.

It is interesting to compare our results with that of obtained in lattice calculations by Cea and Cosmai , . In the former paper the creation of the colour Abelian chromomagnetic was investigated by means of the lattice Schrödinger functional. It was observed that at $`T=0`$ the applied external chromomagnetic field is completely screened by the vacuum. At finite temperature the applied field is supported by the temperature and is increased with the growth of temperature. That is in correspondence with our calculations. In the latter paper the influence of the external fields on the deconfinement phase transition has been investigated and an intimate connection between Abelian chromomagnetic field and colour confinement was observed. This interesting result is not directly related with obtained in the present paper because we do not consider the field as external one. From our results it follows that in the deconfinement phase the Abelian chromomagnetic fields have to present. So, we have to answer how the spontaneous vacuum magnetization affects the temperature of the phase transition.


text:
# EXCITATIONS OF THE UNSTABLE NUCLEI 48Ni AND 49Ni

## Abstract

The isoscalar E1 and E2 resonances in the proton-rich nuclei 48,49Ni and the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplet in 49Ni have been calculated taking into account the single-particle continuum exactly. The analogous calculations for the mirror nuclei 48Ca and 49Sc are presented. The models used are the continuum RPA for 48Ni, 48Ca and the Odd RPA for 49Ni, 49Sc, the latter has been developed recently and describes both single-particle and collective excitations of an odd nucleus on a common basis. In all four nuclei we obtained a distinct splitting of the isoscalar E1 resonance into $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ peaks at about 11 MeV and 30 MeV, respectively. The main part of the isoscalar E1 energy-weighted sum rule (EWSR) is exhausted by the $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonances. The $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonances exhaust about 35 % of this EWSR in 48,49Ni and about 22 % in 48Ca and 49Sc. All seven $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplet members in 49Ni are calculated to be in the (6–8) MeV energy region and have noticeable escape widths.

PACS numbers: 21.60.Jz, 24.30.Cz, 27.40.+z

The main feature of the proton-rich unstable nuclei 48Ni and 49Ni, which have been discovered recently , is that they have a proton separation energy near zero. It seems to be of great interest to calculate excitations of these nuclei, especially in the framework of the same calculational scheme, which would take into account the single-particle continuum reliably, because its role is obviously very important in this case, though the corresponding effects may be not so strong as in the neutron-rich nuclei with the neutron separation energy near zero. The comparison of the theoretical predictions with future measurements of the excitations of these nuclei will make it possible to obtain an important information about the nucleon-nucleon effective interaction in drip-line nuclei and about features of such nuclei, which are also of astrophysical interest.

For the doubly-magic 48Ni, one of the proper microscopic methods is the theory of finite Fermi-systems (TFFS)  with exact accounting for the single-particle continuum (continuum TFFS). It corresponds to the continuum random phase approximation (RPA) making use of the phenomenological Landau-Migdal particle-hole (p-h) interaction and a single-particle Woods-Saxon scheme. The parameters describing this interaction and the single-particle scheme are known , at least for stable nuclei, and it is of great interest to check them for unstable ones.

For doubly magic nuclei plus or minus one nucleon, a theory has been developed recently , which was termed the Odd RPA (ORPA). It corresponds to the continuum RPA for even-even nuclei and, in addition, consistently accounts for properties of odd nuclei. The ORPA allows a consistent description of both the single-particle and collective part of the excitation spectrum of an odd nucleus without pairing, including giant resonances in the continuum and splitting of particle (hole) $``$ phonon multiplets, on a common basis. The description of these multiplets taking the single-particle continuum into account is especially important and interesting for nuclei such as 49Ni with the nucleon separation energy near zero and relatively large phonon energies. Other questions concerning the excitations of this nucleus exist. For example, it was shown in  that the isoscalar (IS) E1 strength in 17O below 12.5 MeV is completely determined by the odd nucleon contribution. The question about a similar effect in 49Ni arises.

Thus, we have a reasonable and very interesting possibility to calculate excitations of both nuclei within the same calculational scheme based on the continuum TFFS as well as to investigate primarily the role of the small proton separation energy in the proton-rich 48,49Ni nuclei and of the single-particle continuum. This is the aim of the present article. We will present the results of the calculations of the IS E1 and E2 giant resonances in 48Ni and 49Ni. For 49Ni the characteristics of the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplet will be presented for all 7 resonances. For comparison and reliability of the results, the resonances in the mirror nuclei 48Ca and 49Sc and the multiplet in 49Sc are also calculated. In the calculations we use the TFFS and Woods-Saxon potential parameters which are mainly known. However, in order to have reliable results for the exotic nuclei, we fit some of the parameters of the Landau-Migdal interaction and Woods-Saxon potential using Hartree-Fock single-particle levels obtained with the known Skyrme interaction and experimental data for 48Ca nucleus (see below).

In the TFFS approach  the effective interaction and the single-particle scheme are described by two sets of phenomenological parameters and are not connected with each other. In our calculations the single-particle potential was taken in the form

$$U_q(𝐫)=U_q^0f_{WS}(r)+U_q^{so}\frac{\kappa }{r}\frac{df_{WS}(r)}{dr}(𝐥𝝈)+U_C(r),$$
(1)
where $`f_{WS}(r)=1/[1+\mathrm{exp}((rR)/a)]`$, index $`q=n,p`$ denotes the sort of the nucleon. The Coulomb potential $`U_C`$ for protons is that of a uniformly charged sphere. The parameters $`U_q^{so}`$, $`\kappa `$, $`R`$, and $`a`$ used here are well known :

$$U_p^{so}=(ZV_{pp}+NV_{pn})/A,U_n^{so}=(NV_{nn}+ZV_{np})/A,$$

$$V_{pp}=V_{nn}=19.7\text{MeV},V_{pn}=V_{np}=87.0\text{MeV},$$

$$\kappa =0.263\left(1+2(NZ)/A\right)\text{fm}^2,$$

$$R=1.24A^{1/3}\text{fm},a=0.63\text{fm}.$$

The choice of the parameters $`U_q^0`$ in Eq. (1) is a more complicated question for the 48,49Ni nuclei. The point is that the value of $`U_p^0`$ cannot be determined from the standard set of parameters , which corresponds to $`U_q^0=U_q^{so}`$ in Eq. (1), because in this case it leads to a positive energy of the last occupied proton $`1f_{7/2}`$ level in 48Ni. To overcome this difficulty we used the following method. We have calculated the energies of single-particle proton and neutron $`1f_{7/2}`$ levels in 48Ni in the framework of the self-consistent Hartree-Fock method with the Skyrme SIII interaction of Ref. , which is often used in the calculations of properties of both stable and unstable nuclei. Then the values of the potential depths $`U_p^0`$ and $`U_n^0`$ in Eq. (1) were fitted so that to reproduce the Hartree-Fock values of $`\epsilon _p(1f_{7/2})=0.86`$ MeV and $`\epsilon _n(1f_{7/2})=16.98`$ MeV. From this input we obtained $`U_p^0=52.03`$ MeV, $`U_n^0=60.98`$ MeV for 48Ni. The same procedure was performed for the 48Ca nucleus. In this case the values $`U_p^0=58.32`$ MeV and $`U_n^0=49.09`$ MeV yield the Hartree-Fock values of the single-particle energies $`\epsilon _p(1f_{7/2})=10.16`$ MeV and $`\epsilon _n(1f_{7/2})=9.99`$ MeV. The corresponding experimental values for 48Ca are $`9.63`$ MeV and $`9.95`$ MeV, i. e. the agreement with experiment is fairly good.

The Landau-Migdal p-h interaction used in our calculation is defined by the following ansatz

$$(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)=C_0\left(f(𝐫_1)+f^{}(𝐫_1)(𝝉_1𝝉_2)+g(𝝈_1𝝈_2)+g^{}(𝝉_1𝝉_2)(𝝈_1𝝈_2)\right)\delta (𝐫_1𝐫_2),$$
(2)
where

$$f(𝐫)=f_{ex}+(f_{in}f_{ex})\rho (𝐫)/\rho (0),f^{}(𝐫)=f_{ex}^{}+(f_{in}^{}f_{ex}^{})\rho (𝐫)/\rho (0).$$
(3)
The total nucleon density $`\rho (𝐫)`$ entering Eqs. (3) is defined in our approach by the formula

$$\rho (𝐫)=\underset{\lambda ,\sigma }{}n_\lambda |\phi _\lambda (𝐫,\sigma )|^2,$$
(4)
where $`n_\lambda `$ are the occupation numbers, $`\phi _\lambda `$ are the single-particle wave functions calculated within the above-described Woods-Saxon scheme.

The parameters entering Eq. (2) are known , as a rule, except for one of the six parameters, namely the parameter $`f_{ex}`$, which is fitted very often to the experimental energies of low-lying phonons, see, for example, Refs. . In our case this is especially necessary because, strictly speaking, there is no guarantee that the Landau-Migdal interaction is suitable for the drip-line nuclei. Since the excitations of 48Ni are unknown, it is reasonable to use known excitations of the mirror nucleus 48Ca for adjusting $`f_{ex}`$. So we have fitted the parameter $`f_{ex}`$ to reproduce (within the continuum TFFS) the energy of the $`3_1^{}`$ level in 48Ca at 4.51 MeV. The result was $`f_{ex}=0.94`$. Thus, in all our calculations the following set of the Landau-Migdal interaction parameters has been used (the rest of them being taken from Refs. )

$$f_{ex}=0.94,f_{in}=0.002,f_{ex}^{}=2.30,f_{in}^{}=0.76,$$

$$g=0.05,g^{}=0.96,C_0=300\text{MeV}\text{fm}^3.$$

With these parameters we obtained a reasonable agreement with experiment for $`2_1^+`$ level ($`E_{th}(2_1^+)`$ = 4.15 MeV, $`E_{exp}(2_1^+)`$ = 3.83 MeV) and very good agreement for the $`B(E3)`$ = $`B(E3,g.s.3_1^{})`$ value ($`B_{th}(E3)`$ = 6500 $`e^2fm^6`$ and $`B_{exp}(E3)`$ = 6700 $`e^2fm^6`$) in 48Ca. The latter is important for the realistic description of the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplet.

The calculations of the IS E1 and E2 resonances in 48Ni and 48Ca were performed within continuum TFFS. For the IS E1 resonance the ”forced consistency” and the spurious state suppression procedure was applied. This procedure and other details of the calculational scheme have been described in Refs. . The same resonances and the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplets in 49Ni and 49Sc have been calculated within the ORPA model developed in . In the ORPA calculations, only one (entrance) channel was incorporated and same interaction parameters and the single-particle schemes were used as in our TFFS ones. All the calculations were performed using the coordinate representation technique in the framework of the Green function method  which enables one to take into account the single-particle continuum exactly. The smearing parameters used were $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ = 300 keV for the giant resonances and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ = 0.2 keV for the multiplets.

One-body transition operators (i. e. the external field operators $`V^0`$ in terms of TFFS) were taken in the following form:

$$V_q^{0(E1)}=(r^3R_{IS}^2r)Y_{1\mu }(\widehat{r})$$
(5)
for isoscalar E1 excitations,

$$V_q^{0(E2)}=r^2Y_{2\mu }(\widehat{r})$$
(6)
for isoscalar E2 excitations, and

$$V_q^{0(E3)}=e_qr^3Y_{3\mu }(\widehat{r})$$
(7)
for electromagnetic E3 excitations, where $`e_q`$ are the nucleon effective charges in the center-of-mass reference frame (see, e. g., Ref. ):

$$e_p=\left[\left(1\frac{1}{A}\right)^L+(Z1)\left(\frac{1}{A}\right)^L\right]e,e_n=Z\left(\frac{1}{A}\right)^Le$$
(8)
with $`L=3`$. Parameter $`R_{IS}`$ in Eq. (5) is determined within the ”forced consistency” scheme (see ). In the present calculations the numerical values of $`R_{IS}`$ for all nuclei under consideration are very close (within 1 %) to those of $`(\frac{5}{3}<r^2>)^{1/2}`$ (in this context, see Ref. ).

The results for the IS E1 and E2 resonances are presented in Figs. 1 and 2 in the form of the normalized energy-weighted strength functions $`S_{EW}(E)`$:

$$S_{EW}(E)=\frac{100}{m_1^{SR}}ES(E)$$
(9)
where $`S(E)`$ is the RPA (ORPA) strength function, $`m_1^{SR}`$ is the corresponding energy-weighted sum rule (EWSR), which is defined as

$$m_1^{SR}=\frac{3\mathrm{}^2A}{8m\pi }\left(11<r^4>\frac{25}{3}<r^2>^2\right)$$
(10)
for the IS E1 operator (5), and

$$m_1^{SR}=\frac{25\mathrm{}^2A}{4m\pi }<r^2>$$
(11)
for the IS E2 operator (6). Note that these formulas differ from the often used definitions of the IS EL EWSR (see Refs. ) by the factor $`(2L+1)`$ arising due to the summation over the quantum numbers of the excited states and of an external field in the strength functions.

The functions $`S_{EW}(E)`$ for IS E1 excitations of all the nuclei considered are shown in Fig. 1. The IS E1 strength is distributed around two main maxima at about 11 MeV and 30 MeV, which correspond to the $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ IS E1 resonances.

The calculated position of the $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonances is in agreement with the experimental formula $`E_x114A^{1/3}`$ = 31.4 MeV for $`A=48`$, which was obtained in Ref.  for the upper components of the IS E1 resonances in 90Zr, 116Sn, and 208Pb. To estimate the contribution of these resonances into the IS E1 EWSR (10) the following integrals were calculated

$$p(E_{min};E_{max})=\underset{E_{min}}{\overset{E_{max}}{}}S_{EW}(E)𝑑E.$$
(12)
The contribution of the $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonance ($`p(1\mathrm{}\omega )`$) was defined as $`p(0;21)`$ in 48Ni, 49Ni (hereinafter the values of $`E_{min}`$ and $`E_{max}`$ are given in MeV), and as $`p(0;19)`$ in 48Ca, 49Sc, where the values of 21 MeV and 19 MeV are the energies of minima separating $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ and $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonances in these nuclei. For the $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonance the contribution ($`p(3\mathrm{}\omega )`$) was defined as $`p(21;40)`$ in 48Ni, 49Ni, and as $`p(19;40)`$ in 48Ca, 49Sc. The results, which are listed in Table 1, show that the main part of the IS E1 EWSR is exhausted by the $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonances in all nuclei under consideration.

The $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ resonance exhausts about 35 % of the IS E1 EWSR in 48,49Ni and about 22 % in 48Ca and 49Sc.

Further, comparing the results for the doubly-magic and neighbouring odd nuclei in Fig. 1, we see that the role of the odd nucleon is rather small in our case. The difference from the IS E1 resonances in 16O and 17O (see Ref. ) is that in 49Ni and 49Sc the single-particle resonances are embedded into the region of the core p-h excitations and are only slightly distinguishable against their background .

The IS E2 resonances in 48Ni, 49Ni, 48Ca, and 49Sc are shown in Fig. 2.

Their characteristics are given in Table 2.

We obtained a reasonable depletion of the IS E2 EWSR within the 10–30 MeV interval taken. The positions of the maxima of the calculated strength functions are in a reasonable agreement with an empirical formula for the mean energy of the IS giant quadrupole resonance (GQR) $`\overline{E}_{ISGQR}63A^{1/3}`$ MeV = 17.3 MeV for $`A=48`$ and with the mean energy $`\overline{E}`$ = 16.9 MeV obtained for 48Ca in  in the 1p1h+1p1h$``$phonon+GSCphonon approximation. The present results for IS GQR in 48Ca are also in good agreement with those obtained in Refs.  within the self-consistent continuum RPA (in Ref.  the maximum of $`S(E)`$ was obtained at 16.6 MeV, and 87 % of the IS E2 EWSR was found within the 14–19 MeV interval). However, in our calculation the peak energy of IS GQR in 48Ni is about 1.8 MeV shifted upwards from the value of 16.0 MeV obtained in Ref. . This considerable discrepancy seems to be explained by the difference between the single-particle schemes and between the effective forces used in the calculations being compared. The case of the 48Ni nucleus appears to be more sensitive to this difference due to the small proton separation energy.

From comparison of the results presented in Figs. 1 and 2 one can see that the proximity of the proton separation energy to zero in 48,49Ni is especially manifested in the case of $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ IS E1 resonance giving rise to a noticeable increase of its escape width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ and to the larger depletion of the IS EWSR (about 35 %) as compared with 48Ca and 49Sc (about 22 %). The broading of the IS E2 resonances in the unstable nuclei can be also seen from the results presented in Table 2.

Note, however, that our calculations cannot pretend to describe total width of the resonances because only two main damping mechanisms (Landau and escape ones) were taken into account while the third one, i. e. the spreading-width formation mechanism, was not included in the calculations (for such kind of calculations in 48Ca see Ref. ).

At last but not the least, in Fig. 3 we show the strength functions for the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplets in 49Ni and 49Sc together with the $`3_1^{}`$ levels in 48Ni and 48Ca, respectively. Here the neutron $`1f_{7/2}`$ single-particle level corresponds to the ground state (g.s.) of the 49Ni nucleus, the proton $`1f_{7/2}`$ level corresponds to the g.s. of the 49Sc. As compared with the giant resonances (Figs. 1, 2) we see a very natural and noticeable role of the odd neutron in 49Ni and proton in 49Sc. All seven multiplet members are around the $`3_1^{}`$ level of the core at 6.8 MeV in the case of 49Ni and at 4.5 MeV in the case of 49Sc. Since the $`3_1^{}`$ level in 48Ni lies in the continuum (and consequently is a resonance), each of the multiplet members in 49Ni has a noticeable escape width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. Our approach enables one to calculate the escape width immediately because the single-particle continuum is included completely. The value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ was determined as a width at half maximum of the corresponding strength function (note that the smearing parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ = 0.2 keV in Fig. 3). The calculated value for 48Ni is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(3_1^{})`$ = 51 keV. For the multiplets members, the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$, energy shifts $`\delta E`$, and $`B(E3,j^\pi g.s.)`$ are listed in Table 3.

It is of great interest to measure the resonances in 49Ni and their ”pure” escape widths, which may be an easier task at present than the measurement of the $`3_1^{}`$ level in 48Ni.

In conclusion, we have calculated some excitations in 48Ni, 49Ni, 48Ca and 49Sc within the same calculational scheme and with the consistent account for the single-particle continuum. Despite the fact that more complex configurations have not been accounted for in the calculations, our results expected to be realistic enough to be compared with experiment. In all four nuclei considered a distinct splitting of the IS E1 resonance into two peaks at about 11 MeV and 30 MeV has been obtained. The influence of the small proton separation energy in 48,49Ni has been demonstrated, especially on the escape width and a large depletion of the IS E1 EWSR by the $`1\mathrm{}\omega `$ IS E1 resonance. For the $`\{f_{7/2}3^{}\}`$ multiplet in 49Ni, the widths of all the multiplet members are formed by the single-particle continuum in our approach. Measurements of these excitations, including escape widths of the individual states, will give valuable information about many features of drip-line nuclei.

The authors are very grateful to Prof. V. R. Brown for her advices and careful reading of the manuscript.