text:
# 1 Delta

. 16 August 2000

Color Dipole Systematics of the Diffraction Slope
in Diffractive Photo- and Electroproduction
of Vector Mesons

J. Nemchik

Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Watsonova 47, 04353 Košice, Slovakia

Abstract

We present the first evaluation of the color dipole diffraction slope from the data on diffractive photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons. The energy and dipole size dependence of the found dipole diffraction slope are consistent with the color dipole gBFKL dynamics.

Diffractive photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons,

$$\gamma ^{}pVp,V=\rho ^0,\omega ^0,\varphi ^0,J/\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{}$$
(1)
studied within the color dipole model of high energy scattering  (see also ) offers an unique possibility to scan the color dipole cross section , which represents a fundamental quantity and reflects the interaction of the relativistic color dipole of the dipole moment (size) $`𝐫`$ with the target nucleon. The alternative description of vector meson production in terms of the gluon structure function of the proton is presented in . Because of the shrinkage of the transverse size of the virtual photon with virtuality $`Q^2`$, the vector meson production amplitude scans the color dipole cross section at the dipole size $`rr_S`$, where the scanning radius $`r_S`$ can be expressed through the scale parameter $`A`$

$$r_S\frac{A}{\sqrt{m_V^2+Q^2}},$$
(2)
where $`m_V`$ is the vector meson mass and $`A6`$. This scanning phenomenon can be also applied for the dipole diffraction slope leading to a decrease of the slope with $`Q^2`$  supported by the available experimental data (see below). Detailed analysis of the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the Regge growth of the diffration slope for production of charmonium and bottonium states has been presented in the paper . Specifically, the leading twist terms of production amplitudes of the transversely (T) and longitudinally (L) polarized 1S vector mesons in the expansion over the relevant short-distance parameter $`r_S^21/(Q^2+m_V^2)`$ are of the form

$$\mathrm{Im}_T\frac{1}{Q^2+m_V^2}\sigma (x_{eff},r_S)r_S^2\sigma (x_{eff},r_S),$$
(3)
$$\mathrm{Im}_L\frac{\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}_T\frac{\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}r_S^2\sigma (x_{eff},r_S).$$
(4)
As the result the dipole cross section can be exctracted from the vector meson production cross section. The first evaluation of the dipole cross section from the data on diffractive photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons has been presented in the paper . Following the generalization of the color dipole factorization formula for vector meson production amplitude

$$\mathrm{Im}(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)=\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑zd^2𝐫\sigma (x_{eff},r)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(r,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(r,z)$$
(5)
to the diffraction slope of the reaction $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ one can write

$`B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)\mathrm{Im}(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑z{\displaystyle d^2𝐫B(x_{eff},r)\sigma (x_{eff},r)\mathrm{\Psi }_V^{}(r,z)\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(r,z)},`$ (6)
and one can extract also the dipole diffraction slope $`B(x_{eff},r)`$ from the vector meson production cross sections using analogical procedure as that for the color dipole cross section extraction published in .

In this paper we present the results of the first evaluation of the dipole diffraction slope from the data on real photoproduction and electroproduction of vector mesons ($`\rho ^0`$, $`\varphi ^0`$, and $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$) from the fixed target and collider HERA experiments. We find color blindness of the dipole diffraction cone similarly to that for the color dipole cross section. We verify approximate flavor independence of the $`B(x_{eff},r)`$ in the scaling variable $`Q^2+m_V^2`$ leading to the close values of the diffraction slope when one takes the same values of the scanning radius. The data from HERA experiments allow also the first evaluation of energy dependence of the dipole diffraction cone at different dipole sizes and confirm the predictions from the BFKL dynamics that a shrinkage with energy of the slope parameter is larger at larger dipole sizes.

We start with the probability amplitudes to find color dipole of size $`𝐫`$ in the photon and vector meson. The details of calculation of the diffractive amplitudes have been presented elsewhere . For the $`Vq\overline{q}`$ vertex function we assume the Lorentz structure $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Psi }V_\mu `$. For the $`s`$-channel helicity conservation at small $`𝐪`$, transverse (T) photons produce the transversely polarized vector mesons and the longitudinally polarized (L) photons (to be more precise, scalar photons) produce longitudinally polarized vector mesons. One finds

$`\mathrm{Im}_T(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cC_V\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}}{(2\pi )^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle }d^2𝐫\sigma (x_{eff},r){\displaystyle _0^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dz}{z(1z)}}\{m_q^2K_0(\epsilon r)\varphi (r,z)[z^2+(1z)^2]\epsilon K_1(\epsilon r)_r\varphi (r,z)\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{C_V}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r)}{r^2}W_T(Q^2,r^2)}`$
$`=g_T\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}C_V\sigma (x_{eff},r_S){\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{m_V^2+Q^2}}`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{Im}_L(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{N_cC_V\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}`$
$`{\displaystyle }d^2𝐫\sigma (x_{eff},r){\displaystyle _0^1}dzK_0(\epsilon r)\{[m_q^2+z(1z)m_V^2]\varphi (r,z)_r^2\varphi (r,z)\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{C_V}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r)}{r^2}W_L(Q^2,r^2)}`$
$`=g_L\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}C_V\sigma (x_{eff},r_S){\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{m_V^2+Q^2}}`$ (8)
where

$$\epsilon ^2=m_q^2+z(1z)Q^2,$$
(9)
$`\alpha _{em}`$ is the fine structure constant, $`N_c=3`$ is the number of colors, $`C_V=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}},\frac{1}{3\sqrt{2}},\frac{1}{3},\frac{2}{3},\frac{1}{3}`$ are the charge-isospin factors for the $`\rho ^0,\omega ^0,\varphi ^0,J/\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ production, respectively and $`K_{0,1}(x)`$ are the modified Bessel functions. The detailed discussion and parameterization of the lightcone radial wave function $`\varphi (r,z)`$ of the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the vector meson is given in . The terms $`K_0(\epsilon r)\varphi (r,z)`$ and $`\epsilon K_1(\epsilon r)_r\varphi (r,z)`$ for (T), $`K_0(\epsilon r)_r^2\varphi (r,z)`$ for (L) correspond to the helicity conserving and helicity-flip transitions in the $`\gamma ^{}q\overline{q},Vq\overline{q}`$ vertices, respectively.

In (7), (8) the energy dependence of the dipole cross section is quantified in terms of an effective value of the Bjorken variable, $`x_{eff}`$, which is connected with dimensionless rapidity, $`\xi =\mathrm{log}\frac{1}{x_{eff}}`$ and reads

$$x_{eff}=\frac{m_V^2+Q^2}{2\nu m_p}\frac{Q^2+m_V^2}{W^2},$$
(10)
where $`m_p`$ and $`m_V`$ is the proton mass and mass of vector meson, respectively. Hereafter, we will write the energy dependence of the dipole cross section in both variables, either in $`\xi `$ or in $`x_{eff}`$.

Normalization of production amplitudes (7), (8) satisfies the following relation

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}|_{t=0}=\frac{||^2}{16\pi }$$
(11)
A small real part of production amplitudes can be taken in the form

$$\mathrm{Re}(\xi ,r)=\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{}{\xi }\mathrm{Im}(\xi ,r).$$
(12)
and can be easily included in the production amplitudes using substitution

$$\sigma (x_{eff},r)\left(1i\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{}{logx_{eff}}\right)\sigma (x_{eff},r)=\left[1i\alpha _V(x_{eff},r)\right]\sigma (x_{eff},r)$$
(13)
Within the mixed $`(𝐫,z)`$ representation, the high energy meson is considered as a system of color dipole described by the distribution of the transverse separation $`𝐫`$ of the quark and antiquark given by the $`q\overline{q}`$ wave function, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫,z)`$, where $`z`$ is the fraction of meson’s lightcone momentum carried by a quark. The Fock state expansion for the relativistic meson starts with the $`q\overline{q}`$ state and the higher Fock states $`q\overline{q}g\mathrm{}`$ become very important at high energy $`\nu `$. The interaction of the relativistic color dipole of the dipole moment, $`𝐫`$, with the target nucleon is quantified by the energy dependent color dipole cross section, $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$, satisfying the gBFKL equation  for the energy evolution. This reflects the fact that in the leading-log $`\frac{1}{x}`$ approximation the effect of higher Fock states can be reabsorbed into the energy dependence of $`\sigma (\xi ,r)`$. The dipole cross section is flavor independent and represents the universal function of $`r`$ which describes various diffractive processes in unified form. At high energy, when the transverse separation, $`𝐫`$, of the quark and antiquark is frozen during the interaction process, the scattering matrix describing the $`q\overline{q}`$-nucleon interaction becomes diagonal in the mixed $`(𝐫,z)`$-representation ($`z`$ is known also as the Sudakov light cone variable). This diagonalization property is held even when the dipole size, $`𝐫`$, is large, i.e. beyond the perturbative region of short distances. Color dipole factorized form of formulas (7), (8) follows from such diagonalization property. The detailed discussion about the space-time pattern of diffractive electroproduction of vector mesons is presented in .

Eqs. (7), (8) are related to the pure pomeron exchange, which is important at large values of parameter $`\omega =1/x_{eff}`$. However, at moderate and small values of $`\omega `$ there is a substantial contribution to the $`\gamma N`$ total cross section comming from the non-vacuum Reggeon exchange. The Regge fit to the $`\gamma p`$ total cross section can be cast in the following form

$$\sigma _{tot}=\sigma _{𝐈𝐏}(\gamma p)\left(1+\frac{B}{\omega ^\mathrm{\Delta }}\right)$$
(14)
where $`B=2.332`$ and $`\delta =0.533`$ according to Donnachie-Landshoff fit. In (14) the term $`B/\omega ^\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the factor $`f=1+B/\omega ^\mathrm{\Delta }`$ represents the non-vacuum Reggeon exchange contribution, which is similar also in real $`\rho ^0`$ photoproduction amplitude. At large $`Q^2`$ we assume that the Reggeon/pomeron ratio scales with $`\omega `$. It is consistent with the known decomposition of the proton structure function into the valence (non-vacuum Reggeon) and sea (pomeron) contributions. Then, for example, at NMC energy $`f=1.25`$ at $`\omega 70`$ relevant to $`Q^2=3GeV^2`$ and $`f=1.80`$ at $`\omega 9`$ relevant to $`Q^2=20GeV^2`$. At energy attainable at HERA the non-vacuum Reggeon exchange contribution can be neglected because of a large value of the Regge parameter $`\omega `$. For other vector mesons ($`\varphi ^0,J/\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$) one expects $`f=1`$ due to the Zweig rule. Thus, the forward differential cross section for $`\rho ^0`$ photo- and electroproduction reads:

$$\frac{d\sigma (\gamma ^{}V)}{dt}|_{t=0}=f^2\frac{d\sigma _{𝐈𝐏}(\gamma ^{}V)}{dt}|_{t=0}$$
(15)
In (7) and (8) we separate out the scanning radius $`r_S`$ and then the so introduced coefficient functions $`g_{T,L}`$ are smooth functions of $`Q^2`$. Such a procedure is detaily described in the paper .

Taking into account the contribution of the real part and the non-vacuum Reggeon exchange to the production amplitude then the experimentally measured forward cross section reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (\gamma ^{}V)}{dt}}|_{t=0}={\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{16\pi }}\left[(1+\alpha _{V,T}^2)_T^2+ϵ(1+\alpha _{V,L}^2)_L^2\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{16\pi }}(1+\alpha _V^2)\left[_T^2+ϵ_L^2\right],`$ (16)
neglecting the difference between $`\alpha _{V,T}`$ and $`\alpha _{V,L}`$ for the transverse and longitudinal cross sections, respectively. Then one can exctract the color dipole cross section from the data on forward production cross section using the above determined coefficient functions $`g_T`$ and $`g_L`$ and Eqs. (7), (8), (11) and (16).

$`\sigma (x_{eff},r_S)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{C_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2+m_V^2}{m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha _{em}}}}`$
$`\times \left(g_T^2+ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}}g_L^2\right)^{1/2}(1+\alpha _V^2)^{1/2}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (\gamma ^{}V)}{dt}}|_{t=0}},`$ (17)
where $`ϵ`$ is the longitudinal polarization of the photon. Very often the data are presented in the form of the $`t`$\- integrated production cross section $`\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}V)`$. In this case we evaluate

$$\frac{d\sigma (\gamma ^{}V)}{dt}|_{t=0}=B(\gamma V,x_{eff},Q^2)\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}V)$$
(18)
taking the diffraction slope from the same publication.

Now the generalization of the above procedure for extraction of the dipole diffraction slope from the data is following. Comming from the matrix element (6) and taking into account the scanning property one can conclude that the main contribution to the amplidute comes from the dipole size $`r_B5/3r_S`$ because of $`r^2`$ behaviour of the diffraction slope within the color dipole gBFKL dynamics . Then one can introduce another coefficient functions $`h_T`$ and $`h_L`$:

$`B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)_T(x_{eff},Q^2)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{C_V}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r)}{r^2}\frac{B_T(x_{eff},r)}{r^2}\stackrel{~}{W}_T(Q^2,r^2)}=`$
$`h_T\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}C_V\sigma (x_{eff},r_B)B(x_{eff},r_B){\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{m_V^2+Q^2}}`$ (19)
$`B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)_L(x_{eff},Q^2)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{C_V}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{r^2}\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r)}{r^2}\frac{B_L(x_{eff},r)}{r^2}\stackrel{~}{W}_L(Q^2,r^2)}=`$
$`h_L\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{em}}C_V\sigma (x_{eff},r_B)B(x_{eff},r_B){\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_V}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^2}{m_V^2+Q^2}}`$ (20)
The possibility of a such relationship between the production amplitude multiplied by the diffraction slope for vector meson production and the dipole cross section multiplied by the dipole diffraction slope at a well defined dipole size $`r_B=\frac{5}{3}r_S`$ has the same reasons as ones detaily studied and discussed in the paper . In Fig.1 we present the $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`h_{T,L}`$ for different production processes at $`W=15GeV`$ and $`W=150GeV`$ reflecting the lower and upper limits of the energy range from the fixed target to HERA experiments. The residual smooth $`Q^2`$ behaviour of the coefficient functions $`h_{T,L}`$ is connected with the smooth and well understood $`Q^2`$ dependence of the scale factors $`A_{T,L}`$, which are presented in the rationship between the scanning radius $`r_S`$ and the position $`A_{T,L}/\sqrt{Q^2+m_V^2}`$ of the peak of the functions $`\stackrel{~}{W}_{T,L}(Q^2,r^2)`$. The detailed discussion about the similar smooth $`Q^2`$ dependence of the coefficient functions $`g_{T,L}`$ is presented in .

Including the non-vacuum Reggeon contribution and the contribution of the real part to the amplitude (6) the matrix element squared on r.h.s. of Eq. (6) reads:

$`|^{}(x_{eff},r)|^2=|<\mathrm{\Psi }_V(r,z)|\sigma (x_{eff},r)B(x_{eff},r)|\mathrm{\Psi }_\gamma ^{}(r,z)>|^2=`$
$`f^2(1+\alpha _V^2)4\pi \alpha _{em}C_V^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_V^4}{(m_V^2+Q^2)^2}}\sigma ^2(x_{eff},r_B)B^2(x_{eff},r_B)\left[h_T^2+ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}}h_L^2\right]=`$
$`B^2(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)|_{t=0}16\pi B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}V),`$ (21)
where the last line is the l.h.s. squared of Eq. (6) representing the multiplication of the forward diffraction slope squared for vector meson production and vector meson production amplitude squared, which can be expressed via $`t`$\- integrated production cross section and the diffraction slope using Eqs. (11) and (18).

The experimental determination of the forward diffraction cone $`B(t=0)`$ requires extrapolation of the differential cross section $`d\sigma /dt`$ towards $`t=0`$, which is not always possible and one often reports the $`t`$\- integrated production cross sections $`\sigma _{tot}(\gamma ^{}V)`$. Following the high precision $`\pi ^\pm N`$ scattering experiments, the diffraction slope $`B(t)`$ depends strongly on the region of $`t`$. For the average $`<t>0.10.2GeV^2`$ corresponding usually to the integrated total cross section, the diffraction slope is less than at $`t=0`$ by $`1GeV^2`$ . Therefore in all cases we report

$$B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)|_{t=0}=B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)+1GeV^2,$$
(22)
where $`B(x_{eff},Q^2)`$ is the diffraction slope determined experimentally from the $`t`$\- integrated total cross section. Eq. (22) gives an uncertainty $`<10\%`$ in the value of $`B`$ and can be reduced if more accurate data will be appeared.

Combining the Eqs. (17), (21) and (22) one can obtain the expression for the dipole diffraction slope $`B(x_{eff},r_B)`$:

$$B(x_{eff},r_B)=\left[1+B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)\right].\sqrt{\frac{g_T^2+ϵ\frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}g_L^2}{h_T^2+ϵ\frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}h_L^2}}.\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r_S)}{\sigma (x_{eff},r_B)},$$
(23)
where $`B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)`$ is the diffraction slope at energy $`W\sqrt{\frac{Q^2+m_V^2}{x_{eff}}}`$ and at $`Q^2`$ taken from the data. In (23) the values of the dipole cross section $`\sigma (x_{eff},r_S)`$ and $`\sigma (x_{eff},r_B)`$ are also taken from the same data as the diffraction slope following the procedure of extraction according to Eqs. (17) and (18). In (23) $`ϵ`$ is the longitudinal polarization of the photon with the values taken from the corresponding experimental publications. One can see from (23) that the dipole diffraction slope is mainly determined by the slope parameter $`B(\gamma ^{}V,x_{eff},Q^2)`$ obtained from the data, because other two terms in r.h.s. of (23),

$$\sqrt{\frac{g_T^2+ϵ\frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}g_L^2}{h_T^2+ϵ\frac{Q^2}{m_V^2}h_L^2}}and\frac{\sigma (x_{eff},r_S)}{\sigma (x_{eff},r_B)}$$

have the residual smooth $`Q^2`$ (dipole size) behaviour. It is connected with the smooth $`Q^2`$ behaviour of the coefficient functions $`g_T`$, $`g_L`$, $`h_T`$, $`h_L`$ and with the fact that the ratio of two dipole cross sections at different scanning radii $`r_S`$ and $`r_B`$ depends weakly on $`r_S`$.

The result of the above described analysis is depicted in Fig.2, which shows the dipole size dependence of the dipole diffraction slope extracted from the low energy and HERA data of photoproduction and electroproduction of vector mesons. The error bars shown here correspond to the error bars in the measured production cross sections and diffraction slopes as cited in the experimental papers. Because the data on vector meson production fall into two broad categories we present the procedure of extraction for two energy ranges: the center of mass energy $`W(1015)GeV`$ corresponding to fixed target data and $`W(70150)GeV`$ reflecting the HERA collider data. The color dipole cross section and the color dipole diffraction slope is flavor blind, there is only kinematical dependence on the vector meson through the definition of $`x_{eff}`$ (see Eq. (10)). However, because of the scanning phenomenon the comparison of reactions with production of different vector mesons at the same value of the scanning radius $`r_S`$ (at the same value of $`Q^2+m_V^2`$) leads approximately to the same corresponding values of $`x_{eff}`$ at the fixed energy $`\nu `$. Thus, one expect that the extraction procedure (23), (17) applied to the different vector mesons will lead to the same value of $`B(x_{eff},r_S)`$ at the same value of the scanning radius. This situation is similar to that for the color dipole cross section. Again, the data show the decrease of the dipole diffraction cone towards small dipole size $`r_S`$. It reflexes the contribution of the geometrical term $`r^2`$ to the diffraction slope . A comparison of the low energy fixed-target and HERA data on real photoproduction and electroproduction of vector mesons is not in contradiction with the conclusion about a substantial shrinkage of the dipole diffraction cone coming from the gBFKL phenomenology . The corresponding effective shrinkage rate $`\alpha _{eff}^{}`$ for $`\rho ^0`$ photoproduction is about $`0.25GeV^2`$ at the energy range of fixed target experiments and slightly decreases to the value of about 0.2 GeV<sup>-2</sup> at HERA energy. For electroproduction of charmonium and electroproduction of $`\rho ^0`$ when the scanning radius $`0.20.3`$ fm, the corresponding $`\alpha _{eff}^{}0.15GeV^2`$ at HERA energies in accordance with the gBFKL phenomenology of a subasymptotic energy dependence of the diffraction slope . In another words, the shrinkage of the diffraction slope with energy is weaker at smaller dipole sizes. However, large error bars of the diffraction slope data does not allow to see clearly the shrinkage of the slope parameter with energy. Some evidence of that shrinkage is seen only at large dipole sizes $`r_S\text{ }>1`$ fm, where the rise with energy of the slope is predicted to be more substantial.

The above determination of the color dipole diffraction slope from the data is rather crude for the following reasons reported particularly in the paper :
i) The vector meson production data from the EMC collaboration is known to have been plagued by a background from the inelastic process $`\gamma ^{}pVX`$. Especially at large $`Q^2`$ it could lead to enhancement of the production cross section whereas the diffraction slope could have been underestimated. In the recent NMC data  a special care has been taken to eliminate an inelastic background and the values of $`B(x_{eff},r_S)`$ from the NMC data are consistent within the experimental error bars.
ii) There are uncertainties connected with extrapolation of the differential cross section down to $`t=0`$. Due to the curvature of the diffraction cone the forward production cross section can be underestimated.
iii) There is also conservative $`\text{ }<15\%`$ theoretical inaccuracy of the extraction procedure connected with the variation of the coefficient functions $`g_T`$, $`g_L`$, $`h_T`$ and $`h_L`$ as a function of $`Q^2`$ from small ($`W=15GeV`$) to large ($`W=150GeV`$) energy (see also paper ).
iiii) There is residual uncertainty connected with the wave function of light vector mesons.

To summarize, within the above stated uncertainties of the simple extraction procedure and the experimental errors bars, there is a consistency between the dipole diffraction slope determined from $`\rho ^0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }^0`$ and $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production data. This is the first direct determination of the dipole diffraction slope and the main conclusions are not affected by the above cited uncertainties.

Fig.2 shows also the dipole diffraction slope from the gBFKL analysis , which gives an unified description of the data on vector meson diffractive production and on the proton structure function.

Conclusions.
We present the first determination of the dipole diffraction slope from the data on diffractive photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons. The dipole diffraction slope has been evaluated at the dipole size down to $`r_S0.35`$ fm and the decrease of $`B(x_{eff},r_S)`$ towards small $`r_S`$ is in accordance with $`r_S^2`$ behaviour of the diffraction slope coming from the gBFKL phenomenology. Because of large error bars of the data, we found only an evidence of a shrinkage of $`B(x_{eff},r_S)`$ with energy from the fixed-target, $`W1015GeV`$ up to collider HERA energy range, $`W70150GeV`$. This shrinkage is weaker for smaller dipole sizes. The found pattern of dipole size and energy dependence of the dipole diffraction slope is consistent with the flavor independence and with expectations from the gBFKL dynamics.


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# Towards Field Theory in Spaces with Multivolume Junctions

## I Introduction

In this paper, we consider field theory on spaces with the so-called multivolume junctions, as shown in Fig. 1. Spaces of such topological configurations arise in several important contexts. Firstly, they arise in the study of various braneworld theories that became very popular after the seminal papers RS . In these theories, the dimensionality of the volume spaces is usually equal to five, and the junction, which is called brane, is four-dimensional and is identified with the physical spacetime. Normally, the brane in a braneworld theory separates two volume spaces; the corresponding situation is shown in Fig. 2. However, the brane may be a junction of more than two volume spaces as well as it may be a boundary of only one volume space. Thus, in CS , junctions of an arbitrary number of semi-infinite four-branes were under consideration, and the whole configuration was assumed to be embedded in a six-dimensional spacetime. Secondly, such spaces may represent the situation where the physical four-dimensional spacetime has a nontrivial topology of the type shown in Fig. 1. Thirdly, in the important case of two-dimensional volume spaces, our investigation may be applicable to the superstring theory. Note that three-volume junctions of boson strings of type shown in Fig. 1 were under consideration in string .

In this paper, we consider the general situation depicted in Fig. 1. It symbolically shows $`n`$ $`d`$-dimensional Lorentzian manifolds $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, with common $`(d1)`$-dimensional boundary $``$ which thus plays the role of a junction between them. The boundary $``$ is assumed to be timelike, so that all the respective inner normal vector fields $`n_{(s)}^a`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, at this boundary are spacelike. We do not consider the space of Fig. 1 as embedded in a higher-dimensional manifold. Our aim is to study the behavior of various fields in a space with the specified topology focussing attention on the derivation and analysis of the junction conditions at $``$.

In brane theories, together with fields in the volume, one also considers fields whose dynamics is restricted to the brane RS . Moreover, the action for the brane may involve the restrictions of some of the volume fields to the brane; for example, it typically involves the induced metric. However, in this paper, we restrict ourselves mainly to the case where the junction $``$ does not have its intrinsic dynamics and thus represents what might be called a generalization of an imaginary hypersurface separating two volumes in an ordinary space to the case where the number of volumes is greater than two.

As a concrete example of application of our theory, we consider the case of multivolume junctions in a four-dimensional spacetime (Sec. VII). The issue of such a junction may arise in the context of the theory of quantum creation of a closed universe on the background of a big mother universe Fomin . It is conceivable that the created baby universe does not become spatially separated from the mother universe, but rather remains glued with it over some common three-dimensional volume FSB . The corresponding situation is depicted in Fig. 3, which shows the mother universe $`_1`$ and the baby universe $`_2`$ glued over the volume $`_3`$. All the three volume regions $`_1`$, $`_2`$, and $`_3`$ may evolve metrically preserving the topological configuration as shown in Fig. 3. One of the important physical questions in this situation is the issue of the behavior of various physical fields in this topology, in particular, the conditions of propagation of waves through the junction $``$ which is the common boundary of all three volume regions.

In approaching this issue, we first establish junction conditions for fields of various spins (Secs. IIIV) and then consider the resulting laws of wave propagation through the junction $``$ (Sec. V). In principle, the junction conditions at $``$ may be specified in many different ways. However, with a natural requirement that the spaces $`_s`$ be treated identically, it turns out that there are precisely two versions of junction conditions for each spin. This is one of the reasons why we pay attention to spaces with the topology specified above and propose to study them in greater detail.

In Sec. VI, we study the Green functions in the case of junction of flat spaces over a flat boundary and the resulting quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor.

Concluding remarks are presented in Sec. VIII.

## II Junction conditions for the metric

We start with considering junction conditions for the metric because the actions for all other fields involve ingredients (for example, the volume element) associated with the metric. In this paper, we consider the metric $`g_{ab}`$ with signature $`+\mathrm{}`$. The general action for the metric can be written in the form GH

$$S=M^{d2}\left(_{}R+2\underset{s}{}_{}K^{(s)}\right)+_{}L_h,$$
(1)
where $`M`$ is the Planck mass, $`R`$ is the scalar curvature, and $`K^{(s)}`$ is the trace of the extrinsic curvature of the junction $``$ in the space $`_s`$. We impose the most natural junction conditions for the metric, namely, that the induced metric $`h_{ab}`$ on $``$ is one and the same in all the spaces $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$. The Lagrangian $`L_h`$ in (1) depends only on this induced metric.

In this paper, we use the notation and conventions of Wald . The extrinsic curvature and its trace are defined as follows:

$$K_{ab}=h^c{}_{a}{}^{}_{c}^{}n_b,K=K_{ab}h^{ab},$$
(2)
where $`h_{ab}=g_{ab}+n_an_b`$ is the metric induced on a timelike hypersurface. The natural volume elements are implied in all the integrations over $``$ and $``$. The cosmological-constant terms can be added to action (1) for each space $`_s`$, and their contribution to the resulting equations is obvious.

Variation of action (1) can be written in the form (see Appendix)

$$\delta S=M^{d2}\left[_{}G_{ab}\delta g^{ab}+_{}\underset{s}{}\left(K_{ab}^{(s)}K^{(s)}h_{ab}\right)\delta h^{ab}\right]+_{}\sigma _{ab}\delta h^{ab}.$$
(3)
Here, $`G_{ab}`$ is the Einstein tensor, $`\sigma _{ab}`$ is the variation of the last term in (1) with respect to $`h^{ab}`$, and the variation $`\delta h^{ab}`$ is completely determined by the variation $`\delta g^{ab}`$ of the metric in $``$. Note that the Gibbons–Hawking boundary terms GH  in action (1) are required to consistently obtain the Einstein equations in the respective volume spaces without restricting variations of the metric at the junction $``$.

Besides the metric, we may have additional fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ that propagate in the volume and fields $`\phi `$ whose dynamics is restricted to the junction. Some of the fields $`\phi `$ may represent restrictions of some of the volume fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ to the junction. Thus, in general, we must consider the action for the fields with the corresponding Lagrangians $`L_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`L_\phi `$ in the form

$$_{}L_\mathrm{\Phi }+_{}L_\phi .$$
(4)
The additional set of junction conditions obtained with the account of (3), (4) is then

$$\underset{s}{}\left(K_{ab}^{(s)}K^{(s)}h_{ab}\right)=\frac{1}{M^{d2}}\left(\sigma _{ab}+\tau _{ab}\right),$$
(5)
where $`\tau _{ab}`$ is the variation of (4) with respect to the induced metric $`h^{ab}`$.

Variation of the first term in (4), together with (3), leads to the Einstein equation in the volume

$$G_{ab}=\frac{1}{M^{d2}}T_{ab},$$
(6)
where $`T_{ab}`$ is the variation of the first term in (4) with respect to the metric $`g^{ab}`$.

## III Junction conditions for scalar and vector fields

A complex scalar field $`\varphi `$ with mass $`m`$ is described by the action

$$S=_{}\left[\overline{_a\varphi }^a\varphi m^2\overline{\varphi }\varphi \right],$$
(7)
where the bar denotes complex conjugation, the integral is taken over the whole manifold $`=_s_s`$ shown in Fig. 1, and the natural volume element is implied. The derivative $`_a\varphi `$ may involve contribution from the gauge vector field.

In formulating the junction conditions at $``$, we proceed from the following natural principles. Let $`\varphi _{(s)}`$ denote the restriction of the scalar field $`\varphi `$ to the space $`_s`$. We are going to relate the value of $`\varphi _{(s)}`$ with the values of $`\varphi _{(r)}`$, $`rs`$ at the junction. This relation must be linear (in order to respect the superposition principle), and the spaces $`_s`$ must be regarded as physically identical. With these requirements, we arrive at the following general junction conditions at $``$:

$$\varphi _{(s)}=\alpha \underset{rs}{}\varphi _{(r)},s=1,\mathrm{},n,$$
(8)
where $`\alpha `$ is some constant to be determined. Possible values of $`\alpha `$ are obtained from the additional requirement that the junction conditions (8) allow for nontrivial solutions at the junction. This gives only two possible values of the parameter $`\alpha `$:

$$\alpha =\frac{1}{n1}\text{and}\alpha =1.$$
(9)
Notably, the condition $`\alpha =1/(n1)`$ simply implies the continuity of the scalar field in the space $`=_s_s`$, i.e., the condition $`\varphi _{(1)}=\varphi _{(2)}=\mathrm{}=\varphi _{(n)}`$, while the condition $`\alpha =1`$ leads to the single equation $`_s\varphi _{(s)}=0`$. To obtain other conditions at the junction, we vary the action respecting the junction conditions (8) and demanding that the variation be zero. General variation of action (7) is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\delta S=\hfill & _{}\left[\delta \overline{\varphi }\left(^a_a+m^2\right)\varphi +\delta \varphi \left(\overline{}^a\overline{}_a+m^2\right)\overline{\varphi }\right]\hfill \\ & +\underset{s}{}_{}\left(\delta \overline{\varphi }_{(s)}_a\varphi _{(s)}+\delta \varphi _{(s)}\overline{}_a\overline{\varphi }_{(s)}\right)n_{(s)}^a.\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
According to the value of $`\alpha `$ in (8), we obtain, besides the Klein–Gordon equations of motion in the volume, also the additional junction conditions.

### A. Case of $`\alpha =1/(n1)`$

In this case, the additional junction conditions are $`_sn_{(s)}^a_a\varphi _{(s)}=0`$. We summarize the junction conditions obtained in the case under consideration:

$$\varphi _{(p)}=\varphi _{(q)}\text{for all }p,q;\underset{s}{}n_{(s)}^a_a\varphi _{(s)}=0.$$
(11)
### B. Case of $`\alpha =1`$

In this case, the complete set of junction conditions is

$$\underset{s}{}\varphi _{(s)}=0;n_{(p)}^a_a\varphi _{(p)}=n_{(q)}^a_a\varphi _{(q)}\text{for all }p,q.$$
(12)
Both sets of junction conditions (11) and (12) imply the sum rule for the components of the conserved current $`J_a=i\left(\overline{\varphi }_a\varphi \varphi \overline{}_a\overline{\varphi }\right)`$ normal to the junction surface $``$:

$$\underset{s}{}n_{(s)}^aJ_a^{(s)}=0.$$
(13)
The junction conditions (11) also imply that the components of the current along the junction surface $``$ are the same in all the volume spaces.

A free vector field $`A^a`$ with mass $`m`$ is described by the action

$$S=_{}\left(\frac{1}{4}F_{ab}F^{ab}+\frac{m^2}{2}A_aA^a\right).$$
(14)
Its variation in the manifold $``$ is given by

$$\delta S=_{}\delta A_b\left(_aF^{ab}+m^2A^b\right)\underset{s}{}_{}\delta A_b^{(s)}F_{(s)}^{ab}n_a^{(s)}.$$
(15)
The junction conditions at $``$ naturally will involve only the components of $`A^a`$ tangent to $``$, which we denote by $`A^a`$. Similarly to Eq. (8), we write the most general expression compatible with the symmetry imposed:

$$A_{(s)}^a=\alpha \underset{rs}{}A_{(r)}^a,s=1,\mathrm{},n,$$
(16)
where, by reasoning similar to that of the scalar case, the constant $`\alpha `$ is equal either to $`1/(n1)`$ or to $`1`$.

### A. Case of $`\alpha =1/(n1)`$

In this case, the values of $`A^a`$ are the same at all the sides of the junction $``$. Variation of action (15) yields the Proca equations (the Maxwell equations, if $`m=0`$) in the volume and the additional junction conditions $`_sF_{(s)}^{ab}n_b^{(s)}=0`$. We summarize the junction conditions in this case:

$$A_{(p)}^a=A_{(q)}^a\text{for all }p,q;\underset{s}{}F_{(s)}^{ab}n_b^{(s)}=0.$$
(17)
### B. Case of $`\alpha =1`$

In this case, the total set of junction conditions obtained with the account of (15) is given by

$$\underset{s}{}A_{(s)}^a=0;F_{(p)}^{ab}n_b^{(p)}=F_{(q)}^{ab}n_b^{(q)}\text{for all }p,q.$$
(18)
In the case $`n=1`$, i.e., where there is only one volume space with boundary, the junction conditions of type A \[Eqs. (11), (17)\] become the Neumann boundary conditions, while the junction conditions of type B \[Eqs. (12), (18)\] become the Dirichlet boundary conditions. Thus, the junction conditions obtained above can be regarded as respective generalizations of the mentioned boundary conditions to the case of $`n>1`$.

## IV Junction conditions for the Dirac field

The action for the Dirac field of mass $`m`$ can be written in the form

$$S=_{}\left(\frac{i}{2}\left[\overline{\psi }\gamma ^a_a\psi \overline{(_a\psi )}\gamma ^a\psi \right]m\overline{\psi }\psi \right),$$
(19)
where $`_a\psi `$ denotes the standard covariant derivative of the Dirac spinor $`\psi `$ that may include contribution from the gauge vector field. Variation of action (19) is given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\delta S=\hfill & _{}\delta \overline{\psi }\left(i\gamma ^a_am\right)\psi _{}\left[i\overline{(_a\psi )}\gamma ^a+m\overline{\psi }\right]\delta \psi \hfill \\ & +i\underset{s}{}_{}\left(\overline{\psi }_{(s)}\gamma ^a\delta \psi _{(s)}\delta \overline{\psi }_{(s)}\gamma ^a\psi _{(s)}\right)n_a^{(s)},\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
where $`\psi _{(s)}`$, $`\overline{\psi }_{(s)}`$ are the restrictions of the spinor fields to the space $`_s`$.

The specific feature of the spinor field is that it is referred at each point to a particular orthonormal basis (called tetrad in the case of $`d=4`$). Thus, in order to formulate the junction conditions for the Dirac field, we must take this circumstance into account. We need to relate the spinor fields $`\psi _{(s)}`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, as we reach one and the same point at the junction $``$ moving in different spaces $`_s`$. At each point $`x`$, we must choose $`n`$ orthonormal bases, one in each space $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, to refer the corresponding values of the Dirac field to these bases. For a convenient formulation of the relations between these values, the $`n`$ bases are to be chosen in a coherent way. We choose $`d1`$ of the basis vectors $`\{e_1^a,e_2^a,\mathrm{},e_{d1}^a\}`$ at any point $`x`$ to form an arbitrary orthonormal basis in the tangent space to $``$, the same for all the spaces $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Then the $`d`$-th vector of the orthonormal basis in each space is determined uniquely up to sign, and we choose it to be the inner normal vector $`n_{(s)}^a`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, respectively, in each of these spaces.

Next, to obtain the possible junction conditions at $``$, we first consider the case $`n=2`$, i.e., a manifold $``$ and a timelike hypersurface $``$ that divides it into two parts $`_1`$ and $`_2`$ (see Fig. 2). Given a Dirac spinor field which is continuous in $``$, its values at $``$ in the bases $`\{e_1^a,e_2^a,\mathrm{},e_{d1}^a,n_{(s)}^a\}`$, $`s=1,2`$, chosen by the procedure described above are related by the operation of reflection which performs the transformation of the Dirac spinor $`\psi `$ from the basis $`\{e_1^a,e_2^a,\mathrm{},e_{d1}^a,n_{(s)}^a\}`$ to the reflected basis $`\{e_1^a,e_2^a,\mathrm{},e_{d1}^a`$, $`n_{(s)}^a\}`$ (since $`n_2^a=n_1^a`$). For simplicity, we consider the important case where the dimensionality $`d`$ is even and define the corresponding matrix operator of reflection as $`N=\gamma _{d+1}\gamma ^an_a`$, where $`\gamma _{d+1}`$ is the $`d`$-dimensional analog of the four-dimensional $`\gamma _5`$ matrix, so that it obeys the relation $`N^2=1`$. Then we have111Here and below, we omit the implicit label $`s`$ in the operator of reflection $`N`$.

$$\psi _{(1)}=\pm N\psi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)}=\pm N\psi _{(1)},$$
(21)
where the sign ambiguity corresponds to the fact that the spinor representation of the Lorentz group is double-valued.

Conditions (21) correspond to the continuity of the spinor field in the space $``$ thus indicating that the junction $``$ in this case is only imaginary, or nonphysical. It will be shown very soon that the junction conditions (21) may be obtained from the variational principle starting from more general conditions, namely,

$$\psi _{(1)}=(\alpha +\beta N)\psi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)}=(\alpha +\beta N)\psi _{(1)},$$
(22)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are some constants. Thus, it appears reasonable to impose the general junction conditions of the type (22) in the general case shown in Fig. 1.

We proceed with the analysis of the situation shown in Fig. 1 and impose the discussed general junction conditions at $``$, compatible with the symmetry of the problem:

$$\psi _{(s)}=\underset{rs}{}\left(\alpha +\beta N\right)\psi _{(r)},s=1,\mathrm{},n,$$
(23)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are constants.

To facilitate the analysis, we can use the decomposition $`\psi =\psi ^++\psi ^{}`$ at $``$, where

$$\psi ^\pm =\frac{1}{2}(1\pm N)\psi ,N\psi ^\pm =\pm \psi ^\pm .$$
(24)
Then the requirement that system (23) have nontrivial solutions both for $`\psi _{(s)}^+`$ and for $`\psi _{(s)}^{}`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, at the junction leads to the equation

$$\left[(n1)z1\right]\left(z+1\right)^{n1}=0,$$
(25)
which must be satisfied both by $`z=\alpha +\beta `$ and by $`z=\alpha \beta `$.

Two solutions of these equations for $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ have $`\beta =0`$. In this case, equation (25) implies that either $`\alpha =1`$, or $`\alpha =1/(n1)`$. It is easy to verify that the boundary term in the variational principle (20) in both these cases will lead to the additional condition $`\psi _{(s)}=0`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, which, together with the Dirac equation in the volume, will imply vanishing of $`\psi `$ all over the space $``$. Thus, the junction conditions with $`\beta =0`$ should be rejected as leading to only trivial solutions.

Consider the remaining two solutions with nonzero $`\beta `$, namely,

$$\alpha =\frac{2n}{2(n1)},\beta =\pm \frac{n}{2(n1)},$$
(26)
which differ in the sign of $`\beta `$. By writing the fields on the junction $``$ in the form (24) and by using the property of the reflection operator

$$N\gamma ^aNn_a=\gamma ^an_a,$$
(27)
one easily can verify that both cases (26) imply the identical vanishing of the boundary term in variation (20) of the action. Thus, both cases (26) can describe the physical situation, and the possible junction conditions at $``$ can be summarized as

$$\psi _{(s)}=\frac{1}{2(n1)}\underset{rs}{}\left[(2n)\pm nN\right]\psi _{(r)},s=1,\mathrm{},n.$$
(28)
These junction conditions can be further transformed to the following convenient form:

$$(1\pm N)\psi _{(s)}=\frac{2}{n}\underset{r}{}\psi _{(r)},s=1,\mathrm{},n.$$
(29)
In this form, the junction conditions are extended also to the case $`n=1`$, i.e., where $``$ is the boundary of only one volume space; in this case, the boundary conditions imply reflection from the boundary. In the particular case of $`n=2`$, we obtain precisely conditions (21), which imply continuity of the Dirac field all over $``$. As in the previous cases, we will refer to the junction conditions (29) with the upper and lower sign as to the junction conditions of type A and B, respectively, although in the case of the Dirac field, there is no qualitative difference between them.

As in the scalar case, the junction conditions (29) imply the sum rule for the components of the conserved current $`J^a=\overline{\psi }\gamma ^a\psi `$ normal to the junction:

$$\underset{s}{}J_{(s)}^an_a^{(s)}=0.$$
(30)
## V Wave propagation through the junction

In this section, we apply the equations obtained to the particular interesting case of wave propagation in the space shown in Fig. 1. We shall derive the laws of wave transmission through and reflection from the junction $``$.

First, consider the simple case of a scalar field. Let, in the region $`_1`$, a wave that obeys the Klein–Gordon equation and propagates towards the junction $``$ be denoted by $`\varphi _1^{(+)}`$. We denote its value at $``$ by $`\varphi _{}`$ and its derivative normal to the junction $``$ by $`\varphi _{}^{}n_{(1)}^a_a\varphi _1^{(+)}`$. Then the wave which we call the reflected wave and denote by $`\varphi _1^{()}`$ is constructed by imposing the same values at the junction, $`\varphi _1^{()}=\varphi _{}`$, and by reversing the sign of the derivative normal to the junction $``$: $`n_{(1)}^a_a\varphi _1^{()}=\varphi _{}^{}`$. For example, in the case of propagation in a flat spacetime $`_1`$ with the surface $``$ described by the equation $`x_1=0`$ in the natural spacetime coordinates $`t`$, $`x(x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_{d1})`$, the plane waves of this kind will be given, respectively, by $`\varphi _1^{(+)}=\mathrm{exp}(i\omega t+ikx)`$ and $`\varphi _1^{()}=\mathrm{exp}(i\omega t+ik^{}x)`$, where the wave vector $`k^{}`$ is obtained from $`k`$ by reversing its $`x_1`$-component. The waves $`\varphi _s^{()}`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, propagating away from the junction, respectively, in the regions $`_s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, are constructed by imposing the boundary conditions $`\varphi _s^{()}=\varphi _{}`$, $`n_{(s)}^a_a\varphi _s^{()}=\varphi _{}^{}`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, at the junction $``$. We will assume that solutions with the boundary conditions imposed exist globally in $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, respectively.

We are looking for a solution that contains both waves falling towards $``$ and reflected from $``$ in the region $`_1`$, but only waves propagating away from $``$ (transmitted waves) in the regions $`_s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$. Thus, we set

$$\varphi _1=\varphi _1^{(+)}+\rho \varphi _1^{()},\varphi _s=\tau _s\varphi _s^{()},s=2,\mathrm{},n,$$
(31)
where $`\rho `$ is the amplitude of wave reflection and $`\tau _s`$ are the amplitudes of wave transmission to the spaces $`_s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, respectively.

To determine the amplitudes of reflection and transmission, we apply the junction conditions obtained in Sec. III. In the case of the junction conditions (11), we obtain

$$\{\begin{array}{c}1+\rho =\tau _2=\tau _3=\mathrm{}=\tau _n,\hfill \\ 1\rho _{s=2}^n\tau _s=0,\hfill \end{array}\{\begin{array}{c}\rho =(2n)/n,\hfill \\ \tau _2=\tau _3=\mathrm{}=\tau _n=2/n.\hfill \end{array}$$
(32)
In the case of the junction conditions (12), we get the solution that differs from (32) only in the sign:

$$\{\begin{array}{c}1+\rho +_{s=2}^n\tau _s=0,\hfill \\ 1\rho =\tau _2=\tau _3=\mathrm{}=\tau _n,\hfill \end{array}\{\begin{array}{c}\rho =(n2)/n,\hfill \\ \tau _2=\tau _3=\mathrm{}=\tau _n=2/n.\hfill \end{array}$$
(33)
We see that, in both cases, the same amount of energy \[the fraction $`(n2)^2/n^2`$\] is reflected back to the space $`_1`$ and the same equal amount of energy (the fraction $`4/n^2`$) is transmitted to each of the $`n1`$ spaces $`_s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$.

The results for the case of vector fields and for weak gravitational waves are essentially the same. For the vector field, we introduce the wave $`A_a^{(+)}`$ propagating towards the junction $``$ in the region $`_1`$ and construct the reflected wave $`A_a^{()}`$ by keeping the component $`A_a^{}`$ tangent to $``$ intact and by reversing the sign of the value of $`F^{ab}n_b`$ at $``$. For a weak gravitational wave, we introduce the similar field $`\delta g_{ab}^{(+)}`$ and construct the corresponding reflected wave $`\delta g_{ab}^{()}`$ by keeping the perturbation of the induced metric $`\delta h_{ab}`$ at $``$ intact and by reversing the sign of the perturbation of the extrinsic curvature $`\delta K_{ab}`$ at $``$. Then, proceeding in precisely the same way as we did in the scalar case, we obtain the same amplitudes of reflection and transmission. Again, the only difference between cases A and B of Sec. III for the vector field is in the relative phases (signs of the amplitudes) with which the waves are reflected and transmitted. The reflection and transmission amplitudes for gravitational waves will be given by (32).

The case of propagation of the Dirac field is also considered quite similarly to the scalar case. We denote by $`\psi _1^{(+)}`$ the wave that propagates towards the junction $``$ in the region $`_1`$, and by $`\psi _{}`$ we denote its value at $``$. Then the reflected wave $`\psi _1^{()}`$ is constructed by imposing the reflection boundary condition $`\psi _1^{()}=N\psi _{}`$ at $``$ and by subsequently solving the Dirac equation in $`_1`$. Similarly, the waves that propagate away from $``$ in the spaces $`_s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, are constructed by imposing the conditions $`\psi _s^{()}=N\psi _{}`$ at the junction $``$ and by subsequently solving the Dirac equation in $`_s`$. We assume that such solutions exist globally in $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, as will be the case in a flat spacetime with a flat junction hypersurface considered while discussing the scalar case. With waves thus constructed, we set

$$\psi _1=\psi _1^{(+)}+\rho \psi _1^{()},\psi _s=\tau _s\psi _s^{()},s=2,\mathrm{},n.$$
(34)
Again, $`\rho `$ is the coefficient of reflection, and $`\tau _s`$, $`s=2,\mathrm{},n`$, are the corresponding coefficients of transmission of waves.

In applying the junction conditions (29), it is convenient to use the decomposition $`\psi =\psi ^++\psi ^{}`$ defined by (24) at the junction $``$ and to write the junction conditions for the $`\psi ^+`$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ components separately. With the upper sign in (29), we obtain precisely the set of equations (32) while, with the lower sign in (29), we get precisely the system of equations (33). Thus, we conclude that the laws of wave reflection from and transmission through the junction $``$ are similar for all the spins considered.

## VI Green functions in flat spaces with flat miltivolume junctions

In this section, we consider the simple case of flat spaces $`_s`$ with flat common timelike boundary $``$ (see Fig. 1). We obtain the expressions for the Green functions in such a space.

In each space $`_s`$, $`s=1,\mathrm{},n`$, we can choose natural coordinates $`x=\{x_1,\mathrm{},x_d\}`$ in such a way that the junction $``$ is the boundary surface $`x_d=0`$ of the volume $`x_d0`$, and the points with coordinates $`\{x_1,\mathrm{},x_{d1},0\}`$ in the spaces $`_s`$ are naturally identified. Let $`G(x,x^{})D(x_1x_1^{},\mathrm{},x_dx_d^{})`$ be any Green function (retarded, advanced, causal, etc.) for the scalar field in the Minkowski space. Then, the corresponding Green function in the space $`=_s_s`$ is easily constructed by the method of images. We introduce the function $`\stackrel{~}{G}(x,x^{})D(x_1x_1^{},\mathrm{},x_d+x_d^{})`$. Then the Green function $`G_{}(x,x^{})`$ in the space $``$ is given by

$$G_{}(x,x^{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill G(x,x^{})\pm \frac{2n}{n}\stackrel{~}{G}(x,x^{}),& \text{if }xx^{},\hfill \\ \hfill \pm \frac{2}{n}\stackrel{~}{G}(x,x^{}),& \text{if }x\sim ̸x^{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(35)
where $`xx^{}`$ means that $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ are in one component $`_s`$, and $`x\sim ̸x^{}`$ means that $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ are in different components $`_s`$. The upper sign in (35) corresponds to the junction conditions (11), and the lower sign corresponds to the junction conditions (12).

Similar relations can be obtained for the Green functions of the vector and Dirac fields. For example, in the case of the Dirac field, the Green function $`G(x,x^{})D(x_1x_1^{},\mathrm{},x_dx_d^{})`$ is a matrix with spinor indices. Then we introduce the function $`\stackrel{~}{G}(x,x^{})ND(x_1x_1^{},\mathrm{},x_d+x_d^{})`$, where $`N`$ is the usual matrix of reflection acting on the index corresponding to the argument $`x^{}`$, and, using the junction conditions (28), we arrive at the same form (35) for the Green function.

Using expressions (35), one easily can obtain the renormalized vacuum stress-energy tensor. It is given by the derivatives of the Hadamard function renormalized by subtracting the Hadamard function for the Minkowski space (see BD ). We obtain

$$T_{ab}_\mathrm{A}=T_{ab}_\mathrm{B}=\frac{2n}{n}T_{ab}_\mathrm{A}^{(n=1)},$$
(36)
where the labels ‘A’ and ‘B’ correspond to the junction conditions of type A and B, respectively, and the expressions for $`T_{ab}_{\mathrm{A},\mathrm{B}}^{(n=1)}`$ are standard and can be found, e.g., in BD  and references therein.

The stress-energy tensor $`T_{ab}_\mathrm{A}^{(n=1)}`$ typically diverges as $`x_d0`$. For example, for a massless scalar field, we have BD

$$T_{ab}_\mathrm{A}^{(n=1)}=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2x_d^4}g_{ab}.$$
(37)
If stress-energy tensor of such form must be added to the matter side of the Einstein equation in the volume, then its presence is inconsistent with the assumption that the spacetime is flat. This constitutes a well-known problem for curved spaces and, especially, spaces with boundaries (see BD ). However, we may simply avoid this problem in the case under consideration by requiring that exactly two copies of each field are present in the theory, one with the junction conditions A, and another with the junction conditions B. Then their contributions to the renormalized stress-energy tensor will cancel each other, as is clear from Eq. (36). Additionally, we must also consider quantum fluctuations of the metric that are expected to result in an effective regularization of the stress-energy tensor in the junction region. This will be the subject of the future investigations.

## VII Universe with multivolume junctions

First, let us consider a universe with spatial three-dimensional topology as shown in Fig. 3. Here, we have three spaces $`_1`$, $`_2`$, and $`_3`$ with topology of a three-dimensional disk bounded by the common surface $``$ that has topology of two-sphere.

We assume that the topology described may arise in the context of the theory of quantum creation of a closed universe on the background of a big mother universe Fomin . It is conceivable that the created baby universe does not become spatially separated from the mother universe, but rather remains glued with it over some common three-dimensional volume FSB . Then Fig. 3 can be interpreted as showing the mother universe $`_1`$ and the baby universe $`_2`$ glued over the volume $`_3`$. All the three volume regions $`_1`$, $`_2`$, and $`_3`$ that have common boundary $``$ may evolve (expand or contract) preserving the topological configuration shown. One of the important physical questions in this situation is the issue of the behavior of various physical fields, in particular, of the metric, in this topology.

Consider the case where the metrics of the pieces $`_1`$, $`_2`$, and $`_3`$ are the usual Friedmann–Robertson–Walker metrics given by the line element

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)ds_3^2,$$
(38)
where

$$ds_3^2=d\chi ^2+f^2(\chi )d\mathrm{\Omega }_2,$$
(39)
$$f(\chi )=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{sin}\chi & \text{for}\hfill & \kappa =1,\hfill \\ \hfill \chi & \text{for}\hfill & \kappa =0,\hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{sinh}\chi & \text{for}\hfill & \kappa =1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(40)
$`d\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ is the line element of the unit two-spherical geometry, and the discrete parameter $`\kappa `$ indicates the type of the spatial geometry. The time coordinates $`t_s`$, the scale factors $`a_s(t_s)`$, the angles $`\chi _s`$, and the functions $`f_s(\chi _s)`$ specified by the numbers $`\kappa _s`$ are to be introduced for each space $`_s`$, $`s=1,2,3`$, separately.

We consider the junction conditions (5) for the metric field in the absence of contribution to the right-hand side. Let the position of the junction $``$ be described by the function $`\chi =\chi _{}(t)`$ in the metric (38). The components of the extrinsic curvature of the junction in the part of the space $`\chi \chi _{}`$ are given by

$$K^t{}_{t}{}^{}=\frac{d}{dt}\left[\frac{a\dot{\chi }_{}}{\sqrt{1\left(a\dot{\chi }_{}\right)^2}}\right],K^i{}_{j}{}^{}=\frac{\delta ^i_j}{\sqrt{1\left(a\dot{\chi }_{}\right)^2}}[\dot{a}\dot{\chi }_{}+\frac{f^{}(\chi _{})}{af(\chi _{})}],i,j=1,2,$$
(41)
where overdot denotes the time derivative.

In general, possible motions of the junction in each of the three pieces of the volume space will be determined by the junction conditions (5), and this is not an easy problem even in the symmetric case that we are considering now. One special situation can be analyzed in the case where the three spaces expand in a similar way so that their Hubble parameters $`H\dot{a}/a`$ coincide as functions of time, which can be chosen common to all three spaces. Then solutions exist for which $`\dot{\chi }_{}0`$ in each of the spaces, i.e., the junction expands together with the universe. Introducing the radius $`r=af(\chi _{})`$ of the junction, we will have the following condition:

$$\underset{s}{}ϵ_s\sqrt{1\kappa _s\left(r/a_s\right)^2}=0,$$
(42)
where $`ϵ_s=\text{sign }f_s^{}(\chi _s)`$. Note that $`ϵ_s=1`$ for hyperbolic and flat spatial geometry ($`\kappa _s=1,0`$) while, for spherical spatial geometry ($`\kappa _s=1`$), $`ϵ_s=\pm 1`$. Then, with the topology shown in Fig. 3, one can conclude from Eq. (42) that at least two of the spaces $`_s`$ must have spherical spatial geometry. Let these spaces be $`_1`$ and $`_2`$. If, moreover, we suppose that $`ra_1,a_2`$ and $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2=1`$ (the situation actually depicted in Fig. 3) then it is necessary that the third space $`_3`$ have hyperbolic spatial geometry and $`r\sqrt{3}a_3`$. To avoid confusion, we stress that these conditions are valid only for scaling solutions under consideration (identical Hubble parameters and $`\dot{\chi }_{}0`$ in each of the spaces). Also note that we have not analyzed the matter content of such universes which is necessary to produce the desired solutions.

The general laws of propagation of waves of various fields through the junction $``$ were described in the previous Sec. V. In particular, as a wave reaches the junction $``$ in the space $`_1`$, $`1/3`$ of its amplitude is reflected back to the space $`_1`$ while $`2/3`$ is transmitted to each of the spaces $`_2`$ and $`_3`$.

Consider now the example of a universe whose spatial section has a boundary. In this case, the boundary conditions (5) with vanishing right-hand side imply vanishing of the extrinsic curvature of the boundary. Restricting analysis to the simple case of spherical boundary in a spatially flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker spacetime, we obtain the following solution of the boundary conditions:

$$a(t)=t_0\left(\frac{t}{t_0}\right)^q,\chi (t)=\sqrt{q(q1)}\left(\frac{t_0}{t}\right)^{q1},q>1.$$
(43)
The condition $`q>1`$ is a consequence of the requirement that the boundary be timelike, and it implies the power-law accelerating expansion of the universe. As follows from (43), the radius of the boundary $`ra\chi `$ in the expanding universe evolves according to the law $`r(t)=t\sqrt{q(q1)}`$. Note that solution (43) can describe both a space with an outer boundary (a disk) and a space with an inner boundary (a space with a hole).

## VIII Discussion

Spaces with topology as that shown in Fig. 1 naturally arise in the theory of multivolume junctions in four-dimensional spacetimes, in the theory of brane worlds, and in the superstring theory. It is therefore important to study the possible junction conditions at the hypersurface $``$ and their physical consequences. In this paper, after establishing the junction conditions, we studied the issue of field propagation in spaces with the specified topology. It turns out that the laws of wave transmission through and reflection from the junction are quite similar for fields of all physical spins.

We considered the particular case of a multivolume junction in a four-dimensional spacetime and presented a partial solution for the metric with topology shown in Fig. 3. The aim of the subsequent investigations in this direction will be to investigate the case of a universe with multivolume junctions in more detail and to study their physical implications. One of the ideas is to identify regions of type $`_3`$ in Fig. 3 with the observed voids (see, e.g., Peebles ) in the large-scale distribution of galaxies in the universe.

Boson string configurations of type shown in Fig. 1 with $`n=3`$ were studied in string  with the natural junction conditions (11) for the target space coordinates on the string world sheet. It would be interesting to study such configurations in the superstring theory with the additional junction conditions (29) for spinor fields.

In the case of integer spin, one may wish to view the junction conditions A \[with $`\alpha =1/(n1)`$\] of Sec. III as more physical than the junction conditions B (with $`\alpha =1`$) since, in the first case, the fields are continuous in the manifold $``$ while, in the second case, they are discontinuous at the surface $``$. However, one should not discard the junction conditions of type B altogether before studying them in greater detail. This is supported by our example of flat spaces with flat multivolume junctions considered in Sec. VI, which shows that the presence of fields with both types of junction conditions may lead to cancellation of certain divergences in the vacuum stress-energy tensor.

## Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to V. P. Frolov and V. D. Gladush for useful discussion. Yu. S. acknowledges support from the INTASgrant for project No. 2000-334.

## Appendix A Variation of the action for the metric

Here, we derive the expression for the first variation of the action for gravity (up to a multiplicative constant)

$$S_g=_{}R+2_{}K,$$
(44)
where $``$ is the boundary of $``$, $`h_{ab}=g_{ab}+n_an_b`$ is the metric induced on $``$, $`K_{ab}=h^c{}_{a}{}^{}_{c}^{}n_b`$ is the extrinsic curvature of $``$, and $`K=K_{ab}h^{ab}`$ is its trace. In contrast with the standard derivation, here we do not assume that the variation of $`g_{ab}`$ vanishes at the boundary $``$, which is taken to be timelike.

We start from the standard expression (see, e.g., Appendix E of Wald , but note that we work with the opposite metric signature and use the inner spacelike normal $`n^a`$)

$$\delta \left(_{}R\right)=_{}G_{ab}\delta g^{ab}+_{}^av_a,$$
(45)
where

$$v_a=^b\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)g^{cd}_a\left(\delta g_{cd}\right).$$
(46)
The second integral in (45) can be transformed with the use of the Stokes theorem as

$$_{}^av_a=_{}v_an^a,$$
(47)
where

$$v_an^a=n^ag^{bc}\left[_c\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)_a\left(\delta g_{bc}\right)\right]=n^ah^{bc}\left[_c\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)_a\left(\delta g_{bc}\right)\right].$$
(48)
Then we have

$$\delta K=\delta \left(h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}n^b\right)=\delta h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}n^b+h^a{}_{b}{}^{}(\delta C)_{}^{b}{}_{ac}{}^{}n_{}^{c}+h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^b,$$
(49)
where

$$(\delta C)^b{}_{ac}{}^{}=\frac{1}{2}g^{bd}[_a\left(\delta g_{cd}\right)+_c\left(\delta g_{ad}\right)_d\left(\delta g_{ac}\right)].$$
(50)
The first term in the right-hand side of (49) is identically zero. Indeed, we have $`\delta n_a=n_an_b\delta n^b`$, so that

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill \delta h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}n^b=(\delta n^an_b+n^a\delta n_b)_an^b=(\delta n^a+n^an_c\delta n^c)n_b_an^b\\ \hfill =\delta n^ch^a{}_{c}{}^{}n_{b}^{}_an^b=\delta n^cn_bK_c{}_{}{}^{b}=0.\end{array}$$
(51)
Thus, variation of the second term of (44) is

$$\delta \left(2_{}K\right)=_{}[n^ch^{ab}_c\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)+2h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^bKh_{ab}\delta h^{ab}],$$
(52)
where the last term in the square brackets stems from the variation of the volume element $`\sqrt{|h|}d^{d1}x`$ in the integral over $``$.

The total boundary term in the variation of action (44) is given by the sum of (47) and (52) with the result

$$(\text{Boundary term})=_{}[n^ah^{bc}_c\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)+2h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^bKh_{ab}\delta h^{ab}].$$
(53)
We transform the first term in the integrand of the last expression:

$$n^ah^{bc}_c\left(\delta g_{ab}\right)=h^{bc}_c\left(n^a\delta g_{ab}\right)h^{bc}_cn^a\delta g_{ab}=h^{bc}_c\left(n^a\delta g_{ab}\right)+K_{ab}\delta h^{ab}.$$
(54)
Then

$$(\text{Boundary term})=_{}[h^{bc}_c\left(n^a\delta g_{ab}\right)+2h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^b]+_{}(K_{ab}Kh_{ab})\delta h^{ab}.$$
(55)
Now we show that the integrand of the first integral in (55) is a divergence, so that this integral vanishes for variations of $`g_{ab}`$ with compact support in $``$. Indeed,

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill h^{bc}_c\left(n^a\delta g_{ab}\right)+2h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^b=h^{bc}_c(\delta n_bg_{ab}\delta n^a)+2h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\delta n^b\\ \hfill =h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}(g^{bc}\delta n_c+\delta n^b)=h^a{}_{b}{}^{}_{a}^{}\left(h^b{}_{c}{}^{}\delta n^c\right)=D_b\left(h^b{}_{c}{}^{}\delta n^c\right),\end{array}$$
(56)
where $`D_a`$ is the (unique) derivative on $``$ associated with the induced metric $`h_{ab}`$, and the last equality in (56) is valid by virtue of Lemma 10.2.1 of Wald .

As a final result, we obtain

$$\delta S_g=_{}G_{ab}\delta g^{ab}+_{}\left(K_{ab}Kh_{ab}\right)\delta h^{ab}.$$
(57)


text:
# The effects of meson mixing on dilepton spectra

## I Introduction

There exists physical processes which are forbidden in free space but can take place in matter. Those are basically related to medium-induced symmetry breaking effects. The interaction respects the symmetry, but the ground state breaks it . For instance, in matter, Lorentz symmetry is lost which leads to the mixing of different spin states even when the interaction Lagrangian respects all the required symmetry properties. A well-known example of this is $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing in nuclear matter as was first shown by Chin  or $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing as pointed out in Ref.. In addition there might be mixing between different isospin states in asymmetric nuclear matter. The $`\rho `$-$`\omega `$ mixing provides one such example as suggested in .

Our goal here is to identify the effects of scalar and vector meson mixing on dilepton production rates, which could in turn be observed in high energy heavy ion experiments. It is well known that the electromagnetic radiation provides a penetrating probe to study various in-medium properties of vector mesons. Stimulated by the idea that in nuclear matter the vector meson properties might be modified from their vacuum values as a precursor phenomenon to chiral symmetry restoration, a great deal of effort has been directed to understand their properties in hot and/or dense nuclear matter . Several experiments have measured, or are planning to measure, dilepton pair production in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Such measurements have been carried out by the Dilepton Spectrometer (DLS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , and by HELIOS  and CERES  at CERN. The NA50 collaboration also measures dileptons yields in the light vector meson mass range . Two new initiatives to be mentioned in this context are PHENIX  at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory and HADES at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI). Density-dependent effects can also be found in experiments at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) . As the effects to be discussed here are mostly density-driven, the latter two facilities represent the energy regime and physical conditions perhaps more relevant for the present study. However, the physics discussed here could also be highlighted in an eventual low-energy RHIC run.

For the understanding of the data in these experiments it is important to uncover the various processes which might lead to the production of dileptons and to estimate their relative contribution to the total production rate. Some effort has already being put in obtaining some “standard” sources related to the decay channels of various light mesons and processes like $`\pi \pi `$ or $`K`$-$`\overline{K}`$ annihilation . But the opening-up of new channels related to scalar-vector mixing, which constitutes the material to be presented in this paper, has only been addressed recently.

The mixing of mesons considered here includes both the isoscalar and isovector channels. To be more specific, we estimate the rate of dilepton production from $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing. Even though some attention was paid to the former in the context of heavy-ion collisions , the importance of the latter was shown only recently in a zero temperature estimate of the dilepton production cross section . The studies of the effects of mixing made so far were limited to calculations of cross-sections.

This paper reports on calculations of the thermal production rates of dileptons induced by scalar-vector mixing in the isoscalar and isovector channels. Those results are then compared against standard $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$, $`K`$-$`\overline{K}`$ annihilations, at different temperatures and chemical potentials. Note that processes involving mixing of different G-parity states like $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ or $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ are allowed only in matter which is not invariant under charge conjugation. Therefore, $`\pi +\pi `$ $``$ $`e^+e^{}`$ through their coupling to nucleons via $`\sigma `$ and $`\omega `$ or $`\pi +\eta e^+e^{}`$ mediated by $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing, can take place, as will become clear later, only in matter with finite nucleon chemical potential. Hence a natural place to look for such density-driven effects are experiments involving relatively low energy where one expects to have a relatively large chemical potential.

The model used here is Walecka-like with the inclusion of the $`a_0`$ meson and its mixing with the $`\rho `$ meson. The role of $`a_0`$ in the context of nuclear matter calculation has also been discussed in Ref. . To keep the calculation simple we take nuclear matter to be symmetric under $`pn`$ but this can easily be generalized to the case where nuclear matter has different number of protons and neutrons.

In section II we discuss the general outline of the formalism. Next in section III we discuss $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing. In section IV we present our results for various physical cases. We summarize and conclude in section IV.

## II Formalism

The nucleon-meson interaction Lagrangian can be written as

$`_{int}=g_\sigma \overline{\psi }\varphi _\sigma \psi +g_{a_0}\overline{\psi }\varphi _{a_0,a}\tau ^a\psi +g_{\omega NN}\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu \psi \omega ^\mu +`$ (1)
$`g_\rho [\overline{\psi }\gamma _\mu \tau ^\alpha \psi +{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _\rho }{2m_n}}\overline{\psi }\sigma _{\mu \nu }\tau ^\alpha ^\nu ]\rho _\alpha ^\mu ,`$ (2)
where $`\psi `$, $`\varphi _\sigma `$, $`\varphi _{a_0}`$, $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ correspond to nucleon, $`\sigma `$, $`a_0`$ , $`\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ fields, and $`\tau `$s are Pauli matrices. The values used for the coupling parameters are obtained from Ref. . From now on we use s and v to denote scalar and vector mesons, i.e. s = $`\sigma `$, $`a_0`$ and v = $`\omega `$, $`\rho `$. It is understood that $`\kappa _\omega =0.0`$.

The polarization vector through which the scalar meson couples to the vector meson via the n-n loop is given by

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu (q_0,|\stackrel{}{q}|)`$ $`=`$ $`2ig_sg_v{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\text{Tr}\left[G(k)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu G(k+q)\right]},`$ (3)
where 2 is an isospin factor and the vertex for v-nn coupling is:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu =\gamma _\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _v}{2m_n}}\sigma _{\mu \nu }q^\nu .`$ (4)
$`G(k)`$ is the in-medium nucleon propagator given by

$`G(k)=G_F(k)+G_T(k)`$ (5)
with

$`G_F(k)={\displaystyle \frac{(k/+m_n^{})}{k^2m_n^2+iϵ}},`$ (6)
and

$`G_T(k)=(k/+m_n^{}){\displaystyle \frac{i\pi }{E_k}}[{\displaystyle \frac{\delta (k_0E_k)}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}\nu )}+1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta (k_0+E_k)}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}+\nu )}+1}}]`$ (7)
where $`E_k^{}=\sqrt{𝐤^\mathrm{𝟐}+m_n^2}`$ and $`\nu =\mu \frac{g_v^2\rho _B}{m_v^2}`$ is the effective chemical potential. In Eq. (5), the subscripts $`F`$ and $`T`$ refer to the free and temperature-dependent part of the propagator. $`G_F`$ is the free Dirac propagator with the nucleon mass replaced by its effective value while the second term ($`G_T`$) includes the Fermi distribution of the nucleon assuming thermal equilibrium at temperature T. The delta function guarantees that on-mass-shell levels are occupied by the appropriate distribution functions. $`m_n^{}`$ denotes the effective nucleon mass evaluated at the mean field level . It’s value is given by the equation:

$`m_n^{}=m_n{\displaystyle \frac{g_\sigma ^2}{m_\sigma ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle d^3k\frac{m_n^{}}{(𝐤^\mathrm{𝟐}+m_n^2)^{1/2}}[n_k(T)+\overline{n}_k(T)]}`$ (8)
where $`n_k(T)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}\nu )}+1}`$ , $`\overline{n}_k(T)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}+\nu )}+1}`$ are the nucleon and anti-nucleon thermal distributions. It should be mentioned that in asymmetric nuclear matter the mean field generated by the $`a_0`$ meson would modify the neutron and proton mass differently. In the present case this effect vanishes.

In this notation the nucleon density is written as

$`\rho _B={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle d^3k[n_k(T)\overline{n}_k(T)]}.`$ (9)
Now we have a set of two coupled equations, Eqs. (8 and 9) and two unknowns: the effective nucleon mass $`m_n^{}`$ and the effective chemical potential $`\nu `$. One looks for the self-consistent solutions of these two coupled equations in order to find $`m_n^{}`$ and $`\nu `$. The results are shown in Fig. 1 for two different nuclear densities. At a fixed density the effective nucleon mass increases and then again drops with temperature (T). This is consistent with Ref. . It might be mentioned here that we do not include resonances in the present work.

Even though Eq. (3) involves Green’s functions having both vacuum and temperature dependent part, the vacuum piece for $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu `$, as expected vanishes on account of Lorentz symmetry. Hence only the thermal part contributes to the mixed-polarization function and it has a natural cut-off provided by the thermal distribution functions. So, interestingly, the diagrams involving mixing of different spin states in matter is free from ultra-violet divergences. It should also be noted that the argument of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu `$ involves $`q_0`$ and $`|q|`$ indicating Lorentz symmetry breaking in matter. In general, it could be a function of $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ but for an isotropic medium it can only depend on the magnitude of the three-momentum.

Returning to Eq. (3), after the evaluation of the trace and a little algebra, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu `$ could be cast into a suggestive form:

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu (q_0,|q|)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_sg_v}{\pi ^3}}2q^2(2m_n^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa q^2}{2m_n}}){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{E_k^{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k_0=\pm E_k^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mu \frac{q_\mu }{q^2}(kq)}{q^44(kq)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}+sgn(k_0)\nu )}+1}}.`$ (10)
This immediately leads to two conclusions. First, it respects the current conservation condition $`q^\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_\mu =0=\mathrm{\Pi }_\nu q^\nu `$. Secondly, there are only two components which survive after the integration over azimuthal angle. In fact this guarantees that it is only the longitudinal component of the $`\rho `$ meson which couples to the scalar meson while the transverse mode remains intact. Furthermore, current conservation implies that out of the two non-zero components of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\mu `$, only one is independent. After performing the angular integration $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$ takes the form:

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_0={\displaystyle \frac{g_sg_v}{8\pi ^2|\stackrel{}{q}|}}(2m_n^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa q^2}{2m_n}}){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{kdk}{E_k^{}}}`$ $`\{`$ $`2E_k^{}\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{(q^2+2k|\stackrel{}{q}|)^24E_k^2E_q^2}{(q^22k|\stackrel{}{q}|)^24E_k^2E_q^2}}]q_0\mathrm{ln}[{\displaystyle \frac{q^44(E_k^{}E_q^{}4k|\stackrel{}{q}|)^2}{q^44(E_k^{}E_q^{}+4k|\stackrel{}{q}|)^2}}]\}`$ (11)
$`\times `$ $`[`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}\nu )}+1}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (E_k^{}+\nu )}+1}}].`$ (12)
From Eq. (12) it is clear that the mixing amplitude vanishes for chemical potential $`\nu =0`$. This is expected, as such mixing between $`\sigma `$ and $`\omega `$ (or $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$) opens up new channels which violate G-parity conservation. This can only happen when the ground state is not invariant under charge conjugation as is the case in nuclear matter with finite nucleon chemical potential. In fact, isospin eigenstate $`\omega `$, which (ignoring small mixing with $`\rho `$ induced by the quark mass difference and electromagnetic effects ) in free space cannot decay into two pions, in a thermal bath through its coupling with nucleon-antinucleon (or hole) excitation can decay into a pion pair with intermediate $`\sigma `$ meson . The same argument holds true for $`\rho `$ which in matter can decay into $`\pi \eta `$ .

Note that the mixing amplitude vanishes at $`|q|=0`$ . Physically this corresponds to the situation when there is no way for the vector particle to distinguish between longitudinal and transverse direction and therefore rotational invariance forces them to be degenerate forbidding mixing of different spin states in this limit. On the other hand, it has also been observed that at very high momenta $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$ falls off. This corresponds to the situation when collective effects, which basically related to the long wave length oscillations, die off with high momenta. This is a well-known phenomenon in many-body physics.

### A Isoscalar channel : $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing

As has been mentioned before that $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing has been studied previously in the context of dilepton production for $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation in the s-wave channel in Ref.. The thermal production rates of the dilepton from this channel however not been estimated before. In order to calculate the rate of dilepton production, we first calculate the cross-section for the process $`\pi +\pi \sigma \omega e^++e^{}`$. The Feynman diagram for the relevant process are shown in fig 2.

The interaction Lagrangian for the $`\sigma `$-$`\pi \pi `$ vertex is given by

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\sigma \pi \pi }m_\pi \varphi _\sigma \stackrel{}{\varphi }_\pi \stackrel{}{\varphi }_\pi `$ (13)
The cross-section can easily be evaluated to be :

$`\sigma _{\pi \pi e^+e^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{3q_z^2M}}{\displaystyle \frac{(g_{\sigma \pi \pi }m_\pi )^2}{g_\omega ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_\omega (M^2)G_\sigma (M^2)}{𝐤_\sigma }}\mathrm{\Pi }_0^2`$ (14)
where, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$ is given by Eq. (12), and

$`F_\omega (M^2)={\displaystyle \frac{m_\omega ^4}{(M^2m_\omega ^2)^2+m_\omega ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega ^2}},G_\sigma (M^2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(M^2m_\sigma ^2)^2+m_\sigma ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma ^2(M)}},`$ (15)
$`𝐤_\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(M^24m_\pi ^2)}}{2}}.`$ (16)
For $`\omega `$ we used a constant width of 9.5 MeV and for the sigma meson we adopt the same mass and width as Ref.. Recent discussion on this issue may be found also in Ref.. We also have investigated the effects of form factors by considering the same form as in Ref. : those are normalized to one for on-shell particles. Effects found are small as far as the dilepton yields are concerned.

### B Isovector channel : $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing

Quite similar to $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing opens up a new channel for dilepton production viz. $`\pi +\eta e^++e^{}`$ in dense nuclear matter through n-n excitations. The Feynman diagram of the process is shown in Fig. 3.

To describe the $`\pi a_0\eta `$ vertex we use

$`_{a_0\pi \eta }=f_{a_0\pi \eta }{\displaystyle \frac{m_{a_0}^2m_\eta ^2}{m_\pi }}\varphi _\eta \stackrel{}{\varphi }_\pi \stackrel{}{\varphi }_{a_0}.`$ (17)
For later convenience we define $`g_{\pi a_0\eta }=f_{a_0\pi \eta }(m_{a_0}^2m_\eta ^2)/m_\pi `$.

We should mention here that there is an uncertainty involved with the coupling parameter $`f_{a_0\pi \eta }`$ as discussed in Refs.. This arises from the fact that $`a_0`$ lies close to the opening of the $`K\overline{K}`$ channel leading to a cusp-like behavior in the resonant amplitude, therefore a naive Breit-Wigner form for the decay width is inadequate. Furthermore, as mentioned before, there is also uncertainty involved with the $`a_0`$NN coupling which renders the precise extraction of $`a_0\pi \eta `$ coupling even more difficult . We take $`f_{a_0\eta \pi }`$=0.44  which gives $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{a_0\pi \eta }`$($`m_{a_0}`$)=$`59`$ MeV, while the experimental vacuum width of $`a_0`$ is between $`50100`$ MeV . This choice is thus a conservative one.

As before, the cross-section involving mixing in the isovector channel can be written in terms of momentum and temperature dependent mixing amplitude:

$`\sigma _{\pi \eta e^+e^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{3q_z^2M}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_{a_0\pi \eta }^2}{g_\rho ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_\rho (M^2)G_{a_0}(M^2)}{𝐤_{a_0}}}\mathrm{\Pi }_0^2`$ (18)
where

$`F_\rho (M^2)={\displaystyle \frac{m_\rho ^4}{(M^2m_\rho ^2)^2+m_\rho ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho ^2(M)}}G_{a_0}(M^2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(M^2m_{a_0}^2)^2+m_{a_0}^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{a_0}^2(M)}}`$ (19)
and the decay widths of the $`a_0`$ and $`\rho `$ mesons:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{a_0}(M)={\displaystyle \frac{f_{a_0\pi \eta }^2}{8\pi }}({\displaystyle \frac{m_{a_0}^2m_\eta ^2}{m_\pi }})^2{\displaystyle \frac{𝐤_{a_0}}{M^2}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (M)={\displaystyle \frac{g_{\rho \pi \pi }^2}{6\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{(\frac{M^2}{4}m_\pi ^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}{M^2}},`$ (20)
$`𝐤_{a_0}={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(M^2(m_\pi +m_\eta )^2)(M^2(m_\pi m_\eta )^2)}}{2M}}.`$ (21)
As was the case for the $`\omega `$, we choose the mass of the $`a_0`$ according to Ref. .

## III Dilepton production rates

Once we know the relevant cross-section for the dilepton channel, the thermal production rate of the lepton pairs (number of reactions per unit time, per unit volume $`R_{12}^{e^+e^{}}=dN_{e^+e^{}pairs}/d^4x`$) can be estimated in the independent particle approximation of kinetic theory :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dR_{12}^{e^+e^{}}}{dM^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_1}{(2\pi )^3}f_1(𝐤_1)\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^3}f_2(𝐤_2)\frac{d\sigma _{12}^{e^+e^{}}}{dM^2}(s,M^2)v_{rel}}`$ (22)
where $`f_1,f_2`$ are the thermal distributions of the 1,2 species and $`v_{rel}=\frac{\lambda ^{1/2}(s,m_1^2,m_2^2)\sqrt{s}}{2E_1E_2}`$ with $`\lambda (x,y,z)=x^2+y^2+z^22xy2xz2yz`$ is the triangle function. This could be cast into the form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dR_{12}^{e^+e^{}}}{dM^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda (M^2,m_1^2,m_2^2)}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }(s)`$ (23)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }(s)={\displaystyle \underset{i=1,2}{}\frac{d^3p_if_i(E_i)}{(2\pi )^3E_i}\delta [s(p_1+p_2)^2]\sigma _{12}^{e^+e^{}}(E1,E2,M^2)}`$ (24)
where $`f_i(E_i)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta E_i}+1}`$ are the distribution functions for $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$ mesons assuming thermal equilibrium. A departure from the standard notation should be noticed here. Usually, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(s)`$ represents only the phase space factor . In our case the invariant mass cross-section depends also on energies through $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$, we include that in the definition of $`\mathrm{\Phi }(s)`$.

After performing the angular integrations we get

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(s)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle _{m_1}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E_1f_1(E_1){\displaystyle _{E_2^{}}^{E_2^+}}𝑑E_2f_2(E_2)\sigma _{12}^{e^+e^{}}(E1,E2,M^2)`$ (25)
where $`E_2^\pm =\frac{1}{2m_1^2}[E_1(sm_1^2m_2^2)\pm p_1\lambda ^{1/2}(s,m_1^2,m_2^2)]`$. $`\mathrm{\Phi }(s)`$ is then calculated numerically.

### A Rates with $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing

First we concentrate on the isoscalar channel or in other words the effect of $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing on the dilepton production rate. As the mixing amplitude now involves the $`\omega `$ propagator we observe a sharp peak in the vicinity of the $`\omega `$ mass. Obviously this mixing amplitude depends on the density and the temperature. The effects are more pronounced in Fig. 4 where we have higher density. No such peak is observed for the $`\sigma `$ meson which is sufficiently broad. We also plot the rates for $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ and $`K`$-$`\overline{K}`$ annihilation for comparison. The left panel shows the results at $`\rho /\rho _0=1.5`$ and the right panel shows the same for $`\rho /\rho _0=2.5`$.

Fig.5 shows the results for the isoscalar channel at a higher temperature. It is evident that at higher density the effect of mixing is also high.

It is to be noted that to calculate the dilepton rate we have used tree level propagator for $`\omega `$ and $`\sigma `$. In Ref. it is argued that $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing broadens the $`\omega `$ decay width substantially in nuclear matter at high density. This is understandable as now $`\omega `$ thorough nucleon-antinucleon (hole) excitations can decay into pion pairs as opposed to vacuum because of G-parity violation in matter. Therefore in matter this decay channel enjoys a larger phase space and becomes as broad as $`\rho `$ as its vacuum mass is almost degenerate with that of $`\rho `$ meson. But at the one loop level the diagonal elements of the mixed propagator would also reduce its mass (off-diagonal elements have little effect on the effective mass). Now if one considers the broadening induced by the off-diagonal element of the dressed propagator of the $`\omega `$ meson, then to be consistent one should also take the medium modified mass for the $`\omega `$ meson. It is well-known that in Walecka model $`\omega `$ meson mass also drops  which would again reduce the phase space. These two competing effects are not expected therefore to change the in-medium width of $`\omega `$ significantly. We, however, adopt a different point of view. Our focus here is to see the effect of mixing on the dilepton production and how it compares with $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation. It should be noted that the contribution from $`\sigma `$-$`\omega `$ mixing does not change the resultant spectra much expect a small peak representing $`\omega `$ meson pole in the transition amplitude. However, we expect an $`\omega `$ peak in the dilepton spectra even in the absence of meson mixing. The situation, as we shall see, is different for the isovector mode. There the dominant contributions are distributed near the tail of the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation spectra ($`\rho `$ spectral function). On the other hand if $`\rho `$ spectral function gets sufficiently broadened this effect might become more visible near the $`\omega `$ peak region where additional contributions would come from the mixing.

### B Rates with $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing

Next we discuss the effect of mixing in the isovector channel which involves $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing in Fig.6 (7) for T=50 MeV (75 MeV). This induces an $`a_0`$ bump just below the $`\varphi `$ peak. $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ channel seems to be more interesting as it induces additional contribution beyond the tail of $`\rho `$ spectral function. One can easily observe from Fig 6 that even at density $`\rho /\rho _0=1.5`$ the contribution of the mixing wins over the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation rate in the vicinity of M = 1.0 GeV. Naturally at higher density this goes up as evident from the right panel of Fig. 6.

Interestingly enough the dilepton yield induced by the mixing in the isovector channel at higher temperature also seems to be significant as evident from the figures below.

Note that, unlike $`\omega `$, the broadening induced by the mixing on $`\rho `$ decay width has been found to be marginal. One can understand this physically. Mixing opens up a new channel for $`\rho `$ to decay into $`\pi `$-$`\eta `$. $`\eta `$ being quite heavy only the tail part of the $`\rho `$ can contribute. Therefore it does not enjoy much of phase space to decay into $`\pi \eta `$. It does seem reasonable to conclude that $`\rho `$-$`a_0`$ mixing provides more promising kinematical window in the invariant mass spectra to study exclusive in-medium effects.

### C Rates with mixing both in isoscalar and isovector channels

For completeness we show in Figs. 8 and 9 the total dilepton yield with the combined effects of mixing in both the isoscalar and isovector channels. It is important to see that rates induced by mixing are significant in certain windows of density and temperature.

## IV  Summary and Conclusion

To conclude and summarise, we have estimated the dilepton production rates arising from scalar and vector meson mixing in different isospin channel involving nucleon -hole (or anti-nucleon) excitations as intermediate states. The rates have been compared against the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation in the p-wave channel ($`\rho `$-channel) and $`K`$-$`\overline{K}`$ annihilation. Higher yield of dileptons in the invariant mass region between the $`\rho `$ and the $`\varphi `$ peaks are expected. The mixing in the isoscalar channel contributes mostly between the two-pion threshold and the $`\omega `$ peak but is small compared to the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ annihilation contribution. On the other hand, the isovector channel seems to provide a better probe as it contributes near the tail region of the two pion annihilation contribution. It should be stressed here that broadening or dropping $`\rho `$ meson mass would even favor our observation. In that case the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ background would be pushed more towards lower invariant mass region bringing the $`a_0`$ peak into a clearer relief. Finally, it is important to realize that mixing effects only appear in the longitudinal part of the vector meson spectral function and therefore there should be no effect of the mixing on the photon spectra which involves the transverse part of the vector meson polarization tensor.

The effects studied here are density driven and can therefore be observed in environments where one has high baryonic chemical potential and comparatively lower temperature. The most relevant experiments to observe this kind of medium-induced phenomenon are the ones to be performed at GSI using the HADES detector where the density might reach up to three times the normal nuclear matter density and temperature T=60-90 MeV . Ref. also indicates a similar range of densities and temperatures at SIS/GSI energies. Those observations have guided our choice of the temperatures and densities used in this study.

The calculations performed here can, and will be improved upon. It is important to proceed cautiously. As a next step, it would be necessary to address this problem with the full machinery of finite temperature many-body theory. This means, among other things, the dressing of the propagators and the consistent inclusion of baryonic resonances. Also, the interaction zone in a heavy collision is but a transient medium and the dynamics will contribute to mask our signal to some extent. However, owing to the nature of the electromagnetic signal, radiation from the dense regions will emerge. In our approach those dynamics would impact on the height of the $`a_0`$ peak. Similarly, a realistic assessment of the initial states of the dilepton-producing channels should involve a realistic simulation. A transport treatment can therefore address the concerns raised above. Such investigations are under progress.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and in part by the Fonds FCAR of the Québec Government.