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# ANL-HEP-CP-00-92 THE ANOMALY AND REGGEON FIELD THEORY IN QCD∗

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In this talk I will report on a program, the goal of which is, to find a (candidate) regge region QCD S-Matrix starting from reggeized gluons and quarks (reggeons). We look for hadrons and the pomeron as bound-states of quark and gluon reggeons that appear in multi-regge amplitudes. The dynamics involved will be the infra-red divergences that occur in reggeon diagrams when both gluons and quarks are massless.

To obtain a unitary pomeron, we anticipate that Reggeon Field Theory (RFT), and in particular the critical pomeron, will be essential. RFT describes the pomeron as a regge pole plus multipomeron exchanges and interactions, in agreement with experiment, but not with perturbative QCD. The critical pomeron is the only known solution of $`s`$\- and $`t`$-channel unitarity that gives a rising total cross-section and a connection with QCD could have important consequences. Firstly, since it allows physical cross-sections to have scaling behavior (up to logarithms), a rising total cross-section should correspond to the maximal applicability of asymptotic freedom to short distance processes. In addition, the factorization properties of the critical pomeron provide a “universal wee-parton distribution” that could carry the (vacuum) properties of confinement and chiral-symmetry breaking as part of an extension of the parton model beyond leading-twist perturbation theory.

Since our reggeon diagram starting point is essentially perturbative it might be expected that the “non-perturbative” properties of confinement and chiral-symmetry breaking will not appear at all in our formalism. In this talk, however, we will show that the U(1) anomaly appears in particular interactions of gluon reggeons. The anomaly represents the potential ultra-violet/infra-red flow of chirality into and out of the theory and we will indicate how, when appropriately treated, it gives an infra-red divergence that can combine with the infra-red divergences of gluon reggeon diagrams to produce a transition to hadron and pomeron reggeon diagrams in which the desired non-perturbative properties appear (as properties of the spectrum).

## 2 REGGEON DIAGRAMS FROM SPONTANEOUSLY-BROKEN QCD

We begin by summarizing well-known results from perturbative calculations in spontaneously-broken gauge theories. The regge limit of an elastic scattering amplitude, i.e. $`s\mathrm{}`$, $`t`$ fixed, is studied in the complex angular momentum $`J`$-plane via the (Sommerfeld-Watson) representation

$$A(s,t)=𝑑Ja(J,t)s^J$$
$`(0)`$
When all gluons and quarks have a mass there are no infra-red divergences and the regge behavior is straightforward. Leading-log calculations show that both gluons and quarks “reggeize”. In particular, the gluon becomes a regge pole with trajectory $`J=1\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$. Non-leading logs are reproduced by “reggeon diagrams”, which are $`k_{}`$ integrals with gluon particle poles in addition to reggeon propagators. For example, the two gluon reggeon state appears in $`a(J,t)`$ as

| $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2k_1}{k_1^2+M^2}\frac{d^2k_2}{k_2^2+M^2}\frac{\delta ^2(Qk_1k_2)}{J1+\mathrm{\Delta }(k_1^2)+\mathrm{\Delta }(k_2^2)}}`$ |
| --- |
|  |

$`(1)`$
Reggeon unitarity requires that a complete set of reggeon diagrams, involving all possible $`J`$-plane multi-reggeon states, appear in higher-orders. The well-known BFKL equation is a simple consequence of 2-reggeon unitarity, i.e. if we denote the 2-reggeon state by  this equation sums the set of diagrams

obtained by iterating the $`22`$ reggeon interaction

| $`R_{22}=[(\underset{¯}{k}_1^2+M^2)(\underset{¯}{k}_{2}^{2}{}_{}{}^{}+M^2)`$ |
| --- |
| $`+(\underset{¯}{k}_2^2+M^2)(\underset{¯}{k}_{1}^{2}{}_{}{}^{}+M^2)]/[(\underset{¯}{k}_1\underset{¯}{k}_1^{})^2+M^2]`$ |
| $`+\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(2)`$
When $`M0`$, infra-red divergences exponentiate to zero all diagrams with non-zero $`t`$-channel color. Since the gluon poles remain, however, the color zero amplitudes scale canonically ($`k_{}^2`$) , i.e. there is no confinement! Our aim is to see the gluon poles disappear via an RFT phase-transition from quark and gluon to hadron and pomeron reggeon diagrams.

In general, reggeon unitarity requires that quark and gluon reggeon diagrams describe not only elastic scattering but also all multi-regge limits of multiparticle amplitudes. Consequently we can study limits of high-order amplitudes, an example of which is illustrated in Fig. 1, where both hadrons and the pomeron could appear as (coupled) bound states of quark and gluon reggeons. Since we expect the anomaly to be involved and we consider it’s infra-red manifestation, we look for such bound states when both the gluon mass $`M`$ and the quark mass $`m0`$. As we will see, both the U(1) anomaly and RFT phase-transition analysis are essential for understanding the infra-red divergence structure we find. To provide motivation and to describe features that we will be

Fig. 1 An amplitude in which both pion and pomeron regge poles can appear.

looking for, we first introduce the RFT critical pomeron and an associated supercritical phase.

## 3 POMERON RFT

For a regge pole pomeron, RFT can be formulated directly from reggeon unitarity. The diagrams are essentially the same as for reggeized gluons, but without the gluon poles!

### 3.1 The Critical Pomeron

This is a renormalization group fixed-point solution of RFT in which $`\mathrm{\Delta }(0)=1\alpha _{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{I}}(0)=0`$ and total cross-sections rise asymptotically

$$\sigma _Ts\mathrm{}[\mathrm{ln}s]^\eta $$
$`(3)`$
with $`\eta =\frac{ϵ}{12}+O(ϵ^2)`$, where $`4ϵ`$ is the transverse momentum dimension. Also, all other asymptotic predictions satisfy unitarity in both the $`t`$-channel and the $`s`$-channel.

### 3.2 The Supercritical Pomeron

To find the new phase that appears at the critical point, we consider the critical lagrangian

$$=\frac{1}{2}\overline{\varphi }\frac{}{y}\varphi \alpha _0^{}\overline{\varphi }\varphi \mathrm{\Delta }_0\overline{\varphi }\varphi \frac{1}{2}ir_0\left[\overline{\varphi }\varphi ^2+\overline{\varphi }^2\varphi \right]$$
$`(4)`$
where $`\overline{\varphi }`$ ($`\varphi `$) creates (destroys) pomerons. The stationary point

$$\varphi =\overline{\varphi }=\frac{2i\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{3r_0}$$
$`(5)`$
gives a pomeron condensate that shifts the pomeron intercept ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{\Delta }_0/3`$) and produces a solution for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0<0`$ ($`\alpha _{\mathrm{P}\mathrm{I}}(0)>1`$). To determine the resulting graphical expansion the pomeron condensate has to be be interpreted as a “wee-parton” component of the scattering states. (This solution was very controversial 20 years ago - although it was supported by Gribov !)

The condensate generates new classes of RFT diagrams, a simple example of which is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 A new RFT diagram generated by the pomeron condensate

As illustrated in this diagram, the two pomeron propagators produced by the condensate (i.e. $`[2\mathrm{\Delta }_02\alpha _0^{}k_{}^2+\mathrm{}]^1`$) give $`k_{}`$ poles that have to be interpreted as particle poles, implying that there is a pomeron transition to a two vector reggeon state as shown. Reggeon states involving many vector particle poles similarly appear in higher-order diagrams.

In general, divergences in rapidity produced in the original graphical expansion because $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0<0`$ are converted to vector particle divergences in $`k_{}`$ in the supercritical expansion. Therefore, the supercritical phase is characterized by the “deconfinement of a vector particle on the pomeron trajectory”.

### 3.3 The Supercritical Phase and Color Superconductivity

An immediate question is whether the gluon particle poles in QCD could disappear via the reverse of the deconfinement process just described. The appearance of a reggeized vector particle suggests that the supercritical phase could be realized in QCD via the breaking of the gauge symmetry from SU(3) to SU(2). In current terminology the supercritical pomeron would correspond to “color superconducting QCD”. Identification of the vector mass with the RFT order parameter would then determine that the critical pomeron appears as the gauge symmetry is restored. Therefore, to look for the critical pomeron we begin by studying superconducting QCD.

The breaking of SU(3) gauge symmetry to SU(2) produces an (odd signature) SU(2) singlet, massive, reggeized gluon. An even signature pomeron would be produced if this massive reggeon appears in an SU(2) singlet reggeon condensate containing an odd number ($`3`$) of massless gluon reggeons. The corresponding SU(3) pomeron would contain an even number ($`4`$) of gluons but carry odd (“anomalous”) color parity, in contrast to the even color parity ($`2`$ gluon) BFKL pomeron!

A three gluon condensate carries the quantum numbers of the winding-number current and so could be due to spectral flow of the Dirac sea produced by the anomaly. If we can understand the origin of a condensate of this kind then, provided the identification with the supercritical pomeron can be made, the disappearance of the condensate will give the critical pomeron we are looking for. For this purpose, we must determine how the anomaly appears in the regge-limit effective theory described by gluon and quark reggeon diagrams? (It is, of course, absent in the usual perturbation expansion of a vector theory.) The rest of this talk will be primarily devoted to this issue. The consequences (RFT for the pomeron, confinement and chiral symmetry breaking etc.) will be outlined only briefly.

## 4 THE ANOMALY IN TRIPLE-REGGE VERTICES

The simplest multi-regge limit in which the anomaly makes an appearance is the full triple-regge limit. It is present in the “helicity-flip” part of reggeized gluon interactions containing a single quark loop. (That bound-state couplings involve helicity-flip effects is directly related to the occurrence of chiral symmetry breaking.)

Consider the 3-3 scattering of quarks, each of which has a large light-cone momentum, but with the spacelike components of the momenta orthogonal, i.e.

| $`P_1`$ | $`P_1^+=(p_1,p_1,0,0),p_1\mathrm{}`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`P_2`$ | $`P_2^+=(p_2,0,p_2,0),p_2\mathrm{}`$ |
| $`P_3`$ | $`P_3^+=(p_3,0,0,p_3),p_3\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(6)`$
with the $`Q_i`$ finite. We consider diagrams of the form illustrated in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 Diagrams containing a single quark loop.

Using light-cone co-ordinates, the leading behaviour is obtained by putting quark lines on-shell via $`k_{i^\pm }`$ integrations leaving the $`k_{}`$-integrals of reggeon diagrams, as illustrated in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 The reduction to reggeon diagrams.

The resulting “triple-regge” reggeon interactions are quark triangle diagrams with both local (point-like) and non-local “effective vertices” containing $`\gamma `$-matrix products. In some some cases $`\gamma _5\gamma `$ couplings appear that, potentially, could generate the triangle anomaly.

A particular example, which we consider in more detail below, is the “maximally non-planar” diagram shown in Fig. 5. It is well-known that non-planar diagrams provide the essential structure of regge cut couplings. In a gauge theory other diagrams also contribute but, essentially, produce only subtraction effects that cancel large momentum divergences of the non-planar contributions. The anomaly could, however, be subject to such cancelations.

Fig. 5 The six-reggeon interaction obtained from a maximally non-planar diagram.

At lowest-order (i.e. two gluons in each $`Q_i`$ channel) there are $`100`$ diagrams that potentially could give contributions. Many obviously do not contain the anomaly while others, in particular the maximally non-planar diagrams, give several contributions. To systematically evaluate all contributions and also to discuss cancelations a triple-regge asymptotic dispersion relation formalism, in which multiple discontinuities are initially calculated rather than amplitudes, can be used. A crucial feature of this formalism is the contribution, to the dispersion relation, of unphysical triple discontinuities that contain chirality transitions. The absence of the anomaly in simpler multi-regge limits can be understood as due to the absence of such contributions in the corresponding asymptotic dispersion relation.

We will not describe the dispersion relation formalism in this talk. Full details can be found in . Instead we will study a maximally non-planar diagram directly. We will see, however, how the anomaly is associated with an unphysical multiple discontinuity. First we describe the infra-red properties of the anomaly that we will look for.

## 5 THE ANOMALY AS AN INFRA-RED DIVERGENCE

To avoid the ultra-violet subtleties of reggeon interactions, and to see a connection with spectral flow, we will look for the anomaly in the infra-red region. For a massless quark axial-vector current the anomaly divergence equation for the three-current vertex gives
$$ϵ_{\nu \lambda \alpha \beta }\frac{q_{1\mu }q_2^\alpha (q_1+q_2)^\beta }{q^2}+\mathrm{}$$
$`(7)`$
in the limit $`q_1^2q_2^2(q_1+q_2)^2q^20`$. (For the U(1) current we ignore non-perturbative contributions. We are looking for a “perturbative” effect!)

If $`q_{1^+}/0`$ and $`q_2`$ is spacelike with $`q_2q_{1^+}`$

$$ϵ_{\nu \lambda \alpha \beta }\frac{q_{1\mu }q_2^\alpha q_1^\beta }{q^2}\frac{q_{1^+}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{q}\frac{1}{q}$$
$`(8)`$
(In the absence of a Lorentz-covariant separation of kinematic factors, this linear divergence can be used to characterize the anomaly.)

As illustrated in Fig. 6, the divergence is produced by a zero momentum chirality transition (corresponding to spectral flow) combined with a light-like momentum $`q_{1^+}`$ flowing through the other two propagators in the loop.

Fig. 6 The momentum configuration producing the anomaly.

Because the chirality transition in the quark loop is essential, the anomaly infra-red divergence can not be canceled by gluon diagrams.

## 6 A MAXIMALLY NON-PLANAR DIAGRAM

In this Section we give an abbreviated version of the calculation, presented in detail in , of the triple-regge limit of the maximally non-planar diagram shown in Fig. 5. We can redraw the diagram and label momenta as in Fig. 7.

$$$$

Fig. 7 Momenta in a maximally non-planar miagram.

For the $`k_1`$ and $`k_2`$ integrations we use the special light-cone co-ordinates (“generalized Sudakov variables”)

$$k_i=k_{i2^{}}\underset{¯}{n}_{1^+}+k_{i1^{}}\underset{¯}{n}_{2^+}+\underset{¯}{\overset{~}{k}}_{i12}i=1,2$$

where $`\underset{¯}{n}_{1^+}=(1,1,0,0)`$ and $`\underset{¯}{n}_{2^+}=(1,0,1,0)`$, together with the conventional light-cone co-ordinates ($`k_{3^+},k_3^{},\underset{¯}{\overset{~}{k}}_3`$) for the $`k_3`$ integration. The $`k_{11^{}},k_{22^{}}`$, $`k_3^{}`$ integrations are straightforward. The six options for using the remaining longitudinal $`k_i`$ integrations to put hatched lines on-shell are shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8 Options for the longitudinal integrations.

We look for the anomaly to be generated by local $`\gamma _5\gamma `$ couplings. A “local” coupling is obtained from the component of a quark numerator with the same momentum factor that scales the corresponding integrated longitudinal momentum. In the chosen co-ordinates, only the first option in Fig. 8 gives couplings, all three of which have the required components. In this case we obtain

| $`{\displaystyle 𝑑k_{12^{}}\delta \left((k_1+kq_1)^2m^2\right)}`$ |
| --- |
| $`\gamma _3^{}\left((k_1+kq_1)\gamma +m\right)\gamma _1^{}`$ |
| $`={\displaystyle 𝑑k_{12^{}}\delta \left(k_1^{}k_{12^{}}+\mathrm{}\right)}`$ |
| $`\gamma _3^{}\left(k_1^{}\gamma _2^{}+\mathrm{}\right)\gamma _1^{}`$ |
| $`=\gamma _3^{}\gamma _2^{}\gamma _1^{}+\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(9)`$
| $`{\displaystyle 𝑑k_{21^{}}\delta \left((k_2kq_2)^2m^2\right)}`$ |
| --- |
| $`\gamma _2^{}\left((k_2kq_2)\gamma +m\right)\gamma _3^{}`$ |
| $`={\displaystyle 𝑑k_{21^{}}\delta \left(k_2^{}k_{21^{}}+\mathrm{}\right)}`$ |
| $`\gamma _2^{}\left(k_2^{}\gamma _1^{}+\mathrm{}\right)\gamma _3^{}`$ |
| $`=\gamma _2^{}\gamma _1^{}\gamma _3^{}+\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(10)`$
| $`{\displaystyle 𝑑k_{33^+}\delta \left((k_3+k+k_1k_2)^2m^2\right)}`$ |
| --- |
| $`\gamma _1^{}\left((k_3+k+k_1k_2)\gamma +m\right)\gamma _2^{}`$ |
| $`={\displaystyle 𝑑k_{33^+}\delta \left((k_3^{}+k_{13^{}}k_{23^{}})k_{33^+}+\mathrm{}\right)}`$ |
| $`\gamma _1^{}\left((k_3^{}+k_{13^{}}k_{23^{}})\gamma _{3^+}+\mathrm{}\right)\gamma _2^{}`$ |
| $`=\gamma _1^{}\gamma _{3^+}\gamma _2^{}+\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(11)`$
Writing

| $`\widehat{\gamma }_{31}`$ | $`=\gamma _3^{}\gamma _2^{}\gamma _1^{}=\gamma ^{,+,}i\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,}`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`\widehat{\gamma }_{23}`$ | $`=\gamma _2^{}\gamma _1^{}\gamma _3^{}=\gamma ^{+,,}i\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,}`$ |
| $`\widehat{\gamma }_{12}`$ | $`=\gamma _1^{}\gamma _{3^+}\gamma _2^{}=\gamma ^{,,}+i\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,+}`$ |

$`(12)`$
where

| $`\gamma ^{\pm ,\pm ,\pm }`$ | $`=\gamma n^{\pm ,\pm ,\pm }`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`n^{\pm ,\pm ,\pm }`$ | $`=(1,\pm 1,\pm 1,\pm 1)`$ |

$`(13)`$
the part of the asymptotic amplitude with local couplings is

| $`g^{12}{\displaystyle \frac{p_{11^+}p_{22^+}p_{3^+}}{m^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\underset{¯}{k}_{112+}}{(q_1+\underset{¯}{k}_{112+})^2(q_1\underset{¯}{k}_{112+})^2}}`$ |
| --- |
| $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\underset{¯}{k}_{212}}{(q_2+\underset{¯}{k}_{212+})^2(q_2\underset{¯}{k}_{212+})^2}}`$ |
| $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\underset{¯}{k}_{33}}{(q_3+\underset{¯}{k}_{33})^2(q_3\underset{¯}{k}_{33})^2}}`$ |
| $`{\displaystyle d^4k\frac{Tr\{\widehat{\gamma }_{12}(k/+k/_1+q/_2+k/_3+m)\widehat{\gamma }_{31}}{([k+k_1+q_2+k_3]^2m^2)}}`$ |
| $`{\displaystyle \frac{(k/+m)\widehat{\gamma }_{23}(k/k/_2+q/_1+k/_3+m)\}}{(k^2m^2)([kk_2+q_1+k_3]^2m^2)}}`$ |

$`(14)`$
For simplicity, we have set the gluon mass to zero. This means that the transverse momentum integrals are actually infra-red divergent. However, since our next step is to remove both these integrals and the gluon propagators as the lowest-order contribution of three two-reggeon states, these divergences play no role in the present discussion. The general structure of gluon transverse momentum divergences will, of course, play a vital role in the full analysis of reggeon diagrams that we outline in the final Section.

Removing the transverse integrals and the gluon propagators, as illustrated in Fig. 5, we obtain a triangle diagram six-reggeon vertex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6`$. The component with three $`\gamma _5`$ couplings is the ($`m=0`$) triangle diagram illustrated in Fig. 9

Fig. 9 The triangle diagram giving the anomaly in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6`$.

while the terms with a single $`\gamma _5`$ coupling have the wrong kinematic structure. Therefore, we can write

|  | $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_6(q_1,q_2,q_3,\underset{¯}{\overset{~}{k}}_1,\underset{¯}{\overset{~}{k}}_2,\underset{¯}{k}_3,0)=`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`{\displaystyle d^4}`$ | $`k{\displaystyle \frac{Tr\{\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,+}(k/+k/_1+q/_2+k/_3)\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,}}{(k+k_1+q_2+k_3)^2k^2}}`$ |
|  | $`{\displaystyle \frac{k/\gamma _5\gamma ^{,,}(k/k/_2+q/_1+k/_3)}{(kk_2+q_1+k_3)^2}}+\mathrm{}`$ |

$`(15)`$
where the remainder of the vertex does not contain the anomaly.

The anomaly divergence appears in the limit

| $`(q_2+k_1+k_3)^2(q_1+q_2+k_1+k_2)^2`$ |
| --- |
| $`(q_1+k_2k_3)^2q^20`$ |

$`(16)`$
with $`q_2+k_1+k_3(=k_1q_1+k_3q_3)`$ having a finite light-like component. Mass-shell constraints resulting from the longitudinal integrations, that must be satisfied, are

| $`(kq_1+k_1)^2`$ | $`=(k+q_2k_2)^2`$ |
| --- | --- |
|  | $`=(k+k_1k_2+k_3)^2=0`$ |

$`(17)`$
All constraints are satisfied, with $`k=0`$, if $`q_1^2=q_2^2=k_1^2=k_2^2`$ and

| $`(q_1k_1)`$ | $`2l(1,1,0,0)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`(q_2k_2)`$ | $`2l(1,0,1,0)`$ |
| $`q_3`$ | $`l(0,1,1,0)`$ |
| $`k_3`$ | $`l(0,12cos\theta _{lc},12sin\theta _{lc},0)`$ |

$`(18)`$
In the limit $`q0`$, only the light-like vector $`k_{lc}=2l(1,cos\theta _{lc},sin\theta _{lc},0)`$ flows through the triangle and the anomaly gives

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_6\frac{(1cos\theta _{lc}sin\theta _{lc})^2l^2}{q}$$
$`(19)`$
It is important that although the mass-shell constraints are satisfied in this momentum configuration, they do not correspond to physical region discontinuities for the scattering process of Fig. 7. Instead, as noted above, and discussed in detail in , the corresponding multiple discontinuity is unphysical.

## 7 PROPERTIES OF THE ANOMALY

### 7.1 The Space-time Picture

The momentum configuration described in the previous Section corresponds to the physical scattering process shown in Fig. 10, which we refer to as the “basic anomaly process”.

Fig. 10 The physical scattering giving the anomaly.

With the time direction up the page we obtain the following space-time picture. An incoming quark emits a “wee gluon” that produces a zero-momentum quark together with a light-like antiquark. The zero-momentum quark undergoes a chirality transition while the antiquark’s lightlike momentum is rotated to $`k_{lc}`$ by a $`t_3`$-channel gluon. The antiquark then forward scatters off a gluon from the $`t_1`$ channel before another $`t_3`$-channel gluon again rotates the antiquark light-like momentum so that it and the zero-momentum quark can annihilate into an outgoing wee gluon with spacelike momentum orthogonal to the initial incoming wee gluon.

We emphasize that the scattering process of Fig. 10, with the chirality transition, enters the physical region only asymptotically and then only when the quark mass is zero.

### 7.2 Reggeon Ward Identities

We anticipate that gauge invariance will be manifest via reggeon Ward identity cancelations that could involve the anomaly. For example, the diagram of Fig. 11 cancels the anomaly in the diagram of Fig. 10 when the “wee gluons” are in a color zero state in the $`t_3`$-channel.

Fig. 11 A diagram related to Fig. 10 by a reggeon Ward identity

In a color octet state the Ward identity involves a gluon interaction which can not contain a chirality transition. As a result, there is no cancelation and the reggeon Ward identity is violated. A non-abelian gauge symmetry is crucial, therefore, for the non-cancelation of the anomaly.

### 7.3 Parity Cancelations

If an alternative set of quark lines is placed on-shell in the original maximally non-planar diagram of Fig. 5, a further anomaly contribution is obtained. As shown in Fig. 12, a parity transformation interchanging $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$ relates the two contributions and hence the anomaly has the opposite sign.

Fig. 12 Another anomaly contribution with $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$ interchanged.

This does not produce a cancelation in the reggeon interaction we have extracted, but does in the complete diagram after the transverse momentum integrations are performed.

### 7.4 When is there no cancelation?

Because of the discontinuity structure of the amplitudes in which it is contained, the anomaly vertex conserves signature (producing, we anticipate, an even signature pomeron in hadron amplitudes). Because of it’s parity properties the anomaly couples only anomalous color parity (i.e. not equal to the signature) gluon reggeon combinations. Such exchanges do not couple to elementary quark or gluon scattering states and so, in effect, the anomaly cancels to all orders for such states. (Note, however, that the cancelation occurs after transverse momentum integrations have been performed, not in the reggeon interaction.)

With clusters (potentially forming bound states) in the initial or final states there can be sufficient structure in the couplings to the exchanged reggeons that the parity properties of the anomaly do not produce a cancelation. The anomaly infra-red divergence will be suppressed by the reggeon Ward identity zeroes of such couplings, but there will also be ultra-violet effects which we do not expect to be suppressed. Therefore we anticipate that, in amplitudes that contain the anomaly (there must be an even number of anomaly vertices for color parity to be conserved), ultra-violet effects will produce a power violation of unitarity bounds by reggeon exchanges. Indeed, we suspect that unitarity violation associated with anomaly interactions is a core problem for the existence of a bound state S-Matrix in a general gauge theory.

## 8 THE PROPOSED QCD SOLUTION

We are currently constructing a solution for QCD based on the properties of the anomaly discussed above. We can briefly describe the essential features that are emerging, as follows.

Using a generalization of the procedure outlined in Section 4, a complete set of multi-reggeon scattering amplitudes can be extracted from high-order particle amplitudes. In superconducting QCD, with SU(3) color broken to SU(2), all reggeon states with non-zero SU(2) color have infra-red divergences that exponentiate amplitudes to zero. If we consider initial scattering reggeon states, with anomalous color parity, that contain massive gluon reggeons (or quark reggeons) in a reggeon condensate, we obtain a sub-set of color zero amplitudes that has an overall logarithmic infra-red divergence. The divergence occurs when all triple-regge interactions that could contain the anomaly, do so. If the divergence is factored off the residue is a set of “physical reggeon amplitudes” in which the condensate appears also in all intermediate and final reggeon states (a completeness property for states containing the condensate). Ultra-violet effects of the anomaly are not present in the physical amplitudes.

The reggeon interactions remaining after the anomaly divergence is factored off have the general form shown in Fig. 13.

Fig. 13 The “parton reggeon interaction”.

Comparing with the basic anomaly process of Fig. 10, we note that the complete quark loop containing the chirality transition carries zero momentum and that the forward scattering part of the interaction has been replaced by a tranverse momentum conserving, “parton reggeon interaction”. The parton scattering lies in the broken part of SU(3), while the background anomaly interaction of zero momentum gluons lies in the unbroken part. These gluons carry the quantum numbers of the SU(2) winding number current in each $`t`$-channel. There is confinement of SU(2) gluons in that the “parton reggeons” do not include massless gluons - such states are amongst those exponentiated to zero.

The pomeron is a massive reggeon in the reggeon condensate and carries odd color parity as anticipated. The BFKL pomeron does not appear. The lowest-order triple-pomeron interaction is given by diagrams of the form shown in Fig. 14.

Fig. 14 A diagram contributing to the triple-pomeron interaction.

The reggeon condensate appears to have all the right properties to be identified with the pomeron condensate of super-critical RFT.

There are massless quark states that are the Goldstone bosons corresponding to chiral symmetry breaking. Since the unbroken gauge symmetry is SU(2), these include both pions and “nucleons”. The chiral symmetry breaking involves an additional chirality violation that is, in effect, an S-Matrix analogue of the appearance of a chiral condensate. Additional chirality transitions appear in $`\pi \pi `$ scattering, within $`k_{}`$ integrals as illustrated in Fig. 15, to compensate for the helicity-flip of the anomaly interaction. Although we will not discuss higher-order diagrams here, we hope to establish a complete correspondence between the reggeon diagrams describing $`\pi \pi `$ scattering in superconducting QCD and the supercritical expansion described in Section 3.

Fig. 15 $`\pi \pi `$ scattering - via additional chirality transitions.

As SU(2) gauge symmetry is restored to SU(3) the condensate effects should disappear and leave behind critical pomeron behavior, as described by RFT. The decoupling of the odd signature reggeon will then complete the confinement of SU(3) gluons. The zero momentum quark and gluon interactions of Figs. 13 - 15 should be replaced by the interactions of a universal wee-parton distribution surrounding a “hard reggeon parton interaction”. Thus providing the anticipated extension of the parton model.

The critical behavior will occur with no $`k_{}`$ cut-off only when the gauge symmetry breaking from SU(3) to SU(2) does not destroy the asymptotic freedom of the theory. This requires extra quarks beyond those observed experimentally. In fact, the additional quarks required could be a color sextet quark sector that is responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model. However, we will not enlarge on this possibility here.

QUESTIONS

M. LOEWE (P. Universidad Cato’lica, Chile)

Question - Many years ago Bartels proposed a picture according to which the wee partons obey a diffusion equation. What is the relation of this picture and your triple pomeron vertex, including the anomaly?

Answer - Bartels’ picture applies to the BFKL pomeron and the diffusion is in transverse momentum. Although I discussed the anomaly within a six-reggeon vertex that could couple three BFKL pomerons, it cancels in this context. It does appear in my triple-pomeron vertex, i.e. when the pomeron contains a minimum of four gluons and carries odd color parity. My pomeron is a regge pole and therefore has the corresponding diffusion picture in impact parameter space.

Question - Is there any simple reason why the maximal non-planar diagram is the relevant one?

Answer - It is well-known that non-planar diagrams have the double spectral function property necessary to produce regge cut couplings in a non-gauge theory. For the same reason non-planar diagrams provide the essential structure of fermion loop contributions to the (regge limit) interactions of photons in QED or gluons in QCD. The planar diagrams, in effect, simply regularize divergences appearing in the non-planar contributions. The role of the maximally non-planar diagram with respect to the anomaly is, in part, an extension of this situation. However, the anomaly also has a kinematic structure that is intrinsically four-dimensional and (essentially) the complexity of the maximally non-planar diagram is needed to generate this structure.

H. FRITZSCH (Universität München, Germany)

Question - There is also the non-perturbative contribution of instantons to the anomaly. How would instanton interactions affect your discussion?

Answer - The aim of my procedure is to discover and regularize the anomaly to produce an S-Matrix description of the pomeron and hadron reggeons that is unitary in the (multi-)regge region. I should then have the complete (multi-regge region) answer, including any contribution made by instanton interactions. To explicitly discuss instanton interactions it is necessary to start with the euclidean path-integral formulation of the theory, continue to Minkowski space, and then (if possible) extract the regge region S-Matrix. It may be, and indeed I expect, that there is a match only in the special circumstance that we consider SU(3) gauge theory with a particular fermion sector.


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# Kaon properties and cross sections in nuclear medium

## 1 Introduction

The properties of kaons in nuclear matter have recently attracted enormous interest because of their capacity to signal chiral symmetry restoration or give information on the possibility of kaon condensation in neutron stars . Studies with a variety of models  indicate that the antikaon potential is attractive while the kaons feel a repulsive potential in nuclear matter. However, the analysis of available data on $`K^+`$ production from heavy ion collisions at SIS energies  contradicts the predictions that the kaon potential is repulsive. The comparison between the heavy ion calculations and the data  indicates that the $`K^+`$-meson spectra are best described by neglecting any in-medium modification of the kaon properties. Furthermore, the introduction of even a weakly repulsive $`K^+`$-nucleus potential results in a substantial underestimate of the experimental data on kaon production.

Since in heavy ion collisions at SIS energies  the $`K^+`$-mesons are predominantly produced by secondary pions, we investigate the kaon production reactions, $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Sigma }+K`$, in nuclear matter. We calculate the in-medium reaction amplitudes, taking into account the scalar and vector potentials for incident, final and intermediate mesons and baryons.

## 2 Mean-field potentials for mesons and baryons

We use the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model , which has been successfully applied to the various problems of nuclear physics  and the studies of meson and hyperon properties in a nuclear medium . The Dirac equations for the quarks and antiquarks in the hadron bags ($`q=u,\overline{u},d`$ or $`\overline{d}`$, hereafter), neglecting the Coulomb force, are given by :

$`\left[i\gamma _x(m_qV_\sigma ^q)\gamma ^0\left(V_\omega ^q+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}V_\rho ^q\right)\right]\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _u(x)\\ \psi _{\overline{u}}(x)\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}V_\rho ^q\mathrm{for}\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _d\\ \psi _{\overline{d}}\end{array}\right)\right),`$ (5)
$`\left[i\gamma _xm_s\right]\psi _s(x)(\mathrm{or}\psi _{\overline{s}}(x))`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (6)
The mean-field potentials for a bag in nuclear matter are defined by $`V_\sigma ^q=g_\sigma ^q\sigma `$, $`V_\omega ^q=`$ $`g_\omega ^q\omega `$ and $`V_\rho ^q=g_\rho ^qb`$, with $`g_\sigma ^q`$, $`g_\omega ^q`$ and $`g_\rho ^q`$ the corresponding quark-meson coupling constants.

The hadron masses in symmetric nuclear matter relevant for the present study are calculated by:

$$m_h^{}=\frac{(n_q+n_{\overline{q}})\mathrm{\Omega }_q^{}+(n_s+n_{\overline{s}})\mathrm{\Omega }_sz_h}{R_h^{}}+\frac{4}{3}\pi R_h^3B,\mathrm{with}\frac{m_h^{}}{R_h}|_{R_h=R_h^{}}=0,$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q^{}=\sqrt{x_q^2+(R_h^{}m_q^{})^2}`$, with $`m_q^{}=m_qg_\sigma ^q\sigma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s=\sqrt{x_s^2+(R_h^{}m_s)^2}`$, and $`x_q`$ and $`x_s`$ being the bag eigenfrequencies of the corresponding quarks. In Eq. (7), $`n_q`$ ($`n_{\overline{q}}`$) and $`n_s`$ ($`n_{\overline{s}}`$) are the lowest mode light quark (antiquark) and strange (antistrange) quark numbers in the hadron, $`h`$, respectively, and the $`z_h`$ parametrize the sum of the center-of-mass and gluon fluctuation effects, and are assumed to be independent of density. The parameters are determined in free space to reproduce their physical masses. We chose the values $`m_q`$ = 5 MeV and $`m_s`$ = 250 MeV for the current quark masses, and $`R_N=0.8`$ fm for the bag radius of the nucleon in free space . We stress that only three coupling constants, $`g_\sigma ^q`$, $`g_\omega ^q`$ and $`g_\rho ^q`$, are adjusted to fit nuclear data – namely the saturation energy and density of symmetric nuclear matter and the bulk symmetry energy. Exactly the same coupling constants, $`g_\sigma ^q`$, $`g_\omega ^q`$ and $`g_\rho ^q`$, are used for the light quarks in the mesons and hyperons as in the nucleon. However, for the kaon system it was phenomenologically necessary to increase the strength of the vector coupling to the non-strange quarks in the $`K^+`$, and thus, we will use the stronger vector potential, $`1.4^2V_\omega ^q`$, for the $`K^+`$-meson . The scalar ($`U_s^h`$) and vector ($`U_v^h`$) potentials felt by the hadrons, $`h`$, in nuclear matter are self-consistently calculated by:

$$U_s^hU_s=m_h^{}m_h,U_v^h=(n_qn_{\overline{q}})V_\omega ^qI_3V_\rho ^q,(V_\omega ^q1.4^2V_\omega ^q\mathrm{for}K^+),$$
(8)
where, $`I_3`$ is the third component of isospin projection of the hadron, $`h`$, and the $`\rho `$ meson mean field potential, $`V_\rho ^q`$, is zero in symmetric nuclear matter. Then, within the approximation that the mean field potentials are independent of momentum, the four-momentum of the hadron is modified by, $`p_h^\mu =(\sqrt{𝒑^2+m_h^2}+U_v^h,𝒑`$), which modifies not only the kinematical factors such as the flux, the phase space and the threshold, but also modifies the reaction amplitudes.

Furthermore, we include the in-medium modification of the resonance masses, which appear in the reaction amplitudes in the resonance model. In view of its numerous successful applications elsewhere, we base our estimate on the QMC model , and use those estimated values  for the in-medium resonance masses.

## 3 $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Lambda }+K`$ in nuclear matter

Now we apply the resonance model  to calculate the in-medium amplitudes focusing on $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Lambda }+K`$. We consider kaon and hyperon production processes in $`\pi N`$ collisions shown in Fig. 1. (See Refs.  for $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Sigma }+K`$.)

We extend the model by including medium modification of the hadron properties, not only in the kinematic factors such as the flux and the phase space, but also in the reaction amplitudes, as discussed in the previous section. (See also Ref. .)

We found that the maximal downward shift of the reaction threshold in nuclear matter occurs at baryon densities around $`\rho _B0.6\rho _0`$ ($`\rho _0`$ = 0.15 fm-3), and the maximum of the downward shift of the $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Sigma }+K`$ reaction threshold amounts to roughly 30 MeV. We also found that at baryon densities $`\rho _B>`$ 0.2 fm-3 thresholds for the $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Sigma }+K`$ reactions are higher than those in free space.

We show the energy dependence of the total $`\pi ^{}+p\mathrm{\Lambda }+K^0`$ cross section in Fig. 2. The calculations for free space are in reasonable agreement with the data, as shown by the solid line. The dashed line in Fig. 2 shows the results obtained for nuclear matter at $`\rho _B=\rho _0`$, while the dotted line is the calculation at $`\rho _B=2\rho _0`$.

## 4 Impact on heavy ion studies

It is expected that in relativistic heavy ion collisions at SIS energies nuclear matter can be compressed up to baryonic densities of order $`\rho _B3\rho _0`$ . The calculation of the time and spatial dependence of the baryon density distribution is a vital aspect of dynamical heavy ion simulations. The baryon density $`\rho _B`$ available in heavy ion collisions evolves with the interaction time, $`t`$, and is given by the dynamics of the heavy ion collision. In the following estimates we investigate the density dependence of the production cross section for central central heavy ion collisions.

To calculate the $`K^+`$-meson production cross section averaged over the available density distribution we adopt the density profile function obtained by dynamical simulations  for $`Au+Au`$ collisions at 2 AGeV and at impact parameter $`b=0`$. This can be parametrized as

$$\rho _B(t)=\rho _{max}\mathrm{exp}\left([t\overline{t}]^2/\mathrm{\Delta }t^2\right),$$
(9)
where the parameters, $`\rho _{max}`$ = 3 $`\rho _0`$, $`\overline{t}`$ = 13 fm and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ = 6.7 fm, were fitted to the heavy ion calculations .

The total cross section for the $`\pi ^{}+p\mathrm{\Lambda }+K^0`$ reaction integrated over the time range $`5t23`$ fm and weighted by the time dependent density profile given in Eq. (9), is shown by the dashed line in Fig. 3. The limits of the $`t`$ integration were taken from the simulations of the $`Au+Au`$ collision time evolution in Ref. . The circles and solid line in Fig. 3 show the experimental data in free space  and the calculations in free space, respectively.

One can see that the total cross section averaged over the collision time (time dependent density profile) for the $`\pi ^{}+p\mathrm{\Lambda }+K^0`$ reaction is quite close to the result given in free space integrated up to $`\sqrt{s}`$ 1.7 GeV. Indeed, the results shown in Fig. 3 actually explain why the heavy ion calculations with the free space kaon production cross section might quite reasonably reproduce the experimental data.

Furthermore, the total cross section averaged over the time dependent density profile, shown by the dashed line in Fig. 3, should additionally be averaged over the invariant collision energy distribution available in heavy ion reactions. The number of meson-baryon collisions, $`N_{mB}`$, for the central $`Au+Au`$ collisions at 2 AGeV is given in Ref.  as a function of the invariant collision energy, $`\sqrt{s}`$. It can be parametrized for $`\sqrt{s}>`$1 GeV as

$$dN_{mB}/d\sqrt{s}=N_0\mathrm{exp}\left([\sqrt{s}\sqrt{s_0}]^2/[\mathrm{\Delta }\sqrt{s}]^2\right),$$
(10)
where the normalization factor $`N_0`$ = 6$`\times `$104 GeV-1, while $`\sqrt{s_0}`$ = 1 GeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sqrt{s}`$ = 0.63 GeV. Note that, at SIS energies $`N_{mB}`$ is almost entirely given by the pion-nucleon interactions, and heavy meson and baryon collisions contribute only to the high energy tail of the distribution in Eq. (10) – with quite small densities . Finally, if we also average the calculated, in-medium, total cross section for $`\pi ^{}+p\mathrm{\Lambda }+K^0`$, shown by the dashed line in Fig. 3, over the available energy distribution given in Eq. (10), we obtain an average total kaon production cross section of $`<K>`$ = 65 $`\mu `$b for central $`Au+Au`$ collisions at 2 AGeV. This result is indeed compatible with the calculations using the free space total cross section of the $`\pi ^{}+p\mathrm{\Lambda }+K^0`$ reaction, which provide an average total kaon production cross section of $`<K>`$ = 71 $`\mu `$b for central $`Au+Au`$ collisions at 2 AGeV. Note that the inclusion of even a slight modification of the $`K^+`$ mass because of the nuclear medium (without the corresponding changes introduced here) leads to a substantial reduction of the inclusive $`K^+`$ spectra (by as much as a factor of 2 or 3), compared to that calculated using the free space properties for the relevant hadrons .

We stress that at SIS energies reaction channels with a $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$-hyperon in the final state play a minor role, because of the upper limit of the energy available in the collisions. The downwardly shifted $`\pi +N\mathrm{\Sigma }+K`$ reaction threshold at small densities is still quite high.

## 5 Conclusion

Our present study shows that if one accounts for the in-medium modification of the production amplitude (i.e., the in-medium properties of the $`K^+`$-meson and hadrons) correctly, it is possible to understand $`K^+`$ production data in heavy ion collisions at SIS energies, even if the $`K^+`$-meson feels the theoretically expected, repulsive mean field potential. The apparent failure to explain the $`K^+`$ production data if one includes the purely kinematic effects of the in-medium modification of the $`K^+`$-meson and hadrons, appears to be a consequence of the omission of these effects on the reaction amplitudes.

References


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# Field-Induced Gaps in the Frustrated Spin Ladder

## References


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Electroproduction of vector mesons from nuclei is an excellent tool to investigate the formation and propagation of quark-antiquark pairs under well-controlled kinematical conditions. The observed nuclear coherence effects provide important information on properties of quark-gluon configurations present in the wave function of the interacting virtual photon, and on their hadronization into the finally observed vector meson. Recent data on $`\rho `$ production from various nuclei have become available from measurements of the HERMES collaboration at DESY . Earlier measurements at higher energies were performed at FNAL  and CERN .

Consider first the electroproduction of vector mesons from free nucleons. The four-momentum of the interacting virtual photon is denoted by $`q^\mu =(\nu ,𝒒)`$. We use $`Q^2=q^2`$, and $`x=Q^2/2M\nu `$ is the Bjorken scaling variable expressed in the lab frame, $`M`$ is the nucleon mass. At large photon energies and small momentum transfers to the target nucleon, diffractive production mechanisms dominate: the vector meson emerges from the reaction leaving the nucleon intact.

According to the current understanding, the picture for this process is believed to be as follows: At $`\nu 3`$GeV and $`x0.1`$ one can decompose the amplitude for the diffractive production of a vector meson $`V`$ in terms of colorless hadronic or quark-gluon fluctuations of the (virtual) photon (see e.g. ):

$$f^{\gamma ^{}NVN}=\underset{h}{}\frac{0|ϵ_\gamma ^{}J^{em}|h}{E_h\nu }f^{hNVN}.$$
(1)
Here $`ϵ_\gamma ^{}`$ is the polarization vector of the virtual photon, $`J^{em}`$ denotes the electromagnetic current, and $`E_h`$ stands for the energy of the intermediate hadronic state $`h`$.

At photon energies $`3<\nu <30`$ GeV and $`Q^2`$$`\stackrel{<}{}`$$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ GeV2 , contributions to the photoproduction amplitude $`f^{\gamma ^{}NVN}`$ from hadronic states with large invariant mass $`m_h`$ are suppressed by large energy denominators $`E_h\nu (m_h^2+Q^2)/(2\nu )`$. This restriction to light intermediate hadronic states implies vector meson dominance (see e.g. ): in the lab frame the photon converts into a vector meson prior to the scattering from the target.

On the other hand, at $`Q^21`$ GeV2 and $`x0.1`$ perturbative QCD is believed to be applicable : in the lab frame the photon first converts to a quark-antiquark-gluon jet which then interacts with the nucleon. At high photon energies the finally observed vector meson is formed at a much later stage.

The transition from small to large $`Q^2`$ interpolates between non-perturbative hadron formation and perturbative quark-antiquark-gluon dynamics, a question of central importance in QCD. Nuclear targets are particularly helpful at this point because they serve as analyzers for the coherent interaction of the produced $`q\overline{q}`$-gluon system with several nucleons . The average distance between two nucleons provides the “femtometer scale” which can be used to measure the relevant coherence lengths (for reviews and references see ).

The production process is driven by the following characteristic scales. The propagation length (for reviews and references see e.g. ),

$$\lambda \frac{2\nu }{m^2+Q^2},$$
(2)
represents the longitudinal distance over which a hadronic fluctuation of invariant mass $`m`$ propagates in the lab frame when induced by a photon of energy $`\nu `$ and virtuality $`Q^2`$. At large $`Q^2`$ the initially produced wave packet is characterized by its transverse size $`b`$. For longitudinally polarized photons, detailed calculations suggest

$$b=\frac{const}{Q}.$$
(3)
In perturbative QCD the minimal ($`q\overline{q}`$) Fock space component has $`const4`$$`5`$ at $`Q^2`$$`\stackrel{>}{}`$$`5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ . Thus for $`Q^2=5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and $`const=4`$, the transverse size of the initial wave packet is $`b0.35`$ fm, much smaller than the diameter of a fully developed $`\rho `$ meson.

This paper is organized as follows. The multiple scattering theory for the vector meson electroproduction from nuclei, both coherent and incoherent, is developed in the next section. Section 3 presents results with detailed comparisons to the HERMES measurements, using 14N targets, and a discussion of the observed transparency and propagation length effects. A concluding summary is given in Section 4.

## 2 Amplitudes and cross sections

In the following we derive amplitudes and cross sections for exclusive electroproduction of vector mesons from nuclei. Although we concentrate on $`\rho `$ mesons, our formalism can be extended easily to other vector mesons.

At high energies the production of $`\rho `$ mesons is driven by diffraction: the incident photon interacts with one of the nucleons in the nucleus and produces a hadronic state $`h`$, leaving the nucleon intact. The hadron $`h`$ then propagates through the nuclear medium and possibly re-scatters, again diffractively, from further nucleons, subsequently forming the observed $`\rho `$ meson.

The leading nuclear effects result from processes involving two nucleons as illustrated in Fig.1. The diffractive production of the intermediate hadronic state, $`\gamma ^{}+Nh+N`$, is described by the amplitude $`f_{\gamma ^{}h}`$. At high energies this amplitude depends, to a good approximation, only on the momentum transfer $`𝒌_t`$ perpendicular to the direction of the incoming photon. One introduces the profile function (see e.g. ):

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}h}(𝒃)=\frac{1}{2\pi i|𝒒|}d^2k_tf_{\gamma ^{}h}(𝒌_t)e^{ikkk_tbbb},$$
(4)
where the three-momentum $`𝒒`$ of the incident photon is chosen in the $`z`$-direction, $`𝒒=\widehat{𝒛}|𝒒|`$. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}h}(𝒃)`$ is a measure of the interaction strength at fixed impact parameter $`𝒃`$.

In the double scattering process illustrated in Fig. 1, the intermediate state $`h`$ interacts with a second nucleon, producing the final $`\rho `$ meson state, $`h+N\rho +N`$. The corresponding amplitude $`f_{h\rho }`$ defines a profile function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{h\rho }`$ as in Eq.(4). In total, the double scattering contribution to $`\rho `$ production is described by the nuclear profile operator

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{A(2)}(𝒃,𝒔_i,𝒔_j)=\underset{\left\{ij\right\}=1}{\overset{A}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{h\rho }(𝒃𝒔_j)e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }z_j}\theta (z_jz_i)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}h}(𝒃𝒔_i)e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}h}z_i}.$$
(5)
The two nucleons labeled $`i`$ and $`j`$ are located at impact parameters $`𝒃𝒔_{j,i}`$ and at longitudinal distances $`z_{i,j}`$. The $`\theta `$-function makes sure that the intermediate hadronic state $`h`$ is produced before it re-scatters. The difference between the three-momenta of the incoming virtual photon and the hadronic state $`h`$ with invariant mass $`m_h`$ leads to the phase $`e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}h}z_i}`$. For large photon energies ($`\nu ^2Q^2`$ as well as $`\nu m_h)`$ transitions in the forward direction dominate, and one finds :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}h}\frac{Q^2+m_h^2}{2\nu },$$
(6)
which corresponds to the inverse of the longitudinal propagation length (2) of the intermediate system $`h`$. Similarly, the transition from the intermediate state $`h`$ to the final $`\rho `$ leads to the second phase in Eq.(5),

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }\frac{m_h^2m_\rho ^2}{2\nu }.$$
(7)
This phase carries the information about the time it takes to form the final vector meson out of the intermediate state $`h`$. In fact $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }`$ is just the inverse of that formation time,

$$\tau _f=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }}\frac{\nu }{m_\rho \delta m}$$
(8)
with $`\delta m=m_hm_\rho `$.

The role played by the phases (6,7) can be understood as follows: the nuclear scattering amplitude involves an integration of the nuclear profile operator over the volume of the target nucleus. The production process is dominated by contributions with phases roughly constant over the nuclear volume, while terms with rapidly oscillating phases are suppressed. This observation leads to the following scenarios depending on $`Q^2`$:

* At large photon four-momenta ($`Q^21`$ GeV2) and small Bjorken-$`x`$ ($`x0.1`$), the longitudinal interaction length $`\lambda =\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}h}^1`$ exceeds nuclear dimensions. Therefore, as seen from the lab frame, the photon first couples to a quark-antiquark pair which subsequently scatters from the nucleus. The $`q\overline{q}`$ pair has a chance to travel over large distances inside the nucleus and interacts only weakly, its cross section being proportional to $`b^21/Q^2`$. Since the formation time $`\tau _f=\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }^1`$ is large in the considered kinematic region, the finally observed vector meson forms far outside the nucleus. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as color coherence or color (singlet) transparency .
* At small photon virtualities, $`Q^2`$$`\stackrel{<}{}`$$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ GeV2, vector meson production is driven by the interaction of hadronic fluctuations of the photon. In particular the contribution of the $`\rho `$ meson component in the photon spectral function dominates since it implies $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{h\rho }=0`$. At high energies, $`\nu 30`$ GeV, the $`\rho `$ meson propagation length exceeds the size of the nucleus. Therefore, the photon first couples to low mass ($`m_hm_\rho `$) hadronic states which then scatter from the nucleus. The interaction cross sections of these states are large, comparable to typical hadron-nucleon cross sections. As a consequence coherent multiple interactions with several nucleons lead to significant nuclear modifications of the production process.
* At $`Q^2`$$`\stackrel{<}{}`$$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ GeV2 and moderate energies, e.g. $`\nu 4`$ GeV, the longitudinal propagation length $`\lambda `$ for a $`\rho `$ meson is less than $`1`$ fm, so that the meson is produced on a nucleon inside the nucleus. Once produced, the meson undergoes final state interactions with residual nucleons. Note however that the path of the vector meson through the nuclear medium is, on average, shorter than in the previous case, where hadronic states propagate through the nucleus as a whole. One therefore expects nuclear modifications of the $`\rho `$ meson production cross section at low photon energies to be less pronounced than at high energies.

Higher order multiple scattering contributions involve transition amplitudes $`f_{h^{}h}`$ between different hadronic states carrying photon quantum numbers. These, as well as the complete set of amplitudes $`f_{h\rho }`$ which enter already in double scattering, Eq.(5), are in general unknown. Consequently, any calculation of vector meson production at high energies must involve some model assumptions about $`f_{h^{}h}`$ (for examples see ). On the other hand, the recent HERMES data on exclusive $`\rho `$ production were taken at moderate photon energies $`\nu `$, where the typical formation times $`\tau _f`$ are less than, or at most of the order of, the average nucleon-nucleon separation in nuclei. Contributions to the production process from intermediate $`\rho `$ mesons are therefore supposed to dominate. They lead to the nuclear profile operator :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A(𝒃;\{𝒔\})=\underset{i=1}{\overset{A}{}}\left\{\underset{ji}{}\left[1\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (𝒃𝒔_j)\theta (z_jz_i)\right]\right\}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒃𝒔_i)\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }z_i),$$
(9)
which we use as a starting point for our investigations. Elastic $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering is described in Eq.(9) by the profile function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\rho N\rho N}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$. Its relation to the $`\rho N`$ scattering amplitude $`f_{\rho N\rho N}f_\rho `$ is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho (𝒃)=\frac{1}{2\pi i|𝒒|}d^2k_tf_\rho (𝒌_t)e^{ikkk_tbbb}.$$
(10)
### 2.1 Inclusive production

In the inclusive electroproduction of $`\rho `$ mesons the nuclear final state is not observed. Summing over all possible nuclear excitations and applying closure leads to

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}}{dt}=& \frac{1}{4\pi }d^2bd^2b^{}e^{ikkk_t(bbb^{}bbb)}0|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A(𝒃^{};\{𝒔\})\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A(𝒃;\{𝒔\})|0.\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
Here $`|0`$ denotes the nuclear ground state; $`t=(qk)^2`$ refers to the squared momentum transfer where $`k^\mu `$ is the four-momentum of the produced $`\rho `$ meson.

The next step is to expand both nuclear profile operators in Eq.(11) in terms of nucleon profile functions, using Eq.(9). Collecting in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A`$ terms with products of at most $`n`$ profile functions, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$, defines the cross sections

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(n)}}{dt}.$$
(12)
They describe processes with up to $`2n+2`$ nucleons involved in the production and re-scattering of the $`\rho `$-meson. At the high energies involved, it is justified to neglect $`NN`$-correlations and to treat the nucleus as a system of $`A`$ independent nucleons, described by a density distribution $`\rho _A(𝒓)`$. The cross sections in Eq.(12) are then expressed through nucleon amplitudes and nuclear form factors,

$$S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta })=d^2b𝑑z\rho _A(𝒃,z)e^{i\left(kkk_tbbb+\mathrm{\Delta }z\right)}.$$
(13)
In numerical calculations we use a Gaussian parametrization for the nuclear one-body density, applicable to light nuclei:

$$\rho _A(𝒓)=\left(\frac{3}{2\pi r^2_A}\right)^{3/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{3r^2}{2r^2_A}\right),$$
(14)
with normalization $`d^3r\rho _A(𝒓)=1`$ and mean square radius $`r^2_A=d^3rr^2\rho _A(𝒓)`$.

The so-called single scattering contribution describes the production of a $`\rho `$ meson through the interaction of the virtual photon with one nucleon inside the nucleus. Re-scattering from further nucleons does not occur here. One finds:

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(0)}}{dt}=A\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}}{dt}\left[1+(A1)S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })\right].$$
(15)
The first term represents the $`A`$ possibilities in which the nuclear profile operator and its conjugate in Eq.(11) involve the same nucleon. The second term counts $`A(A1)`$ possibilities with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^A`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^A`$ involving different nucleons. This contribution is proportional to the square of the elastic nuclear form factor (13). As expected, the single scattering cross section reduces to $`A^2`$ times the exclusive $`\rho `$ production cross section from free nucleons in the limit of vanishing momentum transfer ($`𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }0`$).

The leading correction to single scattering results when one of the profile operators in Eq.(11) involves the re-scattering of the $`\rho `$ meson from one nucleon in the target nucleus, while re-scattering terms are omitted in the second profile operator. We find

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}=& \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(0)}}{dt}\frac{A(A1)}{2|𝒒|^3}d^2l\text{Im}\left[f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍)f_\rho (𝒍)\right]\hfill \\ & \times \{S_A(𝒍,0)S_A(𝒍,0)+S_A(𝒌_t+𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })\hfill \\ & +(A2)S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t+l,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒍,0)\}+\mathrm{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
where we have suppressed terms resulting from the square of re-scattering amplitudes. They can be found in the Appendix and are included in the numerical calculations.

At high energies the nucleon amplitudes $`f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }`$ and $`f_\rho `$ are dominated by their imaginary parts. Re-scattering therefore reduces the production cross section, an observation first made in . The first re-scattering term in Eq.(16) is proportional to $`S_A(𝒍,0)S_A(𝒍,0)`$ and does not depend on the propagation length $`\lambda =\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^1`$. This describes $`\rho `$ production taking place on the same nucleon in both profile operators. The remaining contributions correspond to the interference of amplitudes where the $`\rho `$ is produced on different nucleons. These terms are enhanced for large $`\lambda `$.

In our numerical calculations we have evaluated the inclusive production cross section (11) up to $`n=2`$. This includes terms which account for the re-scattering of the produced $`\rho `$ from up to $`4`$ nucleons. Explicit expressions are given in the Appendix.

### 2.2 Coherent production

In coherent $`\rho `$ production the target nucleus stays intact, i.e. one considers the reaction $`\gamma ^{}+A\rho +A`$, where the nucleus recoils as a whole and is left in its ground state. An experimental signature for this would be the detection of the recoiling nucleus. In practice a situation like this is approximately realized at momentum transfers smaller than the nuclear Fermi momentum, $`|t|<0.1`$ GeV2, where the nucleus responds quasi-elastically to the incoming virtual photon.

At high photon energies, the corresponding amplitude is related to the ground state matrix element of the nuclear profile function:

$$f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}(𝒌_t)=\frac{i|𝒒|}{2\pi }d^2be^{ikkk_tbbb}0|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^A(𝒃;\{𝒔\})|0.$$
(17)
As in the inclusive case, the $`\rho `$ is produced in a diffractive interaction of the virtual photon with one of the nucleons in the nucleus, $`\gamma ^{}+N\rho +N`$. Then the $`\rho `$ meson propagates through the residual nuclear system where it may interact with other nucleons. We expand the nuclear electroproduction amplitude (17) according to the number of $`\rho `$-nucleon re-scattering processes involved, following Eq.(9):

$$f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{A1}{}}f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(n)}.$$
(18)
The amplitude $`f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(n)}`$ includes all contributions to $`f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}`$ with products of $`n`$ nucleon profile functions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho `$ or, equivalently, $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering amplitudes $`f_\rho `$. The cross sections

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(n)}}{dt}=\frac{\pi }{|𝒒|^2}\left|\underset{i=0}{\overset{n}{}}f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(i)}(𝒌_t)\right|^2.$$
(19)
describe the electroproduction of a $`\rho `$ meson and its subsequent re-scattering from up to $`n`$ nucleons.

The single scattering amplitude $`f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(0)}`$ has no re-scattering. Within the independent particle description for the target nucleus one obtains:

$$f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(0)}(𝒌_t)=AS_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t).$$
(20)
The nuclear form factor in Eq.(20) accounts for the probability that the target nucleus stays intact during the interaction. $`S_A`$ drops sharply for momenta much larger than the inverse nuclear radius, $`|𝒌_t|>1/R_A`$, so that the single scattering contribution to coherent $`\rho `$ production is small for $`|t|>1/R_A^2`$.

If the produced $`\rho `$ meson re-scatters from one nucleon after its production, one gets:

$`f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(1)}(𝒌_t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A(A1)i}{4\pi |𝒒|}}{\displaystyle d^2lf_\rho \left(𝒌_t/2+𝒍\right)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }\left(𝒌_t/2𝒍\right)}`$ (21)
$`\times S_A(𝒌_t/2+𝒍,0)S_A(𝒌_t/2𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }).`$
The momentum transfer $`𝒌_t`$ is now shared between the two nucleons participating in the interaction. This means that the form factors in Eq.(21) are probed, on average, at lower momenta. This argument can be applied also to higher order multiple scattering amplitudes ($`n>1`$) where the momentum transfer is shared between even more nucleons. Therefore, coherent $`\rho `$ production from nuclei is most sensitive to multiple scattering processes when $`|t|`$ is large, a well known feature.

The scattering amplitude (17) has to be corrected for center-of-mass motion. This modification is important especially for light nuclei. For harmonic oscillator wave functions the c.m. correction can be calculated exactly ; it leads to an additional factor multiplying the coherent production amplitude (17):

$$f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}(𝒌_t)R_{recoil}(𝒌_t^2,\mathrm{\Delta })f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}(𝒌_t),$$
(22)
with

$$R_{recoil}(𝒌_t^2,\mathrm{\Delta })=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(𝒌_t^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_\rho ^2)r^2_A}{6A}\right].$$
(23)
In numerical calculations we have evaluated the multiple scattering series (18) up to $`n=2`$. The corresponding expressions are given in the Appendix.

### 2.3 Incoherent production

The incoherent $`\rho `$ production cross section is obtained by taking the difference of the inclusive and coherent cross sections:

$$\frac{d\sigma _{incoh}^A}{dt}=\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}}{dt}\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}}{dt}.$$
(24)
Multiple scattering contributions are defined via Eqs.(12,19):

$$\frac{d\sigma _{incoh}^{A(n)}}{dt}=\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(n)}}{dt}\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(n)}}{dt}.$$
(25)
In the absence of re-scattering, i.e. for single scattering, one finds from Eqs.(15,20):

$$\frac{d\sigma _{incoh}^{A(0)}}{dt}=A\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}}{dt}\left[1S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })^2+AS_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })^2(1R_{recoil}^2(𝒌_t^2,\mathrm{\Delta }))\right].$$
(26)
We observe that, even in the absence of re-scattering, the incoherent $`\rho `$ production cross section from a nucleus does not reduce to the production cross section from a single nucleon times the number of nucleons inside the target nucleus. The interference of production processes occuring on different nucleons (see discussion in Section 2.1), as well as nuclear recoil, leads to a reduction of the nuclear cross section. Nevertheless, for heavy nuclei and/or large momentum transfers the nuclear form factors in Eq.(26) are small and one obtains approximately $`d\sigma _{incoh}^{A(0)}/dtAd\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}/dt`$.

In our numerical studies we calculate the multiple scattering contributions up to $`n=2`$. A discussion of their properties and a comparison with data from HERMES follows in Section 3.

### 2.4 Vector meson dominance

The recent HERMES data on incoherent $`\rho `$ production from nuclei were taken in the kinematic range $`0.4\text{GeV}^2<Q^2<5\text{GeV}^2`$ and $`9\text{GeV}<\nu <20\text{GeV}`$. At these moderate photon energies the observed nuclear effects should be caused primarily by the coherent multiple scattering of the $`\rho `$ meson with several nucleons (see the discussion in Section 2). It is therefore justified to model the $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering amplitude, $`f_\rho `$, using Vector Meson Dominance (VMD).

We also employ VMD to describe the (virtual) photoproduction of the $`\rho `$ meson from individual nucleons. Assuming VMD to be valid, the $`\rho `$ production amplitude is related to the scattering amplitude by a kinematic prefactor. When discussing nuclear phenomena in terms of transparency ratios, i.e. the ratios of nuclear and free nucleon production cross sections, details of the VMD photoproduction amplitude cancel, in particular those parts which would give an inadequate description at $`Q^2>1`$ GeV2.

VMD relates the virtual photoproduction amplitude $`f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }`$ and the elastic $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering amplitude $`f_\rho `$ . For transversely polarized photons one has:

$$f_{\gamma _T^{}\rho }=\frac{\sqrt{\alpha _{em}\pi }}{g_\rho }\frac{m_\rho ^2}{m_\rho ^2+Q^2}f_\rho ,$$
(27)
with the electromagnetic coupling constant $`\alpha _{em}=1/137`$, the $`\rho `$ meson mass $`m_\rho =0.77`$ GeV, and the coupling constant $`g_\rho =5.0`$. The production amplitude for longitudinally polarized photons is given by:

$$f_{\gamma _L^{}\rho }=\xi \frac{\sqrt{Q^2}}{m_\rho }f_{\gamma _T^{}\rho },$$
(28)
where $`\xi 0.7`$ is the ratio of the elastic longitudinal and transverse vector meson-nucleon scattering amplitudes (see e.g. ). It remains to fix the amplitude $`f_\rho `$. We use the parametrization:

$$f_\rho (𝒌_t)=\frac{|𝒒|}{4\pi }\sigma _{\rho N}(i+\beta )e^{Bkkk_t^2},$$
(29)
with the total $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering cross section $`\sigma _{\rho N}`$, the ratio of the real to imaginary parts of the scattering amplitude, $`\beta `$, and the slope parameter $`B`$.

For the photoproduction amplitudes (27,28) we use empirical parameters which will be discussed in the following section.

Since the ratio of longitudinally to transversely polarized photons is determined by the kinematics of the process (see e.g. ) we have now everything prepared to calculate nuclear production cross sections.

While it is not the aim to calculate polarized cross sections in this work, we do note that polarization is an important observable against which models can be tested (see e.g. ).

### 2.5 Discussion

Before presenting results we discuss points at which our present calculation differs from previous calculations. The standard treatment of vector meson electroproduction from nuclei within the framework of VMD and Glauber multiple scattering theory is summarized in Refs.. Several simplifying but not always justified approximations are commonly made. It is usually assumed that all momentum is transfered to the target nucleus during the production of the vector meson from one of the nucleons. After that the propagation of the vector meson through the nuclear medium is taken in forward direction. However, in a treatment of the multiple scattering series in Eq.(9) without further simplifying assumptions, as carried out here, one naturally encounters contributions to the production process with the momentum transfer shared between all participating nucleons. These contributions, which are usually neglected, become increasingly important with rising $`|t|`$ .

A further approximation common to most treatments of coherent vector meson production is the exponentiation of the multiple scattering series. While this is a reasonable approximation for heavy nuclei, it should not be used for light ones.

In the incoherent case it is usually assumed that the vector meson is produced on one specific nucleon. Interferences of production processes which occur on different nucleons are omitted, so that contributions proportional to nuclear form factors (see e.g. (15)) are absent. Exponentiation of the multiple scattering series is frequently done also for the case of incoherent vector meson production. This approximation ignores contributions in which the momentum transfer is shared between several interacting nucleons.

So far, only total production cross sections have been measured with admittedly large experimental uncertainties  so that the simplifying approximations, used e.g. in Ref., are not very harmful. However, as soon as one wants to describe differential cross sections in a more quantitative way a complete term-by-term treatment of multiple scattering processes, as done here, is necessary since the $`|t|`$-dependence of the cross section is greatly influenced by re-scattering processes.

## 3 Results

In the actual calculation we have to fix the free parameters of the $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering amplitude, $`f_\rho `$ Eq. (29). For the total cross section we use $`\sigma _{\rho N}`$ = 25 mb in the kinematic range of the HERMES experiment . We have varied $`\sigma _{\rho N}`$ in the range between 22 mb and 30 mb, however these variations do not lead to dramatic changes in the results when considering ratios. The ratio of real to imaginary part of the amplitude was fixed at $`\xi =0.2`$.

It remains to fix the slope parameter $`B`$ both for production and re-scattering. In the case of production, several measurements of the diffractive slope can be found in the literature (). A general tendency of decreasing slope with increasing $`Q^2`$ is observed, however the data are not precise enough to extract the slope unambiguously. We use the ansatz $`B(Q^2)=\frac{1}{3}\left(r_N^2+r_{q\overline{q}}^2(Q^2)\right)`$ which relates $`B`$ to the radius of the target nucleon and the $`Q^2`$-dependent size of the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the interacting photon, where $`r_{q\overline{q}}^2=a/(b+Q^2)`$ meets the predictions of perturbative QCD for large $`Q^2`$. We require this to agree with the HERMES result within the kinematic range of the experiment and use $`B(Q^2=1\mathrm{GeV}^2)8`$ GeV-2 and $`B(Q^2=5\mathrm{GeV}^2)6`$ GeV-2. A fit fixes the constants $`a=89.9`$ and $`b=5.9`$ GeV2.

For the diffractive slope of the re-scattering process we use a constant slope parameter $`B_\rho =`$ 8 GeV-2 which is appropriate for the HERMES kinematics and is choosen in such a way that the incoherent slope, after taking re-scattering modifications into account, agrees best with the data.

Before confronting our calculations with data we summarize general features of vector meson production cross sections from nuclei. Typical results for coherent and incoherent $`\rho `$ production from 14N are shown in Figs.2 and 3. The energy and virtuality of the interacting photon has been fixed at $`\nu =14`$ GeV and $`Q^2=0.5`$ GeV2, a kinematic range where VMD is applicable.

In Fig.2 we show the multiple scattering cross sections $`d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(n)}/dt`$ from Eq.(19) for coherent $`\rho `$ production plotted against $`t^{}=tt_0`$, with the threshold momentum transfer $`t_0[(Q^2+m_\rho ^2)/2\nu ]^2`$. We observe that the production cross section is strongly peaked at small $`|t|<0.05`$ GeV2 where single scattering dominates. This behavior is controlled by the nuclear form factor present in the single scattering amplitude (20). For Gaussian densities one finds $`d\sigma ^{(0)}/dtS_A^2e^{B_A|t|}`$ with $`B_A=r^2_A/3`$. In the case of 14N one has $`r^2_A^{1/2}=2.6`$ fm , leading to $`B_A57`$ GeV-2.

With increasing $`|t|`$ multiple scattering gains in importance. At $`0.05\text{GeV}^2<|t|<0.15\text{GeV}^2`$ the interference between single and double scattering leads to a significant reduction of the production cross section. For larger values of $`|t|`$ multiple scattering adds substantially to the single scattering cross section and eventually dominates.

Incoherent $`\rho `$ production cross sections $`d\sigma _{incoh}^{A(n)}/dt`$ from Eq.(25) are shown in Fig.3. One finds a much weaker dependence on the momentum transfer $`|t|`$ as compared to the coherent case. An investigation of single and multiple scattering contributions from Section 2.1 shows that the $`t`$-dependence is governed here by the behavior of the virtual photon-nucleon and $`\rho `$-nucleon scattering cross sections. These are, in a first approximation, proportional to $`e^{B|t|}`$ with $`B7`$ GeV-2. Finally, a comparison of single and multiple scattering cross sections shows that single scattering dominates the incoherent production cross section for $`|t|<0.5`$ GeV2. In this region multiple scattering reduces the cross section.

In summary: coherent vector meson production from nuclei at $`|t|>1/r^2_A`$ provides an optimal window for an investigation of coherence phenomena. In this region the cross section is most sensitive to multiple scattering. However, the coherent production cross section is already quite small here – several orders of magnitude smaller than the incoherent one at large $`|t|`$.

### 3.1 Exclusive $`\rho `$ production at HERMES

The HERMES collaboration has recently produced data  on exclusive electroproduction of $`\rho `$ mesons from protons, deuterium, 3He, and 14N. The range of energy and momentum transfer available in this experiment is $`9\text{GeV}<\nu <20\text{GeV}`$ and $`0.4\text{GeV}^2<Q^2<5\text{GeV}^2`$. This implies coherence lengths for $`\rho `$ mesons,

$$\lambda _\rho =\frac{2\nu }{m_\rho ^2+Q^2},$$
(30)
in the range $`0.6\text{fm}<\lambda <8\text{fm}`$ covering scales from the size of individual nucleons up to and beyond nuclear dimensions.

#### 3.1.1 Cross sections

In Fig.4 the rate of produced $`\rho `$’s is plotted for 3He and 14N against $`t`$. At $`|t^{}|=|tt_0|0.1`$ GeV2 coherent production dominates, leaving the nucleus as a whole in the ground state. Such coherent processes fall off rapidly with the nuclear form factor, so that at $`|t^{}|`$$`\stackrel{>}{}`$$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.1}`$ GeV2 mostly incoherent $`\rho `$ production from individual nucleons remains.

The result of our calculation, as discussed in Section 2.1, is shown for comparison. We include contributions to the inclusive production cross section (11) up to $`n=2`$, accounting for the re-scattering from up to $`4`$ nucleons. Since no explicit normalization of the data is given in Ref., the normalizations of the calculated 3He and 14N cross sections have been adjusted to the data in the lowest $`|t|`$-bin. The r.m.s. radii used in these calculations are $`r^2_{{}_{}{}^{14}\mathrm{N}}^{1/2}=2.6`$ fm and $`r^2_{{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}}^{1/2}=1.9`$ fm . Good agreement with the observed $`t`$-dependence is found.

We also show our result for coherent $`\rho `$ production. As expected, at small $`|t|`$ coherent production dominates the inclusive cross section, whereas it drops very rapidly with rising $`|t|`$.

#### 3.1.2 Transparency

The HERMES collaboration has focused on nuclear effects in incoherent $`\rho `$ production. For this purpose the transparency ratio

$$T_A=\frac{\sigma _{incoh}^A}{A\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}},$$
(31)
has been analyzed as a function of the $`\rho `$ meson propagation length $`\lambda _\rho `$ from Eq.(30). The total incoherent $`\rho `$ production cross section in Eq.(31) is denoted by $`\sigma _{incoh}^A=_{\mathrm{}}^0𝑑t𝑑\sigma _{incoh}^A/𝑑t`$, and $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}`$ is the total diffractive $`\rho `$ production cross section from free nucleons. In the absence of re-scattering processes one obtains from Eqs.(15,20):

$$T_A^{(0)}=1\frac{1}{\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}}_{\mathrm{}}^0𝑑t\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}}{dt}S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })^2\left[1A(1R_{recoil}^2(𝒌_t^2,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }))\right].$$
(32)
Incoherent $`\rho `$ production from $`A`$ nucleons gives $`T_A^{(0)}=1`$. A reduction of $`T_A^{(0)}`$ is caused by the second term in Eq.(32) which results from nuclear recoil and the interference of production amplitudes involving different nucleons.

Starting out from the measured inclusive events (Fig. 4) the HERMES collaboration has constructed a data sample which approximately represents incoherent $`\rho `$ production according to the following procedure: coherent $`\rho `$ production processes have been approximated by an exponential form ($`e^{|t|B}`$) fitted to the inclusive data at small $`|t|`$. This contribution has then been subtracted from the inclusive events. The result so obtained has been used as incoherent data sample for momentum transfers $`|t_{\lambda _\rho }^{}|<|t^{}|<0.4`$ GeV2. The lower limit $`t_{\lambda _\rho }^{}`$ varies for different bins of the $`\rho `$ meson propagation length. It is chosen such that the exponential fit to the small $`|t|`$ data amounts to less than $`5\%`$ of all inclusive events.

The measured transparency ratio $`T_A`$ for 14N is plotted in Fig.5. The deviation from unity at $`\lambda _\rho `$$`\stackrel{<}{}`$$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ fm comes mainly from the final state re-scattering of the $`\rho `$ meson after being produced on one of the nucleons. With increasing propagation length $`\lambda _\rho `$ the transparency ratio decreases systematically. Hadronic fluctuations of the photon can scatter coherently on several nucleons also prior to the production of the final state vector meson, leading to an enhancement of nuclear effects.

In Fig.5 we present results of our calculation within the framework of VMD, using HERMES values for the average $`Q^2`$ and $`\nu `$ for each data bin. The full curve shows our result, adapting the HERMES construction of incoherent events: starting out from the calculated inclusive cross section we subtract an exponential fit to the low-$`|t|`$ result, and use the HERMES thresholds $`t_{\lambda _\rho }^{}`$ as described previously. We find good agreement with the data. This suggests that the propagation of initially produced quark-gluon or hadronic states through the nuclear environment is dominated by contributions which interact about as strongly as the produced $`\rho `$ meson. For comparison we also present results for the incoherent transparency ratio as obtained from the difference of the calculated inclusive and coherent cross sections. The deviation from the previous result points at ambiguities in the HERMES definition of incoherent events.

Let us have a closer look at the kinematics involved in the HERMES experiment. Large propagation length, $`\lambda _\rho >2`$ fm, corresponds to data taken at high energy transfers $`\nu `$ accompanied by small $`Q^2`$. This is the VMD situation in which the photon predominantly converts into a $`\rho `$ meson which then experiences coherent multiple scattering. For small propagation lengths, $`\lambda _\rho <2`$ fm, data were taken at average values $`\overline{Q}^2`$ between $`2.5`$ and $`5`$ GeV2 and $`\overline{\nu }12`$ GeV. At such large $`Q^2`$, quark-gluon degrees of freedom should already be relevant in the initial interaction of the virtual photon with one of the nucleons in the target nucleus. Perturbative QCD calculations  show indeed that, for longitudinally polarized photons with $`Q^25`$ GeV2, the transverse size of the initially produced quark-antiquark wave packet is only a small fraction of the diameter of a fully developed $`\rho `$ meson. Still, the time $`\tau _f`$ to form a $`\rho `$ meson out of the primary $`q\overline{q}`$ wave packet under these conditions is small. Let the invariant mass of the wave packet be of order $`\overline{Q}`$. Using Eqs.(8,7) we estimate $`\tau _f2\overline{\nu }/(\overline{Q}^2m_\rho ^2)<2.5`$ fm/c for $`\overline{Q}>2.5`$ GeV2 and $`\overline{\nu }12`$ GeV. Thus the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair is quite likely to be a $`\rho `$ meson by the time it has crossed the average distance between two nucleons in 14N, and its multiple scattering is then governed by the large $`\rho N`$ (rather than the small color-dipole) cross section. This is consistent with our observation that the VMD description of the measured propagation length effects works well over the full kinematic range of the HERMES data.

### 3.2 Aspects of color singlet transparency

Nuclear effects in incoherent $`\rho `$ production as observed by the HERMES collaboration result from the coherent re-scattering of hadronic components present in the photon spectral function. On the other hand, at $`Q^21`$ GeV2 small sized quark-gluon wave packets are produced in photon-nucleon collisions. Their color dipole moment or, equivalently, the interaction cross section vanishes in the limit of large $`Q^2`$. Then nuclear effects become negligible and color singlet transparency occurs.

The study of quark-gluon configurations of the interacting virtual photons requires a large lever-arm in $`Q^2`$ and $`\nu `$. In addition one has to identify a kinematic window where the vector meson production process is most sensitive to coherent multiple scattering from several nucleons in the target nucleus. Finally, the influence of different characteristic scales on the production process have to be separated .

For these reasons coherent vector meson production from nuclei turns out to be very useful. At $`|t|>1/r^2_A`$ the corresponding differential cross section depends crucially on contributions from coherent multiple scattering (Figure 2).

Coherent vector meson production is also favorable with respect to a separation of phenomena caused by variations of the propagation length and color transparency. This fact is demonstrated in Fig. 6: we compare the transparency ratio $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}/A\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}`$ for different values of $`Q^2`$ and $`\nu `$ as obtained within VMD. The decrease of the propagation length with rising $`Q^2`$ leads apparently to a suppression of the cross section ratio. If color transparency is fully established at large $`Q^2`$ only single scattering occurs. At large energies $`\nu `$ this leads to an increase of the transparency ratio as compared to the VMD scenario. An increase of the transparency ratio with rising $`Q^2`$ is therefore a clear signal for the onset of color transparency.

In incoherent vector meson production the situation is different. As illustrated in Fig. 7, propagation length phenomena and color transparency lead to a similar trend for the $`Q^2`$-dependence of the transparency ratio. A separation of both effects is therefore difficult. Similar observations have been made in .

The difference between both cases has two reasons. The first one is the reduction of the cross section by re-scattering contributions, a consequence of the fact that the scattering amplitudes are dominated by their imaginary parts. Therefore the color transparency effect which suppresses re-scattering always leads to a rise in the nuclear cross section relative to that of the free nucleon. On the other hand any changes in the propagation length affect primarily the coherent scattering process. Since $`\sigma _{\text{incoh}}^A`$ = $`\sigma _{\text{inclusive}}^A`$ \- $`\sigma _{\text{coh}}^A`$, the coherent contribution enters with opposite sign when we consider incoherent scattering. This explains the difference between Fig. 6 and Fig. 7.

With the (simplistic) assumption that color transparency completely suppresses any re-scattering, its signature should be visible at $`\nu =50`$ GeV when one systematically compares the range in $`Q^2`$ from 0.5 up to 5 GeV2, at least in our model. A more detailed calculation requires in addition a model for the expansion of the initially small color dipole.

## 4 Summary

We have developed the multiple scattering formalism for the electroproduction of $`\rho `$ mesons from nuclei. This process is an excellent tool to investigate the formation, propagation and hadronization of quark-antiquark-gluon fluctuations of the virtual high-energy photon.

The theory has been compared to the HERMES measurements for the case of $`\rho `$ electroproduction on 14N. The characteristic reduction of the nuclear transparency with increasing $`\rho `$ meson propagation length is well reproduced. The more detailed quantitative analysis would still require an improved separation of incoherent and coherent events.

We have also examined the sensitivity with respect to the quest for color transparency in such processes. While the $`A`$-dependence of incoherent production does not permit a clear separation between color transparency and standard propagation length effects, coherent $`\rho `$ electroproduction appears to be well suited for this purpose.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank L. Frankfurt, M. Strikman, M. Sargsian, G. van der Steenhoven and T. O’Neill for discussions.

## Appendix A Amplitudes and cross sections

### A.1 Coherent amplitudes

We summarize the amplitudes for coherent $`\rho `$ electroproduction used in our calculations up to $`n=2`$. The simplifying assumption $`\text{Re}f_\rho \text{Im}f_\rho `$ has been used.

$$f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(0)}(𝒌_t)=AS_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t),$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(1)}(𝒌_t)=& i\frac{A(A1)}{4\pi |𝒒|}d^2lf_\rho (𝒌_t/2+𝒍)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t/2𝒍)\hfill \\ & \times S_A(𝒌_t/2+𝒍,0)S_A(𝒌_t/2𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }),\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill f_{\gamma ^{}A\rho A}^{(2)}(𝒌_t)=& \frac{A(A1)(A2)}{32\pi ^2|𝒒|^2}d^2l_1d^2l_2f_\rho (𝒌_t/3+𝒍_1)\hfill \\ & \times f_\rho (𝒌_t/3+𝒍_2)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t/3𝒍_1𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times S_A(𝒌_t/3+𝒍_1,0)S_A(𝒌_t/3+𝒍_2,0)S_A(𝒌_t/3𝒍_1𝒍_2,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho }).\hfill \end{array}$$
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### A.2 Inclusive cross sections

Here we give explicit expressions for the incoherent cross sections derived from the expansion of Eq.(11) for $`n=0,1`$. The $`n=0`$ result reads:

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(0)}}{dt}=A\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}N\rho N}}{dt}\left[1+(A1)S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })\right].$$
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The $`n=1`$ result includes six additional interference terms between production and re-scattering amplitudes as well as the square of re-scattering amplitudes,

$$\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}=\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(0)}}{dt}+\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_i,$$
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given by the following expressions:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_1=& \frac{A(A1)}{2|𝒒|^3}d^2l\text{Im}\left[f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍)f_\rho (𝒍)\right]\hfill \\ & \times \{S_A(𝒍,0)S_A(𝒍,0)+S_A(𝒌_t+𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t𝒍,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })\hfill \\ & +(A2)S_A(𝒌_t,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t+l,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒍,0)\},\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_2& =\frac{A(A1)}{8\pi |𝒒|^4}d^2l_1d^2l_2f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t𝒍_1)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times f_\rho ^{}(𝒍_1)f_\rho (𝒍_2)S_A(𝒍_1𝒍_2,0)S_A(𝒍_2𝒍_1,0),\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_3& =\frac{A(A1)(A2)}{8\pi |𝒒|^4}d^2l_1d^2l_2f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t𝒍_1)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times f_\rho ^{}(𝒍_1)f_\rho (𝒍_2)S_A(𝒍_1𝒍_2,0)S_A(𝒍_1,0)S_A(𝒍_2,0),\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_4& =\frac{A(A1)(A2)}{12\pi |𝒒|^4}d^2l_1d^2l_2f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t𝒍_1)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times f_\rho ^{}(𝒍_1)f_\rho (𝒍_2)S_A(𝒌_t+𝒍_1,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t𝒍_2,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒍_2𝒍_1),\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_5& =\frac{A(A1)(A2)(A3)}{16\pi |𝒒|^4}\hfill \\ & \times d^2l_1d^2l_1f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t𝒍_1)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍_2)f_\rho ^{}(𝒍_1)f_\rho (𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times S_A(𝒌_t+𝒍_1,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t𝒍_2,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒍_1,0)S_A(𝒍_2,0),\hfill \end{array}$$
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$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \frac{d\sigma _{\gamma ^{}A\rho X}^{(1)}}{dt}|_6& =\frac{A(A1)(A2)}{24\pi |𝒒|^4}\hfill \\ & \times d^2l_1d^2l_2f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }^{}(𝒌_t𝒍_1)f_{\gamma ^{}\rho }(𝒌_t𝒍_2)f_\rho ^{}(𝒍_1)f_\rho (𝒍_2)\hfill \\ & \times S_A(𝒌_t+𝒍_1𝒍_2,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒌_t𝒍_1,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\gamma ^{}\rho })S_A(𝒍_2,0).\hfill \end{array}$$
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The additional contributions to the $`n=2`$ result, not shown here, are also included in the numerical calculations. They are constructed in exactly the same way as the expressions already shown by accounting for all possible combinations of struck nucleons.