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# Nuclear Structure in Nonmesonic Weak Decay of Hypernuclei

## I Introduction

Hypernuclear physics adds another flavor (strangeness) to the traditional nuclear physics, and its goal is to study the behavior of hyperons ($`\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Xi },\mathrm{\Omega })`$ in the nuclear environments, which are now bound system of neutrons, protons and one or more hyperons. Interesting strange nuclei with strangeness $`S=1`$ are the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hypernuclei, in which a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon, having a mass of $`1116`$ MeV and zero charge and isospin, replaces one of the nucleons. Same as the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon, they are mostly produced via the strong interactions, i.e., in the reaction processes $`\pi ^+n\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$, $`K^{}n\pi ^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`K^{}p\pi ^0\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, by making use of the pion ($`\pi `$) and kaon ($`K`$) beams. They also basically decay through the weak interactions, as the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ does. Yet, as it is well known and explained below, there are some very important differences in the corresponding decaying modes.

First, it should be remembered that the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon decays nearly $`100`$ % of the time by the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N\pi `$ weak-mesonic mode (Fig. 1):

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }\{\begin{array}{ccc}p+\pi ^{}& & (64.1\%)\\ n+\pi ^0& & (35.7\%),\end{array}`$
with the total transition rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi ^{}^0+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}^0=\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=2.5010^6`$ eV (which corresponds to the lifetime $`\tau ^0=2.6310^{10}`$ sec). For the decay at rest the energy-momentum conservation implies

$`M_\mathrm{\Lambda }=M_N+{\displaystyle \frac{p_N^2}{2M_N}}+\sqrt{p_\pi ^2+m_\pi ^2};p_N`$ $``$ $`p_\pi .`$
Therefore the energy released is

$`Q_0=M_\mathrm{\Lambda }M_Nm_\pi 37\text{MeV},`$
and the kinetic energies and momenta in the final state are:

$`T_N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(M_\mathrm{\Lambda }M_N)^2+m_\pi ^2}{2M_\mathrm{\Lambda }}}5\text{MeV};T_\pi =Q_0T_N32\text{MeV},`$
$`p_N`$ $``$ $`p_\pi =\sqrt{(T_N+M_N)^2M_N^2}100\text{MeV}/c.`$
It is clear that the isospin is changed by $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=1/2`$ and $`3/2`$ and its projection by $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_T=1/2`$ in the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N\pi `$ decay. More, as

* $`\mathrm{\Lambda }n+\pi ^0`$:

$`|n|\pi ^0|1/2,1/2|10=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}}|1/2,1;1/2,1/2+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}|1/2,1;3/2,1/2`$
* $`\mathrm{\Lambda }p+\pi ^{}`$:

$`|p|\pi ^{}|1/2,1/2,|1,1=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}|1/2,1;1/2,1/2+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}}|1/2,1;3/2,1/2,`$

one sees that the above experimental data can be accounted for fairly well by neglecting the $`|1/2,1;3/2,1/2`$ components in these relations ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T=1/2`$ rule). In fact, one gets $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi ^{}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}=2`$, while the experimental result is $`64.1/35.7=1.80`$.

Assuming the $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=1/2`$ rule, the phenomelogical weak Hamiltonian for the process depicted in Fig. 1 can be expressed as:

$`_{\mathrm{\Lambda }N\pi }^W`$ $`=`$ $`iG_Fm_\pi ^2\overline{\psi }_N\left(A_\pi +B_\pi \gamma _5\right)\mathit{\varphi }_\pi 𝝉\psi _\mathrm{\Lambda }(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}),`$ (4)
where $`G_Fm_\pi ^2=2.21\times 10^7`$ is the weak coupling constant. The empirical constants $`A_\pi =1.05`$ and $`B_\pi =7.15`$, adjusted to the observables of the free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ decay, determine the strengths of parity violating and parity conserving amplitudes, respectively. The nucleon, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and pion fields are given by $`\psi _N`$ and $`\psi _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathit{\varphi }_\pi `$, respectively, while the isospin spurion $`(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array})`$ is included in order to enforce the empirical $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=1/2`$ rule. (Note that: $`\overline{\psi }_N\mathit{\varphi }_\pi 𝝉\psi _\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\overline{\psi }_p\varphi _{\pi ^0}+\sqrt{2}\overline{\psi }_n\varphi _\pi ^{},\sqrt{2}\overline{\psi }_p\varphi _{\pi ^+}\overline{\psi }_n\varphi _{\pi ^0})\mathrm{\Lambda }`$).

The free $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon weak decay is radically modified in the nuclear environment because the nucleon and the hyperon now move, respectively, in the mean fields $`U_N`$ and $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which come from the $`NN`$ and $`N\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ interactions. $`U_N`$ and $`U_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are characterized by the single particle energies (s.p.e.) $`\epsilon _N`$ and $`\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and we have to differentiate between:

1. Mesonic Decay (MD): The basic process is again represented by the graph shown in Fig. 1 and described by the hamiltonian (4). Yet, the energy-momentum conservation is different:

$`M_\mathrm{\Lambda }=M_N\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }+\epsilon _N^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_A^2}{2M_A}}+\sqrt{p_\pi ^2+m_\pi ^2};𝐩_A`$ $`=`$ $`𝐩_\pi `$
where $`M_A=AM_N`$ and $`𝐩_A`$ are, respectively, the mass and the momentum of the whole nucleus; $`A`$ is the mass number, and $`\epsilon _N^{}`$ are the s.p.e. of the loosely bound states above the Fermi energy $`\epsilon _N^F`$. They are of the order of a few MeV, while $`\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the energy of the $`0s_{1/2}`$ state and goes from $`11.7`$ MeV for $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{13}C`$ to $`26.5`$ MeV for $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{208}Pb`$ Us99 . Thus, the corresponding Q-values

$`Q_M=M_\mathrm{\Lambda }M_Nm_\pi +\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }\epsilon _N^{},`$
are significantly smaller than $`Q_0`$, particularly for medium and heavy nuclei. The experimental decay rates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi ^{}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_M\mathrm{\Gamma }_M(\mathrm{\Lambda }N\pi `$) are of the order of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0`$ only for nuclei with $`A4`$, and they rapidly fall as a function of nuclear mass. For instance, in $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{12}C`$: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\pi ^0}/\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=0.217\pm 0.084`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi ^{}/\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=0.052_{0.035}^{+0.063}`$. This hindrance effect, as is illustrated in Fig. 2 for the hypernucleus $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{17}O`$, is due to Pauli principle. In fact, the population of states that are below the Fermi level, with energies $`\epsilon _N^{}\epsilon _N^F`$, is totally blocked by the Pauli principle, while transitions to states that lie above $`\epsilon _N^F`$ are strongly hindered due to the selection rule $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N$`=0`$, N being the harmonic oscillator quantum numbers. That is, only a few second forbidden transitions ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$N$`=2`$) can occur in the case of $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{17}O`$, and it is clear that the degree of forbiddiness increases with $`A`$.

2. Nonmesonic Decay: New nonmesonic decay (NMD) channels $`\mathrm{\Lambda }NNN`$ become open inside the nucleus, where there are no pions in the final state. The corresponding transition rates can be stimulated either by protons, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_p\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Lambda }pnp)`$, or by neutrons, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Lambda }nnn)`$. The energy-momentum conservation and the Q-value are, respectively:

$`M_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`M_N\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }\epsilon _N^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_1^2}{M_N}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_2^2}{M_N}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_A^2}{AM_N}};𝐩_A=𝐩_1𝐩_2,`$
and

$`Q_{NM}=M_\mathrm{\Lambda }M_N+\epsilon _\mathrm{\Lambda }+\epsilon _N^{},`$
where $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$ are the momenta of the two outgoing nucleons. As the mean value of $`\epsilon _N^{}`$ is $`30`$ MeV one gets that $`Q_{NM}120135`$ MeV, which is basically the kinetic energy of the two particles that are ejected from the hypernucleus. This means that the nonnesonic decay process possesses a large phase space in the continuum, as is outlined in Fig. 2 for the case of the hypernucleus $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{17}O`$. The theoretical models reproduce fairly well the experimental values of the total width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_n+\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}^{\mathrm{exp}}\mathrm{\Gamma }^0`$) but the ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}\mathrm{\Gamma }_n/\mathrm{\Gamma }_p`$ ($`0.5\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}^{\mathrm{exp}}2`$) remains a puzzle.

Very often it is assumed that the hypernuclear NMD $`\mathrm{\Lambda }NNN`$ is triggered via the exchange of a virtual meson, and the obvious candidate is the one-pion-exchange (OPE) mechanism, where the strong Hamiltonian

$`_{NN\pi }^S`$ $`=`$ $`ig_{NN\pi }\overline{\psi }_N\gamma _5𝝅𝝉\psi _N,`$ (5)
(with $`g_{NN\pi }=13.4`$) accompanies the weak Hamiltonian (4). Following the pioneering investigations of Adams Ad67  several calculations have been done within this coupling scheme yielding: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}^{(\mathrm{OPE})}\mathrm{\Gamma }^0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}^{(\mathrm{OPE})}0.10.2`$ Mc84 ; Ta85 ; He86 ; Ba90 ; Co90 ; Al91 ; Ra92 ; Ra95 ; Pa95 ; Pa95a ; Du96 ; Pa97 ; Ra97 ; Os98 ; Pa98 ; In98 ; It98 ; Pa99 ; Alb00 ; Al00 ; Sa00 ; Sa00a ; Pa01 ; Os01 ; It02 ; Ba02 . The importance of the $`\rho `$ meson in the weak decay mechanism was first discussed by McKellar and Gibson Mc84 , and the present-day consensus is, however, that the effect of the $`\rho `$-meson on both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}`$ is small Pa95 ; Du96 ; Pa97 ; Os98 ; Ba02 . The full one meson-exchange model (OMEM), which encompasses all pseudoscalar mesons ($`\pi ,\eta ,K`$) and all vector mesons ($`\rho ,\omega ,K^{}`$), has been also considered by several authors Du96 ; Pa97 ; Sa00 ; Sa00a ; Pa01 ; Os01 ; Ba02 . From these works we have learned that, although the $`K`$ meson contribution significantly increases the ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}`$, the OMEM is unable to account for the corresponding experimental values.

We wish to restate that the OMEM transition potential is purely phenomenological and that it is not derived from a fundamental underlying form, as happens for instance, in the case of electro-magnetic transitions or the semileptonic weak decays. As in the case of the OPE, in the OMEM, a weak baryon-baryon-meson (BBM) coupling is always combined with a strong BBM coupling (see Fig. 4). The strong one is determined experimentally with some help from the SU(3) symmetry, and the involving uncertainties have been copiously discussed in the literature Na77 ; Ma89 ; Ha93 ; Pa94 . It is the weak BBM couplings which could become the largest source of errors. In fact, only the weak $`N\mathrm{\Lambda }\pi `$ amplitude can be taken from the experiment, at the expense of neglecting the off-mass-shell corrections. All other weak BBM couplings are derived theoretically by using $`SU(3)`$ and $`SU(6)_w`$ symmetries, octet dominance, current algebra, PCAC, pole dominance, etc. Co90 ; Du96 ; Pa97 ; De80 ; Ma69 ; To82 ; Ok82 ; Co83 ; Na88 ; Ba01 ; Ba01a . Assortments of such methods have been developed and employed for a long time in weak interaction physics to explain the hyperon nonleptonic decays. One should also keep in mind that both the strong and weak BBM couplings, as well the meson masses, can become significantly renormalized by the nuclear environment Br02 .

The nuclear structure frameworks utilized in the literature for the formal derivations of the NMD rates are: i) the nuclear matter, and ii) the nuclear shell model. There are relatively few works where the second method was employed, and up to quite recently all they were involved the technique of coefficients of fractional parentage, with the spectroscopic factors (SF) explicitly appearing in the expressions for the transition rates Ra92 ; Pa97 ; It98 ; It02 . At variance, Barbero et al.  Ba02  have developed a fully general shell model formalism and have specified it for hypernuclei with odd-mass core, such as $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{4}H`$, $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{4}He`$, $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{12}C`$, and $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{28}Si`$, were the cores are: $`{}_{}{}^{3}H`$, $`{}_{}{}^{3}He`$, $`{}_{}{}^{11}C`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{27}Si`$. Here we also discuss the hypernuclei with even-even and odd-odd number of protons and neutrons, namely $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{5}He`$ and $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{17}O`$, and $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{3}H`$, and $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{11}B`$.

## II Shell Model Formalism

The shell model framework for the NMD rates has been developed in detail in Ref. Ba02  and here we will just sketch the main steps, employing the same notation. One starts from Fermi’s Golden Rule for the decay rate,

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi {\displaystyle \underset{SM_SJ_FM_FTM_T}{}}{\displaystyle |𝐩_1𝐩_2SM_S,J_FM_F;TM_T|V|J_IM_I|^2}`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\delta (ϵ_{p_1}+ϵ_{p_2}+_F_I){\displaystyle \frac{d𝐩_1}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐩_2}{(2\pi )^3}},`$
where $`V`$ is the weak hypernuclear potential, and the wave functions for the kets $`|𝐩_1𝐩_2SM_S,J_FM_F;TM_T`$ and $`|J_IM_I`$ are assumed to be antisymmetrized and normalized. After performing: 1) the transformation to the relative and center of mass (c.m.) momenta, $`𝐩`$ and $`𝐏`$, and angular momenta $`𝐥`$ and $`𝐋`$, and 2) the angular momentum couplings: $`𝐥+𝐋=𝝀`$, $`𝝀+𝐒=𝐉`$ one obtains:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{t_N}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16M_N^3}{\pi }}\widehat{J}_I^2{\displaystyle \underset{S\lambda lLTJJ_F\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{\Delta }_F^\alpha }}𝑑ϵ\sqrt{ϵ(\mathrm{\Delta }_F^\alpha ϵ)}`$ (7)
$`\times `$ $`|{\displaystyle \underset{j_Nj_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}(pPlL\lambda SJT;j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_N,t_N)J_I||\left(a_{j_Nt_N}^{}a_{j_\mathrm{\Lambda }t_\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\right)_J||J_F^\alpha |^2,`$
where $`\widehat{J}\sqrt{2J+1}`$, $`P=2\sqrt{M_Nϵ}`$, $`p=\sqrt{M_N(\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ)}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_F^\alpha =_I_F^\alpha 2M_N`$, $`t_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1/2`$, $`t_p=1/2`$, $`t_n=1/2`$, and the label $`\alpha `$ goes over all final states with the same spin and parity. Thus, that the NMD rates, in principle, depend on both: i) the nuclear structure effects through the two-particle $`N\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ parentage coefficients $`J_I\left(a_{j_Nt_N}^{}a_{j_\mathrm{\Lambda }t_\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\right)_JJ_F`$, and on the transition potential via the elementary transition amplitudes

$`(pPlL\lambda SJT;j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_N,t_N)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}[1()^{l+S+T}]`$ (8)
$`\times `$ $`(pPlL\lambda SJ;TM_T=t_\mathrm{\Lambda }+t_N|V|j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_NJ;t_\mathrm{\Lambda }t_N).`$
Here $`(\mathrm{}|V|\mathrm{})`$ is the direct matrix element and the factor in front takes care of the antisymmetrization. To evaluate the nuclear matrix element one has to carry out the $`jjLS`$ recoupling and the Moshinsky transformation Mo59  on the ket $`|j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_NJ)`$:

$`|j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_NJ)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{j}_\mathrm{\Lambda }\widehat{j}_N{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda ^{}S^{}\mathrm{𝗇𝗅𝖭𝖫}}{}}\widehat{\lambda ^{}}\widehat{S^{}}\{\begin{array}{ccc}l_\mathrm{\Lambda }& \frac{1}{2}& j_\mathrm{\Lambda }\\ l_N& \frac{1}{2}& j_N\\ \lambda ^{}& S^{}& J\end{array}\}(\mathrm{𝗇𝗅𝖭𝖫}\lambda ^{}|n_\mathrm{\Lambda }l_\mathrm{\Lambda }n_Nl_N\lambda ^{})|\mathrm{𝗇𝗅𝖭𝖫}\lambda ^{}S^{}J),`$ (12)
where $`(\mathrm{}|\mathrm{})`$ are the Moshinsky brackets Mo59 , and $`𝗅`$ and $`𝖫`$ stand for the quantum numbers of the relative and c.m. orbital angular momenta in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }N`$ system. The explicit expressions for the transition potentials are given in the Ref. Ba02 .

When the hyperon is assumed to be weakly coupled to the $`A1`$ core, which implies that the interaction of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with core nucleons is disregarded, one has that $`|J_I|(J_Cj_\mathrm{\Lambda })J_I`$, where $`J_C`$ is the spin of the core, and gets

$`J_I\left(a_{j_Nt_N}^{}a_{j_\mathrm{\Lambda }t_\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\right)_JJ_F`$ $`=`$ $`()^{J_F+J+J_I}\widehat{J}\widehat{J}_I\{\begin{array}{ccc}J_C& J_I& j_\mathrm{\Lambda }\\ J& j_N& J_F\end{array}\}J_Ca_{j_Nt_N}^{}J_F.`$ (15)
To evaluate the one-particle spectroscopic amplitudes $`J_Ca_{j_Nt_N}^{}J_F`$ we will use the BCS approximation and, it will be assumed that the even-even, odd-even and odd-odd cores are described, respectively, as zero, one and two quasiparticle states. Correspondingly, the state $`|J_C`$ goes into $`|BCS`$, $`b_{j_1t_1}^{}|BCS`$ and $`(b_{j_1t_1}^{}b_{j_2t_2}^{})_{J_2}|BCS`$, where $`|BCS`$ is the BCS vacuum and $`b_j^{}=u_ja_j^{}v_ja_{\overline{j}}`$ is the quasiparticle creation operator Ba02 . In all three cases the NMD rate can be cast in the form:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{t_N}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j_N}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{J=|j_Nj_\mathrm{\Lambda }|}{\overset{J=j_N+j_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}}v_{j_N}^2F_J(j_Nt_N)_J(j_Nt_N),`$ (16)
where

$`_J(j_Nt_N)={\displaystyle \frac{16M_N^3}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{\Delta }_{j_Nt_N}}}𝑑ϵ\sqrt{ϵ(\mathrm{\Delta }_{j_Nt_N}ϵ)}{\displaystyle \underset{SlL\lambda T}{}}^2(pPlL\lambda SJT;j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_N,t_N),`$ (17)
and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{j_Nt_N}=M_\mathrm{\Lambda }M_N+ϵ_{j_\mathrm{\Lambda }t_\mathrm{\Lambda }}+ϵ_{j_Nt_N}.$$
(18)
The geometrical factors $`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$ are:

1. Even-Even core: $`|J_C|BCS`$,

$`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{j}_\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\widehat{J}^2`$ (19)
2. Odd-Even core: $`|J_Cb_{j_1t_1}^{}|BCS`$,

$`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{J}^2{\displaystyle \underset{J_F=|j_1j_N|}{\overset{j_1+j_N}{}}}\left[1+()^{J_F}\delta _{j_1j_N}\delta _{t_Nt_1}\right]\widehat{J}_F^2\{\begin{array}{ccc}j_1& j_N& J_F\\ J& J_I& j_\mathrm{\Lambda }\end{array}\}^2.`$ (22)
3. Odd-Odd core: $`|J_C(b_{j_1t_1}^{}b_{j_2t_2}^{})_{J_2}|BCS`$,

$`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{t_Nt_1}\widehat{J}^2\widehat{J}_2^2{\displaystyle \underset{J_F=|J_1j_2|}{\overset{J_1+j_2}{}}}\widehat{J}_F^2{\displaystyle \underset{J_1=|j_1j_N|}{\overset{j_1+j_N}{}}}\widehat{J}_1^2\left[1+()^{J_1}\delta _{j_1j_N}\delta _{t_Nt_1}\right]`$ (27)
$`\{\begin{array}{ccc}J_F& j_2& J_1\\ j_1& j_N& J_2\end{array}\}^2\{\begin{array}{ccc}J_F& J_I& J\\ j_\mathrm{\Lambda }& j_N& J_2\end{array}\}^2+(j_1t_1)(j_2t_2)`$
It is clear that in (27) $`t_2=t_1`$.

The nuclear structure manifests itself basically through the factors $`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$, which are engendered by the Pauli principle. Their values for a few cases are given in Table I. We would like to stress that the quantum numbers $`j_1t_1`$ and $`j_2t_2`$ stand for the hyperon partners in the initial state, and that $`j_N`$ runs over all proton and neutron occupied states in the initial nucleus. It is amazing to notice that the the last three equations are valid for any hypernucleus, which could be so light as $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{3}H`$ or so heavy as $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{208}Pb`$. One should also add that the Eq. (16) contains the same physics as the Eq. (5) in Ref. Pa97  or the Eq. (30) in Ref. It02 , with the advantage that we do not have to deal with spectroscopic factors. Of course, neither the initial and final wave functions are needed. From the results displayed in Table I it can be seen that in all three cases the coefficients $`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$ are of the same order of magnitude, which indicates that the nuclear structure effects in the NMD are of minor importance.

## III Numerical Results and Discussion

The numerical values of the parameters necessary to specify the transition potential, were taken from Ref. Pa97 , where, in turn, the strong couplings have been taken from Refs. Na77 ; Ma89  and the weak ones from Ref. Du96 . The energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{j_Nt_N}`$ in (18) is evaluated from the experimental single nucleon and hyperon energies. It is a general belief nowadays that, in any realistic evaluation of the hypernuclear NMD rates, the finite nucleon size (FNS) and the short range correlations (SRC) have to be included simultaneously. Therefore, in the present paper both the FNS and SRC renormalization effects are considered, in the way described in Ref. Ba02 . Under these circumstances, and because of the relative smallness of pion mass, the transition is dominated by the OPE Pa97 ; Ba02 .

The numerical calculations were done in the extreme shell model, which implies that the pairing factors $`v_{j_N}`$ were taken to be equal to one (zero) for the occupied (empty) levels. Thus, from the nuclear structure point of view, the only free parameter is the harmonic oscillator length $`b`$. We evaluate it from the relation $`b=1/\sqrt{\mathrm{}\omega M_N}`$, and the oscillator energy was estimated from the relation $`\mathrm{}\omega =45A^{1/3}25A^{2/3}`$ MeV, which is frequently used for light nuclei.

The calculations for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}`$ are confronted the experimental data in Tables 2 and in 3, respectively. Three different OMEM have been employed for the transition potential. Namely: ($`\pi `$) only the pion was taken into the account, ($`PS`$) all three pseudoscalar mesons ($`\pi +\eta +K`$) were included, and ($`PS+V`$) also the vector ($`\rho +\omega +K^{}`$) mesons are considered. The same remarks are pertinent here as in the study Ba02  where only $`{}_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}^{12}C`$ has been analyzed. That is: (1) the simple OPE model accounts for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{NM}`$, but it fails badly regarding $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}`$, (2) when $`\eta `$ and $`K`$ mesons are included, the total transition rate is only slightly modified, while $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n/p}`$ change significantly, coming somewhat closer to the measured values, and (3) the results are not drastically modified when all vector mesons are built-in.

## IV Summary and Conclusions

The shell model formalism for the nonmesonic weak decay of the hypernuclei involves a partial wave expansion of the emitted nucleon waves and preserves naturally the antisymmetrization between the escaping particles and the residual core. The general expression (7) is valid for any nuclear model and it shows that the nonmesonic transition rates should depend, in principle, on both: (i) the weak transition potential, through the elementary transition amplitudes $`(pPlL\lambda SJT;j_\mathrm{\Lambda }j_N,t_N)`$, and (ii) the nuclear structure, through the two-particle $`N\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ parentage coefficients $`J_I\left(a_{j_Nt_N}^{}a_{j_\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\right)_JJ_F`$. The latter explicitly depend on the initial and final wave functions. Yet, as explained in Ref. Ba02 , and because of: a) the inclusive nature of the nonmesonic decay, and b) the peculiar properties of the coefficients $`F_J(j_Nt_N)`$, this dependence is washed out. In this way we have arrived at a very simple result for transition rates, given by the Eq. (16), which is valid, not only for the hypernuclei with odd-even core (as shown previously Ba02 ), but also for those which have even-even and odd-odd cores, which has been demonstrated here.

We reproduce satisfactorily the data for the total transition rates with the OMEM parametrization from the literature Pa97 , but the $`n/p`$-ratios are not well accounted for. Thus, after having acquired full control of the nuclear structure involved in the process, and after having convinced ourselves that the nuclear structure correlations can not play a crucial role, we firmly believe that the currently used OMEM should be radically changed. Either its parametrization has to be modified or additional degrees of freedom have to be incorporated, such as the factorizable terms Fis73 , the axial-vector-meson exchanges Bir96 , or the correlated the correlated $`2\pi `$ from Ref. It02 .

The authors acknowledge the support of ANPCyT (Argentina) under grant BID 1201/OC-AR (PICT 03-04296), of CONICET under grant PIP 463, of Fundación Antorchas (Argentina) under grant 13740/01-111, and of Croatian Ministry of Science and Technology under grant $`\mathrm{\#}`$ 119222. D.T. thanks the Abdus Salam ICTP Visiting Scholar programme for travel fares. F.K. is a Fellow of the CONICET Argentina. We would like to thank A.P. Galeão, C. Barbero and E. Bauer for very helpful and illuminating discussions.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Heavy ion physics opens the unique opportunity to explore the nuclear equation of state (EOS) far away from saturation, i.e. at high densities and at non zero temperatures. Investigations of nuclear matter under such extreme conditions are crucial for the understanding of the universe, its evolution and the formation of the elements, and the evolution of massive stars, supernovae and neutron stars.

The intensive study of heavy ion collisions has became possible by the introduction of new generations of accelerators and detectors, which allow to study collisions of heavy nuclei from Fermi energies up to high relativistic energies of a few hundred $`GeV`$ per nucleon with an almost complete characterization of the reaction products of the space-time events.

Inspite of the theoretical efforts over the last three decades (see ref. ) the determination of the EOS in heavy ion reactions is still an object of current debate. Comparisons with experiments seem to favor a nuclear EOS with an incompressibility of $`K230MeV`$ and with a moderate density dependence at high densities (soft EOS). In particular, a difficultly in the determination of the nuclear EOS is the fact that the nuclear matter is to a large extent far away from local equilibrium in a heavy ion collision. These non-equilibrium effects are a main feature of energetic nuclear collisions, and govern the dynamics of the reaction with relaxation times comparable to the compression phase of the process . These effects originate from an anisotropy in momentum space and lead to effective fields which are different from the ground state .

In this contribution we discuss the origin of non-equilibrium features, their influence on the nuclear matter EOS and the consequences when drawing conclusions on the nuclear EOS from comparisons with experiments in terms of collective flow effects.

## 2 The nuclear EOS: from nuclear matter to heavy ion collisions

The theoretical concept of the description of nuclear matter (NM) is given in an effective relativistic quantum field theory, Quantumhadrodynamics (QHD) . It is formulated in terms of baryon and meson fields as the important non-perturbative degrees of freedom of QCD. A relativistic treatment is attractive since it yields a natural description of characteristic features of NM, such as the appereance of strong attractive scalar and repulsive vector fields which naturally account for the saturation mechanism and for the strong spin-orbit potential. Relativity also leads to effectively energy dependent fields, which are crucial for nucleon-nucleus reactions and also heavy ion collisions. The effective Lagrangian of QHD involving baryon and meson fields is given by (for brevity, only scalar $`\sigma `$ and vector $`\omega ^\mu `$ meson fields are considered here)

$`_{QHD}`$ $`=`$ $`_B+_M+_{int}`$
$`_B`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(i\gamma _\mu ^\mu M)\mathrm{\Psi }`$
$`_M`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_\mu \sigma ^\mu \sigma m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }m_\omega ^2\omega _\alpha \omega ^\alpha `$
$`_{int}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\gamma _\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }\omega ^\alpha ,`$ (1)
with $`F^{\mu \nu }=^\mu \omega ^\nu ^\nu \omega ^\mu `$ the field tensor. The mesons $`\sigma `$ and vector $`\omega ^\mu `$ are coupled in a minimal way to the nucleons via effective couplings $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\sigma `$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$, respectively.

Different approximations have been used for the solution of eq. (1) in nuclear matter. The most popular one is the Hartree or Relativistic Mean Field (RMF) approach where the meson fields are treated classically . A more realistic treatment is the Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock (DBHF) theory, in which exchange terms and higher order correlations within a $`𝒯`$-Matrix or ladder approximation are taken into account . The success of DBHF theory was in the unified description of nucleon-nucleon (NN) scattering and saturation properties of nuclear matter which was not possible in non-relativistic approaches, except by including $`3`$-body forces. The nucleonic mean field potential is given in terms of self energies by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{DBHF}(p,p_F)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(p,p_F)\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }^\mu (p,p_F),$$
(2)
with scalar and vector components $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s,\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mu `$ depending on density $`\rho (p_F)`$ and for energies higher that the Fermi energy on momentum $`p`$. For NM the DBHF theory is parameter free, since it is based on a model for the bare NN interaction given by boson exchange potentials . This is in contrast to phenomenological approaches, where several parameters are adjusted to NM saturation properties.

The application of DBHF theory to finite nuclei has been formulated in a Density Dependent Hadronic (DDH) field theory , where the self energies are parametrized in Hartree form by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_s=\mathrm{\Gamma }_s(p,p_F)\rho _s(p_F)\text{,}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mu =\mathrm{\Gamma }_0(p,p_F)j_\mu ,$$
(3)
with density and momentum dependent vertex functions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{s,0}`$ that replace the constant values of the RMF approach ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{s,0}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma ,\omega }^2/m_{\sigma ,\omega }^2`$). They effectively contain exchange and correlation effects of the DBHF theory.

Fig. 1 compares the density dependence of the ground state EOS obtained from different models, which show a similar density behavior around saturation, but signifigant differences at high densities. The density dependence of the EOS at supra-normal densities can be regarded as an extrapolation which is tested in heavy ion collisions, where high compressions of the matter are reached.

However, the determination of the nuclear matter EOS from heavy ion collisions is only indirect, because it contains fields corresponding to non-equilibrium colliding matter. Thus one does not, in fact, see the equilibrated nuclear matter EOS directly in heavy ion collisions.

Equilibrated nuclear matter is characterized by an isotropic spherical momentum distribution. This is not the case in the dynamical situations of heavy ion collisions. This is seen in Fig. 2 in terms of the transversal and longitudinal components of the local central pressure, obtained in calculations with a transport equation, as described in the next section.

The anisotropy in the pressure components indicates that the matter is locally not equilibrated, except at the late stage of the procces ($`t>30fm/c`$). Indeed, the relaxation times are large and comparable with the compression phase of the collision (see time evolution of the central density in 2). Therefore, it is important to first study possible influences of phase space anisotropies on the nuclear matter EOS before making comparisons with experiments.

The investigation of non-equilibrium effects on the level of the effective mean fields has been done by considering two models: a Local Density and a Colliding Nuclear Matter approximations, denoted as LDA and CNM respectively. In the LDA the EOS and the corresponding fields are those of equilibrated matter decribed by an isotropic momentum distribution. The mean field $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(p_F,p)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_s(p_F,p)\gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }^\mu (p_F,p)`$ depends on a density $`\rho (E_F)`$ and for energies above the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ on momentum $`p`$ relative to the rest system of nuclear matter. The density dependence has been taken from phenomenological (Walecka, DDH) or microscopic (DBHF) models. The momentum dependence is also naturally provided from the DBHF theory, whereas in the DDH approach it has been adjusted to the energy dependence of the Schrödinger equivalent optical potential in nucleon-nucleus scattering . The fields of the non-linear Walecka model (NL2) do not depend on energy.

In the CNM model the anisotropy of momentum space is modeled by that of two covariant Fermi-ellipsoids, i.e. two interpenetrating currents of nuclear matter (see Fig. 3) $`f_{CNM}(p_{F_1},p_{F_2},v_{rel})=f_1(p_{F_1})+f_2(p_{F_2})+\delta f(p_{F_{1,2}},v_{rel})`$ where the last term takes Pauli effects into account. This representation of phase space anisotropies is motivated from microscopic calculations of heavy ion collisions .

The mean field is then given (e.g. for the scalar part) approximately by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^{CNM}(p,p_F;v_{rel})=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{s1}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1p,p_{F_1})+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{s2}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_2^1p,p_{F_2})+\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{1,2}^1p,p_{F_{1,2}},v_{rel}),$$
(4)
i.e. as a superposition of self energies of the nucleon with respect to the two currents taking into account the Lorentz transformations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{1,2}`$ for the momenta and the Pauli correction in the overlap region ($`\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }`$). This ensures the correct limit to the LDA of one Fermi-sphere, i.e. $`CNM\stackrel{v_{rel}0}{}LDA`$. As a further approximation an average of the $`p`$-dependent quantities $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{s,0,v,\mathrm{}}^{CNM}`$ over the CNM configuration leads to fields depending only on the configuration parameters, i.e. the two Fermi momenta $`p_{F_{1,2}}`$ and the relative velocity $`v_{rel}`$ .

The energy-momentum tensor $`T^{\mu \nu }`$ is given in terms of the CNM fields by

$`T^{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`<p^\mu p^\nu /E^{}>_{CNM}<p^\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }^{CNM\nu }/E^{}>_{CNM}`$ (5)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }\left[<\mathrm{\Sigma }_sm^{}/E^{}>_{CNM}<p^\lambda \mathrm{\Sigma }_\lambda ^{CNM}/E^{}>_{CNM}\right],`$
where $`<\mathrm{}>_{CNM}`$ means the average over the CNM momentum space. The energy per nucleon $`E^{CNM}(\rho _{tot},v_{rel})=T^{00}/\rho _{tot}M`$ depends on the total invariant density $`\rho _{tot}=\sqrt{j_{tot\alpha }j_{tot}^\alpha }`$ and the relative velocity $`v_{rel}`$. However, the total energy $`E^{CNM}`$ contains contributions from the energy of the relative motion of the two currents. A meaningful discussion of non-equilibrium effects with respect to the ground state EOS should be based on the binding energy and thus it is reasonable to subtract contributions from the relative motion of the two currents $`E_{rel}`$. $`E_{rel}`$ can be relativistically defined as the difference of the kinetic energy of the CNM system and the corresponding LDA configuration at twice the subsystem density $`2\rho `$

$$E_{rel}(\rho _{tot},v_{rel})=<\sqrt{p^2+m^2}m^{}>_{CNM}<\sqrt{p^2+m^2}m^{}>_{v_{rel}=0}.$$
(6)
By definition $`E_{rel}`$ contains the kinetic energy arising from the separation of the Fermi-spheres in momentum space. It accounts for the interaction between the two currents by the presence of the effective mass in eq. (6). One should note that eq. (6) is the natural definition of a relativistic kinetic energy of the relative motion of two interacting currents and contains, in particular, the correct non-relativistic limit .

Now one is able to construct an effective bound energy of colliding nuclear matter $`E_{CNM}^{bind}(\rho _{tot},v_{rel})`$

$$E_{CNM}^{bind}(\rho _{tot},v_{rel})=\frac{T^{00}E_{rel}}{\rho _{tot}}M,$$
(7)
which relates colliding to ground state nuclear matter. $`E_{CNM}^{bind}`$ is displayed in Fig. 4 for different models. The case $`v_{rel}=0`$ is the correct limit for LDA. With increasing $`v_{rel}`$ we observe a softening of the effective EOS in terms of an increase of the binding energy at $`\rho _{tot}\rho _{sat}`$ and a decrease of $`E_{CNM}^{bind}`$ at high densities ($`\rho _{tot}>>\rho _{sat}`$) with respect to the ground state EOS (solid curves in Fig. 4). The softening of the effective EOS occurs in all the models investigated and can be explained by (a) a decrease of the fields $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{s,0,v,\mathrm{}}^{CNM}`$ with density and momentum, see eq. (4), (b) a reduction of the Fermi pressure (not shown here) in transverse direction and (c) an enlarged scalar attraction with increasing relative velocity . It is important that the differences between the non-equilibrium and the ground state EOS are of the same magnitude as the differences of the ground state EOS for different models, see e.g. Fig. 1. Thus we conclude that one should take non-equilibrium effects into account when determining the EOS in heavy ion collisions. In the next section we investigate the non-equilibrium effects in transport calculations of heavy ion collisions in terms of collective flow observables.

## 3 Heavy ion collisions

Heavy ion collisions have been described by covariant transport equations of a Boltzmann type (details can be found in refs.  ):

$`\left[\left(m^{}_x^\mu m^{}p^\nu _x^\mu p_\nu ^{}\right)_\mu ^p\left(m^{}_p^\mu m^{}p^\nu _p^\mu p_\nu ^{}\right)_\mu ^x\right]f(x,𝐩)`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p_2}{E_{p_2}^{}(2\pi )^3}\frac{d^4p_3}{E_{p_3}^{}(2\pi )^3}\frac{d^4p_4}{E_{p_4}^{}(2\pi )^3}W(pp_2|p_3p_4)(2\pi )^4\delta ^4\left(p+p_2p_3p_4\right)}`$
$`\times [f(x,𝐩_3)f(x,𝐩_4)(1f(x,𝐩))(1f(x,𝐩_2))`$
$`f(x,𝐩)f(x,𝐩_2)(1f(x,𝐩_3))(1f(x,𝐩_4))],`$ (8)
with effective quantities $`p^\mu =p^\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }^\mu `$ and $`m^{}=M\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$. It describes the evolution of the phase space density $`f(x,p)`$ under the influence of a mean field in the left hand side of eq. (8) and on the right hand side of $`2`$-body collisions determined by energy and isospin dependent NN-cross sections $`\sigma _{NN}W(pp_2|p_3p_4)`$ for the procces $`p+p_2p_3+p_4`$. The Pauli principle is taken into account for the final states by the terms $`(1f)`$. The NN-cross section is taken from empirical NN-scattering data. Also inelastic channels are taken into account as the production of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`N^{}`$ resonances with their decay in $`1`$\- and $`2`$-pion channels . The EOS enters into the theoretical descriptions of heavy ion reactions via the self energies.

We have applied the approximations discussed in the previous section, the LDA and CNM approaches, in transport calculations using eq. (8). In the LDA model the ground state EOS enters directly into the transport equation neglecting non-equilibrium effects, whereas in the CNM model the effective EOS including the momentum space anisotropies is considered in eq. (8). In the latter case the CNM parameters, i.e. the invariants $`\rho _1,\rho _2,v_{rel}`$, are determined directly from the phase space density $`f(x,p)`$ at each position and in each time step of the simulation.

We discuss the results of transport simulations in terms of collective flows, which have been found to be sensitive to the density and, particularly, momentum dependence of the mean field . The collective flow is characterized by a Fourier series of the azimuthal distribution of nucleons for given rapidity $`y`$ and total transverse momentum $`p_t`$, $`N(\varphi ,y,p_t)=N_0(1+v_1cos\varphi +v_2cos2\varphi \mathrm{})`$, where $`v_1`$ and $`v_2`$ are called transverse and elliptic flow, respectively. As an example, Fig. 5 shows the energy dependence of the elliptic flow at mid-rapidity ($`|\mathrm{\Delta }y|0.15`$) for peripheral $`Au+Au`$ collisions. With the cut in the rapidity $`y=\frac{E+p_z}{Ep_z}`$ one selects particles from the hot and compressed matter in the central region of the reaction, from which one intends to extract information on the nuclear EOS. Thus the elliptic flow describes the dynamics of the compressed fireball perpendicular to the beam direction. It probes the high density behavior of the nucleonic fields, i.e. their stiffness, which gives rise to a squeeze-out of the compressed matter perpendicular to the beam direction. An enhancement of the elliptic flow is correlated to a stiffer EOS. The calculations in Fig. 5 were performed with one of the models of the previous section, i.e. the DBHF results of the Tübingen group  treated in the LDA and in the CNM approximations. The two different treatments which are based on identical nuclear forces for ground state matter yield significantly different results for the elliptic flow. Since this observable is particularly sensitive to the EOS at high densities , these effects are most pronounced here. In the LDA approach one would have excluded the underlying EOS from the comparison to data as too stiff. The more consistent treatment of momentum space anisotropies on the level of the effective interaction leads to the net softening of the effective EOS discussed above and restores the agreement with experimental data. Similar effects are observed for other models, e.g. those of the previous section, and other components of collective flow not shown here .

Other examples of collective flow effects are shown in Fig. 6 with respect to the transverse momentum dependence $`p_t^{(0)}`$. High $`p_t^{(0)}`$-values correspond to highly energetic particles originating from the compressed matter in an early stage of the reaction and thus directly carry information about the high density behavior of the EOS. The DBT calculations with a relatively soft EOS also yield a smoother $`p_t^{(0)}`$-dependence of the collective flows closer to the data than the DBHM calculations. This effect, which is observed also for other energies, is consistent with Figs. 4 and 5 indicating that a moderate dependence of the nuclear matter EOS at high densities seems more realistic (similar effects have been found with the phenomenological DDH model).

## 4 Conclusions

The early and high density phases of relativistic heavy ion collisions are to a large extent governed by highly anisotropic phase space configurations far from local equilibrium, which can be approximated by counter-streaming or colliding nuclear matter configurations. In this contribution we discussed the implications for the effective EOS which occurs in such non-equilibrium configurations and found them to be important. The anisotropy in momentum space leads to a softening of the non-equilibrium EOS with essential deviations compared to the ground state EOS. CNM calculations with different effective interactions for the mean field have shown the general features of this effect. In calculations of energetic heavy ion collisions, where the mean field were considered in the local density (LDA) and in the more realistic CNM approximations, the effective softening of the non-equilibrium EOS was observable in terms of collective flow effects. The differences in the flow signals are found to be comparable to those of the nuclear matter EOS for different models. We conclude that for a reliable determination of the nuclear matter equation of state from heavy ion collisions the non-equilibrium features of the phase space must be taken into account on the level of the effective fields. The results seem to be consistent with a moderate dependence on momentum of the nuclear matter EOS at high densities. With the successful applications of microscopic models to nuclear matter, finite nuclei and heavy ion collisions one expects to move towards a unification of the description of very different nuclear systems and to a determination of the EOS of nuclear matter.


text:
# Smoothed Analysis of Algorithms

## 1. Introduction

The most common theoretical approach to understanding the behavior of algorithms is worst-case analysis. In worst-case analysis, one proves a bound on the worst possible performance an algorithm can have. A triumph of the Algorithms community has been the proof that many algorithms have good worst-case performance—a strong guarantee that is desirable in many applications. However, there are many algorithms that work exceedingly well in practice, but which are known to perform poorly in the worst-case or lack good worst-case analyses. In an attempt to rectify this discrepancy between theoretical analysis and observed performance, researchers introduced the average-case analysis of algorithms. In average-case analysis, one bounds the expected performance of an algorithm on random inputs. While a proof of good average-case performance provides evidence that an algorithm may perform well in practice, it can rarely be understood to explain the good behavior of an algorithm in practice. A bound on the performance of an algorithm under one distribution says little about its performance under another distribution, and may say little about the inputs that occur in practice. Smoothed analysis is a hybrid of worst-case and average-case analyses that inherits advantages of both.

In the formulation of smoothed analysis used in , we measure the maximum over inputs of the expected running time of a simplex algorithm under slight random perturbations of those inputs. To see how this measure compares with worst-case and average-case analysis, let $`X_n`$ denote the space of linear-programming problems of length $`n`$ and let $`𝒯(x)`$ denote the running time of the simplex algorithm on input $`x`$. Then, the worst-case complexity of the simplex algorithm is the function

$$𝒞_{worst}(n)=\underset{xX_n}{\mathrm{max}}𝒯(x),$$

and the average-case complexity of the algorithm is

$$𝒞_{ave}(n)=𝐄_{rX_n}𝒯(r),$$

under some suitable distribution on $`X_n`$. In contrast, the smoothed complexity of the simplex algorithm is the function

$$𝒞_{smooth}(n,\sigma )=\underset{x}{\mathrm{max}}𝐄_{rX_n}𝒯(x+\sigma xr),$$

where $`r`$ is chosen according to some distribution, such as a Gaussian. In this case $`\sigma xr`$ is a Gaussian random vector of standard deviation $`\sigma x`$. We multiply by $`x`$ so that we can relate the magnitude of the perturbation to the magnitude of that which it perturbs.

In the smoothed analysis of algorithms, we measure the expected performance of algorithms under slight random perturbations of worst-case inputs. More formally, we consider the maximum over inputs of the expected performance of algorithms under slight random perturbations of those inputs. We then express this expectation as a function of the input size and the magnitude of the perturbation. While an algorithm with a good worst-case analysis will perform well on all inputs, an algorithm with a good smoothed analysis will perform well on almost all inputs in every small neighborhood of inputs. Smoothed analysis makes sense for algorithms whose inputs are subject to slight amounts of noise in their low-order digits, which is typically the case if they are derived from measurements of real-world phenomena. If an algorithm takes such inputs and has a good smoothed analysis, then it is unlikely that it will encounter an input on which it performs poorly. The name “smoothed analysis” comes from the observation that if one considers the running time of an algorithm as a function from inputs to time, then the smoothed complexity of the algorithm is the highest peak in the plot of this function after it is convolved with a small Gaussian.

In our paper introducing smoothed analysis, we proved that the simplex method has polynomial smoothed complexity . The simplex method, which has been the most popular method of solving linear programs since the late 1940’s, is the canonical example of a practically useful algorithm that could not be understood theoretically. While it was known to work very well in practice, contrived examples on which it performed poorly proved that it had horrible worst-case complexity. The average-case complexity of the simplex method was proved to be polynomial , but this result was not considered to explain the performance of the algorithm in practice.

## 2. The simplex method for linear programming

We recall that a linear programming problem can be written in the form

maximize $`x^Tc`$ (2.1)
subject to $`x^Ta_ib_i,\text{ for }1in\text{,}`$
where $`c\mathrm{IR}^d`$, $`a_i\mathrm{IR}^d`$ and $`b_i\mathrm{IR}`$, for $`1in`$ In , we bound the smoothed complexity of a particular two-phase simplex method that uses the shadow-vertex pivot rule to solve linear programs in this form.

We recall that the constraints of the linear program, that $`x^Ta_ib_i`$, confine $`x`$ to a (possibly open) polytope, and that the solution to the linear program is a vertex of this polytope. Simplex methods work by first finding some vertex of the polytope, and then walking along the 1-faces of the polytope from vertex to vertex, improving the objective function at each step. The pivot rule of a simplex algorithm dictates which vertex the algorithm should walk to when it has many to choose from. The shadow-vertex method is inspired by the simplicity of the simplex method in two-dimensions: in two-dimensions, the polytope is a polygon and the choice of next vertex is always unique. To lift this simplicity to higher dimensions, the shadow-vertex simplex method considers the orthogonal projection of the polytope defined by the constraints onto a two-dimensional space. The method then walks along the vertices of the polytope that are the pre-images of the vertices of the shadow polygon. By taking the appropriate shadow, it is possible to guarantee that the vertex optimizing the objective function will be encountered during this walk. Thus, the running time of the algorithm may be bounded by the number of vertices lying on the shadow polygon. Our first step in proving a bound on this number is a smoothed analysis of the number of vertices in a shadow. For example, we prove the bound:

Theorem 2.1 (Shadow Size) Let $`d3`$ and $`n>d`$. Let $`c`$ and $`t`$ be independent vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$, and let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ be Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2\frac{1}{9d\mathrm{log}n}`$ centered at points each of norm at most $`1`$. Then, the expected number of vertices of the shadow polygon formed by the projection of $`\{x:x^Ta_i1\}`$ onto $`\text{Span}(t,c)`$ is at most

$$\frac{58,888,678nd^3}{\sigma ^6}.$$
(2.2)
This bound does not immediately lead to a bound on the running time of a shadow-vertex method as it assumes that $`t`$ and $`c`$ are fixed before the $`a_i`$s are chosen, while in a simplex method the plane on which the shadow is followed depends upon the $`a_i`$s. However, we are able to use the shadow size bound as a black-box to prove for a particular randomized two-phase shadow vertex simplex method:

Theorem 2.2 (Simplex Method) Let $`d3`$ and $`nd+1`$. Let $`c\mathrm{IR}^d`$ and $`b\{1,1\}^n`$. Let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ be Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2\frac{1}{9d\mathrm{log}n}`$ centered at points each of norm at most $`1`$. Then the expected number of simplex steps taken by the two-phase shadow-vertex simplex algorithm to solve the program specified by $`b`$, $`c`$, and $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ is at most

$$(nd/\sigma )^{O(1)},$$

where the expectation is over the choice of $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ and the random choices made by the algorithm.

While the proofs of Theorems 2.1 and 2.2 are quite involved, we can provide the reader with this intuition for Theorem 2.1: after perturbation, most of the vertices of the polytope defined by the linear program have an angle bounded away from flat. This statement is not completely precise because “most” should be interpreted under a measure related to the chance a vertex appears in the shadow, as opposed to counting the number of vertices. Also, there are many ways of measuring high-dimensional angles, and different approaches are used in different parts of the proof. However, this intuitive statement tells us that most vertices on the shadow polygon should have angle bounded away from flat, which means that there cannot be too many of them.

One way in which angles of vertices are measured is by the condition number of their defining equations. A vertex of the polytope is given by a set of equations of the form

$$Cx=b.$$

The condition number of $`C`$ is defined to be

$$\kappa (C)=CC^1,$$

where we recall that

$$C=\underset{x}{\mathrm{max}}\frac{Cx}{x}$$

and that

$$C^1=\underset{x}{\mathrm{min}}\frac{Cx}{x}.$$

The condition number is a measure of the sensitivity of $`x`$ to changes in $`C`$ and $`b`$, and is also a normalized measure of the distance of $`C`$ to the set of singular matrices. For more information on the condition number of a matrix, we refer the reader to one of . Condition numbers play a fundamental role in Numerical Analysis, which we will now discuss.

## 3. Smoothed complexity framework for numerical analysis

The condition number of a problem instance is generally defined to be the sensitivity of the output to slight perturbations of the problem instance. In Numerical Analysis, one often bounds the running time of an iterative algorithm in terms of the condition number of its input. Classical examples of algorithms subject to such analyses include Newton’s method for root finding and the conjugate gradient method of solving systems of linear equations. For example, the number of iterations taken by the method of conjugate gradients is proportional to the square root of the condition number. Similarly, the running times of interior-point methods have been bounded in terms of condition numbers .

Blum  suggested that a complexity theory of numerical algorithms should be parameterized by the condition number of an input in addition to the input size. Smale  proposed a complexity theory of numerical algorithms in which one:

1. proves a bound on the running time of an algorithm solving a problem in terms of its condition number, and then
2. proves that it is unlikely that a random problem instance has large condition number.

This program is analogous to the average-case complexity of Theoretical Computer Science and hence shares the same shortcoming in modeling practical performance of numerical algorithms.

To better model the inputs that occur in practice, we propose replacing step 2 of Smale’s program with

1. prove that for every input instance it is unlikely that a slight random perturbation of that instance has large condition number.

That is, we propose to bound the smoothed value of the condition number. In contrast with the average-case analysis of condition numbers, our analysis can be interpreted as demonstrating that if there is a little bit of imprecision or noise in the input, then it is unlikely it is ill-conditioned. The combination of step 2’ with step 1 of Smale’s program provides a simple framework for performing smoothed analysis of numerical algorithms whose running time can be bounded by the condition number of the input.

## 4. Condition numbers of matrices

One of the most fundamental condition numbers is the condition number of matrices defined at the end of Section 2. In his paper, “The probability that a numerical analysis problem is difficult”, Demmel  proved that it is unlikely that a Gaussian random matrix centered at the origin has large condition number. Demmel’s bounds on the condition number were improved by Edelman . As bounds on the norm of a random matrix are standard, we focus on the norm of the inverse, for which Edelman proved:

Theorem 4.1 (Edelman) Let $`G`$ be a $`d`$-by-$`d`$ matrix of independent Gaussian random variables of variance $`1`$ and mean $`0`$. Then,

$$\text{Pr}\left[G^1>t\right]\frac{\sqrt{d}}{t}.$$

We obtain a smoothed analogue of this bound in work with Sankar . That is, we show that for every matrix it is unlikely that the slight perturbation of that matrix has large condition number. The key technical statement is:

Theorem 4.2 (Sankar-Spielman-Teng) Let $`\overline{A}`$ be an arbitrary $`d`$-by-$`d`$ Real matrix and $`A`$ a matrix of independent Gaussian random variables centered at $`\overline{A}`$, each of variance $`\sigma ^2`$. Then

$$\text{Pr}\left[A^1>x\right]<1.823\frac{\sqrt{d}}{x\sigma }$$

In contrast with the techniques used by Demmel and Edelman, the techniques used in the proof of Theorem 4.2 are geometric and completely elementary. We now give the reader a taste of these techniques by proving the simpler:

Theorem 4.3  Let $`\overline{A}`$ be an arbitrary $`d`$-by-$`d`$ Real matrix and $`A`$ a matrix of independent Gaussian random variables centered at $`\overline{A}`$, each of variance $`\sigma ^2`$. Then,

$$\text{Pr}\left[A^1x\right]d^{3/2}/x\sigma .$$

The first step of the proof is to relate $`A^1`$ to a geometric quantity of the vectors in the matrix $`A`$. The second step is to bound the probability of a configuration under which this geometric quantity is small. The geometric quantity is given by:

Definition For $`d`$ vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$, $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_d`$, define

$$\text{height}(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)=\underset{i}{\mathrm{min}}\text{dist}(a_i,\text{Span}(a_1,\mathrm{},\widehat{a_i},\mathrm{},a_d)).$$

Lemma 4.5 For $`d`$ vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$, $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_d`$,

$$(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)^1\sqrt{d}/\text{height}\left(A\right).$$

Proof. Let $`t`$ be a unit vector such that

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}t_ia_i=1/(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)^1.$$

Without loss of generality, let $`t_1`$ be the largest entry of $`t`$ in absolute value, so $`\left|t_1\right|1/\sqrt{d}`$. Then, we have

$`a_1+{\displaystyle \underset{i=2}{\overset{d}{}}}(t_i/t_1)a_i`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{n}/(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)^1`$
$`\text{dist}(a_1,\text{Span}(a_2,\mathrm{},a_d))`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{d}/(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)^1.\mathrm{}`$
Proof of Theorem 4.3. Let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_d`$ denote the columns of $`A`$. Lemma 4.5 tells us that if $`A^1x`$, then $`\text{height}(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)`$ is less than $`\sqrt{d}/x`$. For each $`i`$, the probability that the height of $`a_i`$ above $`\text{Span}(a_1,\mathrm{},\widehat{a_i},\mathrm{},a_d)`$ is less than $`\sqrt{d}/x`$ is at most

$$\sqrt{d}/x\sigma .$$

Thus,

$`\text{Pr}\left[\text{height}(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)<\sqrt{d}/x\right]`$
$``$ $`\text{Pr}[i:\text{dist}(a_i,\text{Span}(a_1,\mathrm{},\widehat{a_i},\mathrm{},a_n))<\sqrt{d}/x]`$
$`<`$ $`n^{3/2}/x\sigma ;`$
so,

$$\text{Pr}[(a_1,\mathrm{},a_d)^1>x]<d^{3/2}/x\sigma .\mathrm{}$$

Conjecture 1 Let $`\overline{A}`$ be an arbitrary $`d`$-by-$`d`$ Real matrix and $`A`$ a matrix of independent Gaussian random variables centered at $`\overline{A}`$, each of variance $`\sigma ^2`$. Then

$$\text{Pr}\left[A^1>x\right]<\frac{\sqrt{d}}{x\sigma }.$$

## 5. Smoothed condition numbers of linear programs

The Perceptron algorithm solves linear programs of the following simple form:

> Given a set of points $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$, find a vector $`x`$ such that $`a_i|x>0`$ for all $`i`$, if one exists.

One can define the condition number of the Perceptron problem to be the reciprocal of the “wiggle room” of the input. That is, let $`S=\{x:a_i|x>0,i\}`$ and

$$\nu (a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)=\underset{xS}{\mathrm{max}}\left(\underset{i}{\mathrm{min}}\frac{\left|a_i|x\right|}{a_ix}\right).$$

Then, the condition number of Perceptron problem is defined to be $`1/\nu (a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)`$.

The Perceptron algorithm works as follows: (1) Initialize $`x=\mathrm{𝟎}`$; (2) Select any $`a_i`$ such that $`a_i|x0`$ and set $`x=x+a_i/a_i`$; (3) while $`xS`$, go back to step (2).

Using the following two lemmas, Blum and Dunagan  obtained a smoothed analysis of the Perceptron algorithm.

Theorem 5.1 (Block-Novikoff) On input $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$, the perceptron algorithm terminates in at most $`1/(\nu (a_1,\mathrm{},a_n))^2`$ iterations.

Theorem 5.2 (Blum-Dunagan) Let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ be Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2<1/(2d)`$ centered at points each of norm at most $`1`$. Then,

$$\text{Pr}\left[\frac{1}{\nu (a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)}>t\right]\frac{nd^{1.5}}{\sigma t}\mathrm{log}\frac{\sigma t}{d^{1.5}}.$$

Setting $`t=\frac{nd^{1.5}\mathrm{log}(n/\delta )}{\delta \sigma }`$, Blum and Dunagan concluded

Theorem 5.3 (Blum-Dunagan) Let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ be Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2<1/(2d)`$ centered at points each of norm at most $`1`$. Then, there exists a constant $`c`$ such that the probability that the perceptron takes more than $`\frac{cd^3n^2\mathrm{log}^2(n/\delta )}{\delta ^2\sigma ^2}`$ iterations is at most $`\delta `$.

In his seminal work, Renegar  defines the condition of a linear program to be the normalized reciprocal of its distance to the set of ill-posed linear programs, where an ill-posed program is one that can be made both feasible and infeasible or bounded and unbounded by arbitrarily small changes to its constraints.

Renegar proved the following theorem.

Theorem 5.4 (Renegar) There is an interior point method such that, on input a linear program specified by $`(A,b,c)`$ and an $`ϵ>0`$, it will terminate in

$$O(\sqrt{n+d}\mathrm{log}(\kappa (A,b,c)/ϵ)$$

iterations and return either a solution within $`ϵ`$ of the optimal or a certificate that the linear program is infeasible or unbounded.

With Dunagan, we recently proved the following smoothed bound on the condition number of a linear program :

Theorem 5.5 (Dunagan-Spielman-Teng) For any $`\sigma ^2<1/(nd)`$, let $`A=(a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)`$ be a set of Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2`$ centered at points $`\overline{a}_1,\mathrm{},\overline{a}_n`$, let $`b`$ be a Gaussian random vector in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2`$ centered at $`\overline{b}`$ and let $`c`$ be a Gaussian random vector in $`\mathrm{IR}^n`$ of variance $`\sigma ^2`$ centered at $`\overline{c}`$ such that $`_{i=1}^n\overline{a}_i^2+\overline{b}^2+\overline{c}^21`$. Then

$$\text{Pr}_{A,b,c}\left[C(A,b,c)>t\right]<\frac{2^{14}n^2d^{3/2}}{\sigma ^2t}\mathrm{log}^2\frac{2^{10}n^2d^{3/2}t}{\sigma ^2},$$

and hence

$$\text{E}_{A,b,c}\left[\mathrm{log}C(A,b,c)\right]21+3\mathrm{log}(nd/\sigma ).$$

Combining these two theorem, we have

Theorem 5.6 (Smoothed Complexity of Interior Point Methods) Let $`\sigma `$ and $`(A,b,c)`$ be as given in Theorem 5.5, Then, Renegar’s interior point method solves the linear program specified by $`(A,b,c)`$ to within precision $`ϵ`$ in expected

$$O\left(\sqrt{n+d}(21+3\mathrm{log}(nd/\sigma ϵ))\right)$$

iterations.

## 6. Two open problems

As the norm of the inverse of matrix is such a fundamental quantity, it is natural to ask how the norms of the inverses of the $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{d}\right)`$ $`d`$-by-$`d`$ square sub-matrices of a $`d`$-by-$`n`$ matrix behave. Moreover, a crude bound on the probability that many of these are large is a dominant term in the analysis of complexity of the simplex method in . The bound obtained in that paper is:

Lemma 6.1 Let $`a_1,\mathrm{},a_n`$ be Gaussian random vectors in $`\mathrm{IR}^d`$ of variance $`\sigma ^21/9d\mathrm{log}n`$ centered at points of norm at most $`1`$. For $`I\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{[n]}{d}\right)`$ a $`d`$-set, let $`X_I`$ denote the indicator random variable that is 1 if

$$[a_i:iI]^1\frac{\sigma ^2}{8d^{3/2}n^7}.$$

Then,

$$\text{Pr}_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}\left[\frac{d}{2}\underset{I}{}X_I<\frac{nd1}{2}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{d1}\right)\right]1n^dn^{n+d1}n^{2.9d+1}.$$

Clearly, one should be able to prove a much stronger bound than that stated here, and thereby improve the bounds on the smoothed complexity of the simplex method.

While much is known about the condition numbers of random matrices drawn from continuous distributions, much less is known about matrices drawn from discrete distributions. We conjecture:

Conjecture 2 Let $`A`$ be a $`d`$-by-$`d`$ matrix of independently and uniformly chosen $`\pm 1`$ entries. Then,

$$\text{Pr}\left[A^1>t\right]\frac{\sqrt{d}}{t}+\alpha ^n,$$

for some absolute constant $`\alpha <1`$.

We remark that the case $`t=\mathrm{}`$, when the matrix $`A`$ is singular, follows from a theorem of Kahn, Komlos and Szemeredi .


text:
# Energy release due to antineutrino untrapping and diquark condensation in hot quark star evolution

## 1 Introduction

The engine which drives supernova explosions and gamma ray bursts being among the most energetic phenomena in the universe remains still puzzling \[Piran & Nakar (2002)\]. The phase transition to a quark matter phase may be a mechanism that could release such an amount of energy \[Drago & Tambini (1999), Berezhiani et al. (2002)\]. It has been proposed that due to the Cooper instability in dense Fermi gases cold dense quark matter shall be in the color superconducting state with a nonvanishing diquark condensate \[Alford et al. (2001), Blaschke et al. (2001a)\]. The consequences of diquark condensation for the cooling of compact stars due to changes in the transport properties and neutrino emissivities have been investigated much in detail, see \[Blaschke et al. (2000), Page et al. (2000), Blaschke et al. (2001b), Blaschke et al. (2003a)\], and may even contribute to the explanation of the relative low temperature of the pulsar in the supernova remmant 3C58 \[Grigorian et al. (2002)\].

Unlike the case of normal (electronic) superconductors, the pairing energy gap in quark matter is of the order of the Fermi energy so that diquark condensation gives considerable contributions to the equation of state (EoS) of the order of $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu )^2`$. Therefore, it has been suggested that there might be scenarios which identify the unknown source of the energy of $`10^{53}`$ erg with a release of binding energy due to Cooper pairing of quarks in the core of a cooling protoneutron star \[Hong et al. (2001)\]. In that work the total diquark condensation energy released in a bounce of the core is estimated as $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu )^2M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ corresponding to a few percent of a solar mass, that is $`10^{52}`$ erg. In this estimate, general relativistic effects have been disregarded. It has been shown in \[Blaschke et al. (2003a)\] by solving the selfconsistent problem of the star configurations, however, that these effects due to the stiffening of the EoS in the diquark condensation transition lead to an increase in the gravitational mass of the star contrary to the naive estimates.

It has also been demonstrated \[Blaschke et al. (2003a)\] that the energy release due to cooling of a quark core in a protoneutron star does not occur whithin an explosive process, since the diquark condensation is a second order phase transition.

In the present work, we propose a new mechanism of energy release which involves a first order phase transition induced by antineutrino untrapping. (Anti-)neutrino trapping occurs in hot compact star configurations at temperatures $`T1`$ MeV where the mean free path of (anti-)neutrinos is smaller than the typical size of a star \[Prakash et al. (2001) and references therein\].

During the collapse in the hot era of protoneutron star evolution, antineutrinos are produced due to the $`\beta `$-processes. Since they have a small mean free path, they cannot escape and the asymmetry in the system is increased. This entails that the formation of the diquark condensate is shifted to higher densities or even inhibited depending on the fraction of trapped antineutrinos.

As the quark star cools, a two-phase structure will occur. Despite the asymmetry, the interior of the quark star (because of its large density) could consist of color superconducting quark matter, whereas in the more dilute outer shell, diquark condensation cannot occur and quark matter remains in the normal state, opaque to antineutrinos for $`T1`$ MeV. When in the continued cooling process the antineutrino mean free path increases above the size of this normal matter shell, an outburst of neutrinos occurs and gives rise to an energy release of the order of $`10^{51}10^{52}`$ erg. This untrapping transition is of first order and could lead to an explosive phenomenon.

The scenario to be detailed in the present paper suggests that the first pulse of neutrinos emitted in the deleptonization stage of the core collapse, after a cooling time scale, shall be followed by a second pulse of antineutrinos as an observable characteristics of the present scenario.

## 2 Hot 2SC quark matter

The investigation of the phase structure of electrically and color neutral quark matter in $`\beta `$-equilibrium within quark models which assume approximate $`SU(3)`$ flavor symmetry has revealed \[Alford & Rajagopal (2002), Steiner et al. (2002)\] that the Color Flavor Locking (CFL) phase is energetically favored over the 2-Flavor Superconductivity (2SC) one. On the other hand, it has been shown \[Gocke et al. (2001), Neumann et al. (2003)\] that at low temperatures a sequential deconfinement of light and strange quark flavors occurs in dynamical quark models which solve the three-flavor gap equations. Thus, strange quark matter phases like the CFL one do appear only at high densities in the very inner core of compact stars and do not occupy a large enough volume in order to cause observable effects. Therefore, we consider in the present work two flavor quark matter in the 2SC phase only.

### 2.1 Thermodynamic potential for asymmetric quark matter

We consider the grand canonical thermodynamic potential for 2SC quark matter within a nonlocal chiral quark model \[Blaschke et al. (2003a)\] where in the mean field approximation the mass gap $`\varphi _f`$ and the diquark gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ appear as order parameters and a decomposition into color ($`c\{r,b,g\}`$) and flavor ($`f\{u,d\}`$) degrees of freedom can be made.

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_q(\{\varphi _f\},\mathrm{\Delta };\{\mu _{fc}\},T)={\displaystyle \underset{c,f}{}}\mathrm{\Omega }^c(\varphi _f,\mathrm{\Delta };\mu _{fc},T),`$ (1)
where $`T`$ is the temperature and $`\mu _{fc}`$ the chemical potential for the quark with flavor $`f`$ and color $`c`$.

The contribution of quarks with given color $`c`$ and flavor $`f`$ to the thermodynamic potential is

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^c(\varphi _f,\mathrm{\Delta };\mu _{fc},T)+\mathrm{\Omega }_{vac}^c={\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _f^2}{24G_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{24G_2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dqq^2\{\omega [ϵ_c(E_f(q)+\mu _{fc}),T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_c(E_f(q)\mu _{fc}),T]\},`$ (2)
where $`G_1`$ and $`G_2`$ are coupling constants in the scalar meson and diquark chanels, respectively. The dispersion relation for unpaired quarks with dynamical mass function $`m_f(q)=m_f+g(q)\varphi _f`$ is given by

$`E_f(q)=\sqrt{q^2+m_f^2(q)}.`$ (3)
In Eq. (2) we have introduced the notation

$`\omega [ϵ_c,T]=T\mathrm{ln}\left[1+\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_c}{T}}\right)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_c}{2}},`$ (4)
where the first argument is given by

$`ϵ_c(\xi )=\xi \sqrt{1+\mathrm{\Delta }_c^2/\xi ^2}.`$ (5)
When we choose the green and blue colors to be paired and the red ones to remain unpaired, we have

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=g(q)\mathrm{\Delta }(\delta _{c,b}+\delta _{c,g}).`$ (6)
For a homogeneuos system, the thermodynamic potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q`$ corresponds to the pressure; therefore the constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{vac}=_c\mathrm{\Omega }_{vac}^c`$ is chosen such that the pressure of the physical vacuum vanishes.

The nonlocality of the interaction between the quarks is implemented via formfactor functions $`g(q)`$ in the momentum space. We use the Gaussian formfactor defined as

$`g(q)=\mathrm{exp}(q^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2),`$ (7)
since we could show that for this choice stable hybrid stars are possible \[Blaschke et al. (2003b)\]. The parameters: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1.025`$ GeV, $`G_1=3.761\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ and $`m_u=m_d=m=2.41`$ MeV are fixed by the pion mass $`m_\pi =140`$ MeV, pion decay constant $`f_\pi =93`$ MeV and the constituent quark mass $`m_0=330`$ MeV at $`T=\mu =0`$ \[Schmidt et al. (1994)\]. The constant $`G_2`$ is a free parameter of the approach which we fix as $`G_2=0.86G_1`$.

We introduce new variables: the quark chemical potential for the color $`c`$, $`\mu _{qc}=(\mu _{uc}+\mu _{dc})/2`$, and the chemical potential of the isospin asymmetry, $`\mu _I=(\mu _{uc}\mu _{dc})/2`$, which is color independent. We consider now symmetric ($`\mu _{uc}=\mu _{dc}`$) or nearly symmetric ($`\mu _{uc}\mu _{dc}`$) quark matter as the preferable situation to form a pair of fermions in the color space, i.e. $`|\mu _I|<\mu _{qc}`$.

The color asymmetry induces a splitting of the quark chemical potentials relative to the mean value for two flavors $`\mu _q`$ which is proportional to the new chemical potential $`\mu _8`$. Therefore we can write,

$`\mu _{qc}=\mu _q+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _8}{3}}(\delta _{c,b}+\delta _{c,g}2\delta _{c,r}),`$ (8)
where $`\mu _q`$ and $`\mu _8`$ are conjugate to the quark number density and the color charge density, respectively.

We perfom the approximation $`\varphi _u=\varphi _d=\varphi `$ and express the thermodynamic potential as in \[Kiriyama et al. (2001)\]

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_q(\varphi ,\mathrm{\Delta };\mu _{qr},\mu _{qb},\mu _I,T)+\mathrm{\Omega }_{vac}={\displaystyle \frac{\varphi ^2}{4G_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{4G_2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dqq^2\{\omega [ϵ_r(\mu _{qr}\mu _I),T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_r(\mu _{qr}\mu _I),T]+\omega [ϵ_r(\mu _{qr}+\mu _I),T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_r(\mu _{qr}+\mu _I),T]\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}dqq^2\{\omega [ϵ_b(E(q)\mu _{qb})\mu _I,T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_b(E(q)+\mu _{qb})\mu _I,T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_b(E(q)\mu _{qb})+\mu _I,T]+`$
$`\omega [ϵ_b(E(q)+\mu _{qb})+\mu _I,T]\},`$ (9)
where the factor $`2`$ in the last integral comes from the degeneracy of the blue and green colors ($`ϵ_b=ϵ_g`$).

The conditions for the local extrema of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q`$, correspond to coupled gap equations for the two order parameters $`\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\varphi }}|_{\varphi =\varphi _0,\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_0}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}|_{\varphi =\varphi _0,\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_0}=0.`$ (10)
The global minumum of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q`$ represents the state of thermodynamical equilibrium from which all equations of state can be obtained by derivation.

### 2.2 Beta equilibrium with electrons and trapped (anti)neutrinos

The stellar matter in the quark core of compact stars consists of $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks, electrons $`e`$ and antineutrinos $`\overline{\nu }_e`$ under the conditions of

* $`\beta `$-equilibrium: $`du+e^{}+\overline{\nu }_e`$, which in terms of chemical potentials reads

$$\mu _e+\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=2\mu _I,$$
* charge neutrality: $`\frac{2}{3}n_u\frac{1}{3}n_dn_e=0`$, which could also be written as

$$n_B+n_I2n_e=0,$$
* color neutrality: $`n_8=\frac{2}{3}n_{qr}\frac{1}{3}n_{qb}=0`$ .

Here the number densities $`n_j`$ are defined in relation to the corresponding chemical potentials $`\mu _j`$ as

$`n_j={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mu _j}}|_{\varphi _0,\mathrm{\Delta }_0;T},`$ (11)
where the index $`j`$ denotes the particle species. The baryon chemical potential defined as $`\mu _B=3\mu _q\mu _I`$. The solution of the color neutrality condition shows that $`\mu _8`$ is about 5-7 MeV in the region of relevant densities ($`\mu _q300500`$ MeV). Since the isospin asymmetry is independent of $`\mu _8`$ we consider $`\mu _{qc}\mu _q`$ in our following calculations.

The total thermodynamic potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ contains besides the quark contribution $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q`$ also that of the leptons $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{id}`$

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(\varphi ,\mathrm{\Delta };\mu _q,\mu _I,\mu _e,\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e},T)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_q(\varphi ,\mathrm{\Delta };\mu _q,\mu _I,T)`$ (12)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l\{e,\overline{\nu }_e\}}{}}\mathrm{\Omega }^{id}(\mu _l,T),`$
which is assumed to be a massless, ideal Fermi gas

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{id}(\mu ,T)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{12\pi ^2}}\mu ^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\mu ^2T^2{\displaystyle \frac{7}{180}}\pi ^2T^4.`$ (13)
In Fig. 1 we show the solution of the gap equations for the order parameters $`\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as a function of the baryon chemical potential $`\mu _B`$ at $`T=0`$. Also the solution for the isospin chemical potential $`\mu _I`$ is plotted. We can see that with increasing antineutrino chemical potential $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ the absolute value of the chemical potential for isospin asymmetry $`|\mu _I|`$ increases (see the inset of Fig. 1). We will refer to this value as the asymmetry in the system, and when it increases the onset of the superconducting phase transition is shifted to higher densities. For the region of chemical potentials $`\mu _q`$ where the diquark condensate is nonvanishing its value coincides with that for the case $`\mu _I=0`$. This region, however, shrinks for $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}^{min}\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$. The minimum value of antineutrino chemical potential for which the onset of diquark condensation does not coincide with the chiral transition is $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}^{min}=30`$ MeV for a density of $`\mu _B=1`$ GeV.

### 2.3 Equations of state

The equations of state are obtained from the thermodynamic potential (9). For homogeneous systems, the pressure is $`P=\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the entropy density is $`s=(\mathrm{\Omega }/T)_{\mu _q}`$ and the energy density is given by the Gibbs fundamental relation

$`\epsilon =sTP+\mu _qn_q+\mu _In_I.`$ (14)
In Fig. 2 we show the pressure as a function of the baryon chemical potential and of the energy density for different values of the antineutrino chemical potential. The effect of the presence of trapped antineutrinos is twofold: (i) the onset of superconductivity in quark matter is shifted to higher energy densities with increasing $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ and (ii) the equation of state becomes harder.

## 3 Hot quark stars and neutrino untrapping

Hot quark star configurations have been considered first in \[Kettner et al. (1995)\] for isothermal configurations and in \[Blaschke et al. (1999)\] for adiabatic ones. When determining the mass defect of a compact star configuration due to diquark condensation in a cooling process, it has been shown in \[Blaschke et al. (2003a)\] that general relativistic effects become important. Effects which have been estimated by extrapolating the binding energy per Cooper pair \[Hong et al. (2001)\] may even be conterbalanced when the mass distribution is determined selfconsistenly. This observation underlines the necessity to estimate the release of binding energy in evolutionary processes of compact stars which change the equation of state selfconsistently with corresponding changes in the mass distribution and the gravitational field. In Ref. \[Blaschke et al. (2003a)\], however, no trapped (anti)neutrinos have been considered and it has been demonstrated that in this case the diquark condensation occurs within a second order phase transition, so that no sudden release of energy had to be expected. The situation may change in the case when the transition is inhibited by the presence of trapped antineutrinos which increase the asymmetry above a critical value and therefore prevent diquark condensation.

### 3.1 Structure and stability of compact stars including trapped (anti)neutrinos

We consider star configurations which are defined as solutions of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dP(r)}{dr}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{[ϵ(r)+P(r)][m(r)+4\pi r^3P(r)]}{r[r2m(r)]}},`$ (15)
$`m(r)`$ $`=`$ $`4\pi {\displaystyle _0^r}r^2ϵ(r^{})𝑑r^{},`$ (16)
where $`r`$ is the distance from the center and $`m(r)`$ the mass enclosed in a sphere of radius $`r`$.

The equations are solved for the set of central quark number densities $`n_q`$ for which the stars are stable. The total mass $`M=m(R)`$ of the star is defined by the radius $`R`$ being the distance to the star surface which fulfills the condition of vanishing pressure $`P(R)=0`$.

The total mass as a function of radius and central quark number density of the configurations is plotted in Fig. 3 for the case without neutrinos $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=0`$ (solid line) and for two cases with finite antineutrino chemical potential: $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=100`$ MeV (dashed line) and $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=150`$ MeV (dash-dotted line). The latter value relates to our estimate for the maximum antineutrino number density which should occur just at the deconfinement phase transition, but still larger values could also be possible \[Steiner et al. (2002)\]. From Fig. 2 we can see that the EoS without antineutrinos is softer than that with antineutrinos (it has a lower pressure at a given energy density) and in Fig.3 we show that this allows more compact configurations (left panel). Consequentely, the presence of antineutrinos tends to increase the mass of the star for a given central density, see the right panel of Fig.3.

In order to estimate the effect of antineutrinos on the mass of star configurations we choose a reference configuration without antineutrinos with the mass of a typical neutron star $`M_f=1.4M_{}`$, see Fig. 3. The corresponding radius is $`R_f=10.47`$ km and the central density $`n_q=9.69n_0`$, where $`n_0=0.16\mathrm{fm}^3`$ is the saturation density of nuclear matter. The configurations with trapped antineutrinos and nonvanishing $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ to compare with are chosen to have the same total baryon number as the reference star: $`N_B=1.51N_{}`$, where $`N_{}`$ is the total baryon number of the sun. For $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=100`$ MeV we obtain $`M_A=1.4025M_{}`$ whereas for $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=150`$ MeV we have $`M_B=1.41M_{}`$. The differences in the radii are $`R_AR_f=0.01`$ km and $`R_BR_f=0.06`$ km and the changes in the central densities $`n_q^An_q^f=0.016n_0`$ and $`n_q^Bn_q^f=0.064n_0`$, respectively. This is a consequence of the hardening of the EoS due to the presence of antineutrinos. A second set of configurations ($`A^{},B^{},f^{}`$) with a fixed baryon number and $`M_f=1.6M_{}`$ is shown in the Fig.3.

The mass defect $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{if}=M_iM_f`$ can be interpreted as an energy release if there is a process which relates the configurations with $`M_i`$ and $`M_f`$ being the initial and final states, respectively. In the following Subsection we discuss a possible evolution scenario and we calculate the corresponding energy release.

### 3.2 Estimate of energy release in antineutrino untrapping

The antineutrino chemical potential $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ increases the asymmetry of the system and can prevent the diquark condensation provided the critical value $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ is exceeded, see Fig.1. The inhibition of diquark condensation could provide conditions for the explosive release of an amount of energy coming from the mass defect introduced in the previous subsection.

During the collapse of a protoneutron star, neutronization takes place via the inverse $`\beta `$-process releasing neutrinos which can escape through the yet dilute and cold outer shell of the protoneutron star. In the continuation of the collapse the temperature and the density increase in the protoneutron star core where the proton fraction rises again. Antineutrinos are created by the direct $`\beta `$-process in hot and dense matter and cannot escape since their mean free path is much smaller than the core radius. When under these conditions the deconfinement phase transition to quark matter occurs, this has two important consequences: (i) due to high temperatures of the order of $`40`$ MeV the critical density of the phase transition is much lower than at zero temperature and thus a larger fraction of the star will be in the new phase and (ii) due to antineutrino trapping the cooling is delayed.

The star cools down by surface emission of photons and antineutrinos. The region of the star where the temperature falls below the density dependent critical value for diquark condensation, will transform to the color superconducting state which is almost transparent to (anti)neutrinos. But nevertheless due to the trapped antineutrinos there is a dilute normal quark matter shell which prevents neutrino escape from the superconducting bulk of the star. The criterion for the neutrino untrapping transition is to cool the star below a temperature of about 1 MeV when the mean free path of neutrinos becomes larger than the shell radius \[Prakash et al. (2001)\]. If at this temperature the antineutrino chemical potential is still large then the neutrinos can escape in a sudden outburst. If it is small then there will be only a gradual increase in the luminosity. An estimate for the possible release of energy within the outburst scenario can be given via the mass defect defined in the previous subsection between an initial configuration with trapped neutrinos (state $`A`$ or $`B`$) and a final configuration without neutrinos (state $`f`$).

In Fig. 4 the integral characteristics of the star configuration: the total mass $`M`$ and the total baryon number $`N_B`$ are plotted as a function of the central number density $`n_q`$. We take two possible initial states ($`A`$, $`B`$ with $`M_A`$, $`M_B`$ respectively) with different antineutrino chemical potentials and we make the evolution to a final state (without antineutrinos, with $`M_f`$) at constant total baryon number $`N_B`$ as we show in Fig. 3. The configurations with trapped antineutrinos ($`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=100,150`$ MeV) correspond to possible initial states before the outburst and the configuration without antineutrinos ($`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=0`$) is the final state after it. The mass defect ranges from $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{Af}=0.25\%M_{}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{Bf}=1\%M_{}`$ for the initial states $`A`$ and $`B`$, respectively. We see that the release of energy can be as big as about $`1.5\%`$ of the initial mass.

We can make the same construction for different final states and in Fig. 5 we show the mass defect and the corresponding energy release as a function of the mass of the final configuration. Two lines for different initial states are plotted: the dashed one for $`A`$ configurations (with $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=100`$ MeV) and the dash-dotted one for $`B`$ configurations (with $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}=150`$ MeV). The final state $`f`$ with vanishing $`\mu _{\overline{\nu }_e}`$ has the mass $`M_f`$ which defines the conserved baryon number involved in the untrapping transition. The dots represent the end points of the stable configurations. The shaded region in between both curves shows the possible mass defect (or corresponding energy release) according to our estimate of the range of the antineutrino chemical potentials considered.

Since the estimated energy release is as large as $`10^{51}10^{52}`$ erg the scenario suggested in the present paper could be discussed as a possible engine driving supernova explosions and gamma ray bursts.

A second pulse of antineutrinos is expected to be a signal of the untrapping transition.

## 4 Conclusions

We have investigated the effects of trapped antineutrinos on the asymmetry and diquark condensates in a quark star configurations. By comparing configurations with fixed baryon number the release of energy in an antineutrino untrapping transition is estimated to be of the order of $`10^{52}`$ erg. Such a transition is of first order so that antineutrinos can be released in a sudden process (burst). This scenario could play an important rôle to solve the problem of the engine of supernova explosions and gamma ray bursts. A second antineutrino pulse is suggested as an observable characteristics of the present scenario.

###### Acknowledgements.

Research of D.N.A. was supported in part by the CONICET PIP 03072 (Argentina), by the DFG GK 567 “Stark korrelierte Vielteilchensysteme” (Rostock University), by DAAD grant No. A/01/17862 and by Landesgraduiertenförderung von Mecklenburg Vorpommern (Germany). H.G. acknowledges support by DFG under grant No. 436 ARM 17/5/01. D.N.A. and H.G. acknowledge the hospitality of the Department of Physics at the University of Rostock where this research has been performed.