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# Making sense of nanocrystal lattice fringes

## I Introduction

Nanocrystalline materials have attracted enormous interest due to physical and chemical properties that differ from those of the bulk forms thanks to proper engineering at the atomic level (Kung and Foecke, 1999; Pitkethly, 2003). Phase diagrams and crystal morphologies are frequently dependent on the size of the crystals in the one to ten nanometer size range (Jesser et al., 1999; Wautelet, 1992, 2001). In addition to this size-dependence for the lowest energy state of a structure, there is a strong tendency in the nanoparticle regime to metastability (Tolles, 2000) and non-stoichiometry. Thus needs for characterization of individual nanocrystals will grow.

A simple approach to determining the lattice (not atomic) structure of nanocrystals, as though they are hand specimens with visible atom columns, was proposed in the late 1980’s (Fraundorf, 1987). It relies on the 3D reconstruction of lattice periodicities from images taken at different tilts. As in diffraction-based techniques (Henderson and Unwin, 1975; Goehner and Rao, 1977; Bonnet, 1978; Guo, 1978; Fraundorf, 1981a, b; Cowley, 1996) for obtaining 3D crystallographic information, and image-based techniques in stereomicroscopy (Basinski, 1962; Liu, 1989; Liu et al., 1989; Liu, 1990; Möck, 1991a, b; Liu et al., 1992; Moeck and Hoppe, 1992) and electron tomography (DeRosier and Klug, 1968; Cowley, 1981; Amos et al., 1982; Tambuyser, 1984; Crewe and Crewe, 1985; Frank and Radermacher, 1986; Wenk et al., 1992; Frank and Rademacher, 1992; Jinschek et al., 2005), 3D information is being inferred from slices of 2D projections. As followup, a recent direct determination of lattice parameters in three dimensions from images of a nanocrystal at two tilts (Qin and Fraundorf, 2003a) suggested that such lattice-only analysis strategies could be elegantly visualized using fringe-visibility maps that were quite sensitive to the effects of crystal thickness.

In this paper we investigate visibility, versus orientation, of lattice planes which show up as fringes due to scattering contrast effects when viewed nearly edge-on. Such fringe contrast occurs for example in electron microscopes under both coherent (phase-contrast) and incoherent (z-contrast) imaging conditions. In this analysis, we concentrate specifically on phase-contrast mechanisms.

Concepts of visibility band, and band maps, are first introduced. Bandwidths are proportional to d-spacing over thickness, rather than to wavelength over d-spacing as in the case of Kikuchi (Nishikawa and Kikuchi, 1928), bend-contour (Hirsch et al., 1977; Reimer, 1997), electron-channeling pattern (Joy, 1974), and backscatter-electron diffraction (Venables and Harland, 1973) bands in thicker specimens. Application examples include: 1) image-based protocols for acquisition of 3 linearly-independent lattice plane normals from a single randomly-oriented nanoparticle, each parallel to an operating reflection g-vector, 2) predicting fringe and cross-fringe abundances in a collection of randomly-oriented particles for comparison to experimental data, and 3) measuring local specimen thickness by observing variations in fringe visibility during tilt.

## II Methods

The transmission electron microscope (TEM) used is a Philips EM430ST with a point resolution just under 0.2 nm. Although lattice-fringe information is often available in electron phase-constrast images out to the “damping limit”, for simplicity we only consider fringes out to the continuous-transfer or “spherical aberration” limit for a given image since the absence of smaller fringes may be due to zeros in contrast-transfer. Hence talk here of “point-resolution” limits is shorthand for saying that deductions here consider only fringes whose presence in the sub-specimen electron-wavefield is reliably transferred to the recorded image. Data from two samples were used for experimental measurements of the probability of visualizing $`001`$ zone fringes. The first contained Au/Pd nanocrystals, which were sputtered onto a thin carbon film with a Hummer IV Sputter Coater. The second sample was a nanocrystalline tungsten carbide thin film, deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).

## III Observations

### III.1 Fringe-visibility bands

On tilting away from the edge-on view of a lattice-plane, one encounters a range of incident electron angles (e.g. relative to lattice-plane parallel) within which the lattice plane’s reciprocal lattice spots continue to intersect the Ewald sphere (Ewald, 1917). Hence lattice fringes associated with those planes remain visible. As shown in Appendix A, the upper bound of this range (with the largest term first in our “thin specimen” limit) is

$$\alpha _{max}=\mathrm{sin}^1\left[\frac{df}{t}+\frac{\lambda }{2d}\left(1\left(\frac{df}{t}\right)^2\right)\right].$$
(1)
Here $`d`$ is the spacing of lattice planes, $`t`$ is the crystal thickness, $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of the electrons, and $`f`$ is a “visibility factor” on the order of 1 that empirically accounts for the signal-to-noise in the method used to detect fringes. The effective radius of the reciprocal lattice spot in this model is $`f/t`$. For example, when $`f=1`$ this is the first zero in $`\mathrm{sin}[\pi gt]/(\pi gt)`$: the signal-processing Fourier-transform of a unit-area boxcar function that, convolved with the transform of an infinite lattice, yields the transform of a finite lattice of thickness $`t`$. The calculation of $`\alpha _{max}`$ is based on kinematic conditions. This is also reasonable, since conditions become kinematic when the diffracted beam is about to extinguish.

For much of this paper, we assume that lattice fringes are visible when the electron beam lies parallel to a set of lattice planes. As shown in Appendix B, for thick crystals under parallel illumination this may not be the case for $`\alpha `$ less than some $`\alpha _{min}`$. Our assumption that $`\alpha _{min}=0`$ is typically valid for crystals in the 10\[nm\] and smaller size range.

Two symmetries shall be taken into account when considering lattice fringe visibility versus the incidence direction. The symmetries are: an azimuthal symmetry of the electron beam about the normal of the lattice planes, and a mirror symmetry of the electron beam about the lattice planes. This consideration leads to the concept of fringe visibility band.

Such a visibility band is a schematic representation of an ensemble of electron beam incident directions. These directions are so defined that when the electron beam is along any of them, the lattice fringes are visible. As shown in Figure 1, every point on the surface of the sphere simply and elegantly represents a radially inward direction. The ensemble of orientations from which a set of lattice planes is visible form a visibility band on the surface of the sphere. The projection of a lattice plane itself is a great circle, about which the visibility band is symmetric.

For thin specimens and the small $`\lambda /d`$ of typical electron microscopes, equation 1 simplifies to $`\alpha _{max}\mathrm{sin}^1(df/t)df/td`$. Therefore visibility bands are different from Kikuchi bands in that the band-width is proportional (rather than inversely-proportional) to lattice spacing. Thus we think of visibility bands as tools of “direct space crystallography”.

### III.2 Fringe-visibility maps

The ensemble of all the visibility bands of a spherical crystal forms a fringe-visibility map. The band map not only reveals the crystal lattice symmetry and spacing, but also is TEM-specific, i.e. only resolvable lattice plane sets have their bands on the map. Figure 2 shows such a map. Some examples to appreciate the crystallographic information in fringe-visibility maps are given as follows.

In the figure, four crystal directions are marked. For this cubic lattice, the band perpendicular to the crystal direction of $`[010]`$ is that of the $`(020)`$ lattice planes, and that perpendicular to $`[001]`$ is the band of the $`(002)`$ lattice planes, etc. The map contains bands of $`\{111\}`$, $`\{002\}`$ and $`\{220\}`$ lattice planes, with those of the first two classes of lattice plane sets drawn as shaded. The absence of other bands in Fig. 2 suggests that the smallest lattice spacing reliably imaged by the TEM in this model is $`d_{220}`$.

### III.3 Applications

As shown in Fig. 3, Kikuchi maps depend primarily on electron wavelength while fringe-visibility maps are affected primarily by specimen thickness. Thanks to the reciprocal nature of diffraction, applications of Kikuchi maps to reciprocal-space exploration are well-known. Crystallographic information in direct-space images is increasingly available. Hence uses for fringe-visibility maps are only beginning to emerge. We discuss only a few here, namely determination of lattice parameters, local measurement of specimen thickness, and “fringe” or “cross-fringe” fingerprinting of randomly-oriented particle collections. A collection of web-interactive maps, using the Mathematica-based Live3D applet by Martin Kraus (Kraus, 2004), is available here (Fraundorf, 2004).

#### III.3.1 Single-particle lattice parameters

An efficient way to determine lattice parameters is by acquisition of three lattice vectors whose linear combinations span the entire reciprocal lattice (Fraundorf, 1981a). Two of the three vectors may be inferred from a single zone-axis image. For example (Qin and Fraundorf, 2003a) an f.c.c. WC1-x (a = 4.248 ) nanocrystal was examined with a Gatan double-tilt holder ($`\pm 15^{}`$ around side-entry goniometer tilt axis, and $`\pm 10^{}`$ around the second tilt axis). The fringe-visibility map (reliably seen fringes) involved only the shaded {111} and {002} bands in Fig. 2. Lattice parameters were determined directly from $`(200)`$, $`(020)`$ and $`(11\overline{1})`$ fringes seen down  and  zone-axis directions.

This acquisition protocol required a total tilt range of $`35.3^{}`$. The maximum tilt achievable with the double-tilt holder is $`35.6^{}`$, barely higher than the tilt required. Because of this limitation only particles at one goniometer extreme, with the correct azimuthal orientation, were candidates for the experiment. Specifically, the  zone-axis image was identified from a crystal, among thousands, at the holder setting of $`(15^{},9.7^{})`$. This crystal’s  zone was azimuthally oriented so that the  zone axis was obtained after tilting to $`(15^{},9.7^{})`$.

Thus only a small subset of particles using one specific protocol were eligible for this measurement. Improvements in microscope resolution and goniometer range are in the works. Recent progress in resolution enhancement by aberration-correction opens up myriad opportunities for image-based nanocrystallography (Haider et al., 1998; Nellist and Pennycook, 1998; Aert et al., 2004). The number of protocols increases at least quadratically with the microscope point-resolution (Moeck et al., 2004). Accordingly, the fringe-visibility band map will contain more visibility bands and band intersections. Fig. 4 (a) and (b) show fractions of visibility band maps for an $`80\mathrm{\AA }`$ Al-crystal at a point resolution of $`1\mathrm{\AA }`$, and a $`30\mathrm{\AA }`$ Al-crystal at a point-resolution of $`0.6\mathrm{\AA }`$, respectively. It is clear that an improvement of continuous contrast transfer results in an increase of the number and width of visibility bands encountered. Thus the choice of protocols to use for lattice parameter determination will multiply, even were the available tilt range to remain fixed. The modified optics of aberration-corrected microscopes will also allow room for a wider range of specimen tilts.

The increase in possible analysis strategies might therefore overwhelm one’s hope to “make sense of all those fringes” found on tilting of a randomly-oriented unknown crystal encountered during microscope investigation. As shown in Fig. 4 (c), this is especially problematic if the specimen is very thin. We therefore propose a protocol based on properties of “a fringe-visibility map revealed piecemeal”, as one begins to examine fringes seen in the candidate unknown under initially small exploratory tilts (Qin and Fraundorf, 2003b).

The approach is based on one developed for identification of $`100`$\[nm\] mineral crystallites in an unequilibrated mix by selected area diffraction (Fraundorf, 1981c). It may be broken down into the following steps:

1. Begin with a crystal orientation at which the nanocrystal shows a set of fringes. If no fringes are visible, then the crystal is to be tilted randomly until fringes appear. For example, imagine beginning at the point marked “start” in the fringe visibility band map shown in Figure 5.
2. Tilt the crystal around an axis parallel to the fringes, until the center of the visibility band is located.
3. Tilt the crystal around an axis perpendicular to the fringes, until a cross-fringe intersection (labeled “Zone A” in the map) with another band is encountered.
4. Similarly tilt the crystal around an axis parallel to the second band, until the center of zone A is located. Record lattice spacings and goniometer settings.
5. Tilt the crystal around an axis perpendicular to the second band, until a second cross-fringe intersection (labeled “Zone B” in the map) with the third band is encountered.
6. Repeat the work described in (4) for the third band, to position the beam at the center of that zone and record it’s positions and lattice spacings as well. Calculate an oriented-basis-triplet i.e. scope coordinates of a randomly-chosen lattice basis (Fraundorf, 1981a).
7. Repeat (5)-(6) to include zones at increasingly larger tilt angles as needed to improve accuracy of the oriented-basis-triplet determination.

The basis triplet may at this point be reduced to conventional form, assuming that measurement errors are small enough. The precision of lattice parameter determination can be improved incrementally by measurement of more lattice fringes over a wider range of tilts. Best-fit parameters are easily updated in least-squares fashion as a new set of fringes appear, and each fringe past the first three allows one to estimate the precision in each direction quantitatively. For example, diffraction studies indicate that lattice parameter uncertainties in the beam direction are initially largest, and most dependent on incorporation of spacings observed over a range of tilts (Fraundorf, 1981a).

This protocol depends on one’s ability to tilt precisely by small angles in user-chosen directions. Modern double-axis goniometers can do this using computer support, with two caveats: (i) mechanical hysteresis leaves one with a mismatch between goniometer reading and the actual tilt, and (ii) the specimen will move laterally on the nanometer scale. The microscopist can generally solve the second problem by translating to keep the nano-crystal of interest in the field of view. The problem of tilt hysteresis is more fundamental, and will likely have to be addressed by independent feedback to verify stage orientation at a given instant. Quantitative metrology with scanning probe microscopes requires independent verification of the probe’s lateral position, instead of orientation, but the technologies used there (e.g. optical or capacitive feedback sensing) may be relevant in both cases.

#### III.3.2 Random particle fringe-fingerprints

For a randomly-oriented nanocrystal, the probability that a set of lattice fringes will be visible is simply proportional to the solid angle subtended by the corresponding fringe visibility band. The probability of seeing a pair of cross-fringes is proportional to the solid angle subtended by the corresponding visibility-band intersections. For example, for the randomly oriented spherical f.c.c. nanocrystal whose visibility band map is shown in Figure 2, the probability of seeing (020) lattice planes is equal to the fraction of the $`4\pi `$ solid angle subtended by the (020) visibility band. For cross-fringes along the  zone-axis, the probability is equal to the fraction of all solid angles subtended by the cross-section of the two visibility bands centered on the  direction.

Thus the probability for seeing a given fringe is simply the whole-band solid angle divided by $`4\pi `$, or $`p_{hkl}=\mathrm{sin}[\alpha _{hkl}]`$ where $`\alpha _{hkl}`$ is $`\alpha _{max}`$ for {hkl} fringes. As shown in Appendix C, the solid angle subtended by a square intersection of bands (from Eqn 13) is approximately $`(2\alpha _{max})^2`$. Hence the probability of seeing the associated cross-fringe pair is $`p_x2\alpha _{max}^2/\pi `$. More generally, for an intersection between a band of halfwidth $`\alpha _1`$ and another of halfwidth $`\alpha _2`$ at an angle of $`\varphi `$, the cross-fringe probability is

$$p_x\frac{2\alpha _1\alpha _2}{\pi \mathrm{sin}[\varphi ]}.$$
(2)
Using a visibility factor of $`f=0.8`$ estimated from Au/Pd nanoparticles evaporated on a thin carbon film, $`p_x`$ for the $`[100]`$ zone in a WC1-x specimen was predicted to be about 1/700, consistent with experimental observation (Qin and Fraundorf, 2003b). Estimation of such fringe probabilities in turn can be used to quantitatively fingerprint collections of randomly-oriented nanoparticles, according to the fringes and interspot angles in lattice images (Fraundorf et al., 2004).

One can begin this process with a probability table for the visible fringes expected from a given type of crystal. For example, Table 1 lists probabilities expected for the two largest lattice periodicities in a collection of $`50\mathrm{\AA }`$ fcc particles with a lattice parameter or $`4\mathrm{\AA }`$. Here $`p_{uvw}`$ is the probability of encountering a fringe-pair for the \[uvw\] zone. From a table like this, for the system of interest, one can construct a template like that in Fig. 6 for plotting cross-fringe and fringe-histogram (Mandell et al., 2004) data.

Figure 6 is designed to plot cross-fringe data points (two per spacing pair) and spacing histograms measured manually from multi-particle lattice fringe images. However, it is also patterned after the layout of a fringe angular covariance map (Fraundorf et al., 2004). Fluctuation microscopy (Voyles et al., 2000), used e.g. to characterize medium-range order in paracrystalline specimens (Gibson and Treacy, 1997), historically has focused on the spacing-only or “powder” component of the pair-pair information available in a combined spatial and angular correlation analysis of image data from complex materials. The layout of Fig. 6, which looks at “patches of correlated periodicity as a function of angular lag” in given size range, also preserves information on the angle between periodicities for such fluctuation analyses. Such plots may therefore prove useful in the automated analysis of HRTEM images as well.

Probability expressions flowing from fringe-visibility maps also allow one to quantify the relative abundance of particles with only one visible fringe, versus those with cross fringes. For example, it nicely explains the fact that 2\[nm\] particles with cross-fringes are often more abundant than those with single fringes. This is illustrated in Fig. 7, which plots the fraction of particles with $`110`$-zone cross-fringes, versus the fraction with only a single {111}-fringe showing. Our observations suggest that the size at which this cross-over occurs is quite sensitive to viewing conditions, and thus to visibility factor $`f`$.

The precision of fringe measurements in such images (Biskupek et al., 2003) is limited by shape anisotropy (Warren, 1941) and other tilt distortions (Marks, 1983-4; Spence, 1988; Malm and O’Keefe, 1997). Nonetheless the foregoing analysis works in practice, at least to first order, and provides a framework for more careful study of these deviations as well.

#### III.3.3 Small-tilt thickness estimates

Reduction of crystal size is well-known to result in reciprocal-space broadening of diffraction intensities as seen in X-ray, electron and neutron diffraction. A formula, derived by Paul Scherrer for a thesis on colloids around 1915, correlates such a broadening with the inverse of the mass-weighted average grain size (Debye and Scherrer, 1916). As shown above, decreasing size causes visibility band broadening as well. Here, we discuss how band broadening can help investigate local specimen thickness.

Given a crystal’s size, lattice, and its orientation with respect to the tilt axis, the tilt-sensitivity of lattice fringe visibilty can be predicted. This is done by determining when the reciprocal lattice spot necessarily loses intersection with the Ewald sphere after tilt, given the amount of tilt used and the angle between the fringes and the tilt direction Qin (2000); Qin and Fraundorf (2000). In order for the reciprocal lattice spot to retain intersection with the Ewald sphere after tilt, the angular deviation of the reciprocal lattice vector from the tilt axis (or equivalently between fringe lines and the tilt direction) must be less than an upper limit $`\varphi `$ which following Appendix D obeys:

$$\mathrm{sin}\left[\frac{\theta _{range}}{2}\right]=\frac{\mathrm{sin}\alpha _{max}}{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }.$$
(3)
Here $`\alpha _{max}`$ is given by Eqn 1. If $`\varphi `$ is the angle between an observed fringe and the tilt direction, then $`\theta _{range}`$ is the tilt-range over which that fringe is visible. Alternatively, if $`\theta _{range}`$ is an experimentally-applied tilt, then fringes whose angle to the tilt direction is more than $`\varphi `$ will become invisible because their reciprocal lattice spot will necessarily lose intersection with the Ewald sphere after tilt. In this latter application, we will refer to $`\varphi `$ in equation 3 as $`\varphi _{max}`$.

Equations 1 and 3 have been used to predict lattice fringe visibility after tilt for WC1-x nanocrystals as shown in Figure 8. In the figure, each lattice plane set has been labeled with both the Miller indices and an arrow representing the lattice fringe normal. The length of the arrow is proportional to $`1/d`$. Hollow arrows are used for lattice fringes that are predicted to become necessarily invisible, and solid arrows for those with certain propabilities to do so, after tilt, as shown in the Fig 9. Take those three sets of lattice fringes of crystal A shown in Fig 8, which are those of the WC1-x (-1,1,-1), (1,1,-1) and (2,0,0) lattice planes, as examples. The average projection size of crystal A is about $`48\mathrm{\AA }`$. Equation 3 predicts that for the given amount of tilt

$$\varphi (f=0.79,t=48\mathrm{\AA },\mathrm{d}_{111}=2.453\mathrm{\AA })=20.6^{},$$
(4)
and

$$\varphi (f=0.79,t=48\mathrm{\AA },\mathrm{d}_{002}=2.124\mathrm{\AA })=18.3^{},$$
(5)
The three lattice fringe normals deviate from the projection of $`T_1`$ by $`69.1^{}`$, $`0.3^{}`$, $`56.6^{}`$, respectively. Among them the first and the third are larger than their corresponding limits obtained in equations 4 and 5. Therefore, the (-1,1,-1) and (2,0,0) lattice fringes are predicted to become invisible after tilt. This is shown to be true in Figure 9. This way the invisibility of nine out of thirteen lattice fringe sets are predicted, which is consistent with the HRTEM observation. The results are shown in Table 2.

In Figure 8, the nine lattice fringe sets which are predicted to become invisible after tilt are labeled with hollow arrows. Please note that all these lattice fringe sets disappear in Fig 9, which is an indication of the consistency of the model with the HRTEM observations.

Figure 10 shows plots of $`\varphi _{max}`$ versus thickness with $`\theta _{range}=14.5^{}`$ and $`f=0.79`$ for $`d_{111}=2.453\mathrm{\AA }`$ and $`d_{002}=2.124\mathrm{\AA }`$. Also shown in the figure are the experimental data from Figure 8. Hollow symbols are used to label lattice fringe sets that are observed to become invisible after tilt as shown in Figure 9, and solid symbols for the rest. A consistency between the model and experimental observation is indicated, since all the hollow symbols are above their corresponding curves.

Proof of concept in hand, one can easily solve equations 1 and 3 for specimen thickness $`t`$. Considering only the dominant term, for example, one gets

$$tdf\mathrm{csc}[\frac{\theta _{range}}{2}]\mathrm{csc}[\varphi ]$$
(6)
where $`\varphi `$ (as above) is the projected angle between the lattice fringe and the tilt direction. This expression in turn suggests a fractional error in thickness, per unit error in tilt range, of $`(1/t)\delta t/\delta \theta t\mathrm{sin}[\varphi ]/(df)`$. For example this predicts a 15 percent error in the thickness, per degree of error in tilt range, for a $`50\mathrm{\AA }`$ thick foil with a $`2\mathrm{\AA }`$ fringe twenty degrees from the direction of tilt. This measurement of specimen thickness requires only verification by the microscope operator that tilt range over which the fringe remains visible is about 13 degrees. High precision goniometers, e.g. with verifiable tilt, and a way to profile fringe visibility for small increments in tilt, could thus make it possible to routinely measure nanocrystal thickness at many points in an image with only minor amounts of tilt. With such instrumentation, experimental profiles of fringe intensity as a function of tilt like those modeled in Appendix E could open up a new world of real-time quantitative analysis.

## IV Conclusions

Fringe-visibility versus orientation for a set of lattice planes, relative to the incident electron beam, in specimens of given thickness is well represented by a “visibility band”. The bands of all lattice planes reliably detected within the point-resolution of a microscope, during a given exposure, make up a fringe-visibility map. Like Kikuchi-maps in reciprocal space, fringe-visibility maps serve as roadmaps for exploring orientation in direct space. We illustrate how they can be useful for determining the 3D lattice parameters of an arbitrary nanocrystal, for fingerprinting fringe and cross-fringe abundances in a collection of randomly-oriented nanocrystals, and for determining the local thickness of crystalline specimens with modest amounts of tilt given a sufficiently precise goniometer. Fringe-visibility maps, and these applications, will be even more useful in aberration-corrected microscopes capable of subangstrom resolution, provided attention is given (during their design) to the precise control and verification of specimen orientation.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work has benefited from discussions with L. D. Marks, and indirectly from support by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Missouri Research Board, as well as by Monsanto and MEMC Electronic Materials Companies.

## Appendix A The visibility band outer half-angle

Figure 11 illustrates the geometry of a simple model for fringe visibility in the center of an equant (e.g. spherical) particle. Visibility requires that the reciprocal lattice “spot” intersect the Ewald sphere. Point O is the origin of the reciprocal lattice, and two reciprocal lattice spots are shown a distance $`1/d`$ away from the center. Since the effective radius of reciprocal lattice spots is affected by many factors, it is written as $`f/t`$, where $`t`$ is the thickness of the crystal and $`f`$ is a visibility factor. This visibility factor will be a number on the order of 1 that depends on the method of periodicity detection, the range of angles in the illuminating beam, the microscope’s response function, and the amount of “fringe obscuring” noise in the field of the image. It may need to be determined experimentally. As a specimen is tilted, the reciprocal lattice spots will come in and out of contact with the Ewald sphere. In Figure 11, the outermost edge of the reciprocal lattice spot is tangent with the Ewald sphere defining a critical angle, $`\alpha `$, at which fringes of the corresponding spacing would be viewable in a direct-space image. We derive $`\alpha `$ as follows.

Since the radius of the Ewald sphere is $`1/\lambda `$, where $`\lambda `$ is the electron wavelength, we can define the length from the center of the Ewald sphere C to the center of the reciprocal lattice spot A as $`1/\lambda f/t`$. The distance from the center of the Ewald sphere to the center of the reciprocal lattice will be $`1/\lambda `$ and the spacing between the reciprocal lattice spots will be $`1/d`$. If $`\alpha `$ is the angle defining the maximum tilt of the reciprocal spot before loss of fringe visibility, then we can use plane trigonometry’s Law of Cosines for the complement of angle $`\alpha `$ in triangle CAO, namely

$$\left(\frac{1}{\lambda }\frac{f}{t}\right)^2=\frac{1}{d^2}+\frac{1}{\lambda ^2}\frac{2}{d\lambda }\mathrm{cos}[\frac{\pi }{2}\alpha ],$$
(7)
to obtain

$$sin[\alpha _{max}]=\frac{df}{t}+\frac{\lambda }{2d}\left(1\left(\frac{df}{t}\right)^2\right).$$
(8)
The first term (due to beam-direction broadening of the reciprocal lattice spot) dominates in HRTEM of nano-crystals because $`d/t`$ is typically greater than $`\lambda /d`$. The equation may also be relevant to electron-channeling, electron-backscatter diffraction, and (with an added factor of 1/2) Kikuchi bands. However, in these cases the $`\lambda /d`$ term typically dominates, yielding a 1/d rather than d dependence for small-angle band widths.

## Appendix B The inner half-angle critical thickness

If the specimen is sufficiently thick, or electron wavelengths sufficiently large, images taken with a parallel beam might also show loss of fringe visibility when the specimen is oriented on the zone axis, i.e. between Bragg conditions for diffraction from either side of a set of lattice planes. This condition would introduce an “invisibility stripe” down the center of the visibility band depicted in Fig. 1.

Although the large Bragg angles and thick specimens used for X-ray diffraction make this a common occurrence, it is rare in electron lattice imaging because of the thin nature of the specimens and the small electron wavelength. To confirm this, consider the drawing in Fig. 12. Note that the length of segment AC is $`1/\lambda +f/t`$, the length of segment BC is $`1/d`$, and the length of segment AB is $`1/\lambda `$. Hence from Pythagoras’ theorem for right triangle ABC, $`t`$ becomes

$$t_{crit}=\frac{fd}{\sqrt{1+(d/\lambda )^2}d/\lambda }.$$
(9)
Putting in typical numbers for these quantities shows that this condition is seldom met for specimens thin enough for electron phase contrast imaging, particularly if effects of beam broadening (i.e. a range of angles in the incident beam) are taken into account. For thicknesses great enough, simply changing the sign of $`f/t`$ in Eqn. 8 tells us that the half-width $`\alpha _{min}`$ of the invisibility stripe will obey

$$\mathrm{sin}[\alpha _{min}]=\frac{\lambda }{2d}\left(1\left(\frac{df}{t}\right)^2\right)\frac{df}{t},$$
(10)
where the first term is the dominant one.

## Appendix C Estimating band intersection areas

Consider first the case of equal bands intersecting at right angles, as shown in Fig. 13. We are interested in $`\sigma _2`$, twice the area $`\sigma _1`$ of one intersection, because great-circle bands intersect twice on opposing sides of the orientation unit sphere. For the inscribed circle shown in the figure, the “double-side solid angle” is $`4\pi (1\mathrm{cos}\alpha )`$. The double-side solid angle of the circumscribed circle is approximately $`4\pi (1\mathrm{cos}(\sqrt{2}\alpha ))`$.

For $`\alpha <\pi /4`$, the exact value of the intersection solid angle (Bailey, 2001) is:

$$\sigma _1=8\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^{n+1}\mathrm{sin}[\alpha ]^{2n}}{n!}F[n]\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}(\frac{3}{2}k)=4\alpha ^2+\frac{2}{9}\alpha ^6+\frac{8}{45}\alpha ^8+\mathrm{},$$
(11)
where hypergeometric function $`F[n]`$ is

$$F[n]\underset{m=0}{\overset{n1}{}}\frac{(n1)!}{m!(n1m)!}\frac{1}{2m+1}.$$
(12)
For $`\alpha >\pi /4`$, upper and lower visibility zones connect leaving only four circular “cross-free caps”. Hence $`\sigma _1`$ then becomes $`2\pi (2\mathrm{sin}[\alpha ]1)`$.

These observations show that an excellent approximation for small angles is $`\sigma _22(2\alpha )^2`$, i.e. twice the area one would calculate for a flat square of side $`2\alpha `$. The approximation error is to first order $`(4/9)\alpha ^6`$, and is still below $`0.5\%`$ when bandwidth $`2\alpha `$ is a radian.

More generally, the bandwidth half-angles (e.g. $`\alpha `$) follow from the elements described in Appendix A, namely the lattice spacing, specimen thickness, and electron wavelength. When crossing bands have half-angles of $`\alpha _1`$ and $`\alpha _2`$, and intersect at an angle of $`\varphi `$ radians, the flat polygon estimate becomes

$$\sigma _2\frac{2(2\alpha _1)(2\alpha _2)}{\mathrm{sin}[\varphi ]}.$$
(13)
Given the value (or an estimate) for visibility-band intersection solid-angles, the probability of seeing cross-fringes in a randomly-oriented particle is then (assuming negligible zone overlap) simply $`p_x=n\sigma _2/(4\pi )`$, where $`n`$ is the zone multiplicity e.g. n=3 for $`100`$ zone cross-fringes from a cubic crystal.

## Appendix D The tilt-range for fringe visibility

The angular range over which a set of lattice planes remains visible is smallest if the tilt axis is parallel to the planes. Half of this angular range is then given by Eqn. 1. Generally, the tilt axis is not parallel to the lattice planes. To take advantage of band symmetry, we begin with the electron beam initially parallel to the lattice planes as shown in Fig. 14. The tilt range for fringe visibility is then easily quantified.

The figure displays a visibility band segment. A’C’ is the trace of the lattice plane. A’ is the starting electron beam direction. T is the tilt axis, g is the reciprocal lattice vector. T and g make an angle of $`\varphi `$. Since B’C’$``$A’C’, B’C’ = $`\alpha _{max}`$ is half of the visibility band width. A’B’ is the tilt path of the electron beam direction, and is half the total tilt range $`\theta `$ within which the lattice fringes are visible (the other half is symmetric with A’B’ about A’). The following relationships are obvious from the figure: A’B’$``$T, $`\mathrm{}`$B’A’C’ = $`\varphi `$, and each of A’B’, B’C’, and C’A’ is an arc of a great circle. Spherical trigonometry’s Law of Sines then yields:

$$\mathrm{sin}[\alpha _{max}]=\mathrm{sin}[\varphi ]\mathrm{sin}[\theta /2].$$
(14)
## Appendix E Fringe-visibility rocking curves

Given the shape of a nanocrystal, the vector separation between a reciprocal lattice point and the Ewald sphere allows one to calculate the Fourier intensity of an individual fringe as a function of orientation. Replacing $`f/t`$ with $`g_{sep}`$ in Eqn. 1, and solving, gives for the magnitude of this vector separation

$$g_{sep}=\left|\frac{\sqrt{1+(\lambda /d)^22(\lambda /d)\mathrm{sin}[\alpha ]}1}{\lambda }\right|,$$
(15)
where $`\alpha `$ is an arbitrary tilt of the beam direction from edge-on.

Because fringe-intensity profiles concern not just the boundaries of fringe visibility, dynamical contrast effects must be taken into account, particularly for crystal thicknesses near to or larger than an extinction distance (Hirsch et al., 1977; Reimer, 1997). Here, however, we illustrate such profiles or rocking curves for the simplest case, namely a spherical particle of diameter $`t`$ in the kinematic approximation. For such a particle, the shape transform as a function of spatial frequency $`g`$ (again using signal-processing conventions) is simply

$$s=\frac{\mathrm{sin}[\pi gt]\pi gt\mathrm{cos}[\pi gt]}{2\pi ^2g^3}.$$
(16)
Consider a lattice plane canted by $`\alpha `$ radians from the edge-on position along the electron beam direction. Since all reciprocal lattice spots will be convolved with the shape transform, one can add amplitudes (in the coherent scattering case) from both sides of the lattice plane by adding s-values for $`g_{sep}`$ evaluated at $`\pm \alpha `$. Fig. 15 illustrates.

Note that for small thicknesses the fringe intensity profile shows the expected $`(d/t)`$-dependence of its angular half-width. For spheres of diameter greater than $`650\mathrm{\AA }`$, the rocking curve bifurcates into the fixed $`(\lambda /d)`$-width band cut by the reduced-visibility stripe predicted in Appendix B. This is therefore an alternate view of the transition between thick specimen electron-channeling/Kikuchi map ($`\lambda /d`$) and thin specimen fringe-visibility map ($`d/t`$) geometries. Bend-contours of suitably-oriented wedge-shaped crystals thus likely (cf. Fig. 9 Hashimoto et al. (1962)) bridge the gap experimentally between both extremes.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In the framework of the mSUGRA model which contains a rather limited number of parameters, many detailed analysis on the constraints from various collider experiments, high precision lower energies measurements as well as from the point of view of dark matter have been performed -. However it is interesting to relax some of the assumptions that go into mSUGRA and strive for a more model independent approach -.

The main limits on the MSSM parameters come from LEP and Tevatron direct searches for SUSY particles and for the Higgs as well as from the muon anomalous moment $`(g2)_\mu `$, the $`bs\gamma `$ process and the relic density of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). The LEP limits, the $`(g2)_\mu `$ limit as well as, to a large extend, the relic density, affect mainly the gaugino and slepton sector. On the other hand, the Tevatron is more sensitive to the coloured sector while the Higgs mass lower limit severely restricts the low $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ region and is much dependent on the squark sector (especially $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ and $`A_t`$). The branching ratio for $`bs\gamma `$ also constrains the squark sector although it has some influence on the parameters of the gaugino/higgsino sector as it strongly favors $`\mu >0`$.

A model independent approach with a manageable number of free parameters is then possible when one restricts oneself to the gaugino/sleptons sectors making only mild assumptions about the reminder of the MSSM parameters. Of particular interest is the lower limit on the neutralino mass that can be obtained in a general model. Indeed a light neutralino LSP opens the door for a sizeable branching fraction of the Higgs into invisible thus reducing universally the branching fractions into the usual discovery channels for a light Higgs, $`h\gamma \gamma `$ or $`hb\overline{b}`$ . This possibility has triggered analyses by the LHC experiments to search for the Higgs with a sizeable branching fraction into invisible .

Here we concentrate solely on the lower limit on the neutralino mass in the general MSSM model. In particular we treat the case where the masses of $`\stackrel{~}{l}_R`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{l}_L`$ are not correlated. We also discuss the $`\mu <0`$ as well as the large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ cases even though they do not lead to the largest invisible Higgs width.

## 2 MSSM parameters

In the approach we are taking, the free parameters include the ones of the gaugino/higgsino sector as well as the parameters of the slepton sector. We consider two options, a model reminiscent of mSUGRA models featuring a common mass for the sleptons at the GUT scale (model M0) and a model where the slepton masses are not correlated (model LR). We impose universality among the generations. Altogether we allow 6(7) free parameters in model M0 (LR):

$`\mathrm{tan}\beta ,M_1,M_2,\mu ,A_l,m_0(m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_L},m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_R})`$ (1)
Using the renormalization group equations the masses at the weak scale can be related to the ones at the GUT scale, in model M0. For sleptons this can be done rather independently of the other MSSM parameters . We assume that all the squarks are heavy and that the pseudoscalar mass $`M_A`$ is large. We will only consider values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta >5`$ to make it easier to satisfy the direct limit $`m_h>114GeV`$. To characterize the amount of non universality we define the parameter $`r_{12}=\frac{M_1}{M_2}`$. For scans over parameter space, unlesss otherwise specified, we will consider the range

$`5<\mathrm{tan}\beta <50,M_2<2TeV,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}.001}<r_{12}<.6,|\mu |<1TeV,m_0(m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_L},m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_R})<1TeV`$ (2)
We will usually fix $`A_l=0`$ as most of the processes we will discuss are not very sensitive to the exact value of this parameter for the sleptons. For the squarks we take a value for $`A_t`$ that gives a large enough Higgs mass.

## 3 Direct limits from LEP

The direct limits from LEP on gauginos as well as on sleptons are relevant to obtain a lower bound on the lightest neutralino as the sleptons play an important role in the relic density calculation. The LEP experiments obtain a lower limit on the neutralino mass while assuming unified gaugino masses at the GUT scale. The constraint on the neutralino mass is basically derived from the lower limit on the chargino mass obtained in the pair production process. The lower bound on the chargino rests near the kinematic limit, $`m_\chi ^+>103.5`$GeV when sneutrinos are heavy, and drops to $`m_\chi ^+>73`$ GeV when $`75<m_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}<85`$GeV due to the destructive interference between the t- and s-channel contributions. In a general MSSM, the charginos and neutralino masses are uncorrelated and the lower limit on the neutralino mass weakens when $`r_{12}<.5`$. The production of $`\chi _1^0\chi _2^0(\chi _3^0)`$ can be used to somewhat constrain the parameter space. In our scans we implemented the upper limit from the L3 experiment on these cross-sections . For selectrons, a limit of 99.5GeV can be set on both $`\stackrel{~}{e}_L`$ as well as $`\stackrel{~}{e}_R`$ in the case of a light neutralino, whereas basically model independent limits of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\mu }}>96`$GeV and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\tau }}>86`$GeV can be reached .

The radiative processes where a photon is emitted in addition to a pair of invisibly decaying supersymmetric particles will contribute to the process $`e^+e^{}\gamma +invisible`$ which has been searched for by the LEP2 experiments. Such processes can be used to search for the lightest neutralino  or sneutrinos decaying to $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }\chi ^0\nu `$. The radiative processes can also help closing some loopholes in the LEP analyses in the case of charged sparticles that decay invisibly when they are nearly degenerate in mass with the LSP. Using calcHEP  we have computed all radiative processes involving sleptons and gauginos.

For the lightest neutralino, after scanning over a wide range of parameters in the MSSM, we found that the cross-section could reach $`\sigma =50`$fb for $`m_0=100`$GeV. This is below the value reached by LEP, approximately $`\sigma <0.2(.1)`$pb for one(four) experiment(s). However, for sneutrinos, the cross-section for the radiative process often exceeds these limits. For sleptons nearly degenerate with the LSP, we found lower limits on the neutralino even more stringent than in the case without mass degeneracy, for example, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{e}_R}m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}>56`$GeV for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10,\mu >0`$ in model M0.

## 4 Indirect limits : relic density, $`(g2)_\mu `$, $`bs\gamma `$

A MSSM model with a light neutralino must be consistent at least with the upper limit on the amount of cold dark matter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }h^2<.3`$). Our calculations of the relic density is based on micrOMEGAs, a program that calculates the relic density in the MSSM including all possible coannihilation channels . For the light neutralino masses under consideration, it is the main annihilation channels that are most relevant, in particular annihilation into a pair of light fermions. Basically two diagrams contribute, s-channel Z (or Higgs) and t-channel sfermion exchange. A light neutralino that is mainly a Bino couples preferentially to right-handed sleptons, the ones that have the largest hypercharge. To have a large enough annihilation rate (in order to bring down the relic density below the upper limit allowed) one needs either a light slepton or a mass close to $`M_Z/2`$. In the former case, the constraint from LEP plays an important role. In the heavy slepton case, the coupling of the Z should be substantial, which requires that the neutralino should have a certain Higgsino component. This means $`\mu `$ small, but still consistent with the chargino constraint.

Both the theoretical predictions and experimental results on the muon anomalous magnetic moment have been refined on several occasions in the last year. At this conference, we presented results obtained using the bound

$`\delta a_\mu =\left(23\pm 15_{|\mathrm{exp}.}\pm 14_{|\mathrm{theo}.}\right)\times 10^{10}.`$ (3)
Adding linearly the theoretical error to a $`2\sigma `$ experimental error, this translates into

$`21<\delta a_\mu \times 10^{10}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}67}.`$ (4)
Here, the hadronic vacuum polarisation is extracted after averaging the $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`\tau `$ data . This value has been updated in the last few weeks with a more precise experimental result  as well as new estimates of the hadronic vacuum polarisation . The allowed $`2\sigma `$ range (using $`e^+e^{}`$ data alone) becomes

$`3<\delta a_\mu \times 10^{10}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}67}`$ (5)
To be very conservative and since many issues need to be clarified in particular concerning the estimation of the hadronic polarisation, we will still discuss the limits presented in Eq. 4. Note that in this case, the lower bound corresponds roughly to the $`5\sigma `$ limit based on the most recent results using only $`e^+e^{}`$ data . In that scenario, the values $`\mu <0`$, although severely constrained at large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ are not completely ruled out. Note that in general the sign of $`\mu `$ is strongly correlated to the one of $`\delta a_\mu `$, however cancellations between the chargino and the neutralino diagrams can change the relative sign of $`\delta a_\mu `$ and $`\mu `$. When $`\mu >0`$, only scenarios with large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, small $`m_0`$ and light neutralinos/charginos are expected to exceed the upper limit.

The $`bs\gamma `$ depends mostly on the squark and gaugino sector. We find that for a given value of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ it is always possible to find some values of $`A_t`$ that brings the branching ratio in the allowed range,

$`2.04\times 10^4<Br(bs\gamma )<4.42\times 10^4`$ (6)
over the full set of parameter space and that is also consistent with the Higgs mass.

## 5 Results

1) Heavy sleptons, $`m_0=500`$GeV.

In the case of heavy sleptons, the main constraint on the neutralino arises from the relic density. The contribution from sfermion exchange to neutralino annihilation should be negligible. Then in order to have a sufficient annihilation rate, which means sufficient coupling to the Z, a certain amount of Higgsino component is necessary. We scanned over the parameters $`r_{12},M_2,\mu ,\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ as specified in Eq.2. The minimum value for the mass is $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}>27GeV`$ and occurs for $`r_{12}<.2`$. This lower bound is more or less independent of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ and occurs for $`|\mu |100`$GeV. Improving the upper bound on the relic density would strengthen the lower limit on $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}`$ by a few GeV’s. However one cannot do much better than $`35GeV`$. Indeed, when $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}`$ approaches $`M_Z/2`$, the effect of the Z peak becomes so important that the relic density constraint is easily satisfied. As $`r_{12}`$ increases, the direct limit from the chargino mass dominates.

2) Light sleptons, $`\mu >0`$

One expects the contribution from t-channel sfermions to weaken the constraint from the relic density. Here the constraints on the mass of sfermions from LEP must be taken into account. We show in Fig.1 the lower limit on the neutralino mass as a function of $`r_{12}`$ after scanning over $`M_2,\mu `$ and $`m_0`$. The lower bound on the neutralino mass rests at 18GeV for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10`$ and $`r_{12}<.2`$. This lower bound increases with $`r_{12}`$ and follows the limit from the chargino mass. At larger values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, the relic density constraint is more severe except for $`r_{12}<.1`$. Furthermore one starts to marginally see the impact of the $`(g2)_\mu `$.

3)Light sleptons, $`\mu <0`$.

The main difference with the case discussed above is that here the $`(g2)_\mu `$ constraint plays an important role. To get some insight on the effect of combining various constraints we first consider the special case, $`\mu <0,r_{12}=.1`$. The free parameters are $`M_2,m_0,\mu `$. As already mentioned it is in the small $`m_0`$ region that one finds the lightest neutralino. However, it is precisely in that region of the $`m_0M_1`$ plane that one gets too large a contribution to $`\delta a_\mu `$ as displayed in Fig.2 for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10`$. Coupling the limit from $`\delta a_\mu `$ with the one from the relic density then considerably strengthens the lower limit on the neutralino mass, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}>27`$GeV. Furthermore one finds that the lightest neutralino allowed are necessarily accompanied by light charginos. For larger values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, it becomes increasingly difficult to accommodate light neutralinos due to the constraint from $`\delta a_\mu `$.

From a full scan over the parameter space for $`\mu <0`$ we find that combining the three constraints increases the lower bound on the neutralino especially in the $`r_{12}.1.4`$ region (Fig.1). When $`M_1<<M_2`$ cancellations between the neutralino and chargino contributions to $`\delta a_\mu `$ can occur thus making it possible to have $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}20`$GeV. The impact of the $`(g2)_\mu `$is more drastic for very large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. These results hold for the model M0.

For model LR, allowing light $`\stackrel{~}{e}_L`$ has no significant impact on the relic density contribution which is dominated by $`\stackrel{~}{e}_R`$. However the $`(g2)_\mu `$ is much relaxed and basically one recovers more or less the results obtained without the constraint from $`(g2)_\mu `$.

## 6 Conclusion

Combining the upper limit from the relic density of neutralinos with direct limits from LEP on gauginos and sleptons constrains the MSSM with non universal gaugino masses. In particular a lower limit on the neutralino mass is obtained, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^0}>1218`$GeV for $`M_1<<M_2`$, leaving ample room for an invisibly decaying Higgs boson. The implication of such models at linear colliders are dicussed in Ref..

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the PICS-397.


text:
# Abstract

## Abstract

We review a consistent description of the fusion and saturation of partons in the Lorentz-contracted ultrarelativistic nuclei in terms of a nuclear attenuation of color dipole states of the photon and collective Weizsäcker-Williams (WW) gluon structure function of a nucleus. Diffractive DIS provides a basis for the definition of the WW nuclear glue. The point that all observables for DIS off nuclei are uniquely calculable in terms of the nuclear WW glue amounts to a new form of factorization in the saturation regime.

## 1 Introduction

Within the QCD parton model the virtual photoabsorption cross section is proportional to the density of partons in the target and vice versa. When DIS is viewed in the laboratory frame, the hadronic properties of photons suggest  a nuclear shadowing and depletion of the density of partons, when DIS is viewed in the Breit frame, the Lorentz contraction of an ultrarelativistic nucleus entails a spatial overlap and fusion of partons at $`x\text{ }<x_A=1/R_Am_N0.1A^{1/3}.`$ This interpretation of nuclear opacity in terms of a fusion and saturation of nuclear partons has been introduced in 1975  way before the QCD parton model. The pQCD link between nuclear opacity and saturation has been considered in ref.  and by Mueller , the pQCD discussion of fusion of nuclear gluons has been revived by McLerran et al. .

Amplitudes of diffractive DIS are intimately related to the unintegrated glue of the target . Because coherent diffractive DIS in which the target nucleus does not break makes precisely 50 per cent of the total DIS events for heavy nuclei at small $`x`$ , diffractive DIS off nuclei offers a unique definition of the collective WW glue of Lorentz-contracted ultarelativistic nuclei . The recent work has shown that all the observables for nuclear DIS are uniquely calculable in terms of the NSS-defined WW nuclear glue . In this overview presented at Diffraction’2002 by one of the authors (N.N.N) we summarize this new development.

## 2 Quark and antiquark jets in DIS off free nucleons: single particle spectrum and jet-jet decorrelation

In the color dipole approach to DIS  the fundamental quantity is the cross section for interaction of the $`q\overline{q}`$ dipole on a nucleon,

$`\sigma (r)=\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)\left[1\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐫)\right]}`$ (1)
where $`f(𝜿)`$ is related to the unintegrated glue of the target nucleon by

$`f(𝜿)={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{N_c\sigma _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{G}{\mathrm{log}\kappa ^2}}.`$ (2)
For DIS off a free nucleon, see figs. 1a-1d, $`\sigma _N=d^2𝐫𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }(z,𝐫)|^2\sigma (𝐫),`$ and the jet-jet inclusive cross section equals

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _0}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _S(𝐩^2)}{(2\pi )^2}}f(𝚫)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩_+\gamma ^{}|𝐩_+𝚫\right|^2`$ (3)
where $`𝐩_+`$ is the transverse momentum of the quark, $`𝚫=𝐩_++𝐩_{}`$ is the jet-jet decorrelation momentum, $`z_+=z`$ and $`z_{}=1z`$ are the fractions of photon’s lightcone momentum carried by the quark and antiquark, respectively, and the photon wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)`$ and $`𝐩|\gamma ^{}`$ are found in . The crucial point is that the jet-jet decorrelation is controlled  by the unintegrated gluon SF $`f(𝚫)`$.

## 3 Non-Abelian propagation of color dipoles in nuclear medium

DIS at $`x\text{ }<x_A`$ is dominated by interactions of $`q\overline{q}`$ states of the photon. The unitarity cuts of the free-nucleon forward Compton diagrams of figs. 1a-1d describe excitation from the color-neutral to color-octet $`q\overline{q}`$ pair. The unitarity cuts of the nuclear Compton scattering amplitude of fig. 1g which correspond to diffractive and genuine inelastic DIS with color excitation of the nucleus are shown in fig. 1. The elegant multichannel description of the non-Abelian intranuclear evolution of color dipoles is found in , here we cite only the principal results.

Let $`𝐛_+`$ and $`𝐛_{}`$ be the impact parameters of the quark and antiquark, respectively, and $`S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})`$ be the S-matrix for interaction of the $`q\overline{q}`$ pair with the nucleus. We are interested in the 2-body (jet-jet) inclusive inelastic cross section when we sum over all color excitations of the target nucleus and all color states $`c_{km}`$ of the $`q_k\overline{q}_m`$ pair:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝐩_{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐛_+^{}d^2𝐛_{}^{}d^2𝐛_+d^2𝐛_{}}`$
$`\times \mathrm{exp}[i𝐩_+(𝐛_+𝐛_+^{})i𝐩_{}(𝐛_{}𝐛_{}^{})]\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐛_+^{}𝐛_{}^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐛_+𝐛_{})`$
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \underset{A^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{km}{}}1;A|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|A^{};c_{km}c_{km};A^{}|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|A;1`$
$`1;A|S_A^{}(𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})|A;11;A|S_A(𝐛_+,𝐛_{})|A;1\},`$ (4)
where the diffractive component of the final state has been subtracted. According to , upon summing over nuclear final states $`A^{}`$ and making use of the technique developed in , the integrand of (4) can be represented as an $`S`$-matrix $`S_{4A}(𝐛_+,𝐛_{},𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})`$ for the propagation of the two quark-antiquark pairs in the overall singlet state. The detailed description of the matrix of 4-parton color dipole cross section $`\sigma _4`$ is found in . The single-jet cross section evaluated at the parton level equals

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}{\displaystyle d^2𝐫^{}d^2𝐫\mathrm{exp}[i𝐩(𝐫^{}𝐫)]\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫)}`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma (𝐫𝐫^{})T(𝐛)]\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\sigma (𝐫)+\sigma (𝐫^{})]T(𝐛)]\right\}.`$
## 4 The Pomeron-Splitting Mechanism for Diffractive Hard Dijets and Weizsäcker-Williams glue of nuclei

The two distinct diffractive dijet production QCD subprocesses are the classic Landau-Pomeranchuk-Feinberg-Glauber beam-splitting  (fig. 1e, fig. 2a) and the Nikolaev-Zakharov pomeron-splitting  (fig. 1f, fig. 2b):

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_0(z,𝐩)={\displaystyle d^2𝐫e^{i\mathrm{𝐩𝐫}}\sigma (𝐫)\mathrm{\Psi }(z,𝐫)}`$
$`=\alpha _S(𝐩^2)\sigma _0\left[𝐩|\gamma ^{}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿f(𝜿)}{\displaystyle d^2𝜿𝜿|\gamma ^{}f(𝐩𝜿)}\right],`$ (6)
The amplitude for the former mechanism is $`𝐩|\gamma ^{}`$ and the transverse momentum $`𝐩`$ of jets comes from the intrinsic transverse momentum of $`q,\overline{q}`$ in the beam particle, in the latter jets receive a transverse momentum from gluons in the Pomeron, notice the convolution of the wave function with the unintegrated glue in the target proton. If the beam particle were a pion, then $`\psi (z,𝐩)`$ would be much steeper than $`f(𝐩)`$, and the asymptotics of the convolution integral will be

$$d^2𝜿\psi _\pi (z,𝜿)f(𝐩𝜿)f(𝐩)d^2𝜿\psi _\pi (z,𝜿)=f(𝐩)\varphi _\pi (z)F_\pi ,$$
(7)
and, furthermore, will probe the pion distribution amplitude $`\varphi _\pi (z)`$.

.

Now we notice that in the color dipole representation the nuclear amplitude is readily obtained  by substituting in eq.(6)

$`\sigma (𝐫)`$ $``$ $`\sigma _A(𝐫)=2{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\{1\mathrm{exp}[\nu _A(𝐛)]\}}`$ (8)
$`\nu _A(𝐛)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0T(𝐛)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\alpha _S(r)\sigma _0{\displaystyle 𝑑zn_A(𝐛,z)}`$ (9)
Typical nuclear double scattering diagrams of figs. 2c-2e can be classified as shadowing of the pion splitting (fig. 2c), shadowing of single Pomeron splitting (fig. 2d) and double Pomeron splitting (fig. 2e) contributions. In the $`j`$ Pomeron splitting $`j`$ exchanged Pomerons couple with one gluon to the quark and with one gluon to the antiquark of the dipole. That involves the $`j`$-fold convolution $`f^{(j)}(𝜿)=_{i=1}^jd^2𝜿_if(𝜿_i)\delta (𝜿_{i=1}^j𝜿_i).`$ Now we can invoke the NSS representation

$`\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu (𝐛)\right]={\displaystyle d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Phi }(\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)\mathrm{exp}(i𝜿𝐬)}`$ (10)
where $`f^{(0)}(𝜿)=\delta (𝜿)`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)=\mathrm{exp}(\nu _A(𝐛))f^{(0)}(𝜿)+\varphi _{WW}(𝐛,𝜿)`$ and

$`\varphi _{WW}(𝐛,𝜿)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\nu _A(𝐛)\right]{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{j!}}\nu _A^j(𝐛)f^{(j)}(𝜿)`$ (11)
can be identified with the unintegrated nuclear Weizsäcker-Williams glue per unit area in the impact parameter plane .

## 5 Nuclear dilution and broadening of the unintegrated Weizsäcker-Williams glue of nuclei

The hard tail of WW glue per bound nucleon is calculable parameter free:

$`f_{WW}(𝐛,𝜿)={\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _{WW}(𝐛,𝜿)}{\nu _A(𝐛)}}=f(𝜿)\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{2C_A\pi ^2\gamma ^2\alpha _S(r)T(𝐛)}{C_FN_c𝜿^2}}G(𝜿^2)\right]`$ (12)
In the hard regime the differential nuclear glue is not shadowed, furthermore, because of the manifestly positive-valued and model-independent nuclear higher twist correction it exhibits nuclear antishadowing property . The application of this formalism to the interpretation of the E791 data on coherent diffraction of pions into dijets  is found in .

In the soft region one can argue that

$`\varphi _{WW}(𝜿){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Q_A^2}{(𝜿^2+Q_A^2)^2}},`$ (13)
where the saturation scale $`Q_A^2=\nu _A(𝐛)Q_0^2A^{1/3}.`$ Notice a strong nuclear dilution of soft WW glue, $`\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)1/Q_A^2A^{1/3},`$ which must be contrasted to the $`A`$-dependence of hard WW glue (12),

$$\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)=\nu _A(𝐛)f_{WW}(𝜿)A^{1/3}\times (1+A^{1/3}\times (HT)+\mathrm{}).$$
(14)
Take the platinum target, $`A=192`$. The numerical estimates based on the parameterization  for $`f(𝜿)`$ show that for $`(q\overline{q})`$ color dipoles in the average DIS on this target $`\nu _A4`$ and $`Q_{3A}^20.8\mathrm{GeV}^2.`$ For the $`q\overline{q}g`$ Fock states of the photon, which behave predominantly like the dipole made of the two octet color charges, $`Q_{8A}^2`$ is larger by the factor $`C_A/C_F=9/4`$, and for the the average DIS on the Pt target $`Q_{8A}^22.2`$ GeV2.

## 6 Nuclear partons in the saturation regime

On the one hand, making use of the NSS representation, the total nuclear photoabsorption cross section (9) can be cast in the form

$$\sigma _A=d^2𝐛𝑑z\frac{d^2𝐩}{(2\pi )^2}d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right|^2$$
(15)
and its differential form defines the IS sea in a nucleus,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{IS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _A}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}.`$ (16)
Remarkably, in terms of the WW nuclear glue, all intranuclear multiple-scattering diagrams of fig. 3g sum up to precisely the same four diagrams fig. 3a-3d as in DIS off free nucleons. On the other hand, making use of the NSS representation, after some algebra one finds

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}\left\{{\displaystyle }d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\right|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿|^2`$ (17)
$`\left|{\displaystyle }d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿)|^2\right\},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _D}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}}\left|{\displaystyle d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)(\gamma ^{}|𝐩\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿)}\right|^2.`$ (18)
Putting the inelastic and diffractive components of the FS quark spectrum together, one finds the FS parton density which exactly coincides with the IS parton density (16) !

Consider first $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$ when the nucleus is opaque for all color dipoles in the photon. In this regime the nuclear counterparts of diagrams of figs. 1b,1d,1f can be neglected and diffraction will be dominated by the the Landau-Pomeranchuk mechanism of fig. 1e,2a:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{FS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}|_D{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{8\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑z\left|d^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\right|^2\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩\right|^2}{\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{4\pi ^4}}.`$ (19)
Remarkably, diffractive DIS measures the momentum distribution in the $`q\overline{q}`$ Fock state of the photon. In contrast to diffraction off free nucleons , diffraction off opaque nuclei is dominated by the anti-collinear splitting of hard gluons into soft sea quarks, $`𝜿^2𝐩^2`$. Precisely for this reason one finds the saturated FS quark density, because the nuclear dilution of the WW glue is compensated for by the expanding plateau.

The related analysis of the FS quark density for truly inelastic DIS in the same domain of $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$ gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\overline{q}_{FS}}{d^2𝐛d^2𝐩}}|_{in}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑zd^2𝜿\varphi _{WW}(𝜿)\left|\gamma ^{}|𝐩𝜿\right|^2}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{8\pi ^2\alpha _{em}}}\varphi _{WW}(0){\displaystyle ^{Q^2}}d^2𝜿{\displaystyle 𝑑z\left|\gamma ^{}|𝜿\right|^2}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{N_c}{4\pi ^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{Q_A^2}}\theta (Q_A^2𝐩^2)`$ (20)
which, as a functional of the photon wave function and nuclear WW gluon distribution, is completely different from the free-nucleon version of (15).

Now notice, that in the opacity regime the diffractive FS parton density coincides with the contribution $`|\gamma ^{}|𝐩|^2`$ to the IS sea parton density from the spectator diagram 1a, whereas the FS parton density for truly inelastic DIS coincides with the contribution to IS sea partons from the diagram of fig. 1c. The contribution from the crossing diagrams 1b,d is negligibly small. Nuclear broadening and unusually strong $`Q^2`$ dependence of the FS/IS parton density from truly inelastic DIS, demonstrate clearly a distinction between diffractive and inelastic DIS, see fig. 4.

In the case of soft quarks, $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$, in hard photons, $`Q^2\text{ }>Q_A^2`$, the result (19) for diffractive DIS is retained, whereas in the numerator of the result (20) for truly inelastic DIS one must substitute $`Q^2Q_A^2`$, so that in this case $`d\overline{q}_{FS}|_Dd\overline{q}_{FS}|_{in}`$ and $`d\overline{q}_{IS}2d\overline{q}_{FS}|_D`$, see fig. 4. The evolution of soft nuclear sea, $`𝐩^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$, is entirely driven by an anti-collinear splitting of the NSS-defined WW nuclear glue into the sea partons.

The early discussion of the FS quark density in the saturation regime is due to Mueller . Mueller focused on $`Q^2Q_A^2`$ and discussed neither a distinction between diffractive and truly inelastic DIS nor a $`Q^2`$ dependence and broadening (20) for truly inelastic DIS at $`Q^2\text{ }<Q_A^2`$.

## 7 Signals of saturation in exclusive diffractive DIS

The flat $`𝐩^2`$ distribution of forward $`q,\overline{q}`$ jets in truly inelastic DIS in the saturation regime must be contrasted to the $`G(𝐩^2)/𝐩^2`$ spectrum for the free nucleon target. In the diffractive DIS the saturation gain is much more dramatic: flat $`𝐩^2`$ distribution of forward $`q,\overline{q}`$ jets in diffractive DIS in the saturation regime must be contrasted to the $`1/(𝐩^2)^2`$ spectrum for the free nucleon target . In the general case one must compare the saturation scale $`Q_A`$ to the relevant hard scale $`\overline{Q}^2`$ for the specific diffractive process. For instance, in exclusive diffractive DIS, i.e., the vector meson production, $`\overline{Q}^2(Q^2+m_V^2)/4`$ and the transverse cross section has been predicted to behave as

$$\sigma _TG^2(x,\overline{Q}^2)(\overline{Q}^2)^4$$
(21)
At $`\overline{Q}^2>Q_A^2`$ the same would hold for nuclei too, but in the opposite case of $`\overline{Q}^2<Q_A^2`$ the $`\overline{Q}^2`$-dependence is predicted to change to

$$\sigma _TG^2(x,\overline{Q}^2)(Q_A^2)^2(\overline{Q}^2)^2$$
(22)
## 8 Jet-jet decorrelation in DIS off nuclear targets

The derivation of the jet-jet inclusive cross section requires a full fledged non-Abelian multichannel calculation of $`S_{4A}(𝐛_+,𝐛_{},𝐛_+^{},𝐛_{}^{})`$. The principal result for the hard, $`𝐩_\pm ^2Q_A^2`$, jet-jet cross section is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝚫}}=T(𝐛){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿\mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝚫𝜿)\frac{d\sigma _N}{dzd^2𝐩_+d^2𝜿}}.`$ (23)
It has a probabilistic form of a convolution of the differential cross section on a free nucleon target with the unintegrated nuclear WW glue $`\mathrm{\Phi }(2\beta \lambda _c\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿)`$, $`\beta `$ has a meaning of the fraction of the nuclear thickness which the $`(q\overline{q})`$ pair propagates in the color-octet state and the nontrivial color factor $`\lambda _c=(N_c^22)/(N_c^21)`$ is a manifestation of the non-Abelian intranuclear propagation of color dipoles.

The azimuthal decorrelation of hard jets is quantified by

$$𝚫_{}^2\frac{Q_A^2}{2}\left(\frac{Q_A^2+𝐩_+^2}{𝐩_+^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{Q_A^2+𝐩_+^2}{Q_A^2}1\right)$$
(24)
and the differential out-of-plane momentum distribution

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Delta }_{}}\frac{1}{2}\frac{Q_A^2}{(Q_A^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_^2)^{3/2}}$$
(25)
which shows that the probability to observe the away jet at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}0`$ disappears $`1/Q_A1/\sqrt{\nu _A}`$. For instance, from peripheral DIS to central DIS on a heavy nucleus like $`Pt`$, $`\nu _{8A}`$ rises form $`\nu _{8A}=1`$ to $`\nu _{8A}13`$, so that according to (25) a probability to find the away jet decreases by the large factor $`3.5`$ from peripheral to central DIS off $`Pt`$ target.

In the generic case the closed form for the jet-jet inclusive cross section is found  only for large $`N_c`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{in}}{d^2𝐛dzd𝐩_{}d𝚫}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^2}}\alpha _S\sigma _0T(𝐛){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑\beta {\displaystyle d^2𝜿_1d^2𝜿_2d^2𝜿_3d^2𝜿f(𝜿)}`$ (26)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_1)\mathrm{\Phi }((1\beta )\nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_2)`$
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Phi }(\beta \nu _A(𝐛),𝚫𝜿_3𝜿)`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_2+𝜿_3+𝜿)\right\}^{}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3)\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐩_{}+𝜿_1+𝜿_3+𝜿)\right\}`$
We emphasize that it is uniquely calculable in terms of the NSS-defined WW glue of the nucleus.

One important implication of (26) is that for minijets with the jet momentum $`|𝐩_{}|,|𝚫|\text{ }<Q_A`$, the the minijet-minijet inclusive cross section depends on neither the minijet nor decorrelation momentum, i.e., we predict a complete disappearance of the azimuthal decorrelation of jets with the transverse momentum below the saturation scale.

Our experience with application of color dipole formalism to hard hadron-nucleus interactions  suggests that our analysis can be readily generalized to mid-rapidity jets. For this reason, we expect similar strong decorrelation of mid-rapidity jets in hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. To this end, recently the STAR collaboration reported a disappearance of back-to-back high $`p_{}`$ hadron correlation in central gold-gold collisions at RHIC . Nuclear enhancement of the azimuthal decorrelation of the trigger and away jets may contribute substantially to the STAR effect.

## 9 Summary and conclusions

We reviewed a theory of DIS off nuclear targets based on the consistent treatment of propagation of color dipoles in nuclear medium. What is viewed as attenuation in the laboratory frame can be interpreted as a fusion of partons from different nucleons of the ultrarelativistic nucleus. Diffractive attenuation of color single $`q\overline{q}`$ states gives a consistent definition of the WW unintegrated gluon structure function of the nucleus , all other nuclear DIS observables - sea quark structure function and its decomposition into equally important genuine inelastic and diffractive components, exclusive diffraction off nuclei, the jet-jet inclusive cross section, \- are uniquely calculable in terms of the NSS-defined nuclear WW glue. This property can be considered as a new factorization which connects DIS in the regimes of low and high density of partons. The anti-collinear splitting of WW nuclear glue is a clearcut evidence for inapplicability of the DGLAP evolution to nuclear structure functions unless $`Q^2Q_{8A}^2`$.

N.N.N. is grateful to L. Jenkovszky for the invitation to Diffraction’2002. This work has been partly supported by the INTAS grants 97-30494 & 00-00366 and the DFG grant 436RUS17/89/02.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

An important feature of a generic supergravity theory is the possibility of undergoing spontaneous supersymmetry breaking without a cosmological constant. By studying the universal coupling of a Goldstone fermion to supergravity, one can see that in a spontaneously broken supergravity theory the contributions to the vacuum energy could in principle cancel . The first concrete example, based on a field theory lagrangian, was given by Polony . He considered $`N=1`$ supergravity coupled to a single chiral multiplet with canonical kinetic term and linear superpotential and showed that it is possible to fine tune the parameters ($`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$) of the superpotential $`W=\alpha z+\beta `$ in such a way that the potential stabilizes the scalar fields with vanishing vacuum energy. The scalar field masses satisfy the sum rule $`m_A^2+m_B^2=4m_{3/2}^2`$ . Polony type superpotentials were used in the first phenomenological studies of broken supergravity. They generate the soft breaking terms of the observable sector of standard (electroweak and strong) interactions in the supersymmetric extension of the standard model and of grand unified theories (For a review, see Ref. ).

The Polony classical potential is rather unnatural because it requires an ad hoc superpotential. Subsequent studies of the superHiggs sector of supergravity models lead to the introduction of a more appealing class of theories, the so called no-scale supergravities . In these models, the vanishing vacuum energy of the classical potential is obtained without stabilizing the scalar superpartner of the Goldstino. Instead, there is an exact cancellation, prior to minimization, of the positive Goldstino contribution against the negative gravitino contribution to the vacuum energy without the need of fine-tuning the parameters. The no-scale structure of these models poses further constraints on the soft-breaking terms which enter in the phenomenological Lagrangians .

The first construction of an extended supergravity exhibiting a no-scale structure was in the context of $`N=2`$ supergravity coupled to abelian vector multiplets in presence of a Fayet-Iliopoulos term . For a certain choice of the geometry of the scalar manifold, a spontaneous breaking of $`N=2`$ to $`N=0`$ with flat potential takes place. Later, models with $`N=2`$ supersymmetry partially broken to $`N=1`$ were found. In these models the vector multiplets gauge particular isometries of the quaternionic variety pertaining to the hypermultiplets. The breaking of supersymmetry with naturally vanishing vacuum energy was achieved by gauging two traslational isometries of the quaternionic manifold . One unbroken supersymmetry required a relation between the gauge coupling constants of the two translational isometries. To the $`n_t`$ translational isometries of the quaternionic manifold correspond $`n_t`$ axion fields $`b^i`$ transforming by a shift. We can express the shift corresponding to the gauged isometries as

$$b^i(x)b^i(x)+g_1^i\xi ^1(x)+g_2^i\xi ^2(x),$$

so the covariant derivatives are

$$𝒟_\mu b^i=_\mu b^ig_1^iA_\mu ^1(x)g_2^iA_\mu ^2(x).$$

The simplest model  is based on the quaternionic manifold of quaternionic dimension $`n_H=1`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{SO}(1,4)}{\mathrm{SO}(4)}\frac{\mathrm{USp}(2,2)}{\mathrm{USp}(2)\times \mathrm{USp}(2)}.$$

It has three translational isometries, $`i=1,\mathrm{}3`$. By choosing a gauging such that $`g_1^1=g`$, $`g_2^2=g^{}`$ and zero otherwise, one unbroken supersymmetry implies that $`|g|=|g^{}|`$.

It was later shown  that it is possible to couple this $`N=2`$ hidden sector to observable matter for a suitable choice of the vector and hypermultiplet geometry and for appropriate gauge groups.

The no-scale structure for $`N>2`$ extended supergravity is encountered in the context of eleven dimensional supergravity with Scherk-Schwarz generalized dimensional reduction. This produces spontaneously broken supergravity theories in four dimensions . The four dimensional interpretation of these theories  is an $`N=8`$ gauged supergravity whose gauge algebra (a “flat” algebra according to Ref. ) is a 28 dimensional Lie subalgebra of $`\mathrm{E}_{7,7}`$ obtained in the following way: Consider the decomposition

$$\begin{array}{ccc}𝔢_{7,7}& \underset{𝔢_{6,6}+𝔰𝔬(1,1)}{}& 𝔢_{6,6}+𝔰𝔬(1,1)+\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}^++\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}^{}\end{array},$$

Then the flat subalgebra is the semidirect sum of a factor $`𝔲(1)`$ in the Cartan subalgebra of $`𝔲𝔰𝔭(8)`$ (maximal compact subalgebra of $`𝔢_{6,6}`$) with the 27 translational subalgebra $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}^{}`$.The commutation rules are

$`[X_\mathrm{\Lambda },X_0]=f_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}^\mathrm{\Sigma }X_\mathrm{\Sigma },`$
$`[X_\mathrm{\Lambda },X_\mathrm{\Sigma }]=0\mathrm{\Lambda }=1,\mathrm{}27,`$
with $`f_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}^\mathrm{\Sigma }=M_\mathrm{\Lambda }^\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in the CSA of $`𝔲𝔰𝔭(8)`$.

The 27 axions $`a^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in $`\mathrm{E}_{7,7}/\mathrm{SU}(8)`$ transform under the gauge algebra as follows:

$$\delta a^\mathrm{\Lambda }=M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }\xi ^\mathrm{\Sigma }+\xi ^0M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }a^\mathrm{\Sigma },$$

and their covariant derivatives, in terms of the gauge fields $`B_\mu `$ and $`Z_\mu ^\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, are

$$𝒟_\mu a^\mathrm{\Lambda }=_\mu a^\mathrm{\Lambda }M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }a^\mathrm{\Sigma }B_\mu M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }Z_\mu ^\mathrm{\Sigma }.$$

The gauge fields transform as

$`\delta Z_\mu ^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu \xi ^\mathrm{\Lambda }+\xi ^0M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }Z_\mu ^\mathrm{\Sigma }\xi ^\mathrm{\Sigma }M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }B_\mu `$
$`\delta B_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`_\mu \xi ^0`$
With respect to $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ the representation 27 of $`\mathrm{E}_{7,7}`$ is the two fold antisymmetric $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-traceless representation, so we can write $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(a_1,a_2)`$ and

$$M_\mathrm{\Sigma }^\mathrm{\Lambda }M_{[b_1}^{[a_1}\delta _{b_2]}^{a_2]}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{traces}$$

where $`M_{b_1}^{a_1}`$ turns out to be the gravitino U(1)-charge matrix,

$`\left(\begin{array}{cccc}m_1ϵ& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& m_2ϵ& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& m_3ϵ& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& m_4ϵ\end{array}\right)`$ (1)
with $`ϵ=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$. The gravitino mass matrix is the symmetric 8$`\times `$8 matrix

$$S_{ab}=e^{3\varphi }(M\mathrm{\Omega })_{ab},$$

where $`\varphi `$ is the radion field . This is the constant term in the fifth component of the $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ connection of $`\mathrm{E}_{6,6}/\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ upon generalized dimensional reduction .

The most recent example of no-scale extended supergravity is the $`N=4`$ spontaneously broken theory  which is the low energy effective action for type IIB superstrings on type IIB orientifolds in presence of D3-branes and with three-form fluxes turned on . In presence of $`n`$ D3-branes this theory corresponds to a gauged supergravity with gauge group the direct product $`T_{12}\times \mathrm{U}(n)`$ which are a particular set of isometries of the sigma model $`\mathrm{SO}(6,6+n^2)/\mathrm{SO}(6)\times \mathrm{SO}(6+n^2)`$. The latter is a sigma model of an $`N=4`$ supergravity theory coupled to $`6+n^2`$ vector multiplets. In the superstring interpretation, six of the vector multiplets come from the supergravity fields on the bulk and the rest comes from a non abelian D3-brane Born-Infeld action coupled to supergravity. The twelve bulk vectors gauge the $`T_{12}`$ factor and the gauge vectors living on the brane gauge the $`\mathrm{U}(n)`$ Yang-Mills group. The full action has been recently constructed . It is a no-scale $`N=4`$ supergravity with four arbitrary gravitino masses and its moduli space is a product of three non compact projective spaces $`\mathrm{U}(1,1+n)/\mathrm{U}(1)\times \mathrm{U}(n)`$ . If we formally integrate out step by step the three massive gravitino multiplets (in this process $`N=4N=3N=2N=1`$) we end up with an $`N=1`$ no-scale supergravity with a particular simple form which falls in the class of no-scale models studied in the literature .

The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we review the scalar potential in $`N`$-extended supergravity and outline the properties of no-scale supergravities regardless of the specific matter content and of the number of supersymmetries. In Section 3 we formulate the $`N=8`$ and $`N=4`$ spontaneously broken theories discussed so far in the context of no-scale gauged supergravities. In Section 4 we briefly review the $`N=1`$ no scale models and consider the $`N=1`$ type IIB orientifold model in this framework.

## 2 Scalar potential in N-extended supergravity: vacua without cosmological constant

We consider an $`N`$-extended supergravity theory in $`D=4`$. We will denote by $`\psi _{\mu A},A=1,\mathrm{}N`$ the spin 3/2 gravitino fields and by $`\lambda ^I`$ the spin $`1/2`$ fields (the spinor indices are not shown explicitly). They are all taken to be left handed, and the right handed counterparts are denoted by $`\psi _\mu ^A`$ and $`\lambda _I`$. The scalar fields will be denoted by $`q^u`$, and are coordinates on a Riemann manifold $``$. Supersymmetry requires that $``$ has a restricted holonomy group $`H=H_R\times H_M`$, with $`H_R`$ being $`\mathrm{U}(N)`$ or $`\mathrm{SU}(N)`$ ($`\mathrm{U}(N)`$ being the R-symmetry group) and $`H_M`$ varying according to the different matter multiplet species. It also requires that on $``$ there is an $`H_R`$-bundle with a connection whose curvature is related to the geometric structure of $``$ .

For $`N=1`$ supergravity coupled to $`n`$ chiral multiplets we have a Kähler-Hodge manifold of complex dimension $`n`$, with $`H_M=\mathrm{SU}(n)`$ and $`H_R=\mathrm{U}(1)`$. On $``$ there is a U(1) bundle whose Chern class is equal to the Kähler class.

For $`N=2`$ coupled to $`n`$ vector multiplets we have a special Kähler-Hodge manifold. If we have $`n_h`$ hypermultiplets, then $``$ is a quaternionic manifold of quaternionic dimension $`n_h`$. The holonomy is $`H=H_R\times H_M`$ with $`H_R=\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ and $`H_M=\mathrm{USp}(2n_h)`$. On $``$ there is an $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$-bundle with curvature equal to the triplet of hyperKähler forms on $``$.

For $`N>2`$ the manifolds of the scalars are maximally symmetric spaces $`=G/H`$ with $`H=H_R+H_M`$. Then there is also an $`H_R`$-bundle on $``$ whose connection is the $`H_R`$ part of the spin connection.

For $`N=3`$ with $`n_v`$ vector multiplets $`H_M=\mathrm{SU}(n_v)`$ and $`H_R=\mathrm{U}(3)`$. For $`N4`$ the supergravity multiplet itself contains scalars. For $`N=4`$ with $`n_v`$ vector multiplets $`H_M=\mathrm{SO}(n_v)`$ and $`H_R=\mathrm{SU}(4)\times \mathrm{U}(1)`$. For $`N>4`$ there are no matter multiplets and $`H=H_R=\mathrm{U}(N)`$ except for $`N=8`$ where $`H=\mathrm{SU}(8)`$ .

The above considerations imply that the covariant derivative of the supersymmetry parameter, $`𝒟_\mu ϵ_A`$, contains, in presence of scalar fields, an $`H_R`$ connection in addition to the spacetime spin connection.

The supersymmetry variations of the fermions in a generic supergravity theory can be expressed as

$`\delta \psi _{A\mu }=𝒟_\mu ϵ_A+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}S_{AB}\gamma _\mu ϵ^B+\mathrm{}`$ (2)
$`\delta \lambda ^I=iP_{\mu A}^I\gamma ^\mu ϵ^A+N^{IA}ϵ_A+\mathrm{},`$ (3)
where $`S_{AB}=S_{BA}`$, and $`N^{IA}`$ are sections of $`H_R`$ bundles on $``$ which depend on the specific model under consideration. The dots stand for terms which contain vector fields. $`P_{\mu A}^Idx^\mu `$ is pullback into spacetime of $`P_{uA}^Idq^u`$, the vielbein one-form on $``$, so

$$P_{\mu A}^I=P_{uA}^I_\mu q^u.$$

The variation of the scalars is then given by

$$\delta q^uP_{uA}^I=\overline{\lambda }^Iϵ_A.$$

The supergravity lagrangian contains the following terms

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}=\mathrm{}+S_{AB}\overline{\psi }_\mu ^A\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\psi _\nu ^B+iN^{IA}\overline{\lambda }_I\gamma ^\mu \psi _{\mu A}+M^{IJ}\overline{\lambda }_I\lambda _J+\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{c}.V(q)$$

where $`M^{IJ}`$ is the mass matrix of the spin $`1/2`$ fields and $`V(q)`$ is the potential of the scalar fields. The potential must be such that the supersymmetry variation of all these terms cancel. This implies

$`\delta _B^AV(q)=3S^{AC}S_{BC}+N^{IA}N_{IB}`$ (4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{q^u}}P_{uA}^I=2iN^{IB}S_{BA}+2M^{IJ}N_{JA},`$
where $`N_{IA}=(N^{IA})^{}`$ and $`S^{AC}=S_{AC}^{}`$.

Flat space requires that on the extremes $`V/q^u=0`$ the potential vanishes, so

$$3\underset{C}{}S^{AC}S_{CA}=\underset{I}{}N^{IA}N_{IA},A.$$

The first term in the potential (4) is the square of the gravitino mass matrix. It is hermitian, so it can be diagonalized by a unitary transformation. Assume that it is already diagonal, then the eigenvalue in the entry $`(A_0,A_0)`$ is non zero if and only if $`N^{IA_0}0`$ for some $`I`$. On the other hand, if the gravitino mass matrix vanishes then $`N^{IA}`$ must be zero.

For no-scale models, there is a subset of fields $`\lambda ^I^{}`$ for which

$$3\underset{C}{}S^{AC}S_{CA}=\underset{I^{}}{}N^{I^{}A}N_{I^{}A},A$$
(5)
in all $``$. This implies that the potential is given by

$$V(q)=\underset{II^{}}{}N^{IA}N_{IA},$$

and it is manifestly positive definite. Zero vacuum energy on a point of $``$ implies that $`N^{IA}=0`$, $`II^{}`$ at that point. This happens independently of the number of unbroken supersymmetries, which is controlled by $`N^{I^{}A}`$ (gravitino mass matrix).

In $`N`$ extended supergravities, the axion couplings to the gauge fields

$$𝒟_\mu a^i=_\mu a^ig_\mathrm{\Lambda }^iA_\mu ^\mathrm{\Lambda }$$

are related to the gravitino mass matrix $`S_{AB}`$ through the existence, for each pair of indices $`i,\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of a section $`X_{i,AB}^\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of an $`H_R`$ bundle over $``$ such that

$$S_{AB}=g_\mathrm{\Lambda }^iX_{i,AB}^\mathrm{\Lambda },X_{i,AB}^\mathrm{\Lambda }=X_{i,BA}^\mathrm{\Lambda }.$$

In the next section we will give the particular form of $`S_{AB}`$ in $`N=8`$ and $`N=4`$.

## 3 No-scale $`N=8`$ and $`N=4`$ theories

### 3.1 $`N=8`$ Scherk-Schwarz spontaneously broken supergravity

In $`N=8`$ spontaneously broken supergravity à la Scherk-Schwarz, the $`R`$-symmetry that is manifest is $`\mathrm{USp}(8)\mathrm{SU}(8)`$. The spin 3/2 gravitinos are in the fundamental representation of $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ (8), while the spin 1/2 fermions are in the 8 and 48 (threefold $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-traceless antisymmetric representation). We will denote them as $`\psi _{\mu a},\lambda _a`$ and $`\lambda _{abc}`$.

From a dimensional reduction point of view, the scalar potential is originated by the five dimensional $`\sigma `$-model kinetic energy term

$$\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }P_\mu ^{abcd}P_{\nu abcd},\mathrm{for}\mu =\nu =5,$$

where $`P_\mu ^{abcd}`$ is the pullback on spacetime of the vielbein one form of the coset $`\mathrm{E}_{6,6}/\mathrm{USp}(8)`$.

From the generalized dimensional reduction, the four dimensional scalar potential is

$$V=\frac{1}{8}e^{6\varphi }P_5^{abcd}P_{5abcd},$$
(6)
where $`\varphi `$ is the radion field. This term would not appear in a standard dimensional reduction.

The five dimensional supersymmetry variations are

$`\delta \psi _{\mu a}=𝒟_\mu ϵ_a+\mathrm{}`$
$`\delta \lambda _{abc}=P_{\mu abcd}\gamma ^\mu ϵ^d+\mathrm{}.`$
We denote by $`Q_{\mu ab}`$ the $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ connection in five dimensions. The functions $`S_{AB}`$ and $`N^{IA}`$ of the previous section (3) are then

$$S_{ab}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}e^{3\varphi }Q_{5ab},N^{ab}=e^{3\varphi }Q_5^{ab},N^{abcd}=e^{3\varphi }P_5^{abcd}$$

(the indices can be raised or lowered with the antisymmetric metric $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ab}`$). $`P_5^{abcd}`$ satisfies the identity

$$P_5^{abcd}P_{5ebcd}=\frac{1}{8}\delta _e^aP_5^{fbcd}P_{5fbcd},$$

which is crucial to have (4)

In the computation of the scalar potential using (4) there is an exact cancellation between the gravitino and the spin 1/2 fermions in the 8 as in (5),

$$3|S_{ab}|^2=|N^{ab}|^2,$$

so that

$$V=\frac{1}{8}|N^{abcd}|^2.$$

This explains formula (6) from a four dimensional point of view. Note that at a linearized level (near the origin of the coset, where the exponential coordinates $`\varphi ^{abcd}`$ are small),

$`P_5^{abcd}=M_a^{}^{[a}\varphi ^{a^{}bcd]}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{traces}+𝒪(\varphi ^{abcd})^2,`$
$`Q_{5ab}\mathrm{\Omega }^{ba^{}}=M_a^a^{}+𝒪(\varphi ^{abcd}),`$
where $`M_a^a^{}`$ was given in (1).

The vacua with zero potential correspond to $`P_5^{abcd}=0`$, while the supersymmetry breaking depends on the vanishing eigenvalues of the matrix $`Q_{5ab}`$. When all the eignevalues $`m_i`$ of (1) are different from zero, the requirement $`P_5^{abcd}=0`$ determines all but two coordinates which are the two scalars which are neutral with respect to the CSA of $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$. Together with the radion, they are the flat directions of the potential. There are three additional massless scalars, the three axions in the 27 of $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ which are neutral under the CSA. All together, they form the moduli space of the Scherk-Schwarz compactification and they parameterize the coset

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{SU}(1,1)}{\mathrm{U}(1)}\right)^3.$$

If some eigenvalues $`m_i`$ of $`M`$ vanish, we have some unbroken supersymmetries, and the moduli space of the solution is bigger. If three masses are set to zero, then the equation $`P_5^{abcd}=0`$ leaves 14 coordinates undetermined, which parameterize

$$\frac{\mathrm{SU}^{}(6)}{\mathrm{USp}(6)},$$

By adding the radion and 15 axions this space enlarges to

$$\frac{\mathrm{SO}^{}(12)}{\mathrm{U}(6)},$$

which is the moduli space of the $`N=6`$ unbroken supergravity.

Similar reasoning can be used for the cases with two eigenvalues equal to zero ($`N=4`$) and only one eigenvalue equal to zero ($`N=2`$). We observe that in all models the spin 1/2 fermions which cancel the negative spin 3/2 contribution to the potential are precisely the Goldstino fermions. They are in the 8 of $`\mathrm{USp}(8)`$ for the $`N=8`$ model of section 3.1 and in the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}}`$ of $`\mathrm{SU}(4)`$ for the $`N=4`$ model of this section. When all supersymmetries are broken these fermions disappear from the spectrum to give mass to the gravitino. If some supersymmetry remains unbroken then these fermions are strictly massless.

### 3.2 $`N=4`$ supergravity and type IIB orientifolds

We now consider no-scale $`N=4`$ spontaneously broken supergravity. This theory is the low energy limit of type IIB 10 dimensional supergravity compactified on orientifolds in presence of three form fluxes and $`n`$ D3 branes with non commutative coordinates .

The six $`N=4`$ vector multiplets coming from the bulk lagrangian contain 36 scalars, 21 of which are the metric deformation of the 6-torus $`T^6`$ $`g_{IJ}`$, $`I,J=1,\mathrm{}6`$, and 15 scalars coming from the four form gauge field $`C_{\mu \nu \rho \lambda }`$, whose components along the 6-torus are dual to a two form

$$B^{IJ}=^{}C^{IJ},I,J=1,\mathrm{}6.$$

Turning on the three form fluxes corresponds in the effective theory to gauge particular isometries of the coset $`\mathrm{SO}(6,6)/\mathrm{SO}(6)\times \mathrm{SO}(6)`$ . More explicitly, the gauge isometries are twelve of the fifteen translational isometries in the graded decomposition

$$𝔰𝔬(6,6)=𝔰𝔩(6)+𝔰𝔬(1,1)+\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}^++\mathrm{𝟏𝟓}^{}.$$

In the case when Yang-Mills $`N=4`$ multiplets are added (describing the D3 brane degrees of freedom), the gauge group is $`T_{12}\times \mathrm{U}(n)`$. This theory gives rise to a no-scale supergravity with four arbitrary parameters for the gravitino masses .

The SU(4) (R-symmetry) representations of the bulk fermions are as follows:

spin 3/2 (gravitinos) in the 4,

spin 1/2 (dilatinos) in the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}}`$,

spin 1/2 (gauginos, from the 6 vector multiplets) in the 20+$`\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}}`$.

The fermions in the brane (gauginos) form $`n^2=dim\mathrm{U}(n)`$ copies of the representation 4 of SU(4).

Computing the potential (4), the subset of fields $`\lambda ^I^{}`$ (5) are the bulk gauginos in the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}}`$. The condition for vanishing potential  is then $`N^{IA}=0`$ for $`II^{}`$. For the bulk fermions it fixes the complex dilaton, 18 radial moduli and 12 axions. For the brane gauginos it fixes all the scalars but the ones in the CSA of $`\mathrm{U}(n)`$.

## 4 $`N=1`$ no-scale supergravities

Supergravity theories with a positive definite potential have a particular convenient set up in the context of $`N=1`$ supergravity. $`N=1`$ theories can be obtained from an $`N`$-extended supergravity which is spontaneously broken to $`N=1`$ and then integrating out the massive modes. This will be still true if $`N=1`$ is itself spontaneously broken, provided the mass of the $`N=1`$ gravitino is much smaller than the other gravitino masses.

To compute the contribution to the scalar potential of the chiral multiplet sector of an $`N=1`$ theory it is convenient to introduce some auxiliary fields . We denote by $`u`$ the auxiliary field associated to the gravity multiplet and by $`h^i`$ the ones associated to the chiral multiplets. Let $`K`$ be the Kähler potential and $`W`$ be the superpotential. We introduce the function

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{3}=e^{\frac{K}{3}}.$$

Then, the scalar potential is given by

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{3}}\right)^2V={\displaystyle \frac{1}{9}}\mathrm{\Phi }|u|^2\mathrm{\Phi }_{i\overline{j}}h^ih^{\overline{j}}+W_ih^i+\overline{W}_{\overline{i}}h^{\overline{i}}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}u^{}(3\overline{W}\mathrm{\Phi }_ih^i)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}u(3W\mathrm{\Phi }_{\overline{i}}h^{\overline{i}}).`$ (7)
(the derivatives with respect to $`z^i`$ and $`\overline{z}^{\overline{i}}`$ are denoted by subindices $`i`$ and $`\overline{i}`$). The standard potential is easily obtained by making the field redefinition

$$\stackrel{~}{u}=uK_ih^i$$

so that

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{3}\right)^2V=\frac{1}{9}\mathrm{\Phi }|\stackrel{~}{u}|^2+\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{\Phi }K_{i\overline{j}}h^ih^{\overline{j}}+W\stackrel{~}{u}+\overline{W}\stackrel{~}{u}^{}+(K_iW+W_i)h^i+(K_{\overline{i}}\overline{W}+\overline{W}_{\overline{i}})h^{\overline{i}}.$$

Eliminating the auxiliary fields we get

$$V=e^K[K^{i\overline{j}}𝒟_iW𝒟_{\overline{j}}\overline{W}3|W|^2],$$

where $`𝒟_iW=_iW+K_iW`$.

The simplest example of no-scale supergravity is given by a $`\mathrm{P}^{n+1}`$ $`\sigma `$-model  for which

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=t+\overline{t}\underset{A}{}c_Ac_{\overline{A}},A=1,\mathrm{}n$$

and an arbitrary superpotential $`W(c^A)`$. From (7), since $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{t\overline{t}}=0`$, then the variation with respect to $`h^t`$ implies $`u=0`$, and then the potential reduces to

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{3}\right)^2V=\underset{A}{}(h^Ah^{\overline{A}}+h^AW_A+h^{\overline{A}}W_{\overline{A}}).$$

Then

$$V=e^{\frac{2}{3}K}|\frac{W}{c_A}|^2$$

so the extremes with vanishing vacuum energy occur for $`W/c_A=0`$. In this example the gravitino mass contribution to the potential $`3e^K|W|^2`$ is canceled by the $`\chi ^t`$ fermion contribution.

The crucial point here is that the matrix $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{i\overline{j}}`$ has determinant zero and rank $`n`$ . Such a situation generalizes to a class of models of the following type

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{r=1}{\overset{m}{}}(t_r+\overline{t}_r\underset{A}{}c_{rA}c_{r\overline{A}})^{\frac{1}{m}},A=1,\mathrm{}n$$

and $`W`$ a function only of $`c_{rA}`$. This expression corresponds to the Kähler potential of the product of $`m`$ spaces $`\mathrm{P}^{n+1}`$ each with curvature $`3/m`$.

The function $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is homogeneous of degree 1 in the variables $`x_r=t_r+\overline{t}_r_Ac_{rA}c_{r\overline{A}}`$. This implies that the matrix of second derivatives has a null vector

$$\underset{s}{}\frac{^2\mathrm{\Phi }}{x^rx^s}x^s=0,$$

and from the form of the potential this implies that $`u=0`$. Then the potential becomes

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{3}\right)^2V=\underset{rs}{}\mathrm{\Phi }_{rs}\stackrel{~}{h}^{t_r}\stackrel{~}{h}^{\overline{t}_s}+h^{c_{rA}}h^{\overline{c}_{r\overline{A}}}\mathrm{\Phi }_r+h^{c_{rA}}W_{c_{rA}}+\overline{h}^{\overline{c}_{r\overline{A}}}\overline{W}_{c_{rA}},$$

where

$$\stackrel{~}{h}^{t_r}=h^{t_r}h^{c_{rA}}\overline{c}_{r\overline{A}}.$$

Eliminating the auxiliary fields one finds

$$V=e^K\underset{r}{}\frac{1}{K_r}|\frac{W}{c_{rA}}|^2=e^K\underset{r}{}K^{c_{rA}\overline{c}_{s\overline{B}}}\frac{W}{c_{rA}}\frac{\overline{W}}{\overline{c}_{s\overline{B}}},$$

where we have used the inverse of the Kähler metric

$$K^{c_{rA}\overline{c}_{s\overline{B}}}=\delta _{rAs\overline{B}}\frac{1}{K_r}.$$

An example of the above situation is realized in type IIB orientifold with fluxes if one breaks $`N=4`$ to $`N=1`$ . In this case $`m=3`$, $`c^{rA}`$ are the brane coordinates in the adjoint of $`\mathrm{U}(n)`$, and the superpotential is

$$W(c_{rA})=f+g^{ABC}c_{1A}c_{2B}c_{3C},$$

where $`f`$ is the constant flux that breaks $`N=1`$ to $`N=0`$ and $`g^{ABC}`$ are the structure constants of $`\mathrm{SU}(n)`$.

## Acknowledgements

M. A. Ll. would like to thank the Department of Physics and Astronomy of UCLA for its kind hospitality during the completion of this work. Work supported in part by the European Community’s Human Potential Program under contract HPRN-CT-2000-00131 Quantum Space-Time, in which L. A., R. D. and M. A. Ll. are associated to Torino University. This work has also been supported by the D.O.E. grant DE-FG03-91ER40662, Task C.