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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The Standard Model (SM) of electroweak and strong interactions is extremely successful in describing all available data on particle physics up to the highest energies reached presently at colliders. However, its least understood aspects concern electroweak and flavour symmetry breaking, i.e. the Higgs sector and fermion masses and mixings. Supersymmetry (SUSY) is the only known low-energy extension of the SM which, in addition to stabilizing the Higgs sector against radiative corrections, allows for gauge coupling unification at high energies, without spoiling the agreement with precision electroweak data. However, on its own it does not add any understanding of flavour symmetry breaking. Indeed, flavour physics is a very stringent test of SUSY extensions of the SM: in its general form, the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) contains more than 100 new parameters in the flavour sector, which can cause Flavour Changing Neutral Current (FCNC) and CP violating processes to arise at a rate much higher than what is experimentally observed .

Within the SM, the only sources of flavour and CP violation in the hadronic sector arise from the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix. Recent progresses in experimental results and in theoretical methods allow for a very successful determination of the CKM parameters via the so-called Unitarity Triangle (UT) fit, which combines all presently available informations on flavour and CP violation. The success of the SM UT fit is a clear signal that present experimental data do not favour new generic sources of FCNC and CP violation. However, we think that it is premature to draw the conclusion that the room available for New Physics (NP) in FCNC and CP violating processes has shrunk to the point that no significant departure from SM expectations is foreseable within such phenomena.

A closer look at the UT fit reveals that NP contributions to $`sd`$ and $`bd`$ transitions are strongly constrained, while new contibutions to $`bs`$ transitions do not affect the fit at all, unless they interfere destructively with the SM amplitude for $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing, bringing it below the present lower bound of $`14`$ ps-1. It is certainly true that other processes not directly involved in the UT fit, in particular $`BX_s\gamma `$ and, to a lesser extent, $`BK\pi `$, $`B\varphi K_s`$, $`BX_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ and $`B_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ decays represent a powerful constraint on any NP in $`bs`$ transitions. However, the celebrated $`BX_s\gamma `$ decay mostly constrains the helicity flipping contributions to the $`bs`$ transition and, as we shall see in the following, in the case of SUSY the effect of these constraints is not as dramatic as it is for $`sd`$ and $`bd`$ transitions, and plenty of room is left for SUSY contributions to interesting observables in this sector.

In this work we intend to make a systematic study of the SUSY contributions to the (CP conserving and violating) $`bs`$ transitions in the context of a generic MSSM model with R parity. We see three main motivations to pursue yet another analysis on the thorougly explored issue of FCNC and MSSM.

i) Thanks to the advent of the new B factories, our experimental knowledge concerning the above processes has greatly improved in this last period and, in addition, we expect new results on the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing soon at Run II of the Tevatron from CDF and later on BTeV and LHCB. Hence, a more thorough investigation of the $`bs`$ transition both in $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ processes is now mandatory.

ii) While for $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=2`$ processes a refined treatment of the gluino exchange contributions including the NLO QCD evolution for the four-quark operators and a lattice computation of the hadronic matrix elements is now available , the same does not apply to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ case. Moreover correlations among different observables in $`bs`$ physics have still to be largely explored in the MSSM context.

iii) Finally, it was recently pointed out  that the large mixing(s) in the neutrino sector may imply the presence of large mixing angles in the right-handed down-type quarks in GUT’s where the latter are unified with the lepton doublets. Although we cannot witness the presence of such large mixings in our experiments given that they are present in the right-handed charged hadronic currents, we can still have a visible implication in low-energy physics because of the possible large mixing between right-handed bottom and strange squarks through radiative corrections induced by the large top Yukawa coupling.

Although this latter motivation iii) would push us towards the choice of particular patterns of squark mass matrices with only the $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ entry largely enhanced (see ref. ), in view also of the previous two motivations we think it more interesting not to commit ourselves to any specific choice of the squark masses, but rather to keep our analysis in the MSSM as general as possible. Obviously, then the enhanced $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ case turns out to be just a particular case and we are able to appreciate even more its characterizing features when we embed it in a generic low-energy SUSY extension of the SM. Needless to say, there is a price to pay to allow ourselves to be so general: the complete ignorance of the squark mass textures prevents us from using the basis of the squark physical (mass) eigenstates, but rather we have to make use of an efficient parametrization of the generic squark mass matrix diagonalization. Such a tool has been available for a long time : we parametrize the new sources of flavour and CP violation in the hadronic sector present in a generic MSSM choosing the so-called Super-CKM basis. In this basis, all gauge couplings involving SUSY partners of quarks have the same flavour structure as the corresponding quark couplings. FCNC and CP violation arise then from off-diagonal terms in squark mass matrices. These are conveniently expressed as $`(\delta _{ij})_{AB}(\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij})_{AB}/m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}^2`$, where $`(\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij})_{AB}`$ is the mass term connecting squarks of flavour $`i`$ and $`j`$ and “helicities” $`A`$ and $`B`$, and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ is the average squark mass. In the absence of any horizontal symmetry and for a generic SUSY breaking mechanism, one expects $`(\delta _{ij}^d)_{LL}𝒪(1)`$, $`(\delta _{ij}^d)_{RR}𝒪(1)`$, $`(\delta _{ij}^d)_{LR}𝒪(m_{d_k}/m_{\stackrel{~}{q}})`$ and $`(\delta _{ij}^d)_{RL}𝒪(m_{d_k}/m_{\stackrel{~}{q}})`$, with $`k=`$max$`(i,j)`$. The last two inequalities are also imposed by the requirement of avoiding charge and colour breaking minima as well as unbounded from below directions in scalar potentials . We argued above that the UT fit poses stringent constraints on NP contributions to $`sd`$ and $`bd`$ transitions, which in the MSSM are governed by $`(\delta _{12}^d)_{AB}`$ and $`(\delta _{13}^d)_{AB}`$ respectively. Indeed, detailed analyses carried out in SUSY at a level of accuracy comparable to the SM UT fit (NLO QCD corrections, Lattice QCD hadronic matrix elements) have shown that one must have $`(\delta _{12}^d)_{AB}`$ and $`(\delta _{13}^d)_{AB}`$ much smaller than what naively expected . It is therefore reasonable to assume that, either due to the effect of some horizontal symmetry or to the explicit form of SUSY breaking, $`(\delta _{12}^d)_{AB}(\delta _{13}^d)_{AB}0`$. The purpose of this paper is to thoroughly analyze, once again at the same level of accuracy of SM investigations, constraints on $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ from available data and possible effects in present and future measurements. As we shall see, in this case $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ at the level of what naively expected are certainly allowed by present data. Moreover, if some recent experimental results, such as the CP asymmetry in $`B\varphi K_s`$ decays  will be confirmed with better accuracy, values of $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ close to the naive expectations could be even favoured by experiments, giving an indirect hint of SUSY in $`B`$ physics.

## 2 Analysis

We now describe in detail the analysis we carried out. Preliminary results had been already presented at ICHEP02 . We aim at determining the allowed regions in the SUSY parameter space governing $`bs`$ transitions, studying the correlations among different observables and pointing out possible signals of SUSY. The constraints on parameter space come from:

1. The BR$`(BX_s\gamma )=(3.29\pm 0.34)\times 10^4`$ (experimental results as reported in , rescaled according to ref. ).
2. The CP asymmetry $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )=0.02\pm 0.04`$ .
3. The BR$`(BX_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})=(6.1\pm 1.4\pm 1.3)\times 10^6`$ .
4. The lower bound on the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mass difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{B_s}>14.4`$ ps-1 .

We have also considered BR’s and CP asymmetries for $`BK\pi `$. For $`B\varphi K_s`$, we have studied the BR and the coefficients $`C_{\varphi K}`$ and $`S_{\varphi K}`$ of cosine and sine terms in the time-dependent CP asymmetry. Due to theoretical and experimental uncertainties, these processes are less effective as a constraint on SUSY, as we discuss in the following.

Concerning $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing, we closely follow the treatment of $`B_d\overline{B}_d`$ mixing in ref. , where all the relevant formulae for matching conditions , NLO QCD evolution  and hadronic matrix elements  can be found (with the obvious replacement $`ds`$), as well as a detailed discussion of the uncertainties of this kind of analysis. We include SM and gluino-mediated SUSY contributions, which are expected to be dominant for large mass insertions. However, in particular cases, such as large $`\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta `$ scenarios, chargino exchange can also be important. See ref.  for a discussion of the impact of chargino-mediated contributions in $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=2`$ processes.

For $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ transitions, the matching conditions for four-quark operators are given in ref. , and the NLO QCD evolution can be obtained from the anomalous dimensions given in ref. . The NLO anomalous dimensions for magnetic and chromomagnetic operators can be found in ref. . The matching conditions including semileptonic operators are given in ref.  and the anomalous dimensions were given in ref. . NLO QCD matrix elements and matching conditions to the Standard Model for $`BX_s\gamma `$ can be found in ref. .

Concerning $`BK\pi `$ and $`B\varphi K_s`$ decays, we adopt BBNS factorization , with the caveats on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/M_b`$ corrections raised in ref. . The importance of power-suppressed contributions in $`BK\pi `$ decays is widely recognized. However, it is a matter of debate whether these corrections come mainly from the matrix elements of penguin operators or from penguin contractions of current-current operators containing charm quarks (the charming penguins of ref. ). These contributions, having the same quantum numbers, cannot be disentangled using experimental data. Indeed, present data can be reproduced using either mechanism. SUSY only affects the coefficients of penguin operators, leaving current-current operators unmodified. Therefore, the sensitivity to SUSY effects is expected to be much lower in the presence of charming penguins. For this reason, in order to maximize the sensitivity to SUSY contributions, we use the BBNS treatment of power-suppressed terms in this paper. However, in the spirit of the criticism of ref. , we let the annihilation parameter $`\rho _A`$ of the BBNS model vary between $`0`$ and $`8`$.

Another source of potentially large SUSY effects in $`BK\pi `$ and $`B\varphi K_s`$ decays is the contribution of the chromomagnetic operator. As pointed out in ref. , this operator can be substantially enhanced by SUSY without spoiling the experimental constraints from $`BX_s\gamma `$. Also here the hadronic uncertainties can be large. In fact, this term is generated as an $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ correction to the leading power amplitude. For this reason, the one-loop proof of factorization does not apply to this term. In any case, power-suppressed contributions may be numerically of the same size.

We have checked explicitly that, given the large hadronic uncertainties, $`BK\pi `$ modes give no significant constraints on the $`\delta `$’s. The time-dependent asymmetry in $`B\varphi K_s`$, instead, is sensitive to the SUSY parameters. This sensitivity is more pronounced in the case of $`LR`$ insertions. However, this comes from the contribution of the chromomagnetic operator, via the matrix element that, as already mentioned, has large uncertainties.

We performed a MonteCarlo analysis, generating weighted random configurations of input parameters (see ref.  for details of this procedure) and computing for each configuration the processes listed above. We study the clustering induced by the contraints on various observables and parameters, assuming that each unconstrained $`\delta _{23}^d`$ fills uniformly a square $`(1\mathrm{}1`$, $`1\mathrm{}1)`$ in the complex plane. The ranges of CKM parameters have been taken from the UT fit  ($`\overline{\rho }=0.178\pm 0.046`$, $`\overline{\eta }=0.341\pm 0.028`$), and hadronic parameter ranges are as given in refs. .

Concerning SUSY parameters, we fix $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}=m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=350`$ GeV and consider different possibilities for the mass insertions. In addition to studying single insertions, we also examine the effects of the left-right symmetric case $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{LL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ and of $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{LR}`$ inspired by large $`RR`$ mixing at large tan$`\beta `$ .

The gluino-mediated $`bs`$ transitions in the MSSM had already been investigated by several authors  before the announcement of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ negative and have been vigorously reassessed  after such results were announced last Summer. In particular in the works of refs.  the correlation between $`B\varphi K_s`$ and $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing has been investigated making use of the mass insertion approximation. In our present work we largely improve at the level of accuracy with the inclusion of NLO QCD corrections and lattice QCD hadronic matrix elements and also in the correlation of $`bs`$ related processes with the selection of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=2`$ phenomena outlined above. Indeed, for instance the inclusion of the process $`BX_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ leads to further constraints which were not included in such previous analyses. As for the evaluation of $`BK\pi `$ and $`B\varphi K_s`$, ref.  adopts the BBNS factorization, but without discussing the possibly large $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/M_b`$ corrections. This may be the source of some relevant quantitative difference on the $`RR`$ contributions to $`BR(B\varphi K_s)`$ with respect to refs. , as we will detail in next Section. As for the analysis of ref. , this is performed in the mass eigenstate basis taking a specific down squark mass matrix (as suggested in SUSY GUT’s where the large neutrino mixing is linked to a large $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ mixing). Comparing the results of our cases of $`RR`$ dominance and $`RR=RL`$ dominance with their results we find some discrepancy in particular in the case of large $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ (see below). Once again a potential source of discrepancy in constraining the $`\delta _{23}^d`$’s from $`A_{CP}(B\varphi K_s)`$ is represented by the delicate evaluation of the matrix elements of the chromo-dipole operators.

In fig. 1 we display the clustering of events in the Re$`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$–Im$`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ plane in the single insertion case. Here and in the following plots, larger boxes correspond to larger numbers of weighted events. Constraints from $`BR(BX_s\gamma )`$, $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$, $`BR(BX_s\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})`$ and the lower bound on $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ have been used, as discussed above. The darker regions are selected imposing the further constraint $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s<20`$ ps-1 for $`LL`$ and $`RR`$ insertions and $`S_{\varphi K}<0`$ for $`LR`$ and $`RL`$ insertions. For helicity conserving insertions, the constraints are of order $`1`$. A significant reduction of the allowed region appears if the cut on $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ is imposed. The asymmetry of the $`LL`$ plot is due to the interference with the SM contribution. In the helicity flipping cases, constraints are of order $`1\times 10^2`$. For this values of the parameters, $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ is unaffected. We show the effect of requiring $`S_{\varphi K}<0`$: it is apparent that a nonvanishing Im$`\delta _{23}^d`$ is needed to meet this condition.

Fig. 2 contains the same plots as fig. 1 in the two cases of double mass insertion that we consider in this analysis, namely $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{LL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ and $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ (see next Section for a justification of this choice of the double mass insertion cases). For $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{LL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$, the constraints are still of order $`1`$, but the contribution to $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ is huge, due to the presence of operators with mixed chiralities. This can be seen from the smallness of the dark region selected by imposing $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s<20`$ ps-1. As for the double mass insertion with $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$, by comparison of RHS of fig. 2 with the $`RL`$ case in the lower right side of fig. 1, we argue that both the allowed regions and the portions of them for which $`S_{\varphi K}<0`$ are very similar in these two cases. In other words, a double mass insertion with $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RL}=(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ does not exhibit remarkably different features from the case of a single mass insertion $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RL}`$, at least at this value of squark and gluino masses.

In figs. 37, we study the correlations between $`S_{\varphi K}`$ and $`C_{\varphi K}`$, Im$`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ and $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$ for the various SUSY insertions considered in the present analysis. In view of the discussion in the previous Section on the hadronic matrix elements for $`B\varphi K_s`$, the reader should keep in mind that, in all the results reported in figs. 37, the hadronic uncertainties affecting the estimate of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ are not completely under control. Low values of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ can be more easily obtained with helicity flipping insertions. A deviation from the SM value for $`S_{\varphi K}`$ requires a nonvanishing value of Im$`(\delta _{23}^d)_{AB}`$ (see figs. 5 and 6), generating, for those channels in which the SUSY amplitude can interfere with the SM one, a $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$ at the level of a few percents in the LL and LL=RR cases, and up to the experimental upper bound in the LR case (see fig. 7).

## 3 $`bs`$ transitions: where to look for SUSY?

We now wish to address the crucial question which naturally arises after accomplishing the analysis of the constraints on the $`\delta _{23}`$ quantities of the previous section: what are the more promising processes to reveal some indirect signal of low energy SUSY, among the FCNC ones involving $`bs`$ transitions? As it stands, this question cannot have a clear-cut answer: indeed, low-energy SUSY is an ill-defined notion. Rather, sticking as we do here to the MSSM, one can speak of different MSSM realizations characterized by different sets of soft breaking terms. For the purpose of the present discussion, the best way to classify such different “classes of MSSM” is according to the role played by the different $`\delta _{23}^d`$’s according to their “helicities” $`LL`$, $`RR`$, etc. First we will focus on the case where only one $`\delta _{23}^d`$ dominates (single mass insertion), while in the final part we will contemplate the possible coexistence of two sizeable $`\delta _{23}^d`$’s (double mass insertion).

Before starting our analysis, a relevant remark is in order. The BaBar and BELLE Collaborations have recently reported the time-dependent CP asymmetry in $`B_d(\overline{B}_d)\varphi K_s`$. The SM predicts such asymmetry to be the same as that measured in the $`J/\psi K_s`$ decay channel. On the contrary, while $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$ as measured in the $`BJ/\psi K_s`$ channel is $`0.734\pm 0.054`$ (in agreement with the SM prediction ), the combined result from both collaborations for the corresponding $`S_{\varphi K}`$ of $`B_d\varphi K_s`$ is $`0.39\pm 0.41`$  with a $`2.7\sigma `$ discrepancy between the two results. Obviously, in particular after similar experiences in these last years, we should be very cautious before accepting such result as a genuine indication of NP. Nonetheless, it is certainly legitimate to entertain the possibility that the negative value of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is due to large SUSY CP violating contributions. Then one can wonder which $`\delta `$’s are relevant to produce such enhancement and, even more important, which other significant deviations from the SM expectations in $`bs`$ physics could be detected at $`B`$ factories or hadron accelerators, if really $`S_{\varphi K}`$ has a SUSY origin.

We remind the reader that our analysis is performed for squark and gluino masses of $`350`$ GeV. We will comment at the end on what happens if we increase such masses up to the TeV region.

### 3.1 $`𝑹𝑹`$ case

As shown in Fig. 3 (upper right), although values of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ in the range predicted by the SM are largely favoured, still pure $`\delta _{RR}`$ insertions are able to give rise to a negative $`S_{\varphi K}`$ in agreement with the results of BaBar and BELLE quoted above. On this point we seem to agree with the conclusions of ref. , while being in disagreement with refs.  and . Notice that in correspondence to negative values of $`S_{\varphi K}`$, a vanishing $`C_{\varphi K}`$, although not favoured, is however still possible. This is due to our choice of varying the hadronic parameter $`\rho _A`$, corresponding to power-suppressed annihilation contributions, over a large range. In this way there are always particular configurations in which the strong phase difference, and therefore the CP asymmetry, vanish. Had we assumed $`|\rho _A|<1`$ as suggested in ref. , we would have found $`C_{\varphi K}0`$ for $`S_{\varphi K}<0`$ . As for the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing, the distribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ is peaked at the SM value, but it has a long tail at larger values, up to $`120`$ ps-1 for our choice of the range of $`\delta _{RR}`$. In addition, we find that the expected correlation requiring a large $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ for negative $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is totally wiped out by the large uncertainties (see fig. 8, lower right). In this respect, we are at variance with ref. , where it was emphasized that if the $`RR`$ squark mixing yields the large deviation from the SM for the value of $`S_{\varphi K}`$, then a huge contribution to the $`B_s`$ mixing should necessarily follow making such oscillation unobservable at Tevatron. Hence, according to our analysis, in the $`RR`$ case it is compatible to have a strong discrepancy between $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$ and $`S_{\varphi K}`$ whilst $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ oscillations proceed as expected in the SM (thus, being observable in the Run II of Tevatron).

As for other CP violating asymmetries to be searched for, the CP asymmetry in $`BX_s\gamma `$ is expected to be as small as in the SM, while, differently from the SM, we expect here in general a large time-dependent CP asymmetry in the decay channel $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$.

### 3.2 $`𝑳𝑳`$ case

A major difference between the $`LL`$ and the $`RR`$ cases concerns the SUSY contributions to $`BX_s\gamma `$. When $`\delta _{LL}`$ dominates, SUSY contributes to the same operator which is responsible for $`BX_s\gamma `$ in the SM and, hence, the SUSY and SM contributions interfere. As a consequence, the rate tends to be larger than the $`RR`$ case, and, moreover, a CP asymmetry can be generated up to $`5\%`$ (see fig. 7, upper left). However, given the uncertainties, the correlation of $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$ with $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is not very stringent. As can be seen from the figure, negative values of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ do not necessarily correspond to non-vanishing $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$, although typical values are around $`2\%`$. Also, the constraint coming from the present measurement of the CP asymmetry is not very effective, as can be seen for instance from the distribution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ in fig. 8 which is quite similar to the $`RR`$ case. Finally, one expects also in this case to observe CP violation in $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ at hadron colliders.

### 3.3 $`𝑳𝑹`$ and $`𝑹𝑳`$ cases

In these cases, negative values of $`S_{\varphi K}`$ can be easily obtained (although a positive $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is favoured, cfr. Fig. 3, bottom row). The severe bound on the $`LR`$ mass insertion imposed by BR$`(BX_s\gamma )`$ (and $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$ in the $`LR`$ case) prevents any enhancement of the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing as well as any sizeable contribution to $`A_{CP}(B_sJ/\psi \varphi )`$. On the other hand, $`A_{CP}(BX_s\gamma )`$ as large as $`510`$ % is now attainable (Fig. 7, upper right), offering a potentially interesting hint for NP.

Notice that the $`LR`$ case corresponds to a dominant $`\stackrel{~}{s}_L\stackrel{~}{b}_R`$ mass insertion, hence yielding a contribution to $`b_Rs_L\gamma `$ which interferes with the analogous leading contribution from the SM, producing the ’hole’ in fig. 1, lower left. On the contrary, the $`RL`$ mass insertion contributes to $`b_Ls_R\gamma `$ and thus it does not add to the leading SM amplitude. Consequently, the CP asymmetry is as small as in the SM.

### 3.4 Double mass insertion: $`\mathbf{(}𝜹_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑}}\mathbf{)}_{𝑳𝑳}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}𝜹_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑}}\mathbf{)}_{𝑹𝑹}`$ case

The main feature of this case is the huge enhancement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ which is made possible by the contribution of the double insertion $`LL`$ and $`RR`$ in the box diagrams to operators with mixed chiralities (Fig. 8, lower left). Differently from all the previous cases, we are facing a situation here where $`A_{CP}(B\varphi K_s)`$ at its present experimental value should be accounted for by the presence of SUSY, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ could be so large that the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing could escape detection not only at Tevatron, but even at BTeV or LHCB. Hence, this would be a case for remarkable signatures of SUSY in $`bs`$ physics.

### 3.5 Double mass insertion: $`\mathbf{(}𝜹_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑}}\mathbf{)}_{𝑹𝑳}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}𝜹_{\mathrm{𝟐𝟑}}\mathbf{)}_{𝑹𝑹}`$ case

As we previously mentioned, in MSSM realizations obtained as low-energy limits of SUSY GUT’s where neutrinos and right-handed down quarks live in the same SU(5) fiveplets, the case for a large $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ is strongly motivated by the observed large mixing between neutrinos of the second and third generation. In addition, we can have also a large $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R\stackrel{~}{b}_L`$ if the product $`\mu \mathrm{tan}\beta `$ happens to be enhanced (by large values of $`\mu `$ and/or $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$)111This is however the case in which chargino-mediated contributions are expected to be important and should be included choosing a specific model. Therefore, in this case the results of our model-independent analysis should be interpreted with care.. If this is the case, the subsequent $`\stackrel{~}{b}_L\stackrel{~}{b}_R`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{b}_R\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ mass insertions lead to a large $`\stackrel{~}{b}_L\stackrel{~}{s}_R`$ transition, i.e. a large $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{LR}`$. This makes of interest to consider the case where $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RR}`$ and $`(\delta _{23}^d)_{RL}`$ are both simultaneously large. Phenomenologically, there is no big difference between this case and the $`RL`$ case, as can be seen from figs. 26.

We close this section by remarking that in the $`LR`$, $`RL`$ and $`RL=RR`$ cases, since for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}=350`$ GeV the constraints on the $`\delta _{23}^d`$’s are of order $`1\times 10^2`$, it is obvious that the same phenomenology in $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=1`$ processes can be obtained at larger values of mass insertions and of squark and gluino masses. In this case, contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }B=2`$ processes become more important for larger masses. One could naively think of going up to $`3.5`$ TeV with $`\delta _{23}^d1`$, however so large values of $`\delta _{23}^d`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ produce charge and color breaking minima . In the remaining cases, where the limits on $`\delta _{23}^d`$ at $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}=350`$ GeV are of order $`1`$, the SUSY effects clearly weaken when going to higher values of sparticle masses.

## 4 Outlook

All the known FCNC and CP violation phenomenology in kaon, beauty, charm, lepton physics and the EDM’s confirm the simple CKM picture of flavor physics as provided by the SM.

This may be interpreted as an indication that the relevant new physics involved in the electroweak symmetry breaking is flavor blind or that the new particles associated with it are actually relatively heavy, say at least beyond the TeV threshold.

However, sticking more strictly and cautiously to what has been experimentally ascertained so far, one should actually conclude that although FCNC physics involving the first two generations (i.e. $`sd`$ transitions) can hardly offer any prospect of “visibility” for NP, the same cannot be said for FCNC and CP violation involving the third generation, in particular as far as $`bs`$ transitions are concerned. The first result on $`A_{CP}(B\varphi K_s)`$ from BaBar and Belle is an example that some room for surprise is still available.

In this paper we analyzed the prospects for the $`bs`$ physics for the particularly interesting case where the low-energy new physics is represented by a generic MSSM. Minimality refers here only to the minimal amount of superfields needed to supersymmetrize the SM and to the presence of R parity. Otherwise the soft breaking terms are left completely free and constrained only by phenomenology. Technically the best way we have to account for the SUSY FCNC contributions in such a general framework is via the mass insertion method using the leading gluino exchange contributions.

Our results in a generic MSSM confirm that FCNC and CP violation in physics involving $`bs`$ transitions still offer opportunities to disentangle effects genuinely due to NP. In particular the discrepancy between the amounts of CP violation in the two $`B_d`$ decay channels $`J/\psi K_s`$ and $`\varphi K_s`$ can be accounted for in the MSSM while respecting all the existing constraints in $`B`$ physics, first of all the $`BR(BX_s\gamma )`$. The relevant question is then which processes offer the best chances to provide other hints of the presence of low-energy SUSY.

First, needless to say, it is mandatory to further assess the time-dependent CP asymmetry in the decay channel $`B\varphi K_s`$. Should the abovementioned discrepancy signaling NP be firmly confirmed, then this process would become decisive in discriminating among different MSSM realizations. Although, as we have seen, it is possible to reproduce the negative $`S_{\varphi K}`$ in a variety of different options for the SUSY soft breaking down squark masses, the allowed regions in the SUSY parameter space to obtain this result are more or less tightly constrained according to the kind of $`\delta _{23}^d`$ mass insertion which is dominant.

We think that in order of importance after the reassessment of $`A_{CP}(B\varphi K_s)`$, comes the measurement of the $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing. Finding $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ larger than $`20`$ ps-1 would hint at NP and, in our context, would imply that the chirality-changing mass insertions or the $`RL=RR`$ double insertion should not be dominant in $`bs`$ transitions. $`RR`$ or $`LL`$ could account for a $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ up to $`120`$ ps-1. Larger values would call for the double insertion $`LL=RR`$ to ensure such a huge enhancement of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ while respecting the constraint on $`BR(BX_s\gamma )`$. An interesting, alternative prospect would arise in case $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$ is found as expected in the SM while, at the same time, $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is confirmed to be negative. This scenario would favour the $`RL`$ or $`LR`$ possibility, even though all other cases but $`LL=RR`$ do not necessarily lead to large $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_s`$.

Keeping to $`B`$ physics to be studied at $`B`$ factories, we point out that the CP asymmetry in $`BX_s\gamma `$ remains of utmost interest. As we know, this asymmetry is so small in the SM that it should not be possible to detect it. We have seen that in particular with $`LR`$ $`bs`$ insertions such asymmetry can be enhanced up to $`10`$ % making it possibly detectable in a not too distant future.

Finally, once we will have at disposal large amounts of $`B_s`$ at hadron colliders it will be of great interest to study processes which are expected to be mostly CP conserving in the SM, while they are expected to receive possibly large contributions from SUSY in the $`bs`$ transitions. Indeed, in the SM the amplitude for $`B_s\overline{B}_s`$ mixing is dominated by the top quark exchange and, hence, it does not have an imaginary part up to doubly Cabibbo suppressed terms. Also the transition $`bs`$ through top and $`W`$ exchange does not exhibit the CKM phase and, hence, no leading CP contribution should arise in amplitudes for $`bs`$ processes. In conclusion decays like $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ should have a negligible amount of CP violation. Quite on the contrary, if the measured negative $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is due to a large, complex $`\delta _{23}^d`$ mass insertion, we expect some of the above processes to exhibit a significant amount of CP violation. In particular in the case of $`RR`$ insertions both the $`bs`$ amplitudes and the $`B_s`$ mixing would receive non negligible contributions from Im$`\delta _{23}^d`$, while in the case where $`S_{\varphi K}`$ is dominated by $`RL`$ or $`LR`$ insertions we do not expect any sizable contribution to $`B_s`$ mixing. Still, we can expect a potentially interesting contribution to CP violation in the $`B_sJ/\psi \varphi `$ decay amplitude.

We hope that we made the case for $`bs`$ physics in the search for indirect SUSY signals quite clear. Still someone could object that at least some of the relevant probes of $`bs`$ transitions in $`B_s`$ physics are likely to have to wait for the advent of BTeV or LHC to become feasible. And at that point, one would be tempted to say, we will know whether low energy SUSY is there just by direct tests without invoking the indirect searches that we advocated in this work. We do not agree with this position: even if SUSY particles are detected, we are convinced that FCNC and CP violation, in $`bs`$ physics in particular, will constitute an ideal ground to have a further access to the SUSY structure and will be complementary to the other direct forms of SUSY studies.

## Acknowledgments

We are much indebted to G. Martinelli for his participation to the early stage of this work. We thank P. Gambino for fruitful discussions. We also thank D. Larson for providing us with helpful details on the analysis of ref. .


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# Radiation reaction for a massless charged particle

## 1 Introduction

One of the interesting features of the classical electrodynamics is a possibility to account for the self-action of a point charge in a purely local manner by adding certain higher-derivative terms to the usual Lorentz’s equations. Physically these terms are responsible for the back reaction of the radiation emitted by an accelerating charge. The first systematic derivation of the effective equations of motion for $`d=4`$ relativistic massive particle was given by Dirac . Since the non-relativistic limit of Dirac’s equation coincides with the zero-size limit of Lorentz’s model of an electron  it is often referred to at the Lorentz-Dirac equation. The case of $`d=4`$ electrodynamics is not an exceptional one and the analogous effective equations can be obtained for a massive particle in arbitrary dimensions, but the local equations take place only for even $`d`$’s. The case of $`d=6`$ massive particle was first considered in Ref. . The general framework to the Lorentz-Dirac equation in higher dimensions was developed in our recent paper .

Although there is a large literature devoted to different aspects of the Lorentz-Dirac equation, its solutions and applications (see  for a modern review and further references) the case of a massless particle has somehow escaped consideration. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap in the case of $`d=4`$ massless particle. We emphasize that the effective dynamics of massless particle is essentially different from that of the massive one, and it can’t be obtained as a massless limit of the Lorentz-Dirac equation.

While massless electrically charged particles (so to speak, massless electrons or charged photons) have not been yet observed experimentally no obvious prohibitions are known against their existence at least from the viewpoint of classical field theory. Moreover, these particles are predicted by supersymmetric gauge theories with an unbroken sector of Abelian gauge symmetry. Perhaps some peculiarities of the effective dynamics, revealed in this paper, do indicate a certain inconsistency of the classical electrodynamics of massless particles with radiation effects included.

This paper may also be viewed as a preparative for study the radiation reaction problem in the case of extended objects like strings and branes universally coupled to the dynamical antisymmetric tensor fields. It is notable that the regularization procedure we use here is closely analogous to the formalism of characteristic (de Rham’s) currents intensively exploited for the study of anomalies in 5-branes coupled to 11-dimensional supergravity background .

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2 we discuss some peculiarities of the dynamics of a relativistic massless particle coupled to external electromagnetic field and describe a class of isotropic word lines for which the radiation reaction effects can be properly treated. Taking into account the radiation back reaction leads to inevitable infinities resulting from the ”pointness” of the particle. The renormalization procedure for these classical infinities is briefly explained in Sec. 3. Here we also present our main result - the effective equations of motion for a massless charged particle, and trace the origin of non-Lagrangian divergences. As for the Lorentz-Dirac equation, our equations involve higher derivatives and thus the reduction-of-order procedure is required to assign them with a proper mechanical interpretation. This is done in Sec. 4. In particular, we explicitly derive the leading correction to the usual Lorentz’s equation for the case of homogeneous external fields. In the concluding section we summarize the results. Appendix contains details of the calculations omitted in Sec. 3.

## 2 Massless particle in the classical electrodynamics

Let $`^{3,1}`$ be four-dimensional Minkowski space with coordinates $`\{x^\mu \}`$, $`\mu =0,1,2,3`$, and the metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=diag(1,+1,+1,+1)`$. Consider a massless point particle moving in $`^{3,1}`$ and coupled to the electromagnetic field. The dynamics of the whole system (field)+(particle) is governed by the usual action functional111We take unified dimensions for space and time setting $`c=1`$.

$$S=\frac{1}{2}d\tau e\dot{x}^2+d^4x\left(A_\mu j{}_{}{}^{\mu }\frac{1}{16\pi }F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\right).$$
(1)
Here $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$ is the strength tensor of the electromagnetic field, $`e0`$ is the Lagrange multiplier and

$$j^\mu (x)=q\delta ^4(xx(\tau ))\dot{x}^\mu (\tau )𝑑\tau $$
(2)
is the density of the electric current produced by the point charge $`q`$ moving along a world line $`x^\mu (\tau )`$ with the four-velocity $`\dot{x}^\mu dx^\mu /d\tau `$. The action (1) is invariant under arbitrary world-line reparametrizations $`\tau \tau ^{}`$, provided $`e(\tau )`$ is transformed as a world-line density (einbein)

$$e(\tau ^{})=\frac{d\tau ^{}}{d\tau }e(\tau ).$$
(3)
Varying the action (1) with respect to $`e`$ one gets the standard isotropy condition (Lagrangian constraint) on the four-velocity of the massless particle

$$\dot{x}^2=0,$$
(4)
i.e. a tangent vector to each point of particle’s trajectory $`x^\mu (\tau )`$ lies on the future light cone attached at this point. We will refer to such a trajectory as an isotropic one. The variations of the action with respect to particle’s trajectory $`x^\mu (\tau )`$ and electromagnetic potentials $`A_\mu (x)`$ lead to the coupled systems of the Lorentz and Maxwell equations

$$e\ddot{x}_\mu +\dot{e}\dot{x}_\mu =qF_{\mu \nu }\dot{x}^\nu ,$$
(5)
$$^\nu F_{\mu \nu }=4\pi j_\mu .$$
(6)
Using the reparametrization invariance of the model and the transformation property (3) one can always bring the einbein $`e`$ into the form $`e=1`$ or, equivalently, one may impose this condition to fix a particular parametrization of the world line. In this gauge the form of the Lorentz equations is quite similar to that for a massive particle,

$$\ddot{x}_\mu =qF_{\mu \nu }\dot{x}^\nu ,$$
(7)
written in a proper-time parametrization ($`\dot{x}^2=1`$). The crucial difference, however, is a presence of the additional isotropy condition (4) having no analog in the massive case. In particular this suggests impossibility to introduce the proper-time parametrization for world lines of the massless particle.

Another convenient parametrization to use when working with the isotropic world lines is extracted by the following gauge fixing condition:

$$\ddot{x}^2=1.$$
(8)
One may regard it as a “massless” counterpart of the proper-time parametrization. Contrary to the massive case, however, there are some isotropic trajectories which do not admit such a parametrization. Since for any isotropic curve $`\ddot{x}^20`$, the trajectories for which $`\ddot{x}^2=0`$ at some $`\tau `$’s may be thought of as degenerate ones in the sense that the complementary set of nondegenerate trajectories fills an open and everywhere dense domain in the space of all isotropic curves, so that any degenerate isotropic curve can be made nondegenerate by a small perturbation.

On the other hand, if for some interval $`\tau _1<\tau <\tau _2`$ the four-vector of acceleration is know to be isotropic, $`\ddot{x}^2=0`$, then we can immediately conclude that this part of the trajectory is given by a straight segment. Indeed, since the velocity and acceleration of the particle are always orthogonal to each other we get a pair of isotropic and orthogonal vectors $`\dot{x}^\mu `$ and $`\ddot{x}^\mu `$, but any such two vectors are known to be proportional to each other in the Minkowski space,

$$\ddot{x}^\mu =\lambda (\tau )\dot{x}^\mu .$$
(9)
Integrating the last equation we see that the particle does move along a straight line until $`\tau _1<\tau <\tau _2`$.

The positive-curvature condition ($`\ddot{x}^2>0`$) for particle’s trajectory implies a nonzero value of the external electromagnetic field in the right-hand side of the Lorentz equation (5), otherwise the particle would move along a straight isotropic line for which $`\ddot{x}^\mu =0`$. More precisely, squaring both sides of the Lorentz equation and accounting that, by definition, $`e0`$ we arrive at the following condition:

$$T_{\mu \nu }(x)\dot{x}^\mu \dot{x}^\nu >0,$$
(10)
where

$$T_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{4\pi }\left(F_\mu {}_{}{}^{\alpha }F_{\alpha \nu }^{}+\frac{1}{4}\eta _{\mu \nu }F^{\alpha \beta }F_{\alpha \beta }\right)$$
(11)
is the stress-energy tensor of the electromagnetic field. Passing to an appropriate Lorentz frame it is not hard to see that $`T_{\mu \nu }\dot{x}^\mu \dot{x}^\nu 0`$ for any field $`F_{\mu \nu }=(𝐄,𝐇)`$, and the equality implies either

$$𝐯𝐄𝐇$$
(12)
or

$$𝐯𝐄\times 𝐇\mathrm{and}𝐄𝐇=0,𝐄^2=𝐇^2,$$
(13)
$`𝐯=\{\dot{x}^i\}`$ being the space part of the four-velocity. The latter situation may occur, for example, for a massless particle moving on a background of free electromagnetic wave.

In this paper we restrict our attention to the self-consistent solutions for the Lorentz-Maxwell equations (5, 6) obeying the gauge fixing condition (8) and the compatibility condition (10). In the next section we will see how these restrictions arise naturally upon calculating the radiation-reaction force.

## 3 Radiation reaction and renormalization

In this section we follow the approach of work  to account for the radiation back reaction to the relativistic motion of a point charge. For this end, we first solve the Maxwell equations (6) expressing the electromagnetic field as a functional of particle’s trajectory. The effective equations of motion are then obtained by substituting this solution to the Lorentz equations (5). Inasmuch as the electromagnetic field is singular at the points of particle’s trajectory the last step requires a renormalization procedure to remove inevitable infinities. The alternative approach to the problem (also involving some renormalization) is based on the computation of energy radiated by an accelerating charge and identification of this energy with the work of a hypothetical (radiation reaction) force .

Let us proceed to the calculations. In the Lorentz gauge $`^\mu A_\mu =0`$ the Maxwell equations take the form

$$\mathrm{}A_\mu (x)=4\pi j_\mu (x).$$
(14)
Any solution to these equations may be constructed as the sum of their particular solution and a solution to the corresponding homogeneous equations. Although this decomposition is quite ambiguous (from the pure mathematical viewpoint) it has a certain physical meaning if one identifies the former solution with the own field of the point charged particle, treating the latter as an external field describing free electromagnetic waves incident on the particle. The own field of the particle is given by the Liénard-Wiechert potentials

$$A_\mu ^{LW}(x)=4\pi G^{ret}(xz)j_\mu (z)d^4z,$$
(15)
where

$$G^{ret}(x)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\theta (x^0)\delta (x^2)$$
(16)
is the retarded Green’s function. Taking together Rels. (2), (15), (16) we arrive at the standard expression for the Lorentz force $`F_\mu (s)=F_{\mu \nu }(x(s))\dot{x}^\nu (s)`$ accounting for the self-action of the particle

$$\begin{array}{c}F_\mu =F_\mu ^{ext}+F_\mu ^{rr},F_\mu ^{ext}(s)=F_{\mu \nu }^{ext}(x(s))\dot{x}^\nu (s),\\ F_\mu ^{rr}(s)=F_{\mu \nu }^{LW}(x(s))\dot{x}^\nu (s)=4q^2\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{s}{}}\delta ^{}(X^2(s,\tau ))\dot{x}_{[\mu }(\tau )X_{\nu ]}(s,\tau )\dot{x}^\nu (s)𝑑\tau ,\\ X^\mu (s,\tau )x^\mu (s)x^\mu (\tau ),\end{array}$$
(17)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }^{ext}`$ is the strength of the external electromagnetic field and the square brackets stand for the antisymmetrization of indices (without one-half). The abbreviation $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}rr\mathrm{"}`$ labeling the self-action part of the Lorentz force points on the common interpretation of this term as that describing the radiation reaction, i.e. the back reaction of the radiation emitted by an accelerating charge.

Note that expression (17) is not very meaningful as it stands since the integral diverges. The divergence arise from the singularity of Green’s function (16) at the vertex of the future light cone $`x^2=0`$, $`x^0>0`$. So we need some regularization procedure smoothing the behaviour of Green’s function $`G(x)`$ at $`x=0`$. The most simple and efficient way to do this is to replace the $`\delta `$-function entering the expression for $`G`$ by the following $`\delta `$-shaped sequence :

$$\delta (s)=\underset{a+0}{lim}\frac{e^{s/a}}{a},s0.$$
(18)
Integrating this expression with a test function on the positive half-line one can obtain the following asymptotic expansion:

$$\delta _a(s)=\frac{e^{s/a}}{a}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(a)^n\delta ^{(n)}(s).$$
(19)
Thus, the regularized expression for the radiation reaction force (17) can be written as

$$F_\mu ^{rr}(s,a)=4q^2\dot{x}^\nu (s)\frac{}{a}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d\tau }{a}e^{X^2(s,s\tau )/a}X_{[\nu }(s,s\tau )\dot{x}_{\mu ]}(s\tau ),$$
(20)
$$F_\mu ^{rr}(s)=\underset{a+0}{lim}F_\mu ^{rr}(s,a).$$

This integral is localized at the point $`\tau =0`$ as $`a+0`$, and hence, can be evaluated by the Laplace method . In a small vicinity of the localization point the damping exponential factor behaves as

$$e^{X^2(s,s\tau )/a}=\mathrm{exp}\left(\dot{x}^2\frac{\tau ^2}{a}\dot{x}\ddot{x}\frac{\tau ^3}{a}+\left[\frac{1}{4}\ddot{x}^2+\frac{1}{3}\dot{x}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\right]\frac{\tau ^4}{a}+O(\tau ^5)\right).$$
(21)
Note that for the massive particle $`\dot{x}^2<0`$ and the asymptotic of the Laplace integral (20) is governed by the leading $`\tau ^2`$-term, while for the massless particle it is determined by $`\tau ^4`$-term. In the latter case

$$\dot{x}^2=\dot{x}\ddot{x}=0,\frac{1}{4}\ddot{x}^2+\frac{1}{3}\dot{x}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}=\frac{1}{12}\ddot{x}^2,$$
(22)
and the coefficient at $`\tau ^4`$ is strongly negative if we demand $`\ddot{x}^2=1`$. In such a way we recover the positive-curvature condition for the isotropic world lines discussed in the previous section. In the massless case the result of integration should have a form of Laurent’s series in $`a^{1/4}`$ with a finite irregular part. The details of calculations are given in Appendix. The result is

$$\begin{array}{c}F_\mu ^{rr}(s,a)=q^2[\frac{\alpha _1}{4}\ddot{x}_\mu a^{3/4}+\frac{\alpha _2}{10}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}^2\dot{x}_\mu a^{1/2}\frac{\alpha _3}{16}(\underset{\mu }{\overset{(4)}{x}}+\frac{11}{10}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}^2\ddot{x}_\mu +\frac{11}{5}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\dot{x}_\mu )a^{1/4}]\\ q^2\frac{2}{5}\{\underset{\mu }{\overset{(5)}{x}}+\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}^2\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}_\mu +3\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\ddot{x}_\mu +(\frac{9}{7}\stackrel{(4)}{x}{}_{}{}^{2}+\frac{11}{7}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\stackrel{(5)}{x}+\frac{2}{5}(\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}^2)^2)\dot{x}_\mu \}+\mathrm{},\\ \alpha _n=12^{n/4}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+n/4\right),\end{array}$$
(23)
where dots stand for terms vanishing upon removing regularization. The expression (23) contains three singular terms, two of which are Lagrangian, namely, those at $`3/4`$ and $`1/4`$ powers of $`a`$, while the rest is not. For example, $`a^{3/4}`$-term is obtained by varying the following functional:

$$q^2\frac{\alpha _1}{8}a^{\frac{3}{4}}\frac{\dot{x}^2}{\sqrt[4]{\ddot{x}^2}}𝑑\tau .$$
(24)
As to $`a^{1/4}`$-term, the corresponding Lagrangian is given by a rather unwieldy expression. In order to simplify it let us redefine the Lagrangian multiplier $`e`$ entering the l.h.s. of the Lorentz equation (5) as follows:

$$eeq^2\frac{11}{160}\alpha _3\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}^2a^{1/4}.$$
(25)
Then the expression for $`a^{1/4}`$-term reduces to

$$q^2\frac{\alpha _3}{16}\underset{\mu }{\overset{(4)}{x}}a^{1/4},$$
(26)
which can be obtained by varying the following functional:

$$q^2\frac{\alpha _3}{8}a^{1/4}\sqrt[4]{\ddot{x}^2}𝑑\tau $$
(27)
A practical recipe to restore both the Lagrangians is as follows. We exclude the electromagnetic field $`A_\mu (x)`$ from the action functional (1) by the Maxwell equations (6). The result is the Fokker type  effective action for the charged massless particle

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill S_{eff}=\frac{1}{2}𝑑\tau e\dot{x}^22\pi d^4xd^4yj^\mu (x)G^{ret}(xy)j_\mu (y)=\\ \hfill =\frac{1}{2}𝑑\tau e\dot{x}^2+\frac{q^2}{2}𝑑s𝑑\tau \dot{x}^\mu (s)\delta (X^2(s,\tau ))\dot{x}_\mu (\tau ).\end{array}$$
(28)
The first term is the usual action of a free massless particle, while the second term describes particle’s self-action. Using regularization (18) for the $`\delta `$-function entering the self-action term we may perform one of two integrations. The calculations are quite similar to those presented in Appendix. The only distinction is that now we cannot use the isotropy condition (4). Instead, we rewrite the exponent (21) in the following way:

$$\mathrm{exp}\left(\left[\frac{1}{4}\ddot{x}^2+\frac{1}{3}\dot{x}\stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\right]\frac{\tau ^4}{a}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\dot{x}^2\frac{\tau ^2}{a}\dot{x}\ddot{x}\frac{\tau ^3}{a}+O(\tau ^5)\right).$$
(29)
Then the first multiplier is interpreted as a damping exponential factor of the Laplace integral, while the second is combined with the rest of the integrand and expanded in the Taylor series in $`\tau `$; in so doing, we may keep only terms which are at most linear in $`\dot{x}^2`$ and $`\dot{x}\ddot{x}`$, since the higher powers will not contribute to the equations of motion $`\delta S_{eff}/\delta x=0`$ (more precisely, their contribution will vanish on the shell of the isotropy condition $`\dot{x}^2=\delta S_{eff}/\delta e=0`$). Integrating we get Laurent’s series in $`a^{1/4}`$ without a constant term and with two singular terms giving upon variation two of three foregoing singularities. Clearly, the Lagrangians obtained in such a way are not uniquely determined as one may add to them any local expression proportional to the squares of the Lagrangian constraint $`\dot{x}^2`$ and its differential consequences.

The reason why performing a self-consistent elimination of the electromagnetic field from the quadratic (in $`A_\mu `$) action (1) we do not reproduce the whole expression for the radiation reaction force (23) including the finite part and the $`a^{1/2}`$-term is as follows: Only symmetric part

$$G^{ret}(xy)+G^{ret}(yx)=\delta ((xy)^2)$$
(30)
of the retarded Green’s function (16) actually contributes to the effective action (28), while substituting the Liénard-Wiechert potentials to the Lorentz equation (5) we use, in fact, the entire Green’s function. The symmetric and antisymmetric parts of the Green function lead to the different groups of terms in (23); the first terms are invariant under reversion of particle’s trajectory $`\tau \tau `$, whereas the second ones acquire the minus sign. Therefore only the invariant terms can arise from the effective action (28).

According to general prescriptions of the renormalization theory the singular coefficients $`a^{3/4}`$, $`a^{1/2}`$, $`a^{1/4}`$ in the regularized expression (23) are replaced by finite constants to be fixed from an experiment. Since there is no evidence for a preferable choice for these constants we may put them to zero to simplify further consideration. Then the radiation reaction force $`F_\mu ^{rr}`$ is given by the second line in Eq.(23). The non-Lagrangian nature of this force manifests itself in the violation of the time-reversion symmetry, $`\tau \tau `$, which is consistent with irreversibility of the radiation process.

In conclusion of this section let us note that although the expression (23) for the radiation reaction force was derived in a special gauge, it is not hard to rewrite it in an arbitrary parametrization. For this end one should just treat the overdot derivatives as invariant ones,

$$D=\frac{1}{\sqrt[4]{\ddot{x}^2}}\frac{d}{d\tau },$$
(31)
where $`\tau `$ is already an arbitrary evolution parameter. Note that in an arbitrary parametrization the effective equations of motion for a charged massless particle involve a sixth derivative (for comparison, the Lorentz-Dirac equation for d=4 massive particle is of the third order).

## 4 Reduction of order 222We are thankful to S.L. Lyakhovich for illuminating discussions on various aspects of the reduction-of-order procedure for higher-derivative Lagrangian systems.

Let us write down the effective equation of motion governing the dynamics of a massless charged particle,

$$\begin{array}{c}D(\stackrel{~}{e}Dx^\mu )=\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu ^\mu Dx^\nu \frac{2q}{5}(D^5x^\mu +(D^3x)^2D^3x^\mu +3D^3xD^4xD^2x^\mu +\hfill \\ +[\frac{9}{7}(D^4x)^2+\frac{11}{7}D^3xD^5x+\frac{2}{5}((D^3x)^2)^2]Dx^\mu ),(Dx)^2=0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(32)
where $`\stackrel{~}{e}(\tau )=q^1e(\tau )\sqrt[4]{\ddot{x}^2}`$ is a nonzero scalar function and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu ^\mu =\eta ^{\mu \lambda }F_{\lambda \nu }^{ext}(x)`$.

Since the order of the equation is greater than two, it cannot be assigned with a straightforward mechanical interpretation: In the realm of Newtonian mechanics a state of the particle is unambiguously determined by specifying its position and velocity, that is obviously insufficient to extract a particular solution to our equation. This problem is analogous to that of a mechanical interpretation of the Lorentz-Dirac equation which also has too many solutions, but not all of them are physically meaningful. To extract the subspace of physical solutions we impose an additional selection rule : The physical solutions to the Eq. (32) are only those which have a smooth limit upon switching off the interaction, i.e. when $`q0`$. In other words, we treat the radiation reaction as a small perturbation deforming the conventional dynamics of the charged particle (i.e. the dynamics without account of the self-action) rather than something introducing extra degrees of freedom to the theory. This treatment is justified by a small parameter $`q`$ at the higher-derivative terms in the r.h.s. of the Eq.(32). Instead of seeking for solutions which can be smoothly continued to $`q=0`$, one may equivalently seek for a second-order differential equation (with a smooth dependence of $`q`$) any solution of which would be a solution to the initial equation. The general procedure for obtaining such an equation is known as the reduction of order. It consists in successive elimination of the higher derivatives from the equation (32) with the help of all its differential consequences; in so doing, the order of the equation increases at each step of the procedure, but the order of $`q`$ at higher derivatives increases as well, so that, in the limit, we get a power series in $`q`$ with coefficients depending on $`x,Dx`$ and $`D^2x`$. The implementation of this procedure to the Lorentz-Dirac equation may be found, for example, in . It should be noted, however, that the resulting equation for the massless particle appears to be unresolved with respect to the highest (second) derivative that poses the questions about existence and uniqueness of its solution given the initial position and velocity of the particle. Without going into detail we just note that for a homogeneous external field ($`\mathrm{\Omega }=const`$) the reduced equation can be perturbatively resolved with respect to $`D^2x`$ with the right hand side given by a power series in $`q`$. Up to the first order in $`q`$ it reads 444Here we use matrix notation: $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\dot{x})^\mu =\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu ^\mu \dot{x}^\nu `$, $`\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x}=\dot{x}_\nu \mathrm{\Omega }_\sigma ^\nu \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ^\sigma \dot{x}^\mu `$, and so on.

$$\begin{array}{c}\ddot{x}^\mu =\stackrel{~}{e}^1(\mathrm{\Omega }\dot{x})^\mu +\\ +\frac{2q}{5}\left(\frac{(\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x})^\mu }{\stackrel{~}{e}^5}+\frac{\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x}}{\stackrel{~}{e}^7}(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})^\mu +\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{9}{7}\frac{\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^6\dot{x}}{\stackrel{~}{e}^7}+\frac{7}{5}\frac{(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x})^2}{\stackrel{~}{e}^9}\right]\dot{x}^\mu \right)+O(q^2),\end{array}$$
(33)
where overdot stands for the invariant derivative $`D`$ and the function $`\stackrel{~}{e}`$, being determined from the identity $`\ddot{x}^2=1`$, is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{e}^2=\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x}+O(q^2).$$
(34)
As above we are restricted to initial velocities obeying condition $`\stackrel{~}{e}0`$ (compare with (10)) which ensures existence of a solution for a sufficiently small time interval. In the gauge $`e=1`$ the above equation takes the form

$$\begin{array}{c}\ddot{x}^\mu =q(\mathrm{\Omega }\dot{x})^\mu +\\ +\frac{2q^4}{5}\left(\frac{(\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x})^\mu }{\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x}}\frac{\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x}}{(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})^2}(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})^\mu \frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{9}{7}\frac{\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^6\dot{x}}{(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})^2}\frac{7}{5}\frac{(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^4\dot{x})^2}{(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})^3}\right]\dot{x}^\mu \right)+o(q^4),\end{array}$$
(35)
where overdot denotes now the ordinary derivative w.r.t. the evolution parameter. Note that although the condition $`(\dot{x}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\dot{x})<0`$ has been assumed at each stage of our derivation the resulting equation has the correct uniform limit upon switching off the external electromagnetic field (i.e. if we set $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\epsilon \mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and then let $`\epsilon 0`$). The last statement remains true even with account of higher orders in $`q`$, so the limiting equation $`\ddot{x}^\mu =0`$ describes the free motion.

Thus, the perturbative treatment of the radiation reaction, being applied to the case at hands, leads to the meaningful second order equation at least for the constant fields.

## 5 Conclusion

To summaries, in this paper we have derived the effective equations of motion for a massless charged particle interacting with external electromagnetic field as well as its own one. Although the approach we follow here is quite similar to that used in the case of a massive particle  the final results considerably differ from each other. First, not all the divergencies are Lagrangian, i.e. may be canceled out by adding appropriate counterterms to the original action functional; even though such counterterms do exist (for some divergences) they are not uniquely defined. The ambiguity reflects the freedom to add to the Lagrangian any local expression proportional to the square of the isotropy condition and its differential consequences. The non-Lagrangian divergences in turn are recognized as those breaking up the time-reversion symmetry. Second, consistency of the dynamics imposes some restrictions on initial data of the particle and/or the form of external fields. Third, after renormalization we get a fifth order differential equation, instead of third-order equation derived by Dirac for a massive particle.

All these distinctions have a common origin related to the special local structure of the isotropic world lines: The interval between two nearby points $`x(\tau )`$ and $`x(\tau +\delta \tau )`$ on an isotropic curve, lying in a general position, is proportional to $`\delta \tau ^2`$, rather than to be linear in $`\delta \tau `$ as is case for the time-like world lines of massive particles. This leads to the stronger singularities, as compared to the massive case, and as result to a different structure of the radiation reaction force.

Finally, the straightforward application of the reduction-of-order procedure leads to the differential equation in a form unresolved with respect to the second derivative which may lead to some difficulties upon its integration. Besides, it may have no well-defined limit upon switching off an external electromagnetic field as seen from the structure of the first radiative correction (35). The last fact may indicate a certain instability of the classical dynamics and deserve a further study.

It would be interesting to re-derive our equation on the basis of usual energy conservation arguments in order to gain a more physical insight into the problem as well as an independent test for consistency of the formal renormalization procedure we have used.

## Appendix

The regularized expression for the self-action force (20) involves the following integral:

$$I_\mu (s,a)=\dot{x}^\nu (s)\frac{}{a}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d\tau }{a}X_{[\nu }(s,s\tau )\dot{x}_{\mu ]}(s\tau )e^{X^2(s,s\tau )/a},$$
(36)
Here we apply the Laplace method to obtain the Laurent series for the function $`I_\mu `$ with respect to $`a^{1/4}`$. More precisely, we are interested only in constant and irregular parts of this series (contributing, respectively, to the finite and the divergent parts the self-action force) since the regular terms vanish upon switching off the regularization.

In order to simplify formulae we use standard notation from the linear algebra for the inner and the exterior (skew-symmetric) products of two vectors: $`ab=a^\mu b_\mu `$, $`ab=(a_\mu b_\nu a_\nu b_\mu )`$. Thus, the pre-exponential factor in the integral (36) may be written as

$$\dot{x}(s\tau )X(s,s\tau )=\underset{m=2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\tau ^mb_m(s),$$
(37)
where

$$b_m=(1)^m\underset{n=1}{\overset{m}{}}\frac{\stackrel{(n)}{x}\stackrel{(mn+1)}{x}}{n!(mn)!}.$$

In particular,

$$b_2=\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{(2)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x},b_3=\frac{1}{3}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x},$$

$$b_4=\frac{1}{8}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}\frac{1}{12}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x},b_5=\frac{1}{30}\stackrel{(5)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}+\frac{1}{24}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x},$$

$$b_6=\frac{1}{144}\stackrel{(6)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}\frac{1}{80}\stackrel{(5)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x}\frac{1}{144}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x},b_7=\frac{1}{840}\stackrel{(7)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}+\frac{1}{360}\stackrel{(6)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x}+\frac{1}{360}\stackrel{(5)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x}.$$

Using the basic identities

$$\dot{x}^2=0,\ddot{x}^2=1$$

as well as their differential consequences

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\ddot{x}\dot{x}=0,\hfill & \stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\ddot{x}=0,\hfill & \stackrel{\dot{}\dot{}\dot{}}{x}\dot{x}=1,\hfill & \stackrel{(4)}{x}\dot{x}=0,\hfill \\ \stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x}+\stackrel{(3)}{x}{}_{}{}^{2}=\hfill & \stackrel{(5)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x}{}_{}{}^{2}=\hfill & \stackrel{(5)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x}+3\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x}=\hfill & \stackrel{(6)}{x}\stackrel{(1)}{x}5\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x}=0,\hfill \end{array}$$

the argument of the exponent (36) can be written as

$$X^2(s,s\tau )=(x(s\tau )x(s))^2=\underset{k=4}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}c_k\tau ^k=$$

$$=\frac{1}{12}\stackrel{(2)}{x}\stackrel{(2)}{x}\tau ^4+\frac{1}{360}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\tau ^6$$
(38)
$$\frac{1}{360}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\tau ^7+(\frac{1}{1260}\stackrel{(3)}{x}\stackrel{(5)}{x}+\frac{1}{1344}\stackrel{(4)}{x}\stackrel{(4)}{x})\tau ^8+o(\tau ^8),$$

where

$$c_k=(1)^k\underset{n=1}{\overset{k1}{}}\frac{\stackrel{(n)}{x}\stackrel{(kn)}{x}}{n!(kn)!}.$$

Substituting (37) and (38) to the integral (36) and making replacement $`ta^{1/4}t`$ we find that

$$I_\mu (a)=\dot{x}^\nu \frac{}{a}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\tau \left(\underset{m=3}{\overset{7}{}}a^{(m3)/4}\tau ^m(b_m)_{\nu \mu }\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{n=4}{\overset{8}{}}a^{(n4)/4}\tau ^nc_n\right)+(\mathrm{regular}\mathrm{terms})$$
(39)
The expansion for the exponent reads

$$e^{\tau ^4/12}(1+a^{1/2}\tau ^6c_6+a^{3/4}\tau ^7c_7+a[\tau ^8c_8+\tau ^{12}c_6^2/2])+o(a).$$
(40)
Multiplying this expression on the pre-exponential factor

$$\underset{m=3}{\overset{7}{}}a^{\frac{m3}{4}}\tau ^m(b_m)=\tau ^3b_3+a^{1/4}\tau ^4b_4+a^{1/2}\tau ^5b_5+a^{3/4}\tau ^6b_6+a\tau ^7b_7$$

and contracting with $`\dot{x}^\nu `$ we get

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & e^{\tau ^4/12}\dot{x}^\nu (\tau ^3b_3+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +a^{1/4}\tau ^4b_4+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +a^{1/2}[\tau ^5b_5+b_3c_6\tau ^9]+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +a^{3/4}[\tau ^6b_6+(c_6b_4+c_7b_3)\tau ^{10}]+\hfill \\ & & \\ & & +a[\tau ^7b_7+(c_6b_5+c_7b_4+c_8b_3)\tau ^{11}+\frac{1}{2}c_6^2b_3\tau ^{15}])_{\nu \mu }+o(a).\hfill \end{array}$$

Substituting the last expression into (36) and using the integration formula

$$\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\tau ^4/12}\tau ^n𝑑\tau =\frac{12^{\frac{n+1}{4}}}{4}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{n+1}{4}\right)$$
(41)
we finally arrive at (23). It is interesting to note that the resulting expression for $`F_\mu ^{rr}(s,a)`$ turns out to be orthogonal to both $`\dot{x}^\mu `$ and $`\ddot{x}^\mu `$.

## Acknowledgments

We thank V. G. Bagrov and S. L. Lyakhovich for fruitful discussions. The work was partially supported by RFBR under the grant no 00-02-17-956, INTAS under the grant no 00-262 and Russian Ministry of Education under the grant E-00-3.3-184. The work of AAS was supported by RFBR grant for support of young scientists no 02-02-06879.