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# Correlation of the South Pole 94 data with 100𝜇m and 408 MHz maps

## 1 Introduction

The study of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies has recently proven to be a powerful tool for observational cosmology de Bernardis et al. (2000); Lange et al. (2000); Hanany et al. (2000); Balbi et al. (2000). One of the most important aspects of CMB analyses is to check whether the anisotropies observed are due to CMB temperature fluctuations or to foreground contamination such as diffuse Galactic emission.

Diffuse Galactic emission is dominated at high frequency (above $`100`$ GHz) by thermal emission from dust. High quality tracers of this emission are given by the IRAS/DIRBE $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ maps and have been made available in a user friendly way by Schlegel et al. (1998). At lower frequencies, Galactic emission is dominated by synchrotron and free-free radiation. Our best tracer of the synchrotron emission of the Galaxy is given by the Haslam 408 MHz map Haslam et al. (1981). Free-free emission is traced by H$`\alpha `$ emission, but maps of this emission are not yet publicly available.

Characterizing the correlations between these different Galactic components and data taken in the microwave is important in order to understand the spectral behaviour and the origin of Galactic emission which may contaminate CMB measurements. The first significant, high-$`|b|`$ cross-correlation between the COBE/DMR maps and dust templates was found by Kogut et al. (1996a, b). Significant correlations were found at each DMR frequency, but with a spectral behaviour in better agreement with free-free emission than with vibrational dust. These results have been confirmed by different experiments in various parts of the sky: Saskatoon de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1997), OVRO Leitch et al. (1997) and 19 GHz de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1998). At high Galactic latitudes, however, Python V Coble et al. (1999) did not see any correlation. The regions of the sky covered by these experiments are shown in Fig. 1. As noted above, free-free emission should correlate with H$`\alpha `$ maps. Unfortunately, correlations found between H$`\alpha `$ maps and the CMB indicate that the H$`\alpha `$-traced emission is too small to explain all of the observed correlation between CMB data and $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ data.

Draine and Lazarian (1998a, b) have suggested an alternate explanation for the correlation between CMB data and dust maps, namely that this emission may be the result of rotational dust emission from elongated grains. This emission could be compatible with the observed spectrum of the dust correlated emission in the microwave frequencies.

The sum of dust components, both rotational and vibrational, should show a local minimum at roughly 70 GHz, increase to a peak around 10 GHz, and drop off at lower frequencies. Such behaviour has been observed by de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1999) in correlating the Tenerife 10 and 15 GHz data with the IRAS/DIRBE maps. This has been put forth as evidence supporting spinning dust as the origin of the dust-correlated emission. A recent analysis of yet more Tenerife data Mukherjee et al. (2000) reports, however, that this result should be considered with care, as it originates mainly from a small, high Galactic latitude region. They finally say that the data does not allow any conclusion concerning the origin of the dust correlated emission.

In this article we present a similar analysis using the South Pole 1994 (SP94) data Gundersen et al. (1995). As correlations in the North Celestial Pole region have recently been questioned, we would like to obtain another measure of the correlation in a different region of the sky. More precisely, as correlations were found at low Galactic latitude (North Celestial Pole) and no correlation was found at high Galactic latitude by Python V, we wanted to explore the correlations in the high latitude regions that will be important for MAP and Planck. SP94 was a CMB experiment that used the Advanced Cosmic Microwave Explorer (ACME) which looked at such a high-$`|b|`$ region.

## 2 Data

### 2.1 Microwave data

The SP94 data were taken in two different bands with 7 different channels: the Ka-band with four center frequencies (27.25, 29.75, 32.25 and 34.75 GHz) and the Q-band with three different frequencies (39.15, 41.45 and 43.75 GHz). A detailed description of the instrument can be found in Meinhold et al. (1993), while the detail of the 1994 observations and data reduction is described in Gundersen et al. (1995). Frequencies and beam width for these channels are given in Table 1.

### 2.2 Infrared data

In this analysis, we used two templates for each channel :

* For the thermal emission from dust, we used the IRAS/DIRBE map provided by Schlegel et al. (1998). The initial resolution of this map is 6.1 arcmin FWHM.
* For the synchrotron emission, we used the Haslam maps Haslam et al. (1981) whose resolution is 51 arcmin FWHM.

Both maps were convolved to the SP94 beams (for each channel separately) using the beams given in Table 1 and then differenced, simulating the chopping strategy of the SP94 experiment. The simulated signals are shown, along with the SP94 data in Fig. 2. We see from this figure that the correlations, if non-zero, will be rather small.

## 3 Method

For each of the seven frequency bands we have $`N=43`$ data points, all at a declination of $`62^{}`$ and ranging from $`23^{}`$ and $`67^{}`$ in right ascension (see Fig. 1). These data points were obtained using a sinusoidal $`1.5^{}`$ chop with smooth, constant declination, constant velocity scans. We directly follow in this section the notation of de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1999). We assume that the data is a linear combination of CMB anisotropies $`x_{CMB}^i`$ and $`M`$ foreground components (including an unknown offset and gradient) that are given by simulated observations of the template dust and synchrotron maps using the SP94 beam and scanning strategy. In a vector-like notation, one gets :

$$𝐲=Xa+x_{CMB}+n$$
(1)
$`X`$ is a matrix with $`N`$ rows and $`M`$ columns. It contains the template maps observed using the SP94 beams and scanning strategy. $`a`$ it the $`M`$-vector we are interested in, it contains the correlation of the SP94 data with the different foregrounds contained in $`X`$. The experimental noise is $`n`$.

The noise and the CMB anisotropies are each assumed to be uncorrelated Gaussian variables with zero mean. They each have non-trivial covariance matrices and together a total covariance matrix of:

$`C`$ $`=`$ $`yy^Tyy^T`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`x_{CMB}x_{CMB}^T+nn^T=C_{CMB}+C_n`$ (3)
As discussed in Gundersen et al. (1995), the noise in a given pixel in given band (Ka or Q) is only correlated with the noise in the same pixel in the different channels of this band (4 channels for the Ka band and 3 channels for the Q band). The noise from the Ka and Q band are uncorrelated.

The covariance matrix of the CMB is obtained through the window function of the South Pole experiment $`W_{\mathrm{},ij}^{kl}`$ that can be found in Gundersen et al. (1995) :

$$C_{CMB}{}_{ij}{}^{kl}=\underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{2\mathrm{}+1}{4\pi }C_{\mathrm{}}W_{\mathrm{},ij}^{kl}$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the multipole index, $`i`$ and $`j`$ denote pixel indices and $`k`$ and $`l`$ denote the different channels. The window function was calculated accounting for the different beam-widths for each channel, and the underlying CMB sky was assumed to be the same for all channels. The beam width of each channel can be found in Table 1. $`C_l`$ is the CMB anisotropy angular power spectrum. We used the best fit $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ model from Jaffe et al (2000) obtained with the combined COBE/DMR, BOOMERANG and MAXIMA-1 data sets: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{tot}}=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.03`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_ch^2=0.17`$, $`n_s=0.975`$, $`\tau _C=0`$. As a check, we confirmed that the results do not change much using a flat band power spectrum with $`Q_{\mathrm{rms}\mathrm{PS}}=20`$, $`25`$ and $`30\mu \mathrm{K}`$. The differences were small.

We are interested in measuring the correlation coefficients with the various templates, we therefore want to measure $`a`$ considering $`n`$ and $`x_{CMB}`$ as noise (but accounting for chance alignment between CMB and the templates trough the CMB covariance matrix). We therefore construct the following $`\chi ^2`$ :

$$\chi ^2=\left(𝐲Xa\right)^TC^1\left(𝐲Xa\right)$$
(5)
Minimising this $`\chi ^2`$ leads to the best estimate of $`a`$ :

$$\widehat{a}=\left[X^TC^1X\right]^1X^TC^1y$$
(6)
We make the fit simultaneously for all channels in order to account for the channel-to-channel correlation matrix elements but the templates (dust and 408 MHz emission) are fitted separately. The vector $`y`$ contains the concatenated data for all channels ($`N`$ data points per channel). It is therefore a $`(n_{chan}\times N)`$ vector. The coadded Q-band and coadded Ka-band data are shown in Fig. 2. The covariance matrix is an $`(n_{chan}\times N)\times (n_{chan}\times N)`$ matrix. The $`X`$ matrix contains the template simulated signal (one for each channel) as well as a constant term and a gradient term for each channel, in order to account for the fact that such terms were removed from the SP94 data. The matrix $`X`$ is therefore a $`(n_{chan}\times N)\times (n_{chan}\times 3)`$ matrix. In a given column (corresponding to a given channel), $`X`$ contains mostly zeros, except for the rows corresponding to that channel where it contains the template simulated signal.

The best estimate of $`a`$ is given through the $`\chi ^2`$ minimization along with its covariance matrix:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\left[X^TC^1X\right]^1$$
(7)
We obtain a correlation coefficient for each channel but those are highly correlated according to the covariance matrix $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The correlation coefficients cannot therefore be averaged in a straightforward manner. We estimate the average of the correlation coefficients via:

$$\chi ^2=\left(a\overline{a}1\right)^T\mathrm{\Sigma }^1\left(a\overline{a}1\right)$$
(8)
where $`1`$ is a vector whose elements are all equal to 1. The best estimate of $`\overline{a}`$ is then obtained by:

$$\overline{a}=\frac{\mathrm{Total}(\mathrm{\Sigma }^1a)}{\mathrm{Total}(\mathrm{\Sigma }^1)}$$
(9)
where the $`\mathrm{Total}`$ function returns the sum of all elements of a matrix or vector. This is equivalent to a weighted average, though in this case we also account for correlations between the different measures. The error-bar on $`\overline{a}`$ is then:

$$\sigma _{\overline{a}}=\sqrt{\left(\mathrm{Total}(\mathrm{\Sigma }^1)\right)^1}.$$
(10)
We do this for the Ka\- and Q-bands separately, and for the combination of the two. The results are shown in Table 2.

Equations 8,9 and 10 implicitly suppose that the dust-correlated component has a flat spectrum (ie has a spectral index $`n=0`$). As was mentioned before, results from other experiments tend to favor spectral indices close to $`n2`$ similar to free-free emission. In order to account for a non-zero spectral index, we model the emission as :

$$\overline{a}=\overline{a}_0\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu _0}\right)^n$$
(11)
where $`\nu _0`$ is a reference frequency and not an additional degree of freedom. Equation 8 then becomes :

$$\chi ^2=\left(a\overline{a}_0m\right)^T\mathrm{\Sigma }^1\left(a\overline{a}_0m\right)$$
(12)
where $`m`$ is a vector with 7 elements $`m_i=\left(\frac{\nu _i}{\nu _0}\right)^n`$. This $`\chi ^2`$ is not linear if one lets $`n`$ vary as a free parameter. We therefore minimize it numerically for a grid of 300 values of $`n`$ between -5 and 5.

## 4 Correlations

We compute correlations between the SP94 and both dust and synchrotron templates shown in Fig. 2 and Table 2. Those results are also plotted as a function of the frequency in Fig. 3. The results we obtain show a marginal correlation of the Q-band data with the dust IRAS/DIRBE template whereas there is no correlation in the Ka-band. No significant positive correlation is found in either band with the Haslam template. The uncertainty on the combined Q-band and Ka-band correlation coefficients is not as much smaller than that of the Q-band or Ka-band alone as one might naively expect. In fact, this is due to the contribution of the CMB covariance matrix. For each channel, the CMB covariance matrix is comparable to the noise one and therefore combining the data reduces the noise contribution but not the CMB one that becomes dominant.

In Table 2, we also show the result for the analysis allowing the spectral index to vary as a free parameter. Combining the Ka channels did not lead to any realistic value for the spectral index (the best fit, $`n=5.0`$, was at the edge of the range we searched). Combining the Q-band data leads to a best fit for the spectral index of $`n=0.8\pm 2.0`$. Combining all Ka and Q data together leads to $`n=2.1\pm 1.0`$. It is there clear that positive values are preferred. This is not a surprise, however, as the Q-band data obviously correlate with the IRAS data better than the Ka does.

We summarize in Fig. 4 the measurements performed up to now of the correlation with the vibrational dust traced by IRAS/DIRBE $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ : SP94 corresponds to the present article, the Tenerife measurements have been published in two different articles de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1999); Mukherjee et al. (2000) reporting slightly different results obtained with almost the same data. We plot both measurements, the lower values were obtained by de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1999) and considered as a possible evidence for the presence of spinning dust because of the fall at 10 GHz. The upper measurements Mukherjee et al. (2000) were published more recently and mitigated the enthusiasm for spinning dust. As the values in this region are under question now, we plotted a square around these points. OVRO measured one point in this region at 14.5 GHz Leitch et al. (1997) that seems to favour upper values of the correlation. Saskatoon data are taken from de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1997) and show a $`1\sigma `$ detection in the Ka-band (not significant) and a $`1.9\sigma `$ detection in the Q-band. The 19 GHz (whole sky survey) data were taken from de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1998). The result from PythonV at 41 GHz was taken from Coble et al. (1999) and is fully compatible with no detection (the best fit is negative and does not appear in the plot). The COBE data points are from Kogut et al. (1996b). The results quoted in the article were obtained by fitting DIRBE $`140\mu \mathrm{m}`$ to the DMR data. We therefore corrected them by the average ratio DIRBE $`140\mu \mathrm{m}`$/DIRBE $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ to have them in the same units as the other data points. The FIRS point at 167 GHz was obtained by Ganga (1994). We also overplotted in Fig. 4 the predicted spectrum (in terms of ratio to IRAS/DIRBE $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$) for vibrational dust in green (we assumed a spectral index of $`2.0`$) normalised with IRAS/DIRBE $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$, and for spinning dust in blue. We also added the spectrum for free-free emission in light blue (arbitrary normalization and spectral index -2.1). For the spinning dust, we follow Draine and Lazarian (1998a) for the mixing between Warm Ionised Medium (WIM), Warm Neutral Medium (WNM) and Cold Neutral Medium (CNM) models using a respective fraction of 0.14, 0.43 and 0.43. The respective normalization of these models was also taken from Draine and Lazarian (1998a). The sum of both contributions is shown in Fig. 4 in red. The width of the curves for the spinning dust model is due to the galactic latitude dependance of the optical depth of the spinning dust components. We used all the latitudes more than $`20^{}`$ from the Galactic equator. The normalization is that given by Draine and Lazarian (1998a). As clearly yields too little emission to match the data, we have also done a fit to the points and arbitrarily raised the model curves by this amount. This is indicated by the dotted curve.

## 5 Discussion and conclusion

The signal to noise for the Q-band detection is only 1.6 ($`89\%`$ confidence level) so this would not be considered a detection as most CMB experiments require at least 2$`\sigma `$. We would note however that, as opposed to normal CMB anisotropy analyses, here we are comparing the data to a template and it is difficult to imagine that systematic effects or analysis errors that would cause a random correlation with $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ dust emission. The correlation could arise from random alignment between the CMB anisotropies and the dust template. This, however, should be taken into account in our analysis if our covariance matrices for the data and the CMB are correctly estimated. If these covariance matrices were underestimated, the error bars we compute on the correlation coefficient (with Eq. 7) would be too small and therefore the significance of our result would be overestimated. In order to check the validity of our error bars, we correlated the SP94 data with template dust maps obtained by rotating the initial template maps around the Galactic poles and by inverting North and South. The Galaxy was either rotated and/or inverted in 36 different ways (10 degrees each) to make 36 different simulations. We found a zero average correlation and the RMS of the correlations normalized by the error bars (calculated with Eq. 7) appears to be 1.1. This shows that the covariance matrices of the CMB and the data and therefore our error bars are correctly estimated, confirming the significance of the correlation coefficients we obtain.

We do, however, find the following points interesting: As seen previously de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1997) the correlation between the Q-band and the $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ emission is stronger than the correlation between the Ka-band and the $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ emission. If the correlation we found is to be believed, the ratio of the RMS of the $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ template times the fitted correlation coefficient to the implied sky RMS is $`0.38`$ (in the Q-band). This result indicates that roughly $`14\%`$ of the power seen on the sky by ACME/SP94 Q-band could be due to Galactic emission. The $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ could go down by $`14\%`$ and the amplitude by $`38\%`$. This however does not apply to the Ka-band. This result is in qualitative agreement with Gundersen et al. (1995) and Ganga et al. (1997), both of which found different spectral indices for the Ka\- and Q-band data, though again, with low statistical significance.

We have also done the above analysis using as a template not the raw $`100\mu \mathrm{m}`$ data but rather the extrapolations recommended by Schlegel et al. (1998) (model 8) to 500GHz and 40 GHz. The $`\chi ^2`$ for the fit went down by a very small amount. The differences in the $`\chi ^2`$ were not significant and do not change the conclusions drawn above. This is not surprising as the SP94 data covers only a small region and the SFD model was designed to cope with the whole sky.

In conclusion, we have shown that there is a very marginal correlation between the SP94 Q-band data and vibrational dust tracers, while no such correlation exists with the 408 MHz map. The amplitude of the correlation in the Q-band is larger than that seen by de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1997).

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to thank J.O. Gundersen and the ACME team for making the SP94 data available. We would also like to thank F.X. Désert for fruitful discussions.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The existence of a deconfined phase of gluons and quarks has been predicted by quantum chromodynamics (QCD) . Aspects of QCD at finite density are very important as well as instructive in the sense of the observation of quark-gluon plasma (QGP), especially from the heavy vector meson (HVM) suppression, strangeness enhancement, hadron yield distributions versus temperature and dilepton excess. There is large amount of consistency among the different signatures of deconfined phase transition to a new excited state of matter. In the case of HVM suppression (e.g., $`c\overline{c}`$ bound state suppression), the CERN-SPS experiments clearly show that it’s visible in Pb-Pb collisions starting from a definite value of the energy density in the right range. Enhanced strange particle production in Pb-Pb collisions offers another indication for the phase transition: in the deconfined phase strange quarks are more easily produced. The threshold for the producing strange quarks is much lower than that for strange hadrons. In addition, the mass of the strange quark goes down in the case of the restoration of the chiral symmetry. Hence, the observation of large ratios for strange particles is considered as a remnant of the unconfined phase. The dilepton abundance, while well explained by ordinary soucers in all other cases, for Pb-Pb collisions a neat excess is instead observed.

There is a very popular point of view in literature that a deconfinement phase transition is predicted to occur at the typical energy scale involved, the temperature $`T_c`$ QCD scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ the pion mass $`m_\pi `$ the mass of a strange quark $`m_s`$ 140-200 MeV. Putting all indications above mentioned together, the case of a high density state of matter onsetting at a critical temperature around 170 MeV is reasonably suitable.

Among the issues related to QGP, we attract attention to the problem of deconfined phase through the calculation of correlation and distribution functions  in the thermal theory of quantized fields. We consider the semiphenomenological model for the deconfinement existence within the framework of the Langevine-type equation. To do this, we follow the standard theory of quantized fields replacing:
1. the asymptotic field operators and
2. the vacuum expectation values
by
1. the thermal field operators and
2. the thermal statistical averages,
respectively, in order to formulate correlation and distribution functions of produced particles.

The method of Langevin equation and its extensions to the quantal case have been suggested and considered in papers \[3-5\] and \[6-8\], respectively. We propose that real physical processes to happen in the finite-temperature QCD should be replaced by a one-constituent (e.g., gluon or quark) propagation provided by a special kernel operator (in the master evolution equation) to be considered as an input of the model and disturbed by the random force $`F`$. We assume $`F`$ to be the external source proposed as both a c-number function and an operator. The master equation is an operator one, so that there appear new additional issues about the commutation relations and the ordering of operators, which do not exist in the classical case .

Based on the thermal operator-field technique, we introduce a thermal ratio of the disorder deviation (TRDD), reflecting the degree of deviation, from unity, of the ratio of the two-particle thermal momentum-dependent distribution to two one-particle thermal distribution functions of produced particles, gluons and/or quarks (g/q) in a partly deconfined phase state. We study the four-momentum correlations of identical particles which can be both useful and instructive to infer the shape of the particle emitter-source. We estimate the sensitivity of the TRDD-functions to the size of the emitter. Within these features, the canonical formalism in a stationary state in the thermal equilibrium (SSTE) is formulated, and a closed structural resemblance between the SSTE and standard quantum field theory is revealed.
To clarify the internal structure of the disordering of particles, we use the consistent approach based on the evolution of dynamical variables as well as the extension to different modes provided by virtual transitions.

## 2  Distribution functions. Evolution equation.

Let us consider a hypothetical system of the quark-gluon excited local thermal phase in QCD where a canonical operator $`a`$ and its Hermitian conjugate $`a^+`$ occur. We formulate the distribution functions (DF) of produced particles (gluons and quarks) in terms of point-to-point equal time temperature-dependent thermal correlation functions (CF) of two operators

$$w(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},t;T)=a^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)a(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)=$$

$$=Tr[a^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)a(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)e^{H\beta }]/Tr(e^{H\beta }).$$

Here, $`\mathrm{}`$ means the procedure of thermal statistical averaging; $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ and $`t`$ are, respectively, momentum and time variables, $`e^{H\beta }/Tr(e^{H\beta })`$ stands for the standard density operator in the equilibrium and the Hamiltonian $`H`$ is given by the squared form of the annihilation $`a_p`$ and creation $`a_p^+`$ operators for bose- and fermi- particles, $`H=_pϵ_pa_p^+a_p`$ (the energy $`ϵ_p`$ and operators $`a_p`$, $`a_p^+`$ carry some index $`p`$ , where $`p_\alpha =2\pi n_\alpha /L,n_\alpha =0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{};V=L^3`$ is the volume of the system considered); $`\beta `$ is the inverse temperature of the environment, $`\beta =1/T`$. The standard canonical commutation relation

$$[a(\stackrel{}{k},t),a^+(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)]_\pm =\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{k}^{})$$

at every time t is used as usual for Bose (-) and Fermi (+)-operators.

The probability to find two particles, gluons or quarks, with momenta $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}^{}`$ in the same event at the time $`t`$ normalized to the single spectrum of these particles is:

$$R(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)=W(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)/[W(\stackrel{}{k},t)W(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)].$$

Here, the one-particle thermal DF is defined as

$$W(\stackrel{}{k},t)=b^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)b(\stackrel{}{k},t),$$

where

$$b(\stackrel{}{k},t)=a(\stackrel{}{k},t)+\varphi (\stackrel{}{k},t)$$

under an assumption of occurrence of the random source-function $`\varphi (\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ being an operator, in general. The two-particle DF $`W(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)`$ looks like

$$W(\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)=b^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)b^+(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t)b(\stackrel{}{k},t)b(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t).$$

The evolution properties of propagating particles in a randomly distributed environment comes from the evolution equations

$`i_tb(\stackrel{}{k},t)+A(\stackrel{}{k},t)=F(\stackrel{}{k},t)+P,`$ (1)
$`i_tb^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)+A^{}(\stackrel{}{k},t)=F^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)+P,`$ (2)
where both $`b`$ and $`b^+`$ are the special mode operators of the quark and gluon fields , $`P`$ and $`F(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ stand for the stationary external force and the random one, respectively, both acting from the environment. The only operator $`F`$ has a zeroth value of the statistical average, $`F=0`$. The interaction of the particles considered with the surrounding ones as well as providing the propagation is given by the operator $`A(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ which can be defined as the one closely related to the dissipation force:

$`A(\stackrel{}{k},t)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}K(\stackrel{}{k},t\tau )b(\stackrel{}{k},\tau )𝑑\tau .`$ (3)
An interplay of quarks and gluons with surrounding particles is embedded into the interaction complex kernel $`K(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$, while the real physical transitions are provided by the random source operator $`F(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ ( see eqns. (1) and (2)). The random evolution field operator $`K(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ in (3) stands for the random noise and it is assumed to vary stochastically with a $`\delta `$\- like equal time correlation function

$$K^+(\stackrel{}{k},\tau )K(\stackrel{}{k}^{},\tau )=2(\pi \rho )^{1/2}\kappa \delta (\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{k}^{}),$$

where both the strength of the noise $`\kappa `$ and the positive constant $`\rho \mathrm{}`$ define the effect of the Gaussian noise on the evolution of quarks and gluons in the thermalized environment.

The formal solution of (1) in the operator form in $`S(\mathrm{}_4)`$ ($`k^\mu =(\omega =k^0,k_j))`$ is

$$\stackrel{~}{b}(k_\mu )=\stackrel{~}{a}(k_\mu )+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu ),$$

where the operator $`\stackrel{~}{a}(k_\mu )`$ is expressed via the Fourier transformed operator $`\stackrel{~}{F}(k_\mu )`$ and the Fourier transformed kernel function $`\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu )`$ (coming from (3)) as

$$\stackrel{~}{a}(k_\mu )=\stackrel{~}{F}(k_\mu )[\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu )\omega ]^1,$$

while the function $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )`$ $`P[\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu )\omega ]^1`$. The random force operator $`F(\stackrel{}{k},t)`$ can be expanded by using the Fourier integral

$`F(\stackrel{}{k},t)={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }}\psi (k_\mu )\widehat{c}(k_\mu )e^{i\omega t},`$ (4)
where the form $`\psi (k_\mu )\widehat{c}(k_\mu )`$ is just the Fourier operator $`\stackrel{~}{F}(k_\mu )=\psi (k_\mu )\widehat{c}(k_\mu )`$ and the canonical operator $`\widehat{c}(k_\mu )`$ obeys the commutation relation

$$[\widehat{c}(k_\mu ),\widehat{c}^+(k_\mu ^{})]_\pm =\delta ^4(k_\mu k_\mu ^{}).$$

The function $`\psi (k_\mu )`$ in (4) is determined by the condition

$$_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\left[\frac{\psi (k_\mu )}{\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu )\omega }\right]^2=1.$$

## 3 TRDD and the space-time size.

The enhanced probability for emission of two identical particles is given by the ratio $`R`$ of DF in $`S(\mathrm{}_4)`$ as follows:

$`R_{b/f}(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)}{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{})}},`$ (5)
where $`\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)=\stackrel{~}{b}^+(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{b}^+(k_\mu ^{})\stackrel{~}{b}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{b}(k_\mu ^{})`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )=\stackrel{~}{b}^+(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{b}(k_\mu )`$. Using the Fourier solution of equation (1) in $`S(\mathrm{}_4)`$, one can get R-ratios for DF obeying to Bose-

$`R_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)=1+D_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)`$ (6)
and Fermi-particles

$`R_f(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)=R_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu )\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ^{})}{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{})}},`$ (7)
where

$`D_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})[\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ^{},k_\mu )+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^+(k_\mu ^{})\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )]+\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ^{},k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^+(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu ^{})}{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{})}}`$ (8)
and the two-particle CF $`\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})`$ looks like

$`\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})=\stackrel{~}{a}^+(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{a}(k_\mu ^{})`$ (9)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\psi ^{}(k_\mu )\psi (k_\mu ^{})}{[\stackrel{~}{K}^{}(k_\mu )\omega ][\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu ^{})\omega ^{}]}}\widehat{c}^+(k_\mu )\widehat{c}(k_\mu ^{}).`$ (10)
Using the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition ( $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential)

$$a(\stackrel{}{k}^{},t^{})a^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)=a^+(\stackrel{}{k},t)a(\stackrel{}{k}^{},ti\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta \mu ),$$

the thermal statistical averages for the $`\widehat{c}(k_\mu )`$-operator should be presented in the following form:

$$\widehat{c}^+(k_\mu )\widehat{c}(k_\mu ^{})=\delta ^4(k_\mu k_\mu ^{})n(\omega ,T),$$

$$\widehat{c}(k_\mu )\widehat{c}^+(k_\mu ^{})=\delta ^4(k_\mu k_\mu ^{})[1\pm n(\omega ,T)]$$

for Bose (+)- and Fermi (-)-statistics, where $`n(\omega ,T)=\{\mathrm{exp}[(\omega \mu )\beta ]\pm 1\}^1`$. Inserting CF (9) into (8) and taking into account that the $`\delta ^4(k_\mu k_\mu ^{})`$-function should be changed by the smooth sharp function $`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)`$, one can get the following expression for the $`D_b`$-function

$`D_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)=\lambda (k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)`$ (11)
$`\times [n(\overline{\omega },T)\mathrm{\Omega }(r)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{}(k_\mu ^{})\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )+\stackrel{~}{\varphi }^{}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu ^{})],`$ (12)
where

$$\lambda (k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(r)}{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{})}n(\overline{\omega },T),\overline{\omega }=\frac{1}{2}(\omega +\omega ^{}).$$

The function $`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)n(\omega ;T)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)`$ describes the space-time size of the QGP fire-ball. Choosing the z-axis along the two-heavy-ion collision axis one can put

$$q^2=(r_0Q_0)^2+(r_zQ_z)^2+(r_tQ_t)^2,$$

$$Q_\mu =(kk^{})_\mu ,Q_0=ϵ_\stackrel{}{k}ϵ_\stackrel{}{k}^{},Q_z=k_zk_z^{},Q_t=[(k_xk_x^{})^2+(k_yk_y^{})^2]^{1/2},$$

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(r)r_0r_zr_t^2,$$

where $`r_0`$, $`r_z`$ and $`r_t`$ are time-like, longitudinal and transverse ”size” components of the QGP fire-ball. Formally, the function $`D_b`$ (11) is the positive one ranging from 0 to 1. The quantitative information (longitudinal $`r_z`$ and transverse $`r_t`$ components of the QGP spherical volume, the temperature T of the environment) could be extracted by fitting the theoretical formula (11) to the measured TRDD function and estimating the errors of the fit parameters. Formula (11) indicates that a chaotic g/q source emanating from the thermalized g/q fireball exists. Hence, the measurement of the space-time evolution of the g/q source would provide information of the g/q emission process and the general reaction mechanism. In formula (11) for the $`D_b`$\- function, the temperature of the environment enters through the two-particle CF $`\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)`$. If T is unstable the $`R_{b/f}`$-functions (5) will change due to a change of DF $`\stackrel{~}{W}`$ which, in fact, can be considered as an effective density of the g/q source. Formula (6) looks like the following expresion for the experimental R-ratio using a source parametrization:

$$R_T(r)=1+\lambda _T(r)\mathrm{exp}(r_t^2Q_t^2/2r_z^2Q_z^2/2),$$

where $`r_t(r_z)`$ is the transverse (longitudinal) radius parameter of the source with respect to the beam axis, $`\lambda _T`$ stands for the effective intercept parameter (chaoticity parameter) which has a general dependence of the mean momentum of the observed particle pair. Here, the dependence on the source lifetime is omitted. Since $`0<\lambda _T<1`$, one can conclude that the effective function $`\lambda _T`$ can be interpreted as a function of the core particles to all particles produced. The chaocity parameter $`\lambda _T`$ is the temperature-dependent and the positive one defined by

$$\lambda _T(r)=\frac{|\mathrm{\Omega }(r)n(\overline{\omega };T)|^2}{\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{})}.$$

Comparing (8) and (11) one can identify

$$\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})=\mathrm{\Omega }(r)n(\overline{\omega };T)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2).$$

There is no a satisfactory tool to derive the precise analytical form of the random source function $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )`$ in (8), but one can put (see (9) and taking into account $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )`$ $`P[\stackrel{~}{K}(k_\mu )\omega ]^1`$)

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(k_\mu )=[\alpha \mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu )]^{1/2},$$

where $`\alpha `$ is of the order $`O\left(P^2/n(\omega ,T)|\psi (k_\mu )|^2\right)`$. Thus,

$`D_b(q^2;T)={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^{1/2}(\overline{\omega };T)}{(1+\alpha )(1+\alpha ^{})}}e^{q^2/2}\left[\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^{1/2}(\overline{\omega };T)e^{q^2/2}+2(\alpha \alpha ^{})^{1/2}\right].`$ (13)
It is easily to see that in the vicinity of $`q^20`$ one can get the full correlation if $`\alpha =\alpha ^{}=0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(\overline{\omega };T)`$=1. Putting $`\alpha =\alpha ^{}`$ in (13) we find the formal lower bound on the space-time dimensionless size of the fire-ball for Bose-system:

$$q_b^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(\overline{\omega };T)}{[\sqrt{(\alpha +1)^2+\alpha ^2}\alpha ]^2}.$$

In the case of Fermi-particles, the following restriction on $`q_f^2`$ is valid (see (7))

$$\mathrm{ln}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(\overline{\omega };T)}{[\sqrt{2\alpha (\alpha +1)+3}\alpha ]^2}q_f^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(\overline{\omega };T)}{[\sqrt{\alpha ^2+2}\alpha ]^2}.$$

In fact, the function $`D_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)`$ in (11) could not be observed because of some model uncertainties. In the standard consideration, the TRDD-function has to contain a background contribution as well as other physical particles (resonances) which have not been included in the calculation of the $`D_b`$\- function. In order to be close to the experimental data, one has to expand the $`D_b`$\- function as projected on some well-defined function (in $`S(\mathrm{}_4)`$) of the relative momentum of two particles produced in heavy-ion collisions $`D_b(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)D_b(Q_\mu ^2;T).`$ Thus, it will be very instructive to use the polynomial expansion which is suitable to avoid any uncertainties as well as characterize the degree of deviation from the Gaussian distribution, for example. In $`(\mathrm{},+\mathrm{})`$, a complete orthogonal set of functions can be obtained with the help of the Hermite polynomials in the Hilbert space of the square integrable functions with the measure $`d\mu (z)=\mathrm{exp}(z^2/2)dz`$. The function $`D_b`$ corresponds to this class if

$$_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑q\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)|D_b(q)|^n<\mathrm{},n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}.$$

The expansion in terms of the Hermite polynomials $`H_n(q)`$

$`D_b(q)=\lambda {\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}c_nH_n(q)\mathrm{exp}(q^2/2)`$ (14)
is well suited for the study of possible deviation from both the experimental shape and the exact theoretical form of the TRDD function $`D_b`$ (11). The coefficients $`c_n`$ in (14) are defined via the integrals over the expanded functions $`D_b`$ because of the orthogonality condition

$$_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}H_n(x)H_m(x)\mathrm{exp}(x^2/2)𝑑x=\delta _{n,m}.$$

Thus, the observation of the two-particle correlation (both for Bose- and Fermi-symmetrization) enable to extract the properties of the structure of $`q^2`$, i.e. the space-time size of QGP formation.

In order to be close to an experiment one has to replace $`R_{b,f}`$ functions (6), (7) with respect to the cylindrical symmetry angles $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$ which are non-observable ones at fixed $`Q_t`$:

$$R_{b,f}(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T)\overline{R}_{b,f}(Q_t;T)=N^1𝑑q_t𝑑Q_z𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{};T),$$

where

$$N=𝑑q_t𝑑Q_z𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi \stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu )\stackrel{~}{W}(k_\mu ^{}),$$

$$q_t=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{sin}\theta }\left\{k_x+k_y\frac{1}{2}Q_t\left[\mathrm{cos}(\theta +\varphi )+\mathrm{sin}(\theta +\varphi )\right]\right\}.$$

Then, $`\overline{R}_{b,f}(Q_t;T)=1+\overline{D}_{b,f}(Q_t;T)`$ with

$$\overline{D}_b(Q_t;T)=\frac{\overline{N}^1(T)}{(1+\alpha )(1+\alpha ^{})}\mathrm{exp}[(r_tQ_t)^2]F_b(Q_t;T),$$

$$\overline{D}_f(Q_t;T)=\frac{1}{(1+\alpha )(1+\alpha ^{})}\left\{\overline{N}^1(T)\mathrm{exp}[(r_tQ_t)^2]F_b(Q_t;T)2\right\},$$

$$F_b(Q_t;T)=𝑑q_t𝑑Q_z𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi n^2(\overline{\omega };T)e^{\beta _{0Z}}[1+2\sqrt{\alpha \alpha ^{}\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^1(\overline{\omega };T)}e^{q^2/2}],$$

$$\beta _{0Z}(r_0Q_0)^2+(r_zQ_z)^2,$$

$$\overline{N}(T)=𝑑q_t𝑑Q_z𝑑\theta 𝑑\varphi n(\omega ;T)n(\omega ^{};T).$$

To avoid the trivial result, one should restrict the $`\alpha `$-parameter as

$$\alpha \stackrel{~}{\lambda }^{1/2}(\overline{\omega };T)e^{q^2/2}\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^{1/2}(\overline{\omega };T)e^{q^2/2}.$$

In conclusion of this section, the experimental data are quite desired to make the analysis of the particle fluctuation via TRDD.

## 4 Conclusion

1. We investigated the finite temperature DF (of produced identical particles, gluons and quarks) which can be both useful and instructive to infer the shape of the gluon/quark source-emitter. In fact, we have presented the method of extracting the intercept and source parameters from the shape of the TRDD-function.
2. The relations between the CF $`\mathrm{\Xi }(k_\mu ,k_\mu ^{})`$ (9) and the full $`R`$-functions for Bose (6)- and Fermi (7)-particles at the stage of the freeze-out are obtained. We have shown the sensitivity of the correlation functions to the space-time geometry of the source-emitter (11). The TRDD- function $`D_b`$ describes the size and shape of the space-time domain where the secondary observed particles are generated.
3. One can conclude that formally, the deconfined phase size scale can be determined by the evolution behavior of the field operators and the critical temperature $`T=T_c`$ (see formula (11)).
4. Since, the TRDD-function $`D_b`$ is the positive one and restricted by 1, we expect that the $`R`$-ratio at too small values of $`Q_\mu `$ starts from the fixed point $`R(Q_\mu 0)=2ϵ`$ $`(ϵ+0)`$ and then falls down (with the Gaussian shape) up to unity over some momentum scale interval of an order of the inverse source size.


text:
# Four-body DWBA calculations of the Coulomb breakup of 6He

## 1 Introduction

Several nuclei near the drip lines have been found to have properties which are strikingly different from those of their stable counterparts. These nuclei have a halo structure in their ground states in which loosely bound valence nucleon(s) has (have) a large spatial extension with respect to the respective core . The two-neutron halo nuclei, of which 6He is a prominent example, have attracted a lot of attention. These are Borromean three-body systems, where all the two-body subsystems are unbound . Clearly, the interaction of valence neutrons is vital for the stability of the two-neutron halo nuclei. They provide interesting examples of the three-body problem in the limit of very weak binding , and the three-body methods (within both Faddeev and cluster type approaches) have been extensively applied to study them . Other approaches like non-relativistic  and relativistic  mean field models and many-body calculations  have also been used to investigate the structure of such nuclei.

Breakup reactions, in which the valence neutrons are removed from the core in the interaction of halo nuclei with stable targets, provide detailed information on their structures . The study of the breakup reaction of 6He is interesting due to several reasons. It leads to the excitation of the continuum of this nucleus, which has received much attention recently due to the experimental discovery  of the soft dipole resonance (SDR), signifying the dipole oscillation between the core cluster and the valence neutrons. Although the SDR was predicted long ago , properties of this resonance measured in Ref.  are at variance with those predicted by the detailed three-body calculations . The breakup reaction of this nucleus gives access to the study of the neutron-neutron ($`n`$-$`n`$) and neutron-alpha particle ($`n`$-4He) correlations, which are important because they provide a critical test of the dineutron model, in which the halo neutrons were treated as a point like “dineutron” cluster orbiting the core. This model has been used in earlier theoretical studies, both semiclassical  and quantum mechanical , of the breakup of the two-neutron halo nuclei. Furthermore, the study of the neutron-4He correlation is expected to constrain the neutron-4He interaction used in the three-body calculations of the 6He ground state. The study of the total and longitudinal momentum distributions of the charged fragment is expected to yield information on the matter radii of the halo. The breakup of 6He is also important from the viewpoint of astrophysics as it can be used  to extract the rate of the 4He($`2n,\gamma )^6`$He($`2n,\gamma )^8`$He reactions which could be a possible route for bridging the gap at the mass number, $`A`$ = 5 and 8.

Several calculations of the nuclear and Coulomb breakup  of 6He, based on a model which uses a sudden approximation , have been reported recently. Calculations of the nuclear breakup of 6He within the approximate eikonal model is reported in Ref. . Due to the nature of the approximations involved in these models, their applicability is limited to reactions at higher beam energies ($`>`$ 200 MeV/nucleon). Moreover, they have been applied to describe only a selected set of observables. In the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) calculations of the breakup of 6He reported in , the interaction appearing in the kernel of the prior DWBA T-matrix has been evaluated in the impulse approximation which limits its applicability to higher beam energies.

In this paper, we calculate the Coulomb breakup of 6He treating the final state as a four-body system. Our formalism uses the framework of the post form distorted wave Born approximation which is an extension of the theory developed earlier  to describe the breakup of one-neutron halo nuclei. Finite range of the interaction between projectile constituents is treated by making an effective local momentum approximation (ELMA) on the distorted wave of the charged core in the final channel. It was shown in Ref.  that this approximation is well satisfied for the breakup of one-neutron halo nuclei. Furthermore, this gave results  which were similar to those obtained within an adiabatic model (AD)  of Coulomb breakup reactions. This theory allows the use of a realistic three-body wave function for the projectile ground state and can be applied to breakup reactions with beam energies ranging from below the Coulomb barrier to higher values up to which the non-relativistic treatment is valid. We have used our theory to analyze almost all types of the breakup observables measured in the reaction of 6He on heavy target nuclei. We compare our results with those of the AD and dineutron models.

This paper is organized in the following way. Our formalism is presented in the next section. The structure models of 6He are discussed in section 3. The results of our calculations and discussions are presented in section 4. A summary and the conclusions of our work are given in section 5.

## 2 Formalism

We consider the breakup reaction $`a+tb+n_1+n_2+t`$, where the projectile $`a`$ breaks up into fragment $`b`$ (the charged core) and the two valence neutrons ($`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$) in the Coulomb field of the heavy target $`t`$. We consider only the elastic breakup mode in which the target nucleus remains in its ground state during the breakup process.

The system of coordinates is shown in Fig. 1. The position vectors satisfy the relations

$`𝐫_b`$ $`=`$ $`𝐫_i\alpha 𝐑,\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{2m_n}{2m_n+m_b}},`$ (1)
$`𝐫_c`$ $`=`$ $`\beta 𝐫_i+\delta 𝐑,\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{m_t}{m_b+m_t}},\delta =(1\alpha \beta ).`$ (2)
The post form $`T`$ \- matrix for this case is given by

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`\chi _{bt}^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_b)\varphi _b(\xi _b)\chi _{cbt}^{()}(𝐤_c,𝐫_c)\varphi _{n_1n_2}(𝐤,𝐫,\xi _{n_1n_2})|V(𝐑,𝐫)|`$ (3)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫,𝐫_i),`$
where $`c`$ represents the c.m. of the $`n_1n_2`$ system. $`\chi _{bt}^{()}`$ is the Coulomb distorted wave describing the motion of the charged core ($`b`$) with respect to target $`t`$ with incoming wave boundary condition and $`\chi _{cbt}^{()}`$ describes the c.m. motion of the valence neutrons with respect to the c.m. of the $`b`$-$`t`$ system. $`\varphi `$’s are the internal state wave functions of the concerned particles with $`\xi `$’s being the internal coordinates. $`𝐤_b`$ and $`𝐤_c`$ are the Jacobi wave vectors conjugate to $`𝐫_b`$ and $`𝐫_c`$ respectively. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫,𝐫_i)`$ represents the exact four-body scattering wave function of the projectile with an outgoing wave boundary condition. $`𝐤_a`$ is the wave vector associated with it. $`V(𝐑,𝐫)`$ is the sum of the two-body interactions between the projectile constituents, given by

$`V(𝐑,𝐫)=V_{n_1n_2}(𝐫)+V_{bn_1}(𝐑𝐫/2)+V_{bn_2}(𝐑+𝐫/2).`$ (4)
### 2.1 Transition amplitude within the finite range distorted wave Born approximation (FRDWBA)

In DWBA theory the breakup states are assumed to be weakly coupled and hence this coupling is treated only up to the first order. Thus we can write

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫,𝐫_i)=\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)\chi _{at}^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i),`$ (5)
where $`\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)`$ represents the (three-body) bound state wave function of the projectile and $`\chi _{at}^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i)`$ is the Coulomb distorted scattering wave describing the relative motion of the c.m. of the projectile with respect to the target with outgoing wave boundary condition. Substituting Eq. (5) into Eq. (3) and writing the latter in the integral form we get,

$`T^{DWBA}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\xi 𝑑𝐑𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐫_i\chi _{bt}^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_b)\varphi _b^{}(\xi _b)\chi _{cbt}^{()}(𝐤_c,𝐫_c)}`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(𝐤,𝐫,\xi _{n_1n_2})V(𝐑,𝐫)\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)\chi _{at}^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i).`$
We introduce the finite range effects in DWBA by an effective local momentum approximation by writing the distorted wave in the final channel as

$`\chi _b^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_b)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\alpha 𝐊𝐑}\chi _b^{(+)}(𝐤_b,𝐫_i),`$ (7)
where $`𝐊`$ is an effective local momentum whose direction is taken to be the same as that of the asymptotic momentum $`𝐤_b`$, since the calculated cross sections are almost independent of this quantity, as is shown in Appendix A. The magnitude of $`𝐊`$ is given by

$`K(R_d)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2\mu _{bt}}{\mathrm{}^2}}(EV(R_d))}.`$ (8)
In Eq. (8) $`\mu _{bt}`$ is the reduced mass of the $`b`$-$`t`$ system, $`E`$ is the energy of particle $`b`$ relative to the target in the c.m. system and $`V(R_d)`$ is the Coulomb potential between $`b`$ and the target at a distance $`R_d`$. Thus, the magnitude of $`𝐊`$ is evaluated at a separation $`R_d`$ (taken to be 10 fm in all the numerical calculations shown in the next section), which is held fixed for all the values of $`r`$. We refer to Appendix A for further discussions of the validity of this approximation for the reactions studied in this paper.

In Eq. (6), the Coulomb distorted waves are given by

$`\chi _{at}^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_i)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\pi \eta _a/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _a)e^{i𝐤_a𝐫_i}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _a,1,i(k_ar_i𝐤_a𝐫_i)),`$ (9)
$`\chi _{bt}^{()}(𝐤_b,𝐫_b)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\alpha 𝐊𝐑}e^{\pi \eta _b/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _b)e^{i𝐤_b𝐫_i}`$ (10)
$`\times `$ $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _b,1,i(k_br_i+𝐤_b𝐫_i)).`$
For pure Coulomb breakup, the interactions between two uncharged valence particles as well as between their c.m. and that of the $`b`$-$`t`$ system are zero. Hence we take plane waves for the $`c`$-$`bt`$ and $`n_1`$-$`n_2`$ relative motions:

$`\chi _{cbt}^{()}(𝐤_c,𝐫_c)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i\beta 𝐤_c𝐫_i}e^{i\delta 𝐤_c𝐑},`$ (11)
$`\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(𝐤,𝐫,\xi _{12})`$ $`=`$ $`e^{i𝐤𝐫}\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(\xi _{12}).`$ (12)
Substituting Eqs. (9-12) into Eq. (6) we get,

$`T^{FRDWBA}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\pi (\eta _a+\eta _b)/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _b)`$ (13)
$`\times [`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_ie^{i(𝐤_a𝐤_b\beta 𝐤_c)𝐫_i}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _a,1,i(k_ar_i𝐤_a𝐫_i))}`$
$`\times `$ $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _b,1,i(k_br_i+𝐤_b𝐫_i))]`$
$`\times [`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐑𝑑\xi e^{i(\delta 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊)𝐑}e^{i𝐤𝐫}\varphi _b^{}(\xi _b)\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(\xi _{12})V(𝐑,𝐫)}`$
$`\times `$ $`\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)].`$
In Eq. (13), the first integral is associated with the dynamics of the reaction which can be expressed analytically in terms of the Bremsstrahlung integral . The second one (to be expressed as $`I_f^{FRDWBA}`$) contains the information about the structure of the projectile and is known as the form factor. Defining $`\delta 𝐤_𝐜\alpha 𝐊`$ = $`𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏}`$, we can write

$`I_f^{FRDWBA}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d𝐫d𝐑e^{i𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐑}e^{i𝐤𝐫}[{\displaystyle }d\xi \varphi _b^{}(\xi _b)\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(\xi _{12})V(𝐑,𝐫)`$ (14)
$`\times `$ $`\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)].`$
The function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)=V(𝐑,𝐫)\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)`$ has the following representation in configuration space :

$`{\displaystyle \underset{l\lambda LS}{}}\mathrm{\Phi }_{l\lambda LS}(R,r)[[Y_m^l(\widehat{𝐫})Y_\mu ^\lambda (\widehat{𝐑})]_L\chi _S]_{JM}.`$ (15)
In Eq. (15), the relative orbital angular momentum $`\lambda `$ between the core and c.m. of the two neutrons is coupled with the relative orbital angular momentum $`l`$ between the neutrons to give $`L`$, which, in turn, is coupled with the total intrinsic spin $`S`$ of the two valence neutrons to give the resultant total angular momentum $`J`$ of the projectile with projection $`M`$. For 6He, $`J=M=0`$.

Hence

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐑e^{i(\delta 𝐤_c\alpha 𝐊)𝐑}e^{i𝐤𝐫}V(𝐑,𝐫)\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)}`$
$`=`$ $`4\pi {\displaystyle \underset{l\lambda LS}{}}(i)^{l+\lambda }\mathrm{\Phi }_{l\lambda LS}(k,k_1)[[Y_m^l(\widehat{𝐤})Y_\mu ^\lambda (\widehat{𝐤}_1)]_L\chi _S]_{00},`$
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{l\lambda LS}(k,k_1)=4\pi r^2𝑑rR^2𝑑Rj_l(kr)j_\lambda (k_1R)\mathrm{\Phi }_{l\lambda LS}(R,r).$$
(17)
The modulus square of $`I_f^{FRDWBA}`$ is given by

$`|I_f^{FRDWBA}|^2=(4\pi )^2{\displaystyle \underset{ll^{}\lambda \lambda ^{}L\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}()^{L+\mathrm{\Lambda }}\mathrm{\Phi }_{l\lambda LL}(k,k_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{l^{}\lambda ^{}LL}(k,k_1)P_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta })`$
$`\times \widehat{l}\widehat{l}^{}\widehat{\lambda }\widehat{\lambda }^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2W(l\lambda l^{}\lambda ^{};L\mathrm{\Lambda })\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l^{}& \mathrm{\Lambda }\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda & \lambda ^{}& \mathrm{\Lambda }\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (22)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the angle between vectors $`𝐤_1`$ and $`𝐤`$, and $`\widehat{n}=\sqrt{2n+1}`$.

The dominant angular momentum configurations of 6He contributing to Eq. (18) are $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{0000}(k,k_1)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1111}(k,k_1)`$ (with probabilities of $`0.84`$ and $`0.11`$, respectively). Thus we have

$`|I_f^{FRDWBA}|^2=\mathrm{\Phi }_{0000}^2(k,k_1)+\mathrm{\Phi }_{1111}^2(k,k_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_{1111}^2(k,k_1)P_2(\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }).`$ (23)
The differential cross section for the breakup process is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}v_a}}\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})`$ (24)
$`\times `$ $`|T^{FRDWBA}|^2,`$
where $`v_a`$ is the relative velocity of the projectile in the initial channel.

The four-body phase space factor is given by (see Appendix B)

$`\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})={\displaystyle \frac{h^9m_tm_bm_{n_1}m_{n_2}p_bp_{n_1}p_{n_2}}{m_{n_2}+m_tm_{n_2}\frac{𝐩_{n_2}(𝐩_{tot}𝐩_b𝐩_{n_1})}{p_{n_2}^2}}},`$ (25)
In Eq.(21), $`𝐩_i`$’s ($`i=t,b,n_1,n_2`$) are the momenta appropriate to the frame of interest (i.e. laboratory or c.m.) and $`𝐩_{tot}=𝐩_t+𝐩_b+𝐩_{n_1}+𝐩_{n_2}`$.

### 2.2 Transition amplitude within the adiabatic (AD) model

The adiabatic model of Coulomb breakup assumes that the important excitations of the projectile nucleus are in the low energy continuum, i.e. the breakup configurations excited by the projectile-target interaction are low energy $`b`$+$`n_1`$+$`n_2`$ relative motion states. This allows the four-body wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫,𝐫_i)`$ to be written as

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_a^{(+)}(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫,𝐫_i)=\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)e^{i\alpha 𝐤_a𝐑}\chi _{at}^{(+)}(𝐤_a,𝐫_b).`$ (26)
The AD model is a non-perturbative theory and it does not make the weak coupling approximation of DWBA. However, the initial and final state Coulomb interactions are included to all orders in both the formalisms. It may be noted that while the AD model necessarily requires the valence nucleons to be chargeless, the FRDWBA can, in principle, be applied to cases where both the core and the valence particles are charged.

The expression for the transition amplitude for the Coulomb breakup of a Borromean nucleus within the adiabatic model is given by

$`T^{AD}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\pi (\eta _a+\eta _b)/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+i\eta _b)`$ (27)
$`\times `$ $`[{\displaystyle }d𝐫_ie^{i(𝐤_a𝐤_b\beta 𝐤_c)𝐫_b}{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _a,1,i(k_ar_b𝐤_a𝐫_b))`$
$`\times `$ $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(i\eta _b,1,i(k_br_b+𝐤_b𝐫_b))]`$
$`\times `$ $`[{\displaystyle }d𝐫d𝐑d\xi e^{i(𝐤_c\alpha 𝐤_a)𝐑}e^{i𝐤𝐫}\varphi _b^{}(\xi _b)\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(\xi _{12})V(𝐑,𝐫)`$
$`\times `$ $`\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)].`$
It is evident that except for the form factor, the transition amplitudes within the FRDWBA and AD formalisms are the same. The form factor in the AD case is given by

$`I_f^{AD}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d𝐫d𝐑e^{i(𝐤_c\alpha 𝐤_a)𝐑}e^{i𝐤𝐫}[{\displaystyle }d\xi \varphi _b^{}(\xi _b)\varphi _{n_1n_2}^{}(\xi _{12})V(𝐑,𝐫)`$ (28)
$`\times `$ $`\varphi _a(\xi _a,𝐑,𝐫)].`$
It may be noted that Eq. (23) can also be obtained within the DWBA model by making ELMA to the Coulomb distorted wave in the initial channel of the reaction, and by evaluating the local momentum at $`R=\mathrm{}`$ with its direction being the same as that of the projectile.

## 3 Structure models

The three-body wave function for the ground state (g.s.) of 6He used in our calculations (which was provided to us by the authors of Ref. ) has been obtained  by solving the Faddeev equation with the hyperspherical harmonic expansion method which included a maximum of 20 hyperharmonics. In these calculations the $`n`$-$`{}_{}{}^{4}He`$ interaction was taken from Ref. , and for the $`n`$-$`n`$ interaction the Gogny-Pires-Tourreil potential  with spin-orbit and tensor components was used. The two-neutron separation energy and root mean square (rms) matter radius of 6He predicted by this model were 0.975 MeV and 2.50 fm, respectively. The $`\alpha `$-particle rms radius was taken to be 1.49 fm.

We would like to emphasize that in this paper our main intention is to develop a post form FRDWBA theory of the Coulomb breakup of the Borromean nuclei where a three-body wave function for their ground state can be used. This enables the breakup observables to be employed as additional constraints on the three-body structure models of these systems. Performing structure calculations is outside the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, it would be worthwhile to use the g.s. wave function of 6He calculated by other authors (see eg.  where the calculations for the 6He have been done within the Faddeev approach using different sets of interactions), to see the sensitivity of our results on the structure models of 6He.

For the dineutron model calculations, a point-like ‘dineutron’ was assumed to be bound to the 4He core in a 1$`s`$ state. The corresponding interaction is described by a Woods-Saxon potential (with radius and diffuseness parameters of 1.15 fm and 0.5 fm respectively) whose depth is adjusted to reproduce the binding energy of 0.975 MeV. The resulting 6He wave function has the rms radius of 2.47 fm, with the same $`\alpha `$-particle rms radius as that mentioned above.

## 4 Results and discussions

### 4.1 $`\alpha `$-particle energy distribution

In Fig. 2, we show a comparison of the calculated and measured $`\alpha `$-particle energy spectra at $`\theta _\alpha `$ = 5 in the elastic breakup of 6He on a Au target at the beam energy of 63.2 MeV/nucleon. The data are taken from Ref. . These cross sections have been obtained by performing the neutron angular integrations (in Eq. (20)) up to 20 and 360 in the theta and phi planes, respectively. The results remained almost unaffected by increasing the theta angle further. All the kinematically allowed values were included in the neutron energy integration. The solid, dotted and dashed lines show the results of calculations performed within the FRDWBA, AD and dineutron models respectively. The results of the last model are plotted after multiplying the actual cross sections by the factor shown in the figure. It may be noted that the theoretical spectrum in all the cases is shifted backwards by 10 MeV to compensate for the energy loss due to the target thickness . It is seen that the FRDWBA results are about 20$`\%`$ larger than those of the AD model at the $`\alpha `$ particle energies near and above the peak region. However, both of them are lower than the experimental data. The grazing angle for the reaction studied in this figure is about 3.5. Therefore, nuclear breakup effects are expected to make significant contribution to the cross sections at the angle for which these data are taken. This could explain the pure Coulomb breakup results being smaller than the experimental cross sections, particularly in the peak region.

It may be noted that the ‘dineutron’ model overestimates the measured cross sections by a factor of about 3 (the dashed line). This result can be understood qualitatively by recalling that the magnitudes of the calculated cross sections are dependent on the mean square distance between the $`\alpha `$-particle and the center of mass of 6He . In case of the three-body wave function, this distance is 1.428 fm2, whereas for the ‘dineutron’ model, it is 2.32 fm2. The larger cross section obtained in the latter model, therefore, may be attributed to this difference.

Measurements performed below the grazing angle are expected to be less affected by the nuclear breakup. One could then hope to test the significance of the small but noticeable difference seen in the pure Coulomb breakup cross sections calculated within the FRDWBA and AD models. However, it can already be seen that the peak position in the cross section calculated within the former is somewhat shifted to smaller energies as compared to that of the latter and is in a slightly better agreement with the peak position of the data.

### 4.2 Coulomb part of total two-neutron removal cross sections

In Fig. 3, we show the results of calculations for the Coulomb part of the total two-neutron removal cross section at three different beam energies of 30, 40 and 50 MeV/nucleon for the breakup reaction of 6He on a 208Pb target. The open circles, open triangles and open squares show the results of the FRDWBA, AD and dineutron models respectively. With increasing beam energy the cross sections of first two models decrease, which is consistent with the earlier observations (see $`e.g.`$ ). We note that here also the results of these two models differ from each other by 20-25$`\%`$, but both of them are smaller than the rough estimates for the pure Coulomb breakup cross sections given in Ref. . However, such estimates are unlikely to be accurate for nuclei having a halo structure as discussed in .

That the nuclear breakup contributions are substantial in the case of breakup of 6He even on a heavy target, is evident from this figure, where we also show (solid circle) the experimental value of the measured total two-neutron removal cross section($`\sigma _{2n}^{exp}`$), which is the average of the measurements performed at beam energies between 28 to 52 MeV/nucleon. Our theoretical values correspond only to the Coulomb part of the elastic breakup cross section, while $`\sigma _{2n}^{exp}`$ has contributions from the Coulomb, nuclear as well as their interference terms. Moreover, the nuclear breakup consists also of the inelastic breakup mode  (which is called as the stripping process in Ref. ). Therefore, to understand the data of Ref. , it is essential to calculate the nuclear breakup cross sections on the same footing as the Coulomb one. Similarly, in the breakup of 6He on the Pb target at the higher beam energy of 240 MeV/nucleon, the calculated pure Coulomb two-neutron removal cross section is 62.5 mb, which is quite small as compared to the corresponding value of $`\sigma _{2n}^{exp}`$ . This difference too can be understood from the fact that the cross sections corresponding to the nuclear elastic and inelastic breakup modes are quite large .

The pure Coulomb two-neutron removal cross sections, calculated within the dineutron model (open squares), are even larger than $`\sigma _{2n}^{exp}`$, and have a wrong type of the beam energy dependence. Thus, the dineutron model is not suitable for describing the data for the breakup of 6He.

### 4.3 $`\alpha `$-particle momentum distributions

In Fig. 4, we compare the calculated and measured  total momentum distributions of the $`\alpha `$-particle emitted in the breakup of 6He on the Au target at the beam energy of 64 MeV/nucleon. The $`\alpha `$-particle was detected at four average angles of 0.65, 1.67, 3.02 and 4.55 . In this experiment, the coincident $`\gamma `$-ray technique was used to identify events in which the target nucleus was simultaneously excited. The elastic breakup events were tagged with $`\gamma `$-ray multiplicity $`M_\gamma `$ = 0. Since the data are given in arbitrary units, we have normalized our calculations to the peak of the experimental distributions in all four cases. It is clear that shapes of the momentum distributions are well reproduced by our calculations. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the momentum distributions changes systematically from 76 MeV/c to 98 MeV/c with increasing angle. This could indicate that the effects related to the reaction dynamics ($`e.g.`$ distortion of the wave functions describing the fragment-target relative motion) lead to the widening of the total momentum distributions as a function of the detection angle.

It should be remarked here that the calculations , where the total momentum distributions are obtained from the momentum space wave functions of the ground state of the projectile disregarding the reaction dynamics altogether, are unlikely to describe this feature of the experimental data. At the same time, if the detection angle increases further the nuclear breakup effects will become more important and pure Coulomb breakup may also become inadequate to describe the FWHM of the experimental total momentum distributions. Therefore, it would be interesting to span a larger range of detection angles in future experiments.

In Fig. 5, we present the comparison of our calculations with the data for the parallel momentum (pz) distribution of the $`\alpha `$-particle emitted in the breakup reaction of 6He on U and Pb targets at the beam energy of 24 MeV/nucleon. These measurements have recently been performed at the Michigan State University . The calculated distributions have been obtained by integrating Eq. (20) over the neutron angles up to 5.7 (which is the minimum opening angle of the neutron detector in this experiment ). The calculated results are normalized to the peak of the data. We note that although both FRDWBA and AD models are able to reproduce the FWHM of the experimental pz distributions ($``$ 76 MeV/c) reasonably well, the former is in slightly better agreement with the data.

### 4.4 Neutron-neutron and core-neutron relative energy spectra

In Fig. 6, we show the comparison of our calculations with the data  for the neutron-neutron relative energy (Enn) spectrum obtained in the breakup of 6He on a Pb target at the beam energy of 240 MeV/nucleon. The calculated spectrum has been obtained by transforming the cross section shown in Eq. (20) to the frame of relative and c.m. motion of the fragments (see Appendix B), and integrating the resultant over the unobserved variables. The integrations over the theta and phi angles of $`n_1`$-$`n_2`$ and $`\alpha `$-($`n_1`$-$`n_2`$) systems were carried out in the range of 0-180 and 0-360 respectively, while those over the energy E$`_{\alpha (n_1n_2)}`$ are done in the range of 0-10 MeV. However, the integration over the theta angle of the 6He-target system ($`\theta _{at}`$ in Eq. (B.12)) is carried out up to the grazing angle (1.1) only, as we are interested only in the pure Coulomb contributions to the cross sections. The solid (dotted) line shows the corresponding FRDWBA (AD) model results. Both calculations are normalized to the peak of the experimental data which is at E$`{}_{nn}{}^{}`$ 0.45 MeV. Both the models lead to almost similar results which incidently are in good agreement with the shape of the experimental data. Of course, inclusion of the nuclear and Coulomb-nuclear interference terms can affect both the absolute magnitude as well as shape of this distribution. Therefore, it would be interesting to have the data with absolute values on the one hand, and the calculations including both Coulomb and nuclear breakup effects on the other.

The shape of the neutron-neutron energy spectrum reported in Ref.  is not in agreement with that of the experimental data. This is due to the fact that these authors have considered a pure sudden approximation, and have ignored the final state interaction effects. This underlines the importance of the reaction dynamics in the breakup reactions even for beam energies around 240 MeV.

In Fig. 7, we have compared the calculated $`n`$-4He relative energy (Eαn) spectrum with the corresponding experimental data . The peaks of the theoretical calculations are normalized to the maximum of the experimental data. The theoretical cross sections have been obtained by integrating Eq. (B.14) of Appendix B over the unobserved variables. The range of the angular and the energy integrations of various variables were the same as that described above in connection with Fig. 6. We see that except for the peak position, the theoretical calculations reproduce the data reasonably well. The difference in the peak positions of the experimental and theoretical spectra may perhaps be attributed to the fact that the position of the 5He resonance is not properly reproduced within the three-body model used in getting the ground state wave function of 6He employed in our calculations. We plan to check this point in a future study by using other 6He wave functions which may be better in this respect.

### 4.5 Excitation energy spectra

In Fig. 8, we show the pure Coulomb contribution to the excitation energy (Eex) spectrum in the breakup of 6He on a Pb target at the beam energy of 240 MeV/nucleon . Excitation energy is defined as the sum of the $`\alpha `$-($`n_1`$-$`n_2`$) and $`n_1`$-$`n_2`$ relative energies and the $`Q`$-value of the reaction. The calculated cross sections are normalized to the peak of the data as the elastic Coulomb breakup contribution constitutes only a part of the excitation energy spectrum . We note that both FRDWBA and AD models give identical results and are able to reproduce the shape of the spectrum well. We have also shown in this figure the results obtained with the dineutron model, which is clearly inadequate to describe the data. It should, however, be noted that the calculated cross sections have not been convoluted with the detector response matrix as suggested in . As is shown in , this folding reduces the cross sections by about 20 $`\%`$ near the peak region, and by less that 5$`\%`$ beyond it. Therefore, the agreement with the data seen in Fig. 8 should be seen in this context.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

In this paper we have calculated the elastic Coulomb breakup of the Borromean nucleus 6He within a four–body post form distorted wave Born approximation approach. The finite range effects have been included by using an effective local momentum approximation on the Coulomb distorted wave function of the charged heavy core in the outgoing channel. This method allows the use of realistic correlated three-body wave functions for the projectile. Thus the special features associated with the structure of the two-neutron halo systems can be taken into account in the reaction calculations. In our method, the breakup amplitude is expressed as a product of the factors describing separately the projectile structure and the dynamics of the reaction. This feature of our theory is common with that of the adiabatic model of the Coulomb breakup reactions. Although unlike DWBA, this model does not use the weak coupling approximation to describe the center of mass motion of the fragments with respect to the target, yet it leads to results which agree with those of the FRDWBA within approximately 20$`\%`$. The existing data are unable to highlight the significance of this small difference between the two calculations. Measurements done below the grazing angle may be helpful in this respect.

We have presented calculations for the energy, total and parallel momentum distributions of the $`\alpha `$-particle as well as for the neutron-neutron and $`\alpha `$-neutron relative energy spectra. In all the cases, our calculations are able to reproduce the shapes of the experimental spectra reasonably well. However, the absolute magnitudes of the data (wherever available) were underpredicted by both finite range DWBA and adiabatic model of the Coulomb breakup. This suggests that nuclear breakup contributions are substantial in the kinematical regimes covered by these data. Furthermore, although the pure Coulomb calculations are able to reproduce the shapes of the experimental data on the fragment-fragment correlations, inclusion of nuclear breakup effects are necessary for a more comprehensive description of the data. Our calculations rule out the point-like dineutron-core type of models for describing the breakup of Borromean systems. The two-body fragment-fragment correlation data are beyond the scope of such models.

The authors are thankful to Ian Thompson of the University of Surrey for providing them the three-body wave function of 6He used in the calculations reported in this paper and to Tom Aumann and Hans Emling of GSI, Darmstadt for making them available in tabular form the experimental data reported in Figs. 6,7, and 8. One of us (RS) wishes to thank Pawel Danielewicz for the kind hospitality of the theory group of the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory of the Michigan State University where this paper was finalized. He also wishes to thank Aaron Galonsky for several useful discussions regarding the experimental data reported in Fig.5 and for going through the manuscript.

## Appendix A  Validity of the effective local momentum approximation

The derivation of the finite range amplitude \[Eq. (13)\] uses an effective local momentum approximation (ELMA). This allows us to write the distorted wave function of argument $`𝐫_b`$ as a product of the plane wave of argument $`𝐑`$ and distorted wave of argument $`𝐫_i`$. This simplifies the evaluation of the six-dimensional integrals by reducing them as a product of two three-dimensional integrals of independent arguments.

As discussed in , a condition for the validity of this approximation is that the quantity

$`\eta (r)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}K(r)|dK(r)/dr|^1`$ (29)
evaluated at a representative distance $`R_d`$ should be much larger than the rms radius of the projectile. To check this, we show in Fig. A.1, $`\eta (r)`$ (upper half) and $`K(r)`$ (the magnitude of the local momentum) (lower half) as a function of $`r`$, for the breakup reactions 6He + 197Au $``$ 4He + $`n`$ \+ $`n`$ \+ 197Au at the beam energies of 240 MeV/nucleon (left side) and 63.2 MeV/nucleon (right side). We see that for $`r`$ $`>`$ 8 fm, $`\eta (r)`$ is several orders of magnitude larger than rms radii of the halo in both the cases. Therefore, the above condition is well satisfied.

¿From the lower half of Fig. A.1, we note that the value of $`K(r)`$ remains constant for distances larger than 10 fm for both the beam energies. Due to the peripheral nature of the breakup reaction, this region contributes maximum to the cross section. Therefore, our choice of a constant magnitude for the local momentum evaluated at 10 fm is well justified and is independent of the beam energy. In fact, we noted that as $`R_d`$ is increased from 5 to 10 fm the calculated cross sections vary by at the most 10 $`\%`$, and with a further increase the variation is less than 1 $`\%`$, in all the cases considered in this paper.

In the application of the ELMA in the description of the heavy ion induced transfer reactions  and the breakup reaction of the one-neutron halo nuclei , the calculated cross sections were found to be almost unaffected by the choice of the direction of the local momentum. To study the sensitivity of our FRDWBA results on the direction of $`𝐊`$ for reactions under study in this paper, we have performed calculations for three cases where we take the angles of the local momentum ($`d_1`$) parallel to those of $`𝐤_b`$, ($`d_2`$) parallel to the direction corresponding to the half of the angles of $`𝐤_b`$ and ($`d_3`$) parallel to the beam direction (zero angles). In the upper part of Fig. A.2, we show the energy distribution of the alpha particle for the same reaction as described in Fig. 2. The results obtained with cases $`d_1`$, $`d_2`$ and $`d_3`$ are shown by solid, dashed and dotted lines respectively. We note that energy distributions calculated with these choices are almost identical. The results for the neutron-neutron energy correlations for the same reaction as in Fig. 6, are shown in the lower part of this figure for the choices ($`d_1`$), ($`d_2`$) and ($`d_3`$) for the direction of the local momentum. In this case too we observe almost no variation in the calculated cross sections. Similarly, we have noted no dependence of the calculated widths of the parallel momentum distributions of heavy fragments on the direction of $`𝐊`$, in all the reactions investigated in this paper. Therefore, the dependence of various cross sections for the reactions studied in this paper, on the direction of the local momentum is either very minor or almost negligible. The measurements done so far are not able to distinguish the small differences that we see here in some cases. Hence, we have performed all our calculations in this paper by using the direction of the momentum $`𝐊`$ to be the same as that of $`𝐤_b`$.

## Appendix B  The four – body phase space factor for a given Q value

The phase space in which we fix the total energy $`E_{tot}`$ in the final state at the value $`E`$ is given by

$`d\sigma =h^9\delta (E_{tot}E)d𝐩_bd𝐩_{n_1}d𝐩_{n_2}`$ (30)
The total energy is given by

$`E_{tot}`$ $`=`$ $`E_a+Q`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`E_t+E_b+E_{n_1}+E_{n_2}`$ (32)
$`=`$ $`E_b+E_{n_1}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_{n_2}^2}{2m_{n_2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_t^2}{2m_t}}`$ (33)
$`=`$ $`E_b+E_{n_1}+{\displaystyle \frac{p_{n_2}^2}{2m_{n_2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_t}}[(𝐩_{tot}𝐩_b𝐩_{n_1})^2+p_{n_2}^2`$
$``$ $`2𝐩_{n_2}.(𝐩_{tot}𝐩_b𝐩_{n_1})],`$
where $`E_a`$ is the projectile energy and $`Q`$ is the Q-value of the reaction ($`<`$0). $`𝐩_{\mathrm{𝐭𝐨𝐭}}`$ is the total momentum of the projectile in the incident channel, which by momentum conservation, is given by

$`𝐩_{tot}=𝐩_t+𝐩_b+𝐩_{n_1}+𝐩_{n_2}.`$ (35)
Using $`d𝐩=m.p.dE.d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}dE_{n_2}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}}`$ $`=`$ $`m_bp_bm_{n_1}p_{n_1}m_{n_2}p_{n_2}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d𝐩_bd𝐩_{n_1}d𝐩_{n_2}}}`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`h^9\delta (E_{tot}E)m_bp_bm_{n_1}p_{n_1}m_{n_2}p_{n_2}`$ (37)
Therefore

$`\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}}`$ (38)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}dE_{n_2}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}𝑑E_{n_2}}`$
$`=`$ $`h^9m_bm_{n_1}m_{n_2}{\displaystyle p_bp_{n_1}p_{n_2}\delta (E_{tot}E)𝑑E_{n_2}}`$
$`=`$ $`h^9m_bm_{n_1}m_{n_2}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p_bp_{n_1}p_{n_2}}{E_{tot}/E_{n_2}}}\right]_{E_{tot}=E}`$
Now from Eq.(B.5)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{E_{tot}}{E_{n_2}}}={\displaystyle \frac{E_{tot}}{p_{n_2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp_{n_2}}{dE_{n_2}}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_t}}[m_{n_2}+m_tm_{n_2}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐩_{n_2}.(𝐩_{tot}𝐩_b𝐩_{n_1})}{p_{n_2}^2}}]`$ (39)
Therefore

$`\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})={\displaystyle \frac{h^9m_tm_bm_{n_1}m_{n_2}p_bp_{n_1}p_{n_2}}{m_{n_2}+m_tm_{n_2}\frac{𝐩_{n_2}.(𝐩_{tot}𝐩_b𝐩_{n_1})}{p_{n_2}^2}}}.`$ (40)
It can also be shown that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{dE_{n_1n_2}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1n_2}dE_{b(n_1n_2)}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{b(n_1n_2)}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{at}}}`$ $`=`$ $`J_1`$ (41)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}},`$
where

$`J_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_{n_1n_2}p_{n_1n_2}m_{b(n_1n_2)}p_{\alpha (n_1n_2)}m_{at}p_{at}}{h^9\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})}}`$ (42)
and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{dE_{bn_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{bn_1}dE_{n_2(bn_1)}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2(bn_1)}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{at}}}`$ $`=`$ $`J_2`$ (43)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{dE_bd\mathrm{\Omega }_bdE_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2}}},`$
where

$`J_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_{bn_1}p_{bn_1}m_{n_2(bn_1)}p_{n_2(bn_1)}m_{at}p_{at}}{h^9\rho (E_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_b,E_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_1},\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_2})}}.`$ (44)