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# Note on Scalar Fields Non–Minimally Coupled to (2+1)–Gravity

## Abstract

Scalar fields non–minimally coupled to $`(2+1)`$–gravity, in the presence of cosmological constant term, are considered. Non–minimal couplings are described by the term $`\zeta R\mathrm{\Psi }^2`$ in the Lagrangian. Within a class of static circularly symmetric space–times, it is shown that the only existing physically relevant solutions are the anti–de Sitter space–time for $`\zeta =0`$, and the Martínez–Zanelli black hole for $`\zeta =1/8`$. We obtain also two new solutions with non–trivial scalar field, for $`\zeta =1/6`$ and $`\zeta =1/8`$ respectively, nevertheless, the corresponding space–times can be reduced, via coordinate transformations, to the standard anti–de Sitter space.
file scalar.tex, 19.10.2000 .

preprint: gr-qc/0101079

Conformal solutions have been extensively studied in General Relativity, starting from most the general action coupled to scalar fields

$$S=\frac{1}{2}d^Dx\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{\kappa }C(\mathrm{\Psi })Rw(\mathrm{\Psi })_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }+V(\mathrm{\Psi })\right),$$
(1)
where $`R`$ is the Ricci scalar, $`V(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ is a potential function, $`C(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ and $`w(\mathrm{\Psi })`$ are coupling functions.

In four dimensions, the conformal solution discovered by Bekenstein , appears to be the only non–trivial black hole solution allowed for self–gravitating scalar fields non–minimally coupled to gravity. The study of the relevant system in $`D>2+1`$ dimensions has shown that some restrictions on the kind of plausible scalar field behaviors are required . For example, in $`(3+1)`$–dimensions, the most general result including self–interactions and without cosmological constant, has been obtained by Mayo and Bekenstein . In that work, spherical static non–trivial scalar field behaviors are excluded for non–minimal couplings with $`\zeta <0`$ and $`\zeta 1/2`$. Consequently, since in $`(3+1)`$–dimensions the conformal coupling is $`\zeta =1/6`$ the Bekenstein black hole belongs to the non–covered range ($`0<\zeta <1/2`$). In this sense, still remains open the question if in $`4`$–dimensions the value $`\zeta =1/6`$ is the unique coupling allowing a non–trivial scalar field behavior, or if there exist a family of solutions with non–minimally coupled scalar field behaviors within the interval under consideration.

Although the space–time is not three–dimensional, and $`(2+1)`$–dimensional gravity is clearly not a physically realistic model of our universe, it is a simple model which is rich enough to allow us to learn a good deal about the nature of quantum gravity. At first sight, the $`(2+1)`$–dimensional gravity looks trivial, in particular, the vacuum Einstein equations imply that space–time is locally flat, corresponding to the absence of the Weyl tensor in three dimensions. The triviality of local geometry in $`(2+1)`$–dimensional gravity holds even if the cosmological constant term is taken into account; the Einstein space is a space of constant curvature.

However, the black hole riddle has long been one of the most outstanding problems of modern physics. It has remained in focus for a long time as one of the potential testing grounds for quantum gravitational phenomena. As it is well known, three dimensional gravity, in vacuum, admits only the trivial locally flat $`(2+1)`$–Minkowski space. Thus, it is necessary either to couple matter to the theory, e.g., a cosmological constant or scalar matter, or to consider alternative vacuum or non–vacuum gravity theories in order to get solutions different from the trivial one. New solutions in $`(2+1)`$–gravity coupled to a self–interacting dilaton and in vacuum scalar–tensor theories have been obtained by Chan . Moreover, Chan and Mann  determined a conformal static black hole solution with a nontrivial conformal factor $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ for $`C(\mathrm{\Psi })=1`$, $`w(\mathrm{\Psi })=4`$, and $`V(\mathrm{\Psi })=2\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{exp}(b\mathrm{\Psi })`$. A black hole solution with a negative cosmological constant coupled to a conformal scalar field for $`C(\mathrm{\Psi })=1\kappa (1/8)\mathrm{\Psi }^2`$, $`w(\mathrm{\Psi })=1`$, and $`V(\mathrm{\Psi })=2\mathrm{\Lambda }/\kappa `$ has been found by Martínez and Zanelli .

In this paper we consider a particular case of the action (1) in order to study non–minimal couplings of scalar fields to $`(2+1)`$–gravity with a cosmological constant term. Essentially, we work out a commonly used one–parametric family of theories with real parameter $`\zeta `$, where the non–minimal couplings are described by the term $`\zeta R\mathrm{\Psi }^2`$ in the Lagrangian. We will show that for a static circularly symmetric metric, where the space–time possesses only one degree of freedom, the only existing non–trivial solutions are the anti–de Sitter space–time for $`\zeta =0`$, the Martínez–Zanelli black hole for $`\zeta =1/8`$. We obtain also two new solutions with non–trivial scalar field, for $`\zeta =1/6`$ and $`\zeta =1/8`$ respectively, whose space–time geometries reduce to the one of an anti–de Sitter space. In this way we are establishing, for the studied class, the completeness of the solutions to the corresponding field equations.

As mentioned above, in three dimensions our basic action reads

$$𝒮=\frac{1}{2}d^3x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{\kappa }\left[R+2l^2\right]_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }\zeta R\mathrm{\Psi }^2\right),$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=l^2`$ is the cosmological constant, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the massless non–minimally coupled scalar field, and $`R`$ is the scalar curvature.

The field equations arising from (2) are, on one hand, the Einstein equations

$$G_\mu ^\nu =l^2\delta _\mu ^\nu +\kappa \left[_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }^\nu \mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{2}\delta _\mu ^\nu _\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }^\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }+\zeta \left(\delta _\mu ^\nu \mathrm{}\mathrm{\Psi }^2_\mu ^\nu \mathrm{\Psi }^2+G_\mu ^\nu \mathrm{\Psi }^2\right)\right],$$
(3)
and, on the other hand, the equation

$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Psi }=\zeta R\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(4)
for the scalar field, where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the Laplace–Beltrami operator.

We shall restrict our study to the following class of static circularly symmetric three–dimensional metrics, which, in polar coordinates, can be written as follows

$$\text{g}=F(r)\text{dt}^2+F(r)^1\text{dr}^2+r^2\text{d}\text{θ}^2,$$
(5)
consequently, we assume that the scalar field only depends on the radial variable $`r`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }(r)`$.

The Einstein equations (3), for the static circularly symmetric space–time (5), become

$$2\zeta \mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }+(2\zeta 1)(\mathrm{\Psi }^{})^2=0,$$
(6)
$$\left(1\kappa \zeta \mathrm{\Psi }^22\kappa \zeta r\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\right)F^{}\kappa \mathrm{\Psi }^{}\left(4\zeta \mathrm{\Psi }+r\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\right)F=\frac{2r}{l^2},$$
(7)
$$\left(1\kappa \zeta \mathrm{\Psi }^2\right)F^{\prime \prime }4\kappa \zeta \mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }^{}F^{}\kappa \left(4\zeta \mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }+\left(4\zeta 1\right)\left(\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\right)^2\right)F=\frac{2}{l^2}.$$
(8)
where primes denote derivatives with respect to $`r`$. Eq. (6) corresponds to the combination $`G_r{}_{}{}^{r}G_t^t`$, and the Eqs. (7) and (8) are the components $`G_r^r`$ and $`G_\theta ^\theta `$ of the Einstein equations (3), respectively. It is straightforward to show that the scalar field equation (4) follows from Eqs. (6)–(8) by using the Bianchi identity $`_\nu G_\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }=0`$.

Let us proceed to integrate the field equations. For the general case, $`\zeta 0`$, Eq. (6) becomes

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}}{\mathrm{\Psi }}\right)^{}\frac{14\zeta }{2\zeta }\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}}{\mathrm{\Psi }}\right)^2=0,$$
(9)
whose general solution can be immediately obtained, namely

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)=\frac{A}{\left(r+B\right)^{2\zeta /(14\zeta )}},$$
(10)
where $`A`$ and $`B`$ are integration constants.

By substituting the expression (10) for $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ into Eq. (7), the following linear first order differential equation for the structural function $`F`$ is obtained

$`F^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa \delta ^2A^2\left(\left(\delta 1\right)r2B\right)}{\left(r+B\right)\left(\kappa \delta A^2\left(\left(\delta 1\right)rB\right)+4\left(\delta +1\right)\left(r+B\right)^{\delta +1}\right)}}F`$ (12)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{8\left(\delta +1\right)r\left(r+B\right)^{\delta +1}}{l^2\left(\kappa \delta A^2\left(\left(\delta 1\right)rB\right)+4\left(\delta +1\right)\left(r+B\right)^{\delta +1}\right)}},`$
with $`\delta 4\zeta /(14\zeta )`$. It is straightforward to show that the general solution of the Eq. (12) is given by

$$F(r)=\frac{4\left(\left(\delta +1\right)\left(r^2B^2\right)l^2C\right)\left(r+B\right)^{\delta +1}}{l^2\left(\kappa \delta A^2\left(\left(\delta 1\right)rB\right)+4\left(\delta +1\right)\left(r+B\right)^{\delta +1}\right)},$$
(13)
with $`C`$ a new integration constant.

It remains to fulfill Eq. (8), which via Eq. (6), becomes

$$\left(1\kappa \zeta \mathrm{\Psi }^2\right)F^{\prime \prime }4\kappa \zeta \mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }^{}F^{}\kappa \left(\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\right)^2F=\frac{2}{l^2}.$$
(14)
It is easy to see that Eq. (14) imposes constraints on the integration constants of the form $`A=A(B,\zeta )`$ and $`C=C(B,\zeta )`$. Moreover, by replacing in Eq. (14) the expressions (10) and (13) for $`\mathrm{\Psi }(r)`$ and $`F(r)`$, and after some lengthy manipulations, the following algebraic equation is obtained:

$`8\left(\delta +1\right)^3`$ $`[`$ $`\left(\delta 1\right)\left(\delta 2\right)y^43\delta \left(\delta 1\right)By^3\delta \left(l^2C2\left(\delta +1\right)B^2\right)y^2`$ (16)
$`+(\delta +2)Bl^2Cy]y^{2\delta }`$
$`2\kappa \delta \left(\delta +1\right)A^2`$ $`[`$ $`\left(\delta +4\right)\left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta 1\right)^2y^4\delta \left(\delta +1\right)\left(4\delta ^2+7\delta 9\right)By^3`$ (20)
$`\delta \left(\left(\delta 1\right)^2l^2C\left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta +2\right)\left(5\delta +1\right)B^2\right)y^2`$
$`+\left(\delta +1\right)B\left(\left(2\delta ^23\delta +4\right)l^2C2\delta \left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta +2\right)B^2\right)y`$
$`\delta ^2(\delta +1)B^2l^2C]y^\delta `$
$`+\kappa ^2\delta ^2A^4`$ $`[`$ $`\left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta 1\right)^2y^43\delta \left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta 1\right)By^3+3\delta ^2\left(\delta +1\right)B^2y^2`$ (22)
$`B((\delta 1)l^2C+\delta (\delta +1)(\delta +2)B^2)y]=0,`$
where $`y`$ stands for $`yr+B`$. Since the powers of $`y`$ are linearly independent functions , the corresponding coefficients must vanish independently. Therefore, different possibilities arise by assigning values or ranges of values to the parameter $`\delta `$:

Let us first consider the case of positive values of $`\delta `$. For $`\delta >0`$, the highest power of $`y`$ in Eq. (22) is $`2\delta +4`$, equating its coefficient to zero one gets the condition

$$8\left(\delta +1\right)^3\left(\delta 1\right)\left(\delta 2\right)=0.$$
(23)
Hence, the possible solutions only exist for the values $`\delta =1`$ ($`\zeta =1/8`$) and $`\delta =2`$ ($`\zeta =1/6`$) of the coupling constant. For the first value, i.e., $`\delta =1`$ ($`\zeta =1/8`$), Eq. (22) becomes

$$2\left(\kappa A^2B4Cl^2+16B^2\right)\left(8y^4+3\kappa A^2By^2\right)2B\left(3\kappa A^2B4Cl^2\right)\left(24y^3+B\kappa A^2y\right)=0,$$
(24)
therefore, the vanishing of the coefficients of even and odd powers of $`y`$ yields the following relations

$$\kappa A^2B4Cl^2+16B^2=0=B\left(3\kappa A^2B4Cl^2\right).$$
(25)
Thus, in this case ($`\delta =1`$, $`\zeta =1/8`$), there exist two admissible classes of solutions for the integration constants. The first class is obtained for

$$A^2=\frac{8B}{\kappa },C=\frac{6B^2}{l^2},$$
(26)
and it corresponds to the black hole of Martínez and Zanelli , i.e.,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{MZ}}=\sqrt{\frac{8B}{\kappa \left(r+B\right)}},F_{\mathrm{MZ}}=\frac{\left(r+B\right)^2\left(r2B\right)}{rl^2},$$
(27)
whose horizon is located at $`r_\mathrm{h}=2B`$. In this case the free parameter $`B`$ is related to the mass $`M`$ of the hole through the relation $`B=\sqrt{Ml^2/3}`$.

The second class is achieved by setting $`B=C=0`$, and can be expressed as follows

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)=\frac{A}{\sqrt{r}},F(r)=\frac{r^2}{l^2}.$$
(28)
This is a new conformal solution with a non–trivial scalar field behavior, although the corresponding space–time can be brought, via coordinate transformations, to the standard anti–de Sitter space form (see for example ). Therefore, since the anti–de Sitter space–time is solution to the vacuum plus cosmological constant field equations, the energy–momentum tensor of the non–trivial scalar field is such that it vanishes identically (see the term in brackets on the left hand side of Eq. (3)). This peculiar behavior arises from the non–minimal coupling of the conformal scalar field to gravity.

For the second value, i.e., $`\delta =2`$ ($`\zeta =1/6`$). The highest power of $`y`$ in (22) is $`y^{2\delta +3}=y^7`$, its coefficient vanishes if the constant $`B`$ is set equal to zero, then Eq. (22) reduces to

$$12\left(2Cl^2+\kappa A^2\right)\left(18y^6\kappa A^2y^4\right)=0.$$
(29)
Consequently

$$C=\frac{\kappa A^2}{2l^2},$$
(30)
and therefore,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(r)=\frac{A}{r},F(r)=\frac{r^2}{l^2}.$$
(31)
This is a new solution with a non–minimally coupled scalar field, however, it exhibits the same peculiarities as the ones of the previous solution Eq. (28).

In full, for positive values of the parameter $`\delta `$, we have established the existence of three classes of solutions, namely the Martínez–Zanelli black hole for $`\zeta =1/8`$, and two new solutions corresponding to the anti–de Sitter space with non–trivial scalar fields, one for $`\zeta =1/6`$, and one for $`\zeta =1/8`$.

Let us turn to the case of negative values of $`\delta `$. For $`\delta <0`$ the highest power of $`y`$ in Eq. (22) is $`y^4`$, the vanishing of its coefficient leads to the condition

$$\kappa ^2\delta ^2\left(\delta +1\right)\left(\delta 1\right)^2A^4=0.$$
(32)
It should be noticed that $`\delta 1`$, since the value $`\delta =1`$ corresponds to infinite coupling constants $`\zeta =\pm \mathrm{}`$. Therefore, Eq. (32) implies that $`A=0`$ and leads to the condition

$$8\left(\delta +1\right)^3\left[\left(\delta 1\right)\left[\left(\delta 2\right)y^43\delta By^3\right]\delta \left[l^2C2\left(\delta +1\right)B^2\right]y^2+\left(\delta +2\right)Bl^2Cy\right]y^{2\delta }=0.$$
(33)
It is easy to see that the coefficient of $`y^{4+2\delta }`$ never vanishes. Consequently, no solutions exist for $`\delta <0`$.

The remaining case corresponds to the minimal coupling $`\delta =0`$, in this case, Eq. (6) implies that $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{const}.`$ and Eq. (7) integrates directly to

$$F(r)=\frac{r^2}{l^2}M,\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{const}..$$
(34)
This solution corresponds to the static BTZ solution , which is once again no other than the $`(2+1)`$–anti–de Sitter space–time (see ).

It is important to stress the fact that the three solutions (27), (28), and (31) of the Einstein equations (6)–(8), also satisfy the scalar field equation (4).

To conclude this letter let us summarize the results.

We have established the complete class of solutions within the static circularly symmetric ansatz (5) for the structural function $`F=F(r)`$, and found that there only exist solutions for the following values of the non–minimal coupling constant $`\zeta `$:

* For conformal coupling, $`\zeta =1/8`$, there exist two solutions, the first one corresponds to the conformal black hole (27) of Martínez and Zanelli, and the second one is a new conformal solution (28), whose space–time corresponds to the anti–de Sitter space, with a non–trivial scalar field.
* The non–minimal coupling $`\zeta =1/6`$ leads to a new solution (31), which space–time geometry is once again reducible to the anti–de Sitter form endowed with a non–trivial scalar field.
* For minimal coupling $`\zeta =0`$, the scalar field reduces to a constant, and the resulting space–time corresponds to the $`(2+1)`$–anti–de Sitter space–time (34).

The possibility of obtaining more general static, circularly symmetric solutions, with two structural functions is still open. The corresponding field equations are much more involved and hard to integrate in general. Nevertheless, efforts have to be undertaken to overcome the difficulties in the integration process of this more general dynamical system.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Friedrich W. Hehl for useful discussions and literature hints. This research was partially supported by CONACyT Grants 32138E and 28339E, and by FOMES Grant: P/FOMES 98–35–15.


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# Storage ring measurement of the C IV recombination rate coefficient

## 1 Introduction

Carbon is one of the cosmically most abundant elements. Consequently, line emission from carbon ions is observed from a wide range of cosmical objects. In low density, photoionized and electron-ionized cosmic plasmas the dominant mechanisms for recombination are radiative recombination (RR) and dielectronic recombination (DR). For C IV these processes can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{C}^{3+}(1s^22s)+e^{}\mathrm{C}^{2+}(1s^22snl)+h\nu $$
(1)
and

$$\mathrm{C}^{3+}(1s^22s)+e^{}\mathrm{C}^{2+}(1s^22pnl)\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{C}^{2+}(1s^22snl)+h\nu \hfill \\ \mathrm{C}^{2+}(1s^22pn^{}l^{})+h\nu ^{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
respectively. In low energy C IV DR the $`1s^22s`$ ion is excited by a $`2s2p`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ transition (excitation energy $`8`$ eV) only within the $`n=2`$ shell. At higher energies above 37.55 eV, the $`2s`$ electron can be excited to $`3l`$ substates ($`\mathrm{\Delta }n=1`$). The lowest-energy resonances of the associated DR series with configurations $`1s^23l3l^{}`$ of C III are at energies above about 12 eV. The strengths of these resonances can be expected to be very much smaller than those associated with $`2s2p`$ core transitions. The K-shell cannot be excited with energies smaller than 240 eV. In this paper we exclusively deal with $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ DR.

The calculation of DR rate coefficients is a challenging task since an infinite number of states is involved in this process. Moreover, relativistic and many-body effects have to be accounted for in high orders even in the case of DR of a light ion such as C IV (Mannervik et al., 1998). Approximations and computational simplifications are needed in order to make DR calculations tractable. It turns out that different calculations yield rate coefficients differing by up to orders of magnitude. In this situation benchmarking experiments are vitally needed in order to guide the development of the theoretical methods and to provide reliable DR rate coefficients for plasma modelers. For C IV the available theoretical rate coefficients have recently been critically compared by Savin (2000).

In the past decade electron coolers at heavy-ion storage rings have developed into the most successful experimental tool for electron-ion recombination studies (Schuch, 1993; Müller & Wolf, 1997). Currently, corresponding research programmes are carried out at the heavy ion storage rings esr of the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt (Brandau et al., 1997), tsr of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg (Müller et al., 1997, 1998; Wolf et al., 2000) and cryring of the Manne-Siegbahn-Laboratory in Stockholm (Schuch et al., 1997, 1998). Extensive bibliographic compilations on DR measurements at storage rings have been published e.g. by Müller (1995) and Schippers (1999). The basic approach for deriving plasma rate coefficients from storage-ring measurements has been summarized by Müller (1999). Recent experimental work on plasma rate coefficients for astrophysical and other plasma applications has been published by Savin et al. (1997, 1999) on DR of Fe XVIII and Fe XIX, by Schippers et al. (1998) on DR of Ti V and by Schippers et al. (2000) on DR of Ni XXVI.

In this paper we present the measured C IV recombination rate coefficient. It is organized as follows. In Sec. 2 the experimental procedure is described. Particular attention is given to the field ionization of high-$`n`$ Rydberg states in motional electric fields that are unavoidable with the experimental arrangement at an ion storage-ring. In Sec. 3 the experimental result is presented and the impact of field ionization on the measured DR resonance strength is discussed. A theoretical estimate of the unmeasured DR rate is presented, and the C IV plasma DR rate coefficient is derived. In Sec. 4 it is compared to existing theoretical results. Finally, in Sec. 5 we derive the total DR+RR C IV rate coefficient and compare it to a unified calculation of Nahar & Pradhan (1997). A model calculation of $`nl`$-selective detection probabilities for recombined ions in high-$`n`$ Rydberg states, that takes the field ionization properties of our experimental apparatus into detailed account, is presented in appendix A.

## 2 Experiment

The C IV recombination measurements have been performed at the heavy-ion storage ring tsr (Jaeschke et al., 1989) of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg, basically following the procedure of earlier measurements (Kilgus et al., 1992; Lampert et al., 1996). A beam of 12C3+ ions at an ion energy $`E_\mathrm{i}1.5`$ MeV/u was supplied by the MPI accelerator facility and injected into the tsr. In the tsr electron cooler, situated in one of the straight sections of the storage ring (cf. Fig. 1), the circulating C3+ ions were merged with a beam of electrons moving collinearly with the ions at roughly identical velocity. At matched beam velocities the electron beam had an energy $`E_\mathrm{c}=(m_\mathrm{e}/m_\mathrm{i})E_\mathrm{i}840`$ eV. It was merged with the ion beam over a length of 1.5 m and was guided by a longitudinal magnetic field of 42 mT over its entire path. The electron density was $`57\times 10^6`$ cm-3 depending on the laboratory electron energy $`E_\mathrm{e}`$. The electron beam’s diameter was 3 cm. Electron cooling, i.e., the ion interaction with the overlapping electron beam, on a time scale of $`1`$ s compresses the circulating ion beam to a diameter of 1–2 mm; simultaneously the longitudinal velocity of the freely coasting ions adjusts itself to the average electron velocity. By repeated injections, while keeping the cooled beam stored, C3+ ions were accumulated (Grieser et al., 1991) on a time scale of $`60`$ s up to electrical currents of typically 30 $`\mu `$A, corresponding to $`8\times 10^7`$ stored ions.

After ion accumulation, recombination rates of C3+ ions were measured by counting recombined C2+ ions on a multi-channelplate detector located behind the first dipole magnet (bending radius 115 cm) downstream of the electron cooler (see Fig. 1). The dipole magnet keeps the circulating C3+ ion beam on a closed orbit while it deflects the recombined C2+ ions less strongly so that they hit the detector. Absolute rate coefficients for the recombination of C3+ ions with electrons in the collinear overlap region were measured as a function of the average relative energy

$$\widehat{E}\left(\sqrt{E_\mathrm{e}}\sqrt{E_\mathrm{c}}\right)^2$$
(3)
between electron and ion beam. The relativistically correct expression (see e.g. Schippers et al., 2000) has been used in the data analysis. The laboratory electron energy $`E_\mathrm{e}`$ was deduced from the cathode voltage and electron current applying a correction for the electron space-charge (Kilgus et al., 1992).

The electron motion in the transverse degrees of freedom, confined by the magnetic field, is largely decoupled from that in longitudinal direction. In a co-moving reference frame, the electron velocity spread is characterized by the longitudinal and transverse temperatures $`T_{||}`$ and $`T_{}`$ with $`k_\mathrm{B}T_{}10`$ meV and $`k_\mathrm{B}T_{||}0.15`$ meV $`k_\mathrm{B}T_{}`$ ($`k_\mathrm{B}`$ denotes the Boltzmann constant). Both temperatures are considerably lower than the cathode temperature, the low longitudinal temperature resulting from the electron acceleration and the low transverse temperature resulting from adiabatic magnetic expansion of the electron beam (Pastuszka et al., 1996). The electron velocity distribution is represented by

$$f(\widehat{v},\stackrel{}{v})=\sqrt{\frac{m_\mathrm{e}}{2\pi k_\mathrm{B}T_{}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{m_\mathrm{e}(v_{}\widehat{v})^2}{2k_\mathrm{B}T_{}}\right]\frac{m_\mathrm{e}}{2\pi k_\mathrm{B}T_{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{m_\mathrm{e}v_{}^2}{2k_\mathrm{B}T_{}}\right).$$
(4)
The experimental energy resolution corresponds to the width of this distribution and amounts to (Müller, 1999)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{E}(\text{FWHM})=\left[\left(\mathrm{ln}(2)k_\mathrm{B}T_{}\right)^2+16\mathrm{ln}(2)k_\mathrm{B}T_{}\widehat{E}\right]^{1/2}.$$
(5)
As has been demonstrated by Bartsch et al. (1999, 2000) and Schippers et al. (2000), DR rate coefficients can considerably be influenced by external electric and additional crossed magnetic fields in the TSR electron-cooler. Therefore, care has been taken to minimize such fields in the interaction region. Additional to the magnetic field of 42 mT only small electric stray fields are present in the interaction region. Components of the magnetic field transverse to the ion velocity produce motional electric fields in the ion rest frame amounting to 2 V/cm for the estimated maximum field angles of about 0.3 mrad. Small stray fields are also expected from the electron space charge (Kilgus et al., 1992). By monitoring the velocity of the stored, electron-cooled ion beam, the ions are centered within the electron beam to about $`\pm 2`$ mm. For aligned electron and ion beams the electric space-charge field remains below 1 V/cm over the ion beam cross section of $`2`$ mm diameter. Altogether, electric stray fields below 3 V/cm are estimated. Considering the findings by Bartsch et al. (1999, 2000) and Schippers et al. (2000), we conclude that a reasonably ’field-free’ DR measurement can be carried out under these conditions.

Before their detection the recombined C2+ ions have to travel through the toroid magnet that guides the electron beam out of overlap, through correction dipoles, quadrupoles, and through the deflection dipole that separates them from the stored C3+ beam (Fig. 1). All these components cause transverse magnetic fields considerably higher than those in the interaction region, leading to motional electric fields that can field-ionize recombined ions in highly excited states. Since a sizable fraction of recombined ions is expected to be formed in highly excited states, the efficiency of their detection needs particular consideration. Recombined ions that reach a zone of large motional electric fields in sufficiently excited states will be field ionized and hence cannot be detected; however, ions formed in highly excited states that are able to decay radiatively to lower levels before reaching the critical field region will still be detected. At the given measuring conditions, the 1.5-m nominal length of the interaction region corresponds to a flight time of 87 ns. The motional electric field rises to $``$4 kV/cm in the toroid after a flight time of $`55\pm 44`$ ns, depending on the location along the interaction path where the recombination takes place. Two correction magnets with peak fields of $``$6 kV/cm and $`12`$ kV/cm, are reached after $`103\pm 44`$ ns and $`133\pm 44`$ ns, respectively, and the deflection dipole with a peak field of $``$106 kV/cm after $`275\pm 44`$ ns. The critical quantum number for field ionization of an ion in an electric field $`F`$ is estimated from (Gallagher, 1994)

$$n_F=\sqrt[4]{\frac{q^3}{9F}}$$
(6)
where $`q`$ is the charge of the ion core and $`F`$ is measured in atomic units (1 au = $`5.14210^9`$ V/cm). For C$`{}_{}{}^{2+}(nl)`$ the core charge state is $`q=3`$ and thus the critical quantum number is $`n_F=19`$ for $`F=106`$ kV/cm. On the other hand, the radiative lifetime of the $`19p`$ level in C2+ is 16 ns (hydrogenic value) and hence considerably shorter than the 275 ns flight time from the center of the cooler to the charge analysing dipole magnet. The detection probability for recombination events leading to high Rydberg levels $`n20`$ will therefore depend on the competition between the radiative decay and the flight time to regions where motional electric fields are present. Reciprocally, the experimental setup offers a detection probability near unity for all recombination events leading into states with principal quantum numbers at least up to about 20.

With a cooled and accumulated beam of C3+ ions of typically 30 $`\mu `$A freely circulating in the ring, measurements of the recombination rate were performed by stepping the acceleration voltage in the electron cooler to values different from those at cooling for short time intervals and recording the detector count rate after the acceleration voltage had settled to a stable value. In sequence, the acceleration voltage was set to the value required to obtain the desired relative energy where the recombination rate coefficient was to be measured, and then to a value producing a fixed, high relative energy where the count rate of C2+ ions was dominated by capture in the residual gas and where a background rate was measured. The corresponding time intervals will be called ‘signal’ and ‘reference’ windows, respectively. The settling time was 0.5 ms and the measuring time at a given acceleration voltage was typically 20 ms. After the signal and reference intervals the acceleration voltage was stepped back to the cooling value and kept there for 30 ms to ensure a fixed ion energy $`E_\mathrm{i}`$ and a well-cooled ion beam for each measurement. Measurement cycles were repeated scanning the acceleration voltage level applied during the ‘signal’ window. A scan comprising 420 data points took $`30`$ s and during that time the stored C3+ ion current decreased only slightly; the ion current was restored by ‘stacking’ a few new injections and several such scans were repeated until the desired integral ion counts were collected for the recombination spectrum. Our experimental range of relative energies (0–10.5 eV) was covered by three overlapping scans.

The raw data consist of time correlated ‘signal’ and ‘reference’ count rates $`R^\mathrm{s}(E_\mathrm{e})`$ and $`R^\mathrm{r}(E_\mathrm{e})`$ for each value of the laboratory electron energy $`E_\mathrm{e}`$ reached during the scans. Both rates include the background from electron capture of C3+ ions in the residual gas, and since they are measured in time windows only milliseconds apart the background is expected to cancel in the difference $`R^\mathrm{s}(E_\mathrm{e})R^\mathrm{r}(E_\mathrm{e})`$ even in the case of variations of the residual gas pressure on a time scale as fast as seconds. After conversion to the scale of relative energies, $`\widehat{E}`$, the energy dependent recombination rate coefficient $`\alpha (\widehat{E})`$ is obtained through

$$\alpha (\widehat{E})=\frac{[R^\mathrm{s}(\widehat{E})R^\mathrm{r}(\widehat{E})]\gamma ^2}{n_\mathrm{e}N_\mathrm{i}(L/C)\eta }+\alpha (\widehat{E}^\mathrm{r})\frac{n_\mathrm{e}^\mathrm{r}}{n_\mathrm{e}},$$
(7)
where $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`N_\mathrm{i}`$ denote the electron density and the number of stored ions, respectively, $`L=1.5`$ m is the nominal length of the interaction region, and $`C=55.4`$ m is the circumference of the storage-ring. At the relatively high experimental ion energy the efficiency of the channelplate recombination detector can be assumed to be $`\eta =1`$. The factor $`\gamma `$ accounts for the relativistic transformation between laboratory and center-of-mass frames. The second term in Eq. (7) is a small correction that re-adds the electron-ion recombination rate at the reference point. With a suitably chosen reference point — $`\widehat{E}^\mathrm{r}=10.5`$ eV in the present case — this rate is due to RR only. Here it is calculated using a modified semi-classical formula for the RR cross section \[see Eq. (11) below\] to be $`\alpha (\widehat{E}^\mathrm{r})3.5\times 10^{13}`$ cm3s-1. Since this is only a small correction to the experimental data at lower energies the insertion of a rough theory value is justified.

In the toroidal magnetic sections of the electron cooler the electron beam was guided in and out of the interaction region on two 45-bends with a radius of 80 cm (cf. Fig. 1). In each of these sections, the ion beam continues to interact with the electron beam at increasing angles between the two beams and thus shifted relative energies over regions of $`20`$ cm length each. From the known geometry, corrections for these merging regions are included in the data evaluation (Lampert et al., 1996).

The experimental collision energy ($`\widehat{E}`$) scale is known under the conditions of the present measurement within a systematic relative error of about 1%; even higher energy accuracies were reached after a precise adjustment of the energy scale to known spectroscopic Rydberg series limits (see below). The systematic uncertainty in the absolute recombination rate coefficient is estimated to be $`\pm 15\%`$, where the dominant errors are due to the ion and electron current determination and the detection efficiency. The influence of the inaccurate knowledge of the effective overlap length $`L`$ is strongly reduced by the toroid correction (Lampert et al., 1996). The statistical uncertainty of the results presented below amounts to less than $`1\%`$ in the rate coefficient maximum.

## 3 Results

Our experimental C IV rate coefficient comprising RR and DR contributions is displayed in Fig. 2. The RR peak at $`\widehat{E}=0`$ eV and individual members of the $`2pnl`$ Rydberg series of DR resonances are resolved for $`4n12`$. As the $`2p_{1/2}2p_{3/2}`$ splitting in C IV amounts to only 0.013 eV (Edlén, 1983), it is not possible to observe two separate Rydberg series with the given experimental resolution, in contrast to measurements on heavier lithiumlike ions (Kilgus et al., 1992; Schippers et al., 2000; Bartsch et al., 2000). The series limit corresponding to the $`2s2p`$ excitation energy was determined by extrapolating the observed Rydberg resonance positions from $`n=512`$ to infinite $`n`$. In Fig. 2 and throughout the paper we have adjusted the collision energy ($`\widehat{E}`$) scale by multiplying it with a constant factor differing from unity by 0.65%, which brings the extrapolated series limit in agreement with the spectroscopic value of 8.005 eV (Edlén, 1983).

In order to obtain the C IV DR rate coefficient, the RR contribution has been removed from the spectrum of Fig. 2 by subtracting an empirical function $`\alpha _{\mathrm{RR}}(\widehat{E})=a_0+a_1\widehat{E}+a_2/(1+a_3\widehat{E}+a_4\widehat{E}^2)`$ from the experimental rate coefficient with the coefficients $`a_i`$ determined by fitting $`\alpha _{\mathrm{RR}}(\widehat{E})`$ to those parts of the spectrum which do not exhibit DR resonances. The corresponding energy intervals which have been used in the fit were 0.021–0.1 eV, 1.0–2.0 eV and 8.5–10.5 eV. The parameters obtained from the fit are $`a_0=1.556\times 10^{12}`$ cm3s-1, $`a_1=1.929\times 10^{13}`$ cm3s-1eV-1, $`a_2=4.726\times 10^{11}`$ cm3s-1, $`a_3=20.89`$ eV-1 and $`a_4=3.665\times 10^5`$ eV-2. With these parameters $`\alpha _{\mathrm{RR}}(\widehat{E})`$ is defined in the range 0.0021 eV$`\widehat{E}`$10.5 eV.

In the inset of Fig. 2 we compare the part of the DR spectrum that comprises the $`2p4l`$ resonances with the measurement of Mannervik et al. (1998) carried out at the heavy-ion storage ring cryring in Stockholm. The published C IV cryring data only extend to $`\widehat{E}=0.7`$ eV. For the comparison we have removed the RR background from the present and from the cryring measurement by using the procedure described above. The comparison shows that the two measurements have a similar energy resolution. The overall shape of the spectrum and the peak positions are almost the same. However, when integrating over the 0.1–0.7 eV energy range we obtain for the $`2p4l`$ manifold the resonance strength $`1.9\times 10^{11}`$ eVcm3s-1 and $`2.5\times 10^{11}`$ eVcm3s-1 from the cryring and from the present tsr measurements, respectively. This difference is just within the 30$`\%`$ summed uncertainty (15$`\%`$ for each experiment individually, assuming a similar systematic uncertainty for the cryring measurement as for the present one) for the absolute value of the measured rate coefficient. Our value is somewhat closer to the theory value $`3.3\times 10^{11}`$ eVcm3s-1 of Mannervik et al. (1998).

For the derivation of a meaningful plasma rate coefficient from our experimental data we have to estimate how much DR strength is not measured due to the cut-off of high Rydberg states in the electric fields on the recombined ions’ path from the cooler to the detector. To this end we have carried out C IV DR calculations using the atomic structure code autostructure (Badnell, 1986). In order to be able to compare the calculated DR cross section $`\sigma `$ with our measured rate coefficient, we have performed the convolution

$$\alpha (\widehat{E})=\underset{nl}{}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}\sigma _{nl}\left(E(v)\right)vf(\widehat{v},\stackrel{}{v})d^3v,$$
(8)
where we have used the electron velocity distribution of Eq. (4) with $`k_\mathrm{B}T_{}=0.15`$ meV and $`k_\mathrm{B}T_{}=10`$ meV. In Eq. (8) $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}`$ is the $`nl`$-specific detection probability of a recombined ion with the outer electron being in a Rydberg state characterized by the quantum numbers $`n`$ and $`l`$. Correspondingly, $`\sigma _{nl}`$ denotes the cross section for DR via this Rydberg state. When comparing the resonance strengths of the individually resolved $`2pnl`$ DR resonances with $`5n10`$ we find that the calculation yields values that are on the average a factor 1.25 higher than the experimental ones. Therefore we have scaled down the calculation by a factor 0.8. Additionally, the theoretical energy scale has been adjusted by shifting it by 0.06 eV towards higher energies such that the spectroscopic value for the series limit is reproduced.

The comparison between our scaled autostructure calculation and our experimental result is shown in Fig. 3. The different curves correspond to different assumptions for the detection probabilities of high Rydberg states. The full line has been obtained by setting $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}=1`$ for all $`nl`$ up to $`n=1000`$ which is the maximum $`n`$ used in the calculation. By inclusion of such high-$`n`$ states we have made sure that the calculation has converged, i.e., calculations up to $`n=900`$ and $`n=1000`$ yield rate coefficients which are undistinguishable from one another. It is obvious that the larger fraction of the resonance strength due to DR via high Rydberg states has not been measured. It should be noted that this effect becomes much less significant for DR on more highly charged ions where comparatively less DR strength is accumulated in high-$`n`$ DR resonances (see eg. Savin et al., 1997, 1999; Schippers et al., 1998, 2000). Moreover, Rydberg electrons are more tightly bound in highly charged ions and hence require stronger fields to become ionized in the charge analyzing field of the apparatus.

The simple picture of a hard cut-off at $`n=n_F=19`$, as derived in Sec. 2, is not a good description of the field ionizing properties of our apparatus. This can be seen from the comparison of the experimental data with the dashed curve in Fig. 3 which has been obtained with $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}=1`$ for $`n19`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}=0`$ for $`n>19`$. A detailed model which takes into account radiative decay of higher Rydberg states on the way from the cooler to the field ionization magnet is described in appendix A. This model delivers the $`nl`$-specific detection probabilities $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}`$ plotted in Fig. 4. Via Eq. (8) they yield the dash-dotted curve in Fig. 3. Apparently, the contributions from Rydberg states with $`n>19`$ to the measured rate coefficient are not negligible. Fig. 4 indicates that the main contribution from these high-$`n`$ Rydberg manifolds is by the short-lived $`p`$ states. On the other hand, the cut-off of Rydberg states with $`n>45`$ in the toroid (cf. Tab. 2) has a decisive influence on the detection probabilities since the time available for the radiative decay of higher-$`n`$ states to below $`n=45`$ is too short (see appendix A). The remaining discrepancy between the outcome of the detailed model and the measured DR spectrum for very high Rydberg states is attributed to model inherent simplifications. For example, very high-$`n`$ states are easily perturbed by even small stray fields possibly leading to enhanced radiative decay rates for $`l1`$-states due to $`l`$-mixing within $`n`$-manifolds especially in the field-ionization regions. Such effects are not taken care of by the model.

Finally, we note that at low energies the autostructure calculations do not reproduce the measured $`2p4l`$ DR resonance structure (inset of Fig. 3), a result which had to expected given the theoretical effort described by Mannervik et al. (1998) to be necessary for matching the experiment (inset of Fig. 2).

In view of the substantial experimental cut-off of high Rydberg states we derive our C IV $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ DR rate coefficient in a plasma by using the experimental DR spectrum only below $`\widehat{E}=7.6`$ eV. Above that energy we substitute the experimental DR spectrum by the scaled autostructure result without cut-off (full line in Fig. 3). The thus created composite DR spectrum is converted into a cross section $`\sigma (\widehat{E})=\alpha (\widehat{E})/\sqrt{2\widehat{E}/m_\mathrm{e}}`$ and convoluted with an isotropic Maxwellian electron energy distribution yielding the plasma rate coefficient

$`\alpha (T_\mathrm{e})`$ $`=`$ $`(k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e})^{3/2}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\sqrt{2m_\mathrm{e}\pi }}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\widehat{E}\sigma (\widehat{E})\widehat{E}\mathrm{exp}(\widehat{E}/k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e})`$ (9a)
$`=`$ $`(k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e})^{3/2}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{\pi }}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\widehat{E}\alpha (\widehat{E})\widehat{E}^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(\widehat{E}/k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e}).`$ (9b)
at the plasma electron temperature $`T_\mathrm{e}`$. This procedure is safe as long as the relative energy $`\widehat{E}`$ is larger then the experimental energy spread defined in Eq. (5), i.e., for $`T_\mathrm{e}T_{}120K`$ (see discussion below).

The resulting plasma C IV DR rate coefficient is displayed as the thick full line in Fig. 5. The curve displays two local maxima. The first one, which is due to the $`2p4l`$ DR resonances, is especially benchmarked by our experiment. The second one is caused by DR via high $`n`$ Rydberg states. Here our result is dominated by the autostructure calculation that has been adjusted by a constant factor 0.8 to our experiment. For comparison, the dotted curve in Fig. 5 represents the plasma rate coefficient that has been derived directly from the measured DR spectrum (full symbols in Fig. 3) without the additional resonance strength above 7.6 eV (shaded area in Fig. 3) introduced via the autostructure calculation . At temperatures above 10000 K it is about a factor 5 lower than the composite rate coefficient. On the other hand, the calculated part of the composite DR spectrum does not influence our result at temperatures below 10000 K.

A convenient representation of the plasma DR rate coefficient is provided by the following fit formula

$$\alpha (T_\mathrm{e})=T_\mathrm{e}^{3/2}\underset{i}{}c_i\mathrm{exp}(E_i/k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e}).$$
(10)
It has the same functional dependence on the plasma electron temperature as the Burgess (1965) formula, where the coefficients $`c_i`$ and $`E_i`$ are related to oscillator strengths and excitation energies, respectively. The results for the fit to the experimental C IV $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ DR rate coefficient in a plasma are summarized in Table 1. The fit deviates from the thick full line in Fig. 5 by no more than $`1\%`$ for 650 K$`<T_\mathrm{e}<`$1500 K and by no more than $`0.2\%`$ for $`T_\mathrm{e}1500`$ K.

## 4 Comparison with theoretical DR rate coefficients

Available theoretical C IV DR rate coefficients have been compiled recently by Savin (2000). For a critical assessment of the quality of the various calculations the reader is referred to that work. Here we confine ourselves to a brief comparison of our experimentally derived C IV DR plasma rate coefficient with the theoretical results, which in the following we divide into two categories.

i) The DR calculations by Burgess (1965), Shull & Steenberg (1982), Badnell (1989), and Chen (1991) have been carried out for high temperatures and do not reproduce the first local maximum of the experimental rate coefficient below 10000 K (Fig. 5). At higher temperatures, the Burgess (1965) formula yields rate coefficients up to 50$`\%`$ larger and at the other extreme the result of Shull & Steenberg (1982) is 30$`\%`$ lower than the present one. Above 25000 K the result of Badnell (1989) does not deviate more than 15$`\%`$ from ours. This deviation is within our experimental uncertainty. The calculation of Chen (1991) gives rate coefficients only for temperatures higher than $`10^5`$ K. They are up to 25$`\%`$ lower than our rate coefficient in that range.

ii) Calculations that should be valid also at low temperatures have been published by McLaughlin & Hahn (1983), Nussbaumer & Storey (1983), Romanik (1988), Safronova et al. (1997), and Mazzotta et al. (1998). They are shown in Fig. 6 together with our result. At more elevated temperatures above $`20000`$ K the rate coefficients of Romanik (1988) and Nussbaumer & Storey (1983) deviate no more from our result than the group i) calculations discussed in the previous paragraph. In this temperature range the result of Safronova et al. (1997) is almost a factor 2 lower than ours at temperatures down to 2000 K it is up to a factor 1.5 larger. From 5000 to 5$`\times 10^5`$ K the result of McLaughlin & Hahn (1983) is within our error bar of 15$`\%`$. The rate coefficient of Mazzotta et al. (1998) agrees reasonably well with our result only above 50000 K. At temperatures below 2000 K all available calculations deviate strongly from our experimentally derived rate coefficient. This is most probably due to the neglect of relativistic and many-body effects which have been shown by Mannervik et al. (1998) to be essential for the correct description of the DR of even such a light ion as C IV. It should be mentioned again that at temperatures below $`10^4`$ K our result is completely independent of any theoretical model.

## 5 Total recombination rate coefficient

Instead of separate calculations of RR and DR contributions also a unified treatment of both recombination processes can be considered. Such a treatment, which in principle also accounts for interference between DR and RR, has been presented by Nahar & Pradhan (1997). Experimentally, our measurement also yields the total recombination rate coefficient with the continuous RR contribution above 0.1 eV accurately represented by the fit described in section 3. Below that energy all of the measured rate coefficient (Fig. 2) is assumed to be exclusively due to RR (see below). In principle, the total recombination rate coefficient can be derived by re-adding the continuous RR background to the composite DR spectrum including the autostructure calculation based extrapolation. However, at the low temperatures under consideration two experimental peculiarities require attention, namely the much discussed (Gao et al., 1997; Gwinner et al., 2000) recombination rate enhancement at very low energies and the finite experimental resolution.

The measured enhancement of the recombination rate at very low energies is displayed in Fig. 7. At energies below 3 meV a strong enhancement of the experimental over the calculated rate coefficient sets in. At $`\widehat{E}=0`$ this factor reaches a value of about 2.5. This effect has been found in electron-ion recombination measurements at different storage rings and has not been explained yet. Systematic studies of this effect have been carried out by Gao et al. (1997) and Gwinner et al. (2000). The recombination rate enhancement results most probably from the specific experimental arrangement at storage-ring electron coolers where the electron beam is guided by a magnetic field.

Since we do not expected the enhancement to occur in an astrophysical environment we subtract the excess rate coefficient (shaded area in Fig. 7) from our experimental data. To this end we have extrapolated the fitted RR background (see Sec. 3) to lower energies by scaling a RR rate coefficient that has been calculated using a modified version of the semi-classical Bethe & Salpeter (1957) formula for the hydrogenic RR cross section, i.e.

$$\sigma ^{RR}(\widehat{E})=2.10\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2\times \underset{n=n_{\mathrm{min}}}{\overset{n_{\mathrm{max}}}{}}t_nG_n(0)\frac{q^4^2}{n\widehat{E}(q^2+n^2\widehat{E})}$$
(11)
with the Rydberg constant $``$. For RR onto C IV $`q=3`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{min}}=2`$ are appropriate. As discussed in Sec. 2 the maximum quantum number to be taken into account is determined by field ionization in our experimental setup. Since a rough estimate is sufficient for the present purpose we take $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=20`$. The factors $`t_n`$ account for partially filled shells. Here we use $`t_2=7/8`$ and $`t_n=1`$ for $`n3`$. The Gaunt factors $`G_n(\widehat{E})`$ are small corrections which account for deviations of the semi-classical formula from the quantum mechanically correct hydrogenic result. Generally the Gaunt factors are weakly energy dependent. We have taken energy independent values calculated for $`\widehat{E}=0`$ by Andersen & Bolko (1990).

The thus calculated RR cross section has been convoluted by the experimental electron velocity distribution \[see Eqs. (4) and (8)\] and the resulting rate coefficient has been multiplied by a constant factor of 1.638 such that it matches the fitted RR background at $`\widehat{E}=0.1`$ eV. The finding that a factor different from unity has to be used in order to achieve the matching, can be attributed to the fact that the hydrogenic treatment is not appropriate for RR at least into low-$`n`$ shells of the lithiumlike C IV ion. The total recombination rate coefficient is now calculated as the sum of the extrapolated RR background (full line in Fig. 7) and the DR rate coefficient derived in Sec. 3 (cf. Tab. 1). This ensures that the excess rate due to the recombination rate enhancement does not contribute to the total recombination rate coefficient which is displayed as the thick dash-dotted line in Fig. 8.

At low plasma temperatures we also have to consider the influence of the finite experimental resolution \[cf. Eq. (5)\] on our total plasma rate coefficient, which is only well defined at temperatures $`T_\mathrm{e}120`$ K as discussed before (Sec.3). In order to quantify this influence we have convoluted the theoretical RR cross section \[Eq. (11) with $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=20`$\] with our experimental energy distribution \[see Eqs. (4) and (8)\] and derived from the resulting RR rate coefficient $`\alpha ^{RR}(\widehat{E})`$ via Eq. (9b) the ”doubly convoluted” plasma RR rate coefficient. This is to be compared with the ”singly convoluted” RR rate coefficient

$$\alpha ^{RR}(T_\mathrm{e})=5.20\times 10^{14}\text{cm}^3\text{s}^1\times q\underset{n=n_{\mathrm{min}}}{\overset{n_{\mathrm{max}}}{}}t_nG_n(0)\mathrm{\Theta }_n^{3/2}\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Theta }_n)\mathrm{E}_1(\mathrm{\Theta }_n)$$
(12)
where $`E_1(\mathrm{\Theta }_n)=_{\mathrm{\Theta }_n}^{\mathrm{}}x^1\mathrm{exp}(x)dx`$ is the exponential integral and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_n=q^2/(n^2k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{e})`$. Eq. (12) has been derived by inserting Eq. (11) into Eq. (9a) (see also Seaton, 1959). In contrast to the ”doubly convoluted” rate coefficient the ”singly convoluted” one is not influenced by the experimental resolution. We find that at $`T_\mathrm{e}=500`$ K (200 K) the ”doubly convoluted” rate coefficient is $`19\%`$ ($`35\%`$) lower than the ”singly convoluted” one. It should be noted that these numbers depend strongly on the shapes of the convoluted curves. Flatter curves than the diverging RR cross sections will yield much smaller values. In order to correct for the influence of the finite experimental resolution we have multiplied our previously derived total C IV recombination rate coefficient (dash-dotted curve in Fig. 8) with the temperature dependent ratio of the ”singly” to ”doubly convoluted” RR rate coefficient. The resulting corrected total recombination rate coefficient is displayed as the thick full line in Fig. 8. In principle the correction also influences the DR rate coefficient. However, in the relevant temperature range the correction is well within the overall systematic error and its influence on the C IV plasma DR rate coefficient has therefore been neglected.

At low temperatures our experimental total rate coefficient stays below the widely used theoretical RR rate coefficient given by Péquignot et al. (1991) (thin full line in Fig. 8). This is due to the field ionization of high Rydberg states. In their calculation Péquignot et al. (1991) account for RR into all $`n`$-shells up to infinite $`n`$. For $`4n<\mathrm{}`$ they use the hydrogenic RR rate coefficient of (Martin, 1988). In order to compare our result to theoretical rate coefficients for finite values of $`n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ we first subtract this hydrogenic contribution from the rate coefficient of Péquignot et al. (1991) thereby retaining their non-hydrogenic C IV RR rate coefficient with $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=3`$. Onto this we have then added the hydrogenic RR rate coefficient calculated by using Eq. (12) with $`n_{\mathrm{min}}=4`$, $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=20`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{min}}=4`$, $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=40`$ yielding the thin dashed and dash-dotted curves in Fig. 8, respectively. Extending the summation to $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=1000`$ yields — as expected — a curve which is indistinguishable from the result of Péquignot et al. (1991) on the scale of Fig. 8. At low temperatures our experimental rate coefficient approaches the theoretical curve that has been obtained with $`n_{\mathrm{max}}=40`$. This is roughly consistent with the prediction of the detailed model for field ionization in our experimental apparatus as discussed in Sec. 2 and in the appendix. From this observation we conclude that within our 15 % systematic uncertainty the total C IV recombination rate coefficient can be represented as the sum of the RR rate coefficient of Péquignot et al. (1991) and our DR rate coefficient parameterized by Eq. (10) with the parameters listed in Tab. 1.

In Fig. 9 this total C IV recombination rate coefficient is compared to the results of the unified RR+DR calculation of Nahar & Pradhan (1997). At temperatures above 5000 K both results agree with each other within our systematic uncertainty. At lower temperatures, however, pronounced differences occur. The theoretical result is up to a factor of 3 larger than the experimental one. It should be noted that interference between RR and DR cannot be held responsible for the observed discrepancy, since it is included both in the unified theory and in the experiment. The measured rate coefficient especially fully includes the strong $`2p4l`$ DR channels. Only these can in principle be expected to give rise to noticeable interference effects at low plasma temperatures. However the lowest experimental C IV DR resonance occurs at about $`0.18`$ eV. Assuming a delta-like cross-section and using the (somewhat to large) theory value of $`5\times 10^{19}`$ cm2eV for its strength (Mannervik et al., 1998) we calculate its contribution to the total rate coefficient by the use of Eq. (9a). At 500 K it is $`1\times 10^{12}`$ cm3/s, i.e., about $`2\%`$ only. Accordingly, at lower temperatures the measured rate coefficient should be almost entirely due to RR, i.e., the low-temperature deviation of the unified theory of Nahar & Pradhan (1997) from our measured C IV rate coefficient remains to be explained.

## 6 Summary and conclusions

We have measured the $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ C IV DR rate coefficient by detecting with essentially full geometric efficiency the recombination products following interaction in merged electron and ion beams. Generally, in such experiments the field ionization related to the charge analysis of the recombination products causes a large fraction of the DR resonance strength due to DR via high Rydberg states to remain unmeasured. For the present case of $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=0`$ DR of a low-charge ion this undetected DR strength is substantial. In order to provide a remedy for this deficiency, we have performed autostructure calculations, carefully modeled the Rydberg-ion detection probabilities of our apparatus, scaled the results to our experimental low energy DR rate coefficient, and finally used the high-energy part of the calculation as a substitution for the unmeasured DR strength. From the thus extrapolated experimental DR spectrum we have derived the C IV DR rate coefficient in a plasma \[cf. Eq. (10) and Tab. 1\]. Furthermore the careful analysis of our experimental data leads to the conclusion that within our systematic uncertainty of 15 % the total C IV recombination rate coefficient can be represented as the sum of the DR rate coefficient and the theoretical RR rate coefficient of Péquignot et al. (1991). This implies that interference between DR and RR is insignificant for the recombination of C IV. We have compared our rate coefficients with the available theoretical results. None of them agrees with our experimental rate coefficients over the full temperature range.

The field ionization of recombined ions in high Rydberg states, which is unavoidable in ion storage-ring experiments, ultimately limits the capability of providing meaningful, pure experimental plasma DR rate coefficients. This is especially true for low charge-state ions where much DR strength is concentrated in high-$`n`$ resonances. Due to the much higher radiative rates ($`Z^4`$-scaling, Bethe & Salpeter, 1957) the DR resonance strength drops much faster with increasing $`n`$ for high charge-state ions so that a smaller fraction of the total DR strength is accumulated in high Rydberg states. Consequently, storage-ring experiments can provide reliable DR plasma rate coefficients with much more limited need of extrapolation for highly charged ions.

Technical support by the Heidelberg accelerator group and the TSR team is gratefully acknowledged. We thank D. W. Savin for stimulating discussions and for providing to us his compilation of theoretical C IV DR rate coefficients in numerical form. We also thank N. R. Badnell for making the autostructure code available via the world wide web.

## Appendix A Model calculation of detection probabilities for high Rydberg states

In the detailed model of the field ionization properties of our apparatus, the survival fractions are determined individually for each $`nl`$ state populated by DR, in combination with the flight times $`t_F`$ to the field ionization zones and hydrogenic decay rates. Assuming a constant recombination probability across the length $`L`$ of the merging section the probability that a state characterized by quantum numbers $`n`$ and $`l`$ has decayed upon reaching the field ionization zone is given as

$$P_\mathrm{d}(nl,t_L,t_F)=1\frac{\tau (nl)}{t_L}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t_Ft_L/2}{\tau (nl)}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t_F+t_L/2}{\tau (nl)}\right)\right].$$
(A1)
The flight time through the electron cooler is $`t_L=87`$ ns in the present case and the radiative lifetime of the $`nl`$-state is calculated as $`\tau (nl)=[_{n^{}<n,l^{}=l\pm 1}\gamma _\mathrm{r}(nln^{}l^{})]^1`$ from hydrogenic radiative dipole transition rates $`\gamma _\mathrm{r}(nln^{}l^{})`$ following Bethe & Salpeter (1957). In Eq. (A1), which is valid for $`t_Ft_L/2`$, $`t_F`$ is measured from the center of the merging section inside the electron cooler up to the field ionization region (cf. Fig. 1). There the recombined ion spends a time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_F`$ during which field ionization may take place. The ion’s survival probability is calculated from approximate field ionization rates $`A_F`$ derived by Damburg & Kolosov (1979) to be

$$P_\mathrm{s}(nl,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)=\frac{1}{2l+1}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}\underset{n_1=0}{\overset{n|m|1}{}}\left(C_{n_1,m}^{n,l}\right)^2\mathrm{exp}[\mathrm{\Delta }t_FA_F(n_1,n_2,m)]$$
(A2)
where the expansion coefficients are the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients

$$C_{n_1,m}^{n,l}=\begin{array}{cc}(n1)/2& (n1)/2\\ (m+n_1n_2)/2& (mn_1+n_2)/2\end{array}|.\begin{array}{c}l\\ m\end{array}$$
(A3)
for the transformation to Stark states characterized by the parabolic quantum numbers $`n_1`$, $`n_2`$ and $`m`$, which satisfy the relation $`n=n_1+n_2+|m|+1`$ (Gallagher, 1994). Finally, the detection probability is calculated from the decay and survival probabilities as

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}(t_L,t_F,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)`$ $`=`$ $`[1P_\mathrm{d}(nl,t_L,t_F)]P_\mathrm{s}(nl,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)+{\displaystyle \underset{n^{}<n,l^{}=l\pm 1}{}}b(nln^{}l^{})\times `$ (A4)
$`\{[P_\mathrm{d}(nl,t_L,t_F)P_\mathrm{d}(nl,n^{}l^{},t_L,t_F)]P_\mathrm{s}(n^{}l^{},\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)`$
$`+P_\mathrm{c}(nl,n^{}l^{},\mathrm{},t_L,t_F,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)\}`$
where branching ratios for a dipole transition from state $`nl`$ to state $`n^{}l^{}`$ are defined as $`b(nln^{}l^{})=\tau (nl)\gamma _\mathrm{r}(nln^{}l^{})`$. The quantity

$`P_\mathrm{c}(nl,n^{}l^{},`$ $`\mathrm{}`$ $`,t_L,t_F,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)={\displaystyle }_{n^{\prime \prime }<n^{},l^{\prime \prime }=l^{}\pm 1}b(n^{}l^{}n^{\prime \prime }l^{\prime \prime })`$
$`\times \{`$ $`[P_\mathrm{d}(nl,n^{}l^{},t_L,t_F)P_\mathrm{d}(nl,n^{}l^{},n^{\prime \prime }l^{\prime \prime },t_L,t_F)]`$
$`\times P_\mathrm{s}(n^{\prime \prime }l^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)+P_\mathrm{c}(nl,n^{}l^{},n^{\prime \prime }l^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{},t_L,t_F,\mathrm{\Delta }t_F,F)\}`$
accounts for cascading, i.e. stepwise de-excitation by more than one transition. It is calculated recursively. In Eqs. (A4) and (A)

$$P_\mathrm{d}(n_1l_1,\mathrm{},n_Nl_N,t_L,t_F)=\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{[\tau (n_kl_k)]^{N1}}{_{jk}[\tau (n_k,l_k)\tau (n_j,l_j)]}P_\mathrm{d}(n_kl_k,t_L,t_F)$$
(A6)
is the probability for a decay along a given sequence $`n_1l_1\mathrm{}n_Nl_N`$ of $`N`$ excited hydrogenic states (Schippers, 1995). The one-step decay probabilities $`P_\mathrm{d}(n_kl_k,t_L,t_F)`$ are evaluated according to Eq. (A1).

Due to the high $`n`$ values to be considered (up to $`n100`$), the explicit calculation of cascade contributions is very laborious and time consuming. In view of the fact that rates are highest for transitions to the lowest available state and decrease with $`n^3`$ (Bethe & Salpeter, 1957) it can be anticipated that except for high angular momentum states, which are only sparsely populated by DR, cascading only plays a minor role. We have verified this by comparing calculations without and with cascades via one and two intermediate states. The resulting rate coefficients are undistinguishable on the scale of Fig. 3. Therefore, we conclude that it is safe to neglect contributions from cascades with more intermediate states.

In the calculation of detection probabilities we include states up to $`n=100`$ which is far beyond the estimated hard cut-off at $`n_F=19`$ (cf. Sec. 2). Furthermore, we consider all field ionization regions which have been mentioned previously: the toroidal section at the exit of the electron cooler, two correction magnets and the charge analyzing dipole magnet (cf. Fig. 1). The corresponding detection probabilities $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{t})}`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c1})}`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c2})}`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{d})}`$, respectively, are calculated individually and the overall detection probability is finally given as the product of the four individual ones, i.e.

$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{t})}(t_L,t_F^{(\mathrm{t})},\mathrm{\Delta }t_F^{(\mathrm{t})},F^{(\mathrm{t})})\times \mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c1})}(0,t_F^{(\mathrm{c1})}t_F^{(\mathrm{t})},\mathrm{\Delta }t_F^{(\mathrm{c1})},F^{(\mathrm{c1})})`$ (A7)
$`\times \mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c2})}(0,t_F^{(\mathrm{c2})}t_F^{(\mathrm{c1})},\mathrm{\Delta }t_F^{(\mathrm{c2})},F^{(\mathrm{c2})})\times \mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{d})}(0,t_F^{(\mathrm{d})}t_F^{(\mathrm{c2})},\mathrm{\Delta }t_F^{(\mathrm{d})},F^{(\mathrm{d})})`$
with the numerical values for $`t_F`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_f`$ and $`F`$ taken from Tab. 2. It should be noted, that for the calculation of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c1})}`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{c2})}`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{nl}^{(\mathrm{d})}`$ we used the $`t_L0`$ limit of Eq. (A1), namely $`P_\mathrm{d}(nl,0,t_F)=1\mathrm{exp}[t_F/\tau (nl)]`$. A contour plot of the calculated detection probabilities is shown in Fig. 4. The detection probabilities are 100$`\%`$ for $`nl`$-states up to $`n=19`$. At higher $`n`$ only low $`l`$ states have a high detection probability owing to their short lifetimes. Higher $`l`$ states have increasingly higher lifetimes and are more and more effectively field ionized. Consequently, for $`n>19`$ the detection probability drops very fast to zero with increasing $`l`$. Above $`n40`$ also low $`l`$ states are cut-off due to field ionization in the toroid. According to Eq. (6) the hard cut-off number there is $`n_F=45`$. Due to the short time of only 55 ns needed for travelling from the cooler center to the toroid almost no radiative de-excitation of higher Rydberg states is possible.


text:
# Solar neutrino problem accounting for self-consistent magnetohydrodynamics solution for solar magnetic fieldsThe talk given by T.I.Rashba at the EuroConference on Frontiers in Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, San Feliu de Guixols, Spain, 30 September - 5 October, 2000. It based on the work of the authors hep-ph/0005259, which to be published in Nuclear Physics B.

## 1 Introduction

The problem of disagreement between solar neutrino data and theoretical expectations has been a long-standing problem in physics. The most popular solutions of the solar neutrino anomalies have as a basis the idea of neutrino oscillations, either in vacuum or in the Sun due to the enhancement arising from matter effects . There are alternative interpretations the problem. Here we will re-analyze the status of resonant spin–flavour solutions  to the solar neutrino problem in the light of the most recent global set of solar neutrino data. In contrast to previous attempts  we will adopt the general framework of self–consistent magneto–hydrodynamic (MHD) models of the Sun . For definiteness we will concentrate in the recent proposal of Ref. . We perform global fits of solar neutrino data for realistic solutions to the magneto-hydrodynamics equations inside the Sun. This way and by neglecting neutrino mixing we obtain the simplest MHD-RSF solution to the solar neutrino problem, characterized by two effective parameters, $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`\mu _\nu B_{max}`$, $`B_{max}`$ being the maximum magnitude of the magnetic field inside the convective region. We find that our simplest two-parameter MHD-RSF fits to the solar neutrino data are slightly better than those for the oscillation solutions. The required best fit points correspond to maximum magnetic field magnitudes in the convective zone smaller than 100 KG. We briefly discuss the prospects to distinguish our simplest MHD-RSF scenario from the neutrino oscillation solutions to the solar neutrino problem.

## 2 Static Magnetic Field Profiles in the Sun

In solar magneto-hydrodynamics  (MHD, for short) the corresponding magnetic field profiles are rather complicated and difficult to extract. However, there are stationary solutions which are known analytically in terms of relatively simple functions .

We consider the magnetic field profile which are only solutions to the equation for a static MHD plasma configuration in a gravitational field, given by

$$p\frac{1}{c}\stackrel{}{j}\times \stackrel{}{B}+\rho \mathrm{\Phi }=0.$$
(1)
This static MHD equations correspond to a quiet Sun and they admit axially symmetric solutions in the spherically symmetric gravitational field which can be simply expressed in terms of spherical Bessel functions and were first discussed in Ref. . The model magnetic field depends on $`z_k`$, the roots of the spherical Bessel function $`f_{5/2}=\sqrt{z}J_{5/2}(z)`$. Taking into account the boundary condition that $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ vanishes on the solar surface the magnetic field have the analytical form

$$B_r^k(r,\theta )=2\widehat{B}^k\mathrm{cos}\theta $$

$$\times \left[1\frac{3}{r^2z_k\mathrm{sin}z_k}\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(z_kr)}{z_kr}\mathrm{cos}(z_kr)\right)\right],$$

$$B_\theta ^k(r,\theta )=\widehat{B}^k\mathrm{sin}\theta $$

$$\times [2+\frac{3}{r^2z_k\mathrm{sin}z_k}(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(z_kr)}{z_kr}$$

$$..\mathrm{cos}(z_kr)z_kr\mathrm{sin}(z_kr))],$$

$$B_\varphi ^k(r,\theta )=\widehat{B}^kz_k\mathrm{sin}\theta $$

$$\times \left[r\frac{3}{rz_k\mathrm{sin}z_k}\left(\frac{\mathrm{sin}(z_kr)}{z_kr}\mathrm{cos}(z_kr)\right)\right],$$
(2)
where the coefficient $`\widehat{B}^k(B_{core})`$ is given by

$$\widehat{B}^k=\frac{B_{core}}{2(1z_k/\mathrm{sin}z_k)}.$$
(3)
The distance $`r`$ has been normalized to $`R_{}=1`$. In our calculations we have averaged over polar angle $`\theta `$.

Parameter $`B_{core}`$ is a central magnetic field. In Fig. 1 we display the perpendicular component of B for various $`k`$–values 1, 3 and 10, which correspond to the roots $`z_1=5.7`$, $`z_3=12.3`$ and $`z_{10}=34.5`$, respectively.

We have to discuss the astrophysical restrictions on the free parameters $`B_{core}`$ and $`k`$ characterizing the model. The magnitude of a magnetic field at the center of the Sun is constrained by the Fermi-Chandrasekhar limit  which requires an upper bound on $`B_{core}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}`$ MGauss.

The possible values of $`k`$ can be constrained by taking into account that in order to justify the use of a stationary solution, it is necessary that the diffusion time due to ohmic dissipation must be less than solar life time. The simple estimations give us that reasonable values of $`k`$ are less $`10`$. It is commonly accepted that magnetic fields measured at the surface of the Sun are weaker than within the convective zone interior where this field is supposed to be generated. On the other hand the general knowledge of the solar magnetic field models is that the magnetic field increases at the overshoot layer, while being small at the solar interior, a picture rather opposite to the one we have seen in Fig. 1. The correct way is to use the linear nature of the basic equilibrium MHD equation in eq. (1). This implies that any linear combination of solutions $`\stackrel{}{B}^k`$ ($`k=1,2,\mathrm{},k_M`$, for some fixed number $`k_M<10`$) $`\stackrel{}{B}=c_1\stackrel{}{B_1}+c_2\stackrel{}{B_2}+\mathrm{}+c_M\stackrel{}{B_M}`$ is also a solution. We will require that combined magnetic field is equal to zero in the center of the Sun and it’s total energy must be minimal in the region below the bottom of the convective zone, characterized by a certain value of $`r_0`$.

The procedure sketched above provides a consistent method for combining individual mode solutions $`\stackrel{}{B_k}`$ of the static MHD equation (Fig. 2).

## 3  Fitting the Solar Neutrino Data

We will neglect neutrino mixing and consider the case of active-active neutrino conversions. In this case the $`\nu _e\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$ conversions are described by the master Schrödinger evolution equation

$$i\left(\begin{array}{c}\dot{\nu }_e\hfill \\ \dot{\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}}\hfill \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}V_e\delta & \mu _\nu B_+\\ \mu _\nu B_{}& V_{\mathrm{}}+\delta \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _e\\ \overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}\end{array}\right),$$
(4)
where $`\mu _\nu `$ denotes the neutrino transition magnetic moment  in units of $`10^{11}`$ $`\mu _B`$, $`\mathrm{}`$ denoting either $`\mu `$ or $`\tau `$. Here $`B_\pm =B_x\pm iB_y`$ and $`\delta =\mathrm{\Delta }m^2/4E`$ is the neutrino mass parameter; $`V_e(t)=G_F\sqrt{2}(\rho (t)/m_p)(Y_eY_n/2)`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{}}(t)=G_F\sqrt{2}(\rho (t)/m_p)(Y_n/2)`$ are the neutrino vector potentials for $`\nu _e`$ and $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}`$ in the Sun given by the abundances of the electron ($`Y_e=m_pN_e(t)/\rho (t)`$) and neutron ($`Y_n=m_pN_n(t)/\rho (t)`$) components. In our numerical study of solar neutrino data we adopt the Standard Solar Model density profile of ref..

We solve Eq. (4) numerically by finding a solution of the Cauchy problem in the form of a set of wave functions $`\nu _a(t)=\nu _a(t)e^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_a(t)}`$ from which the neutrino survival probabilities $`P_{aa}(t)=\nu _a^{}\nu _a`$ are calculated. They obey the unitarity condition $`_aP_{aa}=1`$ where the subscript $`a`$ denotes $`a=e`$ for $`\nu _e`$ and $`a=\mathrm{}`$ for $`\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$ respectively.

The typical neutrino survival probability $`P_{ee}`$ calculated in the MHD-RSF scheme from eq. (4) plotted versus $`E/\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ in Fig. 3.

We determine the allowed range of oscillation parameters using the total event rates of the Chlorine , Gallium  and Super–Kamiokande  (corresponding to the 1117 days data sample) experiments. For the Gallium experiments we have used the weighted average of the results from GALLEX+GNO and SAGE detectors (see Table 1). We have also included the Super–Kamiokande electron recoil energy spectrum measured separately during the day and night periods. For details on the statistical analysis applied to the different observable we refer to Ref. .

We have found that allowed regions of neutrino parameters are pretty stable and does not depend significantly on the choice of $`k_M`$ and $`r_0`$ allowed by astrophysics. In Fig. 4 we display the region of MHD-RSF parameters allowed by the solar neutrino rates for the case $`k_M=6`$ and $`r_0=0.6R`$. We can see that there are several allowed regions for different values of the magnetic field.

Apart from total event rates the water Cerenkov experiment also measures the zenith angle distribution of solar neutrino events as well as their electron recoil energy spectrum with their recent 1117-day data sample . The predicted spectrum is essentially flat except for the upper part of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ region. As an example, we show in Fig.5 the excluded region at 99 % CL for the case $`k_M=6`$ and $`r_0=0.6`$.

For this reason, the allowed regions are slightly modified by the inclusion of the energy spectrum data for the day and night periods. In Fig. 6 we have presented the results of global fit analysis.

In the case of active-sterile MHD-RSF conversions we obtain that. the rates fit $`\chi _{rates}^2`$ is worse than for the active-active case.

## 4 Discussion & Conclusions

From the results of the previous section it follows that our MHD-RSF solution to the solar neutrino problem provides a good description of the most recent solar neutrino data, including event rates as well as zenith angle distributions and recoil electron spectra induced by solar neutrino interactions in Superkamiokande. We have shown that our procedure is quite robust in the sense that the magnetic field profile has been determined in an essentially unique way. This effectively substitutes the neutrino mixing which characterizes the oscillation solutions by a single parameter $`B_{max}`$ characterizing the maximum magnitude of the magnetic field inside the convective region. The value of $`k_M`$ characterizing the maximum number of individual modes superimposed in order to obtain a realistic profile and the parameter $`r_0`$ characterizing the location of the convective region are severely restricted. The allowed $`k_M`$ values are restricted by ohmic dissipation arguments to be lower than 10 or so, while $`r_0`$ is close to $`0.6R_{}`$. We have found that our solar neutrino fits are pretty stable as long as $`k_M`$ exceeds 5 and $`r_0`$ lies in the relevant narrow range. Therefore our fits are effectively two–parameter fits ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ and $`B_{max}`$) whose quality can be meaningfully compared with that of the fits obtained for the favored neutrino oscillation solutions to the solar neutrino problem.

In table 2 we compare the various solutions of the solar neutrino problem with the MHD-RSF solutions for the lower magnetic field presented here.

Clearly the MHD-RSF fits seem somewhat better (though not in a statistically significant way) than those obtained for the MSW effect  as well as just–so solutions .

We determined the expected solar neutrino rates at SNO within the framework of our MHD-RSF solution to the solar neutrino problem. We used the cross sections of the CC and NC $`\nu d`$ reactions given by ref.  and the best–fit points we have determined in the present paper. For definiteness we have considered the global best fit points and local minima for $`B_{max}<100`$ KG for the case $`k_M=6`$ and $`r_0=0.6`$ and active-active MHD-RSF conversions.

We have calculated the neutral-to-charged-current event ratio (NC/CC for short) and our results are presented in Fig. 7.

Clearly from Fig. 7 we see that there is a substantial overlap between our MHD-RSF predictions and those found for each of the oscillation solutions (SMA, LMA, LOW, VAC). The overlap is especially large between the LMA and the MHD-RSF solutions. Taking into account the present theoretical uncertainties and a reasonable estimate of the experimental errors attainable, it follows that an unambiguous discrimination between our MHD-RSF solution and the neutrino oscillation–type solutions to the solar neutrino problem on the basis of the averaged event rates seems rather difficult.

Acknowledgments

We thank Alexei Bykov, Vladimir Kutvitsky, Dmitri Sokoloff and Victor Popov for useful discussions. This work was supported by Spanish DGICYT grant PB98-0693, by the European Commission TMR networks ERBFMRXCT960090 and HPRN-CT-2000-00148, by the European Science Foundation network N. 86 and by Iberdrola grant. VBS and TIR were partially supported by the RFBR grant 00-02-16271. OGM was supported by the CONACyT-Mexico grant J32220-E. TIR participation in the Conference was supported by the INTAS-ESF grant 00-36. TIR especially thanks the Organizing Committee of the Conference for the warm and friendly atmosphere.